NEWS ROUNDUP

Panel Advises Ending Tax Breaks for Easements An influential joint congressional committee recommended yesterday that lawmakers do away with income tax breaks available to homeowners who give charitable organizations easements that restrict changes to personal residences or surrounding land. Over the next decade, the reforms would save the U.S. Treasury $1 billion, according to a staff report released by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. The proposal goes well beyond previously announced plans for the reform of what are known as "historic facade easements" and "conservation easements." The recommendations are aimed at ending tax breaks originally designed to preserve historic buildings and the environment....Go here to download the report and thanks to Jon Christensen for the links...
Encounters with cougars on the rise in Oregon When Laurie Gurney turned back toward her house last October with an armload of firewood, a cougar stood between her and the front door. As Russell Trump drove near Yoncalla last year, a cougar stood in the middle of the road. Rancher Ernie Wheeler had a 3-day-old calf killed on his ranch last October. He's pretty sure the predator was a cougar. In most every corner of Douglas County, cougar sightings continue to be made and many are reported to wildlife officials. In most cases, the cats are just minding their own business and passing through. But, it seems, according to calls to officials, more cougars are being seen closer to rural residential areas, and they don't seem as fearful of humans....
Not in my playground! W e all know NIMBYs, those folks who say "Not in My Back Yard!" to every development proposal that comes anywhere near them. Researchers have even identified a subspecies called BANANAs -- "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody" -- who oppose any and all development, whether it's close to them or not. In recent years, a distinct new breed seems to have emerged. I've dubbed them the NIMPs, for "Not in My Playground." NIMPs are ardent conservationists, staunch champions of wilderness and natural areas, protectors of endangered species -- as long as these noble goals don't interfere with their own preferred forms of recreation or favorite vacation spots. Current case in point: wolves....
Gas industry rebuts NPRC report A report recently released by the coalbed methane industry counters findings of a study on wastewater management by a conservation group, an industry spokesperson said. Karen Brown, coordinator of the Coalbed Natural Gas Alliance (CNGA), called the report commissioned last fall by the Northern Plains Resource Council "misleading and inaccurate.'' Brown said the NPRC report "leads the public to believe that injection and water treatment are the only logical and technically sound water management tools'' for coalbed methane development in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. But an NPRC spokesman said the industry's report still shows that injection and treatment are affordable options for managing coalbed methane water....
Agency in transition The story goes that in the early days of the U.S. Forest Service, a would-be ranger taking the qualifying exam was asked who created the national forests. "God created the forests but Teddy Roosevelt greatly expanded upon them," the acute applicant said. President Roosevelt began his major expansion 100 years ago this month when he convened an American Forest Congress. His 1905 gathering led to the creation of the U.S. Forest Service and more forest reserves, including the Siskiyou in southwestern Oregon....
Loggers Going Into Ore. Old Growth Reserve A timber company plans to start logging next week in a burned area that had been reserved as old growth forest, setting up a confrontation with environmentalists who believe leaving the dead trees standing is better for fish, wildlife and the forest. John West, president of Silver Creek Timber Co., said Friday he was just waiting for formal imposition of an appeals court order issued earlier this month that had cleared the way for logging some old growth reserve burned in the 500,000-acre Biscuit fire, which threatened 17,000 people in Oregon's Illinois Valley in 2002. Under pressure from the timber industry, the Forest Service expanded its original plans to harvest only in areas designated for logging under the Northwest Forest Plan, which settled lawsuits over the northern spotted owl by dividing federal forest land into areas for logging, and fish and wildlife habitat. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction that had barred logging on two timber sales in an old growth reserve until a lawsuit brought by environmentalists is resolved....
Raids net thousands of artifacts in Oregon Federal agents executing 22 search warrants this week across Central and Southeast Oregon seized thousands of archaeological artifacts thought to have been stolen from public lands in what they said is the largest case of its kind in the region. The seizures cap a two-year federal investigation into the suspected theft and sale of artifacts looted from sites that may date back thousands of years. Robbery of the native treasures is increasingly fueled by a wealthy, worldwide collectors market willing to pay top dollar for rare remnants of the past, experts said....
Regional forester: Clear cutting forests would help with drought Clear-cutting 25 percent of forest land would help alleviate the ongoing drought, a U.S. Forest Service official told Wyoming lawmakers. Testifying before the Legislature's Joint Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Interim Committee on Thursday, Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables said his agency was looking at ways to make more water available from public forest lands. "Water is going to be the defining environmental issue in this country and in the West, and there's a lot of interest in increasing water yields" on forest lands," Cables said. Cables said studies had shown that it took a 25 percent clear cut to get an appreciable gain in water, and that areas must remain open permanently to maintain the water gain....
Good Grazing: Preserving Cattle Country A coalition of ranchers and conservationists are finding new ways to make cattle ranching compatible with environmental preservation. As NPR's John Burnett reports, the plan pits preservation and financial incentives against development and unrestrained land-use. Cattle ranchers in the Malpai Borderlands Group receive cash and tax breaks in exchange for keeping their lands out of the hands of developers. They also agree to manage their cattle in ways less likely to damage fragile desert landscapes. The Malpai Group, which began in 1993, protects 800,000 acres while also sustaining working cattle ranches. And an increasing number of experts think the Malpai model is an idea that could work elsewhere....
Agency plans sage grouse hunt Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials are recommending another conservative sage grouse hunting season for 2005. Agency data show estimated harvest rates were well below 5 percent of the statewide fall population in 2002 and 2003. Emmerich said the same most likely will be true for 2004. He said the state's sage grouse numbers are high enough to support another conservative hunt, similar to the 2002-04 seasons. In 2002, the department shortened the sage grouse season to basically two weekends in the fall, with a last-Saturday-in-September opening date. Fall counts by biologists estimate a population of about 100,000 sage grouse in Wyoming over the past three years....
After the Divorce: Improving Science at Federal Wildlife Agencies Michael Runge and his colleagues from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) got out of their car, hiked the short distance to Chaska Lake near the Minnesota River, and looked around carefully. Here, at the nearly 14,000-acre Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis, a floodplain forest of cotton-wood, green ash, and silver maple trees stretches from the riverbanks to the bulrushes and cattails growing in the marshlands along the lake's shallows. Runge, a USGS research ecologist based at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, was in Minnesota on a cool and drizzly fall day last year to check out Chaska Lake and other sites for possible inclusion in a scientific study. The study will examine about 20 wildlife refuges in the upper Midwest and Northeast. It seeks to help refuge managers determine whether and to what extent adjusting water levels behind impounded wetlands would attract migrating shorebirds, wading birds, waterfowl, and other wildlife. The study's importance goes beyond helping FWS better manage its 545 wildlife refuges and shedding new light on bird habitats. It represents a new era of scientific research and cooperation between FWS and USGS. It also represents a renewed effort by FWS to rebuild its scientific credibility and to foster research related to the federal wildlife agency's program and management responsibilities....
Effort to Reinforce Border Creates Divide On the southwestern-most tip of the country, just across the border from Tijuana, rugged canyons drop down to a rich Pacific estuary, where millions have been spent restoring fresh and saltwater marshes that sustain the California brown pelican and other rare birds and plants. But this landscape also represents a gaping hole in the nation's defenses against terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals, federal officials say. At some points, a worn-out border fence teeters atop cliffs. In at least one spot along the sloping side of a canyon, erosion has buried so much of the fence that migrants and other travelers can step over it. Near the wind-swept shoreline of Border Field State Park, the 10-foot-tall steel panels that make up the fence are pocked with holes. The Bush administration proposes closing off this final 3.5-mile stretch of border between the United States and Mexico by moving massive amounts of dirt from nearby mesas into canyons to create a long earthen berm. On the berm, parallel to the existing border fence, a second fence and a patrol road would be constructed....
Column: Greener fields in the forecast Heading into his second term, President Bush has earned tremendous political capital he can spend on big goals at home and abroad. The environment is often overlooked in discussions of Mr. Bush's domestic agenda. The president has a chance to advance a bold vision for environmental progress under his top policy ideal: the ownership society. Let's hope he does so. One bold move that could garner support of conservatives and environmentalists alike would be ending all energy subsidies. This would please conservatives, who decry tax breaks for wasteful spending on costly renewable energy boondoggles, and environmentalists, who claim the fossil fuel industry gets unnecessary and unmerited public support. The government would save money and consumers would decide what fuels will meet their energy needs....
A New Range War Corraled in a federal holding pen at Palomino Valley, Nev., a buckskin mare with the number 9598 cold-branded in code on its neck suddenly faces an uncertain future. When the 12-year-old was rounded up in November as part of a federal program to humanely control the mustang population in the West, it looked as if it would be relocated to a grassy farm in Oklahoma or Kansas. But that all changed weeks later. Thanks to a controversial revision of the 1971 law protecting wild horses and burros, the mare could be sold, killed and butchered. Icons of independence and a living reminder of the old West, mustangs have always excited fierce passions. But the passion turned to anger after Republican Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana quietly inserted a rider in the federal budget that lifted the ban on selling wild horses for slaughter....
This Time, Developer May Not Get His Water Of all the obstacles standing between Ben Ewell and his dream of building a new town in the foothills above Fresno, water would seem the least of them. The ambitious project sits along the shores of Millerton Lake, which holds the flow of the San Joaquin River. With a single pipeline acting as a straw, Ewell draws federal water from the lake to his golf course and high-priced houses nestled in the oak-and-granite hills. Now, the real estate developer wants to use this same plumbing to siphon water to an even bigger planned community of 1,000 houses, a hotel, shopping centers, conference halls and a second golf course. But the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, on the eve of a Fresno County vote to approve the first phase of new houses, says it made a serious mistake when it allowed Ewell to pump water from the lake. The whole scheme amounts to an illegal diversion of federal water that bureau officials say they have known about for a decade but chose not to stop....
Colorado considering statewide water compact When manager Tom Backhus looks out across the 4 Eagle Ranch, he sees cattle, horses and snow sparkling like diamonds as far as the eye can see, a range dotted by log cabins visited every year by people who want to learn about the West. Water attorney Glenn Porzak has a different vision. He sees a reservoir filled to the brim with water to help feed Colorado's growing thirst, along with boats, fishermen and others enjoying a big mountain lake. The days appear to be numbered for the guest ranch 20 miles west of Vail: The 1,400-acre spread is owned by the Denver Water Board and if all goes as planned, the ranch will be submerged in a decade. This is not just another water project for Colorado. State officials want it to serve as a blueprint for the rest of the state, which is struggling through one of the worst droughts in history and is a key watershed for much of the West....
Modern-day rustler foiled by the old branding iron Roddy Dean Pippin is a cattle rustler -- a strange modern-day living that comes with plenty of old occupational hazards, short of the rope. Many Americans might think that the brazen theft of cattle died out with frontier justice and 19th-century range wars. But Pippin, a 6-foot-1-inch West Texan, is around to disabuse anyone of that notion. Pippin, 21, was arrested early Aug. 8 while trying to haul four cows and four calves to a sale barn in Decatur. He changed his story about buying them in Oklahoma when he was told that the Open Top J brand on the cattle was identical to the mark burned into the hides of livestock reported stolen from a ranch near Quanah. He confessed. Then, to the amazement of his interrogators, he confessed some more. As with many rustling cases dating back generations, it was the hot-iron brand on a steer's hip that helped put a thief behind bars. The association and others are concerned that a major change in the ranching industry -- the introduction of high-tech identification ear tags expected this decade -- might make it easier for the next Roddy Dean Pippin....
Visionary painter rides into spirit world The Amazon-like, buxom woman with two long black braids stooped to walk through the doorway. Her eyes were locked on a wheelchair-bound man who watched her enter the room. She was his Venus, his goddess of love and beauty. The painting, titled "Welcome,'' like much of Ernie Pepion's work, reveals something perhaps a little beyond the nationally exhibited artist's reach, yet accurately reflects the crippled man's pains, needs and desires. When he died Jan. 13, the painter from the Blackfeet Nation left all that behind....
His photos document the lives of the cowboys Bob Moorhouse looks every inch the cowboy. Six feet tall. Marlboro man mustache and serious cowboy hat. Blue jeans and boots. Only this cowboy packs a Canon digital camera instead of a six-shooter. Mr. Moorhouse has become something of a legend himself. He is nationally recognized for his photos of real cowboys hard at work on a real ranch. "I'm a cowboy first," he says, "but a camera usually goes with me."....
On The Edge of Common Sense: No cudding! Cow's digestion incredible I am a student of the cow. I have come to conclude that cows lead a fairly boring life. When I am giving cows their sporadic weekly check, I think it's probably the high point of their day. They graze their life away, and if they are not grazing, they are chewing their cud. This cud is part of a magnificent ruminant digestive process that allows them to digest foods that are virtually inedible to simple-stomached animals like people. For instance, cows derive nutritional benefit from lettuce! Who'd'a thunk it?....