I know the above date is wrong, but blogspot.com is not allowing me to set the date and time. Hope this will be fixed soon.

NEWS ROUNDUP

A Strategy to Restore Western Grasslands Meets With Local Resistance No cows remain on the federal lands set aside for grazing here above the Escalante River. At first glance, this would seem a boon to land and cow alike. The layered rockscape just west of this small town is immense, rolling from the river toward the sky. The grass is thin and dry. The soil, the same. How fat could a cow get? So, seven years ago an environmental group based in Arizona, the Grand Canyon Trust, began paying ranchers to give up their grazing rights when their herds, or bank accounts, had failed to thrive. By this fall, the trust had spent more than $1 million to end grazing on more than 400,000 acres. The deals seemed to suit all concerned, until a group of local officials decided that they were bad for the local economy and a threat to the ancestral tradition of living off the land. The group set out to end this latest, uncharacteristically civil chapter in the fraught history of cattlemen, environmentalists and dueling visions of the West's future. Michael E. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee who now is a Republican state representative from southern Utah, led the charge to roll back agreements the trust had forged. Mr. Noel said the loss of the grazing allotments would hurt ranching, which would in turn deprive the area's young people of the character-building chance to work on the land. "Yes, it's a free market to buy and sell," Mr. Noel said recently. "But if you buy it, you use it." By retiring the lands, he said, the trust is reneging on an implicit agreement, and "if we allow that to occur, we go down the path of eliminating all grazing on public lands."....
Questar, BLM differ over drilling plans An official from Questar Corp. said this week its proposal to increase gas development on the Pinedale Anticline this winter came at the behest of the Bureau of Land Management. Paul Matheny, vice president for the Rockies region for Questar, said several BLM field offices called the company, asking what could be done to produce more gas. "We said we had projects in Pinedale and in other places that we can't do during the winter because of restrictions of various kinds, and were it not for those restrictions we have a certain number of wells that we could complete in November or December," Matheny said. Matheny said the BLM was acting on instructions from the U.S. Department of Interior, hoping to avoid a gas shortage after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the gas-producing Gulf Coast. Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM in Cheyenne, said there is concern about a gas shortage and agreed there is a push from Washington for short-term natural gas supplies. But Hall said his agency did not ask for proposals from companies. "What we were doing was trying to find out if more capacity existed," he said. "It didn't include anything beyond that."....
U.S. under fire as climate conferees hash out plan to cut pollution The United States came under renewed criticism Tuesday as thousands of environmentalists and international officials hammered out rules for a global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. comments that it would resist any binding commitment to curb global warming by capping industrial emissions infuriated environmentalists, who accused Washington of trying to derail the U.N. Climate Change Conference. "When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International. More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations....
Education, watershed funding pushed at town hall They started with seven broad questions about watersheds — land areas that feed into single streams and rivers that New Mexico communities depend on for water. And in two intense days of fast-paced negotiating at New Mexico Highlands University that ended Tuesday, more than 100 ranchers, environmentalists, foresters, land managers and educators drafted recommendations for how to better manage the state’s watersheds. Among the recommendations: Develop a watershed-health curriculum for public schools. Include stable funding for watershed restoration in state agency budgets. Require local governments to consider watersheds in their land-use planning. The participants were part of a town-hall discussion on New Mexico’s watersheds and forests facilitated by the nonprofit New Mexico First and sponsored by the state Department of Agriculture , the new Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at Highlands and the state Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources....
Editorial: Haste makes waste Geologic time isn't supposed to refer to the speed at which Congress updates obsolete laws. But when it comes to the Mining Law of 1872, the description fits. Now, however, the House is trying to impose a nanosecond non-solution on that old law. The Senate needs to say, "Whoa." The House has tacked an ill-conceived rewrite of the law onto its budget reconciliation bill, a move that precluded the kind of meaningful discussion this issue deserves. The House rewrite lifts the ban on patenting land that was imposed by Congress in 1994 in an effort to stop the sale of public land at bargain-basement prices. Consider that the patenting provisions of the 133-year-old law allow miners to gain title to public land for as little as $2.50 an acre, and you'll see why a moratorium was necessary. Consider that the House's rewrite only ups that to market value or $1,000 an acre, but allows land to pass into private hands even if mining is not the intent, and you'll see why the Senate has to stop this....
Thirteen years of planning pays off in Soledad Canyon Thirteen years after trail enthusiasts began planning a trail head deep in Soledad Canyon on a spur of the Pacific Crest Trail, they gathered Wednesday to celebrate the finished product. The Indian Canyon Trail Head near Agua Dulce is the combined work of volunteers who ride horses, hike or ride off-road vehicles and officials with the U.S. Forest Service, the state and the county. "As you can well see, this is a service to everyone who uses the trail," said Barry Wetherby, secretary-treasurer of the nonprofit California Trail Users Coalition, which coordinated the $290,532 project. The trail head provides parking for horse trailers off Soledad Canyon Road as well as a parking lot for cars. There's a restroom, a picnic table that was installed moments before Wednesday's brief ceremony and a ramp to load off-highway vehicles. And it sits at the foot of one of the most scenic trails in the West, a 2,600-mile route that winds through forests, deserts and mountains from Mexico to Canada....
The Iron Climb A European-style rock climbing practice known as via ferrata now has a Utah angle in Waterfall Canyon east of this city. For novice climbers who don helmets, clip lanyards into a fixed metal cable and climb steel ladders straight up the side of a cliff, it is more like a stairway to heaven. With Chris Peterson providing the property and veteran Utah climber Jeff Lowe doing the designing, this via ferrata park - one of only three in North America - includes a practice wall and two, fixed 350-foot-high vertical routes that use permanent metal ladders and cables. The concept of the via ferrata, which translated to English means "iron roads," originated in the 1860s when people living in the Dolomite Mountains in Austria and Italy began installing fixed ropes and ladders to the top of prominent peaks, according to the Singing Rock climbing gear company....
Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery. Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years. "Imagine what a drought lasting that long would do to the resources and economy of the region today," says Dave Peterson of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources. The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze'ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says....
Judge OKs more heli-skiing in Chugach An environmental lawsuit opposing expansion of helicopter skiing in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula mountains has been rejected by a federal judge, who ruled the U.S. Forest Service did an adequate job assessing the likely impacts of more helicopter flights on wildlife. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, was hailed as a victory by Chugach Powder Guides, the Girdwood, Alaska, company that won permits last year to significantly expand its helicopter-assisted ski and snowboard operations in Chugach National Forest. Company owner Chris Owens said the extra territory was necessary to put together a viable deep-powder operation. The Moose Pass residents and national conservation organizations that opposed the expansion, first in environmental hearings and then in court, said they have not decided yet whether to appeal. The judge said federal environmental laws require the Forest Service to openly consider ways to protect wildlife but not to guarantee that no impacts will occur....
A Silver Lining for the Logging Road Montana is home to over 30,000 miles of active and decommissioned logging roads on national forest land. That’s enough road to wrap around the equator and still have 5,000 miles left over. Discussions are currently on the table regarding whether or not Montana needs new roads, after the Bush Administration overturned the Clinton-era ban on new road building in America’s national forests this year. Even if the state decides not to build new roads, the money to maintain those 30,000 miles of road simply isn’t in the budget. So, what’s a state to do? Closed roads provide lovely two-lane trails for mountain biking, skiing, or just plain hiking. They’re a place to get away from the hoards of people up the Rattlesnake and let your dog be a dog off his leash. Roads are also a chance for Off-Road-Vehicle (ORV) users to get up into God’s country with a four-stroke between their legs. Many roads are left in place and gated so the Forest Service can have access to these areas for logging in the future or to suppress wildfires. But not everyone sees logging roads in such a light. Whereas some see the roads around Montana as access, others see them as scars, while others see them as a burden that could be turned into opportunity....
Yellowstone delisting shifts recovery efforts north The focus on recovering grizzly bear populations is moving north. With the Yellowstone population of grizzlies on the verge of being removed from the federal threatened and endangered list, the folks charged with leading recovery efforts are looking to refocus on bears that call the northern Continental Divide ecosystem home. On Wednesday, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee heard about the challenges it and a growing team of biologists and researchers will face in duplicating the success story now occurring in the Yellowstone ecosystem. “The circumstances here are really quite different than they were in Yellowstone,” said Chris Smith of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Yellowstone population of grizzlies is the most studied population of bears in the world. An interagency team of researchers has published more than 178 studies on the population since 1974. That's not the situation in northwest Montana, Smith said....
Agencies eye future of grizzlies Chuck Bartlebaugh is worried that television's warm and fuzzy message about grizzly bears is creating a dangerous situation in the backcountry. He wants the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee to do more to spread the word about the proper way to act around the huge bruins. “The belief that we can interact with bears is stronger than ever,” said Bartlebaugh of the Missoula-based Center for Wildlife Information. “There's a misperception of what is and what isn't OK.” Bartlebaugh points to a recent television clip that gave people tips on how to let a grizzly lick their fingers. “Most of the 15 million viewers probably didn't know that is inappropriate,” he said....
Kane, Interior meet over signs Officials of the Interior Department and Kane County met for six hours Wednesday in an effort to end the standoff over the county's placement of its road signs on federal land in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Nothing was resolved, but negotiators for both sides say an agreement could be within grasp. They will meet again on Dec. 15. "I'm very encouraged," said Larry Jensen, the Interior Department's regional solicitor, following the meeting at the state Bureau of Land Management offices in downtown Salt Lake City. "The county has taken the initiative and put some proposals on the table that address both the near-term issues surrounding the signs and the overriding issues of who owns the roads."....
Teams gathering native seeds in Nevada Native Nevada plant seeds have attracted the attention of royalty under a preservation project between a federal agency and Great Britain. Seeds of Success is a parternership project in the Great Basin between the Bureau of Land Management and the Royal Botanic Garden in London. The U.S. portion is a branch of a large, global conservation effort called the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The worldwide project is identifying, collecting and storing plant material and native plant seeds in 16 countries. The seeds are needed for restoring and rehabilitating public lands and for meeting a long-term goal of conserving plant biodiversity. The overall goal is to collect seeds of 10 percent of the world's plants by 2010. Then, if an extended drought occurs or climate change causes some plants to become extinct, seeds will be ready to replant or reforest affected areas....
Endangered-plant lovers unite in effort to boost U.S. protection The kodachrome bladderpod and Hoover's spurge; the fleshy owl's clover and the four-petal pawpaw; the sensitive joint-vetch, the showy stickseed, Virginia sneezeweed and Michigan monkey-flower - the total spending for all of these at-risk plants is still less than the money spent on an endangered river clam called the fat pocketbook. It's not that easy being green. Plants make up more than half of the 1,290 plant and animal species on the federal endangered or threatened list. But animals get 97 percent of the money, according to the 2003 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expenditure report, which includes money spent by all federal and state agencies. Some call it zoo-chauvinism. Others call it plant blindness. Either way, the disparity irks the staff of the Center for Plant Conservation, a nonprofit organization at the Missouri Botanical Garden that banks rare seeds and reintroduces plants to former ranges....
Sales of hunting licenses rise for first time since fiscal 2000 The number of paid hunting license holders rose to 14.8 million for fiscal year 2004. That is up 0.4 percent from the 14.7 million holders in fiscal year 2003, according to recently released data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The increase was the first since fiscal year 2000. Over the past 10 years, the number of paid hunting license holders has declined 2.8 percent. For the 10-year period, the attrition for hunting license holders has not been as great as that of fishing license holders, which have declined by 6.1 percent....
Louisiana's Levee Inquiry Faults Army Corps The devastation of New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen because of a significant flaw in levee design by the Army Corps of Engineers, according to preliminary findings from the official Louisiana team investigating the Hurricane Katrina flooding. The findings are included in a draft report prepared by engineers on the team. They mirror the conclusion of many outside experts: that the levee that toppled at the 17th Street Canal was built with too little regard for the inherent weakness of the soil under the canal banks. Similar conditions, the experts say, existed at the sites of the two other major levee breaches in metropolitan New Orleans. "It should have been obvious," said the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, Ivor van Heerden, the leader of the investigative group, known as Team Louisiana. Billy R. Prochaska, an engineering consultant to the team, said, "That's our question: how could this be?" The puzzlement is especially acute, Mr. Prochaska said, because the levee design "was gone over by everyone" up and down the Corps of Engineers organization, from the local level to Washington, before the levees were upgraded with flood walls in the 1980's and 90's....
Column: God and Man in the Environmental Debate Based on his public writings, I would expect this scientist to be personable and humane. Nevertheless, in his private correspondence, he casually wishes for the deaths of many millions of his fellow human beings. If he were merely offering an eccentric, private opinion, I wouldn’t be writing about it. Unfortunately, his desire is all too common among some self-described “environmentalists.” Our wellbeing, on this view, doesn’t really enter into the calculation. We are, at best, an accident of cosmic history, and at worst, despoilers and destroyers. Adding more humans to the planet, then, is as bad as adding more parasites to an already ailing host. Again, this would be merely academic, except that such ideas have real world consequences. Every environmental policy implemented by government authority, for instance, stems from someone’s views about the nature of man and man’s place in nature. If those views are anti-human, the policy probably will be anti-human as well. Consider the ban on DDT in the 1970s. The ban, which in hindsight we know was misguided, has resulted in the deaths of more than a million people a year. The vast majority of these deaths have been among the poor in developing countries. Because environmental policies perpetuate certain notions about the human person, and because these notions have real world consequences, Christians have little choice but to engage the debate over the environment....
Can those city women handle our cowboys? Despite Willie's warning, quite a few Central Coast mamas have let their babies grow up to be cowboys. That's what Hollywood found this week when it put out a casting call for area cowboys to audition for an as-yet-unnamed reality television series. Producers managed to wrangle some 50 buckaroos, then culled that number down to five. According to Tribune reporter Leslie Griffy, the plot will revolve around our cowboys getting together with some female city slickers in search of love. We're not sure who will be roping whom, but we'll put our money on our Central Coast cowboys. But we wonder, is there really an audience for such a pairing? Salon.com writer Lily Burana thinks so: "Sophisticated women who are tired of neurotic, vain urban men often pine for a sensual, sensible, strong and loyal bad boy who will never say we're fat or dump us for a younger woman. That one man could be all those things is a long shot, but still, we hold the dream dear."....
Colorful cowboys bust mutton with best They call 6-year-old Chance Falk the Red, White and Blue Cowboy because he wears the colors of the flag every time he competes in a rodeo. Then there is his younger brother Chase, 5, that they call the Camouflage Cowboy because he wears camouflage from head to toe every time he competes in a rodeo. Whatever you call the two Kersey boys, one thing is for sure. These are two tough cowboys who know how to ride sheep. In fact, Chance is a champion in mutton bustin' after finishing first in the Mountain State Junior Bull Riders finals held Oct. 29-30 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden. He not only won the finals, but also won the year-end average title, bringing home two shiny belt buckles....
Two Wyoming steer wrestlers return to NFR in different ways At this time last year, Birch Negaard was in an unusual place -- home. The nine-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier wasn't headed to Las Vegas like he had done in steer wrestling so many times before. Instead, Negaard was cooped up inside his home near Sundance, healing up from a shoulder operation he had the previous August. Negaard had tried -- oh, how he tried -- to cowboy his way through the pain. "I tried for eight months to go with it, and it kept falling out (of socket)," he said. Finally, he went under the knife. And now, Negaard is headed back to the NFR....