NEWS ROUNDUP

Blaze Devastates Wilderness Area Prized for Beauty The Boulder Valley, which bumps up against the wilderness north of Yellowstone National Park, is a quiet corner with an unusual mix of residents. They include celebrities, the merely wealthy, ranchers and others drawn to a place of quiet beauty. But nature has gone from serene to tempestuous of late. A fire that was detected on Aug. 22, started by lightning at Derby Mountain, has burned more than 185,000 acres. In the last two days, the blaze has turned this valley where “The Horse Whisperer” was filmed, into a raging caldron with flames sweeping through huge stands of trees and thick banks of smoke turning daytime into twilight and the sun into a glowing red ball. Montana is in an extended drought, fire officials say, and it is as dry as when fires swept through Yellowstone in 1988. The state is also battling a shortage of fire crews and equipment because so many fires are burning across the West. “We’re going as quick as we can, but people are fatigued,” said Wally Bennett, the firefighting director....
Rancher laments backfire that likely killed cattle After five or six days and nights of building defenses, plowing roads and fighting the Derby Mountain fire, rancher Joan Langford thought Wednesday that things were looking pretty good. But at about 1 p.m., firefighters started a backfire on a neighboring property that burned across to her land on Upper Deer Creek, trapping a good chunk of the family cattle herd, she said in a tearful call to The Billings Gazette. The exhausted and frustrated landowner said she was given no warning that the backfire would be set. About an hour later, she said, a firefighter stopped to warn the Langfords that they were going to start another backfire that will probably burn the rest of their 1,500 acres of grazing land 13 miles southeast of Big Timber. "He apologized and said he forgot the cattle were down there," she said, choking with emotion. "It's our livelihood, and they're kind of our pets. We had some real nice cows." She estimated that 180 head were in the path of the backfire. "If they had warned us, we could have saved at least some of them instead of them being burned alive," she said....
Upper Colorado River flows dwindling High water levels in Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs helped sustain the booming local summer recreation industry this summer, but there is a downside for Grand County, just to the north, where Colorado River flows have dropped down to levels not seen since at least the drought summer of 2002. Between Granby and Kremmling, some gauges are measuring flows as low as 20 cubic feet per second, leading Trout Unlimited (TU) to raise an alarm. The cold water fisheries conservation group is concerned that the low flows could harm trout populations in the prolific fishery, and claims that the state is not trying to meet its obligation to maintain minimum stream flows. "I didn't realize this was so dire," said Mely Whiting, attorney for TU's Western Water Project. "We're getting calls from ranchers who are also TU members. They're saying that if they take their entire allotment, the river will be completely dried up," Whiting said. The only thing sustaining fish populations at this point is voluntary cooperation from some of the large ranch owners in the area, Whiting explained....
Rare Condors Being Poisoned by Bullets, Study Confirms Hunters in California may be unintentionally killing two birds with one bullet. Lead from shotgun pellets and other ammunition is poisoning many of the rare vultures as they scavenge abandoned carcasses and gut piles, a new study confirms. The poisonings are threatening efforts to reestablish wild populations of the scavenger, which nearly died out 20 years ago because of dwindling food supplies and poison traps left by ranchers. The new research compares the types of lead found in condors' blood with the lead from ammunition and from dead wild animals not killed by hunters. The results, which were published online last week by the journal Environmental Science and Technology, show a match between the lead in acutely poisoned birds and the lead in hunters' bullets....
Nobody's Horses: The Dramatic Rescue of the Wild Herd of White Sands, by Don Hoglund Nonfiction. By Don Hoglund. Free Press, 251 pages, $25. Grade: A- Book in a nutshell: Former Colorado resident, vet and avowed horse lover Hoglund has written an impassioned ode to the wild horse, which our overcultivated society has forgotten still roam patches of the old frontier. Here, the author narrates how he was hired by the federal government to remove an 1,800-strong herd of horses living in some of the most inhospitable real estate America has to offer, the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Somehow the horses - descended from the rides of ranchers and Wild West outlaws - managed to scratch out an existence, their migration patterns built around paltry watering holes and rough foliage. A die-out of several dozen horses around a dried-up watering hole got Hoglund involved with the project....
Southern Colorado county leaders discuss expansion of Pinon Canyon Successful resistance to the proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site isn't likely, county commissioners from the Southern Colorado region were told last week in Walsenburg. "My perspective is that it will be developed," Las Animas County Commissioner Chairman Robert Valdez told the gathering. "I don’t think we stand a chance against the Department of Defense. The expansion will come." Valdez expressed concerns that, if counties resist, federal payment in lieu of taxes funds will disappear. PILT funds already have gotten smaller in recent years. Commissioner Jim Montoya disagreed. "How can you put a price on someone’s livelihood?" he asked. "I don’t think anything positive can come from this. There is nothing beneficial in this for Las Animas County." Valdez said he hopes DOD will use local contractors and suppliers for the project, bringing back, at least in small part, some of the revenue that will be lost. That’s an argument Montoya isn’t buying. "They didn’t bring us anything last time," he said. Montoya said he fears DOD will contract with companies in Colorado Springs as they have in the past. The far-reaching economic effects of the possible expansion, Montoya said, has already affected the way his constituents live. "Nobody is fixing up their homes or replacing cattle. Everybody is living their lives on hold right now," he said....
Former Midland City manager develops strategy for enhanced water collection Last month, McGregor presented a plan to his board that would introduce a new technology to the LEUWD that could dramatically impact water levels in a county that leads the state in oil, cotton and peanut production and frankly can use all the water it can get. In our conversation, McGregor mentioned the new technology almost as an afterthought. It is called a gravel-packed recharge trench and you can't find one like it anywhere in this part of the state. The trenches, 12-15 feet wide by 40-50 feet long give or take -- about the size of a modest front yard -- accelerate the speed at which rainfall makes its way from the surface to the acquifer below, which, in Gaines County's case is the Ogallala. It can take up to 20 years for rainwater to seep through the topsoil and through as much as 40 feet of rock and clay down to the top of an aquifer's water table. A development such as the recharge trench would, with Mother Nature's help, literally shave years and years off the process, refilling dwindling aquifers in relative lightning speed. "The quicker we get the water down the less we lose to evaporation," McGregor said. In the triple-digit heat of West Texas summers, water on the ground can evaporate at a rate of 5-6 inches a day....
Grazing lawsuit tossed A judge has rejected a lawsuit by three environmental groups that claimed a U.S. Forest Service plan allowing grazing in Antelope Basin south of Ennis was harmful to sage grouse. The Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Wildwest Institute used research by Jack Connelly, a biologist and expert on sage grouse, to support their claims. In making his decision, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy used Connelly’s research against the groups. The fact that Connelly endorsed the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest’s plan to manage the area showed it offered the birds sufficient protection, Molloy said. ‘‘They describe Connelly’s work as the ’best science currently available,’’’ he said in court documents. ‘‘Native Ecosystems relies extensively on Connelly’s work. And Connelly explicitly endorsed the Forest Service’s choice of alternative B.’’ The case was filed against Abigail Kimbell, regional forester out of Missoula, in June 2004. The environmental groups challenged a decision by Madison District Ranger Mark Petroni on an alternative he chose to allow continued grazing on 10 allotments spread over 48,000 acres in the Antelope Basin, located on the south end of the Gravelly mountains near the Idaho border....
Redmond smokejumper honored as hero Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth will present a heroism award next week to Ron Rucker, a Redmond Air Center smokejumper squad leader who risked his life to save another smokejumper and a pilot caught in a plane's wreckage last year. Rucker was serving as an air tactical group supervisor on a twin-engine plane used to direct firefighting resources on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest when it crashed on takeoff on July 21, 2005, at North Las Vegas Airport. Rucker dragged Marge Kuehn-Tabor, a Grangeville Air Center smokejumper squad leader, out of the wreckage minutes after impact. Kuehn-Tabor was training under Rucker at the time, and suffered compressed vertebrae and cracks on both sides of her pelvis....
Protecting lynx blocks backcountry With Keystone’s snowcat skiing operation set to expand into the upper reaches of Jones Gulch, the resort and the Forest Service want to restrict skier traffic into the drainage from other parts of the resort. As a result, Keystone has revamped its trail map for the front side of Dercum Mountain. The dense forest just east of the River Run Gondola and trails like Spring Dipper and Santa Fe is now identified as a “wildlife study area,” and marked as closed. “Keystone has agreed to work with us and look at what wildlife use is in that area,” said Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton. A series of letters and reports from state and federal wildlife agencies make it clear the area is an important route for lynx....
Interior dumps N-waste plan In a move that may mean the death of a plan to store thousands of tons of nuclear waste about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City, the U.S. Interior Department on Thursday rejected the lease to build the facility. "We just wanted to put a spike right through the heart of this project and this does it," Sen. Orrin Hatch said Thursday after being notified of the department's action. In a pair of decisions, spanning 47 pages, two agencies in the department rejected a lease Private Fuel Storage signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear rods on 100 acres of reservation land. PFS is a group of companies that operate nuclear reactors where waste has been piling up for a half-century. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found it could not approve a rail line to the reservation because it would have to cross a newly created wilderness area. A plan to transfer the waste onto tractor-trailers and truck the waste to the reservation was also rejected because it would significantly increase traffic along the two-lane road and because workers transferring the casks would be exposed to radiation....
Judge halts petroleum lease sales Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressed confidence in an upcoming oil lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska when he visited the North Slope last week. "We're set to go forward," Kempthorne said after taking a helicopter ride over a section of the vast reserve. But that sale will likely have to wait. A judge on Thursday temporarily halted lease sales of more than 1 million acres in the NPR-A that environmentalists say are essential feeding and breeding grounds for caribou and migratory birds. Nearly 13 million acres of the reserve in northern Alaska are available for lease sale or have been sold to oil companies, most notably ConocoPhillips. The company hopes to augment waning crude stocks in the Prudhoe Bay fields east of the NPR-A. Environmentalists filed the lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, the state of Alaska and oil companies in hopes of cordoning off about 600,000 acres of the 23-million acre reserve from more exploratory drilling. The government had planned to open bids on Sept. 27 for about 1.7 million acres, which encompass the area targeted by environmentalists....
Roan Plateau opened to natural gas drilling Federal land managers opened the door to drilling in one of Colorado's richest natural gas reserves Thursday, unveiling a compromise proposal that endeavors to reap the mineral riches under the Western Slope's Roan Plateau while protecting its wildlife and environment. The long-awaited proposal caps years of contentious debate among industry, green groups and numerous public agencies on how to go about extracting natural gas from underneath 115 square miles of federal land within the ecologically diverse plateau region north of Interstate 70, bookended by the small towns of Rifle and Parachute. The proposed "resource management plan," released by Bureau of Land Management and Colorado officials, comes with an array of conditions designed to limit the effect of drilling on wildlife and streams - even taking into consideration the views for drivers along I-70. A BLM spokesman described the proposal as "one of the most restrictive BLM has written to date." Even so, environmentalists and some politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., expressed disappointment and anger that the plan will open up the top of the 9,000-foot plateau region to drilling....
Drillers decry Roan rules A long-awaited federal decision that would open the Roan Plateau to natural gas drilling includes compromises that make the land "much less economically attractive," an industry group said Thursday. The Bureau of Land Management's plan to open up the Western Slope site includes measures that would prolong the effective drilling period for decades, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. And that timing would reduce the financial incentives for investing in the gas-rich area near Rifle. "It would make sense to shorten the time frame for drilling, not drag it out," said Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Schnacke said the industry generally supports environmental protections in the compromise plan. But he said restrictions on how drilling should be conducted reduce "the return on investment in lease bonuses, due to the time value of money." While drilling activity has soared in Garfield County, interest in the scenic Roan Plateau remains especially keen because of estimates the area could produce enough natural gas to heat many of the state's homes for decades....
Center's goal is to find homes for horses and burros City slickers have only to drive 45 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City to find themselves transported back in time. Back to the Old West. Back to when a man's handshake and his word were his bond. Back to when a man's horse was his partner. Welcome to the Salt Lake Wild Horse and Burro Center. Located up Butterfield Canyon, in Salt Lake County's far southwest corner, the Bureau of Land Management adoption facility is one of the largest of its kind in Utah. Its goal is to find suitable and loving homes for the majestic wild horses and hearty burros plucked off the open ranges in Utah's deserts and high country. Perched atop the west bench overlooking the valley, the sprawling 70-acre ranch houses as many as a combined 600 horses and burros at any given time....
State secretary: BLM ignored state recommendations of drilling on Otero Mesa A state department secretary is criticizing the Bureau of Land Management’s plan for opening oil and gas drilling on parts of the Otero Mesa. Joanna Prukop, the secretary of the state’s Energy, Mineral and Natural Resources Department, said Wednesday in a teleconference that the BLM’s plan is vague and does not adequately address the impact of drilling on natural resources and wildlife on the mesa. The state’s plan requests that 640,000 acres of the mesa’s 2 million acres be set aside as a natural conservation area. The BLM says its plan protects about 35,000 acres of Aplomado falcon habitat, more than 88,000 acres of wildlife and special status species habitat and has additional tight restrictions on development....
Report says BLM lax on wilderness protection The state secretary of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources and a group of environmentalists say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's own records prove the agency can't protect Otero Mesa grasslands and its wildlife under a controversial plan to allow oil and gas drilling there. Environmental groups Wednesday issued a report, "Hollow Promises from the Land of Enchantment," saying a comprehensive review of BLM's process for leasing oil and gas permits shows a consistent failure to protect wildlife and mitigate damage from drilling operations. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, The Wilderness Society in Colorado and the Southwest Environmental Center published the report. "BLM can't be trusted to protect special places like Otero Mesa," said Nicole Rosmarino, the conservation director for Forest Guardians. Go here (pdf) to view the report.
Is White House influencing Utah BLM? A New York congressman wants to know if the White House has been influencing the Utah staff of the Bureau of Land Management concerning oil and gas development. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., commented Wednesday on an investigation launched by the Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General. In early August, Hinchey called for the probe, following publication of an e-mail by Washington lobbyist Robert K. Weidner. Weidner represents rural counties, mostly in Utah, in dealings with the federal government. His e-mail said that working with the new state BLM director, Henri Bisson, to "fix" the agency's resource management plans was an opportunity that may never come again. The memo urged counties to "strike while the iron is hot" in finalizing the plans and noted what he said was Bisson's "desire to favorably resolve controversial public land issues." On Aug. 9 Hinchey wrote to the Inspector General's Office asking for an investigation. He expressed concern about "recent actions that appear to have compromised the integrity of the BLM's resource-management planning process" and eroded protection of federal land, including Bisson's attendance at a July 18 oil and gas summit hosted by Uintah County. Since then, Bisson has been replaced by Selma Sierra. BLM's deputy director Jim Hughes said the controversy had nothing to do with the timing of that personnel change announced on Aug. 20....
New York Times blasts Bennett, Matheson land-use bill Environmentalists who have been battling the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act acquired a national ally on Monday: The New York Times. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. It would sell up to 24,300 acres of federal land and designate more than 200,000 acres as wilderness, as well as set aside 165 miles of the Virgin River under wild and scenic river status. In an editorial Monday titled "True Wilderness, and False," the Times roasted the proposal, branding it "a raid on national resources aimed at helping private developers." The opinion piece began by describing newly designated wilderness areas, including the Cedar Mountain Wilderness in Utah. Although the newspaper did not mention the fact, the main impetus behind the Cedar Mountain designation was not to protect nature but to block a railroad spur that Private Fuel Storage wanted for its proposed nuclear storage facility in Skull Valley. "This is not to say that all wilderness bills are free of low motives and commercial intent," the Times wrote, and "one particularly distasteful example" is the bill introduced by Bennett and Matheson. "It would sell off 40 square miles of federal land to private developers in Washington County, the fifth-fastest- growing county in the country and already something of a monument to suburban sprawl and strip development," the newspaper said. About half the area to be designated wilderness is already protected, the newspaper added. Some of the proceeds from the sale would go not to local conservation projects but off-road vehicle trails....
Dirty Water in Colorado In Colorado, water never ceases to stop causing problems, usually over allocation or quality. The big issue regarding allocation lately is between agricultural users and thirsty cities. A couple new stories show the water-quality issue taking on some new characteristics. In Denver, reports the Denver Post, a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado confirms that wastewater released in the river by sewage treatment plants in Boulder and Denver are to blame for deformities in the sexual organs of sucker fish and is causing gender complications. Other studies have found similar problems in England and in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The study brings into question the dangers of what people dump into sewers, and how much the cleaning supplies and medicines we use and consume affect other species, and, possibly, other people. Citizens in Grand Junction, reports the Grand Junction Sentinel, have decided they don’t want to know. The city council yesterday passed a comprehensive watershed ordinance aimed at protecting the city's upstream drinking water from the potential effects of energy development, much to the cheering of residents....
The Magnificent 7 Entertained Record Crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo A world-class competition that demonstrates the traditions of the working cowboy, the Magnificent 7 entertained record crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, California in June. The nation’s top stock horse and rider teams showed their skills, athletic prowess and versatility in four events: herd work, reined work, steer stopping and cow work down the fence. Overall winner with a payout of $12, 432 was Bob Avila on Light N Fine, owned by Rhodes River Ranch. Avila also took second place on Brother White. Avila was the first Magnificent 7 competitor to ever sweep the first and second places at this event. Avila is the only horseman to win both the National Reining Horse Association and the National Reined Cow Horse Association open futurities. He was also awarded AQHA’s Professional Horseman of the Year, in addition to the title of NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman in 2000. Based on the historical 1972 event called the Word’s Championship All-Around Stock Horse Contest, the Magnificent 7 is a revival of the first one-man, one-horse competition created by Pro Rodeo Hall of Famers, Cotton Rosser and Benny Binion. The idea became reality over drinks at Benny Binion’s notorious Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, when the two men started talking about putting together a competition showcasing the horses that many a rancher talked about --- the horse that ranchers loved to ride --- the horse that could rope, cut, rein, and run a cow down the fence....
Competitive sheepdog trials to be held in Meeker this weekend The Meeker Classic Sheepdog Championship Trials is more than just dogs herding sheep. The trials combine dog-handling demos, a nationwide art contest, regional food, live music and more for five days of western Colorado entertainment. The Meeker Classic has its fun side, but it can also be serious business for sheepdogs and their owners who come from all over the nation to compete. The event — which takes place annually in September on the first Wednesday through Sunday after Labor Day — offers a purse totaling $20,000. To support the purse, as well as offset costs of the event’s operations, companies and individuals from throughout the Western Slope each sponsor one of the 120 dogs in the preliminary rounds at $100 per dog. Activities at the trials include a daily crafts fair, food booths, weekend pancake breakfasts and a Sunday noon lamb barbecue. Entertainment features dog exhibitions and bagpipe music....
Cattle drives, cowboy way just part of rancher's life Rob Beard seems at home driving his pickup on a dirt path, looking out for his more than 800 head of cattle. Beard - a 64-year-old with piercing blue eyes, a dirty white straw hat, plaid shirt, jeans and mud on his work boots - is a professor of the land who can easily explain the nuances of a cow's digestive system. He's happiest when he is on his horse, Mike, galloping across his 117,000-acre Double U Ranch in Hudspeth County. "One thing about being out here is there is a rhythm to the country," he said. "When you are out here, it is natural. I love the wind, I love the rain, I love the clouds. I love everything about nature." Ranchers and the cowboy lifestyle will be the main focus of Saturday's ninth annual cattle drive starting at Bowen Ranch. The cattle drive kicks off the 77th annual Southwestern International PRCA Rodeo which will be Sept. 20-24 at Cohen Stadium....
Cracker Cowhunters to hit the trail again The Florida Agricultural Museum will present the "Great Florida Cattle Drive of Ought 6" Dec. 5-9. Registration is now under way for the event, which will begin just south of Kissimmee and end at the new Silver Spurs Arena in Kenansville. In 1995 -- to celebrate 150 years of Florida statehood -- a group of 600 cattlemen, historians, horse lovers and hearty adventurers drove 1,000 head of native Cracker cattle across the state. The group also included wagon drivers, walkers, artists, and local, state and national media. Over the last four centuries, cattle production has been one of Florida's most influential industries. In the 1995 Cattle Drive, participants used the sesquicentennial celebration to educate this state's citizens and people around the globe to the fact that the first American cowboys were Floridians -- the cattle business in the United States began right here in Florida. To salute the importance of Florida's "cow culture," organizers will once again be driving cattle, riding the trail, sleeping on the ground and living the life of our ancestors for a few days. The Seminole Tribe of Florida has provided about 400 head of cattle, and every participant who wishes to will be able to spend some time as a "cowhunter" helping to drive the cattle. Camps will be primitive and dress should be late-1800s....
It’s The Pitts: For Better Or For Worse Well, a day arrived I thought I’d never live to see: the day I married my sister. No, no! Before you start thinking even less of me than you already do, I must hasten to add that I married my sister in a wedding ceremony. I can see I’m only digging myself in deeper so let me explain before you write me off as an incest-prone pervert. My sister called two weeks before her marriage and was upset because her preacher had been deported! She wanted to know if I could perform the ceremony. Now, I have presided over numerous religious events in my life such as gopher funerals and a bingo game but I have never married anyone, other than my wife, and I assure you that she is not my sister. I told my sis that if she could get me ordained that I would marry her. In a ceremony, that is. (Normally I insist on several counseling sessions with couples before I marry them but in my sister’s case I waived the rule.) Shortly thereafter I found myself online with the Rose Ministries of Las Vegas, Nevada. (Where else?) I had the choice between ordination packages ranging from $89 to a basic package costing $29. Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I purchased the more inexpensive version. (Actually I made my sister pay for it!) The problem with the cheaper package was that it didn’t come with any instructions as to how to actually perform a wedding ceremony....