NEWS ROUNDUP

Supreme Court jumps into fight over wilderness study areas The Supreme Court said Monday it will review whether environmentalists can sue the government over its alleged failure to protect wilderness study areas from off-road vehicles and other possible threats. The high court agreed to review a case in which environmental groups had sued, accusing a federal agency of not following a congressional mandate to preserve the pristine qualities of areas being considered for wilderness designation. The Bush administration maintains that an agency's daily activities such as managing federal land cannot be challenged in court. The law does not allow courts to ''entertain challenges to anything and everything that an agency may do, or fail to do, in the conduct of its business,'' Solicitor General Theodore Olson told justices in a filing. At issue is land in Utah's backcountry being considered for special wilderness designation. Under federal law, those lands must be managed as if they were official wilderness areas until Congress decides what to do with them, meaning no motor vehicles or development. The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Bureau of Land Management has a statutory obligation to protect wilderness study areas, and could face lawsuits for failing to do so. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came to a similar conclusion in a Montana case...Click here to read the opinion of the 10th Circuit....Full containment of Calif. fires near Exhausted firefighters were sent home Monday as remaining crews doused hotspots and watched for new ones -- the vast wildfires that ravaged parts of Southern California all but surrounded. More than 27,000 people remained displaced from their homes, but that was well down from the 80,000 at the peak of the fires, said a spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services. All fires were expected to be surrounded by Tuesday, if not by Monday evening, said Andrea Tuttle, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection...California's search for wildfire solutions In the manzanita expanses of Ventura County just north of Los Angeles, last week's fires swept through the area as they did elsewhere in southern California - with little sympathy for anything in their path. With one important exception. Even though the fires consumed 172,000 acres, relatively few homes in the county were destroyed. One reason: strict laws that order backcountry residents to clear brush from within 100 feet of homes. As mundane as it sounds, strictures like this are part of a fundamental rethinking going on across California in the wake of the worst fires since the Yellowstone infernos in 1978. From forest- thinning practices to the role of the military, California officials are examining ways to prevent a repeat of the fires that cost the state more than $2 billion. Yet for all the regulations and new funding likely to come out of the disaster, a larger question underlies the debate: Does the main responsibility for protecting structures ultimately lie with homeowners themselves - with their choice of roofing, landscaping, and even windows? Certainly, the issue isn't likely to vanish any time soon. While the overall acreage burned in the latest fires was extensive, it barely amounts to a few smudges on a California map. The Golden State has plenty of acreage left to burn. "This is not the last fire," says Thomas Bonnicksen, a forestry expert who has monitored wild lands for three decades. "We're not going prevent the fire process. That will never happen."...The Nature Conservancy and Partners to Focus on Fire Management, Recent Controlled Burns In the wake of the wildfires that have devastated southern California, The Nature Conservancy and its Fire Learning Network partners will convene Nov. 5-7 at Camp Ripley in central Minnesota. The Fire Learning Network Workshop will focus on building support for collaborative, community-based fire management planning that can protect people and property while restoring natural landscapes. In many landscapes, human alterations to the role of natural fire has altered ecosystems and increased wildfire risks. Scientific management strategies include controlled, prescribed burns in forest and prairie landscapes and forest thinning techniques. The Fire Learning Network (FLN) is a cooperative effort of The Nature Conservancy, U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior...Dead trees: Little-known ecological disaster fueled SoCal fires A day after the Southern California wildfires erupted, the Fall 2003 edition of "California Forests," the official publication of the California Forestry Association, arrived at the news desks of the state's newspapers. Its content while reflecting the fact that it had been printed prior to the outbreak of flames described in exact and almost-prophetic detail the potential disaster awaiting the southland's over-dense and diseased forests. The most uncanny words published in the edition were those spoken by Peter Brierty, fire marshal for San Bernardino County. Brierty said that Californians are facing the "worst predictable disaster in state history."...Flooding, Landslides Pose Risk Flood control experts fear that wildfires have created potentially catastrophic landslide hazards in charred areas throughout Southern California -- especially in San Bernardino County, where as many as 50 catch basins built to block falling boulders, mud and trees may not be adequate. Debris flows, as the deadliest form of the slides are known, can be ferocious, crashing down mountain slopes, overwhelming barricades and dropping tons of rubble on unsuspecting communities during heavy rains. The San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains are dotted with catch basins -- government's response to a long and violent history of sudden landslides. The basins are typically engineered to capture the muddy fallout from a 100-year flood -- a heavy rainstorm whose likelihood of happening in any given year is only 1 percent. But in areas damaged by wildfires, the volume and velocity of material washing down can be 10 times greater than usual -- and exceptionally heavy even four to five years after a blaze...EarthWhere from SANZ Enhances USGS Support for Fighting Wildfires in Southern California SANZ today announced that a multi-agency effort led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, has successfully implemented the EarthWhere(TM) Spatial Data Provisioning Application from SANZ to provide timely mapping data to help combat the wildland fires burning throughout Southern California. The Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group or GeoMAC, is an Internet-based mapping tool designed for fire managers to access online maps of current fire locations and perimeters in the conterminous 48 States and Alaska. Using a standard Web browser, fire personnel can download this information to pinpoint the affected areas. SANZ' EarthWhere has been integrated into GeoMAC to allow first responders and planners to quickly download accurate maps and imagery of fire-affected areas...Protesters cut into Bush forest policies Protesters opposing President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative struck a chord Friday with passers-by, who honked approval at the Halloween demonstration outside the Bridger-Teton National Forest office. Seven adult protesters and two kids held up signs including a white sheet with the painted message: "Our forests will not be Bushwhacked." The protest comes one day after the U.S. Senate approved on an 80-14 vote a bill that would put Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative into law. The bill now moves to conference committee where the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives will reconcile their differences...Forest plan criticized Plans to rehabilitate part of the Stanislaus National Forest land that burned more than 15 years ago include aerial herbicide spraying on more than 1,000 acres, but the proposal is drawing fire from several environmental groups. The U.S. Forest Service has released a draft environmental review of its Larson reforestation and fuels-reduction project, which calls for treating nearly 4,000 acres of land that burned in the 1987 Stanislaus Complex Fire. The property is south of Highway 120, north of the Merced River canyon and is bounded on the east by Yosemite National Park. Forest Service officials say plenty of vegetation has grown back since the fire. But rather than a mix of pines, firs, cedars and other natural vegetation -- known as a mixed-conifer forest -- the area has given way to dense brush, grasslands, oak woodlands and noncommercial conifer. The goal, said John Swanson, the forest's Groveland district ranger, is to fashion a forest that more closely mimics its pre-fire condition, when about 84 percent of the area was covered with a mixed-conifer forest...An Uncertain Future Awaits an Enduring Piney Enclave, Residents fear the Forest Service may refuse permission to rebuild nine cabins that were destroyed in the Grand Prix fire For eight decades, the 10-cabin settlement known as Middle Fork had survived every calamity the San Bernardino National Forest could muster -- flame, flood and falling rock. Its luck ran out two Saturdays ago. Little more than hearths and chimneys are all that's left of nine of the cabins, which burned as quickly as wood chips in one of California's wildfires. They mark the blackened earth like tombstones. Now, as Middle Fork residents rake through the rubble, the mountains around them still smoking, they fear their tiny redoubt along Lytle Creek is dead for good, a way of life gone forever. They say the U.S. Forest Service, which owns the land on which the cabins sat, had been eager to get rid of them -- and could refuse permission to rebuild. Some also say that the Forest Service had mounted only a halfhearted effort to save the structures from the Grand Prix fire, having written them off as a low-rent nuisance not worth the risk of a determined defense. "They didn't really try to fight the fire back here," said Martin Ruff, 34, a truck driver whose cabin was reduced to charred skeletons of appliances, plus the chimney. "They let the fire go -- because they want us out of here."...National survey evaluates presence, status of wolverines in Michigan Did real wolverines ever roam the Wolverine State? Patrick Rusz of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy says yes. "I'm a believer that there once were wolverines," he said. The question surfaced recently when the Predator Conservation Alliance, based in Bozeman, Wyo., petitioned to place the wolverine on the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined the motion due to what they claimed was insufficient information about the mammal. In response to the petition, the U.S. Forest Service will conduct a study in 2004 to determine the wolverine's biology, ecology, distribution and habitat " as well as potential threats to its existence," said Ralph Morgenweck, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Mountain-Prairie Region, in a written statement...Reintroduced Wolves Dying in Southwest Five years ago, federal biologists began to introduce endangered Mexican gray wolves in remote mountains near the Arizona-New Mexico border, half a century after the end of concerted campaigns to wipe them out. Wolf pairs have been added over the years, with a goal of establishing a population of 100 wild wolves. But now someone is killing them. There are 24 wolves living in the wild in the Southwest. But nearly that many, at least 22, have died under "suspicious circumstances," investigators say, since the program began. Six have been killed in the past two months, three by gunshot and three by cars. Curtis Graves, the special agent with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service who is responsible for the wolf cases, is reluctant to assign a motive. He said the shootings could be a result of confusion by hunters who thought they were lawfully killing coyotes. But neither he nor local ranchers rule out the possibility that some ranchers may be shooting wolves to protect their cattle. "If the wolves continue to be dumped in here and continue to destroy people's way of life in the cattle industry," said Sam Luce, a rancher in Blue, Ariz., "people are going to defend themselves." The reintroduction effort has been plagued by other problems. Officials say they are frustrated by political constraints...Law called threat to states' rights States could lose the power to enforce such environmental agreements if Congress approves legislation requested by the Pentagon. The Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative would make military bases exempt from environmental laws that cover everything from hazardous waste, air quality and endangered species. In Colorado, the change could affect environmental cleanup projects, including the former bombing range, a one-time ammunition depot in Pueblo, and chemical weapons and pesticide removal at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in northeast Denver...Toxic Immunity From Cape Cod in Massachusetts to McClellan Air Force Base in California, the Pentagon is facing mounting criticism for failing to clean up military sites contaminated with everything from old munitions to radioactive materials and residues from biological-weapons research. Now, citing the demands of the war on terrorism and working with sympathetic officials in the administration and Congress, the department has stepped up efforts to remove substantial parts of its operations from environmental oversight. Last December, Defense officials drew up a 24-page strategy memorandum, laying out a plan for a "multi-year campaign" to exempt the military from federal laws including the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air Act, as well as rules governing solid and hazardous wastes. The strategy also called for Congress to state "that munitions deposited and remaining on operational ranges are not 'solid wastes'" -- a move that with one stroke would exempt the Pentagon from having to clean up the old shells, fuels, and other weapons "constituents" that turn places like Badger into health hazards. The Pentagon is seeking these changes even though current law already allows it to gain exemptions from any environmental regulations that might hinder military preparedness; according to a 2002 study by Congress' General Accounting Office, the Defense Department has never run into any significant problems in this regard...Let River Flow, or Let It Grow? On a recent visit to the Santa Ana River, Jan Vandersloot peered over the steep concrete embankment. If there was a river down there, he sure couldn't see it. Covered by tons of sediment, the stretch of the river through Costa Mesa now sustains an environment where migrating birds, including an endangered species, seek refuge. Willow trees tower 40 feet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now wants to clean up a 3.6-mile stretch of the river from its mouth at the Pacific to just upstream from Adams Avenue. Activists such as Vandersloot, however, see a golden opportunity to let the river revert to its natural state and allow some of the wildlife habitat to remain...Stranded salmon The Columbia River can drop about 10 feet in 12 hours, said Don Anglin, supervisory fishery biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. River water is released from behind dams when there's demand for power -- every time a light is switched on or a hair dryer plugged in. Then when demands for power stop, so does the water. And almost every time the river fluctuates, it traps tiny fish. "They are in a pool and the river goes out," Anglin said. "Then the pool drains out." "We know we are killing fish, and we know we are killing big numbers." And how many salmon come from the Reach is a vital concern to many in the Mid-Columbia and beyond. The concern comes despite this year's record returns of fall chinook, about 607,000 have swum past Bonneville Dam near Portland so far. That's the largest run of fall chinook since officials began counting in 1938, said Matt Rabe, spokesman for the Portland District of the Army Corps of Engineers...Interior to consider dropping claims to some monument roads The Department of Interior will consider dropping federal ownership claims to some roads within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and turning those routes over to Utah counties, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Friday. But each of the disputed road claims put forward by Utah under a first-ever agreement will be determined through a public-input process that won't always lead to counties getting control of the routes and may still wind up in court. "There are a number of things about [the Utah pact] that are a good model and could resolve a vast majority of the road disputes in the West," Norton said in an interview with reporters from Western news outlets. "There are other issues where the federal government and the local communities will have to agree to disagree and resolve that in the judicial process." In July, the U.S. House approved language modifying the April memorandum of understanding between Norton and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to add "national monuments" to the deal's existing exclusions of national parks, wilderness areas and wildlife refuges. Those areas of public lands will not be considered by the Bureau of Land Management in issuing "recordable disclaimers of interest" that surrender federal ownership on rights-of-way claimed by counties under the 1866 mining law known as Revised Statute 2477. But this week a House-Senate conference committee stripped the House-passed monument exclusion language from the Interior appropriations bill and a Democratic-led effort to reject the spending measure fizzled Thursday. The Senate is expected to approve the bill next week without changes, allowing Garfield and Kane counties to request federal disclaimers on roads traversing the 1.9 million-acre monument...Family battles U.S. over road The Pacific Legal Foundation, in a lawsuit filed yesterday, accused the National Park Service of trying to force a family to abandon its Alaska ranch, which is surrounded by federally owned property, by closing a mining road in violation of state and federal laws. "The Park Service wants to starve out and crush the Pilgrim family," said Russ Brooks, managing lawyer for the PLF. The 17-member Pilgrim family uses the road to haul supplies from the nearest town, 15 miles away. The PLF's lawsuit on behalf of the family, filed in Anchorage, says the rugged road was established by the Kennecott Mining Co. more than 100 years ago and is protected as an existing right under federal law. It was used by the Pilgrim family until April, when the Park Service closed the road without public notice or hearing...Editorial: A safe bet Last week, the FDA came to the preliminary conclusion that cloned animals and their offspring are as safe to eat as conventional animals. That decision, encapsulated in the executive summary of the draft report, "Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment," will be vetted today in a public meeting of the FDA's Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee. Although many may have a negative emotive response to the idea of eating either an animal clone or its offspring, the FDA's conclusions appear to be well-warranted. The report's authors evaluated the potential risks of consuming food from cloned cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, and their progeny. Not all of the sample sizes were large, but the conclusions were almost identical in each case -- such foods are almost certain to be safe for consumption...A REGION ON THE ROPES: Rural ranchers and farmers fight to survive as their political power withers Seven generations of Hanleys have wrangled a living out of the sage and rabbit brush since settling in Eastern Oregon in the early 1880s. Man-made and natural forces have forged their resilience: rustlers, restless cattle markets, volatile weather, grasshoppers of biblical proportions. Today, like thousands of Eastern Oregon ranchers and farmers, they see themselves under siege by city dwellers -- latte-sippers armed with legal briefs. As they see it, environmental groups in Portland and Eugene are searching for a crowbar big enough to pry them off the land. "I suppose what we are going through now is just another type of plague," said rancher Mike Hanley, 62, of Jordan Valley along the Oregon-Idaho border...Japan reports possible 9th case of mad cow disease; experts meet A bull in Hiroshima has tested positive for the mad cow disease, which if confirmed would be the ninth detected in this country, health officials said Tuesday. The 21-month-old Holstein tested positive when it was brought to a slaughterhouse in Hiroshima state in western Japan on Oct. 29, according to Yuki Ueda, a spokesman at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The bull has been killed, he said...Mail carriers source of varied services Today, the United States Postal Service is often the object of criticism for late mail, continually rising costs and tons of unwanted junk mail. But talk to most of the older generation and they hold the "mail carriers," as we called them, in high esteem. Nearly every rural resident has a good mail-carrier story or two to tell. Long before towns were settled, crank telephones invented and decent roads established, the horse-drawn mail hack kept the thinly settled West in touch with itself and the world...Cowboy crooner chose his own path A quarter-century after leaving the music world to become a cowboy, Carl Smith will climb from the saddle long enough to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1978, after a 35-year career, the classy crooner from Maynardsville, Tenn., put aside his songbook that included such hits as Let's Live a Little, Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way and It's a Lovely, Lovely World and literally went out to pasture...