NEWS ROUNDUP

Oregon Rancher Pays Penalty, Launches Imnaha River Habitat Restoration Project An Oregon rancher has paid a $165,000 penalty and begun a holistic restoration project on a stretch of Northeastern Oregon's Imnaha River that federal officials expect will restore vital endangered species habitat, while accommodating his needs as a ranching landowner, the Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and NOAA Fisheries announced today. The Imnaha River restoration project is part of a settlement reached between the rancher, George Gabriel, and his contractors with the Justice Department, EPA and NOAA Fisheries regarding Gabriel's Pallette Ranch property. The Pallette Ranch borders on the Imnaha River, approximately 30 miles Southeast of Joseph, Oregon. This project follows a joint enforcement action against Gabriel for unauthorized discharge of fill material in the Imnaha River and its adjacent wetlands. "This settlement agreement shows the importance of enforcing the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. It also shows that good settlements can be reached when everyone involved works together in good faith," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kelly A. Johnson for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "We appreciate the defendants' efforts to reach a positive settlement in this case."....
BLM panel struggles It was seen as an experiment and a way to head off potential litigation that could stall development in one of the biggest natural gas fields in the country. Most involved agree that, on paper at least, it was a great idea for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to bring together a diverse group for advice on ways to track and minimize the effects of drilling in this vast, western Wyoming valley. But a year into its work, the group is already unraveling. One member has walked off and others are confused about what role the BLM wants them to play in overseeing development and wondering whether the drilling and its consequences are being monitored closely enough. "The big question in our minds is over who has authority," said Linda Baker, a conservationist and chairwoman of the group, the Pinedale Anticline Working Group. While BLM says it wants the group's advice, some members accuse the agency of hearing only what it wants and preventing it from weighing in on such things as industry plans to drill year-round in key wildlife areas. The BLM insists it just wants to keep the volunteers focused on an already-huge workload limited largely, by charter, to monitoring the results of decisions the agency makes. "We're the only group to have any input at all and it's a shame it only has to be on decisions that are already made and looking backward," said rancher Kirby Hedrick, a former oil company executive who quit the panel in frustration earlier this month. "The government can make some pretty bad mistakes," he said....
Ranchers confront surge in entrants Roy Isaman has arrived at a dubious distinction: His Southern Arizona ranch sits on the busiest crossing point for illegal entrants from Mexico. El Mirador Ranch borders Sasabe, Sonora, southwest of Tucson, and at times you don't know if you're looking at Mexico or standing in it. Whole sections of the barbed-wire fence that separates his ranch from the smuggler haven across the way are missing, trampled or lying in large curls on the ground - cut by smugglers trying to avoid Arizona Highway 286. The human flood pouring through his land and all along the border prompted the governor to declare an emergency on Aug. 15, freeing up $1.5 million of state funds in a bid to help. But how the state will spend those funds is still unclear. Ranchers along this stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border face the heaviest amount of foot traffic because illegal entrants and drug smugglers have been chased away from Cochise County and the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation this year. A concentration of U.S. Border Patrol agents in those areas moved border crossers into the Altar Valley, where these ranchers now deal with them. The agency's Tucson station, which covers much of this area, has had a sharp rise in apprehensions up to 60 percent from last year. Thirty-five miles up the highway from Isaman, third-generation rancher John King keeps a jaundiced eye on the slashed fences and his smashed-up well, the result of thirsty illegal border crossers trying to get water out of the closed system....
Gov. Leans Toward a Paler Shade of Green Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enthused activists and unnerved business leaders with many of his early appointments to top environmental slots, is increasingly favoring industry officials for key jobs protecting California's forests, air and water. Schwarzenegger's effort to be a green Republican has been one of the principal ways the governor has depicted himself as being above Sacramento's traditional partisan divides. But in a reversal from the beginning of his tenure, it is now environmentalists who are objecting that Schwarzenegger has bent too far to one side. The complaints mirror a larger one that has been leveled against the governor all year: that he has become too closely aligned with the business interests that are underwriting his November special election. After simmering for months, tension about his appointments has erupted over Schwarzenegger's choice for one of the most important environmental positions in California: chief regulator of the state's air quality....
Indian suing feds to speak in Arizona The Blackfoot woman who has led a nine-year battle to make the federal government show an accounting of Indian trust funds will visit Arizona on Tuesday to discuss the case and answer questions from tribal members. Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in Cobell vs. Norton, will discuss recent hearings, efforts to settle the lawsuit and the U.S. Department of Interior's efforts to oust the judge hearing the case. Cobell, a rancher and banker from Montana, filed the class-action lawsuit in 1996 to force the federal government to account for billions of dollars held in trust for 500,000 American Indians and their heirs. The case, the longest and largest class-action suit brought against the government, involves royalties for farming, grazing, mining, logging and other economic activities on tribal lands....
Editorial: Rewilding America, Pleistocene Style Ever since Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, defining wilderness has not been easy. What often looks wild or "pristine" has probably been altered by humans over centuries. And in recent years scientists have tried to coax nature back to some concept of an original state by bringing back long-gone species, such as wolves, the American elm, or prairie plants. Now a team of ecologists proposes a radical step to recreate the pre-human wilderness of North America by reintroducing large predators like those that lived 13,000 years ago. This eco-team, writing recently in the journal Nature, proposes a gradual "rewilding" of the continent with today's relatives of the large mammals that lived during the late Pleistocene era. Such a step is seen as necessary to restore the empty ecological niches caused by eons of human activity. The pronghorn antelope, for instance, still runs as if it's dodging the extinct American cheetah; its evolution may benefit by restoring that relationship. This idea may be practical for animals, but is it meaningful to Americans? Do ranchers really want cheetahs around? Can elephants be contained in large parks, as proposed? Can scientists even accurately recreate the old "wilderness"? This proposal deserves a serious look-see to help the constantly moving debate over wilderness in the US. At the least it provides an intriguing intellectual backdrop, and possibly a conservation benchmark if implemented in small degrees....
Kathleen Clarke Tried to Block Award of Grazing Permit to Grand Canyon Trust Kathleen Clarke, the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, encouraged ranchers to sue her agency after her own efforts to overturn grazing permits issued to an environmental organization were stymied by her superiors in the Department of Interior, according to the sworn testimony of the Public Lands Chairman of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER is asking for an ethics review to determine whether Clarke let her personal views conflict with her duties as BLM Director. The award of BLM grazing permits within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah to the Canyonlands Grazing Corporation (CGC) has been controversial in ranching circles because the corporation is affiliated with the Grand Canyon Trust, which has bought permits from willing seller ranchers and worked to retire grazing from highly sensitive allotments. Fearing the spread of such grazing retirements, the Utah Cattlemen’s Association led a political effort to block the CGC permits. After the permits were issued, the ranchers filed an appeal challenging the arrangement. The federal appeal (LeFevre et al vs. BLM) was financed, in large part, by the State of Utah and included testimony from Richard Nicholas, former Public Lands Chairman of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association. Nicholas testified that in direct, personal conversations with him, Clarke – Encouraged the ranchers to sue BLM, telling him, “Go get them.” Clarke called Nicholas at home to make sure the Cattlemen’s Association had filed its protests in a timely manner so as to ensure its “standing” to sue BLM; Complained that she “was rolled” by superiors in the Interior Department on the matter, citing Assistant Secretary Lynn Scarlett, for one, as being “too attached to the deal:” and Declared that she “was against grazing elimination anytime” regardless of the condition of the land. “....
Increased Effort to Reduce the Economic Costs and Environmental Impacts of Paper Commonly Used in Business and Government Researchers at the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) have joined with other federal agencies and the pulp and paper industry in an effort to reduce the economic costs and environmental impacts of the paper commonly used in business and government offices - while simultaneously improving the paper’s quality. The federal government annually buys some 500,000 tons of bleached kraft paper, which includes the “plain white paper” used in computer printers, copiers, and fax machines. It’s the equivalent of using 11 million standard sheets of paper per hour, every hour of the year....Is this the Federal Government our Founding Fathers had in mind? Eleven million sheets per hour, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year? Our liberty is being buried in paper.....
'It was never public land' Where is the highest of Colorado's high-end real estate? If you guessed Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch or Aspen's Red Mountain neighborhoods, you weren't even close - not in terms of elevation, at least. A one-time blue-collar worker from Denver owns the highest of the high end, the summit of Mt. Lincoln. At 14,291 feet, it's Colorado's eighth highest peak - and the state's highest privately owned real estate. Maury Reiber, 75, has been buying mining properties on Mt. Lincoln and other peaks in the Mosquito Range, located between Fairplay and Leadville, since the mining bug bit him in the 1950s. "People keep calling it public land, and it was never public land," Reiber says. "It was private property even before Colorado became a state."....
Motorcycle hits bear on Hwy. 62 A severely injured bear was put out of its misery Sunday morning after it ran into the path of a motorcycle heading southbound on Highway 62 near Prospect, injuring the rider and passenger. Peter Burnand was flown by helicopter to Rogue Valley Medical Center, said Bill Matson, Oregon State Police senior trooper. An unidentified woman passenger was transported by ambulance to the hospital. The couple, who remained in the emergency room Sunday afternoon, were on vacation from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Matson said the couple, who were wearing helmets, skidded 97 feet after the impact. They were riding a 2001 Yamaha towing a mini-trailer. "The bear just darted out and they hit it in the side," he said. The 150-200 pound sow was semi-conscious. A passerby shot it, and it was dragged off the roadway. Fish and wildlife personnel removed the remains....
Colorado likely to get new ski area this winter Denver area skiers likely won't have to drive as far to ski this winter. Long-closed Squaw Pass Ski Area, 35 miles from downtown, plans to open this winter now that it has approval to use a road that crosses public land in the Arapaho National Forest to connect to the area's privately owned property. "We're off and running," said Doug Donovan, manager of the project, which will feature a terrain park for skiers and snowboarders just off Colorado 103. U.S. Forest Service officials said the ski area granted rights of way through its property for popular trails and Forest Service roads long used for hiking and other recreational activities in exchange for the right to use the road....
New challenger takes on Pombo Danville airline pilot Steve Filson has made it official — hell challenge Tracy Republican Richard Pombo in 2006 to represent the 11th Congressional District in Washington, D.C. Pombo has defeated all challengers since he was first elected to Congress in 1992, after serving two years as a Tracy city councilman. Although Filson, 58, has never held political office, his experience as a Navy officer and his centrist views have won him the backing of Democratic Party leaders, including Rep. Ellen Tauscher of Alamo. Filsons trip to Washington, D.C., at the invitation of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel, prompted speculation that he would challenge Pombo in 2006. Filson confirmed those plans Monday. An advocate for farmers and property owners, Pombo has gained seniority and clout over the years, rising to chair the House Resources Committee....
St. Vincent Island's red wolf program has first pups since 1998 A litter of red wolf pups is the first in a captive breeding program for the endangered species in St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge since 1998, officials said. The number of tracks observed on the 12,000-acre barrier island indicates there are three or four pups, but officials won't know exactly how many until the wolves are trapped for health checks in the fall, said Thom Lewis, a biologist at the St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge. Only about 265 red wolves remain in the wild and captivity....
Thriving under the tree tops A hike through the San Bernardino Mountains offers a view of soaring pines, scrub and rocky outcroppings at first glimpse. It takes a look below the tree canopy to see what really makes the forest unique, botanists say. Among all the world's forests, a dozen plants in the Big Bear area, from Kennedy's Buckwheat to the Silver-Haired Rat Tail, can only be found here, U.S. Forest Service Botanist Scott Eliason said. Their rarity is what makes them special and also has helped earn them protection under the Federal Endangered Species Act, he said....
Military, enviros co-exist uneasily Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Monday that procedures designed to protect the environment can sometimes jeopardize U.S. troops and should be balanced against military needs. "When those concerns are not balanced, the consequence can be unfortunate, such as when troops deployed to Iraq," he told those gathered here for a White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. When some troops trained for service in Iraq at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Rumsfeld said, they were taught to roll up the bottoms of their tents to stay out of the way of desert tortoises. "In Iraq, however, light spread out at the base of the tents and made troops more visible and possibly more vulnerable to insurgents," he said. The military is rarely on the same side as environmentalists in political battles. Many of the Defense Department's training ranges are in wild areas. Since 2002, the Pentagon has asked Congress to exempt the military from various environmental laws or grant it delays in meeting regulatory requirements. Congress has agreed so far to five of the Pentagon's eight requests, including making changes to the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act....
Administration urges cooperation on environmental disputes Top Bush administration officials repeatedly invoked the name of the Republican Party's most famous environmentalist, President Theodore Roosevelt, as they pledged Monday to make it easier to replace conflict with cooperation to settle environmental disputes. Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the audience at the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation that the administration soon will back a bill creating incentives and breaking down barricades to collaborative land protection. Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns announced his agency's intent to try to renew land-preservation contracts that will expire soon on millions of acres of private property. The department also will broaden its use of incentives to promote the creation and restoration of healthy ecosystems. Credits for clean water, greenhouse gases or wetlands then could be traded, a department news release said....
DOE takes step in plan to ship nuclear waste in Nevada by train The Energy Department took another step Monday toward building a rail line across Nevada to ship nuclear waste to a national repository at Yucca Mountain. The department announced it wants to remove a mile-wide, 319-mile long right of way from public use for 10 years and asked for public comment on the plan. Previously DOE had planned to exclude the mostly federal Bureau of Land Management swath known as the Caliente Corridor for 20 years. The Energy Department announced last month that it intends to use trains for some 3,500 shipments of the nation's most radioactive waste from around the nation to the planned repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said notice published Monday in the Federal Register is a step toward protecting 308,600 acres in the corridor from encroachment and surface mining claims. The register notice referred to precluding new mining claims for 20 years on five rail alternatives, but the more detailed environmental document cut that to 10 years....
Editorial: Parks or parking? WANT TO GO SNOWMOBILING in Yosemite National Park? How about piloting a Jet Ski across Crater Lake? Or driving a snarling all-terrain vehicle through the dunes of Death Valley? Most Californians — and Americans, for that matter — would say no. They treasure our national parks as places of solace, renewal and natural beauty. There are, however, a few insensitive people who look forward to the day when our national parks are despoiled and abused for commercial purposes. Unfortunately, one of them is in a position of influence in the Bush administration. The Department of Interior has proposed a revision of the historic National Park Service regulations that would fundamentally alter the primary mission of the Park Service, most likely in favor of commercial interests that seek to exploit the parks for their dollar value. The 194-page draft of proposed rules has caused a furor within the Park Service and forced Interior officials to distance themselves from the proposal, which is the brainchild of Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant Interior secretary. A Park Service spokesman said that Hoffman was merely playing devil's advocate with the proposal, challenging Park Service officials to justify their administration of the nation's parks and historic areas. Others are taking the threat more seriously, as they should....
Editorial: Destroying the National Parks Most of us think of America's national parks as everlasting places, parts of the bedrock of how we know our own country. But they are shaped and protected by an underlying body of legislation, which is distilled into a basic policy document that governs their operation. Over time, that document has slowly evolved, but it has always stayed true to the fundamental principle of leaving the parks unimpaired for future generations. That has meant, in part, sacrificing some of the ways we might use the parks today in order to protect them for tomorrow. Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience. Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration....
Column: Grizzly makes grisly The goal of Grizzly People, its website explains, is "to elevate the grizzly to the kindred state of the whale and dolphin through supportive education in the hopes that humans will learn to live in peace with the bear, wilderness and fellow humans." But, as Werner Herzog's latest documentary, "Grizzly Man," demonstrates, the best way for man to live at peace with the bear is to not romanticize grizzlies and to give them a wide berth. Alas, Grizzly People founder Timothy Treadwell had Disney-fied the object of his affection. So, as Herzog chronicles, the 46-year-old bear activist and his 37-year-old girlfriend were mauled and eaten by an Alaskan grizzly in October 2003. But first, Treadwell produced some 100 hours of tape starring -- ta da -- him, talking about bears, or talking to bears, or talking about how much he loved bears and how he knew to be dominant around bears....
New tool monitors drought's impact across U.S. The National Drought Mitigation Center says it has developed a new Web-based tool that is a first step toward providing long-needed information about the impact of far-reaching but difficult-to-quantify drought. From an overtaxed private well in New York to cemeteries in Illinois that are so dry it’s difficult to dig new graves, the Drought Impact Reporter aims to help policy-makers identify and better respond to the drought’s effects, the center said in a news release. “Drought impacts are inherently hard to quantify, and there is no comprehensive and consistent methodology for quantifying drought impacts and economic losses in the United States,” said Don Wilhite, director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln-based drought mitigation center. “The Drought Impact Reporter is intended to be the initial step in creating such a methodology.” The site, which can be accessed through a link at the drought center’s Web site, drought.unl.edu, displays a U.S. map. Site visitors can drag the cursor across the U.S. map and get drought impact data for each state and can click on individual states and, from there, individual counties for more information about those impacts....
Oscar winner at home in the foothills While Brad Pitt was being stalked and sought out by international media during filming of a movie in the Calgary area, Robert Duvall was relaxed and mingling with the crowd when he took in the ranch rodeo at the Bar U Ranch Aug. 21. The legendary actor, known for his role in the critically acclaimed Lonesome Dove series and for his oscar winning performance in Tender Mercies, has brought a crew to the Foothills region to film a western mini-series. “It’s cheap and it’s ranch country,” Duvall said of reasons for shooting in Southern Alberta. The two-part mini-series Daughters of Joy, is set to air on the AMC network next year. The project was a perfect opportunity for Duvall to take a trip up north for the first time since working on Open Range, also shot in the area. “I like the sight of the mountains,” he said. Calling Daughters of Joy his “third in a trilogy of westerns,” Duvall has learned that when it comes to the genre, it’s all in the details....
It's All Trew: Rodeo was prime-time entertainment for all Old-timers in the McLean/Wheeler area of the eastern Panhandle recall spending many a Sunday afternoon at Tom Harlan's rodeo arena located on his ranch. Tom was a big man, 100 percent cowboy, chewed tobacco and raised bucking stock for rodeos. Where other ranchers grazed mother cows and calves or yearlings, Tom raised bucking bulls, horses, bull-dogging steers and roping calves. If you wanted to produce a rodeo, Tom Harlan was the man to see. If you merely wanted to learn to compete in a rodeo, show up at Tom's place out in the shinnery patch on Sunday. Since this was before the modern cattle trucks of today, Tom often gathered his stock from the range driving them down the county roads to wherever the rodeo was to be held. It was quite a sight to see Tom and his kids or grandchildren driving a mixed herd of rodeo stock to town....

Hope you enjoyed this edition of The Westerner. Me? I can't get over the paper story. Five hundred thousand tons of paper a year. You know, the first revolution was started by the Boston Tea Party. Maybe the next one will be started by the Boise Tree Party. Yes sir, we'll just wipe out their paper supply. But please, don't tell the Feds or the next thing you know we'll have licensing and registration for chainsaws, axes, etc.

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