NEWS ROUNDUP

BLM head reasserts priority on energy development Bureau of Land Management Director Kathleen Clarke told Utah mining executives and officials Thursday that the Bush administration would continue to aggressively pursue energy development in the Intermountain West, to maintain the nation's quality of life and to ease its dependence on Middle East oil. Clarke, a Utah native and former director of the state's Department of Natural Resources, spoke at the Utah Mining Association's annual conference at the Canyons Resort. But the BLM director also said the continued health of the U.S. economy must serve as the baseline for the agency's decision-making. In that sense, Clarke said the debate over the management of public lands and natural resources has become muddled. The development of oil, gas and other resources are "essential" if the nation is to maintain some degree of energy independence....
Montana's governor eyes coal to solve U.S. fuel costs Montana's governor wants to solve America's rising energy costs using a technology discovered in Germany 80 years ago that converts coal into gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. The Fischer-Tropsch technology, discovered by German researchers in 1923 and later used by the Nazis to convert coal into wartime fuels, was not economical as long as oil cost less than $30 a barrel. But with U.S. crude oil now hitting more than double that price, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plan is getting more attention across the country and some analysts are taking him very seriously. Montana is "sitting on more energy than they have in the Middle East," Schweitzer told Reuters in an interview this week. The governor estimated the cost of producing a barrel of oil through the Fischer-Tropsch method at $32, and said that with its 120 billion tons of coal -- a little less than a third of the U.S total -- Montana could supply the entire United States with its aviation, gas and diesel fuel for 40 years without creating environmental damage....
Former forest supervisor urges Western Slopers to take action on energy issues A former U.S. Forest Service supervisor who garnered national attention for placing a moratorium on oil and natural-gas development is making her way across western Colorado. Gloria Flora stopped in Grand Junction on Thursday before heading to Montrose, spreading messages of sustainability on public lands and urging those affected by oil and gas development to take action. “There are so many troubling aspects of that industry,” she said. “It has a profound effect on individuals and communities, but development happens so quickly that sometimes roads and wells are there before you even realize what to do about it.” Flora urges Western Slope residents to educate themselves and push for more local control of issues such as well spacing and water quality restrictions....
Top Official Urged Change in How Parks Are Managed A high-ranking appointee at the Interior Department proposed fundamentally changing the way national parks are managed, putting more emphasis on recreational use and loosening protections against overuse, noise and damage to the air, water, wildlife or scenery. But a group of senior National Park Service employees rejected the proposal at a meeting this month. The 194 pages of revisions to the park service's basic policy document suggested by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary of the department, could have opened up new opportunities for off-road use of snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles throughout the park system, including Yellowstone National Park, whose roads the Interior Department has kept open to snowmobiles. Mr. Hoffman's proposals often involved seemingly minor word changes but their effect was nonetheless sweeping. Illegal uses, Mr. Hoffman proposed, must "irreversibly" harm park resources, instead of just harming them. Instead of obligating managers to eliminate impairments to park resources, he proposed that they should "adequately mitigate or eliminate" the problems. The draft was part of an effort to re-evaluate the park service's core mission and illustrated the continuing tension between the need to preserve park resources and the desire to make them available to the broadest possible public....
Counties try for consensus on wolves Wolves are a problem in Montana, commissioners from several Montana counties agreed in a meeting here Thursday, and the federal government needs to come up with more money to compensate ranchers and control wolf numbers. The goal of the five-hour meeting, organized by Park County Extension Agent Marty Malone, was to come up with a joint resolution calling for tighter management of wolves, a quicker removal from the federal Endangered Species Act list and keeping closer tabs on the big carnivores. Commissioners from Gallatin, Park, Sweet Grass, Stillwater, Carbon and Madison counties attended. Beaverhead County commissioners sent Joe Helle, a prominent sheep rancher, to represent them....
State hoping to take over more wolf management soon State wildlife managers could get more control over Idaho's wolf population soon, including authority to kill wolves that are preying on elk, officials say. Under new rules approved in January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowed wildlife agencies in Idaho and Montana to take a more active role in day-to-day wolf-management decisions. A memorandum establishing that broader authority in Idaho is expected to be approved in the next several days, state Fish and Game Department program director Steve Nadeau said Thursday....
Yellowstone grizzly bear roars back. Now what? Will success spoil the Yellowstone grizzly bear? The national park is bulging to capacity with grizzlies, and the bears are spreading out far beyond the park's borders. Under the protection of the Endangered Species Act for 30 years, the grizzly population has roared back from a low of about 200 in 1980 to more than 600. So now the debate - and it's often contentious - is about what's next. About 60 miles south of Yellowstone's border, Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Herb "Bubba" Haley is skinning a dead calf and checking for bite wounds that indicate a grizzly attack. He finds them. An hour earlier, Haley confirmed that a grizzly killed a cow a couple miles away, likely the same bear that got the calf. In this area far south of the park, wildlife officials have confirmed that grizzlies killed more than a dozen cattle this summer. Haley has trapped eight calf-attacking bears this summer, compared with three last year. After the latest attacks, he set another trap with meat from the dead cow as bait. "This summer just seems like it's chaotic," Haley told rancher Albert Sommers. "There's grizzlies all over the place."....
Urban grizzly attacks man and dog Gary Paterna was walking his dog down an overgrown trail in the woods southeast of his Chugach Foothills neighborhood Tuesday evening when a heart-stopping roar erupted behind him. "I hadn't taken one or two steps when the bear burst out of the brush," he said Wednesday. The bear swatted his chest and knocked him to the ground so fast that Paterna later wasn't quite sure how it happened. But the dog, a 9-year-old Brittany spaniel named Tok, drew the bear's attention. The bear pounced on the dog, giving Paterna time to leap to this feet. Twice more, the bear knocked him down. Twice more the dog's presence seemed to interrupt the attack. The 60-year-old grandfather of five suffered scrapes and a sore hip where he'd fallen -- plus five distinct claw marks and a purple bruise across his chest....
Endangered Salamander Spotlights Risks of Common U.S. Pesticide Endangered salamanders that live in Texas' capital city might get a break from pesticide exposure. Conservation groups achieved a settlement agreement this week that requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on impacts of the pesticide atrazine on the endangered Barton Springs salamander. The Barton Springs salamander, Eurycea sosorum, is found only in Barton Springs, in Austin, Texas. Scientists with the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) have found six pesticides in the Barton Springs aquifer of concern to human health and to salamanders, since amphibians are particularly sensitive to contaminants. Atrazine is the most heavily used herbicide in the United States, according to the EPA....
Pombo moves on fish crisis in the Delta A congressional hearing to explore the possible causes of an ecological crisis in the Delta is likely to be scheduled this fall, Rep. Richard Pombo told the Times editorial board on Wednesday. The Tracy Republican said he wants to hear more about what might be causing the fish decline and why, after $250 million in federal money and far more than that in state funds, the Delta's environmental problems have worsened. "I think there will be a lot of questions about whether the money has done any good," Pombo said. In his first public comments on the Delta fish crisis, Pombo said the situation has the potential to constrict water supplies throughout the state....
Saltwater shark mysteriously turns up at Medina Lake When Jet Smith went out to check his fishing lines on Sunday morning, the Medina Lake angler wasn't expecting to haul in a 3-foot-long shark. All he was really after was enough catfish for supper, but what he brought to the dock an hour later was one catfish and one heck of a fish story. And not just any shark, either, but a 36-inch-long Atlantic sharpnose shark, a saltwater species that is biologically hundreds of miles out of its element in a Hill Country freshwater impoundment. Medina Lake, a 5,000-acre lake northwest of San Antonio, is about four hours from the Texas Coast....
Court action an option if legislators don't like refuge plan The state could mount a "substantial" legal challenge if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bans the use of gasoline-powered boats in parts of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, legislative attorneys said in an opinion released Thursday. Court decisions and provisions of state and federal law dating as far back as the northwest ordinance in 1787 raise fundamental questions about the federal agency's authority to adopt and enforce the proposed regulation, concluded attorney Mark Patronsky. The ban is among controversial recommendations in a 610-page comprehensive conservation plan that would regulate activities in the 240,000-acre refuge during the next 15 years. The agency also wants to ban waterfowl hunting in 21 areas with a total of 42,000 refuge acres. The ban would be in addition to 15 areas closed to hunting since 1958, Hultman said....
Coyotes put the bite on North Shore pets Moments after Amalia Tragos Stachowiak coaxed her 12-week-old German shepherd in from the back yard, where it suddenly had frozen in its tracks, her husband spotted a coyote sniffing their children's toys. It was 8:15 a.m. That was a month ago, but Stachowiak again saw a coyote over the weekend, nosing around her barbecue grill. And though she's glad her puppy, Cali, is safe, other pets have fallen victim to coyotes driven closer to North Shore homes because of this summer's drought. A 15-month-old terrier was killed in late June on a Northfield front lawn, said Northfield Deputy Police Chief Claude Casaletto. Six domestic cats in Glencoe have been attacked and killed by coyotes in the last month, said Katie Sweeney, Glencoe community service officer. She fielded calls Monday about more sightings of normally nocturnal coyotes....
Utah sues BLM over 15-year-old road closures The Attorney General's Office filed suit Thursday against the Department of the Interior over three roads in Juab County, as the state of Utah continues to aggressively pursue road claims in rural counties. The roads in question range from 6.5 to 9 miles long, and are located in the western, largely uninhabited part of the county. They were closed by the Bureau of Land Management in the late 1980s because, according to BLM officials, they extended into a designated wilderness study area. But Assistant Attorney General Ed Ogilvie said the roads met the parameters for what has been defined by Congress as a public road, “and these roads meet those criteria in every way. These roads were closed without public input and contrary to law.” The suit marks the fifth complaint the state has filed against the Interior Department under Revised Statute 2477, an 1866 law that guaranteed public rights of way over federal land. The statute was repealed in 1976, but existing roads were grandfathered in....
Appeals court says herbicide spraying companies not protected from lawsuits Two companies hired to spray herbicide on Bureau of Land Management property are not protected from lawsuits as government employees, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The decision, handed down this week, means that Thomas Helicopters and DeAngelo Brothers may be sued by Mini-Cassia farmers and landowners who claim the businesses were negligent when the herbicide drifted onto privately owned land. The farmers claimed millions of dollars of crop losses. The companies had claimed they were ineligible to be sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which protects government employees from some lawsuits. But a three-judge panel of the appeals court said the companies are considered corporations -- not employees -- under the law, and so are not eligible for immunity under the Tort Claims Act....
Minorities avoid wilderness activities, advocates look for fix It's the same story from New York's Adirondacks to Arizona's canyons: there's a lack of ethnic and racial diversity in the outdoor areas where people hike, camp, mountain bike, paddle and picnic. In a time when minority populations are growing, wilderness advocates and administrators are reaching out to blacks, Hispanics and Asians to change that. The Outdoor Industry Foundation this summer reported that 79 percent of people taking part in outdoor activities like hiking and kayaking last year were Caucasian, 6 percent were black and 4 percent were Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics combined make up 27 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. Forest Service found similar trends in Arizona, where whites accounted for 88 percent or more of the visitors to the six national forests in that state, even though Hispanics make up about a quarter of the state's population....
Controlling cattle over the net Australian farmers could soon be using their mobile phone or the internet to open the farm gate from anywhere in the world. Technology developed at the University of New England in NSW will enable farmers to remotely control and monitor livestock movement by using their mobile phone or the internet. It will also eventually allow them to monitor and control the farm gate and water trough levels. The system has been developed to allow in-built alarm systems in the farm gate and water trough to send an automatic mobile phone text message if an unannounced visitor opens the gate or the water levels fall too low. The program, developed by the Institute of Rural Futures (IRF) in conjunction with Telstra, may be expanded in the future to include remote-controlled weighing devices for individual animals....
In Jefferson, snake bites the hand that tries to save it Stephen Sodones spotted it along the edge of Route 23 in Jefferson, a snake just starting its precarious slide to the other side of the highway. So the 62-year-old animal lover picked it up, hoping to carry it to safety. But in doing so, Sodones quickly learned one of nature's more important facts: Snakes bite. What bit Sodones three times on the arm Monday night was a copperhead, which can grow to 4 feet and have fangs like hypodermic needles. No one is quite sure how big this one was....here's your sign....

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