NEWS ROUNDUP

Column: The Sagebrush Solution Dell LeFevre has been consorting with environmentalists, and he understands why this makes his neighbors nervous. It makes him nervous, too. He is not what you would call a tree-hugger. Mr. LeFevre, who is 65, has no affection for the hikers who want his cows out of the red-rock canyons and mesas in southern Utah, where his family has been ranching for five generations. He has considered environmentalism a dangerous religion since the day in 1991 when he and his father-in-law found two dozen cows shot to death, perhaps by someone determined to reclaim a scenic stretch of the Escalante River canyon. But he is not bitter when he talks about the deal he made with an environmentalist named Bill Hedden, the executive director of the Grand Canyon Trust. Mr. Hedden's group doesn't use lobbyists or lawsuits (or guns) to drive out ranchers. These environmentalists get land the old-fashioned way. They buy it. To reclaim the Escalante River canyon, Mr. Hedden bought the permits that entitle Mr. LeFevre's cows to graze on the federal land near the river. He figures it was a good deal for the environment because native shrubs and grasses are reappearing, now that cows aren't eating and trampling the vegetation. Mr. LeFevre likes the deal because it enabled him to buy grazing permits for higher ground that's easier for him and his cows to reach than the canyon. (He was once almost killed there when his horse fell). He's also relieved to be on land where hikers aren't pressuring the Bureau of Land Management to restrict grazing, as they did for the canyon....
SD congressional delegation urges Black Hills logging The South Dakota congressional delegation wants the U.S. Forest Service to cut down more trees in the Black Hills National Forest to reduce fire risks. The delegation, which met last week with Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth and Rocky Mountain Region Forester Rick Cables, also urged that commercial logging in the forest be increased to the allowable sale quantity of 83 million board feet. The annual figure for the forest in southwest South Dakota and northeast Wyoming was 118 million board feet before 1997. That year, it was reduced to 83 million. But this decade, the timber harvest has averaged between 60 million and 70 million board feet per year....
Forest Service to take bids for prime Superior Forest property Valuable pieces of real estate in Minnesota's north woods, owned and operated by the federal government for decades, are for sale and will be open for bids in coming weeks. The historic Isabella Ranger Station in Superior National Forest leads the list of huge, hand-hewn log homes built in the 1930s that will be up for sale. The old ranger station amid stately pines is one of several properties managed by the Superior forest, but are no longer needed by forest personnel. "We looked at what we really needed, what didn't make sense and what we could get rid of without affecting how we serve the public," said park supervisor Jim Sanders....
Chippewa, Chequamegon selling, too The Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota also plans to take part in the property sale program. Chippewa officials want to sell four properties, probably early in 2006, including the recently closed Cass Lake Ranger Station. Other sites that may be sold include a single-family home in Walker; a storage site and buildings near Walker and an acre of land on the north side of Minnesota Highway 371 in Walker that was cut off from the Walker Ranger Station when the road was realigned. The Chequamegon/Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin used the program last year to sell three single-family homes in Glidden and is planning to sell a home in Hayward and another in Florence, said Phil Barker, land program manager for the forest. The homes had been used to house Forest Service staff....
Tracking an elusive seabird Rare Bird: Pursuing the Mystery of the Marbled Murrelet Maria Mudd Ruth Rodale Books, 304 pp., $23.95 How did a small, brown, web-footed bird, "a baked potato with a beak," come to command a $13-million recovery plan by the Fish and Wildlife Service — a plan that ignited a pitched battle in Humbolt County among conservationists, loggers, ornithologists, landowners and politicians? First recorded by Capt. James Cook in 1778 in Alaska's Prince William Sound, the feisty "fog lark" remained a mystery for 185 years until birders and scientists finally unraveled its secret life and nesting place. Maria Mudd Ruth's engaging, scientific detective story bristles with humor, curiosity, frustration and passion as the accidental naturalist tracks the history of this elusive seabird, which flew from obscurity to star on the endangered species list and, in the process, rescued thousands of acres of old-growth Pacific Coast forest from the logger's ax....
Pombo Proposal Wouldn't Gut the Endangered Species Act: It Could Give it Formidable New Teeth Critics of Rep. Richard Pombo's Endangered Species Act reform initiative --critics such as the Center for Biological Diversity -- are simply wrong when they claim it would gut the Endangered Species Act, says The National Center for Public Policy Research. "Richard Pombo's bill, if unchanged, could give the ESA alarming new powers," said David Ridenour, vice president of The National Center and a long-time activist on land issues. Pombo's proposal is called "The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005" and, until recently, was expected to sail quickly through the House Resources Committee. Rep. Pombo chairs the Committee. "Property rights advocates are voicing concern about a provision that would extend the ESA's reach into so-called 'invasive species' -- never before regulated under the law," said Ridenour. Under an Executive Order signed by President Clinton, invasive species are "any species, including seeds, eggs, spores, or other biological material capable of propagating that species, that is not native to that ecosystem." "By this definition," says Ridenour, "almost any living thing could be considered an 'invasive species,' thereby giving federal bureaucrats broad new powers to regulate human activity -- where we live, what we plant in our yards, and where and how we vacation."....
Mormon handcart trek offers glimpse of pioneer struggles The wagon wheel ruts are still visible in places. Even after 150 years, they mark the toil and struggles of thousands of pioneers who settled the West. And while they are not near modern highways, these parallel grooves in the sand and clay are again attracting tens of thousands of pioneers from around the world who seek to relive the experiences of their ancestors. But in a twist of history, the new trekkers — mostly members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — are making their own tracks and endangering parts of the original trail. Some areas of the trail started "looking more like a road than a historic trail," said Jack Kelly, manager of the Bureau of Land Management office in Lander. In a mutual desire to protect the trail, the BLM and the LDS church agreed to curtail the church-sponsored journeys — but not do away with them altogether....
Up a creek? Four-wheelers and dune buggies criss-cross on the bank of the Knik River, followed by plumes of silty dust. At a camp nestled in a tangle of trees, a young boy relinquishes to his sister his turn on the four-wheeler. A family decked out in life vests boards a Hovercraft while a Ford pulling a boat trailer backs up to unload a cabin cruiser. The Alaska Outdoor Access Alliance and many nonmembers who enjoy access to trail systems or waterways in the Knik River public-use area are sounding the alarm about recommendations to shut out motorized access there. In 2003, at least three federally funded studies of the Knik River drainage system concluded off-road vehicles were damaging the areas, according to Alliance President Todd Clark. Now, the federal Bureau of Land Management could revise its land-management plan for the popular site, he said....
Return to Burning Man: Few traces remain of 35,000 revelers Roger Farschon, ecologist with the U. S. Bureau of Land Management, looked at the clear plastic bag in his hand with a bit of debris inside, jiggled it around and said, "Looks pretty good." He was talking about the BLM's checkup on the site of the annual Burning Man Festival on the playa of the Black Rock Desert, a few miles from Gerlach. The controversial "alternative lifestyle" event drew 35,000 people to the sun-baked playa in September. That's quite a crowd for a site with no permanent facilities, no water, nothing but the towering Burning Man, ignited on the last day of the festival....
Provisions to Curb Oil Use Fall Out of Energy Bill Working furiously to try to strike a deal on broad energy legislation, Congressional negotiators on Monday killed two major provisions aimed at curbing consumption of traditional fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal. House members rejected an effort to incorporate a plan passed by the Senate to require utilities to use more renewable energy like wind and solar power to generate electricity. They also defeated a bid to direct the president to find ways to cut the nation's appetite for oil by one million barrels a day. Backers of the initiative to identify the oil savings said it was an alternative to the politically difficult approach of increasing automotive gas mileage standards and would demonstrate that Congress was serious about cutting the nation's dependence on oil imports....
U.S. turns to democracy to settle river war Tom Waters echoed the sentiments of farmers as negotiators from Missouri to Montana prepared to gather today for an experiment in resolving a matter overflowing with controversy - a spring rise on the lower Missouri River starting next year. "It's a scary deal," remarked Waters, a farmer from Orrick, Mo., who said he feared crop damage from high water. To others it's a hopeful deal, and at the very least, it's a new deal being offered by the Army Corps of Engineers as it seeks to balance divergent interests along a 2,340-mile waterway stretching from the Mississippi River to the Northern Plains. If it works, the experiment in conflict resolution could provide the blueprint for stemming environmental neglect along the Missouri - and perhaps for solving big river water wars elsewhere....
How to drive in slow moo-ving traffic The man thought Baker County cattle were pretty stupid. He offered as evidence his crumpled front bumper. He seemed incredulous that Baker County ranchers had not gotten around to teaching their cows about crossing the road. Shoot, most kindergartners have mastered that lesson. The man, a Californian according to his license plate, apparently expected Baker County cattle to be quite brainy, said Beth Phillips, a Keating rancher. "He said, ‘I thought your cows were trained not to cross the road.' "....
It's All Trew: Before duct tape, it was binder twine Most old-timers have forgotten a simple product used almost daily in the distant past. We called it binder twine as it was basically used in a McCormick-Deering broadcast binder to tie bundles of feed stalks together. It was cheap and durable, and served in many ways. There is no prettier sight in the fall than a field of shocked feed with its little tepees of feed bundles awaiting the long, hard winter ahead. Those little twines holding the bundles together made handling the stock feed a breeze with only a pitchfork in hand. The Deering-Appleby twine binder, introduced in 1879, sold like wildfire and worked like a charm. As demand for binder twine increased, Deering spent thousands of dollars experimenting with different fibers to provide strength and quality of product at the most economical price. The best twine product seemed to be a blend of sisal from Yucatan and manila from the Philippines....

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