NEWS ROUNDUP
New split-estate law expected to be tested later this month Johnson County rancher Steve Adami will be the first landowner to challenge an oil and gas operator under Wyoming's split-estate law when he goes before the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Dec. 13 in Casper. In a Nov. 2 letter, Adami asked the commission to take potential environmental costs associated with off-channel water pits into consideration when it establishes bonds that Gillette-based Kennedy Oil must pay for natural gas developments on his ranch east of Buffalo. “The appeal to the Oil and Gas Commission is not whether to build the pits but whether the bonds are adequate,” Adami told The News-Record on Monday. Owner John Kennedy maintains his right to access minerals supersedes Adami's claims, which he said were off-base and unrelated to the split-estate law. “I'm afraid they don't understand the split-estate bill themselves,” he said Tuesday. “This has nothing to do, nothing with spit estate. “Mineral estate is just as much of an estate as a surface estate,” he said. “I have leased those minerals and have every right to develop them.” Kennedy Oil has posted $500 of bonding with the commission under the split-estate act for the off-channel pits that will be used for water from the wells, said Ruth Reile, who operates the permit for Kennedy Oil. Adami said the bonding is too low and wants the bonding level closer to $100,000 per well, a figure Kennedy said is too high....
Legislators to gather comments on booming oil industry Oil is booming in eastern Montana, and a legislative subcommittee wants to hear what residents think about how the industry is regulated. Issues open to public comment at the meeting include reclamation and bonding for oil and gas operations and how to handle split estates, the situation that arises when one party owns surface rights to land and another party owns the mineral rights below the property. The subcommittee of the Environmental Quality Council was created by the passage of House Bill 790 during the last legislature. The study resolution won approval after the failure of proposed legislation related to split estates coal bed methane. About two hours are set aside for public comment on: # Suggested procedures and timelines for operators, if any, to provide notice to surface owners of impending mineral development. # Proposed minimum provisions, if any, for surface use agreements, including but not limited to the road development, onsite water impoundments and the disposal of produced water. # Suggested measures, if any, for addressing disputed damage estimates between operators and surface owners. # Proposed bonding requirements, if any....
Ranchers upset by approved wolf plan Oregon Fish and Wildlife commissioners voted Thursday to approve a state wolf-management plan without the additional protections that livestock owners said they need. Livestock owners want the right to kill a wolf that threatens their sheep or cattle and state-funded compensation for livestock losses. However, commissioners cannot take those actions on their own; the changes must be put into law. Despite legislators not passing laws during the 2005 session to help livestock owners, the commissioners plan to fight to get the laws passed in 2007. Wildlife experts predict wolves that cross into Oregon from Idaho soon will establish packs....
House's mining-land plan hits stiff resistance The organization that represents Colorado counties is opposing a congressional proposal to let mining companies buy public land, fearing it could lead to widespread rural development. "This would open the possibility of every little mining claim being developed without regard for land-use patterns," said Colorado Counties Inc. executive director Larry Kallenberger. Kallenberger said the recommendation to the CCI board was made by mountain and Western Slope counties. Also, Aspen Skiing Co. this week became the first ski resort company to oppose the measure, citing fears it would damage pristine landscapes. And Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., has come out against the measure, saying development could block access to public lands for hunters and anglers....
Column: No More Wilderness, Forever? Has anybody else noticed that we have had no new Wilderness designations in the northern Rockies (Idaho, Montana or Wyoming) for decades? In fact, the last wilderness designated in anywhere in the three-state region was 1984 when the Wyoming Wilderness Act passed and protected several small areas. In Montana, we have to go back to 1983 when the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Act passed. And in Idaho, the last bill passed was the River of No Return Wilderness Act of 1980—twenty-five years ago! The northern Rockies has around 20 million acres deserving consideration for Wilderness, but we’ve gone twenty-one years without a single acre of land being designated under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Even worse, state and national Wilderness groups have few active efforts to officially propose new Wilderness. Have we given up on Wilderness? If not, what’s the problem? No, we haven’t given up, and the problem is politics....
Three indicted again in Sabino mountain lion hunt Two environmental activists and a journalist once again have been charged with interfering with efforts to capture mountain lions in Sabino Canyon. Rodney A. Coronado and Matthew A. Crozier of Earth First! and writer John H. Richardson were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on three charges related to the March 2004 mountain lion hunt. The indictment was made public today. The three were previously indicted for interfering with the hunt, but the charges were dismissed because a deputy forest supervisor didn't have the authority to close Coronado National Forest. According to the new indictment, even though the forest was not legally closed, Coronado, Crozier and Richardson believed it was and continued to thwart the mountain lion hunt on several occasions....
Column: National Park Service is Being Skinned from the Inside-Out When Steve Martin, the former Grand Teton National Park Superintendent who now serves as the National Park Service’s Deputy Director in Washington, D.C, appeared recently before a panel of U.S. senators, he struggled mightily to pass the red-face test. But I sympathize with the compromised position he was placed in. Coming under intense bi-partisan scrutiny lead by U.S. Sens. Craig Thomas, a Wyoming Republican, and Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, he claimed that some of the controversial changes written in to the National Park Service’s operating manual may have been “inadvertent.” As in, they happened by accident. As in, they just slipped by or were typos. As in, even though the changes would radically alter the primary mission of America’s most beloved government agency, which is charged with protecting our crown jewel wildlands, they were added by some strange occurrence of alchemy. The bald-faced truth is that nothing about the overhaul of the Park Service’s operating manual was done without radical deliberateness executed by former Cody Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Paul Hoffman....
Toxic Residue of Hurricane Stirs Debate on Habitation The debate over whether the toxic discharges that swept over New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish after Hurricane Katrina have left the area unfit for human habitation reignited on Thursday, as state environmental officials and local environmental and citizens' groups accused one another of misinterpreting data. A toxicologist for the State of Louisiana said in an interview Thursday that about 95 percent of the city was fit for long-term human habitation. A few hours earlier, representatives of local environmental and citizens' groups, citing samples the government collected from the sediment in once-flooded areas and their own samples, said at a news conference that without an extensive cleanup of toxic sediments, at least 75 percent of the city was unfit for families with children. Asked whether the city was safe enough for people to return for the long term, Tom Coleman, a Superfund specialist at the Dallas regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency working in New Orleans, replied: "We haven't said that. And we're not going to say that. Safety is a very difficult concept. For our agency to make that declaration, that would be somewhat of an absolute, and these are not absolute situations." But, Mr. Coleman added, "Within the world of chemical contamination, we're not seeing levels of contaminants that are causing us a lot of concern." He said there were a couple of locations that needed further study....
'Red tape,' projects leave marsh dry Public agencies have steered millions of dollars into buying and improving McNabney Marsh, near the foot of the Benicia Bridge, as a place for birds and wildlife to live and for people to enjoy watching them. But for the second year in a row, the marsh visible to thousands of daily commuters on Interstate 680 was dry when migratory birds flew in from the north looking for a food and rest stop. A Caltrans drainage project and concerns over an endangered marsh mouse delayed plans to refill the marsh this year. Some conservationists are growing impatient with the wait for fixing the marsh so it can stay wet year around. The federal Army Corps of Engineers decided it wouldn't approve the dredging until scientists survey the marsh for endangered species like the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. The tiny rodent, which scampers between picklewood plants in brackish marshes, was spotted in McNabney Marsh years ago....
Suit targets resort restoration An environmental organization has filed a lawsuit against the city and against American Development Group, challenging the environmental study done for the Arrowhead Springs restoration project. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity says in its lawsuit, filed Thursday in San Bernardino Superior Court, that the city and the developer haven't adequately investigated the presence of endangered species on the site or the effects of the project on the habitat for those species. The lawsuit also questions the safety of the project, for people as well as for animals. The area is surrounded by forest, the lawsuit says, and very little buffer is planned between fire-prone timber and the occupied structures....Don't you see how it works? First file suit or lobby to stop logging or thinning projects, then file suit against development on private property becasue it is next to a dangerous forest....
Park grizzlies do OK despite drop in trout Munching on cutthroat trout used to be a lot easier for grizzly bears that hung around the fringes of Yellowstone Lake. Back in the days before predatory lake trout mysteriously showed up, bears in Yellowstone National Park had gamely plucked spawning Yellowstone cutthroat trout in the spring and early summer. But now that the protein-packed Yellowstone cutthroat trout is in serious decline - park officials said in a recent publication that it "appears to be in peril" - fewer bears are feeding off the lake's tributaries. When they do feed, it's more likely the males that get the meal. Those are some of the results of two studies trying to determine the effects of the dropping Yellowstone cutthroat population on grizzlies that live in the park. So far, though, it doesn't look like the dwindling supply of cutthroats is having a discernible effect on the park's grizzly population, according to Mark Haroldson, a U.S. Geological Survey grizzly researcher....
Judge: Lawsuit challenging salmon policy can go forward A federal judge Wednesday refused to dismiss a challenge to a new Bush administration policy of considering hatchery-raised salmon and steelhead when determining whether wild stocks need protection. The policy, which took effect in June, has been controversial, with environmental groups and even government-appointed scientists arguing that only wild populations of fish should be weighed in decisions about whether to list them under the Endangered Species Act. Salmon raised in hatcheries lack the long-term survival capabilities of wild fish that have evolved over millions of years, they say. “The Hatchery Listing Policy is arbitrary, capricious, contrary to best available science,” Earthjustice lawyers Kristen Boyles and Patti Goldman wrote in a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service this summer. “It reverses the position taken by the agency in its prior policies without adequate explanation; and it is not a product of rational decisionmaking.” The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour to toss the lawsuit in late September, saying the environmental groups, led by Virginia-based Trout Unlimited, did not have legal grounds to challenge the policy. Coughenour rejected that request Wednesday and said the lawsuit can proceed....
Federal agency OKs sheep trail closures A federal agency Thursday approved the closure of some Coachella Valley hiking trails and the construction of new ones to protect endangered bighorn sheep. The trails are in or near the Dead Indian Canyon and Carrizo Canyon areas, where there are only three or four female bighorn sheep, said Jim Foote, an outdoor recreation planner in the federal Bureau of Land Management office in Palm Springs. The trail sections affected are on federally owned property west of Highway 74 and south of Palm Desert. Joan Taylor, conservation chairwoman of the Sierra Club's Tahquitz group, said the decision struck a good balance between protecting sheep and giving recreational hikers access to trails. But Chuck Nisbet, president of the Coachella Valley Hiking Club and the Desert Trails Coalition, said there's no evidence closing the trail segments will help sheep....
Miracle in the wilderness Every day is a good day for Amy Racina. It wasn't always that way, but crashing 60 feet into a granite ravine changed her perspective. Racina of Healdsburg, a seasoned backpacker, was on a solo trip two years ago in the Tehipite Valley, a seldom-visited area of Kings Canyon National Park, which is in the southern end of the Sierra Nevada directly east of Fresno. She was 12 days into a 162-mile trip when she lost the trail she was on. As she carefully crisscrossed down the valley looking for the trail, the ground suddenly gave way and she found herself careering through the air. "So this is how it ends," she thought in the seconds before she slammed into a granite ravine. The fall nearly killed Racina, but the miracle -- the first of many -- was that it didn't. Racina has published a book recounting her rescue and arduous recovery. "Angels in the Wilderness" ($24.95, Elite Books in Santa Rosa), is titled for the three hikers who saved her life after they came upon her even though she had been off-trail when she fell in a remote area visited only by a handful of people each season....
New parks policy would give private donors more recognition The Interior Department is poised to begin naming benches, bricks and rooms in national parks after private donors, a practice that critics say sends mixed signals about industry influence on public lands policy. Park Service officials say the new guidelines, which could be approved by early next year, would simply make it easier for the agency to recognize corporations and individuals who are already giving. Names already appear on plaques around parks, but the new policy would make donors more prominent. Corporate logos would be forbidden in most cases, officials say. ‘‘We hope to create a positive tone for philanthropy,’’ said John Piltzecker, chief of the parks’ partnership office. The guidelines, which will be reviewed again by the agency after the public comment period closes next week, would also allow some high-level employees to solicit donations....
Decatur cowboy chasing all-around title Trevor Brazile of Decatur will attempt to earn his fourth consecutive world all-around title at the 47th National Finals Rodeo, the sport's most prominent show, which begins its 10-day run tonight in Las Vegas. In the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world all-around standings, Brazile leads Ryan Jarrett, $175,945 to $148,947. Cash Myers is third with $136,347. Brazile has qualified in tie-down roping and team roping. Jarrett is competing in tie-down roping and steer wrestling. Myers made the cut in steer wrestling....
Thousands cash in behind scenes of 10-day event ESPN's television cameras won't focus on Ted Groene during the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo's 10-day run at the Thomas & Mack Center. The 44-year-old cowboy's competitive days have passed. Now he labors outside the bright arena lights in a cold, pungent place where no champion's gold belt buckle shines. But without workers such as Groene -- who is NFR's livestock superintendent -- Las Vegas couldn't benefit from this month's projected $43 million cash cow. And Groene is proud to help make the rodeo a success, even if few outsiders appreciate the efforts of his 11-person crew. "We're not here for the money," said Groene, a burly Californian who lost one eye to a bull years ago. "The money is nothing compared to what the competitors receive. "But this job is all about the chance to be around rodeo." Groene's behind-the-scenes saga isn't unique....
Idaho cowboy takes hard road to Vegas Zeb Lanham is in Las Vegas today, where he'll work no more than eight seconds a day for the next 10 days. If all goes as planned, he hopes to win at least $50,000. A get-rich-quick scheme in Sin City? Nope — the National Finals Rodeo. Lanham is a 21-year-old bullrider who lives on a 160-acre ranch northeast of Sweet, a tiny Gem County town between Emmett and Horseshoe Bend. He is the only Treasure Valley cowboy to qualify for the biggest rodeo of the year. He's 14th in the world standings — only the top 15 in each of seven events are invited to the NFR. It's a moment Lanham has been waiting for since he was 5, when he first jumped on a calf at a small rodeo in Garden Valley....
Friday, December 02, 2005
FLE
Federal Court Limits Government's Power to Monitor Cell Phones
The government must show probable cause to obtain information from Cingular Wireless LLC, Verizon Wireless and other providers of cell phone services in the U.S. on the physical location of a user, a federal court ruled. U.S. Judge James K. Bredar in Baltimore found there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when a cell phone is used in public. Still, the government must have a warrant to monitor cell phone conversations because they may take place at home, he said. Warrantless monitoring of an electronic tracking device in a private residence, a location not open to visual surveillance, violates the Fourth Amendment rights of those who have a justifiable interest in the privacy of the residence,'' Bredar said in an order today. When turned on, a cell phone communicates with one or more nearby signal towers, automatically switching to the one with the best reception. Wireless service providers and law enforcement officers, if given permission, can compare the signals and locate the phone through a process of triangulation, according to court documents....
A Colorado woman takes a stand against arbitrary ID checks
The first time she was asked to show identification while riding the bus to work, Deborah Davis was so startled that she complied without thinking. But the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. That's how Davis, a 50-year-old Colorado woman with four grown children and five grandchildren, ended up getting dragged off the bus by federal security officers, who handcuffed her, took her to their station, and cited her for two misdemeanors. Davis, who is scheduled to be arraigned on December 9, is risking 60 days in jail to show her fellow Americans that they don't need to blindly obey every dictate imposed in the name of security. The public bus that Davis took to her office job in Lakewood, Colorado, crosses the Denver Federal Center, a 90-building complex occupied by agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department, the General Services Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management. "The facility is not high security," says Davis. "It's not Area 51 or NORAD or the Rocky Mountain Arsenal." Guards nevertheless board buses as they enter the complex and demand IDs from passengers, whether or not they're getting off there. According to Davis, the guards barely glance at the IDs, let alone write down names or check them against a list. "It's just an obedience test," says Gail Johnson, a lawyer recruited to represent Davis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. "It does nothing for security." Ahmad Taha, supervisory special agent with the Federal Protective Service, which is in charge of security at the Denver complex, said guards there have been checking the IDs of bus passengers since 9/11. He declined to explain the security rationale for this ritual or to comment on Davis' case....
FEMA lifts suspension of Phoenix rescue team
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has lifted its suspension of the Phoenix Fire Department's urban search and rescue team two months after firefighters were sent home from hurricane relief efforts because they had armed police officers with them. Arizona Task Force 1 will be allowed to continue deploying Phoenix police deputized as U.S. marshals "as long as they wear U.S. marshals' uniforms," FEMA officials said. FEMA's decision to allow armed police, despite a rule against carrying firearms, applies only to Phoenix's team. But the agency left open the possibility that the city's model would be adopted on a broader scale. A FEMA work group began meeting earlier this month to revise its policy on force protection. "I'm under the distinct impression they're going to look at this as a national model," said Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who has lobbied the federal agency to change its rules since the team was suspended on Sept. 26. At issue is a rule in FEMA's code of conduct that prohibits urban search and rescue teams from having firearms....
GAO: Congress Nixed Costly Terror Training
Efforts to train thousands of federal agents to protect commercial flights during heightened terror alerts were quietly abandoned more than a year ago because Congress objected to the cost, government investigators said Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, reported that the federal air marshal service suspended its efforts to develop such a "surge capacity" by training customs and immigration agents to protect passenger airliners. The Homeland Security Department "indicated that it would continue to support the surge effort but had not determined whether and when it would resume cross-training to resume this initiative," the report said. The plan was first disclosed in September 2003 by Tom Ridge, then Homeland Security secretary. Ridge announced that the air marshals would be combined with immigration and customs agents in the same agency so agents in both could be cross-trained and used for aviation security. The move would allow more than 5,000 armed federal law enforcement agents to be deployed on commercial aircraft, he said....
Report on FBI Tool Is Disputed
The Justice Department has criticized as misleading and inaccurate a Washington Post report about the FBI's expanded power to collect the private records of ordinary Americans while conducting terrorism and espionage investigations. The Nov. 6 article detailed the dramatic increase in the use of "national security letters," a three-decade-old investigative tool that was given new life with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in 2001. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, a hundredfold increase over historic norms, the article said. Instead of merely enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents, national security letters allow investigators to secretly scrutinize some records of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies, the article said. The records of ordinary Americans' personal financial transactions, telephone calls, consumer purchases and Web site visits can be obtained relatively easily from businesses by federal authorities with the letters, issued by FBI field supervisors and a few headquarters officials, according to the article. In a 10-page letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees last week, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella said that the report contained "distortions and factual errors." He presented a 17-point rebuttal to what he variously described as inaccurate claims, insinuations and implications, either by The Post or by critics quoted in the article....also see Justice Dept. Defends FBI on Patriot Act for the AP version of this story.
Court delays Padilla transfer from brig
A federal appeals court on Wednesday delayed the transfer of accused terrorist Jose Padilla from a military brig to face trial in Miami. Padilla, a 35-year-old U.S. citizen, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Florida. He will remain in the Navy brig in South Carolina for at least two weeks under a two-page order issued by the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The development surprised top Justice Department officials. But the three-judge panel said it needs to know whether it should set aside a September opinion that upheld Padilla's military detention before returning him to civilian authorities. The court said it wants to hear arguments on whether the opinion was to be vacated "as a consequence of the transfer." The judges pointed out that the facts alleged by the government "warranting" Padilla's military detention differed from the charges in the indictment. The government was ordered to reply by December 9, and Padilla's lawyers have a deadline of December 16 to respond -- the same date the government is also due to respond to Padilla's latest appeal to the Supreme Court....
Federal Court Limits Government's Power to Monitor Cell Phones
The government must show probable cause to obtain information from Cingular Wireless LLC, Verizon Wireless and other providers of cell phone services in the U.S. on the physical location of a user, a federal court ruled. U.S. Judge James K. Bredar in Baltimore found there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when a cell phone is used in public. Still, the government must have a warrant to monitor cell phone conversations because they may take place at home, he said. Warrantless monitoring of an electronic tracking device in a private residence, a location not open to visual surveillance, violates the Fourth Amendment rights of those who have a justifiable interest in the privacy of the residence,'' Bredar said in an order today. When turned on, a cell phone communicates with one or more nearby signal towers, automatically switching to the one with the best reception. Wireless service providers and law enforcement officers, if given permission, can compare the signals and locate the phone through a process of triangulation, according to court documents....
A Colorado woman takes a stand against arbitrary ID checks
The first time she was asked to show identification while riding the bus to work, Deborah Davis was so startled that she complied without thinking. But the more she thought about it, the less sense it made. That's how Davis, a 50-year-old Colorado woman with four grown children and five grandchildren, ended up getting dragged off the bus by federal security officers, who handcuffed her, took her to their station, and cited her for two misdemeanors. Davis, who is scheduled to be arraigned on December 9, is risking 60 days in jail to show her fellow Americans that they don't need to blindly obey every dictate imposed in the name of security. The public bus that Davis took to her office job in Lakewood, Colorado, crosses the Denver Federal Center, a 90-building complex occupied by agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, the Interior Department, the General Services Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management. "The facility is not high security," says Davis. "It's not Area 51 or NORAD or the Rocky Mountain Arsenal." Guards nevertheless board buses as they enter the complex and demand IDs from passengers, whether or not they're getting off there. According to Davis, the guards barely glance at the IDs, let alone write down names or check them against a list. "It's just an obedience test," says Gail Johnson, a lawyer recruited to represent Davis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. "It does nothing for security." Ahmad Taha, supervisory special agent with the Federal Protective Service, which is in charge of security at the Denver complex, said guards there have been checking the IDs of bus passengers since 9/11. He declined to explain the security rationale for this ritual or to comment on Davis' case....
FEMA lifts suspension of Phoenix rescue team
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has lifted its suspension of the Phoenix Fire Department's urban search and rescue team two months after firefighters were sent home from hurricane relief efforts because they had armed police officers with them. Arizona Task Force 1 will be allowed to continue deploying Phoenix police deputized as U.S. marshals "as long as they wear U.S. marshals' uniforms," FEMA officials said. FEMA's decision to allow armed police, despite a rule against carrying firearms, applies only to Phoenix's team. But the agency left open the possibility that the city's model would be adopted on a broader scale. A FEMA work group began meeting earlier this month to revise its policy on force protection. "I'm under the distinct impression they're going to look at this as a national model," said Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who has lobbied the federal agency to change its rules since the team was suspended on Sept. 26. At issue is a rule in FEMA's code of conduct that prohibits urban search and rescue teams from having firearms....
GAO: Congress Nixed Costly Terror Training
Efforts to train thousands of federal agents to protect commercial flights during heightened terror alerts were quietly abandoned more than a year ago because Congress objected to the cost, government investigators said Tuesday. The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, reported that the federal air marshal service suspended its efforts to develop such a "surge capacity" by training customs and immigration agents to protect passenger airliners. The Homeland Security Department "indicated that it would continue to support the surge effort but had not determined whether and when it would resume cross-training to resume this initiative," the report said. The plan was first disclosed in September 2003 by Tom Ridge, then Homeland Security secretary. Ridge announced that the air marshals would be combined with immigration and customs agents in the same agency so agents in both could be cross-trained and used for aviation security. The move would allow more than 5,000 armed federal law enforcement agents to be deployed on commercial aircraft, he said....
Report on FBI Tool Is Disputed
The Justice Department has criticized as misleading and inaccurate a Washington Post report about the FBI's expanded power to collect the private records of ordinary Americans while conducting terrorism and espionage investigations. The Nov. 6 article detailed the dramatic increase in the use of "national security letters," a three-decade-old investigative tool that was given new life with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in 2001. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, a hundredfold increase over historic norms, the article said. Instead of merely enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents, national security letters allow investigators to secretly scrutinize some records of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies, the article said. The records of ordinary Americans' personal financial transactions, telephone calls, consumer purchases and Web site visits can be obtained relatively easily from businesses by federal authorities with the letters, issued by FBI field supervisors and a few headquarters officials, according to the article. In a 10-page letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees last week, Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella said that the report contained "distortions and factual errors." He presented a 17-point rebuttal to what he variously described as inaccurate claims, insinuations and implications, either by The Post or by critics quoted in the article....also see Justice Dept. Defends FBI on Patriot Act for the AP version of this story.
Court delays Padilla transfer from brig
A federal appeals court on Wednesday delayed the transfer of accused terrorist Jose Padilla from a military brig to face trial in Miami. Padilla, a 35-year-old U.S. citizen, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Florida. He will remain in the Navy brig in South Carolina for at least two weeks under a two-page order issued by the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. The development surprised top Justice Department officials. But the three-judge panel said it needs to know whether it should set aside a September opinion that upheld Padilla's military detention before returning him to civilian authorities. The court said it wants to hear arguments on whether the opinion was to be vacated "as a consequence of the transfer." The judges pointed out that the facts alleged by the government "warranting" Padilla's military detention differed from the charges in the indictment. The government was ordered to reply by December 9, and Padilla's lawyers have a deadline of December 16 to respond -- the same date the government is also due to respond to Padilla's latest appeal to the Supreme Court....
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
I know the above date is wrong, but blogspot.com is not allowing me to set the date and time. Hope this will be fixed soon.
NEWS ROUNDUP
A Strategy to Restore Western Grasslands Meets With Local Resistance No cows remain on the federal lands set aside for grazing here above the Escalante River. At first glance, this would seem a boon to land and cow alike. The layered rockscape just west of this small town is immense, rolling from the river toward the sky. The grass is thin and dry. The soil, the same. How fat could a cow get? So, seven years ago an environmental group based in Arizona, the Grand Canyon Trust, began paying ranchers to give up their grazing rights when their herds, or bank accounts, had failed to thrive. By this fall, the trust had spent more than $1 million to end grazing on more than 400,000 acres. The deals seemed to suit all concerned, until a group of local officials decided that they were bad for the local economy and a threat to the ancestral tradition of living off the land. The group set out to end this latest, uncharacteristically civil chapter in the fraught history of cattlemen, environmentalists and dueling visions of the West's future. Michael E. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee who now is a Republican state representative from southern Utah, led the charge to roll back agreements the trust had forged. Mr. Noel said the loss of the grazing allotments would hurt ranching, which would in turn deprive the area's young people of the character-building chance to work on the land. "Yes, it's a free market to buy and sell," Mr. Noel said recently. "But if you buy it, you use it." By retiring the lands, he said, the trust is reneging on an implicit agreement, and "if we allow that to occur, we go down the path of eliminating all grazing on public lands."....
Questar, BLM differ over drilling plans An official from Questar Corp. said this week its proposal to increase gas development on the Pinedale Anticline this winter came at the behest of the Bureau of Land Management. Paul Matheny, vice president for the Rockies region for Questar, said several BLM field offices called the company, asking what could be done to produce more gas. "We said we had projects in Pinedale and in other places that we can't do during the winter because of restrictions of various kinds, and were it not for those restrictions we have a certain number of wells that we could complete in November or December," Matheny said. Matheny said the BLM was acting on instructions from the U.S. Department of Interior, hoping to avoid a gas shortage after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the gas-producing Gulf Coast. Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM in Cheyenne, said there is concern about a gas shortage and agreed there is a push from Washington for short-term natural gas supplies. But Hall said his agency did not ask for proposals from companies. "What we were doing was trying to find out if more capacity existed," he said. "It didn't include anything beyond that."....
U.S. under fire as climate conferees hash out plan to cut pollution The United States came under renewed criticism Tuesday as thousands of environmentalists and international officials hammered out rules for a global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. comments that it would resist any binding commitment to curb global warming by capping industrial emissions infuriated environmentalists, who accused Washington of trying to derail the U.N. Climate Change Conference. "When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International. More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations....
Education, watershed funding pushed at town hall They started with seven broad questions about watersheds — land areas that feed into single streams and rivers that New Mexico communities depend on for water. And in two intense days of fast-paced negotiating at New Mexico Highlands University that ended Tuesday, more than 100 ranchers, environmentalists, foresters, land managers and educators drafted recommendations for how to better manage the state’s watersheds. Among the recommendations: Develop a watershed-health curriculum for public schools. Include stable funding for watershed restoration in state agency budgets. Require local governments to consider watersheds in their land-use planning. The participants were part of a town-hall discussion on New Mexico’s watersheds and forests facilitated by the nonprofit New Mexico First and sponsored by the state Department of Agriculture , the new Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at Highlands and the state Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources....
Editorial: Haste makes waste Geologic time isn't supposed to refer to the speed at which Congress updates obsolete laws. But when it comes to the Mining Law of 1872, the description fits. Now, however, the House is trying to impose a nanosecond non-solution on that old law. The Senate needs to say, "Whoa." The House has tacked an ill-conceived rewrite of the law onto its budget reconciliation bill, a move that precluded the kind of meaningful discussion this issue deserves. The House rewrite lifts the ban on patenting land that was imposed by Congress in 1994 in an effort to stop the sale of public land at bargain-basement prices. Consider that the patenting provisions of the 133-year-old law allow miners to gain title to public land for as little as $2.50 an acre, and you'll see why a moratorium was necessary. Consider that the House's rewrite only ups that to market value or $1,000 an acre, but allows land to pass into private hands even if mining is not the intent, and you'll see why the Senate has to stop this....
Thirteen years of planning pays off in Soledad Canyon Thirteen years after trail enthusiasts began planning a trail head deep in Soledad Canyon on a spur of the Pacific Crest Trail, they gathered Wednesday to celebrate the finished product. The Indian Canyon Trail Head near Agua Dulce is the combined work of volunteers who ride horses, hike or ride off-road vehicles and officials with the U.S. Forest Service, the state and the county. "As you can well see, this is a service to everyone who uses the trail," said Barry Wetherby, secretary-treasurer of the nonprofit California Trail Users Coalition, which coordinated the $290,532 project. The trail head provides parking for horse trailers off Soledad Canyon Road as well as a parking lot for cars. There's a restroom, a picnic table that was installed moments before Wednesday's brief ceremony and a ramp to load off-highway vehicles. And it sits at the foot of one of the most scenic trails in the West, a 2,600-mile route that winds through forests, deserts and mountains from Mexico to Canada....
The Iron Climb A European-style rock climbing practice known as via ferrata now has a Utah angle in Waterfall Canyon east of this city. For novice climbers who don helmets, clip lanyards into a fixed metal cable and climb steel ladders straight up the side of a cliff, it is more like a stairway to heaven. With Chris Peterson providing the property and veteran Utah climber Jeff Lowe doing the designing, this via ferrata park - one of only three in North America - includes a practice wall and two, fixed 350-foot-high vertical routes that use permanent metal ladders and cables. The concept of the via ferrata, which translated to English means "iron roads," originated in the 1860s when people living in the Dolomite Mountains in Austria and Italy began installing fixed ropes and ladders to the top of prominent peaks, according to the Singing Rock climbing gear company....
Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery. Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years. "Imagine what a drought lasting that long would do to the resources and economy of the region today," says Dave Peterson of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources. The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze'ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says....
Judge OKs more heli-skiing in Chugach An environmental lawsuit opposing expansion of helicopter skiing in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula mountains has been rejected by a federal judge, who ruled the U.S. Forest Service did an adequate job assessing the likely impacts of more helicopter flights on wildlife. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, was hailed as a victory by Chugach Powder Guides, the Girdwood, Alaska, company that won permits last year to significantly expand its helicopter-assisted ski and snowboard operations in Chugach National Forest. Company owner Chris Owens said the extra territory was necessary to put together a viable deep-powder operation. The Moose Pass residents and national conservation organizations that opposed the expansion, first in environmental hearings and then in court, said they have not decided yet whether to appeal. The judge said federal environmental laws require the Forest Service to openly consider ways to protect wildlife but not to guarantee that no impacts will occur....
A Silver Lining for the Logging Road Montana is home to over 30,000 miles of active and decommissioned logging roads on national forest land. That’s enough road to wrap around the equator and still have 5,000 miles left over. Discussions are currently on the table regarding whether or not Montana needs new roads, after the Bush Administration overturned the Clinton-era ban on new road building in America’s national forests this year. Even if the state decides not to build new roads, the money to maintain those 30,000 miles of road simply isn’t in the budget. So, what’s a state to do? Closed roads provide lovely two-lane trails for mountain biking, skiing, or just plain hiking. They’re a place to get away from the hoards of people up the Rattlesnake and let your dog be a dog off his leash. Roads are also a chance for Off-Road-Vehicle (ORV) users to get up into God’s country with a four-stroke between their legs. Many roads are left in place and gated so the Forest Service can have access to these areas for logging in the future or to suppress wildfires. But not everyone sees logging roads in such a light. Whereas some see the roads around Montana as access, others see them as scars, while others see them as a burden that could be turned into opportunity....
Yellowstone delisting shifts recovery efforts north The focus on recovering grizzly bear populations is moving north. With the Yellowstone population of grizzlies on the verge of being removed from the federal threatened and endangered list, the folks charged with leading recovery efforts are looking to refocus on bears that call the northern Continental Divide ecosystem home. On Wednesday, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee heard about the challenges it and a growing team of biologists and researchers will face in duplicating the success story now occurring in the Yellowstone ecosystem. “The circumstances here are really quite different than they were in Yellowstone,” said Chris Smith of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Yellowstone population of grizzlies is the most studied population of bears in the world. An interagency team of researchers has published more than 178 studies on the population since 1974. That's not the situation in northwest Montana, Smith said....
Agencies eye future of grizzlies Chuck Bartlebaugh is worried that television's warm and fuzzy message about grizzly bears is creating a dangerous situation in the backcountry. He wants the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee to do more to spread the word about the proper way to act around the huge bruins. “The belief that we can interact with bears is stronger than ever,” said Bartlebaugh of the Missoula-based Center for Wildlife Information. “There's a misperception of what is and what isn't OK.” Bartlebaugh points to a recent television clip that gave people tips on how to let a grizzly lick their fingers. “Most of the 15 million viewers probably didn't know that is inappropriate,” he said....
Kane, Interior meet over signs Officials of the Interior Department and Kane County met for six hours Wednesday in an effort to end the standoff over the county's placement of its road signs on federal land in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Nothing was resolved, but negotiators for both sides say an agreement could be within grasp. They will meet again on Dec. 15. "I'm very encouraged," said Larry Jensen, the Interior Department's regional solicitor, following the meeting at the state Bureau of Land Management offices in downtown Salt Lake City. "The county has taken the initiative and put some proposals on the table that address both the near-term issues surrounding the signs and the overriding issues of who owns the roads."....
Teams gathering native seeds in Nevada Native Nevada plant seeds have attracted the attention of royalty under a preservation project between a federal agency and Great Britain. Seeds of Success is a parternership project in the Great Basin between the Bureau of Land Management and the Royal Botanic Garden in London. The U.S. portion is a branch of a large, global conservation effort called the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The worldwide project is identifying, collecting and storing plant material and native plant seeds in 16 countries. The seeds are needed for restoring and rehabilitating public lands and for meeting a long-term goal of conserving plant biodiversity. The overall goal is to collect seeds of 10 percent of the world's plants by 2010. Then, if an extended drought occurs or climate change causes some plants to become extinct, seeds will be ready to replant or reforest affected areas....
Endangered-plant lovers unite in effort to boost U.S. protection The kodachrome bladderpod and Hoover's spurge; the fleshy owl's clover and the four-petal pawpaw; the sensitive joint-vetch, the showy stickseed, Virginia sneezeweed and Michigan monkey-flower - the total spending for all of these at-risk plants is still less than the money spent on an endangered river clam called the fat pocketbook. It's not that easy being green. Plants make up more than half of the 1,290 plant and animal species on the federal endangered or threatened list. But animals get 97 percent of the money, according to the 2003 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expenditure report, which includes money spent by all federal and state agencies. Some call it zoo-chauvinism. Others call it plant blindness. Either way, the disparity irks the staff of the Center for Plant Conservation, a nonprofit organization at the Missouri Botanical Garden that banks rare seeds and reintroduces plants to former ranges....
Sales of hunting licenses rise for first time since fiscal 2000 The number of paid hunting license holders rose to 14.8 million for fiscal year 2004. That is up 0.4 percent from the 14.7 million holders in fiscal year 2003, according to recently released data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The increase was the first since fiscal year 2000. Over the past 10 years, the number of paid hunting license holders has declined 2.8 percent. For the 10-year period, the attrition for hunting license holders has not been as great as that of fishing license holders, which have declined by 6.1 percent....
Louisiana's Levee Inquiry Faults Army Corps The devastation of New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen because of a significant flaw in levee design by the Army Corps of Engineers, according to preliminary findings from the official Louisiana team investigating the Hurricane Katrina flooding. The findings are included in a draft report prepared by engineers on the team. They mirror the conclusion of many outside experts: that the levee that toppled at the 17th Street Canal was built with too little regard for the inherent weakness of the soil under the canal banks. Similar conditions, the experts say, existed at the sites of the two other major levee breaches in metropolitan New Orleans. "It should have been obvious," said the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, Ivor van Heerden, the leader of the investigative group, known as Team Louisiana. Billy R. Prochaska, an engineering consultant to the team, said, "That's our question: how could this be?" The puzzlement is especially acute, Mr. Prochaska said, because the levee design "was gone over by everyone" up and down the Corps of Engineers organization, from the local level to Washington, before the levees were upgraded with flood walls in the 1980's and 90's....
Column: God and Man in the Environmental Debate Based on his public writings, I would expect this scientist to be personable and humane. Nevertheless, in his private correspondence, he casually wishes for the deaths of many millions of his fellow human beings. If he were merely offering an eccentric, private opinion, I wouldn’t be writing about it. Unfortunately, his desire is all too common among some self-described “environmentalists.” Our wellbeing, on this view, doesn’t really enter into the calculation. We are, at best, an accident of cosmic history, and at worst, despoilers and destroyers. Adding more humans to the planet, then, is as bad as adding more parasites to an already ailing host. Again, this would be merely academic, except that such ideas have real world consequences. Every environmental policy implemented by government authority, for instance, stems from someone’s views about the nature of man and man’s place in nature. If those views are anti-human, the policy probably will be anti-human as well. Consider the ban on DDT in the 1970s. The ban, which in hindsight we know was misguided, has resulted in the deaths of more than a million people a year. The vast majority of these deaths have been among the poor in developing countries. Because environmental policies perpetuate certain notions about the human person, and because these notions have real world consequences, Christians have little choice but to engage the debate over the environment....
Can those city women handle our cowboys? Despite Willie's warning, quite a few Central Coast mamas have let their babies grow up to be cowboys. That's what Hollywood found this week when it put out a casting call for area cowboys to audition for an as-yet-unnamed reality television series. Producers managed to wrangle some 50 buckaroos, then culled that number down to five. According to Tribune reporter Leslie Griffy, the plot will revolve around our cowboys getting together with some female city slickers in search of love. We're not sure who will be roping whom, but we'll put our money on our Central Coast cowboys. But we wonder, is there really an audience for such a pairing? Salon.com writer Lily Burana thinks so: "Sophisticated women who are tired of neurotic, vain urban men often pine for a sensual, sensible, strong and loyal bad boy who will never say we're fat or dump us for a younger woman. That one man could be all those things is a long shot, but still, we hold the dream dear."....
Colorful cowboys bust mutton with best They call 6-year-old Chance Falk the Red, White and Blue Cowboy because he wears the colors of the flag every time he competes in a rodeo. Then there is his younger brother Chase, 5, that they call the Camouflage Cowboy because he wears camouflage from head to toe every time he competes in a rodeo. Whatever you call the two Kersey boys, one thing is for sure. These are two tough cowboys who know how to ride sheep. In fact, Chance is a champion in mutton bustin' after finishing first in the Mountain State Junior Bull Riders finals held Oct. 29-30 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden. He not only won the finals, but also won the year-end average title, bringing home two shiny belt buckles....
Two Wyoming steer wrestlers return to NFR in different ways At this time last year, Birch Negaard was in an unusual place -- home. The nine-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier wasn't headed to Las Vegas like he had done in steer wrestling so many times before. Instead, Negaard was cooped up inside his home near Sundance, healing up from a shoulder operation he had the previous August. Negaard had tried -- oh, how he tried -- to cowboy his way through the pain. "I tried for eight months to go with it, and it kept falling out (of socket)," he said. Finally, he went under the knife. And now, Negaard is headed back to the NFR....
NEWS ROUNDUP
A Strategy to Restore Western Grasslands Meets With Local Resistance No cows remain on the federal lands set aside for grazing here above the Escalante River. At first glance, this would seem a boon to land and cow alike. The layered rockscape just west of this small town is immense, rolling from the river toward the sky. The grass is thin and dry. The soil, the same. How fat could a cow get? So, seven years ago an environmental group based in Arizona, the Grand Canyon Trust, began paying ranchers to give up their grazing rights when their herds, or bank accounts, had failed to thrive. By this fall, the trust had spent more than $1 million to end grazing on more than 400,000 acres. The deals seemed to suit all concerned, until a group of local officials decided that they were bad for the local economy and a threat to the ancestral tradition of living off the land. The group set out to end this latest, uncharacteristically civil chapter in the fraught history of cattlemen, environmentalists and dueling visions of the West's future. Michael E. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee who now is a Republican state representative from southern Utah, led the charge to roll back agreements the trust had forged. Mr. Noel said the loss of the grazing allotments would hurt ranching, which would in turn deprive the area's young people of the character-building chance to work on the land. "Yes, it's a free market to buy and sell," Mr. Noel said recently. "But if you buy it, you use it." By retiring the lands, he said, the trust is reneging on an implicit agreement, and "if we allow that to occur, we go down the path of eliminating all grazing on public lands."....
Questar, BLM differ over drilling plans An official from Questar Corp. said this week its proposal to increase gas development on the Pinedale Anticline this winter came at the behest of the Bureau of Land Management. Paul Matheny, vice president for the Rockies region for Questar, said several BLM field offices called the company, asking what could be done to produce more gas. "We said we had projects in Pinedale and in other places that we can't do during the winter because of restrictions of various kinds, and were it not for those restrictions we have a certain number of wells that we could complete in November or December," Matheny said. Matheny said the BLM was acting on instructions from the U.S. Department of Interior, hoping to avoid a gas shortage after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the gas-producing Gulf Coast. Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM in Cheyenne, said there is concern about a gas shortage and agreed there is a push from Washington for short-term natural gas supplies. But Hall said his agency did not ask for proposals from companies. "What we were doing was trying to find out if more capacity existed," he said. "It didn't include anything beyond that."....
U.S. under fire as climate conferees hash out plan to cut pollution The United States came under renewed criticism Tuesday as thousands of environmentalists and international officials hammered out rules for a global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. comments that it would resist any binding commitment to curb global warming by capping industrial emissions infuriated environmentalists, who accused Washington of trying to derail the U.N. Climate Change Conference. "When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International. More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations....
Education, watershed funding pushed at town hall They started with seven broad questions about watersheds — land areas that feed into single streams and rivers that New Mexico communities depend on for water. And in two intense days of fast-paced negotiating at New Mexico Highlands University that ended Tuesday, more than 100 ranchers, environmentalists, foresters, land managers and educators drafted recommendations for how to better manage the state’s watersheds. Among the recommendations: Develop a watershed-health curriculum for public schools. Include stable funding for watershed restoration in state agency budgets. Require local governments to consider watersheds in their land-use planning. The participants were part of a town-hall discussion on New Mexico’s watersheds and forests facilitated by the nonprofit New Mexico First and sponsored by the state Department of Agriculture , the new Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at Highlands and the state Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources....
Editorial: Haste makes waste Geologic time isn't supposed to refer to the speed at which Congress updates obsolete laws. But when it comes to the Mining Law of 1872, the description fits. Now, however, the House is trying to impose a nanosecond non-solution on that old law. The Senate needs to say, "Whoa." The House has tacked an ill-conceived rewrite of the law onto its budget reconciliation bill, a move that precluded the kind of meaningful discussion this issue deserves. The House rewrite lifts the ban on patenting land that was imposed by Congress in 1994 in an effort to stop the sale of public land at bargain-basement prices. Consider that the patenting provisions of the 133-year-old law allow miners to gain title to public land for as little as $2.50 an acre, and you'll see why a moratorium was necessary. Consider that the House's rewrite only ups that to market value or $1,000 an acre, but allows land to pass into private hands even if mining is not the intent, and you'll see why the Senate has to stop this....
Thirteen years of planning pays off in Soledad Canyon Thirteen years after trail enthusiasts began planning a trail head deep in Soledad Canyon on a spur of the Pacific Crest Trail, they gathered Wednesday to celebrate the finished product. The Indian Canyon Trail Head near Agua Dulce is the combined work of volunteers who ride horses, hike or ride off-road vehicles and officials with the U.S. Forest Service, the state and the county. "As you can well see, this is a service to everyone who uses the trail," said Barry Wetherby, secretary-treasurer of the nonprofit California Trail Users Coalition, which coordinated the $290,532 project. The trail head provides parking for horse trailers off Soledad Canyon Road as well as a parking lot for cars. There's a restroom, a picnic table that was installed moments before Wednesday's brief ceremony and a ramp to load off-highway vehicles. And it sits at the foot of one of the most scenic trails in the West, a 2,600-mile route that winds through forests, deserts and mountains from Mexico to Canada....
The Iron Climb A European-style rock climbing practice known as via ferrata now has a Utah angle in Waterfall Canyon east of this city. For novice climbers who don helmets, clip lanyards into a fixed metal cable and climb steel ladders straight up the side of a cliff, it is more like a stairway to heaven. With Chris Peterson providing the property and veteran Utah climber Jeff Lowe doing the designing, this via ferrata park - one of only three in North America - includes a practice wall and two, fixed 350-foot-high vertical routes that use permanent metal ladders and cables. The concept of the via ferrata, which translated to English means "iron roads," originated in the 1860s when people living in the Dolomite Mountains in Austria and Italy began installing fixed ropes and ladders to the top of prominent peaks, according to the Singing Rock climbing gear company....
Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery. Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years. "Imagine what a drought lasting that long would do to the resources and economy of the region today," says Dave Peterson of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and the University of Washington's College of Forest Resources. The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze'ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says....
Judge OKs more heli-skiing in Chugach An environmental lawsuit opposing expansion of helicopter skiing in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula mountains has been rejected by a federal judge, who ruled the U.S. Forest Service did an adequate job assessing the likely impacts of more helicopter flights on wildlife. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline, was hailed as a victory by Chugach Powder Guides, the Girdwood, Alaska, company that won permits last year to significantly expand its helicopter-assisted ski and snowboard operations in Chugach National Forest. Company owner Chris Owens said the extra territory was necessary to put together a viable deep-powder operation. The Moose Pass residents and national conservation organizations that opposed the expansion, first in environmental hearings and then in court, said they have not decided yet whether to appeal. The judge said federal environmental laws require the Forest Service to openly consider ways to protect wildlife but not to guarantee that no impacts will occur....
A Silver Lining for the Logging Road Montana is home to over 30,000 miles of active and decommissioned logging roads on national forest land. That’s enough road to wrap around the equator and still have 5,000 miles left over. Discussions are currently on the table regarding whether or not Montana needs new roads, after the Bush Administration overturned the Clinton-era ban on new road building in America’s national forests this year. Even if the state decides not to build new roads, the money to maintain those 30,000 miles of road simply isn’t in the budget. So, what’s a state to do? Closed roads provide lovely two-lane trails for mountain biking, skiing, or just plain hiking. They’re a place to get away from the hoards of people up the Rattlesnake and let your dog be a dog off his leash. Roads are also a chance for Off-Road-Vehicle (ORV) users to get up into God’s country with a four-stroke between their legs. Many roads are left in place and gated so the Forest Service can have access to these areas for logging in the future or to suppress wildfires. But not everyone sees logging roads in such a light. Whereas some see the roads around Montana as access, others see them as scars, while others see them as a burden that could be turned into opportunity....
Yellowstone delisting shifts recovery efforts north The focus on recovering grizzly bear populations is moving north. With the Yellowstone population of grizzlies on the verge of being removed from the federal threatened and endangered list, the folks charged with leading recovery efforts are looking to refocus on bears that call the northern Continental Divide ecosystem home. On Wednesday, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee heard about the challenges it and a growing team of biologists and researchers will face in duplicating the success story now occurring in the Yellowstone ecosystem. “The circumstances here are really quite different than they were in Yellowstone,” said Chris Smith of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Yellowstone population of grizzlies is the most studied population of bears in the world. An interagency team of researchers has published more than 178 studies on the population since 1974. That's not the situation in northwest Montana, Smith said....
Agencies eye future of grizzlies Chuck Bartlebaugh is worried that television's warm and fuzzy message about grizzly bears is creating a dangerous situation in the backcountry. He wants the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee to do more to spread the word about the proper way to act around the huge bruins. “The belief that we can interact with bears is stronger than ever,” said Bartlebaugh of the Missoula-based Center for Wildlife Information. “There's a misperception of what is and what isn't OK.” Bartlebaugh points to a recent television clip that gave people tips on how to let a grizzly lick their fingers. “Most of the 15 million viewers probably didn't know that is inappropriate,” he said....
Kane, Interior meet over signs Officials of the Interior Department and Kane County met for six hours Wednesday in an effort to end the standoff over the county's placement of its road signs on federal land in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Nothing was resolved, but negotiators for both sides say an agreement could be within grasp. They will meet again on Dec. 15. "I'm very encouraged," said Larry Jensen, the Interior Department's regional solicitor, following the meeting at the state Bureau of Land Management offices in downtown Salt Lake City. "The county has taken the initiative and put some proposals on the table that address both the near-term issues surrounding the signs and the overriding issues of who owns the roads."....
Teams gathering native seeds in Nevada Native Nevada plant seeds have attracted the attention of royalty under a preservation project between a federal agency and Great Britain. Seeds of Success is a parternership project in the Great Basin between the Bureau of Land Management and the Royal Botanic Garden in London. The U.S. portion is a branch of a large, global conservation effort called the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The worldwide project is identifying, collecting and storing plant material and native plant seeds in 16 countries. The seeds are needed for restoring and rehabilitating public lands and for meeting a long-term goal of conserving plant biodiversity. The overall goal is to collect seeds of 10 percent of the world's plants by 2010. Then, if an extended drought occurs or climate change causes some plants to become extinct, seeds will be ready to replant or reforest affected areas....
Endangered-plant lovers unite in effort to boost U.S. protection The kodachrome bladderpod and Hoover's spurge; the fleshy owl's clover and the four-petal pawpaw; the sensitive joint-vetch, the showy stickseed, Virginia sneezeweed and Michigan monkey-flower - the total spending for all of these at-risk plants is still less than the money spent on an endangered river clam called the fat pocketbook. It's not that easy being green. Plants make up more than half of the 1,290 plant and animal species on the federal endangered or threatened list. But animals get 97 percent of the money, according to the 2003 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expenditure report, which includes money spent by all federal and state agencies. Some call it zoo-chauvinism. Others call it plant blindness. Either way, the disparity irks the staff of the Center for Plant Conservation, a nonprofit organization at the Missouri Botanical Garden that banks rare seeds and reintroduces plants to former ranges....
Sales of hunting licenses rise for first time since fiscal 2000 The number of paid hunting license holders rose to 14.8 million for fiscal year 2004. That is up 0.4 percent from the 14.7 million holders in fiscal year 2003, according to recently released data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The increase was the first since fiscal year 2000. Over the past 10 years, the number of paid hunting license holders has declined 2.8 percent. For the 10-year period, the attrition for hunting license holders has not been as great as that of fishing license holders, which have declined by 6.1 percent....
Louisiana's Levee Inquiry Faults Army Corps The devastation of New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen because of a significant flaw in levee design by the Army Corps of Engineers, according to preliminary findings from the official Louisiana team investigating the Hurricane Katrina flooding. The findings are included in a draft report prepared by engineers on the team. They mirror the conclusion of many outside experts: that the levee that toppled at the 17th Street Canal was built with too little regard for the inherent weakness of the soil under the canal banks. Similar conditions, the experts say, existed at the sites of the two other major levee breaches in metropolitan New Orleans. "It should have been obvious," said the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, Ivor van Heerden, the leader of the investigative group, known as Team Louisiana. Billy R. Prochaska, an engineering consultant to the team, said, "That's our question: how could this be?" The puzzlement is especially acute, Mr. Prochaska said, because the levee design "was gone over by everyone" up and down the Corps of Engineers organization, from the local level to Washington, before the levees were upgraded with flood walls in the 1980's and 90's....
Column: God and Man in the Environmental Debate Based on his public writings, I would expect this scientist to be personable and humane. Nevertheless, in his private correspondence, he casually wishes for the deaths of many millions of his fellow human beings. If he were merely offering an eccentric, private opinion, I wouldn’t be writing about it. Unfortunately, his desire is all too common among some self-described “environmentalists.” Our wellbeing, on this view, doesn’t really enter into the calculation. We are, at best, an accident of cosmic history, and at worst, despoilers and destroyers. Adding more humans to the planet, then, is as bad as adding more parasites to an already ailing host. Again, this would be merely academic, except that such ideas have real world consequences. Every environmental policy implemented by government authority, for instance, stems from someone’s views about the nature of man and man’s place in nature. If those views are anti-human, the policy probably will be anti-human as well. Consider the ban on DDT in the 1970s. The ban, which in hindsight we know was misguided, has resulted in the deaths of more than a million people a year. The vast majority of these deaths have been among the poor in developing countries. Because environmental policies perpetuate certain notions about the human person, and because these notions have real world consequences, Christians have little choice but to engage the debate over the environment....
Can those city women handle our cowboys? Despite Willie's warning, quite a few Central Coast mamas have let their babies grow up to be cowboys. That's what Hollywood found this week when it put out a casting call for area cowboys to audition for an as-yet-unnamed reality television series. Producers managed to wrangle some 50 buckaroos, then culled that number down to five. According to Tribune reporter Leslie Griffy, the plot will revolve around our cowboys getting together with some female city slickers in search of love. We're not sure who will be roping whom, but we'll put our money on our Central Coast cowboys. But we wonder, is there really an audience for such a pairing? Salon.com writer Lily Burana thinks so: "Sophisticated women who are tired of neurotic, vain urban men often pine for a sensual, sensible, strong and loyal bad boy who will never say we're fat or dump us for a younger woman. That one man could be all those things is a long shot, but still, we hold the dream dear."....
Colorful cowboys bust mutton with best They call 6-year-old Chance Falk the Red, White and Blue Cowboy because he wears the colors of the flag every time he competes in a rodeo. Then there is his younger brother Chase, 5, that they call the Camouflage Cowboy because he wears camouflage from head to toe every time he competes in a rodeo. Whatever you call the two Kersey boys, one thing is for sure. These are two tough cowboys who know how to ride sheep. In fact, Chance is a champion in mutton bustin' after finishing first in the Mountain State Junior Bull Riders finals held Oct. 29-30 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden. He not only won the finals, but also won the year-end average title, bringing home two shiny belt buckles....
Two Wyoming steer wrestlers return to NFR in different ways At this time last year, Birch Negaard was in an unusual place -- home. The nine-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier wasn't headed to Las Vegas like he had done in steer wrestling so many times before. Instead, Negaard was cooped up inside his home near Sundance, healing up from a shoulder operation he had the previous August. Negaard had tried -- oh, how he tried -- to cowboy his way through the pain. "I tried for eight months to go with it, and it kept falling out (of socket)," he said. Finally, he went under the knife. And now, Negaard is headed back to the NFR....
GAO
Environmental Protection: More Complete Data and Continued Emphasis on Leak Prevention Could Improve EPA's Underground Storage Tank Program. GAO-06-45, November 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-45
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0645high.pdf
Chemical Regulation: Approaches in the United States, Canada, and the European Union. GAO-06-217R, November 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-217R
Environmental Protection: More Complete Data and Continued Emphasis on Leak Prevention Could Improve EPA's Underground Storage Tank Program. GAO-06-45, November 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-45
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0645high.pdf
Chemical Regulation: Approaches in the United States, Canada, and the European Union. GAO-06-217R, November 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-217R
NEWS ROUNDUP
Ranchers file suit over water rights A pair of ranching families near Durango have filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming public officials have failed in securing their right to water by allowing coal-bed methane drilling to deplete their water supply. The suit also seeks a state law making it illegal to waste water produced as a byproduct to the drilling process. When state officials estimate 36 acre-feet of water are produced daily by coal-bed methane wells statewide, that could mean big changes for the industry. During coal-bed methane operations, water is released from the tight coal seams in the earth, along with natural gas. “Basically, these wells are taking our water along with the gas,” said Lisa Sumi, research director for the Oil and Gas Accountability Project based in Durango. “By pulling out groundwater in the San Juan Basin, it’s taking water out of the surface waters because the water system is all connected.”....
US defends its efforts as climate talks begin The United States defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol yesterday, saying during the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most countries to protect the earth's atmosphere. The 10-day UN Climate Control Conference is considered the most important gathering on global warming since Kyoto, bringing together thousands of specialists from 180 nations to brainstorm on ways to slow the effects of greenhouses gases. Leading environmental groups spent the first hours of the conference blasting Washington for not signing the landmark 1997 agreement that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty, he takes global warming seriously and noted that US greenhouse gas emissions had gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush. Watson said the United States spends more than $5 billion a year on efforts to slow the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere by supporting climate change research and technology, and that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012....
Column: Wheelchairs and wilderness can coexist Sometimes, life can change dramatically in the blink of an eye. The biggest change in my life came seven years ago, when I was backcountry skiing in the Hoover Wilderness near Yosemite. I missed a turn on a steep icy slope and fell into a rocky gully. In that ugly tumble I crushed my spinal cord, and suddenly, I became a paraplegic. Every able-bodied person has probably wondered: What would I do if I lost the use of my legs? How would I get on with my life? My transition was anything but smooth. Besides the physical setbacks, I suffered bouts of depression, and my marriage disintegrated. One thing remained unchanged, however, and that was my love for the outdoors. As Americans, we share a long tradition of seeking solitude, peace -- and redemption -- in the wilderness. The spring following my accident, friends practically forced me to take a float down the Green River in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. I was skeptical beforehand, but I emerged from the river trip overjoyed to discover I could still camp out under the stars and enjoy the tranquility of wilderness. Wilderness helped me heal both physically and mentally; it helped me get my life back together....
Oregon congressmen have bluepring for Mount Hood U.S. Reps. Greg Walden and Earl Blumenauer are pursuing a plan that would put 75,000 new acres of Mount Hood wilderness permanently off limits to development while seeking to improve transportation options for those who use the mountain for recreation. The plan would also require the U.S. Forest Service to draft a 10-year plan to thin about 130,000 acres of the Mount Hood National Forest at high risk of wildfire. The 75,000 acres designated for protection are less than half the 177,000 acres of wilderness that Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, proposed in a bill that stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress last year. Walden, a Republican from Hood River, and Blumenauer, a Democrat from Portland, say their plan offers a better chance at success in a Congress that isn't anxious to grant new land protections....
Powder hounds say backcountry deal is crud An effort by powder hounds to gain greater access to slopes on the back of Aspen Mountain this winter has failed. The U.S. Forest Service rejected an application by a group called Powder to the People for a permit that would have allowed them to use snowmobiles for backcountry skiing on the Difficult Creek side of Richmond Ridge. Aspen District Ranger Bill Westbrook said in a letter detailing the decision that the agency doesn't want to issue permits to private clubs. The access issues that have bubbled up periodically over the last several decades will be addressed in a forest travel plan due out in 2006, Westbrook wrote....
Burns makes witness list for forest hearing Sen. Conrad Burns has announced a six-man witness list for a Senate hearing in Missoula on Friday. Burns, R-Mont., called the hearing because he said he has "several concerns" about how the U.S. Forest Service is revising forest plans for the national forests in Montana, northern Idaho and parts of the Dakotas. Those forests are all in Region One, which is headquartered in Missoula. Supporters of timber harvest and motorized recreation have been complaining about the direction in which the Forest Service is moving....
House budget sleeper splits the 9th Circuit A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal judges. Conservatives long have claimed that the Ninth Circuit is too liberal, and that reputation was reinforced by the court's 2002 ruling that reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. But legal observers say the outcome of such a split is likely to be a more liberal court making decisions for California, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and a more conservative court serving seven other Western states now part of the Ninth Circuit -- Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona....
Colorado River states brace for water cutbacks The shadow of growing demand and years of drought hangs over the Colorado River's 1,450 miles. That shadow may mean cuts to some or all of the river's users, including Nevada. The Bureau of Reclamation, which plays a key role in managing the river, is looking at the possibility that water allocations to the seven states along the Colorado will have to be reduced in three years. The second round of public comment on how to institute cuts will formally end Wednesday. Las Vegas and surrounding communities receive nearly all of their water for homes and businesses from the river. While other states and cities are not as dependent on the Colorado River as a single source, they still depend on the river water to support communities and agriculture. California alone has an annual allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet, more than 14 times what Nevada receives. The Silver State's take is just 300,000 acre-feet, all of which goes to Southern Nevada. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or typically enough for almost two Las Vegas families for a year. Cumulatively, the seven states that share the river take 16.5 million acre-feet....
EnCana reconsiders closing access in Roan area Pressured by hunters, a natural gas producer has backed off plans to end public access to 20,000 acres north of Parachute and use of a popular road to the Roan Plateau. EnCana Oil & Gas USA Inc. had planned to cut off the access to the so-called Girls Claims area and Cow Creek Road because of liability concerns. But it reconsidered after intervention by state Rep. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. Penry said he had received calls from constituents all over the Western Slope concerned about the possible loss of access to hunting and recreation grounds. He then had several conversations with EnCana, which agreed to keep access open next year, and to negotiate with him and the Colorado Division of Wildlife on a possible agreement for longer-term access....
Former BLM supervisor sentenced in embezzlement case A former Bureau of Land Management official was placed on three year's probation Tuesday and ordered to pay nearly $23,000 in restitution and fines for embezzlement. Robert E. Beehler, 57, of Hollister pleaded guilty in August to stealing at least $17,939 by using a government credit card and checks to make personal purchases and pay nongovernment expenses. He then submitted fake vouchers to try to make the expenses look legitimate, prosecutors said....
Proposed Las Vegas Airport Stirs Environmental Concerns Environmentalists fear that a new Las Vegas regional airport, within 15 miles of the Mojave National Preserve, would disrupt the tranquility of the remote desert parkland whose major attraction is its serenity. An environmental impact statement is being prepared for the Ivanpah Valley airport, proposed at a 5,800-acre site between Primm, Nev., at the Nevada-California state line, and Jean, Nev. It would supplement passenger service at the existing McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas, which will reach capacity in 2017, said McCarran spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez....
Lawsuit demands policing of off-roaders Conservation groups have complained in recent years that the National Park Service is doing a poor job of policing off-highway vehicle use in the parks. On Tuesday, three of them filed a lawsuit to force the agency to start doing something about it. The National Park Conservation Association, the Bluewater Network and Wildlands CPR filed a complaint in a Washington, D.C., federal district court that calls on the Park Service and Interior Department to begin complying with their own rules for enforcing and monitoring potentially damaging OHV use. Based on park managers' own reports, the environmental groups cite OHV-related damage to animal burrows in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, to archaeological sites in Grand Canyon National Park and to trails in Washington's Olympic National Park....
National parks strained by budget cuts, advocates say America faces a stiff challenge to prevent deterioration of its national parks because of tight budgets, park superintendents and conservationists say. Yosemite and other parks have slowed repairs on trails, roads and campgrounds, and reduced nature hikes because there are fewer rangers to lead them, park superintendents said Monday in a public hearing by a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee. Conservationists were grimmer in their assessment. "Each year the deterioration has significant impacts," said Gene Sykes, chairman of the National Park Conservation Association. Reduction in the number of rangers has put the public at risk by failing to stop drug cartels from planting booby-trapped marijuana farms in areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks east of Visalia, Sykes....
Zeroing Out the Messenger In a surgical strike from Capitol Hill, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) has eliminated a little-known agency that counts endangered fish in the Columbia River. The Fish Passage Center, with just 12 employees and a budget of $1.3 million, has been killed because it did not count fish in a way that suited Craig. "Data cloaked in advocacy create confusion," Craig said on the Senate floor this month, after successfully inserting language in an energy and water appropriations bill that bans all future funding for the Fish Passage Center. "False science leads people to false choices." Here in Portland, Michele DeHart, a fish biologist who is the longtime manager of the center, said she is not mad at Craig. "What's the point?" asked DeHart, 55, who for nearly 20 years has run the agency that keeps score on the survival of endangered salmon as they negotiate federal dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers....
Ranchers file suit over water rights A pair of ranching families near Durango have filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming public officials have failed in securing their right to water by allowing coal-bed methane drilling to deplete their water supply. The suit also seeks a state law making it illegal to waste water produced as a byproduct to the drilling process. When state officials estimate 36 acre-feet of water are produced daily by coal-bed methane wells statewide, that could mean big changes for the industry. During coal-bed methane operations, water is released from the tight coal seams in the earth, along with natural gas. “Basically, these wells are taking our water along with the gas,” said Lisa Sumi, research director for the Oil and Gas Accountability Project based in Durango. “By pulling out groundwater in the San Juan Basin, it’s taking water out of the surface waters because the water system is all connected.”....
US defends its efforts as climate talks begin The United States defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol yesterday, saying during the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most countries to protect the earth's atmosphere. The 10-day UN Climate Control Conference is considered the most important gathering on global warming since Kyoto, bringing together thousands of specialists from 180 nations to brainstorm on ways to slow the effects of greenhouses gases. Leading environmental groups spent the first hours of the conference blasting Washington for not signing the landmark 1997 agreement that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty, he takes global warming seriously and noted that US greenhouse gas emissions had gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush. Watson said the United States spends more than $5 billion a year on efforts to slow the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere by supporting climate change research and technology, and that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012....
Column: Wheelchairs and wilderness can coexist Sometimes, life can change dramatically in the blink of an eye. The biggest change in my life came seven years ago, when I was backcountry skiing in the Hoover Wilderness near Yosemite. I missed a turn on a steep icy slope and fell into a rocky gully. In that ugly tumble I crushed my spinal cord, and suddenly, I became a paraplegic. Every able-bodied person has probably wondered: What would I do if I lost the use of my legs? How would I get on with my life? My transition was anything but smooth. Besides the physical setbacks, I suffered bouts of depression, and my marriage disintegrated. One thing remained unchanged, however, and that was my love for the outdoors. As Americans, we share a long tradition of seeking solitude, peace -- and redemption -- in the wilderness. The spring following my accident, friends practically forced me to take a float down the Green River in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. I was skeptical beforehand, but I emerged from the river trip overjoyed to discover I could still camp out under the stars and enjoy the tranquility of wilderness. Wilderness helped me heal both physically and mentally; it helped me get my life back together....
Oregon congressmen have bluepring for Mount Hood U.S. Reps. Greg Walden and Earl Blumenauer are pursuing a plan that would put 75,000 new acres of Mount Hood wilderness permanently off limits to development while seeking to improve transportation options for those who use the mountain for recreation. The plan would also require the U.S. Forest Service to draft a 10-year plan to thin about 130,000 acres of the Mount Hood National Forest at high risk of wildfire. The 75,000 acres designated for protection are less than half the 177,000 acres of wilderness that Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, proposed in a bill that stalled in the Republican-controlled Congress last year. Walden, a Republican from Hood River, and Blumenauer, a Democrat from Portland, say their plan offers a better chance at success in a Congress that isn't anxious to grant new land protections....
Powder hounds say backcountry deal is crud An effort by powder hounds to gain greater access to slopes on the back of Aspen Mountain this winter has failed. The U.S. Forest Service rejected an application by a group called Powder to the People for a permit that would have allowed them to use snowmobiles for backcountry skiing on the Difficult Creek side of Richmond Ridge. Aspen District Ranger Bill Westbrook said in a letter detailing the decision that the agency doesn't want to issue permits to private clubs. The access issues that have bubbled up periodically over the last several decades will be addressed in a forest travel plan due out in 2006, Westbrook wrote....
Burns makes witness list for forest hearing Sen. Conrad Burns has announced a six-man witness list for a Senate hearing in Missoula on Friday. Burns, R-Mont., called the hearing because he said he has "several concerns" about how the U.S. Forest Service is revising forest plans for the national forests in Montana, northern Idaho and parts of the Dakotas. Those forests are all in Region One, which is headquartered in Missoula. Supporters of timber harvest and motorized recreation have been complaining about the direction in which the Forest Service is moving....
House budget sleeper splits the 9th Circuit A little-noticed provision in the massive House budget bill would fulfill the longtime goal of conservatives to split the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, creating a new 12th circuit appellate court and allowing President Bush to name a slate of new federal judges. Conservatives long have claimed that the Ninth Circuit is too liberal, and that reputation was reinforced by the court's 2002 ruling that reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. But legal observers say the outcome of such a split is likely to be a more liberal court making decisions for California, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and a more conservative court serving seven other Western states now part of the Ninth Circuit -- Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona....
Colorado River states brace for water cutbacks The shadow of growing demand and years of drought hangs over the Colorado River's 1,450 miles. That shadow may mean cuts to some or all of the river's users, including Nevada. The Bureau of Reclamation, which plays a key role in managing the river, is looking at the possibility that water allocations to the seven states along the Colorado will have to be reduced in three years. The second round of public comment on how to institute cuts will formally end Wednesday. Las Vegas and surrounding communities receive nearly all of their water for homes and businesses from the river. While other states and cities are not as dependent on the Colorado River as a single source, they still depend on the river water to support communities and agriculture. California alone has an annual allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet, more than 14 times what Nevada receives. The Silver State's take is just 300,000 acre-feet, all of which goes to Southern Nevada. One acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or typically enough for almost two Las Vegas families for a year. Cumulatively, the seven states that share the river take 16.5 million acre-feet....
EnCana reconsiders closing access in Roan area Pressured by hunters, a natural gas producer has backed off plans to end public access to 20,000 acres north of Parachute and use of a popular road to the Roan Plateau. EnCana Oil & Gas USA Inc. had planned to cut off the access to the so-called Girls Claims area and Cow Creek Road because of liability concerns. But it reconsidered after intervention by state Rep. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. Penry said he had received calls from constituents all over the Western Slope concerned about the possible loss of access to hunting and recreation grounds. He then had several conversations with EnCana, which agreed to keep access open next year, and to negotiate with him and the Colorado Division of Wildlife on a possible agreement for longer-term access....
Former BLM supervisor sentenced in embezzlement case A former Bureau of Land Management official was placed on three year's probation Tuesday and ordered to pay nearly $23,000 in restitution and fines for embezzlement. Robert E. Beehler, 57, of Hollister pleaded guilty in August to stealing at least $17,939 by using a government credit card and checks to make personal purchases and pay nongovernment expenses. He then submitted fake vouchers to try to make the expenses look legitimate, prosecutors said....
Proposed Las Vegas Airport Stirs Environmental Concerns Environmentalists fear that a new Las Vegas regional airport, within 15 miles of the Mojave National Preserve, would disrupt the tranquility of the remote desert parkland whose major attraction is its serenity. An environmental impact statement is being prepared for the Ivanpah Valley airport, proposed at a 5,800-acre site between Primm, Nev., at the Nevada-California state line, and Jean, Nev. It would supplement passenger service at the existing McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas, which will reach capacity in 2017, said McCarran spokeswoman Elaine Sanchez....
Lawsuit demands policing of off-roaders Conservation groups have complained in recent years that the National Park Service is doing a poor job of policing off-highway vehicle use in the parks. On Tuesday, three of them filed a lawsuit to force the agency to start doing something about it. The National Park Conservation Association, the Bluewater Network and Wildlands CPR filed a complaint in a Washington, D.C., federal district court that calls on the Park Service and Interior Department to begin complying with their own rules for enforcing and monitoring potentially damaging OHV use. Based on park managers' own reports, the environmental groups cite OHV-related damage to animal burrows in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, to archaeological sites in Grand Canyon National Park and to trails in Washington's Olympic National Park....
National parks strained by budget cuts, advocates say America faces a stiff challenge to prevent deterioration of its national parks because of tight budgets, park superintendents and conservationists say. Yosemite and other parks have slowed repairs on trails, roads and campgrounds, and reduced nature hikes because there are fewer rangers to lead them, park superintendents said Monday in a public hearing by a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee. Conservationists were grimmer in their assessment. "Each year the deterioration has significant impacts," said Gene Sykes, chairman of the National Park Conservation Association. Reduction in the number of rangers has put the public at risk by failing to stop drug cartels from planting booby-trapped marijuana farms in areas of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks east of Visalia, Sykes....
Zeroing Out the Messenger In a surgical strike from Capitol Hill, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) has eliminated a little-known agency that counts endangered fish in the Columbia River. The Fish Passage Center, with just 12 employees and a budget of $1.3 million, has been killed because it did not count fish in a way that suited Craig. "Data cloaked in advocacy create confusion," Craig said on the Senate floor this month, after successfully inserting language in an energy and water appropriations bill that bans all future funding for the Fish Passage Center. "False science leads people to false choices." Here in Portland, Michele DeHart, a fish biologist who is the longtime manager of the center, said she is not mad at Craig. "What's the point?" asked DeHart, 55, who for nearly 20 years has run the agency that keeps score on the survival of endangered salmon as they negotiate federal dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers....
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
FLE
The new guard
A historic change is underway within the ranks of California's park rangers, a shift that signals a new era for the stewards of the state's 1.5 million acres of forests, deserts and seashores. During a recent 20-month period, nearly 100 of the state's 50 rangers and lifeguards left the service. Some retired as a normal matter of course, and others hung up their Stetsons early, thanks to an extra-generous incentive package adopted by state lawmakers last year. On the way out are '70s-era rangers who entered the park system at the height of the environmental movement with their shoulder-length hair, mutton chops and packing World War II-era six-shooters. Replacing them are a new generation of rangers — highly trained cadets donning military-style buzz cuts, Kevlar vests and assault rifles — deployed with an explicit directive and the requisite training to combat the parks' growing crime problems. The transition is, in part, a reaction to changing times. Rangers who once confronted drunk drivers, boisterous teens and petty thieves now face armed pot growers, street gangs and methamphetamine addicts. The job is increasingly a balancing act as rangers try to remain educators and naturalists while enforcing the law. Gary Watts and Danny Duarte are two rangers trying to find that balance....
Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant. Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats. "This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said. The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security. Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target. Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations. "People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."....
CDC Proposal Would Help U.S. Track Travelers
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a phone-book-thick proposed rule yesterday that would give the federal government new powers to track the comings and goings of individual travelers and expand the circumstances under which passengers exposed to a serious communicable disease could be isolated or quarantined. The proposed changes are the latest in a series of preparatory moves aimed at solidifying federal health officials' legal authority to take actions aimed at slowing the spread of emerging contagious diseases, such as pandemic flu. The new provisions -- the costs of which would fall mostly on the travel industry -- call for greater scrutiny of passengers for signs of illness and greater efforts by airlines and others to obtain personal contact information from travelers. They also broaden the list of symptoms that would make people subject to quarantine. Although the rules strengthen federal authority to isolate passengers suspected of being infected, they also spell out in unprecedented detail key legal rights, including appeals processes, for citizens. The agency will accept public comment for 60 days before issuing a final regulation. Officials said they are confident that the vast majority of Americans will support the changes so the government could better protect them from a major outbreak -- whether naturally occurring or from a bioterrorism attack. He added that although travelers would be asked to provide more personal information -- including phone numbers and e-mail addresses -- the goal is simply to be able to contact people if it becomes apparent they sat near an infected person while traveling. "There are some very rigorous standards of privacy with which this information will be treated," Cetron said....
Crooks covet justice databases
Adrian Minnis ran a heroin distribution ring that was violent and tightly knit, making it difficult for informers to penetrate it, federal authorities say. The gang also had a secret weapon: It cultivated a police officer to dig into a law enforcement database to figure out which of its customers might be undercover informers, according to an indictment filed against Minnis and 20 other alleged ring members. There is no indication the officer actually identified an informer, or that his prying into the REJIS database led to anyone being hurt. Yet the accusation against St. Louis police Officer Antoine Gordon, who has since resigned, suggests that crime rings can target REJIS or other databases to insulate themselves against investigations. "A police officer's participation in a drug conspiracy heightens the risk to civilians and other law enforcement officers," then-U.S. Attorney Jim Martin said at the time of Gordon's indictment in February. "Such conduct is inexcusable." The widely used REJIS system, formally known as the Regional Justice Information Service, was launched in the mid-1970s for sharing information between St. Louis and St. Louis County. It evolved to include some 200 organizations, in Missouri and Illinois. Most are police departments, but others include prosecutors, courts and correctional agencies....
Gitmo detainees and the courts
The self-styled "world's greatest deliberative body," the U.S. Senate, voted 84 to 14 on Nov. 15 on an "improved" Sen. Lindsey Graham amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill that prevents prisoners at Guantanamo from filing habeas corpus petitions to our federal courts regarding their conditions of confinement. This includes complaints of abuses and alleged torture from "enhanced" interrogations. In its present form, this Graham amendment was co-sponsored by Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, and Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican. Yet, the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul et al v. Bush (2004) that Guantanamo detainees do have due process rights to challenge, under habeas corpus, the legality of their imprisonment. That decision led to lawyers going to Guantanamo Bay, telling us what's going on and then filing habeas corpus petitions in federal district courts in Washington. The Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment cuts off that judicial route except in a very limited form that does not include the actual conditions under which the prisoners are being held. On Nov. 10, the Senate had passed the original Graham amendment, which went much further to undercut the 2004 Supreme Court ruling. That amendment stripped all federal courts, including the Supreme Court itself, from considering habeas corpus petitions or any other "aspect of the detention" of these detainees, except in the very narrow question of whether the Defense Department's status review boards there were following their own rules. But "enhanced" interrogation techniques would continue. And by now, the world is all well aware of how "enhanced" these techniques can be. There was a strong backlash to the original Graham amendment from civil-liberties and human-rights organizations, and conservative libertarians. The objectors pointed out that this suspension of habeas corpus -- "the Great Writ" that has roots in the 13th-century Magna Carta -- had been passed after only an hour's debate, and without any previous committee hearings. Mr. Graham had swiftly persuaded a majority of his colleagues to give habeas corpus much less consideration than a funding bill for highways....
FBI peers criticize discipline of agent
FBI agent Richard B. Marx spent a year atop 1.8 million tons of debris from the World Trade Center towers, searching for September 11 evidence at the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, N.Y. For his devotion to the grungy job, he earned the gratitude of victims' families, the respect of his peers, a nomination as the federal employee of the year -- and a 10-day suspension and letter of reprimand from his superiors. The reprimand bars him from a major part of his job -- collecting evidence for use in court. The FBI suspended Mr. Marx after the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General said he "lacked candor" in answering questions during an investigation into whether agents took evidence from the Fresh Kills site as souvenirs. Evidence that the inspector general thought was missing, which led to the inquiry, turned out to have been sent to museums nationwide and to FBI headquarters in Washington, all on orders of Congress. The disciplining of Mr. Marx has outraged many rank-and-file agents, and several current and former high-ranking FBI officials have demanded a criminal investigation into what they say was an "unprofessional and unethical" Justice Department investigation....
Proposition H: Mythology Instead of Criminology
San Francisco voters recently enacted Proposition H which confiscates all handguns and bans purchasing of all guns. Unfortunately this is based on the unfounded belief that the more guns in an area the more violence will occur. If that were true, the United States, with 280 million guns today, should have a far higher murder rate than after WWII when we had only 48 million guns. Instead, the murder rate is the same. During the intervening decades, murder rates varied dramatically—but not because of rising gun ownership. In the last 30 years the number of guns owned by civilians more than doubled, yet murder declined by one third. Accepting the mythology that guns cause murder, areas with high violence rates ban guns. But violence stems from basic social factors, not the mere availability of one among the innumerable deadly instruments in the world. In a study published last December, the National Academy of Sciences, having reviewed 43 government publications, 253 journal articles, 99 books, and its own research, could not identify even one example of gun control that reduced murder or violent crime. Drastically increasing homicide led Washington, D.C., to ban handguns in the 1970s. So useless was this that D.C. soon had (and continues to have) some of the nation’s highest murder rates. Anti-gun advocacy is built on decades of erroneous claims that the United States, with the world's highest gun ownership rate (true), has the highest murder rate (false). Russia’s recently disclosed murder rates since 1965 have consistently exceeded U.S. rates despite Russia’ ban of handguns and strict control of long guns. Since the 1990s Russian murder rates have remained almost four times greater than American. Anti-gun advocates used to compare the United States to England, Canada and Australia, nations specially selected because they once combined low violence rates with severe gun controls. But gun controls and initially low violence rates did not prevent their violent crime rates from steadily outpacing ours in recent decades. Although these nations banned and confiscated hundreds of thousands of guns in the 1990s, today their violence rates are among the highest in the world—more than twice ours....
Girls, Get Your Guns
When the authorities in New Orleans systematically confiscated lawfully owned firearms, many commentators protested against leaving residents defenseless. They echoed Dave Kopel, Research Director of the Independence Institute, who declared in Reason Magazine: "To the extent that any homes or businesses were saved, the saviors were the many good citizens of New Orleans who defended their families, homes, and businesses with their own firearms." Now those same good citizens were deprived of self-protection. New Orleans may be one reason that Gallup's annual Crime Poll, released in mid-October, revealed that people's confidence in their local police to protect them from violent crime fell from 61percent last year to 53 percent this year, which is a 10-year low. Whatever the cause, a grassroots movement toward self-protection is quietly growing; in short, people are arming themselves. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, some 60.4 million firearm transactions were approved between 1994 and 2004. According to the National Rifle Association, a gun advocacy group: "The number of NICS checks for firearm purchases or permits increased 3.2 percent between 2003-2004." The personal trend is paralleled by a political one. The number of "Right-to-Carry" States has risen from 10 in 1987 to 38 currently. Generally speaking, the term 'right-to-carry' refers to the right of responsible people to carry a concealed weapon. Packing.org provides a good overview of the differences between states. Pro-gun women have gradually become more prominent in both the personal and public arenas, though the evidence is largely anecdotal. Statistics on this trend are difficult to locate and confusing; they have become a source of controversy in-and-of themselves, as gun control advocates argue that claims of female gun ownership are often inflated. Organizations dedicated to female gun ownership are spreading from well-established organizations like Second Amendment Sisters and Women and Guns to relatively new ones like Mother's Arms, which urges mothers to protect their children with armed force if necessary....
The new guard
A historic change is underway within the ranks of California's park rangers, a shift that signals a new era for the stewards of the state's 1.5 million acres of forests, deserts and seashores. During a recent 20-month period, nearly 100 of the state's 50 rangers and lifeguards left the service. Some retired as a normal matter of course, and others hung up their Stetsons early, thanks to an extra-generous incentive package adopted by state lawmakers last year. On the way out are '70s-era rangers who entered the park system at the height of the environmental movement with their shoulder-length hair, mutton chops and packing World War II-era six-shooters. Replacing them are a new generation of rangers — highly trained cadets donning military-style buzz cuts, Kevlar vests and assault rifles — deployed with an explicit directive and the requisite training to combat the parks' growing crime problems. The transition is, in part, a reaction to changing times. Rangers who once confronted drunk drivers, boisterous teens and petty thieves now face armed pot growers, street gangs and methamphetamine addicts. The job is increasingly a balancing act as rangers try to remain educators and naturalists while enforcing the law. Gary Watts and Danny Duarte are two rangers trying to find that balance....
Miami Police Take New Tack Against Terror
Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant. Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats. "This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there," Fernandez said. The operations will keep terrorists off guard, Fernandez said. He said al-Qaida and other terrorist groups plot attacks by putting places under surveillance and watching for flaws and patterns in security. Police Chief John Timoney said there was no specific, credible threat of an imminent terror attack in Miami. But he said the city has repeatedly been mentioned in intelligence reports as a potential target. Both uniformed and plainclothes police will ride buses and trains, while others will conduct longer-term surveillance operations. "People are definitely going to notice it," Fernandez said. "We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears."....
CDC Proposal Would Help U.S. Track Travelers
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a phone-book-thick proposed rule yesterday that would give the federal government new powers to track the comings and goings of individual travelers and expand the circumstances under which passengers exposed to a serious communicable disease could be isolated or quarantined. The proposed changes are the latest in a series of preparatory moves aimed at solidifying federal health officials' legal authority to take actions aimed at slowing the spread of emerging contagious diseases, such as pandemic flu. The new provisions -- the costs of which would fall mostly on the travel industry -- call for greater scrutiny of passengers for signs of illness and greater efforts by airlines and others to obtain personal contact information from travelers. They also broaden the list of symptoms that would make people subject to quarantine. Although the rules strengthen federal authority to isolate passengers suspected of being infected, they also spell out in unprecedented detail key legal rights, including appeals processes, for citizens. The agency will accept public comment for 60 days before issuing a final regulation. Officials said they are confident that the vast majority of Americans will support the changes so the government could better protect them from a major outbreak -- whether naturally occurring or from a bioterrorism attack. He added that although travelers would be asked to provide more personal information -- including phone numbers and e-mail addresses -- the goal is simply to be able to contact people if it becomes apparent they sat near an infected person while traveling. "There are some very rigorous standards of privacy with which this information will be treated," Cetron said....
Crooks covet justice databases
Adrian Minnis ran a heroin distribution ring that was violent and tightly knit, making it difficult for informers to penetrate it, federal authorities say. The gang also had a secret weapon: It cultivated a police officer to dig into a law enforcement database to figure out which of its customers might be undercover informers, according to an indictment filed against Minnis and 20 other alleged ring members. There is no indication the officer actually identified an informer, or that his prying into the REJIS database led to anyone being hurt. Yet the accusation against St. Louis police Officer Antoine Gordon, who has since resigned, suggests that crime rings can target REJIS or other databases to insulate themselves against investigations. "A police officer's participation in a drug conspiracy heightens the risk to civilians and other law enforcement officers," then-U.S. Attorney Jim Martin said at the time of Gordon's indictment in February. "Such conduct is inexcusable." The widely used REJIS system, formally known as the Regional Justice Information Service, was launched in the mid-1970s for sharing information between St. Louis and St. Louis County. It evolved to include some 200 organizations, in Missouri and Illinois. Most are police departments, but others include prosecutors, courts and correctional agencies....
Gitmo detainees and the courts
The self-styled "world's greatest deliberative body," the U.S. Senate, voted 84 to 14 on Nov. 15 on an "improved" Sen. Lindsey Graham amendment to the Defense Department authorization bill that prevents prisoners at Guantanamo from filing habeas corpus petitions to our federal courts regarding their conditions of confinement. This includes complaints of abuses and alleged torture from "enhanced" interrogations. In its present form, this Graham amendment was co-sponsored by Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, and Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican. Yet, the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul et al v. Bush (2004) that Guantanamo detainees do have due process rights to challenge, under habeas corpus, the legality of their imprisonment. That decision led to lawyers going to Guantanamo Bay, telling us what's going on and then filing habeas corpus petitions in federal district courts in Washington. The Graham-Levin-Kyl amendment cuts off that judicial route except in a very limited form that does not include the actual conditions under which the prisoners are being held. On Nov. 10, the Senate had passed the original Graham amendment, which went much further to undercut the 2004 Supreme Court ruling. That amendment stripped all federal courts, including the Supreme Court itself, from considering habeas corpus petitions or any other "aspect of the detention" of these detainees, except in the very narrow question of whether the Defense Department's status review boards there were following their own rules. But "enhanced" interrogation techniques would continue. And by now, the world is all well aware of how "enhanced" these techniques can be. There was a strong backlash to the original Graham amendment from civil-liberties and human-rights organizations, and conservative libertarians. The objectors pointed out that this suspension of habeas corpus -- "the Great Writ" that has roots in the 13th-century Magna Carta -- had been passed after only an hour's debate, and without any previous committee hearings. Mr. Graham had swiftly persuaded a majority of his colleagues to give habeas corpus much less consideration than a funding bill for highways....
FBI peers criticize discipline of agent
FBI agent Richard B. Marx spent a year atop 1.8 million tons of debris from the World Trade Center towers, searching for September 11 evidence at the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, N.Y. For his devotion to the grungy job, he earned the gratitude of victims' families, the respect of his peers, a nomination as the federal employee of the year -- and a 10-day suspension and letter of reprimand from his superiors. The reprimand bars him from a major part of his job -- collecting evidence for use in court. The FBI suspended Mr. Marx after the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General said he "lacked candor" in answering questions during an investigation into whether agents took evidence from the Fresh Kills site as souvenirs. Evidence that the inspector general thought was missing, which led to the inquiry, turned out to have been sent to museums nationwide and to FBI headquarters in Washington, all on orders of Congress. The disciplining of Mr. Marx has outraged many rank-and-file agents, and several current and former high-ranking FBI officials have demanded a criminal investigation into what they say was an "unprofessional and unethical" Justice Department investigation....
Proposition H: Mythology Instead of Criminology
San Francisco voters recently enacted Proposition H which confiscates all handguns and bans purchasing of all guns. Unfortunately this is based on the unfounded belief that the more guns in an area the more violence will occur. If that were true, the United States, with 280 million guns today, should have a far higher murder rate than after WWII when we had only 48 million guns. Instead, the murder rate is the same. During the intervening decades, murder rates varied dramatically—but not because of rising gun ownership. In the last 30 years the number of guns owned by civilians more than doubled, yet murder declined by one third. Accepting the mythology that guns cause murder, areas with high violence rates ban guns. But violence stems from basic social factors, not the mere availability of one among the innumerable deadly instruments in the world. In a study published last December, the National Academy of Sciences, having reviewed 43 government publications, 253 journal articles, 99 books, and its own research, could not identify even one example of gun control that reduced murder or violent crime. Drastically increasing homicide led Washington, D.C., to ban handguns in the 1970s. So useless was this that D.C. soon had (and continues to have) some of the nation’s highest murder rates. Anti-gun advocacy is built on decades of erroneous claims that the United States, with the world's highest gun ownership rate (true), has the highest murder rate (false). Russia’s recently disclosed murder rates since 1965 have consistently exceeded U.S. rates despite Russia’ ban of handguns and strict control of long guns. Since the 1990s Russian murder rates have remained almost four times greater than American. Anti-gun advocates used to compare the United States to England, Canada and Australia, nations specially selected because they once combined low violence rates with severe gun controls. But gun controls and initially low violence rates did not prevent their violent crime rates from steadily outpacing ours in recent decades. Although these nations banned and confiscated hundreds of thousands of guns in the 1990s, today their violence rates are among the highest in the world—more than twice ours....
Girls, Get Your Guns
When the authorities in New Orleans systematically confiscated lawfully owned firearms, many commentators protested against leaving residents defenseless. They echoed Dave Kopel, Research Director of the Independence Institute, who declared in Reason Magazine: "To the extent that any homes or businesses were saved, the saviors were the many good citizens of New Orleans who defended their families, homes, and businesses with their own firearms." Now those same good citizens were deprived of self-protection. New Orleans may be one reason that Gallup's annual Crime Poll, released in mid-October, revealed that people's confidence in their local police to protect them from violent crime fell from 61percent last year to 53 percent this year, which is a 10-year low. Whatever the cause, a grassroots movement toward self-protection is quietly growing; in short, people are arming themselves. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, some 60.4 million firearm transactions were approved between 1994 and 2004. According to the National Rifle Association, a gun advocacy group: "The number of NICS checks for firearm purchases or permits increased 3.2 percent between 2003-2004." The personal trend is paralleled by a political one. The number of "Right-to-Carry" States has risen from 10 in 1987 to 38 currently. Generally speaking, the term 'right-to-carry' refers to the right of responsible people to carry a concealed weapon. Packing.org provides a good overview of the differences between states. Pro-gun women have gradually become more prominent in both the personal and public arenas, though the evidence is largely anecdotal. Statistics on this trend are difficult to locate and confusing; they have become a source of controversy in-and-of themselves, as gun control advocates argue that claims of female gun ownership are often inflated. Organizations dedicated to female gun ownership are spreading from well-established organizations like Second Amendment Sisters and Women and Guns to relatively new ones like Mother's Arms, which urges mothers to protect their children with armed force if necessary....
DANIEL MARTINEZ---USFS
For background and previous posts on this issue go here, here, here, here and here.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF GREENLEE
DATE: NOVEMBER 28, 2005
JUDGE: Monica L. Stauffer CLERK: Cheryl Bowen
_________________________
Case No. CV2005-030 Petition for Emergency Permanent Injunction
DANIEL G. MARTINEZ
Petitioner
v.
Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham,
Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis,
Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth
and their accomplices individually,
jointly and severally
Respondent(s)
_________________________
Dear Honorable Court:
This petition is emergency in nature because the impoundment of Petitioner’s cattle is causing Petitioner irreparable harm. The taking of Petitioner’s cattle is unlawful as set forth in Petitioner’s Affidavit attached and fully incorporated herein by reference thereto as “Affiadavit”. The Respondents have notified the undersigned that Respondents are going to sell Petitioner’s cattle in Clayton, New Mexico on November 23, 2005 at 11:00am, (Letter and Notice attached). To the best of Petitioner’s knowledge Petitioner’s cattle are still in Respondents’ possession. If this emergency injunction is not granted Petitioner will suffer irreparable harm and damage if the cattle are sold as the cattle are going to be scattered all over the country and Petitioner will never be able to recover them. Petitioner will be put to unnecessary hardship and expense and will damage Petitioner in a manner that cannot be adequately compensated by money alone in that Petitioner will never be able to recover the time that those cattle have been out of Petitioner’s possession and control nor will Petitioner recover the time and effort it will take to locate and attempt to retrieve the cattle.
It is unlikely that Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices will prevail on the merits of this petition as the Respondents took the cattle without a warrant, court order or opportunity to defend given to the undersigned before the cattle were taken, the taking is unlawful as set forth in the “Affidavit”, and constitutes a taking of Petitioner’s “property” as described in the “Affidavit” without due process or just compensation.
Petitioner requests a permanent injunction against Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices/employees from selling or transferring the undersigned’s cattle and from entering the undersigned’s property without a warrant or court order or the written permission of the undersigned.
Petitioner further requests that the Court issue an Order to the appropriate law enforcement official to immediately seize and take possession of the cattle and restore them to Petitioner’s possession, or in the alternative order Respondents to immediately and forthwith return the cattle to Petitioner. Petitioner is not an attorney nor highly trained in the law and requests any superficial imperfections of this petition be excused. Petitioner reserves the right to amend this petition as needed.
Wherefore for the good cause show in this Petition and “Affidavit”, I Daniel Gabino Martinez Petitioner herein moves this court to issue this emergency permanent injunction to prevent any further irreparable damage to Petitioner.
__________________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF PETITION
FOR EMERGENCY PERMANENT INJUNCTION
Santa Fe County )
) ss:
New Mexico )
BEFORE ME________________________, THE UNDERSIGNED AUTHORITY, A NOTARY PUBLIC in and for the State of New Mexico, appeared Affiant, Daniel Gabino Martinez being upon oath administered by me, and having personal knowledge of the facts herein, affirms the following to be true, correct, and certain under penalty of perjury in accordance with the laws of the State of New Mexico that;
1. I, Daniel Gabino Martinez, Affiant herein whose current address is 585 Camino Montebello, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 state that I am of legal age, competent to testify, have personal first hand knowledge and believe that the truths and facts herein are true, correct, complete, certain, not misleading. Affiant declares the facts set forth in the attached Petition for Emergency Injunction are true, correct, complete certain, and not misleading.
2. The term “Respondent(s)” means Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices and any and all persons involved with the seizure of Affiant’s cattle whether their names are know to Affiant or not. The acts described herein occurred in the county of Greenlee, Arizona.
3. On or about January 22, 2004 Affiant purchased property for valuable consideration partially consisting of vested rights. Upon reason and belief the United States received valuable consideration for the property at the time of the original sale and the rights were granted by the United States Congress in 1866. Since that time the rights have passed in chain of title and vested in Affiant as a good-faith purchaser. The rights are property (hereinafter “property”) and the “property” is described in the deed recorded in the Greenlee county recorder’s office at, 2004-0059 and 2004-0129.
4. On or about March 15, 2004 Affiant purchased all livestock bearing the 07 brand recorded in the Greenlee County recorder’s office at 2004-00235 and all livestock bearing the Triangle A brand recorded in the Greenlee County recorder’s office at 2004-00234. hereinafter “chattels”.
5. On or about October 22, 2005 at approximately 8:00 AM PST in Greenlee County Arizona while under force of arms "Respondent(s)" entered Affiant’s “property” without Affiant’s consent, without a warrant, and without a court order. Respondent(s) erected structures, fences, and water tanks. Affiant told "Respondent(s)" they were trespassing on Affiant”s “property” and asked "Respondent(s)" to leave, "Respondent(s)" refused to leave and remained on the “property”.
6. "Respondent(s)" took Affiant’s “chattels” approximately 300 (three hundred) head of Affiant’s cattle bearing the 07 brand, a brand registered with the state of Arizona. The foregoing acts were committed by "Respondent(s)" without a court order, without a warrant, and without notice and opportunity to defend against the seizure given to Affiant.
7. The stolen “chattels” are worth in excess of $250,000.00, Affiant has not been compensated for the “property” or “chattels” and the acts described herein are against the peace, dignity, and commercial prosperity of the people of Arizona. Affiant is not an employee of the United States.
Further Affiant Saith Naught.
As Victim, Witness, and Non-attorney
________________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
Before me_________________________________ a Notary Public in and for Santa Fe County, New Mexico; appeared Daniel Gabino Martinez known and made known to me and did affirm the truth of the facts herein stated and placed his signature on this document on this the 28th day of November (2005) two thousand and five.
My commission expires: __________________________________
Notary Public
November 29, 2005
Matt Wing EXPRESS MAIL#EQ 196764067 US
Cattleman’s Livestock Commission Co.
P.O> Box 58
Dalhart, Texas 79022
(806) 249-5505
(806) 249-4800 FAX
(806) 244-2522
Dear Matt Wing:
It has come to my attention that you have in your possession cattle from Arizona branded with 07 on the left hip. There is NO COURT ORDER OR WARRANT on these cattle. These cattle were unlawfully, impounded and transported out of the state of Arizona without my consent and without proper authority. This is a direct violation of Arizona Statutes. If these cattle were unloaded at Clayton, New Mexico, New Mexico needed to inspect these cattle and they cannot do so without the consent of the owner. These cattle are stolen. The United States Forest Service does not own those cattle; they don’t even own a BRAND!!!
Any sale of these cattle without a Warrant or Court Order would constitute theft and sale of stolen property. You have a responsibility to your buyers to make sure they receive cattle with no problems on the title. Enclosed for your reference is proof of ownership of these cattle, a copy of a temporary restraining order, a copy of the lien on these cattle and a copy of the petition for emergency permanent injunction to the Superior Court of the State of Arizona.
It is unlikely the USFS will prevail on the merits of this petition as the USFS took the cattle without a warrant, court order or opportunity to defend given to
Daniel Gabino Martinez the owner of the cattle.
I respectfully request that you refrain from participating in this unlawful activity and refrain from selling or consigning these stolen cattle.
Sincerely,
_______________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
For background and previous posts on this issue go here, here, here, here and here.
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA
IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF GREENLEE
DATE: NOVEMBER 28, 2005
JUDGE: Monica L. Stauffer CLERK: Cheryl Bowen
_________________________
Case No. CV2005-030 Petition for Emergency Permanent Injunction
DANIEL G. MARTINEZ
Petitioner
v.
Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham,
Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis,
Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth
and their accomplices individually,
jointly and severally
Respondent(s)
_________________________
Dear Honorable Court:
This petition is emergency in nature because the impoundment of Petitioner’s cattle is causing Petitioner irreparable harm. The taking of Petitioner’s cattle is unlawful as set forth in Petitioner’s Affidavit attached and fully incorporated herein by reference thereto as “Affiadavit”. The Respondents have notified the undersigned that Respondents are going to sell Petitioner’s cattle in Clayton, New Mexico on November 23, 2005 at 11:00am, (Letter and Notice attached). To the best of Petitioner’s knowledge Petitioner’s cattle are still in Respondents’ possession. If this emergency injunction is not granted Petitioner will suffer irreparable harm and damage if the cattle are sold as the cattle are going to be scattered all over the country and Petitioner will never be able to recover them. Petitioner will be put to unnecessary hardship and expense and will damage Petitioner in a manner that cannot be adequately compensated by money alone in that Petitioner will never be able to recover the time that those cattle have been out of Petitioner’s possession and control nor will Petitioner recover the time and effort it will take to locate and attempt to retrieve the cattle.
It is unlikely that Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices will prevail on the merits of this petition as the Respondents took the cattle without a warrant, court order or opportunity to defend given to the undersigned before the cattle were taken, the taking is unlawful as set forth in the “Affidavit”, and constitutes a taking of Petitioner’s “property” as described in the “Affidavit” without due process or just compensation.
Petitioner requests a permanent injunction against Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices/employees from selling or transferring the undersigned’s cattle and from entering the undersigned’s property without a warrant or court order or the written permission of the undersigned.
Petitioner further requests that the Court issue an Order to the appropriate law enforcement official to immediately seize and take possession of the cattle and restore them to Petitioner’s possession, or in the alternative order Respondents to immediately and forthwith return the cattle to Petitioner. Petitioner is not an attorney nor highly trained in the law and requests any superficial imperfections of this petition be excused. Petitioner reserves the right to amend this petition as needed.
Wherefore for the good cause show in this Petition and “Affidavit”, I Daniel Gabino Martinez Petitioner herein moves this court to issue this emergency permanent injunction to prevent any further irreparable damage to Petitioner.
__________________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF PETITION
FOR EMERGENCY PERMANENT INJUNCTION
Santa Fe County )
) ss:
New Mexico )
BEFORE ME________________________, THE UNDERSIGNED AUTHORITY, A NOTARY PUBLIC in and for the State of New Mexico, appeared Affiant, Daniel Gabino Martinez being upon oath administered by me, and having personal knowledge of the facts herein, affirms the following to be true, correct, and certain under penalty of perjury in accordance with the laws of the State of New Mexico that;
1. I, Daniel Gabino Martinez, Affiant herein whose current address is 585 Camino Montebello, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 state that I am of legal age, competent to testify, have personal first hand knowledge and believe that the truths and facts herein are true, correct, complete, certain, not misleading. Affiant declares the facts set forth in the attached Petition for Emergency Injunction are true, correct, complete certain, and not misleading.
2. The term “Respondent(s)” means Frank Hayes, Daryl Bingham, Aaron Baldrige, Kent Ellis, Tom Palmer, Elaine Zieroth or their accomplices and any and all persons involved with the seizure of Affiant’s cattle whether their names are know to Affiant or not. The acts described herein occurred in the county of Greenlee, Arizona.
3. On or about January 22, 2004 Affiant purchased property for valuable consideration partially consisting of vested rights. Upon reason and belief the United States received valuable consideration for the property at the time of the original sale and the rights were granted by the United States Congress in 1866. Since that time the rights have passed in chain of title and vested in Affiant as a good-faith purchaser. The rights are property (hereinafter “property”) and the “property” is described in the deed recorded in the Greenlee county recorder’s office at, 2004-0059 and 2004-0129.
4. On or about March 15, 2004 Affiant purchased all livestock bearing the 07 brand recorded in the Greenlee County recorder’s office at 2004-00235 and all livestock bearing the Triangle A brand recorded in the Greenlee County recorder’s office at 2004-00234. hereinafter “chattels”.
5. On or about October 22, 2005 at approximately 8:00 AM PST in Greenlee County Arizona while under force of arms "Respondent(s)" entered Affiant’s “property” without Affiant’s consent, without a warrant, and without a court order. Respondent(s) erected structures, fences, and water tanks. Affiant told "Respondent(s)" they were trespassing on Affiant”s “property” and asked "Respondent(s)" to leave, "Respondent(s)" refused to leave and remained on the “property”.
6. "Respondent(s)" took Affiant’s “chattels” approximately 300 (three hundred) head of Affiant’s cattle bearing the 07 brand, a brand registered with the state of Arizona. The foregoing acts were committed by "Respondent(s)" without a court order, without a warrant, and without notice and opportunity to defend against the seizure given to Affiant.
7. The stolen “chattels” are worth in excess of $250,000.00, Affiant has not been compensated for the “property” or “chattels” and the acts described herein are against the peace, dignity, and commercial prosperity of the people of Arizona. Affiant is not an employee of the United States.
Further Affiant Saith Naught.
As Victim, Witness, and Non-attorney
________________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
Before me_________________________________ a Notary Public in and for Santa Fe County, New Mexico; appeared Daniel Gabino Martinez known and made known to me and did affirm the truth of the facts herein stated and placed his signature on this document on this the 28th day of November (2005) two thousand and five.
My commission expires: __________________________________
Notary Public
November 29, 2005
Matt Wing EXPRESS MAIL#EQ 196764067 US
Cattleman’s Livestock Commission Co.
P.O> Box 58
Dalhart, Texas 79022
(806) 249-5505
(806) 249-4800 FAX
(806) 244-2522
Dear Matt Wing:
It has come to my attention that you have in your possession cattle from Arizona branded with 07 on the left hip. There is NO COURT ORDER OR WARRANT on these cattle. These cattle were unlawfully, impounded and transported out of the state of Arizona without my consent and without proper authority. This is a direct violation of Arizona Statutes. If these cattle were unloaded at Clayton, New Mexico, New Mexico needed to inspect these cattle and they cannot do so without the consent of the owner. These cattle are stolen. The United States Forest Service does not own those cattle; they don’t even own a BRAND!!!
Any sale of these cattle without a Warrant or Court Order would constitute theft and sale of stolen property. You have a responsibility to your buyers to make sure they receive cattle with no problems on the title. Enclosed for your reference is proof of ownership of these cattle, a copy of a temporary restraining order, a copy of the lien on these cattle and a copy of the petition for emergency permanent injunction to the Superior Court of the State of Arizona.
It is unlikely the USFS will prevail on the merits of this petition as the USFS took the cattle without a warrant, court order or opportunity to defend given to
Daniel Gabino Martinez the owner of the cattle.
I respectfully request that you refrain from participating in this unlawful activity and refrain from selling or consigning these stolen cattle.
Sincerely,
_______________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
NEWS ROUNDUP
“Comeback Wolves” Collects Writings of Ranchers, Predator Lovers Last Monday in the Old Main Chapel on CU Campus, editor Gary Wockner and writers Pam Houston and Laura Pritchett discussed their contributions to the new book Comeback Wolves, in which fifty Western writers explore the idea of reintroducing wolves into the wilderness. According to Wockner, wolves have been reintroduced in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Colorado policy makers are currently contemplating bringing the animals here. Wockner, who holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Biology from CU and is a professor at Colorado State University, said he organized the collection with the “goal to create a forum for writers to speak out on the issue of wolf reintroduction.” He said that we usually hear from “journalists, scientists, and policy makers” on this subject, and “don’t often have a chance to hear from storytellers.” Laura Pritchett, a fiction writer who grew up on a Colorado ranch and currently lives on a ranch outside of Ft. Collins, offered the rancher’s perspective on the issue of wolf reintroduction....
AG backs ranchers on water In a rebuke to the state Department of Ecology, Attorney General Rob McKenna's office has found that the agency has no authority to set a specific limit on the amount of stock water that farmers and ranchers can draw daily without a permit. State Rep. Janéa Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, hailed the opinion Monday, saying her constituents with livestock can now literally take it to the bank. "The greatest benefit of the opinion may be that those producers can take it to their bank for financing purposes. It should remove the question of water availability," Holmquist said in a telephone interview. Holmquist said she sought the opinion after constituents reported being turned away for loans because Ecology imposed a limit of 5,000 gallons-per-day on the amount of groundwater they could withdraw without a permit. Applying for and receiving a water right can be a lengthy, expensive process....
Officials ponder fate of tribal bison licenses The Crow Indian tribe has declined to hunt bison leaving Yellowstone National Park, leaving state wildlife officials uncertain of what to do with two bison hunting licenses set aside for the tribe. Ron Aasheim, an administrator with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said officials must determine if the licenses should go to other tribes or members of the public who applied for a license, or if they should simply go unused. "Frankly, we didn't anticipate tribes refusing them," Aasheim said. State wildlife officials this year authorized 50 licenses to hunt bison this winter. Sixteen had been set aside by the Legislature for American Indian tribes in Montana....
Bison killed in first major hazing of season The National Park Service conducted the first major bison hazing of the season near Gardiner Monday, pushing 104 animals back from Church Universal and Triumphant property into Yellowstone National Park. Meanwhile, across the Yellowstone River from the church land, the newly reborn and controversial bison hunting season remains under way. A handful of bison have been shot by hunters there this year. In addition, park rangers killed a bull bison inside the park that had resisted hazing operations and threatened people, according to a park spokeswoman. That animal had charged rangers on horseback and on foot when they had tried to haze him toward the park's interior, Cheryl Matthews said Monday evening....
Editorial: No sacred cowboys on grasslands The Sheyenne National Grasslands are an often overlooked treasure in southeastern North Dakota. The 70,000-acre grasslands, the largest remnant of tall-grass prairie in public ownership, harbor rare prairie orchids and prairie chickens. They also offer great hiking and camping opportunities. But they’re in dire trouble, infested with leafy spurge, a noxious weed, and Kentucky bluegrass, also an invasive plant species. The U.S. Forest Service has grappled with how to devise a better plan to manage the grasslands for nine years. During that time, the infestations have only gotten worse. Leafy spurge now infiltrates more than a third of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, with infestations as high as 58 percent in one area. The spread has continued despite aggressive efforts at containment, a battle costing $200,000 a year in recent years, involving beetles, herbicide spraying and goats. Three years ago, the Forest Service was able to implement its plan for managing the grasslands in all key areas except one: grazing. Select groups of ranchers permitted to graze cattle on the grasslands and their supporters in Congress have tied up the planning in knots. It’s time to rein them in....
The Return of a Big Border Cat? Fierce and secretive, the jaguar long has long held mystical and spiritual significance for the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Today the big cat continues to stir symbolic meanings for many others as well. Sports teams, a sleek automobile and a leading Mexican rock group are all named after the wild animal. Once inhabiting a vast area from Patagonia to the Great Plains of North America, the jaguar’s survival is threatened by hunting and habitat destruction. Now, some hope to turn the situation around and ensure the protection and recovery of jaguars across national borders. An international seminar dedicated to jaguar preservation concluded this past weekend in the south-central Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. Attended by about 50 wildlife specialists, veterinarians and environmental officials, the meeting resolved to redouble jaguar recovery efforts and develop a health protocol for diseases that afflict the animals. Quoted in the Mexican daily La Jornada Morelos, Dr. Rodrigo Medellin said Mexican scientists have decades under their belt of developing "very concrete studies related to the survival of the jaguar" in different regions of their country. Bill Van Pelt, the non-game birds and mammals program manager for the Arizona Fish and Game Department who attended the Cuernavaca seminar, said in an interview with Frontera NorteSur that jaguars are a priority species for the Trilateral Committee, a tri-national wildlife monitoring body made up of Canada, Mexico and the United States....
Roadless areas should remain so, governor advised Montana's 6.4 million acres of federal roadless forest areas don't need any new roads, a group of county commissioners told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Monday. But commissioners stressed that they don't want to "shut the door forever" on new roads, in case of fires or other emergencies. "Most people are saying, 'Let's not be building any new roads, but let's not lose any roads that we have, either,' " Ravalli County Commissioner Alan Thompson told the governor. Schweitzer called the meeting to hear from local leaders about what they want to do with federal roadless forests in their own backyards....
Summer’s School Fire killed more wildlife than first feared The 52,000-acre School Fire hit big game animals much harder than wildlife officials originally thought. They now believe half the elk, one-third of the deer and half of the bighorn sheep on the W.T. Wooten Wildlife Area perished in the flames this summer. Foresters and biologists for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently discovered the charred remains of 200 elk, 150 deer and eight bighorn sheep on the wildlife area. “It was so hot in there most of these animals were cremated,” said Shana Kozusko, fire coordinator for the department of Fish and Wildlife. “Even the teeth crumble in your hands.”....
US firefighter’s hopes extinguished US firefighting operator Hawkins & Powers Aviation (H&P) is being liquidated, more than three years after fatal accidents involving two of its ex-military aircraft that led to the eventual grounding of large air tankers used for fighting forest fires. Asset management firm Great American Group has put the company’s fleet of more than 60 aircraft up for sale, including Boeing KC-97s, Consolidated PB4Ys, Fairchild C-119s and Lockheed Martin C-130s. The co-owners of H&P sold the aircraft to Great American after deciding to liquidate the company. H&P is also seeking a buyer for its manufacturing and refurbishing business at Greybull, Wyoming, where the company is converting US Air Force C-130Hs to firefighting configuration under subcontract to Lear Siegler. The business includes the airport and its fixed-base operation, says H&P president Jim Taggart....
Rare wildflower gains protection The tenuous grip a rare wildflower holds on the scenic bluffs near Fort Casey just got a bit firmer. Whidbey Camano Land Trust has sealed a complicated $3.3 million deal with Seattle Pacific University and state and federal agencies to protect 33 acres on western Whidbey Island, one of the few places where the golden paintbrush is hanging on. The golden paintbrush is listed as a threatened species by the federal government and endangered on the state's list....
Newport Residents Will Be Ordered to Restore Dunes The California Coastal Commission plans to order the owners of five Newport Beach homes to replace the sand dunes they are accused of illegally bulldozing in the spring to improve their ocean views, officials said Monday. At issue is a 4-foot-high, 150-foot-long wall of sand dunes that was mysteriously flattened late one April night. The act relieved some owners of multimillion-dollar homes of a natural nuisance blocking ocean views from their ground-level decks. Most residents were mum about the dunes' demise at the time but seemed pleased that they were gone. Newport Beach police and commission staffers, after months of investigation, said owners living in five properties on the 7300 block of West Ocean Front Avenue had paid an employee working on the nearby Santa Ana River dredging project $2,000 to level the dunes in front of their beachside decks using an excavator and a front loader. The cease-and-desist and restoration orders would probably require the residents to hire a restoration biologist to oversee rebuilding of the mounds, plant the proper native dune plant species and monitor the site for several years to ensure the dunes' proper restoration, according to commission staff....
If They Would Only Eat Bison As elk hunting concludes for the year, controversy lives on. Hunters and outfitters in south central Montana continue to bemoan the dramatic—possibly as much as 50 percent—decline of the famous northern Yellowstone elk herd. They blame the wolf, which has greatly expanded its numbers since its historic re-introduction back in 1995. From the original dozen wolves introduced, the population has grown to 171 in the park, 106 of which live on the northern range. In a November 21 article in USA Today Dan Vergano quotes several biologists debating the cause of the reduction. These scientific opinions weren’t music to the hunters’ ears because they concluded that hunting is partly responsible for the decrease. I called Doug Smith who supervises wolf research in the park for the National Park Service to ask about this, and he agreed that the decline was “multi-causal”—a combination of wolves, hunting and drought, with one additional culprit, the grizzly bear, which has also nearly tripled its numbers in the past twenty-five years, going from a low of about 150 animals to 600 or more. In the Yellowstone Science magazine, renown wolf biologist Dave Mech and several co-researchers side with Smith, concluding that bears (both grizzly and black) have a big impact on elk numbers, probably greater than wolves. In fact, they discovered that bears kill roughly six times more elk calves than wolves do....
Trucks Blocked from Logging Giant Trees In the pre-dawn hours today, two women put their bodies on the line for the ancient redwoods by locking themselves to gates and trucks entering the access roads leading to a controversial logging plan in Nanning Creek watershed outside Scotia, California in Humboldt County. The women and supporters unfurled banners reading “ Stop Maxxamum Greed/ Save Nanning Grove”, “Save Nanning Creek Ancient Forest,” “Extinction is Forever”, and “Save Scotia/ Kick Maxxam Out”. Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) subsidiary ScoPac began logging operations in the controversial plan on Nov.11, triggering protests that have included tree-sits high in the branches of the giant trees that measure more than 15 feet in diameter, vigils at the entrance to access roads, and a demonstration at Pacific Lumber offices in the company town of Scotia. The Timber Harvest Plan (THP) contains some of the highest quality murrelet habitat left on PL land, long seen by scientists as a crucial habitat area for the endangered bird. The plan was cynically named “Bonanza” by PL, and it is no coincidence that it is one of Maxxam/PL’s last shot at a sizable chunk of old growth before a possible bankruptcy reorganization forces a change in ownership of the timberlands....
Abandoned Oil Wells Back in Service They once ruled Southern California, staking claim to broad stretches of coastline and hillsides. Then, in the 1980s, they began vanishing — driven from their native habitat by tract houses, mini-malls and pesky environmentalists. By the time gasoline prices barreled into the stratosphere this year, local oil wells had become the industrial equivalent of an endangered species. From a peak population of 33,000, they dwindled to about 4,000. Surviving drills were forced to forage in strange locations, such as restaurant parking lots, residential lawns and inside faux office buildings. Today, these holdout rigs stand as a symbol of both a bygone era and — oddly — the future. Because of technological breakthroughs and rising demand for petroleum, the previously doomed hulks have gained a new lease on life. And abandoned wells are being pressed back into service....
The Great Bear at cross roads again Less than two centuries ago, biologists estimate over 50,000 brown bears inhabited the western continental United States. Common on the Great Plains prior to the arrival of European settlers, the grizzly was particularly abundant along major river systems where open grasslands and riparian habitats were rich in berries, carcasses and small mammals. East of the Rockies, the grizzly was reportedly more common than the black bear. Early explorers like Meriwether Lewis chronicled the abundance of Ursus arctos with a mixture of awe, admiration and fear, while indigenous North Americans respected and honored the animal's strength, stamina and hunting prowess. Today the brown bear is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Fewer than 1,000 roam the Lower 48, clinging to less than 2 percent of their former range in five isolated patches in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington. Some people feel this is more than enough grizzly saturation, and are seeking to remove the bear's protective status under ESA....
BLM's Bullhog chews up scrub to build habitat for wildlife The Bullhog is a ravenous machine capable of snapping 20-foot trees off at the base and, in seconds, turning them into a pile of splinters and mulch. Land managers love it. "A variety of people benefit from the treatment of the land from a Bullhog," said Larry Crutchfield, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Kanab. "Wildlife benefits, as do sports people, [grazing] permittees, the watershed and surrounding communities." Crutchfield says pinyon and juniper trees on 800 acres of BLM land southeast of the Kane County community of Alton are being devoured by the machine. This process, says Lisa Church, a wildlife biologist with the BLM, will allow sunlight and moisture to reach the ground beneath the trees' thick canopy and encourage the development of sagebrush, other shrubs and grasses....
Sand dunes weekend toll is four dead Four people were killed in off-road accidents at the popular Glamis sand dunes over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Imperial County, Calif., Deputy Coroner Henry Proo called it "the worst weekend I have ever seen." One of the people killed was a 5-year-old boy who was ejected from a truck Saturday as it slid sideways down a 150-foot sand embankment, rolling over several times. Authorities said the accident may have involved alcohol. In two other accidents Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Mesa died after jumping a large embankment on his ATV north of Glamis and a 34-year-old from Altadena, Calif., fell 50 feet to the bottom of a hill from an ATV. A fourth man from Peoria died after driving his dirt bike into the side of a dune buggy, according to the California Highway Patrol....
City loses round in mine project The city lost the latest round in its battle against a megamine in Soledad Canyon when a federal judge this week rejected claims that federal agencies shirked their duty to perform a proper environmental analysis before giving Cemex the go-ahead to mine the land. The court sided with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Cemex in a 60-page ruling. "The city of Santa Clarita has brought a number of challenges against this project to try to block its implementation," said Kerry Shapiro, the lead attorney for Cemex's Soledad Canyon project. "I think this ruling brings us one very significant step closer to achieving implementation of this project." In 1990, the federal Bureau of Land Management awarded contracts to the Mexico-based company to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel....
The Soul Of The Environmental Movement First, many environmentalists would rather not stand on the shoulders of certain early conservation heroes. Muir developed his conservation ethic during the Civil War and the expropriation of Native American lands, the two great racial struggles of the 19th century. He pretty much ignored them both, according to Carl Anthony, a historian and urban planner. After dodging the Civil War draft by going to Canada, Muir walked the occupied lands of the West and the South and saw nothing more sinister than “forest walls vine-draped and flowery as Eden.” Before we sanctify Muir, though, we need to understand how his racial attitudes affected his commitments to conservation. If the environmental movement is ever going to revive, it must first confront the many ways in which the United States has reserved open space for the exclusive use of whites. John Muir’s racism is about more than just history. It’s about building a new frame for a bigger environmental movement. There are better shoulders for us to stand on. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau explained that he was refusing to pay taxes to a government “which buys and sells men, women, and children like cattle at the door of its senatehouse.”....
Scientists probe Lewis & Clark encampment A fire that destroyed the replica of Fort Clatsop, where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter of 1805-1806, has provided a rare chance for archaeologists to probe the ground where the fort stood, seeking even the subtlest evidence of the explorers or the Clatsop Indians who came before them. The Oct. 3 blaze was ruled accidental, having started from a fire on an open hearth in one of the barracks. Archaeologists set aside nearly all of November to excavate the site before construction of the new replica begins Dec. 10, 200 years to the day from when construction of the original fort began. They hope to prepare a report on their findings and open the replica to visitors by next summer. Scientists from the National Park Service used remote sensing devices such as a magnetometer and ground-penetrating radar to seek soil irregularities that might signal a post hole, or a fire pit or anything else manmade. They dug about a foot to the "plow zone" farmed beginning in the 1850s then down about another foot to the sediments that were intact before that and probably contemporary with the explorers' Corps of Discovery....
Cow pies fly over organic standards Organic cows are happy cows, grazing free in green pastures - at least that's what the organic-milk cartons imply. The less stress on the cow, goes the logic, the better the milk. Consumers who pay a premium for organic milk are supposed to feel good about subsidizing this expensive bovine lifestyle. Ordinary dairy cows, by contrast, are strapped to a big corporate sucking machine for up to 10 months a year. And they typically get turned into hamburger before they can complain about it. But Steve Wells, 48, who runs a 32,000- acre ranch east of Greeley, says he didn't let the so-called organic cows out of his feedlot very often. Wells was a contractor for Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies milk for private labels in stores such as Safeway, Wild Oats, Target and Costco, and also to Dean Foods' Horizon Organic....
Young, single, genuine cowboys Is it hard for men in Wranglers and a cowboy hat to meet women? "Most of the country boys I know don't have any problem," said Paso Roblan Joey Arnold. His family's been working the land in the county for five generations. "The girls seem to like it." Apparently San Luis Obispo County's male ranch hands and farmers attract more than local girls. Producers of reality television now want to cast a long sideways glance over our boys. Associate Film Commissioner Baxter Boyington is mum on the production firm's name but said it will be looking to pick up a few good men -- single farmers between ages 20 and 35 -- to star in a new show that may be filmed locally. A casting call is planned from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Sands Suites and Motel on Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo. Even though he's not the kind to gossip, Boyington said the producers have "names you would know immediately if I give you the name of their current programs." The program, as much as Boyington was willing to spill, involves country boys and city girls....
Giddyup, Mr. Claus: Ovando celebrates ‘Cowboy Christmas' Giant snowflakes fell from the sky on Sunday as Santa's slimmer cousin, Cowboy Claus, rode into this rural outpost on his faithful steed, Smooth. He came to refine his older cousin's naughty or nice list. What he found was a posse of polite and cheerful children and a handful of outlaws, who put away their guns when the bearded fellow who could pass as Santa's twin arrived to take a look-see at the community's sixth annual Old West Christmas Fest. Perhaps it was the big red bow tied around Smooth's neck, or maybe it was just seeing Claus in a cowboy hat and chaps, whatever it was, Matt King's trio of sons, 6-year-old twins Zane and Tehl, and 3-year-old Austin couldn't believe their eyes. They giggled and fidgeted, and then they giggled some more until a blast of cold air chased them into the Ovando museum with Claus on their heels. “We're going to have a good Christmas,” Claus said. “Lots of snow and lots of good kids this year.” Since 2000, Ovando's 60-some residents have hosted the holiday festival as a way to come together for good cheer....
It's All Trew: Love, appreciation for trees go full circle Recently, I realized that in my 72 years of existence I have traveled a full circle on the subject of trees. The area south of Perryton where I was raised had no trees. I was not alone as before my time settlers had to burn buffalo chips because there was little firewood. Eastern Kansas is famous for its limestone rock fence posts because there were no trees for posts. Dugouts were the normal prairie housing as there were no trees to saw into lumber for frame homes. I would imagine every early settler wished for and vowed to plant trees as soon as he could afford the money and time. My parents waited until the rains started after the Dust Bowl and planted a shelter belt north of our home plus other shade trees in our yard. Government employees planted thousands of trees in shelter belts throughout the Great Plains region during the Great Depression. As a result, the plains area now has a lot of trees. When we bought the ranch here at Alanreed, only two small cottonwood trees were growing in the yard. No brush and few mesquite were in sight in any direction....
“Comeback Wolves” Collects Writings of Ranchers, Predator Lovers Last Monday in the Old Main Chapel on CU Campus, editor Gary Wockner and writers Pam Houston and Laura Pritchett discussed their contributions to the new book Comeback Wolves, in which fifty Western writers explore the idea of reintroducing wolves into the wilderness. According to Wockner, wolves have been reintroduced in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Colorado policy makers are currently contemplating bringing the animals here. Wockner, who holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Biology from CU and is a professor at Colorado State University, said he organized the collection with the “goal to create a forum for writers to speak out on the issue of wolf reintroduction.” He said that we usually hear from “journalists, scientists, and policy makers” on this subject, and “don’t often have a chance to hear from storytellers.” Laura Pritchett, a fiction writer who grew up on a Colorado ranch and currently lives on a ranch outside of Ft. Collins, offered the rancher’s perspective on the issue of wolf reintroduction....
AG backs ranchers on water In a rebuke to the state Department of Ecology, Attorney General Rob McKenna's office has found that the agency has no authority to set a specific limit on the amount of stock water that farmers and ranchers can draw daily without a permit. State Rep. Janéa Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, hailed the opinion Monday, saying her constituents with livestock can now literally take it to the bank. "The greatest benefit of the opinion may be that those producers can take it to their bank for financing purposes. It should remove the question of water availability," Holmquist said in a telephone interview. Holmquist said she sought the opinion after constituents reported being turned away for loans because Ecology imposed a limit of 5,000 gallons-per-day on the amount of groundwater they could withdraw without a permit. Applying for and receiving a water right can be a lengthy, expensive process....
Officials ponder fate of tribal bison licenses The Crow Indian tribe has declined to hunt bison leaving Yellowstone National Park, leaving state wildlife officials uncertain of what to do with two bison hunting licenses set aside for the tribe. Ron Aasheim, an administrator with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said officials must determine if the licenses should go to other tribes or members of the public who applied for a license, or if they should simply go unused. "Frankly, we didn't anticipate tribes refusing them," Aasheim said. State wildlife officials this year authorized 50 licenses to hunt bison this winter. Sixteen had been set aside by the Legislature for American Indian tribes in Montana....
Bison killed in first major hazing of season The National Park Service conducted the first major bison hazing of the season near Gardiner Monday, pushing 104 animals back from Church Universal and Triumphant property into Yellowstone National Park. Meanwhile, across the Yellowstone River from the church land, the newly reborn and controversial bison hunting season remains under way. A handful of bison have been shot by hunters there this year. In addition, park rangers killed a bull bison inside the park that had resisted hazing operations and threatened people, according to a park spokeswoman. That animal had charged rangers on horseback and on foot when they had tried to haze him toward the park's interior, Cheryl Matthews said Monday evening....
Editorial: No sacred cowboys on grasslands The Sheyenne National Grasslands are an often overlooked treasure in southeastern North Dakota. The 70,000-acre grasslands, the largest remnant of tall-grass prairie in public ownership, harbor rare prairie orchids and prairie chickens. They also offer great hiking and camping opportunities. But they’re in dire trouble, infested with leafy spurge, a noxious weed, and Kentucky bluegrass, also an invasive plant species. The U.S. Forest Service has grappled with how to devise a better plan to manage the grasslands for nine years. During that time, the infestations have only gotten worse. Leafy spurge now infiltrates more than a third of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, with infestations as high as 58 percent in one area. The spread has continued despite aggressive efforts at containment, a battle costing $200,000 a year in recent years, involving beetles, herbicide spraying and goats. Three years ago, the Forest Service was able to implement its plan for managing the grasslands in all key areas except one: grazing. Select groups of ranchers permitted to graze cattle on the grasslands and their supporters in Congress have tied up the planning in knots. It’s time to rein them in....
The Return of a Big Border Cat? Fierce and secretive, the jaguar long has long held mystical and spiritual significance for the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Today the big cat continues to stir symbolic meanings for many others as well. Sports teams, a sleek automobile and a leading Mexican rock group are all named after the wild animal. Once inhabiting a vast area from Patagonia to the Great Plains of North America, the jaguar’s survival is threatened by hunting and habitat destruction. Now, some hope to turn the situation around and ensure the protection and recovery of jaguars across national borders. An international seminar dedicated to jaguar preservation concluded this past weekend in the south-central Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. Attended by about 50 wildlife specialists, veterinarians and environmental officials, the meeting resolved to redouble jaguar recovery efforts and develop a health protocol for diseases that afflict the animals. Quoted in the Mexican daily La Jornada Morelos, Dr. Rodrigo Medellin said Mexican scientists have decades under their belt of developing "very concrete studies related to the survival of the jaguar" in different regions of their country. Bill Van Pelt, the non-game birds and mammals program manager for the Arizona Fish and Game Department who attended the Cuernavaca seminar, said in an interview with Frontera NorteSur that jaguars are a priority species for the Trilateral Committee, a tri-national wildlife monitoring body made up of Canada, Mexico and the United States....
Roadless areas should remain so, governor advised Montana's 6.4 million acres of federal roadless forest areas don't need any new roads, a group of county commissioners told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Monday. But commissioners stressed that they don't want to "shut the door forever" on new roads, in case of fires or other emergencies. "Most people are saying, 'Let's not be building any new roads, but let's not lose any roads that we have, either,' " Ravalli County Commissioner Alan Thompson told the governor. Schweitzer called the meeting to hear from local leaders about what they want to do with federal roadless forests in their own backyards....
Summer’s School Fire killed more wildlife than first feared The 52,000-acre School Fire hit big game animals much harder than wildlife officials originally thought. They now believe half the elk, one-third of the deer and half of the bighorn sheep on the W.T. Wooten Wildlife Area perished in the flames this summer. Foresters and biologists for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently discovered the charred remains of 200 elk, 150 deer and eight bighorn sheep on the wildlife area. “It was so hot in there most of these animals were cremated,” said Shana Kozusko, fire coordinator for the department of Fish and Wildlife. “Even the teeth crumble in your hands.”....
US firefighter’s hopes extinguished US firefighting operator Hawkins & Powers Aviation (H&P) is being liquidated, more than three years after fatal accidents involving two of its ex-military aircraft that led to the eventual grounding of large air tankers used for fighting forest fires. Asset management firm Great American Group has put the company’s fleet of more than 60 aircraft up for sale, including Boeing KC-97s, Consolidated PB4Ys, Fairchild C-119s and Lockheed Martin C-130s. The co-owners of H&P sold the aircraft to Great American after deciding to liquidate the company. H&P is also seeking a buyer for its manufacturing and refurbishing business at Greybull, Wyoming, where the company is converting US Air Force C-130Hs to firefighting configuration under subcontract to Lear Siegler. The business includes the airport and its fixed-base operation, says H&P president Jim Taggart....
Rare wildflower gains protection The tenuous grip a rare wildflower holds on the scenic bluffs near Fort Casey just got a bit firmer. Whidbey Camano Land Trust has sealed a complicated $3.3 million deal with Seattle Pacific University and state and federal agencies to protect 33 acres on western Whidbey Island, one of the few places where the golden paintbrush is hanging on. The golden paintbrush is listed as a threatened species by the federal government and endangered on the state's list....
Newport Residents Will Be Ordered to Restore Dunes The California Coastal Commission plans to order the owners of five Newport Beach homes to replace the sand dunes they are accused of illegally bulldozing in the spring to improve their ocean views, officials said Monday. At issue is a 4-foot-high, 150-foot-long wall of sand dunes that was mysteriously flattened late one April night. The act relieved some owners of multimillion-dollar homes of a natural nuisance blocking ocean views from their ground-level decks. Most residents were mum about the dunes' demise at the time but seemed pleased that they were gone. Newport Beach police and commission staffers, after months of investigation, said owners living in five properties on the 7300 block of West Ocean Front Avenue had paid an employee working on the nearby Santa Ana River dredging project $2,000 to level the dunes in front of their beachside decks using an excavator and a front loader. The cease-and-desist and restoration orders would probably require the residents to hire a restoration biologist to oversee rebuilding of the mounds, plant the proper native dune plant species and monitor the site for several years to ensure the dunes' proper restoration, according to commission staff....
If They Would Only Eat Bison As elk hunting concludes for the year, controversy lives on. Hunters and outfitters in south central Montana continue to bemoan the dramatic—possibly as much as 50 percent—decline of the famous northern Yellowstone elk herd. They blame the wolf, which has greatly expanded its numbers since its historic re-introduction back in 1995. From the original dozen wolves introduced, the population has grown to 171 in the park, 106 of which live on the northern range. In a November 21 article in USA Today Dan Vergano quotes several biologists debating the cause of the reduction. These scientific opinions weren’t music to the hunters’ ears because they concluded that hunting is partly responsible for the decrease. I called Doug Smith who supervises wolf research in the park for the National Park Service to ask about this, and he agreed that the decline was “multi-causal”—a combination of wolves, hunting and drought, with one additional culprit, the grizzly bear, which has also nearly tripled its numbers in the past twenty-five years, going from a low of about 150 animals to 600 or more. In the Yellowstone Science magazine, renown wolf biologist Dave Mech and several co-researchers side with Smith, concluding that bears (both grizzly and black) have a big impact on elk numbers, probably greater than wolves. In fact, they discovered that bears kill roughly six times more elk calves than wolves do....
Trucks Blocked from Logging Giant Trees In the pre-dawn hours today, two women put their bodies on the line for the ancient redwoods by locking themselves to gates and trucks entering the access roads leading to a controversial logging plan in Nanning Creek watershed outside Scotia, California in Humboldt County. The women and supporters unfurled banners reading “ Stop Maxxamum Greed/ Save Nanning Grove”, “Save Nanning Creek Ancient Forest,” “Extinction is Forever”, and “Save Scotia/ Kick Maxxam Out”. Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) subsidiary ScoPac began logging operations in the controversial plan on Nov.11, triggering protests that have included tree-sits high in the branches of the giant trees that measure more than 15 feet in diameter, vigils at the entrance to access roads, and a demonstration at Pacific Lumber offices in the company town of Scotia. The Timber Harvest Plan (THP) contains some of the highest quality murrelet habitat left on PL land, long seen by scientists as a crucial habitat area for the endangered bird. The plan was cynically named “Bonanza” by PL, and it is no coincidence that it is one of Maxxam/PL’s last shot at a sizable chunk of old growth before a possible bankruptcy reorganization forces a change in ownership of the timberlands....
Abandoned Oil Wells Back in Service They once ruled Southern California, staking claim to broad stretches of coastline and hillsides. Then, in the 1980s, they began vanishing — driven from their native habitat by tract houses, mini-malls and pesky environmentalists. By the time gasoline prices barreled into the stratosphere this year, local oil wells had become the industrial equivalent of an endangered species. From a peak population of 33,000, they dwindled to about 4,000. Surviving drills were forced to forage in strange locations, such as restaurant parking lots, residential lawns and inside faux office buildings. Today, these holdout rigs stand as a symbol of both a bygone era and — oddly — the future. Because of technological breakthroughs and rising demand for petroleum, the previously doomed hulks have gained a new lease on life. And abandoned wells are being pressed back into service....
The Great Bear at cross roads again Less than two centuries ago, biologists estimate over 50,000 brown bears inhabited the western continental United States. Common on the Great Plains prior to the arrival of European settlers, the grizzly was particularly abundant along major river systems where open grasslands and riparian habitats were rich in berries, carcasses and small mammals. East of the Rockies, the grizzly was reportedly more common than the black bear. Early explorers like Meriwether Lewis chronicled the abundance of Ursus arctos with a mixture of awe, admiration and fear, while indigenous North Americans respected and honored the animal's strength, stamina and hunting prowess. Today the brown bear is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Fewer than 1,000 roam the Lower 48, clinging to less than 2 percent of their former range in five isolated patches in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington. Some people feel this is more than enough grizzly saturation, and are seeking to remove the bear's protective status under ESA....
BLM's Bullhog chews up scrub to build habitat for wildlife The Bullhog is a ravenous machine capable of snapping 20-foot trees off at the base and, in seconds, turning them into a pile of splinters and mulch. Land managers love it. "A variety of people benefit from the treatment of the land from a Bullhog," said Larry Crutchfield, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Kanab. "Wildlife benefits, as do sports people, [grazing] permittees, the watershed and surrounding communities." Crutchfield says pinyon and juniper trees on 800 acres of BLM land southeast of the Kane County community of Alton are being devoured by the machine. This process, says Lisa Church, a wildlife biologist with the BLM, will allow sunlight and moisture to reach the ground beneath the trees' thick canopy and encourage the development of sagebrush, other shrubs and grasses....
Sand dunes weekend toll is four dead Four people were killed in off-road accidents at the popular Glamis sand dunes over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Imperial County, Calif., Deputy Coroner Henry Proo called it "the worst weekend I have ever seen." One of the people killed was a 5-year-old boy who was ejected from a truck Saturday as it slid sideways down a 150-foot sand embankment, rolling over several times. Authorities said the accident may have involved alcohol. In two other accidents Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Mesa died after jumping a large embankment on his ATV north of Glamis and a 34-year-old from Altadena, Calif., fell 50 feet to the bottom of a hill from an ATV. A fourth man from Peoria died after driving his dirt bike into the side of a dune buggy, according to the California Highway Patrol....
City loses round in mine project The city lost the latest round in its battle against a megamine in Soledad Canyon when a federal judge this week rejected claims that federal agencies shirked their duty to perform a proper environmental analysis before giving Cemex the go-ahead to mine the land. The court sided with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Cemex in a 60-page ruling. "The city of Santa Clarita has brought a number of challenges against this project to try to block its implementation," said Kerry Shapiro, the lead attorney for Cemex's Soledad Canyon project. "I think this ruling brings us one very significant step closer to achieving implementation of this project." In 1990, the federal Bureau of Land Management awarded contracts to the Mexico-based company to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel....
The Soul Of The Environmental Movement First, many environmentalists would rather not stand on the shoulders of certain early conservation heroes. Muir developed his conservation ethic during the Civil War and the expropriation of Native American lands, the two great racial struggles of the 19th century. He pretty much ignored them both, according to Carl Anthony, a historian and urban planner. After dodging the Civil War draft by going to Canada, Muir walked the occupied lands of the West and the South and saw nothing more sinister than “forest walls vine-draped and flowery as Eden.” Before we sanctify Muir, though, we need to understand how his racial attitudes affected his commitments to conservation. If the environmental movement is ever going to revive, it must first confront the many ways in which the United States has reserved open space for the exclusive use of whites. John Muir’s racism is about more than just history. It’s about building a new frame for a bigger environmental movement. There are better shoulders for us to stand on. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau explained that he was refusing to pay taxes to a government “which buys and sells men, women, and children like cattle at the door of its senatehouse.”....
Scientists probe Lewis & Clark encampment A fire that destroyed the replica of Fort Clatsop, where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter of 1805-1806, has provided a rare chance for archaeologists to probe the ground where the fort stood, seeking even the subtlest evidence of the explorers or the Clatsop Indians who came before them. The Oct. 3 blaze was ruled accidental, having started from a fire on an open hearth in one of the barracks. Archaeologists set aside nearly all of November to excavate the site before construction of the new replica begins Dec. 10, 200 years to the day from when construction of the original fort began. They hope to prepare a report on their findings and open the replica to visitors by next summer. Scientists from the National Park Service used remote sensing devices such as a magnetometer and ground-penetrating radar to seek soil irregularities that might signal a post hole, or a fire pit or anything else manmade. They dug about a foot to the "plow zone" farmed beginning in the 1850s then down about another foot to the sediments that were intact before that and probably contemporary with the explorers' Corps of Discovery....
Cow pies fly over organic standards Organic cows are happy cows, grazing free in green pastures - at least that's what the organic-milk cartons imply. The less stress on the cow, goes the logic, the better the milk. Consumers who pay a premium for organic milk are supposed to feel good about subsidizing this expensive bovine lifestyle. Ordinary dairy cows, by contrast, are strapped to a big corporate sucking machine for up to 10 months a year. And they typically get turned into hamburger before they can complain about it. But Steve Wells, 48, who runs a 32,000- acre ranch east of Greeley, says he didn't let the so-called organic cows out of his feedlot very often. Wells was a contractor for Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies milk for private labels in stores such as Safeway, Wild Oats, Target and Costco, and also to Dean Foods' Horizon Organic....
Young, single, genuine cowboys Is it hard for men in Wranglers and a cowboy hat to meet women? "Most of the country boys I know don't have any problem," said Paso Roblan Joey Arnold. His family's been working the land in the county for five generations. "The girls seem to like it." Apparently San Luis Obispo County's male ranch hands and farmers attract more than local girls. Producers of reality television now want to cast a long sideways glance over our boys. Associate Film Commissioner Baxter Boyington is mum on the production firm's name but said it will be looking to pick up a few good men -- single farmers between ages 20 and 35 -- to star in a new show that may be filmed locally. A casting call is planned from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Sands Suites and Motel on Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo. Even though he's not the kind to gossip, Boyington said the producers have "names you would know immediately if I give you the name of their current programs." The program, as much as Boyington was willing to spill, involves country boys and city girls....
Giddyup, Mr. Claus: Ovando celebrates ‘Cowboy Christmas' Giant snowflakes fell from the sky on Sunday as Santa's slimmer cousin, Cowboy Claus, rode into this rural outpost on his faithful steed, Smooth. He came to refine his older cousin's naughty or nice list. What he found was a posse of polite and cheerful children and a handful of outlaws, who put away their guns when the bearded fellow who could pass as Santa's twin arrived to take a look-see at the community's sixth annual Old West Christmas Fest. Perhaps it was the big red bow tied around Smooth's neck, or maybe it was just seeing Claus in a cowboy hat and chaps, whatever it was, Matt King's trio of sons, 6-year-old twins Zane and Tehl, and 3-year-old Austin couldn't believe their eyes. They giggled and fidgeted, and then they giggled some more until a blast of cold air chased them into the Ovando museum with Claus on their heels. “We're going to have a good Christmas,” Claus said. “Lots of snow and lots of good kids this year.” Since 2000, Ovando's 60-some residents have hosted the holiday festival as a way to come together for good cheer....
It's All Trew: Love, appreciation for trees go full circle Recently, I realized that in my 72 years of existence I have traveled a full circle on the subject of trees. The area south of Perryton where I was raised had no trees. I was not alone as before my time settlers had to burn buffalo chips because there was little firewood. Eastern Kansas is famous for its limestone rock fence posts because there were no trees for posts. Dugouts were the normal prairie housing as there were no trees to saw into lumber for frame homes. I would imagine every early settler wished for and vowed to plant trees as soon as he could afford the money and time. My parents waited until the rains started after the Dust Bowl and planted a shelter belt north of our home plus other shade trees in our yard. Government employees planted thousands of trees in shelter belts throughout the Great Plains region during the Great Depression. As a result, the plains area now has a lot of trees. When we bought the ranch here at Alanreed, only two small cottonwood trees were growing in the yard. No brush and few mesquite were in sight in any direction....
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