NEWS ROUNDUP

A tough look at a key environmental law The National Environmental Policy Act - known as the Magna Carta of US environmental laws - is under intense political scrutiny. For 35 years, NEPA has required that everything built or operated on federal land that "significantly affects the quality of the human environment" be scrutinized for its impact. Thousands of construction projects and other ventures - from highways, dams, and water projects to military bases and oil drilling - have been adjusted and in some cases scrapped because of the law. The requirements of this Nixon-era act have done much for environmental protection, its supporters say. NEPA also has acted as a "sunshine law," opening the political process involving such decisions to all Americans through "environmental impact statements" allowing for public comment. But the law has also been the basis for hundreds of lawsuits, in effect becoming a tool for activists to slow or kill many projects. NEPA also has greatly added to the cost of public works, energy development, and other beneficial projects, critics say. Most recently, it has been charged, environmental lawsuits under NEPA stymied US Army Corps of Engineers plans that might have lessened the impact of hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast. A congressional task has just ended a series of public hearings in five states and Washington, D.C. Lawmakers heard from a range of interests - the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, the Women's Mining Coalition, the Zuni Tribe, the Sierra Club, energy lobbyists, and local officials. A report and recommendations from the task force are expected shortly. It's unclear whether these will produce major changes to NEPA, as some environmental activists fear, or merely tweaks in the law....
Water deal aims to shield estuary In the first transaction of its kind in Texas, a San Marcos family will protect historic, senior water rights on the San Marcos River by assigning them to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The trust will then leave the 70-acre-feet of water per year in the river to protect the river environment and the gulf estuary that depends on fresh water from the Guadalupe River. "This is kind of a natural evolution for a land trust in Texas," said Todd Votteler, the trust's executive director. "The state has been struggling with how to protect in stream flows for the protection of bays and estuaries. "There have been a lot of suggestions that people purchase water rights and retire them. I truly think you will see other river authorities doing this." The Thornton family in San Marcos agreed to lease the right for the 70-acre-feet of water, some 23 million gallons a year, to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority for five years for $3,675 a year. The GBRA in turn agreed to assign that water right to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The family and the trust expect the lease to be extended at the end of five years....
Coyotes come out of wilderness and into Bay Area's backyards There was no mistaking the high-pitched yipping, and Cathy Donaghey wasn't about to stick around to investigate. The 37-year-old resident of Tamalpais Valley, an unincorporated section of Mill Valley, was jogging one recent foggy day on a ridge near her home when her dog, Buddy, ran into some coyotes. Donaghey picked up her pace when Buddy tore out of the brush, apparently in full flight. To her horror, she could hear the coyotes running behind her, yipping as they closed the gap. "I was so terrified," said Donaghey, who lives on Skyline Terrace. "I was running, and they were getting closer and closer the whole time. I don't know why they didn't catch us. Maybe it was a game to them." These days, her story isn't as unusual as it might seem. Coyote sightings and confrontations with humans have increased dramatically over the past few years in the Bay Area, according to wildlife experts, although they say coyotes are still rarely a threat to humans....
Can N.Y. residents, coyotes coexist? The high yippy howl of a group of Eastern coyotes is becoming a common sound in the suburbs surrounding Rochester. But that sound need not inspire fear, said wildlife rehabilitator Elise Able, during a recent presentation to local Sierra Club members. "They are in New York, and they are here to stay, so we need to learn to coexist with them," Able said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that New York has 20,000 to 30,000 coyotes, medium-sized members of the canine family that have appeared in the Northeast over the past 50 years. Coyotes have always lived in the Southwest. But once wolves began disappearing from the United States, about a century ago, coyotes began to drift north and east, filling the niche abandoned by their larger cousin. Today, most biologists believe that the Eastern coyote is a separate species, larger than its Western ancestors as a result of long-ago interbreeding with wolves during its migration....
trouble in paradise After a short hike off a township road, Dr. Scott Stephens crested a hill in the Missouri Coteau and scanned a landscape that makes waterfowl biologists pause in appreciation. Here was the breadbasket of U.S. duck production. It folds to the horizon in a series of broad wetlands and lakes, nestled among rolling hills and interspersed among large tracts of grasslands never touched by a plow. Each spring, the skies over the Coteau hill country are filled with skeins of ducks anxious for breeding, said Stephens, a biologist for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. With the grasslands acting as magnets for the ground-nesting birds, the Coteau hosts up to 125 duck pairs per square mile, some of the highest duck-nesting densities on the continent. But Stephens said this duck paradise is threatened by a newcomer to the hill country — genetically altered varieties of corn and soybeans that are supplanting the native grasslands....
Sharp-tailed grouse spark debate Environmentalists want the federal government to consider listing the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And, they're considering filing a lawsuit if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't respond to a petition filed over a year ago. "Protection for the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse is urgently needed to avoid a downward spiral," said Jon Marvel of Western Watersheds Project, one of the groups involved in the petition. "Inaction may cause this rare bird to join the many other species that have gone extinct due to delays in listing." Western Watersheds, along with seven other organizations, recently sent the Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day warning letter demanding a response to their petition....
County will try to repair contentious land-use rule Despite pleas to throw it in the trash, the county Board of Supervisors last week chose to repair a deeply troubled program designed to nudge growth from rural to urban areas. Describing it as "a tool that needs to be redesigned," Supervisor Jerry Lenthall argued that the board should reshape the complicated ordinance, which provides for the Transfer of Development Credits program. The supervisors' move followed a three-hour public hearing at which, by Supervisor Jim Patterson's count, 26 people criticized the Transfer of Development Credits program and only three supported it. Most asked for either a countywide moratorium or dropping the program altogether. The assault on TDCs has been going on for months. Last week was no exception. Words and phrases such as "travesty," "pillage," "quick buck," "dysfunctional," "disingenuous" and "recall" filled the supervisors' chambers. Under the program, a rural landowner can sell his right to develop on his property to a buyer who would transfer that right to another piece of land -- ideally, closer to an urban area where roads, water, sewer and other infrastructure exist....
Group lobbies for fewer roads in Breaks area More than 99 percent of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument would be within two miles of a road under the Bureau of Land Management's proposed alternative for managing the area. The figure comes from The Wilderness Society, which compared BLM's preferred proposal with the present and with its own plan, called the Citizens Alternative Transportation Plan. The comparison comes as the BLM is launching a series of 11 meetings around the state over the next two weeks to take public comments on its draft resource management plan. The first meeting is Monday in Lewistown. Chris Mehl, Wilderness Society spokesman in Bozeman, said there's nothing wrong with providing road access to the monument, but roads that divide wildlife habitat should be removed. Mehl pointed to a study by wildlife biologist L. Jack Lyon that found, in part, that elk habitat is 25 percent less effective if there is a density of one mile of road per square mile of land, jumping to 50 percent if the density is two miles of road per square mile of land. Under the BLM's proposal, 216 miles of the current 594 miles of roads identified within the monument would be closed and an additional 171 miles would be open only seasonally....
Wild Turkey Killings in Yosemite Ruffle Feathers Ranger Chris Cagle, a lanky six-year veteran of the national park police force, was just following orders when, armed with his Remington 870 pump shotgun, he ventured into the woods last spring after an illegal tom that had settled into the area with a few of his favorite hens. The resulting demise of the 25-pound male turkey highlighted an unusual policy that has turned the park's protectors into bird hunters. For the last two years, rangers here in California's most famous national park have had a shoot-to-kill order every time they spot the wild version of Thanksgiving's main course. "We are experiencing disturbing movement of this exotic species into Yosemite," the park's chief wildlife biologist, Steve Thompson, warned in an internal park memo that led to the current turkey eradication program. "Although we have periodically been aware of turkeys along the southwestern boundary of the park, the current invasion is unprecedented in numbers and range."....
Logging study indicates Forest Service is turning green trees into red ink Logging of national forests costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to one new estimate, as federal land managers try to marry a century old program that produced lumber to one that squeezes out relatively few products while waging a war on wildfires. Subsidization of logging continues to grow because congressional spending on the Forest Service program has held steady, and in some cases increased, while timber harvest levels have fallen dramatically over the past 15 years, a conservation group's new study says. The shift from large-scale clear cuts to commercial thinning of forests and fuels reduction projects has accelerated the government's losses to an estimated $6.6 billion since 1997, according to Rene Voss of the nonprofit John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute, author of the new study. "The bottom line is that on average over the last seven years, the Forest Service has lost what we estimate to be $835 million annually," he said....
Study: Tanks coexisting well with endangered species If you want to increase biodiversity and protect endangered species, bring in tanks and soldiers. Not to shoot hunters and poachers, but simply to maneuver and train. That’s the finding of a new environmental study done for U.S. Army Installation Management Agency—Europe (IMA-E) by researchers at the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Those researchers reached a surprising conclusion — certain threatened and endangered species fare far better in the huge Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels military training areas in Bavaria, where thousands of troops train, firing tanks and other heavy weapons, than in nearby German national parks and nature preserves....
Column: Logging helps keep salmon runs healthy Many Californians will take time out this fall to witness an annual event — the running of salmon in our state's rivers. The run will go on for weeks. But efforts to make those runs successful, and provide clean water for humans, go on year-round. At the front lines of clean water in California are our forests and the men and women who manage them. Since about 75 percent of California's drinking and irrigation water comes from Northern California forests, they play a big part in determining whether our water is clean or not. Two myths, unfortunately, have pervaded many people's views of water and forestry. One is that managing our forests harms California's waterways. The other is that the condition of inland watersheds is the primary factor affecting salmon. Neither is true....
Wildland research hub opens to assess forest, range threats A new forest and wildland health assessment center has opened for business. The Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center in Prineville is one of two pioneer research hubs charged with detecting, evaluating and predicting natural and manmade risks to forests and rangeland. Housed in the Ochoco National Forest headquarters, the Prineville assessment center will monitor the western half of the nation while its counterpart in Asheville, N.C., will track the eastern half. Both centers are funded by the U.S. Forest Service. Along with analyzing information, the centers will act as an early-warning system for land managers, alerting them to major hazards or potential natural catastrophes. What sets the assessment centers apart from other scientific agencies is that they will analyze multiple environmental threats — including climate changes, invasive species and insect infestation, said Jerry Beatty, the director of the Prineville center. For example, an insect infestation could kill trees, leading to a buildup of dead wood that could increase fire risks, said Terry Shaw, chief scientist for the center. Studying how these factors interact and predicting what could happen under different scenarios would help forest and range managers take more effective steps to head off problems....
Forest Service removes wilderness 'throne' A remote outhouse that came to symbolize a throne of sorts in a war of wills between the U.S. Forest Service and anti-federal activists over a dirt road and a threatened fish has been removed. The cement vault toilet at the end of South Canyon Road in Jarbidge was taken out earlier this month by a contractor also hired to remove a bridge damaged by flooding a decade ago, Forest Service officials said. The privy's removal -- at a cost of $21,500 -- has irked critics who scoff that excavation equipment was used to haul the load through the Jarbidge River and on a road supposedly off-limits to motorized traffic by federal mandate. Others wonder what all the stink is about. "It's just a matter of, 'Don't do as I do, do as I tell you,'" said O.Q. "Chris" Johnson, a founding member of the Shovel Brigade, an anti-federal group that arose from the conflict and got its name when sympathizers from around the West donated truckloads of shovels. "It's gross hypocrisy for them to go up there and make a big mess. They have to make a mess to put a road in there," he said....
Pa. native author of 1964 Wilderness Act; new biography released in October American wilderness has always had its poetic proponents — from Henry David Thoreau to John Muir to Rachel Carson. But it's a less well known writer whose words have had a more practical impact on America's wild places — Pennsylvania native Howard Zahniser, the author of the Wilderness Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Wilderness Act was the definitive piece of legislature that changed the way the federal government viewed and managed public wild lands. With this bill, pristine forests, deserts and mountains were declared, by an act of Congress, forever wild. Sadly, Zahniser died four months before his work came to fruition. It was his widow, Alice, who stood next to the president when he signed the bill into law. At the request of Public Opinion, Alice, and the Zahnisers' youngest son, Ed, agreed to talk about the man whose passion was wilderness....
The Civil War Hero Who Started the Conservation Movement A chance meeting in a Montana stage stop led General Phil Sheridan to become a central figure in the 19th Century’s conservation movement--which, in turn, that led to the environmental movement a century later. Sheridan, the feisty former cavalry commander, known as “Little Phil,” was one of the top three hero Union generals of the Civil War along with William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. He won the last major battle of the war, defeated cavalry genius Jeb Stuart and led the Union’s successful Shenandoah Valley campaign. His famous ride from Winchester, Virginia to rally his troops to victory at Cedar Creek in 1864 was turned into a popular poem, recited by school children for the next 50 years. He also was famous for his “scorched earth” policies during the Shenandoah campaign, his harsh reconstruction policies in Texas and the phrase “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” But after he met a mountain man on the road to Helena in May of 1870, who regaled him with tales of the wonders of Yellowstone, the hunter and former ornithologist turned into one of the park’s leading advocates. Sheridan sent Army escorts on the explorations that led Congress to protect it. Later, he fought the Northern Pacific Railroad’s effort to monopolize the park. He called for expanding its boundaries to include the entire habitat of the park’s big game, leading a movement for what was then called “Greater Yellowstone.”
California: Official Scapegoat of Montana? When things go wrong in Montana, chances are it’s some Californian’s fault—at least that’s what many of us in Montana assume. When property values get too expensive for average folks, it’s got to be because of all those people moving here from California. When places like Reserve Street bring in the big box stores and accompanying cookie-cutter subdivisions, it’s those Californians. Problem is, most of the transplants moving to Western Montana aren’t from California. According to a report published in 2003 by Montana Business Quarterly, most transplants come over from Washington with California coming in second. Here’s another kicker from the report. In 2001 there were 3,700 Californians moving to Montana and 2,900 Montanans moving to California. The report goes on to state that “…for those moving from one house to another [in Montana], we see that slightly more than half, or 195,434 persons, moved from one county in Montana to another.” For Missoula County, between 1995 and 2000, only around 16 percent of the people moving here were from out of state. In other words, folks from Montana are moving around Montana....
Man lives dream tanning buffalo hides When Larry Belitz was a boy growing up on an Iowa farm in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became enthralled with the romance of long-ago American Indian lore. His uncle, an agent who helped teach Indians to farm, sent him items such as beaded moccasins and belts. The boy imagined himself back in the Old West, making things provided only by nature. Belitz has been living that dream for more than 30 years, making buffalo hide tipis, buffalo robes and other items from buffalo using traditional methods practiced by 19th century Plains Indians. He uses no materials, tools or equipment that weren't available before 1880. He buys buffalo hides from ranchers who don't brand their animals and who slaughter and skin the animals in the field so there are no brands or bruise marks from buffalo attacking each other in trucks. He stretches out the hides on a rack made of 2-by 6-inch boards in his small red barn. Belitz uses an elkhorn scraper with a metal blade to scrape the fat, meat and membrane from the hides. Metal, he says, was available to Plains Indians before 1880....
Charles Goodnight Award No elaborate, eye-catching signs mark the entrances to the Beggs family ranches – only the Beggs name and brand, a three-line barbed wire fence and some cedar posts. No books have been written about the family’s ranching heritage, which began with George Beggs Sr. in 1876. And if you wanted to write a book, you probably wouldn’t get much help from George Beggs III, the family patriarch. The family’s history and its unwavering determination to sustain its precious legacy in a modern world that can be unfriendly to the ways of the old West have earned the Beggs family the 2005 Charles Goodnight Award, which is presented annually to individuals and institutions who have made outstanding contributions to the preservation of the Western heritage that is so revered in Fort Worth and throughout Texas. The award is named for the great Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), who cemented his place in Texas lore with his legendary exploits on the cattle trails and with his million-acre ranch in the Panhandle, where he introduced landmark innovations in cattle breeding and agribusiness. The Beggs family will accept the award Dec. 1 during the Goodnight Gala at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth. Proceeds from the gala, held in conjunction with the National Cutting Horse Association’s World Championship Futurity, will benefit the Texas Christian University Ranch Management Program, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Cattle Raisers Museum....
Monsters on the Rio Grande Most peoples of the world have myths and legends of monsters and other fanciful creatures that spring from humanity's fertile imagination. For a thousand years before Columbus, Europeans busily assembled a reservoir of lore about oneeyed beasts, dragons, giants, amazons and headless monsters that breathed through their stomachs. These weird ideas and legends were quickly transferred to America. On many of the earliest maps, engravers included images of sea monsters and land dragons in those spaces still unexplored. The Spaniards who settled New Mexico at the beginning of the colonial era brought with them their Old World notions of monsters and mythical beings. For example, when Juan de Oñate led an expedition from the upper Rio Grande westward to Arizona in 1604, he was accompanied by Father Francisco de Escobar. The priest was an expert in Indian languages. In speaking to natives along the Colorado River, he claimed they told him of curious beings who lived beyond the horizon, “monstrous and never seen in our time.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: The bird by any other name would taste like turkey The latest in the civilized world's need to right old wrongs is the country of Turkey's objection to the use of the name turkey to describe a rather intellectually challenged bird with a snood. "It casts us in an unflattering light, offends our ancestors and we are not getting any royalties!" they stated fictitiously. The objection is ironic considering they were embroiled in a similar argument with the foot stool industry when they started calling themselves The Ottoman Empire. The self-appointed, quasi Federal Politically Correct Commission, (FPCC) is forcing the U.S. Turkey Taxonomic Team (TTT) to rename their beloved beast. In response, the team submitted the general sounding Big White Bird, but were immediately attacked by Sesame Street for copyright infringement and by the Color Discrimination League (CDL)....