NEWS ROUNDUP

Herds, history fade from desert Tom Wetterman looked out across Hidden Valley, the pale green hills to the north and south fading into the brown of summer. Record rains made it a perfect year for cattle ranching on this High Desert ranch east of Barstow. It seemed like just one more slap in the face. "You dream about years like this," Wetterman said. "And now I'm leaving." After 30 years of ranching in the desert, the cowboy who was once the model for the Marlboro man is packing it in. Battling environmental activists and government officials over increasing restrictions on cattle grazing in the Mojave Desert has worn him down, he says. He's one of the last ranchers to leave as a nearly 150-year period of raising cattle in the western Mojave Desert comes to an end. When the Army offered to buy him out last year as part of Fort Irwin's expansion, Wetterman and his wife, Jeanne, decided it was time to go. They sold their spread for $800,000 and bought a ranch in New Mexico, where they're moving their operation, including their 200 head of cattle. The military might use the ranch house as a residence for biologists studying the desert tortoise. But everything else will be hauled away, leaving the desert to slowly return to its pre-cattle state....
Sierra Club, industry at odds over Red Desert While the Sierra Club calls Wyoming's Red Desert one of the 50 most endangered places in the United States, oil and gas industry officials say that's an overblown assessment. ''Environmentalists are relying on hysteria to achieve their goals,'' said Steve Degenfelder, vice president for lands for Double Eagle Petroleum Co. The Sierra Club's decision to put the Red Desert on its America's Great Outdoors list results from plans to drill 10,000 coal-bed methane wells, traditional gas wells, and oil wells in southwestern Wyoming. The list also includes Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, the Roan Plateau in Colorado, the Boise River in Idaho, The Great Burn Roadless Area in Montana, the Cheyenne River Valley in South Dakota and the Sand Hills in Nebraska. Besides mining and drilling, recreation and other development also threaten the sites, according to the Sierra Club's Web site. ''Each of them requires urgent and bold action,'' the site said....
GOCO under fire Four years ago, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved the use of $115 million in bonds to preserve open-space land around the state. To date, none of that money has been spent, and critics say that is because the Great Outdoors Colorado board that oversees the spending is resisting the will of the voters. They say the board has shifted its emphasis from buying open space to paying ranchers and farmers not to sell out to developers. "They have broken faith with the voters by de-emphasizing acquisition of land," said state Sen. Dan Grossman, D-Denver. "They don't like the idea of the state holding title to land. If you're not acquiring land, there's no reason to use bonding." GOCO officials dispute Grossman's characterization. They say they have preserved thousands of acres in the past year and GOCO still will have the capacity to issue bonds in the future....
Preserves to be mapped Coloradans have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade to buy up open-space land, and they may soon know exactly what they have received for all of that money. GOCO, or Great Outdoors Colorado, the state agency that spends lottery-fund proceeds on open space, has contracted with a Colorado State University laboratory to map all of the protected open space in Colorado. The project is more complicated than it might sound, since there are dozens of city and county open- space programs and nonprofit land trusts operating in the state. Some of the open space is bought outright, while other properties are protected through conservation easements that forbid the development of private ranchland. "It's a fair question to say, 'How much has been spent and what do we have for that?' " GOCO spokeswoman Chris Leding said....
Ranch could be site of 94-home subdivision A scenic Missouri Heights ranch that has historical buildings on its property is for sale, and a new owner could build as many as 94 homes on the spread. The 565-acre Hunt Ranch has a price tag of $8.75 million. It offers views of Mount Sopris and Capitol Peak, and has superior water rights, according to an advertisement in The Aspen Times. While a 94-home subdivision may seem like a lot in the somewhat secluded area above El Jebel - Marble, by way of comparison, has about 80 year-round residents - it is allowed under the Garfield County master plan, said Edward Sanditen of Carol Dopkin Real Estate. He is handling the ranch's sale....
Legislation aimed at weakening Endangered Species Act Republican congressional critics of the Endangered Species Act have drafted legislation hedging the government's obligation to take all necessary steps to bring back to robust health any species on the brink of extinction. The draft envisions more limited government obligations: ensuring that the status of an endangered plant or animal gets no worse and helping to make it better. The draft legislation, prepared by the Republican staff of the House Resources Committee, narrows the law's reach, potentially exempting many federal actions that are now subject to review. In addition, it requires the authority to list subgroups of a species of fish or wildlife as endangered be used "only sparingly." The draft would automatically take the law off the books in 2015....
Bat study taking wing Three bat lovers stand under the light of a tailgate in the darkness of the Arizona Strip, holding fuzzy specimens as closely as newborn infants in gloved hands. They turn over three bats, stretching the wings in their headlamps, looking for signs of pregnancy, age and species, measuring the forearms. More than 30 people have traveled from Tucson and the San Francisco Bay Area to wade through stagnant pools in a vacant pasture at night netting bats for a Northern Arizona University professor's study. Most are here, south of Marble Canyon, for a glimpse at one species rarely ever seen, the spotted bat. It's one of the super athletes of the mammalian world, flying up to 30 mph and 50 miles per night to feed, though it only weighs the equivalent of four Hershey's Kisses....
Cattlemen conditionally support Simpson bill The Idaho Cattle Association is reluctantly supporting the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act currently in Congress, provided that a compensation clause is included. In its present form, the proposal includes compensation for seven ranchers on the East Fork of the Salmon River, said Lindsay Slater, aide to Simpson. They hold U.S. Forest Service grazing permits that were sharply cut back as a result of environmental lawsuits. The cuts reduced animal unit months and the time on the range by up to 50 percent on each operation. “We wanted to stabilize those ranchers, but our hands were tied by the litigation. Our first idea was to trade lands, giving them private instead of federal forest lands on which to run. There were no lands to trade. So we came up with a compensation clause,” Slater said. “It gives those ranchers the right to seek $300 per AUM.”....
Roads to an end: Outfitter’s business suffers as roadless ruling opens door for gas drilling It’s quite a haul to Jeff Mead’s little piece of heaven. The four-hour trek by horse or mule takes visitors deep into the White River National Forest about 20 miles south of Rifle. The hunters who put down substantial cash for Mead’s guided pack trips seek solitude and a successful hunt, two things the veteran outfitter has consistently delivered. Until now. The paradise the 50-year-old Grand Junction man loves to share with sportsmen every fall may be paradise lost. The lure of natural resources beneath the forests that afford Mead’s customers such prime hunting threatens his outfitting business. Mead learned three years ago the relatively untouched 39-square-mile parcel of federal woodlands he leases from the U.S. Forest Service could be opened to drilling....
Wyoming asks feds for more leeway in shooting wolves Wyoming on Friday asked federal wildlife managers to be more proactive in managing wolves by allowing ranchers to shoot problem wolves and reimbursing producers for damage caused by the predators. The petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the latest move in an ongoing legal and bureaucratic struggle between Wyoming and the federal government over management of wolves since they were reintroduced into the Northern Rockies 10 years ago. The animals are flourishing, with an estimated population of more than 800 in the region, raising concerns from agriculture interests, landowners, outfitters and state officials of a growing threat to wildlife, livestock and domestic pets. "The Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for wolf reintroduction, but it hasn't taken responsibility for the way that program has played out on the ground in Wyoming," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said in a release....
Activists to file appeal in forest road dispute A citizen activist group said it will pursue an appeal of a Forest Service decision concerning a remote forest road that runs along a river with threatened fish if a provision to close the last half-mile isn’t dropped. But Bob Vaught, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said the demand by the Shovel Brigade is out of the question. “We’re not willing to do that,” Vaught told the Elko Daily Free Press. Meanwhile, Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury said while the county won’t appeal the Forest Service decision over South Canyon Road, he’s prepared to take the issue of ownership to court. Elko County commissioners are scheduled to consider their options when they meet this week....
Who has a right to the roads? Counties across the country have laid claim to roadways on federal lands under a historic law passed after the Civil War to encourage settlement of the western frontier. They've also used it to foil private property owners' attempts to block access to public lands. Revised Statute 2477 is a one-sentence provision of the Lode Mining Act of 1866, whose simple language has created a hornet's nest of interpretation that is buzzing across the West. The statute was repealed in 1976 when Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which defined rights of way across federal lands. RS 2477 granted rights of way to local governments for the construction of highways over public lands not reserved for other uses such as an Indian reservation. In essence, the statute says that if states, counties or individuals can prove a road has been in use before 1976 or before the land it crossed was reserved, it could still be claimed as a legitimate right of way. Since then, the law has pitted local governments against the feds, counties against private landowners, with environmental groups and off-road groups, among others, joining the fray....
Timber companies sue for reparations Timber companies shut out of federal forests by environmental lawsuits have found a way to use those lawsuits in their favor. They're doing it by using the same argument as the activists who filed the lawsuits: The government failed to follow laws such as the Endangered Species Act that protect wildlife. But the companies are taking the argument in a different direction: They say the government should have known better than to offer the logging contracts and thus owes them for money they lost when courts sided with the activists and stopped the cutting. Federal judges have ruled in decisive cases that the companies have a good point. It can take years of legal back-and-forth before cash is awarded. But companies are filing a lengthening list of claims -- including more than a dozen since last year for long-delayed Oregon timber sales -- that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The surge of claims builds on $27.3 million that the U.S. Forest Service has paid to timber companies since 1992, including $2.8 million last year, for Oregon and Washington logging projects that fell through....
Forest Service denying access to summits of Colorado peaks The U.S. Forest Service has stopped issuing access permits to hikers hoping to reach the top of four 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado because the trails cross private land. The agency this week began distributing fliers warning hikers to keep off trails to Mount Democrat, Mount Lincoln, Mount Bross and Mount Cameron in Park County unless they have permission from landowners who acquired the land through old mining claims. "The bottom line is there is no public access to those peaks," Sara Mayben, head of the Forest Service's South Park Ranger District, told The Denver Post. "We can't stop the public from trespassing, but we will take steps to make it clear that they are."....
Man gets 30 days in jail for snowmobile incident A man was sentenced to 30 days in jail for striking a U.S. Forest Service officer with his snowmobile during a February confrontation in an off-limits area at Lake Tahoe. At a hearing in El Dorado County Superior Court, Gregg Gemmet was ordered to pay full restitution for officer Ron Thompson’s injuries. Gemmet, a mechanic with the Tahoe-Douglas Fire Protection District, also was ordered to donate his snowmobile to a search and rescue team, write a letter of apology and speak to a snowmobile group. An original charge of felony aggravated assault was reduced to misdemeanor aggravated assault under an agreement, Uthe said....and Kit Laney gets five months in a Federal prison. Mr. Gemmet should be glad he wasn't riding a horse and that David Iglesias is not the US Attorney for his state....
BLM hopes to OK 1,000 new permits TheBureau of Land Management's Buffalo field office expects to approve about 1,000 more coal-bed methane drilling permits by the end of September. "We've issued 1,334 of our targeted 2,425 approvals for the year," said Richard Zander, assistant field manager with the agency's Buffalo office. The agency's permitting year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30. Zander said his office has about 1,050 permits in the approval process with 48 of those for projects on U.S. Forest Service land, which were sent to the Forest Service office in Douglas for National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review. BLM cannot issue those permits until the Forest Service completes its NEPA review process. "We were hoping to see at least 40 of those permits back in our office by mid-May, but we haven't seen them yet," Zander said....
BLM jumps back into auctioning gas, oil leases The oil and gas leases to more than 17,000 acres that were spared the gavel in May, after local surface-rights owner complaints, are back on the block for the Bureau of Land Management's quarterly auction Aug. 11. In early May, surface-rights owners of 14 parcels in Montrose and nearby counties complained the agency's snarled Web site and poorly posted notices gave them only a week's notification, rather than the 45 days to which they were entitled. The BLM owns the mineral development rights to those properties, a situation known as "split estate." It deferred the 14 parcels from the May sale and created new notification options that include a notification registration list. Wednesday, Duane Spencer, spokesman for the BLM's state office in Lakewood, said because the notification issued had been resolved, the parcels' development rights are being offered for sale in August....
Actor Rick Schroder and his West Slope neighbors lock horns Two locks secure the thick chain that holds the steel gate closing the mountain road. The brass lock requires a combination, and the chrome lock opens with a key. The heavy gate, and the fence standing erect on either side of it, bar entry to Mesa Mood Ranch, actor Rick Schroder's New Age-sounding retreat 25 miles southwest of Grand Junction. No-trespassing signs, posted at regular intervals, warn off the uninvited. At issue in this Western Slope legal drama is access to land, which is as bitter a dispute in the New West as it was in the Old West. The conventional wisdom in the community, as sampled at Freeman's Barber Stop, is that Schroder, a Republican who belongs to the National Rifle Association, never really bonded with Grand Junction, though the two would seem a good fit. Grand Junction is a conservative community where hunting is a major element in the economy....
Editorial: U.S. Attorney should take action in road-sign dispute A request for legal action against Kane County has languished in the office of U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner long enough. It's time for an accounting. Kane County officials, fighting for greater access to public lands, defied federal law in 2003 when they posted signs directing off-highway vehicles to trails that are off-limits inside the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and tore down signs that closed roads on federal lands to OHV use. Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw says he wants a court to settle the two-year dispute, and we agree that there is no other way to deal with it, as Habbeshaw and his county cohorts apparently do not intend to comply with the law. After Bureau of Land Management Director Sally Wisely ordered the county to remove its signs from federal land or face a lawsuit, Habbeshaw and the county commission removed 52 signs, but they left others in place and put up some new ones on roads the county considers easiest to defend in court. The U.S. Attorney's Office has been investigating the illegal removal of BLM signs for two years now....
Editorial: Land assault Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. portrayed himself as a moderate on issues of land use and the environment. But as governor he has solidly aligned himself with those who seek broader use of federal lands, including access via questionable "roads" into wilderness study areas. With Huntsman's assent, the state has filed five road claims under a deal struck by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and Secretary of Interior Gale Norton to broker conflicting claims to roads on federal lands. Environmental groups successfully challenged one of those claims and are questioning the others, pointing to aerial photographs, maps and historical records that would seem to indicate they, too, fail to meet the criteria. On another front, the Utah Attorney General's Office has filed suit to regain access to five roads that were closed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of a much-discussed travel plan for off-highway vehicles in the San Rafael Swell that was put in place in 2003, as well as access to two others in a congressionally established wilderness study area. The state has also joined a San Juan County lawsuit that seeks ownership of an undeveloped road, essentially a stream bed, in Canyonlands National Park. And it has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a Mountain States Legal Foundation lawsuit aimed at shrinking the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument....
9 spooked wild horses die in Calgary ride An annual round-up of 200 wild horses went terribly wrong in Calgary, Alberta, when nine of the animals were spooked on a bridge and plunged to their deaths. As part of Trail Ride 2005, ranch hands were guiding about 200 wild horses on a six-day, 125-mile journey from the Stampede Ranch near Hanna, Alberta, to the site of the Calgary Stampede's downtown event. Stampede spokesman Lindsey Galloway said some horses became frightened as they crossed a bridge over the Bow River....
Column: Lessons From the Kelo Decision One week after the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court, Americans are still reeling from the shock of having our nation’s highest tribunal endorse using government power to condemn private homes to benefit a property developer. Even as we celebrate our independence from England this July 4th, we find ourselves increasingly enslaved by petty bureaucrats at every level of government. The anger engendered by the Kelo case certainly resonates on this holiday based on rebellion against government. Kelo has several important lessons for all of us. We are witnessing the destruction of any last remnants of the separation of powers doctrine, a doctrine our founders considered critical to freedom. The notion that the judicial branch of government serves as a watchdog to curb legislative and executive abuses has been entirely exposed as an illusion. Judges not only fail to defend our freedoms, they actively infringe upon them by acting as de facto legislators. Thus Kelo serves as a stark reminder that we cannot rely on judges to protect our freedoms. If anything, the Supreme Court should have refused to hear the Kelo case on the grounds that the 5th amendment does not apply to states. If constitutional purists hope to maintain credibility, we must reject the phony incorporation doctrine in all cases – not only when it serves our interests. The issue in the Kelo case is the legality of the eminent domain action under Connecticut law, not federal law. Congress can and should act to prevent the federal government from seizing private property, but the fight against local eminent domain actions must take place at the local level....
House Registers Strong Disapproval of Supreme Court Ruling The House of Representatives can't undo a troubling Supreme Court ruling, but it can -- and did -- send a message to the states. On Thursday, the House voted 365-33 to condemn the court's Kelo v. City of New London ruling that allows the government to take private property for "economic development." Private homes may be turned over to private commercial developers with "just compensation" -- even if homeowners object, the court said. In addition to the resolution, legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to limit federal funding for cities and municipalities that use eminent domain to seize property for economic development. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) introduced the House bill, and he said he expects the House Judiciary Committee to consider it later this year....
Mad Cow Proposals Lead to Fight In the wake of confirmation that a U.S.-reared animal had mad cow disease, California cattle ranchers and grocers are battling consumer, health and labor groups over legislation aimed at allaying fears about tainted meat. One lawmaker wants to require that beef carry labels showing its country of origin, and to force health authorities to make detailed public announcements about recalls of all contaminated meat and poultry. Another wants to permit ranchers to voluntarily test their cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease. Federal regulations bar testing, labeling and detailed disclosure about recalls. Foes of the state effort say that federal law takes precedence and that courts would strike down any state statutes. But consumer groups, saying the federal government is soft on meat producers, hope California can force the issue by approving state laws that might pressure the federal government to act....
Farmers evade cow testing, critic says A key lawmaker is raising concerns that farmers and ranchers are burying dead cattle rather than sending them to processing plants where they would be tested for mad cow disease. U.S. Agriculture Department records show there was a 20 percent drop last year in the number of farms reporting that they have cattle that are unable to walk - the kind of cattle considered at highest risk for the disease. The disclosure gives ammunition to critics who say the government must do more to protect the public from mad cow disease. The USDA's testing program is missing cattle that may be infected, they say. "These numbers prove that this voluntary testing program that has little oversight is not working," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the House agricultural appropriations sub- committee....
Ranchers buck U.S. beef policy When Bill Bullard is making a speech to cattle ranchers, it's always a good sign when the parking lot is full of new pickups, as was the case on a recent evening at the VFW hall on the outskirts of this tiny town in south Texas. Bullard is the executive director of R-CALF USA, a maverick organization of ranchers fighting to keep the U.S. border closed to Canadian cattle, an effort that was precipitated by the discovery of Canada's first case of mad cow disease in May 2003. Bullard argues that the border needs to remain sealed because of uncertainty over mad cow, an assertion that he says was reinforced by the June 24 announcement of the second case of mad cow disease in the U.S. But he is also quick to remind ranchers of a more practical benefit: In the two years since the U.S. border was sealed, beef prices for American ranchers have never been higher....
Column: Immigration's place in agriculture The range sheep industry in the United States is small, but as recent reports in The Denver Post detail, it is utterly dependent on foreign labor. The sheep industry is a microcosm of American agriculture. Without foreign workers, the United States could not produce food in commercial quantities. Consumers may look at lamb chops and wool sweaters and think they can do without or buy imports from Australia and China. However, if they eat fresh broccoli, or a lettuce and tomato salad, or drink orange juice, it is on their table because a foreign laborer helped to put it there. If a consumer enjoys chicken strips in a fast-food joint, or a fish dinner in a pricey restaurant, that chicken or fish has passed through the hands of a foreign worker. Steak or hamburger? The steer may have been herded by a foreign cowboy or processed by a foreign meat-cutter....
Building a future on rocks from the past Sometimes you have to look around to realize what you've got. Thomas and Mary Hoover figured that out in 1876. They were applying to open a post office in their Central Oregon rimrock settlement, so the story goes, when some government functionary asked them what they wanted to call it. The Hoovers were ranchers. Accounts vary, but supposedly a landslide out on their range sometime earlier had exposed the stony bones of a prehistoric animal. What it was has been lost to memory; various people recall that it was a woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, a camel-like animal or a three-toed horse. At any rate, the Hoovers supposedly looked at each other and knew the answer. "Fossil," they said. Jump forward 130 years, a blink of the eye in geologic time but a long haul for humans. Fossil, the county seat of Wheeler County, is a place waiting for something to happen. It's down to 460 souls now and hanging on, with a single, blinking red traffic light, 23 kids in the high school and people still shaking their heads about the closure of the Kinzua lumber mill 30 years ago....
More than a coffee shop General Mercantile experience goes deeper than caffeine and conversation — it's a destination Ray Domer is hard at work mixing cocoa powder into a gourmet blend of hot chocolate. Two tea-sized cups collect the savory drippings from an Italian espresso machine hissing behind the bar. The goldfish, which can't be overlooked, swim circles in a horse trough while a game of cribbage hits full swing — never mind the early hour. It's just after 8 a.m. on what may be the liveliest block of Last Chance Gulch in downtown Helena, a place where Domer has been in business for 34 years. His store, the General Mercantile, has become a mainstay and, you could say, an attraction unto itself. "As kids we all grew up going to Virginia City, Nevada City and Frontier Town," Domer said, passing a vanilla latte across the bar. "My dad was a rancher at the foot of Mount Baldy. All this wood came from his ranch."....
Indian art fits legend, man says Truckers and tourists speeding between Coachella and Blythe on Interstate 10 won't see a billboard pointing to the cradle of Aztec civilization. But somewhere between the George S. Patton Museum in Chiriaco Summit and the Desert Center plaque marking the birthplace of modern health insurance, Alfredo Acosta Figueroa says the bygone inhabitants of Aztlán left their own imprint on the landscape. Figueroa credits ancestors of the Aztecs, builders of an indigenous empire that Spanish conquerors in the 16th century said rivaled Venice, with creating a network of rock carvings, intaglios and prehistoric trails roughly from Joshua Tree National Park to the Colorado River....
Mustang Ranch sort of back in saddle The Mustang Ranch, the best-known little whorehouse in the West, is back in business at a new location. The gaudy pink stucco buildings and the working girls are there. The only thing missing is the name. The bordello reopened Friday east of Reno with the generic name World Famous Brothel six years after the government shut it down and auctioned its buildings and contents. The government seized the Mustang Ranch in 1999 after its parent companies and manager were convicted in a federal fraud and racketeering trial. But the Bureau of Land Management was uneasy about owning a brothel and put it up for grabs on eBay. Bordello owner Lance Gilman snapped it up for $145,100, then spent $4 million to carve up the buildings and move them to his Wild Horse Resort & Spa brothel, 5 miles east of the old Mustang site....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Overseas service is whole different rodeo Out of the clear blue of the Persian sky, a helicopter approached the base and one of its blades hit a dirigible cable. A quick call was made to headquarters as they watched the freed balloon rising into the prevailing winds and drifting toward Iran. I'm sure many of you cowboys at home are thinking "What would I do?" A biplane with a hook or a team roper on the wing? A helicopter approach from the top lowering a bull rider onto the dirigible with his Moore Maker balloon-piercing knife? Have two fly fisherman from Bozeman parachute by and reel it in? Not the Air Force....

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