NEWS ROUNDUP

At Leavitt Hearing, a Chance to Vent on Bush Policies The long-running argument over conservation or development of Utah's spectacular and mineral-rich public lands is likely to play out again on Capitol Hill today, when the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee opens confirmation hearings on President Bush's nomination of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R) to succeed Christine Todd Whitman as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Last April, without prior notice, Leavitt signed an agreement with the Bush administration that removes millions of Utah acres, including much of the red rock country near here, from protected status. Industry groups praised the settlement, saying it would provide more certainty about commercial uses of the land. But local and national environmental groups have criticized it, partly because it opens prized land to potential development and mineral exploration, but mainly because of the way Leavitt handled it...Tons Of Illegal Dumping Millions of acres of southern Nevada desert are becoming illegal dumpsites. The local Bureau of Land Management says 250 tons of trash is removed every year. It includes broken glass in a sea of spent ammunition, grills, appliances, landscaping and cars where they don't belong... Wild horses find place in people's hearts On the packed, grayish dirt floor of temporarily erected pens, dozens of wild horses and burros paced or stood calmly on the threshold of their new world, as a similar-size crowd of people inspected them from a distance. These were wild animals up for adoption, collected as part of the federal U.S. Bureau of Land Management's attempts to preserve undomesticated herds on public lands by limiting their numbers to only what ecosystems can support... BLM, Kane meet in secret Kane County's three commissioners, one of whom is the subject of a federal criminal investigation, met behind closed doors with federal land managers Saturday, in apparent violation of Utah's open-meetings law. Assembled in its chambers at Kanab, the County Commission talked for about an hour with Sally Wisely, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah, and Dave Hunsaker, manager of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument... Respect local officials Pat Shea, an ex-Bruce Babbitt era Bureau of Land Management appointee, appears to be the BLM's surrogate spokesman in waging a negative public relations attack against local elected officials. His recent quotations in The Tribune rely on an old attorney's trick: When you can't make your case with the facts, attack the person. His reference to local officials as the "village idiot choir" and "local criminals" clearly infers that local officials are incapable of rational thinking and demeans the validity of local governmental participation in federal planning as provided for by federal law... Utah and Arizona unite via Great Western Trail Officials dedicated the final Utah section of the Great Western Trail on Saturday, in a ceremony representing rare harmony between interests often opposed on public land-use issues... Fire money helps some merchants cope with weak tourist season Sometimes it takes years to see the green after a wildfire. Other times, the green sprouts while the flames are still blackening the earth. That green is the money that is spread to businesses when fire crews roll through a community... Methane lawsuit may be in limbo According to the clerk's office of the District of Montana, Billings Division, a lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the Bureau of Land Management in April has been swamped by applications for defendent-intervenor status from companies involved in Powder River Basin coal bed methane production. The processing of the applications has halted progress on the lawsuit, filed over the Powder River Basin Oil and Gas Project environmental impact statement...Bug-tree wood turned into fuel Trucks loaded with firewood may rumble into the Wounded Knee District of the Oglala Sioux Tribe as early as Thursday to begin delivery of 150 cords of fuel...Outfitters upset over plan to nearly triple boats Outfitters are upset over the Forest Service proposal to increase the maximum number of jet boats on the main Salmon River from 15 to 40 a week. They're calling it illogical and an assault on the wilderness experience. Outfitter Chris Swersey says people go to the river to find solitude... Forest project approved with new exclusions A 700-acre forest thinning project between Ward Mountain and the Lost Horse area south of Hamilton is the first approved by the Bitterroot National Forest under a new "categorical exclusion" that cuts back the amount of required environmental review...Forest Service Changes Rules for Hunters Using ATVs Hunters planning to shoot an elk or a deer in the Uinta National Forest this fall had better be prepared for some heavy lifting... We Must Fight Fire With Fire—Literally ON THE GROUND, we’re sure of one thing: wildfires are getting more explosive and less predictable. The last 100 years of successful containment of natural forest fires (by the Forest Service and its growing army of foot soldiers, bulldozers, helicopters and planes) has allowed an accumulation of brush and young, tightly packed trees that have turned our forests into time bombs. Now they burn too hot, and instead of just scarring the big trees a fire consumes them. I’ve walked through countless areas where the fire has “nuked black,” leaving only limbless, charred poles for trees, and ash six inches deep. This is “bad fire,” so hot that 300- to 600-year-old trees and even veteran firefighters do not always survive them. This summer Rick Lupe, a good, competent fire supervisor with more than 20 years of experience, died when a routine procedure of intentionally burning brush and undergrowth (a “prescribed burn”) turned into an unpredictable bad fire. Lupe died in the face of fire behavior and fire models that we’ve never dealt with before...Family wants farm to stay that way The Jon White family's decision to sell an easement so their 1,600 acres will always be farmed was lauded Saturday as one of the best defenses against the West's greatest natural resource threat: urbanization. Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, said during a celebration of the easement that wild and working landscapes are disappearing fast... U.S. Fish and Wildlife decides Sacramento splittail not endangered The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided on Monday that the Sacramento splittail, a fish found only in the Sacramento River Delta and its tributaries, is not endangered. The agency had listed the splittail as threatened in 1999, but a lawsuit by California water agencies led a federal court to order a reconsideration two years ago...Schwarzenegger reveals ambitious environmental plan With a fog-shrouded coastline behind him, Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled an environmental plan Sunday aimed at cutting air pollution by up to 50 percent within five to eight years. The centerpiece and most specific part of his proposal would promote hydrogen-powered vehicles...Ranchers dispute study that water is ample for S.A. drought plan Spokesmen for a ranching family — the single largest landholder in Victoria, Goliad and Refugio counties — say the results of a study claiming there is plenty of water for San Antonio to draw from the Gulf Coast Aquifer are miscalculated and misleading... Butte tinkerer turns the heat up on new kind of branding Branding cattle can run hot or cold. As ranchers mark their property on the ranges of Montana, cattle can feel the heat of the traditional red-hot branding iron, or the extreme cold of freeze branding... Waiting for Daylight ~ King Ranch: Images From the Past Author-photographer Janell Kleberg, wife of Tio Kleberg of King Ranch, writes of the ranch work she has documented on film over the past thirty years in her newly released book, Waiting for Daylight ~ King Ranch: Images from the Past. Released by Stoecklein Publishing, the book consists of photographs taken while working cattle on horseback on King Ranch in South Texas, Brazil, Argentina and Australia. The book reveals a first-hand experience of King Ranch, pictorially documenting the life of the working cowboy on a day to day basis. The heat and dust of long days on horseback create images of an ever-emerging frontier... Western movies turn 100 The Western movie turns 100 this year. Once the backbone of the film industry, the Western has struggled to stay in the saddle in an era when costumed superheroes, boy wizards and computerized creatures dominate theater screens. The cowboys, the six-shooters, the stagecoaches and the rest of the West seemingly have gone thataway. But those who have done their share of riding the Hollywood plains over the years say the Western isn't quite yet ready for a spot on Boot Hill... $2 million plateau yet another achievement for Mortensen That first check, for riding bulls of all things, is long gone. Most likely spent on gas money and maybe a celebratory drink or two. His first PRCA-sanctioned check came in 1989, after a rodeo in Greybull, Wyo. Dan Mortensen was still on his permit, trying to match his young skills against the world's best...