LARAMIE - A federal court's rejection of efforts by environmentalists to halt grazing on two creeks in the Medicine Bow National Forest has "huge implications" for ranchers who graze cattle on public lands throughout the West, a ranching industry official said Wednesday.

On the other hand, a representative of the environmentalists said the decision could mean that water quality standards in Wyoming are regarded as only voluntary, and in that case "we are going to have a lot of problems."

U.S. District Judge Philip S. Figa of Denver ruled Monday that the Center for Native Ecosystems and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance had failed to "prove arbitrary and capricious action on the part of the Forest Service" in the suit they filed in November of 2004.

The Forest Service maintained that its grazing permits comply with Wyoming law, which it said regulates pollution from cattle grazing "through a voluntary Best Management Practice" program.

Jeremy Nichols of the conservation alliance said that in accepting this argument, Figa indicated that "he felt the Wyoming water quality law is not mandatory."

"If Wyoming water quality standards are only voluntary, we are going to have a lot of problems, and I think we are already having problems," Nichols said.

He said Biodiversity has not decided whether to appeal the decision to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, but in any event, "this issue is by no means dead." He said the group would "continue to be there and continue to advocate for clean water."

Mark Eisele, president of the Pole Mountain Grazing Association, made up of ranchers in the affected area, said the environmentalists were "trying to use water quality as a tool to remove cattle grazing from public lands."

The decision, Eisele said, "has huge ramifications for public land and private land grazing in all the Western regions."

"If they had been successful, they probably would have pursued this in further avenues," possibly in the Big Horn Basin or Saratoga Valley, he said.

Dan Frank, attorney for the Pole Mountain association and other cattlemen's groups that intervened in the case in support of the Forest Service, said that if the environmentalists had prevailed, "they would have been able to halt all activity. That's what they were really after."

Nichols said the issue was public health, which he said the environmentalists were trying to protect.

"This has definitely brought more attention to water quality issues and the effect of grazing," he said. "The Forest Service is doing more than ever to protect water quality, but more needs to be done."

Bobbie Frank, executive secretary of the Wyoming Association of Conservation Districts, said the ruling was "very important to us, because it recognized that the watershed planning and work being done by the Forest Service and the conservation districts is the right approach."

In addition to alleging fecal pollution of North Branch North Fork Crow Creek and of Middle Crow Creek, the suit contended that grazing would threaten the Preble's Meadow jumping mouse, which is found in the Pole Mountain area and is on the federal endangered species list, by "reducing the density and height of moist lowland grasses."

The Forest Service had said it consulted informally with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the possible threat to the mouse, and the judge said the Forest Service's explanations for these consultations were reasonable, "especially considering … the possible de-listing of the mouse by February 2006."

Clint Kyhl, district ranger for the Laramie Ranger District, said, "We feel that the Forest Service did a thorough job of responding to the state and federal laws and regulations required of us, and that measures were taken to protect water quality, and to determine if grazing was affecting Preble's mouse habitat."

Star-Tribune correspondent W. Dale Nelson can be reached at {M3wdnelson@bresnan.net.