NEWS ROUNDUP

UN: Don't Let Mining Privatize Traditional Lands A United Nations racial discrimination committee has urged the U.S. government to stop actions being taken against the Western Shoshone Nation, whose traditional territories include the Battle Mountain/Eureka Trend and the Carlin Trend in Northeastern Nevada. In a recent decision, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called upon the U.S. government to "freeze any plan to privatize Western Shoshone ancestral lands for transfer to multinational extractive industries and energy developers." CERD also recommended that government agencies "pay particular attention to the right to health and the cultural rights of the Western Shoshone people, which may be infringed upon by activities threatening their environment and/or disregarding the spiritual and cultural significance they give to their ancestral lands." Crescent Valley rancher Carrie Dann, a longtime advocate of Western Shoshone land rights outlined in the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, is a leader of a group of Western Shoshone members that has asked Cortez Gold Mines to stop exploration drilling and other heavy equipment activities until they have obtained the consent of indigenous people. The complaint filed with CERD has been critical of exploration and mining at Horse Canyon and Mount Tenabo....
Judge Rules for Fish in Klamath River Dispute A federal judge delivered a stinging defeat Monday to the Bush administration over its decision to reduce flows on the Klamath River, which has been blamed for devastating fish kills and putting the commercial salmon season in jeopardy. U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong of Oakland ordered the administration's Bureau of Reclamation to return more water to the river in dry years to help ensure that the endangered coho salmon doesn't slide into extinction in the Klamath. Armstrong also ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to produce a biological study that would yield a more equitable distribution of water between the imperiled fish and family farmers in the Klamath Basin, which straddles the Oregon-California border. "The fish won on all counts," said Steve Pedery of the Oregon Natural Resources Council. The decision by Armstrong could hurt farmers most during drought years, when the river lacks enough water to go around. Kristen Boyles, an Earthjustice attorney who fought the case for a coalition of environmentalists, fishermen and Native American tribes, said that during dry years up to 43% more water would remain in the river to ensure the coho's survival....
Bush Administration Sued to Protect Arizona Bald Eagles The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon Society filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agencies failed to respond to a petition to list the Southwestern desert nesting bald eagle as an endangered Distinct Population Segment under the Endangered Species Act. The agencies are required by law to respond to petitions within 90 days and to provide a final determination within one year. The Center and Maricopa Audubon submitted the petition on October 6, 2004. The desert nesting bald eagle is a non-migrating resident of the Southwest. They have a limited range. Most live in Arizona. They are isolated behaviorally, biologically and ecologically from other bald eagles. They breed earlier in the season and do not interbreed with bald eagles that nest elsewhere. "The administration has chosen not to protect this distinct population,” said Dr. Robin Silver, Board Chair of the Center for Biological Diversity....
GOP green group backs Pombo rival Republicans for Environmental Protection has endorsed former Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.) for the GOP nomination in California’s 11th Congressional District instead of the Republican incumbent, Rep. Richard Pombo. In a statement, the organization endorsed McCloskey, co-author of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, because he “has a distinguished record of working to safeguard the environment and supporting traditional Republican values.” The organization did not support Pombo, who, according to the organization, has “worked to dismantle landmark environmental laws.” McCloskey served in Congress from December 1967 until January 1983 and unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1972....
NOAA accused of hiding truth about global warming Hurricanes are getting worse because of global warming. Kerry Emanuel, a veteran climate researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made that assertion to a roomful of University of Rhode Island scientists a few months ago. He also charged the federal government's top science agency with ignoring the growing research making that link. Instead of telling the public the truth, he said, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials are insisting that hurricanes are worse because of a natural cycle. Emanuel's comments made little impact at the time. But during the last three months, his comments and those of other scientists have become like hurricanes _ more frequent and more severe. Finally, they are reaching the public. James E. Hansen, the top climate scientist at NASA, was quoted in The New York Times in January as saying he had been threatened with "dire consequences" by some NASA political appointees if he continued to call for limits on emissions of gases linked to global warming....
"Improve the ESA by Protecting Private Property Rights" Say Panelists at Capitol Hill Briefing on the Endangered Species Act At a standing room-only briefing on Capitol Hill today, several leading policy organizations advised that strong property rights protections should be included in any Endangered Species Act reform effort. The lunch briefing was sponsored by The National Center for Public Policy Research and the Capital Research Center. Pointing out that over 99 percent of the species listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA have failed to recover, and the devastation the Act has inflicted on private property owners, regional economies and public works projects, panelists at the event stressed that protecting property rights would not only bring relief to American landowners, but would also better protect species. "While the Endangered Species Act has failed miserably at saving rare plants and animals, it has excelled in making life miserable for many in the human population," said Peyton Knight, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for the National Center, and a panelist....
Audubon Society Names America's 10 Most Endangered Birds The ivory-billed woodpecker and the California condor top the list of America's 10 most endangered birds issued today by the National Audubon Society. The 100 year old conservation group says it is reporting on the survival of the nation's rarest bird species to show how heavily they depend upon the Endangered Species Act, which itself is now endangered. The other birds on the most endangered list are the whooping crane, Gunnison sage-grouse, Kirtland's warbler, piping plover, Florida scrub-jay, ashy storm-petrel, golden-cheeked warbler, and Kittlitz's murrelet. These 10 most endangered bird species face a range of threats such as development pressures, invasive species, and global warming, Audubon says....
N.M., Colorado try to restore rare toad to Rockies Rescue missions have been mounted in New Mexico and Colorado to save the boreal toad, which researchers say is being killed off by an invasive fungus that might have originated in Africa. "We certainly feel that the situation with the chytrid fungus is of great importance, not only for (the boreal toad) but for amphibians in general," said Leland Pierce, terrestrial species recovery plan coordinator for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The fungus apparently infects amphibian skin, causing it to thicken, scientists said. The condition interferes with the boreal toad's ability to absorb water and might affect the ionic balance of the animal's bloodstream, Pierce said. The toad once thrived in the southern Rocky Mountains, but it hasn't been seen in New Mexico since 1993. Colorado has two viable populations....
Bennett aims to end longtime land feud Former real estate developer James Doyle is hoping an end could be in sight for his 16-year fight with the federal government over tens of millions of dollars he claims he is owed for land that was included in a preserve for endangered desert tortoises. A public-lands proposal rolled out this week by Utah Sen. Bob Bennett includes language that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to sell off surplus land, with the proceeds dedicated to buying lands like Doyle's where the use has been restricted. Bennett's spokeswoman said the Republican senator sees the proposal as "a fulfillment of an existing obligation." Doyle owns about 1,550 acres of land that he bought in 1990. He hoped to subdivide it and turn a tidy profit, but that fell apart when the desert tortoise was designated an endangered species. Doyle's land later was included in a 66,000-acre Red Cliffs Desert Tortoise Reserve. There has been an understanding that Doyle should be compensated for his land, but the two sides are miles apart on how much it is worth....
Should we change the law? Change the landmark law? The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 as a response to concern by Congress that various species of fish, wildlife and plants in the country had been rendered extinct and others depleted to the point of being in danger of, or threatened with, extinction. The act has been reauthorized eight times, and significant amendments were enacted in 1978, 1982 and 1988. In September 2005, the U.S. House approved broad changes to the law by passing the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act. The bill's chief sponsor was House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif. In December, a group of mainly Western senators, including Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., introduced out of committee the Collaboration of the Recovery of Endangered Species Act, which would also reform the Endangered Species Act. Here's a look at the original act and the major differences in the provisions of the two reform bills....
New Mexico aims to save ancient footprints Some Las Cruces-area residents are pushing for protection for thousands of ancient fossil footprints discovered 15 years ago by an amateur geologist. "If the site isn't protected, our fear is it will be lost due to mining, looting and weather," said Keith Whelpley of Las Cruces, chairman of the Paleozoic Trackways Foundation, which was formed recently to push to protect the 290 million-year-old site in the Robledo Mountains. The site changed what scientists know about the area, said Spencer Lucas, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque. "The Robledo Mountains are the scientific Rosetta Stone of our understanding of Paleozoic footprints," said Lucas, who was first shown the tracks in the early 1990s. Before their discovery, researchers overestimated the number of animals at the time because they had only isolated tracks. The same animal made different tracks running and walking, but scientists assumed the prints were from different animals, Lucas said. The site also includes insect tracks, "animals that we don't even know existed without the tracks," he said....
Gas industry may crowd Bookcliffs The natural-gas industry has its eye on the desert north of Interstate 70 and south of the Bookcliffs as the next place for drilling. Officials with the Bureau of Land Management announced Monday that 45,721 acres in Mesa County, the majority just north of Grand Junction, will be auctioned in a May oil and gas lease sale. “It’s happening on this side of the Bookcliffs,” said Mel Lloyd, spokeswoman for the BLM’s Grand Junction Field Office. “A few acres might go up on the slopes of the Bookcliffs, but the majority of the parcels are located on the valley floor.” Some of the nominated acres in Mesa County are split estate, meaning a private entity owns the surface rights while another entity owns the subsurface mineral rights. In this case, that other entity is the federal government. Lloyd said approximately 2,000 acres of the parcels nominated in Mesa County for the May sale were split-estate situations. That means landowners in the Grand Valley could, unknowingly, be on the auction block. The BLM does not notify landowners when the minerals beneath their property are up for lease....
Land prices plunge 47 percent in fourth quarter The unthinkable has happened. Las Vegas Valley land sale prices dropped 47 percent in the fourth quarter. No, the sky isn't falling. But the real estate market may be undergoing a period of stabilization. "The escalations reported during the past 18 months were clearly unsustainable," said Brian Gordon, principal of Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas business advisory firm. "The economics of land pricing, escalating development costs and modest increases in interest rates will not allow for average land valuation to reach well beyond the recent peak, at least not in the near term." There were 4,494 acres of land sold in the fourth quarter, or 60 percent more than the previous quarter, with average sale prices of $376,200 per acre or $8.64 per square foot. It marks a 47 percent price drop from the third quarter and a 28 percent decrease from the fourth quarter of 2004. The dramatic price depreciation is because of a higher volume of transactions in the central/east and north submarkets as opposed to the resort corridor. A U.S. Bureau of Land Management auction also helped to skew sale prices. The federal agency sold 3,002 acres of land in the fourth quarter for $799.3 million, or about $266,256 per acre. It's 62.4 percent below third-quarter sale prices of $708,000 per acre....
Land bill gives solutions New federal legislation revealed in St. George on Wednesday by Republican Sen. Bob Bennett and Democrat Rep. Jim Matheson showed that a mutual concern for imminent growth, tempered with an amicable sensitivity to preservation and conservation, could be quelled by drafting a comprehensive, bipartisan land management plan for Washington County - the fifth fastest growing county in the United States. The Washington County Growth & Conservation Act of 2006 is a working document modeled after similar bills authored by Sens. Harry Reid (D) and John Ensign (R) for Lincoln and Clark counties in Nevada. It is the first of its kind in Utah and has been in the works for 20 months with representatives from the Washington County Land Use Planning Process and Working Group, first assembled under former Gov. Olene Walker's administration, and members from the conservation and recreation community. A few highlights of the legislation include: # Designation of 170 miles of Virgin River in Zion National Park as a Wild and Scenic River, the first in Utah history. # Addition of 219,299 acres of land to National Wilderness Preservation System including 123,743 acres of National Park Service land within Zion National Park, 92,914 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land and 2,642 acres of Forest Service land. # Transfer of "non-environmental sensitive" public land into private ownership, which in turn, can yield profits toward the state education trust fund, county fire protection and flood control, water infrastructure, among other various priorities....
Reviving ghost town Mike Riddle grew up in Texas, but he fell hard for a piece of Arizona the first time he saw the remains of this century-old mining town cupped by the Harcuvar and Buckskin mountains that form the Butler Valley. The mystery is how George Mitchell and a buckboard of miners conquered 30 miles of scrub desert to reach the copper claim Mitchell staked in 1905. The corrugated road gets rocky again just when it promises to smooth out. This is countryside made not for wooden wagons but for steel four-wheel-drives that can dig in their claws and spit out billows of dust that cover the rear window with a brown curtain. The reward at the end of the trail is a panorama layered in smoky gray and black velvet with a streak of purple. "It's just a beautiful place," Riddle says. Riddle has been coming to Swansea - pronounced SWAN-zee and named for a city in Mitchell's native Wales - for a decade. As an amateur archaeologist and volunteer with the Bureau of Land Management, he is helping to preserve the architectural bones of a mining town that once boasted a population of almost 1,000 people and 30 buildings, then expired in the 1930s....
Bid to contest Kenedy estate denied A judge ruled Monday against a Corpus Christi man who wanted to contest the estate of a wealthy rancher he believes was his grandfather. "This court affirmatively believes in the finality of judgment," state District Judge Manuel Banales said, deciding in favor of two charitable organizations that control the Kenedy Ranch, which has assets estimated at up to $1 billion. Ray Fernandez, who believes his mother, Ann Fernandez, was the illegitimate daughter and sole heir of South Texas rancher John Kenedy, is waiting for the state Supreme Court to decide whether he can exhume Kenedy's body. Banales' ruling defeats Fernandez's attempt in probate court in Austin to reopen the Kenedy estate, but Fernandez says he will appeal. Kenedy was said to be sterile because of a childhood illness. Lawyers for the two charitable trusts that control the estate each filed a motion to block Fernandez, who is the Nueces County medical examiner....
Cattlemen lose appeal of $1.28 billion verdict in Tyson suit The Supreme Court refused Monday to consider reinstating a $1.28 billion judgment returned by an Alabama jury in a price-fixing lawsuit filed by cattle producers against Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. Ruling without comment, the justices declined to review a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a lower court ruling that threw out a jury's verdict against the Arkansas-based Tyson. Cattlemen claimed the company used contracts with a few large cattle producers to manipulate prices, a charge Tyson denied. Tyson Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Tyson said the court's action would let producers sell cattle through contract arrangements with meatpackers if they wish to do so instead of going to the cash market. "This means U.S. cattle producers will continue to have the freedom to market cattle the way they want," Tyson said in a statement. "It also proves our livestock buying practices are proper." A Kansas rancher who was involved in the lawsuit, Mike Callicrate, said the Supreme Court's action granted a green light to packing companies that want to "chickenize" the beef industry by putting constant pressure on producers to cut costs and accept lower profits....
Law of the West 3-20: "That's a lot of Horse ..." The other day in the mail I got a notice from the planning folks in the county. Another landowner is planning to subdivide their property. Soon, my view of pastures will include new suburban homes on 2 1/2 acre lots. It won’t take long until my little boarding stable is totally surrounded by soccer moms and privacy fences. It’s not that I don’t mind the new neighbors, but I am always a tad fearful that they may not understand what it means to live next to a horse boarding and breeding operation. Sights, sounds and smells that are taken for granted and accepted in an agricultural setting can be extremely annoying to the folks who just purchased their $400,000 suburban dream home. While we accept the smell of horse manure and a few flies here and there, the newcomers may not be as accommodating. Not to mention, little Tommy and Sally’s questions after they happen to observe Easy Joe getting friendly with some of his new gals. Fortunately, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming each have Right to Farm laws, which are designed to protect agricultural operations. In Wyoming, the law is clear. A farm or ranch can not be a nuisance if it uses generally accepted agricultural management practices and it would not have been a nuisance prior to the change in the use of the adjacent lands. Both Colorado and Nebraska have similar statutes on their books. Colorado’s is found at Section 35-3.5-102. Many local communities have also adopted county resolutions or ordinances that protect the right to farm. However, a “Right to Farm” law does not prevent a lawsuit from being filed against an operation a new neighbor finds offensive nor does it afford the farmer or rancher a free hand to conduct operations. Proper and constitutionally written laws merely afford the farmer or rancher another defense against the suit. The question, in many right to farm cases, will center on whether or not the farmer is using “generally accepted agricultural management practices.”....
It's All Trew: Reflecting on traditional meat processing Today’s refrigerators and freezers make meat preservation a snap, and the well-stocked grocery store shelves in supermarkets provide an endless choice of meat grades and cuts. It hasn’t always been that way. Among my childhood memories, I recall hog-butchering days when the neighbors gathered to help each other in processing the winter’s supply of meat. We slaughtered the animals and cut the various sections into the forms needed for curing and cooking. Shoulders and hams were cured and wrapped in butcher paper. With no refrigeration, the Trews used a large wooden box about the size of a big cedar chest, located out in a tin bunkhouse. We ground smaller pieces into sausage, seasoned it to each family’s taste, cooked it well-done then placed it carefully into a large crock. When a layer was filled, we poured hot lard over the meat for preservation....