NEWS ROUNDUP


Seeking Harmony in a Final Return to the Land BABS McDONALD of Athens, Ga., says that when death takes her, there will be no reason for her family to spring for an expensive coffin and elaborate headstone. "What do I need it for at that point?" said Ms. McDonald, 50, an environmental educator for the Forest Service. "I don't even want a cardboard box. I want my body to give back to the earth. It is supposed to decompose and nourish the earth, become food for all the microorganisms." Ms. McDonald is among a small but growing number of people who want environmentally friendly or "green" burials. The goals, they say, are to conserve land and to cut down on what they see as unnecessary pollution from the hundreds of thousands of gallons of embalming fluid and thousands of tons of metal that are deposited into the ground each year. While the Environmental Protection Agency says that the formaldehyde and human wastes from a buried, embalmed body can potentially cause disease in humans or harm aquatic life, no studies have found conclusively that embalmed bodies are a risk to water supplies and soil. Still, some advocates of green burials say there is cause for concern...To the Cougar, Are People Now Fair Game?A cougar's attack Thursday on a pair of Orange County mountain bikers — killing one and seriously injuring another — comes as a controversial theory has emerged that mountain lions are learning to see people as prey. Wilderness areas that were once the preserves of hunters are being invaded increasingly by nature lovers riding bikes or carrying walking sticks — not guns. Suffering no harm from the nature lovers, some scientists say, has taught the mountain lion that humans are not to be feared, but hunted. "We're giving them a lot more opportunities to learn human beings are prey," said Lee Fitzhugh, a mountain lion researcher and UC Davis professor who has long predicted increased attacks on humans...Hopland tribal officer kills mountain lion On the very night state residents learned of a gruesome mountain lion incident that left one man dead and a woman seriously injured in Southern California's Orange County, a mountain lion was shot and killed by tribal police on the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians Reservation. The lion, a 75-pound "sub adult," was reported by residents there to be menacing an area of houses where a number of people, including many small children, live. "The cat would pace back and forth and then crouch and stare intently at the people," Boesel continued. "He did that repeatedly, so the officer went to the truck to get his rifle, and when he came back the cat was still there and would not go away."...Montana to join fight against sled ban Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath has told Gov. Judy Martz his office will get involved in helping the state challenge a snowmobile ban in Yellowstone National Park. But McGrath said his agency does not have the staff to handle one of the cases -- an appeal of a federal judge's decision last month requiring a gradual phase-out of the sleds in the park. He said he will help the governor's office prepare its arguments in that case. And he told Martz that his office will have to arrange hiring of a Wyoming attorney to speak for Montana in a separate but similar federal case filed in that state...The Empire Ranch and the Vail family There is work going on at the Empire Ranch, work to save the historic ranch house that once served as headquarters of a cattle empire that spread from Tucson to Temecula. A nonprofit group working with the Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land, has been raising money to preserve the ranch house, bunk houses and barns as they were 125 years ago...Environmental-law reform plans greeted with distrust at forum A climate of distrust surrounds the nation's overarching environmental law, participants said Thursday in a federal forum here addressing a controversial proposal by the Bush administration to "streamline" the regulations. In the fourth and last of a series of regional forums around the country, a group of some of the nation's leading experts in environmental policy gathered here to grapple with a federal task force's recommended changes to the hallmark 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Supporters of the effort by the White House Council on Environmental Quality to streamline the regulations say the "common- sense" reforms will speed up environmental reviews under a law that has been used to stymie necessary projects such as airport expansions, highway construction and logging for wildfire prevention...White House seeks control on health, safety Under a new proposal, the White House would decide what and when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis. The White House Office Management and Budget is trying to gain final control over release of emergency declarations from the federal agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment. The OMB also wants to manage scientific and technical evaluations - known as peer reviews - of all major government rules, plans, proposed regulations and pronouncements. Currently, each federal agency controls its emergency notifications and peer review of its projects...Crucial court showdown set on national nuclear dump The federal government says entombing the nation's nuclear waste beneath an ancient volcanic ridge in the Nevada desert will be safe. Nevada says it's a disaster in the making, and the state shouldn't have to bear the burden of being the nation's nuclear waste dump. So far, the Energy Department has won presidential and congressional approval for the Yucca Mountain project, which it wants to open in 2010 at cost of at least $58 billion _ about the same as the International Space Station. On Wednesday, lawyers will squeeze more than two decades of debate and six lawsuits into three hours of oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C...Fears of Deadly Winter Grow for Yellowstone's Bison Herd With Yellowstone National Park's bison population at its highest in years, some environmentalists fear that many of the animals will wander into Montana this winter and be killed in the name of controlling disease. Fueling their concerns is a recent spell of harsh weather — hard winters often result in more bison leaving the park in search of food — and fears that officials will take a hard line against bison after a Wyoming cattle herd was found infected with brucellosis, a disease also present in the Yellowstone bison herd...Discovery of Pesticide-Resistant Mosquitoes Raises Disease Fears Infectious disease experts are expressing concern over the discovery of pesticide-resistant mosquitoes in Marin County. The Culex mosquitos are the species capable of spreading West Nile virus, which has recently gained a foothold in California. The so-called "super mosquitoes" were found by U.C. Davis researchers under a Marin County apartment. The insects had developed a tolerance to pyrethroids, a common agricultural pesticide. It's considered likely that the pesticide-resistant strain of the insects will gradually spread throughout the state. Mosquitos with a resistance to the chemical have been found in Africa and Asia, but experts say this is the first instance in North America...California was easy pickin' to a fortune Few Americans are likely to have heard of the Boswell clan or their current patriarch, J.S. Boswell, an eccentric and secretive 80-year-old who can be thought of as the Sam Walton of U.S. food and fiber. The Boswells had been cotton growers in Georgia when a boll weevil outbreak in the 1920s drove them West. There they lit in a dust-blown, mosquito-mizzled valley north of Los Angeles and proceeded to jack it up and create the biggest agricultural money-machine on Earth. The remarkable story of the Boswell family and their Central Valley is the subject of "The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire" by Los Angeles Times writers Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman...In the fellowship of the ring It started with a dozen cowboys and a thousand dollars apiece in Scottsdale, Ariz. For Auburn resident Aaron Semas, it ended with him being honored by the organization he helped found. In 1992, Semas and several other riders formed the PBR while at a rodeo. Since its first championship in 1994 the sport has blossomed into one the fastest growing in the country, with television contracts, large arenas for events, and riders making upwards of $2 million in purses. "I was one of the original founders of the PBR. I still sit on the board of directors," Semas said. "Just to see where the PBR started and where it’s at now and has a chance to go, it’s pretty exciting. And to be honored in the highest degree of being honored that PBR has, it’s a pretty exciting honor for sure."...Special needs kids rope and ride at rodeo More than 20 children spent Saturday riding, roping and enjoying a rodeo of their own at the SandHills fourth annual Special Needs Kids Rodeo at the Ector County Coliseum. “We felt there was a need, and this was a way we could help children who didn’t usually get to be up close with the animals,” said Jay Doss, chair of the Special Kids Rodeo, adding the special rodeo is a branch of Christian Youth Night. “We do this as a part of that ministry.” The children got to take their turns riding a horse — with adults along side for safety. They also got a chance to sling a rope at a wooden calf under the direction of real cowboys. “It’s hard, but it’s fun,” DaQuann Allen, a 15-year-old Midland Lee student, said about the roping. But roping wasn’t what kept DaQuann interested. “I like riding the horses,” he said. So did a lot of other children. The line to ride one of the seven horses available stayed pretty long...