Indians give a cheer for the name 'Redskins'
Ninety percent of American Indians say the name Washington Redskins does not offend them, according to a new national survey. Only 9 percent of polled Indians say they find the name of Washington's professional football team "offensive," according to the results of the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey. The other 1 percent did not respond. "I thought more people would have had" problems with the name, said Adam Clymer, political director of the survey, which questioned more than 65,000 Americans of all races and ethnic groups between Oct. 7, 2003, and Sept. 20, 2004. Mr. Clymer, formerly a reporter for the New York Times and other newspapers, says it was his idea to ask Americans polled who identified themselves as American Indians or Native Americans if they objected to the team name Redskins, a moniker that many Indian leaders and activists have said is offensive....
Saturday, September 25, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Stories of heroism emerge from crash The airplane was already aflame, burning hot, when Jodee Hogg pushed open the cargo door and fell into the cold mountain air. That she was alive has been called remarkable. That she was relatively unhurt has been called miraculous. That she climbed back into the burning plane to rescue a friend is being called nothing short of heroic. In fact, as details of Monday's wilderness airplane crash continue to emerge, the story is shifting quickly from one of tragedy to one of survival, and finally to one of heroism....
Weather likely played role, but answers still unknown Low clouds and high mountains remain the prime suspects in Monday's wilderness plane crash that killed three, but firm answers as to the cause of the accident likely won't come for at least nine months. "It is far too soon to be making conclusions," said Georgia Struhsaker, senior air safety investigator for the Northwest Regional Office of the National Transportation Safety Board. Struhsaker, whose job it is to investigate airplane crashes, arrived on the scene Wednesday, and has been working at the site alongside teams from the Forest Service and Federal Aviation Administration. A team from the Cessna airplane company is also on hand, she said....
Brother of crash survivor describes grief, joy On Friday, Ryan Hogg, whose sister survived a plane crash in northeastern Montana, outlined his family's week. Hogg, 27, said the family was informed by Forest Service officials on Tuesday at about 3 p.m. that Jodee had died in the contract plane with four others, because "it wasn't a survivable crash." Twenty-four hours later, they were told that two people from the crash had walked out of the wilderness. After another half hour, they learned that one of them was Jodee, 23. The other was Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo....
Report: Spotted owls still declining Fourteen years after coming under federal protection, the northern spotted owl continues to decline, particularly in Washington state, a new study shows. The owl — an icon of the Northwest timber wars — no longer faces the severe threat from logging it once did, but it faces new threats, including catastrophic wildfires that rage through overgrown forests and the barred owl, a relative that is rapidly taking over spotted owl habitat in the West, the report said. The study, conducted by a Portland firm on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, appears to be a blow to timber industry efforts to loosen restrictions on federal forest logging in Washington, Oregon and Northern California....
Drillers awaiting word on protection of grouse's habitat Some wildlife experts want to make the greater sage grouse an endangered species icon. Its Western habitat, unfortunately, is atop some of the nation's largest untapped natural gas fields. The grouse has lost about nine-tenths of its 2 million population in Western states and Canada since the early 19th century. A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether it should be listed as an endangered species is expected by the end of the year. Developers wanting to drill for natural gas in the grouse's habitat, in sagebrush-covered areas of Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, are tense....
Development holds reins in the Wild West But the administration's most enduring environmental legacy may lie here in the West, where a series of policy decisions and little-noticed administrative actions have eased development restrictions on millions of acres of federal lands. More than 60 million acres -- an area twice the size of Virginia -- are more vulnerable to logging or drilling as a result of policies that weakened federal restrictions on their development. Other administration actions have made it harder for government officials to apply the most stringent protections to federal wild lands. As part of a legal settlement reached last year with Utah, the administration banned government workers from surveying public lands to identify areas worthy of being set aside by Congress as federal preserves off-limits to development of any kind. More than 3 million acres of land that had been nominated for a congressional designation lost their protected status....
California Backs Plan for Big Cut in Car Emissions California regulators approved a plan on Friday aimed at drastically reducing over the next 11 years the vehicle emissions of gases that scientists have linked to global warming. It would be the first such regulation in the nation and one that, if it survives legal challenges, would force automakers to increase sharply the fuel efficiency of millions of vehicles. Though the plan is being put into place by only one state, automakers see it as the most challenging demand from government since Congress first imposed standards to improve fuel economy in the 1970's....
Retailer Gets Out the Green Votes Patagonia Inc.'s corporate mission is to protect planet Earth. So, when the Ventura, California-based1 company's executives sat down in January to map out the company's marketing strategies for the year, they decided to focus on convincing Americans to vote in the 2004 election for candidates with sound environmental records. This summer, the private company -- which sells about $250 million worth of fleece clothing, camping equipment, climbing gear and other outdoor products a year -- launched a $500,000 multimedia Vote the Environment campaign that will run until Election Day. As Nov. 2 nears, Patagonia is stepping up its get-out-the-vote campaign. It is sending e-mails to 400,000 subscribers, printing essays penned by well-known environmentalists in its catalogs, communicating with visitors in hundreds of environmental and outdoor-sports chat rooms, message boards and blogs, and funding the national distribution of Monumental, a documentary on David Brower, the Sierra Club's first executive director....
Canal Mule Reaches Retirement There's a mule in Georgetown who puts the term 'workhorse' to shame. Frances has worked for more than two decades pulling visitors along the C&O Canal, and on Saturday she will end her career with one last tow. At 28, Frances is a senior citizen by mule standards. But she's a spry thing who doesn't act her age, which is the equivalent of 84 human years. She doesn't even have gray hair. "Frances is a genetic marvel. She looks and acts like the day we got her. Her health is great. She loves to work," said Kathy Kupper of the National Park Service....
Stories of heroism emerge from crash The airplane was already aflame, burning hot, when Jodee Hogg pushed open the cargo door and fell into the cold mountain air. That she was alive has been called remarkable. That she was relatively unhurt has been called miraculous. That she climbed back into the burning plane to rescue a friend is being called nothing short of heroic. In fact, as details of Monday's wilderness airplane crash continue to emerge, the story is shifting quickly from one of tragedy to one of survival, and finally to one of heroism....
Weather likely played role, but answers still unknown Low clouds and high mountains remain the prime suspects in Monday's wilderness plane crash that killed three, but firm answers as to the cause of the accident likely won't come for at least nine months. "It is far too soon to be making conclusions," said Georgia Struhsaker, senior air safety investigator for the Northwest Regional Office of the National Transportation Safety Board. Struhsaker, whose job it is to investigate airplane crashes, arrived on the scene Wednesday, and has been working at the site alongside teams from the Forest Service and Federal Aviation Administration. A team from the Cessna airplane company is also on hand, she said....
Brother of crash survivor describes grief, joy On Friday, Ryan Hogg, whose sister survived a plane crash in northeastern Montana, outlined his family's week. Hogg, 27, said the family was informed by Forest Service officials on Tuesday at about 3 p.m. that Jodee had died in the contract plane with four others, because "it wasn't a survivable crash." Twenty-four hours later, they were told that two people from the crash had walked out of the wilderness. After another half hour, they learned that one of them was Jodee, 23. The other was Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo....
Report: Spotted owls still declining Fourteen years after coming under federal protection, the northern spotted owl continues to decline, particularly in Washington state, a new study shows. The owl — an icon of the Northwest timber wars — no longer faces the severe threat from logging it once did, but it faces new threats, including catastrophic wildfires that rage through overgrown forests and the barred owl, a relative that is rapidly taking over spotted owl habitat in the West, the report said. The study, conducted by a Portland firm on behalf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, appears to be a blow to timber industry efforts to loosen restrictions on federal forest logging in Washington, Oregon and Northern California....
Drillers awaiting word on protection of grouse's habitat Some wildlife experts want to make the greater sage grouse an endangered species icon. Its Western habitat, unfortunately, is atop some of the nation's largest untapped natural gas fields. The grouse has lost about nine-tenths of its 2 million population in Western states and Canada since the early 19th century. A decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on whether it should be listed as an endangered species is expected by the end of the year. Developers wanting to drill for natural gas in the grouse's habitat, in sagebrush-covered areas of Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, are tense....
Development holds reins in the Wild West But the administration's most enduring environmental legacy may lie here in the West, where a series of policy decisions and little-noticed administrative actions have eased development restrictions on millions of acres of federal lands. More than 60 million acres -- an area twice the size of Virginia -- are more vulnerable to logging or drilling as a result of policies that weakened federal restrictions on their development. Other administration actions have made it harder for government officials to apply the most stringent protections to federal wild lands. As part of a legal settlement reached last year with Utah, the administration banned government workers from surveying public lands to identify areas worthy of being set aside by Congress as federal preserves off-limits to development of any kind. More than 3 million acres of land that had been nominated for a congressional designation lost their protected status....
California Backs Plan for Big Cut in Car Emissions California regulators approved a plan on Friday aimed at drastically reducing over the next 11 years the vehicle emissions of gases that scientists have linked to global warming. It would be the first such regulation in the nation and one that, if it survives legal challenges, would force automakers to increase sharply the fuel efficiency of millions of vehicles. Though the plan is being put into place by only one state, automakers see it as the most challenging demand from government since Congress first imposed standards to improve fuel economy in the 1970's....
Retailer Gets Out the Green Votes Patagonia Inc.'s corporate mission is to protect planet Earth. So, when the Ventura, California-based1 company's executives sat down in January to map out the company's marketing strategies for the year, they decided to focus on convincing Americans to vote in the 2004 election for candidates with sound environmental records. This summer, the private company -- which sells about $250 million worth of fleece clothing, camping equipment, climbing gear and other outdoor products a year -- launched a $500,000 multimedia Vote the Environment campaign that will run until Election Day. As Nov. 2 nears, Patagonia is stepping up its get-out-the-vote campaign. It is sending e-mails to 400,000 subscribers, printing essays penned by well-known environmentalists in its catalogs, communicating with visitors in hundreds of environmental and outdoor-sports chat rooms, message boards and blogs, and funding the national distribution of Monumental, a documentary on David Brower, the Sierra Club's first executive director....
Canal Mule Reaches Retirement There's a mule in Georgetown who puts the term 'workhorse' to shame. Frances has worked for more than two decades pulling visitors along the C&O Canal, and on Saturday she will end her career with one last tow. At 28, Frances is a senior citizen by mule standards. But she's a spry thing who doesn't act her age, which is the equivalent of 84 human years. She doesn't even have gray hair. "Frances is a genetic marvel. She looks and acts like the day we got her. Her health is great. She loves to work," said Kathy Kupper of the National Park Service....
Friday, September 24, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Survivors' footprints in snow disappeared The footprints in the snow could have been a clue - if they hadn't disappeared. Jodee Hogg, 23, of Billings, and Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo., left the prints behind Tuesday morning after spending a cold and bitter night near the burned wreckage of the Cessna that crashed the day before in the rugged hills of northwestern Montana Monday afternoon. When the two U.S. Forest Service workers limped away from the wreckage Tuesday, both burned and injured and cold, there were apparently footprints in the snow around the mangled plane, according to Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont....
Woman recounts struggle to survive Jodee Hogg was staring idly out the airplane window, relaxed, enjoying the mountain view, when suddenly the ground seemed much, much too close. "She was sitting behind the pilot," said Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont. "Everything was fine. And then all of a sudden, there it is - the side of a mountain." Hogg, 23, was one of two to survive the wilderness plane crash Monday, walking out of the mountains injured, cold, exhausted and very grateful two days later. Alongside the Billings woman was 29-year-old Matthew Ramige of Jackson Hole, Wyo., badly burned, his back broken, but still on his feet....
Survivors had ‘seconds’ to escape The survivors of the plane crash that killed three people Monday probably had only seconds to escape the wreckage before it was consumed by fire. That's a preliminary assessment by Georgia Struhsaker, a senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. She arrived in Kalispell on Wednesday. She examined the wreckage on Mount Liebig, where officials on Tuesday had pronounced the crash "unsurvivable," even as two passengers were moving through the woods trying to save themselves....
Local reaction to handling of crash mostly negative At coffee shops, in health clubs and on the street, people were talking about the plane crash and the improbable tale of tragedy and survival. "I think it's a little surprising they didn't check who should be on the plane," Anderson said of rescuers who called off Tuesday's search after finding the devastated wreckage. "They used weather for an excuse," Patti McIlhargey said. "It sure doesn't give me much hope if I'm up there. "It was only a rain storm. A little Montana rain storm." According to Anderson, "They didn't assume anybody could live through that. I think it's inexcusable."....
Environmentalists denounce feds' plan for the bull trout Oregon environmental groups say the federal government's final plan for protecting bull trout habitat in Northwestern states, which cuts original proposals by 90 percent, imperils the fish's future in the Deschutes River basin. The bull trout, an aggressive and migratory member of the salmon family, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. The fish need cold, clean water and silt-free stream beds to survive....
Groups sue over wolf program A coalition of more than two dozen Wyoming agricultural, sportsmen, predator control and county government groups has followed through on its intention to sue over the federal gray wolf recovery program. The Wolf Coalition is seeking judicial and monetary relief in federal court for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act because of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rejection of the Wyoming wolf management plan....
New rules on pesticides challenged Environmental groups went to court yesterday against Bush administration rules that allow the use of new pesticides with fewer checks on how they affect endangered species. Eight groups filed suit in federal district court in Seattle claiming the rule changes in July violated several environmental laws. The changes let the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review some pesticides without consulting Interior and Commerce department experts....
New UN Talks Bid to Save Fish, Plants and Timber Long a forum for protecting endangered species like whales or tigers, a U.N. meeting in Bangkok next month will seek a wider role in regulating the billion-dollar trade in timber, fish and medicinal plants. Obscure but commercially valuable species like the humphead wrasse fish, the Chinese yew tree or the hoodia cactus are likely to steal some of the limelight at the October 2-14 meeting from elephants, bald eagles and great white sharks....
The $50 million faucet: Cougar Dam's temperature control tower expected to benefit salmon The big tower is, in effect, a giant faucet that will allow the Corps to correct water temperatures thrown out of balance when it built the dam. It's an elaborate and expensive attempt to fix a temperature imbalance that helped push native spring chinook salmon to an endangered species listing. Water temperatures have been all wrong on the South McKenzie - and on a sizeable stretch of the mainstem McKenzie - since 1963, the year Cougar Dam was completed and ice-cold water began flowing through turbines at its base....
Park's pepper-spraying report done; still secret The National Park Service’s Internal Affairs Division is "reviewing" its investigator’s report on the July 28 pepper-spraying of two Inverness Park teenagers. It should release its findings within 10 days, the Park Service told The Light Wednesday. Agent Paul Crawford, based at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, was assigned to investigate the actions of Point Reyes National Seashore rangers Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio who pepper-sprayed Jessica Miller, 17, and Chris Miller, 18, repeatedly even after both were restrained on the ground and Jessica was handcuffed. At least that is what the victims and witnesses have said publicly. Both siblings were released without charge. Victims and witnesses have called the incident, off park property in Point Reyes Station, a case of unprovoked brutality....
Grandmother Being Forced Out Of National Park A grandmother who is one of the few people who can legitimately call Rocky Mountain National Park her home is being forced out. Betty Dick's husband bought the wild land in the 1960s, before the park expanded. But a feud between her dead husband and his first wife is forcing Dick out, and she's not ready to go. "I'm just kind of in a little corner here where the mountains wind around," said Dick, who is 82....
House panel passes Lincoln County land bill A House panel on Wednesday approved sweeping legislation reconfiguring federal land in Lincoln County and allowing a pipeline to deliver water from the rural county to Las Vegas. The bill was pushed forward by voice vote after lawmakers on the House Resources Committee made several changes that Nevada sponsors said they could accept in the interest of getting it passed through Congress this year....
Bush, Kerry court sportsmen in hopes of reeling in votes There they are, on the cover of the newsstand edition of Field & Stream: George W. Bush and John Kerry, wearing blaze orange, wielding shotguns. "This much we know: The next president of the United States will be a sportsman," the magazine declares in its new election issue. "Beyond that, of course, it gets complicated." The pursuit of voters who hunt and fish is one of the inner battles in this campaign. It's a testament to the clout of the country's nearly 40 million sportsmen, especially in such battlegrounds as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia....
Schwarzenegger approves conservancy, signs 20 other enviro bills Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose a woodsy mountain setting Thursday to sign legislation establishing a 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, while also signing nearly 20 other bills to protect the Pacific Ocean, curb smog and clean up blighted urban land. With numerous strokes of the pen, Schwarzenegger opened 1,100 miles of car pool lanes to hybrid cars, established the nation's first Cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council in state government and barred cruise ships from burning garbage and dumping sewage inside state waters. He also banned commercial fishing fleets from bottom trawling along designated parts of the California coast and required 100-foot firebreaks around homes in mountain wildfire zones....
EPA's chief under Nixon rips Bush on environment Russell Train is so disappointed in President Bush's environmental record that the staunch Republican, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's second leader 30 years ago, is casting his vote in November for Democrat John Kerry. Train, 84, EPA administrator under Presidents Nixon and Ford from 1973 to 77, was in Madison Tuesday in support of Environment2004, an organization trying to end what it calls the anti-environmental agenda of the Bush administration....
Outfitters can float down Snake River through Monday River outfitters in Grand Teton National Park will have five more days of floating the Snake River this season after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation agreed to hold off reducing river flows. The bureau said it will keep releases from Jackson Lake Dam steady at 2,500 cubic feet per second until Monday afternoon, at which time it will begin the process of cutting back the flow to store water for next summer....
Town fights to keep its post office in business Local residents are planning to fight like the dickens for the last business in Dickens, Neb. That business is a part-time post office operated on a contract basis for the past 12 years by Roni Melton, a local rancher's wife. The post office serves as the last gathering place in the unincorporated town of 23 people, about 30 miles southwest of North Platte. It's the only place in Dickens to post a sale bill or grab a cup of coffee from a pot set out by Melton....
Column: End of an era As I sat and listened to the bedridden old cowboy talk about the adventures he had lived, I detected a sorrow in his eyes that I did not fully understand. But some 60 years later I am beginning to understand, for the sadness is coming into my eyes as well. B.E. “Cyclone” Denton had seen the West, as he knew it, settled and fenced. He had seen the buffalo slaughtered for hide and tongue. In their place Longhorn cattle were raised to feed a hungry nation. As the country settled these were replaced by the more efficient English breeds of cattle like the Hereford and Angus. It didn’t change suddenly, but civilization was steadily creeping west as a nation hungered for more land to farm and raise beef....
Survivors' footprints in snow disappeared The footprints in the snow could have been a clue - if they hadn't disappeared. Jodee Hogg, 23, of Billings, and Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson, Wyo., left the prints behind Tuesday morning after spending a cold and bitter night near the burned wreckage of the Cessna that crashed the day before in the rugged hills of northwestern Montana Monday afternoon. When the two U.S. Forest Service workers limped away from the wreckage Tuesday, both burned and injured and cold, there were apparently footprints in the snow around the mangled plane, according to Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont....
Woman recounts struggle to survive Jodee Hogg was staring idly out the airplane window, relaxed, enjoying the mountain view, when suddenly the ground seemed much, much too close. "She was sitting behind the pilot," said Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont. "Everything was fine. And then all of a sudden, there it is - the side of a mountain." Hogg, 23, was one of two to survive the wilderness plane crash Monday, walking out of the mountains injured, cold, exhausted and very grateful two days later. Alongside the Billings woman was 29-year-old Matthew Ramige of Jackson Hole, Wyo., badly burned, his back broken, but still on his feet....
Survivors had ‘seconds’ to escape The survivors of the plane crash that killed three people Monday probably had only seconds to escape the wreckage before it was consumed by fire. That's a preliminary assessment by Georgia Struhsaker, a senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. She arrived in Kalispell on Wednesday. She examined the wreckage on Mount Liebig, where officials on Tuesday had pronounced the crash "unsurvivable," even as two passengers were moving through the woods trying to save themselves....
Local reaction to handling of crash mostly negative At coffee shops, in health clubs and on the street, people were talking about the plane crash and the improbable tale of tragedy and survival. "I think it's a little surprising they didn't check who should be on the plane," Anderson said of rescuers who called off Tuesday's search after finding the devastated wreckage. "They used weather for an excuse," Patti McIlhargey said. "It sure doesn't give me much hope if I'm up there. "It was only a rain storm. A little Montana rain storm." According to Anderson, "They didn't assume anybody could live through that. I think it's inexcusable."....
Environmentalists denounce feds' plan for the bull trout Oregon environmental groups say the federal government's final plan for protecting bull trout habitat in Northwestern states, which cuts original proposals by 90 percent, imperils the fish's future in the Deschutes River basin. The bull trout, an aggressive and migratory member of the salmon family, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. The fish need cold, clean water and silt-free stream beds to survive....
Groups sue over wolf program A coalition of more than two dozen Wyoming agricultural, sportsmen, predator control and county government groups has followed through on its intention to sue over the federal gray wolf recovery program. The Wolf Coalition is seeking judicial and monetary relief in federal court for alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act because of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's rejection of the Wyoming wolf management plan....
New rules on pesticides challenged Environmental groups went to court yesterday against Bush administration rules that allow the use of new pesticides with fewer checks on how they affect endangered species. Eight groups filed suit in federal district court in Seattle claiming the rule changes in July violated several environmental laws. The changes let the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review some pesticides without consulting Interior and Commerce department experts....
New UN Talks Bid to Save Fish, Plants and Timber Long a forum for protecting endangered species like whales or tigers, a U.N. meeting in Bangkok next month will seek a wider role in regulating the billion-dollar trade in timber, fish and medicinal plants. Obscure but commercially valuable species like the humphead wrasse fish, the Chinese yew tree or the hoodia cactus are likely to steal some of the limelight at the October 2-14 meeting from elephants, bald eagles and great white sharks....
The $50 million faucet: Cougar Dam's temperature control tower expected to benefit salmon The big tower is, in effect, a giant faucet that will allow the Corps to correct water temperatures thrown out of balance when it built the dam. It's an elaborate and expensive attempt to fix a temperature imbalance that helped push native spring chinook salmon to an endangered species listing. Water temperatures have been all wrong on the South McKenzie - and on a sizeable stretch of the mainstem McKenzie - since 1963, the year Cougar Dam was completed and ice-cold water began flowing through turbines at its base....
Park's pepper-spraying report done; still secret The National Park Service’s Internal Affairs Division is "reviewing" its investigator’s report on the July 28 pepper-spraying of two Inverness Park teenagers. It should release its findings within 10 days, the Park Service told The Light Wednesday. Agent Paul Crawford, based at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, was assigned to investigate the actions of Point Reyes National Seashore rangers Roger Mayo and Angelina Gregorio who pepper-sprayed Jessica Miller, 17, and Chris Miller, 18, repeatedly even after both were restrained on the ground and Jessica was handcuffed. At least that is what the victims and witnesses have said publicly. Both siblings were released without charge. Victims and witnesses have called the incident, off park property in Point Reyes Station, a case of unprovoked brutality....
Grandmother Being Forced Out Of National Park A grandmother who is one of the few people who can legitimately call Rocky Mountain National Park her home is being forced out. Betty Dick's husband bought the wild land in the 1960s, before the park expanded. But a feud between her dead husband and his first wife is forcing Dick out, and she's not ready to go. "I'm just kind of in a little corner here where the mountains wind around," said Dick, who is 82....
House panel passes Lincoln County land bill A House panel on Wednesday approved sweeping legislation reconfiguring federal land in Lincoln County and allowing a pipeline to deliver water from the rural county to Las Vegas. The bill was pushed forward by voice vote after lawmakers on the House Resources Committee made several changes that Nevada sponsors said they could accept in the interest of getting it passed through Congress this year....
Bush, Kerry court sportsmen in hopes of reeling in votes There they are, on the cover of the newsstand edition of Field & Stream: George W. Bush and John Kerry, wearing blaze orange, wielding shotguns. "This much we know: The next president of the United States will be a sportsman," the magazine declares in its new election issue. "Beyond that, of course, it gets complicated." The pursuit of voters who hunt and fish is one of the inner battles in this campaign. It's a testament to the clout of the country's nearly 40 million sportsmen, especially in such battlegrounds as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia....
Schwarzenegger approves conservancy, signs 20 other enviro bills Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose a woodsy mountain setting Thursday to sign legislation establishing a 25 million-acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy, while also signing nearly 20 other bills to protect the Pacific Ocean, curb smog and clean up blighted urban land. With numerous strokes of the pen, Schwarzenegger opened 1,100 miles of car pool lanes to hybrid cars, established the nation's first Cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council in state government and barred cruise ships from burning garbage and dumping sewage inside state waters. He also banned commercial fishing fleets from bottom trawling along designated parts of the California coast and required 100-foot firebreaks around homes in mountain wildfire zones....
EPA's chief under Nixon rips Bush on environment Russell Train is so disappointed in President Bush's environmental record that the staunch Republican, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's second leader 30 years ago, is casting his vote in November for Democrat John Kerry. Train, 84, EPA administrator under Presidents Nixon and Ford from 1973 to 77, was in Madison Tuesday in support of Environment2004, an organization trying to end what it calls the anti-environmental agenda of the Bush administration....
Outfitters can float down Snake River through Monday River outfitters in Grand Teton National Park will have five more days of floating the Snake River this season after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation agreed to hold off reducing river flows. The bureau said it will keep releases from Jackson Lake Dam steady at 2,500 cubic feet per second until Monday afternoon, at which time it will begin the process of cutting back the flow to store water for next summer....
Town fights to keep its post office in business Local residents are planning to fight like the dickens for the last business in Dickens, Neb. That business is a part-time post office operated on a contract basis for the past 12 years by Roni Melton, a local rancher's wife. The post office serves as the last gathering place in the unincorporated town of 23 people, about 30 miles southwest of North Platte. It's the only place in Dickens to post a sale bill or grab a cup of coffee from a pot set out by Melton....
Column: End of an era As I sat and listened to the bedridden old cowboy talk about the adventures he had lived, I detected a sorrow in his eyes that I did not fully understand. But some 60 years later I am beginning to understand, for the sadness is coming into my eyes as well. B.E. “Cyclone” Denton had seen the West, as he knew it, settled and fenced. He had seen the buffalo slaughtered for hide and tongue. In their place Longhorn cattle were raised to feed a hungry nation. As the country settled these were replaced by the more efficient English breeds of cattle like the Hereford and Angus. It didn’t change suddenly, but civilization was steadily creeping west as a nation hungered for more land to farm and raise beef....
Thursday, September 23, 2004
GAO REPORT
International Convention and U.S. Laws Protect Wildlife Differently (pdf)
Implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has become increasingly complex and controversial since its inception. Complexity has increased in part because of the sheer number of member countries (166) and species protected (more than 33,000) and because the criteria for identifying protected species have become more scientific and specific, resulting in heavier data-gathering, permitting, enforcement, and reporting requirements for member countries. Controversy, in turn, has increased because the Convention membership has recently contemplated, and in some cases approved, protection of commercial species such as sharks and Patagonian toothfish (commonly marketed as Chilean seabass)—species that in some cases are already managed under regional fisheries agreements. Over the 9-year fiscal period 1995 through 2003, the United States spent more than $50 million on Convention-related activities. As the agency primarily responsible for U.S. implementation of the Convention, the Fish and Wildlife Service spent the largest portion of these funds—about $37 million over the period. Other agencies have roles as well, including the Department of State, which makes U.S. contributions to help administer the Convention internationally. The Convention and the Endangered Species Act protect species differently. In some cases, the act prohibits imports that are allowed by the Convention. For example, the act generally prohibits the import of a popular exotic fish, the Asian arowana, although the Convention allows some commercial trade in the species. The Convention establishes mandatory requirements and recognizes countries’ rights to establish stricter protections. However, such protections have generated heated debates among affected parties. Those in favor say that the United States should impose stricter protections than the Convention, when needed to protect endangered species or their habitats. Opponents say that U.S. actions should be consistent with the agreements reached by a majority of the Convention’s members....
International Convention and U.S. Laws Protect Wildlife Differently (pdf)
Implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has become increasingly complex and controversial since its inception. Complexity has increased in part because of the sheer number of member countries (166) and species protected (more than 33,000) and because the criteria for identifying protected species have become more scientific and specific, resulting in heavier data-gathering, permitting, enforcement, and reporting requirements for member countries. Controversy, in turn, has increased because the Convention membership has recently contemplated, and in some cases approved, protection of commercial species such as sharks and Patagonian toothfish (commonly marketed as Chilean seabass)—species that in some cases are already managed under regional fisheries agreements. Over the 9-year fiscal period 1995 through 2003, the United States spent more than $50 million on Convention-related activities. As the agency primarily responsible for U.S. implementation of the Convention, the Fish and Wildlife Service spent the largest portion of these funds—about $37 million over the period. Other agencies have roles as well, including the Department of State, which makes U.S. contributions to help administer the Convention internationally. The Convention and the Endangered Species Act protect species differently. In some cases, the act prohibits imports that are allowed by the Convention. For example, the act generally prohibits the import of a popular exotic fish, the Asian arowana, although the Convention allows some commercial trade in the species. The Convention establishes mandatory requirements and recognizes countries’ rights to establish stricter protections. However, such protections have generated heated debates among affected parties. Those in favor say that the United States should impose stricter protections than the Convention, when needed to protect endangered species or their habitats. Opponents say that U.S. actions should be consistent with the agreements reached by a majority of the Convention’s members....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Two survive plane crash thought to have killed 5 Two survivors of a Monday plane crash in the rugged wilderness of northwest Montana emerged on a highway Wednesday after making their way on foot through the mountains. The survivors, both U.S. Forest Service employees, made their way out a day after both the Flathead County sheriff and the Forest Service had announced their deaths. Three others died in the crash....
Conservation groups seek court order to halt prairie dog killing Conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prevent federal agencies from beginning a program that would poison and shoot black-tailed prairie dogs on federal land in southwestern South Dakota. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Denver, argues that the new plan to reduce the prairie dog population should be blocked because it violates national environmental and forest-management laws....
Boomerang bears Troublesome black bears exiled to backwoods areas return home or die trying, a recent study finds, and some wildlife biologists say bear-resistant trash containers — not relocation — may be the only cure for a growing problem. People and bears — as many as 30,000 in California — run into each other these days in campgrounds and neighborhoods springing up in mountainous areas. Yosemite National Park reported 214 human-bear encounters in the first half of this year, a 149% increase over the same period in 2003....
Widow sues over bear death The widow of a hunter mauled by a grizzly bear while he was gutting an elk is suing state and federal wildlife officials, saying negligent management practices led to her husband's death. Mary Ann Hilston contends the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks knew there was an aggressive grizzly bear with two cubs prowling the Clearwater Wildlife Management Area northeast of Missoula during the fall of 2001. "The defendants knew that bears were becoming accustomed to gunshots and that bears were using the sound of gunshots as a 'dinner bell,' " the women's suit states....
Forest fees program revived by key committee in House The National Recreation Fee Demonstration program was on life support in May after the Senate voted to kill the program for all federal agencies except the National Park Service after 2005. But an important committee in the House yesterday approved a bill that authorizes the program for all agencies for 10 years....
Elk charges people, cars in Yellowstone A 60-year-old Texas man was gored by a bull elk in Yellowstone on Sunday morning after venturing too close to take a photograph, officials said Wednesday. Park managers removed the antlers from the elk that charged and injured two people and damaged several cars near Terrace Grill in Mammoth Hot Springs....
Arch pays $611M for largest coal lease in state history On Wednesday, Arch Coal Inc. paid $611 million for the Little Thunder federal coal lease containing an estimated 719 million tons of recoverable coal -- enough coal to generate all of the nation's electrical power for more than three months. It is the largest coal lease ever offered in the state's history, and it is among five federal coal leases in the area to come up for sale this year. Arch Coal was the only bidder in the open bidding process, according to Wyoming Bureau of Land Management officials....
Column: White House actions irk advocates for wilderness In the four decades since the Wilderness Act of 1964 was enacted, 3.4 million acres of the state's most revered landscapes and mountain peaks have been preserved. But in a changing West, where the seesaw battle between conservation and development swings from one administration to another, the landmark law remains at the center of a heated debate about wilderness expansions....
Wild Sky measure is killed in House A popular drive to create Washington state's first new wilderness area in 20 years collapsed yesterday after a House committee refused to consider a compromise offered by Rep. George Nethercutt, touching off a fierce exchange of accusations and sharply differing accounts of who is to blame. The daylong barrage commenced minutes after Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., withdrew legislation sponsored by Nethercutt to create the 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness and Backcountry area. Pombo said he acted after being told that the Washington delegation couldn't resolve differences over competing bills....
Column, Hunting: It's Not About the Gun It is clear to me that there is a widening gulf in the sporting community. When we elect a president this fall, there will be those who vote wildlife and those who vote gun. With 47 million sporting votes at stake, and two candidates vying for 5 percent of the voters in crucial states where a lot of hunters live, the ramifications are huge. As an outdoorsman living in the West, it's hard for me to ignore the damage that has been done to our wildlife heritage in the last four years. Places where I used to hunt pronghorn and sage grouse on the Upper Green River outside Pinedale, Wyo., are now oil and gas fields....
Interior Appropriations Bill and Legislative Riders The Senate is expected to consider S. 2084, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 Interior Department and Related Agencies Appropriations bill this Thursday. Sierra Club is closely following the overall bill, which fails to adequately fund the long-established programs and services charged with overseeing America's natural resources, as well as numerous "riders" that, if passed as part of the bill, could cause severe environmental damage. Summaries are provided for you below....
Acid rain pollution up 4 percent in 2003 Emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, rose 4 percent in 2003, but probably will not compromise long-term air quality goals, the government reported Wednesday. Coal-fired power plants were the main source of the 10.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide. That total compared with 10.2 million tons in 2002 and reverted to the level from 2001. Nonetheless, pollution from sulfur dioxide has dropped significantly over the past two decades, from 17.3 million tons in 1980 to 11.2 million tons in 2000, the year before President Bush took office....
Putin tells ministries to salvage Kyoto Russian President Vladimir Putin has told key ministries to sign the Kyoto protocol on global warming in a step towards salvaging the U.N. plan, international environmentalists said on Wednesday. The WWF conservation group said the 1997 pact, which is dependent on Russia's final approval if it is to come into force despite a U.S. pullout in 2001, could be ratified by the Russian parliament within the next few weeks....
Bull rider enjoys happier trail now Bull rider Cory McFadden is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train. Having gone through a roller coaster of emotions over the past two years, the Coleman, Texas, cowboy appears to have put his life onto the right track. Winning rodeos is only one of the contributing factors....
Of stock and bonds: Family ranch raises rodeo stars As Jim Gay drives around his family's 1,000-acre Rafter G Rodeo Ranch in a dusty pickup, he can tell a story for almost every acre. He'll talk about the time two bulls – King Kong and Godzilla, each weighing about a ton – got into a tussle and caved in the side of a truck, right over there by the stables. He'll point out his favorite bucking horse, Susie Q, in the pasture. She always gives the cowboys a hard time....
Former child star donates items to Gene Autry museum Jimmy Hawkins' life is filled with a series of unforgettable and one-of-a-kind events. Like taking his horse, Pixie, to children's hospitals to entertain patients and make them forget their troubles for a while. It's something Gene Autry taught him. For six years, Hawkins was under exclusive contract with Autry, playing Tagg Oakley in the "Annie Oakley" series produced by Autry's Flying A Productions. During that time, he learned a lot about the entertainment business and got a lesson or two in character building from a man who had plenty of it himself....
Two survive plane crash thought to have killed 5 Two survivors of a Monday plane crash in the rugged wilderness of northwest Montana emerged on a highway Wednesday after making their way on foot through the mountains. The survivors, both U.S. Forest Service employees, made their way out a day after both the Flathead County sheriff and the Forest Service had announced their deaths. Three others died in the crash....
Conservation groups seek court order to halt prairie dog killing Conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prevent federal agencies from beginning a program that would poison and shoot black-tailed prairie dogs on federal land in southwestern South Dakota. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Denver, argues that the new plan to reduce the prairie dog population should be blocked because it violates national environmental and forest-management laws....
Boomerang bears Troublesome black bears exiled to backwoods areas return home or die trying, a recent study finds, and some wildlife biologists say bear-resistant trash containers — not relocation — may be the only cure for a growing problem. People and bears — as many as 30,000 in California — run into each other these days in campgrounds and neighborhoods springing up in mountainous areas. Yosemite National Park reported 214 human-bear encounters in the first half of this year, a 149% increase over the same period in 2003....
Widow sues over bear death The widow of a hunter mauled by a grizzly bear while he was gutting an elk is suing state and federal wildlife officials, saying negligent management practices led to her husband's death. Mary Ann Hilston contends the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks knew there was an aggressive grizzly bear with two cubs prowling the Clearwater Wildlife Management Area northeast of Missoula during the fall of 2001. "The defendants knew that bears were becoming accustomed to gunshots and that bears were using the sound of gunshots as a 'dinner bell,' " the women's suit states....
Forest fees program revived by key committee in House The National Recreation Fee Demonstration program was on life support in May after the Senate voted to kill the program for all federal agencies except the National Park Service after 2005. But an important committee in the House yesterday approved a bill that authorizes the program for all agencies for 10 years....
Elk charges people, cars in Yellowstone A 60-year-old Texas man was gored by a bull elk in Yellowstone on Sunday morning after venturing too close to take a photograph, officials said Wednesday. Park managers removed the antlers from the elk that charged and injured two people and damaged several cars near Terrace Grill in Mammoth Hot Springs....
Arch pays $611M for largest coal lease in state history On Wednesday, Arch Coal Inc. paid $611 million for the Little Thunder federal coal lease containing an estimated 719 million tons of recoverable coal -- enough coal to generate all of the nation's electrical power for more than three months. It is the largest coal lease ever offered in the state's history, and it is among five federal coal leases in the area to come up for sale this year. Arch Coal was the only bidder in the open bidding process, according to Wyoming Bureau of Land Management officials....
Column: White House actions irk advocates for wilderness In the four decades since the Wilderness Act of 1964 was enacted, 3.4 million acres of the state's most revered landscapes and mountain peaks have been preserved. But in a changing West, where the seesaw battle between conservation and development swings from one administration to another, the landmark law remains at the center of a heated debate about wilderness expansions....
Wild Sky measure is killed in House A popular drive to create Washington state's first new wilderness area in 20 years collapsed yesterday after a House committee refused to consider a compromise offered by Rep. George Nethercutt, touching off a fierce exchange of accusations and sharply differing accounts of who is to blame. The daylong barrage commenced minutes after Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., withdrew legislation sponsored by Nethercutt to create the 106,000-acre Wild Sky Wilderness and Backcountry area. Pombo said he acted after being told that the Washington delegation couldn't resolve differences over competing bills....
Column, Hunting: It's Not About the Gun It is clear to me that there is a widening gulf in the sporting community. When we elect a president this fall, there will be those who vote wildlife and those who vote gun. With 47 million sporting votes at stake, and two candidates vying for 5 percent of the voters in crucial states where a lot of hunters live, the ramifications are huge. As an outdoorsman living in the West, it's hard for me to ignore the damage that has been done to our wildlife heritage in the last four years. Places where I used to hunt pronghorn and sage grouse on the Upper Green River outside Pinedale, Wyo., are now oil and gas fields....
Interior Appropriations Bill and Legislative Riders The Senate is expected to consider S. 2084, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 Interior Department and Related Agencies Appropriations bill this Thursday. Sierra Club is closely following the overall bill, which fails to adequately fund the long-established programs and services charged with overseeing America's natural resources, as well as numerous "riders" that, if passed as part of the bill, could cause severe environmental damage. Summaries are provided for you below....
Acid rain pollution up 4 percent in 2003 Emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, rose 4 percent in 2003, but probably will not compromise long-term air quality goals, the government reported Wednesday. Coal-fired power plants were the main source of the 10.6 million tons of sulfur dioxide. That total compared with 10.2 million tons in 2002 and reverted to the level from 2001. Nonetheless, pollution from sulfur dioxide has dropped significantly over the past two decades, from 17.3 million tons in 1980 to 11.2 million tons in 2000, the year before President Bush took office....
Putin tells ministries to salvage Kyoto Russian President Vladimir Putin has told key ministries to sign the Kyoto protocol on global warming in a step towards salvaging the U.N. plan, international environmentalists said on Wednesday. The WWF conservation group said the 1997 pact, which is dependent on Russia's final approval if it is to come into force despite a U.S. pullout in 2001, could be ratified by the Russian parliament within the next few weeks....
Bull rider enjoys happier trail now Bull rider Cory McFadden is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and it's not an oncoming train. Having gone through a roller coaster of emotions over the past two years, the Coleman, Texas, cowboy appears to have put his life onto the right track. Winning rodeos is only one of the contributing factors....
Of stock and bonds: Family ranch raises rodeo stars As Jim Gay drives around his family's 1,000-acre Rafter G Rodeo Ranch in a dusty pickup, he can tell a story for almost every acre. He'll talk about the time two bulls – King Kong and Godzilla, each weighing about a ton – got into a tussle and caved in the side of a truck, right over there by the stables. He'll point out his favorite bucking horse, Susie Q, in the pasture. She always gives the cowboys a hard time....
Former child star donates items to Gene Autry museum Jimmy Hawkins' life is filled with a series of unforgettable and one-of-a-kind events. Like taking his horse, Pixie, to children's hospitals to entertain patients and make them forget their troubles for a while. It's something Gene Autry taught him. For six years, Hawkins was under exclusive contract with Autry, playing Tagg Oakley in the "Annie Oakley" series produced by Autry's Flying A Productions. During that time, he learned a lot about the entertainment business and got a lesson or two in character building from a man who had plenty of it himself....
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Split estates bill takes shape A draft bill being worked on by a legislative committee would extend minimum compensation for surface damage caused by oil and gas development beyond just crops. Sheridan County rancher Clay Rowley told the Joint Executive Legislative Committee on Split Estates on Monday that a growing number of landowners rely less on crops and more on bed-and-breakfasts and dude ranching for income. Wyoming landowners who don't hold title to the mineral rights below their properties are seeking better "property value" protection for themselves. Such situations are referred to as split estates....
Conservation project clears hurdle in Congress Funds to preserve working ranches in Humboldt County has passed a key U.S. Senate committee, but its fate may be up in the air as Congress races toward adjournment. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved $2.8 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Legacy Project, money that would help preserve 17,000 acres on five Humboldt ranches. The money is the linchpin for the Six Rivers to the Sea project organized by the North Coast Regional Land Trust and the national Trust for Public Land....
Need a trophy but don't hunt? Bid on one Call it a hunting trip for folks who cannot pull the trigger. The Colorado Division of Wildlife in coming days plans to auction dozens of deer and elk antlers and a score of mountain lion and bear hides. The remains of the once-noble animals were salvaged from roadkills, seized from poachers or taken from ranchers who had shot bears or mountains lions preying on livestock. Those who do not want to kill a wild animal will have a chance to gussy up their dens or cabins by bidding on 35 sets of deer antlers and 20 sets of elk antlers, many of them trophy-sized; 20 bear hides; three mountain lion hides; and four bobcat hides....
Lost plane discovered; passengers all dead The wreckage of a single-engine plane missing in a Montana wilderness area was found Tuesday and all five occupants aboard were found dead, Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said. Four of those on board were employees of the U.S. Forest Service. The fifth was a contract pilot working for Edwards Jet Center at the Kalispell airport....
Appeals court upholds medicine wheel ruling A federal appeals court has upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to set aside 23,000 acres to protect the view from a sacred American Indian medicine wheel. Wyoming Sawmills Inc., a logging company in Sheridan, had challenged the agency's decision to create the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn National Forest, which closed the area to logging....
Grazing Rider on Interior Appropriations Threatens Public Lands A rider attached to the FY05 Interior Appropriations Act (S 2804) seeks to completely eliminate public input and environmental review regarding livestock grazing on potentially millions of acres of public lands. The Senate rider is the latest, and one of the most egregious, in a string of tactics used by the livestock industry, and the leadership at the U.S. Forest Service, to avoid their responsibility to ensure that grazing does not preclude other vital uses of our public lands....
New federal plan could cut back bull-trout habitat A recovery plan being finalized this week would sharply reduce the amount of federally designated critical habitat for the threatened bull trout in three Western states and eliminate federal requirements for such habitat in Montana. The new plan, to be announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would designate nearly 1,750 miles of streams and 61,235 acres of lakes and reservoirs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho as critical to the bull trout's survival under the Endangered Species Act. The new figures represent about 10 percent of totals announced in November 2002, when the agency announced it planned to designate more than 18,000 miles of streams in the four states and 500,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs....
Drums and Bells Open Indian Museum To thundering drums, jubilant whoops and bell-jingling dancers, the Smithsonian on Tuesday opened the National Museum of the American Indian, dedicated to the history, culture and painful travails of native people in the Western Hemisphere. With the glistening white dome of the Capitol as a backdrop, more than 20,000 people from Alaska to Peru paraded across the Mall to witness the event. Under gauzy blue skies, they formed a brilliant river of deerskin jackets, feathered headdresses and beaded skirts, in conflict with Washington's pinstriped style. The opening capped a 17-year quest by tribal leaders and elected officials to commemorate Indian culture and history in the capital....
Agency to Designate Habitat for Dragonfly Prodded by a lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to designate critical habitat for the endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly. The federal agency reached a settlement with five environmental groups that accused the government of shirking its responsibility to protect the dragonfly, found only in a few Midwestern wetland areas....
West Nile kills four bald eagles; raptor experts concerned West Nile virus has killed four adult male bald eagles in the past month in Minnesota and Wisconsin, officials at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center said Tuesday. The eagles showed symptoms including head tremors, blindness and seizures before they died. "We won't know for some time the extent to which this disease may be affecting bald eagles, but it is definitely something to be concerned about," Patrick Redig, director of the raptor center, said in a statement....
Appeals court: Navy doesn't have to consider explosion effect on salmon The Navy doesn't have to consider the effect an accidental missile explosion at Submarine Base Bangor might have on protected salmon in Hood Canal, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday. The panel said the upgrade had been ordered by President Clinton, and presidential orders are not subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act....
Environmental group files lawsuit to protect chubs The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its alleged failure to protect the roundtail and headwater chubs. The Tucson-based group filed the lawsuit Monday because the federal agency missed a one-year deadline to respond to a petition the center had filed to protect the fish under the Endangered Species Act. The fish are minnows found in small streams in the upper Gila River watershed of New Mexico and Arizona....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy Green philanthropy in the United States is in trouble. And not for just the obvious reasons of the downturn in the stock markets. Environmental giving from private foundations misses the boat when it comes to systematically addressing the major problems we face in providing a catalyst to significant environmental restoration, protection, and generation of an environmentally friendly and sustainable human impact upon the earth. Have we noticed that we have been losing most of the political and ecological battles over the last ten years while we continue to approach grantmaking in the mode of 10, 20 and 30 years ago?....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy, Part 2 By all means, evaluate strategic action plans, past results and visions for the future. Then, if you like, the vision and plans, give unrestricted grants, fund infrastructure, and in effect say, "go forth and multiply your good works". Trust the people and systems the groups have put in place and give them the flexibility to act in the face of rapidly changing conditions. Most environmental foundations act exactly in opposition to this idea....
Plan for refuge would turn farmland back to marshes and mudflats Farmland that was drained and diked more than 100 years ago would turn back into salt marshes and mudflats for migrating salmon under a 15-year plan for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. A $30 million plan the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is soon expected to approve calls for taking down most of a system of dikes that separates the refuge from the salty waters of Puget Sound, reviving nearly 700 acres of what used to be an estuary. Besides tearing down dikes, the 15-year plan envisions doubling the size of the refuge and extending its boundary south of Interstate 5 to include agricultural lands....
National Park Service Retirees Outline Key Reforms More than 320 former non-political career National Park Service employees with well over 10,000 years of cumulative park management experience today unveiled an extensive "call for action" blueprint to overhaul the management of America's national parks over the next 12 years leading up to the National Park Service's 100th anniversary in 2016. Among the key steps outlined in the ambitious plan are an immediate $600 million annual infusion of additional funds to get national parks back on track and the creation of the "National Parks Restoration and Conservation Corps" (NPRCC), a large public works project patterned on the Great Depression's Civilian Conservation Corps. The NPRCC would focus on erasing the national park's chronic maintenance backlog crisis now estimated at over $6 billion....
Hot foam an alternative to herbicides for noxious weeds The Bureau of Land Management is testing a new way of killing noxious weeds: zapping them with hot foam as an alternative to herbicides. The BLM’s Eugene district is in the second year of a three-year lease of the weed-killing system, called Waipuna. Developed in 1993, it’s used worldwide to kill unwanted vegetation and to remove chewing gum and graffiti and clean monuments....See a better article here....
BLM finishing review of leasing Martin's Cove to church A final decision could come next month on leasing historic Martin's Cove to the Mormon church, federal land managers said. In 1856, a company of Mormon pioneers, mostly poor European converts pulling handcarts, were trapped by an early winter storm as they neared the end of their 1,300-mile trek to Utah. They sought shelter in the cove, where many died. Rescuers, sent from Salt Lake City, wrapped the dead in blankets and buried them under piles of rock. As many as 150 are believed to have either starved or frozen to death in the blizzard....
House committee debates bill to give land to Pechanga tribe The House committee that sets environmental policy appears poised to add 990 acres to the Riverside County reservation of California's wealthy Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians. Tribal chairman Mark Macarro and federal officials said at a House Resources Committee hearing Tuesday that the Bureau of Land Management property has no commercial value or development potential, and the tribe is better equipped to maintain it than the federal government....
Bill would allow use of pack animals Seeking to head off environmental groups that want to limit access to federal lands, House lawmakers won approval Tuesday of legislation to assure that people can continue to use pack and saddle animals in their visits to parks and wilderness areas. With passage of the bill, said Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., of the House Resources Committee, the House is "preserving one of the most fundamental and truly historic ways to experience our public lands." The legislation, passed by voice, assures that pack and saddle animals will have access to lands where a historic tradition allows such use....
Plan to save water in Idaho aquifer goes to lawmakers State leaders unveiled the outline of a water deal Monday they hope can avert a legal crisis that would dry up hundreds of acres of farms and businesses involuntarily and cost Idaho's economy up to $900 million. The deal would cost $80 to $100 million over 30 years and pay willing farmers and business owners to give up their water rights....
Split estates bill takes shape A draft bill being worked on by a legislative committee would extend minimum compensation for surface damage caused by oil and gas development beyond just crops. Sheridan County rancher Clay Rowley told the Joint Executive Legislative Committee on Split Estates on Monday that a growing number of landowners rely less on crops and more on bed-and-breakfasts and dude ranching for income. Wyoming landowners who don't hold title to the mineral rights below their properties are seeking better "property value" protection for themselves. Such situations are referred to as split estates....
Conservation project clears hurdle in Congress Funds to preserve working ranches in Humboldt County has passed a key U.S. Senate committee, but its fate may be up in the air as Congress races toward adjournment. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved $2.8 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Legacy Project, money that would help preserve 17,000 acres on five Humboldt ranches. The money is the linchpin for the Six Rivers to the Sea project organized by the North Coast Regional Land Trust and the national Trust for Public Land....
Need a trophy but don't hunt? Bid on one Call it a hunting trip for folks who cannot pull the trigger. The Colorado Division of Wildlife in coming days plans to auction dozens of deer and elk antlers and a score of mountain lion and bear hides. The remains of the once-noble animals were salvaged from roadkills, seized from poachers or taken from ranchers who had shot bears or mountains lions preying on livestock. Those who do not want to kill a wild animal will have a chance to gussy up their dens or cabins by bidding on 35 sets of deer antlers and 20 sets of elk antlers, many of them trophy-sized; 20 bear hides; three mountain lion hides; and four bobcat hides....
Lost plane discovered; passengers all dead The wreckage of a single-engine plane missing in a Montana wilderness area was found Tuesday and all five occupants aboard were found dead, Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said. Four of those on board were employees of the U.S. Forest Service. The fifth was a contract pilot working for Edwards Jet Center at the Kalispell airport....
Appeals court upholds medicine wheel ruling A federal appeals court has upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to set aside 23,000 acres to protect the view from a sacred American Indian medicine wheel. Wyoming Sawmills Inc., a logging company in Sheridan, had challenged the agency's decision to create the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn National Forest, which closed the area to logging....
Grazing Rider on Interior Appropriations Threatens Public Lands A rider attached to the FY05 Interior Appropriations Act (S 2804) seeks to completely eliminate public input and environmental review regarding livestock grazing on potentially millions of acres of public lands. The Senate rider is the latest, and one of the most egregious, in a string of tactics used by the livestock industry, and the leadership at the U.S. Forest Service, to avoid their responsibility to ensure that grazing does not preclude other vital uses of our public lands....
New federal plan could cut back bull-trout habitat A recovery plan being finalized this week would sharply reduce the amount of federally designated critical habitat for the threatened bull trout in three Western states and eliminate federal requirements for such habitat in Montana. The new plan, to be announced today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, would designate nearly 1,750 miles of streams and 61,235 acres of lakes and reservoirs in Washington, Oregon and Idaho as critical to the bull trout's survival under the Endangered Species Act. The new figures represent about 10 percent of totals announced in November 2002, when the agency announced it planned to designate more than 18,000 miles of streams in the four states and 500,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs....
Drums and Bells Open Indian Museum To thundering drums, jubilant whoops and bell-jingling dancers, the Smithsonian on Tuesday opened the National Museum of the American Indian, dedicated to the history, culture and painful travails of native people in the Western Hemisphere. With the glistening white dome of the Capitol as a backdrop, more than 20,000 people from Alaska to Peru paraded across the Mall to witness the event. Under gauzy blue skies, they formed a brilliant river of deerskin jackets, feathered headdresses and beaded skirts, in conflict with Washington's pinstriped style. The opening capped a 17-year quest by tribal leaders and elected officials to commemorate Indian culture and history in the capital....
Agency to Designate Habitat for Dragonfly Prodded by a lawsuit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to designate critical habitat for the endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly. The federal agency reached a settlement with five environmental groups that accused the government of shirking its responsibility to protect the dragonfly, found only in a few Midwestern wetland areas....
West Nile kills four bald eagles; raptor experts concerned West Nile virus has killed four adult male bald eagles in the past month in Minnesota and Wisconsin, officials at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center said Tuesday. The eagles showed symptoms including head tremors, blindness and seizures before they died. "We won't know for some time the extent to which this disease may be affecting bald eagles, but it is definitely something to be concerned about," Patrick Redig, director of the raptor center, said in a statement....
Appeals court: Navy doesn't have to consider explosion effect on salmon The Navy doesn't have to consider the effect an accidental missile explosion at Submarine Base Bangor might have on protected salmon in Hood Canal, a federal appeals court panel ruled Tuesday. The panel said the upgrade had been ordered by President Clinton, and presidential orders are not subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act....
Environmental group files lawsuit to protect chubs The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its alleged failure to protect the roundtail and headwater chubs. The Tucson-based group filed the lawsuit Monday because the federal agency missed a one-year deadline to respond to a petition the center had filed to protect the fish under the Endangered Species Act. The fish are minnows found in small streams in the upper Gila River watershed of New Mexico and Arizona....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy Green philanthropy in the United States is in trouble. And not for just the obvious reasons of the downturn in the stock markets. Environmental giving from private foundations misses the boat when it comes to systematically addressing the major problems we face in providing a catalyst to significant environmental restoration, protection, and generation of an environmentally friendly and sustainable human impact upon the earth. Have we noticed that we have been losing most of the political and ecological battles over the last ten years while we continue to approach grantmaking in the mode of 10, 20 and 30 years ago?....
Column: Rethinking Green Philanthropy, Part 2 By all means, evaluate strategic action plans, past results and visions for the future. Then, if you like, the vision and plans, give unrestricted grants, fund infrastructure, and in effect say, "go forth and multiply your good works". Trust the people and systems the groups have put in place and give them the flexibility to act in the face of rapidly changing conditions. Most environmental foundations act exactly in opposition to this idea....
Plan for refuge would turn farmland back to marshes and mudflats Farmland that was drained and diked more than 100 years ago would turn back into salt marshes and mudflats for migrating salmon under a 15-year plan for the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. A $30 million plan the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is soon expected to approve calls for taking down most of a system of dikes that separates the refuge from the salty waters of Puget Sound, reviving nearly 700 acres of what used to be an estuary. Besides tearing down dikes, the 15-year plan envisions doubling the size of the refuge and extending its boundary south of Interstate 5 to include agricultural lands....
National Park Service Retirees Outline Key Reforms More than 320 former non-political career National Park Service employees with well over 10,000 years of cumulative park management experience today unveiled an extensive "call for action" blueprint to overhaul the management of America's national parks over the next 12 years leading up to the National Park Service's 100th anniversary in 2016. Among the key steps outlined in the ambitious plan are an immediate $600 million annual infusion of additional funds to get national parks back on track and the creation of the "National Parks Restoration and Conservation Corps" (NPRCC), a large public works project patterned on the Great Depression's Civilian Conservation Corps. The NPRCC would focus on erasing the national park's chronic maintenance backlog crisis now estimated at over $6 billion....
Hot foam an alternative to herbicides for noxious weeds The Bureau of Land Management is testing a new way of killing noxious weeds: zapping them with hot foam as an alternative to herbicides. The BLM’s Eugene district is in the second year of a three-year lease of the weed-killing system, called Waipuna. Developed in 1993, it’s used worldwide to kill unwanted vegetation and to remove chewing gum and graffiti and clean monuments....See a better article here....
BLM finishing review of leasing Martin's Cove to church A final decision could come next month on leasing historic Martin's Cove to the Mormon church, federal land managers said. In 1856, a company of Mormon pioneers, mostly poor European converts pulling handcarts, were trapped by an early winter storm as they neared the end of their 1,300-mile trek to Utah. They sought shelter in the cove, where many died. Rescuers, sent from Salt Lake City, wrapped the dead in blankets and buried them under piles of rock. As many as 150 are believed to have either starved or frozen to death in the blizzard....
House committee debates bill to give land to Pechanga tribe The House committee that sets environmental policy appears poised to add 990 acres to the Riverside County reservation of California's wealthy Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians. Tribal chairman Mark Macarro and federal officials said at a House Resources Committee hearing Tuesday that the Bureau of Land Management property has no commercial value or development potential, and the tribe is better equipped to maintain it than the federal government....
Bill would allow use of pack animals Seeking to head off environmental groups that want to limit access to federal lands, House lawmakers won approval Tuesday of legislation to assure that people can continue to use pack and saddle animals in their visits to parks and wilderness areas. With passage of the bill, said Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., of the House Resources Committee, the House is "preserving one of the most fundamental and truly historic ways to experience our public lands." The legislation, passed by voice, assures that pack and saddle animals will have access to lands where a historic tradition allows such use....
Plan to save water in Idaho aquifer goes to lawmakers State leaders unveiled the outline of a water deal Monday they hope can avert a legal crisis that would dry up hundreds of acres of farms and businesses involuntarily and cost Idaho's economy up to $900 million. The deal would cost $80 to $100 million over 30 years and pay willing farmers and business owners to give up their water rights....
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Motorcyclists stop trail crew When a crew of volunteers showed up in the Bridger Mountains Saturday to barricade a motorcycle trail, they found about 20 people on dirt bikes waiting for them. The work never got started, even though the volunteers had legal permission from the Forest Service to erect a stone barricade. "We had permission to do something very particular, and they were not going to let us do that," said Alex Phillips, a Montana Wilderness Association staffer and an organizer of the volunteers....
Forest plane missing A Forest Service-contracted plane was listed as missing Monday night in the Flathead Valley, and planning for a search this morning was under way. Aboard the Cessna 206 G was an Edwards Jet Center pilot, three U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station employees from Ogden, Utah, and one Flathead National Forest employee, according to the Forest Service....
Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study Finds A new study shows that genes from genetically engineered grass can spread much farther than previously known, a finding that raises questions about the straying of other plants altered through biotechnology and that could hurt the efforts of two companies to win approval for the first bioengineered grass. The two companies, Monsanto and Scotts, have developed a strain of creeping bentgrass for use on golf courses that is resistant to the widely used herbicide Roundup. The altered plants would allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide on their greens and fairways to kill weeds while leaving the grass unscathed. But the companies' plans have been opposed by some environmental groups as well as by the federal Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management....
Secret Deal Greases Skids For Drilling In Alaska Refuge Oil drills could soon roll into a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska if Senator Ted Stevens has his way. A “rider” Sen. Stevens has inserted into the pending FY 05 Interior Appropriations Bill would “expedite” a land exchange between the Doyon Corporation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to hand drilling rights on close to 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge over to Doyon. The appropriations rider seeks to provide funding and Congressional approval in advance for a massive land exchange with a for-profit corporation, sight unseen. No public meetings or notices have been held to inform the public about the details of the proposed plan, even though sources close to the negotiations say it will almost certainly include a pipeline through the White Mountains National Recreation Area, a favorite winter destination for residents of Fairbanks....
Ranch owners battle Billings County A family that wants to sell its historic and beautiful Badlands ranch for public use says a move by Billings County to build a road across their property is a disguised attempt to thwart that sale. The Eberts family has been trying for four years to sell about 5,000 acres to the national and state park services, saying the ranch land has a historic connection to the Theodore Roosevelt Elkhorn Ranch site just across the Little Missouri River. No deal with either the National Park Service or the state of North Dakota is final yet, and the Eberts say that Billings County's action may make any sale more difficult, if not impossible....
Browns Park land-use battle looms Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge's first goal is to provide habitat for migrating birds. But lately the refuge has been propagating studies as well. The political atmosphere has centered on arguments between county government and refuge management about multiple use at the refuge, with cattle grazing emerging as the most controversial potential use of the land. County government insists the refuge should allow grazing, but refuge management says it isn't appropriate at this time. Because of the groups' inability to cooperate, the State Land Board, which manages Colorado's state land trusts, is conducting its own study even as the refuge starts its own....
Editorial: How did BLM come to 'own' this land? The House Resources Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would transfer to Clark County 229 acres of land currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management -- free of charge -- for use as a rural heliport. (The land sits along Interstate 15, about 12 miles south of Las Vegas.) The bill now moves on to the Senate. But if the measure survives the legislative wringer it will be over the objections of Elena Daly, director of the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System, who Tuesday told a House subcommittee that the county should be made to pay $56.8 million for the land, thus ensuring "that taxpayers are fairly compensated for the removal of public land from federal ownership." But how did they come to "own" it? Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that the federal government can acquire land within the several sovereign states only "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings" -- and then only if such places are "purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the state in which the same shall be."....
Wolf pack to be killed Federal officials plan to wipe out a wolf pack after its third attack on a Paradise Valley sheep herd this summer. "We took two (wolves) Friday and we've got three left to go," said Joe Fontaine, a wolf specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena. Gunners from Wildlife Services, a separate federal agency, will hunt the remaining wolves from the Lone Bear pack as soon as the weather clears enough to allow for safe flying, Fontaine said....
Cow attacks concern park officials Jennie Barber, a veteran hiker, knew to watch out for rattlesnakes, mountain lions and ticks when she set out for a hike last month in Sunol Regional Wilderness. She never expected to be attacked by a cow, one of thousands on East Bay public lands. Barber tried to gingerly slide past a cow with a calf on a narrow trail when the cow charged and rammed her. "It threw me in the air," said Barber, 35, of Oakland. "When it prepared to charge again as I lay on the ground, I thought I was dead. I couldn't believe this was happening." She escaped with painful bruises, six stitches, a missed day of work and a new appreciation of the risk of hiking near cattle on public land....
Committee tackles new split estate proposal The working draft of new proposal on how to deal with split estate issues in coal-bed methane development will be debated today. The joint-legislative committee on split estates will have a public hearing in Casper to listen to comments on a new version of the bill, which concentrates more on damage issues and draws from Montana law that has worked successfully. Split estate refers to land in which the surface and the minerals beneath it are owned by separate entities. It remains one of the most contentious issues under discussion between landowners and coal-bed methane developers....
Future of coal mine on Hopi-Navajo reservations still in doubt Quick agreements must be reached between utility companies and tribal leaders if a major coal mine on the Navajo and Hopi reservations is to have a future, says a top Interior Department official. The mine, which accounts for a significant amount of revenue and jobs on the remote Navajo and Hopi reservations, produces coal that is crushed into powder, mixed with water and then piped 270 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev. The tribes have demanded that mining company Peabody Energy quit using the current aquifer because they fear the pumping is damaging springs that have ceremonial significance. Unless the issues are resolved, Mohave Generating Station, which provides power to millions of people in the West, will be shut down by the end of next year....
Flaming Gorge releases could change Scientists say because sediment settles out of the water behind Flaming Gorge Dam, the once warm and muddy Green River downstream now runs cold and clear green, which inhibits the recovery of four endangered native fish. So the federal Bureau of Reclamation is proposing to mimic nature's historic peak runoff flooding through specific flow releases at the dam. The aim is to stir up sediment, redistribute it and create hundreds of new sandy shores where vegetation can take root and feed fish....
Pony Bar is the beating heart of a ghost town If Pony's 100 residents are one big family, the Pony Bar is their living room. It's where ranchers gather after branding. It's where football fans watch Monday night games. It's where veterans' groups meet and hunting buddies tell stories. On Saturday nights, pickup trucks line an otherwise empty Main Street. Inside the 130-year-old building, people from three counties crowd the bar, their laughter and music breathing life into an otherwise dead town....
Sheep ranchers stick with traditions Bonnie Villard cried the first time she assisted in a sheep roundup that would send lambs to slaughter. But those moist eyes seemed a long way off Saturday as the Villard family -- consisting of four generations of sheep ranchers -- held to tradition. On the ranch, about 20 miles north of Craig, family members gathered as the sun rose to complete another task synonymous with the ranching life. With sheepdogs and flailing arms, the Villards rounded up and separated 700 5-month-old lambs to be sent to market....
It's All Trew: 1938 was bad year for Panhandle blizzards I suspect every old-timer born and raised in the Panhandle has a few stories to tell about the early day blizzards that swept the plains from time to time. Western history is chock-full of the disastrous results of such storms. The livestock industry has suffered more than most as drift fences, overgrazing and poor winter preparations plagued the ranchers since first arriving on the prairies. A nice letter from Wanda Stringer, raised in Mobeetie, recalls the April 3, 1938, blizzard that blew for three days and nights....
Motorcyclists stop trail crew When a crew of volunteers showed up in the Bridger Mountains Saturday to barricade a motorcycle trail, they found about 20 people on dirt bikes waiting for them. The work never got started, even though the volunteers had legal permission from the Forest Service to erect a stone barricade. "We had permission to do something very particular, and they were not going to let us do that," said Alex Phillips, a Montana Wilderness Association staffer and an organizer of the volunteers....
Forest plane missing A Forest Service-contracted plane was listed as missing Monday night in the Flathead Valley, and planning for a search this morning was under way. Aboard the Cessna 206 G was an Edwards Jet Center pilot, three U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station employees from Ogden, Utah, and one Flathead National Forest employee, according to the Forest Service....
Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study Finds A new study shows that genes from genetically engineered grass can spread much farther than previously known, a finding that raises questions about the straying of other plants altered through biotechnology and that could hurt the efforts of two companies to win approval for the first bioengineered grass. The two companies, Monsanto and Scotts, have developed a strain of creeping bentgrass for use on golf courses that is resistant to the widely used herbicide Roundup. The altered plants would allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide on their greens and fairways to kill weeds while leaving the grass unscathed. But the companies' plans have been opposed by some environmental groups as well as by the federal Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management....
Secret Deal Greases Skids For Drilling In Alaska Refuge Oil drills could soon roll into a National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska if Senator Ted Stevens has his way. A “rider” Sen. Stevens has inserted into the pending FY 05 Interior Appropriations Bill would “expedite” a land exchange between the Doyon Corporation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to hand drilling rights on close to 100,000 acres of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge over to Doyon. The appropriations rider seeks to provide funding and Congressional approval in advance for a massive land exchange with a for-profit corporation, sight unseen. No public meetings or notices have been held to inform the public about the details of the proposed plan, even though sources close to the negotiations say it will almost certainly include a pipeline through the White Mountains National Recreation Area, a favorite winter destination for residents of Fairbanks....
Ranch owners battle Billings County A family that wants to sell its historic and beautiful Badlands ranch for public use says a move by Billings County to build a road across their property is a disguised attempt to thwart that sale. The Eberts family has been trying for four years to sell about 5,000 acres to the national and state park services, saying the ranch land has a historic connection to the Theodore Roosevelt Elkhorn Ranch site just across the Little Missouri River. No deal with either the National Park Service or the state of North Dakota is final yet, and the Eberts say that Billings County's action may make any sale more difficult, if not impossible....
Browns Park land-use battle looms Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge's first goal is to provide habitat for migrating birds. But lately the refuge has been propagating studies as well. The political atmosphere has centered on arguments between county government and refuge management about multiple use at the refuge, with cattle grazing emerging as the most controversial potential use of the land. County government insists the refuge should allow grazing, but refuge management says it isn't appropriate at this time. Because of the groups' inability to cooperate, the State Land Board, which manages Colorado's state land trusts, is conducting its own study even as the refuge starts its own....
Editorial: How did BLM come to 'own' this land? The House Resources Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would transfer to Clark County 229 acres of land currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management -- free of charge -- for use as a rural heliport. (The land sits along Interstate 15, about 12 miles south of Las Vegas.) The bill now moves on to the Senate. But if the measure survives the legislative wringer it will be over the objections of Elena Daly, director of the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System, who Tuesday told a House subcommittee that the county should be made to pay $56.8 million for the land, thus ensuring "that taxpayers are fairly compensated for the removal of public land from federal ownership." But how did they come to "own" it? Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that the federal government can acquire land within the several sovereign states only "for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needful buildings" -- and then only if such places are "purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the state in which the same shall be."....
Wolf pack to be killed Federal officials plan to wipe out a wolf pack after its third attack on a Paradise Valley sheep herd this summer. "We took two (wolves) Friday and we've got three left to go," said Joe Fontaine, a wolf specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena. Gunners from Wildlife Services, a separate federal agency, will hunt the remaining wolves from the Lone Bear pack as soon as the weather clears enough to allow for safe flying, Fontaine said....
Cow attacks concern park officials Jennie Barber, a veteran hiker, knew to watch out for rattlesnakes, mountain lions and ticks when she set out for a hike last month in Sunol Regional Wilderness. She never expected to be attacked by a cow, one of thousands on East Bay public lands. Barber tried to gingerly slide past a cow with a calf on a narrow trail when the cow charged and rammed her. "It threw me in the air," said Barber, 35, of Oakland. "When it prepared to charge again as I lay on the ground, I thought I was dead. I couldn't believe this was happening." She escaped with painful bruises, six stitches, a missed day of work and a new appreciation of the risk of hiking near cattle on public land....
Committee tackles new split estate proposal The working draft of new proposal on how to deal with split estate issues in coal-bed methane development will be debated today. The joint-legislative committee on split estates will have a public hearing in Casper to listen to comments on a new version of the bill, which concentrates more on damage issues and draws from Montana law that has worked successfully. Split estate refers to land in which the surface and the minerals beneath it are owned by separate entities. It remains one of the most contentious issues under discussion between landowners and coal-bed methane developers....
Future of coal mine on Hopi-Navajo reservations still in doubt Quick agreements must be reached between utility companies and tribal leaders if a major coal mine on the Navajo and Hopi reservations is to have a future, says a top Interior Department official. The mine, which accounts for a significant amount of revenue and jobs on the remote Navajo and Hopi reservations, produces coal that is crushed into powder, mixed with water and then piped 270 miles to the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev. The tribes have demanded that mining company Peabody Energy quit using the current aquifer because they fear the pumping is damaging springs that have ceremonial significance. Unless the issues are resolved, Mohave Generating Station, which provides power to millions of people in the West, will be shut down by the end of next year....
Flaming Gorge releases could change Scientists say because sediment settles out of the water behind Flaming Gorge Dam, the once warm and muddy Green River downstream now runs cold and clear green, which inhibits the recovery of four endangered native fish. So the federal Bureau of Reclamation is proposing to mimic nature's historic peak runoff flooding through specific flow releases at the dam. The aim is to stir up sediment, redistribute it and create hundreds of new sandy shores where vegetation can take root and feed fish....
Pony Bar is the beating heart of a ghost town If Pony's 100 residents are one big family, the Pony Bar is their living room. It's where ranchers gather after branding. It's where football fans watch Monday night games. It's where veterans' groups meet and hunting buddies tell stories. On Saturday nights, pickup trucks line an otherwise empty Main Street. Inside the 130-year-old building, people from three counties crowd the bar, their laughter and music breathing life into an otherwise dead town....
Sheep ranchers stick with traditions Bonnie Villard cried the first time she assisted in a sheep roundup that would send lambs to slaughter. But those moist eyes seemed a long way off Saturday as the Villard family -- consisting of four generations of sheep ranchers -- held to tradition. On the ranch, about 20 miles north of Craig, family members gathered as the sun rose to complete another task synonymous with the ranching life. With sheepdogs and flailing arms, the Villards rounded up and separated 700 5-month-old lambs to be sent to market....
It's All Trew: 1938 was bad year for Panhandle blizzards I suspect every old-timer born and raised in the Panhandle has a few stories to tell about the early day blizzards that swept the plains from time to time. Western history is chock-full of the disastrous results of such storms. The livestock industry has suffered more than most as drift fences, overgrazing and poor winter preparations plagued the ranchers since first arriving on the prairies. A nice letter from Wanda Stringer, raised in Mobeetie, recalls the April 3, 1938, blizzard that blew for three days and nights....
Monday, September 20, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Advocates, USFS at odds over Basin When U.S. Forest Service supervisor Don Bright looks over the parched prairie of eastern Conata Basin, denuded of vegetation and pockmarked with prairie dog holes, he sees devastation.When Jonathan Proctor of the Predator Conservation Alliance views the same scene, he sees a success story in the making for prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets and other wildlife. The widely differing perspectives on the same piece of ground illustrate the ongoing public argument about the impact of prairie dogs, grazing and drought in Conata Basin....
Forest Service Decides to Cite Congressman for Fire Damage When two-term Rep. Henry E. Brown Jr. (R-S.C.) burned brush on his Cordesville tree farm March 5, gusts of wind blew the fire onto the adjacent Francis Marion National Forest, causing at least $4,000 in damage to 20 acres. On Sept. 8 came some unexpected fallout. On Friday, overturning earlier internal directives to "take no action" against Brown, Forest Service headquarters in Washington announced that the lawmaker would be served with a violation notice....
Ex-Forest Service worker accused of misconduct A group opposed to gas development in the HD Mountains has accused a former Forest Service employee of violating ethics standards by consulting for one of the energy companies with leases to drill in the HDs. The HD Mountains Coalition contends that Dick Bell, who retired from the San Juan National Forest in January 2003, crossed the line on ethics when he began consulting for Petrox Resources Inc. in June 2004. Meeker-based Petrox is one of three energy companies with gas leases in the unroaded area of the HDs....
Editorial: Cynical move on roadless rule The Bush administration has placed an unpopular rollback of national forest roadless rules on hold - but only until after the election. No matter what face the U.S. Forest Service puts on the maneuver, the timetable amounts to a cynical attempt to defuse a widespread controversy until after the polls are closed. Voters shouldn't be fooled....
Bat's 'endangered' listing a blunder, many experts say Few scientists think the federal government was right in 1988 when it listed the lesser long-nosed bat as endangered. In the 1980s, surveys sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found only 500 bats in Arizona and 15,000 in Mexico. The agency feared the bat's "drastic decline" could harm the plants it feeds on, including saguaros, organ pipe cacti and the agaves used to make tequila. Grazing in Southern Arizona was restricted to protect foraging habitat. But when the summer sun sets here to unveil the Milky Way, up to 500 of the bats bolt from an old mine shaft each minute. By day, about 20,000 of the flying mammals are inside, hanging upside down....
The skills to survive: Grizzlies Chuck Neal has tracked grizzly bears for nearly 30 years. His passion for grizzlies takes him across hundreds of miles of prime bear habitat each year in and around Yellowstone National Park. Neal, a retired ecologist from Cody, Wyo., does most of his research on foot, often in remote areas that grizzlies prefer and people steer clear of. "The grizzly bear is intelligent enough and has the physical capabilities to adjust to almost any environmental condition if - and this is the important part - we give him the room," Neal said....
New highway crossings target wildlife safety Of all the problems that grizzly bears face in the West, one of the toughest may be your favorite 40-foot-wide ribbon of asphalt. Over the next six years, more than 70 wildlife crossings will be added to roads and highways in Montana. They range from culverts to underpasses to a dirt-covered, 150-foot overpass expected to cost more than $1 million. The crossings in northwestern Montana are intended to cut down on problems not only for bears but for all wildlife....
Heartworm shot may have killed wolf A report on the death of federally protected red wolf suggests a heartworm-prevention drug may have led to the adult female's death. The medicine, ProHeart 6, has been recalled by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of negative side effects in treated dogs, including death. The rare red wolf that federal wildlife managers at a Charleston nature preserve were counting on to help save the endangered species had been injected with the drug last month by members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Back from the brink: Federal government to propose the removal of Yellowstone grizzlies from endangered species protections The stubby-legged, 1,000-pound behemoth doesn't have a name, but Karl Rappold recognizes him instantly. The grizzly bear and the 52-year-old rancher have crossed paths for 28 years. "He looks like a big angus cow, the same size," Rappold said. "He's just a tremendous animal to see." The big grizzly has wandered out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness each year and onto Rappold's 7,000-acre ranch near Dupuyer, land that his grandfather homesteaded in 1882. Rappold's father or grandfather may have aimed a rifle at the grizzly, or an ancestor, especially if he got too close to the livestock. Today, though, Rappold tolerates the grizzlies that come onto to his land and even tries to make sure they keep out of trouble....
Grizzly deaths hit limit set by U.S. The government's mortality limit for female grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area has been reached with the recent killing of a bear by a surprised elk hunter, a wildlife official said. A hunter acting in self-defense shot the bear the weekend of Sept. 10-11, said Chris Servheen, scientist in charge of the grizzly bear recovery plan for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "With this death, we have hit the mortality threshold for female bears established in the 1993 recovery plan," he said. "This mortality limit has not been exceeded since 1997."....
Bitterroots may be crucial to grizzly recovery A year later, the government approved a plan to import 25 grizzly bears over five years in an effort to establish a sustainable grizzly population and aid recovery of the bears south of the Canadian border. Wildlife officials estimated that it would take 50 to 110 years for the population to reach the goal of 280. Although it was heavily favored in public comments, the project was halted after Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne threatened to sue. "I oppose bringing these massive, flesh-eating carnivores into Idaho," Kempthorne said at the time. "Whenever there's an encounter between a human and a grizzly bear, the human does not fare well."....
As flow of salmon surges, US moves to cut protections With salmon returning to Pacific Northwest rivers in bountiful numbers not seen since the 1960s, the Bush administration has moved aggressively this election season to roll back policies designed to help the fish survive passage through the region's huge hydroelectric dams. In a series of announcements this year, federal fish agencies, which have spent billions of dollars to protect salmon from dams under the Endangered Species Act, essentially sided with power producers over environmentalists on what steps need to be taken to protect the fish. Most recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees protection of salmon, released a plan Sept. 9 that would end years of debate about whether to breach four dams on the lower Snake River....
Editorial: Preserving dams, restoring salmon In their new salmon recovery plan, federal fisheries officials conclude that the Columbia and Snake river dams are an immutable part of the Northwest landscape. At least for the near future, that's true. That's not saying concrete is found in a state of nature, or that John Day Dam is a manmade equivalent of Mount Hood. Instead, it is a recognition that major dams in the Columbia system are not going to be punched open anytime soon, certainly not in the 10-year period covered by the federal government's proposed new plan....
Soaring aloft with Amelia, a falcon, offers a dramatic view of migration Each year peregrine falcons -- birds whose hunting prowess has been known for nearly 3,000 years -- make their way from the Arctic tundra to the rain forests of Central and South America and back again. This miracle of migration captured the imagination of naturalist Alan Tennant, who began tracking the birds with a crew of researchers on the barrier islands of the Texas Gulf Coast. Unwilling or unable to let the idea of the falcons' journey go, Tennant persuaded a pilot named George Vose to fly him wherever the birds would lead and wrote about the experience in "On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon."....
Snowplane advocates hope ban is revisited Advocates for motorized recreation want the National Park Service to take another look at its ban of snowplanes on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. The BlueRibbon Coalition, based in Pocatello, Idaho, is hoping a federal judge issues a favorable ruling on snowmobiles, which the group believes will open the door for the return of snowplanes to the lake. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne is mulling whether to strike down a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiling in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks....
Woman gives up home battle, agrees to leave Mojave land The fight is nearly over for Connie Connelly. After almost 31 years of living in a remote desert home, Connelly said she reluctantly decided this week to yield to National Park Service officials who have spent years trying to evict her from five windswept acres in the northeastern Mojave National Preserve. "Sometimes you've got to pick yourself up by the seat of your pants and go on," said Connelly, 44, who was cited earlier this year for trespassing on federal land. "They're unwhippable." Earlier this week, Connelly signed and submitted paperwork agreeing to be relocated from her Ivanpah home. She asked to be moved to isolated northern Wyoming, said Sondra Humphries, chief of the National Park Services' Pacific Resources Program Center in Oakland....
Without a remedy, Lost Forest will be forest lost The Lost Forest is dying. But whether the cause is thousands of off-road vehicles, Christmas Valley irrigators or chronic drought is anyone's guess. There are more questions than answers for the tree die-off in the Lost Forest, a 9,000-acre stand of pine and juniper that has survived for centuries among sand dunes and sagebrush in Central Oregon's semiarid high desert. How and why the forest survives in a place that resembles the surface of Mars has intrigued generations. Now, it's the forest's sudden fragility that has land managers puzzled....
Comments overwhelming against Front drilling More than 49,000 Americans - an overwhelming 99.76 percent of those who wrote - have urged the Bureau of Land Management to nix an oil and gas exploration plan on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. An analysis of 49,180 comments submitted to the BLM in response to a drilling proposal by Startech Energy Inc. found 49,064 opposed to the idea and 116 in favor....
New rules aim to curb off-road travel Four-wheeling visitors to the McCullough Peaks won't be as freewheeling next month when new off-road vehicle designations will put the brakes on unrestricted travel. Increasing off-road vehicle use in the Peaks area prompted the Bureau of Land Management to release the final McCullough Peaks Travel Plan on Wednesday....
Canyon Holds Ancient Civilization Secrets The newly discovered ruins of an ancient civilization in this remote eastern Utah canyon could reveal secrets about the descendants of the continent's original Paleo-Indians who showed up before the time of Christ to settle much of present-day Utah. Archaeologists estimate as many as 250 households occupied this canyon over a span of centuries ending about 750 years ago. They left half-buried stone-and-mortar houses and granary caches, and painted colorful trapezoidal figures on canyon walls....
Ski village an uphill climb The battle for what could come of McCombs' 287.5 acres of spruce and aspen atop Wolf Creek Pass promises to be spectacular. The venerable owners of the Wolf Creek Ski Area who recently abandoned the McCombs village team are suing him. Environmentalists of all ilk are mobilizing lawyers for land-protecting appeals. Locals on the Pagosa Springs side of the southern Colorado mountain pass fear a loss of business and jobs to the village. Leaders on the other side of the pass in Mineral County see a bounty of jobs and tax revenue if the plan goes through. The speedy time frame for completion of the Forest Service's environmental impact statement on the access road and the date of the final decision for the project - 10 days before the presidential Inauguration Day - are also raising eyebrows among opponents of McCombs, a well-connected Republican from Texas....
Alaska senator upset with walk-out Dems U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens wants an apology from Senate Democrats for walking out of a committee considering two bills sponsored by his Alaska colleague, Lisa Murkowski. If he doesn't get the apology, Stevens said, he will put a hold on all bills sponsored by Senate Democrats running for re-election. "They've got to learn a little bit of common sense and particularly senatorial courtesy, or I will teach it to them," Stevens said Thursday, the day after the Democratic walkout. Democratic Sens. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Tim Johnson of South Dakota walked out on the Senate Energy Committee hearing when the Murkowski bills were about to come up. One Republican on the committee had not shown up, and the walkout prevented the needed quorum to take action on amendments and send the bills to the Senate floor....
Hearst Land Settlement Leaves Bitter Feelings The mesmerizing tranquillity at San Simeon Cove this weekend was far removed from the turmoil surrounding the future of the cove and of the 18-mile stretch of wild, undeveloped coast from here north almost to the Monterey County line. After fighting for years to preserve unfettered public access to the area, conservationists say they have been defeated by a state board's approval on Wednesday of an agreement that allows the land's owner, the Hearst Corporation, to restrict the public's use of the entire stretch of coast. The agreement is part of a larger deal under which the state will pay $95 million to descendants of the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst to preserve most of the 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch....
Valley cities vow to fight ruling that will take water from farms Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez is ready for war after a court ruling that he fears will take water from farmers and jobs from the San Joaquin Valley to restore salmon in the San Joaquin River. Lopez joined 10 other speakers at Fresno City Hall last week to begin their battle against the ruling handed down in August, when U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento decided the federal government’s operation of Friant Dam on the San Joaquin violates a state law protecting downstream fish....
Move would keep more water in reservoirs Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns and North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan made a key inclusion last week to the Interior Appropriations Bill for 2005. They added what they called "Drought Conservation Measures" into the appropriations bill to protect water levels on Montana's Fort Peck Reservoir, North Dakota's Lake Sakakawea and South Dakota's Lake Oahe. That bill came out of the full Senate Interior Appropriations Committee Tuesday and now heads to the Senate for consideration....
Retracing a Grim Past It is known, to those who know it at all, as California's Trail of Tears. In 1863, U.S. soldiers rounded up Indian tribes across Northern California at Chico Landing in Butte County. Then they marched them across the sweltering Sacramento Valley, over the rugged North Coast mountains, to what was known then as the Nome Cult Reservation. Of 461 Indians who set out under guard, only 277 completed the 100-mile, 14-day trek. Many were abandoned, too sick to continue. Some escaped. Others were killed. For decades, some descendants tried their best to forget. These days, they make a point of remembering....
Honoring an Apache Warrior Almost 7,000 feet high in the middle of the country's first preserved wilderness, before the cement was mixed and the rocks and mortar were laid, this volunteer project started with an it'edjidile, a blessing, in the language of the Apache. Harlyn Geronimo, a medicine man and the great-grandson of the Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo, prayed, raising fingertips smeared with the yellow pollen of the river cattail to a gray, overcast sky....
Efforts to Preserve Seabiscuit's Home Enter the Final Stretch Mendocino County environmentalists and historical preservationists are nearing completion of a complex deal that would permanently protect more than 4,600 acres of the historic Ridgewood Ranch, final resting place of the famed racehorse Seabiscuit. Nestled in an oak- and redwood-studded valley about eight miles south of Willits, the ranch became a beacon in the 1940s for thousands of Seabiscuit fans who made the pilgrimage 130 miles north from San Francisco to see the legendary horse....
Hunt for Superstition treasure OK'd Ron Feldman looks toward the Superstition Mountains and sees gold and silver bars that have been stashed in a mine shaft for more than 150 years.Now he has U.S. Forest Service approval to go look for them. He's not claiming the cache is the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine of Jacob Waltz, but he's sure it's related....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Concrete not an easy thing to corral The cement truck driver added to our education by pointing out that five yards of concrete weighs 20,000 pounds. It's not that we were complete novices around cement, sand and gravel. We have poured footings, built rock walls, patched old water tanks, shoveled out feed bunks and irrigation ditches, and driven over lots of concrete cattle guards. But alas, in retrospect we put too much faith in plywood and drywall screws. We built a form. It looked good, but then again I live in a land where the illusion of a fence is considered as good as five strands of barbed wire and a post every eight feet. We stack things against rusty wire and make extensive use of stays fashioned from willow branches, mesquite limbs, string, BBQ grills, car parts, hoe handles, cardboard, pillowcases and coyote hides....
Advocates, USFS at odds over Basin When U.S. Forest Service supervisor Don Bright looks over the parched prairie of eastern Conata Basin, denuded of vegetation and pockmarked with prairie dog holes, he sees devastation.When Jonathan Proctor of the Predator Conservation Alliance views the same scene, he sees a success story in the making for prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets and other wildlife. The widely differing perspectives on the same piece of ground illustrate the ongoing public argument about the impact of prairie dogs, grazing and drought in Conata Basin....
Forest Service Decides to Cite Congressman for Fire Damage When two-term Rep. Henry E. Brown Jr. (R-S.C.) burned brush on his Cordesville tree farm March 5, gusts of wind blew the fire onto the adjacent Francis Marion National Forest, causing at least $4,000 in damage to 20 acres. On Sept. 8 came some unexpected fallout. On Friday, overturning earlier internal directives to "take no action" against Brown, Forest Service headquarters in Washington announced that the lawmaker would be served with a violation notice....
Ex-Forest Service worker accused of misconduct A group opposed to gas development in the HD Mountains has accused a former Forest Service employee of violating ethics standards by consulting for one of the energy companies with leases to drill in the HDs. The HD Mountains Coalition contends that Dick Bell, who retired from the San Juan National Forest in January 2003, crossed the line on ethics when he began consulting for Petrox Resources Inc. in June 2004. Meeker-based Petrox is one of three energy companies with gas leases in the unroaded area of the HDs....
Editorial: Cynical move on roadless rule The Bush administration has placed an unpopular rollback of national forest roadless rules on hold - but only until after the election. No matter what face the U.S. Forest Service puts on the maneuver, the timetable amounts to a cynical attempt to defuse a widespread controversy until after the polls are closed. Voters shouldn't be fooled....
Bat's 'endangered' listing a blunder, many experts say Few scientists think the federal government was right in 1988 when it listed the lesser long-nosed bat as endangered. In the 1980s, surveys sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found only 500 bats in Arizona and 15,000 in Mexico. The agency feared the bat's "drastic decline" could harm the plants it feeds on, including saguaros, organ pipe cacti and the agaves used to make tequila. Grazing in Southern Arizona was restricted to protect foraging habitat. But when the summer sun sets here to unveil the Milky Way, up to 500 of the bats bolt from an old mine shaft each minute. By day, about 20,000 of the flying mammals are inside, hanging upside down....
The skills to survive: Grizzlies Chuck Neal has tracked grizzly bears for nearly 30 years. His passion for grizzlies takes him across hundreds of miles of prime bear habitat each year in and around Yellowstone National Park. Neal, a retired ecologist from Cody, Wyo., does most of his research on foot, often in remote areas that grizzlies prefer and people steer clear of. "The grizzly bear is intelligent enough and has the physical capabilities to adjust to almost any environmental condition if - and this is the important part - we give him the room," Neal said....
New highway crossings target wildlife safety Of all the problems that grizzly bears face in the West, one of the toughest may be your favorite 40-foot-wide ribbon of asphalt. Over the next six years, more than 70 wildlife crossings will be added to roads and highways in Montana. They range from culverts to underpasses to a dirt-covered, 150-foot overpass expected to cost more than $1 million. The crossings in northwestern Montana are intended to cut down on problems not only for bears but for all wildlife....
Heartworm shot may have killed wolf A report on the death of federally protected red wolf suggests a heartworm-prevention drug may have led to the adult female's death. The medicine, ProHeart 6, has been recalled by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of negative side effects in treated dogs, including death. The rare red wolf that federal wildlife managers at a Charleston nature preserve were counting on to help save the endangered species had been injected with the drug last month by members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Back from the brink: Federal government to propose the removal of Yellowstone grizzlies from endangered species protections The stubby-legged, 1,000-pound behemoth doesn't have a name, but Karl Rappold recognizes him instantly. The grizzly bear and the 52-year-old rancher have crossed paths for 28 years. "He looks like a big angus cow, the same size," Rappold said. "He's just a tremendous animal to see." The big grizzly has wandered out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness each year and onto Rappold's 7,000-acre ranch near Dupuyer, land that his grandfather homesteaded in 1882. Rappold's father or grandfather may have aimed a rifle at the grizzly, or an ancestor, especially if he got too close to the livestock. Today, though, Rappold tolerates the grizzlies that come onto to his land and even tries to make sure they keep out of trouble....
Grizzly deaths hit limit set by U.S. The government's mortality limit for female grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area has been reached with the recent killing of a bear by a surprised elk hunter, a wildlife official said. A hunter acting in self-defense shot the bear the weekend of Sept. 10-11, said Chris Servheen, scientist in charge of the grizzly bear recovery plan for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "With this death, we have hit the mortality threshold for female bears established in the 1993 recovery plan," he said. "This mortality limit has not been exceeded since 1997."....
Bitterroots may be crucial to grizzly recovery A year later, the government approved a plan to import 25 grizzly bears over five years in an effort to establish a sustainable grizzly population and aid recovery of the bears south of the Canadian border. Wildlife officials estimated that it would take 50 to 110 years for the population to reach the goal of 280. Although it was heavily favored in public comments, the project was halted after Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne threatened to sue. "I oppose bringing these massive, flesh-eating carnivores into Idaho," Kempthorne said at the time. "Whenever there's an encounter between a human and a grizzly bear, the human does not fare well."....
As flow of salmon surges, US moves to cut protections With salmon returning to Pacific Northwest rivers in bountiful numbers not seen since the 1960s, the Bush administration has moved aggressively this election season to roll back policies designed to help the fish survive passage through the region's huge hydroelectric dams. In a series of announcements this year, federal fish agencies, which have spent billions of dollars to protect salmon from dams under the Endangered Species Act, essentially sided with power producers over environmentalists on what steps need to be taken to protect the fish. Most recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees protection of salmon, released a plan Sept. 9 that would end years of debate about whether to breach four dams on the lower Snake River....
Editorial: Preserving dams, restoring salmon In their new salmon recovery plan, federal fisheries officials conclude that the Columbia and Snake river dams are an immutable part of the Northwest landscape. At least for the near future, that's true. That's not saying concrete is found in a state of nature, or that John Day Dam is a manmade equivalent of Mount Hood. Instead, it is a recognition that major dams in the Columbia system are not going to be punched open anytime soon, certainly not in the 10-year period covered by the federal government's proposed new plan....
Soaring aloft with Amelia, a falcon, offers a dramatic view of migration Each year peregrine falcons -- birds whose hunting prowess has been known for nearly 3,000 years -- make their way from the Arctic tundra to the rain forests of Central and South America and back again. This miracle of migration captured the imagination of naturalist Alan Tennant, who began tracking the birds with a crew of researchers on the barrier islands of the Texas Gulf Coast. Unwilling or unable to let the idea of the falcons' journey go, Tennant persuaded a pilot named George Vose to fly him wherever the birds would lead and wrote about the experience in "On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon."....
Snowplane advocates hope ban is revisited Advocates for motorized recreation want the National Park Service to take another look at its ban of snowplanes on Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. The BlueRibbon Coalition, based in Pocatello, Idaho, is hoping a federal judge issues a favorable ruling on snowmobiles, which the group believes will open the door for the return of snowplanes to the lake. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne is mulling whether to strike down a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiling in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks....
Woman gives up home battle, agrees to leave Mojave land The fight is nearly over for Connie Connelly. After almost 31 years of living in a remote desert home, Connelly said she reluctantly decided this week to yield to National Park Service officials who have spent years trying to evict her from five windswept acres in the northeastern Mojave National Preserve. "Sometimes you've got to pick yourself up by the seat of your pants and go on," said Connelly, 44, who was cited earlier this year for trespassing on federal land. "They're unwhippable." Earlier this week, Connelly signed and submitted paperwork agreeing to be relocated from her Ivanpah home. She asked to be moved to isolated northern Wyoming, said Sondra Humphries, chief of the National Park Services' Pacific Resources Program Center in Oakland....
Without a remedy, Lost Forest will be forest lost The Lost Forest is dying. But whether the cause is thousands of off-road vehicles, Christmas Valley irrigators or chronic drought is anyone's guess. There are more questions than answers for the tree die-off in the Lost Forest, a 9,000-acre stand of pine and juniper that has survived for centuries among sand dunes and sagebrush in Central Oregon's semiarid high desert. How and why the forest survives in a place that resembles the surface of Mars has intrigued generations. Now, it's the forest's sudden fragility that has land managers puzzled....
Comments overwhelming against Front drilling More than 49,000 Americans - an overwhelming 99.76 percent of those who wrote - have urged the Bureau of Land Management to nix an oil and gas exploration plan on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. An analysis of 49,180 comments submitted to the BLM in response to a drilling proposal by Startech Energy Inc. found 49,064 opposed to the idea and 116 in favor....
New rules aim to curb off-road travel Four-wheeling visitors to the McCullough Peaks won't be as freewheeling next month when new off-road vehicle designations will put the brakes on unrestricted travel. Increasing off-road vehicle use in the Peaks area prompted the Bureau of Land Management to release the final McCullough Peaks Travel Plan on Wednesday....
Canyon Holds Ancient Civilization Secrets The newly discovered ruins of an ancient civilization in this remote eastern Utah canyon could reveal secrets about the descendants of the continent's original Paleo-Indians who showed up before the time of Christ to settle much of present-day Utah. Archaeologists estimate as many as 250 households occupied this canyon over a span of centuries ending about 750 years ago. They left half-buried stone-and-mortar houses and granary caches, and painted colorful trapezoidal figures on canyon walls....
Ski village an uphill climb The battle for what could come of McCombs' 287.5 acres of spruce and aspen atop Wolf Creek Pass promises to be spectacular. The venerable owners of the Wolf Creek Ski Area who recently abandoned the McCombs village team are suing him. Environmentalists of all ilk are mobilizing lawyers for land-protecting appeals. Locals on the Pagosa Springs side of the southern Colorado mountain pass fear a loss of business and jobs to the village. Leaders on the other side of the pass in Mineral County see a bounty of jobs and tax revenue if the plan goes through. The speedy time frame for completion of the Forest Service's environmental impact statement on the access road and the date of the final decision for the project - 10 days before the presidential Inauguration Day - are also raising eyebrows among opponents of McCombs, a well-connected Republican from Texas....
Alaska senator upset with walk-out Dems U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens wants an apology from Senate Democrats for walking out of a committee considering two bills sponsored by his Alaska colleague, Lisa Murkowski. If he doesn't get the apology, Stevens said, he will put a hold on all bills sponsored by Senate Democrats running for re-election. "They've got to learn a little bit of common sense and particularly senatorial courtesy, or I will teach it to them," Stevens said Thursday, the day after the Democratic walkout. Democratic Sens. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Tim Johnson of South Dakota walked out on the Senate Energy Committee hearing when the Murkowski bills were about to come up. One Republican on the committee had not shown up, and the walkout prevented the needed quorum to take action on amendments and send the bills to the Senate floor....
Hearst Land Settlement Leaves Bitter Feelings The mesmerizing tranquillity at San Simeon Cove this weekend was far removed from the turmoil surrounding the future of the cove and of the 18-mile stretch of wild, undeveloped coast from here north almost to the Monterey County line. After fighting for years to preserve unfettered public access to the area, conservationists say they have been defeated by a state board's approval on Wednesday of an agreement that allows the land's owner, the Hearst Corporation, to restrict the public's use of the entire stretch of coast. The agreement is part of a larger deal under which the state will pay $95 million to descendants of the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst to preserve most of the 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch....
Valley cities vow to fight ruling that will take water from farms Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez is ready for war after a court ruling that he fears will take water from farmers and jobs from the San Joaquin Valley to restore salmon in the San Joaquin River. Lopez joined 10 other speakers at Fresno City Hall last week to begin their battle against the ruling handed down in August, when U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento decided the federal government’s operation of Friant Dam on the San Joaquin violates a state law protecting downstream fish....
Move would keep more water in reservoirs Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns and North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan made a key inclusion last week to the Interior Appropriations Bill for 2005. They added what they called "Drought Conservation Measures" into the appropriations bill to protect water levels on Montana's Fort Peck Reservoir, North Dakota's Lake Sakakawea and South Dakota's Lake Oahe. That bill came out of the full Senate Interior Appropriations Committee Tuesday and now heads to the Senate for consideration....
Retracing a Grim Past It is known, to those who know it at all, as California's Trail of Tears. In 1863, U.S. soldiers rounded up Indian tribes across Northern California at Chico Landing in Butte County. Then they marched them across the sweltering Sacramento Valley, over the rugged North Coast mountains, to what was known then as the Nome Cult Reservation. Of 461 Indians who set out under guard, only 277 completed the 100-mile, 14-day trek. Many were abandoned, too sick to continue. Some escaped. Others were killed. For decades, some descendants tried their best to forget. These days, they make a point of remembering....
Honoring an Apache Warrior Almost 7,000 feet high in the middle of the country's first preserved wilderness, before the cement was mixed and the rocks and mortar were laid, this volunteer project started with an it'edjidile, a blessing, in the language of the Apache. Harlyn Geronimo, a medicine man and the great-grandson of the Chiricahua Apache warrior Geronimo, prayed, raising fingertips smeared with the yellow pollen of the river cattail to a gray, overcast sky....
Efforts to Preserve Seabiscuit's Home Enter the Final Stretch Mendocino County environmentalists and historical preservationists are nearing completion of a complex deal that would permanently protect more than 4,600 acres of the historic Ridgewood Ranch, final resting place of the famed racehorse Seabiscuit. Nestled in an oak- and redwood-studded valley about eight miles south of Willits, the ranch became a beacon in the 1940s for thousands of Seabiscuit fans who made the pilgrimage 130 miles north from San Francisco to see the legendary horse....
Hunt for Superstition treasure OK'd Ron Feldman looks toward the Superstition Mountains and sees gold and silver bars that have been stashed in a mine shaft for more than 150 years.Now he has U.S. Forest Service approval to go look for them. He's not claiming the cache is the legendary Lost Dutchman Mine of Jacob Waltz, but he's sure it's related....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Concrete not an easy thing to corral The cement truck driver added to our education by pointing out that five yards of concrete weighs 20,000 pounds. It's not that we were complete novices around cement, sand and gravel. We have poured footings, built rock walls, patched old water tanks, shoveled out feed bunks and irrigation ditches, and driven over lots of concrete cattle guards. But alas, in retrospect we put too much faith in plywood and drywall screws. We built a form. It looked good, but then again I live in a land where the illusion of a fence is considered as good as five strands of barbed wire and a post every eight feet. We stack things against rusty wire and make extensive use of stays fashioned from willow branches, mesquite limbs, string, BBQ grills, car parts, hoe handles, cardboard, pillowcases and coyote hides....
Sunday, September 19, 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Do we have a right to our property -- or not? The U.S. Constitution, properly construed by a vigilant Supreme Court, prevents untrammeled power, which is the definition of despotism. But the human propensity for abusing power -- a propensity the Constitution's unsentimental framers understood and tried to shackle with prudent language -- is perennial. There always are people trying to carve crevices in constitutional terminology to allow scope for despotism. Such carving is occurring in Connecticut. Soon -- perhaps on the first Monday in October -- the court will announce whether it will hear an appeal against a 4-3 ruling last March by Connecticut's Supreme Court. That ruling effectively repeals a crucial portion of the Bill of Rights. If you think the term ``despotism'' exaggerates what this repeal permits, consider the life-shattering power wielded by the government of New London, Conn. That city, like many cities, needs more revenues. To enhance the Pfizer pharmaceutical company's $270 million research facility, it empowered a private entity, the New London Development Corporation, to exercise the power of eminent domain to condemn most of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood along the Thames River. The aim is to make space for upscale condominiums, a luxury hotel and private offices that would yield the city more tax revenues than can be extracted from the neighborhood's middle-class homeowners....
Do we have a right to our property -- or not? The U.S. Constitution, properly construed by a vigilant Supreme Court, prevents untrammeled power, which is the definition of despotism. But the human propensity for abusing power -- a propensity the Constitution's unsentimental framers understood and tried to shackle with prudent language -- is perennial. There always are people trying to carve crevices in constitutional terminology to allow scope for despotism. Such carving is occurring in Connecticut. Soon -- perhaps on the first Monday in October -- the court will announce whether it will hear an appeal against a 4-3 ruling last March by Connecticut's Supreme Court. That ruling effectively repeals a crucial portion of the Bill of Rights. If you think the term ``despotism'' exaggerates what this repeal permits, consider the life-shattering power wielded by the government of New London, Conn. That city, like many cities, needs more revenues. To enhance the Pfizer pharmaceutical company's $270 million research facility, it empowered a private entity, the New London Development Corporation, to exercise the power of eminent domain to condemn most of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood along the Thames River. The aim is to make space for upscale condominiums, a luxury hotel and private offices that would yield the city more tax revenues than can be extracted from the neighborhood's middle-class homeowners....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Fear and mongering on the campaign trail It was H.L. Mencken who said of Truman's 1948 campaign, "If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense." As John Kerry continues to talk tough on foreign policy, his promise to block the Yucca Mountain Project shows that he's running as a Truman Democrat on domestic policy, too. Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the intended resting place of roughly 77,000 metric tons of deadly nuclear waste, which is currently strewn across the country like socks and beer cans in a frat house. The goal is to put the stuff in a single, safe location. Nevadans like the idea, except for the part that involves keeping it in their state....
Fear and mongering on the campaign trail It was H.L. Mencken who said of Truman's 1948 campaign, "If there had been any formidable body of cannibals in the country, Harry Truman would have promised to provide them with free missionaries fattened at the taxpayer's expense." As John Kerry continues to talk tough on foreign policy, his promise to block the Yucca Mountain Project shows that he's running as a Truman Democrat on domestic policy, too. Yucca Mountain, Nevada is the intended resting place of roughly 77,000 metric tons of deadly nuclear waste, which is currently strewn across the country like socks and beer cans in a frat house. The goal is to put the stuff in a single, safe location. Nevadans like the idea, except for the part that involves keeping it in their state....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT In the past quarter-century environmentalists rediscovered the old adage, “better safe than sorry,” repackaged it as the “precautionary principle,” and with the aid of their allies in European governments, succeeded in incorporating it into several multilateral environmental agreements. Several versions of the principle are now ensconced in the Rio Declaration of 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, among others. While there is no single, agreed-upon definition of the principle, all of its formulations call for reducing, if not eliminating, risks to public health, the environment or both. One formulation that has gained wide currency is the so-called Wingspread Declaration: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not established scientifically.” Both proponents and opponents interpret this statement as a license to bypass science-based risk analysis. Although opponents view this as a dangerous shortcoming, many environmentalists welcome it. For instance, writing on the best new ideas of 2001, New York Times environmental reporter Michael Pollan hailed the Wingspread Declaration as “revolutionary.” He contended that it offers a superior approach to managing the potential risks of new technologies (or actions or policies) than that currently employed in American society and by the World Trade Organization....
Applying the Precautionary Principle to DDT In the past quarter-century environmentalists rediscovered the old adage, “better safe than sorry,” repackaged it as the “precautionary principle,” and with the aid of their allies in European governments, succeeded in incorporating it into several multilateral environmental agreements. Several versions of the principle are now ensconced in the Rio Declaration of 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, among others. While there is no single, agreed-upon definition of the principle, all of its formulations call for reducing, if not eliminating, risks to public health, the environment or both. One formulation that has gained wide currency is the so-called Wingspread Declaration: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not established scientifically.” Both proponents and opponents interpret this statement as a license to bypass science-based risk analysis. Although opponents view this as a dangerous shortcoming, many environmentalists welcome it. For instance, writing on the best new ideas of 2001, New York Times environmental reporter Michael Pollan hailed the Wingspread Declaration as “revolutionary.” He contended that it offers a superior approach to managing the potential risks of new technologies (or actions or policies) than that currently employed in American society and by the World Trade Organization....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Day -- After Day After Day After Day -- of the Locusts Africans in the Sahel are also very familiar with locusts, but their great dread is of locusts getting into their crops rather than their hair. The inhabitants of countries including Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Niger and Chad have their crops destroyed, putting livelihoods and lives at risk. The region is currently suffering its worst locust infestation for 15 years and a contributory factor is that the public health agencies in those countries can no longer use the single best weapon against locusts -- the insecticide Dieldrin. In May 2001 the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was signed; it came into force earlier this year when the 50th nation ratified the treaty. Dieldrin is one of the 'dirty dozen' chemicals, which include the far more famous DDT. But unlike DDT, where an exemption for use was fought for and won, Dieldrin has been consigned to the history books. Of course countries could ask to use it and probably would be granted the right for emergencies, but since stockpiling Dieldrin in case of emergencies is not allowed, and locust swarms don't usually come with the 3 months notice that would be required in order for procurement, delivery and use to take place, it is a de facto total ban....
Day -- After Day After Day After Day -- of the Locusts Africans in the Sahel are also very familiar with locusts, but their great dread is of locusts getting into their crops rather than their hair. The inhabitants of countries including Mauritania, Mali, Senegal, Niger and Chad have their crops destroyed, putting livelihoods and lives at risk. The region is currently suffering its worst locust infestation for 15 years and a contributory factor is that the public health agencies in those countries can no longer use the single best weapon against locusts -- the insecticide Dieldrin. In May 2001 the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was signed; it came into force earlier this year when the 50th nation ratified the treaty. Dieldrin is one of the 'dirty dozen' chemicals, which include the far more famous DDT. But unlike DDT, where an exemption for use was fought for and won, Dieldrin has been consigned to the history books. Of course countries could ask to use it and probably would be granted the right for emergencies, but since stockpiling Dieldrin in case of emergencies is not allowed, and locust swarms don't usually come with the 3 months notice that would be required in order for procurement, delivery and use to take place, it is a de facto total ban....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Real Scientists Debunk Organic Myths The Center for Consumer Freedom recently addressed an American Chemical Society symposium on organic food, explaining the dirt-covered money trail from organic food companies and politically-motivated foundations to the practitioners of food-scare campaigns. Covering the conference, the Los Angeles Times reported: "[S]ince 1989, when organic-food activists raised a nationwide scare over the pesticide alar in apples, many scientists have seethed quietly at what they perceive as a campaign of scare tactics, innuendo and shoddy science perpetrated by organic food producers and their allies." Some schemers in the green fringe don't even bother hiding their food-scare game plans. In April 2002, Organic Valley Marketing Director Theresa Marquez described her strategy of hoodwinking the public into thinking organics are always worth their premium prices: "We think it's important that people pay more for food," she said. "The question is: 'Will consumers pay more for that?' and 'How can we convince them to do that?'" And citing over-hyped scares like mad cow disease (which has popped up on organic farms too), pesticide residues, and antibiotic resistance, the Organic Trade Association's Katherine DiMatteo told the Times that the success of organic food has: "a lot to do with these food scares." ....
Real Scientists Debunk Organic Myths The Center for Consumer Freedom recently addressed an American Chemical Society symposium on organic food, explaining the dirt-covered money trail from organic food companies and politically-motivated foundations to the practitioners of food-scare campaigns. Covering the conference, the Los Angeles Times reported: "[S]ince 1989, when organic-food activists raised a nationwide scare over the pesticide alar in apples, many scientists have seethed quietly at what they perceive as a campaign of scare tactics, innuendo and shoddy science perpetrated by organic food producers and their allies." Some schemers in the green fringe don't even bother hiding their food-scare game plans. In April 2002, Organic Valley Marketing Director Theresa Marquez described her strategy of hoodwinking the public into thinking organics are always worth their premium prices: "We think it's important that people pay more for food," she said. "The question is: 'Will consumers pay more for that?' and 'How can we convince them to do that?'" And citing over-hyped scares like mad cow disease (which has popped up on organic farms too), pesticide residues, and antibiotic resistance, the Organic Trade Association's Katherine DiMatteo told the Times that the success of organic food has: "a lot to do with these food scares." ....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Taking the Scare Out of Biotech Crops In the late 1990s, political scientist Gregory Conko had been studying food and pharmaceutical regulation as a fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and noticed the rising concerns in the European Union over genetically modification of crop plants. “I saw this was an issue that was getting much bigger and that it would likely also become a bigger issue in the United States,” he says. So he began shifting his focus almost exclusively to examining issues of the regulation of genetically engineered foods. Last month, Conko and Henry I. Miller, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, published The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution (Praeger Publishers), a book that examines some of what they say are the major misunderstandings about agricultural biotechnology....
Taking the Scare Out of Biotech Crops In the late 1990s, political scientist Gregory Conko had been studying food and pharmaceutical regulation as a fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and noticed the rising concerns in the European Union over genetically modification of crop plants. “I saw this was an issue that was getting much bigger and that it would likely also become a bigger issue in the United States,” he says. So he began shifting his focus almost exclusively to examining issues of the regulation of genetically engineered foods. Last month, Conko and Henry I. Miller, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, published The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution (Praeger Publishers), a book that examines some of what they say are the major misunderstandings about agricultural biotechnology....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
A Responsible Approach to Climate Change We protect the environment because we care about clean air and preserving other species, not mainly for financial reasons. But we also value inexpensive supplies of power and fast and convenient transportation. All interesting and important policy questions involve choosing among competing values. consider climate change. How does human action influence future climates? How willing are we to give up inexpensive fossil fuel energy? Does climate change demand drastic and dramatic action now? If so, at what cost? However well intended, it is naïve and irresponsible to ignore the unavoidable trade-offs. We have limited resources and face many challenges. Here's a simple truth: The money spent to combat climate change is not available to eradicate malaria, killer of 2 million people each year, 90 percent of whom are children under 5. And it takes money to increase female literacy in poor nations -- perhaps the key investment for social progress....
A Responsible Approach to Climate Change We protect the environment because we care about clean air and preserving other species, not mainly for financial reasons. But we also value inexpensive supplies of power and fast and convenient transportation. All interesting and important policy questions involve choosing among competing values. consider climate change. How does human action influence future climates? How willing are we to give up inexpensive fossil fuel energy? Does climate change demand drastic and dramatic action now? If so, at what cost? However well intended, it is naïve and irresponsible to ignore the unavoidable trade-offs. We have limited resources and face many challenges. Here's a simple truth: The money spent to combat climate change is not available to eradicate malaria, killer of 2 million people each year, 90 percent of whom are children under 5. And it takes money to increase female literacy in poor nations -- perhaps the key investment for social progress....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Junk Science & DDT The West Nile virus deaths being reported across North America are a grim echo of a larger tragedy. Each year a million lives are taken worldwide by another mosquito-borne killer: malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance. But the real tragedy is that its horrific death toll is largely preventable. The most effective agent of mosquito control, the pesticide DDT, has been essentially discarded--discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma....
Junk Science & DDT The West Nile virus deaths being reported across North America are a grim echo of a larger tragedy. Each year a million lives are taken worldwide by another mosquito-borne killer: malaria. Though nearly eradicated decades ago, malaria has resurged with a vengeance. But the real tragedy is that its horrific death toll is largely preventable. The most effective agent of mosquito control, the pesticide DDT, has been essentially discarded--discarded based not on scientific concerns about its safety, but on environmental dogma....
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