ELR Citation: 56 ELR 20048
No(s). CV-24-00141-TUC-RM (D. Ariz. Mar 31, 2026) (Márquez, J.)

A district court granted environmental groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FWS' letters of concurrence finding that BLM reauthorization of livestock grazing in Agua Fria National Monument was not likely to adversely affect threatened or endangered species. The groups argued FWS' conclusion in its 2018 concurrence that grazing was "not likely to adversely affect" the Gila chub, the western yellow-billed cuckoo, and their habitat was arbitrary and capricious because conservation measures relied on to reach that conclusion were either not in place or known to be ineffective. The groups also argued a 2024 concurrence was arbitrary and capricious because it contained several of the same problems as the 2018 concurrence and failed to account for new information. The court found the agencies failed to establish any deadline or plan for completing one conservation measure—an enclosure fence around riparian areas—in the 2018 concurrence, and thus arbitrarily and capriciously relied on a general commitment to a future improvement that lacked specificity. It further found the agencies' failure to adequately account for the well-documented shortcomings of the existing enclosure fencing to be even more glaring in the 2024 concurrence, that the 2024 concurrence again failed to set a deadline for completion of the fence, and that their decision to decline to engage in consultation regarding the chub, its critical habitat, and the cuckoo in 2024 for the reason that those issues had been completed in 2018 was arbitrary and capricious. It granted summary judgment for the groups, remanded the letters for further consideration, and ordered the agencies to reinitiate consultation.