NEWS ROUNDUP

At 97, still master of the hunt In the home of Clyde Johns, there are two elk mounted on the wall behind his favorite chair. On the left is one he bagged in 1933, when the season opened for the first time in Grant County. The one on the right he shot 70 years later, in the same area, in 2003. And again this year, for the 89th year he’s been hunting, Johns, 97, has bagged another elk, a 6x6 among the bigger of the animals he has shot in his lifetime. Johns has lived in the area for almost all of his life. His family moved to Grant County and started a homestead when he was three years old, and since he was a child he has been involved with the outdoors in many ways. “When you’ve got a big ranch, you’ve done everything,” Johns said. “And I’ve hunted my whole life. I got my first buck at eight. I also fished off my horse down Fox Creek when I was a kid. I never had to get off the horse the whole six miles down the stream.”....
Still not sorry, mink activist gets 2 years An animal rights activist who remained unrepentant about releasing an estimated 8,000 mink from Midwestern farms in 1997 was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years in prison and ordered to complete 360 hours of community service and repay $254,840 to his victims. Peter Young, 27, of Mercer Island, Wash., told Federal Magistrate Stephen Crocker that his biggest regret was, "I wish I could do more." "It was an act of conscience not directly against the farmers but in behalf of the animals," Young said. But to the mink farmers present, Young said, "It was absolute pleasure to have visited your farms ... and I wish I could have put more of you in bankruptcy."....
Judge orders family off Forest Service land A federal judge has issued a preliminary order that a family must vacate U.S. Forest Service land it has occupied since at least 1939. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon ruled on Oct. 28 that Dave Stratton and his 80-year-old mother, Vady Stratton, must leave the property in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. "Our family is devastated. We are very distraught," Dave Stratton told The Montana Standard in Wednesday's edition. "We will comply with the judge's orders, and we are developing a plan for dismantling the historic structures." Forest Service officials are pleased with the ruling, which concludes a dispute that stretches back to the 1990s. The government filed a lawsuit in 2003 to evict the Strattons after they rejected a land swap in which they would purchase another parcel of land for the Forest Service and keep the land they occupied. A member of the Stratton family applied for homestead rights in 1912 or 1913, but the application was denied because the area had been declared U.S. Forest land in 1906, court records show....
Lawsuit seeks to block plans to spray herbicides near Yosemite A coalition of environmental groups has sued the U.S. Forest Service over its plans to spray herbicide by helicopter near Yosemite National Park. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Fresno, seeks to block the Forest Service's plans to burn and spray about 4,300 acres in Stanislaus National Forest over ten years. The lawsuit says the agency's reforestation project would destroy important wildlife habitat. The Larson Project aims to plant conifers on national forest land that was damaged in a 1987 fire. But environmentalists say the area has already developed a rich black oak forest with dependent wildlife. "These oak lands are critical if we're going to have this wildlife," said Janet Cobb, president of the California Oak Foundation. "There are more than 300 species of animals and plants that depend on the black oaks there."....
Federal agency defines critical habitat for Canada lynx Habitat critical to the future of the Canada lynx belongs in a category that in some cases could restrict logging or other activities on those lands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. The agency proposed a critical-habitat designation for parts of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota and Maine, but did so tepidly. Lori Nordstrom, a Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist in Helena, said the agency doubts the effectiveness of the designation, but seeks to implement it to satisfy legal requirements. "That's pretty much been their policy for some time and they include boilerplate language to that effect in virtually every designation," said Michael Senatore of Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. "We don't agree with it."....
Forest Service Officials: Should wildfires be allowed to burn? Should the U.S. Forest Service be allowed to let certain fires on national forest lands burn without hindrance? That is the question attendees at the recent public meeting here hosted by U.S. Forest Service officials were asked to consider. Forest service officials are proposing the use of a fire tool called Wildland Fire Use as a way to manage naturally occurring fires in public wild lands. During the meeting, officials noted that most fires occurring in wild land environments are started by natural causes such as lightning. Many experts now concur that naturally occurring fires are important for the health of the forest, with a number of species of animals and plants depending on fire for survival. Also noted was that when fires are suppressed, trees, grasses, needles, leaves, brush and other natural fuels often build up. Those fuels do not just disappear, officials said, and eventually a fire erupts. Those fires are often catastrophic because there is so much vegetation burning. Such catastrophic fires can devastate large portions of the land, burning everything from the roots to the tree tops....
11 WESTERN STATES ON TAP FOR ENERGY CORRIDORS Residents in 11 western states will soon know if they'll be coping with more major utility corridors crisscrossing the land. As mandated by the recently-passed Energy Bill, five federal agencies have begun planning energy transmission corridors throughout the West (AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY). The goal of the "West-wide Energy Corridor" project is to accommodate growth, improve reliability, relieve congestion, and otherwise enhance grids for oil, gas, and electricity transmission and distribution, and to accommodate a potential new source, hydrogen (Sept. 28, 2005, Federal Register notice). The two primary federal departments charged with developing corridor plans are Energy and Interior (BLM). Other frontline agencies include Agriculture (Forest Service), Commerce, and Defense. They plan to announce proposed corridor alignments by early spring 2006. A final environmental impact statement is tentatively scheduled for August 2007. The corridor alignments technically affect just federal lands, but also will influence alignments on private lands....
Forest service seeks comment on huckleberry preservation The U.S. Forest Service seeks public comment for its amendment plans for the Huckleberry Patch, a 9,500-acre area it aims to designate a "special interest area." The Huckleberry Patch is a swath of land that straddles the Tiller Ranger District and Prospect Ranger District in Douglas and Jackson counties, part of the Rogue River National Forest. It is an area where American Indians once spent late summer and fall gathering huckleberries for food. Fire repression over the years has allowed conifers to encroach upon the perimeter of meadows where the berries thrive. Land managers want to conduct projects that benefit the huckleberries, such as prescribed burning or thinning near the meadows. The projects would also benefit wildlife such as bear, deer, elk and songbirds that need open areas to thrive....
Some say language hides park entrance fees Some hikers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts say the federal government is improperly charging fees for access to thousands of acres of federal forests and public lands across the country. At issue is a law passed late last year that specifically forbids charging entrance fees for the more than 450 million acres managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and the Interior Department's land management and reclamation bureaus. Other fees, called "standard amenity recreation fees," can be charged but only when certain services are present, such as parking, toilets and picnic tables. Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the Colorado-based Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, said federal officials have skirted the intent of the law by avoiding the term "entrance" when charging fees at entrance points to federal land. For example, at the Arapaho National Recreation Area in north-central Colorado, tape on a sign covered the words that said the fee was for "entry to" the area, she said. Substituted were the words "use of."....
Editorial: Ruling vindicates Forest Service For years, environmentalists have been using the courts to challenge federal forest projects, and for years it’s been working like a charm. The reason is simple. When environmentalists accused the Forest Service and other agencies of failing to properly follow complicated laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, they usually were right. The court had no choice but to agree with them. But that’s changing, and this week’s ruling by a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a forest-thinning project on the Helena National Forest is a case in point. The Forest Service was vindicated, and it was the plaintiffs in the case who were shown to be way out on a shaky legal limb. The case involved the Jimtown Project, designed to prevent high-intensity wildfires in a region north of Canyon Ferry Lake. The Helena Forest published an environmental assessment of the plan in December, 2000. The Native Ecosystem Council filed suit, making a number of legal arguments, most of which centered around the goshawk, a raptor considered a “sensitive” species in the area....
Executives try to strengthen proposed mine's image Executives for a company planning to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness are on a Montana road trip, trying to spread a message of environmental responsibility and economic development. Revett Minerals chief executive William Orchow called the trip an "educational tour" saying Wednesday that he found much of the reporting about the proposed Rock Creek mine reflected "the point of view of our opposition." Revett wants to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwestern Montana, a project that jeweler Tiffany & Co. criticized in a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post last year. Although mining would be beneath the wilderness, disturbance of the land's surface would be outside wilderness boundaries. Environmental groups' lawsuits, one the subject of a hearing last week in Helena, have sought to block the project....
Freudenthal: Don't toss winter-drilling rules Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal took his opposition to removing restrictions on winter drilling on federal lands to the U.S. Senate. Following his letter last month to Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, on the issue, Freudenthal this week wrote to the senior members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee urging them to keep seasonal wildlife stipulations in place in order to protect the state's wildlife. "Our present approach of imposing winter stipulations and having industry request a variance from these stipulations has protected both game and non-game species while still allowing industry to conduct necessary operations when appropriate and carefully crafted," Freudenthal stated....
Utah Asks Federal Appeals Court to Reject Skull Valley Nuclear Dump Utah asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to overturn a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision approving a nuclear waste storage site in the state's western desert. The six-page petition, filed by lawyers in Washington, D.C., challenges a license authorized but not yet issued by the commission to let a group of nuclear-power utilities stockpile 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Gov. Jon Huntsman directed lawyers to file the petition as part of an effort to block the dump in the courts, in Congress with a plan to designate a Skull Valley wilderness area and with the help of other federal agencies. The papers were filed at the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We're just going to keep fighting as hard as we can until it's dead," Huntsman's general counsel, Mike Lee, said Wednesday....
Agencies propose big land swap The State Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management are proposing what could be the largest, most comprehensive land swap the two agencies have undertaken to consolidate ownership and ease land-use conflicts in the state. About 200,000 acres across the state are involved, affecting livestock-grazing leases, mineral ownership and public access, according to officials. “We are in the beginning stages of looking at a land exchange,” state BLM Director Linda Rundell said in a news release. “We foresee a tremendous cost and workload savings that will make both agencies more efficient in their land-management capabilities and give the public better access to their public lands.” New Mexico’s lands were carved up in the early 1900s, creating a checkerboard of parcels owned by state, federal, tribal and private entities. Both agencies hope to merge parcels so each can manage whole geographic areas instead of small pieces....
House Shelves Alaska Drilling in Budget Fight House Republican leaders were forced to jettison a plan for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Wednesday night to save a sweeping spending bill, a concession that came one day after the party suffered significant election loses. In dropping the drilling plan and a second provision, on coastal exploration, the leadership was trying to win over moderates in the party to enhance the chances of winning initial approval on Thursday of more than $50 billion in spending cuts demanded by House conservatives. But the decision is likely to meet objections from the Senate, where senior lawmakers are insisting on the drilling plan, a priority for President Bush. The last-ditch effort by the leadership to avoid an embarrassing legislative defeat was the latest symptom of party unrest arising from instability in the leadership and anxiety about the 2006 elections....
Susie's Letter to Mexico "Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to go to Safeway and push my cart down the aisle without thinking about what's happening at my house at that moment," she says. "Or what I'll find there when I get home. Or who I'll find there." She knows that's hard to grasp. She shrugs at how funny it must sound. But when you realize that cross-border thieves have broken into her home six times in five years--an average of once every 10 months--you begin to understand. This is what the invasion across our border does. It turns ordinary moms into rocking-chair sentries, prepared to do whatever is necessary. Sonny has had to change the way he cowboys, too. When he approaches a pasture, he checks it with binoculars, then scouts the perimeter for signs of danger. He never rides into these mountains on a horse raised on the flats. He wants one that can handle the rocky hills. He tries to save his horse, too, in case he has to make a run for it. He does everything he can to avoid the illegals and their gangster partners. But sometimes, he can't. Sometimes he turns a corner, and there they are. Sonny has a strategy for that....