A lawsuit accuses the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of failing to perform required grazing permit reviews across the West, with the worst lapses occurring in Nevada.

About 15 million acres in Nevada that did undergo a review failed to meet federal standards due to damage caused by livestock, the lawsuit says. That’s about 63% of lands that underwent a review.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by the Western Watersheds Project (WWP) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) claims that only 9% of the permits issued in Nevada have been reviewed. PEER looked at 25 years of data (1997-2022). A map shows the severity of the problem: