NEWS ROUNDUP


Rich countries like poor face water crisis Rich countries have to make drastic changes to policies if they are to avoid the water crisis that is facing poorer nations, the WWF environmental organization said on Wednesday. In a survey of the situation across the industrialized world, it said many cities were already losing the battle to maintain water supplies as governments talked about conservation but failed to implement their pledges. "Supporting large-scale industry and growing populations using water at high rates has come close to exhausting the water supplies of some First World cities and is a looming threat for many, if not most, others," the report warned. It suggested that agriculture in the richer countries should have to pay more for water and be held responsible more actively for its efficient use and for managing wastes, like salt, especially in intensive livestock farming. From Seville in Spain to Sacramento in California and Sydney in Australia, the report said, water had become a key political issue at local, regional and national levels as climate change and loss of wetlands dramatically reduce supplies....
Billions face water shortages, crisis looms A third of the world is facing water shortages because of poor management of water resources and soaring water usage, driven mainly by agriculture, the International Water Management Institute said on Wednesday. Water scarcity around the world was increasing faster than expected, with agriculture accounting for 80 percent of global water consumption, the world authority on fresh water management told a development conference in Canberra. Globally, water usage had increased by six times in the past 100 years and would double again by 2050, driven mainly by irrigation and demands by agriculture, said Frank Rijsberman, the institute's director-general. Billions of people in Asia and Africa already faced water shortages because of poor water management, he said....
Las Vegas bids to fuel growth by tapping into farmers' water Nothing in the history of the American West epitomises the unscrupulous greed and ambition of its settlers more than the story of Los Angeles sucking the water supply out from under the farmers of the Owens Valley in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains a century ago. The fertile valley was reduced to a dustbowl so the City of Angels could expand and turn into the sprawling metropolis it is today. Now history is threatening to repeat itself - this time in the neighbouring state of Nevada, where the insatiable growth of Las Vegas and its satellite cities is sparking a new water war with the farmers and ranchers of the remote and beautiful Snake Valley straddling the border of Nevada and Utah. Water officials in Las Vegas are lobbying to build a pipeline to carry more than one billion cubic feet of extra groundwater into their city every year, at an cost of $1bn. The pipeline would be the starting point of a larger project to pump almost eight times that much water into Las Vegas from a large swath of central and eastern Nevada....
Governor looks to tackle water problems in coming session Gov. Bill Richardson has already called the 2007 legislative session the Year of Water, and on Tuesday, he called for ``big ideas'' to take on the state's water problems. ``I don't want little ideas. I want far-reaching ideas to address New Mexico's water issues,'' Richardson told a group of the state's water thinkers and policy-makers gathered Tuesday in Albuquerque for a free-wheeling discussion. Reclaim millions of gallons of wastewater from New Mexico dairies with new technology, offered Annette Morales, a rural-development advocate. Revise state regulations so they don't hamper farmers' efforts to use innovative water-saving technology, suggested Los Lunas dairy farmer Janet Jarrat. ``It's like pulling teeth to get anyone to look at anything innovative,'' she said....
Wolf traps set after death of calf in Gravelly Mountains Federal wildlife officials have set traps in the area where a wolf killed a calf on a grazing allotment in the Gravelly Mountains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services said. The calf kill in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest was investigated Sunday. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks trapped two wolves in the area in May and fitted them with radio collars. Radio signals were not heard during the investigation Sunday nor during a monitoring flight Monday. The tracks of a single wolf were found near the carcass, and federal wildlife officials believe a single animal without a collar killed the calf....
Car hits, kills grizzly bear A grizzly bear that had recently lost its radio collar was hit and killed by a car last week in Grand Teton National Park. Park officials said the Chevrolet Cavalier was southbound on U.S. 26/89/191 Friday night when it hit the bear south of Moran Junction. The bear, a 4-year-old male, survived the initial impact but died along side the road. None of the three people in the car was injured, but the car sustained extensive damage to the hood and windshield. The park said the grizzly was captured last summer and given a radio collar as part of a research project. The bear dropped the collar this June, but data collected during the 11 months it was collared showed the bear mostly stayed in the park, roaming occasionally into the Teton Wilderness....
On the Mountain: Vanishing species About 20 miles east of Meeker is a tributary of the White River named North Elk Creek, a valley of lush undergrowth and tall pines, steep hillsides and long approaches to the Flat Tops Wilderness Area. And until only a decade ago or so, it was a sanctuary from civilization, peopled by ranchers, visited by a select few fishers and boaters. Like everywhere in Colorado, though, things are changing. Invited by some friends whose family has maintained a small hunting camp on North Elk for half a century, Anne and I trucked our way up from Carbondale through a rainy Friday evening to bed down in a two-room, rustic cabin to one side of the valley. We slept to the sound of North Elk Creek as it babbled a few feet away each night. Other cabins, a decent distance apart, made up the hunting camp, each occupied by a separate part of the larger party. By day, everyone did his or her own thing, hiking out of the valley into the surrounding high country. Anne and I spent most of one day exploring the East Fork of North Elk, passing by a venerable cow camp that seemed still to be at least partially in use. A nearby corral, in good repair, showed that the cowboys still came up to the valley to gather their herds in the fall or scatter them in the spring....
Rancher wants first conservation plan Dean Roberts plans to become the first rancher in Chaffee County to place his ranch in a conservation easement. Chaffee County Commissioners unanimously pledged support for the idea Tuesday during a regular meeting in Buena Vista. They donated $30,000 from the conservation trust fund and agreed to apply for a Great Outdoors Colorado grant on Roberts' behalf. He plans to put 303 acres and several high quality water rights into conservation along the South Arkansas River about a mile west of Poncha Springs. Poncha Springs Trustees offered support for the plan during their meeting Monday. Under the easement, Roberts forfeits his right to develop the property while maintaining ownership and allowing his family to continue agricultural operations. He will be paid approximately $700,000 to finalize the easement, which will be held in perpetuity by the Colorado Cattlemen's Association....
Xcel invests in 'clean' coal Xcel Energy on Tuesday committed $3.5 million through next year to develop Colorado's first "clean" coal power plant, signaling the utility's keen interest in pursuing the multimillion-dollar project. The money will be used to conduct engineering studies and project development activities for the 300- to 350-megawatt power plant, which could supply electricity to about 350,000 households. Xcel wants to build the plant itself rather than open it to competitive bids from independent power producers. The plant could cost between $500 million and $1 billion, depending on the location, size and infrastructure, such as transmission lines, as well as technology. The utility wants to recover that investment from its 1.3 million electric ratepayers in Colorado, if the state Public Utilities Commission approves the project....
Off-road dispute In 1988, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management designated a 19,200-acre swath of ruggedly steep hills between Chimayo and Alcalde as El Palacio Fun Valley, where dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles could zoom around on established trails. Now opponents are gearing up to fight what they predict will be expanded, unmanaged off-roading in the area as the BLM Taos Field Office rewrites its 20-year-old management plan for all the land it manages in Northern New Mexico, including El Palacio Fun Valley. They say off-roaders are already cutting fences along the park's boundary and trespassing on private land, leaving trash, increasing erosion and robbing archaeological sites scattered throughout the area. ``They have no regard for fences or private property, much less archaeological sites,'' said John Chavez, a Truchas native and board member of two land-grant associations....
Aspen tree deaths leave experts stumped Something is killing the quaking aspen trees of the Rocky Mountain West. The slender, white-barked trees that paint the hills gold every autumn are dying, some scientists say, leaving bald patches across the Rockies. Experts are scrambling to figure out what's happening. "As soon as we understand what's going on, then maybe we can do something about it," said Dale Bartos, a Forest Service restoration ecologist based in northern Utah. Bartos thinks a fungus may be to blame, while others suggest everything from hungry caterpillars to drought to man's interference with the natural cycle of forest fires and even resurgent herds of hungry elk nibbling saplings to death. Aspen stands have been hard hit in southwestern Colorado and northern Arizona. A conservative estimate is that about 10 percent of the aspen in Colorado may have died or become afflicted with something in the past five to 10 years, Bartos said....
Conservation groups sue over forest management plan The U.S. Forest Service is being sued by a coalition of conservation groups over a management plan they say threatens the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northeastern Minnesota. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis Tuesday, the coalition contends that a 2004 plan to manage the Superior National Forest would harm the wilderness values of the BWCA. The Forest Service plan would allow clear-cut logging within a quarter of a mile of the lake-dotted wilderness area. The lawsuit also challenges a method the Forest Service is proposing to estimate the logging plan's impact on wildlife....
Governor Murkowski's Road to Nowhere Challenged Conservation and transportation groups filed suit today challenging a proposed road project to nowhere. The road would cut through a large roadless area north of Juneau on the east side of Lynn Canal and end in the wilderness roughly across the canal from Haines. The road project calls for the construction of a new ferry terminal at the end of the road. The entire project is expected to cost the state about $250 million and comes as the governor has instituted a state hiring freeze due to budgetary woes. The organizations filed suit in federal court in Juneau against the Federal Highway Administration and Forest Service. The lawsuit focuses on the Federal Highway Administration and Forest Service's failure to consider alternative methods of improving transportation between Juneau, Haines, and Skagway, and on their failure to fairly assess the effects the road would have on wildlife and other resources in Berners Bay and Lynn Canal. The organizations contend that the Highway Administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by refusing to consider an alternative in which travel in Lynn Canal is improved by more effectively managing the existing ferry system....
Column: Forest Fires in the Klamath Mountains As several fires burn in the Klamath Backcountry of northern California and southern Oregon and as tens of millions of taxpayer dollars continue to be expended in efforts to "suppress" these fires, the time is opportune to examine the history of fire and fire suppression in the Klamath Mountains in order to determine if there are lessons for today that can be learned from the experiences of the past 25 years of fire suppression in these mountains. For local residents and "newcomers" to the Klamath Mountains our first experience with large fires and large Forest Service fire suppression was the Hog Fire of 1977. The jobs and income that flowed from that suppression effort and the salvage logging that followed were seen by most forest residents as an unexpected boon. But a few of us who had worked in the suppression effort also were alarmed by the size and destructive force of the massive backfires which Forest Service managers ordered lit in a futile attempt to stop the wildfire. This alarm was reinforced by natives and old timers who had lived with fire for many decades without resort to bringing in an army of non-local firefighters and massive amounts of equipment. We did not know it then but what we experienced with the Hog Fire was an early stage in the militarization, industrialization and nationalization of fire fighting....
Company eyes access for mine Agribusiness conglomerate J.R. Simplot Co. may try to get a judge to condemn part of an eastern Idaho couple's 467-acre property so the company can build a road for a proposed expansion of its phosphate mine near here. So far, Peter and Judy Riede have refused to sell rights-of-way to any portion of their land in rural Caribou County to Simplot. They say a haul road for ore from the Smoky Canyon Mine would damage their land, which has two creeks featuring 20-inch Yellowstone cutthroat trout. After the Riedes declined an offer of $2.1 million from Simplot, the company suggested in public documents filed with the U.S. Forest Service that it could simply use 110-year-old provisions in the Idaho Constitution that give mining companies the right to cross private lands to reach their properties. Simplot, which has $3 billion in annual revenue, also broached eminent domain in a June 9 letter to the couple. It asked them to reconsider the offer, and said if they didn't the company would "move forward with pursuing alternatives that allow Simplot to appropriately develop our phosphate mineral leases."....
Federal judge leaves roads dispute unresolved Inside the sprawling Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, signs posted by Kane County allow driving on some roads where the federal government has banned all vehicles. That conflict was left unresolved Wednesday when a federal judge dismissed a 10-year-old lawsuit brought by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance that sought to force the federal government to defend its own turf. U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins ruled that because the Bureau of Land Management was unwilling to get involved, the wilderness group didn't have a case. "It was a lot of work and motion for an eventual dismissal," said Ralph Finlayson, an assistant Utah attorney general....
Despite uproar over Alaska spill, US to open land to drilling The Interior Department is set to open a vast area of environmentally sensitive wetlands in Alaska to oil drilling, but opponents point to corroding pipelines to the east at Prudhoe Bay as a reason to keep the area off-limits. The tens of thousands of acres in and around Lake Teshekpuk on Alaska's North Slope are part of the oil-rich Barrow Arch, which includes the Prudhoe Bay fields that have kept oil flowing for decades. The lease sale, opposed by environmentalists and some members of Congress, is occurring as federal regulators and a House committee investigate inspection and maintenance programs of BP Alaska, where widespread pipeline corrosion forced the partial shutdown of Prudhoe Bay oil production Aug. 6. BP Alaska is a subsidiary of London-based BP PLC. Government geologists contend that at least 2 billion barrels of oil and huge amounts of natural gas lie beneath the coastal lagoons, deltas, and sedge grass meadows -- an area where caribou give birth and thousands of geese migrate each summer. Within days, the Interior Department will open tracts in the area for leasing, with the winning bids to be announced in September....
River Rescue The San Pedro River's meandering journey toward survival enjoyed a welcome twist recently, when a scheme to revive rail cargo along its banks was dropped. Now conservationists want to take that victory to the bank. Literally. They hope to begin a process called rail banking, which would turn the old rail route lining the San Pedro into a bucolic walking trail. And that would pay proper tribute to this last fragment of a complex riparian river system once coursing through the Southwest. The saga began in February, when the San Pedro Railroad Operating Co. received federal permission to abandon its 76.2 mile route through Cochise County. About 40 miles of that line slices through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, which is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management....
Gene-Altered Crops Denounced Environmental groups yesterday called for a moratorium on open-air tests of crops genetically engineered to produce medicines and vaccines, citing a federal court's conclusion last week that the Agriculture Department repeatedly broke the law by allowing companies to plant such crops on hundred of acres in Hawaii. In a toughly worded 52-page decision released without fanfare late last week, a U.S. District judge in Hawaii concluded that USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which grants permits for the planting of genetically engineered crops, should have first investigated whether the plants posed a threat to any of that state's hundreds of endangered species. The corn and sugar cane plants, already harvested because the experiments involving them were completed before the case was decided, had been modified to produce human hormones, drugs and ingredients for vaccines against AIDS and hepatitis B....
Grass Created in Lab Is Found in the Wild An unapproved type of genetically engineered grass has been found growing in the wild in what scientists say could be the first instance in the United States in which a biotechnology plant has established itself outside a farm. Ecologists at the Environmental Protection Agency said they had found a small number of the grass plants growing in central Oregon near the site of field tests that took place a few years ago. The E.P.A. scientists and others said the grass would probably not pose an ecological threat. Still, it could provide fodder for critics who say that agricultural biotechnology cannot be adequately controlled. “It is a cautionary tale that you have to think about the possibility of plants escaping into populations where there are wild relatives present,” said Jay Reichman, an agency ecologist who is the lead author of a study to be published in the journal Molecular Ecology....
Another Inconvenient Truth: Meat is a Global Warming Issue There are many human activities that contribute to global warming. Among the biggest contributors are electrical generation, the use of passenger and other vehicles, over-consumption, international shipping, deforestation, smoking and militarism. (The U.S. military, for example, is the world’s biggest consumer of oil and the world’s biggest polluter.) What many people do not know, however, is that the production of meat also significantly increases global warming. Cow farms produce millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane per year, the two major greenhouse gases that together account for more than 90 percent of U.S. greenhouse emissions, substantially contributing to “global scorching.” According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Unit on Climate Change, “There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from livestock.” The 2004 State of the World is more specific regarding the link between animals raised for meat and global warming: “Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world’s annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.” The July 2005 issue of Physics World states: “The animals we eat emit 21 percent of all the CO2 that can be attributed to human activity.” Eating meat directly contributes to this environmentally irresponsible industry and the dire threat of global warming. ...
Ranchers rewarded for conservation Four Arizona ranchers in Coconino County have cared for our beautiful, fragile land for generations, most tracing their families back to settling the West and European roots. According to them, the longevity of their operations is testament to their commitment to the land. Because of that commitment, the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will pay them $172,030 combined next year and a total of $1,341,322 in the next 10 years through the Conservation Security Program (CSP). CSP is a voluntary conservation program administered by NRCS that rewards private landowners for their ongoing care of natural resources on working lands. Some of the practices that put the Arizona producers on top include using vigorous grazing management strategies along with providing wildlife watering facilities, solar energy generation, recycling used motor oils, reducing dust on dirt roads and providing barrier-free land for antelope habitat....
Mystery of San Antonio tree may be solved SAN ANTONIO Officials may have solved the mystery of a San Antonio tree that's gurgled water from its trunk for months. The site has attracted a stream of pilgrims who consider it holy water. The San Antonio Express-News reports city water system officials shut off service to Lucille Pope's home -- and found that the tree stopped leaking. Her son, Lloyd Pope, says authorities think the roots had gotten into the waterline. Lucille Pope had sought answers from the Texas Forest Service, the Edwards Aquifer Authority and nurseries -- with no results. Meanwhile, visitors have come from as far as Laredo, Dallas and Georgetown to see the red oak that's spouted water in the midst of the drought.
Governor Brad Henry Lifts Some Load Regulations Gov. Brad Henry has issued an executive order waiving load regulations to help drought-weary farmers and ranchers get hay and other supplies. The 90-day order also will make it easier for firefighters to transport equipment to battle wildfires. It waives road and licensing regulations for oversized vehicles that haul agricultural loads and firefighting equipment. ``We're doing everything we can to protect Oklahomans from wildfires and deliver relief to farmers and ranchers who are hurting because of the drought,'' Henry said. ``This executive order is just one small piece of the puzzle, but it will make it easier to deliver help to the areas that need it most.'' Besides expediting agriculture shipments within the state, the governor is working to cut through red tape that may hinder transports from surrounding states. At his direction, officials are working with their counterparts in other states in the region to encourage similar rule waivers on agriculture transports....
Supervisors keep open range idea alive An open range proposal is not dead. With a 3-2 vote, the Tehama County Board of Supervisors voted to continue discussions about a proposed ordinance that would designate almost two-thirds of the county as chiefly devoted to grazing. Tehama County Cattlemen's Association President Matt Pritchard echoed some of his previous comments from past public meetings, saying that the ordinance was less about fencing and zoning and more about liability. "Ranchers need to stay in good standing with insurance companies," he said. If passed, the ordinance would label almost two-thirds of the unincorporated county as chiefly devoted to grazing. It would establish the right of cattlemen to graze livestock, and, the cattlemen argued, it is necessary to help the county's $17 million cattle industry afford insurance and continue business in the county....
Protecting the Truth About Grass-Fed Meats What does the term grass-fed mean to you? To millions of consumers it means pasture-raised, unconfined animals. Now, a few greedy companies have lined up lobbyists to change the meaning --- and, with it, the truth --- in grass-fed labeling. Back in the 1990s, after years of pressure from the emerging organic-food industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finally offered a proposed definition of the term organic. Unfortunately, industrial-scale food producers saw the potential in a market that they didn't have a piece of, and hijacked the proposed rule before it reached the public. Fortunately for us, the leadership of the organic industry rallied its legion of consumers to wage a pitched battle in the form of letters, e-mail and telephone calls. And won. The USDA received more comments on a proposed rule than ever before or since. The intended meaning of organic survived. We face a similar hijacking again --- but this time the term is "grass fed," and the food is meat, milk and cheese. Factory-system food producers, who seek to profit from the burgeoning market for grass-fed protein, are attempting to steal the meaning and therefore the market. The USDA has proposed a rule that now would allow "grass fed" to include animal confinement and the feeding of corn and other grains in the final stages of an animal's life....
Going for the Gold It’s a hot August day in the South Hills and the pine needles crunch underfoot. It hasn’t rained in weeks and the forest holds the heat close to the ground. There’s little shade to be found, unless you slither into an old mining tunnel where the temperature drops 30 degrees and the air is damp and dewy. It’s not the safest refuge from the sun, nor is it recommended, but for those with a curious heart, the temptation to explore Helena’s historic mines is hard to resist. No one knows for certain how many tunnels, shafts, pits and adits lay scattered across Helena’s South Hills. Some mines date back 140 years. Others were created as late as the 1940s, when mining dwindled in the Helena area. Old-timers still tell stories about the dredges that once skimmed gravel for gold in the valley. Just last summer, rumors of a lingering pocket of quartz stirred cries of gold across Downtown as crews excavated the Jackson Street garage. Of course, they never found any gold....
Adventurers traded ship to build up Oregon herds In the summer of 1840, cattle were almost impossible to come by for Oregon settlers. The Hudson Bay Company was willing to lend cows, but all calves reverted to the company. Ewing Young, a wealthy rancher, and the Methodist Mission each owned cattle, but would not sell them. A small group of ex-trappers hatched an audacious plan. These "mountain men" decided to build an ocean-going ship, sail it to California, trade it for cattle and then drive the cattle back to the Willamette Valley. Now, no American ship had ever been built in Oregon and none of the group had ever sailed, but this did not deter them. Joseph Gale, a mountain man with seagoing experience, promised to join them later if they could show progress. Felix Hathaway, a ship's carpenter from Willamette Falls, agreed to supervise construction....
It’s The Pitts: Lemonade Lessons Like many kids of my generation, I learned about running a business by having my own lemonade stand. It was a single owner proprietorship and I had no employees, fancy stationery or business license. I picked the lemons from our very own tree and my mother helped me make the lemonade using an old family recipe; one part lemon extract, four parts water, one part sugar and 10 parts of pride my mother had in me for my enthusiastic entrepreneurship. I set up a card table by the road out in front of our house, arranged the tools of my trade and started waving my sign at those passing by, offering fresh squeezed lemonade for only ten cents a glass. It was a bit slow at first but then I got the bright idea to throw in a free cookie with every glass and business began to trickle in. A neighbor I’d never met stopped by on his walk and said he was tired and hot and guessed he’d try a glass of my lemonade. He tossed the glass back, smacked his lips and said, “I’ll have another.” I asked him for 20 cents and he gave me a quarter and from then on he was my favorite old man in the neighborhood....