NEWS ROUNDUP
DeFazio offers plan to boost timber harvests Congressman Peter DeFazio today proposed legislation to increase timber sales on federal forests but prohibit the cutting of trees older than 120 years. "Some would like to go back and fight the old forest wars, but there is a better way," DeFazio said in a statement. "By protecting old growth and increasing timber production from second-growth stands, we can finally move past the ideological gridlock that has virtually shut down our forests and make the Northwest Forest Plan work better for rural communities, the timber industry and wildlife." He said his bill would increase timber harvests on federal land in western Oregon and Washington to 500 million board feet a year, up from 143 million board feet last year. The bill would amend the Northwest Forest Plan, adopted in the early years of the Clinton administration as a way to protect the northern spotted owl, a threatened species. Timber-cutting targets of the plan have never been met....
Emaciated Tre Arrow seeks refugee status The increasingly malnourished Tre Arrow was unsuccessful in his latest attempt to get out of jail and gain Canadian citizenship. Arrow, the environmental activist accused of setting fire to logging and mining trucks in Oregon, showed up in an immigration court in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Wednesday weighing less than 100 pounds after four months of incarceration, according to his Canadian attorney, Rudolf Kischer. Arrow is trying to gain refugee status and become a Canadian citizen, arguing that he can never get a fair trial in the United States on arson charges because the federal government has labeled him an ecoterrorist. Kischer acknowledged that Arrow faces an uphill battle....
Trails and tribulations in the great outdoors One recent sunny afternoon at Coyote Point Recreation Area in San Mateo, Bonnie Lewkowicz guided her motorized wheelchair down a hard-packed dirt trail. A Berkeley resident who is helping to write a wheelchair riders' guide for the California Coastal Conservancy, Lewkowicz had her sights set on getting to the park's beach. She got about 400 feet from the beach, only to find a 3-inch curb with no curb cut. For most people, it would be an easy step. But for Lewkowicz, those 3 inches represented a big disappointment -- and potentially the end of her sojourn....
Groups want snail listed Scientists are asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place two Oregon snails and one Wyoming snail onto the endangered species list. One of the Oregon snails is the Harney Lake springsnail, found only in Eastern Oregon, and the other is the Columbia springnail, found only in the lower Columbia River. The Wyoming snail is the Jackson Lake springsnail, found only in Jackson Lake, Wyo....
Gray wolf killed in Idaho Federal wildlife officials killed one gray wolf Friday and may take up to two more animals from the Hazard Lake pack in the backcountry north of McCall, authorities said. The male adult was trapped and killed Friday, a week after authorities exterminated the largest wolf pack in Idaho a few miles to the west. The Hazard Lake pack, which had seven wolves but now has six, is believed to be responsible for the killing of several domestic sheep and leaving dozens of others injured or missing. A guard dog was also injured and another is missing from the attack Thursday morning, said Jeff Foss, field supervisor for the Snake River Fish and Wildlife Office. The animals belonged to the same rancher who lost more than 100 sheep during previous weeks to the Cook pack. All nine wolves of that pack were also killed....
Michigan looks for ways to avoid wolf-human conflicts Eric Wallis insists wolves were responsible for the disappearance of more than 80 lambs from his farm in the eastern Upper Peninsula several years ago, although he can't prove it. "I have seen wolves on my property numerous times," Wallis said. "They're out there." He hasn't lost any lambs the past two years, since acquiring Great Pyrenees dogs to patrol the premises, and is hosting researchers who are testing nonlethal means of keeping wolves away. Still, he chafes at being legally barred from taking shots at them....
Wyo sues Interior over wolf documents The Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service in November rejected the state's wolf management plan, and now Wyoming demands the release of at least 69 undisclosed records or groups of records to explain the decision, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday by Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank. "If the court forces (the Fish and Wildlife Service) to produce the documents, it shows the fallacy of their rejecting the plan put forward by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission," he said. It's not that the state hasn't tried to get the documents....
Fishermen, environmentalists cheer Klamath report Commercial fishermen and conservationists on Friday today applauded the release of the California Department of Fish and Game’s final report on the causes of the tragic 2002 fish kill on the Klamath River. The exhaustive, peer-reviewed report’s primary conclusion — that low water flows resulting from upstream irrigation diversions were at the heart of the kill — is consistent with previous analyses conducted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Yurok Tribe....
Klamath River fish kill may be worse than originally thought The massive 2002 Klamath River fish kill, already counted as one of the nation's largest, could have killed twice as many fish as previously projected, the California Department of Fish and Game said yesterday. Commercial fishermen said the larger projected kill could result in even more harm to their industry next year as the offspring of that fall's salmon run begin to return upstream from the ocean. They complained conditions this year could spark a repeat of the disaster. "Maybe as much as half the run died in one fell swoop," said Steve Pedery of the Oregon Natural Resources Council....
Investigation Sought For Death of California Condor The Center for Biological Diversity has called for an investigation by the California Attorney General and the California Environmental Protection Agency into the role of the Tejon Ranch Company in the death of an endangered California condor last year. The Tejon Ranch Company is currently seeking a blanket "incidental take" permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) which would allow it to harm, harass, and even kill endangered condors during construction and operation of a proposed series of major developments north of Los Angeles. Tejon Ranch is located on 270,000 acres of wild country north of Los Angeles. It lies at the geographic center of California condor habitat....
Streamlined pesticide approvals benefit farmers, wildlife The US Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries yesterday finalized new regulations establishing a more efficient approach to pesticide approval. The rules, which were developed with the US Environmental Protection Agency and USDA, provide a framework to ensure necessary measures are taken to protect fish and wildlife, while ensuring that farmers have the pest-control products they need. Because of the complexity of examining the effects of pest-control products, there have been almost no consultations completed in the past decade, and a recent court decision cited that lack of consultations in limiting the use of essential agricultural pest-control products....
NCGA Endorses New Endangered Species Regulation The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) today announced support of the administration's new regulation streamlining the process for approval of pest control products. The regulation ensures endangered and threatened species are protected as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) pesticide approval process. "Corn growers support scientifically sound efforts to protect endangered and threatened species and their habitat," NCGA President Dee Vaughan said. "We believe this new process will help protect these species, while ensuring growers still have access to vital pest control products."....
Adirondack sightings stir a 4-footed debate It may sound like an X-Men comic or a North Country tall tale, but recent unconfirmed sightings of wolverines in the Adirondacks have wildlife experts both baffled and abuzz. With at least three reports in as many years, there is mounting evidence that the mysterious mammal known for its strength and cunning may be making sporadic reappearances after an absence of more than 160 years. The closest large wolverine population is in northern Ontario, Canada, about 1,600 miles from the Adirondacks. Studies have found that wolverines -- fierce, long-clawed scavengers known as "devil bears" -- can wander up to 4,200 miles round trip from their home range....
Anglers Demand Mercury Emissions Controls Frustrated by the fact that you can't catch your fish and eat it too, Northern New England fisherman are joining environmentalists to demand strict federal mercury emissions controls. "Knowing what I know about it I wouldn't bring anything home for my family to eat, that's for sure," said Dan Hall, council chairman for Trout Unlimited of New Hampshire. A report put out Thursday by the National Wildlife Federation criticizes the Bush administration's proposal for a cap-and-trade program for mercury emissions, saying it does not adequately safeguard health, the environment or the recreational fishing industry....
Construction funds for Grand Canyon projects disappear Already under fire by lawmakers over unchecked expenses, the National Park Service has apparently lost more than $2 million through contract mismanagement at Grand Canyon, pushing dozens of small businesses in Utah and Arizona to the brink of bankruptcy. Members of Congress want to know why Grand Canyon National Park doled out $17 million in publicly funded construction jobs to a California company without securing insurance bonds required by federal law to assure the work would be completed and the suppliers and subcontractors would be paid. The prime contractor that received the money, Pacific General Inc. (PGI), went out of business in March, owing nearly 50 canyon subcontractors an estimated $2.5 million and unable to explain to park officials where the money went....
Panel Faults Handling of Funds at Statue of Liberty nonprofit charity that solicits donations for the Statue of Liberty pays its executives excessively high salaries, has done a poor job overseeing the millions of dollars it collects and has tried to undermine the efforts of other organizations to raise money for the preservation and operation of the national monument, according to Congressional investigators. The Senate Finance Committee began examining the work of the charity, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, in April after news reports, including articles in The New York Times, raised questions about the organization's role in efforts to partially reopen the statue after it was closed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The articles reported that the foundation had chosen not to finance the reopening with its $30 million endowment, but rather mount a national fund-raising effort....
Wyoming natural gas boom flattens out An 18-year string of rising natural gas production from Wyoming's booming fields is expected to skid to a halt this year, according to the state's top oil and gas official -- even as higher natural gas prices are spilling an additional $1.2 billion in tax revenues into state coffers. Natural gas production in Wyoming, hailed as the heart of the resurgent Rocky Mountain natural gas business, is expected to be about 1.8 billion cubic feet. That's nearly flat from 2003's figure and breaks an 18-year run of increasing production numbers, said Don Likwartz, supervisor of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
He blames the flat forecast on the federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management, for being slow to issue permits to drill new wells on federal land in Wyoming and particularly in the Powder River Basin, the state's top-producing natural gas basin....
'Green elephants' worry about voting Marshall is a liberal-bashing, Bible-believing, gun-toting hunter, just like many of the White men at the core of the GOP's base, and he voted for George W. Bush four years ago. But he is disgusted by the administration's environmental record, including its proposal in July to open more untouched national forest to roads. "Conservation is conservative," he said. "Bush is a gross liberal." Marshall, 55, is a leading member of REP America, a group of GOP conservationists who call themselves "green elephants." He and like-minded members are torn over how to vote this year since they feel they can't support Bush but can't stomach John Kerry....
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Friday, July 30, 2004
Judge tosses Forest Service fine of off-roader
A federal judge on Friday threw out a $150 fine the Forest Service levied against the leader of an off-road vehicle club in a dispute over protection of the threatened bull trout in northeast Nevada.
In a rare hearing of a petty offense in federal court, U.S. Magistrate Robert McQuaid Jr. said prosecutors failed to prove John Eickhof caused damage to the banks of a Jarbidge River channel.
"There is an admission that Mr. Eickhof was there and that he drove off the road. He doesn't say he caused the damage," McQuaid said. "I think there has to be more to tie this defendant to the damage."
Critics of federal protection of the fish in the Jarbidge River hailed the dismissal of the Eickhof citation as a major victory in an ongoing feud with U.S. land managers over access to the South Canyon Road along the river in Elko County near the Idaho line.
But Forest Service Supervisor Bob Vaught insisted the area near the river where Eickhof admitted driving off the road remains off limits and that additional citations will be issued to any off-roaders who damage fish habitat or other forest resources....
A federal judge on Friday threw out a $150 fine the Forest Service levied against the leader of an off-road vehicle club in a dispute over protection of the threatened bull trout in northeast Nevada.
In a rare hearing of a petty offense in federal court, U.S. Magistrate Robert McQuaid Jr. said prosecutors failed to prove John Eickhof caused damage to the banks of a Jarbidge River channel.
"There is an admission that Mr. Eickhof was there and that he drove off the road. He doesn't say he caused the damage," McQuaid said. "I think there has to be more to tie this defendant to the damage."
Critics of federal protection of the fish in the Jarbidge River hailed the dismissal of the Eickhof citation as a major victory in an ongoing feud with U.S. land managers over access to the South Canyon Road along the river in Elko County near the Idaho line.
But Forest Service Supervisor Bob Vaught insisted the area near the river where Eickhof admitted driving off the road remains off limits and that additional citations will be issued to any off-roaders who damage fish habitat or other forest resources....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Grounded tankers factor in no-retardant firefight Rapidly growing summer wildfires are nothing new in Central Oregon. But the state’s biggest wildfire of the season has been fought, at least for its first five days, without a single load of retardant being dropped from the air – a rare, if not unprecedented circumstance that fire officials say is tied to several factors. The most obvious reason is the grounding, since spring, of 33 large air tankers due to safety concerns, including five based at Butler Aircraft in Redmond. The Redmond planes were inspected recently, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said during a visit earlier this week that a decision on their return to flight could come as soon as Aug. 6; a few air tankers elsewhere in the West already have been cleared to return to operation....
Private lands sustain Oregon timber industry Oregon logging levels edged up last year to their highest point since 1997, although they remained shadows of what they were in the 1980s mainly because of the collapse of federal lands logging since then. More than three-quarters of the state's timber harvest came from industrial and other private land, reflecting the diminished profile of federal timber. Loggers in 2003 cut just over 4 billion board feet of wood, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. That's enough to build roughly 300,000 or more average homes and represents a 2 percent increase over the 3.9 billion board feet cut the year before....
McCain taps new land exchange bill U.S. Sen. John McCain has introduced a new Yavapai Ranch land exchange bill that would create a new Verde Basin partnership for water resource planning. The action came shortly after local water groups agreed to seek meetings with the staffs of McCain and U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl about a draft bill similar to the introduced bill. The staff has not yet met with the groups, although McCain has received several letters from local governments listing suggestions about how to revise the draft....
EPA Allowed to Ease Pesticide Reviews The Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) will be free to approve pesticides without consulting wildlife agencies to determine if the chemical might harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to new Bush administration rules. The streamlining by the Interior and Commerce departments represents "a more efficient approach to ensure protection of threatened and endangered species," officials with the two agencies, EPA and the Agriculture Department said in a joint statement Thursday. It also is intended to head off future lawsuits, the officials said....
Group supports feds' pesticide rule 'streamlining' Oregonians for Food and Shelter applauds U.S. Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries new counterpart regulations to streamline Endangered Species Consultation. These new consultation procedures will provide a practical and effective structure to ensure that necessary measures are taken to protect fish and wildlife, yet provide the necessary pesticide tools to farmers and foresters enabling them to grow food and trees. These procedures will also ensure that consumers can use household products (disinfectants and lawn care) and that vector control districts can continue to use mosquito and rodent control products for public health purposes....
Feds Investigating Confirmed Wolf Attack Near McCall Idaho Two News has learned that federal authorities are investigating a wolf attack in an area near McCall that has been a hotbed of recent wolf attacks. Federal wildlife officials spent Wednesday evening near McCall and confirmed this second attack in less than a month. A USDA Wildlife Services official Todd Grim tells Idaho 2 News there were 2 or 3 different sets of tracks found in the area where the sheep were attacked. 21 of the sheep were severely wounded, 14 more are missing, one guard dog was wounded and another is missing....
Upstream,Downstream: Klamath politics and the great national divide ON JULY 17, FARMERS AND RANCHERS from the area surrounding Klamath Falls, Ore., gathered to welcome the United States Congress to that small town. Some came on horseback, carrying Confederate flags or the Stars and Stripes. Others paraded to the center of town in their off-road vehicles. Others simply marched on foot, waving signs that championed their way of life and denounced those who would seek to meddle in their affairs. Barry Bushue, president of the Oregon Farm Bureau, stood before a podium in front of the Ross Ragland Theater to pump up the crowd on the issue that brought five members of Congress, all Republicans, to Klamath Falls that morning -- the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA), which Bushue called an "outmoded law that has accomplished little more than decades of unnecessary pain and harm." "Klamath Falls has become an unwilling poster child for the failure of an Endangered Species Act that impacts all of us," he said. "The Act is a colossal failure, yet we continue to put people out of business, pour money down rat-holes and get no results."....
Lynx thriving in Maine forest
The Canada lynx population in a Maine research forest grew by 21 kittens this year, according to wildlife biologists studying the rare species. Biologists in June documented seven lynx dens containing eight female kittens and 13 male kittens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday. Litter sizes ranged from two to five kittens....
Mouse that Cost Economy $100 Million May Never Have Existed After six years of Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments, and landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million by some estimates, new research suggests the allegedly endangered Preble's mouse never existed. Instead, it seems to be genetically identical to a cousin considered common enough not to need the federal government's protection. The tiny Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse was listed under the ESA on May 13, 1998, based on a 1954 study performed by Dr. Philip Krutzch, now emeritus professor at the University of Arizona. Krutzch reached his conclusion based on the examination of three skulls and 11 skins, an acceptable level of scrutiny at the time....
Salmonella suspected in N.D. bird deaths Hundreds of dead birds have been found for the sixth straight year at a popular hunting spot in south central North Dakota. Wildlife officials suspect that most of the deaths were caused by salmonella, and they are warning people not to handle dead or sick birds. Officials discovered the deaths of about 1,500 gulls and cormorants in the last month on an island at the Roesler Lake Waterfowl Protection Area, near Lehr....
Bear Killed by Hazing The National Park Service is investigating the death of a bear in Yellowstone National Park. The incident happened more than a week ago at the Slough Creek Campground. The 180 pound male bear reportedly charged three anglers and damaged an occupied tent. A park ranger attempted to scare the bear away by firing a 'cracker' shell from a shotgun towards the bear. The next day, the bear was found dead. Park officials now believe the bear was inadvertently killed by the round and are conducting a review of training techniques. This was the fourth black bear fatality in the park this season....
Interior Secretary Norton defends national parks spending Federal workers have undertaken 4,000 new projects to reinvigorate national parks and are fulfilling President Bush's pledge to spruce up America's natural treasures, the country's top public-lands official said yesterday. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, responding to criticism from watchdog groups, told a national group of conservative state legislators in Seattle that workers are fixing crumbling buildings, removing dangerous non-native plants and repairing trail systems....
Study Says Indian History Inadequate at Wyoming Fort Although its legacy continues to play a pivotal role in the lives of Plains Indians, Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming does not yet adequately interpret this history for visitors, according to a new report released today by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). "The whole, difficult story about the U.S. Government and American Indians must be told at Fort Laramie, because this is the place where important parts of that story took place," said NPCA's Northern Rockies Program Coordinator Patti Borneman. Originally an outpost for trading furs with local tribes, Fort Laramie was later a refueling stop for emigrants and a military outpost during the Indian Wars. It was also the site where several tribes signed two treaties with the U.S. Government, both of which were later breached to allow for faster settlement of the West and gold mining on sacred Indian lands. The fort was incorporated into the National Park System in 1938....
BLM: North Dakota lease bid was highest ever for region A North Dakota company bid $1.8 million for federal leasing rights on land in that state, one of the highest levels for a federal oil or gas lease in the region, the Bureau of Land Management says. The bid by Behm Energy of Minot, N.D., during a lease sale this week was a record high for federal oil and gas leases in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota since at least 1987, the BLM said. Agency employees said they also believe it may be the highest "bonus" bid ever for rights to minerals on federal lands in the region....
Environmentalists Rally Against Bush Administration's Environmental Assault Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Director Rob Reiner, former EPA Administrator Carol Browner and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer joined national environmental groups at a rally today during the Democratic National Convention. Blasting the Bush administration's environmental record, they announced an unprecedented voter mobilization effort with plans to hit over three million households in nine states using door-to-door canvassing, phone calls and emails. The groups plan to target Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin....
Judge: ALP meeting notes should be public The minutes of a meeting to discuss cost overruns of the Animas-La Plata Project - compiled from memory after a tape recorder malfunctioned - should be made public, a District Court judge ruled Tuesday. "The court finds that the executive session was held in violation of the OML (Colorado Open Meeting Law) and orders that the minutes of the Aug. (14), 2003, executive session should be made public in their entirety," District Judge David Dickinson said in his ruling. Dickinson's order concerns recollections of participants at the meeting that were compiled after a dead battery in the tape recorder microphone resulted in a blank tape. Forty-four people from 13 Colorado and New Mexico public and private entities had gathered at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio to discuss the ramification of a Bureau of Reclamation announcement that the cost of the Animas-La Plata Project had grown from $338 million to $500 million....
77-pound catfish surprises father and son When you catch a fish that dwarfs your 4-year-old boy, you know you have a whopper of a fish story. That's Greg Bausch's story this week after fishing on the Missouri River near Parkville. When he and his son, Matthew, and friend Todd Reusser put out jug lines, they caught a 77-pound blue catfish — a fish that made 32-pound Matthew look awfully small when he stood next to it for pictures....
Mysterious animal is the talk of Elmendorf A day after pictures of a mysterious creature shot by a local rancher hit the Internet, the debate continues in this quiet little town over exactly what the strange-looking animal is. Locals gathered at DeLeon's Grocery and Market, looking at pictures and talking about the critter that attracted more than 100 visitors to the store Thursday afternoon. The doglike beast shot and killed by rancher Devin Mcanally has captured the attention of many who say they have seen similar animals in the area. A similar creature reportedly has been spotted in Maryland, where locals are calling it the hyote, a combination of a hyena and a coyote....
Grounded tankers factor in no-retardant firefight Rapidly growing summer wildfires are nothing new in Central Oregon. But the state’s biggest wildfire of the season has been fought, at least for its first five days, without a single load of retardant being dropped from the air – a rare, if not unprecedented circumstance that fire officials say is tied to several factors. The most obvious reason is the grounding, since spring, of 33 large air tankers due to safety concerns, including five based at Butler Aircraft in Redmond. The Redmond planes were inspected recently, and Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said during a visit earlier this week that a decision on their return to flight could come as soon as Aug. 6; a few air tankers elsewhere in the West already have been cleared to return to operation....
Private lands sustain Oregon timber industry Oregon logging levels edged up last year to their highest point since 1997, although they remained shadows of what they were in the 1980s mainly because of the collapse of federal lands logging since then. More than three-quarters of the state's timber harvest came from industrial and other private land, reflecting the diminished profile of federal timber. Loggers in 2003 cut just over 4 billion board feet of wood, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry. That's enough to build roughly 300,000 or more average homes and represents a 2 percent increase over the 3.9 billion board feet cut the year before....
McCain taps new land exchange bill U.S. Sen. John McCain has introduced a new Yavapai Ranch land exchange bill that would create a new Verde Basin partnership for water resource planning. The action came shortly after local water groups agreed to seek meetings with the staffs of McCain and U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl about a draft bill similar to the introduced bill. The staff has not yet met with the groups, although McCain has received several letters from local governments listing suggestions about how to revise the draft....
EPA Allowed to Ease Pesticide Reviews The Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) will be free to approve pesticides without consulting wildlife agencies to determine if the chemical might harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to new Bush administration rules. The streamlining by the Interior and Commerce departments represents "a more efficient approach to ensure protection of threatened and endangered species," officials with the two agencies, EPA and the Agriculture Department said in a joint statement Thursday. It also is intended to head off future lawsuits, the officials said....
Group supports feds' pesticide rule 'streamlining' Oregonians for Food and Shelter applauds U.S. Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries new counterpart regulations to streamline Endangered Species Consultation. These new consultation procedures will provide a practical and effective structure to ensure that necessary measures are taken to protect fish and wildlife, yet provide the necessary pesticide tools to farmers and foresters enabling them to grow food and trees. These procedures will also ensure that consumers can use household products (disinfectants and lawn care) and that vector control districts can continue to use mosquito and rodent control products for public health purposes....
Feds Investigating Confirmed Wolf Attack Near McCall Idaho Two News has learned that federal authorities are investigating a wolf attack in an area near McCall that has been a hotbed of recent wolf attacks. Federal wildlife officials spent Wednesday evening near McCall and confirmed this second attack in less than a month. A USDA Wildlife Services official Todd Grim tells Idaho 2 News there were 2 or 3 different sets of tracks found in the area where the sheep were attacked. 21 of the sheep were severely wounded, 14 more are missing, one guard dog was wounded and another is missing....
Upstream,Downstream: Klamath politics and the great national divide ON JULY 17, FARMERS AND RANCHERS from the area surrounding Klamath Falls, Ore., gathered to welcome the United States Congress to that small town. Some came on horseback, carrying Confederate flags or the Stars and Stripes. Others paraded to the center of town in their off-road vehicles. Others simply marched on foot, waving signs that championed their way of life and denounced those who would seek to meddle in their affairs. Barry Bushue, president of the Oregon Farm Bureau, stood before a podium in front of the Ross Ragland Theater to pump up the crowd on the issue that brought five members of Congress, all Republicans, to Klamath Falls that morning -- the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA), which Bushue called an "outmoded law that has accomplished little more than decades of unnecessary pain and harm." "Klamath Falls has become an unwilling poster child for the failure of an Endangered Species Act that impacts all of us," he said. "The Act is a colossal failure, yet we continue to put people out of business, pour money down rat-holes and get no results."....
Lynx thriving in Maine forest
The Canada lynx population in a Maine research forest grew by 21 kittens this year, according to wildlife biologists studying the rare species. Biologists in June documented seven lynx dens containing eight female kittens and 13 male kittens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday. Litter sizes ranged from two to five kittens....
Mouse that Cost Economy $100 Million May Never Have Existed After six years of Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments, and landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million by some estimates, new research suggests the allegedly endangered Preble's mouse never existed. Instead, it seems to be genetically identical to a cousin considered common enough not to need the federal government's protection. The tiny Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse was listed under the ESA on May 13, 1998, based on a 1954 study performed by Dr. Philip Krutzch, now emeritus professor at the University of Arizona. Krutzch reached his conclusion based on the examination of three skulls and 11 skins, an acceptable level of scrutiny at the time....
Salmonella suspected in N.D. bird deaths Hundreds of dead birds have been found for the sixth straight year at a popular hunting spot in south central North Dakota. Wildlife officials suspect that most of the deaths were caused by salmonella, and they are warning people not to handle dead or sick birds. Officials discovered the deaths of about 1,500 gulls and cormorants in the last month on an island at the Roesler Lake Waterfowl Protection Area, near Lehr....
Bear Killed by Hazing The National Park Service is investigating the death of a bear in Yellowstone National Park. The incident happened more than a week ago at the Slough Creek Campground. The 180 pound male bear reportedly charged three anglers and damaged an occupied tent. A park ranger attempted to scare the bear away by firing a 'cracker' shell from a shotgun towards the bear. The next day, the bear was found dead. Park officials now believe the bear was inadvertently killed by the round and are conducting a review of training techniques. This was the fourth black bear fatality in the park this season....
Interior Secretary Norton defends national parks spending Federal workers have undertaken 4,000 new projects to reinvigorate national parks and are fulfilling President Bush's pledge to spruce up America's natural treasures, the country's top public-lands official said yesterday. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, responding to criticism from watchdog groups, told a national group of conservative state legislators in Seattle that workers are fixing crumbling buildings, removing dangerous non-native plants and repairing trail systems....
Study Says Indian History Inadequate at Wyoming Fort Although its legacy continues to play a pivotal role in the lives of Plains Indians, Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming does not yet adequately interpret this history for visitors, according to a new report released today by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). "The whole, difficult story about the U.S. Government and American Indians must be told at Fort Laramie, because this is the place where important parts of that story took place," said NPCA's Northern Rockies Program Coordinator Patti Borneman. Originally an outpost for trading furs with local tribes, Fort Laramie was later a refueling stop for emigrants and a military outpost during the Indian Wars. It was also the site where several tribes signed two treaties with the U.S. Government, both of which were later breached to allow for faster settlement of the West and gold mining on sacred Indian lands. The fort was incorporated into the National Park System in 1938....
BLM: North Dakota lease bid was highest ever for region A North Dakota company bid $1.8 million for federal leasing rights on land in that state, one of the highest levels for a federal oil or gas lease in the region, the Bureau of Land Management says. The bid by Behm Energy of Minot, N.D., during a lease sale this week was a record high for federal oil and gas leases in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota since at least 1987, the BLM said. Agency employees said they also believe it may be the highest "bonus" bid ever for rights to minerals on federal lands in the region....
Environmentalists Rally Against Bush Administration's Environmental Assault Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Director Rob Reiner, former EPA Administrator Carol Browner and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer joined national environmental groups at a rally today during the Democratic National Convention. Blasting the Bush administration's environmental record, they announced an unprecedented voter mobilization effort with plans to hit over three million households in nine states using door-to-door canvassing, phone calls and emails. The groups plan to target Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin....
Judge: ALP meeting notes should be public The minutes of a meeting to discuss cost overruns of the Animas-La Plata Project - compiled from memory after a tape recorder malfunctioned - should be made public, a District Court judge ruled Tuesday. "The court finds that the executive session was held in violation of the OML (Colorado Open Meeting Law) and orders that the minutes of the Aug. (14), 2003, executive session should be made public in their entirety," District Judge David Dickinson said in his ruling. Dickinson's order concerns recollections of participants at the meeting that were compiled after a dead battery in the tape recorder microphone resulted in a blank tape. Forty-four people from 13 Colorado and New Mexico public and private entities had gathered at the Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio to discuss the ramification of a Bureau of Reclamation announcement that the cost of the Animas-La Plata Project had grown from $338 million to $500 million....
77-pound catfish surprises father and son When you catch a fish that dwarfs your 4-year-old boy, you know you have a whopper of a fish story. That's Greg Bausch's story this week after fishing on the Missouri River near Parkville. When he and his son, Matthew, and friend Todd Reusser put out jug lines, they caught a 77-pound blue catfish — a fish that made 32-pound Matthew look awfully small when he stood next to it for pictures....
Mysterious animal is the talk of Elmendorf A day after pictures of a mysterious creature shot by a local rancher hit the Internet, the debate continues in this quiet little town over exactly what the strange-looking animal is. Locals gathered at DeLeon's Grocery and Market, looking at pictures and talking about the critter that attracted more than 100 visitors to the store Thursday afternoon. The doglike beast shot and killed by rancher Devin Mcanally has captured the attention of many who say they have seen similar animals in the area. A similar creature reportedly has been spotted in Maryland, where locals are calling it the hyote, a combination of a hyena and a coyote....
Thursday, July 29, 2004
USDA Announces EQIP Funding for Public Lands Grazing
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced this week a pilot program for the use of Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding to support sustainable grazing on public lands in the Tonto National Forest.
Mike Somerville, Arizona state conservationist for the NRCS, announced the program during a visit to the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association meeting in Prescott, Ariz. He said that eventually as much as $1.5 million for 30 ranching operations may be available through the pilot program.
“EQIP can be an important tool to help manage resources and sustain ranching operations during periods of drought,” says Jeff Eisenberg, executive director of the Public Lands Council (PLC) and director of federal lands for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
The Southwest has been stricken by severe drought the last several years. Ranching families, communities, and forage resources on private and public lands have been hurt by the curtailment of grazing in the region. “Ranchers are grateful for the assistance of USDA which will help stabilize the situation,” says Eisenberg.
In coordination with the Gila County Cattlegrowers, the Arizona Cattle Growers, NCBA, and the PLC, the NRCS will administer the pilot program with the goal of preserving sustainable grazing in the Tonto National Forest....
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announced this week a pilot program for the use of Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funding to support sustainable grazing on public lands in the Tonto National Forest.
Mike Somerville, Arizona state conservationist for the NRCS, announced the program during a visit to the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association meeting in Prescott, Ariz. He said that eventually as much as $1.5 million for 30 ranching operations may be available through the pilot program.
“EQIP can be an important tool to help manage resources and sustain ranching operations during periods of drought,” says Jeff Eisenberg, executive director of the Public Lands Council (PLC) and director of federal lands for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
The Southwest has been stricken by severe drought the last several years. Ranching families, communities, and forage resources on private and public lands have been hurt by the curtailment of grazing in the region. “Ranchers are grateful for the assistance of USDA which will help stabilize the situation,” says Eisenberg.
In coordination with the Gila County Cattlegrowers, the Arizona Cattle Growers, NCBA, and the PLC, the NRCS will administer the pilot program with the goal of preserving sustainable grazing in the Tonto National Forest....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Four people arrested at Biscuit salvage protest Four protesters were arrested Wednesday after they put up a hanging platform blocking access to a salvage timber sale in the Biscuit fire area. Those arrested included the woman sitting on the platform, who was removed from her perch, said Tom Lavagnino, spokesman for the Rogue and Siskiyou National Forests. The Wild Siskiyou Action team announced on Monday that it had suspended on a platform 75 feet above the ground, and blocked a Siskiyou National Forest road with a system of ropes and clips....
Environmental groups sue over logging plan Calling it ''mostly just a timber sale,'' three more environmental groups have appealed the U.S. Forest Service's plan to reduce fire risk in the Basin Creek watershed south of Butte. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Ecology Center Inc., both based in Missoula, and the Boulder-based Deerlodge Forest Defense Fund filed the 28-page joint appeal on Monday. They join the Willow Creek-based Native Ecosystems Council appeal filed earlier this month. The groups contend the Forest Service's proposal to remove beetle-infested trees from roughly 2,600 acres violates three federal environmental protection acts, the official forest plan, and a previous settlement agreement reached after ''25 lengthy negotiation sessions.''....
Norton promotes creation of wildfire defense zones Federal officials on Wednesday saw how close wildfire came to the Mount Graham International Observatory and used the occasion to tout the importance of forest-thinning projects. "We need to show how we can defend an area like this," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said after touring the mountaintop observatory southeast of the Valley....
Court ruling favors fish over more electricity from river dams A U.S. District Court judge yesterday barred the federal government from a first-ever attempt to reduce the summer spill that improves passage of young salmon past dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The government had wanted to push more water through turbines — rather than over spillways — during strong summer power markets, a move that could have raised up to $28 million in additional revenue for the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets wholesale power throughout the Northwest. U.S. District Court Judge James Redden's ruling was a strong rebuke to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which had concluded that spill could be reduced beginning Aug. 1 without harming the recovery prospects for an endangered fall run of Snake River chinook salmon....
Panhandle mice to get federal protection The federal government has been given just more than two years by a judge to reconsider its refusal to designate critical habitat for an endangered beach mouse found only on a Florida Panhandle peninsula. Senior U.S. District Judge William Stafford issued that order, which could lead to putting habitat for the St. Andrew beach mouse off-limits to human encroachment, Tuesday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had voluntarily agreed to reconsider its decision after being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity and losing several similar cases in regard to other species, agency spokesman Tom MacKenzie said Wednesday....
When noise is issue, wildlife live high life Translation: It's OK to foist the old noisy jets on regular folks, but let it interfere with the mating habits of the moose, and voila! Congress steps in. And so on June 28, Jackson Hole instituted a congressionally approved ban on Stage 2 aircraft. The move hasn't been lost on Phil Vickers, who sits on Scottsdale's Airport Advisory Commission. "It means that if the noise of Stage 2 aircraft affects animals and wildlife and the environment, you can ban Stage 2," he says. "But if it affects the lives of people in ordinary America, you can't do it."....
Surface-rights initiative gaining signatures A group of ranchers, farmers and other landowners are working to get an initiative on the ballot in 2006 that would protect the property rights of surface landowners during oil and gas development. Lori Goodman, president of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, which is circulating the petitions, said the drive has gathered 25,000 of the necessary 35,000 signatures required for the ballot initiative. The current movement to have a citizen-initiated ballot will use the same language as the failed bill. The major points of the bill set guidelines for notification, planning and compensation. "The bill provides three things - when are you coming, what are you going to do, and I'd like some compensation, period," Barlow said....
BLM on pace to set record for permits As oil and natural gas prices climb, the Bureau of Land Management is on pace to issue a record number of well drilling permits on public land this year. The agency had issued about 3,500 permits by June 25, a number that is expected to increase to a record 6,000 by the end of the federal fiscal year in September, BLM geologist Richard Watson said Wednesday. Last year, the agency issued about 4,000 permits. "It's unprecedented in the history of the BLM," he said during an address to a natural gas outlook conference....
BLM allows coal mine to expand Federal land managers will allow Powder River Coal Co. to expand its North Antelope-Rochelle mine in Campbell County by about 2,368 acres. The company, owned by St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. - the world's largest coal producer - will have available 306.9 million more tons of recoverable coal on the north side of the mine as the result of a decision issued last week by the Bureau of Land Management. Along with earlier approval to allow expansion on the south side, the extra acreage will extend the life of the mine six years beyond an estimate of 11 years made in 2003, said Mike Karbs, assistant field manager for the BLM's Casper office....
Amnesty brings in Indian artifacts An offer of amnesty for turning in culturally important American Indian artifacts has recovered a 300- to 500-year-old canteen from Jemez Pueblo, a 1,000-year-old Anasazi pot found in northwestern New Mexico and a 300-year-old Navajo pot from federal land. The U.S. attorney's office here on Tuesday displayed about two dozen returned artifacts as a way to promote the amnesty program, which ends Aug. 18....
Two Dozen U.S. National Parks Threatened by Bush Roadless Forest Rule Repeal The Bush Administration's reversal of roadless rule protections for national forests jeopardizes 23 U.S. national parks and monuments in 16 states, raising the specter of serious harm being done to outdoor "crown jewels" that are traveled to each year by more than 40 million Americans -- over a third of all visits to U.S. national parks, monuments and parkways, according to a new report released today by the Campaign to Protect America's Lands (CPAL) and the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees (CCNPSR). The detailed analysis finds that roughly 20 percent of all roadless forest areas that are to be stripped of federal protections by the Bush Administration either directly border or are near national parks and monuments....
Trial date set in case of former U.S. Park Police chief The former chief of the U.S. Park Police has lost her bid to be reinstated while fighting her dismissal. But an administrative law judge agreed Teresa Chambers, a former police chief in North Carolina, has a right to seek testimony from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and National Park Service Director Fran P. Mainella are among those Chambers' lawyers will be allowed to seek depositions from under a ruling by a U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board judge....
Grand Canyon sees visitor increase, first in decade The number of tourists visiting Grand Canyon National Park has risen in the past two years, the first upward streak the park has seen in the last decade, reflecting an apparent trend among the national parks. Between January and June this year, nearly 2.2 million people visited the park, a 7.2 percent jump from the same time last year....
Environmentalism takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention Environmentalism is descending on the Democratic National Convention this week in the form of biodegradable balloons and recycled confetti -- and that's just the beginning. All of the electricity powering the festivities is coming from renewable sources or an onsite fuel-cell generator. Local Massachusetts farms are supplying food for a handful of the convention events, and leftovers are being donated or composted. Greenhouse-gas credits will offset the carbon-dioxide emissions generated by convention delegates as they travel to and from Boston, and hybrid gas-electric buses are shuttling people between events....
Environmentalists rally in Boston Rallying at the Democratic National Convention, environmentalists and their allies in Congress on Tuesday accused Republicans of abandoning the public interest and promised to reverse Bush administration rollbacks of key laws and regulations. "One of the things we've got to do is recapture that bipartisan vision of an environmental future for this country, and John Kerry is the candidate who can do that," Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., told about 300 activists at Christopher Columbus Park. With the race between Kerry and President Bush locked in a statistical dead heat, many national environmental groups hope that they can inspire enough voters to support Kerry and tip the balance in swing states such as Oregon....
Rehab projects turn dry flats into wetlands Ten watershed restoration projects have turned nearly 2,000 acres along Last Chance Creek, a major tributary to the Feather River, into functioning meadows, including the wetlands around this pair of ponds near Artray Creek. The projects are the most recent accomplishments of the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management group. Known as a CRM, the partnership of 22 ranchers, anglers, local, state and federal agency officials, has been working cooperatively since 1985....
Back in the saddle In this cowboy story, the American consumer rides to the rescue of the cattle industry, with a hand from Uncle Sam. Undaunted by the specter of mad cow disease, grocery shoppers continue buying beef for low-carb diets and they are paying ever-higher prices to boot. Meanwhile, the U.S. government keeps Canadian cattle out of the country, propping up domestic producers. That all translates into good times on the range so that even famously reserved ranchers smile about the roller-coaster ride to recovery for the largest sector of the U.S. farm economy....
U.S. Distributor Recalls Canadian Ground Beef A Pennsylvania meat company voluntarily recalled 170,000 pounds of hamburger patties that contained Canadian beef products prohibited under safeguards against mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday. The USDA said the recalled products from Quaker Maid Meats, Inc., a privately-owned business, were allowed into the United States after a Canadian meat inspector improperly labeled a shipment of 41,000 pounds of beef. The beef was later used by Quaker Maid to produce 170,000 pounds of hamburger. "This is a mistake made in Canada," USDA Undersecretary Elsa Murano told reporters. "This does not pose any risk to human health."....
J.C's was a time when cattle roamed bosque and droughts claimed crops for five long years J.C. Sanchez of Adelino has been around farms and ranches for almost 80 years and has experienced the changes that time and technology have brought about. Valencia County itself has changed a lot, he said, and he has had to change with it. "It's been a hard life, but a good life," he said. J.C. was born in Adelino in 1921, and he lived on his father's farm until he was about 9 years old. After he and his family moved to Willard, J.C. continued to visit the farm in Adelino on the weekends to help out and do chores, cleaning ditches in the spring, feeding hogs, husking corn and leveling fields with a horse. He said the farm, at 250 acres, used to be one of the largest individually owned farms in the county....
Rancher wants to know what strange creature he killed An Elmendorf rancher is wondering what exactly it was he shot and killed about three weeks ago. Devin Mcanally, an Elmendorf rancher and retired English teacher, found a strange creature lurking in his back yard attacking his livestock. At one point, 35 of his chickens disappeared in one day. He says the dog-like creature was only seen during the day. Local experts are still wondering what it is. McAnally describes it as hairless with blue-ish skin. There's a 2-inch ridge of hair running down its back. It was eating mulberries under a tree when Mcanally shot it. He thinks the creature was pregnant....
Four people arrested at Biscuit salvage protest Four protesters were arrested Wednesday after they put up a hanging platform blocking access to a salvage timber sale in the Biscuit fire area. Those arrested included the woman sitting on the platform, who was removed from her perch, said Tom Lavagnino, spokesman for the Rogue and Siskiyou National Forests. The Wild Siskiyou Action team announced on Monday that it had suspended on a platform 75 feet above the ground, and blocked a Siskiyou National Forest road with a system of ropes and clips....
Environmental groups sue over logging plan Calling it ''mostly just a timber sale,'' three more environmental groups have appealed the U.S. Forest Service's plan to reduce fire risk in the Basin Creek watershed south of Butte. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Ecology Center Inc., both based in Missoula, and the Boulder-based Deerlodge Forest Defense Fund filed the 28-page joint appeal on Monday. They join the Willow Creek-based Native Ecosystems Council appeal filed earlier this month. The groups contend the Forest Service's proposal to remove beetle-infested trees from roughly 2,600 acres violates three federal environmental protection acts, the official forest plan, and a previous settlement agreement reached after ''25 lengthy negotiation sessions.''....
Norton promotes creation of wildfire defense zones Federal officials on Wednesday saw how close wildfire came to the Mount Graham International Observatory and used the occasion to tout the importance of forest-thinning projects. "We need to show how we can defend an area like this," Interior Secretary Gale Norton said after touring the mountaintop observatory southeast of the Valley....
Court ruling favors fish over more electricity from river dams A U.S. District Court judge yesterday barred the federal government from a first-ever attempt to reduce the summer spill that improves passage of young salmon past dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. The government had wanted to push more water through turbines — rather than over spillways — during strong summer power markets, a move that could have raised up to $28 million in additional revenue for the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets wholesale power throughout the Northwest. U.S. District Court Judge James Redden's ruling was a strong rebuke to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which had concluded that spill could be reduced beginning Aug. 1 without harming the recovery prospects for an endangered fall run of Snake River chinook salmon....
Panhandle mice to get federal protection The federal government has been given just more than two years by a judge to reconsider its refusal to designate critical habitat for an endangered beach mouse found only on a Florida Panhandle peninsula. Senior U.S. District Judge William Stafford issued that order, which could lead to putting habitat for the St. Andrew beach mouse off-limits to human encroachment, Tuesday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had voluntarily agreed to reconsider its decision after being sued by the Center for Biological Diversity and losing several similar cases in regard to other species, agency spokesman Tom MacKenzie said Wednesday....
When noise is issue, wildlife live high life Translation: It's OK to foist the old noisy jets on regular folks, but let it interfere with the mating habits of the moose, and voila! Congress steps in. And so on June 28, Jackson Hole instituted a congressionally approved ban on Stage 2 aircraft. The move hasn't been lost on Phil Vickers, who sits on Scottsdale's Airport Advisory Commission. "It means that if the noise of Stage 2 aircraft affects animals and wildlife and the environment, you can ban Stage 2," he says. "But if it affects the lives of people in ordinary America, you can't do it."....
Surface-rights initiative gaining signatures A group of ranchers, farmers and other landowners are working to get an initiative on the ballot in 2006 that would protect the property rights of surface landowners during oil and gas development. Lori Goodman, president of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, which is circulating the petitions, said the drive has gathered 25,000 of the necessary 35,000 signatures required for the ballot initiative. The current movement to have a citizen-initiated ballot will use the same language as the failed bill. The major points of the bill set guidelines for notification, planning and compensation. "The bill provides three things - when are you coming, what are you going to do, and I'd like some compensation, period," Barlow said....
BLM on pace to set record for permits As oil and natural gas prices climb, the Bureau of Land Management is on pace to issue a record number of well drilling permits on public land this year. The agency had issued about 3,500 permits by June 25, a number that is expected to increase to a record 6,000 by the end of the federal fiscal year in September, BLM geologist Richard Watson said Wednesday. Last year, the agency issued about 4,000 permits. "It's unprecedented in the history of the BLM," he said during an address to a natural gas outlook conference....
BLM allows coal mine to expand Federal land managers will allow Powder River Coal Co. to expand its North Antelope-Rochelle mine in Campbell County by about 2,368 acres. The company, owned by St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp. - the world's largest coal producer - will have available 306.9 million more tons of recoverable coal on the north side of the mine as the result of a decision issued last week by the Bureau of Land Management. Along with earlier approval to allow expansion on the south side, the extra acreage will extend the life of the mine six years beyond an estimate of 11 years made in 2003, said Mike Karbs, assistant field manager for the BLM's Casper office....
Amnesty brings in Indian artifacts An offer of amnesty for turning in culturally important American Indian artifacts has recovered a 300- to 500-year-old canteen from Jemez Pueblo, a 1,000-year-old Anasazi pot found in northwestern New Mexico and a 300-year-old Navajo pot from federal land. The U.S. attorney's office here on Tuesday displayed about two dozen returned artifacts as a way to promote the amnesty program, which ends Aug. 18....
Two Dozen U.S. National Parks Threatened by Bush Roadless Forest Rule Repeal The Bush Administration's reversal of roadless rule protections for national forests jeopardizes 23 U.S. national parks and monuments in 16 states, raising the specter of serious harm being done to outdoor "crown jewels" that are traveled to each year by more than 40 million Americans -- over a third of all visits to U.S. national parks, monuments and parkways, according to a new report released today by the Campaign to Protect America's Lands (CPAL) and the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees (CCNPSR). The detailed analysis finds that roughly 20 percent of all roadless forest areas that are to be stripped of federal protections by the Bush Administration either directly border or are near national parks and monuments....
Trial date set in case of former U.S. Park Police chief The former chief of the U.S. Park Police has lost her bid to be reinstated while fighting her dismissal. But an administrative law judge agreed Teresa Chambers, a former police chief in North Carolina, has a right to seek testimony from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton and National Park Service Director Fran P. Mainella are among those Chambers' lawyers will be allowed to seek depositions from under a ruling by a U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board judge....
Grand Canyon sees visitor increase, first in decade The number of tourists visiting Grand Canyon National Park has risen in the past two years, the first upward streak the park has seen in the last decade, reflecting an apparent trend among the national parks. Between January and June this year, nearly 2.2 million people visited the park, a 7.2 percent jump from the same time last year....
Environmentalism takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention Environmentalism is descending on the Democratic National Convention this week in the form of biodegradable balloons and recycled confetti -- and that's just the beginning. All of the electricity powering the festivities is coming from renewable sources or an onsite fuel-cell generator. Local Massachusetts farms are supplying food for a handful of the convention events, and leftovers are being donated or composted. Greenhouse-gas credits will offset the carbon-dioxide emissions generated by convention delegates as they travel to and from Boston, and hybrid gas-electric buses are shuttling people between events....
Environmentalists rally in Boston Rallying at the Democratic National Convention, environmentalists and their allies in Congress on Tuesday accused Republicans of abandoning the public interest and promised to reverse Bush administration rollbacks of key laws and regulations. "One of the things we've got to do is recapture that bipartisan vision of an environmental future for this country, and John Kerry is the candidate who can do that," Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., told about 300 activists at Christopher Columbus Park. With the race between Kerry and President Bush locked in a statistical dead heat, many national environmental groups hope that they can inspire enough voters to support Kerry and tip the balance in swing states such as Oregon....
Rehab projects turn dry flats into wetlands Ten watershed restoration projects have turned nearly 2,000 acres along Last Chance Creek, a major tributary to the Feather River, into functioning meadows, including the wetlands around this pair of ponds near Artray Creek. The projects are the most recent accomplishments of the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management group. Known as a CRM, the partnership of 22 ranchers, anglers, local, state and federal agency officials, has been working cooperatively since 1985....
Back in the saddle In this cowboy story, the American consumer rides to the rescue of the cattle industry, with a hand from Uncle Sam. Undaunted by the specter of mad cow disease, grocery shoppers continue buying beef for low-carb diets and they are paying ever-higher prices to boot. Meanwhile, the U.S. government keeps Canadian cattle out of the country, propping up domestic producers. That all translates into good times on the range so that even famously reserved ranchers smile about the roller-coaster ride to recovery for the largest sector of the U.S. farm economy....
U.S. Distributor Recalls Canadian Ground Beef A Pennsylvania meat company voluntarily recalled 170,000 pounds of hamburger patties that contained Canadian beef products prohibited under safeguards against mad cow disease, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday. The USDA said the recalled products from Quaker Maid Meats, Inc., a privately-owned business, were allowed into the United States after a Canadian meat inspector improperly labeled a shipment of 41,000 pounds of beef. The beef was later used by Quaker Maid to produce 170,000 pounds of hamburger. "This is a mistake made in Canada," USDA Undersecretary Elsa Murano told reporters. "This does not pose any risk to human health."....
J.C's was a time when cattle roamed bosque and droughts claimed crops for five long years J.C. Sanchez of Adelino has been around farms and ranches for almost 80 years and has experienced the changes that time and technology have brought about. Valencia County itself has changed a lot, he said, and he has had to change with it. "It's been a hard life, but a good life," he said. J.C. was born in Adelino in 1921, and he lived on his father's farm until he was about 9 years old. After he and his family moved to Willard, J.C. continued to visit the farm in Adelino on the weekends to help out and do chores, cleaning ditches in the spring, feeding hogs, husking corn and leveling fields with a horse. He said the farm, at 250 acres, used to be one of the largest individually owned farms in the county....
Rancher wants to know what strange creature he killed An Elmendorf rancher is wondering what exactly it was he shot and killed about three weeks ago. Devin Mcanally, an Elmendorf rancher and retired English teacher, found a strange creature lurking in his back yard attacking his livestock. At one point, 35 of his chickens disappeared in one day. He says the dog-like creature was only seen during the day. Local experts are still wondering what it is. McAnally describes it as hairless with blue-ish skin. There's a 2-inch ridge of hair running down its back. It was eating mulberries under a tree when Mcanally shot it. He thinks the creature was pregnant....
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Rey speaks on ranching, forests and war Ranching advocates applauded Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey after he praised the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, the 2002 Farm Bill, Bill Clinton’s roadless rule and President Bush’s military efforts to fight terrorism. Rey made the comments to an audience of ranchers, lobbyists and federal employees during the Arizona Cattle Grower’s Association centennial celebration at the Prescott Resort on Monday....
Rocky Mountaineers Revolt Planned drilling of tens of thousands of wells has unleashed a backlash among ranchers, farmers, and independent business people. They're challenging drilling aimed at fueling California as traditional gas fields run dry and see the new wells as a major threat to their water, air, land and way of life. Traditional gas drilling is reaching into more inhabited areas – as are new extraction methods, such as coal-bed methane. From New Mexico to Montana, they are petitioning their government and filing lawsuits....
Editorial: No time for fire smoke screen At a time when the costs and methods of fighting wildfires have come under scrutiny, it probably isn't wise for National Forest personnel to put up a smoke screen when it comes to this year's fire season. But that's what happened Tuesday when reporters attempted to visit one of the area's first major fires. Ranger Amber Kamps, continuing a tactic she's followed since she has been in charge of the Helena National Forest's Lincoln Ranger District, refused to allow the media anywhere near the blaze. This is in contradiction to the "Interagency Media Guidelines for Wildland Fires" - created and followed by federal agencies nationwide - which states that "Denial of access will be a rare occurrence."....
Helicopter crew misses chance to douse fire Even though the crew of a state-owned helicopter found the Ogden Mountain Fire at 1 p.m. Monday, they weren't ordered to drop water on the flames for more than three hours, until after the blaze got out of control. Instead, the helicopter was used to guide a three-person National Forest Service firefighting team to the remote location. By Tuesday, what had started as less than an acre fire 12 miles southwest of Lincoln had grown to around 70 acres, with 160 people, four retardant planes, two helicopters and a "Super Scooper" working the fire....
Thinning slows fire Fire racing up a ridge above Chiloquin ran into a road block Sunday afternoon. In its path was a patch of private forest land that had been thinned by its land owner under a federal grant. The diminished fuel load kept the fury of the fire down and bought firefighters time to get the fire controlled....
Habitat projects for elk providing mixed results Habitat improvement projects at state elk feedgrounds over the years have sought to make elk less dependent on wintertime food handouts, with mixed results. Cases of brucellosis in cattle near the Muddy Feedground near Boulder last year led the federal government to revoke Wyoming's brucellosis-free status. There is concern that feedgrounds help brucellosis spread by concentrating elk. Jared Rogerson, a Game and Fish Department brucellosis biologist, said habitat improvement projects have covered some 10,000 acres on the Muddy, Fall Creek and Scab Creek feedgrounds. Most of the projects have involved burning habitat in a mosaic pattern and thinning aspen stands....
A new approach to working with endangered species At first glance, Bob Long may seem to be an unlikely environmental activist. He is a minister, a rancher and a staunch defender of property rights. He is also leading the way in the fight to preserve the endangered Houston Toad, populations of which have a tenuous foothold in Bastrop County and on Long’s family ranch there. “I wanted to get off dead center,” Long says. “We had a stakeholder group that was bogged down in paperwork, and I saw an opportunity to get something going on my ranch that could be a template for other farmers and ranchers.” That “something” Long refers to is called “safe harbor.” Under its terms, Long—or any other landowner—may work to manage the land to increase populations of an endangered species. Later he can take it all back, removing the habitat and modifications, without penalty under the law....
Editorial: Wolf pack was sacrificed as part of reintroduction deal The feds took out a nine-member wolf pack last week near McCall after failed attempts to convince the critters to remove sheep from their diet. By the resounding "Hallelujah!" heard around Idaho, you'd have thought the state sales tax had up and expired. Truthfully, the demise of the Cook Pack - which over the last two summers killed in the neighborhood of 200 sheep - isn't one which wolf restoration advocates should mourn. And for the anti-wolf crowd, it's not one to cheer, either. Gunning down all nine of these wolves from a helicopter is the kind of control the government must exercise if its efforts to keep wolves a part of the wild landscape of Idaho are to have any kind of validity. Granted, sheep just might be the least equipped of domestic livestock to deal with a pack of hungry wolves. Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator had this to say about sheep in last year's Idaho State Journal: "Sheep are susceptible to just about any predator, whether it walks, runs or flies - they're just looking for a place to die."....
Feds fail to protect species from pesticides The Tucson, Ariz.-based, Center for Biological Diversity is accusing federal officials of failing to protect endangered species from pesticides. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday the group has concluded about 375 animals and plants -- nearly one-third of the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act -- are exposed to and potentially harmed by pesticides. The environmental group said in a report the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "displays a stunning lack of initiative in complying with the Endangered Species Act" and "has shown reckless disregard for the impact of its pesticide regulation program on wildlife."....Go here(pdf)to view the report....
Government May Face Lawsuit Over Salmon Conservation and fisheries groups have given the government two months' notice that they plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unless it does a better job gauging the risks various pesticides pose to salmon in the Pacific Northwest. In a letter sent Monday to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt, lawyers with the environmental defense firm Earthjustice said the agency failed to use the best available science when it concluded that more than three dozen pesticides either would not harm or would not likely harm threatened and endangered salmon runs....
Outbreak of gastrointestinal illness hits Yellowstone visitors, workers A highly infectious illness sickened 134 people at Yellowstone in June and early July, the National Park Service said. The virus was likely the same bug that has sickened hundreds on cruise ships and caused earlier outbreaks at Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks. Of those who became sick, 53 were visitors and 81 were employees....
No arrests made at convention so far This ain't Chicago, 1968. Or even Philadelphia, 2000. As of 7 p.m. Tuesday, there'd been no arrests at the Democratic National Convention. "It's a police state," groused Detlev Koepke, 48, a history professor at Bridgewater State College, as a U.S. Park Service lieutenant told him to remove a "Take Back Democracy" sign that was blocking officers' view of Faneuil Hall....My purpose in posting this is to ask the question, "what in the hell is the park service doing at the DNC?" If you know, please let me know.
Burns enters mineral lease fray Leaseholders and private organizations can discuss a buyout or exchange of mineral leases on the Rocky Mountain Front, but the federal government should not pay for the deal, says Sen. Conrad Burns. Burns, R-Mont., on Tuesday met with eight members of the "Save the Front" coalition at his Great Falls office. The group is working to protect the Rocky Mountain Front from oil and natural gas development. Burns offered to hold a meeting between leaseholders and the organization. Depending on that discussion, Burns also said he could support slowing down development options while a deal was negotiated....
Testimony begins for Rifle rancher seeking gas royalties A jury was seated and testimony began Monday in District Court in Glenwood Springs in a lawsuit over natural-gas royalties a Rifle-area third-generation sheep rancher claims he wasn’t paid over an eight-year period. William Clough owns about 12,000 acres along the Interstate 70 corridor from Rifle to west of Parachute, including the land at the base of the Roan Plateau where numerous wells have been drilled. He filed a lawsuit against Williams Production in February 2002 that claims he was not paid all the gas royalties due him over an eight-year period....
Court battle likely over Ballardini buyout A court battle over the future of the Ballardini Ranch appears inevitable after the Washoe County Commission agreed Tuesday to try one last time to buy the historic property and seize the land if a deal can’t be reached. Representatives of Minnesota-based Evans Creek LLC, owners of the Ballardini Ranch, said the county’s $20 million appraisal of the 1,019-acre ranch would provide “far, far, far” too little money for an agreement to be reached, setting the stage for court action by the county to take the land....
State Land Board works to fix grazing-lease law The state Land Board is working on ways to comply with a recent judge's order condemning as unconstitutional one long-standing practice of divvying out state grazing leases. The board, made up of the governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction, told the Montana Department of Natural Resources Monday to start looking at ways they can change either state law or the board's own internal rules to do away with an automatic "preference right" for ranchers who have pre-existing grazing leases. At issue is the commonly called "preference right," a part of state law that assures ranchers who already have grazing leases that they can automatically keep them if they meet the high bid from others on the state land....
Corner jumping doesn't violate rules Douglas hunter Bill Kearney always suspected it wasn't illegal to corner jump over private land while hunting. Now he has a state opinion backing up his contention. The Douglas sportsmen was acquitted of trespass charges in April after he used a Global Positioning System (GPS) device to step from one parcel of public land to another while hunting in Albany County in September 2003. The practice is known as corner jumping or corner crossing....
Eco-Feudalism in the Adirondacks In August 1978, 19-year-old Tim Jones bought an acre of land near the Raquette River in New York’s Adirondack Park. Four previous generations of Tim’s family had owned property along River Road in Altamont, and in August 1991 Tim obtained a permit from the town to begin building a small single-family dwelling. Tim was working on his cabin on April 21 of the following year when he was visited by Ed Talbot, a representative of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). Claiming that Tim’s property was part of a "jurisdictional wetland," Talbot ordered him to cease construction and remove the building. Tim pointed out that the lot he had purchased in 1978 was part of a pre-existing subdivision and was thus exempt from the APA’s jurisdiction under the 1973 act creating the agency. Talbot returned later that day with a formal cease-and-desist order....
USDA Signs Agreement With Ducks Unlimited USDA today announced a cooperative partnership with Ducks Unlimited, Inc. (DU) that will establish a framework of cooperation relative to the conservation and productivity of wetlands, uplands, grasslands and other waterfowl and wildlife habitats on private and public lands. “This five-year agreement recognizes the importance of public and private conservation partnerships to wetland and wildlife habitat objectives,” USDA Secretary Ann Veneman said....
Editorial: The Basin and the Bay IN 2002, DROUGHT led farmers in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon and Northern California to divert river water to their fields. Tens of thousands of coho salmon and other endangered fish died as a result. In 2003, a federal court ruled that river water could no longer be diverted, since doing so violated the Endangered Species Act. The result, in 2004, was mass bankruptcy, as farmers' livelihoods literally dried up. That's the West Coast story: Look no farther than the Chesapeake Bay watershed for the East Coast version. In a series of stories, The Post has revealed that despite more than a decade's worth of effort, the bay is actually no less polluted now than it was 15 years ago. Its "dead zone" -- the area of the bay in which nothing can live -- actually is expanding. Yet many of the most obvious sources of pollution have already been targeted: Phosphate detergents are banned in the region, and this spring Maryland legislators passed a $2.50 per household "flush tax" designed to raise money for sewage treatment plants. Meanwhile, the largest sources of pollution -- nutrient runoff from some 12,000 farms in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania, as well as from cities -- have hardly been tackled. That's because to do so would be complicated and expensive, and might put at risk the income of the region's farmers. The bicoastal environmental trouble illustrates how difficult the choice can be between clean rivers and "normal" water levels on the one hand, and agriculture and irrigation on the other....
No plan yet for parched Klamath Federal officials have yet to develop a plan to deal with a repeat of the 2002 fish kill on the Klamath River, even as flows in the lower river drop below that year's levels at this time. The flows are scheduled to level off, however, as water bought by the federal government begins to be sent down the river beginning in mid-August. That will keep river levels somewhat higher than they were in 2002. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is also looking to acquire more water to use in the event of such an emergency, but does not intend at this point to boost flows as a preventative measure....
Dry West sends out for water The next frontier in the West may be a billion-dollar system of water wells and pipelines. From here to El Paso, communities in the midst of huge development booms expect to spend fortunes to lay pipes from new water sources, some of them hundreds of miles away. For towns and cities that can develop fresh sources of water, the pipelines will not only accommodate the rush of more industry and homes, they're also expected to boost local economies for decades to come. The proposed projects also reflect a hard fact about the driest region in the USA: All the water in the West's rivers, creeks, lakes and reservoirs is taken, committed to present needs. To fill the taps of burgeoning cities and suburbs, the West is looking elsewhere — and in many cases, looking deeper....
Feds take shot at unleaded ammo So-called "green ammo" -- bullets made of iron, copper and other metals less toxic than lead -- has become the norm at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, essentially the nation's largest police academy. Responsible for training the employees of 76 federal agencies, from the Secret Service to the U.S. Park Service police, the center has virtually created a market for unleaded ammunition that officials say poses fewer health and environmental risks....
Greening the Conventions The monthly meeting started precisely at 9:45 a.m. The agenda included five minutes on the press conference with the mayor, five minutes for waste management, 10 minutes on outreach. Was this a meeting for a government agency, or a community advocacy group? Perhaps a company board meeting? Actually, all of the above. It was a general meeting of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventions (CERC), a non-partisan collaboration of 60 organizations spanning the nonprofit, commercial and public sectors. “We are promoting the use of environmental best practices for the Democratic (July 26 to 29) and Republican National Conventions (August 28 to September 2) in order to showcase those practices to the political leaders and the general public,” explains Executive Director Daniel Ruben. “We want to establish the role model for future conventions, political and otherwise.”....
Apache Creek cows poisoned by oleander cuttings Barney, whose ranch includes part of Apache Creek, appeared to be in mild shock. All 60 of his cows, including two bulls, were fine when he checked them Saturday evening. On Sunday, he found six of them dead. As he moved the herd to his corrals, two more died along the way. He would come to learn that his cows were dying because they ate oleander leaves. Someone had trimmed their oleander bushes and dumped the cuttings on his side of the fence along the creek....
Cowboy's Death Troubles Town On the one-year anniversary of Billy Warren's death in mid-July a friend strung yellow ribbons around a pole near where the rancher's house stood. Within hours, someone had torn down the ribbons and stomped them into the dirt. It was more proof, if any was needed, that the mystery surrounding the cowboy's death in the midst of an arson fire continues to haunt this vacation getaway on the scenic Central Coast. Despite law enforcement efforts to put the case to rest in a community that averages one homicide a decade, rumor and innuendo continue to swirl through the cafes and antique shops that line the narrow downtown streets. That's because the Warren name meant something here. The Warrens helped build the city back when it was called Slabtown for its mercury mines. For a century, the family ran cattle over some of the finest grazing land left on the Central Coast. Spread across the slopes of the Santa Lucia Mountains, the 4,000-acre Warren Ranch contained throat-catching vistas of forests and mountains that had not changed in millenniums....
Unique market creates “harmony” for producers and consumers “Fresh food, less traveled.” A simple statement that says a thousand words. In today’s global agriculture market, there is growing number of consumers who feel disconnected to their food supply. They are the group that have made farmer’s markets across the nation so popular in their search for fresh, local produce and meat that meets their quality standards. These people are looking for what their grandparents had, a healthy food supply that you could put a face to, the face of the farmer or rancher that raised the product — and an enterprising group of farmers and ranchers in the Colorado region are giving them just that....
Law of the West: Agriculture and borders Working my “day job” in the homeland security realm, I noticed that the Customs and Border Protection agency graduated its first class of Agriculture Specialists. These 29 young men and women will serve at various ports examining the baggage, mail and cargo that comes into the U.S. for prohibited agricultural products. While part of their duties include protecting our borders from agricultural and biological terrorism, they also serve the more traditional role of preventing the introduction of non-native species of plants and animals. These agriculture specialists will work hand in hand with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA. APHIS is responsible for protecting and promoting U.S. agricultural health, administering the Animal Welfare Act, and carrying out wildlife damage management activities....
An old cowboy B.E. Denton was born on Hog Creek, a small stream running into the Brazos River, about 30 or 40 miles west of Fort Worth, Texas, about 1845. Texas was a wild place at that time and Cyclone said the scream of panthers in the night would send shivers down his spine. But he loved living next to nature, even when a warring party of Comanche Indians came by to run off a number of the family saddle horses and shoot arrows at Cyclone and his sister. But he learned to ride, rope and shoot with the best of them. About the age of 16, a time when boys were considered “grown” on the frontier, he saddled his favorite horse, Topsy, and in his words, “Lit a shuck for the further West. This was in the early ’70s and I soon found that travelin’ in those parts was both lonesome and dangerous.” Cyclone and Topsy headed West through the dry country of West Texas and into the badlands of Southeast New Mexico where water is scarce and human existence was missing. Then they crossed the Rio Grande River and up into the foothills of the Rockies to a small place called Silver City, N.M. Silver City was a mining town full of dance halls, saloons, and shooting galleries. The town was also full of buffalo hunters, gamblers, wild men and wild women. That was where Cyclone saw his first man killed....
It's All Trew: Hot-wire fence inspires change of occupation I quit irrigated farming and became a full-time rancher because of a hot-wire fence. My teenage sons installed a new hot-wire fence a little too close to an irrigation ditch. One morning early, I was wading the muddy ditch picking up aluminum siphon tubes to change a setting of water. My arms were nearly full when I stepped into a hole filling my right boot with cold water. To keep from falling, I squatted down to catch my balance, dipping my buttocks down into the cold water. At this very instant, the armload of aluminum tubes touched the hot-wire fence. The rodeo following had great influence on my decision to change occupations. Talk about changing direction in midstream, this was a fine example....
Rey speaks on ranching, forests and war Ranching advocates applauded Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey after he praised the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, the 2002 Farm Bill, Bill Clinton’s roadless rule and President Bush’s military efforts to fight terrorism. Rey made the comments to an audience of ranchers, lobbyists and federal employees during the Arizona Cattle Grower’s Association centennial celebration at the Prescott Resort on Monday....
Rocky Mountaineers Revolt Planned drilling of tens of thousands of wells has unleashed a backlash among ranchers, farmers, and independent business people. They're challenging drilling aimed at fueling California as traditional gas fields run dry and see the new wells as a major threat to their water, air, land and way of life. Traditional gas drilling is reaching into more inhabited areas – as are new extraction methods, such as coal-bed methane. From New Mexico to Montana, they are petitioning their government and filing lawsuits....
Editorial: No time for fire smoke screen At a time when the costs and methods of fighting wildfires have come under scrutiny, it probably isn't wise for National Forest personnel to put up a smoke screen when it comes to this year's fire season. But that's what happened Tuesday when reporters attempted to visit one of the area's first major fires. Ranger Amber Kamps, continuing a tactic she's followed since she has been in charge of the Helena National Forest's Lincoln Ranger District, refused to allow the media anywhere near the blaze. This is in contradiction to the "Interagency Media Guidelines for Wildland Fires" - created and followed by federal agencies nationwide - which states that "Denial of access will be a rare occurrence."....
Helicopter crew misses chance to douse fire Even though the crew of a state-owned helicopter found the Ogden Mountain Fire at 1 p.m. Monday, they weren't ordered to drop water on the flames for more than three hours, until after the blaze got out of control. Instead, the helicopter was used to guide a three-person National Forest Service firefighting team to the remote location. By Tuesday, what had started as less than an acre fire 12 miles southwest of Lincoln had grown to around 70 acres, with 160 people, four retardant planes, two helicopters and a "Super Scooper" working the fire....
Thinning slows fire Fire racing up a ridge above Chiloquin ran into a road block Sunday afternoon. In its path was a patch of private forest land that had been thinned by its land owner under a federal grant. The diminished fuel load kept the fury of the fire down and bought firefighters time to get the fire controlled....
Habitat projects for elk providing mixed results Habitat improvement projects at state elk feedgrounds over the years have sought to make elk less dependent on wintertime food handouts, with mixed results. Cases of brucellosis in cattle near the Muddy Feedground near Boulder last year led the federal government to revoke Wyoming's brucellosis-free status. There is concern that feedgrounds help brucellosis spread by concentrating elk. Jared Rogerson, a Game and Fish Department brucellosis biologist, said habitat improvement projects have covered some 10,000 acres on the Muddy, Fall Creek and Scab Creek feedgrounds. Most of the projects have involved burning habitat in a mosaic pattern and thinning aspen stands....
A new approach to working with endangered species At first glance, Bob Long may seem to be an unlikely environmental activist. He is a minister, a rancher and a staunch defender of property rights. He is also leading the way in the fight to preserve the endangered Houston Toad, populations of which have a tenuous foothold in Bastrop County and on Long’s family ranch there. “I wanted to get off dead center,” Long says. “We had a stakeholder group that was bogged down in paperwork, and I saw an opportunity to get something going on my ranch that could be a template for other farmers and ranchers.” That “something” Long refers to is called “safe harbor.” Under its terms, Long—or any other landowner—may work to manage the land to increase populations of an endangered species. Later he can take it all back, removing the habitat and modifications, without penalty under the law....
Editorial: Wolf pack was sacrificed as part of reintroduction deal The feds took out a nine-member wolf pack last week near McCall after failed attempts to convince the critters to remove sheep from their diet. By the resounding "Hallelujah!" heard around Idaho, you'd have thought the state sales tax had up and expired. Truthfully, the demise of the Cook Pack - which over the last two summers killed in the neighborhood of 200 sheep - isn't one which wolf restoration advocates should mourn. And for the anti-wolf crowd, it's not one to cheer, either. Gunning down all nine of these wolves from a helicopter is the kind of control the government must exercise if its efforts to keep wolves a part of the wild landscape of Idaho are to have any kind of validity. Granted, sheep just might be the least equipped of domestic livestock to deal with a pack of hungry wolves. Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator had this to say about sheep in last year's Idaho State Journal: "Sheep are susceptible to just about any predator, whether it walks, runs or flies - they're just looking for a place to die."....
Feds fail to protect species from pesticides The Tucson, Ariz.-based, Center for Biological Diversity is accusing federal officials of failing to protect endangered species from pesticides. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday the group has concluded about 375 animals and plants -- nearly one-third of the species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act -- are exposed to and potentially harmed by pesticides. The environmental group said in a report the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "displays a stunning lack of initiative in complying with the Endangered Species Act" and "has shown reckless disregard for the impact of its pesticide regulation program on wildlife."....Go here(pdf)to view the report....
Government May Face Lawsuit Over Salmon Conservation and fisheries groups have given the government two months' notice that they plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unless it does a better job gauging the risks various pesticides pose to salmon in the Pacific Northwest. In a letter sent Monday to EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt, lawyers with the environmental defense firm Earthjustice said the agency failed to use the best available science when it concluded that more than three dozen pesticides either would not harm or would not likely harm threatened and endangered salmon runs....
Outbreak of gastrointestinal illness hits Yellowstone visitors, workers A highly infectious illness sickened 134 people at Yellowstone in June and early July, the National Park Service said. The virus was likely the same bug that has sickened hundreds on cruise ships and caused earlier outbreaks at Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks. Of those who became sick, 53 were visitors and 81 were employees....
No arrests made at convention so far This ain't Chicago, 1968. Or even Philadelphia, 2000. As of 7 p.m. Tuesday, there'd been no arrests at the Democratic National Convention. "It's a police state," groused Detlev Koepke, 48, a history professor at Bridgewater State College, as a U.S. Park Service lieutenant told him to remove a "Take Back Democracy" sign that was blocking officers' view of Faneuil Hall....My purpose in posting this is to ask the question, "what in the hell is the park service doing at the DNC?" If you know, please let me know.
Burns enters mineral lease fray Leaseholders and private organizations can discuss a buyout or exchange of mineral leases on the Rocky Mountain Front, but the federal government should not pay for the deal, says Sen. Conrad Burns. Burns, R-Mont., on Tuesday met with eight members of the "Save the Front" coalition at his Great Falls office. The group is working to protect the Rocky Mountain Front from oil and natural gas development. Burns offered to hold a meeting between leaseholders and the organization. Depending on that discussion, Burns also said he could support slowing down development options while a deal was negotiated....
Testimony begins for Rifle rancher seeking gas royalties A jury was seated and testimony began Monday in District Court in Glenwood Springs in a lawsuit over natural-gas royalties a Rifle-area third-generation sheep rancher claims he wasn’t paid over an eight-year period. William Clough owns about 12,000 acres along the Interstate 70 corridor from Rifle to west of Parachute, including the land at the base of the Roan Plateau where numerous wells have been drilled. He filed a lawsuit against Williams Production in February 2002 that claims he was not paid all the gas royalties due him over an eight-year period....
Court battle likely over Ballardini buyout A court battle over the future of the Ballardini Ranch appears inevitable after the Washoe County Commission agreed Tuesday to try one last time to buy the historic property and seize the land if a deal can’t be reached. Representatives of Minnesota-based Evans Creek LLC, owners of the Ballardini Ranch, said the county’s $20 million appraisal of the 1,019-acre ranch would provide “far, far, far” too little money for an agreement to be reached, setting the stage for court action by the county to take the land....
State Land Board works to fix grazing-lease law The state Land Board is working on ways to comply with a recent judge's order condemning as unconstitutional one long-standing practice of divvying out state grazing leases. The board, made up of the governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction, told the Montana Department of Natural Resources Monday to start looking at ways they can change either state law or the board's own internal rules to do away with an automatic "preference right" for ranchers who have pre-existing grazing leases. At issue is the commonly called "preference right," a part of state law that assures ranchers who already have grazing leases that they can automatically keep them if they meet the high bid from others on the state land....
Corner jumping doesn't violate rules Douglas hunter Bill Kearney always suspected it wasn't illegal to corner jump over private land while hunting. Now he has a state opinion backing up his contention. The Douglas sportsmen was acquitted of trespass charges in April after he used a Global Positioning System (GPS) device to step from one parcel of public land to another while hunting in Albany County in September 2003. The practice is known as corner jumping or corner crossing....
Eco-Feudalism in the Adirondacks In August 1978, 19-year-old Tim Jones bought an acre of land near the Raquette River in New York’s Adirondack Park. Four previous generations of Tim’s family had owned property along River Road in Altamont, and in August 1991 Tim obtained a permit from the town to begin building a small single-family dwelling. Tim was working on his cabin on April 21 of the following year when he was visited by Ed Talbot, a representative of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). Claiming that Tim’s property was part of a "jurisdictional wetland," Talbot ordered him to cease construction and remove the building. Tim pointed out that the lot he had purchased in 1978 was part of a pre-existing subdivision and was thus exempt from the APA’s jurisdiction under the 1973 act creating the agency. Talbot returned later that day with a formal cease-and-desist order....
USDA Signs Agreement With Ducks Unlimited USDA today announced a cooperative partnership with Ducks Unlimited, Inc. (DU) that will establish a framework of cooperation relative to the conservation and productivity of wetlands, uplands, grasslands and other waterfowl and wildlife habitats on private and public lands. “This five-year agreement recognizes the importance of public and private conservation partnerships to wetland and wildlife habitat objectives,” USDA Secretary Ann Veneman said....
Editorial: The Basin and the Bay IN 2002, DROUGHT led farmers in the Klamath River Basin in Oregon and Northern California to divert river water to their fields. Tens of thousands of coho salmon and other endangered fish died as a result. In 2003, a federal court ruled that river water could no longer be diverted, since doing so violated the Endangered Species Act. The result, in 2004, was mass bankruptcy, as farmers' livelihoods literally dried up. That's the West Coast story: Look no farther than the Chesapeake Bay watershed for the East Coast version. In a series of stories, The Post has revealed that despite more than a decade's worth of effort, the bay is actually no less polluted now than it was 15 years ago. Its "dead zone" -- the area of the bay in which nothing can live -- actually is expanding. Yet many of the most obvious sources of pollution have already been targeted: Phosphate detergents are banned in the region, and this spring Maryland legislators passed a $2.50 per household "flush tax" designed to raise money for sewage treatment plants. Meanwhile, the largest sources of pollution -- nutrient runoff from some 12,000 farms in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania, as well as from cities -- have hardly been tackled. That's because to do so would be complicated and expensive, and might put at risk the income of the region's farmers. The bicoastal environmental trouble illustrates how difficult the choice can be between clean rivers and "normal" water levels on the one hand, and agriculture and irrigation on the other....
No plan yet for parched Klamath Federal officials have yet to develop a plan to deal with a repeat of the 2002 fish kill on the Klamath River, even as flows in the lower river drop below that year's levels at this time. The flows are scheduled to level off, however, as water bought by the federal government begins to be sent down the river beginning in mid-August. That will keep river levels somewhat higher than they were in 2002. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is also looking to acquire more water to use in the event of such an emergency, but does not intend at this point to boost flows as a preventative measure....
Dry West sends out for water The next frontier in the West may be a billion-dollar system of water wells and pipelines. From here to El Paso, communities in the midst of huge development booms expect to spend fortunes to lay pipes from new water sources, some of them hundreds of miles away. For towns and cities that can develop fresh sources of water, the pipelines will not only accommodate the rush of more industry and homes, they're also expected to boost local economies for decades to come. The proposed projects also reflect a hard fact about the driest region in the USA: All the water in the West's rivers, creeks, lakes and reservoirs is taken, committed to present needs. To fill the taps of burgeoning cities and suburbs, the West is looking elsewhere — and in many cases, looking deeper....
Feds take shot at unleaded ammo So-called "green ammo" -- bullets made of iron, copper and other metals less toxic than lead -- has become the norm at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, essentially the nation's largest police academy. Responsible for training the employees of 76 federal agencies, from the Secret Service to the U.S. Park Service police, the center has virtually created a market for unleaded ammunition that officials say poses fewer health and environmental risks....
Greening the Conventions The monthly meeting started precisely at 9:45 a.m. The agenda included five minutes on the press conference with the mayor, five minutes for waste management, 10 minutes on outreach. Was this a meeting for a government agency, or a community advocacy group? Perhaps a company board meeting? Actually, all of the above. It was a general meeting of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventions (CERC), a non-partisan collaboration of 60 organizations spanning the nonprofit, commercial and public sectors. “We are promoting the use of environmental best practices for the Democratic (July 26 to 29) and Republican National Conventions (August 28 to September 2) in order to showcase those practices to the political leaders and the general public,” explains Executive Director Daniel Ruben. “We want to establish the role model for future conventions, political and otherwise.”....
Apache Creek cows poisoned by oleander cuttings Barney, whose ranch includes part of Apache Creek, appeared to be in mild shock. All 60 of his cows, including two bulls, were fine when he checked them Saturday evening. On Sunday, he found six of them dead. As he moved the herd to his corrals, two more died along the way. He would come to learn that his cows were dying because they ate oleander leaves. Someone had trimmed their oleander bushes and dumped the cuttings on his side of the fence along the creek....
Cowboy's Death Troubles Town On the one-year anniversary of Billy Warren's death in mid-July a friend strung yellow ribbons around a pole near where the rancher's house stood. Within hours, someone had torn down the ribbons and stomped them into the dirt. It was more proof, if any was needed, that the mystery surrounding the cowboy's death in the midst of an arson fire continues to haunt this vacation getaway on the scenic Central Coast. Despite law enforcement efforts to put the case to rest in a community that averages one homicide a decade, rumor and innuendo continue to swirl through the cafes and antique shops that line the narrow downtown streets. That's because the Warren name meant something here. The Warrens helped build the city back when it was called Slabtown for its mercury mines. For a century, the family ran cattle over some of the finest grazing land left on the Central Coast. Spread across the slopes of the Santa Lucia Mountains, the 4,000-acre Warren Ranch contained throat-catching vistas of forests and mountains that had not changed in millenniums....
Unique market creates “harmony” for producers and consumers “Fresh food, less traveled.” A simple statement that says a thousand words. In today’s global agriculture market, there is growing number of consumers who feel disconnected to their food supply. They are the group that have made farmer’s markets across the nation so popular in their search for fresh, local produce and meat that meets their quality standards. These people are looking for what their grandparents had, a healthy food supply that you could put a face to, the face of the farmer or rancher that raised the product — and an enterprising group of farmers and ranchers in the Colorado region are giving them just that....
Law of the West: Agriculture and borders Working my “day job” in the homeland security realm, I noticed that the Customs and Border Protection agency graduated its first class of Agriculture Specialists. These 29 young men and women will serve at various ports examining the baggage, mail and cargo that comes into the U.S. for prohibited agricultural products. While part of their duties include protecting our borders from agricultural and biological terrorism, they also serve the more traditional role of preventing the introduction of non-native species of plants and animals. These agriculture specialists will work hand in hand with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the USDA. APHIS is responsible for protecting and promoting U.S. agricultural health, administering the Animal Welfare Act, and carrying out wildlife damage management activities....
An old cowboy B.E. Denton was born on Hog Creek, a small stream running into the Brazos River, about 30 or 40 miles west of Fort Worth, Texas, about 1845. Texas was a wild place at that time and Cyclone said the scream of panthers in the night would send shivers down his spine. But he loved living next to nature, even when a warring party of Comanche Indians came by to run off a number of the family saddle horses and shoot arrows at Cyclone and his sister. But he learned to ride, rope and shoot with the best of them. About the age of 16, a time when boys were considered “grown” on the frontier, he saddled his favorite horse, Topsy, and in his words, “Lit a shuck for the further West. This was in the early ’70s and I soon found that travelin’ in those parts was both lonesome and dangerous.” Cyclone and Topsy headed West through the dry country of West Texas and into the badlands of Southeast New Mexico where water is scarce and human existence was missing. Then they crossed the Rio Grande River and up into the foothills of the Rockies to a small place called Silver City, N.M. Silver City was a mining town full of dance halls, saloons, and shooting galleries. The town was also full of buffalo hunters, gamblers, wild men and wild women. That was where Cyclone saw his first man killed....
It's All Trew: Hot-wire fence inspires change of occupation I quit irrigated farming and became a full-time rancher because of a hot-wire fence. My teenage sons installed a new hot-wire fence a little too close to an irrigation ditch. One morning early, I was wading the muddy ditch picking up aluminum siphon tubes to change a setting of water. My arms were nearly full when I stepped into a hole filling my right boot with cold water. To keep from falling, I squatted down to catch my balance, dipping my buttocks down into the cold water. At this very instant, the armload of aluminum tubes touched the hot-wire fence. The rodeo following had great influence on my decision to change occupations. Talk about changing direction in midstream, this was a fine example....
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Calif. Salamander Given Protected Status Federal wildlife officials on Monday agreed to grant protection to the California tiger salamander and its habitat, handing a major victory to conservationists but angering farmers and real estate developers. The salamander will be listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act -- a designation that makes it unlawful to harm the animal and restricts development in its habitat, primarily in the Central Valley, Central Coast and San Francisco Bay area. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they hope to designate nearly 400,000 acres in 20 counties as the salamander's critical habitat....
Ranchers get break with salamander ruling Santa Barbara County ranchers got a break, San Luis Obispo County developers got cause for concern, and environmentalists received a split decision Monday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The California tiger salamander - a small amphibian that has caused countless headaches for North County property owners and developers - has been down-listed from "endangered" to "threatened" status in Santa Barbara County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday. Protections required for the creature in Santa Barbara County will remain the same - except for ranch land, according to Lois Grunwald of Fish and Wildlife. A new special rule allows ranchers an unlimited "take" of the creatures during "normal" ranching activities....
More habitat available for grizzlies in tri-state area New science reveals more land suitable for grizzly bear habitat exists in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho than previously believed, said a bear specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. That will help grizzlies expand their numbers -- if, that is, "people are tolerant and the landscape is not developed," Louisa Willcox of Livingston said Thursday. "There's plenty of room. We can expand where bears can be." She described actions that would help grizzlies in a recently released report, "Bear With Us -- An Alternative Path to Grizzly Recovery in the Lower 48 States."....
'Frozen Ark' to save animal DNA The genetic make-up of endangered species is to be preserved for the future in a major new UK-based project. The 'Frozen Ark', launched on Tuesday, will collect DNA from mammals, birds, insects and reptiles near extinction...
5 wolves readied for Arizona release A family of five Mexican gray wolves was placed in an acclimation pen south of this eastern Arizona town in preparation for the animals' eventual release into the wild. The pack, consisting of a male, a female and their three pups, will stay in the nylon mesh pen for up to two weeks....
Column: Environmentalists Want Your Property Want the last part per million of arsenic removed from your drinking water? Pay for it. Want to save the kangaroo rat? Buy a home in Riverside County, California, and add $1,950 per acre to the price to fund a $100 million rat preserve. Or, if you want a home near Austin, Texas, pay a land trust $1,500 to manage an endangered toad's habitat. In Southern Arizona, pay an additional $7,000 to $12,000 for a building lot to fund 1.2 million acres of habitat for the pygmy owl. In San Bernardino County, you can help fund the $3.3 million spent to relocate a medical center to avoid a sand pit, allegedly visited by an endangered fly. Colton, California, which couldn't site a sports complex because of the fly, says it and other species cost the city 20,000 jobs in the last decade....
Officials draft new grassland plan Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials want to broaden the state's ineffective black-tailed prairie dog management plan into a more comprehensive native species grassland plan. The move is part of an effort to develop and create habitat-wide management plans instead of specific species management plans for individual species such as prairie dogs and sage grouse....
Pioneer lynx ponder: Is Utah the place? Two Canada lynx released in southern Colorado this spring are touring Utah looking for possible new home ranges. Since there have been no confirmed sightings of native wild lynx in Utah since the 1970s, the cats - listed as "threatened" on the Federal Endangered Species list - will probably discover plenty of suitable locations to call home....
Wyoming Aiding Endangered Toad Tadpoles A batch of Wyoming toad tadpoles released into Albany County ponds marked the first time artificial fertilization has been used to help an endangered amphibian, according to researchers. The Wyoming toad is the only toad that lives in the Laramie Basin and the Laramie Basin is the only place that is home to the toad. The toad was listed as endangered in 1984 and was thought to have gone extinct in 1987. But more toads were found. By 2000, the total population of the toad was about 200 in a captive breeding program plus as few as 62 at reintroduction sites....
State might buy forests, use returns for college grants Gov. Ted Kulongoski's staff is exploring the idea of the state purchasing forest land as a long-term investment, with the goals of protecting Oregon's wooded character while aiding troubled logging communities and using returns to make college more affordable for residents. If they pursue the concept, it could be reminiscent of the state's restoration of forests in the Coast Range after wildfires leveled them more than five decades ago. Voters invested $12 million in bond revenue to replant what has become the Tillamook State Forest, which now holds an estimated $3 billion worth of land and timber....
Boise Cascade Quits Forest Industry, Will Focus on Office Supplies Boise Cascade Corp., a major force in the U.S. forest products industry with deep roots in the development of the Pacific Northwest, announced yesterday it is getting out of the lumber and paper business and instead will focus on selling office supplies through its OfficeMax retail chain. The company said it has agreed to sell most of its timberland, forest products, paper mills and other related assets for about $3.7 billion to a new, privately held company formed by Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, a private investment firm based in Chicago....
Environmentalists object to forest drilling leases Environmentalists say Bridger-Teton National Forest is skirting federal environmental law by agreeing to lease more than 100,000 acres for oil and gas drilling. They say the proposed leases in the Wyoming Range are based on outdated studies. Forest officials counter that the old studies are still valid and that more detailed analysis and public comment will come later....
Environmental Data to Be Streamlined Michigan has joined the National Environmental Information Exchange Network, a newly formed system that makes it easier for government workers to compile, submit and swap data collected under federal air and water pollution laws. Thirteen states are members, and the total is expected to reach 35 this year, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Federal and local agencies and Indian tribes also can take part. Eventually, the network will be a vast reservoir of information accessible not only to government officials, but also to scientists, environmentalists and other interests....
Veteran cattle rancher hangs up his hat Rancher Roger Piers has decided that the time has come to mend his last fence, herd his last cow and chase the last trespasser off his 1,200-acre expanse of Stanford University grassland. The only longtime cattle rancher left in Silicon Valley, 80-year-old Piers is retiring. ``It costs more and more, and you make less and less,'' said Piers, whose family has grazed cattle on land leased from the university on both sides of Interstate 280 since 1927....
Calif. Salamander Given Protected Status Federal wildlife officials on Monday agreed to grant protection to the California tiger salamander and its habitat, handing a major victory to conservationists but angering farmers and real estate developers. The salamander will be listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act -- a designation that makes it unlawful to harm the animal and restricts development in its habitat, primarily in the Central Valley, Central Coast and San Francisco Bay area. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they hope to designate nearly 400,000 acres in 20 counties as the salamander's critical habitat....
Ranchers get break with salamander ruling Santa Barbara County ranchers got a break, San Luis Obispo County developers got cause for concern, and environmentalists received a split decision Monday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The California tiger salamander - a small amphibian that has caused countless headaches for North County property owners and developers - has been down-listed from "endangered" to "threatened" status in Santa Barbara County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday. Protections required for the creature in Santa Barbara County will remain the same - except for ranch land, according to Lois Grunwald of Fish and Wildlife. A new special rule allows ranchers an unlimited "take" of the creatures during "normal" ranching activities....
More habitat available for grizzlies in tri-state area New science reveals more land suitable for grizzly bear habitat exists in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho than previously believed, said a bear specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. That will help grizzlies expand their numbers -- if, that is, "people are tolerant and the landscape is not developed," Louisa Willcox of Livingston said Thursday. "There's plenty of room. We can expand where bears can be." She described actions that would help grizzlies in a recently released report, "Bear With Us -- An Alternative Path to Grizzly Recovery in the Lower 48 States."....
'Frozen Ark' to save animal DNA The genetic make-up of endangered species is to be preserved for the future in a major new UK-based project. The 'Frozen Ark', launched on Tuesday, will collect DNA from mammals, birds, insects and reptiles near extinction...
5 wolves readied for Arizona release A family of five Mexican gray wolves was placed in an acclimation pen south of this eastern Arizona town in preparation for the animals' eventual release into the wild. The pack, consisting of a male, a female and their three pups, will stay in the nylon mesh pen for up to two weeks....
Column: Environmentalists Want Your Property Want the last part per million of arsenic removed from your drinking water? Pay for it. Want to save the kangaroo rat? Buy a home in Riverside County, California, and add $1,950 per acre to the price to fund a $100 million rat preserve. Or, if you want a home near Austin, Texas, pay a land trust $1,500 to manage an endangered toad's habitat. In Southern Arizona, pay an additional $7,000 to $12,000 for a building lot to fund 1.2 million acres of habitat for the pygmy owl. In San Bernardino County, you can help fund the $3.3 million spent to relocate a medical center to avoid a sand pit, allegedly visited by an endangered fly. Colton, California, which couldn't site a sports complex because of the fly, says it and other species cost the city 20,000 jobs in the last decade....
Officials draft new grassland plan Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials want to broaden the state's ineffective black-tailed prairie dog management plan into a more comprehensive native species grassland plan. The move is part of an effort to develop and create habitat-wide management plans instead of specific species management plans for individual species such as prairie dogs and sage grouse....
Pioneer lynx ponder: Is Utah the place? Two Canada lynx released in southern Colorado this spring are touring Utah looking for possible new home ranges. Since there have been no confirmed sightings of native wild lynx in Utah since the 1970s, the cats - listed as "threatened" on the Federal Endangered Species list - will probably discover plenty of suitable locations to call home....
Wyoming Aiding Endangered Toad Tadpoles A batch of Wyoming toad tadpoles released into Albany County ponds marked the first time artificial fertilization has been used to help an endangered amphibian, according to researchers. The Wyoming toad is the only toad that lives in the Laramie Basin and the Laramie Basin is the only place that is home to the toad. The toad was listed as endangered in 1984 and was thought to have gone extinct in 1987. But more toads were found. By 2000, the total population of the toad was about 200 in a captive breeding program plus as few as 62 at reintroduction sites....
State might buy forests, use returns for college grants Gov. Ted Kulongoski's staff is exploring the idea of the state purchasing forest land as a long-term investment, with the goals of protecting Oregon's wooded character while aiding troubled logging communities and using returns to make college more affordable for residents. If they pursue the concept, it could be reminiscent of the state's restoration of forests in the Coast Range after wildfires leveled them more than five decades ago. Voters invested $12 million in bond revenue to replant what has become the Tillamook State Forest, which now holds an estimated $3 billion worth of land and timber....
Boise Cascade Quits Forest Industry, Will Focus on Office Supplies Boise Cascade Corp., a major force in the U.S. forest products industry with deep roots in the development of the Pacific Northwest, announced yesterday it is getting out of the lumber and paper business and instead will focus on selling office supplies through its OfficeMax retail chain. The company said it has agreed to sell most of its timberland, forest products, paper mills and other related assets for about $3.7 billion to a new, privately held company formed by Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, a private investment firm based in Chicago....
Environmentalists object to forest drilling leases Environmentalists say Bridger-Teton National Forest is skirting federal environmental law by agreeing to lease more than 100,000 acres for oil and gas drilling. They say the proposed leases in the Wyoming Range are based on outdated studies. Forest officials counter that the old studies are still valid and that more detailed analysis and public comment will come later....
Environmental Data to Be Streamlined Michigan has joined the National Environmental Information Exchange Network, a newly formed system that makes it easier for government workers to compile, submit and swap data collected under federal air and water pollution laws. Thirteen states are members, and the total is expected to reach 35 this year, the Environmental Protection Agency says. Federal and local agencies and Indian tribes also can take part. Eventually, the network will be a vast reservoir of information accessible not only to government officials, but also to scientists, environmentalists and other interests....
Veteran cattle rancher hangs up his hat Rancher Roger Piers has decided that the time has come to mend his last fence, herd his last cow and chase the last trespasser off his 1,200-acre expanse of Stanford University grassland. The only longtime cattle rancher left in Silicon Valley, 80-year-old Piers is retiring. ``It costs more and more, and you make less and less,'' said Piers, whose family has grazed cattle on land leased from the university on both sides of Interstate 280 since 1927....
Monday, July 26, 2004
WILDERNESS AND OTHER PROTECTED LANDS AN ECONOMIC PLUS FOR RURAL AREAS
Study refutes claims that protected lands hurt local economies
The prosperity of rural Western communities is directly tied to designated wilderness areas, national parks and other protected public lands, according to a report released this week by the Sonoran Institute.
The report, Prosperity in the 21st Century West, analyzed federal economic statistics from 400 western counties and found that new businesses, investments and residents tend to locate near public lands. The better protected those public lands are, the more they contribute to the economic well being of local families and businesses.
“The West’s pristine open spaces are among the region’s greatest economic assets,” said economist Ray Rasker, author of the study and director of the Sonoran Institute’s Socioeconomics Program. “Communities near protected lands are beautiful places to live and work; and with access to airports and an educated workforce, they have a huge competitive advantage in the global economy.”
The report findings contradict the conventional criticism that wilderness designations hurt rural western communities by “locking up” natural resources that can be mined, logged or drilled. In fact, the West’s traditional sources of income, while important for economic diversity, have only a minor role in the West’s overall cash flow. Meanwhile, public lands attract and retain well-educated, dynamic residents who demand a growing range of job-producing services. What follows are vibrant economies and thriving communities....
Go here for the full report.
Study refutes claims that protected lands hurt local economies
The prosperity of rural Western communities is directly tied to designated wilderness areas, national parks and other protected public lands, according to a report released this week by the Sonoran Institute.
The report, Prosperity in the 21st Century West, analyzed federal economic statistics from 400 western counties and found that new businesses, investments and residents tend to locate near public lands. The better protected those public lands are, the more they contribute to the economic well being of local families and businesses.
“The West’s pristine open spaces are among the region’s greatest economic assets,” said economist Ray Rasker, author of the study and director of the Sonoran Institute’s Socioeconomics Program. “Communities near protected lands are beautiful places to live and work; and with access to airports and an educated workforce, they have a huge competitive advantage in the global economy.”
The report findings contradict the conventional criticism that wilderness designations hurt rural western communities by “locking up” natural resources that can be mined, logged or drilled. In fact, the West’s traditional sources of income, while important for economic diversity, have only a minor role in the West’s overall cash flow. Meanwhile, public lands attract and retain well-educated, dynamic residents who demand a growing range of job-producing services. What follows are vibrant economies and thriving communities....
Go here for the full report.
GAO REPORT
WILDLAND FIRES
Forest Service and BLM Need Better Information and a Systematic Approach for Assessing the Risks of Environmental Effects
Wildland fires can have dramatic effects on environmental resources and ecosystems, including production of large amounts of smoke, loss of trees,and erosion of soil into streams and lakes. However, fires can also benefit resources by recycling soil nutrients, renewing vegetation growth, and adding gravel to streams, which improves spawning habitat for fish. The 20 wildland fires that we surveyed burned over 158,000 acres of federal land and had complex, wide-ranging, and sometimes contradictory, effects on both individual resources, such as trees and streams, and ecosystems. For example, the short-term effects of the Missionary Ridge fire in Colorado that burned almost 50,000 acres of trees and other vegetation included increased debris and sediment that affected water quality in some areas. However, in other areas, officials said even dramatic changes to streams would not be detrimental in the long term.
The Forest Service and BLM gather specific information on the environmental effects of individual wildland fires, such as soil erosion. The agencies do not, however, gather comprehensive data on the severity of wildland fire effects on broad landscapes and ecosystems—that is, large areas that may involve one or more fires. The agencies recently developed a monitoring framework to gather severity data for fires, but they have not yet implemented it. These data are needed to monitor the progress of the agencies’ actions to restore and maintain resilient fire-adapted ecosystems, a goal of the National Fire Plan.
The National Fire Plan directs the Forest Service and BLM to target their fuel reduction activities with the purpose of lowering the risk of environmental effects from wildland fires in areas that face the greatest losses. However, the agencies do not systematically assess the risks across landscapes that fires pose to different environmental resources or ecosystems or the risks of taking no action on fuel reduction projects. At the landscape level, the Forest Service and BLM do not have a formal framework for systematically assessing the risk of fire to resources and ecosystems, although some of the forests and BLM field offices have developed risk assessments on their own or in collaboration with regional, state, or local efforts. At the project level, while the agencies recognize the need to better analyze the risk of acting to reduce fuels versus not doing so, neither fire planning guidance nor National Environmental Policy Act guidance specify how to do this. Opportunities exist to clarify how the agencies should analyze the effects of not taking action to reduce fuels. The agencies can clarify interim guidance to implement the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, and the agencies can, in conjunction with CEQ, further develop the lessons learned from a CEQ demonstration program carried out in 2003. Without a risk-based approach, these agencies cannot target their fuel reduction projects across landscapes or make fully informed decisions about which effects and project alternatives are more desirable.
Go here(pdf)for the entire report.
WILDLAND FIRES
Forest Service and BLM Need Better Information and a Systematic Approach for Assessing the Risks of Environmental Effects
Wildland fires can have dramatic effects on environmental resources and ecosystems, including production of large amounts of smoke, loss of trees,and erosion of soil into streams and lakes. However, fires can also benefit resources by recycling soil nutrients, renewing vegetation growth, and adding gravel to streams, which improves spawning habitat for fish. The 20 wildland fires that we surveyed burned over 158,000 acres of federal land and had complex, wide-ranging, and sometimes contradictory, effects on both individual resources, such as trees and streams, and ecosystems. For example, the short-term effects of the Missionary Ridge fire in Colorado that burned almost 50,000 acres of trees and other vegetation included increased debris and sediment that affected water quality in some areas. However, in other areas, officials said even dramatic changes to streams would not be detrimental in the long term.
The Forest Service and BLM gather specific information on the environmental effects of individual wildland fires, such as soil erosion. The agencies do not, however, gather comprehensive data on the severity of wildland fire effects on broad landscapes and ecosystems—that is, large areas that may involve one or more fires. The agencies recently developed a monitoring framework to gather severity data for fires, but they have not yet implemented it. These data are needed to monitor the progress of the agencies’ actions to restore and maintain resilient fire-adapted ecosystems, a goal of the National Fire Plan.
The National Fire Plan directs the Forest Service and BLM to target their fuel reduction activities with the purpose of lowering the risk of environmental effects from wildland fires in areas that face the greatest losses. However, the agencies do not systematically assess the risks across landscapes that fires pose to different environmental resources or ecosystems or the risks of taking no action on fuel reduction projects. At the landscape level, the Forest Service and BLM do not have a formal framework for systematically assessing the risk of fire to resources and ecosystems, although some of the forests and BLM field offices have developed risk assessments on their own or in collaboration with regional, state, or local efforts. At the project level, while the agencies recognize the need to better analyze the risk of acting to reduce fuels versus not doing so, neither fire planning guidance nor National Environmental Policy Act guidance specify how to do this. Opportunities exist to clarify how the agencies should analyze the effects of not taking action to reduce fuels. The agencies can clarify interim guidance to implement the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, and the agencies can, in conjunction with CEQ, further develop the lessons learned from a CEQ demonstration program carried out in 2003. Without a risk-based approach, these agencies cannot target their fuel reduction projects across landscapes or make fully informed decisions about which effects and project alternatives are more desirable.
Go here(pdf)for the entire report.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Insurer alleges agencies bungled wildfire control Bungling by fire and police agencies here allowed last October's Cedar fire to spread "into a wildfire of epic proportion," one of California's largest insurance companies has charged in a claim filed against three public agencies. Allstate Corp., which expects to pay out $290 million to $330 million to policyholders as a result of last fall's fires, is demanding that the city and county of San Diego as well as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection help it cover the costs because it says they did an incompetent job of fighting the most costly of the blazes, the Cedar fire....
New Canadian aircraft support Idaho firefighters Firefighters battling blazes in the Panhandle this year will look to the northern skies to find help from Canadian air tankers. Three new Air Tractor 802 single-engine air tankers will be based at the Interagency Dispatch Center at the Coeur d'Alene Airport. The sleek planes from New Brunswick have already helped put out some smaller fires earlier this month. The Canadian aircraft are filling gaps in firefighting capability that resulted from a Forest Service decision earlier this year to withdraw contracts from 33 large American-owned fire bombers....
Editorial, Off-road progress: Proposed forest rules a good starting point The U.S. Forest Service, which has caught plenty of flak in recent weeks for its Biscuit Fire salvage plan and the Bush administration's evisceration of the Clinton-era roadless rule, deserves a polite round of applause from environmentalists for its plan to restrict off-road riding in the national forests. While the government needs to do more to protect national forests from the snarling, gouging threat posed by off-road vehicles, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's new initiative is a welcome, albeit long-overdue, starting point....
Bear bite in John Muir Wilderness closes camping nearby The U-S Forest Service has closed a portion of the John Muir Wilderness to camping after a camper reported being bitten by a bear. The biting of an unidentified camper in the Pothole Lake area near Kearsarge Pass is apparently the first such reported incident in the Inyo National Forest. It's being investigated by the service and the California Department of Fish and Game....
Environmentalists sue over Gardiner-area timber sale Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit Friday in federal district court to stop a planned Gallatin National Forest timber sale northeast of Gardiner. The Bear Creek Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystem Council said in a news release the so-called Darroch Eagle sale is a "disaster" -- a poorly planned sale in prime grizzly and elk habitat. R-Y Timber of Livingston has contracted with the Forest Service to harvest the estimated 1.5 million board feet timber....
Officials may relocate fearless bear Wildlife biologists armed with tranquilizer guns are hunting a grizzly bear that has been rocking motor homes in the always packed Russian River Campground and taking salmon from anglers on the nearby river. Problems with the young sow have been building along the popular Kenai Peninsula stream for a week, said Bruce McCurtain of Alaska Recreational Management Inc., the company that contracts with the U.S. Forest Service to run the campground....
New law to let tribes expand tree-thinning Tribal governments will be allowed to thin brush and small trees on federal lands adjacent to their reservations under a new federal law intended to help prevent the spread of wildfires. The legislation, which President Bush signed this week, creates a framework for tribes to work with the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management on proposals to reduce trees and brush along tribal-federal boundaries....
Land trade threatened by rancher The owner of the Yavapai Ranch said Friday that he is moving ahead with plans to possibly scuttle what would be the largest U.S. Forest Service land exchange in state history and build a city "potentially larger than Prescott" on his land south of Seligman. "They (Congress) have until the end of the session to approve this trade or I'm through with this," said Ruskin, who has been pursuing the Northern Arizona National Forest Land Exchange for five years. "I've got an agreement with Yavapai County to develop 25,000 homes on my land, and that's what I'll do."....
Rancher sues over cyanide issue A Blackfoot Valley landowner and environmental group Friday asked the Montana Supreme Court to strike from the Nov. 2 ballot the voter initiative aiming to repeal Montana's ban on cyanide heap-leach gold mines. The petition, also filed in state District Court, said Initiative 147 is unconstitutional because it contains more than one subject and would illegally change contract rights.
Landowners fight for rights Ranchers, farmers and other landowners that form the Landowners Association of Wyoming are working to get an initiative on the ballot for the 2006 election that would protect the property rights of surface landowners during oil and gas development. After working with the Wyoming Legislature for two years, landowners felt that initiating a petition to allow the people to vote on how much legal protection surface owners have a right to was warranted. “There is an absolute inequity between the property rights of a surface owner and the mineral owner,” landowner and member of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, Eric Barlow said....2
Survey assesses elusive Olympic Mountain goats It was the 1920s when a few pairs of snow-white mountain goats were brought to the Olympic Peninsula for the pleasure of hunters. By the 1980s — with a population of more than 1,100 — the billies, nannies and their sprightly kids were so abundant that backpackers in the Olympic Mountains reported them nibbling on their leather boots at night....
Ranch sold to conservation group A 5,636-acre ranch prized for wildlife habitat has been sold to a conservation group, which plans to sell the property to the federal government at no increase in price. Aging siblings Bud and Dolly McMaster have no heirs and last week sold the McMaster Ranch, which has been in their family since the late 1800s, to the Virginia-based Conservation Fund. Plans call for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to oversee the property once it is purchased by the government. The McMasters do not want subdivision of the ranch, which is east of Helena, and the sale is a way to ensure their wish is fulfilled. The property was appraised at $5.8 million....
Haul of the wild A symbol of America's strength and unbreakable spirit is sinking into the mud. Fetlocks flexed and head hung low, the gray stallion stretches down the embankment of a once-dependable watering hole, exposing his rib cage, sunken waist and scrawny hind quarters. He slurps a toxic soup of alkaline silt while two mares and their foals huddle close by. The rest of his harem is some 20 yards away. They'll all take their turn in what has become a futile -- and potentially fatal -- routine that has gone on for days....
Don't Fence Them In Awild black stallion with about 20 mares at his side rears his head and stares intently, his body stiff and alert, ears perked. We rein our mounts and freeze in the saddle. For a few moments nothing stirs; it seems as if even the birds notice the encounter and settle to watch. Suddenly the stallion makes a decision. With a great snort and a whinny he turns and races away, leading his mares in a whirl of dust and pounding hooves. The morning encounter with wild horses is one of many on a two-day ride through the 5,000-acre Wild Horse Sanctuary in Northern California....
Issues remain on wolf question Just one month before a wolf management plan is due to the state wildlife commission, advisory committee members are still howling over some of the most controversial issues. How should livestock owners be compensated for any livestock wolves kill? Will wolves eat too many elk? And should gray wolves be designated as game animals or as an endangered species? The 14 members of the wolf advisory committee — representing everyone from livestock owners to hunters to wolf advocates — spent part of the past two days discussing a compensation plan for livestock killed or injured by wolves....
Task force tours elk feedgrounds Each April, Jensen's cows give birth to calves in his pastures located on the southwest side of a fence that runs through the Muddy feedground near Boulder in western Wyoming. The fence aims to keep cattle and elk apart and decrease the risk of transmission of the disease brucellosis between species. And each April, elk bypass feed set out on the feedground and somehow find their way down into the lower elevation calving pastures. The elk like to feed on the lush, new growth of pasture grass....
Pipeline routes in Nevada challenged A top Bush administration official on Tuesday challenged legislation that maps a corridor to transport water from rural Nevada to Clark County, saying the government should decide where to run the pipeline. Rebecca Watson, Interior Department assistant secretary, said utility corridors outlined in the land bill "may not be in the best interest of the protection of cultural resources, habitat and other resource areas." The utility corridor is a key part of a complex Lincoln County land bill authored by the Nevada congressional delegation, and it is viewed as an important element of a strategy by Southern Nevada planners to provide precious water in coming years to the fast-growing valley population....
California Coastal Commission challenges value of Hearst deal One of the Hearst Corp.'s biggest selling points for its proposal to spare thousands of acres of Hearst Ranch from development is that its $95 million asking price is less than half the deal's appraised value. But as state hearings on the agreement draw closer, one of Hearst's old opponents, the California Coastal Commission, is raising questions about whether the land is really worth the $230 million the state says it is. The appraisal has buttressed arguments that California should seize the chance to protect the prized land surrounding Hearst Castle, which sprawls from rocky shoreline to rolling green mountains. But commission employees' questions have brought a volley of personal criticisms to those on both sides of a debate that once focused on such arcane issues as zoning laws and parcel sizes....
Deaths of 14 bison on Baca preserve raises fear of feud Investigators are perplexed by the recent deaths of 14 bison on a preserve for prairie dogs and other native species in remote Baca County in southeast Colorado. The bison, including eight pregnant cows, may have died of thirst, from eating poisonous weeds - or as the result of a feud between environmentalists and ranchers, said Baca County Sheriff Terry Mullins. Mullins said local ranchers have been concerned that the preserve's prairie dogs will proliferate and spill over to their ranches....
Dino diggers unearth T. rex The discovery of this T. rex specimen - which Chiappe said "is in the top five ever discovered" in terms of completeness and preservation - was made by a local rancher who noticed something different poking out of the gumbo buttes. He asked amateur paleontologist Bob Currie, a history and business teacher at Baker High School, to take a look and try to determine what the fossil might be. "I looked at what he had found, and knew right away it was a T. rex," Currie said. "We weren't sure if it was on private or Bureau of Land Management land, so we did a GPS reading and found out it was just outside the boundary of the private land."....
Drying Up: Coming to terms with Utah's six-year drought In the realm of the high desert, sagebrush and juniper rule. They are hearty, rugged and well-adapted to extreme conditions. They don't die - not easily, anyway, and never in great numbers. But it's happening. The icons are succumbing. In Utah alone, an estimated 600,000 acres of sagebrush - vital for wildlife and soil conservation - are gone. The cause of their demise is the "early 21st century drought," as scientists now call it, that has persisted for six years and is believed to be the worst to strike the Southwest in half a millennium. It is the sort of drought that in another era might have driven the human population away and transformed the Wasatch Front, St. George, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Albuquerque, N.M., into ghost towns....
River's headwaters determined by politicians, not geography The Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountains, almost two miles above sea level along the Continental Divide in northern Colorado. Doesn't it? Depends on who you ask, it turns out, and the answer, rather answers, are cloaked in the same sort of territorial politics that roil the waters even today....
Interior chief discusses future of West's dwindling water Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Friday that the drought battering much of the West -- possibly the worst in 500 years -- will force such fast-growing states as Nevada and Arizona to scramble even more to conserve water and secure additional supplies. Norton, completing a three-day tour of Colorado, told a crowd of 300 at a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce luncheon that the five-year drought is a wake-up call for states that rely on the heavily tapped Colorado River....
Tribes win new clout in Arizona A persistent drought could siphon water from Phoenix and Tucson by early next decade. But the real threat to a full urban supply isn't the dry spell, it's an agreement to hand over nearly 200,000 acre-feet of water from the Central Arizona Project to Indian tribes that sued to claim ancestral righs. Arizona officials signed the water deal with the tribes last year after more than a decade of negotiations. In all, Indian communities would control more than 40 percent of the flow in the CAP Canal, which delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson. Congress is considering the proposal this year....
Column: Take off blinders or face a parched, dusty future The question Arizonans must ask is not how to deal with the drought, but instead: "What if this is not a drought?" Scientists are speculating that Arizona and the whole Colorado River watershed have experienced a few unusually wet decades, and that weather patterns are now simply returning to their arid norm . . . perhaps forever. From 2001-2003, the Colorado River - the Valley's primary water source - produced less than a third of the water committed to various users, significantly less than what it produced during the disastrous Dust Bowl. In addition, northern Arizona's groundwater supplies and its few remaining rivers are being depleted at an alarming rate....
Column: Lack of cooperation will leave us high, dry There is a history of tension among the states and users of the Colorado River over the distribution and management of its waters. Early on, the concern in Arizona was that California's farmers would fully use the available supplies in the lower part of the basin, leaving little water to meet Arizona's growing needs. More recently, struggles over the river's waters have focused on meeting the needs of plants and wildlife that depend upon its flows, concerns in Mexico that the poor-quality water that reaches its borders would limit farming opportunities, and tribal demands for a share of the overallocated river....
DECIDING A DAM'S FUTURE Battling over Hells Canyon The third hydroelectric dam in Hells Canyon spans the Snake River like a steel and cement temple. Completed in 1967, the 330-foot-tall structure stretches between Oregon and Idaho, a testament to the engineering fervor that drove many conquests of natural resources in the West roughly 50 years ago. The Hells Canyon Dam Complex comprises three major hydroelectric dams and is a crucial component of Idaho Power's hydroelectric energy holdings....
Poor communities better at managing rainforests than governments: study Conservation groups have urged countries meeting from Monday to revise the UN agreement regulating the tropical timber trade to give rainforest communities property rights, because they are better at exploiting and protecting endangered woodland. In the areas where often impoverished indigenous communities have been allowed to own the land they live on, they have invested 1.2 billion to 2.6 billion dollars a year in forest management and conservation, a study by the US group Forest Trends said....
Daschle criticizes USDA Criminal charges should be on the table for U.S. Department of Agriculture officials who allowed Canadian beef into the United States when a ban on such imports was in place, Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Saturday. "I can't for the life of me understand why somebody hasn't been indicted for allowing 33 million pounds of Canadian beef into the United States," the Senate minority leader told a crowd of more than 100 at the New Underwood Community Hall on Saturday....
Groups differ in response to voluntary COOL bill The House Agriculture Committee yesterday passed voluntary country of origin labeling legislation introduced earlier this summer by Ranking Member Charles Stenholm (D-TX) and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). The Food Promotion Act of 2004 would amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish the voluntary labeling of produce, meat, and seafood with country of origin information. It's a substitute for the mandatory COOL legislation included in the 2002 Farm Bill, which is currently set to go into full implementation by 2006. 350 groups support the replacement legislation, Goodlatte says. Those groups include the American Meat Institute (AMI) and the National Pork Producers Council....
U.S. ban on Canadian beef putting farmers out of business Canadian farmer Curtis Moxsom likes Americans. But he has nothing good to say about the U.S. ban on imported beef. He says the border closure put in place because of fears over mad cow disease has become a political issue that's endangering his livelihood and that of his fellow Canadian cattlemen. "We're supposed to be two countries that work together. But they're treating us like criminals," Moxsom said as he cut silage on his Nova Scotia farm....
Debate over how to protect farmland from terror Amid the noisy election-year wrangling over how best to prevent terrorism on American soil, researchers and government officials are more quietly debating battle plans designed to protect the nation's farmland. Experts say a biological attack on a Texas cattle ranch or a Kansas wheat farm would kill few, if any, people. But the economic impact of a deliberately introduced disease could prove disastrous, a realization that has prompted a rethinking of how the risk of agricultural bioterrorism -- or agroterrorism -- should be assessed in the United States....
Three Forks Saddlery stays in the family The showroom at Three Forks Saddlery smells like old wood and new leather. The hard heels of broken-in cowboy boots click on the hardwood floor as a few tall horsemen in Wranglers and button-down shirts browse the merchandise: Every piece of tack imaginable. In a back room, Nancy Petersen, 57, studies the saddle she's making for a Judith Gap rancher. Her work is nothing short of artful, which is why her saddles are the envy of horse riders nationwide....
Westward ho! But the "real" West was settled by often forgotten explorers and trappers, prospectors and ranchers who transformed the vast landscape and Native Americans who occupied it in ways still debated today. A fascinating exhibit at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington examines a critical stage of American history through the personal collection of Kenneth W. Rendell. "The Western Pursuit of the American Dream" offers a double-barreled look into overlooked facts and enduring fantasies of 200 years of frontier life....
Drivers circle wagons for Leo You don't have to be a parent or a chuckwagon driver to feel a touch of sorrow for Leo Tournier and his family. After desperately searching for weeks for a cure for their seriously ill son Ty, the Tournier family ran out of time April 1. Ty was just three years old when he died in a Toronto hospital from heart failure. Today, almost four months later, Leo Tournier is at Northlands Park, competing as a chuckwagon driver in the Klondike Derby and putting on a pleasant face while dealing with media questions surrounding his dead son. Almost as impressive is the support that has flowed from the drivers on the World Professional Chuckwagon Association Tour to the Tournier family....
A look back at the deaths of Rogers, Post Wiley Post’s watch stopped shortly before noon our time on Aug. 15, 1935. But it would be the next day before word got back to the United States that Will Rogers and Wiley Post had died in a plane crash in the shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean. A great family man, despite the time his profession kept him from his home, one of Will’s last acts was handing Joe Crosson a telegram to his daughter Mary, who was playing in summer stock in Maine....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Cows, like oil, not good mix with water If God intended cows to swim, he'd have given them all flippers. You rarely see a mermaid calf or Holstein skinny dippers. But in their battle to survive, I've seen cows come unraveled, and to escape the cowboy's loop, will choose the path less traveled. Now Randy wasn't brilliant, but he was a heavy breather, which helps when chasin' wild cows who aren't that brilliant either! To try and even up the odds, he called his neighbor Steven. One cow versus two cowboys intellectually's 'bout even....
Insurer alleges agencies bungled wildfire control Bungling by fire and police agencies here allowed last October's Cedar fire to spread "into a wildfire of epic proportion," one of California's largest insurance companies has charged in a claim filed against three public agencies. Allstate Corp., which expects to pay out $290 million to $330 million to policyholders as a result of last fall's fires, is demanding that the city and county of San Diego as well as the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection help it cover the costs because it says they did an incompetent job of fighting the most costly of the blazes, the Cedar fire....
New Canadian aircraft support Idaho firefighters Firefighters battling blazes in the Panhandle this year will look to the northern skies to find help from Canadian air tankers. Three new Air Tractor 802 single-engine air tankers will be based at the Interagency Dispatch Center at the Coeur d'Alene Airport. The sleek planes from New Brunswick have already helped put out some smaller fires earlier this month. The Canadian aircraft are filling gaps in firefighting capability that resulted from a Forest Service decision earlier this year to withdraw contracts from 33 large American-owned fire bombers....
Editorial, Off-road progress: Proposed forest rules a good starting point The U.S. Forest Service, which has caught plenty of flak in recent weeks for its Biscuit Fire salvage plan and the Bush administration's evisceration of the Clinton-era roadless rule, deserves a polite round of applause from environmentalists for its plan to restrict off-road riding in the national forests. While the government needs to do more to protect national forests from the snarling, gouging threat posed by off-road vehicles, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth's new initiative is a welcome, albeit long-overdue, starting point....
Bear bite in John Muir Wilderness closes camping nearby The U-S Forest Service has closed a portion of the John Muir Wilderness to camping after a camper reported being bitten by a bear. The biting of an unidentified camper in the Pothole Lake area near Kearsarge Pass is apparently the first such reported incident in the Inyo National Forest. It's being investigated by the service and the California Department of Fish and Game....
Environmentalists sue over Gardiner-area timber sale Three environmental groups filed a lawsuit Friday in federal district court to stop a planned Gallatin National Forest timber sale northeast of Gardiner. The Bear Creek Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystem Council said in a news release the so-called Darroch Eagle sale is a "disaster" -- a poorly planned sale in prime grizzly and elk habitat. R-Y Timber of Livingston has contracted with the Forest Service to harvest the estimated 1.5 million board feet timber....
Officials may relocate fearless bear Wildlife biologists armed with tranquilizer guns are hunting a grizzly bear that has been rocking motor homes in the always packed Russian River Campground and taking salmon from anglers on the nearby river. Problems with the young sow have been building along the popular Kenai Peninsula stream for a week, said Bruce McCurtain of Alaska Recreational Management Inc., the company that contracts with the U.S. Forest Service to run the campground....
New law to let tribes expand tree-thinning Tribal governments will be allowed to thin brush and small trees on federal lands adjacent to their reservations under a new federal law intended to help prevent the spread of wildfires. The legislation, which President Bush signed this week, creates a framework for tribes to work with the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management on proposals to reduce trees and brush along tribal-federal boundaries....
Land trade threatened by rancher The owner of the Yavapai Ranch said Friday that he is moving ahead with plans to possibly scuttle what would be the largest U.S. Forest Service land exchange in state history and build a city "potentially larger than Prescott" on his land south of Seligman. "They (Congress) have until the end of the session to approve this trade or I'm through with this," said Ruskin, who has been pursuing the Northern Arizona National Forest Land Exchange for five years. "I've got an agreement with Yavapai County to develop 25,000 homes on my land, and that's what I'll do."....
Rancher sues over cyanide issue A Blackfoot Valley landowner and environmental group Friday asked the Montana Supreme Court to strike from the Nov. 2 ballot the voter initiative aiming to repeal Montana's ban on cyanide heap-leach gold mines. The petition, also filed in state District Court, said Initiative 147 is unconstitutional because it contains more than one subject and would illegally change contract rights.
Landowners fight for rights Ranchers, farmers and other landowners that form the Landowners Association of Wyoming are working to get an initiative on the ballot for the 2006 election that would protect the property rights of surface landowners during oil and gas development. After working with the Wyoming Legislature for two years, landowners felt that initiating a petition to allow the people to vote on how much legal protection surface owners have a right to was warranted. “There is an absolute inequity between the property rights of a surface owner and the mineral owner,” landowner and member of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, Eric Barlow said....2
Survey assesses elusive Olympic Mountain goats It was the 1920s when a few pairs of snow-white mountain goats were brought to the Olympic Peninsula for the pleasure of hunters. By the 1980s — with a population of more than 1,100 — the billies, nannies and their sprightly kids were so abundant that backpackers in the Olympic Mountains reported them nibbling on their leather boots at night....
Ranch sold to conservation group A 5,636-acre ranch prized for wildlife habitat has been sold to a conservation group, which plans to sell the property to the federal government at no increase in price. Aging siblings Bud and Dolly McMaster have no heirs and last week sold the McMaster Ranch, which has been in their family since the late 1800s, to the Virginia-based Conservation Fund. Plans call for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to oversee the property once it is purchased by the government. The McMasters do not want subdivision of the ranch, which is east of Helena, and the sale is a way to ensure their wish is fulfilled. The property was appraised at $5.8 million....
Haul of the wild A symbol of America's strength and unbreakable spirit is sinking into the mud. Fetlocks flexed and head hung low, the gray stallion stretches down the embankment of a once-dependable watering hole, exposing his rib cage, sunken waist and scrawny hind quarters. He slurps a toxic soup of alkaline silt while two mares and their foals huddle close by. The rest of his harem is some 20 yards away. They'll all take their turn in what has become a futile -- and potentially fatal -- routine that has gone on for days....
Don't Fence Them In Awild black stallion with about 20 mares at his side rears his head and stares intently, his body stiff and alert, ears perked. We rein our mounts and freeze in the saddle. For a few moments nothing stirs; it seems as if even the birds notice the encounter and settle to watch. Suddenly the stallion makes a decision. With a great snort and a whinny he turns and races away, leading his mares in a whirl of dust and pounding hooves. The morning encounter with wild horses is one of many on a two-day ride through the 5,000-acre Wild Horse Sanctuary in Northern California....
Issues remain on wolf question Just one month before a wolf management plan is due to the state wildlife commission, advisory committee members are still howling over some of the most controversial issues. How should livestock owners be compensated for any livestock wolves kill? Will wolves eat too many elk? And should gray wolves be designated as game animals or as an endangered species? The 14 members of the wolf advisory committee — representing everyone from livestock owners to hunters to wolf advocates — spent part of the past two days discussing a compensation plan for livestock killed or injured by wolves....
Task force tours elk feedgrounds Each April, Jensen's cows give birth to calves in his pastures located on the southwest side of a fence that runs through the Muddy feedground near Boulder in western Wyoming. The fence aims to keep cattle and elk apart and decrease the risk of transmission of the disease brucellosis between species. And each April, elk bypass feed set out on the feedground and somehow find their way down into the lower elevation calving pastures. The elk like to feed on the lush, new growth of pasture grass....
Pipeline routes in Nevada challenged A top Bush administration official on Tuesday challenged legislation that maps a corridor to transport water from rural Nevada to Clark County, saying the government should decide where to run the pipeline. Rebecca Watson, Interior Department assistant secretary, said utility corridors outlined in the land bill "may not be in the best interest of the protection of cultural resources, habitat and other resource areas." The utility corridor is a key part of a complex Lincoln County land bill authored by the Nevada congressional delegation, and it is viewed as an important element of a strategy by Southern Nevada planners to provide precious water in coming years to the fast-growing valley population....
California Coastal Commission challenges value of Hearst deal One of the Hearst Corp.'s biggest selling points for its proposal to spare thousands of acres of Hearst Ranch from development is that its $95 million asking price is less than half the deal's appraised value. But as state hearings on the agreement draw closer, one of Hearst's old opponents, the California Coastal Commission, is raising questions about whether the land is really worth the $230 million the state says it is. The appraisal has buttressed arguments that California should seize the chance to protect the prized land surrounding Hearst Castle, which sprawls from rocky shoreline to rolling green mountains. But commission employees' questions have brought a volley of personal criticisms to those on both sides of a debate that once focused on such arcane issues as zoning laws and parcel sizes....
Deaths of 14 bison on Baca preserve raises fear of feud Investigators are perplexed by the recent deaths of 14 bison on a preserve for prairie dogs and other native species in remote Baca County in southeast Colorado. The bison, including eight pregnant cows, may have died of thirst, from eating poisonous weeds - or as the result of a feud between environmentalists and ranchers, said Baca County Sheriff Terry Mullins. Mullins said local ranchers have been concerned that the preserve's prairie dogs will proliferate and spill over to their ranches....
Dino diggers unearth T. rex The discovery of this T. rex specimen - which Chiappe said "is in the top five ever discovered" in terms of completeness and preservation - was made by a local rancher who noticed something different poking out of the gumbo buttes. He asked amateur paleontologist Bob Currie, a history and business teacher at Baker High School, to take a look and try to determine what the fossil might be. "I looked at what he had found, and knew right away it was a T. rex," Currie said. "We weren't sure if it was on private or Bureau of Land Management land, so we did a GPS reading and found out it was just outside the boundary of the private land."....
Drying Up: Coming to terms with Utah's six-year drought In the realm of the high desert, sagebrush and juniper rule. They are hearty, rugged and well-adapted to extreme conditions. They don't die - not easily, anyway, and never in great numbers. But it's happening. The icons are succumbing. In Utah alone, an estimated 600,000 acres of sagebrush - vital for wildlife and soil conservation - are gone. The cause of their demise is the "early 21st century drought," as scientists now call it, that has persisted for six years and is believed to be the worst to strike the Southwest in half a millennium. It is the sort of drought that in another era might have driven the human population away and transformed the Wasatch Front, St. George, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Albuquerque, N.M., into ghost towns....
River's headwaters determined by politicians, not geography The Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountains, almost two miles above sea level along the Continental Divide in northern Colorado. Doesn't it? Depends on who you ask, it turns out, and the answer, rather answers, are cloaked in the same sort of territorial politics that roil the waters even today....
Interior chief discusses future of West's dwindling water Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Friday that the drought battering much of the West -- possibly the worst in 500 years -- will force such fast-growing states as Nevada and Arizona to scramble even more to conserve water and secure additional supplies. Norton, completing a three-day tour of Colorado, told a crowd of 300 at a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce luncheon that the five-year drought is a wake-up call for states that rely on the heavily tapped Colorado River....
Tribes win new clout in Arizona A persistent drought could siphon water from Phoenix and Tucson by early next decade. But the real threat to a full urban supply isn't the dry spell, it's an agreement to hand over nearly 200,000 acre-feet of water from the Central Arizona Project to Indian tribes that sued to claim ancestral righs. Arizona officials signed the water deal with the tribes last year after more than a decade of negotiations. In all, Indian communities would control more than 40 percent of the flow in the CAP Canal, which delivers Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson. Congress is considering the proposal this year....
Column: Take off blinders or face a parched, dusty future The question Arizonans must ask is not how to deal with the drought, but instead: "What if this is not a drought?" Scientists are speculating that Arizona and the whole Colorado River watershed have experienced a few unusually wet decades, and that weather patterns are now simply returning to their arid norm . . . perhaps forever. From 2001-2003, the Colorado River - the Valley's primary water source - produced less than a third of the water committed to various users, significantly less than what it produced during the disastrous Dust Bowl. In addition, northern Arizona's groundwater supplies and its few remaining rivers are being depleted at an alarming rate....
Column: Lack of cooperation will leave us high, dry There is a history of tension among the states and users of the Colorado River over the distribution and management of its waters. Early on, the concern in Arizona was that California's farmers would fully use the available supplies in the lower part of the basin, leaving little water to meet Arizona's growing needs. More recently, struggles over the river's waters have focused on meeting the needs of plants and wildlife that depend upon its flows, concerns in Mexico that the poor-quality water that reaches its borders would limit farming opportunities, and tribal demands for a share of the overallocated river....
DECIDING A DAM'S FUTURE Battling over Hells Canyon The third hydroelectric dam in Hells Canyon spans the Snake River like a steel and cement temple. Completed in 1967, the 330-foot-tall structure stretches between Oregon and Idaho, a testament to the engineering fervor that drove many conquests of natural resources in the West roughly 50 years ago. The Hells Canyon Dam Complex comprises three major hydroelectric dams and is a crucial component of Idaho Power's hydroelectric energy holdings....
Poor communities better at managing rainforests than governments: study Conservation groups have urged countries meeting from Monday to revise the UN agreement regulating the tropical timber trade to give rainforest communities property rights, because they are better at exploiting and protecting endangered woodland. In the areas where often impoverished indigenous communities have been allowed to own the land they live on, they have invested 1.2 billion to 2.6 billion dollars a year in forest management and conservation, a study by the US group Forest Trends said....
Daschle criticizes USDA Criminal charges should be on the table for U.S. Department of Agriculture officials who allowed Canadian beef into the United States when a ban on such imports was in place, Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Saturday. "I can't for the life of me understand why somebody hasn't been indicted for allowing 33 million pounds of Canadian beef into the United States," the Senate minority leader told a crowd of more than 100 at the New Underwood Community Hall on Saturday....
Groups differ in response to voluntary COOL bill The House Agriculture Committee yesterday passed voluntary country of origin labeling legislation introduced earlier this summer by Ranking Member Charles Stenholm (D-TX) and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). The Food Promotion Act of 2004 would amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to establish the voluntary labeling of produce, meat, and seafood with country of origin information. It's a substitute for the mandatory COOL legislation included in the 2002 Farm Bill, which is currently set to go into full implementation by 2006. 350 groups support the replacement legislation, Goodlatte says. Those groups include the American Meat Institute (AMI) and the National Pork Producers Council....
U.S. ban on Canadian beef putting farmers out of business Canadian farmer Curtis Moxsom likes Americans. But he has nothing good to say about the U.S. ban on imported beef. He says the border closure put in place because of fears over mad cow disease has become a political issue that's endangering his livelihood and that of his fellow Canadian cattlemen. "We're supposed to be two countries that work together. But they're treating us like criminals," Moxsom said as he cut silage on his Nova Scotia farm....
Debate over how to protect farmland from terror Amid the noisy election-year wrangling over how best to prevent terrorism on American soil, researchers and government officials are more quietly debating battle plans designed to protect the nation's farmland. Experts say a biological attack on a Texas cattle ranch or a Kansas wheat farm would kill few, if any, people. But the economic impact of a deliberately introduced disease could prove disastrous, a realization that has prompted a rethinking of how the risk of agricultural bioterrorism -- or agroterrorism -- should be assessed in the United States....
Three Forks Saddlery stays in the family The showroom at Three Forks Saddlery smells like old wood and new leather. The hard heels of broken-in cowboy boots click on the hardwood floor as a few tall horsemen in Wranglers and button-down shirts browse the merchandise: Every piece of tack imaginable. In a back room, Nancy Petersen, 57, studies the saddle she's making for a Judith Gap rancher. Her work is nothing short of artful, which is why her saddles are the envy of horse riders nationwide....
Westward ho! But the "real" West was settled by often forgotten explorers and trappers, prospectors and ranchers who transformed the vast landscape and Native Americans who occupied it in ways still debated today. A fascinating exhibit at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington examines a critical stage of American history through the personal collection of Kenneth W. Rendell. "The Western Pursuit of the American Dream" offers a double-barreled look into overlooked facts and enduring fantasies of 200 years of frontier life....
Drivers circle wagons for Leo You don't have to be a parent or a chuckwagon driver to feel a touch of sorrow for Leo Tournier and his family. After desperately searching for weeks for a cure for their seriously ill son Ty, the Tournier family ran out of time April 1. Ty was just three years old when he died in a Toronto hospital from heart failure. Today, almost four months later, Leo Tournier is at Northlands Park, competing as a chuckwagon driver in the Klondike Derby and putting on a pleasant face while dealing with media questions surrounding his dead son. Almost as impressive is the support that has flowed from the drivers on the World Professional Chuckwagon Association Tour to the Tournier family....
A look back at the deaths of Rogers, Post Wiley Post’s watch stopped shortly before noon our time on Aug. 15, 1935. But it would be the next day before word got back to the United States that Will Rogers and Wiley Post had died in a plane crash in the shallow waters of the Arctic Ocean. A great family man, despite the time his profession kept him from his home, one of Will’s last acts was handing Joe Crosson a telegram to his daughter Mary, who was playing in summer stock in Maine....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Cows, like oil, not good mix with water If God intended cows to swim, he'd have given them all flippers. You rarely see a mermaid calf or Holstein skinny dippers. But in their battle to survive, I've seen cows come unraveled, and to escape the cowboy's loop, will choose the path less traveled. Now Randy wasn't brilliant, but he was a heavy breather, which helps when chasin' wild cows who aren't that brilliant either! To try and even up the odds, he called his neighbor Steven. One cow versus two cowboys intellectually's 'bout even....
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