NEWS ROUNDUP

Schwarzenegger Fires Flood Control Panel Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday fired all six members of the state Reclamation Board, an agency that oversees flood control along California's two biggest rivers and had recently become more aggressive about slowing development on flood plains. The Republican governor replaced the members — who serve indefinite terms at the governor's pleasure — with seven of his own appointees, most with ties to agriculture and the engineering profession. One board seat had been vacant since spring. Five of the fired members had been appointed by Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and one had first been appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, then reappointed by Davis....
Protesters tell Pombo: Hands off Species Act A group of environmentalists, farmers, and fishermen gathered in Stockton Monday to protest legislation by Rep. Richard Pombo that it says tears holes in the federal safety net for wildlife living on the brink of extinction. The group, following a brief news conference, hand-delivered to Pombo's Stockton office the signatures of 3,000 Californians objecting to Pombo's revised version of the Endangered Species Act. Former Rep. Pete McCloskey -- a Republican like Pombo -- co-authored the original 1973 law and stood nearby when President Nixon signed it into law. McClosky said he's so angry about Pombo's bill, he is tempted to leave retirement, move from his home in Yolo County and oppose the former Tracy city councilman in the next congressional election....
Editorial: Does protecting endangered species cost too much? While it is noble that great measures have been taken to protect the desert tortoise and mohave ground squirrel, one has to wonder how these animals have been placed at such a high priority that we must now spend millions of dollars to protect them. Because environmental activists say the burrowing tortoise is threatened by cattle, people and mines, millions of dollars are spent to save the turtles at the expense of ranchers and highway drivers. There are nearly 4 million acres of California desert which has been set aside as critical habitat for the desert tortoise. It appears the desert tortoise is so sacred, those willing to protect them will do so by killing anything that doesn't have a shell on it....
Farm Bureau Calls for House to Pass Improved ESA To improve and strengthen what has worked in the original Endangered Species Act, the American Farm Bureau Federation is calling on the House to pass H.R. 3824, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act. In a letter sent Monday to House members, AFBF President Bob Stallman explained how more than 75 percent of ESA-listed species inhabit private lands, and, therefore, cooperation with private landowners, many of them farmers and ranchers, is essential for species to recover. “H.R. 3824 provides for voluntary species recovery agreements that allow private landowners the flexibility to take actions that benefit species recovery, producing a ‘win-win’ situation for species and landowners alike,” Stallman noted. He further noted that landowners deserve more involvement in consultations about how to save species....
Grizzlies make inroads in Idaho Cattle ranchers Larry and Deanna Orme have been charged by a grizzly and already have lost eight calves to bears this year. Blair and Velma Calaway, also ranchers, had a bear ransack their cabin near Yellowstone's southwest boundary. The ranchers have learned to tolerate grizzlies. Whether other Idahoans do will play a critical role in determining whether the bears continue to thrive. "I view that as an evolutionary process in Idaho," Chris Servheen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, told the Idaho Statesman. "The average person who works, lives or plays in bear habitat has changed the way they act." The grizzly grows to 600 pounds, can run faster than a horse, and occasionally eats people. There was about one human injury per year from grizzly bears in the backcountry in Yellowstone from 1970 through 1997...
Forest Service official upholds timber harvest appeal A Forest Service official has overturned a proposed timber harvest in the Kootenai National Forest because it did not adequately address potential effects on grizzly bears. In June, Bob Castaneda, Kootenai Forest supervisor, approved the North East Yaak timber sale in the Cabinet Ranger District. His decision authorized logging 13.5 million board feet of timber on about 1,860 acres in the Three Rivers Ranger District. It also cleared the way for harvesting in old growth on 116 acres and thinning another 286 acres, plus six temporary roads. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Ecology Center appealed the decision to the Forest Service's regional headquarters in Missoula. On Monday, Lynn Roberts, Forest Service appeal deciding officer, ruled that the environmental impact statement did not adequately address effects of the project on grizzly bears....
Biologists count fewer grizzlies with cubs Bear biologists, trying to gauge the health of grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park, saw fewer females with cubs in 2005 than in any year since 1997. But they cautioned Tuesday that the dip isn't necessarily an indication that the Yellowstone population, which the federal government hopes to remove from the endangered species list soon, is declining. More likely other factors affected how many females with cubs were observed this year, including a "bumper crop" of cubs in recent years that left many females unable to breed, and persistent snow at some feeding sites that kept away bears that otherwise would have been counted, the biologists said....
Wilderness designation for Dominguez Canyon debated Federal wilderness designation for the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Study Area could bring too many tourists and damage its fragile desert ecology, a rancher with grazing rights in the area warned the Delta County Board of Commissioners on Monday. “We were there for years and didn’t have any problems until there was this wilderness (study area) designation,” said Oscar Massey, who has been wintering cattle in the Dominguez Canyon area for more than three decades. Ponds that he built there to water cattle have also benefitted wildlife, Massey said. “There’s quite a population that uses that water, elk and deer,” he said. He counted a herd of 1,400 elk last winter in the area, Massey said. “You put that ‘W’ on a map,” and tourists will flock to see the newly designated wilderness, he said....
International Wilderness Conference To Convene in Alaska How can human beings coexist with the wilderness, sustaining themselves and the lands they inhabit? That is a critical question in many parts of the world and the focus of an international meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, September 30 to October 6. More than 1,100 delegates from 55 nations will be in Anchorage for the 8thWorld Wilderness Congress (8WWC), a meeting described as the world’s longest-running public environmental forum. The meeting’s theme is “Wilderness, Wildlands and People: A Partnership for the Future,” with sessions devoted to addressing “the practicalities of realizing benefits to human communities from protecting and sustaining wilderness, wildlands and wildlife,” said Vance Martin, president of the WILD Foundation, a principal organizer of the congress. “I’m hoping we can learn from that,” said Liz Close of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), “and bring people in this country closer to their wilderness and make sure that people understand the benefits that are derived from this land.”....
Column: Our Parks in Peril Is Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA), the chairman of the House Resources Committee, joking? Did he really circulate a razed-earth anti-parks bill as a rather mean-spirited joke, or was he for real? It’s a little hard to tell with him, but the national parks sections are certainly laughable. If Pombo’s bill was a joke, it was an elaborate one, paid for with federal dollars: • Section 6302 requires the National Park Service (NPS) to raise $10 million by selling advertising in official maps and guidebooks, as well as placing billboards on buses, trams and vans. The Interior Department would also be required to sell commercial sponsorship of visitor and education centers, museums trails, theaters and other facilities. Thus the “Exxon/Mobil Visitors Center” or other such designations. (If the place was already named after an individual, it would get a reprieve); • Section 6306 requires NPS to sell for private use any park that receives less than 10,000 visitors per day. Most of the 15 parks that meet that designation are in Alaska, and all are national treasures. The parks that would go on the block for poor performance include 23 percent of total park system acreage....
Editorial: Storms emphasize faults in energy bill It seems like only yesterday — but it was Aug. 8 — that Congress, after years of dithering, finally got around to passing a major energy bill. It was a low-octane flop, in our opinion, larded with too many corporate welfare handouts and subsidies for pie-in-the-sky energy panaceas, while skimping on the regulatory reforms required to move the country toward more domestic production and self-sufficiency. But that was before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita laid bare the fragility of the nation’s energy infrastructure and led to price spikes that got the public’s attention. Whatever gets the public angry also draws the attention of politicians, so two new energy bills are being considered by Congress that will go back and fill gaps left by the earlier effort. The August bill adroitly sidestepped the controversial issue of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and outer continental shelf to drilling, for instance. But one new bill would open ANWR to drilling and give states the power to overrule federal offshore drilling bans. Apparently, backers of the new measures are betting that Americans had a change of attitude after gasoline prices jumped to more than $3 per gallon and experts began predicting a 70 percent jump in natural gas prices for some parts of the country this winter. Many Americans still may care about alleged threats to caribou herds and potentially ruined views from beachfront highrises — but not if such aesthetic abstractions begin taking a big enough bite out of their pocketbooks....
Interior Secretary Says U.S. Will Push Search for Energy Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said Tuesday that after the two destructive gulf hurricanes that battered the nation's energy heartland, the Bush administration would intensify its push to expand energy development on public lands including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the nation's coastal waters. "The vulnerability of having all the energy supplies and refining and processing capacity in one geographic area reinforces the idea that we need diversity of supply," Ms. Norton said in an interview. Citing government reports on the increasing demand for petroleum and natural gas and the sustained high prices that tend to result, she said, "The hurricanes have brought more attention to the fundamental issue." While Ms. Norton took no position on a Congressional proposal to end a 25-year moratorium on oil leases on the outer continental shelf and to eliminate internal departmental appeals of administration decisions to lease public lands, she did not reject its approach....
Republicans take aim at energy restrictions Hoping to ride the wave of concern resulting from Gulf Coast hurricanes, U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin and other congressional Republicans are trying again to loosen some restrictions on oil and gas development. The proposals didn't make it in the recently approved energy bill, but supporters say Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- which hit some energy suppliers on the Gulf Coast -- show the need to eliminate some environmental restrictions if the domestic energy supply is rattled. The bill, set for committee review this week with a possible House vote as early as next week, calls in part for an end to seasonal stipulations -- such as big game winter closures -- for industry in times deemed by the president as a "significant adverse effect on the supply of domestic energy resources." The measure, pushed by House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and supported by Cubin, also would suspend legal challenges to energy lease decisions, and would force private landowners to comply with industry when subsurface minerals were at stake....
Feds wary about proposed Utah land swap The Interior Department has reservations about a Utah land exchange along the Colorado River, expressing little interest in nearly a quarter of the land it would get in the deal and treading carefully on the sensitive issue of how lands would be appraised. But Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Chad Calvert said in testimony to the House Resources subcommittee Tuesday that he hopes the concerns can be worked out. And a state official said he thinks the land exchange remains on track. The state is seeking to transfer 45,000 acres along the Colorado River to the Bureau of Land Management. Much of it is environmentally sensitive, including parcels near Arches National Park, a portion of the renowned Slickrock bike trail, the Corona natural arch and lands inside a wilderness study area. In exchange, the state would get about 40,000 federal acres with oil and gas or other development potential....
Gathering horses If they could do it again, the 30 mustangs rounded up in Sandwash Basin on Tuesday morning probably wouldn't follow the "Judas" horse into the trap. But as it stands, the helicopter hovering above and the domestic horse trained to lead wild horses into the trap proved effective enough to draw the wild horses into the holding pen. Bureau of Land Management officials hope to have 200 mustangs rounded up in the Sandwash area by the end of the week. If the crews from Cattoor Livestock Roundup hit their goal, the mustang population in the area northwest of Maybell will be down from about 360 horses to about 160. BLM will auction 50 of the 200 horses this weekend at Sandwash corrals. The remainder will be sent to the BLM's wild horse adoption facility in Cañon City....
Nevada files opposition to Yucca rail corridor land restrictions The federal Energy Department hasn't laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada argues in a statement opposing the plan. "It's poor planning and the wrong agency is in charge," Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday of the Energy Department plan to build a railroad to haul radioactive waste across the state. Loux filed a seven-page letter Friday opposing the Energy Department proposal to withdraw 308,600 acres from public use across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties. Public comments end Wednesday. "Apart from causing impacts and disruption to existing land users, the proposed action has the potential to negatively affect the environment, grazing allotments, mining and energy development activities, property values, the economy, important cultural resources and more," the state said....
New religious group advocates environmentalism Three University professors have joined a newly-formed alliance created to oppose a proposed Congressional bill that would change the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Noah Alliance, a partnership of Jews and evangelical Christians, issued concurrent statements by the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life opposing the bill. Signatories include rabbis, a Nobel laureate and 30 prominent Jewish scientists, as well as ecology and evolutionary biology professors David Wilcove, Daniel Rubenstein and Simon Levin. Wilcove, who is affiliated with the Wilson School, said he hopes the religious slant of the Alliance will "appeal to people who are primarily motivated by their religious faith to consider what their religion may say about obligations to protect species on Earth."....
Thousands of head of cattle dead or imperiled Hurricane Rita hit the heart of Louisiana beef cattle country, drowning thousands of head, dispersing others 10 to 15 miles inland and leaving those surviving with brackish water and no forage, state officials said Tuesday. "We’re in a pretty serious crisis right now," said Paul Coreil, director of the state’s extension service. His agents are helping the Louisiana Agriculture Department and the Louisiana Cattlemen’s Association coordinate emergency deliveries of fresh water, baled hay and fencing material to the marshy, low-lying coastal parishes of southwest Louisiana. Ranchers enlisted neighbors and anyone who had a pickup, horse or airboat to coax cattle out of the water and to higher land, he said. Extension agent Andrew Granger in Vermilion said cows were run out of the water and onto state Highway 82 where a temporary cattle pen held the livestock until they could be trucked to safety. The region has upwards of 200,000 cattle, mainly part of Brahman-cross cow-calf operations....
Tanker crash leaves lengthy cleanup Hazardous materials teams are still cleaning up an oil spill west of Platteville following a fatal accident Sunday in which a semitrailer plowed into a small herd of cattle on Colo. Highway 66. The Colorado State Patrol, meanwhile, confirmed Monday that officials are not seeking charges against the owner of the farm from which the cows escaped. According to the state patrol, the owner of the cows cannot be cited criminally because Colorado is legally an “open range state.” “Livestock — horses, sheep or cattle — have the permission to roam on state property, including highways,” Colorado State Trooper Don Moseman said. “There’s no law requiring farmers to fence in livestock.” “We’re a Western, rural state,” Moseman said. “We can’t control deer or elk either, but there are a lot more wild animal accidents than ranch animal accidents.”....
Montage captures a piece of Texas history It is a symbol of early American life that most Texans have had the opportunity to see. Some roll freely with the wind, some, worn and broken, stand still - a reminder of how life once was on the Texas countryside. They are windmills and Hunt County photographer Rick Vanderpool has captured their essence in his newest photographic montage titled, “Who has seen the wind?” Vanderpool, of Commerce, became known for his montage of the word Texas. “Looking for Texas” was the first of several montages Vanderpool has created. His windmill montage is his sixth Texas-inspired project. “Who has seen the wind?” contains about 100 pictures of windmills from across the United States....

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