NEWS ROUNDUP

Melancholy Valley: A once-quiet area becomes a research park and monument Wheeler and a growing number of residents who live in the mountain's shadow say the latest earthquakes and steam bursts from St. Helens have stirred up more than a haze of ash dust. They have brought back bad memories of a scary time and reinforced the feeling that their back yard has been taken over by strangers. "The scientists have squeezed us out. The Forest Service has squeezed us out," Wheeler said. "We want it back." Access to favorite campgrounds, fishing streams, hunting grounds and picnic areas has been cut off, first by the destructive eruption and then by the rules and borderlines set in place when the mountain became a national monument....
Forest Service trying to recoup firefighting costs The US Forest Service is trying to recover about $10 million in firefighting costs from an 18-year-old man. The Peshastin man has been cited for starting the Fischer Fire. The Forest Service is required to try to recover supression costs. In this case that adds up to about two-thirds of the nearly $15 million it took to put out the more than 16,000 acre fire....
Colorado Wild sues over Wolf Creek development Colorado Wild filed a lawsuit against the Rio Grande National Forest in U.S. District Court on Friday to block the development being proposed by Texas billionaire Billy Joe "Red" McCombs and his partners. The lawsuit, filed in Denver, claims a March 11 letter from the Forest Service to Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, the company behind the proposed 2,172-unit village, violated a 1999 agreement between Colorado Wild and the Forest Service....
Prairie dog pops up in S.D. race Who hates prairie dogs the most? The answer to that Great Plains political question might swing the tight Senate race in South Dakota, determine the fate of the Senate’s top Democrat and perhaps even decide which party will control the narrowly divided Senate after next month’s election. To cover his right flank in conservative South Dakota, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has moved on several fronts this year to demonstrate his profound antipathy toward the rodent, which Easterners often describe as cute but which generations of rural South Dakotans have shot, poisoned and cussed as a no-good varmint....
National forest fees could be permanent Recreational fees required to use national forests and parks could become permanent if the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act is approved by Congress this month. The fee program began in 1996 to ease the cost of operating and maintaining federal recreation sites. Congress also stressed the fees would be used to improve quality. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service collected $175.7 million during fiscal 2002, up from $172.8 million in 2001. But while some money was redirected into local projects, data released by the four federal agencies also revealed that a substantial amount of the fees has remained unused each year. The money has been accumulating year after year, reaching $295.8 million....
Big, bad reputation for Wisconsin wolves But wolves recently killed and nearly devoured a prized bear-hunting dog owned by Rob Stalsholt of New Richmond. It was one of at least 11 expensively trained trail hounds killed this year by Wisconsin wolves. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has cautioned against "wolf hysteria," but it also has confirmed 21 cases of wolves killing farm livestock this year, up from 14 cases last year and eight in 2002. The state pays farmers for those losses, but the amount will be topped this year by compensation paid to trail dog owners, whose radio-collared hounds sortie deep into the woods in pursuit of bears....
BLM re-thinking its request for more authority After an outcry from county authorities around the state, federal land managers are re-thinking a request for more law enforcement powers on public lands, a bureau spokesperson said Thursday. A second round of public comment on a proposal to give federal rangers enforcement authority over such crimes as driving while under the influence and possession of alcohol by a minor drew 76 comments. "Many of them were negative," said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Maxine Shane. The bureau began seeking the new powers last spring....
Utahn fighting U.S. over land liability Utah land developer James Doyle once had it all: a thriving business, a fair amount of money in his pocket and dreams of developing a golf course community near St. George that would have made him a small fortune. Today, Doyle lives with a friend in Arizona as he works through the details of his Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He has been forced to sell his home, business and about everything he owns. His land — technically it's still his — is fenced off with a sign that reads Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. The future golf course, taken by the federal government without compensation, has become a preserve for the desert tortoise. Adding insult to injury, he still has to pay $112,000 a year in property taxes on the land he cannot use....
BLM plans horse roundup Bureau of Land Management wranglers will remove about 415 wild horses from public rangelands in two separate gathering operations planned for later this month in Fremont County. One of the roundups will also involve the use of birth control measures in about 20 mares, according to plans. The removal of approximately 270 wild horses from four herds north of Lander and another 145 excess wild horses from public rangelands south of Lander will bring the herds more into line with appropriate management levels, BLM officials said....
BLM requires more study for seismic project The Bureau of Land Management is requiring surveys of possible cultural sites here before it will allow a company to explore for oil and gas. The decision means a seismic survey of a 47-square mile area at the base of the Beartooth Mountains will be put off for now. Some local residents oppose the seismic survey, which entails loading 74 shot holes with 10-pound explosive charges and detonating them to get a 3-D picture of what minerals lay beneath the surface....
Editorial: Oil takes offense at enviros Whether they're feeling their oats about having cohorts in the White House, or worried that George Bush and Dick Cheney might not be there much longer, oil-and-gas executives came to town last week with chips on their shoulders. They're spoiling for a fight with environmentalists who've been trying to rein in their plans to drill the American West. They're trying to shut us down, insisted one petro-pro. Not so, say the enviros; the oil-and-gas guys are running roughshod over 95 percent of our public lands; we just want to see the other 5 percent spared....
An environmental battleground "Multiple-use" is the land-use doctrine that politicians courting Westerners have proclaimed as a mantra since the 1970s. But the last two occupants of the White House interpreted that standard in stark contrast. Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, presided over a period of land conservation initiatives that critics dubbed the "War on the West." The past four years, the administration of Republican President George Bush has re-written regulations and crafted policies that generally favor energy and mining industries, drawing not only the expected outcry from environmentalists, but also the surprisingly strong resentment of sportsmen concerned over the loss of blue-ribbon trout streams and prime hunting spots....
Bush: U.S. can drill for oil and protect the environment For much of the last four years, President Bush has sought to roll back the public lands legacy of the Clinton administration, re-opening areas for recreation, stimulating oil and gas drilling and trying to clear away bureaucratic tangles. A second term would likely see more of the same as the administration seeks to expand energy production in the Rocky Mountain West and ease the government burden on ranchers and recreationists in the Republican-leaning states....
Atlanta Gold plan raises eyebrows A Canadian mining company's plans to open a gold mine in the headwaters of the Boise River face stiff opposition from environmental groups. But if Atlanta Gold Corp. can meet federal and state environmental laws, a 19th century federal law says federal officials have no choice but to issue a permit. Company officials say they can mine the more than 500,000 ounces of gold, create more than 200 jobs for six to 10 years and protect the quality of the Boise River and fish such as the endangered bull trout....
Working to Save the West As subdivisions devour the last open spaces of the American West, cowboys and "tree huggers," once bitter antagonists, are joining forces to save endangered landscapes like McMaster's ranch from development. The improbable allies face formidable market pressures. Population in the seven Rocky Mountain states has surged 47 percent in the past two decades. Over the last five years, more than 15 million acres of rangeland has been converted from grazing to other uses, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An additional 25 million acres of ranchland in the Rocky Mountain West is at risk of being developed for housing by 2020, according to the American Farmland Trust (AFT), an advocacy group. The three- to five-acre "ranchettes" creeping out from the edges of virtually every Western city may seem like state parks to the average East Coast suburbanite. But development foes say the web of roads, lawns, power lines and shopping centers serving these new settlements has fragment-ed landscapes vital to wildlife and drained fragile waterways....
Wind power growth hampered by tax, transmission The wind-swept Great Plains could easily augment the nation's thirst for electricity by removing political and practical roadblocks to major expansion of modern wind farms, industry officials say. Electricity from wind amounts to less than 1 percent of all of the power generated in the United States. But industry leaders say wind someday could generate up to 20 percent of energy needs. But the lack of adequate lines to deliver extra electricity to power-hungry cities and uncertainty over a federal tax credit are big obstacles. The tax credit is locked in at 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years that wind farms operate, making them competitive with the cost of power plants run on natural gas. Congress recently reinstated the credit through 2005, but the federal incentive has lapsed three times since first passed in 1992. Each expiration sent wind-farm plans into a tailspin. Wind projects totaling more than $2 billion had been on hold since Dec. 31, when the tax credit last lapsed....
Land-use initiative is still up for grabs Should Utahns shell out about $14 a year over the next decade to protect their drinking water, improve air quality and conserve critical wildlife habitat and farm lands? Proponents of Initiative One, which proposes to do all of those things with a $150 million bond backed by a small sales tax increase, say it's a bargain-basement price to preserve and even enhance the state's quality of life. But opponents call it a fiscal boondoggle that would constrain lawmakers from bonding for other needed projects, and they predict that the ballot measure would usher in an era of California-style "government-by- initiative."....
GOP environmentalists just say no On the phone Jim DiPeso is a pretty upbeat guy. Considering what he does for a living, you'd think he'd be mighty lonely. Jim is the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection - which would sound about as unlikely as a "Utahns for a Democratic Majority." Based in Albuquerque, REP, with only 2,000 members, is small for an environmental organization. It was created in 1995, the same year the Republican right took over Congress, to resist the party's march backward to the environmental dark ages. Its members, who tend to be older, are keepers of the flame....
Ex-property owner says IPL took land, hearts A farmer is suing for millions of dollars he claims Indianapolis Power & Light Co. should have paid him and other former property owners when it sold thousands of acres of land in Morgan County it originally said would be used for a power plant. William R. O'Neal alleges that beginning in the 1970s, he and the others lost land that had been in their families for generations when IPL used pressure tactics to get them to sell the property. The state bought part of the land and, earlier this year, turned it into a park. The lawsuit filed recently in Morgan Superior Court stems from the $13 million sale of the forest and farmland to the state and private investors in late 2003....
Hispanics forced off land for LANL may be paid A U.S. Senate-House conference committee on Friday agreed to retain a proposed $10 million fund to compensate Hispanic homesteaders who were forced off their land in the Los Alamos area more than 60 years ago. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote language in the Senate-passed version of the defense authorization bill to create the compensation program. A conference committee that reconciled differences between the House and Senate versions agreed to keep the Pajarito Plateau homesteaders compensation fund in the bill. Hispanic homesteaders contend they were inadequately compensated for land taken for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II and which eventually became Los Alamos National Laboratory....
Budget problems threaten parkland buys in California California has stopped acquiring land for state parks for the foreseeable future because it can't afford to staff and maintain new parkland, according to a newspaper report. Facing a budget deficit next year of up to $10 billion, state public works officials quietly decided in March to stop accepting or buying new parkland, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Following outcries from environmentalists and conservationists, however, the California Public Works Board agreed Friday to add 1,000 acres of redwoods to Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But in a compromise with park supporters, the board also decided to keep the newly acquired acreage unmarked and closed to public access to save money....
Arizona's shrinking lake provides a stark warning to America's thirsty west An unexpected sight greets the holidaymaker out for a gentle cruise on the 186-mile Lake Powell in Arizona. A mile or so upriver from the Glen Canyon dam stand red and green channel markers to guide those on the water. But the signs planted in the riverbank are of little use today: thanks to a drought which is entering its sixth year, the lake's water level has dropped by 40 metres (130ft), leaving the signs on each bank stranded at the top of a cliff. Steve Ward, who works for a tourism company, steers his motorboat into a bay and points to an island across the sparkling blue water. "Normally we'd go across there to leave the bay," he says, "Right now we can't, because there's land in the way." That land, like the many newly emerged beaches dotted around the lake, would normally be under 30 metres of water....
Water district threatens ouster Schmaljohn and two neighbors near Cherry Creek off of East Iliff Avenue face condemnation by the Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District. It wants their combined six acres for an 11-acre water-storage project that the district says will result in a cheaper way to provide water to areas it serves. And despite losing the support of the Arapahoe County Planning Commission, the sanitation district can ask its board of directors for a favorable vote - and maybe tell Schmaljohn and the others to pack up. But Schmaljohn doesn't want to move. The widower's one-bedroom home is filled with more than 50 years of stories....
Montana ranchers offering paying guest bunkhouse hospitality Fellow cattle ranchers Leo and Lois Cremer warily view it as a way to salvage a lifestyle dating back to the era when their families came to the sweet-grass country in wagons. With similar skepticism, neighbors Kenny and Donna Laubach see it as a chance to put a favorable face on their culture while learning about other cultures they may never experience. The three Sweet Grass County families, along with five others scattered among the hayfields and coulees, have undertaken a unique venture they hope will sustain a fading lifestyle for themselves, their children and grandchildren. They're calling it Montana Bunkhouses, a co-op of eight vast spreads offering paying guests authentic ranching experiences....
Sentencing set for man accused in cattle fraud case A Dec. 2 sentencing has been set for a Watertown businessman convicted of grand theft in a cattle fraud case. Phillip Cyre, 52, was accused of stealing more than $1 million in a failed value-added beef venture involving Sturgis Meat Service. A Meade County jury convicted him on 16 counts of grand theft by deception for his role in the scheme in which some ranchers were not paid for cattle delivered and others did not recover their investment. He also was convicted of grand theft by deception for his part in obtaining a $300,000 loan from Lantry rancher and former legislator Dean Schrempp....
Nez Perce trail tells stories of honor, sorrow A trail, and its story, snakes through thousands of ponderosa and lodgepole pines high in the Bitterroot Mountains. While most may never get near it, there are those who can still see the Nez Perce women and children who walked it 127 years ago. Pines on this trail tell a story. Voices bleed through slabs of bark peeled from the trees. It is the story of extraordinary grit, one that led 750 Nez Perce - two thirds of them women and children - on a 1,700-mile flight through Washington, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The tribe surrendered on a snowy October day in 1877....
Ketchum relives its woolly history If you've ever wondered what "Mary Had a Little Lamb" sounds like on bagpipes, you had the chance to find out during Sunday's eighth annual Trailing of the Sheep Parade. The Boise Highlanders played that mutton-friendly tune and helped lead a band of some 1,500 sheep down the middle of Main Street in the culmination of Ketchum's three-day festival. A number of groups, each representing a different sheep-raising culture, joined local ranchers in the parade....
Feasting on sheep culture Once a bone of contention, the annual Training of the Sheep Festival has changed into a cultural feast for the Wood River Valley. Based on the practical need to drive sheep south to winter pastures, today's noon parade of sheep down Ketchum's Main Avenue is the centerpiece for a celebration in its eighth year. Crowds flocked to see dancers, musicians, wool vendors, sheep shearing demonstrations and herding demonstrations....
‘Helicopter cowboy’ tells of life above the range W.J. Tiller’s experiences, retold in his book, “The Adventures of a Helicopter Cowboy,” seem like they should be nestled between the chapters about Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan in a children’s book. But Tiller, 78, spent four years sifting through about 6,000 pictures and 20 years worth of stories from working on some of South Texas’ largest ranches to tell his story as a most unusual cowboy. Some of the most compelling recollections in Tiller’s book are from rounding up more than 10,000 head of cattle on the El Sauz Ranch in Willacy County, and of capturing a sea of red Santa Gertrudis cattle on film while on the King Ranch. With about 1,000 heifers calving, Tiller and the cowboys on horseback killed 102 coyotes that had come to feast on the newborns....
J.R. Simplot keeps potato business all in the family In August, J.R. Simplot, the 95-year-old billionaire who founded the food and fertilizer company that bears his name, buttonholed his son Scott. He wanted to talk about Scott Simplot's plan to cut the company's cattle holdings - reversing his father's decadeslong practice of maintaining large feedlots. The pair became ensnared in a drawn-out argument about strategy. Scott says he kept walking away, muttering, ''Whatever you say, Dad.'' Exasperated, the father shot back. ''Well, dang it - you're fired.'' For J.R. Simplot, the outburst was futile because he no longer owns voting stock in the company and doesn't have any real control over its operations. For his son, it was the latest episode in a long struggle to modernize a storied American company and the legacy created by his own father....
It's All Trew: Quills, nibs, ink bladders were part of daily life If you know how to trim a quill or clean a nib the president is probably sending you birthday greetings on a regular basis. A quill is an ink pen made from sharpening a feather to a fine point then dipping it into ink to write. A nib is the metal point attached to a wooden staff of an old-time writing pen. To clean a nib you hold it over the top of a lamp chimney to burn the old dried ink from the metal. Once clean, dip the nib in ink and write....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Cowboy logic says get back to hunting Now that the Atkins all-meat, all-fat diet has been acknowledged by most as effective for weight loss, the newest book is promoting its value in controlling diabetes. All this is great news for cattlemen, rib joints and the Egg Board, but the bagel and vegan crowd continue to be skeptical, mostly based on the idea that something that tastes so good must be bad for you. Most anthropologists agree that prehistoric humans' rapid advancement was affected by their ability to hunt, digest rich protein (meat), and think. It freed them from the daily grazing grind of herbivores like mastodons, koalas and gorillas who, to this day remain incapable of inventing the wheel....