NEWS ROUNDUP

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin." Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed. For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.) Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself. Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents. But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences....
Cattlemen push for protection Landowners with only surface rights say they deserve to have legal protections for their property and compensation when oil and gas companies damage their lands. Although legislation failed to pass this year that would have provided some protections and compensation for landowners, crafters of the bill have made some revisions with the hopes of getting the bill passed in the 2007 Legislative session. Oil and gas industry representatives say that in order for the proposed legislation to pass, representatives from the ranching and oil and gas industry need to talk and develop a bill that will be acceptable to all parties. Alisa Ogden, a rancher and president-elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, gave an overview of the proposed bill at a meeting held in Carlsbad on Tuesday. Ogden said that from her experience, large independent companies such as Marbob Energy (based in Artesia) have been the easiest to work with. She said there are some companies that are not good stewards of the land and the proposed legislation has come about largely because of them. Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Chaves, Eddy and Lea, who attended Tuesday's meeting, said that in his opinion the proposed bill has two major "sticking points" that could derail the bill again....
Gas industry keeps ranch alive Rancher Scott Nocks has found new money in the royalties he receives from gas development on his property and has used it to keep his fields in production and his cattle fed. Nocks, who owns a portion of the mineral rights on his 150-acre ranch near Wallace Creek west of Battlement Mesa, has contracted with Noble Energy to extract the natural gas from under his ranch for a share of the profits. "So many of the horror stories we have heard about severed mineral rights (where surface owners have no say in gas development on their land because they do not own the mineral rights) also have another side to the coin," he said. "This flip side is that many of the beautiful hay fields and pastures which border rural residential development would not be there if it weren't for this new ranch-grown product called 'natural gas.'" Nocks, who raises pure-bred Dexter cattle, an Irish breed, and hay, has used the financial gain from his royalties to install a large-scale irrigation system that has kept his hay field green....
Oil, gas leases on block, despite protests The auction of oil and gas leases on 14,400 acres of roadless federal land in Colorado moves ahead today over protests from a U.S. senator, a Congress member and a candidate for governor. Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar, both Democrats, asked the nation's top federal land managers to stop the auction until the state enacts rules governing 4.1 million roadless acres. "We haven't received a response," said Cody Wertz, Sen. Salazar's spokesman, late Wednesday. "The ball is in their court to do the right thing." Bill Ritter, the Democratic candidate for governor, also asked that the leases be withdrawn until the state's rules are completed - a process that could last two more years. Conservationists involved in almost a year of drafting the new roadless rules said more energy leases are in the works, and the lack of protection could trigger a land rush....
Soul of the desert is slipping away The Santa Cruz River flows underground along parts of its 225-mile U-shaped path, so people have always settled where the water surfaced. Tucson grew up along the river, fanning out from lush riparian landscapes that drew throngs of people looking for some green in the desert. Cottonwood trees grew along the river's meandering path. A cienega spread out near the San Xavier del Bac mission, and 60-foot mesquite trees grew nearby. As more settlers moved to Tucson in the 19th century, they demanded more water. They diverted it in ditches, they pumped it from the ground. Ranchers overgrazed the watershed, and builders forced the river into unnatural channels. Finally, when the Santa Cruz could give no more, it slid from view, and people stopped thinking of Tucson as a river city. The story of the Santa Cruz shows how Arizona rivers create communities, define towns, influence culture; and how, when the rivers fade, those communities and Arizona lose an irreplaceable part of themselves....
Wyoming notifies feds of intent to sue over wolf management The state of Wyoming has filed notice that it intends to sue the federal government over both last month's rejection of the state's wolf management plan and federal inaction on the state's request for changes in wolf management regulations. "So far, their position has been their way or the highway," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We've chosen neither; we're going to court." Last month, the federal government rejected Wyoming's petition to remove wolves in the state from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. In addition, the federal agency has yet to take action on the state's request to amend regulations. Wyoming has proposed a wolf management plan that generally calls for leaving the animals alone in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks while allowing trophy hunting for them in areas outside the parks. The state has also proposed allowing them to be shot on sight as predators elsewhere in the state....
Trees new prey for poachers The 20-foot tree stands half naked, much of the bark stripped from its trunk. It has only months to live. ''It doesn't know it's dead,'' says U.S. Forest Service botanist David Taylor, pointing to the healthy leaves overhead. This slippery elm has fallen victim to thieves who tore off its bark for profit in the lucrative and burgeoning herbal-remedy market. The gummy lining of the bark has long been used in North America, and especially Appalachia, as a soothing agent for coughs, gastrointestinal ailments and skin irritations. But now, slippery elm and other herbal products that were once used seasonally by locals are in demand by millions. ''I think that trend is going to put pressure on limited resources such as the slippery elm,'' said Dr. Michael Hirt, founding director for the Center for Integrative Medicine in Tarzana. Added John Garrison, a National Park Service spokesman for the Blue Ridge Parkway: ''There's a huge market in botanicals going into herbal medicines. Virtually everything on public lands has a market.''....
Protesters defend controversial tactics The arrests of a dozen activists this week have prompted a debate within the environmental community about tactics employed in an attempt to stop logging on the roadless area in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Activist Laurel Sutherlin was arrested Tuesday morning after authorities found him standing on a platform swinging from the end of a log used to block the Eight Dollar Road bridge that provided access to the Mike's Gulch logging unit in the Illinois Valley Ranger District. The log had been illegally cut from a nearby botanical area. Eleven protesters were arrested in front of the forest headquarters in Medford for blocking a street on Monday, the day logging started. The Sierra Club doesn't condone illegal activities, stressed Tom Dimitre, chairman of the Rogue Group Sierra Club. "But as far as general protests, you've got the Bush administration ramming these things (roadless logging) down people's throats," he said, noting that polls have shown overwhelming public support for preserving roadless areas. "It leaves folks with few options to keep their sanity. I think protesting is essential."....
Effect of fire retardant on wildlife to be studied In response to a court order, the U.S. Forest Service will complete a study to determine whether using fire retardant to fight wildfires poses risks to wildlife in national forests. Air tankers dropping cherry-red plumes of fire retardant near blazes are a frequent sight over wildfires. During fire season, tanker pilots travel across the country, flying from wildfire to wildfire as needed. The use of fire-retardant drops was one of many tactics employed by firefighters when the Sawtooth and Millard fires raged near the Morongo Basin and San Gorgonio Wilderness in July. But tactics might need to change. The new study is expected to be completed by next spring, and forest officials are waiting to form their conclusions before discussing how the study's results may change firefighting policies, said Nadine Pollock, the study's project manager with the Forest Service. The Forest Service officially proposed continuing its use of fire retardant when the study was announced late last month. A primary environmental question that the study would need to address is whether fire retardant is harmful to fish and other aquatic life. "It could be toxic," said Chris Wehrli, leader of the study team. "It could promote invasive or non-native species, noxious weeds. It could change the chemistry enough to kill desirable plants." If the eight-person team concludes that fire retardant damages the environment, forestry officials would have to prepare a new environmental document that describes new firefighting proposals and how each of those policies would affect forests, Wehrli said. If the team determines that fire retardant can be used safely, firefighters can continue to fight fires under existing rules or make slight modifications to their tactics....
Creating a bountiful lynx buffet on Burnt Mountain Where there are bunnies in Colorado's mountains, there are often lynx, so the U.S. Forest Service and Aspen Skiing Co. are teaming on a project to make part of Burnt Mountain more like a buffet table for both animals. A 43-acre stand of mostly mature spruce and fir trees will be thinned out, and the forest floor will be scared in a manner that spurs regeneration of trees. Snowshoe hares depend largely on conifer needles for food in the winter, so the idea is to provide them with more forage, according to Kelly Colfer, a principal owner of Western Bionomics LLC, a consultant to the Skico. By improving snowshoe hare habitat, the Skico and Forest Service hope to make the area more inviting to lynx, a reclusive predator reintroduced to the state starting in 1999....
Ranger Danger In Central Arizona's Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests, sheriff's deputies battled a hammer-wielding man apparently drunk and high on mushrooms. Next door in the Coconino National Forest, a female federal officer single-handedly struggled with a drunk camper until reinforcements zapped him with a Taser gun. Further north in Montana, rangers tracked a man far into the forest, acting on a report that he'd beaten his wife at a campground. When cornered, the suspect turned his pit bull loose on the rangers. Closer to home, 60 miles of national forest along the Arizona-Mexico border have become a jungle of illicit trafficking, where visitors are warned of the dangers up-front--and enter at their own peril. Much of this crime is blamed on ever-growing urban areas, which increasingly brush at the forests' fringes. Even as these once-bucolic preserves become crime-ridden enclaves, the Forest Service has seen its law-enforcement staff cut by a third since the early 1990s. Over that time, "the size of the national forests certainly hasn't gotten any smaller," says Bill Dougan, president of the Forest Service Council, a union representing about 20,000 agency employees. He blames the Forest Service for skewing its priorities away from law enforcement, placing the public and employees at greater risk. "This has been a budget issue in our agency for a number of years, in terms of what the agency chooses to spend its money on."....More of about a six-month campaign to increase the budgets for Federal law enforcement. If he was really concerned about the safety of the public, he would be calling for the Forest Service to contract with local law enforcement who can provide the protection more efficiently. But that would mean fewer union members.
Ranching Over Rockets While leasing land in Cochise County to test some of its products, one of Tucson's biggest employers and manufacturers recently found itself in hot water. The rural neighborhood north of Willcox is almost entirely agricultural and residential. Many residents raise livestock and keep horses for riding. Arenas, where riders practice rodeo skills, dot the landscape, along with fields of alfalfa, squash, pumpkins, corn and chilies. Considering the rural lifestyle here, some locals were shocked to learn that Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems leased land from one of their neighbors in 2005, set up a five-acre test site--without a special-use permit, in violation of county zoning laws--and were testing missile components. Area residents began hearing what sounded like a cannon being fired. There were also strange lights flickering from the site on some nights....
Copper joins conservation partnership A new partnership between Copper Mountain Resort, the U.S. Forest Service and the nonprofit National Forest Foundation could raise up to $75,000 per year for local conservation projects on the White River National Forest. The program will launch Nov. 3, Copper’s opening day, and will raise money by soliciting voluntary $1 per night donations from resort guests. The money generated by the resort will be matched with a 50 percent grant through the National Forest Foundation. A similar program in Aspen raises money for the Roaring Fork Conservancy, and the National Forest Foundation also partners with Timberline Resort in Oregon and Snowbird, in Utah. The Snowbird program started last winter and raised as much as $10,000 to $15,000 per month during the peak season, said National Forest Foundation president Bill Possiel. The National Forest Foundation is also discussing the program with Vail Resorts, he added....
'Closed-door deal' at BLM? A New York congressman is calling for an investigation into whether Utah's new Bureau of Land Management director violated the public trust by pledging to help open federal lands to oil and gas development. A memo released today by environmentalists and written last month by Robert Weidner, a lobbyist for several Utah counties, says that Henry Bisson, the state's interim BLM director, and the national BLM deputy director, Jim Hughes, promised to take steps to "promote economic growth and reduce restrictions on access to the public lands." The memo reported on a meeting attended by commissioners from booming oil and gas counties and representatives from 10 major oil companies drilling in the state. Environmentalists and New York Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a longtime advocate of environmental causes and Utah wilderness, blasted the arrangement as "apparently illegal" and sent a letter to Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney asking for an investigation into the conduct of Hughes and Bisson....
BLM chief frets over partisanship A Bush administration official complained about the partisanship that accompanies oil and gas development in the West at an industry conference Tuesday, the same day a senator urged the administration to slow down on Western gas drilling. "If you think of the mantra that all politics is local, it's surprising sometimes that management of public lands is so partisan," said Kathleen Clarke, director of the Bureau of Land Management, which is in charge of leasing the rights to drill for gas on public lands. Clarke spoke Tuesday at Rocky Mountain Natural Gas 2006, a conference for energy industry executives and employees. She said she sees the BLM's mission as protecting Americans' "quality of life," a theme that includes not only land protection but also economic prosperity. "What is at stake is our ability to accommodate the growing population and urbanization of the West," Clarke said....
Global Warming: Utah's climate shift would touch all species Having spent 35 years on the Great Salt Lake and its surrounding marshes as a student and biologist studying everything from pelicans to pintails, Val Bachman is a keen observer of nature. He has seen floods and droughts, and watched how those changes have affected the birds on one of the Western Hemisphere's key waterfowl and shorebird habitats. What the Division of Wildlife Resources biologist has observed has convinced him that global warming is a reality already affecting Utah. "We've had some awfully significant cycles on the Great Salt Lake," said Bachman, the longtime Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area superintendent. "The extremes seem to be getting closer together. We've had some real wet periods and real dry periods."....
Ranchers ride out summer rebuilding from ashes of spring People still feel the heat of March's wildfires. "We're doing as well as can be expected," Roberts County Judge Vernon Cook said. "We had several ranches totally liquidated. Most of the others are in the process of rebuilding fences." Dead cattle, scorched pastures, seared horses and a lot of work are the legacy of the fires, and Roberts County was one of the hottest spots. "We're saying just short of 300,000 acres, or roughly half the county, burned. There were 400 miles of fence lost," Cook said. Roberts officials are scheduled to meet today to decide how to distribute about $80,000 in donations meant to compensate for loss of livestock, fences and grass....
Fire leaves area ag producers uncertain The Dawes and Sioux County Complex fires are now 100 percent contained. But some ranchers are still reeling from the damage and have not fully assessed the damage of their property or decided what their next plan of action will be. Ron Scherbarth lives south of Chadron. Fires came within a half mile from his family's place and three quarters of a mile from his house, he said. He had “about 100 acres of pasture land and some land up in the buttes burned by the Deadhorse fire” and the Roberts Tract fire took out all of his summer grazing land for this year. Luckily none of the family's cattle was lost. When the fires were about two miles away from the cattle, his mother and sister hopped on four-wheelers and got the herds to safety using their normal cattle gate routes. The herds now are grazing in their winter grazing fields. Scherbarth was unable to assist with the cattle as he was one of many battling the fire. He began duty Tuesday, July 25 fighting the Roberts fire and worked through Monday, July 31 and “slept very little.” After that the fires were taken over by bigger crews, he said....
Prairies' anthrax outbreak kills livestock An outbreak of anthrax has killed hundreds of farm animals in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and has ranchers in affected areas scrambling to make sure their livestock are protected from the naturally occurring but deadly bacterial disease. As of this week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had reported anthrax had been found on 17 farms in Manitoba and 118 animals had died. Hardest hit, however, was Saskatchewan and a large area to the east of Saskatoon, where 615 animals have died on 123 different farms since the outbreak was first noticed a month ago....
Out on Video: Jubal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Not rated, contains adult situations, sexual innuendo and violence. A mature, literate horse opera in the Louis L'Amour tradition, Delmer Daves' 1956 Western is based on a Paul Wellman novel and features an excellent cast headed by Ford in the title role, that of a quintessential Man With a Past. He doesn't go looking for trouble, but it always seems to find him. Thanks to friendly rancher Shep Horgan (Ernest Borgnine, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph in Marty), Jubal is given shelter and then the foreman's job on Shep's ranch. This puts Jubal at odds with the vengeful Pinky (Rod Steiger), who coveted the job for himself and whose affections for Shep's lusty wife, Mae (Valerie French), have been rebuffed because Mae now has her eye on Jubal. Shakespearean echoes abound as Pinky attempts to engineer Jubal's downfall by spreading vicious innuendo about him and Mae. Beautifully filmed in CinemaScope by Charles Lawton Jr., Jubal is something of a miniclassic, with intelligent plotting, layered characterizations and fine performances all around....
Calling all Kern bachelor cowboys A new reality TV show is searching Kern County and other Central Valley communities for lonely farmers, cowboys and ranchers who are too busy tending to cattle and crops to find themselves a misses. "The Farmer Wants a Wife" is one of the newest shows by the producers of "American Idol" and "America's Got Talent" and is slated to air this winter. But first, the producers need to find six boot-wearing bachelors to star in the show and they're turning to California's rural areas to find them. "We need to get the hottest cowboys possible," said Jennifer Carollo, the show's casting director, who described the project as "The Simple Life" meets "The Bachelor." The show will pair each guy with three city girls who are fed up with the Los Angeles dating scene and want to find love and the traditional way of life....
Inaugural Mail Trail ride set for September For 30 years, the Camp Verde-to-Payson mail trail served as the only line of communication between the two communities, along with several outlying ranches and the tiny mountain towns of Pine and Strawberry. From 1884 to 1914, a succession of young and hearty mail riders brought town residents and rural ranchers the many wants and necessities the outside world had to offer. They brought medicine, cloth, books and booze, and much to their dismay, they even delivered the annual Sears catalogue ­­ a task that required a spare mule. Their arrival was more often than not an event to celebrate. Now, one year after the Forest Service gave official recognition the route the riders followed, it is time to celebrate again....
The Receding Tide of Waves It’s getting harder and harder to catch a good wave here in the Valley. Not surfing, but an old-fashioned Westcliffe Wave, the hallmark of rural friendliness. These waves take many forms. Often it’s a friendly lifting of an index finger as a rancher rattles by in an ancient pickup. It could be the full-handed wave of a retiree in a little two-door sedan. Sometimes it’s the ripple of fingers as a motorist’s grip unfurls from the steering wheel for a moment in greeting to another driver headed in the opposite direction. A few years ago waves were pretty ubiquitous around the Valley. We got one from just about everyone we passed on the road. Times are changing though. The waves are becoming more seasonal. We get a lot more waves in the winter, when the Valley isn’t filled with tourists and part-time residents who live in the big city the rest of the year. Folks who, when waved at, don’t wave back, because they just aren’t used to someone being friendly for no reason other than that they share the same patch of pavement....

& HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my darling Sharon.