NEWS ROUNDUP

Deals Turn Swaths of Timber Company Land Into Development-Free Areas Timber companies and conservation organizations have been working to arrange and announce a cascade of deals transferring large, unbroken swaths of forestland into the hands of government, nonprofit — or even commercial — groups that are committed to keeping them free from development. On Tuesday, the International Paper Company announced it would receive $300 million in a deal arranged by the Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Fund for 217,000 acres in 10 states around the Southeast. The largest single tract, an unkempt 25,668-acre peninsula between the Pee Dee and Little Pee Dee Rivers in South Carolina, will ideally revert to the cypress and longleaf-pine forest that once covered these sandy flatlands. The company also said it had sold 69,000 acres of forestland in Wisconsin for $83 million to the Nature Conservancy. The third and largest deal is intended to preserve up to 400,000 acres of land near Moosehead Lake in central Maine. Financial and other details are still being worked out between the Plum Creek Timber Company, the Nature Conservancy and two regional conservation groups. But for all the good news, celebrated by all sides, a stubborn fact remains: The nearly one million acres that have been preserved in these deals over the past two years, including a 257,000-acre tract in the Adirondacks, represent barely 2 percent of timber company lands that are coming on the market in the East....
River May Flow Again, Full of Salmon Big rivers in the West are reliable sources of bad news. Dammed for electricity and drained for irrigation, they have pushed salmon into extinction, fishermen into bankruptcy and Indians into despair. This dismal pattern, though, may be ending on the Klamath, which straddles the Oregon-California border and has long been one of the nation's most thoroughly fouled-up rivers. Its woes include massive fish kills, blooms of poisonous algae, diabetic Indians, fuming irrigators, litigious environmentalists and aging dams that produce little power while squatting stolidly in the way of reviving the river. Two decisions last week -- one by a federal court in California, the other by the Bush administration -- raise the surprising possibility that the Klamath may overcome many of these troubles. For the first time in the nearly eight decades since the river was dammed, Indians and commercial fishermen, environmentalists and federal fish scientists agree that there are sound reasons to believe in the comeback of a river that once supported the third largest salmon runs on the West Coast....
A fighting chance for the Klamath These are times of both deep despair and unprecedented hope for California's $100 million salmon industry. Despair, because a federal agency is expected this week to recommend either canceling or severely curtailing the 2006 commercial and sport fishing seasons because of collapsing stocks on the Klamath River. Hope, because for the first time in years, genuine progress is being made on a long-term solution to the problem. Though the situation is mired in competing scientific theories, lawsuits and political skirmishing, the bottom line is fairly simple: There are plenty of Chinook salmon in the ocean now, but most of them originated in the Sacramento River. Salmon from the Klamath River, once a producer of millions of fish, are at all-time lows, compelling federal protections. Fewer than 30,000 Klamath Chinook salmon are expected to return to the river this year, well below the 35,000 fish biologists say are needed to sustain the runs. And because both populations mingle in the open sea, fishing for Sacramento River Chinook could imperil the Klamath salmon that remain. Though some biologists say part of the decline is due to poor marine conditions, most researchers say the main problem with the Klamath's salmon is the river itself. Over the years, it has become inhospitable to fish. Much of its water is diverted for agriculture, reducing flows critical to salmon....
EPA May Weaken Rule on Water Quality The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to allow higher levels of contaminants such as arsenic in the drinking water used by small rural communities, in response to complaints that they cannot afford to comply with recently imposed limits. The proposal would roll back a rule that went into effect earlier this year and make it permissible for water systems serving 10,000 or fewer residents to have three times the level of contaminants allowed under that regulation. About 50 million people live in communities that would be affected by the proposed change. In the case of arsenic, the most recent EPA data suggest as many as 10 million Americans are drinking water that does not meet the new federal standards. Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Water, said the agency was trying to satisfy Congress, which instructed EPA in 1996 to take into account that it costs small rural towns proportionately more to meet federal drinking water standards....
Desalination research could 'drought-proof' West Texas towns, businesses West Texas is awash in crude oil while water is a precious and perplexing commodity. In fact, in the 1930s, it's said a barrel of water sold for 10 times the amount of a barrel of crude oil. Water is perplexing because so many of the Permian Basin's oil wells produce water along with oil or natural gas, forcing operators to pay large sums to have it trucked away or otherwise disposed of. At the same time, West Texas communities are looking at ways to ensure plentiful supplies of water for their residents. David Burnett, director of technology at the Global Petroleum Research Institute at Texas A&M and his colleagues think they are nearing a solution to both problems, and their work has earned them the Hearst Energy Award for Technology. Burnett and his colleagues are focused on the desalination of the brackish brine water so plentiful in West Texas and are on the verge of developing a desalination unit small enough for small communities to afford or for a rancher to operate to ensure his livestock have plenty to drink during times of drought, all for about the cost of maintaining a swimming pool....
No beaver left behind: Settling a gnawing issue Every beaver a wanted beaver. That could be the motto of state Rep. Joel Kretz, an Okanogan County rancher who shepherded a beaver relocation bill to unanimous approval in the Legislature – only to see it brutally vetoed last week by Gov. Chris Gregoire. Yes, a beaver relocation bill. Kretz’s brainchild would have allowed Eastern Washington landowners who have longed for a beaver of their own to trap one in Western Washington and bring it back to a loving home. Like Kretz’s ranch. The freshman Republican owns 1,300 acres in Wauconda. His spread has cattle. It has horses. It has timber. What it doesn’t have is a beaver. No beaver to gnaw down the scenery, build dams or whack its tail on the water when the wolves come round. Kretz wanted one badly enough to talk 98 members of the House and 45 members of the Senate into letting him get one....
Endangered lynx set free Volunteers opened metal animal crates in a campground here, but at first nothing came out. Then, its footsteps soundless, a lynx sprinted from its nest of hay and vanished into the snowy Weminuche wilderness, its fur a perfect match for the winter-deadened landscape. Researchers released four Canada lynx on Saturday, another step in a reintroduction program started in 1999 and put into action seven years ago. Unbeknownst to the lynx freed Saturday, they are charged with repopulating a species considered endangered in Colorado and threatened in 47 other states. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) plans to release 218 Canada lynx to the San Juan Mountains by the end of April. While the reintroduction program cannot be classified as successful yet, researchers said there is definite progress. Lynx, brown and gray wild cats similar to bobcats, weigh between 18 and 44 pounds, and have tufted ears. Their broad paws -- a trademark feature -- act as natural snowshoes and help them move through the winter landscape. Trackers describe the cats as shy, elusive animals who enjoy living in dark timber....
Grizzly bear experts at odds The government's call to remove federal protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park has sparked sharp debate among some of the country's leading bear experts, who are divided over whether the bear population has recovered enough. On one side, some experts believe delisting the bears now - without greater habitat protections or long- term funding commitments - would mean erasing gains made over the past 30 years and could once again leave the grizzlies in peril. Other experts, however, insist that recovery goals have been met and that it's time for the federal government to focus on lesser-known, struggling bear populations in the West. "The Endangered Species Act was set up to get to what we have now in Yellowstone, a recovered population, and not set up to immunize a species against any kind of threat somebody's imagination might think would happen in the future," said Sterling Miller, who's studied bears for three decades and is now a senior wildlife biologist with the National Wildlife Federation in Missoula, Mont. How scientists working with the same data can reach such wildly different conclusions about the fate of the bears is partly a matter of specialty: Many of those who have taken sides are considered either conservation biologists or wildlife biologists - and tend to view the issue and science from those sometimes contrasting perspectives....
Sea Lions' Dining Habits Stump the Corps A particularly crafty sea lion is befuddling the Army Corps of Engineers. Sea lions have been camping out at the base of the Bonneville Dam and eating salmon trying to migrate up the Columbia River to spawn. Last year they ate some 3.5 percent of the migrating run when salmon numbers were down. This year's run begins in earnest this month, but it is off to a slow start. The Seattle Times reported that, as of Tuesday, about 200 of the chinook, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act, had gone through the dam's fish passage, compared with an average of 3,085 for the date. Biologists are unsure why that is, but it makes the sea lions' take all the more important. One lion in particular, named C404 after a brand applied by a state and federal program, is in a class by himself. He has figured out how to get into fish ladders that help fish past the dam. The engineers have installed gates and tried huge firecrackers, rockets, rubber bullets and noises that sea lions do not like. Nothing has worked....
The Job No Americans Want Isn't Getting Any Easier The seven sheepherders were eating lunch in a trailer with no toilet, heat or water, its leaky roof held down by a rope. A lunch break, especially one together, was a rare event. But they were celebrating, sort of. Lambing season was ending. That's when the ewes give birth and the sheepherders who come to this country on three-year work visas put in their hardest 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week. Still, the sheepherders were steeling themselves for spring. From late March until fall, sheepherding is almost unbearably lonely. Each herder is driven deep into pastures far from town or even a paved road. For weeks on end, he sees no one but the boss, and rarely does he have a cellphone or radio. In the list of jobs immigrants perform that no U.S. citizen wants, sheepherding must rank near the top. The 825 or so sheepherders who work the nation's sheep farms -- mostly in California, Texas and Wyoming -- are immigrants here on H-2A visas from Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Mexico, according to the Western Range Association, an industry group....
Beef trial under way in Aberdeen federal court A jury of four men and four women from northeast South Dakota will decide whether meat packers cost cattle producers as much as $42.79 million during the spring of 2001. The federal court case started with jury selection and opening arguments Friday in Aberdeen. Three cattlemen filed the suit two and a half years ago. It alleges that the nation's four largest meat packers knowingly took advantage of a U.S. Department of Agriculture error to lower the amounts paid to farmers and ranchers for their live cattle. All of the meat packers named in the case say they didn't know about the USDA error so it couldn't have impacted live cattle prices. That there was an error is not in dispute. Nor is the fact that it was not the fault of the packers. From April 2 to May 11, 2001, the USDA incorrectly reported the prices of what are called cutout averages for some beef. Cutout reports, which the USDA is in charge of issuing twice each market day, contain average prices of various cuts of meat. During the time frame in question, cutout averages for choice and select meat were too low because a lower quality of meat was used, in part, to figure them. The mistake was the result of an error in computer software provided by a federal government contractor....
No one survived crash in rugged terrain Commercial airline travel in the United States was relatively new when a Transcontinental Air Transport (T.A.T.) plane disappeared en route from Albuquerque to Winslow with three crew members and five passengers on board in early September 1929. A.B. McGaffey, a highly respected businessman from western Valencia County, was among the five missing passengers. Searchers combed the area on land and from the air. Even Charles Lindbergh joined the search, accompanied by his bride, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Although every rumor of a sighting was pursued, nothing had been found of the plane (with wing number 9649) or its passengers and crew for three long days. But then the searchers' luck suddenly seemed to have changed. On Friday, Sept. 6, search plane pilot D.W. Tomlinson delivered promising news after returning from a flight to an area about a hundred miles north of Winslow....
Relative recalls life of Texas gunslinger John King Fisher was killed during an ambush at the old Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio. He was a colorful guy. He wore colorful clothes — big sombreros and Mexican vests stitched with gold. He had colorful friends and colorful enemies. King Fisher wasn’t the target of the ambush. He was with Ben Thompson, the legendary marshal of Austin. Several years before the fateful performance, Thompson had killed the owner of the theater. Unfortunately for Thompson and Fisher, the new owner had been a friend of the old owner and knew how to carry a grudge. King Fisher died in 1884 after a full life. He was 29....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Dead cat sends bridge luncheon ladies to E.R. The scene at the emergency room was right out of "ER." But it was not a four-car pile up, a Metamucil overdose, or a hippopotamus attack, no. Six women, age 41 to 62, were admitted with food poisoning. The woman in charge, who had also been the hostess of the Women's Bridge Luncheon Party, had sent out invitations. She planned on serving a salmon mousse, vinaigrette salad, cold asparagus spears a la Miracle Whip, with Kit Kats and coffee for dessert. Lunch had gone well. All the guests had eaten their salmon mousse. The hostess had been worried since the salmon was farm raised, but it was three times cheaper....