NEWS ROUNDUP


L.A. Told to Restore Owens River A state Court of Appeal panel late Wednesday gave Los Angeles a strong push to move ahead on restoring a 62-mile stretch of the Lower Owens River by upholding a court order that would ban the city from using a key aqueduct if it continues delaying the project. The ruling in the years-long legal dispute was hailed as a victory for Owens Valley residents, environmental groups and state officials fed up with the city Department of Water and Power's failure to comply with a legal agreement to restore the once-vibrant Inyo County river. The restoration effort would be one of the largest ever attempted in the country. "This may be the final salvo in the longest-running fight over an environmental impact report in California history," said Gordon Burns, deputy solicitor general for Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer. "Now, everybody is holding tight and hoping the city will do what it is supposed to do." Laurens H. Silver, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the Lower Owens River Project "should have been implemented four or five years ago, and is mitigation for the long-term damage that the city has done by way of its ground water pumping" from the Owens Valley. The ruling has implications for the river as well as Owens Lake, which "was almost totally dewatered by the city's exports" of water from the area, he said....
Allard urges interior secretary to help with Black Canyon Case Sen. Wayne Allard sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne Tuesday, urging him to help resolve the Black Canyon water rights case. Two weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer voided a settlement agreement in the case between the state of Colorado and the federal government. The judge remanded the case back to the U.S. Park Service, which is a division of the Interior Department. Allard sought the secretary’s help to start negotiations for a settlement. “While a legislative solution may be warranted at some point, I still believe an out-of-court agreement negotiated between the experts at the Department of the Interior and the state of Colorado is the proper solution,” Allard wrote in the letter. “An outright rejection of the agreement, or court quantification of federal water rights, could lead to the largest water grab in my state’s — and possibly the nation’s — history.” The case began in 2001 when the Park Service filed for a federal reserve water right in the Black Canyon. Water users in the Uncompahgre and Gunnison river basins became concerned about a large federal water right in the Black Canyon. Over 200 parties joined the case, which became the largest in the history of Colorado. Former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and the Colorado Water Conservation Board reached a settlement to the case in 2003. Environmental groups objected to the deal and sued in federal court....
Park County plans to join lawsuit for wolf delisting Though possibly closer than ever to an agreement about wolves, the Wyoming Attorney General and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are still likely to again end up in court. If another lawsuit is filed in federal court, Park County will back it, county commissioner Marie Fontaine said. Attorney General Pat Crank says his office recently sent a 60-day letter to USFWS, stating Wyoming will again file suit about the federal agency's refusal to accept the state's plans to remove wolves from the Endangered Species list. The 60 days runs out the first week of October, Crank added. “We have a severe overpopulation of wolves and grizzly bears, and they're having a dramatic impact on our wildlife herds,” Crank said. “Our county attorney has been given the green light to join the state if that lawsuit moves forward,” Fontaine said. “There have been cattle killed in Park County, and the wolves have become bold enough to come down next to homes and kill pets in some cases,” she added....
Column - Oregon Should Welcome Wolves and All the Ecological and Economic Benefits They Bring Wolves provide tremendous ecological benefits. They are the top predator in most environments in which they live and the trickle down effect of their presence is astounding. In Yellowstone, prior to the wolves' reintroduction in 1995, elk basically roamed wherever they chose and tended to spend most of their time in the river valleys. This excessive streamside grazing prevented willow and cottonwood tree growth along the river banks. But when the wolf returned, the elk quickly learned they couldn't set up permanent housekeeping in the valleys and they moved on to make a living in other areas. This, in turn, allowed young trees to grow along the riverbeds. The new trees shaded the river water, creating improved habitat for trout, which thrive in cooler, darker waters. The new willows and cottonwoods attract additional migratory birds and provided new food sources and building materials for beavers. The beavers then built dams which created new marshes and wetlands that in turn attracted otters, ducks and other species. Wolf kills also provided an abundant and reliable source of food for scavengers. And to be sure, wolf predations on old and sick elk have had a positive effect on the viability of the elk population itself....
Word choice by FS gets negative Few words carry more baggage than "wilderness" in the controversy over Montana's roadless federal lands, so the U.S. Forest Service decided to lighten the linguistic load in the draft update of a forest management plan. The agency reduced use of "wilderness" by substituting the less sensitive "wildland" in some parts of the draft, a blueprint for managing the Kootenai National Forest of northwestern Montana for 15 years. The substitution involved references to lands that ultimately may be up for wilderness designations to preserve them, partly through restrictions on commercial use and motorized recreation. The word swap did not affect the moniker for the forest's Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, designated years ago under the federal Wilderness Act. Kootenai forest planner Kirsten Kaiser said wildland is "a different name for recommended wilderness." The forest's former supervisor, Bob Castaneda, made the change because he believed use of wilderness "sometimes causes people to quit communicating," Kaiser said. "He found the wildland term would be a better term to use to get people to talk about recommended wilderness." People who want more Montana land to be declared wilderness criticized the suggestion that wildland and wilderness are interchangeable terms....I'm trying to be nice and watch my language....but what a bunch of BS. If they manage the "wildlands" to protect it's wilderness characteristics, then it is an administratively declared wilderness, just waiting for the right time to get a legislative designation. Say in about two and a half years. Who do they think they are fooling?
Wilderness bills for Idaho, Oregon and New Mexico face hurdle Proposals to protect public lands in three Western states ran into trouble Wednesday as a Senate panel considered a series of separate bills. Votes on the bills — which would protect land in Oregon, Idaho and New Mexico — are unlikely before Election Day, and may not occur at all this year, said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Craig chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources public lands subcommittee, which heard testimony on bills to create two large wilderness areas in Idaho, expand the Mount Hood wilderness area in Oregon and create a national monument in New Mexico. Craig said after the hearing that obstacles to all the bills remain. "There's no question" that formal votes on the bills will be delayed until after the Nov. 7 election, Craig said, but added, "There may be a path forward" before Congress adjourns at the end of the year. Craig has not taken a position on the wilderness bills, which have split the conservation community for the myriad of potential trade-offs they include, from privatizing public lands and allowing motorized vehicle access to banning mountain biking and undercutting wild and scenic rivers protection....
Administration at odds with Oregon lawmakers over Mt. Hood proposals The Bush administration said Wednesday it opposes bills to expand the Mount Hood wilderness area, even as Oregon lawmakers launched a bipartisan blitz to approve a compromise measure before the end of the year. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, said the administration opposes both a House and Senate version of a Mount Hood wilderness bill, as each is currently drafted. The Senate bill, co-sponsored by Oregon Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, would expand the Mount Hood wilderness area by more than 128,000 acres, while a House plan pushed by Reps. Greg Walden and Earl Blumenauer would expand wilderness protection by about 77,000 acres. But Rey said both bills were unacceptable. He said the administration would prefer a plan that creates 55,000 acres in new wilderness, with thousands more acres protected under a less restrictive classification such as a national recreation area. "We're about halfway there," Rey said, in assessing chances for a compromise acceptable to all sides. Oregon lawmakers disagreed, saying they were days away from an agreement....
Greens to appeal decision on Southern Oregon ski area expansion Environmentalists say they will appeal a judge’s decision to allow expansion of the Mount Ashland ski area in Southern Oregon. “It’s just a question of when and how,” said Rogue Group Sierra Club Chairman Tom Dimitre. Once the group gets a copy of the decision from U.S. District Judge Owen Panner, it can begin shaping the appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he said. Panner’s ruling Sept. 20 gives the ski area the go-ahead to build 16 new ski trails, two chairlifts and 200 new parking spaces. The U.S. Forest Service said it was preparing contracts to sell timber to be cut for the expansion work, but the ski area’s board of directors said it would wait 30 days to give opponents time to make the appeal....
Nine Federal Agencies Collaborate to Fight America’s Wildfires 2006 has been the worst year on record for wildfires in America. The problem has been especially severe in mountainous, heavily-forested Western states such as Montana, where an estimated 400,000 hectares have burned so far this fire season. Fire knows no political or bureaucratic boundaries, and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, is at the core of the federal effort to coordinate the logistics and manage the resources necessary to fight these fires. The walls are covered with regional maps and up-to-the-minute technical charts in the room where representatives of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and seven other federal agencies gather every morning around a long conference table to plan the day’s work. Among the experts present are National Guard personnel, meteorologists and wildfire analysts, who look at weather patterns and ground data for 13 geographic regions, and try to predict fire behavior. This cooperative, inter-agency approach to fighting wildfires is relatively new. Fifty years ago, each federal agency had its own firefighting program, and effective communication among agencies was rare. That’s no longer true....
Judge rules for BLM in Otero Mesa drilling case In a defeat for environmentalists, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in favor of a Bureau of Land Management plan for opening parts of southeastern New Mexico's Otero Mesa to oil and gas drilling. Critics of the BLM plan, including a coalition of environmental groups and New Mexico state leaders, had claimed the agency failed to properly evaluate whether building roads, pipelines, well pads and other structures would damage the area's ecosystem, which includes North America's largest remaining pieces of Chihuahuan desert grassland. But in his 43-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Bruce D. Black said the BLM adhered to federal statutes and administrative practices in crafting its plan. BLM's state director, Linda Rundell, said she was ŒŒgratified and encouraged'' by the ruling. ŒŒThe judge clearly agreed with the analysis that was done and the process that we used,'' Rundell said. During months of legal wrangling, BLM officials argued that the agency went to great lengths to ensure protecting the ecosystem while serving the needs of land-use parties. Out of the 2 million acres, a total of 1,589 acres would be disturbed by drilling practices such as additional roads, well pads and pipelines, the agency said. In addition, no more than 5 percent can be disturbed on the grasslands at any specific time....
Senator seeks to speed nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain A Senate committee chairman said Wednesday that he wants to start shipping nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain in 2010, seven years ahead of the Bush administration's schedule. A bill by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would mandate construction of a surface storage facility at the Yucca Mountain site that could hold nuclear waste until the long-delayed underground dump is ready - not until 2017, at earliest, according to the current schedule. The delays are costing the public because the Energy Department was obligated to start accepting waste from nuclear utilities beginning in 1998. More than 50,000 tons of the material is waiting at commercial reactors around the nation. Domenici's bill would seek to reduce that multibillion dollar liability by creating an aboveground facility that could receive high-level waste from the Defense Department starting in 2010 and spent fuel from civilian reactors the next year. The aboveground facility would be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission separately from the underground dump, which also still needs a license....
Stockgrowers confused by changes in Water Protection Act The government is once again keeping ranchers on their toes and leaving them with a head full of questions about whether they are breaking the law or not. A new version of the Water Protection Act came out last year, and it has a lot of stockgrowers scratching their heads. The new changes in regulations are designed to cut down on nutrients from animal waste ending up in streams. This law goes further in protecting water for recreational use such as swimming, boating and fishing than the previous 1972 version. The revised Water Protection Act imposes new regulations on ranchers, especially those with confined feed operations, such as feed lots. On Friday, the North Central Stockgrowers Association and the Hill County Conservation District, assisted by the Hill County Extension Office and the staff at the Montana State University Agricultural Department hosted a four-hour seminar at the MSU Agricultural Experiment Station at Fort Assinniboine south of Havre on dealing with the new regulations. First and foremost, ranchers must determine the nature of their operation. Is it an “animal feeding operation” or a “confined animal feeding operation?” The definition of confined animal feeding operation can be more than a little confusing but it requires a discharge permit from the Environmental Protection Agency....
Fire ant-attacking fly spreading rapidly in Texas Parasitic flies introduced to control red imported fire ants have spread over four million acres in central and southeast Texas since the flies' introduction in 1999, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered using new flytraps they developed. Researchers at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL) have released multiple species of the parasitic flies, originally from Brazil and Argentina, to control invasive fire ants without pesticides. The fly larvae develop inside the ants and kill their host. Dr. Ed LeBrun, a researcher at BFL, developed the new flytraps that allowed him to map the spread of the first species of phorid fly successfully introduced. The fly, Pseudacteon tricuspis, was introduced to several locations in Texas beginning in 1999 with BFL in central Austin....
Feral pigs invade Carpinteria For the first time in recent history, feral pigs have invaded Carpinteria, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. Chris Long, a Fish and Game patrol lieutenant, said that he has issued a special deprivation hunting permit to a Carpinteria avocado ranch owner because feral pigs have raided his land and caused damage to his crops. “Pigs cause tremendous damage to soil and roots. They tear up around four to eight inches underground. It looks like a tractor’s gone through it,” said Long. According to Long, the ranch owner has already killed approximately 24 feral pigs on his property, which is located between Casitas Lake and Carpinteria. The number of pigs that can be killed under a deprivation permit, he noted, is dictated on a case-by-case basis. Long said that it is unclear where the pigs came from; they could be either part of a larger population of wild pigs or released domestic pigs. Despite the recent hunting, the pig population in Carpinteria will continue to grow and roam, according to Long....
Japan imports of U.S. beef slump after ban lifted Japanese imports of U.S. beef totaled only 105 tonnes in August, the first full month of shipments since Tokyo reopened the market to meat from the United States, government data showed on Thursday. That figure marks a plunge from the 22,000-25,000 tonnes of U.S. beef that industry officials say Japan was importing each month in 2003 before it imposed a ban following the discovery of a case of mad-cow disease in the United States. Tokyo briefly lifted the ban at the end of last year, but closed its borders again about a month later in January when inspectors found forbidden meat parts in a U.S. shipment. Japan imported about 41 tonnes of U.S. beef in December and 623 tonnes in January before the ban was reimposed. Industry officials have said that U.S. beef will only make a gradual return to the Japanese market partly due to the lack of sufficient volumes of meat that meets Tokyo's requirements. Philip Seng, president of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, said on September 20 that Japan's purchase of U.S. beef will likely be a modest 15,000 tonnes this year. Japan was once the top importer of U.S. beef, buying 240,000 tonnes valued at $1.4 billion in 2003. That accounted for nearly 30 percent of total beef supplies in Japan....
Mandatory Price Reporting Concerns Remain R-CALF USA was pleased with the progress to keep cattle producers competitive and ensure transparency in the marketplace as the U.S. Senate passed a Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting bill that is identical to the one approved last year by the U.S. House of Representatives, which extends mandatory price reporting to 2010. In December 2005, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a 52-page report that identified key areas in need of improvement in the existing law to make livestock markets both more transparent and accurate so that independent cattle producers would be able to compete with meat packers on a level playing field. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, commissioned the GAO study, and both said they would continue to push for additional improvements in the next Congress. The Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting Act (MPR) requires packers, processors, and importers to provide critical price, contracting, supply and demand information to USDA, which uses the information to create price reports for livestock producers. Since the legislation authorizing the Livestock Mandatory Price Reporting program expired last September, the program has been operating on a voluntary basis. "R-CALF is appreciative of the Iowa congressional delegation's efforts in this matter," said R-CALF USA Region II Director Randy Stevenson, who also chairs R-CALF USA's Marketing Committee. "Getting the mandatory price reporting law back on the books is a better scenario than relying on packers to voluntarily furnish this essential information. Our eventual goal is to get complete and transparent reporting that's equivalent to what is required on Wall Street....
NASDA To Lobby Congress To Mark Imported Cattle's Origin The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture has voted to work legislatively to remove cattle from the so-called J-list, a list of commodities exempt from bearing a permanent mark of country of origin. NASDA holds that such a permanent mark would make it easier to isolate and treat animals if a dangerous animal disease, such as foot and mouth or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, were to be discovered in the originating country's herd. The resolution says in part that cattle should be so identified to "allow animal health authorities to identify imported cattle, which is critical due to the potential importation of animals previously and unknowingly exposed to potential new and emerging diseases, or diseases with long incubation periods, such as BSE and tuberculosis, where the need to locate these animals may not be realized until many years after importation." Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, which has fought the importation of cattle from countries with histories of animal diseases, saluted the move and urged its members to assist in lobbying Congress to write and pass such a bill....
'Mobile Matanza' may help N.M. ranches The Taos County Economic Development Corporation hopes the introduction of New Mexico's first Mobile Livestock Slaughtering Unit will give northern New Mexico ranchers a boost. The large truck - nicknamed Mobile Matanza after the traditional gathering in which an animal is butchered - will travel to area ranches and farms to slaughter livestock and prepare the meat for sale. In addition to helping livestock owners, officials hope the program will create jobs and enable healthy food to stay within the area. "It's a whole program having to do with community food, food security and upping the economic benefit to people in our area," said Pati Martinson, co-founder and co-director of the Economic Development Corporation. Martinson said Mobile Matanza, which will be operating by the spring, is modeled after a program in Washington state. That program started in 2001, and officials there say it has increased income for ranchers, retained at least one cut-and-pack operation and created six jobs. In New Mexico, Lee Knox will serve as the truck's butcher and driver. An inspector with the New Mexico Livestock Board will also be involved....
Chow adds tang to Rehab's round-up Authentic culinary delights from Archie Jobe's chuckwagon, reminiscent of cattle round-ups in the American West of old, will welcome patrons to the West Texas Rehab sale at Producers Livestock Auction today. Since 1866, when rancher Charles Goodnight introduced the first chuckwagon to the cattle trail drives, a diet of red beans and cornbread have been the cowboy's staple. The mesquite smoke slowly fading into the sky from Producers parking lot at 1311 N. Bell St. this morning will signal the aroma of Jobe's sizzling cast-iron ''chow,'' including Dutch-oven peach cobbler dessert. The dinner bell will ring about noon, and at 1 p.m., when folks reach their fill and cast-iron skillets are empty, the first cattle donated to the 47th annual Rehab Round-Up will enter the sale ring. Christoval rancher Bob Helmers, who serves as Round-up co-chairman for the Concho Valley, said Wednesday he had ''cut out'' a prized cow and loaded her in the trailer bound for Producers. Jody Frey, the Producers Livestock's cattle coordinator, is also serving as co-chairman of Concho Valley Rehab Round-Up efforts. He said some ranchers have already contributed to this year's event by donating sheep and goats at Tuesday's sale totaling $3,700. In 1960, the late Conda Wylie, Coke County rancher and owner of the Fort Chadbourne ranch, separated a few head of beef from his herd, sold them and donated the money to the rehabilitation center. That was the beginning of Cattlemen's Round-Up for Crippled Children....
Book explores the long-lasting relationship of man and his pony Horses are like fire. Humans have harnessed both to ensure their own survival. Both are beautiful - and sometimes deadly. Both are forces of nature. J. Edward Chamberlin describes in his new book, Horse: How The Horse Has Shaped Civilizations, the relationship between humans and horses throughout history. As the grandson of a horse rancher and breeder, the subject is near to his heart. He weaves a tapestry of assorted horse-related facts, stories and culture, strung together with one recurring, predominant theme: The horse is both an earthly beast and something akin to a mythic spirit. Through the practical advantages of being large, swift and strong, horses are like extensions of human mobility. It's as if nature engineered them specifically to elevate us to that place Chamberlin describes as being suspended for a moment between the sky above and the ground below. They have played so many roles in human history that they are not merely animals - they are symbols, permanently etched into the collective human psyche representing beauty, grace and the freedom of nature. From inspiring countless artists to providing humans with an invaluable source of meat and milk and hide, to replacing oxen on farms and revolutionizing both war and transportation, it's difficult to imagine human civilization without the influence of horses. Chamberlin includes all these details and more, deceptively nestled within a small 271-page tome....