NEWS ROUNDUP

The new sodbusters Technology and government subsidies have spawned a new era of sodbusting in central South Dakota, pitting struggling farmers against the state's signature ecosystem and the nation's most productive duck habitat. Crop breeding and better machinery have helped make plowing virgin prairie more feasible in a region known as the Missouri Coteau. South Dakota, at the coteau's southern tip, is "ground zero for this grassland loss," according to a researcher from Ducks Unlimited, a conservation and hunting group that fears the destruction could drain much of the life from this indispensible place. Using satellite photographs of thousands of tracts blanketing the coteau, researcher Scott Stephens of Bismarck, N.D., and others have documented the loss of 88 square miles of native grassland in central South Dakota since 1984 - 10 percent of the area's remaining acreage. The trend appears to be accelerating, and farmers and officials say government subsidies and new technology are responsible....
Rancher Loses His Water Rights Case: Nebraska's High Court Rules That the State Has No Duty to Protect Surface Streams Against Depletion For the second week in a row, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday it is not the state's duty to protect the rights of people who own rights to water in streams and rivers from those who may deplete the flows by pumping water from the ground. "It's a dark day for rivers and streams in Nebraska,'' said attorney Thomas Oliver of Bridgeport, who represented the Spear T Ranch in its lawsuit against the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources. Rancher Rex Nielsen of Gering filed the case against the state after water in Pumpkin Creek -- which he used for crops and livestock -- disappeared. He blamed groundwater users for sucking the stream dry and asked the state to protect his property right. David Cookson, special counsel to Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, said he is pleased the legal fight is over. "The court in this decision sent a strong message that we need to work together under LB 962 (the state's year-old water law) for the integrated management of groundwater and surface-water use,'' he said. The case was the latest skirmish in a legal battle pitting surface-water users against groundwater users....
Mobilizing the middle and plowing ahead The Quivira Coalition, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, began as an alliance between two environmentalists and a rancher; in the last eight years, it has snowballed into an environmental force to be reckoned with, and is as difficult to squeeze into easy definitions and categories as its name. The basic philosophy of the group is that the best thing for environmentalists, ranchers, and the environment itself is to stop fighting long enough to see the ranching issue in a new way. Hard-core environmentalists want to stop ranching altogether; hard-core ranchers want to keep on ranching the way their forefathers have done it for a century. This we know destroys the ecosystem, and eventually their own profits; but putting ranchers out of business often results in the land being resold to developers and turned into condominiums, parking lots or shopping malls, which is the last thing either side wants. Quivira’s task is to try to get both parties to see what they have in common, and work together. Observation and an ever-deepening understanding of grazeland ecosystems can and has led to new ranching methods that are less and less harmful, and that even help heal the environment from the ranching wounds of the past....
Montana water standards may limit Wyo CBM Montana regulators are setting water quality degradation limits that may seriously stunt the lucrative yet largely untapped coal-bed methane gas resource in northeast Wyoming. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said recently the two states are at loggerheads about how far Wyoming can degrade water quality in the Tongue, Powder and other rivers that flow from Wyoming's coal-bed methane gas fields into southeast Montana. Wyoming regulators believe they can meet Montana's "numeric standards" at the border, but Montana officials say that would leave no wriggle room for coal-bed methane water discharges on their side of the border. Montana proposes a 50/50 split of the capacity for additional electrical conductivity and sodium adsorption ratio. Wyoming regulators believe they should be allowed to go beyond 50 percent at least until Montana begins developing its own coal-bed methane gas resources in earnest....
Split-estate law raises legal issues Oil and gas developers worry that a new state law covering development on split estates will require them to post two separate bonds on some tracts. Previously, developers needed to post one bond when drilling for minerals owned by the federal government. The new state law will require a bond when developers and landowners can't agree on terms before drilling begins, said Don Likwartz, director of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, possibly duplicating bonds already posted with the Bureau of Land Management. Split estates - where one party owns the surface land and another party owns the mineral rights below that land - are common in parts of Wyoming and the West. Rick Robitaille, public affairs manager of Anadarko Petroleum Corp., said having to post two bonds for the same piece of land would increase production costs....
Wolf plan will likely wait at least two years Wolves will come to Oregon, like it or not. But a state law spelling out what ranchers can do to protect their livestock from wolves — an endangered species — will probably have to wait at least two years. Legislators have been unable to agree on a bill that was intended to make it easier for ranchers to kill wolves that were attacking livestock. Because wolves are protected under the state and federal Endangered Species acts, under current law ranchers would have to contact federal authorities if their livestock is attacked, then wait for an agent to determine if wolves were responsible and whether to harass or kill those involved. A bill and amendments that were considered by a House committee would have connected Oregon's classification of wolves to the federal government's. So if the federal government relaxed classification of wolves to protected status instead of endangered, farmers would be able to kill wolves caught killing their livestock....
Forest Service sets sights on unmanned aircraft Federal scientists have tested them over Mount St. Helens. The Department of Homeland Security has used them to inspect the Alaskan oil pipeline. The Coast Guard wants to use them for maritime enforcement and the Border Patrol to guard the U.S. border with Mexico. Now the U.S. Forest Service is considering using unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to help them better fight the forest fires that burn every summer across millions of acres in the West. This week the Forest Service will test three small UAVs at a National Aeronautics and Space Administration facility in San Jose. Next summer the Forest Service and NASA will test-fly an Altair UAV, the civilian version of the military Predator UAV used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current plan is to fly the Altair continuously for 24 hours over the western United States to map forest fires....
Lake Tahoe bears are fussy about fish Lake Tahoe's black bears love trout and hate salmon. Bear watchers aren't sure why. As the Nevada Department of Wildlife harvested eggs from rainbow trout spawning from Marlette Lake near northeastern Lake Tahoe this spring, it again had to put up about 30 yards of solar-powered electrical fence to keep black bears from the fish. Without the fence, originally designed to shock cattle, the bears descend on a 15-yard section of a stream flowing into Marlette Lake and gorge themselves on hundreds of trout kept there until wildlife department workers get the trout's eggs or sperm for state hatcheries, said Dave Sanger, a fisheries staff biologist....
Emotions are fresh as 1953 forest tragedy memorialized On a dusty, winding, narrow road that hugs a ridge deep behind the golden hills above the Sacramento Valley, a bus chugs its way to a waiting memorial. The sky is gray and cloudy. Inside the bus are a dozen people, some there to pay respect to the memories of their fathers who perished across the canyon 52 years ago. One of those aboard is Ruth Rowe, the daughter of Hobard Stanley Whitehouse. Rowe was 4 years old when her father lost the race on the ridge against a determined wall of flame....
Environmental groups sue over proposed phosphate mining Two environmental groups have filed suit in federal court to block J.R. Simplot Co. from exploring phosphate deposits in a southeastern Idaho roadless area that includes streams used by the rare Yellowstone cutthroat trout for spawning. The complaint was filed by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Idaho Conservation League June 30 in U.S. District Court in Boise. It seeks to prevent the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management from issuing a permit to the company to drill 25 exploratory holes in the Sage Creek Roadless Area 13 miles northeast of Georgetown near the Idaho-Wyoming border. Last month, the Forest Service found that the fertilizer company's plan was in compliance with all federal laws. The agency rejected an appeal from environmentalists to withhold the exploration permit for the Manning Creek project, which would include building nearly 15,000 feet of temporary road....
Forest official: Southwest managers skirt pesticide policies A regional U.S. Forest Service official contends that he has documents to back up accusations that some managers skirted the agency's policies and environmental laws for spraying pesticides and weed-killing chemicals in the Southwest. The Forest Service has released documents about pesticide projects in New Mexico and Arizona after being sued by Doug Parker, pesticide coordinator and assistant director of forestry and forest health for the Southwestern Region. Parker sought the documents since his supervisor rejected a request he made in December under the Freedom of Information Act. He followed with a lawsuit in April. According to Parker's lawyer, the documents shed light on accusations that the region has a "systemic problem" regarding proper pesticide use....
Editorial: Battle of the Bighorn Over the last six years, a battle to save the endangered bighorn sheep has succeeded beyond the expectations of the state and federal agencies and advocacy groups that launched the project along the eastern Sierra Nevada in California and Nevada. The numbers of this unique species, separate from the desert bighorn in Southern California, have rebounded from about 100 to as many as 350. Now the state Fish and Game Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are considering a regulation that would allow them to trap or kill bighorns, ostensibly in order to save them. It's a classic case of bureaucratic wrongheadedness. The aim is to protect the bighorns from catching fatal diseases, such as pneumonia, from domestic sheep that are allowed to graze in portions of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, home to about 20 of the wild sheep. Incredibly, the U.S. Forest Service still allows about 6,500 domestic sheep to graze on leases covering about 175,000 acres. That's a fraction of what it used to be, but enough to present a danger if the two species mingle. Then the Fish and Game Department would be summoned to trap or kill the bighorns to prevent them from infecting other wild sheep. In summer, the nimble and elusive bighorns rock-hop as high as 14,000 feet in the Sierra. At times, however, they drop lower to graze. That's the danger zone. Summer grazing of domestic sheep in the mountains was mostly phased out over the years as sheep-raising dwindled and recreation use of the forests mushroomed. "Locusts," John Muir called the herds, even though his first trip into the High Sierra was as a sheepherder....
Ag official disagrees with Schweitzer on wildfires Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said Friday he does not share Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's concerns that there won't be enough National Guard troops or aircraft to help fight summer wildfires in the state this year. Rey, in Missoula to visit with officials from a private air tanker contractor, said he believes the Forest Service will have enough military personnel and aircraft available to help fight summer fires, should they break out. In March, Schweitzer asked the military to return some of the 1,500 National Guard soldiers, along with 10 Guard helicopters, from service overseas, including in Iraq. Schweitzer cited fears of a major summer wildfire season and a lack of personnel to fight the flames. The troops often are called upon to supplement firefighters, and Schweitzer said he feared the Guard members' absence during the fire season could prove to be catastrophic. Rey, who directs U.S. Forest Service policy for the USDA, said the Defense Department has committed two battalions of 1,000 soldiers apiece to firefighting this year and they've undergone fire training and will be available to help....
Column: The Terror of Our Ways Everybody in Kalispell cares about trees. Trees feed the timber industry, help drain the land, attract tourists, and provide habitat for wildlife; and they also catch fire and endanger homes and lives during the annual forest-fire season. Talking about trees in Kalispell means talking about livelihoods and lifestyles, and the Valley's different interest groups are like sticks dangerously rubbing together in its drought-plagued forests. Enter Stokes, radio host and human blowtorch. On environmentalists, Stokes has this to say: "Eradicate 'em. Their message stinks. They're destroying America. And it all came out of the Third Reich. You know, the Third Reich was born out of the environmental community. I don't make it up. It's there." Stokes attends town meetings, holds rallies, and burns green swastikas to protest what he sees as the tyranny of liberals, the U.S. Forest Service, immigrants, the government, and, of course, the people he refers to as "eco-Nazis" and "green Nazis." "John Stokes came to this valley and all of the sudden the people had a way of telling the truth," says one timber worker featured in the film. Clearly, Stokes and his listeners are angry. They're angry at the Forest Service and the more uncompromising environmentalists for not letting loggers thin the forests in a way that will (they think) boost the flagging Montana economy and prevent fires. They're angry about losing their timber-industry jobs. They're angry about watching property values soar as millionaires buy weekend ranches in the Valley....
Earth Day v. Earth Day Gaylord Nelson, a beloved former governor and senator of Wisconsin, died of cardiovascular failure on July 3 at his home in Kensington, Md. Gov. Nelson was best known as the creator of Earth Day, the international environmental festival first held in 1970 ... Not so fast. Most of Nelson's obituaries began this way, but Nelson's claims to have invented Earth Day are actually controversial. A little history is in order. In 1969, a newspaper article about anti-war "teach-ins" on campuses gave him the idea of staging a huge collective teach-in in defence of nature. Hence the first Earth Day -- April 22, 1970. Unless, of course, you count the other Earth Day. Every year, the United Nations observes its own Earth Day on the first day of spring. This Earth Day was devised by a West Coast oddball and pacifist named John McConnell, who proposed the idea at a UN conference in San Francisco in 1969. That city proclaimed its own Earth Day on March 21, 1970, one month before Nelson's....
'Darth Gator' killer in limbo A week after a reptile slaying in Chesterfield County, it remains unclear whether the fisherman who reportedly clubbed it to death will feel the bite of the Endangered Species Act. Max Belle, the angler in question, hasn't even been told by federal game officials if the deceased reptile was indeed on the protected-species list, said his lawyer, David Baugh. "If the government takes this long to determine whether or not it is a protected species, I wonder why they would expect a common, ordinary citizen to make this differentiation," Baugh said Friday. "How is someone supposed to know the difference between a protected, endangered reptile and a threatening, nuisance reptile?" Baugh added....
Column: Outrage over property rights 30 years too late Finally, the outrage. For 30 years across America, local, state and federal governments have been begging, borrowing and stealing trillions of dollars of private property with little or no compensation. Little or no outrage. Any voices raised in protest were drowned out by the cheering of environmentalists, happy their favorite plants and animals would get a free place to live on millions of acres of free land. But in Connecticut, the Supreme Court allows a city to take a few homes ---- even when it pays for them ---- and the anger falls like acid rain. Better now than never. The Connecticut city had its reasons why it took those homes. Cities always do. But for the first 180 years of our republic, the courts really did take property rights seriously. Judges insisted that private property really was private, and that government could only take it under extreme circumstances. And then, of course, it had to pay for it. But for the last 30 years, we've been on a slippery slope of government land grabbing. At the federal level, the Endangered Species Act has outlawed the private use of private land on tens of millions of acres throughout America....
Salmon's future at heart of federal dam war Behold the slab of concrete called Little Goose, ground zero in the salmon wars that are escalating across the Pacific Northwest. Little Goose has turbines for power, locks for river transport, and a Rube Goldberg device for distilling young salmon out of the river, sorting them by size, and hosing them into trucks and barges for passage downriver. This hulking gizmo has become part of the ''environmental baseline" here on the Snake River. At least that is how the Bush administration characterizes Little Goose and 13 other federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers. This characterization, though, has stuck in the craw of a federal judge. In his courtroom in Portland, Ore., US District Judge James Redden described the administration's 2004 biological opinion -- it says dams are an ineluctable part of the river's environmental baseline -- as a document written ''more in cynicism than in sincerity."....
Huntsman plugs Uinta Basin role in fuel production A visit to an eastern Utah fuel production company has Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. thinking Utah could play a role in fueling the nation - and Utah's economy. Oil Tech Inc., is producing 24 barrels of premium crude oil daily from oil shale - rocks that contain no oil, despite their name. Company representatives say they're converting the rock to oil at a cost of less than $20 per day. Huntsman toured the facility, in Bonanza just miles from the Utah-Colorado border, Friday and Saturday with senior staff, some lawmakers, federal and local officials as well as company representatives. Oil Tech technical adviser Byron Merrell is optimistic about the prospects. The man-made crude oil extracted from shale, which was once considered a waste product of drilling, can be refined into gasoline, he explains. And the shale can be used for other purposes....
Ranchers dig new grazing rules Strip away the jargon and clutter, and the Bureau of Land Management's new grazing regulations released last month come down to one basic thing - making ranchers feel a little more at home on the public range. By streamlining regulations and requiring more evidence to prove grazing violations, the Bush administration has recast Clinton-era rules. But it hasn't done anything to foster good will with environmentalists. Conservationists have assailed the new regulations for reducing the public's input into grazing decisions and eroding rangeland standards established under Clinton. Still, BLM officials say relations with ranchers had deteriorated to the point that something had to be done....
Oil industry providing workers for BLM office Consultants paid by the oil and gas industry have been volunteering to work for the Bureau of Land Management's Vernal office for the past five months, expediting environmental studies to keep pace with a glut of drilling requests in the region. The arrangement alarms environmental groups, which say it creates a clear conflict of interest and could compromise the work they do. "This is very troubling," said Steve Bloch, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "It's akin to the foxes guarding the henhouse. These are public lands and there clearly is a quid pro quo expected here, that there is going to be faster permitting, faster approval rates, and instead they really should be taking their time to make sure they're doing it right." But the industry and BLM say the five consultants are there to help ease the load for the overburdened BLM office, and a series of safeguards are in place to guarantee the work remains objective and corners aren't cut....Gee, I don't remember ranchers being invited in when BLM couldn't complete their NEPA work on grazing permits. Nope, the permits wouldn't have been issued and grazing would have been discontinued if Congress hadn't intervened....
Farmers struggle to survive Equipment breaks down; short growing seasons and hard, cold winters rule in meadows rising toward 7,000 feet elevation and higher; regulations for use of critical public grazing lands continually tighten, and then there are the predators that further reduce already tight profits, if there are any at all. These days, Willis and others working the land and livestock of the state will tell you it takes more than being a farmer to run and keep a farm. Second, even third jobs are typical, and critical to making it today in rural Utah. The 2002 U.S. Department of Agriculture census, the most recent available, found two-thirds of the Beehive State's 17,699 farms lost money. Nationally, 53 percent of the country's 2.12 million farms end the year in the red....
Rancher brings yaks to Cheyenne A thick, shaggy coat protects it from chilly winds and wintry weather. Historically, the native peoples relied on the beast, consuming the meat and using the wool for clothing. They even used its manure for fuel. The females give birth without human assistance, and the herds have their own form of holistic grazing. They don't stay in one place for long. They are strongly herd oriented, and when feeling threatened, adopt a united defensive posture. It may sound like a Wyoming buffalo, but figuratively speaking, it's a world away. The beast in question is the yak, product of Tibet and the soaring Himalayas....
New attitudes, Old West in Arizona standoff Jeff Harris rolled into this mining town in southeastern Arizona in 1981 in a van loaded with chickens. He settled into a house that faces a dusty hill dotted with ocotillo and century plants where cows and horses graze. "My closest neighbor is a cow," said Harris. And he likes it that way. But he and other longtime residents of rural Arizona are finding that throngs of people moving in from across the country often arrive with urban attitudes: They don't want chickens next door. They don't want tractors on the highway. And they certainly don't want their Jacuzzis used as watering troughs....
Dude ranch offers unbroken circle of Western tradition The learning starts over every summer when the cabins that were shuttered for winter re-open, welcoming new and returning guests. At Nine Quarter Circle Ranch in the Taylor Fork Valley, that learning process has spanned three generations without breaking. It began with Howard and Martha Kelsey in 1946 and continues today. Each mid-June, when the ranch re-opens, new wranglers learn the routine and terrain, baby horses are weaned from their mothers and first-time visitors shed their urban ways, giving themselves over to the culture of the Western dude ranch. Like a toy top spinning so fast it appears to be standing still, the seamless cycling lends a sense of timelessness to the ranch, which hosts visitors for one-week stays at a cost of about $200 a day....
Exhumation case date set A date has been set for the Texas Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in an appeal of a decision allowing the exhumation of ranching magnate John G. Kenedy Jr.'s remains to settle a woman's claim that he was her father. Attorneys for Ray Fernandez, Nueces County medical examiner, confirmed Friday that the state's highest court would hear arguments beginning at 9 a.m. on Sept. 28. The court will decide whether a Travis County probate judge had the legal jurisdiction in June 2004 to approve the exhumation of Kenedy's body to find out whether Kenedy fathered 79-year-old Ann Fernandez, who is Ray Fernandez's mother. Ann Fernandez is the daughter of Kenedy's former housekeeper, Maria Rowland Goates. Kenedy and his wife, Elena, had no children. For years, it has been thought that Kenedy was sterile after battling a severe case of mumps as a young man....
Cantankerous cowman gave montanans courage Boyd Charter had a straightforward value system. It went like this: You keep your word. You don't hurt other living things for sport or play or through meanness. You do what you can to help keep the earth and its inhabitants alive and happy. In these times of people pushing "new and better" things to acquire and do, Boyd's values too often are equated with gullibility and stupidity, rather than the simplicity of truth. When coal companies began sending representatives to eastern Montana in the early '70's to negotiate the buying-up of ranchers' land for strip mining of coal, they read Boyd wrong. He used to tell of one encounter he and his wife Anne had with an acquisitive coal company representative who assumed that because Montana ranchers are hospitable to strangers, they are also ignorant and malleable. "This fella didn't know that we had already sent some Montana ranchers down to Appalachia to find out from the people down there how the coal boys operated to weasel a person's land out from under him," Boyd said. "So we knew all their tricks....
Celebrating National Day of the American Cowboy July 23 is the National Day of the American Cowboy, as proclaimed by the United States Senate. Communities and organizations are being encouraged to conduct ceremonies and activities as part of a national celebration. Being a cowboy has multiple connotations, but in general, cowboys are perceived in a positive light. Many Farm Bureau members prefer to be called cowboys although city slickers would call them cattlemen or ranchers. The positives of being a cowboy are included in the resolution passed by the Senate and introduced by Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyoming), with several western state co-sponsors....
Chasing wild horses and roping bears, cowboy legend dies at 88 Living a piece of the American dream came naturally to Joseph Parrott. The hard work of a professional cowboy was something he loved and shared with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He made them work hard to have fun. Said to be one of the last true cowboys, Joseph F. Parrott died July 4. He was 88. "He and two friends were out riding and moving cows one day when a bear came up on them, so they team roped him," said daughter Elora Harmon with a chuckle. "They said it was a male bear when he came and when he left it was a steer bear." Parrott's traditional beliefs of if you shake a man's hand on a deal, it was as good as done and doing a job the right way instead of the easy way left deep impressions on his children and grandchildren. "If you ever got in trouble you just had to look over your shoulder and he'd be there," said Harmon, falling silent. "You never had to worry." Harmon said a lot of what his grandfather shared with him shaped who he is today and as soon as his own son was able he was sent to the cow camp to get a taste of the traditional Old West....

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