NEWS ROUNDUP

Spotted knapweed threatening Western livelihoods Spotted knapweed is a national menace, a weed of mass destruction. In Montana alone it covers some 4.5 million acres and costs ranchers more than $40 million annually in herbicide and lost productivity. Native of Central Europe and Siberia, spotted knapweed reached North America in the late 19th century. It invades pastureland and renders huge tracts commercially useless, because cattle, horses and most other animals turn up their noses at it. The purple-flowered pest, which some nonranchers regard as beautiful, has become so rampant that elk have changed their migration routes to avoid it. New research points to an unusual reason for the plant's success. Ragan Callaway of the University of Montana in Missoula, who studies how plants interact with one another, and Jorge Vivanco of Colorado State University have found that spotted knapweed conducts chemical warfare on its neighbors - the first comprehensive evidence of an invasive plant using an offensive chemical weapon....
Editorial: Who's Really in Cahoots? San Diego businessman Irving Okovita, whose attempt to build luxury condos in a bald eagle habitat near Big Bear has been blocked by a federal judge, wants the court to reconsider. But as he pursued that request, he must also have sensed something in the air, something emboldening in the way the Bush administration is eroding environmental protections. Okovita went to court and accused three U.S. Forest Service employees of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to block his Marina Point development at Big Bear Lake. Okovita's lawsuit, under a 1970 law designed to help prosecute mobsters, has the feel of using a howitzer to shoot deer. But the government, instead of jumping to offer legal counsel to its employees, has so far offered nothing, inexcusably leaving these civil servants on their own....
Animal Protection Groups Say 'You Better Be Good 'Fur' Goodness Sake The Fund for Animals and The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) are urging consumers to "fake it" for the holidays and buy faux fur or other cruelty-free garments instead. "With the many warm and elegant alternatives available, it is simply unnecessary to buy clothes made from real fur that was ripped or peeled off the backs of animals," said Pierre Grzybowski, grassroots coordinator for The Fund for Animals. According to The Fund, animals raised in fur factories are confined in tiny cages until they are put out of their misery by neck-breaking or anal electrocution....
Wolf population declines in park Yellowstone National Park may have about all the wolves it can handle. For the first time since wolves were reintroduced to the park 10 years ago, the population has likely reached a plateau. Gone are the days when the wolf population jumped 40 or 50 percent a year. Even more recent growth rates - around 10 percent a year - may be tapering off. Preliminary estimates show there are now about 169 wolves in 15 packs, down from 174 the year before, according to Doug Smith, Yellowstone's lead wolf biologist. On Yellowstone's Northern Range, the wolf population dropped by 10 to 15 wolves in the last year, primarily because of competition. "I'd say that wolves are approaching carrying capacity in the park," Smith said Monday....
Milltown Dam removal plan finalized Twenty-three years after a Missoula County sanitarian found arsenic in Milltown's tap water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final plan for excavating the sediments that brought the poison to town and taking Milltown Dam out of the river so it doesn't happen again. "A lot of people thought this would never happen in their lifetimes," said Chuck Erickson, president of Friends of Two Rivers, a group of Milltown and Bonner residents who lobbied for removal of the dam and millions of cubic yards of tainted reservoir sediments. Work at Milltown Reservoir will begin this winter, with removal of the dam as early as January 2006. Then will come the excavation of 2.6 million cubic yards of contaminated reservoir sediments, a two-year job....
Male Fish Growing Eggs Found in Potomac Male fish that are growing eggs have been found in the Potomac River near Sharpsburg, a sign that a little-understood type of pollution is spreading downstream from West Virginia, a federal scientist says. The so-called intersex abnormality may be caused by pollutants from sewage plants, feedlots and factories that can interfere with animals' hormone systems, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Nine male smallmouth bass taken from the Potomac near Sharpsburg, about 60 miles upstream from Washington, were found to have developed eggs inside their sex organs, said Vicki S. Blazer, a scientist overseeing the research for the U.S. Geological Survey....
EPA takes over lead role in cleanup of mine The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assumed the lead role Monday in directing the cleanup of an abandoned, contaminated copper mine in Northern Nevada. The federal agency is assuming primary responsibility for the cleanup of the former Anaconda copper mine under a provision of the Superfund law because of growing health and safety concerns, EPA officials said. Federal officials said they decided to grant the state’s request because of the complexity of the contaminants at the site near Yerington, about 55 miles southeast of Reno....
Milk River panel's co-chairs appointed The Bureau of Reclamation's top official in Montana will be co-chairman of a United States-Canada committee examining whether water from the Milk River system is allocated fairly north and south of the border. Appointment of the bureau's Daniel Jewell and Ross Herrington, a water policy adviser for the Canadian government's environmental agency, was announced Monday by the International Joint Commission. The IJC works to prevent and resolve water disputes between the United States and Canada. The commission recently decided to appoint a committee to work on issues involving the Milk River system, which flows along the border between Montana and Canadian provinces....
Officials revamp, expand program for rangeland insurance A pilot program for rangeland insurance, criticized by some for how it calculated losses, has been revamped and expanded to include more producers in Montana and Wyoming, a federal agriculture official said Monday. Beginning with the 2005 crop year, ranchers in 39 Montana counties and 10 Wyoming counties will be eligible for coverage under the Group Risk Plan Rangeland Pilot Program, said Dave Nickless, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency in Billings. The program will be much different from the pilot that started in 1999, Nickless said. One of the big differences involves the trigger for which losses could be calculated....
Polo horses get posh pad The snow polo horses got some upscale digs for their fifth annual visit to Aspen this weekend. Seventeen thoroughbreds were boarded at the Limelite Lodge - in a small grassy part of the lodge, that is, rather than in rooms. Barry Stout, a New Castle rancher and event director for the World Snow Polo Championship, said the horses have stayed in Aspen's Wagner Park, where the match is played, in the past. But this year the city wasn't interested in allowing the horses to overnight at the park, so Stout asked his friends at the Limelite for help....
Man hits the trail to repay a favor It’s roughly 1,200 miles from Houston to Cheyenne, Wyo. You or I could make the trip by car in little less than 24 hours, and that’s with pit stops along the way. Mike Hansen will make the trip in five months. Mike’s in the process of planning his single-man trail ride he’s dubbed Old Trails and New Legends. He and Drifter, along with a pack mule to be named later, plan to saddle up at the base of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo trail ride Feb. 26 and make the trek north the Wyoming just in time for the Frontier Days rodeo. In doing so, he will cover much of the same ground cattle drives did in the 1800s when Texas herds where taken to Kansas City, Wichita or Denver to be shipped east via rail. Likewise, cattle from Wyoming made it south to the same rail yards to feed a hungry eastern seaboard starving for prime beef. Mike isn’t making this ride, though, to hearken back to the days of old, but rather to repay a debt and give thanks....
It's All Trew: Return to old ways is progress? If you can remember when it took both hands and feet to drive a car you probably remember these terms: footfeed, spark, crank, choke, throttle, gear shift and steering knob. Today, few know what the terms mean. I recently followed a young lady down main street in Pampa who was talking on her cell phone, combing her hair and driving. She stopped at a green signal forcing me to hit my brakes and ran the next two red lights narrowly missing a collision....