Thank you, George, for submitting the facts about the Hammonds. Sure wish
there was more press on their long history of dangerous malcontent. We
were there. It's not hearsay.
Pam and Mark Keller
On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 12:23 PM, Craig Miller <gismiller@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Responsible ranchers"
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "George Wuerthner" <gwuerthner@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Jan 28, 2016 9:27 AM
Subject: My editorial on Hammonds and Malheur in Register Guard--Oregon's
second biggest paper
To: "George Sexton" <gs@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc:
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/33991882-78/hammonds-have-history-of-brushes-with-law.html.csp
Dwight Hammond and his son Steve, the ranchers who sparked the recent
Harney County protests, are widely seen as sympathetic figures, and support
for them may widen as a result of Tuesday’s arrests in which one of the
occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was killed. Even before
those events, the Hammonds were characterized as “responsible ranchers” by
Rep. Greg Walden in a speech before Congress.
Walden sought to minimize the crimes the Hammonds have committed by
suggesting they merely burned a bit more than a hundred acres, something
that he tried to compare to normal everyday range management by federal
agencies. So what’s the problem?
<http://ox-d.registerguard.com/w/1.0/rc?bi=d1f2438d-5fb8-4e33-b3dd-a36042af9175&ts=1fHJpZD0xNjM0ODM4YS1jNjQ2LTRkZjgtODE1My02Mjc5ZjgwZDVhMTN8cnQ9MTQ1NDAwMTI5MHxhdWlkPTUzNzIwMDI5OHxhdW09RE1JRC5XRUJ8c2lkPTQ5OXxwdWI9MTQxNnxwYz1VU0R8cmFpZD03Zjk2Y2JhNS1kODVjLTQ1ZmUtODhkOC00MDYyZWFjZThmY2V8YWlkPTUzODA3ODQ3MHx0PTF8YXM9MzAweDI1MHxsaWQ9NTM3NjEwNjEzfG9pZD01MzczMDIwMzN8cD03MDAwfHByPTcwMDB8YXRiPTcwMDB8YWR2PTUzNzA5NjMyN3xhYz1VU0R8cG09UFJJQ0lORy5DUE18Ym09QlVZSU5HLkdVQVJBTlRFRURWT0xVTUVHT0FMfHVyPW9zQ25ubUxHams>
The problem is that Walden is ignoring decades of violations and other
crimes committed by the Hammonds.
Despite their bad behavior, it has been revealed that the Hammonds are
negotiating with the Bureau of Land Management to get their grazing permit
reinstated after the BLM revoked it for their numerous violations and
crimes.
The Hammonds are anything but “responsible ranchers” or victims of
government “overreach.” They are criminals who have repeatedly violated the
law and have frequently avoided paying the penalties.
For instance, according to a High Country News story, the Hammonds set
numerous fires totaling 45,000 acres to public lands over a 28-year period.
Then, according to the U.S. attorney’s office, in 2001 they set another
fire to hide the fact that they had poached at least seven deer out of
season. Other deer were wounded and limped away, according to witnesses. A
hunting guide who witnessed the event was forced to leave his camp and flee
for his life to avoid the flames. The fire burned 139 acres of public
property and destroyed evidence of their poaching.
After they set the fire, again according to the U.S. attorney’s office,
the Hammonds threatened bodily harm to a teenage relative and told him to
keep his mouth shut about the fire.
In 2006, Steve Hammond set yet another arson fire that nearly overcame a
BLM fire crew that was attempting to quell a different blaze.
The arson charges were not the Hammonds’ first brush with the law.
According to an article by Kathy Durbin in High Country News, the Hammonds
were arrested in 1994 and charged with a felony for interfering with
federal officials. The charge had a three-year maximum sentence, but they
spent only two nights in jail — after then-U.S. Rep. Bob Smith intervened
on their behalf.
After numerous violations of his grazing terms on the Malheur refuge,
Dwight Hammond had his grazing permit revoked.
According to an affidavit from special investigator Earl Kisler, Hammond
purposely disabled a bulldozer along the route of a fence line that was
being constructed to keep their cattle from trespassing on the refuge. When
the fence crew showed up, Dwight Hammond leaped to the levers and suddenly
lowered the bulldozer blade, “narrowly missing” another special agent.
After this incident, the refuge manager and others began to receive death
threats over the telephone. The refuge manager’s wife had to leave the area
for fear of her life.
However, this was nothing new. According a 1995 Village Voice article, the
Hammonds made repeated death threats against refuge managers in 1986, 1988
and 1991, and frequently engaged in verbal abuse toward other federal
workers. Among the many anonymous phone threats, the Village Voice reported
that the refuge manager received one that promised to wrap his 12-year-old
son in barbed wire and shove him down a well. (It is not clear whether this
particular threat was made by the Hammonds or others in the community.)
Despite the Hammonds’ disdain for the federal government, they gladly
collected a minimum of nearly $300,000 in direct subsidies from taxpayers,
not to mention the below-cost grazing fees they enjoyed while feeding their
cattle on public grasslands, as well as taxpayer-financed predator control.
Public lands are part of our national patrimony that are being trashed for
the private profit of individuals such as the Hammonds. The only public
property the Hammonds should have access to is the public prison where they
are serving time for their blatant disregard for our public lands heritage.
George Wuerthner of Bend is a board member of the Western Watersheds
Project and author of 38 books on environmental and natural history.
