FLE
Incursions Spark Tension on U.S.-Mexico Border
Armed Mexican government personnel made five unauthorized incursions into the U.S. in the last three months of 2005, according to confidential Department of Homeland Security records. The incursions involved police officers or soldiers in military vehicles and were among 231 such incidents recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol in the past 10 years, the Los Angeles Times reports. "It's clear you're dealing with a large number of incursions by bona-fide Mexican military units, based on the tactics and the equipment being used," said T.J. Bonner, a Border Patrol veteran and president of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. Bonner told the Washington Times that it was "common knowledge" along the border that some Mexican military units, federal and state police and former Mexican soldiers are paid by smugglers to protect shipments of cocaine and other drugs into the U.S. Incidents in the Homeland Security records include Mexican helicopters flying north into U.S. airspace near El Paso, Tex., for about 15 minutes; five Mexican officials armed with assault rifles entering the country near El Centro, Calif., and returning without incident; and two Mexican police officers observed on the U.S. side of the border near Yuma, Ariz. Details of the incidents emerged "as authorities on both sides of the border scrambled to investigate a dangerous confrontation Monday in Texas," the LA Times reported....
Sheriff demands probe of incursions
A Texas border sheriff yesterday demanded that the U.S. and Mexican governments investigate incursions into the United States by heavily armed drug escorts dressed in Mexican military uniforms "before someone gets killed." Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., who heads the Texas Sheriff's Border Coalition, said a growing number of suspected incursions and violence aimed at the area's law-enforcement officers is making the border "a pretty dangerous place." "We have tried everything we know to make the federal government aware of the problems at the border and how they have affected us," said Sheriff Gonzalez, who has fewer than two dozen deputies to patrol 1,000 square miles, including 60 miles of Texas-Mexico border. "It appears our government is covering this thing up because it just doesn't want to admit there is a problem," he said. "Trade between the United States and Mexico may be more important to Washington than human lives." His comments come in the wake of an incident Monday in which U.S. law-enforcement authorities in Hudspeth County, Texas, confronted several men in Mexican military uniforms who were accompanying drug smugglers. The "soldiers" were in a camouflaged Humvee with a mounted .50-caliber machine gun, said Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West. Yesterday, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, said she was "deeply concerned" about the possible incursions and asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to "fully investigate this matter and report to Congress the details and confirm whether or not Mexican military officials were involved. "But make no mistake -- this is only a symptom of a much larger problem," she said. "Even after September 11, our nation's borders remain porous. We must take bold action in securing our borders." The Mexican government has denied that the men in any of the incidents were soldiers, saying that some drug smugglers dress in military-style uniforms, carry automatic weapons and drive military-style vehicles. Sheriff Gonzalez said he could not confirm that the men were soldiers, but said he was skeptical of the denials by the Mexican government. He described the suspected soldiers as "very military looking, clean cut and in good physical condition -- not your average drug smuggler." "When you spot a Humvee with military paint on it and a .50 caliber machine gun, this leads you to suspect that it's not a vehicle being used by drug lords," Sheriff Gonzalez said....
Cover-ups of Mexican military border crossings anger agents
Border patrol agents and other law enforcement officials are angry that Mexican and some U.S. officials refuse to acknowledge that Mexican soldiers are crossing into the United States. Some officials suggested Wednesday that the confrontation between Texas law officers earlier this week was with drug smugglers, not Mexican soldiers assisting narcotics traffickers across the Rio Grande. But a Border Patrol agent who spoke on condition of anonymity said continuous cover-ups by Mexican and U.S. officials have put many agents and American lives in danger. "I think it shows how desperate the situation has become. I think it's insulting to expect Americans to believe what (Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael) Chertoff and the Mexican government are saying," the agent said Wednesday. "Isn't it the most reasonable explanation that if men are dressed as soldiers, with military vehicles and mounted machine guns that these guys are soldiers - not some cartel trying to ruin diplomatic relations?" Photos of what appeared to be Mexican troops in the United States during Monday's incident shocked many Americans, although Mexico officials denied the military was involved. But to most Mexicans it just offered further proof that drug traffickers run rampant in the border area in military-style vehicles, wearing uniforms and, in some cases, using military firepower....
Political opposites aligned against Bush wiretaps
Larry Diamond, a Democrat and a Hoover Institution senior fellow, went to Baghdad in 2004 as a consultant for the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority, believing strongly in the Bush administration's goal of building a democracy there. While critical of many aspects of the Iraq war, he has, he says, wholeheartedly supported President Bush's aggressive approach to the war on terror. Grover Norquist is one of the most influential conservative Republicans in Washington. His weekly "Wednesday Meeting" at his L Street office is a must for conservative strategists, and he has been called the "managing director of the hard-core right" by the liberal Nation magazine. Perhaps the country's leading anti-tax enthusiast, he is, like Diamond, a hawk in the war on terror. Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they agree on one other major issue: that the Bush administration's program of domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency without obtaining court warrants has less to do with the war on terror than with threats to the nation's civil liberties. "My view on the terrorists is that we should find all of them and kill them," said Norquist. "But we should also protect our civil liberties, which the terrorists are trying to destroy." Diamond, whose academic specialty is the building of democracies, has taken his opposition one step further, joining a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union last week to halt the president's program....
A Founding Father on presidential powers
The press was barred from the 1787 Constitutional Convention so that the contentious delegates could speak freely. However, James Madison's notes on the debates are a valuable source for our founding origins as a nation. And, in the Federalist Papers, Madison — urging the new Americans to vote to ratify the proposed Constitution — wrote on an issue now being fiercely debated again: the extent of a president's powers. In this case, what George W. Bush claims are his "inherent" constitutional powers in the war on terrorism. The time has come for Madison to enter the present debate. In the Federalist No. 47, Madison said plainly: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." On Dec. 16 — on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" — Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general in President Reagan's administration, and a continually challenging conservative constitutional scholar — explained why this continuing debate on the sweeping powers of "the unitary executive" is the most crucial of all controversies during the Bush presidency so far: "We must protect the Constitution," Fein said, "for those yet to be born — whether (the future) Congress or the White House is controlled by Republicans or Democrats. We need an aggressive fight against terrorism, but we can do it without compromising the Constitution ... If he (George W. Bush) insists he can do anything (against the Bill of Rights) in the war against terrorism, then he is indistinguishable from King George III." That led me to look again at the Declaration of Independence's list of "repeated injuries and usurpations" by King George III, headed by the charge: "He has refused his Assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."....
WHAT IF WIRETAPPING WORKS?
he revelation by The New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a secret program of electronic surveillance outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (fisa) has sparked a hot debate in the press and in the blogosphere. But there is something odd about the debate: It is aridly legal. Civil libertarians contend that the program is illegal, even unconstitutional; some want President Bush impeached for breaking the law. The administration and its defenders have responded that the program is perfectly legal; if it does violate fisa (the administration denies that it does), then, to that extent, the law is unconstitutional. This legal debate is complex, even esoteric. But, apart from a handful of not very impressive anecdotes (did the NSA program really prevent the Brooklyn Bridge from being destroyed by blowtorches?), there has been little discussion of the program's concrete value as a counterterrorism measure or of the inroads it has or has not made on liberty or privacy. Not only are these questions more important to most people than the legal questions; they are fundamental to those questions. Lawyers who are busily debating legality without first trying to assess the consequences of the program have put the cart before the horse. Law in the United States is not a Platonic abstraction but a flexible tool of social policy. In analyzing all but the simplest legal questions, one is well advised to begin by asking what social policies are at stake. Suppose the NSA program is vital to the nation's defense, and its impingements on civil liberties are slight. That would not prove the program's legality, because not every good thing is legal; law and policy are not perfectly aligned. But a conviction that the program had great merit would shape and hone the legal inquiry. We would search harder for grounds to affirm its legality, and, if our search were to fail, at least we would know how to change the law--or how to change the program to make it comply with the law--without destroying its effectiveness. Similarly, if the program's contribution to national security were negligible--as we learn, also from the Times, that some FBI personnel are indiscreetly whispering--and it is undermining our civil liberties, this would push the legal analysis in the opposite direction....
The Legal War On Terror
As it begins in earnest to publicly justify and defend its domestic surveillance program, the White House is couching the controversial initiative in military terms. So "electronic surveillance" now is referred to by Justice Department officials as "signals intelligence activities" and the program itself now is labeled as a "core military" function that acts as an "early-warning system" designed to prevent future terror attacks. Suspected terrorists, meanwhile, are "enemy forces" the warrantless surveillance of whom result from "tactical military decisions" necessary as "a fundamental tool of war." There is no great surprise in this. The best argument President George W. Bush has to support the National Security Agency's surveillance program is that it is a legal and reasonable exercise of his broad constitutional war powers. These powers, the White House asserts, trump any past Congressional effort to limit warrantless surveillance through the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act and any prospective judicial interference in the function. On the eve of Congressional hearings into the legality of the program, the executive branch, you might say, is putting the "war" back into the legal war on terrorism. Last Thursday, two days after two complaints were filed to stop the NSA program, and on the same day that Osama Bin Laden reintroduced himself onto the world scene with the release of a grainy audiotape threatening more violence in America, the Justice Department distributed a 42-page legal analysis and defense of the government's eavesdropping practice. The first time you read the "White Paper," you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution. The second time you read the memo, you have plenty of questions, legal and otherwise, about many of the assertions it contains. The third time you read it, you wonder if the conservative Supreme Court won't, in the end, somehow recognize its breathtakingly broad view of executive power. As the Justice Department sees it, the president has the constitutional authority as commander in chief to wiretap anyone in the name of national security during a war. This constitutional authority "to protect the Nation from armed attack," the argument goes, was used to justify warrantless domestic surveillance by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and was recognized by White House officials during the Carter administration, even as the FISA law was being enacted by Congress. "In exercising his constitutional powers," the Justice Department asserts, "the President has wide discretion, consistent with the Constitution, over the methods of gathering intelligence about the Nation's enemies in a time of armed conflict."....
NSA Accused of Psychologically Abusing Whistleblowers
Five current and former National Security Agency (NSA) employees have told Cybercast News Service that the agency frequently retaliates against whistleblowers by falsely labeling them "delusional," "paranoid" or "psychotic." The intimidation tactics are allegedly used to protect powerful superiors who might be incriminated by damaging information, the whistleblowers say. They also point to a climate of fear that now pervades the agency. Critics warn that because some employees blew the whistle on alleged foreign espionage and criminal activity, the "psychiatric abuse" and subsequent firings are undermining national security. A spokesman for the NSA declined to comment about the allegations contained in this report. The accusations of "Soviet-era tactics" are being made by former NSA intelligence analysts and action officers Russell D. Tice, Diane T. Ring, Thomas G. Reinbold, and a former employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. The allegations have been corroborated by a current NSA officer, who also insisted on anonymity, agreeing only to be referenced as "Agent X." Tice, a former NSA intelligence analyst and action officer, first drew media attention in 2004 after the Pentagon investigated possible retaliation by the NSA against him. The controversy began in early 2001, when Tice reported that a co-worker at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) appeared to be engaged in espionage for China....
Wiretap defense invokes Lincoln, Roosevelt
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush was following in the tradition of such other wartime presidents as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt when he ordered warrantless domestic wiretaps. Gonzales also reiterated Bush's contention that his order for the surveillance had been implicitly allowed by Congress shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when it authorized him to use force against al Qaeda. Gonzales, as White House counsel, helped create the Bush-ordered program in 2001 that allows the secret National Security Agency to intercept calls and e-mails within the country that intelligence officials believe are directed to terrorists abroad. The order allows the spying to occur without a warrant from a special court. The attorney general's speech before Georgetown University law students -- some of whom silently protested Gonzales' appearance by turning their backs as he spoke -- was part of an administration campaign to sway public opinion in favor of the spying program. The effort included the release last week of a Justice Department report laying out the legal justification for the program, a Monday speech by the country's No. 2 intelligence official and numerous mentions by the president at his appearances....
In 2002, Justice Department said eavesdropping law working well
A July 2002 Justice Department statement to a Senate committee appears to contradict several key arguments that the Bush administration is making to defend its eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing such operations, was working well, the department said in 2002. A "significant review" would be needed to determine whether FISA's legal requirements for obtaining warrants should be loosened because they hampered counterterrorism efforts, the department said then. President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top officials now argue that warrantless eavesdropping is necessary in part because complying with the FISA law is too burdensome and impedes the government's ability to rapidly track communications between suspected terrorists. In its 2002 statement, the Justice Department said it opposed a legislative proposal to change FISA to make it easier to obtain warrants that would allow the super-secret National Security Agency to listen in on communications involving non-U.S. citizens inside the United States. Today, senior U.S. officials complain that FISA prevents them from doing that. James A. Baker, the Justice Department's top lawyer on intelligence policy, made the statement before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 31, 2002. He was laying out the department's position on an amendment to FISA proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. The committee rejected DeWine's proposal, leaving FISA intact. So while Congress chose not to weaken FISA in 2002, today Bush and his allies contend that Congress implicitly gave Bush the authority to evade FISA's requirements when it authorized him to use force in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks three days after they occurred - a contention that many lawmakers reject....
“Oogling My Googling”
But there is a larger issue here worth considering. It has become something of an article of faith that technology is always on the side of liberty. In the old Soviet Union, the Xerox machines were chained up at night in order to prevent unauthorized photocopying. (Of course, they weren't called "Xerox machines" but "Glorious People's Photostatic Replicator" or "Trabant Machine" or some such.) The Soviet authorities recognized that information technology was the enemy of totalitarianism. Freedom of the photocopier was not only freedom of the press, but freedom to communicate, which lies at the core of all liberty. The Internet age has seemingly confirmed this. In China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other oppressive regimes, Internet usage is severely policed because the free-flow of information is seen as a threat to the regime. But even if the liberating power of technology is an iron law of history in the long run, that doesn't mean that in the short run technology can't be on the side of oppression — and the short run can last a lifetime. After all, the Soviets used technology to oppress their people for 70 years. Technology brings change and requires adaptation — by the state and the individual alike. It's not obvious how we should view Google searches, for example. Are they like letters or diary entries or something else entirely? It's revealing that no sane person would condone local libraries giving stacks of hardcore porn to little kids. But some Internet voluptuaries see nothing wrong with pretty much the exact same thing over the web....
Make Speeding Impossible?
Now, however, the technology exists for a great leap forward -- or backward, depending on your point of view. The Canadians are testing out a system that pairs onboard Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology with a digital speed limit map. It works very much like the in-car GPS navigation systems that have become so common on late model cars -- but with a twist. Instead of helping you find a destination, the system prevents you from driving any faster than the posted speed limit of the road you happen to be on. As in a conventional GPS-equipped car or truck, the system knows what road you happen to be on, as well as the direction you're traveling. And the information is continuously updating as you move. But in addition to this, the system also acquires information about the speed limit on each road, as you drive. Once your vehicle reaches that limit, the car's computer makes it increasingly difficult to go any faster. And unlike in years past, when a clumsy mechanical device would be used to physically prevent the gas pedal from being depressed all the way (or the carburetor's throttle plates opened fully), vehicle speed can be easily (and much more thoroughly) limited by a modern car's onboard electronics. Indeed, a few new cars -- mostly powerful sports cars -- already have what's known as a "valet key" that's used to significantly cut back available power at the owner's discretion. But in this case, the cutting back would be controlled by Big Momma -- and "I can't drive 55" a toothless battle cry from a bygone era. Ten vehicles equipped with this technology are currently being tested in the Ottawa area; if the trial is "successful," a wider series of tests is planned -- and it's a sure bet the entire thing will eventually be the object of a very strong-armed push to make it mandatory equipment in every new car. It will be sold as a "safety" measure -- just like the 55-mph National Maximum Speed Limit was in this country....
Friday, January 27, 2006
Concern on deer disease
The injection of tissue from leg muscles of deer infected with chronic wasting disease is enough to make susceptible mice sick with the same lethal condition. The finding is evidence that deer muscle harbors this infectious prion protein and that muscle alone can trigger the wasting disease. "We don't know how the infectious prion goes from the central nervous system into the muscle," said Glenn C. Telling of the University of Kentucky, lead investigator of the study that appears in the journal Science. "But it raises the possibility that hunters could be exposed to prions by consuming or handling meat." The infectious prion protein that causes chronic wasting disease in deer and elk has spread across the country, and last year was identified in upstate New York. The scientists say that the finding should be a wake-up call to humans consuming or handling venison. Chronic wasting is not unlike another infectious prion disease that crossed from cows into humans from contaminated beef. Mad cow or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, triggered a lethal disease called variant-Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, which has killed 170 people in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Telling was concerned with growing evidence that animals incubating chronic wasting disease could expose humans to infection through muscle tissue. Using an animal model that carries the gene for the normal prion protein found in deer, they inoculated the mice with tissue from the brains of sick deer. The mice developed chronic wasting disease. This time, Telling and his team wanted to know whether muscle tissue would also trigger a lethal infection. They repeated the same experiment, but injected skeletal muscle instead of brain tissue. The muscle from these deer also harbored infectious prions, and the mice, once again, became sick. "I am not surprised" that the infectious agent is turning up in muscle, said Dr. Paul Brown, a Creutzfeldt Jakob expert. Scientists have not found high levels of infectious protein in the skeletal muscle of sick cows. That it was found in deer muscle is worrisome, Telling said. These diseases have a long incubation period, and if chronic wasting did jump species into humans there is no telling how that disease would present itself, he said. "There is no evidence of CWD transmission to human hunters," CDC medical epidemiologist Dr. Ermias Belay said. "But studies are limited."....
The injection of tissue from leg muscles of deer infected with chronic wasting disease is enough to make susceptible mice sick with the same lethal condition. The finding is evidence that deer muscle harbors this infectious prion protein and that muscle alone can trigger the wasting disease. "We don't know how the infectious prion goes from the central nervous system into the muscle," said Glenn C. Telling of the University of Kentucky, lead investigator of the study that appears in the journal Science. "But it raises the possibility that hunters could be exposed to prions by consuming or handling meat." The infectious prion protein that causes chronic wasting disease in deer and elk has spread across the country, and last year was identified in upstate New York. The scientists say that the finding should be a wake-up call to humans consuming or handling venison. Chronic wasting is not unlike another infectious prion disease that crossed from cows into humans from contaminated beef. Mad cow or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, triggered a lethal disease called variant-Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, which has killed 170 people in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Telling was concerned with growing evidence that animals incubating chronic wasting disease could expose humans to infection through muscle tissue. Using an animal model that carries the gene for the normal prion protein found in deer, they inoculated the mice with tissue from the brains of sick deer. The mice developed chronic wasting disease. This time, Telling and his team wanted to know whether muscle tissue would also trigger a lethal infection. They repeated the same experiment, but injected skeletal muscle instead of brain tissue. The muscle from these deer also harbored infectious prions, and the mice, once again, became sick. "I am not surprised" that the infectious agent is turning up in muscle, said Dr. Paul Brown, a Creutzfeldt Jakob expert. Scientists have not found high levels of infectious protein in the skeletal muscle of sick cows. That it was found in deer muscle is worrisome, Telling said. These diseases have a long incubation period, and if chronic wasting did jump species into humans there is no telling how that disease would present itself, he said. "There is no evidence of CWD transmission to human hunters," CDC medical epidemiologist Dr. Ermias Belay said. "But studies are limited."....
GAO REPORT
National Parks Air Tour Management Act: More Flexibility and Better Enforcement Needed. GAO-06-263, January 27. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-263
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06263high.pdf
National Parks Air Tour Management Act: More Flexibility and Better Enforcement Needed. GAO-06-263, January 27. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-263
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06263high.pdf
NEWS ROUNDUP
Richard Pombo Faces Green Avalanche Each year, billions of dollars come pouring into environmental NGOs and activist organizations to support campaigns ranging from PCB cleanup to buying fuel for Greenpeace's good ship Esperanza. And lots of this money gets results. But this year, many environmental leaders are saying the best deal for green donors can be found in the congressional election in California's 11th District -- in the campaign to defeat Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee. As Adam Werbach, former president of the Sierra Club, puts it, "Investing in Pombo's defeat would be as effective as owning the o's in Google." Tony Massaro, senior vice president for political affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, an organization that pours millions into election races in support of green candidates said of Pombo, "If I were a donor, I would seriously consider contributing in a campaign against him for two reasons: One, he sits on a critical seat of power in the House Resources Committee. Two, unseating Pombo would have more effect than just his absence. The message it would send to the rest of Congress on the public's tolerance for environmental abusers would be loud and clear."....
Landowner laments road-hunting decision The Tripp County rancher who took his challenge of current road-hunting practices to the South Dakota Supreme Court said Wednesday that he was "extremely surprised" and felt "blindsided" by the court's 4-1 ruling against him. But state Game, Fish & Parks Department Secretary John Cooper said the high court's ruling was a well-reasoned clarification of road-hunting rights that could help reduce roadside disputes during future hunting seasons. Clearfield rancher Robert Benson began the lawsuit to challenge a law passed by the 2003 state Legislature that decriminalized a long-standing practice by road hunters of shooting at game birds that get flushed from the public right of way and fly over adjoining private land. The Legislature acted after the high court ruled in 2002 that such actions, under existing state laws, amounted to trespassing. Benson and his wife, Judith, challenged the 2003 law as an unconstitutional taking of their private property. They were joined by landowners Jeff and Tricia Messmer of Wessington Springs. After winning at the circuit court level, Benson said he was confident of favorable ruling by the Supreme Court. But the court rejected the circuit court decision and ruled that the 2003 law did not amount to a property taking....
American Buffalo: The Hunt Is On The Clements aren't the only Montana hunters who feel like they've hit Powerball. This winter, for the first time in over a decade, Montana has allowed a small number of hunters to apply for a license to hunt bison (also known as buffalo), the legendary animal of the plains that was almost hunted to extinction. Buddy Clement was the only member of his family to receive a license. In recent decades, the buffalo population in Yellowstone, one of the last wild buffalo herds in North America, has been restored. It numbers near 5,000, and buffalo wander out of the park in the winter to feed on grass. Montana's cattle ranchers worry that the wandering buffalo could spread brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort. Seeking a solution, this winter Montana authorized its first buffalo hunt in 15 years, handing out 50 licenses. In coming years, Montana may increase the number. More than 6,000 hunters, including Gov. Brian Schweitzer and over 100 from out of state, entered a lottery for the licenses. The few winners seemed dumbfounded at their good fortune. (Mr. Schweitzer did not win.) "I thought the chance to hunt buffalo would never come around in my lifetime," said one winner, Darrlyd Pepprock of Stevensville, Mont....
OSU dean regrets treatment of study The dean of Oregon State University's College of Forestry expressed regret that professors attempted to derail a graduate student from getting research published that raised doubts about the Bush administration's post-wildfire logging policy. The student, Daniel Donato, found that forests recover from wildfires best when they are not logged, a notion that conflicts with the administration's decision to log trees that burned in southwest Oregon's Biscuit fire and with a bill in Congress that would speed logging after wildfires. Donato's work was published this month in the journal Science, even though the Oregon State scientists asked the publication not to print the research. The dean, Hal Salwasser, in a letter to the university Thursday, said he should have told the professors to voice their criticism through open scientific debate. He added that he should have congratulated Donato. "Few faculty, let alone graduate students, get their work published in this prestigious journal," wrote Salwasser, who testified in favor of the bill that would accelerate logging after fires....
Bail Possible for Eco-Terrorism Suspect A federal judge took the first steps Thursday to allow bail for an eco-terrorism suspect accused of joining a foiled plot to conduct a Northern California bombing campaign on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front. Magistrate Gregory G. Hollows agreed to release Lauren Weiner, 20, after her parents post a $1.2-million bond and prosecutors are given an opportunity to raise objections. But the judge refused to grant bail to Weiner's two co-defendants, 28-year-old Eric Taylor McDavid and Zachary Jensen, 20. He declared the two men to be flight risks who could pose a danger to society. All three defendants pleaded not guilty Thursday. In a 12-page written ruling, Hollows said that the sizable bail bond posted by Weiner's parents would "supply enough of a hurt or sting" to provide a disincentive to keep the young woman from fleeing underground....
A few Oregon places lose their ‘squaw’ Squaw Flat Canyon: It’s now Carcass Canyon, as it’s been known for decades in Central Oregon. Squaw Creek: Call it Whychus Creek as it flows from the Cascade Range to the Deschutes River. The new name, pronounced “why-choose,’’ means “the place we cross the water.’’ And Squaw Ridge: Henceforth, Hoona Ridge, from a Paiute word for badger. The federal board in charge of place names gave its blessing Thursday to the changes, part of state and federal initiatives to eliminate a word widely considered offensive among American Indians. In all, 16 places in Central Oregon using the word “squaw’’ were changed. That is the largest number from Oregon to be approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a committee of federal officials that dates to 1890 and the administration of Benjamin Harrison....
Wyoming Cloud Seeding Experiment Begins This Month A five-year, $8.8 million pilot project to examine whether seeding clouds with silver iodide produces a measurable increase in snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges starts this month with intensive observations of Wyoming snow clouds. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) designed the experiment to evaluate a technique that has been mired in controversy for decades. NCAR and partner institutions are deploying both airborne and ground-based instruments from January 16 to February 13 and again from March 10 to 31 to gather key data for the project. Microwave radiometers are capturing variations in snow-producing clouds over the target areas, including amounts and duration of water vapor and liquid water in the clouds. Instruments at selected sites are tracking precipitation rates, common meteorological variables, background air quality, and ecosystem characteristics. NCAR's partners in the observations include the University of Wyoming, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the Desert Research Institute, and the U.S. Forest Service. Weather Modification, Inc., a private company based in Fargo, North Dakota, has been contracted to seed the target area's snow clouds. WMI is also providing a research aircraft and several ground-based instruments for this year's observations....
Column: Indian Sovereignty Has Outlived Its Usefulness A Sept. 1, 2005, Associated Press article included this statement: "[My] people have lived through natural and human-created disasters, and now with a stroke of a pen the future of a people is at risk." No, this isn't about political leaders and Hurricane Katrina. It is Pueblo of Tesuque governor Mark Mitchell's description of a U.S. Forest Service decision to permit a new chairlift in a ski area that commenced operations 57 years ago. Mitchell's tribal government has sued to have the Forest Service decision on the proposed Ski Santa Fe lift reversed. The issue is "sacred sites," without access to which Mitchell claims his tribe's culture and way of life would fade. Never mind that Ski Santa Fe operators permit access on the mountain to anyone, anywhere, except for skier safety closures. And never mind that Mitchell's tribe has apparently been able to adjust its culture and way of life to operating a decidedly nontraditional casino, not miles away up in the mountains but right on the pueblo grounds. Add that to the overwhelming list of evidence that the Indians' status as wards of the federal government, but "sovereign" as against the states, is not in anyone's best interests. There wouldn't be space in 10 columns for a detailed examination of all the mischief created by the bizarre and antiquated citizenship status of Indians in the United States. Yet, believe it or not, Congress has under serious consideration legislation to create a similar caste problem in Hawaii....
Wyoming Supreme Court upholds forest cabin tax The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a Fremont County couple who said they should not have to pay property taxes on their cabin west of Dubois. Timothy and Janet Britt contended that since they paid an annual fee to the U.S. Forest Service and did not own but leased the Forest Service land where their cabin was located, they should not have to pay any property taxes. "You cannot charge us property taxes on land we don't own nor base the value of personal property (the cabin) on where it happens to be located," the Britts wrote. "You can only base personal property taxes on the intrinsic value of that object, whether it is a desk, a table or a cabin that may be moved." The Supreme Court disagreed with the Britts, ruling that the location of property can help determine market value and if the Britts actually owned the land, the assessment would have been much higher....
Skiers, elk meet in West Vail forest For years, Bob McClain relished watching elk in the forest behind his West Vail home while he had his morning cup of coffee. But about five years ago, skiers started cutting though the elk herd's hangout in the national forest. McClain once watched horrified as skiers cut through a herd of elk just to see them scatter, he said. "These elk are already having a hard time in the winter," McClain said. "And these guys skiing out there think it's real funny." Since then, McClain's elk sightings have been few and far between, he said. The presence of skiers pushed the elk up the mountain where they could look for food and bed down in peace. But this year's high snowfalls have pushed the elk back down the mountain, said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife....
F. Service to protect native plants The Umpqua National Forest and the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest jointly announced their decision Tuesday to preserve the “Huckleberry Patch” as a special-interest area. The Huckleberry Patch Special Interest Area is a 9,500-acre swath of land that straddles the Tiller Ranger District and Prospect Ranger District in the Rogue River National Forest. American Indians once spent late summer and fall in the area gathering huckleberries for winter food. Fire suppression over past decades has allowed conifers to encroach upon meadows where huckleberries thrive in the high elevation area southeast of Tiller, said Debbie Anderson, the Forest Service team leader on the project....
The forest or the trees Amassive yellowbarked ponderosa pine, once 100 feet tall and at least a few hundred years old, lies prostrate in the forest west of Los Alamos. A few others, of equal size and age, are still standing nearby, though some have lost their needles and look ready to topple over in the next galeforce wind. “I’m pretty sure this one was still standing the last time we were here,” said Donald Falk, a University of Arizona treering scientist, as he examines the fallen pine, dirt still trapped between its dry roots. Surrounding some of the ancient pines are dozens of spindly ponderosa pine youngsters, only 20 to 30 feet tall. These doghair thickets are strangling their larger ancestors, competing for nutrients and water, Falk said. Falk is walking through the 640-acre Monument Canyon Natural Area, about 15 miles west of Los Alamos, off Forest Road 10. The site was set aside by the Forest Service in 1932 for research to be done in cooperation with The University of New Mexico. It is the second-oldest forestry research site in the country, protected from both logging and grazing. “This area must be preserved in a natural state as near as possible,” read the inscription on a large wooden sign. The hands-off approach has led to unanticipated problems for the ancient ponderosa pines, said Falk and others....
Report notes species spending So what's one big ol' grizzly bear worth? Some might say it's impossible to put a price on such a magnificent wild animal that is an icon of the West. But how does $6,000 sound? That's about how much the government spent per grizzly bear to protect the species in the lower 48 states in 2004. That number is a rough estimate based on the amount that state and federal agencies spent on the bear, around $7.7 million, divided by the number of grizzly bears believed to be wandering the wilds of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington, which is between 1,200 and 1,400. Still, the number gives some insight into how much it costs to look after some of the nation's most endangered animals and plants. The figures are part of a report to Congress on Wednesday that is intended to help put a price tag on endangered species spending. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which compiled the numbers, gathered information from 30 federal agencies and all 50 states in the hopes of tallying how much was spent on endangered species in 2004. It includes everything from scientific research and public meetings to law enforcement, planning and the most mundane paperwork. All told, the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that federal and state agencies spent about $1.4 billion on endangered and threatened species, a tiny sliver of the federal government's $2.2 trillion in spending in 2004....go here to see the report.
Richard Pombo Faces Green Avalanche Each year, billions of dollars come pouring into environmental NGOs and activist organizations to support campaigns ranging from PCB cleanup to buying fuel for Greenpeace's good ship Esperanza. And lots of this money gets results. But this year, many environmental leaders are saying the best deal for green donors can be found in the congressional election in California's 11th District -- in the campaign to defeat Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee. As Adam Werbach, former president of the Sierra Club, puts it, "Investing in Pombo's defeat would be as effective as owning the o's in Google." Tony Massaro, senior vice president for political affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, an organization that pours millions into election races in support of green candidates said of Pombo, "If I were a donor, I would seriously consider contributing in a campaign against him for two reasons: One, he sits on a critical seat of power in the House Resources Committee. Two, unseating Pombo would have more effect than just his absence. The message it would send to the rest of Congress on the public's tolerance for environmental abusers would be loud and clear."....
Landowner laments road-hunting decision The Tripp County rancher who took his challenge of current road-hunting practices to the South Dakota Supreme Court said Wednesday that he was "extremely surprised" and felt "blindsided" by the court's 4-1 ruling against him. But state Game, Fish & Parks Department Secretary John Cooper said the high court's ruling was a well-reasoned clarification of road-hunting rights that could help reduce roadside disputes during future hunting seasons. Clearfield rancher Robert Benson began the lawsuit to challenge a law passed by the 2003 state Legislature that decriminalized a long-standing practice by road hunters of shooting at game birds that get flushed from the public right of way and fly over adjoining private land. The Legislature acted after the high court ruled in 2002 that such actions, under existing state laws, amounted to trespassing. Benson and his wife, Judith, challenged the 2003 law as an unconstitutional taking of their private property. They were joined by landowners Jeff and Tricia Messmer of Wessington Springs. After winning at the circuit court level, Benson said he was confident of favorable ruling by the Supreme Court. But the court rejected the circuit court decision and ruled that the 2003 law did not amount to a property taking....
American Buffalo: The Hunt Is On The Clements aren't the only Montana hunters who feel like they've hit Powerball. This winter, for the first time in over a decade, Montana has allowed a small number of hunters to apply for a license to hunt bison (also known as buffalo), the legendary animal of the plains that was almost hunted to extinction. Buddy Clement was the only member of his family to receive a license. In recent decades, the buffalo population in Yellowstone, one of the last wild buffalo herds in North America, has been restored. It numbers near 5,000, and buffalo wander out of the park in the winter to feed on grass. Montana's cattle ranchers worry that the wandering buffalo could spread brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort. Seeking a solution, this winter Montana authorized its first buffalo hunt in 15 years, handing out 50 licenses. In coming years, Montana may increase the number. More than 6,000 hunters, including Gov. Brian Schweitzer and over 100 from out of state, entered a lottery for the licenses. The few winners seemed dumbfounded at their good fortune. (Mr. Schweitzer did not win.) "I thought the chance to hunt buffalo would never come around in my lifetime," said one winner, Darrlyd Pepprock of Stevensville, Mont....
OSU dean regrets treatment of study The dean of Oregon State University's College of Forestry expressed regret that professors attempted to derail a graduate student from getting research published that raised doubts about the Bush administration's post-wildfire logging policy. The student, Daniel Donato, found that forests recover from wildfires best when they are not logged, a notion that conflicts with the administration's decision to log trees that burned in southwest Oregon's Biscuit fire and with a bill in Congress that would speed logging after wildfires. Donato's work was published this month in the journal Science, even though the Oregon State scientists asked the publication not to print the research. The dean, Hal Salwasser, in a letter to the university Thursday, said he should have told the professors to voice their criticism through open scientific debate. He added that he should have congratulated Donato. "Few faculty, let alone graduate students, get their work published in this prestigious journal," wrote Salwasser, who testified in favor of the bill that would accelerate logging after fires....
Bail Possible for Eco-Terrorism Suspect A federal judge took the first steps Thursday to allow bail for an eco-terrorism suspect accused of joining a foiled plot to conduct a Northern California bombing campaign on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front. Magistrate Gregory G. Hollows agreed to release Lauren Weiner, 20, after her parents post a $1.2-million bond and prosecutors are given an opportunity to raise objections. But the judge refused to grant bail to Weiner's two co-defendants, 28-year-old Eric Taylor McDavid and Zachary Jensen, 20. He declared the two men to be flight risks who could pose a danger to society. All three defendants pleaded not guilty Thursday. In a 12-page written ruling, Hollows said that the sizable bail bond posted by Weiner's parents would "supply enough of a hurt or sting" to provide a disincentive to keep the young woman from fleeing underground....
A few Oregon places lose their ‘squaw’ Squaw Flat Canyon: It’s now Carcass Canyon, as it’s been known for decades in Central Oregon. Squaw Creek: Call it Whychus Creek as it flows from the Cascade Range to the Deschutes River. The new name, pronounced “why-choose,’’ means “the place we cross the water.’’ And Squaw Ridge: Henceforth, Hoona Ridge, from a Paiute word for badger. The federal board in charge of place names gave its blessing Thursday to the changes, part of state and federal initiatives to eliminate a word widely considered offensive among American Indians. In all, 16 places in Central Oregon using the word “squaw’’ were changed. That is the largest number from Oregon to be approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a committee of federal officials that dates to 1890 and the administration of Benjamin Harrison....
Wyoming Cloud Seeding Experiment Begins This Month A five-year, $8.8 million pilot project to examine whether seeding clouds with silver iodide produces a measurable increase in snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges starts this month with intensive observations of Wyoming snow clouds. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) designed the experiment to evaluate a technique that has been mired in controversy for decades. NCAR and partner institutions are deploying both airborne and ground-based instruments from January 16 to February 13 and again from March 10 to 31 to gather key data for the project. Microwave radiometers are capturing variations in snow-producing clouds over the target areas, including amounts and duration of water vapor and liquid water in the clouds. Instruments at selected sites are tracking precipitation rates, common meteorological variables, background air quality, and ecosystem characteristics. NCAR's partners in the observations include the University of Wyoming, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the Desert Research Institute, and the U.S. Forest Service. Weather Modification, Inc., a private company based in Fargo, North Dakota, has been contracted to seed the target area's snow clouds. WMI is also providing a research aircraft and several ground-based instruments for this year's observations....
Column: Indian Sovereignty Has Outlived Its Usefulness A Sept. 1, 2005, Associated Press article included this statement: "[My] people have lived through natural and human-created disasters, and now with a stroke of a pen the future of a people is at risk." No, this isn't about political leaders and Hurricane Katrina. It is Pueblo of Tesuque governor Mark Mitchell's description of a U.S. Forest Service decision to permit a new chairlift in a ski area that commenced operations 57 years ago. Mitchell's tribal government has sued to have the Forest Service decision on the proposed Ski Santa Fe lift reversed. The issue is "sacred sites," without access to which Mitchell claims his tribe's culture and way of life would fade. Never mind that Ski Santa Fe operators permit access on the mountain to anyone, anywhere, except for skier safety closures. And never mind that Mitchell's tribe has apparently been able to adjust its culture and way of life to operating a decidedly nontraditional casino, not miles away up in the mountains but right on the pueblo grounds. Add that to the overwhelming list of evidence that the Indians' status as wards of the federal government, but "sovereign" as against the states, is not in anyone's best interests. There wouldn't be space in 10 columns for a detailed examination of all the mischief created by the bizarre and antiquated citizenship status of Indians in the United States. Yet, believe it or not, Congress has under serious consideration legislation to create a similar caste problem in Hawaii....
Wyoming Supreme Court upholds forest cabin tax The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a Fremont County couple who said they should not have to pay property taxes on their cabin west of Dubois. Timothy and Janet Britt contended that since they paid an annual fee to the U.S. Forest Service and did not own but leased the Forest Service land where their cabin was located, they should not have to pay any property taxes. "You cannot charge us property taxes on land we don't own nor base the value of personal property (the cabin) on where it happens to be located," the Britts wrote. "You can only base personal property taxes on the intrinsic value of that object, whether it is a desk, a table or a cabin that may be moved." The Supreme Court disagreed with the Britts, ruling that the location of property can help determine market value and if the Britts actually owned the land, the assessment would have been much higher....
Skiers, elk meet in West Vail forest For years, Bob McClain relished watching elk in the forest behind his West Vail home while he had his morning cup of coffee. But about five years ago, skiers started cutting though the elk herd's hangout in the national forest. McClain once watched horrified as skiers cut through a herd of elk just to see them scatter, he said. "These elk are already having a hard time in the winter," McClain said. "And these guys skiing out there think it's real funny." Since then, McClain's elk sightings have been few and far between, he said. The presence of skiers pushed the elk up the mountain where they could look for food and bed down in peace. But this year's high snowfalls have pushed the elk back down the mountain, said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife....
F. Service to protect native plants The Umpqua National Forest and the Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest jointly announced their decision Tuesday to preserve the “Huckleberry Patch” as a special-interest area. The Huckleberry Patch Special Interest Area is a 9,500-acre swath of land that straddles the Tiller Ranger District and Prospect Ranger District in the Rogue River National Forest. American Indians once spent late summer and fall in the area gathering huckleberries for winter food. Fire suppression over past decades has allowed conifers to encroach upon meadows where huckleberries thrive in the high elevation area southeast of Tiller, said Debbie Anderson, the Forest Service team leader on the project....
The forest or the trees Amassive yellowbarked ponderosa pine, once 100 feet tall and at least a few hundred years old, lies prostrate in the forest west of Los Alamos. A few others, of equal size and age, are still standing nearby, though some have lost their needles and look ready to topple over in the next galeforce wind. “I’m pretty sure this one was still standing the last time we were here,” said Donald Falk, a University of Arizona treering scientist, as he examines the fallen pine, dirt still trapped between its dry roots. Surrounding some of the ancient pines are dozens of spindly ponderosa pine youngsters, only 20 to 30 feet tall. These doghair thickets are strangling their larger ancestors, competing for nutrients and water, Falk said. Falk is walking through the 640-acre Monument Canyon Natural Area, about 15 miles west of Los Alamos, off Forest Road 10. The site was set aside by the Forest Service in 1932 for research to be done in cooperation with The University of New Mexico. It is the second-oldest forestry research site in the country, protected from both logging and grazing. “This area must be preserved in a natural state as near as possible,” read the inscription on a large wooden sign. The hands-off approach has led to unanticipated problems for the ancient ponderosa pines, said Falk and others....
Report notes species spending So what's one big ol' grizzly bear worth? Some might say it's impossible to put a price on such a magnificent wild animal that is an icon of the West. But how does $6,000 sound? That's about how much the government spent per grizzly bear to protect the species in the lower 48 states in 2004. That number is a rough estimate based on the amount that state and federal agencies spent on the bear, around $7.7 million, divided by the number of grizzly bears believed to be wandering the wilds of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington, which is between 1,200 and 1,400. Still, the number gives some insight into how much it costs to look after some of the nation's most endangered animals and plants. The figures are part of a report to Congress on Wednesday that is intended to help put a price tag on endangered species spending. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which compiled the numbers, gathered information from 30 federal agencies and all 50 states in the hopes of tallying how much was spent on endangered species in 2004. It includes everything from scientific research and public meetings to law enforcement, planning and the most mundane paperwork. All told, the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that federal and state agencies spent about $1.4 billion on endangered and threatened species, a tiny sliver of the federal government's $2.2 trillion in spending in 2004....go here to see the report.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
GAO REPORT
Drinking Water: EPA Should Strengthen Ongoing Efforts to Ensure That Consumers Are Protected from Lead Contamination. GAO-06-148, January 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-148
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06148high.pdf
Drinking Water: EPA Should Strengthen Ongoing Efforts to Ensure That Consumers Are Protected from Lead Contamination. GAO-06-148, January 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-148
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06148high.pdf
Private Property Protected From Bureau of Land Management
Karen Budd-Falen, Esq.
1/18/2006
On January 11, 2006, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that employees in the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) cannot retaliate against a ranch owner for refusing to grant the agency a right-ofwayacross his private land. In its ruling, the Court found that (1) an individual has the right to be free from retaliation when exercising a Fifth Amendment property right, and (2) the right to exclude someone from using private property includes the right to exclude the federal government.Robbins v. Wilkie, No. 04-8016 (January 11, 2006).
The Plaintiff in the case, Harvey Frank Robbins, filed suit against employees in the Worland, Wyoming BLM office pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) and under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. RICO is usually used against organized crime. However, in this case, RICO is being used against BLM employees who Robbins said attempted to use the power of the federal regulations to extort a right-of-way across his private land in Wyoming. Robbins refused to grant the BLM an easement and so certain BLM employees retaliated against him by cancelling his grazing privileges and permits, his right-ofway across federal land and his special use permits, as well as bringing unfounded criminal charges against him.
One past BLM employee boasted that some of the other BLM employees said they would “bury Frank Robbins.” They then trespassed on his private property and even broke into his private lodge, Robbins stated in his pleadings. To protect his civil liberties, Robbins hired the Budd-Falen Law Offices in Cheyenne, Wyoming and filed suit against the BLM’s employees.
The government has fought Robbins’ claims on various grounds, including arguing that “there was not a clearly established constitutional right to exclude others from one’s property, and that they could not be held liable under RICO for actions authorized by BLM regulations because those actions are not ‘wrongful.’” However, the Tenth Circuit Court disagreed. “A property owner’s right to exclude extends to private individuals as well as the government,” the Court said. “Defendants’ assertion that BLM could have taken Robbins’ property for public use after providing the just compensation is correct. BLM, however, did not exercise or attempt to exercise eminent domain power in this case,” the Court explained. “Instead, Robbins alleges, Defendants attempted to extort a right-of-way to avoid the requirement of just compensation. If the right to exclude means anything, it must include the right to prevent the government from gaining an ownership interest in one’s property outside the procedures of the Takings Clause.”
In a refusal to let the government stretch its regulatory role beyond constitutional limits protecting civil liberties, the Court used strong language upholding private property rights. The Court emphasized that a government agency, such as the BLM, is not above the law. “If we permit government officials to retaliate against citizens who choose to exercise this right [to exclude others from private property], citizens will be less likely to exclude the government, and government officials will be more inclined to obtain private property by means outside the Takings Clause. The constitutional right to just compensation, in turn, would become meaningless,” the Court explained. “Because retaliation tends to chill citizens’ exercise of their Fifth Amendment right to exclude the government from using their private property, the Fifth Amendment prohibits such retaliation as a means of ensuring that the right is meaningful.” Additionally the Court ruled that federal agency employees could not hide behind the power of their offices to avoid Robbins’ case. The Court stated that even if the actions taken by the individual employees were lawful, if they were done for an improper motive, Robbins could maintain his case. The Court stated, “Nevertheless, we conclude that if Defendants engaged in lawful actions with an intent to extort a right-of-way from Robbins rather an intent to merely carry out their regulatory duties, their conduct is actionable under RICO.”
The case will now go to a jury trial in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The jury will examine the facts and determine whether the BLM employees used their power as BLM officials to retaliate against Robbins when he would not give them access to his private property.
Karen Budd-Falen, Esq.
1/18/2006
On January 11, 2006, the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals held that employees in the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) cannot retaliate against a ranch owner for refusing to grant the agency a right-ofwayacross his private land. In its ruling, the Court found that (1) an individual has the right to be free from retaliation when exercising a Fifth Amendment property right, and (2) the right to exclude someone from using private property includes the right to exclude the federal government.Robbins v. Wilkie, No. 04-8016 (January 11, 2006).
The Plaintiff in the case, Harvey Frank Robbins, filed suit against employees in the Worland, Wyoming BLM office pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) and under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. RICO is usually used against organized crime. However, in this case, RICO is being used against BLM employees who Robbins said attempted to use the power of the federal regulations to extort a right-of-way across his private land in Wyoming. Robbins refused to grant the BLM an easement and so certain BLM employees retaliated against him by cancelling his grazing privileges and permits, his right-ofway across federal land and his special use permits, as well as bringing unfounded criminal charges against him.
One past BLM employee boasted that some of the other BLM employees said they would “bury Frank Robbins.” They then trespassed on his private property and even broke into his private lodge, Robbins stated in his pleadings. To protect his civil liberties, Robbins hired the Budd-Falen Law Offices in Cheyenne, Wyoming and filed suit against the BLM’s employees.
The government has fought Robbins’ claims on various grounds, including arguing that “there was not a clearly established constitutional right to exclude others from one’s property, and that they could not be held liable under RICO for actions authorized by BLM regulations because those actions are not ‘wrongful.’” However, the Tenth Circuit Court disagreed. “A property owner’s right to exclude extends to private individuals as well as the government,” the Court said. “Defendants’ assertion that BLM could have taken Robbins’ property for public use after providing the just compensation is correct. BLM, however, did not exercise or attempt to exercise eminent domain power in this case,” the Court explained. “Instead, Robbins alleges, Defendants attempted to extort a right-of-way to avoid the requirement of just compensation. If the right to exclude means anything, it must include the right to prevent the government from gaining an ownership interest in one’s property outside the procedures of the Takings Clause.”
In a refusal to let the government stretch its regulatory role beyond constitutional limits protecting civil liberties, the Court used strong language upholding private property rights. The Court emphasized that a government agency, such as the BLM, is not above the law. “If we permit government officials to retaliate against citizens who choose to exercise this right [to exclude others from private property], citizens will be less likely to exclude the government, and government officials will be more inclined to obtain private property by means outside the Takings Clause. The constitutional right to just compensation, in turn, would become meaningless,” the Court explained. “Because retaliation tends to chill citizens’ exercise of their Fifth Amendment right to exclude the government from using their private property, the Fifth Amendment prohibits such retaliation as a means of ensuring that the right is meaningful.” Additionally the Court ruled that federal agency employees could not hide behind the power of their offices to avoid Robbins’ case. The Court stated that even if the actions taken by the individual employees were lawful, if they were done for an improper motive, Robbins could maintain his case. The Court stated, “Nevertheless, we conclude that if Defendants engaged in lawful actions with an intent to extort a right-of-way from Robbins rather an intent to merely carry out their regulatory duties, their conduct is actionable under RICO.”
The case will now go to a jury trial in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The jury will examine the facts and determine whether the BLM employees used their power as BLM officials to retaliate against Robbins when he would not give them access to his private property.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Oil, Gas Companies: Bill Could Cripple Industry Oil and gas companies said a measure that would require companies to compensate property owners for surface damage could cripple their industry, prompting lawmakers Wednesday to delay action as they consider changes. The bill (House Bill 1185) would require mineral owners to pay surface owners whose property or land values are damaged by oil and gas operations. The issue centers on the so-called "split estate," when one person owns the land but someone else owns the minerals beneath it. Companies that own or lease the minerals have a right under state law to "reasonable use" of the surface to extract the oil, gas or coal. Industry representatives told lawmakers it could take nine years for a well owner to recoup the bond money. They said many drillers would not be able to get bonding and would have to put up the money themselves because of the possibility of extended litigation. "It's intended to tie up capital. It would clearly put small operators out of business. It's intended to give surface owners the power to slow oil and gas development," said Howard Boigon, a director for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association....
Council approves drilling requests City Council approved Mewbourne Oil Company's requests Wednesday to drill in the 3900 block of Thomason Road by an 8-0 vote, with Councilman Ned Elkins commending the company for one employee's efforts in helping to revise the city's oil and gas ordinance two years ago. But a Carlsbad Fire Department employee, Mark Alam, said he is a resident of the area and wanted some questions answered. Dave Henard, of RESPEC Environmental, a consultant to the city on drilling activity within city limits, was at the meeting Wednesday. His report to the city states that there are no homes within 1,000 feet of the proposed drilling rig. Alam said the closest residents to the drilling are on Thomason Road, and the 1,000-foot line actually goes through one of his neighbor's homes. "The plot is incorrect at this time," Alam said of the maps indicating where the well would be and how far area homes were from the proposed drilling. Henard told council members the stake for the actual point of drilling was not at the site, but he said when he was in the drilling area, there were no homes within 1,000 feet. Mayor Bob Forrest said the city's ordinance only requires that drilling be 500 feet from any homes....
Government Reduces Endangered Mexican Wolf Numbers for Third Year in Row The number of endangered Mexican gray wolves that could be confirmed in the wild declined for the third successive year in 2005 as a result of trapping and shooting of wolves by the U.S. government, conservationists charged today. And the number could drop further, with the Luna Pack of Mexican wolves repeatedly encountering and feeding on livestock carcasses of animals they did not kill, which is likely to induce them to predate on livestock. At the end of 2003, the interagency Mexican wolf reintroduction field team could document 55 wolves in the wild; at the end of 2004, 44 wolves in the wild; and at the end of 2005, 35 wolves in the wild -- representing a 20 percent decline each year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with statutory authority to recover Mexican wolves, had projected 55 wolves at the end of 2003; 68 at the end of 2004; and 83 by the end of 2005....
Maclay: Suit Stems From Misunderstanding About Historical Rights Tom Maclay, the landowner planning a destination ski resort at the base of Lolo Peak responded today to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court against him yesterday, saying in a statement, "there appears to be a misunderstanding about our family’s rights to access roads on what are now National Forest lands." The complaint alleges Maclay illegally cut about 400 trees on National Forest Service property, including trees in the Carlton Ridge Natural Resource Area. It also alleges he cleared several closed roads and built new ones on federal property. Maclay's statement characterizes the National Forest property as "lands that we have used for recreation and ranching for over 100 years, since before Congress created the U.S. Forest Service." The statement also reads: "This issue comes down to a debate over historical land rights that has been occurring across the West for decades. There are many situations in which landowners’ historical use of roads is subject to unresolved disagreements with the Federal Government. We regret that it appears these issues will have to be addressed in the context of litigation."....
Salvage ruling no help to local mill A federal judge last week ruled that salvage logging in core grizzly bear habitat could begin again, now that grizzly bears are in their den. But the ruling comes far too late for one local mill. F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber had about 800,000 board feet of timber cut and on the ground from last summer, said Ron Buentemeier, Stoltze general manager. Now it's under about 5 feet of snow, he said Monday. “There's no chance of those logs being picked up under the time frame the judge gave us", he said....
Working for Bears or Barely Working? "By the end of the year, I also expect that the Yellowstone grizzly bear will be removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act in portions of Idaho. Grizzly bears may be here to stay, but thanks to the state plan that you helped develop, federal management of this species is on its way out." --Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, January 9 State of the State Address. To hear this message from the leader of Idaho's state government, you might think that the proposed removal of Endangered Species Act protections from the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-but-done done deal. If you attended the casual, meet-and-greet-style open house about delisting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service held on January 12 in Idaho Falls, you might have gotten the same impression of the federal government. And according to some conservation groups, that feeling would be right, since they say public input appears to matter little in the government's drive to delist. "I'm not sure why there was this meeting," said Joe Timchak, an Idaho Falls science teacher who attended the open house with his daughter. Timchak said he was tentatively supportive of the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan, announced on November 15, to hand control of bears over to state control, as long as he could be sure the bears were guaranteed adequate and protected habitat. But like several other locals who talked with BW after leaving the event, he added with a shrug, "It seems like the decision has been made basically."....
'Wilderness is Our Common Ground'; Conservation Group Launches New Ad Campaign What do a group of high school teachers, a women's exercise class, and a local businessman have in common? A love of Arizona's special wild places -- and the desire to see them protected for their children and grandchildren. "Wilderness is Our Common Ground" is the theme of the new print ad campaign debuting today by the Sky Island Alliance -- a conservation group based in Tucson. To view the ads, go to http://www.commongroundaz.org. "Arizonans from all walks of life and backgrounds use and enjoy our special wild places in many different ways," says Mike Quigley, Sky Island Alliance Wilderness Campaign coordinator. "These natural gems are part of what makes this state unique, and part of what makes us Arizonans. Our wilderness areas help keep our water and air clean. They provide places to get away from our hectic lives, or make happy memories with our friends and families, and they provide unmatched opportunities for hiking, hunting, fishing and birding." The ads, which start running today in a number of area newspapers including the Nogales International, La Estrella de Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star, and the Tucson Citizen, feature a variety of citizens who value wilderness for different reasons....
Restoration or Exploitation? Claiming that the Fishtrap project perfectly illustrates the failed nature of the current U.S. Forest Service management scheme for restoring forests, the Ecology Center, Native Forest Network and Alliance for the Wild Rockies have filed a formal administrative appeal over the Fishtrap logging project that calls for industrial logging in unroaded wildlands, old-growth forests and habitat for grizzly bears and bull trout. The Fishtrap project area is located 20 miles north of Thompson Falls within the remote upper Fishtrap Creek watershed. Sixty-seven percent of the Fishtrap project area is part of the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Area and Fishtrap Creek is listed as a priority stream for the threatened Bull trout. The Fishtrap logging project would cut down enough trees from over 3 1/2 square miles of the watershed (2,260 acres) to fill 2,400 log trucks lined up end-to-end for twenty miles. The Fishtrap project calls for industrial logging in unroaded wildlands, within old-growth forests and important habitat for grizzly bears and bull trout. Based on the Forest Service's budget, the project would lose $2.5 million....
Administration pitches new salmon policy Conceding that using hatcheries to supplement dwindling salmon populations is harming wild salmon species in some cases, the Bush administration plans to move away from the practice in favor of a more direct solution: Catch fewer fish. James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, announced the new policy Wednesday at a meeting of salmon scientists, many of whom have concluded that wild Pacific salmon will become practically extinct this century without big changes in how the harvest is managed. "Our goal is to minimize and, where possible, eliminate the harvest of naturally spawning fish that provide the foundation for recovery," Connaughton said in an interview with The Associated Press before his speech. Critics said the change in tactics does not address the combination of factors that have severely reduced salmon runs, from overfishing and development to hydroelectric dams....
Feds drops fish passage requirement for Hells Canyon dams The federal agency overseeing Columbia River and Snake River salmon recovery has decided against requiring the Idaho Power Co. to add fish ladders on its Hells Canyon dams, angering environmentalists but addressing utility complaints that such requirements would be too costly and ineffective. As recently as Oct. 28, the National Marine Fisheries Service was considering requiring fish-passage facilities on Idaho Power's 1,167-megawatt, three-dam system on the Snake River as a condition of the company's license renewal. Cost of the fish ladders has been estimated by the Fisheries Service at more than $100 million. In a Nov. 16 e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, the agency said it is focusing instead on recommending Idaho Power set aside money to clean up the river above the dams so the waterway will one day provide good habitat for salmon and steelhead....
Fight Begins On Santa Rosa Island Hunting Proposal Supervisors have voted to fight a proposal calling for the transfer of Santa Rosa Island to the military for recreational hunting. San Diego Republican Duncan Hunter proposed the idea twice in congressional legislation last year. But the military itself hasn't proposed a change in use of the National Park Service island and Supervisor Judy Mikels is calling Hunter's proposal "a ploy." She says he's using the military in an excuse to create hunting grounds and that he should be "straight up" about his proposal. Santa Rosa Island has been a national park since the mid-1980s, when a cattle company sold it to the federal government for almost $30 million....
Conservation groups pool resources to buy Afognak lands Several foundations and the federal government, seeking to protect wildlife habitat, have purchased 2,400 acres of Native corporation land and 2,000 acres of corporate timber harvest rights near northern Afognak Island's Perenosa Bay. The American Land Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation bought the land and timber rights from Afognak Joint Venture, a group of Kodiak-area Native corporations. The conservancy and foundation then gave the land to the state of Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, which will manage it. Some timber rights were extinguished in the deal, and some are now held by the conservancy and foundation. The proposal to buy the land got traction in 2002 and 2003, when the land conservancy and elk foundation won back-to-back $1 million competitive grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior....
Studies on mouse to be reviewed In the wake of a new genetic study that found the Preble's meadow jumping mouse appears to be a distinct subspecies after all, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed removing federal protections for the Colorado-dwelling rodent. The agency's acting regional director said Wednesday that officials would convene a panel of experts in genetics and small mammals to review the conflicting studies after an examination in 2003 disputed the mouse was its own subspecies deserving of protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Rocky Mountain News reported the new, unpublished study by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in Wednesday's editions. Not only will the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put together scientific experts to evaluate the matter, but the agency has also delayed by six months a Feb. 2 deadline to remove protections for the mouse, which dwells along stream-banks and wetlands on the Front Range. The agency will also reopen public comment on the matter for 60 days.
Plans for a sports complex in Colton are abandoned Colton officials recently struck out in their effort to build a sports complex featuring three major league ballpark replicas. The city and the company negotiated for more than five years about the project but hit setbacks early on when the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, which is protected by the Endangered Species Act, was discovered in the original project site. The proposed project shrank from 16 acres to 11 acres and was moved to a location near Interstate 215 after the fly was discovered. During the delay, the rising cost of construction materials increased the project cost from about $5 million to between $10 million and $12 million. "When that happened the project was just not practical anymore," Councilman John Mitchell said. "This is no fault of Colton or of Big League Dreams," Mitchell said. "It's the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife (Service's). They took a project and doubled it in price and shrunk it down over a fly."....
Gardiner outfitter sentenced to prison for poaching A Gardiner outfitter is going to federal prison and a pair of his California clients must pay steep fines for poaching violations, federal judges ruled here Wednesday. More people could also be facing charges, according to officers for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Outfitter John Daniel "Danny" McDonald pleaded guilty in October to two felony violations of the Lacey Act, which covers interstate transportation of illegally taken wildlife. Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday sentenced him to a year in federal prison and ordered him to pay $50,000 in restitution. He must also give up hunting and outfitting for the rest of his life....
U.S. pulls inspectors from horse processors As of March 10, Congress no longer will pay for inspections at three processing plants in the United States that prepare horse meat for human consumption in Europe, Asia and other overseas markets. Without U.S. inspectors, the officials from two plants in Texas and another in Illinois contend that the plants would be forced to shut down. The cost of euthanizing a horse and having the carcass removed is $1,500 to $2,000, while a farmer might sell an unwanted horse to a processing plant for about $500. "We're fighting for our lives, yet we comply with more laws than any other processing plants that I know of," said Jim Bradshaw, a lobbyist for Dallas Crown Inc. in Kaufman and Beltex Corp. in Fort Worth, Texas. The companies are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to continue providing inspections after the March deadline _ at the firms' expense on a per-fee basis. "Without this outlet, you're going to see people turning out old horses onto the desert or dumping them alongside the road," said Randy Parker, Utah Farm Bureau's chief executive officer. "Ranchers care about their horses just like they do any other animal they're responsible for. This is about farming, these aren't pets." Fifty agricultural organizations nationwide are supporting ranchers' rights to send off unwanted horses for slaughter....
Best-Selling Cowboy Singer Bucks Trend with Free Song Downloads to Share As the major record labels install ever more rigid copyright protections and scary embedded technology on their CD releases, Buck Howdy, the King of Kids’ Cowboy Music, is bucking all trends to offer his music – for free. What’s more, he’s actually encouraging his fans to “Pass the Buck,” to copy and share his music. Buck’s free download program just launched at www.buckhowdy.com. Amazingly, Buck is ready to share his songs just a couple of months after Giddyup! was released on CD to national acclaim (it’s been charting on Billboard’s top 25 internet sales list since November, and has won a Dove Family Approved seal and acclaim from Common Sense Media, among others). Giddyup! was also selected this week by the American Library Association for its prestigious "Notable Recordings of 2006" list. By going to Buck’s website (www.buckhowdy.com), fans can download copies of 10 songs from Giddyup! as well as graphics for the special version. There is no cost for the downloads but as Buck explains, there is one itty bitty catch. “You have to promise to share my music with at least two people (and those people have to promise to share it with more people and on and on) because I convinced Mrs. Howdy that once folks hear these ten songs, they'll rush out and buy the full length store version with ALL the songs.”....
Oil, Gas Companies: Bill Could Cripple Industry Oil and gas companies said a measure that would require companies to compensate property owners for surface damage could cripple their industry, prompting lawmakers Wednesday to delay action as they consider changes. The bill (House Bill 1185) would require mineral owners to pay surface owners whose property or land values are damaged by oil and gas operations. The issue centers on the so-called "split estate," when one person owns the land but someone else owns the minerals beneath it. Companies that own or lease the minerals have a right under state law to "reasonable use" of the surface to extract the oil, gas or coal. Industry representatives told lawmakers it could take nine years for a well owner to recoup the bond money. They said many drillers would not be able to get bonding and would have to put up the money themselves because of the possibility of extended litigation. "It's intended to tie up capital. It would clearly put small operators out of business. It's intended to give surface owners the power to slow oil and gas development," said Howard Boigon, a director for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association....
Council approves drilling requests City Council approved Mewbourne Oil Company's requests Wednesday to drill in the 3900 block of Thomason Road by an 8-0 vote, with Councilman Ned Elkins commending the company for one employee's efforts in helping to revise the city's oil and gas ordinance two years ago. But a Carlsbad Fire Department employee, Mark Alam, said he is a resident of the area and wanted some questions answered. Dave Henard, of RESPEC Environmental, a consultant to the city on drilling activity within city limits, was at the meeting Wednesday. His report to the city states that there are no homes within 1,000 feet of the proposed drilling rig. Alam said the closest residents to the drilling are on Thomason Road, and the 1,000-foot line actually goes through one of his neighbor's homes. "The plot is incorrect at this time," Alam said of the maps indicating where the well would be and how far area homes were from the proposed drilling. Henard told council members the stake for the actual point of drilling was not at the site, but he said when he was in the drilling area, there were no homes within 1,000 feet. Mayor Bob Forrest said the city's ordinance only requires that drilling be 500 feet from any homes....
Government Reduces Endangered Mexican Wolf Numbers for Third Year in Row The number of endangered Mexican gray wolves that could be confirmed in the wild declined for the third successive year in 2005 as a result of trapping and shooting of wolves by the U.S. government, conservationists charged today. And the number could drop further, with the Luna Pack of Mexican wolves repeatedly encountering and feeding on livestock carcasses of animals they did not kill, which is likely to induce them to predate on livestock. At the end of 2003, the interagency Mexican wolf reintroduction field team could document 55 wolves in the wild; at the end of 2004, 44 wolves in the wild; and at the end of 2005, 35 wolves in the wild -- representing a 20 percent decline each year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with statutory authority to recover Mexican wolves, had projected 55 wolves at the end of 2003; 68 at the end of 2004; and 83 by the end of 2005....
Maclay: Suit Stems From Misunderstanding About Historical Rights Tom Maclay, the landowner planning a destination ski resort at the base of Lolo Peak responded today to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court against him yesterday, saying in a statement, "there appears to be a misunderstanding about our family’s rights to access roads on what are now National Forest lands." The complaint alleges Maclay illegally cut about 400 trees on National Forest Service property, including trees in the Carlton Ridge Natural Resource Area. It also alleges he cleared several closed roads and built new ones on federal property. Maclay's statement characterizes the National Forest property as "lands that we have used for recreation and ranching for over 100 years, since before Congress created the U.S. Forest Service." The statement also reads: "This issue comes down to a debate over historical land rights that has been occurring across the West for decades. There are many situations in which landowners’ historical use of roads is subject to unresolved disagreements with the Federal Government. We regret that it appears these issues will have to be addressed in the context of litigation."....
Salvage ruling no help to local mill A federal judge last week ruled that salvage logging in core grizzly bear habitat could begin again, now that grizzly bears are in their den. But the ruling comes far too late for one local mill. F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber had about 800,000 board feet of timber cut and on the ground from last summer, said Ron Buentemeier, Stoltze general manager. Now it's under about 5 feet of snow, he said Monday. “There's no chance of those logs being picked up under the time frame the judge gave us", he said....
Working for Bears or Barely Working? "By the end of the year, I also expect that the Yellowstone grizzly bear will be removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act in portions of Idaho. Grizzly bears may be here to stay, but thanks to the state plan that you helped develop, federal management of this species is on its way out." --Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, January 9 State of the State Address. To hear this message from the leader of Idaho's state government, you might think that the proposed removal of Endangered Species Act protections from the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-but-done done deal. If you attended the casual, meet-and-greet-style open house about delisting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service held on January 12 in Idaho Falls, you might have gotten the same impression of the federal government. And according to some conservation groups, that feeling would be right, since they say public input appears to matter little in the government's drive to delist. "I'm not sure why there was this meeting," said Joe Timchak, an Idaho Falls science teacher who attended the open house with his daughter. Timchak said he was tentatively supportive of the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan, announced on November 15, to hand control of bears over to state control, as long as he could be sure the bears were guaranteed adequate and protected habitat. But like several other locals who talked with BW after leaving the event, he added with a shrug, "It seems like the decision has been made basically."....
'Wilderness is Our Common Ground'; Conservation Group Launches New Ad Campaign What do a group of high school teachers, a women's exercise class, and a local businessman have in common? A love of Arizona's special wild places -- and the desire to see them protected for their children and grandchildren. "Wilderness is Our Common Ground" is the theme of the new print ad campaign debuting today by the Sky Island Alliance -- a conservation group based in Tucson. To view the ads, go to http://www.commongroundaz.org. "Arizonans from all walks of life and backgrounds use and enjoy our special wild places in many different ways," says Mike Quigley, Sky Island Alliance Wilderness Campaign coordinator. "These natural gems are part of what makes this state unique, and part of what makes us Arizonans. Our wilderness areas help keep our water and air clean. They provide places to get away from our hectic lives, or make happy memories with our friends and families, and they provide unmatched opportunities for hiking, hunting, fishing and birding." The ads, which start running today in a number of area newspapers including the Nogales International, La Estrella de Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star, and the Tucson Citizen, feature a variety of citizens who value wilderness for different reasons....
Restoration or Exploitation? Claiming that the Fishtrap project perfectly illustrates the failed nature of the current U.S. Forest Service management scheme for restoring forests, the Ecology Center, Native Forest Network and Alliance for the Wild Rockies have filed a formal administrative appeal over the Fishtrap logging project that calls for industrial logging in unroaded wildlands, old-growth forests and habitat for grizzly bears and bull trout. The Fishtrap project area is located 20 miles north of Thompson Falls within the remote upper Fishtrap Creek watershed. Sixty-seven percent of the Fishtrap project area is part of the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Area and Fishtrap Creek is listed as a priority stream for the threatened Bull trout. The Fishtrap logging project would cut down enough trees from over 3 1/2 square miles of the watershed (2,260 acres) to fill 2,400 log trucks lined up end-to-end for twenty miles. The Fishtrap project calls for industrial logging in unroaded wildlands, within old-growth forests and important habitat for grizzly bears and bull trout. Based on the Forest Service's budget, the project would lose $2.5 million....
Administration pitches new salmon policy Conceding that using hatcheries to supplement dwindling salmon populations is harming wild salmon species in some cases, the Bush administration plans to move away from the practice in favor of a more direct solution: Catch fewer fish. James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, announced the new policy Wednesday at a meeting of salmon scientists, many of whom have concluded that wild Pacific salmon will become practically extinct this century without big changes in how the harvest is managed. "Our goal is to minimize and, where possible, eliminate the harvest of naturally spawning fish that provide the foundation for recovery," Connaughton said in an interview with The Associated Press before his speech. Critics said the change in tactics does not address the combination of factors that have severely reduced salmon runs, from overfishing and development to hydroelectric dams....
Feds drops fish passage requirement for Hells Canyon dams The federal agency overseeing Columbia River and Snake River salmon recovery has decided against requiring the Idaho Power Co. to add fish ladders on its Hells Canyon dams, angering environmentalists but addressing utility complaints that such requirements would be too costly and ineffective. As recently as Oct. 28, the National Marine Fisheries Service was considering requiring fish-passage facilities on Idaho Power's 1,167-megawatt, three-dam system on the Snake River as a condition of the company's license renewal. Cost of the fish ladders has been estimated by the Fisheries Service at more than $100 million. In a Nov. 16 e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, the agency said it is focusing instead on recommending Idaho Power set aside money to clean up the river above the dams so the waterway will one day provide good habitat for salmon and steelhead....
Fight Begins On Santa Rosa Island Hunting Proposal Supervisors have voted to fight a proposal calling for the transfer of Santa Rosa Island to the military for recreational hunting. San Diego Republican Duncan Hunter proposed the idea twice in congressional legislation last year. But the military itself hasn't proposed a change in use of the National Park Service island and Supervisor Judy Mikels is calling Hunter's proposal "a ploy." She says he's using the military in an excuse to create hunting grounds and that he should be "straight up" about his proposal. Santa Rosa Island has been a national park since the mid-1980s, when a cattle company sold it to the federal government for almost $30 million....
Conservation groups pool resources to buy Afognak lands Several foundations and the federal government, seeking to protect wildlife habitat, have purchased 2,400 acres of Native corporation land and 2,000 acres of corporate timber harvest rights near northern Afognak Island's Perenosa Bay. The American Land Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation bought the land and timber rights from Afognak Joint Venture, a group of Kodiak-area Native corporations. The conservancy and foundation then gave the land to the state of Alaska's Department of Natural Resources, which will manage it. Some timber rights were extinguished in the deal, and some are now held by the conservancy and foundation. The proposal to buy the land got traction in 2002 and 2003, when the land conservancy and elk foundation won back-to-back $1 million competitive grants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior....
Studies on mouse to be reviewed In the wake of a new genetic study that found the Preble's meadow jumping mouse appears to be a distinct subspecies after all, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed removing federal protections for the Colorado-dwelling rodent. The agency's acting regional director said Wednesday that officials would convene a panel of experts in genetics and small mammals to review the conflicting studies after an examination in 2003 disputed the mouse was its own subspecies deserving of protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Rocky Mountain News reported the new, unpublished study by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in Wednesday's editions. Not only will the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put together scientific experts to evaluate the matter, but the agency has also delayed by six months a Feb. 2 deadline to remove protections for the mouse, which dwells along stream-banks and wetlands on the Front Range. The agency will also reopen public comment on the matter for 60 days.
Plans for a sports complex in Colton are abandoned Colton officials recently struck out in their effort to build a sports complex featuring three major league ballpark replicas. The city and the company negotiated for more than five years about the project but hit setbacks early on when the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly, which is protected by the Endangered Species Act, was discovered in the original project site. The proposed project shrank from 16 acres to 11 acres and was moved to a location near Interstate 215 after the fly was discovered. During the delay, the rising cost of construction materials increased the project cost from about $5 million to between $10 million and $12 million. "When that happened the project was just not practical anymore," Councilman John Mitchell said. "This is no fault of Colton or of Big League Dreams," Mitchell said. "It's the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife (Service's). They took a project and doubled it in price and shrunk it down over a fly."....
Gardiner outfitter sentenced to prison for poaching A Gardiner outfitter is going to federal prison and a pair of his California clients must pay steep fines for poaching violations, federal judges ruled here Wednesday. More people could also be facing charges, according to officers for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Outfitter John Daniel "Danny" McDonald pleaded guilty in October to two felony violations of the Lacey Act, which covers interstate transportation of illegally taken wildlife. Judge Richard Cebull on Wednesday sentenced him to a year in federal prison and ordered him to pay $50,000 in restitution. He must also give up hunting and outfitting for the rest of his life....
U.S. pulls inspectors from horse processors As of March 10, Congress no longer will pay for inspections at three processing plants in the United States that prepare horse meat for human consumption in Europe, Asia and other overseas markets. Without U.S. inspectors, the officials from two plants in Texas and another in Illinois contend that the plants would be forced to shut down. The cost of euthanizing a horse and having the carcass removed is $1,500 to $2,000, while a farmer might sell an unwanted horse to a processing plant for about $500. "We're fighting for our lives, yet we comply with more laws than any other processing plants that I know of," said Jim Bradshaw, a lobbyist for Dallas Crown Inc. in Kaufman and Beltex Corp. in Fort Worth, Texas. The companies are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to continue providing inspections after the March deadline _ at the firms' expense on a per-fee basis. "Without this outlet, you're going to see people turning out old horses onto the desert or dumping them alongside the road," said Randy Parker, Utah Farm Bureau's chief executive officer. "Ranchers care about their horses just like they do any other animal they're responsible for. This is about farming, these aren't pets." Fifty agricultural organizations nationwide are supporting ranchers' rights to send off unwanted horses for slaughter....
Best-Selling Cowboy Singer Bucks Trend with Free Song Downloads to Share As the major record labels install ever more rigid copyright protections and scary embedded technology on their CD releases, Buck Howdy, the King of Kids’ Cowboy Music, is bucking all trends to offer his music – for free. What’s more, he’s actually encouraging his fans to “Pass the Buck,” to copy and share his music. Buck’s free download program just launched at www.buckhowdy.com. Amazingly, Buck is ready to share his songs just a couple of months after Giddyup! was released on CD to national acclaim (it’s been charting on Billboard’s top 25 internet sales list since November, and has won a Dove Family Approved seal and acclaim from Common Sense Media, among others). Giddyup! was also selected this week by the American Library Association for its prestigious "Notable Recordings of 2006" list. By going to Buck’s website (www.buckhowdy.com), fans can download copies of 10 songs from Giddyup! as well as graphics for the special version. There is no cost for the downloads but as Buck explains, there is one itty bitty catch. “You have to promise to share my music with at least two people (and those people have to promise to share it with more people and on and on) because I convinced Mrs. Howdy that once folks hear these ten songs, they'll rush out and buy the full length store version with ALL the songs.”....
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Curry takes 2nd stab at drilling bill State Rep. Kathleen Curry is harnessing the support of everyone from Colorado homebuilders to conservation groups for another tussle with the gas development industry. Curry has introduced a bill for the second straight legislative session to try to give surface landowners more power in negotiations with gas companies that want to drill wells on their properties. The Democrat from Gunnison, whose district includes the Roaring Fork Valley and part of western Garfield County, failed to win approval for a similar bill last year. Curry said she is taking another crack at the issue because surface owners aren't receiving proper compensation for damage from drilling on their property. Colorado's rules and regulations are skewed in favor of the gas industry, she maintained....
Capitol clash set to surface over impact of drilling A high-stakes clash of economic titans is set to break out at the Capitol today, when lawmakers consider forcing energy companies to increase compensation for landowners whose property values are hurt by the uninvited roads, gas wells and heavy equipment used to extract natural gas. This isn't the first time the General Assembly has considered landowners' complaints about gas drilling. But it is the first time a bill has come out of the gate backed by the real estate development industry, a powerful force that can hold its own against energy lobbyists. House Bill 1185 would encourage energy companies to enter into surface-impact agreements with landowners before drilling on their property and force them to post a $25,000 bond for every well where an agreement was not possible. Courts would decide disputes over compensation. Currently, companies must only post a a single $100,000 bond to cover all of their activity in the state, and landowners can only collect for damage they can prove is "unreasonable."....
Bill aims to protect surface landowners Politics makes strange bedfellows. This holds true for the newly formed coalition of farmers, ranchers, home builders and environmental activists campaigning for House Bill 1185. Introduced Tuesday by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, the bill aims at compensating landowners for damage to their properties from oil and natural gas drilling. It also outlines a process for settling disputes between landowners and energy companies. "This is a property rights bill," Curry said Tuesday during a news conference. "Some Garfield County landowners brought this to my attention, (agricultural) people . . . who have multiple wells on their lands. "My impetus for this bill is those people, not the home builders. They have a different perspective, but the message is the same: Everybody is looking at a balance, at a level playing field." Curry said that according to data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, only 13.2 percent of the well permits approved from 2000 through 2005 have a surface use agreement....
A new tack in West's land battles The federal government owns so much of Custer County, Idaho, that one could call it common ground. More than 95% lies in public hands. But for years, Idaho has failed to find much, if any, common ground on what to do with the region's pristine backwoods. Environmentalists wanted to protect the roadless forestland as federal wilderness, ranchers hoped to maintain the land for their cattle, and weekend warriors pushed for access for their dirt bikes and off-road vehicles. Local government officials, starved for revenue, looked to privatize some government land to generate more property taxes. Exhausted after three decades of lawsuits, failed legislation, and ill will, these groups are backing a compromise bill that would designate some 300,000 acres as wilderness, privatize another 6,000, and keep the rest open for multiple uses. Some observers call the legislation, submitted last year by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R) of Idaho, an example of "collaborative process," an evolving concept that could define the future of conservation....
Commission affirms stance against wilderness area Ranchers, bird watchers, off-road enthusiasts and rock hounds packed Pennington County Commission chambers Tuesday to debate the pros and cons of wilderness areas in Buffalo Gap National Grassland. As part of its 2002 management plan, the U.S. Forest Service recommended the Indian Creek and Red Shirt areas of Buffalo Gap National Grassland be designated as federal wilderness areas. The commission voted unanimously in 2004 to urge Gov. Mike Rounds, the state Legislature and South Dakota's congressional delegation to oppose expansion of wilderness areas. County commission chairman Ken Davis said he is unaware of any attempts at the federal level to move forward on the proposal, but he has received several questions about the county commission's continued opposition. In 2004, the commission voted unanimously to oppose expanded wilderness areas....
Fairy shrimps and bears hot topics for species protection From barely visible fairy shrimp to highly visible black bears, we share our Napa Valley home with a rich diversity of animals, birds, fish, insects and plants. Some of them are listed as threatened or endangered. As our houses and vineyards press outward from the valley floor, we are moving deeper into our wild neighbors' spaces, and discovering that sharing habitats is not always easy. The recent killing of four black bears at a Pope Valley vineyard drew attention to a critical question: How do we balance the need for protecting our agricultural land and crops while also preserving critical habitat for native, rare, threatened or endangered species? The bear-killing, which was done legally to protect vineyard land, incited a strong public outcry in favor of protecting the bears, even among some other vineyard owners. It also raised curiosity about what rare, threatened or endangered species live in Napa County, and what we should do to protect them....
A New Alarm Sounds for Amphibians Frogs exposed to a mix of pesticides at extremely low concentrations like those widely found around farms suffer deadly infections, suggesting that the chemicals could be a major culprit in the global disappearance of amphibians, UC Berkeley scientists reported Tuesday. When tadpoles were exposed in laboratory experiments to each pesticide individually, 4% died before they turned into frogs. But when atrazine and eight other pesticides were mixed to replicate a Nebraska cornfield, 35% died. The frogs developed an array of health problems, including meningitis, because the chemicals suppressed their immune systems. They also took longer to complete the transformation from tadpole to frog, which reduces their chances of survival. At least one-third of amphibians worldwide, or 1,856 of the known species of frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians, are in danger of extinction, according to an international group of conservation biologists....
Mouse that roared A new genetic study of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse rejects previous findings and concludes that the Colorado-dwelling rodent is a distinct subspecies, biologists familiar with the unpublished report said Tuesday. The new findings could rekindle the long-running, rancorous debate over federal protections for the pint-size mouse, which lives in grassy areas near Colorado Front Range stream banks. The latest work was done by U.S. Geological Survey biologists. The results were scheduled to be presented to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall this morning in Washington, D.C. "Why can't the government make up its mind?" Denver real estate attorney Howard Gelt said Tuesday. "This does not provide any kind of stability or sense of direction. We're going to go from one end of the spectrum to the other."....
Salmon advocates challenge de-funding of fish-counting agency Conservation and sport fishing groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, directing the Bonneville Power Administration to eliminate funding for an agency that counts young salmon crossing dams. The lawsuit was filed Monday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. It names BPA as the defendant and asks the court to direct the agency to keep the Fish Passage Center intact. "We must not allow one man's political maneuvering to trump science and the law," Mark Riskedahl, executive director of NEDC, said in a statement....
Both sides of buffalo debate irate about roaming charges In the towns that pepper the terrain northwest of Yellowstone National Park, there are some things you can count on each year when the biting, frigid winter locks down on the land. One is the capture and killing of bison. Another is the loud butting of heads. The heads are human. Some belong to National Park Service, which annually culls the Yellowstone bison herd - more than 600 so far this year - in wild, noisy, snowmobile-powered roundups and sends most to the slaughterhouse. The other heads are those of activists who passionately try to protect the gigantic, shaggy symbols of the American West. As you'd imagine, the two groups don't agree on much. Take an incident two weeks ago. Here are a few facts: Forty buffalo stampeded onto Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone, Mont. Fourteen of the buffalo crashed through the ice. Two drowned. Getting the rest of the story is about as easy as trying to eat a buffalo steak with a spoon....
Donation helps wolf research Wolf research in Yellowstone National Park will get a $1.4 million boost in the coming years. An anonymous donor in Colorado has pledged to give $140,000 a year for the next 10 years to track and better understand the park's wolves, the Yellowstone Park Foundation announced Monday. The National Park Service's Yellowstone Wolf Project will get about $100,000 a year and wolf researchers from the University of Minnesota will get the remaining $40,000. The Yellowstone Park Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Bozeman, has typically provided about $150,000 in private donations for the Yellowstone Wolf Project each year to add to funding from the Park Service....
BLM greenlights Easter Jeep Safari The Bureau of Land Management has renewed a Moab off-road club's permit to hold the annual Easter Jeep Safari in Grand and San Juan counties. The decision met with harsh words from environmentalists who contend the federal agency did not do enough to protect sensitive lands from damage by off-highway vehicles. Now in its 40th season, the Jeep Safari annually draws more than 1,500 participants from around Utah and the nation. But the nine-day event also coincides with spring break for many college and high school students who flock to Moab for backcountry recreation, including off-highway driving. In recent years, county officials have estimated that as many as 10,000 OHV enthusiasts who were not associated with the Jeep Safari have crowded into town and onto the area's backcountry trails throughout the week....
Pitt given Wyoming ranch land that is 'littered with fossils' A Wyoming rancher donated 4,700 acres of land rich in dinosaur fossils to the University of Pittsburgh, which will maintain it for students and researchers. Allen Cook, of Wheatland, Wyo., said he decided to donate the land, worth about $7 million, after he had it appraised in preparation for selling part of his ranch. The appraiser put Cook in touch with Alec Stewart, dean of the university's honors college and the appraiser's graduate school classmate. Cook said the university's interest "seemed kind of in line with what I'd like - that the land would be preserved." The land is "littered with fossils," said Mary Dawson, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who visited the ranch several years ago. "They have a real gem out there," she said....
Clogged Rockies Highway Divides Coloradans When Interstate 70 was built through here in the 1960's and 70's, the Colorado Rockies were largely rural and remote, and the old roads that the highway replaced were a widely recognized danger. Over the years, as the population grew, delays and frustrations on the highway began to mount. Traffic jams at nosebleed altitude became common. In 8,800-foot-high Silverthorne, which was little more than a gas station pit stop a generation ago, with a grocery that got fresh produce only on Thursdays, alpine meadows gave way to factory outlet stores. Now state officials are considering a major and contentious widening project for Interstate 70 that is dividing people over the question of who the highway is for and how it transformed these mountains. The project is a variation of a drama that is playing out across much of the West as once-rural outposts are transformed into brimming settlements with newfound political and economic clout in transportation decisions....
Circle the wagons The afternoon crowd was beginning to trickle through Gate 3 at the Manatee County Fair, and Hub Hubbell was ready. Duded up in boots, jeans, denim shirt, vest, red bandanna and a sweat-stained cowboy hat, the lifelong rodeo cowboy, now 87, was tinkering with his rustic chuck wagon, parked on the grass off to the right of the main gate. "No horses this time," said Hubbell, who has entertained folks for more than six decades as a rider, announcer and performer with his trick ponies. "I'm going to talk about the hardships on the trail." The chuck wagon was his podium. It was a mini-replica of the Old West covered wagons with the big spoked wheels that helped keep cowpokes fed on those long cattle drives from Texas to Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Montana and even Canada after the Civil War. "This is similar to the ones made in 1865, but the real ones were about six-foot longer, a foot higher and a foot wider," said Hubbell, who bought the chuck wagon from a collector in Sarasota five years ago. "I tried to fix this up as original as they made it back then. I could take this on the trail. It's pretty solid."....
George Bush To Star in Sequel to ‘Brokeback Mountain’ In a surprisingly public disclosure, President Bush has revealed that he will star in a sequel to the award-winning yet controversial movie ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ which he also stated that he “thoroughly enjoyed.” During a Q&A session at Kansas State University, a young male student humorously asked Bush if he has seen the Hollywood hit about two homosexual cowboys in Wyoming. But Bush’s answer startled the audience. "I have seen it and thoroughly enjoyed it," Bush said flatly of the critically acclaimed love story, to nervous laughter. The sequel will be called “Brokeback Whitehouse” in which Twist discovers he has a rich queer uncle in Washington, DC. They get invited to the White House and the president helps them drill an oil well in Wyoming....
Curry takes 2nd stab at drilling bill State Rep. Kathleen Curry is harnessing the support of everyone from Colorado homebuilders to conservation groups for another tussle with the gas development industry. Curry has introduced a bill for the second straight legislative session to try to give surface landowners more power in negotiations with gas companies that want to drill wells on their properties. The Democrat from Gunnison, whose district includes the Roaring Fork Valley and part of western Garfield County, failed to win approval for a similar bill last year. Curry said she is taking another crack at the issue because surface owners aren't receiving proper compensation for damage from drilling on their property. Colorado's rules and regulations are skewed in favor of the gas industry, she maintained....
Capitol clash set to surface over impact of drilling A high-stakes clash of economic titans is set to break out at the Capitol today, when lawmakers consider forcing energy companies to increase compensation for landowners whose property values are hurt by the uninvited roads, gas wells and heavy equipment used to extract natural gas. This isn't the first time the General Assembly has considered landowners' complaints about gas drilling. But it is the first time a bill has come out of the gate backed by the real estate development industry, a powerful force that can hold its own against energy lobbyists. House Bill 1185 would encourage energy companies to enter into surface-impact agreements with landowners before drilling on their property and force them to post a $25,000 bond for every well where an agreement was not possible. Courts would decide disputes over compensation. Currently, companies must only post a a single $100,000 bond to cover all of their activity in the state, and landowners can only collect for damage they can prove is "unreasonable."....
Bill aims to protect surface landowners Politics makes strange bedfellows. This holds true for the newly formed coalition of farmers, ranchers, home builders and environmental activists campaigning for House Bill 1185. Introduced Tuesday by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, the bill aims at compensating landowners for damage to their properties from oil and natural gas drilling. It also outlines a process for settling disputes between landowners and energy companies. "This is a property rights bill," Curry said Tuesday during a news conference. "Some Garfield County landowners brought this to my attention, (agricultural) people . . . who have multiple wells on their lands. "My impetus for this bill is those people, not the home builders. They have a different perspective, but the message is the same: Everybody is looking at a balance, at a level playing field." Curry said that according to data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, only 13.2 percent of the well permits approved from 2000 through 2005 have a surface use agreement....
A new tack in West's land battles The federal government owns so much of Custer County, Idaho, that one could call it common ground. More than 95% lies in public hands. But for years, Idaho has failed to find much, if any, common ground on what to do with the region's pristine backwoods. Environmentalists wanted to protect the roadless forestland as federal wilderness, ranchers hoped to maintain the land for their cattle, and weekend warriors pushed for access for their dirt bikes and off-road vehicles. Local government officials, starved for revenue, looked to privatize some government land to generate more property taxes. Exhausted after three decades of lawsuits, failed legislation, and ill will, these groups are backing a compromise bill that would designate some 300,000 acres as wilderness, privatize another 6,000, and keep the rest open for multiple uses. Some observers call the legislation, submitted last year by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R) of Idaho, an example of "collaborative process," an evolving concept that could define the future of conservation....
Commission affirms stance against wilderness area Ranchers, bird watchers, off-road enthusiasts and rock hounds packed Pennington County Commission chambers Tuesday to debate the pros and cons of wilderness areas in Buffalo Gap National Grassland. As part of its 2002 management plan, the U.S. Forest Service recommended the Indian Creek and Red Shirt areas of Buffalo Gap National Grassland be designated as federal wilderness areas. The commission voted unanimously in 2004 to urge Gov. Mike Rounds, the state Legislature and South Dakota's congressional delegation to oppose expansion of wilderness areas. County commission chairman Ken Davis said he is unaware of any attempts at the federal level to move forward on the proposal, but he has received several questions about the county commission's continued opposition. In 2004, the commission voted unanimously to oppose expanded wilderness areas....
Fairy shrimps and bears hot topics for species protection From barely visible fairy shrimp to highly visible black bears, we share our Napa Valley home with a rich diversity of animals, birds, fish, insects and plants. Some of them are listed as threatened or endangered. As our houses and vineyards press outward from the valley floor, we are moving deeper into our wild neighbors' spaces, and discovering that sharing habitats is not always easy. The recent killing of four black bears at a Pope Valley vineyard drew attention to a critical question: How do we balance the need for protecting our agricultural land and crops while also preserving critical habitat for native, rare, threatened or endangered species? The bear-killing, which was done legally to protect vineyard land, incited a strong public outcry in favor of protecting the bears, even among some other vineyard owners. It also raised curiosity about what rare, threatened or endangered species live in Napa County, and what we should do to protect them....
A New Alarm Sounds for Amphibians Frogs exposed to a mix of pesticides at extremely low concentrations like those widely found around farms suffer deadly infections, suggesting that the chemicals could be a major culprit in the global disappearance of amphibians, UC Berkeley scientists reported Tuesday. When tadpoles were exposed in laboratory experiments to each pesticide individually, 4% died before they turned into frogs. But when atrazine and eight other pesticides were mixed to replicate a Nebraska cornfield, 35% died. The frogs developed an array of health problems, including meningitis, because the chemicals suppressed their immune systems. They also took longer to complete the transformation from tadpole to frog, which reduces their chances of survival. At least one-third of amphibians worldwide, or 1,856 of the known species of frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians, are in danger of extinction, according to an international group of conservation biologists....
Mouse that roared A new genetic study of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse rejects previous findings and concludes that the Colorado-dwelling rodent is a distinct subspecies, biologists familiar with the unpublished report said Tuesday. The new findings could rekindle the long-running, rancorous debate over federal protections for the pint-size mouse, which lives in grassy areas near Colorado Front Range stream banks. The latest work was done by U.S. Geological Survey biologists. The results were scheduled to be presented to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall this morning in Washington, D.C. "Why can't the government make up its mind?" Denver real estate attorney Howard Gelt said Tuesday. "This does not provide any kind of stability or sense of direction. We're going to go from one end of the spectrum to the other."....
Salmon advocates challenge de-funding of fish-counting agency Conservation and sport fishing groups have filed a lawsuit challenging a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, directing the Bonneville Power Administration to eliminate funding for an agency that counts young salmon crossing dams. The lawsuit was filed Monday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. It names BPA as the defendant and asks the court to direct the agency to keep the Fish Passage Center intact. "We must not allow one man's political maneuvering to trump science and the law," Mark Riskedahl, executive director of NEDC, said in a statement....
Both sides of buffalo debate irate about roaming charges In the towns that pepper the terrain northwest of Yellowstone National Park, there are some things you can count on each year when the biting, frigid winter locks down on the land. One is the capture and killing of bison. Another is the loud butting of heads. The heads are human. Some belong to National Park Service, which annually culls the Yellowstone bison herd - more than 600 so far this year - in wild, noisy, snowmobile-powered roundups and sends most to the slaughterhouse. The other heads are those of activists who passionately try to protect the gigantic, shaggy symbols of the American West. As you'd imagine, the two groups don't agree on much. Take an incident two weeks ago. Here are a few facts: Forty buffalo stampeded onto Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone, Mont. Fourteen of the buffalo crashed through the ice. Two drowned. Getting the rest of the story is about as easy as trying to eat a buffalo steak with a spoon....
Donation helps wolf research Wolf research in Yellowstone National Park will get a $1.4 million boost in the coming years. An anonymous donor in Colorado has pledged to give $140,000 a year for the next 10 years to track and better understand the park's wolves, the Yellowstone Park Foundation announced Monday. The National Park Service's Yellowstone Wolf Project will get about $100,000 a year and wolf researchers from the University of Minnesota will get the remaining $40,000. The Yellowstone Park Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Bozeman, has typically provided about $150,000 in private donations for the Yellowstone Wolf Project each year to add to funding from the Park Service....
BLM greenlights Easter Jeep Safari The Bureau of Land Management has renewed a Moab off-road club's permit to hold the annual Easter Jeep Safari in Grand and San Juan counties. The decision met with harsh words from environmentalists who contend the federal agency did not do enough to protect sensitive lands from damage by off-highway vehicles. Now in its 40th season, the Jeep Safari annually draws more than 1,500 participants from around Utah and the nation. But the nine-day event also coincides with spring break for many college and high school students who flock to Moab for backcountry recreation, including off-highway driving. In recent years, county officials have estimated that as many as 10,000 OHV enthusiasts who were not associated with the Jeep Safari have crowded into town and onto the area's backcountry trails throughout the week....
Pitt given Wyoming ranch land that is 'littered with fossils' A Wyoming rancher donated 4,700 acres of land rich in dinosaur fossils to the University of Pittsburgh, which will maintain it for students and researchers. Allen Cook, of Wheatland, Wyo., said he decided to donate the land, worth about $7 million, after he had it appraised in preparation for selling part of his ranch. The appraiser put Cook in touch with Alec Stewart, dean of the university's honors college and the appraiser's graduate school classmate. Cook said the university's interest "seemed kind of in line with what I'd like - that the land would be preserved." The land is "littered with fossils," said Mary Dawson, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who visited the ranch several years ago. "They have a real gem out there," she said....
Clogged Rockies Highway Divides Coloradans When Interstate 70 was built through here in the 1960's and 70's, the Colorado Rockies were largely rural and remote, and the old roads that the highway replaced were a widely recognized danger. Over the years, as the population grew, delays and frustrations on the highway began to mount. Traffic jams at nosebleed altitude became common. In 8,800-foot-high Silverthorne, which was little more than a gas station pit stop a generation ago, with a grocery that got fresh produce only on Thursdays, alpine meadows gave way to factory outlet stores. Now state officials are considering a major and contentious widening project for Interstate 70 that is dividing people over the question of who the highway is for and how it transformed these mountains. The project is a variation of a drama that is playing out across much of the West as once-rural outposts are transformed into brimming settlements with newfound political and economic clout in transportation decisions....
Circle the wagons The afternoon crowd was beginning to trickle through Gate 3 at the Manatee County Fair, and Hub Hubbell was ready. Duded up in boots, jeans, denim shirt, vest, red bandanna and a sweat-stained cowboy hat, the lifelong rodeo cowboy, now 87, was tinkering with his rustic chuck wagon, parked on the grass off to the right of the main gate. "No horses this time," said Hubbell, who has entertained folks for more than six decades as a rider, announcer and performer with his trick ponies. "I'm going to talk about the hardships on the trail." The chuck wagon was his podium. It was a mini-replica of the Old West covered wagons with the big spoked wheels that helped keep cowpokes fed on those long cattle drives from Texas to Kansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Montana and even Canada after the Civil War. "This is similar to the ones made in 1865, but the real ones were about six-foot longer, a foot higher and a foot wider," said Hubbell, who bought the chuck wagon from a collector in Sarasota five years ago. "I tried to fix this up as original as they made it back then. I could take this on the trail. It's pretty solid."....
George Bush To Star in Sequel to ‘Brokeback Mountain’ In a surprisingly public disclosure, President Bush has revealed that he will star in a sequel to the award-winning yet controversial movie ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ which he also stated that he “thoroughly enjoyed.” During a Q&A session at Kansas State University, a young male student humorously asked Bush if he has seen the Hollywood hit about two homosexual cowboys in Wyoming. But Bush’s answer startled the audience. "I have seen it and thoroughly enjoyed it," Bush said flatly of the critically acclaimed love story, to nervous laughter. The sequel will be called “Brokeback Whitehouse” in which Twist discovers he has a rich queer uncle in Washington, DC. They get invited to the White House and the president helps them drill an oil well in Wyoming....
FLE
Patriot Act Talks Hit Roadblock On Privacy Issue
Efforts to resolve House and Senate differences over a revised USA Patriot Act have reached a stalemate, a key committee chairman said yesterday. That means the current version of the law is likely to remain in place through next month or longer unless Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans drop their demands for greater privacy safeguards in a proposed renewal, the chairman said. But another senator said that the Bush administration continues to discuss possible changes, and that a resolution of the impasse is still possible. "I can tell you, after talking to Chairman Sensenbrenner, that the House feels that they've gone as far as they can go on compromises on the act," Specter told colleagues. "And I think the reality may be that we're looking at either the current act extended [beyond Feb. 3], or the conference report," which continues to draw opposition from most Senate Democrats and four Republicans. One of the four -- Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) -- said in an interview yesterday that in recent days he has held discussions with administration officials focused on "the few specific areas where we think the conference report can be improved." If a compromise cannot be reached by Feb. 3, he said, another short-term extension may provide the needed time. The main disagreements center on provisions that allow FBI agents to obtain records on terrorism suspects, who have very limited options for challenging such searches. Specter has said the law allows adequate "judicial review" of proposed searches. But Sununu and his allies say the law makes it virtually impossible for targeted people to prevail, even if they have no ties to terrorism....
Unfathomed Dangers in PATRIOT Act Reauthorization
A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV. Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'" This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security." The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony." The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance" (SENS). "A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and arrest people at their discretion. The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"? The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being used only in this way....
Lawsuit unites Bush allies, enemies
The lawsuits launched last week against the administration's program of warantless wiretaps against Americans believed to be in contact with suspected terrorists unite liberals and conservatives, but some legal experts believe they will have a tough time winning their case. Administration officials have argued that there were two sets of legal foundations for the program, which was run by the National Security Agency, or NSA, and which President Bush says he authorized in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks. First, they say a resolution passed by Congress a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, authorizing the president to use military force against the perpetrators, implicitly allows the collection of foreign signals intelligence, even involving Americans. This second, deeper, basis for the program's legality is that as the nation's executive and commander-in-chief, the president has the inherent power, indeed the duty, to conduct foreign intelligence gathering -- including electronic surveillance of telephone calls and e-mails -- in order to protect the nation from attack. "This constitutional authority includes the authority to order warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States," Moschella wrote. Some critics argue that the president's authority to collect foreign intelligence simply does not extend to the United States itself. "Just like we don't use the Marines to patrol the streets of the United States, we don't use NSA to do law enforcement or eavesdrop on American citizens," said James Bamford, a journalist who has written several books on the agency. Specter and other critics argue that the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act limits the president's power to listen to communications in America -- even for the purposes of foreign intelligence collection -- unless there is probable cause to believe the person being surveilled is the agent of a foreign power. Robert Turner, a law professor at the University of Virginia and a former senior official who worked on intelligence issues as a Reagan White House lawyer, scoffs at both positions. "It's been the position of every administration since wire-tapping was invented that the president has this power for foreign intelligence, and every court that has looked at it has upheld it."....
Bush Steps Up Defense of Wiretaps, Patriot Act
President Bush today strongly defended the National Security Agency's spying on Americans and the Patriot Act — calling both legitimate tools in the fight against terrorism — as he launched a public embrace of the eavesdropping and sought to turn it into a political advantage. Arguing that his administration had repeatedly informed congressional leaders about the NSA program, the president said, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush offered his lengthiest public explanation of what the administration has taken to calling the "terrorist surveillance program" since it was revealed last month, much to his dismay. Referring approvingly to a 2004 Supreme Court case, he told an audience here: "I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It said, 'Mr. President, you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how.'" The court said that the resolution Congress passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks granting Bush the authority to use whatever force necessary to protect the nation from terrorism gave him, as commander in chief, the power to hold prisoners who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan....
Former NSA Head Gen. Hayden Grilled by Journalists on NSA Eavesdropping on U.S. Citizens
We return now to the rare news conference held by General Michael Hayden, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former head of the N.S.A., speaking to reporters and others on Monday in Washington, D.C., as part of a public relations offensive by the Bush administration to defend the N.S.A.'s eavesdropping on American citizens without court warrant. In a separate speech later in the day, President Bush repeated his argument. He had the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program without congressional approval. Meanwhile, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to discuss the legal justification for the program today. And on Wednesday, President Bush will pay a rare visit to N.S.A. headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. But it was General Hayden who launched the media offensive Monday morning. These are the excerpts of the news conference, beginning with Hayden being questioned by a reporter....
The Probable Cause of the NSA Controversy
We are either at war or we are not. If we are, the president of the United States, whom the Constitution makes the commander-in-chief of our military forces, is empowered to conduct the war — meaning he has unreviewable authority to employ all of the essential incidents of war fighting. Not some of them. All of them. Including eavesdropping on potential enemy communications. That eavesdropping — whether you wish to refer to it by the loaded "spying" or go more high-tech with "electronic surveillance" or "signals intelligence" — is as much an incident of warfare as choosing which targets to bomb, which hills to capture, and which enemies to detain. It was critical in the Civil War, when, by definition, it was done domestically — and without the slightest suggestion that federal courts should be involved. It was critical in World War II, when concerns about enemy infiltration were very real. And it is perhaps more critical today than during any war in our nation's history. Al Qaeda is an international terrorist network. We cannot defeat it by conquering territory. It has none. We cannot round up its citizens. Its allegiance is to an ideology that makes nationality irrelevant. To defeat it and defend ourselves, we can only acquire intelligence — intercept its communications and thwart its plans. Nothing else will do....
Bizarre scene fuels border concerns
U.S. and Mexican officials on Tuesday were investigating a bizarre encounter between Texas lawmen and heavily armed intruders who were wearing Mexican military uniforms while evidently escorting a caravan of sport utility vehicles that was smuggling marijuana into the United States. The smugglers, spotted on the U.S. side of the border in remote western Texas on Monday afternoon, hastily fled back into Mexico, leaving behind nearly a half ton of marijuana and setting one of their vehicles ablaze. Although no shots were fired and no one was hurt, the episode — along with an incident in November — heightened fears that Mexican traffickers and U.S. border agents are headed for a potentially deadly confrontation. American officers, who have long complained about being outgunned along the border, point out that the armed men seen Monday were riding in a military-style Humvee equipped with what looked like 50-caliber machine guns. ''It's an explosive situation," said Becky Dean-Parker, a Hudspeth County judge and local rancher. ''This is the second major incident where people with military-type uniforms and weaponry came in the defense of drug loads. We are very, very concerned because all it would take is one person to pull the trigger and it's going to be a disaster." Kristi M. Clemens, assistant commissioner for U.S. customs and border protection, issued a statement saying the agency is reviewing the confrontation and has asked the Mexican government for a ''thorough investigation."....
Patriot Act Talks Hit Roadblock On Privacy Issue
Efforts to resolve House and Senate differences over a revised USA Patriot Act have reached a stalemate, a key committee chairman said yesterday. That means the current version of the law is likely to remain in place through next month or longer unless Senate Democrats and a handful of Republicans drop their demands for greater privacy safeguards in a proposed renewal, the chairman said. But another senator said that the Bush administration continues to discuss possible changes, and that a resolution of the impasse is still possible. "I can tell you, after talking to Chairman Sensenbrenner, that the House feels that they've gone as far as they can go on compromises on the act," Specter told colleagues. "And I think the reality may be that we're looking at either the current act extended [beyond Feb. 3], or the conference report," which continues to draw opposition from most Senate Democrats and four Republicans. One of the four -- Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.) -- said in an interview yesterday that in recent days he has held discussions with administration officials focused on "the few specific areas where we think the conference report can be improved." If a compromise cannot be reached by Feb. 3, he said, another short-term extension may provide the needed time. The main disagreements center on provisions that allow FBI agents to obtain records on terrorism suspects, who have very limited options for challenging such searches. Specter has said the law allows adequate "judicial review" of proposed searches. But Sununu and his allies say the law makes it virtually impossible for targeted people to prevail, even if they have no ties to terrorism....
Unfathomed Dangers in PATRIOT Act Reauthorization
A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV. Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'" This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security." The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony." The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance" (SENS). "A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and arrest people at their discretion. The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"? The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being used only in this way....
Lawsuit unites Bush allies, enemies
The lawsuits launched last week against the administration's program of warantless wiretaps against Americans believed to be in contact with suspected terrorists unite liberals and conservatives, but some legal experts believe they will have a tough time winning their case. Administration officials have argued that there were two sets of legal foundations for the program, which was run by the National Security Agency, or NSA, and which President Bush says he authorized in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks. First, they say a resolution passed by Congress a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, authorizing the president to use military force against the perpetrators, implicitly allows the collection of foreign signals intelligence, even involving Americans. This second, deeper, basis for the program's legality is that as the nation's executive and commander-in-chief, the president has the inherent power, indeed the duty, to conduct foreign intelligence gathering -- including electronic surveillance of telephone calls and e-mails -- in order to protect the nation from attack. "This constitutional authority includes the authority to order warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance in the United States," Moschella wrote. Some critics argue that the president's authority to collect foreign intelligence simply does not extend to the United States itself. "Just like we don't use the Marines to patrol the streets of the United States, we don't use NSA to do law enforcement or eavesdrop on American citizens," said James Bamford, a journalist who has written several books on the agency. Specter and other critics argue that the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act limits the president's power to listen to communications in America -- even for the purposes of foreign intelligence collection -- unless there is probable cause to believe the person being surveilled is the agent of a foreign power. Robert Turner, a law professor at the University of Virginia and a former senior official who worked on intelligence issues as a Reagan White House lawyer, scoffs at both positions. "It's been the position of every administration since wire-tapping was invented that the president has this power for foreign intelligence, and every court that has looked at it has upheld it."....
Bush Steps Up Defense of Wiretaps, Patriot Act
President Bush today strongly defended the National Security Agency's spying on Americans and the Patriot Act — calling both legitimate tools in the fight against terrorism — as he launched a public embrace of the eavesdropping and sought to turn it into a political advantage. Arguing that his administration had repeatedly informed congressional leaders about the NSA program, the president said, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush offered his lengthiest public explanation of what the administration has taken to calling the "terrorist surveillance program" since it was revealed last month, much to his dismay. Referring approvingly to a 2004 Supreme Court case, he told an audience here: "I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It said, 'Mr. President, you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how.'" The court said that the resolution Congress passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks granting Bush the authority to use whatever force necessary to protect the nation from terrorism gave him, as commander in chief, the power to hold prisoners who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan....
Former NSA Head Gen. Hayden Grilled by Journalists on NSA Eavesdropping on U.S. Citizens
We return now to the rare news conference held by General Michael Hayden, the Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former head of the N.S.A., speaking to reporters and others on Monday in Washington, D.C., as part of a public relations offensive by the Bush administration to defend the N.S.A.'s eavesdropping on American citizens without court warrant. In a separate speech later in the day, President Bush repeated his argument. He had the legal and constitutional authority to authorize the program without congressional approval. Meanwhile, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is scheduled to discuss the legal justification for the program today. And on Wednesday, President Bush will pay a rare visit to N.S.A. headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. But it was General Hayden who launched the media offensive Monday morning. These are the excerpts of the news conference, beginning with Hayden being questioned by a reporter....
The Probable Cause of the NSA Controversy
We are either at war or we are not. If we are, the president of the United States, whom the Constitution makes the commander-in-chief of our military forces, is empowered to conduct the war — meaning he has unreviewable authority to employ all of the essential incidents of war fighting. Not some of them. All of them. Including eavesdropping on potential enemy communications. That eavesdropping — whether you wish to refer to it by the loaded "spying" or go more high-tech with "electronic surveillance" or "signals intelligence" — is as much an incident of warfare as choosing which targets to bomb, which hills to capture, and which enemies to detain. It was critical in the Civil War, when, by definition, it was done domestically — and without the slightest suggestion that federal courts should be involved. It was critical in World War II, when concerns about enemy infiltration were very real. And it is perhaps more critical today than during any war in our nation's history. Al Qaeda is an international terrorist network. We cannot defeat it by conquering territory. It has none. We cannot round up its citizens. Its allegiance is to an ideology that makes nationality irrelevant. To defeat it and defend ourselves, we can only acquire intelligence — intercept its communications and thwart its plans. Nothing else will do....
Bizarre scene fuels border concerns
U.S. and Mexican officials on Tuesday were investigating a bizarre encounter between Texas lawmen and heavily armed intruders who were wearing Mexican military uniforms while evidently escorting a caravan of sport utility vehicles that was smuggling marijuana into the United States. The smugglers, spotted on the U.S. side of the border in remote western Texas on Monday afternoon, hastily fled back into Mexico, leaving behind nearly a half ton of marijuana and setting one of their vehicles ablaze. Although no shots were fired and no one was hurt, the episode — along with an incident in November — heightened fears that Mexican traffickers and U.S. border agents are headed for a potentially deadly confrontation. American officers, who have long complained about being outgunned along the border, point out that the armed men seen Monday were riding in a military-style Humvee equipped with what looked like 50-caliber machine guns. ''It's an explosive situation," said Becky Dean-Parker, a Hudspeth County judge and local rancher. ''This is the second major incident where people with military-type uniforms and weaponry came in the defense of drug loads. We are very, very concerned because all it would take is one person to pull the trigger and it's going to be a disaster." Kristi M. Clemens, assistant commissioner for U.S. customs and border protection, issued a statement saying the agency is reviewing the confrontation and has asked the Mexican government for a ''thorough investigation."....
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Activists, snowmobilers face off over caribou In the frozen Selkirk Mountains near the Canadian border, the last tiny herd of caribou in the Lower 48 states is fighting for survival. The less than three dozen remaining animals struggle with starvation, an increase of predators and, more recently, powerful snowmobiles that roar through their winter range. Conservationists have sued to ban snowmobiles from caribou habitat, and tension between the groups is rising. “There is no prospect for negotiation,” said Mark Sprengel of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, whose members have been branded domestic terrorists by some snowmobilers. He feels the same way about some snowmobilers, saying “I think these people are capable of extreme acts.” Critics contend snowmobiles disturb caribou during the winter, when they are already struggling to survive on low-nutrition lichen from old-growth trees. Modern snowmobiles have a wider range, allowing them to go deeper into caribou backcountry....
1st 2 suspects arraigned in $100M ecoterror Two of the eleven people indicted on charges they were part of a cell known as "The Family" that was responsible for a string of arsons from 1996 to 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin entered innocent pleas on behalf of Suzanne Savoie of Applegate and Kendall Tankersley, formerly known as Sarah Harvey, of Flagstaff. Savoie worked in a group home for the developmentally disabled in Ashland. Tankersley worked at Northern Arizona University and was trying to get into medical school. Both women face charges of conspiracy, which allege that they were part of a group still planning to carry out more attacks. Savoie, who turned herself in to the FBI last week and has known she was under suspicion since December, is accused of being the lookout in the 2001 firebombing of the Superior Lumber Co.'s offices in Glendale. A bail hearing was scheduled for today. Tankersley is accused of being the lookout for the 1998 firebombing of the now-defunct U.S. Forest Industries offices in Medford. Arrested last December in Flagstaff, she is free on $250,000 bail. The two were the first arraigned on a 65-count indictment returned last week....
Fourteeners-access bill advances Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, took his frustration over closed access to several of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks to the House Agriculture Committee on Monday. Access to Mounts Democrat, Lincoln and Bross, which are pocked with abandoned mines, was closed last summer by landowners worried that they might be sued if a hiker was injured on their property. Witwer's measure, House Bill 1049, would relieve property owners on the state's 14,000-foot mountains of liability as long as there is a marked trail around abandoned mines and warnings about the dangers. The bill passed unanimously in the agriculture committee and now goes to the full House for debate. Most of Colorado's Fourteeners are on U.S. Forest Service land, but the access routes to a handful of the lofty pinnacles are privately owned....
Out of bounds skiing dumb, but not illegal, feds say Ducking under the boundary ropes or scooting around the gates to ski and snowboard in the backcountry outside a developed resort might not be a very bright move, but it's not against federal law, according to the U.S. Forest Service. "We do not consider it a crime to leave the permit area. It goes against our grain to close the national forests," Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes told The Associated Press on Monday. "Our guiding principle is that national forests are public lands and we should not restrict access to the public's lands," Mathes said. "If someone wants to leave the ski area boundary and ski into the backcountry, that's their prerogative as a citizen. We do not consider it a crime." For some skiers and riders bored with following downhill tracks, the lure of pristine backcountry powder is too much to resist, even though it's in areas that are not controlled for avalanches or routinely patrolled....Yup, the same attitude or policy is applied to ranchers. Just move your cattle out of the permit area, no problem.
Congress allocates $54 million to help Missouri River wildlife The Missouri River's piping plovers and pallid sturgeon will have 54 million reasons to thank Congress this spring. Congress appropriated more than $54 million as part of a recovery effort for protected species along the entire length of the Missouri River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday. "It is a lot of money. We've never had that kind of funding for this kind of work," said Paul Johnston, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha. Work above Sioux City will focus on building sandbar habitat for least terns and piping plovers, monitoring adult populations and nesting success. Work below Sioux City will focus on acquiring and building shallow-water habitat for pallid sturgeon, hatchery improvements and monitoring populations and reproductive success, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers....
Judge recuses, hearing delayed in case over rare bird's habitat A hearing on a federal lawsuit to halt a $319 million irrigation project in the newly discovered ivory-billed woodpecker's habitat was postponed Monday after the judge recused from hearing the case. U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele disqualied himself after discovering that the Audubon Society, an organization to which he has donated money in the past, had filed a brief on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, said Richard Mays, an attorney for the plaintiff. The case was later assigned to U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson and the hearing was rescheduled for Feb. 6 in Jonesboro. The Grand Prairie irrigation project calls for the construction of an intricate system of canals and piping to bring as much as 115 billion gallons of water a day from the White River to 1,000 eastern Arkansas farmers....
A Real-Life Jurassic Park For the first 3.5 million years or so, woolly mammoths had it pretty easy. Standing more than three meters tall and weighing seven tons, they dwarfed the rest of the animal kingdom. That allowed them to graze or gambol or make more woolly mammoths without any predators to worry about. Then their luck began to sour about 20,000 years ago. Humans showed up in the Eurasian plain and, a few millenniums later, in North America, wielding high-tech weapons of carved bone and stone. Soon the regal Elephantidae were on the run from Siberia to Saskatchewan. Most scholars now agree that hunters—more than climate change or a mystery epidemic—are what doomed the mammoths. Whatever the cause, by 11,000 years ago the king of the Pleistocene was a goner. Or so it seemed. If a group of devotees has its way, this shaggy ice-age mascot—and a host of other bygone megafauna besides—may yet walk again. Last month, writing in the journal Science, zoologist Alexei Tikhonov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History announced that they had decoded 13 million base pairs of DNA extracted from the jawbone of a frozen mammoth that died 28,000 years ago on the Siberian steppe. The scientists, in other words, had managed to assemble half the woolly-mammoth genome; they claimed that in three years they could finish the job. That would put scientists within striking distance of an even greater feat: repopulating the earth with creatures that vanished ages ago....
Conservation Group Moves for Court Order Restricting Use of 66 Pesticides in Core Red-Legged Frog Habitat The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in a legal motion today asked a U.S. District Court to protect the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii) from 66 of the most toxic and persistent pesticides authorized for use in California, by creating pesticide-free buffer zones around the frog’s core habitat and by requiring consumer hazard warnings so that all Californians may learn how to protect frogs. In response to a lawsuit filed by CBD against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April of 2002, the District Court found in September of 2005 that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by registering pesticides for use without considering how they might impact the continued existence of the red-legged frog. The motion for “injunctive relief” delivered today asks the court to protect the frog from pesticides in or adjacent to aquatic frog habitat designated as core recovery areas, until the EPA completes a formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the impacts of the pesticides on red-legged frogs, as required under the ESA....
Utilities rethink costs of hydroelectric Even with high prices for energy today, PGE has decided the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project that went on line in 1913 is no longer economical, can be replaced more cheaply by wind generation and causes too much harm to salmon for the power it produces. The utility is spending $17 million to remove the Marmot and Little Sandy dams and Roslyn Lake between 2007 and 2008, and donating 1,500 acres for fish and wildlife habitat and public recreation. Utilities around the West are facing similar choices, weighing the economic, social and environmental costs of hydroelectric projects that made sense 100 years ago but now pose significant problems not just economically but for fish and wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act....
Colton wants to shoo fly off endangered list After years of meeting stringent conservation laws that impede development, Colton officials are seeking the removal of the Delhi Sands Flower Loving Fly from the endangered species list. In an 11-page report submitted Jan. 3, officials argue that removal should be granted because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for the fly without going through the required process. The report also says that sufficient habitat for the fly has been established, the insect doesn't appear to be native to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, its recovery plan is ambiguous and unachievable, and Colton's sandy soil doesn't translate to fly habitat. City Manager Daryl Parrish said years of negotiations with Fish and Wildlife have been unsuccessful in creating a plan that would protect the fly and not interfere with development. Lack of scientific data about the fly also has sparked some doubt....
Navajos legislate to stop potential uranium rush As the price of uranium continues to rise, so does the potential for another uranium rush in Arizona - something Navajos are trying to stop. Last year, 700 mining claims were filed and 100 test holes were bored into the remote high desert in northern Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported. Scott Florence, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Arizona Strip district in St. George, Utah, said those numbers are significantly higher than any year since the frenzy of the 1980s. ''Finding the right mine site is a real art. But it seems like everyone and their mother is trying now,'' Florence said. Fueling the hunt is the price of uranium, which has tripled in the past two years to $36 a pound on the spot market. At the height of the last rush in 1979, uranium got to $43 a pound. Fearing another rush, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. issued an executive order in November banning negotiations with uranium companies or uranium exploration on the three-state Navajo Nation. Arizona, which has the richest deposits of the ore, also has the worst legacy associated with its mining, along with New Mexico....
BLM firefighter pleads innocent to arson in Nevada wildfires A U.S. Bureau of Land Management firefighter pleaded innocent on Monday to federal arson charges in three wildfires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest in central Nevada this summer. Mark E. Morgan, 34, was working temporarily as a member of a BLM fire crew when he allegedly set the fires in August in Lander County about 170 miles east of Reno. According to an indictment filed on Wednesday, he set the fires in underbrush, grass and timber. He was released on recognizance following a 5-minute appearance before U.S. Magistrate Robert A. McQuaid Jr., who set trial for March 28. Morgan was ordered to perform no firefighting duties in the interim....
Bison quarantine facility filling up A brucellosis quarantine facility at Corwin Springs now holds 100 bison calves, and work there can begin in earnest, according to a state scientist running the program. The goal is to see if it's possible to provide "disease-free, clean animals" that have the vigorous genetics of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd, according to Keith Aune, a Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife researcher. The National Park Service has captured 651 bison so far this winter, and the vast majority of them will be shipped to slaughter, without any testing for brucellosis, a chronic disease in the herd. As of Monday, all but 175 had been trucked away. While that process has attracted widespread controversy, the quarantine experiment is quietly getting under way at Corwin Springs, behind the tall fences of a former elk farm just a few miles from the bison trap at Stephens Creek....
Report: No progress in snowmobile emissions since '01 An in-house Yellowstone National Park document alleges that the snowmobile industry hasn't improved the environmental friendliness of its four-stroke snowmobiles since 2001. Additionally, a long-awaited emissions study of snowmobiles and snowcoaches by Yellowstone National Park notes that even the cleanest snowmobiles have failed to meet projected improvements in emissions. The information indicates that snowcoaches are vastly cleaner than snowmobiles, particularly on a per-visitor basis. The study, expected to be released by the National Park Service, has data similar to a draft study obtained last September, save that snowcoaches emerge as slightly cleaner, meaning they're as much as 41 times cleaner on a per-visitor basis than the least-polluting snowmobiles operating in the park....
Wolves kill hound on lion hunt A wolf pack has killed a mountain lion hunter's hound dog near Cody. Jason Morrison was hunting in the Sunlight Basin with five hounds early last week. He said the hounds were on a lion's trail when they came upon a wolf pack eating a bull elk. "Wolves will not tolerate other dogs, and they must have heard the hound dogs working the tracks," Morrison said. Eight wolf pups were eating the elk, and the adult wolves standing guard attacked and killed his hound, he said. The four other hounds returned to Morrison and the rest of the hunting party. Morrison said the wolves, "killed the dog and were tracking the other dogs that turned back to us. As near as I can tell, they probably intended to get them, too." Wolf specialist Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the 10-year-old hound was killed by wolves, which had also killed the elk....
EPA Obtains Agencywide Access To GlobeXplorer Online Earth Imagery Services GlobeXplorer announced that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. EPA to make its earth imagery and map data available to all of EPA's staff nationwide. High resolution aerial, satellite, and map data will be available through GlobeXplorer's ImageConnect extensions for GIS software and imbedded in several EPA Web applications. The EPA uses GlobeXplorer's data in several project types, including Superfund site work, wetland analysis, pesticide analysis, endangered species protection and emergency response. ImageConnect is being used extensively by EPA GIS staff for Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts in Louisiana....
Group Seeks Souter Eviction As Protest Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home. The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized to build an inn called the "Lost Liberty Hotel." They submitted enough petition signatures only 25 were needed to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support. "This is in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party and the Pine Tree Riot," Organizer Logan Darrow Clements said, referring to the riot that took place during the winter of 1771-1772, when colonists in Weare beat up officials appointed by King George III who fined them for logging white pines without approval. "All we're trying to do is put an end to eminent domain abuse," Clements said, by having those who advocate or facilitate it "live under it, so they understand why it needs to end."....
South Dakota House committee approves limits on property condemnation South Dakota's laws should be tightened to make sure government agencies cannot condemn land for economic development, a state legislative committee recommended Monday. The measure was introduced in response to a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Connecticut case. The nation's highest court ruled that the city of New London could condemn some private homes to make way for a hotel and convention center, but some justices noted that states can pass additional restrictions on the power of eminent domain. The bill's main sponsor, House Republican Leader Larry Rhoden of Union Center, said he believes existing provisions in the state's constitution and laws would prevent what happened in Connecticut from occurring in South Dakota. However, HB1080 would clarify South Dakota's intent that eminent domain not be used for to obtain land for private development, Rhoden said....
Penrose man takes pride in custom-made coverings It takes attitude to wear a fine hat. Ask Tom Hirt, a custom hatter who's covered heads belonging to Ronald Reagan, Sam Elliott, Burt Reynolds, Charlie Daniels and Buck Taylor, and he'll demonstrate. Pulling on his own hat, he tilts it slightly to the left and up - a gesture so well-worn it might as well be breathing. Hirt, 55, and hats go way back. He started veterinary school in the 1970s but got a two-year horse-management degree instead. Well-acquainted with horses and things Western, he did some movie work - including doubling for Richard Farnsworth in "Comes a Horseman" - that was cut short by an actors' strike in the late ’70s. Jobless, he wandered into the late Art Henderson's hat shop in Colorado Springs. He apprenticed with Henderson and when the older man retired, purchased his hat-making business. Hirt was a rarity then, but today there are more custom hat-makers than ever; maybe 50 to 75 in the country. And interest in learning the art appears to be strong. Hirt has given short hat-making courses at university art departments, at museums and was invited to do one at this year's cowboy poetry gathering at Elko, Nev., but he's not sure how many people he wants to teach - and perhaps put into competition with himself....
Keeping the West Western In the early 1960s, when Jim Brooks was looking for a cowboying job, the going wage was $150 a month and found. A rancher gave a guy an extra dollar a day for riding the rough-string. If you were young and needing a job, a cowboss would take advantage of that. An unemployed Brooks drove into Newcastle, Wyoming, and hung around town for three days, eating bread and baloney. Smitty Smith, of the Keeline Ranch, heard Brooks was in town, looked him up and said, 'I have a job for you. Come on out." Smith had a bunch of spoiled horses for Brooks to throw his saddle on. Two horses in the bunch, Bay Bud and Blue Jay, had quite the reputations. But that didn't scare Brooks, a veteran cowboy used to getting on the toughest horses his bosses had to offer. "They always gave me the worst horses," Brooks said. "But I always said the worst horse in the cavvy was my best horse." Today, Brooks' days of breaking renegade colts are well behind him. But he's still doing his part to keep western traditions alive. The city of Norco, California, has hired Brooks to teach area kids about roping, riding and the cowboy lifestyle. He's also a cowboy poet, musician and western performer....
It's All Trew: Preparedness helps when faced with Mother Nature Having been born and raised on the Great Plains, which is covered with heavy black soil, I certainly know what mud is and the problems it can cause. Some of my earliest memories occurred on a yellow school bus grinding its way along muddy roads with mud chains biting into the black mud. Our home today is located along Jericho Gap, the famous section of Route 66 where tourists were bogged down in black gumbo mud in their travels. Even in my wildest stretch of imagination, I would not build a home atop or below a potential mud slide and endanger my family and possessions. The closest thing to flooding I have experienced was during an 8-inch rain in Ochiltree County in 1945. I’ll swear the water ran uphill all around our farm for hours afterward. Another rain here at the ranch on April 2, 1997, dropped 7 inches in about 24 hours. Our canyons changed so drastically we had to find new trails to ride....
Activists, snowmobilers face off over caribou In the frozen Selkirk Mountains near the Canadian border, the last tiny herd of caribou in the Lower 48 states is fighting for survival. The less than three dozen remaining animals struggle with starvation, an increase of predators and, more recently, powerful snowmobiles that roar through their winter range. Conservationists have sued to ban snowmobiles from caribou habitat, and tension between the groups is rising. “There is no prospect for negotiation,” said Mark Sprengel of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, whose members have been branded domestic terrorists by some snowmobilers. He feels the same way about some snowmobilers, saying “I think these people are capable of extreme acts.” Critics contend snowmobiles disturb caribou during the winter, when they are already struggling to survive on low-nutrition lichen from old-growth trees. Modern snowmobiles have a wider range, allowing them to go deeper into caribou backcountry....
1st 2 suspects arraigned in $100M ecoterror Two of the eleven people indicted on charges they were part of a cell known as "The Family" that was responsible for a string of arsons from 1996 to 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin entered innocent pleas on behalf of Suzanne Savoie of Applegate and Kendall Tankersley, formerly known as Sarah Harvey, of Flagstaff. Savoie worked in a group home for the developmentally disabled in Ashland. Tankersley worked at Northern Arizona University and was trying to get into medical school. Both women face charges of conspiracy, which allege that they were part of a group still planning to carry out more attacks. Savoie, who turned herself in to the FBI last week and has known she was under suspicion since December, is accused of being the lookout in the 2001 firebombing of the Superior Lumber Co.'s offices in Glendale. A bail hearing was scheduled for today. Tankersley is accused of being the lookout for the 1998 firebombing of the now-defunct U.S. Forest Industries offices in Medford. Arrested last December in Flagstaff, she is free on $250,000 bail. The two were the first arraigned on a 65-count indictment returned last week....
Fourteeners-access bill advances Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, took his frustration over closed access to several of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks to the House Agriculture Committee on Monday. Access to Mounts Democrat, Lincoln and Bross, which are pocked with abandoned mines, was closed last summer by landowners worried that they might be sued if a hiker was injured on their property. Witwer's measure, House Bill 1049, would relieve property owners on the state's 14,000-foot mountains of liability as long as there is a marked trail around abandoned mines and warnings about the dangers. The bill passed unanimously in the agriculture committee and now goes to the full House for debate. Most of Colorado's Fourteeners are on U.S. Forest Service land, but the access routes to a handful of the lofty pinnacles are privately owned....
Out of bounds skiing dumb, but not illegal, feds say Ducking under the boundary ropes or scooting around the gates to ski and snowboard in the backcountry outside a developed resort might not be a very bright move, but it's not against federal law, according to the U.S. Forest Service. "We do not consider it a crime to leave the permit area. It goes against our grain to close the national forests," Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes told The Associated Press on Monday. "Our guiding principle is that national forests are public lands and we should not restrict access to the public's lands," Mathes said. "If someone wants to leave the ski area boundary and ski into the backcountry, that's their prerogative as a citizen. We do not consider it a crime." For some skiers and riders bored with following downhill tracks, the lure of pristine backcountry powder is too much to resist, even though it's in areas that are not controlled for avalanches or routinely patrolled....Yup, the same attitude or policy is applied to ranchers. Just move your cattle out of the permit area, no problem.
Congress allocates $54 million to help Missouri River wildlife The Missouri River's piping plovers and pallid sturgeon will have 54 million reasons to thank Congress this spring. Congress appropriated more than $54 million as part of a recovery effort for protected species along the entire length of the Missouri River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday. "It is a lot of money. We've never had that kind of funding for this kind of work," said Paul Johnston, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha. Work above Sioux City will focus on building sandbar habitat for least terns and piping plovers, monitoring adult populations and nesting success. Work below Sioux City will focus on acquiring and building shallow-water habitat for pallid sturgeon, hatchery improvements and monitoring populations and reproductive success, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers....
Judge recuses, hearing delayed in case over rare bird's habitat A hearing on a federal lawsuit to halt a $319 million irrigation project in the newly discovered ivory-billed woodpecker's habitat was postponed Monday after the judge recused from hearing the case. U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele disqualied himself after discovering that the Audubon Society, an organization to which he has donated money in the past, had filed a brief on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, said Richard Mays, an attorney for the plaintiff. The case was later assigned to U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson and the hearing was rescheduled for Feb. 6 in Jonesboro. The Grand Prairie irrigation project calls for the construction of an intricate system of canals and piping to bring as much as 115 billion gallons of water a day from the White River to 1,000 eastern Arkansas farmers....
A Real-Life Jurassic Park For the first 3.5 million years or so, woolly mammoths had it pretty easy. Standing more than three meters tall and weighing seven tons, they dwarfed the rest of the animal kingdom. That allowed them to graze or gambol or make more woolly mammoths without any predators to worry about. Then their luck began to sour about 20,000 years ago. Humans showed up in the Eurasian plain and, a few millenniums later, in North America, wielding high-tech weapons of carved bone and stone. Soon the regal Elephantidae were on the run from Siberia to Saskatchewan. Most scholars now agree that hunters—more than climate change or a mystery epidemic—are what doomed the mammoths. Whatever the cause, by 11,000 years ago the king of the Pleistocene was a goner. Or so it seemed. If a group of devotees has its way, this shaggy ice-age mascot—and a host of other bygone megafauna besides—may yet walk again. Last month, writing in the journal Science, zoologist Alexei Tikhonov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History announced that they had decoded 13 million base pairs of DNA extracted from the jawbone of a frozen mammoth that died 28,000 years ago on the Siberian steppe. The scientists, in other words, had managed to assemble half the woolly-mammoth genome; they claimed that in three years they could finish the job. That would put scientists within striking distance of an even greater feat: repopulating the earth with creatures that vanished ages ago....
Conservation Group Moves for Court Order Restricting Use of 66 Pesticides in Core Red-Legged Frog Habitat The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in a legal motion today asked a U.S. District Court to protect the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii) from 66 of the most toxic and persistent pesticides authorized for use in California, by creating pesticide-free buffer zones around the frog’s core habitat and by requiring consumer hazard warnings so that all Californians may learn how to protect frogs. In response to a lawsuit filed by CBD against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April of 2002, the District Court found in September of 2005 that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by registering pesticides for use without considering how they might impact the continued existence of the red-legged frog. The motion for “injunctive relief” delivered today asks the court to protect the frog from pesticides in or adjacent to aquatic frog habitat designated as core recovery areas, until the EPA completes a formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the impacts of the pesticides on red-legged frogs, as required under the ESA....
Utilities rethink costs of hydroelectric Even with high prices for energy today, PGE has decided the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project that went on line in 1913 is no longer economical, can be replaced more cheaply by wind generation and causes too much harm to salmon for the power it produces. The utility is spending $17 million to remove the Marmot and Little Sandy dams and Roslyn Lake between 2007 and 2008, and donating 1,500 acres for fish and wildlife habitat and public recreation. Utilities around the West are facing similar choices, weighing the economic, social and environmental costs of hydroelectric projects that made sense 100 years ago but now pose significant problems not just economically but for fish and wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act....
Colton wants to shoo fly off endangered list After years of meeting stringent conservation laws that impede development, Colton officials are seeking the removal of the Delhi Sands Flower Loving Fly from the endangered species list. In an 11-page report submitted Jan. 3, officials argue that removal should be granted because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for the fly without going through the required process. The report also says that sufficient habitat for the fly has been established, the insect doesn't appear to be native to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, its recovery plan is ambiguous and unachievable, and Colton's sandy soil doesn't translate to fly habitat. City Manager Daryl Parrish said years of negotiations with Fish and Wildlife have been unsuccessful in creating a plan that would protect the fly and not interfere with development. Lack of scientific data about the fly also has sparked some doubt....
Navajos legislate to stop potential uranium rush As the price of uranium continues to rise, so does the potential for another uranium rush in Arizona - something Navajos are trying to stop. Last year, 700 mining claims were filed and 100 test holes were bored into the remote high desert in northern Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported. Scott Florence, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Arizona Strip district in St. George, Utah, said those numbers are significantly higher than any year since the frenzy of the 1980s. ''Finding the right mine site is a real art. But it seems like everyone and their mother is trying now,'' Florence said. Fueling the hunt is the price of uranium, which has tripled in the past two years to $36 a pound on the spot market. At the height of the last rush in 1979, uranium got to $43 a pound. Fearing another rush, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. issued an executive order in November banning negotiations with uranium companies or uranium exploration on the three-state Navajo Nation. Arizona, which has the richest deposits of the ore, also has the worst legacy associated with its mining, along with New Mexico....
BLM firefighter pleads innocent to arson in Nevada wildfires A U.S. Bureau of Land Management firefighter pleaded innocent on Monday to federal arson charges in three wildfires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest in central Nevada this summer. Mark E. Morgan, 34, was working temporarily as a member of a BLM fire crew when he allegedly set the fires in August in Lander County about 170 miles east of Reno. According to an indictment filed on Wednesday, he set the fires in underbrush, grass and timber. He was released on recognizance following a 5-minute appearance before U.S. Magistrate Robert A. McQuaid Jr., who set trial for March 28. Morgan was ordered to perform no firefighting duties in the interim....
Bison quarantine facility filling up A brucellosis quarantine facility at Corwin Springs now holds 100 bison calves, and work there can begin in earnest, according to a state scientist running the program. The goal is to see if it's possible to provide "disease-free, clean animals" that have the vigorous genetics of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd, according to Keith Aune, a Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife researcher. The National Park Service has captured 651 bison so far this winter, and the vast majority of them will be shipped to slaughter, without any testing for brucellosis, a chronic disease in the herd. As of Monday, all but 175 had been trucked away. While that process has attracted widespread controversy, the quarantine experiment is quietly getting under way at Corwin Springs, behind the tall fences of a former elk farm just a few miles from the bison trap at Stephens Creek....
Report: No progress in snowmobile emissions since '01 An in-house Yellowstone National Park document alleges that the snowmobile industry hasn't improved the environmental friendliness of its four-stroke snowmobiles since 2001. Additionally, a long-awaited emissions study of snowmobiles and snowcoaches by Yellowstone National Park notes that even the cleanest snowmobiles have failed to meet projected improvements in emissions. The information indicates that snowcoaches are vastly cleaner than snowmobiles, particularly on a per-visitor basis. The study, expected to be released by the National Park Service, has data similar to a draft study obtained last September, save that snowcoaches emerge as slightly cleaner, meaning they're as much as 41 times cleaner on a per-visitor basis than the least-polluting snowmobiles operating in the park....
Wolves kill hound on lion hunt A wolf pack has killed a mountain lion hunter's hound dog near Cody. Jason Morrison was hunting in the Sunlight Basin with five hounds early last week. He said the hounds were on a lion's trail when they came upon a wolf pack eating a bull elk. "Wolves will not tolerate other dogs, and they must have heard the hound dogs working the tracks," Morrison said. Eight wolf pups were eating the elk, and the adult wolves standing guard attacked and killed his hound, he said. The four other hounds returned to Morrison and the rest of the hunting party. Morrison said the wolves, "killed the dog and were tracking the other dogs that turned back to us. As near as I can tell, they probably intended to get them, too." Wolf specialist Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the 10-year-old hound was killed by wolves, which had also killed the elk....
EPA Obtains Agencywide Access To GlobeXplorer Online Earth Imagery Services GlobeXplorer announced that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. EPA to make its earth imagery and map data available to all of EPA's staff nationwide. High resolution aerial, satellite, and map data will be available through GlobeXplorer's ImageConnect extensions for GIS software and imbedded in several EPA Web applications. The EPA uses GlobeXplorer's data in several project types, including Superfund site work, wetland analysis, pesticide analysis, endangered species protection and emergency response. ImageConnect is being used extensively by EPA GIS staff for Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts in Louisiana....
Group Seeks Souter Eviction As Protest Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home. The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized to build an inn called the "Lost Liberty Hotel." They submitted enough petition signatures only 25 were needed to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support. "This is in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party and the Pine Tree Riot," Organizer Logan Darrow Clements said, referring to the riot that took place during the winter of 1771-1772, when colonists in Weare beat up officials appointed by King George III who fined them for logging white pines without approval. "All we're trying to do is put an end to eminent domain abuse," Clements said, by having those who advocate or facilitate it "live under it, so they understand why it needs to end."....
South Dakota House committee approves limits on property condemnation South Dakota's laws should be tightened to make sure government agencies cannot condemn land for economic development, a state legislative committee recommended Monday. The measure was introduced in response to a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Connecticut case. The nation's highest court ruled that the city of New London could condemn some private homes to make way for a hotel and convention center, but some justices noted that states can pass additional restrictions on the power of eminent domain. The bill's main sponsor, House Republican Leader Larry Rhoden of Union Center, said he believes existing provisions in the state's constitution and laws would prevent what happened in Connecticut from occurring in South Dakota. However, HB1080 would clarify South Dakota's intent that eminent domain not be used for to obtain land for private development, Rhoden said....
Penrose man takes pride in custom-made coverings It takes attitude to wear a fine hat. Ask Tom Hirt, a custom hatter who's covered heads belonging to Ronald Reagan, Sam Elliott, Burt Reynolds, Charlie Daniels and Buck Taylor, and he'll demonstrate. Pulling on his own hat, he tilts it slightly to the left and up - a gesture so well-worn it might as well be breathing. Hirt, 55, and hats go way back. He started veterinary school in the 1970s but got a two-year horse-management degree instead. Well-acquainted with horses and things Western, he did some movie work - including doubling for Richard Farnsworth in "Comes a Horseman" - that was cut short by an actors' strike in the late ’70s. Jobless, he wandered into the late Art Henderson's hat shop in Colorado Springs. He apprenticed with Henderson and when the older man retired, purchased his hat-making business. Hirt was a rarity then, but today there are more custom hat-makers than ever; maybe 50 to 75 in the country. And interest in learning the art appears to be strong. Hirt has given short hat-making courses at university art departments, at museums and was invited to do one at this year's cowboy poetry gathering at Elko, Nev., but he's not sure how many people he wants to teach - and perhaps put into competition with himself....
Keeping the West Western In the early 1960s, when Jim Brooks was looking for a cowboying job, the going wage was $150 a month and found. A rancher gave a guy an extra dollar a day for riding the rough-string. If you were young and needing a job, a cowboss would take advantage of that. An unemployed Brooks drove into Newcastle, Wyoming, and hung around town for three days, eating bread and baloney. Smitty Smith, of the Keeline Ranch, heard Brooks was in town, looked him up and said, 'I have a job for you. Come on out." Smith had a bunch of spoiled horses for Brooks to throw his saddle on. Two horses in the bunch, Bay Bud and Blue Jay, had quite the reputations. But that didn't scare Brooks, a veteran cowboy used to getting on the toughest horses his bosses had to offer. "They always gave me the worst horses," Brooks said. "But I always said the worst horse in the cavvy was my best horse." Today, Brooks' days of breaking renegade colts are well behind him. But he's still doing his part to keep western traditions alive. The city of Norco, California, has hired Brooks to teach area kids about roping, riding and the cowboy lifestyle. He's also a cowboy poet, musician and western performer....
It's All Trew: Preparedness helps when faced with Mother Nature Having been born and raised on the Great Plains, which is covered with heavy black soil, I certainly know what mud is and the problems it can cause. Some of my earliest memories occurred on a yellow school bus grinding its way along muddy roads with mud chains biting into the black mud. Our home today is located along Jericho Gap, the famous section of Route 66 where tourists were bogged down in black gumbo mud in their travels. Even in my wildest stretch of imagination, I would not build a home atop or below a potential mud slide and endanger my family and possessions. The closest thing to flooding I have experienced was during an 8-inch rain in Ochiltree County in 1945. I’ll swear the water ran uphill all around our farm for hours afterward. Another rain here at the ranch on April 2, 1997, dropped 7 inches in about 24 hours. Our canyons changed so drastically we had to find new trails to ride....
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