NEWS ROUNDUP

Rancher gets help from BLM to ease impact of drilling A Heart Mountain landowner hopes guidelines recently adopted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and changes to Wyoming's split-estate laws, will help mitigate the impact of gas drilling on his property. "I came real close to walking away from the deal," Jim Dager said of his plan to purchase the 2,640-acre Bison Ranch on the south and west slopes of Heart Mountain. Before closing on the property in January, Dager learned of federal mineral rights on the land and plans by Windsor Energy to drill a gas well there. "Two things that encouraged me to go through with it were the new split-estate act and the best management practices that BLM has adopted," he said. Windsor will be required to drill multiple wells directionally from a single pad, maintain a single battery of tanks, use a closed-loop drilling system to avoid open pits, group truck traffic at set times and bury a planned pipeline....
Unhappy hunting grounds The fight to protect the Roan Plateau and Colorado’s roadless areas from energy development has strayed beyond the realm of environmentalists and traditional wilderness advocates. The “hook and bullet” crowd — hunters, anglers, outfitters and other sportsmen — are now claiming wildland protection as their territory, a development that’s being noticed by the energy industry and politicians all over Colorado and the West. The fate of the Roan Plateau and roadless areas on Battlement Mesa is a personal issue for outfitters such as lifelong Republican Jeff Mead, owner of Rifle-based Mamm Peaks Outfitters. Since gas rigs began drilling near Mead’s hunting grounds, he said he’s lost nearly $70,000 in business because gas development is driving away Battlement Mesa’s big game. More than 3,000 acres of natural gas leases within roadless land in the White River National Forest near the Mamm Peaks went on the auction block Aug. 10. Across the Colorado River on the Roan Plateau, dust, noise and a plethora of heavy trucks are a sign of the times. “A year ago, you didn’t see speed limit signs posted on top of the Roan,” said Clare Bastable of the Colorado Mountain Club....
Utah Couple Sues USDA Over Dead Dog A Fillmore couple has filed a tort claim with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after their dog was killed by a cyanide bomb used as part of the agency’s predator control program in western states. Sharyn and Tony Aguiar’s 2-year-old German shepherd, Max, was with Sharyn at the Millard County rock quarry in April, when he disappeared for just minutes and was found dead, a pink foamy substance emanating from his mouth. Sharyn Aguiar now wants the USDA to discontinues use of the meat-scented cyanide bombs, also known as M-44s. “At first I just wanted to go out and post a sign that says ‘Watch your dog on public land,’ “she said. “Now, I want more than a sign. I want this stuff banned.” The intended target of the USDA’s bombs are coyotes that have harassed or killed sheep grazing on public lands....
Underground water will be valuable commodity, some say On a balmy October evening three years ago, Diane Johnson was kicking a soccer ball around the front yard with her two little girls when a stranger rumbled up the driveway in a pickup. Her husband, Steve, who had been cooking supper on a grill, came around the corner to see who had arrived. To the Johnsons' surprise, the stranger, W. Scott Carlson of Brenham, had a check for more than $300 with their names on it. He wanted to lease some of the water beneath their 121/2 acres of Burleson County land. All they had to do was sign a lease and endorse the check, Carlson said, and the bonus money of $25 per acre would be theirs. They also would reap some of the profits when his company sold the water. He was among the first people in the state to bet that water shortages would make groundwater a profitable business — maybe even the next big thing after oil....
Report: Climate change to have significant impact on N.M. water It would likely get hotter and New Mexico's water supply would be significantly impacted over the next century if greenhouse gas emissions continue, according to a report by the state engineer's office. The report released Friday offers a detailed perspective for the state on the international scientific community's latest projections of climate change induced by greenhouse gases. There is widespread agreement among climate scientists that such gases are changing the Earth's climate, the Albuquerque Journal reported Saturday in a copyright story. The report, based on 18 climate simulations by scientists around the world, states New Mexico would likely have an increased risk of drought over the next century and mountain snowpacks in the southern half of the state could be nonexistent by the late 21st century. The findings suggest added pressure that must be considered in a state already grappling with dry conditions and a limited water supply, said Anne Watkins, special assistant to the state engineer and the report's lead author....
A win-win solution Steve Hilde dreams of the time when ranchers have more time and hunters enjoy more access, and he has an idea how to achieve both. Hilde, a Loveland resident who spends his work day as a business development manager for technology giant Hewlett Packard, figures there’s no reason why Colorado can’t mimic other popular public-access on private-land programs available elsewhere, such as Montana’s Block Management and the Access Yes programs of Wyoming and Idaho. Although Hilde talks about the possibilities in terms more familiar with business managers than everyday hunters, tossing around comments about growth strategy, marketing shares, and price elasticity, he brings what might be a past-due new look at today’s big-game hunting situation. His concept is quite simple. Get public hunters on isolated or landlocked parcels of public land or on private land in exchange for helping ranchers do their core business easier and more cost effectively. Hilde’s proposal, which already is garnering immense support from sportsmen around the state, would pay ranchers to open their lands at a cost well within the reach of the average hunter....
Owyhee bill has degree of support Some environmental groups weren't happy with a provision of a proposed new 807-square-mile wilderness in the Owyhee Mountains that gives ranchers $15 million in cash and federal land, but they say the deal is worth the sacrifice. "We felt the appraisal process deviates too much from standard procedure," Craig Gehrke, of the Wilderness Society in Boise, told the Idaho Statesman. "However, from our perspective, the benefits of this package are enormous and we cannot afford to miss this opportunity." The bill being sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is the second federal land-use measure in Idaho to be put before this session of Congress. It joins a House-passed measure sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, that would create a separate 492-square-mile wilderness in the Boulder-White Clouds Mountains in central Idaho. Under the Owyhee deal in southwest Idaho, for $7 million in cash or land exchanges, 15 ranchers would sell four square miles of land outright, sell scenic easements on 2.5 square miles, and sell eight miles of right of way to preserve or open up access to the Owyhee canyon lands. They'd also get $8 million in exchange for reducing or eliminate grazing on protected land....
Desert Fires' Damage Will Last April Sall stood in the charred remnants of a Joshua tree forest, bark peeling off melted black limbs. Above her, ridges once thick with 1,000-year-old piñon and juniper pines were scorched bedrock and stumps. More than 90% of the surrounding Pipes Canyon Preserve was consumed in last month's Sawtooth blaze. It was one of half a dozen fast-moving fires this summer that burned 65,000 acres of the Mojave Desert, fueling debate over whether the desert is burning more frequently and explosively as a result of invasive weeds, smog, development and climate change. "It's heartbreaking to see," said Sall, a biologist who manages the preserve and whose grandmother homesteaded the land a century ago. "We'll never see those piñon or juniper trees again in our lifetimes, nor will our children, nor will their grandchildren. It's a bitter pill…. This land isn't meant to burn." Many scientists agree, saying the recent blazes offer fresh evidence that deserts across the Southwest are undergoing a profound shift, as ancient native pine, shrubs and cactuses give way to young, highly flammable weeds and grasses....
Editorial: Something needs to give, when it comes to wolves and the state of Montana’s ability to manage them. That’s not how it was supposed to be. The wolf management plan that was adopted by Fish, Wildlife and Parks was pitched to the public as a path toward more responsive and flexible wolf management. From one part of the state to another, from one pack to the next, the state was supposed to be far more responsive than the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been with its limited team of wolf managers based in Helena. The state was supposed to have the ability to manage packs that have excessive impacts on big-game populations. Livestock owners, in fact, were supposed to have the ability themselves to respond to problem wolves. So how can it be that some of the critics in Ennis were pining for the old days when the Fish and Wildlife Service responded to conflicts?....
Winds of change The thing about West Texas that you can't ignore, that you can never forget, is the wind. On that big, flat stretch of land dotted with scrubby mesquite trees, the wind sweeps through effortlessly, unimpeded. It rakes across acres of ranchland, over cattle and rocks and red dirt, over nearly dry stock tanks and abandoned oil pump jacks. Always, always it whips at your face or pushes at your back. It fills your ears with a high-pitched, wavering whistle. There's always another gust on the way. And that wind brings a lot of things with it. Tumbleweeds, maybe, that scuttle along highways and prairies. Or dirt, picked up and carried through the air, turning the sky red, choking the atmosphere with dust and sand. These days, though, the wind is blowing something else across West Texas: change. Giant turbines are going up by the hundreds, planted all over the prairie to harness that wind and turn it into clean, renewable energy....
Settlement Will Provide Water for Parched River The lower stretch of the San Joaquin filled with runoff and farm drain water so tainted that it came to be known as the "lower colon of California." Now, thanks to a settlement in a tortured, nearly two-decade-long court fight, the San Joaquin is about to get some of its water back. The agreement, in the final stages of approval, is designed to resurrect the salmon run and return year-round flows to the river for the first time since Harry Truman was president. "The San Joaquin was just killed," said Harrison "Hap" Dunning, a UC Davis emeritus law professor and authority on water law. "It's a monumental restoration." It has not come easily. Kole Upton is a 63-year-old Chowchilla grower with a sharp sense of humor, an engineering degree from Stanford, and 1,200 acres of cotton, corn, almonds and wheat that would wither without water from the San Joaquin. He has been one of the leaders in years of off-and-on settlement negotiations involving growers, environmentalists and the federal government, which operates the dam....
Historic use bumps into property rights Above the San Geronimo Valley, a shimmering pastoral getaway in western Marin County, there is a fire road with panoramic views of the rolling, golden countryside. It has been used by hikers and horseback riders for the better part of a century and, in more recent times, by cyclists. The trail, known as the Dickson Ridge or Barnabe Mountain fire road, depending on where you are on it, is a crucial link in a continuous public path to the Pacific Ocean. But the seemingly peaceful trail is now at the center of a furious battle over public access, pitting trail users and county officials against a couple whose property includes a quarter-mile section of the fire road. The couple, David Mease and Catherine Salah, bought the property in 1999 intending to build a winery and their dream house. They didn't particularly like the idea of horses and humans tromping through their private Shangri-la....
Pests infest forests A bumper crop of bugs is chewing through Montana's forests. The bugs, primarily bark beetles and spruce budworms, leave behind patches of damaged trees that have a red and orange hue. But the outbreaks are part of a natural cycle in the forest, according to entomologists. However, that natural process is resulting in a growing number of dead trees, which is raising concerns. The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the U.S. Forest Service collaborate on an annual inventory of "pest" issues in Montana forests. The most recent report, released earlier this month for 2005, shows bark beetle activity on the rise. Throughout the Northern Rockies, overgrown forests stressed by drought are increasingly crawling with beetles. Mild winters also mean more suitable conditions for the insects. Another startling trend over the past several years is how many trees are dying because of the infestations....
Family is leaving Forest Service land A family ordered to vacate U.S. Forest land it claims to have occupied since at least 1912 must be off the property in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest by the end of the month. Dave Stratton calls it "sad," but the Forest Service successfully argued in court that the Strattons do not own the land and an application to homestead the land in 1912 or 1913 was rejected because it was Forest Service land. The family has never paid rent or property taxes. Stratton and his 82-year-old mother, Vady, spent Thursday packing and dismantling their house. "It's a real tough time, but we're a proud family," Dave Stratton said. "We will pick up and move and it will be a new chapter in the family's history." Dave Stratton and his daughter are purchasing a house in Butte, and Vady hopes to get into senior housing in town. The Forest Service filed a lawsuit seeking to evict the Strattons in 2003 after the family rejected a land swap in which they would purchase another parcel of land for the Forest Service and keep the land they occupied....
Fur back in business and in trouble In a drab conference room in a nondescript Renton warehouse last spring, an auctioneer took a podium beneath huge photos of supermodels in mink coats and fur lingerie. He turned on his microphone and began soliciting bids. Before him, dozens of men and women buzzed in a babel of foreign languages — Russian and Italian, Chinese and Korean. But their common language was hanging on racks in the room next door: some 1.7 million shimmering pelts of farm-raised mink, and hundreds of thousands of wild beaver, raccoon, weasel and fox. This is the American Legend auction, the largest remaining fur market in the United States, where $100 million in business is transacted in a few days. Much as they have for more than a century, merchants from all over the world come to Western Washington to pick over silky skins of North American mammals on behalf of garment manufacturers who will produce next year's lines of boots, hats, gloves, scarves, blankets and coats. After a few rough decades, fur is back....
An extreme drought is taking a heavy toll on Texas ranchers The drought was everywhere at this week's cattle auction. It was in the rows of trailers that swamped the parking lot like a super Wal-Mart. It was in the protruding ribs of skinny cows being sold after months of too little to eat. It was on the tongue of every rancher who'd lost his bet with Mother Nature and was forced to sell long before his cows were ready — at a hefty loss. And despite his joking demeanor, it was in the worried blue eyes of Bodey Langford, 55, who was at his third auction this week, selling off the last of his calves so he can afford to keep feeding their mothers. "Every week, they keep talking about a chance of rain and you hold on and it doesn't rain. Sooner or later you just got to throw in the towel," said Langford, of the nearby Central Texas town of Fentress. "It's emotionally pretty tough. My wife says I'm pretty hard to get along with these days." The scene in Lockhart on Thursday is a common one these days as an extreme drought threatens the No. 1 cattle-producing state in the nation, baking pastureland, draining stock tanks and forcing ranchers to either sell off their herds or keep pouring profits into keeping them alive....
Tyson closing will hurt cattle industry in Idaho The closing of Tyson Foods Inc.'s beef-processing plant south of Boise will hurt the cattle industry in Idaho, the Idaho Cattle Association said Friday. "It's a significant loss in the infrastructure of the industry. ... It's always better when you can have a processing facility here in the state to take care of marketing those cattle," said Lloyd Knight, executive vice president of the association. Tyson announced Thursday that it would close the plant in October, leaving 270 employees out of work. The news came a year after Swift & Co. closed its beef-processing plant in Nampa. The J.R. Simplot Co. closed its Nampa plant in 2003. Tyson was the last large-scale commercial beef-processing facility in Idaho, Knight said. Several smaller facilities still are open throughout Idaho, he said, but most ranchers likely will have to ship their cattle to larger plants in the Northwest, including Tyson's facility in Pasco, Wash....
Rancher is still living her dream When the late Bob Isenberger decided to go into ranching 50 years ago, his wife said it was a dream come true. Pat Litton's dream met hard times and challenges, but has managed to live on to celebrate its 50-year anniversary. It's also a dream that resulted in a history of volunteerism for Wyoming youth and the agricultural industry. That contribution was recognized Wednesday during the Wyoming State Fair when Litton was inducted into the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame. She married rodeo hand Bob Isenberger, and the young couple began working on ranches in the country north of Douglas. “I taught school there, and that's where I got my first lesson with sheep,” she said. The couple lived in a sheepwagon that now can be found in Litton's front yard. They spent that first spring together lambing 3,000 ewes....
Native Americans learn to alter tactics n the beginning, migrants found little to covet in the southeastern vastness of the Oregon Territory. The land was arid, the natives dirt poor and the dirt itself poor in a lot of places. "These were not horse Indians like the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Crow, and Sioux who lived on the well-watered ranges farther north and east," Bill Gulick says in "Roadside History of Oregon." "These were desert Indians who usually traveled on foot, had no buffalo in their country, and lived on roots, nuts, fish, and small game." Decades earlier, Hudson's Bay Co. fur brigade leader Peter Skene Ogden happened on one such group and traded for some roots to feed his own near-starving crew: " . . . from their looks I presume they have nothing else to subsist on, for more starving wretched looking beings I have never beheld, in fact, reduced to skin and bones," says Ogden's journal. These were the Snake, Paiute, Bannock. Settlers for the most part hastened by, put off by the barren state of both the landscape and those living there. But as the lush valleys west of the mountains filled up in the 1850s and '60s, the desert increasingly beckoned as a land of possibility, maybe even riches. Natives increasingly viewed migrants as interlopers and their livestock and civilized impedimenta as fair game....
A paper trail to a Ranger's past Descendants of Samuel McFall knew he had been a prominent rancher in Central Texas, but until about 30 years ago, they knew nothing about his exploits as a scrappy and traveled fighter for the Republic of Texas. McFall, a Kentucky native, served in various Ranger and militia companies in the 1830s and '40s, including the doomed 1842 Mier Expedition into Mexico, which landed him in a prison until he escaped a couple of years later. R.C. McFall, a longtime Johnson County commissioner, said his great-great-grandfather's past was finally revealed in the 1970s when the family opened a long-forgotten safe-deposit box in a bank in West. It contained several historical documents, including an 1845 land grant printed on lambskin. The certificate held an original seal and the signature of Anson Jones, the republic's last president....