NEWS

Column: Bush's new green thumb PRESIDENT BUSH is petting fish. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is hugging trees. Everything is going to be just ducky in our wetlands. It's a green revolution in the most arid administration in our lifetime, the political equivalent of seeding the Sahara. The question is whether it is merely an oasis amid desolation. In the last month, the administration has sounded like its main lobbyists were not Exxon but the Sierra Club. Three weeks ago, Kempthorne announced 800 miles of new hiking, biking, boat, and historical trails. Last Thursday, President Bush announced creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, spanning the equivalent distance of Boston to St. Louis. Bush complimented the environmentalists who attended. One of them was filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of legendary marine ecologist Jacques Cousteau. In April, Jean-Michel showed the president and first lady Laura Bush his PBS documentary on the damage being done to the islands. It is a big day when an environmentalist has a movie night at the White House, especially since the film aired on PBS. The next day, Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, announced that the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission had approved projects and American and Canadian partnerships that will allow the US Fish and Wildlife Service to restore more than 87,000 acres of North American wetlands. On Monday, environmentalists rubbed their eyes in disbelief as Kempthorne ditched plans by the previous secretary, Gale Norton, that would have softened up the national parks for commercial development....
White House agrees to protect forests The Bush administration Wednesday approved requests from three Eastern governors to bar commercial logging in remote sections of national forests in their states. The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres, were the first submitted to the administration since it eased logging restrictions on what are known as roadless tracts. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said from Washington, D.C., that he hoped the acceptance would show governors around the country, including four in the West who have sued to block such logging, that the administration is willing to work with them. "We've always been green," Rey said. "We just haven't gotten credit for it." The petitions still must go through a public review that could take years before the protections are in place. The three governors asked to return roadless areas in their states to the protections that existed under 2001 rules initiated by the Clinton administration....Well, if Mark Rey says they are green, I guess they are green, at least until November. One has to wonder if this sharp turn to the left on environmental policy will really help the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Their polling must be telling them something. What it tells me is that they've done a very poor job of public relations in explaining the little regulatory relief they have brought to the environmental policy arena.
Flights of Logic Twenty-point-four acres: That’s how much land the U.S. Forest Service determined would be occupied by oil and gas companies under last fall’s plan to expand mineral extraction in the nearly 2 million-acre Los Padres National Forest. “It doesn’t seem like much,” admits Jeff Kuyper of the environmental group Los Padres Forest Watch, especially when you consider that the Forest Service looked at a potential 750,000 acres. But there’s one problem with that little number, says Kuyper: “It’s grossly inaccurate.” The 20.4 figure is one of the reasons Kuyper’s group, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, served the federal government notice last week that they intend to sue if the feds fail to make significant changes to the oil and gas plan. There are others: the Forest Service failed to adequately assess the plan’s impact on endangered steelhead trout, the plan was written before U.S. Fish and Wildlife had agreed upon critical habitat for the endangered California red-legged frog, and biologists neglected to include “cumulative effects” in their studies. But the discrepancy in that acreage estimate gets to the heart of environmentalists’ concerns about oil drilling in the Los Padres: What looks reasonable in a written report may prove disastrous in practice....
Multiple-use sentiments dominate Forest forum Citizens concerned with a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation in the Flathead National Forest's draft management plan dominated an open forum Saturday at Flathead High School in Kalispell. The forum was hosted by the Flathead National Forest. Citizens were given three minutes to publicly address Forest Service employees and voice opinions on the draft forest plan. The public comment period for the draft plan ends Aug. 7, and the final plan is scheduled to be released this fall. The Flathead National Forest, along with the Lolo, Bitterroot, Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forests, is among the first to submit a revised forest plan under the 2005 Planning Rule guidelines. Of the 35 citizens who made public comment, 34 criticized the forest plan for a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation, specifically motorized use and access. Displeasure of the Forest Services' management of timber was another common concern. Comments repeatedly focused on a belief that the Forest Service has not appropriately set the limits of timber harvest and has not harvested enough timber over the last few decades, resulting in a loss of jobs and tax money for schools, while consequently increasing the threat of wildfires and weakening Montana's timber industry infrastructure....
Vanishing Past Narrow your eyes here, and it's easy to imagine ancient Hohokam villages fanning across the flats, smoke from their low fires curling into desert. Tagged Los Morteros by archaeologists, for bedrock mortars found atop boulders, this Tucson Mountain site bustled with civilization long before civilization gave it a name. But open your eyes a bit wider, and now what you see is the subdivided sprawl of Continental Ranch. Today, entombed under Continental's tidy concrete--beneath the cul-de-sacs and curbing and meaty foundations--are the ghosts of this finally vanished world. Meanwhile, in areas less touched by development than Los Morteros, looters, vandals and off-roaders are taking up the slack. Last year alone, monitors with a state-run volunteer program reported 212 vandalism incidents, 27 lootings, 21 trashed signs, two unearthed human remains, 13 cases of spray-painting and two petroglyph thefts. Amongst deliberate destruction, blind ignorance and so-called progress, Arizona is quickly losing its prehistoric heritage. And that dismays Mary Estes, who runs the volunteer Arizona Site Steward Program for the State Parks Department....
House panel passes Trail of Tears expansion bill A bill calling for a major expansion of the trail memorializing the forced removal of Cherokee Indians from the Southeast in the 1830s passed a House committee today. The bill would require the National Park Service to certify two routes used by some of the 15,000 Cherokees exiled from homes in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., sponsor of the bill, said the full House is expected to vote on the measure sometime next month. The bill would add to the Trail of Tears such places as Ross’s Landing in Chattanooga and Fort Cass on the Hiwassee River in Calhoun, Tenn. The two segments, called the Benge and Bell routes, began at Fort Payne, Ala., and Charleston, Tenn., respectively....
Gabilan Ranch Preserved Local nature lovers can breathe a little easier following a more than $4 million deal between the Reeves-Baldocchi-Boyle family and the Nature Conservancy, which guarantees the 11,000 acre Gabilan Ranch just south of Gilroy will remain a wildlife habitat for generations to come. "The ranch is an ecological treasure, in part because its been under the same ownership for the past three generations," said Christina Fisher, Project Director for the Monterey Bay Area chapter of the Nature Conservancy. "There are few roads or developments except for the farm buildings, so the family has preserved much of the ecosystem … you still find native frogs and salamanders in the water, and there are 80 different species of birds here." The conservancy worked with the Gabilan Cattle Company for six years to acquire a $4.2 million conservation easement, which essentially guarantees the conservancy certain rights to the land while the family maintains ownership of the property and continues their cattle operation. In this case, the family promises not to develop the land in any way that might harm the plants, animals or water quality of the land. "There are two primary reasons we were interested in doing this in the first place," said Darrell Boyle, CEO of Gabilan Cattle Company. "First of course was to protect the land … the second was to keep the ranch in our family. We're the third generation running the ranch and we have a long history with this wonderful property."....
Budget pressures leave tough choices Once portals that lured gold-seeking pioneers, the black holes that dot the sun-baked mountainsides of this California desert haunt J.T. Reynolds. The Death Valley National Park superintendent fears tourists will tumble down the decrepit shafts or vanish into the rocky tunnels that abound in his park's famed Gold Rush-era mines and ghost towns. To completely "mine-safe" some 6,000 shafts and caves would take money that Reynolds does not have. "Most visitors do not realize that park resources have been under threat from deterioration, vandalism, neglect and rot for some time," Reynolds said. "We put up a good front and try to keep high visitor-use areas clean and neat. Even this facade is fading due to the lack of appropriate resources." Across the 390 parks, preserves and historic sites that make up the 90-year-old national park system, Reynolds' colleagues face similar tough choices as growing costs from labor, utilities, maintenance, operations and preservation exceed wartime budgets from Washington....
Park ranger accused of soliciting bribes from inmates he supervised A state park ranger took money from prisoners he supervised at a work-release program in exchange for special treatment, police said. Nelson Mompierre, 43, of Key Biscayne, was in charge of inmates who worked at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on the southern tip of Key Biscayne. Miami-Dade police detectives and FBI agents began an investigation last June after receiving complaints that Mompierre had solicited money from one of the prisoners. For an $80 bribe, Mompierre allowed a visit at the park between an inmate and the inmate's girlfriend, according to an arrest affidavit. Mompierre also lent the inmate his cellphone, the affidavit said. The same inmate went to the FBI after Mompierre threatened to kick him out of the work-release program unless he paid Mompierre $2,500. An FBI agent posed as the wife of that inmate to infiltrate Mompierre's suspected scheme....
California men face fraud charges in Grand Canyon permit case Two California men have been charged in federal court with using the identities of dead or fictitious people to get permits for private rafting trips in the Grand Canyon. Stephen E. Savage, 61, of Diamond Bar, Ca. made an initial appearance in federal court in Flagstaff Tuesday and was ordered held on 11 counts of fraudulently obtaining rafting permits pending a detention hearing. Savage was arrested by National Park Service special agents at the Grand Canyon River Orientation Center in Lee's Ferry on Sunday. Timothy J. O'Shaughnessy, 45, of Whitewater, Ca. was arrested by authorities in California on Monday and turned over the U.S. Marshal's Service on the same charges, all misdemeanors. He was set for an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon, according the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix. Private rafting trip permits for trips in the Grand Canyon National Park are very difficult to obtain, with waiting lists of 10 to 15 years. The list system was abandoned earlier this year in favor of a lottery system. According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, an investigation was launched against Savage in March 2004 after the Parks Service received an anonymous letter from a person who said Savage bragged about illegally getting permits....
More rare than the average bear Visitors to U.S. national parks may be in for some unpleasant surprises this summer: unkempt restrooms, shorter hours at visitor centers and fewer park rangers. In fact, many visitors may not see a National Park Service ranger, as the agency's threadbare budget has forced officials to recruit volunteers to fill jobs formerly performed by federal employees and to reduce or eliminate traditional visitor services. "The old saying in the park service is, `We can do more with less,' " said Craig W. Dorman, superintendent at Lava Beds National Monument, near the Oregon border. "I don't think that's true anymore. We're now in a position of doing less with less." Nationwide, the 390 parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas managed by the park service are experiencing "challenging" times, said agency Director Fran Mainella....