NEWS ROUNDUP

Daschle pleased with timber sales Timber sales are up in the Black Hills National Forest, and Sen. Tom Daschle has urged the U.S. Forest Service to continue the trend. "On balance, going from zero in 2001 to over 65 million board feet in 2004 is extremely good news," Daschle wrote in a letter Tuesday to Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth. Daschle also told Bosworth he expects even more timber sales next year. "The Forest Service must continue to work to ensure 70 million board feet in 2005 and sufficient sale volumes to sustain the timber industry in South Dakota in the future," he wrote....Looks like every six years SD has a great senator ....
Column: Bush Bites the Biscuit In the summer of 2002, dry lightning touched off several fires in the middle of the Siskiyou Wildlands. One point of ignition was a pillow of uplifted peridotite rock that the early miners had named Biscuit Mountain for its shape. Those fellows must have had breakfast on their minds -- Sourdough camp is nearby. It was mid July and hot. The call went out for air tankers to get a jump on the situation, but none were to be had. A strong, hot wind rose up from the east. The fire blew up and local residents saw a pillar of smoke that turned into a mushroom cloud as the fire roared through the steep Siskiyou canyons. Nothing could put this fire out but Nature herself. When the rains finally arrived in October, the fire perimeter had grown to 500,000 acres....
Estimates say shared control of Bison Range may be cheaper It will be much cheaper than previously thought to begin shared tribal-federal management of the National Bison Range, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a letter released Tuesday. And the annual funding agreement between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and USFWS for bison range management could actually save the government money over five years, the agency said. The agency now says it will cost the government only an additional $23,000 for the first year of the annual funding agreement, a much lower estimated cost than the $300,000 to $500,000 made by USFWS regional director Richard Coleman at public meetings in September in Polson and Missoula....
Researchers to study decline in Yellowstone cutthroat Researchers from the University of Wyoming are trying to determine why the cutthroat trout population in Yellowstone National Park continues to decline and what steps can be taken to preserve the native fish. Cutthroat in Yellowstone Lake, which harbors about 80 percent of the remaining Yellowstone cutthroat population, have been hit hard by whirling disease, predation by nonnative lake trout and the ongoing drought, which cuts migration from streams to the lake....
Parrot falls prey to bobcat For 10 years, Shirley the parrot was the life of her back yard, fluttering from her perch squawking "love love" and "bark the dog." Now she's a pile of scattered feathers, a victim of an apparent bobcat along a street plastered with missing-pet signs. "Bobcats or coyotes will take anything they can," said Lt. Martin Wall, patrol officer for the state Department of Fish and Game in Los Angeles County....
Democrats fuming over GOP mailing In a taxpayer-financed mailing to 166,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin snowmobile owners last week, House Republicans touted their efforts with President Bush to protect access to Yellowstone National Park. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., of the House Resources Committee, authorized the expenditure of $68,081 for the full-color mailing as official business, panel spokesman Brian Kennedy said Tuesday. He said the mailing also went to 9,658 snowmobilers in Montana and Wyoming....
Editorial: Uncle Sam's expanding lands Leave it to the barons at the Bureau of Land Management to foul up some perfectly good legislation. Nevada's lawmakers had introduced a bill to reconfigure vast areas of federal land in Lincoln County. The bill offered two immediate benefits: the designation of a utility corridor to allow the construction of a groundwater pipeline from rural counties to the thirsty Las Vegas Valley, and the release of some 90,000 acres for sale to the public. Alas, the pot wasn't sweet enough for the BLM. The bill set aside only half the proceeds from land sales for the agency's use on Nevada projects. Lincoln County would have received 45 percent, and the other 5 percent would have gone into the state's interest-earning education account. A revised bill, passed by the Senate on Sunday, keeps the key components intact, but ups the BLM's revenue share to 85 percent -- Lincoln County would garner only a paltry 10 percent. What will the BLM do with much of this windfall? Why, it will buy more Nevada land deemed "environmentally sensitive" and worthy of protection from private development, of course -- forever removing it from county tax rolls....
Editorial: Big-Oil Blather Kicking Halliburton and ExxonMobil while touting alternative-fuel miracles may net some votes. But all this hot air won't bring gas prices down. With demand high and supplies tight, it strikes us as ironic that some politicians would demonize the very people who are trying to get more fuel to U.S. businesses and consumers. Rather than slam oil companies, a responsible leader at a time of high demand and high prices would be calling for more supply — that is, letting those companies do their job. Bush has done that, to the extent Congress has allowed. For that, Kerry attacks him....
Judge rejects environmentalists' bid to halt Trinity County mine A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an emergency petition from environmental groups to stop an exploratory one-acre mining pit near a popular Trinity County creek west of Weaverville. A meeting Monday between nearby residents and operators of mining company Master Petroleum Inc. proved fruitless as well. Residents and the environmental groups said they will drop their efforts to block the test pit, which is the first step in a large proposal for 23 acres of open pit mines near Canyon Creek, along the main entrance to the Trinity Alps Wilderness....
Caucus backs U.S. Mining Law reform The new Congressional Reid-Gibbons Mining Law Technical Committee, which aims to chart the future of exploration on U.S. public lands, has received critical endorsements from western lawmakers. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), and members of the House Western Caucus have all expressed their strong support for what will probably emerge as a revision of the 1872 Mining Law. What originally began as a controversial committee in mining circles is now gaining acceptance within the industry....
Gravel-mine foes pursue buyout, despite price tag While waiting for a key legal decision, opponents of a proposed gravel-barging operation on Maury Island still hope to resolve the battle with a buyout of the 235-acre mining site. The King County and federal governments have pooled $8 million for a possible deal, and the Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved legislation from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would add an additional $2 million. The pending appropriation, which has not been passed by the full Senate, would double the $2 million approved by Congress last year....
Eco-terrorism Scare The FBI is trying to determine if a radical environmental activist group is responsible for a massive disruption on the Schuylkill Expressway. The problems started yesterday when a suspicious device was found along the Belmont Avenue off-ramp. During Monday's rush hour, authorities cut off all traffic between Belmont and the Blue Route because a suspicious metal box was found attached to a PECO high tension line. The FBI is still trying to determine whether the box, with the letters ELF on it, was left by a radical environmental group called the Earth Liberation Front....
Environment worsened under Bush in many key areas, data show Over the past 30 years, the nation's air and water have become dramatically cleaner, but the steady improvement has stalled or gone into reverse in several areas since Bush took office, according to government statistics. On Bush's watch, America's environment deteriorated in many critical areas - including the quality of air in cities and the quality of water that people drink - and gained in very few. Knight Ridder compiled 14 pollution-oriented indicators from government and university statistics. Nine of the 14 indicators showed a worsening trend, two showed improvements and three others zigzagged....
Water rights holders face new fee hikes The illegal imposition of so-called "fees" on those California landowners and agencies holding water rights continues. The State Water Resources Control Board has issued an emergency regulation that includes a new schedule of fees for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which started July 1. This action follows similar rulemaking last December that set a fee schedule for the second half of the 2003-04 fiscal year, which ended June 30. The new schedule adopted for 2004-05 imposes a $100 minimum annual fee on each water-rights permit or license, plus an additional fee of 2.5 cents per acre-foot in excess of 10 acre-feet....
Mysterious animal puzzles experts Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year. "What is that?" are the first words out of anyone's mouth when shown photos of the animal, according to Stacy Womack. The animal's blue-grey skin is almost hairless and appears to be covered with mange. A closer look at the animal's jaw line reveals a serious overbite and four huge canine teeth, and a long, rat-like tail curls behind the animal's emaciated frame. The animal was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday after crawling under her mother's house in Pollok....
Japan's may extend ban on U.S. beef Japan is unlikely to resume U.S. beef imports this year because of objections from the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to a report published Wednesday. Japan's Agriculture and Health ministries have proposed exempting cattle younger than 21 months from testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - "mad cow disease" -- because, according to the ministries, young cattle rarely test positive, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. According to the report, the ministries had intended to ask Japan's Food Safety Commission to deliberate on their proposal as early as Wednesday, after receiving the endorsement of the governing Liberal Democratic Party....
Rodeo Notes For the first time in the Professional Bull Riders' 12-year history, three brothers have qualified for the association's World Finals. They are 2004 world title race leader Adriano Moraes, Allan Moraes and Andre Moraes. The brothers are natives of Brazil and live in Keller when they are competing in North America. They are among 45 qualifiers who advanced to the association's World Finals when the season concluded last weekend at a Columbus, Ohio, tour stop. The championships are scheduled Oct. 22-24 and Oct. 28-31 in Las Vegas....
Henry N. 'Tommy' Vaden, fiddler, dies at 79 Heartbreak led Henry Newton ''Tommy'' Vaden to put his fiddle away on Dec. 20, 1999. That's the day his longtime friend, boss and musical crony Hank Snow — whose sound he is credited with helping to create — died. He was 79. ''He hadn't played since Hank Snow died,'' remembered his daughter-in-law, Mary Jane Vaden yesterday. ''He never wanted to play again. His last time on the Opry was with Hank. He just didn't have the heart after he died.'' A longtime member of Snow's band, Mr. Vaden died Monday at Beverly Health Care in Springfield after a long battle with prostate cancer....
City cattle drive finds coverage If Mayor "Wild" Bill Smith gets knocked out of his saddle during Friday's downtown cattle drive, at least he won't have to pay for the splint. After two weeks of trying, organizers of the River City Roundup have finally managed to line up insurance coverage for the event. It wasn't easy. Susan O'Connor, general manager of Friends of Pro Rodeo and one of the drive organizers, said they first got in touch with the city's risk management office. "They hooked us up with one underwriter out of Toronto who said they could do it for a $13,000 premium, 24 hours of coverage," she said. "That's, what, $500 an hour?....