NEWS ROUNDUP

Column: Bush's plan for preserves The Bush administration is proposing to alter the way national wildlife refuges and national parks are staffed and run. The proposal will find new staff for these preserves outside the traditional National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel, through "outsourcing" agreements. While critics of the proposal see a profound threat to these preserves, supporters say the changes should bring fresh ideas to resource management, and cultural renewal to the Indian tribes poised to be the first to assume many jobs on these federal public lands...Editorial: We can't stop dousing fires At first glance, a lawsuit to force the U.S. Forest Service to stop routinely fighting wildfires seems a little crazy. At second glance - certainly for hundreds of Helena-area residents - it seems downright scary. That's not to say the lawsuit filed by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics doesn't raise some valid concerns. By seeking a court order forcing the Forest Service to prepare an environmental impact statement on forest firefighting, the group wants the agency to examine the toll firefighting takes in terms of firefighters' lives and the environmental impact of dropping retardant on wildfires. More generally, the lawsuit questions the Forest Service's longstanding "put 'em out" mentality that has increased fuels and worsened fires. But drive around the outlying areas of most cities in the West - Helena most definitely included - and you'll find a major flaw in the argument that most fires should be ignored. The urban-wildland interface isn't a line. It's a deep web of woodsy residential development stretching for miles into the forest in all directions...Video to be produced on new electric bear fence An instructional video and CD will be developed this spring for a lightweight electric fence system showing promise as a new way to keep food from bears. The fence, developed by the National Outdoor Leadership School in Lander, is designed to help backpackers, horse packers and other outdoor enthusiasts safely store food in the backcountry. The fence can be stored in a backpack and is meant to condition bears to avoid human food. Testing among both captive bears and in the Wind River and Absakora ranges and other areas has been effective...Seeking grants? Forest Service has new Web site to help The U.S. Forest Service has created a new Web site to explain various types of federal and state forest, fire and community assistance grants available in the Southwestern Region (Arizona, New Mexico, and portions of Oklahoma and Texas). The Southwest Area Forest, Fire and Community Assistance Grants Web site will let interested parties and contractors know how they can use the grants, eligibility requirements, contact points and other Web sites available for various grants...Click here to go the website...Airborne Ozone Can Alter Forest Soil The industrial pollutant ozone, long known to be harmful to many kinds of plants, can also affect the very earth in which they grow. Researchers at Michigan Technological University and the North Central Research Station of the USDA Forest Service have discovered that ozone can reduce soil carbon formation--a measure of the amount of organic matter being added to the soil. Their findings are published in the Oct. 16 issue of the journal Nature. The scientists exposed forest stands to increased levels of two atmospheric pollutants, ozone and carbon dioxide. Soil carbon formation dropped off dramatically in the plots fumigated with a mix of ozone and carbon dioxide compared to carbon dioxide alone. "This research shows that changes in atmospheric chemistry can cascade through the forest and affect soils," says Dr. Kurt Pregitzer, a coauthor of the Nature paper and a professor in Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science...Senators, governor ask for federal involvement in minnow negotiations New Mexico political leaders want Interior Secretary Gale Norton to get involved in discussions over the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. Governor Richardson, and Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman sent a letter to Norton Wednesday. They asked her to develop a position, become involved with future discussions and suggest water supply solutions...Revisions in permit process Federal agencies in the West are at work on revisions to their own paperwork that government officials hope will iron some of the kinks out of oil and gas permitting processes for the region. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have begun updating Onshore Order No. 1 -- a 1983 document outlining permiting requirements for federal oil and gas leases -- and the federal agencies' Gold Book, a compilation of best practices for work on federal leases. The revisions will most likely be published on the federal register early next year, minerals team leader Barry Burkhardt of the Forest Service's Inter-mountain Region office said...Agency Probes Damage to Jamestown Items National Park Service investigators are reviewing how 80 percent of the artifacts from historic Jamestown settlement were damaged during Hurricane Isabel and how such damage could be prevented. The Park Service estimates the storm last month caused $11.4 million in damage to artifacts from the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607. "Some of the issues being investigated have to do with the preparations before the storm and the recovery efforts directly afterward,'' said Pat Tiller, associate director of the Park Service branch of cultural resource stewardship and partnerships...Hoover Dam history -- Hoover or Boulder? Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River 30 miles east of Las Vegas, was named by a 1931 act of Congress for President Herbert Hoover, the architect of the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1929 that led to the dam's construction. After Hoover left office, however, the Democratic administration of President Franklin Roosevelt was loathe to use Republican Hoover's name and began referring to it as Boulder Dam. While the dam's name was not formally changed, the Boulder Dam name became so attached during the Roosevelt years that Congress in 1947, citing an injustice to Hoover, by then an elder statesman, approved a resolution officially naming the structure Hoover Dam again...