NEWS ROUNDUP

Norton plans to continue collaborative approach at Interior The collaborative approach to managing much of the nation's lands that Interior Secretary Gale Norton pledged when she took office nearly four years ago will continue to mark her leadership, she said Tuesday. Getting people to work together to find solutions is the only way to reach the delicate management balance required to reconcile conflicting demands for use of federal lands, she said during an appearance at the University of Colorado. ''The challenge for our country for the future is finding ways of meeting the needs we have for the economy, jobs, and the amenities we enjoy and at the same time protecting our environment,'' she said. ''You can find that if you have an atmosphere that encourages people to be creative in solving problems, get people to understand each other's perspectives.''....
Morgart is named Mexican wolf program coordinator Dr. John R. Morgart, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has been selected as the coordinator of the high-profile and controversial Mexican Gray Wolf recovery program. The service began reintroducing wolves into southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona in 1998 under an experimental and non-essential population designation, allowed under the Endan-gered Species Act....
Editorial: A fishy lawsuit On Thursday, the board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority approved a historic agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Moapa Valley Water District and the owner of a planned residential development at Coyote Springs. The deal is designed to protect the endangered Moapa dace during a two-year test of water pumping in the area. The goal is to see whether the water authority can tap groundwater in the Coyote Springs Valley, northeast of Las Vegas, to send 35,000 acre-feet of water per year to thirsty Las Vegas via a multimillion-dollar pipeline. The plan to protect the tiny minnows calls for the private landowner to pay $50,000 per year and give up rights to 460 acre-feet of water -- nearly 150 million gallons. The parties together would spend $1.6 million protecting a tiny creature hardly anyone has ever seen -- about $1,750 apiece for the 907 minnows counted by biologists during a 2003 population survey of the upper reaches of the Muddy River and the warm springs that feed it. But is all that enough to satisfy the environmentalists? Of course not....
New law worries horse advocates Wild horse advocates say they're worried that healthy horses rounded up on the range could be sold for slaughter under a herd-thinning measure Congress passed over the weekend. The legislation lets wild horses older than 10, or those that have unsuccessfully been put up for adoption three times, be sold without limitations at local sale yards or livestock facilities. "I would expect under this law we're going to have far higher numbers of horses going to slaughter," said Howard Crystal, attorney for the Fund for Animals. "If someone under this program can now buy 300 horses and ship them to a slaughterhouse, people will start making money." Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Bureau of Land Management, placed the measure in a 3,000-page year-end spending bill after consulting with Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Burns spokeswoman Jennifer O'Shea said....
Drilling on Roan Plateau could exceed projections, group says The gas well numbers being offered in a draft plan for the Roan Plateau are meaningless, said the president of a local energy watchdog group, because the state can increase drilling density later. "Those numbers are not fixed," said Duke Cox, president of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance. Greg Goodenow, planning and environmental coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management's Glenwood Springs field office, confirmed that well numbers laid out last week in five draft management alternatives for the plateau should not be viewed as the maximum amount of drilling that would be allowed by each alternative....
Giving cows right of way for the birds Waving off an objection by the Barona Indians, county supervisors said Tuesday that it was time for cars to take precedence over cows on a winding, two-lane backcountry road that runs by the Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino. Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to tentatively remove the "open range" and "grazing" designations from Wildcat Canyon Road. The action will become official when the ordinance is considered again at the board's Dec. 1 meeting....
Coloradans Vote to Embrace Alternative Sources of Energy Colorado utilities will have to sell a lot more electricity from wind power in years to come under a statewide ballot initiative approved by voters on Nov. 2, and if they want some pointers they might talk to Adam T. Kremers, a 19-year-old sophomore at Colorado State University here. He has been there and done that. Mr. Kremers sold wind power to the occupants of individual dormitory rooms this fall, under an agreement between the university and the local utility that environmentalists describe as one of the first such programs in the nation. Colorado voters said much the same thing when they approved, over the vehement objections of most energy companies, a proposal mandating that 10 percent of the state's electricity must come from wind and solar power by 2015. The law, Amendment 37, makes Colorado the 18th state with an environmentally friendly energy standard, but the first one to have bypassed the Legislature and put the rule into place through referendum. An energy bill similar to the one the voters approved was defeated by Colorado's Legislature three times in the last three years....
Arctic Council report warns of dire consequences of global warming The Arctic Council, a group of eight countries with Arctic territory, including the United States, is expected to issue recommendations on global warming Wednesday that will put the spotlight on a critical area where the United States is at odds with many of its allies. The council's meeting this week in Reykjavik, Iceland, follows a stark report by the council on the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic, which is more vulnerable to global warming than other parts of the world. The Arctic Council's recommendations also come as some Republicans and Democrats in Congress are stepping up calls on the administration to take firmer action on global warming....
Federal agency shifts ownership of water facilities to local control The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation signed agreements Tuesday that will shift the ownership of a pair of water conveyance facilities to local water agencies. In a first for the state, the bureau will transfer ownership of the 21.5-mile Provo Reservoir Canal and the 42-mile Salt Lake Aqueduct to the Provo River Water Users Association and the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy, respectively. The two facilities jointly help provide culinary and irrigation water to over 1 million residents along the Wasatch Front....