NEWS
A conservative effort to protect wilderness There's something a little different about the group leading an effort to create a wilderness area in the Elk River drainage of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Rather than Greens, the group seeking to protect 12,000 acres is comprised mostly of conservatives. "We're not a group of environmentalists out to save this place by keeping people out," David Smith, a Republican and president of the Port Orford Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday. "In fact, most of the people behind this effort are very conservative in nature," he added. "It's unusual to have a bunch of Republicans behind this kind of proposal. What that should tell you is we want this place to stay like it is because that's what's best for our community." The supporters are generally hunting and fishing enthusiasts who say the proposed Copper-Salmon wilderness area centers on protecting recreational opportunities....
Spring Snow Brought Up to 5 Feet to Plains Residents of the northwestern Plains on Thursday started to dig out from this week's spring blizzard, which dumped up to 5 feet of snow, cut power and threatened to flood low-lying areas. The heaviest snow was reported in the city of Lead in western South Dakota, near the Wyoming line, where the weather service reported 59.4 inches. The potent storm in some areas knocked down trees and power poles. Wind gusting to 84 mph overturned a mobile home in the Nebraska Panhandle, and gusts to 71 mph were reported in eastern Montana, officials said. Ranchers were concerned about possible losses during calving and lambing season, said Kristi Turman, director of the South Dakota Office of Emergency Management. "They're getting dug out and getting into their fields and checking their cattle," Turman said. "We don't have an exact number on losses."....
Despite new mad cow cases, U.S. wants to lift restrictions on Canada The Bush administration wants to end remaining mad cow disease-related restrictions on Canadian cattle, despite two fresh cases there. The new cases have slowed the effort, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns acknowledged Thursday. Still, "we here at USDA are very committed to this," Johanns said during a news conference with Canada's new agriculture minister, Chuck Strahl. "I want to make sure it's done right, first and foremost," Johanns said. "I want to make sure it will withstand not only our rigorous internal challenges but challenges that can come from court cases." Johanns says rules for how cattle are slaughtered would keep mad cow disease from entering the food supply for people or animals. He had hoped to finish the rule-making process by the end of the year but said Thursday it might take longer....
Small farmers up in arms over livestock ID program Ride a horse near someone's farm? You soon may have to record your trail ride for the Agriculture Department. Are your kids involved in 4-H programs? You may soon have to register the animals they are raising and report to the government what shows the animals appear in. Keep a few chickens in the backyard so you can have fresh eggs for breakfast? You too could be affected by what officials are calling one of the most massive federal programs in history. Dogs and cats aren't included, but the government has begun collecting information for its new animal identification program in order to better track disease. Even those not involved in farming could be affected. The USDA says even those who raise animals only for show or use them for recreational purposes need to register. "When people show or commingle their animals with animals from multiple premises, the possibility of spreading disease becomes a factor. Those animals will need to be identified," the agency says on its Web site. Small farmers are already up in arms over the plan, protesting that the expense and the paperwork involved will be breathtaking. They also complain the system is tilted in favor of large agribusiness farms. Agribusinesses raise animals in confined areas from birth through slaughter, and so under USDA rules will only be required to obtain one identification for an entire cattle herd or chicken flock. Small farmers using traditional agricultural methods will have to identify and register their animals individually. "Before this is over, I predict there's going to be a lot opposition to this program," said Bob Parker, a Raymondville, Mo., rancher who runs 60 Corriente cattle on his 100-acre farm. "This is a pretty divisive issue." Parker, who is chairman of his county farm bureau, said his farm is composed of three parcels of land, 23 miles apart, and the regulations would require him to tell the government each of the four or five times a year he moves cattle to new pastures. "Just imagine the paperwork," he said....
Ranger To Rancher One of the popular misconceptions about the old-time gunfighters is that they traveled around the country somehow surviving on their skills with a handgun. Many of the old-timers served as lawmen while others invested in various business interests to help pay the bills and buy groceries. Wyatt Earp, in addition to his law-enforcement jobs, also owned real estate, mining claims, gambling concessions, and saloons. Bat Masterson was another shootist who actually spent the majority of his life as a professional gambler, a prizefight promoter, and a sports writer for newspapers. Cut from the same cloth was a fellow named John Barclay Armstrong. Armstrong was born in McMinnville, Tennessee, in January 1850. As a young man he left home and wandered throughout the South, before winding up in Austin, Texas, in 1871. In 1875 he enlisted in the Texas Rangers and joined the company commanded by famed Capt. Leander McNelly. Armstrong followed Capt. McNelly into several hot border fights that resulted in at least two shootouts in Mexico. In those early days of the Texas Rangers a man was required to furnish his own rifle, handgun, and saddle horse. Like most of the other Rangers, Armstrong apparently acquired a Winchester Model 1873 carbine in .44-40 and a 7 1/2-inch Colt Peacemaker in .45 Colt....
'Moo-ve' Over Competition Joining the stampede to create new content platforms, PBS today announced the launch of MooTube.com, the first 24/7 inside look at the daily life of Texas Longhorn cattle. Beginning April 19th, visitors to the site will get an exclusive, bovine's-eye-view, as wireless cow-cams, attached to the Longhorns' collars, reveal the day-to-day intrigues of life on the range. "In the 500-plus-channel-world, we believe this is a 'bullish' alternative, especially for those who enjoy grazing," said a PBS executive. "Plus, it's a great way to extend the PBS brand to even greener pastures." Along with activities like chomping grass, flicking flies, mooing and hanging out at the watering hole, the cow-cams capture such fun-loving antics as stealing snacks from the human production crew to roaming the fields in search of the best siesta spot. With spring in the air, alert viewers may catch a glimpse of cattle locking horns in the heat of pixilated romance. The MooTube site is at http://www.mootube.com/ For even more cattle gazing (and grazing), tune in May 1-4 at 8:00 p.m. for TEXAS RANCH HOUSE, the new eight-part, PBS hands-on history series that sends a group of men and women to 1867 Texas to experience the harsh reality of the Old West. In the middle of a hot, forbidding landscape, with only the tools of the era at their disposal, these bold individuals face daily challenges like herding Longhorn cattle, cooking over an open fire and preparing for a cattle drive. With colliding cultures, and cowboys and ranchers who don't always see eye to eye, it will take cooperation, ingenuity and leadership for the ranch to survive. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/ On Wednesday, April 26 at 8:00 p.m. (check local listings), step inside the colorful and competitive world of "Show Cattle" and follow the trials and tribulations of competitive cows in pursuit of the ultimate honor -- "Supreme Champion" -- at one of the most prestigious cattle shows on the East Coast, the Fryeburg Fair. See inside the little-known world of bovine makeovers, where pride and determination, not to mention steel-capped boots, transform a barnyard cow into a regional celebrity....
In The Pitts: Eatin’ His Own Cookin’ It seems like everyone has a consultant these days. Or is one. This is due partly to city folks who want to avoid paying taxes. After selling their multimillion dollar homes, office buildings and apartments they use the proceeds in a 1031 exchange to buy a ranch. Which, by the way, they have no idea how to run. So they hire consultants. Gullible George traded a big commercial warehouse in the city for a sprawling ranch and has spent the last few years trying to give back any money he saved in taxes. I saw George at the coffee shop after he’d just come from the auction yard and he looked about as happy as a kid being dragged away from the video arcade. He invited himself to sit down and proceeded to unload all his misery on me. “George, you look like you’ve got more troubles than the President. What’s wrong?” “I was out at the auction and noticed that my ranch consultant sold his calves.” “What did they bring and why should that bother you?” I asked. “They brought a ton of money and the reason it bothers me is that he told me to retain ownership, feed my cattle and sell them to a packer on a grid.” “Well now George, the only consultant I have is my wife but any idiot knows that now is not the time to be taking such risks.”....
The Westerner will be very sporatic over the next two days....family member getting married this weekend.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Thursday, April 20, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Nevada water plan makes Utahn wary Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, expects to be "chewed out by the governor for asking for $1 million." But the money is for an issue near and dear to Utahns — water — and Styler had the backing of central Utah residents. "This is a life-and-death issue for people," said Rep. Richard Wheeler, R-Ephraim. Some residents are "really nervous." Styler told Wheeler and other members of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee on Wednesday that the money would pay for drilling test wells in an area where Nevada water developers may tap into groundwater that flows into Utah. The proposed project, sponsored by the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Lincoln County Water District, would pump underground water resources in eastern Nevada to Las Vegas. Utahns are worried because pumping groundwater close to the state border potentially would affect ranches and wildlife habitat in Utah....
Prairie dogs spreading like wildfire in dry weather The Pawnee National Grassland - a sprawling piece of prairie covering more than 300 square miles of northern Colorado - would seem like a perfect place for prairie dogs. But even there the burrowing rodents have become a problem. Grassland managers say the prairie dog population has about doubled during the last few years of dry weather. "Prairie dogs seem to really thrive during these dry years," said U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Steve Currey. "They seem to spread more. The colonies grow." Tammy Kanode, whose family runs a ranch adjacent to the Grassland agrees. "They keep spreading, spreading further, coming up places where we've never seen prairie dogs." That has Kanode concerned because the little critters eat a lot of grass. "They've moved across onto our property and are destroying the grass where our cattle need to graze," said Kanode. Tom Baur, another neighboring rancher agrees. "They're expanding across boundaries onto private land and that reduces the amount of forage that's available for grazing for our animals," said Baur, who serves on a committee that's been discussing the issue with the Forest Service. The Forest Service has tried corralling the critters with a fence, but the prairie dogs dig under it....
Over conservation cries, water plan approved A $14 billion water plan for urban North Texas that includes two reservoir projects far from the cities that would use the water won state approval Tuesday despite landowner objections and calls for conservation instead of new lakes. The Texas Water Development Board approved the North Texas plan after a hearing in Austin. Ranchers, timber company owners and environmentalists, who for years have fought the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir on the Sulphur River, failed to get the board to reject the plan or postpone the vote. Opponents of the smaller proposed Lake Fastrill on the Neches River, a city of Dallas project, also turned out against the regional plan. However, the board voted 5-1 to approve the plan, with chairman Rod Pittman of Lufkin voting no. The board vote is a major step forward for the Marvin Nichols project, which would dam the Sulphur River about 120 miles northeast of downtown Dallas. It is part of the official water plan for a 16-county area that includes Dallas-Fort Worth and surrounding counties....
Feds zonk Csonka for filming without permit Larry Csonka’s mother used to tell him, “Don’t make a federal case out of it.” Now, he says, he knows what she meant. Csonka, the host of a cable television show filmed in Alaska, was fined $5,000 on Wednesday for conducting commercial work in a national forest without obtaining a special use permit, a case he said could have been handled administratively. “The National Forest Service and the prosecutor’s office wanted to make an example out of it,” he said. Csonka is host of “NAPA’s North to Alaska,” a show that appears weekly on OLN and features fishing, hunting, history and customs from around the state. He called his prosecution “going to the guillotine for running a traffic light.”....
Sportsmen fight for Wyo. habitats Gordon Johnston's biography doesn't exactly shout "environmentalist." The 74-year-old resident of Daniel, Wyo., spent 21 years in the Marine Corps. He has been an avid hunter most of his life. Asked his party affiliation, the former Sublette County commissioner replies, "Hard-core, hard-ass Republican." Yet when it comes to Bush administration proposals to lease areas of the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton National Forests for oil and gas development — including the place where he's had a hunting camp for 20 years — Johnston behaves like a dues-paying member of the Sierra Club. He has met with the U.S. Forest Service and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal to lobby for keeping oil and gas rigs out of undeveloped forest areas. He worries that the energy development could harm the deer, elk and moose he hunts in the Wyoming Range south of the affluent resort town of Jackson. "It saddens me. When you lose habitat, they're gone forever," he says about the animals. Sportsmen such as Johnston are playing an increasing role in debates over the future of federal land in the West as the government seeks to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of federal forest and rangeland and continues to expand oil and gas development....
Forest managers embrace fire as tool Like an uninvited guest who stays and does the dishes, wildfire is uncomfortably helpful. Its restorative powers are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. Until the 1980s, forest managers turned the uninvited guest away at the door, and the dishes piled up - and occasionally fell over, in the form of a massive forest fire. Now, forest managers invite fire for "visits," putting it to work clearing out dead vegetation and making room for healthier trees. They call such sanctioned fires "wild-land fire use." But does the welcome mat stay out in a season like the one we're having now, with drought conditions creating the potential for extensive wildfires? The answer appears to be yes. Local forest managers have used managed fire on twice as many acres this year as they did last year at the same time, said Roy Hall, associate director of fuels management for the Southwest region of the U.S. Forest Service. And forest managers are prepared to allow this summer's wildfires to burn in certain areas without much interference....
EWEB studies fish ladder option Having seen the writing on the water, the Eugene Water & Electric Board is looking at adding a fish ladder for upstream-bound fish and a screened underwater passage for fish heading downstream at its Trail Bridge Dam on the upper McKenzie River. The improvements could reunite spring chinook salmon and bull trout from below and above the dam, greatly improving the outlook for the two threatened species. Bull trout - only 19 adults exist above the dam, according to the U.S. Forest Service's latest count - could especially benefit if reunited with other trout downstream, giving the species a genetic boost toward recovery. The changes are part of the utility's efforts to win a new license for its Carmen-Smith Hydroelectric Project - an undertaking that could cost as much as $100 million....
Auction ends with bid of $5.65 million on Forest Service land Bidding has stopped on 82 acres of U.S. Forest Service land northwest of here, but it is too early to tell whether the land will be awarded to the highest bidder, officials said. The Forest Service has to determine whether the bidding, which ended at $5.65 million, reached the minimum amount the agency had set before the auction began in late January of this year. The federal agency will also do another assessment on the property to see if the offer matched market value for the property. "We got to (the bidders') threshold a little faster than we thought," said Rick Maddalena, land use officer with the Truckee Ranger District. If the property goes into escrow, the top bidder's identity will be revealed, Maddalena said. Individuals or companies making offers on the parcel are identified with short code names on the Web site that tracks the auction....
Western Governors Sign Frontier Transmission, Clean Coal Deals The governors of California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, took a major step forward Monday in the effort to secure clean, reliable sources of energy for the West. At the New Frontier Power Summit in San Diego, the four governors issued a joint statement of support for the partnership, which includes implementation steps on the Frontier Transmission Line. The Frontier Line - a proposal for a high-voltage transmission line to connect Wyoming, Nevada, California and Utah - is one step closer to reality with the signing of an agreement between the four states and a coalition of investor-owned utilities. The coalition of investor-owned utilities agreed to put on paper a detailed feasibility study and conceptual plan for building the Frontier Line. The utilities participating in the coalition are Pacific Gas & Electric Company, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison Company, Sierra Pacific Power Company, Nevada Power Company, and Rocky Mountain Power and Utah Power, both divisions of PacifiCorp, recently acquired by MidAmerican Energy Holdings. Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, heralded the move as a product of the Rocky Mountain Area Transmission Study, a regional transmission planning initiative created in 2003 by Freudenthal and then Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah to identify the most cost-effective transmission given the location of potential new power generation in the Rocky Mountain area....
Groups threaten EPA with lawsuit Government regulators aren’t doing enough to ensure Puget Sound’s threatened chinook salmon, the main food supply for endangered killer whales, are protected from wastewater, environmentalists said Wednesday. Several conservation groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, are threatening a lawsuit if the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t submit its Washington state wastewater permit program to further scientific review. “Water quality is not good enough for salmon recovery and we absolutely need to address it – especially now, given the fact that we are expecting much more population growth in the Puget Sound region,” said Kathy Fletcher, director of People for Puget Sound. State and federal regulators said they needed time to review the groups’ legal claims, but countered that new permits for wastewater and runoff use the latest science to help protect the sound from pollution....
Group targets trapping in Maine An animal rights group is threatening to sue the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife under the federal Endangered Species Act unless the state restricts trapping in vast areas of the state populated by bald eagles and Canada lynx. The Animal Protection Institute, a California-based group, announced Tuesday that it intends to file federal lawsuits against Maine and Minnesota in 60 days if the states do not take steps to prevent eagles, lynx and gray wolves from inadvertent capture in traps and snares. Institute officials cited state documents showing that more than two dozen lynx and bald eagles have been accidentally trapped or snared - some fatally - in Maine during the past dozen years....
Anti-wolf group gathers support to remove species John Cranney has been roughing it the last few weeks. Living out of his horse trailer, Cranney's a man on a mission traveling around Idaho. And, his mission is to get this question on the November ballot: should wolves be removed completely from Idaho? "We've got wolves coming out our ears," Cranney said. Cranney and other members of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition need to gather the signatures of 47,881 registered voters by April 30 to have their initiative put to voters. This week, Cranney is camped outside of Vickers Western Store in Twin Falls with the organization's petition. For 17 years, Cranney has been an outfitter based in Salmon, offering fishing, whitewater rafting and hunting services. Wolves, however, have put a sizable dent in the hunting portion of the business, he says....
Urban structures become Falcons' perilous perches Stephanie Spears leaned over the side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with a video camera as the drawspan opened to let a construction barge pass. Spears, an environmental specialist with the bridge replacement project, was looking for the pair of peregrine falcons nesting there when suddenly one came after her. The shrieking bird with a sharp beak and hooked talons shot into the air, wheeled around and dived. "Watch your head!" Spears shouted to a handful of onlookers just as the female falcon veered away. Peregrines are said to be the fastest birds on Earth, capable of diving at 200 mph. This one was protecting three eggs. The eggs are on a jumble of powdery road grit inside one of the bridge's concrete supports, only a few feet down from the rumble and shake of thousands of vehi-cles a day crossing between Maryland and Virginia. "It's an interesting place to make a nest," Spears said. "It's probably why she gets nervous when we stop traffic -- it's so quiet." The Wilson Bridge is a dangerous place for a bird, but more of the region's peregrines are nesting on bridges, skyscrapers or other manmade structures than on the mountain cliffs that are their natural homes. Falcons are living on more than a dozen bridges in the area and have made nests on tall buildings in Baltimore and Richmond....
Sierra Club urges agency to rethink monument plan Hoping to eliminate "roads to nowhere," the Sierra Club would like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to rethink its master plan for Arizona's newest national monuments. BLM's plan to manage Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, for example, does "a relatively poor job" said Scott Jones, Sierra Club monument specialist. Jones, who made a presentation Wednesday to the Sierra Club's northeast Valley-based Saguaro Group, said the club's main objection is the 2,700 miles of roads that spiderweb throughout the planning areas. "Some of these roads not only lead to very sensitive, remote cultural sites, but literally run over the sites," Jones said....
Pronghorn antelope hunt set for autumn in Grand Staircase With their speed, grace and near-perfect camouflage, pronghorn antelope will present challenging targets for the five people who will be allowed to hunt the animal this fall for the first time at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The hunt is the result of a successful pronghorn reintroduction in the 1.9-million-acre monument administered by the Bureau of Land Management in southern Utah's Kane and Garfield counties. "Hunting has always been allowed in the monument plan and is consistent with the multiple-use philosophy," said BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield. When President Clinton created the monument a decade ago, critics feared hunting would be prohibited, as it is in most national parks and monuments. The Division of Wildlife Resources, which manages the plan, will draw five names April 28 for the pronghorn hunt. Those chosen for the 10-day, buck-only hunt beginning Sept. 16 will pay $50 for a permit. Adam Bronson, big-game project leader for the DWR, said the decision to allow a pronghorn hunt this year was made after determining a viable population had been established. Bronson said he counted 198 pronghorns at the monument during an aerial census last month....
Go west young person - but pay a fee Documents provided by the Forest Service to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and recently released to the public have confirmed that the vast majority of fee sites on National Forests may not be in compliance with the new Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). Of 1,339 sites that are located within agency-designated "High Impact Recreation Areas," 981 are Standard Amenity Fee sites that are required to have six minimum amenities in order to qualify for fees. The Forest Service documents reveal that 739 of those - a full 75 percent - do not have all of the amenities the law specifies. In addition, 627 sites - 47 percent of the total - have never been previously reported to Congress as fee sites, but have not been subjected to the public participation process that the FLREA requires for newly instituted fees. The information is included in answers that Mark Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture, provided in response to Supplemental Questions posed to him in writing by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, following Rey's Oct. 26 testimony before Craig's subcommittee....
BLM sells nearly 400 acres of public land The Bureau of Land Management has sold nearly 400 acres of public land for more than $2 million. Mesa Farmers Coop won a competitive bid at an auction for the property about 20 miles south of Las Cruces near the village of Berino. BLM Las Cruces Field Office Manager Ed Roberson says the sale should result in more agricultural or industrial development in the Berino area. The BLM will keep 20 percent of the revenue from the land sale. The remainder of the money will go into the Baca Fund, which is used by various federal agencies to buy unique and valuable natural resources.
State pursues title to Tanana, Kusko rivers The state of Alaska has asked the federal government to wash its hands of the entire Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers and several of their tributaries. The latest requests continue a process that already has clarified the state's ownership of the beds of nine Alaska waterways, including the Salcha River east of Fairbanks. The state asked the federal Bureau of Land Management on March 10 to issue a "recordable disclaimer of interest" in the Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers. A recordable disclaimer is a statement by the federal government that it has no ownership claim to a property. Under federal law and long-standing legal tradition, states own the beds of navigable waters. The state of Alaska and federal agencies have disagreed for decades, though, on which waters in Alaska are navigable. Resolving the disputes proceeded slowly and expensively in courts. In December of 2002, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton adopted an administrative process through which states could apply for recordable disclaimers instead. The disclaimers, if approved, in effect lift the cloud on the state's title created by the federal government's potential interest....
Column: Conservatives Speak Out for Animals Conservatives are starting to come out of the closet. No, not that closet. A growing number of prominent conservatives in America—including Pat Buchanan, George Will, and G. Gordon Liddy—are publicly coming out of the “conservatives for animals” closet, admitting that they have serious concerns about the way our society treats other animals. It’s about time. For too long, popular thinking has unfairly dictated that animal suffering somehow lies outside the scope of conservatives’ concern. Liberals are fond of painting conservatives as cold and uncaring, and claiming compassion as their own exclusive turf. Conservatives who do care—who believe it’s wrong to kill animals for a piece of fur trim on a coat or to blind rabbits just to market a new shampoo or mascara—are often afraid to speak up, afraid of being labeled a bleeding heart or, horrors, a liberal....
Column: The Emerging Environmental Majority Today's GOP-controlled Congress has shown itself to be no friend of the environment, but even by conservatives' own standards, last October's surprise was a standout. An amendment inserted at the last minute into a budget reconciliation bill would have opened up millions of acres of public lands, including tracts in national monuments and wilderness areas, to purchase by mining companies and other commercial interests. It was to be the biggest divestiture of public lands in almost a century, and it was happening completely under the radar, with no floor vote, no public hearings, and no debate. But there are outdoor organizations whose members include voters who can draw conservatives' attention. After an Earthworks staffer tipped off a counterpart at Trout Unlimited, the sportsmen's group (whose membership is two to one Republican) emailed its roughly 100,000 members and contacted regional editorial boards to spotlight the fight. News spread like wildfire—western sportsmen were outraged that public lands where they hunt and fish might be put on the auction block. Once they knew the stakes, local hook-and-bullet organizations held phone-bank days, organized letter-writing campaigns, and scheduled visits to regional Senate offices. A petition signed by 758 sportsmen's clubs affiliated with National Wildlife Federation, from the Great Falls Bowhunters Association to the Custer Rod and Gun Club, landed on elected officials' desks in Washington just weeks later. "These lands, so important to sportsmen and women, are open to every American, rich and poor alike," the letter read. "We believe it is wrong to put them up for mining companies and other commercial interests to buy at cut-rate prices." The outcry from rural and exurban voters achieved what no amount of lobbying from environmentalists in Washington alone could have....
Dean of trick roping returning to Claremore When Nacho Rodriguez speaks, trick ropers listen. Undoubtedly one of the most respected trick ropers in today’s world, he is back in Claremore for the Will Rogers International Wild West Expo. A retired Mexico City surgeon and author of books on trick and charro roping, he will be coaching and working with trick roping hopefuls while he renews friendships of a lifetime, dating back to Will Rogers. Dressed in Mexican charro style, he draws a crowd when he walks into a room. Born a couple of years after Will Rogers’ death, he grew up knowing the family. Will was a close roping friend of his father and uncle, a friendship that continued through Will Rogers Jr. and Jimmy and Astrea Rogers. Last year in Claremore he was pleased to meet Jimmy’s son, Kem. Kem and his sister, Bette Rogers Brandin, are here to present the Rogers Company Rising Star Award to a young trick roper....
Nevada water plan makes Utahn wary Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, expects to be "chewed out by the governor for asking for $1 million." But the money is for an issue near and dear to Utahns — water — and Styler had the backing of central Utah residents. "This is a life-and-death issue for people," said Rep. Richard Wheeler, R-Ephraim. Some residents are "really nervous." Styler told Wheeler and other members of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee on Wednesday that the money would pay for drilling test wells in an area where Nevada water developers may tap into groundwater that flows into Utah. The proposed project, sponsored by the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Lincoln County Water District, would pump underground water resources in eastern Nevada to Las Vegas. Utahns are worried because pumping groundwater close to the state border potentially would affect ranches and wildlife habitat in Utah....
Prairie dogs spreading like wildfire in dry weather The Pawnee National Grassland - a sprawling piece of prairie covering more than 300 square miles of northern Colorado - would seem like a perfect place for prairie dogs. But even there the burrowing rodents have become a problem. Grassland managers say the prairie dog population has about doubled during the last few years of dry weather. "Prairie dogs seem to really thrive during these dry years," said U.S. Forest Service District Ranger Steve Currey. "They seem to spread more. The colonies grow." Tammy Kanode, whose family runs a ranch adjacent to the Grassland agrees. "They keep spreading, spreading further, coming up places where we've never seen prairie dogs." That has Kanode concerned because the little critters eat a lot of grass. "They've moved across onto our property and are destroying the grass where our cattle need to graze," said Kanode. Tom Baur, another neighboring rancher agrees. "They're expanding across boundaries onto private land and that reduces the amount of forage that's available for grazing for our animals," said Baur, who serves on a committee that's been discussing the issue with the Forest Service. The Forest Service has tried corralling the critters with a fence, but the prairie dogs dig under it....
Over conservation cries, water plan approved A $14 billion water plan for urban North Texas that includes two reservoir projects far from the cities that would use the water won state approval Tuesday despite landowner objections and calls for conservation instead of new lakes. The Texas Water Development Board approved the North Texas plan after a hearing in Austin. Ranchers, timber company owners and environmentalists, who for years have fought the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir on the Sulphur River, failed to get the board to reject the plan or postpone the vote. Opponents of the smaller proposed Lake Fastrill on the Neches River, a city of Dallas project, also turned out against the regional plan. However, the board voted 5-1 to approve the plan, with chairman Rod Pittman of Lufkin voting no. The board vote is a major step forward for the Marvin Nichols project, which would dam the Sulphur River about 120 miles northeast of downtown Dallas. It is part of the official water plan for a 16-county area that includes Dallas-Fort Worth and surrounding counties....
Feds zonk Csonka for filming without permit Larry Csonka’s mother used to tell him, “Don’t make a federal case out of it.” Now, he says, he knows what she meant. Csonka, the host of a cable television show filmed in Alaska, was fined $5,000 on Wednesday for conducting commercial work in a national forest without obtaining a special use permit, a case he said could have been handled administratively. “The National Forest Service and the prosecutor’s office wanted to make an example out of it,” he said. Csonka is host of “NAPA’s North to Alaska,” a show that appears weekly on OLN and features fishing, hunting, history and customs from around the state. He called his prosecution “going to the guillotine for running a traffic light.”....
Sportsmen fight for Wyo. habitats Gordon Johnston's biography doesn't exactly shout "environmentalist." The 74-year-old resident of Daniel, Wyo., spent 21 years in the Marine Corps. He has been an avid hunter most of his life. Asked his party affiliation, the former Sublette County commissioner replies, "Hard-core, hard-ass Republican." Yet when it comes to Bush administration proposals to lease areas of the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton National Forests for oil and gas development — including the place where he's had a hunting camp for 20 years — Johnston behaves like a dues-paying member of the Sierra Club. He has met with the U.S. Forest Service and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal to lobby for keeping oil and gas rigs out of undeveloped forest areas. He worries that the energy development could harm the deer, elk and moose he hunts in the Wyoming Range south of the affluent resort town of Jackson. "It saddens me. When you lose habitat, they're gone forever," he says about the animals. Sportsmen such as Johnston are playing an increasing role in debates over the future of federal land in the West as the government seeks to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of federal forest and rangeland and continues to expand oil and gas development....
Forest managers embrace fire as tool Like an uninvited guest who stays and does the dishes, wildfire is uncomfortably helpful. Its restorative powers are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. Until the 1980s, forest managers turned the uninvited guest away at the door, and the dishes piled up - and occasionally fell over, in the form of a massive forest fire. Now, forest managers invite fire for "visits," putting it to work clearing out dead vegetation and making room for healthier trees. They call such sanctioned fires "wild-land fire use." But does the welcome mat stay out in a season like the one we're having now, with drought conditions creating the potential for extensive wildfires? The answer appears to be yes. Local forest managers have used managed fire on twice as many acres this year as they did last year at the same time, said Roy Hall, associate director of fuels management for the Southwest region of the U.S. Forest Service. And forest managers are prepared to allow this summer's wildfires to burn in certain areas without much interference....
EWEB studies fish ladder option Having seen the writing on the water, the Eugene Water & Electric Board is looking at adding a fish ladder for upstream-bound fish and a screened underwater passage for fish heading downstream at its Trail Bridge Dam on the upper McKenzie River. The improvements could reunite spring chinook salmon and bull trout from below and above the dam, greatly improving the outlook for the two threatened species. Bull trout - only 19 adults exist above the dam, according to the U.S. Forest Service's latest count - could especially benefit if reunited with other trout downstream, giving the species a genetic boost toward recovery. The changes are part of the utility's efforts to win a new license for its Carmen-Smith Hydroelectric Project - an undertaking that could cost as much as $100 million....
Auction ends with bid of $5.65 million on Forest Service land Bidding has stopped on 82 acres of U.S. Forest Service land northwest of here, but it is too early to tell whether the land will be awarded to the highest bidder, officials said. The Forest Service has to determine whether the bidding, which ended at $5.65 million, reached the minimum amount the agency had set before the auction began in late January of this year. The federal agency will also do another assessment on the property to see if the offer matched market value for the property. "We got to (the bidders') threshold a little faster than we thought," said Rick Maddalena, land use officer with the Truckee Ranger District. If the property goes into escrow, the top bidder's identity will be revealed, Maddalena said. Individuals or companies making offers on the parcel are identified with short code names on the Web site that tracks the auction....
Western Governors Sign Frontier Transmission, Clean Coal Deals The governors of California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, took a major step forward Monday in the effort to secure clean, reliable sources of energy for the West. At the New Frontier Power Summit in San Diego, the four governors issued a joint statement of support for the partnership, which includes implementation steps on the Frontier Transmission Line. The Frontier Line - a proposal for a high-voltage transmission line to connect Wyoming, Nevada, California and Utah - is one step closer to reality with the signing of an agreement between the four states and a coalition of investor-owned utilities. The coalition of investor-owned utilities agreed to put on paper a detailed feasibility study and conceptual plan for building the Frontier Line. The utilities participating in the coalition are Pacific Gas & Electric Company, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison Company, Sierra Pacific Power Company, Nevada Power Company, and Rocky Mountain Power and Utah Power, both divisions of PacifiCorp, recently acquired by MidAmerican Energy Holdings. Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, heralded the move as a product of the Rocky Mountain Area Transmission Study, a regional transmission planning initiative created in 2003 by Freudenthal and then Governor Mike Leavitt of Utah to identify the most cost-effective transmission given the location of potential new power generation in the Rocky Mountain area....
Groups threaten EPA with lawsuit Government regulators aren’t doing enough to ensure Puget Sound’s threatened chinook salmon, the main food supply for endangered killer whales, are protected from wastewater, environmentalists said Wednesday. Several conservation groups, led by the National Wildlife Federation, are threatening a lawsuit if the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t submit its Washington state wastewater permit program to further scientific review. “Water quality is not good enough for salmon recovery and we absolutely need to address it – especially now, given the fact that we are expecting much more population growth in the Puget Sound region,” said Kathy Fletcher, director of People for Puget Sound. State and federal regulators said they needed time to review the groups’ legal claims, but countered that new permits for wastewater and runoff use the latest science to help protect the sound from pollution....
Group targets trapping in Maine An animal rights group is threatening to sue the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife under the federal Endangered Species Act unless the state restricts trapping in vast areas of the state populated by bald eagles and Canada lynx. The Animal Protection Institute, a California-based group, announced Tuesday that it intends to file federal lawsuits against Maine and Minnesota in 60 days if the states do not take steps to prevent eagles, lynx and gray wolves from inadvertent capture in traps and snares. Institute officials cited state documents showing that more than two dozen lynx and bald eagles have been accidentally trapped or snared - some fatally - in Maine during the past dozen years....
Anti-wolf group gathers support to remove species John Cranney has been roughing it the last few weeks. Living out of his horse trailer, Cranney's a man on a mission traveling around Idaho. And, his mission is to get this question on the November ballot: should wolves be removed completely from Idaho? "We've got wolves coming out our ears," Cranney said. Cranney and other members of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition need to gather the signatures of 47,881 registered voters by April 30 to have their initiative put to voters. This week, Cranney is camped outside of Vickers Western Store in Twin Falls with the organization's petition. For 17 years, Cranney has been an outfitter based in Salmon, offering fishing, whitewater rafting and hunting services. Wolves, however, have put a sizable dent in the hunting portion of the business, he says....
Urban structures become Falcons' perilous perches Stephanie Spears leaned over the side of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with a video camera as the drawspan opened to let a construction barge pass. Spears, an environmental specialist with the bridge replacement project, was looking for the pair of peregrine falcons nesting there when suddenly one came after her. The shrieking bird with a sharp beak and hooked talons shot into the air, wheeled around and dived. "Watch your head!" Spears shouted to a handful of onlookers just as the female falcon veered away. Peregrines are said to be the fastest birds on Earth, capable of diving at 200 mph. This one was protecting three eggs. The eggs are on a jumble of powdery road grit inside one of the bridge's concrete supports, only a few feet down from the rumble and shake of thousands of vehi-cles a day crossing between Maryland and Virginia. "It's an interesting place to make a nest," Spears said. "It's probably why she gets nervous when we stop traffic -- it's so quiet." The Wilson Bridge is a dangerous place for a bird, but more of the region's peregrines are nesting on bridges, skyscrapers or other manmade structures than on the mountain cliffs that are their natural homes. Falcons are living on more than a dozen bridges in the area and have made nests on tall buildings in Baltimore and Richmond....
Sierra Club urges agency to rethink monument plan Hoping to eliminate "roads to nowhere," the Sierra Club would like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to rethink its master plan for Arizona's newest national monuments. BLM's plan to manage Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, for example, does "a relatively poor job" said Scott Jones, Sierra Club monument specialist. Jones, who made a presentation Wednesday to the Sierra Club's northeast Valley-based Saguaro Group, said the club's main objection is the 2,700 miles of roads that spiderweb throughout the planning areas. "Some of these roads not only lead to very sensitive, remote cultural sites, but literally run over the sites," Jones said....
Pronghorn antelope hunt set for autumn in Grand Staircase With their speed, grace and near-perfect camouflage, pronghorn antelope will present challenging targets for the five people who will be allowed to hunt the animal this fall for the first time at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The hunt is the result of a successful pronghorn reintroduction in the 1.9-million-acre monument administered by the Bureau of Land Management in southern Utah's Kane and Garfield counties. "Hunting has always been allowed in the monument plan and is consistent with the multiple-use philosophy," said BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield. When President Clinton created the monument a decade ago, critics feared hunting would be prohibited, as it is in most national parks and monuments. The Division of Wildlife Resources, which manages the plan, will draw five names April 28 for the pronghorn hunt. Those chosen for the 10-day, buck-only hunt beginning Sept. 16 will pay $50 for a permit. Adam Bronson, big-game project leader for the DWR, said the decision to allow a pronghorn hunt this year was made after determining a viable population had been established. Bronson said he counted 198 pronghorns at the monument during an aerial census last month....
Go west young person - but pay a fee Documents provided by the Forest Service to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and recently released to the public have confirmed that the vast majority of fee sites on National Forests may not be in compliance with the new Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). Of 1,339 sites that are located within agency-designated "High Impact Recreation Areas," 981 are Standard Amenity Fee sites that are required to have six minimum amenities in order to qualify for fees. The Forest Service documents reveal that 739 of those - a full 75 percent - do not have all of the amenities the law specifies. In addition, 627 sites - 47 percent of the total - have never been previously reported to Congress as fee sites, but have not been subjected to the public participation process that the FLREA requires for newly instituted fees. The information is included in answers that Mark Rey, undersecretary of Agriculture, provided in response to Supplemental Questions posed to him in writing by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, following Rey's Oct. 26 testimony before Craig's subcommittee....
BLM sells nearly 400 acres of public land The Bureau of Land Management has sold nearly 400 acres of public land for more than $2 million. Mesa Farmers Coop won a competitive bid at an auction for the property about 20 miles south of Las Cruces near the village of Berino. BLM Las Cruces Field Office Manager Ed Roberson says the sale should result in more agricultural or industrial development in the Berino area. The BLM will keep 20 percent of the revenue from the land sale. The remainder of the money will go into the Baca Fund, which is used by various federal agencies to buy unique and valuable natural resources.
State pursues title to Tanana, Kusko rivers The state of Alaska has asked the federal government to wash its hands of the entire Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers and several of their tributaries. The latest requests continue a process that already has clarified the state's ownership of the beds of nine Alaska waterways, including the Salcha River east of Fairbanks. The state asked the federal Bureau of Land Management on March 10 to issue a "recordable disclaimer of interest" in the Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers. A recordable disclaimer is a statement by the federal government that it has no ownership claim to a property. Under federal law and long-standing legal tradition, states own the beds of navigable waters. The state of Alaska and federal agencies have disagreed for decades, though, on which waters in Alaska are navigable. Resolving the disputes proceeded slowly and expensively in courts. In December of 2002, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton adopted an administrative process through which states could apply for recordable disclaimers instead. The disclaimers, if approved, in effect lift the cloud on the state's title created by the federal government's potential interest....
Column: Conservatives Speak Out for Animals Conservatives are starting to come out of the closet. No, not that closet. A growing number of prominent conservatives in America—including Pat Buchanan, George Will, and G. Gordon Liddy—are publicly coming out of the “conservatives for animals” closet, admitting that they have serious concerns about the way our society treats other animals. It’s about time. For too long, popular thinking has unfairly dictated that animal suffering somehow lies outside the scope of conservatives’ concern. Liberals are fond of painting conservatives as cold and uncaring, and claiming compassion as their own exclusive turf. Conservatives who do care—who believe it’s wrong to kill animals for a piece of fur trim on a coat or to blind rabbits just to market a new shampoo or mascara—are often afraid to speak up, afraid of being labeled a bleeding heart or, horrors, a liberal....
Column: The Emerging Environmental Majority Today's GOP-controlled Congress has shown itself to be no friend of the environment, but even by conservatives' own standards, last October's surprise was a standout. An amendment inserted at the last minute into a budget reconciliation bill would have opened up millions of acres of public lands, including tracts in national monuments and wilderness areas, to purchase by mining companies and other commercial interests. It was to be the biggest divestiture of public lands in almost a century, and it was happening completely under the radar, with no floor vote, no public hearings, and no debate. But there are outdoor organizations whose members include voters who can draw conservatives' attention. After an Earthworks staffer tipped off a counterpart at Trout Unlimited, the sportsmen's group (whose membership is two to one Republican) emailed its roughly 100,000 members and contacted regional editorial boards to spotlight the fight. News spread like wildfire—western sportsmen were outraged that public lands where they hunt and fish might be put on the auction block. Once they knew the stakes, local hook-and-bullet organizations held phone-bank days, organized letter-writing campaigns, and scheduled visits to regional Senate offices. A petition signed by 758 sportsmen's clubs affiliated with National Wildlife Federation, from the Great Falls Bowhunters Association to the Custer Rod and Gun Club, landed on elected officials' desks in Washington just weeks later. "These lands, so important to sportsmen and women, are open to every American, rich and poor alike," the letter read. "We believe it is wrong to put them up for mining companies and other commercial interests to buy at cut-rate prices." The outcry from rural and exurban voters achieved what no amount of lobbying from environmentalists in Washington alone could have....
Dean of trick roping returning to Claremore When Nacho Rodriguez speaks, trick ropers listen. Undoubtedly one of the most respected trick ropers in today’s world, he is back in Claremore for the Will Rogers International Wild West Expo. A retired Mexico City surgeon and author of books on trick and charro roping, he will be coaching and working with trick roping hopefuls while he renews friendships of a lifetime, dating back to Will Rogers. Dressed in Mexican charro style, he draws a crowd when he walks into a room. Born a couple of years after Will Rogers’ death, he grew up knowing the family. Will was a close roping friend of his father and uncle, a friendship that continued through Will Rogers Jr. and Jimmy and Astrea Rogers. Last year in Claremore he was pleased to meet Jimmy’s son, Kem. Kem and his sister, Bette Rogers Brandin, are here to present the Rogers Company Rising Star Award to a young trick roper....
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
New Information About Bear Attack & Investigation
TWRA officers said they trapped a second bear but do not think it was the one that killed 6 year old Elora Petrasek and seriously mauled her mother Susan Cenkus and her two year old son Luke. The second bear is a male weighing about 120 pounds. Witness accounts have the suspect bear weighing closer to 200 to 225 pounds. The first bear trapped Easter Sunday weighs 203 pounds according to TWRA biologist Laura Lewis. She said a necropsy shows the bear did not have rabies and had no signs of a neurological disorder or disease that could alter the bears' behavior or make it more aggressive. Monte Williams, the USFS Ocoee/Hiwassee District Ranger, said the necropsy also shows the bear does not have any bullet wounds. A West Polk County Fire-Rescue officer earlier said he fired a .380 hand gun twice at the bear when he found it standing over Eloras' body and thought he struck the animal. The bear ran into the woods. Williams said the weapon was fired about 15 to 25 feet from the bear, but rounds fired from that calibre of weapon could have been deflected by the heavy ground vegetation in the area. Williams also said there was no blood from the bear found at the campsite. Some people who live near Chilhowee Recreation Area said they were concerned that so-called "trouble bears" taken from the Gatlinburg area are relocated to Polk County, and questioned whether the first bear caught was one of them. TWRA officer Les Jones said the bear did not have an ear tag or any other markings that they use to identify bears that have been relocated. Williams said the necropsy so far does not positively link the first bear with the victims....
TWRA officers said they trapped a second bear but do not think it was the one that killed 6 year old Elora Petrasek and seriously mauled her mother Susan Cenkus and her two year old son Luke. The second bear is a male weighing about 120 pounds. Witness accounts have the suspect bear weighing closer to 200 to 225 pounds. The first bear trapped Easter Sunday weighs 203 pounds according to TWRA biologist Laura Lewis. She said a necropsy shows the bear did not have rabies and had no signs of a neurological disorder or disease that could alter the bears' behavior or make it more aggressive. Monte Williams, the USFS Ocoee/Hiwassee District Ranger, said the necropsy also shows the bear does not have any bullet wounds. A West Polk County Fire-Rescue officer earlier said he fired a .380 hand gun twice at the bear when he found it standing over Eloras' body and thought he struck the animal. The bear ran into the woods. Williams said the weapon was fired about 15 to 25 feet from the bear, but rounds fired from that calibre of weapon could have been deflected by the heavy ground vegetation in the area. Williams also said there was no blood from the bear found at the campsite. Some people who live near Chilhowee Recreation Area said they were concerned that so-called "trouble bears" taken from the Gatlinburg area are relocated to Polk County, and questioned whether the first bear caught was one of them. TWRA officer Les Jones said the bear did not have an ear tag or any other markings that they use to identify bears that have been relocated. Williams said the necropsy so far does not positively link the first bear with the victims....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Gloom-and-doom PBS special looks at scary future for wildlife Matt Damon is convinced the Earth is on the verge of a "sixth extinction" that could even wipe out the strutting homo sapiens largely responsible for the looming calamity. Admittedly, Damon's appearances in Ocean's Eleven, The Bourne Identity and Syriana don't qualify him as a scientific oracle. But he cites many experts in The State of the Planet's Wildlife, a gloom-and-doom PBS special airing tonight. Damon tells us that "something is terribly wrong with our environment" and that half of the world's wildlife species may go toes up over the next several decades. By show's end, many viewers may find themselves deeply spooked. The Earth is no stranger to such disasters, the most recent of which was the "fifth extinction" some 65 million years ago. It resulted from an asteroid strike that sent aloft a sun-blocking cloud of ash that doomed 75 percent of the planet's species. This time, according to the show, the chief agent of destruction is man....
Editorial: Lessons of Jarbidge hard to learn Do you remember Jarbidge? You probably do if you lived here 10 years ago when Northwest Montana residents formed a convoy to support and celebrate the “Shovel Brigade” which was organized to rebuild a national forest road in Nevada in defiance of federal authorities. Since then, the battle of Jarbidge Canyon has degenerated into a contest to prove whether Elko County or the federal government was the first to establish a road along the river. But waiting on the sidelines are environmental groups who consider that a side issue. For them, the Endangered Species Act is the law that trumps all. As intervenors in the case, the groups argue that the Forest Service must maintain authority over the road for the sake of the southernmost population of bull trout, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Jarbidge fight has all the ingredients of most other ESA battles, including some here in Northwest Montana: environmental litigants acting as advocates for a species, traditional-use advocates fighting to maintain access and management to public resources, and a federal agency caught in the middle. The most important, and unfortunate, common denominator among endangered-species cases is how lengthy and wasteful they can be....
Bike club, Forest Service working toward solution Dave Ryan wants people to know that Missoula's mountain bike club isn't made up of a bunch of renegades knocking heads with the U.S. Forest Service over trail use in the popular Blue Mountain Recreation Area. In truth, Ryan said club members are encouraged with the direction the agency is moving to provide access in the woods. A few weeks back, Ryan wasn't so sure. The Missoula Ranger District had just mailed an open letter that said mountain bikers could face upward of $175 in fines if they got caught riding on a trail traditionally open only to equestrians and pedestrians. The letter said mountain bike closure signs had been vandalized and removed, and voluntary compliance just wasn't working. “It caught us a little bit off-guard,” said Ryan, Mountain Bike Missoula's board chairman. “That's behind us now. ... I really feel like we're making some headway with the Forest Service.” The talk's now turned to working together with both the Forest Service and the Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula to find some solutions to trail use that everyone can live with....
Developer submits revised application for proposed ski resort The developer of a proposed ski resort south of here submitted a revised permit application Monday, seeking permission to include 1,680 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in his project. The new application is in response to the Forest Service's decision last year denying Tom Maclay permission to include public land adjacent to his family's ranch in his proposal for the Bitterroot Resort. "I believe our community is beginning to more fully appreciate the great potential of this site as well as the economic development opportunities that come with having appropriately planned, ecologically sustainable recreation and tourism amenities in one of the most outstanding natural settings in the U.S.," Maclay said in a written statement. Maclay wants to build what supporters say would be a world-class destination resort for skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts. Skiing would extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883 and onto national forest land near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area....
As the Rich Ride In, Many Are Priced Out of Homes on the Range In an era when the rich are the only income group getting richer, ever-larger waves of wealth are spilling in from the coasts and swamping the resort valleys of the Rocky Mountain West. The rich are coming not just to ski, mountain-bike or build imposing second homes. They are coming to stay -- or, at the very least, secure permanent resident status for tax purposes. The moneyed invasion is driving population growth rates that are among the highest in the nation. From Aspen to Jackson to Squaw Valley, high-net-worth individuals fill sleek restaurants night after night to eat $30 plates of freshly flown-in fish. They donate generously for the arts, wildlife conservation, and preserving forest and farmland near their custom-built homes. And with millions of well-to-do baby boomers nearing retirement, the Rocky Mountain resort forecast is for years upon years of the incoming rich -- seeking big sky, big houses and the comfort of others who can afford to live large....
Poll favors motorized recreation in National Forests A survey of 500 voters in Western Colorado found the majority of respondents favor motorized recreation in the state’s national forests. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national trail-based recreational access group, maintains the poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, indicates three-fourths of the region’s voters reject any changes the Forest Service would impose to limit public access. "This survey rebukes the efforts of environmental groups to restrict recreational access to public lands under the guise of protection," Brian Hawthorne, public lands director for the coalition said in a news release. "This poll shows wide support across the political spectrum for balanced management of the region’s national forests." A task force appointed by Gov. Bill Owens has been holding public hearings to consider if areas that currently are roadless in the forests, should remain roadless, or if they should be opened to a wide variety of uses including motorized recreational vehicles....
Column: New Mexico is Burning Devastation, Charred; these are the media's terms of choice so far to describe the 17,000 acre Ojo Feliz fire in northern New Mexico. The human-caused fire has been growing in hot and windy conditions over the last three days. But can anyone say people were not forewarned? And is the fire really "devastating" for the grasslands and forests that have evolved for millennium with wildfire? I would argue that it's desperately needed and refreshing for these fire-dependent ecosystems. The problem in this situation is people are in the way. The government has been pouring millions of dollars into firewise campaigns, thinning, prescribed fire, and other actions to fulfill the mandate of the National Fire Plan. The Fire Plan, adopted in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognizes the essential ecological role of fire and sets direction for safeguarding forest-interface communities. The plan calls for allowing more fires to burn naturally in backcountry forests, thereby protecting the lives of firefighters, saving taxpayer dollars, restoring forest ecosystems and protecting communities. The Forest Service continues to suppress the overwhelming majority of natural fires. Since 2001, the Forest Service spent approximately half a billion dollars- an average of $99 million annually- to suppress 98 percent of wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico. Forest Guardians believes there is a rapidly growing fire-industrial complex. Lucrative private contracts for aircraft, heavy equipment and labor- coupled with ever-expanding housing developments- threaten to drive a detrimental policy of fire suppression at all costs....
US drilling recovery evident in completions, other data Completion totals and federal onshore permitting and leasing data reflect the strong drilling recovery under way in the US. The country's drilling activity climbed 9% year-to-year in the first quarter, the American Petroleum Institute said in its latest quarterly well completion report. Producers drilled an estimated 11,527 oil wells, gas wells, and dry holes in the US during 2006's first 3 months, compared with 10,534 in the comparable 2005 period. Gas well completions increased 8% year-to-year to 6,957, oil well completions grew 10% to 3,358, and dry holes climbed 16% to 1,212. API Chief Economist John C. Felmy noted "anecdotal evidence" that fewer deepwater wells were drilled in the first quarter but that more were successful. Total US exploratory completions rose 12% year-to-year in the first quarter, while development completions grew 9% during the same period, according to API. It estimated that US oil and gas exploration footage reached 63,386,000 ft, 12% more than in 2005's first quarter....
Column: This Land is My Land -- Really President Bush wants to sell my land to fund rural schools. I mean my land -- not the vast tracts of federal forests and grasslands I co-own with the proverbial New York cabbie, the Seattle widow and all other American citizens. My private land -- the 12 acres I own with my husband. We bought it through a Forest Service land exchange in 2000 and have paid taxes on it ever since. Yet there it is, a tiny green polygon on the maps described in the Feb. 28 Federal Register. There it is, part of the president's plan to sell 304,370 acres of Forest Service land to raise $800 million to fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, a popular county payments program established in 2000. If our speck of land in rural northeastern California were the only mistake in the president's funding plan, we could all laugh it off as another bureaucratic blunder. But the proposal is replete with errors. Some are like the inclusion of our property, mere slip-ups in a sloppy process done in haste. Others are far more troubling, suggesting a strategy that veers from simply incompetent to irresponsible....
Center for Biological Diversity Hosts Successful Collaboration Workshops The Center for Biological Diversity hosted two successful workshops entitled "Advocacy through Authentic Collaboration" on March 18 in Flagstaff, Arizona and April 1 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "In 2004, the chief of the Forest Service identified unmanaged recreation, specifically off-road vehicle (ORV) use, as one of four key threats to national forest lands. In an attempt to gain control of the burgeoning number of ORV users on our public lands, the Forest Service has begun the process of travel management planning which will include the designation of off-road vehicle routes, trails and areas," said Chris Kassar, Center wildlife biologist and ORV campaign coordinator. Each forest in Arizona and New Mexico has begun the travel management planning process in response to new regulations concerning travel planning and off-road vehicle management issued by the Forest Service in November 2005 (for more on the rule go to www.endangeredearth.org/orv. The rule tasks forests with the job of designating routes and areas suitable for off-road vehicle use. One possible way the agency will involve the public in these decisions is through a "collaborative process," which could include a variety of users working together to advise the Forest Service on the design of a mutually acceptable system of trails, routes and roads....
Industry: Logging can help slow beetles Timber industry representatives say clear-cut logging should be used to help slow the spread of bark beetles in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. At a meeting last week between timber industry representatives and U.S. Forest Service officials, the timbermen said they could be part of the solution to the growing bark beetle problem. If nothing is done, they said, the forest will suffer. "We're there. The timber's dying," said Bill Petersmann, a forester with Bighorn Logging. "We should be growing new trees right now." Petersmann said logging could help remove infested trees and promote new growth in the forest. But Mary Peterson, forest supervisor for Medicine Bow-Routt, said even trees that are killed by bark beetles can serve a purpose; when left in the forest, they will eventually topple and degrade into the soil, providing nutrients for plants and habitat for animals....
Layman Lumber to close Layman Lumber Co., a fixture in Naches for 50 years, will lay off most of its 50 employees by the end of the month and shut down for good by the middle of June. Owner Kathy Kratzer, daughter of founder George Layman, said Monday that timber supplies aren't sufficient to operate the sawmill, which produced lumber mostly for the housing industry. "Without timber, you can't make lumber," Kratzer said in a telephone interview. She also blamed poor prices and changing environmental regulations but declined to elaborate on the company's financial situation. "It's just become impossible. Let's just leave it at that," Kratzer said. Layman Lumber, which has produced about 25 million board feet of lumber a year, is representative of the small mills that once dotted the Northwest, said Mike Pieti, executive secretary and treasurer of the Portland-based Western Council of Industrial Workers....
With spotted owl count falling, lawsuit is planned More than a decade after the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan was launched to save the threatened spotted owl, a Seattle environmental group says the bird's population in Washington is plummeting. Citing "overwhelming evidence" about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting. Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend. Weyerhaeuser says it follows state regulations and even exceeds them in some ways....
Column: Mystery mouse takes centerstage in endangered species drama The outcome of a struggle between the lumpers and the splitters may determine the future regulatory reach of the Endangered Species Act. Are these angry gangs of unemployed loggers, fighting over the carcass of a spotted owl? No. These are biologists - experts in the esoteric field of DNA identification. And whether the lumpers or splitters gain the upper hand in deciding which species gain protected status will mean the difference between an ESA that tries to do the impossible, by protecting every detectable subspecies of plant or animal, and one that sets its sights on the doable, by setting priorities and focusing on saving a select number of keystone species. It all boils down to how finely the federal government chooses to parse the genetic code that differentiates one species from another, on a continuum that begins at the top, with broad taxonomic categories, and moves down to genetic variations between individuals. Given the precision with which we can now map DNA - just a fantasy when the law was passed in the 1970s - science has caught up with and overtaken the ESA, creating a disconnect that must be addressed. Charles Darwin may have been the first to note the difference between lumpers and splitters. The former gloss over what they see as trivial differences, in search of nature's unity. The latter focus on tiny differences, to stress nature's diversity. And the factions have come to blows over the identity of an enigmatic creature called the Preble's meadow jumping mouse....
County considering zoning change for workers camps "Mancamp" was a dirty word for some folks who saw the oil shale boom of the 1980s in Garfield County. It meant a sprawling, trashed-out trailer park north of Parachute that housed hundreds of oil shale workers. Now the phrase is "camper park for energy workers," and one natural gas company, Occidental Oil and Gas Group (Oxy), is proposing one north of DeBeque to temporarily house its workers. Oxy began discussing a remedy with the county late last year, said Doug Dennison, regulatory coordinator for the company, about a process to permit such camps. It has applied for a zoning code amendment to allow the camps and a special use permit. Dennison said the company would like to establish the camps for workers who have to travel one and a half to two hours over rough roads to reach the company's private land - about 20,000 acres....
Middle of Nowhere Is a Center of Conflict The 3 million acres of federal land in the Arizona Strip have their remote geography to thank for preserving their spectacular red sandstone escarpments, slot canyons, rock art and ruins of ancient pueblos. One of the last places in the Lower 48 to be mapped, the strip, in the northwestern corner of the state, is today bypassed by major highways and mostly devoid of gas stations, hotels and other visitor services. As a result, more than 12,000 years of human history written on this rugged landscape has remained in place, undisturbed by tourism or development. That is about to change. Here at the backdoor of the Grand Canyon, two national monuments, Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, are poised to absorb the effects of the explosive growth from Las Vegas to the west and St. George, Utah, to the north — two of the fastest expanding areas in the nation. The federal agency that oversees much of the land in the Arizona Strip, the Bureau of Land Management, is preparing a long-range plan for the area that would allow uranium mining and oil and gas exploration across 96% of the lands outside the monuments. The plan would also permit livestock grazing in the monuments and open 3,000 miles of roads to motorized recreation, including some in the monuments. A 7,100-acre "play area" for dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles would be established. And although that area would be outside the monuments, it would be next to land set aside to protect a threatened cactus and a Native American petroglyph site....
Half of Canadian BSE Cattle Born After 1997 Feed Ban; Stronger Measures Needed Canada announced on Sunday yet another case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this time in British Columbia, in a dairy cow born in mid-2000. This is a significant development because it confirms that BSE in Canada is not confined only to Alberta, and BSE in Canadian cattle obviously is not restricted to animals born before Canada’s 1997 feed ban was implemented to prevent the spread of this disease. This latest BSE-positive cow – as well as the case Canada announced on Jan. 23 – was born three years after Canada implemented its feed ban, which suggests BSE has been circulating within the Canadian feed system during the past six years. The BSE-positive cow Canada confirmed on Jan. 11, 2005, was born seven months after Canada implemented its feed ban. This new case actually is Canada’s sixth confirmed case of BSE in native-born cattle, not its fifth, as reported by USDA, which continues to overlook the December 2003 case found in Washington state in a cow imported from Alberta. (Canada also detected BSE in a cow imported from Great Britain in 1993.) More worrisome is that this latest incident is Canada’s fourth detected case in a little more than a year, and that Canada continues to test significantly fewer cattle compared to other BSE-affected countries. “This means half of all Canadian BSE cases confirmed so far were in animals born after Canada implemented its 1997 feed ban, a precaution USDA incorrectly assumed would halt the spread of the disease within Canada’s feed system and its cattle herd,” said R-CALF USA President and Region V Director Chuck Kiker....
Gloom-and-doom PBS special looks at scary future for wildlife Matt Damon is convinced the Earth is on the verge of a "sixth extinction" that could even wipe out the strutting homo sapiens largely responsible for the looming calamity. Admittedly, Damon's appearances in Ocean's Eleven, The Bourne Identity and Syriana don't qualify him as a scientific oracle. But he cites many experts in The State of the Planet's Wildlife, a gloom-and-doom PBS special airing tonight. Damon tells us that "something is terribly wrong with our environment" and that half of the world's wildlife species may go toes up over the next several decades. By show's end, many viewers may find themselves deeply spooked. The Earth is no stranger to such disasters, the most recent of which was the "fifth extinction" some 65 million years ago. It resulted from an asteroid strike that sent aloft a sun-blocking cloud of ash that doomed 75 percent of the planet's species. This time, according to the show, the chief agent of destruction is man....
Editorial: Lessons of Jarbidge hard to learn Do you remember Jarbidge? You probably do if you lived here 10 years ago when Northwest Montana residents formed a convoy to support and celebrate the “Shovel Brigade” which was organized to rebuild a national forest road in Nevada in defiance of federal authorities. Since then, the battle of Jarbidge Canyon has degenerated into a contest to prove whether Elko County or the federal government was the first to establish a road along the river. But waiting on the sidelines are environmental groups who consider that a side issue. For them, the Endangered Species Act is the law that trumps all. As intervenors in the case, the groups argue that the Forest Service must maintain authority over the road for the sake of the southernmost population of bull trout, which are protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Jarbidge fight has all the ingredients of most other ESA battles, including some here in Northwest Montana: environmental litigants acting as advocates for a species, traditional-use advocates fighting to maintain access and management to public resources, and a federal agency caught in the middle. The most important, and unfortunate, common denominator among endangered-species cases is how lengthy and wasteful they can be....
Bike club, Forest Service working toward solution Dave Ryan wants people to know that Missoula's mountain bike club isn't made up of a bunch of renegades knocking heads with the U.S. Forest Service over trail use in the popular Blue Mountain Recreation Area. In truth, Ryan said club members are encouraged with the direction the agency is moving to provide access in the woods. A few weeks back, Ryan wasn't so sure. The Missoula Ranger District had just mailed an open letter that said mountain bikers could face upward of $175 in fines if they got caught riding on a trail traditionally open only to equestrians and pedestrians. The letter said mountain bike closure signs had been vandalized and removed, and voluntary compliance just wasn't working. “It caught us a little bit off-guard,” said Ryan, Mountain Bike Missoula's board chairman. “That's behind us now. ... I really feel like we're making some headway with the Forest Service.” The talk's now turned to working together with both the Forest Service and the Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula to find some solutions to trail use that everyone can live with....
Developer submits revised application for proposed ski resort The developer of a proposed ski resort south of here submitted a revised permit application Monday, seeking permission to include 1,680 acres of U.S. Forest Service land in his project. The new application is in response to the Forest Service's decision last year denying Tom Maclay permission to include public land adjacent to his family's ranch in his proposal for the Bitterroot Resort. "I believe our community is beginning to more fully appreciate the great potential of this site as well as the economic development opportunities that come with having appropriately planned, ecologically sustainable recreation and tourism amenities in one of the most outstanding natural settings in the U.S.," Maclay said in a written statement. Maclay wants to build what supporters say would be a world-class destination resort for skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts. Skiing would extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883 and onto national forest land near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area....
As the Rich Ride In, Many Are Priced Out of Homes on the Range In an era when the rich are the only income group getting richer, ever-larger waves of wealth are spilling in from the coasts and swamping the resort valleys of the Rocky Mountain West. The rich are coming not just to ski, mountain-bike or build imposing second homes. They are coming to stay -- or, at the very least, secure permanent resident status for tax purposes. The moneyed invasion is driving population growth rates that are among the highest in the nation. From Aspen to Jackson to Squaw Valley, high-net-worth individuals fill sleek restaurants night after night to eat $30 plates of freshly flown-in fish. They donate generously for the arts, wildlife conservation, and preserving forest and farmland near their custom-built homes. And with millions of well-to-do baby boomers nearing retirement, the Rocky Mountain resort forecast is for years upon years of the incoming rich -- seeking big sky, big houses and the comfort of others who can afford to live large....
Poll favors motorized recreation in National Forests A survey of 500 voters in Western Colorado found the majority of respondents favor motorized recreation in the state’s national forests. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national trail-based recreational access group, maintains the poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, indicates three-fourths of the region’s voters reject any changes the Forest Service would impose to limit public access. "This survey rebukes the efforts of environmental groups to restrict recreational access to public lands under the guise of protection," Brian Hawthorne, public lands director for the coalition said in a news release. "This poll shows wide support across the political spectrum for balanced management of the region’s national forests." A task force appointed by Gov. Bill Owens has been holding public hearings to consider if areas that currently are roadless in the forests, should remain roadless, or if they should be opened to a wide variety of uses including motorized recreational vehicles....
Column: New Mexico is Burning Devastation, Charred; these are the media's terms of choice so far to describe the 17,000 acre Ojo Feliz fire in northern New Mexico. The human-caused fire has been growing in hot and windy conditions over the last three days. But can anyone say people were not forewarned? And is the fire really "devastating" for the grasslands and forests that have evolved for millennium with wildfire? I would argue that it's desperately needed and refreshing for these fire-dependent ecosystems. The problem in this situation is people are in the way. The government has been pouring millions of dollars into firewise campaigns, thinning, prescribed fire, and other actions to fulfill the mandate of the National Fire Plan. The Fire Plan, adopted in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognizes the essential ecological role of fire and sets direction for safeguarding forest-interface communities. The plan calls for allowing more fires to burn naturally in backcountry forests, thereby protecting the lives of firefighters, saving taxpayer dollars, restoring forest ecosystems and protecting communities. The Forest Service continues to suppress the overwhelming majority of natural fires. Since 2001, the Forest Service spent approximately half a billion dollars- an average of $99 million annually- to suppress 98 percent of wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico. Forest Guardians believes there is a rapidly growing fire-industrial complex. Lucrative private contracts for aircraft, heavy equipment and labor- coupled with ever-expanding housing developments- threaten to drive a detrimental policy of fire suppression at all costs....
US drilling recovery evident in completions, other data Completion totals and federal onshore permitting and leasing data reflect the strong drilling recovery under way in the US. The country's drilling activity climbed 9% year-to-year in the first quarter, the American Petroleum Institute said in its latest quarterly well completion report. Producers drilled an estimated 11,527 oil wells, gas wells, and dry holes in the US during 2006's first 3 months, compared with 10,534 in the comparable 2005 period. Gas well completions increased 8% year-to-year to 6,957, oil well completions grew 10% to 3,358, and dry holes climbed 16% to 1,212. API Chief Economist John C. Felmy noted "anecdotal evidence" that fewer deepwater wells were drilled in the first quarter but that more were successful. Total US exploratory completions rose 12% year-to-year in the first quarter, while development completions grew 9% during the same period, according to API. It estimated that US oil and gas exploration footage reached 63,386,000 ft, 12% more than in 2005's first quarter....
Column: This Land is My Land -- Really President Bush wants to sell my land to fund rural schools. I mean my land -- not the vast tracts of federal forests and grasslands I co-own with the proverbial New York cabbie, the Seattle widow and all other American citizens. My private land -- the 12 acres I own with my husband. We bought it through a Forest Service land exchange in 2000 and have paid taxes on it ever since. Yet there it is, a tiny green polygon on the maps described in the Feb. 28 Federal Register. There it is, part of the president's plan to sell 304,370 acres of Forest Service land to raise $800 million to fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, a popular county payments program established in 2000. If our speck of land in rural northeastern California were the only mistake in the president's funding plan, we could all laugh it off as another bureaucratic blunder. But the proposal is replete with errors. Some are like the inclusion of our property, mere slip-ups in a sloppy process done in haste. Others are far more troubling, suggesting a strategy that veers from simply incompetent to irresponsible....
Center for Biological Diversity Hosts Successful Collaboration Workshops The Center for Biological Diversity hosted two successful workshops entitled "Advocacy through Authentic Collaboration" on March 18 in Flagstaff, Arizona and April 1 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. "In 2004, the chief of the Forest Service identified unmanaged recreation, specifically off-road vehicle (ORV) use, as one of four key threats to national forest lands. In an attempt to gain control of the burgeoning number of ORV users on our public lands, the Forest Service has begun the process of travel management planning which will include the designation of off-road vehicle routes, trails and areas," said Chris Kassar, Center wildlife biologist and ORV campaign coordinator. Each forest in Arizona and New Mexico has begun the travel management planning process in response to new regulations concerning travel planning and off-road vehicle management issued by the Forest Service in November 2005 (for more on the rule go to www.endangeredearth.org/orv. The rule tasks forests with the job of designating routes and areas suitable for off-road vehicle use. One possible way the agency will involve the public in these decisions is through a "collaborative process," which could include a variety of users working together to advise the Forest Service on the design of a mutually acceptable system of trails, routes and roads....
Industry: Logging can help slow beetles Timber industry representatives say clear-cut logging should be used to help slow the spread of bark beetles in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. At a meeting last week between timber industry representatives and U.S. Forest Service officials, the timbermen said they could be part of the solution to the growing bark beetle problem. If nothing is done, they said, the forest will suffer. "We're there. The timber's dying," said Bill Petersmann, a forester with Bighorn Logging. "We should be growing new trees right now." Petersmann said logging could help remove infested trees and promote new growth in the forest. But Mary Peterson, forest supervisor for Medicine Bow-Routt, said even trees that are killed by bark beetles can serve a purpose; when left in the forest, they will eventually topple and degrade into the soil, providing nutrients for plants and habitat for animals....
Layman Lumber to close Layman Lumber Co., a fixture in Naches for 50 years, will lay off most of its 50 employees by the end of the month and shut down for good by the middle of June. Owner Kathy Kratzer, daughter of founder George Layman, said Monday that timber supplies aren't sufficient to operate the sawmill, which produced lumber mostly for the housing industry. "Without timber, you can't make lumber," Kratzer said in a telephone interview. She also blamed poor prices and changing environmental regulations but declined to elaborate on the company's financial situation. "It's just become impossible. Let's just leave it at that," Kratzer said. Layman Lumber, which has produced about 25 million board feet of lumber a year, is representative of the small mills that once dotted the Northwest, said Mike Pieti, executive secretary and treasurer of the Portland-based Western Council of Industrial Workers....
With spotted owl count falling, lawsuit is planned More than a decade after the Clinton administration's Northwest Forest Plan was launched to save the threatened spotted owl, a Seattle environmental group says the bird's population in Washington is plummeting. Citing "overwhelming evidence" about the decline of what became a focal point in the battle between environmentalists and the timber industry in the 1990s, the Seattle chapter of the Audubon Society launched a legal assault Tuesday on Weyerhaeuser Co. and the state agency that regulates timber cutting. Joined by the Kittitas Audubon Society, the Seattle group cited five spots in southwest Washington where the state allowed extensive logging by Weyerhaeuser near owl nests. The logging, and more that is planned, violate the Endangered Species Act, the environmentalists contend. Weyerhaeuser says it follows state regulations and even exceeds them in some ways....
Column: Mystery mouse takes centerstage in endangered species drama The outcome of a struggle between the lumpers and the splitters may determine the future regulatory reach of the Endangered Species Act. Are these angry gangs of unemployed loggers, fighting over the carcass of a spotted owl? No. These are biologists - experts in the esoteric field of DNA identification. And whether the lumpers or splitters gain the upper hand in deciding which species gain protected status will mean the difference between an ESA that tries to do the impossible, by protecting every detectable subspecies of plant or animal, and one that sets its sights on the doable, by setting priorities and focusing on saving a select number of keystone species. It all boils down to how finely the federal government chooses to parse the genetic code that differentiates one species from another, on a continuum that begins at the top, with broad taxonomic categories, and moves down to genetic variations between individuals. Given the precision with which we can now map DNA - just a fantasy when the law was passed in the 1970s - science has caught up with and overtaken the ESA, creating a disconnect that must be addressed. Charles Darwin may have been the first to note the difference between lumpers and splitters. The former gloss over what they see as trivial differences, in search of nature's unity. The latter focus on tiny differences, to stress nature's diversity. And the factions have come to blows over the identity of an enigmatic creature called the Preble's meadow jumping mouse....
County considering zoning change for workers camps "Mancamp" was a dirty word for some folks who saw the oil shale boom of the 1980s in Garfield County. It meant a sprawling, trashed-out trailer park north of Parachute that housed hundreds of oil shale workers. Now the phrase is "camper park for energy workers," and one natural gas company, Occidental Oil and Gas Group (Oxy), is proposing one north of DeBeque to temporarily house its workers. Oxy began discussing a remedy with the county late last year, said Doug Dennison, regulatory coordinator for the company, about a process to permit such camps. It has applied for a zoning code amendment to allow the camps and a special use permit. Dennison said the company would like to establish the camps for workers who have to travel one and a half to two hours over rough roads to reach the company's private land - about 20,000 acres....
Middle of Nowhere Is a Center of Conflict The 3 million acres of federal land in the Arizona Strip have their remote geography to thank for preserving their spectacular red sandstone escarpments, slot canyons, rock art and ruins of ancient pueblos. One of the last places in the Lower 48 to be mapped, the strip, in the northwestern corner of the state, is today bypassed by major highways and mostly devoid of gas stations, hotels and other visitor services. As a result, more than 12,000 years of human history written on this rugged landscape has remained in place, undisturbed by tourism or development. That is about to change. Here at the backdoor of the Grand Canyon, two national monuments, Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs, are poised to absorb the effects of the explosive growth from Las Vegas to the west and St. George, Utah, to the north — two of the fastest expanding areas in the nation. The federal agency that oversees much of the land in the Arizona Strip, the Bureau of Land Management, is preparing a long-range plan for the area that would allow uranium mining and oil and gas exploration across 96% of the lands outside the monuments. The plan would also permit livestock grazing in the monuments and open 3,000 miles of roads to motorized recreation, including some in the monuments. A 7,100-acre "play area" for dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles would be established. And although that area would be outside the monuments, it would be next to land set aside to protect a threatened cactus and a Native American petroglyph site....
Half of Canadian BSE Cattle Born After 1997 Feed Ban; Stronger Measures Needed Canada announced on Sunday yet another case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), this time in British Columbia, in a dairy cow born in mid-2000. This is a significant development because it confirms that BSE in Canada is not confined only to Alberta, and BSE in Canadian cattle obviously is not restricted to animals born before Canada’s 1997 feed ban was implemented to prevent the spread of this disease. This latest BSE-positive cow – as well as the case Canada announced on Jan. 23 – was born three years after Canada implemented its feed ban, which suggests BSE has been circulating within the Canadian feed system during the past six years. The BSE-positive cow Canada confirmed on Jan. 11, 2005, was born seven months after Canada implemented its feed ban. This new case actually is Canada’s sixth confirmed case of BSE in native-born cattle, not its fifth, as reported by USDA, which continues to overlook the December 2003 case found in Washington state in a cow imported from Alberta. (Canada also detected BSE in a cow imported from Great Britain in 1993.) More worrisome is that this latest incident is Canada’s fourth detected case in a little more than a year, and that Canada continues to test significantly fewer cattle compared to other BSE-affected countries. “This means half of all Canadian BSE cases confirmed so far were in animals born after Canada implemented its 1997 feed ban, a precaution USDA incorrectly assumed would halt the spread of the disease within Canada’s feed system and its cattle herd,” said R-CALF USA President and Region V Director Chuck Kiker....
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
China Using Artificial Rain to Clear Dust
Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said Tuesday. The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo. The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings. Hospitals reported a jump in cases of breathing problems, state television said. The government was preparing to seed clouds to make rain to clear the air, state TV said, citing the Central Meteorological Bureau. It did not elaborate, and the bureau refused to release more information. Storms carrying chalky dust from the north China plain hit Beijing every spring, but newspapers said this week's was the heaviest since at least 2001. The Beijing Daily Messenger said 300,000 tons of sand and dust were dumped on the city Monday....
Rare bubonic plague case reported in Los Angeles
A case of bubonic plague has been reported in the second largest US city of Los Angeles for the first time in 22 years, health officials said. An unidentified woman came down last week with symptoms of the disease, known as the Black Death when it devastatingly swept across Europe in the 14th century. Health officials said they believed the infected woman, who remains hospitalised, was exposed to fleas in the area around her house and stressed that the likelihood of a spread of the rare disease was very unlikely. "Bubonic plague is not usually transmissible from person to person," said Jonathan Fielding, head of Los Angeles County public health. Fielding explained that the disease is not uncommon among animals such as squirrels but seldom spreads to humans. "Fortunately, human plague infection is rare in urban environments, and this single case should not be a cause for alarm in the area where this occurred," he said. Health officials investigating the source of the disease set traps to catch squirrels and other wild animals in the area near where the woman lives....
Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said Tuesday. The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo. The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings. Hospitals reported a jump in cases of breathing problems, state television said. The government was preparing to seed clouds to make rain to clear the air, state TV said, citing the Central Meteorological Bureau. It did not elaborate, and the bureau refused to release more information. Storms carrying chalky dust from the north China plain hit Beijing every spring, but newspapers said this week's was the heaviest since at least 2001. The Beijing Daily Messenger said 300,000 tons of sand and dust were dumped on the city Monday....
Rare bubonic plague case reported in Los Angeles
A case of bubonic plague has been reported in the second largest US city of Los Angeles for the first time in 22 years, health officials said. An unidentified woman came down last week with symptoms of the disease, known as the Black Death when it devastatingly swept across Europe in the 14th century. Health officials said they believed the infected woman, who remains hospitalised, was exposed to fleas in the area around her house and stressed that the likelihood of a spread of the rare disease was very unlikely. "Bubonic plague is not usually transmissible from person to person," said Jonathan Fielding, head of Los Angeles County public health. Fielding explained that the disease is not uncommon among animals such as squirrels but seldom spreads to humans. "Fortunately, human plague infection is rare in urban environments, and this single case should not be a cause for alarm in the area where this occurred," he said. Health officials investigating the source of the disease set traps to catch squirrels and other wild animals in the area near where the woman lives....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Victims of bear attack had visited forest several times before The mountaintop swimming hole near where a black bear killed a 6-year-old girl and injured her mother and 2-year-old half brother was a favorite spot for the outdoors-loving Ohio family, relatives said Monday. Relatives of Elora Petrasek met with reporters for the first time Monday since she was killed four days earlier near a waterfall pool on a 1,800-foot mountain in the Cherokee National Forest of southeast Tennessee. "We are very familiar with this area, very familiar with being out in nature," her father, Robert Petrasek, 37, of Sarasota, Fla., said after reading a statement thanking rescuers and doctors. He said the family previously lived in southeast Tennessee. Elora Petrasek, of Clyde in northern Ohio, was killed Thursday afternoon. The bear also bit her half brother, 2-year-old Luke Cenkus, puncturing his skull, and went after the children's mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, who was critically injured as she tried to fend off the animal with rocks and sticks. The mother remained in critical condition Monday at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga, but she was "awake and doing well" and "neurologically intact," Dr. Vicente Mejia said in a release from the hospital. Her son was listed in fair condition and is expected to get more antibiotic treatment and a psychological evaluation to determine any emotional effects from the attack....
Endangered, Rescued, Now in Trouble Again Black-footed ferrets, the weasel with the burglar's mask that was brought back to life after reaching the brink of extinction, are facing a new challenge from the spread of plague in prairie dogs, their only prey. The disease has slowed the growth of the wild population, which is constantly replenished by the introduction of captive-bred ferrets. And plague is now approaching a colony of prairie dogs that supports half the wild ferret population. Wildlife biologists are waiting to see if the disease will reach the Conata Basin here, a treeless moonscape next to Badlands National Park with the largest population of the highly endangered black-footed ferrets anywhere in the country. "If we lose Conata, oh boy, the program is in trouble," said Michael Lockhart, coordinator of the black-footed ferret recovery program for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. There are now about 850 of the ferrets in the United States, about 350 in a captive breeding center at Fort Collins, Colo., and the rest at 10 sites around the West and one site in Mexico. About 250 of the wild ferrets live in the Conata Basin. The plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, is the same one that caused the Black Death in Europe. It came to the West Coast of the United States from China around 1900, and slowly spread in rodents and other animals to the Rocky Mountain West. Black-footed ferrets are extremely sensitive to plague....
Hikers irate over cattle grazing in Walnut Creek parks Scoot over skeeters, the spring rains have brought another nuisance to vex hikers. The cows grazing in Walnut Creek open space aren't new, but they are making their annual appearance in the pastures where they have seasonal grazing rights. Some might find the sight pastoral, even a nod to the city's ranching history; others see a scene fraught with mud, manure and mashed wildflowers. When resident Mike Egan took his dog hiking last week, he brought a plastic bag along to pick up after the pup, like any responsible pet owner -- but felt silly when he found the trail already littered with sizable mounds of manure. "I'm thinking, what's wrong with this picture?" he said. Egan is among a group of critics of the city's long-standing policy of leasing grazing rights to ranchers. Concerns range from mucking up trails and muddying waterways to eating the wildflowers and littering trails with cow patties....
Elk, wolf researchers probe wildlife battlefield Christianson and Creel are researching elk in the northwest part of the Yellowstone Ecosystem to see how they're affected by wolves. From previous years, they know that wolves cause elk to change herd sizes, behavior patterns and use of the landscape. Now, the researchers are trying to understand how these changes affect the elks' nutrition, reproduction and survival. From January into spring, Christianson lives during the week in a one-room bunkhouse off U.S. 191. He spends his days doing things like spotting elk and wolves, inspecting tracks and scrutinizing videotapes of the animals. Creel generally drives down from Bozeman every Wednesday to join Christianson on his rounds. Every two weeks, the researchers follow elk paths through the Porcupine, Taylor and Tepee/Daly drainages, recording where the elk have traveled and fed and what plants they have eaten. Sometimes, they drop a lead ball or pound the snow with an imitation hoof to see how hard the elk had to work to get through the snow to a meal. It's all to see how wolves affect how well the elk are feeding and how hard the elk have to work for a meal. This day was somewhat different, though. With an unsolved mystery pulling them toward Cameron Draw, Christianson slipped into cross-country skis while Creel donned snowshoes....
Salmon advocates to sue over Oregon Coastal coho Salmon advocates Monday notified the federal agency in charge of protecting salmon that they intend to go to court to challenge a decision not to put Oregon Coastal coho salmon back on the threatened species list after a court ruling took it off. The 60-day notice of intent to sue, required by law before bringing a lawsuit against the government, argues that the decision by NOAA Fisheries violates the Endangered Species Act, goes against the best available science and relies on a new theory put forth by the state of Oregon that coho can rebound even from very low populations. "Coho are still in trouble, their habitat is still in trouble, and now is not the time to declare mission accomplished and walk away," said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice in Seattle, who represents the coalition of salmon conservation and fishing groups....
California tackles greenhouse emissions As it has done with tailpipe emission standards, coastal protection, and endangered species, California is trying to become a leader on one of today's most pressing environmental concerns: global warming. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Democratic leaders are getting behind measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions by forcing California businesses to measure how much they emit, and establish ways to limit them. Last week, Mr. Schwarzenegger brought together top environmental, political, and business leaders for a "Climate Action Summit" in San Francisco. There, he called for a "market based system" in which companies would receive strict caps on how much ozone-depleting gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and others) they could emit. Companies with emissions below such caps could then sell their unexpelled allotment to others who have exceeded their limits. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D) and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D) are already sponsoring a specific "cap and trade" bill. And Senate President pro tem Don Perata (D) is sponsoring a bill that would require in-state utilities, which establish long-term contracts with out-of-state energy providers to no longer allow sources with high carbon content....
Pygmy owl to be taken off endangered list A tiny desert owl is set to be taken off the federal government's endangered species list, drawing praise from developers but protests from environmentalists. The cactus ferruginous pygmy owl is only about 6 inches long and weighs in at less than 3 ounces, but has been at the center of a battle between environmentalists and developers for more than a decade. Environmental groups successfully sued to have it placed on the endangered list in the early 1990s. Developers countersued in 2001, opposing restrictions placed on land use to protect the bird. An appeals court ordered the government to reconsider the listing and the habitat designation....
Delta Smelt's Fate Worries Scientists Last summer, state fish and game workers dragged a net dozens of times through the milk-chocolate waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, looking for a tiny, steely blue fish found nowhere else in the world. The catch, 17 delta smelt, was shockingly small. Never in the nearly five decades that the state has monitored smelt in the sprawling delta, where two of the state's biggest rivers converge just east of San Francisco Bay, have their numbers been as dismal. So abundant a generation ago that fishermen used the translucent, finger-length fish for bait, the delta smelt population has plummeted from the millions to an estimated 100,000 or less — bringing it, some warn, to the brink of extinction. The smelt's recent collapse, coupled with the decline of three other fish species that swim in the delta, has launched a multimillion-dollar scientific detective hunt for the reason. There is a sense of urgency because the smelt's only home is one of California's most important, if troubled, ecosystems. The hub of the state's giant water system and a Bay Area playground, the delta is a vital link in the estuary chain that supports most of California's commercial fish species....
Fish count agency gets extension The contract for the agency that counts salmon and other fish in the Columbia River has been extended while a federal appeals court considers arguments about whether it should remain open. Officials with the Bonneville Power Administration said the agency has extended the existing contract through Nov. 30 for the Fish Passage Center in Portland. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in March that money for the center should be continued until a lawsuit filed by environmentalists and Indian tribes challenging its closure can be resolved. The court likely will hear arguments in the case in mid-September, power officials said. Bonneville had decided to split the fish counting duties between two other agencies after a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, that effectively eliminated the center's $1.3 million budget....
Book Review: The Last Season by Eric Blehm Probing account of the mysterious death in the High Sierras of a veteran National Park Service ranger and the passion that shaped his life. Blehm, an outdoor-sports editor and writer, goes to great lengths to establish the wilderness experience, skills and dedication of outdoorsman Randy Morgenson in a sometimes redundant apotheosis. Morgenson mysteriously disappeared in his 28th season as a backcountry ranger while on patrol in July 1996, in the Kings Canyon national park, some 200 miles south of Yosemite in a valley called, by legendary wilderness pioneer John Muir, one of the most beautiful in the Sequoia region. Yet while the book unfolds with flashbacks as his fellow rangers marshal to search for him some six days after his last communication, Blehm also builds the picture of a complex and conflicted person, as well as a man whose wife, having become aware of his recent affair, is seeking a divorce. The question of whether Morgenson was in a state of depression serious enough to take his own life haunts the expedition as the search party fans out, some recalling that he 'hadn`t been himself' in the weeks or even months prior. The suspense is leavened by hints that the circumstances of his death are not to be immediately resolved....
Park 2,000 acres bigger Just in time for spring wildflower season, Pinnacles National Monument, a popular escape for Bay Area hikers and rock climbers in San Benito County, will grow by nearly 2,000 acres today. At a ceremony in the park, located 32 miles south of Hollister, federal officials and environmentalists will mark the transfer of Pinnacles Ranch, a 1,967-acre expanse of oak woodlands and grasslands, into the park's boundaries. The property had been owned by Stuart Kingman, a former Hewlett-Packard engineer and resident of Campbell and Portola Valley. Kingman became part-owner of the ranch in 1978 after he left Hewlett-Packard. He then built and managed a popular campground on the property, which lies adjacent to the park's eastern entrance off Highway 25. He and his wife, Peggy, lived on the ranch for 28 years, but decided as they got older, they wanted to make sure it was protected rather than carved up into 40-acre ranchettes. The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit land trust, paid the Kingmans, who now live in Sonora, and two business partners $5.3 million in February 2005 for the property. The land couldn't transfer to the National Park Service, however, until Congress approved the money, which took several years of legislative effort by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif....
Park Service rules may be revised With 50 species of mammals and 250 species of birds, with its Wonderland rock formations and its away-from-it-all backpacking spots, Joshua Tree National Park each year offers 1.4 million visitors a break from the traffic, smog and noise that define much of Southern California. So would any of that change, really, if the National Park Service makes some seemingly obscure revisions to one of its enormously bureaucratic internal documents? That question is central to the controversy surrounding a Park Service plan to rewrite the guidelines that park directors rely on when balancing conservation against visitors' use of the country's 390 national parks, seashores and historic sites. The current regulations make park protection the top priority, but the revisions tend to make “park use” and “conservation” equally important. Many of the nation's park directors, as well as a good sampling of congressional Democrats and Republicans, fear that what's being proposed would favor visitor use over preservation – a new focus that some claim is an outgrowth of what they call President Bush's development-friendly policies....
Parks brace for reductions The Bush administration has directed the National Park Service n including Wyoming’s Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks -- to substantially decrease its reliance on tax-supported funding, according to internal documents released Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Park Service officials say they’re simply trying to cope with rising costs and tighter budgets, without harming the parks or decreasing the enjoyment of more than 270 million visitors each year. According to Jeff Ruch, PEER’s executive director, the Park Service is using a new approach called "core operations analysis," in which each park is asked to develop budgets based on a 20 to 30 percent reduction in federal budget support. Park superintendents have the daunting task of deciding which visitor services or other functions can be jettisoned, Ruch said. Whatever shortfalls in support for essential operations remain must be covered with fee hikes, donations from foundations, partnerships with concessionaires and businesses, cost shifting or increased reliance on volunteers, Ruch said....
Progress made in sale of ranch The sale of the Eberts family Badlands ranch for preservation and public use is cruising forward in third gear. The Badlands Little Missouri Ranch, important for its link to President Theodore Roosevelt, is closer than ever to being in public hands. The Ebertses have been trying for three years to sell the land to preserve its historic integrity. After being struck down twice, the family may have a third-time charm. The family of three brothers, Ken, Allan and Dennis, tried to sell the ranch first to the National Park Service, and then to North Dakota for a state preserve. There was interest in acquiring the land where Roosevelt grazed cattle in the 1880s, but the attempts died for lack of public support and funding. The U.S. Forest Service through Dakota Prairie Grasslands has $1.5 million available this summer for a down payment on the 5,200-acre ranch north of Medora. The Forest Service and the Eberts family have yet to sign any agreement. It's pending a formal appraisal. The ranch was appraised at $3.5 million in 2004 when North Dakota, led by Gov. John Hoeven's administration, tried to buy it for what would have been the first state-owned preserve....
BLM draws fire for Pinedale office location State and national wildlife and sportsmen's groups are questioning a federal agency's new building location in a Pinedale wildlife corridor. The Wyoming Wildlife Federation and the Wildlife Management Institute of Washington, D.C., said the Bureau of Land Management's decision to move into a building in an already-tight pronghorn antelope migration corridor reflects poorly on the agency. "We consider it inappropriate, leasing office space in the middle of a pronghorn migration corridor," said Dave Gowdey, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. "We think it shows an indifference to wildlife that we find extremely disturbing." Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM's Cheyenne office, called an article about the office location -- published in the Wildlife Management Institute's "Outdoor News Bulletin" April 12 -- irresponsible....
BLM expects Wyo staff losses While the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is boosting its staff to help deal with booming energy development in Wyoming, the agency's other functions will likely be handled by fewer people in coming years. “We’re going to have to do more with less,” said Rubel Vigil, acting field manager for the BLM's Lander office. During an open house meeting last week with ranchers who graze livestock on the Green Mountain Common Allotment, Vigil said the BLM in Wyoming is looking at a 10 percent cut in staffing over the next two years. Vigil said it might take a while before he could replace a range conservationist who’s leaving the Lander Field Office. Yet in the Rawlins and Buffalo field offices, staffing levels have grown by 22 and six positions, respectively, in response to the rapidly growing workload involved with the energy boom in those districts. Those additional positions are funded separately, via provisions in the National Energy Act....
Cloned cattle await approval Jan Schuiteman and the customers for his cloned bulls have been waiting two years for the government to decide whether meat from such animals' offspring should be allowed for sale. Clones produced by his TransOva Genetics of Sioux Center cost $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, so the decision from the Food and Drug Administration is critical to his business. The bigger question, though, may be whether consumers and big food buyers like McDonald's will purchase the meat or milk that are products of cloning. Foods made with genetically engineered corn or soybeans have been sold widely for several years, but polls suggest consumers will be hesitant to buy meat or milk that is produced through biotechnology. "It's a social, political issue also," said Schuiteman, chief executive officer of TransOva, which is promoting its cloning business at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's trade show this week. The government's "stamp of approval would go a long way" toward assuring consumers that the products are safe, he said. Cloning an animal produces an exact copy of the parent, an attractive idea to farmers and ranchers who are looking to copy cattle, hogs or horses with top genetic traits. A bull could be cloned, for example, that is more likely to produce calves that would yield high-quality beef. At today's cattle prices, a steer whose beef is graded as choice would fetch about $80 more than a steer rated "select." Studies indicate the meat or milk of cloned livestock would be safe to eat. However, companies like TransOva have been observing a voluntary moratorium requested by FDA on using cloned animals for food while the agency decides how to regulate the products....
Government won't require birth date in animal tracking system A livestock tracking system planned by the government will not include the age of animals, despite the key role age has played in mad cow disease investigations. Agriculture Department officials say they don't want to overburden ranchers and can track most birth dates. Critics said the omission could make the system worthless. "So what's the point of having this animal ID system? This is one fact you actually really need to know when it comes to mad cow," Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, said Monday. The department promised to create the system after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago and has already spent $84 million on it. Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns promised it would be in place by 2009. The system also applies to pigs and chickens and to many other diseases. But the controversy is about mad cow disease, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE....
New plan to track animals draws snorts from ranchers A new, high-tech livestock identification and tracking plan aimed at improving animal health and consumer confidence instead has triggered a revolt among some Texas producers. "It's an affront to my personal liberty," said Ron Hickerson, who runs a small herd in Bandera. "I find this is about the most intrusive law they've ever passed in my life." Under the law, every livestock animal and every location where livestock can stay is to be assigned a number. If an animal is moved, its owner is expected to report that movement to a central tracking system. The measure, House Bill 1361, addresses the fears of a global market about the devastating outbreak of such maladies as mad-cow disease and bird flu. But it will increase the costs and record keeping for everyone from ranches to rodeos — consequences critics see not only as unwise but also un-American. "Looking at the Bill of Rights, it's unconstitutional to have to register with an agency to keep livestock," said Debbie Davis, a Bandera area Longhorn rancher who is president of the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry. "It's Marxism." HB 1361, passed by the Legislature last year, authorizes the Texas Animal Health Commission to implement an animal identification system for livestock, which excludes dogs, cats and other companion animals. The computerized system is designed to help authorities locate animals that have been exposed to a disease within 48 hours of its outbreak....
Rounding up the Western family All things need nurturing, even ranch lands of the American West. In their upcoming book, writer Linda Hussa and photographer Madeline Graham Blake hope to show why ranch lands of the American West require a lot of mothering. With the help of Carole Fisher of Bonanza, who's serving as project manager, Blake and Hussa are combining efforts to create "Mothering in the West: A Literary and Photographic Study of Ranch Families." The large format book is scheduled to be published by the University of Nevada Press in early 2008. Photo exhibits will be held in conjunction with the book's release. "It's not going to be just a picture book about the West," says Hussa, who lives and works with her husband John on a third generation cattle ranch in Modoc County's Surprise Valley. "It's talking to the real blood and guts issues, and why we need to pay attention to them." "The time is right to have a book about the West and how people in the West preserve its history and culture," says Fisher, who raises sheep near Bonanza with her husband, a retired large-animal veterinarian....
It's All Trew: A look at wash day from early to modern Many of my columns originate from a casual inquiry from a reader. David Bowerman of Amarillo asked whether I knew some of his relatives who operated a laundry or "wash-a-teria" in early McLean. When the question was presented to our coffee shop locals, we heard some interesting facts and stories about this most important local institution. The earliest laundry site recalled is still standing as a wooden building near the alley across from the Methodist Church. The equipment included Maytag washing machines with wringers and rinsing tubs. Since this was before the advent of affordable clothes dryers, the back lot of the laundry was filled with clotheslines. Most laundries of the time had a shallow trough built into the concrete floor and covered with wooden slats to allow for dumping of tubs and machines of dirty water. Most people brought their own homemade lye soap to use....
Victims of bear attack had visited forest several times before The mountaintop swimming hole near where a black bear killed a 6-year-old girl and injured her mother and 2-year-old half brother was a favorite spot for the outdoors-loving Ohio family, relatives said Monday. Relatives of Elora Petrasek met with reporters for the first time Monday since she was killed four days earlier near a waterfall pool on a 1,800-foot mountain in the Cherokee National Forest of southeast Tennessee. "We are very familiar with this area, very familiar with being out in nature," her father, Robert Petrasek, 37, of Sarasota, Fla., said after reading a statement thanking rescuers and doctors. He said the family previously lived in southeast Tennessee. Elora Petrasek, of Clyde in northern Ohio, was killed Thursday afternoon. The bear also bit her half brother, 2-year-old Luke Cenkus, puncturing his skull, and went after the children's mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, who was critically injured as she tried to fend off the animal with rocks and sticks. The mother remained in critical condition Monday at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga, but she was "awake and doing well" and "neurologically intact," Dr. Vicente Mejia said in a release from the hospital. Her son was listed in fair condition and is expected to get more antibiotic treatment and a psychological evaluation to determine any emotional effects from the attack....
Endangered, Rescued, Now in Trouble Again Black-footed ferrets, the weasel with the burglar's mask that was brought back to life after reaching the brink of extinction, are facing a new challenge from the spread of plague in prairie dogs, their only prey. The disease has slowed the growth of the wild population, which is constantly replenished by the introduction of captive-bred ferrets. And plague is now approaching a colony of prairie dogs that supports half the wild ferret population. Wildlife biologists are waiting to see if the disease will reach the Conata Basin here, a treeless moonscape next to Badlands National Park with the largest population of the highly endangered black-footed ferrets anywhere in the country. "If we lose Conata, oh boy, the program is in trouble," said Michael Lockhart, coordinator of the black-footed ferret recovery program for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. There are now about 850 of the ferrets in the United States, about 350 in a captive breeding center at Fort Collins, Colo., and the rest at 10 sites around the West and one site in Mexico. About 250 of the wild ferrets live in the Conata Basin. The plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, is the same one that caused the Black Death in Europe. It came to the West Coast of the United States from China around 1900, and slowly spread in rodents and other animals to the Rocky Mountain West. Black-footed ferrets are extremely sensitive to plague....
Hikers irate over cattle grazing in Walnut Creek parks Scoot over skeeters, the spring rains have brought another nuisance to vex hikers. The cows grazing in Walnut Creek open space aren't new, but they are making their annual appearance in the pastures where they have seasonal grazing rights. Some might find the sight pastoral, even a nod to the city's ranching history; others see a scene fraught with mud, manure and mashed wildflowers. When resident Mike Egan took his dog hiking last week, he brought a plastic bag along to pick up after the pup, like any responsible pet owner -- but felt silly when he found the trail already littered with sizable mounds of manure. "I'm thinking, what's wrong with this picture?" he said. Egan is among a group of critics of the city's long-standing policy of leasing grazing rights to ranchers. Concerns range from mucking up trails and muddying waterways to eating the wildflowers and littering trails with cow patties....
Elk, wolf researchers probe wildlife battlefield Christianson and Creel are researching elk in the northwest part of the Yellowstone Ecosystem to see how they're affected by wolves. From previous years, they know that wolves cause elk to change herd sizes, behavior patterns and use of the landscape. Now, the researchers are trying to understand how these changes affect the elks' nutrition, reproduction and survival. From January into spring, Christianson lives during the week in a one-room bunkhouse off U.S. 191. He spends his days doing things like spotting elk and wolves, inspecting tracks and scrutinizing videotapes of the animals. Creel generally drives down from Bozeman every Wednesday to join Christianson on his rounds. Every two weeks, the researchers follow elk paths through the Porcupine, Taylor and Tepee/Daly drainages, recording where the elk have traveled and fed and what plants they have eaten. Sometimes, they drop a lead ball or pound the snow with an imitation hoof to see how hard the elk had to work to get through the snow to a meal. It's all to see how wolves affect how well the elk are feeding and how hard the elk have to work for a meal. This day was somewhat different, though. With an unsolved mystery pulling them toward Cameron Draw, Christianson slipped into cross-country skis while Creel donned snowshoes....
Salmon advocates to sue over Oregon Coastal coho Salmon advocates Monday notified the federal agency in charge of protecting salmon that they intend to go to court to challenge a decision not to put Oregon Coastal coho salmon back on the threatened species list after a court ruling took it off. The 60-day notice of intent to sue, required by law before bringing a lawsuit against the government, argues that the decision by NOAA Fisheries violates the Endangered Species Act, goes against the best available science and relies on a new theory put forth by the state of Oregon that coho can rebound even from very low populations. "Coho are still in trouble, their habitat is still in trouble, and now is not the time to declare mission accomplished and walk away," said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice in Seattle, who represents the coalition of salmon conservation and fishing groups....
California tackles greenhouse emissions As it has done with tailpipe emission standards, coastal protection, and endangered species, California is trying to become a leader on one of today's most pressing environmental concerns: global warming. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Democratic leaders are getting behind measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions by forcing California businesses to measure how much they emit, and establish ways to limit them. Last week, Mr. Schwarzenegger brought together top environmental, political, and business leaders for a "Climate Action Summit" in San Francisco. There, he called for a "market based system" in which companies would receive strict caps on how much ozone-depleting gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and others) they could emit. Companies with emissions below such caps could then sell their unexpelled allotment to others who have exceeded their limits. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D) and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley (D) are already sponsoring a specific "cap and trade" bill. And Senate President pro tem Don Perata (D) is sponsoring a bill that would require in-state utilities, which establish long-term contracts with out-of-state energy providers to no longer allow sources with high carbon content....
Pygmy owl to be taken off endangered list A tiny desert owl is set to be taken off the federal government's endangered species list, drawing praise from developers but protests from environmentalists. The cactus ferruginous pygmy owl is only about 6 inches long and weighs in at less than 3 ounces, but has been at the center of a battle between environmentalists and developers for more than a decade. Environmental groups successfully sued to have it placed on the endangered list in the early 1990s. Developers countersued in 2001, opposing restrictions placed on land use to protect the bird. An appeals court ordered the government to reconsider the listing and the habitat designation....
Delta Smelt's Fate Worries Scientists Last summer, state fish and game workers dragged a net dozens of times through the milk-chocolate waters of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, looking for a tiny, steely blue fish found nowhere else in the world. The catch, 17 delta smelt, was shockingly small. Never in the nearly five decades that the state has monitored smelt in the sprawling delta, where two of the state's biggest rivers converge just east of San Francisco Bay, have their numbers been as dismal. So abundant a generation ago that fishermen used the translucent, finger-length fish for bait, the delta smelt population has plummeted from the millions to an estimated 100,000 or less — bringing it, some warn, to the brink of extinction. The smelt's recent collapse, coupled with the decline of three other fish species that swim in the delta, has launched a multimillion-dollar scientific detective hunt for the reason. There is a sense of urgency because the smelt's only home is one of California's most important, if troubled, ecosystems. The hub of the state's giant water system and a Bay Area playground, the delta is a vital link in the estuary chain that supports most of California's commercial fish species....
Fish count agency gets extension The contract for the agency that counts salmon and other fish in the Columbia River has been extended while a federal appeals court considers arguments about whether it should remain open. Officials with the Bonneville Power Administration said the agency has extended the existing contract through Nov. 30 for the Fish Passage Center in Portland. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in March that money for the center should be continued until a lawsuit filed by environmentalists and Indian tribes challenging its closure can be resolved. The court likely will hear arguments in the case in mid-September, power officials said. Bonneville had decided to split the fish counting duties between two other agencies after a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, that effectively eliminated the center's $1.3 million budget....
Book Review: The Last Season by Eric Blehm Probing account of the mysterious death in the High Sierras of a veteran National Park Service ranger and the passion that shaped his life. Blehm, an outdoor-sports editor and writer, goes to great lengths to establish the wilderness experience, skills and dedication of outdoorsman Randy Morgenson in a sometimes redundant apotheosis. Morgenson mysteriously disappeared in his 28th season as a backcountry ranger while on patrol in July 1996, in the Kings Canyon national park, some 200 miles south of Yosemite in a valley called, by legendary wilderness pioneer John Muir, one of the most beautiful in the Sequoia region. Yet while the book unfolds with flashbacks as his fellow rangers marshal to search for him some six days after his last communication, Blehm also builds the picture of a complex and conflicted person, as well as a man whose wife, having become aware of his recent affair, is seeking a divorce. The question of whether Morgenson was in a state of depression serious enough to take his own life haunts the expedition as the search party fans out, some recalling that he 'hadn`t been himself' in the weeks or even months prior. The suspense is leavened by hints that the circumstances of his death are not to be immediately resolved....
Park 2,000 acres bigger Just in time for spring wildflower season, Pinnacles National Monument, a popular escape for Bay Area hikers and rock climbers in San Benito County, will grow by nearly 2,000 acres today. At a ceremony in the park, located 32 miles south of Hollister, federal officials and environmentalists will mark the transfer of Pinnacles Ranch, a 1,967-acre expanse of oak woodlands and grasslands, into the park's boundaries. The property had been owned by Stuart Kingman, a former Hewlett-Packard engineer and resident of Campbell and Portola Valley. Kingman became part-owner of the ranch in 1978 after he left Hewlett-Packard. He then built and managed a popular campground on the property, which lies adjacent to the park's eastern entrance off Highway 25. He and his wife, Peggy, lived on the ranch for 28 years, but decided as they got older, they wanted to make sure it was protected rather than carved up into 40-acre ranchettes. The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit land trust, paid the Kingmans, who now live in Sonora, and two business partners $5.3 million in February 2005 for the property. The land couldn't transfer to the National Park Service, however, until Congress approved the money, which took several years of legislative effort by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif....
Park Service rules may be revised With 50 species of mammals and 250 species of birds, with its Wonderland rock formations and its away-from-it-all backpacking spots, Joshua Tree National Park each year offers 1.4 million visitors a break from the traffic, smog and noise that define much of Southern California. So would any of that change, really, if the National Park Service makes some seemingly obscure revisions to one of its enormously bureaucratic internal documents? That question is central to the controversy surrounding a Park Service plan to rewrite the guidelines that park directors rely on when balancing conservation against visitors' use of the country's 390 national parks, seashores and historic sites. The current regulations make park protection the top priority, but the revisions tend to make “park use” and “conservation” equally important. Many of the nation's park directors, as well as a good sampling of congressional Democrats and Republicans, fear that what's being proposed would favor visitor use over preservation – a new focus that some claim is an outgrowth of what they call President Bush's development-friendly policies....
Parks brace for reductions The Bush administration has directed the National Park Service n including Wyoming’s Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks -- to substantially decrease its reliance on tax-supported funding, according to internal documents released Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Park Service officials say they’re simply trying to cope with rising costs and tighter budgets, without harming the parks or decreasing the enjoyment of more than 270 million visitors each year. According to Jeff Ruch, PEER’s executive director, the Park Service is using a new approach called "core operations analysis," in which each park is asked to develop budgets based on a 20 to 30 percent reduction in federal budget support. Park superintendents have the daunting task of deciding which visitor services or other functions can be jettisoned, Ruch said. Whatever shortfalls in support for essential operations remain must be covered with fee hikes, donations from foundations, partnerships with concessionaires and businesses, cost shifting or increased reliance on volunteers, Ruch said....
Progress made in sale of ranch The sale of the Eberts family Badlands ranch for preservation and public use is cruising forward in third gear. The Badlands Little Missouri Ranch, important for its link to President Theodore Roosevelt, is closer than ever to being in public hands. The Ebertses have been trying for three years to sell the land to preserve its historic integrity. After being struck down twice, the family may have a third-time charm. The family of three brothers, Ken, Allan and Dennis, tried to sell the ranch first to the National Park Service, and then to North Dakota for a state preserve. There was interest in acquiring the land where Roosevelt grazed cattle in the 1880s, but the attempts died for lack of public support and funding. The U.S. Forest Service through Dakota Prairie Grasslands has $1.5 million available this summer for a down payment on the 5,200-acre ranch north of Medora. The Forest Service and the Eberts family have yet to sign any agreement. It's pending a formal appraisal. The ranch was appraised at $3.5 million in 2004 when North Dakota, led by Gov. John Hoeven's administration, tried to buy it for what would have been the first state-owned preserve....
BLM draws fire for Pinedale office location State and national wildlife and sportsmen's groups are questioning a federal agency's new building location in a Pinedale wildlife corridor. The Wyoming Wildlife Federation and the Wildlife Management Institute of Washington, D.C., said the Bureau of Land Management's decision to move into a building in an already-tight pronghorn antelope migration corridor reflects poorly on the agency. "We consider it inappropriate, leasing office space in the middle of a pronghorn migration corridor," said Dave Gowdey, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. "We think it shows an indifference to wildlife that we find extremely disturbing." Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM's Cheyenne office, called an article about the office location -- published in the Wildlife Management Institute's "Outdoor News Bulletin" April 12 -- irresponsible....
BLM expects Wyo staff losses While the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is boosting its staff to help deal with booming energy development in Wyoming, the agency's other functions will likely be handled by fewer people in coming years. “We’re going to have to do more with less,” said Rubel Vigil, acting field manager for the BLM's Lander office. During an open house meeting last week with ranchers who graze livestock on the Green Mountain Common Allotment, Vigil said the BLM in Wyoming is looking at a 10 percent cut in staffing over the next two years. Vigil said it might take a while before he could replace a range conservationist who’s leaving the Lander Field Office. Yet in the Rawlins and Buffalo field offices, staffing levels have grown by 22 and six positions, respectively, in response to the rapidly growing workload involved with the energy boom in those districts. Those additional positions are funded separately, via provisions in the National Energy Act....
Cloned cattle await approval Jan Schuiteman and the customers for his cloned bulls have been waiting two years for the government to decide whether meat from such animals' offspring should be allowed for sale. Clones produced by his TransOva Genetics of Sioux Center cost $15,000 to $20,000 apiece, so the decision from the Food and Drug Administration is critical to his business. The bigger question, though, may be whether consumers and big food buyers like McDonald's will purchase the meat or milk that are products of cloning. Foods made with genetically engineered corn or soybeans have been sold widely for several years, but polls suggest consumers will be hesitant to buy meat or milk that is produced through biotechnology. "It's a social, political issue also," said Schuiteman, chief executive officer of TransOva, which is promoting its cloning business at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's trade show this week. The government's "stamp of approval would go a long way" toward assuring consumers that the products are safe, he said. Cloning an animal produces an exact copy of the parent, an attractive idea to farmers and ranchers who are looking to copy cattle, hogs or horses with top genetic traits. A bull could be cloned, for example, that is more likely to produce calves that would yield high-quality beef. At today's cattle prices, a steer whose beef is graded as choice would fetch about $80 more than a steer rated "select." Studies indicate the meat or milk of cloned livestock would be safe to eat. However, companies like TransOva have been observing a voluntary moratorium requested by FDA on using cloned animals for food while the agency decides how to regulate the products....
Government won't require birth date in animal tracking system A livestock tracking system planned by the government will not include the age of animals, despite the key role age has played in mad cow disease investigations. Agriculture Department officials say they don't want to overburden ranchers and can track most birth dates. Critics said the omission could make the system worthless. "So what's the point of having this animal ID system? This is one fact you actually really need to know when it comes to mad cow," Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, said Monday. The department promised to create the system after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago and has already spent $84 million on it. Earlier this month, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns promised it would be in place by 2009. The system also applies to pigs and chickens and to many other diseases. But the controversy is about mad cow disease, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE....
New plan to track animals draws snorts from ranchers A new, high-tech livestock identification and tracking plan aimed at improving animal health and consumer confidence instead has triggered a revolt among some Texas producers. "It's an affront to my personal liberty," said Ron Hickerson, who runs a small herd in Bandera. "I find this is about the most intrusive law they've ever passed in my life." Under the law, every livestock animal and every location where livestock can stay is to be assigned a number. If an animal is moved, its owner is expected to report that movement to a central tracking system. The measure, House Bill 1361, addresses the fears of a global market about the devastating outbreak of such maladies as mad-cow disease and bird flu. But it will increase the costs and record keeping for everyone from ranches to rodeos — consequences critics see not only as unwise but also un-American. "Looking at the Bill of Rights, it's unconstitutional to have to register with an agency to keep livestock," said Debbie Davis, a Bandera area Longhorn rancher who is president of the Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry. "It's Marxism." HB 1361, passed by the Legislature last year, authorizes the Texas Animal Health Commission to implement an animal identification system for livestock, which excludes dogs, cats and other companion animals. The computerized system is designed to help authorities locate animals that have been exposed to a disease within 48 hours of its outbreak....
Rounding up the Western family All things need nurturing, even ranch lands of the American West. In their upcoming book, writer Linda Hussa and photographer Madeline Graham Blake hope to show why ranch lands of the American West require a lot of mothering. With the help of Carole Fisher of Bonanza, who's serving as project manager, Blake and Hussa are combining efforts to create "Mothering in the West: A Literary and Photographic Study of Ranch Families." The large format book is scheduled to be published by the University of Nevada Press in early 2008. Photo exhibits will be held in conjunction with the book's release. "It's not going to be just a picture book about the West," says Hussa, who lives and works with her husband John on a third generation cattle ranch in Modoc County's Surprise Valley. "It's talking to the real blood and guts issues, and why we need to pay attention to them." "The time is right to have a book about the West and how people in the West preserve its history and culture," says Fisher, who raises sheep near Bonanza with her husband, a retired large-animal veterinarian....
It's All Trew: A look at wash day from early to modern Many of my columns originate from a casual inquiry from a reader. David Bowerman of Amarillo asked whether I knew some of his relatives who operated a laundry or "wash-a-teria" in early McLean. When the question was presented to our coffee shop locals, we heard some interesting facts and stories about this most important local institution. The earliest laundry site recalled is still standing as a wooden building near the alley across from the Methodist Church. The equipment included Maytag washing machines with wringers and rinsing tubs. Since this was before the advent of affordable clothes dryers, the back lot of the laundry was filled with clotheslines. Most laundries of the time had a shallow trough built into the concrete floor and covered with wooden slats to allow for dumping of tubs and machines of dirty water. Most people brought their own homemade lye soap to use....
Monday, April 17, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Voter initiative calls for removal of all wolves from Idaho Ron Gillett wants Idaho voters to get a chance to vote to remove wolves from Idaho. The president of the Idaho Anti-wolf Coalition and his supporters are circulating petitions demanding the removal of the more than 500 wolves in Idaho's backcountry "by any means necessary," including killing them. The coalition has gathered 5,000 to 6,000 signatures in the few weeks it has circulated petitions, Gillett said. Most so far have come from rural areas like Challis. He was setting up stations to gather signatures in Boise on Wednesday. Gillett's first challenge is time. He needs signatures of 47,000 registered voters by May 1 to put the measure on the ballot in November. His second challenge is lack of organizational support. Natural allies like the Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, the Idaho Farm Bureau, the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association and the Idaho Cattle Association all oppose the petition, even though they dislike wolves....
Report: Clean up Western coal If Wyoming doesn't develop a cleaner design for coal-based power plants, it will begin to lose coal customers and an estimated $60 million per year in taxes and royalty revenues, according to a new study released this week. Western Resource Advocates issued a report Thursday detailing a financial analysis of a new "clean" coal market. The report argues that failure to demonstrate coal gasification and other advanced coal technologies with Western coal threatens not only the region's environmental quality, but could also lead to a loss of market share for Western coal producers, harming local economies. "Electric utilities in the Midwest -- where a lot of Wyoming coal is shipped -- have announced their intention to go to (coal gasification), not using Western coal," said Bruce Driver, co-author of the report titled "Western Coal at the Crossroads."....
Forest roads a legal puzzle After a decade-long fight over the Endangered Species Act, property rights and a threatened fish called the bull trout, the fate of a two-mile stretch of national forest road in one of the most remote canyons in the West might come down to a simple question: Who was there first? Was the dirt road in northeast Nevada built before Congress added the wildly rugged terrain to the Humboldt National Forest on Jan. 20, 1909? It's a dispute that's playing out in several states as more and more rural counties stake claims to roads the government insists are federal property -- a legal and political divide the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described in a ruling in Utah earlier this year as "one of the more contentious land use issues in the West." A federal court ruling expected this summer might be viewed as a precedent in jurisdictions with similar conflicts. The issue in Elko County's Jarbidge Canyon is how much of South Canyon Road leading to federally protected wilderness should be off-limits to motorized vehicles given its proximity to the southernmost population of the bull trout in the U.S. The concern is that vehicles traveling the road that follows and sometimes crosses the Jarbidge River could damage the stream bed and push the fish into extinction....
County set to buy Six-Bar Ranch Pima County is about to add another spread to it's ranch holdings: the 3,300-acre Six-Bar Ranch in the San Pedro River Valley. County officials are negotiating a deal to buy the ranch from its private owner for $11.6 million to acquire land that officials say includes great examples of riverfront cottonwood-willow habitat, along with Sonoran Desert scrub, mesquite and grasslands. Six-Bar would be the sixth ranch acquired with a total of $44.5 million from the county's 1997 and 2004 open-space bonds. Most of those purchases were financed by the more recent bond of $174 million. The purchase matches County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry's strategy of targeting ranches far outside the city in hopes of building a ring around the metro area's edges to prevent urban sprawl from moving into now-rural areas. The county is particularly interested in this area because of the presence of Edgar and Buehmann Canyons, both on tributaries to the San Pedro, the Southwest's last major, free-flowing desert river. Edgar Canyon runs from the Catalina Mountains down to the river, and this parcel includes 2,000 acres along the canyon....
Montana BER takes first step in protecting Water Beyond Methane The Montana Board of Environmental Review (BER) took an important first step in protecting Montana's farmers and ranchers from the negative impacts of Coal Bed Methane. The seven member board met on Thursday, March 23rd and voted to protect Montana's existing water quality, by instituting a non-degradation policy. This policy protects the existing water quality of Montana River's upon which irrigators depend on for their livelihood, including protection for Montana fisheries and aquatic life. The proposal, titled Water Beyond Methane, did not pass in it's entirety. The Board rejected the portion of the proposal that called for CBM produced water to be reinjected into shallow aquifers citing the reason that the BER did not have the legal authority to require reinjection. The Board postponed another aspect of the petition that would call for CBM producers to remove salts before discharging water into surface ponds or irrigating with it. Water Beyond Methane is backed by conservation groups, local farmers and ranchers, and area irrigators. Lead by Northern Plains Resource Council, grassroots family farm and conservation organization that petitioned the state last year to strengthen water pollution standards for the coal bed methane industry, the proposed rule before the Board was intended to achieve stronger protections of water quality, ensuring that there will be water beyond methane....
Editorial: Setback for drilling agreement House Bill 1185, a measure giving landowners more say over oil and gas drilling on their properties, died recently in the Colorado legislature, leaving a nettlesome problem unsolved. A compromise should have been possible, but both the energy industry on one side and a broad coalition of ranchers, homebuilders, environmentalists and real estate firms on the other asked for too much. Colorado law separates the right to develop oil and gas from ownership of the surface, typically favoring mineral development. Disputes about such "split estates" have escalated in recent years along with the intensity and density of energy drilling. Subdivisions are encroaching on the traditional landscape of farms, pasture and drilling rigs on the plains of northeastern Colorado. In the western part of the state, second homes and ranches lie in the path of the rush to pump more natural gas. The issue is a hot one around the West, with Wyoming, Kansas and North Dakota adopting reforms last year; Montana is studying the issue. In New Mexico, an move to bolster landowner rights also stalled this year. In Colorado, two Democrats, Rep. Kathleen Curry of Gunnison and Sen. Jim Isgar of Hesperus, tried to balance mineral and surface-owner rights in HB 1185....
Ranchers go off road, into the sky Idaho's congressional delegation and the administration of Gov. Dirk Kempthorne spent two years persuading the Federal Aviation Administration to give ranchers permits to shoot coyotes and other wild predators while flying overhead in powered parachutes and ultralight flying machines. After initially refusing to allow the state to issue aerial gunning permits for experimental aircraft operated by noncertified pilots, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey relented last spring and agreed to come up with "the most appropriate means of accommodation," according to correspondence obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. The FAA is now allowing Idaho to issue permits to ranchers for aerial shooting of predators to protect livestock if their vehicle qualifies as a "light sport aircraft" under new FAA regulations. The new category has spawned a squadron of unconventional flying craft known as "aerial ATVs." "These are the newest, hottest things for ranchers," said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the FAA in Renton, Wash. But wildlife activists say the use of kit-built and experimental flying contraptions for airborne attacks on wild animals is dangerous and absurd....
Grazing in '06 proceeds under current rules There won't be any new rules this summer for one of the largest, unfenced public land grazing allotments in the United States. The Green Mountain Common Allotment won’t get new grazing regulations until the 2007 spring turnout, said John Likins, rangeland management specialist for the Bureau of Land Management’s Lander Field Office. In an open house meeting Thursday afternoon, Likins said he was leaning toward 60 percent of authorized use for the 500,000 acres between the Red Desert and Jeffrey City, Bairoil and the Sweetwater River. The unfenced allotment has been the subject of concerns about drought and overgrazing in recent years. Depending on which pasture is used for spring turnout, Likins said livestock can enter the allotment sometime between May 10 and 20. He added that the maximum grazing season this year will be May 10 through Oct. 1, though that could be extended a bit with good moisture....
Fishlake thinning plans upheld by appeals court A federal appeals court has upheld a proposed Forest Service thinning and timber sale project on the Fishlake National Forest that seeks to curb spruce beetle infestation. A local environmental group, the Utah Environmental Congress, challenged the project on the grounds that the Forest Service acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" by failing to consider effects on fish and wildlife in implementing the Seven Mile Project, thus violating federal environmental laws. But a district court upheld the Forest Service proposal, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the decision, ruling that the agency's 123-acre project met federal environmental guidelines. "We've felt strongly all along that this is a good project which promotes sound stewardship of the forest and meets our obligations, both procedural and substantive. The 10th Circuit Court decision supports this view," Fishlake National Forest supervisor Mary Erickson said in a statement....
So Many Bald Eagles, So Little Room Left to Nest The dramatic aerial battle this month between two bald eagles contending for territory on the Potomac River south of Washington is a sign that their population rebound has been so successful they are running out of habitat. The number of breeding pairs of eagles in the Chesapeake Bay region grew from fewer than 100 in the late 1970s to about 1,000 this year. Eagles are crowding together more closely, and a growing number of birds are being treated for injuries suffered in turf battles. The nonprofit Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro treated six eagles last year that had wounds consistent with fights with other eagles, compared with two the year before, said its president, Ed Clark. At Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research in Newark, Del., another nonprofit facility, the bald eagle injured near Washington was the fifth one brought in this year from Maryland with fight injuries....
Busy off-road weekend sees 25 hurt, 1 fatal drug overdose An estimated 30,000 off-road enthusiasts converged on the dunes, trails and sagebrush flats of Little Sahara State Recreation Area for the Easter weekend, one of the busiest of the year. About 70 law enforcement officers from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, Juab County and the Utah Highway Patrol were on hand to provide emergency assistance and help curtail serious injuries, but dozens of off-roaders were hurt - some seriously - and one person died of a drug overdose, said BLM spokeswoman Lisa Reid. "These numbers are good," she said. "They are really low numbers. . . . But, people underestimate the hill they're going up." Fourteen people were treated since Friday at the BLM-owned recreation center medical office for minor injuries involving accidents, Reid said. Six more were taken by ambulance and five others were flown to area hospitals for more serious injuries....
Sage grouse will keep BLM protections The Bureau of Land Management plans to continue upholding protections for the Gunnison sage grouse, despite the fact the bird was determined healthy enough to stay off the endangered species list last week. “Right now we’re going to continue as is,” said Theresa Sauer, spokeswoman for the Colorado state office of the BLM. “We will still do the efforts we have been doing because we still want to keep the Gunnison sage grouse off the endangered species list.” Sauer said the agency was working on a strategy with the state and other partner agencies to come up with a plan to manage habitat occupied by the grouse. Until the strategy is complete, Sauer said, the BLM’s protection efforts would not change. More than 50 percent of the grouse’s habitat is on land managed by the BLM, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The BLM has afforded protections to the bird, particularly for oil and gas drilling....
World’s tallest horse wows ’em in Jerseyville Visitors wanting to get a peek at the world’s tallest horse Saturday had to hoof it to a farm supply store in Jerseyville because of the large crowd it drew. The parking lot at the Jerseyville Farm and Home Supply store, 725 Shipman St., was full of cars, as were the streets lining the store. Families pushing strollers, farmers and just plain curious folk wanted to see the horse in person. Radar, a Belgian draft horse, appeared calm while standing in a pile of straw where half of the sporting goods section previously had been at Farm and Home Supply. The 2,400-pound gelding stands 6 feet 7 inches tall at the withers, or the top of the shoulders, and only blinked when children tried to get his attention and camera flashes temporarily blinded him....
Montana’s horse-racing history runs deep American Indians brought horses into Montana in the 1700s, beginning a stellar history of horse racing that spans several centuries. The tiny town of Racetrack near Deer Lodge commemorates the earliest form of the sport. According to local tradition, Indian horsemen raced their fast ponies along its straightaway. Billy Bay was Montana’s first famous thoroughbred. Native people reportedly brought the Kentucky stallion here from the region north of the Great Salt Lake. Trader Malcolm Clarke, whose stage stop was the site of the present Sieben Ranch headquarters, acquired the horse from his Blackfeet in-laws. Billy Bay already had a reputation for winning inter-tribal races. Miners loved a good race, and the streets of most mining camps served as early racetracks. Virginia Slade, an expert horsewoman, acquired Billy Bay from Clarke and rode him in the Sunday races held in the streets of Virginia City. It was Billy Bay that carried his mistress hell-bent down the road into Virginia City to save her miscreant husband, hanged by the vigilantes in March of 1864. That wild ride was one race Billy Bay did not win....
Staging a Texas Legacy A lone cowboy on horseback, holding a fluttering Texas flag, stands at the edge of a high ridge in Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Suddenly, fireworks explode in the evening sky, signaling the start of a historical summer pageant that has celebrated the Texas Panhandle's ranching heritage for 40 years. As sparks fade, the audience in Pioneer Amphitheatre cheers wildly while the rider races along the ridge's edge and vanishes into the darkness. "I remember seeing that cliff rider as a child, and I always wanted to be one,” says Shannon Timberlake, 47, of nearby Canyon, Texas (pop. 12,857). "Now I am, and I can't explain the feeling I get when I hear people whooping as I ride away. It's awesome.” Canyon's relationship with cowboys, cattle and the 120-mile-long Palo Duro Canyon—known as the Grand Canyon of Texas—is legendary and undisputable. In 1887, cattle rancher Lincoln Guy Conner founded the town, which residents named after Palo Duro Canyon. When the railroad arrived a decade later, Canyon City—renamed Canyon in 1911—became a major shipping center for cattle and cotton....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Infinite time affects natural gas boom Infinite Time: The way I've been able to absorb the concept of 'No beginning and no end' is that time must be like a rolling ball. Of course, in my mind time recycles itself over a long period. Thus my surprise when I read about the natural gas boom in Pinedale, Wyo., and the record high price of farmland in Iowa. Take yourself back 25 years. In the early '80s, the population of Casper, Wyo., was nearly 80,000. Commuter airlines into Wyoming were full of engineers and roughnecks from Houston, real estate agents were giddy, the city had discontinued its traditional Ranch City banquet, all eyes were on the oil. Meanwhile in Iowa, farmland was increasing in value proportionate to the 14-percent inflation rate that was roaring through the country. The price of cattle, corn and soybeans remained at subsistence levels, but banks were lending money using the inflated land values as collateral. Farmers were buying more land and more machinery, ag lenders felt like Santa Claus....
Voter initiative calls for removal of all wolves from Idaho Ron Gillett wants Idaho voters to get a chance to vote to remove wolves from Idaho. The president of the Idaho Anti-wolf Coalition and his supporters are circulating petitions demanding the removal of the more than 500 wolves in Idaho's backcountry "by any means necessary," including killing them. The coalition has gathered 5,000 to 6,000 signatures in the few weeks it has circulated petitions, Gillett said. Most so far have come from rural areas like Challis. He was setting up stations to gather signatures in Boise on Wednesday. Gillett's first challenge is time. He needs signatures of 47,000 registered voters by May 1 to put the measure on the ballot in November. His second challenge is lack of organizational support. Natural allies like the Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, the Idaho Farm Bureau, the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association and the Idaho Cattle Association all oppose the petition, even though they dislike wolves....
Report: Clean up Western coal If Wyoming doesn't develop a cleaner design for coal-based power plants, it will begin to lose coal customers and an estimated $60 million per year in taxes and royalty revenues, according to a new study released this week. Western Resource Advocates issued a report Thursday detailing a financial analysis of a new "clean" coal market. The report argues that failure to demonstrate coal gasification and other advanced coal technologies with Western coal threatens not only the region's environmental quality, but could also lead to a loss of market share for Western coal producers, harming local economies. "Electric utilities in the Midwest -- where a lot of Wyoming coal is shipped -- have announced their intention to go to (coal gasification), not using Western coal," said Bruce Driver, co-author of the report titled "Western Coal at the Crossroads."....
Forest roads a legal puzzle After a decade-long fight over the Endangered Species Act, property rights and a threatened fish called the bull trout, the fate of a two-mile stretch of national forest road in one of the most remote canyons in the West might come down to a simple question: Who was there first? Was the dirt road in northeast Nevada built before Congress added the wildly rugged terrain to the Humboldt National Forest on Jan. 20, 1909? It's a dispute that's playing out in several states as more and more rural counties stake claims to roads the government insists are federal property -- a legal and political divide the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals described in a ruling in Utah earlier this year as "one of the more contentious land use issues in the West." A federal court ruling expected this summer might be viewed as a precedent in jurisdictions with similar conflicts. The issue in Elko County's Jarbidge Canyon is how much of South Canyon Road leading to federally protected wilderness should be off-limits to motorized vehicles given its proximity to the southernmost population of the bull trout in the U.S. The concern is that vehicles traveling the road that follows and sometimes crosses the Jarbidge River could damage the stream bed and push the fish into extinction....
County set to buy Six-Bar Ranch Pima County is about to add another spread to it's ranch holdings: the 3,300-acre Six-Bar Ranch in the San Pedro River Valley. County officials are negotiating a deal to buy the ranch from its private owner for $11.6 million to acquire land that officials say includes great examples of riverfront cottonwood-willow habitat, along with Sonoran Desert scrub, mesquite and grasslands. Six-Bar would be the sixth ranch acquired with a total of $44.5 million from the county's 1997 and 2004 open-space bonds. Most of those purchases were financed by the more recent bond of $174 million. The purchase matches County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry's strategy of targeting ranches far outside the city in hopes of building a ring around the metro area's edges to prevent urban sprawl from moving into now-rural areas. The county is particularly interested in this area because of the presence of Edgar and Buehmann Canyons, both on tributaries to the San Pedro, the Southwest's last major, free-flowing desert river. Edgar Canyon runs from the Catalina Mountains down to the river, and this parcel includes 2,000 acres along the canyon....
Montana BER takes first step in protecting Water Beyond Methane The Montana Board of Environmental Review (BER) took an important first step in protecting Montana's farmers and ranchers from the negative impacts of Coal Bed Methane. The seven member board met on Thursday, March 23rd and voted to protect Montana's existing water quality, by instituting a non-degradation policy. This policy protects the existing water quality of Montana River's upon which irrigators depend on for their livelihood, including protection for Montana fisheries and aquatic life. The proposal, titled Water Beyond Methane, did not pass in it's entirety. The Board rejected the portion of the proposal that called for CBM produced water to be reinjected into shallow aquifers citing the reason that the BER did not have the legal authority to require reinjection. The Board postponed another aspect of the petition that would call for CBM producers to remove salts before discharging water into surface ponds or irrigating with it. Water Beyond Methane is backed by conservation groups, local farmers and ranchers, and area irrigators. Lead by Northern Plains Resource Council, grassroots family farm and conservation organization that petitioned the state last year to strengthen water pollution standards for the coal bed methane industry, the proposed rule before the Board was intended to achieve stronger protections of water quality, ensuring that there will be water beyond methane....
Editorial: Setback for drilling agreement House Bill 1185, a measure giving landowners more say over oil and gas drilling on their properties, died recently in the Colorado legislature, leaving a nettlesome problem unsolved. A compromise should have been possible, but both the energy industry on one side and a broad coalition of ranchers, homebuilders, environmentalists and real estate firms on the other asked for too much. Colorado law separates the right to develop oil and gas from ownership of the surface, typically favoring mineral development. Disputes about such "split estates" have escalated in recent years along with the intensity and density of energy drilling. Subdivisions are encroaching on the traditional landscape of farms, pasture and drilling rigs on the plains of northeastern Colorado. In the western part of the state, second homes and ranches lie in the path of the rush to pump more natural gas. The issue is a hot one around the West, with Wyoming, Kansas and North Dakota adopting reforms last year; Montana is studying the issue. In New Mexico, an move to bolster landowner rights also stalled this year. In Colorado, two Democrats, Rep. Kathleen Curry of Gunnison and Sen. Jim Isgar of Hesperus, tried to balance mineral and surface-owner rights in HB 1185....
Ranchers go off road, into the sky Idaho's congressional delegation and the administration of Gov. Dirk Kempthorne spent two years persuading the Federal Aviation Administration to give ranchers permits to shoot coyotes and other wild predators while flying overhead in powered parachutes and ultralight flying machines. After initially refusing to allow the state to issue aerial gunning permits for experimental aircraft operated by noncertified pilots, FAA Administrator Marion Blakey relented last spring and agreed to come up with "the most appropriate means of accommodation," according to correspondence obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. The FAA is now allowing Idaho to issue permits to ranchers for aerial shooting of predators to protect livestock if their vehicle qualifies as a "light sport aircraft" under new FAA regulations. The new category has spawned a squadron of unconventional flying craft known as "aerial ATVs." "These are the newest, hottest things for ranchers," said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the FAA in Renton, Wash. But wildlife activists say the use of kit-built and experimental flying contraptions for airborne attacks on wild animals is dangerous and absurd....
Grazing in '06 proceeds under current rules There won't be any new rules this summer for one of the largest, unfenced public land grazing allotments in the United States. The Green Mountain Common Allotment won’t get new grazing regulations until the 2007 spring turnout, said John Likins, rangeland management specialist for the Bureau of Land Management’s Lander Field Office. In an open house meeting Thursday afternoon, Likins said he was leaning toward 60 percent of authorized use for the 500,000 acres between the Red Desert and Jeffrey City, Bairoil and the Sweetwater River. The unfenced allotment has been the subject of concerns about drought and overgrazing in recent years. Depending on which pasture is used for spring turnout, Likins said livestock can enter the allotment sometime between May 10 and 20. He added that the maximum grazing season this year will be May 10 through Oct. 1, though that could be extended a bit with good moisture....
Fishlake thinning plans upheld by appeals court A federal appeals court has upheld a proposed Forest Service thinning and timber sale project on the Fishlake National Forest that seeks to curb spruce beetle infestation. A local environmental group, the Utah Environmental Congress, challenged the project on the grounds that the Forest Service acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" by failing to consider effects on fish and wildlife in implementing the Seven Mile Project, thus violating federal environmental laws. But a district court upheld the Forest Service proposal, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the decision, ruling that the agency's 123-acre project met federal environmental guidelines. "We've felt strongly all along that this is a good project which promotes sound stewardship of the forest and meets our obligations, both procedural and substantive. The 10th Circuit Court decision supports this view," Fishlake National Forest supervisor Mary Erickson said in a statement....
So Many Bald Eagles, So Little Room Left to Nest The dramatic aerial battle this month between two bald eagles contending for territory on the Potomac River south of Washington is a sign that their population rebound has been so successful they are running out of habitat. The number of breeding pairs of eagles in the Chesapeake Bay region grew from fewer than 100 in the late 1970s to about 1,000 this year. Eagles are crowding together more closely, and a growing number of birds are being treated for injuries suffered in turf battles. The nonprofit Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro treated six eagles last year that had wounds consistent with fights with other eagles, compared with two the year before, said its president, Ed Clark. At Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research in Newark, Del., another nonprofit facility, the bald eagle injured near Washington was the fifth one brought in this year from Maryland with fight injuries....
Busy off-road weekend sees 25 hurt, 1 fatal drug overdose An estimated 30,000 off-road enthusiasts converged on the dunes, trails and sagebrush flats of Little Sahara State Recreation Area for the Easter weekend, one of the busiest of the year. About 70 law enforcement officers from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, Juab County and the Utah Highway Patrol were on hand to provide emergency assistance and help curtail serious injuries, but dozens of off-roaders were hurt - some seriously - and one person died of a drug overdose, said BLM spokeswoman Lisa Reid. "These numbers are good," she said. "They are really low numbers. . . . But, people underestimate the hill they're going up." Fourteen people were treated since Friday at the BLM-owned recreation center medical office for minor injuries involving accidents, Reid said. Six more were taken by ambulance and five others were flown to area hospitals for more serious injuries....
Sage grouse will keep BLM protections The Bureau of Land Management plans to continue upholding protections for the Gunnison sage grouse, despite the fact the bird was determined healthy enough to stay off the endangered species list last week. “Right now we’re going to continue as is,” said Theresa Sauer, spokeswoman for the Colorado state office of the BLM. “We will still do the efforts we have been doing because we still want to keep the Gunnison sage grouse off the endangered species list.” Sauer said the agency was working on a strategy with the state and other partner agencies to come up with a plan to manage habitat occupied by the grouse. Until the strategy is complete, Sauer said, the BLM’s protection efforts would not change. More than 50 percent of the grouse’s habitat is on land managed by the BLM, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The BLM has afforded protections to the bird, particularly for oil and gas drilling....
World’s tallest horse wows ’em in Jerseyville Visitors wanting to get a peek at the world’s tallest horse Saturday had to hoof it to a farm supply store in Jerseyville because of the large crowd it drew. The parking lot at the Jerseyville Farm and Home Supply store, 725 Shipman St., was full of cars, as were the streets lining the store. Families pushing strollers, farmers and just plain curious folk wanted to see the horse in person. Radar, a Belgian draft horse, appeared calm while standing in a pile of straw where half of the sporting goods section previously had been at Farm and Home Supply. The 2,400-pound gelding stands 6 feet 7 inches tall at the withers, or the top of the shoulders, and only blinked when children tried to get his attention and camera flashes temporarily blinded him....
Montana’s horse-racing history runs deep American Indians brought horses into Montana in the 1700s, beginning a stellar history of horse racing that spans several centuries. The tiny town of Racetrack near Deer Lodge commemorates the earliest form of the sport. According to local tradition, Indian horsemen raced their fast ponies along its straightaway. Billy Bay was Montana’s first famous thoroughbred. Native people reportedly brought the Kentucky stallion here from the region north of the Great Salt Lake. Trader Malcolm Clarke, whose stage stop was the site of the present Sieben Ranch headquarters, acquired the horse from his Blackfeet in-laws. Billy Bay already had a reputation for winning inter-tribal races. Miners loved a good race, and the streets of most mining camps served as early racetracks. Virginia Slade, an expert horsewoman, acquired Billy Bay from Clarke and rode him in the Sunday races held in the streets of Virginia City. It was Billy Bay that carried his mistress hell-bent down the road into Virginia City to save her miscreant husband, hanged by the vigilantes in March of 1864. That wild ride was one race Billy Bay did not win....
Staging a Texas Legacy A lone cowboy on horseback, holding a fluttering Texas flag, stands at the edge of a high ridge in Palo Duro Canyon State Park. Suddenly, fireworks explode in the evening sky, signaling the start of a historical summer pageant that has celebrated the Texas Panhandle's ranching heritage for 40 years. As sparks fade, the audience in Pioneer Amphitheatre cheers wildly while the rider races along the ridge's edge and vanishes into the darkness. "I remember seeing that cliff rider as a child, and I always wanted to be one,” says Shannon Timberlake, 47, of nearby Canyon, Texas (pop. 12,857). "Now I am, and I can't explain the feeling I get when I hear people whooping as I ride away. It's awesome.” Canyon's relationship with cowboys, cattle and the 120-mile-long Palo Duro Canyon—known as the Grand Canyon of Texas—is legendary and undisputable. In 1887, cattle rancher Lincoln Guy Conner founded the town, which residents named after Palo Duro Canyon. When the railroad arrived a decade later, Canyon City—renamed Canyon in 1911—became a major shipping center for cattle and cotton....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Infinite time affects natural gas boom Infinite Time: The way I've been able to absorb the concept of 'No beginning and no end' is that time must be like a rolling ball. Of course, in my mind time recycles itself over a long period. Thus my surprise when I read about the natural gas boom in Pinedale, Wyo., and the record high price of farmland in Iowa. Take yourself back 25 years. In the early '80s, the population of Casper, Wyo., was nearly 80,000. Commuter airlines into Wyoming were full of engineers and roughnecks from Houston, real estate agents were giddy, the city had discontinued its traditional Ranch City banquet, all eyes were on the oil. Meanwhile in Iowa, farmland was increasing in value proportionate to the 14-percent inflation rate that was roaring through the country. The price of cattle, corn and soybeans remained at subsistence levels, but banks were lending money using the inflated land values as collateral. Farmers were buying more land and more machinery, ag lenders felt like Santa Claus....
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