NEWS ROUNDUP

Firefighters battle blazes with new tools Water-logged easterners may not believe it, but much of the country is unseasonably dry. Moisture levels are below average in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming, and much of the Great Plains from Oklahoma to North Dakota is experiencing drought as well. In all, one-fourth of the US is facing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions, which brings the threat of fire. "The long-term moisture deficits and high fuel loadings are producing critically high fire potential, particularly in the higher elevation timber," researchers at the University of Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth reported recently. As a result, the number of fires and the acreage burned have set 10-year highs. The number of acres burned so far is more than twice the average over the past decade, according to the National Inter-agency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. One 40,000-acre fire even threatened the University of Nevada Fire Science Academy, giving students the kind of on-the-job training they hadn't counted on. Wildfire detection and management have gone through a renaissance of sorts in recent years, experts say. Rotating digital cameras are replacing human lookouts posted in lonely mountain towers. Satellites, computers, remote automated weather stations, and lightning strike detectors are among the new tools used to monitor, map, and model fires....
New Mexico drought putting native fish in danger Chuck Dentino hovered over a small pool of stagnant water on the Rio de las Vacas and watched a few small fish dart from one end to the other. They had nowhere else to go. The stream bed that meandered above the 10-foot diameter pool and below it was bone dry for as far as the eye could see. “The only thing holding water are these pools,” said Dentino, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “It's the last place the fish have to hang out.” Had it not been for a 2004 Forest Service habitat restoration project that created a series of pools along the Jemez Mountain stream, there would in fact be no place for fish to survive. Record drought is taking its toll on northern New Mexico's high country waterways, some of which are “drying up like mad,” according to Dentino. Reduced water flows are in turn threatening dwindling populations of the native Rio Grande cutthroat trout – the state fish – that biologists and conservationists have been working hard to save....
Rainbow Family's prayer for peace goes undisturbed by authorities Federal and Routt County authorities kept a low profile Tuesday as thousands of Rainbow Family and Living Light members gathered for their traditional Circle of Peace prayer service. The U.S. Forest Service expected Tuesday to be the biggest gathering day for the nomadic group because of the prayer service. About 10,000 members of the Rainbow Family have showed up for the weeklong event, which is half of what the Forest Service and Routt County sheriff's deputies expected. "We're going to be low-key (Tuesday)," said Diann Ritschard, information officer for the Routt National Forest. "The Colorado State Patrol is still on the highways providing public safety. We're still doing walk-throughs, but the Forest Service is not in any way going to disturb the peace prayer." Authorities said they expect an exodus of the thousands of Rainbow Family members out of Routt National Forest to begin after Tuesday's prayer service. The low-key enforcement was a change for Forest Service officers, who have struggled since last month with the droves of people congregating in a four-square-mile area about 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs. Officers have had to issue more than 500 violation notices to Rainbow Family members since June 12 for illegally occupying U.S. forest land without obtaining a special-use permit. The permit was denied because of the high fire dangers. The group's presence ended up displacing other forest-service visitors who did obtain the proper permits, Ritschard said....Try grazing without a permit or having a Christian gathering without a permit and see how "low-key" the Forest Service is.
Rainbow Gathering includes eclectic souls In case you're wondering, here at the 35th Annual National Rainbow Gathering in the Routt/Medicine Bow National Forest, the Rainbow Family of Living Light keeps its members well-fed, safe and conscious of how they approach the thousands of acres of U.S. National Forest they are temporarily inhabiting. The members - anyone not a cop or a Forest Service official - spent the last week setting up a spur-of-the-moment community, complete with group kitchens and a main circle where many gather each night at 6 p.m. to share meals, and discourse about ... well, being well-fed, safe and conscious. The dishwashing areas, compost heaps and toilets are works in progress that involve a little science, muscle and some shovels. Everyone holds hands and chants "Om" in a collective wish for peace before the food gets delivered by the kitchens. There are a county's worth of people out here in the woods, hiking, on average, from 2 to 6 miles between the designated parking areas and their chosen campsites. It's safe to say that there's at least 10,000 people here - if not 15,000 or 20,000....
Loggers, land interests work to create healthy forests Bob and Jacqui Johnson and Daniel Teare have been logging ponderosa pine trees in the Hay Camp Mesa area in Dolores since December 2005 and will continue for a few more weeks. The roughly 50 trees hauled daily from the forest to the mill at Intermountain Resources in Montrose helps the struggling local timber industry. It also moves the forest one step closer to its original natural setting. In an example of history repeating, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management are relying on past forest management to deliver healthy forests and a restored logging industry. They're doing it through a partnership of unlikely allies in the wood-production, forest-management, alternative-energy and economic-development industries. Locally, the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership covers 8,000 acres under contract in the Mancos-Dolores district of the San Juan National Forest. "In order to create a more healthy forest today, the agency felt that we needed to design stands that better reflected the stand structure that existed in the pre-settlement period," said Phil Kemp, forester for the Dolores Public Lands Center....
Editorial: Congress quashes land selloff Congress isn't having one of its all-star years, but a Senate committee made a good decision last week when it quietly approved a spending bill for the Interior Department and the Forest Service that does not include the Bush administration's ill-conceived plan to sell off some federal lands. Several weeks ago, a House committee made a similar determination. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, had proposed selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million for rural schools hurt by lagging federal timber sales. Then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton suggested selling an unspecified amount of Bureau of Land Management acreage worth $40 million a year to fund conservation programs and reduce the deficit. In Colorado, the for-sale list included 21,000 acres, including tracts overlooking Rocky Mountain National Park and along the scenic road to Mount Evans. Other parts of the proposal highlighted the slapdash work behind it - one California landowner reported that a parcel she'd already bought from the government was on the list....
Appeals court halts clear-cut in Utah The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has halted planned clear-cut logging on the Aquarius Plateau near Escalante, ruling the Forest Service did not present evidence supporting its claim that the project would help the northern goshawk population. The goshawk is considered a sensitive species, which means its populations are declining and any decision about the forest must consider the effect on the species. The plan was to log 3,307 acres of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir and 669 acres of aspen forest, including clear-cutting of 440 acres of Engelmann spruce and 112 acres of aspen. The Forest Service argued that clear-cutting would not harm the goshawk population, which has gone from 68 nesting pairs in 1982 to 30 or fewer in 2002, the last year measured. However, the court’s ruling handed down Thursday that that was contrary to recommendations of a report that the Forest Service itself had deemed to be the best available science overall. That report said thinning out trees, not clear-cutting, would be the best strategy to preserve habitat....
Protections are threatened with extinction Yet, another sneak attack on the act's provisions has been initiated by anti-environmentalists in the House, which passed HR4200, a bill that would suspend environmental and scientific analysis in order to expedite logging and clear-cutting in our national forests following wildland fires. The bill would also suspend the Endangered Species Act's requirement that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prior to logging the habitat of endangered species. As such, tens of thousands of acres of critical habitat could be logged before it is determined that such actions may cause extinction. The Senate version of the bill, S2709, which could see a vote soon, is being led by the anti-environmental Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., though some key Democrats with a history of allegiance to the timber industry, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have not yet made clear their positions. The legislation attempts to take advantage of the public's misunderstanding of wildland fires, implying that forests burned are forests "destroyed." Nothing could be further from the truth....
Birds Going Extinct Faster Due to Human Activities Human activities have caused some 500 bird species worldwide to go extinct over the past five millennia, and 21st-century extinction rates likely will accelerate to approximately 10 additional species per year unless societies take action to reverse the trend, according to a new report. Without the influence of humans, the expected extinction rate for birds would be roughly one species per century, according to Stuart Pimm, professor of conservation ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who is one of the report's principal authors. "What our study does, for the first time, is provide a well-justified and careful estimate of how much faster bird species are going extinct now than they did before humans began altering their environments," said Pimm, whose research group pioneered the approach of estimating extinction rates on a per-year basis. "Extinction rates for birds are hugely important, because people really care about birds," he said. "People enjoy them, and bird watching is a big industry. So we know the rates of bird extinctions better than the rates for other groups of species." "Habitat destruction, selective hunting, invasive alien species and global warming are all affecting natural populations of plants and animals adversely," added Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, who is co-principal author of the report and a longtime collaborator with Pimm....
Grizzly Attacks Idaho Man An Idaho man is recovering after being attacked by a grizzly bear. The unidentified man was walking Monday morning along the Targhee Creek Trail when a bear appeared. The US Forest Service says the bear woofed twice and charged the hiker. They say he dropped to the ground and the bear ran over him. Then the bear returned and bit the hiker on the right hip and shoulder and then ran away. The hiker was able to travel back down to the trailhead and drove to West Yellowstone for treatment. The Caribou-Targhee Forest and Idaho Fish and Game are reviewing the incident....
Bring Back Bigfoot On June 18, he spent an hour telling 60 people about his 34-year search for Bigfoot. The occasion was the Bigfoot Rendezvous in Pocatello, where 100 people from Texas all the way to British Columbia shelled out $55 each to hear Bigfoot experts. Mionczynski isn't wild-eyed, soft-bellied, and he can't tell you which X-Files episode featured Agent Scully getting whisked into Heaven by E.T. He's a lean mountain man who had his first Bigfoot encounter as a U.S. Forest Service bear researcher. He's been hunting for hard evidence--a Bigfoot carcass--ever since. It was 1972. On a bright moonlit night, Mionczynski was sleeping alone in a 6-foot tall nylon tent deep in the southern end of the Wind River range. He jumped awake when a bear poked its nose into the tent's side. "I whacked it in the nose with my hand," Mionczynski recalled, as though nothing is extraordinary about bear-whacking. The beast retreated to a "dog-haired" pine thicket behind the tent, close enough for Mionczynski to hear breathing. Six breaths a minute. Much slower than an active bear. The beast poked its nose against the tent again. Mionczynski whacked it again. The third assault came from above when the thing pushed the tent's top, collapsing it. In the moonlight, Mionczynski didn't see a bear paw settling on top of his tent. "I saw the silhouette of a hand with an opposable thumb," a hand twice the size of a man's, Mionczynski said....
State faces lawsuit over lynx trapping An animal protection organization is preparing to sue the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in federal court for failure to adequately protect endangered or threatened species from incidental trapping. The California-based Animal Protection Institute issued a notice of intent to sue in April and is awaiting a formal response from the state of Minnesota as well as the Department of the Interior. Camilla Fox, API’s director of wildlife programs, said endangered species, like the Canada lynx, the gray wolf, and the bald eagle are being accidentally trapped in Minnesota and that state officials have done too little to prevent the incidental take of protected birds and animals. Her group is asking the DNR to prohibit the use of snares, conibear, and leghold traps as part of its effort to protect these species. Fox said her organization’s research has found records of at least seven lynx accidentally trapped on the Superior National Forest since 2002, although all but two of the animals were later released. The group also cites records that 24 Bald Eagles were brought to the Minnesota Raptor Center over the past fifteen years, after being caught in traps. She said at least half of those birds had to be destroyed. DNR officials say they’ve taken steps to reduce accidental trapping of lynx....
Wolf center shifts educational focus If you go to the International Wolf Center in Ely this year, you are likely to learn about some new aspects and challenges of wolf conservation. The center is still committed to advancing wolf survival through education, but in a world where wolves have exceeded population recovery goals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the northern Rockies , the issue is no longer “will the wolf survive?” Now it is more a question of whether humans coexist with the predator and whether wolves have wild habitat to live in as humans continue to turn forests and foothills into housing complexes. The center’s new “Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century” exhibit highlights these new wolf conservation challenges and demonstrates a shift in the center’s educational strategy. “We are a small organization based solely in Minnesota, so we have been looking for ways to maximize our impact,” said IWC Assistant Director Jim Williams. To do this, the center has been prioritizing projects that they feel will have the biggest impact on wolf populations on the ground in two key geographic areas: the upper Midwest and the southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico. “In the Midwest, we are entering the post-endangered species era,” said Williams. “And in the southwest, they are in the early stages of wolf recovery, but have run into barriers.” In each of these regions, the Ely-based Center is working to be a leader on wolf issues....
Navy Continues Up to 300 Detonations Per Year in Puget Sound The U.S. Navy sets off between 180 and 300 underwater explosive charges each year in some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite promises, four years ago after PEER first revealed the existence of the extensive Puget Sound demolition program, to conduct environmental reviews, measures to protect threatened or endangered marine mammals, fish and aquatic plants have yet to materialize. Several times each month, the U.S. Navy detonates live explosives deep underwater to provide "realistic" training for its divers in destroying and disabling mines. Unfortunately, the detonations also blow up marine life. In one exercise, for example, involving a five-pound explosive charge set off near Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, observers counted 5,000 dead fish on the surface but estimated that up to another 20,000 fish died and sank out of sight to the seabed. The Navy conducts approximately 60 demolition exercises each year, at least three every month, using three to five C4 plastic explosives, far more powerful than dynamite, in packets ranging in size from five to 20 pounds, often set off with 20 pound blasting charges. Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the two civilian agencies charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, have urged the Navy to undertake alternative training practices to minimize damage to marine life, such as using bubble curtains or other containers to minimize blast impacts, or conducting the training in quarries, lakes or the open ocean rather than in the waters of Puget Sound, a designated Essential Fish Habitat under the Sustainable Fisheries Act....
Invasive plants on rampage It says a lot about the state of the battle against invasive plant species in Utah and the West that officials talk wistfully about earning a draw. Beating them back, at the moment anyway, is out of the question. Cheatgrass has turned vast stretches of the state - particularly the Great Basin and Mojave regions - into a tinderbox. Tamarisk has swallowed riparian areas almost whole, sucking up hundreds of thousands of gallons of water in the process, and Russian olive is gaining on tamarisk to the point that some say it will soon be the mother of all invasive plant species. But because of budget and personnel limitations, federal and state agencies are unable to really put much of a dent in the two-decade rampage of these primary offenders. Rather, the strategy has been to hold them at bay until the day comes that they can start eradicating them. "Right now, we're in a preventative mode, trying to keep it from taking over additional areas," says Verlin Smith, the chief of renewable resources for the Bureau of Land Management's state office. Most of the BLM's efforts are currently devoted to battling cheatgrass, which looks lovely and green swaying in the sunshine of spring, but turns dry and brittle come summer - just in time for the start of the wildfire season....
BLM wild horse birth control, bait-trapping plan concerns some The Bureau of Land Management plans to give 24 older wild horses birth control shots as part of an ongoing effort to help limit the population and address concerns about conditions on the Pryor Mountain horse range in Montana and Wyoming. The agency, which has used birth control in select mares since 2001, also plans for the first time to use mineral or protein blocks as bait to trap and capture up to 22 horses that would be put up for adoption later this summer. Half those horses are to be bachelor stallions and the other half yearlings. So-called bait trapping is less intrusive than traditional roundups, and, when combined with the planned birth control regimen, “will help keep the population of the herd in balance with the range,” Sandy Brooks, field manager of the BLM's Billings office, said Wednesday. Some wild horse advocates say they understood BLM's use of birth control would eliminate the need for rounding up and removing horses from the land. One advocate, who argues the agency's overall management is flawed and will lead to a population too small to be genetically viable, vowed to do “everything legally possible” to keep the program – which is slated to begin as early as Monday – from moving forward....
Conservation deals await feds More than 3,000 acres of prime agricultural land in Carson Valley has been earmarked for conservation easements through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. Another 1,360 acres could be approved during the upcoming Round 7. That's music to the ears of many Douglas County residents, but the Bureau of Land Management hasn't completed one agreement despite the availability of funding. Commissioner Kelly Kite said local Bureau of Land Management officials are supportive, but once the process is out of local hands nothing seems to come of it. "We've been getting rosy reports for a couple of years now, but no money," he said. "We have a lot of people depending on them coming through. I don't know what we can do to make it happen, but it hasn't yet." The funding is acquired from the sale of public land in and around Las Vegas. A small portion is set aside for education and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, but the balance is set aside in a special account for projects throughout the state in a number of categories, including parks and trails, conservation easements and environmentally sensitive land acquisitions. A portion can be used to purchase the development rights on ranch lands, thus preserving that open space in perpetuity....
Reptile's numbers steadily declining Nearly every Texan has a favorite childhood story about collecting horny toads. But the once-abundant state reptile, known to scientists as the horned lizard, has seen a steady decline in recent decades. For the past few years, a West Texas A&M University biology professor and his students have studied the Texas Horned Lizard at the Pantex Plant to learn more about the oft-elusive reptiles. Just what's causing the horned lizards' decline continues to elude researchers. The Texas Horned Lizard is rarely seen in areas of Texas east of Interstate 35. The harvester ant, the horned lizard's feast of choice, is the bane of many homeowners, who often kill off ant mounds with pesticides. House cats, predators and highways also take their toll....
Company plans wells in region Questar Corp. said it plans to drill 4,000 oil and gas wells in a 150,000-acre area along the Colorado-Wyoming border over the next 30 years. Drilling could start as early as 2008, the Salt Lake City-based company said Wednesday. About 60 percent of the drilling would take place in Wyoming, while the rest would be in northwestern Colorado, said Vincent Rigatti, Questar Market Resources general manager. The majority of the wells would pump natural gas. He said most of the sites are on Bureau of Land Management property. BLM could issue a final environmental impact statement by June 2007 and give the company permission to drill in early 2008, he said. Rigatti said he has been discussing the plans with local officials and doesn't expect fierce opposition because drilling has taken place there since 1920s.
Energy bill offsets oil, gas companies A provision in a House-passed energy bill would take steps to reduce the time energy companies say they waste waiting for the government to act on permits to drill or mine for oil, gas and coal. Interior Department officials have said they are struggling to keep up with the growing mountain of applications for permits to drill on public land. But House members say they worry that government workers sometimes unnecessarily drag their feet as they consider applications. Under the House energy bill approved last week, the government would have to buy back leases -- and pay restitution in some cases -- if it delays action. "This provision will put pressure on state and federal agencies to act expeditiously and fairly on permit requests (and) appeals," said Charles Isom, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who proposed the measure. Environmentalists say the provision effectively creates a new entitlement program for energy companies, and pushes the government to approve permits at the expense of the environment and local communities. They are especially concerned because failing to act on an application would be treated as a breach of contract under the bill, potentially enabling a company to be compensated for more than just the cost of the lease....
BLM office dealing with high worker turnover A 25 percent turnover rate at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's bustling Buffalo Field Office has prompted the agency to borrow employees from field offices in Casper, Worland, Newcastle and even Miles City, Mont. Assistant Field Manager Richard Zander says some of the turnover results from northeast Wyoming's coalbed methane boom. The field office staff has grown from 23 to 83 over the past decade. "There is a certain amount of burnout here," Zander said. Zander himself is the latest to go. After more than 28 years with the BLM, Zander, 57, retired Monday to open an environmental consulting firm in Buffalo. He said last year's turnover rate was about 9 percent, but the rate since October has been around 25 percent. The turnover might not let up, either. Over the next five years, half of the BLM's management-level employees will be eligible to retire. That's a concern as the agency competes with energy development companies for young talent. BLM Director Kathleen Clarke told a congressional panel last week that the agency is fighting an "uphill battle" trying to get on top of a massive workload created by ever-increasing energy development. In just the past three years, the number of oil and gas drilling applications to the BLM increased 82 percent. More than half of those are in Wyoming, according to the agency....
Tackling 10,000-year-old mystery Ten thousand years ago, a band of nomadic hunters stampeded 600 bison off the edge of a small cliff then speared and butchered the beasts before hauling off the meat. Or maybe not. Maybe, instead, a lightning bolt or a swift-moving grass fire killed the whole herd, and their remains were quickly buried beneath wind-blown sand and silt. A few decades later, hunters camped on the buried bison remains, leaving behind stone spear points and tools that, over the millennia, have mixed with the animal bones. Those conflicting interpretations confronted University of Colorado archaeology students last month at the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill on the Oglala National Grassland, about 330 miles northeast of Denver....
GOP Ads Go Green It's not often you see Republicans trying to run to the left of a Democrat on environmental issues, but that's exactly where a pair of new TV ads are aimed in the gubernatorial race between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides. Two ads were released this morning by the California Republican Party on their website. No word yet on whether there's any real money being handed over to air these ads, or whether making a splash in the political media was the main goal. The pro-Arnold ad (see it here) uses some pretty well-known environmental issues from the Schwarzenegger era: creation of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, support for more solar powered homes, and exploration into vehicles that use hydrogen fuel. None of these have been fully completed (though the conservancy is the farthest along), but all are part of the governor's pitch that he's as green as they get in Republican circles. The Republican Party says the ads will air on TV statewide, but won't say with what frequency....
Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it. This was obvious nine years ago; it's still obvious. Let me explain. From 2003 to 2050, the world's population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050. Just keeping annual greenhouse gas emissions constant means that the world must somehow offset these huge increases. There are two ways: Improve energy efficiency, or shift to energy sources with lower (or no) greenhouse emissions. Intuitively, you sense this is tough....
A Convenient Lie When he was in college, atmospheric-science professor John Christy was told, "it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy." That prediction has gone the way of so many others. But environmentalists continue to warn us that we face environmental disaster if we don't accept the economic disaster called the Kyoto treaty. Lawyers from the Natural Resources Defense Council (another environmental group with more lawyers than scientists) explain: "Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas." And Al Gore's new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," depicts a future in which cities are submerged by rising sea levels. Wow. But many scientists laugh at the panic. Christy says, "Doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines but have proven to be completely false. Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to human-induced climate change sound all too familiar." But the media can't get enough of doomsday....
Sheep trails catch state’s attention Idaho is historically known for range sheep operations, and still has more than any other state in the nation, even though the number of operators have sharply decreased over the last century. That means the state is criss-crossed by countless old sheep trails, once used by bands every spring as their herders moved the animals from lowland winter range to high mountain summer range and back down each fall. In an era of expanding urbanization, some trails cross state endowment lands that are right in the path of development. There should be a way to set aside at least one or two acres of that land to be saved for a sheep bedding ground and continuation of the trail, said rancher John Peavey. That probably won’t be possible unless the state Land Board sets formal policy allowing it, said Tracy Behrens, state rangeland manager for the Idaho Department of Land. “We are under a constitutional mandate to get market value for those state endowment lands,” Behrens said. “Some of those properties are worth millions today.” The exchange was one of several during the annual range tour sponsored by the Idaho Wool Growers Association. Nearly 200 members and guests attended the all-day tour, which concentrated on private, state and federal land where Jouglard Sheep Co. operates....