Ranching and mining have defined this sparsely settled sagebrush country in the southwest corner of our state. Today, with the closing of a mine and possible loss of a third of its public-lands grazing, the county confronts an uncertain future.

Turkey vultures circle above the historic Basque handball courts in Jordan Valley, Oregon, while just down the road rancher and historian Mike Hanley tells a group of economists how bad things have become in this isolated part of the West. Although Hanley's ranch is geographically in Oregon his eyes look east across the border to Idaho's Owyhee County where his cattle roam free on long-held federal grazing leases. Blurring of state boundaries is typical in this "ION" country where Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada come together to share a common border and a common culture of cows, farms, and, until last spring, mining. His story is about a slow death, a process buzzards might especially enjoy.

In the buckaroo tradition first brought to this area by California's vaqueros, Hanley wears a flat-brim hat and a knotted kerchief. He runs 1,000 cows on what he calls "an old-time cow ranch," which means no irrigation, grass hay, and open grazing. He estimates you need 300 cows to barely support a family, and another 100 cows to make a living.

The definition of "living" is flexible. Proposed cuts of 35 percent in the number of "animal unit months" of grazing on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which grants the grazing leases, would make a living by any definition just about impossible, Hanley says. Nor has living become easier since the Canadian-owned DeLamar mine closed its $27 million-a-year silver and gold mine in nearby Silver City, Idaho, and laid off 150 employees, many of them ranch spouses whose average $13-an-hour paychecks provided a necessary margin the families needed.

But Hanley is learning to adjust. Every summer, area families dress in pioneer period costume, hitch up stagecoaches and Conestogas, and pose for foreign tourists who travel to the United States for a chance, as Hanley says with a laugh, to "take photos of an endangered species." Realizing that nostalgia is a growth industry in the area, Hanley and his neighbors are building additions onto their houses to wine and dine the tourists next summer.

"We're becoming relics," he says.

Like much of rural Idaho, residents in Owyhee County and the surrounding ION area are trying to keep up with changing demographics, shifting public policies, and new economies. University of Idaho agricultural economists led by Aaron Harp and Neil Rimbey have helped them by conducting an exhaustive study that details the county's businesses and other revenue sources. The study not only includes the costs and returns of cattle ranching and other agriculture, but also a measure of community strength and resilience called "social cohesion."

The 13-month-long study was commissioned by the BLM, a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho Watersheds Project and other conservation groups that wanted the BLM to temporarily revoke all grazing leases in the county while the agency completed its long- overdue resource management plan (RMP). The judge refused to revoke the leases for now but did give the BLM a tight deadline by which to complete its RMP. That was temporary good news to ranchers who, the study found, depend on public lands for 40 to 60 percent of their forage base.

Idaho's portion of the ION country is the vast Owyhee County, phonetically named for three Hawaiians who were hired by British and American fur trappers in 1819 to establish good trading relations with the local Bannock and Shoshoni Indian tribes. The three "Owyhees" vanished during their mission without a trace, but their name stuck.

Idaho's second largest county is twice the size of Connecticut with 4.9 million acres and only 1.3 persons per square mile. Elevations start at 2,000 feet in the desert canyons and rise to more than 6,000 feet in the Owyhee Mountains. Eighty-four percent of that acreage is federally owned, and the majority of that land is managed by the BLM.

Around 10,000 people share the county with 45,000 beef cattle. Owyhee County is a poor county with more than 20 percent of the population living in poverty in 1995. Residents that same year earned only 56 percent of the U.S. average per capita income, according to the Idaho Department of Commerce.

This might be just another isolated western tract of land, but it has become one of the most contested pieces of sagebrush and juniper in the United States. Some environmental groups want the cattle off public lands and the area preserved in wilderness; off-road vehicle users want the land opened up and restrictions relaxed; and local residents want the federal government to turn over millions of acres to county control. (Owyhee County has even drafted a local management plan for just that purpose.) Twenty-six endangered and threatened species are under scrutiny, including the red-banded trout and the Bruneau Hot Springs snail; thousands of acres of land are under wilderness study; and 334 miles of the Bruneau, Jarbidge, and Owyhee rivers are under examination for wild and scenic river designation.

In the middle of all these land management issues is the BLM, which Rimbey says, "cannot accommodate all of the multiple uses on each piece of land they manage. That's why a lot of their decisions and management plans are ending up being mired in the legal process."

"Cow Country USA"

The core of the Owyhee County economy is the cattle industry, according to the UI study, accounting for $36 million in total annual revenue and supporting 205 jobs. Crops account for $56 million and include sugar beets, alfalfa seed, grains, hay, onions, and a few orchard crops. The UI economists found feedlots operating in the county, and three large dairies that have recently relocated there with a total of 10,000 cows.

Aside from a few service jobs, and government employment, Owyhee County is what UI agricultural economist Garth Taylor calls an anomaly. "The county's large size and ideal location next to prosperous Ada County contradicts its poverty."

Few businesses exist to accommodate the increasing number of mostly Ada County recreationists, and even basic services such as grocery stores are in short supply. "There is little that can be provided within the county that is not already available within a short drive to neighboring counties," says retired extension educator for Owyhee County Chad Gibson.

The UI study found residents spend less than 25 percent of their total for essential purchases within the county. Instead they travel to Elmore, Canyon, Twin Falls, and Ada counties to buy groceries, clothes, and other supplies.

Measuring Community

UI agricultural economists Harp and Rimbey also wanted to answer the question, "How is ranching tied to community life in Owyhee County?" And how might those social networks react to economic changes such as a continued rise in recreational visitors and a drop-off in ranching? To answer their question Harp, Rimbey, University of Nevada research analyst Tim Darden, and UI agricultural economist Neil Meyer spent many months traveling the vast county interviewing residents and business owners of five Owyhee County communities. UI's Social Survey Research Unit also conducted a telephone survey of 553 households within the county.

Social cohesion measures the strength of a community. Strong cohesion comes from shared beliefs, repeated interactions, volunteerism, close proximity to work, and social ties. Among the variables that contribute to cohesion in Owyhee County are the number of close friends in the immediate area, whether local friends are ranchers or run a local business, ethnicity, and the length of a work commute. The UI study showed that long-established ranching areas such as Jordan Valley have a higher level of cohesion than areas such as Homedale, where more people commute outside the county to work.

According to Harp, cohesion is important in understanding the social impacts of public policy. "Communities with sufficient cohesion adjust easier to changing social and economic conditions, the arrival of newcomers, or other forms of social diversification.

"Knowing the factors that contribute to higher levels of cohesion also lets us understand how local social life is ordered and how changing that order can affect cohesion."

The community with the strongest cohesion was Jordan Valley, which came as no surprise to Hanley. "That's the way it is here. Everyone tries to stay together." Hanley says he is very involved in the political process, attending all public hearings and organizing his neighbors.

As Hanley talks to the economists, Dave Smith swings his pickup truck into the ranch yard. Smith is chairman of Idaho's Pleasant Valley School District, where 17 children commute long distances to attend one K-8 school. When bad weather blows in, the kids often board in town with relatives or friends. The next nearest Idaho school district, in Marsing, is four hours away on bad roads for many ranching families.

Smith says as people give up on ranching, and with the closing of the DeLamar mine, the school feels the pinch as state monies shrink along with student numbers. When the mine shut down, Owyhee County's total assessed property value, which provides the tax base for schools, dropped from $36 million to $24 million. The school currently runs on a rainy-day revenue surplus that will run out in two years.

"If the leases are taken away there won't be anyone left here to go to school. I know we need a tax override, but how can we tax people who are barely making it?"

Ranches to Subdivisions

Rancher Paul Nettleton, whose family has run cattle in the county since 1864, is, like Hanley, also capturing the tourist dollar. Sitting on a picnic bench outside his wife's store, Pat's Whatnot Shop, in the semi-abandoned mining town of Silver City, Nettleton says if proposed cuts in grazing leases are enacted, he will sell half his 800-cow herd and begin subdividing part of his 11,000 acres of land, which extend from near Murphy all the way to the top of the Owyhee Mountains near Silver City.

As the populations of Ada and Canyon counties are priced out of the housing markets there, they have moved west and south into Owyhee County. Ranchettes, trailers, and manufactured housing are beginning to spring up in the sagebrush around the county seat of Murphy, as well as along the Snake River in Marsing and Homedale. Between 1990 and 1998, more than 1,000 people relocated to the county, a 13.1 percent population increase, according to the Idaho Department of Commerce. An hour commute to Boise on Interstate 84 is no longer unusual or undesirable. County Assessor Ernie Bahem says sellers are getting up to $6,000 an acre for land he estimates is worth $65 an acre as dry grazing land.

"We're being squeezed in all directions," Nettleton laments.

"The customs and culture of the county will change as ranchers leave and new people come in," Gibson says. One of those customs is volunteerism. Ambulance, fire, and search and rescue teams are all volunteer. County commissioner and retired rancher Dick Bass says the new residents who relate to Owyhee County as a bedroom community don't have the time to volunteer because "they're sleeping."

Is it possible to continue ranching, accommodate recreationists, preserve healthy ecosystems and endangered species, and diversify a county's economic base? Harp believes that ranching can continue alongside a recreation economy while preserving the ecological health of public lands. He hopes the BLM will move slowly and pay close attention to the existing social networks within Owyhee County.

Rimbey adds: "If society determines that it is in its best interest to get rid of livestock grazing on public lands, then buy out the ranches, permits, and whatever else, and let's get on with the game. Again, my bias is that would be a shame to the economies and social structures that we see in the West."

--by Stephen J. Lyons

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