NEWS ROUNDUP

Denver Federal Appeals Court to Hear Roadless Rule Argument On Tuesday, May 3, Forest Service officials were telling reporters to standby for the release of a Bush administration replacement to the Clinton era roadless rule. Nonetheless, arguments are scheduled to go forward tomorrow morning at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver over the legitimacy of the Clinton roadless rule. This visionary forest protection originally called for the protection of 58.5 million acres of large blocks of unroaded forests and grasslands that belong to all Americans. The State of Wyoming, which is defending a Wyoming federal district court's ruling striking down the roadless rule, argued to the Tenth Circuit that the court should dismiss the case because a replacement rule would soon be forthcoming from the Bush administration. So far the appeals court has not accepted that argument but indications are the Bush administration may attempt to avoid a legal ruling by releasing its replacement rule as soon as this week. Regardless of Bush administration actions, Earthjustice attorney Jim Angell will defend the landmark forest protection measure Wednesday morning at the court of appeals in Denver....
FS removes records; bison group 'shocked' A bison activist group and the U.S. Forest Service are at odds over the relevance of a cache of documents on a $13 million land deal north of Yellowstone National Park. The Buffalo Field Campaign alleges Gallatin National Forest officials intentionally removed several hundred pages of records on the 1999 agreement the group had sought under a Freedom of Information Act request. The Buffalo Field Campaign wants to study the effect of the deal on area bison herds. Gallatin National Forest officials maintain the records in question were old or duplicate documents and were removed as part of agency-wide housekeeping efforts. "They weren't anything that was relevant to what we're doing at this point," forest spokeswoman Lorette Ray in Bozeman said Tuesday. The 7,000-acre deal, involving public and private land, was brokered as a way to preserve wildlife habitat and protect park bison that wander into Montana each winter in search of forage. Bison that can't be herded back into the park are captured under a joint state-federal management plan, and those animals that test positive for brucellosis are sent to slaughter. The Buffalo Field Campaign opposes the management plan....
Judge throws out challenge to Volusia beach driving A judge has thrown out an environmental challenge to beach driving in Volusia County but said a new version of the lawsuit could be filed after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules on the county's 25-year permit request. Sea turtle activist Shirley Reynolds and New Smyrna Beach condominium resident Robert Godwin, who claimed beach motorists were harming five species of endangered sea turtles and a protected shorebird, have not decided whether to appeal the 35-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell. In the sharply worded order, he rejected some of the claims as invalid, decided some were outside his jurisdiction and ruled others should be decided by the federal wildlife agency. The plaintiffs "seem to believe that what is 'necessary' for (endangered) species is procedural quagmires, uncompromising administrative oversight and scorched-earth litigation," the judge wrote. "That is not so, if for no other reason, because Congress has not mandated such an utter waste of resources."....Hey, maybe we've found our Supreme Court nominee...
Search Continues for Southern Arizona Jaguars Rare and exotic are just some words that might come to mind at the surreal sight of a jaguar just lounging in a tree, the sight that Anna and Jack Childs saw one late August day in 1996, near Baboquivari Peak, southwest of Tucson. With the help of grants and Humboldt State University graduate student Emil McCain, Childs now has several pictures, like the one to the left of this story, that prove at least two male jaguars in southern Arizona. "The deal is now to educate people and give the jaguar a noble status to where when they are found, they aren't killed,” Childs said. Thirty cameras now stretch from Baboquivari Peak, where the Childs first saw a jaguar, to the New Mexico State line, all to find out more about jaguars, determine if any are living in southern Arizona, and if so, how to protect them. "We're still uncertain whether these animals are moving up from Mexico and going back, how often they're doing that, what areas they are doing that,” said Tim Snow, a non-game specialist for Arizona Game and Fish....
Lawsuit Seeks to Save Millions of Songbirds From Tower Collisions Millions of birds die each year in the United States because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has failed to comply with environmental laws in its licensing of television, radio, cell, and other communications towers, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by two conservation organizations. The American Bird Conservancy of Washington, DC; and the Forest Conservation Council of Santa Fe, New Mexico, filed suit in federal court against the FCC to activate a formal petition they filed with the agency in August 2002 requesting the agency’s environmental compliance in licensing communication towers, and requiring mitigation techniques to avoid bird deaths. The current lawsuit, filed on behalf of the groups by the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, requests that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia order the FCC to respond to the petition....
Front study up for public comment The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a Rocky Mountain Front environmental study, part of a proposal for protecting wildlife habitat, and will be taking comment on it until late May. The agency issued the environmental assessment Monday as part of the process for establishing a Rocky Mountain Front conservation area by acquiring easements from landowners. The assessment and an accompanying plan spell out what must be done to establish the area and examine the environmental effects of those actions. The proposed conservation area would consist of 918,000 acres on the east side of the Continental Divide. The Fish and Wildlife Service would acquire conservation easements on 170,000 acres of private land between the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the South Fork of the Dearborn River....
Corps plan: Protect birds, conserve water The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to reduce flows from Gavins Point Dam to conserve water and discourage endangered birds from nesting too close to the Missouri River, a corps spokesman said Monday. The corps expects to conserve 500,000 more acre-feet of water over last year in the three upstream reservoirs fed by the Missouri. Paul Johnston, spokesman for the corps' Omaha district, said the goal is to save as much water as possible while meeting downstream navigation needs and protecting endangered least terns and piping plovers that nest near the river. The corps on Monday increased releases from Gavins Point, on the Nebraska-South Dakota border, to 23,000 cubic feet per second....
Housing project runs into problems high and low A 108-home development in north Redlands may find itself stuck between objections from pilots overhead and kangaroo rats below. Public Works Director Ron Mutter reminded the committee that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will probably require that the rat habitat be fenced off and labeled with "no trespassing" signs a plan that does not exactly match the spirit of the usable open space requirement for planned residential developments. "Based on that, I do not see him as having a (municipal) code project right now," he said....
Oil projects may get less scrutiny But in the future, companies like Barrett that produce oil and gas in the Rocky Mountain West may not have to undergo that kind of environmental analysis. A section of the energy bill approved by the House of Representatives last month would exempt many federal energy projects from the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. If the Senate passes the bill and the president signs it into law, many oil-and-gas projects will no longer be analyzed for their environmental effects or be open to public comment. Some examples: Oil and gas wells that disturb less than 5 acres of land. Kermit Witherbee of the Bureau of Land Management says, "Most of our drill pads are less than 5 acres. Our average is less than 3 acres."....
Governor: Don't cut protest period A proposal by Gov. Dave Freudenthal to provide for public involvement in federal oil and gas lease sales is being called a good-sense solution by people on both sides of the issue. Freudenthal sent a letter this week to Bureau of Land Management State Director Bob Bennett asking the agency to reconsider its decision to shorten the public comment period by 15 days. "I fully understand the problems faced by the Wyoming BLM State Office in accepting lease protests the day before the lease sale and believe it is a wise decision to allow the BLM to fully analyze the protests before the sale," Freudenthal said. "However, I am concerned that the time for the public to review documents and conduct research has been reduced to accommodate the BLM's needs." The governor also said the requirement to have an original signature -- not a fax or e-mail -- on lease protests further shortens the public review time because mail can take several days....
Proposed sale of gas leases near Parowan Gap decried Environmental groups are protesting the Bureau of Land Management's plans for a new round of auctions of oil and gas leases that include parcels around Parowan Gap - a nationally recognized collection of Native American rock art in Iron County. The Parowan Gap petroglyphs, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, are located about 10 miles west of Parowan and feature a wide variety of Native American images; so many that some have dubbed the site the "Newspaper Rock" of the West Desert. In that context, conservationists say they are flabbergasted that the BLM is considering offering a half-dozen parcels within view of the rock art, one of which includes part of the site itself....
BLM lease plan draws fire A coalition of environmental groups and Dinosaur residents are denouncing Bureau of Land Management plans to auction mineral leases along the entrance to Dinosaur National Monument. On May 12, the BLM plans to offer for auction about 1,100 acres of public lands for oil and gas development near the monument's southern entrance and along Harpers Corner Drive. Many of the monument's visitors enter through the scenic drive. Dinosaur business owner Bill Mitchem worries that oil and gas drilling within sight of the road would hurt the area's tourism industry. "The town of Dinosaur is just now starting to understand how we can capitalize on our assets. Our biggest asset is Dinosaur National Monument," said Mitchem, owner of the Bedrock Depot in Dinosaur. "As we seek to attract tourists, we need our biggest asset to remain intact. We want people to come to the monument, and I'm just not sure how oil and gas development fits into the equation," he said....
Environmentalists protest West Mojave Plan Environmental groups Monday formally protested the Bureau of Land Management's West Mojave plan, a prelude to a possible lawsuit against the 900-page document that will guide development and environmental protection for decades. The BLM is supposed to provide for conservation and recovery of wildlife within a 9-million acre area of the California desert, said Daniel Patterson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz. The West Mojave Plan has been more than 10 years in the making and is aimed at balancing development with environmental issues. But critics say the plan does a poor job protecting endangered plants and animals. The plan would increase urban sprawl, off-roading, livestock production, mining, and big utility projects, Patterson said....
Spikes spur concern of eco-terrorism He and the 20 other members of the Desert Climbers Association have gotten to know the mountain, built pedestrian trails and enjoyed many climbs on its rocks. Lately though, he and other members have come across some indications that they are not welcome: Six inch long nails, with sheet metal backing, sticking a half inch through the dirt placed along trails and in the parking lot. Also, the pedestrian trails they have labored to build have been blocked by big rocks. "The booby traps are over the line," Andrews said. "They are jeopardizing safety and property."....
Column: Where Does Animal Advocacy Come In? While the alliance of animal advocates and immigration restrictionists wanting to influence the Sierra Club’s future has caused a furor, the role that animal advocates could actually play is largely unexamined. The issues, however, are serious: Do environmentalists view other animals as resources to be protected? As objects of aesthetic interest? Or should environmentalists take the position that animals, other than the human ones, have their own interests? One in five current Sierra Club members is an angler or hunter. [2] And although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that animal farm waste has polluted more than 27,000 miles of rivers, and the demand for meat has become a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage [3], materials offered by the Sierra Club do not face this issue squarely. [4] Information published in connection with a recent Sierra Club campaign, The True Cost of Food, tells readers that three-fourths of the land in the continental United States is devoted to agribusiness, and much of the cropland produces grain for cows, not people....
Augmenting the Animal Kingdom Natural evolution has produced the eye, butterfly wings and other wonders that would put any inventor to shame. But who's to say evolution couldn't be improved with the help of a little technology? So argues James Auger in his controversial and sometimes unsettling book, Augmented Animals. A designer and former research associate with MIT Media Lab Europe, Auger envisions animals, birds, reptiles and even fish becoming appreciative techno-geeks, using specially engineered gadgets to help them overcome their evolutionary shortcomings, promote their chances of survival or just simply lead easier and more comfortable lives. On tap for the future: Rodents zooming around with night-vision survival goggles, squirrels hoarding nuts using GPS locators and fish armed with metal detectors to avoid the angler's hook....
Rural land owners rally against transportation plan Rural land owners carrying protest signs and shouting angry slogans gathered at the Capitol to speak their minds. Their goal: Stopping Gov. Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor. Farmers and ranchers say the huge highway project will gobble thousands of acres of their property only to make money for private toll road companies. "The government is out of control. They're trying to take our property rights away from us," said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, one of the legislators who spoke at Tuesday's rally. Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn - one of Perry's potential GOP primary opponents in 2006 - joined in, calling Perry's associates "land-grabbing highway henchmen." She said Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation want to cram toll roads down Texans' throats....
Bear River flood drowns livestock, swamps ranches Farmer Todd Yates is calm now, but he will never forget those panicky predawn hours Sunday, when he tried to save his cows and calves from drowning. Foxes and skunks were darting everywhere, scrambling to find their way back to dens that had been submerged by the Bear River's floodwaters. Deer raced ahead of the rising water, and ducks, geese, avocets and shorebirds raised a cacophony. Their nests, filled with eggs, floated by Yates as he waded through thigh- and chest-high water to reach the 68 head of cattle he had left on the river's south side. He wanted to coax them to higher ground but, for many, it was too late. In the dark, he watched several cows and calves slip under the water. He figures he lost 20 or 30 when the river, fed by heavy rainfall in northern Utah, flooded lowlands for miles around....
Feds Probing Alleged Mad Cow Cover-up Federal investigators are looking into allegations by a former U.S. Agriculture Department inspector that the agency sought to cover up cases of mad cow disease, United Press International has learned. Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, told UPI he was questioned recently by two representatives from the USDA's Office of Inspector General who were investigating statements he made before Canada's Parliament in April. "I told them I think there's a cover-up," said Friedlander, a 10-year veteran of the USDA who received official praise and recognition for outstanding performance during his tenure with the agency. Friedlander's claims include that a USDA official told him in 1991 not to say anything if he ever discovered a case of mad cow disease, and that he knew of cows that had tested positive at private laboratories but were ruled negative by the USDA. He said he was interviewed by Keith Arnold, from the OIG's regional office in Kansas City, Mo., and William Busby, of OIG's Denver office. The officials told him Phyllis Fong, the USDA's inspector general, ordered the investigation....
Texas ranch preserves old-school cowboy style Bawling beef cattle saunter past obeisant pumpjacks that suck sweet Spraberry crude from vast petroleum pools. Springtime’s annual roundup is under way at the sprawling Rocker b Ranch. Dennis Webb leads 10 cowboys through pre-dawn darkness to gather 72 cows, calves and range bulls from the 5.3-square-mile North Mustang pasture. Clad in faded jeans, broad-brimmed hats and tough leather leggings, riders quietly push their herd into corrals at Elbow Trap. We are in Centrailia Draw, which Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed in the 1880s. With a little imagination, you can visualize vast herds of longhorns plodding the 96 scorching miles from the head of the Middle Concho River to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River....
Pony Express stamps available for June ride The clippity-clop of horse hooves will be heard June 3 and 4 when the 2005 Pony Express West comes through the Permian Basin. About 70 riders from Eastern New Mexico and West Texas are expected to take part in the 300-mile journey, “Red” Harmon Hann, ride coordinator and general manager of KHOB 1390 AM in Hobbs, N.M, said. Mail will be picked up June 1 in Odessa. Participants will ride two miles, then let someone else ride. That way horses — and people — don’t overdo it, Bert Madera, rider and Lea County, N.M., rancher, said. Tom Cone, this year’s express master, will receive the mail at the end of the ride. Cone’s signature is on the 2005 Pony Express West stamp. Howard County Sheriff Dale Walker and his wife, T.J., members of the Howard County Sheriff’s Posse, will take part for the second consecutive year....