NEWS ROUNDUP

Packing up the range His cows had been roaming the 111,000-acre Jean Lake allotment, 40 miles south of Las Vegas, since he moved the herd there in 1998 from Mount Stirling to satisfy U.S. Forest Service concerns for grazing on environmentally sensitive lands in the Spring Mountains. Once corralled, the cows were destined for their new home at the Windmill Ranch north of Wikieup, Ariz., an operation on "checkerboard" state and private lands. "This is the end of it," Baird said. "This is the last roundup. It's a sign of changing times. "It's happening all over the West," he said. Removing Baird's 250 head of rodeo-stock "corriente" cattle -- a special breed from those brought to Mexico by 16th-century Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez -- in essence marks the end of an era that dates back to the mid-1880s. That's when settlers brought cows to the Las Vegas area, according to Duane Wilson, range specialist for the Bureau of Land Management's state office. The demise of public lands grazing in Southern Nevada parallels the effort to protect habitat for the endangered desert tortoise....
Tolna rancher fights state over tire fences On a hill between the waters of Stump Lake and Devils Lake, Cory Christofferson feels like he's between a rock and a hard place. Or perhaps, the rubber and the road. The wooden sign waving in the wind at the gate to his farm announces, "Tired Out Ranch." Possessed by an unusual idea a decade ago to build good fence cheap out of used tires, the 50-year-old farmer spent years hauling them to his farm here in the hilled prairie wetlands of Benson County. He's got about 350,000 tires, most of them stacked on their sides, four or five high in straight lines, 15 miles worth, making 20-acre paddocks across 200 acres for intensive grazing by livestock. Now, state officials have ordered him to haul the tires off his land. Christofferson is taking them to court....
New split-estate law results in higher bond amount A coal-bed methane producer who wanted to build six new wastewater reservoirs but didn't reach agreement with the landowner will have to pay a higher bond than first proposed. The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission decided this week to bump up the initial $500-per-pit bond amount to $2,000 per pit. Johnson County rancher Steve Adami, who protested the lower bond amount, had asked that Kennedy Oil be required to post bonds for thousands of dollars more. The decision, he said, gives landowners little reason to celebrate Wyoming's new Split Estates Act, which was enacted July 1, 2005. "It was not a real encouraging process from the landowner's point of view," Adami said. "The whole thing was kind of discouraging." The aim of the Split Estates Act was to level negotiations between oil and gas producers and the surface owners who don't hold title to the minerals below their land. If the parties can't agree on a voluntary contract that includes monetary compensation to the landowner, then the parties can seek an administrative decision. In this case, Kennedy Oil opted to "bond-on," which means it asked the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for permission to construct the reservoirs without Adami's approval. The commission gave Kennedy initial approval and set a $500-per-pit bond to cover the loss of agricultural use of the 18 acres the pits would occupy....
Council hears water debate Powder River Basin ranchers pressed hard Thursday for more state regulation of coal-bed methane water, saying that too much of it can be a serious problem. Meanwhile, coal-bed methane producers presented case studies that extolled industrially produced waters as tremendously beneficial to both livestock and wildlife, with nary a mention that there were any problems. Indeed, the producers implied that coal-bed methane water horror stories emerging out of the Powder River Basin were an extreme minority of cases, attributable to poor communication. In testimony before the state’s Environmental Quality Council, the producers essentially argued that the current regulatory system works pretty well. The petitioners argued that the regulatory system is deeply flawed, indeed broken, because of an improper, long-standing assumption made by a state agency. Attorney Kate Fox, representing 19 ranchers from the basin and the Powder River Basin Resource Council, readily acknowledged that there were benefits to coal-bed methane water. But she said there is “a dark side” to the by-product water when there is too much salt content and too much water. DEQ’s assumption of beneficial use has had unintended consequences in the Powder River Basin, as a series of slide photographs showed n drowned cottonwood tree stands, salt-encrusted stream beds, erosion, ruined hay meadows and soils....
Salt water spill still miles from Yellowstone River A salt water plume from an oil field leak in northwestern North Dakota has not yet reached the Yellowstone River, officials say. The first wave of the toxic water was expected to reach the river last week but was slowed by arctic air that moved into the state. The plume in Charbonneau Creek was still about five miles from the Yellowstone, said Kris Roberts, an environmental scientist with the state Health Department. The leak was detected Jan. 4 in a Zenergy Inc. pipeline about six miles west of Alexander, near Charbonneau Creek. It was estimated at more than 900,000 gallons....
Spurred to action For a decade, Republican Richard Pombo was just a cowboy who had made it to Congress with big ideas and little clout. To be sure, the Central Valley rancher's outspoken dislike of federal land-use laws made environmentalists wary. But outside his district, his profile was slim. Throughout the 1990s, Pombo honed his political skills and impressed party leaders. When it came time to elect a new chairman for the House Resources Committee in 2003, Republican elders passed over several more senior colleagues and crowned Pombo the youngest chairman in Congress on his 42nd birthday. Overnight, the property-rights activist became a pivotal figure in U.S. land use. His committee is among the largest on Capitol Hill, and it plays a key role in developing policy for the nation's forests, fisheries, wildlife and Indian affairs. Pombo's mission boils down to a simple concept: “I don't want government in people's lives,” he said one recent evening as the sun set on the rolling green hills of his 500-acre cattle ranch in Tracy....
Some see farm plan as a beastly burden Some farmers and ranchers say the Code of the West no longer applies in Larimer County. The code is used by counties in the West to encourage urban transplants to adapt to the rural way of life and respect the ways of those who have raised crops and livestock for generations. But proposed regulations on Larimer's livestock have some folks wondering if longtime residents' interests are being pushed aside to accommodate the newcomers. "They keep nailing us down with these new rules, and a lot of people will sell out and leave," said Harry Elder, who owns miniature horses north of Fort Collins. The proposal would restrict landowners from two horses per acre to one horse per acre, as well as place limits on bison, mules, ostriches, emus, goats and alpacas. Too often, county officials say, property owners allow horses, pigs and cattle to overgraze small parcels, destroying prime grassland....
Local Involvement in National Lands Management: Can It Work Nationwide? Having a say in how the government manages nearby federal lands makes sense to both local residents and federal officials. But the devil is in the details of how this local input is gathered. Known as adaptive environmental management, the concept is popular in Europe, but has only been officially attempted in one location in the United States. "Adaptive environmental management means there is a commitment to have on-going local community involvement in making and assessing environmental policy," said Daniel Bronstein, professor of community, agriculture, recreation and resource studies at Michigan State University. "It's a hot topic right now, but the question has always been whether the government can implement the monitoring that is needed to make it work." Bronstein moderates a symposium entitled "Adaptive Environmental Management: The Valles Caldera Experience" today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. The participants are examining the adaptive environmental management strategies in place at the Valles Caldera National Preserve, an 89,000-acre federal property in northern New Mexico, as a case study. This is the only formal attempt by the federal government to implement adaptive environmental management....For those of us in NM, this press release by Michigan State University is hilarious. Looks like another import from Europe we don't need....
Allure of ranching life fading for some celebs A decade or so after big names in entertainment, sports and business turned the rugged ranch into a real estate fashion statement, many of them are packing up the wagon trains and pulling back out. Actor Rick Schroder is offering nearly 15,000 acres of ranch land in Colorado for $29 million. Val Kilmer just listed his 1,800 acres in New Mexico for $18 million. Leon Hirsch, former chairman of U.S. Surgical, is selling his 17,000-acre Montana spread for $21.9 million (cattle included). On the cozier side, singer Carole King's 128-acre Idaho property just went on the market for $19 million. Why the reverse land rush? Many wealthy ranch owners — celebrity and otherwise — are hoping to cash out after years of gains in real estate, said John Frome, a ranch appraiser in Afton, Wyo. Also, for some who've made their second or third homes on the range, ranch life has turned out to be anything but simple. Yearly maintenance costs can run $150,000 and up. The remoteness and the roughing it that once seemed so alluring can get tiresome. There now are indications that ranch properties have been backing up on the market. Schroder's southwestern Colorado ranch has been sitting on the market for 15 months, while Hirsch's Montana ranch has gone unsold for more than a year. Spreads owned by tennis's Martina Navratilova and novelist Warren Adler both found buyers late last year, after more than four years on the market apiece. Real estate agents in these areas say ranch properties that sold in 2005 sat 22 months on average, about double the amount they spent on the market five or six years ago....
From coronation to chemo In the recesses of the Civic Center, near where they keep the rodeo stock, they also keep the cowboys. The men picked up their entry numbers and gathered their things. They waited. The door opened occasionally, and cold would whistle in, and another new cowboy would stomp his boots. He would say something about the weather, and then about his chaps, which he pronounced "shaps,"like the "sh" sound in shoestring, of which there were none. Boots. Only boots. And maybe the prettiest pair belonged to Ashley Andrews. Everyone noticed when she arrived. Hard not to. Andrews has a radiant personality to match her bright smile. That made the cowboys and the other folks getting ready for the rodeo feel even worse about this situation. "How are you doing?" they would ask, over and over. "Great," she would say. "A lot better than yesterday." Ashley Andrews, Miss Rodeo North Dakota, has cancer. She just turned 21....
How West Texas was overrun Oprah Winfrey won't be touting John R. Erickson's memoir any time soon. Unlike James Frey, Erickson, a writer and rancher from the Panhandle, has never claimed that he had root-canal surgery without anesthesia. Nor has he boasted of spending time in a jail; he's never been inside. On the other hand, no one who knows anything about Erickson, or West Texans in general, will doubt that his "Prairie Gothic: The Story of a West Texas Family" (University of North Texas Press, $16.95 paperback; $40 hardcover) is as straight as a tightly strung barbed wire fence. He focuses on his family. But as San Angelo Western novelist Elmer Kelton writes in his introduction, Erickson's book is really about all of our families. "In a sense," Kelton writes, "the story of his ancestors reflects the stories of all our ancestors, for we can see parallels to accounts we have heard about our own. In his mirror we can see our own reflections." Erickson's book also amounts to an informal history of West Texas. His great-great grandparents settled in Parker County, west of Weatherford, in 1858, where, a couple of years later, his great-great grandmother died at the hands of Comanches. The other major branch of his family pioneered the first town on the Llano Estacado, the Quaker community of Estacado. Along the way, Erickson's forebears had dealings with some of the best-known figures in Texas history, including Texas Ranger Sul Ross, pioneer cattleman Charles Goodnight, Cynthia Ann Parker and her famous son, Comanche chief Quanah Parker, and cattleman Jim Loving....
Cowboy gatherings -- One visit and you'll be hooked for life It's hard for Stephanie Davis to talk about. The Montana singer/songwriter — who can cause your heart to skip a beat with her piercing twang, or make you let out a loud whoop after one of her hilarious limericks — just can't explain it. But there's one thing she guarantees: If you go to one cowboy gathering, not only will you love it, you'll be hooked for life. Thousands found that out last year at Ellensburg's inaugural Spirit of the West Cowboy Gathering, which rides back into town next weekend for three days of cowboy poetry, music and art. "It was a huge draw," says Alan Walker, 40, this year's secretary for the all-volunteer Spirit of the West board of directors. Folks from Canada and across the United States turned out for the gathering, where ten-gallon hats, handlebar mustaches and weather-worn faces roamed freely throughout the quaint town with deep cowboy roots....
At home on the range There's a cowboy renaissance happening, in case you city folk didn't know. "When cultures are really hard-pressed, they tend to revert to their roots," Charlie Seemann, executive director of the Western Folklife Center, noted earlier this month at the 22nd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering here. Cowboys are hard-pressed for a number of reasons, such as the buying up of ranch land for housing subdivisions, but they're not totally obsolete yet — and their old, weather-beaten aura, their classic cultural resonance, is stronger than ever. The nice thing about the cowboy renaissance, however, is that you don't have to go that far to be a part of it. You can be a cowboy at heart, without ever roping a steer or even sitting on a horse. There's nobody more cowboy than a singer-songwriter like Curly Musgrave. He was raised in Alberta, and has done his share of range work, but Musgrave is not a cowboy snob. "There are so many people who grew up with the ideas and mores and traditions of the West within their hearts, who never rode a horse or worked on a ranch," he said. "I honour that as much as the guys who do work on a ranch. I think our attitudes count for so much. I meet a lot of people who say they were born in the wrong part of the country, and that this is the life for them, where their heart is."....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Cat's out of the bag for man's dream bride Dr. G is a veterinarian in the cold country. They are a tough breed, those vets and cowmen and outfitters who live where the snowdrifts are over a horse's head and the thermometer has to wear a wool sock in the winter! One of Doc's more remote clients had been through two wives. His thrifty nature and insistence on doing things the hard way was more than they could take. He had grown sour on women, so Doc was surprised one day when Sourdough (we'll call the reclusive hardhead Sourdough) dropped by the clinic just to visit. He hung around, had some coffee and piddled. Doc knew he had something on his mind, so he waited. Finally Sourdough said, "I gave a girl a ring." Dr. G had a momentary vision of Sourdough being swept away by a woman who was able to reinstill his romantic urges and fire his heart to bursting with feelings of true love, mutual adoration and the realization that there is more to life than work. "What's she like?" asked Doc with more than a little compassion for his friend. "She can irrigate," said Sourdough. "What!" said Doc....