NEWS ROUNDUP

Water, Water ... Where? The worst drought on record in these parts lasted for much of the 1950s. While city folks were discovering tv and cars with fins, North Texas farmers and ranchers suffered. Stock tanks dried up in the blistering heat, grass grew scarce, crops withered in the fields. Cattle had to be sold cheap. Peewee Walker remembers the drought of the ’50s and the one prior to that that turned so much of the plains into the Dust Bowl. He’s been farming or ranching most of his 91 years in the Everman area. Those bad times felt pretty much like what’s happening now, he said — except he’s got air conditioning this time around. Other than that, “I’d say they’re pretty well equal.” R.W. Looper keeps a couple of dozen cows on 220 acres near Azle, not far from the place where he was born 82 years ago. He thinks the current drought is a match for what he experienced in the ’50s. “It was dry as heck then, but I don’t know if it was any drier than it is now,” he said. “It was two or three months into this summer before I got any rain here. I still don’t have any water in the tank. I lost a big oak tree out there by the barn.” The dryness that has lingered here for most of the past decade, along with the severe heat of this past summer, is hurting farmers and ranchers again, but it’s also affecting cities and towns....
GAO blames govt. for logging losses A government study blamed the Bush administration, not lawsuits by environmentalists, for adding to the cost of a logging project in which the government spent $11 million to salvage less than $9 million in timber from a wildfire. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the administration's decision to dramatically increase logging, coupled with the size of the fire and the complexity of environmental laws, led to delays. The so-called "Biscuit fire" burned almost 500,000 acres in Oregon and California in 2002, making it largest wildfire in the lower 48 states since 1997. The Bush administration and its Republican allies contended that lawsuits filed by environmentalists led to the increased costs. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, said the report released Wednesday demonstrated the need for a new law sponsored by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., to speed up logging of burned forests and tree planting after storms and wildfires. "The pattern of litigation-related delays associated with this project bears poignant witness to the need for congressional action on Greg Walden's post-catastrophic restoration bill, as the president called for in Los Angeles," Rey said....Go here to read the GAO report.
South Dakota leaders back rail for coal South Dakota's top elected officials joined business leaders Tuesday to urge approval of a $2.3 billion federal loan for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's expansion plan. The project, which would haul coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin to Midwest power plants, also would create thousands of jobs and boost the rural economy in South Dakota and surrounding states, supporters told a top U.S. Transportation Department official during a public forum. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the project could change South Dakota's entire economy by lowering shipping rates for grain, improving the hauling of ethanol and other products and boosting the supply of coal to power plants. For nearly a decade, DM&E has worked on a project that would rebuild 600 miles of track across South Dakota and Minnesota and add 260 miles of new track to reach the Powder River Basin coal mines. The project would cost an estimated $6 billion, with $2.3 billion coming from the federal loan and the rest from private funding....
U.S. Supreme Court Denies City’s Lawsuit on Soledad Canyon Consent Decree he U.S. Supreme Court denied the city of Santa Clarita’s lawsuit, or its request for review known as petition for certiorari, effectively allowing the Consent Decree to stand and the Soledad Canyon quarry project to move forward. The ruling prevents the city from further attempts to stop the legally binding Consent Decree from taking effect.
The proposed Soledad Canyon quarry, on the backside of the mountain, is a vital source of sand and gravel for Southern California. Currently, Los Angeles County alone uses 34 million tons of aggregates each year for construction projects including building homes, schools, and hospitals, and constructing new roads to help alleviate traffic congestion. Once operational, the Soledad Canyon Project is allowed to produce between 1.4 million and 5 million tons each year, impacting only 177 acres or less over the life of the project. In its petition for certiorari, the city of Santa Clarita had alleged the Consent Decree intruded on the rights of the city. Under this Consent Decree, Los Angeles County agreed to cease opposing and delaying the issuance of county approvals for the development of the mine site after the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had granted the company’s predecessor the rights to the sand and gravel on the 460-acre site in 2000. The Consent Decree also allows the county to complete its environmental review process, and to impose on the project a host of environmental and socially beneficial conditions not otherwise required. “We are pleased with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, which we feel clearly confirms that the Consent Decree is proper and consistent with all applicable laws,” said Gilberto Perez, President of CEMEX USA....
DWR sued by fishing alliance A coalition of fishing groups on Wednesday sued the state Department of Water Resources, alleging the agency never obtained the proper legal authority to kill fish while exporting north-state water to Southern California. Each year, thousands of fish die in pumps near Tracy in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Screens keep thousands more out of the pumps, but the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance claims DWR never obtained a permit that would set pumping rules and impose measures to restore the fish. The so-called "take permit" is required under the California Endangered Species Act, or CESA, and would be issued by the state Department of Fish and Game. Fish species cited in the lawsuit are the endangered winter-run chinook salmon, and the Delta smelt and spring-run chinook, both threatened....
Defenders of Wildlife Report Spotlights 10 National Wildlife Refuges Threatened by Global Warming Global warming is the single greatest challenge threatening the National Wildlife Refuge System as a whole, according to a Defenders of Wildlife report that identifies 10 refuges demonstrating the dire consequences from global warming. "Global warming is occurring rapidly and these climate changes pose serious threats to wildlife and habitat," stated Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "These changes can be seen throughout the National Wildlife Refuge System, which provides stark real-world examples of the effects of global warming today." The report, "Refuges at Risk, The Threat of Global Warming," is part of an annual assessment Defenders of Wildlife releases to gauge the state of the refuge system. "While this report focuses on the 10 most threatened refuges, the entire refuge system faces an uncertain future given the progress of global warming," said Schlickeisen. "To fulfill its wildlife conservation mission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must take immediate steps to deal with the impacts of global warming."....Go here to read the report.
Bush, Enviros Seek Ban on Bottom Trawling President George W. Bush Tuesday directed two of his Cabinet officials to work for an end to destructive fishing practices, such as unregulated bottom trawling on the high seas. Scientists say the practice is destroying some of the world's most sensitive ocean habitats. In a memorandum, the President directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in consultation with Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, to work with Regional Fishery Management Organizations, RFMOs, other countries and international organizations to establish rules to enhance sustainable fishing practices and to end destructive fishing practices. The memo specifies other practices that must be ended such as the use of explosives and chemicals that destroy the long-term productivity of ecosystems like seamounts, corals, and sponge fields. The President emphasized that it remains United States policy to support protection and use of sustainable fisheries as a food source and to meet the needs of commercial and recreational fishing. The President directed the Secretary of State to work with other countries to establish new institutional arrangements, including new RFMOs, to protect ecosystems in high seas areas where no such arrangement now exists....
Park Service unhappy with plan to shift funds to howitzer shelling For several years now, railroaders have wanted to shell Glacier National Park's wilderness with howitzers, hoping to blast potential avalanches away from above their increasingly busy tracks. Now, legislation moving through Congress could help make that happen - and could even compel the National Park Service to pay for the bombing. “This (proposal) would take the money directly out of the Park Service budget,” said Steve Thompson, Glacier program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Everyone knows they can't afford that.” The proposed legislation - already passed through the U.S. Senate and now working its way through the House with help from two key Alaska Republicans - seeks to “reduce the risks from and mitigate the effects of avalanches on recreational users of public lands.”....Won't that be cool if this becomes law. Reenactors can't point a fake gun at anybody, but by golly we can blow the hell out of the hillsides with howitzers. Our Federales at work.
Legislation and litigation for Santa Rosa Island Legislation and litigation could be the responses to the passage of an annual defense bill that includes language allowing deer and elk hunting on Santa Rosa Island to continue past a previously court-ordered deadline of 2011. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, authored the language and attempted in 2005 to have the island turned over to the United States Department of Defense for the use of military personnel and their guests — and with the intention that the visitors would be allowed to hunt deer and elk, game that is not native to the island. Hunter now envisions the island as a part-time private hunting ground for active service members, military retirees and veterans groups. The 50,000-plus-acre island is property of the National Park Service, which purchased the island in 1986 for $30 million from the Vail family. But Vail & Vickers, the Vail family’s company, still lays claim to the deer and elk. Until 1996, when the National Parks Conservation Association filed suit because of the continued hunting, the park service allowed the company to run a hunting business on the island. The defense bill’s approval ensures that the deer and elk can remain on the island indefinitely, despite the protests of environmental groups that contend the legislation is a direct violation of the Endangered Species Act....
Interior employess surf for sex and gambling Speaking of sex -- the topic du jour in Washington -- the Interior Department's inspector general has uncovered an impressive amount of time spent by department employees surfing porn, game, gambling and shopping Web sites. "Our review of one week of computer use logs revealed over 4,732 log entries relating to sexually explicit and gambling websites" by department computers, said IG Earl E. Devaney 's report -- titled "Excessive Indulgences." "More alarming," the report said, "was our finding regarding access to on-line game and auction websites: we discovered over 1 million log entries where 7,763 department computer users spent over 2,004 hours accessing game and auction sites during that same week." In a year, "these veritable shopping and gaming binges could account for 104,221 hours of lost productivity," equaling the amount of yearly work time put in by 50 employees. But it's likely worse, the report continued. "We believe that our estimates of inappropriate use activity are conservative, particularly the amount of time spent at pornographic and/or sexually explicit websites." This Internet use costs taxpayers more than $2 million in lost wages, the report said. (Officials yesterday were not sure how the 80,000-employee department compared with other agencies.)....