NEWS ROUNDUP

Gloom-and-doom PBS special looks at scary future for wildlife Matt Damon is convinced the Earth is on the verge of a "sixth extinction" that could even wipe out the strutting homo sapiens largely responsible for the looming calamity. Admittedly, Damon's appearances in Ocean's Eleven, The Bourne Identity and Syriana don't qualify him as a scientific oracle. But he cites many experts in The State of the Planet's Wildlife, a gloom-and-doom PBS special airing tonight. Damon tells us that "something is terribly wrong with our environment" and that half of the world's wildlife species may go toes up over the next several decades. By show's end, many viewers may find themselves deeply spooked. The Earth is no stranger to such disasters, the most recent of which was the "fifth extinction" some 65 million years ago. It resulted from an asteroid strike that sent aloft a sun-blocking cloud of ash that doomed 75 percent of the planet's species. This time, according to the show, the chief agent of destruction is man....
Editorial: Lessons of Jarbidge hard to learn Do you remember Jarbidge? You probably do if you lived here 10 years ago when Northwest Montana residents formed a convoy to support and celebrate the “Shovel Brigade” which was organized to rebuild a national forest road in Nevada in defiance of federal authorities. Since then, the battle of Jarbidge Canyon has degenerated into a contest to prove whether Elko County or the federal government was the first to establish a road along the river. But waiting on the sidelines are environmental groups who consider that a side issue. For them, the Endangered Species Act is the law that trumps all. As intervenors in the case, the groups argue that the Forest Service must maintain authority over the road for the sake of the southernmost population of bull trout, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Jarbidge fight has all the ingredients of most other ESA battles, including some here in Northwest Montana: environmental litigants acting as advocates for a species, traditional-use advocates fighting to maintain access and management to public resources, and a federal agency caught in the middle. The most important, and unfortunate, common denominator among endangered-species cases is how lengthy and wasteful they can be....
Bike club, Forest Service working toward solution Dave Ryan wants people to know that Missoula's mountain bike club isn't made up of a bunch of renegades knocking heads with the U.S. Forest Service over trail use in the popular Blue Mountain Recreation Area. In truth, Ryan said club members are encouraged with the direction the agency is moving to provide access in the woods. A few weeks back, Ryan wasn't so sure. The Missoula Ranger District had just mailed an open letter that said mountain bikers could face upward of $175 in fines if they got caught riding on a trail traditionally open only to equestrians and pedestrians. The letter said mountain bike closure signs had been vandalized and removed, and voluntary compliance just wasn't working. “It caught us a little bit off-guard,” said Ryan, Mountain Bike Missoula's board chairman. “That's behind us now. ... I really feel like we're making some headway with the Forest Service.” The talk's now turned to working together with both the Forest Service and the Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula to find some solutions to trail use that everyone can live with....
Developer submits revised application for proposed ski resort The developer of a proposed ski resort south of here submitted a revised permit application Monday, seeking permission to include 1,680 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in his project. The new application is in response to the Forest Service's decision last year denying Tom Maclay permission to include public land adjacent to his family's ranch in his proposal for the Bitterroot Resort. "I believe our community is beginning to more fully appreciate the great potential of this site as well as the economic development opportunities that come with having appropriately planned, ecologically sustainable recreation and tourism amenities in one of the most outstanding natural settings in the U.S.," Maclay said in a written statement. Maclay wants to build what supporters say would be a world-class destination resort for skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts. Skiing would extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883 and onto national forest land near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area....
As the Rich Ride In, Many Are Priced Out of Homes on the Range In an era when the rich are the only income group getting richer, ever-larger waves of wealth are spilling in from the coasts and swamping the resort valleys of the Rocky Mountain West. The rich are coming not just to ski, mountain-bike or build imposing second homes. They are coming to stay -- or, at the very least, secure permanent resident status for tax purposes. The moneyed invasion is driving population growth rates that are among the highest in the nation. From Aspen to Jackson to Squaw Valley, high-net-worth individuals fill sleek restaurants night after night to eat $30 plates of freshly flown-in fish. They donate generously for the arts, wildlife conservation, and preserving forest and farmland near their custom-built homes. And with millions of well-to-do baby boomers nearing retirement, the Rocky Mountain resort forecast is for years upon years of the incoming rich -- seeking big sky, big houses and the comfort of others who can afford to live large....
Poll favors motorized recreation in National Forests A survey of 500 voters in Western Colorado found the majority of respondents favor motorized recreation in the state’s national forests. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national trail-based recreational access group, maintains the poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, indicates three-fourths of the region’s voters reject any changes the Forest Service would impose to limit public access. "This survey rebukes the efforts of environmental groups to restrict recreational access to public lands under the guise of protection," Brian Hawthorne, public lands director for the coalition said in a news release. "This poll shows wide support across the political spectrum for balanced management of the region’s national forests." A task force appointed by Gov. Bill Owens has been holding public hearings to consider if areas that currently are roadless in the forests, should remain roadless, or if they should be opened to a wide variety of uses including motorized recreational vehicles....
Column: New Mexico is Burning Devastation, Charred; these are the media's terms of choice so far to describe the 17,000 acre Ojo Feliz fire in northern New Mexico. The human-caused fire has been growing in hot and windy conditions over the last three days. But can anyone say people were not forewarned? And is the fire really "devastating" for the grasslands and forests that have evolved for millennium with wildfire? I would argue that it's desperately needed and refreshing for these fire-dependent ecosystems. The problem in this situation is people are in the way. The government has been pouring millions of dollars into firewise campaigns, thinning, prescribed fire, and other actions to fulfill the mandate of the National Fire Plan. The Fire Plan, adopted in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognizes the essential ecological role of fire and sets direction for safeguarding forest-interface communities. The plan calls for allowing more fires to burn naturally in backcountry forests, thereby protecting the lives of firefighters, saving taxpayer dollars, restoring forest ecosystems and protecting communities. The Forest Service continues to suppress the overwhelming majority of natural fires. Since 2001, the Forest Service spent approximately half a billion dollars- an average of $99 million annually- to suppress 98 percent of wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico. Forest Guardians believes there is a rapidly growing fire-industrial complex. Lucrative private contracts for aircraft, heavy equipment and labor- coupled with ever-expanding housing developments- threaten to drive a detrimental policy of fire suppression at all costs....
US drilling recovery evident in completions, other data Completion totals and federal onshore permitting and leasing data reflect the strong drilling recovery under way in the US. The country's drilling activity climbed 9% year-to-year in the first quarter, the American Petroleum Institute said in its latest quarterly well completion report. Producers drilled an estimated 11,527 oil wells, gas wells, and dry holes in the US during 2006's first 3 months, compared with 10,534 in the comparable 2005 period. Gas well completions increased 8% year-to-year to 6,957, oil well completions grew 10% to 3,358, and dry holes climbed 16% to 1,212. API Chief Economist John C. Felmy noted "anecdotal evidence" that fewer deepwater wells were drilled in the first quarter but that more were successful. Total US exploratory completions rose 12% year-to-year in the first quarter, while development completions grew 9% during the same period, according to API. It estimated that US oil and gas exploration footage reached 63,386,000 ft, 12% more than in 2005's first quarter....
Column: This Land is My Land -- Really President Bush wants to sell my land to fund rural schools. I mean my land -- not the vast tracts of federal forests and grasslands I co-own with the proverbial New York cabbie, the Seattle widow and all other American citizens. My private land -- the 12 acres I own with my husband. We bought it through a Forest Service land exchange in 2000 and have paid taxes on it ever since. Yet there it is, a tiny green polygon on the maps described in the Feb. 28 Federal Register. There it is, part of the president's plan to sell 304,370 acres of Forest Service land to raise $800 million to fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, a popular county payments program established in 2000. If our speck of land in rural northeastern California were the only mistake in the president's funding plan, we could all laugh it off as another bureaucratic blunder. But the proposal is replete with errors. Some are like the inclusion of our property, mere slip-ups in a sloppy process done in haste. Others are far more troubling, suggesting a strategy that veers from simply incompetent to irresponsible....
Center for Biological Diversity Hosts Successful Collaboration Workshops The Center for Biological Diversity hosted two successful workshops entitled "Advocacy through Authentic Collaboration" on March 18 in Flagstaff, Arizona and April 1 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "In 2004, the chief of the Forest Service identified unmanaged recreation, specifically off-road vehicle (ORV) use, as one of four key threats to national forest lands. In an attempt to gain control of the burgeoning number of ORV users on our public lands, the Forest Service has begun the process of travel management planning which will include the designation of off-road vehicle routes, trails and areas," said Chris Kassar, Center wildlife biologist and ORV campaign coordinator. Each forest in Arizona and New Mexico has begun the travel management planning process in response to new regulations concerning travel planning and off-road vehicle management issued by the Forest Service in November 2005 (for more on the rule go to www.endangeredearth.org/orv. The rule tasks forests with the job of designating routes and areas suitable for off-road vehicle use. One possible way the agency will involve the public in these decisions is through a "collaborative process," which could include a variety of users working together to advise the Forest Service on the design of a mutually acceptable system of trails, routes and roads....
Industry: Logging can help slow beetles Timber industry representatives say clear-cut logging should be used to help slow the spread of bark beetles in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. At a meeting last week between timber industry representatives and U.S. Forest Service officials, the timbermen said they could be part of the solution to the growing bark beetle problem. If nothing is done, they said, the forest will suffer. "We're there. The timber's dying," said Bill Petersmann, a forester with Bighorn Logging. "We should be growing new trees right now." Petersmann said logging could help remove infested trees and promote new growth in the forest. But Mary Peterson, forest supervisor for Medicine Bow-Routt, said even trees that are killed by bark beetles can serve a purpose; when left in the forest, they will eventually topple and degrade into the soil, providing nutrients for plants and habitat for animals....
Layman Lumber to close Layman Lumber Co., a fixture in Naches for 50 years, will lay off most of its 50 employees by the end of the month and shut down for good by the middle of June. Owner Kathy Kratzer, daughter of founder George Layman, said Monday that timber supplies aren't sufficient to operate the sawmill, which produced lumber mostly for the housing industry. "Without timber, you can't make lumber," Kratzer said in a telephone interview. She also blamed poor prices and changing environmental regulations but declined to elaborate on the company's financial situation. "It's just become impossible. Let's just leave it at that," Kratzer said. Layman Lumber, which has produced about 25 million board feet of lumber a year, is representative of the small mills that once dotted the Northwest, said Mike Pieti, executive secretary and treasurer of the Portland-based Western Council of Industrial Workers....
With spotted owl count falling, lawsuit is planned More than a decade after the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan was launched to save the threatened spotted owl, a Seattle environmental group says the bird's population in Washington is plummeting. Citing "overwhelming evidence" about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting. Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend. Weyerhaeuser says it follows state regulations and even exceeds them in some ways....
Column: Mystery mouse takes centerstage in endangered species drama The outcome of a struggle between the lumpers and the splitters may determine the future regulatory reach of the Endangered Species Act. Are these angry gangs of unemployed loggers, fighting over the carcass of a spotted owl? No. These are biologists - experts in the esoteric field of DNA identification. And whether the lumpers or splitters gain the upper hand in deciding which species gain protected status will mean the difference between an ESA that tries to do the impossible, by protecting every detectable subspecies of plant or animal, and one that sets its sights on the doable, by setting priorities and focusing on saving a select number of keystone species. It all boils down to how finely the federal government chooses to parse the genetic code that differentiates one species from another, on a continuum that begins at the top, with broad taxonomic categories, and moves down to genetic variations between individuals. Given the precision with which we can now map DNA - just a fantasy when the law was passed in the 1970s - science has caught up with and overtaken the ESA, creating a disconnect that must be addressed. Charles Darwin may have been the first to note the difference between lumpers and splitters. The former gloss over what they see as trivial differences, in search of nature's unity. The latter focus on tiny differences, to stress nature's diversity. And the factions have come to blows over the identity of an enigmatic creature called the Preble's meadow jumping mouse....
County considering zoning change for workers camps "Mancamp" was a dirty word for some folks who saw the oil shale boom of the 1980s in Garfield County. It meant a sprawling, trashed-out trailer park north of Parachute that housed hundreds of oil shale workers. Now the phrase is "camper park for energy workers," and one natural gas company, Occidental Oil and Gas Group (Oxy), is proposing one north of DeBeque to temporarily house its workers. Oxy began discussing a remedy with the county late last year, said Doug Dennison, regulatory coordinator for the company, about a process to permit such camps. It has applied for a zoning code amendment to allow the camps and a special use permit. Dennison said the company would like to establish the camps for workers who have to travel one and a half to two hours over rough roads to reach the company's private land - about 20,000 acres....
Middle of Nowhere Is a Center of Conflict The 3 million acres of federal land in the Arizona Strip have their remote geography to thank for preserving their spectacular red sandstone escarpments, slot canyons, rock art and ruins of ancient pueblos. One of the last places in the Lower 48 to be mapped, the strip, in the northwestern corner of the state, is today bypassed by major highways and mostly devoid of gas stations, hotels and other visitor services. As a result, more than 12,000 years of human history written on this rugged landscape has remained in place, undisturbed by tourism or development. That is about to change. Here at the backdoor of the Grand Canyon, two national monuments, Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, are poised to absorb the effects of the explosive growth from Las Vegas to the west and St. George, Utah, to the north — two of the fastest expanding areas in the nation. The federal agency that oversees much of the land in the Arizona Strip, the Bureau of Land Management, is preparing a long-range plan for the area that would allow uranium mining and oil and gas exploration across 96% of the lands outside the monuments. The plan would also permit livestock grazing in the monuments and open 3,000 miles of roads to motorized recreation, including some in the monuments. A 7,100-acre "play area" for dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles would be established. And although that area would be outside the monuments, it would be next to land set aside to protect a threatened cactus and a Native American petroglyph site....
Half of Canadian BSE Cattle Born After 1997 Feed Ban; Stronger Measures Needed Canada announced on Sunday yet another case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this time in British Columbia, in a dairy cow born in mid-2000. This is a significant development because it confirms that BSE in Canada is not confined only to Alberta, and BSE in Canadian cattle obviously is not restricted to animals born before Canada’s 1997 feed ban was implemented to prevent the spread of this disease. This latest BSE-positive cow – as well as the case Canada announced on Jan. 23 – was born three years after Canada implemented its feed ban, which suggests BSE has been circulating within the Canadian feed system during the past six years. The BSE-positive cow Canada confirmed on Jan. 11, 2005, was born seven months after Canada implemented its feed ban. This new case actually is Canada’s sixth confirmed case of BSE in native-born cattle, not its fifth, as reported by USDA, which continues to overlook the December 2003 case found in Washington state in a cow imported from Alberta. (Canada also detected BSE in a cow imported from Great Britain in 1993.) More worrisome is that this latest incident is Canada’s fourth detected case in a little more than a year, and that Canada continues to test significantly fewer cattle compared to other BSE-affected countries. “This means half of all Canadian BSE cases confirmed so far were in animals born after Canada implemented its 1997 feed ban, a precaution USDA incorrectly assumed would halt the spread of the disease within Canada’s feed system and its cattle herd,” said R-CALF USA President and Region V Director Chuck Kiker....