NEWS ROUNDUP

Split estates bill takes shape A draft bill being worked on by a legislative committee would extend minimum compensation for surface damage caused by oil and gas development beyond just crops. Sheridan County rancher Clay Rowley told the Joint Executive Legislative Committee on Split Estates on Monday that a growing number of landowners rely less on crops and more on bed-and-breakfasts and dude ranching for income. Wyoming landowners who don't hold title to the mineral rights below their properties are seeking better "property value" protection for themselves. Such situations are referred to as split estates....
Conservation project clears hurdle in Congress Funds to preserve working ranches in Humboldt County has passed a key U.S. Senate committee, but its fate may be up in the air as Congress races toward adjournment. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved $2.8 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Legacy Project, money that would help preserve 17,000 acres on five Humboldt ranches. The money is the linchpin for the Six Rivers to the Sea project organized by the North Coast Regional Land Trust and the national Trust for Public Land....
Need a trophy but don't hunt? Bid on one Call it a hunting trip for folks who cannot pull the trigger. The Colorado Division of Wildlife in coming days plans to auction dozens of deer and elk antlers and a score of mountain lion and bear hides. The remains of the once-noble animals were salvaged from roadkills, seized from poachers or taken from ranchers who had shot bears or mountains lions preying on livestock. Those who do not want to kill a wild animal will have a chance to gussy up their dens or cabins by bidding on 35 sets of deer antlers and 20 sets of elk antlers, many of them trophy-sized; 20 bear hides; three mountain lion hides; and four bobcat hides....
Lost plane discovered; passengers all dead The wreckage of a single-engine plane missing in a Montana wilderness area was found Tuesday and all five occupants aboard were found dead, Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said. Four of those on board were employees of the U.S. Forest Service. The fifth was a contract pilot working for Edwards Jet Center at the Kalispell airport....
Appeals court upholds medicine wheel ruling A federal appeals court has upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to set aside 23,000 acres to protect the view from a sacred American Indian medicine wheel. Wyoming Sawmills Inc., a logging company in Sheridan, had challenged the agency's decision to create the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn National Forest, which closed the area to logging....
Grazing Rider on Interior Appropriations Threatens Public Lands A rider attached to the FY05 Interior Appropriations Act (S 2804) seeks to completely eliminate public input and environmental review regarding livestock grazing on potentially millions of acres of public lands. The Senate rider is the latest, and one of the most egregious, in a string of tactics used by the livestock industry, and the leadership at the U.S. Forest Service, to avoid their responsibility to ensure that grazing does not preclude other vital uses of our public lands....
New federal plan could cut back bull-trout habitat A recovery plan being finalized this week would sharply reduce the amount of federally designated critical habitat for the threatened bull trout in three Western states and eliminate federal requirements for such habitat in Montana. The new plan, to be announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would designate nearly 1,750 miles of streams and 61,235 acres of lakes and reservoirs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho as critical to the bull trout's survival under the Endangered Species Act. The new figures represent about 10 percent of totals announced in November 2002, when the agency announced it planned to designate more than 18,000 miles of streams in the four states and 500,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs....
Drums and Bells Open Indian Museum To thundering drums, jubilant whoops and bell-jingling dancers, the Smithsonian on Tuesday opened the National Museum of the American Indian, dedicated to the history, culture and painful travails of native people in the Western Hemisphere. With the glistening white dome of the Capitol as a backdrop, more than 20,000 people from Alaska to Peru paraded across the Mall to witness the event. Under gauzy blue skies, they formed a brilliant river of deerskin jackets, feathered headdresses and beaded skirts, in conflict with Washington's pinstriped style. The opening capped a 17-year quest by tribal leaders and elected officials to commemorate Indian culture and history in the capital....
Agency to Designate Habitat for Dragonfly Prodded by a lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to designate critical habitat for the endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly. The federal agency reached a settlement with five environmental groups that accused the government of shirking its responsibility to protect the dragonfly, found only in a few Midwestern wetland areas....
West Nile kills four bald eagles; raptor experts concerned West Nile virus has killed four adult male bald eagles in the past month in Minnesota and Wisconsin, officials at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center said Tuesday. The eagles showed symptoms including head tremors, blindness and seizures before they died. "We won't know for some time the extent to which this disease may be affecting bald eagles, but it is definitely something to be concerned about," Patrick Redig, director of the raptor center, said in a statement....
Appeals court: Navy doesn't have to consider explosion effect on salmon The Navy doesn't have to consider the effect an accidental missile explosion at Submarine Base Bangor might have on protected salmon in Hood Canal, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday. The panel said the upgrade had been ordered by President Clinton, and presidential orders are not subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act....
Environmental group files lawsuit to protect chubs The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its alleged failure to protect the roundtail and headwater chubs. The Tucson-based group filed the lawsuit Monday because the federal agency missed a one-year deadline to respond to a petition the center had filed to protect the fish under the Endangered Species Act. The fish are minnows found in small streams in the upper Gila River watershed of New Mexico and Arizona....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy Green philanthropy in the United States is in trouble. And not for just the obvious reasons of the downturn in the stock markets. Environmental giving from private foundations misses the boat when it comes to systematically addressing the major problems we face in providing a catalyst to significant environmental restoration, protection, and generation of an environmentally friendly and sustainable human impact upon the earth. Have we noticed that we have been losing most of the political and ecological battles over the last ten years while we continue to approach grantmaking in the mode of 10, 20 and 30 years ago?....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy, Part 2 By all means, evaluate strategic action plans, past results and visions for the future. Then, if you like, the vision and plans, give unrestricted grants, fund infrastructure, and in effect say, "go forth and multiply your good works". Trust the people and systems the groups have put in place and give them the flexibility to act in the face of rapidly changing conditions. Most environmental foundations act exactly in opposition to this idea....
Plan for refuge would turn farmland back to marshes and mudflats Farmland that was drained and diked more than 100 years ago would turn back into salt marshes and mudflats for migrating salmon under a 15-year plan for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. A $30 million plan the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is soon expected to approve calls for taking down most of a system of dikes that separates the refuge from the salty waters of Puget Sound, reviving nearly 700 acres of what used to be an estuary. Besides tearing down dikes, the 15-year plan envisions doubling the size of the refuge and extending its boundary south of Interstate 5 to include agricultural lands....
National Park Service Retirees Outline Key Reforms More than 320 former non-political career National Park Service employees with well over 10,000 years of cumulative park management experience today unveiled an extensive "call for action" blueprint to overhaul the management of America's national parks over the next 12 years leading up to the National Park Service's 100th anniversary in 2016. Among the key steps outlined in the ambitious plan are an immediate $600 million annual infusion of additional funds to get national parks back on track and the creation of the "National Parks Restoration and Conservation Corps" (NPRCC), a large public works project patterned on the Great Depression's Civilian Conservation Corps. The NPRCC would focus on erasing the national park's chronic maintenance backlog crisis now estimated at over $6 billion....
Hot foam an alternative to herbicides for noxious weeds The Bureau of Land Management is testing a new way of killing noxious weeds: zapping them with hot foam as an alternative to herbicides. The BLM’s Eugene district is in the second year of a three-year lease of the weed-killing system, called Waipuna. Developed in 1993, it’s used worldwide to kill unwanted vegetation and to remove chewing gum and graffiti and clean monuments....See a better article here....
BLM finishing review of leasing Martin's Cove to church A final decision could come next month on leasing historic Martin's Cove to the Mormon church, federal land managers said. In 1856, a company of Mormon pioneers, mostly poor European converts pulling handcarts, were trapped by an early winter storm as they neared the end of their 1,300-mile trek to Utah. They sought shelter in the cove, where many died. Rescuers, sent from Salt Lake City, wrapped the dead in blankets and buried them under piles of rock. As many as 150 are believed to have either starved or frozen to death in the blizzard....
House committee debates bill to give land to Pechanga tribe The House committee that sets environmental policy appears poised to add 990 acres to the Riverside County reservation of California's wealthy Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians. Tribal chairman Mark Macarro and federal officials said at a House Resources Committee hearing Tuesday that the Bureau of Land Management property has no commercial value or development potential, and the tribe is better equipped to maintain it than the federal government....
Bill would allow use of pack animals Seeking to head off environmental groups that want to limit access to federal lands, House lawmakers won approval Tuesday of legislation to assure that people can continue to use pack and saddle animals in their visits to parks and wilderness areas. With passage of the bill, said Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., of the House Resources Committee, the House is "preserving one of the most fundamental and truly historic ways to experience our public lands." The legislation, passed by voice, assures that pack and saddle animals will have access to lands where a historic tradition allows such use....
Plan to save water in Idaho aquifer goes to lawmakers State leaders unveiled the outline of a water deal Monday they hope can avert a legal crisis that would dry up hundreds of acres of farms and businesses involuntarily and cost Idaho's economy up to $900 million. The deal would cost $80 to $100 million over 30 years and pay willing farmers and business owners to give up their water rights....