NEWS ROUNDUP

Two candidates say state should drop wolf litigation Wyoming should drop its court battle with the federal government over wolves and negotiate a wolf-management plan, a Republican gubernatorial candidate says. "This litigation, I don't think, has gotten us anywhere," Ray Hunkins, a Wheatland lawyer, said Monday during a campaign stop. "Meanwhile, the packs are growing; the safety concerns are also growing." Dale Groutage, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, also said he favored dropping the litigation during a recent interview with Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie. Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat who is seeking re-election, has spearheaded Wyoming's legal action against the federal government on the wolf issue. Freudenthal defended the state's litigation and dismissed Hunkins' suggestion as a surrender. "It's not a new option," he said. "It's one available, to capitulate to the feds."....
Grading the "State of the Rockies" The Rockies Baseline is established as a set of key indicators to “take the pulse” of our region and measure where we are against our goals, and how we compare to other regions of the country. Baseline statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau show a 7% growth rate in the region since 2004, well over the national average of 2%, with a total population of 19,400,000 (2004). Other baseline statistics from 2004 include: - Commuters in the Rockies average a 22-minute drive to work each day, compared to the 25-minute average - About 20% of families in the region speak a language other than English at home - About 22% of the region’s population identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino - Median home value in the region was $162,232 - High school graduates stood at 27%, those who went on to obtain at least a Bachelor’s Degree were at 17%. - Regional median income was slightly below the national average at $43,391 - Poverty levels across the Rockies stood alongside the national average at 10% - Employment growth in the Rockies was 8%, with the largest gain in the service industry at 15% - both exceeding the national average....
Planned fire escapes boundary, burns cabins While angry homeowners accused the U.S. Forest Service of incompetence, firefighters worked Tuesday to contain a prescribed burn that escaped containment lines and destroyed four cabins in a rugged, scenic area of central Wyoming. The Forest Service started the prescribed burn Saturday outside a cabin subdivision near Sinks Canyon State Park and completed it on Sunday, Shoshone National Forest Fire Information Officer Ben Cramer said. Cramer said strong winds stoked the fire on Monday and blew it into the subdivision that borders the forest and contains 30 to 35 mostly seasonal vacation homes and cabins. But the burned-out cabins were evidence of negligence on the part of the Forest Service to at least one owner, while the forest supervisor indicated it was a surprise act of nature rather than mishandling by the Forest Service. Shelli Johnson of Lander, one of those who lost a cabin, said her family was angered by the "careless negligence" of the Forest Service because the agency left the fire unattended before it was completely out. "The facts show this did not have to happen," Johnson said in an e-mail Tuesday to The Associated Press. "It was not an accident. F.S. officials made the conscious decision to leave an area that was still smoldering and did not return to it for at least 12 hours. And we are now the victims of their incompetence."....
Feds reject appeal to stop oil and gas drilling in Los Padres National Forest The U.S. Forest Service rejected appeals filed by the California attorney general and three environmental groups that would have halted oil and gas drilling in Los Padres National Forest, which spans San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. The Forest Service essentially said the appeals were premature because no new leases are being considered. But the state attorney general-s office said analyzing the effects of additional drilling is needed before leases are granted. The state said the Forest Service was ignoring the purpose of environmental review. "That (is) the gist of our challenge, that the National Environmental Policy Act and its state counterpart, the California Environmental Quality Act, are on the books to influence how decisions are derived, not to be applied after they-re decided," spokeswoman Teresa Schilling said. Los Padres supervisor Gloria D. Brown announced last summer that the Forest Service would open an additional 52,000 acres of Los Padres to oil and gas development. New surface drilling, power lines and roads would be limited to 4,000 acres, and the remaining 48,000 would be open for underground slant drilling....
U.S. Scores High Marks This Earth Day Though 2005 offered a full plate of environmental episodes that riveted the world's attention, including environmental calamities in China, Hurricane Katrina, and the U.N. conference on climate change, the march of environmental progress continues, according to the 2006 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). "With over a decade of compiled research in the Index, the facts speak for themselves -- it's impossible to deny the environmental improvements we've made and the certain progress we'll continue to make over time," said Dr. Steven Hayward, author of the Index, senior fellow at PRI, and F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI. The eleventh edition of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators (available at www.pacificresearch.org) highlights the positive trends occurring in key areas including climate change, air quality, water quality, toxic chemicals, and biodiversity in the U.S....
Governor holds fate of ecoterrorism bill An unusual coalition of interests lobbied on behalf of a bill addressing the threat of ecoterrorism that won final legislative passage last week. The legislation defining what crimes are considered acts of ecoterrorism and setting penalties awaits action from Gov. Ed Rendell. The governor faces a Saturday deadline to either sign or veto the bill, but he could take action as early as today. The bill defines ecoterrorism as using or threatening force against businesses and facilities involved with animals, plants and natural resources such as coal and oil and gas reserves for political and social reasons. The penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies with jail time and restitution for property damages. The coalition supporting the legislation includes industries, academic institutions and professional associations that ordinarily have little in common. The lineup includes the pharmaceutical industry, biotech industry, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Pennsylvania Forestry Association, Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh and University of Pennsylvania....
Worldwide Wetland Restoration Could Reduce Bird Flu Threat The loss of wetlands around the world is forcing wild birds that may have avian influenza onto alternative sites like farm ponds and paddy fields, where they come into contact with chickens, ducks, and geese, finds a new report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Restoring the tens of thousands of lost and degraded wetlands could help reduce the threat of an avian flu pandemic by providing wild birds with their preferred habitat, according to the report authored by Dr. David Rapport of Canada. The report’s preliminary findings were announced today at a scientific seminar on avian influenza taking place at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi. "Wetland depletion has direct implications for migrating wild birds," Dr. Rapport writes. "Wetland habitat world-wide continues to decline, owing to agricultural expansion and urban development, resulting in fewer staging areas for wild migrating birds."....
Water plan heads for Austin fight Dallas-Fort Worth's battle for future water supplies heats up in April, when critics will argue the region's water plan is illegal. Local business leaders, concerned about the region's future water supply, say the plan must go forward -- or D-FW will face a dire, and dry, future. The 16-county D-FW region, dubbed Region C for compiling the state-mandated plan, is set to present a final version of the plan to the Texas Water Development Board on April 18 at a meeting in Austin. Opponents say they'll testify against the plan, according to Janice Bezanson, executive director of the Austin-based conservation group Texas Committee on Natural Resources. Since discussion of the plan began, controversy has swirled around proposals to study flooding thousands of acres of land to build two different reservoirs, Marvin C. Nichols Dam and Reservoir, about 125 miles northeast of Dallas near Mount Pleasant, and Fastrill Lake in southeast Texas. Two massive, separate coalitions oppose the reservoirs. Their members include environmentalists, landowners, farmers, ranchers, timber companies, business owners, politicians, government officials and wildlife conservationists. The Marvin C. Nichols opposition is citing state legal requirements that water plans be consistent with long-term protection of the state's water resources, agricultural resources and natural resources....
Global warming can cause extinction of thousands of species, says new study Thousands of animal and plant species may disappear from earth's surface as a direct result of global warming, warns a joint study by Australian, Canadian and U.S. scientists. Global warming today is one of the most serious threats to earth's biodiversity and may even rival or exceed risks due to deforestation, say the scientists who have summed up their findings in an article in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Biology. The study carried out by scientists from the University of Toronto, the University of New England, the U.S. Forest Service, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and Conservation International is an extension of a paper in 2004 that prophesied that a quarter of the various live species of the planet would face the prospects of extinction by 2050 because of the impact of global warming. The scientists confirm that conclusion. Emphasizing that climate change is rapidly becoming the most serious threat to earth's biodiversity, Jay Malcolm, assistant forestry professor at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study, said, "This study provides even stronger scientific evidence that global warming will result in catastrophic species loss across the planet."....
The Disappearence of Big Fish It's common knowledge that we are running out of oil. What's not so well known is that we are also running out of big fish. The harsh realization that catches of big fish-marlin, sharks, swordfish and tuna-are declining rapidly is beginning to sink in. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization considers about 75 percent of all fish fully exploited, over-exploited or depleted. The crisis can be seen most extremely across the Pacific, the world's largest source of tuna, where catches are shrinking along with the average size of the fish. Today a 70 pound swordfish-which is too young to have even reproduced-is considered "a good sized fish" and can be legally landed in the US. Just a few short decades ago the same fish averaged 300-400 pounds and could be caught close to shore with a harpoon. In the past two years, the Pacific has seen quotas, restrictions on catches, freezes on effort and even moratoriums. The US longline fleet had to shut down for the second half of 2005 in the Eastern Pacific. Japan and China were not far behind....
Survivor recalls worst train wreck in Montana history Warren Jones and Maurice Odquist were among the passengers on the Milwaukee railroad's Olympian train just after midnight on June 19, 1938, when the train plunged into the rain-swollen waters of Custer Creek 26 miles east of Miles City. Nearly 50 people were killed and scores more were injured, but Jones and Odquist were unhurt. As it happened, they were both packing cameras, and as soon as it was light enough they began photographing the dramatic, devastating scene, the worst train wreck in the history of Montana. They ended up shooting remarkably similar pictures of twisted wreckage and partly submerged passenger cars. Jones sent his film to his father in Milwaukee for developing, while Odquist apparently sent his to Life magazine as quickly as he could. On July 4, 1938, Life splashed Odquist's photos all over a spread that was headlined "A Survivor Photographs the Worst American Train Wreck Since 1887." The Olympian, as every Milwaukee train that ran between Chicago and Tacoma was known, was a fast air-conditioned train, described in a contemporary newspaper account as "the railroad's pride." Shortly before their departure, Jones' father changed the boys' accommodations, moving them from a "tourist" Pullman car into a standard Pullman, which was roomier. That decision probably saved their lives....
Gold-seekers found richness in the land History says sheep came to California along the wagon trains of the 1850s. It was a standard food item for the working and exploring parties. Sheep were highly popular. They furnished their own transportation and they needed no refrigeration, the miners of the Mother Lode consumed more than a half million sheep during this same decade. The shortage of cotton and the need for more wool during the Civil War inflated the price of wool, making sheep raising more profitable. The number of sheep in California increased from 1 million in 1860 to 6 million by 1876. Kit Carson drove the first sheep into the Sacramento Valley, about 15,000 head, by the way of Salt Lake. Then, he sold to the ranchers whatever they wanted. Later, quite a few Sacramento Valley sheep men drove their mutton wethers to Montana or Virginia City for the miners to eat during the 1870s and 1880s, most were 2-year-old wethers. Going to the mountains with sheep and goats stopped rather abruptly in the early 1930s, when the Forest Service said "no more sheep or goats in the Coast Range Mountains," or "no more burning." Burning the brush and dead logs is what made the feed better for the livestock to eat, there would be lots of new leaves and grass to come....