NEWS ROUNDUP


Appeals court rejects Bush administration forest rules A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned 2003 Bush administration forest rules while upholding a lower court decision giving the public greater say in national forest management. The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means the U.S. Forest Service must take public comments and consider appeals on projects such as prescribed burns and timber sales on public lands. Thursday's decision stemmed from a 2003 lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the harvest of burned trees in the Sequoia National Forest in Northern California - a plan approved without public comment or appeals. The administration argued it was necessary to curtail public comments when it came to thinning burned forests or controlling infestations because the quicker the work could be done, the better off the environment would be. The San Francisco-based appeals court said the administration's position was "contrary to Congressional intent."....go here(pdf) to read the decision.
Judge blocks state from killing problem wolves A federal judge on Thursday stopped authorities in Wisconsin from killing problem wolves after animal welfare advocates said the practice violated the Endangered Species Act. The decision could spur the illegal shooting of wolves, a spokesman for cattle ranchers in Wisconsin said. Meanwhile, authorities said they will stop killing wolves starting today on three farms in Burnett and Bayfield counties that are believed to be threatening livestock. So far this year, federal authorities have killed 18 gray wolves in Wisconsin under a special permit system approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency had allowed authorities to kill up to 43 wolves. But Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sided with the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups by ruling that authorities could not kill wolves because of federal protections. "Simply put," she wrote in her decision, "the recovery of the gray wolf is not supported by killing 43 gray wolves."....
Editorial - A sound plan for state roadless areas Last week, the Colorado Roadless Areas Review Task Force took a major step in the process of determining the future of 4.1 million acres of Colorado roadless areas. It was public policy the way it should be done: a balanced group of experts, representing a wide variety of interests, reached compromise conclusions designed to serve the public interest. The task force settled on recommendations that would uphold the overwhelming public opposition to building new roads in undeveloped areas while adhering to the reasonable needs demonstrated by forest managers and industry. After the Bush administration overturned President Clinton's poorly regarded roadless policy in 2001, the government asked individual states to recommend how Washington should handle the areas within their borders. In May 2005, the U.S. Forest Service gave governors 18 months to provide plans for roadless protection in their states. Five states - California, New Mexico, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina have already responded....
Roadless areas leased over protests The 14 parcels of roadless Forest Service land leased for energy development Thursday went for premium prices compared with bids on unprotected areas. The top bid on a roadless area was $300 per acre for 1,117 acres in Mesa County near Grand Junction, said Vaughn Whatley of the Bureau of Land Management. The average price on the 118 parcels offered, totaling 139,555 acres, was $32.97 per acre, but the bid on many parcels was $2 an acre - the lowest allowed - Whatley said. The identities of the oil and gas companies that purchased the leases weren't available, officials said. The 14 roadless parcels, about 14,400 acres and 11 percent of the land drawing bids, were promised roadless protections by the Bush administration in 2005. In all, 158 parcels of Forest Service, BLM and private land were offered for sale, 127 had protests filed and only 118 drew bids. While most of the protests were filed by Colorado conservation groups, the Gunnison County commissioners protested six leases on roadless areas in their county....
Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock: A Documentary that Shows What Goes into the Creation of the Weeklong Event Burning Man is a phenomenon that is held in the deserts of Black Rock, Nevada, 100 miles north of Reno. In 1990, 80 people were in attendance; last year’s attendance rose to 36,500. It is a gathering of artists and like-minded individuals who come to express themselves and their creativity at a weeklong Brigadoon that vanishes back into the desert without a trace to ensure that the Bureau of Land Management will allow them to return. The event culminates in the burning of a wooden sculpture of a man that has ranged in height from 40 to 80 feet over the years. The filmmakers were granted access to many of those involved with the creation of the event as it led up to the 2003 Burning Man. They reveal the enormous effort that goes into creating this temporary artistic community. Some participating artists, such as David Best who creates very large pieces, also added their voices because many start planning their projects the day Burning Man ends and work on it up to the event....
River's wonder has the ability to lift spirits A sign along Arizona 95 alerts motorists that beneath the bridge they're crossing flows the Bill Williams River, but even then most people probably miss it. The river's mouth lies hidden in broad cattail marsh on the eastern shore of Lake Havasu, and the highway twists past a ridge after just a teasing glimpse upstream. Its headwaters gather in similar obscurity above Alamo Lake, nearly three hours west of Phoenix in a maze of desert arroyos and bluffs that only hint at the nearness of water. For nearly 40 miles, the river winds through the tight canyons of the Buckskin Mountains, passing sheer walls that afford no passage to the channel, dipping below ground at times as desert rivers do. This protective landscape and the isolation it affords are why the Bill Williams lives while other Arizona rivers edge toward extinction. Aside from a few ranchers over the years, no one has plundered this river for its water. Only a few scattered wells punch into the aquifers on either side of it. The greatest threat, a plan by Scottsdale to export water from a ranch that sits astride the river, dissolved this summer when the city sold the property to mining giant Phelps-Dodge for care as a wildlife preserve....
Judge orders Interior to take bald eagle off endangered list A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Department of Interior to remove the bald eagle from the list of endangered species by Feb. 16 unless persuasive evidence is presented of the need for limited delay. Judge John R. Tunheim's order came in a lawsuit brought by Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Minnesota landowner who wants to develop property in Morrison County where there is an active bald eagle nest. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources issued a letter recommending no development within 330 feet of the nest to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the Eagle Protection Act, according to the court filing. Landowner Edmund Contoski, whose property abuts Sullivan Lake in central Minnesota, filed the lawsuit Oct. 31, 2005....Go here(pdf) to read the ruling.
Property Owner Sues to Strike Down Open Beaches Plan As Unconstitutional On July 26 Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit in federal court against government officials charged with enforcing the Texas Open Beaches Act, claiming that they are unconstitutionally depriving beachfront property owners of their private property rights. PLF is representing a homeowner forced to suffer a public invasion of private property and potential destruction of her homes under the Open Beaches Act simply because government officials have determined that the vegetation line has moved to the landward side of the homes. PLF’s suit demands that government officials cease applying the Act to strip property owners of their homes and land without just compensation. “For too long, state and local government officials have used the Open Beaches Act as an excuse to take valuable beachfront property without constitutional due process or just compensation,” said J. David Breemer, a lawyer with Pacific Legal Foundation. “This suit aims to strike down GLO Commissioner Patterson’s policy of applying the Act to impose the public beach on private property based on the movement of vegetation, in violation of the United States Constitution.”....Go here to view the lawsuit.
Column - A Cartel Worse Than OPEC Today the United States faces a cartel far more destructive of America's energy independence than OPEC's nine nations. This new cartel is composed of an assortment of envirocrat groups posing as environmentalists, endangered species advocates, animal rights promoters, property rights destroyers and assorted ice-age fanciers turned global warmers. Leaders among these envirocrats are Greenpeace, the Green Party, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Earth First, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Wilderness Society and Defenders of Wildlife, to name a few. Individuals such as former Presidential candidates Ralph Nader and former Vice President Albert A. Gore, Jr. are prominent spokesmen for the envirocrat causes. What has become the obvious intent of this cartel is the destruction of America's access to its own resources. Examples are: "protection" of a spotted owl despite near destruction of the timber industry in Oregon and Washington; desperately needed petroleum reserves set aside in Alaska to protect the sex habits of the caribou; the set-aside of vitally needed sulfur-free coal reserves in Utah; and denial of offshore drilling for a number of reasons, including the spoiling of the view of a few people by rigs 15 miles away. This list could continue for a full column. This cartel of envirocrat groups is permitted by both political parties in Congress to disrupt America's access to its own natural resources. Kneeling at the feet of the envirocrat intimidators, Congress accepts the barrage of false and phony claims that, if examined closely, would reveal the fraud....
Protecting the tortoises Already listed as a threatened species, the desert tortoise is facing even more obstacles in recent years. Lori Rose, a county biologist for the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, said the biggest challenge to protecting the tortoises once was just keeping them within the low fences surrounding the reserve. But recent droughts and wildfires have caused even more havoc for the tortoises. "We've found that fences don't work with fire and drought," she said. "You put those things together and we took two big hits back to back." In 2003 biologists recorded a 25 percent population decline because of the drought. They also estimate there was a 37 percent mortality rate among tortoises in areas of the 60,000-acre reserve that burned during 2005 wildfires. The wildfires burned 15,000 acres, including more than a quarter of the critical area that is prime habitat for the tortoises. Rose said more fires are likely because of the highly flammable, invasive cheat grass. Rose said Washington County had one of the healthiest and densest populations of desert tortoises in the Mojave range for a long time. Before the fires, biologists estimated the reserve's tortoise population to be 2,406....
Meeting on Bush enviro proposal draws disparate views Well, it was billed as a "listening session." More than 180 people signed up to speak at the first public hearing on the Bush administration's "cooperative conservation" plan, which is seeking ideas on how groups with radically different goals can work together to protect the environment. "I don't believe Washington, D.C., has all the answers. Neither does the president," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in opening the first of at least 24 planned public meetings. The Bush administration, which held a conference on the topic last year, defines cooperative conservation as the efforts of landowners, communities, conservation groups, industry and government to work together to preserve the environment. Many speakers applauded the concept, and some pointed to examples where groups had already cooperated to protect the environment, but many others were skeptical. Washington state Rep. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, said it was paramount that private property rights be protected from bureaucrats and special interests. "Only the private property owner has anything tangible on the table," Kretz said....
Chief of Army Corps of Engineers Is Quitting The head of the Army Corps of Engineers will resign, the Army announced last night. Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the chief of engineers and commander of the corps since July 1, 2004, asked Francis J. Harvey, the secretary of the Army, that he be allowed to resign “based on family and personal reasons, which the secretary of the Army honors and supports,” according to the Army announcement. The chief of engineers runs a huge array of engineering and construction projects around the world, including work in the Iraq war and responding to natural disasters, including the recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as on flood control and environmental projects. The corps has come under fire for the progress of Iraq reconstruction and for the failures of the New Orleans levee system. In June, the corps report on the disaster called the levee system “a system in name only,” and Gen. Strock admitted that the corps had missed a flaw in the design that led to some of the most destructive breaches....
Cities, States Aren't Waiting For U.S. Action on Climate With Washington lawmakers deadlocked on how best to curb global warming, state and local officials across the country are adopting ambitious policies and forming international alliances aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. The initiatives, which include demands that utilities generate some of their energy using renewable sources and mandates for a reduction in emissions from motor vehicles, have emboldened clean-air advocates who hope they will form the basis for broader national action. But in the meantime, some businesses say the local and state actions are creating a patchwork of regulations that they must contend with. This flurry of action is part of a growing movement among state and local leaders who have given up hope that Congress and the administration will tackle major issues, and are launching their own initiatives on immigration, stem cell research and energy policy. Last week alone, former president Bill Clinton launched an effort with 22 of the world's largest cities to cut their emissions, while California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they will explore trading carbon dioxide pollution credits across the Atlantic. Recently, 22 states and the District of Columbia have set standards demanding that utilities generate a specific amount of energy -- in some cases, as high as 33 percent -- from renewable sources by 2020. And 11 states have set goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050....
Niman Ranch Will Benefit From Significant New Resources Niman Ranch, Inc. has received a substantial capital investment and has hired a new CEO and three key executives with combined experience of more than 100 years in the natural meat industry. Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, continues in his role as Chairman. The new resources will allow Niman Ranch to focus on its core business and -- expand the supply of natural and organic beef, pork and lamb; -- further enhance product quality; and -- upgrade operations to improve customer service. Established in 1972, Niman Ranch and its network of more than 500 family farmers and ranchers raise livestock traditionally, humanely, and sustainably. Its meat routinely wins taste tests and is featured on the menus of the nation's most discerning chefs. Niman Ranch's independent family farmers practice the highest standards of traditional animal husbandry and environmental stewardship....
Horse Slaughter Ban Would Be A Blow To Production Agriculture I recently had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., to testify on behalf of NCBA’s cattle producer-members on H.R. 503, The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. It is well-known that I am a great lover of horses. As I shared with the House Agriculture Committee, I regard horses not only as exceptional tools of the ranching trade and wonderful companions, but also as one of God’s great masterpieces. So it does not surprise me that some folks are repulsed by the idea of processing horses for food. My goal is not to persuade anyone that horse processing is desirable, but it certainly should not be outlawed as an option for managing horses. That’s precisely the goal of H.R. 503, and it is a serious threat to animal agriculture as we know it. When legislators are asked to ban horse processing based simply on the negative emotions it evokes in some people, we have started down a very slippery slope. I have all the confidence in the world that cattle are harvested in a humane, sanitary and defensible manner, because I’ve seen it personally. Horse processing faces all of the same scrutiny and inspections that other livestock slaughter plants do. The process is regulated by USDA under the Humane Slaughter Act. I believe eliminating the processing of horses as a management option actually poses a risk to horse welfare. At the hearing, the Ag Committee heard witnesses – including horse welfare and veterinary experts – discuss the options for handling as many as 90,000 unwanted or abandoned horses that will have to be cared for. They discussed the costs related to this care, the unintended mistreatment of these animals in non-regulated rescue facilities, and the environmental concerns of disposing of horse carcasses. The committee feels, and cattlemen agree, that HR 503 fails to address any of these issues....
Emergency hay delivery approved by Perry Gov. Rick Perry directed the Texas Department of Transportation to waive certain trucking restrictions. This action is to allow the emergency delivery of hay to help Texas farmers and ranchers recover from the drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated a 77 percent loss in hay production in Texas. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs and the Texas Farm Bureau requested that hay delivery be expedited. "Hay importation from neighboring states less affected by drought will help Texas producers survive the final hot months of the year," Perry wrote. In the same letter, he directed the Texas Department of Transportation to forgive normal transportation requirements, such as height restrictions for the round hay bales and permit fees. Normal requirements and restrictions will resume on Oct. 31....
Ranchers seeing life's work dry up Mondays are now the saddest day in Wise County. That's when ranchers who can no longer maintain their cattle in a prolonged drought deliver yet more animals to the weekly auction. Painfully, they are selling more of their core breeding animals -- the fruit of hands-on genetics, representing decades of work. Although the bred cows represent a bigger investment, calves are fetching better prices, said Hugh Pegues, a rancher forced to cull a number of both. "I've sold at least half of mine," said Pegues, 85, who has spent three decades improving his herd of Herefords since retiring from the Federal Aviation Administration. He's now down to about 70 head. "I'm trying to keep the seed stock so I can stay in business, if it ever rains again." Some producers are folding their cards and giving up. "We had a grown man crying because he had to sell his whole herd," said Kimberly Shaw, the Decatur Livestock Market's office manager. "He had no grass or water."....

RECENT CASES

STATE OF NEVADA V. DEP'T OF ENERGY
D.C. Circuit

Nevada's petition for review of a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for a repository for nuclear waste and a portion of the Record of Decision (ROD) the Department of Energy issued governing the transportation of nuclear waste from the production sources to the repository location is denied where some of the state's claims were unripe for review and the remaining claims were without merit.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/dc/041309a.pdf


NOE V. HENDERSON
8th Circuit

The federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), 16 U.S.C. sections 703-712, and federal regulations promulgated thereunder, do not preempt Arkansas regulations governing activities involving captive-reared mallard ducks.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/8th/053244p.pdf

NEWS ROUNDUP

Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb," warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin." Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed. For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.) Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself. Then there is the troubling matter of his energy use. In the Washington, D.C., area, utility companies offer wind energy as an alternative to traditional energy. In Nashville, similar programs exist. Utility customers must simply pay a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, and they can continue living their carbon-neutral lifestyles knowing that they are supporting wind energy. Plenty of businesses and institutions have signed up. Even the Bush administration is using green energy for some federal office buildings, as are thousands of area residents. But according to public records, there is no evidence that Gore has signed up to use green energy in either of his large residences....
Cattlemen push for protection Landowners with only surface rights say they deserve to have legal protections for their property and compensation when oil and gas companies damage their lands. Although legislation failed to pass this year that would have provided some protections and compensation for landowners, crafters of the bill have made some revisions with the hopes of getting the bill passed in the 2007 Legislative session. Oil and gas industry representatives say that in order for the proposed legislation to pass, representatives from the ranching and oil and gas industry need to talk and develop a bill that will be acceptable to all parties. Alisa Ogden, a rancher and president-elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, gave an overview of the proposed bill at a meeting held in Carlsbad on Tuesday. Ogden said that from her experience, large independent companies such as Marbob Energy (based in Artesia) have been the easiest to work with. She said there are some companies that are not good stewards of the land and the proposed legislation has come about largely because of them. Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Chaves, Eddy and Lea, who attended Tuesday's meeting, said that in his opinion the proposed bill has two major "sticking points" that could derail the bill again....
Gas industry keeps ranch alive Rancher Scott Nocks has found new money in the royalties he receives from gas development on his property and has used it to keep his fields in production and his cattle fed. Nocks, who owns a portion of the mineral rights on his 150-acre ranch near Wallace Creek west of Battlement Mesa, has contracted with Noble Energy to extract the natural gas from under his ranch for a share of the profits. "So many of the horror stories we have heard about severed mineral rights (where surface owners have no say in gas development on their land because they do not own the mineral rights) also have another side to the coin," he said. "This flip side is that many of the beautiful hay fields and pastures which border rural residential development would not be there if it weren't for this new ranch-grown product called 'natural gas.'" Nocks, who raises pure-bred Dexter cattle, an Irish breed, and hay, has used the financial gain from his royalties to install a large-scale irrigation system that has kept his hay field green....
Oil, gas leases on block, despite protests The auction of oil and gas leases on 14,400 acres of roadless federal land in Colorado moves ahead today over protests from a U.S. senator, a Congress member and a candidate for governor. Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar, both Democrats, asked the nation's top federal land managers to stop the auction until the state enacts rules governing 4.1 million roadless acres. "We haven't received a response," said Cody Wertz, Sen. Salazar's spokesman, late Wednesday. "The ball is in their court to do the right thing." Bill Ritter, the Democratic candidate for governor, also asked that the leases be withdrawn until the state's rules are completed - a process that could last two more years. Conservationists involved in almost a year of drafting the new roadless rules said more energy leases are in the works, and the lack of protection could trigger a land rush....
Soul of the desert is slipping away The Santa Cruz River flows underground along parts of its 225-mile U-shaped path, so people have always settled where the water surfaced. Tucson grew up along the river, fanning out from lush riparian landscapes that drew throngs of people looking for some green in the desert. Cottonwood trees grew along the river's meandering path. A cienega spread out near the San Xavier del Bac mission, and 60-foot mesquite trees grew nearby. As more settlers moved to Tucson in the 19th century, they demanded more water. They diverted it in ditches, they pumped it from the ground. Ranchers overgrazed the watershed, and builders forced the river into unnatural channels. Finally, when the Santa Cruz could give no more, it slid from view, and people stopped thinking of Tucson as a river city. The story of the Santa Cruz shows how Arizona rivers create communities, define towns, influence culture; and how, when the rivers fade, those communities and Arizona lose an irreplaceable part of themselves....
Wyoming notifies feds of intent to sue over wolf management The state of Wyoming has filed notice that it intends to sue the federal government over both last month's rejection of the state's wolf management plan and federal inaction on the state's request for changes in wolf management regulations. "So far, their position has been their way or the highway," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We've chosen neither; we're going to court." Last month, the federal government rejected Wyoming's petition to remove wolves in the state from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. In addition, the federal agency has yet to take action on the state's request to amend regulations. Wyoming has proposed a wolf management plan that generally calls for leaving the animals alone in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks while allowing trophy hunting for them in areas outside the parks. The state has also proposed allowing them to be shot on sight as predators elsewhere in the state....
Trees new prey for poachers The 20-foot tree stands half naked, much of the bark stripped from its trunk. It has only months to live. ''It doesn't know it's dead,'' says U.S. Forest Service botanist David Taylor, pointing to the healthy leaves overhead. This slippery elm has fallen victim to thieves who tore off its bark for profit in the lucrative and burgeoning herbal-remedy market. The gummy lining of the bark has long been used in North America, and especially Appalachia, as a soothing agent for coughs, gastrointestinal ailments and skin irritations. But now, slippery elm and other herbal products that were once used seasonally by locals are in demand by millions. ''I think that trend is going to put pressure on limited resources such as the slippery elm,'' said Dr. Michael Hirt, founding director for the Center for Integrative Medicine in Tarzana. Added John Garrison, a National Park Service spokesman for the Blue Ridge Parkway: ''There's a huge market in botanicals going into herbal medicines. Virtually everything on public lands has a market.''....
Protesters defend controversial tactics The arrests of a dozen activists this week have prompted a debate within the environmental community about tactics employed in an attempt to stop logging on the roadless area in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Activist Laurel Sutherlin was arrested Tuesday morning after authorities found him standing on a platform swinging from the end of a log used to block the Eight Dollar Road bridge that provided access to the Mike's Gulch logging unit in the Illinois Valley Ranger District. The log had been illegally cut from a nearby botanical area. Eleven protesters were arrested in front of the forest headquarters in Medford for blocking a street on Monday, the day logging started. The Sierra Club doesn't condone illegal activities, stressed Tom Dimitre, chairman of the Rogue Group Sierra Club. "But as far as general protests, you've got the Bush administration ramming these things (roadless logging) down people's throats," he said, noting that polls have shown overwhelming public support for preserving roadless areas. "It leaves folks with few options to keep their sanity. I think protesting is essential."....
Effect of fire retardant on wildlife to be studied In response to a court order, the U.S. Forest Service will complete a study to determine whether using fire retardant to fight wildfires poses risks to wildlife in national forests. Air tankers dropping cherry-red plumes of fire retardant near blazes are a frequent sight over wildfires. During fire season, tanker pilots travel across the country, flying from wildfire to wildfire as needed. The use of fire-retardant drops was one of many tactics employed by firefighters when the Sawtooth and Millard fires raged near the Morongo Basin and San Gorgonio Wilderness in July. But tactics might need to change. The new study is expected to be completed by next spring, and forest officials are waiting to form their conclusions before discussing how the study's results may change firefighting policies, said Nadine Pollock, the study's project manager with the Forest Service. The Forest Service officially proposed continuing its use of fire retardant when the study was announced late last month. A primary environmental question that the study would need to address is whether fire retardant is harmful to fish and other aquatic life. "It could be toxic," said Chris Wehrli, leader of the study team. "It could promote invasive or non-native species, noxious weeds. It could change the chemistry enough to kill desirable plants." If the eight-person team concludes that fire retardant damages the environment, forestry officials would have to prepare a new environmental document that describes new firefighting proposals and how each of those policies would affect forests, Wehrli said. If the team determines that fire retardant can be used safely, firefighters can continue to fight fires under existing rules or make slight modifications to their tactics....
Creating a bountiful lynx buffet on Burnt Mountain Where there are bunnies in Colorado's mountains, there are often lynx, so the U.S. Forest Service and Aspen Skiing Co. are teaming on a project to make part of Burnt Mountain more like a buffet table for both animals. A 43-acre stand of mostly mature spruce and fir trees will be thinned out, and the forest floor will be scared in a manner that spurs regeneration of trees. Snowshoe hares depend largely on conifer needles for food in the winter, so the idea is to provide them with more forage, according to Kelly Colfer, a principal owner of Western Bionomics LLC, a consultant to the Skico. By improving snowshoe hare habitat, the Skico and Forest Service hope to make the area more inviting to lynx, a reclusive predator reintroduced to the state starting in 1999....
Ranger Danger In Central Arizona's Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests, sheriff's deputies battled a hammer-wielding man apparently drunk and high on mushrooms. Next door in the Coconino National Forest, a female federal officer single-handedly struggled with a drunk camper until reinforcements zapped him with a Taser gun. Further north in Montana, rangers tracked a man far into the forest, acting on a report that he'd beaten his wife at a campground. When cornered, the suspect turned his pit bull loose on the rangers. Closer to home, 60 miles of national forest along the Arizona-Mexico border have become a jungle of illicit trafficking, where visitors are warned of the dangers up-front--and enter at their own peril. Much of this crime is blamed on ever-growing urban areas, which increasingly brush at the forests' fringes. Even as these once-bucolic preserves become crime-ridden enclaves, the Forest Service has seen its law-enforcement staff cut by a third since the early 1990s. Over that time, "the size of the national forests certainly hasn't gotten any smaller," says Bill Dougan, president of the Forest Service Council, a union representing about 20,000 agency employees. He blames the Forest Service for skewing its priorities away from law enforcement, placing the public and employees at greater risk. "This has been a budget issue in our agency for a number of years, in terms of what the agency chooses to spend its money on."....More of about a six-month campaign to increase the budgets for Federal law enforcement. If he was really concerned about the safety of the public, he would be calling for the Forest Service to contract with local law enforcement who can provide the protection more efficiently. But that would mean fewer union members.
Ranching Over Rockets While leasing land in Cochise County to test some of its products, one of Tucson's biggest employers and manufacturers recently found itself in hot water. The rural neighborhood north of Willcox is almost entirely agricultural and residential. Many residents raise livestock and keep horses for riding. Arenas, where riders practice rodeo skills, dot the landscape, along with fields of alfalfa, squash, pumpkins, corn and chilies. Considering the rural lifestyle here, some locals were shocked to learn that Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems leased land from one of their neighbors in 2005, set up a five-acre test site--without a special-use permit, in violation of county zoning laws--and were testing missile components. Area residents began hearing what sounded like a cannon being fired. There were also strange lights flickering from the site on some nights....
Copper joins conservation partnership A new partnership between Copper Mountain Resort, the U.S. Forest Service and the nonprofit National Forest Foundation could raise up to $75,000 per year for local conservation projects on the White River National Forest. The program will launch Nov. 3, Copper’s opening day, and will raise money by soliciting voluntary $1 per night donations from resort guests. The money generated by the resort will be matched with a 50 percent grant through the National Forest Foundation. A similar program in Aspen raises money for the Roaring Fork Conservancy, and the National Forest Foundation also partners with Timberline Resort in Oregon and Snowbird, in Utah. The Snowbird program started last winter and raised as much as $10,000 to $15,000 per month during the peak season, said National Forest Foundation president Bill Possiel. The National Forest Foundation is also discussing the program with Vail Resorts, he added....
'Closed-door deal' at BLM? A New York congressman is calling for an investigation into whether Utah's new Bureau of Land Management director violated the public trust by pledging to help open federal lands to oil and gas development. A memo released today by environmentalists and written last month by Robert Weidner, a lobbyist for several Utah counties, says that Henry Bisson, the state's interim BLM director, and the national BLM deputy director, Jim Hughes, promised to take steps to "promote economic growth and reduce restrictions on access to the public lands." The memo reported on a meeting attended by commissioners from booming oil and gas counties and representatives from 10 major oil companies drilling in the state. Environmentalists and New York Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a longtime advocate of environmental causes and Utah wilderness, blasted the arrangement as "apparently illegal" and sent a letter to Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney asking for an investigation into the conduct of Hughes and Bisson....
BLM chief frets over partisanship A Bush administration official complained about the partisanship that accompanies oil and gas development in the West at an industry conference Tuesday, the same day a senator urged the administration to slow down on Western gas drilling. "If you think of the mantra that all politics is local, it's surprising sometimes that management of public lands is so partisan," said Kathleen Clarke, director of the Bureau of Land Management, which is in charge of leasing the rights to drill for gas on public lands. Clarke spoke Tuesday at Rocky Mountain Natural Gas 2006, a conference for energy industry executives and employees. She said she sees the BLM's mission as protecting Americans' "quality of life," a theme that includes not only land protection but also economic prosperity. "What is at stake is our ability to accommodate the growing population and urbanization of the West," Clarke said....
Global Warming: Utah's climate shift would touch all species Having spent 35 years on the Great Salt Lake and its surrounding marshes as a student and biologist studying everything from pelicans to pintails, Val Bachman is a keen observer of nature. He has seen floods and droughts, and watched how those changes have affected the birds on one of the Western Hemisphere's key waterfowl and shorebird habitats. What the Division of Wildlife Resources biologist has observed has convinced him that global warming is a reality already affecting Utah. "We've had some awfully significant cycles on the Great Salt Lake," said Bachman, the longtime Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area superintendent. "The extremes seem to be getting closer together. We've had some real wet periods and real dry periods."....
Ranchers ride out summer rebuilding from ashes of spring People still feel the heat of March's wildfires. "We're doing as well as can be expected," Roberts County Judge Vernon Cook said. "We had several ranches totally liquidated. Most of the others are in the process of rebuilding fences." Dead cattle, scorched pastures, seared horses and a lot of work are the legacy of the fires, and Roberts County was one of the hottest spots. "We're saying just short of 300,000 acres, or roughly half the county, burned. There were 400 miles of fence lost," Cook said. Roberts officials are scheduled to meet today to decide how to distribute about $80,000 in donations meant to compensate for loss of livestock, fences and grass....
Fire leaves area ag producers uncertain The Dawes and Sioux County Complex fires are now 100 percent contained. But some ranchers are still reeling from the damage and have not fully assessed the damage of their property or decided what their next plan of action will be. Ron Scherbarth lives south of Chadron. Fires came within a half mile from his family's place and three quarters of a mile from his house, he said. He had “about 100 acres of pasture land and some land up in the buttes burned by the Deadhorse fire” and the Roberts Tract fire took out all of his summer grazing land for this year. Luckily none of the family's cattle was lost. When the fires were about two miles away from the cattle, his mother and sister hopped on four-wheelers and got the herds to safety using their normal cattle gate routes. The herds now are grazing in their winter grazing fields. Scherbarth was unable to assist with the cattle as he was one of many battling the fire. He began duty Tuesday, July 25 fighting the Roberts fire and worked through Monday, July 31 and “slept very little.” After that the fires were taken over by bigger crews, he said....
Prairies' anthrax outbreak kills livestock An outbreak of anthrax has killed hundreds of farm animals in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and has ranchers in affected areas scrambling to make sure their livestock are protected from the naturally occurring but deadly bacterial disease. As of this week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had reported anthrax had been found on 17 farms in Manitoba and 118 animals had died. Hardest hit, however, was Saskatchewan and a large area to the east of Saskatoon, where 615 animals have died on 123 different farms since the outbreak was first noticed a month ago....
Out on Video: Jubal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Not rated, contains adult situations, sexual innuendo and violence. A mature, literate horse opera in the Louis L'Amour tradition, Delmer Daves' 1956 Western is based on a Paul Wellman novel and features an excellent cast headed by Ford in the title role, that of a quintessential Man With a Past. He doesn't go looking for trouble, but it always seems to find him. Thanks to friendly rancher Shep Horgan (Ernest Borgnine, fresh from his Oscar-winning triumph in Marty), Jubal is given shelter and then the foreman's job on Shep's ranch. This puts Jubal at odds with the vengeful Pinky (Rod Steiger), who coveted the job for himself and whose affections for Shep's lusty wife, Mae (Valerie French), have been rebuffed because Mae now has her eye on Jubal. Shakespearean echoes abound as Pinky attempts to engineer Jubal's downfall by spreading vicious innuendo about him and Mae. Beautifully filmed in CinemaScope by Charles Lawton Jr., Jubal is something of a miniclassic, with intelligent plotting, layered characterizations and fine performances all around....
Calling all Kern bachelor cowboys A new reality TV show is searching Kern County and other Central Valley communities for lonely farmers, cowboys and ranchers who are too busy tending to cattle and crops to find themselves a misses. "The Farmer Wants a Wife" is one of the newest shows by the producers of "American Idol" and "America's Got Talent" and is slated to air this winter. But first, the producers need to find six boot-wearing bachelors to star in the show and they're turning to California's rural areas to find them. "We need to get the hottest cowboys possible," said Jennifer Carollo, the show's casting director, who described the project as "The Simple Life" meets "The Bachelor." The show will pair each guy with three city girls who are fed up with the Los Angeles dating scene and want to find love and the traditional way of life....
Inaugural Mail Trail ride set for September For 30 years, the Camp Verde-to-Payson mail trail served as the only line of communication between the two communities, along with several outlying ranches and the tiny mountain towns of Pine and Strawberry. From 1884 to 1914, a succession of young and hearty mail riders brought town residents and rural ranchers the many wants and necessities the outside world had to offer. They brought medicine, cloth, books and booze, and much to their dismay, they even delivered the annual Sears catalogue ­­ a task that required a spare mule. Their arrival was more often than not an event to celebrate. Now, one year after the Forest Service gave official recognition the route the riders followed, it is time to celebrate again....
The Receding Tide of Waves It’s getting harder and harder to catch a good wave here in the Valley. Not surfing, but an old-fashioned Westcliffe Wave, the hallmark of rural friendliness. These waves take many forms. Often it’s a friendly lifting of an index finger as a rancher rattles by in an ancient pickup. It could be the full-handed wave of a retiree in a little two-door sedan. Sometimes it’s the ripple of fingers as a motorist’s grip unfurls from the steering wheel for a moment in greeting to another driver headed in the opposite direction. A few years ago waves were pretty ubiquitous around the Valley. We got one from just about everyone we passed on the road. Times are changing though. The waves are becoming more seasonal. We get a lot more waves in the winter, when the Valley isn’t filled with tourists and part-time residents who live in the big city the rest of the year. Folks who, when waved at, don’t wave back, because they just aren’t used to someone being friendly for no reason other than that they share the same patch of pavement....

& HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my darling Sharon.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Beauty versus power: Conservationists renew push to drain dammed valley in Yosemite After the great 1906 earthquake, searching for reliable power and drinking water, San Francisco looked at the soaring granite of Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley and saw walls for a reservoir. Conservationists like John Muir were appalled that anyone might flood what he called "a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples." But after one of the country's first major environmental battles - a struggle that transformed Muir's Sierra Club into a political force - the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1923. Today, even as the Hetch Hetchy system delivers some of America's highest quality drinking water to 2.4 million San Francisco Bay Area residents, environmentalists continue to argue for restoring the valley - a debate that was intensified in July when a state review found that the job would be "technically feasible" for an estimated $3 billion to $10 billion. Conservationists see an opportunity to restore what Muir called a "wonderfully exact counterpart" to Yosemite Valley, the park's more famous attraction, known for towering monuments like El Capitan, as well as its clogged campgrounds and roadways. They say it's possible to dismantle the 312-foot (94-meter) concrete dam, replace the lost water storage downstream on the Tuolumne River and find other sources of clean electricity....
Column - Environmental Bounty-Hunting Private prosecution of crimes has a long and sordid history, and that history isn't over. Bounty hunters no longer hound innocent people to death as some did in England in the mid-18th century, but environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have modified the tactic. They use "citizen suits" to reap rich rewards for themselves with little positive impact on the environment. Most federal environmental statutes allow citizens to sue individuals or companies for violating the laws. Indeed, from 1993 to 2002, more than 75% of all environmental federal court decisions started as citizen suits, reports James May. Writing the Widener Law Review, he concludes that citizen suits are "the engine that propels the field of environmental law." But most of these suits are brought by environmental organizations, not individuals, and most of the filings don't end in a court decision; they end in settlements. From 1995-2002, there were 4,438 notices of intent to sue under four environmental statutes--6.6 times more than actual federal court decisions in citizen suits. Presumably most of the others were settled. Why the settlements? My research indicates a clear and compelling reason: settlements bring in money environmental groups can use to pursue other goals....
Feds begin destroying wolves attacking livestock near Sula Federal trappers shot and killed eight wolves last week as part of an effort to eliminate a pack of wolves that repeatedly chased and killed livestock near Sula, state wildlife officials said. An adult wolf, two yearlings and five pups from the Sleeping Child pack that roamed the East Fork of the Bitterroot River were killed Friday by agents from Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, said Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Throughout the summer, FWP and ranchers in the area have hazed the wolves, had people around livestock and even killed three that were causing problems, but the wolves continued to cause trouble. "It's one of those unfortunate situations where our best efforts to get it turned around has been unsuccessful," she said. "We have seen an escalating behavior of getting into livestock." Two weeks ago, a rancher spotted the pack chasing five horses in a pasture. A calf was found dead last Tuesday. FWP biologists picked up the signal from a collared female that was on the carcass and found numerous wolf tracks at the scene. Pups had been spotted chasing horses, indicating they were learning that livestock is prey from the adults, Sime said....
Setting the record straight With the U.S. House passage of the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA), Idaho is one step closer to realizing the benefits of the most important piece of public lands legislation proposed in the last 25 years. Having authored this legislation, I feel compelled to respond to comments made by the Sierra Club, singer Carole King and Congressman C.L. "Butch" Otter to clear up any misunderstandings about CIEDRA. CIEDRA is a carefully balanced compromise that seeks to protect the needs of the people who live and recreate in the Boulder-White Clouds while offering wilderness protection to some of Idaho's most beautiful mountains. It's unique in that it's inclusive and recognizes the needs of motorized users, the community surrounding it, the ranchers who live in the area, even creating new opportunities such as a first of its kind "primitive access wheelchair trail" into the wilderness....
Column - Let the Antelope Roam Of all the species living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of northwest Wyoming, the pronghorn is the only one native to the American West — elk, bison and even grizzly bears moved in from Asia centuries ago — but it is by no means the least exotic. The deerlike creatures (often called American antelope, though they are not related to Old World antelope) are the fastest distance runners in the Western Hemisphere, capable of traveling 50 miles an hour. Twice a year for 6,000 years, one population of pronghorn has used that speed to travel more than 90 miles from their summer range in Grand Teton National Park to the Upper Green River basin, where they spend the winter. In recent decades, the migration has been threatened by human development. Encroaching roads, reservoirs and ranches have closed many of the pronghorn’s routes. And the one that could conceivably remain open is being squeezed in places. Though it is a mile wide most of the way, the corridor narrows to only 650 yards at one spot and 120 yards at another. Steps need to be taken to keep this last path from shrinking any more....
Ruined Rivers: To save a river, save the land The pickup truck bounced up the road, really not much more than a ledge carved into the mountainside, just wide enough to let another vehicle squeeze by without plunging down into the canyon below. Wink Crigler knew the road well enough to avoid most of the potholes. When she hit one, we could hear the cows shifting in the trailer. We were climbing up a hogsback ridge that separated the two forks of the Little Colorado River. Benny Creek flowed on the west, the mainstem Little Colorado on the east. “The ranchers are disappearing so fast, it’s scary,” Crigler said. In the backseat, Sam Udall, Crigler’s workmate for the day and fellow Round Valley Rancher, grunted agreement. “When a ranch dies, the land gets subdivided and the habitat gets fragmented.” She points to the houses carved into the hillside, houses that rely on wells for their water, that affect runoff into the creeks and river. “If ranches don’t survive, the water gets used up faster,” Crigler said. That’s the equation here: Take away ranches, the houses will fill the void....
Mines, farms put Gila River on life support The Gila River deserves better than this. Once one of the West's mightiest waterways, the Gila a century ago flowed nearly 650 miles from the high country of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona to the Colorado River near Yuma. It drained most of Arizona, collecting water from the state's southern two-thirds. Until 1853, it marked the United States' boundary with Mexico. Today, it sputters into dust long before it reaches the Colorado, most of its natural flow halted at Coolidge Dam. None of its major tributaries makes it to the mainstream. Drought, pollution and growing demand tug at a string of broken reaches that hardly resemble a whole river. The Gila has been worked nearly to death. Farmers and ranchers settled along its length and continue to dip into the river to irrigate crops and support cattle. Mining companies found rich veins of ore in the mountains that feed the river and its tributaries and staked a claim to some of the flow. Both farmers and miners left behind contaminants that poisoned stretches of the river....
Ducks unlimited offers help with water Most people might not think of this, but livestock are good for ducks. At least Ducks Unlimited, a nonprofit conservation organization, thinks so. The duck-loving organization has recently started a program to help ranchers improve their permanent water supplies by granting them up to $3,500. Preserving watering holes for livestock is not directly what the organization is interested in doing. Ducks Unlimited wants to make sure farmers keep livestock on their land. If ranchers give up on livestock and replace native grasses with crops, that would reduce the amount of habitat ducks have, according to Paul Bultsma, a Ducks Unlimited biologist. "We're trying to keep livestock in the picture," Bultsma said....
Loggers remove protester, carry on A protester was arrested Tuesday after suspending himself from a log 40 feet over the Illinois River and briefly blocking logging in a national forest roadless area. Logging had started Monday on the Mike’s Gulch timber sale, made up of trees burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. It was the first logging on a timber sale in a roadless area since the Bush administration eased the logging rules. On Tuesday, protesters placed a log across a bridge over the Illinois River to block the timber cutters’ return. To make it harder for authorities to remove the log, a protester, Laurel Sutherlin, was suspended over the river from one end of the log sticking out from the bridge. Sutherlin was on a platform dangling about six feet beneath the log. Amid shouts of “don’t murder him” and “he’s not a tree” from about 20 protesters on shore, an arborist shinnied out on the log, rigged a pulley and rope to the platform, and then cut the webbing suspending the platform from the log. Forest Service personnel slowly lowered Sutherlin to the river. He waded to shore, where he was handcuffed....
Protesters accused of illegal logging A 40-foot log used by protesters to block access to the Mike's Gulch timber salvage sale in a roadless area of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Tuesday morning was cut from a nearby botanical area, according to forest officials. One irate activist called it a "petty" point, and said the U.S. Forest Service and John West, president of the firm that purchased the roadless sale, had cut countless trees illegally. "You don't need to be a detective to see where it came from," said Tom Lavagnino, forest information officer at the site. "You can see the fresh sawdust, and where they dragged it 500 to 800 feet to the bridge. "But the issue is finding the person who cut it," he added. "There is no doubt they used it for blockage."
Salazar: Roadless protection promise broken The Bush administration's plan to lease undeveloped national forest land in Colorado this week for natural-gas development breaks promises to protect roadless areas and give states a say in their management, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said. Salazar Tuesday asked the administration not to lease 20,000 roadless acres spread over three national forests in Colorado. But federal land managers made no move to remove the land from their monthly lease auction to be held Thursday. The lease sales have already been protested by a coalition of landowners, outfitters and conservation groups. Salazar, D-Colo., noted that Bush administration officials said last year that they would temporarily protect roadless areas while states developed recommendations on whether or not to continue blocking roads and development....
Keystone 'stoking' area riders Downhill mountain bikers who crave fast, steep descents marked with ladders, bridges and jumps will have two more reasons to ride at Keystone by the end of the month. Last week, the Forest Service approved Keystone's application to build seven new downhill trails on the frontside of Dercum Mountain, two of which are slated for completion by the end of August. "These will all be expert only downhill trails, that's what we've been hearing people want," Keystone communications manager Amy Kemp said. "I'm pretty stoked," said Boulder resident David Holick, who was waiting on his bike for friends near the River Run Gondola Tuesday....
Bush administration agrees to support payments to timber counties The Bush administration has agreed to hold off selling some national forest lands and will support one more year of payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging, lawmakers said Monday. Western lawmakers have been seeking up to $401 million to maintain payments next year to 700 rural counties in 41 states, primarily in the West, which lost revenues from the sale of federal timber when logging was cut back to protect the northern spotted owl, salmon and other fish and wildlife. The administration had proposed selling 300,000 acres of national forest lands around the country to raise $800 million toward continuing the payments over five years, but it had run into tough bipartisan opposition. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, agreed in a letter to support a one-year extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which has pumped $2 billion into counties the past six years and is set to expire at the end of September....
Forest Service seeks input on prairie dog population boom The number of acres in the Pawnee National Grassland home to black-tailed prairie dogs grew almost tenfold between 2000 and 2005. Now U.S. Forest Service officials are asking the public to comment on five options to control the population of the black-tailed prairie dog in the area. “It’s like anything,” said Mary Ann Chambers, spokeswoman for Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland. “Too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.” The Pawnee National Grassland, located in northeast Weld County about 35 miles northeast of Greeley, is about 193,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land mixed with private farms, ranches, Colorado state lands and other federally owned land. Historically, the grasslands have had between 200 and 750 acres of prairie dog colonies, Chambers said. Between 2000 and 2005, that number increased from between 350 and 750 acres to about 3,500....
Butterfly status to be studied Federal officials agreed Tuesday to conduct a yearlong review of whether a rare Nevada butterfly at one of the largest sand dunes in the West should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. More than two years after conservationists petitioned for a listing, and after a lawsuit was filed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled there is enough scientific data to justify a formal review of the Sand Mountain blue butterfly. The decision comes over the objections of off-road enthusiasts, but was hailed by environmentalists who want to protect the 4,750-acre Sand Mountain Recreation Area, about 80 miles east of Reno along U.S. 50, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. "I don't think this was expected because it has been very, very difficult to get any kind of pro-conservation decision out of the Bush administration," said Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity based in Arizona....
Editorial - Fencing off more public land As the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies have progressively barred off-road travel from more and more of the vast landscapes of Colorado and California, all-terrain vehicle owners from those states have shrugged and retreated -- increasingly packing up their stuff for the week or the weekend and repairing to Utah's desolate Factory Butte area, 180 miles south of Salt Lake City. Of course, the extremists who would fence off all the wild lands have long complained that these vehicles are noisy despoilers, cutting trails that encourage erosion -- as though erosion isn't what gave these lands their distinctive character in the first place. Ah, but while environmental degradation by "natural" wild horses (what?) and other creatures must be accepted, the works of man are a blight upon the earth, the nature cultists explained. When that didn't work, the extremists played their trump card: They went plant-hunting. Sure enough, the little Wright fishhook cactus, listed as "endangered" in 1979, and the equally diminutive Winkler cactus, actually a succulent listed as "threatened" in 1998, turned up in the Factory Butte area. Game, set and match....
Commission OKs fish toxin in streams A state commission has approved using toxins in more than 150 miles of streams and rivers in Northern New Mexico to kill non-native fish in hopes of helping the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. The Water Quality Control Commission on Tuesday passed a controversial petition from the state Department of Game and Fish to use toxins in the Rio Costilla watershed to kill such fish as rainbow trout and brown trout. "I think it's interesting we're a water-quality commission, and we're voting on whether to introduce toxins into state waters," said Howard Hutchinson, the only commissioner on the 12-member panel to oppose the petition. Under the proposal, more than 150 miles of stream from Comanche Creek in the Valle Vidal down Rio Costilla to Latir Creek would be poisoned in sections using antiymicin or Rotenone. Two dozen lakes and Costilla Reservoir will also be poisoned....
Feds asking for public's thoughts on 'cooperative conservation' Leaders of the Bush administration's "cooperative conservation" effort will hold their first public meeting in Spokane on Wednesday to gather ideas on how disparate groups can work together to protect the environment. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will attend the meeting, dubbed a "listening session" that is intended to foster cooperation on thorny environmental issues. The Bush administration, which held a conference on the topic last year, defines cooperative conservation as the efforts of landowners, communities, conservation groups, industry, and government to work together to preserve the environment. The Spokane meeting is the first of several across the country that have been scheduled by the secretaries of Interior, Commerce and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality....
Nevada Loses Decision on Atomic Waste Nevada was set back in its effort to avoid housing a radioactive waste dump as a federal appeals court rejected arguments against transportation plans. Nevada had said that the Energy Department overstepped its authority and violated environmental rules in deciding to rely mostly on trains to carry 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from around the country to Yucca Mountain. “We conclude that some of Nevada’s claims are unripe for review, and the remaining claims are without merit,” said a decision written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Global Warming: Focus on Utah's Climate J.L. Crawford stopped regarding climate change as a debate a long time ago. To the 92-year-old, who grew up in Oak Creek Canyon here, the proof is in the missing ice. As a boy, he would help his great-uncle harvest ice in the winter. They dammed a creek, flooded a nearby pond and sawed out slabs from the icy surface. They laid the blocks in layers of sawdust and stored them in a roofless shed, Crawford recalls. "That way he could save the ice pretty well all summer" - long enough to serve summer tourists "plain old vanilla" ice cream. Crawford doubts now that the winters are cold enough to keep up the tradition. He blames a planet that's heating up. Global climate change. "It scares the heck out of me," says Crawford....
Penn submits resignation as undersecretary of agriculture Dr. J.B. Penn, undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services and one of the few members of USDA’s top hierarchy with ties to the Mid-South, has submitted his resignation, effective at the end of August. A native of Lynn, Ark., and a graduate of Arkansas State University, Penn had overseen the activities of the Farm Service agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Risk Management Agency since being sworn in as undersecretary in May 2001. His resignation letter said only that he planned to return to the private sector. Penn was serving as senior vice president and manager of the Washington, D.C., office of Sparks Companies, Inc., when he was tapped by then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to become undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, the third highest-ranking post at USDA....
Kansas corn crop shriveling amid triple-digit temperatures Ottawa County farmer Steve Baccus plans to cut most of his dryland corn for silage - trying to salvage what he can as triple-digit temperatures and drought decimate corn fields across the state. Baccus, who also serves as Kansas Farm Bureau president, said his fields are among the last dryland fields in the county still standing. Most of his neighbors already have chopped theirs for silage. His own no-till practices let his fields hang on to moisture a little longer than most - until finally succumbing as well to the scorching temperatures. Corn under irrigation systems in the county also has shown signs of "tipping," meaning the corn plant is drawing moisture out of its kernels to survive. Smaller kernels hurt yields. "Even irrigation systems are not able to keep up in this situation, with these kinds of winds," Baccus said....
USDA extends comment period on BSE study R-CALF USA was pleased to learn today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has granted the organization's request for an extended time period for public comments on the most recent Harvard Risk Assessment on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Docket Number FSIS-2006-0011. "We appreciate the FSIS' quick action in extending the comment period on this comprehensive study," R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard said. "The cattle industry needs to review the Harvard Risk Assessment very carefully because it is the principle resource used by USDA to decide what level of risk the United States is willing to assume when trading with countries that have a BSE problem." R-CALF USA submitted a formal request to USDA last week to extend the comment period....
USDA Announces New Insurance Tools for Pasture, Forage Lands Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced the availability of two new risk management tools for pasture, rangeland and forage, beginning with the 2007 crop year. "These new insurances tools will help farmers and ranchers, especially with operations located in drought impacted areas, to improve their risk management capabilities," said Johanns. "Designed to operate in a variety of range and pasture environments, these products utilize innovative technology to determine when a producer has suffered a loss." The new insurance products, the Rainfall index insurance program and theVegetation index insurance program, are offered by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) and are available through approved insurance providers. These programs will provide livestock producers the ability to purchase insurance protection for losses of forage produced for grazing or harvested for hay....
Elliott takes a break from playing cowboys to voice a cow Listening to Sam Elliott's easy baritone makes you want to eat a steak. It must be the lingering effect of hearing his mouth-watering pitch in all those beef ads. So it's kind of ironic that in his first animated feature, "Barnyard," the actor is the voice of Ben, a patriarchal cow. "One wouldn't think of me doing this," said Elliott, best known for his rugged cowboy roles. "It's something I've always been intrigued by, and the opportunity came my way, and I jumped at it." The film centers on Otis, voiced by Kevin James, a real party cow who, like many young adult creatures, isn't as responsible as his father, Ben, would like. There's also a wise old mule with the voice of Danny Glover....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Farmers sign up to dry up After farming this area all his life, Wade Prescott recently decided to dry up half of his land in return for money from the government. The choice wasn’t an easy one for this Hazelton-area farmer. Then again, Prescott says, most farmers who rely on groundwater to irrigate crops are running out of options. That’s why Prescott elected to put 300 acres in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program — a joint state-federal plan to pay farmers to let their lands go dry — for the next 15 years. With a $258 million price tag, the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer CREP will take 100,000 acres out of production and reduce pumping on the aquifer by 200,000 acre-feet annually. That’s enough water to cover the same amount of land in water one-foot deep. Announced in May, the program still needs volunteers....
Group continues bid to protect surface rights Although the New Mexico Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have provided landowners with surface rights on public lands protection or damage compensation from oil and gas companies, backers of the bill say they are not giving up. It will be back on the table in the 2007 Legislative session. A public meeting sponsored by the Fee and Public Land Association will be held at 7 p.m. today in the auditorium at New Mexico State University Carlsbad Campus to explain to land owners the proposed Surface Protection Act. According to the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, which strongly supports the proposed act for New Mexico, 11 states have surface owner protection legislation, which typically requires that oil and gas companies provide notice to landowners before entering a property to drill a well, and that companies negotiate damage settlements with surface owners. Lisa Ogden, a rancher and New Mexico Cattle Growers president elect, who actively lobbied for the bill during this year's legislative session, said that a few oil and gas companies offer some compensation to surface owners, but generally the landowner is at the mercy of the company in terms of monetary compensation....
Burned Biscuit trees get logged With no protesters in sight, logging started Monday on the first timber sale in a national forest roadless area since the Bush administration eased logging restrictions. The logging went ahead after a federal judge in San Francisco last week declined to delay the work pending her ruling on lawsuits by conservation groups and four states challenging the Bush administration's new "roadless rule." That rule eased a Clinton administration rule that had put 58.5 million acres of national forests off-limits to most logging, mining and development. Loggers reported that they felled about 150 dead Douglas firs between 22 and 50 inches in diameter in their first day of work on the Mike's Gulch timber sale on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Work was expected to go on for about two months. Forest spokeswoman Patty Burel said there were no protesters in the area when logging started early Monday. The area had burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, and it remained open to the public. Helicopters were not yet hauling out the logs....
Town taking down No Trespassing signs Imagine Colorado Springs if Pikes Peak were closed to the public. That’s sort of what the little Park County mountain town of Alma has been dealing with. Access to three Colorado 14ers — Mount Democrat, Mount Lincoln and Mount Bross — was closed last summer by private landowners concerned about their liability. The No Trespassing signs are coming down, replaced by trail signs and road markers. The town took the unusual step of leasing 3,900 acres of mountain land and accepting liability in a unanimous vote of the Alma Board of Trustees on Aug. 1. “I felt like it was a good thing for business in Alma, Fairplay and Park County,” Alma Mayor Mark Dowaliby said. “It was an opportunity to get government to help people. The reason we are in government is to help peo- ple. ”The new plan is a bargain for the mountain burg near Breckenridge with about 250 people, harsh winters and views galore. “The town is paying a dollar a month to lease the three peaks,” Dowaliby said....
Interfering in lion hunt gets activist prison term A Tucson animal activist was sentenced to eight months in federal prison Monday for interfering with U.S. Forest Service agents who were trying to capture mountain lions in Sabino Canyon two years ago. Rodney Coronado will also have to spend three years on probation upon his release, pay $100 in restitution and stay away from activists involved in such groups as the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front and Earth First. U.S. District Judge David Bury told Coronado he wanted to send a message that if you use "force and violence in civil disobedience you are going to be punished for it; it's anarchy." Coronado, 39, Matthew Crozier, 33, and Esquire magazine writer-at-large John Richardson were arrested in the spring of 2004 after authorities accused them of interfering with the mountain lion hunt. Federal officials closed Sabino Canyon that spring because they were alarmed at a growing number of encounters between mountain lions and humans....
Death of a forest It seems there’s just not much good news for trees these days. Between the mountain pine beetles decimating lodgepole pines across the West to a mysterious illness affecting aspen trees, foresters are already looking ahead to what the landscape will look like in the future. “This mature pine forest is a goner,” said Cal Wettstein, district ranger for the Holy Cross and Eagle ranger districts. “We’re focusing on the next forest.” Asked what the future holds for the Vail Valley’s forest, Wettstein said simply “large fires.” Over the next two decades, the beetle-killed trees will shed their needles and their branches, then fall down and contribute to a tremendous load of fuel on the forest floor, Wettstein said. At that point, he said, it’s a waiting game as to when the combination of fuel, weather and a spark culminates in a large-scale fire....
Endangered Bighorn Protected from Sheep Grazing To protect endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep from deadly disease this summer, the U.S. Forest Service has wisely halted risky domestic sheep grazing in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in the eastern Sierra Nevada. “After much evidence was presented, the Forest Service honored concerns raised by scientists and conservationists and made a decent decision for this year,” said Daniel R. Patterson, Ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The agreement must be closely watched to ensure it is followed daily on the ground to monitor bighorn movements – a key component of the Forest Service’s decision.” Because domestic sheep can spread disease to the endangered bighorn, the Forest Service will not permit domestic sheep grazing near occupied bighorn habitat on the Dunderberg Allotment in Mono County this year. The Forest Service is also limiting grazing in bighorn habitat on two nearby allotments, Tamarack and Cameron Canyon. Some risk to bighorn remains on the Tamarack and Cameron Canyon allotments north of Dunderberg Peak, but if bighorn move further north this year, domestic sheep grazing may be halted there as well....
Judge approves Kensington Mines disposal method A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal approval of a mining company's plans to deposit rock waste in a southeast Alaska lake. The permit allows for rock waste to be dumped into nearby Lower Slake Lake. "It was music to our ears," said Scott Lamb, a spokesman for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., the Idaho-based parent company of Coeur Alaska. "In light of the court's decision, we would encourage those who have opposed the project to abandon their efforts." Environmental groups had filed the lawsuit, saying the Kensington Mine project's lake discharge permit from by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violates the Clean Water Act. They now have 30 days to appeal....
Industry reps say they face too many development obstacles The Rockies, from Montana to Mexico, are the single greatest source of untapped domestic energy in the lower 48 states, and the oil and gas industry needs to do more so lawsuits and other obstacles don’t tie up vital resources on Western public lands, speakers at an energy conference said Monday. Although environmentalists and people facing drilling on or near their land believe the pace of energy development is skyrocketing, industry representatives said they face too many obstacles. ‘‘Through lawsuits and other actions, it’s more and more difficult to get leases on public land,’’ Duane Zavadil of the Bill Barrett Corp. said during a summit sponsored in part by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Association, a trade group. The Rockies hold 224 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or 41 percent of the reserves in the lower 48, Zavadil said. About 70 percent of the region’s minerals are on federal land, he added. ‘‘In most other countries that would be considered a good thing. We’d have some self determination in our source of natural gas,’’ Zavadil said. ‘‘But the federal land management is in fact imposing requirements that limit access to 137 (trillion cubic feet) of that 224 tcf.’’....
BLM finds no impact in proposed oil shale project A proposed research project to test an extraction method for oil shale in the Piceance Basin will have no appreciable environmental impact, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The conclusion is based on findings of an environmental assessment (EA) published last week. The EA analyzes the potential impact of EGL Resources Inc.'s test of an in-place oil shale retorting technology it hopes to conduct on a 160-acre lease of BLM property near Meeker. EGL's report is the first of five proposed projects in Colorado. Two additional EAs, for Chevron Shale Oil Co. and Shell Frontier, which seeks to lease three separate tracts, are due out in the next several weeks, according a prepared statement from BLM....
Water wells draining rivers at their source Among the major rivers that begin or end in Arizona, only the Verde flows on its own from start to finish. But like all the state's rivers, it is running out of water and running out of time. The water that fills the Verde is in danger of being sucked away by wells, and no one is moving to turn off the pumps. In the first of six stories examining the health of Arizona's rivers, The Republic looks at the 150-mile Verde River. The cities want to use water in the underground aquifers that feed the Verde to quench the thirst of their growing cities. Thousands of other unmonitored wells already are drawing water from the same sources. State laws are virtually powerless to protect the Verde and other Arizona rivers from the pumping. The situation is dire for Arizona's dying rivers. But desert rivers are resilient and, given water, recover with remarkable speed....
Upstream damage dooms Little Colorado River system Water hadn't flowed through this stretch of the Little Colorado River in weeks, months maybe. The dry winter produced little runoff, and almost none made it this far downstream, barely 40 miles from the river's end. But the empty riverbed wasn't the troubling part of the view from the old suspension bridge. What stuck out sorely were the deep green stands of tamarisk that lined the banks and pushed into the channel, creating an artificial path almost as rigid as concrete. "The Little Colorado River is at the epicenter of the tamarisk invasion," said Sharon Masek-Lopez, a biologist who advises the Hopi Tribe on water issues. "With all the tamarisk in there, the river can't function as it normally would. It needs to spread out and meander, but it can't." Invasion is not too strong of a word to describe what is happening to the Little Colorado and other Arizona rivers, whose riparian areas are choking on invasive plants that take advantage of weakened ecosystems....
Indian activist anxious to close book on huge lawsuit After 10 years of leading the largest American Indian lawsuit against the U.S. in history, Elouise Cobell has been through her share of emotions. Last week, however, the lead litigant in the Indian Trust Fund lawsuit was flat shocked when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pulled back legislation that could have ended the lawsuit. "They were that close," Cobell said, sitting in her Browning office. "What kind of pressure happened that they pulled back and lost the greatest chance they had? "Who knows what goes on behind closed doors," she said. Had the McCain bill moved forward as it was written, it would have settled the class action lawsuit that seeks a historical accounting and trust-fund reform for money accounts belonging to 500,000 landowners. The bill called for an $8 billion settlement - down from accounting as high as $237 billion - to be paid as restitution for money lost, accounting errors and unpaid interest on federally managed land accounts....
Column - The Wilderness Paradox Wilderness is tearing at the soul of mountain biking. The Wilderness Act forces us to choose between protecting open space and riding our bikes. In the name of environmental protection, it forces us to lump mountain biking with the evils of mining, oil drilling and logging. Wilderness forces us to see justice in allowing 1500 pound horses to chew through Wilderness trails while our waffle prints are regarded as a scourge of the Wilderness world. Wilderness is not only renewing our age-old hostilities with the hiking groups, but is pitting biker against biker in a high stakes inter-nacine argument about the future of our passion. In the meantime, the Wilderness juggernaut rolls on across the country. There's still debate about whether the 1964 Congress really intended bicycles to be prohibited in Wilderness when they banned "other modes of mechanized transport" from Wilderness areas....
Column - "Smart Growth" Policies Hurt It is not uncommon to find workers in the Washington, DC area who suffer a two-hour commute each way to their jobs. Some travel from as far as West Virginia or Pennsylvania.1 In many cases, the cause is not preference but finance. Simply put: There is lack of affordable housing in the region.2 It is a problem nationally, not just in our nation's capital. Steep increases in property values are often attributed to a robust real estate market or an area's appeal for living, working and attracting business.3 However, another more flagrant and largely overlooked cause is so-called "smart growth" planning. There is mounting evidence that smart growth policies have already prevented thousands of American households from their claim of the American Dream of owning their own home....
Column - Land Rights: Why Do They Matter? Today, all across America, people are focusing on a major constitutional issue: their right to control the use of their land and property. Landowners in the East are concerned about restrictions on their land rights when their property is designated as historic. Farmers are up in arms about the Corps of Engineers wetlands program that forces them to abandon the use of farmland because it may become wet during part of the year. Ranchers and forest owners in the West are threatened by enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. In some ways, the movement is a rebellion. Yet in the strict meaning of the word, the movement is more a revolution - a complete rotation that carries us back to a first Constitutional principle, the principle of protection against excessive government. Some of the groups that contest the state's authority describe the problem in simple terms. The land on which they live is theirs, quite often owned by family members for three generations or more. In their view, no one has a superior right to tell them what they can do or not do on their land. (Of course, if the owners are truly harming others, then they can be sued under common law.) Others see the problem in more complex terms. They hold contracts, deeds and easements that give them the legal right to graze cattle, cut trees, or build houses. They see a growing maze of federal, state and local regulations that interfere with the terms of the contracts and deeds they hold. These regulations are supposed to serve a public interest, but the burden falls on the shoulders of individuals who hold specified rights to land. In their view, their Fifth Amendment rights are denied. They believe what the Constitution says: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."....
Ranchers making inroads protecting cash cows A smart cattle rustler can make $20,000 in one hit. The payoff is quick and the turnaround appealing. But ranchers and investigators say it's becoming harder than ever to get away with stealing cattle – once a hanging offense – thanks to an electronic database that gives authorities more time to devote to investigations. Cattle brought to the Emory Livestock Auction in East Texas are identified upon arrival with bright yellow tags that are glued to their flanks. Even though much evidence still starts on paper, a relatively new computer system that transfers brand inspection forms onto CDs has shaved about three weeks off investigations, said Larry Gray, law enforcement director for the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, an industry group. "The cattle business is still pretty much done on a handshake," he said. But the paper trail is becoming more important as rustling becomes a white-collar crime, with more organized cases of bank fraud and embezzlement arising each year, he said. Last year, the Cattle Raisers Association recovered about 5,200 cattle worth nearly $3.5 million in Texas and Oklahoma – nearly double the number recovered the previous year....
Stubborn Cowboys Elmer Kelton was voted "Great Western Writer of All Time" by the Western Writers of America, a daunting title to work under, though he bears it modestly. There is, after all, that modifying adjective: Western. Kelton, who turned 80 in April, has his academic champions, but he acknowledges that "the Western field is a literary ghetto. Critics don't read a Western unless the book is contemptuous of its subject matter. If you write out of love for your subject matter they'll dismiss you." Elmer Kelton loves his subject matter. He was born to it, after all. And if the Western is a ghetto, it is a remarkably rich ghetto populated by the likes of Edward Abbey (The Brave Cowboy), Jack Schaefer (Shane), Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), and other novelists whose mortal sin, it seems, is setting their tales in open spaces rather than in the confines of the faculty lounge or city tenement. Elmer Kelton has an utter mastery of his subject; a distinctive, even arresting, point of view; and a narrative talent honed by writing for the Western pulps. His best work, The Time It Never Rained (1973), can be read as character study, regional literature, and philosophical novel: find me a navel-gazing New Yorker writer who has squeezed out a single book as rich, layered, and unsettling. Following a lunch of--what else?--thick steaks, I spoke with Elmer Kelton in his study in the home he and his wife built half a century ago in the ranching town of San Angelo, Texas. His library overspills with books on Texas, cattle, and the West; his musical tastes run to Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Willie Nelson, and Bill Monroe. He reels off the original lineup of the "Sons of the Pioneers."....
Trew: Hands, not cowboys, did the ranch work Hand appears to be a shortened version of “hired hand” meaning an individual’s hands were paid to perform a certain job or jobs. Employers were not concerned with the person’s looks, color, character, reputation or financial worth. They merely wanted a pair of hands to haul feed, dig tanks, brand cattle, build fence or whatever else was required. During this period, the ranch hired many young boys, some who had run away from large poor families trying to exist in hard times. These boys were listed as “roustabouts” and given menial jobs until they either quit or proved their worth. Among the many “hand descriptions” listed in the notations of the manager were hay hands, plow hands, ranch hands, trail hands and fence hands. Each was a part of a crew performing that kind of work. The next steps up the ladder were bosses, foremen, branding reps and the office staff or management. Most beginning hands drew pay of $25 to $30 per month plus board, providing food and bed. Proven hands drew from $30 to $40 per month with bosses, reps and cooks earning $50 per month. My favorite “hand story” tells of a new ranch owner announcing he was raising all his hand’s wages by $10 per month in hopes of retaining experienced employees. All the hands thanked him for the unexpected raise except one cowboy. When questioned about his lack of appreciation he said, “It nearly kills me to drink up $30 worth of whiskey each month now. Another $10 may just finish me off.”....