NEWS ROUNDUP

2005 grazing fee announced by BLM/Forest Service The Federal grazing fee for Western public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service will be $1.79 per animal unit month (AUM) in 2005, up from $1.43 in 2004. The newly adjusted fee, which takes effect March 1, applies to more than 18,000 grazing permits and leases administered by the BLM and more than 8,000 permits administered by the Forest Service. The formula used for calculating the grazing fee, established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act, has continued under a presidential Executive Order issued in 1986. Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year’s level. Without the 25 percent cap, the 2005 fee would have risen to $1.99 per AUM. An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month....
Two new bison bills introduced in Legislature Two new bison bills have been introduced to the Montana Legislature, giving lawmakers even more to chew on in what has been a confusing and contentious situation for years. One bill calls for the spaying or castrating of animals leaving Yellowstone National Park, then shipping them to Indian reservations. The second removes some authority over bison from the Montana Department of Livestock....
Bill tackles worry over lions Ranchers in the hills along the Central Valley keep close watch over their sheep, cattle and dogs, fearful that a mountain lion will swoop in for the kill. Since the early 1970s — the last time mountain lion hunting was legal in California — the state has issued an increasing number of permits to kill lions that have attacked livestock and pets. Documented attacks on people have been more frequent, too, with 10 in the past 15 years, compared with five over the 100-year period ending in 1990....
Scientists Ordered Not to Complete Survey The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has directed its scientists not to respond to surveys even on personal time unless the agency pre-approves the survey questions, according to directives released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under this new policy, employees face disciplinary action for disclosing their personal views of their work at a public agency. In November, the two organizations distributed a 42-question survey to more than 1,400 Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, ecologists, botanists and other science professionals across the country. The survey focuses on employee perceptions about scientific integrity within USFWS, as well as political interference, resources and morale. This survey, like many conducted by PEER since 1995, was mailed to work addresses. But, in reversal of policy established in 2001, the agency ordered scientists not to fill out the surveys even on their own time. Notwithstanding that order, more than 400 scientists, (29.4%), returned the survey. Results will be released Wednesday, February 9, at 1:00 p.m. EST....
Old age getting best of world's second biggest tree Old age has gotten the best of the second-biggest tree in the world. The giant sequoia known as the Washington Tree may not live much longer after suffering major damage in recent weeks from heavy snow and strong winds, according to officials at Sequoia National Park. The tree once stood more than 254 feet tall with a base circumference slightly more than 101 feet, according to the National Park Service. But the ancient giant lost its crown during a forest fire about 16 months ago. Researchers also discovered that the old tree was largely hollow, and recent storms took away much of the upper shell trunk....
A line in the snow The trees of Hope Valley are flocked and stately. All along Forestdale Creek Road, about a dozen miles south of Lake Tahoe, the scenery is straight out of the Hallmark winter collection. But don't be deceived. In the nationwide scuffle between snowmobilers and those who scorn them, this is contested territory. "You can hear them for miles," says Debbi Waldear, a champion cross-country skier and longtime local crusader against snowmobile traffic. Then she returns to her smooth stroke and long strides, a tiny, wiry figure gliding through pines on a lonely weekday afternoon. Her dog, Sage, bounds alongside. At the moment, thanks to a federal judge in Sacramento, Waldear and fellow crusaders are down, and the snowmobilers are on top. But this battle has been seesawing for 12 years, and nobody expects it to end soon. If the big noise in Hope Valley has shown anything, it's that snowmobilers are from Mars and skiers are from Venus....
Column: Can't See the Forest for the Symbols Tidy symbols tend to be more attractive than messy facts, and this is especially true in environmental politics. But choosing symbols over facts can be self-defeating, on both sides of conservation issues. And it isn't good for the environment either. One such symbol is the forest fire. The Bush administration is saying that fires in national forests, like southwestern Oregon's 2002 Biscuit Fire, threaten local communities and "forest health" and must be controlled by post-fire management such as salvage logging. The facts are messier, however. The mixed conifer forest in the Siskiyou Mountains, where the Biscuit Fire occurred, is mostly "fire-adapted" — that is, it benefits from fire, ecologically speaking. (And if fire suppression hadn't been practiced for nearly a century in the forest, the 2002 blaze wouldn't have been as destructive to human purposes as it was.)....
The Nature Conservancy announces cross-border project A cross-border partnership between The Nature Conservancy in Arizona and in Mexico will help to protect the largest and most ecologically important of the fresh water sources of the fragile San Pedro River—which flows to the north from Mexico into southeastern Arizona—by 2006, representatives of the two programs announced today. The Conservancy has been working in several ways to protect the entire San Pedro River watershed for 30 years. Toward that goal, the Conservancy and its Mexican partners plan to establish a 10,000-acre preserve at a lush and biologically rich site, known as Rancho Los Fresnos, at the river’s key source south of the international border in northeastern Sonora, Mexico, near Sierra Vista, Arizona. The historic working ranch has been sensitively managed by the same family for generations. The ranch also anchors the largest ciénega, an isolated desert spring or marsh, remaining in the San Pedro River watershed area, and links to one of the largest and highest quality grassland valleys in a region spanning several states and Mexico....
CA Apartment Fire Could Be Eco-Terror Officials are investigating whether an early morning fire at brand new apartment complex may be the work of radical environmentalists who also claimed responsibility for other recent Northern California arsons. Sutter Creek Chief of Police says the fire at the 128-unit Pinewoods apartment complex broke out around 3 am. Only two apartments were occupied and a fire suppression system confined the damage to a few units. Duke says there were seven fires and investigators found incendiary devices with crude triggering mechanisms. He says graffiti found near the fire said: "We will win -- ELF." An FBI-led task force is investigating whether recent fires at construction sites in Lincoln and Auburn are the work of a radical environmental group called the Earth Liberation Front -- or ELF....
Immigration bill could settle dispute over border fence The federal government and a powerful local Republican congressman have been pushing for years to fortify the 3 1/2-mile stretch of border just north of Tijuana, Mexico. Their plan is opposed by California coastal regulators and environmentalists who say it could harm a fragile Pacific estuary. Now supporters may be getting closer to victory. A provision in an immigration bill expected to pass the House next week would give the homeland security secretary authority to move forward with the project regardless of any laws that stand in the way, and would bar courts from hearing lawsuits against it....
Vegas suburb in Arizona? As Leonard Mardian wheels past vacant mine shafts and crumbling windmills in the Joshua tree-covered northwestern Arizona hills, his dreams are as large as anyone else rolling the dice 50 miles north in Las Vegas. Some day, Mardian says, his wild, remote Ranch at White Hills, south of Hoover Dam, will be home to 100,000 urban refugees fleeing high prices and congestion. It will be Las Vegas' own personal Arizona suburb. The four-lane bridge that will bypass the narrow U.S. 93 across Hoover Dam will be good to go in a little more than three years, cutting the commute time for Las Vegas-area workers to about an hour.... Meanwhile, Las Vegas is becoming increasingly landlocked in all other directions.
Bush trims Interior Dept 2006 budget to $10.65 bln - The Bush administration on Monday proposed cuts in funding for U.S. national parks and Indian affairs to trim the Interior Department's fiscal 2006 budget by 1 percent to $10.65 billion. President George W. Bush's budget request would cut the department's spending by $119 million from the $10.77 billion allocated by Congress for the current spending year. Funding for the National Park Service would fall $66 million to $2.25 billion, led by a $92 million decline in its land acquisition program. Still, spending to reduce a multi-billion dollar park maintenance backlog on roads and facilities would rise $29 million to $717 million. Also facing a cut is the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which would see its budget drop by $108 million to $2.19 billion due mostly to less funding for construction projects. The Interior Department budget plan also aims to raise fees charged to energy companies for permits and applications to drill in western lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and in offshore waters run by the Minerals Management Service....
Budget slashes farm payouts President Bush's budget for 2006 would cut agricultural subsidies by $5.7 billion over the next decade, a proposal already viewed skeptically by farmers and Congress. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns yesterday said the rollback for the politically popular payouts sends a signal "that everybody is going to be a part of this [deficit-cutting] initiative," a reference to an overall spending blueprint in which Mr. Bush proposed trimming or eliminating dozens of domestic programs. The Agriculture Department's overall budget for fiscal 2006 would remain close to 2005 spending levels, but payment to farmers and crop insurance programs would be cut while food safety, food stamp and child nutrition programs would be boosted. The cuts would especially affect major Southern crops, such as cotton and rice, by cutting payments to growers by 5 percent, lowering an annual ceiling on payments to individuals involved in farming to $250,000 from $360,000, and limiting who is eligible to receive such payments. Large farming operations often are broken up into several small corporations so they can receive several payments, a practice that would be curbed....
Big Pickup Trucks Eclipsing S.U.V.'s The big sport utility vehicle is in a slump. But the big pickup truck? It's going full tilt. S.U.V. sales continued to grow last year as buyers sought smaller-size models. But sales of larger S.U.V.'s like the Ford Explorer, Hummer H2 and Chevy Suburban appear to have reached a plateau. And for the first time in a decade, the sales growth of full-size pickup trucks outpaced the growth of S.U.V.'s over all, according to an analysis by the Ford Motor Company. Sales of full-size pickups rose 6.6 percent last year from 2003, compared with overall S.U.V. sales growth of 4.3 percent, Ward's AutoInfoBank data shows. While environmentalists and safety advocates have long trained their ire on the S.U.V., the growth in popularity of the full-size pickup truck, which has risen to 15 percent of new vehicle sales in the last dozen years from 8.5 percent, has been another culprit in the nation's swelling dependence on foreign oil. The average pickup truck has become 40 percent heavier in the last two decades and 11 percent less fuel-efficient, according to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency....
Songs from the heart of the West Three years ago, Canadian music icon Ian Tyson pointed his truck up a Nevada gravel road leading to a small box canyon. At the end of it was a secluded cabin, cozy and quiet. Surrounded by the austere, expansive landscape that is as central as his silky baritone to his long string of critically acclaimed albums, Tyson, then 67, had come to write songs. If I can't write 'em here, he thought, I can't write 'em any more. Turns out he can write 'em just fine. Tyson's newly released Songs From the Gravel Road, his first studio album in six years, offers 12 songs from both the heart of the West and the heart of a man disillusioned by the failure of love and the souring of a culture....
It's All Trew: Borrowing can turn friends to enemies A recent coffee shop session lasted two hours as the "Blow & Slurp" bunch recalled sad tales about borrowing and loaning various items down through the years. At the end we agreed that more friends and neighbors were lost, more feelings hurt and more enemies made over borrowing or loaning things than all other causes added together. One man recalled a neighbor too tight to own a horse and saddle, who borrowed his neighbor's to pen his small herd of cattle. He was not an experienced rider and fell off the horse, experiencing serious injury. He sued the horse owner and won his case....