FLE
Civil rights suit underway against park officials in pepper-spray incident; ranger Mayo back on duty A Civil Rights lawsuit is underway in San Francisco Federal District Court against two Point Reyes National Seashore rangers and two superiors for their part in the pepper-spraying last July of a teenage brother and sister from Inverness Park. The incident took place off park property in Point Reyes Station. The teens, who were bystanders at a minor law-enforcement matter, were never charged with wrongdoing. Attorneys for both sides are meeting with a federal judge, making initial disclosures, submitting preliminary motions, and setting up a schedule of conferences and hearings which ultimately will culminate in jury selection and a trial on Feb. 27. 2006. Hearing the case is Judge Susan Illston, US District Court, Northern District of California. Attorneys Dennis Cunningham and Gordon Kaupp of San Francisco on behalf of Chris Miller and his sister Jessica are suing ranger Roger Mayo, who sprayed Chris in the face as he started to leave the scene and extensively sprayed his sister even after she was in handcuffs and kneeling on the ground. Also being sued are ranger Angelina Gregorio, who held Jessica down during the Mayo pepper-spraying, chief ranger Colin Smith, and National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher....
Behind-the-Scenes Battle on Tracking Data Mining Bush administration officials are opposing an effort in Congress under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act to force the government to disclose its use of data-mining techniques in tracking suspects in terrorism cases. As part of the vote in the House this week to extend major parts of the antiterrorism law permanently, lawmakers agreed to include a little-noticed provision that would require the Justice Department to report to Congress annually on government-wide efforts to develop and use data-mining technology to track intelligence patterns. But a set of talking points distributed among Republican lawmakers as the measure was being debated warned that the Justice Department was opposed to the amendment because it would add to the list of "countless reports" already required by Congress and would take time away from more critical law enforcement activities. The government's use of vast public and private databases to mine for leads has produced several damaging episodes for the Bush administration, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects and the Capps program of the Department of Homeland Security for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties, and some Republicans and Democrats in Congress say they want to keep closer tabs on such computer operations to guard against abuse....
Congress Report: TSA Broke Privacy Laws The Transportation Security Administration violated privacy protections by secretly collecting personal information on at least 250,000 people, congressional investigators said Friday. The Government Accountability Office sent a letter to Congress saying the collection violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits the government from compiling information on people without their knowledge. The information was collected as the agency tested a program, now called Secure Flight, to conduct computerized checks of airline passengers against terrorist watch lists. TSA had promised it would only use the limited information about passengers that it had obtained from airlines. Instead, the agency and its contractors compiled files on people using data from commercial brokers and then compared those files with the lists. The GAO reported that about 100 million records were collected....
House Beats Back Challenges to Patriot Act The House voted Thursday to extend permanently virtually all the major antiterrorism provisions of the USA Patriot Act after beating back efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to impose new restrictions on the government's power to eavesdrop, conduct secret searches and demand library records. The legislation, approved 257 to 171, would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions in the law that were set to expire at the end of this year. The remaining two provisions - giving the government the power to demand business and library records and to conduct roving wiretaps - would have to be reconsidered by Congress in 10 years. The House version of the legislation essentially leaves intact many of the central powers of the antiterrorism act that critics had sought to scale back, setting the stage for what could be difficult negotiations with the Senate, which is considering several very different bills to extend the government's counterterrorism powers under the act....
The Security Pretext: An Examination of the Growth of Federal Police Agencies Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, bureaucrats and special interest groups have been busy repackaging everything from peanut subsidies to steel protectionism under the rubric of "national security." Federal law enforcement agencies have also been expanding their power in the name of combating terrorism, whether or not such expansion has anything to do with enhancing security. One safeguard that exists to prevent such abuse is congressional oversight, but too many members of Congress are too often reluctant to challenge law enforcement officials. For freedom to prevail in the age of terrorism, three things are essential. First, government officials must take a sober look at the potential risk and recognize that there is no reason to panic and act rashly. Second, Congress must stop federal police agencies from acting arbitrarily. Before imposing costly and restrictive security measures that inconvenience thousands of people, police agencies ought to be required to produce cost-benefit analyses. Third, government officials must demonstrate courage rather than give in to their fears. Radical Islamic terrorists are not the first enemy that America has faced. British troops burned the White House in 1814, the Japanese navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Soviet Union deployed hundreds of nuclear missiles that targeted American cities. If policymakers are serious about defending our freedom and our way of life, they must wage this war without discarding our traditional constitutional framework of limited government....
Breaking the Rules Local prosecutors in many of the 2,341 jurisdictions across the nation have stretched, bent or broken rules while convicting defendants, the Center has found. Since 1970, individual judges and appellate court panels cited prosecutorial misconduct as a factor when dismissing charges at trial, reversing convictions or reducing sentences in at least 2,012 cases. The nature of the questionable conduct covers every type attributed to Moss, and more. In 513 additional cases, appellate judges offered opinions—either dissents or concurrences—in which they found the prosecutorial misconduct serious enough to merit additional discussion; some of the dissenting judges wrote that they found the misconduct warranted a reversal. In thousands more cases, judges labeled prosecutorial behavior inappropriate, but allowed the trial to continue or upheld convictions using a doctrine called "harmless error." The Center analyzed 11,452 cases in which charges of prosecutorial misconduct were reviewed by appellate court judges....
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Saturday, July 23, 2005
Ferocious Heat Maintains Grip Across the West
A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week. Fourteen of the victims here are thought to have been homeless, although the heat also claimed the life of a 97-year-old man who died in his bedroom, a 37-year-old man who succumbed in his car and two older women who died in homes without air-conditioning. Daytime highs in Phoenix have remained near 110 degrees for more than a week, and municipal officials acknowledge that it is almost impossible to deal with the needs of the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people living on the streets. The city has barely 1,000 shelter beds, and hundreds of them are available only in the winter. Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif. The weather forced airlines to cancel more than two dozen flights this week, remove passengers from fully loaded planes, limit the number of tickets sold on some flights and take other measures to withstand the heat....
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A relentless and lethal blanket of heat has settled on much of the western United States, forcing the cancellation of dozens of airline flights, threatening the loss of electrical power, stoking wildfires and leaving 20 people dead in Phoenix alone in just the past week. Fourteen of the victims here are thought to have been homeless, although the heat also claimed the life of a 97-year-old man who died in his bedroom, a 37-year-old man who succumbed in his car and two older women who died in homes without air-conditioning. Daytime highs in Phoenix have remained near 110 degrees for more than a week, and municipal officials acknowledge that it is almost impossible to deal with the needs of the estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people living on the streets. The city has barely 1,000 shelter beds, and hundreds of them are available only in the winter. Officials of the National Weather Service estimate that more than 200 heat records have been broken in the West during the last two weeks. On Tuesday, Las Vegas tied its record for any date, 117 degrees. Reno and other locations in Nevada have set records with nine consecutive days of temperatures at 100 or higher. The temperature in Denver on Wednesday reached 105 degrees, making it the hottest day there since 1878. The highest temperature for the entire region during the heat wave has been 129, recorded at Death Valley, Calif. The weather forced airlines to cancel more than two dozen flights this week, remove passengers from fully loaded planes, limit the number of tickets sold on some flights and take other measures to withstand the heat....
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Friday, July 22, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Governor seeks inspection of Canadian cattle With Canadian cattle once again crossing the U.S. border, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer ordered Thursday that all animals destined for Montana must be checked to ensure they comply with new federal restrictions. Veterinarians, acting on behalf of the state Livestock Department, will inspect feeder cattle to determine whether they are younger than 30 months, not pregnant and have the mandated "CAN" brand, Schweitzer said. Owners of the cattle will be required to pay the cost of the inspections, which the governor estimated would be $3 to $5 a head. Schweitzer, a rancher himself, cited lingering concerns about importing cattle from a country that has reported three cases of mad cow disease during the past two years. "I am committed to the ranchers and consumers in this state," he said. "We will take every precaution available to us to protect Montanans and the Montana cattle industry." He said he will urge governors in Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming to take similar action....
White House Ties Secure Yates' Drilling Rights to Sensitive N.M. Grasslands For $2 an acre, the Bush Administration has given the rights to drill for oil and gas on New Mexico's Otero Mesa to a company whose White House connections were key to reversing earlier plans to protect much of the area from drilling. On July 20, the Harvey E. Yates Company, or HEYCO, of Roswell, N.M., placed the only bid for drilling rights to 1,600 acres of the environmentally sensitive Mesa in central New Mexico. A 2004 investigation by Environmental Working Group found that the Yates family controlled almost three times as many oil and gas leases on Western public lands as any other entity. In the last three election cycles, HEYCO and other Yates companies have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of President Bush and other Republican candidates. After a former Yates lobbyist was appointed to the No. 2 position at the Interior Department, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revised a draft plan that would have restricted drilling on about 60 percent of the Mesa, to allow drilling in more than 90 percent of the area....
Out on a limb In the forest near Ovando, where larch tower into the sky high above the Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, something new is happening. It’s early on the morning of July 13, and representatives from three Missoula conservation groups, along with volunteers and a crew of sawyers, are surveying yesterday’s work. For the first time, they’ve been given charge of four acres of a 300-acre Forest Service fuel reduction project, with which to demonstrate how they think thinning ought to be done. “We felt like it was important to get our hands on something and show the agency a different approach,” says Jake Kreilick, with the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA). Along with the Native Forest Network, Wildlands CPR and the Sierra Club, NFPA is a partner in the project. Wildland Conservation Services’ crew, headed by local forester and soil scientist Mark Vander Meer, is providing the technical expertise and handling the saws....
Contractor rounds up wild cows in the Gila Wild cows that have been grazing illegally on the Gila National Forest are being rounded up by a contractor working for the US Forest Service. Forest officials says they have been rounding up cattle since 1998 to protect resources in the area. And there may be 35 or more cattle spread throughout the rugged draws and canyons in the upper Gila River. Forest officials say those cattle have escaped past roundups and have evolved into feral cows. The contractor started the roundup last week. So far, six cows have been captured....
Freudenthal seeks roadless answers Wyoming may be better off participating in conventional forest planning to determine roadless areas in the state rather taking advantage of the Bush administration's new roadless rules, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday. Under the new roadless rules issued by the Bush administration, governors can submit petitions to stop road building on some of the 34.3 million acres where it would now be permitted or request that new forest management plans be written to allow road-building on some of another 24.2 million acres. Wyoming has 3.2 million acres of roadless forests. But Freudenthal said the petition process is "essentially meaningless" because the new rule doesn't obligate the federal government to do anything. He sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns asking how much influence the state's petitions would have, how they would be judged and prioritized and who would pay for the environmental analyses....
Alleged gator killer faces charges The South Richmond fisherman who this month allegedly killed a reptile that had been lurking in Chesterfield County's Falling Creek Reservoir will face charges, according to federal wildlife officials. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman said yesterday that the creature has been identified as an American alligator, which is a "threatened species" protected by the Endangered Species Act. "We have referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond, and [criminal] charges have been filed," agency spokeswoman Diana Weaver said. The maximum possible penalty for killing a protected species is a $100,000 fine, a one-year prison term and forfeiture of any equipment used while the animal was killed, she said....
Kit foxes den still has school project on hold Most of the Taft City School District's modernization projects started so far are either completed or well underway - with one exception. The district is still waiting for the go-ahead to continue work on the Taft Parkview library media center. That project was held up when it was found that kit foxes, and endangered species, were living in a den close to where the building was being installed. That forced a complete halt to the project while the district hired a consultant to work out a plan to allow construction to continue....
Ospreys threaten to ruffle feathers at Irondale High A pile of sticks clustered on a platform atop a light pole at the Irondale High School football field drew stares and interest all spring and summer. Science teachers said it was likely the home of an osprey, a federally protected bird of prey with a 5-foot wingspan that makes a habit of nesting at the highest point near wetlands. "I thought it was pretty awesome," recalled Principal Colleen Wambach. "Now I'm just hoping we can co-exist.'' It seems this marvel of nature, with at least one chick in its 3-foot-wide nest, could temporarily halt activities on these athletic fields at the New Brighton school — possibly delaying completion of an artificial turf project and sending the marching band, soccer and football players to practice elsewhere....
Utility plans to remove dam A Utah-based utility will ask federal regulators for permission to remove an aging small dam on the Bear River in Idaho, a move that environmentalists say will help improve dwindling numbers of Bonneville cutthroat trout. The Cove Dam near the southeastern Idaho community of Grace is expected to be removed next year pending approval by the agency that licenses privately operated dams, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A dam removal agreement was signed Wednesday in Pocatello between the utility and various groups and agencies, including the Shoshone-Bannock Indian tribe, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition....
Sen. Salazar aims to prod agencies on Flats plans Sen. Ken Salazar has flexed some procedural muscle in the hope of getting the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge plans moving, but Sen. Wayne Allard's office thinks that could do more harm than good. Salazar, D-Denver, used his senator's prerogative Thursday to place a hold on three nominations for top jobs in the Department of Energy and another in the Department of Interior. It's meant to prod the two agencies into wrapping up their negotiations on a mineral-rights issue that is one of the last hang-ups before the site of a former nuclear weapons plant can be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move surprised Allard, who has worked on the Rocky Flats issue in Congress since before Salazar took office. "Sen. Allard is concerned this action may have made things more difficult to achieve," chief of staff Sean Conway said. "I think we were literally days away from an agreement. Sen. Allard's concern is these people have been working with us in good faith. All of a sudden, their willingness to work with us gets rewarded by this?"....
Conservancy Buys Riverfront Land The Nature Conservancy has purchased nearly three miles of land along the Santa Clara River in Ventura County, reaching the halfway point in its goal to protect about 20 miles of habitat along the riverbank. The 377 acres near Piru Creek, once slated for aggregate mining, is home to nearly three dozen endangered, threatened or sensitive species, including steelhead trout and the California red-legged frog. "It's really a big deal for us, because we've crossed the 2,000-acre threshold. We've crossed the 10-mile milestone, too. It's motivational," said E.J. Remson of the conservancy, the nonprofit environmental organization that is creating a conservation zone along one of the last free-flowing rivers in Southern California....
Symbol Of Wolf Reintroduction Program Dies A routine capture and checkup for one of the best known wolves in the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program ended in death Thursday after the animal overheated. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the female wolf died despite receiving immediate veterinary care. Officials said she was an integral part of the program to reintroduce the wolf back into its native land. Her photo was used repeatedly for posters and she became recognized as the symbol for Mexican wolf recovery. The wolf was at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro with her mate, four pups and her yearling male....
Wolf pack killed in central Idaho Officials confirmed that six wolves of the Copper Basin pack were killed Wednesday after repeated depredations on cattle. “We are hopeful that this control action will deter any future livestock depredations in this area,” said Carter Niemeyer, wolf recovery coordinator. “If the depredations continue, the rest of the pack will be removed.” The wolves killed two calves this past week on grazing allotments in the Challis National Forest between Mackay and Sun Valley. Last year the pack was responsible for killing four cattle, and livestock producers reported a large number of missing cattle in this area....
Small oil wells to lose discount With oil prices high, small-time oil producers whose wells generate fewer than 15 barrels a day will be required to pay more royalties to the government. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management announced Thursday it will end its discount royalty rate for those who operate low-producing "stripper" oil wells. The Bush administration has been seeking more royalties from energy production, and this decision could bring in more than $50 million a year, split among the federal Treasury and states. It is "just terrible" and could mean jobs lost in some rural areas, said Dewey Bartlett Jr., president of the National Stripper Well Association, an Oklahoma City-based trade group....
Here's the deal on weed woes The ace of hearts is the saguaro. The ace of spades is the salt cedar, or tamarisk. A deck of playing cards making the rounds among the weed-pulling crowd has taken off like, well, a weed. The deck was created to raise awareness about the threat invasive weeds pose to Arizona's desert landscape. Those weeds, such as tamarisk or Sahara mustard, have spread across the landscape and are carrying the fire that has plagued desert areas from Coolidge to Cave Creek. The cards are the creation of the Sonoran Desert Invasive Species Council, a consortium of about two dozen groups from government agencies to botanical gardens....
Bush backs National Day of the Cowboy legislation On the verge of the upcoming “Daddy of ‘em all,” Frontier Days, President Bush issued an official statement supporting Thomas legislation designating July 23rd as the National Day of the Cowboy. The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), will be read Saturday at the opening weekend of Cheyenne Frontier Days. Thomas and his wife, Susan, will be on hand for the reading of the resolution and the announcement of the Presidential message. “I can think of no better place to make this announcement than at Cheyenne Frontier Days, which attracts visitors from all over the nation,” said Wyoming’s senior senator. A supporting message from President Bush said, “We celebrate the cowboy as a symbol of the grand history of the American West. The cowboy’s love of the land and love of the country are examples for all Americans.”....
At end of life's trail In her prime, it wasn't uncommon for LaVonda to be first to aid in the fight against an Arizona wildfire. Thursday, the 34-year-old mule lost a battle of her own. For 22 years, being a pack mule for the Payson Forest Service District was all she knew. Retirement took her out of the Tonto National Forest, but those she spent time with on the trails never forgot her. Bought by the Forest Service in 1977 when she was 6, LaVonda was one of a dozen mules delivered to Arizona from Kansas to be placed among the many forest service districts....
Six-year-old is retiring at the top in mutton bustin' Koby Blunt gently lowered himself into the rodeo chute, climbing down the white fencing until he straddled his opponent: 250 pounds of bleating ovine. He wedged his right hand under the riding rope wrapped around the sheep's chest, squeezed his legs tight around its shaggy flanks and positioned his boots, spurs at the ready. He lifted his left arm into the air and instructed his assistants: "I'm ready, boys, let him out." When that gate flew open at the Winchester Open Rodeo earlier this month, it was a bittersweet moment in Koby Blunt's career. The rodeo was one of the last times Koby will compete in mutton bustin', the event he has dominated in Washington state and the Idaho panhandle. He can't compete after this season because he hit retirement age on July 6: 6 years old. "I'm the goodest sheep rider in the whole world," Koby says. Then he catches himself and adds: "Except Jesus."....
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Governor seeks inspection of Canadian cattle With Canadian cattle once again crossing the U.S. border, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer ordered Thursday that all animals destined for Montana must be checked to ensure they comply with new federal restrictions. Veterinarians, acting on behalf of the state Livestock Department, will inspect feeder cattle to determine whether they are younger than 30 months, not pregnant and have the mandated "CAN" brand, Schweitzer said. Owners of the cattle will be required to pay the cost of the inspections, which the governor estimated would be $3 to $5 a head. Schweitzer, a rancher himself, cited lingering concerns about importing cattle from a country that has reported three cases of mad cow disease during the past two years. "I am committed to the ranchers and consumers in this state," he said. "We will take every precaution available to us to protect Montanans and the Montana cattle industry." He said he will urge governors in Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming to take similar action....
White House Ties Secure Yates' Drilling Rights to Sensitive N.M. Grasslands For $2 an acre, the Bush Administration has given the rights to drill for oil and gas on New Mexico's Otero Mesa to a company whose White House connections were key to reversing earlier plans to protect much of the area from drilling. On July 20, the Harvey E. Yates Company, or HEYCO, of Roswell, N.M., placed the only bid for drilling rights to 1,600 acres of the environmentally sensitive Mesa in central New Mexico. A 2004 investigation by Environmental Working Group found that the Yates family controlled almost three times as many oil and gas leases on Western public lands as any other entity. In the last three election cycles, HEYCO and other Yates companies have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of President Bush and other Republican candidates. After a former Yates lobbyist was appointed to the No. 2 position at the Interior Department, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) revised a draft plan that would have restricted drilling on about 60 percent of the Mesa, to allow drilling in more than 90 percent of the area....
Out on a limb In the forest near Ovando, where larch tower into the sky high above the Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, something new is happening. It’s early on the morning of July 13, and representatives from three Missoula conservation groups, along with volunteers and a crew of sawyers, are surveying yesterday’s work. For the first time, they’ve been given charge of four acres of a 300-acre Forest Service fuel reduction project, with which to demonstrate how they think thinning ought to be done. “We felt like it was important to get our hands on something and show the agency a different approach,” says Jake Kreilick, with the National Forest Protection Alliance (NFPA). Along with the Native Forest Network, Wildlands CPR and the Sierra Club, NFPA is a partner in the project. Wildland Conservation Services’ crew, headed by local forester and soil scientist Mark Vander Meer, is providing the technical expertise and handling the saws....
Contractor rounds up wild cows in the Gila Wild cows that have been grazing illegally on the Gila National Forest are being rounded up by a contractor working for the US Forest Service. Forest officials says they have been rounding up cattle since 1998 to protect resources in the area. And there may be 35 or more cattle spread throughout the rugged draws and canyons in the upper Gila River. Forest officials say those cattle have escaped past roundups and have evolved into feral cows. The contractor started the roundup last week. So far, six cows have been captured....
Freudenthal seeks roadless answers Wyoming may be better off participating in conventional forest planning to determine roadless areas in the state rather taking advantage of the Bush administration's new roadless rules, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday. Under the new roadless rules issued by the Bush administration, governors can submit petitions to stop road building on some of the 34.3 million acres where it would now be permitted or request that new forest management plans be written to allow road-building on some of another 24.2 million acres. Wyoming has 3.2 million acres of roadless forests. But Freudenthal said the petition process is "essentially meaningless" because the new rule doesn't obligate the federal government to do anything. He sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns asking how much influence the state's petitions would have, how they would be judged and prioritized and who would pay for the environmental analyses....
Alleged gator killer faces charges The South Richmond fisherman who this month allegedly killed a reptile that had been lurking in Chesterfield County's Falling Creek Reservoir will face charges, according to federal wildlife officials. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman said yesterday that the creature has been identified as an American alligator, which is a "threatened species" protected by the Endangered Species Act. "We have referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond, and [criminal] charges have been filed," agency spokeswoman Diana Weaver said. The maximum possible penalty for killing a protected species is a $100,000 fine, a one-year prison term and forfeiture of any equipment used while the animal was killed, she said....
Kit foxes den still has school project on hold Most of the Taft City School District's modernization projects started so far are either completed or well underway - with one exception. The district is still waiting for the go-ahead to continue work on the Taft Parkview library media center. That project was held up when it was found that kit foxes, and endangered species, were living in a den close to where the building was being installed. That forced a complete halt to the project while the district hired a consultant to work out a plan to allow construction to continue....
Ospreys threaten to ruffle feathers at Irondale High A pile of sticks clustered on a platform atop a light pole at the Irondale High School football field drew stares and interest all spring and summer. Science teachers said it was likely the home of an osprey, a federally protected bird of prey with a 5-foot wingspan that makes a habit of nesting at the highest point near wetlands. "I thought it was pretty awesome," recalled Principal Colleen Wambach. "Now I'm just hoping we can co-exist.'' It seems this marvel of nature, with at least one chick in its 3-foot-wide nest, could temporarily halt activities on these athletic fields at the New Brighton school — possibly delaying completion of an artificial turf project and sending the marching band, soccer and football players to practice elsewhere....
Utility plans to remove dam A Utah-based utility will ask federal regulators for permission to remove an aging small dam on the Bear River in Idaho, a move that environmentalists say will help improve dwindling numbers of Bonneville cutthroat trout. The Cove Dam near the southeastern Idaho community of Grace is expected to be removed next year pending approval by the agency that licenses privately operated dams, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A dam removal agreement was signed Wednesday in Pocatello between the utility and various groups and agencies, including the Shoshone-Bannock Indian tribe, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition....
Sen. Salazar aims to prod agencies on Flats plans Sen. Ken Salazar has flexed some procedural muscle in the hope of getting the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge plans moving, but Sen. Wayne Allard's office thinks that could do more harm than good. Salazar, D-Denver, used his senator's prerogative Thursday to place a hold on three nominations for top jobs in the Department of Energy and another in the Department of Interior. It's meant to prod the two agencies into wrapping up their negotiations on a mineral-rights issue that is one of the last hang-ups before the site of a former nuclear weapons plant can be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move surprised Allard, who has worked on the Rocky Flats issue in Congress since before Salazar took office. "Sen. Allard is concerned this action may have made things more difficult to achieve," chief of staff Sean Conway said. "I think we were literally days away from an agreement. Sen. Allard's concern is these people have been working with us in good faith. All of a sudden, their willingness to work with us gets rewarded by this?"....
Conservancy Buys Riverfront Land The Nature Conservancy has purchased nearly three miles of land along the Santa Clara River in Ventura County, reaching the halfway point in its goal to protect about 20 miles of habitat along the riverbank. The 377 acres near Piru Creek, once slated for aggregate mining, is home to nearly three dozen endangered, threatened or sensitive species, including steelhead trout and the California red-legged frog. "It's really a big deal for us, because we've crossed the 2,000-acre threshold. We've crossed the 10-mile milestone, too. It's motivational," said E.J. Remson of the conservancy, the nonprofit environmental organization that is creating a conservation zone along one of the last free-flowing rivers in Southern California....
Symbol Of Wolf Reintroduction Program Dies A routine capture and checkup for one of the best known wolves in the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program ended in death Thursday after the animal overheated. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the female wolf died despite receiving immediate veterinary care. Officials said she was an integral part of the program to reintroduce the wolf back into its native land. Her photo was used repeatedly for posters and she became recognized as the symbol for Mexican wolf recovery. The wolf was at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro with her mate, four pups and her yearling male....
Wolf pack killed in central Idaho Officials confirmed that six wolves of the Copper Basin pack were killed Wednesday after repeated depredations on cattle. “We are hopeful that this control action will deter any future livestock depredations in this area,” said Carter Niemeyer, wolf recovery coordinator. “If the depredations continue, the rest of the pack will be removed.” The wolves killed two calves this past week on grazing allotments in the Challis National Forest between Mackay and Sun Valley. Last year the pack was responsible for killing four cattle, and livestock producers reported a large number of missing cattle in this area....
Small oil wells to lose discount With oil prices high, small-time oil producers whose wells generate fewer than 15 barrels a day will be required to pay more royalties to the government. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management announced Thursday it will end its discount royalty rate for those who operate low-producing "stripper" oil wells. The Bush administration has been seeking more royalties from energy production, and this decision could bring in more than $50 million a year, split among the federal Treasury and states. It is "just terrible" and could mean jobs lost in some rural areas, said Dewey Bartlett Jr., president of the National Stripper Well Association, an Oklahoma City-based trade group....
Here's the deal on weed woes The ace of hearts is the saguaro. The ace of spades is the salt cedar, or tamarisk. A deck of playing cards making the rounds among the weed-pulling crowd has taken off like, well, a weed. The deck was created to raise awareness about the threat invasive weeds pose to Arizona's desert landscape. Those weeds, such as tamarisk or Sahara mustard, have spread across the landscape and are carrying the fire that has plagued desert areas from Coolidge to Cave Creek. The cards are the creation of the Sonoran Desert Invasive Species Council, a consortium of about two dozen groups from government agencies to botanical gardens....
Bush backs National Day of the Cowboy legislation On the verge of the upcoming “Daddy of ‘em all,” Frontier Days, President Bush issued an official statement supporting Thomas legislation designating July 23rd as the National Day of the Cowboy. The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), will be read Saturday at the opening weekend of Cheyenne Frontier Days. Thomas and his wife, Susan, will be on hand for the reading of the resolution and the announcement of the Presidential message. “I can think of no better place to make this announcement than at Cheyenne Frontier Days, which attracts visitors from all over the nation,” said Wyoming’s senior senator. A supporting message from President Bush said, “We celebrate the cowboy as a symbol of the grand history of the American West. The cowboy’s love of the land and love of the country are examples for all Americans.”....
At end of life's trail In her prime, it wasn't uncommon for LaVonda to be first to aid in the fight against an Arizona wildfire. Thursday, the 34-year-old mule lost a battle of her own. For 22 years, being a pack mule for the Payson Forest Service District was all she knew. Retirement took her out of the Tonto National Forest, but those she spent time with on the trails never forgot her. Bought by the Forest Service in 1977 when she was 6, LaVonda was one of a dozen mules delivered to Arizona from Kansas to be placed among the many forest service districts....
Six-year-old is retiring at the top in mutton bustin' Koby Blunt gently lowered himself into the rodeo chute, climbing down the white fencing until he straddled his opponent: 250 pounds of bleating ovine. He wedged his right hand under the riding rope wrapped around the sheep's chest, squeezed his legs tight around its shaggy flanks and positioned his boots, spurs at the ready. He lifted his left arm into the air and instructed his assistants: "I'm ready, boys, let him out." When that gate flew open at the Winchester Open Rodeo earlier this month, it was a bittersweet moment in Koby Blunt's career. The rodeo was one of the last times Koby will compete in mutton bustin', the event he has dominated in Washington state and the Idaho panhandle. He can't compete after this season because he hit retirement age on July 6: 6 years old. "I'm the goodest sheep rider in the whole world," Koby says. Then he catches himself and adds: "Except Jesus."....
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
GAO REPORT
Oil and Gas Development: Increased Permitting Activity Has Lessened BLM's Ability to Meet Its Environmental Protection Responsibilities. GAO-05-418, June 17.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-418
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05418high.pdf
Oil and Gas Development: Increased Permitting Activity Has Lessened BLM's Ability to Meet Its Environmental Protection Responsibilities. GAO-05-418, June 17.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-418
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05418high.pdf
NEWS ROUNDUP
Federal report: Environmental lapses in oil, gas drilling The Interior Department is spending so much time approving oil and gas drilling permits on public lands that it often fails to do an adequate job policing the environment, congressional investigators say. Nationwide, oil and gas drilling permits from the department's Bureau of Land Management more than tripled from 1999 to 2004. But as those rose, from 1,803 to 6,399, bureau officials in five Western field offices complained staffers had less time for field inspections. "A dramatic increase in oil and gas development on federal lands over the past six years has lessened [the bureau's] ability to meet its environmental protection responsibilities," officials with the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The report had not yet been publicly released. The effects can range from removing several acres of vegetation at a drilling well pad to fragmenting tens of thousands of acres of winter range for mule deer, the report said....
Judge spoke volumes in his first opinion In his very first case on the D.C. circuit, a California land developer appealed an order by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove a fence from a property to accommodate the movement of a rare group of California toads. When a three-judge panel rejected the appeal, the developer asked that the case be heard by the entire circuit court. Roberts wanted to hear the case but was outvoted by his colleagues. He wrote a dissent, politely describing what he saw as wrong-headed reasoning. The majority said the federal government could regulate the land developer because the developer was involved in interstate commerce. Roberts, however, said it was the toads that were being regulated. "The hapless toad . . . for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California," wrote the court newcomer. He reasoned that toads who live only in California aren't involved in interstate commerce, so the federal government had no authority to order the developer to remove his fence. Business conservatives were ecstatic. In his first case involving an esoteric dispute, he had shown his conservative constitutionalist colors, and had done so with a spunk that made them positively giddy....
Feds issue kill order for wolves In late June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a kill order for the leader of the Ring Pack after he killed two calves and probably a cow in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. The agency later trapped a wolf believed to be the alpha male of the cattle-killing Francisco Pack. He injured his front left leg in the trap and it had to be amputated, according to spokeswoman Vicki Fox. A separate lone male wolf was caught on a Sunday on the Plains of San Agustin near a calf he killed on private land. "It's been a trying week," said John Morgart, coordinator of the wolf recovery program. "We've been working closely as we can with the ranchers and other constituencies and hopefully getting the best possible job done."....
Bear messes with Texas boy, flees after scuffle A 14-year-old Texas boy fought off a marauding black bear that invaded his tent in a private campground east of Salida early Tuesday, suffering minor injuries and gaining a heck of a story. Keelan Patton of Pampa, Texas, was asleep with his cousin about 1 a.m. when the bear crashed through their tent's nylon fabric, biting and scratching the youngster's hand and face. Patton suffered what his mother, Jana, thinks is a bite on his head and a claw scratch on his hand that required 14 stitches. Patton and his cousin, Brendan Rice, were asleep in the tent next to the camper where his mother, sister and grandmother slept at Cutty's Camping Resort in the rural Arkansas Valley community of Coaldale. Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said the bear ran off when Patton started fighting back. "The whole thing was over in less than a minute." Wildlife officials set a trap for the bear and intend to kill it if it is captured, Seraphin said....
Feds propose bison hunting on elk refuge Federal officials will propose changes in the way elk and bison near Jackson, Wyo., are managed, including the hunting of bison on the National Elk Refuge and less reliance on a winter feeding program. The proposed action is the preferred of six alternatives considered by officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. The draft management plan and environmental study are set for official release today. A copy of the plan was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. Refuge manager Barry Reiswig said the plan looks at the region's burgeoning bison population and the refuge's long-standing supplemental feed program....
Hunters rip feds over refuge Hunters said Wednesday they are fearful that a plan to reduce the number of elk on the National Elk Refuge from 7,500 to between 4,000 and 5,000 will curtail hunting opportunities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released an outline of its plan Wednesday, calling for a reduction in winter feeding, improvement of winter habitat and 1,000 fewer elk summering in Grand Teton National Park. The agency will release today a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the proposal and several other alternatives. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said its overall population goal for the Jackson herd, including animals that don’t winter on the refuge, would remain steady at about 11,000 elk. At Flat Creek Inn, where hundreds of hunters bunk during the fall, manager Beth Badgerow said fewer elk on the refuge could be bad for business....
Study Says Development Big Threat to Big Thicket A timely new report today by the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) says that the health of Big Thicket National Preserve in East Texas will be compromised by unplanned development and lack of funding if greater attention is not paid to this national treasure. "Despite the efforts of Texas's congressional delegation, Big Thicket is not out of the woods yet," said NPCA Vice President for Government Affairs Craig Obey. "More money is needed to purchase the land that surrounds Big Thicket's scattered units to protect this treasure from the effects of reckless development." Over the past few years, more than 2 million acres of timber- company land surrounding the preserve have been put up for sale. NPCA's new State of the Parks report reveals that ad hoc commercial, industrial, and residential development of this land enables non-native and invasive plants and feral animals to invade the preserve; subjects the preserve's delicate ecosystem to pesticides and fertilizers; interferes with fire management; and cuts off wildlife migration routes....
Utah Legislators Attack Wilderness Group A committee of Utah legislators that set out to discuss energy policy dealt first with an old nemesis: the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Legislators turned against a staff lawyer they invited from the preservation group, accusing SUWA of wielding too much clout and overstating the need for more wilderness. The lawyer, Steve Bloch, is a member of the Legislature’s Energy Policy Working Group and was invited to brief a standing committee. Rep. Michael E. Noel, R-Kanab, said he was bothered that SUWA portrays Utah’s open public lands of being in imminent danger from development, despite federal environmental laws governing energy exploitation. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee, asserted the alliance didn’t deal honestly or credibly with facts, and another legislator complained SUWA avoided dealing with rural leaders....
Hands-On Environmentalism Frontpage Interview’s guests today are Brent Haglund and Thomas Still, the authors of the new book Hands-On Environmentalism. FP: What inspired you to write this book? Haglund: An abiding commitment to replace costly failures with principled approaches that people can benefit from. Government-mandated environmentalism and state directed control of many of our natural resources have often been imposed with the best of intentions. But those resulting rules and regulations and restrictions very often become rigid, cost a great deal, and develop perverse incentives. Instead of telling people what is best for them and requiring landowners, industries, and municipalities to conform to particular practices, "Hands-On Environmentalism" is needed to show that voluntary, bottom-up solutions to pressing environmental concerns and resource issues have had a long history and an even greater future. And they work. Still: The inspiration for this book came from ordinary people who have succeeded in their own "hands on" conservation efforts. The people are not regulators or government officials, but landowners and other private stewards of land and wildlife. Their stories, viewed collectively against the backdrop of command-and-control environmentalism, offer a refreshing contrast and a model for others to follow....
Pro football player invests in rodeo livestock One man stood out at the Rodeo grounds last week, looking more like a football player than a cowboy. Maybe that's because Jeff Zgonina is a football player. Standing at 6'2" and weighing 290 pounds, Zgonina plays for the Miami Dolphins. He raises bulls and came to Cody for a few days to check out his stock. "They're amazing athletes, and being an athlete I was drawn to it," Zgonina said about the bull business. A defensive tackle, he has spent 13 years in the NFL. During his career he has played for Pittsburgh, Atlanta Carolina and St. Louis before going to Miami two years ago. In 1999, he was a part of the Rams team that won Super Bowl XXXIV....
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Federal report: Environmental lapses in oil, gas drilling The Interior Department is spending so much time approving oil and gas drilling permits on public lands that it often fails to do an adequate job policing the environment, congressional investigators say. Nationwide, oil and gas drilling permits from the department's Bureau of Land Management more than tripled from 1999 to 2004. But as those rose, from 1,803 to 6,399, bureau officials in five Western field offices complained staffers had less time for field inspections. "A dramatic increase in oil and gas development on federal lands over the past six years has lessened [the bureau's] ability to meet its environmental protection responsibilities," officials with the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The report had not yet been publicly released. The effects can range from removing several acres of vegetation at a drilling well pad to fragmenting tens of thousands of acres of winter range for mule deer, the report said....
Judge spoke volumes in his first opinion In his very first case on the D.C. circuit, a California land developer appealed an order by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove a fence from a property to accommodate the movement of a rare group of California toads. When a three-judge panel rejected the appeal, the developer asked that the case be heard by the entire circuit court. Roberts wanted to hear the case but was outvoted by his colleagues. He wrote a dissent, politely describing what he saw as wrong-headed reasoning. The majority said the federal government could regulate the land developer because the developer was involved in interstate commerce. Roberts, however, said it was the toads that were being regulated. "The hapless toad . . . for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California," wrote the court newcomer. He reasoned that toads who live only in California aren't involved in interstate commerce, so the federal government had no authority to order the developer to remove his fence. Business conservatives were ecstatic. In his first case involving an esoteric dispute, he had shown his conservative constitutionalist colors, and had done so with a spunk that made them positively giddy....
Feds issue kill order for wolves In late June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a kill order for the leader of the Ring Pack after he killed two calves and probably a cow in the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. The agency later trapped a wolf believed to be the alpha male of the cattle-killing Francisco Pack. He injured his front left leg in the trap and it had to be amputated, according to spokeswoman Vicki Fox. A separate lone male wolf was caught on a Sunday on the Plains of San Agustin near a calf he killed on private land. "It's been a trying week," said John Morgart, coordinator of the wolf recovery program. "We've been working closely as we can with the ranchers and other constituencies and hopefully getting the best possible job done."....
Bear messes with Texas boy, flees after scuffle A 14-year-old Texas boy fought off a marauding black bear that invaded his tent in a private campground east of Salida early Tuesday, suffering minor injuries and gaining a heck of a story. Keelan Patton of Pampa, Texas, was asleep with his cousin about 1 a.m. when the bear crashed through their tent's nylon fabric, biting and scratching the youngster's hand and face. Patton suffered what his mother, Jana, thinks is a bite on his head and a claw scratch on his hand that required 14 stitches. Patton and his cousin, Brendan Rice, were asleep in the tent next to the camper where his mother, sister and grandmother slept at Cutty's Camping Resort in the rural Arkansas Valley community of Coaldale. Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said the bear ran off when Patton started fighting back. "The whole thing was over in less than a minute." Wildlife officials set a trap for the bear and intend to kill it if it is captured, Seraphin said....
Feds propose bison hunting on elk refuge Federal officials will propose changes in the way elk and bison near Jackson, Wyo., are managed, including the hunting of bison on the National Elk Refuge and less reliance on a winter feeding program. The proposed action is the preferred of six alternatives considered by officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. The draft management plan and environmental study are set for official release today. A copy of the plan was obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. Refuge manager Barry Reiswig said the plan looks at the region's burgeoning bison population and the refuge's long-standing supplemental feed program....
Hunters rip feds over refuge Hunters said Wednesday they are fearful that a plan to reduce the number of elk on the National Elk Refuge from 7,500 to between 4,000 and 5,000 will curtail hunting opportunities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released an outline of its plan Wednesday, calling for a reduction in winter feeding, improvement of winter habitat and 1,000 fewer elk summering in Grand Teton National Park. The agency will release today a draft environmental impact statement analyzing the proposal and several other alternatives. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department said its overall population goal for the Jackson herd, including animals that don’t winter on the refuge, would remain steady at about 11,000 elk. At Flat Creek Inn, where hundreds of hunters bunk during the fall, manager Beth Badgerow said fewer elk on the refuge could be bad for business....
Study Says Development Big Threat to Big Thicket A timely new report today by the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) says that the health of Big Thicket National Preserve in East Texas will be compromised by unplanned development and lack of funding if greater attention is not paid to this national treasure. "Despite the efforts of Texas's congressional delegation, Big Thicket is not out of the woods yet," said NPCA Vice President for Government Affairs Craig Obey. "More money is needed to purchase the land that surrounds Big Thicket's scattered units to protect this treasure from the effects of reckless development." Over the past few years, more than 2 million acres of timber- company land surrounding the preserve have been put up for sale. NPCA's new State of the Parks report reveals that ad hoc commercial, industrial, and residential development of this land enables non-native and invasive plants and feral animals to invade the preserve; subjects the preserve's delicate ecosystem to pesticides and fertilizers; interferes with fire management; and cuts off wildlife migration routes....
Utah Legislators Attack Wilderness Group A committee of Utah legislators that set out to discuss energy policy dealt first with an old nemesis: the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Legislators turned against a staff lawyer they invited from the preservation group, accusing SUWA of wielding too much clout and overstating the need for more wilderness. The lawyer, Steve Bloch, is a member of the Legislature’s Energy Policy Working Group and was invited to brief a standing committee. Rep. Michael E. Noel, R-Kanab, said he was bothered that SUWA portrays Utah’s open public lands of being in imminent danger from development, despite federal environmental laws governing energy exploitation. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee, asserted the alliance didn’t deal honestly or credibly with facts, and another legislator complained SUWA avoided dealing with rural leaders....
Hands-On Environmentalism Frontpage Interview’s guests today are Brent Haglund and Thomas Still, the authors of the new book Hands-On Environmentalism. FP: What inspired you to write this book? Haglund: An abiding commitment to replace costly failures with principled approaches that people can benefit from. Government-mandated environmentalism and state directed control of many of our natural resources have often been imposed with the best of intentions. But those resulting rules and regulations and restrictions very often become rigid, cost a great deal, and develop perverse incentives. Instead of telling people what is best for them and requiring landowners, industries, and municipalities to conform to particular practices, "Hands-On Environmentalism" is needed to show that voluntary, bottom-up solutions to pressing environmental concerns and resource issues have had a long history and an even greater future. And they work. Still: The inspiration for this book came from ordinary people who have succeeded in their own "hands on" conservation efforts. The people are not regulators or government officials, but landowners and other private stewards of land and wildlife. Their stories, viewed collectively against the backdrop of command-and-control environmentalism, offer a refreshing contrast and a model for others to follow....
Pro football player invests in rodeo livestock One man stood out at the Rodeo grounds last week, looking more like a football player than a cowboy. Maybe that's because Jeff Zgonina is a football player. Standing at 6'2" and weighing 290 pounds, Zgonina plays for the Miami Dolphins. He raises bulls and came to Cody for a few days to check out his stock. "They're amazing athletes, and being an athlete I was drawn to it," Zgonina said about the bull business. A defensive tackle, he has spent 13 years in the NFL. During his career he has played for Pittsburgh, Atlanta Carolina and St. Louis before going to Miami two years ago. In 1999, he was a part of the Rams team that won Super Bowl XXXIV....
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005
MAD COW DISEASE
Judge postpones trial on Canadian cattle A federal judge today postponed a trial on whether Canadian cattle should be allowed to enter the United States. Shipments resumed Monday. U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mont., canceled arguments scheduled for July 27 on the lawsuit by Western ranchers against the U.S. Agriculture Department. Cebull had granted a preliminary injunction to ranchers who had sued to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle, saying it presented a risk to the U.S. beef industry as well as to American consumers. However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his injunction Thursday, allowing cattle shipments from Canada to resume. The first truckload entered the United States Monday. The three-judge panel issued a brief order but has not yet issued an opinion explaining why it rebuffed Cebull. "After receipt of the court of appeals' opinion, this court will determine whether further hearings are necessary," Cebull wrote in an order today....
Attack on U.S. food supply 'easy,' senators warn An attack on America's food supply using biological agents or disease is easy to do, would spread fast and have a devastating economic effect, a Senate committee heard on Wednesday, as it reviewed protection for U.S. agriculture. Confusion over confirming a second U.S. case of mad cow disease recently may have revealed a flaw in the system, Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Saxby Chambliss said. "I am concerned that since the fact of Sept. 11 we have spent millions and millions of dollars on the issue of homeland security but yet we don't have a lab in the United States of America that's capable of making an instantaneous decision on BSE, which is a fairly common disease," Chambliss said. Conner said the USDA decided to use Britain's Weybridge laboratory because it had more experience with the disease, although it conducted no tests that the USDA could not have done itself....
Chile lifts ban on U.S. beef imports Chile is lifting a mad cow disease-related ban on U.S. beef, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday. Chile was among dozens of countries that banned U.S. beef in December 2003 following the discovery of a cow infected with mad cow disease in Washington state. "This is one more step toward normalized international trade in beef," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a statement. In the year before the ban, the U.S. sold beef worth $5.3 million to Chile. In contrast, Japan, formerly the biggest U.S. beef customer, purchased $1.5 billion in U.S. beef that year. Japan has not yet lifted its ban despite agreeing to do so last fall....
More BSE-infected cattle found in Britain A cluster of cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Mad cow disease, has raised fears that contaminated feed is still being used in Britain. Three young dairy cows born long after the 1996 ban on contaminated feed are the second such BSE cluster found in England. The first occurred on a farm in Wales, also involving three young cattle born long after all feed possibly contaminated with BSE was banned. Scientists said the occurrence of a second cluster of BSE in young cattle strongly suggests the cases were not a statistical fluke and contaminated feed caused the outbreaks, the Independent reported Wednesday....
EU outlines plans to relax BSE restrictions The European Commission's plan to relax the bloc's rules on mad cow disease provides hope to food companies that they will have wider access to beef suppliers, including those in the UK. The big prize would be the re-opening up of the UK market. Under 1996 rules British beef cannot be exported to the rest of Europe from any animal more than 30 months old. The embargo, in effect since 1996, also prohibits the UK from exporting beef on the bone. Citing the steep decrease in the incidence of BSE within the UK and throughout the rest of the EU, the Commission proposes lifting the additional restrictions the bloc put on imports of live cattle and beef products from the UK. Meat must be deboned and cattle aged over 30 months are excluded from export to the rest of the EU and overseas....
Blood donors warned over mad cow Around 100 people who donated blood to three patients who later developed the human form of mad cow disease are to be warned they may carry the deadly agent, the Department of Health said yesterday. Britain first announced in 2003 what was thought to be the world’s first case of transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) via transfusion. On Wednesday, health officials said the 100-odd people concerned, who have a greater chance of carrying the vCJD compared with the general population, will be told not to donate any more blood, tissue or organs. They will also be asked to inform health care professionals so that extra precautions can be taken in case of surgery or other invasive procedures. “When a recipient of a blood transfusion goes on to develop vCJD, we have to consider the possibility that the infection could have been passed on through the transfusion,” Britain’s chief medical officer said....
Reports Call for High-Level Coordination of Animal Health The United States needs a new high-level mechanism to coordinate the currently fragmented framework for confronting new and emerging animal-borne diseases, such as mad cow disease, avian influenza, and West Nile virus, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Also, a second Research Council report released today says stronger efforts are needed to recruit more veterinarians and other scientists into veterinary research. Both reports note that a growing shortage in the number of veterinary pathologists, lab animal scientists, and other veterinary researchers -- especially those involved in public health -- is making it more difficult to meet mounting challenges in animal health. Currently, dozens of federal and state agencies, university laboratories, and private companies monitor and maintain animal health in this country. Many of the government agencies perform similar functions, while gaps in responsibility also exist, particularly in federal oversight of nonlivestock animal diseases. Animal Health at the Crossroads: Preventing, Detecting, and Diagnosing Animal Diseases says centralized coordination is needed to harmonize the work of public and private groups that safeguard animal health. The coordinating mechanism should facilitate the sharing of information among agencies and connect key databases, as well as improve communication with the public, especially during animal disease outbreaks. The report also calls for stronger links in the network of public and private labs that test for and diagnose animal diseases....
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Judge postpones trial on Canadian cattle A federal judge today postponed a trial on whether Canadian cattle should be allowed to enter the United States. Shipments resumed Monday. U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mont., canceled arguments scheduled for July 27 on the lawsuit by Western ranchers against the U.S. Agriculture Department. Cebull had granted a preliminary injunction to ranchers who had sued to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle, saying it presented a risk to the U.S. beef industry as well as to American consumers. However, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his injunction Thursday, allowing cattle shipments from Canada to resume. The first truckload entered the United States Monday. The three-judge panel issued a brief order but has not yet issued an opinion explaining why it rebuffed Cebull. "After receipt of the court of appeals' opinion, this court will determine whether further hearings are necessary," Cebull wrote in an order today....
Attack on U.S. food supply 'easy,' senators warn An attack on America's food supply using biological agents or disease is easy to do, would spread fast and have a devastating economic effect, a Senate committee heard on Wednesday, as it reviewed protection for U.S. agriculture. Confusion over confirming a second U.S. case of mad cow disease recently may have revealed a flaw in the system, Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Saxby Chambliss said. "I am concerned that since the fact of Sept. 11 we have spent millions and millions of dollars on the issue of homeland security but yet we don't have a lab in the United States of America that's capable of making an instantaneous decision on BSE, which is a fairly common disease," Chambliss said. Conner said the USDA decided to use Britain's Weybridge laboratory because it had more experience with the disease, although it conducted no tests that the USDA could not have done itself....
Chile lifts ban on U.S. beef imports Chile is lifting a mad cow disease-related ban on U.S. beef, the Agriculture Department said Tuesday. Chile was among dozens of countries that banned U.S. beef in December 2003 following the discovery of a cow infected with mad cow disease in Washington state. "This is one more step toward normalized international trade in beef," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a statement. In the year before the ban, the U.S. sold beef worth $5.3 million to Chile. In contrast, Japan, formerly the biggest U.S. beef customer, purchased $1.5 billion in U.S. beef that year. Japan has not yet lifted its ban despite agreeing to do so last fall....
More BSE-infected cattle found in Britain A cluster of cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Mad cow disease, has raised fears that contaminated feed is still being used in Britain. Three young dairy cows born long after the 1996 ban on contaminated feed are the second such BSE cluster found in England. The first occurred on a farm in Wales, also involving three young cattle born long after all feed possibly contaminated with BSE was banned. Scientists said the occurrence of a second cluster of BSE in young cattle strongly suggests the cases were not a statistical fluke and contaminated feed caused the outbreaks, the Independent reported Wednesday....
EU outlines plans to relax BSE restrictions The European Commission's plan to relax the bloc's rules on mad cow disease provides hope to food companies that they will have wider access to beef suppliers, including those in the UK. The big prize would be the re-opening up of the UK market. Under 1996 rules British beef cannot be exported to the rest of Europe from any animal more than 30 months old. The embargo, in effect since 1996, also prohibits the UK from exporting beef on the bone. Citing the steep decrease in the incidence of BSE within the UK and throughout the rest of the EU, the Commission proposes lifting the additional restrictions the bloc put on imports of live cattle and beef products from the UK. Meat must be deboned and cattle aged over 30 months are excluded from export to the rest of the EU and overseas....
Blood donors warned over mad cow Around 100 people who donated blood to three patients who later developed the human form of mad cow disease are to be warned they may carry the deadly agent, the Department of Health said yesterday. Britain first announced in 2003 what was thought to be the world’s first case of transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) via transfusion. On Wednesday, health officials said the 100-odd people concerned, who have a greater chance of carrying the vCJD compared with the general population, will be told not to donate any more blood, tissue or organs. They will also be asked to inform health care professionals so that extra precautions can be taken in case of surgery or other invasive procedures. “When a recipient of a blood transfusion goes on to develop vCJD, we have to consider the possibility that the infection could have been passed on through the transfusion,” Britain’s chief medical officer said....
Reports Call for High-Level Coordination of Animal Health The United States needs a new high-level mechanism to coordinate the currently fragmented framework for confronting new and emerging animal-borne diseases, such as mad cow disease, avian influenza, and West Nile virus, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Also, a second Research Council report released today says stronger efforts are needed to recruit more veterinarians and other scientists into veterinary research. Both reports note that a growing shortage in the number of veterinary pathologists, lab animal scientists, and other veterinary researchers -- especially those involved in public health -- is making it more difficult to meet mounting challenges in animal health. Currently, dozens of federal and state agencies, university laboratories, and private companies monitor and maintain animal health in this country. Many of the government agencies perform similar functions, while gaps in responsibility also exist, particularly in federal oversight of nonlivestock animal diseases. Animal Health at the Crossroads: Preventing, Detecting, and Diagnosing Animal Diseases says centralized coordination is needed to harmonize the work of public and private groups that safeguard animal health. The coordinating mechanism should facilitate the sharing of information among agencies and connect key databases, as well as improve communication with the public, especially during animal disease outbreaks. The report also calls for stronger links in the network of public and private labs that test for and diagnose animal diseases....
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West's water facing $$ crisis
Call it a not-so-harmonic convergence for water-starved communities in the West. On one hand, the 470 dams, 58 hydroelectric plans and 300 other facilities administered by the Bureau of Reclamation are inching past old age to where some are decrepit. In fact, the average age of the facilities is now more than 50 years, and many are well beyond their expected life span. Coming the other direction is suburban sprawl, which has dramatically increased the demand for more and better quality water. "There will be even greater demands placed on the West's limited water resources and Reclamation's aging projects, many of which are well beyond their designed life," said Tony Willardson, deputy director of the Midvale-based Western States Water Council. "The billion dollar question is how should Reclamation programs and projects be funded?" Water experts from across the nation testified Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Water and Power, with most telling lawmakers that more federal assistance, not less, is needed to bring existing facilities up to standard and build new facilities to meet the burgeoning demand. Because water facilities are owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, the water associations who deliver the water to farms and homes have no collateral to offer lenders. And without collateral, there is no money to repair the water systems or invest in greater efficiencies. But if the federal government is willing to give up title to the water associations, while still committing some federal assistance, low-interest state and private water development loans could be directed at the problem....
Scorched West puts fire troops in place as heat soars With the mercury blasting into triple digits, nervous wildland fire officials are marshaling resources and monitoring conditions while hoping the remnants of Hurricane Emily will deliver a few days of rain early next week. On Thursday, half of a fleet of military air tankers - some from Colorado and others from as far away as North Carolina - will be called up and stationed in Boise, Idaho, to supplement aerial firefighting capabilities in the parched West. "We're constantly in a chess game of preparedness at this time in the national fire season, moving resources where we predict potential fire behavior," said Mike Apicello, spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. The national fire preparedness level jumped up a notch Tuesday, with fire activity expected to rise with the temperatures....
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Call it a not-so-harmonic convergence for water-starved communities in the West. On one hand, the 470 dams, 58 hydroelectric plans and 300 other facilities administered by the Bureau of Reclamation are inching past old age to where some are decrepit. In fact, the average age of the facilities is now more than 50 years, and many are well beyond their expected life span. Coming the other direction is suburban sprawl, which has dramatically increased the demand for more and better quality water. "There will be even greater demands placed on the West's limited water resources and Reclamation's aging projects, many of which are well beyond their designed life," said Tony Willardson, deputy director of the Midvale-based Western States Water Council. "The billion dollar question is how should Reclamation programs and projects be funded?" Water experts from across the nation testified Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Water and Power, with most telling lawmakers that more federal assistance, not less, is needed to bring existing facilities up to standard and build new facilities to meet the burgeoning demand. Because water facilities are owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, the water associations who deliver the water to farms and homes have no collateral to offer lenders. And without collateral, there is no money to repair the water systems or invest in greater efficiencies. But if the federal government is willing to give up title to the water associations, while still committing some federal assistance, low-interest state and private water development loans could be directed at the problem....
Scorched West puts fire troops in place as heat soars With the mercury blasting into triple digits, nervous wildland fire officials are marshaling resources and monitoring conditions while hoping the remnants of Hurricane Emily will deliver a few days of rain early next week. On Thursday, half of a fleet of military air tankers - some from Colorado and others from as far away as North Carolina - will be called up and stationed in Boise, Idaho, to supplement aerial firefighting capabilities in the parched West. "We're constantly in a chess game of preparedness at this time in the national fire season, moving resources where we predict potential fire behavior," said Mike Apicello, spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. The national fire preparedness level jumped up a notch Tuesday, with fire activity expected to rise with the temperatures....
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Can 'biothreats' be defused?
Standing before an audience of about 100 scientists and entrepreneurs at the Hotel du Pont on Monday, Dr. Nancy Cox showed an image of a virus with a burning fuse attached. "This is a bomb," said Cox, chief influenza official at the Center for Disease Control. "It's the H5N1 virus waiting to explode." Speaking at a conference on how to respond to "biothreats"-- contagious diseases spread by nature or terrorism -- Cox predicted that more Asian countries would soon report human cases of the deadly avian influenza known as H5N1. Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have reported cases of the flu in humans. "We are at the greatest risk of having a pandemic than any time since 1968, when the last pandemic occurred," Cox said in an interview after her presentation. That global pandemic killed about 1 million people. The worst flu outbreak, in 1917, killed more than 20 million people. One frightening development is that ducks with the virus are not showing symptoms of the flu, Cox said. Those ducks could infect unwitting farmers, and more human cases increase the chance of human-to-human transmission. Monday's conference focused largely on how to formulate and quickly manufacture vaccines in the face of a flu pandemic or terrorist attack....
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Standing before an audience of about 100 scientists and entrepreneurs at the Hotel du Pont on Monday, Dr. Nancy Cox showed an image of a virus with a burning fuse attached. "This is a bomb," said Cox, chief influenza official at the Center for Disease Control. "It's the H5N1 virus waiting to explode." Speaking at a conference on how to respond to "biothreats"-- contagious diseases spread by nature or terrorism -- Cox predicted that more Asian countries would soon report human cases of the deadly avian influenza known as H5N1. Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have reported cases of the flu in humans. "We are at the greatest risk of having a pandemic than any time since 1968, when the last pandemic occurred," Cox said in an interview after her presentation. That global pandemic killed about 1 million people. The worst flu outbreak, in 1917, killed more than 20 million people. One frightening development is that ducks with the virus are not showing symptoms of the flu, Cox said. Those ducks could infect unwitting farmers, and more human cases increase the chance of human-to-human transmission. Monday's conference focused largely on how to formulate and quickly manufacture vaccines in the face of a flu pandemic or terrorist attack....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Healthy Forests Initiative dealt setback A federal court ruling reversing part of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Initiative has nationwide implications, said the Durango lawyer who filed the complaint against the U.S. Forest Service. Matt Kenna, who represented the Western Environmental Law Center, argued the agency violated the 1992 Appeals Reform Act that allows the public to comment on and appeal all Forest Service projects. He said the Bush administration illegally changed Forest Service regulations in 2003 when it denied public input on projects like hazardous fuels-reductions projects. "The Forest Service tried to turn a law that only exempted actions such as mowing an office lawn from public comment and appeal into one exempting timber sales and other threats to the environment from citizen review," Kenna said. With the July 7 verdict, Judge James Singleton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California upheld the ARA and struck down a provision that allowed projects signed by the secretary or undersecretary of Agriculture to bypass the appeals process....
Environment Lawyers Uneasy Over Roberts' Supreme Court Nomination Earthjustice Executive Director Buck Parker said that the non-profit environmental law firm he leads is "concerned that Judge Roberts may fail to uphold our key environmental safeguards as a Supreme Court justice." In a key 2003 environmental case, Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, Judge Roberts questioned the constitutionality of Endangered Species Act safeguards, Parker said. "Roberts’s arguments advanced a distorted view of Congressional power that could threaten to undermine a wide swath of environmental protections, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act," said Parker. While Acting Solicitor General, Roberts was the government’s lead counsel before the Supreme Court in Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, a case brought against then Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. by citizens seeking to enforce environmental protections in response to the government’s decision to open 4,500 acres of public land to mining. Despite express statutory authorization for such suits, however, Roberts argued that plaintiffs, members of the National Wildlife Federation, had no right to file the claims, because they had not presented sufficient proof of the impact of the government’s actions on them to give them standing. The Supreme Court agreed with Roberts, tightening standing requirements for federal cases in one of a line of cases making it harder for plaintiffs to challenge governmental actions detrimental to the environment, the Alliance for Justice pointed out....
Environmentalists oppose nomination of Hall Some environmentalists are angry over President Bush's selection of H. Dale Hall as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "This will be a serious threat that species on the brink of extinction simply don't need," said Nicole Rosmarino, conservation director for the Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians. "Dale Hall adheres to the junk science approach of the Bush administration." Defenders for Wildlife vice president for conservation litigation Mike Senatore called Hall a "terrible choice." "We've actually had some dealings with him while he was regional director of the Southwest region and through those dealings, it's been extremely unfavorable," Senatore said. "We've had issues where he's actually overruled his own field biologists on environmental matters."....
Population of endangered woodpecker rises The work of Cox and others is part of a massive effort to restore healthy populations of the endangered woodpecker in the South - and it seems to be paying off. "We have turned the corner," said Ralph Costa, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's red-cockaded woodpecker recovery coordinator in Clemson, S.C. Active woodpecker clusters - family groups of about three birds or more - have increased nearly 30 percent, from 4,694 in 1994 to 6,061. The birds once thrived in the longleaf pine forests that stretched from Texas and Oklahoma in the West to Georgia and Florida in the East and up the coast as far as New Jersey. The recovery effort got a boost with habitat conservation plans that allow landowners to move isolated woodpeckers unlikely to survive and safe harbor agreements that provide financial incentives for artificial nests and other habitat enhancements....
Duck forecast is looking up Waterfowlers won't be restricted to shorter hunting seasons or fewer ducks in the bag after all, say biologists who've been building the season framework for the Central Flyway this week in Helena, Mont. Despite rumors the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service might drop the liberal duck-hunting package it has offered for several years, waterfowl managers say few changes are coming. In fact, there could be some additional opportunity, as pintail numbers have risen a bit. The duck count across the northern prairies barely slipped this year, to 31.7 million breeding ducks from 32.2 million ducks in 2004....
Pilot project boosts weed-eating beetles South Dakota's Agriculture Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are among agencies that have joined in a pilot project in eastern South Dakota aimed at reducing the noxious weed leafy spurge. The program lets property owners collect flea beetles from another person's property at no charge. The beetles then can be released on the gatherer's land. Flea beetles slowly eat and kill the spurge, a weed so noxious that cattle sometimes refuse to graze in fields where the bright yellow plant blooms. Adult beetles eat the leaves of leafy spurge, but Ron Moehring of the state Agriculture Department said beetle larvae do even more damage. The larvae strip the spurge of its roots so the canes can't grow, he said....
State stands behind split estate law With little fanfare Tuesday afternoon, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission made several amendments to and adopted final rule changes to implement the new split estates law. But the fireworks may soon follow. For many landowners in Wyoming, the new law means they no longer have to rely on the "luck of the draw" when oil and gas developers want to produce minerals that are below the surface but are not part of the surface ownership. Whether they're good or bad actors, all developers must now comply with notification and good-faith negotiation requirements to strike a private "surface use agreement." But for many in the industry, the new requirements amount to, albeit well-intended, legal traps. Tuesday's amendments aimed at clarifying language to match that of the law, which went into effect July 1. However, it's the changes the commission didn't make that may spark fireworks in the near future. It didn't change a 180-day timeline to strike a surface use agreement, and it didn't bend to pressure from the federal government to exempt development on federal minerals....
Companies propose year-round drilling on big game winter range Shell Exploration and Production and other companies are seeking an exception to allow year-round drilling on big game winter range in the Pinedale area. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management usually prohibits drilling in deer, elk, moose and antelope winter range from Nov. 15 through April 30, when the animals are vulnerable to stress. Shell, Anschutz Pinedale Inc., and Ultra Resources Inc. are proposing up to 45 new wells using directional, or diagonal, drilling from 32 drilling pads. The companies say directional drilling does less harm to wildlife and produces less air pollution, according to the BLM....
Judge sets $1,000 bond for groups' CBM appeal A federal judge has ordered a conservation group and the Northern Cheyenne tribe to post a total bond of $1,000 in their appeal of a ruling in a lawsuit over coalbed methane development. U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson said a nominal amount was appropriate because "these cases are about the public interest. They deserve to be heard on the merits. A nominal bond facilitates this objective.'' Fidelity Exploration and Production Co., a subsidiary of MDU Resources Inc., asked that the NRPC and the tribe post a $9.5 million bond to secure it against losses that an economist estimated could range from $9.5 million to $13.7 million. The NPRC and the tribe are appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals an injunction issued by Anderson allowing up to 500 coalbed methane wells a year to be drilled in the Tongue River watershed in southeastern Montana while BLM studies the environmental effects of phased development....
Dry grass + Days of '47 = fire ban Earlier this summer, heavy rains fueled record crops of wild grasses across Utah's undeveloped open spaces. Then, hot July temperatures dried out those grasses, now averaging 28 inches high and weighing in at 2,000 pounds an acre - four times the usual amount. The numbers worry fire officials. With Days of '47 festivities approaching, fire restrictions are in effect for nearly half of Utah. "When [cheat grass] burns, it lights up like oil and explodes in flames," said Susan Marzec, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management....
Counties and Ranchers Get Heard Kane and Garfield Counties and local ranchers had their day in court last week at the hearing in Kanab on the elimination of grazing permits by the Grand Canyon Trust (GCT). At issue, is whether the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and environmental groups can legally mothball grazing permits forever or whether that concept is against existing laws. Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said he felt good about their witness testimonies, "We were able to get out the factual basis of our case, and finally, get our side of the story before the court. We certainly don't know how the final legal decision will fall, but it's a major hurdle to be heard at last." The counties and ranchers have always pointed out the fact that the elimination of grazing permits is against the law, specifically the Taylor Grazing Act (Taylor Act) and Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). They say the attempts to change policy has been driven from the top down by Dept. of Interior (DOI) that oversees BLM, with the blessings and under the direction of DOI Secretary Gale Norton....
Groups sue U.S. over plan to line canal near Mexico border A Mexican organization and two nonprofit groups are suing the U.S. government to stop plans to line a canal near the border that supplies water to farms in California's Imperial Valley. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, seeks class-action status for people in the Mexicali Valley of Mexico, and a declaration that water seeping into the ground north of the border but serving people in Mexico cannot be seized by the United States. At issue is a decades-old federal plan to line the porous All-American Canal with concrete. The canal delivers water from the Colorado River just north of the border to the agriculture-rich Imperial Valley in California. The U.S. government estimates that almost 68,000 acre-feet of seepage could be saved if the canal is lined....
Water Theft: Garkane Energy and Boulder Irrigators under Attack by Federal Regulations The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has Garkane Energy Cooperative (Garkane), Boulder Irrigation Company (BI), and all Garkane customers in a stranglehold that others say cannot be loosened. These real stakeholders stand to foot the bill for the Feds' demands for water rights, diversion, equipment, studies and monitoring, all for a fish named the Colorado cutthroat trout. The project has been underway for four years, but the public is just now learning about it. Garkane is currently in the process of relicensing its hydroelectric operations in Boulder Creek with FERC for the next 30 years. As part of that process, the U.S. Forest Service has flexed its muscles under the Federal Power Act and called for environmental studies, collaborative discussions between Garkane, BI, other Federal and State resource agencies, and Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit group that says its "the nation's leading coldwater conservation organization." The purpose of the discussions, which have actually been ongoing for years, is to find, take and divert at least two cubic feet a second (cfs) of water from Garkane's current operations and BI's shareholders. The water is to be put back into two washes that were supposedly dried up 50 years ago by Garkane's current license....
Panel to subpoena Yucca papers A congressional committee will subpoena documents from the Energy Department about possible paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, a lawmaker said Monday. The department missed a Monday deadline set by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., to hand over documents, including personnel records of scientists on the project, organizational charts and research details. Porter, who chairs a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he met with the chairman of the full committee, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who agreed to subpoena the documents Tuesday....
PBS 'lost its soul' in farm series A coalition of 70 environmental groups announced yesterday that PBS has "lost its soul" over a 20-part series meant to celebrate the traditional values and bedrock appeal of the nation's farm country. In conjunction with Boston-based American Public Television, PBS will air "America's Heartland" on 305 stations this fall, funded by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association, four other agricultural trade groups and the Monsanto Company, a Missouri-based manufacturer of seeds and herbicides. And therein lies the rub. "Public television has lost its soul if it can be so easily bought and sold by corporate agribusiness," said Alice Slater of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, which organized the effort....
Wall ranch invites artists to living Wild West scenes The characters decked out in Native American and Wild West regalia are models, and most of the photographers are oil painters, sculptors and water-colorists who specialize in scenes of the Old West. They're all here for the annual Artist Ride, a three-day-long, invitation-only event that re-creates Wild West tableaux for artists. It's life imitating Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt and Charles M. Russell. It's also the largest event of its kind, attracting some of the genre's leading figures to a convivial affair that's as much reunion as tax deduction. On a sprawling campground, two white men pose as Lewis and Clark; a Lakota boy wields a bow and arrow; a Lakota woman cradles her two children. In the distance, Indians pursue a stagecoach; a trio of mountain men pause in a canoe in the middle of the river; a Korean-American portrays an 1860s "Chinaman" panning for gold at the river's edge....
Billy Bob's passion for boots fuelled by hatred BILLY BOB THORNTON has courted controversy by declaring he enjoys wearing lizard-skin boots because he despises the creatures they're made out of. The MONSTER'S BALL star has a pair of lizard-skin boots he wears as often as he can, and he admits his dislike for the creatures drives his passion for the footwear. He says, "I love these boots. I actually got 'em in a store in New York years ago called Buffalo Chips over in SoHo. "The reason I wear boots like this, it has nothing to do with being a cowboy, I just don't like lizards so I'll wear anything made out of 'em."....
===
Healthy Forests Initiative dealt setback A federal court ruling reversing part of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Initiative has nationwide implications, said the Durango lawyer who filed the complaint against the U.S. Forest Service. Matt Kenna, who represented the Western Environmental Law Center, argued the agency violated the 1992 Appeals Reform Act that allows the public to comment on and appeal all Forest Service projects. He said the Bush administration illegally changed Forest Service regulations in 2003 when it denied public input on projects like hazardous fuels-reductions projects. "The Forest Service tried to turn a law that only exempted actions such as mowing an office lawn from public comment and appeal into one exempting timber sales and other threats to the environment from citizen review," Kenna said. With the July 7 verdict, Judge James Singleton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California upheld the ARA and struck down a provision that allowed projects signed by the secretary or undersecretary of Agriculture to bypass the appeals process....
Environment Lawyers Uneasy Over Roberts' Supreme Court Nomination Earthjustice Executive Director Buck Parker said that the non-profit environmental law firm he leads is "concerned that Judge Roberts may fail to uphold our key environmental safeguards as a Supreme Court justice." In a key 2003 environmental case, Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, Judge Roberts questioned the constitutionality of Endangered Species Act safeguards, Parker said. "Roberts’s arguments advanced a distorted view of Congressional power that could threaten to undermine a wide swath of environmental protections, including the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act," said Parker. While Acting Solicitor General, Roberts was the government’s lead counsel before the Supreme Court in Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, a case brought against then Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. by citizens seeking to enforce environmental protections in response to the government’s decision to open 4,500 acres of public land to mining. Despite express statutory authorization for such suits, however, Roberts argued that plaintiffs, members of the National Wildlife Federation, had no right to file the claims, because they had not presented sufficient proof of the impact of the government’s actions on them to give them standing. The Supreme Court agreed with Roberts, tightening standing requirements for federal cases in one of a line of cases making it harder for plaintiffs to challenge governmental actions detrimental to the environment, the Alliance for Justice pointed out....
Environmentalists oppose nomination of Hall Some environmentalists are angry over President Bush's selection of H. Dale Hall as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "This will be a serious threat that species on the brink of extinction simply don't need," said Nicole Rosmarino, conservation director for the Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians. "Dale Hall adheres to the junk science approach of the Bush administration." Defenders for Wildlife vice president for conservation litigation Mike Senatore called Hall a "terrible choice." "We've actually had some dealings with him while he was regional director of the Southwest region and through those dealings, it's been extremely unfavorable," Senatore said. "We've had issues where he's actually overruled his own field biologists on environmental matters."....
Population of endangered woodpecker rises The work of Cox and others is part of a massive effort to restore healthy populations of the endangered woodpecker in the South - and it seems to be paying off. "We have turned the corner," said Ralph Costa, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's red-cockaded woodpecker recovery coordinator in Clemson, S.C. Active woodpecker clusters - family groups of about three birds or more - have increased nearly 30 percent, from 4,694 in 1994 to 6,061. The birds once thrived in the longleaf pine forests that stretched from Texas and Oklahoma in the West to Georgia and Florida in the East and up the coast as far as New Jersey. The recovery effort got a boost with habitat conservation plans that allow landowners to move isolated woodpeckers unlikely to survive and safe harbor agreements that provide financial incentives for artificial nests and other habitat enhancements....
Duck forecast is looking up Waterfowlers won't be restricted to shorter hunting seasons or fewer ducks in the bag after all, say biologists who've been building the season framework for the Central Flyway this week in Helena, Mont. Despite rumors the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service might drop the liberal duck-hunting package it has offered for several years, waterfowl managers say few changes are coming. In fact, there could be some additional opportunity, as pintail numbers have risen a bit. The duck count across the northern prairies barely slipped this year, to 31.7 million breeding ducks from 32.2 million ducks in 2004....
Pilot project boosts weed-eating beetles South Dakota's Agriculture Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are among agencies that have joined in a pilot project in eastern South Dakota aimed at reducing the noxious weed leafy spurge. The program lets property owners collect flea beetles from another person's property at no charge. The beetles then can be released on the gatherer's land. Flea beetles slowly eat and kill the spurge, a weed so noxious that cattle sometimes refuse to graze in fields where the bright yellow plant blooms. Adult beetles eat the leaves of leafy spurge, but Ron Moehring of the state Agriculture Department said beetle larvae do even more damage. The larvae strip the spurge of its roots so the canes can't grow, he said....
State stands behind split estate law With little fanfare Tuesday afternoon, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission made several amendments to and adopted final rule changes to implement the new split estates law. But the fireworks may soon follow. For many landowners in Wyoming, the new law means they no longer have to rely on the "luck of the draw" when oil and gas developers want to produce minerals that are below the surface but are not part of the surface ownership. Whether they're good or bad actors, all developers must now comply with notification and good-faith negotiation requirements to strike a private "surface use agreement." But for many in the industry, the new requirements amount to, albeit well-intended, legal traps. Tuesday's amendments aimed at clarifying language to match that of the law, which went into effect July 1. However, it's the changes the commission didn't make that may spark fireworks in the near future. It didn't change a 180-day timeline to strike a surface use agreement, and it didn't bend to pressure from the federal government to exempt development on federal minerals....
Companies propose year-round drilling on big game winter range Shell Exploration and Production and other companies are seeking an exception to allow year-round drilling on big game winter range in the Pinedale area. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management usually prohibits drilling in deer, elk, moose and antelope winter range from Nov. 15 through April 30, when the animals are vulnerable to stress. Shell, Anschutz Pinedale Inc., and Ultra Resources Inc. are proposing up to 45 new wells using directional, or diagonal, drilling from 32 drilling pads. The companies say directional drilling does less harm to wildlife and produces less air pollution, according to the BLM....
Judge sets $1,000 bond for groups' CBM appeal A federal judge has ordered a conservation group and the Northern Cheyenne tribe to post a total bond of $1,000 in their appeal of a ruling in a lawsuit over coalbed methane development. U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson said a nominal amount was appropriate because "these cases are about the public interest. They deserve to be heard on the merits. A nominal bond facilitates this objective.'' Fidelity Exploration and Production Co., a subsidiary of MDU Resources Inc., asked that the NRPC and the tribe post a $9.5 million bond to secure it against losses that an economist estimated could range from $9.5 million to $13.7 million. The NPRC and the tribe are appealing to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals an injunction issued by Anderson allowing up to 500 coalbed methane wells a year to be drilled in the Tongue River watershed in southeastern Montana while BLM studies the environmental effects of phased development....
Dry grass + Days of '47 = fire ban Earlier this summer, heavy rains fueled record crops of wild grasses across Utah's undeveloped open spaces. Then, hot July temperatures dried out those grasses, now averaging 28 inches high and weighing in at 2,000 pounds an acre - four times the usual amount. The numbers worry fire officials. With Days of '47 festivities approaching, fire restrictions are in effect for nearly half of Utah. "When [cheat grass] burns, it lights up like oil and explodes in flames," said Susan Marzec, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management....
Counties and Ranchers Get Heard Kane and Garfield Counties and local ranchers had their day in court last week at the hearing in Kanab on the elimination of grazing permits by the Grand Canyon Trust (GCT). At issue, is whether the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and environmental groups can legally mothball grazing permits forever or whether that concept is against existing laws. Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said he felt good about their witness testimonies, "We were able to get out the factual basis of our case, and finally, get our side of the story before the court. We certainly don't know how the final legal decision will fall, but it's a major hurdle to be heard at last." The counties and ranchers have always pointed out the fact that the elimination of grazing permits is against the law, specifically the Taylor Grazing Act (Taylor Act) and Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA). They say the attempts to change policy has been driven from the top down by Dept. of Interior (DOI) that oversees BLM, with the blessings and under the direction of DOI Secretary Gale Norton....
Groups sue U.S. over plan to line canal near Mexico border A Mexican organization and two nonprofit groups are suing the U.S. government to stop plans to line a canal near the border that supplies water to farms in California's Imperial Valley. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, seeks class-action status for people in the Mexicali Valley of Mexico, and a declaration that water seeping into the ground north of the border but serving people in Mexico cannot be seized by the United States. At issue is a decades-old federal plan to line the porous All-American Canal with concrete. The canal delivers water from the Colorado River just north of the border to the agriculture-rich Imperial Valley in California. The U.S. government estimates that almost 68,000 acre-feet of seepage could be saved if the canal is lined....
Water Theft: Garkane Energy and Boulder Irrigators under Attack by Federal Regulations The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has Garkane Energy Cooperative (Garkane), Boulder Irrigation Company (BI), and all Garkane customers in a stranglehold that others say cannot be loosened. These real stakeholders stand to foot the bill for the Feds' demands for water rights, diversion, equipment, studies and monitoring, all for a fish named the Colorado cutthroat trout. The project has been underway for four years, but the public is just now learning about it. Garkane is currently in the process of relicensing its hydroelectric operations in Boulder Creek with FERC for the next 30 years. As part of that process, the U.S. Forest Service has flexed its muscles under the Federal Power Act and called for environmental studies, collaborative discussions between Garkane, BI, other Federal and State resource agencies, and Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit group that says its "the nation's leading coldwater conservation organization." The purpose of the discussions, which have actually been ongoing for years, is to find, take and divert at least two cubic feet a second (cfs) of water from Garkane's current operations and BI's shareholders. The water is to be put back into two washes that were supposedly dried up 50 years ago by Garkane's current license....
Panel to subpoena Yucca papers A congressional committee will subpoena documents from the Energy Department about possible paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, a lawmaker said Monday. The department missed a Monday deadline set by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., to hand over documents, including personnel records of scientists on the project, organizational charts and research details. Porter, who chairs a House Government Reform subcommittee, said he met with the chairman of the full committee, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who agreed to subpoena the documents Tuesday....
PBS 'lost its soul' in farm series A coalition of 70 environmental groups announced yesterday that PBS has "lost its soul" over a 20-part series meant to celebrate the traditional values and bedrock appeal of the nation's farm country. In conjunction with Boston-based American Public Television, PBS will air "America's Heartland" on 305 stations this fall, funded by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association, four other agricultural trade groups and the Monsanto Company, a Missouri-based manufacturer of seeds and herbicides. And therein lies the rub. "Public television has lost its soul if it can be so easily bought and sold by corporate agribusiness," said Alice Slater of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, which organized the effort....
Wall ranch invites artists to living Wild West scenes The characters decked out in Native American and Wild West regalia are models, and most of the photographers are oil painters, sculptors and water-colorists who specialize in scenes of the Old West. They're all here for the annual Artist Ride, a three-day-long, invitation-only event that re-creates Wild West tableaux for artists. It's life imitating Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt and Charles M. Russell. It's also the largest event of its kind, attracting some of the genre's leading figures to a convivial affair that's as much reunion as tax deduction. On a sprawling campground, two white men pose as Lewis and Clark; a Lakota boy wields a bow and arrow; a Lakota woman cradles her two children. In the distance, Indians pursue a stagecoach; a trio of mountain men pause in a canoe in the middle of the river; a Korean-American portrays an 1860s "Chinaman" panning for gold at the river's edge....
Billy Bob's passion for boots fuelled by hatred BILLY BOB THORNTON has courted controversy by declaring he enjoys wearing lizard-skin boots because he despises the creatures they're made out of. The MONSTER'S BALL star has a pair of lizard-skin boots he wears as often as he can, and he admits his dislike for the creatures drives his passion for the footwear. He says, "I love these boots. I actually got 'em in a store in New York years ago called Buffalo Chips over in SoHo. "The reason I wear boots like this, it has nothing to do with being a cowboy, I just don't like lizards so I'll wear anything made out of 'em."....
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Kelo v. City of New London
States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling
Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain. In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land. Even in states like Illinois — one of at least eight that already forbid eminent domain for economic development unless the purpose is to eliminate blight — lawmakers are proposing to make it even tougher to use the procedure. Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington already forbid the taking of private property for economic development except to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow private property to be taken for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly on the question....
Alabama joins national backlash to court's eminent domain ruling
Alabama will join a growing statehouse backlash over the U.S. Supreme Court's eminent domain decision when the Legislature convenes in special session Tuesday. In addition to offering a state General Fund budget, Gov. Bob Riley's office announced Monday that he is preparing a bill that would prohibit city and county governments from using eminent domain to take property for commercial, retail, office or residential development. The bill would still allow property to be taken for traditional eminent domain projects, such as public roads and schools. Some examples of what's happening elsewhere: •In Delaware, the House and Senate voted unanimously June 30 to impose restrictions on eminent domain. •In Texas, the House and Senate have passed differing versions of legislation to restrict eminent domain and are trying to agree on a bill. •In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue has called it a "kitchen table issue," and he has joined top legislative leaders in promising to take action in the next session of the Legislature. •In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt created a task force to make recommendations for the next session of the Legislature. Two states — Utah and Nevada — passed bills earlier in the year while the Supreme Court case was pending. Passing such legislation is not always easy. Larry Morandi, a land use expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Minnesota had eminent domain bills introduced in its Legislature after the Supreme Court's ruling, and none passed....
Lawyers Petition Court to Rehear Kelo Case
The Institute for Justice, which represents the plaintiffs in the recently decided Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain case, filed a petition on behalf of the area’s property holders asking the US Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling. Similar actions have been taken by the court only a handful of times over the past 25 years. "We will be the first to admit that our chances of success with this motion are extremely small, but if there is any case that deserves to reheard by the Supreme Court, it is the Kelo case," says Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, DC-based legal group. "Rarely does a Supreme Court decision generate such uniform and nearly universal outrage," adds Chip Mellor, president of the institute. According to the petition, other eminent domain cases are occurring all across the country. In its petition, the institute says that because property owners have to pay their own litigation costs they are at a disadvantage. A second basis asks the court to vacate the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court to allow for a re-examination of the facts in light of the new standards set by its decision....
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States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling
Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain. In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land. Even in states like Illinois — one of at least eight that already forbid eminent domain for economic development unless the purpose is to eliminate blight — lawmakers are proposing to make it even tougher to use the procedure. Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington already forbid the taking of private property for economic development except to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow private property to be taken for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly on the question....
Alabama joins national backlash to court's eminent domain ruling
Alabama will join a growing statehouse backlash over the U.S. Supreme Court's eminent domain decision when the Legislature convenes in special session Tuesday. In addition to offering a state General Fund budget, Gov. Bob Riley's office announced Monday that he is preparing a bill that would prohibit city and county governments from using eminent domain to take property for commercial, retail, office or residential development. The bill would still allow property to be taken for traditional eminent domain projects, such as public roads and schools. Some examples of what's happening elsewhere: •In Delaware, the House and Senate voted unanimously June 30 to impose restrictions on eminent domain. •In Texas, the House and Senate have passed differing versions of legislation to restrict eminent domain and are trying to agree on a bill. •In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue has called it a "kitchen table issue," and he has joined top legislative leaders in promising to take action in the next session of the Legislature. •In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt created a task force to make recommendations for the next session of the Legislature. Two states — Utah and Nevada — passed bills earlier in the year while the Supreme Court case was pending. Passing such legislation is not always easy. Larry Morandi, a land use expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said Minnesota had eminent domain bills introduced in its Legislature after the Supreme Court's ruling, and none passed....
Lawyers Petition Court to Rehear Kelo Case
The Institute for Justice, which represents the plaintiffs in the recently decided Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain case, filed a petition on behalf of the area’s property holders asking the US Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling. Similar actions have been taken by the court only a handful of times over the past 25 years. "We will be the first to admit that our chances of success with this motion are extremely small, but if there is any case that deserves to reheard by the Supreme Court, it is the Kelo case," says Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, DC-based legal group. "Rarely does a Supreme Court decision generate such uniform and nearly universal outrage," adds Chip Mellor, president of the institute. According to the petition, other eminent domain cases are occurring all across the country. In its petition, the institute says that because property owners have to pay their own litigation costs they are at a disadvantage. A second basis asks the court to vacate the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court to allow for a re-examination of the facts in light of the new standards set by its decision....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Editorial: Caution on forest land sales The U.S. Forest Service may be getting a green light to sell some properties, but the plan could have disturbing results. The underlying problem is that the Forest Service is short on cash. Its budget has been a mess for years - in fact, its accounting is so convoluted that it has failed past government audits. Congress also chronically shortchanges the agency's operations. Against this backdrop, the U.S. Senate, at the Bush administration's behest, included language in an appropriations bill to let the Forest Service auction off thousands of parcels of national forest. Some of the properties may truly be surplus, but others have important public uses and shouldn't be sold....
Feds seek a better wild horse trap First light of day is just breaking over the sagebrush and juniper-covered scrubland of the Devil's Garden as Rob Jeffers and his crew head out in search of wild horses. By 6 a.m. their work horses are saddled and two helicopters are airborne, and the hunt is on. Scattered somewhere across thousands of acres of rangeland are an estimated 700 wild horses. Federal officials would like to reduce that number by more than half. Jeffers, wild horse manager for the Alturas-based Modoc National Forest and the person in charge of the gather, checks the setup....
Man found in women's outhouse says he lost ring The Maine man police discovered at the bottom of a women's outhouse last month told investigators that he was searching for his wedding ring. Judge Pamela Albee continued bail at $250 personal recognizance and stipulated several bail conditions, including that he stay out of women's restrooms and off U.S. Forest Service property pending his trial on the misdemeanor counts. According to court papers filed by Carroll County Sheriff's Department Capt. Jon Herbert, officers were called to the Lower Falls by a U.S. Forest Service worker on June 26 after a girl entered the restroom and saw a man in the raw sewage vault "looking up at her."....
Officials remove protesters' log cabin A log cabin erected by protesters trying to block logging on a timber sale in southwestern Oregon was removed by logger and U.S. Forest Service officials. Using equipment provided by the loggers, including a skidder and a front-end loader, the Forest Service pushed the logs to one side on Sunday, said Forest Service spokesman Tom Lavagnino. The cabin was erected this past weekend in the middle of the only road leading to the Hobson timber sale in the Siskiyou National Forest, one of the areas burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, according to Wild Siskiyou Action, the group that undertook the protest....
Report adds up salamander’s effect on real estate A proposal to set aside land for the California tiger salamander could add up to $367 million in lost opportunities to build more houses and businesses over the next 20 years, according to the latest study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But a representative of an environmental group dedicated to saving the amphibian said Friday that the report by Charles Rivers and Associates of Oakland overlooks the economic benefits of saving habitat for rare plants and animals. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing that 382,666 acres of land be named as critical habitat for the salamander, listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. Service spokesman Al Donner said a critical habitat label doesn’t necessarily prohibit building on these lands, but it does give environmentalists, open-space advocates and political jurisdictions a federal policy to refer to when critiquing environmental reviews for annexation proposals or public works projects. It also gives agencies like the San Joaquin Council of Governments an idea of which lands are best for conservation easements, where the agency buys land or pays landowners to keep them from selling to developers....
Ducks Out of Water? Waterfowlers traditionally spend their summers wondering if the upcoming duck season will bring more, or less: Will the bag limit be higher or lower? Will the season be longer or shorter? Will there be more greenheads or fewer? But some of the nation’s top waterfowl managers suggest that hunters may soon be adding a sobering new factor to their summer equations: Will there even be a next season? What was once unthinkable—closed seasons—is now a valid consideration due to a chain of legal and political decisions that has stripped federal protection from the continent’s most critical waterfowl habitat: the prairie pothole nesting grounds of the northern plains. This region is responsible for most of the ducks that keep seasons open....
Bat Houses Will Prevent Residents From Going ‘Batty’ Over West Nile Want to cut your citronella costs for the summer and still control mosquitoes? Then why not put Nature to work? With the Center for Disease Control warning that the West Nile Virus may be making a resurgence due to the wet and mild winter just passed, many are turning to an unlikely source for relief from summer pests: bats. Bats, or more specifically the Little Brown Bat ( Myotis lucifugus ) which is common throughout the country, are gluttonous little rodents that can each eat 500 or more mosquitoes per hour. Think about a small colony of 250 bats, feeding for eight hours per night, and you’re looking at tons of mosquitoes destroyed over the course of a summer and without the environmental damage done by other methods. “Unfortunately, many people still see bats in the same context as Dracula,” says Dr. Ed Markin of F. Hooker Products ( F.H.P. ). “They are misunderstood, unnecessarily feared and becoming endangered when they could be put to work for our benefit.” F.H.P. makes commercial bat houses and brood boxes for the National Park Service, U.S. Army, several universities, and virtually every vineyard in the world. Bats are instrumental in wine production as they perform as much as 40% of the pollination of grapes. F.H.P. now offers bat domiciles for private use starting at around $40 for a single chamber box that will house 250 or so bats....
Feds want drillers to pay application fee The Bush administration wants to charge oil and gas drillers to process permits to drill on federal land. The proposal comes amid rising federal deficits, a shrinking Bureau of Land Management budget and a boom in drilling on Western public lands. Currently there is no charge for "applications for permits to drill," or APDs. Drillers do pay rent on leases, and royalties on the oil and gas they take out of the ground. But the BLM doesn't charge for the administrative cost of processing permit applications. The proposal is to be published in today's Federal Register. It calls for a $4,000 fee per APD, to be phased in over five years, starting at $1,600....
Editorial: Silly comparisons by Ward, Noel not helpful in lands dispute There have been good-faith attempts to bring all sides to the table to discuss rural road use in Utah and to set the stage for essential compromises. Comments by Assistant Attorney General Mark Ward and Rep. Mike Noel to the Farm Bureau last week aren't among them. Instead, the two seemed bent on wiping out any progress made a month ago when Kane and Garfield county officials met with representatives of the Bureau of Land Management at the governor's office at the invitation of Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert. They discussed a dispute over rights of way in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that in 2003 led to Kane County officials destroying BLM signs that restricted access in the area and placing signs welcoming off-road vehicles. The U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating whether there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. Herbert's meeting did not end the conflict, of course, but may have started a healthy dialogue. Thursday's inflammatory pontificating, on the other hand, encouraged defiance....
Governor backs new split estate law Gov. Dave Freudenthal is resisting pressures to exempt federal minerals from Wyoming's new split estate laws, despite Bureau of Land Management pressures to do so. Split estate laws govern the extraction of minerals, which are usually owned separately from the surface land they lie beneath. State and federal laws give companies the right to reasonable use of the surface to extract the new minerals. Freudenthal said the new laws, which went into effect July 1, give landowners increased "procedural protections." They addressed notification of landowners and payment for damages. For example, federal agencies had become lax on enforcing things such as notifying landowners, he said. But BLM Director Kathleen Clarke challenged the new laws in a letter to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission. According to the preemption doctrine, which says federal laws trump state ones, the new rules don't apply to federal minerals since they impede development of that land, she wrote. Freudenthal said he wasn't worried about future court battles between the state and the federal agency. Clarke's comments seemed to be a "for-the-record-letter," not a harbinger of upcoming legal troubles, he said. If litigation does come, it will most likely come from companies, not the federal government, he said....
Column: Drilling the Wild Rod and gun in hand, and backing the Second Amendment right to own firearms, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have won the hearts of America’s sportsmen. Yet the two men have failed to protect outdoor sports on the nation’s public lands. With deep ties to the oil and gas industry, Bush and Cheney have unleashed a national energy plan that has begun to destroy hunting and fishing on millions of federal acres throughout the West, setting back effective wildlife management for decades to come. In his second week in office, President Bush convened a National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Vice President Cheney. Meeting with representatives of the energy industry behind closed doors, it eventually released a National Energy Policy, the goal of which was to “expedite permits and coordinate federal, state, and local actions necessary for energy-related project approvals on a national basis.” Put into practice through a series of executive orders, the policy has prioritized drilling over other uses on federal lands, while relegating long-standing conservation mandates from the 1960s and ’70s to the back burner. For example, in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management has approved over 75 percent of the energy industry’s applications for exemptions to work in critical winter range, heretofore closed to protect wildlife—sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorns, in particular (the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 gave agencies the means to close critical habitat). The BLM has also continued to issue drilling leases while in the process of writing new resource management plans that still await public comment....
Cattle shipments resume from Canada The first new shipment of Canadian cattle rolled into the United States on Monday, four days after a federal appeals court ended a two-year-old ban originally instituted because of mad cow disease. Thirty-five black Angus cattle crossed the border around noon at Lewiston, N.Y., near Niagara Falls, according to the shipper, Schaus Land and Cattle Co. of Elmwood, Ontario. "We've been waiting for this since the border closed," said company controller Luke Simpson. In the state of Washington, common destination for Canadian cattle, another Canadian shipper has submitted a request to cross the border there....
NHSFR begins week-long run at Gillette Competition at the 57th annual National High School Finals Rodeo enters its second day at the CAM-PLEX with performances at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. today. Rodeo performances continue daily through Sunday. Cowboys and cowgirls from 40 states, five Canadian provinces and Australia are competing for a slot in Sunday's final round that begins at 1 p.m. The top 20 contestants in each event will advance. Called the "World's Largest Rodeo," more than 1,500 contestants are entered in this years' NHSFR....
Casper cowboy leads bull riding Forget waiting around, Clayton Savage was ready. When the draw for the National High School Finals Rodeo was posted on Sunday, Savage knew he would be in the first group of bull riders. He did just that, posting a 76-point ride to win the first performance at the NHSFR at Cam-Plex in Gillette on Monday. Savage wasn't the only one to take advantage of an early draw position in the week-long rodeo. Pole bender Tyler Rose Walton of Raton, N.M., excited the crowd in Morningside Park with a 20.178-second ride, the best of the go so far. Jordan Muncy, Walton's New Mexico teammate, was no slouch either. The Cedarville cowgirl turned in a barrel racing run of 17.64 seconds, which gave her a 0.007-second edge over Shelly Combs of Eltopia, Wash., for the top spot in the first performance....
Six inducted into ProRodeo Hall of Fame The ProRodeo Hall of Fame celebrated its 26th annual induction ceremony on Saturday with six individuals receiving the ultimate honor in professional rodeo. Headlining the Class of 2005 was the late Chris LeDoux of Kaycee, Wyo., who not only won the 1976 world bareback riding title, but also brought attention to rodeo through his music. Joining LeDoux was 1981 World All-Around Champion Jimmie Cooper of Monument, N.M., 1978 World Saddle Bronc Riding Champion Joe Marvel of Battle Mountain, Nev., late team roper Charles Maggini of Hollister, Calif., stock contractor Marvin Brookman of Wolf Point, Mont., and late rodeo clown Slim Pickens of Kingsburg, Calif....
It's All Trew: X-rays once used to ensure the perfect fit for shoes Many readers recalled shoe-buying expeditions of the past where the buyer placed their feet into a machine that showed an X-ray picture of their feet inside the new shoes. This sounded like a pretty-far-out tale to me, but the story is true and here are the facts. The "Shoe-Fitting-Flouroscope" was once a common fixture in better shoe stores from 1930 to 1950. The wooden fixture contained a step near the bottom with a hole in which to insert your feet inside the prospective new pair of shoes. Three viewing ports were located on the top for the customer, the customer's companion or mother and the salesman to see how the shoes fit. A push-button turned the machine on for about 20-second intervals. Inside, the shadowy outline of the bones and shape of the foot could be seen inside the outline of the shoe, thus providing a better fit for the customer....
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Editorial: Caution on forest land sales The U.S. Forest Service may be getting a green light to sell some properties, but the plan could have disturbing results. The underlying problem is that the Forest Service is short on cash. Its budget has been a mess for years - in fact, its accounting is so convoluted that it has failed past government audits. Congress also chronically shortchanges the agency's operations. Against this backdrop, the U.S. Senate, at the Bush administration's behest, included language in an appropriations bill to let the Forest Service auction off thousands of parcels of national forest. Some of the properties may truly be surplus, but others have important public uses and shouldn't be sold....
Feds seek a better wild horse trap First light of day is just breaking over the sagebrush and juniper-covered scrubland of the Devil's Garden as Rob Jeffers and his crew head out in search of wild horses. By 6 a.m. their work horses are saddled and two helicopters are airborne, and the hunt is on. Scattered somewhere across thousands of acres of rangeland are an estimated 700 wild horses. Federal officials would like to reduce that number by more than half. Jeffers, wild horse manager for the Alturas-based Modoc National Forest and the person in charge of the gather, checks the setup....
Man found in women's outhouse says he lost ring The Maine man police discovered at the bottom of a women's outhouse last month told investigators that he was searching for his wedding ring. Judge Pamela Albee continued bail at $250 personal recognizance and stipulated several bail conditions, including that he stay out of women's restrooms and off U.S. Forest Service property pending his trial on the misdemeanor counts. According to court papers filed by Carroll County Sheriff's Department Capt. Jon Herbert, officers were called to the Lower Falls by a U.S. Forest Service worker on June 26 after a girl entered the restroom and saw a man in the raw sewage vault "looking up at her."....
Officials remove protesters' log cabin A log cabin erected by protesters trying to block logging on a timber sale in southwestern Oregon was removed by logger and U.S. Forest Service officials. Using equipment provided by the loggers, including a skidder and a front-end loader, the Forest Service pushed the logs to one side on Sunday, said Forest Service spokesman Tom Lavagnino. The cabin was erected this past weekend in the middle of the only road leading to the Hobson timber sale in the Siskiyou National Forest, one of the areas burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, according to Wild Siskiyou Action, the group that undertook the protest....
Report adds up salamander’s effect on real estate A proposal to set aside land for the California tiger salamander could add up to $367 million in lost opportunities to build more houses and businesses over the next 20 years, according to the latest study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But a representative of an environmental group dedicated to saving the amphibian said Friday that the report by Charles Rivers and Associates of Oakland overlooks the economic benefits of saving habitat for rare plants and animals. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing that 382,666 acres of land be named as critical habitat for the salamander, listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. Service spokesman Al Donner said a critical habitat label doesn’t necessarily prohibit building on these lands, but it does give environmentalists, open-space advocates and political jurisdictions a federal policy to refer to when critiquing environmental reviews for annexation proposals or public works projects. It also gives agencies like the San Joaquin Council of Governments an idea of which lands are best for conservation easements, where the agency buys land or pays landowners to keep them from selling to developers....
Ducks Out of Water? Waterfowlers traditionally spend their summers wondering if the upcoming duck season will bring more, or less: Will the bag limit be higher or lower? Will the season be longer or shorter? Will there be more greenheads or fewer? But some of the nation’s top waterfowl managers suggest that hunters may soon be adding a sobering new factor to their summer equations: Will there even be a next season? What was once unthinkable—closed seasons—is now a valid consideration due to a chain of legal and political decisions that has stripped federal protection from the continent’s most critical waterfowl habitat: the prairie pothole nesting grounds of the northern plains. This region is responsible for most of the ducks that keep seasons open....
Bat Houses Will Prevent Residents From Going ‘Batty’ Over West Nile Want to cut your citronella costs for the summer and still control mosquitoes? Then why not put Nature to work? With the Center for Disease Control warning that the West Nile Virus may be making a resurgence due to the wet and mild winter just passed, many are turning to an unlikely source for relief from summer pests: bats. Bats, or more specifically the Little Brown Bat ( Myotis lucifugus ) which is common throughout the country, are gluttonous little rodents that can each eat 500 or more mosquitoes per hour. Think about a small colony of 250 bats, feeding for eight hours per night, and you’re looking at tons of mosquitoes destroyed over the course of a summer and without the environmental damage done by other methods. “Unfortunately, many people still see bats in the same context as Dracula,” says Dr. Ed Markin of F. Hooker Products ( F.H.P. ). “They are misunderstood, unnecessarily feared and becoming endangered when they could be put to work for our benefit.” F.H.P. makes commercial bat houses and brood boxes for the National Park Service, U.S. Army, several universities, and virtually every vineyard in the world. Bats are instrumental in wine production as they perform as much as 40% of the pollination of grapes. F.H.P. now offers bat domiciles for private use starting at around $40 for a single chamber box that will house 250 or so bats....
Feds want drillers to pay application fee The Bush administration wants to charge oil and gas drillers to process permits to drill on federal land. The proposal comes amid rising federal deficits, a shrinking Bureau of Land Management budget and a boom in drilling on Western public lands. Currently there is no charge for "applications for permits to drill," or APDs. Drillers do pay rent on leases, and royalties on the oil and gas they take out of the ground. But the BLM doesn't charge for the administrative cost of processing permit applications. The proposal is to be published in today's Federal Register. It calls for a $4,000 fee per APD, to be phased in over five years, starting at $1,600....
Editorial: Silly comparisons by Ward, Noel not helpful in lands dispute There have been good-faith attempts to bring all sides to the table to discuss rural road use in Utah and to set the stage for essential compromises. Comments by Assistant Attorney General Mark Ward and Rep. Mike Noel to the Farm Bureau last week aren't among them. Instead, the two seemed bent on wiping out any progress made a month ago when Kane and Garfield county officials met with representatives of the Bureau of Land Management at the governor's office at the invitation of Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert. They discussed a dispute over rights of way in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that in 2003 led to Kane County officials destroying BLM signs that restricted access in the area and placing signs welcoming off-road vehicles. The U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating whether there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. Herbert's meeting did not end the conflict, of course, but may have started a healthy dialogue. Thursday's inflammatory pontificating, on the other hand, encouraged defiance....
Governor backs new split estate law Gov. Dave Freudenthal is resisting pressures to exempt federal minerals from Wyoming's new split estate laws, despite Bureau of Land Management pressures to do so. Split estate laws govern the extraction of minerals, which are usually owned separately from the surface land they lie beneath. State and federal laws give companies the right to reasonable use of the surface to extract the new minerals. Freudenthal said the new laws, which went into effect July 1, give landowners increased "procedural protections." They addressed notification of landowners and payment for damages. For example, federal agencies had become lax on enforcing things such as notifying landowners, he said. But BLM Director Kathleen Clarke challenged the new laws in a letter to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission. According to the preemption doctrine, which says federal laws trump state ones, the new rules don't apply to federal minerals since they impede development of that land, she wrote. Freudenthal said he wasn't worried about future court battles between the state and the federal agency. Clarke's comments seemed to be a "for-the-record-letter," not a harbinger of upcoming legal troubles, he said. If litigation does come, it will most likely come from companies, not the federal government, he said....
Column: Drilling the Wild Rod and gun in hand, and backing the Second Amendment right to own firearms, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have won the hearts of America’s sportsmen. Yet the two men have failed to protect outdoor sports on the nation’s public lands. With deep ties to the oil and gas industry, Bush and Cheney have unleashed a national energy plan that has begun to destroy hunting and fishing on millions of federal acres throughout the West, setting back effective wildlife management for decades to come. In his second week in office, President Bush convened a National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Vice President Cheney. Meeting with representatives of the energy industry behind closed doors, it eventually released a National Energy Policy, the goal of which was to “expedite permits and coordinate federal, state, and local actions necessary for energy-related project approvals on a national basis.” Put into practice through a series of executive orders, the policy has prioritized drilling over other uses on federal lands, while relegating long-standing conservation mandates from the 1960s and ’70s to the back burner. For example, in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management has approved over 75 percent of the energy industry’s applications for exemptions to work in critical winter range, heretofore closed to protect wildlife—sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorns, in particular (the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 gave agencies the means to close critical habitat). The BLM has also continued to issue drilling leases while in the process of writing new resource management plans that still await public comment....
Cattle shipments resume from Canada The first new shipment of Canadian cattle rolled into the United States on Monday, four days after a federal appeals court ended a two-year-old ban originally instituted because of mad cow disease. Thirty-five black Angus cattle crossed the border around noon at Lewiston, N.Y., near Niagara Falls, according to the shipper, Schaus Land and Cattle Co. of Elmwood, Ontario. "We've been waiting for this since the border closed," said company controller Luke Simpson. In the state of Washington, common destination for Canadian cattle, another Canadian shipper has submitted a request to cross the border there....
NHSFR begins week-long run at Gillette Competition at the 57th annual National High School Finals Rodeo enters its second day at the CAM-PLEX with performances at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. today. Rodeo performances continue daily through Sunday. Cowboys and cowgirls from 40 states, five Canadian provinces and Australia are competing for a slot in Sunday's final round that begins at 1 p.m. The top 20 contestants in each event will advance. Called the "World's Largest Rodeo," more than 1,500 contestants are entered in this years' NHSFR....
Casper cowboy leads bull riding Forget waiting around, Clayton Savage was ready. When the draw for the National High School Finals Rodeo was posted on Sunday, Savage knew he would be in the first group of bull riders. He did just that, posting a 76-point ride to win the first performance at the NHSFR at Cam-Plex in Gillette on Monday. Savage wasn't the only one to take advantage of an early draw position in the week-long rodeo. Pole bender Tyler Rose Walton of Raton, N.M., excited the crowd in Morningside Park with a 20.178-second ride, the best of the go so far. Jordan Muncy, Walton's New Mexico teammate, was no slouch either. The Cedarville cowgirl turned in a barrel racing run of 17.64 seconds, which gave her a 0.007-second edge over Shelly Combs of Eltopia, Wash., for the top spot in the first performance....
Six inducted into ProRodeo Hall of Fame The ProRodeo Hall of Fame celebrated its 26th annual induction ceremony on Saturday with six individuals receiving the ultimate honor in professional rodeo. Headlining the Class of 2005 was the late Chris LeDoux of Kaycee, Wyo., who not only won the 1976 world bareback riding title, but also brought attention to rodeo through his music. Joining LeDoux was 1981 World All-Around Champion Jimmie Cooper of Monument, N.M., 1978 World Saddle Bronc Riding Champion Joe Marvel of Battle Mountain, Nev., late team roper Charles Maggini of Hollister, Calif., stock contractor Marvin Brookman of Wolf Point, Mont., and late rodeo clown Slim Pickens of Kingsburg, Calif....
It's All Trew: X-rays once used to ensure the perfect fit for shoes Many readers recalled shoe-buying expeditions of the past where the buyer placed their feet into a machine that showed an X-ray picture of their feet inside the new shoes. This sounded like a pretty-far-out tale to me, but the story is true and here are the facts. The "Shoe-Fitting-Flouroscope" was once a common fixture in better shoe stores from 1930 to 1950. The wooden fixture contained a step near the bottom with a hole in which to insert your feet inside the prospective new pair of shoes. Three viewing ports were located on the top for the customer, the customer's companion or mother and the salesman to see how the shoes fit. A push-button turned the machine on for about 20-second intervals. Inside, the shadowy outline of the bones and shape of the foot could be seen inside the outline of the shoe, thus providing a better fit for the customer....
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Monday, July 18, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Wolf pack blamed for cow killing in Idaho A wolf pack that already has killed six hunting dogs likely killed an adult cow last week, officials said. But the dead cow cannot be positively linked to wolves, so federal wildlife officials say no action can be taken against the pack, which is active between Elk River and Dworshak Reservoir. Still, said Carter Niemeyer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, action will be taken if more livestock deaths are linked to the pack. ''That pack was confirmed to be a problem last year. We would probably engage in some incremental removal of the pack if they are confirmed to be a problem this year,'' Niemeyer said. Rancher Suzanne Beale found the dead cow Monday and saw a wolf run from it as she approached. She called Wildlife Services Agent Dave Thomas to investigate, and though Thomas found it probable that wolves killed the cow, the carcass had no tooth puncture marks - which meant it was impossible to say for certain that wolves were responsible. Federal authorities only authorize killing wolves if it can be proved that the animals were responsible for livestock deaths....
Cougar Kill Chris Catania’s five dogs had a confrontation last month in their rural backyard that has become all too familiar to residents in the Foots Creek drainage. About 5:30 p.m., a cougar apparently hopped a four-foot fence in hopes of turning one of Catania’s five dogs into an evening meal. Dexter, an 8-year-old mix, dashed to the porch and tore a nail trying to scratch his way inside. Reba, a Queensland heeler, stood and fought, suffering a side gash as clean as a surgeon’s scalpel. The other dogs eventually scared off the cougar, which Catania and her husband, Bruce, spotted again last week prowling outside their rural Hosmer Lane house. Area landowners have tried to kill the cougar themselves, and at least two houndsmen have been hired to tree and kill the cougar, Maxwell says. One neighbor wears a side-arm just to mow his lawn, and others have stopped jogging until the offending cougar or cougars are found and killed....
'Trespassing cattle' case comes to close According to the Nevada Department of Agriculture, "years of controversy" ended on June 16 when an Esmeralda County Grand Jury issued a finding of "no indictable criminal activity" was conducted by department personnel in the seizure of Esmeralda County rancher Ben Colvin's cows in 2001. The incident was resolved in favor of the agency and was related to the locally debated confiscation of 64 head of Colvin's cattle in 2001. Colvin claimed he had legal access to the public lands on which the cows grazed and the agency's taking had violated the law. Colvin questioned the issuance of a Nevada brand inspection certificate from the Nevada Department of Agriculture to the Bureau of Land Management in the 2001 cattle seizure....
Access takes center stage Once there was enough room for multiple users of public lands to do what they needed to do with very little conflict. They seldom ran into each other. In the last decade, 8.2 million homes were built on the urban-wildlands interface, bringing with them some 32 million people demanding increased recreation on public lands, developed or otherwise. Access, threatened and endangered species, and invasive species are only a few of the issues around which much conflict is appearing. This is particularly true in five interior Western states that saw the fastest population increases in the 1990s: Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. “It’s tempting to talk about these issues in terms of the Old West vs. the New West. I’m not sure that description is terribly helpful,” said Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Old vs. new suggests a linear progression and perpetuates some conflicts, making it harder to get beyond them.”....
Vegas Water Wars No-limit poker isn't simply the defining prestige game for Las Vegas, it's also a metaphor for the physical structure of the city. For all practical purposes, Las Vegas has no geographic impediments to expansion. It doesn't have an ocean to run into, or a towering cordillera to abut: just the vast and sere desert on all sides, much of it flat and friendly to sprawling tracts. All this elbow room has combined with an explosive economy to create growth that is positively fungoid in character. Greater Las Vegas now has a population of 1.7 million, with about 80,000 new residents added annually. It far outstrips any other U.S. city in employment growth, generating 76,000 new jobs last year alone....
Push is on to preserve desert After years of failed attempts by Arizona lawmakers to reform state trust land laws, a coalition of conservation, education and business leaders is poised to ask Arizona voters to ratify a plan to save hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin desert before developers plow them under. The agreement has been carefully crafted to ensure that Arizona's public schools and the children they serve, the primary beneficiaries of high-priced public land sales, do not suffer a loss of income, coalition members say. A new statewide initiative would alter the Arizona Constitution and, combined with a congressional amendment to the law that created Arizona in 1912, would make conservation a legitimate use of some of the 9.3 million acres of land Arizona holds in trust to help fund education and other state agencies....
Editorial: Shift to placate ranchers could put resources at risk When cattle and sheep graze on fragile public lands, there is a risk of damaging the ecosystem that supports wild plants and animals as well as clean water. To minimize that risk, regulations in the past gave Bureau of Land Management officers authority to step in and quickly assess potential damage and, if necessary, to take action to uphold the standards for protecting rangeland. Public comments were solicited on grazing decisions that affected these lands that are owned by the taxpayers. Unfortunately, the federal BLM has changed the rules, limiting public comment to grazing plans and reports; those who ostensibly own the land - the public - will not be allowed to question decisions that profoundly affect the land. Under the new regulations, local BLM officers must make detailed analyses before they can do anything to prevent or correct the effects of overgrazing on land, water sources and wildlife....
Federal Officials Echoed Grazing-Rule Warnings Federal wildlife managers across the West warned the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that new livestock grazing regulations were potentially harmful to wildlife and water quality, adding their voices to those of BLM scientists who said similar criticism was excised by Washington policymakers. Wildlife experts for the Fish and Wildlife Service's three Western regions, along with Environmental Protection Agency officials, expressed concerns in written comments to the BLM last year. The bureau solicited the comments as it was finalizing the new grazing rules, which go into effect this month. "The proposed revisions would change fundamentally the way the BLM lands are managed, temporally, spatially, and philosophically,'' stated a 16-page Fish and Wildlife Service report. "These changes could have profound impacts on wildlife resources."....
Rural road-sign rage erupting again Just over a month after the Governor's Office brokered a meeting to tone down the rhetoric in the dispute over Kane County's placement of road signs in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a state official and a legislator have turned the heat back up. Speaking at the Farm Bureau's annual midyear conference in Cedar City on Thursday, Utah Assistant Attorney General Mark Ward likened Kane County's defiance of Bureau of Land Management regulations to a fight against tyranny, while Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, called the county's rebellious road signs the "shot heard 'round the world." Ward praised the county for asserting its rights in its conflict with the BLM, which he says are guaranteed by a 19th century law that provides public rights of way across federal land....
Tribes reveal proposalfor land The Klamath Tribes have a new plan for regaining former reservation lands now held by the U.S. Forest Service: Buy them. Tribal leaders floated the idea before the Klamath County Board of Commissioners this week as part of an overall plan to bring together differing stakeholders in the Klamath water issue. A public meeting about the plan is being scheduled for early August. The Tribes gave the commissioners a one-page proposal summary. Its goal is to "unite the people and the economic interest of the Klamath Basin to create a stronger economy and more family wage jobs (through) enhanced local control and careful management of the region's natural resources." It would involve the Tribes paying a fair market price for reservation land....
Grizzly numbers improving: But proposal for delisting still debated Wolves are big business for Pat Phillips' Yellowstone National Park tour company, but nothing compares to spotting a grizzly bear. "It's the top predator in the park. They're really majestic," said Phillips, who spends his summers leading geologic and wildlife tours for Safari Yellowstone. "It's so powerful it's unbelievable." Phillips credits the Endangered Species Act, which has protected grizzly bears since 1975, with helping the grizzly population rebound. But he worries that the federal government's upcoming proposal to delist the bear would reverse that progress. Before the month's end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release its draft proposal for delisting the grizzly. That will be followed by a 90-day public comment period and public meetings. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming would be expected to release their own plans for management of the grizzlies before control of the animal is handed from the federal government to the states....
Polluting Now to Save Trees in the Future Scientists wearing protective face masks roamed a private, remote 80-acre grove, checking the levels of greenhouse gases being sprayed onto the trees. For the last eight years, researcher David F. Karnosky and dozens of scientists have trucked billions of pounds of ozone and other gases to these woods, where aspen and pine trees blanket the surrounding hills. They have sprayed thousands of trees with the gases to simulate what pollution is expected to be 50 years from now. Their goal is to determine how Wisconsin forests will fare with increased levels of pollution. The $8-million project — Aspen FACE — is the world's largest outdoor climate-change experiment....
USFS prepares to revise water regulations The regional office of the U.S. Forest Service is revising a watershed practices conservation handbook that determines how the agency manages projects with potential impacts to streams and wetlands. Although the final outcome is not expected for months, it will ultimately have implications for management of waters in Summit County waters, along with the rest of the region, so environmental groups, state agencies, the EPA and the ski industry are all keeping a close eye on the process. The stakeholders met in Denver in late June for a line-by-line review of the handbook, and several participants said the agency is taking some encouraging steps to ensure stream health, but also expressed concern about some language in the draft version that could weaken protection for some streams....
Editorial: Salvage logging no threat to grizzlies Since when does yanking the paycheck out of someone's hand help with grizzly bear recovery? That's effectively what's happened with a recent restraining order that stopped a good share of salvage logging planned this summer on the Flathead National Forest. Two environmental groups, Friends of the Wild Swan and the Swan View Coalition, have argued that helicopter logging in so-called "core" grizzly bear security areas presents an "imminent harm" to grizzly bears. We don't think so. Neither does the Forest Service, nor the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Yet U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy stuck by a rather literal interpretation of the Flathead Forest Plan to come up with his ruling. Rather than weigh salient observations about the nature of helicopter logging in areas that used to be prime bear habitat, Molloy agreed with the plaintiffs, for the time being, that "motorized access" is prohibited in core areas during the summer, and that helicopters are indeed motorized. But one should consider that the "core" areas in question were mostly blackened by wildfires in 2003, obviously reducing their attractiveness as hideouts for grizzly bears....
Editorial: Prevention is best cure for forest fires In 1996, during a period of normal snow and rainfall, the Colorado State Forest Service identified only about 13,000 trees statewide that had been killed by mountain pine beetles. But in 2004, with Colorado's woodlands still suffering the aftermath of a seven-year drought, the state forester identified a staggering 1.2 million trees that had been killed by beetles. Bug-killed trees, of course, can feed wildfires. While Colorado's weather returned to a normal pattern this year, what happened a few years ago (the worst drought our region has had in centuries) has left our forests more vulnerable than ever to massive conflagrations....
Plan targets species in need Twelve amphibian, 26 reptile, 40 fish, 19 crustacean, 68 mollusk, 59 bird and 54 mammal species will get a little more conservation attention under a federally mandated plan adopted by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. The state's "comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy" aims to keep hundreds of those species in the state and their habitat intact and off the federal endangered species list if possible. "The value of this document is that we can use federal dollars to do monitoring (of those species), not hunter and angler monies," Game and Fish Department Director Terry Cleveland said. "We would have no federal money at all earmarked for this unless we have this document." The strategy is a requirement of the federal State Wildlife Grants program....
Spanish Fork highway endangers rare plant One of the world's rarest plants, which grows only along the highway near the ghost town of Thistle in Spanish Fork Canyon, is now the subject of a lawsuit. First discovered in 1909, the Deseret milkvetch, a member of the pea family, was thought to be extinct until BYU botanist Elizabeth Meese stumbled upon it in 1981. Between 5,000 and 10,000 of the plants are believed to exist on about 200 acres, all within 1,000 feet of the highway, said Tony Frates of the Utah Native Plant Society. In 1999, the plant was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Since then, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has done nothing to protect the plant, according to the Utah Native Plant Society and the Center for Native Ecosystems, the two conservation groups that filed the suit....
Endangered Birds Close Beaches Some are worried their businesses will be a wash out this season, not because of the weather, but because of some birds. The park service shut down Cape Point and Hatteras Inlet because of a very small bird called the piping plover. It's on the endangered species list. Both beaches are on Hatteras Island. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore Park Service is serious. When we visited Cape Point a man trying to take a jog was chased down by a park ranger when he accidentally crossed the barricade....
Editorial: Endangered protections Those lawsuits would have less chance of prevailing under draft legislation being circulated by Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) that would weaken the act and appease drilling, timber, fishing and development interests. It would make adding species to the list more difficult, narrow the definitions for invasive species and hamper agencies with new paperwork. Its most troubling provision, though, would free the government from the requirement to restore rare species to self-sustaining populations. Simply heading off extinction would suffice. Condors might arguably be considered protected if they existed only in zoos. But less intervention by government actually means more baby-sitting of species. Hardly any plant or animal populations would grow enough to be delisted — the point at which the government no longer needs to intervene on their behalf. With 5,000 or so pairs of bald eagles nesting in the Lower 48 states, robust populations of California gray whales migrating predictably along our shore and peregrine falcons nesting on New York skyscrapers, it can be too easy to forget how poor and empty our world might have been without the Endangered Species Act....
Cheatgrass growing thick this year, raising risks for explosive wildfires It burns like gasoline and awaits a simple spark. Cheatgrass is flourishing across Nevada’s hills, rangeland and beside many homes, growing in thicker concentrations than some experts say they have ever seen before. Native to Eurasia, cheatgrass was introduced to America through contaminated seed in the 1890s and made its first appearance in Nevada in 1906, said Jim Young, a Reno scientist and cheatgrass expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cheatgrass — named for its ability to “cheat” water and nutrients from the seeds of native vegetation — can quickly crowd out native grasses and sagebrush. Cheatgrass now dominates about a third of the 48 million acres of Nevada land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and is spreading across the landscape of other states in the Great Basin, including Utah, Idaho and Oregon....
Canada ready to ship cattle, but court date looms Canada is steeling itself for the possibility a Montana court could ban its cattle exports again in a July 27 hearing after a positive ruling from a different court this week, Canada's agriculture minister said on Friday. Andy Mitchell said he was pleased a U.S. appeal court lifted a two-year ban on Canadian cattle on Thursday when it overturned an earlier Montana court injunction against his country's exports, but said Canada's battle was not over. Some cattle and other ruminant livestock like bison, sheep and goats could be exported as early as next week, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency official said. But U.S. rancher group R-CALF will be back in a Montana court on July 27 to argue for a permanent injunction against Canadian cattle -- a ban it wants extended to beef processed in Canada....
More anthrax cases in southeast N. Dakota A spreading anthrax outbreak has killed about 40 cattle so far in southeastern North Dakota, and state animal health officials say ranchers should consider vaccinating their herds. Beth Carlson, the deputy state veterinarian, said Friday that anthrax has been confirmed at 11 locations in Ransom and southern Barnes counties. Possible cases are being investigated in eastern LaMoure and Dickey counties, she said. Infected herds have been quarantined. Most of the affected animals are cattle, but the disease is also hitting bison, farmed elk and horses, she said. Health officials say there is little risk to humans....
Column: Old West violence mostly myth Once again as summer progresses, tourists are trying to recapture the romance of the West. Recalling the violent images fostered by Hollywood, they seek out ghost towns, ride horseback at dude ranches and take part in exciting re-enactments of conflicts among vigilantes, sheriffs, cowboys and Indians. What they don't realize is that the violence of the West is largely a myth. Yes, there were isolated examples of violence, but the true story of the American West is one of cooperation, not conflict. My colleague Terry Anderson and I have been studying the history of the West for nearly 30 years. We found that wherever "people on the ground" got together, they generally found ways to cooperate rather than fight. Let's begin with the mining camps in the Sierra Nevada of California. Several thousand camps sprang up after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848....
Hereford rancher fights high gas prices old-fashioned way When diesel prices went through the roof, truckers went up on their rates. That put ranchers to thinking about ways to save money getting their cattle from one place to another. Guy Walker of Hereford had some cattle grazing on wheat 14 miles away and decided to drive the cattle back home. "We had two obstacles we had to overcome," says Guy."The highway and the railroad. We had to cross U.S. 60, which is a very busy stretch of road. We were driving about 2,500 head of cattle, so we were strung out for a pretty good ways. The highway department helped us with that and got some highway patrolmen to stop traffic while we crossed. "The railroad runs right alongside Highway 60 and we found that the train people were not as cooperative as the highway department. They were not interested in changing their schedule. We got hold of the train schedule and were just hoping we could get there when a train wasn't coming through....Read this article if you want to know how cattle react to trains and mules to helicopters....
Harvey Girls celebrate past A chance for adventure and travel brought Jo Walters and thousands of other proper young women to the still-Wild West as legendary Harvey Girls on the Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway. Eagerly responding to advertisements placed in Eastern newspapers by an enterprising restaurateur named Fred Harvey, throngs of girls in their teens and early 20s boarded trains for scattered railroad towns in the 1880s and 1890s. They came to work as waitresses in busy dining rooms at a chain of depots called Harvey Houses. It's estimated as many as 20,000 young women from New York to Kansas City, Mo., and from some foreign countries, went west to seek their fortunes and husbands....
Cowboys are sacred folk Burl “Booger” Mullins was a trainer of horses. He taught them to do tricks that included jumping over cars. Back around 1934, Booger appeared as an American Indian on his horse in Tucumcari, and was photographed by Gene Autry’s film crew, as an “End of the Trail” photo. “End of the Trail” depicted, in a sense, the last of the noble American Indians. Later, the photo was enlarged and made into a painting. The painting hung in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City until Autry built a museum in California and then it was placed there. Booger appeared in many rodeos with his horse “Dimples,” a trick horse. At one rodeo in Clovis — around 1946 — professional horse jumpers entertained the crowd between rodeo acts. The horsemen jumped their horses over the hood of a 1940 “wood” station wagon. Booger, on his horse Dimples, did it too, without any adieu, apparently just to show the professionals up. Booger jumped his horse Dimples over the top of the car. It made the professional horse jumpers mad and they called the police. Booger was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace....
Column: Why My Generation Loved Western Movies The Western is uniquely American. Most of the westerns focused on a brief period in American history, 1865–1890. This was also true of western novels. The western has had tremendous appeal outside the United States. There is something about westerns that appeals to the whole world. But what? I think it has to do with the fundamental themes of the western. Most westerns have at least one of these themes. --cowardice vs. honor --the defense of private property (land) --law enforcement --the moral limits of vengeance. The universality of these four themes points to the foundations of civilization. If most men are cowards, if private property is not defended by the law, if the law enforcement system becomes corrupt and unjust, and if there are no limits on personal vengeance, then civilization is at risk. Society loses liberty....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Young rodeo riders make me proud to be a cowboy I went to the Miles City annual buckin' horse sale. I hadn't seen Montana so green since Noah ran aground! It takes one back to when the West was not civilized. Today, when athletes and audiences are coddled, one is reminded that many modern sports have evolved from more primitive survival skills - rock throwing to baseball, sword fighting to pool, spear to javelin, cannibalism to chili cook-off, alligator wrestling to bulldogging. More than 200 broncs and bulls were bucked out over two days. After each ride, rodeo stock contractors bid on the stock. The riders were young men who were competing for a purse....
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Wolf pack blamed for cow killing in Idaho A wolf pack that already has killed six hunting dogs likely killed an adult cow last week, officials said. But the dead cow cannot be positively linked to wolves, so federal wildlife officials say no action can be taken against the pack, which is active between Elk River and Dworshak Reservoir. Still, said Carter Niemeyer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, action will be taken if more livestock deaths are linked to the pack. ''That pack was confirmed to be a problem last year. We would probably engage in some incremental removal of the pack if they are confirmed to be a problem this year,'' Niemeyer said. Rancher Suzanne Beale found the dead cow Monday and saw a wolf run from it as she approached. She called Wildlife Services Agent Dave Thomas to investigate, and though Thomas found it probable that wolves killed the cow, the carcass had no tooth puncture marks - which meant it was impossible to say for certain that wolves were responsible. Federal authorities only authorize killing wolves if it can be proved that the animals were responsible for livestock deaths....
Cougar Kill Chris Catania’s five dogs had a confrontation last month in their rural backyard that has become all too familiar to residents in the Foots Creek drainage. About 5:30 p.m., a cougar apparently hopped a four-foot fence in hopes of turning one of Catania’s five dogs into an evening meal. Dexter, an 8-year-old mix, dashed to the porch and tore a nail trying to scratch his way inside. Reba, a Queensland heeler, stood and fought, suffering a side gash as clean as a surgeon’s scalpel. The other dogs eventually scared off the cougar, which Catania and her husband, Bruce, spotted again last week prowling outside their rural Hosmer Lane house. Area landowners have tried to kill the cougar themselves, and at least two houndsmen have been hired to tree and kill the cougar, Maxwell says. One neighbor wears a side-arm just to mow his lawn, and others have stopped jogging until the offending cougar or cougars are found and killed....
'Trespassing cattle' case comes to close According to the Nevada Department of Agriculture, "years of controversy" ended on June 16 when an Esmeralda County Grand Jury issued a finding of "no indictable criminal activity" was conducted by department personnel in the seizure of Esmeralda County rancher Ben Colvin's cows in 2001. The incident was resolved in favor of the agency and was related to the locally debated confiscation of 64 head of Colvin's cattle in 2001. Colvin claimed he had legal access to the public lands on which the cows grazed and the agency's taking had violated the law. Colvin questioned the issuance of a Nevada brand inspection certificate from the Nevada Department of Agriculture to the Bureau of Land Management in the 2001 cattle seizure....
Access takes center stage Once there was enough room for multiple users of public lands to do what they needed to do with very little conflict. They seldom ran into each other. In the last decade, 8.2 million homes were built on the urban-wildlands interface, bringing with them some 32 million people demanding increased recreation on public lands, developed or otherwise. Access, threatened and endangered species, and invasive species are only a few of the issues around which much conflict is appearing. This is particularly true in five interior Western states that saw the fastest population increases in the 1990s: Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. “It’s tempting to talk about these issues in terms of the Old West vs. the New West. I’m not sure that description is terribly helpful,” said Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Old vs. new suggests a linear progression and perpetuates some conflicts, making it harder to get beyond them.”....
Vegas Water Wars No-limit poker isn't simply the defining prestige game for Las Vegas, it's also a metaphor for the physical structure of the city. For all practical purposes, Las Vegas has no geographic impediments to expansion. It doesn't have an ocean to run into, or a towering cordillera to abut: just the vast and sere desert on all sides, much of it flat and friendly to sprawling tracts. All this elbow room has combined with an explosive economy to create growth that is positively fungoid in character. Greater Las Vegas now has a population of 1.7 million, with about 80,000 new residents added annually. It far outstrips any other U.S. city in employment growth, generating 76,000 new jobs last year alone....
Push is on to preserve desert After years of failed attempts by Arizona lawmakers to reform state trust land laws, a coalition of conservation, education and business leaders is poised to ask Arizona voters to ratify a plan to save hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin desert before developers plow them under. The agreement has been carefully crafted to ensure that Arizona's public schools and the children they serve, the primary beneficiaries of high-priced public land sales, do not suffer a loss of income, coalition members say. A new statewide initiative would alter the Arizona Constitution and, combined with a congressional amendment to the law that created Arizona in 1912, would make conservation a legitimate use of some of the 9.3 million acres of land Arizona holds in trust to help fund education and other state agencies....
Editorial: Shift to placate ranchers could put resources at risk When cattle and sheep graze on fragile public lands, there is a risk of damaging the ecosystem that supports wild plants and animals as well as clean water. To minimize that risk, regulations in the past gave Bureau of Land Management officers authority to step in and quickly assess potential damage and, if necessary, to take action to uphold the standards for protecting rangeland. Public comments were solicited on grazing decisions that affected these lands that are owned by the taxpayers. Unfortunately, the federal BLM has changed the rules, limiting public comment to grazing plans and reports; those who ostensibly own the land - the public - will not be allowed to question decisions that profoundly affect the land. Under the new regulations, local BLM officers must make detailed analyses before they can do anything to prevent or correct the effects of overgrazing on land, water sources and wildlife....
Federal Officials Echoed Grazing-Rule Warnings Federal wildlife managers across the West warned the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that new livestock grazing regulations were potentially harmful to wildlife and water quality, adding their voices to those of BLM scientists who said similar criticism was excised by Washington policymakers. Wildlife experts for the Fish and Wildlife Service's three Western regions, along with Environmental Protection Agency officials, expressed concerns in written comments to the BLM last year. The bureau solicited the comments as it was finalizing the new grazing rules, which go into effect this month. "The proposed revisions would change fundamentally the way the BLM lands are managed, temporally, spatially, and philosophically,'' stated a 16-page Fish and Wildlife Service report. "These changes could have profound impacts on wildlife resources."....
Rural road-sign rage erupting again Just over a month after the Governor's Office brokered a meeting to tone down the rhetoric in the dispute over Kane County's placement of road signs in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a state official and a legislator have turned the heat back up. Speaking at the Farm Bureau's annual midyear conference in Cedar City on Thursday, Utah Assistant Attorney General Mark Ward likened Kane County's defiance of Bureau of Land Management regulations to a fight against tyranny, while Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, called the county's rebellious road signs the "shot heard 'round the world." Ward praised the county for asserting its rights in its conflict with the BLM, which he says are guaranteed by a 19th century law that provides public rights of way across federal land....
Tribes reveal proposalfor land The Klamath Tribes have a new plan for regaining former reservation lands now held by the U.S. Forest Service: Buy them. Tribal leaders floated the idea before the Klamath County Board of Commissioners this week as part of an overall plan to bring together differing stakeholders in the Klamath water issue. A public meeting about the plan is being scheduled for early August. The Tribes gave the commissioners a one-page proposal summary. Its goal is to "unite the people and the economic interest of the Klamath Basin to create a stronger economy and more family wage jobs (through) enhanced local control and careful management of the region's natural resources." It would involve the Tribes paying a fair market price for reservation land....
Grizzly numbers improving: But proposal for delisting still debated Wolves are big business for Pat Phillips' Yellowstone National Park tour company, but nothing compares to spotting a grizzly bear. "It's the top predator in the park. They're really majestic," said Phillips, who spends his summers leading geologic and wildlife tours for Safari Yellowstone. "It's so powerful it's unbelievable." Phillips credits the Endangered Species Act, which has protected grizzly bears since 1975, with helping the grizzly population rebound. But he worries that the federal government's upcoming proposal to delist the bear would reverse that progress. Before the month's end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release its draft proposal for delisting the grizzly. That will be followed by a 90-day public comment period and public meetings. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming would be expected to release their own plans for management of the grizzlies before control of the animal is handed from the federal government to the states....
Polluting Now to Save Trees in the Future Scientists wearing protective face masks roamed a private, remote 80-acre grove, checking the levels of greenhouse gases being sprayed onto the trees. For the last eight years, researcher David F. Karnosky and dozens of scientists have trucked billions of pounds of ozone and other gases to these woods, where aspen and pine trees blanket the surrounding hills. They have sprayed thousands of trees with the gases to simulate what pollution is expected to be 50 years from now. Their goal is to determine how Wisconsin forests will fare with increased levels of pollution. The $8-million project — Aspen FACE — is the world's largest outdoor climate-change experiment....
USFS prepares to revise water regulations The regional office of the U.S. Forest Service is revising a watershed practices conservation handbook that determines how the agency manages projects with potential impacts to streams and wetlands. Although the final outcome is not expected for months, it will ultimately have implications for management of waters in Summit County waters, along with the rest of the region, so environmental groups, state agencies, the EPA and the ski industry are all keeping a close eye on the process. The stakeholders met in Denver in late June for a line-by-line review of the handbook, and several participants said the agency is taking some encouraging steps to ensure stream health, but also expressed concern about some language in the draft version that could weaken protection for some streams....
Editorial: Salvage logging no threat to grizzlies Since when does yanking the paycheck out of someone's hand help with grizzly bear recovery? That's effectively what's happened with a recent restraining order that stopped a good share of salvage logging planned this summer on the Flathead National Forest. Two environmental groups, Friends of the Wild Swan and the Swan View Coalition, have argued that helicopter logging in so-called "core" grizzly bear security areas presents an "imminent harm" to grizzly bears. We don't think so. Neither does the Forest Service, nor the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Yet U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy stuck by a rather literal interpretation of the Flathead Forest Plan to come up with his ruling. Rather than weigh salient observations about the nature of helicopter logging in areas that used to be prime bear habitat, Molloy agreed with the plaintiffs, for the time being, that "motorized access" is prohibited in core areas during the summer, and that helicopters are indeed motorized. But one should consider that the "core" areas in question were mostly blackened by wildfires in 2003, obviously reducing their attractiveness as hideouts for grizzly bears....
Editorial: Prevention is best cure for forest fires In 1996, during a period of normal snow and rainfall, the Colorado State Forest Service identified only about 13,000 trees statewide that had been killed by mountain pine beetles. But in 2004, with Colorado's woodlands still suffering the aftermath of a seven-year drought, the state forester identified a staggering 1.2 million trees that had been killed by beetles. Bug-killed trees, of course, can feed wildfires. While Colorado's weather returned to a normal pattern this year, what happened a few years ago (the worst drought our region has had in centuries) has left our forests more vulnerable than ever to massive conflagrations....
Plan targets species in need Twelve amphibian, 26 reptile, 40 fish, 19 crustacean, 68 mollusk, 59 bird and 54 mammal species will get a little more conservation attention under a federally mandated plan adopted by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. The state's "comprehensive wildlife conservation strategy" aims to keep hundreds of those species in the state and their habitat intact and off the federal endangered species list if possible. "The value of this document is that we can use federal dollars to do monitoring (of those species), not hunter and angler monies," Game and Fish Department Director Terry Cleveland said. "We would have no federal money at all earmarked for this unless we have this document." The strategy is a requirement of the federal State Wildlife Grants program....
Spanish Fork highway endangers rare plant One of the world's rarest plants, which grows only along the highway near the ghost town of Thistle in Spanish Fork Canyon, is now the subject of a lawsuit. First discovered in 1909, the Deseret milkvetch, a member of the pea family, was thought to be extinct until BYU botanist Elizabeth Meese stumbled upon it in 1981. Between 5,000 and 10,000 of the plants are believed to exist on about 200 acres, all within 1,000 feet of the highway, said Tony Frates of the Utah Native Plant Society. In 1999, the plant was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Since then, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has done nothing to protect the plant, according to the Utah Native Plant Society and the Center for Native Ecosystems, the two conservation groups that filed the suit....
Endangered Birds Close Beaches Some are worried their businesses will be a wash out this season, not because of the weather, but because of some birds. The park service shut down Cape Point and Hatteras Inlet because of a very small bird called the piping plover. It's on the endangered species list. Both beaches are on Hatteras Island. The Cape Hatteras National Seashore Park Service is serious. When we visited Cape Point a man trying to take a jog was chased down by a park ranger when he accidentally crossed the barricade....
Editorial: Endangered protections Those lawsuits would have less chance of prevailing under draft legislation being circulated by Rep. Richard W. Pombo (R-Tracy) that would weaken the act and appease drilling, timber, fishing and development interests. It would make adding species to the list more difficult, narrow the definitions for invasive species and hamper agencies with new paperwork. Its most troubling provision, though, would free the government from the requirement to restore rare species to self-sustaining populations. Simply heading off extinction would suffice. Condors might arguably be considered protected if they existed only in zoos. But less intervention by government actually means more baby-sitting of species. Hardly any plant or animal populations would grow enough to be delisted — the point at which the government no longer needs to intervene on their behalf. With 5,000 or so pairs of bald eagles nesting in the Lower 48 states, robust populations of California gray whales migrating predictably along our shore and peregrine falcons nesting on New York skyscrapers, it can be too easy to forget how poor and empty our world might have been without the Endangered Species Act....
Cheatgrass growing thick this year, raising risks for explosive wildfires It burns like gasoline and awaits a simple spark. Cheatgrass is flourishing across Nevada’s hills, rangeland and beside many homes, growing in thicker concentrations than some experts say they have ever seen before. Native to Eurasia, cheatgrass was introduced to America through contaminated seed in the 1890s and made its first appearance in Nevada in 1906, said Jim Young, a Reno scientist and cheatgrass expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cheatgrass — named for its ability to “cheat” water and nutrients from the seeds of native vegetation — can quickly crowd out native grasses and sagebrush. Cheatgrass now dominates about a third of the 48 million acres of Nevada land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and is spreading across the landscape of other states in the Great Basin, including Utah, Idaho and Oregon....
Canada ready to ship cattle, but court date looms Canada is steeling itself for the possibility a Montana court could ban its cattle exports again in a July 27 hearing after a positive ruling from a different court this week, Canada's agriculture minister said on Friday. Andy Mitchell said he was pleased a U.S. appeal court lifted a two-year ban on Canadian cattle on Thursday when it overturned an earlier Montana court injunction against his country's exports, but said Canada's battle was not over. Some cattle and other ruminant livestock like bison, sheep and goats could be exported as early as next week, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency official said. But U.S. rancher group R-CALF will be back in a Montana court on July 27 to argue for a permanent injunction against Canadian cattle -- a ban it wants extended to beef processed in Canada....
More anthrax cases in southeast N. Dakota A spreading anthrax outbreak has killed about 40 cattle so far in southeastern North Dakota, and state animal health officials say ranchers should consider vaccinating their herds. Beth Carlson, the deputy state veterinarian, said Friday that anthrax has been confirmed at 11 locations in Ransom and southern Barnes counties. Possible cases are being investigated in eastern LaMoure and Dickey counties, she said. Infected herds have been quarantined. Most of the affected animals are cattle, but the disease is also hitting bison, farmed elk and horses, she said. Health officials say there is little risk to humans....
Column: Old West violence mostly myth Once again as summer progresses, tourists are trying to recapture the romance of the West. Recalling the violent images fostered by Hollywood, they seek out ghost towns, ride horseback at dude ranches and take part in exciting re-enactments of conflicts among vigilantes, sheriffs, cowboys and Indians. What they don't realize is that the violence of the West is largely a myth. Yes, there were isolated examples of violence, but the true story of the American West is one of cooperation, not conflict. My colleague Terry Anderson and I have been studying the history of the West for nearly 30 years. We found that wherever "people on the ground" got together, they generally found ways to cooperate rather than fight. Let's begin with the mining camps in the Sierra Nevada of California. Several thousand camps sprang up after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848....
Hereford rancher fights high gas prices old-fashioned way When diesel prices went through the roof, truckers went up on their rates. That put ranchers to thinking about ways to save money getting their cattle from one place to another. Guy Walker of Hereford had some cattle grazing on wheat 14 miles away and decided to drive the cattle back home. "We had two obstacles we had to overcome," says Guy."The highway and the railroad. We had to cross U.S. 60, which is a very busy stretch of road. We were driving about 2,500 head of cattle, so we were strung out for a pretty good ways. The highway department helped us with that and got some highway patrolmen to stop traffic while we crossed. "The railroad runs right alongside Highway 60 and we found that the train people were not as cooperative as the highway department. They were not interested in changing their schedule. We got hold of the train schedule and were just hoping we could get there when a train wasn't coming through....Read this article if you want to know how cattle react to trains and mules to helicopters....
Harvey Girls celebrate past A chance for adventure and travel brought Jo Walters and thousands of other proper young women to the still-Wild West as legendary Harvey Girls on the Atchison, Topeka Santa Fe Railway. Eagerly responding to advertisements placed in Eastern newspapers by an enterprising restaurateur named Fred Harvey, throngs of girls in their teens and early 20s boarded trains for scattered railroad towns in the 1880s and 1890s. They came to work as waitresses in busy dining rooms at a chain of depots called Harvey Houses. It's estimated as many as 20,000 young women from New York to Kansas City, Mo., and from some foreign countries, went west to seek their fortunes and husbands....
Cowboys are sacred folk Burl “Booger” Mullins was a trainer of horses. He taught them to do tricks that included jumping over cars. Back around 1934, Booger appeared as an American Indian on his horse in Tucumcari, and was photographed by Gene Autry’s film crew, as an “End of the Trail” photo. “End of the Trail” depicted, in a sense, the last of the noble American Indians. Later, the photo was enlarged and made into a painting. The painting hung in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City until Autry built a museum in California and then it was placed there. Booger appeared in many rodeos with his horse “Dimples,” a trick horse. At one rodeo in Clovis — around 1946 — professional horse jumpers entertained the crowd between rodeo acts. The horsemen jumped their horses over the hood of a 1940 “wood” station wagon. Booger, on his horse Dimples, did it too, without any adieu, apparently just to show the professionals up. Booger jumped his horse Dimples over the top of the car. It made the professional horse jumpers mad and they called the police. Booger was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace....
Column: Why My Generation Loved Western Movies The Western is uniquely American. Most of the westerns focused on a brief period in American history, 1865–1890. This was also true of western novels. The western has had tremendous appeal outside the United States. There is something about westerns that appeals to the whole world. But what? I think it has to do with the fundamental themes of the western. Most westerns have at least one of these themes. --cowardice vs. honor --the defense of private property (land) --law enforcement --the moral limits of vengeance. The universality of these four themes points to the foundations of civilization. If most men are cowards, if private property is not defended by the law, if the law enforcement system becomes corrupt and unjust, and if there are no limits on personal vengeance, then civilization is at risk. Society loses liberty....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Young rodeo riders make me proud to be a cowboy I went to the Miles City annual buckin' horse sale. I hadn't seen Montana so green since Noah ran aground! It takes one back to when the West was not civilized. Today, when athletes and audiences are coddled, one is reminded that many modern sports have evolved from more primitive survival skills - rock throwing to baseball, sword fighting to pool, spear to javelin, cannibalism to chili cook-off, alligator wrestling to bulldogging. More than 200 broncs and bulls were bucked out over two days. After each ride, rodeo stock contractors bid on the stock. The riders were young men who were competing for a purse....
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