NEWS ROUNDUP

Supervisor in Fatal Wildfire on Probation A former wildfire crew supervisor blamed for the deaths of two Idaho firefighters last year has been placed on 18 months probation in a plea deal. Alan Hackett, who was fired by the Salmon-Challis National Forest last month, was accused of providing improper supervision and safety to firefighters Jeff Allen, 24, and Shane Heath, 22, who died in a July 2003 wildfire. Allen and Heath were overrun by flames while trying to clear a helicopter landing spot. They twice radioed for help, but it was too smoky to find them when a helicopter was finally sent....
Column: The disappearance of private land The federal government currently owns 671.8 million acres in the United States while adding more acres daily. 57 percent is used for forest and wildlife, 21 percent for grazing, 14 percent for parks and historic sites and 8 percent is listed as remaining uses. Land trusts and groups such as The Nature Conservancy are gobbling up private land at an alarming rate. They are also buying conservation easements which is worse than buying the property outright. Gretchen Randall of Winningreen LLC reports the federal government owns about a third of all land in the U.S., most of it in the western states. States with the largest percentage of federal land ownership as of 9/30/03 are: Nevada 91.9%, Wyoming 50.6%, Alaska 66.7%, Arizona 50.2%, Utah 66.5%, Oregon 49.7%, Idaho 66.4%, California 46.9%....
Circuit court strikes down road hunting law A circuit judge in the heart of pheasant country has fired a round of legal buckshot at a law passed by the 2003 state Legislature giving hunters the right to shoot from public roads at game birds flying over private land. Circuit Judge Kathleen Trandahl of Winner ruled that the law, supported by sportsmen's groups across the state, is an unconstitutional violation of private property rights — in essence, taking without just compensation. But Trandahl's decision, which is almost certain to be appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court by state Attorney General Larry Long, won't affect road hunting practices immediately....
White House Poised to Increase Pacific Northwest Logging Environmentalists are bracing for stepped-up efforts by a re-elected Bush administration to dramatically increase logging of old-growth trees and other forestlands in the Pacific Northwest over the next four years. "It's going to be harder and harder for us to get the message out that these forests are important…for many reasons, but we're going to work harder than ever," said Susan Ash of the Audubon Society of Portland. Local advocacy groups are marshalling legal, political and activist resources to prevent logging on still-pristine federal lands in the region, but they face an uphill battle....
Column: Wise Guys In 1988, the Wise Use movement was founded out of fear that George Bush Sr. was going to live up to his campaign pledge to be "the environmental president." This cabal of anti-environmental activists, organized by federally subsidized industries dependent on public lands, issued a natal document, the Wise Use Agenda. It called for, among other things: drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, logging Alaska's Tongass National Forest, opening wilderness to energy development, gutting the Endangered Species Act, and privatizing national parks. Today, the reactionary Wise Use Agenda has become the environmental policy of the administration of George Bush Jr....
For Wildlife With Wanderlust, Their Own Highway A corridor of the wild through the high country of North America - Yellowstone to Yukon - has long been a dream of environmentalists and biologists like Mr. Neudecker, who say that grizzly bears, elk, wolves and other four-legged commuters need help in looking for mates or new habitats. The great national parks of the West, they say, are becoming genetically isolated islands, cut off by development, urbanization and their ever-present iconic symbol, the barbed-wire fence. But in places like this, on a patchwork of public and private lands, and through a tangle of human motivations that often have little to do with saving the planet, the wild road north along the spine of the northern Rockies is becoming reality....
Column: Are wolves good or bad? It doesn't matter A wolf is going to be a wolf. Living with wolves is going to cause problems for people. Back in 1995, when wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park, there was simply too much ignorance among bring-back-the-wolf-backers who looked at the 2.2 million acres of the park and thought it was a big place. The park would offer plenty of landscape to absorb a wolf population, they figured. Add in the national forest ground around the park and they figured there was plenty of room for any wolf overflow as well. And hey, look at all those elk and deer and bison that the wolves have to eat in Yellowstone — why would they ever want to leave?....
Advocacy group announces lawsuit over California missions bill An advocacy group announced a lawsuit Wednesday over legislation to restore California's aging Spanish missions, arguing that the law violates the principle of separation of church and state. Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it would file suit against Interior Secretary Gale Norton on behalf of four California residents. Norton's department would distribute $10 million in federal funding under the law, which President Bush signed on Tuesday....
BLM seizes cattle in Blaine County The federal Bureau of Land Management has impounded nine head of cattle it said were grazing on public land in southern Blaine County without a permit. Craig Flentie, spokesman in the BLM Lewistown office, said the bureau believes the cattle belong to Harry and Carolyn Liddle, who ranch in Blaine County. "There's little doubt, but we want to confirm that," he said today....
Wild horse bill pleases cattlemen Congressional action allowing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to sell older wild horses is good news for ranchers, Nevada Cattlemen's Association President Preston Wright of Deeth said Monday. A measure tucked into an appropriations bill Congress passed earlier this month permits BLM to sell wild horses more than 10 years old or horses that no one wants to adopt. "This will allow BLM to sell a backlog of older horses, which should allow them to go ahead with gathers," said Wright....
Bush signs largest lot of Nevada wilderness President Bush has signed into law a measure conservationists say is the single largest designation of federally protected wilderness in Nevada history — a total of about 1,200 square miles north and east of Las Vegas. The new law creates 14 new wilderness areas protecting wildlife habitat, rugged mountain peaks, limestone cliffs, fragile caves and archaeological resources across a total of 768,000 acres, an area about half the size of the state of Delaware. It directs the Bureau of Land Management to auction up to 90,000 acres of federal land in the rural county north of Las Vegas. It also establishes a utility corridor that would allow the Southern Nevada Water Authority to build a pipeline to tap into groundwater in eastern Nevada and draw as much as 200,000 acre-feet of water per year — enough for more than half a million households....
Federal catalyst of Western water policy resigns Bennett Raley, the passionate architect of federal water policy across the West and a central figure in bringing more water to the San Diego region, has joined the exodus from the Bush administration. While not a high-profile figure nationally, Raley wielded tremendous clout over one of California's most precious resources during shortages and skirmishes from the alfalfa fields of Imperial Valley to salmon-spawning stretches of the Trinity River. "He was a pit bull," said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which includes Las Vegas. "He may have had to put on his bully hat every so often, but I believe everything he did was to balance competing interests."....
State to buy land, water rights along Pecos River state judge’s dismissal of a protest filed with the state court by the Tracy-Eddy family of Carlsbad and the Hope Community Ditch clears the way for the state to implement the Pecos River Settlement. State Judge William Bonem dismissed the case Tuesday on the grounds that the objectors did not meet the minimum standards for going to trial. The trial was scheduled to begin in Roswell on Nov. 13. The dismissal of the challenges to the state’s plan to buy land and associated water rights along the Pecos River allows the state to forge ahead with its plan to buy land and associated water rights along the Pecos River to ensure water flows downstream to Texas....
Researchers Scurry To Study Wreckage A grand ghost of the Missouri River has emerged from her watery grave to give modern-day explorers a clue to her past. Researchers are taking advantage of the lowest Missouri River levels in about 30 years to learn more about a 19th century steamboat that sank more than 130 years ago near present-day Goat Island....
Top bareback horse to receive NFR honor One of the top bareback horses in PRCA history will be honored at this year's National Finals Rodeo. Khadafy Skoal, owned by the Powder River Rodeo Company in Wright, Wyo., is being retired after the NFR. The NFR begins Friday at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. The 21-year-old Khadafy Skoal was selected the PRCA bareback horse of the year in 1990, 1995 and 1996. He was also chosen the top bareback horse for the NFR in 1994, 1996 and 1999 and earned eight Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo and 13 Mountain States Circuit awards during its stellar career....