NEWS
From campfire to gas tank, mesquite energy may be harnessed for ethanol The dense mesquite-covered mid-section of Texas could provide fuel for about 400 small ethanol plants, according to one Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher. Jim Ansley, Experiment Station rangeland researcher at Vernon, is determining the feasibility of developing a bio-energy industry in rural West Central Texas. The industry would be based on the harvest and use of rangeland woody plants, such as mesquite and red berry juniper, as an energy source. “We’ve had so much more interest in this since gas prices went up last summer,” Ansley said. “That’s going to be a real driving variable. If gas prices continue to go up, I think we could very well see a first generation refinery built in Texas to handle mesquite within five years.” The vision is to build as many as 400 refineries around the state based on mesquite wood. If other woods are considered, the number could go as high as 1,000, he said....
Many Endangered Species Making Remarkable Comebacks As their numbers plummet, jaguars, polar bears and leatherback sea turtles might have hope of survival in light of the success stories of some of their fellow creatures. Human activity threatens 99 percent of all species, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Plants and animals are going extinct at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than what would occur naturally, some researchers say. One recent study concluded that a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050. However, human conservation efforts are working to boost specific populations. The IUCN keeps watch over the world's biodiversity with its publication of its Red List every two years, meant to keep the public and policy makers aware of threatened plant and animal species. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act works to protect plants and animals from becoming extinct. On top of federal laws, individual states offer added protection and conservation mandates....
State recommends against listing prairie chicken After a six-year investigation of lesser prairie chicken populations and habitats, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced June 9 in a press release that they will recommend against listing the species as threatened or endangered in the state. According to the results of the study posted on the NMDGF Web site, the number of chickens counted in leks, or breeding grounds, in New Mexico increased about 83 percent from 2001 through 2005. Dawn Davis, of the NMDGF and who participated in the study, said the increases are most likely due to the last two springs’ above average precipitation and more participation from private landowners in habitat improvement projects. She said the chicken populations are also naturally cyclic, and they tend to fluctuate about every 10 years....
Water fight The government may own the land, but does it own the water used by livestock? Despite years of discussion, the question remains unanswered in several disputes between ranchers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials over water on public lands in Idaho. “It just makes sense for a landlord to seek the proper permits to ensure use on their property,” Bud Cribley, acting Idaho director of the BLM, recently told members of the Idaho Water Users Association at a convention in Sun Valley. Livestock producers don’t disagree that the BLM manages the land. They take issue, however, with the federal agency’s claims to water used by their cattle and sheep, said Craig Pridgen, who is an attorney with a Davis, Calif., firm and represents ranchers. “In fact, the most precious resource for a rancher on public lands is his water right,” Pridgen said....
Senators back own controversial trust-lands bill State senators voted Wednesday to put their own plan for managing trust lands on the November ballot — a measure that foes say is designed solely to confuse voters and defeat a more comprehensive proposal. The proposal requires the Legislature to set up procedures for setting aside up to 400,000 rural acres for conservation. And it would clarify that about 40,000 acres of urban land already earmarked for conservation could be sold to communities. But John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the measure's real purpose is to undermine a more comprehensive initiative backed by his organization, which could set aside 690,000 acres in urban and rural areas that already have been identified as off-limits to development. Wright said backers already have far more than the 183,917 signatures necessary to put the measure on the November ballot. He said they will be filed with the state next week. Sen. Jake Flake, R-Snowflake, a proponent of the legislative alternative, denied the aim is to cloud the issue. He said the lawmakers' plan, backed by ranchers and home builders, is better....
Fowl runoff spurs fierce poultry fight For Bill Berry, there's nothing sweet about the waters of Honey Creek. A 65-year-old cattle rancher, Berry said manure from chicken farms and a chicken processing plant upstream have fouled the stream that runs past his ranch. The water is so wretched, Berry said, that he no longer drinks from his well and has fenced off the stream so his cattle and grandchildren can't go near it. "When I was a kid growing up we'd throw dimes out in the stream and dive down and get them," Berry said. "You can't do that today. ... When the dogs won't drink out of the creek, you know there's something wrong." Berry is part of a bitter and expensive fight over poultry waste that has festered for a decade in this hilly region of eastern Oklahoma and has now migrated to Washington, where the livestock industry has considerable clout. Berry and others argue that the region's large poultry industry, which is primarily in northwest Arkansas, has generated so much chicken waste that it has seeped into waterways that flow into Oklahoma. But the poultry industry is fighting back. The industry is lobbying Congress - with the help of a firm headed by former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La. - to exempt manure from being labeled a "hazardous substance" under the federal Superfund law. And it has created a group, Farmers for Clean Air and Water, to make its side of the story known....
Ranchers face Army expansion plan Steve Wooten drives his Ford pickup over red dirt roads that wind through his ranch near the Purgatoire River, careful to stay on the same old tracks because tire marks can last for decades in this dry corner of southeast Colorado. Near a towering rock outcropping, Wooten and his wife, Joy, point to ancient American Indian drawings of antelope and deer. Go up a handmade ladder to a deep pool of snowmelt and rainwater and you can see the name of explorer Kit Carson scratched into the rock. The couple is the fourth generation of the family to raise cattle on this 27,000-acre ranch. Steve Wooten's great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant, once boasted he had more land in New Mexico and Colorado than there was in Ireland. Maybe it wasn't enough: The Wootens and many of their neighbors fear the Army is about to change their lives forever with a sprawling expansion of the Piñon Canyon training site used by troops at Fort Carson. The post wants to expand Piñon Canyon by up to 418,000 acres, or 653 square miles, an area about two-thirds the size of Delaware....
Audubon Society restoring Palm City ranch to wetland Workers with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service have spent more than a month and almost $500,000 restoring the former cattle ranch to the wetland it was before ranchers drained it. The property, part of 300 acres donated to Audubon in the 1980s, is one of a handful of sites protected and restored with funds from the Wetlands Reserve Program, which is geared toward restoring agricultural land, project manager Stephen Cox said. On Wednesday, bulldozers pushed dirt into ditches while piles of dead Brazilian pepper trees and other unwanted plants burned in the summer heat. Fields of dirt — where impenetrable thickets of exotic plants once stood — waited for rainfall. The cattle that grazed on the grassy fields were removed in Dec. 2004 in preparation of the restoration, Braun said....
Shear artisans For the past 80 years, four generations of Allisons have overseen the spring shearing at their 35,000-acre ranch among the rocky arroyos of Terrell County, 140 miles southwest of San Angelo, Texas. On his 61st birthday this year, Robert Allison made a dark prediction: "I don't believe we'll be shearing sheep here in 20 years." While he spoke in the shade of his great metal barn, six stocky Mexicans from south of Del Rio _ each with green cards identifying them as resident aliens _ zipped the heavy woolen fleeces from Allison's 500 Rambouillet ewes. Every four minutes, the shearers neatly delivered fine, heavy coats for shipment to a wool warehouse. Top hands can shear 100 sheep a day. The gray-haired Allison recalled younger days when 3,000 Angora goats would occupy shearers for three days or more. Historically, this region, known as Edward's Plateau, has furnished 90 percent of the nation's mohair and 20 percent of the nation's wool. "Today, we have no goats," he said, sadly. Allison's ranch might serve as a microcosm of the Texas sheep industry, which has led the nation for a century in wool and lamb production. A series of reversals, however, has plunged Texas' numbers from a peak of 10.8 million in 1943 to a mere 1 million today....
Tourism is double-edged sword for Montana, Wyoming agriculture Wyoming and Montana have much in common as far as agriculture goes. Wyoming producers raise sugar beets, wheat, alfalfa hay and barley, just as Montana producers. They also raise beans, sheep and cattle. The issues are much the same as well: water availability, land conservation, farm bill programs, animal identification, brucellosis, alternative fuels and tourism. Wyoming producers, like many Montana producers, worry about tourists returning to their state to purchase all the undeveloped land as recreational resorts and raising the land prices to the point where agriculturists cannot afford to them. Much to my dismay, I heard on the radio a ranch south of Cody is being purchased by an elite organization to serve as a recreational retreat for those with enough money to belong in the organization, paying somewhere in the millions for annual dues. While the sale probably means a lot to the owners of the ranch, I see another agriculture opportunity going down the drain; an opportunity some young rancher could have taken. Unfortunately, stories such as this are becoming more common than before....
Accused rustler turns self in; cows returned The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department has arrested the man they believe stole about 290 head of cattle from pastures in eight counties, including 17 cows and 30 calves from Nolan Ryan’s China Grove Ranch in Rosharon. Jerome Heath Novak, 27, of Angleton was arrested Thursday morning and charged with one count of livestock theft. He was released from the Brazoria County jail after posting bail later that day. His bond was $5,000. Investigators said the Angleton-area rancher confessed to taking the cattle, valued at more than $250,000. A team, led by Investigator Jack Langdon of the sheriff’s department, received a break in the case last week when a calf with “unusual scars,” one of 10 calves reported stolen from Navasota, landed at a sale in Groesbeck and was recognized by an order-buyer, according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose special rangers helped during the nine-month investigation....
Pair convicted of altering brands A Fall River County jury on Friday convicted two Batesland men of altering brands on livestock. Walter Schultz Jr., 42, and Ronald Jensen, 67, were each convicted of three counts of misuse or alteration of a brand. Each count is a Class 5 felony punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to Fall River County State's Attorney Lance Russell. The jury acquitted the two men of three other counts of misuse or alteration of brands. The jury met for 3-1/2 hours after a four-day trial presided over by 7th Circuit Judge Thomas Trimble. Jensen and Schultz were arrested in November 2004 after authorities searched Jensen's ranch between Wounded Knee and Batesland and found cattle with a neighboring rancher's brand. All of the calves had Schultz's and Jensen's brands, Russell said....
Smoking 'em out: Law officials try to stop modern-day cattle rustlers The truck raced like a phantom down the lonesome dirt road, poking its headlights into the pre-dawn darkness and spewing blinding clouds of dust. The deputy, who was watching nearby, smelled trouble. Todd Culp saw the mysterious truck barrel through a stop sign at 80 mph and wondered where it was rushing to at 5 a.m. The off-duty deputy gunned the engine of his unmarked green pickup in pursuit. Culp soon noticed the truck matched the description of one involved in a recent theft -- and it was hauling an animal trailer. Fifteen miles later, the driver stopped on the ramp of the Cimarron Turnpike. He jumped out. The deputy was right behind him. "Stop! Sheriff's Department. Get on the ground!" Culp barked, drawing his .45-caliber pistol. But the man ran to open the back doors of the trailer, disappeared on the side and began whooping and hollering. Out stumbled a half-dozen cows and one calf. It was, authorities say, an awkward -- and belated -- attempt to get rid of the evidence of a crime: cattle rustling. The era of dusty stagecoaches and wagon trains is long gone, but cattle thieves -- the bad guys in a thousand Westerns -- never quite rode off into the sunset. Rustlers are now a growing menace in some parts of rural America, striking in the dead of night and sometimes selling their haul before the rancher or farmer discovers the animals are gone....
Duvall comes full circle with 'Broken Trail' WE DON'T WANT to step on Superman's cape, but if the Man of Steel ever messed with Robert Duvall, our money would be on Duvall. With a twinkle in his eye and a snap in his banter, he'd charm the tights off the superhero. While most of us hope when we're 75 we can still get in the car and go to the grocery store, Duvall's out riding the range and getting the better of the bad guys. No one sits on a horse like Duvall. And no one embodies a Western hero like Duvall. "Maybe I'd have been a rancher," says Duvall, "if I hadn't been an actor." Good news for us all that he decided on the latter. Duvall's at the top of his game in AMC's first foray into original movies. The four-hour miniseries has Duvall portraying aging cowboy Print Ritter, who is out to set a few family wrongs right. As much a part of the story as the actors is the magnificent Canadian scenery shot outside Calgary — the same location for films including "Brokeback Mountain" and "Legends of the Fall." And the director is noted filmmaker Walter Hill, who did the pilot episode of "Deadwood." The production team boasts Emmy and Oscar winners, and the end product shows the polish, although it starts off a bit shaky....
Stetson still the hat of the American West Few icons are as American as the cowboy hat: grandiose, utilitarian and a trademark of the West. The king is still Stetson, the original cowboy hat, created almost 150 years ago. Philadelphia's John B. Stetson headed west in the 1860s for health reasons. He fashioned himself a big hat to protect him from rain, sun and wind which he dubbed the "Boss of the Plains." Praised for its utility, a Stetson could pull water from a stream, fan a campfire or even provide storage. Its earliest influence was likely the high-crown, wide-brim hat worn by Mongolian horsemen centuries ago. Spaniards wore similar head wear when they came to the New World with another indispensable cowboy accoutrement: the horse. Those hats eventually evolved into the Mexican sombrero. Though the Old West and open range are gone, Stetsons live on. Lots of manufacturers make cowboy hats, and the Stetson brand is even licensed around the world. But the only place that makes the authentic, handmade "Boss of the Plains" is a factory outside Dallas. Owned by RHE Hatco Inc. the factory originally made Resistol cowboy hats, a Texas contemporary to the Stetson. Some reports claim the plant is the largest hat factory in the world, but Stetson spokesman Matthew Ranch is quick to point out there's no quantifiable proof to that. The factory turns out around a million straw and felt hats a year including Stetsons, Resistols and Charlie One Horses....
Friday, June 23, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
MAD COW DISEASE
Study Suggests More Deaths From Mad Cow Disease
The long lives that some former cannibals enjoy before succumbing to a brain-wasting disease suggest that many more humans will eventually die of mad cow disease, scientists said Thursday. But several experts in such illnesses, called prion diseases — which are blamed for killing New Guinea cannibals and British eaters of infected beef — disagreed with that frightening implication of the study, which is to be published Friday in The Lancet, a British medical journal. These experts praised the rigorous work the authors of the report did to confirm that kuru, a disease that once decimated highland tribes in New Guinea, can incubate for 50 years in a few genetically protected people. But the experts said they thought that the findings did not prove that there would be future waves of deaths among people who ate beef from prion-infected cows in the 1980's. "That's a provocative conclusion, but I'm not sure it's totally plausible," said Dr. David Westaway, a prion expert at the University of Toronto. Thus far, only about 160 people, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which humans get from cows that had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. The authors chronicled the deaths and genetic makeup of 11 aging members of the Fore tribe who died from 1996 to 2004 of kuru, which can lie dormant for years but then start a quick, irreversible descent into dementia and death. Kuru killed thousands of Fore beginning in the 1920's and only began to fade after the Australian authorities in the 1950's outlawed the Fore practice of honoring their dead by butchering them with bamboo knives at mortuary feasts, eating them and — by some accounts — smearing themselves with brain tissue, which would drive infection into cuts and scratches....
Second "Mad Cow" Human Case Detected in Netherlands
A second case of the human variant of mad cow disease has been detected in the Netherlands, the National Institute for Public Health said on Thursday. The patient is thought to have contracted the brain wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) disease by eating meat from the same infected batch of beef as the Utrecht woman who died last year. The 26-year-old woman from Utrecht was the first person diagnosed with the human form of the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in the Netherlands. Experts believe the Utrecht woman contracted the disease 20 years ago by eating infected beef. The disease vCJD is characterized by the sponge-like degeneration of the victim's brain, but it is also difficult to diagnose. It can take years for a diagnosis to be made. Doctors are powerless to reverse the illness and can only help ease the patient's pain. A person with vCJD usually dies within 18 months....
Punish Japan if won't buy US beef: Senate panel
The United States should impose economic sanctions on Japan if it fails to put aside its fears of mad cow disease and open its borders to U.S. beef by the end of the summer, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday. Committee members added the nonbinding language to a fiscal 2007 agricultural funding bill that might be debated in the Senate at the same time Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the White House. "I hope he takes heed of this," said Montana Republican Conrad Burns, sponsor of the "sense of the Senate" language. Burns said a U.S.-Japan agreement on Wednesday on steps to restart trade was just "another stalling tactic" to stretch out Japan's ban on U.S. beef, imposed as a precaution against mad cow disease. Japan, the longtime No. 1 importer of U.S. beef, has barred trade for 28 of the past 29 months. U.S. cattle groups are losing faith in negotiations with Japan. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said this week's agreement had few concrete steps and no date for opening trade. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns "does not support sanctions," said a spokeswoman, but "he fully understands the frustration among members of Congress."....
Feed shipped to Kentucky recalled over possible mad cow violation
Livestock feed ingredients shipped to Kentucky and eight other states may have been contaminated with cattle remains in violation of a 1997 ban to protect against mad cow disease, a manufacturer said Tuesday. H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc. said it was recalling three livestock feed ingredients, including two used to supplement feed given to dairy cows. A sample tested by the Food and Drug Administration was positive for cattle meat and bone meal, said Mark Hohnbaum, president of the Westport, Conn.-based company’s feed products group. Mad cow disease is only known to spread when cows eat feed containing brain and other nerve tissue from infected cattle. Protein from cattle was commonly added to cattle feed to speed growth until the ban largely outlawed the practice. Cattle tissue may have contaminated two feed ingredients given to dairy cows — Pro-Lak and Pro-Amino II — made by H.J. Baker between August 2005 and June. The third of the recalled ingredients, Pro-Pak with Porcine Meat and Bone, was mislabeled. It is used in poultry feed. The company announced the recall in the wake of ongoing FDA inspections of its Albertville, Ala. plant, Hohnbaum said. The inspections have found manufacturing and clerical issues, he added. Besides Kentucky, the company shipped the ingredients to feed manufacturers and dairy farms in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee. The company is notifying its customers of the voluntary recall. It does not know how much of the feed ingredients it sold, Hohnbaum said....
Study Suggests More Deaths From Mad Cow Disease
The long lives that some former cannibals enjoy before succumbing to a brain-wasting disease suggest that many more humans will eventually die of mad cow disease, scientists said Thursday. But several experts in such illnesses, called prion diseases — which are blamed for killing New Guinea cannibals and British eaters of infected beef — disagreed with that frightening implication of the study, which is to be published Friday in The Lancet, a British medical journal. These experts praised the rigorous work the authors of the report did to confirm that kuru, a disease that once decimated highland tribes in New Guinea, can incubate for 50 years in a few genetically protected people. But the experts said they thought that the findings did not prove that there would be future waves of deaths among people who ate beef from prion-infected cows in the 1980's. "That's a provocative conclusion, but I'm not sure it's totally plausible," said Dr. David Westaway, a prion expert at the University of Toronto. Thus far, only about 160 people, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which humans get from cows that had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. The authors chronicled the deaths and genetic makeup of 11 aging members of the Fore tribe who died from 1996 to 2004 of kuru, which can lie dormant for years but then start a quick, irreversible descent into dementia and death. Kuru killed thousands of Fore beginning in the 1920's and only began to fade after the Australian authorities in the 1950's outlawed the Fore practice of honoring their dead by butchering them with bamboo knives at mortuary feasts, eating them and — by some accounts — smearing themselves with brain tissue, which would drive infection into cuts and scratches....
Second "Mad Cow" Human Case Detected in Netherlands
A second case of the human variant of mad cow disease has been detected in the Netherlands, the National Institute for Public Health said on Thursday. The patient is thought to have contracted the brain wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) disease by eating meat from the same infected batch of beef as the Utrecht woman who died last year. The 26-year-old woman from Utrecht was the first person diagnosed with the human form of the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in the Netherlands. Experts believe the Utrecht woman contracted the disease 20 years ago by eating infected beef. The disease vCJD is characterized by the sponge-like degeneration of the victim's brain, but it is also difficult to diagnose. It can take years for a diagnosis to be made. Doctors are powerless to reverse the illness and can only help ease the patient's pain. A person with vCJD usually dies within 18 months....
Punish Japan if won't buy US beef: Senate panel
The United States should impose economic sanctions on Japan if it fails to put aside its fears of mad cow disease and open its borders to U.S. beef by the end of the summer, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday. Committee members added the nonbinding language to a fiscal 2007 agricultural funding bill that might be debated in the Senate at the same time Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the White House. "I hope he takes heed of this," said Montana Republican Conrad Burns, sponsor of the "sense of the Senate" language. Burns said a U.S.-Japan agreement on Wednesday on steps to restart trade was just "another stalling tactic" to stretch out Japan's ban on U.S. beef, imposed as a precaution against mad cow disease. Japan, the longtime No. 1 importer of U.S. beef, has barred trade for 28 of the past 29 months. U.S. cattle groups are losing faith in negotiations with Japan. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said this week's agreement had few concrete steps and no date for opening trade. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns "does not support sanctions," said a spokeswoman, but "he fully understands the frustration among members of Congress."....
Feed shipped to Kentucky recalled over possible mad cow violation
Livestock feed ingredients shipped to Kentucky and eight other states may have been contaminated with cattle remains in violation of a 1997 ban to protect against mad cow disease, a manufacturer said Tuesday. H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc. said it was recalling three livestock feed ingredients, including two used to supplement feed given to dairy cows. A sample tested by the Food and Drug Administration was positive for cattle meat and bone meal, said Mark Hohnbaum, president of the Westport, Conn.-based company’s feed products group. Mad cow disease is only known to spread when cows eat feed containing brain and other nerve tissue from infected cattle. Protein from cattle was commonly added to cattle feed to speed growth until the ban largely outlawed the practice. Cattle tissue may have contaminated two feed ingredients given to dairy cows — Pro-Lak and Pro-Amino II — made by H.J. Baker between August 2005 and June. The third of the recalled ingredients, Pro-Pak with Porcine Meat and Bone, was mislabeled. It is used in poultry feed. The company announced the recall in the wake of ongoing FDA inspections of its Albertville, Ala. plant, Hohnbaum said. The inspections have found manufacturing and clerical issues, he added. Besides Kentucky, the company shipped the ingredients to feed manufacturers and dairy farms in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee. The company is notifying its customers of the voluntary recall. It does not know how much of the feed ingredients it sold, Hohnbaum said....
EMINENT DOMAIN
Lost Liberty Hotel Gets Second Wind An undisclosed New Hampshire town is considering applying the Supreme Court's "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision on those justices who voted for it on the one year anniversary of the ruling. The Lost Liberty Airport is the latest project by Logan Darrow Clements to fight eminent domain abuse. It arrives on the June 23 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that set loose a wave of home and land seizures across America. A Selectman for the town that is considering the proposal said, "The Supreme Court's Kelo decision was abhorrent. We are slowly losing our individual rights through bad legislation and a misguided judiciary. Perhaps the only way we can stop this trend is to have the people who create and sustain these laws live under them. That's why I as a Selectman in a New Hampshire town will do my best to get my town to support and carry out the plan for the Lost Liberty Airport." According to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in "Kelo vs. City of New London" a government may use eminent domain to seize homes and land to promote economic development or increase tax revenue. Meanwhile, New Hampshire statute XXXIX chapter 423 allows a town to seize land for an airport outside its border. Since this statute does not require the land to be adjacent territory any town in New Hampshire could seize land inside any other town. Thus any town in New Hampshire could seize David Souter's land in Weare, N.H. or Stephen Breyer's land in Plainfield, N.H. for the creation of an airport. Both Souter and Breyer voted in favor of the Kelo ruling. The airports will be operated by a victim of eminent domain abuse. Thor Solberg owns a private airport in Readington, N.J., which could soon be taken by eminent domain using the logic of the Kelo ruling. On May 16, 2006 the voters of Readington approved a bond authorizing the acquisition of Thor's land. Solberg's Airport, which was built by his father, hosts one of the largest hot air balloon festivals on the East Coast. Said Solberg before the vote, "If the government takes my airport by eminent domain I am ready, willing and able to run the Lost Liberty Airports in New Hampshire....
Kelo: One Year Later Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Kelo vs. New London decision, which gave cities a green light to seize private homes and businesses for the sole purpose of generating higher tax revenues through redevelopment. On the surface, this would appear to be a significant defeat to those who advocate for stronger protection of private property rights. Yet, the Kelo decision was actually one of the best things that ever happened to the national property rights movement, as it clearly imprinted the precarious nature of private property rights in the public consciousness and has inspired significant reforms nationwide. So where does the national property rights movement stand a year after Kelo? The movement was clearly galvanized by the Kelo decision. Over the last year, 47 states have begun reviewing their eminent domain laws, and 23 governors have already signed laws that restrict the use of eminent domain to varying degrees. Eminent domain legislation awaits the governor's signature in a handful of other states. In addition, voters in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, will head to the polls to decide the fate of state constitutional amendments that reform condemnation laws. Dozens of cities and counties nationwide have also either passed or are considering ordinances to prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes. Further, the momentum generated by the Kelo backlash has spread to other efforts to protect private property rights. While eminent domain deals with the physical taking of private property, there has also been increased activity to restrict regulatory takings – de facto takings via restrictions on the ability of property owners to use their land in ways legal at the time they bought their property, dramatically reducing their property's value and imposing an economic hardship on them....
The Pain of Eminent Domain It's been almost a year since the Supreme Court decided in Kelo v. New London that bureaucrats may seize homes and businesses through eminent domain and transfer the land to private developers in the name of economic progress. Although the Constitution says government may condemn land only for "public use," the court held that this term means the same thing as "public purpose" or "public benefit." Thus whenever a city council thinks it would "benefit the public" to snatch a house or small business and give it to Costco or Home Depot or any other company, it may do so, and courts will not intervene. Americans reacted with outrage to the decision and urged state officials to pass laws protecting them from eminent domain. But so far this backlash has achieved mixed results. Of the 16 states that have acted since Kelo was decided, only six -- South Dakota, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Florida -- have imposed meaningful restraints on government power. Other states have either done nothing or have enacted laws so riddled with loopholes that they allow government to seize whatever property they consider "blighted." Take Alabama, for example. When Gov. Bob Riley signed SB 68A into law, he proclaimed his state the leader of a "property rights revolt." Yet even though the law prohibits government from taking property merely for economic development, that restriction does not apply to property that is declared blighted. Blight is defined as "buildings ... which, by reason of dilapidation, obsolescence, overcrowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities, excessive land coverage, deleterious land use or obsolete layout, or any combination of these or other factors, are detrimental to the safety, health, morals or welfare of the community." Under such vague standards, virtually any neighborhood can be declared a blight, and any home or business located there can be seized and given to developers. Compare this with Florida's new law, signed this month by Gov. Jeb Bush. It declares outright that "the prevention or elimination of a slum area or blighted area ... and the preservation or enhancement of the tax base are not public uses." If government wants to clean up bad neighborhoods, it has to do so in other ways -- by lowering taxes, for instance, or by making it easier to start new businesses, or by buying the land it wants fair and square....
Eminent domain surges after ruling The Supreme Court's decision last year to allow cities and states to seize property for private development "opened the floodgates" to eminent domain actions nationwide, a report says. In the year since the Kelo decision, nearly 6,000 properties nationwide have been threatened or taken under that precedent, more than half the number that had been seized over a previous five-year period, said a report released yesterday by the Institute for Justice. "There has been a huge rise in the number of threats to use eminent domain since Kelo. Cities are wielding eminent domain as a club," said Dana Berliner, a senior counsel with the Institute for Justice and the author of the 100-page report. People threatened with eminent domain are vulnerable, she said, because they feel compelled to sell or have their home or business seized for a fire-sale price. At the same time, Ms. Berliner said, residents have become more active in trying to thwart land grabs and promoting changes to state law to bar the use of eminent domain. Since the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., a year ago Friday, 5,783 properties nationwide have been either seized or threatened with seizure under eminent domain. That number compares with 10,281 examples over the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, said the institute, a public-interest law firm that argued the Kelo case before the Supreme Court. During that period, threats were made to seize 6,560 properties, and 3,721 condemnation filings or authorizations were recorded. In the past year, 5,429 property seizures have been threatened for economic redevelopment projects, plus 354 condemnation filings or authorizations, the institute said....The Institute for Justice has released five reports which you can download from their website: Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Post-Kelo World, Redevelopment Wrecks: 20 Failed Projects Involving Eminent Domain Abuse , Myths and Realities of Eminent Domain Abuse, Legislative Action Since Kelo and Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide. You can go here to read Reason Foundation's model statutory language....
Hollywood loses eminent domain fight The city can't take a family's downtown property and give it to a private developer, a judge ruled Thursday, ending a two-year legal battle and potentially jeopardizing a $100 million condominium complex. Broward Circuit Court Judge Ronald J. Rothschild's ruling in favor of the Mach family, which has owned a building on Harrison Street for decades, came as a blow to Mayor Mara Giulianti, who pushed the eminent domain battle over strong protest from residents. It also means that developer Charles "Chip'' Abele will have to alter plans for a 19-story condo and retail complex. "This just shows that a lot of people unified can stand up to a bully, to a government that they don't think is doing the right thing,'' said David Mach, whose late father bought the building after immigrating from Hungary and died during the negotiation process with the city. Mach said he and his mother have no intention of selling to Abele or anybody else. "I just got off the phone with my mother and she was crying,'' Mach said. "She was too emotional to be here, but she is very happy.'' Judge Rothschild issued a very narrow ruling, finding that the city and Abele didn't really need the building to complete the project. Without an absolute necessity, property can't be taken under Florida law....
Property rights measure fails in Legislature A ballot proposal to impose new restrictions on the use of eminent domain to compel property sales to clear slum areas failed Wednesday at the Arizona Legislature. As the Legislature moved to wrap up its 164-day session, the Senate approved the measure but the House failed to act on it. The measure was similar to a bill vetoed earlier this month by Gov. Janet Napolitano. The ballot proposal would have barred municipalities from using eminent domain to boost tax revenue if the planned new use doesn't have an additional public purpose. The measure would have set a new legal standard that local governments have to clear before designating areas as blighted. It also would required cities to provide comparable replacement homes if a property owner's primary residence is taken by the government in a slum clearance or redevelopment....
Lost Liberty Hotel Gets Second Wind An undisclosed New Hampshire town is considering applying the Supreme Court's "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision on those justices who voted for it on the one year anniversary of the ruling. The Lost Liberty Airport is the latest project by Logan Darrow Clements to fight eminent domain abuse. It arrives on the June 23 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that set loose a wave of home and land seizures across America. A Selectman for the town that is considering the proposal said, "The Supreme Court's Kelo decision was abhorrent. We are slowly losing our individual rights through bad legislation and a misguided judiciary. Perhaps the only way we can stop this trend is to have the people who create and sustain these laws live under them. That's why I as a Selectman in a New Hampshire town will do my best to get my town to support and carry out the plan for the Lost Liberty Airport." According to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in "Kelo vs. City of New London" a government may use eminent domain to seize homes and land to promote economic development or increase tax revenue. Meanwhile, New Hampshire statute XXXIX chapter 423 allows a town to seize land for an airport outside its border. Since this statute does not require the land to be adjacent territory any town in New Hampshire could seize land inside any other town. Thus any town in New Hampshire could seize David Souter's land in Weare, N.H. or Stephen Breyer's land in Plainfield, N.H. for the creation of an airport. Both Souter and Breyer voted in favor of the Kelo ruling. The airports will be operated by a victim of eminent domain abuse. Thor Solberg owns a private airport in Readington, N.J., which could soon be taken by eminent domain using the logic of the Kelo ruling. On May 16, 2006 the voters of Readington approved a bond authorizing the acquisition of Thor's land. Solberg's Airport, which was built by his father, hosts one of the largest hot air balloon festivals on the East Coast. Said Solberg before the vote, "If the government takes my airport by eminent domain I am ready, willing and able to run the Lost Liberty Airports in New Hampshire....
Kelo: One Year Later Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Kelo vs. New London decision, which gave cities a green light to seize private homes and businesses for the sole purpose of generating higher tax revenues through redevelopment. On the surface, this would appear to be a significant defeat to those who advocate for stronger protection of private property rights. Yet, the Kelo decision was actually one of the best things that ever happened to the national property rights movement, as it clearly imprinted the precarious nature of private property rights in the public consciousness and has inspired significant reforms nationwide. So where does the national property rights movement stand a year after Kelo? The movement was clearly galvanized by the Kelo decision. Over the last year, 47 states have begun reviewing their eminent domain laws, and 23 governors have already signed laws that restrict the use of eminent domain to varying degrees. Eminent domain legislation awaits the governor's signature in a handful of other states. In addition, voters in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, will head to the polls to decide the fate of state constitutional amendments that reform condemnation laws. Dozens of cities and counties nationwide have also either passed or are considering ordinances to prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes. Further, the momentum generated by the Kelo backlash has spread to other efforts to protect private property rights. While eminent domain deals with the physical taking of private property, there has also been increased activity to restrict regulatory takings – de facto takings via restrictions on the ability of property owners to use their land in ways legal at the time they bought their property, dramatically reducing their property's value and imposing an economic hardship on them....
The Pain of Eminent Domain It's been almost a year since the Supreme Court decided in Kelo v. New London that bureaucrats may seize homes and businesses through eminent domain and transfer the land to private developers in the name of economic progress. Although the Constitution says government may condemn land only for "public use," the court held that this term means the same thing as "public purpose" or "public benefit." Thus whenever a city council thinks it would "benefit the public" to snatch a house or small business and give it to Costco or Home Depot or any other company, it may do so, and courts will not intervene. Americans reacted with outrage to the decision and urged state officials to pass laws protecting them from eminent domain. But so far this backlash has achieved mixed results. Of the 16 states that have acted since Kelo was decided, only six -- South Dakota, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Florida -- have imposed meaningful restraints on government power. Other states have either done nothing or have enacted laws so riddled with loopholes that they allow government to seize whatever property they consider "blighted." Take Alabama, for example. When Gov. Bob Riley signed SB 68A into law, he proclaimed his state the leader of a "property rights revolt." Yet even though the law prohibits government from taking property merely for economic development, that restriction does not apply to property that is declared blighted. Blight is defined as "buildings ... which, by reason of dilapidation, obsolescence, overcrowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities, excessive land coverage, deleterious land use or obsolete layout, or any combination of these or other factors, are detrimental to the safety, health, morals or welfare of the community." Under such vague standards, virtually any neighborhood can be declared a blight, and any home or business located there can be seized and given to developers. Compare this with Florida's new law, signed this month by Gov. Jeb Bush. It declares outright that "the prevention or elimination of a slum area or blighted area ... and the preservation or enhancement of the tax base are not public uses." If government wants to clean up bad neighborhoods, it has to do so in other ways -- by lowering taxes, for instance, or by making it easier to start new businesses, or by buying the land it wants fair and square....
Eminent domain surges after ruling The Supreme Court's decision last year to allow cities and states to seize property for private development "opened the floodgates" to eminent domain actions nationwide, a report says. In the year since the Kelo decision, nearly 6,000 properties nationwide have been threatened or taken under that precedent, more than half the number that had been seized over a previous five-year period, said a report released yesterday by the Institute for Justice. "There has been a huge rise in the number of threats to use eminent domain since Kelo. Cities are wielding eminent domain as a club," said Dana Berliner, a senior counsel with the Institute for Justice and the author of the 100-page report. People threatened with eminent domain are vulnerable, she said, because they feel compelled to sell or have their home or business seized for a fire-sale price. At the same time, Ms. Berliner said, residents have become more active in trying to thwart land grabs and promoting changes to state law to bar the use of eminent domain. Since the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., a year ago Friday, 5,783 properties nationwide have been either seized or threatened with seizure under eminent domain. That number compares with 10,281 examples over the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, said the institute, a public-interest law firm that argued the Kelo case before the Supreme Court. During that period, threats were made to seize 6,560 properties, and 3,721 condemnation filings or authorizations were recorded. In the past year, 5,429 property seizures have been threatened for economic redevelopment projects, plus 354 condemnation filings or authorizations, the institute said....The Institute for Justice has released five reports which you can download from their website: Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Post-Kelo World, Redevelopment Wrecks: 20 Failed Projects Involving Eminent Domain Abuse , Myths and Realities of Eminent Domain Abuse, Legislative Action Since Kelo and Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide. You can go here to read Reason Foundation's model statutory language....
Hollywood loses eminent domain fight The city can't take a family's downtown property and give it to a private developer, a judge ruled Thursday, ending a two-year legal battle and potentially jeopardizing a $100 million condominium complex. Broward Circuit Court Judge Ronald J. Rothschild's ruling in favor of the Mach family, which has owned a building on Harrison Street for decades, came as a blow to Mayor Mara Giulianti, who pushed the eminent domain battle over strong protest from residents. It also means that developer Charles "Chip'' Abele will have to alter plans for a 19-story condo and retail complex. "This just shows that a lot of people unified can stand up to a bully, to a government that they don't think is doing the right thing,'' said David Mach, whose late father bought the building after immigrating from Hungary and died during the negotiation process with the city. Mach said he and his mother have no intention of selling to Abele or anybody else. "I just got off the phone with my mother and she was crying,'' Mach said. "She was too emotional to be here, but she is very happy.'' Judge Rothschild issued a very narrow ruling, finding that the city and Abele didn't really need the building to complete the project. Without an absolute necessity, property can't be taken under Florida law....
Property rights measure fails in Legislature A ballot proposal to impose new restrictions on the use of eminent domain to compel property sales to clear slum areas failed Wednesday at the Arizona Legislature. As the Legislature moved to wrap up its 164-day session, the Senate approved the measure but the House failed to act on it. The measure was similar to a bill vetoed earlier this month by Gov. Janet Napolitano. The ballot proposal would have barred municipalities from using eminent domain to boost tax revenue if the planned new use doesn't have an additional public purpose. The measure would have set a new legal standard that local governments have to clear before designating areas as blighted. It also would required cities to provide comparable replacement homes if a property owner's primary residence is taken by the government in a slum clearance or redevelopment....
GAO
Wildland Fire Suppression: Better Guidance Needed to Clarify Sharing of Costs between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, by Robert A. Robinson, managing director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. GAO-06-896T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-896T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06896thigh.pdf
Invasive Forest Pests: Recent Infestations and Continued Vulnerabilities at Ports of Entry Place U.S. Forests at Risk, by Daniel Bertoni, acting director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, House Committee on Resources. GAO-06-871T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-871T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06871thigh.pdf
Wildland Fire Suppression: Better Guidance Needed to Clarify Sharing of Costs between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, by Robert A. Robinson, managing director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. GAO-06-896T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-896T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06896thigh.pdf
Invasive Forest Pests: Recent Infestations and Continued Vulnerabilities at Ports of Entry Place U.S. Forests at Risk, by Daniel Bertoni, acting director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, House Committee on Resources. GAO-06-871T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-871T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06871thigh.pdf
Global Warming Affecting Your Life? E-Mail Us
Witnessing the impact of global warming in your life? ABC News wants to hear from you. We're currently producing a report on the increasing changes in our physical environment, and are looking for interesting examples of people coping with the differences in their daily lives. Has your life been directly affected by global warming? We want to hear and see your stories. Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown? The differences can be large or small — altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property. Show us what you've seen. You can include video material of the environmental change, or simply tell your story via webcam. Please fill out the form below, and be sure to include captions or other descriptive information if you're sending video. We hope to hear from you....
Witnessing the impact of global warming in your life? ABC News wants to hear from you. We're currently producing a report on the increasing changes in our physical environment, and are looking for interesting examples of people coping with the differences in their daily lives. Has your life been directly affected by global warming? We want to hear and see your stories. Have you noticed changes in your own backyard or hometown? The differences can be large or small — altered blooming schedules, unusual animals that have arrived in your community, higher water levels encroaching on your property. Show us what you've seen. You can include video material of the environmental change, or simply tell your story via webcam. Please fill out the form below, and be sure to include captions or other descriptive information if you're sending video. We hope to hear from you....
NEWS
Column: Bush's new green thumb PRESIDENT BUSH is petting fish. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is hugging trees. Everything is going to be just ducky in our wetlands. It's a green revolution in the most arid administration in our lifetime, the political equivalent of seeding the Sahara. The question is whether it is merely an oasis amid desolation. In the last month, the administration has sounded like its main lobbyists were not Exxon but the Sierra Club. Three weeks ago, Kempthorne announced 800 miles of new hiking, biking, boat, and historical trails. Last Thursday, President Bush announced creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, spanning the equivalent distance of Boston to St. Louis. Bush complimented the environmentalists who attended. One of them was filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of legendary marine ecologist Jacques Cousteau. In April, Jean-Michel showed the president and first lady Laura Bush his PBS documentary on the damage being done to the islands. It is a big day when an environmentalist has a movie night at the White House, especially since the film aired on PBS. The next day, Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, announced that the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission had approved projects and American and Canadian partnerships that will allow the US Fish and Wildlife Service to restore more than 87,000 acres of North American wetlands. On Monday, environmentalists rubbed their eyes in disbelief as Kempthorne ditched plans by the previous secretary, Gale Norton, that would have softened up the national parks for commercial development....
White House agrees to protect forests The Bush administration Wednesday approved requests from three Eastern governors to bar commercial logging in remote sections of national forests in their states. The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres, were the first submitted to the administration since it eased logging restrictions on what are known as roadless tracts. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said from Washington, D.C., that he hoped the acceptance would show governors around the country, including four in the West who have sued to block such logging, that the administration is willing to work with them. "We've always been green," Rey said. "We just haven't gotten credit for it." The petitions still must go through a public review that could take years before the protections are in place. The three governors asked to return roadless areas in their states to the protections that existed under 2001 rules initiated by the Clinton administration....Well, if Mark Rey says they are green, I guess they are green, at least until November. One has to wonder if this sharp turn to the left on environmental policy will really help the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Their polling must be telling them something. What it tells me is that they've done a very poor job of public relations in explaining the little regulatory relief they have brought to the environmental policy arena.
Flights of Logic Twenty-point-four acres: That’s how much land the U.S. Forest Service determined would be occupied by oil and gas companies under last fall’s plan to expand mineral extraction in the nearly 2 million-acre Los Padres National Forest. “It doesn’t seem like much,” admits Jeff Kuyper of the environmental group Los Padres Forest Watch, especially when you consider that the Forest Service looked at a potential 750,000 acres. But there’s one problem with that little number, says Kuyper: “It’s grossly inaccurate.” The 20.4 figure is one of the reasons Kuyper’s group, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, served the federal government notice last week that they intend to sue if the feds fail to make significant changes to the oil and gas plan. There are others: the Forest Service failed to adequately assess the plan’s impact on endangered steelhead trout, the plan was written before U.S. Fish and Wildlife had agreed upon critical habitat for the endangered California red-legged frog, and biologists neglected to include “cumulative effects” in their studies. But the discrepancy in that acreage estimate gets to the heart of environmentalists’ concerns about oil drilling in the Los Padres: What looks reasonable in a written report may prove disastrous in practice....
Multiple-use sentiments dominate Forest forum Citizens concerned with a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation in the Flathead National Forest's draft management plan dominated an open forum Saturday at Flathead High School in Kalispell. The forum was hosted by the Flathead National Forest. Citizens were given three minutes to publicly address Forest Service employees and voice opinions on the draft forest plan. The public comment period for the draft plan ends Aug. 7, and the final plan is scheduled to be released this fall. The Flathead National Forest, along with the Lolo, Bitterroot, Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forests, is among the first to submit a revised forest plan under the 2005 Planning Rule guidelines. Of the 35 citizens who made public comment, 34 criticized the forest plan for a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation, specifically motorized use and access. Displeasure of the Forest Services' management of timber was another common concern. Comments repeatedly focused on a belief that the Forest Service has not appropriately set the limits of timber harvest and has not harvested enough timber over the last few decades, resulting in a loss of jobs and tax money for schools, while consequently increasing the threat of wildfires and weakening Montana's timber industry infrastructure....
Vanishing Past Narrow your eyes here, and it's easy to imagine ancient Hohokam villages fanning across the flats, smoke from their low fires curling into desert. Tagged Los Morteros by archaeologists, for bedrock mortars found atop boulders, this Tucson Mountain site bustled with civilization long before civilization gave it a name. But open your eyes a bit wider, and now what you see is the subdivided sprawl of Continental Ranch. Today, entombed under Continental's tidy concrete--beneath the cul-de-sacs and curbing and meaty foundations--are the ghosts of this finally vanished world. Meanwhile, in areas less touched by development than Los Morteros, looters, vandals and off-roaders are taking up the slack. Last year alone, monitors with a state-run volunteer program reported 212 vandalism incidents, 27 lootings, 21 trashed signs, two unearthed human remains, 13 cases of spray-painting and two petroglyph thefts. Amongst deliberate destruction, blind ignorance and so-called progress, Arizona is quickly losing its prehistoric heritage. And that dismays Mary Estes, who runs the volunteer Arizona Site Steward Program for the State Parks Department....
House panel passes Trail of Tears expansion bill A bill calling for a major expansion of the trail memorializing the forced removal of Cherokee Indians from the Southeast in the 1830s passed a House committee today. The bill would require the National Park Service to certify two routes used by some of the 15,000 Cherokees exiled from homes in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., sponsor of the bill, said the full House is expected to vote on the measure sometime next month. The bill would add to the Trail of Tears such places as Ross’s Landing in Chattanooga and Fort Cass on the Hiwassee River in Calhoun, Tenn. The two segments, called the Benge and Bell routes, began at Fort Payne, Ala., and Charleston, Tenn., respectively....
Gabilan Ranch Preserved Local nature lovers can breathe a little easier following a more than $4 million deal between the Reeves-Baldocchi-Boyle family and the Nature Conservancy, which guarantees the 11,000 acre Gabilan Ranch just south of Gilroy will remain a wildlife habitat for generations to come. "The ranch is an ecological treasure, in part because its been under the same ownership for the past three generations," said Christina Fisher, Project Director for the Monterey Bay Area chapter of the Nature Conservancy. "There are few roads or developments except for the farm buildings, so the family has preserved much of the ecosystem … you still find native frogs and salamanders in the water, and there are 80 different species of birds here." The conservancy worked with the Gabilan Cattle Company for six years to acquire a $4.2 million conservation easement, which essentially guarantees the conservancy certain rights to the land while the family maintains ownership of the property and continues their cattle operation. In this case, the family promises not to develop the land in any way that might harm the plants, animals or water quality of the land. "There are two primary reasons we were interested in doing this in the first place," said Darrell Boyle, CEO of Gabilan Cattle Company. "First of course was to protect the land … the second was to keep the ranch in our family. We're the third generation running the ranch and we have a long history with this wonderful property."....
Budget pressures leave tough choices Once portals that lured gold-seeking pioneers, the black holes that dot the sun-baked mountainsides of this California desert haunt J.T. Reynolds. The Death Valley National Park superintendent fears tourists will tumble down the decrepit shafts or vanish into the rocky tunnels that abound in his park's famed Gold Rush-era mines and ghost towns. To completely "mine-safe" some 6,000 shafts and caves would take money that Reynolds does not have. "Most visitors do not realize that park resources have been under threat from deterioration, vandalism, neglect and rot for some time," Reynolds said. "We put up a good front and try to keep high visitor-use areas clean and neat. Even this facade is fading due to the lack of appropriate resources." Across the 390 parks, preserves and historic sites that make up the 90-year-old national park system, Reynolds' colleagues face similar tough choices as growing costs from labor, utilities, maintenance, operations and preservation exceed wartime budgets from Washington....
Park ranger accused of soliciting bribes from inmates he supervised A state park ranger took money from prisoners he supervised at a work-release program in exchange for special treatment, police said. Nelson Mompierre, 43, of Key Biscayne, was in charge of inmates who worked at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on the southern tip of Key Biscayne. Miami-Dade police detectives and FBI agents began an investigation last June after receiving complaints that Mompierre had solicited money from one of the prisoners. For an $80 bribe, Mompierre allowed a visit at the park between an inmate and the inmate's girlfriend, according to an arrest affidavit. Mompierre also lent the inmate his cellphone, the affidavit said. The same inmate went to the FBI after Mompierre threatened to kick him out of the work-release program unless he paid Mompierre $2,500. An FBI agent posed as the wife of that inmate to infiltrate Mompierre's suspected scheme....
California men face fraud charges in Grand Canyon permit case Two California men have been charged in federal court with using the identities of dead or fictitious people to get permits for private rafting trips in the Grand Canyon. Stephen E. Savage, 61, of Diamond Bar, Ca. made an initial appearance in federal court in Flagstaff Tuesday and was ordered held on 11 counts of fraudulently obtaining rafting permits pending a detention hearing. Savage was arrested by National Park Service special agents at the Grand Canyon River Orientation Center in Lee's Ferry on Sunday. Timothy J. O'Shaughnessy, 45, of Whitewater, Ca. was arrested by authorities in California on Monday and turned over the U.S. Marshal's Service on the same charges, all misdemeanors. He was set for an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon, according the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix. Private rafting trip permits for trips in the Grand Canyon National Park are very difficult to obtain, with waiting lists of 10 to 15 years. The list system was abandoned earlier this year in favor of a lottery system. According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, an investigation was launched against Savage in March 2004 after the Parks Service received an anonymous letter from a person who said Savage bragged about illegally getting permits....
More rare than the average bear Visitors to U.S. national parks may be in for some unpleasant surprises this summer: unkempt restrooms, shorter hours at visitor centers and fewer park rangers. In fact, many visitors may not see a National Park Service ranger, as the agency's threadbare budget has forced officials to recruit volunteers to fill jobs formerly performed by federal employees and to reduce or eliminate traditional visitor services. "The old saying in the park service is, `We can do more with less,' " said Craig W. Dorman, superintendent at Lava Beds National Monument, near the Oregon border. "I don't think that's true anymore. We're now in a position of doing less with less." Nationwide, the 390 parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas managed by the park service are experiencing "challenging" times, said agency Director Fran Mainella....
Column: Bush's new green thumb PRESIDENT BUSH is petting fish. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is hugging trees. Everything is going to be just ducky in our wetlands. It's a green revolution in the most arid administration in our lifetime, the political equivalent of seeding the Sahara. The question is whether it is merely an oasis amid desolation. In the last month, the administration has sounded like its main lobbyists were not Exxon but the Sierra Club. Three weeks ago, Kempthorne announced 800 miles of new hiking, biking, boat, and historical trails. Last Thursday, President Bush announced creation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, spanning the equivalent distance of Boston to St. Louis. Bush complimented the environmentalists who attended. One of them was filmmaker Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of legendary marine ecologist Jacques Cousteau. In April, Jean-Michel showed the president and first lady Laura Bush his PBS documentary on the damage being done to the islands. It is a big day when an environmentalist has a movie night at the White House, especially since the film aired on PBS. The next day, Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, announced that the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission had approved projects and American and Canadian partnerships that will allow the US Fish and Wildlife Service to restore more than 87,000 acres of North American wetlands. On Monday, environmentalists rubbed their eyes in disbelief as Kempthorne ditched plans by the previous secretary, Gale Norton, that would have softened up the national parks for commercial development....
White House agrees to protect forests The Bush administration Wednesday approved requests from three Eastern governors to bar commercial logging in remote sections of national forests in their states. The petitions from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, covering a total of 555,000 acres, were the first submitted to the administration since it eased logging restrictions on what are known as roadless tracts. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said from Washington, D.C., that he hoped the acceptance would show governors around the country, including four in the West who have sued to block such logging, that the administration is willing to work with them. "We've always been green," Rey said. "We just haven't gotten credit for it." The petitions still must go through a public review that could take years before the protections are in place. The three governors asked to return roadless areas in their states to the protections that existed under 2001 rules initiated by the Clinton administration....Well, if Mark Rey says they are green, I guess they are green, at least until November. One has to wonder if this sharp turn to the left on environmental policy will really help the Republicans maintain control of Congress. Their polling must be telling them something. What it tells me is that they've done a very poor job of public relations in explaining the little regulatory relief they have brought to the environmental policy arena.
Flights of Logic Twenty-point-four acres: That’s how much land the U.S. Forest Service determined would be occupied by oil and gas companies under last fall’s plan to expand mineral extraction in the nearly 2 million-acre Los Padres National Forest. “It doesn’t seem like much,” admits Jeff Kuyper of the environmental group Los Padres Forest Watch, especially when you consider that the Forest Service looked at a potential 750,000 acres. But there’s one problem with that little number, says Kuyper: “It’s grossly inaccurate.” The 20.4 figure is one of the reasons Kuyper’s group, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, served the federal government notice last week that they intend to sue if the feds fail to make significant changes to the oil and gas plan. There are others: the Forest Service failed to adequately assess the plan’s impact on endangered steelhead trout, the plan was written before U.S. Fish and Wildlife had agreed upon critical habitat for the endangered California red-legged frog, and biologists neglected to include “cumulative effects” in their studies. But the discrepancy in that acreage estimate gets to the heart of environmentalists’ concerns about oil drilling in the Los Padres: What looks reasonable in a written report may prove disastrous in practice....
Multiple-use sentiments dominate Forest forum Citizens concerned with a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation in the Flathead National Forest's draft management plan dominated an open forum Saturday at Flathead High School in Kalispell. The forum was hosted by the Flathead National Forest. Citizens were given three minutes to publicly address Forest Service employees and voice opinions on the draft forest plan. The public comment period for the draft plan ends Aug. 7, and the final plan is scheduled to be released this fall. The Flathead National Forest, along with the Lolo, Bitterroot, Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forests, is among the first to submit a revised forest plan under the 2005 Planning Rule guidelines. Of the 35 citizens who made public comment, 34 criticized the forest plan for a lack of focus on multiple-use recreation, specifically motorized use and access. Displeasure of the Forest Services' management of timber was another common concern. Comments repeatedly focused on a belief that the Forest Service has not appropriately set the limits of timber harvest and has not harvested enough timber over the last few decades, resulting in a loss of jobs and tax money for schools, while consequently increasing the threat of wildfires and weakening Montana's timber industry infrastructure....
Vanishing Past Narrow your eyes here, and it's easy to imagine ancient Hohokam villages fanning across the flats, smoke from their low fires curling into desert. Tagged Los Morteros by archaeologists, for bedrock mortars found atop boulders, this Tucson Mountain site bustled with civilization long before civilization gave it a name. But open your eyes a bit wider, and now what you see is the subdivided sprawl of Continental Ranch. Today, entombed under Continental's tidy concrete--beneath the cul-de-sacs and curbing and meaty foundations--are the ghosts of this finally vanished world. Meanwhile, in areas less touched by development than Los Morteros, looters, vandals and off-roaders are taking up the slack. Last year alone, monitors with a state-run volunteer program reported 212 vandalism incidents, 27 lootings, 21 trashed signs, two unearthed human remains, 13 cases of spray-painting and two petroglyph thefts. Amongst deliberate destruction, blind ignorance and so-called progress, Arizona is quickly losing its prehistoric heritage. And that dismays Mary Estes, who runs the volunteer Arizona Site Steward Program for the State Parks Department....
House panel passes Trail of Tears expansion bill A bill calling for a major expansion of the trail memorializing the forced removal of Cherokee Indians from the Southeast in the 1830s passed a House committee today. The bill would require the National Park Service to certify two routes used by some of the 15,000 Cherokees exiled from homes in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., sponsor of the bill, said the full House is expected to vote on the measure sometime next month. The bill would add to the Trail of Tears such places as Ross’s Landing in Chattanooga and Fort Cass on the Hiwassee River in Calhoun, Tenn. The two segments, called the Benge and Bell routes, began at Fort Payne, Ala., and Charleston, Tenn., respectively....
Gabilan Ranch Preserved Local nature lovers can breathe a little easier following a more than $4 million deal between the Reeves-Baldocchi-Boyle family and the Nature Conservancy, which guarantees the 11,000 acre Gabilan Ranch just south of Gilroy will remain a wildlife habitat for generations to come. "The ranch is an ecological treasure, in part because its been under the same ownership for the past three generations," said Christina Fisher, Project Director for the Monterey Bay Area chapter of the Nature Conservancy. "There are few roads or developments except for the farm buildings, so the family has preserved much of the ecosystem … you still find native frogs and salamanders in the water, and there are 80 different species of birds here." The conservancy worked with the Gabilan Cattle Company for six years to acquire a $4.2 million conservation easement, which essentially guarantees the conservancy certain rights to the land while the family maintains ownership of the property and continues their cattle operation. In this case, the family promises not to develop the land in any way that might harm the plants, animals or water quality of the land. "There are two primary reasons we were interested in doing this in the first place," said Darrell Boyle, CEO of Gabilan Cattle Company. "First of course was to protect the land … the second was to keep the ranch in our family. We're the third generation running the ranch and we have a long history with this wonderful property."....
Budget pressures leave tough choices Once portals that lured gold-seeking pioneers, the black holes that dot the sun-baked mountainsides of this California desert haunt J.T. Reynolds. The Death Valley National Park superintendent fears tourists will tumble down the decrepit shafts or vanish into the rocky tunnels that abound in his park's famed Gold Rush-era mines and ghost towns. To completely "mine-safe" some 6,000 shafts and caves would take money that Reynolds does not have. "Most visitors do not realize that park resources have been under threat from deterioration, vandalism, neglect and rot for some time," Reynolds said. "We put up a good front and try to keep high visitor-use areas clean and neat. Even this facade is fading due to the lack of appropriate resources." Across the 390 parks, preserves and historic sites that make up the 90-year-old national park system, Reynolds' colleagues face similar tough choices as growing costs from labor, utilities, maintenance, operations and preservation exceed wartime budgets from Washington....
Park ranger accused of soliciting bribes from inmates he supervised A state park ranger took money from prisoners he supervised at a work-release program in exchange for special treatment, police said. Nelson Mompierre, 43, of Key Biscayne, was in charge of inmates who worked at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on the southern tip of Key Biscayne. Miami-Dade police detectives and FBI agents began an investigation last June after receiving complaints that Mompierre had solicited money from one of the prisoners. For an $80 bribe, Mompierre allowed a visit at the park between an inmate and the inmate's girlfriend, according to an arrest affidavit. Mompierre also lent the inmate his cellphone, the affidavit said. The same inmate went to the FBI after Mompierre threatened to kick him out of the work-release program unless he paid Mompierre $2,500. An FBI agent posed as the wife of that inmate to infiltrate Mompierre's suspected scheme....
California men face fraud charges in Grand Canyon permit case Two California men have been charged in federal court with using the identities of dead or fictitious people to get permits for private rafting trips in the Grand Canyon. Stephen E. Savage, 61, of Diamond Bar, Ca. made an initial appearance in federal court in Flagstaff Tuesday and was ordered held on 11 counts of fraudulently obtaining rafting permits pending a detention hearing. Savage was arrested by National Park Service special agents at the Grand Canyon River Orientation Center in Lee's Ferry on Sunday. Timothy J. O'Shaughnessy, 45, of Whitewater, Ca. was arrested by authorities in California on Monday and turned over the U.S. Marshal's Service on the same charges, all misdemeanors. He was set for an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon, according the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix. Private rafting trip permits for trips in the Grand Canyon National Park are very difficult to obtain, with waiting lists of 10 to 15 years. The list system was abandoned earlier this year in favor of a lottery system. According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, an investigation was launched against Savage in March 2004 after the Parks Service received an anonymous letter from a person who said Savage bragged about illegally getting permits....
More rare than the average bear Visitors to U.S. national parks may be in for some unpleasant surprises this summer: unkempt restrooms, shorter hours at visitor centers and fewer park rangers. In fact, many visitors may not see a National Park Service ranger, as the agency's threadbare budget has forced officials to recruit volunteers to fill jobs formerly performed by federal employees and to reduce or eliminate traditional visitor services. "The old saying in the park service is, `We can do more with less,' " said Craig W. Dorman, superintendent at Lava Beds National Monument, near the Oregon border. "I don't think that's true anymore. We're now in a position of doing less with less." Nationwide, the 390 parks, monuments, seashores and recreation areas managed by the park service are experiencing "challenging" times, said agency Director Fran Mainella....
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Jaguar Conservation Team Working Group Meeting on June 29-30
Dear Jaguar List
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of motels available in Douglas. Here's the numbers for the few that are available. If you have not reviewed the response from AZ Game and Fish on the comments for the draft framework, they can be found at:
http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/w_c/jaguar/June2007/JAGCTConservationFrameworkPublicComment.pdf
The new Memorandum of Agreement can be found at:
http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/w_c/jaguar/June2007/JAGCTMOA2006-2010Draft.pdf
Please read both documents and come prepared to discuss them.
We are supposed to be getting the revised conservation framework soon. Will let you know if and when it becomes available.
Judy Keeler
Motels available in Douglas
Motel 6 - 520-364-2457 - just down the street from the meeting
HUMMINGBIRD INN - 520-364-9356 - a bed and breakfast
Gadsden - no phone number - very historic, although doesn't always have enough hot water for all its guests - some of the rooms do not have airconditioning
----- Original Message -----
From: AZGFD
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:54 PM
Subject: Endangered Species Updates - Jaguar
Endangered Species Updates
May 31, 2006
Jaguar Conservation Team Working Group Meeting on June 29-30
Note: this meeting is open to the public, within the limits of available seating, on a first-come, first-seated basis
The next Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) Working Group meeting is on June 29-30, at the Douglas Visitor’s Center, 345 16th Street, Douglas, Arizona. Subcommittee chairs: please contact Bill Van Pelt (602.789.3573) before June 16 regarding any photocopying needs.
The draft Conservation Framework, a summary of public comment on the previous draft, a draft Memorandum of Agreement, and a copy of the agenda will all be uploaded in pdf format to the AGFD jaguar webpage between Noon and 5 pm on Thursday June 1.
Agenda – June 29, 2006 – 10:00 am start time (local time)
A. Opening comments and ground rules
B. Agenda review/additional discussion points
C. Discussion of summary notes from April 27-28, 2006 JAGCT Working Group meeting
D. Discussion of possible additional signatories to the current and/or future Conservation Agreement under which the JAGCT operates
E. Task reports:
1. Update on AZ-NM sightings: Tim Snow and Jim Stewart
2. Kill verification activities/camera surveys: Jack Childs
3. Coordination with Mexico: Bill Van Pelt
4. Update on JAGCT progress report: Bill Van Pelt
F. Conservation Assessment and Framework
G. Memorandum of Agreement
H. Other Business
I. Close meeting (5 pm, or earlier if business has been completed)
Agenda – June 30, 2006 – 8:30 am start time (local time)
[Note: This session will not be held if work is completed on the previous day]
A. Conservation Assessment and Framework
B. Close meeting (3 pm, or earlier if business has been completed)
Note: For further information on jaguar conservation in the Southwest, please visit the JAGCT’s webpage at http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/jaguar_management.shtml.
Dear Jaguar List
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of motels available in Douglas. Here's the numbers for the few that are available. If you have not reviewed the response from AZ Game and Fish on the comments for the draft framework, they can be found at:
http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/w_c/jaguar/June2007/JAGCTConservationFrameworkPublicComment.pdf
The new Memorandum of Agreement can be found at:
http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/w_c/jaguar/June2007/JAGCTMOA2006-2010Draft.pdf
Please read both documents and come prepared to discuss them.
We are supposed to be getting the revised conservation framework soon. Will let you know if and when it becomes available.
Judy Keeler
Motels available in Douglas
Motel 6 - 520-364-2457 - just down the street from the meeting
HUMMINGBIRD INN - 520-364-9356 - a bed and breakfast
Gadsden - no phone number - very historic, although doesn't always have enough hot water for all its guests - some of the rooms do not have airconditioning
----- Original Message -----
From: AZGFD
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:54 PM
Subject: Endangered Species Updates - Jaguar
Endangered Species Updates
May 31, 2006
Jaguar Conservation Team Working Group Meeting on June 29-30
Note: this meeting is open to the public, within the limits of available seating, on a first-come, first-seated basis
The next Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) Working Group meeting is on June 29-30, at the Douglas Visitor’s Center, 345 16th Street, Douglas, Arizona. Subcommittee chairs: please contact Bill Van Pelt (602.789.3573) before June 16 regarding any photocopying needs.
The draft Conservation Framework, a summary of public comment on the previous draft, a draft Memorandum of Agreement, and a copy of the agenda will all be uploaded in pdf format to the AGFD jaguar webpage between Noon and 5 pm on Thursday June 1.
Agenda – June 29, 2006 – 10:00 am start time (local time)
A. Opening comments and ground rules
B. Agenda review/additional discussion points
C. Discussion of summary notes from April 27-28, 2006 JAGCT Working Group meeting
D. Discussion of possible additional signatories to the current and/or future Conservation Agreement under which the JAGCT operates
E. Task reports:
1. Update on AZ-NM sightings: Tim Snow and Jim Stewart
2. Kill verification activities/camera surveys: Jack Childs
3. Coordination with Mexico: Bill Van Pelt
4. Update on JAGCT progress report: Bill Van Pelt
F. Conservation Assessment and Framework
G. Memorandum of Agreement
H. Other Business
I. Close meeting (5 pm, or earlier if business has been completed)
Agenda – June 30, 2006 – 8:30 am start time (local time)
[Note: This session will not be held if work is completed on the previous day]
A. Conservation Assessment and Framework
B. Close meeting (3 pm, or earlier if business has been completed)
Note: For further information on jaguar conservation in the Southwest, please visit the JAGCT’s webpage at http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/jaguar_management.shtml.
NMSU RODEO
NMSU roper Garza wins national team roping title
Date: 06/21/2006
Contact: Jim Dewey Brown, (505) 646-3659, brownji@nmsu.edu
Reporter: Darrell J. Pehr, (505) 635-2017, pehr@nmsu.edu
When the rope cinched tight around the rear legs of a steer Saturday night in the final round of the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo., Matt Garza and his team roping partner captured the first national title for New Mexico State University since 1990.
Garza, of Mesilla Park, N.M., and his partner, Central Arizona College team member Chance Means of Cliff, N.M., held off strong challenges throughout the weeklong National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association competition and won the timed event by less than half a second after four runs.
“I would have liked to have had a little more time to spare,” Garza said. “It made us that much more aggressive. We knew we had a pretty tough job to do. We knew we had to give it 110 percent.”
In their championship run Saturday, Means, the header on the team, quickly roped the steer’s head, then held and turned the steer to give Garza, the heeler on the team, a clear shot at the back legs, which also must be roped.
“My partner did an outstanding job, so I didn’t have to take a wild shot,” Garza said. “He didn’t make him really wild. He was gathered and his feet were together.”
The clock showed the time of the run – 6.5 seconds – fast enough for a championship.
“My partner threw his hat in the air,” Garza said. “When I realized we had won, I lost it. I went nuts. I threw my hat and we did our victory lap.”
NMSU also had top national finishes from calf roper Wacey Walraven of Datil, N.M., who placed ninth and Arcel Allsup of Duncan, Ariz., who took 10th in calf roping. NMSU barrel racer Krista Norell of Meeker, Colo., finished eighth overall.
For Garza and Means, their victory means $1,500 scholarships, custom roping saddles and other winnings. For NMSU’s rodeo program, the victory is symbolic of the success the growing program has seen over the past several years.
“It gives us a little recognition that we are contenders,” said Coach Jim Dewey Brown. “It shows that we do have great athletes coming to this school.”
The national title is the first for NMSU since 1990 when bareback bronc rider Randy Slaughter won the event.
Garza and Means roped together all season and captured the regional championship before heading to the national finals, where Garza was ranked eighth in the nation and Means was seventh. Means plans to transfer to NMSU in the fall.
Garza grew up around team roping and started competing when he was 14. His father, Homer Garza, taught him how to rope and has been his primary coach through the years. Matt Garza said attending NMSU offers him both an opportunity to be part of a good organization and the benefits of being able to practice at his home.
“This school’s a great school,” he said. “The championship means a lot to me. I’ve worked really hard. I was really excited to be going up there and representing our team. It’s unbelievable to come out on top. It was like a dream come true.”
Garza and Means have been friends since competing in high school rodeos, and, not long after going to college, they agreed to team up.
“I picked him because he’s really dedicated,” Garza said. “He always makes sure he has a really good horse and you can always find him in the arena. He’s a winner and you want to be with the best.”
What does it take to succeed at the national level?
“A lot of hard work and dedication,” Garza said. “If you want it bad enough and work on it hard enough, you can accomplish it. You have to have a good horse. You have to practice. You have to love the sport. I fell in love with it and ever since, I crave being out there and competing.”
Garza said the growth of the rodeo team, thanks largely to rodeo supporter Frank DuBois, made a big difference in helping him choose to attend NMSU.
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be there rodeoing for NMSU,” Garza said. Garza was one of 21 recruits who were awarded DuBois scholarships in 2004-2005, along with Walraven and Norell. Garza was awarded the Hotch and Carolyn Manning rodeo scholarship. As of last fall, the team included 41 scholarship athletes in the program, which DuBois organized and expanded as the team has grown over the past several years.
NMSU roper Garza wins national team roping title
Date: 06/21/2006
Contact: Jim Dewey Brown, (505) 646-3659, brownji@nmsu.edu
Reporter: Darrell J. Pehr, (505) 635-2017, pehr@nmsu.edu
When the rope cinched tight around the rear legs of a steer Saturday night in the final round of the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo., Matt Garza and his team roping partner captured the first national title for New Mexico State University since 1990.
Garza, of Mesilla Park, N.M., and his partner, Central Arizona College team member Chance Means of Cliff, N.M., held off strong challenges throughout the weeklong National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association competition and won the timed event by less than half a second after four runs.
“I would have liked to have had a little more time to spare,” Garza said. “It made us that much more aggressive. We knew we had a pretty tough job to do. We knew we had to give it 110 percent.”
In their championship run Saturday, Means, the header on the team, quickly roped the steer’s head, then held and turned the steer to give Garza, the heeler on the team, a clear shot at the back legs, which also must be roped.
“My partner did an outstanding job, so I didn’t have to take a wild shot,” Garza said. “He didn’t make him really wild. He was gathered and his feet were together.”
The clock showed the time of the run – 6.5 seconds – fast enough for a championship.
“My partner threw his hat in the air,” Garza said. “When I realized we had won, I lost it. I went nuts. I threw my hat and we did our victory lap.”
NMSU also had top national finishes from calf roper Wacey Walraven of Datil, N.M., who placed ninth and Arcel Allsup of Duncan, Ariz., who took 10th in calf roping. NMSU barrel racer Krista Norell of Meeker, Colo., finished eighth overall.
For Garza and Means, their victory means $1,500 scholarships, custom roping saddles and other winnings. For NMSU’s rodeo program, the victory is symbolic of the success the growing program has seen over the past several years.
“It gives us a little recognition that we are contenders,” said Coach Jim Dewey Brown. “It shows that we do have great athletes coming to this school.”
The national title is the first for NMSU since 1990 when bareback bronc rider Randy Slaughter won the event.
Garza and Means roped together all season and captured the regional championship before heading to the national finals, where Garza was ranked eighth in the nation and Means was seventh. Means plans to transfer to NMSU in the fall.
Garza grew up around team roping and started competing when he was 14. His father, Homer Garza, taught him how to rope and has been his primary coach through the years. Matt Garza said attending NMSU offers him both an opportunity to be part of a good organization and the benefits of being able to practice at his home.
“This school’s a great school,” he said. “The championship means a lot to me. I’ve worked really hard. I was really excited to be going up there and representing our team. It’s unbelievable to come out on top. It was like a dream come true.”
Garza and Means have been friends since competing in high school rodeos, and, not long after going to college, they agreed to team up.
“I picked him because he’s really dedicated,” Garza said. “He always makes sure he has a really good horse and you can always find him in the arena. He’s a winner and you want to be with the best.”
What does it take to succeed at the national level?
“A lot of hard work and dedication,” Garza said. “If you want it bad enough and work on it hard enough, you can accomplish it. You have to have a good horse. You have to practice. You have to love the sport. I fell in love with it and ever since, I crave being out there and competing.”
Garza said the growth of the rodeo team, thanks largely to rodeo supporter Frank DuBois, made a big difference in helping him choose to attend NMSU.
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be there rodeoing for NMSU,” Garza said. Garza was one of 21 recruits who were awarded DuBois scholarships in 2004-2005, along with Walraven and Norell. Garza was awarded the Hotch and Carolyn Manning rodeo scholarship. As of last fall, the team included 41 scholarship athletes in the program, which DuBois organized and expanded as the team has grown over the past several years.
MAD COW DISEASE - JAPAN TRADE
Japan To Finish Audit Of US Beef Plants By July 21 Japan is expected to wrap up its audit of U.S. beef producing plants by July 21, paving the way for a resumption of U.S. exports to Japan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday. The USDA, in a prepared statement, said teams of Japanese auditors "will arrive in the U.S. this weekend and conclude their work by July 21. Upon completion of the audits, Japan has agreed to expeditiously resume beef trade." U.S. and Japanese negotiators reached an agreement early Wednesday morning EDT that bridged several disagreements between the two countries on how beef trade would resume. That agreement is expected to be implemented soon after the audits are completed. USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said later Wednesday that he is pleased with the deal reached by negotiators, but stressed he will "not be satisfied until U.S. beef is once again accepted into the Japanese market." U.S. and Japanese negotiators met for eight hours in two video conference sessions Tuesday and into the morning Wednesday to resolve their differences. One sticky issue was U.S. demands that Japan provide assurances that it won't allow future non-compliance issues with individual shipments to disrupt all beef trade. Johanns said he believes that was accomplished....
NCBA Statement On Japan’s Commitment to Resume Trade of U.S. Beef “America’s cattlemen appreciate the work by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and top officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their continued focus on U.S.-Japan trade discussions. But after years of empty promises and continued delays, U.S. beef producers remain skeptical of Japan’s dependability as a trading partner. “As we proceed with implementing steps toward trade resumption, NCBA will continue to insist on science-based standards. Under this current agreement, there remains no language to provide for the export of bone-in product or for beef from animals between 20 and 30 months of age. “The United States meets or exceeds all guidelines established by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to freely export beef and beef products from cattle aged 30 months and less. Japan’s requirement of boneless beef from cattle aged 20 months and less is an artificial and unscientific barrier to trade. “While we are hopeful these issues can be worked out over time, we know from experience that Japan has become an unreliable trading partner. Our cattlemen have paid a tremendous price for the continued delays by Japanese officials to resume beef trade based on scientifically-recognized principles....
Conrad/Roberts Bill Imposes Tariffs on Japanese Products Unless Date is Set U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) today introduced legislation to impose tariffs on Japanese products if a date is not set to reopen the Japanese market to U.S. beef. “Today’s announcement that the Japanese intend to open their markets to U.S. beef is a step forward, but Japan must make good on its commitment. Until there is a specific date for actual trade to resume, and product is at port in Japan, it's not a done deal." Senator Roberts said. “We have been through this before and need to demonstrate to the Japanese that U.S. beef is safe.” At issue is the continued delay by the Japanese Food Safety Commission in resuming normal beef trade, based on internationally recognized science, after the discovery in January of spinal cord material in a single shipment of U.S. beef. The legislation, introduced by Roberts and Conrad with wide bipartisan support, sets deadlines by which the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) must certify that Japan has reopened its borders to American beef. According to the bill, USTR must provide this certification or lack thereof to Congress by August 31, 2006....
Japan To Finish Audit Of US Beef Plants By July 21 Japan is expected to wrap up its audit of U.S. beef producing plants by July 21, paving the way for a resumption of U.S. exports to Japan, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday. The USDA, in a prepared statement, said teams of Japanese auditors "will arrive in the U.S. this weekend and conclude their work by July 21. Upon completion of the audits, Japan has agreed to expeditiously resume beef trade." U.S. and Japanese negotiators reached an agreement early Wednesday morning EDT that bridged several disagreements between the two countries on how beef trade would resume. That agreement is expected to be implemented soon after the audits are completed. USDA Secretary Mike Johanns said later Wednesday that he is pleased with the deal reached by negotiators, but stressed he will "not be satisfied until U.S. beef is once again accepted into the Japanese market." U.S. and Japanese negotiators met for eight hours in two video conference sessions Tuesday and into the morning Wednesday to resolve their differences. One sticky issue was U.S. demands that Japan provide assurances that it won't allow future non-compliance issues with individual shipments to disrupt all beef trade. Johanns said he believes that was accomplished....
NCBA Statement On Japan’s Commitment to Resume Trade of U.S. Beef “America’s cattlemen appreciate the work by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and top officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their continued focus on U.S.-Japan trade discussions. But after years of empty promises and continued delays, U.S. beef producers remain skeptical of Japan’s dependability as a trading partner. “As we proceed with implementing steps toward trade resumption, NCBA will continue to insist on science-based standards. Under this current agreement, there remains no language to provide for the export of bone-in product or for beef from animals between 20 and 30 months of age. “The United States meets or exceeds all guidelines established by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to freely export beef and beef products from cattle aged 30 months and less. Japan’s requirement of boneless beef from cattle aged 20 months and less is an artificial and unscientific barrier to trade. “While we are hopeful these issues can be worked out over time, we know from experience that Japan has become an unreliable trading partner. Our cattlemen have paid a tremendous price for the continued delays by Japanese officials to resume beef trade based on scientifically-recognized principles....
Conrad/Roberts Bill Imposes Tariffs on Japanese Products Unless Date is Set U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) today introduced legislation to impose tariffs on Japanese products if a date is not set to reopen the Japanese market to U.S. beef. “Today’s announcement that the Japanese intend to open their markets to U.S. beef is a step forward, but Japan must make good on its commitment. Until there is a specific date for actual trade to resume, and product is at port in Japan, it's not a done deal." Senator Roberts said. “We have been through this before and need to demonstrate to the Japanese that U.S. beef is safe.” At issue is the continued delay by the Japanese Food Safety Commission in resuming normal beef trade, based on internationally recognized science, after the discovery in January of spinal cord material in a single shipment of U.S. beef. The legislation, introduced by Roberts and Conrad with wide bipartisan support, sets deadlines by which the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) must certify that Japan has reopened its borders to American beef. According to the bill, USTR must provide this certification or lack thereof to Congress by August 31, 2006....
NEWS
Officials abandon checkpoint after 'hippie' run-in U.S. Forest Service officers drew their shotguns but then got into their vehicles and abandoned a checkpoint without firing a shot after about 200 people at the Rainbow Family gathering surrounded the officers, an agency spokeswoman said. ''We're not going to compromise the safety of our officers,'' agency spokeswoman Denise Ottaviano said Tuesday. ''We have to reavaluate whether or not we're going to continue any checkpoints because of what happened.'' At least 500 people have converged in Routt National Forest for the gathering but the Forest Service had been turning away new arrivals from entering because the group hasn't gotten a permit for large groups. The group's annual event, often described as a huge gathering of hippies, is expected to draw between 15,000 and 20,000 people to the Routt National Forest for a weeklong July 4th event. About 60 to 80 people already at the event site approached the officers who had been turning people away and surrounded them in a ''hostile manner'', Ottaviano said. She said more than 100 other people who had been hanging out near the checkpoint because they were not allowed in joined the smaller group, forcing the officers to retreat. Ottaviano said the checkpoint has been disbanded. No one was stopping people from entering the area but officers will continue their patrols, she said....and Kit Laney gets five months in Federal Prison...soft on hippies and hard on ranchers appears to be the Bush Administration policy.
Judge hears suit over logging plan in Sierra forests The management plan for 11.5 million acres of national forest in the Sierra harms wildlife while illegally increasing logging under the guise of fire prevention, environmental groups told a federal judge Monday. They want the U.S. Forest Service to return to a 2001 plan approved in the last days of the Clinton Administration, a plan they say offers more protection for the environment and 200 scarce species such as the California spotted owl, martin and Pacific fisher. The hearing, set to conclude today, is the latest legal skirmish in a 15-year battle over managing the 11 national forests. U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. said he might schedule additional hearings before ruling in what he called an enormously complicated lawsuit. U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey approved the plan in March 2005, agreeing with Forest Service officials who advocated increased logging. They argued that thinning trees, particularly around communities, is needed to cut the risk of deadly wildfires such as the ones that cut a swath of destruction throughout Southern California in 2003....
Outfitters rallying for preservation Durango-area outfitter Mike Murphy has an answer to people who oppose preserving roadless areas in national forests and say public land should be open to everyone: Look at the satellite images of his corner of Colorado on the Internet. "You take a look at that map and look at all the roads in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico, and you won't want to see another road for a long time," Murphy said. Murphy, who has led hunting trips into Colorado's backcountry for 28 years, said he is being squeezed out of places by oil and gas development and increasing off-road vehicle use. He's one of 131 Colorado outfitters asking a state task force weighing the fate of 4.4 million acres of roadless national forest land to support keeping development out of the remaining remote spots....
Thomas at odds with drillers over forest use Oil and gas drilling in national forests should be allowed as industry works with land managers to put environmental safeguards in place, an energy executive said Monday. Bruce Hinchey with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming said he doesn't agree with U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas' statement Saturday that national forests should generally be off-limits to new drilling. "I don't think you need to totally have everything off-limits, because you still have logging and mining that occurs in the forest as well," Hinchey said. "It depends on the areas." Hinchey said there is not a lot of drilling on national forests, and what does occur happens on forest edges. Interior parts of national forest tend to be much costlier to explore because the areas are not easily accessible. Thomas, R-Wyo., said Saturday he does not think national forests should be open to oil and gas development because of the special qualities these areas possess. At issue specifically in Wyoming are lease parcels in the Wyoming Range. While there are some existing drilling operations there now -- and Thomas said existing operations should be allowed to continue -- new parcels are being sold for energy leases....
Biologists revive plan to save trout with poison For the fifth time, biologists are proposing to poison a remote Sierra stream to restore what may be America's rarest trout. In an effort dogged by controversy since 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and California Department of Fish and Game are again contemplating the use of chemicals to clear non-native fish from Silver King Creek south of Lake Tahoe. The idea is to allow the threatened Paiute cutthroat trout to flourish in its native habitat, a goal supporters say would be a profound success for the Endangered Species Act. "It would be a huge success story," said Bob Williams, field supervisor for U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "This would be a species we can remove from the (endangered) list. "It's one of the rarest trout we have." Permit problems and opponents concerned about use of the chemical rotenone in the pristine mountain creek have halted the project each of the last four summers. Last August, a team hiking into the wilderness to perform the task was ordered to turn around after a federal judge sided with conservationists against the project....
Sierra Club investing heavily in state races The Sierra Club plans to shift millions in campaign cash from Congressional races to state and local campaigns this fall, a sign from the nation's oldest and largest environmental group that Washington is becoming less relevant to its cause. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said his group is dedicating about a third of its anticipated $5 million to $10 million campaign fund to competitive state races this year. In past years, it has invested only 5 percent of its political money in state legislative campaigns. "We are putting 10 times as much energy into state races," Pope said. "We've never made that national investment in state races before." With partisan Washington deadlocked over most environmental issues, state governments nationwide have been taking a lead role on initiatives ranging from global warming to fuel economy standards. Despite Democrats' hopes to gain seats in the House and Senate, most political observers think the climate in Washington is unlikely to change....
Fences set up to protect archeological, biological heritage Fencing has been installed at the Comanche Springs area to protect and restore wetland habitat for several birds on the federal Endangered Species Act Species of Concern list and an archeological site that is on the National Register. "The intent is to fence out cattle, vehicles and people dumping trash around the wetlands," said Jacqueline Guilbault, director of the Manzano Conservation Foundation's special projects. Comanche Springs is in northeastern Valencia County, in the Manzano foothills. The goals are to improve wetland conditions, provide a safer environment for birds and wildlife and protect environmental, archeological and cultural resources. "Historically, the wetlands have experienced illegal dumping, cattle trespassing and target shooting. Also, trucks and off-road-vehicles drive through the wetlands area destroying vegetation, causing erosion, damaging archeological sites, polluting water, disturbing nesting of migratory birds and damaging habitat for birds and wildlife," she said....
Brit Guards' Bearskin Hats May Be Banned A British lawmaker is gathering support for his call to ban the towering bearskin hats worn for almost 200 years by the red-coated soldiers who guard the country's royal palaces. The motion, introduced by Labour party lawmaker Chris Mullin in March, declares the hats made from the fur of Canadian black bears "have no military significance and involve unnecessary cruelty." Conservative lawmaker Ann Widdecombe has now urged her party to support the motion aimed at replacing the bearskins with artificial substitutes. "Black bears, who are intelligent and curious animals, are slaughtered in Canada so that their skins may be used for ceremonial hats," Widdecombe wrote in a letter to her party colleagues on Thursday. Widdecombe's letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. So far, 180 of 646 lawmakers in the House of Commons have signed the motion. On Sunday, about 100 animal rights activists staged a naked demonstration in London to protest against the hats....
Trew: Wildfires top long list of life's hazards About the time I think I have "seen all, been there and done that" I encounter a new experience. The recent big prairie fires top all my lifeís previous dangerous episodes. I have suffered frostbite from being out in blizzards trying to save cattle, been caught in the open prairie with hailstones big as your fist bouncing off my head, survived floods with eight inches of rain raging along every creek and canyon, fighting prairie and wheat fires from Perryton to Canadian to New Mexico to back here at the ranch. I have survived countless horse wrecks and a couple of car wrecks, and thought I had experienced all the occupational hazards of agriculture and life in general. I was wrong. Sunday and Monday, March 12 and 13, take the grand prize of all my lifeís chapters. We were told by telephone a fire was burning along McClellan Creek north of the ranch. With winds at 60 mph, a prairie fire would move fast. We drove to a hilltop on Interstate 40 to see the fire already past our ranch moving to the northeast. It appeared to be past us and we prepared to go help our neighbors. Suddenly, the wind changed to the north and instead of a narrow fire burning northeast, we were faced with a 20-mile-wide fire traveling south straight to our ranch. We sat in the car and watched it cross both interstates and exit roads in seconds. We raced back to our home and prepared to fight as long as possible....
Officials abandon checkpoint after 'hippie' run-in U.S. Forest Service officers drew their shotguns but then got into their vehicles and abandoned a checkpoint without firing a shot after about 200 people at the Rainbow Family gathering surrounded the officers, an agency spokeswoman said. ''We're not going to compromise the safety of our officers,'' agency spokeswoman Denise Ottaviano said Tuesday. ''We have to reavaluate whether or not we're going to continue any checkpoints because of what happened.'' At least 500 people have converged in Routt National Forest for the gathering but the Forest Service had been turning away new arrivals from entering because the group hasn't gotten a permit for large groups. The group's annual event, often described as a huge gathering of hippies, is expected to draw between 15,000 and 20,000 people to the Routt National Forest for a weeklong July 4th event. About 60 to 80 people already at the event site approached the officers who had been turning people away and surrounded them in a ''hostile manner'', Ottaviano said. She said more than 100 other people who had been hanging out near the checkpoint because they were not allowed in joined the smaller group, forcing the officers to retreat. Ottaviano said the checkpoint has been disbanded. No one was stopping people from entering the area but officers will continue their patrols, she said....and Kit Laney gets five months in Federal Prison...soft on hippies and hard on ranchers appears to be the Bush Administration policy.
Judge hears suit over logging plan in Sierra forests The management plan for 11.5 million acres of national forest in the Sierra harms wildlife while illegally increasing logging under the guise of fire prevention, environmental groups told a federal judge Monday. They want the U.S. Forest Service to return to a 2001 plan approved in the last days of the Clinton Administration, a plan they say offers more protection for the environment and 200 scarce species such as the California spotted owl, martin and Pacific fisher. The hearing, set to conclude today, is the latest legal skirmish in a 15-year battle over managing the 11 national forests. U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. said he might schedule additional hearings before ruling in what he called an enormously complicated lawsuit. U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey approved the plan in March 2005, agreeing with Forest Service officials who advocated increased logging. They argued that thinning trees, particularly around communities, is needed to cut the risk of deadly wildfires such as the ones that cut a swath of destruction throughout Southern California in 2003....
Outfitters rallying for preservation Durango-area outfitter Mike Murphy has an answer to people who oppose preserving roadless areas in national forests and say public land should be open to everyone: Look at the satellite images of his corner of Colorado on the Internet. "You take a look at that map and look at all the roads in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico, and you won't want to see another road for a long time," Murphy said. Murphy, who has led hunting trips into Colorado's backcountry for 28 years, said he is being squeezed out of places by oil and gas development and increasing off-road vehicle use. He's one of 131 Colorado outfitters asking a state task force weighing the fate of 4.4 million acres of roadless national forest land to support keeping development out of the remaining remote spots....
Thomas at odds with drillers over forest use Oil and gas drilling in national forests should be allowed as industry works with land managers to put environmental safeguards in place, an energy executive said Monday. Bruce Hinchey with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming said he doesn't agree with U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas' statement Saturday that national forests should generally be off-limits to new drilling. "I don't think you need to totally have everything off-limits, because you still have logging and mining that occurs in the forest as well," Hinchey said. "It depends on the areas." Hinchey said there is not a lot of drilling on national forests, and what does occur happens on forest edges. Interior parts of national forest tend to be much costlier to explore because the areas are not easily accessible. Thomas, R-Wyo., said Saturday he does not think national forests should be open to oil and gas development because of the special qualities these areas possess. At issue specifically in Wyoming are lease parcels in the Wyoming Range. While there are some existing drilling operations there now -- and Thomas said existing operations should be allowed to continue -- new parcels are being sold for energy leases....
Biologists revive plan to save trout with poison For the fifth time, biologists are proposing to poison a remote Sierra stream to restore what may be America's rarest trout. In an effort dogged by controversy since 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and California Department of Fish and Game are again contemplating the use of chemicals to clear non-native fish from Silver King Creek south of Lake Tahoe. The idea is to allow the threatened Paiute cutthroat trout to flourish in its native habitat, a goal supporters say would be a profound success for the Endangered Species Act. "It would be a huge success story," said Bob Williams, field supervisor for U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "This would be a species we can remove from the (endangered) list. "It's one of the rarest trout we have." Permit problems and opponents concerned about use of the chemical rotenone in the pristine mountain creek have halted the project each of the last four summers. Last August, a team hiking into the wilderness to perform the task was ordered to turn around after a federal judge sided with conservationists against the project....
Sierra Club investing heavily in state races The Sierra Club plans to shift millions in campaign cash from Congressional races to state and local campaigns this fall, a sign from the nation's oldest and largest environmental group that Washington is becoming less relevant to its cause. In an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said his group is dedicating about a third of its anticipated $5 million to $10 million campaign fund to competitive state races this year. In past years, it has invested only 5 percent of its political money in state legislative campaigns. "We are putting 10 times as much energy into state races," Pope said. "We've never made that national investment in state races before." With partisan Washington deadlocked over most environmental issues, state governments nationwide have been taking a lead role on initiatives ranging from global warming to fuel economy standards. Despite Democrats' hopes to gain seats in the House and Senate, most political observers think the climate in Washington is unlikely to change....
Fences set up to protect archeological, biological heritage Fencing has been installed at the Comanche Springs area to protect and restore wetland habitat for several birds on the federal Endangered Species Act Species of Concern list and an archeological site that is on the National Register. "The intent is to fence out cattle, vehicles and people dumping trash around the wetlands," said Jacqueline Guilbault, director of the Manzano Conservation Foundation's special projects. Comanche Springs is in northeastern Valencia County, in the Manzano foothills. The goals are to improve wetland conditions, provide a safer environment for birds and wildlife and protect environmental, archeological and cultural resources. "Historically, the wetlands have experienced illegal dumping, cattle trespassing and target shooting. Also, trucks and off-road-vehicles drive through the wetlands area destroying vegetation, causing erosion, damaging archeological sites, polluting water, disturbing nesting of migratory birds and damaging habitat for birds and wildlife," she said....
Brit Guards' Bearskin Hats May Be Banned A British lawmaker is gathering support for his call to ban the towering bearskin hats worn for almost 200 years by the red-coated soldiers who guard the country's royal palaces. The motion, introduced by Labour party lawmaker Chris Mullin in March, declares the hats made from the fur of Canadian black bears "have no military significance and involve unnecessary cruelty." Conservative lawmaker Ann Widdecombe has now urged her party to support the motion aimed at replacing the bearskins with artificial substitutes. "Black bears, who are intelligent and curious animals, are slaughtered in Canada so that their skins may be used for ceremonial hats," Widdecombe wrote in a letter to her party colleagues on Thursday. Widdecombe's letter was obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. So far, 180 of 646 lawmakers in the House of Commons have signed the motion. On Sunday, about 100 animal rights activists staged a naked demonstration in London to protest against the hats....
Trew: Wildfires top long list of life's hazards About the time I think I have "seen all, been there and done that" I encounter a new experience. The recent big prairie fires top all my lifeís previous dangerous episodes. I have suffered frostbite from being out in blizzards trying to save cattle, been caught in the open prairie with hailstones big as your fist bouncing off my head, survived floods with eight inches of rain raging along every creek and canyon, fighting prairie and wheat fires from Perryton to Canadian to New Mexico to back here at the ranch. I have survived countless horse wrecks and a couple of car wrecks, and thought I had experienced all the occupational hazards of agriculture and life in general. I was wrong. Sunday and Monday, March 12 and 13, take the grand prize of all my lifeís chapters. We were told by telephone a fire was burning along McClellan Creek north of the ranch. With winds at 60 mph, a prairie fire would move fast. We drove to a hilltop on Interstate 40 to see the fire already past our ranch moving to the northeast. It appeared to be past us and we prepared to go help our neighbors. Suddenly, the wind changed to the north and instead of a narrow fire burning northeast, we were faced with a 20-mile-wide fire traveling south straight to our ranch. We sat in the car and watched it cross both interstates and exit roads in seconds. We raced back to our home and prepared to fight as long as possible....
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
NEWS
Roadless areas offered for drilling Parts of the White River National Forest and an adjacent forest that are currently designated as roadless areas could be opened up to drilling after an auction of oil and gas leases set for August. Some environmentalists say that would circumvent a state process designed to make recommendations to the federal government about which roadless areas should receive stiffer protections. With the state roadless task force set to meet in Glenwood Springs on Wednesday to discuss the White River National Forest, environmentalists are criticizing the decision by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to offer up these parcels before the group's work is done. "The goal posts are moving," said Sloan Shoemaker, director of the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, one of the groups that has been vocal in seeking to protect roadless areas from development....
Editorial: Restoring sanity to the Interior IN ONE OF HIS FIRST ACTS as Interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne took the gratifying step of tossing out a proposal that would have ruined our national parks. Gone is language that would have opened them to mining and grazing as well as increased commercial development, snowmobiling and off-road-vehicle use. Restored is the National Parks Service's commitment to conservation. The parks were never intended for the mixed industrial and recreational uses commonly allowed on property under the Bureau of Land Management. Instead, their purpose is to preserve the nation's natural treasures as close to their original state as possible and to provide for recreation as long as it does not conflict with the main goal of conservation. On Monday, by announcing that he had rejected a management plan drafted under his predecessor, Gale Norton, Kempthorne returned to that original vision for the parks. It was a welcome and somewhat surprising move from the novice secretary who was no tree-hugger as a senator and governor from Idaho....
Ex-BLM firefighter pleads guilty to arson fires An ex-firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management pleaded guilty to setting three wildfires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest land in north-central Nevada last summer, federal prosecutors said Monday. Investigators alleged Mark E. Morgan of Reno started the fires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest land last August because he was bored and needed the paycheck, according to court documents. Morgan, 34, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, as well as being required to pay restitution for the damages to federal property, U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden said. He entered the plea Thursday in U.S. District Court in Reno before Judge Edward C. Reed Jr., Bogden said in a statement Monday. Reed set sentencing for Oct. 23. Morgan was employed as a member of a BLM fire crew based in Austin at the time of the fires. He also had worked before fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service....
Cutting edge niche When Aaron Nash moves through a thinning site, it’s obvious where he’s been and where he’s going: Sunlight illuminates the progress of his work while darkness shrouds what lays ahead. Nash brings light to practically any forest’s darkness, and makes a profit from it too — no matter what size the timber. “This little niche that I’m in, there’s a high demand,” Nash said of the small-diameter trees he harvests and has delivered to local markets. “We can sell all that stuff.” The niche of a one-man logger is making the most of a harvest site. Nash has figured that out, and has carved himself a corner of the timber market since starting his independent logging operation, Western Oregon Forest Management, nearly six years ago. “I’ve never not had a day of work,” said Nash, 38, of Curtin. A day of work for Nash is typically the thinning and harvest of another acre of trees. Cutting through the overcrowded understory of timber to promote old-growth characteristics and decrease fire fuels, Nash targets timber 3 inches in diameter and larger and designates its stock for particular markets....
BLM recommends lifting restrictions on millions of acres The federal Bureau of Land Management is recommending that Congress lift development restrictions on millions of acres of federal land in the state. In a report to Congress this month, BLM officials suggested lifting prohibitions on mining, oil and gas leasing, and other development on some large tracts. The restrictions were put in place in 1970s when the Interior Department secretary withdrew lands under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Native corporations were selecting 44 million acres granted by that 1971 law. Also, state officials were choosing land Alaska received under the Statehood Act of 1958. Congress froze huge swaths of Alaska until that process was completed. Three decades later, Native corporations are still making selections, as are state officials. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, got Congress to pass a bill two years ago to speed up the process. Part of the bill gave BLM a deadline to submit a report this month on what to do with any "left over" lands....
Opponents critical of natural gas pipeline Opponents are organizing against a proposed natural gas pipeline from Coos Bay to the Klamath Basin. “I’m here to stop the pipeline,” said Dennis Loper, a logger from Trail, told a crowd that packed a Grange hall near the path of the line in northern Jackson County. He said it would cross land owned by relatives in Jackson County, and involve the use of eminent domain. “These people here are gonna try to take your land whether you like it or not,” he said. Officials of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and of the companies proposing the pipeline said at the hearing last week that eminent domain would be used only as a last resort and involve easements, not taking the land outright. “We try to negotiate with people,” said Steve Potts, project manager for the Williams natural gas company. “We figure out what the fair market value is of an easement across their property and any construction inconveniences. We find we reach a settlement with a majority of property owners.”....
Archaeologists, courts debate artifacts' value In a case with ramifications for archaeological treasures across the West, the Justice Department is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that freed two men convicted of stealing ancient petroglyphs in Nevada. "There is a good deal at stake here," said Sherry Hutt, a former Superior Court judge from Arizona who has written books on the subject and now heads a related program at the National Park Service. The appellate court in San Francisco concluded in March the two accused looters clearly were guilty of stealing the boulders with rare etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep but that the government failed to prove two critical elements in the case: The artifacts on national forest land were worth at least $1,000, and the accused looters knew or should have known what they were stealing was of archaeological value. The ruling "effectively provides a license to steal" petroglyphs and other things "that clearly have intrinsic -- and often culturally important -- value, but which defy efforts to reduce that value to monetary terms," assistant U.S. attorney Robert Don Gifford wrote in the petition for rehearing....
Editorial: BLM too industry friendly He who pays the piper calls the tune, goes the old saying. But the U.S. Bureau of Land Management not only is letting energy companies pay the piper, amazingly it's giving them a say in who the piper will be. The BLM has been under intense industry pressure to step up energy leasing across the West, but a 2005 Government Accountability Office report found that the agency doesn't have enough staff to process the crush of oil and gas applications and still properly mitigate environmental damage. It's become common for the energy industry to pay the costs of conducting environmental impact statements. The EIS process is used to determine whether energy leasing should occur, and if so, how any environmental, economic and social impacts will be mitigated. But there's a disturbing and qualitative difference in what BLM now proposes to do in northwestern Colorado. Over the next two decades, seven energy companies want to increase the number of wells to be drilled in the Meeker area from the 1,100 envisioned in BLM's existing plan to as many as 15,000, truly an eye-popping jump. The potential effect on the environment and nearby communities could be so extensive that BLM really ought to completely revise its basic management plan for the area. Instead, it's trying to squeeze by on the cheap, doing only an amendment to the current plan....
Cacti to limit OHV use at Factory Butte Concerns over the survival of a pair of imperiled cactus species will likely soon lead to emergency off-highway vehicle restrictions in the popular Factory Butte area of southern Utah. A petition filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance last year to halt, or at least limit, OHV activity at Factory Butte has been largely dismissed by the Bureau of Land Management. But concerns raised by the environmental group over the fate of the endangered Wrights Fishhook cactus and the threatened Winkler cactus have resonated with federal land managers. "We've got [OHV] conflicts where the country is open and people are running over and killing the cactus, so we probably will be looking at some kind of restrictions," Wayne Wetzel, associate manager for the BLM's Richfield Field Office, said this week. "It's not finalized, so we can't say at this point what they will look like. But it will probably be bigger than what the OHV groups want and smaller than SUWA wants it to be." User conflicts at Factory Butte, pitting off-road enthusiasts against environmentalists and non-motorized recreationalists, have vexed federal land managers for years. Located in the middle of Wayne County, the region is renowned for its wide open badlands terrain and breathtaking vistas....
Boy Survives Bear Attack A 14-year-old boy was attacked by a black bear and lives to tell about it. "I've got a good story to tell my kids when I get older," said Cruz Bentley. It all happened early Sunday morning at a campground along the Gila River near the small town of Hayden, north of Tucson. Bentley believes he stared death in the face after coming face to face with a young black bear. "I woke up and he was just sitting down like that and he was all blap, hit me again, and then he picked up on his four feet so I looked up at him and I tried to get up and then he was gone." The bear's long sharp claws left a deep puncture wound and a gash that required four staples on Bentley's head. "Oh I was bleeding a lot. It hurt for 10 seconds then it stopped. I think I went into shock." A fellow camper rushed Cruz to his mom's house and she took him to the hospital. He's ok now and even makes light of the situation as he proudly wears a shirt that one of his friend's mom gave him. It reads, "Been pawed?" Cruz says, "She gave me this shirt, she said I earned it."....
Bulldozer used for destructive joyride A vandal has twice taken a bulldozer for a joyride at a logging site, tearing up roads and destroying newly planted trees. The first incident happened about two week ago, said Don Robinson, the assistant district law enforcement ranger working in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Grants Pass and Glendale resource areas. Robinson said there was five hours worth of fuel in the bulldozer and the driver operated it until it was empty. The driver tore up the road, causing $1,800 in damage, and ripped up a half-acre of newly planted Douglas fir and incense cedar trees. The cost of replacing the trees is an estimated $1,200. The culprit returned last week. "That time they took it up the road a little ways," Robinson said. "It seemed to be another joyride." Robinson thinks vandals not environmental activists caused the damage because trees were destroyed and the logging unit has been free of controversy....
Study Seeks Balance in Rockies The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today--with key support from leading energy producers in the Rockies--released first-year results from a study on how natural gas development in the Rockies might be influencing wildlife, particularly pronghorn antelope. The report--titled The Wildlife and Energy Development Report--represents initial data of a yet-to-be-completed five-year study by WCS, funded by Shell Exploration & Production Company, Ultra Resources, Inc., and others. The study focuses on how natural gas development influences wildlife in a region that serves as a critical wintering ground for pronghorn antelope, the focus species of the study. While subject to change after further data are collected, preliminary findings from the first year of the five-year study point to the following: 1) Pronghorn can adapt to the presence of humans when not hunted or harassed, but tend to avoid areas that are fragmented by gas fields, roads, and other types of development. 2) Based on statistical models, pronghorn are more prone to use undisturbed parcels greater than 600 acres in size. 3) Animals captured both in and among gas fields and outside of petroleum development areas had no differences in either body mass (a measure of an animal's health), mineral deficiencies, disease, fecundity, or contaminant levels, indicating that proximity to development had no effect on the health of the pronghorn....
Roadless areas offered for drilling Parts of the White River National Forest and an adjacent forest that are currently designated as roadless areas could be opened up to drilling after an auction of oil and gas leases set for August. Some environmentalists say that would circumvent a state process designed to make recommendations to the federal government about which roadless areas should receive stiffer protections. With the state roadless task force set to meet in Glenwood Springs on Wednesday to discuss the White River National Forest, environmentalists are criticizing the decision by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to offer up these parcels before the group's work is done. "The goal posts are moving," said Sloan Shoemaker, director of the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop, one of the groups that has been vocal in seeking to protect roadless areas from development....
Editorial: Restoring sanity to the Interior IN ONE OF HIS FIRST ACTS as Interior secretary, Dirk Kempthorne took the gratifying step of tossing out a proposal that would have ruined our national parks. Gone is language that would have opened them to mining and grazing as well as increased commercial development, snowmobiling and off-road-vehicle use. Restored is the National Parks Service's commitment to conservation. The parks were never intended for the mixed industrial and recreational uses commonly allowed on property under the Bureau of Land Management. Instead, their purpose is to preserve the nation's natural treasures as close to their original state as possible and to provide for recreation as long as it does not conflict with the main goal of conservation. On Monday, by announcing that he had rejected a management plan drafted under his predecessor, Gale Norton, Kempthorne returned to that original vision for the parks. It was a welcome and somewhat surprising move from the novice secretary who was no tree-hugger as a senator and governor from Idaho....
Ex-BLM firefighter pleads guilty to arson fires An ex-firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management pleaded guilty to setting three wildfires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest land in north-central Nevada last summer, federal prosecutors said Monday. Investigators alleged Mark E. Morgan of Reno started the fires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest land last August because he was bored and needed the paycheck, according to court documents. Morgan, 34, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, as well as being required to pay restitution for the damages to federal property, U.S. Attorney Daniel G. Bogden said. He entered the plea Thursday in U.S. District Court in Reno before Judge Edward C. Reed Jr., Bogden said in a statement Monday. Reed set sentencing for Oct. 23. Morgan was employed as a member of a BLM fire crew based in Austin at the time of the fires. He also had worked before fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service....
Cutting edge niche When Aaron Nash moves through a thinning site, it’s obvious where he’s been and where he’s going: Sunlight illuminates the progress of his work while darkness shrouds what lays ahead. Nash brings light to practically any forest’s darkness, and makes a profit from it too — no matter what size the timber. “This little niche that I’m in, there’s a high demand,” Nash said of the small-diameter trees he harvests and has delivered to local markets. “We can sell all that stuff.” The niche of a one-man logger is making the most of a harvest site. Nash has figured that out, and has carved himself a corner of the timber market since starting his independent logging operation, Western Oregon Forest Management, nearly six years ago. “I’ve never not had a day of work,” said Nash, 38, of Curtin. A day of work for Nash is typically the thinning and harvest of another acre of trees. Cutting through the overcrowded understory of timber to promote old-growth characteristics and decrease fire fuels, Nash targets timber 3 inches in diameter and larger and designates its stock for particular markets....
BLM recommends lifting restrictions on millions of acres The federal Bureau of Land Management is recommending that Congress lift development restrictions on millions of acres of federal land in the state. In a report to Congress this month, BLM officials suggested lifting prohibitions on mining, oil and gas leasing, and other development on some large tracts. The restrictions were put in place in 1970s when the Interior Department secretary withdrew lands under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Native corporations were selecting 44 million acres granted by that 1971 law. Also, state officials were choosing land Alaska received under the Statehood Act of 1958. Congress froze huge swaths of Alaska until that process was completed. Three decades later, Native corporations are still making selections, as are state officials. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, got Congress to pass a bill two years ago to speed up the process. Part of the bill gave BLM a deadline to submit a report this month on what to do with any "left over" lands....
Opponents critical of natural gas pipeline Opponents are organizing against a proposed natural gas pipeline from Coos Bay to the Klamath Basin. “I’m here to stop the pipeline,” said Dennis Loper, a logger from Trail, told a crowd that packed a Grange hall near the path of the line in northern Jackson County. He said it would cross land owned by relatives in Jackson County, and involve the use of eminent domain. “These people here are gonna try to take your land whether you like it or not,” he said. Officials of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and of the companies proposing the pipeline said at the hearing last week that eminent domain would be used only as a last resort and involve easements, not taking the land outright. “We try to negotiate with people,” said Steve Potts, project manager for the Williams natural gas company. “We figure out what the fair market value is of an easement across their property and any construction inconveniences. We find we reach a settlement with a majority of property owners.”....
Archaeologists, courts debate artifacts' value In a case with ramifications for archaeological treasures across the West, the Justice Department is asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a ruling that freed two men convicted of stealing ancient petroglyphs in Nevada. "There is a good deal at stake here," said Sherry Hutt, a former Superior Court judge from Arizona who has written books on the subject and now heads a related program at the National Park Service. The appellate court in San Francisco concluded in March the two accused looters clearly were guilty of stealing the boulders with rare etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep but that the government failed to prove two critical elements in the case: The artifacts on national forest land were worth at least $1,000, and the accused looters knew or should have known what they were stealing was of archaeological value. The ruling "effectively provides a license to steal" petroglyphs and other things "that clearly have intrinsic -- and often culturally important -- value, but which defy efforts to reduce that value to monetary terms," assistant U.S. attorney Robert Don Gifford wrote in the petition for rehearing....
Editorial: BLM too industry friendly He who pays the piper calls the tune, goes the old saying. But the U.S. Bureau of Land Management not only is letting energy companies pay the piper, amazingly it's giving them a say in who the piper will be. The BLM has been under intense industry pressure to step up energy leasing across the West, but a 2005 Government Accountability Office report found that the agency doesn't have enough staff to process the crush of oil and gas applications and still properly mitigate environmental damage. It's become common for the energy industry to pay the costs of conducting environmental impact statements. The EIS process is used to determine whether energy leasing should occur, and if so, how any environmental, economic and social impacts will be mitigated. But there's a disturbing and qualitative difference in what BLM now proposes to do in northwestern Colorado. Over the next two decades, seven energy companies want to increase the number of wells to be drilled in the Meeker area from the 1,100 envisioned in BLM's existing plan to as many as 15,000, truly an eye-popping jump. The potential effect on the environment and nearby communities could be so extensive that BLM really ought to completely revise its basic management plan for the area. Instead, it's trying to squeeze by on the cheap, doing only an amendment to the current plan....
Cacti to limit OHV use at Factory Butte Concerns over the survival of a pair of imperiled cactus species will likely soon lead to emergency off-highway vehicle restrictions in the popular Factory Butte area of southern Utah. A petition filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance last year to halt, or at least limit, OHV activity at Factory Butte has been largely dismissed by the Bureau of Land Management. But concerns raised by the environmental group over the fate of the endangered Wrights Fishhook cactus and the threatened Winkler cactus have resonated with federal land managers. "We've got [OHV] conflicts where the country is open and people are running over and killing the cactus, so we probably will be looking at some kind of restrictions," Wayne Wetzel, associate manager for the BLM's Richfield Field Office, said this week. "It's not finalized, so we can't say at this point what they will look like. But it will probably be bigger than what the OHV groups want and smaller than SUWA wants it to be." User conflicts at Factory Butte, pitting off-road enthusiasts against environmentalists and non-motorized recreationalists, have vexed federal land managers for years. Located in the middle of Wayne County, the region is renowned for its wide open badlands terrain and breathtaking vistas....
Boy Survives Bear Attack A 14-year-old boy was attacked by a black bear and lives to tell about it. "I've got a good story to tell my kids when I get older," said Cruz Bentley. It all happened early Sunday morning at a campground along the Gila River near the small town of Hayden, north of Tucson. Bentley believes he stared death in the face after coming face to face with a young black bear. "I woke up and he was just sitting down like that and he was all blap, hit me again, and then he picked up on his four feet so I looked up at him and I tried to get up and then he was gone." The bear's long sharp claws left a deep puncture wound and a gash that required four staples on Bentley's head. "Oh I was bleeding a lot. It hurt for 10 seconds then it stopped. I think I went into shock." A fellow camper rushed Cruz to his mom's house and she took him to the hospital. He's ok now and even makes light of the situation as he proudly wears a shirt that one of his friend's mom gave him. It reads, "Been pawed?" Cruz says, "She gave me this shirt, she said I earned it."....
Bulldozer used for destructive joyride A vandal has twice taken a bulldozer for a joyride at a logging site, tearing up roads and destroying newly planted trees. The first incident happened about two week ago, said Don Robinson, the assistant district law enforcement ranger working in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Grants Pass and Glendale resource areas. Robinson said there was five hours worth of fuel in the bulldozer and the driver operated it until it was empty. The driver tore up the road, causing $1,800 in damage, and ripped up a half-acre of newly planted Douglas fir and incense cedar trees. The cost of replacing the trees is an estimated $1,200. The culprit returned last week. "That time they took it up the road a little ways," Robinson said. "It seemed to be another joyride." Robinson thinks vandals not environmental activists caused the damage because trees were destroyed and the logging unit has been free of controversy....
Study Seeks Balance in Rockies The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today--with key support from leading energy producers in the Rockies--released first-year results from a study on how natural gas development in the Rockies might be influencing wildlife, particularly pronghorn antelope. The report--titled The Wildlife and Energy Development Report--represents initial data of a yet-to-be-completed five-year study by WCS, funded by Shell Exploration & Production Company, Ultra Resources, Inc., and others. The study focuses on how natural gas development influences wildlife in a region that serves as a critical wintering ground for pronghorn antelope, the focus species of the study. While subject to change after further data are collected, preliminary findings from the first year of the five-year study point to the following: 1) Pronghorn can adapt to the presence of humans when not hunted or harassed, but tend to avoid areas that are fragmented by gas fields, roads, and other types of development. 2) Based on statistical models, pronghorn are more prone to use undisturbed parcels greater than 600 acres in size. 3) Animals captured both in and among gas fields and outside of petroleum development areas had no differences in either body mass (a measure of an animal's health), mineral deficiencies, disease, fecundity, or contaminant levels, indicating that proximity to development had no effect on the health of the pronghorn....
CLEAN WATER ACT
Boston Globe - Supreme Court tackles wetland protection After fighting the federal government for more than 18 years, Keith Carabell is resigned to more uncertainty after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered another look at his plan to build condominiums in a wetland area. In a case so divisive it produced five separate opinions totaling more than 100 pages and no clear majority, the court ruled that the government can block development on hundreds of millions of acres of wetlands, even on land miles away from waterways, as long as regulators prove a significant connection to the waterways. The 5-4 decision sends Carabell and another Michigan developer's cases back to a federal appeals court -- with no end to the spat in sight. "I'm not sure I'll live to see the end of this," the 79-year-old accountant said. In his first major environmental case, Chief Justice John Roberts came up one vote short of dramatically limiting the scope of the landmark Clean Water Act. But at the same time, property rights advocates won a new test for when wetlands can be regulated. Moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said there must be a "significant nexus" between the wetland and a navigable waterway. Neither environmentalists nor property rights activists had a clear-cut victory. "It muddied already muddy waters on this issue," said Jim Murphy, wetlands counsel with the National Wildlife Federation....
NY Times - Justices Divided on Protections Over Wetlands The Supreme Court on Monday came close to rolling back one of the country's fundamental environmental laws, issuing a fractured decision that, while likely to preserve vigorous federal enforcement of the law, the Clean Water Act, is also likely to lead to new regulatory battles, increased litigation by property owners and a push for new legislation. With four justices on one side arguing for a sharp restriction in the definition of wetlands that are subject to federal jurisdiction, and four justices on the other arguing for retaining the broad definition that the Army Corps of Engineers has used for decades, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy controlled the outcome in a solitary opinion. Justice Kennedy said that to come within federal protection under a proper interpretation of the Clean Water Act, a wetland needs to have a "significant nexus" to a body of water that is actually navigable. He then made clear, in his 30-page opinion, that whether such a relationship existed in any specific case was largely a technical and scientific judgment on which courts should defer to the federal regulators. The four parcels of land at issue in the case, all in Michigan, were likely to meet the definition, he said. Environmental advocacy groups reacted to the decision, which sends the cases back to an appeals court, as if they had dodged a bullet, which in many respects they had. An opinion for four justices, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, would have stripped protection from many areas that federal regulators have treated as wetlands under the 1972 law. Justice Scalia's opinion, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the Army Corps of Engineers had stretched its authority under the Clean Water Act "beyond parody" by regulating land that contained nothing but storm sewers, drainage ditches and "dry arroyos in the middle of the desert."....
Wall Street Journal Editorial - Parsing the Waters The Supreme Court tiptoed up to the edge of a landmark property-rights ruling yesterday, but in the end it merely dipped a toe in the water without deciding whether to jump in or not. The vote in the case left little room for doubt about the reason for the Court's indecision -- his name is Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Court split, in effect, 4-1-4 in Rapanos v. U.S., which covered two separate cases concerning federal jurisdiction over "wetlands" under the Clean Water Act. Mr. Rapanos had filled a wetland that was essentially a drainage ditch without a permit back in 1989. Five years later, the government filed suit against him. Mr. Rapanos lost, and that decision was upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court vacated that decision Monday and sent it back to the lower courts to try again. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four of the Justices, clearly would have gone farther in reining in the expansive interpretations of the Clean Water Act that have taken hold over the last three decades. Thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, the definition of "navigable waters" can now include puddles and drainage ditches and has turned the law-abiding likes of Mr. Rapanos into wetlands desperadoes. In his own separate opinion, Justice Kennedy agreed to vacate the ruling but refused to go as far as the rest of the majority. The result is that the final outcome in both the Rapanos case and Carabell v. U.S., another drainage ditch fiasco also decided yesterday, remains in doubt. On remand, the lower courts could modify their reasoning but uphold their decisions. As Justice Scalia noted in his opinion, Justice Kennedy seemed to "tip a wink" at the government in his concurrence, "inviting it to try its same expansive reading again" as long as it cites Justice Kennedy's logic. Chief Justice John Roberts -- who, with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, joined with Justice Scalia's opinion -- also wrote a concurrence in which he lamented that it was "unfortunate that no opinion commands a majority of the Court on precisely how to read Congress' limits on the reach of the Clean Water Act." As a result, he warned, "Lower courts and regulated entities will now have to feel their way on a case-by-case basis." In other words, welcome to the Kennedy Court....
Go here to read the case yourself.
Boston Globe - Supreme Court tackles wetland protection After fighting the federal government for more than 18 years, Keith Carabell is resigned to more uncertainty after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered another look at his plan to build condominiums in a wetland area. In a case so divisive it produced five separate opinions totaling more than 100 pages and no clear majority, the court ruled that the government can block development on hundreds of millions of acres of wetlands, even on land miles away from waterways, as long as regulators prove a significant connection to the waterways. The 5-4 decision sends Carabell and another Michigan developer's cases back to a federal appeals court -- with no end to the spat in sight. "I'm not sure I'll live to see the end of this," the 79-year-old accountant said. In his first major environmental case, Chief Justice John Roberts came up one vote short of dramatically limiting the scope of the landmark Clean Water Act. But at the same time, property rights advocates won a new test for when wetlands can be regulated. Moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said there must be a "significant nexus" between the wetland and a navigable waterway. Neither environmentalists nor property rights activists had a clear-cut victory. "It muddied already muddy waters on this issue," said Jim Murphy, wetlands counsel with the National Wildlife Federation....
NY Times - Justices Divided on Protections Over Wetlands The Supreme Court on Monday came close to rolling back one of the country's fundamental environmental laws, issuing a fractured decision that, while likely to preserve vigorous federal enforcement of the law, the Clean Water Act, is also likely to lead to new regulatory battles, increased litigation by property owners and a push for new legislation. With four justices on one side arguing for a sharp restriction in the definition of wetlands that are subject to federal jurisdiction, and four justices on the other arguing for retaining the broad definition that the Army Corps of Engineers has used for decades, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy controlled the outcome in a solitary opinion. Justice Kennedy said that to come within federal protection under a proper interpretation of the Clean Water Act, a wetland needs to have a "significant nexus" to a body of water that is actually navigable. He then made clear, in his 30-page opinion, that whether such a relationship existed in any specific case was largely a technical and scientific judgment on which courts should defer to the federal regulators. The four parcels of land at issue in the case, all in Michigan, were likely to meet the definition, he said. Environmental advocacy groups reacted to the decision, which sends the cases back to an appeals court, as if they had dodged a bullet, which in many respects they had. An opinion for four justices, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, would have stripped protection from many areas that federal regulators have treated as wetlands under the 1972 law. Justice Scalia's opinion, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the Army Corps of Engineers had stretched its authority under the Clean Water Act "beyond parody" by regulating land that contained nothing but storm sewers, drainage ditches and "dry arroyos in the middle of the desert."....
Wall Street Journal Editorial - Parsing the Waters The Supreme Court tiptoed up to the edge of a landmark property-rights ruling yesterday, but in the end it merely dipped a toe in the water without deciding whether to jump in or not. The vote in the case left little room for doubt about the reason for the Court's indecision -- his name is Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Court split, in effect, 4-1-4 in Rapanos v. U.S., which covered two separate cases concerning federal jurisdiction over "wetlands" under the Clean Water Act. Mr. Rapanos had filled a wetland that was essentially a drainage ditch without a permit back in 1989. Five years later, the government filed suit against him. Mr. Rapanos lost, and that decision was upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court vacated that decision Monday and sent it back to the lower courts to try again. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four of the Justices, clearly would have gone farther in reining in the expansive interpretations of the Clean Water Act that have taken hold over the last three decades. Thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, the definition of "navigable waters" can now include puddles and drainage ditches and has turned the law-abiding likes of Mr. Rapanos into wetlands desperadoes. In his own separate opinion, Justice Kennedy agreed to vacate the ruling but refused to go as far as the rest of the majority. The result is that the final outcome in both the Rapanos case and Carabell v. U.S., another drainage ditch fiasco also decided yesterday, remains in doubt. On remand, the lower courts could modify their reasoning but uphold their decisions. As Justice Scalia noted in his opinion, Justice Kennedy seemed to "tip a wink" at the government in his concurrence, "inviting it to try its same expansive reading again" as long as it cites Justice Kennedy's logic. Chief Justice John Roberts -- who, with Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, joined with Justice Scalia's opinion -- also wrote a concurrence in which he lamented that it was "unfortunate that no opinion commands a majority of the Court on precisely how to read Congress' limits on the reach of the Clean Water Act." As a result, he warned, "Lower courts and regulated entities will now have to feel their way on a case-by-case basis." In other words, welcome to the Kennedy Court....
Go here to read the case yourself.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Well-wishers bid farewell to Hage
About 300 ranchers and other well-wishers converged on the Pine Creek Ranch for the funeral of Wayne Hage Saturday, to pay respects to the humble man eulogized as a hero in the fight for property rights in the American West. Hage, 68, died at the ranch June 5, after a bout with cancer. People came from hundreds of miles to pay their respects, and conversations about cattle and rainfall were intermingled with talk about topics like resource management plans by the federal government and elk overgrazing. Signs on the fence read: "Has the West Been Won or Has the Fight Just Begun!" Another sign read: "Save the Stockmen from BLM and Forest Service." John Johnson said he drove all night from his ranch east of Payson, Arizona. "He was a modern-day John Wayne. He had a lot of answers for a lot of questions ranchers had. He spearheaded the fight for our rights on forest service allotments," Johnson said. "He's one of the last of the real patriots." Clark said she has been involved in Hage's case against the U.S. Forest Service since he filed it in 1991. "I had five kids and I had to spend pennies out of my pockets," she said. "We were dealing with the Forest Service with our hunting business when we heard about this. We wanted to learn all we could about the case." Former Elko County Commissioner Tony Lesperance, now living in Paradise Valley, said he's part of a group that's continuing the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in San Francisco in 2002 ruled Hage had vested water rights. The next stage, which Hage didn't live to realize, was the compensation he would receive through the federal court system. C.J. Tennant, publisher of Range magazine, eulogized Hage as the David vs. the federal bureaucracy Goliath. "Wayne grew up with ranching. And for 68 years he was adored, tolerated, despised, admired and feared," she said. Hage, wrote in 2002: "I paid for and own the surface water, ground water and grazing rights on my allotments. In the arid expanses of the West it takes a lot of acres to feed a cow and water is as precious as gold. Without those water and grazing rights, my family's ranch and all others like it will cease to exist. "For many years now, federal agencies and their environmental allies have been pretending that these genuine property rights are nonexistent ... This represents a major assault on the very concept of property rights." Hage, author of the book "Storm Over Rangelands," said property was being seized by the government under the guise of protecting endangered species, habitat, wild rivers, old timber, clean water, clean air and "other frauds." In conclusion, Tennant, choking back tears, said, "Wayne Hage is the only one who could have done it, or would have tried." His son, also named Wayne Hage, said, "It's very fitting the body laid on the land he fought for." "He was a meek man, not a weak man," Pastor Ken Wilde said. "In our culture today, we don't have many heroes. Wayne was a real hero."
About 300 ranchers and other well-wishers converged on the Pine Creek Ranch for the funeral of Wayne Hage Saturday, to pay respects to the humble man eulogized as a hero in the fight for property rights in the American West. Hage, 68, died at the ranch June 5, after a bout with cancer. People came from hundreds of miles to pay their respects, and conversations about cattle and rainfall were intermingled with talk about topics like resource management plans by the federal government and elk overgrazing. Signs on the fence read: "Has the West Been Won or Has the Fight Just Begun!" Another sign read: "Save the Stockmen from BLM and Forest Service." John Johnson said he drove all night from his ranch east of Payson, Arizona. "He was a modern-day John Wayne. He had a lot of answers for a lot of questions ranchers had. He spearheaded the fight for our rights on forest service allotments," Johnson said. "He's one of the last of the real patriots." Clark said she has been involved in Hage's case against the U.S. Forest Service since he filed it in 1991. "I had five kids and I had to spend pennies out of my pockets," she said. "We were dealing with the Forest Service with our hunting business when we heard about this. We wanted to learn all we could about the case." Former Elko County Commissioner Tony Lesperance, now living in Paradise Valley, said he's part of a group that's continuing the lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in San Francisco in 2002 ruled Hage had vested water rights. The next stage, which Hage didn't live to realize, was the compensation he would receive through the federal court system. C.J. Tennant, publisher of Range magazine, eulogized Hage as the David vs. the federal bureaucracy Goliath. "Wayne grew up with ranching. And for 68 years he was adored, tolerated, despised, admired and feared," she said. Hage, wrote in 2002: "I paid for and own the surface water, ground water and grazing rights on my allotments. In the arid expanses of the West it takes a lot of acres to feed a cow and water is as precious as gold. Without those water and grazing rights, my family's ranch and all others like it will cease to exist. "For many years now, federal agencies and their environmental allies have been pretending that these genuine property rights are nonexistent ... This represents a major assault on the very concept of property rights." Hage, author of the book "Storm Over Rangelands," said property was being seized by the government under the guise of protecting endangered species, habitat, wild rivers, old timber, clean water, clean air and "other frauds." In conclusion, Tennant, choking back tears, said, "Wayne Hage is the only one who could have done it, or would have tried." His son, also named Wayne Hage, said, "It's very fitting the body laid on the land he fought for." "He was a meek man, not a weak man," Pastor Ken Wilde said. "In our culture today, we don't have many heroes. Wayne was a real hero."
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