County hears information on wild horses

The Churchill County Commissioners held their first meeting of February on Thursday and received information about the wild horse and burro program.

Ken Brown from the Western Counties Alliance presented information to the commissioners regarding the devastating land impact the wild horses and burros have caused and continue to cause several areas.

“I’ve been working a lot with the nine-member national advisory board,” Brown said, “to try to reduce the herd numbers. In some areas particularly, in the state of Nevada, a lot of resource damage has been done by such an exorbitant number of animals that the land can’t sustain.”

Brown said the water and vegetation situation is a growing problem. He said the holding areas for the horses and burros are over crowded and not getting any relief. He said billions of dollars have been spent on the wild horse and burros and that the adoption program that was put together isn’t work as planned.

“People want a horse and don’t understand what it costs to keep a horse,” Brown said. “So they adopt a horse and can’t afford to keep the horse so they turn it back out onto the public land.”

Brown said the slaughter program for the animals, which WCA promoted, is facing residents who don’t agree with their plan of action. He said when he attends board meetings for the program, residents boo him.

“We need a prevision in America, not only for wild animals but for domestic animals as well,” Brown said. “There have been three permits issued — one in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa.”

Brown said the Valley Meat slaughterhouse in New Mexico has had many legal challenges with moving its business forward. He said it has had junctions filed in federal court. The American Humane Society and the New Mexico attorney general filed a lawsuit filed with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals against Valley Meat for horse slaughter. Brown said the lawsuit the attorney general filed still hasn’t been resolved and is holding up production.

County Commissioner Carl Erquiaga brought up information about the budget. “While you were talking about the wild horse program, I Googled the cost of the wild horse program,” Erquiaga said. “Feeding the horses, there’s $46.2 million a year for feeding those horses in the holding facilities.”

Brown said last year’s budget was $77 million, while Erquiaga said the overall budget is $72 million a year.

Other items discussed and/or approved include the following:

Received update from Western Nevada Development district regarding projects and activities.

Approved resolution 02-2014 authorizing the Central Nevada Regional Water Authority to join the lawsuit challenging the Department of Interior’s decision allowing right-of-way across lands for the Southern Nevada Water Authority groundwater development project.

Approved resolution 03-2014 approving the lawsuit recently filed by NACO to compel the BLM to begin managing the wild horse populations in Nevada as directed by the wild free-roaming wild horse and burro act.

Approved Churchill County’s corrective action plan for the fiscal year ending June 30 Comprehensive Annual Financial Statements by the Department of Taxation.

Approved to change the date of the first regular monthly meeting to March 7 at 8:15 a.m.

Approved information systems contract agreement.

Approved the first amendment to lease agreement with Duncan Golf Management, Inc.

Approved resolution 04-2014 for a credit assessed in the amount of $2,236.89 to parcel number 008-391-54.

City Council

City Council members met for their first regularly scheduled meeting of February on Tuesday to introduce two bills.

City Engineer Jim Souba said the bills that were introduced Tuesday night are bills that are already in place but needed to be updated, Bill No. 766 and Bill No. 767. He said the codes are from 2000 IBC (International Building Codes) and will be updated to 2012 IBC. The two bills are for a building code and fire code.