Darcy Burke is vice president of the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and a longtime California water professional. She was also featured in the tweet heard around Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties on Monday, when USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced a potential buyer has emerged for the Potter Valley Project.

Darcy joins me today to talk about why her board is interested in purchasing two dams in Potter Valley, California local politicians and corporations have assured us for years no one wants.

Just what exactly is the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District? Why are they interested in purchasing this hydropower project? And most importantly: Do they plan on somehow defying the laws of physics and geography to steal Northern California’s water?

No questions were off limits for this important conversation about the future of water in Northern California and how one rural community’s bipartisan, out-of-the-box effort to save their water, their future, and their way of life against tremendous odds sparked a unified California stand against the machine.

Read previous coverage of the Potter Valley dam removals here.

Show Notes

Sponsored by Ranch Vision: www.ranchvision.io

Special thanks to Josh Woolwine for creating our intro. Follow Josh at www.instagram.com/hjwoolwine.

Read More

A Southern California water district has come forward as a potential last-minute buyer of the Potter Valley Project, a century-old Northern California hydropower system slated for demolition, in a development that could save a critical water source for 750,000 people.

The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District says it wants to purchase the project from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), keep both dams in place, restart hydroelectric generation, and preserve the water supply.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the news this morning.

“This would allow President Trump and Secretary Burgum to restart/expand reliable hydroelectric electric generation while keeping both in place. I hope PG&E is taking them seriously,” she wrote on X. “Such a transaction would secure reliable water for 750,000 Californians and hundreds of hardworking farmers who rely on it for irrigation.”

Rollins and NRCS Chief Aubrey Bettencourt met with representatives from Elsinore Valley MWD in D.C. last week.

It’s a major shakeup in a dam removal portrayed to the community as inevitable.

In 2019, PG&E announced it would not seek a new operating license for the project, saying it had become uneconomical to run. This came after years of environmental lawsuits by green NGOs claiming the dams hurt fish resulted in slashed water flows and reduced power generation.

PG&E filed a formal surrender and decommissioning application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2025. Customers would pay the estimated $500 million price tag for removing the dams, according to Congressman Jared Huffman’s office. But a PG&E insider, who asked to remain anonymous, said the true cost of dam removal is estimated internally at $1-2 billion.

Several Elsinore Valley MVD board members—general manager Greg Thomas, vice president Darcy Burke, and director Chance Edmondson—attended a January meeting between Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Potter Valley Project stakeholders. The following week, Burke met with PG&E in Sacramento to express interest in the project on behalf of her board. Burke and Edmondson also attended a meeting of the Potter Valley Irrigation District in March.

“As part of our Strategic Plan, Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District (EVMWD) actively explores opportunities that support long-term water reliability and protects public health,” said Sylvia Ornelas, public information officer for EVMWD. “This includes looking at water infrastructure and supply options beyond our immediate service area. Because this project involves a potential infrastructure and supply acquisition, we are limited in what we can share. Above all, we are committed to providing reliable, high-quality water for the communities we serve while being thoughtful about how statewide water issues may affect our customers as well as all Californians.”

PG&E did not respond to a request for comment, but told another outlet the “window to take over the project and continue to operate it as a hydroelectric project closed years ago.”

Sources say PG&E has requested a proposal from Elsinore Valley MWD, and that the Trump Administration is expected to reach out with a formal invitation to Washington, D.C. for negotiations in the coming weeks.

Under the current plan, PG&E would hand over water rights to the Eel-Russian Project Authority (ERPA), a joint powers group that would build a new, smaller diversion facility in place of the Cape Horn Dam to accommodate flows during high-rainfall months. Residents say this plan would put them at risk of flood in the winter and drought in the summer.

Burke says PG&E directed her to speak with ERPA during her Sacramento meeting.

But ERPA’s executive director David Manning says the group has no role in PG&E’s decision.

“PG&E would be the appropriate party to respond to a proposal,” Manning said. “The Eel-Russian Project Authority continues to work on the design of the New Eel-Russian Facility, a solution that is underway to provide continued diversions from the Eel River to the Russian River.”

The Elsinore Valley MWD is not alone. Other entities have also expressed interest in acquiring the project.

“This is a major step in water security for over 750,000 people, as well as the agricultural industry that the Russian River region was built on,” said Cloverdale Mayor Todd Lands. “I am thankful all parties are doing what is right for the people and environment together.”

Lands met with Burke and other representatives repeatedly in the months leading up to Rollins’ announcement.

“I’m thankful for PG&E’s willingness to do what is right for their ratepayers,” he said.

Local advocates and leaders react

Rich Brazil, chair of local advocacy group Save Potter Valley Project, said while buyer interest makes sense, it raises questions about whether good faith efforts were ever made to sell the dams before pursuing demolition.

“This is water and power in the state of California,” said Brazil. “In a place where we pay the highest energy bills in the country, obviously water is valuable, and power is valuable. These dams are an attractive asset. This is existing, proven infrastructure already in place.”

He questioned the involvement of Governor Gavin Newsom, who promised to remove the Potter Valley dams as part of his “salmon restoration strategy.” PG&E is a major political donor of Newsom’s and is regulated by a board he appoints.

Other advocacy groups also expressed support for a buyer.

“On behalf of the Mendo Matters group, we thank Secretary Rollins, Secretary Burgum, and the Trump administration teams for their tireless work to save our water and support the Lake Pillsbury project—protecting the lifeblood of our livelihoods, businesses, and farms,” said Kerri Vau, chair of Mendo Matters. “This progress brings renewed hope to more than 700,000 residents across our region.”

“At this juncture, all alternatives are welcome and worth exploring,” said Carol Cinquini, chair of Lake Pillsbury Alliance. “We appreciate that Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District has stepped forward and we are very interested to learn more about their plans for a future Potter Valley Project. For us, getting Lake Pillsbury back to full capacity is essential for wildfire protection, recreation and our community way of life, and to assure that year-round flows continue to sustain the lives and livelihoods of all communities along the Eel and Russian Rivers.”

“Very pleased to see what can happen when engaged citizens stand together, take charge of their future, and set the next generations up for success,” said Chris Coulombe, a grassroots organizer from Sonoma County. “Thank you to all that have joined in this fight to protect our natural resources. I hope this shows others that we can win.”

Farmers and ranchers in the area were ecstatic and relieved.

“Securing water and electricity for the communities, wildlife, and farms in Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties will be crucial for generations,” said Ken Foster, a farmer in Potter Valley. “This is welcome news!”

“Not only does this project provide water for our vulnerable small local farms and hundreds of thousands of community members, it also provides large amounts of electricity that can be obtained in a green manner,” said Shelina Moreda, a Petaluma farmer and co-founder of Communities for Food & Family Farms. She is running for Sonoma County District 2 Supervisor. “Keeping the Potter Valley dams also ensures we have accessible water to put out fires before they get huge—we’ve heard too many times where we ran out of water to fight a fire. This checks so many boxes, while also keeping the control and money, local. To me this is a win, win, win for the local food supply, local community, and local businesses. This is excellent news and I hope this offer is taken seriously.”

Editor’s Note: Potter Valley is my hometown. I have been involved publicly and behind the scenes in advocating for the region’s water supply.

America’s farmland is being destroyed in the name of green energy. Alexandra Fasulo is doing something about it.

Alex is an influencer, entrepreneur, first generation farmer, and accidental activist. Not long after buying a farm in her home state of New York, a neighbor told her about a foreign-owned company that had approached him six times, offering well above market value to lease his hayfield for a solar complex. Her curiosity piqued, she attended a local hearing on a solar protection ordinance. A lobbyist from California confronted her in the parking lot. What was really going on here? Why were foreign-owned companies approaching farmers in upstate New York? Why were Santa Monica lobbyists flying to her tiny village to protest local laws? Those questions led Alex on a path to who she is today: A leading voice in the fight against unchecked industrial expansion of renewable energy projects on America’s working landscapes.

From freelance writer to first-generation farmer to grassroots advocate, Alex’s story is about what happens when a corporation comes for your farm town and no one in power picks up the phone. Learn about the rural communities being erased by wind, solar, data center, and battery storage; the impact of foreign corporations and captured state agencies on America’s food production, nature, and wildlife; and how to save your own corner of the country. We talk about the importance of local engagement and the fight to save America’s small town soul.

Meet Alexandra Fasulo (0:00)
Big Solar Comes to Upstate New York (1:06)
One Town Board vs. a Santa Monica Lobbyist (4:28)
The Wildlife Management Area They Want to Bury in Panels (10:18)
The Redacted Files: When the State Hides the Science (19:24)
Foreign Corporations and ORES (39:57)
The American Land Rescue Fund: Legal War Chest for Farmers (48:02)
From Freelance Fairy to First-Gen Farmer (61:58)
What to Do If a Solar Company Calls You (74:24)
The Fight Is Not Over (81:55)

Follow Alexandra Fasulo on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Substack. Support her legal fight at American Land Rescue Fund.

Show Notes

Sponsored by Ranch Vision: www.ranchvision.io

Special thanks to Josh Woolwine for creating our intro. Follow Josh at www.instagram.com/hjwoolwine.

“Our public lands are there for the people, and this action demonstrates the commitment at USDA and the Department of the Interior to improve our services so farmers and ranchers who use public lands can run more efficient operations,” Rollins said in a statement.

Ranchers have long claimed friction with federal agencies. The USDA and DOI are now seeking to turn over a new leaf, working with ranchers rather than against them, and making it easier and more predictable to run livestock on public lands.

The MOU aims to cut red tape and speed up grazing permits, sign-offs for improvements, and lease renewals. Agencies will improve data systems for better transparency, and so ranchers have access to more information about grazing allotments. Leadership will push agencies to reopen vacant allotments with a goal of “no net loss” of grazing capacity, and to foster better inter-agency coordination—aligning the U.S. Forest Service, which is under the USDA, and the Bureau of Land Management, which is managed by DOI. Overall, ranchers will be treated as partners, and grazing will be viewed as a valuable land management tool, particularly for wildfire mitigation.

Nevada rancher Jack Payne was present for the MOU signing. He called it a great start.

“Now we will wait and see if it actually gets implemented on the local district level,” he said. “Talk and press conferences in Washington D.C. are great but until the Western Watersheds insiders in these BLM and Forest Service offices are shipped off to AI caribou in Alaska or count alligators in Florida nothing will change on the land.”

Payne, who operates Alpine Ranch as well as the livestock auction Nevada Livestock Marketing in Fallon, believes the major problem facing public land ranchers is ideological capture at the agencies tasked with managing land.

“These lifer bureaucrats slow walk everything and drag their feet until we get another anti-grazing president,” Payne said. “Ranchers on the ground want to work with the folks in Washington, D.C. to implement these changes and show the world the positive results.”

Payne was among a small group of ranchers who met with Rollins in September 2025 to talk about the threats on public land ranchers. The BLM and USFS have reduced grazing allotments from roughly 14.4 million animal units per month permitted in 1966 to approximately 10.8 million in 2024. Payne says anti-grazing groups have weaponized environmental lawsuits to spur these cuts. He saw the MOU as an outcome of that meeting.

“Being in Washington DC yesterday to witness the Memorandum of Understanding signing between USDA and DOI was truly like a dream come true,” Payne said. “Elections have consequences and what a breath of fresh air to hear Secretary Brooke Rollins and Secretary Doug Burgum address the small group of ranchers. We have gone from the enemy who must be removed from the land to an ally in national security and food sovereignty.”

“Now that our government agencies are not weaponized against the food producers, we can roll up our sleeves and start using the abundant natural and renewable resources this great nation provides,” Payne said.

Keely Covello of UNWON joined Charlie Rankin on Yanasa TV for an episode on under-reported rural stories including the murder of a Northern California rancher Covello investigated for her 2024 short film High Country Murder.

Charlie Rankin is a journalist who focuses on rural America. Follow Yanasa TV on X and YouTube.

Watch the documentary short below:

Today, Dr. Rich Brazil and Grace Brazil join Keely for a discussion on the future of the U.S. cattle herd, which currently sits at a 75-year low even as consumer demand for beef skyrockets.

Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently made waves with his comments asking ranchers to stop selling cattle and to help rebuild the domestic beef herd. Is this easier said than done? The group discusses. We also talk about how the Trump administration is helping create more demand for beef in the market and more opportunity for beef producers.

Dr. Brazil shows how ranchers can use Ranch Vision to examine growth strategies on their unique operations. Consumers will hear a nitty-gritty discussion about the business of ranching, and hear how ranchers manage their beef, the kinds of questions they have to ask when making big decisions for the future, and what creating a ranch business strategy looks like on the ground.

Then we wrap up with a myth about the industry debunked and a ranch vet story from Dr. Brazil’s archives!

Join us on the next Ranch Beat to hear the truth about the beef industry and insights into Western and rural America you won’t hear anywhere else.

Show Notes

Tutorial on using Ranch Vision to plan a herd growth strategy:

Follow Dr. Rich Brazil on Instagram at www.instagram.com/drbrazildvm and Facebook at www.facebook.com/DocBrazilDVM.

Follow Grace Brazil on Instagram at www.instagram.com/grace_brazil.

Special thanks to Josh Woolwine for creating our intro. Follow Josh at www.instagram.com/hjwoolwine.

Keely Covello was on the Northern California podcast Like It or Not Podcast, talking with hosts Drew Nicoll and Carter Lane to talk about the conspiracy behind the Potter Valley Project dam removals, California politics, and more.

Like It or Not offers an unfiltered and unapologetic take on life, politics, spirituality, social dilemmas, music, and more.

Stream Ep. 226 of the Like It or Not Podcast below:

The Kings’ battle to save their Washington ranch is shaping into a constitutional fight over the right to a jury trial.

Last year, UNWON reported on state agencies’ accusations t…

Read more

Hank Vogler, a rancher in Spring Valley, Nevada, has been indicted on federal arson charges. The government claims he set two fires on public land in 2022 and 2024. He faces up to five years in prison for each count of “timber set afire”—10 years total.

Vogler is unable to speak about hi…

Read more

Today the USDA launched an awareness campaign highlighting the new “Product of USA” labeling guidelines that came into effect January 1 of this year.

Now, when a “Product of USA” label is used on a meat, poultry,…

Read more

“We have heard, I think heard more and more, issues of animal welfare. I think, not just because it’s the right th…

Read more

California, a state infatuated with predators of all persuasions, has taken the first step toward reintroducing grizzly bears.

It’s been over a century since the last confirmed wild grizzly sighting in California. If the “C…

Read more

It was a threat not only to her family, but to the whole ranching community in Otero County, New Mexico.

Frances would later remind him of his words in a moment caught on grainy home video.

“Let’s get it plain, that we’re not the exception, we’re the beginning. You guys have said it out of your own mouth.”

“I said it,” the ranger replies.

Not long after, the government fenced off her family’s water sources to protect endangered species habitat, destroying their ability to run cattle and triggering a Fifth Amendment takings battle.

Frances and her husband Jimmy would not live to see its resolution. Three decades later, their son Justin “Spike” Goss and his wife Kelly are still waiting for justice, the ranch is bleeding money, and time is running out.

“This is not about protecting species. It’s about driving us off the land.”

Spike bought the Sacramento Grazing Association (SGA) in 1989. The ranch grazes one of the largest allotments in the region under a permit from the U.S. Forest Service. The Gosses own the water rights, but the government owns the land.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is putting them out of business.

“We supposedly have four endangered species on our allotment, including a mouse and a thistle,” Kelly Goss says. “The Forest Service uses them as a pretext to impose unrealistic and impossible terms and conditions on us. This is not about protecting species. It’s about driving us off the land.”

The Goss family’s 127,000-acre grazing allotment once carried over 1,300 head of cattle. They are now down to just 150 cattle, and their herd may be slashed again.

Frances and Jimmy, former partners in the ranch, endured decades of legal battles. Watching the slow death of their dream broke them. They had already lost one business to ESA regulations: their sawmill, shuttered after spotted owl protections made operations impossible.

“This ongoing struggle has become death by a thousand cuts,” she says. “What was once a dream to build something lasting for future generations has turned into a nightmare. We now question whether we can or want to even pass this ranch on to our children, given what the federal government has done to us.”

Goss family claims Fifth Amendment violation

In the mid-1990s, The Center for Biological Diversity sued the government, claiming the Gosses’ cattle were harming species protected by the ESA. In response, the Forest Service fenced off seven vital ranch water sources to protect the Sacramento Mountain Thistle.

There have been numerous lawsuits since. Every time, the government puts the burden on the Gosses. In 2014, more springs were fenced off to preserve New Mexico Jumping Mouse habitat.

The family sued the government in 2004, claiming their Fifth Amendment rights have been violated. Private property must not “be taken for public use, without just compensation.” They claim to have suffered millions in lost cattle sales and water use.

“We just want some peace,” Goss says. “We want this to not happen to other people.”

Protecting vulnerable species, or killing American industry?

The ESA was passed in 1973 to give federal protection to plants and animals identified as vulnerable. Many ranchers feel the law is being misused, wielded as a cudgel to cripple independent farm and ranch operations with onerous regulations.

“Some people think the ESA carries more weight than the Constitution,” Goss says. “They’re weaponizing it to take down the agricultural industry.”

R.B. Nichol is the attorney for Otero County. He represents the county in the federal government’s land management decisions. He claims there are no New Mexico Jumping Mice present on the Gosses’ allotment.

“According to some past legal opinions, even if a species is not present but may have been present at one time, the land must still be protected as their habitat,” Nichols says. “What’s going on here defies logic and reasoning.”

Ranchers say NGOs driving enforcement

ESA lawsuits involving producers are not uncommon. They pit regular ranching families against green non-profits with attorneys on staff and endless spigots of donor money. While ranchers have cattle to feed and bills to pay, organizations like The Center for Biological Diversity exist to conduct legal activism.

To make matters worse, Goss believes the government is on their side.

“If they can string out our lawsuit for 20 years, why can’t they do that to these non-profits when they sue?” she says. “The Forest Service is supposed to be advocating for grazing and pushing back on these NGOs and they don’t. They’re complicit.”

Because federal law protects grazing, officials have little power to get ranchers off public land. But NGOs are free to sue the government over the ranchers using laws like the ESA, and the government can use these lawsuits as an excuse to regulate ranchers out of business.

Goss believes that’s exactly what’s happening. She thinks the government is secretly sympathetic with extremist environmental groups, and determined to get ranchers off the land.

“We’re fighting our own government,” she says. “They use our tax dollars to fight us. The American people are paying for a war on ranching.”

Nichols, who also grew up farming and ranching in Otero County, has witnessed a similar trend. More and more, he says, government agencies are staffed by people whose ideologies and interests align with environmentalist groups rather than blue-collar American industries.

“For a bureaucrat whose job is pretty much guaranteed, reducing cattle numbers is not something they have to be concerned about,” Nichols says. “It won’t affect them until we don’t have any beef left. The ESA is taking precedence over individual and private property rights.”

Lincoln National Forest Supervisor Jason Freeman said he is not able to provide comment on this case as it is in active litigation. He offered the following statement:

“The Lincoln National Forest remains committed to working with our permittees and supporting the rural communities that rely on these landscapes. We continue to collaborate with producers to sustain healthy rangelands and uphold all applicable federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act. This work aligns with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior Grazing Action Plan, which focuses on expanding access, reducing barriers, modernizing processes and elevating producer perspectives.”

Freeman referred UNWON to the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ declined to comment.

Managing ranchers instead of wildlife

Adding credence to the Gosses’ theory of government bias against ranchers, the Forest Service fails to manage other large grazers on critical habitat.

“If these people really cared about endangered species, they would manage the out-of-control elk population,” Goss says. “We get blamed for over-utilization, but it’s a multi-ungulate system where they only manage cattle, and that is not justifiable. We ranchers bear the burden.”

The state claims there are between 7,000-8,000 Rocky Mountain elk in the area, but local ranchers say the real number is closer to 10,000-15,000. When introduced, the elk, which are not native, were supposed to be capped at 1,000.

According to the Range Improvement Task Force at New Mexico State, cattle are only grazing 2-3% of the 70-80% total forage utilization reported by the Forest Service.

This is nothing new: a 2002 USDA letter to the family acknowledged “elk had a significant impact on the forage use levels and leaf length measurements in key areas on the Sacramento Allotment.”

Filings in the latest Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit show the Forest Service admitting grazing pressures stem from “elk and feral horses, which are highly prevalent on the Sacramento Allotment.” In one pasture, forage use rose roughly 35% after cattle were removed, pointing to a combination of “climatic conditions and the presence of other grazers” like elk.

30-year wait for justice

The Gosses did not get a court ruling on their 2004 lawsuit until 2017. A judge found the actions of the Forest Service did indeed violate the Fifth Amendment.

“We thought that was progress, but it was just the beginning,” Goss says.

During the damages phase, that judge retired. The DOJ seized the opportunity to file a motion to dismiss.

A new judge stepped in and dismissed the Goss family’s water rights altogether, claiming a water license granted to the family by the state engineer was not valid.

The Gosses then obtained a title judgment to affirm their water rights under the Mining Act of 1866 and New Mexico state law. The land was homesteaded, and a chain of title search shows how ranchers passed those water rights down. When Spike purchased the SGA in 1989, he also obtained water rights.

In September 2024, a new trial began in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to make a final decision on water rights and the family’s Fifth Amendment claims.

The Goss family is still awaiting a ruling. Even if it’s favorable, they are afraid the case will wind up in appellate court.

In the meantime, they face more cuts. In what feels like an all-out war on their ranch, the family learned in February they will be forced to install virtual fencing, estimated to cost over $125,000, or lose more cattle. The family says they don’t have the funds.

“We are at our wits’ end,” Spike Goss says. “How can 150 head of cattle overgraze a 200-section ranch? It is just not possible.”

Otero County, New Mexico fears for future of ranching

Nichols says the Goss family is liked and respected by their community. They don’t have trouble with anyone. Their neighbors view the Forest Service’s actions as foreshadowing larger goals for the region.

“Scientists on the Range Improvement Task Force at New Mexico State found that the impact of 15 cattle is less than 0.5% in terms of forage consumption,” Nichols says. “That’s not much, but to a ranch that is barely surviving, it can be the difference between staying in the black and being in the red.”

Beyond the financial impact, watching their cattle suffer has been emotionally devastating.

“It’s animal abuse,” Goss says. “Water is right there, the cattle can see it and smell it, but they have to walk miles to find water they can drink? That’s abuse. Breed-back goes down, weight on calves goes down. There’s a lot of stress.”

Vickie Marquardt serves as chair of the Otero County Commission. She says the family’s battle is a fight for the survival of American ranching.

“The Endangered Species Act was designed to prevent extinction, but in the hands of federal overreach, it has become a tool for land de-privatization,” she says.

She points out that the ranch’s water systems provide water in the arid New Mexico landscape for wildlife as well as cattle.

“If Spike and Kelly lose their ability to ranch effectively, it sets a dangerous precedent,” Marquardt says. “It signals that federal administrative power can override private property rights and historical land use at whim. The Gosses aren’t asking for a handout, they are asking for the right to continue their legacy without being regulated into oblivion.”

Some Forest Service agents have told Goss in private they hate what is happening to her family, but are afraid of the consequences if they speak out. One told Spike he was going to be reassigned for not being “hard enough” on the Goss family. A few have quit outright over the injustice.

“One agent would cry at our meetings,” Goss says. “She told us, ‘I’m so sorry.’ She finally quit.”

Is the Forest Service putting mice over people?

In addition to monetary damages, Goss hopes their water rights will be reasserted, and that the USDA will allow her family to run a sustainable number of cattle again. She wants the agency to review endangered species protocols and ensure all impacts are subject to the expertise of local experts and grazing specialists rather than the arbitrary whims of a massive agency. Under the current system, she feels no rancher can survive if they get in the crosshairs of the wrong bureaucrat.

“We need a change in the way government works—one that respects the law and puts American families and American workers above special interest groups and unchecked government power,” Goss says.

President Trump’s executive order “Putting People Over Fish” called for an end to bureaucratic bias favoring environmental interests over those of citizens and industry. In her case, Goss says, the Forest Service is putting mice over people. She has reached out to the Trump administration, and hopes they will help.

“If DOGE wants to find misuse of government funds, and taxpayers’ dollars, they don’t need to look any further than the Forest Service and DOJ.”

Endangered way of life

Goss admits the battle has taken a toll. Their cattle operation is becoming untenable. Endless regulations have pushed the family to the brink of bankruptcy.

She carries on for her children and grandchildren, and their endangered way of life.

“We’re fighting for the industry, custom, and culture, our little part of the world that’s feeding America,” she says. Watching her grandchildren gather cattle in the fall breaks her heart. She knows there’s a good chance they won’t be able to carry on the legacy. “The environmentalists will have won.”

Her faith sustains her. She believes there is a divine purpose in her family’s fight.

“The government has tried to break us emotionally and physically, but they can’t break us spiritually,” she says. “The Lord carries us through, we find our joy in Him.”

She hopes bringing attention to her family’s case could lead to endangered species protection reform. Ending decades of ESA overreach would have seismic implications for the ranching world and beyond.

“If you eat beef, this matters to you,” she says. “They’re coming for us now, but they’re coming for other industries next. They’re coming for the hunters, they’re coming for the recreationists. If you like to go out and enjoy the National Forest, go hiking or camping, eventually these environmental groups want everybody off.”

In solidarity with a region set to lose its major water source, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins invited Dr. Rich Brazil, chair of Save the Potter Valley Project, to USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C. in Feburary for an event highlighting lawfare and government weaponization against agricultural producers.

Read more

The hypocrisy of these simultaneous dual headl…

Read more

All the ranchers liked Lonesome Dove. As a kid I was not allowed to watch it, but I read the book. It was a first edition hardcover that had belonged to my grandfather. The odyssey of two retired Texas Rangers on a cattle drive to Montana opens with evocative lines by T.K. Whipple:

Larry McMurtry wrote the novel to disabuse Americans of certain prosaic notions about the wilderness road that led them, in 1985, to the Reagan era. An actor in a cowboy hat was president of the United States, and McMurtry had had it with the enduring cowboy mythos and popular portrayals of the frontier as a place of glory and adventure. He set out to undermine the romanticization of the West with a hard and ugly hero’s journey. But Lonesome Dove was received by the public as the ultimate cowboy novel, a great American epic.

In his preface to the 2000 edition, McMurtry pondered his book’s strange fate, a “turnabout I’ll be mulling over for a long, long time.”

Adding insult to injury, the 1989 miniseries became the most famous Western of its era. Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae and Tommy Lee Jones as Captain Woodrow F. Call were canonized in the cowboy mind. McMurtry never copped to watching it.

The show is a faithful rendition of the novel. It is beloved, I think, for several reasons.

First, it was made before so-called prestige TV made the small screen a respectable venue for artistic endeavors. There is no trace of that self-serious A24 varnish in Lonesome Dove. Much of the four-part CBS miniseries was shot on a dusty Texas movie set called Alamo Village, built for a John Wayne flick, and the set is said to have been chaotic. The directing isn’t polished and the wardrobe is inconsistent (Janey’s costume comes to mind). All of this to say: the magic is genuine, not contrived.

Duvall and Jones flesh out the leads, retired Texas Rangers McMurtry conceived as modern personifications of Dionysius and Apollo, the Stoic and Epicurean.

Their portrayals are iconic, but I think cowboys really love this movie because Duvall and Jones do all their own riding.

Duvall’s horse throws him during a Comanche attack scene. He was on a local ranch horse not trained for movie stunts; wrangler Rudy Ugland found a “cowboy’s horse” for Duvall, and an unpredictable and testy bronc to play Woodrow’s “Hell Bitch” for Jones. In one scene, Jones gallops across a cowtown Main Street to deliver justice to a Cavalry officer in the act of whipping Woodrow’s bastard son Newt, revealing his character’s paternal feelings for the boy and that Jones—who lives on a 3,000-acre ranch in San Saba County, Texas—can ride. Both men move loose and natural in the saddle. It makes a difference: Many a Western has been damaged in the subconscious by shots of an actor’s rigid torso sitting wooden cutting to a far-off stunt double doing all the riding. That would have broken the movie: much of Lonesome Dove is shot on horseback.

McMurtry died in 2021. Talented as he was, he could not succeed in convincing Americans to be realistic.

With Robert Duvall’s death, another chapter in Western storytelling is closing. If Quentin Tarantino was right, if every American era is defined by its Westerns, it remains to be seen what the lasting works of this generation will be, and what they will say about us, and how they will answer our pressing questions.

To McMurtry, the Old West is and always will be the “phantom leg of the American psyche.” The East was New Europe, built by Europeans. The West is American. It built us as we built the West. How a generation feels about its Westerns, which are the stories we tell about ourselves, reflects how it feels about the nation. And how to feel about America has become the pressing question of our time.

If McMurtry was embarrassed by the story that came to define him, Duvall was not. He called Gus his “Hamlet.” Once filming wrapped, he said he had finally done something good, in a career that included To Kill a Mockingbird and The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. There wouldn’t be another Lonesome Dove, Duvall declared, not for 100 years. To him, Gus was a modern-day knight, in his chivalry and love for life and women; an indigenous Texan.

Wherever he went, people wanted to talk about Gus. The Argentinian gaucho who wore out his subtitled VHS. The Texas family who wouldn’t let their daughter marry her fiancé until he’d watched all four episodes. He recalled these interactions fondly. Robert Duvall redeemed the Western in his day; he did not begrudge us our heroes, he let us love a cowboy again. He carried the myth for another generation.

Lonesome Dove, the book, is trending on TikTok. It’s said a new film adaptation is in the works. But whatever Westerns will define our era in American life, we will have to come up with them ourselves. Gus McCrae has passed on, and there will never be another.

Ranchers who say they have been targeted by government agencies gathered Wednesday in the nation’s capital to stand with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins as she an…

Read more

Readers of UNWON will be familiar with these islands off the Southern California coast and their dark history replete with allegations of destroyed ranches, slaughtered wildlife, and general predation by the National Park Service (NPS) and environmental nonprof…

Read more

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revoked seven bison grazing leases in Montana held by the conservation nonprofit American Prairie. This decision marks the latest chapter in what has become a touchstone in the conflict between ranchers and environmentalists.

Read more