NEWS ROUNDUP

One creek as a test of Western land use Flowing through the steep Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, Rough & Ready Creek lives up to its name. It tumbles through rugged, forested canyons of Port Orford cedar and Jeffrey pine. Wildlife is abundant. More than 300 plant species - some found nowhere else in the world - grow in what is one of the most biologically rich areas of North America. But the creek drainage is also the scene of a classic old West-new West fight over natural resource extraction and property rights. And a $600 million lawsuit by miner Walt Freeman could affect not only the future of this patch of mountainous terrain but the balance of economic development and environmental protection across the West. Mr. Freeman holds 161 mining claims here - some dating back more than half a century. He believes there's enough nickel, iron, and chromium - major elements in stainless steel - to make mining worthwhile. But so far, federal agencies have delayed the project on environmental grounds. So Freeman wants Uncle Sam to pay him for the loss of his property - in this case, the mining claims he (and his parents before him) staked on government land...Column: The New Bear in Town A deep disquiet attends the solace we take from hearing of the wild's re-emergence within our civil environs: white-tailed deer, coyotes, black bears, even bobcats. Their presence seems, at first, to engender a kind of reprieve, as though we've finally arrived at a truce with our wild counterparts. The actual story is more complex and less idyllic. With the steady shift over the past century of agriculture to the Midwest and the Plains, along with the replacement of wood heat with coal, oil and gas, the East Coast's forests have, by and large, been allowed to flourish. And within them have returned many of the animals we long ago assumed had been permanently displaced. This change, in tandem with the spread of suburbia into those same reforested regions, has brought two burgeoning populations (animal and human) face to face. And this, of course, is where the trouble begins -- where our romanticization of the wild gives way to thornier questions about how best to broker the peace with it...Editorial: Extreme behavior The president of the lead group opposed to Alaska's latest wolf-control plan exhibited typical behavior Friday when she engaged in a bit of extremism following a sound court ruling that allows the program to proceed. She said she hoped the state would not "rush out and annihilate the wolves." That, of course, is not the state's plan. About three to four dozen wolves in a small portion of the state near McGrath will be killed, with the aim of improving a moose population whose numbers have consistently remained too low for that community's subsistence needs. A few dozen wolves likely will remain in the area...Hot air over bird deaths to stall windmills? They were touted by environmentalists as an alternative source of pollution-free electric power that was good for the planet, but 20 years and countless dollars later environmentalists are now crying foul over the Altamont wind farm east of San Francisco Bay. Two organizations seek to block the renewal of permits for nearly 1,400 wind towers -- for the sake of birds. An estimated 22,000 have died due to run-ins with the structures' blades, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and other raptors...Feds say four of five wolves were killed Of the five area wolf deaths under investigation, four did not die naturally, said special agent Tim Eicher of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three of the four dead wolves from the Sunlight Pack died from gunshots. The radio signal from the third shot wolf, No. 263 a black male, was located last week emanating from the water near Buffalo Bill Dam...Nevada keeps on the attack in its nuclear war with feds Outvoted in the political arena, Nevada will ask a federal appeals court next month to block the U.S. government from burying the nation's deadliest nuclear waste in the desert state. Despite Nevada's objections, President Bush and Congress last year approved a permanent national repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste on federal land 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. That defeat for Nevada merely heated up the fight the state has waged since 1982 to nuke the $58 billion Yucca Mountain Project. It has been one of the most contentious not-in-my-backyard environmental feuds between a state and the federal government...Column: Getting the Word Out President Bush has been roundly criticized for his attacks on environmental protection on newspaper editorial pages, but amazingly he's managed to fly under the public's radar for most of this. The administration makes its onerous announcements on Friday afternoon when media coverage is lightest. Bush stands in front of national parks for the TV cameras and speaks soothing words. He calls his weakening of clean air laws "Clear Skies" and he calls his plan to increase logging on public lands "Healthy Forests." Our challenge is to communicate what we know to friends and neighbors and family who don't. That's what Sierra Club members in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania were doing in late October -- going door to door in Concord, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Organizers in other states are planning similar outreach activities...Editorial: Federal land sales The federal government owns about 85 percent of the land in Nevada. But that's not enough for the environmental lobby -- even if it comes at the expense of raising more money under the guise of helping "the children." Wired with an almost pathological aversion to the concepts of "profit" or "private property," the greens oppose an effort by Rep. Jim Gibbons to rejigger the formula for dispersing the cash raised by the sale of public lands in Southern Nevada. Under current legislation -- passed in 1998, thanks to Sens. John Ensign and Harry Reid -- 85 percent of the proceeds raised from federal land auctions in the Las Vegas area are used to gobble up more real estate for Washington. The remainder goes to education and infrastructure improvements in Clark County...Report looks at flows of the past Toward the end of summer, the Klamath River gets low - the source of controversy over fish and irrigation. But a new government study says that before the Klamath Reclamation Project was developed, the water used to get a lot lower. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has been trying to figure out how the water flowed in the Link River, and then into the Klamath River, before the concrete and steel of the irrigation project were added to the mix of reefs, bends and eddies. Friday, the Bureau released a draft of its report...Congress to hold hearings on Animas-La Plata U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M, plans to convene congressional hearings next year over why costs for the Animas-La Plata Project have increased so much. The senator, a longtime proponent of the project, wants to be sure the cost increases are justified and to make sure they do not go up any more, said Domenici spokesman Matt Letourneau...Domenici is particularly interested in the report's placement of blame for much of the increase on the terms of the Indian Education and Self Determination Act, Letourneau said. Under the act, tribes get first-refusal rightsfor construction contracts on any projects done to benefit an Indian tribe. According to the report, contracts awarded to the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes have been as much as 37 percent higher than if they had been awarded through competitive bidding...Montana likely won't ban cattle from Wyoming No cattle from a Wyoming herd infected with brucellosis have yet been traced to Montana, and livestock officials here say they do not anticipate banning the import of cows from Wyoming over the incident. "This is not the appropriate time to make that decision," said Karen Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Montana Livestock Department. A herd of 391 cattle in Sublette County, Wyoming, has been placed under quarantine after tests showed 29 of the cattle had brucellosis. Colorado officials declared a ban on Sublette County cattle last week when the outbreak was announced...US House backs 2-year delay in food-origin labels Grocers and foodmakers would not have to put country-of-origin labels on meat, fruits, vegetables and peanuts until late 2006 -- a two-year delay -- under a bill passed by the U.S. House Monday. The delay was part of a mammoth $375 billion bill that funds the Agriculture Department and several other federal departments for fiscal 2004. It was scheduled for a vote in the Senate Tuesday, where objections might postpone a vote until January...On The Edge Of Common Sense: Advice to lovelorn may come from California cowboys I got a lesson awhile back from three California cowboys who were considering a sideline occupation; advice to the lovelorn. I should note that some people's conception of a "California cowboy" as a latte drinking, Hollywood primping, designer chaps wearing, buff, puff buckaroo, does not describe these gentlemen. They had hard hands, a wary look and rolled their own. Some samples of their advice a la Dear Abby, might go like this:....