NEWS ROUNDUP

Column - Rotten to the Corps If an unsafe building collapsed and killed 1,000 people, we wouldn't blame the building's manager, even if he bungled his evacuation plan, or its maintenance crew, even if they had shirked their jobs before the disaster, or the rescue squad, even if it was terribly slow to respond. We wouldn't shrug and blame Mother Nature. And we certainly wouldn't blame the victims -- especially if they had been assured the building was safe. We would blame the architects and engineers who produced the unsafe building. And we might ask some tough questions about the way our buildings get produced. Apparently it's different with unsafe levees. Otherwise, the fingers of an outraged nation would point directly at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that drowned New Orleans a year ago. And the Hurricane Katrina anniversary coverage would focus on America's dysfunctional system of funding water projects, a system owned and operated by shameless porkers in Congress and their environmentally destructive servants at the Corps. Mother Nature took it relatively easy on New Orleans; Katrina was not even close to the Big One the Big Easy has dreaded for decades. It was a Category 1 or perhaps 2 when it hit the city; the Corps was supposed to protect against a Category 3....
Bill sends 'clear message' that state will fight global warming Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders endorsed landmark legislation Wednesday that could serve as a national model for combating global warming and, according to Silicon Valley business leaders, spur a wave of cleaner-burning energy technologies. "This is groundbreaking legislation," said Rafael Aguilera, a climate change expert for Oakland-based Environmental Defense. "It sends a clear message to Washington and the rest of the world that California is serious about a low-carbon future." California and 11 other states have sued the federal government over its failure to regulate greenhouse gases, and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. The agreement makes California among the first states to try to effectively regulate greenhouse emissions on its own -- a potentially daunting task. The bill, AB 32, mandates that California reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent -- to 1990 levels -- by the year 2020. Major carbon-emitting industries will be forced to report their emissions to the state Air Resources Board, which will craft regulations to reach those goals. Those regulations would take effect in 2012....
Column - Burn, baby, burn Anyone who wants it now has a clear view of what America's "environmentalists" consider stewardship of our forests. Here in the western states, the view is a picture-perfect rendition of the chants of the '60s radicals who tossed the first match: "Burn, baby, burn!" Armies of firefighters are camped in key staging locations near several major fires in Oregon, trying to control the fires paths to keep them from destroying homes, schools and businesses. The photo below show the view from Crater Lake National Park over the past weekend. Many western states with timber resources have been dependent on the revenue generated from selling some of those trees every year to help fund their public education systems. It's a system that made perfect sense. Coupled with modern forestry techniques (often developed at land-grant colleges here in the West), it still does. The land can yield consistent and perpetual timber harvests and provide the funding it was designed to provide for public schools. But there's one major problem: America's "environmentalists" don't like to see trees cut down and used to build houses. They'd rather see them burn. Thus they disrupt the Forest Service's plans to thin the undergrowth that provides so much fuel for forest fires, and when the fire has done its devastating work they disrupt the sales of charred trees that could still be salvaged from the fire area. It's a win-win, if you like to see the nation's resources go up in smoke every summer....
Hundreds Urged to Flee Mont. Wildfire A wildfire nearly doubled in size in southern Montana Wednesday, prompting officials to urge hundreds of residents to leave their homes in Stillwater and Sweet Grass. "We're not going to take you out in handcuffs," Undersheriff Jerry Mahlum told residents at a public meeting. "We are going to ask you to sign a waiver that you've been warned and to let us know the next-of-kin you want notified." People who have not already left were being called by emergency services and told that the situation was deteriorating, Sweet Grass County officials said. The Stillwater Mine called off its night shift for about 200 workers because of smoke from the fire and concern about traveling conditions. Interstate 90 was temporarily closed between Livingston and Columbus. The wildfire was estimated at 80,000 acres, or about 125 square miles....
Precedent Threatens Backcountry Singletrack A new Forest Service policy could close hundreds of miles of singletrack in Montana and Idaho. The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) is fighting to stop this potentially precedent-setting change before it spreads to other states. "This could become the largest access issue in five years," warns Jenn Dice, IMBA's government affairs director. This policy would expel mountain bikers from more than 700 miles of singletrack in Montana and Idaho and, if left unchallenged, could set national precedent. Most national forests allow existing uses like bicycling to continue in areas recommended to possibly become Wilderness, before the formal Wilderness designation takes place. The proposal for Montana and northern Idaho does not. Banning bicycles from these areas could have far-reaching negative consequences and lead to trail closures in national forests from coast to coast....
Forest Service now says Walden commercial needed permit U.S. Forest Service officials said today that a company hired by U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., should have obtained a permit before filming a new television commercial for Walden in the Mount Hood National Forest. The 30-second commercial now airing promotes a bill that Walden co-wrote with Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat, to designate new wilderness on Mount Hood. It shows Walden hiking with his son and other youths on the trail to Tamanawas Falls south of Hood River. He urges viewers to push for his bill. Walden's campaign hired a Florida company, The Victory Group, to produce the commercial. But the company did not obtain a permit required for commercial filming in the national forest. The commercial's producer, Renee Dabbs, said the Forest Service had told her a few years ago that no permit was needed for filming an earlier Walden commercial in the Deschutes National Forest. She said she assumed that still held true....
Badlands ranch sold to Forest Service The U.S. Forest Service will buy a historic Badlands ranch in western North Dakota in a deal worth about $5.3 million, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday. The 5,201-acre ranch is next to Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site, where the former president ranched more than a century ago. More than 50 wildlife and conservation groups, including the Boone and Crockett Club started by Roosevelt himself, have pressed Congress to approve the purchase. The Blacktail Creek Ranch is owned by brothers Kenneth, Allan and Dennis Eberts and their families. The property is more commonly referred to as the Eberts Ranch. The deal requires the Forest Service to sell an equal number of acres in North Dakota to balance the acquisition and to assure continued grazing and other activities on the ranch, including oil and gas development....
Conservationists reach pact with Denver oil firm An agreement between a conservation group and an oil and gas producer has cleared the way for seismic exploration to resume in a portion of the Bighorn Basin in northern Wyoming. Under the agreement signed Monday, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance will drop its appeal of a Bureau of Land Management decision to allow Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. to conduct a seismic survey in an area east of Meeteetse. Exploration halted this summer when the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, based in Laramie, protested that the seismic equipment would harm sage grouse breeding and nesting habitat. Bill Barrett Corp. agreed to measures to protect the sage grouse. Those include establishing a buffer area around the bird's breeding grounds, restoring ground disturbed by trucks so tracks don't become new roads for off-road vehicles, and establishing a $25,000 fund for grouse conservation projects....
EnCana Site a Showcase For Industry's Lighter Touch On the western flanks of the Roan Plateau, one of Garfield County's biggest players in the natural gas industry is developing techniques to lessen its impact on the environment. Land has been set aside to preserve migration corridors for mule deer. A pipeline has been rerouted to avoid sage grouse habitat. Multiple wells are drilled off of single pads, meaning fewer well pads. Contaminants are piped away from well sites, the water cleaned and recycled. EnCana Oil and Gas (USA) has touted its North Parachute Ranch area as a demonstration of how gas drilling can be done responsibly, minimizing the impact on the environment. The company owns the 45,000-acre property. It was formerly the heart of Union Oil of California's oil shale operation. Now, the rugged sagebrush-covered canyons below the Bookcliffs of the Roan Plateau are becoming the centerpiece of EnCana's operations in the gas-rich Piceance Basin. By owning the property, EnCana officials say, it allows them more flexibility to try techniques that are softer on the environment and on the bottom line....
Interior secretary gets look at BP pipeline damage Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was getting his first look Wednesday at BP Alaska's pipeline corrosion that shut down some North Slope oil production, but said the problems should not prevent new drilling in some environmentally sensitive areas. Kempthorne, on a three-day visit to Alaska's oil fields, toured an oil processing facility operated by ConocoPhillips 60 miles west of Prudhoe Bay, where he was told its practice is to run pipeline "pig" tests to guard against corrosion every two years. BP had conducted only one "pig" test of its pipeline — in which a device is inserted into the pipe to gauge wall thickness. That was back in 1998 and it was only a partial test. Instead, the British-based petroleum giant had used what it has since acknowledged is less reliable ultrasound testing. ConocoPhillips' Alpine field is the most modern on the North Slope and uses directional drilling to limit the surface footprint of its drilling wells....
U.S. Agencies Open Another Investigation Into Energy Trading at BP BP, the giant oil company, acknowledged yesterday that federal investigators were looking into possible trading irregularities in oil and gasoline markets. The company said yesterday that it was “aware of investigations” by the federal authorities and was cooperating with them. The agencies, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department, are examining possible manipulation in the over-the-counter crude oil market in 2003 and 2004, and in gasoline trading in 2002, according to reports yesterday. Other trading companies may also be part of the inquiry. The accusations are the latest blow to BP, which faces a range of investigations in the United States, including claims that it failed to properly maintain pipelines in Alaska, leading to an oil spill earlier this year. It is also under scrutiny for safety failures that led to an explosion at a refinery in Texas City last year that killed 15 people, and is facing allegations that its traders manipulated the propane market....
New policy on national parks expected to favor conservation Ending a yearlong debate over its management and guiding philosophy, the National Park Service was to adopt today a policy emphasizing conservation of natural and cultural resources over recreation when they are in conflict. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is expected to announce the new policy in Washington today. The new park-management regulations give barely a nod to most of the concerns of the recreation industry and its congressional champion, Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., while rejecting the most important revisions the industry sought. The park service would not comment on the policy until it is made final but a draft of the policy was provided to the New York Times by a group favoring the conservation framework. It makes a few concessions to the recreation industry, like ensuring that so-called gateway communities -- close neighbors to the large national parks that draw tens of thousands of tourists each year -- have a role in park managers' decision making. But it generally rejects earlier proposals that would have paved the way for increased use of snowmobiles, off-road vehicles and personal watercraft. Commercial activities like mining and cell-phone tower construction, which would have been easier under the suggested revisions of a year ago, will continue to face the same high hurdles they have in the past....
Former Congressman Stenholm Warns Americans of Dire Consequences for Horse Welfare if HR 503 Passes Former Congressman and ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee Charlie Stenholm dismissed today's poll released by The National Horse Protection Coalition (NHPC) as a shallow attempt by someone with deep pockets who has never stepped foot inside a horse processing facility yet purports to be an expert to influence public opinion. The poll, issued in preparation of a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, claims that "71 percent of Americans believe that horses are part of America's culture and deserve better treatment." Representatives of http://www.commonhorsesense.com/, and the nation's horse processing facilities couldn't agree more, which is why they're urging Congress to vote against H.R. 503 "The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act." The legislation would eliminate the three remaining U.S. horse processing plants, currently the only means of federally regulated and supervised humane euthanasia for horses. Nearly 200 organizations concerned about the welfare of horses of horses have joined in urging Congress to vote against H.R. 503. "These organizations represent people that care for and own horses, unlike some shortsighted animal rights groups such as NHPC, PeTA, and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) that are only concerned with furthering their anti-animal agriculture legislative agenda. They know that the passage of HR 503 will result in more harm than good for the welfare of America's horses, leaving many to neglect or abandonment," said Stenholm....
Wolves complicate Navy's airfield plans Endangered red wolves prowl the pine bogs and farm fields of Washington and Beaufort counties where the Navy wants to build a jet landing strip, according to federal tracking data released Wednesday by an environmental advocacy group. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is challenging the Navy's plan to build the airfield near a national wildlife refuge, said eight wolves in several packs have moved onto the refuge and surrounding private farmland near the proposed landing field site in the three years since the Navy studied the area. The presence of red wolves, an endangered species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been trying to reintroduce in the wild for two decades, could further complicate the Navy's plans to locate an airfield near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge....
Grand Canyon fish stabilizing The population of an endangered fish in the Grand Canyon area of the Colorado River may be stabilizing, according to biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey. The number of adult humpback chub appears to have stabilized at about 5,000 fish, according to research by federal biologists. "It means that conditions exist in Grand Canyon that allow adult fish to reach reproductive age," said USGS biologist Matthew Anderson in a statement. Until recently, the chub population in the canyon was steadily declining, because adult fish were dying at a rate of 15 percent to 20 percent a year, and young fish were not surviving in large enough numbers to replace them. There also are signs of more juvenile fish in the past few years at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, where the chub are known to spawn, the research showed. More young fish of three other endangered fish species have also been documented at the location....