NEWS ROUNDUP

Keeping the water clean Roger Muggli knows the value of energy. The Muggli Bros. alfalfa pellet processing plant just outside Miles City, Mont., spends about $10,000 for utilities every winter. The Muggli ranch also relies on flood-irrigation from the Tongue River to sustain 1,650 acres of alfalfa and barley crops, which are the base of the pellet plant. "I am acutely aware of energy costs. I know we need affordable energy," Muggli barked into his cell phone recently, taking a break from his daily ranch work. "But what the hell kind of a tax base will we have if this valley goes to hell?" Coal-bed methane producers on the Wyoming side of the Tongue pull large volumes of groundwater from coal seams in order to produce gas, and they'd like to add more of the by-product water to the Tongue and other Montana-bound waters....
Well near Helena yields no gas Natural gas exploration near here revealed no gas, and Canada's Suncor Energy Inc., which exercised mineral rights owned by the family of Montana's senior U.S. senator, is preparing to remove equipment from the site. An environmental group said the news strengthens the case against petroleum exploration in Montana's environmentally sensitive Rocky Mountain Front, where the mountains meet the plains. The petroleum industry said that assertion is not supported by facts. The $10 million drilling of a 16,000-foot well at Flesher Pass near Helena began in March and ended last month. The Helena area's last gas well, drilled by Unocal in 1988, also was dry....
Protect the corridor? Pronghorn antelope have traveled through here for thousands of years, gradually adapting to roads and subdivisions as they migrate between the high peaks of the Tetons and warmer, flatter lands of the Red Desert. But the animals, which make the 160-mile trek every spring and fall, may not be prepared for the metamorphosis coming to this sagebrush-covered swath of western Wyoming. What was once a quiet landscape is becoming a land of gas rigs and expensive housing developments. Conservationists are concerned the pronghorns' journey -- thought to be the second-longest land-based animal migration in the Western Hemisphere -- will get lost in the local population boom, much of which is due to a dramatic increase in energy development. A number of local groups have proposed the creation of the country's first "national migration corridor" to protect the traveling animals....
A Sense of Deja Boom The word frenzy wouldn't really begin to describe what's going on in and around this county seat of 1,400, where active gas wells outnumber residents by almost 2 to 1. In Sublette County alone, more than a billion cubic feet of gas is being extracted every day. Just over the horizon from Mayor Rose Skinner's window at Town Hall, 40 drilling crews work around the clock, sending drill bits deep beneath the Jonah and Pinedale Gas Fields. Across a landscape that once served as a backdrop for Marlboro Man commercials, roughnecks install new roads and lay miles of heavy pipe. Shiny new pickups crowd busy Pine Street, and saloons like the Cowboy Bar & Lounge draw rowdy patrons every payday. "We're happy to ride this boom," says Mayor Skinner, 84, "as far as it'll take us." Yet listen closely, and there's a forlorn quiver in her voice--indeed in the voices of many of this state's half-million hard-boiled residents. Dating back to the 1920s, there's never been an energy boom in Wyoming without a bust trailing behind it. The never-ending cycles are an enduring part of life here. Boom is better, no doubt about that. But folks in Pinedale know that even good times bring issues of their own. And while the getting's good, state leaders are searching for ways to get Wyoming off its economic roller coaster....
Column: Lies from Big Oil The oil and gas industry in New Mexico is starting to sound like tobacco companies. Their lobbyists tell us repeatedly that there's no danger to public health in their explorations and extractions. And just like the tobacco industry's refusal to admit that smoking causes cancer, energy lobbyists here absurdly refuse to admit that mining and drilling around aquifers causes any danger to fresh water supplies. One oil lobbyist in New Mexico recently went so far as to proclaim that spills and accidents from oil drilling were "biodegradable" and would cause no problem for the environment. Let's look at Otero Mesa and its vast supplies of fresh water - enough, some say, to supply a million people for 100 years. Saying there's no danger to that water from drilling for crude and natural gas is like saying no human error is possible or that oil drilling didn't involve the use of hazardous chemicals or that oil isn't often accompanied by brine or that New Mexico didn't already have 6,700 documented incidents of groundwater contamination from pits in which excess crude oil and its water products are dumped. In leasing Otero Mesa for oil and gas exploration, the Bureau of Land Management has a plan in which 70 percent of its proposed leasing area has not one special provision for groundwater protection....
Park Service objects to oil lease as spoiling Canyonlands view The National Park Service has filed objections with the Bureau of Land Management over plans for oil and gas drilling in eastern Utah, saying the rigs would spoil the expansive, lonely view from Canyonlands National Park. The BLM plans to lease two parcels outside the 527-square-mile park, where drill rigs would compete with a landscape of towering buttes and mesa tops against the 12,000-foot La Sal mountains. The bureau dropped two other nearby parcels over Park Service objections, and BLM officials say they'll reconsider objections a week before the Aug. 16 auction to other leasing tracts. The auction is set to offer 198,000 acres of BLM and national forest lands for oil and gas drilling. About 3,200 acres proposed for leasing "contribute to the exceptional landscape as viewed and experienced from the rims on BLM lands and as viewed from scenic overlooks within Canyonlands National Park," Tony Schetzsle, the agency's southeast Utah group superintendent, objected in a letter....
Drilling on Front leases still on hold Natural gas leases on Bureau of Land Management acreage along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front will remain off-limits until a far-reaching study is complete. In the interim, those opposed to drilling are being encouraged to work with lease holders on trades or buyouts. "Before we take any action, we need a land-use plan," Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary of land and minerals management for the Department of Interior, said in a recent interview. With development potentially on hold until at least 2010, those opposed to drilling are encouraged to work out options for buying or swapping existing leases, she said. "When we made this announcement, we invited folks to use this time to work with their congressional delegation and find other solutions," she said....
Livestock on BLM lands in Jarbidge safe for now On Friday, attorneys for the BLM, Western Watersheds and intervening entities such as Simplot Livestock -- an affected livestock producer -- agreed that the BLM would notify permittees that same day of Winmill's order. The parties further agreed that livestock producers will not be required to remove animals before Aug. 19. The BLM and livestock producers affected by Winmill's decision still have the opportunity to ask for a stay of the order or to appeal it. "Right now, we're still assessing what we're going to do," said Jeff Steele, Jarbidge district manager. "We have some real concerns as far as the livestock operators out there." Steele estimates that about 3,840 animals would typically be on the 28 allotments but the figure is likely less now due to the recent Clover Fire. The BLM has conducted a number of projects in the Jarbidge Resource Area to improve rangeland conditions, Steele said....
Walden Language to Protect Steens Mountain Landowners In Oregon Approved by House The U.S. House of Representatives last week approved legislation which included a provision requested by U.S. Representative Greg Walden (R-OR) in which the Congress expresses its strong support for landowners to have full access to their property on Steens Mountain. He added, "Today, however, bureaucratic red tape hamstrings landowners and lessees with over-burdensome regulations, which only allow them access to their property at certain times, force them to use arduous and time-consuming routes, and even dictate what types of vehicles they can use to access their property. This is decidedly not what our cooperative spirit intended when we developed the Act, nor what was supported by my colleagues in the Congress upon its passage." The legislation states: "The managers urge the Bureau to comply with the provision of the Steens Act and allow landowner, lessee and inholder access to their property within the boundary of the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. Unless funding is provided for land acquisition or exchange, landowners should be afforded full access to their property." (H-Rept. 109-80, pg. 14)....
Hit and miss The assessment John Novotny's team wanted to do wouldn't have cost the homeowner near Big Timber a dime. It would be a quick run-through of the fire hazards on his forested property, detailing what could be done -- with financial help from the federal government -- to help survive a wildfire that Novotny saw as all but inevitable. But the homeowner declined, leery of having a bunch of his trees in the narrow canyon in southern Montana marked for removal. It's a response Novotny has run into more than once in the last year, as the veteran firefighter has knocked on doors, preaching the gospel of defensible space to any homeowner willing to listen. And even trees in the nearby forest -- ignitable, "like the white tip of match" -- couldn't help him change some minds, he said....
Editorial: Judge rightly upholds rule protecting old-growth forests A million acres of old-growth forests in the Northwest that may be home to endangered and threatened plant and animal species could be affected by the outcome of a court dispute over a reasonable Clinton-era rule that requires Forest Service managers to look for those species before logging. Those old-growth forest habitats must be protected. Last week, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle ruled correctly that the Bush administration acted illegally in eliminating the look-before-you-log rule before federal agencies determined whether threatened species would be adequately protected without it. At risk are more than a million acres of old-growth forests that are outside forest reserves set up in the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan to protect northern spotted owls. The plan left areas of old growth open to possible logging but rightly required logging companies to first look for the presence of threatened species before cutting down old trees that might provide them homes....
America's public forests landlocked by sea of development America's national forests are beginning to resemble "islands" of green wilderness, increasingly trapped by an expanding sea of new houses, a forestry researcher will report today at the 90th annual Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Montreal, Canada. The widening circle of development around forests such as the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California is serving to block natural corridors, or wild "highways" that enable plants and wildlife to move easily between nearby forests, says Volker Radeloff, a forestry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Radeloff analyzed government census data on housing increases in and near all U.S. national forests between 1950 and 2000. "(In an isolated state), a forest cannot function as well for biodiversity," says Radeloff, who conducted his analysis in collaboration with UW-Madison graduate students and the North Central Research Station of the United States Forest Service. Radeloff's findings also highlight significant growth within the forests themselves. Between 1950 and 2000, the number of housing units within national forest boundaries increased from 500,000 to 1.5 million, an increase Radeloff largely attributes to inholdings, or parcels of forest land owned by private citizens....
U.S. Senate OKs bill on land swap A massive and controversial federal and private land swap proposed for Northern Arizona may be closer to reality with recent passage of a Senate bill. But uncertainty remains over how much longer the rancher involved is willing to wait. The long-stalled exchange would involve Yavapai Ranch owner Fred Ruskin turning over about 35,000 acres of his land southeast of Seligman to Prescott National Forest in return for federal land scattered throughout the Coconino and Prescott national forests, mostly near or in cities. The more than 15,000 acres that Ruskin would get include a 2,200-acre parcel bordering Interstate 17 and Arizona 260 near Camp Verde. It also includes more than 2,000 acres that Ruskin could sell to Flagstaff and Williams for use by the cities for airport and other municipal and industrial expansion....
Pretty killers You might mistake Malta starthistle for a wildflower. The bright yellow blooms look pretty enough. But this weed is a disaster for Arizona. It can poison livestock. It degrades wildlife habitat. It increases erosion, because its taproot does little to hold soil in place. It's pushing out native plants, including the endangered Arizona cliffrose. It's ruining campgrounds in the Tonto National Forest, taking them over in spiny thickets. When there's a flood or an earthquake or hurricane, we pull out all the stops. But weeds? It's hard to get people to take them seriously. Yet weeds like Malta starthistle are laying waste to Arizona's distinctive landscape. They're replacing native vegetation and fueling vast wildfires that wipe out desert plants for good. More and more stretches of the Sonoran Desert are losing saguaros, chollas, ocotillos and palo verde trees. The magical scenery that exists nowhere else on earth, with its strange creatures like javelinas and Gila monsters, is disappearing....
Supporters of roadless land keep fighting losing battle Bell Meadow is at the heart of an 8,200-acre area officially designated as roadless by Stanislaus National Forest administrators. It's also in the hearts of many Californians who hunt, hike or fish. That makes Bell Meadow and other roadless areas in California's Sierra Nevada a potent political tool in the nationwide debate over whether to allow mining, oil drilling and logging in the remaining roadless remnants within America's national forests. The Bush administration is winning that debate at the moment. In May, the administration announced it was dropping a Clinton administration ban on road building, logging, and oil and gas drilling on 58 million acres of roadless forest lands. Wilderness areas are the most protected federal lands, guaranteed forever free of motor traffic and development. Next are roadless areas, places that are still pristine but which weren't granted wilderness protection to leave open the possibility of someday logging or mining there. The rule change is most likely to make a difference soon in forests in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and Montana, where companies are seeking to tap oil and gas deposits....
Court blocks logging plan for Alaskan forest A federal appeals court has struck down a plan that allows logging on roadless areas in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, handing environmentalists a victory in a battle over wild lands in the world's largest intact temperate rain forest. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a 1997 plan adopted by the U.S. Forest Service under the Clinton administration exaggerated the demand for Tongass timber, failed to take into account the effect on wildlife and didn't adequately consider options that called for timber-cutting in fewer roadless areas. "This is a huge win," said Niel Lawrence, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the conservation groups that challenged the plan in court....
Valley of the Dam Dam! Water, Power, Politics, and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park By John Warfield Simpson. Pantheon. 384 pages. Yosemite National Park is a beautiful land of betrayal. The name of the valley, with its towering waterfalls in California's Sierra Nevada mountains, was taken from the Yosemite Indians, who were massacred and driven from their sacred home by the U.S. Army in 1851. Fifteen years later, Congress pledged to preserve Yosemite as the world's first national park. But budget cuts crippled efforts to manage the wilderness as a public recreation area, and it was quickly overrun by poachers, vandals, timber companies and profiteers who opened saloons and hotels inside the park. The federal government promised to prevent any harm to Yosemite's meadows, forests and cliffs. But in 1923 it broke its word by allowing the city of San Francisco to flood a 1,900-acre section of the park and raise a 30-story-tall hydroelectric dam and eight-mile-long municipal reservoir. The drowning of the park's Hetch Hetchy valley under 117 billion gallons of water is the subject of John Warfield Simpson's new book, Dam!....
Column: The truth on rec fees I am one of the critics of public-land user fees that Interior Secretary Gale Norton referred to in a recent Denver Post guest commentary that praised the federal fee program. Norton tries to blur the distinction between the national parks and the vast tracts of undeveloped land managed by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Entrance fees at national parks have never been part of this debate. Instead, the issue is whether Americans should be charged just to drive through a national forest, to park at a trailhead and go for a hike, to use a picnic table at a Bureau of Land Management scenic overlook, or to reach undeveloped backcountry. The trial fee program touted by Norton as an "enormous success" (called fee demo) authorized fees for all of those things, and was one of the most unpopular changes to public land policy in our history. Fee demo couldn't have survived an honest legislative process. Instead, it was buried in a huge spending bill....
Forest Service wants to close some roads on Reno's Peavine Peak The U.S. Forest Service is pushing to close some roads on a mountain popular with off-road vehicle enthusiasts, mountain bikers and hikers, saying a "free-for-all" situation is damaging the peak. About 75 miles of roads and trails on Peavine Peak just northwest of the city would be closed under a travel management plan unveiled by the agency. At the same time, the Forest Service is seeking to keep more than 100 miles of existing roads and trails open for motorized and non-motorized travel on the 8,260-foot peak....
Great Basin ranchers fight Vegas water grab This speck of a town nestled at the foot of the Deep Creek Mountains is miles from anywhere with pavement, and as such is an oasis, both literally and figuratively, in the harsh environment of Utah's west desert. Runoff from the mountain canyons and gurgling springs and seeps furnish greenery and livelihoods in a place that would otherwise be devoid of both. Can such a fragile environment survive a proposal by southern Nevada water officials to pump 25,000 acre-feet of water annually from groundwater wells near Baker, Nev., to Las Vegas via 500 miles of pipeline? Not to hear rancher Cecil Garland tell it. Take a closer look around, the 79-year-old says, and it doesn't take long to spot the withered vegetation and dried-up springs that dot the land - proof positive to Garland and others that the drought that has gripped the Great Basin for most of the decade has yet to release its hold. Even after the best water year in two decades....
Federal inaction unravels Klamath water rights pact Lack of federal support has derailed what was heralded earlier this year as a milestone agreement between the Klamath Tribes and irrigators above Upper Klamath Lake in the Klamath Basin. The agreement that sought to resolve longstanding disputes over water rights hinged on millions of dollars in federal funding to buy out newer water rights and implement water restoration projects. But federal officials have shown no interest in allocating the funds, said former state Sen. Steve Harper, R-Klamath Falls, who helped broker the agreement. “We sure haven’t seen action,” Harper said last week. Water remains a contentious and controversial issue in the basin, where the federal government’s cutoff of irrigation water in summer 2001 led to protests and national media attention....
Oregon moves to conserve sage grouse Oregon adopted a new plan for conserving sage grouse Friday that seeks to keep populations stable through voluntary habitat improvements coordinated by local councils. Meeting in Salem, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted the plan unanimously, putting Oregon in line with Bush administration policy and most Western states that promote voluntary efforts and local control rather than mandatory federal regulation. "I think it's a good plan," John O'Keefe, who represented private landowners on a team that helped craft the sage grouse plan, said from his cattle ranch in Adel. "We tried to make it so local working groups can steer the (sage grouse) effort, can recognize where the issues are and address those. There is a lot of room and a lot of focus now on voluntary projects."....
Final EIS released in plan to poison Bob lakes A final environmental impact statement has been released for a project that would poison fish in 21 lakes in and around the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and restock them with westslope cutthroat trout. The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bonneville Power Administration have to agree to the plan, which could help keep the state fish off the endangered species list. The agencies are expected to issue their decisions this fall. The EIS offers four alternatives to carrying out the project, ranging from no action, to carrying out the proposed plan using a combination of horse packing, aircraft and motorboats in the wilderness area, where there are motorized vehicle restrictions. Another option would involve removing as many hybrid trout from the lakes as possible, and then stocking the lakes with westslope cutthroat on a "frequent or annual" basis in an attempt to dominate the remaining hybrid trout....
Leapin’ Lizards! Iguanas running wild along the Hillsboro Canal area In Boca Raton, and other areas of Palm Beach County, iguanas that can reach six feet in length are multiplying rapidly. Native to Central and South America, the voracious, fleet-footed iguana has no natural enemies in the suburbs of South Florida. “And that’s too bad,” said Della Simmons who lives just across the county line in Deerfield Beach. “That’s too bad they have no enemies here, because they sure do stink.” Between Boca Raton’s southern border and the Broward County city of Deerfield Beach is the Hillsboro Canal. Living along the canal is an increasingly number of large iguanas, according to both Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach users of Pioneer Park just across the county line in Deerfield Beach. “We see them there all the time – all along the canal and in the park itself,” Maria Ruiz said....
Reid to lockhorns with ram Both were born in the same state. Both have loyal constituencies and perks that come with their leadership positions. But politics and economics have conspired to put Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and his neighbor, a desert bighorn sheep nicknamed Horndog, on a collision course. The senator is pushing a $234 million Las Vegas-area project, the Hoover Dam Bypass, which includes a four-lane bridge and connector roads that will allow traffic to go around the dam. But that expansion threatens Horndog, the alpha ram of a herd of about 55 desert bighorn sheep in the Eldorado Mountains above Hoover Dam, who have to cross U.S. Highway 93 to get to a park they favor in Boulder City....
Groups Split Over Risks to Grizzlies in Yellowstone Park As the Bush administration prepares to remove Yellowstone's grizzly bears from the endangered species list, a schism has emerged in the environmental movement over whether the bears remain at risk. The nation's largest environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation, says it now supports delisting the bears, whose numbers have bounced back impressively after three decades of federal protection. But a number of powerful organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earthjustice, say that the future of the grizzlies is still in doubt. They are threatening to sue the Bush administration if, as expected, it removes Yellowstone grizzlies from the list....
Coyotes in the Suburbs, Bears in the Backyard Unlike their western counterparts, newly arrived coyote populations in the northeastern United States are having a hard time surviving, despite an apparently abundant and healthy diet of rabbits, deer, and plants. Daniel Bogan (New York State Museum) and colleagues found that some 80 percent of these large predators are killed each year, mostly by people in the area. Out of twenty-one coyotes radio-tracked by the researchers, seven were killed by cars, six were shot and one was poisoned. The researchers suggest that because the coyotes are still learning how to adjust to roads and other hazards, their populations are failing to thrive in habitat that otherwise serves their needs quite nicely...Human-bear conflicts are on the rise in New Jersey, the most densely peopled state of the United States. In 2003, some 3,000 reported incidences occurred between people and the black bear (Ursus americanus), up from only 285 reported cases in 1995. Not only have black bear numbers been increasing since 1970, the bears are frequenting suburban areas, increasing their likelihood of coming into contact with people....
When Extinct Isn't: Questioning the term after a bird's return The video images may be tiny, grainy, dark and fleeting, but many looking at them see something glorious: evidence that at least one ivory-billed woodpecker--an 18- to 20-inch-tall bird with a wingspan of some 30 inches, last seen in the U.S. in 1944--is alive in the bottomland forest of eastern Arkansas. After a year of traipsing and canoeing through the Big Woods and its bayous, many inconclusive recordings of ivory-bill-like calls, seven good sightings and one fortuitous videotaping, scientists and conservationists announced in April that the bird was not extinct after all. If the discovery holds up, the ivory-billed woodpecker will not be the only U.S. species recently returned from oblivion. In May, just a few days after the ivory-bill news, the Nature Conservancy announced the discovery in Alabama of three snails listed as extinct. A few weeks later, botanists at the University of California at Berkeley reported finding the Mount Diablo buckwheat, a tiny pink-flowered plant that had not been seen since 1936. At least 24 species of other presumed or possibly extinct plants, insects and other organisms have been found during natural heritage surveys in North America since 1974, according to Mark Schaefer, president of NatureServe, a nonprofit conservation group based in Arlington, Va. There are examples from elsewhere as well....
Global Warming's Effects Extend To World's Smallest Butterfly The latest issue of Conservation Biology examines the viability of the Sinai baton blue and the results of human population pressures. The study predicts that in the absence of global warming, grazing, and plant collection (three activities directly linked to humans) the world's smallest butterfly would persist for at least 200 years. The population could withstand small increases in grazing intensity that would decrease their climate, but not increases in temperature. As the level of global warming raises its impact, extinction rapidly accelerates. This implies "... that there may be an annual average temperature, specific to each endangered species, above which extinction becomes much more likely," authors Martin Hoyle and Mike James state. There is no such threshold of grazing pressure. The authors mapped the entire global range of this butterfly and obtained data on the intensity of livestock grazing....
The fish that saves Del Rio The San Felipe Gambusia is not a majestic fish. Yet some people in this Val Verde County city think that the tiny creature, which inhabits a creek by the same name, holds the key to keeping Texas' powerful water marketers at bay and protecting their springs from thirsty metropolises that increasingly are turning their eyes toward this part of the state. In fact, though Del Rio residents and Austin-based environmental activists are petitioning the federal government to place the gambusia on the endangered-species list, many advocates are upfront about their desire to see federal protection for the fish morph into something else. They envision it as an ironclad mechanism for protecting San Felipe Springs from over-pumping and a tiny local symbol for a big global issue: that of water supply and demand and the commercial interests that would attempt to anticipate and capitalize on potential shortages....
Don't shoo these dragonflies, they're endangered Armed with butterfly nets, thick rubber boots and just a dash of mosquito repellent, Bob Gillespie and Scott Kelley go out into marshy meadows in pursuit of the jewel of all bugs - the elusive Hine's emerald dragonfly. Declared endangered in Missouri and federally, the Hine's emerald dragonfly is known to exist in just four states. It was discovered in Missouri in 1999. "Nobody really looked for it before, but it's been here for thousands of years," said Gillespie, the natural history regional biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Based in Cape Girardeau, Gillespie is the Hine's emerald dragonfly recovery leader for all of Missouri....Wow, for "all" of Missouri. He better hope them fly-eatin' iguanas don't migrate from Florida....
Minnow numbers rise The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to increase the number of endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows that can be found dead this year. The bureau said Thursday in a news release that the incidental take should be increased because the minnow population is bigger now than it was when the limit was set at 760 in 2003. "This is a thrilling moment because we have so many fish out there," said Jennifer Gimbel, acting area manager for the bureau in Albuquerque. "We didn't anticipate we'd have this kind of recovery." However, more fish in the Rio Grande also means more fish will likely die as the river dries up. Almost 25 miles of river in sections south of Albuquerque are dry, and more than 500 minnows have been found dead so far. The bureau and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expect to exceed the current take limit soon even though they are meeting minimum water flow requirements and pumping water into the river....
Nampa plant closes, leaving 408 without jobs More than 400 workers at a Nampa meat processing plant lost their jobs Friday when the plant was closed. The announcement was made Friday by Swift & Co., which has operated the cattle processing plant at 3611 E. Amity since 2002. Until then, it was owned by ConAgra Beef Co. The plant employed 560 people in May 2003, the company said, just before the U.S. border was closed to live Canadian cattle after a case of mad cow disease was discovered. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture opened the border to live Canadian cattle under 30 months of age. The Nampa plant, however, processes older animals for ground beef and other beef products. Laura Wilder, executive director of the Idaho Beef Council, said the closure was not surprising. "The plant has been struggling since the Canadian border first closed," she said. "So it's not a big surprise, but it is disappointing to see this happen because the plant provided an important service for the local beef industry."....
Dude ranches survive rough ride Still struggling to regain the business they lost after 9/11, Colorado's dude ranches are looking in their own backyards for visitors to fill their bunkhouses. "The past three years have been tough, which is why we've been thinking outside of the box," said Karen May, co-owner of the North Fork Ranch in Shawnee. "Every dollar helps. You need to change with the times." It's still unclear whether the quest for in-state visitors - and other out-of- the-box revenue-boosting ideas - will solve dude ranches' problems. Three guest ranches are currently for sale, and if mountain land values continue to skyrocket, experts say, more may follow....
Keeping the cows home On a hot July day in southern Utah, ranchers and farmers corralled themselves into a conference room to hear Daniel Dygert's lecture about how to avoid going to jail. The attorney's talk had nothing to do with standoffs involving federal agents or confrontations with environmentalists. It did, however, have everything to do with mending fences - the wooden and barbed-wire kind - and what can happen if ranchers refuse. In December, a Cache Valley cattleman was charged with manslaughter in the death of a 40-year-old woman whose car collided with a cow. The case, which goes to trial on Nov. 14, is the first of its kind in Utah, at least in recent history, and ranchers and farmers are understandably nervous. They have always had to worry about lawsuits and insurance claims caused by livestock getting loose, damaging the neighbor's property or wandering onto roads. Prosecutors say the Cache Valley case is an anomaly brought about by a stubborn rancher who flouted fencing laws for years. But the decision to bring criminal charges has ushered in a new era of liability and, some ranchers say, hostility....
Vandals Take an Expensive Toll on Ranchers' Fences Rancher J.D. Scott crouches down to inspect a wooden post, snapped in half and buried among the wheat grass atop the mountainous Long Divide that separates Cache and Box Elder Counties. There are tire tracks on either side of the fence. "Damn," he says. "How did a pickup make it up here this far?" Scott has taken down license numbers and snapped pictures of trespassers to curtail vandalism on his property but, in 40 years, he has yet to see anyone prosecuted for knocking down a fence. Ranchers are financially and legally liable if their livestock gets loose and causes damage or injures someone, yet law enforcement lets other culprits -- recreationists and trespassers who leave gates open and mow down fences -- go free....
Desert bloom Writing on the Wind, An Anthology of West Texas Women Writers edited by Lou Halsell Rodenberger, Laura Payne Butler and Jacqueline Kolosov Texas Tech University Press, $21.95. If that's the case with you, try reading Writing on the Wind, An Anthology of West Texas Women Writers, where 25 women from academia share their essays, memoirs, fiction and poetry based on the landscape that, in one way or another, helped fashion their formidable literary talents. The fullness of regional life is so engagingly chronicled here that you may never again think of West Texas without understanding the passions inspired by this seemingly empty land. These are stories about family, legacy, marriage, divorce, religion, all of them played out in relentless weather and under an all-encompassing sky. The simultaneously lovely and horribly arid land inspires these writers to delve into the contrasts between the harsh and beautiful, writes one of the collection's editors, Lou Halsell Rodenberger. The women featured in this collection do focus on contrasts between the young and old, the East and West, wet and the dry, the new and the old social norms....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Market variables leave forecasters in a stew The beef market for the last two years must be driving economists nuts! There are so many factors affecting the price of cattle other than supply and demand, that the playing field is littered with mortar craters! It would be analogous to a basketball game where baskets count, but one could also earn points by the number of hot dogs sold to visiting fans, near misses, the basketball futures, dress code violations, percentage of left-handers in the World Series and number of junior high kids over 6 feet 4 inches tall! Logic has no bearing on the market fluctuations....

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