NEWS ROUNDUP

Panel OKs rewrite of Endangered Species Act A House committee on Thursday approved a sweeping rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that hands major new rights to property owners while limiting the federal government's ability to protect plant and animal habitat. The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., bars the government from establishing ''critical habitat'' for species where development is limited, and sets deadlines for property owners to get answers from the government about whether their development plans would hurt protected species. If the government doesn't answer in time, the development could go forward. If the government blocks a development, the property owner would be compensated. The bill ''will place a new emphasis on recovery and eliminates dysfunctional critical habitat provisions,'' Pombo said. ''It's about a new era in protecting species and protecting habitat at the same time we protect property owners.'' Pombo's committee approved the bill on a 26-12 vote, over objections from some Democrats and moderate Republicans who said it would disfigure the landmark 32-year-old law that environmentalists credit with preserving species like the bald eagle and California sea otter....
Environmentalists, industry, battle over what is old-growth After failing to halt two timber sales in Washington and Oregon in federal court, environmental groups are now accusing Boise Cascade Co. of reneging on its 2003 promise not to buy wood from old-growth forests. The Boise-based company began logging 10 million board feet of timber in the Deschutes National Forest in eastern Oregon last week. It expects to begin cutting 6.5 million board feet from the Wenatchee National Forest in northeastern Washington within days. Both areas were damaged by 2003 fires. Environmentalists say it's old growth. Boise Cascade says it isn't. Forestry experts say the disagreement highlights the difficulty of defining just what makes up old-growth forests, which for years have been at the center of the clash between loggers and preservationists....
Activists removed from Bitterroot forest office during EIS press conference Three environmental activists were escorted out of the Bitterroot National Forest office under armed guard Thursday after attempting to attend a news conference on the release of the environmental review of a controversial timber sale. "I've never been turned away from that building," said Jim Miller, Friends of the Bitterroot president. "I've been coming here for decades." Miller said he was led out of the building by a "fully armed" officer wearing a bulletproof vest. The Forest Service held the news conference to release the final Middle East Fork Environmental Impact Statement, which is Montana's first project to be released under the authority of President Bush's Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The agency invited six Ravalli County residents who supported the Forest Service's preferred alternative to meet with the press. Bitterroot Forest Supervisor Dave Bull said the others were excluded because the agency wanted to provide a "safe environment" for community members who had helped craft the agency's preferred alternative....
Column: The Hopi Way may vanish so skiers can play Since ancient times Hopi people have regarded the San Francisco Peaks as "Nuvatukyaovi," which in the Hopi language means "place of snow on the peaks." Nuvatukyaovi is central to Hopi culture and religion. It is the home of Katsina spirits who, in the growing season, drift as clouds from the Peaks and descend on my homeland, bringing rain, hope and guidance to the Hopi people. Hopi children are initiated into Katsina societies, which teach them to live humble, respectful lives, in balance with all living and non-living things; values at the heart of a life path known as the Hopi Way. Of course, American Indians are a conquered people. Since Spanish and European settlement we have lost lives, most of our land and much of our culture and traditions....
Attempts continue to protect Valle Vidal Different agencies in New Mexico are working in different ways on the same issue, but they all have a common goal: protecting Valle Vidal. Four state agencies are working together on a petition to nominate Valle Vidal for the designation of Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW). Officials of each agency or department were present at a Town Meeting at the Philmont Training Center Wednesday. In an overview of the ONRW designation, the proposed document explains, “Water is the lifeblood of the area’s wildlife populations ... The headwater streams of the Valle Vidal flow into two major drainages, the Rio Grande (on the west side) and the South Canadian (on the east side).”....
Column: Government gone bad The next time you hear someone lament that citizens are growing more apathetic about getting involved in government decision-making, you might want to point to the actions of the Bitterroot National Forest managers as a helluva good reason why. Recent revelations of the blatant and arrogant disregard for what citizens have to say about the future of their own national forest lands is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that a government agency has gone bad—but it’s a shocker, nonetheless. As reported this week, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Native Forest Network show the Bitterroot National Forest spent $162,000 preparing for the Middle East Fork hazardous fuels reduction project. Given the unbelievably reckless spending proclivities of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress that have erased the surplus and left us with mounting trillions in national debt, this piddling amount of money is certainly not that big of a deal, except for one thing: the forest managers spent it to mark the cut for their “preferred alternative” while the public comment period on the proposal was still open. In other words, the agency had already made its decision and was moving ahead to implement it with total disregard for whatever the public might say. Everyone who has ever had contact with state or federal agencies knows that their personnel—especially those charged with stewarding the fish, wildlife and natural resources on public lands—consider themselves “trained professionals.” Those of us in the public, who just happen to own these resources, are relegated to a lesser category of uninformed amateurs who either support them as “friends” or oppose them and are dubbed “troublemakers.” Given this rather dismal regard for the public, it is not uncommon for agencies to disparage public opinion in favor of the decisions made by their “professional managers.”....
Plan to ship trash to desert site derailed The nation's largest proposed landfill next to Joshua Tree National Park suffered a major setback when a federal judge rejected a land swap that is key to the project moving forward. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin said in a 26-page opinion released Tuesday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to fully consider the environmental consequences of permitting a landfill on 3,481 acres the federal agency traded to Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures. Kaiser wanted to exchange the land for 2,486 acres of private land scattered throughout the Riverside County desert in order to develop the Eagle Mountain landfill. Environmentalists hope the decision will make it almost impossible to revive the project because Los Angeles County can also use the Mesquite landfill in Imperial County, which is similar in size to Eagle Mountain....
Hatch introduces nuke waste bill Just days after Utah's junior senator made a U-turn on nuclear waste, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced legislation that would block any radioactive waste from coming to a private facility in Utah. Much of the waste going to that facility would roll through Utah County. U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who long has supported a proposed federal waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Tuesday dropped his support for that beleaguered project, which would hold the nation's commercial spent reactor fuel. Though Hatch has introduced a nuclear waste bill, Bennett instead expressed support for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who plans to introduce legislation that would turn over responsibility for the spent fuel to the Energy Department, keeping the waste at reactor sites while the country rethinks its nuclear waste policy. But Reid can't help Utah, Hatch says. Joining Reid would alienate the Bush administration and others who are in a position to block a proposed private spent fuel storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley....
Editorial: Bennett's about-face It does not happen very often that a U.S. senator or congressional representative changes his or her mind. On those rare occasions when reversals are made, more often than not, it is done in the dark of night during a protracted legislative battle, and they attempt to do so with as little public notice as possible. Credit Utah's Sen. Bob Bennett for having the guts to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in the daylight, and proclaim his change of heart for everyone to see and hear. Bennett says he now has come to believe that a federal plan to store, permanently, high-level nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain "does not make sense and we need to move in some future direction." It is a complete about-face: Three years ago, he and Sen. Orrin Hatch voted to continue building the Yucca Mountain facility....
Cowboy creates comedy in poems Louis L'Amour? That's grand and all. But when Baxter Black talks about being a cowboy, that's not the type he's referring to. "I don't know anything about being a cowboy in 1880 or relate to the songs they sing," said the poet, novelist and radio personality. "Not that I'm a spokesman, but that's the feeling about us in the cow business. "We like Roy Rogers and Louis L'Amour, but they don't have a clue what we're doing. . . . I write about cowboys today. Cow people. Livestock. Sheep people." A veterinarian for large animals for years before becoming a writer and gaining fame for his essays on National Public Radio, Black lives in Arizona near the Mexico border, an area with a rich history that suits the storyteller....
Western design feted Ask a dozen people at the Western Design Conference to explain exactly what "Western design" is, and you're likely to get at least 13 different answers. The answers follow a continuum of influences from rustic to lodge to American Indian to cowboy chic. And that full range was on display Thursday as nearly 100 exhibitors showcasing furniture, fashion and housewares gathered in Cody's Riley Arena for the opening of the Western Design Conference exhibition and sale. Those expecting to see a compendium of cowboy kitsch were greeted instead with a decidedly fresh and diverse take on Western design. "This has been surprising," said Larry Lefner of Woody Creek, Colo. "I didn't expect this much culture in a little bitty town in Wyoming, but it's fantastic. There's a lot of very good talent on display here today."....
Strange sickness affecting horses in Ennis Teri Freeman watched her appaloosa horse Lucky die of a strange liver disease within a day of showing symptoms in early July. In the evening, the 27-year-old horse became lethargic, demented and jaundiced. Freeman sat with him all night. By the morning Lucky was dead. ‘‘He died in my arms,'' Freeman said recently at the Rusty Cowboy, an antique store she rents on the south end of Main Street in Ennis. Her partner Bobby Bock's Arab pinto horse Splash showed similar symptoms a few weeks later: becoming lethargic, walking in circles and having her skin flake off in huge clumps that look like peeling paint. It was a bizarre sickness, Bock said. ‘‘None of the old cowboys around here have seen anything like this,'' he said. They rushed Splash to Ennis veterinarian Eileen White, who took the horse to a veterinarian in Belgrade who specializes in internal medicine for horses. White said Splash showed signs of dementia and had jaundiced eyes. She ran tests on the horses liver and found it just wasn't working....
Riders shoot from horseback Kevin Fink, 48, pops balloons as a hobby. From horseback. With a gun. "It is a true adrenaline rush - the whole experience of training a horse to let you shoot a gun while you are on his back and then riding through a course at top speed trying to hit all the targets," Fink said. Fink, a retired rodeo cowboy, and 12 others are keeping the Old West tradition of mounted shooting alive. Their group, Dakota Territory Shooters, formed in Lennox this summer. "We keep everything as authentic to the Old West as possible," said Tea resident Mick Nesseim, 50. "We use all leather equipment, dress like the Old West cowboy and only shoot single-action revolvers of .45 Colt caliber, the same guns they used back then." Mounted shooting is a timed competition. A horse and rider navigate one of 57 courses approved by the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association....
CPRA to stand on own two feet It’s the cowboy way to go it alone and it’s the only logical choice for the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association after a recent U.S.-Canada split in the rodeo ranks. The CPRA was feeling a little gored last month after news that its U.S. counterpart put the hooves to a longstanding sanctioning agreement between the two organizations. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, announced on Aug. 18 the termination of an arrangement that saw all CPRA rodeos co-sanctioned by its American cousin. With the agreement gone by 2006, all CPRA rodeos will no longer count in the PRCA standings. CPRA president Bob Robinson sought to put a positive spin on recent events when the organization announced on Sept. 7 its intentions to forge ahead with or without its southern counterpart. “We’re big enough to stand on our own two feet and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “The CPRA is completely self-sustainable. We have a great product and we’re ready to showcase it to the world on our own. Now we will be able to think about ourselves and not worry about what another association thinks when developing our policies and strategies.” Just how this new world order in the rodeo ring will shape up is not yet clear. The CPRA will mull over several scenarios over the next few months, including expanding the current options available to non-Canadians and their ability to qualify for the annual Canadian Finals Rodeo....
Champion responds well to last-chance pressure It's well documented that six-time world champion tie-down roper Fred Whitfield performs best in clutch situations. With his back against the wall, Whitfield always rises to the occasion. It doesn't matter whether it's at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the Pace Picante series, or at a regular rodeo during the season. The Hockley, Texas, cowboy knows how to handle pressure. His latest clutch run came Saturday at the 95th annual Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, the final stop on the Wrangler ProRodeo Summer Tour. Whitfield knew he needed to make every run count if he was going to earn a place in the $350,000 Pace Picante ProRodeo Challenge in Omaha, Neb., Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Entering Pendleton, he was 31st in the standings, and only the top 12 qualify for Omaha. It didn't take Whitfield long to make his move. He came out firing in the first round with a 9.4-second run, which was good enough for a fourth-place finish in the round. He encountered a little more trouble in the second (11.5). But the total was enough to make the Wrangler Tour final round, and that was all Whitfield needed. He roped and tied his calf in 8.5 seconds to finish atop the leaderboard and capture the aggregate title with a time of 29.4 seconds on three head. When the dust finally settled, Whitfield had collected 25.5 points and moved into a tie for 11th place with 49.5 points, securing a spot in the Pace Challenge....
Rodeo-themed Extreme Makeover to air Oct. 2 When the ABC mega-hit show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition knocked on the doors of the PRCA Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., in mid-July, the ProRodeo family couldn't wait to jump in and get dirty. Wrangler, Justin Brands and virtually every other PRCA corporate partner opened their pocketbooks and hearts to a Colorado Springs-area family whose 101-year-old, 2,000-square-foot farmhouse could no longer meet the needs of six children and their parents. Billy Jack and Anne Barrett and their kids — four are adopted out of foster care programs — live in the tiny town of Peyton, which is situated a few miles east of Colorado Springs. The Barretts were chosen for the makeover for opening their lives and home to troubled and disadvantaged children. More than 3,000 applications are considered each day by the show. ABC will be airing the Barrett Family episode on Sunday, Oct. 2, beginning at 8 ET. This is the second episode in the show's third season lineup, which begins on Sunday, Sept. 25. The Barretts are horse people and love the sport of rodeo. The ABC Extreme Makeover team's task was to tear down the family's existing home and build a new house that represented the family's passion for rodeo and the Western culture....

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