NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service OKs Logging in Tongass Federal officials are allowing a 665-acre timber harvest in a roadless area of Tongass National Forest, the first since an anti-logging rule was lifted early this year. The harvest was announced Friday by the Forest Service along with the agency's plans to approve a proposed 1,800-acre harvest next month....
Forest Service suspends Diamond Rim drilling project Consideration of the town's proposal to drill exploratory wells under the Diamond Rim in the Tonto National Forest has been suspended by Ed Armenta, head ranger for the Payson Ranger District. Armenta informed Town Manager Fred Carpenter of his decision in a letter dated June 18. At issue is whether the U.S. Forest Service has the legal right to consider the impact the project might have on the wells of nearby residents. The issue was raised by Attorney Thomas Wilmoth of Fennemore Craig Law Offices, the firm that is representing the town in its efforts to acquire a special use permit authorizing groundwater exploration in the Tonto National Forest. In a letter to Rod Byers, lands staff officer for the Payson Ranger District, Wilmoth contended that "protection of third party well owners is not within the scope of the Forest Service's authority."...
Ponderosa Ranch sold to Incline Village businessman The owners of the 570-acre Ponderosa Ranch announced they have agreed to sell the historic property to local Incline Village businessman David Duffield for what Duffield's representative Tom Clark called, "Comparable to what the agencies were offering." The property, which was put up for sale in February, has operated as a theme park since the late 1960's and was based on the television western "Bonanza."....
Watchdog group sues for names in wildfire deaths probe A Forest Service report released last January said the two were not warned of the area's potential for extreme fire danger, they were confused about the availability of helicopters and other firefighting resources and they were working under inadequate leadership. But the report removed names and other identifying information about crew members directly involved. In May, Regional Forester Jack Troyer said six faced disciplinary action. The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sued the agency Thursday in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., seeking the names....
Editorial: Outsourcing: $23 Million to Cut 16 US Jobs You might think that privatizing federal jobs is one thing the Bush administration, in its zeal for shrinking government, would get right. Think again. According to a recent report by a House appropriations subcommittee, the U.S. Forest Service spent more than $23 million in fiscal 2002 and 2003 on an outsourcing program that eliminated exactly 16 maintenance jobs. Program managers also claimed to have "saved" taxpayers a grand total of $5 million -- all of it by hiring a private company to run a computer help desk....
Barton: 'I am not an arsonist' The woman serving time in a Texas federal prison for starting the largest wildfire in Colorado history yearns for forgiveness from the fire's victims while hoping one day to return to the forests she loves. Terry Lynn Barton, 40, is serving simultaneous prison sentences of 12 years on state charges and six years on federal charges after admitting she started the Hayman Fire while working as a U.S. Forest Service employee assigned to the task of ticketing people who violated a burn ban....
PLF Credits House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo for Defending Landmark Court Ruling in Federal Fisheries Case Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) welcomes the efforts of U.S. Representative Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Committee on Resources, to safeguard PLF's landmark federal court victory in Alsea Valley Alliance v. Evans in 2001. Rep. Pombo's letter sent late yesterday to Commerce Secretary Don Evans expressed deep concern that the federal marine fisheries agency was failing to comply with court directions in managing salmon and steelhead populations throughout the Western states. In the 2001 case, Federal Judge Michael Hogan ruled that the federal government could not ignore hatchery-spawned salmon and count only naturally-spawned salmon when deciding whether to list the Oregon Coast coho salmon as threatened under the Endangered Species Act....
Nevada conservation team’s report outlines plans to protect sage grouse Nevada has an abundance of sage grouse habitat and healthy populations but a new report says a broad spectrum of public land-use restrictions might be necessary in some areas to protect the bird from demise. The long-awaited report from Gov. Kenny Guinn’s sage grouse conservation team identifies statewide goals and recommendations from local planning groups around the state to address specific threats in specific areas....
Federal Judge Rejects Process for Approval of Mining A federal district judge in West Virginia struck down on Thursday an Army Corps of Engineers procedure that gives a blanket pre-clearance to Appalachian mining operations that dynamite away mountaintops and dump some of the refuse into streams. The judge, Joseph R. Goodwin of Federal District Court in Charleston, ruled that the procedure, called a nationwide permit, improperly bypasses the requirement that the impact of mining on streams be determined "before, not after" such a permit is granted. The judge added that the general permits allowed "an activity with the potential to have significant effects on the environment to be permitted without being subject to public notice or comment," in violation of the Clean Water Act....
Conservation groups will appeal Minnesota judge's Missouri River ruling Environmentalists on Friday appealed a recent federal court ruling allowing the Missouri River to operate without changes they say will save endangered fish and birds. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in Minnesota ruled in favor of the Army Corps of Engineers last month, and the agency has proceeded with its new plan to keep summer water levels high enough for barge shipping. Conservationists and the fishing and recreation industry in Montana and the Dakotas oppose that approach; they want a more seasonal spring rise and lower summer flows that would mimic how the river flowed naturally for centuries....
Chief of Park Police fired after airing in-house woes The chief of the U.S. Park Police was fired yesterday, about seven months after she was suspended for publicly complaining that the department was understaffed and under-funded. The Interior Department said Teresa Chambers was dismissed after a review of her case by Paul Hoffman, the agency's deputy assistant secretary....
Group promotes range partnerships Partnerships between permittees on national forests and blm and the two federal agencies are the goal of a new organization. The new group, called Guardians of the Range, formed in February, and Kathleen Jachowski of Cody became executive director in March. The chairman is Gregg Pruett, a Meeteetse-area rancher. The members who hold grazing permits on Forest Service and BLM allotments in Northwest Wyoming want a voice in how public lands are managed, Jachowski said. "We want to re-establish the partnerships and move beyond contentious issues," she said....
NRA and Outdoor Writers Have Falling-Out In a spat that could have implications for the presidential campaign, the National Rifle Association has angered a group of opinion makers among America's 50 million hunters and anglers. The president of the National Rifle Association warned a convention of outdoor writers last month that it should not be seduced by environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, which promise to protect hunting habitat but actually are scheming to ban guns....
FBI Worried Utah Eco-sabotage Becoming More Violent Federal officials said Friday they were worried about the escalating violence on the part of environmentalists operating in Utah, and said these groups apparently are no longer content to show their defiance by simply spray-painting initials at crime scenes. The latest event triggering alarm was an arson fire that caused minor damage Thursday at a building at Brigham Young University in Provo. The letters ALF, thought to stand for the Animal Liberation Front, were spray-painted at several sites around the arson scene. The ALF has not claimed responsibility, and did not immediately respond to an e-mail Friday from The Associated Press seeking comment....
Nevada Loses Yucca Mt. Waste Site Appeal An appeals court on Friday upheld the government's decision to single out Nevada as the site of a nuclear waste dump but ruled that the federal plan does not go far enough to protect people from potential radiation beyond 10,000 years in the future. While the court dismissed virtually all of the arguments raised by Nevada and environmentalists against the Yucca Mountain project, its rejection of the radiation standard raised new questions about whether the waste repository will be built or at least meet its target of 2010 to begin operation....
Column: Drought Becomes Opportunity Drought is a rude reminder that in any given year the interior West is but a storm or two from that hydrological tipping point where farming, ranching and the presence of cities become not merely ill-advised but -- impossible. The region is being reminded of this now in a big way: Five consecutive years of drought, six in some areas, are throwing a scare into urban water managers, driving farmers and ranchers off the land and threatening power shortages this summer as anemic river flows curtail hydroelectricity generation. But there are some to whom the drought presents opportunity....
Jet exhaust may be adding to global warming Next time you're on a plane, think of this: The plane's exhaust might be adding just enough moisture to the atmosphere to create a cloud and keep it floating. That cloud could stretch 1,000 miles long and 37 miles wide, depending on the weather and your flight distance. Add that cloud to all the other clouds produced by airplane exhaust, and it creates a blanket effect - trapping heat that's radiating from the Earth. The end result: warmer temperatures on the surface. In other words, your flight might be contributing to the greenhouse effect. A recently published study by researchers at NASA Langley in Hampton, Va., concludes that clouds from airplane exhaust, or contrails, contributed to a .5-degree per decade warming trend in the United States between 1975 and 1994...
The Big Gulp: Troubles with Lake Powell Nobody thought it could happen this fast. Lake Powell in Utah has drained so rapidly that water experts are talking about what might happen if the giant reservoir drops to its "dead pool" level, below which it can't deliver stored water downstream. If it does, and the natural flows of the Colorado River aren't enough to satisfy all water rights, states in the lower basin could exercise senior rights and call for water upstream. The water in question in some cases is already being used by towns, farmers and industry....
Editorial: Water ruling right on target A ruling by Pueblo District Judge Dennis Maes in a closely watched water-rights case strikes us as falling properly within the state's "first in use, first in right" doctrine. But unlike some observers, we don't think it will stop the sale of agricultural water rights to municipal and industrial users. Maes ruled against plans by High Plains A&M, a company that owns water rights in the Fort Lyon Canal that are designated for agricultural use. The company wanted to sell those rights to as-yet-unspecified municipal buyers, but the judge said no....
Norton, Anderson Sign Zuni Tribe's Water Rights Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary - Indian Affairs Dave Anderson signed an agreement with leaders of the Zuni Tribe of New Mexico to settle a dispute over the tribe's claim to water rights in the Little Colorado River Basin of Arizona. The agreement will reportedly not harm other water users in the area. The site holds religious significance for the tribe. The settlement provides just over $19 million to be used by the tribe for riparian and wetlands restoration activities. The money comes from a Zuni Indian Tribe Water Rights Development Fund. The U.S. Government is footing most of the bill, with the state of Arizona kicking in $1.6 million to the restoration project. The state will reportedly make additional settlement contributions. One million dollars of the funding is expected to come from the Salt River Project....
Brucellosis confirmed in cow near Jackson Hole A third incidence of brucellosis this year has turned up in Wyoming, in a 13-year-old cow near Jackson Hole. The cow was part of a 105-head herd that was tested before it was to be moved to summer pasture in Idaho. The animal was slaughtered on the rancher's property after the test result came back. The result was confirmed by the National Veterinary Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, on Thursday. No other animals in the herd tested positive, according to State Veterinarian Jim Logan. The case pushes back by at least another year when the federal government could restore Wyoming's brucellosis-free status....
Gentle Horsemanship Takes Hold Across U.S. With a well-trimmed mustache, crisp white shirt and worn leather chaps over jeans, Tim Schaack is easily pegged as a cowboy. But as he calmly leads a young horse around a paddock of the Haythorn Ranch near Arthur, in Nebraska's Panhandle, it becomes clear that the popular image of the Western horseman is due for revisions....
Stampede rodeo bull closes NY Stock Exchange In a historical first, a rodeo bull named Outlaw rang the bell that closed the New York Stock Exchange -- from the rodeo ring of the Calgary Stampede. "He's rung more than a bell or two in his time," Robin Burwash, ranch manager for the Calgary Stampede, told reporters. Only one of 58 cowboys has ever managed to stay on Outlaw for the required eight seconds. The bell was tied to Outlaw's midsection. He burst out of the chutes at 2 p.m. MDT. Steven Turner, Canada's all-round champion cowboy, had the honour of riding Outlaw, but he joined the list of those tossed off....
Buckaroo took the rough road The harsh high desert lands of Nevada have produced more than mineral wealth. Nevada has also produced a rare generation of men known as the Nevada buckaroo, an extraordinary gem indeed. It's getting harder to find the authentic breed these days as modern convenience and lifestyle are slowly making them outmoded. Ernie Fanning, who lives with his wife Kay in Fish Springs Valley, is the genuine article. A true diamond in the rough, Ernie is the perfect example of the real Nevada buckaroo....
Cowboy poets get ready for annual festival Western cowboys have all but disappeared from America's landscape. Only a handful of cow/calf operations exist today. Rising land costs, poor beef prices and ever-encroaching housing developments are largely responsible for the decline of open range cattle companies. Cowboys, however, continue to be a vital part of our western culture. Rodeos offer events like calf roping, bull riding and bucking horses. These are remnants of the Old West. But cowboy culture also exists today in music, song and poetry that remind us of life as it was decades ago. It may seem like an odd marriage between the ruff-and-ready cowboy and the sensitive, insightful mind of the poet/songwriter....