NEWS ROUNDUP

Enviros seek to intervene in wolf lawsuit Environmentalists on Monday asked to become involved in a lawsuit contesting the federal government's rejection of Wyoming's plan for managing wolves. Lack of an acceptable Wyoming management plan has held up removal of the wolves from federal protection so Idaho and Montana, as well as Wyoming, can begin managing the animals themselves. The lawsuit was filed in September by more than two dozen groups critical of federal wolf protection, and it is similar to the state suit filed in April that contested the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rejection of the Wyoming plan to manage wolves once they are no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act....
Lawsuit challenges road plan as bad for bears A lawsuit by two environmental groups charges U.S. Forest Service road plans will do little to help grizzly bears regain numbers in the Cabinet/Yaak and Selkirk areas of Montana and Idaho. The Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contend the road plans recently adopted will foster secure habitat for grizzlies. The suit charges the new road management strategy for the Kootenai, Lolo and Idaho Panhandle national forests does not go far enough in closing or reclaiming forest roads to protect bears....
Scorched-earth Policy Continues in Northern California Six years and $600,000 worth of environmental assessments were not enough for three environmental organizations that brought lawsuits and appeals against the Beaver Creek Project on the Scott River District. Apparently, the environmental assessments, which measure several feet thick, were also not enough for U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. who ultimately blocked the timber-thinning project. Klamath Forest Alliance, led by Felice Pace, the Environmental Protection Information Center, called EPIC, and Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands sued the Forest Service and ultimately won, when Judge Damrell ruled in their favor three weeks ago. The project had been in litigation since June of 2003....
Forest Service conference to look back at last 100 years A diverse group of people interested and involved in the management of national forests are coming together in Missoula to discuss the Forest Service's first 100 years of existence. The conference will begin Tuesday morning and run through Wednesday evening and feature speakers from the Forest Service, forest advocacy groups, timber industry leaders and professors from the University of Montana. On July 1, 1905, the Forest Service was formed from ideas conceived at the first Conservation Congress held only months earlier, said Paula Nelson, media officer for region one. This conference is an attempt for people from all interest groups to discuss how well management of the public forests was executed the past 100 years....
Man objects to pilot's posthumous medals A man whose wife died in a plane crash in the Montana wilderness criticized Gov. Judy Martz on Monday for deciding to posthumously award the pilot a medal. "His negligence, recklessness and carelessness on that day — and disregard for the weather and flying in the mountains — had disregard for the people on board," Bryant told The Associated Press. "It's pretty callous of the governor's office to just say this guy is a hero without looking into the whole situation," he said. "That plane should never have left the ground."....
Court denies rainbow gathering organizer's appeal of conviction The federal government did not violate the rights of a Rainbow Family member when it singled him and two others out for participating in a massive gathering on U.S. Forest Service land in 2000, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Barry Adams' arguments that he was selectively prosecuted, and rejected his contention that the regulations prohibiting such a gathering are unconstitutional. Adams and two other Rainbow Family members were cited by the Forest Service for failing to obtain a permit for holding a gathering that brought an estimated 23,000 members of the counterculture group to Montana's Big Hole Valley in 2000....
U.S. Forest Service Employees, Other Conspirators Sued by Marina Point Development Associates Three federal employees have been accused of abusing their government offices and authority to create a complex conspiracy aimed at scuttling a Big Bear Lake development in which they had undisclosed personal interests, according to a lawsuit filed Nov. 3 in U.S. District Court, Central District, Western Division. Gene Zimmerman, Scott Eliason and Robin Eliason -- all employees of the U.S. Forest Service -- are named as co-conspirators in the lawsuit brought by Marina Point Development Associates, the landowner of a 12.5-acre development site and marina on the north shore of Big Bear Lake. The lawsuit alleges the three -- along with one other principal member of a purported environmental group called "Friends of Fawnskin" and a number of "John Does" to provide for additional people to be named as more evidence is gathered -- defrauded Marina Point Development in violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by attempting to illegally stop the project that was under construction in order to advance their private interests....
Salvage logging rules face new suit The U.S. Forest Service is abusing federal fire salvage logging rules to harvest living, old-growth timber where a wildfire swept through the Malheur National Forest in July 2002, according to a federal lawsuit by conservationists. The League of Wilderness Defenders filed the suit last week in Portland. It challenges the Bush administration's rules for salvaging burned timber, claiming they are unsound and are being applied illegally. The suit says the Forest Service approved timber cutting for the sensitive area without proper environmental studies. It charges the agency with ignoring the effects cutting would have on threatened bull trout and other wildlife. It asks that the rules for salvage logging -- a pillar of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative -- be set aside because they didn't undergo environmental analysis....
Vocal biologist fired from wildlife agency The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has fired a biologist who publicly accused the agency of using bad science to approve construction projects in panther habitat. Andrew Eller, a 17-year veteran of the wildlife service, received a letter on Friday telling him the service was going ahead with its plan to fire him, effective immediately. The service said he was consistently late in completing his work and had engaged in unprofessional exchanges with the public. The decision was expected, since the service had notified Eller in July that it was moving to end his employment....
Fish and Wildlife Service delays panther protection plan The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed the adoption of a plan designed to protect Florida panthers from encroaching development. The agency decided to hold off so it can hire an outside contractor to review disputed science that was used in part to make the plan, spokesman Bert Byers said. That will delay the strategy indefinitely, he said. The plan was completed in 2002 by a team of 11 panther experts. Since then, an independent scientific review team issued a scathing report on some of the science used by the agency....
Two endangered whooping cranes found injured in Kansas Two of the world's roughly 500 whooping cranes have been found injured in fields near the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Kansas Department of Wildlife are trying to find out how the birds were injured. One has a broken wing and the other had a leg that had to be removed. Refuge manager David Hilley said the cranes, which are endangered, were found by farmers Saturday on two different tracts of land three miles from the refuge....
School agrees to tread lightly on lizard-inhabited territory The people behind the Coachella Valley’s first Catholic high school agreed to accommodate a tiny lizard when they build on a site in Thousand Palms. Last week, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved a fast-tracked building plan for Xavier College Preparatory School and school officials agreed to cooperate on an effort to locate a potential flood control project in the area. The flood control project, if it isn’t done right, could disrupt sand flowing to the habitat of the Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard....
Workers fill motel rooms, but some sectors struggle With the boom of oil and gas exploration in the area, workers needing temporary places to live are gobbling up motel rooms like cheap gas. An area once a tourist destination and stopover has become a mini-city for rig workers coming for days, weeks or months at a time to help in the gas fields and make good money. By some estimates, motels usually seeing 50 percent year-round occupancy are now enjoying rates around 93 percent. Of course, it's not just oil and gas workers staying in Pinedale's hotels. Hunters and tourists still use the rooms, but not to the degree they used to, Pfaff said....
Growth strains social services The Pinedale Clinic is just one of the many social services in the area feeling the squeeze because of more people to serve. Most of the population comes from oil and gas workers; others trickle in with first and second homes. Mayor Skinner's budget has ballooned from $2.2 million in 1994 to nearly $10 million this year. As the seat of Sublette County, Pinedale's population rose 3.3 percent between 2002 and 2003, making it the fourth-fastest growing town in the state. The county's population jumped 7.6 percent from 2000 to 2003, reaching 6,368. The town's property tax revenues, for example, rose from just $36,000 on an 8-mill levy in 1994 to $107,000 this year on the same levy rate. Sales tax coming back to the town went from $118,000 in 1994 to $1.6 million this year. Skinner said the boom started with the gas industry, and a lot of the revenues will go to build infrastructure to maintain the increased population....
Change in the skies Walter Lowry, director of corporate and community relations with Encana Corp., said his company recognizes the problems of pollution and has installed air quality monitors in the Jonah Field to monitor emissions. Ron Hogan, Pinedale Project operations manager for Questar Inc., said his company is looking at extensive pipelines in its drilling area to pipe water and condensate in and out of the drilling locations. That would eliminate 25,000 truck trips per year -- significantly reducing dust, emissions and traffic -- and some flaring, or intentional burning of natural gas that has impurities. Still, people like Walker and lifelong Pinedale resident Leslie Rozier are worried....
10th Circuit halts SUWA's lawsuit over seismic testing The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has been rebuffed by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a dispute over seismic exploration in Uintah County. A three-judge panel ruled last week that because a two-year permit the Bureau of Land Management issued to a Houston-based energy company expired last month, SUWA's lawsuit challenging the BLM's decision to allow the company to test for oil and gas reserves was rendered moot. Veritas DGC received seismic testing authorization from the BLM in October 2002, with SUWA filing suit against Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton two months later....
Groups seek to exclude parcels from BLM auction Environmentalists are fighting a federal auction today of 48,076 acres of Colorado public land for oil and gas drilling. Of the leases to the 61 parcels to be auctioned, the groups want the Bureau of Land Management to remove 20 parcels, or 15,000 acres, that they say are wildlife and rare- species habitats. Drilling would create roads and wells in areas used by hunters and hikers, including Granite Creek, Sagebrush Pillows and McKenna Peak, the groups note. Some of these areas lie within an area that Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, wants to be protected as wilderness. Congress has not acted on her proposal in the past six years....
Two protesters defend nature au naturel A luncheon meeting of The Scripps Research Institute board of directors at The Breakers resort was stripped of all decorum Monday when two topless women surprised the diners in the Seafood Bar with a 30-second chant to protest the science center's planned expansion to a Palm Beach County wetlands area. "Nature yes, biotech no," sang out Lynne Purvis and Veronica Robleto, both 24, who described themselves as environmental activists from Lake Worth. Those words also were painted on their bodies....
Study Says Polar Bears Could Face Extinction Global warming could cause polar bears to go extinct by the end of the century by eroding the sea ice that sustains them, according to the most comprehensive international assessment ever done of Arctic climate change. The thinning of sea ice -- which is projected to shrink by at least half by the end of the century and could disappear altogether, according to some computer models -- could determine the fate of many other key Arctic species, said the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the product of four years of work by more than 300 scientists....
Split verdict After the election, photographers and hunters can still bait Alaskan black bears with sweets and grease, loggers can chop two Oregon forests, Coloradans will get more power from renewable energy and Utah voters won't gain more open space. In a national election won by conservatives, the results show that traditional powers in the West — sportsmen, extractive industries and sagebrush rebels — continue to wield clout at the ballot box, though environmentalists moved some of their agenda forward....
Navajo voters pass gaming, but Navajo government had already approved it Proving the third time is the charm, the Navajo people said yes in a referendum Tuesday to allow gaming. The vote was 24,983 in favor and 16,576 opposed, according to unofficial results released by the Navajo Nation Election Office. The Navajo people voted against gaming in 1994 and 1997 referendums. Tuesday’s vote, although significant, carried no legal weight since the Navajo government had already authorized gaming within the To’hajiilee satellite chapter outside Albuquerque in 2000 and approved a Navajo gaming ordinance — making gaming legal reservationwide — in 2001. The country’s largest tribe also signed a gaming compact with Arizona in 2002 and one with New Mexico in 2003....
Water coalition in making Colorado and two other Western states may follow the lead of Michigan and Maryland, joining forces to create a special Rocky Mountain headwaters alliance similar to multistate coalitions that safeguard the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. The idea is to find new ways and new sources of money to protect Western rivers born high in the mountain ranges along the Continental Divide, said Jeff Crane, a hydrologist who leads a nonprofit watershed restoration effort in Colorado's Gunnison River Basin. During the past 15 months, several river conservation groups in Colorado, as well as from Utah and Montana, have lobbied state officials and their congressional representatives in Washington, D.C., seeking backing for the project....
Study ties drought, ocean temperature Emerging science is beginning to draw stronger connections between ocean surface temperatures and the current drought draining much of the West, a panel at the Geological Society of America's annual convention was told Monday. Gregory J. McCabe, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, said new research by his agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration identifies a direct relationship between warm North Atlantic surface temperatures and Western droughts....
Court allows challenge of river pact to proceed The Colorado Supreme Court refused to intervene Monday in a dispute over how much water should remain in the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The ruling means a federal lawsuit filed by environmentalists can proceed. The lawsuit claims an agreement between state and federal authorities leaves too little water in the river to support fish and other wildlife. State and federal officials defend the agreement, saying it will protect the 14-mile national park and preserve river water for other uses....
The Great Southwest Salt Saga think you know how the West was won, but you don't. It was not won with guns, railroads, or telegraph lines. These advances would have been pointless without something much more fundamental: water. Or, to be more precise, our ability to dam, pump, and channel water to farms and cities hundreds of miles away from any river. There are more than 20 dams in the Colorado River Basin, and the combined system constitutes one of the largest public works projects in the history of mankind. Without it, Los Angeles would be just a pit stop along Highway 1, and US produce bins would go empty every winter....
Hold on, cowboys In simpler times, rodeo organizers dragged mean animals out of feed lots and sale yards, talked gullible cowboys into climbing on, and then watched what happened. This approach worked especially well down in Oklahoma and Texas, where cattle roamed so much range that they were mostly mixed-blood maverick breeds, full of the wildness that makes bulls buck. But by the time Kish got into the business in the early 1980s, California ranchers had bred all the buck out of their cattle, concentrating on high-end dairy and beef breeds. The only breeder of bucking stock in the state had died, and only three of his animals were known to be living. When Kish contacted the owner of one, he learned the bull had just been canned, or slaughtered for meat, and when he tried to buy the second, the owner abruptly bailed on the deal. "So it came down to basically one animal," Kish says....
It's All Trew: Everyone had Model T tale, with or without the car The Model T was born Oct. 1, 1908, when Henry Ford introduced a simple, no-frills machine designed for the masses who still rode in horse-powered conveyances. Some astute Ford dealers took in buggies and teams as trade-ins for the initial purchase. These early models had no speedometer, starter, temperature gauge or bumpers. They also placed the steering wheel on the left and used a hand-throttle. Parts were few and easy to buy. The mechanical devices were simple so anyone could repair them. Wide running boards allowed plenty of room for toolboxes and items needed for patching flats. The Model T reigned king of autos for 19 years....