NEWS ROUNDUP

Kerry proposes $100M for new Forest Corps --Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry proposes cutting $100 million in annual government subsidies to the timber industry to pay for a new Forest Restoration Corps that would invest in the long-term health of national forests, his campaign said Tuesday. Shifting spending from commercial logging operations on federal lands would create jobs while restoring forests, streams and rangelands that have been mismanaged or severely damaged by wildfires, campaign aides said. The program -- reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt established during the Great Depression -- is one of the highlights in a three-page plan unveiled Tuesday near the site of a wildfire that burned 1,200 acres on the western edge of Reno two weeks ago. A Kerry administration would pledge to budget annually to cover all federal firefighting costs, make necessary additions to aerial firefighting fleets, and focus reduction of fuels in overstocked forests on those areas posing the most immediate threats to communities, according to the plan....
Editorial: Chain saws trump sound forest policy Grab the chain saws, rev up the bulldozers, open the federal Treasury to subsidize construction of more logging roads. The Bush administration has made its decision on continuing former President Clinton's protection of millions of acres of roadless areas in national forests. It prefers not to. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman tried to disguise her profligate giveaway of environmental protection, wildlife habitat and federal authority as promoting greater cooperation. Fine idea, but there's reason to worry about her definition of cooperation....
Editorial: Roads to Forest Ruination There's a difference between modifying an environmental protection and ripping its insides out, but the Bush administration hasn't picked up on the distinction. For years, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman has talked about tweaking a Clinton-era mandate that banned road-building in nearly 60 million of the most untouched acres of national forest. She wanted just enough flexibility to protect public safety and wildlife habitats, she said. With the roadless rule placed in the hands of Undersecretary Mark E. Rey, a former timber lobbyist, no one expected a forest-friendly proposal to emerge. A year ago, Rey talked about letting governors appeal to open certain forest areas to roads. "We are trying to make available relief in limited circumstances," Rey said at the time....
Police arrest forest fireman A member of the Stanislaus National Forest's elite firefighting team — the Stanislaus Hotshots — faces a felony charge of failing to register as a sex offender and a misdemeanor charge of public drunkenness. Jimmy John Quesada, 30, was hired in February as an apprentice firefighter and is currently working on the Sonora-based Hotshots crew, said forest spokesman Jerry Snyder. On Saturday Quesada was arrested in downtown Sonora on the intoxication charge. During the arrest and booking process at the Tuolumne County Jail, officers discovered he had been previously convicted in Riverside County in 1992 on one count of second-degree robbery and four counts of unlawful sexual activity....
Clash intensifies over access to forest lands For decades, politicians, environmentalists, and commercial interests have wrangled over what to do with the millions of acres of national forest land that remains pristine. Leave it that way? Bulldoze in roads to provide access for loggers, miners, and energy developers? This week, the Bush administration signaled its intent to allow more roads to be built for resource extraction and other commercial development in national forest roadless areas. The decision overturns a Clinton-era rule preventing road-building on such federally managed land. The process of managing roadless parts of national forests began during the Carter administration with a complex inventory of such lands. While 39 states have some roadless national forest areas, 97 percent of the total - 57 million acres - is concentrated in 12 western states....
Tree-cutting leads to investigation The U.S. Forest Service has launched an investigation into the illegal use of chainsaws in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area during removal of hazardous roadside trees following the Biscuit fire. Between 10 and 20 trees were cut with chainsaws along Bald Mountain Road where it borders the wilderness in the Siskiyou National Forest, according to Judy McHugh, spokeswoman for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. The problem is that it’s illegal to use motorized equipment in a wilderness area, she said....
Five forests may close trails to off-roaders Impending restrictions on off-road motor vehicles on public lands around the Valley reflect the mounting environmental effect of Arizona’s urban growth on its open spaces. The U.S. Forest Service last week announced a proposal to limit off-road motorized vehicle use in national forests in response to increasing ecological damage with rapidly rising numbers of off-roaders. Public land managers in Arizona and the Valley, where the problem is particularly severe, are ahead of the national effort. Next month, a final environmental study is to be released for a plan to close numerous trails to off-road motor vehicles on five national forests in Arizona....
Defense appropriations bill becoming magnet for emergency spending House and Senate negotiators on the fiscal 2005 Defense appropriations conference report are mulling the possibility of including $500 million in emergency wildfire suppression funds for the current fiscal year, congressional aides said Monday. While no final decision has been made, a move to speed delivery of emergency fiscal 2004 firefighting funds reflects the urgency of the problem facing the Forest Service, which might have to borrow as much as $250 million to avoid dipping into other accounts before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, according to initial estimates provided to congressional staff....
Ranch's Condor Proposal Faulted Environmental groups and local residents Tuesday criticized a tentative plan by the Tejon Ranch Co. and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that protects ranch developers if they accidentally harm or kill endangered California condors, but also takes steps to protect the huge birds. The ranch company is seeking a federal "incidental take" permit that would shield it from liability if it unintentionally harmed North America's largest bird during ranch activities or while building three large projects planned on the 270,000-acre property north of Los Angeles....
Ranchers, Rounds discuss concerns over prairie dogs "We understand the severity of the problem," Rounds said, addressing the handful of Canata Basin ranchers at a question and answer session in the Wall Community Center. Lewis and Clark did South Dakota a disservice when they named the rodent the prairie dog instead of the prairie rat, Rounds said. Rounds said that South Dakota's prairie dog management plan, which would establish a half-mile buffer zone between federal and private land, is not perfect. "We know that a half-mile is not enough," he said, "but it's what we thought the federal government would accept."....
One voice to fit all tribes at species act hearing Four American Indian tribes involved in the dispute over water in the Klamath Basin will be represented by one voice at a U.S. congressional field hearing Saturday in Klamath Falls. Troy Fletcher, executive director of the Yurok Tribes, will speak on the behalf of his tribe and the Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath tribes at the hearing, which is focused on the Endangered Species Act and the Klamath Reclamation Project. The meeting is being organized by members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee....
Carnivore Species Are Predicted To Be At Increased Extinction Risk From Human Population Growth Research published online today reveals that many of the world's carnivores are at greater risk of extinction than previously thought. Close to a quarter of the world's mammals are already at high risk of extinction. Any chance of reversing this trend depends on understanding what makes some species vulnerable and others resilient. And that depends on being able to predict extinction risk. Now, a new model based on a phylogenetic analysis of the mammalian order Carnivora, described online in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, could help focus conservation efforts by predicting which species face greatest risk....
Bird Watchers and Researchers Have A New Online Database for North American Bird Species If you are a bird fanatic, you will be interested in a new site dedicated to over 2000 North American bird species. (NABS) The new site (Http://North-American-Bird-Species.org) focuses on news, endangered species, species-specific information, and literally anything that can be found on the web about all bird species in North America....
Mexican gray wolf killed by feds The US Fish and Wildlife Service says a Mexican gray wolf has been killed and removed from the wild. Trappers had been trying to capture the wolf since March but the rough terrain and the wolf’s erratic movements made it too difficult. The agency in June authorized the lethal take because the wolf had been preying on cattle....
Drought forces horse relocation The Bureau of Land Management hopes by today to relocate 50 to 60 wild horses that are in distress and in danger of dying of thirst near Eureka. Drought conditions have lowered the Coils Creek Slough about 12 miles west of Eureka near to a “mud hole” that no longer provides drinking water for the horses, said John Winnepenninkx of the BLM’s Battle Mountain office....
NRA Takes On the Sierra Club The NRA is pulling no punches when it comes to outdoor groups like the Sierra Club. But the spat between the NRA and these groups has the Outdoor Writers Association of America angry. The writers group's newfound disdain for NRA comes following a speech last month by Kayne B. Robinson, president of the 4-million-strong NRA, at the association's annual meeting in Spokane, Wash. There, Kayne criticized the liberal environmental group Sierra Club for its alleged motives regarding a new campaign to protect wildlife habitat....
The Bobby Lobby Lately Kennedy ranks with Michael Moore, Al Gore, and Al Franken as one of the most vociferous and effective critics of the Bush administration. But unlike many other detractors, Kennedy concentrates his reproach on environmental rollbacks -- an issue that usually registers as barely more than a tremor on the Richter scale of election-year concerns. For the past six months, Kennedy has been storming the lecture circuit and helping to fill the coffers of the John Kerry campaign. This August, he will release Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy, a book that will be, if all goes well, the green community's Fahrenheit 9/11....
Fake letter prompts investigation A fraudulent letter to the editor of The Montana Standard has set off an investigation by the Forest Service law enforcement. "We would like to stop whoever is doing this," said Jack de Golia, the public affairs officer for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The letter was printed under a false name in Monday's newspaper and concerned farmers and ranchers in the Beaverhead County area allegedly draining water reserves. The writer fraudulently identified himself as Tom Osen, the Dillon district ranger....
Appeals Court OKs Trinity River Increase A federal appeals court Tuesday approved a congressional plan to increase flows into the Trinity River to restore fish habitat, reducing water to California farmers and hydroelectric plants. Most of the water in the Trinity, which originates in northern California's Trinity Alps and flows west into the Klamath River, has been diverted for decades to serve a fast-growing population in a state where much of the water is located far from where people live and farm....
Congressional delegation joins in protesting fed water ruling Colorado's Republican Congressional delegation, at the urging of Sen. Wayne Allard, has sent letters asking the federal government to appeal a Colorado federal court decision on the amount of water in the Poudre River needed to maintain fish habitat. The decision revolves around a lawsuit filed in 1994 by Trout Unlimited and others against the U.S. Forest Service, the cities of Greeley and Fort Collins, and the Water Supply and Storage Co., an irrigation company that provides water for more than 50,000 acres in Larimer and Weld counties. The decision means the cities and irrigation company must release water from Long Draw throughout the year to protect fish habitat in the Poudre....
New Sierra artifacts may shine new light on Donner Party Newly discovered bone fragments and wagon train artifacts may help separate truth from myth in the Donner Party's 157-year-old tale of starvation, cannibalism and redemption, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Forest Service officials scheduled a news conference near Truckee Wednesday to discuss the latest findings of archaeologists digging and sifting soil this week at Alder Creek Camp on national forest land about 30 miles west of Reno. They are investigating what is believed to be the camps of the George and Jacob Donner families that were trapped in the Sierra during the terrible winter of 1846-47....
Utahn is expert at cooking with cast iron and coals Only her nose knows when dinner is ready. Colleen Sloan of Sandy may be the only woman in Utah to make her living with a cast-iron pot. That refined sense of smell — and a brain packed with every conceivable cooking tip — has kept Colleen Sloan spreading the Dutch oven gospel of good grub for the past 40 years. The legend of backcountry Dutch oven cooking in this country dates to 1707, she says, when a Brit named Abraham Darby brought his cast-iron pots across the Atlantic and began selling them to settlers in the New World. Impressed by their durability and versatility, backcountry cooks would talk them up, telling how a "Dutch" man would show up occasionally to sell his ovens. Thus the moniker "Dutch oven." And much like word of Darby's pots spread from friend to friend, tales of Sloan's expertise with food and a few briquets has spread nationwide, to the point that she has been commissioned this summer by organizers of the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration to demonstrate how the legendary expedition turned big game into bite-sized fare....
Sundance Kid's girlfriend remains a mystery woman Who was Etta Place, the Sundance Kid's girlfriend? Historians aren't sure. In early 1901, Butch, Sundance and Etta Place met in New York, where she and Sundance posed for the only known photograph of her. The three sailed for South America, where they are known to have spent about five years as respectable ranchers in Argentina....