JACKSON - A grazing watchdog is calling on the U.S. Forest Service to halt any grazing permits issued through a swift program authorized by Congress last year, saying grazing is operating unchecked and hurting the landscape.

Jonathan Ratner with the Western Watersheds Project visited the Greys River cattle allotment near Alpine in western Wyoming and took photos of trammeled stream banks and flattened, dried-out forage.

"This is an extremely gross example that they should know about," Ratner said of Bridger-Teton National Forest officials. "When something like this got to this point, that to me is a massive red flag that says, 'Whoa, we need to slow down here and take a way better look.'"

Last year, Congress authorized Forest Service officials to reissue grazing permits through "categorical exclusions," meaning without an exhaustive environmental review. Ratner said those exemptions have increased in recent months, indicating a directive from Washington, D.C., for forest officials to "get going" and authorize the permits.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said the exemptions from review are a welcome change.

Still, Magagna said each year "annual operating plans" are developed between ranchers and the Forest Service to address specific rangeland conditions.

"It's different from the permit," Magagna said. "Having a permit doesn't authorize you to turn out (cattle) any given year until you have an annual operating permit." Permits are issued on a 10-year basis, he said.

Magagna said some of the problems on the rangeland now are due to short-term problems including drought, and do not indicate long-term issues of forest health.

But Ratner said the annual operating plans are not analysis documents like the permits, and are rarely implemented to correct on-the-ground problems.

Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton, said the agency approves permits based on directives from Congress.

"We're not just willy-nilly, because Congress sets the (categorical exclusions)," she said. "So we are getting direction from them, so it's not like the B-T is out on its own."

Cernicek also said the Bridger-Teton "goes deeper" than requirements established by the forest plan.

"At least what I've seen, they are doing more than just the requirement on the Bridger-Teton," she said.

But Ratner said there is enough lack of oversight on grazing permits to warrant an overall halt of permits issued by categorical exclusion. He said overall range degradation shows the problem built up over years.

Ratner himself has come under fire in recent days for accusations that he moved cattle from an approved pasture near Pinedale to one out of the grazing rotation. In the Pinedale Roundup, Ratner flatly denied the claim, saying there is no way one man could move so many cattle, and the Forest Service agreed.

Ratner did say he tried to get some cows near a pasture gate back into an allotment, assuming those stray cows were trespassing onto the wrong pasture. In fact, the larger herd of cows in the area was on the wrong pasture, and the stray cows were in the right place. That discrepancy, among others, led to some of Ratner's concerns about livestock "trespassing."

Forest Service officials said they can tweak pasture rotation dates.

Ratner also said allotments managed by the Bureau of Land Management are being exploited by grazing, including the Green Mountain allotment in central Wyoming,

"What we see on the Green Mountain allotment is year after year of trespass, cattle in the wrong pasture at the wrong time, creating severe resource conditions with the full knowledge of BLM with no action taken," he said.

Mary Wilson, public affairs officer for the BLM's Lander office, said the Green Mountain allotment is unfenced, and livestock owners are allowed to "drift" out of assigned areas by about 10 percent.

"This year, central Wyoming has a lot of dry conditions," she said. "It forces livestock to roam even further than they would normally."

Wilson said that's good because it spreads out the use, but the onus is on the livestock herders to make sure they are within the required areas.

Environmental reporter Whitney Royster can be reached at (307) 734-0260 or at royster@tribcsp.com.