MAD COW DISEASE
USDA finds possible 2nd case of mad cow disease
what could be the second U.S. case of mad cow disease, an older beef animal tested positive for the deadly ailment but will undergo another round of tests at a British laboratory to confirm the results, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said on Friday. Johanns said the new suspected case involved an older beef animal which was chosen for testing because it was a "downer" animal that could not walk when it arrived at the slaughterhouse. The animal's carcass never entered the human food or livestock feed supply, he said. "This animal was a downer animal and did not get into the food or feed chain. There just is no risk whatsoever," Johanns told reporters in a hastily called news conference on Friday evening. The government refused to disclose any information about the suspect animal's origin or where it was slaughtered. "It was getting up in age. It was a beef breed," said John Clifford, chief veterinarian for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. It is not unusual to have conflicting test results for BSE, cattle experts said. The USDA said the suspect animal had tested positive for BSE in a rapid, preliminary test in November. When it was retested with a more sophisticated technology, the animal was found free of the disease. But USDA's Inspector General earlier this week asked department scientists to retest the suspect animal, and two others, using yet a third kind of technology known as the "western blot" test. That test showed the beef animal was infected with the brain-wasting ailment, Johanns said....
STATEMENT BY DR. JOHN CLIFFORD REGARDING FURTHER ANALYSIS OF BSE INCONCLUSIVE TEST RESULTS
June 10, 2005
"Since the USDA enhanced surveillance program for BSE began in June 2004, more than 375,000 animals from the targeted cattle population have been tested for BSE using a rapid test. Three of these animals tested inconclusive and were subsequently subjected to immunohistochemistry, or IHC, testing. The IHC is an internationally recognized confirmatory test for BSE. All three inconclusive samples tested negative using IHC.
"Earlier this week, USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which has been partnering with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Food Safety and Inspection Service, and the Agricultural Research Service by impartially reviewing BSE-related activities and making recommendations for improvement, recommended that all three of these samples be subjected to a second internationally recognized confirmatory test, the OIE-recognized SAF immunoblot test, often referred to as the Western blot test. We received final results a short time ago. Of the three samples, two were negative, but the third came back reactive.
"Because of the conflicting results on the IHC and Western blot tests, a sample from this animal will be sent to the OIE-recognized reference laboratory for BSE in Weybridge, England. USDA will also be conducting further testing, which will take several days to complete.
"Regardless of the outcome, it is critical to note that USDA has in place a sound system of interlocking safeguards to protect human and animal health from BSE-including, most significantly, a ban on specified risk materials from the human food supply. In the case of this animal, it was a non-ambulatory (downer) animal and as such was banned from the food supply. It was processed at a facility that handles only animals unsuitable for human consumption, and the carcass was incinerated.
"USDA's enhanced surveillance program is designed to provide information about the level of prevalence of BSE in the United States. Since the inception of this program, we have fully anticipated the possibility that additional cases of BSE would be found. And, in fact, we are extremely gratified that to date, more than 375,000 animals have been tested for the disease and, with the exception of the conflicting results we have received on this one animal, all have ultimately proven to be negative for the disease.
"USDA is committed to ensuring that our BSE program is the best that it can be, keeping pace with science and international guidelines, and to considering recommendations made by OIG and others in this regard. We are committed to ensuring that we have the right protocols in place-ones that are solidly grounded in science and consistently followed. After we receive additional test results on this animal, we will determine what further steps need to be taken and what changes, if any, are warranted in our surveillance program."
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Friday, June 10, 2005
NEWS
Senators Question Conservancy's Practices The Senate Finance Committee issued a report yesterday raising questions about a range of financial practices at the Arlington-based Nature Conservancy and recommending regulatory changes that would affect many of the nation's nonprofit organizations. The report, the result of a two-year investigation into the world's largest environmental organization, questions whether the charity's actions at times may have been "inconsistent" with the policy underlying federal tax laws. The committee raises concerns about the size of tax breaks claimed by the Conservancy's supporters, about the group's shortcomings in monitoring development restrictions on some land under its supervision, and about private "side deals" with Conservancy "insiders." The report refrains from making factual and legal conclusions, stressing a desire to avoid influencing an audit of the Conservancy begun by the Internal Revenue Service in December 2003. But the report spotlights the Conservancy's financial dealings and highlights the organization's failure to fully disclose transactions with Conservancy officials and corporations whose officers sat on the charity's board....
Woman killed by grizzly bear made split-decision to save her life - and lost A woman killed by a grizzly bear Sunday made a split-second decision to climb a tree - a choice that failed to save her life. Isabelle Dube, originally from Cap-St-Ignace near Quebec City, was jogging with two friends Sunday on a popular hiking trail in Canmore, 90 kilometres west of Calgary, when the group came upon the bear. "They came within 20 to 25 metres of the bear when they first saw it," Dave Ealey of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development told reporters. "As they communicated to each other as to 'What do we do?' they started backing up. Isabelle apparently chose to climb a tree. "The other two continued to back up. They backed up out of the area to a point where they were no longer able to see their friend and they said they were going to go get some help because she was basically shouting at the bear because the bear was close to her." The two friends ran almost a kilometre to the clubhouse of the SilverTip Golf Course to get help. A Fish and Wildlife officer responded, and found the bear with Dube....
As rural leaders try to lift a ban on using dogs to track cougars, debate grows over their numbers Oregon lawmakers are maneuvering to let counties roll back a statewide initiative and loose hunting dogs on cougars and black bears, highlighting an escalating question in rural Oregon: Are there too many cougars? Rural legislators say hunting dogs are urgently needed because the big cats are appearing where they never have before, killing pets and livestock and threatening public safety. But conservationists say that no good science proves cougars are multiplying so dramatically, and that fears are exaggerated. State wildlife managers say Oregon now is home to 5,000 to 6,000 cougars, nearly twice as many as a decade ago, despite increased hunting in that time. That's more cougars than ever, they say, and about as many as are believed to roam much larger California, where they are not hunted....
Wyo voices back conservation easements Without conservation easements, the scenic view along Wyoming Highway 22 between Jackson and Wilson likely would not exist today, the director of the Jackson Hole Land Trust told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday. And without tax incentives provided under federal law, the high desert and verdant river valleys of Sublette County could be lost to development, Tim Lindstrom testified before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. "Nobody messes with the ranchers of Sublette County, believe me," Lindstrom said. "However, they are dedicated to their land, and they have been permanently conserving it in 1,000-acre and 2,000-acre chunks over the past decade. This conservation is entirely through conservation easements ... Without the tax incentives, this would not be happening." Lindstrom was among those urging senators to make no changes in the law governing tax incentives for conservation easements....
UW scientists launch study on elk deaths University of Wyoming scientists will attempt to identify a toxin in lichen that resulted in 450 elk deaths last year, and possibly determine the safety of eating game that consumed the lichen. A five-member team from UW's Department of Veterinary Sciences launched the study, which will also attempt to determine whether cattle and sheep can safely graze in lichen-infested areas like the Red Rim of south-central Wyoming where the massive die-off occurred. Researchers were alerted to the problem in February 2004 when hunters searching for coyotes discovered two cow elk unable to stand. Eventually, an estimated 450 elk lost strength and coordination and either died or were humanely destroyed....
Forest Service, San Ildefonso Pueblo settle 50-year-old land claim San Ildefonso Pueblo and the U.S. Forest Service have announced the settlement of a land claim the pueblo filed more than 50 years ago. Under the proposal -- which must be approved by Congress and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims -- the Indian pueblo near Santa Fe would get $6.9 million and the right to buy thousands of acres. The case, first brought in 1951, was the last pending litigation under the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, the Forest Service said. That law involved hundreds of tribal claims. Ratifying the settlement would authorize land transactions affecting San Ildefonso and Santa Clara pueblos, Los Alamos County and the Forest Service. The pueblos would be able to add land to their pueblos, and the county would be able to protect its water wells....
Snowbowl gets nod to make snow from treated wastewater The regional forester for the Southwest on Thursday gave a green light to Arizona Snowbowl for snowmaking and other improvements at the ski area. The decision, by Harv Forsgren, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Southwest office in Albuquerque, follows years of protests by Native American tribes, who contend that development on the San Francisco Peaks interferes with their religious practices. But Forsgren said that the snowmaking, which will use treated wastewater pumped to the ski area from Flagstaff, does not violate the First Amendment rights of Native Americans and "does not preclude the continued use of the San Francisco Peaks for religious beliefs and practices."....
Column: Roadless rage Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer came out swinging this week in a strongly worded letter to President Bush, saying Bush’s recently issued roadless rule is “passing the buck” by “shifting responsibility for management of the nation’s roadless areas to the states.” As the governor said at his Tuesday news conference, if Bush wants Montana to do this work, he had better pony up sufficient federal resources, in terms of both funding and personnel, to analyze Montana’s 6.4 million acres of roadless federal lands. A little background might prove useful to those unfamiliar with the long debate over roadless lands. Back in the waning days of the Clinton presidency, a serious effort to protect the country’s dwindling roadless lands was proposed. As Schweitzer noted in his history lesson to Bush: “Montana went through an exhaustive public process conducted by the Forest Service. During that time, a record 1.6 million Americans participated in a nationwide 15-month effort involving 600 hearings and public meetings....
Wyoming's roadless questions linger Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday Wyoming has "a set of options, none of which are very attractive" on how to deal with roadless areas on national forests and again called the federal government's plan to place roadless responsibilities in the hands of states a "shell game." The governor did not elaborate on the options and said questions remain on whether to wait for local forests to complete their forest plans and then get involved in roadless areas or to spend time and money now to petition the federal government to maintain certain areas as roadless. "I said to the undersecretary (of agriculture Mark Rey), 'If you want to give me control of the land, I'll go to the legislature and I'll get a budget to do this planning, but if I don't get to have any say about the decision, why should I do your job and ask my legislature to fund some unit to go out and plan national forests when in actuality all you're going to do is take the information and run it through your sausage-making system anyway,"' Freudenthal said....
Editorial: Roadless input will be good thing Schweitzer is a Democrat, after all, and he shouldn't be expected to have glowing regards for the Republican president's agenda. In this case, Schweitzer considers the Bush plan to have states petition the Forest Service with recommendations for roadless areas to be an unfunded mandate. Schweitzer wants the feds to pay for a process of gathering input from Montanans, and he wants the Forest Service to pitch in hundreds of resource specialists to help with the process. There's nothing wrong with those wants, but they simply may not be necessary. The governor seems to be under the impression that the state of Montana must produce a new inventory of roadless areas backed up by a colossal environmental impact statement evaluating the ups and downs of every acre recommended for roadless designation. Not so. The Bush administration has given governors an opportunity to gather, in the manner they wish, input from their constituencies regarding roadless areas. The states are not required to provide costly, detailed analysis....
Can ranchers, wolves get along? Wolves will be welcomed back into Utah, providing they don't eat. That was the essence of a plan adopted Thursday by the Utah Wildlife Board at a Salt Lake City meeting that capped a $100,000, 18-month effort designed to bring agriculture, hunting and conservation interests together on wolf management. The plan would allow ranchers to kill wolves that attack livestock; it might even allow hunters, guides and taxidermists also to be compensated for losses....
Groups sue over wolverine status The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was wrong to deny wolverines protection under the Endangered Species Act and now should be required to assess their condition, environmental groups say in a lawsuit. The service fell short in studying the forest-dwelling wolverine, a 3- to 4-foot-long weasel that is in steep decline, the groups said in the suit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Missoula. The suit seeks an order that the agency conduct a 12-month study of the wolverine's status....
Utah part of oil shale project The Bush administration moved Thursday to jump-start oil shale development in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming by offering research sites that could be converted to 5,100-acre production leases if companies prove they can turn rock into fuel. The Bureau of Land Management announced it will accept proposals for 160-acre research projects on federal lands across 16,000 square miles in the three states until Sept. 7. Plans to extract the oil would employ techniques ranging from strip mining to a new on-site heating technique being developed by Shell Oil Co. near Rangely, Colo....
An Old West Saga, Told From Both Sides The first Indian massacre on "Into the West" is committed by a herd of stampeding buffalo, not by vigilantes or the United States cavalry. The first scalping of a frontiersman is the work of a grizzly bear, not of an Indian brave on the warpath. Nature is the most fearsome enemy - and coveted prize - in TNT's six-part miniseries about Western expansion, which begins tonight. And that is not a bad canvas for an epic that seeks to sidestep cowboy-and-Indian clichés and deliver a richer portrait of Manifest Destiny. The taming of the wilderness is the nation's founding paradox; the pioneers' struggle forged the nation's character but their ethnic cleansing of American Indians indelibly stained it. "Into the West" tries to weave that dissonance into an otherwise fairly conventional multigenerational family saga....
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Senators Question Conservancy's Practices The Senate Finance Committee issued a report yesterday raising questions about a range of financial practices at the Arlington-based Nature Conservancy and recommending regulatory changes that would affect many of the nation's nonprofit organizations. The report, the result of a two-year investigation into the world's largest environmental organization, questions whether the charity's actions at times may have been "inconsistent" with the policy underlying federal tax laws. The committee raises concerns about the size of tax breaks claimed by the Conservancy's supporters, about the group's shortcomings in monitoring development restrictions on some land under its supervision, and about private "side deals" with Conservancy "insiders." The report refrains from making factual and legal conclusions, stressing a desire to avoid influencing an audit of the Conservancy begun by the Internal Revenue Service in December 2003. But the report spotlights the Conservancy's financial dealings and highlights the organization's failure to fully disclose transactions with Conservancy officials and corporations whose officers sat on the charity's board....
Woman killed by grizzly bear made split-decision to save her life - and lost A woman killed by a grizzly bear Sunday made a split-second decision to climb a tree - a choice that failed to save her life. Isabelle Dube, originally from Cap-St-Ignace near Quebec City, was jogging with two friends Sunday on a popular hiking trail in Canmore, 90 kilometres west of Calgary, when the group came upon the bear. "They came within 20 to 25 metres of the bear when they first saw it," Dave Ealey of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development told reporters. "As they communicated to each other as to 'What do we do?' they started backing up. Isabelle apparently chose to climb a tree. "The other two continued to back up. They backed up out of the area to a point where they were no longer able to see their friend and they said they were going to go get some help because she was basically shouting at the bear because the bear was close to her." The two friends ran almost a kilometre to the clubhouse of the SilverTip Golf Course to get help. A Fish and Wildlife officer responded, and found the bear with Dube....
As rural leaders try to lift a ban on using dogs to track cougars, debate grows over their numbers Oregon lawmakers are maneuvering to let counties roll back a statewide initiative and loose hunting dogs on cougars and black bears, highlighting an escalating question in rural Oregon: Are there too many cougars? Rural legislators say hunting dogs are urgently needed because the big cats are appearing where they never have before, killing pets and livestock and threatening public safety. But conservationists say that no good science proves cougars are multiplying so dramatically, and that fears are exaggerated. State wildlife managers say Oregon now is home to 5,000 to 6,000 cougars, nearly twice as many as a decade ago, despite increased hunting in that time. That's more cougars than ever, they say, and about as many as are believed to roam much larger California, where they are not hunted....
Wyo voices back conservation easements Without conservation easements, the scenic view along Wyoming Highway 22 between Jackson and Wilson likely would not exist today, the director of the Jackson Hole Land Trust told a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday. And without tax incentives provided under federal law, the high desert and verdant river valleys of Sublette County could be lost to development, Tim Lindstrom testified before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. "Nobody messes with the ranchers of Sublette County, believe me," Lindstrom said. "However, they are dedicated to their land, and they have been permanently conserving it in 1,000-acre and 2,000-acre chunks over the past decade. This conservation is entirely through conservation easements ... Without the tax incentives, this would not be happening." Lindstrom was among those urging senators to make no changes in the law governing tax incentives for conservation easements....
UW scientists launch study on elk deaths University of Wyoming scientists will attempt to identify a toxin in lichen that resulted in 450 elk deaths last year, and possibly determine the safety of eating game that consumed the lichen. A five-member team from UW's Department of Veterinary Sciences launched the study, which will also attempt to determine whether cattle and sheep can safely graze in lichen-infested areas like the Red Rim of south-central Wyoming where the massive die-off occurred. Researchers were alerted to the problem in February 2004 when hunters searching for coyotes discovered two cow elk unable to stand. Eventually, an estimated 450 elk lost strength and coordination and either died or were humanely destroyed....
Forest Service, San Ildefonso Pueblo settle 50-year-old land claim San Ildefonso Pueblo and the U.S. Forest Service have announced the settlement of a land claim the pueblo filed more than 50 years ago. Under the proposal -- which must be approved by Congress and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims -- the Indian pueblo near Santa Fe would get $6.9 million and the right to buy thousands of acres. The case, first brought in 1951, was the last pending litigation under the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, the Forest Service said. That law involved hundreds of tribal claims. Ratifying the settlement would authorize land transactions affecting San Ildefonso and Santa Clara pueblos, Los Alamos County and the Forest Service. The pueblos would be able to add land to their pueblos, and the county would be able to protect its water wells....
Snowbowl gets nod to make snow from treated wastewater The regional forester for the Southwest on Thursday gave a green light to Arizona Snowbowl for snowmaking and other improvements at the ski area. The decision, by Harv Forsgren, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Southwest office in Albuquerque, follows years of protests by Native American tribes, who contend that development on the San Francisco Peaks interferes with their religious practices. But Forsgren said that the snowmaking, which will use treated wastewater pumped to the ski area from Flagstaff, does not violate the First Amendment rights of Native Americans and "does not preclude the continued use of the San Francisco Peaks for religious beliefs and practices."....
Column: Roadless rage Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer came out swinging this week in a strongly worded letter to President Bush, saying Bush’s recently issued roadless rule is “passing the buck” by “shifting responsibility for management of the nation’s roadless areas to the states.” As the governor said at his Tuesday news conference, if Bush wants Montana to do this work, he had better pony up sufficient federal resources, in terms of both funding and personnel, to analyze Montana’s 6.4 million acres of roadless federal lands. A little background might prove useful to those unfamiliar with the long debate over roadless lands. Back in the waning days of the Clinton presidency, a serious effort to protect the country’s dwindling roadless lands was proposed. As Schweitzer noted in his history lesson to Bush: “Montana went through an exhaustive public process conducted by the Forest Service. During that time, a record 1.6 million Americans participated in a nationwide 15-month effort involving 600 hearings and public meetings....
Wyoming's roadless questions linger Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday Wyoming has "a set of options, none of which are very attractive" on how to deal with roadless areas on national forests and again called the federal government's plan to place roadless responsibilities in the hands of states a "shell game." The governor did not elaborate on the options and said questions remain on whether to wait for local forests to complete their forest plans and then get involved in roadless areas or to spend time and money now to petition the federal government to maintain certain areas as roadless. "I said to the undersecretary (of agriculture Mark Rey), 'If you want to give me control of the land, I'll go to the legislature and I'll get a budget to do this planning, but if I don't get to have any say about the decision, why should I do your job and ask my legislature to fund some unit to go out and plan national forests when in actuality all you're going to do is take the information and run it through your sausage-making system anyway,"' Freudenthal said....
Editorial: Roadless input will be good thing Schweitzer is a Democrat, after all, and he shouldn't be expected to have glowing regards for the Republican president's agenda. In this case, Schweitzer considers the Bush plan to have states petition the Forest Service with recommendations for roadless areas to be an unfunded mandate. Schweitzer wants the feds to pay for a process of gathering input from Montanans, and he wants the Forest Service to pitch in hundreds of resource specialists to help with the process. There's nothing wrong with those wants, but they simply may not be necessary. The governor seems to be under the impression that the state of Montana must produce a new inventory of roadless areas backed up by a colossal environmental impact statement evaluating the ups and downs of every acre recommended for roadless designation. Not so. The Bush administration has given governors an opportunity to gather, in the manner they wish, input from their constituencies regarding roadless areas. The states are not required to provide costly, detailed analysis....
Can ranchers, wolves get along? Wolves will be welcomed back into Utah, providing they don't eat. That was the essence of a plan adopted Thursday by the Utah Wildlife Board at a Salt Lake City meeting that capped a $100,000, 18-month effort designed to bring agriculture, hunting and conservation interests together on wolf management. The plan would allow ranchers to kill wolves that attack livestock; it might even allow hunters, guides and taxidermists also to be compensated for losses....
Groups sue over wolverine status The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was wrong to deny wolverines protection under the Endangered Species Act and now should be required to assess their condition, environmental groups say in a lawsuit. The service fell short in studying the forest-dwelling wolverine, a 3- to 4-foot-long weasel that is in steep decline, the groups said in the suit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Missoula. The suit seeks an order that the agency conduct a 12-month study of the wolverine's status....
Utah part of oil shale project The Bush administration moved Thursday to jump-start oil shale development in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming by offering research sites that could be converted to 5,100-acre production leases if companies prove they can turn rock into fuel. The Bureau of Land Management announced it will accept proposals for 160-acre research projects on federal lands across 16,000 square miles in the three states until Sept. 7. Plans to extract the oil would employ techniques ranging from strip mining to a new on-site heating technique being developed by Shell Oil Co. near Rangely, Colo....
An Old West Saga, Told From Both Sides The first Indian massacre on "Into the West" is committed by a herd of stampeding buffalo, not by vigilantes or the United States cavalry. The first scalping of a frontiersman is the work of a grizzly bear, not of an Indian brave on the warpath. Nature is the most fearsome enemy - and coveted prize - in TNT's six-part miniseries about Western expansion, which begins tonight. And that is not a bad canvas for an epic that seeks to sidestep cowboy-and-Indian clichés and deliver a richer portrait of Manifest Destiny. The taming of the wilderness is the nation's founding paradox; the pioneers' struggle forged the nation's character but their ethnic cleansing of American Indians indelibly stained it. "Into the West" tries to weave that dissonance into an otherwise fairly conventional multigenerational family saga....
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Thursday, June 09, 2005
FLE
Editorial: Temptation Along the Border Just as surely as the sky is blue, law enforcement in Mexico is corrupt. That assumption may too often be true, but it is incomplete. A federal sting that exposed surprising openness to bribery among U.S. soldiers and law enforcement officers on the U.S.-Mexico border ought to turn on a light bulb. Recent stories by The Times' Ralph Vartabedian showed that Army National Guard Humvees were used to deliver hundreds of pounds of cocaine to an Arizona hotel. A federal inspector waved trucks he believed to be carrying drugs safely across the border. Uniformed national guardsmen lugged kilos of coke into the U.S. in their official vehicles. Even the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration organizers of the sting, which was conducted in stages from 2002 through 2004, were taken aback by the numbers and eagerness of the bribe-seekers. Higher-level officials are apparently not immune. A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted a former immigration service intelligence chief in San Diego on charges of covering up a drug and immigrant smuggling ring. Even Forest Service rangers have been caught smuggling marijuana in Arizona....
Audit Finds Security Dept. Is Lacking Disaster Backups In a nationwide advertising blitz, the Homeland Security Department has urged businesses and families to "Get Ready Now" for potential terror attacks or other disasters. But an internal audit released on Wednesday concluded that the department had fundamentally failed to follow its own advice. Computer systems at 19 department sites that served agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard had no functioning backups or relied on obviously deficient or incomplete backups, the report by the inspector general of the department said. Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of disaster recovery, was unprepared, the report said....
Reformers Turn Up the Heat on the FBI Pressure to overhaul the FBI mounted Tuesday when House budget negotiators ordered the bureau to embrace the recommendations of a presidential commission on intelligence failures that would likely erode the FBI's independence. The powerful House Appropriations Committee acted a day after a former member of another commission, the bipartisan panel that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, expressed concern that the FBI had failed to make sufficient progress in recasting itself since the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Tuesday's action by the normally supportive congressional committee, in language attached to an FBI budget bill, sends a blunt message to the bureau that lawmakers consider the progress to be unacceptable....
Ruling Limits Prosecutions of People Who Violate Law on Privacy of Medical Records An authoritative new ruling by the Justice Department sharply limits the government's ability to prosecute people for criminal violations of the law that protects the privacy of medical records. The criminal penalties, the department said, apply to insurers, doctors, hospitals and other providers - but not necessarily their employees or outsiders who steal personal health data. In short, the department said, people who work for an entity covered by the federal privacy law are not automatically covered by that law and may not be subject to its criminal penalties, which include a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison for the most serious violations. The reasoning is that federal regulations establish the standards for medical privacy. The regulations apply just to "covered entities," including insurers and health care providers. Thus, only covered entities can be prosecuted for criminal violations of the law....
Crime Drops, Despite Expiration of Gun Ban So much for "anti-gun hysterics" and predictions of "blood running in the streets," a Second Amendment group says. Nine months after the Clinton-era "assault weapons ban" expired, the FBI has released crime statistics showing a drop in homicides in 2004 -- the first such drop since 1999. The FBI report said all types of violent crime declined last year, and cities with more than a million people showed the largest drops in violent crime. When the Clinton ban on certain semiautomatic weapons expired last September, gun control groups warned that violent crime would escalate, including violence against children. But those "doom and gloom" forecasts have been exposed as "pure clap-trap," said Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) President Joe Tartaro. "Where is the news media on this?" Tartaro wondered. He said if the number of homicides had gone up, reporters would be writing front-page stories linking the rise to the end of the semi-auto ban....
Bush pushes Congress to renew anti-terrorism law President Bush urged the U.S. Congress on Thursday to renew major provisions of the USA Patriot Act and rejected critics who have complained the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law erodes civil liberties. Sixteen sections of the Patriot Act are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and the Bush administration fears their expiration will weaken law-enforcement tools needed to search for potential terrorists on American soil. "My message to Congress is clear: The terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of the year, and neither should the protections of the Patriot Act," Bush said during a visit to the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy....
Report Shows FBI Missed at Least Five Chances Before Sept. 11 to Uncover Info About Terrorists The FBI missed at least five opportunities before the Sept. 11 attacks to uncover vital intelligence information about the terrorists, and the bureau didn't aggressively pursue the information it did have, the Justice Department's inspector general says in a newly released critique of government missteps. The IG faulted the FBI for not knowing about the presence of two of the Sept. 11 terrorists in the United States and for not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine said. When the bureau did discover the presence of hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar in the United States shortly before the attacks, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority," the report concluded. The five missed opportunities in regard to the two hijackers stemmed from information sharing problems between the FBI and CIA and problems inside the FBI's counterterrorism program....
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Editorial: Temptation Along the Border Just as surely as the sky is blue, law enforcement in Mexico is corrupt. That assumption may too often be true, but it is incomplete. A federal sting that exposed surprising openness to bribery among U.S. soldiers and law enforcement officers on the U.S.-Mexico border ought to turn on a light bulb. Recent stories by The Times' Ralph Vartabedian showed that Army National Guard Humvees were used to deliver hundreds of pounds of cocaine to an Arizona hotel. A federal inspector waved trucks he believed to be carrying drugs safely across the border. Uniformed national guardsmen lugged kilos of coke into the U.S. in their official vehicles. Even the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration organizers of the sting, which was conducted in stages from 2002 through 2004, were taken aback by the numbers and eagerness of the bribe-seekers. Higher-level officials are apparently not immune. A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted a former immigration service intelligence chief in San Diego on charges of covering up a drug and immigrant smuggling ring. Even Forest Service rangers have been caught smuggling marijuana in Arizona....
Audit Finds Security Dept. Is Lacking Disaster Backups In a nationwide advertising blitz, the Homeland Security Department has urged businesses and families to "Get Ready Now" for potential terror attacks or other disasters. But an internal audit released on Wednesday concluded that the department had fundamentally failed to follow its own advice. Computer systems at 19 department sites that served agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard had no functioning backups or relied on obviously deficient or incomplete backups, the report by the inspector general of the department said. Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of disaster recovery, was unprepared, the report said....
Reformers Turn Up the Heat on the FBI Pressure to overhaul the FBI mounted Tuesday when House budget negotiators ordered the bureau to embrace the recommendations of a presidential commission on intelligence failures that would likely erode the FBI's independence. The powerful House Appropriations Committee acted a day after a former member of another commission, the bipartisan panel that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, expressed concern that the FBI had failed to make sufficient progress in recasting itself since the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Tuesday's action by the normally supportive congressional committee, in language attached to an FBI budget bill, sends a blunt message to the bureau that lawmakers consider the progress to be unacceptable....
Ruling Limits Prosecutions of People Who Violate Law on Privacy of Medical Records An authoritative new ruling by the Justice Department sharply limits the government's ability to prosecute people for criminal violations of the law that protects the privacy of medical records. The criminal penalties, the department said, apply to insurers, doctors, hospitals and other providers - but not necessarily their employees or outsiders who steal personal health data. In short, the department said, people who work for an entity covered by the federal privacy law are not automatically covered by that law and may not be subject to its criminal penalties, which include a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison for the most serious violations. The reasoning is that federal regulations establish the standards for medical privacy. The regulations apply just to "covered entities," including insurers and health care providers. Thus, only covered entities can be prosecuted for criminal violations of the law....
Crime Drops, Despite Expiration of Gun Ban So much for "anti-gun hysterics" and predictions of "blood running in the streets," a Second Amendment group says. Nine months after the Clinton-era "assault weapons ban" expired, the FBI has released crime statistics showing a drop in homicides in 2004 -- the first such drop since 1999. The FBI report said all types of violent crime declined last year, and cities with more than a million people showed the largest drops in violent crime. When the Clinton ban on certain semiautomatic weapons expired last September, gun control groups warned that violent crime would escalate, including violence against children. But those "doom and gloom" forecasts have been exposed as "pure clap-trap," said Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) President Joe Tartaro. "Where is the news media on this?" Tartaro wondered. He said if the number of homicides had gone up, reporters would be writing front-page stories linking the rise to the end of the semi-auto ban....
Bush pushes Congress to renew anti-terrorism law President Bush urged the U.S. Congress on Thursday to renew major provisions of the USA Patriot Act and rejected critics who have complained the post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law erodes civil liberties. Sixteen sections of the Patriot Act are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and the Bush administration fears their expiration will weaken law-enforcement tools needed to search for potential terrorists on American soil. "My message to Congress is clear: The terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of the year, and neither should the protections of the Patriot Act," Bush said during a visit to the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy....
Report Shows FBI Missed at Least Five Chances Before Sept. 11 to Uncover Info About Terrorists The FBI missed at least five opportunities before the Sept. 11 attacks to uncover vital intelligence information about the terrorists, and the bureau didn't aggressively pursue the information it did have, the Justice Department's inspector general says in a newly released critique of government missteps. The IG faulted the FBI for not knowing about the presence of two of the Sept. 11 terrorists in the United States and for not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. "The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine said. When the bureau did discover the presence of hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar in the United States shortly before the attacks, "the FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority," the report concluded. The five missed opportunities in regard to the two hijackers stemmed from information sharing problems between the FBI and CIA and problems inside the FBI's counterterrorism program....
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NEWS
Officials downgrade fire outlook in West Federal forecasters have backed away from predictions for a busy fire season in the West, citing mountain snow and unseasonably cool June temperatures. The Predictive Services Unit of the government's national wildfire coordination center is expected to downgrade its "above normal" prediction to "normal" in the western fire season outlook set for release Friday. "The large fire danger has moderated and it's not going to be as dire as we first thought," said Larry Van Bussum, an official with the National Weather Service....
Owens inks bill creating roadless areas task force Environmentalists said they hope Colorado can keep most of its roadless areas intact after Gov. Bill Owens signed a measure Wednesday that will create a task force to review the use of 4.4 million acres of public land. Owens said the change is better than allowing the federal government to decide. The Colorado bill creates a 13-member task force to examine federal forest that has been considered at some point for roadless designation by the U.S. Forest Service. The task force will hold hearings and make recommendations within 16 months to Owens on which areas the public wants to maintain as roadless. The governor will then have two months to make his recommendations to the federal government....
Agency rejects appeal on mine After losing a final appeal with the U.S. Forest Service, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition is now considering asking a federal judge to block J.R. Simplot Co. from exploring phosphate deposits in southeastern Idaho for a potential new mine. The 400 acres being scouted in the Caribou National Forest includes Crow Creek, a primary spawning stream for the rare Yellowstone cutthroat trout. In a recent decision denying an appeal by environmentalists to Simplot's exploration permit, the Forest Service found that the company's plan was in compliance with federal laws. Greater Yellowstone Coalition Idaho Director Marv Hoyt said the group fears that a new phosphate mine in the Crow Creek drainage will threaten the Yellowstone cutthroat, which has been dwindling in numbers....
Ranch conserves wildlife habitat An innovative conservation easement struck between Fremont County ranchers Tony and Andrea Malmberg, the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service will protect almost 5,000 acres of wildlife habitat. By providing protection from future development, the conservation easement means that sage grouse and their chicks can migrate each spring from nests on Twin Creek Ranch south of Lander to summer range in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains n- 20 miles and a thousand-foot climb over the rough hills and rocky escarpments that form a transition zone between the Winds and the Red Desert. "We'll be able to keep a functional ranch intact, without selling off important pieces," said Tony Malmberg, whose family began ranching the property more than 25 years ago. Completed on Wednesday, the conservation easement used the USDA's Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and The Nature Conservancy....
Judge says he agrees with environmentalists on increasing spill to save salmon A federal judge indicated Wednesday that he is leaning toward greatly increasing the amount of water spilled over four dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers to boost the survival of threatened and endangered salmon migrating to the ocean. U.S. District Judge James Redden issued his preliminary finding in a statement filed with the U.S. District Court in Portland, just two days ahead of a scheduled hearing to determine how dam operations should be changed to help salmon survive in the wake of his rejection of the Bush administration approach. Environmentalists, Indian tribes and sport and commercial fishing groups have argued that if the spill is not increased greatly, salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act could face extinction....
Everglades oil buyout slammed in government inquiry Hailed by environmentalists as a rare act of conservation by the Bush administration, a deal to prevent oil drilling in the Everglades came under sharp attack Wednesday in a report by investigators at the Interior Department. The report, issued by the department's inspector general, said administration officials were so eager for a shot of good public relations that they were willing to meet almost any terms to buy out oil rights at Big Cypress National Preserve, a vast wilderness inhabited by panthers, manatees and other endangered species. Over the objections of career civil servants, who said the oil rights might be virtually worthless, administration officials agreed to pay the Collier family of southwest Florida $120 million to keep the family from undertaking a major oil exploration project at the preserve....
Groups Seek To Restore Wolverines In an effort to save one of the rarest wilderness wildlife species in the lower-48 states, four conservation groups today filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to consider new legal protections for the wolverine. "Everything we know about the wolverine tells us that this species is under siege from trapping in Montana and habitat disruption throughout its entire range," said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who is representing the groups in the lawsuit. "We shouldn't wait until the last few wolverines are trapped before we take action to protect this rare species."....
Law aims to head off water wars Gov. Bill Owens on Tuesday signed a measure intended to inspire collaboration instead of fresh ammunition in Colorado’s water wars. The measure is patterned after the successful effort of nearly a century ago that resulted in the Colorado River Compact, which divided the waters of the stream among seven states. The bill establishes nine roundtables in each of the state’s main river basins and the Denver metro area and a 27-member interbasin compact committee, which is made up of representatives selected by the roundtables and other selected by legislators and the governor....
Enthusiasts spend billions on boats; fish aren't so popular The National Marine ManufacturerÏs Association estimates that there are 17 million boats on America's waterways, and 69 million people who say they enjoy boating. In 2004, total retail expenditures on boating reached $33 billion, an 8 percent increase over 2003, according to NMMA research. Sales of after-market accessories led with $2.4 billion in sales, a 14 percent increase. Sales of boating accessories have doubled since 1997. Participation in fishing has declined by 4 percent since 1991, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This comes at a time when conservation efforts have improved many of the nation's rivers and lakes. This downturn could seriously affect fishing because fewer anglers translate into fewer dollars for resource-management activities such as hiring biologists, building boat ramps and funding fish-stocking programs....
LGBT group signs agreement with Dept. of Interior Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-owned businesses looking to secure vendor contracts with the Department of the Interior and its eight bureaus signed a groundbreaking agreement to increase their opportunities Wednesday afternoon. The memorandum of understanding (MOU), facilitated by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, aims to boost the agency's outreach efforts to small businesses owned and operated by the LGBT community, and to provide an increased exchange of information regarding program contract opportunities, officials said....
Sea Turtle Lights Spark Controvery Bay County law protects sea turtles and their hatchlings on the west end of Panama City Beach by regulating lights on the coast. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants the ordinance expanded to include the entire 25 miles of Bay County coastline, but some county commissioners say the policy could put people in danger. Bay County Commissioner Mike Thomas says he's gotten several complaints about the lack of lighting on the beach at night. Since May of 2003, special turtle-friendly lights have been installed along beachfront properties on the western five-mile stretch of Bay's coastline to promote more sea turtle hatchlings. Thomas says the ordinance is extreme and some of the lights should be turned back on....
House vote to end slaughter of horses for food The House voted Wednesday to stop the slaughter of American horses to feed diners in European and Asian nations where the meat is considered gourmet fare. The 269-158 vote on an amendment to a Department of Agriculture spending bill strips funding from the USDA to inspect any horse meat to be shipped overseas for consumption, effectively barring the sale of horse meat for human consumption. Roughly 65,000 wild horses, race horses, work horses and even pet horses are slaughtered every year in the United States to become steaks in other countries. Two plants in Texas and one in Illinois currently slaughter horses for foreign consumption....
Recent deaths on Rio Grande prompt discussions about safety Some river-rafting outfitters are reviewing their policies and government agencies are talking about more stringent training for river guides following the deaths of two rafters along the Rio Grande. Carol Whalen, 61, of Heber City, Utah, drowned Sunday after the raft she was riding in flipped on a section of the river between Pilar and Embudo. All seven passengers were thrown from the raft, including Whalen's sister, Joyce Kraut of Illinois. On Memorial Day, Airman 1st Class Jacob P. Hampson, 23, of Rochester, N.Y., drowned when the raft he was in capsized near Pilar....
House votes to postpone meat labeling The House voted Wednesday to block the government from requiring labels that would tell shoppers from what country their meat comes. Congress already had postponed the labeling from its original date of 2004 to September 2006. The House action would stop the Agriculture Department from spending money on the new requirement. The postponement was part of a $100 billion spending bill for food and farm programs in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The House passed the bill by 408-18 vote Wednesday. Western ranchers had counted on the labels to help sell their beef, Rep. Stephanie Herseth said. "Instead, the large meatpackers have rallied to kill this program because they don't want American consumers to discover how much meat in the grocery case is actually imported," said Herseth, D-S.D. Rep. Denny Rehberg, a rancher, said Texas cattle producers are fighting the labels because they do not want shoppers to know that the cattlemen buy cheap Mexican calves to fatten and sell in the U.S....
Murders end Florida's range wars The late Leon Thompson of Port Charlotte, a retired U.S. Marine sergeant major, was a survivor of the last range war: "I was 14 years old in February 1933 when my cousin Lincoln Whidden asked me to help him find and butcher a cow. The animal was part of Milton Norton's herd near Old Venus on the prairie east of Fort Ogden. "My father, Lorenzo, had a small sawmill house (rough, unpainted lumber) between Old Venus and Palmdale where he could keep an eye on his horses and cattle. "Those were tough days in the depth of the Great Depression. Men with hungry families might kill somebody else's range-cow to stay alive. ."Cattlemen understood rustling for food and never shot a hungry man — just warned him not to do it again or get shot next time....
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Officials downgrade fire outlook in West Federal forecasters have backed away from predictions for a busy fire season in the West, citing mountain snow and unseasonably cool June temperatures. The Predictive Services Unit of the government's national wildfire coordination center is expected to downgrade its "above normal" prediction to "normal" in the western fire season outlook set for release Friday. "The large fire danger has moderated and it's not going to be as dire as we first thought," said Larry Van Bussum, an official with the National Weather Service....
Owens inks bill creating roadless areas task force Environmentalists said they hope Colorado can keep most of its roadless areas intact after Gov. Bill Owens signed a measure Wednesday that will create a task force to review the use of 4.4 million acres of public land. Owens said the change is better than allowing the federal government to decide. The Colorado bill creates a 13-member task force to examine federal forest that has been considered at some point for roadless designation by the U.S. Forest Service. The task force will hold hearings and make recommendations within 16 months to Owens on which areas the public wants to maintain as roadless. The governor will then have two months to make his recommendations to the federal government....
Agency rejects appeal on mine After losing a final appeal with the U.S. Forest Service, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition is now considering asking a federal judge to block J.R. Simplot Co. from exploring phosphate deposits in southeastern Idaho for a potential new mine. The 400 acres being scouted in the Caribou National Forest includes Crow Creek, a primary spawning stream for the rare Yellowstone cutthroat trout. In a recent decision denying an appeal by environmentalists to Simplot's exploration permit, the Forest Service found that the company's plan was in compliance with federal laws. Greater Yellowstone Coalition Idaho Director Marv Hoyt said the group fears that a new phosphate mine in the Crow Creek drainage will threaten the Yellowstone cutthroat, which has been dwindling in numbers....
Ranch conserves wildlife habitat An innovative conservation easement struck between Fremont County ranchers Tony and Andrea Malmberg, the Wyoming chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service will protect almost 5,000 acres of wildlife habitat. By providing protection from future development, the conservation easement means that sage grouse and their chicks can migrate each spring from nests on Twin Creek Ranch south of Lander to summer range in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains n- 20 miles and a thousand-foot climb over the rough hills and rocky escarpments that form a transition zone between the Winds and the Red Desert. "We'll be able to keep a functional ranch intact, without selling off important pieces," said Tony Malmberg, whose family began ranching the property more than 25 years ago. Completed on Wednesday, the conservation easement used the USDA's Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, which is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and The Nature Conservancy....
Judge says he agrees with environmentalists on increasing spill to save salmon A federal judge indicated Wednesday that he is leaning toward greatly increasing the amount of water spilled over four dams on the lower Snake and Columbia rivers to boost the survival of threatened and endangered salmon migrating to the ocean. U.S. District Judge James Redden issued his preliminary finding in a statement filed with the U.S. District Court in Portland, just two days ahead of a scheduled hearing to determine how dam operations should be changed to help salmon survive in the wake of his rejection of the Bush administration approach. Environmentalists, Indian tribes and sport and commercial fishing groups have argued that if the spill is not increased greatly, salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act could face extinction....
Everglades oil buyout slammed in government inquiry Hailed by environmentalists as a rare act of conservation by the Bush administration, a deal to prevent oil drilling in the Everglades came under sharp attack Wednesday in a report by investigators at the Interior Department. The report, issued by the department's inspector general, said administration officials were so eager for a shot of good public relations that they were willing to meet almost any terms to buy out oil rights at Big Cypress National Preserve, a vast wilderness inhabited by panthers, manatees and other endangered species. Over the objections of career civil servants, who said the oil rights might be virtually worthless, administration officials agreed to pay the Collier family of southwest Florida $120 million to keep the family from undertaking a major oil exploration project at the preserve....
Groups Seek To Restore Wolverines In an effort to save one of the rarest wilderness wildlife species in the lower-48 states, four conservation groups today filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to consider new legal protections for the wolverine. "Everything we know about the wolverine tells us that this species is under siege from trapping in Montana and habitat disruption throughout its entire range," said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who is representing the groups in the lawsuit. "We shouldn't wait until the last few wolverines are trapped before we take action to protect this rare species."....
Law aims to head off water wars Gov. Bill Owens on Tuesday signed a measure intended to inspire collaboration instead of fresh ammunition in Colorado’s water wars. The measure is patterned after the successful effort of nearly a century ago that resulted in the Colorado River Compact, which divided the waters of the stream among seven states. The bill establishes nine roundtables in each of the state’s main river basins and the Denver metro area and a 27-member interbasin compact committee, which is made up of representatives selected by the roundtables and other selected by legislators and the governor....
Enthusiasts spend billions on boats; fish aren't so popular The National Marine ManufacturerÏs Association estimates that there are 17 million boats on America's waterways, and 69 million people who say they enjoy boating. In 2004, total retail expenditures on boating reached $33 billion, an 8 percent increase over 2003, according to NMMA research. Sales of after-market accessories led with $2.4 billion in sales, a 14 percent increase. Sales of boating accessories have doubled since 1997. Participation in fishing has declined by 4 percent since 1991, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This comes at a time when conservation efforts have improved many of the nation's rivers and lakes. This downturn could seriously affect fishing because fewer anglers translate into fewer dollars for resource-management activities such as hiring biologists, building boat ramps and funding fish-stocking programs....
LGBT group signs agreement with Dept. of Interior Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-owned businesses looking to secure vendor contracts with the Department of the Interior and its eight bureaus signed a groundbreaking agreement to increase their opportunities Wednesday afternoon. The memorandum of understanding (MOU), facilitated by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, aims to boost the agency's outreach efforts to small businesses owned and operated by the LGBT community, and to provide an increased exchange of information regarding program contract opportunities, officials said....
Sea Turtle Lights Spark Controvery Bay County law protects sea turtles and their hatchlings on the west end of Panama City Beach by regulating lights on the coast. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants the ordinance expanded to include the entire 25 miles of Bay County coastline, but some county commissioners say the policy could put people in danger. Bay County Commissioner Mike Thomas says he's gotten several complaints about the lack of lighting on the beach at night. Since May of 2003, special turtle-friendly lights have been installed along beachfront properties on the western five-mile stretch of Bay's coastline to promote more sea turtle hatchlings. Thomas says the ordinance is extreme and some of the lights should be turned back on....
House vote to end slaughter of horses for food The House voted Wednesday to stop the slaughter of American horses to feed diners in European and Asian nations where the meat is considered gourmet fare. The 269-158 vote on an amendment to a Department of Agriculture spending bill strips funding from the USDA to inspect any horse meat to be shipped overseas for consumption, effectively barring the sale of horse meat for human consumption. Roughly 65,000 wild horses, race horses, work horses and even pet horses are slaughtered every year in the United States to become steaks in other countries. Two plants in Texas and one in Illinois currently slaughter horses for foreign consumption....
Recent deaths on Rio Grande prompt discussions about safety Some river-rafting outfitters are reviewing their policies and government agencies are talking about more stringent training for river guides following the deaths of two rafters along the Rio Grande. Carol Whalen, 61, of Heber City, Utah, drowned Sunday after the raft she was riding in flipped on a section of the river between Pilar and Embudo. All seven passengers were thrown from the raft, including Whalen's sister, Joyce Kraut of Illinois. On Memorial Day, Airman 1st Class Jacob P. Hampson, 23, of Rochester, N.Y., drowned when the raft he was in capsized near Pilar....
House votes to postpone meat labeling The House voted Wednesday to block the government from requiring labels that would tell shoppers from what country their meat comes. Congress already had postponed the labeling from its original date of 2004 to September 2006. The House action would stop the Agriculture Department from spending money on the new requirement. The postponement was part of a $100 billion spending bill for food and farm programs in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The House passed the bill by 408-18 vote Wednesday. Western ranchers had counted on the labels to help sell their beef, Rep. Stephanie Herseth said. "Instead, the large meatpackers have rallied to kill this program because they don't want American consumers to discover how much meat in the grocery case is actually imported," said Herseth, D-S.D. Rep. Denny Rehberg, a rancher, said Texas cattle producers are fighting the labels because they do not want shoppers to know that the cattlemen buy cheap Mexican calves to fatten and sell in the U.S....
Murders end Florida's range wars The late Leon Thompson of Port Charlotte, a retired U.S. Marine sergeant major, was a survivor of the last range war: "I was 14 years old in February 1933 when my cousin Lincoln Whidden asked me to help him find and butcher a cow. The animal was part of Milton Norton's herd near Old Venus on the prairie east of Fort Ogden. "My father, Lorenzo, had a small sawmill house (rough, unpainted lumber) between Old Venus and Palmdale where he could keep an eye on his horses and cattle. "Those were tough days in the depth of the Great Depression. Men with hungry families might kill somebody else's range-cow to stay alive. ."Cattlemen understood rustling for food and never shot a hungry man — just warned him not to do it again or get shot next time....
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Wednesday, June 08, 2005
NEWS
Are Coyotes Becoming More Aggressive? For many people, hearing coyotes howl in the distance is a beautiful experience. But a face-to-face encounter with the predators can leave a different impression. Scientists say these adaptable animals could be becoming more aggressive and less fearful of humans—to the detriment of both species. Wildlife specialist Robert Timm, of the University of California's Hopland Research and Extension Center, has documented some 160 coyote attacks and dangerous incidents over the past 30 years in California alone. "There is an increasing problem with coyotes losing their fear of humans and becoming aggressive," Timm said. "We've seen any number of instances where they came into a fenced yard and killed a small dog or cat," he added. "And we've documented pets taken from a child's arms or off a leash when being walked."....
Lawmakers examine land conservation tax breaks The U.S. Senate Finance Committee took aim at tax deductions for land conservation easements in a staff study on Tuesday that recommends limits for smaller parcels and stricter procedures for them. Conservation easements restrict land use to prevent development and preserve ecosystems. Under federal tax laws, landowners that donate such easements to land conservation trusts can claim tax deductions on the resulting decrease in their land value. The easement donations are among the tax breaks for charitable contributions that Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, is reviewing as part of a major overhaul of laws governing charitable contributions. A day ahead of a hearing on the issue, the committee released a report on its two-year investigation into The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group. The committee's staff, in the report, found problems with valuing donated easements and with mechanisms for enforcing them in perpetuity. It also found potential for abuse in the conservancy's Conservation Buyer Program, under which the group buys land, adds easements and then sells the property to a third party. It found many of these transactions were with insiders or other parties that received significant tax counseling from the group....go here to view the committee report on The Nature Conservancy....
Emotional debate over West's wild horses is a literal turf battle They are revered as majestic, galloping icons of the American West – or reviled as starving, disfigured varmints that rob ranchers of their livelihood. Wild horses and burros are stirring emotional debate from Western rangelands to the halls of Congress after dozens of horses were slaughtered legally in April. Protections for the mustangs that might have prevented the slaughter were repealed in December, but now some in Congress are pushing a measure to reinstate those protections. The bill has passed the House and is headed to the Senate....
Column: The call of the wild If the government would open a “managed horse-hunting season,” all of these species would benefit. Animals of inferior genetic lines, within taxpayer owned horse herds, would be targeted because they are more susceptible to disease and contribute the most to colt death loss. I understand this “hunting” season would need a greater degree of management than, say, a white tail deer hunting season, but it would be not a lot unlike what is currently being done on ranch hunts for specific bull elk. The BLM continues to struggle with funding for the proper management of their horse herd and this results in neglect of these animals. Fees could be generated from willing hunters who would most likely pay up to $10,000 for the opportunity to hunt the genetically inferior stallions. This money could go toward proper management of the healthier animals. Additional benefits to the eco-system would be seen if this hunt were a consumptive use program. Since we don’t consume horsemeat in the United States, carnivores from wolves, bears and mountain lions to scavengers like the bald eagle could benefit. The successfully harvested horse carcasses could be properly placed for the benefit of countless creatures in nature. Wolf and bear populations would flourish and mountain lion numbers would continue to grow as would bald eagles, hawks and other meat eaters....
No increased protection for endangered onion Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday declined to heighten safeguards for land considered crucial to the survival of an endangered plant that grows only in western Riverside County, leaving protection for the Munz's onion mostly in county hands. The so-called habitat designation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only includes a small patch of the Cleveland National Forest where the plant grows, leaving out more than 1,000 acres of the plant's habitat in fast-growing western Riverside County....
Schweitzer says state can't assess forest roads Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the Bush administration Tuesday that Montana values the more than 6 million acres of roadless federal lands in the state but cannot afford to launch the in-depth analysis of the lands Bush has proposed. Schweitzer said at a press conference the state would need roughly $9 million and 500 of the more than 2,300 U.S. Forest Service employees in Montana to get the job done. "That would be a good place to start," he said. Schweitzer also sent a letter to President Bush on Tuesday further outlining his feelings about the administration's plan for federal roadless areas, which was unveiled in May. He also faulted the president for forcing states to again to assume what should be a federal responsibility. Mark Rey also said the administration's rule came in response to a Western Governors Association's resolution that requested more input on the fate of roadless areas. "If we're passing any bucks here, they're bucks the governors have been asking for," Rey said....
Rainbow Family looks for happier visit Many Rainbow Family members are anxious to return to West Virginia for the first time in 25 years so they can change the “energy” emitting from the murders of two women on their way to the counterculture group’s last Mountain State gathering. “One of the reasons I think people were hesitant to go back to West Virginia was the murder of those two girls,” said Karin Zirk, a Californian who has been speaking for the somewhat loosely organized group. The summer of 1980 was the first time the group — known as peace-loving hippie types — held its annual gathering in the East, and the two murders dominated news about the event. The brutal shooting deaths of Nancy Santomero, 19, of Huntington, N.Y., and Vicki Duran, 26, of Wellman, Iowa, have never been solved. The two women were found dead in Pocahontas County, last seen hitchhiking to the Rainbow Family Gathering at the Three Forks of Williams River....
Editorial: Environmental groups may be softening anti-industry stand But Forsgren told the Tribune he sees a ray of hope. He said several of the major environmental groups have accepted invitations to participate in drafting stewardship contracts that allow forest industries to participate in thinning operations under carefully controlled conditions. The contracts reduce taxpayer costs, speed the crucial thinning operations and protect the forests from unrestricted timber harvesting. We would like to see more such cooperative efforts and less obstructionism by environmental groups. We all should be able to agree on the common goals of healthy forests that are also accessible to the public. As Forsgren points out, closely supervised forest industry participation in the stewardship process is essential to reaching those goals quickly and economically....
Plan to Kill Bighorns to Protect Herds From Disease Protested California Fish and Game officials are proposing to kill endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep when they come in contact with domestic sheep believed to transmit highly contagious fatal diseases to the wild herds. "The ramifications of allowing potentially infected animals to travel back to native bighorn herds and spread disease could be far more disastrous to bighorn recovery than the loss of a single animal through lethal take," said a state Fish and Game notice of the proposed regulation published last month. Several environmental groups who saw the notice mounted protests this week, calling for the removal of domestic sheep from federal grazing lands in the rocky Eastern Sierra habitat of the bighorns....
Owens & Hurst ends mill operations; workers ponder options While environmental groups routinely maintain that the diminished timber program resulted from years of overcutting on the Kootenai, Radish rejects that claim entirely. If anything, he says, the Kootenai National Forest should be able to produce an adequate and entirely sustainable timber harvest, but it hasn't largely because of the efforts of environmental groups. Lum Owens, Hurst's partner, said the mill has been competitive in recent years, even when it was relying mostly on burned timber trucked hundreds of miles from Alberta. But that source of timber has dried up, and the mill's only realistic alternative is federal timber. Hurst says the mill is closing because there is little reason to believe that there will ever be a turnaround in timber sales on the Kootenai National Forest....
Scientists nudge fish closer to extinction Scientists trying to study the endangered Devils Hole pupfish near Death Valley inadvertently nudged the endangered fish closer to extinction. About 80 of the inch-long silvery pupfish died in traps set last year in Devils Hole, a limestone cavern about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists said Monday. The total killed could be a third or more of the adult fish left alive in the wild, officials told The Las Vegas Sun in a report Tuesday. "It was a very tragic occurrence, one that we never thought would happen," said Linda Greene, chief of resource management for Death Valley National Park. The traps, which were chained to the top of the hole, were designed to count young fish larva but instead trapped the adult pupfish....
Senate Democrat weighs in on fight over Kane signs A leading Democratic senator is pressing the Interior Department on its plan to deal with Kane County's defiant posting of road signs on federal lands around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and he could block a nominee to a top Interior post if he doesn't get answers. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a recent letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton that Kane County officials who posted road signs across federal lands are openly defying her department's land management authority....
Wrangling over access leads actor to sell ranch Rick Schroder’s Mesa Mood Ranch is for sale for $29 million and some people are interested in his spread on the Uncompahgre Plateau, the actor said. Schroder, who is embroiled in a legal battle with a neighbor, Ron Tipping, said the dispute played a part in his decision to put his ranch on the block. “All this unpleasantness has left, unfortunately, a bad taste in my mouth,” Schroder said Monday. He is, however, not giving up the fight and anticipated going through with court-ordered mediation before taking his dispute over access issues to trial. “I’m still going to defend myself in court and see that through,” he said....
Mont. to fight spread of noxious weeds They infest a portion of Montana the size of Florida and Arkansas combined, and go by names like tansy ragwort, yellow toadflax and houndstongue. One species, knapweed, takes an estimated $42 million economic toll on the state every year. Noxious weeds have invaded about 8.2 million acres of Montana and continue to spread, choking out valuable pasture, wildlife forage and native plants, forcing Montanans to spend about $19 million annually in a losing battle for control. State and federal officials announced a new campaign Tuesday to encourage landowners and other citizens to combine efforts in fighting the spread of weeds....
Plumas County reports horse with West Nile virus A Plumas County horse has tested positive for West Nile virus, the first equine case in California this year and the first equine case ever reported in Plumas County. Officials said the appearance of the virus in this rural county, which is in the northeast corner of the state, is cause for concern. The area does not have a vector control system like other areas of the state, and it lacks the news media that more urbanized areas use to educate the public about the insect-borne disease threat and ways to protect against infection. Plumas County, with a population of about 21,000 residents, has no local television stations and no daily newspapers. There are radio stations that some residents can pick up via satellite. The county has more than 100 lakes, 1,000 miles of rivers and streams and 1 million acres of national forest that are not treated to control mosquitoes. There are no accurate estimates of the county's equine population....
Column: River access disputes rise yet again Though Colorado river law allows boaters to float through private land as long as they don't touch the banks or bottom, the right to float is not hard and fast, and sometimes it enters "murky" territory. Court decisions and legislative acts have avoided declaring any of the state's rivers to be navigable or non-navigable. If they are navigable, public access must be allowed to the high-water line. Hibbard planned to introduce some federal definitions of navigability, which would eclipse state law. One definition is a river is navigable in law if it is navigable in fact. The Yampa, in fact, is divinely navigable. More important, waterways are deemed navigable under federal law if, historically, they have been used for commerce. Hibbard was prepared with photos showing a timber company floating logs down the Yampa in the early 1900s. The Routt County prosecutor saw storm clouds looming. So he dropped the trespassing charges, averting any arguments over navigability. Had the defense won, the Yampa could have become a springboard, opening rivers all over the state. From the trapping era to the present, which Colorado river has not been used for commerce?....
Real estate lingo for the New Westerner I'm a rancher, so almost every day some realtor explains how much money I could make if I sold the ranch. Developers are subdividing pastures nearby, and soon, it's true, I may not be able to afford ranching. So, I'm studying up on the new real estate lingo and -- in typical friendly Western fashion -- offer this handy dictionary for prospective New West landowners. Words, it turns out, don't always mean what they seem: Access: The county built the road past the ranch to the only scenic attraction (check one: ____scenic grove; ____pictograph rocks; ____lake) so idiots can drive SUVs past, dump their beverage cans and relieve themselves, using lots of toilet paper. Access limited in winter: If you get through the snow here with your SUV, a realtor might find your shriveled corpse next summer. Adventure: A mountain lion will eat your poodle the first time you put her outside. Then the lion will sit on your barbecue grill and stare through the window at your children....
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Are Coyotes Becoming More Aggressive? For many people, hearing coyotes howl in the distance is a beautiful experience. But a face-to-face encounter with the predators can leave a different impression. Scientists say these adaptable animals could be becoming more aggressive and less fearful of humans—to the detriment of both species. Wildlife specialist Robert Timm, of the University of California's Hopland Research and Extension Center, has documented some 160 coyote attacks and dangerous incidents over the past 30 years in California alone. "There is an increasing problem with coyotes losing their fear of humans and becoming aggressive," Timm said. "We've seen any number of instances where they came into a fenced yard and killed a small dog or cat," he added. "And we've documented pets taken from a child's arms or off a leash when being walked."....
Lawmakers examine land conservation tax breaks The U.S. Senate Finance Committee took aim at tax deductions for land conservation easements in a staff study on Tuesday that recommends limits for smaller parcels and stricter procedures for them. Conservation easements restrict land use to prevent development and preserve ecosystems. Under federal tax laws, landowners that donate such easements to land conservation trusts can claim tax deductions on the resulting decrease in their land value. The easement donations are among the tax breaks for charitable contributions that Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, is reviewing as part of a major overhaul of laws governing charitable contributions. A day ahead of a hearing on the issue, the committee released a report on its two-year investigation into The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group. The committee's staff, in the report, found problems with valuing donated easements and with mechanisms for enforcing them in perpetuity. It also found potential for abuse in the conservancy's Conservation Buyer Program, under which the group buys land, adds easements and then sells the property to a third party. It found many of these transactions were with insiders or other parties that received significant tax counseling from the group....go here to view the committee report on The Nature Conservancy....
Emotional debate over West's wild horses is a literal turf battle They are revered as majestic, galloping icons of the American West – or reviled as starving, disfigured varmints that rob ranchers of their livelihood. Wild horses and burros are stirring emotional debate from Western rangelands to the halls of Congress after dozens of horses were slaughtered legally in April. Protections for the mustangs that might have prevented the slaughter were repealed in December, but now some in Congress are pushing a measure to reinstate those protections. The bill has passed the House and is headed to the Senate....
Column: The call of the wild If the government would open a “managed horse-hunting season,” all of these species would benefit. Animals of inferior genetic lines, within taxpayer owned horse herds, would be targeted because they are more susceptible to disease and contribute the most to colt death loss. I understand this “hunting” season would need a greater degree of management than, say, a white tail deer hunting season, but it would be not a lot unlike what is currently being done on ranch hunts for specific bull elk. The BLM continues to struggle with funding for the proper management of their horse herd and this results in neglect of these animals. Fees could be generated from willing hunters who would most likely pay up to $10,000 for the opportunity to hunt the genetically inferior stallions. This money could go toward proper management of the healthier animals. Additional benefits to the eco-system would be seen if this hunt were a consumptive use program. Since we don’t consume horsemeat in the United States, carnivores from wolves, bears and mountain lions to scavengers like the bald eagle could benefit. The successfully harvested horse carcasses could be properly placed for the benefit of countless creatures in nature. Wolf and bear populations would flourish and mountain lion numbers would continue to grow as would bald eagles, hawks and other meat eaters....
No increased protection for endangered onion Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday declined to heighten safeguards for land considered crucial to the survival of an endangered plant that grows only in western Riverside County, leaving protection for the Munz's onion mostly in county hands. The so-called habitat designation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only includes a small patch of the Cleveland National Forest where the plant grows, leaving out more than 1,000 acres of the plant's habitat in fast-growing western Riverside County....
Schweitzer says state can't assess forest roads Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the Bush administration Tuesday that Montana values the more than 6 million acres of roadless federal lands in the state but cannot afford to launch the in-depth analysis of the lands Bush has proposed. Schweitzer said at a press conference the state would need roughly $9 million and 500 of the more than 2,300 U.S. Forest Service employees in Montana to get the job done. "That would be a good place to start," he said. Schweitzer also sent a letter to President Bush on Tuesday further outlining his feelings about the administration's plan for federal roadless areas, which was unveiled in May. He also faulted the president for forcing states to again to assume what should be a federal responsibility. Mark Rey also said the administration's rule came in response to a Western Governors Association's resolution that requested more input on the fate of roadless areas. "If we're passing any bucks here, they're bucks the governors have been asking for," Rey said....
Rainbow Family looks for happier visit Many Rainbow Family members are anxious to return to West Virginia for the first time in 25 years so they can change the “energy” emitting from the murders of two women on their way to the counterculture group’s last Mountain State gathering. “One of the reasons I think people were hesitant to go back to West Virginia was the murder of those two girls,” said Karin Zirk, a Californian who has been speaking for the somewhat loosely organized group. The summer of 1980 was the first time the group — known as peace-loving hippie types — held its annual gathering in the East, and the two murders dominated news about the event. The brutal shooting deaths of Nancy Santomero, 19, of Huntington, N.Y., and Vicki Duran, 26, of Wellman, Iowa, have never been solved. The two women were found dead in Pocahontas County, last seen hitchhiking to the Rainbow Family Gathering at the Three Forks of Williams River....
Editorial: Environmental groups may be softening anti-industry stand But Forsgren told the Tribune he sees a ray of hope. He said several of the major environmental groups have accepted invitations to participate in drafting stewardship contracts that allow forest industries to participate in thinning operations under carefully controlled conditions. The contracts reduce taxpayer costs, speed the crucial thinning operations and protect the forests from unrestricted timber harvesting. We would like to see more such cooperative efforts and less obstructionism by environmental groups. We all should be able to agree on the common goals of healthy forests that are also accessible to the public. As Forsgren points out, closely supervised forest industry participation in the stewardship process is essential to reaching those goals quickly and economically....
Plan to Kill Bighorns to Protect Herds From Disease Protested California Fish and Game officials are proposing to kill endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep when they come in contact with domestic sheep believed to transmit highly contagious fatal diseases to the wild herds. "The ramifications of allowing potentially infected animals to travel back to native bighorn herds and spread disease could be far more disastrous to bighorn recovery than the loss of a single animal through lethal take," said a state Fish and Game notice of the proposed regulation published last month. Several environmental groups who saw the notice mounted protests this week, calling for the removal of domestic sheep from federal grazing lands in the rocky Eastern Sierra habitat of the bighorns....
Owens & Hurst ends mill operations; workers ponder options While environmental groups routinely maintain that the diminished timber program resulted from years of overcutting on the Kootenai, Radish rejects that claim entirely. If anything, he says, the Kootenai National Forest should be able to produce an adequate and entirely sustainable timber harvest, but it hasn't largely because of the efforts of environmental groups. Lum Owens, Hurst's partner, said the mill has been competitive in recent years, even when it was relying mostly on burned timber trucked hundreds of miles from Alberta. But that source of timber has dried up, and the mill's only realistic alternative is federal timber. Hurst says the mill is closing because there is little reason to believe that there will ever be a turnaround in timber sales on the Kootenai National Forest....
Scientists nudge fish closer to extinction Scientists trying to study the endangered Devils Hole pupfish near Death Valley inadvertently nudged the endangered fish closer to extinction. About 80 of the inch-long silvery pupfish died in traps set last year in Devils Hole, a limestone cavern about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists said Monday. The total killed could be a third or more of the adult fish left alive in the wild, officials told The Las Vegas Sun in a report Tuesday. "It was a very tragic occurrence, one that we never thought would happen," said Linda Greene, chief of resource management for Death Valley National Park. The traps, which were chained to the top of the hole, were designed to count young fish larva but instead trapped the adult pupfish....
Senate Democrat weighs in on fight over Kane signs A leading Democratic senator is pressing the Interior Department on its plan to deal with Kane County's defiant posting of road signs on federal lands around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and he could block a nominee to a top Interior post if he doesn't get answers. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a recent letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton that Kane County officials who posted road signs across federal lands are openly defying her department's land management authority....
Wrangling over access leads actor to sell ranch Rick Schroder’s Mesa Mood Ranch is for sale for $29 million and some people are interested in his spread on the Uncompahgre Plateau, the actor said. Schroder, who is embroiled in a legal battle with a neighbor, Ron Tipping, said the dispute played a part in his decision to put his ranch on the block. “All this unpleasantness has left, unfortunately, a bad taste in my mouth,” Schroder said Monday. He is, however, not giving up the fight and anticipated going through with court-ordered mediation before taking his dispute over access issues to trial. “I’m still going to defend myself in court and see that through,” he said....
Mont. to fight spread of noxious weeds They infest a portion of Montana the size of Florida and Arkansas combined, and go by names like tansy ragwort, yellow toadflax and houndstongue. One species, knapweed, takes an estimated $42 million economic toll on the state every year. Noxious weeds have invaded about 8.2 million acres of Montana and continue to spread, choking out valuable pasture, wildlife forage and native plants, forcing Montanans to spend about $19 million annually in a losing battle for control. State and federal officials announced a new campaign Tuesday to encourage landowners and other citizens to combine efforts in fighting the spread of weeds....
Plumas County reports horse with West Nile virus A Plumas County horse has tested positive for West Nile virus, the first equine case in California this year and the first equine case ever reported in Plumas County. Officials said the appearance of the virus in this rural county, which is in the northeast corner of the state, is cause for concern. The area does not have a vector control system like other areas of the state, and it lacks the news media that more urbanized areas use to educate the public about the insect-borne disease threat and ways to protect against infection. Plumas County, with a population of about 21,000 residents, has no local television stations and no daily newspapers. There are radio stations that some residents can pick up via satellite. The county has more than 100 lakes, 1,000 miles of rivers and streams and 1 million acres of national forest that are not treated to control mosquitoes. There are no accurate estimates of the county's equine population....
Column: River access disputes rise yet again Though Colorado river law allows boaters to float through private land as long as they don't touch the banks or bottom, the right to float is not hard and fast, and sometimes it enters "murky" territory. Court decisions and legislative acts have avoided declaring any of the state's rivers to be navigable or non-navigable. If they are navigable, public access must be allowed to the high-water line. Hibbard planned to introduce some federal definitions of navigability, which would eclipse state law. One definition is a river is navigable in law if it is navigable in fact. The Yampa, in fact, is divinely navigable. More important, waterways are deemed navigable under federal law if, historically, they have been used for commerce. Hibbard was prepared with photos showing a timber company floating logs down the Yampa in the early 1900s. The Routt County prosecutor saw storm clouds looming. So he dropped the trespassing charges, averting any arguments over navigability. Had the defense won, the Yampa could have become a springboard, opening rivers all over the state. From the trapping era to the present, which Colorado river has not been used for commerce?....
Real estate lingo for the New Westerner I'm a rancher, so almost every day some realtor explains how much money I could make if I sold the ranch. Developers are subdividing pastures nearby, and soon, it's true, I may not be able to afford ranching. So, I'm studying up on the new real estate lingo and -- in typical friendly Western fashion -- offer this handy dictionary for prospective New West landowners. Words, it turns out, don't always mean what they seem: Access: The county built the road past the ranch to the only scenic attraction (check one: ____scenic grove; ____pictograph rocks; ____lake) so idiots can drive SUVs past, dump their beverage cans and relieve themselves, using lots of toilet paper. Access limited in winter: If you get through the snow here with your SUV, a realtor might find your shriveled corpse next summer. Adventure: A mountain lion will eat your poodle the first time you put her outside. Then the lion will sit on your barbecue grill and stare through the window at your children....
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Tuesday, June 07, 2005
GAO REPORT
National Park Service: Revenues Could Increase by Charging Allowed Fees for Some Special Use Permits. GAO-05-410, May 6. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-410
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05410high.pdf
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National Park Service: Revenues Could Increase by Charging Allowed Fees for Some Special Use Permits. GAO-05-410, May 6. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-410
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05410high.pdf
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NEWS
Cattle doing enviro-duty Cows, once considered a menace to the planet by environmentalists, are being credited with bringing back the wildflowers and native grasses at the 535-acre Bouverie Preserve in the Sonoma Valley. Cows simply do what cows do best: eat. They graze on the invasive non-native grasses so that native grasses and wildflowers can thrive. Cattle find non-native grasses like wild oats and rye grass more palatable than the native plants. Like kids, they eat the good stuff first. Grazing has helped native wildflowers such as meadowfoam and mule-eared sunflowers prosper at Bouverie. "Cows are a perfect management tool here. When you have highly productive coastal grasslands with strong competition from imported European grasses you need a herbivore to level the playing field," said biologist Daniel Gluesenkamp....
Board delays Montana CBM water restrictions A decision on whether the state should consider new restrictions on what can be done with water pumped from coal-bed methane wells will not be made until late July. The state Board of Environmental Review unanimously decided Friday to delay until its July 29 meeting any action on new regulations proposed by a coalition of conservation and ranching interests from southeastern Montana. Members said they wanted more time to study the proposal that surfaced just 2.5 weeks ago. The Northern Plains Resource Council, along with 15 other groups and ranchers, want requirements that water removed from the wells to be pumped back into the ground to replenish aquifers or, if that is not technically possible, to be treated before being discharged into rivers or streams for irrigation....
A water watchdog Dogged persistence and years devoted to the study of arcane, century-old water law have made Russell one of the most formidable environmental lawyers in the Northwest. Admirers consider her a "pit bull" fighting for the preservation of Oregon's beloved rivers. Detractors, who are in no short supply, say her legal exploits are overzealous and misguided, doing little to restore rivers while costing people jobs and opportunity. For better or worse, Russell and her scrappy little nonprofit are changing how Oregon uses its limited and all-important water....
Rancher weaves barbed wire into folk art It's amazing what you can do with a few miles of barbed wire -- besides build a fence, that is. Don Berry sculpted statutes of buffalo and bears out of material found on his property, mostly barbed wire. The folk art figures that are sentinels at the Berrys' ranch 20 miles north of Cheyenne on the Torrington highway include a bison, two bears and a bear cub. The sculptures represent about 700 hours of work and patience....
It's All Trew: Tagging vehicles has colorful history The idea of requiring automobile identification numbers originated in New York State in 1901. With a fee imposed, it became a license. The term tags originated in Michigan in 1905 when vehicle owners received small, aluminum, numbered discs the size of a silver dollar. A Vehicle Registration Act was adopted by the Texas Legislature on August 10, 1907. Cost was 50 cents with the vehicle owner responsible for constructing and installing the plate. Most license plates were made of leather with house numbers riveted to the surface....
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Cattle doing enviro-duty Cows, once considered a menace to the planet by environmentalists, are being credited with bringing back the wildflowers and native grasses at the 535-acre Bouverie Preserve in the Sonoma Valley. Cows simply do what cows do best: eat. They graze on the invasive non-native grasses so that native grasses and wildflowers can thrive. Cattle find non-native grasses like wild oats and rye grass more palatable than the native plants. Like kids, they eat the good stuff first. Grazing has helped native wildflowers such as meadowfoam and mule-eared sunflowers prosper at Bouverie. "Cows are a perfect management tool here. When you have highly productive coastal grasslands with strong competition from imported European grasses you need a herbivore to level the playing field," said biologist Daniel Gluesenkamp....
Board delays Montana CBM water restrictions A decision on whether the state should consider new restrictions on what can be done with water pumped from coal-bed methane wells will not be made until late July. The state Board of Environmental Review unanimously decided Friday to delay until its July 29 meeting any action on new regulations proposed by a coalition of conservation and ranching interests from southeastern Montana. Members said they wanted more time to study the proposal that surfaced just 2.5 weeks ago. The Northern Plains Resource Council, along with 15 other groups and ranchers, want requirements that water removed from the wells to be pumped back into the ground to replenish aquifers or, if that is not technically possible, to be treated before being discharged into rivers or streams for irrigation....
A water watchdog Dogged persistence and years devoted to the study of arcane, century-old water law have made Russell one of the most formidable environmental lawyers in the Northwest. Admirers consider her a "pit bull" fighting for the preservation of Oregon's beloved rivers. Detractors, who are in no short supply, say her legal exploits are overzealous and misguided, doing little to restore rivers while costing people jobs and opportunity. For better or worse, Russell and her scrappy little nonprofit are changing how Oregon uses its limited and all-important water....
Rancher weaves barbed wire into folk art It's amazing what you can do with a few miles of barbed wire -- besides build a fence, that is. Don Berry sculpted statutes of buffalo and bears out of material found on his property, mostly barbed wire. The folk art figures that are sentinels at the Berrys' ranch 20 miles north of Cheyenne on the Torrington highway include a bison, two bears and a bear cub. The sculptures represent about 700 hours of work and patience....
It's All Trew: Tagging vehicles has colorful history The idea of requiring automobile identification numbers originated in New York State in 1901. With a fee imposed, it became a license. The term tags originated in Michigan in 1905 when vehicle owners received small, aluminum, numbered discs the size of a silver dollar. A Vehicle Registration Act was adopted by the Texas Legislature on August 10, 1907. Cost was 50 cents with the vehicle owner responsible for constructing and installing the plate. Most license plates were made of leather with house numbers riveted to the surface....
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Monday, June 06, 2005
NEW ISSUE TO BE COVERED BY THE WESTERNER
Having been born into a family involved in law enforcement, I have always tended to side with and defend the law enforcement community on various issues. My involvement with the Kit Laney case and the abuses I witnessed have caused me to re-think that stand and left me with many questions about that case.
Some of the questions I have concerning the law enforcement angle of this case are the following:
1. Who made the decision to send 16 Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers into this small community to handle the gathering of livestock on one ranch? What was their rationale for sending this large contingent and were the helicopter and dogs really necessary for this operation?
2. Why did the head Forest Service law enforcement official for this area refuse to participate in the operation?
3. Under what legal authority did the Forest Service close non-Forest Service roads and either not allow or delay local citizens from entering their own property? Were these Forest Service personnel acting as employees or officers and when did Congress grant them general law enforcement authority? Congressman Steve Pearce wrote to the Inspector General of USDA requesting an investigation. In his request, Congressman Pearce noted “the fact that there have been numerous other complaints, including harassment of Laney relatives and other ranchers, questionable or illegal road closures and requirement of permits for individuals to enter private property adds to the perception that a concerted effort is being made to drive law abiding New Mexicans from their homes and livelihoods.” Is the IG following through on this investigation?
4. The Sheriff of Catron County issued a statement saying he would enforce state livestock laws. He was then visited by two FBI agents. Who requested the FBI “visit” with the Sheriff and what did they tell the Sheriff?
5. No sales barns in New Mexico would accept the Laney cattle. Did the FBI contact the sales barns and ask if they had been threatened by Mr. Laney and, if so, who requested the FBI do this?
6. My final question involves a person whom I’ve admired for several years, Mr. David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney. Why was he so adamant in keeping Kit Laney in jail, and why did he fight so hard in so many instances to keep him from being released on his own recognizance?
In the general time frame of the Laney arrest, an Albuquerque man was arrested and charged for putting a steel wire across a public trail and causing injury to at least one person. Yet the U.S. attorney allowed him to be released. One can only conclude that if you are a threat to the general public, the U.S. Attorney will allow you to be released, but if you are a perceived threat solely to the Forest Service, he will fight tooth and nail to keep you behind bars.
My weblog has posted stories on two other events occurring in other jurisdictions since the Laney arrest. In one instance, a BLM Ranger was hit by a person driving an ATV, and in another, a person pulled a gun on a Park ranger. In both instances, the U.S. Attorneys allowed them to be released. I guess New Mexico’s U.S. Attorney believes spurs and reins are more dangerous than ATVs and guns.
It appears one of two things has occurred. Either Mr. Iglesias has turned on those New Mexicans who have supported his run for elected office and supported his appointment to his current position, or he has caved in to pressure from the Forest Service to make an example of Kit Laney. I can’t believe it’s the first scenario, and the second is certainly not an instance of dispensing “justice”.
In any event, it has become clear to me that people in the West must take an interest in Federal law enforcement. While my primary interest would be in the activities of personnel from EPA, USFS, BLM, USFWS, NPS, etc., I will cover all issues, actions, regulations and legislation impacting Federal law enforcement. These articles will be separated from the others with the heading FLE so they can be skipped over by those not interested. However, I hope you will join me in keeping tabs on these folks and the impact they may have on all Westerners.
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Having been born into a family involved in law enforcement, I have always tended to side with and defend the law enforcement community on various issues. My involvement with the Kit Laney case and the abuses I witnessed have caused me to re-think that stand and left me with many questions about that case.
Some of the questions I have concerning the law enforcement angle of this case are the following:
1. Who made the decision to send 16 Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers into this small community to handle the gathering of livestock on one ranch? What was their rationale for sending this large contingent and were the helicopter and dogs really necessary for this operation?
2. Why did the head Forest Service law enforcement official for this area refuse to participate in the operation?
3. Under what legal authority did the Forest Service close non-Forest Service roads and either not allow or delay local citizens from entering their own property? Were these Forest Service personnel acting as employees or officers and when did Congress grant them general law enforcement authority? Congressman Steve Pearce wrote to the Inspector General of USDA requesting an investigation. In his request, Congressman Pearce noted “the fact that there have been numerous other complaints, including harassment of Laney relatives and other ranchers, questionable or illegal road closures and requirement of permits for individuals to enter private property adds to the perception that a concerted effort is being made to drive law abiding New Mexicans from their homes and livelihoods.” Is the IG following through on this investigation?
4. The Sheriff of Catron County issued a statement saying he would enforce state livestock laws. He was then visited by two FBI agents. Who requested the FBI “visit” with the Sheriff and what did they tell the Sheriff?
5. No sales barns in New Mexico would accept the Laney cattle. Did the FBI contact the sales barns and ask if they had been threatened by Mr. Laney and, if so, who requested the FBI do this?
6. My final question involves a person whom I’ve admired for several years, Mr. David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney. Why was he so adamant in keeping Kit Laney in jail, and why did he fight so hard in so many instances to keep him from being released on his own recognizance?
In the general time frame of the Laney arrest, an Albuquerque man was arrested and charged for putting a steel wire across a public trail and causing injury to at least one person. Yet the U.S. attorney allowed him to be released. One can only conclude that if you are a threat to the general public, the U.S. Attorney will allow you to be released, but if you are a perceived threat solely to the Forest Service, he will fight tooth and nail to keep you behind bars.
My weblog has posted stories on two other events occurring in other jurisdictions since the Laney arrest. In one instance, a BLM Ranger was hit by a person driving an ATV, and in another, a person pulled a gun on a Park ranger. In both instances, the U.S. Attorneys allowed them to be released. I guess New Mexico’s U.S. Attorney believes spurs and reins are more dangerous than ATVs and guns.
It appears one of two things has occurred. Either Mr. Iglesias has turned on those New Mexicans who have supported his run for elected office and supported his appointment to his current position, or he has caved in to pressure from the Forest Service to make an example of Kit Laney. I can’t believe it’s the first scenario, and the second is certainly not an instance of dispensing “justice”.
In any event, it has become clear to me that people in the West must take an interest in Federal law enforcement. While my primary interest would be in the activities of personnel from EPA, USFS, BLM, USFWS, NPS, etc., I will cover all issues, actions, regulations and legislation impacting Federal law enforcement. These articles will be separated from the others with the heading FLE so they can be skipped over by those not interested. However, I hope you will join me in keeping tabs on these folks and the impact they may have on all Westerners.
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FLE
EPA's Ruby Ridge of the Blue Ridge In 2001, "60 Minutes" ran a report on the EPA CID. In traditional muckraking style, they chronicled the ordeals of Steve McNabb and a Massachusetts plant owner, Jim Knott, with a similar story. Knott’s wire manufacturing plant was raided at about the same time as American Carolina Stamping. Jim Knott was criminally indicted by the EPA CID for water ph levels emitted from his plant. However, during the trial an FBI forgery analyst testified that CID agents had falsified the incriminating documents. The federal judge ruled in Knott's favor. During the raid, McNabb, his wife, and his son were threatened with prison sentences. When McNabb demanded to use his tape recorder, agents pulled their weapons on him, handcuffed him, and stood him outside while they searched his office. They also searched Jay McNabb’s house, which is on the factory’s property, without a search warrant. McNabb later contested this in court, but a judge ruled that Steve McNabb’s belligerent behavior after he was denied the tape recorder gave agents sufficient cause to fear for their own personal safety....
Federal ID Act May Be Flawed A federal law designed to make it harder to assume someone else's identity may instead have the opposite effect, critics of the measure say. The Real ID Act, attached to a crucial bill for military spending and tsunami relief that was signed by President Bush on May 11, sets new rules for issuing driver's licenses and requires states to share electronic access to their records. The standards are intended to weed out impostors applying for licenses, in part by requiring state employees to check on the validity of birth certificates and other supporting documents. After states adopt the necessary changes, anyone applying for or renewing a license will get one reflecting the new standards. But once the law takes full effect three years from now, it will also give many more bureaucrats access to personal information on people nationwide. And it will add more data to each file — including digital copies of documents with birth and address information. To some industry experts and activists concerned about the fast-growing crime of identity theft, putting so much data before more eyes guarantees abuse at a time when people are increasingly concerned about who sees their personal information and how it gets used....
You've Been Drafted: Uncle Sam Wants You for the War on Drugs We alerted you last week to the bill, entitled "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005" (H.R. 1528). We already told you about many of the terrible provisions in this legislation, but we are especially concerned about a section of the bill that turns every American into an agent of the state. Here's how it works: If you "witness" certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" that they took place you would have to report the offense to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance" in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory two year prison sentence....
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EPA's Ruby Ridge of the Blue Ridge In 2001, "60 Minutes" ran a report on the EPA CID. In traditional muckraking style, they chronicled the ordeals of Steve McNabb and a Massachusetts plant owner, Jim Knott, with a similar story. Knott’s wire manufacturing plant was raided at about the same time as American Carolina Stamping. Jim Knott was criminally indicted by the EPA CID for water ph levels emitted from his plant. However, during the trial an FBI forgery analyst testified that CID agents had falsified the incriminating documents. The federal judge ruled in Knott's favor. During the raid, McNabb, his wife, and his son were threatened with prison sentences. When McNabb demanded to use his tape recorder, agents pulled their weapons on him, handcuffed him, and stood him outside while they searched his office. They also searched Jay McNabb’s house, which is on the factory’s property, without a search warrant. McNabb later contested this in court, but a judge ruled that Steve McNabb’s belligerent behavior after he was denied the tape recorder gave agents sufficient cause to fear for their own personal safety....
Federal ID Act May Be Flawed A federal law designed to make it harder to assume someone else's identity may instead have the opposite effect, critics of the measure say. The Real ID Act, attached to a crucial bill for military spending and tsunami relief that was signed by President Bush on May 11, sets new rules for issuing driver's licenses and requires states to share electronic access to their records. The standards are intended to weed out impostors applying for licenses, in part by requiring state employees to check on the validity of birth certificates and other supporting documents. After states adopt the necessary changes, anyone applying for or renewing a license will get one reflecting the new standards. But once the law takes full effect three years from now, it will also give many more bureaucrats access to personal information on people nationwide. And it will add more data to each file — including digital copies of documents with birth and address information. To some industry experts and activists concerned about the fast-growing crime of identity theft, putting so much data before more eyes guarantees abuse at a time when people are increasingly concerned about who sees their personal information and how it gets used....
You've Been Drafted: Uncle Sam Wants You for the War on Drugs We alerted you last week to the bill, entitled "Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005" (H.R. 1528). We already told you about many of the terrible provisions in this legislation, but we are especially concerned about a section of the bill that turns every American into an agent of the state. Here's how it works: If you "witness" certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" that they took place you would have to report the offense to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance" in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory two year prison sentence....
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NEWS
Into a new mineral paradigm The days of the kitchen-table handshake between the oil company and the rancher are over. Beginning July 1, a handshake is no good unless it's documented under Wyoming's new "Split Estates Procedures for Oil and Gas Operations" law. "Senate File 60 puts both sides in an environment where they have to document every communication," said Joe Icenogle, spokesman for Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. Icenogle spoke as a panelist in a split-estate forum here Friday at the CBM Education Fair. Under pressure from growing energy development across the state, Wyoming lawmakers earlier this year passed Senate File 60 -- the Legislature's third and successful attempt at a split-estate law. Its aim is to ensure reasonable notice and compensation to surface owners who don't own the minerals below their property, but host drilling and production activities on their surface. Landowners had argued they needed more leverage in striking reasonable "surface use" agreements with oil and gas companies because they can't refuse access to the mineral lessee under Wyoming statute. Now, the new law requires a good-faith attempt for both sides to strike a surface use agreement, and that it contain compensation for "loss of land value."....
Fish role eyed in coal-bed methane debate Ever since developers learned how to tap coal seams in the Powder River Basin for natural gas, they've struggled with what to do with the brackish groundwater that comes out first. A fish may be the answer. Water is being pumped from coal-bed methane wells in rural, northern Wyoming to John Woiwode's tilapia farm in an area where cattle roam. About 1,300 of the small, pink fish now delight in the water - flipping, flopping and pooping in it. It's the squiggles of poop that interest researchers like Woiwode, and whether that waste could help make the water into a more usable asset instead of a pollutant....
Colo. basks in region's oil-gas boom Federal oil and gas leasing revenues rose 22 percent for Colorado and three neighboring states to more than $1.1 billion in 2004, according to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management report. Colorado had the largest percentage jump in royalties, 41 percent, to $89 million, mainly due to increased drilling in the Piceance Basin in the western part of the state. Wyoming received more than $600 million in federal payments in 2004, New Mexico about $383 million and Utah about $73 million, according to the BLM report released in May....
Drilling ignites battle over Western paradise Near the entrance of a pristine national forest area called the Valle Vidal, or "valley of life," a Halliburton tanker truck rumbles past a huge crater among the sculpted sandstone cliffs, herds of elk and ponderosa pines. It's a blasted circle, two acres wide, around a pit of foul-smelling water, a heap of shattered stone and a hissing 20-foot-tall pump sucking methane gas from the earth. The truck contains yet another shipment of liquid nitrogen, which will be injected into the ground at extreme pressure to crack more rock and release more gas. This jarring intrusion of industry into wilderness is increasingly common on public lands across the West, evidence of the rising number of gas and oil drilling permits approved by the Bush administration. Six years ago, 1,639 such permits on federal land were approved. Last year, the administration granted more than three times that number, 6,052....
Living with grizzlies For Michelle Sauerwein, living in grizzly bear country has changed in the last five years. The Wapiti resident has seen bears trapped on her front lawn, and she spent at least four hours on her barn roof to avoid a grizzly sow with cubs. Sauerwein did this as her infant slept in the main house, with no supervision. "Everything is more complicated, to hold this balance of living in a happy medium with these bears," she said. Sauerwein, and about 15 other residents of Wapiti and rural Park County, all had similar messages to send to state legislators and county commissioners gathered here last week for a tour of grizzly bear country....
Anger Piqued Beneath a Peak Three years ago, avid hiker Jim Walters made his first 11-mile, lung-busting trek to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. "You see … azure blue water and snow … the play of the clouds and the distant mountains and forests," recalled the 59-year-old medical ethics professor from Claremont. "It is just spectacular." But now Walters, who describes himself as a longtime Sierra Club member and a dedicated conservationist, wants to develop a 74-acre luxury housing subdivision below the jagged gray 14,494-foot peak and amid the brown, boulder-strewn hills used for countless Hollywood movie shoots. Walters stands to make several million dollars from the venture, although he is making himself anathema to fellow environmentalists in the process. "I see myself as a tree hugger, but there are those who hug the trees more tightly than do I. And [they] do not want to see any development," he said....
Federal judge declines to stop timber sale near Lewis and Clark Trail A federal judge has refused to stop the Wendover Fire Salvage Project, a timber sale near the trail used by Lewis and Clark 200 years ago on their historic trek to the Pacific Ocean. A coalition of environmental groups filed suit in U.S. District Court last week, contending the Forest Service's plan failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal regulations and that the agency was cutting down healthy trees as well as those killed or damaged by fire. But Judge Edward Lodge ruled Friday that the Forest Service adequately reviewed the project before it began cutting the trees on 117 acres in the Clearwater National Forest in northern Idaho. He cited a memo the agency released in March after public comment hearings....
No end to this Rainbow After three months sitting in prison, barred from fresh air and the sun’s rays, Barry Adams prefers to hold his interview in a patch of sunshine in his backyard. He’s happy to be back in Missoula, to once again take on obligations like fixing the lawnmower and caring for his daughter. He was sprung May 20 from a federal prison in Seattle after serving 90 days and paying a $500 fine for “unauthorized use of National Forests systems land without authorization when such authorization is required.” The charge stems from the 2000 Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering that drew 36,000 people to southwestern Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Adams, now 59, was accused of being a leader of the Rainbows after he applied for personal use of national forest land and attended the gathering after his application was denied. He explains that the feds insist Rainbows are an organized group, and there must be leaders, but that’s not how it works....
Wildflower on Development Site Prompts Criminal Investigation Opponents of a controversial housing project turned an endangered wild flower into a weapon to block construction on a site that borders a wetlands area, according to investigators with the state's Fish and Game department. Robert Evans, an opponent of the Laguna Vista housing development in Sebastopol reported finding specimens of the rare Sebastopol meadowfoam on the development site in April. Investigators determined that the 30 flowers did not grow on the site but had been transplanted. "The location of the plants, the type of clusters that were found, the fact that they were on sloping areas that normally this type of plant is not found on, gave us the first indication," Fish and Game's Troy Swauger told KCBS reporter Larry Chiaroni. "To find this on a development site at this point indicates to us that they have been transplanted. We're considering this a criminal act."....
Suit challenges fishing season cut A California-based legal foundation filed a lawsuit in Eugene Friday on behalf of two Oregon fishermen's associations, charging that the federal government broke the law when it cut the commercial fishing season for chinook salmon in half. The Pacific Legal Foundation alleged that the National Marine Fisheries Service wrongly distinguished between naturally spawning and hatchery chinook salmon and failed to consider the "severe economic and safety impacts" of a shortened trolling season on coastal fishing communities. A spokesman for the state's largest advocacy group for fishermen criticized the lawsuit, however, saying the shortened season is necessary to protect the struggling Klamath chinook, which intermingle "all up and down the coast."....
Visitor center to highlight Grand Staircase wildlife The birds and the bees and other wildlife, vegetation and even microscopic organisms are the theme of the newest visitor center connected with the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that opens to the public Saturday. Located in the tiny town of Escalante in southern Utah, the new facility - constructed with a liberal use of glass and jagged stones from the surrounding area - is dedicated to the biology and ecology of the monument spread over 1.9 million acres of rugged and isolated terrain in Garfield and Kane counties....
Democrats put Pombo on their list Democratic leaders, looking for districts they think they can win in 2006 to regain control of the House after a dozen years, are eyeing the seat of the lone Republican in the Democratic-dominated Bay Area -- powerful Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy. Pombo, a rancher first elected in 1992 whose district straddles the Altamont Pass, was one of 12 Republican House members targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over the Memorial Day weekend with radio ads. Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee, is a strong GOP fund- raiser, based on his advocacy of property owners' rights and his criticism of the Endangered Species Act, which he calls a runaway train that values preservation of animal and vegetation species habitats over people....
Groups reach $134 million agreement for recovering salmon After three years, a group of residents, farmers, environmentalists, tribal members and government officials has agreed on a $134 million plan for helping salmon runs recover in the Snohomish River Basin. The 38-member Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Forum on Thursday unanimously adopted a plan aimed at restoring chinook salmon and bull trout populations. Both species are listed as threatened in the Puget Sound region under the Endangered Species Act. The idea of the Snohomish River plan is to improve specific habitats on the river's tributaries, on the main river, in the delta and along the shores of Possession Sound near the mouth of the river, Martha Neuman, a senior planner for Snohomish County, told The Herald of Everett. The group expects to raise the money needed through a variety of state, federal and other grant programs....
Complexity in Ecology and Conservation: Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Challenges Creative approaches at the interface of ecology, statistics, mathematics, informatics, and computational science are essential for improving our understanding of complex ecological systems. For example, new information technologies, including powerful computers, spatially embedded sensor networks, and Semantic Web tools, are emerging as potentially revolutionary tools for studying ecological phenomena. These technologies can play an important role in developing and testing detailed models that describe real-world systems at multiple scales. Key challenges include choosing the appropriate level of model complexity necessary for understanding biological patterns across space and time, and applying this understanding to solve problems in conservation biology and resource management....
Bison ranch owners swap animal tales Pia opened doors and jumped on beds at the Red Canyon Ranch outside of Thermopolis. Then she gained 500 pounds. "We had moon-shaped hoof marks torn into the mattress," said Kathleen Gear of her "bottle baby" bison. Pia became imprinted with the Gears as a calf. Now, at more than 1,000 pounds, Pia still likes to be petted, even while nursing a calf of her own. Leggs - otherwise known as 'Earl the Girl' - is another imprint case. She had trouble walking after birth and couldn't nurse with her mother. Lyman rancher Rex Snyder bottle-fed the bison, and now he has the equivalent of a 900-pound puppy dog. "She runs alongside the pickup," Snyder said. "She follows me everywhere. She's been kicked out of the Marriott twice."....
Two American idols who put a little wild in the West Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America; Larry McMurtry; Simon & Schuster: 246 pp., $26. Novelist, essayist and screenwriter McMurtry (author of "Lonesome Dove," "Terms of Endearment," "The Last Picture Show," "Streets of Laredo" and "Texasville," to name just a handful) is one of our ablest and most amiable chroniclers of the American West. As a shrewd observer of the American scene, he also takes a keen interest in the phenomenon of celebrity. So it's not surprising to find him in this book combining his two interests as he revisits and reconsiders what is known about the lives of these two early "superstars." The Colonel and Little Missie were certainly not a couple, and indeed don't even seem to have had an especially close professional relationship: The term that best seems to characterize their association would be mutual respect. Both had grown up poor — virtually destitute in her case; a more ordinary mix of hard times and better in his. Both had learned to kill game and sell meat to support themselves and their families....
Mariposa Wagon Train rides again The 30th anniversary of the Mariposa County Pioneer Wagon Train is set for June 8 through 11. Every second weekend in June for the past 29 years, men, women, children, mules and horses have headed out on a 32-mile adventure. The train begins near the south entrance to Yosemite National Park, proceeds over the Sierra Nevada and finally circles up at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds for an evening of cowboy poetry, dinner and dancing. The trek is open to mule- and horse-drawn vehicles, mounted riders and walkers, and period dress is encouraged....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: The long shot holds soft spot in our hearts But would I have cheered Giacomo down the home stretch? Would I have shredded my program in the excitement? Would I have felt that primal, goose-bumpy surge well up from deep inside as he crossed the finish line? Would I have experienced innocent, emotional, unprotected, unexpected joy for his success? Absolutely! "Unbelievable," I would repeat, over and over, as they gave ol' FIFTY to ONE the roses. And I'm just an innocent bystander!....
===
Into a new mineral paradigm The days of the kitchen-table handshake between the oil company and the rancher are over. Beginning July 1, a handshake is no good unless it's documented under Wyoming's new "Split Estates Procedures for Oil and Gas Operations" law. "Senate File 60 puts both sides in an environment where they have to document every communication," said Joe Icenogle, spokesman for Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. Icenogle spoke as a panelist in a split-estate forum here Friday at the CBM Education Fair. Under pressure from growing energy development across the state, Wyoming lawmakers earlier this year passed Senate File 60 -- the Legislature's third and successful attempt at a split-estate law. Its aim is to ensure reasonable notice and compensation to surface owners who don't own the minerals below their property, but host drilling and production activities on their surface. Landowners had argued they needed more leverage in striking reasonable "surface use" agreements with oil and gas companies because they can't refuse access to the mineral lessee under Wyoming statute. Now, the new law requires a good-faith attempt for both sides to strike a surface use agreement, and that it contain compensation for "loss of land value."....
Fish role eyed in coal-bed methane debate Ever since developers learned how to tap coal seams in the Powder River Basin for natural gas, they've struggled with what to do with the brackish groundwater that comes out first. A fish may be the answer. Water is being pumped from coal-bed methane wells in rural, northern Wyoming to John Woiwode's tilapia farm in an area where cattle roam. About 1,300 of the small, pink fish now delight in the water - flipping, flopping and pooping in it. It's the squiggles of poop that interest researchers like Woiwode, and whether that waste could help make the water into a more usable asset instead of a pollutant....
Colo. basks in region's oil-gas boom Federal oil and gas leasing revenues rose 22 percent for Colorado and three neighboring states to more than $1.1 billion in 2004, according to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management report. Colorado had the largest percentage jump in royalties, 41 percent, to $89 million, mainly due to increased drilling in the Piceance Basin in the western part of the state. Wyoming received more than $600 million in federal payments in 2004, New Mexico about $383 million and Utah about $73 million, according to the BLM report released in May....
Drilling ignites battle over Western paradise Near the entrance of a pristine national forest area called the Valle Vidal, or "valley of life," a Halliburton tanker truck rumbles past a huge crater among the sculpted sandstone cliffs, herds of elk and ponderosa pines. It's a blasted circle, two acres wide, around a pit of foul-smelling water, a heap of shattered stone and a hissing 20-foot-tall pump sucking methane gas from the earth. The truck contains yet another shipment of liquid nitrogen, which will be injected into the ground at extreme pressure to crack more rock and release more gas. This jarring intrusion of industry into wilderness is increasingly common on public lands across the West, evidence of the rising number of gas and oil drilling permits approved by the Bush administration. Six years ago, 1,639 such permits on federal land were approved. Last year, the administration granted more than three times that number, 6,052....
Living with grizzlies For Michelle Sauerwein, living in grizzly bear country has changed in the last five years. The Wapiti resident has seen bears trapped on her front lawn, and she spent at least four hours on her barn roof to avoid a grizzly sow with cubs. Sauerwein did this as her infant slept in the main house, with no supervision. "Everything is more complicated, to hold this balance of living in a happy medium with these bears," she said. Sauerwein, and about 15 other residents of Wapiti and rural Park County, all had similar messages to send to state legislators and county commissioners gathered here last week for a tour of grizzly bear country....
Anger Piqued Beneath a Peak Three years ago, avid hiker Jim Walters made his first 11-mile, lung-busting trek to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. "You see … azure blue water and snow … the play of the clouds and the distant mountains and forests," recalled the 59-year-old medical ethics professor from Claremont. "It is just spectacular." But now Walters, who describes himself as a longtime Sierra Club member and a dedicated conservationist, wants to develop a 74-acre luxury housing subdivision below the jagged gray 14,494-foot peak and amid the brown, boulder-strewn hills used for countless Hollywood movie shoots. Walters stands to make several million dollars from the venture, although he is making himself anathema to fellow environmentalists in the process. "I see myself as a tree hugger, but there are those who hug the trees more tightly than do I. And [they] do not want to see any development," he said....
Federal judge declines to stop timber sale near Lewis and Clark Trail A federal judge has refused to stop the Wendover Fire Salvage Project, a timber sale near the trail used by Lewis and Clark 200 years ago on their historic trek to the Pacific Ocean. A coalition of environmental groups filed suit in U.S. District Court last week, contending the Forest Service's plan failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal regulations and that the agency was cutting down healthy trees as well as those killed or damaged by fire. But Judge Edward Lodge ruled Friday that the Forest Service adequately reviewed the project before it began cutting the trees on 117 acres in the Clearwater National Forest in northern Idaho. He cited a memo the agency released in March after public comment hearings....
No end to this Rainbow After three months sitting in prison, barred from fresh air and the sun’s rays, Barry Adams prefers to hold his interview in a patch of sunshine in his backyard. He’s happy to be back in Missoula, to once again take on obligations like fixing the lawnmower and caring for his daughter. He was sprung May 20 from a federal prison in Seattle after serving 90 days and paying a $500 fine for “unauthorized use of National Forests systems land without authorization when such authorization is required.” The charge stems from the 2000 Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering that drew 36,000 people to southwestern Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Adams, now 59, was accused of being a leader of the Rainbows after he applied for personal use of national forest land and attended the gathering after his application was denied. He explains that the feds insist Rainbows are an organized group, and there must be leaders, but that’s not how it works....
Wildflower on Development Site Prompts Criminal Investigation Opponents of a controversial housing project turned an endangered wild flower into a weapon to block construction on a site that borders a wetlands area, according to investigators with the state's Fish and Game department. Robert Evans, an opponent of the Laguna Vista housing development in Sebastopol reported finding specimens of the rare Sebastopol meadowfoam on the development site in April. Investigators determined that the 30 flowers did not grow on the site but had been transplanted. "The location of the plants, the type of clusters that were found, the fact that they were on sloping areas that normally this type of plant is not found on, gave us the first indication," Fish and Game's Troy Swauger told KCBS reporter Larry Chiaroni. "To find this on a development site at this point indicates to us that they have been transplanted. We're considering this a criminal act."....
Suit challenges fishing season cut A California-based legal foundation filed a lawsuit in Eugene Friday on behalf of two Oregon fishermen's associations, charging that the federal government broke the law when it cut the commercial fishing season for chinook salmon in half. The Pacific Legal Foundation alleged that the National Marine Fisheries Service wrongly distinguished between naturally spawning and hatchery chinook salmon and failed to consider the "severe economic and safety impacts" of a shortened trolling season on coastal fishing communities. A spokesman for the state's largest advocacy group for fishermen criticized the lawsuit, however, saying the shortened season is necessary to protect the struggling Klamath chinook, which intermingle "all up and down the coast."....
Visitor center to highlight Grand Staircase wildlife The birds and the bees and other wildlife, vegetation and even microscopic organisms are the theme of the newest visitor center connected with the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that opens to the public Saturday. Located in the tiny town of Escalante in southern Utah, the new facility - constructed with a liberal use of glass and jagged stones from the surrounding area - is dedicated to the biology and ecology of the monument spread over 1.9 million acres of rugged and isolated terrain in Garfield and Kane counties....
Democrats put Pombo on their list Democratic leaders, looking for districts they think they can win in 2006 to regain control of the House after a dozen years, are eyeing the seat of the lone Republican in the Democratic-dominated Bay Area -- powerful Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy. Pombo, a rancher first elected in 1992 whose district straddles the Altamont Pass, was one of 12 Republican House members targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over the Memorial Day weekend with radio ads. Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee, is a strong GOP fund- raiser, based on his advocacy of property owners' rights and his criticism of the Endangered Species Act, which he calls a runaway train that values preservation of animal and vegetation species habitats over people....
Groups reach $134 million agreement for recovering salmon After three years, a group of residents, farmers, environmentalists, tribal members and government officials has agreed on a $134 million plan for helping salmon runs recover in the Snohomish River Basin. The 38-member Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Forum on Thursday unanimously adopted a plan aimed at restoring chinook salmon and bull trout populations. Both species are listed as threatened in the Puget Sound region under the Endangered Species Act. The idea of the Snohomish River plan is to improve specific habitats on the river's tributaries, on the main river, in the delta and along the shores of Possession Sound near the mouth of the river, Martha Neuman, a senior planner for Snohomish County, told The Herald of Everett. The group expects to raise the money needed through a variety of state, federal and other grant programs....
Complexity in Ecology and Conservation: Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Challenges Creative approaches at the interface of ecology, statistics, mathematics, informatics, and computational science are essential for improving our understanding of complex ecological systems. For example, new information technologies, including powerful computers, spatially embedded sensor networks, and Semantic Web tools, are emerging as potentially revolutionary tools for studying ecological phenomena. These technologies can play an important role in developing and testing detailed models that describe real-world systems at multiple scales. Key challenges include choosing the appropriate level of model complexity necessary for understanding biological patterns across space and time, and applying this understanding to solve problems in conservation biology and resource management....
Bison ranch owners swap animal tales Pia opened doors and jumped on beds at the Red Canyon Ranch outside of Thermopolis. Then she gained 500 pounds. "We had moon-shaped hoof marks torn into the mattress," said Kathleen Gear of her "bottle baby" bison. Pia became imprinted with the Gears as a calf. Now, at more than 1,000 pounds, Pia still likes to be petted, even while nursing a calf of her own. Leggs - otherwise known as 'Earl the Girl' - is another imprint case. She had trouble walking after birth and couldn't nurse with her mother. Lyman rancher Rex Snyder bottle-fed the bison, and now he has the equivalent of a 900-pound puppy dog. "She runs alongside the pickup," Snyder said. "She follows me everywhere. She's been kicked out of the Marriott twice."....
Two American idols who put a little wild in the West Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America; Larry McMurtry; Simon & Schuster: 246 pp., $26. Novelist, essayist and screenwriter McMurtry (author of "Lonesome Dove," "Terms of Endearment," "The Last Picture Show," "Streets of Laredo" and "Texasville," to name just a handful) is one of our ablest and most amiable chroniclers of the American West. As a shrewd observer of the American scene, he also takes a keen interest in the phenomenon of celebrity. So it's not surprising to find him in this book combining his two interests as he revisits and reconsiders what is known about the lives of these two early "superstars." The Colonel and Little Missie were certainly not a couple, and indeed don't even seem to have had an especially close professional relationship: The term that best seems to characterize their association would be mutual respect. Both had grown up poor — virtually destitute in her case; a more ordinary mix of hard times and better in his. Both had learned to kill game and sell meat to support themselves and their families....
Mariposa Wagon Train rides again The 30th anniversary of the Mariposa County Pioneer Wagon Train is set for June 8 through 11. Every second weekend in June for the past 29 years, men, women, children, mules and horses have headed out on a 32-mile adventure. The train begins near the south entrance to Yosemite National Park, proceeds over the Sierra Nevada and finally circles up at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds for an evening of cowboy poetry, dinner and dancing. The trek is open to mule- and horse-drawn vehicles, mounted riders and walkers, and period dress is encouraged....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: The long shot holds soft spot in our hearts But would I have cheered Giacomo down the home stretch? Would I have shredded my program in the excitement? Would I have felt that primal, goose-bumpy surge well up from deep inside as he crossed the finish line? Would I have experienced innocent, emotional, unprotected, unexpected joy for his success? Absolutely! "Unbelievable," I would repeat, over and over, as they gave ol' FIFTY to ONE the roses. And I'm just an innocent bystander!....
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Sunday, June 05, 2005
Ranchers giving up business, heritage
Linn Blancett has given a lot to ranching, including his right ring finger, lost in a steer-roping accident years ago. The 60-year-old's family has been raising cattle among the otherworldly sandstone canyons of the Animas River valley for six generations, stretching back to 1878, before New Mexico was a state. His great-great-grandfather was the first county commission chairman here. And Blancett has buried two sons in these arid hills. But now, he says, the growth of drilling is forcing him to move. "All these wells are putting me out of business," said Blancett, his blue eyes gazing up at a 20-foot-tall pump chugging amid the gnarled cedar and scrub oak on his ranch. More than 200 natural gas wells clutter the federal land where he has grazing rights...Ray Sanchez, environmental protection chief for the local Bureau of Land Management, said he has sympathy for the ranchers but also understands the need to drill. Sanchez said the gas companies have as much right - or more - than the ranchers to use the land, because they own the mineral rights underneath, while the ranchers enjoy only a "privilege" to graze their cattle there, Sanchez said..."The ranchers are operating on federal land, but they don't want to share that federal land with other uses, and that includes not only the oil and gas industry, but also recreational users, too," said Chad Calvert, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior....
What wonderful DOI officials we have here. Someone should tell Mr. Sanchez that gas is a leasable, not a locatable mineral. So, the gas companies lease the minerals from BLM, just like the ranchers lease the forage. I would also like to know where Mr. Calvert got his knowledge of ranchers. The ones I've met over the last 30 plus years are very multiple use oriented and understand their rights and the rights of other users. They just want the mineral extraction conducted according to the law and the reg's, so that their livelihood is not destroyed as well as the resource they depend upon. You'd think someone who has worked for two US Senators from Wyoming would know this and not be so anti-rancher. But, I see he graduated from Georgetown University in DC---that's probably what screwed him up.
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Linn Blancett has given a lot to ranching, including his right ring finger, lost in a steer-roping accident years ago. The 60-year-old's family has been raising cattle among the otherworldly sandstone canyons of the Animas River valley for six generations, stretching back to 1878, before New Mexico was a state. His great-great-grandfather was the first county commission chairman here. And Blancett has buried two sons in these arid hills. But now, he says, the growth of drilling is forcing him to move. "All these wells are putting me out of business," said Blancett, his blue eyes gazing up at a 20-foot-tall pump chugging amid the gnarled cedar and scrub oak on his ranch. More than 200 natural gas wells clutter the federal land where he has grazing rights...Ray Sanchez, environmental protection chief for the local Bureau of Land Management, said he has sympathy for the ranchers but also understands the need to drill. Sanchez said the gas companies have as much right - or more - than the ranchers to use the land, because they own the mineral rights underneath, while the ranchers enjoy only a "privilege" to graze their cattle there, Sanchez said..."The ranchers are operating on federal land, but they don't want to share that federal land with other uses, and that includes not only the oil and gas industry, but also recreational users, too," said Chad Calvert, a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior....
What wonderful DOI officials we have here. Someone should tell Mr. Sanchez that gas is a leasable, not a locatable mineral. So, the gas companies lease the minerals from BLM, just like the ranchers lease the forage. I would also like to know where Mr. Calvert got his knowledge of ranchers. The ones I've met over the last 30 plus years are very multiple use oriented and understand their rights and the rights of other users. They just want the mineral extraction conducted according to the law and the reg's, so that their livelihood is not destroyed as well as the resource they depend upon. You'd think someone who has worked for two US Senators from Wyoming would know this and not be so anti-rancher. But, I see he graduated from Georgetown University in DC---that's probably what screwed him up.
===
Groups send notice of intent to sue Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Renegade Rancher
A coalition of groups led by Forest Guardians, today send a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act to the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Arizona ranchers. After more than two years of allowing Abelardo and Dan Martinez to illegally graze cattle on Forest Service lands, the Forest Service finally cancelled his grazing permit last August and issued a notice to impound his cattle. However, despite the cancelled permit, the Martinez cattle are still grazing on National Forest land, continuing to damage the land, feeding for free on the Pleasant Valley grazing allotment, and trespassing onto the neighboring Hickey allotments. New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the Arizona Wildlife Federation and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility joined Forest Guardians in the letter, which outlines how despite canceling the permit and “monitoring” the situation, the Forest Service has taken no action to actually remove the trespassing cattle or to take legal action against the ranchers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also noticed in the letter as they were informed about the trespass cattle and resulting damage to the habitat of the federally threatened Chiricahua leopard frog, loach minnow, and spikedace, but have also failed to take any action against the owners of the livestock. Despite the order to remove their cattle from Forest Service lands, Abe and Dan Martinez have failed to remove their livestock months after being ordered to do so. On October 14, District Ranger Hayes issued a “Notice of Intent to Impound Unauthorized Livestock,” but to date the Forest Service has failed to take action on the notice. On October 18, 2004, the four conservation groups sent a letter to Ranger Hayes asking him to “present an expeditious and clear plan for remedying the severe damage that has occurred as a result of your inaction and the illegal grazing that has taken place over the last two years.” After patiently waiting six months for further action, the groups are now sending notice to push the agencies into taking action. In July, the groups may also file suit after the required 60-day waiting period....
===
A coalition of groups led by Forest Guardians, today send a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act to the Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Arizona ranchers. After more than two years of allowing Abelardo and Dan Martinez to illegally graze cattle on Forest Service lands, the Forest Service finally cancelled his grazing permit last August and issued a notice to impound his cattle. However, despite the cancelled permit, the Martinez cattle are still grazing on National Forest land, continuing to damage the land, feeding for free on the Pleasant Valley grazing allotment, and trespassing onto the neighboring Hickey allotments. New Mexico Wildlife Federation, the Arizona Wildlife Federation and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility joined Forest Guardians in the letter, which outlines how despite canceling the permit and “monitoring” the situation, the Forest Service has taken no action to actually remove the trespassing cattle or to take legal action against the ranchers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also noticed in the letter as they were informed about the trespass cattle and resulting damage to the habitat of the federally threatened Chiricahua leopard frog, loach minnow, and spikedace, but have also failed to take any action against the owners of the livestock. Despite the order to remove their cattle from Forest Service lands, Abe and Dan Martinez have failed to remove their livestock months after being ordered to do so. On October 14, District Ranger Hayes issued a “Notice of Intent to Impound Unauthorized Livestock,” but to date the Forest Service has failed to take action on the notice. On October 18, 2004, the four conservation groups sent a letter to Ranger Hayes asking him to “present an expeditious and clear plan for remedying the severe damage that has occurred as a result of your inaction and the illegal grazing that has taken place over the last two years.” After patiently waiting six months for further action, the groups are now sending notice to push the agencies into taking action. In July, the groups may also file suit after the required 60-day waiting period....
===
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Summer holidays—what do real people do?
By Julie Carter
Years ago when summer arrived with its major holidays on either end of it and the Fourth of July in the middle, never once did I plan for a picnic, a vacation or a backyard barbeque.
Summer meant rodeo season. It meant spending hours on the phone getting entered in the rodeos, thousands of miles of driving, and dragging in on Sunday night to be back to work on Monday. My rodeo friends and I often wondered what real people did on the Fourth of July.
While we were mucking around in the mud after a summer downpour at the rodeo grounds, washing off the barrel horse’s leg gear with nearest water hose and hoping it would dry before it was time to compete again, real people were no doubt sitting on a backyard deck eating grilled delicacies and laughing over memories of trips to Cancun.
That same water hose washed down children, dogs, horses and muddy boots. It usually was attached to a hydrant accessible only by mucking through a standing lake of water in the same corral the bucking bulls were penned. They watched you slip, slide and likely fall in your attempt to hurry just in case they were in a bad mood.
While we were driving all night from one night rodeo to get to another one that started in the afternoon on the other side of the state, real people were slumbering soundly in a their beds in a five star hotel anticipating the next day’s round of golf at a seaside resort.
While we spent the weekend trying to pass for civilized beings despite being rumpled, tired and nourished only by two-day old cold burritos from the cooler, real people planned massive food get-togethers with friends and relatives.
Get-togethers for the rodeo crowd were at the gas stations on the road to the next rodeo and perhaps some short conversation at the hamburger stand at the rodeo grounds.
Ranching offers about the same version of the holidays. It’s not uncommon to have a cattle working scheduled on a holiday because you know everyone will be available. The neighboring ranchers don’t vacation on holidays either.
My life after rodeo resembled rodeo life so much I didn’t ever get a chance to see how “normal” people live. I moved right from arena dirt to corral dirt and 5 a.m. starts –not to drive to a rodeo but to drive to the pasture.
Earlier this spring a friend of mine was so excited. She’d been invited to a “Wildflower Party.” She was completely charmed by the idea. The invitation said it was a “celebration of Texas’ bountiful and beautiful wildflower display and would include cocktails, dinner and dancing to a live band.”
What was most intriguing about the invitation was that it didn’t include instructions to bring a shod horse and be there by 5 a.m. for breakfast. She said she could only conclude that the hosts either had no faith in her cowboying abilities or had already shipped their cattle.
While I am sure there is a certain amount of romanticizing of reality when I think everyone spends their holidays sitting on a beach, sailing boats, or napping in the shade of a well manicured yard, I probably won’t ever really know.
I still look for some arena dirt, hot sun and miserable weather for my holidays. But now I use the event to pay me through the use of my pen and camera instead of me paying someone to spend 18 seconds in the spotlight.
For a look into rural America at its best, see a rodeo this summer. And remember, while they may not always look like it, rodeo cowboys are real people too.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Do you know what I mean?
By Larry Gabriel
Normal people communicate with each other just fine without grammatical precision or elaborate definitions, but not all speakers are "normal".
It's getting more difficult to understand natural resource discussions partly because someone keeps changing the meaning of the words.
Do you know what I mean when I say, "roadless" or "pristine" or "biological diversity" or "healthy forest" or "sustainable farming" or "endemic" or "democracy"?
Maybe you do, but I assure it is not the same as what some other people mean when they use such terms. We can no longer find out what some words mean by looking in the dictionary.
When John Adams said, "Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. (John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814)" he was talking about direct rule by the people which was widely condemned because it was not a government of law.
When politicians say "democracy" today they usually mean a constitutional government of law run by elected officers chosen by citizens in open elections. In Adams' day that was a "republican form of government".
Many of these terms are infected with a large dose of "social justice" and subjectivity.
For example, "biological diversity" does not mean more things with different traits. It means more things that are of the kind the speaker wants.
A "healthy forest" need not produce more timber, more water, cleaner water, fewer fires or more recreational opportunity. It is one that "looks" the way the speaker wants.
A "sustainable farm" need not provide a decent living to its owners. It is one that uses resources in a manner that is "fair and just" to all people on the planet to the extent taxpayers can afford to subsidize its operations.
An "endemic species" is not one that has been there for a thousand years. It is one the speaker wants to be there and has a circle drawn on a map around its primary population center.
"Pristine" does not mean original and unchanged. It means an area where the roads and other improvements lack sufficient political clout to protect them from removal.
"Roadless" does not mean an area without roads. It means an area where roads can be closed and in which a "road" is not a road at all unless it is maintained by the federal landowner.
A "promise" spoken by a federal officer does not mean he will do it. It means if his boss approves and the policy does not change and there is money to be found and they are not diverted by a higher priority, the government will do that…maybe.
The last one is my "favorite", if you know what I mean.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner
===
Summer holidays—what do real people do?
By Julie Carter
Years ago when summer arrived with its major holidays on either end of it and the Fourth of July in the middle, never once did I plan for a picnic, a vacation or a backyard barbeque.
Summer meant rodeo season. It meant spending hours on the phone getting entered in the rodeos, thousands of miles of driving, and dragging in on Sunday night to be back to work on Monday. My rodeo friends and I often wondered what real people did on the Fourth of July.
While we were mucking around in the mud after a summer downpour at the rodeo grounds, washing off the barrel horse’s leg gear with nearest water hose and hoping it would dry before it was time to compete again, real people were no doubt sitting on a backyard deck eating grilled delicacies and laughing over memories of trips to Cancun.
That same water hose washed down children, dogs, horses and muddy boots. It usually was attached to a hydrant accessible only by mucking through a standing lake of water in the same corral the bucking bulls were penned. They watched you slip, slide and likely fall in your attempt to hurry just in case they were in a bad mood.
While we were driving all night from one night rodeo to get to another one that started in the afternoon on the other side of the state, real people were slumbering soundly in a their beds in a five star hotel anticipating the next day’s round of golf at a seaside resort.
While we spent the weekend trying to pass for civilized beings despite being rumpled, tired and nourished only by two-day old cold burritos from the cooler, real people planned massive food get-togethers with friends and relatives.
Get-togethers for the rodeo crowd were at the gas stations on the road to the next rodeo and perhaps some short conversation at the hamburger stand at the rodeo grounds.
Ranching offers about the same version of the holidays. It’s not uncommon to have a cattle working scheduled on a holiday because you know everyone will be available. The neighboring ranchers don’t vacation on holidays either.
My life after rodeo resembled rodeo life so much I didn’t ever get a chance to see how “normal” people live. I moved right from arena dirt to corral dirt and 5 a.m. starts –not to drive to a rodeo but to drive to the pasture.
Earlier this spring a friend of mine was so excited. She’d been invited to a “Wildflower Party.” She was completely charmed by the idea. The invitation said it was a “celebration of Texas’ bountiful and beautiful wildflower display and would include cocktails, dinner and dancing to a live band.”
What was most intriguing about the invitation was that it didn’t include instructions to bring a shod horse and be there by 5 a.m. for breakfast. She said she could only conclude that the hosts either had no faith in her cowboying abilities or had already shipped their cattle.
While I am sure there is a certain amount of romanticizing of reality when I think everyone spends their holidays sitting on a beach, sailing boats, or napping in the shade of a well manicured yard, I probably won’t ever really know.
I still look for some arena dirt, hot sun and miserable weather for my holidays. But now I use the event to pay me through the use of my pen and camera instead of me paying someone to spend 18 seconds in the spotlight.
For a look into rural America at its best, see a rodeo this summer. And remember, while they may not always look like it, rodeo cowboys are real people too.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Do you know what I mean?
By Larry Gabriel
Normal people communicate with each other just fine without grammatical precision or elaborate definitions, but not all speakers are "normal".
It's getting more difficult to understand natural resource discussions partly because someone keeps changing the meaning of the words.
Do you know what I mean when I say, "roadless" or "pristine" or "biological diversity" or "healthy forest" or "sustainable farming" or "endemic" or "democracy"?
Maybe you do, but I assure it is not the same as what some other people mean when they use such terms. We can no longer find out what some words mean by looking in the dictionary.
When John Adams said, "Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. (John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814)" he was talking about direct rule by the people which was widely condemned because it was not a government of law.
When politicians say "democracy" today they usually mean a constitutional government of law run by elected officers chosen by citizens in open elections. In Adams' day that was a "republican form of government".
Many of these terms are infected with a large dose of "social justice" and subjectivity.
For example, "biological diversity" does not mean more things with different traits. It means more things that are of the kind the speaker wants.
A "healthy forest" need not produce more timber, more water, cleaner water, fewer fires or more recreational opportunity. It is one that "looks" the way the speaker wants.
A "sustainable farm" need not provide a decent living to its owners. It is one that uses resources in a manner that is "fair and just" to all people on the planet to the extent taxpayers can afford to subsidize its operations.
An "endemic species" is not one that has been there for a thousand years. It is one the speaker wants to be there and has a circle drawn on a map around its primary population center.
"Pristine" does not mean original and unchanged. It means an area where the roads and other improvements lack sufficient political clout to protect them from removal.
"Roadless" does not mean an area without roads. It means an area where roads can be closed and in which a "road" is not a road at all unless it is maintained by the federal landowner.
A "promise" spoken by a federal officer does not mean he will do it. It means if his boss approves and the policy does not change and there is money to be found and they are not diverted by a higher priority, the government will do that…maybe.
The last one is my "favorite", if you know what I mean.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner
===
OPINION/COMMENTARY
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP’S MOTION TO INTERVENE MUST BE DENIED
Kathy Stupak-Thrall owns property on the northern edge of Crooked Lake in Gogebic County, Michigan. Under Michigan law, she has the legal right to use the entire surface of Crooked Lake so long as her use does not unreasonably interfere with the rights of other lakefront property owners. One of those owners is the U.S. Forest Service, which owns a majority of the remaining property that surrounds the wide and meandering lake. In 1987, Congress adopted the Michigan Wilderness Act in which it designated the Forest Service land, part of the Ottawa National Forest, as federal wilderness in accordance with the Wilderness Act of 1964. Both the 1964 statute and the 1987 statute protect “valid existing rights,” like those of Stupak-Thrall. Nonetheless, shortly after enactment of the Michigan Wilderness Act, the Forest Service adopted rules barring the landowners from using Crooked Lake. Ms. Stupak-Thrall’s first lawsuit, regarding her right to use sailboats, ended in a 7-7 ruling by the Sixth Circuit. Then, in March 1996, Ms. Stupak-Thrall sued the Forest Service when it sought to prevent her from using motorboats on Crooked Lake. In December 1997, the District Court held that the Forest Service could not restrict her use of her property, that is, the surface of Crooked Lake. The Forest Service immediately appealed to the Sixth Circuit; however, on April 27, 2005, the Forest Service filed a motion to dismiss its appeal....
===
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP’S MOTION TO INTERVENE MUST BE DENIED
Kathy Stupak-Thrall owns property on the northern edge of Crooked Lake in Gogebic County, Michigan. Under Michigan law, she has the legal right to use the entire surface of Crooked Lake so long as her use does not unreasonably interfere with the rights of other lakefront property owners. One of those owners is the U.S. Forest Service, which owns a majority of the remaining property that surrounds the wide and meandering lake. In 1987, Congress adopted the Michigan Wilderness Act in which it designated the Forest Service land, part of the Ottawa National Forest, as federal wilderness in accordance with the Wilderness Act of 1964. Both the 1964 statute and the 1987 statute protect “valid existing rights,” like those of Stupak-Thrall. Nonetheless, shortly after enactment of the Michigan Wilderness Act, the Forest Service adopted rules barring the landowners from using Crooked Lake. Ms. Stupak-Thrall’s first lawsuit, regarding her right to use sailboats, ended in a 7-7 ruling by the Sixth Circuit. Then, in March 1996, Ms. Stupak-Thrall sued the Forest Service when it sought to prevent her from using motorboats on Crooked Lake. In December 1997, the District Court held that the Forest Service could not restrict her use of her property, that is, the surface of Crooked Lake. The Forest Service immediately appealed to the Sixth Circuit; however, on April 27, 2005, the Forest Service filed a motion to dismiss its appeal....
===
OPINION/COMMENTARY
A New Paradigm for Federal Lands
But the similarities end there. Valles Caldera is something altogether different from a national park. It represents not only a fresh alternative to existing federal park and forest management, but a return to the original vision of national parks paying their own way. Whether that vision will be realized depends on how well VCNP responds to the marketbased framework created by Congress. Fed up with the amount of western land being consumed by the federal government and managed by inefficient bureaucracies, New Mexico senator Pete Domenici worked to ensure that this environmental purchase would not be business as usual. He had good reason for concern. As PERC has reported consistently, national park funding has increased over the years, but even so the National Park Service reports a $6 to $9 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance, acquisition, and resource management projects (Fretwell 2004). With most of their budgets coming from Congress, federal land managers traditionally work to satisfy the interests of politicians. They have little incentive to direct funding to its most appropriate uses, to find new sources of revenue, or to keep costs down to make ends meet....
===
A New Paradigm for Federal Lands
But the similarities end there. Valles Caldera is something altogether different from a national park. It represents not only a fresh alternative to existing federal park and forest management, but a return to the original vision of national parks paying their own way. Whether that vision will be realized depends on how well VCNP responds to the marketbased framework created by Congress. Fed up with the amount of western land being consumed by the federal government and managed by inefficient bureaucracies, New Mexico senator Pete Domenici worked to ensure that this environmental purchase would not be business as usual. He had good reason for concern. As PERC has reported consistently, national park funding has increased over the years, but even so the National Park Service reports a $6 to $9 billion backlog of unfunded maintenance, acquisition, and resource management projects (Fretwell 2004). With most of their budgets coming from Congress, federal land managers traditionally work to satisfy the interests of politicians. They have little incentive to direct funding to its most appropriate uses, to find new sources of revenue, or to keep costs down to make ends meet....
===
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