NEWS ROUNDUP
S.D. governor announces agreement to control prairie dogs State and federal agencies have reached agreement to control prairie dogs that are moving from federal land onto private land in western South Dakota, Gov. Mike Rounds said Friday. Under the agreement announced Friday, the state will continue an emergency poisoning program it started last month on private land next to federal lands. The state is spending $120,000 in the short term to kill prairie dogs based on landowners' complaints. Federal agencies will use another $120,000 to begin poisoning prairie dogs after the new federal budget year starts Oct. 1. That program also will be based on landowners' complaints, and it will generally allow the poisoning of prairie dogs on federal land in a one-mile buffer zone from private land. State and federal agencies also will once again allow the shooting of prairie dogs in some areas....
Veneman to attend Pine Nursery transfer ceremony U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman will be among the dignitaries on hand next week as the U.S. Forest Service officially transfers the 185-acre former Bend Pine Nursery to the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District, completing a deal that was four tough years in the making. In 2000, Congress passed legislation by Walden, and Sens. Wyden and Gordon Smith, authorizing the Forest Service to sell the land to the park district, which was given a right of first refusal. But the asking price kept escalating, prompting subsequent legislation earlier this year that set the price at $3.5 million....
Butler planes remain grounded The United States Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that three air tankers owned and operated by Redmond-based Butler Aircraft failed a recent emergency inspection and will not be allowed to fight fires on federal land for the foreseeable future. The Forest Service cancelled contracts with Butler air tankers in May, citing doubts about the airworthiness of the planes, which must fly under high-stress conditions....
Grizzly bear protection plan criticized The U.S. Forest Service is doing too little to protect grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone National Park area, environmentalists and a grizzly researcher have charged. This week, the Forest Service released a draft environmental impact statement that outlines where grizzlies would get top priority for protection and where they'd get less protection. A map of the "core recovery area" includes all of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, plus parts of six national forests in the three states around the parks....
Shasta-area fire burns 5,000 acres, 67 homes The Bear fire, sparked Wednesday by a lawn mower and buffeted by 106-degree temperatures and afternoon winds, had burned more than 5,000 acres and 67 homes by late Thursday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. More houses were threatened for a time, but a shift in the wind turned the fire away from subdivisions and into the Shasta National Forest....
Forest Service to ground tankers The U.S. Forest Service said Thursday that it cannot guarantee the safety of one-third of its firefighting tankers and will ground the entire fleet this season. In announcing the Department of Interior's decision to keep the tankers on the ground, Undersecretaries Mark Rey and Rebecca Watson said they just don't have enough information about the planes to allow them back in the air....
Feds skeptical about piecemeal wolf delisting The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is willing to discuss delisting the gray wolf on a state-by-state basis in the Northern Rockies, but is skeptical such a move is possible under federal law, an official said Friday. Ed Bangs, Rocky Mountain wolf coordinator for the agency, said the service is concerned about the precedent that could be set for other endangered species recovery efforts around the country. Bangs' comments came in response to Montana's threat to sue the agency unless it agrees to discuss possible ways to delist the wolf in Montana without waiting for Wyoming to develop an acceptable wolf management plan....
Editorial: Colorado needs plan for wolf reintroduction Goofy decisions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service increase the urgency of Colorado's effort to a craft a science-based plan to manage wolves if the wild canines fully return to our state. The Colorado Division of Wildlife started working on such a plan months before a lone wolf was killed on Interstate 70 this summer. But the state's effort will take on new importance if a federal decision to end protection for the endangered species endures legal challenges....
Ninth Circuit Upholds Lower Court Injunction to Protect Salmon Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused the government's emergency request to stay an order from U.S. District Court Judge James Redden that requires the Army Corps of Engineers to continue releasing water at dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers during August for the benefit of migrating salmon. In his opinion, Judge Redden highlighted the failure of the administration to implement the current Federal Salmon Plan and to meet juvenile salmon performance standards for the last three years as major reasons not to do less for salmon now. He stated that he was acting "to preserve the status quo" in light of the current "deficit situation" faced by salmon. Specifically, he stated that '[g]iven that we are working from a deficit situation, we should not be cutting back on an effective mitigation tool."....
Today's ranchers rely on horse sense and Palm Pilots Only an authentic cowboy could live by himself for weeks at a time on a rocky and remote patch of ground in central Owyhee County, a stretch of the interior West where cattle outnumber people by an untold margin. At age 29, Jeremy Mink is the real deal -- a buckaroo with a handlebar mustache, a .38-caliber revolver strapped to his side and a familial commitment to the herd of 1,400 cattle he lives with year-round....
NCBA PAC Endorses President George W. Bush The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Policy Division Board of Directors has approved a directive instructing the NCBA PAC to formally endorse and financially support the candidacy of George W. Bush for President of the United States. This historic decision was made because the policies of President Bush and those of his Administration most closely match the policies of the NCBA. NCBA President and Kansas cattle producer Jan Lyons notified the Bush campaign that this directive was agreed to at NCBA’s Board of Directors meeting this morning in Denver....
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Friday, August 13, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Hiker froze to death A missing hiker, identified as David Anderson of an unknown town in Texas, died of hypothermia after becoming separated from friends on a camping trip in the Teton Wilderness, investigators said Thursday. Investigators found grizzly bear bite marks and scratches on the body but those wounds occurred after the 24-year-old Signal Mountain Lodge employee died, said Teton County Coroner Bob Campbell....
In Pike National Forest, an Office With a View To get that spectacular windows-all-around office with 100-mile views and his government-issue log cabin in a secluded forest glen, Ellis fills an increasingly rare federal job description: He is one of the last of the Forest Service's fire lookouts, spending his days in splendid isolation atop a rocky peak in Pike National Forest about 9,700 feet above sea level. Binoculars at the ready, Ellis scans hundreds of square miles of forest, from the purple mountain majesties of the Continental Divide, 60 miles to the west, to the amber waves of grain blanketing the prairie stretching out to the east....
Air Tankers Return to Firefighting Duty The government agreed Thursday to put two more large air tankers back into service for the remainder of the fire season -- on an experimental basis only. More than two dozen air tankers were grounded this spring because of safety concerns. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said two P2V tankers, owned by companies in Montana and Nevada, will be outfitted with special equipment to monitor how much stress the planes experience during firefighting duty. The remainder of the companies' fleets will stay grounded, at least for the next three months, as officials continue working with the planes' manufacturer to determine their airworthiness, he said....
Four-wheelin' fun Joining me on the summit were almost 20 other participants in the 38th annual Sierra Trek, a yearly gathering of four-wheeling and sport utility vehicle enthusiasts who come to this area to camp, socialize, and test their off-highway driving skills amidst the backdrop of the Sierra scenery. This year's Trek, sponsored by the California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs, drew more than 900 participants from all over the Western United States. While the majority of participants came from the Bay Area and Central Valley, it was not unusual to see families from Southern California, the Mt. Shasta area, and even a few from Washington and Oregon at the Trek's base camp on Meadow Lake (approximately 20 miles northwest of Truckee)....
Pair of bear-trapping women defy stereotypes Rotting roadkill, cow blood and fish guts are the tools that Barb McCall and Kerri Lippert carry into the woods near the Canadian border. Those smells attract bears, and it is the job of the two young women to catch, collar and release up to 20 of them this summer. McCall and Lippert are the first all-female bear-trapping team in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Every morning they get into a state pickup truck and crisscross Forest Service roads, looking for the next catch....
Wolves kill three bear hounds Wolves from a pack located in the Town of Shanagolden killed three bear hounds in an incident confirmed by investigators from the United States Department of Agriculture - Wildlife Services on Aug. 4. Adrian Wydeven, Park Falls, mammalian ecologist for the Department of Natural Resources, said this is the first depredation incident on bear-hunting dogs in 2004. He said that wolves and pups are in rendezvous sites at this time of the year. It is unknown if the wolves were protecting the rendezvous sites at the time the dogs were killed....
Fastest-growing county bars development on 500,000 acres The nation's fastest-growing large county has won approval to protect dozens of threatened and endangered species by locking out developers from a half-million acres of land. Anti-sprawl groups, environmentalists and builders worked together on the conservation proposal, part of Riverside County's nationally recognized effort to integrate planning for development of roads and homes with protections for delicate wildlife and plant habitat....
Bush administration cites "national security" as reason to skirt enviro rules Now the Bush administration may be weeks from implementing more environmental exemptions for the sake of "national security," which critics find equally preposterous. The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a directive [PDF] that would enable a raft of agencies under its domain -- including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and more than a dozen others -- to eschew environmental reviews and assessments of their operations, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, if agency officials feel such reviews are impinging on their efficacy. The directive, which does not require congressional approval, would also allow the agencies to conceal information they consider sensitive from a national-security standpoint....
Endangered mice in deep water The discovery of several endangered animals on the outskirts of southwest Bakersfield is causing alarm within the water community. Federal biologists found at least two Buena Vista Lake Shrews along the Kern River bed and may push forward to protect their habitat. They said today, there are fewer than 30 of these shrews in existence. Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notified the City of Bakersfield of its intention to designate the habitat as critical to saving the shrew. The only problem is the habitat is in an area where the city recharges our groundwater basin, and Bakersfield's Water Resources Director said any move to interfere with groundwater recharge programs is cause for concern....
Biologists rescue minnows from drying Rio Grande Biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have rescued some 5,700 endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows from a drying portion of the river south of Albuquerque. The minnows were captured from shrinking pools along the river over the past two days. They were moved to a reach of the Rio Grande in northern Albuquerque that does not go dry....
Plan for hunting at refuges draws mixed response The US Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to allow hunting at two regional nature refuges pleases hunters but upsets critics worried about public safety and the effect on wildlife. A draft management plan nearing final approval calls for allowing hunting of deer, turkey, woodcock, ruffed grouse, squirrels, and rabbits at Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, which includes portions of Sudbury, Stow, Maynard, and Hudson. Hunting of ducks, geese, and deer would be allowed in portions of Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge that are in Sudbury and Wayland. Currently hunting is not allowed at either refuge....
Breakfast with bats The bats got a thumbs up Thursday from visitors who attended the 47th annual Bat Flight Breakfast at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, while a new menu got mixed reviews. After a no-show last year, the approximately 300,000 Mexican free-tail bats that call the cave home during the summer were under a bit of pressure. And based on crowd comments, they performed admirably....
Ranger-spray case investigator departs A criminal investigator spent two and a half days this week at the Point Reyes National Seashore interviewing victims, rangers, and witnesses regarding rangers’ pepper-spraying of a brother and sister July 28 in Point Reyes Station. Conducting the Park Service’s investigation is Special Agent Paul Crawford from Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. The community has responded with outrage after it was reported that two rangers, Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio, at close range pepper-sprayed the eyes of Chris Miller, 18, and his sister Jessica, 17, while they were restrained and sitting on the ground. Eyewitnesses have said the siblings from Inverness Park were not threatening the rangers, instead describing the rangers as having "lost control."....
AP: Most U.S. Oil, Gas Leases Unexplored Despite soaring oil and gas prices, oil companies and individuals who own nearly 30 million acres of nonproducing federal oil and gas leases have made little effort to transform them into energy producers, federal records show. An Associated Press analysis of Bureau of Land Management records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act found that 98 percent of the more than 33,000 leases still considered nonproducing by BLM have never had an exploratory well drilled. Ninety-seven percent have never had a single application for a permit to drill filed with the BLM....
Loss of foals from Pryor Mountain wild horse herd blamed on mountain lions Mountain lions are being blamed for playing a “significant role” in the deaths of 22 of 28 foals born to the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd in May. “We feel pretty strongly that because of the number and the regularity, it's probably a couple of lions,” possibly a lioness with young kittens, said Linda Coates-Markel, wild horse and burro specialist for the Bureau of Land Management. A lion is also blamed in an attack in June on an undersized 5-year-old stallion that roams the lower portion of the wild horse range. The stallion survived, although it suffered puncture and claw wounds on its hindquarters, shoulder, neck and head....
Column: Kerry's Energy Plan In the 1960s John F. Kennedy inspired America with his pledge to put a man on the moon in ten years. Now, John F. Kerry is invoking that proud history to promote his own plan to end US dependence on Middle East oil. "This is the great project for our generation," Kerry declared in May, and his recent comments suggest it will be a major theme in the fall campaign as well. During Kerry's speech at the Democratic convention, for example, he mentioned the environment only in passing. But he spoke at length about freeing the country from Middle East oil, winning some of the strongest applause of the night by promising to rely on American "ingenuity and innovation--not the Saudi royal family." Elevating energy over the environment is shrewd politics for Kerry. True, George Bush has compiled the worst environmental record in modern American history, while Kerry has earned a 96 percent lifetime voting record from the League of Conservation Voters, a nonpartisan group in Washington that has now endorsed him. But the Kerry campaign recognizes that the environment is not a decisive issue for most voters....
Kerry mining fee proposal draws opposition in Nevada John Kerry's proposal to increase mineral royalties to raise money for national parks has drawn strong opposition from officials and mining interests in Nevada, which produces 81 percent of the nation's gold. Kerry has proposed an 8 percent royalty fee on precious metals dug from federal land, while doubling the claim fee to $200 and eliminating land patents....
Wildlife Board OKs Hearst Deal Over strong objections from some environmentalists, a state board on Thursday agreed to provide $34.5 million to help preserve the Hearst Ranch, a major stretch of undeveloped coastline in Central California. The unanimous vote by the three-member Wildlife Conservation Board is the second of four steps in cementing a controversial deal totaling $95 million that opponents call too generous to owner Hearst Corp. and supporters hail as historic protection for spectacular ocean bluffs and hills surrounding Hearst Castle in San Simeon....
A Utah Rancher's Secret Trying to keep a secret is almost impossible these days, but rancher Waldo Wilcox kept a good one for half a century. Last month, when his secret was finally revealed, it became the second biggest global, online news story of the day. Here's what it was: Since 1951, Wilcox has protected one of the most remarkable archaeological treasures ever found in the American Southwest. He protected this treasure simply by not telling anyone about it. As Wilcox put it succinctly, "The less people who know about this, the better."....
Hiker froze to death A missing hiker, identified as David Anderson of an unknown town in Texas, died of hypothermia after becoming separated from friends on a camping trip in the Teton Wilderness, investigators said Thursday. Investigators found grizzly bear bite marks and scratches on the body but those wounds occurred after the 24-year-old Signal Mountain Lodge employee died, said Teton County Coroner Bob Campbell....
In Pike National Forest, an Office With a View To get that spectacular windows-all-around office with 100-mile views and his government-issue log cabin in a secluded forest glen, Ellis fills an increasingly rare federal job description: He is one of the last of the Forest Service's fire lookouts, spending his days in splendid isolation atop a rocky peak in Pike National Forest about 9,700 feet above sea level. Binoculars at the ready, Ellis scans hundreds of square miles of forest, from the purple mountain majesties of the Continental Divide, 60 miles to the west, to the amber waves of grain blanketing the prairie stretching out to the east....
Air Tankers Return to Firefighting Duty The government agreed Thursday to put two more large air tankers back into service for the remainder of the fire season -- on an experimental basis only. More than two dozen air tankers were grounded this spring because of safety concerns. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said two P2V tankers, owned by companies in Montana and Nevada, will be outfitted with special equipment to monitor how much stress the planes experience during firefighting duty. The remainder of the companies' fleets will stay grounded, at least for the next three months, as officials continue working with the planes' manufacturer to determine their airworthiness, he said....
Four-wheelin' fun Joining me on the summit were almost 20 other participants in the 38th annual Sierra Trek, a yearly gathering of four-wheeling and sport utility vehicle enthusiasts who come to this area to camp, socialize, and test their off-highway driving skills amidst the backdrop of the Sierra scenery. This year's Trek, sponsored by the California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs, drew more than 900 participants from all over the Western United States. While the majority of participants came from the Bay Area and Central Valley, it was not unusual to see families from Southern California, the Mt. Shasta area, and even a few from Washington and Oregon at the Trek's base camp on Meadow Lake (approximately 20 miles northwest of Truckee)....
Pair of bear-trapping women defy stereotypes Rotting roadkill, cow blood and fish guts are the tools that Barb McCall and Kerri Lippert carry into the woods near the Canadian border. Those smells attract bears, and it is the job of the two young women to catch, collar and release up to 20 of them this summer. McCall and Lippert are the first all-female bear-trapping team in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Every morning they get into a state pickup truck and crisscross Forest Service roads, looking for the next catch....
Wolves kill three bear hounds Wolves from a pack located in the Town of Shanagolden killed three bear hounds in an incident confirmed by investigators from the United States Department of Agriculture - Wildlife Services on Aug. 4. Adrian Wydeven, Park Falls, mammalian ecologist for the Department of Natural Resources, said this is the first depredation incident on bear-hunting dogs in 2004. He said that wolves and pups are in rendezvous sites at this time of the year. It is unknown if the wolves were protecting the rendezvous sites at the time the dogs were killed....
Fastest-growing county bars development on 500,000 acres The nation's fastest-growing large county has won approval to protect dozens of threatened and endangered species by locking out developers from a half-million acres of land. Anti-sprawl groups, environmentalists and builders worked together on the conservation proposal, part of Riverside County's nationally recognized effort to integrate planning for development of roads and homes with protections for delicate wildlife and plant habitat....
Bush administration cites "national security" as reason to skirt enviro rules Now the Bush administration may be weeks from implementing more environmental exemptions for the sake of "national security," which critics find equally preposterous. The Department of Homeland Security has proposed a directive [PDF] that would enable a raft of agencies under its domain -- including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and more than a dozen others -- to eschew environmental reviews and assessments of their operations, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, if agency officials feel such reviews are impinging on their efficacy. The directive, which does not require congressional approval, would also allow the agencies to conceal information they consider sensitive from a national-security standpoint....
Endangered mice in deep water The discovery of several endangered animals on the outskirts of southwest Bakersfield is causing alarm within the water community. Federal biologists found at least two Buena Vista Lake Shrews along the Kern River bed and may push forward to protect their habitat. They said today, there are fewer than 30 of these shrews in existence. Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notified the City of Bakersfield of its intention to designate the habitat as critical to saving the shrew. The only problem is the habitat is in an area where the city recharges our groundwater basin, and Bakersfield's Water Resources Director said any move to interfere with groundwater recharge programs is cause for concern....
Biologists rescue minnows from drying Rio Grande Biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have rescued some 5,700 endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows from a drying portion of the river south of Albuquerque. The minnows were captured from shrinking pools along the river over the past two days. They were moved to a reach of the Rio Grande in northern Albuquerque that does not go dry....
Plan for hunting at refuges draws mixed response The US Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to allow hunting at two regional nature refuges pleases hunters but upsets critics worried about public safety and the effect on wildlife. A draft management plan nearing final approval calls for allowing hunting of deer, turkey, woodcock, ruffed grouse, squirrels, and rabbits at Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, which includes portions of Sudbury, Stow, Maynard, and Hudson. Hunting of ducks, geese, and deer would be allowed in portions of Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge that are in Sudbury and Wayland. Currently hunting is not allowed at either refuge....
Breakfast with bats The bats got a thumbs up Thursday from visitors who attended the 47th annual Bat Flight Breakfast at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, while a new menu got mixed reviews. After a no-show last year, the approximately 300,000 Mexican free-tail bats that call the cave home during the summer were under a bit of pressure. And based on crowd comments, they performed admirably....
Ranger-spray case investigator departs A criminal investigator spent two and a half days this week at the Point Reyes National Seashore interviewing victims, rangers, and witnesses regarding rangers’ pepper-spraying of a brother and sister July 28 in Point Reyes Station. Conducting the Park Service’s investigation is Special Agent Paul Crawford from Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Nevada. The community has responded with outrage after it was reported that two rangers, Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio, at close range pepper-sprayed the eyes of Chris Miller, 18, and his sister Jessica, 17, while they were restrained and sitting on the ground. Eyewitnesses have said the siblings from Inverness Park were not threatening the rangers, instead describing the rangers as having "lost control."....
AP: Most U.S. Oil, Gas Leases Unexplored Despite soaring oil and gas prices, oil companies and individuals who own nearly 30 million acres of nonproducing federal oil and gas leases have made little effort to transform them into energy producers, federal records show. An Associated Press analysis of Bureau of Land Management records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act found that 98 percent of the more than 33,000 leases still considered nonproducing by BLM have never had an exploratory well drilled. Ninety-seven percent have never had a single application for a permit to drill filed with the BLM....
Loss of foals from Pryor Mountain wild horse herd blamed on mountain lions Mountain lions are being blamed for playing a “significant role” in the deaths of 22 of 28 foals born to the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd in May. “We feel pretty strongly that because of the number and the regularity, it's probably a couple of lions,” possibly a lioness with young kittens, said Linda Coates-Markel, wild horse and burro specialist for the Bureau of Land Management. A lion is also blamed in an attack in June on an undersized 5-year-old stallion that roams the lower portion of the wild horse range. The stallion survived, although it suffered puncture and claw wounds on its hindquarters, shoulder, neck and head....
Column: Kerry's Energy Plan In the 1960s John F. Kennedy inspired America with his pledge to put a man on the moon in ten years. Now, John F. Kerry is invoking that proud history to promote his own plan to end US dependence on Middle East oil. "This is the great project for our generation," Kerry declared in May, and his recent comments suggest it will be a major theme in the fall campaign as well. During Kerry's speech at the Democratic convention, for example, he mentioned the environment only in passing. But he spoke at length about freeing the country from Middle East oil, winning some of the strongest applause of the night by promising to rely on American "ingenuity and innovation--not the Saudi royal family." Elevating energy over the environment is shrewd politics for Kerry. True, George Bush has compiled the worst environmental record in modern American history, while Kerry has earned a 96 percent lifetime voting record from the League of Conservation Voters, a nonpartisan group in Washington that has now endorsed him. But the Kerry campaign recognizes that the environment is not a decisive issue for most voters....
Kerry mining fee proposal draws opposition in Nevada John Kerry's proposal to increase mineral royalties to raise money for national parks has drawn strong opposition from officials and mining interests in Nevada, which produces 81 percent of the nation's gold. Kerry has proposed an 8 percent royalty fee on precious metals dug from federal land, while doubling the claim fee to $200 and eliminating land patents....
Wildlife Board OKs Hearst Deal Over strong objections from some environmentalists, a state board on Thursday agreed to provide $34.5 million to help preserve the Hearst Ranch, a major stretch of undeveloped coastline in Central California. The unanimous vote by the three-member Wildlife Conservation Board is the second of four steps in cementing a controversial deal totaling $95 million that opponents call too generous to owner Hearst Corp. and supporters hail as historic protection for spectacular ocean bluffs and hills surrounding Hearst Castle in San Simeon....
A Utah Rancher's Secret Trying to keep a secret is almost impossible these days, but rancher Waldo Wilcox kept a good one for half a century. Last month, when his secret was finally revealed, it became the second biggest global, online news story of the day. Here's what it was: Since 1951, Wilcox has protected one of the most remarkable archaeological treasures ever found in the American Southwest. He protected this treasure simply by not telling anyone about it. As Wilcox put it succinctly, "The less people who know about this, the better."....
Thursday, August 12, 2004
August 12, 2004
Black-tailed Prairie Dog Removed from Candidate Species List
An updated evaluation of the best available scientific information has led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine that the black-tailed prairie dog is not likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future and no longer meets the Endangered Species Act definition of threatened. Therefore, the prairie dog will be removed as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. A finding that the black-tailed prairie dog does not warrant listing was delivered today to the Federal Register.
“With new information regarding the range-wide impact of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors and recent state estimates of occupied black-tailed prairie dog habitat, the Service has determined that the black-tailed prairie dog does not meet the Endangered Species Act’s definition of ‘threatened’,” said Ralph Morgenweck, director of the Service’s mountain-prairie region.
Until now, the best scientific and commercial information available to the Service indicated that the impacts of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors were substantial enough to warrant listing of the black-tailed prairie dog as a threatened species. Since 2002, State agencies, Federal agencies, Tribes, and other parties provided additional information regarding the black-tailed prairie dog which was considered by the Service in an evaluation of the status of the species.
Previously, the Service focused attention on a few large black-tailed prairie dog populations impacted by sylvatic plague and assumed that population losses at these sites were indicative of losses across the species’ entire range. Based on new data, these assumptions no longer appear appropriate. Dramatic fluctuations in the amount of black-tailed prairie dog occupied habitat at specific large complexes may occur due to plague or chemical control, but they do not appear to influence range-wide species persistence. Recent information illustrates the prairie dog’s resiliency to short-term, site-specific population declines....
Black-tailed Prairie Dog Removed from Candidate Species List
An updated evaluation of the best available scientific information has led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine that the black-tailed prairie dog is not likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future and no longer meets the Endangered Species Act definition of threatened. Therefore, the prairie dog will be removed as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act. A finding that the black-tailed prairie dog does not warrant listing was delivered today to the Federal Register.
“With new information regarding the range-wide impact of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors and recent state estimates of occupied black-tailed prairie dog habitat, the Service has determined that the black-tailed prairie dog does not meet the Endangered Species Act’s definition of ‘threatened’,” said Ralph Morgenweck, director of the Service’s mountain-prairie region.
Until now, the best scientific and commercial information available to the Service indicated that the impacts of disease, chemical control and other lesser factors were substantial enough to warrant listing of the black-tailed prairie dog as a threatened species. Since 2002, State agencies, Federal agencies, Tribes, and other parties provided additional information regarding the black-tailed prairie dog which was considered by the Service in an evaluation of the status of the species.
Previously, the Service focused attention on a few large black-tailed prairie dog populations impacted by sylvatic plague and assumed that population losses at these sites were indicative of losses across the species’ entire range. Based on new data, these assumptions no longer appear appropriate. Dramatic fluctuations in the amount of black-tailed prairie dog occupied habitat at specific large complexes may occur due to plague or chemical control, but they do not appear to influence range-wide species persistence. Recent information illustrates the prairie dog’s resiliency to short-term, site-specific population declines....
INTERACTIVE
I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
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I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
If you have comments on the blog or suggestions on how I can improve it, please just click on "email me" under links.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Appeal Rejected in Trout Restoration Plan The U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday rejected environmentalists' appeal of a plan to poison a stream south of Lake Tahoe to aid what wildlife officials call "the rarest trout in America." Unless opponents sue, the decision frees the California Department of Fish and Game to seek a permit to clear nonnative fish from 11 miles of Silver King Creek next month using rotenone, a toxic chemical. The department then wants to restore the Paiute cutthroat trout to its native habitat in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. Silver King Creek flows into the Carson River south of Lake Tahoe....
Helicopter Pilot Dies During Firefighting A helicopter crashed Wednesday while ferrying supplies to firefighters in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in central Washington, killing the pilot. The pilot, identified by the U.S. Forest Service as Mike Ward, 55, of Clayton, Ga., was the only person on board....
Power of the Flood The alarms are there because of the events of Aug. 14, 2003--a day on which 1.57 inches of rain fell in a half-hour on the northeast face of recently burnt Apache Peak, the canyon's sole watershed, precipitating a flood many times larger than any ever recorded in the canyon. Pelting down off the peak's steep, blackened face, the deluge became a surging 12-foot-deep amalgam of water, ash, dirt, scorched trees and rocks that churned through the lower canyon, sweeping away tens of thousands of dollars worth of property and killing 59-year-old Oracle publisher and environmental activist Jim Huntington, quite probably before he could get out of his creek-side house. It took months for the ad hoc Bonito Canyon Coalition (headed by Mattson) to get answers or help from any government entity except the cash-strapped but responsive Pinal County. They became particularly frustrated with the Forest Service, whose burnout of Apache Peak had turned into an inferno as it went up the slope: The peak was later identified as one of the two most intensely burned areas of the whole Aspen Fire. (The other was Carter Canyon, near Summerhaven.) An extremely hot fire can change soil so that it actually repels water, and the fire incinerates every plant and bit of mulch that could slow the momentum of water running downhill....
Bear chases hiker in Lone Pine wilderness An aggressive black bear is facing the death penalty after it charged, chased down and then clawed a fleeing hiker with its paw Tuesday in the Cottonwood Pass area in the Golden Trout Wilderness west of Lone Pine. The hiker suffered cuts on the arm, but refused medical treatment. The bear attack near Cottonwood Pass comes on the heals of a bear "mouthing" and bruising a hiker on June 22 in the Kearsarge Pass area, which was the first, physical bear-person incident in the Inyo National Forest since 2002....
Carson City fire rehab to cost $6.4 million It will cost $6.4 million to rehabilitate the huge area west of Carson City blackened by the Waterfall fire, officials say. Carson City Park Planner Vern Krahn said the work will start with reseeding, then will turn to more involved rehabilitation. The U.S. Forest Service will sign an agreement with the Nevada Division of Forestry and Carson City to immediately start aerial seeding and straw mulching of the damaged areas....
Salvage timber sale in Central Oregon attracts no bidders A sale of timber salvaged from 2002's Eyerly Fire in Central Oregon attracted not a single bidder this week, with most concluding that the timber was too old to be of any value. In a salvage sale, trees killed, or otherwise damaged in a fire, are sold and logged. Dead trees can lose their value quickly because they are especially vulnerable to rot, insects - which can stain the wood blue - and, eventually, more fires....
Groups Say Federal Laws Endanger Forests, Help Logging Industry Speaking at the National Press Club, four environmental groups released a report that said timber and gas development proposals backed by the administration are endangering wildlife and stripping public forests of their recreational values. The report, "This Land is Your Land," blames the Bush administration's "Healthy Forests Initiative" for threatening several regional forests from Alaska to Virginia and negatively affecting their ecosystems and economies....
Column: Pulling a Fast-Track One McGreevey last month signed sweeping legislation giving developers fast-track access to 1.5 million acres of the state. The act radically streamlines the permitting process for new construction in urban and suburban areas, and even rural areas designated as town centers. Critics fear that such rapidly permitted development will come at the expense of the environment and public oversight. The New Jersey fast-track legislation contains extraordinary provisions. It forces the state departments of environmental protection, transportation, and community affairs to either approve or disapprove a developer's permit application in just 45 days -- after which time, unresolved requests get automatic approval. The act also privatizes the permitting process, letting developers hire private consultants to write and review permits, and largely extinguishing agency oversight. In another proviso, approved fast-track permits, when contested in court, become final with a single judge's ruling. No public or agency appeal is allowed....
New map shows habitat of endangered tiger salamanders Tens of thousands of acres in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Santa Clara counties would be designated critical habitat for the California tiger salamander under proposed rules released Tuesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The rules are part of the service's announcement last month that it had listed the black-and-yellow amphibian as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. As part of the new designation, the federal wildlife agency will earmark 382,666 acres in 20 counties throughout the state as habitat critical for the recovery of the species. The land would be subject to certain development restrictions under the law....
Toad Jumps in the Way of Development County planners Wednesday added a rare toad to a list of environmental concerns surrounding a planned 2,500-home development near San Francisquito Creek. A Newhall Land and Farming Co. executive said the county’s approval process was halted last May when western spadefoot toads crept down into a man-made basin — a “footprint” for the 966-acre project — and were discovered there. “It wasn’t a natural area for them,” Newhall Land spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said. “This is a situation where it was clearly a temporary basin we had created, and the toads had gone down to that area.” The toads are classified by federal agencies as a “species of concern,” meaning they’re threatened, but not severely enough to be classified as endangered....
USFWS, partners to remove fish barriers The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the agency's partners will pool $4.8 million in 2004 to remove 91 barriers to fish passage in 26 states. Service funds for the popular Fish Passage Program, amounting to $2.8 million, will be supplemented by another $2 million in matching funds from a wide array of partners ranging from civic and conservation organizations, local and State governments and other Federal agencies....
Dispute over Pilgrims' camp takes an unneighborly turn After a summer of growing tension in McCarthy, one of the Pilgrim family's two right-of-way disputes appears to be coming to a head this weekend. Local landowners say they are ready to use a bulldozer to clear a public right of way in the middle of town where the large, Bible-toting family has maintained a camp for two years. The Pilgrim family patriarch attributed the faceoff to continuing harassment from the National Park Service, which has battled the family over its efforts to gain bulldozer access to its land 13 miles inside the park. Papa Pilgrim, whose legal name is Robert Hale, on Wednesday said park employees had "incited the local people" against his 17-member family....
BLM says it will work with tribes on artifacts Range Creek has been in the spotlight since June, when national attention was drawn to its pristine Fremont artifacts. The state owns more than 4,000 acres in Carbon and Emery counties, where the artifacts are centered, while the BLM manages most of the surrounding land. The lack of tribal involvement at the site has raised the ire of American Indian groups, but the Aug. 4 notification letter and an invitation to the site later this month are the first steps toward making amends. ''There is a need to join forces,'' said Forrest Cuch, director of the state Division of Indian Affairs. Cuch made his first visit to the site Saturday and said he was pleased to find no excavation taking place. His main concern is preservation and security....
BLM trims plan for mare birth control The Bureau of Land Management said it's scaling back plans for giving birth control to mares on the Pryor Mountain wild horse range, citing concerns with the toll of predation on younger animals in the herd. Contraception is being given to seven older mares and perhaps another younger horse, said Linda Coates-Markle, BLM's wild horse and burro specialist for Montana and the Dakotas. Earlier plans called for giving birth control to several yearlings and 2-year-olds also. But the effects of natural mortality - and particularly predation by mountain lions - prompted the BLM to limit its program this year, she said Wednesday....
Column: The Courts Get One Right In July of this year, the Michigan Supreme Court struck an unexpected blow for freedom; a decision, which hopefully will restore a little sanity to the raging nationwide debate over private property rights. For more than two decades now, cities and counties across America have been using their constitutional right of imminent domain to forcibly take private property from its rightful owners, then turn around and sell that same property to other private owners under the pretense that doing so is a “public use”. Over the past couple of decades, this travesty has occurred tens of thousands of times....
Activists pleased with dam decision It took seven years, but conservation groups finally have a commitment from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take a closer look at how Idaho Power Co.'s Hells Canyon dams affect threatened or endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead. "It's high time that FERC looked at what impact the project is having on listed fish and make adjustments to whatever is needed," said Sara Eddie, an attorney with Advocates of the West who is representing Idaho Rivers United....
Environmental groups fault Bush policy on wetlands The Bush administration has allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands under a policy adopted last year, according to a report issued yesterday by four environmental groups. The study, based on Freedom of Information Act requests, represents the first accounting of how the administration's interpretation of a 2001 Supreme Court decision affected isolated wetlands in states from New Mexico to Delaware. The court ruled that isolated wetlands that do not cross state boundaries and are not navigable do not enjoy the same federal protections as other wetlands just because they serve migratory birds....
Feds ditch "isolated" water When officers of the Pine Brook Water District decided to build a reservoir on Twomile Creek, they got a pleasant surprise: No federal Clean Water Act permit was needed. In 2003, the Bush administration instructed federal agencies that they no longer have authority over "isolated" waters such as Twomile Creek. Since then, the Army Corps of Engineers has determined it has no jurisdiction over projects affecting at least two dozen other creeks, ditches and reservoirs in northeastern Colorado, according to a new report on the administration's water policy....
Taxpayers Forced to Fund Anti-Bush 'Environmentalists' Even though most environmental groups are determined to oust President Bush from office this November, those groups are benefiting from an unprecedented level of federal assistance, according to a Washington, D.C., research group. It's possible that some of that money is also being used in the campaign against a second Bush term, Capital Research Center (CRC) reported in an editorial, citing audits conducted by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The audits, according to CRC's David Healy, show that in the fiscal year 2004 budget, $143 million was channeled to environmental groups that disclose their finances. That's nearly twice as much as the $72 million that the groups got in fiscal year 1998....
Groups appeal San Juan-Chama water diversion permit Six environmental groups are appealing the state engineer’s approval of a project to divert water from the Rio Grande for Albuquerque. They contend State Engineer John D’Antonio did not have proper jurisdiction to approve a permit for the project. The water comes from the San Juan-Chama project, which diverts river water from southern Colorado into the Rio Grande basin. Environmentalists also argue that water users downstream from Albuquerque would be harmed and that the project would damage efforts to preserve the Rio Grande ecosystem....
Appeal Rejected in Trout Restoration Plan The U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday rejected environmentalists' appeal of a plan to poison a stream south of Lake Tahoe to aid what wildlife officials call "the rarest trout in America." Unless opponents sue, the decision frees the California Department of Fish and Game to seek a permit to clear nonnative fish from 11 miles of Silver King Creek next month using rotenone, a toxic chemical. The department then wants to restore the Paiute cutthroat trout to its native habitat in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. Silver King Creek flows into the Carson River south of Lake Tahoe....
Helicopter Pilot Dies During Firefighting A helicopter crashed Wednesday while ferrying supplies to firefighters in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in central Washington, killing the pilot. The pilot, identified by the U.S. Forest Service as Mike Ward, 55, of Clayton, Ga., was the only person on board....
Power of the Flood The alarms are there because of the events of Aug. 14, 2003--a day on which 1.57 inches of rain fell in a half-hour on the northeast face of recently burnt Apache Peak, the canyon's sole watershed, precipitating a flood many times larger than any ever recorded in the canyon. Pelting down off the peak's steep, blackened face, the deluge became a surging 12-foot-deep amalgam of water, ash, dirt, scorched trees and rocks that churned through the lower canyon, sweeping away tens of thousands of dollars worth of property and killing 59-year-old Oracle publisher and environmental activist Jim Huntington, quite probably before he could get out of his creek-side house. It took months for the ad hoc Bonito Canyon Coalition (headed by Mattson) to get answers or help from any government entity except the cash-strapped but responsive Pinal County. They became particularly frustrated with the Forest Service, whose burnout of Apache Peak had turned into an inferno as it went up the slope: The peak was later identified as one of the two most intensely burned areas of the whole Aspen Fire. (The other was Carter Canyon, near Summerhaven.) An extremely hot fire can change soil so that it actually repels water, and the fire incinerates every plant and bit of mulch that could slow the momentum of water running downhill....
Bear chases hiker in Lone Pine wilderness An aggressive black bear is facing the death penalty after it charged, chased down and then clawed a fleeing hiker with its paw Tuesday in the Cottonwood Pass area in the Golden Trout Wilderness west of Lone Pine. The hiker suffered cuts on the arm, but refused medical treatment. The bear attack near Cottonwood Pass comes on the heals of a bear "mouthing" and bruising a hiker on June 22 in the Kearsarge Pass area, which was the first, physical bear-person incident in the Inyo National Forest since 2002....
Carson City fire rehab to cost $6.4 million It will cost $6.4 million to rehabilitate the huge area west of Carson City blackened by the Waterfall fire, officials say. Carson City Park Planner Vern Krahn said the work will start with reseeding, then will turn to more involved rehabilitation. The U.S. Forest Service will sign an agreement with the Nevada Division of Forestry and Carson City to immediately start aerial seeding and straw mulching of the damaged areas....
Salvage timber sale in Central Oregon attracts no bidders A sale of timber salvaged from 2002's Eyerly Fire in Central Oregon attracted not a single bidder this week, with most concluding that the timber was too old to be of any value. In a salvage sale, trees killed, or otherwise damaged in a fire, are sold and logged. Dead trees can lose their value quickly because they are especially vulnerable to rot, insects - which can stain the wood blue - and, eventually, more fires....
Groups Say Federal Laws Endanger Forests, Help Logging Industry Speaking at the National Press Club, four environmental groups released a report that said timber and gas development proposals backed by the administration are endangering wildlife and stripping public forests of their recreational values. The report, "This Land is Your Land," blames the Bush administration's "Healthy Forests Initiative" for threatening several regional forests from Alaska to Virginia and negatively affecting their ecosystems and economies....
Column: Pulling a Fast-Track One McGreevey last month signed sweeping legislation giving developers fast-track access to 1.5 million acres of the state. The act radically streamlines the permitting process for new construction in urban and suburban areas, and even rural areas designated as town centers. Critics fear that such rapidly permitted development will come at the expense of the environment and public oversight. The New Jersey fast-track legislation contains extraordinary provisions. It forces the state departments of environmental protection, transportation, and community affairs to either approve or disapprove a developer's permit application in just 45 days -- after which time, unresolved requests get automatic approval. The act also privatizes the permitting process, letting developers hire private consultants to write and review permits, and largely extinguishing agency oversight. In another proviso, approved fast-track permits, when contested in court, become final with a single judge's ruling. No public or agency appeal is allowed....
New map shows habitat of endangered tiger salamanders Tens of thousands of acres in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Santa Clara counties would be designated critical habitat for the California tiger salamander under proposed rules released Tuesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The rules are part of the service's announcement last month that it had listed the black-and-yellow amphibian as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. As part of the new designation, the federal wildlife agency will earmark 382,666 acres in 20 counties throughout the state as habitat critical for the recovery of the species. The land would be subject to certain development restrictions under the law....
Toad Jumps in the Way of Development County planners Wednesday added a rare toad to a list of environmental concerns surrounding a planned 2,500-home development near San Francisquito Creek. A Newhall Land and Farming Co. executive said the county’s approval process was halted last May when western spadefoot toads crept down into a man-made basin — a “footprint” for the 966-acre project — and were discovered there. “It wasn’t a natural area for them,” Newhall Land spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said. “This is a situation where it was clearly a temporary basin we had created, and the toads had gone down to that area.” The toads are classified by federal agencies as a “species of concern,” meaning they’re threatened, but not severely enough to be classified as endangered....
USFWS, partners to remove fish barriers The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the agency's partners will pool $4.8 million in 2004 to remove 91 barriers to fish passage in 26 states. Service funds for the popular Fish Passage Program, amounting to $2.8 million, will be supplemented by another $2 million in matching funds from a wide array of partners ranging from civic and conservation organizations, local and State governments and other Federal agencies....
Dispute over Pilgrims' camp takes an unneighborly turn After a summer of growing tension in McCarthy, one of the Pilgrim family's two right-of-way disputes appears to be coming to a head this weekend. Local landowners say they are ready to use a bulldozer to clear a public right of way in the middle of town where the large, Bible-toting family has maintained a camp for two years. The Pilgrim family patriarch attributed the faceoff to continuing harassment from the National Park Service, which has battled the family over its efforts to gain bulldozer access to its land 13 miles inside the park. Papa Pilgrim, whose legal name is Robert Hale, on Wednesday said park employees had "incited the local people" against his 17-member family....
BLM says it will work with tribes on artifacts Range Creek has been in the spotlight since June, when national attention was drawn to its pristine Fremont artifacts. The state owns more than 4,000 acres in Carbon and Emery counties, where the artifacts are centered, while the BLM manages most of the surrounding land. The lack of tribal involvement at the site has raised the ire of American Indian groups, but the Aug. 4 notification letter and an invitation to the site later this month are the first steps toward making amends. ''There is a need to join forces,'' said Forrest Cuch, director of the state Division of Indian Affairs. Cuch made his first visit to the site Saturday and said he was pleased to find no excavation taking place. His main concern is preservation and security....
BLM trims plan for mare birth control The Bureau of Land Management said it's scaling back plans for giving birth control to mares on the Pryor Mountain wild horse range, citing concerns with the toll of predation on younger animals in the herd. Contraception is being given to seven older mares and perhaps another younger horse, said Linda Coates-Markle, BLM's wild horse and burro specialist for Montana and the Dakotas. Earlier plans called for giving birth control to several yearlings and 2-year-olds also. But the effects of natural mortality - and particularly predation by mountain lions - prompted the BLM to limit its program this year, she said Wednesday....
Column: The Courts Get One Right In July of this year, the Michigan Supreme Court struck an unexpected blow for freedom; a decision, which hopefully will restore a little sanity to the raging nationwide debate over private property rights. For more than two decades now, cities and counties across America have been using their constitutional right of imminent domain to forcibly take private property from its rightful owners, then turn around and sell that same property to other private owners under the pretense that doing so is a “public use”. Over the past couple of decades, this travesty has occurred tens of thousands of times....
Activists pleased with dam decision It took seven years, but conservation groups finally have a commitment from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take a closer look at how Idaho Power Co.'s Hells Canyon dams affect threatened or endangered Snake River salmon and steelhead. "It's high time that FERC looked at what impact the project is having on listed fish and make adjustments to whatever is needed," said Sara Eddie, an attorney with Advocates of the West who is representing Idaho Rivers United....
Environmental groups fault Bush policy on wetlands The Bush administration has allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands under a policy adopted last year, according to a report issued yesterday by four environmental groups. The study, based on Freedom of Information Act requests, represents the first accounting of how the administration's interpretation of a 2001 Supreme Court decision affected isolated wetlands in states from New Mexico to Delaware. The court ruled that isolated wetlands that do not cross state boundaries and are not navigable do not enjoy the same federal protections as other wetlands just because they serve migratory birds....
Feds ditch "isolated" water When officers of the Pine Brook Water District decided to build a reservoir on Twomile Creek, they got a pleasant surprise: No federal Clean Water Act permit was needed. In 2003, the Bush administration instructed federal agencies that they no longer have authority over "isolated" waters such as Twomile Creek. Since then, the Army Corps of Engineers has determined it has no jurisdiction over projects affecting at least two dozen other creeks, ditches and reservoirs in northeastern Colorado, according to a new report on the administration's water policy....
Taxpayers Forced to Fund Anti-Bush 'Environmentalists' Even though most environmental groups are determined to oust President Bush from office this November, those groups are benefiting from an unprecedented level of federal assistance, according to a Washington, D.C., research group. It's possible that some of that money is also being used in the campaign against a second Bush term, Capital Research Center (CRC) reported in an editorial, citing audits conducted by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The audits, according to CRC's David Healy, show that in the fiscal year 2004 budget, $143 million was channeled to environmental groups that disclose their finances. That's nearly twice as much as the $72 million that the groups got in fiscal year 1998....
Groups appeal San Juan-Chama water diversion permit Six environmental groups are appealing the state engineer’s approval of a project to divert water from the Rio Grande for Albuquerque. They contend State Engineer John D’Antonio did not have proper jurisdiction to approve a permit for the project. The water comes from the San Juan-Chama project, which diverts river water from southern Colorado into the Rio Grande basin. Environmentalists also argue that water users downstream from Albuquerque would be harmed and that the project would damage efforts to preserve the Rio Grande ecosystem....
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
INTERACTIVE
I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
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I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
If you have comments on the blog or suggestions on how I can improve it, please just click on "email me" under links.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Forest Service announces boating plan for upper Salmon River The Sawtooth National Recreation Area has a new plan for managing the upper Salmon River in late summer to protect salmon and allow rafters and kayakers there. It eases much of the friction which has existed between the agency and river outfitters since the mid-1990s. Some of those outfitters had been charged with violations for floating through areas where chinook salmon were spawning....
Editorial, An economic mainstay: Timber industry hasn't gone away Oregon's timber industry milled more lumber in 2003 than in any year since 1997, with Lane County leading the way, the state Forestry Department reported recently. Last year's production figures are a useful reminder that there's more going on in the timber industry than mill closures, layoffs and spotted owls. Timber remains a mainstay of the Oregon economy, especially outside the Portland area, and can retain an important place indefinitely. Last year's harvest of 4 billion board feet was far short of the 1986 peak of 8.7 billion board feet. Protection for the spotted owl, salmon and other species caused a precipitous decline in logging on federal land in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Of the timber cut last year in Oregon, five-sixths came from private timber lands....
Scar reclaimed for forest A quarry that marred the foothills above Garden of the Gods before a decade-long reclamation effort has been donated to the U.S. Forest Service. The transformation of the former Queens Canyon Quarry from community eyesore to community asset was long in the making. The 100-acre quarry once yielded rock and gravel used to build NORAD's installation in Cheyenne Mountain. After years of public outcry about the growing scar, the quarry was closed in 1990 by its owner, Castle Concrete, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Continental Materials Corp....
Column: Looking (or Not) for a Few Good Eco-Frauds Remember "Lynxgate?" Wildlife biologists in Washington planting clumps of fur from endangered lynx in a national forest, sending it in for lab testing, getting caught trying to shut down access to a national forest by triggering the dreaded Endangered Species Act? Remember? About two years ago, it was everywhere. The media went off like an air-raid siren: Grave op-eds ran from coast to coast ("The great bio-fraud" --Washington Times), and conservative talk radio hosts had to use every adjective on the shelf for the vast left-wing conspiracy, then go back and order some more from overtaxed right-wing think tanks. Inspectors general and Congressional hearings ensued, with calls to reevaluate prior studies of grizzly bears and spotted owls. There was only one problem with the story: It wasn't true....
Editorial: Two-Faced Forest Policy There are several good reasons to protect 40,000 acres of New Mexico's Carson National Forest from gas exploration. For one, the alpine meadow was donated to the national forest 22 years ago — by an oil company — for wildlife habitat and recreation. The gift was intended to benefit the public and the environment, not to help out another energy company. The land lies next to a Boy Scout camp where for 65 years youths from across the nation have backpacked, ridden horses and worked on conservation projects. The U.S. Forest Service has determined that gas exploration could pollute water in the pristine countryside, as well as harm wildlife and recreation. Foresters consulted with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is generally friendly to oil, gas and timber interests. The consensus: Reject the request of natural gas producer El Paso Corp. to drill in the meadow....
Column: A global view of our forests As you enjoy your deck or park gazebo this summer, eating hot dogs and apple pie off paper plates, consider the world around you, and your impact on it. You use forest products every day, from napkins and newsprint, to crayons, cosmetics, and charcoal for the barbecue. That's OK, so long as we properly care for our forests. As a forest geneticist, I observe how forests respond to insect infestation, disease, increased tree densities, wildfires, non-native pests and the like. What I see demonstrates it's time to stop cordoning off our forests from harvesting....
Column, The Natural Gas Crisis: Greens Engineer Another Disaster Another invaluable instrument Greens use to deter access to natural gas is the Endangered Species Act. It has been used in the past to decimate sectors of the timber industry, mining, and ranching. On December 16, 2002, the Forest Guardians, together with the Chihauhuan Desert Conservation Alliance, and the Texas Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, delivered notice to the US Fish and Wildlife Service that it intended to sue in order to protect the “critical habitat” of the Aplomado Falcon. This bird’s habitat extends from southern Arizona, throughout half of New Mexico, and into west and south Texas. If successful—and these suits have been successful in the past—it will shut down any drilling for natural gas and, of course, any other energy source. For a single species of falcon! At a time when this nation needs natural gas (and oil) now and will need more in the future!....
Court reverses CBM leases In a victory for environmentalists, a federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed the awarding of three coalbed methane leases, a ruling which could slow a booming natural gas industry in northeast Wyoming. Four conservation groups had appealed a decision by the U.S. District Court of Wyoming upholding the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's issuance of the leases to Pennaco Energy, now a subsidiary of Marathon Oil Corp. At issue was whether the BLM satisfied the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) prior to auctioning the leases to Pennaco on Feb. 1, 2000, to extract coalbed methane in the energy-rich Powder River Basin. More specifically, the case centered on whether the environmental effects of coalbed methane drilling are significantly different from the impacts of non-methane gas and oil development....
BLM pulls 44 mineral leases Oil and gas producers will have to wait a little longer before having a shot at drilling on some 47,000 federal acres in the Newcastle area in northeast Wyoming. But wildlife enthusiasts insist it will be worth the wait. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to conduct an Endangered Species Act review with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before it offered 44 lease parcels in the area for sale. Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and Center for Native Ecosystems caught the oversight and protested the offering in time for the BLM to pull the parcels from Tuesday's sale....
Citizen Groups Protest Upcoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale in Colorado Six Colorado citizen groups today filed documents formally protesting oil and gas leasing on potential wilderness lands. Inclusion of proposed wilderness areas in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) August 12 Competitive Oil & Gas Lease Sale, the groups say, would mar their wilderness characteristics and reduce their chances for protection....
Retailers push candidates on environmental stands Outdoor recreation industry leaders are pressing Utah's gubernatorial candidates to take a stand on the environment before Wednesday's vote on whether to move the two Outdoor Retailer trade shows outside the state. Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. separately met at the end of last month with the president and board members of the OIA in advance of its executive board meeting planned Wednesday as the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market gets under way in Salt Lake City. The OIA said it will announce after the meeting whether the trade shows, which contribute $32 million annually to Utah's economy, will stay in Utah for the next five years or go to a more environmentally friendly state....
There's no pay in Colorado's dirt A combination of poor geology and strict government regulations makes Colorado an unattractive destination for new mining dollars. This was underscored in a recent survey of executives by the Fraser Institute of Canada, in which Colorado ranked 49th among 53 areas for investment in exploration and development of new mines. Chile was No. 1, followed by Nevada....
Grand Canyon becomes a presidential campaign issue Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry visited the Grand Canyon Monday as part of a campaign swing through the Southwest. During his visit, he said he would commit an additional $600 million over the next five years to maintain and spruce up national parks The Massachusetts senator acknowledged that new spending might require a hike in fees at national parks. The Bush camp, including U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, defended their record on parks, contending they have increased spending, hired more workers and inherited a maintenance backlog from the Clinton administration. Norton and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl also criticized Kerry for his changing positions on the "Healthy Forests" tree and brush-thinning program passed by Congress last year....
Column: The Silver State Has a Scary Future In July, the Feds handed down to Nevada its bitterest defeat and sweetest victory in ages; the former, a termination of thousands of years of Western Shoshone history; the latter, a reprieve from an apocalyptic future as the world's biggest – and maybe dumbest – nuclear waste dump. In one three-day period, Nevada's past got cancelled while its future was salvaged. But this Indian war and these nuclear politics are just part of a panoply of glaringly weird things going on in the state; there's a gold rush, a water war, and vast military operations, just for starters, and all of them are ecological bad news....
Ranchers offer to end monument grazing A group of ranchers holding grazing leases in or near the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is asking Congress for a buyout to end their commercial livestock grazing in the area. In an Aug. 4 letter to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., a dozen ranchers seek assistance in obtaining "fair and equitable compensation" in exchange for their historic grazing leases, some of which have been held by ranch families for generations. "We feel that retirement of our grazing leases will be a win-win situation for taxpayers, local government, environmental concerns, rural interface residents and livestock operators without major adverse impacts to the national and local economy, society and the open space concept," they wrote....
Governor signs and cheers Highlands act Gov. James E. McGreevey signed legislation yesterday to protect the northern Highlands from development, telling applauding politicians, two former governors, a handful of environmentalists and two Girl Scout troops that his action will ensure clean drinking water for half the state. The bill is the most sweeping preservation measure since the Pinelands was saved a quarter-century ago, and the governor chose a pristine spot beside the Wanaque Reservoir in Passaic County and flanked by forested mountains to hold a signing gala....
Environmentalists snub signing of Highlands bill Absent from the picturesque scene at the Wanaque Reservoir Dam in Passaic County were some of the Highlands legislation's most vocal advocates - environmental activists from the Sierra Club, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the Audubon Society, and other groups. The activists - who have been feuding with McGreevey since last month, when he signed legislation that allows developers to pay for expedited state approval of building permits - held their own news conference a block away from the governor's event. They argued that the so-called fast-track bill, which South Jersey lawmakers pushed through the Legislature in June in exchange for their support of the Highlands proposal, would destroy more land than the Highlands measure would protect....
Traces of Fire Retardant Found in Salmon Traces of industrial-strength fire retardant have turned up in wild and farm-raised salmon around the world, a study released Tuesday said. The research, published in the journal Environment Science and Technology, was the latest blow to the nutritious reputation of salmon, which is packed with heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. A prior study by the same researchers recently found troubling levels of PCBs, a known carcinogen, in farm-raised salmon....
Biologists work to save alligator gar Old acquaintance Craig Springer, who works for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Division of Fisheries in Albuquerque, N.M., recently saw our Sunday feature about Atlantic sturgeon and how private industry, the state of Maryland and the federal government have joined hands to restore the species to its former glory. "I'm happy to hear about the sturgeon program," he said, "but I think your Beltway readers will be surprised and delighted to learn about another fish, a species that can grow 13 feet long and weigh 300 pounds and is still around — for now." What Springer is talking about is a prehistoric looking critter, filled with teeth and looking, well, looking like an alligator — hence its name, alligator gar....
Western Drought Provoking More Than Water Wars What the U.S. Geological Survey has identified as the worst western drought in 500 years, is propelling the whole western region of the North American continent toward conditions for which financial oligarchs' anti-infrastructure advocates pine: drastic de-population of the North American West, within this decade. The current drought doesn't stop at the United States' northern border negotiated with the British Empire, nor at the southern border of the Gadsden Purchase. The North American Drought Monitor, compiled by the American, Mexican, and Canadian national governments, shows "Abnormally Dry" to "Exceptionally Dry" conditions stretching from an area well above the panhandle in Alaska, to central western Mexico. Parts of Western Texas have been afflicted with drought for the past dozen years. A drought in the region in the 1500s lasted 50 years. And hydrologists say they have no certain way of knowing how long the current one will last. Colorado water officials say the Front Range from Ft. Collins through Denver to Pueblo has adequate water for two more years. What then? Year 2006 would be Year Seven of the drought in that area. By Year Nine—according to a 1996 study which examined worst-case scenarios—governments would have to declare statewide emergencies to manage the dwindling water supplies. "By Year 11, the drought could become all but unmanageable, perhaps even leading to mass migration from the Colorado River Basin," reports the Colorado mountain newspaper, Summit Daily News, citing the study....
Dalhart, XIT Rodeo hold on to traits that make them special Though their community is small and remote, people in Dalhart act like their rodeo is the top of Texas. And rightfully so. When this community of 7,237 in the top left corner of the Panhandle conducts its annual August event, it's an unusually large celebration of Texas themes: ranching, rodeo, barbecue, barbed-wire fences and cattle brands. The XIT Ranch Reunion and Rodeo was formed in Fort Worth in 1936 to pay homage to the historic XIT Ranch, but the event moved to Dalhart the next year because a significant part of the ranch was near Dalhart, said Jarret Bowers, an organizer. The XIT Ranch was a 3 million-acre spread that spanned 10 counties in the Panhandle in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The land was given to a Chicago firm as payment for constructing the state capitol building that now graces Austin's bustling downtown area....
Fly-In Planned in Honor of Cherokee Cowboy Will Rogers Humorist, radio and movie legend, and Cherokee cowboy Will Rogers' life was cut tragically short in late summer 1935. The plane he was riding in, piloted by famed aviator Wiley Post, crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. This year marks the 69th anniversary of that accident. Rogers, originally from Oklahoma, was an adventurer from his youth. He was born on the banks of the Verdigris River in what would later become Oologah, Oklahoma. His life and enduring sense of adventure will be remembered at the annual Will Rogers Fly-In at 9 a.m. on August 15, 2004. The event will be held at the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch, two miles east of Rogers’ hometown....
Forest Service announces boating plan for upper Salmon River The Sawtooth National Recreation Area has a new plan for managing the upper Salmon River in late summer to protect salmon and allow rafters and kayakers there. It eases much of the friction which has existed between the agency and river outfitters since the mid-1990s. Some of those outfitters had been charged with violations for floating through areas where chinook salmon were spawning....
Editorial, An economic mainstay: Timber industry hasn't gone away Oregon's timber industry milled more lumber in 2003 than in any year since 1997, with Lane County leading the way, the state Forestry Department reported recently. Last year's production figures are a useful reminder that there's more going on in the timber industry than mill closures, layoffs and spotted owls. Timber remains a mainstay of the Oregon economy, especially outside the Portland area, and can retain an important place indefinitely. Last year's harvest of 4 billion board feet was far short of the 1986 peak of 8.7 billion board feet. Protection for the spotted owl, salmon and other species caused a precipitous decline in logging on federal land in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Of the timber cut last year in Oregon, five-sixths came from private timber lands....
Scar reclaimed for forest A quarry that marred the foothills above Garden of the Gods before a decade-long reclamation effort has been donated to the U.S. Forest Service. The transformation of the former Queens Canyon Quarry from community eyesore to community asset was long in the making. The 100-acre quarry once yielded rock and gravel used to build NORAD's installation in Cheyenne Mountain. After years of public outcry about the growing scar, the quarry was closed in 1990 by its owner, Castle Concrete, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Continental Materials Corp....
Column: Looking (or Not) for a Few Good Eco-Frauds Remember "Lynxgate?" Wildlife biologists in Washington planting clumps of fur from endangered lynx in a national forest, sending it in for lab testing, getting caught trying to shut down access to a national forest by triggering the dreaded Endangered Species Act? Remember? About two years ago, it was everywhere. The media went off like an air-raid siren: Grave op-eds ran from coast to coast ("The great bio-fraud" --Washington Times), and conservative talk radio hosts had to use every adjective on the shelf for the vast left-wing conspiracy, then go back and order some more from overtaxed right-wing think tanks. Inspectors general and Congressional hearings ensued, with calls to reevaluate prior studies of grizzly bears and spotted owls. There was only one problem with the story: It wasn't true....
Editorial: Two-Faced Forest Policy There are several good reasons to protect 40,000 acres of New Mexico's Carson National Forest from gas exploration. For one, the alpine meadow was donated to the national forest 22 years ago — by an oil company — for wildlife habitat and recreation. The gift was intended to benefit the public and the environment, not to help out another energy company. The land lies next to a Boy Scout camp where for 65 years youths from across the nation have backpacked, ridden horses and worked on conservation projects. The U.S. Forest Service has determined that gas exploration could pollute water in the pristine countryside, as well as harm wildlife and recreation. Foresters consulted with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which is generally friendly to oil, gas and timber interests. The consensus: Reject the request of natural gas producer El Paso Corp. to drill in the meadow....
Column: A global view of our forests As you enjoy your deck or park gazebo this summer, eating hot dogs and apple pie off paper plates, consider the world around you, and your impact on it. You use forest products every day, from napkins and newsprint, to crayons, cosmetics, and charcoal for the barbecue. That's OK, so long as we properly care for our forests. As a forest geneticist, I observe how forests respond to insect infestation, disease, increased tree densities, wildfires, non-native pests and the like. What I see demonstrates it's time to stop cordoning off our forests from harvesting....
Column, The Natural Gas Crisis: Greens Engineer Another Disaster Another invaluable instrument Greens use to deter access to natural gas is the Endangered Species Act. It has been used in the past to decimate sectors of the timber industry, mining, and ranching. On December 16, 2002, the Forest Guardians, together with the Chihauhuan Desert Conservation Alliance, and the Texas Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, delivered notice to the US Fish and Wildlife Service that it intended to sue in order to protect the “critical habitat” of the Aplomado Falcon. This bird’s habitat extends from southern Arizona, throughout half of New Mexico, and into west and south Texas. If successful—and these suits have been successful in the past—it will shut down any drilling for natural gas and, of course, any other energy source. For a single species of falcon! At a time when this nation needs natural gas (and oil) now and will need more in the future!....
Court reverses CBM leases In a victory for environmentalists, a federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed the awarding of three coalbed methane leases, a ruling which could slow a booming natural gas industry in northeast Wyoming. Four conservation groups had appealed a decision by the U.S. District Court of Wyoming upholding the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's issuance of the leases to Pennaco Energy, now a subsidiary of Marathon Oil Corp. At issue was whether the BLM satisfied the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) prior to auctioning the leases to Pennaco on Feb. 1, 2000, to extract coalbed methane in the energy-rich Powder River Basin. More specifically, the case centered on whether the environmental effects of coalbed methane drilling are significantly different from the impacts of non-methane gas and oil development....
BLM pulls 44 mineral leases Oil and gas producers will have to wait a little longer before having a shot at drilling on some 47,000 federal acres in the Newcastle area in northeast Wyoming. But wildlife enthusiasts insist it will be worth the wait. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to conduct an Endangered Species Act review with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before it offered 44 lease parcels in the area for sale. Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and Center for Native Ecosystems caught the oversight and protested the offering in time for the BLM to pull the parcels from Tuesday's sale....
Citizen Groups Protest Upcoming Oil and Gas Lease Sale in Colorado Six Colorado citizen groups today filed documents formally protesting oil and gas leasing on potential wilderness lands. Inclusion of proposed wilderness areas in the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) August 12 Competitive Oil & Gas Lease Sale, the groups say, would mar their wilderness characteristics and reduce their chances for protection....
Retailers push candidates on environmental stands Outdoor recreation industry leaders are pressing Utah's gubernatorial candidates to take a stand on the environment before Wednesday's vote on whether to move the two Outdoor Retailer trade shows outside the state. Republican Jon Huntsman Jr. and Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. separately met at the end of last month with the president and board members of the OIA in advance of its executive board meeting planned Wednesday as the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market gets under way in Salt Lake City. The OIA said it will announce after the meeting whether the trade shows, which contribute $32 million annually to Utah's economy, will stay in Utah for the next five years or go to a more environmentally friendly state....
There's no pay in Colorado's dirt A combination of poor geology and strict government regulations makes Colorado an unattractive destination for new mining dollars. This was underscored in a recent survey of executives by the Fraser Institute of Canada, in which Colorado ranked 49th among 53 areas for investment in exploration and development of new mines. Chile was No. 1, followed by Nevada....
Grand Canyon becomes a presidential campaign issue Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry visited the Grand Canyon Monday as part of a campaign swing through the Southwest. During his visit, he said he would commit an additional $600 million over the next five years to maintain and spruce up national parks The Massachusetts senator acknowledged that new spending might require a hike in fees at national parks. The Bush camp, including U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, defended their record on parks, contending they have increased spending, hired more workers and inherited a maintenance backlog from the Clinton administration. Norton and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl also criticized Kerry for his changing positions on the "Healthy Forests" tree and brush-thinning program passed by Congress last year....
Column: The Silver State Has a Scary Future In July, the Feds handed down to Nevada its bitterest defeat and sweetest victory in ages; the former, a termination of thousands of years of Western Shoshone history; the latter, a reprieve from an apocalyptic future as the world's biggest – and maybe dumbest – nuclear waste dump. In one three-day period, Nevada's past got cancelled while its future was salvaged. But this Indian war and these nuclear politics are just part of a panoply of glaringly weird things going on in the state; there's a gold rush, a water war, and vast military operations, just for starters, and all of them are ecological bad news....
Ranchers offer to end monument grazing A group of ranchers holding grazing leases in or near the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument is asking Congress for a buyout to end their commercial livestock grazing in the area. In an Aug. 4 letter to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., a dozen ranchers seek assistance in obtaining "fair and equitable compensation" in exchange for their historic grazing leases, some of which have been held by ranch families for generations. "We feel that retirement of our grazing leases will be a win-win situation for taxpayers, local government, environmental concerns, rural interface residents and livestock operators without major adverse impacts to the national and local economy, society and the open space concept," they wrote....
Governor signs and cheers Highlands act Gov. James E. McGreevey signed legislation yesterday to protect the northern Highlands from development, telling applauding politicians, two former governors, a handful of environmentalists and two Girl Scout troops that his action will ensure clean drinking water for half the state. The bill is the most sweeping preservation measure since the Pinelands was saved a quarter-century ago, and the governor chose a pristine spot beside the Wanaque Reservoir in Passaic County and flanked by forested mountains to hold a signing gala....
Environmentalists snub signing of Highlands bill Absent from the picturesque scene at the Wanaque Reservoir Dam in Passaic County were some of the Highlands legislation's most vocal advocates - environmental activists from the Sierra Club, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the Audubon Society, and other groups. The activists - who have been feuding with McGreevey since last month, when he signed legislation that allows developers to pay for expedited state approval of building permits - held their own news conference a block away from the governor's event. They argued that the so-called fast-track bill, which South Jersey lawmakers pushed through the Legislature in June in exchange for their support of the Highlands proposal, would destroy more land than the Highlands measure would protect....
Traces of Fire Retardant Found in Salmon Traces of industrial-strength fire retardant have turned up in wild and farm-raised salmon around the world, a study released Tuesday said. The research, published in the journal Environment Science and Technology, was the latest blow to the nutritious reputation of salmon, which is packed with heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. A prior study by the same researchers recently found troubling levels of PCBs, a known carcinogen, in farm-raised salmon....
Biologists work to save alligator gar Old acquaintance Craig Springer, who works for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Division of Fisheries in Albuquerque, N.M., recently saw our Sunday feature about Atlantic sturgeon and how private industry, the state of Maryland and the federal government have joined hands to restore the species to its former glory. "I'm happy to hear about the sturgeon program," he said, "but I think your Beltway readers will be surprised and delighted to learn about another fish, a species that can grow 13 feet long and weigh 300 pounds and is still around — for now." What Springer is talking about is a prehistoric looking critter, filled with teeth and looking, well, looking like an alligator — hence its name, alligator gar....
Western Drought Provoking More Than Water Wars What the U.S. Geological Survey has identified as the worst western drought in 500 years, is propelling the whole western region of the North American continent toward conditions for which financial oligarchs' anti-infrastructure advocates pine: drastic de-population of the North American West, within this decade. The current drought doesn't stop at the United States' northern border negotiated with the British Empire, nor at the southern border of the Gadsden Purchase. The North American Drought Monitor, compiled by the American, Mexican, and Canadian national governments, shows "Abnormally Dry" to "Exceptionally Dry" conditions stretching from an area well above the panhandle in Alaska, to central western Mexico. Parts of Western Texas have been afflicted with drought for the past dozen years. A drought in the region in the 1500s lasted 50 years. And hydrologists say they have no certain way of knowing how long the current one will last. Colorado water officials say the Front Range from Ft. Collins through Denver to Pueblo has adequate water for two more years. What then? Year 2006 would be Year Seven of the drought in that area. By Year Nine—according to a 1996 study which examined worst-case scenarios—governments would have to declare statewide emergencies to manage the dwindling water supplies. "By Year 11, the drought could become all but unmanageable, perhaps even leading to mass migration from the Colorado River Basin," reports the Colorado mountain newspaper, Summit Daily News, citing the study....
Dalhart, XIT Rodeo hold on to traits that make them special Though their community is small and remote, people in Dalhart act like their rodeo is the top of Texas. And rightfully so. When this community of 7,237 in the top left corner of the Panhandle conducts its annual August event, it's an unusually large celebration of Texas themes: ranching, rodeo, barbecue, barbed-wire fences and cattle brands. The XIT Ranch Reunion and Rodeo was formed in Fort Worth in 1936 to pay homage to the historic XIT Ranch, but the event moved to Dalhart the next year because a significant part of the ranch was near Dalhart, said Jarret Bowers, an organizer. The XIT Ranch was a 3 million-acre spread that spanned 10 counties in the Panhandle in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The land was given to a Chicago firm as payment for constructing the state capitol building that now graces Austin's bustling downtown area....
Fly-In Planned in Honor of Cherokee Cowboy Will Rogers Humorist, radio and movie legend, and Cherokee cowboy Will Rogers' life was cut tragically short in late summer 1935. The plane he was riding in, piloted by famed aviator Wiley Post, crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska. This year marks the 69th anniversary of that accident. Rogers, originally from Oklahoma, was an adventurer from his youth. He was born on the banks of the Verdigris River in what would later become Oologah, Oklahoma. His life and enduring sense of adventure will be remembered at the annual Will Rogers Fly-In at 9 a.m. on August 15, 2004. The event will be held at the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch, two miles east of Rogers’ hometown....
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Anthrax Infection Confirmed in Uvalde and Val Verde Counties
As of August 10, laboratory results have confirmed that anthrax infection killed three animals -- a cow, kudu and a whitetail deer -- on three premises in Uvalde and Val Verde Counties in Southwest Texas. Anthrax, caused by the spore-forming Bacillus anthracis bacteria, can remain dormant in soil for years, but may become vegetative after periods of wet, cool weather, followed by weeks of hot and dry conditions. Animals become infected when they ingest the invisible bacteria as they graze.
“Ranchers in the Uvalde and Val Verde County area are no strangers to naturally occurring anthrax, and this notice should not raise undue concern to producers, vacationers or hunters,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency.
“Anthrax is a very old disease and occurs worldwide. Wherever an infected animal dies, the ground becomes contaminated with the spores, unless the carcass and soil are burned with a very hot fire. The spores do not spread underground, so it’s common to see death losses in one pasture, but not across the fence,” he said. He explained that TAHC regulations require that the affected animal’s bedding, its carcass, and nearby manure be burned with wood or gasoline (tires and oil create too much pollution), to cleanse the ground. The livestock on the premises must then be vaccinated and held under quarantine for a short time, to ensure that anthrax-exposed animals are not moved....
As of August 10, laboratory results have confirmed that anthrax infection killed three animals -- a cow, kudu and a whitetail deer -- on three premises in Uvalde and Val Verde Counties in Southwest Texas. Anthrax, caused by the spore-forming Bacillus anthracis bacteria, can remain dormant in soil for years, but may become vegetative after periods of wet, cool weather, followed by weeks of hot and dry conditions. Animals become infected when they ingest the invisible bacteria as they graze.
“Ranchers in the Uvalde and Val Verde County area are no strangers to naturally occurring anthrax, and this notice should not raise undue concern to producers, vacationers or hunters,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency.
“Anthrax is a very old disease and occurs worldwide. Wherever an infected animal dies, the ground becomes contaminated with the spores, unless the carcass and soil are burned with a very hot fire. The spores do not spread underground, so it’s common to see death losses in one pasture, but not across the fence,” he said. He explained that TAHC regulations require that the affected animal’s bedding, its carcass, and nearby manure be burned with wood or gasoline (tires and oil create too much pollution), to cleanse the ground. The livestock on the premises must then be vaccinated and held under quarantine for a short time, to ensure that anthrax-exposed animals are not moved....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
AMA OPPOSES SHUTDOWN OF 4 MILLION ACRES TO OHVs The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) has expressed its opposition to a federal court ruling this week that has the potential to shut down an additional 4.1 million acres of the California desert to all off-highway vehicles. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a ruling that could end all off-highway motorcycling and ATV riding in areas of the desert that are designated critical habitat for the desert tortoise, which is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Illston's ruling reverses an opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that had allowed activities including cattle grazing and motorized recreation on some tortoise habitat controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management within the 25-million acre desert....
Rainforest Action Network Launches BuyGoodWood.com Rainforest Action Network today launched BuyGoodWood.com, an internet-initiative encouraging more American corporations to purchase environmentally ethical forest products. The site initially profiles Weyerhaeuser (WY), the number one destroyer of old-growth forests in North America, sharing the truth about the logging giant's century-long legacy of destructive forestry practices. BuyGoodWood.com goes behind the eco-messaging and graphically conveys the environmental devastation caused by old growth clear-cuts, genetically manipulated trees and toxic tree farms....
Rare albino finch spotted in Fallon A bird so rare that even seasoned wildlife watchers claim to have never seen one spent Monday lounging in the bushes at the Best Western Fallon Inn. The bird, a house finch, would be common in the Lahontan Valley if it wasn't a complete albino. "Albinos are always rare," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Bill Henry, "especially 100 percent albino."....
Horse, dog lovers worry about losing beach to plovers Barry Stotts remembers riding his horse as a youth on Guadalupe Beach, and for the past eight years has worked to get horses allowed back on the sands - at least on a trial basis. Now his dreams, and those of other horse enthusiasts, are in the hands of the California Coastal Commission which will decide Friday whether this equestrian program will be given the green light or permanently nixed. The program would allow up to 10 horses at a time between October and February, months when the federally protected Western snowy plovers aren't laying eggs in the sand....
Rocky Flats samples may be on hold A Rocky Flats cleanup oversight group might not take additional soil samples from the former nuclear-weapons plant site, saying the process could be too expensive and repetitive. The U.S. Department of Energy and its main cleanup contractor, Kaiser-Hill Co., plan to complete the $7.2 billion cleanup effort by December 2006. At that point, all but 1,000 acres of the roughly 6,300-acre site will be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge....
Column: Endangered Species Act needs revising It is easy to lose focus when embracing a cause. Even though the protection of vulnerable creatures seems to be a worthy one, the process used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not actually consider the recovery of the species involved. Hundreds of thousands of acres within Stanislaus County have been designated as critical habitat for vernal pools, California tiger salamanders and red-legged frogs, but there is no evidence to suggest that setting aside property (and personal property rights) will do anything toward saving these species. In fact, so far, no data have been offered that show these creatures actually live in the areas designated....
Kerry, at Canyon, says he'd increase money for parks Patrons could pay more to visit national parks under an idea by presidential candidate John Kerry to pay for parks' unmet needs, although he said he would choose other funding sources first. The new money - much of it to come from closing tax credits to businesses that "outsource" employment - would be used to pay for operations at the nation's parks, which Kerry said are $600 million short....
Park Service Fines 3-Year-Old U.S. park ranger confronted Barbara Wells - an American now living with her husband in the Czech Republic - yesterday around 5 p.m. as she watched her child urinate near a wall close to a flower bed. "He tells me he has to go pee-pee," Wells said, recalling her son's struggle to hold it in after an afternoon of sightseeing. "I was afraid he would wet his pants." Then the ranger walked up to Wells, who is in her 40s, demanding to know the tot's name. She identified her son, and the ranger gave her a $75 ticket for "disposing of human waste [urinating] in a developed area." The policeman identified himself on Wells' citation as Park Ranger Saperstein. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Cole, 62, watched the ranger scold Wells from his ninth-floor office window and said he thought the officer had blown things out of proportion. "It was beyond the pale," said Cole, who rushed downstairs to console Wells after watching her ordeal. "People in public service should be using better judgment."....
Editorial: A solution on Platte River fight Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska residents gave federal agencies an earful recently about plans to keep enough water in the Platte River to save whooping cranes and other endangered species. But the feds deserve credit: Habitat loss and conflicts among water users on the central Platte River must be resolved; the question is how much pain any interest group suffers. A plan envisioned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers a sensible, cooperative solution among the states and the feds, and gives some certainty to farmers and towns that use the Platte River. Other options would inflict worse economic pain, take longer to implement and be less effective in saving endangered species....
Drought sapping river water Higher-than-average rainfall this summer has done little to lessen the effects of five years of drought on the North Platte River's reservoir system. Last month, Pathfinder Reservoir stored less water than it had in 35 years and overall water storage in the system fell to its lowest volume in 43 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. At the end of the month, the seven-reservoir system held the lowest amount of water in 30 years. The system's total capacity is 2.78 million acre-feet; the reservoirs held 35 percent that amount....
More farmers lose water; others, defiant, keep pumping The worsening drought has left 350 more Cache Valley farmers without irrigation water and two others threatened with legal action because they refuse to pull their pumps from the Bear River. Utah and Idaho farmers who get their water from the West Cache Canal Co. had used up their summer's allocation by Saturday night, so the headgates to the Bear River were closed, said Joseph G. Larsen, president of the canal company....
The great Divide: Time to rewrite river law? Drought has been shrinking or drying reservoirs throughout the West for so many years that it has rekindled a debate over the basic water rules of the region. The rules are codified in the "law of the river," the Colorado River Compact, which guides distribution of water flowing through seven states and parts of Mexico. The region covers 244,000 square miles, according to a fact sheet posted on the Internet by the group Friends of Lake Powell. The compact, ratified by Congress in 1922, allocates water among the seven states. Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico make up the Upper Basin states, while California, Arizona and Nevada are the Lower Basin....
Column: Water bill would have tribes flush with excess Today, 13 Indian tribes with roughly 1 percent of the state's population control 44 percent of Arizona's annual Colorado River water supply. That control will rise to more than 51 percent if identical bills introduced in Congress by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., are approved....
Column: Legislation is an equitable solution to resolve water claims In recent years, other tribes have also filed claims, now totaling millions of acre-feet of water. The Gila River Indian Community alone claims more than 2.7 million acre-feet a year from various sources, which is approximately twice the average amount of water produced by the Salt, Verde, and Gila rivers combined. If a court were to validate even a fraction of this claim, the community would have the right to shut down upstream water uses, causing great damage to non-Indian economies. Obviously, this situation and others like it create a great deal of uncertainty for everyone involved, and are the principal reason that non-Indian entities have chosen to avoid litigation and settle Indian water right questions by other means....
Logan tells ranchers: Remain calm State Veterinarian Jim Logan told ranchers there is "no need for overreacting and pointing fingers" following the discovery of brucellosis in a Campbell County herd. The two cows that tested positive at a Pierre, S.D., auction a couple weeks ago brought to 40 the number of brucellosis-positive cattle confirmed in Wyoming since last year. But they were the first cases in northeast Wyoming, igniting speculation in the area's ranching community over how the cows got it....
Albertan smuggled bulls to U.S. An Alberta rancher has pleaded guilty to smuggling rodeo bulls across the U.S. border in violation of the current ban on Canadian cattle imports. Greg Kesler, 59, of Magrath, entered guilty pleas in July to two counts of fraudulently importing live ruminants. The maximum penalty for the offence is five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The veteran Canadian rodeo stock promoter will be sentenced Nov. 5....
GI puts skills as cowboy to work in Iraq GI Justin McCarty was a cowboy in Iraq. He put his ranching skills to good use during his 10-month deployment as part of the Army's Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. McCarty and some of his buddies in uniform could be the first American soldiers since World War Two to brand and graze livestock while under fire. The New Mexico soldier tells the Las Cruces Sun-News that looters were using donkeys to haul booty out of Baghdad. McCarty says the soldiers rounded up the animals and marked them with a homemade branding iron, using the regiment's logo....
It's All Trew: Taking the service out of the station is progress? The carriage became horseless in about 1915 and the automobiles became more common in the early 1920s. At first, gasoline was kept in barrels with the car tanks filled by bucket and funnel. As this infernal machine proliferated, enterprising merchants installed a pump stand on the sidewalk in front of their businesses. The desired amount of gasoline was pumped into an overhead glass tube with gallons measured on the sides. The tube of gas emptied into your gas tank by gravity. Customers made sure they held the sag out of the hose to empty completely as gasoline cost about eight cents a gallon at the time....
AMA OPPOSES SHUTDOWN OF 4 MILLION ACRES TO OHVs The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) has expressed its opposition to a federal court ruling this week that has the potential to shut down an additional 4.1 million acres of the California desert to all off-highway vehicles. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a ruling that could end all off-highway motorcycling and ATV riding in areas of the desert that are designated critical habitat for the desert tortoise, which is listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Illston's ruling reverses an opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that had allowed activities including cattle grazing and motorized recreation on some tortoise habitat controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management within the 25-million acre desert....
Rainforest Action Network Launches BuyGoodWood.com Rainforest Action Network today launched BuyGoodWood.com, an internet-initiative encouraging more American corporations to purchase environmentally ethical forest products. The site initially profiles Weyerhaeuser (WY), the number one destroyer of old-growth forests in North America, sharing the truth about the logging giant's century-long legacy of destructive forestry practices. BuyGoodWood.com goes behind the eco-messaging and graphically conveys the environmental devastation caused by old growth clear-cuts, genetically manipulated trees and toxic tree farms....
Rare albino finch spotted in Fallon A bird so rare that even seasoned wildlife watchers claim to have never seen one spent Monday lounging in the bushes at the Best Western Fallon Inn. The bird, a house finch, would be common in the Lahontan Valley if it wasn't a complete albino. "Albinos are always rare," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Bill Henry, "especially 100 percent albino."....
Horse, dog lovers worry about losing beach to plovers Barry Stotts remembers riding his horse as a youth on Guadalupe Beach, and for the past eight years has worked to get horses allowed back on the sands - at least on a trial basis. Now his dreams, and those of other horse enthusiasts, are in the hands of the California Coastal Commission which will decide Friday whether this equestrian program will be given the green light or permanently nixed. The program would allow up to 10 horses at a time between October and February, months when the federally protected Western snowy plovers aren't laying eggs in the sand....
Rocky Flats samples may be on hold A Rocky Flats cleanup oversight group might not take additional soil samples from the former nuclear-weapons plant site, saying the process could be too expensive and repetitive. The U.S. Department of Energy and its main cleanup contractor, Kaiser-Hill Co., plan to complete the $7.2 billion cleanup effort by December 2006. At that point, all but 1,000 acres of the roughly 6,300-acre site will be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge....
Column: Endangered Species Act needs revising It is easy to lose focus when embracing a cause. Even though the protection of vulnerable creatures seems to be a worthy one, the process used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not actually consider the recovery of the species involved. Hundreds of thousands of acres within Stanislaus County have been designated as critical habitat for vernal pools, California tiger salamanders and red-legged frogs, but there is no evidence to suggest that setting aside property (and personal property rights) will do anything toward saving these species. In fact, so far, no data have been offered that show these creatures actually live in the areas designated....
Kerry, at Canyon, says he'd increase money for parks Patrons could pay more to visit national parks under an idea by presidential candidate John Kerry to pay for parks' unmet needs, although he said he would choose other funding sources first. The new money - much of it to come from closing tax credits to businesses that "outsource" employment - would be used to pay for operations at the nation's parks, which Kerry said are $600 million short....
Park Service Fines 3-Year-Old U.S. park ranger confronted Barbara Wells - an American now living with her husband in the Czech Republic - yesterday around 5 p.m. as she watched her child urinate near a wall close to a flower bed. "He tells me he has to go pee-pee," Wells said, recalling her son's struggle to hold it in after an afternoon of sightseeing. "I was afraid he would wet his pants." Then the ranger walked up to Wells, who is in her 40s, demanding to know the tot's name. She identified her son, and the ranger gave her a $75 ticket for "disposing of human waste [urinating] in a developed area." The policeman identified himself on Wells' citation as Park Ranger Saperstein. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Cole, 62, watched the ranger scold Wells from his ninth-floor office window and said he thought the officer had blown things out of proportion. "It was beyond the pale," said Cole, who rushed downstairs to console Wells after watching her ordeal. "People in public service should be using better judgment."....
Editorial: A solution on Platte River fight Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska residents gave federal agencies an earful recently about plans to keep enough water in the Platte River to save whooping cranes and other endangered species. But the feds deserve credit: Habitat loss and conflicts among water users on the central Platte River must be resolved; the question is how much pain any interest group suffers. A plan envisioned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers a sensible, cooperative solution among the states and the feds, and gives some certainty to farmers and towns that use the Platte River. Other options would inflict worse economic pain, take longer to implement and be less effective in saving endangered species....
Drought sapping river water Higher-than-average rainfall this summer has done little to lessen the effects of five years of drought on the North Platte River's reservoir system. Last month, Pathfinder Reservoir stored less water than it had in 35 years and overall water storage in the system fell to its lowest volume in 43 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. At the end of the month, the seven-reservoir system held the lowest amount of water in 30 years. The system's total capacity is 2.78 million acre-feet; the reservoirs held 35 percent that amount....
More farmers lose water; others, defiant, keep pumping The worsening drought has left 350 more Cache Valley farmers without irrigation water and two others threatened with legal action because they refuse to pull their pumps from the Bear River. Utah and Idaho farmers who get their water from the West Cache Canal Co. had used up their summer's allocation by Saturday night, so the headgates to the Bear River were closed, said Joseph G. Larsen, president of the canal company....
The great Divide: Time to rewrite river law? Drought has been shrinking or drying reservoirs throughout the West for so many years that it has rekindled a debate over the basic water rules of the region. The rules are codified in the "law of the river," the Colorado River Compact, which guides distribution of water flowing through seven states and parts of Mexico. The region covers 244,000 square miles, according to a fact sheet posted on the Internet by the group Friends of Lake Powell. The compact, ratified by Congress in 1922, allocates water among the seven states. Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico make up the Upper Basin states, while California, Arizona and Nevada are the Lower Basin....
Column: Water bill would have tribes flush with excess Today, 13 Indian tribes with roughly 1 percent of the state's population control 44 percent of Arizona's annual Colorado River water supply. That control will rise to more than 51 percent if identical bills introduced in Congress by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., are approved....
Column: Legislation is an equitable solution to resolve water claims In recent years, other tribes have also filed claims, now totaling millions of acre-feet of water. The Gila River Indian Community alone claims more than 2.7 million acre-feet a year from various sources, which is approximately twice the average amount of water produced by the Salt, Verde, and Gila rivers combined. If a court were to validate even a fraction of this claim, the community would have the right to shut down upstream water uses, causing great damage to non-Indian economies. Obviously, this situation and others like it create a great deal of uncertainty for everyone involved, and are the principal reason that non-Indian entities have chosen to avoid litigation and settle Indian water right questions by other means....
Logan tells ranchers: Remain calm State Veterinarian Jim Logan told ranchers there is "no need for overreacting and pointing fingers" following the discovery of brucellosis in a Campbell County herd. The two cows that tested positive at a Pierre, S.D., auction a couple weeks ago brought to 40 the number of brucellosis-positive cattle confirmed in Wyoming since last year. But they were the first cases in northeast Wyoming, igniting speculation in the area's ranching community over how the cows got it....
Albertan smuggled bulls to U.S. An Alberta rancher has pleaded guilty to smuggling rodeo bulls across the U.S. border in violation of the current ban on Canadian cattle imports. Greg Kesler, 59, of Magrath, entered guilty pleas in July to two counts of fraudulently importing live ruminants. The maximum penalty for the offence is five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The veteran Canadian rodeo stock promoter will be sentenced Nov. 5....
GI puts skills as cowboy to work in Iraq GI Justin McCarty was a cowboy in Iraq. He put his ranching skills to good use during his 10-month deployment as part of the Army's Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. McCarty and some of his buddies in uniform could be the first American soldiers since World War Two to brand and graze livestock while under fire. The New Mexico soldier tells the Las Cruces Sun-News that looters were using donkeys to haul booty out of Baghdad. McCarty says the soldiers rounded up the animals and marked them with a homemade branding iron, using the regiment's logo....
It's All Trew: Taking the service out of the station is progress? The carriage became horseless in about 1915 and the automobiles became more common in the early 1920s. At first, gasoline was kept in barrels with the car tanks filled by bucket and funnel. As this infernal machine proliferated, enterprising merchants installed a pump stand on the sidewalk in front of their businesses. The desired amount of gasoline was pumped into an overhead glass tube with gallons measured on the sides. The tube of gas emptied into your gas tank by gravity. Customers made sure they held the sag out of the hose to empty completely as gasoline cost about eight cents a gallon at the time....
Monday, August 09, 2004
INTERACTIVE
I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
If you have comments on the blog or suggestions on how I can improve it, please just click on "email me" under links.
I've added a comments section after each post. Just click on comments and type in your thoughts, reaction, etc. People can even comment on others comments; give links to other articles, websites or blogs; or whatever you want in this section.
If you have comments on the blog or suggestions on how I can improve it, please just click on "email me" under links.
NEWS ROUNDUP
White House Intercedes for Gas Project in National Forest Overriding the opposition of the U.S. Forest Service and New Mexico state officials, a White House energy task force has interceded on behalf of Houston-based El Paso Corp. in its two-year effort to explore for natural gas in a remote part of a national forest next door to America's largest Boy Scout camp. Forest Service officials discouraged efforts to drill in the Valle Vidal at least three times since the agency acquired the land in 1982, citing concerns about water pollution, wildlife and recreation if a large-scale energy project were approved. But last week, the agency took the first step toward approving the giant energy company's proposal to tap into 40,000 acres of alpine meadows in the Carson National Forest. The agency released a report that forecast a high probability of recovering gas from the area and laid out a scenario in which 500 wells could be drilled on the forest's east side....
Column: Forest Service isn't right for this job Neptune Aviation flies aerial tankers that were built for war to combat hellish wildfires, but their toughest mission ever appears to be navigating a federal bureaucracy that grounded the Missoula-based firefighting force pending near-absolute proof that its aging but well-maintained aircraft are airworthy...The decision to cancel the contracts was based not on any hard evidence that the air tanker force isn't safe. Rather, it was the NTSB's declaration that airworthiness needed to be assured through a more thorough oversight program - and that the Forest Service is responsible for ensuring airworthiness. Previously, the Forest Service believed that was the Federal Aviation Administration's job. Interestingly, the NTSB report didn't single out heavy air tankers. Its findings applied to any and all aircraft hired by the Forest Service....
Small air tankers attack fires faster Under a hot, high desert sun, three red and white planes that resemble World War II-era P-51 fighters stand at the ready on the apron of a tiny airport, their pilots and ground crews reading paperback novels and chatting in the shade of a tarp. When a fire call comes in to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) air-tanker base here, the pilots can be in the air in eight minutes, following a Global Positioning System heading to a fire with a 500-gallon load of pink, sticky fire retardant to buy time for the ground crews that will actually put out the blaze....
Smokey turns 60 Smokey Bear is the spark behind the longest-running public-service campaign in U.S. history. The national symbol for wildfire prevention turns 60 today. Since 1980, Smokey Bear's campaign has received more than $1 billion in donated advertising time and space. Even more noteworthy is the long-lasting relationship Smokey has had with its creator: Foote Cone & Belding's Southern California office, which brought the bear to life Aug. 9, 1944....
Roadless rage hits national forests The Clinton plan spun through a gauntlet of nine lawsuits before slamming into a legal wall July 14, 2003, when the U.S. District Court of the District of Wyoming ruled the plan was not legal and ordered it to be permanently enjoined, according to the Federal Register. The court's decision has been appealed. "Right now the Clinton era roadless ruling has been enjoined," Holloway said. "If nothing happens to that and it continues to be enjoined then this new (Bush) ruling would replace the Clinton-era roadless rule." The Forest Service hopes the appeals court will rule on the Clinton plan before the Bush administration issues its final plan, Holloway said....
Editorial: Rough riders ANY HUNTER, hiker, or bird-watcher who spends much time in the woods is familiar with the erosion and habitat destruction caused by the irresponsible use of off-road vehicles. The threat these dune buggies, modified SUVs, and dirt bikes pose to the country's national forests has been cited repeatedly by the Forest Service director, Dale Bosworth, as one of his agency's four most serious problems. Unfortunately, the proposal the Forest Service has come up with to curb "unmanaged recreation," as he has called it, falls short of what is needed. It does not insist on a tight time frame for addressing this urgent problem and does not include provisions for the additional enforcement officers needed to ensure that users of off-road vehicles stick to the trails and roads set aside for them....
Glacial Changes Tied to Quakes Retreating glaciers in southern Alaska may make earthquakes more likely there, according to a study by NASA and U.S. Geological Survey scientists in the July issue of the journal Global and Planetary Change. The study reflects one of the under-appreciated consequences of global warming, said Jeanne Sauber, a geophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Glaciers in Alaska have shrunk "at least 10 percent in the last hundred years," because of higher temperatures and increased precipitation, she said....
Rounds pushing for policy changes Gov. Mike Rounds has asked President Bush to change federal policy on prairie dogs, including dropping the prairie dog as a candidate for the threatened species list and setting one-mile buffer zones on federal lands next to private land. The buffer zone request is an apparent change from an earlier state proposal for a half-mile buffer zone....
Million Dollar Miles The road climbs to nearly 9,000 feet and makes 96 curves over 9.6 miles as it passes through key grizzly bear habitat, which federal law says must be protected. And since it's in the park, all sorts of special considerations must be applied. All of the thin topsoils must be saved, mostly for the store of native seeds they contain, and cuts in roadside cliffs must allow footholds for bighorn sheep. Drainage ditches are designed to drain slowly enough to foster native wildflowers, but fast enough the road won't flood. When crews haul water for dust control and compaction, they have to be careful where they get it, to avoid spreading exotic taints like whirling disease and New Zealand mud snails from one drainage to another....
Grand Teton teaches the power of place A 50-year battle ensued during the late 1800s over whether the 12,000-foot peaks in the Jackson Hole valley should be added to the upstart National Park Service's holdings. The contested beginnings of the park are still visible in the number of internal contradictions and compromises. It's the only national park to host an airport, one of the few to allow cattle grazing and hunting and the river has a dam. Most of the buildings from its pre-park days have been destroyed but there are still several private in-holdings and structures. While those exceptions may rankle environmentalists, "We respect those uses," said Grand Teton National Park spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo....
Nevada Ponders Superfund Status for Mine Pressured by a ranking senator from Nevada and the Environmental Protection Agency, Gov. Kenny Guinn says he might reconsider his opposition to a federal Superfund cleanup declaration for a huge abandoned mine contaminated with toxic waste and uranium. Guinn, other state officials and local politicians have contended that the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection is making progress at the former Anaconda copper mine bordering Yerington, an agricultural town in northern Nevada, and that one-time Anaconda parent Atlantic Richfield Co. is cooperating....
Report angers heirs Many land-grant heirs say a recent federal report shows the government simply wants to dismiss their claims. The U.S. General Accounting Office in June released a report concluding that the government's controversial handling of land-grant claims in the late 1800s met constitutional due-process requirements. While the GAO concluded that the government had followed the law in reviewing land-grant claims in the 1800s, it also found that the process placed hardships on land-grant heirs. The GAO study concludes that it's up to Congress to consider whether it now wants to make amends by possibly turning over land or cash to heirs, or perhaps simply issue them an apology....
Last roundup for Ponderosa Ben, Hoss, Adam and Little Joe Cartwright have gone on to that cattle drive in the sky, and now the Lake Tahoe-view ranch where the beloved TV characters hung their spurs and Stetsons for 14 seasons is headed off into the sunset. The Ponderosa Ranch Western Studio and Theme Park in Incline Village, Nev., where 431 episodes of "Bonanza" were filmed from 1959-73, will shut its gate in seven weeks. The park's Web site says the Ponderosa is open until Sept. 26, adding, "This is the last year, so plan your ranch visit today."....
Editorial: Environment worth more than a passing glance If one looks past the colorful balloons, around the overly scripted appearances and under the MTV-like spectacle that was the Democratic National Convention, you might stumble upon something interesting: the party platform. But for all the talk of strength, the platform is incredibly weak and shallow in an area where Democrats have been traditionally bold and formidable: the environment. Of the 33 pages in the platform, only two mention the environment, which is of particular concern to thousands of voters in the Rocky Mountain region stretching from northwest Montana to New Mexico. And those two pages have so few specifics that one wonders from which party's fountain the rhetoric flowed....
LAKE MEAD: Marina might have to move But there is no denying that the lake is shrinking, and if it continues to drop at its present rate, the Overton Beach Marina could be forced to relocate sometime next spring. The water level now sits at less than 1,126 feet above sea level, down almost 100 feet from its high water mark. By June, it could fall below 1,113 feet, according to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation....
75 blacksmiths forge Deere plow replica for anniversary The 3,000 man-hours that went into building a replica of John Deere’s cutting edge 1837 plow — the first one built on the grounds of the John Deere Historic Site here in 160 years — earned the “plow build team” a whopping $24, the price it would have fetched in that era. The plow, built entirely by hand by a team of blacksmiths led by Dave Brandon of Rock Falls, Ill., was the focal point of a “hammer in” at the historic site — located about 80 miles northeast of the Quad-Cities — meant to mark its 40th year as a national historic landmark designated by the National Park Service, said Rick Trahan, the site’s resident blacksmith. The event attracted up to 75 smithies, who fired metal and shaped it to produce an array of items from candle holders to knife blades to delicately fashioned decorative leaves and animals. Smoke from dozens of tiny forges filled the air as the smithies took “green” coal and burned off the impurities to make the coke that can be burned at up to 2,000 degrees to cut and shape iron and high carbon steel....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: There are reasons we have cowboys Why America needs cowboys: 1. So the press will know how to describe people who don't mind taking the handoff and running over the middle on a "fourth-down and 2" situation. 2. To prevent the abuse of facilities, i.e., corrals, calf chutes, barb wire, aluminum gates, telephone poles, old car bodies, split rails, or electric fence. When properly placed, the cowboy can be sandwiched between these inanimate objects and the cow, to soften the blow and lessen the damage. 3. To serve as one of the few sources of amusement in the life of a cow....
White House Intercedes for Gas Project in National Forest Overriding the opposition of the U.S. Forest Service and New Mexico state officials, a White House energy task force has interceded on behalf of Houston-based El Paso Corp. in its two-year effort to explore for natural gas in a remote part of a national forest next door to America's largest Boy Scout camp. Forest Service officials discouraged efforts to drill in the Valle Vidal at least three times since the agency acquired the land in 1982, citing concerns about water pollution, wildlife and recreation if a large-scale energy project were approved. But last week, the agency took the first step toward approving the giant energy company's proposal to tap into 40,000 acres of alpine meadows in the Carson National Forest. The agency released a report that forecast a high probability of recovering gas from the area and laid out a scenario in which 500 wells could be drilled on the forest's east side....
Column: Forest Service isn't right for this job Neptune Aviation flies aerial tankers that were built for war to combat hellish wildfires, but their toughest mission ever appears to be navigating a federal bureaucracy that grounded the Missoula-based firefighting force pending near-absolute proof that its aging but well-maintained aircraft are airworthy...The decision to cancel the contracts was based not on any hard evidence that the air tanker force isn't safe. Rather, it was the NTSB's declaration that airworthiness needed to be assured through a more thorough oversight program - and that the Forest Service is responsible for ensuring airworthiness. Previously, the Forest Service believed that was the Federal Aviation Administration's job. Interestingly, the NTSB report didn't single out heavy air tankers. Its findings applied to any and all aircraft hired by the Forest Service....
Small air tankers attack fires faster Under a hot, high desert sun, three red and white planes that resemble World War II-era P-51 fighters stand at the ready on the apron of a tiny airport, their pilots and ground crews reading paperback novels and chatting in the shade of a tarp. When a fire call comes in to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) air-tanker base here, the pilots can be in the air in eight minutes, following a Global Positioning System heading to a fire with a 500-gallon load of pink, sticky fire retardant to buy time for the ground crews that will actually put out the blaze....
Smokey turns 60 Smokey Bear is the spark behind the longest-running public-service campaign in U.S. history. The national symbol for wildfire prevention turns 60 today. Since 1980, Smokey Bear's campaign has received more than $1 billion in donated advertising time and space. Even more noteworthy is the long-lasting relationship Smokey has had with its creator: Foote Cone & Belding's Southern California office, which brought the bear to life Aug. 9, 1944....
Roadless rage hits national forests The Clinton plan spun through a gauntlet of nine lawsuits before slamming into a legal wall July 14, 2003, when the U.S. District Court of the District of Wyoming ruled the plan was not legal and ordered it to be permanently enjoined, according to the Federal Register. The court's decision has been appealed. "Right now the Clinton era roadless ruling has been enjoined," Holloway said. "If nothing happens to that and it continues to be enjoined then this new (Bush) ruling would replace the Clinton-era roadless rule." The Forest Service hopes the appeals court will rule on the Clinton plan before the Bush administration issues its final plan, Holloway said....
Editorial: Rough riders ANY HUNTER, hiker, or bird-watcher who spends much time in the woods is familiar with the erosion and habitat destruction caused by the irresponsible use of off-road vehicles. The threat these dune buggies, modified SUVs, and dirt bikes pose to the country's national forests has been cited repeatedly by the Forest Service director, Dale Bosworth, as one of his agency's four most serious problems. Unfortunately, the proposal the Forest Service has come up with to curb "unmanaged recreation," as he has called it, falls short of what is needed. It does not insist on a tight time frame for addressing this urgent problem and does not include provisions for the additional enforcement officers needed to ensure that users of off-road vehicles stick to the trails and roads set aside for them....
Glacial Changes Tied to Quakes Retreating glaciers in southern Alaska may make earthquakes more likely there, according to a study by NASA and U.S. Geological Survey scientists in the July issue of the journal Global and Planetary Change. The study reflects one of the under-appreciated consequences of global warming, said Jeanne Sauber, a geophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Glaciers in Alaska have shrunk "at least 10 percent in the last hundred years," because of higher temperatures and increased precipitation, she said....
Rounds pushing for policy changes Gov. Mike Rounds has asked President Bush to change federal policy on prairie dogs, including dropping the prairie dog as a candidate for the threatened species list and setting one-mile buffer zones on federal lands next to private land. The buffer zone request is an apparent change from an earlier state proposal for a half-mile buffer zone....
Million Dollar Miles The road climbs to nearly 9,000 feet and makes 96 curves over 9.6 miles as it passes through key grizzly bear habitat, which federal law says must be protected. And since it's in the park, all sorts of special considerations must be applied. All of the thin topsoils must be saved, mostly for the store of native seeds they contain, and cuts in roadside cliffs must allow footholds for bighorn sheep. Drainage ditches are designed to drain slowly enough to foster native wildflowers, but fast enough the road won't flood. When crews haul water for dust control and compaction, they have to be careful where they get it, to avoid spreading exotic taints like whirling disease and New Zealand mud snails from one drainage to another....
Grand Teton teaches the power of place A 50-year battle ensued during the late 1800s over whether the 12,000-foot peaks in the Jackson Hole valley should be added to the upstart National Park Service's holdings. The contested beginnings of the park are still visible in the number of internal contradictions and compromises. It's the only national park to host an airport, one of the few to allow cattle grazing and hunting and the river has a dam. Most of the buildings from its pre-park days have been destroyed but there are still several private in-holdings and structures. While those exceptions may rankle environmentalists, "We respect those uses," said Grand Teton National Park spokeswoman Joan Anzelmo....
Nevada Ponders Superfund Status for Mine Pressured by a ranking senator from Nevada and the Environmental Protection Agency, Gov. Kenny Guinn says he might reconsider his opposition to a federal Superfund cleanup declaration for a huge abandoned mine contaminated with toxic waste and uranium. Guinn, other state officials and local politicians have contended that the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection is making progress at the former Anaconda copper mine bordering Yerington, an agricultural town in northern Nevada, and that one-time Anaconda parent Atlantic Richfield Co. is cooperating....
Report angers heirs Many land-grant heirs say a recent federal report shows the government simply wants to dismiss their claims. The U.S. General Accounting Office in June released a report concluding that the government's controversial handling of land-grant claims in the late 1800s met constitutional due-process requirements. While the GAO concluded that the government had followed the law in reviewing land-grant claims in the 1800s, it also found that the process placed hardships on land-grant heirs. The GAO study concludes that it's up to Congress to consider whether it now wants to make amends by possibly turning over land or cash to heirs, or perhaps simply issue them an apology....
Last roundup for Ponderosa Ben, Hoss, Adam and Little Joe Cartwright have gone on to that cattle drive in the sky, and now the Lake Tahoe-view ranch where the beloved TV characters hung their spurs and Stetsons for 14 seasons is headed off into the sunset. The Ponderosa Ranch Western Studio and Theme Park in Incline Village, Nev., where 431 episodes of "Bonanza" were filmed from 1959-73, will shut its gate in seven weeks. The park's Web site says the Ponderosa is open until Sept. 26, adding, "This is the last year, so plan your ranch visit today."....
Editorial: Environment worth more than a passing glance If one looks past the colorful balloons, around the overly scripted appearances and under the MTV-like spectacle that was the Democratic National Convention, you might stumble upon something interesting: the party platform. But for all the talk of strength, the platform is incredibly weak and shallow in an area where Democrats have been traditionally bold and formidable: the environment. Of the 33 pages in the platform, only two mention the environment, which is of particular concern to thousands of voters in the Rocky Mountain region stretching from northwest Montana to New Mexico. And those two pages have so few specifics that one wonders from which party's fountain the rhetoric flowed....
LAKE MEAD: Marina might have to move But there is no denying that the lake is shrinking, and if it continues to drop at its present rate, the Overton Beach Marina could be forced to relocate sometime next spring. The water level now sits at less than 1,126 feet above sea level, down almost 100 feet from its high water mark. By June, it could fall below 1,113 feet, according to the latest projections from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation....
75 blacksmiths forge Deere plow replica for anniversary The 3,000 man-hours that went into building a replica of John Deere’s cutting edge 1837 plow — the first one built on the grounds of the John Deere Historic Site here in 160 years — earned the “plow build team” a whopping $24, the price it would have fetched in that era. The plow, built entirely by hand by a team of blacksmiths led by Dave Brandon of Rock Falls, Ill., was the focal point of a “hammer in” at the historic site — located about 80 miles northeast of the Quad-Cities — meant to mark its 40th year as a national historic landmark designated by the National Park Service, said Rick Trahan, the site’s resident blacksmith. The event attracted up to 75 smithies, who fired metal and shaped it to produce an array of items from candle holders to knife blades to delicately fashioned decorative leaves and animals. Smoke from dozens of tiny forges filled the air as the smithies took “green” coal and burned off the impurities to make the coke that can be burned at up to 2,000 degrees to cut and shape iron and high carbon steel....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: There are reasons we have cowboys Why America needs cowboys: 1. So the press will know how to describe people who don't mind taking the handoff and running over the middle on a "fourth-down and 2" situation. 2. To prevent the abuse of facilities, i.e., corrals, calf chutes, barb wire, aluminum gates, telephone poles, old car bodies, split rails, or electric fence. When properly placed, the cowboy can be sandwiched between these inanimate objects and the cow, to soften the blow and lessen the damage. 3. To serve as one of the few sources of amusement in the life of a cow....
Sunday, August 08, 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY
A court rediscovers property rights in the rubble of Poletown
Last month the court finally acknowledged that its ruling in Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit was a mistake that opened the door to the potentially unlimited expropriation of private property in the name of the greater good. While considering an attempt by Wayne County to seize land for a 1,300-acre "business and technology park," the court's seven judges unanimously overruled the Poletown decision.
"Poletown's 'economic benefit' rationale would validate practically any exercise of the power of eminent domain on behalf of a private entity," the court noted. "If one's ownership of private property is forever subject to the government's determination that another private party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like."
Then-Justice James L. Ryan, who dissented from the Poletown decision, said much the same thing in 1981, warning that the ruling "seriously jeopardized the security of all private property ownership." A lot of damage has been done since then, both in Michigan and in other states where courts have copied Poletown's reasoning....
A court rediscovers property rights in the rubble of Poletown
Last month the court finally acknowledged that its ruling in Poletown Neighborhood Council v. City of Detroit was a mistake that opened the door to the potentially unlimited expropriation of private property in the name of the greater good. While considering an attempt by Wayne County to seize land for a 1,300-acre "business and technology park," the court's seven judges unanimously overruled the Poletown decision.
"Poletown's 'economic benefit' rationale would validate practically any exercise of the power of eminent domain on behalf of a private entity," the court noted. "If one's ownership of private property is forever subject to the government's determination that another private party would put one's land to better use, then the ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the expansion plans of any large discount retailer, 'megastore,' or the like."
Then-Justice James L. Ryan, who dissented from the Poletown decision, said much the same thing in 1981, warning that the ruling "seriously jeopardized the security of all private property ownership." A lot of damage has been done since then, both in Michigan and in other states where courts have copied Poletown's reasoning....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
'The Two Things About Economics'
To call in these pages for an increase in government spending is heresy but before you start to prepare the stake and the burning brands allow me to point out that the costs will be minimal and the long term savings immense. I propose that every bureaucrat dealing with environmental policies and regulations be supplied with a small sign upon which will be printed "The Two Things About Economics".
"Two Things" is a mind game recently popularized by Glenn Whitman, an economics professor, in which you have to distill a complex subject or profession down to two droplets of pure wisdom. Glenn's own version of economics is:
"Two Things about economics. One: Incentives matter. Two: There's no such thing as a free lunch."....
'The Two Things About Economics'
To call in these pages for an increase in government spending is heresy but before you start to prepare the stake and the burning brands allow me to point out that the costs will be minimal and the long term savings immense. I propose that every bureaucrat dealing with environmental policies and regulations be supplied with a small sign upon which will be printed "The Two Things About Economics".
"Two Things" is a mind game recently popularized by Glenn Whitman, an economics professor, in which you have to distill a complex subject or profession down to two droplets of pure wisdom. Glenn's own version of economics is:
"Two Things about economics. One: Incentives matter. Two: There's no such thing as a free lunch."....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Highlands Conservation Act: Stealing Private Property With Public Dollars
Just when you thought you had a handle on the maneuvers of environmentalists and the politicians who pander to these anti-private property activists, now comes a new stealth measure aimed at taking even more of your land.
Presented as a friendly partnership plan for necessary preservation of clean drinking water reservoirs, wildlife habitat, and endangered species, the Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964) is actually a carefully crafted, multi-layered, insidious hoax that spits on the Constitution and in the faces of freedom-seeking Americans nationwide.
If left unchecked, this $100 million-plus bill or its companion Senate version, S. 999 that’s even worse, it will become the steppingstone for greater power to the Greens....
Highlands Conservation Act: Stealing Private Property With Public Dollars
Just when you thought you had a handle on the maneuvers of environmentalists and the politicians who pander to these anti-private property activists, now comes a new stealth measure aimed at taking even more of your land.
Presented as a friendly partnership plan for necessary preservation of clean drinking water reservoirs, wildlife habitat, and endangered species, the Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964) is actually a carefully crafted, multi-layered, insidious hoax that spits on the Constitution and in the faces of freedom-seeking Americans nationwide.
If left unchecked, this $100 million-plus bill or its companion Senate version, S. 999 that’s even worse, it will become the steppingstone for greater power to the Greens....
CAVE BUG RULING ENDORSES ELTON JOHN’S CIRCLE OF LIFE
In 1999, the Purcells and their partners sued, contending that application of the ESA to the Texas cave bugs violated the Commerce Clause in much the same way that a federal law banning guns on school yards had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez in 1995. In 2001, a Texas federal district court ruled for the FWS, holding that application of the ESA to Texas cave bugs was “substantially related” to interstate commerce. In 2003, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision, ruling that, because “takes” of cave bugs threaten the “interdependent web” of all species, the cave bug’s habitat may be regulated, under the Commerce Clause, by the ESA. In the panel’s view, although the “takings” of cave bugs do not themselves affect interstate commerce, the takings of all ESA-listed species, when viewed in the aggregate, affect interstate commerce.
The Purcells and their partners asked the entire Fifth Circuit to rehear the case. On February 27, 2004, the Fifth Circuit refused to rehear the case en banc over the dissent of six judges (one shy of that necessary for a rehearing). The dissenting judges condemned the panel’s opinion as giving new meaning to the term “reduction ad absurdum” and called the panel’s circle of life analysis unsubstantiated reasoning that embraces a remote, speculative, attenuated, indeed more than improbable, connection to interstate commerce....
In 1999, the Purcells and their partners sued, contending that application of the ESA to the Texas cave bugs violated the Commerce Clause in much the same way that a federal law banning guns on school yards had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez in 1995. In 2001, a Texas federal district court ruled for the FWS, holding that application of the ESA to Texas cave bugs was “substantially related” to interstate commerce. In 2003, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision, ruling that, because “takes” of cave bugs threaten the “interdependent web” of all species, the cave bug’s habitat may be regulated, under the Commerce Clause, by the ESA. In the panel’s view, although the “takings” of cave bugs do not themselves affect interstate commerce, the takings of all ESA-listed species, when viewed in the aggregate, affect interstate commerce.
The Purcells and their partners asked the entire Fifth Circuit to rehear the case. On February 27, 2004, the Fifth Circuit refused to rehear the case en banc over the dissent of six judges (one shy of that necessary for a rehearing). The dissenting judges condemned the panel’s opinion as giving new meaning to the term “reduction ad absurdum” and called the panel’s circle of life analysis unsubstantiated reasoning that embraces a remote, speculative, attenuated, indeed more than improbable, connection to interstate commerce....
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