Those Darn Cows!!!

Medecine Bowl National Forest in Southeastern Wyoming is having problems with water pollution due to overgrazing of cattle in the area. The story can be found here. Apparently the abundance of cattle in the area has caused fecal coliform pollution in the water that is hazardous to humans, fish and other wildlife. But the Forest Service doesn't seem to care. They are the ones that granted the grazing permits and as of date have done nothing to reduce the number of cattle in the area. Conservation groups have filed suit against the Forest Service for failure to protect clean water. Basically there exists a problem of enforcement as the Forest Service is failing to enforce pre established standards for clean water. Little reason has been given as to why the Forest Service has failed to enforce the standards. Could it be that they value their contracts with domestic ranchers more than they do the clean water standards? Grazing contracts are an economic benefit to them while the same cannot be said for clean water. It appears that theme of the conflict is quite simple. Incentives Matter. The law suite filed by the conservation groups may provide the incentive to change for now, but what of the future?