NEWS ROUNDUP

Survivors' footprints in snow disappeared The footprints in the snow could have been a clue - if they hadn't disappeared. Jodee Hogg, 23, of Billings, and Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo., left the prints behind Tuesday morning after spending a cold and bitter night near the burned wreckage of the Cessna that crashed the day before in the rugged hills of northwestern Montana Monday afternoon. When the two U.S. Forest Service workers limped away from the wreckage Tuesday, both burned and injured and cold, there were apparently footprints in the snow around the mangled plane, according to Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont....
Woman recounts struggle to survive Jodee Hogg was staring idly out the airplane window, relaxed, enjoying the mountain view, when suddenly the ground seemed much, much too close. "She was sitting behind the pilot," said Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont. "Everything was fine. And then all of a sudden, there it is - the side of a mountain." Hogg, 23, was one of two to survive the wilderness plane crash Monday, walking out of the mountains injured, cold, exhausted and very grateful two days later. Alongside the Billings woman was 29-year-old Matthew Ramige of Jackson Hole, Wyo., badly burned, his back broken, but still on his feet....
Survivors had ‘seconds’ to escape The survivors of the plane crash that killed three people Monday probably had only seconds to escape the wreckage before it was consumed by fire. That's a preliminary assessment by Georgia Struhsaker, a senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. She arrived in Kalispell on Wednesday. She examined the wreckage on Mount Liebig, where officials on Tuesday had pronounced the crash "unsurvivable," even as two passengers were moving through the woods trying to save themselves....
Local reaction to handling of crash mostly negative At coffee shops, in health clubs and on the street, people were talking about the plane crash and the improbable tale of tragedy and survival. "I think it's a little surprising they didn't check who should be on the plane," Anderson said of rescuers who called off Tuesday's search after finding the devastated wreckage. "They used weather for an excuse," Patti McIlhargey said. "It sure doesn't give me much hope if I'm up there. "It was only a rain storm. A little Montana rain storm." According to Anderson, "They didn't assume anybody could live through that. I think it's inexcusable."....
Environmentalists denounce feds' plan for the bull trout Oregon environmental groups say the federal government's final plan for protecting bull trout habitat in Northwestern states, which cuts original proposals by 90 percent, imperils the fish's future in the Deschutes River basin. The bull trout, an aggressive and migratory member of the salmon family, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. The fish need cold, clean water and silt-free stream beds to survive....
Groups sue over wolf program A coalition of more than two dozen Wyoming agricultural, sportsmen, predator control and county government groups has followed through on its intention to sue over the federal gray wolf recovery program. The Wolf Coalition is seeking judicial and monetary relief in federal court for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act because of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rejection of the Wyoming wolf management plan....
New rules on pesticides challenged Environmental groups went to court yesterday against Bush administration rules that allow the use of new pesticides with fewer checks on how they affect endangered species. Eight groups filed suit in federal district court in Seattle claiming the rule changes in July violated several environmental laws. The changes let the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review some pesticides without consulting Interior and Commerce department experts....
New UN Talks Bid to Save Fish, Plants and Timber Long a forum for protecting endangered species like whales or tigers, a U.N. meeting in Bangkok next month will seek a wider role in regulating the billion-dollar trade in timber, fish and medicinal plants. Obscure but commercially valuable species like the humphead wrasse fish, the Chinese yew tree or the hoodia cactus are likely to steal some of the limelight at the October 2-14 meeting from elephants, bald eagles and great white sharks....
The $50 million faucet: Cougar Dam's temperature control tower expected to benefit salmon The big tower is, in effect, a giant faucet that will allow the Corps to correct water temperatures thrown out of balance when it built the dam. It's an elaborate and expensive attempt to fix a temperature imbalance that helped push native spring chinook salmon to an endangered species listing. Water temperatures have been all wrong on the South McKenzie - and on a sizeable stretch of the mainstem McKenzie - since 1963, the year Cougar Dam was completed and ice-cold water began flowing through turbines at its base....
Park's pepper-spraying report done; still secret The National Park Service’s Internal Affairs Division is "reviewing" its investigator’s report on the July 28 pepper-spraying of two Inverness Park teenagers. It should release its findings within 10 days, the Park Service told The Light Wednesday. Agent Paul Crawford, based at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, was assigned to investigate the actions of Point Reyes National Seashore rangers Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio who pepper-sprayed Jessica Miller, 17, and Chris Miller, 18, repeatedly even after both were restrained on the ground and Jessica was handcuffed. At least that is what the victims and witnesses have said publicly. Both siblings were released without charge. Victims and witnesses have called the incident, off park property in Point Reyes Station, a case of unprovoked brutality....
Grandmother Being Forced Out Of National Park A grandmother who is one of the few people who can legitimately call Rocky Mountain National Park her home is being forced out. Betty Dick's husband bought the wild land in the 1960s, before the park expanded. But a feud between her dead husband and his first wife is forcing Dick out, and she's not ready to go. "I'm just kind of in a little corner here where the mountains wind around," said Dick, who is 82....
House panel passes Lincoln County land bill A House panel on Wednesday approved sweeping legislation reconfiguring federal land in Lincoln County and allowing a pipeline to deliver water from the rural county to Las Vegas. The bill was pushed forward by voice vote after lawmakers on the House Resources Committee made several changes that Nevada sponsors said they could accept in the interest of getting it passed through Congress this year....
Bush, Kerry court sportsmen in hopes of reeling in votes There they are, on the cover of the newsstand edition of Field & Stream: George W. Bush and John Kerry, wearing blaze orange, wielding shotguns. "This much we know: The next president of the United States will be a sportsman," the magazine declares in its new election issue. "Beyond that, of course, it gets complicated." The pursuit of voters who hunt and fish is one of the inner battles in this campaign. It's a testament to the clout of the country's nearly 40 million sportsmen, especially in such battlegrounds as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia....
Schwarzenegger approves conservancy, signs 20 other enviro bills Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose a woodsy mountain setting Thursday to sign legislation establishing a 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, while also signing nearly 20 other bills to protect the Pacific Ocean, curb smog and clean up blighted urban land. With numerous strokes of the pen, Schwarzenegger opened 1,100 miles of car pool lanes to hybrid cars, established the nation's first Cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council in state government and barred cruise ships from burning garbage and dumping sewage inside state waters. He also banned commercial fishing fleets from bottom trawling along designated parts of the California coast and required 100-foot firebreaks around homes in mountain wildfire zones....
EPA's chief under Nixon rips Bush on environment Russell Train is so disappointed in President Bush's environmental record that the staunch Republican, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's second leader 30 years ago, is casting his vote in November for Democrat John Kerry. Train, 84, EPA administrator under Presidents Nixon and Ford from 1973 to 77, was in Madison Tuesday in support of Environment2004, an organization trying to end what it calls the anti-environmental agenda of the Bush administration....
Outfitters can float down Snake River through Monday River outfitters in Grand Teton National Park will have five more days of floating the Snake River this season after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation agreed to hold off reducing river flows. The bureau said it will keep releases from Jackson Lake Dam steady at 2,500 cubic feet per second until Monday afternoon, at which time it will begin the process of cutting back the flow to store water for next summer....
Town fights to keep its post office in business Local residents are planning to fight like the dickens for the last business in Dickens, Neb. That business is a part-time post office operated on a contract basis for the past 12 years by Roni Melton, a local rancher's wife. The post office serves as the last gathering place in the unincorporated town of 23 people, about 30 miles southwest of North Platte. It's the only place in Dickens to post a sale bill or grab a cup of coffee from a pot set out by Melton....
Column: End of an era As I sat and listened to the bedridden old cowboy talk about the adventures he had lived, I detected a sorrow in his eyes that I did not fully understand. But some 60 years later I am beginning to understand, for the sadness is coming into my eyes as well. B.E. “Cyclone” Denton had seen the West, as he knew it, settled and fenced. He had seen the buffalo slaughtered for hide and tongue. In their place Longhorn cattle were raised to feed a hungry nation. As the country settled these were replaced by the more efficient English breeds of cattle like the Hereford and Angus. It didn’t change suddenly, but civilization was steadily creeping west as a nation hungered for more land to farm and raise beef....