NEWS ROUNDUP

Motorcyclists stop trail crew When a crew of volunteers showed up in the Bridger Mountains Saturday to barricade a motorcycle trail, they found about 20 people on dirt bikes waiting for them. The work never got started, even though the volunteers had legal permission from the Forest Service to erect a stone barricade. "We had permission to do something very particular, and they were not going to let us do that," said Alex Phillips, a Montana Wilderness Association staffer and an organizer of the volunteers....
Forest plane missing A Forest Service-contracted plane was listed as missing Monday night in the Flathead Valley, and planning for a search this morning was under way. Aboard the Cessna 206 G was an Edwards Jet Center pilot, three U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station employees from Ogden, Utah, and one Flathead National Forest employee, according to the Forest Service....
Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study Finds A new study shows that genes from genetically engineered grass can spread much farther than previously known, a finding that raises questions about the straying of other plants altered through biotechnology and that could hurt the efforts of two companies to win approval for the first bioengineered grass. The two companies, Monsanto and Scotts, have developed a strain of creeping bentgrass for use on golf courses that is resistant to the widely used herbicide Roundup. The altered plants would allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide on their greens and fairways to kill weeds while leaving the grass unscathed. But the companies' plans have been opposed by some environmental groups as well as by the federal Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management....
Secret Deal Greases Skids For Drilling In Alaska Refuge Oil drills could soon roll into a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska if Senator Ted Stevens has his way. A “rider” Sen. Stevens has inserted into the pending FY 05 Interior Appropriations Bill would “expedite” a land exchange between the Doyon Corporation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to hand drilling rights on close to 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge over to Doyon. The appropriations rider seeks to provide funding and Congressional approval in advance for a massive land exchange with a for-profit corporation, sight unseen. No public meetings or notices have been held to inform the public about the details of the proposed plan, even though sources close to the negotiations say it will almost certainly include a pipeline through the White Mountains National Recreation Area, a favorite winter destination for residents of Fairbanks....
Ranch owners battle Billings County A family that wants to sell its historic and beautiful Badlands ranch for public use says a move by Billings County to build a road across their property is a disguised attempt to thwart that sale. The Eberts family has been trying for four years to sell about 5,000 acres to the national and state park services, saying the ranch land has a historic connection to the Theodore Roosevelt Elkhorn Ranch site just across the Little Missouri River. No deal with either the National Park Service or the state of North Dakota is final yet, and the Eberts say that Billings County's action may make any sale more difficult, if not impossible....
Browns Park land-use battle looms Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge's first goal is to provide habitat for migrating birds. But lately the refuge has been propagating studies as well. The political atmosphere has centered on arguments between county government and refuge management about multiple use at the refuge, with cattle grazing emerging as the most controversial potential use of the land. County government insists the refuge should allow grazing, but refuge management says it isn't appropriate at this time. Because of the groups' inability to cooperate, the State Land Board, which manages Colorado's state land trusts, is conducting its own study even as the refuge starts its own....
Editorial: How did BLM come to 'own' this land? The House Resources Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would transfer to Clark County 229 acres of land currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management -- free of charge -- for use as a rural heliport. (The land sits along Interstate 15, about 12 miles south of Las Vegas.) The bill now moves on to the Senate. But if the measure survives the legislative wringer it will be over the objections of Elena Daly, director of the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System, who Tuesday told a House subcommittee that the county should be made to pay $56.8 million for the land, thus ensuring "that taxpayers are fairly compensated for the removal of public land from federal ownership." But how did they come to "own" it? Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that the federal government can acquire land within the several sovereign states only "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings" -- and then only if such places are "purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the state in which the same shall be."....
Wolf pack to be killed Federal officials plan to wipe out a wolf pack after its third attack on a Paradise Valley sheep herd this summer. "We took two (wolves) Friday and we've got three left to go," said Joe Fontaine, a wolf specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena. Gunners from Wildlife Services, a separate federal agency, will hunt the remaining wolves from the Lone Bear pack as soon as the weather clears enough to allow for safe flying, Fontaine said....
Cow attacks concern park officials Jennie Barber, a veteran hiker, knew to watch out for rattlesnakes, mountain lions and ticks when she set out for a hike last month in Sunol Regional Wilderness. She never expected to be attacked by a cow, one of thousands on East Bay public lands. Barber tried to gingerly slide past a cow with a calf on a narrow trail when the cow charged and rammed her. "It threw me in the air," said Barber, 35, of Oakland. "When it prepared to charge again as I lay on the ground, I thought I was dead. I couldn't believe this was happening." She escaped with painful bruises, six stitches, a missed day of work and a new appreciation of the risk of hiking near cattle on public land....
Committee tackles new split estate proposal The working draft of new proposal on how to deal with split estate issues in coal-bed methane development will be debated today. The joint-legislative committee on split estates will have a public hearing in Casper to listen to comments on a new version of the bill, which concentrates more on damage issues and draws from Montana law that has worked successfully. Split estate refers to land in which the surface and the minerals beneath it are owned by separate entities. It remains one of the most contentious issues under discussion between landowners and coal-bed methane developers....
Future of coal mine on Hopi-Navajo reservations still in doubt Quick agreements must be reached between utility companies and tribal leaders if a major coal mine on the Navajo and Hopi reservations is to have a future, says a top Interior Department official. The mine, which accounts for a significant amount of revenue and jobs on the remote Navajo and Hopi reservations, produces coal that is crushed into powder, mixed with water and then piped 270 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev. The tribes have demanded that mining company Peabody Energy quit using the current aquifer because they fear the pumping is damaging springs that have ceremonial significance. Unless the issues are resolved, Mohave Generating Station, which provides power to millions of people in the West, will be shut down by the end of next year....
Flaming Gorge releases could change Scientists say because sediment settles out of the water behind Flaming Gorge Dam, the once warm and muddy Green River downstream now runs cold and clear green, which inhibits the recovery of four endangered native fish. So the federal Bureau of Reclamation is proposing to mimic nature's historic peak runoff flooding through specific flow releases at the dam. The aim is to stir up sediment, redistribute it and create hundreds of new sandy shores where vegetation can take root and feed fish....
Pony Bar is the beating heart of a ghost town If Pony's 100 residents are one big family, the Pony Bar is their living room. It's where ranchers gather after branding. It's where football fans watch Monday night games. It's where veterans' groups meet and hunting buddies tell stories. On Saturday nights, pickup trucks line an otherwise empty Main Street. Inside the 130-year-old building, people from three counties crowd the bar, their laughter and music breathing life into an otherwise dead town....
Sheep ranchers stick with traditions Bonnie Villard cried the first time she assisted in a sheep roundup that would send lambs to slaughter. But those moist eyes seemed a long way off Saturday as the Villard family -- consisting of four generations of sheep ranchers -- held to tradition. On the ranch, about 20 miles north of Craig, family members gathered as the sun rose to complete another task synonymous with the ranching life. With sheepdogs and flailing arms, the Villards rounded up and separated 700 5-month-old lambs to be sent to market....
It's All Trew: 1938 was bad year for Panhandle blizzards I suspect every old-timer born and raised in the Panhandle has a few stories to tell about the early day blizzards that swept the plains from time to time. Western history is chock-full of the disastrous results of such storms. The livestock industry has suffered more than most as drift fences, overgrazing and poor winter preparations plagued the ranchers since first arriving on the prairies. A nice letter from Wanda Stringer, raised in Mobeetie, recalls the April 3, 1938, blizzard that blew for three days and nights....