Help debunk this viral story about the Hammond/Bundy debacle from "theconservativetreehouse.com"

[Arananthi]

11. I started writing this long debunk for LiberalAmerica.org, but it got to be too long and I gave up.

Last edited Wed Jan 6, 2016, 06:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Sorry, I'm not going to copy over all of the formatting because I'm a bit crunched for time right now, but PM me and I'll email you the version with all the links and stuff.


A few days ago, a number of conservative websites started quoting the same long piece about the history behind the domestic terrorists, and it's been quoted a heck of a lot on social media by the idiots who think the #YeeHawdists are doing something noble. There's just one problem…it's absolutely full of lies. Here, for all of you who are interested in the truth, is the truth. I've put the original from the Treehouse in italics, and the real history afterward, with citations.

The Harney Basin (where the Hammond ranch is established) was settled in the 1870’s. The valley was settled by multiple ranchers and was known to have run over 300,000 head of cattle. These ranchers developed a state of the art irrigated system to water the meadows, and it soon became a favorite stopping place for migrating birds on their annual trek north.

In 1908 President Theodor Roosevelt, in a political scheme, create an “Indian reservation” around the Malheur, Mud & Harney Lakes and declared it “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds”. Later this “Indian reservation” (without Indians) became the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The Malheur Indian Reservation was established in 1872. While there were ranchers settling in Blitzen Valley (to the south) are early as 1872, the first recorded white-person-built structure in Harney Basin was in 1874 by Peter Stenger, who built a "small sod house" right where the current terrorist-occupied Federal building stands today.

So the Paiute Indians -- of which three tribes had, in fact, moved into the reservation by 1875 -- were the acknowledged holders of that land two years before any white man used it. Of course, the conflicts over the land began immediately. In the words of a Federal agent sent to assess the situation, "[...] local stockmen had begun encroaching upon reservation lands. Some were so bold, [Agent W.V.] Rinehart wrote his 1878 report, “that they have even taken up their residence within the limits of the reservation, and make no secret of their intention to occupy and use the land.”

So, yeah -- white ranchers have been huge dicks about this particular location literally since the moment they got there. (If they did any state-of-the-art irrigating as is claimed, it didn't last -- Harney Basin is actually known for its dryland ranching.)

Also in 1878: The Bannock War erupted. (If you're interested in the complex causes of the war, you can read about them here.) This war resulted in the Paiute fighting and losing to the U.S. army, who shipped them off to the Yakima Indian Reservation along with the Bannock tribe. In 1879, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs terminated the reservation, due to the war, pressure from the ranchers, and the discovery of gold in the mountains surrounding Harney Basin.

The Reservation (mentioned in the right-wing story) that was established in 1908 was never an Indian reservation. It was the Lake Malheur Reservation (note the lack of 'Indian' in the name), and it was created in conjunction with the Audubon Society in order to preserve the white heron population.

The infrastructure in the area also wasn't particularly rancher-built; rather, the Civilian Construction Corps was brought in by the Federal government in 1933 -- they created most of the roads and other infrastructure in and around the Harney Basin and Blizten Valley.

Legal aside: in1935, the Department of the Interior noted that overgrazing by ranchers in many parts of the Western US was causing "damage to soil, plants, streams, and springs." Congress responded by passing the Taylor Grazing Act, which regulates the ways in which a cattle rancher can use certain tracts of land and requires the payment of fees for grazing on those managed lands. Without the Grazing Act, the ranchers absolutely would have rendered many parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon barren, as they attempted to support ever-larger herds in the name of profit. (For a brief look at other laws and regulations affecting grazing, the link in quotes above is an excellent resource.)

Back to the right-wing narrative:

(a) In 1964 the Hammonds’ purchased their ranch in the Harney Basin. The purchase included approximately 6000 acres of private property, 4 grazing rights on public land, a small ranch house and 3 water rights. The ranch is around 53 miles South of Burns, Oregon.
(a1) By the 1970’s nearly all the ranches adjacent to the Blitzen Valley were purchased by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and added to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge covers over 187,000 acres, stretches over 45 miles long and 37 miles wide. The expansion of the refuge grew and surrounds to the Hammond’s ranch. Approached many times by the FWS, the Hammonds refused to sell. Other ranchers also choose not to sell.

All of this is correct.

(a2) During the 1970’s the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), took a different approach to get the ranchers to sell. Ranchers were told: “grazing was detrimental to wildlife and must be reduced”; 32 out of 53 permits were revoked and many ranchers were forced to leave. Grazing fees were raised significantly for those who were allowed to remain. Refuge personnel took over the irrigation system claiming it as their own.

Grazing being detrimental to wildlife wasn't some wild claim by the FWS -- this report says it all. "In the Harney Basin, groundwater quality deteriorates near Malheur Lake: near the lake, the water is so mineralized from boron, sodium, and other dissolved solids that it is unsuitable for use in domestic, irrigation, or stock watering purposes." (Emphasis mine.)

Those ranchers weren't being kicked out because the Federal government was randomly greedy for more land -- they were kicked out because they were destroying what was there by overgrazing. (If you're not aware, grazing kills plans whose roots would otherwise bind the soil, which means less minerals dissolved in the water -- thus, high mineral content is a near-certain sign of overgrazing.)

(a3) By 1980 a conflict was well on its way over water allocations on the adjacent privately owned Silvies Plain. The FWS wanted to acquire the ranch lands on the Silvies Plain to add to their already vast holdings. Refuge personnel intentionally diverted the water bypassing the vast meadow lands, directing the water into the rising Malheur Lakes. Within a few short years the surface area of the lakes doubled. Thirty-one ranches on the Silvies plains were flooded. Homes, corrals, barns and graze-land were washed a way and destroyed. The ranchers who once fought to keep the FWS from taking their land, now broke and destroyed, begged the FWS to acquire their useless ranches. In 1989 the waters began to recede; now the once thriving privately owned Silvies plains are a proud part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge claimed by the FWS.

The lake size didn't double -- it tripled. But it didn't do so because of any action taken by the Fish and Wildlife Service. That kind of size change is actually perfectly normal for lakes in the Great Basin area of Oregon, because of differences in the snowpack between one year and the next. The diversion of the Silvies River wasn't into Malheur Lakes -- the FWS talked a lot about doing things like redirecting the Silvies River into the Malheur River, bypassing the lake, but never acted on it due to expense. The idea of redirecting the river "bypassing the meadow lands" into the lake is absurd, as you can see on the map: the Silvies River comes in from the north, and the meadowlands make up the entire north edge of the lake -- there literally is no way to bypass the meadowlands except by circling entirely around the lake and coming in from the south…which is nuts.


(a4) By the 1990’s the Hammonds were one of the very few ranchers who still owned private property adjacent to the refuge. Susie Hammond in an effort to make sense of what was going on began compiling facts about the refuge. In a hidden public record she found a study done by the FWS in 1975. The study showed the “no use” policies of the FWS on the refuge were causing the wildlife to leave the refuge and move to private property. The study showed the private property adjacent to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge produced four times more ducks and geese than the refuge. The study also showed the migrating birds were 13 times more likely to land on private property than on the refuge. When Susie brought this to the attention of the FWS and refuge personnel, her and her family became the subjects of a long train of abuses and corruptions.

First off, there is no such thing as a "hidden public record." That term literally has no meaning. The study Susie Hammond found is simply public record, and it began in 1975, but was published in 1983. (Only a few hours of dedicated research by yours truly went into finding that link!) It casts the problem of "no use" policies in an entirely different light: it shows that the birds in question, accustomed to using the Malheur Refuge as part of their migratory patterns, quite often landed at the refuge and then promptly moved onto the nearby ranchers' lands because the rancher's lands provided more food -- grain.

Yeah, the ranchers were a little upset to have their crops being eaten by the wildfowl. This wasn't the case of the Refuge looking bad because the private lands were more productive -- it was an issue of the private ranchers needing help protecting their crops!