NEWS ROUNDUP

The Klamath: The Basin, The Bucket and Backbone The other definition of watershed is of interest to everyone who's aware of the Klamath. Watershed - A crucial dividing point, line or factor: a turning point. 2001 was a watershed year for the Klamath and for America. There are many reasons for this, but there is one besides 9-11 that will forever be branded in the hearts and minds of Klamath Basin residents and the people nationwide that became involved in the Klamath Basin in the summer of 2001. In 2001, the Klamath's farming community lost its guarantee of water -- a guarantee that had stood the Klamath and America's consumers in good stead for nearly a century. For all the talk of "restoration," the Klamath has never been static....
Colorado gets cloud-seeding gift Ranchers in parched southwestern Colorado are saying a quiet thanks to cities once considered the robber barons of water: Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. The cities, maligned by Coloradans for their heavy use of the Colorado River over the years, have agreed to contribute $45,000 this spring to keep cloud-seeding programs going in the San Miguel, Dolores and Las Animas watersheds to boost snowpacks and, with luck, increase the spring runoff in the heavily used Colorado River. It is the first time Nevada, Arizona and California have helped Colorado in this way, said Rod Kuharich, director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. "This has a lot of symbolic meaning down here," said Don Schwindt, a rancher outside Cortez, who also sits on the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Schwindt's small water district had run out of money to keep its cloud-seeding program going this year....
Cedar Breaks might become national park Is there room for a sixth national park in Utah? Federal officials and Iron County planners say there might be - at Cedar Breaks. The 6,000-acre national monument, with its stunning redrock amphitheater and high alpine scenery, already draws over 500,000 visitors annually. Monument manager Paul Roelandt and Forest Service district ranger Dayle Flanigan told Iron County commissioners this week that by expanding the monument to include the adjacent Ashdown Gorge Wilderness Area and Flanigan Arch, which lies just outside the wilderness area, a new park would not only be feasible - but a boon to the county's economy. "It would make the monument more noticeable and probably bring in more tourists," Roelandt told commissioners during their weekly meeting....
Evangelicals embrace `creation care' of God's green Earth And in early September, he became one of 86 church leaders to sign the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation, a call to conservation from religious conservatives. "Because we have sinned, we have failed in our stewardship of creation," the statement says. "Therefore we repent of the way we have polluted, distorted, or destroyed so much of the Creator's work." It adds, "Because we await the time when even the groaning creation will be restored to wholeness, we commit ourselves to work vigorously to protect and heal that creation for the honor and glory of the Creator." Jim Ball, executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, called the ministers' manifesto "groundbreaking." His group, based in Wynnewood, Pa., orchestrated the release of last year's statement. The ecological goals of the "creation care movement" sound like the Sierra Club's agenda: Protect the water, the air, the land, and the creatures that inhabit them. But biblical imperatives are fundamental to the evangelists' movement....
Conservancy groups launch mega-campaign The Gig Harbor-based Russell Family Foundation has promised $3 million over the next two years to an initial $80 million campaign to conserve and restore the Puget Sound shoreline. The donation will kick off a coordinated effort by People for Puget Sound, The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land to secure public and private money to create 10 new parks and natural areas along the Sound’s shoreline over the next three years. “We will leave it up to them to identify the sites. We haven’t picked any place and said save that one,” said Nancy McKay, who manages the foundation’s efforts to promote environmental sustainability. The Russell foundation typically designates about $3 million in grants annually to organizations dedicated to environmental conservation efforts. This new commitment to the Puget Sound is in addition to what has been doled out to between 75 and 80 grant recipients every year, she said....
Dunes stay off-limits to off-roaders A federal judge Tuesday struck down a plan by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to allow off-roading once more on large sections of desert sand dunes closed six years ago to protect a plant threatened with extinction. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, in her long-awaited ruling, sides with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups in saying the bureau violated the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws in proposing to open four areas of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area to dune buggies and other all-terrain vehicles. "This decision is about as strong as it gets and confirms all of our concerns about the dunes environment," said Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs. For now, those areas -- nearly 50,000 acres in all or about one-third of the dunes in southeastern California, also known as Glamis -- will remain closed while the bureau reviews the ruling, said Doran Sanchez, an agency spokesman. The ruling is a significant blow to Inland off-roaders who spend weekends at the dunes camping out in motor homes and cresting the wind-sculpted dunes that reach 300 feet high....
Actions Renew Tensions Over Use of Desert Land A pair of decisions in the last two days governing recreation, conservation and development across several million acres of California desert are reigniting tensions over endangered species and motorized access in the fast-growing region. Late Tuesday, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials signed the west Mojave management plan, designed to streamline construction and map areas for motorized recreation and wildlife protection on 9.3 million acres of public land in five counties and 11 cities. Parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Kern and Inyo counties are included in the plan, which took 12 years to craft. But the plan was promptly lambasted by environmentalists and off-road vehicle groups, who said that thousands of miles of riding trails had been improperly mapped, that there were no funds for enforcement or implementation, and that lawsuits were inevitable. "They don't have a nickel — not a nickel — to implement any of it," said Roy Denner, president of the Off-Road Business Assn., who was appointed by Interior Secretary Gale Norton to serve on the BLM's Desert District Advisory Council and who has monitored the plan closely....
"Shark Parks?" Oceans said in need of protection With tracts of the ocean as little known as Mars, discoveries of a stunning richness of life in the depths are spurring calls for more protection from trawlers, oil drillers and prospectors. Only about 0.5 percent of the oceans are in protected areas, compared to about 12 percent of the earth‘s land surface set aside in parks for creatures ranging from lions in South Africa to polar bears in Alaska. A United Nations meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Brazil from March 20-31 will review calls to extend protected areas into the high seas to help safeguard marine life ranging from seaweeds to sharks and from starfish to corals. Scientists say the issue is pressing because life is being found in parts of the ocean long thought barren -- in the sediments of abyssal plains on the ocean floor, around subsea mountains, deep sea corals or hydrothermal vents....
Cattle ranchers describe 'worst nightmare' Ranchers saw the end of their world Monday. Dead cattle mottled the landscape a day after winds whipped fire into a murderous frenzy across six Texas Panhandle counties. "It's like Armageddon out here," McLean-area rancher Bill Bryant said. "We hauled - I don't remember - 15 to 18 calves that were dead. They just get into a corner and the fire consumes them." Worse than the dead were the dying. Cattle without ears. Tails amputated by fire. Eyelids melted shut. Ranchers had no choice but to put the burned cattle down. "Imagine your worst nightmare, and it can't even come close to this," said Brad Overstreet, a hand on the Taylor Ranch. Fire killed four horses in a pasture on the ranch six miles north of Alanreed. "All the horses were dead when we found them," Overstreet said. "They didn't have a hair on them. "It's the worst thing you've ever seen in your life."
Government to Scale Back Mad Cow Testing Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease, the government intends to scale back testing for the brain-wasting disorder blamed for the deaths of more than 150 people in Europe. The Agriculture Department boosted its surveillance after finding the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003. About 1,000 tests are run daily, up from about 55 daily in 2003. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns pointed out testing is not a food safety measure. Rather, it's a way to find out the prevalence of the disease. "Keep in mind the testing was for surveillance," Johanns told reporters Monday in Warsaw, Poland, where he was attending trade talks. "It was to get an idea of the condition of the herd." Higher testing levels were intended to be temporary when they were announced two years ago. Yet consumer groups argue more animals should be tested, not fewer. Officials haven't finalized new levels, but the department's budget proposal calls for 40,000 tests annually, or about 110 daily....
U.S. District Court Denies Humane Society of the United States' Request for Preliminary Injunction The United States District Court for the District of Columbia today denied a request by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) for a preliminary injunction that would effectively suspend operations at the nation's three USDA-approved horse processing plants. On Feb. 22, HSUS filed for a preliminary injunction to prevent the inspections of horsemeat until a pending lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibiting the fee-for-service inspections could be settled. The Court also dismissed two of the three claims filed in that lawsuit on grounds that the plaintiffs lack standing. In the U.S., horses are slaughtered in the identical way to cattle, and are protected under USDA's humane slaughter regulations. "The chief executive officer of the multi-million dollar Humane Society of the United States once stated that his personal goal was the abolition of all animal agriculture," said Charlie Stenholm, Senior Government Affairs Advisor, Olsson, Frank and Weeda and spokesperson for the three processing plants. "I'm happy to say, he's lost a very important battle today, and animal agriculture won."....
Bitterroot man digs for truth about Billy the Kid Blowing snow cast a pall over a small horse pasture outside the kitchen window of Dale Tunnell's rural home. In the distance, a line of traffic crawled south on U.S. Highway 93. Tunnell flipped through a box of papers on a small table in the kitchen, choosing a copy of a letter dated March 27, 1881, from W. Bonney to the governor of New Mexico Territory. "Dear Sir: For the last time I ask, will you keep your promise? I start below tomorrow. Send answer by bearer." Soon after sending the letter, for which he received no reply, Bonney better known as Billy the Kid killed two deputies in his escape from the Lincoln County (N.M.) Courthouse. Had he remained in custody, Bonney would likely have been hanged for murder. Instead, he was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett that July. The piece of correspondence is one small part of a historical puzzle that Tunnell, a retired federal investigator, has been attempting to solve with a former sheriff, a mayor and others, all from New Mexico. The group has uncovered new physical evidence, Tunnell said last week, and has even exhumed the body of a man who died in 1937 and who claimed to be Billy the Kid. DNA samples from the body are being compared with samples taken from blood stains on a carpenter's bench that supposedly held Bonney's body after he was shot by Garrett. "I want to set the record straight. If Billy the Kid, from 1881 to 1937, lived the life of an honest man, a hardworking fool, then I say he paid his debt to society," Tunnell said....
Cussin' grandson kept promise to grandfather George McEntire trekked from Texas to Cumberland Gap to honor his grandfather's dying wish. "We tell visitors about him," said Janice S. Miracle, a ranger at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. "But we do clean up the language." On Sept. 9, 1863, a Yankee army captured the famous mountain pass and its Rebel defenders. The Confederate prisoners of war included Lt. William R. McEntire. "In 1917, on his deathbed, he made his young grandson George promise he would return to the Gap on the 100th anniversary of his capture, face the North and curse the Yankees for five minutes," Miracle said. George McEntire kept his word on Sept. 9, 1963....