NEWS ROUNDUP

Greenery sucking up more of state's water Thirsty home landscaping, particularly lawns, will suck up an increasingly burdensome amount of water in California over the next 25 years unless big changes are made, according to a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California. The state is expected to add 11 million new residents by 2030, and at least half are expected to locate in hotter, inland areas where single-family homes with lush lawns are popular, according to the report. "Do the math,'' said study co-author Ellen Hanak, an economist with the institute in San Francisco. "We're facing the prospect of many more people with more lawns and gardens in the states hottest, driest regions. That adds up to a lot of water." Landscaping currently accounts for at least half of all residential water demand, according to the report. Without new conservation efforts, the amount of water going to outdoor landscaping is predicted to rise by 1.2 million acre feet a year -- enough to serve roughly 4.8 million people. California cities and suburbs currently use about 9 million acre-feet of water a year....
Senate leaders produced a compromise on offshore oil and gas drilling Wednesday that they hoped would satisfy lawmakers in Florida and other coastal areas who fear for their tourist-based economies. The deal would limit new offshore development — outside the central and western Gulf of Mexico — to an area of the eastern Gulf known as Lease Area 181 and protect waters within 125 miles of the Florida coast. To gain support from states that already allow offshore oil and gas development — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — it would substantially increase the royalty revenue that would be funneled to those states. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the drilling would occur at least 125 miles off Alabama's coast and would produce tens of millions in revenue annually for Alabama. "We think it's only fair that Alabama and those Gulf states already producing oil and gas are rewarded for their willingness to bear a disproportionate share of our country's energy needs," Sessions said when he and others announced the agreement. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., also voiced support....
Ranchers band together to stave off development Sandy Webster says his memories of lambing and herding sheep with his family are among his most cherished possessions. While life as a sheep rancher hasn't always been easy, it's the only one he has ever wanted. That lifestyle is a part of southern Utah's heritage that he'd like to preserve, for generations to come. "My grandpa homesteaded this land. His old cabin is still there, just over that hill," Webster says from his modest summer cabin's wooden front porch that overlooks red rock cliffs studded with soaring pine trees. "We just want to keep everything the same." Twelve other ranchers have expressed an interest in protecting their property from development with conservation easements, bringing the total to as many as 17 property owners with 11,000 acres on Kanarra Mountain. Funding for the first five easements is not yet in place, although the Nature Conservancy is working to raise the $3.7 million from private and public sources. As much as $12 million is needed if all 17 ranches are to have the easements, said the conservancy's Utah director, Dave Livermore. "In this era of rapid development and every man for himself, it is quite remarkable that a group of ranchers would want to work together in this way to protect the summer range they love," Livermore said....
Forest Service upholds decision on ski-area roads The Forest Service last week stood behind its endorsement of road construction at Colorado's remote and rustic Wolf Creek ski area, rejecting appeals and dismissing allegations that a Texas billionaire's development team improperly influenced its decision. The agency had earlier approved construction of two short roads for access to the proposed Village at Wolf Creek, which could someday include 222,100 square feet of commercial space and housing for up to 10,500 people. The development on private land surrounded by national forest cannot proceed unless the Forest Service approves access across federal land. Three separate appeals by opponents said the Forest Service underestimated the impact of the project and said the team working for developer Billy Joe "Red" McCombs, the co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, had too much influence over the decision. One opponent, the environmental group Colorado Wild, said it would file suit in federal court to challenge the roads. The developers had also appealed, saying the Forest Service was unfairly requiring them to build a 750-foot road at a cost of about $12 million, when a shorter extension of an existing road would be cheaper and have less environmental impact....
A rebirth and revolution in a fire-ravaged land A summer breeze ripples the new grasses where last year's devastating School fire blackened 52,000 acres of southeastern Washington. The emerald ocean fans out across the rolling Palouse Country south of Pomeroy, through fire-scorched pines and firs in the foothills of the Blue Mountains fringing the rugged Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. Few people passing by on State Route 124 and other rural roads realize the area represents a quiet revolution in federal wildfire restoration. The School fire erupted Aug. 5, and crews finally got it under control Oct. 1. Once they did, the U.S. Forest Service used helicopters to scatter an unprecedented 21,000 pounds of native grass seed -- not the usual non-native species -- across the charred terrain. "This planting . . . likely exceeds all the post-fire native seedings combined nationally," said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Joani Bosworth. The burned area now is covered in Idaho fescue, bluebunch wheat grass, mountain brome, prairie junegrass and blue wild rye -- some of the same grasses Lewis and Clark traveled through on their epic journey through the Northwest 200 years ago....
Group files lawsuit over grazing plan A conservation group has filed a cattle grazing lawsuit against three federal agencies claiming they violated environmental laws in the Joseph Creek area of Wallowa County. The Center for Tribal Water Advocacy, based in Pendleton, filed the suit last week in federal court in Portland against the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The center claims that cattle grazing on 95,000 acres called the Joseph Creek Rangeland Analysis Area in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest violates the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws. The land in question is home to threatened steelhead and two plants that are listed as threatened and endangered — the Spalding's catchfly and MacFarlane's four-o-clock. The center is seeking to significantly reduce cattle grazing or halt it altogether until the agencies comply with environmental laws....
Easements will protect wildlife on Madison Valley ranch State and federal officials are working out the details to buy conservation easements on a Madison Valley ranch abundant with wildlife. If successful, the deal would protect almost all of the 11,900 acres of the Sun Ranch that aren't already protected on the 18,000-acre ranch 30 miles south of Ennis. About 6,000 acres are already under a conservation easement. Marc Petroni, district ranger in Ennis for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, said the Sun Ranch "is probably one of the most pre-eminent wildlife ranches in Montana." The deal calls for the U.S. Forest Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks each to purchase an easement that would ban future development. Details of the easements' restrictions, and the price, remain to be negotiated....
Utilities eye West to test coal tech A Colorado mountainside, the high plains of Wyoming or the Dakota prairie may become the next proving ground for a gee-whiz technology to clean up coal-fired power plants. Several utilities, including Xcel Energy, are considering a $1 billion demonstration plant to prove the technology -- called integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC -- will work in the West. An IGCC plant can cost up to 20 percent more to build than a conventional plant, but the technology could make it more efficient to operate and could help companies avoid the hassle and expense of adding pollution-control devices, industry officials say. "That's one of the reasons why companies that are anticipating the possibility of greenhouse gas regulation are trying to build coal gasification facilities," said Dan Riedinger of the Edison Electric Institute, an association of shareholder-owned electric companies. "They're cleaner off the bat." With increased demand for electricity and concern about global warming caused by carbon dioxide, there is renewed interest in clean coal technologies like IGCC and FutureGen, a $1 billion power plant project designed to essentially eliminate polluting emissions. Multiple states are bidding for the project, which is in the planning stages....
Graze ban ignores science, suit says Stevens County cattle owners and the county government say in a lawsuit that a decision to eliminate most cattle grazing on the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge was both improper and imprudent. Grass grazing by cattle reduces fire danger and promotes the growth of the brushy plants preferred by deer, county officials contend in the lawsuit they filed earlier this summer in U.S. District Court in Spokane. Refuge officials agree that a little bit of cattle grazing is beneficial, but aren't convinced that a lot is better. "We use our laws that tell us how to manage refuges, and they don't say, 'Manage for cows,' " said Lisa Langelier, manager of the 40,198-acre U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge east of Colville. The refuge provides "critical habitat" for whitetail deer, Langelier said. On the other hand, the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal officials to consider local plans, but that didn't happen in this case, according to the lawsuit. "They didn't follow the process, and that is why the lawsuit was filed," Stevens County Commissioner Tony Delgado said....
Below-average flow projected at Lake Powell Lake Powell is barely half full and taking a quarter less runoff than expected this year - a sign the Colorado River basin remains in the grip of a multiyear drought, according to a new report from government hydrologists. For some, Lake Powell is proving its value, banking scarce water for dry years. Others say the reservoir may never refill and should be drained to reveal the glory of Glen Canyon. The effects of low water are everywhere, from the bathtub rings on canyon walls to Hite Marina, left high and dry and shut down in 2003. Here at Bullfrog, the boat launch resembles a tilted airport runway - a concrete slab more than a quarter-mile long. It had to be extended twice, in 2003 and 2004, by a combined 660 feet, to reach its current 1,568-foot length. The launch will go out of business if the water drops another 29 feet, officials say....
No Drought Required For Federal Drought Aid Weeks later, de Boer was startled to learn that he was one of hundreds of East Texas ranchers entitled to up to $40,000 in disaster compensation from the federal government, even though the nearest debris landed 10 to 20 miles from his cattle. The money came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of the Livestock Compensation Program, originally intended as a limited helping hand for dairy farmers and ranchers hurt by drought. Hurriedly drafted by the Bush administration in 2002 and expanded by Congress the following year, the relief plan rapidly became an expensive part of the government's sprawling system of entitlements for farmers, which topped $25 billion last year. In all, the Livestock Compensation Program cost taxpayers $1.2 billion during its two years of existence, 2002 and 2003. Of that, $635 million went to ranchers and dairy farmers in areas where there was moderate drought or none at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post. None of the ranchers were required to prove they suffered an actual loss. The government simply sent each of them a check based on the number of cattle they owned. At first, livestock owners were required to be in a county officially suffering a drought to collect the money. But ranchers who weren't eligible complained to their representatives in Washington, and in 2003 Congress dropped that requirement. Ranchers could then get payments for any type of federally declared "disaster." In some cases, USDA administrators prodded employees in the agency's county offices to find qualifying disasters, even if they were two years old or had nothing to do with ranching or farming. In one county in northern Texas, ranchers collected nearly $1 million for an ice storm that took place a year and a half before the livestock program was even created. In Washington state, ranchers in one county received $1.6 million for an earthquake that caused them no damage. In Wisconsin, a winter snowstorm triggered millions of dollars more. For hundreds of ranchers from East Texas to the Louisiana border, the shuttle explosion opened the door to about $5 million, records show....
US May Revise Cattle Import Rule On New Canada BSE Case The U.S., now in the later stages of lifting its ban on Canadian cattle that are over 30 months of age, may have to make changes to the proposed rule in response to Canada's most recent mad-cow case, according to U.S. government and industry officials. Andrea Morgan, a veterinarian and associate deputy administrator at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said a draft of the U.S. rule on older Canadian cattle has been finished, but may need to be revised. At the heart of USDA's concern is the age of the latest infected Canadian cow confirmed to be positive for the disease last week. It was just 50 months old, born more than four years after Canada implemented cattle feed restrictions that were supposed to the spread of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The USDA sent one of its epidemiologists to Canada over the weekend to follow the country's investigation into its seventh native-born case of BSE. That is something USDA did not do after Canada reported its sixth case earlier this month, but that infected cow was 15 years old - born well before Canada began its feed ban in 1997. USDA officials are primarily interested to see whether the latest Canadian BSE case represents a widespread problem with the country's feed ban, the domestic restrictions designed to eradicate the cattle disease....
Trew: Hard work a good remedy for sleeplessness Recently, I listened to a lengthy discussion among my younger descendants about their various sleeping problems. This triggered some recollections of my younger years, and I compared sleeping in the old days and sleeping today. Each of the youngsters live in well-heated, air-conditioned homes, rest on the latest, most comfortable mattresses laid over coil inner-springs. They lie between slick sheets, using foam filled pillows, covered with beautifully constructed, thermostat-controlled electric blankets - yet couldn't sleep. Somehow, I had problems sympathizing. They were much too young to experience throbbing arthritic fingers and hands, aching worn-out knee and hip joints, leg cramps or bladder problems. What else is there to keep you awake?....