NEWS ROUNDUP

Mo. pups could boost mexican gray wolf population The endangered Mexican gray wolf population could swell by 10 percent this spring, after two wolves in captivity gave birth this weekend, and three more are expecting. The potential for 26 new pups is a welcome development for those working to preserve the rare wolves at the Wild Canid Survival and Research Center in suburban St. Louis. It's not such good news for opponents in a long-running fight against the wolves' reintroduction into the wild. In the 1970s, the wolves disappeared completely from the United States, canid center director Susan Lyndaker Lindsey said. Beginning in 1998, Mexican gray wolves were reintroduced in the Southwest. There are currently about 60 in Arizona and New Mexico, another 200 or so in captivity, Lyndaker Lindsey said....
Truth in the Wild: A Great Dad That Wanders Wide In the gathering darkness four biologists wearing headlamps surround an unconscious wolverine that is flat on its back, legs akimbo. They check a transmitter implanted in its belly and fit another larger one on a collar around its heavily muscled neck. Then they inject the animal with the antidote to the drug that knocked it out, and place it in a box trap. An hour or so later, when the lid of the trap is opened, the animal clambers out and runs into the forest. Every two hours the position of the wolverine - known as M-1 - is fixed by a geo-positioning satellite and recorded in the collar. A few weeks later the wolverine is recaptured, and a record of its travels is downloaded from the collar into a laptop. The result confirms data that the researchers have accumulated over three years. Wolverines are wildly peripatetic....
Fish-noshing sea lions at Bonneville in for a scare Fireworks bombardment, high-pressure water hoses and irritating sounds broadcast underwater -- these are the means of persuasion in store for a pair of sea lions that have stationed themselves inside fish passage structures at Bonneville Dam. Sea lions are gathering in growing numbers at Bonneville Dam to feast on salmon. Until now, the far-ranging marine mammals have not climbed the fish ladders. One individual this year has made repeated runs up and down both of the fishways, eating a steelhead or two in front of visitors and the workers who count salmon. The new behavior presents a significant problem because the presence of sea lions within the narrow fish passageways could deter large numbers of salmon from entering and heading upstream to spawning grounds....
BLM contends mineral rights on claim valueless The Bureau of Land Management says a man's 161 mining claims on 4,360 acres of public land are worthless and cannot be used as a basis for ownership. After a three-year review the BLM filed a complaint that Joe Freeman's claims along Rough and Ready Creek lack enough mineral value to make mining economical. "Minerals have not been found on any of the 161 mining claims in sufficient qualities or quantities to constitute a discovery," the complaint said. "The lands ... are non-mineral in character." To gain ownership claimants must show mineral validity. Freeman can challenge the findings. "This is huge," said Barbara Ullian of Grants Pass, a member of the environmental group Siskiyou Regional Education Project. "Rough and Ready Creek needs to be permanently protected. It's an exceptional place."....
Loggers hear predictions from global-warming experts Some experts say global warming is changing wooded regions across the nation, and Northwest timber industry workers are among those following the phenomenon amid concern it could eventually affect their livelihoods. Glacier National Park is expected to be devoid of its namesake ice formations by 2040, according to U.S. Geological Survey scientists. What's more, the Earth's northern hemisphere has been growing greener over the last two decades as temperatures rise, according to NASA satellite images. For the region's forests, these changes could have serious consequences, said Steven Running, an ecology professor from the University of Montana who was among speakers who addressed 100 loggers at the Intermountain Logging Conference in Spokane last week. They include increased insect plagues and less snowpack, which acts as a wildfire-prevention blanket....
Reps: Protect top of Roan U.S. Rep. John Salazar on Monday formally called on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management not to approve any drilling on top of the Roan Plateau over the next 20 years. Salazar, D-Colo., represents Colorado's 3rd Congressional District. The district includes Garfield County, home to the plateau, which rises to an elevation of 9,000 feet northwest of Rifle. A second Colorado member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., took a like-mannered position Monday. DeGette said drilling should be delayed on the plateau top for the 20-year life of the management plan, or until technology will allow the gas under the top to be accessed from the surrounding base through directional drilling....
Judge rules state can join Salt Creek lawsuit A U.S. District Court judge has ruled that the state can intervene in a lawsuit filed by San Juan County against the federal government over ownership of an overgrown road that runs several miles into Canyonlands National Park. Judge Bruce Jenkins last week ruled that the state could become a party in a suit in which the county is claiming the road under RS 2477, a Civil War-era federal statute that grants broad rights-of-way across unreserved federal lands. The trail in question, known as Salt Creek Road, is an unpaved, ungraded trail that crosses Salt Creek, the third-largest source of water in the park. The road leads to Angel Arch, one of the park's most popular attractions. A federal judge ordered Salt Creek closed to traffic in 1998 in response to a lawsuit brought by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which claimed damage caused by vehicles. The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the court to reexamine the record, but the National Park Service closed the road last June because of damage. The state claims in its complaint that the county maintained and improved the Salt Creek Road for decades before Canyonlands National Park was established. The state also claims the road was used from the 1920s to the mid-1960s to drive cattle and move trail supplies to cowboy camps, in addition to serving as a jeep road for visitors and uranium prospectors into the 1950s....
State asserts rights to trails Gov. Frank Murkowski went out of his way Sunday to show the federal government that Alaska means business about asserting its rights on historic trails the state has identified as RS 2477 routes. The governor flew from Fairbanks to the remote settlement of Coldfoot, 250 miles north of Fairbanks on the Dalton Highway, where he met Iditarod musher Ramy Brooks of Healy and took a dogsled ride on one of three trails the state will file suit on today in the southern Brooks Range to get the Department of Interior to turn over unrestricted rights of way. The Coldfoot to Chandalar Lake Trail, a mining trail established by prospectors in 1906 seeking to strike it rich in the Chandalar Lake gold fields, is one of more than 650 trails the state has identified as historic routes that should have unrestricted public rights of way. The state will file suit against the Department of Interior today in federal district court in Washington, D.C., for quiet title to three of those trails, all located in the vicinity of Coldfoot, as an attempt to gain control of the three trails "for whatever future need we might want." All three trails cross land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management....
Plan to store natural gas in wildlife refuge gains support Federal officials have given preliminary approval to a request by Unocal Corp. to store natural gas in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The project now is awaiting approval from the Bureau of Land Management. Unocal's proposal calls for storing gas in the Swanson River oil field on the refuge. Company officials say storing gas at the site will ensure there is enough gas for customers, even in high-demand times, such as cold winter days. The company wants to bring gas from wells outside the field and store it in reservoirs there, which would allow quicker delivery to customers. Unocal's lease agreements in the refuge are for exploration and production of oil and gas only, as well as storing some gas found in the refuge. Because gas would be brought into the field from outside sources, federal officials consider the storage proposal a separate use requiring approval....
Pipeline firms get great deals on Indian lands Pipeline companies operating on Navajoland allegedly are getting "sweetheart deals" on rights of ways, according to a December 2004 article published by SmartMoney.com. In August 2003, Alan Balaran, special master overseeing the Cobell v. Norton class-action lawsuit, filed a report in U.S. District Court alleging the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was giving pipeline companies "lowball deals" on Indian land being developed in the San Juan Basin. BIA has denied the charges. A Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spokesman told SmartMoney.com that the Farmington field office has approved more rights of way than any other field office in the United States....
Mobil Fined Nearly $1 Million for Air Pollution on Navajo Lands The U.S. Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced a settlement with Mobil Exploration & Producing U.S. Inc. worth nearly $1 million for alleged Clean Air Act violations that affected air quality on the territory of the Navajo Nation. The violations took place at Mobil’s oil production facility on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area near Aneth, Utah. The company will pay a $350,000 penalty and spend about $500,000 on operation improvements to control air pollution at its oil field. Mobil will also spend $99,849 on a public health project that will provide X-ray equipment, an X-ray processor and a pulmonary function testing machine to the Montezuma Creek Community Health Center in Montezuma Creek, Utah....
Power plant plans shrink Black Hills Power has scaled back its plan for a 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant to 100 megawatts, according to the company. The downsizing is due to a lack of transmission capacity to properly market the power, and because of ongoing air quality concerns downwind at national parks in western South Dakota. For example, DEQ's Air Quality Division had issued an emission permit to Black Hills Power in 2002, allowing it to construct WyGen No. 2 at 500 megawatts of capacity. But the National Park Service appealed the permit; then both Black Hills Power and the Park Service asked for time to negotiate emission parameters. The concern for the Park Service is that visibility at Wind Cave National Park and Badlands National Park is so clear that even a modest addition of particulates might be detectable and considered a degradation of visibility. Those negotiations led to an agreement by Black Hills Power to lower the emission design and build what would be the cleanest coal-fired power plant in the nation, according to DEQ. But the Park Service still didn't drop its appeal....
National Park Superintendent Leaves Under Cloud of Controversy Yet is Given 'Prestigious' Award Residents of the Wrangell -- St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST) are outraged to hear of the recent bestowal of the Stephen T. Mather Award on former WRST Superintendent Gary Candelaria by the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA). Candelaria left his position under a cloud of controversy several months ago after allegations of inholder harassment, illegal road and trail closures, destruction of resources, selective enforcement, and other issues surfaced, according to Susan Smith, chairman of Residents of the Wrangells. Landowners were forced to join together to form a community organization, Residents of the Wrangells (ROW), in an effort to address and solve their problems with the National Park Service (NPS) and work with Alaskan legislators. "Most outside observers would consider his departure from Alaska as being under a cloud, yes...even disgraced. But NO! He's a hero to the NPCA and the NPS. They give him accolades and awards!" Smith said....
New Poll Says 3 in 5 Would Donate to National Parks on their Federal Tax Returns According to a new poll conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), 61% of likely voters expressed the likelihood to donate to the national parks if given the option to do so on their federal tax returns. Based on the number of tax returns filed in 2002, survey results indicate that as much as $650 million could be realized annually with the addition of a check-off box benefiting the parks on federal tax returns. “This outstanding support for our national parks comes at a critical time,” said NPCA President Tom Kiernan. “Funding for America’s national parks is at a ‘bear’ minimum. A tax check-off can help to address the parks’ critical maintenance and natural and cultural preservation needs.”....
Protestors decry hunting of feral pigs on Santa Cruz island Sign-toting demonstrators took to the Santa Barbara waterfront to protest what they call the slaughter of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island. Hunters hired by federal park officials began shooting the pigs over the weekend.The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy say thousands of pigs on the island have got to go to save the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox and other imperiled species....
Fishermen seek disaster declaration over tight salmon seasons Commercial salmon fishermen in Oregon and California are seeking federal disaster assistance because of sharp reductions in fishing seasons they blame on continuing water problems in the Klamath Basin. Claiming commercial salmon trollers from Santa Cruz, Calif., to Florence, Ore., could lose up to $100 million from lost fishing opportunities this summer, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations has called on the governors of California and Oregon to support a fisheries disaster declaration from NOAA Fisheries. "This is a disaster of federal making, caused by a policy of letting too little water remain in the Klamath River,'' said Glen Spain of the federation representing about 2,000 boats, most of them from California. "We may be facing future fisheries disasters for the same reasons.'' California Department of Fish and Game biologists have said the likely cause of the low returns this year is the increasing numbers of young fish succumbing to parasites as they migrate to the ocean. Some scientists think the parasites may be proliferating because low wintertime flows no longer flush them out of the river....
N.D. considers Lake of the Woods water transfer North Dakota is considering a plan to transfer water by pipeline from Lake of the Woods, located on the Canada-U.S. border, in the event of a severe drought, which it predicts will occur within 25 years. The proposal is likely to fan Canada-U.S. tensions already simmering over the Devil's Lake project, also in North Dakota, which would transfer poor-quality and parasite-infected water into the Red River running through Manitoba....
Builders, environmentalists set Placer vernal pool pact Developers, environmental groups and federal agencies have agreed to protect fleeting seasonal pools in one of California's fastest-growing areas, south Placer County near Sacramento. Vernal pools and the rare protected species they shelter usually prompt extended fights and delays, but the groups hope the cooperative approach can be repeated elsewhere. This is the first such agreement federal officials could recall in California, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Al Donner. It requires that for every acre of vernal pools that is destroyed by development, two acres are purchased and preserved. The developers agreed to buy three key areas totaling 1,084 acres of seasonal wetlands that are in the immediate path of development, and to pay the Placer County Land Trust to buy at least another 1,000 acres within five years. The agreement also calls for eventually protecting another 3,835 acres. The developers also agree to pay for two studies on the cumulative effects of vernal pool loss in the Central Valley, and whether the current practice of protecting small areas of wetlands around development is enough to maintain the biological diversity of the unique vernal pool species....
A Policy Showdown in Prairie Wetlands The marshes, bogs and seasonal ponds in this heartland state are at the center of a tug of war between two of President Bush's most-valued constituencies — hunters who want to preserved game habitat and farmers who want land they can till. As an avid hunter and the owner of a Texas ranch, Bush has reached out to both groups. Three years ago, he signed a farm bill increasing spending by almost 80%. Last year, Bush invited leaders of several hunting and fishing groups to his ranch to reassure them of his concern for wetlands. Before the election, he vowed: "Instead of just limiting our losses, we will expand wetlands." But interviews and government reports show that, although the administration has offered farmers financial incentives, the primary tools for wetland preservation have been weakened. As the result of a court ruling and administration policy, key Clean Water Act provisions are not being applied in many instances. And an agricultural program that prohibits farmers from draining wetlands has a long history of poor enforcement....
Column: Is Texas' glass half full? You may not see it at first, but if you look closely, you'll see David Dewhurst's size-14 footprint along the banks of the Trinity River. For that matter, you'll see it alongside the Gulf Coast near Galveston and Corpus Christi and in West Texas above the Ogallala Aquifer.Texas' lieutenant governor put his feet down firmly last week on every inch of the state's water policy. So did a bipartisan group of legislators, environmentalists and water experts, led by Democratic Sen. Ken Armbrister of Victoria. If the water reforms they presented pass this year – and let's hope they do – then we Texans will benefit when we turn on the tap, irrigate crops or fish in the Gulf. Senate Bill 3 deals with water conservation, river flows, funding projects and regulating aquifers, among other elements....
Klamath, Salmon Rivers Among Most Threatened A new report, released in Oakland on March 29 by the California Wilderness Coalition, features the Klamath and Salmon River watersheds among California's 10 most threatened wild places. The analysis, the fourth in a series of annual reports, considers the urgency and impact of threats to these landscapes, including water diversions, off road development, logging, and drilling. Several places included in this year's report, such as the Klamath Basin, were listed last year. It is hoped by fishermen's groups, Indian Tribes and environmental activists that the report's release will spur action by the federal and state governments to preserve and restore the Klamath and Salmon rivers and other California wild areas....
Sacramento executives bemoan construction roadblock The Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce began its annual lobbying foray onto Capitol Hill Monday with a dire warning that construction projects - ranging from housing projects to sewer and roads - are grinding to a halt because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' district office is backed up on its processing of wetlands permits. "People use the word delay," said John Hodgson, whose company of the same name oversees large-scale commercial and residential developments in the Sacramento area. "But I'd say that projects are being stopped." Hodgson ticked off a number of projects that, sometimes after years, still don't have the permits from the Corps of Engineers to proceed with construction. These projects involve sensitive wetlands where everyone else, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that oversees the Endangered Species Act, has issued their OK. "The city of Lincoln has been trying to get the Highway 65 bypass out for six or seven years," he said. A new water plant in Elk Grove has been stalled so long that the city could end up in violation of new arsenic standards that the plant was intended to meet, all because a corner of the five-acre property contains a wetlands, he said. And construction at the Sacramento International Airport also is being held up, Hodgson said....
Resurrection Ecology Chases the Red Queen Hypothesis Layered in the sediments of rivers and lakes are the remains of generation upon generation of tiny animals known as zooplankton. In the 1990s, Kerfoot was among a team of scientists studying these creatures in Germany when they made a startling discovery: The zooplankton weren't all dead. Or at least their eggs weren't. "They should have died, but they didn't," Kerfoot said. "They revive, and we don't quite understand how it happens." It doesn't take much to bring them back to life, either. "We just sieve them out of the sediment and wake them up in an incubator," he says. "Then we grow them up. We have entire populations from nearly 100 years ago." A whole new field, termed by Kerfoot resurrection ecology, is emerging from those original discoveries. Its techniques allow scientists to study organisms from the past and compare them with their modern counterparts. As reported recently in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, Kerfoot has been doing just that in Michigan's Portage Lake, reviving eggs from a small, shrimp-like animal, Daphnia retrocurva, from various sediment layers going back to the 1920s....
Ranchers sue Canada over disease Canadian ranchers hard hit by a ban on cattle exports to the United States on Monday sued Canada's federal government, accusing it of negligently allowing mad cow disease to devastate the cattle industry. The coordinated class-action lawsuits, filed in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec, seek at least $5.7 billion, the industry's estimated losses to date, and another $81 million in punitive damages. They claim the federal government introduced a regulation in 1990 that specifically allowed the feeding of cattle parts to other cattle, the method through which mad cow disease is transmitted. That was a full two years after Great Britain had banned the practice because of the risk and about three years after Canada banned cattle imports from the United Kingdom and Ireland that were not from farms certified as free of the disease. It was only in 1997 that Canada banned the practice of feeding cattle to other cattle....
Staging a revival A rare relic from a short, colorful episode in Texas history sits dissolving and crumbling into the dirt of a Cibolo Creek flood plain, near where Old Austin Road used to run. Selma residents had long referred to the small building as an old stagecoach stop and post office. But until about five years ago, nobody knew how old or how significant the structure was. Local historian Jean Heide stumbled onto the first real clue while chasing down her family's genealogy. She had found the name of a stagecoach contractor listed in an 1850 census and later learned he had once lived near the Selma stage stop. Heide was excited. Here was a chance to demystify the foggy past of the craggy building. "It had been folklore for years," she said. "Nobody had ever done any research or documentation on it." Heide put her family history project on hold and focused on the stage stop. The structure was probably built in the late 1840s or early 1850s, possibly when the first stagecoach service began between San Antonio and Austin, she learned. Its walls are made from a mix of lime, sand, pebbles, rock and a few corncobs — altogether, an early form of concrete known as tabby — and it is one of four similarly constructed buildings in Texas, according to a preliminary archaeological report. It's also one of just 13 stage stops left in the state....
100 years of growth Friends and family came from all over the country Saturday to help Molly Yeakel celebrate 100 years of happy memories. "I have so many memories," Molly said. "I can go to bed at night and think about them and dream about them." At the age of 100, Molly has had a full life - much of which she's spent living between Rifle and Glenwood Springs ranching and farming. When she was young, Molly helped her father on the family farm. "I worked in the field with Dad," Molly said. "I even helped him dig ditches. We raised sugar beets. We worked hard pulling them out of the ground. I worked really hard." Molly put off getting married until she felt sure her father would have some help. Her two brothers were very young and couldn't do much on the farm. She was the oldest of eight - six girls and two boys. The farm was in Antlers, a rural community between Silt and Rifle. That's where Molly lived from the time she was 14 until she moved to Glenwood at the age of 66....
Home on the range The afternoon sun floods the Florida prairie in warm light as the dogs circle the cattle, barking and nipping them into a tight circle. Cliff Coddington, a sixth-generation Florida cowboy, looks down from in his saddle, bemused by dogs so well-trained he can just sit back and watch them work. Or maybe, there is something about the look of the land in the fading light after a long day of outdoors that thrills him. Or maybe there is something about herding cattle after all these years. He can't say. Coddington is among the last of a generation from this region raised on small family farms, reared by his parents to be a cowboy and raise cattle. Between rapid development in Florida swallowing farmland and a changing agriculture industry, the small family farm over the last several decades has steadily been disappearing, Coddington says. Unable to survive on their own, people have had to seek work at bigger farms or try another profession. On his mother's side, Coddington's family ranching history dates back to Mary Isibell Williams, who along with her husband, James, were among the first to settle along the Manatee River in the mid-1800s. James was handicapped in the Civil War and Mary Isibell, a real pistol as the story goes, ran the cattle. "She was one of the first cattlewomen in Florida. You can check that history book, 'Singing River,' " Coddington says....
It's All Trew: True life tales are stranger than fiction Ralph Wilkinson, an uncle of mine, reached his eighteenth birthday in the year 1915, living with his folks along Wolf Creek in Ochiltree County. Their ranch was about where the Lake Fryer road turns off of Highway 83 south of Perryton. Ralph was out of school, desperately in love, wanting to get married, broke financially but rich in cowboy knowledge. A job came up driving a herd of cattle to Wyoming taking about three months to go and return. He would save his money and promised his love they could marry as soon as he returned. The herd made it to Wyoming where his boss bought a herd of horses and mules to deliver to Fort Union in southern New Mexico. This took another two months but Ralph would have twice as much money for his upcoming marriage. When he finally returned home, his love had moved to another town and married another man....

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