NEWS ROUNDUP
Survivor of Glacier grizzly attack describes his experience Johan Otter said he could feel the grizzly bite his head and tear off his scalp — but his greatest concern was for his 18-year-old daughter. The 44-year-old Escondido, Calif., physical therapist had been hiking with his daughter, Jenna, last month in Glacier National Park in Montana when he was attacked by a grizzly bear trying to protect her cubs. Otter understood that impulse. "Don't get to my daughter. Just stay with me,'' he recalls thinking during the Aug. 25 attack. And indeed Jenna suffered just a bite on the heel, along with a shoulder injury and some facial lacerations. By the time Otter arrived at Harborview Medical Center here about 10 hours later, his scalp was gone and his skull exposed. Among the injuries from his five-minute-long attack: five fractured vertebrae, three broken ribs, a fractured eye socket, five major bites throughout his body, and a broken nose, doctors said....
Montana approves bison hunt Montana's wildlife commission gave final approval Thursday to a plan that will allow hunters to kill up to 50 bison that leave Yellowstone National Park and enter Montana. It will be the first such hunt of bison in Montana in 15 years. The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission approved hunting over a three-month period, beginning Nov. 15, and agreed to require that hunters undergo a training course to prepare them for killing one of the animals and possible encounters with protesters and the media, among other things. Two commissioners deemed the requirement offensive or unnecessary - Victor Workman of Whitefish called it "unreasonable, uncalled for and unwarranted" - but others saw it as key to ensuring the long-term viability of the controversial hunt. "I want this hunt to be a success," chairman Steve Doherty said, adding that the mandatory orientation should not only increase the likelihood of that but also show respect both for the bison and the state's hunting tradition....
Forest Service Plan Would Speed Drilling The U.S. Forest Service will propose regulations to shorten the environmental reviews of small oil-drilling projects in national grasslands, an Agriculture Department official said Friday. The proposal would affect grasslands covering about 4 million acres in a dozen states in the Great Plains and West. Oil exploration is off limits in some areas of the national grasslands, but where drilling is allowed, a required environmental assessment takes a minimum of six months. North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven complained some of the reviews were taking three times that long, delaying projects that could help the economy. Mark Rey, a USDA undersecretary, outlined a proposal Friday to allow some small projects to undergo two-month reviews instead....
Forest Service will review grazing policy book, official says A handbook detailing U.S. Forest Service policies for allowing cattle grazing on national grasslands will be reviewed cover to cover, rather than singling out two new chapters to which ranchers objected, a top official said. The chapters were recently changed to say that ranchers who lease grazing property in national grasslands shouldn't get grazing permits that come with the land. The changes were suspended after they prompted widespread complaints. Mark Rey, a U.S. Agriculture Department undersecretary, said Friday the entire book will be open to public comment for 60 days. Rey said the comment period is likely to begin next week. "It will not surprise you to know that sometimes the government screws things up. It may, however, be refreshing to hear somebody in government say that," Rey said at a news conference with Gov. John Hoeven on Friday....
Pot growers engage hunters in shootout Bear hunters and at least three Mexican nationals overseeing a marijuana garden exchanged gunfire after the hunters accidentally stumbled upon the illegal pot fields. Undercover Gila County Narcotics Task Force agents, who asked not to be identified, said the incident began about noon Friday, Sept. 2 with a 911 call from the hunters. In interviews with the Queen Creek hunters, agents learned the four were scouting for bear southwest of Payson on the Cross F Ranch. "One of (the hunters) was in Deer Creek canyon and came across some clothes, and plants that appeared to be marijuana," the GCNTF agent said. "Minutes later, he found himself face-to-face with one of the suspected growers he has identified as a Mexican national."....
Cougar is culprit in horse's death When a man found his 1,200-pound Arabian horse dead in a Jackson County field last week, he thought it had been shot. There were two punctures in its neck like a vampire bite and gashes that looked like knife wounds. County animal control officer Machele Dunlap showed up and did a careful examination of the horse. No bullets were inside it, and she realized that only one wild animal in Michigan could have done that kind of damage. "It was a cougar," Dunlap said of the wild cat that weighs 100-200 pounds and is also called a mountain lion or puma. "We've had a number of people call in to report cougar sightings, and I have to admit that we were skeptical, because whenever we'd go out to investigate, we couldn't find anything. But there's really no question on this one." Pat Rusz, the research biologist for the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy in Bath, said a necropsy on the horse and a clear track proved it was killed by a cougar....
Wolf advocates pressing for animals' return Wolf advocates say they are not willing to wait 100 years for the animals to return to Colorado on their own and will begin pushing the state to find a way to bring them back. They want the state Division of Wildlife to develop a wolf recovery plan similar to the one the division embarked on six years ago with the Canada lynx. The state's Wolf Management Working Group - made up of ranchers, environmentalists, sportsmen, biologists and government officials - is equipped to shape a wolf plan representing all sides of the issue, say supporters of reintroduction. Rob Edward, of Sinapu, a Boulder-based group that advocates reintroduction of wolves, and a member of the state working group, said the panel provides an ideal forum to address the conflicting views on the wolf - a romantic symbol of the West's wildness to some and a scourge to livestock to others. The group agreed in January that wolves would be tolerated in Colorado if they naturally wander in from adjacent states - as long as they don't kill livestock or cause major trouble....
Mining plans worry bull trout watchers The farther north Canadian coal mining proposals reach - that is, the more distant they become from the Montana border - the more Clint Muhlfeld worries. "We know that our bull trout use the upper portion of the watershed," Muhlfeld said. "It's critical habitat, and the higher these proposals reach into those headwaters, the greater the impact on a fish that's already on the brink of extinction." Muhlfeld is a fisheries biologist with the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks; south of the border, his job is to protect and recover endangered bull trout. But north of the border, where many of those bull trout spawn and rear and migrate seasonally, the waterways they call home flow over deposits of gold, coal, oil and gas, rich resources British Columbia's government is keen to develop....
Allard spearheads effort to revamp Endangered Species Act Efforts made in western Colorado to preserve endangered species could be used as a model to revamp the Endangered Species Act. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., is one of three senators, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Mike Crapo of Idaho, who have formed a working group studying the act and how it might be improved. Allard said he is looking at cooperative efforts to rescue four endangered fish species from the Colorado River, as well as private and public work to help the greater sage grouse, as prototypes for other recovery efforts, such as the one for the Gunnison sage grouse. Part of the goal is to emphasize recovery over mere conservation of species deemed to be threatened or endangered, Allard said in a telephone interview Friday....
Editorial: Endangered Species: A law that works There can be no slacking. America must continue saving endangered and threatened species. Despite the claims of Republican congressional leaders, the Bush administration and property rights activists, the country has no need to modernize the Endangered Species Act. Likewise, there's absolutely no need to streamline the law, simplify it or drastically revise it. To be sure, none of those ideas are completely lacking in merit. But they aren't valid starting points for any revisions to the act. The one requirement is to maintain an effective deterrent to those in business, industry and government who plunder the environment. In the Northwest, that means, among other things, salmon protection, saving old-growth trees and keeping the orca population of Puget Sound viable. As President Bush likes to say in many contexts, it is important to set clear expectations. In this country, we don't kill off species. Period....
Water users back ESA reform Draft legislation to reform the Endangered Species Act is getting strong support from Idaho’s leading water group. ESA reform is badly needed and could come up for a vote in Congress this month, said Norm Semanko, executive director of the Idaho Water Users Association. The ESA’s poor record alone is an indication that it needs to be changed, said Semanko, who is running for a seat in Congress next year as a Republican from Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. The Idaho Cattle Association is also behind the latest attempt to amend the ESA. “Idaho ranchers understand the need to reform the ESA as they struggle with requests for new listings, and as they fight to protect their private property from wolves – a predator that was ‘reintroduced’ to the region and has reproduced in great numbers since that time,” ICA executive director Lloyd Knight said in a recent newsletter....
BLM rethinks forestry plan for Northwest Forest activists and timber companies are excited about a Bureau of Land Management initiative that may - or may not - spur logging in Southwest Oregon. The BLM may drop 1.6 million acres of reserves from 2.6 million acres of forest land as part of a re-evaluation of its land management plans sparked by the settlement of a timber industry lawsuit. The settlement requires the BLM to find at least one way it can allow harvesting on all the land under its control and still meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act, BLM spokesman Alan Hoffmeister said. The new plan will take BLM land out from under the Northwest Forest Plan, the document that laid out how forests should be managed - cut and preserved - in the range of the endangered spotted owl, which spans Western Washington, Western Oregon and Northern California. The process creates the potential for protests and counter-protests of a fury unseen since the establishment of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994....
Resort exonerated in avalanche death Results of a U.S. Forest Service-led investigation released Friday exonerated the Arapahoe Basin Ski area in the first avalanche death in 30 years within the boundaries of a ski area and called for more research into so-called wet slab avalanches. The ski area ``fulfilled the spirit and intent'' of their snow safety plan and their special use permit, said Doug Abromeit, director of the Forest Service's National Avalance Center and a member of the team that investigted the death of David Conway, 53, of Boulder. The team's report described how warm weather led to the 150-foot-wide and 1,362-feet long slide on a 25-to 30-degree expert slope 11,700 feet high....
BIO Statement on NYSE Response to Animal Rights Extremists The Hon. James C. Greenwood, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), released the following statement regarding the recent decision to postpone the listing of Life Sciences Research (Huntingdon Life Science) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE): "I am dismayed that biomedical research has taken a backseat to the pressure tactics of animal rights extremists. Ethical animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advance of the last century -- for both human and animal health. This research is invaluable in the development of life-extending treatments for people, as wells as cats, dogs, farm animals, wildlife and endangered species. "The ability to conduct humane and responsible animal-based research must be preserved to help conquer disease, alleviate suffering, and improve the quality of life. Biotechnology companies have depended on this research to develop more than 200 drugs and vaccines approved by FDA, helping 325 million people worldwide and preventing incalculable human suffering....
Column: California's Congressional Pests Often I find merit in the quip that we are, indeed, a two-party system -- the Stupid One (Republican) and the Evil One (Democratic). Recently, however, the overwhelmingly Democratic California congressional delegation seems to be poaching on the Republicans' turf. The issue is a somewhat arcane one: the use of human volunteers to test certain pesticides before they are introduced to the marketplace. Government regulators and public health experts around the globe, along with myriad scientific bodies, support the qualified use of human clinical studies in the approval process for pesticides. However, several scientifically challenged members of California's congressional delegation have intervened to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from considering these tests in its evaluation process -- even if the results have already been obtained. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Hilda Solis (D-CA) crafted an amendment to the EPA's appropriations bill that seeks a one-year moratorium on EPA's use of data from human studies. During Senate consideration of the bill, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), who represents common-sense farmers and ranchers, sponsored a conflicting amendment that would have mandated EPA to review all human studies under consideration to be certain they had been conducted safely and ethically. During the conference committee on the appropriations bill, a compromise was reached that would prohibit EPA from proceeding with human studies until the agency produces a final regulation on this issue....
Katrina fuels global warming storm Hurricane Katrina has spurred debate about global warming worldwide with some environmentalists sniping at President George W. Bush for pulling out of the main U.N. plan for braking climate change. Experts agree it is impossible to say any one storm is caused by rising temperatures. Numbers of tropical cyclones like hurricanes worldwide are stable at about 90 a year although recent U.S. research shows they may be becoming more intense. Still, the European Commission, the World Bank, some environmentalists, Australia's Greens and even Sweden's king said the disaster, feared to have killed thousands of people in the United States, could be a portent of worse to come. "As climate change is happening, we know that the frequency of these disasters will increase as well as the scope," European Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said....
Fremont elk rancher forced to slaughter herd Fremont County elk rancher Ron Walker watched his nine-year-old business fade away. The US Department of Agriculture is slaughtering over 300 of Walker's elk. That's because last year an elk born at his breeding ranch near Penrose, tested postive for chronic wasting disease-- a fatal neurological disease found in deer and elk. The only way to test other animals for the disease... is to kill them first. But Jim Miller, policy director for Colorado's AG department, says the USDA must destory the domestic herd in case any of them have it. Walker points out that chronic wasting disease has been around for years and no one knows how it spreads. It appears to have little, if any, effect on the elk population of Colorado. In fact, the Division of Wildlife is reportedly trying to reduce the statewide elk population by 25-thousand animals. Walker says, "So killing all my elk does nothing to save wildlife. if it did i would agree with that." Regardless, Walker's herd will be sedated and then euthanized....
Writing a new breed of novel Sheep rancher Heather Sharfeddin not only raises a rare breed of sheep, she may have just achieved a literary first – a new genre of novel. Heather is a talented writer. Her first novel is to be released by Bridge Works Publishing Co. of Bridgehampton, N.Y., on Oct. 1 and will sell for $21.95. The title? Ah, once a sheep rancher always a sheep rancher. She branded her novel “Blackbelly,” the name of the rare breed of sheep she and her husband, Salem, raise on their ranch in Sherwood, Ore. Actually, the action in the novel occurs not in Oregon, but in a fictional town in Idaho called Sweetwater. “I spent a large part of my childhood on the Salmon River in Idaho,” she said. “Sweetwater is a town of my imagination, but I don’t have to stop and think about the precise sound of thunder in the hills, the smell of alfalfa hay or the taste of well water. Those elements of Idaho are imprinted in me and come out in the writing without much deliberate thought.” The plot involves Chas McPherson, a loner Blackbelly sheep rancher, in this rural Idaho town who is accused of burning out a neighboring Muslim family after 9/11. From the first accusation to the surprising ending, Heather holds her reader on a tight tether of suspense. Why do I think she’s achieved a literary first? Neither her agent nor her publisher could exactly peg the genre for this book. Heather didn’t like the suggestions they came up with, so she picked her own genre – Contemporary Western....
True cowboy poet The true poet is a person who is compelled to write poetry regardless of commercial prospects, skittishness of talent or contradiction of cosmic logic. Baxter Black is a true poet. He wrote poetry long before anybody knew he did such a thing, and he will write it long after everyone else has had just about enough. In addition, Baxter Black is a true cowboy poet. The cowboy poet seems too romantic a notion to be true: the cattle driver composing sonnets by campfire. But Black, a large-animal veterinarian who long ago left behind active practice for the uncertainties of show biz, realized when he first read his pastoral poems to farmers and cattlemen that these stoical men craved such encapsulations of their experience....
===
Friday, September 09, 2005
GAO TESTIMONY
Invasive Species: Progress and Challenges in Preventing Their Introduction into U.S. Water via the Ballast Water in Ships, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, House Committee on Government Reform, in Fair Haven, Michigan. GAO-05-1026T, September 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-1026T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d051026thigh.pdf
Invasive Species: Progress and Challenges in Preventing Their Introduction into U.S. Water via the Ballast Water in Ships, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, House Committee on Government Reform, in Fair Haven, Michigan. GAO-05-1026T, September 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-1026T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d051026thigh.pdf
FLE
New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes
Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said. But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons. Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and the police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said....
Go here for a video of the New Orleans police looting a Walmart Store.
How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes?
Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, N.M. Suddenly, her ex-husband – against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order – showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds. This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2-and-a-half or 3 million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number." Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms. That corresponds to approximately 400,000 of Kleck's estimated 2.5 million defensive gun uses. The Department of Justice's own National Institute of Justice study titled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," estimated that 1.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes every year. Although the government's figure estimated a million fewer people defensively using guns, the NIJ called their figure "directly comparable" to Kleck's, noting that "it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error."....
===
New Orleans Begins Confiscating Firearms as Water Recedes
Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here. No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said. But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons. Nearly two weeks after the floods began, New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm. No arrests were made on Wednesday night or this morning, and the police received only 10 calls for service, a police spokesman said....
Go here for a video of the New Orleans police looting a Walmart Store.
How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes?
Forty-six-year-old Joyce Cordoba stood behind the deli counter while working at a Wal-Mart in Albuquerque, N.M. Suddenly, her ex-husband – against whom Ms. Cordoba had a restraining order – showed up, jumped over the deli counter, and began stabbing Ms. Cordoba. Due Moore, a 72-year-old Wal-Mart customer, witnessed the violent attack. Moore, legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon, pulled out his gun, and shot and killed the ex-husband. Ms. Cordoba survived the brutal attack and is recovering from her wounds. This raises a question. How often do Americans use guns for defensive purposes? UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, "We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2-and-a-half or 3 million. We don't know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it's not a trivial number." Criminologist and researcher Gary Kleck, using his own commissioned phone surveys and number extrapolation, estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes each year. He further found that of those who had used guns defensively, one in six believed someone would have been dead if they had not resorted to their defensive use of firearms. That corresponds to approximately 400,000 of Kleck's estimated 2.5 million defensive gun uses. The Department of Justice's own National Institute of Justice study titled "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," estimated that 1.5 million Americans use guns for defensive purposes every year. Although the government's figure estimated a million fewer people defensively using guns, the NIJ called their figure "directly comparable" to Kleck's, noting that "it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error."....
===
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Bird's Advocates Challenge Corps
A group of environmentalists is trying to block construction of two federal water projects in Arkansas, arguing they could damage the habitat of the highly endangered ivory-billed woodpecker. The controversy highlights how this year's rediscovery of the distinctive bird could complicate federal initiatives in the area. For years many federal officials and wildlife experts believed the woodpecker was extinct; now they are faced with the question of how to cope with its existence on land used by farmers, shippers and area residents. After an initial wave of celebration, conservation groups -- which say that the only reason the woodpecker survived this long is because the federal government abandoned a navigation project along Arkansas' Cache River in the 1970s -- say administration officials are risking driving the bird to extinction once again. Today the National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation are filing a lawsuit in federal district court in Little Rock, challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to spend $319 million to take water from the White River and give it to farmers. The Environmental Defense Fund, another advocacy group, plans to issue a policy report soon blasting a nearby Corps transportation project on the White River....
===
A group of environmentalists is trying to block construction of two federal water projects in Arkansas, arguing they could damage the habitat of the highly endangered ivory-billed woodpecker. The controversy highlights how this year's rediscovery of the distinctive bird could complicate federal initiatives in the area. For years many federal officials and wildlife experts believed the woodpecker was extinct; now they are faced with the question of how to cope with its existence on land used by farmers, shippers and area residents. After an initial wave of celebration, conservation groups -- which say that the only reason the woodpecker survived this long is because the federal government abandoned a navigation project along Arkansas' Cache River in the 1970s -- say administration officials are risking driving the bird to extinction once again. Today the National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation are filing a lawsuit in federal district court in Little Rock, challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to spend $319 million to take water from the White River and give it to farmers. The Environmental Defense Fund, another advocacy group, plans to issue a policy report soon blasting a nearby Corps transportation project on the White River....
===
Alarm Growing on Storm's Cost for Agriculture
Two weeks from the beginning of harvest season, there is a mounting sense of alarm over a potential financial blow to American farming. Farmers in the breadbasket states rely on barges to carry their corn, soybeans and wheat down the Mississippi River, but cannot be certain that the Port of New Orleans, a crucial link to export markets that was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, will reopen anytime soon. In the gulf states, the storm left farmers reeling from numerous other problems, including a lack of electricity to restore chicken and dairy plants to service, and a shortage of diesel fuel needed for trucks to save dying cattle stranded on the breached levees. For all of them, it is a race against time. Farmers in some states in the Midwest had already endured the worst drought in almost 20 years. The storm, moreover, flattened sugar cane and rice fields in the South. And farmers nationwide must pay more for fuel to bring the harvest in and transport crops, lowering the profit they will earn when they sell them. Now Hurricane Katrina is adding to the pain by threatening to curtail exports. In all, the hurricane will cause an estimated $2 billion in damage to farmers nationwide, according to an early analysis by the American Farm Bureau Federation. The estimate includes $1 billion in direct losses, as well as $500 million in higher fuel and energy prices. Midwestern farmers are threatened by additional losses. Farmers are clearing out stored corn and soybeans to prepare for this year's harvest, which they normally begin exporting at the end of September. But the hurricane caused substantial damage to waterways and grain-handling facilities, and hundreds of barges have been backing up on the Mississippi River with no place to go....
===
Two weeks from the beginning of harvest season, there is a mounting sense of alarm over a potential financial blow to American farming. Farmers in the breadbasket states rely on barges to carry their corn, soybeans and wheat down the Mississippi River, but cannot be certain that the Port of New Orleans, a crucial link to export markets that was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, will reopen anytime soon. In the gulf states, the storm left farmers reeling from numerous other problems, including a lack of electricity to restore chicken and dairy plants to service, and a shortage of diesel fuel needed for trucks to save dying cattle stranded on the breached levees. For all of them, it is a race against time. Farmers in some states in the Midwest had already endured the worst drought in almost 20 years. The storm, moreover, flattened sugar cane and rice fields in the South. And farmers nationwide must pay more for fuel to bring the harvest in and transport crops, lowering the profit they will earn when they sell them. Now Hurricane Katrina is adding to the pain by threatening to curtail exports. In all, the hurricane will cause an estimated $2 billion in damage to farmers nationwide, according to an early analysis by the American Farm Bureau Federation. The estimate includes $1 billion in direct losses, as well as $500 million in higher fuel and energy prices. Midwestern farmers are threatened by additional losses. Farmers are clearing out stored corn and soybeans to prepare for this year's harvest, which they normally begin exporting at the end of September. But the hurricane caused substantial damage to waterways and grain-handling facilities, and hundreds of barges have been backing up on the Mississippi River with no place to go....
===
NEWS ROUNDUP
Mauling victims recovering, names revealed The female victim of a bear mauling in Glacier National Park has now been released from the hospital and her father is now listed in satisfactory condition. Also, both of their names have been revealed. Johan and Jenna Otter were attacked by a grizzly sow with cubs on Aug. 25 while hiking the Grinnell Glacier Trail. They apparently ran into the sow at close range, where they were repeatedly bitten and scratched, and then tumbled 30 to 50 feet down a cliff. Mr. Otter's co-workers made him a big get-well card and were sending it to the hospital. Mr. Otter was severely injured in the incident, he had multiple bear and claw bites as the bear tore off his scalp. He also may have broken his neck, according to Jim and Kathy Knapp. Jim and Kathy were first on the scene of the bear mauling....
Cattlemen ask hunters to shoot fewer grouse A cattlemen's group has ruffled the feathers of Montana's hunting community by "strongly" recommending that landowners, livestock producers and hunters reduce hunting pressure on sage grouse during this fall's season. "It is a direct contradiction to allow liberal hunting of a species at the same time that court cases are being filed to add that species to the endangered species list," Bill Donald, a Melville rancher and president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, said in a press release. But the executive director of a state hunting coalition disagreed. "Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks data and other reports and research projects do not indicate that hunting is the real problem," Craig Sharpe, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation said in an e-mail. "For decades, prime sage grouse sagebrush habitat has been burned, plowed, sprayed and grazed. � Moreover, it appears the Montana Stockgrowers want us to eliminate hunting so they can maintain their grazing leases. This is a backward approach."....
Column: Green hotheads exploit hurricane tragedy “The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name was global warming.” So wrote environmental activist Ross Gelbspan in a Boston Globe op-ed that one commentator aptly described as “almost giddy.” The green group Friends of the Earth linked Katrina to global warming, as did Germany’s Green Party Environment Minister. Bobby Kennedy Jr. blamed Katrina on Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour for “derailing the Kyoto Protocol [on global warming] and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad promise to regulate carbon dioxide.” Time for an ice-water bath, hotheads. If you’d bothered to consult the scientists (remember them?) you’d find they’ve extensively studied the issue and found no evidence that global warming – assuming it’s actually occurring – is causing either an increase in frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Thus the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which believes global warming is both real and man-made, stated in its last assessment (2001) that “Changes in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated by [variations within and between decades], with no significant trends over the twentieth century evident.” So, too, states the Tropical Meteorological Project at Colorado State University....
Federal government kills more than 2.7 million wildlife in '04 Even as some federal agencies spend millions to protect wildlife, another federal agency spends millions to kill wildlife in record numbers, according to agency reports released today by two environmental groups, Sinapu and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The number of “nuisance” wildlife destroyed by the federal government rose to more than 2.7 million animals in 2004, an increase of more than a million from 2003. According to the most recent figures, 2004 was a record year for officially sanctioned destruction of wildlife at taxpayer expense and the first time annual federal wildlife kill numbers exceeded two million. Birds constituted the overwhelming majority of animals exterminated, with starlings registering the greatest single species death total at 2.3 million....
Agreement resuscitates mine cleanup project A stream gurgles from a pair of pipes leading from an old mine entrance, blasted shut years ago. The brown-orange deposit on the rocks hints at the contamination the otherwise clear water carries. Miners once extracted gold, silver and lead at the Pacific Mine in American Fork Canyon. The mine and mill buildings are long gone. Some eroded concrete foundations still stand, and old sunburned wooden structures where milled ore once was loaded into wagons have survived. Piles of contaminated mine waste also remain. Though most mining in the American Fork Canyon stopped 80 years ago, the water running from the Pacific Mine still carries lead at levels 10 times higher than the federal Clean Water Act standard -- contamination that once ran into the American Fork River. Now a first-of-its-kind agreement between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group, may allow contaminants to be cleaned up at the Pacific Mine, which is on property now owned by Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort....
Cannon involved in land dispute A U.S. congressman has gotten involved in a land dispute between Mapleton and one of its well-known residents. U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has called landowner Dr. Wendell Gibby and Mapleton Mayor Dean Allan to encourage them to take their dispute to mediation, instead of court. Gibby filed a 10-count federal civil rights lawsuit July 28 against Mapleton City and several officials. Cannon, who lives in Mapleton, also offered to help set up mediation, his chief of staff Joe Hunter said. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of lawsuits involving Gibby, the city and 120 acres of property Gibby owns -- of which the city wants a few acres. City officials say a historic trail runs through the property that residents have always used, but Gibby maintains the only trail on his fenced property was created a few years ago by a utility company for private use. The city is trying to condemn the property on which the trail sits. But Gibby said he'll sell all or none of the land, since running a trail down the middle of it will reduce the market value. The civil rights lawsuit includes charges of false arrest and malicious prosecution, and alleges the defendants have harassed Gibby and encouraged others to vandalize the property....
GOP criticizes Kulongoski's forest policy The state Republican Party attacked Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski's challenge of a Bush administration decision to permit commercial uses — including road building and logging — in national forest areas that have been off-limits to development. Oregon joined California and New Mexico in filing a federal lawsuit on Aug. 30 against the U.S. Forest Service's repeal of former President Clinton's so-called roadless rule banning development on 58 million acres of national forests, mostly in the West. A Bush administration policy gives governors 18 months to petition the agency to keep their states' forests protected or to open the undeveloped areas to roads and development. Oregon GOP Chairman Vance Day said Wednesday that Kulongoski's decision to sue ``is not only selfish and politically motivated, it's devastating to our rural communities and the thousands of Oregonians whose livelihood depends'' on the timber industry. He said Republicans support Bush's policy of giving governors the chance to participate in managing national forests. Kulongoski has said the policy creates more work for the states without giving them a meaningful role in implementing any recommendations....
Demand for firewood surging as northern US braces for costly winter Demand for firewood is surging as the northern United States — alarmed by rising heating oil prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — braces for what could be the costliest winter on record. “Business is non-stop,” said Mark Killinger, a burly 46-year-old firewood seller, pressing a foot on a freshly cut trunk of oak selling at record high prices this week. “Normally it’s quiet this time of year, at least until the first frost. But this year it’s very different,” he said outside his 5-year-old family business in rural Maine. “People are really concerned about the cost of heating oil.” He was selling firewood for as much as $225 a cord — a stack roughly the size of a passenger car. That is up about 25 percent from last month, but fuel oil would cost about $500 for a comparable amount of heat. As Katrina relief efforts accelerate on the Gulf coast, the storm’s effects are reverberating as far away as the states on Canada’s border, where high fuel prices whipped up by Katrina threaten to deliver the costliest winter in memory....
Rhizotron sets MTU apart The U.S. Forest Service is building a 75-foot underground research tunnel known as the Rhizotron, which will be used for research on roots and carbon sequestration. The Rhizotron is extremely unique, with only one other known tunnel like it in existence in the United States. Located next to the MTU forestry building, the tunnel will be accessible to many people, including students. On one side of the Rhizotron, the natural environment has been preserved and will jut up against the tunnel. The other side, the “disturbed” side, will be subjected to different plants and species in the hopes of examining how they co-exist. The tunnel allows for a “non-destructive visual study” according to Friend. The main goal of the tunnel and its overall purpose is to research more about carbon sequestration and how to implement it, in such a way as to slow the process of global warming. The objective is to discover which species favors sequestration. Carbon sequestration is of a major global interest at the moment due to mounting problems with global warming and the Rhizotron will assist MTU in researching this. It is also one of the main factors behind the whole concept of the Rhizotron. Carbon sequestration is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the air by having trees and other vegetation trap the carbon dioxide, and then letting the soil absorb it....
Pinelands bog gets infusion of funds A federal agency said yesterday that it would spend $5.4 million to permanently protect and maintain core wetlands at the Franklin Parker Preserve in the Pine Barrens. That would make it the largest wetlands reserve project in the Northeast for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation owns the 9,400-acre preserve, formerly part of the DeMarco cranberry operation, where 440 different plants have been catalogued, including 30 rare, threatened or endangered species. The foundation bought the land from the DeMarco family for $11.6 million in 2004 in what was the largest private conservation deal in state history. Of the federal money announced yesterday, $4.4 million will be paid to the foundation to establish a deed restriction guaranteeing that 2,200 acres in the preserve will never be farmed. The foundation, in turn, will use the money to pay off the balance that it owes on the property. The remaining $1 million will go toward restoring bogs to wetlands and forest. About half the easement land includes former cranberry bogs and blueberry fields....
Officials: Silverton seizure about safety San Juan County's first attempt to take a resident's land has echoes of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set off protests by property-rights advocates and elected officials nationwide. Aspen businessman Jim Jackson says the county's seizure of his land will primarily benefit the private Silverton Mountain Ski Area. The Supreme Court ruled in June that New London, Conn., could seize people's homes to make way for a private development, which city leaders said would be good for the economy. But San Juan County officials say they are taking the land for avalanche control - not to aid the promising new ski area just outside Silverton that is boosting the town's historically depressed winter economy....
BLM asks Utah about its road claims The Bureau of Land Management has asked the state for more information on Utah's claims to six rural roads and requested it answer questions raised by environmental groups over the disputed paths. In a letter to the state, the BLM requested additional evidence that the state's claims to roads in Daggett, Beaver, Iron and Millard counties fit the criteria of roads that the federal government can transfer to the state. Assistant Utah Attorney General Roger Fairbanks said the state is working to dig up the additional information and plans to submit as much as possible by the Friday deadline. "We think the information we have given the BLM is adequate," Fairbanks said. "That being said, we will cooperate the best we can to get additional information to the BLM to the extent that its available.”....
Government Cowboys Spend Days Trailing Texas Ticks This federal employee works along a treacherous stretch of high Rio Grande riverbank known as No Man's Land. His work uniform: leather chaps, sturdy Wranglers, high-top bullhide boots and silver spurs. His tools: a .357-caliber revolver, a lariat, a machete, a walkie-talkie, and his beloved brown-and-white appaloosa, Payaso. His mission: to hunt down ticks. Meet Fred Garza, government cowboy--one of a small force of hardy men whose mission for almost 70 years has been to keep the dreaded Texas cattle fever tick confined to 900 miles of winding riverfront along the Mexican border. He is a tick, or river, rider, a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who has managed to marry his cowboying skills and love of desolate open range with benefits and a federal pension....
===
Mauling victims recovering, names revealed The female victim of a bear mauling in Glacier National Park has now been released from the hospital and her father is now listed in satisfactory condition. Also, both of their names have been revealed. Johan and Jenna Otter were attacked by a grizzly sow with cubs on Aug. 25 while hiking the Grinnell Glacier Trail. They apparently ran into the sow at close range, where they were repeatedly bitten and scratched, and then tumbled 30 to 50 feet down a cliff. Mr. Otter's co-workers made him a big get-well card and were sending it to the hospital. Mr. Otter was severely injured in the incident, he had multiple bear and claw bites as the bear tore off his scalp. He also may have broken his neck, according to Jim and Kathy Knapp. Jim and Kathy were first on the scene of the bear mauling....
Cattlemen ask hunters to shoot fewer grouse A cattlemen's group has ruffled the feathers of Montana's hunting community by "strongly" recommending that landowners, livestock producers and hunters reduce hunting pressure on sage grouse during this fall's season. "It is a direct contradiction to allow liberal hunting of a species at the same time that court cases are being filed to add that species to the endangered species list," Bill Donald, a Melville rancher and president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, said in a press release. But the executive director of a state hunting coalition disagreed. "Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks data and other reports and research projects do not indicate that hunting is the real problem," Craig Sharpe, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation said in an e-mail. "For decades, prime sage grouse sagebrush habitat has been burned, plowed, sprayed and grazed. � Moreover, it appears the Montana Stockgrowers want us to eliminate hunting so they can maintain their grazing leases. This is a backward approach."....
Column: Green hotheads exploit hurricane tragedy “The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name was global warming.” So wrote environmental activist Ross Gelbspan in a Boston Globe op-ed that one commentator aptly described as “almost giddy.” The green group Friends of the Earth linked Katrina to global warming, as did Germany’s Green Party Environment Minister. Bobby Kennedy Jr. blamed Katrina on Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour for “derailing the Kyoto Protocol [on global warming] and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad promise to regulate carbon dioxide.” Time for an ice-water bath, hotheads. If you’d bothered to consult the scientists (remember them?) you’d find they’ve extensively studied the issue and found no evidence that global warming – assuming it’s actually occurring – is causing either an increase in frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Thus the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which believes global warming is both real and man-made, stated in its last assessment (2001) that “Changes in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated by [variations within and between decades], with no significant trends over the twentieth century evident.” So, too, states the Tropical Meteorological Project at Colorado State University....
Federal government kills more than 2.7 million wildlife in '04 Even as some federal agencies spend millions to protect wildlife, another federal agency spends millions to kill wildlife in record numbers, according to agency reports released today by two environmental groups, Sinapu and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The number of “nuisance” wildlife destroyed by the federal government rose to more than 2.7 million animals in 2004, an increase of more than a million from 2003. According to the most recent figures, 2004 was a record year for officially sanctioned destruction of wildlife at taxpayer expense and the first time annual federal wildlife kill numbers exceeded two million. Birds constituted the overwhelming majority of animals exterminated, with starlings registering the greatest single species death total at 2.3 million....
Agreement resuscitates mine cleanup project A stream gurgles from a pair of pipes leading from an old mine entrance, blasted shut years ago. The brown-orange deposit on the rocks hints at the contamination the otherwise clear water carries. Miners once extracted gold, silver and lead at the Pacific Mine in American Fork Canyon. The mine and mill buildings are long gone. Some eroded concrete foundations still stand, and old sunburned wooden structures where milled ore once was loaded into wagons have survived. Piles of contaminated mine waste also remain. Though most mining in the American Fork Canyon stopped 80 years ago, the water running from the Pacific Mine still carries lead at levels 10 times higher than the federal Clean Water Act standard -- contamination that once ran into the American Fork River. Now a first-of-its-kind agreement between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group, may allow contaminants to be cleaned up at the Pacific Mine, which is on property now owned by Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort....
Cannon involved in land dispute A U.S. congressman has gotten involved in a land dispute between Mapleton and one of its well-known residents. U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has called landowner Dr. Wendell Gibby and Mapleton Mayor Dean Allan to encourage them to take their dispute to mediation, instead of court. Gibby filed a 10-count federal civil rights lawsuit July 28 against Mapleton City and several officials. Cannon, who lives in Mapleton, also offered to help set up mediation, his chief of staff Joe Hunter said. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of lawsuits involving Gibby, the city and 120 acres of property Gibby owns -- of which the city wants a few acres. City officials say a historic trail runs through the property that residents have always used, but Gibby maintains the only trail on his fenced property was created a few years ago by a utility company for private use. The city is trying to condemn the property on which the trail sits. But Gibby said he'll sell all or none of the land, since running a trail down the middle of it will reduce the market value. The civil rights lawsuit includes charges of false arrest and malicious prosecution, and alleges the defendants have harassed Gibby and encouraged others to vandalize the property....
GOP criticizes Kulongoski's forest policy The state Republican Party attacked Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski's challenge of a Bush administration decision to permit commercial uses — including road building and logging — in national forest areas that have been off-limits to development. Oregon joined California and New Mexico in filing a federal lawsuit on Aug. 30 against the U.S. Forest Service's repeal of former President Clinton's so-called roadless rule banning development on 58 million acres of national forests, mostly in the West. A Bush administration policy gives governors 18 months to petition the agency to keep their states' forests protected or to open the undeveloped areas to roads and development. Oregon GOP Chairman Vance Day said Wednesday that Kulongoski's decision to sue ``is not only selfish and politically motivated, it's devastating to our rural communities and the thousands of Oregonians whose livelihood depends'' on the timber industry. He said Republicans support Bush's policy of giving governors the chance to participate in managing national forests. Kulongoski has said the policy creates more work for the states without giving them a meaningful role in implementing any recommendations....
Demand for firewood surging as northern US braces for costly winter Demand for firewood is surging as the northern United States — alarmed by rising heating oil prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — braces for what could be the costliest winter on record. “Business is non-stop,” said Mark Killinger, a burly 46-year-old firewood seller, pressing a foot on a freshly cut trunk of oak selling at record high prices this week. “Normally it’s quiet this time of year, at least until the first frost. But this year it’s very different,” he said outside his 5-year-old family business in rural Maine. “People are really concerned about the cost of heating oil.” He was selling firewood for as much as $225 a cord — a stack roughly the size of a passenger car. That is up about 25 percent from last month, but fuel oil would cost about $500 for a comparable amount of heat. As Katrina relief efforts accelerate on the Gulf coast, the storm’s effects are reverberating as far away as the states on Canada’s border, where high fuel prices whipped up by Katrina threaten to deliver the costliest winter in memory....
Rhizotron sets MTU apart The U.S. Forest Service is building a 75-foot underground research tunnel known as the Rhizotron, which will be used for research on roots and carbon sequestration. The Rhizotron is extremely unique, with only one other known tunnel like it in existence in the United States. Located next to the MTU forestry building, the tunnel will be accessible to many people, including students. On one side of the Rhizotron, the natural environment has been preserved and will jut up against the tunnel. The other side, the “disturbed” side, will be subjected to different plants and species in the hopes of examining how they co-exist. The tunnel allows for a “non-destructive visual study” according to Friend. The main goal of the tunnel and its overall purpose is to research more about carbon sequestration and how to implement it, in such a way as to slow the process of global warming. The objective is to discover which species favors sequestration. Carbon sequestration is of a major global interest at the moment due to mounting problems with global warming and the Rhizotron will assist MTU in researching this. It is also one of the main factors behind the whole concept of the Rhizotron. Carbon sequestration is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the air by having trees and other vegetation trap the carbon dioxide, and then letting the soil absorb it....
Pinelands bog gets infusion of funds A federal agency said yesterday that it would spend $5.4 million to permanently protect and maintain core wetlands at the Franklin Parker Preserve in the Pine Barrens. That would make it the largest wetlands reserve project in the Northeast for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation owns the 9,400-acre preserve, formerly part of the DeMarco cranberry operation, where 440 different plants have been catalogued, including 30 rare, threatened or endangered species. The foundation bought the land from the DeMarco family for $11.6 million in 2004 in what was the largest private conservation deal in state history. Of the federal money announced yesterday, $4.4 million will be paid to the foundation to establish a deed restriction guaranteeing that 2,200 acres in the preserve will never be farmed. The foundation, in turn, will use the money to pay off the balance that it owes on the property. The remaining $1 million will go toward restoring bogs to wetlands and forest. About half the easement land includes former cranberry bogs and blueberry fields....
Officials: Silverton seizure about safety San Juan County's first attempt to take a resident's land has echoes of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set off protests by property-rights advocates and elected officials nationwide. Aspen businessman Jim Jackson says the county's seizure of his land will primarily benefit the private Silverton Mountain Ski Area. The Supreme Court ruled in June that New London, Conn., could seize people's homes to make way for a private development, which city leaders said would be good for the economy. But San Juan County officials say they are taking the land for avalanche control - not to aid the promising new ski area just outside Silverton that is boosting the town's historically depressed winter economy....
BLM asks Utah about its road claims The Bureau of Land Management has asked the state for more information on Utah's claims to six rural roads and requested it answer questions raised by environmental groups over the disputed paths. In a letter to the state, the BLM requested additional evidence that the state's claims to roads in Daggett, Beaver, Iron and Millard counties fit the criteria of roads that the federal government can transfer to the state. Assistant Utah Attorney General Roger Fairbanks said the state is working to dig up the additional information and plans to submit as much as possible by the Friday deadline. "We think the information we have given the BLM is adequate," Fairbanks said. "That being said, we will cooperate the best we can to get additional information to the BLM to the extent that its available.”....
Government Cowboys Spend Days Trailing Texas Ticks This federal employee works along a treacherous stretch of high Rio Grande riverbank known as No Man's Land. His work uniform: leather chaps, sturdy Wranglers, high-top bullhide boots and silver spurs. His tools: a .357-caliber revolver, a lariat, a machete, a walkie-talkie, and his beloved brown-and-white appaloosa, Payaso. His mission: to hunt down ticks. Meet Fred Garza, government cowboy--one of a small force of hardy men whose mission for almost 70 years has been to keep the dreaded Texas cattle fever tick confined to 900 miles of winding riverfront along the Mexican border. He is a tick, or river, rider, a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who has managed to marry his cowboying skills and love of desolate open range with benefits and a federal pension....
===
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Estimates put wolf numbers up in Rockies The number of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies has increased to more than 900 since last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated Tuesday. According to the agency's mid-year estimate, 912 wolves now roam the three-state region, compared to 835 in December, said Ed Bangs, Fish and Wildlife's wolf recovery coordinator in Helena, Mont. The agency attributed the increase primarily to Idaho's growing wolf population. The number of wolves in Montana is up from 2004 but below 2003, and it is down in Wyoming due to illness and competition for food and territory in Yellowstone National Park, officials said. Gray wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies a decade ago, and in 2002 met the government's recovery targets. Wyoming has not submitted a management plan deemed acceptable by the federal agency, a necessary step before gray wolves could lose federal protection....
Wolf numbers stabilizing in Montana; dropping in and around Yellowstone Wolf numbers in Montana appear to be stablizing, a new report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. And wolf numbers in Yellowstone National Park appear to have dropped substantially, according to the top wolf manager there. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for FWS, last week released a late-summer count of wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. He stressed that all the numbers are estimates and will change by the time official counts are compiled at the end of the year. He estimated there are 166 wolves in Montana, as of the end of August. Wolf numbers are down by about 40 animals in Wyoming, Bangs said, partly because of the drop in Yellowstone, which is mostly in that state. In Idaho, numbers continue to grow. Bangs said he estimates there are 500 to 550 wolves there, up from 422 last winter. The continued growth there "suprises several of us," he said, but central Idaho, with its vast swaths of wilderness and other federal land, and huge ungulate herds, provides the best wolf habitat....
National parks grapple with surge of illegal off-road vehicles The Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida is crisscrossed with so many illegal swamp-buggy ruts - more than 23,000 miles of them - that park officials in August began limiting off-road vehicles to 400 miles of trails in order to protect the Florida panther and the preserve. In Yosemite National Park, off-road vehicles are involved in "numerous" violations, according to a staffer's memo. And each day of a long summer weekend like Labor Day, as many as 2,200 motorized vehicles hit the beaches of Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina. "Not one of those is there legally," says Don Barger, southeastern regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a watchdog group. In all, unauthorized off-road vehicles are buzzing through nearly one-third of America's national parks, according to a recently released internal National Park Service (NPS) survey. In one-fifth of the parks, they have damaged natural environments that by law must be preserved for future generations....
2005 fire season marked by big range fires Wildfire experts have come across a seeming contradiction this summer: While the number of acres charred across the West is almost double the 10-year average, the blazes haven't been as big or devastating as those in past years. Experts say that's due to the unusual moisture patterns in the region earlier this year, which favored big grass fires on the open range. Timber in the mountains got more moisture than usual well into the summer, keeping forest fires small. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, over 7.8 million acres - more than 11,000 square miles - have burned in the U.S. since May. About half of that was in Alaska, where large fires often are not fought aggressively if they pose no threat to people or structures. With the 2005 wildfire season two-thirds over, the number of fires is down - about 46,000 compared to the 10-year average of 63,000 - and the number of firefighters suppressing the blazes has been lower than in recent years. Yet the total acreage burned is nearly double the 4 million acres that burned on average through late August over the past decade. Analysts say the primary reason for the higher-than-average fire acreage this year is huge range fires that burned in the Southwest and Great Basin, where a wet winter allowed fine grasses and vegetation to flourish....
Lemmings, mussels and mites among Idaho species on the decline, report says The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has drawn up a list of the dozens of creatures native to the state that are threatened with extinction due to human disturbance and vanishing habitat. But chances are most people haven't heard of the northern bog lemming, western pearlshell mussel, Pacific lamprey, cave obligate mite or the dozens of other imperiled insects, birds, fish, mollusks and wildlife species included in the new report. The "Idaho Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy" attempts to identify every native species of living thing that is struggling to survive, and goes beyond the usual suspects of grizzly bear, caribou and bull trout....
Teen to be tried as adult for killing eagle A Muskegon judge has sided with the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office and ruled that a 17-year-old suspect in the April 2004 shooting and hatchet mutilation of two bald eagles will be tried as an adult. After a contested court hearing that stretched over three sessions on three different days, Muskegon County Circuit Judge William C. Marietti on Friday ordered Kyle Howell of 1276 Poulson to face adult prosecution for animal cruelty/killing an animal, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, and one count of killing an endangered species animal, a 90-day misdemeanor. Marietti, who also acts as a Family Court judge, decided to "designate" Howell to be tried as an adult in juvenile court, a procedure allowed under Michigan law for certain crimes allegedly committed by juveniles. Howell was 16 at the time of the offense....
Park leader's memo fuels debate When Paul Hoffman was executive director of the Cody Chamber of Commerce, he worked closely with state tourism official Gene Bryan, now Hoffman's successor at the chamber. Bryan "watched from a distance" as Hoffman regularly butted heads with National Park Service officials over ending snowmobile use within Yellowstone National Park, reintroducing wolves into the park and whether a gold mine should operate near the nation's oldest national park. "Paul is not a rookie when it comes to controversial issues," Bryan said. Today, Hoffman is deputy assistant secretary of the Interior with authority over the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. He's also at the heart of a firestorm of controversy over future management of the National Park Service. Hoffman drafted a 194-page rewrite of the Park Service's 2001 management policy manual this summer. His changes would downplay preservation, instead emphasizing public enjoyment and commercial exploitation of park resources....
Feds present plan for Tombstone to maintain its historic status Tombstone, the so-called "town too tough to die," is in a battle to defend its National Historic Landmark status. But as federal authorities weight whether to yank the designation, their message is clear: It's OK to cash in on Wild West myths, but don't lie about history. Last year, the National Park Service put Tombstone on notice, warning the landmark status was in jeopardy because of fake facades, anachronistic colors and bogus dates painted on newer buildings. On Sunday, after three days of public input, walking tours and design sessions, a team of consultants and government officials revealed a plan to save the landmark label. State Historic Preservation Officer James Garrison stressed that the recommendations are just a starting point and that the government isn't about to fine people whose buildings aren't historically accurate. Tombstone's threatened status will be revisited in two years, but the National Park Service won't necessarily remove the landmark label then....
Katrina renews debate over drilling off Florida's coast The stunning spike in gasoline prices prompted Senators on Tuesday to revive efforts to drill for oil and natural gas off of Florida's Gulf coast. Less than two months ago, Republican and Democratic politicians from Florida fended off drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico with arguments that unsightly oil rigs and the potential for spills could hurt the state's tourist-based economy and environment. But members of the Senate Energy Committee made it clear Tuesday that gasoline price hikes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are angering their constituents and putting the idea of drilling near Florida back on the table. A provision for drilling likely will be proposed as part of a massive federal budget bill that will come to a vote this month....
Editorial: BP and the county For all these benefits, who bears the burdens? It is the surface owner, often with a small acreage, who is forced to coexist with the heavy equipment and commotion that goes with drilling a gas well, and then with the sights and sounds from industrial components that clash with the cottonwoods, junipers, alfalfa and grasses that make the mesa tops and valleys and ridges so appealing: a well access road, visible pipeline rights of way, a pump jack and small metal buildings, perhaps large steel tanks, and the likely possibility that in the years ahead the well bore will have to be freshened. Even for surface owners who receive royalties, the imposition is great. BP's offer to increase only slightly the size of an existing well pad in order to include a second well, one bored at an angle to tap an adjacent gas reserve, to share existing pipelines for gas and waste water transmission, and pay a definite road damage fee to the county, in exchange for broad county drilling approval, is an intriguing offer. Using an existing well site and pipelines is almost always much less intrusive for surface owners, and the industry has known for some time how to drill directionally. An agreement would reduce the number of contentious issues, for both the surface owner and the county. The offer, which comes with the sure-to-be-approved request to the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to double the number of coal-bed methane wells from one per 160 acres to two, is a step in the right direction. But, it can go further....
River spells life for small town California grows 80 percent of the nation's eating oranges. Much of that fruit -- about 15 million 75-pound boxes -- passes through this town's nine plants. When the wind hits you right in Orange Cove, the tangy smell of fresh citrus is so strong you can almost taste it. But while the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada frame the sky, there's little natural water here, explains Harvey Bailey, who works 1,100 acres of oranges and lemons with his brother Lee Bailey. His fruit trees -- like Orange Cove's 9,255 residents -- are sustained by water diverted from the San Joaquin River, 50 miles to the north. ''Without it, we'd just dry up, the farms, the town, everything,'' said Bailey, whose family initially worked 200 acres of groves around a well in the early 1900s....
COLORADO RIVER ISSUES: Water chief draws line at meeting The seven Western states that share Colorado River water continue to make progress toward sweeping new rules on how the river should be operated during desperate shortages. But Nevada's top water official is not above a little saber rattling, just in case. During a conference in San Diego last week, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy had this message for a conference of water managers: Nevada is ready for war should talks break down and the seven basin states wind up in court. Specifically, Mulroy said she wanted other Colorado River users to know that Nevada will fight for its right to divert water from the Virgin River for use in the Las Vegas Valley. The upper river basin states of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico have argued that Nevada should not be allowed to use water from a Colorado River tributary such as the Virgin without deducting that amount from its annual Colorado River allocation....
Farmers to offer new eco-label Shoppers attracted to organic fruits and vegetables but repelled by their bank account-busting prices may soon have an alternative. That’s the hope of environmentalists, farmers and public officials pushing to certify, label and market produce grown according to a set of agricultural standards labeled as sustainable. Certified growers must meet requirements regarding soil management, water quality, wildlife protection and labor practices, as well as pesticide use. Supporters say the produce labeled as “sustainable” will be more affordable than organic fruits and vegetables. “We’re trying to get to those consumers in the middle,” said Cheryl Brickey, executive director of Protected Harvest, a Maryland-based nonprofit that certifies produce as being grown according to the practices. Brickey said too many Americans can’t afford to pay top dollar for organic produce: “We’re trying to break that barrier.”....
It's All Trew: Dirt-moving methods improve through years Few readers under 60 years of age will understand this statement: “We installed a tin horn in our bar ditch.” A tin horn is a corrugated, galvanized metal culvert installed alongside roadways to let floodwater pass through. I know this fact, but I don’t have a clue as to why a crooked gambler appearing in many western stories is called a tinhorn. Any ideas? The slang term bar ditch supposedly comes from barrow ditch when hand labor and wheelbarrows were used to haul dirt dug from a ditch and dumped into the roadbed to raise it above the surrounding terrain. Another version states dirt borrowed from a ditch and placed on the roadbed gave birth to the term bar ditch....
===
Estimates put wolf numbers up in Rockies The number of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies has increased to more than 900 since last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated Tuesday. According to the agency's mid-year estimate, 912 wolves now roam the three-state region, compared to 835 in December, said Ed Bangs, Fish and Wildlife's wolf recovery coordinator in Helena, Mont. The agency attributed the increase primarily to Idaho's growing wolf population. The number of wolves in Montana is up from 2004 but below 2003, and it is down in Wyoming due to illness and competition for food and territory in Yellowstone National Park, officials said. Gray wolves were reintroduced to the Northern Rockies a decade ago, and in 2002 met the government's recovery targets. Wyoming has not submitted a management plan deemed acceptable by the federal agency, a necessary step before gray wolves could lose federal protection....
Wolf numbers stabilizing in Montana; dropping in and around Yellowstone Wolf numbers in Montana appear to be stablizing, a new report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. And wolf numbers in Yellowstone National Park appear to have dropped substantially, according to the top wolf manager there. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for FWS, last week released a late-summer count of wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. He stressed that all the numbers are estimates and will change by the time official counts are compiled at the end of the year. He estimated there are 166 wolves in Montana, as of the end of August. Wolf numbers are down by about 40 animals in Wyoming, Bangs said, partly because of the drop in Yellowstone, which is mostly in that state. In Idaho, numbers continue to grow. Bangs said he estimates there are 500 to 550 wolves there, up from 422 last winter. The continued growth there "suprises several of us," he said, but central Idaho, with its vast swaths of wilderness and other federal land, and huge ungulate herds, provides the best wolf habitat....
National parks grapple with surge of illegal off-road vehicles The Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida is crisscrossed with so many illegal swamp-buggy ruts - more than 23,000 miles of them - that park officials in August began limiting off-road vehicles to 400 miles of trails in order to protect the Florida panther and the preserve. In Yosemite National Park, off-road vehicles are involved in "numerous" violations, according to a staffer's memo. And each day of a long summer weekend like Labor Day, as many as 2,200 motorized vehicles hit the beaches of Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina. "Not one of those is there legally," says Don Barger, southeastern regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a watchdog group. In all, unauthorized off-road vehicles are buzzing through nearly one-third of America's national parks, according to a recently released internal National Park Service (NPS) survey. In one-fifth of the parks, they have damaged natural environments that by law must be preserved for future generations....
2005 fire season marked by big range fires Wildfire experts have come across a seeming contradiction this summer: While the number of acres charred across the West is almost double the 10-year average, the blazes haven't been as big or devastating as those in past years. Experts say that's due to the unusual moisture patterns in the region earlier this year, which favored big grass fires on the open range. Timber in the mountains got more moisture than usual well into the summer, keeping forest fires small. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, over 7.8 million acres - more than 11,000 square miles - have burned in the U.S. since May. About half of that was in Alaska, where large fires often are not fought aggressively if they pose no threat to people or structures. With the 2005 wildfire season two-thirds over, the number of fires is down - about 46,000 compared to the 10-year average of 63,000 - and the number of firefighters suppressing the blazes has been lower than in recent years. Yet the total acreage burned is nearly double the 4 million acres that burned on average through late August over the past decade. Analysts say the primary reason for the higher-than-average fire acreage this year is huge range fires that burned in the Southwest and Great Basin, where a wet winter allowed fine grasses and vegetation to flourish....
Lemmings, mussels and mites among Idaho species on the decline, report says The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has drawn up a list of the dozens of creatures native to the state that are threatened with extinction due to human disturbance and vanishing habitat. But chances are most people haven't heard of the northern bog lemming, western pearlshell mussel, Pacific lamprey, cave obligate mite or the dozens of other imperiled insects, birds, fish, mollusks and wildlife species included in the new report. The "Idaho Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy" attempts to identify every native species of living thing that is struggling to survive, and goes beyond the usual suspects of grizzly bear, caribou and bull trout....
Teen to be tried as adult for killing eagle A Muskegon judge has sided with the Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office and ruled that a 17-year-old suspect in the April 2004 shooting and hatchet mutilation of two bald eagles will be tried as an adult. After a contested court hearing that stretched over three sessions on three different days, Muskegon County Circuit Judge William C. Marietti on Friday ordered Kyle Howell of 1276 Poulson to face adult prosecution for animal cruelty/killing an animal, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, and one count of killing an endangered species animal, a 90-day misdemeanor. Marietti, who also acts as a Family Court judge, decided to "designate" Howell to be tried as an adult in juvenile court, a procedure allowed under Michigan law for certain crimes allegedly committed by juveniles. Howell was 16 at the time of the offense....
Park leader's memo fuels debate When Paul Hoffman was executive director of the Cody Chamber of Commerce, he worked closely with state tourism official Gene Bryan, now Hoffman's successor at the chamber. Bryan "watched from a distance" as Hoffman regularly butted heads with National Park Service officials over ending snowmobile use within Yellowstone National Park, reintroducing wolves into the park and whether a gold mine should operate near the nation's oldest national park. "Paul is not a rookie when it comes to controversial issues," Bryan said. Today, Hoffman is deputy assistant secretary of the Interior with authority over the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. He's also at the heart of a firestorm of controversy over future management of the National Park Service. Hoffman drafted a 194-page rewrite of the Park Service's 2001 management policy manual this summer. His changes would downplay preservation, instead emphasizing public enjoyment and commercial exploitation of park resources....
Feds present plan for Tombstone to maintain its historic status Tombstone, the so-called "town too tough to die," is in a battle to defend its National Historic Landmark status. But as federal authorities weight whether to yank the designation, their message is clear: It's OK to cash in on Wild West myths, but don't lie about history. Last year, the National Park Service put Tombstone on notice, warning the landmark status was in jeopardy because of fake facades, anachronistic colors and bogus dates painted on newer buildings. On Sunday, after three days of public input, walking tours and design sessions, a team of consultants and government officials revealed a plan to save the landmark label. State Historic Preservation Officer James Garrison stressed that the recommendations are just a starting point and that the government isn't about to fine people whose buildings aren't historically accurate. Tombstone's threatened status will be revisited in two years, but the National Park Service won't necessarily remove the landmark label then....
Katrina renews debate over drilling off Florida's coast The stunning spike in gasoline prices prompted Senators on Tuesday to revive efforts to drill for oil and natural gas off of Florida's Gulf coast. Less than two months ago, Republican and Democratic politicians from Florida fended off drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico with arguments that unsightly oil rigs and the potential for spills could hurt the state's tourist-based economy and environment. But members of the Senate Energy Committee made it clear Tuesday that gasoline price hikes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are angering their constituents and putting the idea of drilling near Florida back on the table. A provision for drilling likely will be proposed as part of a massive federal budget bill that will come to a vote this month....
Editorial: BP and the county For all these benefits, who bears the burdens? It is the surface owner, often with a small acreage, who is forced to coexist with the heavy equipment and commotion that goes with drilling a gas well, and then with the sights and sounds from industrial components that clash with the cottonwoods, junipers, alfalfa and grasses that make the mesa tops and valleys and ridges so appealing: a well access road, visible pipeline rights of way, a pump jack and small metal buildings, perhaps large steel tanks, and the likely possibility that in the years ahead the well bore will have to be freshened. Even for surface owners who receive royalties, the imposition is great. BP's offer to increase only slightly the size of an existing well pad in order to include a second well, one bored at an angle to tap an adjacent gas reserve, to share existing pipelines for gas and waste water transmission, and pay a definite road damage fee to the county, in exchange for broad county drilling approval, is an intriguing offer. Using an existing well site and pipelines is almost always much less intrusive for surface owners, and the industry has known for some time how to drill directionally. An agreement would reduce the number of contentious issues, for both the surface owner and the county. The offer, which comes with the sure-to-be-approved request to the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to double the number of coal-bed methane wells from one per 160 acres to two, is a step in the right direction. But, it can go further....
River spells life for small town California grows 80 percent of the nation's eating oranges. Much of that fruit -- about 15 million 75-pound boxes -- passes through this town's nine plants. When the wind hits you right in Orange Cove, the tangy smell of fresh citrus is so strong you can almost taste it. But while the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada frame the sky, there's little natural water here, explains Harvey Bailey, who works 1,100 acres of oranges and lemons with his brother Lee Bailey. His fruit trees -- like Orange Cove's 9,255 residents -- are sustained by water diverted from the San Joaquin River, 50 miles to the north. ''Without it, we'd just dry up, the farms, the town, everything,'' said Bailey, whose family initially worked 200 acres of groves around a well in the early 1900s....
COLORADO RIVER ISSUES: Water chief draws line at meeting The seven Western states that share Colorado River water continue to make progress toward sweeping new rules on how the river should be operated during desperate shortages. But Nevada's top water official is not above a little saber rattling, just in case. During a conference in San Diego last week, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy had this message for a conference of water managers: Nevada is ready for war should talks break down and the seven basin states wind up in court. Specifically, Mulroy said she wanted other Colorado River users to know that Nevada will fight for its right to divert water from the Virgin River for use in the Las Vegas Valley. The upper river basin states of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico have argued that Nevada should not be allowed to use water from a Colorado River tributary such as the Virgin without deducting that amount from its annual Colorado River allocation....
Farmers to offer new eco-label Shoppers attracted to organic fruits and vegetables but repelled by their bank account-busting prices may soon have an alternative. That’s the hope of environmentalists, farmers and public officials pushing to certify, label and market produce grown according to a set of agricultural standards labeled as sustainable. Certified growers must meet requirements regarding soil management, water quality, wildlife protection and labor practices, as well as pesticide use. Supporters say the produce labeled as “sustainable” will be more affordable than organic fruits and vegetables. “We’re trying to get to those consumers in the middle,” said Cheryl Brickey, executive director of Protected Harvest, a Maryland-based nonprofit that certifies produce as being grown according to the practices. Brickey said too many Americans can’t afford to pay top dollar for organic produce: “We’re trying to break that barrier.”....
It's All Trew: Dirt-moving methods improve through years Few readers under 60 years of age will understand this statement: “We installed a tin horn in our bar ditch.” A tin horn is a corrugated, galvanized metal culvert installed alongside roadways to let floodwater pass through. I know this fact, but I don’t have a clue as to why a crooked gambler appearing in many western stories is called a tinhorn. Any ideas? The slang term bar ditch supposedly comes from barrow ditch when hand labor and wheelbarrows were used to haul dirt dug from a ditch and dumped into the roadbed to raise it above the surrounding terrain. Another version states dirt borrowed from a ditch and placed on the roadbed gave birth to the term bar ditch....
===
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Brown bear mauls woman in Hoonah A Hoonah woman was mauled Friday by a large brown bear in a popular berry-picking area near her Chichagof Island community, a nephew who was the first police officer on the scene reported. Judy Oliver, a teacher and longtime Hoonah resident, was in intensive care late Saturday at Bartlett Regional Hospital, where she was flown to have surgery after the attack, officer Arlen Skaflestad said. "It was completely unprovoked," Skaflestad said. At the hospital in Juneau, Judy Oliver underwent surgery from about midnight to 9 or 10 a.m., Skaflestad said. Her injuries included a broken jaw and a broken clavicle....
Cougar suspected in death of local horse Wendy Chamberlain braked her car and stared -- staring back at her was a full grown cougar, standing in the middle of Callahan Road. "I couldn't believe my eyes," she said Friday, rubbing away the goosebumps on her arm. The sighting occurred Thursday morning, the day after a horse was killed in Parma Township, the victim of a cougar attack. As the Parma Township supervisor watched in stunned silence, the large cat lumbered slowly off the road and disappeared into the weeds. It only added to her concern. "There's a cougar and people need to know," she said. There have been five reported cougar sightings in Jackson County in recent weeks, county animal control officers said....
Group tracks animals thought to be extinct This is the kind of attitude - persistence that runs to the edge of absurdity - needed to look for one of nature's ghosts. It is a common trait among the small group of scientists and environmentalists who are still searching for the 27 creatures, including the eastern cougar, that are classified as "presumed extinct" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. To find them, they have braved 20-inch Hawaiian rainfalls, groped along the bottoms of coffee-colored rivers and spent months vainly broadcasting bird songs through snake-filled swamps. They have faced all the tedium of normal biological research, plus the added burden of not knowing whether it is all a gigantic waste of time....
Groups halt wild horse contraception Objections from two Colorado-based wild horse groups have halted the fertility control program set to begin this month for the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd in northern Wyoming. The Cloud Foundation and the Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Coalition filed an appeal and a petition for a stay last week. The appeal will be heard before the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Arlington, Va. "It means if the board doesn't make a ruling in 45 days, we'll have to shut the program down for this fall because of weather limitations," said Linda Coates-Markle, wild horse and burro specialist for the Bureau of Land Management in Montana. "Or they could lift the stay and let us go forward," and then rule on the appeal at a later date. PZP, or porcine zona pellucida, is an immunocontraceptive the BLM has been using to control wild horse numbers in the Pryor Mountains and delay or eliminate the need for roundups. The fertility control program started in 2001. But critics of the program say PZP has proven to be unpredictable....
Animal groups trying to halt roundup of horses on forest land A trio of animal-conservation groups is trying to stop the roundup of several hundred horses in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, claiming forest officials risk sending wild horses to slaughter. The groups on Friday asked Forest Supervisor Elaine Zieroth to consider capturing only branded horses and letting the unbranded horses continue to run in the eastern Arizona forests. At issue is how many of the horses are wild, which would entitle them to protection under federal law. Zieroth contends the horses are strays that came onto the forest land from the adjoining Fort Apache Reservation when a boundary fence was demolished in the 2002 "Rodeo-Chediski" wildfire. If they are strays, they would be rounded up and sold at auction if the Forest Service were unable to locate their owners....
Congress has the Endangered Species Act in its sights this fall As Congress returns from its August recess, environmentalists and property-rights activists are focused on Rep. Richard Pombo, a California rancher who is chairman of the House Resources Committee. Later this month, Pombo is expected to introduce legislation to overhaul the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act, with House passage expected by year's end. A draft of the bill that leaked earlier this summer "was comprehensive in trying to undo what's been done over the last 30 years" to protect endangered species, said Patti Goldman, Seattle-based lawyer for the Earthjustice law firm. In negotiations with Democratic leaders, Pombo has been able to reach agreement on a number of important points, said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the Resources Committee. "Take a good, close, hard look at this (bill) when it comes out," Kennedy said. "Put the partisan political hyperbole aside and really look." Pombo, he said, "does have all the best interests at heart in trying to make this program work for species and for property owners and communities alike."....
Study rooted in recovery A network of botanical institutions is launching an unprecendented study of endangered native U.S. plants to determine their potential for recovery - and in hopes of preventing their disappearance. Those plants range from the Western lily to the Tennessee coneflower, says the Center for Plant Conservation. The center, a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization comprising more than 30 botanical organizations around the country, was founded in 1984 to stop the extinction of native plants. Center officials said an analysis of this scale has never been performed at a national level. The center estimates that about 2,000 U.S. plant species, or about 10 percent of the nation's native flora, are at risk of extinction. The roughly $500,000 study aims to look at endangered or threatened plants and also those being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act....
Habitat threatened by tree fungus, pine beetles Half of grizzlies' prehibernation diet made up of pine nuts which are being attacked by fungus. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park can weigh up to 600 pounds. The whitebark pine nut weighs in at a thin fraction of an ounce. Yet the tiny seeds — embedded in neat, brown cones — can make up more than half of a grizzly's pre-hibernation diet, one Canadian Journal of Zoology study shows. But the fate of the nut is now in doubt. Whitebark pines across the West are getting clobbered by an alien fungus and native beetle. The attack on the whitebarks — by Eurasian blister rust and the mountain pine beetle — comes at the same time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to remove the park's renowned bears from the endangered species list....
Female grizzlies are trackedto study population trends It can be dicey work for those who do it, but keeping 25 female grizzly bears fitted with radio collars along the Northern Continental Divide is considered a priority for determining the status of Montana's largest grizzly population. It is also considered a prerequisite for recovering and delisting the population that ranges more than 8 million acres from the Canadian border south to the Ovando area, said Rick Mace, a research biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Starting last summer, Mace got the collaring operation under way, capturing and fitting seven bears. The effort continued early this summer, with a total of 23 bears being fitted. It's been a challenging endeavor for Mace and a handful of assistants, most of them bear management specialists who cover different parts of the sprawling grizzly bear recovery area. But it has been a relatively low-profile effort compared with the huge grizzly bear population study carried out last summer....
The new old growth For decades, timberland owners have thinned forests to speed growth of the trees. While the practice adds commercial value to the trees that remain, it is increasingly being used to speed young, logged redwood stands toward what resemble old-growth forests. That could happen in our lifetimes. Indeed, to the untrained eye, treated stands only 100 years old in places like the Arcata Community Forest already have the redwood cathedral look that entrances visitors from around the world....
Column: Saddle up the camel, cowpoke When a Cornell professor proposed “re-wilding” America’s Great Plains with African wildlife in the August issue of the journal, Nature, a few collective groans rose from the conservation community. In the various e-mails that flew back and forth among wildlife conservationists after the proposal hit the mass media, one person wrote what all of us were thinking. “Just what we need. A side issue to make us look crazy and get the discussion off track from restoring the Great Plains wildlife that need restoring.” And as a former college professor and Cornell alumnae put it, the scheme “confirms his theory that college professors should not be allowed to publish in journals that non-college professors might read.” It may surprise some people that wildlife advocates aren’t thrilled with the idea of rounding up lions, cheetahs, elephants and camels and fencing them in large wildlife preserves on the Great Plains. After all, we’re the folks that cheered on the return of the wolf in the Northern Rockies, and champion restoring wild bison and prairie dogs to large swaths of the Great Plains. But in our eyes, “re-wilding” the Great Plains with fenced-in, African and Asian animals is merely a proposal to build larger, more exotic zoos in this country and wouldn’t “re-wild” anything....
Column: A Class War Runs Through It JAMES COX KENNEDY, the head of Cox Enterprises, the Atlanta media company, was just doing what lots of modern media moguls do when he bought nearly 4,000 acres in Montana's Ruby Valley: transforming remote Western ranchland into a private hunting and fishing retreat, and doing some commendable habitat conservation and restoration work in the process. Perhaps unwittingly, however, Mr. Kennedy has walked into the middle of two separate but closely related controversies, one having to do with Montana's stream-access laws - that one will be the subject of a mediation session next week - and the other relating to conservation easements. Both issues, ultimately, are about class, and point to the need for new policies (and vigilance) in policing the conservation easement system and defending access to public lands and water. Just as important, though, Mr. Kennedy's Ruby Valley imbroglio underscores the need for a deeper sense of noblesse oblige among the ultra-rich as they buy up great swaths of the American West....
Departing Utah land steward wins praise from friends, foes Sally Wisely waded into a thicket of conflicts when she became the Bureau of Land Management's Utah director six years ago. Now, as she prepares to take her leave this fall, not much has changed. The wilderness debate. Rural road claims by the state and counties. Off-highway vehicle impacts. All were frontline issues when she took the job, and still are. In some ways, the level of acrimony even increased during the course of her tenure. And yet another thorny issue - fast-track oil and gas development - muscled its way into the mix. Yet, few observers lay the continued stalemates at Wisely's feet. Friends and foes alike praise her professionalism and willingness to give all sides a fair hearing. Most recognize she had only a limited ability to solve long-standing disputes. And Wisely says she is departing Utah for the BLM directorship in Colorado feeling she got some important things done....
Artifact is tiny, but ancient find is big The pink stone point, flecked with a rainbow of colored minerals and discovered last spring just lying on the ground, appears to be older than any artifact ever found on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Archaeologists believe the point, thought to have been crafted between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, represents a significant find and could be representative of the ancient people referred to by the name "Clovis," an appellation given to a group of artifacts discovered in the early 1930s near Clovis, N.M. "Its manufacturing technique appears to be Clovis," said Matthew Zweifel, archaeologist for the monument that is administered by the Bureau of Land Management with headquarters in Kanab. Zweifel plans an excavation at the site - he declined to give a precise location - to see if there are other cultural artifacts identifying the prehistoric people who might have left the point in the area....
Peaceful Burning Man festival ends weeklong run in Nevada Thousands of revelers from around the world began heading home Sunday as the annual Burning Man festival drew to a close on the northern Nevada desert. The counterculture gathering known for offbeat art and games climaxed Saturday night with the traditional torching of a huge neon-and-wooden structure on the Black Rock Desert 120 miles north of Reno. A total of 29,749 revelers remained at the remote camp at noon Sunday, down from a peak crowd of 35,567. The crowd was slightly up over last year's 35,500, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. BLM spokeswoman Jo Simpson said the 20th annual festival ran smoothly, and no major incidents were reported. Drug arrests and citations were down considerably, according to preliminary reports....
Missouri Condemnation No Longer So Imminent When David Wright retired from his factory job in 1997, he poured just about all his savings into a handsome brick house in the Sunset Manor subdivision here. "This was our dream," said David's wife, Lorraine. "We were set here for the rest of our lives." But the dream turned sour when the city council of this St. Louis suburb decided last year to bulldoze all 254 homes in Sunset Manor and turn the land over to a shopping-mall developer. "We cried and we prayed," Lorraine Wright recalled. "And we put a lot of hope into the Supreme Court, because they were supposed to decide whether this kind of thing is legal." So the Wrights were crushed -- at first -- when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 23 that the Constitution does not stop cities from seizing homes to make way for commercial development projects. "What we didn't realize right away," David Wright said, "was that the decision would be a positive development for those of us who don't want to see people's houses taken away." Here in Missouri and all over the country, the court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London has sparked a furious reaction, with politicians of both parties proposing new legislation that would sharply limit the kind of seizure the court's decision validated....
Column: A Friendly Conservation Uncle Sam wants you ... to cooperate on conservation. Not only that, he's willing to listen. At least that's what he says. Earlier this week, St. Louis hosted the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. The invitation-only event was modeled after Teddy Roosevelt's 1908 Governors' Conference, which brought all the country's governors, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, and other national leaders to the White House to make conservation a national priority. The purpose this time around was to celebrate what Interior Secretary Gale Norton called a new chapter, built on the four C's: "communication, consultation, and cooperation, in the name of conservation."....
Assessing the environmental damage When environmental officials consider the area devastated by Katrina, they envision waters fouled by oil, chemicals and sewage. They see it flowing into streams, cascading down wellheads. They suspect some barrier islands that protected the coast - however feebly - might not exist any more. With the human tragedy mounting, officials have barely begun to estimate or document the environmental damages. Hans Paerl, a marine and environmental sciences professor at the University of North Carolina who has studied the effects of hurricanes on estuarine systems, said the infusion of saltwater from the storm surge and the subsequent inundation of freshwater from the rain - plus the contaminants - creates "a complex situation" for nature. There may be algae blooms that would exacerbate the oxygen-depleted "dead zone" in the gulf just off the coast. Toxins could kill fish outright or stress them, making them susceptible to diseases....
Katrina batters refuges Sixteen federal wildlife refuges in three states, including two refuges in Alabama, have been temporarily closed until further notice due to the impact from Hurricane Katrina. Fourteen refuges are located in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Gulf Shores and Choctaw NWR in Jackson were the only state refuges affected. Bon Secour is located along the beach and bay side of Alabama 180, also known as Fort Morgan Road. It was battered last autumn by Hurricane Ivan, and last weekend was again pummeled by storm surge from Katrina's Category 4 devastation Choctaw NWR is located in southwest Alabama. A group of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge officials are operating out of the Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR near Gautier, Miss, north of Biloxi. The refuge is named for a species of crane that migrates specifically to the area each year. Officials released a statement Wednesday about the closings but did not give specific details about refuges. It said "all Service personnel are safe and accounted for," and are "focusing efforts on providing community support and humanitarian relief."....
Agriculture To Feel Storm Effects Long After Katrina Has Passed For the City of New Orleans, most of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina has come after the storm passed. For agriculture, it’s the same story. Sugarcane appears to be the hardest hit row crops, as Katrina’s high winds knocked the cane to the ground in Iberville, Assumption, Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes. The storm surge has likely wiped out the state’s citrus crop in Plaquemines Parish, where thousands of head of livestock roam free, belly deep in salt water. Across the storm’s path ag officials are surveying the damage, trying to get a handle on what may be the greatest assault on Louisiana agriculture since the great flood of 1927....
Kaycee celebrates 'wooly' heritage To the untrained eye, sheep are not easy animals to deal with. Though their soft, wooly coats and soft, gentle eyes give them a cuddly look, they are often stubborn, sometimes totally disregarding the commands of the human in charge. And they stink. On the positive side, sheep have many redeeming factors. Ewes often give birth to two lambs each spring. Sheep produce two cash crops each year (wool and meat), and their wool can be turned into the warmest of warm blankets and quality clothing. They can be taught to lead and often become the favorite pets of children as well as great 4-H projects. Sheep ranchers, sheep lovers and connoisseurs of lamb will be on hand today through Sunday for a celebration of the sheep industry and the work of sheep dogs. The three-day Sheep Industry Festival and the Kaycee Challenge Sheep Dog Trial in this small town on the Middle Fork of the Powder River will focus on every aspect of sheep ranching, including the role of women in the business and the colorful Basque people's unique way with sheep....
Ranches weather drought in guests Still struggling to regain the business they lost after Sept. 11, Colorado's dude ranches are looking in their own backyards for visitors to fill their bunkhouses. "The past three years have been tough, which is why we've been thinking outside of the box," said Karen May, co-owner of the North Fork Ranch in Shawnee, about 50 miles southwest of Denver. "Every dollar helps. You need to change with the times." It's still unclear whether the quest for in-state visitors - and other out-of-the-box revenue-boosting ideas - will solve dude ranches' problems. Three guest ranches are currently for sale, and if mountain land values continue to skyrocket, experts say, more may follow. Colorado dude ranch owners say the "real Western" experience they sell is still a valuable commodity, offering guests the chance to ride horses, fly fish and go on cattle drives. But with an average price of $1,600 per adult per week, the experience is not cheap. The Colorado Dude & Guest Ranch Association's 34 member ranches average 500 acres and have a total bed capacity of 1,600 guests. During the 13-week prime summer tourism season, the association's members gross a total of $21 million. Some are open year-round; others close or offer limited services in the offseason and winter months....
OREGON COWBOY COUNTRY: An Oral History of Rodeo Former Pendletonians Doug and Cathy Jory have found a good formula for telling the story of Oregon’s working and rodeo cowboys. The Jorys traveled the state to find former ranch hands, stock contractors, ranchers and rodeo cowboys, prodded their memories and then stood back and let them tell their tales. The authors don’t get in the way, and the result is a lot of fun to read. Some of these old-timers have great stories to tell and a knack for telling them well. Bud Trowbridge, for example — the very first entry — tells the story of early rodeo great Sonny Tureman. Along the way, he includes much of his own story, the stories of a handful of other colorful characters and a tour of rodeo and ranching in the first half of the 20th century. Some names crop up over and over in the 29 stories that make up this book. Tureman is one, along with the Christensen brothers, Casey Tibbs and others. They’re stories about an earlier era in rodeo, but mostly they’re stories about people and, the storytellers being cowboys, sometimes about animals....
On the Edge of Common Sense: The key to job security is in your hands One sloganistic career suggestion was "Have the key to what they want!" I thought about that and concluded it's not "Have the Key!" but "Be the Key!" For instance, be the only one in the outfit who can or will do some difficult or unpleasant task, like fixing split rim tires. "We can't let Lem go! He's the onlyest one who can patch up a prolapse!" Or the person at the dairy who knows how to take care of scouring calves. I'll bet General Motors fires 50 marketing vice presidents before they let one maintenance man go! Feedlots have a lot more trouble finding a good mill man than they do finding a consulting nutritionist. If you have a cowboy on your outfit that you can send back after a cow or calf that got missed on the gather, he's worth his weight in gold! See, be the key. It often has universal application....
===
Brown bear mauls woman in Hoonah A Hoonah woman was mauled Friday by a large brown bear in a popular berry-picking area near her Chichagof Island community, a nephew who was the first police officer on the scene reported. Judy Oliver, a teacher and longtime Hoonah resident, was in intensive care late Saturday at Bartlett Regional Hospital, where she was flown to have surgery after the attack, officer Arlen Skaflestad said. "It was completely unprovoked," Skaflestad said. At the hospital in Juneau, Judy Oliver underwent surgery from about midnight to 9 or 10 a.m., Skaflestad said. Her injuries included a broken jaw and a broken clavicle....
Cougar suspected in death of local horse Wendy Chamberlain braked her car and stared -- staring back at her was a full grown cougar, standing in the middle of Callahan Road. "I couldn't believe my eyes," she said Friday, rubbing away the goosebumps on her arm. The sighting occurred Thursday morning, the day after a horse was killed in Parma Township, the victim of a cougar attack. As the Parma Township supervisor watched in stunned silence, the large cat lumbered slowly off the road and disappeared into the weeds. It only added to her concern. "There's a cougar and people need to know," she said. There have been five reported cougar sightings in Jackson County in recent weeks, county animal control officers said....
Group tracks animals thought to be extinct This is the kind of attitude - persistence that runs to the edge of absurdity - needed to look for one of nature's ghosts. It is a common trait among the small group of scientists and environmentalists who are still searching for the 27 creatures, including the eastern cougar, that are classified as "presumed extinct" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. To find them, they have braved 20-inch Hawaiian rainfalls, groped along the bottoms of coffee-colored rivers and spent months vainly broadcasting bird songs through snake-filled swamps. They have faced all the tedium of normal biological research, plus the added burden of not knowing whether it is all a gigantic waste of time....
Groups halt wild horse contraception Objections from two Colorado-based wild horse groups have halted the fertility control program set to begin this month for the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd in northern Wyoming. The Cloud Foundation and the Colorado Wild Horse and Burro Coalition filed an appeal and a petition for a stay last week. The appeal will be heard before the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Arlington, Va. "It means if the board doesn't make a ruling in 45 days, we'll have to shut the program down for this fall because of weather limitations," said Linda Coates-Markle, wild horse and burro specialist for the Bureau of Land Management in Montana. "Or they could lift the stay and let us go forward," and then rule on the appeal at a later date. PZP, or porcine zona pellucida, is an immunocontraceptive the BLM has been using to control wild horse numbers in the Pryor Mountains and delay or eliminate the need for roundups. The fertility control program started in 2001. But critics of the program say PZP has proven to be unpredictable....
Animal groups trying to halt roundup of horses on forest land A trio of animal-conservation groups is trying to stop the roundup of several hundred horses in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, claiming forest officials risk sending wild horses to slaughter. The groups on Friday asked Forest Supervisor Elaine Zieroth to consider capturing only branded horses and letting the unbranded horses continue to run in the eastern Arizona forests. At issue is how many of the horses are wild, which would entitle them to protection under federal law. Zieroth contends the horses are strays that came onto the forest land from the adjoining Fort Apache Reservation when a boundary fence was demolished in the 2002 "Rodeo-Chediski" wildfire. If they are strays, they would be rounded up and sold at auction if the Forest Service were unable to locate their owners....
Congress has the Endangered Species Act in its sights this fall As Congress returns from its August recess, environmentalists and property-rights activists are focused on Rep. Richard Pombo, a California rancher who is chairman of the House Resources Committee. Later this month, Pombo is expected to introduce legislation to overhaul the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act, with House passage expected by year's end. A draft of the bill that leaked earlier this summer "was comprehensive in trying to undo what's been done over the last 30 years" to protect endangered species, said Patti Goldman, Seattle-based lawyer for the Earthjustice law firm. In negotiations with Democratic leaders, Pombo has been able to reach agreement on a number of important points, said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the Resources Committee. "Take a good, close, hard look at this (bill) when it comes out," Kennedy said. "Put the partisan political hyperbole aside and really look." Pombo, he said, "does have all the best interests at heart in trying to make this program work for species and for property owners and communities alike."....
Study rooted in recovery A network of botanical institutions is launching an unprecendented study of endangered native U.S. plants to determine their potential for recovery - and in hopes of preventing their disappearance. Those plants range from the Western lily to the Tennessee coneflower, says the Center for Plant Conservation. The center, a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization comprising more than 30 botanical organizations around the country, was founded in 1984 to stop the extinction of native plants. Center officials said an analysis of this scale has never been performed at a national level. The center estimates that about 2,000 U.S. plant species, or about 10 percent of the nation's native flora, are at risk of extinction. The roughly $500,000 study aims to look at endangered or threatened plants and also those being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act....
Habitat threatened by tree fungus, pine beetles Half of grizzlies' prehibernation diet made up of pine nuts which are being attacked by fungus. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park can weigh up to 600 pounds. The whitebark pine nut weighs in at a thin fraction of an ounce. Yet the tiny seeds — embedded in neat, brown cones — can make up more than half of a grizzly's pre-hibernation diet, one Canadian Journal of Zoology study shows. But the fate of the nut is now in doubt. Whitebark pines across the West are getting clobbered by an alien fungus and native beetle. The attack on the whitebarks — by Eurasian blister rust and the mountain pine beetle — comes at the same time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to remove the park's renowned bears from the endangered species list....
Female grizzlies are trackedto study population trends It can be dicey work for those who do it, but keeping 25 female grizzly bears fitted with radio collars along the Northern Continental Divide is considered a priority for determining the status of Montana's largest grizzly population. It is also considered a prerequisite for recovering and delisting the population that ranges more than 8 million acres from the Canadian border south to the Ovando area, said Rick Mace, a research biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Starting last summer, Mace got the collaring operation under way, capturing and fitting seven bears. The effort continued early this summer, with a total of 23 bears being fitted. It's been a challenging endeavor for Mace and a handful of assistants, most of them bear management specialists who cover different parts of the sprawling grizzly bear recovery area. But it has been a relatively low-profile effort compared with the huge grizzly bear population study carried out last summer....
The new old growth For decades, timberland owners have thinned forests to speed growth of the trees. While the practice adds commercial value to the trees that remain, it is increasingly being used to speed young, logged redwood stands toward what resemble old-growth forests. That could happen in our lifetimes. Indeed, to the untrained eye, treated stands only 100 years old in places like the Arcata Community Forest already have the redwood cathedral look that entrances visitors from around the world....
Column: Saddle up the camel, cowpoke When a Cornell professor proposed “re-wilding” America’s Great Plains with African wildlife in the August issue of the journal, Nature, a few collective groans rose from the conservation community. In the various e-mails that flew back and forth among wildlife conservationists after the proposal hit the mass media, one person wrote what all of us were thinking. “Just what we need. A side issue to make us look crazy and get the discussion off track from restoring the Great Plains wildlife that need restoring.” And as a former college professor and Cornell alumnae put it, the scheme “confirms his theory that college professors should not be allowed to publish in journals that non-college professors might read.” It may surprise some people that wildlife advocates aren’t thrilled with the idea of rounding up lions, cheetahs, elephants and camels and fencing them in large wildlife preserves on the Great Plains. After all, we’re the folks that cheered on the return of the wolf in the Northern Rockies, and champion restoring wild bison and prairie dogs to large swaths of the Great Plains. But in our eyes, “re-wilding” the Great Plains with fenced-in, African and Asian animals is merely a proposal to build larger, more exotic zoos in this country and wouldn’t “re-wild” anything....
Column: A Class War Runs Through It JAMES COX KENNEDY, the head of Cox Enterprises, the Atlanta media company, was just doing what lots of modern media moguls do when he bought nearly 4,000 acres in Montana's Ruby Valley: transforming remote Western ranchland into a private hunting and fishing retreat, and doing some commendable habitat conservation and restoration work in the process. Perhaps unwittingly, however, Mr. Kennedy has walked into the middle of two separate but closely related controversies, one having to do with Montana's stream-access laws - that one will be the subject of a mediation session next week - and the other relating to conservation easements. Both issues, ultimately, are about class, and point to the need for new policies (and vigilance) in policing the conservation easement system and defending access to public lands and water. Just as important, though, Mr. Kennedy's Ruby Valley imbroglio underscores the need for a deeper sense of noblesse oblige among the ultra-rich as they buy up great swaths of the American West....
Departing Utah land steward wins praise from friends, foes Sally Wisely waded into a thicket of conflicts when she became the Bureau of Land Management's Utah director six years ago. Now, as she prepares to take her leave this fall, not much has changed. The wilderness debate. Rural road claims by the state and counties. Off-highway vehicle impacts. All were frontline issues when she took the job, and still are. In some ways, the level of acrimony even increased during the course of her tenure. And yet another thorny issue - fast-track oil and gas development - muscled its way into the mix. Yet, few observers lay the continued stalemates at Wisely's feet. Friends and foes alike praise her professionalism and willingness to give all sides a fair hearing. Most recognize she had only a limited ability to solve long-standing disputes. And Wisely says she is departing Utah for the BLM directorship in Colorado feeling she got some important things done....
Artifact is tiny, but ancient find is big The pink stone point, flecked with a rainbow of colored minerals and discovered last spring just lying on the ground, appears to be older than any artifact ever found on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Archaeologists believe the point, thought to have been crafted between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, represents a significant find and could be representative of the ancient people referred to by the name "Clovis," an appellation given to a group of artifacts discovered in the early 1930s near Clovis, N.M. "Its manufacturing technique appears to be Clovis," said Matthew Zweifel, archaeologist for the monument that is administered by the Bureau of Land Management with headquarters in Kanab. Zweifel plans an excavation at the site - he declined to give a precise location - to see if there are other cultural artifacts identifying the prehistoric people who might have left the point in the area....
Peaceful Burning Man festival ends weeklong run in Nevada Thousands of revelers from around the world began heading home Sunday as the annual Burning Man festival drew to a close on the northern Nevada desert. The counterculture gathering known for offbeat art and games climaxed Saturday night with the traditional torching of a huge neon-and-wooden structure on the Black Rock Desert 120 miles north of Reno. A total of 29,749 revelers remained at the remote camp at noon Sunday, down from a peak crowd of 35,567. The crowd was slightly up over last year's 35,500, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. BLM spokeswoman Jo Simpson said the 20th annual festival ran smoothly, and no major incidents were reported. Drug arrests and citations were down considerably, according to preliminary reports....
Missouri Condemnation No Longer So Imminent When David Wright retired from his factory job in 1997, he poured just about all his savings into a handsome brick house in the Sunset Manor subdivision here. "This was our dream," said David's wife, Lorraine. "We were set here for the rest of our lives." But the dream turned sour when the city council of this St. Louis suburb decided last year to bulldoze all 254 homes in Sunset Manor and turn the land over to a shopping-mall developer. "We cried and we prayed," Lorraine Wright recalled. "And we put a lot of hope into the Supreme Court, because they were supposed to decide whether this kind of thing is legal." So the Wrights were crushed -- at first -- when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 23 that the Constitution does not stop cities from seizing homes to make way for commercial development projects. "What we didn't realize right away," David Wright said, "was that the decision would be a positive development for those of us who don't want to see people's houses taken away." Here in Missouri and all over the country, the court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London has sparked a furious reaction, with politicians of both parties proposing new legislation that would sharply limit the kind of seizure the court's decision validated....
Column: A Friendly Conservation Uncle Sam wants you ... to cooperate on conservation. Not only that, he's willing to listen. At least that's what he says. Earlier this week, St. Louis hosted the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. The invitation-only event was modeled after Teddy Roosevelt's 1908 Governors' Conference, which brought all the country's governors, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, and other national leaders to the White House to make conservation a national priority. The purpose this time around was to celebrate what Interior Secretary Gale Norton called a new chapter, built on the four C's: "communication, consultation, and cooperation, in the name of conservation."....
Assessing the environmental damage When environmental officials consider the area devastated by Katrina, they envision waters fouled by oil, chemicals and sewage. They see it flowing into streams, cascading down wellheads. They suspect some barrier islands that protected the coast - however feebly - might not exist any more. With the human tragedy mounting, officials have barely begun to estimate or document the environmental damages. Hans Paerl, a marine and environmental sciences professor at the University of North Carolina who has studied the effects of hurricanes on estuarine systems, said the infusion of saltwater from the storm surge and the subsequent inundation of freshwater from the rain - plus the contaminants - creates "a complex situation" for nature. There may be algae blooms that would exacerbate the oxygen-depleted "dead zone" in the gulf just off the coast. Toxins could kill fish outright or stress them, making them susceptible to diseases....
Katrina batters refuges Sixteen federal wildlife refuges in three states, including two refuges in Alabama, have been temporarily closed until further notice due to the impact from Hurricane Katrina. Fourteen refuges are located in Louisiana and Mississippi. Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Gulf Shores and Choctaw NWR in Jackson were the only state refuges affected. Bon Secour is located along the beach and bay side of Alabama 180, also known as Fort Morgan Road. It was battered last autumn by Hurricane Ivan, and last weekend was again pummeled by storm surge from Katrina's Category 4 devastation Choctaw NWR is located in southwest Alabama. A group of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge officials are operating out of the Mississippi Sandhill Crane NWR near Gautier, Miss, north of Biloxi. The refuge is named for a species of crane that migrates specifically to the area each year. Officials released a statement Wednesday about the closings but did not give specific details about refuges. It said "all Service personnel are safe and accounted for," and are "focusing efforts on providing community support and humanitarian relief."....
Agriculture To Feel Storm Effects Long After Katrina Has Passed For the City of New Orleans, most of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina has come after the storm passed. For agriculture, it’s the same story. Sugarcane appears to be the hardest hit row crops, as Katrina’s high winds knocked the cane to the ground in Iberville, Assumption, Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes. The storm surge has likely wiped out the state’s citrus crop in Plaquemines Parish, where thousands of head of livestock roam free, belly deep in salt water. Across the storm’s path ag officials are surveying the damage, trying to get a handle on what may be the greatest assault on Louisiana agriculture since the great flood of 1927....
Kaycee celebrates 'wooly' heritage To the untrained eye, sheep are not easy animals to deal with. Though their soft, wooly coats and soft, gentle eyes give them a cuddly look, they are often stubborn, sometimes totally disregarding the commands of the human in charge. And they stink. On the positive side, sheep have many redeeming factors. Ewes often give birth to two lambs each spring. Sheep produce two cash crops each year (wool and meat), and their wool can be turned into the warmest of warm blankets and quality clothing. They can be taught to lead and often become the favorite pets of children as well as great 4-H projects. Sheep ranchers, sheep lovers and connoisseurs of lamb will be on hand today through Sunday for a celebration of the sheep industry and the work of sheep dogs. The three-day Sheep Industry Festival and the Kaycee Challenge Sheep Dog Trial in this small town on the Middle Fork of the Powder River will focus on every aspect of sheep ranching, including the role of women in the business and the colorful Basque people's unique way with sheep....
Ranches weather drought in guests Still struggling to regain the business they lost after Sept. 11, Colorado's dude ranches are looking in their own backyards for visitors to fill their bunkhouses. "The past three years have been tough, which is why we've been thinking outside of the box," said Karen May, co-owner of the North Fork Ranch in Shawnee, about 50 miles southwest of Denver. "Every dollar helps. You need to change with the times." It's still unclear whether the quest for in-state visitors - and other out-of-the-box revenue-boosting ideas - will solve dude ranches' problems. Three guest ranches are currently for sale, and if mountain land values continue to skyrocket, experts say, more may follow. Colorado dude ranch owners say the "real Western" experience they sell is still a valuable commodity, offering guests the chance to ride horses, fly fish and go on cattle drives. But with an average price of $1,600 per adult per week, the experience is not cheap. The Colorado Dude & Guest Ranch Association's 34 member ranches average 500 acres and have a total bed capacity of 1,600 guests. During the 13-week prime summer tourism season, the association's members gross a total of $21 million. Some are open year-round; others close or offer limited services in the offseason and winter months....
OREGON COWBOY COUNTRY: An Oral History of Rodeo Former Pendletonians Doug and Cathy Jory have found a good formula for telling the story of Oregon’s working and rodeo cowboys. The Jorys traveled the state to find former ranch hands, stock contractors, ranchers and rodeo cowboys, prodded their memories and then stood back and let them tell their tales. The authors don’t get in the way, and the result is a lot of fun to read. Some of these old-timers have great stories to tell and a knack for telling them well. Bud Trowbridge, for example — the very first entry — tells the story of early rodeo great Sonny Tureman. Along the way, he includes much of his own story, the stories of a handful of other colorful characters and a tour of rodeo and ranching in the first half of the 20th century. Some names crop up over and over in the 29 stories that make up this book. Tureman is one, along with the Christensen brothers, Casey Tibbs and others. They’re stories about an earlier era in rodeo, but mostly they’re stories about people and, the storytellers being cowboys, sometimes about animals....
On the Edge of Common Sense: The key to job security is in your hands One sloganistic career suggestion was "Have the key to what they want!" I thought about that and concluded it's not "Have the Key!" but "Be the Key!" For instance, be the only one in the outfit who can or will do some difficult or unpleasant task, like fixing split rim tires. "We can't let Lem go! He's the onlyest one who can patch up a prolapse!" Or the person at the dairy who knows how to take care of scouring calves. I'll bet General Motors fires 50 marketing vice presidents before they let one maintenance man go! Feedlots have a lot more trouble finding a good mill man than they do finding a consulting nutritionist. If you have a cowboy on your outfit that you can send back after a cow or calf that got missed on the gather, he's worth his weight in gold! See, be the key. It often has universal application....
===
The Property Rights Test
Despite current hype from Senate Democrats, the landmark cases of the next five years probably won't concern civil rights, abortion or other issues that have liberals so worked up. Current court vote-counts leave little room for major shifts, no matter what the judicial philosophy of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. Instead, I believe some of the biggest cases will deal with property rights. Justice John Roberts may well find waiting on his desk one property-rights case potentially as momentous as the unfortunately decided Kelo v. New London. In Kelo the court gave government the right to take property from one private citizen or company and give it to another. In this anticipated case--Stearns Co. v. U.S.--the lower courts have overturned centuries of precedent, demonstrating that, when it comes to protecting private property, in Ronald Reagan's favorite maxim, government isn't the answer; it's the problem. Stearns concerns one of the most ancient principles in property law, that ownership includes an absolute right of access (what the law calls an "easement") and lawful use. In 1937, a Kentucky family--owners of the Stearns Co.--sold a tract of land, now part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, to the federal government. They kept the right, subject to environmental restraints, to mine the coal underneath, and the easement. In the late 1970s, Congress banned any mining in national forests, with two exceptions: where property rights already existed and, if they did not exist, where the secretary of the interior said mines could operate anyway. When regulations were issued, technicalities excluded Stearns from claiming "valid existing [property] rights." The bureaucrats told the company to ask for permission. To protect its property rights, the company sued. The case took two decades going through the courts. Three years ago the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the government's actions constituted a taking of private property for public purposes--and the Constitution required the property owner to be compensated. The court said that even if permission were granted, an Interior Department "sign off" was no property right. "The fact that an act of governmental grace or benefit may have returned . . . the plaintiff's right to mine does not alter the denial of [property] rights." But last year, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Court of Claims, a decision the full Federal Circuit Court upheld in April. In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court must decide whether or not to review that decision....
===
Despite current hype from Senate Democrats, the landmark cases of the next five years probably won't concern civil rights, abortion or other issues that have liberals so worked up. Current court vote-counts leave little room for major shifts, no matter what the judicial philosophy of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. Instead, I believe some of the biggest cases will deal with property rights. Justice John Roberts may well find waiting on his desk one property-rights case potentially as momentous as the unfortunately decided Kelo v. New London. In Kelo the court gave government the right to take property from one private citizen or company and give it to another. In this anticipated case--Stearns Co. v. U.S.--the lower courts have overturned centuries of precedent, demonstrating that, when it comes to protecting private property, in Ronald Reagan's favorite maxim, government isn't the answer; it's the problem. Stearns concerns one of the most ancient principles in property law, that ownership includes an absolute right of access (what the law calls an "easement") and lawful use. In 1937, a Kentucky family--owners of the Stearns Co.--sold a tract of land, now part of the Daniel Boone National Forest, to the federal government. They kept the right, subject to environmental restraints, to mine the coal underneath, and the easement. In the late 1970s, Congress banned any mining in national forests, with two exceptions: where property rights already existed and, if they did not exist, where the secretary of the interior said mines could operate anyway. When regulations were issued, technicalities excluded Stearns from claiming "valid existing [property] rights." The bureaucrats told the company to ask for permission. To protect its property rights, the company sued. The case took two decades going through the courts. Three years ago the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the government's actions constituted a taking of private property for public purposes--and the Constitution required the property owner to be compensated. The court said that even if permission were granted, an Interior Department "sign off" was no property right. "The fact that an act of governmental grace or benefit may have returned . . . the plaintiff's right to mine does not alter the denial of [property] rights." But last year, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the Court of Claims, a decision the full Federal Circuit Court upheld in April. In the next few weeks, the Supreme Court must decide whether or not to review that decision....
===
Sunday, September 04, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
I see by your outfit
By Julie Carter
There is a phrase made popular in song that says “Don’t call him a cowboy until you’ve seen him ride.” It goes right along with the wisdom of “clothes don’t make the cowboy.”
With the growing popularity of “cowboy” symposiums, cowboy poetry gatherings and other such galas made popular by permission of the urban cowboy craze of the 70’s the world has seen some amazing variations in what a cowboy is supposed to look like.
Let me first say, most of what the “world” sees on their side of the cattleguard “ain’t it.”
My story is part of a series describing the melting pot of cowboys formed by the migration to the cowboy work available in the Texas panhandle.
When the ranch-raised seasoned cowboy arrives in the panhandle, his clothing and tack show a regional influence of where he calls home.
The south Texas cowboys, accustomed to dodging through thickets where everything has dangerous sized stickers usually have tapaderos on their saddles, long leggings, lots of rawhide tack and a hat that will pull down real tight.
Their heavy-made stout horses will be startled by open country, gentle fat cattle and they will spook at their own shadow when coming out in the daylight. These brush poppers will be surprised how exposed to the elements they seem to be after working in country covered solid in thorn trees and cactus. And of course the Texas panhandle is infamous for its “elements.”
The south Texas cowboy will have a saddle with a high cantle complete with scratches for a signature of its life in the brush. Often they will have custom tack and silver on bits and spurs reflecting the pride attached to cowboying in that rough country. Every one of these brush hounds will be wearing a brush jacket whether it is a snowing blizzard or 112 degrees in the shade.
Nevada buckaroos will express an initial opinion that people in Texas or almost anywhere except Nevada do entirely too much work on foot. Buckaroos are generally too important to ever get off their horses and just don’t see the sense in doing anything that can’t be done horseback. They mellow out after awhile but in reality are surprisingly good at doing some unusual activities from a horse.
Their style with tack, saddles and clothing will reflect vanity as well as functionality. Buckaroo saddles may be the A fork style, often with bucking rolls or a Wade tree style (sits low and stays put no matter what) with flat bottom stirrups with a strip of leather sewn in the back tread of the foot to help from losing a stirrup.
Their California mission style bits will often be Garcia or Sliester made with slobber chains. Some will be wearing suspenders and most will have wild rags (large silk neck scarves) and low crown hats with flat brims. Most will be wearing 16 inch top boots with an under slung heel. Their britches from the knee down will be several shades darker never having seen the outside of their boot tops.
The vaqueros from the blue mountains of Mexico will come in without saddles or a horse, well worn clothing and not much else. They will be good with spurs, riatas and senoritas. Feedlot managers are often hesitant to hire these men but when a good one comes along, he will be one of the best with horses.
Many times though these hard working people are relegated to cleanup and processing crews. They have a history of having a grandmother in failing health who requires a visit about every three months and a return date is never more than a “maybeso.” Just as often, entire families will return faithfully year after year to a good manager. They are as important to the industry as the very best college educated managers.
Next week I will outline the defining rigs, garb and attitudes of a few more of the “boys in boots” from around the country that end up picking up their mail in the panhandle of Texas.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
===
I see by your outfit
By Julie Carter
There is a phrase made popular in song that says “Don’t call him a cowboy until you’ve seen him ride.” It goes right along with the wisdom of “clothes don’t make the cowboy.”
With the growing popularity of “cowboy” symposiums, cowboy poetry gatherings and other such galas made popular by permission of the urban cowboy craze of the 70’s the world has seen some amazing variations in what a cowboy is supposed to look like.
Let me first say, most of what the “world” sees on their side of the cattleguard “ain’t it.”
My story is part of a series describing the melting pot of cowboys formed by the migration to the cowboy work available in the Texas panhandle.
When the ranch-raised seasoned cowboy arrives in the panhandle, his clothing and tack show a regional influence of where he calls home.
The south Texas cowboys, accustomed to dodging through thickets where everything has dangerous sized stickers usually have tapaderos on their saddles, long leggings, lots of rawhide tack and a hat that will pull down real tight.
Their heavy-made stout horses will be startled by open country, gentle fat cattle and they will spook at their own shadow when coming out in the daylight. These brush poppers will be surprised how exposed to the elements they seem to be after working in country covered solid in thorn trees and cactus. And of course the Texas panhandle is infamous for its “elements.”
The south Texas cowboy will have a saddle with a high cantle complete with scratches for a signature of its life in the brush. Often they will have custom tack and silver on bits and spurs reflecting the pride attached to cowboying in that rough country. Every one of these brush hounds will be wearing a brush jacket whether it is a snowing blizzard or 112 degrees in the shade.
Nevada buckaroos will express an initial opinion that people in Texas or almost anywhere except Nevada do entirely too much work on foot. Buckaroos are generally too important to ever get off their horses and just don’t see the sense in doing anything that can’t be done horseback. They mellow out after awhile but in reality are surprisingly good at doing some unusual activities from a horse.
Their style with tack, saddles and clothing will reflect vanity as well as functionality. Buckaroo saddles may be the A fork style, often with bucking rolls or a Wade tree style (sits low and stays put no matter what) with flat bottom stirrups with a strip of leather sewn in the back tread of the foot to help from losing a stirrup.
Their California mission style bits will often be Garcia or Sliester made with slobber chains. Some will be wearing suspenders and most will have wild rags (large silk neck scarves) and low crown hats with flat brims. Most will be wearing 16 inch top boots with an under slung heel. Their britches from the knee down will be several shades darker never having seen the outside of their boot tops.
The vaqueros from the blue mountains of Mexico will come in without saddles or a horse, well worn clothing and not much else. They will be good with spurs, riatas and senoritas. Feedlot managers are often hesitant to hire these men but when a good one comes along, he will be one of the best with horses.
Many times though these hard working people are relegated to cleanup and processing crews. They have a history of having a grandmother in failing health who requires a visit about every three months and a return date is never more than a “maybeso.” Just as often, entire families will return faithfully year after year to a good manager. They are as important to the industry as the very best college educated managers.
Next week I will outline the defining rigs, garb and attitudes of a few more of the “boys in boots” from around the country that end up picking up their mail in the panhandle of Texas.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
===
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Redesigning Trucks
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta proposed imaginative fuel efficiency standards for new SUVs, vans and pickups. This scheme would divide light trucks into a half-dozen categories based on size, not weight. By 2011, the smallest so-called "truck" (a PT Cruiser) would have to attain 28.4 mpg, while the largest could get by with 21.3. Add a few inches, and the standards drop. Fatten up to 8,500 pounds, and there are no rules. A New York Times editorial, "Foolishness on Fuel," began with vital facts, but promptly switched to foolishness, as promised: "Cars and light trucks -- SUVs, vans and pickups -- account for roughly 40 percent of all United States oil consumption, which now amounts to about 20 million barrels a day The same vehicles also account for more than one-fifth of the country's emissions of carbon dioxide." Since 58 percent of the oil we use is imported, while only 40 percent goes into cars, SUVs, vans and pickups, it follows we would still import millions of barrels a day even if there were no passenger cars or trucks. Yet when it came to that other 60 percent of U.S. oil consumption, not to mention the other four-fifths of carbon dioxide, the New York Times had little to say. There was just the ritualistic hand-wringing over "minivans and SUVs, which are held to more lenient fuel economy standards." When it came to Mr. Mineta's new regulations, the editorial rightly noted these "are unlikely to make any serious dent in consumption." They couldn't possibly make a dent because SUVs, pickups and vans only account for half of the vehicles subject to such regulations. And half of 40 percent is just 20 percent of total oil consumption. Mr. Mineta said, "The plan will save gas and result in less pain at the pump for motorists." But the surest prediction in economics is that if the price of anything goes down, demand for it will rise. If Smith's fuel frugality could actually cut the cost of gasoline for Jones, then Jones would drive more. And "Jones" may live in China. Fuel efficiency rules for new vehicles cannot provide any "short-term answer" because 93 percent of the fleet is not new. In the short term, better fuel economy for new SUVs, vans and pickups could affect only 7 percent of the 20 percent of oil used by such vehicles, or 1.4 percent of total U.S. oil use....
In Land We Trust
Nature's Keepers The Remarkable Story of How the Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World by Bill Birchard Jossey-Bass, 252 pp., $24.95 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE WOULD NOT be surprised. It took a bit of time to happen, but happen it did. Today, Americans support more than 1,300 land trusts, nonprofit organizations that conserve land--open space, habitat, scenic vistas--primarily through purchase and gift of land and conservation easements. These nongovernmental, voluntary associations of like-minded citizens have protected more than 6.2 million acres, an area twice the size of Connecticut, according to the Land Trust Alliance, which tracks these things. This is a 226 percent increase over the 1.9 million acres protected in 1990. The first land trust was established in 1891 in Massachusetts, by landscape architect Charles Eliot, to preserve 20 acres of woodland. By 1950 there were still only 53 land trusts operating in 26 states. Today, similar grass-roots organizations protect land in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service reports that, between 1997 and 2001, 2.2 million acres were developed. Yet the Land Trust Alliance's most recent census of land trusts reports that, from 1990 to 2000, local and regional trusts conserved open space at a rate of about 500,000 acres per year. Conservationists have extended the trust concept to water in the drought-prone West, where maintaining minimum stream flows for fish, wildlife, and plants is a daunting task. In 1993, the Oregon Water Trust began buying and transferring valuable rights to water for the purpose of maintaining streamflows. Donors such as the Orvis Company support its work. Other states have emulated this example as a cooperative, voluntary means of reconciling traditional Western water law ("First in time, first in right") with conservation objectives. The Nature Conservancy, incorporated in 1951 as a nonprofit entity and successor to the Ecologists Union, is the Ohio-class boomer of land trusts and conservancies. Starting out as a shoestring outfit on a corner along K Street in Washington, with modest offices over a prosthetics shop, it has become a gigantic organization with a commanding presence in worldwide conservation. It is now the largest environmental group in the world, bringing in over $800 million each year. It employs 3,450 people operating from 400 offices in 50 states and 28 countries. It protects more than a million acres of land a year, for a total of 120 million acres to date. And it has 1,500 trustees of boards in each of the states, and one million members and supporters....
Private Water Saves Lives
Worldwide, 1.1 billion people, mainly in poor countries, do not have access to clean, safe water. The shortage of water helps to perpetuate poverty, disease and early death. However, there is no shortage of water, at least not globally. We use a mere 8 per cent of the water available for human consumption. Instead, bad policies are the main problem. Even Cherrapunji, India, the wettest place on earth, suffers from recurrent water shortages. Ninety-seven per cent of all water distribution in poor countries is managed by the public sector, which is largely responsible for more than a billion people being without water. Some governments of impoverished nations have turned to business for help, usually with good results. In poor countries with private investments in the water sector, more people have access to water than in those without such investments. Moreover, there are many examples of local businesses improving water distribution. Superior competence, better incentives and better access to capital for investment have allowed private distributors to enhance both the quality of the water and the scope of its distribution. Millions of people who lacked water mains within reach are now getting clean and safe water delivered within a convenient distance. The privatization of water distribution has stirred up strong feelings and met with resistance. There have been violent protests and demonstrations against water privatization all over the world. Western anti-business non-governmental organizations and public employee unions, sometimes together with local protesters, have formed anti-privatization coalitions. However, the movement's criticisms are off base....
Endangered Species and Military Bases: A Call for Eco-Sanity
Peyton Knight, who joined The National Center's staff Monday as our new director of the John P. McGovern MD Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, is making a plea for eco-sanity on our military bases. Our brave men and women in harm's way have enough burdens to shoulder these days-without being hamstrung by environmental ideologues. According to the Associated Press: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Monday that procedures designed to protect the environment can sometimes jeopardize U.S. troops and should be balanced against military needs. Yet over the weekend, the White House was busy "playing environmental matchmaker, encouraging odd couples such as the Nature Conservancy and the Pentagon as they team to save wild birds and military ranges," according to the AP. The fact is, environmental organizations have been wreaking havoc on U.S. military preparedness, using the Endangered Species Act, for years. For instance, due to its unique terrain and coastline, Camp Pendleton in Southern California is regarded as one of the best places to train U.S. Marines. Unfortunately for the military, it is also home to the California gnatcatcher, the San Diego fairy shrimp, the tidewater goby, and more than a dozen other species listed as "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. To comply with endangered species regulations, our men and women in uniform, when training at Camp Pendleton, must make pain to avoid treading in certain areas. If they don't, they could find themselves subject to penalties and fines. Considering that about 25 percent of all species listed under the ESA are found on military bases, the conflict between the ESA and military prepardness may only grow deeper....
Gasoline Prices -- Thank the Environmentalists
In 1950, a gallon of regular gasoline sold for about 30 cents; today, it's $2.50. Are today's gasoline prices high compared to 1950? Before answering that question, we have to take into account inflation that has occurred since 1950. Using my trusty inflation calculator (www.westegg.com/inflation), what cost 30 cents in 1950 costs $2.33 in 2005. In real terms, that means gasoline prices today are only slightly higher, about 8 percent, than they were in 1950. Up until the recent spike, gasoline prices have been considerably lower than 1950 prices. Some Americans are demanding that the government do something about gasoline prices. Let's think back to 1979 when the government did do something. The Carter administration instituted price controls. What did we see? We saw long gasoline lines, and that's if the gas station hadn't run out of gas. It's estimated that Americans used about 150,000 barrels of oil per day idling their cars while waiting in line. In an effort to deal with long lines, the Carter administration introduced the harebrained scheme of odd and even days, whereby a motorist whose license tag started with an odd number could fill up on odd-numbered days, and those with an even number on even-numbered days. With the recent spike in gas prices, the government has chosen not to pursue stupid policies of the past. As a result, we haven't seen shortages. We haven't seen long lines. We haven't seen gasoline station fights and riots. Why? Because price has been allowed to perform its valuable function -- that of equating demand with supply. Our true supply problem is of our own doing. Large quantities of oil lie below the 20 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The amount of land proposed for oil drilling is less than 2,000 acres, less than one-half of one percent of ANWR. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are about 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in ANWR. But environmentalists' hold on Congress has prevented us from drilling for it. They've also had success in restricting drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the shore of California. Another part of our energy problem has to do with refining capacity. Again, because of environmentalists' successful efforts, it's been 30 years since we've built a new oil refinery. Few people realize that the U.S. is also a major oil-producing country. After Saudi Arabia, producing 10.4 million barrels a day, then Russia with 9.4 million barrels, the U.S. with 8.7 million barrels a day is the third-largest producer of oil. But we could produce more. Why aren't we?....
===
Redesigning Trucks
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta proposed imaginative fuel efficiency standards for new SUVs, vans and pickups. This scheme would divide light trucks into a half-dozen categories based on size, not weight. By 2011, the smallest so-called "truck" (a PT Cruiser) would have to attain 28.4 mpg, while the largest could get by with 21.3. Add a few inches, and the standards drop. Fatten up to 8,500 pounds, and there are no rules. A New York Times editorial, "Foolishness on Fuel," began with vital facts, but promptly switched to foolishness, as promised: "Cars and light trucks -- SUVs, vans and pickups -- account for roughly 40 percent of all United States oil consumption, which now amounts to about 20 million barrels a day The same vehicles also account for more than one-fifth of the country's emissions of carbon dioxide." Since 58 percent of the oil we use is imported, while only 40 percent goes into cars, SUVs, vans and pickups, it follows we would still import millions of barrels a day even if there were no passenger cars or trucks. Yet when it came to that other 60 percent of U.S. oil consumption, not to mention the other four-fifths of carbon dioxide, the New York Times had little to say. There was just the ritualistic hand-wringing over "minivans and SUVs, which are held to more lenient fuel economy standards." When it came to Mr. Mineta's new regulations, the editorial rightly noted these "are unlikely to make any serious dent in consumption." They couldn't possibly make a dent because SUVs, pickups and vans only account for half of the vehicles subject to such regulations. And half of 40 percent is just 20 percent of total oil consumption. Mr. Mineta said, "The plan will save gas and result in less pain at the pump for motorists." But the surest prediction in economics is that if the price of anything goes down, demand for it will rise. If Smith's fuel frugality could actually cut the cost of gasoline for Jones, then Jones would drive more. And "Jones" may live in China. Fuel efficiency rules for new vehicles cannot provide any "short-term answer" because 93 percent of the fleet is not new. In the short term, better fuel economy for new SUVs, vans and pickups could affect only 7 percent of the 20 percent of oil used by such vehicles, or 1.4 percent of total U.S. oil use....
In Land We Trust
Nature's Keepers The Remarkable Story of How the Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World by Bill Birchard Jossey-Bass, 252 pp., $24.95 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE WOULD NOT be surprised. It took a bit of time to happen, but happen it did. Today, Americans support more than 1,300 land trusts, nonprofit organizations that conserve land--open space, habitat, scenic vistas--primarily through purchase and gift of land and conservation easements. These nongovernmental, voluntary associations of like-minded citizens have protected more than 6.2 million acres, an area twice the size of Connecticut, according to the Land Trust Alliance, which tracks these things. This is a 226 percent increase over the 1.9 million acres protected in 1990. The first land trust was established in 1891 in Massachusetts, by landscape architect Charles Eliot, to preserve 20 acres of woodland. By 1950 there were still only 53 land trusts operating in 26 states. Today, similar grass-roots organizations protect land in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service reports that, between 1997 and 2001, 2.2 million acres were developed. Yet the Land Trust Alliance's most recent census of land trusts reports that, from 1990 to 2000, local and regional trusts conserved open space at a rate of about 500,000 acres per year. Conservationists have extended the trust concept to water in the drought-prone West, where maintaining minimum stream flows for fish, wildlife, and plants is a daunting task. In 1993, the Oregon Water Trust began buying and transferring valuable rights to water for the purpose of maintaining streamflows. Donors such as the Orvis Company support its work. Other states have emulated this example as a cooperative, voluntary means of reconciling traditional Western water law ("First in time, first in right") with conservation objectives. The Nature Conservancy, incorporated in 1951 as a nonprofit entity and successor to the Ecologists Union, is the Ohio-class boomer of land trusts and conservancies. Starting out as a shoestring outfit on a corner along K Street in Washington, with modest offices over a prosthetics shop, it has become a gigantic organization with a commanding presence in worldwide conservation. It is now the largest environmental group in the world, bringing in over $800 million each year. It employs 3,450 people operating from 400 offices in 50 states and 28 countries. It protects more than a million acres of land a year, for a total of 120 million acres to date. And it has 1,500 trustees of boards in each of the states, and one million members and supporters....
Private Water Saves Lives
Worldwide, 1.1 billion people, mainly in poor countries, do not have access to clean, safe water. The shortage of water helps to perpetuate poverty, disease and early death. However, there is no shortage of water, at least not globally. We use a mere 8 per cent of the water available for human consumption. Instead, bad policies are the main problem. Even Cherrapunji, India, the wettest place on earth, suffers from recurrent water shortages. Ninety-seven per cent of all water distribution in poor countries is managed by the public sector, which is largely responsible for more than a billion people being without water. Some governments of impoverished nations have turned to business for help, usually with good results. In poor countries with private investments in the water sector, more people have access to water than in those without such investments. Moreover, there are many examples of local businesses improving water distribution. Superior competence, better incentives and better access to capital for investment have allowed private distributors to enhance both the quality of the water and the scope of its distribution. Millions of people who lacked water mains within reach are now getting clean and safe water delivered within a convenient distance. The privatization of water distribution has stirred up strong feelings and met with resistance. There have been violent protests and demonstrations against water privatization all over the world. Western anti-business non-governmental organizations and public employee unions, sometimes together with local protesters, have formed anti-privatization coalitions. However, the movement's criticisms are off base....
Endangered Species and Military Bases: A Call for Eco-Sanity
Peyton Knight, who joined The National Center's staff Monday as our new director of the John P. McGovern MD Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, is making a plea for eco-sanity on our military bases. Our brave men and women in harm's way have enough burdens to shoulder these days-without being hamstrung by environmental ideologues. According to the Associated Press: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Monday that procedures designed to protect the environment can sometimes jeopardize U.S. troops and should be balanced against military needs. Yet over the weekend, the White House was busy "playing environmental matchmaker, encouraging odd couples such as the Nature Conservancy and the Pentagon as they team to save wild birds and military ranges," according to the AP. The fact is, environmental organizations have been wreaking havoc on U.S. military preparedness, using the Endangered Species Act, for years. For instance, due to its unique terrain and coastline, Camp Pendleton in Southern California is regarded as one of the best places to train U.S. Marines. Unfortunately for the military, it is also home to the California gnatcatcher, the San Diego fairy shrimp, the tidewater goby, and more than a dozen other species listed as "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. To comply with endangered species regulations, our men and women in uniform, when training at Camp Pendleton, must make pain to avoid treading in certain areas. If they don't, they could find themselves subject to penalties and fines. Considering that about 25 percent of all species listed under the ESA are found on military bases, the conflict between the ESA and military prepardness may only grow deeper....
Gasoline Prices -- Thank the Environmentalists
In 1950, a gallon of regular gasoline sold for about 30 cents; today, it's $2.50. Are today's gasoline prices high compared to 1950? Before answering that question, we have to take into account inflation that has occurred since 1950. Using my trusty inflation calculator (www.westegg.com/inflation), what cost 30 cents in 1950 costs $2.33 in 2005. In real terms, that means gasoline prices today are only slightly higher, about 8 percent, than they were in 1950. Up until the recent spike, gasoline prices have been considerably lower than 1950 prices. Some Americans are demanding that the government do something about gasoline prices. Let's think back to 1979 when the government did do something. The Carter administration instituted price controls. What did we see? We saw long gasoline lines, and that's if the gas station hadn't run out of gas. It's estimated that Americans used about 150,000 barrels of oil per day idling their cars while waiting in line. In an effort to deal with long lines, the Carter administration introduced the harebrained scheme of odd and even days, whereby a motorist whose license tag started with an odd number could fill up on odd-numbered days, and those with an even number on even-numbered days. With the recent spike in gas prices, the government has chosen not to pursue stupid policies of the past. As a result, we haven't seen shortages. We haven't seen long lines. We haven't seen gasoline station fights and riots. Why? Because price has been allowed to perform its valuable function -- that of equating demand with supply. Our true supply problem is of our own doing. Large quantities of oil lie below the 20 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The amount of land proposed for oil drilling is less than 2,000 acres, less than one-half of one percent of ANWR. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are about 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in ANWR. But environmentalists' hold on Congress has prevented us from drilling for it. They've also had success in restricting drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the shore of California. Another part of our energy problem has to do with refining capacity. Again, because of environmentalists' successful efforts, it's been 30 years since we've built a new oil refinery. Few people realize that the U.S. is also a major oil-producing country. After Saudi Arabia, producing 10.4 million barrels a day, then Russia with 9.4 million barrels, the U.S. with 8.7 million barrels a day is the third-largest producer of oil. But we could produce more. Why aren't we?....
===
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)