NEWS ROUNDUP

Rollback of Wild Land Protection Gets Support The Schwarzenegger administration signaled its support Tuesday for a plan to drop Clinton-era protections that barred road-building and other development on nearly a third of the country's national forest land, including more than 4 million acres in California. In a letter to the Bush administration that was released Tuesday, state Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said California welcomed the chance for greater state involvement in federal forest management. Nonetheless, he said, the state did not plan to identify areas for protection or development. Instead, he said, California preferred to work with the U.S. Forest Service as it updates management plans for roadless areas....
Governor: Roadless rules not needed The Bush administration's proposed roadless rule is unnecessary and ultimately will be detrimental to Wyoming, Gov. Dave Freudenthal says. The governor said in a letter to the head of the U.S. Forest Service released Tuesday that forest policy should be made at the federal level, not by states. Freudenthal said he sees no real need for the Bush administration's proposed roadless rule...
Mono Lake scenic area may face development Congress created the nation's first federal scenic area 20 years ago, stepping in to protect Mono Lake, the high desert oddity nearly three times as salty as the ocean that fascinated author Mark Twain during the 1860s. The law signed by President Reagan helped preserve a major stopover for migratory birds and save an inland sea that was being drained to slake Los Angeles' thirst. Now, residents and the U.S. Forest Service say the Mono Lake protections are imperiled by a plan to subdivide 120 acres for luxury homes on the lake's western shore....
U.S. Forest Service Surrenders Computers to Marina Point Development After 13 months of legal action, the U.S. Forest Service has finally agreed to surrender the computers of three federal employees accused of racketeering. In exchange for the Forest Service's agreement, Marina Point will not seek attorneys' fees and costs from the agency. The three employees -- Gene Zimmerman, Scott Eliason and Robin Eliason -- are all employees of the U.S. Forest Service and were recently named as co-conspirators in a lawsuit brought by Marina Point Development Associates, the landowner of a 12.5-acre resort development site and marina on the north shore of Big Bear Lake. The lawsuit alleges the three -- along with a principal member of a purported anti-development group called "Friends of Fawnskin" and a number of "John Does" to be named as more evidence is gathered -- defrauded Marina Point Development and several federal agencies in order to stop the project to advance their personal interests....
Rec fee plan draws praise, fire One man's funding plan for public lands is another's double taxation. House Bill HR 3283, also called the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, calls for basic and expanded recreation fees on public lands administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Fish and Wildlife. The legislation would repeal the recreational fee demonstration program of 1996, replacing it with a permanent and streamlined means of funding. The bill would also allow fees collected to be used primarily at the site of collection for as long as the legislation is in effect....
DeFazio sees hope for his forest plan DeFazio said Veneman's biggest shortcoming when it came to Northwest issues was that "she didn't evidence much interest in forest policy" despite her role in overseeing the U.S. Forest Service, which owns and manages vast stretches of forest and range lands in Oregon. DeFazio said he would encourage the Republican president's new appointee to take a look at his own forest-thinning proposal or something like it. The legislation, which DeFazio introduced in July, would put public old growth forests off-limits to logging. It also would appropriate $25 million a year for thinning projects in younger forests, resulting in yearly sales of 500 million board feet from westside public lands....
U.S. Forest Service installs smoke/particulate monitor During the past several months, U.S. Forest Service officials have installed and are now operating a monitoring platform in Kernville for observing the impacts of small airborne particulates from smoke on local residents. The particulate monitor is used to better understand public health issues in smoke sensitive areas. The instrumentation measures all particles in the air, including smoke, dust off the Isabella Reservoir, vehicle emissions and any products of combustion....
Conservationists Release State Reports on the Values of Wild Forests On the final day of the public comment period on the Bush administration’s proposal to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, the state PIRGs are releasing seventeen state-by-state reports documenting the clean drinking water, recreation, and wildlife habitat benefits of roadless areas in America’s National Forests. The reports, “Our Natural Legacy: The Value of America’s Roadless National Forests,” are available at www.uspirg.org/reports. Among the findings: Sixty million Americans rely on clean drinking water from national forests. Roadless areas provide the purest source of that water due to their pristine and road-free condition. Drinking water from national forests is worth $3.7 billion annually....
Hitting hard, fast Every fire season, select men and women scramble out of helicopters to take on a new wildfire, often miles from the nearest road. If all goes well, they'll cut it off and kill it before it's big enough to make the evening news. If they make a mistake, or are just plain unlucky, they may be the ones cut off and killed....
Mystery surrounds grizzly death Mystery surrounds the death of another grizzly bear in northwest Wyoming, as investigators are revealing little about the incident. Roy Brown, investigator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Lander, said the event is "complicated." "There's some extenuating circumstances that are related and not related as to why we're not releasing any more information," Brown said Tuesday. "Something happened in the time between the first incident and when we got there that needs to be investigated."....
Earth 'heading towards another mass extinction' The Earth is losing species at a rate comparable to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, environmentalists warn today. The World Conservation Union's annual Red List of endangered species, released at its conference in Bangkok, lists five species that have been added to the "extinct" category. Nearly 16,000 species are listed as being threatened with disappearing, with more than 200 of them already described as "possibly extinct", and almost 3,000 as "critically endangered". The list, compiled by a worldwide network of 8,000 scientists, is regarded as the most authoritative statement of the planet's biodiversity and guides environmental policy around the world....
BLM plan will boost sage grouse The federal Bureau of Land Management released a strategy Tuesday to boost sage-grouse numbers, hoping to bolster the population of America's second-largest game bird after a 90 percent decline since the early 1900s. Developers wanting to drill for gas are closely watching government plans, as are cattlemen, off-road enthusiasts, and environmentalists. Already on Tuesday, some of them dismissed the BLM strategy as a failure. According to the BLM, its strategy will guide its federal wildlife managers in restoring bird populations and habitat until programs can be developed on the state and local level....
Conservationists push for gray wolves in northern N.M. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist says returning wolves to the Rocky Mountains is "a chance to undo a great wrong" done when wolves were exterminated from about 98 percent of their range by the mid-1900s. Steve Fritts said he believes the region from northern New Mexico stretching into Colorado and Wyoming could support wolves. Recent scientific studies by the federal government and independent groups suggest it could support as many as 1,100 wolves. About 60 percent of the 108,000-square-mile area is public land....
Bighorn sheep to be brought to Wyoming In two weeks 20 Bighorn sheep will enter a new northern Wyoming home that shares their name - the Bighorn Mountains. A dozen ewes and a handful of lambs and rams will be netted in northern Oregon, transported to Wyoming in horse trailers and deposited in Devil's Canyon by helicopter on Dec. 4. And although Wyoming Game and Fish Department Wildlife Management Coordinator Kevin Hurley says the "Bighorn Mountains were appropriately named," the namesake animal is more likely to arrive in trailers and helicopters than by natural means....
Save the Men! Decaf coffee, sensitivity training, roadside assistance, hybrid cars: These indicators of rampant "metrosexuality" are enough to make real men fear for their very existence, say the macho editors at Maxim magazine. So they filed a petition this week with Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and the Fish and Wildlife Service, demanding that man be declared an endangered species. "This is no joke," a mag rep insists, and Interior officials told us yesterday that the petition was validly filed. The 12-page document argues that without a listing under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, "Man will surely succumb to the ravages of an effeminate, feng shui world-gone-mad." The feds promise to take the petition seriously because, this being Washington, there's legal precedent to follow. So, sorry, guys. Though man is, as the petition points out, the only species capable of "converting simple grains into courage-boosting Tennessee whiskey" and "making cowboy boots out of other animals," you've already been tamed by a more powerful force. Just take a look on any Maxim cover....
Environmental group to file mining claim Great Basin Mine Watch announced Monday it is planning to file a mining claim on land near Reno on Wednesday to illustrate the need for mining law reform. The environmental organization is planning to file the claim with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Washoe County to "mine" 20 acres of land adjacent to a subdivision. Great Basin Mine Watch stated in its announcement that it is one of seven organizations in the western U.S. who have or are going to file mining claims on public land adjacent to urban and suburban neighborhoods, ski resorts and hiking areas....
Cooling the water wars Colorado cities will struggle to get the water they need as the population grows but may be able to lessen the harm to farms and mountain streams with compromise and stronger state involvement, according to a major study presented Tuesday to the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The Statewide Water Supply Initiative, a $2.8 million study funded by the legislature in 2003, said the number of lost farms and costly battles for water could be minimized with cooperation and good information....
Cloud seeding Vail Mountain and Beaver Creek fired up cloud seeding generators earlier this month to prepare for the 2004 to 2005 ski season. "We believe it increases snowfall throughout the season by up to 10 to 16 percent," said Jen Brown, Vail Mountain communication manager. Vail has been cloud seeding its slopes for nearly 30 years. Brown said Vail spends approximately $1.6 million annually on snowmaking....
Board revises land lease regulations The state Land Board on Monday unanimously approved new regulations that eliminate the absolute right of farmers and ranchers to maintain their state land leases by just matching a competitor's high bid. Under the new rules, existing lessees still have an advantage when competing with another bidder for use of the land, but it is no longer an ironclad guarantee. Ultimately, the board has the final say. The change in how lease renewals are handled was forced by a court ruling earlier this year that concluded existing law giving lessees an automatic preference to keep a lease is unconstitutional....
Initiative may have irrigation component An ambitious -- and expensive -- plan to bring water to farmland around Livermore, Pleasanton and Dublin could be part of an open space initiative being developed for Alameda County. County officials are working with environmental and open space preservation groups on an initiative that would raise millions of dollars to protect ranches, farms and wildlife habitat from development. The initiative is an outgrowth of Alameda County's slow-growth ordinance Measure D, which severely limited the county's authority to approve new housing developments outside of cities....
Committee recommends transfer of development rights program Gallatin County should consider a free-market system allowing developers to buy development rights from landowners, a county committee recommended in a new report. The committee believes such a system would encourage more dense projects in areas appropriate for subdivision. The county's "transfer of development rights" committee determined, in a draft report, that such a program could help fight sprawl in the county. But the committee didn't come up with specifics on how a TDR program could work. The program appealed to farmers and ranchers on the committee because it isn't heavy-handed government imposing rules, Jacobsen said....
Column: Anti-biotech crowd takes behind woodshed whipping The huge victories in defeating county anti-biotech initiatives in 3 of 4 California counties in the general election was a behind-the-woodshed whipping. There is no other way to describe the wide margins of victory in defeating anti-biotech initiatives in Butte and San Luis Obispo counties. Humboldt County’s rejection was also a victory, even though the anti-GE crowd there admitted at the last minute that approving a law that would call for arresting dairymen who grow herbicide-resistant corn was not a good idea. They asked voters to reject the initiative. Nevertheless, 28 percent of the voters supported the ban. Humboldt’s anti-biotechers have said they will come back with a non-flawed initiative. After Nov. 2, that likely would be a flawed effort....
Hunting via Internet? Officials wary Hunters soon may be able to sit at their computers and blast away at animals on a Texas ranch via the Internet, a prospect that has state wildlife officials up in arms. A controversial Web site, http:/www.live-shot.com, already offers target practice with a .22 caliber rifle and could soon let hunters shoot at deer, antelope and wild pigs, site creator John Underwood said on Tuesday. Underwood, an estimator for a San Antonio, Texas auto body shop, has invested $10,000 to build a platform for a rifle and camera that can be remotely aimed on his 330-acre (133-hectare) southwest Texas ranch by anyone on the Internet anywhere in the world....
Keeping them down on the farm Since the 1980s, agritourism has swept through Italy and other European countries. Spain, Italy, and France each have hundred of farms that host travelers and vacationers. In the United Kingdom it's even bigger; there's a network of farms with some 3,000 members, and overnight guests put more than $73 million in the pockets of farmers, according to Nigel Embry, of Farm Stay UK, an organization founded in 1983 to help farmers market their accommodations. The movement has grown in the United States, as well....
Bush to Visit Canada on Nov. 30 Commerce will play a key role in Bush's Ottawa visit. Canada and the United States have the world's largest trading partnership, conducting more than $1 billion a day in business. But Canadian beef has been shut out since May 2003 when mad cow disease was found in Alberta. The U.S. has since opened its border to some Canadian beef, but live cattle are still banned. Canadian ranchers are desperate, estimating they have lost more than $2 billion....
City life, Old West ways collide with fatal results Cars and trucks roar along Rio Verde Drive all day, heading to upscale developments as they pass through an open range where all that separates them from hundreds of cattle and horses is a deteriorating strand of barbed wire. This conflict between the encroaching city and Old West turned deadly this weekend, when a 29-year-old woman died after striking a horse on Rio Verde Drive, a two-lane road that cuts through thick desert brush. The incident took place only minutes after another man struck a horse while driving on the same stretch of road....