NEWS ROUNDUP

Lawmakers seek fed land holdings audit Western lawmakers are preparing a new push to require the government to take stock of its land holdings and identify areas that are no longer needed and might be sold. "We have a lot of towns, people and ranches scattered through public lands," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "They need to expand their towns so they can grow and expand their tax base." A campaign to broaden western land disposal is being spearheaded by Cannon, who is head of the Western Congressional Caucus. The group's 54 members often express frustration at the massive federal presence in their states. Cannon is forming legislation that would direct the Secretary of Interior to create a master property database to account for more than 671 million acres the government manages. The Interior Department administers roughly 95 percent of federal lands, according to a 2000 report by the Congressional Research Service. Management of the remainder is scattered among the Defense Department, Energy Department and a host of other agencies. "If you don't know what you have, how can you know what you need to keep and what you can dispose of," Cannon said. The government manages almost two-thirds of Utah. Across the West, inspectors estimate the government is holding onto at least 5 million acres it could sell or convey to local communities, according to the General Services Administration, the federal landlord agency....
Curry's surface-rights bill faces important first vote State Rep. Kathleen Curry's bill to give landowners in western Garfield County more clout in negotiations with gas companies is scheduled to face an important first test Monday. Curry, the chairwoman of the House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee, received special permission from the House Democratic leadership to delay a vote on her bill. The initial deadline for committee votes on bills has passed. She needed the extra time, she said, to try to shore up support for the measure. Curry is a Democrat from Gunnison whose district includes the entire Roaring Fork Valley and part of western Garfield County. She said she heard loud and clear from residents in the Silt and Rifle areas, where the natural gas boom is occurring, that they need help dealing with gas companies that want to drill on their land....
Commissioners pass wolf resolution Amid some praise and some protest, county commissioners passed a resolution Tuesday that may allow Socorro citizens greater power to protect themselves and their livestock from wolves outside of the wolf recovery area. The resolution also asked that the federal government take into consideration the wishes of the county to not expand the wolf recovery area beyond its current borders. The resolution states that Mexican gray wolves released under the Federal Wolf Recovery Program, starting in 1998, have killed livestock located on private land in the county but outside the designated recovery areas....
Plan to kill exotic deer in Point Reyes, Calif., sparks debate They are easily spotted from the road in Point Reyes National Seashore, lounging in fields and munching grass with little fear of predators. Introduced for hunting six decades ago, the fallow and axis deer are popular with tourists eager to see wildlife in the national park. But park rangers see them as an invasive species whose burgeoning numbers threaten native deer and elk, devour excessive amounts of vegetation, hurt agriculture and possibly spread disease. Now, Point Reyes officials want to eliminate more than 1,000 nonnative deer, using shotguns and contraception, from the 71,000-acre park about 40 miles north of San Francisco....
Closing roads, making trails Medicine Bow National Forest officials plan to close 267 miles of "unclassified" roads and add more than 100 miles of off-highway-vehicle trails. "It's almost certainly going to be controversial," said Paul Blackman, a recreation planner for the Forest Service. "We are designating 67 miles of motorcycle trails and 43 miles of ATV roads and for some people, that can be a hard thing to swallow." On the other hand, the Forest Service plans to close 267 miles of so-called unclassified roads, which are "user-created" roads not officially sanctioned by the Forest Service....
New users sought for public lands Kelly McGrath, 25, moved to Oregon from Ohio for the things that make the region special: mountains and coastline, salmon and deer, dripping moss and towering trees. "I dove headfirst [into the outdoors]," she said. "I moved here for the mountains and the coast." And now, she spends most of her time rock climbing, backpacking and mountain biking. More Pacific Coast residents spend their time hiking, backpacking, visiting nature centers and sightseeing than in any other region in the country, according to a U.S. Forest Service recreation survey conducted 10 years ago. More also visit beaches, study nature, sail and kayak. But teenagers and minorities are historically not in the mix....
Huntsman names public lands coordinator When it comes to public land policy, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. wants Utah to speak with one voice - the voice of San Juan County Commission Chairman Lynn Stevens. Huntsman's office announced Stevens' appointment as the coordinator of public lands policy Friday. He will assume his new post on May 15. Stevens will oversee the newly created office that will express the state's view on issues pertaining to federal agencies such as the Park Service, Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The public policy coordination office will consolidate state workers who are now employed by the Governor's Office, Attorney General's Office, Natural Resources Department and the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration....
6 men buried but survive avalanches Six men were buried but able to escape two separate avalanches Friday as Utah's backcountry mountains reacted to the large amounts of new snow that fell throughout the week. One slide broke near Cardiff Fork on the south side of Big Cottonwood Canyon just before 4 p.m. Three cross-country skiers were hit by the slide, which they said came at them through the trees. Their equipment was tossed around, and their skis were detached from their feet, said Sgt. Mike Morgan from Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office. He said Bruce Meisenheimer, 48, Draper, was able to find two skis and used them to ski down to the highway, where he called 911 from a cell phone....
Forest Service jobs moving to New Mexico A significant migration of federal jobs is under way as the U.S. Forest Service transfers hundreds of positions from regional offices across Montana and the West to a centralized office in Albuquerque, N.M. The jobs aren't leaving all at once. Some have already gone; others might not go until 2006, said Paula Nelson, a Forest Service information officer in Missoula. There is no solid figure, she said Friday. The effected fields include information technology, financial management and human resources, Nelson said. Many of the jobs are in small towns at Forest Service ranger stations. Not many are in the same place. Gupton's union says about 400 jobs in all are moving....
Snowmobile ban may be lifted A fierce argument is brewing 90 miles away that has conservationists and the snowmobile industry head-to-head over public land use. The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to change its policy and officially open an area at Sonora Pass to snowmobiles, after a 24-year closure that was not enforced until two years ago. To do this, it must change its forest management plan. The move has caused conservation groups to accuse the industry of illegal tactics to kidnap public lands, while sledding enthusiasts are fighting back with allegations that opposing groups are trying to completely eliminate riders from such lands....
Gas firm plans to boost drilling in Garfield County Williams Production, one of the largest natural gas producers in mineral-rich Garfield County, plans to boost its activity beyond even recent projections. That may mean hundreds more wells and changes to a federal study of the impact on the Roan Plateau. The Tulsa, Okla.-based company announced this week that it has a contract with Helmerich & Payne Inc. for 10 rigs over the next three years, increasing the number of rigs operated by Williams in western Colorado to an average of 20 from the current 13. The rigs can drill up to 22 wells from one pad, nearly three times what Williams can drill now. The firm is on pace to drill about 300 wells this year in the Piceance Basin but could hike next's total to 450 from the projected 325. Using the new rigs, Williams has revised its projections for 2007 to 500 new wells from 350....
New Nevada bill would limit eminent domain proceedings Sen. Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, author of SB326, said Friday the proposal would limit what he considers over-the-top moves by governments to force ownership changes without just cause. "It's real simple," Care said. "If government needs for a public purpose to take land, we all understand it. Just don't abuse it." Care's 2-page bill would bar the use of eminent domain by government agencies to get property for open-space use or for "protecting, conserving or preserving wildlife habitat." The measure also says an agency could exercise eminent domain powers to get property for a redevelopment project only after making a written finding that "a condition of blight exists for each individual parcel of property" being acquired.....
Environmental group plans lawsuit over San Pedro River water An environmental group plans to sue the military and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the threatened San Pedro River. The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity claims Fort Huachuca's expansion is hurting the river's water table and its species diversity. The environmental group filed an 83-page notice of intent Thursday in anticipation of another lawsuit against the Army post. A string of others have been filed by activists over the years. A fort spokeswoman said she couldn't comment on the center's notice, which gives federal officials 60 days to respond before a lawsuit can be filed....
Thirsty Lake Powell will get a big gulp of runoff How low can Lake Powell go? It's at rock bottom right now. A wet autumn, followed by an even wetter winter and what now looks to be a fairly moist spring are coming together to pull the lake level up for the first time in five years. And not just a little. Officials at the Bureau of Reclamation - which manages Glen Canyon Dam - predict that Powell will rise between 45 and 50 feet this spring and summer. That's still about 100 feet below the reservoir's high water mark, but nevertheless marks a pretty substantial climb after the worst drought cycle the bureau has catalogued since it began keeping records on the Colorado River nearly a century ago....
Kayakers, developers battle over rivers of dreams With out-of-state tourism now a $7 billion-a-year economic pillar - not counting the millions more spent by outdoor-minded Coloradans - a number of mountain towns are looking to claim some of the state's overworked rivers for whitewater parks. Pushing upstream against entrenched power brokers, communities such as Golden, Vail, Breckenridge and Gunnison have made headway in obtaining water rights for recreation, sparking a debate over water priorities. Water developers fear that, if unchecked, owners of kayak rights will be able to limit development and cut off exports of water to other parts of the state. Many feel that residential, agricultural and industrial uses should have greater priority....
Kyoto Impossible for Some Nations It will be impossible for emerging industrial powers such as China and South Korea ever to comply with the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, South Korea's environment minister said. After years of delays, the plan to fight global warming went into force last month, but key countries such as the United States and Australia have refused to join the 1997 pact because they say it unfairly excluded developing countries. The U.N. pact legally binds 39 developed countries to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2012, but excludes big developing countries from mandatory cuts. Despite criticism, there is no blueprint to include large developing countries, which are considered some of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases....
The Blind Team Roper Sitting down to eat, Jerry Long's face lights up when he asks for a Braille menu. Knowing the local restaurant doesn't have one, he informs the waitress she'll have to read him the menu and adds, "But I'm hard of hearing also, so you'll have to sit on my lap while you do it." Glenda, his wife of more than eight years, doesn't seem surprised by the comment. Chances are it's a line he's used before even though he exhibits no signs of being hard of hearing. He is blind, a fact that isn't immediately noticeable, as he's chosen to leave his cane in the truck. With a patch over his left eye and a right eye that appears relatively normal, this 62-year-old New Mexico team roper has at times been accused of lying about his inability to see. One thing is certain, however. Jerry doesn't waste any time worrying about the things he can't do since diabetes robbed him of his sight in 1985. "I can't really complain about being blind," Jerry admits. "Being the blind team roper has changed things for me. If I were just any other team roper at my level (a No. 1 in the United States Team Roping Championships), nobody would be writing stories about me. I realize the kind of opportunities my blindness has given me, and I've learned to appreciate those opportunities."....
Montana's Marvel If you've ever driven through eastern Montana, you've had a taste of just how lonesome a landscape can be. Mostly brown, devoid of native trees and plastered by a relentless wind, this portion of the northern plains once was considered uninhabitable - and still is by those who measure habi-tability by the number of chain retail stores and espresso stands per square mile. Except for an interstate highway that helps travelers put eastern Montana behind them as quickly as the law allows, the country differs little from the end-of-the-earth picture it presented before the turn of the 20th century. Yet this was the landscape of choice for Evelyn Cameron, a well-born Englishwoman who gladly traded the emerald terrain and creature comforts of her native country for life as a pioneering Montana ranch wife. Evelyn, who first laid eyes on eastern Montana as a 21-year-old bride on a honeymoon hunting trip, fell in love with what she found there and never looked back. She spent the rest of her life ranching in the area between Miles City and Terry, Montana. Like her fellow pioneers, she helped shape this still-remote corner of the West. Unlike her peers, however, Evelyn did more than give form to eastern Montana's early ranching culture. She also documented it. Tapping her skill as a largely self-taught photographer and indulging her yen for keeping journals on the most minute details of daily life, she left behind a rare look at life in a bygone era. Her cache of materials, including more than 100 boxes of photographic prints and negatives, 35 handwritten journals and much more, came to light 50 years after her death....

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Drought reducing cattle grazing in southwestern North Dakota Drought is reducing the number of cattle grazing on the Little Missouri National Grasslands in western North Dakota, and the amount of time they can munch the grass. The Medora Grazing Association expects a 20 percent reduction in cattle numbers this year, and a later turnout of cattle onto rangeland. Range managers say more cuts are possible if no rain falls in April or May. The goal is to give the range room to recover. The region has experienced dry years since the late 1990s, and the 460 ranchers who lease grassland managed by the U.S. Forest Service will have to reduce their overall cattle count for the second year in a row....
Protest yields more arrests Two men were arrested Thursday as protests continued at the Fiddler timber sale in Southern Oregon. Liam O'Reilly of Ashland and Gordon Gilbrook of San Diego were charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with agricultural process, authorities said. They were booked at the Josephine County Jail. Forty-eight arrests have been made at the sale in less than three weeks. O'Reilly has been arrested twice. Rich Parrett was driving a log truck early Thursday when he spotted Gilbrook in the middle of the road. The activist was suspended 20 feet high in a platform below two poles anchored to a Volvo. A banner below the platform read "These forests need fire, not old-growth tree removal.'' By 7 a.m., at least 10 law enforcement officers had arrived, along with more than two dozen activists....
Crocodiles lose endangered tag The American crocodile, once among the most imperiled animals in the United States, has rebounded so robustly that the federal government announced plans Thursday to cease classifying it as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed upgrading the crocodile's status from endangered to threatened, a change that would recognize the crocodile's improved prospects while leaving its legal protection intact. Once reduced to a last stronghold in northeastern Florida Bay, the crocodile has reclaimed some of its old territory, extending its range up both coasts of Florida. A crocodile recently showed up in a lake at the University of Miami's campus in Coral Gables. Occasional reports of crocodiles come from Fort Lauderdale and the West Lake section of Hollywood. The number of crocodiles in South Florida rose to as many as 1,000 from a low point in the 1970s of fewer than 300....
How to train a bear Male grizzlies and black bears are currently coming out of hibernation in Montana’s bear country, with female grizzlies and cubs likely to follow in April. Bear experts are hoping to help more of them survive the spring. Last year, bear deaths stemming from human/bear interaction rocketed: The grizzly bear mortality in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem hit a new record of 31 fatalities, including the deaths of 18 females essential to the reproduction efforts of a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. One key is reducing spillage from freight trains along railroad tracks in bear habitat. Last year, at least three bears were killed on Montana tracks, possibly searching for food from spills during a particularly poor huckleberry season....
Study finds species introduced to Alaska's Aleutian Islands has adverse effect on both birds and plant life Talk about an extreme makeover. The introduction of arctic foxes to about 100 islands in Alaska's Aleutian archipelago has reduced the seabird population so much that grasslands once nourished by bird droppings have been reduced to tundra, new research suggests. The dramatic domino effect, begun by 18th century trappers seeking a new fur source, suggests that putting predators in places that previously lacked them can decimate not only prey species but also entire plant communities by cutting off their source of nutrients. "One of the things this underlines is how much of an impact introduced species can have on island ecosystems," said Dan Croll, a study co-author and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz....
Wasting disease plan insufficient, federal official says Tom Roffe, the federal agency's chief of wildlife health, praises the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for acknowledging that the 23 state elk feedgrounds could help spread chronic wasting disease. But he said the proposals would come too little, too late to protect elk. Researchers suspect the disease spreads through animal-to-animal contact. The plan recommends keeping feedgrounds open even after chronic wasting disease is discovered, although feeding areas would be spread out and feeding days cut back to disperse elk. While Roffe praised those goals, he warned that Wyoming should not wait until the disease reaches feedgrounds....
Photographer, bear advocate cited for getting to close to bruins A Bozeman photographer, author and bear advocate has been cited with intentionally approaching within 20 yards of a family of grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park. It's illegal to approach within 100 yards of bears in the park. Jim Cole was cited last July in the Gardner Hole area, he confirmed Thursday. A trial was scheduled for Wednesday, but has been rescheduled because an attorney had a conflict. Cole agreed that he had approached the bears, but insisted it happened accidentally....
State sends three bison to slaughter Three of the six bison that were captured outside Yellowstone National Park's western boundary this week tested positive for brucellosis and were sent to slaughter, a Montana Department of Livestock official confirmed Thursday. "Six bison were captured on Monday the 21st and they were tested on Tuesday," Karen Cooper, DOL spokeswoman said. "Three tested negative and they were released back onto Horse Butte, onto public land. Three were sent to slaughter. The meat, heads and hides will go to tribal organizations." All six were held at Duck Creek, a permanent holding area on private land near West Yellowstone. The brucellosis tests were administered by federal veterinarians, Cooper said....
Delicate balance After 12 years of crafting compromises, the federal government on Thursday released the nation's largest habitat conservation plan. The plan carves out land in San Bernardino County's high desert to preserve for wildlife while making it easier to build new homes in Victorville and other fast-growing high cities. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plan, encompassing 9.3 million acres of the western Mojave Desert, seeks to balance an ancient landscape of rugged volcanic mountains, 11,000-year-old creosote bushes and more than 100 species that depend on that habitat with mushrooming suburbs and strip malls....
Environmentalists oppose plan for Imperial Sand Dunes A federal agency says its new plan regulating how land is used in the popular Imperial Sand Dunes area will balance off-road use with the need to protect the wilderness and threatened plant and animal species. On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management announced a Recreation Area Management Plan for the 160,000-acre area in Imperial County. The dunes draw more than 1.2 million visitors annually. But environmentalists criticized the plan, calling it "flawed." They predicted it will not withstand legal challenges. A key off-roading group praised the BLM plan in a press release, but said it changes little on the ground for the sport. "This is just one more step in a five-year journey to re-open areas that were unnecessarily closed," Vince Brunasso, founder and legal chairman of the American Sand Association, said in the release....
Judge refuses to close hearing in coal-bed methane case A federal judge has denied a gas production company's request to close a March 29 hearing in a lawsuit challenging federal regulation of coal-bed methane development in Montana. Fidelity Exploration and Production Co. contended that public disclosure of information on its operations could harm the company. However, U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson found that public interest outweighs the company's need to protect financial information. "The Court will not close any part of the proceedings to the public in a case such as this, where the government is a party and where the action is based on a public interest law, the National Environmental Policy Act," Anderson said Monday. Anderson's decision came despite no objections from plaintiffs or the Bureau of Land Management to Fidelity's motion. Anderson, who ruled within two hours of the motion's filing, also pointed to what he called unusual teamwork between Fidelity and government attorneys. "The United States Attorney's apparent cooperation in Fidelity's attempt to clothe at least part of the hearing in secrecy is in this court's experience unprecedented," Anderson wrote....
Commissioners work through ordinance process to protect water countywide The ordinance Otero County commissioners are considering to safeguard water from oil and gas contamination on Otero Mesa — as well as preserve water countywide — is modeled after one in Lovington. On Wednesday, Lovington City Manager Pat Wise told commissioners Lovington’s ordinance was passed because oil drillers were polluting city water sources. “I was ... horrified at what oil companies had done,” Wise said. At first, according to Wise, drillers threatened to sue to stop the ordinance. Wise, though, said the situation was “unacceptable” as well as “atrocious,” and the Lovington commission did not waver. “We were successful after numerous hard-fought months,” he said. Otero Mesa ranchers Bobby Jones and Bebo Lee have asked Otero’s commissioners to pass a similar ordinance. At a March 1 public hearing, Jones and Lee said they only want to keep pristine the water that is life to their cattle. The ordinance defines drilling permits, waste storage and pollution prevention. Currently, the Bureau of Land Management and the Oil Conservation Division of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department inspect drillers under state and federal regulations. While Commission Vice Chair Doug Moore does not expect full petroleum production on Otero Mesa to begin for “many years,” he said the county must position now for “protection of ground water (and) protection of whatever we deem necessary in Otero County.” Commissioners held a second public hearing on Wednesday, and are forming a committee to develop the ordinance....
Column: Removing Lower Snake dams will save the salmon As a rancher and former state senator, I am well acquainted with the various water issues facing the state of Idaho today. As early as 1976, I introduced S.B. 1400, which called for a moratorium on new water diversions along the Lower Snake River. It got 12 votes at a time when few people understood how severe our water management problems would become. Earlier this month, I testified before the House Resources and Conservation Committee in support of bills needed to ratify the Nez Perce-Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA) agreement. Since our state was short-sighted years ago, I believe this agreement is the best chance we have now for protecting Idaho's agricultural economy. But at the same time, I urged legislators to begin negotiations to address one of the most critical issues surrounding Idaho's water woes: salmon recovery. Why is Idaho water being used to defend four dams in Washington state?....
Imperiled species plan set A plan to protect endangered species along the lower Colorado River and shield critical water supplies from future lawsuits will be formally signed next month by representatives from Arizona, Nevada and California. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who pushed to complete the $626 million Multi-Species Conservation Plan, is expected to attend the ceremony April 4 at Hoover Dam. Arizona's largest water provider, the Central Arizona Project, formally adopted the plan earlier this month, joining agencies in all three states. The CAP board agreed to spend about $52 million over the plan's 50-year lifespan. Ultimately, most Colorado River water users in Arizona will contribute to the habitat plan in the form of user fees or surcharges. Arizona's share of the program is roughly $78 million. California and Nevada have also pledged money, and the federal government is expected to foot half the bill. The habitat plan was designed to protect 26 species on the lower Colorado, the section of river below Glen Canyon Dam in northern Arizona....
Cutthroat Country! The Rocky Mountain West holds a treasure chest for outdoorsmen and women. Its riches are many, with copious opportunities to hunt big game and birds and to fish for warm- and coldwater fishes. But it's the region's colorful cutthroat trout that are the shimmering jewels on top of cache. Anglers in the region are blessed with several cutthroat trout subspecies with which to match wits, from Montana to New Mexico. The subspecies are unique, scientists say, because they have been isolated from each other for thousands of years. Essentially, each cutthroat subspecies is in itself an expression of the different environments it inhabits....
PG&E to give up dam to revive fish habitat California's largest utility said Wednesday it will not renew its license to operate a small Shasta County hydroelectric project, dedicating the water instead to threatened salmon and steelhead trout. State and federal wildlife officials and environmental groups praised Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s agreement, which they hope will spur similar decisions by other utilities as several hundred dams come up for re-licensing in the next few years. Removing the dams, powerhouses, aqueducts and forebays would revive about 20 miles of fish habitat by restoring the natural flows currently diverted from South Cow and Old Cow creeks. The creeks flow directly into the Sacramento River, giving the chinook and trout the ocean access they require....
Norton appoints Nomsen to wetlands post Pheasants Forever's (PF) Dave Nomsen, vice president of governmental affairs, has been appointed to the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Council). Gale Norton, secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, made the three year appointment. Nomsen has served as an alternate member on the Council since 1999. His new appointed term will run from March 1, 2005 through March 1, 2008. The Council was established by the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) to review and recommend project proposals to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, which has the ultimate authority to approve funding for projects under NAWCA....
Women answer call of wild The women all carried shotguns and they knew how to use them. But the middle-aged guys in ballcaps weren't worried. In fact, the middle-aged guys in ballcaps were from the Golden Triangle Sporting Dog Club and were mentoring the women, who were becoming some of Montana's most passionate upland game bird hunters. In all, 14 women from as far away as De Borgia gathered in Great Falls on March 11-12 for an annual Becoming an Outdoor Woman Upland Game Bird Clinic, sponsored by the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks BOW program. "They all knew how to shoot a gun but some had very little hunting experience," said Liz Lodman, coordinator for BOW in Montana....
Arizona Senate votes to close DEQ After weeks of public disagreements, the Senate on Wednesday voted to kill the state agency in charge of protecting Arizona's water, land and air. Supporters of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality don't expect the vote to stick, saying the agency has been caught up in a game of political football. The vote to discontinue the department came just days after Republican legislative leaders tried to delay funding for DEQ because of a dispute between agency heads and Senate Appropriations Chairman Bob Burns, R-Peoria. The Senate vote, if it stands, would end DEQ as of July 1. But it probably won't stand for too long, according to Gov. Janet Napolitano....
Grand Canyon's Mysteries of Origin Solved For over 135 years, the best scientific minds were baffled by the origin of the Grand Canyon. They recognized that the Colorado River carved this natural masterpiece, but exactly when and how eluded them. Only in the last few years has a consensus begun to emerge and now, for the first time, author James Lawrence Powell reveals how the mystery came to be solved in his new book, "Grand Canyon: Solving Earth's Grandest Puzzle." Powell explains how geologists have concluded that the rock forming the Grand Canyon emerged from underground, and the Colorado River cut through it, actually running in the opposite direction. At another time, hundreds of feet of gravel buried an ancestor of today's Colorado River, then erosion removed the gravel and resurrected the river in what James Lawrence Powell has dubbed the "Lazarus Theory." James Lawrence Powell is Executive Director of the National Physical Science Consortium, and a former Director and President of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.Powell's book is published by Pi Press and will be released on April 18, 2005. It is filled with historical photographs of the early research expeditions, is 352 pages, cloth, and will retail for $27.95....
Montana T. Rex Yields Next Big Discovery in Dinosaur Paleontology A Tyrannosaurus rex discovered during a lunch break in eastern Montana -- and the oldest T. rex on record -- has produced the latest major discovery in dinosaur paleontology, said Jack Horner, curator of paleontology at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies. Researchers led by Mary Higby Schweitzer, formerly of MSU, found soft tissues preserved in both hind thigh bones of the dinosaur, according to an article in the March 25 issue of the journal Science. The dinosaur known as B. rex also contained transparent, flexible and hollow blood vessels with round microscopic structures inside. The structures look like cells, leading the scientists to believe that some dinosaur soft tissues may keep a portion of their flexibility, elasticity and resilience even after 68 million years. B. rex, found north of Jordan, Mont. in 2000, is estimated to be about 68 million years old....
Colorado Says Aliens Must Go! Just north of the almost-Ghost Town of Hooper in Colorado's beautiful and weird San Luis Valley, there's a truly oddball roadside attraction known as the UFO Watchtower. Local rancher Judy Messoline opened the elevated viewing platform (and the required gift shop full of Flying Saucer trinkets & gewgaws) to capitalize on the valley's long history of bizarre aerial phenomena and the wave of UFO-conspiracy teevee shows in the 1990s. Visitors know they're getting close when they see the 3-foot tall plywood aliens along the roadside. But the humorless anti-American drones of the Colorado Department of Transportation, otherwise known as CDOT, have decided the colorful little critters must go....
Hispanic cowboy church first of its kind Iglesia Bautista de Los Vaqueros in Waxahachie is the first church of its kind, but it definitely will not be the last, predicted Ron Nolen, Baptist General Convention of Texas consultant on Western heritage churches. “We believe 100 of these (Hispanic cowboy) churches could be started in Texas,” Nolen said. “The potential for the vaquero church is tremendous when you consider that there is a Hispanic population of 6 million (in Texas), and a significant percentage of those are agrarian people. A lot of those are cowboyed up—with their hats and boots.” The vaquero church began when Frank Sanchez, a member of the Cowboy Church of Ellis County, noticed several Hispanic men were coming to the church’s Thursday night buck-outs, where men attempted to ride bulls. Sanchez began talking to them, and several began meeting him for Bible study on Sunday evenings. The group has become a mission church of about 50 people meeting each Sunday evening at the Cowboy Church facilities. Sanchez has turned leadership of the group over to Herman Martinez, who is serving as interim pastor. Martinez also is pastor of Templo Alpha and Omega in Waxahachie, which meets on Sunday mornings. Services at Templo Alpha and Omega are a combination of Spanish and English, but the vaquero church services are all Spanish, including the music, Martinez noted. The music also is Western-style, with accordion, acoustic guitar and bass guitar accompaniment....

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Bloggers narrowly dodge federal crackdown

Political bloggers and other online commentators narrowly avoided being slammed with a sweeping set of Internet regulations this week. When the Federal Election Commission kicked off the process of extending campaign finance rules to the Internet on Thursday, the public document was substantially altered from one prepared just two weeks earlier and reviewed by CNET News.com. The 44-page document, prepared by the FEC general counsel's office and dated March 10, took a radically different approach and would have imposed decades-old rules designed for federal campaigns on many political Web sites and bloggers. According to the March 10 document, political Web sites would be regulated by default unless they were password-protected and read by fewer than 500 people in a 30-day period. Many of those Web sites would have been required to post government-mandated notices or risk violating campaign finance laws. The explanation for the dramatic changes during the last two weeks, according to one FEC official familiar with the events, is the unusual public outcry that followed a public alarm that Commissioner Bradley Smith sounded about a pending government crackdown on bloggers. After Smith's warning, an army of bloggers mobilized to oppose intrusive regulations and prominent members of Congress warned the commission not to be overly aggressive. The regulatory approach was necessary because of "the increased use of the Internet by federal candidates, political committees, and others to communicate with the general public to influence federal elections," according to the March 10 draft. "If the March 10 draft had gone into effect, it would have been bloggers with pitchforks and torches storming the Federal Election Commission at 999 E St.," said Mike Krempasky, a contributor to conservative Web site RedState.org and co-creator of an online petition on behalf of bloggers....

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Feds earmark funds for wildlife and rancher conflicts The federal government announced it is earmarking $250,000 to help 16 ranchers in six Montana counties avoid problems with grizzly bears, wolves and eagles. "It's new this year," Erik Suffridge, a program specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bozeman, said Wednesday. The program pays for electric fences to be erected around calving and lambing areas, helps pay the wages of herders and even pays ranchers to haul dead animals to a rendering facility, which often are located in distant cities. In all, the program will install more than seven miles of fence, hire herders to patrol more than 32,000 acres and dispose of hundreds of dead sheep and cows....
Rancher, tribe would create horse sanctuary A Montana rancher and his partners are hoping to buy 4,000 wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management and create a sanctuary for them on the Crow Reservation. The proposal, though, would need funding from the BLM so the horses could be cared for during the first year. And if the proposal and funding aren't formalized by March 30, the plan for the Crow Reservation is off, according to Merle Edsall, who's spearheading the deal. The Crow Tribe, according to a letter of intent signed by tribal officials and Edsall last month, would receive more than $1 million a year to look after the 4,000 horses. The sanctuary could be used as a tourist attraction and to generate money from an online adoption in which people pay for the horses but let them remain at the sanctuary, Edsall said....
Authorities Investigate Possible Idaho Wolf Sightings Wolf sightings, howling and wolf tracks have ranchers near the Menan Buttes very concerned. The Department of Fish and Game and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department are all now investigating the possibility of a den forming in the area. They’re taking it very seriously, investigating the area as if it’s a crime scene, while at the same time trying not to alarm anyone or attract additional attention. Madison County Sheriff Roy Klingler says, “We have reports of wolf sightings. We have reports that people have seen two of three wolves at a time. We have found tracks that do appear to be the size of a wolf.”....
Utah plans for wolves Utah ranchers should be able to shoot wolves caught devouring livestock, says a wolf advisory group, but members could not agree on a fate for wolves that only chase or harass livestock without taking a bite. Nonetheless, the Wolf Working Group -- looking to the day when wolf packs may return to Utah -- issued a 96-page draft management plan that would take effect if the federal government removes wolves from the endangered list and relinquishes control over the predators. A male wolf captured in Morgan County, Utah, two years ago was returned to Yellowstone. Utah wildlife officials say other stray wolves could start showing up here over the next decade, possibly forming packs. Without dense concentrations of deer or elk, however, wolves may not find Utah hospitable....
Wolf pair to be relocated from mountains near Socorro Biologists intend to capture and move a pair of endangered Mexican gray wolves from the San Mateo Mountains of central New Mexico. It will be the second time the pair has been removed from the area southwest of Socorro. The wolves were trapped last August and released in the Gila Wilderness, but returned in October to the San Mateos - outside a federally designated recovery area in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The recaptured wolves could be released again later near the western end of the designated area. In the meantime, the state Department of Game and Fish plans to release another pair of wolves within the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico this spring to make up for the loss of a breeding pair in the wild....
Poison plan for Diamond Lake stays on track The Umpqua National Forest will continue with plans to eradicate an infestation of tui chub by placing the chemical rotenone in Diamond Lake, officials said Wednesday. The minnow-like fish have taken over the lake and are blamed for poor water quality that has closed the popular spot to summer swimming, wading and water-skiing in recent years. Jim Caplan, the forest supervisor, approved the strategy in December after years of study. The Roseburg-based Umpqua Watersheds, Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands Project and the statewide Oregon Natural Resources Council filed an appeal with the U.S. Forest Service last month. The groups want the agency to remove chub by releasing predacious fish into the lake and using mechanical harvest methods. Caplan's decision was upheld....
Judge dismisses suit against Sandy Steers Fawnskin resident Sandy Steers called the case against her absurd. In Los Angeles U. S. District Court on March 21, Judge Manuel L. Real's ruling on a motion to dismiss the case was like affirmation to the environmental activist. After listening to lawyers for Marina Point Development describe Steers as the "worst kind of environmental racketeer," Judge Real wasted little time in dismissing with prejudice the lawsuit filed by developers against Steers under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute. The ruling puts an end to the developer's bid to keep Steers from fighting plans to build a 133-unit condominium and marina project on the old Cluster Pines property in Fawnskin known as Marina Point....
Not Just Another Pretty Space If you had to guess which federal agents in the U.S. face the greater danger, who would you put your money on: the officers who wage the endless War on Drugs, or the rangers who patrol the green acres of the national parks? Well, it's the rangers. According to a 2001 study by the Bureau of Justice, nature's security guards are twice as likely to be assaulted on the job as agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration. From the late 1970s until 2000, Jordan Fisher Smith faced these dangers for a chance to protect the nation's inheritance. He patrolled a series of public lands, including Grand Teton and Sequoia national parks, until the lingering effects of Lyme disease forced him to retire. Smith's experiences during the last 14 years of his career -- working 42,000 acres along the American River canyon in California's Auburn State Recreation Area -- led him to write Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra....
Editorial: Thinning efforts are worthy cause The Flathead National Forest and other organizations involved with recent fuel reduction projects should be commended for their efforts. Better late than never. The Flathead Forest has embraced a series of projects, mostly in the areas north of Columbia Falls and between Hungry Horse and West Glacier, to thin out forests that are indisputably choked with fuel and in close proximity to homes and communities. The projects selectively and strategically target scattered forest lands that are directly adjacent to houses and private property. Some folks undoubtedly believe the Forest Service can and should do more thinning work, on forests that aren't necessarily "right next door" to national forest lands. But the work had to start somewhere, and it has started in the right places....
Decision on legality of roadless-area logging delayed Following a Tuesday hearing challenging logging in old-growth reserves and roadless areas burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire, a federal judge in Medford asked attorneys for further assessments of a legal precedent in a 2003 roadless area rule lawsuit. After listening to nearly four hours of debate, U.S. District Court Judge John P. Cooney recessed and asked the attorneys for additional legal briefs on cases impacted by that decision. He was referring to a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer on July 14, 2003, that blocked implementation of the Clinton administration’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule. In that decision, Brimmer held that the roadless rule violated the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA)....
Bush forest plans face legal challenge Lawsuits challenging management plans for 11.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada national forests are set to proceed, now that President Bush's top forestry official has approved the plan. Seven weeks after his decision was due, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey affirmed the plan that will govern 11 national forests. The five-paragraph statement with a one-sentence decision, issued Monday, included no explanation for the ruling or the delay. "It's really his prerogative," said U.S. Forest Service spokesmen Matt Mathes. The decision completes the government's administrative review, meaning lawsuits by California's attorney general, environmental groups and the California Forestry Association can proceed....
Resources limited to fight Ariz. fires Forest-fire fighters were in agreement Tuesday on at least one thing at the Governor's Forest Health and Safety Conference. It's a darn good thing that the state has had an abundance of snow and rain the past six months, because firefighting resources are likely to be few and far between this summer. That's because national firefighting attention is likely to be on the Northwest, a tinderbox where many reservoirs have fallen to beneath a third of their capacity. And safety concerns about aging air tankers, which were grounded last summer by the National Transportation Safety Board, still have not been completely resolved....
Diary of a different time Following are excerpts from the diary of Richard Bigelow, superintendent of Tahoe National Forest from 1908 to 1936. After Bigelow became a ranger, he kept the daily diary, which was a job requirement. He began his career in the southern Sierra, where he built trails and monitored sheep and cattle grazing. May 4, 1903 — “Got married in the morning and attended to Reserve (forest) business in the afternoon...” June 1, 1904 — “It was getting towards 6 o’clock (p.m.) when I heard a shot. Thinking that Bell was on his way back I answered with a shot from my gun and yelled. I heard a very faint answer... That seemed strange to me and I decided something must be wrong so I caught my saddle horse, went up the trail he had taken, yelling occasionally... “I found him lying on the ground and he told me that he was turning over a boulder in the trail and as it went between his knees his gun fell from its scabbard and the hammer hit the rock and the gun shot him through the left leg and hip... “I didn’t dare to get him on the horse alone, so I made him as comfortable as I could and went after three men... “We decided that it would be best to construct a litter and pack him on that rather than try to put him on the horse...”....
Land swap may activate copper mining Two large parcels of land in southern Arizona will help pave the way for possible renewed copper mining outside Superior, the historic mining community about 65 miles east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Mining has proposed a seven-part land exchange with the federal government to nearly double its land holdings surrounding Superior. This would give Resolution complete access to what is believed to be the largest underground copper deposit in North America under the closed Magma Mine, said Bruno Hegner, Resolution's general manager. Resolution bought 3,073 acres, about 7 miles of lower San Pedro River property surrounding Mammoth, and 1,030 acres of Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch land in southeast Santa Cruz County. These would be exchanged for 3,155 acres of Tonto National Forest land adjoining land owned jointly by the Resolution, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton mining companies. Congress must approve the land swap involving those two properties 35 miles southeast and 22 miles northeast of Tucson, as well as five other properties closer to Phoenix. Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy and the Sonoran Institute have all sent Hegner letters of support....
PLF SUES GOVERNMENT TO COMPEL OVER MISSED STATUS REVIEWS The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to conduct mandatory status reviews required under the Endangered Species Act for nearly 200 of California’s listed species, according to a lawsuit filed today by Pacific Legal Foundation. PLF’s suit seeks to compel the government agency to meet its statutory obligation to review the status of every listed species at least every five years. Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the government must determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified. According to PLF’s complaint, the Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to perform the reviews for at least 193 species, or about two-thirds of the 298 species listed in California. As a result, PLF says the agency has no way of knowing if hundreds of species need more or less protection, or if they have been successfully recovered....
Oil and Gas Thumper Trucks Set to Disturb Wyoming Wilderness Conservation groups are concerned about a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to permit 32 ton seismic exploration trucks to enter a 105,000 acre stretch of the southern Red Desert, including parts of Adobe Town proposed wilderness and the Powder Rim proposed Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The big trucks vibrate the Earth's surface to collect information about the location of oil and gas below. “Adobe Town is an extremely fragile landscape, with easily damaged badlands of national park quality,” said Liz Howell of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. “It is absolutely criminal for the BLM to allow these monster trucks into Wyoming’s most spectacular and pristine desert landscape.” The project, known as the Cherokee 3D Seismic Survey, appears headed to be the most contentious oil and gas exploration project in the state’s history, says the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance....
Pipeline rupture spills oil into reservoir A landslide apparently ruptured an oil pipeline Wednesday that spilled up to 126,000 gallons of crude into a reservoir that provides water to Southern California cities, officials said. Officials said they had cordoned off the affected area of Pyramid Lake and were not concerned about potential contamination of the region's drinking water."These kinds of spills are usually pretty localized," said Henry Martinez, chief operating officer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which uses water from the reservoir to generate power. The light crude oil spill occurred about a mile east of the lake, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles....
Column: EPIC, other groups form extreme fringe The Buckeye Conservancy had Patrick Moore, Ph.D., as the guest speaker at its recent annual dinner held in Fortuna’s River Lodge. This brought howls of outrage from some of the more strident local environmentalists. “He is real environment-bashing slime and needs to be refuted,” reads an e-mail from the Environmental Protection Information Center to Earth First!, which describes Moore as “a well-known Canadian Eco-traitor.” To the environmental extreme, such as EPIC, anyone willing to voice an opinion it doesn’t like is fair game for character-bashing as slime, and worse. To much of the rest of the world, Moore is an experienced voice of moderation in a cacophony of environmental extremism. Why does he set off such over-the-top reactions from extremists?....
Column: Environment is uniting left and right Can green be a bridge between red and blue? Environmental issues, especially at the state and local levels, are bringing together conservatives and liberals who agree on little else, providing common ground in an increasingly polarized nation. And some Republicans and Democrats see environment-related agreements as a way to build broader consensus. Conservatives such as pro-gun hunters and antiabortion evangelicals are making common cause with pro-abortion-rights, gun-control liberals on land conservation, pollution, and endangered-species protection....
Mexico has paid half its water debt Mexico has signed over some 268,000 acre-feet of water from two binational Rio Grande reservoirs, eliminating over half of its long-standing water debt to the United States, Texas officials said Tuesday. The transfers were made less than two weeks after Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials announced that Mexico had agreed to pay "every drop" of a debt that had been chilling relations between South Texas and Mexico. A 1944 treaty dictates that Mexico and the United States share water from the Rio Grande and Colorado River. But Mexico began falling behind on its releases of Rio Grande water as a drought set in 12 years ago, and by 2002 Texas farmers were struggling....
Wealthy newcomers a dilemma for rural Montana Roger Lang says he was an ''absolute novice'' about what it truly meant to be a Montana ranch owner when he used some of his Silicon Valley millions to buy an 18,000-acre spread here. Now, seven years later, Lang has advice for others desiring a big slice of Big Sky Country, where owning a ranch has gained a certain cachet from celebrity buyers such as Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw and David Letterman. ''I think when you come as an outsider, the most important thing is to admit what you are and admit what you aren't,'' Lang says in a new, short film produced by the state wildlife agency and a cattlemen's group. ''I'm not a rancher by background, and I'm learning how to be a rancher from my friends here in the community.'' The film, ''Owning Eden,'' is an attempt to help wealthy outsiders shopping for ranches understand the big picture of life in rural Montana....
Home plan OK sends horse ranch packing After two years of a debate that pitted horse properties against suburban dwellers, Collin "T.C." Thorstenson was allowed to fold his Scottsdale Buffalo Ranch and head to wider pastures. There was plenty of debate Tuesday, but the Scottsdale City Council voted 6-1 on a compromise plan that rezoned Thorstenson's 10-acre ranch at Sweetwater Avenue and 94th Street to make way for a suburban subdivision. Not everyone was happy about the final plan, since Thorstenson's property is just barely outside an area designated to remain equestrian, although his site is surrounded by suburban developments. Thorstenson said that he can no longer run a viable commercial ranch of horses and buffalo with so many subdivisions around him. He added that he redesigned the plan numerous times to meet city demands. "This is a property rights issue," he said....
New greenhouse-gas-reporting guidance for farms and forests The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with new accounting rules and guidelines for reporting greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in the forest and agriculture sectors. “Agriculture has a unique opportunity to be part of the solution to greenhouse gas emissions,” said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. “The Bush administration is committed to addressing greenhouse gas emissions and these guidelines represent another significant milestone in the national effort to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy.” DOE released the guidelines on March 22, 2005, for public comment as part of the DOE Section 1605(b) Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Registry. The revised voluntary reporting program provides agriculture and forest landowners with the ability to quantify and maintain records of actions that have greenhouse gas reduction benefits. These actions include using no-till agriculture, installing a waste digester, improving nutrient management, and managing forestland. The program also provides opportunities for agriculture and forestry to partner with industry in developing actions to reduce greenhouse gases....
Ag’s tireless voice When Trent Loos delivers motivational speeches about agriculture, he tells his audiences that the people who get their hands dirty are the most qualified to speak about farming and ranching. For that reason, Loos views himself first as a rancher and second as an activist. “I am a rancher, first and foremost. If I didn’t stay rooted in agriculture on a daily basis, I’d just be another talking head,” he said. Today, the time is limited when Loos can personally tend his herd of 100 cattle and 16 horses in Sherman County. That’s because demand has exploded for his pro-agriculture message. Four years ago, Loos launched his first ag-related radio program. That evolved into daily “Loos Tales” segments and two other radio programs....
Debate rises over bread bill There's a new range war building in Texas. Not over grasslands or cattle or even over cowboys. It's about the kind of bread the cowboys ate. Was it pan de campo, a flat Mexican bread cooked on the brushy plains of South Texas? Or was it the fluffy, sourdough biscuits so well-known in West Texas and here in North Texas? State Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, has introduced a bill that would make pan de campo the official state bread of Texas. Red Steagall, a singer, songwriter, poet and Western historian, is steadfast in his assessment: "Sourdough bread is what went up the trail on the trail drives. Pan de campo is a Mexican dish." Steagall quickly recognized that one out of every three drovers on the cattle trails was Mexican, but "they still ate sourdough biscuits on the trail." That's not to say Steagall doesn't like pan de campo. He acknowledged that with a little hot butter and some blackstrap molasses, the flat bread could be very satisfying. "But from a purely historical standpoint, the state bread ought to be sourdough," he said....

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Will the FEC make bloggers kiss the First Amendment goodbye?

When it comes to the law of unintended consequences, the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance "reform" is rapidly becoming a legal phenomenon. The latest example comes courtesy of the Federal Election Commission, where officials are being asked to extend the law to the very people it is supposed to empower: individual citizens.

We'd like to say we're surprised, but this was always going to be the end result of a law that naively believed it could ban money from politics. Since 2003, when the Supreme Court upheld it, McCain-Feingold has failed spectacularly in its stated goal of reining in fat-cat donors. Yet its uncompromising language has helped to gag practically every other politically active entity--from advocacy groups to labor unions. Now the FEC is being asked to censor another segment of society, the millions of individuals who engage in political activity online.

The problem facing the FEC is that McCain-Feingold broadly restricts coordination with, and contributions to, political candidates. So what is the agency to do with all those people who use their Web sites to praise a candidate? Computers and Web access cost money, which could be construed as a financial contribution to a campaign. Ditto bloggers who link to politicians' Web sites, or any individual who forwards a candidate's press release to a list of buddies. All this is to say nothing of blogs that are affiliated with political campaigns and coordinate their activities....

Looks like bloggers have been given at least a temporary reprieve by the FEC.

Online politicking receives temporary reprieve

Political bloggers would continue to be exempt from most campaign finance laws, according to highly anticipated rules that federal regulators released Wednesday.

The Federal Election Commission also proposed that online-only news outlets and that even individual bloggers should be treated as legitimate journalists and immune from laws that could count their political endorsements as campaign contributions.

The 47-page outline of proposed rules (click here for PDF file) takes a cautious approach to the explosive question of how Web sites and e-mail should be regulated, with the FEC saying throughout that its conclusions are only tentative ones and inviting public comment. The comment process is expected to be approved by the FEC at its meeting Thursday....

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Bush Unveils New Pact With Mexico and Canada

President Bush and the leaders of Mexico and Canada pledged today to work through their differences and toward more secure borders and easier, more profitable trade. "I will continue to push for reasonable, common-sense immigration policy with the United States Congress," Mr. Bush said in Waco, Tex., with President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada beside him. Prime Minister Martin told listeners at Baylor University that economic cooperation among the three countries was more vital than ever. And Prime Minister Martin alluded pointedly to Canadian resentment of American fears over mad cow disease north of the border, fears that he has said are unfounded. "We look forward to the day in the future when, notwithstanding all of the lobbying, all the legal challenges, all of North America is open to our safe and high-quality beef," he said....

Go here for a transcript of the press conference held by the three leaders.

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NOTE TO READERS


I received the following email from my ISP:

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing preemptive maintenance on Phoenix Gigabit Access Router 1, which is the main router that provides internet access to Waltrex Corporation, during the maintenance window of 12:00AM-6:00AM local time, on 3/23/2005. AT&T's goal is to successfully complete the task and restore service within the stated time frame.

Although we expect the downtime to be minimal, we ask that you plan accordingly due to possible unforeseen occurrences during the maintenance.

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Ten years later, wolves thrive in Yellowstone It's as if they were never gone and don't plan on leaving again. On this day 10 years ago, the cages were opened for the first gray wolves in 70 years to leave their “mark” on Yellowstone National Park. And mark it they have. From the first 66 wolves turned loose here (and in Idaho) in 1995 and 1996, there are now almost 850 animals in 93 breeding packs. As many as 200 wolf pups could be born this spring. That'll bring the wolf population to more than a thousand. Federal officials say the next 10 years could be more critical than the last 10 in trying to find the balance where man and wolf can co-exist. For the last decade, Ed Bangs has tried to keep that balance....
Judge rejects Wyoming wolf lawsuit A federal judge here has dismissed Wyoming's lawsuit against the federal government over its decision to reject the state's plan for managing the descendants of wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson said he disagreed with the state's claim that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act in rejecting the plan. The act didn't come into play because the rejection didn't determine wolves' status under the act, Johnson said in a ruling dated Friday. "The federal defendants were not compelled by statute or regulation to approve the Wyoming plan, nor did the `best science available' mandate attach to their decision making process," Johnson wrote....
Businesses, Fishermen ask Court to Increase Salmon Survival Today, a coalition of businesses, fishermen, conservationists and Columbia River tribes asked a federal judge to immediately put in place specific protections for salmon and steelhead and the people and communities that depend on them for a living. These measures are necessary to ensure that jobs and businesses can survive and prosper along with Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead. The court filing asks for two things to reduce the risks facing salmon survival and recovery in the Columbia and Snake rivers. First, that the federal agencies take steps to move the baby salmon down the river and to the ocean more quickly. Second, that they change the way water gets past some of the dams so that more of it goes over the dam spillways, the safest way for the young salmon to get downstream and avoid the hydroelectric turbines. These two steps will also allow more baby salmon to migrate to the sea in the river rather than be captured and trucked or barged downstream....
Agency admits using faulty data on endangered Florida panthers The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed Monday with a whistleblower's complaint that it bungled some of the science used in protecting Florida's endangered panthers. The agency conceded it violated the Data Quality Act of 2000 in three instances by issuing documents based on faulty assumptions about the habitat of one of the world's rarest animals. That conclusion, based on a review by senior Interior Department officials, is one of the last actions of outgoing Fish and Wildlife Director Steve Williams. Dan Ashe, the service's top science adviser and a member of the review panel, said the agency relied too much on data collected only in late morning hours to establish the panthers' home range. Panthers are most active at dawn and dusk. Agency officials said they hadn't studied whether data collected at other hours might indicate the panthers need a bigger or smaller habitat....
BLM announces first sale of wild horses to tribes The federal Bureau of Land Management says it is selling wild horses to American Indian tribes for the first time. The BLM has sold 141 horses to the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota and 120 horses to the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota. More sales are planned in upcoming weeks, bringing the total to more than 500 horses. The sale is under legislation recently passed by Congress that directs the BLM to sell wild horses and burros that are older than 10 years or have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption at least three times, director Kathleen Clarke said....
Watt defends decisions as Secretary of the Interior Ronald Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior defended his decisions in that post, and said the United States is engaged in a culture battle to define the nation. Wyoming native and University of Wyoming Alumni James Watt spoke at the university as a part of the Milward Simpson lecture series on Monday. “I wouldn’t have made the decisions differently if I knew what we’ve learned over the last 20 years,” Watt said. Decisions that Watt made as Secretary of the Interior were part of the revolutionary approach to land management in the Reagan administration. When Reagan took office, sewage was being dumped in the streams and lakes of America’s national parks, historic landmarks were being neglected, the coal and petroleum industries were crippled by inefficient policy, and corruption and mismanagement of public lands was costing states and the federal government millions, Watt said. Heavy-handed policies dictated from Washington DC (like having one mine reclamation policy that required oak trees be planted even on high plains Wyoming coal mine sites) and public land mismanagement lead to a nonpartisan “sagebrush revolution,” Watt said. The governors and residents of Western states demanded sweeping reform....
'Largest private land auction' set In what is being touted by its organizers as the "largest private land auction" in Nevada history, more than 250 acres in the Las Vegas Valley, 160 acres in Pahrump, 3,700 in West Wendover and 250,000 acres in Elko County will be put up for bid in May in a land sale expected to bring in $250-$350 million. One centerpiece of the sale is going to be a 250,000-acre ranch in Northeast Elko once owned by the late entertainer Bing Crosby, the Wincup Gamble Ranch. Besides the 250,000 in deeded acreage, the total land rights bring the parcel's size to 1.2 million acres. The ranch, along the Utah-Nevada border, also comes with water rights....
Decision Creates Chaos and Confusion in Western Water Law On March 7, 2005, the New Mexico Supreme Court reached its decision in Turner v. Bassett and carved out new rules that will ricochet around the West for decades to come. "In essence, the Supreme Court stated that water rights are no longer property rights unless expressly reserved or excepted in property deeds," according to Dr. William Turner. Turner v. Bassett was filed about 6 years ago when Dr. William Turner learned that his firm probably owned water rights on a piece of property he had purchased in 1985. The deed granted Turner everything of record and reserved to Bassett, the seller, everything that was reserved or restricted or easements of record. Water rights were not reserved of record and they were not reserved in the deed. In New Mexico, water rights have traditionally run with the land unless expressly reserved or excepted in the deed -- but no more. With their decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court has held that it is enough for an administrative agency to grant permission for water rights to be severed and that that permission becomes an actual severance. It now only takes an administrative agency to effectuate a severance and, according to the Court, all buyers should know this and should check with the State Engineer before purchasing property...
Drought stirs fears of Dust Bowl Ranchers who have endured western South Dakota's prolonged drought are worried. They may have to sell their cattle unless substantial spring rains start to resurrect the grass their herds need. "It's kind of a critical situation for everybody here," said Bob Johnson, whose ranch is near Buffalo in Harding County. "Everybody is betting on the rain." Western South Dakota ranches usually carry over enough grass to get their cattle through the spring, but there is no carry-over grass this year. That means rain is needed soon to help the range begin recovering. "If it stays dry, there is going to be a lot of cattle sold. There isn't any other way to go," Johnson said. Buying hay is expensive, and the drought is so widespread that there are no pastures to rent within a reasonable distance, Johnson said. That means his family and others will have to sell part of their cow herds if spring rains don't come....
Trail traffic The rain stopped, and scores of day hikers, mountain bikers and horse riders converged on the Mulholland Scenic Overlook trail, one of the busiest paths in the Santa Monica Mountains. Gray clouds raced past shrubby hillsides, and soil turned to dark porridge. The path through Sullivan Canyon resembled a fossil bed of hoof divots, knobby boot prints and gracefully curving bicycle tracks. People come for fun but often find conflict. "You see those!" said Jim Frapton, a day hiker from Los Angeles, pointing to deep grooves from bike tires. "The mountain bikers are killing this forest! They come around corners at 30 mph! They'll kill me someday, or I'll kill them first."...
Reauthorize the County Payments Act Lifesaving search-and-rescue missions in our public forests. Restoration of precious habitat for fish and wildlife. Road maintenance so that we can access our favorite hiking trails. Children working to improve the health of our streams. Vital protection for communities at risk from wildfire. These are just a few examples of the many ways that Oregon communities benefit from the County Payments Act. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, commonly known as the County Payments Act, created a stable -- yet temporary -- funding stream for programs such as these for 750 rural counties across America. Instead of requiring these counties to rely solely on money from logging on federal forest lands to fund essential county functions such as roads and schools, the bill provides funds that are not tied to our natural resources. This effort has been very successful, and 33 of the 36 counties in Oregon receive $273 million annually to support schools and other essential programs. Of that $273 million, the counties contribute more than $30 million annually to enhance the projects recommended by Resource Advisory Committees....
Innovative Study Will Measure Residential Carbon Sequestration America’s residential areas are expanding fast. But, despite this, scientists know little about how well fixtures of American residential life, things like standard-issue turf lawns, shade trees, marigold gardens and the inevitable evergreen “foundation plantings,” draw climate-changing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere — a possibly significant oversight in national-scale estimates of carbon sequestration. A new $660,000, three-year National Science Foundation project led by Jennifer Jenkins, a research assistant professor at the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics, seeks to change that by quantifying carbon cycles in three Baltimore-area neighborhoods, and determining how different factors influence them. “What we’re doing is starting to fill in the gaps,” Jenkins says. “All the carbon estimates published by the State Department, and used in the Kyoto Protocol, don't include this. So we want to help fill in the spreadsheet. We are going to test hypotheses about what really drives these residential stocks and fluxes.”....
It's All Trew: History? It's in the mail Mention the U.S. mail to almost anyone and you will hear a tale about a lost check or smashed package. Seldom do you hear complimentary remarks about years of faithful, dependable service. How about some true mail tales from the past? Two stories stand out in the California Gold Rush days. One young miner, exhausted from swinging a pickax and shoveling gravel, became so homesick for a letter from home he started the Jackass Express, a mail delivery service. His delivery equipment consisted of a mule, a saddle and a canvas bag. For three dollars cash, he would add your name to his list. For the same price he would carry your letter over the mountains to San Francisco for posting....

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Editorial: Campaign to save tortoise has ranked humans equal to ravens While it is noble that great measures have been taken to protect the tortoise, one has to wonder how the animal has been graded to be of higher value than a human life. 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. Some in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would like to allow cattle and off-road vehicles to share this land in the California Desert Conservation Area. A federal judge last August ruled against the idea saying it was not enough to consider the survival of the desert tortoise....
National eyes on Colton's plight Having city officials, such as Councilman John Mitchell, call a tiny fly's decade-long grip on Colton development "absolutely ridiculous" is nothing new. Having that sentiment echoed across the country is. As officials unveil efforts to gain development rights on the endangered Delhi Sand flower-loving fly's habitat -- including lobbying federal Fish and Wildlife supervisors next month in Washington, D.C. -- their struggles have caught a new wave of national attention as theater of the absurd. According to city officials, magicians and comedians Penn & Teller have taken an interest in Colton's decade-long plight to build on the habitat, and recently called to feature it in an upcoming episode of their Showtime series focusing on the extreme....
Column - The Endangered Species Act: Thirty years of Endangering People and Animals is Enough Animals and humans have suffered the menace of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for three long decades. During this span, over 1,300 species have been listed as threatened or endangered under the Act’s guidelines. According the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the ESA is responsible for recovering a mere ten of them. That amounts to a pitiful recovery rate of less than one percent. When you take into account credible studies that show these ten recoveries had little or nothing to do with the ESA, the “success” rate plummets to zero. Saving zero of over 1,300 species is hard work and sacrifice under the Endangered Species Act. After all, you don’t achieve a zero percent success rate without breaking a few eggs. When the Northern Spotted Owl was listed under the ESA in 1990, tens of thousands of Americans in the Pacific Northwest lost their jobs and their livelihoods. Billions of dollars were sapped from the regional economy. Private property was taken from landowners. Such is the toil and hardship associated with saving an owl that, as it turns out, isn’t endangered and never needed saving....
Charges filed against man who had eagle feathers An Ogden medicine man is facing four federal misdemeanor charges for possessing bald eagle, red-tailed hawk and horned owl feathers without a permit, as well as unlawfully importing a jaguar skull. Weber County deputies found the feathers and skull in Nicholas Walter Stark's home in July 2000, while they were conducting a search for peyote, according to the government's statement of probable cause. Stark told authorities he is one-quarter Iroquois, but did not have a tribal card. On Oct. 14, 2004, Stark called a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent and inquired about the return of his property. During the conversation, he told the agent he used the feathers during his ceremonies and work as a shaman, and that he was not a registered tribe member. On Friday, prosecutors filed the charges in U.S. District Court....
Montana rancher legally kills wolf attacking cattle A rancher in southwestern Montana recently shot and killed a wolf while it was chasing livestock, becoming the first person to do so legally under new federal rules, a state wolf specialist said. The rules allow killing of a wolf attacking or chasing livestock. "It worked just the way it was supposed to," said Liz Bradley, Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wolf management specialist for southwest Montana. The shooting occurred this past weekend on a ranch between Wisdom and Wise River, in Montana's Big Hole Valley. Bradley said the rancher, who asked not to be named, saw a pair of wolves chasing his cattle through a pasture near his house and shot one of them. He reported the incident immediately, she said. Under the rules implemented in late 2004, the burden of proof remains with the person shooting the wolf. People killing a wolf are required to report the incident within 24 hours....
FWS expert: Elk proposal may not work A state plan for addressing chronic wasting disease if it turns up on Wyoming's elk feedgrounds is a good first step but doesn't go far enough, says a disease expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plan acknowledges that while infection rates among free-ranging elk is around 3 percent, it can exceed 50 percent in captive elk. The implication is that feedground elk, which are artificially concentrated like captive animals, could also have higher disease rates. Tom Roffe, the agency's chief of wildlife health, praises the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for acknowledging that the 23 state elk feedgrounds could help spread chronic wasting disease. But he said the proposals would come too little, too late to protect elk....
Bush Gives Top Wildlife Protection Job to Trophy Hunter The Bush administration has named a trophy-hunting advocate to serve as acting director of the department charged with protecting the nation’s wildlife. US Department of the Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced Wednesday that Matthew J. Hogan, who formerly served as deputy director of the agency, will temporarily head the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the wake of the current director’s resignation....
Sale of Assateague ponies could salvage ecosystem National Park Service officials say they may have to reduce the size of the herd of ponies on Assateague Island because of damage the wild animals cause to grass and dunes on the barrier island. For the past decade, the National Park Service has been injecting contraceptives into the mares in the herd of 160 on the Assateague Island National Seashore to control the population. Now, they say they may have to move some of the ponies off the island. "The horses are hurting the ecosystem," said Carl Zimmerman, a resource management specialist at the park. "The plants on the island haven't evolved for large grazing animals, and the damage is pretty apparent. We can't wait a long period of time to deal with this problem."....
Towns teetering on economic brink welcome back jobs In the spectacular red rock canyons cut by the Dolores River and West Creek, this little town of perhaps 150 people welcomes the return of uranium mining. So do people in Nucla and Naturita, which, with Gateway, were home to a thriving mining industry during the Cold War- driven uranium boom of the 1950s and 1960s. The three communities have struggled ever since. With the Gateway Dynamite Shoot and former Nucla Prairie Dog Shoot the only big local attractions, the news of a resurgent uranium market is being met with near-universal enthusiasm....
Utah trying all angles to bar PFS Rep. Rob Bishop is fond of saying he still has some arrows left in his quiver when it comes to keeping spent nuclear fuel out of Tooele County. But the collective quiver of the Utah congressional delegation is running out of arrows. Even members of the delegation — while putting on brave faces and talking tough — are starting to quiver nervously at the very real prospect that Private Fuel Storage's proposed facility on Goshute tribal lands in Skull Valley could actually happen. "We are willing to try almost anything at this point" to stop PFS, says Bishop, R-Utah, "but our options are limited. We are kind of flailing around right now." With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission set to rule soon on a license, Bishop will reintroduce legislation to declare Bureau of Land Management lands around the PFS site as wilderness, thereby blocking the construction of a rail spur needed to transport the waste to the site....
Predictions Vary for Refuge as Drilling Plan Develops With Congress apparently poised to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, the nation is on the verge of a major experiment. The results, in terms of oil production and the effects on the landscape and wildlife, like the local herd of 120,000 caribou, are largely unknown. President Bush has portrayed the area as central to increasing domestic oil production. Yet one crucial question is whether there is enough oil scattered underneath the coastal plain section of the 19-million-acre refuge to be commercially viable. Oil industry experts said in interviews that they believe that the gambles of those companies who bid for leases to explore and drill for oil would probably pay off. But in recent years some of the multinational companies that were actively pressing for opportunities to drill in the refuge have been less visible in their support. Once companies decide to drill, it is unclear how extensive the network of drill pads and connecting roads, pipelines and shelters and supply vehicles will be, and how they will change the landscape and the habitat of the animals that move through the area....
Enviros plan water monitoring A conservation group will begin its own monitoring this summer of waterways in the Bighorn National Forest in an effort to get a "big picture" of water health after high fecal coliform levels were found in one stream. Jonathan Ratner, director of the Wyoming office of the Western Watersheds Project in Pinedale, said his group wants to add to U.S. Forest Service monitoring to paint a "broad picture" of water conditions throughout the forest. The group will monitor streams the agency is not monitoring. The project was spawned when, two years ago, a fisherman took some water samples on the North Tongue River on the Bighorn, because he was "disgusted with the conditions," Ratner said. The stream is in a cattle grazing allotment, where as many as 700 head of cattle can graze. The sample showed a large number of E. coli colonies, Ratner said....
Judge orders temporary halt to logging plan in Lolo National Forest U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy temporarily stopped a 245-acre logging operation in the Lolo National Forest this week because of concerns about soils, old-growth forests and endangered lynx. Two environmental groups are challenging the U.S. Forest Service's designation of the Camp Salvage timber sale on the Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger District as a "categorical exclusion" - a designation that exempts the project from National Environmental Policy Act requirements. Categorically excluded timber sales can move forward without environmental assessments or environmental impact statements. The Ecology Center and Alliance for the Wild Rockies, both Missoula groups, filed suit in federal court, asking that the designation be removed. Molloy responded by halting all logging in the area until he can determine whether the categorical exclusion was appropriate....
Logging Visits Rather Than Trees For generations, the people of Shasta County made their livings by taking from the land, logging and mining. Today they are trying to exploit nature in a different way — through preserving and sharing its beauty. Shasta and seven other Northern California counties are increasingly advertising themselves as vacation destinations for nature lovers, and they are seeking to capitalize on their striking terrains, hundreds of miles of rugged forest trails and abundant angler- and boat-friendly waterways. "We had built an economy on taking things out and taking things away," said Bob Warren, tourism officer at Redding's Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Now the mind-set is that things need to stay."....
Editorial: Environmental Impasse IN 1970, THE Clean Air Act was supported by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, including President Richard M. Nixon and Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.). When the act was amended under George H.W. Bush in 1990, a bipartisan Congress not only supported the changes but paid close attention, decreeing precise emission allowances and timetables. The bipartisan consensus has since crumbled, and the legislative process has ground to a halt. In an unpublished paper, Richard Lazarus of Georgetown University points out that increasing partisanship has meant that although dozens of environmental laws passed in the 1970s and 1980s, there have been no amendments to the Clean Air Act since 1990, or to the Clean Water Act since 1987. Congress has not reauthorized the tax that funds toxic waste cleanup, and it has made no significant reforms to laws on mining, grazing or endangered species protection on federal lands since 1992. These days only riders attached to appropriations bills can pass, or oddities such as the new budget resolution that may legalize drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge....
Column: We can't afford junk science In the past we used our natural resources freely. We took great pride in our ability to convert resources into products with a direct benefit to the public. We turned trees into houses, coal and iron into automobiles. Today we hear that we must stop using our economic resources. Scale back. Harvest fewer trees. Drill fewer oil wells. Use less fertilizer. Build no new power plants. Encourage the government to buy back land it once offered to its people, even though the government already owns one-third of our land base. Clearly the future of this nation depends on the proper and wise use of all our resources. But how do we distinguish between the proper use, the misuse or the failure to use our resources?....
Woodsy retreats -- private homes on public land Like all simple real estate dreams, the waking reality was a little more complicated -- both logistically and politically. These affordable vacation homes were all cabins in the U.S. Forest Service Recreational Residence Program. Created in the 1920s to encourage city dwellers to enjoy the recently established national forests by going out and constructing a vacation home on specified plots, the program grew through the 1960s to 19,000 cabins before it ended. There are now about 15,000 Forest Service cabins nationwide, with nearly half in California. While some cabins have been traded on the open market, many are still owned by the children and grandchildren of the individuals that built them. And though they are bought and sold on the MLS, these cabins are not real estate at all. The buyer doesn't buy the land, which remains part of the national forest, but pays for the "structures" (the house and any outbuildings) and the transfer of the special-use permit (like a lease for the land) with the Forest Service, which is renewed every 20 years....
Mountain lodge leveled by blast A fiery explosion leveled a popular mountain lodge Saturday in a remote area of the Gunnison National Forest. At least 16 people were hospitalized, many with serious injuries, and three children were believed to be missing late Saturday after the midafternoon blast and blaze at the Electric Mountain Lodge, north of Paonia. Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee would not confirm whether there were fatalities. The coroner, dispatched to the scene, could not be reached for comment....
Malibu dwellers draw property lines in sand Just off the Pacific Coast Highway, where the Santa Monica Mountains tower over the ocean, some of Hollywood's biggest stars have settled into a slice of heaven. Steven Spielberg. Danny DeVito. Goldie Hawn. Over the years, they have all joined the lucky few who call Broad Beach home. Their front yards open onto a mile-long, sandy stretch of Pacific coastline. They spent millions to get here, and they'd like to be left alone. Alan Latteri didn't spend a dime, and nobody's heard of him. But he figures he has as much right to the sand, surf and sun as any movie mogul. The California Coastal Commission agrees. So do the residents of Broad Beach, as long as Latteri and others stay off their property. The question is: Where does the front yard end and the public beach begin? So far, the answer is a crazy quilt of property lines, easements and No Trespassing signs that confuse all but the experts....
Environmentalists get creative in bid to stop developer Environmentalists are considering an unusual and often controversial approach to preserving 23 acres in Annandale Canyon which are slated for development. Several groups have begun talking about creating a benefit assessment district in West Pasadena, which would allow neighbors to buy the land from the developer. The payments would show up in the form of higher property tax bills. "If the owner accepted this, in a sense we'd be purchasing it as a mortgage,' said Tim Wendler, who sits on the advisory board of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. A few board members have floated the idea of getting a grant to fund an appraisal of the property, which would be the first step toward creating a benefit district. Neighbors in a designated area would have to vote through the mail to assess themselves extra property tax. All that would be required for passage is a simple majority of the returned ballots....
Eco-terrorists target Gold Country development Most Bay Area residents know Auburn -- a quaint gold rush town in the Sierra foothills -- as a pit stop on the way to Lake Tahoe. Brick buildings from the 1850s dot the streets, and old-timers still gather for coffee at the marble counter of the 109-year-old Auburn Drug Co. But in the past three months, Auburn has become known for something else -- "eco-terrorism." The Earth Liberation Front -- the underground environmental network that has used sabotage, arson and vandalism to attack everything from logging equipment to genetically engineered crops and SUVs -- has hit the foothills town and fast-growing nearby communities. And this time, the radical group's target is sprawl....
Taxpayers lost out in land swaps On at least three occasions, land broker Scott Gragson traded property to McCarran International Airport and then reacquired it nearly two years later for less than he originally sold it for, a Review-Journal investigation shows. That means the properties depreciated hundreds of thousands of dollars even as the Las Vegas Valley ranked among the nation's hottest real estate markets. Asked how that could occur, airport officials said the dirt lots lost value while owned by taxpayers because the county placed deed restrictions on them prohibiting certain types of development....
Churches go green; Environmentalists join with faithful to save rain forest flora, fauna With a sprinkling of holy water, a priest blessed thousands of palm seedlings in a ceremony in Bogota's main park, sealing an unusual Palm Sunday pact between the Roman Catholic Church and environmentalists to save a critically endangered parrot. Thousands of miles away, 22 churches in the United States are for the first time using environmentally sustainable palm from Guatemala and Mexico for their Palm Sunday services this year. This convergence of religion and ecology is taking root across scattered areas of the globe amid heightened environmental awareness among some church leaders....
Getting right with the environment Thanks to the Rev. Leroy Hedman, the parishioners at Georgetown Gospel Chapel in Seattle, Wash., take their baptismal waters cold. The preacher has unplugged the electricity-guzzling heater in the immersion baptism tank behind his pulpit. He has also installed energy-saving fluorescent lights throughout the church and has placed water barrels beneath its gutter pipes -- using runoff to irrigate the congregation's all-organic gardens. Such "creation care" should be at the heart of evangelical life, Hedman says, along with condemning abortion, protecting family and loving Jesus. He uses the term "creation care" because, he says, it does not annoy conservative Christians for whom the word "environmentalism" connotes liberals, secularists and Democrats. "It's amazing to me that evangelicals haven't gone quicker for the green," Hedman said. "But as creation care spreads, evangelicals will demand different behavior from politicians. The Republicans should not take us for granted."....
Greener Ways to the Great Beyond A typical, no-frills funeral and burial in the United States costs from $6,000 to $10,000, uses formaldehyde in embalming, nondegradable steel caskets and concrete vaults placed shoulder to shoulder in established cemeteries. Burial in a green or natural cemetery, on the other hand, can cost half as much, and embalming, metal caskets and concrete burial vaults are prohibited. Instead, biodegradable caskets, usually made of wood or cardboard, or burial shrouds of natural fibers are used. Green cemetery graves are placed randomly throughout a woodland or meadow, and marked only in natural ways, with the planting of a tree or shrub, or the placement of a flat indigenous stone, which may or may not be engraved. Burial locations are mapped with a GIS (geographic information system), so future generations can locate an ancestor's final resting place. There are more than 200 green cemeteries in Great Britain, and the idea is beginning to catch on here in North America....
Column: Common sense on global warming When a controversial issue in science is politicized and seems to become a fad, does an ordinary person have the tools to judge whether it is likely to be good science, or junk science carried along by scare headlines and politically-correct institutional group think? Well, the ordinary person has some advantages that academic scientists often lack — such as common sense, a disinterested objectivity, and freedom from peer pressure or political agenda. He does not need to worry about rejection of his doctoral thesis or denial of tenure if he says something heretical to establishment science. The ordinary person is not trained in the currently prevailing paradigms of institutional science, and he is able to see things that the intensely specialized graduate studies and tightly focused paradigms of the academic world tend to filter out. With that in mind, let's take a look at global warming....
Column: Envirocrats and Their Wall of Fear The coining of a new word in the English language - envirocrat - has become necessary since a vociferous minority has falsely captured the moral high ground of the environmental consciousness of the American people. Americans, by culture and heritage, love the flora and fauna that surround their daily lives. Intelligent corrections to environmental threats have been addressed and resolved. An example is the catalytic converter. New exhaust standards introduced in 1994 have reduced pollutants from automobiles up to 97.5 percent in hydrocarbons alone and carbon monoxide by 96 percent. The U.S. General Accounting Office estimated in one 20-year period the U.S. government and private industry spent close to one trillion dollars on pollution control and continues to spend at a cost of hundreds of billions per year. But is this ever enough in the eyes of the envirocrat?....
Coming Soon: Tularosa Basin National Desalination Facility On Alamogordo’s LaVelle Road a facility designed to create hope for the future is being built. Nate Gentry, who is on the Council on Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has authorized and funded the Tularosa Basin National Desalination Research Facility through the energy and appropriations bill. “The Alamogordo facility is where the Bureau of Reclamation can test water desalination technologies,” Gentry said. “Alamogordo overlies the Tularosa Basin which has large quantities brackish water. The ultimate objective is to drive down the cost (of desalination) by looking at energy costs and brine disposal costs.” Funding for the completion of the facility is not yet in place, Gentry said. The facility will be the first inland facility of its kind focused on inland brackish water in the United States, said Mike Hightower of Sandia Laboratories during a September 2004 tour of the layout of the future facility....
Democrats take aim at Western sportsmen vote It's a new sort of hunting season in Western states, and the guys carrying rifles are the ones being targeted. The Democratic Party is taking aim at the hearts and minds of sportsmen, hoping it can help them overcome their tough showing in rural areas during last year's election. In Colorado and elsewhere, Democrats are talking about rural development, casting environmental protection in small-town terms, and making a case that they, too, care about preserving traditional ways of life. That's where hunters come in. As Democratic consultant David Sirota puts it, the party is trying to "turn hunters green" on land and water protection while also standing up for hunting and fishing rights....
Smitten Bigfooters keep making tracks into the Blue Mountains You'll see them leaving town in mud-spattered four-wheel-drives and loaded down with cameras, binoculars and bags of white plaster for casting footprints. In the Blue Mountains that straddle the Oregon-Washington border, they're part of a rite of spring: Bigfooters, as they call themselves, on the chase of the elusive hairy hominid. Dar Addington's life changed forever about 15 years ago after coming upon just one set of substantial tracks near the Mill Creek Watershed boundary. "I was hooked. I swallowed the big, pink shrimp," she joked, likening her obsession to a fish grabbing an angler's bait. "People who haven't seen the tracks just don't get it."Since 1966, when a Walla Walla cyclist named Pete Luther found a series of 19-inch-long footprints along Tiger Creek Canyon Road east of Walla Walla, the Blues have been a recognized hot spot for Bigfoot hunters....
Cowboy Day resolution introduced Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., has introduced a resolution declaring a "National Day of the Cowboy" and says it has bipartisan support. If approved, cowboys would be recognized this July 23 and on July 22, 2006. "Our country looks to cowboys as role models because we admire their esteemed and enduring code of conduct. They have integrity and courage in the face of danger," Thomas said on the Senate floor. "Cowboys respect others, defend those who cannot defend themselves, and hold their families dear. They are good stewards of the land and all its creatures, possess a strong work ethic, and are loyal to their country....
Roper comes up with a nice surprise Tie-down roper Scott Kormos has been knocking on the door for quite some time. On Saturday, the 24-year-old cowboy finally kicked it in, winning the tie-down championship at RodeoHouston, the biggest achievement of his four-year professional career. Although, Kormos qualified for his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo last year, he did it mostly by winning smaller rodeos during the year. He'd only won one tour event (San Angelo last year) until Sunday at Reliant Stadium. The Teague, Texas, cowboy showed he belonged with the elite of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association crowd, beating a field that included a large number of multiple NFR qualifiers and world champions....
Russell Art Auction sets record A Charlie Russell watercolor, "Antelope Hunt No. 1," sold for $170,000 Saturday night, leading the 2005 Russell Art Auction to record sales of just under $2 million over both nights. The record was $1.54 million, set last year. "Whoohoo!" crowed auction chairwoman Deb Sivumaki. "I've only been speechless three times in my life: the night my husband proposed to me, yesterday when the auction pin sold for more than $10,000, and tonight." Artwork sold for $1,207,050 Saturday night, smashing last year's second-night record of $930,800. Friday night's total also set a record: $738,000 worth of art was sold, led by $90,000 for another big Russell watercolor, "Plains Indian on Horseback." By comparison, that single night topped the two-night total of $616,500 sold in 1996. Together, the two nights totaled $1,945,050. The first time the auction crossed the $1 million threshold was in 1998. Other Russells sold were Lot 239, a water color, "Cowboy on a Horse," for $57,500; Lot 232, a pen and ink, for $20,000; Lot 233, a sculpture titled "Medicine Man" for $12,500; Lot 179, a pair of sculptures, for $2,250; Lot 271, a silver cast, "Indian Chief," for $8,000; a pair of bronzes for $3,000....
Pan de campo official state bread? Villains have been made of carbohydrates in recent years, but one lawmaker’s proposal might prove that bread is not dead. State Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, has introduced a bill that would make pan de campo the official state bread of Texas. The flatbread, sometimes called cowboy bread, is traditionally cooked in a Dutch oven or over a campfire. It is thicker than a tortilla but thinner than a biscuit, and was commonly eaten around the campfires and chuckwagons on cattle drives. "It was the staff of life for the vaqueros," Guillen said. Guillen said the bread has historical significance because it was eaten by cowboys who worked the vast ranches that defined early Texas, which would later give way to the economy we know today. But the bread is not a staple for cowboys all over the state, said Jim Calhoun, a lifelong Texas cowboy and rancher whose great-grandfather, T.B. Saunders, founded the Fort Worth Stockyards. A cowboy moving north from South Texas finds pan de campo until he hits about 30 miles north of San Antonio, where it is replaced with biscuits or other bread, Calhoun said....
Town sells chance to rule over testicle festival Conconully anoints the King and Queen of the Ball, royalty-for-a-day who reign over the Cowboy Caviar Fete. And now the chamber of commerce in this north-central Washington town of about 200 (pronounced kahn-kah-NELL-ee) is auctioning off the chance to preside over this festival, which celebrates a delicacy of the prairie cowboy -- bull testicles. Winning bonus: The king and queen can sample the goods, if they desire. The royal couple will present the "Balls to the Wall" award to the restaurant with the best offering, and a $100 prize to the winner of the "Cow-raoke" singing contest. They'll assume the title from rancher Rod Haeberle and his girlfriend, Toni Wilson, the reigning king and queen....
Western worship Members of the Cowboy Church of Ellis County enjoy a slice of 1950s Americana, a time when baptisms were held in a horse trough and services closed by singing Happy Trails. "We operate on the principle of removing barriers," pastor Gary Morgan of Waxahachie said. "We're not going to ask for money, ask you to dress up, or even give you a call. Just come when you're comfortable." The church on U.S. 287 in Waxahachie, southeast of Mansfield, is interdenominational but has a partnership with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. There's an outdoor rodeo arena on-site. During the week, outreach activities include barrel racing, bull riding and calf roping. The church also offers a program for young children called Lord's Buckaroos twice a month....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Being on first-name basis with ER not good It has not been a good year when the nurses in the emergency room call you by your first name, as in, "Roll on in here, Lee. What did ya do this time?" Judy was talking to her grown daughter on the phone Sunday morning. "Yep, I've finally talked your father into going to the hospital. He's in the bedroom now tryin' to get his shirt on over the bad shoulder. Just a minute, I can't hear ya over his groanin'. Let me just close the bedroom door." It began slowly and built up until Lee finally said, "I can't sleep on my left side 'cause of my bad arm, my right side 'cause of my bad leg, or my back 'cause of my bad back."....

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