NEWS ROUNDUP

Bill would boost power of counties, states to claim roads States and counties could take control of thousands of rural back roads across the West, potentially including routes across national parks, areas being considered for wilderness designation and defense installations, under legislation proposed by a New Mexico congressman. A state or county that wants to claim ownership of a road across federal land would only have to present any official map or aerial photograph showing the road existed prior to 1986, according to the bill sponsored by Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. The legislation would not prevent counties from claiming a public right of way across a defense installation or training range or running through a national park, provided it shows up on a federal, state or county map. If the bill had exempted those, Pearce's spokesman, David Host, said Tuesday, it could have "destroyed rights that might be there." County leaders in Utah hailed the bill as a way to break the stalemate over Revised Statute 2477, a Civil War-era mining law that granted counties and municipalities continued use of traditional routes across federal land. The law was repealed in 1976, but existing roads were grandfathered in, sparking numerous ownership disputes....
Elk or energy? It’s early evening at the Trophy Mountain Outfitters hunting camp, and Wes Heb is sitting on a hillside, beer in hand, watching hunting guide Mike Johnson skin the head of the huge bull elk that Heb shot that morning. It was a picture-perfect kill. The land is prime elk habitat and, some say, holds the highest-quality mule deer in the state. Beneath the soil, the Wyoming Range also holds high-quality oil and natural gas deposits, and during the past year, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have leased about 40,000 acres here for development as an energy field. Four of those leases would put oil rigs within a mile of Child’s camp, a move he says would ruin his outfitter business. Child has joined a coalition of outfitters and sportsmen working to preserve their hunting ground....
Montana governor announces coal-liquids plant Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Monday announced Montana will have one of the nation's first coal-to-liquid fuel facilities, a $1.3 billion project that several companies have agreed to build in the state's midsection. DKRW Advanced Fuels, Arch Minerals and Bull Mountain Cos. plan to develop the project at the Bull Mountain mine 14 miles south of Roundup, in central Montana, Schweitzer said. The governor said that although he announced the project, the state is not a partner nor did the developers request tax breaks or other incentives. "This is a private deal between private companies," Schweitzer said, adding the state worked to help draw the companies together. The Montana project would use what is called integrated gas combined cycle technology to gasify coal, rather than ignite it. The project calls for converting a portion of the synthetic gas into a daily 22,000 barrels of diesel fuel, using the rest of the gas to generate about 300 megawatts of electricity....
100-plus against Santa Rita mining More than a hundred people called on the Pima County Board of Supervisors Tuesday to oppose mining in the Santa Rita Mountains. The National Forest Service will have the final say over whether Canadian-based Augusta Resource Corp. can mine copper at the Rosemont Ranch in the Santa Rita Mountains. The company owns some of the 4,000-acre site outright, and the Forest Service owns the rest. The company has promised an environmentally friendly mine with ongoing reclamation and imported water, but the opponents — as many as half of them from Green Valley and some from as far away as Sonoita — said the company should not be trusted. The county's review of the company's proposal won't be ready until later this week, but opponents packed the meeting room to tell the supervisors they shouldn't trust the company's promises....
Federal judge in Seattle upholds new rules for relicensing dams A federal judge on Tuesday upheld the Bush administration's interpretation of dam-relicensing rules in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, although critics had argued it could lead to lesser protections for the environment. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said the administration did not exceed its authority when it established procedures for letting dam operators challenge environmental requirements, such as installing fish ladders and monitoring water quality. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issues licenses to operate dams, and often those 30- or 50-year licenses incorporate conditions set by other federal agencies to protect wildlife. The Energy Policy Act lets dam operators challenge such conditions in a hearing before an administrative law judge. It also allows them to suggest alternative environmental measures, and requires the judge to approve those measures if they are "adequate" and will be less expensive or allow for greater electricity production. A coalition of environmental and recreational groups, led by Washington, D.C.-based American Rivers, did not challenge the law itself. Instead, the coalition challenged the Bush administration's decision to apply it to dam relicensing applications that were already under way when the law took effect. The opponents also said the administration did not conduct a proper public notice period before implementing the law. Pechman rejected those arguments. She said Congress didn't indicate whether it wanted the law applied to pending applications, and that it was within the administration's authority to apply it to them. Furthermore, she said, no public notice period was required....
Forest Service spends $1.5 billion to fight record fires Wildfires in the lower 48 states have burned a record number of acres this year, and with the scorched land comes a record bill, a federal official said Tuesday. The U.S. Forest Service's firefighting efforts for fiscal year 2006, which ended Sept. 30, cost more than $1.5 billion, at least $100 million over budget, said Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department undersecretary for natural resources and the environment. To cover the overage, money was transferred from other programs that had surpluses, including a reforestation program, said Kent Connaughton, a veteran Forest Service official now also serving as the agency's comptroller. The fiscal 2006 tab compares with $690 million spent out of a nearly $1.2 billion budget in 2005 and $726 million spent out of a $959 million budget in 2004, Forest Service spokesman Dan Jiron said. Both the 2004 and 2005 fire seasons were mild compared with the current fire season, he said. The wildfire season is not over yet, but so far 9.93 million acres have burned in the Lower 48, Rey said. That's the most acres burned since at least 1960, when the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center began keeping reliable records. The previous record was in 2005, when more than 8.6 million acres burned. The average of the past 10 years has been 4.9 million acres....
Mountain pine beetles killing S.D. trees Large colonies of mountain pine beetles have become established in the central Black Hills, and officials estimate that about 2 million trees have been lost in the last two years. The Black Hills Forest Resource Association says drought has made things worse because trees that lack water and nutrients are more vulnerable to the insect pests. The beetles lay eggs under the bark, which essentially kills trees by making it impossible to transport food from the needles to the roots. The best defense is preventative maintenance and thinning, Everett said. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that nearly half of the Black Hills National Forest - 440,000 acres - is at high risk for beetle infestations over the next several years....
Off-roaders fund trails for all Most people give little thought to the time and money it takes to maintain forest trails. It can be time-consuming and money is hard to come by with shrinking Forest Service budgets. Fortunately, off-roaders contributed almost $8 million in 2005 for Forest Service trails in California, which was 33 percent more than the combined contributions from all non-motorized groups. Yet, while off-highway vehicle (OHV) users provide the lion’s share of trail funding, only one-fifth of the trails allow motorized recreation. Off-road groups volunteer considerable time on National Forest multiple use tails to keep the trails in good condition and protect the environment. It is hard work clearing downed trees, repairing washed out trails and trimming back overgrown brush, but worthwhile to keep the land healthy and make the trails more enjoyable for everyone. We are very fortunate to have world-class multiple use motorized trail systems on National Forest lands. The Forest Service is currently revising their Motorized Trail Plan and it is very important for motorized users to be involved to insure existing historical motorized trails are kept open....
Column - The battle for conservation science Our ability to protect and preserve wild places like Yellowstone -- indeed, our ability to protect our civilization -- turns in large part on our ability to understand the amazingly complex biological and scientific dynamics at play. We can't fight global warming or beat back avian flu or protect our families from air pollution unless we understand the science behind these issues and put it to use. But as we've seen again and again through the annals of history, powerful political forces use corrupted science to support desired political results. Witness the Bush administration's proposal to remove the Yellowstone grizzly bear population from the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. By the basic standards of fundamental ecology, that should be a non-starter because of the relatively small population size and the substantial threats the bear faces....
Vandals hit logging site Vandals caused almost $500,000 damage to heavy equipment owned by a Medford, Ore., logging company near this rural Siskiyou County logging site -- an attack that may close the firm until at least next year. The attack "devastated" Hilltop Logging Inc., the firm that owned at least nine bulldozers, graders, front-end loaders and other machines that were damaged, apparently over the weekend, said Susan Gravenkamp, spokeswoman for the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department. The company has about 20 employees, she said. Dirt and other debris were put into fuel and oil lines, belts and fuel lines were cut, computer systems were destroyed and gear linkages were sawed in half, she said....
BLM acknowledges harm from Piceance gas wells A proposed ExxonMobil natural gas field expansion project west of Meeker could slightly reduce water flows in Piceance Creek, impact area air quality and destroy sage grouse habitat, according to the Bureau of Land Management. But those impacts are typical of natural gas development in the region, agency spokesman David Boyd said. The BLM on Monday issued an environmental assessment of ExxonMobil’s plans to construct 1,080 new natural gas wells on 120 well pads in the 28,800-acre Piceance Basin Development Project Area, each containing up to nine wells per pad. ExxonMobil also proposes to construct a new gas plant and new pipelines in the area. If the BLM approves ExxonMobil’s expansion plans, approximately 1,740 acres could be disturbed with well pads, roads and other facilities for approximately 20 years. The area’s gas fields have been operating since the 1950s....
Idaho firefighter pleads guilty to arson A former firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management has pleaded guilty to solicitation of arson for financial gain in Idaho's Seventh District Court. Twenty-two-year-old Levi Miller admitted Friday that he offered to pay a teen to start a fire so he could make more money. He faces up to twelve-and-a-half years in prison and a fine of up to $ 25,000 when he is sentenced in November. Prosecutors said they had taped phone calls with Miller telling the teen to take a match or lighter to start a fire near a Salmon subdivision. The August 13th blaze burned a half-acre of grass and brush before crews extinguished it.
Wyoming: Wolf program analysis flawed The federal government's analysis of Wyoming's request to take over management of its gray wolves is flawed, according to a state game official. "Wyoming's plan will work," Terry Cleveland, state Game and Fish Department director, said in a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Mitch King. In July, the federal government rejected Wyoming's petition to remove wolves in the state from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. Federal officials said they can't remove protections until the state sets firm limits on how many wolves can be killed and agrees to a minimum population. The state is now home to an estimated 309 wolves. Cleveland said the Fish and Wildlife Service's denial of Wyoming's petition lacks "depth and understanding of several issues."....
Editorial - Efforts to save species backfire Regular readers of this page may have followed the plight of the Devil’s Hole pupfish, a rare creature confined to a single limestone cave in remote Death Valley, whose already tenuous existence has taken a turn for the worse since winning federal protection as an endangered species. Unlike many listed species, the pupfish really is a rarity — the kind of animal for which the much-misused Endangered Species Act was designed. We’ve followed its travails because the creature’s plummet toward extinction has actually accelerated under the care of bumbling wildlife bureaucrats, making a strong case that the worst thing that ever happened to the pupfish was federal protection. They were on a slow decline, but holding their own, until 2004, when wildlife biologists doing a pupfish census left fish traps improperly stored. The improperly stored traps were washed into the spring during a flash food and killed a third of the pupfish population. Desperate, federal officials moved some to a "refugium" near Hoover Dam, the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas and a fish hatchery in Nevada. The hope is to rebuild pupfish stocks with a captive breeding program, but even that effort has hit snails ... sorry, we meant snags. The pupfish had to be removed from the Hoover Dam refugium, according to a story published a few weeks back, after the tank became infested with invasive snails. How the invasion began is uncertain, but one theory is that the snails slipped in on nets used by federal caretakers. This isn’t necessarily a complete disaster for the pupfish. But they are never out of danger in federal hands....
“Critical Habitat” Proposed for Two Southern California Plants The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it is proposing formal designation of critical habitat for two imperiled plants in Riverside and San Diego counties as required by the Endangered Species Act. The proposal is the result of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and California Native Plant Society. The Vail Lake Ceanothus is a large shrub with showy light-blue flowers that lives only in three small patches in southern Riverside County. It is threatened by overly frequent fire at all locations and development at one. All populations inhabit land that is included in the West Riverside Habitat Conservation Plan. A population on private property was excluded from the critical habitat designation because it is targeted for conservation under the Habitat Conservation Plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service has never developed a recovery plan for the Vail Lake Ceanothus under the Endangered Species Act. The Mexican Flannelbush, a large shrub with gorgeous large golden-yellow flowers, is a species that is currently known from two small canyons in San Diego and two areas in Baja California....
U.S. government moves to protect whipsnake The U.S. government has set aside 154,834 acres in California's East Bay for a protected habitat for the endangered Alameda whipsnake. Environmental groups welcomed the move to protect the species but questioned whether the amount of land set aside by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be enough to save the snakes, Inside Bay Area reported Tuesday. "The good news is there is finally some critical habitat protection in place," said Jeff Miller, Bay Area wildlands coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's debatable if it's enough to recover the species." The habitat for the Alameda whipsnake, which has been considered an endangered species by the U.S. government since 1997 and a threatened species by California since 1971, has been driven from much of its natural habitat by residential development....
Center for Biological Diversity Supports Delisting of One, Downlisting of Two California Species The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced the completion of Five-Year Reviews for thirteen endangered California species.* Based on the reviews, the Service stated that it intends to delist three species, downlist four to "threatened" status, and maintain the status quo on six. Proposed delistings: Island night lizard, elderberry longhorn beetle, and Chorro shoulderband snail Proposed downlistings: Least Bell's vireo, California least tern, Morro shoulderband snail, and Smith's blue butterfly No change: Western snowy plover, Kneeland Prairie pennycress, Hidden Lake bluecurls, Santa Cruz Island rock-cress, giant garter snake, San Francisco garter snake The Center for Biological Diversity supports the delisting of the island night lizard and the downlisting of least Bell's vireo and the California least tern....
To curb avalanches, railway wants to shell national park The famed symbol of the Great Northern Railway was a mountain goat perched on a rock in Glacier National Park. That railroad's successor, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, now wants to lob artillery shells into mountain-goat habitat inside the park, which straddles the Continental Divide here in northwest Montana. The shelling would help control avalanches that sometimes threaten Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight trains, about 40 of which pass daily through mountains just south of the park's border. Besides seeking federal permission for the occasional wintertime bombardment of the park, the highly profitable railroad stands to benefit from little-known legislation--passed in the Senate and pending in the House--that would spend as much as $75million in grants to pay for avalanche control. The legislation was introduced by two senior Republican lawmakers from Alaska and written, in part, by an avalanche expert who is a paid consultant to the railroad....
Ready, aim, hold it! In two weeks, Surrender Field will bear witness to the surrender of Gen. Charles Cornwallis to Gen. George Washington. Again. A vast reenactment is part of the 225th anniversary of the Siege of Yorktown, but it has its limitations. More than 2,600 men and many women will converge on Colonial National Historical Park to replay the beginning of the end of British rule in colonial America. This time around, the muskets and cannon from the opposing forces won't take aim at each other. Park Service policy forbids reenactment groups from pointing their weapons at others, even if they're fake or unloaded. Nor can they even pretend to fight, since the Park Service does not allow battle reenactments either. Instead, the battles will be held at Endview Plantation in Lee Hall....And now we know the Parkies are really infected with that PC disease. These are the people who are to interpret and preserve our history??
Bush helps Pombo raise $400K President George W. Bush told about 600 well-heeled supporters Tuesday to vote for seven-term Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, if they want to hold onto tax cuts, win the war in Iraq, and end the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. “We will fight in Iraq and we will win in Iraq,” said Bush to loud cheers at the breakfast fundraiser at the Stockton Civic Memorial Auditorium. Bush was in town to raise money for Pombo, who’s in a competitive race for the 11th Congressional District seat with Democrat Jerry McNerney, a Pleasanton wind-energy engineer. The fundraiser generated about $400,000, said Pombo campaign manager Carl Fogliani. Pombo has already been helped to at least a $2 million fundraising lead over McNerney, in part by local fundraisers featuring the vice president, speaker of the house and senate majority leader. Pombo easily beat McNerney in 2004, but separate polling published this week by anti-Pombo campaigners Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and the McNerney campaign suggest McNerney might be slightly ahead or level with the congressman....
Flags Fly At Half Staff To Honor Idaho's Helen Chenoweth-Hage From the tips of her boots up to the blue collar of her denim shirt, Helen Chenoweth-Hage approached every issue from a uniquely Western perspective. Many loved her, others hated her. Who can forget that rude protester who splattered Congressman Chenoweth with rotten salmon at a Montana hearing in 2000 -- an incident she handled with humor and grace. "She didn't want to stop the hearing," remembers daughter Meg Chenoweth Keenan. "She said, 'let's keep going with the hearing.'" Nobody in Idaho was indifferent about this Sagebrush Republican rebel, who died at age 68 in a one-car accident Monday in Nevada. Years ago we asked her why that was. "I really don't know," she said in 1996. "I find that much of what is said about me by the opposition is untrue." Now, as they cope with her sudden death, Chenoweth-Hage's daughter and son say the truth about their mom is simple. "She was a very real person, very genuine," said daughter Meg. "What you saw was really Helen Chenoweth. She had real passions,real loves, and she knew where all that came from."....
Texas regains crucial TB-free status Texas, the nation's largest producer and exporter of cattle, has regained its crucial tuberculosis-free status, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday. Returning to TB-free status eliminates the need to test cattle going to large shows and breeder animals moving across state lines, said Texas Animal Health Commission spokeswoman Carla Everett. The state had lost the TB-free status in 2002 after two infected herds were detected and twice received extensions from the USDA. The agency gave the state more than $4 million to carry out the testing. Since September 2003, more than 335,000 cows in Texas' 818 dairies, and nearly 129,000 beef cattle in 2,014 of the state's purebred herds had been tested for the disease to ensure all TB infection had been detected and eliminated....
Border Security, Job Market Leave Farms Short of Workers Bins of Granny Smith apples towered over two conveyor belts at P-R Farms' packing plant. But only one belt moved. P-R Farms, like farms up and down California and across the nation, does not have enough workers to process its fruit. "We're short by 50 to 75 people," said Pat Ricchiuti, 59, the third-generation owner of P-R Farms. "For the last three weeks, we're running at 50 percent capacity. We saw this coming a couple years ago, but last year and this year has really been terrible." Farmers of all types of specialty crops, from almonds to roses, have seen the immigrant labor supply they depend on dry up over the past year. Increased border security and competition from other industries are driving migrant laborers out of the fields, farmers say....
Wheat weaving a lost art Wheat weaving is a lost art that has slipped through the cracks of time. When the braiding or twisting of hair came into fashion, someone also thought up the idea of softening wheat by soaking it in water so it too could be woven and twisted to create a beautiful piece to save and cherish. Debbie Wagner, Culbertson, enjoys doing just that - wheat weaving. She creates wheat pieces instead of sending flowers in remembrance of loved ones. She also uses wheat art for wedding decorations or to send a small thank you to a friend. When planning for a wedding, think about decorating with wheat weaving. Some ideas are: instead of pew bows, make a braided or twisted heart with wheat heads and add ribbons and cording. Make a wheat cross for your church sanctuary or wheat flowers in a wheat vase in place of the floral altar bouquets. When a family member works the field day after day, an item created from the harvest will be cherished and can become a keepsake. Think about creating a corsage or boutonniere for a child of the farmer or rancher. These tokens will hold memories for a lifetime....