NEWS ROUNDUP

HD Mountains in drilling tug-of-war When snows drive deer and elk from the rugged slopes north of this town near the New Mexico border, outfitter Mike Murphy herds hunters into the HD Mountains. The HDs, named for a 19th century cattle company, are filled with deer, elk, mountain lions and wild turkeys. The HDs also hold more than $7.5 billion in coal-bed methane gas already leased to gas companies. Now, Murphy worries that a Forest Service proposal to bulldoze roads into the mountains' more than 34,000 roadless acres threatens his business, and a way of life. "There's no question the HDs have a lot of gas, and I think the companies are going to get it," said the 55-year-old Murphy, who has been an outfitter for 27 years. "But a road up every valley and every ridge is not what we want." For Petrox Resources Inc. and Elm Ridge Resources Inc., two companies holding leases on public and private land in the roadless study area, the HDs also are a valuable resource....
State Board to consider new water rules State regulators agreed Friday to potentially overhaul the rules dealing with two of Montana's thorniest environmental issues: the often salty water displaced in drilling coal bed methane and the water that washes over shuttered metal mines. The Board of Environmental Review, a seven-member, governor-appointed panel that writes Montana's environmental rules, overwhelmingly voted to consider new, stricter rules for dealing with coal bed methane water and metal mine waste water. Coal bed methane is natural gas sandwiched in a bubble underground between coal and water. In order to extract the methane, drillers have to first pump out the water that holds the gas bubble in place. In some parts of the Powder River Basin, where Montana's richest methane pockets are, that groundwater is salty. Farmers worry that piping the water into the Tongue River one of the main waterways in the area or holding it in ponds will damage irrigation water and potentially sterilize the land with white saline deposits....
Texas Family Fights Uranium Mining The extended Garcia family has lived for five generations in a cluster of frame and trailer homes here that now has a sad distinction: Their water is contaminated with uranium at levels so high the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration has told them to stop drinking it and see their doctors. State environmental officials and the company that has been mining uranium in the area for much of the last 20 years say the contamination is natural seepage from a vein of the radioactive material that runs near their well. But the Garcias and other Kleberg County residents don't accept that explanation and are fighting to prevent further mining....
Eradication of Brucellosis in Bison, Elk Sought When cattle in western Wyoming became infected with brucellosis two years ago, suspicion fell almost immediately on the area's diseased elk. It was a scenario ranchers feared would eventually happen, and it lent renewed urgency to the federal government's effort to eliminate brucellosis -- once and for all -- from the bison and elk herds that roam the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. State wildlife managers say they support the idea of eradication, but not at any price. And they question whether it's even possible - - in the next few years or in their lifetimes -- given the politics, emotion and biology surrounding into the issue. "In theory, it's doable; in theory, about anything is doable," said Terry Kreeger, of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "In practice, that's another question."....
TOO MANY ELK: HOW ABOUT A WOLF PACK IN NATIONAL PARK? The problem: elk chewing the beejeebers out of Rocky Mountain National Park. One solution: adding a pack of wolves to the park. Another problem: wolves wandering into nearby Boulder and Loveland. Still, the National Park Service is slated this week to propose as one alternative, adding a wolf pack, outfitted with radio collars, to chase the elk herds ravaging the park's aspen and willow stands. Wolf biologists have already warned that keeping the animals in the 226,000-acre park may be next to impossible. "I can't conceive of a way to keep wolves in the park," said University of Minnesota biologist and wolf expert David Mech. "I just don't know how one would do that."....
Ferrets get status review The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has initiated a five-year review of the status of the black-footed ferret across the West, federal officials said this week. The review aims to ensure that the listing classification of the black-footed ferret is accurate as required by the federal Endangered Species Act, according to Service spokesman Pete Gober. Black-footed ferrets were officially listed as endangered in 1967. Because Wyoming's black-footed ferret population was reintroduced from 1991-94, the species in Wyoming is classified as an "experimental population," which means there are no public or private-land use restrictions as a result of the listing....
Feds consider delisting grizzly bears Federal officials are getting ready to remove Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears that live in and near Yellowstone National Park. It's going to be a long process. It almost surely will be argued in court. And it's not just about bears. It's also about the wild habitat they need, and the people who live and work there. Chris Servheen, who has run the government's grizzly bear recovery team for 24 years, says he's positive the bears are ready for delisting. That position is backed by the state governments of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, plus members of Congress from those states. This week, the nation's largest environmental group also endorsed delisting. "The National Wildlife Federation will be supporting delisting," said Sterling Miller, a veteran bear scientist from Alaska who now works for the Federation in Missoula....
Bear dog trainers warned of wolf attacks Two bear hounds have been killed and another injured by wolves while being trained in two separate areas of northern Wisconsin this summer, triggering the state Department of Natural Resources to establish two wolf caution areas to alert individuals training bear dogs who want to reduce risk of conflict with wolves. Two hounds were killed in separate incidents when they approached what biologists believe is a wolf rendezvous area northeast of Ladysmith where adult wolves had left their pups. In the third incident a bear dog was injured while being trained in Lincoln County west of Merrill. Bear dog training is allowed in parts of northern Wisconsin from July 1 through Aug. 30....
Judge may alter water contracts Water contracts that often turn 60 miles of California's second-longest river into a sandy desert fail to adequately take into account the damage to endangered species, a federal judge has ruled. But he did not immediately alter the agreements that send San Joaquin River water flowing to 15,000 central California farmers and cities. The 25-year water contracts signed four years ago divert water at the Friant Dam near Fresno that otherwise would flow down the San Joaquin River and help sustain species there and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta east of San Francisco. The water instead goes to a million acres of farmland and to cities in Fresno, Kern, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence K. Karlton ruled Thursday in Sacramento that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act by deciding the contracts would not harm fragile species, including salmon....
Water issues linked to tribal quest for land By definition, “termination” means end. But for the Klamath Tribes, the word is the start of controversy. The 1954 federal termination of what was then called the Klamath Tribe left the American Indian group that had been based in Chiloquin, Ore., without a reservation, some of its members with loads of cash, some with land held in trust, and all members free of federal oversight. A half-century after the end of the reservation, Klamath leaders are talking about a restored reservation. Federal officials have been in discussions with them about the possibility, fueling rumors and speculation about what might happen in the perennially water-short Klamath Basin....
Court rules in favor of Santa Fe, N.M., environmental group A Santa Fe environmental group is entitled to federal records showing that ranchers in the West are using federal grazing permits as collateral to secure bank loans, a federal appeals court has ruled. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled this month that Forest Guardians of Santa Fe doesn't have to pay the U.S. Bureau of Land Management some $88,000 in copying fees before it may inspect agency records of the loan program. The ruling overturns an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court in New Mexico. Billy Stern, grazing-reform program coordinator for Forest Guardians, said Thursday that his group filed the lawsuit against the BLM in 2002....
Ranch goes public Hartman works for the Bureau of Land Management, which last month completed the second phase of a three-part land sale of the 5,636-acre McMaster ranch. Long coveted by developers wanting to subdivide this prime piece of real estate, the ranch instead is becoming public property. Small brown signs erected last week show the designated entrance to the parcel east of Highway 12, a few miles north of Winston. People can now ride bikes, hike, hunt and take horses onto this 2,500-acre part of the ranch; motorized use is restricted. The same regulations apply to the 1,900 acres of the McMaster Ranch below Canyon Ferry Dam that was transferred to the BLM as part of the first phase of the project last year. Dolly and her brother, James "Bud" McMaster worked with Hartman and Gates Watson of the nonprofit Conservation Fund for at least five years, hammering out details on how to ensure that this beloved family heirloom would be protected from development....
BLM proposal raises concerns among subsistence hunters A proposal by a federal agency to transfer land along the Richardson Highway into state hands is raising concerns among federally qualified subsistence hunters in the Copper River basin. The plan by the Bureau of Land Management would transfer management of more than 400,000 acres along the trans-Alaska oil pipeline between Thompson Pass and the Alaska Range to the state. The proposal says transferring the land to the state could have a "significant" impact on subsistence hunters in Game Management Unit 13. The pipeline property along the Richardson Highway amounts to 63 percent of the federal hunting area in unit 13 that's administered by BLM, said Elijah Waters, subsistence coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management in Glennallen....
BLM, cooperating agencies move toward agreement on Roan The Bureau of Land Management and its cooperating agencies on the Roan Plateau Resource Management Plan got a few steps closer to consensus Friday. Although the meeting was to discuss protection for wildlife, talk turned to oil and gas development on the gas rich plateau. Among the cooperating agencies are the cities of Rifle and Glenwood Springs, the town of Parachute, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties, and state agencies, including the Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Notably, the group appeared to agree that surface well spacing, staging and having one operator drill and produce gas for a number of lease holders may be the keys to the best management of the plateau....
Utah's energy boom: It brings big bucks to eastern Utah - along with a plague of growth problems The eastern Utah high-desert city of Vernal is smack in the middle of the resurgent Rocky Mountain natural gas rush spurred by the price of energy and the Bush administration's directive to encourage exploration and development. "Anytime you have an energy boom, you're reaping the glory of good, high-paying jobs," said Bill Johnson, director of economic development for Uintah County. "Everybody is running to the bank with smiles on their faces." The rural region bereft of an airport, railroad or interstate highway has been through this before with the energy exploration boom and bust of the early 1980s. Now, amid hope and dread, the city is struggling with problems as dense as the rock the drills must penetrate to get at the buried riches....
Environmentalists question BLM's role as land steward Thousands of well sites. Hundreds of roads. Miles of pipeline. A horizon crowned with rigs. All of it fanning out, like some fantastic network of spider webs across the high valleys of the Rocky Mountain West. Whether it's Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico or Colorado, natural gas development looks much the same. It's dusty. It's noisy. And it leaves giant footprints. At the same time, the ground that makes up the West's oil and gas patches supports a complex ecosystem that nurtures vital wildlife, plant habitat and cultural sites. Rangeland, wild horses, wilderness, wildlife, fisheries, threatened and endangered plant species, wetlands, archaeological resources, wild rivers, recreation and ranching must coexist with the Rockies' biggest energy boom in decades. But how?....
Editorial - Hatch Amendment: Senator wrong to kill BLM's sensible fee proposal The number of applications for permits to drill for gas and oil on federal land far exceeds the ability of the Bureau of Land Management to process them and at the same time enforce regulations that protect the land, wildlife and water sources. Because compromising the agency's stewardship over the public lands of the West is not acceptable, charging oil and natural gas companies a fee of $4,000 seems to us a sensible way to help the BLM shoulder the added burden of processing drilling applications. Unfortunately, Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch doesn't see it that way. His amendment to the Energy Bill killed a fee plan proposed by the BLM that would have generated $23.5 million. Those funds could have helped BLM offices end the unseemly practice of allowing consultants hired by the gas and oil companies to do the agency's environmental assessments, expediting the application-review process....
Energy bill may help Colorado oil-shale site Energy legislation approved Friday by Congress will help move an experimental oil-shale project in northwestern Colorado closer to production, but energy giant Shell Oil Co. is still a long way from saying whether and when it will happen. Though Shell’s Mahogany research center near Rangely is producing promising results, no decision on commercial production is likely until the end of the decade, said Terry O’Connor, a Shell vice president working on the project in Denver. “I believe the bill will help get the project off the ground because it sends a strong signal that the U.S. government believes oil should be an important part of our domestic energy mix if it can be done in an environmentally acceptable and economically feasible manner,” O’Connor said....
BLM to remove all monuments from Sand Mountain Oct. 1 While some see them as tributes to lost friends at Sand Mountain, the Bureau of Land Management views them as something else - illegal. BLM officials recently announced that all monuments on top of Sand Mountain will be removed Oct. 1. Anyone who owns any items sitting at the site has until that date to recover them. The decision to strip the items from the popular recreational area was made due to two reasons - the illegal placement of monuments on public land and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe's recognition of that area of Sand Mountain as a sacred place....
Ranching: the land's good friend To keep a ranch viable for next year, and for the next generation, requires that a rancher take care of his land, including grazing permits. Some of those less-than-educated cowboys who over-grazed the land and distorted the riparian areas went out of business (as they should have) in the last century and are no longer an accepted lot in the West with today's media and market savvy agricultural producers. Unfortunately, many of today's "commentators" on overgrazing, cheap grazing fees and methane rich bovines (ad infinitum) have no idea of what they're talking about, other than to visit the sins of the fathers upon the producers of today in a blanket of erroneous claims and thoughts that do nothing other than create a divide between two groups who should be working together. Ninety-nine percent of the population wouldn't know a grazed pasture from an ungrazed one, let alone an overgrazed meadow from anything else, and that includes the group of "commentators" mentioned above. Use of such buzz words as "overgrazing" generally only serves to inflame those who are easily influenced....
Court decision delays logging A 10th Circuit Court ruling has halted a logging project near Utah's Fishlake National Forest. The Utah Environmental Congress asked the courts to delay work on the Seven Mile timber sale, 10 miles north of Fish Lake, because of the negative effect logging would have on wildlife. The three-toed wood pecker and the northern goshawk, both species struggling to remain viable, live in the forest, the environmental group said. The U.S. Forest Service had approved the logging project in 2000 under the Healthy Forest Initiative which is designed to control an advanced beetle outbreak. Kevin Mueller, director of the environmental group said the Forest Service often tried to ignore the environmental impact of logging projects....
Beetles shaping Montana's forest lands Montana's forests are under attack. Hundreds of thousands of acres across the state are falling prey to hordes of hungry beetles not much bigger than a pencil eraser. The beetles' spread is being fueled by a deadly combination of prolonged drought, overstocked and even-aged forest stands, and trees weakened by wildfire. Their march is marked by timbered hillsides pocked with differing shades of gray, red and pale green in stands of Douglas fir, lodgepole and whitebark pine. And there's pitifully little anyone can do to stop it. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that nearly 90,000 acres of Douglas fir trees in Montana were infested with Douglas fir beetles last year. An estimated half-million acres of lodgepole and ponderosa pine are under attack by mountain pine beetles. The whitebark pine faces a double threat from both the mountain pine beetle and a deadly blister rust fungus. In some cases, stands of whitebark pine have suffered losses nearing 95 percent....
Benefits of Planned Forest Fires Are Cited Firefighters have battled blazes on nearly 4 million acres of public and private land so far this year -- and federal officials are on track to deliberately burn 2.5 million more. This is not a case of rampant arson. Federal and state officials, joined by some environmentalists and academics, increasingly advocate deliberately setting fires in wild areas to restore ecosystems and prevent wildfires from raging out of control. Fires are part of the natural life cycle of forests, they argue, and help maintain a broader diversity of habitats for wildlife. After decades of fire suppression and Smokey Bear, the government now embraces "prescribed fire" as a key tool in managing the nation's forests. The policy began under President Bill Clinton and has accelerated under President Bush, but as it has grown, so has the controversy it inspires. Some community activists complain that prescribed fires pollute the air and damage valuable hardwoods, and logging companies say the strategy deprives them of valuable timber. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) is calling on the Forest Service to reexamine the impact on logging, and environmentalists are divided on the issue....
Mules rule in High Uintas cleanup campaign Sometimes an ass makes a good father. Riders in the Rocky Mountain Mule Association will tell you there's nothing better in rugged country than the sure-footed offspring of a female horse and male donkey. "They don't need much food and they don't need much water," says club member John Jacobson. "And mules are dang smart animals." This week, the mule club is helping the U.S. Forest Service clean up and repair trails and campsites in the Granddaddy Lakes region of the Uinta Mountains in Duchesne County. Among other things, the 20 riders and 50 mules on this trip are hauling out the rusted wreckage of a plane believed to have gone down in Four Lakes Basin more than 40 years ago....
Little land on Earth is still untouched Pristine lands, by the strictest definition, no longer exist, scientists say. Atmospheric pollution has settled on every earthly surface. Human-induced climate change is affecting ecosystems across the planet. Untrammeled landscapes are fragmented and shrinking. Where is the last of the truly wild? The Wildlife Conservation Society, with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, assembled satellite and land-use data to plot the extent of the global human footprint. On its colorful maps, the zones closest to pristine pop out as patches of leafy green. Worldwide, the society found that 17 percent of land is still virtually untouched — mostly because it is inhospitable to humans. In areas capable of growing basic crops, and therefore most able to support people, untouched lands have diminished to 2 percent of the total....
Rescuers seek missing ranger A search continued Sunday for a park ranger who went missing Friday. More than 50 people helped scour drainages in the Mummy Range in the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday for Jeff Christensen, 31, of Fraser, who was last seen by his co-workers at 11 a.m. Friday at the Chapin Pass Trailhead off Old Fall River Road. Volunteers were called off the search at nightfall and were expected to return to continue the search this morning. Christensen, an experienced mountaineer and EMT, was planning to do a backcountry patrol to the Lawn Lake Trailhead Friday evening, according to Rocky Mountain National Park officials. When he did not contact park dispatch that evening as is routine and did not arrive for his shift on Saturday, a wide-range search began that morning....
Column: Tell the story of today's West Dear Steven Spielberg: Have we got a deal for you -- today's West! We watched your Into the West. We had such hopes for what you could do with a six-part, 12-hour TV miniseries that took up much of TNT's weekend prime time this summer. But we have to admit we were disappointed that you went with the 19th century West. But while it is important to look back and tell the stories of the 19th century's westward expansion, Americans also must examine the present West and tell its stories if they are to figure out how best to go forward into the future. So how about taking another 12 hours to dramatize today?....
Cows trump drivers There was the time a logging truck plowed into a herd, making hamburger. Then there was the time the cattle kicked back, leaving hoof prints in a fender. Cow encounters don't occur every day in Eastern Oregon, but enough have happened that the Baker County Cattlewomen thought now was a good time to educate motorists -- again -- on the proper etiquette when stuck in a bovine bottleneck. The Cattlewomen, a club that promotes beef, just updated an old brochure on cattle drive protocol after copies dried up at the chamber of commerce and area hotels. Should you honk? Absolutely not. Besides being tiresome, honking won't make the cows move any faster, said Myrna Morgan, a rancher and president of the group....
Ranchers bemoan persistence of an Old West tradition: rustling City slickers who thought cattle rustlers and their ilk had gone the way of the American frontier, ''Gunsmoke'' reruns and the covered wagon should talk to Madison County ranchers. The Lyman Creek Grazing Association in this eastern Idaho county says thieves stole or shot thousands of dollars worth of its ranchers' livestock last year. The loss has prompted ranchers to team with law enforcement to offer $5,000 in rewards for information leading to the arrest of rustlers or vandals who shoot cows. ''We'll do whatever we can to stop it,'' Madison County Sheriff Roy Klingler said. One rancher believes he lost 25 cows last year to rustlers, worth as much as $50,000. And just last week, a cow worth about $1,000 was found shot to death, which brings to at least eight the number of cows that have been shot and killed since 2004....
History, legend meld to form fascinating novel While traveling through northern Mexico a few years ago, novelist Jim Fergus met an old man who told him the story of a young Apache girl captured by a hunter and brought to Cosas Grandes, Chihuahua, in 1932. The girl proved so unmanageable and dangerous the sheriff threw her in a cell and then charged the curious an admission fee to look at the recalcitrant Apache. The old Mexican remembers paying to see the girl, but he couldn't - or wouldn't - tell Fergus the girl's fate. The story haunted the author and eventually spawned "The Wild Girl," an absorbing historical novel. Ned Giles, a 17-year-old orphan from Chicago, is Fergus' narrator. On the death of his parents, Ned heads west seeking adventure and a career as a photographer. His immediate goal is Douglas, Ariz., where he hopes to land a job as the official photographer of the Great Apache Expedition....
Duvall filming near Cowtown A Hollywood veteran is back in the saddle on the outskirts of Calgary after returning to Alberta to film a western miniseries. Robert Duvall, famous for his roles in The Godfather films, Lonesome Dove and Apocalypse Now, is in Calgary for preproduction work on Daughters of Joy. Duvall, who praised Alberta after a stint filming here in 2002 for Kevin Costner's western Open Range, said it feels good to be back. The Academy Award-winning actor (for 1983's Tender Mercies) has spent the last three days riding with Peter Bews on ranches south of the city, including the Bar U Ranch about 100 kilometres southwest of Calgary. "He rides well, especially for a guy who's 74 years old," Bews said Thursday. Calgary-based Nomadic Pictures is co-producing the series in which Duvall plays a rancher who takes enslaved Chinese labourers with him as he moves 500 horses from Oregon to Wyoming....
Finals a calming influence When he competes in a major National Cutting Horse Association show, Greg Coalson makes sure that his mare, Fancy Nancy Dually, is calm and collected. "It's very important that you don't get her rattled," Coalson said. "You just keep her slowed down. She will work a cow well as long as you keep her calm." At the NCHA Summer Spectacular 4-year-old non-pro semifinal round on Friday at Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, Fancy Nancy Dually coolly and methodically entered the herd and turned a score of 219. The lofty score advanced the Weatherford duo to the final round at 3 p.m. Sunday....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Nature one of more formidable foes I was reminded of that day last winter when a visitor stared out on a flat Arizona desert pasture packed paddle to paddle, joint to joint with prickly pear and cholla. He remarked that it looked like a xeriscaped garden featured in Arizona Highways magazine. But, as any cow, cowboy or horse can tell you, a chase through a cholla forest is akin to being attacked by an army of maddened kindergarten teachers armed with staple guns! I learned later after chasing a cow through the palmetto that it, too, is not as innocent as brushing up against a feather boa. It grows in giant clumps of tangly roots and stems. Rough and hard as cottonwood bark, big as small culverts with stiff, sharp, spiny saw tooth leaves. Riding through it can be compared to tip-toeing through a bed of petrified sewer pipe all wrapped in porcupine coats....

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