NEWS

Rainbow Family Blocked in Forest U.S. Forest Service authorities have denied a permit application for the 2005 National Rainbow Gathering, but campers say they are going in anyway. Meanwhile, a U.S. Forest Service roadblock has separated many campers from family, friends and food supplies. When the counterculture group last gathered in West Virginia 25 years ago, two women hitchhiking to the event were murdered in Pocahontas County. Those murders remain unsolved. The Rainbow Family group announced earlier this month that the gathering would return to West Virginia, bringing thousands of nature lovers to a chosen site. Dozens of the group have arrived in the state as part of a scouting group in advance of a major event at the end of the month, expected to bring thousands to eastern West Virginia. The site they appear to have chosen, however, has left them at odds with the U.S. Forest Service over the safety of several endangered species and the permit process. "They (Rainbows) can come out, they just can't return," U.S. Forest Service's Rainbow Family Incident Team Information Officer Steve Stein said. "This is an unapproved site and they need to come out."....
Land Study on Grazing Denounced The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study. A government biologist and a hydrologist, who both retired this year from the Bureau of Land Management, said their conclusions that the proposed new rules might adversely affect water quality and wildlife, including endangered species, were excised and replaced with language justifying less stringent regulations favored by cattle ranchers. Grazing regulations, which affect 160 million acres of public land in the Western U.S., set the conditions under which ranchers may use that land, and guide government managers in determining how many cattle may graze, where and for how long without harming natural resources. The original draft of the environmental analysis warned that the new rules would have a "significant adverse impact" on wildlife, but that phrase was removed. The bureau now concludes that the grazing regulations are "beneficial to animals." Eliminated from the final draft was another conclusion that read: "The Proposed Action will have a slow, long-term adverse impact on wildlife and biological diversity in general." Also removed was language saying how a number of the rule changes could adversely affect endangered species....
Saltwater spills near Fryburg About 42,000 gallons of saltwater byproduct from oil drilling spilled from a ruptured pipeline near Fryburg, in southwestern North Dakota, the U.S. Forest Service says. Some of the saltwater flowed into Frank's Creek, but the Forest Service said the stream does not contain fish. Denver-based Whiting Petroleum, which owns the pipeline, notified authorities on Wednesday. The company has been flushing the area with fresh water....
Fire: friend or foe? John Muir once described riding a horse around Lake Tahoe without once having to remove his hat. The trees were so tall and spread out, not one branch could have knocked it off. Now, because of a century of fire suppression, Tahoe's forests are much different. Once dominated by wide-open, old-growth forest, with towering sugar and Jeffrey pines, it is now composed more and more of dense white fir. Old growth now makes up only 5 percent of the forest. Tahoe's dense forests have many worried the basin will undergo a devastating catastrophic fire. Still, experts contend fire was once an integral part of a healthy Tahoe ecosystem....
Waging war on the weed The U.S. Forest Service on Thursday deployed a special weapon against a tough weed that has infested portions of the Pike National Forest southwest of Denver. In a rocky canyon bottom carved by the South Platte River, biologists unleashed a quarter- million tiny flea beetles to dine on clusters of leafy spurge that have infiltrated the Buffalo Creek burn. Other releases will turn hundreds of thousands more beetles loose on the weed in other areas of the forest. The beetle offensive is part of a concerted war against leafy spurge, one of the most rapacious invasive plants in the West. The weed has taken over almost 3 million acres, costs ranchers up to $45 million a year, and has been a bane to wildlife and native plants....
Editorial: Governor should petition to protect pristine areas The Clinton administration's Roadless Rule, overturned last month by President Bush, protected 4 million acres of Utah's national forest land. A new policy puts the fate of those forests more squarely into the hands of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. The Clinton rule had its flaws, but the Bush plan could threaten precious water sources and some of the last refuges for recreation and wildlife unless governors make a study of its impacts and petition for continued protection. So far, unfortunately, Huntsman seems content to let the U.S. Forest Service's management plans dictate the future of the forests in Utah. That could lead to more development, primarily by oil and gas companies that, in today's energy market, have a huge economic incentive to move operations into wild areas. We urge the governor to step forward and embrace his role in the far-reaching decisions that will profoundly affect the last of the relatively unspoiled forests that belong to all Utahns and, indeed, to all Americans....
Tadpoles of endangered toad to be released Good news for the endangered Wyoming toad: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to reintroduce several hundred more Wyoming toad tadpoles in Albany County. The Wyoming toad is the only toad in the Laramie Basin, and the basin is the toad's only home. The toad was listed as endangered in 1984 and thought to have gone extinct in 1987, although toads were later found at Mortenson Lake, southwest of Laramie. Thousands of toads have since been bred in captivity and released, with mixed results. The latest release is planned on private land near Centennial and the Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It's part of a "safe harbor" agreement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the owner of the land, a nonprofit group called the Buford Foundation....
Changes for grizzly death levels sought A group of state and federal officials is recommending changing what is considered an acceptable level of grizzly bear deaths in the greater Yellowstone area. Some conservationists fear changing the so-called mortality thresholds for the region's federally protected grizzlies could lead to more dead bears, particularly in Wyoming, a state that's home to many of the bears and of residents who are less than enthusiastic about their presence. But a federal wildlife official said Friday he doesn't expect deaths to rise much as a result. Rather, Chris Servheen said, the planned change is intended to allow wildlife officials to better track how - and how many - bears are dying. "The goal is to do a better job of accounting for mortalities," said Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Officials want to change the acceptable mortality limits for bears from 4 percent for both sexes to 9 percent for females and 15 percent for males. A management review would be triggered if the mortality limits were exceeded for two straight years, Servheen said. Servheen said the proposed method, backed by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, would also track all bear deaths, not just those caused by humans....
National Wildlife Federation sues Corps over Florida snail kite The snail kite population around this troubled lake has been nearly devastated and its designated habitat has become significantly impaired in the past decade, the National Wildlife Federation said Friday. The NWF blames the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the setback because it failed to create a program that would have monitored the effects of changing lake levels on the endangered, protected bird. The group said it plans to sue the Corps because it violated rules established by the Endangered Species Act by failing to protect the bird and its 100,000 acres of critical habitat....
'Privacy' a bar to disclosure of electronic GIS maps by FEMA Electronic maps maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency do not have to be given to a non-profit environmental group under the personal privacy exemption of the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver (10th Cir.) ruled Tuesday. FEMA argued and the court agreed that releasing electronic versions of Geographic Information System maps could allow the group, Forest Guardians, to match mapping data with other data to deduce the names and addresses of policyholders under the National Flood Insurance Program. Policyholders' identities are protected by Exemption 6 of the FOI Act, the court said. Forest Guardians first requested the data in January 2001 to geographically trace how federally subsidized flood insurance affects endangered species in New Mexico floodplains. "The government's decision to provide insurance fragments and mars one of our most sensitive and valuable landscapes" by encouraging further floodplain development, Forest Guardians employee John Horning said in an organization news release....
Extra water won't help fish, feds say The federal government is asking an appeals court to throw out a judge's order to spill extra water over Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams to help salmon this summer, arguing there is no hard evidence it will help fish, and claiming that the judge exceeded his authority. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion late Wednesday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on behalf of NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operate the dams. The appeal came after a federal judge in Portland found the government's plan for minimizing the harm to endangered salmon by the hydroelectric system in the Columbia Basin violated the Endangered Species Act....
Policy adds protection for salmon A new federal policy issued Thursday puts 131 strains of hatchery salmon under Endangered Species Act protection along with their wild cousins, but allows those raised artificially to still be harvested by fishermen. While counting hatchery fish along with wild fish under the new policy, NOAA Fisheries decided against taking 15 populations of salmon and steelhead off the threatened and endangered species lists, added lower Columbia River coho to the threatened list, and decided to wait six months before deciding what to do with 10 listed populations of steelhead and Oregon coastal coho. Both the review of Endangered Species Act status for all West Coast salmon and steelhead and the new hatchery policy were prompted by a 2001 federal court ruling that NOAA Fisheries could no longer consider the same strains of salmon and steelhead different just because one spawned naturally in the wild and one was spawned artificially in a hatchery....
A Look At The Forests Three Years After The Rodeo-Chediski Fire It’s hard to believe that three years have passed since the devastating Rodeo-Chediski fire burned a half-million acres of forestland. As the third anniversary of the Rodeo fire is Saturday, the Tribune-News looks back to see what happened, and what has changed since then. The Rodeo fire was reported June 18, near the Rodeo Fairgrounds in Cibecue. At that time, it was suspicious, so fire teams had an arson investigator called in to investigate. By nightfall, more than 1,000 acres had burned. By June 19, the fire had burned 53,900 acres, and many in the Clay Springs, Pinedale, Linden and Fools Hollow areas were placed on high alert. By the following day, 70,800 acres had burned, and many residents in the area were hit with another problem, the Chediski fire, started by a lost hiker trying to signal for help....
Column: Elvis, Wolves, and The Death of Environmentalism In a provocative speech delivered last year to the Environmental Grantmaker's Association, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger declared that environmentalism was dead. Since then, many influential environmental leaders have joined in this "Death Debate." These leaders are disputing the movement's efficacy, especially over the last ten years as anti-environmental sentiment and policy-making have curtailed past environmental gains. Resolution in this debate remains elusive; the only certainty is that environmentalism's death is as questionable as Elvis' but lacks his celebrity appeal. At the same time that environmentalism supposedly died, however, one of the greatest environmental success stories in history was playing out on the landscapes of the rural West. Typical of doom-and-gloom environmentalists, many of us ignored this extraordinary success and focused on other failures. In-so-doing, we missed two things we need most: 1) the lessons our movement's celebrities -- wolves -- can teach us, and 2) hope. The Death Debate has primarily pitted a group of urban think-tank environmentalists against the urban-based leaders of the larger mainstream environmental organizations. While their differences are pronounced, the adversaries are all calling for a realignment of environmentalism with a broader "progressive movement" in America. Pieces of this realignment include more diversity inspired environmental-justice funding, more leftist-inspired anti-globalization campaigns, myriad urban programs focused on transit development and green building, and broad-scale coalitions to address global warming. While debate continues to rage about these urban and suburban issues, participants have ignored discussing rural America and the environmental stories playing out on rural landscapes....

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