NEWS ROUNDUP

Lockyer Suit Seeks to Save Sequoias State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to block a U.S. Forest Service plan to permit commercial logging in the Giant Sequoia National Monument. The suit, which follows a similar one filed in January by conservation groups, alleges that the Forest Service is violating protections granted in 2000 by President Clinton, when he established the 328,000-acre monument in the southern Sierra northeast of Bakersfield. Clinton's declaration barred timber production, saying that trees could be removed in the monument "only if clearly needed for ecological restoration and maintenance or public safety."....
Forest Service management under fire Angeles National Forest users criticized the U.S. Forest Service's management of the 650,000-acre wilderness at a lively and crowded public meeting Wednesday. More than 100 people turned out for a question-and-answer session with Forest Supervisor Jody Noiron. Over the past several years, a number of local Forest Service decisions have ruffled feathers. Closed roads, evacuation of cabin owners during the fire season and environmental damage in Rubio Canyon have brought a litany of complaints from hikers, cabin owners and environmental watchdogs....
Forest fires huge culprit in creating greenhouse gases Even if every Canadian met the government's "one-tonne challenge" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the whole effort could be wiped out by a few big forest fires, researchers say. In a bad year, forest fires in Canada can produce pollution equal to that generated by industry. The National Forest Strategy Coalition says such fires across the country can produce 150 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in a single year -- five times what the one-tonne challenge program would save. Just three fires that raged in British Columbia two summers ago pumped out 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide....
Enviros using fat argument in appeal Americans are getting fat. That's why we should close more roads on the Flathead National Forest, a local environmental group is claiming in its appeal of the West Side Reservoir salvage plan. This may be the first time the waistlines of Americans have ever entered into the discussion of a Forest Service appeal. "The Forest Service has missed a golden opportunity here to demonstrate that what is good for the bear is also good for human health," Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, said. "While the South Fork bear population is declining, the American waistline is increasing. Implementing Amendment 19 would not only help secure grizzly bear habitat by limiting motorized vehicles, it would increase opportunities near Kalispell for folks to get the quiet exercise needed to lose weight and reduce stress."....
Federal officials to explain changes to lynx, water plans Federal forestry and agriculture officials have agreed to visit Colorado to explain their decision to change protections for water and the Canadian lynx in the White River National Forest management plan. The officials also have promised a further explanation to U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who requested a meeting with the officials Wednesday to state his concerns about the Bush administration's December decision. Salazar said that at the meeting, Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture David Tenny and regional forester Rick Cables explained that they are trying to develop a regionwide "Rocky Mountain approach" to dealing with the lynx....
Coyote sightings in eastern U.S. The wily coyote, denizen of the West and bane of ranchers, has come to downtown Washington D.C. and the government wants to know where they are and what they're doing. "Don't leave out pet food at night," said National Park Service ranger Ken Ferebee. "And, you know, don't leave your pets out at night either." Coyotes were first seen late last year at the outer edges of Rock Creek Park, a natural hardwood forest of valleys and hillsides that runs in a narrow band through northwest Washington and its suburbs and borders Georgetown, Washington's most famous neighborhood, known for its historic elegance. But Ferebee spotted one recently near the embassy district, a stone's throw from Georgetown and about a 10-minute drive from the White House. The Park Service has received reports of four other sightings near the same spot....
Man Will Serve Time For Shooting Sea Lions A charter boat captain who shot at sea lions off Catalina Island last fall was sentenced Thursday to federal prison for two months. John Gary Woodrum, a 38-year-old Harbor City resident, was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service at a marine mammal rescue center in San Pedro. Woodrum pleaded guilty in January to a pair of misdemeanor counts of attempting to kill a marine mammal -- a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act....
State urged to close up to 8 elk feeding sites Environmentalists are asking Gov. Dave Freudenthal to consider phasing out as many as eight of Wyoming's 23 elk feedgrounds to help control diseases like brucellosis. The list submitted by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and Wyoming Outdoor Council includes three feedgrounds in the Gros Ventre River drainage east of the National Elk Refuge near Jackson. Lloyd Dorsey, of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, said those three could be closed first under a pilot program. "We want to make sure the private livestock and private lands are taken care of," Dorsey said. A Brucellosis Task Force appointed by Freudenthal submitted recommendations including a controversial test-and-slaughter program at one feedground. Elk would be corralled and tested and the ones testing positive would be slaughtered....
Panther killed in fight after relocation Environmentalists are saying "I told you so" in the death of a young male Florida panther killed by another big cat after he was relocated. The Miccosukkee Indian Tribe had asked last May to move the 11-month-old panther after it began getting too close to Florida Everglades residents without showing any fear of humans. Conservationists warned tranquilizing the cat and moving it would place its life in danger from older bigger males. Male panthers are known to be territorial and will kill other panthers trying to invade their turf....
Wolf study relying on donations Yellowstone National Park is relying more heavily on private donations this year to keep its wolf program running without having to make cuts elsewhere. In the past, the high-profile wolf program has received most of its funding from federal dollars and rounded out its budget with donations from the nonprofit Yellowstone Park Foundation, according to park figures. But in 2004 and 2005, private money has paid for a majority of the work, which includes long-term wolf research, collaring and other studies looking for changes in the Yellowstone ecosystem since the reintroduction of wolves 10 years ago. The shift to reliance on private dollars is part of an effort to keep the wolf program viable and pay for other cultural and natural resource programs, said Tom Olliff, chief of Yellowstone's branch of natural resources....
Lawmakers back checkoff for parks Federal lawmakers reached across the political aisle this week to help fund national parks, introducing legislation that would let citizens earmark tax dollars for the cause. "This bill allows Americans to show their pride in America,'' said Tom Kiernan, president of the National Parks Conservation Association. The proposal, sponsored for the GOP by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., and for Democrats by Rep. Brian Baird, R-Wash., is called the National Park Centennial Act of 2005. It aims to deliver money for maintaining and preserving the parks through 2016, the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. While states have in the past funded special projects through voluntary checkoffs on tax forms, the bill would mark the first time such an option was offered on federal tax returns. The money is needed, Kiernan said, to bolster financing for both backlogged maintenance and annual operation of parks....
Washoe residents question possible sale of federal land If there was a single question about a proposed federal bill to sell off public lands in Washoe County, local residents wanted to know where the water would come from to support private development. And conservationist Tina Nappe said residents already are paying steep water bills — and don’t need any more competition for water that could raise bills even higher. More than 200 people attended a town hall meeting Thursday night in Washoe County Commission chambers regarding a federal bill that could be similar to the Southern Nevada Public Land Act of 1998, which allows the federal government to auction public lands to private developers....
Limits on drilling called Utah bane Utah is losing the game when it comes to making money off vast natural gas reserves locked deep underground in the Uinta Basin, according to one Denver-based company. On Thursday, representatives of Bill Barrett Corp., an oil and natural gas exploration company, renewed their charge that restrictive federal land use policies and bureaucratic strangleholds are slowing drilling in Utah. The company's message comes as it prepares to file an application with the Bureau of Land Management to expand drilling operations in Nine Mile Canyon, an archaeological treasure trove of prehistoric rock art formations. Don Banks, a BLM Utah spokesman, said the bureau is expecting a full-field development proposal from Bill Barrett Corp., as early as today. The proposal will seek expanded drilling operations and removal of winter drilling restrictions. An environmental impact study of the proposal could take two years or longer to complete before a decision is made....
Water Fight in the Mojave quarrel over waterholes in the Mojave is pitting hunters against naturalists, the needs of game animals against those of federally protected wildlife, and is resurrecting decade-old differences over the purpose of a national preserve. Until recently, the dispute has been limited to mule deer and bighorn sheep hunters who favor the creation of more desert water sources and conservationists who argue that man-made waterholes draw predators that prey on the threatened California desert tortoise. Now, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of the Interior has intervened on behalf of hunters and demanded the uncapping of 12 plugged wells, an action that would reverse a long-standing water policy in the 1.6-million-acre Mojave National Preserve. That, in turn, prompted a lawsuit this week by two environmental groups that say the order is illegal. Ever since the preserve was created 11 years ago, the National Park Service, which manages it, has been working to buy out a handful of cattle ranches scattered through the preserve and cap wells that supplied water to livestock. Some of the buyout agreements, which were financed by the nonprofit National Park Foundation, called for the permanent capping of all ranch wells....
Column: Water Contracts Declare War on Fish The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced its decision to perpetuate California's fish and water problems for decades by beginning to sign contracts with about 200 water districts and water contractors in the Central Valley Project last week. Rather than heeding the pleas of fishermen, Indian tribes and environmental organizations to slow down the process so that the environmental impacts of these contracts could be properly reviewed with full public input, the Bush administration decided to proceed with a process that serves the Westlands Water District and other corporate water kings rather than the public trust. On February 25, The Bureau began signing contracts for 25 or 40 years, depending upon the contract type. The contracts will provide water for 3.7 million acres of farmland in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, including vast tracts of corporate farms on the San Joaquin's west side that never should have been farmed because of the damage caused to fish, wildlife and the environment....
House passes Nez Perce bill The Idaho House has passed three bills Wednesday supporting one of the largest water rights agreements in the West. House bills 152, 153 and 154 -- all supporting the proposed multimillion dollar agreement between the Nez Perce Tribe, the state and federal government -- passed with strong support after Rep. Dell Raybould told lawmakers that much of the opposition surrounding the agreement was based on wrong information. The bills now move to the Idaho Senate. "This is good for the state of Idaho. It's good for the citizens of the state of Idaho. And I believe this body has an obligation to uphold this agreement," Raybould said....
Column: Clear Skies, Healthy Forests If you don't trust the environmentalists, you may want to listen to the doctors. Mount Sinai Medical School has just released a study that, in its scientific way, indicts the Bush administration's mercury policy as not only harming children but (conservatives take note) damages the economy. The report calculates that the U.S. loses $8.7 billion annually in productivity, of which $1.3 billion is directly attributable to mercury emissions from U.S. power plants. The Mt. Sinai study was based not on wild conjecture but on mercury exposure data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It reports that from 300,000 to 600,000 American children are born every year with mercury levels associated with IQ loss. According to the report, "The resulting loss of intelligence causes diminished economic productivity that persists over the entire lifetime of these children. This lost productivity is the major cost of methylmercury toxicity…"....
Sun Storms Deplete Ozone Turns out the sun itself zaps the ozone that protects us from the sun. LiveScience is reporting that the record-setting string of solar storms around Halloween in 2003 (including an X28 flare) set off a cascade of events that depleted the ozone layer over the Arctic in early 2004. In a nutshell, more nitrogen was created, and an unusually strong vortex of high-speed winds aloft brought the nitrogen down, where it contributed to cutting ozone by 60 percent over the polar region. In January, the a European scientist warned residents of the far north to basically stay out of the sun. While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact.
Feds probe GOP team's link to lobbyist Interior Department officials are investigating whether the outgrowth of a Republican environmental group founded by Gale Norton before she became secretary of the Interior has been using its influence to help a Washington lobbyist sway the agency's decisions. The inquiry into the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy's activities comes in the wake of reports linking it to political donations solicited from Indian tribes by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist now under criminal investigation and the subject of Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings. The Arizona Republic reported Sunday that CREA was sent $175,000 by two Indian tribes at the urging of Abramoff. No accounting for the tribal donations has been found in public records required of advocacy groups, and CREA President Italia Federici would not comment on the whereabouts of the money. The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General is reviewing all dealings, communications and connections between department officials and members of CREA, a spokesman for Norton said Wednesday....
Column: Let's teach our kids the way of the land This month the United Nations officially begins the "Decade of Education for Sustainable Development." Most students would respond no, skeptical about the topic's relevance to their lives. Young people are educated to believe they are separate from and superior to the natural world. Yet this attitude is the root cause of our environmental problems. To change this attitude, the heart and spirit of each young person must be touched and become part of the education process. Engaging the heart and spirit is essential for students to feel their connection to nature, which creates the passion to live more sustainable lives. These ideas need to inform our educational mission. Among our primary tasks as citizens, teachers and students is constructing a new narrative for ourselves with a new set of dreams. Understanding and healing our separation from nature is the most critical part of this process....
Another blow to cotton subsidies Thursday the other shoe dropped on US cotton subsidies when a World Trade Organization (WTO) appeals panel upheld most of a ruling made last September that finds some cotton subsidies and export subsidies in violation of WTO rules. The WTO's Appellate Body upheld the September ruling that marketing loan payments and counter-cyclical payments to producers caused "significant price suppression" in the world market for upland cotton. It also found that the WTO panel, which issued the September ruling, did not use the wrong burden of proof when it found that "the United States' export credit guarantee programs are prohibited export subsidies." Technically, the new ruling applies mainly to cotton, but the subsidies it affects, marketing loan gains, loan deficiency payments and counter cyclical payments, apply to other farm program commodities such as corn and soybeans....
Hick-hop country? You're kidding, right? This year, Troy Coleman is 34, goes by the name ''Cowboy Troy'' and is attempting to become the first African-American superstar in country music since Charley Pride. Oh yes, and he's also trying to make it onto the country airwaves by rapping rather than singing. With country instruments backing his raps, Troy calls his style ''hick-hop.'' ''It made perfect sense to me,'' the Texas-bred Troy said of his genre-bending fusion. ''When you go into country bars, you'll see a band play 45 minutes of country music and then at the break the DJ will put on whatever rap or hip-hop is popular at the time. Cowboys and cowgirls pack the floor. It's not like I'm the only guy wearing a cowboy hat who likes rap music as much as I like country music.''....
Campfire Café Saddles Up with American Cowboy Magazine American Cowboy Magazine will feature articles, recipes and open fire tips and techniques from Johnny Nix during 2005-2006. The most widely read Western lifestyle magazine, featuring entertainment, the Arts, history, travel, cooking, music, fashion and rodeo – American Cowboy is the number one source for outstanding content that captures the spirit of the West. “The alliance with American Cowboy Magazine is a natural”, says executive producer, Pamela Alford. “There’s a little cowboy spirit in all of us and open fire cooking fits right in with the lifestyle American Cowboy represents.” Nix has inspired viewers to give this traditional cowboy way of cooking a try by introducing gourmet recipes and step-by-step instruction in weekly television programming for almost three years. His weekly demonstrations of this method of cooking as a recreational, family-oriented activity is catching the eye of organizations that promote healthy, outdoor pursuits. “We’d like to remind folks that are too busy to spend quality time with their kids that we all have to eat”, says Nix. “Might as well stoke up a campfire and cook some good food – never met a kid that didn’t like to poke in the fire.”....
Flickacat Wins Cutting's Top Prize Over 500 cutting horse enthusiasts made their way to Amarillo, Texas, last month for the 2004 National Cutting Horse Association's (NCHA) World Championship Finals. After 10 days of competition, 11 new World Champions were crowned. In the NCHA, riders compete throughout the year, hauling to cutting competitions across the country. Each top placing earns the contestant money, and the top 50 money earners are invited to the World Championship Finals. Whoever wins the most money in each division is crowned World Champion. In the Open competition, Chubby Turner of Weatherford, Texas, entered the Finals with a lock on the World Championship title. Riding Flickacat, who is owned by Dave and Georgia Husby, Turner had more than $75,000 in earnings in 2004 - $40,000 more than the second place horse. Turner traveled more than 35,000 miles last year to claim his title....