NEWS ROUNDUP
Canada won't meet Kyoto emission targets Canada's conservative government acknowledged Thursday it will not meet its Kyoto Protocol targets and announced a new environmental plan with a less ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the 1997 Kyoto accord on climate change, the former Liberal government committed to a 6 percent cut in greenhouse emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. But the country's emissions are now 30 percent above 1990 levels. The new goal of a national environmental initiative announced Thursday is to reduce the level of current emissions 20 percent by 2020. That means Canada will not meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol — which requires 35 industrialized countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that act like a greenhouse, trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. "I can't take responsibility for 10 lost years, but I can fully, and our government is prepared to fully, accept our responsibilities today," Environment Minister John Baird said in blaming the former Liberal government. The plan to tighten emissions controls on industry will cause Canada some economic pain, Baird warned. The government predicts price increases for cars, home appliances, electricity and fuel....
2008 Candidates Rely on Private Jets A flock of small jets took flight from Washington Thursday, each carrying a Democratic presidential candidate to South Carolina for the first debate of the political season. For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it was wheels up shortly after they voted in favor of legislation requiring that U.S. troops begin returning home from Iraq in the fall. No one jet pooled, no one took commercial flights to save money, fuel or emissions. Thursday's debate, set on the campus of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C., made for some whirlwind scheduling. Clinton, for instance, was scheduled to return to Washington Friday morning for an 8 a.m. address to the New York State United Teachers 35th Annual Representative Assembly, then fly back to South Carolina for an 11 a.m. event in Greenville....
Poll Finds Majority See Threat in Global Warming Americans in large bipartisan numbers say the heating of the earth’s atmosphere is having serious effects on the environment now or will soon and think that it is necessary to take immediate steps to reduce its effects, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds. Ninety percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans said immediate action was required to curb the warming of the atmosphere and deal with its effects on the global climate. Nineteen percent said it was not necessary to act now, and 1 percent said no steps were needed. The poll also found that Americans want the United States to support conservation and to be a global leader in addressing environmental problems and developing alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and coal. But when it comes to specific steps to foster conservation or produce more energy, the public is deeply torn, the poll found. Respondents said they would support higher gasoline prices to reduce dependence on foreign oil but would oppose higher prices to combat global warming. By large margins, respondents opposed an increase in pump prices of $2 a gallon, or even $1, to deal with environmental and energy-supply concerns. Three-quarters said they would be willing to pay more for electricity generated by renewable sources like solar or wind energy....
Panel weighs effects of oil, gas projects Westerners affected by oil and gas development on public lands testified Thursday about proposed changes in how the federal government handles leasing and permitting of energy projects. The hearing focused on the use of exemptions from some environmental analysis for certain projects and the problems that can arise when the government leases mineral rights under land lived on by private owners. Two House Natural Resources subcommittees jointly held the oversight hearing on land-use issues arising from energy development. Two federal officials testified in favor of the continued use of certain exemptions, but a representative of Western governors advocated for changes to it. A section of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 allows "categorical exclusions" to be used to exempt certain drilling projects from requirements to prepare an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement. John Emmerich testified on behalf of the Western Governors Association and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies that changes are needed. He and the WGA want the 2005 act to be modified so that categorical exclusions cannot be used in crucial habitat areas and wildlife corridors. Steve Adami, a rancher and certified public accountant in Buffalo, Wyo., testified that 12 of those wells are on his ranch. Adami did not know about the subsurface mineral rights when he bought his ranch in 1993. He told his story of a company coming onto the land and beginning development even while he waited for his appeal to be heard. Adami, who testified on behalf of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, asked for surface-owner input and accommodation as well as compensation for damages to be required in split-estate situations. He urged passage of a new federal split-estate law....
Industry: Relax wildlife rules Coal-bed methane industry representatives on Thursday asked federal regulators to loosen wildlife restrictions that shut down much of the industry's operations in Wyoming's Powder River Basin this spring. During breeding periods for sage grouse, eagles and other wildlife, the federal Bureau of Land Management imposes monthslong shutdowns of coal-bed methane work to prevent disturbance of the birds' nests and mating grounds. Researchers from the University of Montana say sage grouse populations in the Powder River Basin have suffered a sharp decline inside active coal-bed methane fields over the last decade. As coal-bed methane production shifted onto federal land during the last year, the restrictions meant to protect the birds came into play more often. That curtailed the drilling of new wells and prompted layoffs of some industry contractors. In response, the Petroleum Association of Wyoming this week hosted a two-day "sage grouse workshop" in Casper involving coal-bed methane companies, state and federal regulatory agencies and independent researchers. BLM officials would not comment on the request to modify its restrictions but agreed to work with the industry in the future....
Government renews focus on cross-Nevada rail line to nuclear dump The Energy Department is refocusing plans for a cross-Nevada railroad to a national nuclear waste repository, after an Indian tribe said it won't let radioactive waste cross its reservation, a top Yucca Mountain official said. A north-to-south railroad corridor that would have crossed the Walker River Paiute reservation in Mineral County no longer will be considered, Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said Wednesday. The department will instead focus on completing studies of the so-called Caliente rail corridor, a 319-mile route that would be built from eastern Nevada across the state to the Yucca Mountain repository at a projected cost of more than $2 billion. Sproat made his comments during a presentation in Washington, D.C., to a conference organized by the U.S. Transport Council, whose members are tied to the shipping of nuclear materials. Sproat, the Energy Department's Yucca project chief, said it was too late to remove the 280-mile Mina corridor from an environmental impact study the department expects to make public in October. He said the Mina route could have been cheaper and faster to build, but said planners now expect the decision will favor the Caliente route. The Walker River Paiute tribe announced April 17 that it was withdrawing from environmental studies of the Mina route, named after a site south of Hawthorne. The tribe's participation was key to Energy Department plans to use existing railroad rights-of-way through old mining districts to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas....
Backers await Army's response on Pinon Canyon Supporters of the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site believe the Pentagon will be able to make a compelling case to increase the training area - despite the growing list of state and federal lawmakers who are opposed to the expansion. "Once the Army has identified its area of interest around Pinon Canyon, they can begin to have a dialogue with area landowners," said retired Air Force Col. Brian Binn, president of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Division. "Tomorrow's Army needs larger training areas and Pinon Canyon and Fort Carson are inextricably linked." That's an argument that didn't persuade Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., who sent the Army a letter on Wednesday spelling out his opposition to any expansion of the 238,000-acre training area southwest of La Junta. Pinon Canyon is in Salazar's 3rd Congressional District and he joins Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., in sending the Army a blunt refusal to support expanding Pinon Canyon by 418,000 acres. Musgrave's 4th Congressional District includes Eastern Plains areas that could be affected by the expansion. "My decision has been coming for some time now," Salazar said Thursday, saying his own analysis of the proposed expansion indicates it would ruin the agriculture and ranching economy of the area. "The Army has broken a lot of promises over the years about Pinon Canyon. The fact is, the agriculture community doesn't have much voice in government and I couldn't stand by and let this happen to them again."....
Pair of endangered wolves released into remote area of Gila Two more endangered Mexican gray wolves have been released into a remote area of New Mexico's Gila Wilderness. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday that the pair, a male and a female from the Durango Pack, had been transferred from the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge wolf facility to a staging area at the edge of the wilderness. They were released Tuesday. The female is pregnant and was released prior to birthing to increase chances that the wolves will den in the area, the agency said....See below for Catron County's reaction to the release of the male wolf.
AZ Senate Balks at Requiring Permits for Off-Highway Vehicles Another push to require owners of off-highway vehicles to pay for a new annual sticker has fallen short at the Legislature. The Senate on Thursday voted 14-13 for the bill (HB2443) but 16 votes were required for passage. The house had previously passed it overwhelmingly in March. Similar to programs in use in states such as Utah and California, Arizona's program would have provided money for development of trails and other access routes, grants for local enforcement of off-highway vehicle laws, mitigation of damage caused by OHVs and creation of maps, signs and educational material. Opponents said the mandatory sticker amounted to a tax increase, with one saying it would apply broadly but only benefit some....
Spotted owl in protection quarrel again The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a plan to recover the northern spotted owl on federal lands Thursday amid charges the plan is politically designed to dismantle old-growth forest protections afforded by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. Federal officials defended the proposal, saying it will take 30 years and $198 million to stabilize and recover an owl population that still is on the decline 17 years after it was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. But a member of the recovery team said the team’s work was undermined by Bush administration political appointees in Washington, D.C., who wanted less emphasis on preserving habitat and the Northwest Forest Plan. “The level of interference from Washington, D.C., is unprecedented,” said Tim Cullinan, an Audubon Washington wildlife biologist who participated on the owl-recovery team assembled by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. “They’ve used the recovery plan as a crowbar that wrecks the Northwest Forest Plan.”. The recovery team originally tried to mesh the owl-recovery plan with the Northwest Forest Plan in establishing 37 owl- conservation areas encompassing about 7.7 million acres, Cullinan said. But the plan completed in September 2006 was rejected by the so-called Washington Oversight Committee, which consisted of former timber lobbyist and current Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett and 11 others. The oversight committee directed the recovery team to de-emphasize the Northwest Forest Plan in the original option and told team members to add a second recovery option that gives local land managers more flexibility to create owl-conservation areas....
Disease divides fed agencies There’s a deep division between two federal agencies over eradication of brucellosis in the bison and elk of Yellowstone National Park. That divide was the 800-pound gorilla for the Wyoming Governor's Brucellosis Coordination Committee here on Thursday. {M3Bret Combs, the area veterinarian in charge of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's Veterinary Services, acknowledged that his group and the National Park Service “are not on the same page” regarding the eradication of brucellosis in Yellowstone wildlife. Combs also acknowledged that until that gap is closed, Wyoming’s efforts to eliminate the disease in wildlife are likely doomed to failure. John Keck, the Wyoming state coordinator for the National Park Service, didn’t say much before the committee, but explained in a separate interview how complex the brucellosis problem looks from the Park Service's perspective. Keck said the agency divide exists in part because the Park Service does not regard its wildlife as a form of livestock. Indeed, the “wildness” of elk and bison are valued, and Park Service leadership balks at the suggestion from APHIS and ranchers that elk and bison be rounded up and processed through a test-and-slaughter program....
Editorial - Take the money TALK ABOUT your unintended consequences. A spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office says many Southeastern Colorado ranchers may be prohibited from taking private aid for the two holiday blizzard because of Amendment 41. The amendment, a so-called ethics in government measure, was passed last November by voters. It prohibits people in government or individuals directly related to government officials from taking more than $50 in gifts in any year. This would eliminate families that work for public schools, state colleges or counties. Because many of the households affected by the blizzards have family members who may work part time or full time for government, they may not be eligible for private assistance because of Amendment 41. Operation Blizzard Benefit, which featured a concert in Pueblo by Michael Martin Murphey and other entertainers, has raised more than $680,000 to help ranchers with their losses. Preliminary estimates pegged the number of fallen cattle at 10,000 head. It’s money from the benefit, not public aid, that might be construed as unlawful for certain families to receive. That’s certainly not what voters had in mind when they supported Amendment 41 at the polls....
House, Senate panel reject horse meat Congress moved on two fronts Thursday to prevent the slaughter of horses, wild and domesticated, for human consumption. The U.S. House voted 277-137 to repeal the so-called "Burns rider" to the Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which banned the commercial sale and slaughter of equines found on public lands primarily in the West. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., in 2004, slipped an amendment into an omnibus spending bill allowing for the commercial processing of horses. Animal protection groups have worked since then to get the ban restored. Burns lost a bid for re-election to the Senate in November. The House voted in 2005 and 2006 to restore the ban, but the Senate did not address the issue. In the Senate, the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Thursday voted 15-7 to ban the slaughter of all horses for human food. The legislation would prohibit the movement of horses anywhere in the country for the purpose of slaughtering them for human consumption. Until last year there were only three horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. - two in Texas and one in Illinois. All three have since closed. The bill appears to pre-empt transporting the animals to Canada or Mexico. There are three horse-packing plants in Canada, the nearest in Fort McLeod, Alberta, which processes horse meat for export to eastern Canada, Europe and Asia....
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? ... Not Anymore Imagine a proposal to scatter millions of pounds of poisoned meat around the United States, close to human populations. Much of it would be accessible to scavengers including eagles, hawks, coyotes, foxes and badgers, as well as to dogs and cats. An animal feeding on the poisoned meat would probably die. This scenario is likely, now that the opponents of slaughtering horses are having their way. For many years, unwanted horses have routinely been sent to slaughter. Some horse meat becomes pet food, but much goes for export to Europe for human consumption. Horse-slaughter opponents tend to think of horses as beloved pets, much like cats or dogs, and in America, the last thing we would do is eat a pet. In Europe, however, horse meat is a staple, and it’s found on many menus. The opponents of horse slaughter have concentrated their efforts on stopping the export of horse meat for human consumption. Since “filet of filly” is a dish that repels Americans, this argument has generated some sympathy. Exporting American horses to feed foreign palates has also been labeled unpatriotic, with critics calling the practice contrary to American values. Now, the poison-meat scenario has become the alternative to government-regulated horse slaughter. On March 29, the last U.S. horse-slaughter plant was closed down by order of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. A circuitous path led to shutting the doors — and summarily dismissing 55 employees — at the DeKalb, Ill., plant. Until a few months ago, three plants operated in the United States, and last year they slaughtered about 100,800 horses. What do slaughter opponents advocate? Their Political Action Committee, aptly called HOOFPAC, says it all in a slogan: “Keep America’s horses in the stable and off the table.” This is a catchy phrase, but it doesn’t address whose stable, and at whose expense....
Human Risk Played Down in Bad Feed The potential risk to humans who might have eaten meat contaminated with melamine is extremely low, and the Food and Drug Administration believes that only 6,000 hogs may have eaten the reconstituted feed. But concern has shifted to encompass melamine-related compounds that include cyanuric acid, which can be used as a pool cleaner, and mixed with melamine could cause crystal formations that damage kidneys and could in some cases cause the organ to fail, an F.D.A. official said. Melamine, a compound used to make plastic utensils and as a fertilizer in some countries, has been found in wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate that came from two Chinese suppliers starting as far back as July 2006....
Permits put cattle drive out to pasture It's OK to drive cattle through Angels Camp. But only in a great big truck. If you want whooping cowboys and the thunder of cow hooves on pavement, you'll need a permit. It's too late to get one from the California Department of Transportation in time for Italian Heritage Day on May 5, say event organizers. And a few old cowpokes around here are a bit blue about it. "This is my heritage," said Emily Stemler, 85, member of a longtime local ranching family and grand marshal for Italian Heritage Day. "It was just one of those things. You drove cattle on the highways all the time. We didn't have trucks to truck them." This year's Heritage Day is in part a revival of Angels Camp Living History Day. As recently as 2000, a morning cattle drive was part of Living History Day so folks would have some entertainment while they enjoyed flapjacks and java at the event's breakfast....
Friday, April 27, 2007
US Fish and Wildlife Services Releases Dangerous Mexican Gray Wolf; Catron County Demands Removal
The Mexican Gray Wolf pack called the Durango pack was officially translocated to the Gila National Forest. US Fish and Wildlife Services decided to release this pack on the 24th one day earlier than the scheduled April 25th release date from their soft holding pen. Today, Catron County New Mexico has requested immediate removal of this wolf in their following statement “Notice of Finding of Imminent Danger, Wolf Durango F924” due to this wolf’s history of biting and drawing blood on a human...This letter is a Notice of Finding of Imminent Danger by the Catron County Commission and constitutes a demand for immediate removal of Mexican wolf F924 from the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery program as per Catron County Amended Ordinance 001-2007 and pursuant to 63 C.F.R. § 1752 and 1759 and 50 C.F.R. § 17.84(k). For the reasons set forth herein and pursuant to Amended Catron County Ordinance 001-2007 (“Ordinance”), the Catron County Commission has determined that Mexican wolf F924 (“wolf”) is by definition a threat to human safety and a problem wolf as per the ordinance and federal regulation. Specifically this wolf has a known history of causing imminent danger to humans, including children or other defenseless persons, domestic animals and/or livestock pursuant to Section 1 and Section 2 of the Ordinance. Because of this wolf’s past behavior, pursuant to section 4 of Ordinance 001-2007, Catron County submits this demand for immediate removal of this wolf from the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery program. The facts surrounding this request are as follows....
The Mexican Gray Wolf pack called the Durango pack was officially translocated to the Gila National Forest. US Fish and Wildlife Services decided to release this pack on the 24th one day earlier than the scheduled April 25th release date from their soft holding pen. Today, Catron County New Mexico has requested immediate removal of this wolf in their following statement “Notice of Finding of Imminent Danger, Wolf Durango F924” due to this wolf’s history of biting and drawing blood on a human...This letter is a Notice of Finding of Imminent Danger by the Catron County Commission and constitutes a demand for immediate removal of Mexican wolf F924 from the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery program as per Catron County Amended Ordinance 001-2007 and pursuant to 63 C.F.R. § 1752 and 1759 and 50 C.F.R. § 17.84(k). For the reasons set forth herein and pursuant to Amended Catron County Ordinance 001-2007 (“Ordinance”), the Catron County Commission has determined that Mexican wolf F924 (“wolf”) is by definition a threat to human safety and a problem wolf as per the ordinance and federal regulation. Specifically this wolf has a known history of causing imminent danger to humans, including children or other defenseless persons, domestic animals and/or livestock pursuant to Section 1 and Section 2 of the Ordinance. Because of this wolf’s past behavior, pursuant to section 4 of Ordinance 001-2007, Catron County submits this demand for immediate removal of this wolf from the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery program. The facts surrounding this request are as follows....
Thursday, April 26, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
State may sue EPA over clean air law Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday said California will sue the federal government if the state is not allowed to implement its landmark law slashing greenhouse gases from vehicles within six months. "The clock is ticking…. If we don't see quick action from the federal government, we will sue the U.S. EPA," said Schwarzenegger, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. "I just had a conversation with [EPA Administrator] Steve Johnson, and I said we are going to sue him," the governor said. "I put him on notice that the federal government is moving too slow." Environmental Protection Agency officials countered that they were moving "expeditiously" on California's request. But in a move that provoked immediate criticism, they also said Wednesday that they may link a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases to California's request. If they do, it could delay the waiver decision yet again. Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to pass its own air pollution laws but must first obtain a waiver from the EPA. The state submitted its waiver request in December 2005, after the law was passed. After California receives permission, other states can follow its lead. Eleven other states have adopted similar tailpipe greenhouse gas laws....
Rep. Salazar says no to expanding Pinon Canyon The Army lost a battle Wednesday in its long campaign to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site when Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., sent a letter to the Defense Department stating his opposition to any expansion of the 238,000-acre training site southwest of La Junta. The Pinon Canyon training area is within Salazar's 3rd Congressional District and Salazar spelled out his opposition to expanding the training area in a four-page letter to Keith Eastin, assistant Army secretary for installations. Salazar said that adding 418,000 more acres to the Pinon Canyon site would "decimate" the area's ranching economy, take needed tax revenue from the rural counties that would be affected. He said the Army has failed to justify why the Army cannot conduct training at other Defense Department sites. "Furthermore, Pinon Canyon has been underutilized since its inception," Salazar said, noting that area residents report the training is used only a few times a year. "Simply put, the Army has neglected to make a compelling reason to acquire an additional 418,000 acres."....
Forest Service to Padlock Privies Toilets in the great outdoors can be an oasis for hikers, anglers, dirt-bikers and horseback riders, so the threat of padlocking them has created a little anxiety. The Tahoe National Forest, one of the nation's busiest, is running short on money to maintain its portable toilets. Each of the non-flushing privies sits on a 1,000-gallon concrete tank that has to be emptied, typically once a season. A bunch of dirt-bikers are offering to pay for pumping out one of them so it can stay open. But that's just one. Another 10 or so toilets, mostly serving trailheads in the forest, face padlocking. The problem of shrinking budgets for outdoor maintenance is crucial in California's national forests because operating costs are relatively higher than in the rest of the country, said Bonnie Petitt, recreation officer for the Tahoe forest. In 2006, the Forest Service got $54,500 through a special California fund collected from off-road vehicle fees that go to trail maintenance, which includes servicing 19 toilets in the trail areas. The forest needs at least $12,000 annually just to keep the toilets pumped out, Petitt said....Well, looks like my ol' Dad was right -- the Forest Service really can't manage shit.
State says feds should step up to the plate and fix Forest Service roads Nearly 2,170 miles of primitive roads meander through the Olympic National Forest, but poor maintenance and inadequate funding have left nearly half of those roads one big storm away from a washout. The state Department of Ecology, environmental groups and tribal leaders say the problem is pandemic throughout Washington’s six national forests. They fear washouts and gradual erosion could flood rivers with sediment, harming fish habitat and water quality. Now, they’re asking Congress for a tenfold increase in funding for the Forest Service to either fix or decommission the 22,000 miles of Forest Service roads in the state....
Ranchettes to replace wild horse plots? An Arizona real estate developer appears to be using the lure of wild horses to sell 40-acre ranchettes at a rural development near the Snowy Range, a Humane Society of the United States official charged this week. Wild Horse Ranch at Lake Hattie’s web site proclaims that “the wild horse” is “the heart and soul of the ranch. ... Dedication to their freedom and care is an ongoing priority and will always be an outstanding and unique quality of this property.” The web site contains numerous pictures of wild horses and herds. Dave Pauli, Humane Society regional leader in Billings, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Wyoming citizens should be “deeply concerned” about the developer’s practice of “utilizing the horses’ charismatic beauty to sell the ground out from under their hooves.” Pauli said the BLM “should be taking the lead to ensure there is no appearance of commercialization of the horses and no misdirection of government funds intended to provide for the humane care of the wild horses placed on the ranch." Alan Shepherd, a BLM wild horse official in Cheyenne, said the BLM does not consider the activities of the developer as a violation of a standard clause in the adoption contract which prohibits “commercially exploiting a wild horse or burro.”....If this becomes a commercially successful venture, it will lead to additional wild horse sanctuaries being created. Why would the horse advocates oppose that?
Bill seeks oversight of conservation areas Much of the federal land set aside for conservation in southern Arizona has patchwork management which critics say is underfunded and can change greatly from administration to administration. Four members of Congress have sponsored a bill to give national conservation areas, national wilderness areas and national monuments more security under permanent management. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, whose job has been more about doling out land for economic ventures than environmental protection, has been stuck managing these lands. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Tucson, would establish the National Conservation Land System and make protection of these lands permanent and create an agency specifically to oversee them. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last week by Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. "It designates that system as an important system and it gives the lands status important for protection," Grijalva said. The bill, if approved, represents the last step in turning the Wilderness Act of 1964 into hard and fast conservation, said Matt Skroch, executive director of a Tucson-based environmental group, Sky Island Alliance....
Democrats demand a say in changes to species protection Key Senate Democrats expressed concern yesterday about an Interior Department proposal they say will weaken the Endangered Species Act and demanded the Bush administration include Congress in any attempt to rewrite the 30-year-old law. "We have seen reports of a document reflecting extensive draft revisions" and "additional documents that have surfaced recently suggest that major rule revisions remain under active consideration," the senators told Interior Secretary Dirk Kemp-thorne in a letter yesterday. "We are concerned about any attempt to overhaul the Endangered Species Act program administratively, without the involvement of Congress," the lawmakers wrote. The letter includes 15 questions the lawmakers are demanding be answered before the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service moves forward with any changes. The letter is signed by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, and independent Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernard Sanders of Vermont. The 90-page proposal limits the number of species protected and the acreage of habitat preserved for those species, and includes a timeline for protection. It also shifts more power and funding from the federal government to the states, and gives local officials veto power over what plants and animals will be protected....
Navajo President Explains Why New Mexico Was Selected As Location For First Casino Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. outlined the reasons for changing the location of the tribe’s first casino from Arizona to New Mexico during his State of the Nation Address on April 16. “…as you well know, the Pinta Road exit at Nahata Dziil (near Sanders) was selected as a casino site,” Shirley said. “The selection was based upon land availability and access. However, we have discovered that the Navajo Nation does not own the sub-surface rights.” Shirley went on to explain that the tribe had hoped to work with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in a “friendly condemnation” of the sub-surface rights, but the BLM advised the Navajo Nation to seek the rights by other means, such as through congressional action or “by simply relying upon Arizona state law.” The president stated, “Protection of our interests under state law is limited, and I believe that we must have unfettered use of the site if we are to invest millions in a gaming facility there. Even though Shirley indicated that a casino would likely still be built in the Nahata Dziil, or Sanders, area, he explained that the tribe’s first casino is now planned for Church Rock, N.M., just outside of Gallup. “We have prioritized this location because of land availability, and because the market study provided by GVA Marquette Advisors shows that the Gallup area is an excellent location to maximize our revenue generating potential,” he said....
Artist sees profit in recycling of park Rich Holstein, who has salvaged large amounts of reclaimed wood from the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, has another grand plan he says could benefit the National Park Service and the local economy. Holstein proposed a large-scale reclamation plan for national parks across the country. Under his plan, all buildings being remodeled or in the throes of demolition would have wood and other building products saved to create keepsakes and art. The National Park Service would continue to pay for reclamation costs. But, he said, the they would get 25 percent of the profits from sales of products created from recyclables crafted by Holstein and his employees. Since 2005, Holstein has harvested wood from the Old Faithful Inn to create picture and mirror frames. Holstein said folks want to purchase treasures from their visits, not knickknacks with "Made in China" stamped on the bottom. "Everybody is looking to take something home made from the park," he said. Those treasures could include throw rugs recycled from park carpets, brass key rings from pipes and wires, and picture frames from walls and floors....
Yellowstone wolf diet returns to normal Call it a change in taste. After an early-winter preference for young elk, wolves in Yellowstone National Park have turned their attention to killing older bulls. Doug Smith, the park's lead wolf biologist, said the wolves' out-of-the-ordinary emphasis on elk calves in November and December was followed by a more typical diet of large male elk last month. "This is right in line with what they do in March," Smith said. The wolves' diet late last year raised a few eyebrows. A survey by park biologists showed about 75 percent of the wolf kills were calves, 15 percent were bulls and about 10 percent were females. There was some speculation that the early mild conditions made it harder for wolves to get adult elk, so they turned to calves. But in March, about half of the kills were bulls, roughly 25 percent were calves and 25 percent were adult females, Smith said. The surveys are conducted every December and March to get an idea of what wolves are eating and how the overall population is faring....
Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’ Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits. A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway. The FT investigation found: ■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions. ■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially. ■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value. ■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits. ■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts....
CoStar Green Report: Grassroots, Part II We’ve may have traded Rachel Carson for Al Gore, swapped "Kumbaya" with Kyoto and we’re talking green buildings instead of clean water, but there appears to be more than a few similarities between today's fight against global warming and the environmental movement of yesteryear. Roused by Carson’s searing expose, "Silent Spring," and taken up by an already restless nation embroiled in Vietnam, the environmental movement blossomed into a historic inaugural Earth Day in 1970, followed by a decade of sweeping, unprecedented period of environmental legislation and reform. Now, enmeshed in another controversial war and spurred by an inconvenient truth, people are talking environmentalism again, in a volume not heard since Cuyahoga and Love Canal made headlines. And while Gore hardly pioneered the science of global warming, his message is having the same rallying effect and evoking the same collective awareness that Carson marshaled in the dawn of the grassroots movement. If these historical parallels hold, we may once again be on our way down the path that led to the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act, created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), all within about a decade....
State rodeo queen quits her position Reba Buchholz, of Bismarck - who officially started her reign Jan. 1 as Miss Rodeo North Dakota 2007 - has resigned, says Nancy Jo Bateman, president of the Miss Rodeo North Dakota Pageant Association. Bateman said the several issues that the association directors considered before accepting Buchholz's resignation had to do with requirements not upheld by Buchholz in the agreement she signed after winning the title. That agreement includes rules ranging from dress code requirements to conduct expectations, required appearances and the prohibition of alcohol and drugs. "Obviously, it's been a really uncomfortable situation for Reba and the directors," Bateman said. She said Buchholz and pageant officials have agreed the details that led to the resignation will remain among them, "and that's where they need to stay." Bateman said Buchholz has had to return the saddle she won, as well as other prizes. She said the board received Buchholz's resignation letter at the end of March....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Mechanic, doc do their best My mechanic has a lot in common with my mother's doctor. When the steering wheel locked up on my 1969 Ford F-250 3/4-ton, four-speed with split rims and a manual choke, we cajoled it down to George's garage in town. On my truck's last visit to George's, he replaced the power steering pump, so I figured I was good for a while, but ... not so! I left it over the weekend with instructions to please fix it. My sweet mother has had a long relationship with her doctors. They have kept her ticking through the Great Depression, World War II, four children and two husbands, as more than her share of afflictions struck away at her health. She still has an ongoing schedule of doctor's appointments. Sometimes she has a complaint, or the visit is just for a checkup. But no matter the purpose of the visit, it seems the doctors can always find something that's not quite right that requires an additional test or pill. I have found that I have to be specific when I take my truck to George's. If I just said, "If you see anything wrong, fix it," George could retire to the Bahamas after I paid the bill! The motor has been rebuilt, but the runnin' gear is wearing out. Kinda like Mother. She has a strong heart but her tie rods are loose....
State may sue EPA over clean air law Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday said California will sue the federal government if the state is not allowed to implement its landmark law slashing greenhouse gases from vehicles within six months. "The clock is ticking…. If we don't see quick action from the federal government, we will sue the U.S. EPA," said Schwarzenegger, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. "I just had a conversation with [EPA Administrator] Steve Johnson, and I said we are going to sue him," the governor said. "I put him on notice that the federal government is moving too slow." Environmental Protection Agency officials countered that they were moving "expeditiously" on California's request. But in a move that provoked immediate criticism, they also said Wednesday that they may link a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases to California's request. If they do, it could delay the waiver decision yet again. Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to pass its own air pollution laws but must first obtain a waiver from the EPA. The state submitted its waiver request in December 2005, after the law was passed. After California receives permission, other states can follow its lead. Eleven other states have adopted similar tailpipe greenhouse gas laws....
Rep. Salazar says no to expanding Pinon Canyon The Army lost a battle Wednesday in its long campaign to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site when Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., sent a letter to the Defense Department stating his opposition to any expansion of the 238,000-acre training site southwest of La Junta. The Pinon Canyon training area is within Salazar's 3rd Congressional District and Salazar spelled out his opposition to expanding the training area in a four-page letter to Keith Eastin, assistant Army secretary for installations. Salazar said that adding 418,000 more acres to the Pinon Canyon site would "decimate" the area's ranching economy, take needed tax revenue from the rural counties that would be affected. He said the Army has failed to justify why the Army cannot conduct training at other Defense Department sites. "Furthermore, Pinon Canyon has been underutilized since its inception," Salazar said, noting that area residents report the training is used only a few times a year. "Simply put, the Army has neglected to make a compelling reason to acquire an additional 418,000 acres."....
Forest Service to Padlock Privies Toilets in the great outdoors can be an oasis for hikers, anglers, dirt-bikers and horseback riders, so the threat of padlocking them has created a little anxiety. The Tahoe National Forest, one of the nation's busiest, is running short on money to maintain its portable toilets. Each of the non-flushing privies sits on a 1,000-gallon concrete tank that has to be emptied, typically once a season. A bunch of dirt-bikers are offering to pay for pumping out one of them so it can stay open. But that's just one. Another 10 or so toilets, mostly serving trailheads in the forest, face padlocking. The problem of shrinking budgets for outdoor maintenance is crucial in California's national forests because operating costs are relatively higher than in the rest of the country, said Bonnie Petitt, recreation officer for the Tahoe forest. In 2006, the Forest Service got $54,500 through a special California fund collected from off-road vehicle fees that go to trail maintenance, which includes servicing 19 toilets in the trail areas. The forest needs at least $12,000 annually just to keep the toilets pumped out, Petitt said....Well, looks like my ol' Dad was right -- the Forest Service really can't manage shit.
State says feds should step up to the plate and fix Forest Service roads Nearly 2,170 miles of primitive roads meander through the Olympic National Forest, but poor maintenance and inadequate funding have left nearly half of those roads one big storm away from a washout. The state Department of Ecology, environmental groups and tribal leaders say the problem is pandemic throughout Washington’s six national forests. They fear washouts and gradual erosion could flood rivers with sediment, harming fish habitat and water quality. Now, they’re asking Congress for a tenfold increase in funding for the Forest Service to either fix or decommission the 22,000 miles of Forest Service roads in the state....
Ranchettes to replace wild horse plots? An Arizona real estate developer appears to be using the lure of wild horses to sell 40-acre ranchettes at a rural development near the Snowy Range, a Humane Society of the United States official charged this week. Wild Horse Ranch at Lake Hattie’s web site proclaims that “the wild horse” is “the heart and soul of the ranch. ... Dedication to their freedom and care is an ongoing priority and will always be an outstanding and unique quality of this property.” The web site contains numerous pictures of wild horses and herds. Dave Pauli, Humane Society regional leader in Billings, said the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Wyoming citizens should be “deeply concerned” about the developer’s practice of “utilizing the horses’ charismatic beauty to sell the ground out from under their hooves.” Pauli said the BLM “should be taking the lead to ensure there is no appearance of commercialization of the horses and no misdirection of government funds intended to provide for the humane care of the wild horses placed on the ranch." Alan Shepherd, a BLM wild horse official in Cheyenne, said the BLM does not consider the activities of the developer as a violation of a standard clause in the adoption contract which prohibits “commercially exploiting a wild horse or burro.”....If this becomes a commercially successful venture, it will lead to additional wild horse sanctuaries being created. Why would the horse advocates oppose that?
Bill seeks oversight of conservation areas Much of the federal land set aside for conservation in southern Arizona has patchwork management which critics say is underfunded and can change greatly from administration to administration. Four members of Congress have sponsored a bill to give national conservation areas, national wilderness areas and national monuments more security under permanent management. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, whose job has been more about doling out land for economic ventures than environmental protection, has been stuck managing these lands. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Tucson, would establish the National Conservation Land System and make protection of these lands permanent and create an agency specifically to oversee them. A similar bill was introduced in the Senate last week by Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. "It designates that system as an important system and it gives the lands status important for protection," Grijalva said. The bill, if approved, represents the last step in turning the Wilderness Act of 1964 into hard and fast conservation, said Matt Skroch, executive director of a Tucson-based environmental group, Sky Island Alliance....
Democrats demand a say in changes to species protection Key Senate Democrats expressed concern yesterday about an Interior Department proposal they say will weaken the Endangered Species Act and demanded the Bush administration include Congress in any attempt to rewrite the 30-year-old law. "We have seen reports of a document reflecting extensive draft revisions" and "additional documents that have surfaced recently suggest that major rule revisions remain under active consideration," the senators told Interior Secretary Dirk Kemp-thorne in a letter yesterday. "We are concerned about any attempt to overhaul the Endangered Species Act program administratively, without the involvement of Congress," the lawmakers wrote. The letter includes 15 questions the lawmakers are demanding be answered before the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service moves forward with any changes. The letter is signed by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, and independent Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernard Sanders of Vermont. The 90-page proposal limits the number of species protected and the acreage of habitat preserved for those species, and includes a timeline for protection. It also shifts more power and funding from the federal government to the states, and gives local officials veto power over what plants and animals will be protected....
Navajo President Explains Why New Mexico Was Selected As Location For First Casino Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. outlined the reasons for changing the location of the tribe’s first casino from Arizona to New Mexico during his State of the Nation Address on April 16. “…as you well know, the Pinta Road exit at Nahata Dziil (near Sanders) was selected as a casino site,” Shirley said. “The selection was based upon land availability and access. However, we have discovered that the Navajo Nation does not own the sub-surface rights.” Shirley went on to explain that the tribe had hoped to work with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in a “friendly condemnation” of the sub-surface rights, but the BLM advised the Navajo Nation to seek the rights by other means, such as through congressional action or “by simply relying upon Arizona state law.” The president stated, “Protection of our interests under state law is limited, and I believe that we must have unfettered use of the site if we are to invest millions in a gaming facility there. Even though Shirley indicated that a casino would likely still be built in the Nahata Dziil, or Sanders, area, he explained that the tribe’s first casino is now planned for Church Rock, N.M., just outside of Gallup. “We have prioritized this location because of land availability, and because the market study provided by GVA Marquette Advisors shows that the Gallup area is an excellent location to maximize our revenue generating potential,” he said....
Artist sees profit in recycling of park Rich Holstein, who has salvaged large amounts of reclaimed wood from the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, has another grand plan he says could benefit the National Park Service and the local economy. Holstein proposed a large-scale reclamation plan for national parks across the country. Under his plan, all buildings being remodeled or in the throes of demolition would have wood and other building products saved to create keepsakes and art. The National Park Service would continue to pay for reclamation costs. But, he said, the they would get 25 percent of the profits from sales of products created from recyclables crafted by Holstein and his employees. Since 2005, Holstein has harvested wood from the Old Faithful Inn to create picture and mirror frames. Holstein said folks want to purchase treasures from their visits, not knickknacks with "Made in China" stamped on the bottom. "Everybody is looking to take something home made from the park," he said. Those treasures could include throw rugs recycled from park carpets, brass key rings from pipes and wires, and picture frames from walls and floors....
Yellowstone wolf diet returns to normal Call it a change in taste. After an early-winter preference for young elk, wolves in Yellowstone National Park have turned their attention to killing older bulls. Doug Smith, the park's lead wolf biologist, said the wolves' out-of-the-ordinary emphasis on elk calves in November and December was followed by a more typical diet of large male elk last month. "This is right in line with what they do in March," Smith said. The wolves' diet late last year raised a few eyebrows. A survey by park biologists showed about 75 percent of the wolf kills were calves, 15 percent were bulls and about 10 percent were females. There was some speculation that the early mild conditions made it harder for wolves to get adult elk, so they turned to calves. But in March, about half of the kills were bulls, roughly 25 percent were calves and 25 percent were adult females, Smith said. The surveys are conducted every December and March to get an idea of what wolves are eating and how the overall population is faring....
Industry caught in carbon ‘smokescreen’ Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits. A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place. Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway. The FT investigation found: ■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions. ■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially. ■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value. ■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits. ■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts....
CoStar Green Report: Grassroots, Part II We’ve may have traded Rachel Carson for Al Gore, swapped "Kumbaya" with Kyoto and we’re talking green buildings instead of clean water, but there appears to be more than a few similarities between today's fight against global warming and the environmental movement of yesteryear. Roused by Carson’s searing expose, "Silent Spring," and taken up by an already restless nation embroiled in Vietnam, the environmental movement blossomed into a historic inaugural Earth Day in 1970, followed by a decade of sweeping, unprecedented period of environmental legislation and reform. Now, enmeshed in another controversial war and spurred by an inconvenient truth, people are talking environmentalism again, in a volume not heard since Cuyahoga and Love Canal made headlines. And while Gore hardly pioneered the science of global warming, his message is having the same rallying effect and evoking the same collective awareness that Carson marshaled in the dawn of the grassroots movement. If these historical parallels hold, we may once again be on our way down the path that led to the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act, created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), all within about a decade....
State rodeo queen quits her position Reba Buchholz, of Bismarck - who officially started her reign Jan. 1 as Miss Rodeo North Dakota 2007 - has resigned, says Nancy Jo Bateman, president of the Miss Rodeo North Dakota Pageant Association. Bateman said the several issues that the association directors considered before accepting Buchholz's resignation had to do with requirements not upheld by Buchholz in the agreement she signed after winning the title. That agreement includes rules ranging from dress code requirements to conduct expectations, required appearances and the prohibition of alcohol and drugs. "Obviously, it's been a really uncomfortable situation for Reba and the directors," Bateman said. She said Buchholz and pageant officials have agreed the details that led to the resignation will remain among them, "and that's where they need to stay." Bateman said Buchholz has had to return the saddle she won, as well as other prizes. She said the board received Buchholz's resignation letter at the end of March....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Mechanic, doc do their best My mechanic has a lot in common with my mother's doctor. When the steering wheel locked up on my 1969 Ford F-250 3/4-ton, four-speed with split rims and a manual choke, we cajoled it down to George's garage in town. On my truck's last visit to George's, he replaced the power steering pump, so I figured I was good for a while, but ... not so! I left it over the weekend with instructions to please fix it. My sweet mother has had a long relationship with her doctors. They have kept her ticking through the Great Depression, World War II, four children and two husbands, as more than her share of afflictions struck away at her health. She still has an ongoing schedule of doctor's appointments. Sometimes she has a complaint, or the visit is just for a checkup. But no matter the purpose of the visit, it seems the doctors can always find something that's not quite right that requires an additional test or pill. I have found that I have to be specific when I take my truck to George's. If I just said, "If you see anything wrong, fix it," George could retire to the Bahamas after I paid the bill! The motor has been rebuilt, but the runnin' gear is wearing out. Kinda like Mother. She has a strong heart but her tie rods are loose....
FLE
Mexican Officials Coached Witnesses In Border Patrol Murder Case The key prosecution witnesses in the case of the Border Patrol agent charged with murder for shooting a confrontational illegal immigrant are themselves illegal aliens related to the shot man and coached by the Mexican government before U.S. authorities even spoke to them. When prosecutors in Arizona’s Cochise County proudly announced the first-degree murder charges against Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett this week, they failed to mention some important details that could prove damaging to their case. First is the fact that their key witnesses are the two brothers and a sister-in-law of the shot man, who incidentally joined him on his illegal border crossing journey. Secondly, is the fact that Mexican Consul officials were allowed to interview and coach the already biased witnesses before they gave statements to U.S. authorities. Mexican officials were granted unrestricted access to the apprehended illegal immigrants by the Border Patrol agent in charge of the Naco station where they were detained immediately after the January shooting. The senior agent, Darcy Olmos, has a long history of pandering to Mexico and Mexican aliens and refers to illegal immigrants as “my people.” In fact, when ranchers near the border complained of vandalism by illegal aliens, Olmos said that ancestors of the ranchers had stolen the land from her people....
Border sheriffs plead with lawmakers for funds Southwest sheriffs frustrated with federal efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border pleaded with Bush administration officials and lawmakers for funds to lessen the local burden of fighting drug trafficking and illegal immigration. “I think the sheriffs are frustrated that this is going kind of slow,” said Joe Pollock, president of the Sheriff's Association of Texas. “The local taxpayers don't have the money to afford it. The federal government does.” Pollock, sheriff of Burnet County, was joined by two dozen law enforcement officers representing 26 counties in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Tuesday's meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Bush administration officials was arranged by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who have worked with the Southwest Border Sheriff's Coalition to fight crime and improve border security without impeding trade. It was the first time the coalition of sheriffs met with Chertoff. He has made numerous trips to the border to hear complaints first hand about the lack of funds. “It's important to hear some of their front-line observations,” Chertoff said....
The Corridor of Killing The killers wrapped the cop's head in silver duct tape, using a knife to plant a message in his chest. As a final touch, they left a hand grenade by the corpse--a calling card, of sorts. Three hours north, another group of killers hunted drug mules and migrant smugglers in the hills of Santa Cruz County. There was a heavy U.S. response--armored agents and Blackhawk helicopters descended on them near Sonoita. A group of five killers was found three days later--but yet another hit went down close to Pima County. It was calm for a few weeks; cops started thinking they may have finished the group off. Then the hunters killed again, this time near Green Valley. Federal agents say the two theaters of murder, one in Sonora, another in Arizona, are not related; the narcos are staying on their side of the border, while opportunistic thugs wreak havoc on the well-worn illegal trails in the desert of the Tumacacori Mountains. Then again, maybe they are related--tied together by the fact that they exist at all, a corridor of killing stretching from Sinaloa to Sonora and into Arizona. People familiar with the situation reveal an uncomfortable truth: Years of federal neglect of the Arizona border have compromised the line. Killings are spilling out of control, hit men moving in to fill the gaps left by American law enforcement....
Mexican Officials Coached Witnesses In Border Patrol Murder Case The key prosecution witnesses in the case of the Border Patrol agent charged with murder for shooting a confrontational illegal immigrant are themselves illegal aliens related to the shot man and coached by the Mexican government before U.S. authorities even spoke to them. When prosecutors in Arizona’s Cochise County proudly announced the first-degree murder charges against Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett this week, they failed to mention some important details that could prove damaging to their case. First is the fact that their key witnesses are the two brothers and a sister-in-law of the shot man, who incidentally joined him on his illegal border crossing journey. Secondly, is the fact that Mexican Consul officials were allowed to interview and coach the already biased witnesses before they gave statements to U.S. authorities. Mexican officials were granted unrestricted access to the apprehended illegal immigrants by the Border Patrol agent in charge of the Naco station where they were detained immediately after the January shooting. The senior agent, Darcy Olmos, has a long history of pandering to Mexico and Mexican aliens and refers to illegal immigrants as “my people.” In fact, when ranchers near the border complained of vandalism by illegal aliens, Olmos said that ancestors of the ranchers had stolen the land from her people....
Border sheriffs plead with lawmakers for funds Southwest sheriffs frustrated with federal efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border pleaded with Bush administration officials and lawmakers for funds to lessen the local burden of fighting drug trafficking and illegal immigration. “I think the sheriffs are frustrated that this is going kind of slow,” said Joe Pollock, president of the Sheriff's Association of Texas. “The local taxpayers don't have the money to afford it. The federal government does.” Pollock, sheriff of Burnet County, was joined by two dozen law enforcement officers representing 26 counties in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Tuesday's meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other Bush administration officials was arranged by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who have worked with the Southwest Border Sheriff's Coalition to fight crime and improve border security without impeding trade. It was the first time the coalition of sheriffs met with Chertoff. He has made numerous trips to the border to hear complaints first hand about the lack of funds. “It's important to hear some of their front-line observations,” Chertoff said....
The Corridor of Killing The killers wrapped the cop's head in silver duct tape, using a knife to plant a message in his chest. As a final touch, they left a hand grenade by the corpse--a calling card, of sorts. Three hours north, another group of killers hunted drug mules and migrant smugglers in the hills of Santa Cruz County. There was a heavy U.S. response--armored agents and Blackhawk helicopters descended on them near Sonoita. A group of five killers was found three days later--but yet another hit went down close to Pima County. It was calm for a few weeks; cops started thinking they may have finished the group off. Then the hunters killed again, this time near Green Valley. Federal agents say the two theaters of murder, one in Sonora, another in Arizona, are not related; the narcos are staying on their side of the border, while opportunistic thugs wreak havoc on the well-worn illegal trails in the desert of the Tumacacori Mountains. Then again, maybe they are related--tied together by the fact that they exist at all, a corridor of killing stretching from Sinaloa to Sonora and into Arizona. People familiar with the situation reveal an uncomfortable truth: Years of federal neglect of the Arizona border have compromised the line. Killings are spilling out of control, hit men moving in to fill the gaps left by American law enforcement....
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
EPA takes up Calif. plan to limit greenhouse gases The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday agreed to consider a California request to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, a plan that has been on hold for more than a year. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said the decision to take up California's request was a consequence of the April 2 Supreme Court ruling that found the agency has the power to treat climate-warming gases as pollutants and regulate them accordingly. Speaking at a Senate hearing on the impact of that ruling, Johnson declined to set out a timetable for action on the California petition. He said the process begins with a period of public notice and comment that includes a May 22 hearing in Washington. California has passed a state law that would require new vehicles to meet gradually tightening standards for greenhouse gas emissions starting with 2009 models. But to put that law into effect, California needs a waiver from the federal government, which is what the EPA is now considering....
Little Help for Watersheds in the West The West’s already stretched water supplies received no relief in March, as near-record high temperatures and below-normal precipitation wilted crucial watershed lands from the Pacific Northwest to the Sierra Nevada and the deserts of New Mexico. Mountain snows melted and evaporated away with the wind and heat, leaving places like the Salt River and Verde River Basins in central Arizona with only about 30 percent of their historic average spring runoff. Runoff from the Colorado River that feeds Lake Powell, the reservoir that straddles the Utah-Arizona border, was projected to come in at 53 percent of average. In the drought that began in 2000 across much of the West, (with 2005 being the odd, near-normal year) 2007 is promising no relief: better than some years, but with no clear turning of the corner, either. “We always like to be optimists, and we were, and then comes March,” said Kip White, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages dams and reservoirs in the West. Hydrologists say the dry heat of early spring this year echoed what happened last year. The snows were there, and then abruptly they were not. In the Southwest and in central Oregon, 30 percent of the snow pack — the crucial element for downstream water supply — melted in just that one month, according to a water supply report issued on Tuesday by the bureau....
ID elk rancher acquitted on misdemeanor A former eastern Idaho elk rancher has been acquitted on charges he poked a man in the eye and chin during an altercation last fall over elk. Rex Rammell was found not guilty of disturbing the peace Monday at the end of a daylong trial here in 7th District Court. "I'm happy with the outcome, but I never want to do this again," Rammell said. For Rammell, it's the second acquittal by a Fremont County jury in as many months in the wake of tussles with state wildlife officials and others after 120 elk escaped from his Chief Joseph hunting preserve near Ashton last year. After the animals fled, then-Gov. Jim Risch ordered an emergency hunt to reduce the chances they could spread inferior genes or disease to wild herds near Yellowstone National Park. Rammell has since filed a $1.3 million tort claim against the state, alleging it was negligent and capricious in its handling of the elk case. Rammell said a meeting with attorneys is scheduled this week to talk about a settlement in that case. Last month, Rammell was acquitted of obstructing an officer during the hunt of Rammell's lost elk last October....
Feds decide against protections for arctic grayling The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday decided against protecting the fluvial arctic grayling under the Endangered Species Act. Conservation groups called the decision "politically motivated" and said it could spell doom for the unusual, river-dwelling fish. Its numbers have been declining for years. "It's a species on the brink of extinction," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that pushed for federal protections. "They basically said that the existence of the grayling in the lower 48 states is not significant." An appeal by conservation groups is likely, he said. The ruling also raises questions about the future of a major conservation project in the Big Hole valley aimed at improving grayling habitat. Twenty-seven landowners controlling 130,000 acres have already enrolled, agreeing to improve their irrigation projects to help keep water in the Big Hole River, regional fisheries manager Bruce Rich said. In return, participating ranchers are assured they won't be saddled with other demands if the fish is listed....
Fee-for-all on public lands Amid all the hoopla, no one seemed interested in the whereabouts of recreation fee revenue collected from Sabino Canyon and Mount Lemmon visitors over the past decade. The Santa Catalina Ranger District office informed me that data on these and other allocated funds could not be made available in a timely fashion. I was not too surprised. Public lands advocates from around the country have been following the U.S. Forest Service's recreation fee program since its inception. I think most folks figure their fees at Sabino and Mount Lemmon are used for basic upkeep and to provide recreational opportunities. They'd be surprised to learn that the Forest Service is currently using $93 million of our fee money to "decommission" - i.e. close, gate, bulldoze or sell to private interests - thousands of Forest Service recreation sites that do not meet "full cost recovery" criteria. The fee program, it turns out, is about much more than trails, tram roads and toilet seats. It is a vehicle for transforming our Forest Service from a publicly supported public service agency into a business operation with corporate partners....
Senators advance fee for off-road vehicles on public land, roads State senators voted Tuesday to require owners of off-road vehicles to pay a new fee for the privilege of operating them anywhere on public lands or roads. HB 2443 would require off-road vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and off-road recreational vehicles to have a license issued by the state Department of Transportation. That would include "dirt bikes." The fee would be set by the agency, but is expected to cost no more than $25 a year, a figure legislative staffers estimate would bring in $6.8 million a year once fully implemented in 2009. The bill also would require those younger than 18 to have headgear that is properly fitted and fastened. All vehicles would need to have mufflers, spark arresters and, when operated on sand dunes, flags. And those operated from twilight to sun-up also would need headlights and taillights. The legislation also would make it a crime, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $500 fine, to drive off a marked trail in a way that damages wildlife habitat or natural resources....
Holden Village fees to Forest Service increase drastically Annual fees paid to the U.S. Forest Service by a north-central Washington Lutheran retreat will increase from about $700 to $50,000, due to a change in the way the federal agency assesses fees for camps. Holden Village has held a Forest Service permit since 1961 to operate the remote community for all faiths. The retreat sits above the western shore of Lake Chelan, in an old mining camp that is only accessible by boat or trail. In 2003, Congress passed the National Forest Organizational Camp Fee Improvement Act, charging all camps on national forest land 5 percent of their gross revenue. The act excluded camps that cater to youth or people with disabilities, Chelan District Ranger John Sheehan said. At Holden Village, the fee is being phased in over five years, and will reach about $50,000 next year, he said. Holden Village does not have regular phone service, but the village's co-director Carol Hinderlie wrote in an e-mail that the increase in fees "creates a severe hardship." Paul Haines, Holden Village's public works manager, wrote that the village will have to reduce operating costs, increase the amount of donations or increase charges to paying guests....
Mount Evans Fee Caught in Impasse The ever-escalating recreation fee program administered by the U.S. Forest Service (FS) is mired in controversy, and now, one of the most controversial fee programs of them all, the toll booth on the road to 14,126-foot Mount Evans, has become a flash point. The highway, the highest-elevation paved road in the United States, passes through the outstanding scenery of the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado, but it isn’t a FS road. The road, State Highway 5, is owned by the State of Colorado and built and maintained by Colorado taxpayers. In the mid-1990s, using the now-defunct Fee Demo program as its authority, the FS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and has been charging fees to everybody who drove, cycled or walked past the toll booth built in the middle of State Highway 5. That MOU expired “sometime in 2004,” according to Lori Denton of the Clear Creek Ranger District, which includes Mount Evans, and the FS is currently negotiating with CDOT to “update it.” The FS has continued to charge fees on Mount Evans for at least two years after the original MOU expired....
State of Colorado Takes Charge It’s amazing what a little sunlight can do! And how fast it can change things. Yesterday, I posted a long article about the impasse between the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) over signage of the controversial state highway to the top of 14,126-foot Mount Evans. Basically, the CDOT wanted a sign saying people did not have to pay a fee to drive on a state highway, but the FS refused to put it up, fearing that people would opt for a free trip. So, back at you, FS, says CDOT. We’ll put up our own signs. “CDOT is going to install signs instead of leaving it up to the USFS,” Jay Kramer, Region 1 right-of-way manager, notes in an email obtained by NewWest.net. “CDOT’s signs will go up as soon as possible, with our without a signed Memorandum of Understanding with the USFS.” The specific language of the sign will be: “No charge for travel on State Highway 5. Fees collected by USFS are only for those using amenities on USFS property.” According the FS spokesperson Donna Mickley, those “amenities” include only three sites--Summit Lake, Mount Goliath, and the Mount Evans Summit. This means visitors will be able to enjoy most of the Mount Evans road, using pull offs, parking at trailheads to go hiking without paying the fee....
Ecology lawsuit seeks to halt more drilling in forest Three environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service this week, hoping to block plans to expand oil and gas drilling in Ventura County's Los Padres National Forest. The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Los Padres ForestWatch, says additional drilling approved in 2005 would harm the forest, in particular the endangered California condor brought back from the brink of extinction at a sanctuary near Fillmore. The groups say the plan violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act because of potential damage to wildlife and deterioration of air and water quality, said John Buse of the Center for Biological Diversity. Oil and gas leases were expanded in July 2005 across 52,075 acres of the Los Padres near the Condor Sanctuary and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, two areas of condor habitat....
Bill has one-year more for timber payments to counties A $5 billion plan to extend payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging was left out of a massive spending bill agreed to by House and Senate negotiators. Democrats are preparing to send President Bush a $124 billion bill that pays for the war in Iraq but requires that troops begin pulling out if progress is not shown. The bill, which Bush has vowed to veto, includes $425 million for a one-year extension of the payments to timber counties, as well as $500 million to fight wildfires and $60 million for salmon fishers and tribes in Northern California and Oregon. But it does not include a Senate-approved plan to spend about $2.8 billion to continue the county payments law through 2011, and direct another $1.9 billion to rural states as part of a program to reimburse state and local governments for federally owned property. The failure to include the longer term solution drew fire from Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who said in a statement Tuesday that the "final county payment deal leaves rural Oregon out to dry."....
Forest Guardians threatens suit over grazing A Santa Fe environmental group is warning federal regulators it might sue over public livestock grazing on critical habitat. Forest Guardians says the U.S. Forest Service, which manages hundreds of grazing allotments in the Southwest, is violating the Endangered Species Act unless and until it consults with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding how the grazing management practices are adversely affecting the habitat of two protected fishes -- the spikedace and the loach minnow. Forest Guardians is pushing for a review of grazing on more than 520 miles of critical habitat for these two species. The critical habitat designation took effect quite recently, but the nonprofit wants to move quickly to curtail land use practices it says have hurt the fishes' habitat. The two fish used to swim throughout the Gila River system all the way into Mexico, but they are now limited to several counties north of the border because of human-caused habitat modifications, according to Forest Guardians....
Oil-shale idea back in play One week before the 25th anniversary of Black Sunday, ExxonMobil is showing renewed interest in oil shale and may begin conducting research on in situ oil shale extraction on private land at its long-defunct Colony Project site near Parachute. It was on Black Sunday, May 2, 1982, when the former Exxon Corp. shocked the Western Slope with the news it was shutting down the Colony Oil Shale Project, snuffing out the dreams and jobs of thousands of Coloradans. ExxonMobil, to which the Bureau of Land Management denied a Piceance Basin oil shale in situ, or “in place,” research and development lease last year, will be “doing some research and development with its own technology on its own land,” BLM Colorado Solid Minerals Chief Jim Edwards said Monday. Company officials didn’t give a timetable for ExxonMobil’s oil shale testing when it met with faculty at the Colorado School of Mines last year, but “it could be pretty fast,” Dr. Jeremy Boak, Project Manager of the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the School of Mines, said Tuesday. Boak said ExxonMobil’s in situ oil shale test “presumably” will be at the Colony Project site....
BLM approves more gas wells near Meeker More natural gas wells will be drilled in northwestern Colorado under a plan approved Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The BLM approved a proposal by ExxonMobil for 20 new well pads about 15 miles west of Meeker. Each well pad could have as many as nine wells, which would be drilled at different angles. The company also plans to build a new gas processing plant. The wells will be in an existing gas field under development since the 1950s. Steve Smith of The Wilderness Society said he believes drilling in an already developed area is the right approach. He added, though, that his group will continue to monitor the work because as many as 1,100 new wells could be drilled over the next several years....
Salazar bill addresses reuse of gas-well water Congressmen from Rocky Mountain states, including Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, have introduced legislation encouraging the recovery, treatment and reuse of water contaminated during the extraction of coal-bed methane gas. Currently, leftover "produced water" carries so many dissolved substances, including salts, that it's unsuitable for irrigation, drinking by livestock or wildlife or recreational purposes. An estimated 2 million gallons a day of "produced water" is pumped off coal beds or from oil fields for which there is little further use. Methane-gas producers extract water to free gas from coal seams. Most of that water is stored in deep wells. "The produced water is pumped into wells ranging around 4,000 feet," Walt Brown, a geologist with the San Juan Public Lands Center in Durango, said Monday. "The water must be pumped into formations where the quality of water is poorer than the quality of the produced water....
Interior creates Sand Creek historic site Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne signed the paperwork Monday to create the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, just days before its official dedication. The memorial marks the massacre of nearly 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians by at least 700 volunteers of a Colorado regiment in an early morning raid on Nov. 29, 1864. Many of those killed in the unprovoked attack were elderly, women and children. Plans for the historic site in Kiowa County, on the plains 180 miles southeast of Denver, have been in the works for about a decade. Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, had proposed establishing the memorial. Campbell will join National Park Service Director Mary Bomar, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and descendants of those massacred during a dedication ceremony Saturday....
Luthi removes self from wolf issue Randall Luthi, a former Wyoming state House speaker who was recently appointed to the No. 2 spot at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he will not be involved in the dispute between Wyoming and the federal agency over wolves. Federal conflict of interest law prohibits him from working with the state of Wyoming, Luthi said Saturday at a Sheridan County Republican Party gathering. Wyoming has lawsuits pending against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over management of wolves and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. The federal agency is in charge of enforcing the Endangered Species Act. Luthi, from Freedom, was appointed by President Bush to the Fish and Wildlife deputy director's post in February. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 547 refuges across the country and controls more land than the National Park Service, Luthi noted at the GOP gathering....
Trouble in paradise over development plans Rancho Murieta is an anomaly in southeastern Sacramento County -- a gated island of clipped golf courses, man-made lakes and stucco houses surrounded by miles of open ranch land. Such a far-flung development "would never be approved today," said local land use lawyer John Taylor. Rancho Murieta is miles outside the urban growth boundary adopted by the county in 1993. But in the early 1970s, when building started on the land off Jackson Road, there was no growth boundary, and Rancho Murieta was billed in sales brochures as a resort-style community for people who wanted to get away from it all. Nearly four decades later, developers and Rancho Murieta residents are locked in a furious fight over the county's original vision for Rancho Murieta, and whether 1,800 new homes would fulfill it or violate it....
Editorial - Natural disorder It's supposed to be part of the natural order of things: Sea lions eat salmon. Lots of salmon. Unfortunately, the natural order gets skewed in the Columbia River when an overabundance of sea lions meets a run of salmon in the waters below Bonneville Dam. As the prized fish mill around prior to entering fish ladders, they're little more than a salmon buffet for the always-hungry mammals. Well-intentioned, and obviously effective, efforts to protect the once-threatened sea lion population have led to a sharp increase in their numbers and a major menace to still-threatened salmon. Now it's time to reverse the order and start reducing the sea lion population, resorting to lethal means on a limited basis to bring it back to manageable levels. Nonlethal methods are not working. Sea lions below Bonneville Dam have been blasted with rubber buckshot, chased by boats, harassed by firecrackers and rockets and subjected to noise from underwater speakers. None has deterred them....
Montana may nix grizzly monitoring program Montana is poised to end its grizzly bear monitoring program in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem at the year's end unless federal agencies pitch in, state wildlife officials said Tuesday. The decision was announced at a meeting of state and federal officials in charge of grizzly bear management and recovery in the ecosystem _ which includes Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and surrounding lands. The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department has run out of money to continue the program, which involves as many as 25 collared female grizzly bears on 6 million acres, said Jim Satterfield, a regional FWP administrator in Kalispell. "This is not a bluff," he said. "Without federal partners, we're done with this project. We can't afford it." The monitoring effort costs about $250,000 a year, but a memo from Wildlife Division Administrator Ken McDonald states that money for the program has been exhausted, other than funds for the program leader's salary. If monitoring does not continue, grizzlies in northwestern Montana have "zero chance" of being removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, Satterfield said program leader Rick Mace told the panel....
Dam's removal will have to wait The long road to dam removal on the Elwha River just got longer: Work may not even begin on the country's largest dam demolition until 2012, instead of 2009, as had been expected. The National Park Service now says that two water projects associated with the dam takedown may take as long as five years to complete. That pushes back the start date on dam removal, said Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for Olympic National Park. Two new water-treatment plants must be built to provide clean water for Port Angeles, a paper mill and two fish hatcheries....
U.S. canal project raises tensions with Mexico For decades, Mexican farmers and U.S. consumers have shared water from one of the world's largest irrigation canals running along part of the parched California-Mexico border. But a court decision that allows U.S. authorities to stop up the cracks and save water for thirsty farms and sprawling subdivisions in southern California is raising tensions in the borderlands. The ruling by a court in San Francisco earlier this month approved a plan to reline part of the All-American Canal with concrete, stopping accidental run-off from the waterway that has benefited Mexican farmers since it opened in 1942. The court ordered the refurbishment of around a quarter of the 82-mile (132-km) conduit to proceed "without delay," in an overhaul that is set to take up to two years to complete at a cost of some $250 million. The San Diego County Water Authority says the project is needed to recover some 22 billion gallons (83.5 million cubic meters) of water lost through the leaky canal bed each year that local consumers in the water-strapped area have already been billed for....
Column - Texas Chainsaw Management The verdict of history sometimes takes centuries. The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation's environmental steward has already been written in stone. No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries. Assaulting the environment across a broad front, the Bush administration has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy. After years of denial, the president recently acknowledged the potentially catastrophic threat of global warming, but the words have no more meaning than the promise to rebuild New Orleans "better than ever." Most insidiously, the president has put representatives of polluting industries or environmental skeptics in charge of virtually all the agencies responsible for protecting America from pollution. Some egregious officials are now gone, often returning to the private sector whose interests they served. But the administrators who remain in place continue to carry the torch—people such as Mark Rey, a timber-industry lobbyist appointed to oversee the U.S. Forest Service; Rejane "Johnnie" Burton, at Interior, a former oil-and-gas-company executive in Wyoming, who has failed to collect billions on leases from oil companies active in the Gulf of Mexico; and Elizabeth Stolpe, a former lobbyist for one of the nation's worst polluters, Koch Industries, who is an associate director (for toxics and environmental protection) at the White House Council on Environmental Quality....
F.D.A. Says Livestock Were Fed Pet Food With Suspect Chemical Melamine, the chemical suspected in the deaths of pets around the country, was in food given to hogs and chickens in several states, and the Food and Drug Administration is trying to determine if the animals entered the human food supply, F.D.A. officials said Tuesday. Several thousand hogs have been quarantined and are being tested. The affected farms are in California, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and possibly Ohio. A poultry farm in Missouri is also under investigation. Hog urine has tested positive for melamine in several of those states after it was determined that the animals ate salvaged pet food that originated in factories that produced the tainted food. It is common in the United States to take pet food that does not meet quality standards and reconstitute it into livestock feed, Stephen Sundlof, the F.D.A.’s chief veterinarian, said in a conference call with reporters. The food and drug agency, which is already testing wheat gluten and rice protein for melamine, the chemical used to make plastic utensils and as a fertilizer in other countries, said Tuesday that as a precaution, it was expanding testing of imported ingredients and finished products that contain cornmeal, soy protein, rice bran and corn gluten. Those ingredients can be used to make many products, including breads, pastas, pizza dough, baby formulas, protein shakes and energy bars....
Woman keeps goat in minivan Shirley Weidt says people should stop complaining about the goat in her minivan. After all, there's plenty of room in the ba-a-a-ack with the seats removed. Despite protests from some residents, city animal control officer Ray Buhr said Weidt isn't violating any laws or treating the animal cruelly. "The van is kept clean," Buhr said. "We've checked several times. There's really nothing in ordinances or state statutes that says she can't do that. The goat is entirely happy in there." Weidt said it's "nobody's business" if she keeps her goat in a van. The goat is in the van so it won't escape, she said. Beverly Saxton, who lives near property Weidt owns, thinks keeping the goat in the minivan is cruel....
A Lawyer and an Ass Walk Into a Courtroom After a Preston Hollow, Texas, neighbor complained that his son's pet donkey was a loud nuisance, Dallas lawyer C. Gregory Shamoun brought the donkey, known as Buddy, into a courtroom on Wednesday to attempt to prove to a jury that the burro's not. "I wanted the jury to see Buddy," Shamoun, a partner in Shamoun Klatsky Norman, says. "This is a very, very wonderful animal." Questions about Buddy's behavior arose in a justice-of-the-peace court suit Shamoun filed against his neighbor, John Cantrell, in which Shamoun alleges Cantrell assaulted him. Cantrell also alleged in the answer and counterclaim that Shamoun intentionally interfered with his enjoyment of his property by allowing a burro and a calf to roam freely in Shamoun's backyard. Cantrell alleges the burro -- Buddy -- was noisy at night. Cantrell "further alleges that Mr. Shamoun rented, hired, or otherwise acquired the aforementioned animals with the express purpose of harassing Mr. Cantrell." When the suit went to trial on Wednesday, Buddy was the first witness....
EPA takes up Calif. plan to limit greenhouse gases The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday agreed to consider a California request to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, a plan that has been on hold for more than a year. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said the decision to take up California's request was a consequence of the April 2 Supreme Court ruling that found the agency has the power to treat climate-warming gases as pollutants and regulate them accordingly. Speaking at a Senate hearing on the impact of that ruling, Johnson declined to set out a timetable for action on the California petition. He said the process begins with a period of public notice and comment that includes a May 22 hearing in Washington. California has passed a state law that would require new vehicles to meet gradually tightening standards for greenhouse gas emissions starting with 2009 models. But to put that law into effect, California needs a waiver from the federal government, which is what the EPA is now considering....
Little Help for Watersheds in the West The West’s already stretched water supplies received no relief in March, as near-record high temperatures and below-normal precipitation wilted crucial watershed lands from the Pacific Northwest to the Sierra Nevada and the deserts of New Mexico. Mountain snows melted and evaporated away with the wind and heat, leaving places like the Salt River and Verde River Basins in central Arizona with only about 30 percent of their historic average spring runoff. Runoff from the Colorado River that feeds Lake Powell, the reservoir that straddles the Utah-Arizona border, was projected to come in at 53 percent of average. In the drought that began in 2000 across much of the West, (with 2005 being the odd, near-normal year) 2007 is promising no relief: better than some years, but with no clear turning of the corner, either. “We always like to be optimists, and we were, and then comes March,” said Kip White, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages dams and reservoirs in the West. Hydrologists say the dry heat of early spring this year echoed what happened last year. The snows were there, and then abruptly they were not. In the Southwest and in central Oregon, 30 percent of the snow pack — the crucial element for downstream water supply — melted in just that one month, according to a water supply report issued on Tuesday by the bureau....
ID elk rancher acquitted on misdemeanor A former eastern Idaho elk rancher has been acquitted on charges he poked a man in the eye and chin during an altercation last fall over elk. Rex Rammell was found not guilty of disturbing the peace Monday at the end of a daylong trial here in 7th District Court. "I'm happy with the outcome, but I never want to do this again," Rammell said. For Rammell, it's the second acquittal by a Fremont County jury in as many months in the wake of tussles with state wildlife officials and others after 120 elk escaped from his Chief Joseph hunting preserve near Ashton last year. After the animals fled, then-Gov. Jim Risch ordered an emergency hunt to reduce the chances they could spread inferior genes or disease to wild herds near Yellowstone National Park. Rammell has since filed a $1.3 million tort claim against the state, alleging it was negligent and capricious in its handling of the elk case. Rammell said a meeting with attorneys is scheduled this week to talk about a settlement in that case. Last month, Rammell was acquitted of obstructing an officer during the hunt of Rammell's lost elk last October....
Feds decide against protections for arctic grayling The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday decided against protecting the fluvial arctic grayling under the Endangered Species Act. Conservation groups called the decision "politically motivated" and said it could spell doom for the unusual, river-dwelling fish. Its numbers have been declining for years. "It's a species on the brink of extinction," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that pushed for federal protections. "They basically said that the existence of the grayling in the lower 48 states is not significant." An appeal by conservation groups is likely, he said. The ruling also raises questions about the future of a major conservation project in the Big Hole valley aimed at improving grayling habitat. Twenty-seven landowners controlling 130,000 acres have already enrolled, agreeing to improve their irrigation projects to help keep water in the Big Hole River, regional fisheries manager Bruce Rich said. In return, participating ranchers are assured they won't be saddled with other demands if the fish is listed....
Fee-for-all on public lands Amid all the hoopla, no one seemed interested in the whereabouts of recreation fee revenue collected from Sabino Canyon and Mount Lemmon visitors over the past decade. The Santa Catalina Ranger District office informed me that data on these and other allocated funds could not be made available in a timely fashion. I was not too surprised. Public lands advocates from around the country have been following the U.S. Forest Service's recreation fee program since its inception. I think most folks figure their fees at Sabino and Mount Lemmon are used for basic upkeep and to provide recreational opportunities. They'd be surprised to learn that the Forest Service is currently using $93 million of our fee money to "decommission" - i.e. close, gate, bulldoze or sell to private interests - thousands of Forest Service recreation sites that do not meet "full cost recovery" criteria. The fee program, it turns out, is about much more than trails, tram roads and toilet seats. It is a vehicle for transforming our Forest Service from a publicly supported public service agency into a business operation with corporate partners....
Senators advance fee for off-road vehicles on public land, roads State senators voted Tuesday to require owners of off-road vehicles to pay a new fee for the privilege of operating them anywhere on public lands or roads. HB 2443 would require off-road vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and off-road recreational vehicles to have a license issued by the state Department of Transportation. That would include "dirt bikes." The fee would be set by the agency, but is expected to cost no more than $25 a year, a figure legislative staffers estimate would bring in $6.8 million a year once fully implemented in 2009. The bill also would require those younger than 18 to have headgear that is properly fitted and fastened. All vehicles would need to have mufflers, spark arresters and, when operated on sand dunes, flags. And those operated from twilight to sun-up also would need headlights and taillights. The legislation also would make it a crime, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $500 fine, to drive off a marked trail in a way that damages wildlife habitat or natural resources....
Holden Village fees to Forest Service increase drastically Annual fees paid to the U.S. Forest Service by a north-central Washington Lutheran retreat will increase from about $700 to $50,000, due to a change in the way the federal agency assesses fees for camps. Holden Village has held a Forest Service permit since 1961 to operate the remote community for all faiths. The retreat sits above the western shore of Lake Chelan, in an old mining camp that is only accessible by boat or trail. In 2003, Congress passed the National Forest Organizational Camp Fee Improvement Act, charging all camps on national forest land 5 percent of their gross revenue. The act excluded camps that cater to youth or people with disabilities, Chelan District Ranger John Sheehan said. At Holden Village, the fee is being phased in over five years, and will reach about $50,000 next year, he said. Holden Village does not have regular phone service, but the village's co-director Carol Hinderlie wrote in an e-mail that the increase in fees "creates a severe hardship." Paul Haines, Holden Village's public works manager, wrote that the village will have to reduce operating costs, increase the amount of donations or increase charges to paying guests....
Mount Evans Fee Caught in Impasse The ever-escalating recreation fee program administered by the U.S. Forest Service (FS) is mired in controversy, and now, one of the most controversial fee programs of them all, the toll booth on the road to 14,126-foot Mount Evans, has become a flash point. The highway, the highest-elevation paved road in the United States, passes through the outstanding scenery of the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado, but it isn’t a FS road. The road, State Highway 5, is owned by the State of Colorado and built and maintained by Colorado taxpayers. In the mid-1990s, using the now-defunct Fee Demo program as its authority, the FS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and has been charging fees to everybody who drove, cycled or walked past the toll booth built in the middle of State Highway 5. That MOU expired “sometime in 2004,” according to Lori Denton of the Clear Creek Ranger District, which includes Mount Evans, and the FS is currently negotiating with CDOT to “update it.” The FS has continued to charge fees on Mount Evans for at least two years after the original MOU expired....
State of Colorado Takes Charge It’s amazing what a little sunlight can do! And how fast it can change things. Yesterday, I posted a long article about the impasse between the U.S. Forest Service (FS) and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) over signage of the controversial state highway to the top of 14,126-foot Mount Evans. Basically, the CDOT wanted a sign saying people did not have to pay a fee to drive on a state highway, but the FS refused to put it up, fearing that people would opt for a free trip. So, back at you, FS, says CDOT. We’ll put up our own signs. “CDOT is going to install signs instead of leaving it up to the USFS,” Jay Kramer, Region 1 right-of-way manager, notes in an email obtained by NewWest.net. “CDOT’s signs will go up as soon as possible, with our without a signed Memorandum of Understanding with the USFS.” The specific language of the sign will be: “No charge for travel on State Highway 5. Fees collected by USFS are only for those using amenities on USFS property.” According the FS spokesperson Donna Mickley, those “amenities” include only three sites--Summit Lake, Mount Goliath, and the Mount Evans Summit. This means visitors will be able to enjoy most of the Mount Evans road, using pull offs, parking at trailheads to go hiking without paying the fee....
Ecology lawsuit seeks to halt more drilling in forest Three environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service this week, hoping to block plans to expand oil and gas drilling in Ventura County's Los Padres National Forest. The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Los Padres ForestWatch, says additional drilling approved in 2005 would harm the forest, in particular the endangered California condor brought back from the brink of extinction at a sanctuary near Fillmore. The groups say the plan violates the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act because of potential damage to wildlife and deterioration of air and water quality, said John Buse of the Center for Biological Diversity. Oil and gas leases were expanded in July 2005 across 52,075 acres of the Los Padres near the Condor Sanctuary and the Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, two areas of condor habitat....
Bill has one-year more for timber payments to counties A $5 billion plan to extend payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging was left out of a massive spending bill agreed to by House and Senate negotiators. Democrats are preparing to send President Bush a $124 billion bill that pays for the war in Iraq but requires that troops begin pulling out if progress is not shown. The bill, which Bush has vowed to veto, includes $425 million for a one-year extension of the payments to timber counties, as well as $500 million to fight wildfires and $60 million for salmon fishers and tribes in Northern California and Oregon. But it does not include a Senate-approved plan to spend about $2.8 billion to continue the county payments law through 2011, and direct another $1.9 billion to rural states as part of a program to reimburse state and local governments for federally owned property. The failure to include the longer term solution drew fire from Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who said in a statement Tuesday that the "final county payment deal leaves rural Oregon out to dry."....
Forest Guardians threatens suit over grazing A Santa Fe environmental group is warning federal regulators it might sue over public livestock grazing on critical habitat. Forest Guardians says the U.S. Forest Service, which manages hundreds of grazing allotments in the Southwest, is violating the Endangered Species Act unless and until it consults with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding how the grazing management practices are adversely affecting the habitat of two protected fishes -- the spikedace and the loach minnow. Forest Guardians is pushing for a review of grazing on more than 520 miles of critical habitat for these two species. The critical habitat designation took effect quite recently, but the nonprofit wants to move quickly to curtail land use practices it says have hurt the fishes' habitat. The two fish used to swim throughout the Gila River system all the way into Mexico, but they are now limited to several counties north of the border because of human-caused habitat modifications, according to Forest Guardians....
Oil-shale idea back in play One week before the 25th anniversary of Black Sunday, ExxonMobil is showing renewed interest in oil shale and may begin conducting research on in situ oil shale extraction on private land at its long-defunct Colony Project site near Parachute. It was on Black Sunday, May 2, 1982, when the former Exxon Corp. shocked the Western Slope with the news it was shutting down the Colony Oil Shale Project, snuffing out the dreams and jobs of thousands of Coloradans. ExxonMobil, to which the Bureau of Land Management denied a Piceance Basin oil shale in situ, or “in place,” research and development lease last year, will be “doing some research and development with its own technology on its own land,” BLM Colorado Solid Minerals Chief Jim Edwards said Monday. Company officials didn’t give a timetable for ExxonMobil’s oil shale testing when it met with faculty at the Colorado School of Mines last year, but “it could be pretty fast,” Dr. Jeremy Boak, Project Manager of the Colorado Energy Research Institute at the School of Mines, said Tuesday. Boak said ExxonMobil’s in situ oil shale test “presumably” will be at the Colony Project site....
BLM approves more gas wells near Meeker More natural gas wells will be drilled in northwestern Colorado under a plan approved Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The BLM approved a proposal by ExxonMobil for 20 new well pads about 15 miles west of Meeker. Each well pad could have as many as nine wells, which would be drilled at different angles. The company also plans to build a new gas processing plant. The wells will be in an existing gas field under development since the 1950s. Steve Smith of The Wilderness Society said he believes drilling in an already developed area is the right approach. He added, though, that his group will continue to monitor the work because as many as 1,100 new wells could be drilled over the next several years....
Salazar bill addresses reuse of gas-well water Congressmen from Rocky Mountain states, including Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, have introduced legislation encouraging the recovery, treatment and reuse of water contaminated during the extraction of coal-bed methane gas. Currently, leftover "produced water" carries so many dissolved substances, including salts, that it's unsuitable for irrigation, drinking by livestock or wildlife or recreational purposes. An estimated 2 million gallons a day of "produced water" is pumped off coal beds or from oil fields for which there is little further use. Methane-gas producers extract water to free gas from coal seams. Most of that water is stored in deep wells. "The produced water is pumped into wells ranging around 4,000 feet," Walt Brown, a geologist with the San Juan Public Lands Center in Durango, said Monday. "The water must be pumped into formations where the quality of water is poorer than the quality of the produced water....
Interior creates Sand Creek historic site Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne signed the paperwork Monday to create the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, just days before its official dedication. The memorial marks the massacre of nearly 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians by at least 700 volunteers of a Colorado regiment in an early morning raid on Nov. 29, 1864. Many of those killed in the unprovoked attack were elderly, women and children. Plans for the historic site in Kiowa County, on the plains 180 miles southeast of Denver, have been in the works for about a decade. Former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, had proposed establishing the memorial. Campbell will join National Park Service Director Mary Bomar, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and descendants of those massacred during a dedication ceremony Saturday....
Luthi removes self from wolf issue Randall Luthi, a former Wyoming state House speaker who was recently appointed to the No. 2 spot at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he will not be involved in the dispute between Wyoming and the federal agency over wolves. Federal conflict of interest law prohibits him from working with the state of Wyoming, Luthi said Saturday at a Sheridan County Republican Party gathering. Wyoming has lawsuits pending against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over management of wolves and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. The federal agency is in charge of enforcing the Endangered Species Act. Luthi, from Freedom, was appointed by President Bush to the Fish and Wildlife deputy director's post in February. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 547 refuges across the country and controls more land than the National Park Service, Luthi noted at the GOP gathering....
Trouble in paradise over development plans Rancho Murieta is an anomaly in southeastern Sacramento County -- a gated island of clipped golf courses, man-made lakes and stucco houses surrounded by miles of open ranch land. Such a far-flung development "would never be approved today," said local land use lawyer John Taylor. Rancho Murieta is miles outside the urban growth boundary adopted by the county in 1993. But in the early 1970s, when building started on the land off Jackson Road, there was no growth boundary, and Rancho Murieta was billed in sales brochures as a resort-style community for people who wanted to get away from it all. Nearly four decades later, developers and Rancho Murieta residents are locked in a furious fight over the county's original vision for Rancho Murieta, and whether 1,800 new homes would fulfill it or violate it....
Editorial - Natural disorder It's supposed to be part of the natural order of things: Sea lions eat salmon. Lots of salmon. Unfortunately, the natural order gets skewed in the Columbia River when an overabundance of sea lions meets a run of salmon in the waters below Bonneville Dam. As the prized fish mill around prior to entering fish ladders, they're little more than a salmon buffet for the always-hungry mammals. Well-intentioned, and obviously effective, efforts to protect the once-threatened sea lion population have led to a sharp increase in their numbers and a major menace to still-threatened salmon. Now it's time to reverse the order and start reducing the sea lion population, resorting to lethal means on a limited basis to bring it back to manageable levels. Nonlethal methods are not working. Sea lions below Bonneville Dam have been blasted with rubber buckshot, chased by boats, harassed by firecrackers and rockets and subjected to noise from underwater speakers. None has deterred them....
Montana may nix grizzly monitoring program Montana is poised to end its grizzly bear monitoring program in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem at the year's end unless federal agencies pitch in, state wildlife officials said Tuesday. The decision was announced at a meeting of state and federal officials in charge of grizzly bear management and recovery in the ecosystem _ which includes Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and surrounding lands. The state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department has run out of money to continue the program, which involves as many as 25 collared female grizzly bears on 6 million acres, said Jim Satterfield, a regional FWP administrator in Kalispell. "This is not a bluff," he said. "Without federal partners, we're done with this project. We can't afford it." The monitoring effort costs about $250,000 a year, but a memo from Wildlife Division Administrator Ken McDonald states that money for the program has been exhausted, other than funds for the program leader's salary. If monitoring does not continue, grizzlies in northwestern Montana have "zero chance" of being removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, Satterfield said program leader Rick Mace told the panel....
Dam's removal will have to wait The long road to dam removal on the Elwha River just got longer: Work may not even begin on the country's largest dam demolition until 2012, instead of 2009, as had been expected. The National Park Service now says that two water projects associated with the dam takedown may take as long as five years to complete. That pushes back the start date on dam removal, said Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for Olympic National Park. Two new water-treatment plants must be built to provide clean water for Port Angeles, a paper mill and two fish hatcheries....
U.S. canal project raises tensions with Mexico For decades, Mexican farmers and U.S. consumers have shared water from one of the world's largest irrigation canals running along part of the parched California-Mexico border. But a court decision that allows U.S. authorities to stop up the cracks and save water for thirsty farms and sprawling subdivisions in southern California is raising tensions in the borderlands. The ruling by a court in San Francisco earlier this month approved a plan to reline part of the All-American Canal with concrete, stopping accidental run-off from the waterway that has benefited Mexican farmers since it opened in 1942. The court ordered the refurbishment of around a quarter of the 82-mile (132-km) conduit to proceed "without delay," in an overhaul that is set to take up to two years to complete at a cost of some $250 million. The San Diego County Water Authority says the project is needed to recover some 22 billion gallons (83.5 million cubic meters) of water lost through the leaky canal bed each year that local consumers in the water-strapped area have already been billed for....
Column - Texas Chainsaw Management The verdict of history sometimes takes centuries. The verdict on George W. Bush as the nation's environmental steward has already been written in stone. No president has mounted a more sustained and deliberate assault on the nation's environment. No president has acted with more solicitude toward polluting industries. Assaulting the environment across a broad front, the Bush administration has promoted and implemented more than 400 measures that eviscerate 30 years of environmental policy. After years of denial, the president recently acknowledged the potentially catastrophic threat of global warming, but the words have no more meaning than the promise to rebuild New Orleans "better than ever." Most insidiously, the president has put representatives of polluting industries or environmental skeptics in charge of virtually all the agencies responsible for protecting America from pollution. Some egregious officials are now gone, often returning to the private sector whose interests they served. But the administrators who remain in place continue to carry the torch—people such as Mark Rey, a timber-industry lobbyist appointed to oversee the U.S. Forest Service; Rejane "Johnnie" Burton, at Interior, a former oil-and-gas-company executive in Wyoming, who has failed to collect billions on leases from oil companies active in the Gulf of Mexico; and Elizabeth Stolpe, a former lobbyist for one of the nation's worst polluters, Koch Industries, who is an associate director (for toxics and environmental protection) at the White House Council on Environmental Quality....
F.D.A. Says Livestock Were Fed Pet Food With Suspect Chemical Melamine, the chemical suspected in the deaths of pets around the country, was in food given to hogs and chickens in several states, and the Food and Drug Administration is trying to determine if the animals entered the human food supply, F.D.A. officials said Tuesday. Several thousand hogs have been quarantined and are being tested. The affected farms are in California, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and possibly Ohio. A poultry farm in Missouri is also under investigation. Hog urine has tested positive for melamine in several of those states after it was determined that the animals ate salvaged pet food that originated in factories that produced the tainted food. It is common in the United States to take pet food that does not meet quality standards and reconstitute it into livestock feed, Stephen Sundlof, the F.D.A.’s chief veterinarian, said in a conference call with reporters. The food and drug agency, which is already testing wheat gluten and rice protein for melamine, the chemical used to make plastic utensils and as a fertilizer in other countries, said Tuesday that as a precaution, it was expanding testing of imported ingredients and finished products that contain cornmeal, soy protein, rice bran and corn gluten. Those ingredients can be used to make many products, including breads, pastas, pizza dough, baby formulas, protein shakes and energy bars....
Woman keeps goat in minivan Shirley Weidt says people should stop complaining about the goat in her minivan. After all, there's plenty of room in the ba-a-a-ack with the seats removed. Despite protests from some residents, city animal control officer Ray Buhr said Weidt isn't violating any laws or treating the animal cruelly. "The van is kept clean," Buhr said. "We've checked several times. There's really nothing in ordinances or state statutes that says she can't do that. The goat is entirely happy in there." Weidt said it's "nobody's business" if she keeps her goat in a van. The goat is in the van so it won't escape, she said. Beverly Saxton, who lives near property Weidt owns, thinks keeping the goat in the minivan is cruel....
A Lawyer and an Ass Walk Into a Courtroom After a Preston Hollow, Texas, neighbor complained that his son's pet donkey was a loud nuisance, Dallas lawyer C. Gregory Shamoun brought the donkey, known as Buddy, into a courtroom on Wednesday to attempt to prove to a jury that the burro's not. "I wanted the jury to see Buddy," Shamoun, a partner in Shamoun Klatsky Norman, says. "This is a very, very wonderful animal." Questions about Buddy's behavior arose in a justice-of-the-peace court suit Shamoun filed against his neighbor, John Cantrell, in which Shamoun alleges Cantrell assaulted him. Cantrell also alleged in the answer and counterclaim that Shamoun intentionally interfered with his enjoyment of his property by allowing a burro and a calf to roam freely in Shamoun's backyard. Cantrell alleges the burro -- Buddy -- was noisy at night. Cantrell "further alleges that Mr. Shamoun rented, hired, or otherwise acquired the aforementioned animals with the express purpose of harassing Mr. Cantrell." When the suit went to trial on Wednesday, Buddy was the first witness....
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Editorial - Colorado vs. the Army The legislature overwhelmingly passed a measure designed to thwart the Army's plan to nearly triple the size of its training site in southeastern Colorado. Now it's up to Gov. Bill Ritter to send a message to Washington by signing the bill quickly and enthusiastically. He hasn't had much to say on the issue up to this point. Unfortunately, neither have most members of the congressional delegation. They seem to be hunkered down, wishing the problem would go away. Some have deplored the prospect of condemning ranches, to be sure, but only one - Rep. Marilyn Musgrave - has taken the obvious next step of flatly opposing the Army's goal. The 238,000-acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 30 miles northeast of Trinidad, was acquired by the Army during the early 1980s, largely through eminent domain. Now the Army wants to add 418,500 contiguous acres, claiming that modern warfare requires more room for maneuvering. Although some of the territory is part of the Comanche National Grassland, under Forest Service jurisdiction, much of it is in private hands and could not be obtained except by using, once again, condemnation. House Bill 1069 withdraws the consent of the legislature to federal acquisition of the land. Such consent is seemingly required by article I, Section 8(17) of the U.S. Constitution. But there's little case law on the issue and it's by no means certain the courts would stop a federal land takeover if the legislature withheld consent. At least as important as the law itself is the state's stand on the issue, as expressed by its public officials. Strong opposition might stop the Army before it started....
Bill would designate vast area wilderness Two East Coast lawmakers introduced a bill Friday with 73 co-sponsors that would designate as wilderness 23 million public acres in five northern Rocky Mountain states, including Montana and Wyoming. Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Christopher Shays, R-Conn., wrote the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. It would give the government's strongest protections to areas of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. They announced the measure along with singer-songwriter Carole King. Three co-sponsors are from Washington and three from Oregon. Both Montana and Wyoming's representatives condemned the bill and vowed to fight it. Similar measures have been introduced in several previous sessions of Congress. But this time, the chairmen of the House Natural Resources Committee and the relevant subcommittee have both signed on as sponsors of the bill. A panel spokeswoman said the committee is reviewing the legislation now and may hold hearings on it, although there are no immediate plans. The bill would designate as wilderness all 20 million acres of inventoried roadless lands in the Western states and another 3 million acres in Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. It includes 7 million acres in Montana and 5 million in Wyoming....
Prairie dog poisoning draws fire A proposal to allow more flexibility, including poisoning, to control prairie dogs on the Thunder Basin National Grassland as part of a plan to transplant black-footed ferrets is inexcusable, according to several conservation groups. Prairie dog poisoning has ramifications to other wildlife that depend on the animals for food, said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. U.S. Forest Service officials and some grassland ranchers contend otherwise. Poisoning would be one tool among many in a collaborative effort to maintain prairie dogs, ensure strong chances of success in a ferret reintroduction, and preserve native ecosystems, they said. The hope is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will transplant about 35 four-member black-footed ferret families to the grassland. At the same time, in an attempt to win ranchers' support for the project, the Forest Service is proposing an amendment to the grassland management plan that would allow some poisoning of prairie dogs to control populations, if needed....
Governor kills proposed water rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Monday rejected rule changes adopted by a state citizen board that would have regulated effects of coalbed methane water on soil, vegetation and landowners. Freudenthal said the Environmental Quality Council exceeded its authority in adopting the rules. The governor must approve any rule changes by the council for them to become law. "I believe these proposed rules reach beyond the statutory authority of the Environmental Quality Act and invite the Department of Environmental Quality to regulate water quantity discharge, not as a coincidence of achieving water quality result, but as a simple matter of reducing the amount of discharge for its own sake," the governor said in a letter to council chairman Richard Moore. Water produced from coalbed methane wells has become an issue in the state, especially in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming. The water is pumped to the surface in order to capture the methane. Some landowners find the water beneficial for irrigating crops or watering livestock. But others complain that the water damages their land either because there is too much or because of salt and other chemicals in it....
Gunnison water users fear loss of resource A recent filing by the state’s attorney general has prompted controversy among water users in the upper basin of the Gunnison River. The filing objects to stipulations protecting the water rights of ranchers and other users from the government’s reserved water right for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. “I was astounded to see it,” said John McClow, attorney for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District. “At the moment, there’s no quantification of water right decreed to the Black Canyon, so (it’s) not an active water right; today nothing is going to happen.” However, he said that if there is a shortage and a call is made on the Gunnison River, 75 percent of irrigation water could be lost. In 2001, the federal government filed to quantify the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park’s water right in Montrose water court. In 2003, 22 stipulations were accepted by the water court protecting those water users from a call, should the Black Canyon’s right be quantified. The objection, filed April 16 on behalf of state and division engineers, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the state Division of Wildlife, could result in a negation of that protection....
Farm group angry over Richardson veto of water-rights bill New Mexico's largest farm and ranch group is upset over Gov. Bill Richardson's veto of a measure that would have let eastern New Mexico farmers keep their land after selling the land's water rights to the state. Supporters of the bill contend the veto could jeopardize New Mexico's ability to meet water obligations to Texas under the Pecos River Compact and even lead to a priority call on the river _ a drastic measure that would cut off some users. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, R-Roswell, was pocket vetoed _ meaning it died because the governor did not sign it by this month's deadline for acting on legislation from the 60-day session. The measure was related to a 2003 settlement between the state engineer, the Carlsbad Irrigation District, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District that resolved long-standing litigation over water rights....
Simpson Named to Natural Resources & Environment Post Melissa M. Simpson has been appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA. As deputy under secretary, Simpson will be responsible for policy relating to the programs of the USDA's Forest Service. "Melissa brings to this position extensive experience in public lands policy including forest management, wildfire, energy, wildlife, water, grazing and recreation issues," said Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey. "Her understanding and appreciation of these issues will serve USDA well as we proceed with the development and implementation of a new farm bill." Simpson most recently served as counselor to Rey. Prior to her appointment, she was counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior. From 2003 to 2005 she served as Deputy Director for External and Intergovernmental Affairs to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, where she worked with senior policy officials and stakeholders on a wide variety of natural resources issues involving conservation and management of public lands....
Man Whose Dog Was Poisoned Seeks $100,000 A Utah man is seeking $100,000 from the federal government after his 2-year-old dog died from exposure to cyanide gas. Jenna died in February 2006 after setting off a trap meant for livestock predators while hunting for rabbits with owner Sam Pollock on federal land in eastern Utah. "The more I can do to get this out there to let people know these things are out there, the better chance we have of getting these things off public land altogether," Pollock said Monday. The sodium cyanide trap, called an M-44, is intended to attract livestock predators, such as coyotes. Small metal tubes stick out of the ground, about a thumb's length, and shoot a pellet. An investigation by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food conducted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the M-44 was placed along a "utility trail" with power lines -- not a true road. Federal law requires the devices be placed 50 feet from a road or pathway. "Jenna started gagging, frothing and then threw up," said Pollock, who lives in Roosevelt and works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Artists deliver plan The most detailed account to date of the Christo and Jeanne Claude plan to suspend fabric over the Arkansas River arrived last week at the Bureau of Land Management Royal Gorge Field office in Cañon City. The 2,000-page document is an essential part of the environmental impact statement to which the bureau is committed as part of its approval process. After reviewing the document, BLM officials plan to contract the environmental impact statement and continue with a decision about the controversial project. Christo and Jeanne Claude have a history of out-waiting bureaucratic processes to complete large-scale public art displays that made them wealthy and famous. Local opposition to the Over the River project is centered in the Howard area, the community that would likely be most effected by the two-week display. A group called Rags Over the Arkansas River formed to lead opposition. Members believe the project will create major traffic congestion in the narrow canyon east of Salida and safety hazards for canyon residents. The detailed plan received last week is another attempt by the artists to explain how they plan to stretch fabric in segments above a 40-mile section of river and how they propose to mitigate impact to canyon residents....
Feds move to limit ravens in California deserts Mother Nature is a harsh mistress, but there's nothing natural about the way common ravens have decimated the struggling desert tortoise. A plan to control ravens will soon be implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting endangered species. "There are problems with ravens that attack and eat juvenile tortoises," said Carl Benz, assistant field supervisor in the agency's Ventura office. "If we can reduce predation, it will be an important step in recovery" for the tortoise. Raven populations exploded sevenfold in the western Mojave, scientists estimate. The population in the Mojave and Colorado deserts of California is thought to range between 30,000 and 45,000 birds. Juvenile tortoises provide a ready meal. The shells don't get hard enough to withstand a raven's beak until the slow-moving reptile is 4 years to 7 years old. "As the shell develops, it gets stronger so it can stave off the pecks from a raven," Boarman said. Given that tortoises don't reach reproductive age until they're 13 to 15, losing the younger generation makes it impossible for the population to remain stable, much less recover....
U.S. cities uniting to battle emissions Hundreds of U.S. cities are taking a stand against global warming by pledging to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions beyond what the federal government is willing to commit. From metropolitan hubs like New York and Los Angeles to fast-growing cities such as Las Vegas, more than 450 city leaders throughout the 50 states have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Buckeye, Flagstaff and Tucson are the only Arizona cities to sign the agreement. In Tucson's case, the agreement builds on work the city has been doing for a decade to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. For fast-growing Buckeye, it's a chance to think green as the city expands....
Horse bill off to a gallop — again Nancy Perry, lead lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States, says one issue outrages her group’s 10 million members more than any other: the slaughter of horses for human food. “It’s their top priority,” she said. A grassroots call-in campaign was so successful last year that a few congressional offices asked Perry’s group to back off so that their phone lines could be used for other business, she said. In what was one of the final votes of the Republican majority, the House ended up voting overwhelmingly last fall to ban the sale and transport of horses to meat processors, despite objections from the three U.S. factories that process horsemeat and a number of agriculture groups. The Senate, though, recessed before taking up the bill, the latest frustration to animal-rights supporters who have come close to ending the sale of horsemeat only to be thwarted at the last minute. A Republican lobbyist for the Society for Animal Protection Legislation, Chris Heyde, says the issue has broad support in both the House and the Senate, prompting his members to ask him: “What do you need to do to get something through Congress?” Opponents of horse slaughter take up that question again this week, with the House expected to vote on a bill that would negate an exemption to a three-decade ban on wild horses for slaughter....
Amish farmers balk at farm ID numbers Amish dairy farmers who oppose a Wisconsin livestock identification system that takes full effect May 1 contend it’s forcing them to make a choice between their livelihood and their religion. The Amish, members of a Christian sect that favors plain living with little reliance on modern conveniences, cite Biblical passages as prohibiting them from buying and selling animals that are numbered, or have what they would consider the “mark of the beast.” About 200 Amish dairy producers recently met with state officials about the new ID system that was passed into law three years ago. It requires livestock farms to register with the state and receive a farm ID number as a way of making it easier to track animals in case of a disease outbreak or other emergency. On Thursday, a number of Amish producers at a meeting near Cashton in western Wisconsin said they may stop selling milk and animals if the number requirement stands. Donna Gilson of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said farmers have had more than a year to comply with the law, and as of May 1 it will not be possible for producers to renew their dairy license without a premise identification number. She said 90 percent of the state’s livestock farms, or about 54,000, have registered....
Twin foals live; mother dies A mare gave birth to twin foals, a rare occurrence in the horse world. Blaze and Spot were born April 12, Sheridan veterinarian Sarah Schreiber said Saturday. They are doing well, but the mare had to be put to death because of complications from the birth. The odds of a mare becoming pregnant with twins are 1 in 1,000, according to Perk Connell, who runs Perk's Horspital in Big Horn. More incredible is that one or both twins survive. Schreiber said that if twins are picked up during an early-pregnancy ultrasound, a veterinarian will try to pinch off one of the embryos because of the danger a dual pregnancy poses to the mare and the foals. And if the dual pregnancy continues undetected, the mare often spontaneously aborts the fetuses. "Basically, the mare just can't provide enough nutrition to keep both foals alive," Schreiber said. Blaze and Spot seem oblivious to their good fortune, however....
Idaho History: Horse thieves, rustlers chose dangerous profession Stealing cattle was a dangerous way to make a living. The most favorable result the rustler could hope for was to get away with the animals and sell them for cash. Another possibility was that he would be tracked down by the law, arrested and sentenced to time in prison. Other outcomes were the ones a cattle thief dreaded most — and for good reason, as these early Idaho cases demonstrate. In 1892, the West was still wild enough that two horse thieves who were chased by a posse from Market Lake to Jackson Hole, Wyo., were shot to death without formality or delay. Even after 1900, horse thieves "came to grief," as the Statesman put it. A posse rode out after two men who had stolen 14 horses from a construction camp at Milner Dam in 1903. One drowned in the Snake River trying to get away, and the other was lynched by a mob that had grown to 200. A.L. Rynearson of Horseshoe Bend tracked horse thief Al Priest for days before shooting him out of the saddle. When he returned the body to law officers in Boise, few questions were asked. The Statesman described Rynearson's feat with obvious approval. The magnitude of the rustling problem, even as late as 1894, is suggested by the fact that O.P. Johnson, "the Logan County cattle king," estimated that he had lost more than $40,000 worth of stock to thieves in five years. He had successfully put three rustlers behind bars, but there were always more....
It's All Trew: Annual pear event preserves the past One annual event that comes as regularly as sunrise at the Trew house is the making of pear preserves. Each fall, when the pears start falling, we gather, peel, slice, soak in sugar, cook and "put up pears." We wouldn't think of going into winter without a shelf of pear preserves standing by. This annual effort started before my time, but I remember my father saying: "When I was a kid, we had a drought at Mobeetie and later in the Dust Bowl when the only fruit that made it was pears. This was the only sweetening we had." For whatever reason, the Trews like pear preserves. Although any kind of pears can be processed into sweetening, the old-time, smaller, more-firm pears make the best preserves. Most of the wimpy, modern-day improved varieties of pears get soft and slick when they ripen. Not so with the hard pears. They keep their shape, provide a little chewing, and, if you are not careful, they will leap from a spoon onto a hot, buttered biscuit by themselves....
Editorial - Colorado vs. the Army The legislature overwhelmingly passed a measure designed to thwart the Army's plan to nearly triple the size of its training site in southeastern Colorado. Now it's up to Gov. Bill Ritter to send a message to Washington by signing the bill quickly and enthusiastically. He hasn't had much to say on the issue up to this point. Unfortunately, neither have most members of the congressional delegation. They seem to be hunkered down, wishing the problem would go away. Some have deplored the prospect of condemning ranches, to be sure, but only one - Rep. Marilyn Musgrave - has taken the obvious next step of flatly opposing the Army's goal. The 238,000-acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 30 miles northeast of Trinidad, was acquired by the Army during the early 1980s, largely through eminent domain. Now the Army wants to add 418,500 contiguous acres, claiming that modern warfare requires more room for maneuvering. Although some of the territory is part of the Comanche National Grassland, under Forest Service jurisdiction, much of it is in private hands and could not be obtained except by using, once again, condemnation. House Bill 1069 withdraws the consent of the legislature to federal acquisition of the land. Such consent is seemingly required by article I, Section 8(17) of the U.S. Constitution. But there's little case law on the issue and it's by no means certain the courts would stop a federal land takeover if the legislature withheld consent. At least as important as the law itself is the state's stand on the issue, as expressed by its public officials. Strong opposition might stop the Army before it started....
Bill would designate vast area wilderness Two East Coast lawmakers introduced a bill Friday with 73 co-sponsors that would designate as wilderness 23 million public acres in five northern Rocky Mountain states, including Montana and Wyoming. Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Christopher Shays, R-Conn., wrote the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. It would give the government's strongest protections to areas of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. They announced the measure along with singer-songwriter Carole King. Three co-sponsors are from Washington and three from Oregon. Both Montana and Wyoming's representatives condemned the bill and vowed to fight it. Similar measures have been introduced in several previous sessions of Congress. But this time, the chairmen of the House Natural Resources Committee and the relevant subcommittee have both signed on as sponsors of the bill. A panel spokeswoman said the committee is reviewing the legislation now and may hold hearings on it, although there are no immediate plans. The bill would designate as wilderness all 20 million acres of inventoried roadless lands in the Western states and another 3 million acres in Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. It includes 7 million acres in Montana and 5 million in Wyoming....
Prairie dog poisoning draws fire A proposal to allow more flexibility, including poisoning, to control prairie dogs on the Thunder Basin National Grassland as part of a plan to transplant black-footed ferrets is inexcusable, according to several conservation groups. Prairie dog poisoning has ramifications to other wildlife that depend on the animals for food, said Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist for Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. U.S. Forest Service officials and some grassland ranchers contend otherwise. Poisoning would be one tool among many in a collaborative effort to maintain prairie dogs, ensure strong chances of success in a ferret reintroduction, and preserve native ecosystems, they said. The hope is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will transplant about 35 four-member black-footed ferret families to the grassland. At the same time, in an attempt to win ranchers' support for the project, the Forest Service is proposing an amendment to the grassland management plan that would allow some poisoning of prairie dogs to control populations, if needed....
Governor kills proposed water rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Monday rejected rule changes adopted by a state citizen board that would have regulated effects of coalbed methane water on soil, vegetation and landowners. Freudenthal said the Environmental Quality Council exceeded its authority in adopting the rules. The governor must approve any rule changes by the council for them to become law. "I believe these proposed rules reach beyond the statutory authority of the Environmental Quality Act and invite the Department of Environmental Quality to regulate water quantity discharge, not as a coincidence of achieving water quality result, but as a simple matter of reducing the amount of discharge for its own sake," the governor said in a letter to council chairman Richard Moore. Water produced from coalbed methane wells has become an issue in the state, especially in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming. The water is pumped to the surface in order to capture the methane. Some landowners find the water beneficial for irrigating crops or watering livestock. But others complain that the water damages their land either because there is too much or because of salt and other chemicals in it....
Gunnison water users fear loss of resource A recent filing by the state’s attorney general has prompted controversy among water users in the upper basin of the Gunnison River. The filing objects to stipulations protecting the water rights of ranchers and other users from the government’s reserved water right for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. “I was astounded to see it,” said John McClow, attorney for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District. “At the moment, there’s no quantification of water right decreed to the Black Canyon, so (it’s) not an active water right; today nothing is going to happen.” However, he said that if there is a shortage and a call is made on the Gunnison River, 75 percent of irrigation water could be lost. In 2001, the federal government filed to quantify the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park’s water right in Montrose water court. In 2003, 22 stipulations were accepted by the water court protecting those water users from a call, should the Black Canyon’s right be quantified. The objection, filed April 16 on behalf of state and division engineers, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the state Division of Wildlife, could result in a negation of that protection....
Farm group angry over Richardson veto of water-rights bill New Mexico's largest farm and ranch group is upset over Gov. Bill Richardson's veto of a measure that would have let eastern New Mexico farmers keep their land after selling the land's water rights to the state. Supporters of the bill contend the veto could jeopardize New Mexico's ability to meet water obligations to Texas under the Pecos River Compact and even lead to a priority call on the river _ a drastic measure that would cut off some users. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, R-Roswell, was pocket vetoed _ meaning it died because the governor did not sign it by this month's deadline for acting on legislation from the 60-day session. The measure was related to a 2003 settlement between the state engineer, the Carlsbad Irrigation District, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District that resolved long-standing litigation over water rights....
Simpson Named to Natural Resources & Environment Post Melissa M. Simpson has been appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA. As deputy under secretary, Simpson will be responsible for policy relating to the programs of the USDA's Forest Service. "Melissa brings to this position extensive experience in public lands policy including forest management, wildfire, energy, wildlife, water, grazing and recreation issues," said Agriculture Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Mark Rey. "Her understanding and appreciation of these issues will serve USDA well as we proceed with the development and implementation of a new farm bill." Simpson most recently served as counselor to Rey. Prior to her appointment, she was counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior. From 2003 to 2005 she served as Deputy Director for External and Intergovernmental Affairs to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, where she worked with senior policy officials and stakeholders on a wide variety of natural resources issues involving conservation and management of public lands....
Man Whose Dog Was Poisoned Seeks $100,000 A Utah man is seeking $100,000 from the federal government after his 2-year-old dog died from exposure to cyanide gas. Jenna died in February 2006 after setting off a trap meant for livestock predators while hunting for rabbits with owner Sam Pollock on federal land in eastern Utah. "The more I can do to get this out there to let people know these things are out there, the better chance we have of getting these things off public land altogether," Pollock said Monday. The sodium cyanide trap, called an M-44, is intended to attract livestock predators, such as coyotes. Small metal tubes stick out of the ground, about a thumb's length, and shoot a pellet. An investigation by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food conducted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the M-44 was placed along a "utility trail" with power lines -- not a true road. Federal law requires the devices be placed 50 feet from a road or pathway. "Jenna started gagging, frothing and then threw up," said Pollock, who lives in Roosevelt and works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Artists deliver plan The most detailed account to date of the Christo and Jeanne Claude plan to suspend fabric over the Arkansas River arrived last week at the Bureau of Land Management Royal Gorge Field office in Cañon City. The 2,000-page document is an essential part of the environmental impact statement to which the bureau is committed as part of its approval process. After reviewing the document, BLM officials plan to contract the environmental impact statement and continue with a decision about the controversial project. Christo and Jeanne Claude have a history of out-waiting bureaucratic processes to complete large-scale public art displays that made them wealthy and famous. Local opposition to the Over the River project is centered in the Howard area, the community that would likely be most effected by the two-week display. A group called Rags Over the Arkansas River formed to lead opposition. Members believe the project will create major traffic congestion in the narrow canyon east of Salida and safety hazards for canyon residents. The detailed plan received last week is another attempt by the artists to explain how they plan to stretch fabric in segments above a 40-mile section of river and how they propose to mitigate impact to canyon residents....
Feds move to limit ravens in California deserts Mother Nature is a harsh mistress, but there's nothing natural about the way common ravens have decimated the struggling desert tortoise. A plan to control ravens will soon be implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting endangered species. "There are problems with ravens that attack and eat juvenile tortoises," said Carl Benz, assistant field supervisor in the agency's Ventura office. "If we can reduce predation, it will be an important step in recovery" for the tortoise. Raven populations exploded sevenfold in the western Mojave, scientists estimate. The population in the Mojave and Colorado deserts of California is thought to range between 30,000 and 45,000 birds. Juvenile tortoises provide a ready meal. The shells don't get hard enough to withstand a raven's beak until the slow-moving reptile is 4 years to 7 years old. "As the shell develops, it gets stronger so it can stave off the pecks from a raven," Boarman said. Given that tortoises don't reach reproductive age until they're 13 to 15, losing the younger generation makes it impossible for the population to remain stable, much less recover....
U.S. cities uniting to battle emissions Hundreds of U.S. cities are taking a stand against global warming by pledging to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions beyond what the federal government is willing to commit. From metropolitan hubs like New York and Los Angeles to fast-growing cities such as Las Vegas, more than 450 city leaders throughout the 50 states have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Buckeye, Flagstaff and Tucson are the only Arizona cities to sign the agreement. In Tucson's case, the agreement builds on work the city has been doing for a decade to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. For fast-growing Buckeye, it's a chance to think green as the city expands....
Horse bill off to a gallop — again Nancy Perry, lead lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States, says one issue outrages her group’s 10 million members more than any other: the slaughter of horses for human food. “It’s their top priority,” she said. A grassroots call-in campaign was so successful last year that a few congressional offices asked Perry’s group to back off so that their phone lines could be used for other business, she said. In what was one of the final votes of the Republican majority, the House ended up voting overwhelmingly last fall to ban the sale and transport of horses to meat processors, despite objections from the three U.S. factories that process horsemeat and a number of agriculture groups. The Senate, though, recessed before taking up the bill, the latest frustration to animal-rights supporters who have come close to ending the sale of horsemeat only to be thwarted at the last minute. A Republican lobbyist for the Society for Animal Protection Legislation, Chris Heyde, says the issue has broad support in both the House and the Senate, prompting his members to ask him: “What do you need to do to get something through Congress?” Opponents of horse slaughter take up that question again this week, with the House expected to vote on a bill that would negate an exemption to a three-decade ban on wild horses for slaughter....
Amish farmers balk at farm ID numbers Amish dairy farmers who oppose a Wisconsin livestock identification system that takes full effect May 1 contend it’s forcing them to make a choice between their livelihood and their religion. The Amish, members of a Christian sect that favors plain living with little reliance on modern conveniences, cite Biblical passages as prohibiting them from buying and selling animals that are numbered, or have what they would consider the “mark of the beast.” About 200 Amish dairy producers recently met with state officials about the new ID system that was passed into law three years ago. It requires livestock farms to register with the state and receive a farm ID number as a way of making it easier to track animals in case of a disease outbreak or other emergency. On Thursday, a number of Amish producers at a meeting near Cashton in western Wisconsin said they may stop selling milk and animals if the number requirement stands. Donna Gilson of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection said farmers have had more than a year to comply with the law, and as of May 1 it will not be possible for producers to renew their dairy license without a premise identification number. She said 90 percent of the state’s livestock farms, or about 54,000, have registered....
Twin foals live; mother dies A mare gave birth to twin foals, a rare occurrence in the horse world. Blaze and Spot were born April 12, Sheridan veterinarian Sarah Schreiber said Saturday. They are doing well, but the mare had to be put to death because of complications from the birth. The odds of a mare becoming pregnant with twins are 1 in 1,000, according to Perk Connell, who runs Perk's Horspital in Big Horn. More incredible is that one or both twins survive. Schreiber said that if twins are picked up during an early-pregnancy ultrasound, a veterinarian will try to pinch off one of the embryos because of the danger a dual pregnancy poses to the mare and the foals. And if the dual pregnancy continues undetected, the mare often spontaneously aborts the fetuses. "Basically, the mare just can't provide enough nutrition to keep both foals alive," Schreiber said. Blaze and Spot seem oblivious to their good fortune, however....
Idaho History: Horse thieves, rustlers chose dangerous profession Stealing cattle was a dangerous way to make a living. The most favorable result the rustler could hope for was to get away with the animals and sell them for cash. Another possibility was that he would be tracked down by the law, arrested and sentenced to time in prison. Other outcomes were the ones a cattle thief dreaded most — and for good reason, as these early Idaho cases demonstrate. In 1892, the West was still wild enough that two horse thieves who were chased by a posse from Market Lake to Jackson Hole, Wyo., were shot to death without formality or delay. Even after 1900, horse thieves "came to grief," as the Statesman put it. A posse rode out after two men who had stolen 14 horses from a construction camp at Milner Dam in 1903. One drowned in the Snake River trying to get away, and the other was lynched by a mob that had grown to 200. A.L. Rynearson of Horseshoe Bend tracked horse thief Al Priest for days before shooting him out of the saddle. When he returned the body to law officers in Boise, few questions were asked. The Statesman described Rynearson's feat with obvious approval. The magnitude of the rustling problem, even as late as 1894, is suggested by the fact that O.P. Johnson, "the Logan County cattle king," estimated that he had lost more than $40,000 worth of stock to thieves in five years. He had successfully put three rustlers behind bars, but there were always more....
It's All Trew: Annual pear event preserves the past One annual event that comes as regularly as sunrise at the Trew house is the making of pear preserves. Each fall, when the pears start falling, we gather, peel, slice, soak in sugar, cook and "put up pears." We wouldn't think of going into winter without a shelf of pear preserves standing by. This annual effort started before my time, but I remember my father saying: "When I was a kid, we had a drought at Mobeetie and later in the Dust Bowl when the only fruit that made it was pears. This was the only sweetening we had." For whatever reason, the Trews like pear preserves. Although any kind of pears can be processed into sweetening, the old-time, smaller, more-firm pears make the best preserves. Most of the wimpy, modern-day improved varieties of pears get soft and slick when they ripen. Not so with the hard pears. They keep their shape, provide a little chewing, and, if you are not careful, they will leap from a spoon onto a hot, buttered biscuit by themselves....
FLE
Border Patrol agent who shot illegal entrant charged with murder A U.S. Border Patrol agent who fatally shot a Mexican illegal entrant in January has been charged with murder by the Cochise County Attorney who said Monday that the shooting was not justified. On Monday, Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer filed a complaint against agent Nicholas Corbett charging him with four counts of homicide: first-degree and second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. Monday's filing comes more than three months after Corbett, 39, shot and killed Francisco Javier Domínguez Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico, on Jan. 12 about 150 yards north of the border between Bisbee and Douglas. The shooting occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Domínguez Rivera and three others who were trying to enter the country illegally. "Based on the extensive investigation presented to this office by the Cochise County Sheriff's Department, as well as the physical evidence itself, we must come to the unfortunate but inescapable conclusion that this shooting was not legally justified," said Rheinheimer in a written statement released Monday. "The evidence shows that at the time he was shot, Mr. Dominguez Rivera presented no threat to agent Corbett and agent Corbett did not act in reasonable apprehension of imminent death or serious physical injury," the statement says....
Agents: No confidence in border chief The leaders of the U.S. Border Patrol's rank-and-file agents have unanimously voted a no-confidence resolution against Chief David V. Aguilar, citing, among other things, his willingness to believe the "perjured allegations" of criminal aliens over his own agents. The resolution won endorsement from all 100 top leaders of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), which represents all 11,000 of the U.S. Border Patrol's nonsupervisory field agents, and targeted Chief Aguilar's lack of support for field agents, several of whom have been prosecuted on civil rights grounds involving arrests of illegal aliens and drug-smuggling suspects. "Front-line Border Patrol agents who risk their lives protecting our borders have every reason to expect that the leadership of their own agency will support them," T.J. Bonner, NBPC president, told The Washington Times yesterday. "When this does not occur, and instead they are undermined by their so-called leaders, no one should be surprised when they express a loss of confidence in those managers." The group will release the resolution to the public today. The NBPC leadership and rank-and-file agents have criticized the chief for failing to publicly support Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, convicted in Texas and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for violating the civil rights of a drug-smuggling suspect they shot in the buttocks as he fled back into Mexico after abandoning 743 pounds of marijuana....
On tighter US border with Mexico, violence rises The harder it gets to sneak illicit cargo – immigrants or drugs or other contraband – into the US, the more violence-prone the border has become, not only for border-crossers but also for law officers trying to halt the smuggling. The escalation in violent crime is most pronounced here in Arizona, where border-tightening measures have put a clamp on the preferred route of "coyotes" and smuggling rings. During the first three months of the year, roaming bandits, heavily armed and looking to hijack valuable payloads, waged at least eight attacks on illicit shipments of people or drugs traversing Arizona. Though no US border patrol agents have been killed, they've been assaulted more often by illegal immigrants this year – 112 attacks, an 18 percent jump – in the state, compared with the same three-month period a year ago. Along the entire US-Mexico border, there's been a 3 percent increase in such attacks. Recent federal raids at drop houses in metropolitan Phoenix, say officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have also turned up bigger and more sophisticated weapons caches, along with people suspected of illegal entry. "It is an unintended consequence of the hardening of the border," says Alonzo Peña, special agent in charge of ICE for Arizona. "Because of stronger border patrol, it's harder for the smugglers to get their commodity – whether drugs or aliens – across. It's costing [the smugglers] more, so the value for that commodity goes up, as does the level of protection, usually through violence." The law-enforcement agencies that track crime along the border – county sheriffs' offices, ICE, the border patrol – report an uptick in almost every category of crime in recent months, a period corresponding to the US border crackdown. Few are surprised, however....
Deputies along border to be trained in U.S. immigration law Border-crime deputies will be cross-trained in immigration law and certified by the federal government, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said today. But he said that is not a change in his position of not enforcing federal immigration law at the expense of local law enforcement in the county. The certification will allow deputies to set up roadblocks to stop people and determine their residency status in the United States. Those would not be permitted under state law, which allows only for anti-DUI roadblocks, Dupnik said. He said any illegal immigrant would be detained briefly to be turned over to the Border Patrol, as has been the department's practice for years. They would not be arrested and booked into jail by sheriff's deputies. It costs $50 to $60 a day to incarcerate one person, for which the county is reimbursed at 3 cents on the dollar by federal law enforcement agencies, according to Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson, who attended today's news conference with Dupnik....
Border Patrol hiring goals raise concerns about quality of new agents The U.S. Border Patrol's push to expand the number of agents on the lookout for illegal crossings has some current and former agents worried that the pressure will lead to corner cutting and jeopardize public safety. Raising the Border Patrol's numbers from about 12,000 to 18,000 by the end of 2008 is a key element of President Bush's plan to improve security along the border, crossed by tens of thousands of illegal immigrants each year. The sprawling Border Patrol Academy in southeastern New Mexico recently started launching two 50-student classes each week, compared to one class every two or three weeks before the expansion plan was announced nearly a year ago. Some critics worry that pressure to meet the hiring goal will lead the agency to admit recruits with integrity problems. "That's a very real fear that a lot of agents have, that they will lower the standards," said T.J. Bonner, president of a union representing agents. "They have done it before." Nearly 5,000 new agents were added in a five-year period that began in 1996. That expansion was criticized for poor screening that let in some agents who were later accused of wrongdoing....
Our benevolent surveillance state The expansion of the Surveillance State is endless. Buried within an ABC report on the Virginia Tech shootings is this paragraph (h/t reader DT): Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search. Is there any good reason whatsoever why the federal government should be maintaining "files" which contain information about the pharmaceutical products which all Americans are consuming? The noxious idea has taken root in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on what we do. If that sounds hyperbolic, just review the disclosures over the course of recent years concerning what data bases the Federal Government has created and maintained and the vast amounts of data they contain -- everything from every domestic telephone call we make and receive to the content of our international calls to "risk assessment" records based on our travel activities to all sorts of information obtained by the FBI's use of NSLs. And none of that includes, obviously, the as-yet-undisclosed surveillance programs undertaken by the most secretive administration in history. The federal government data base which contains all of our controlled substance prescriptions, for instance, was mandated by a law -- The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act -- passed in 2005 by the Republican-controlled Congress (though with full bipartisan support) and signed into law by the "conservative" Leader. That law appropriates funds to each state to create and maintain these data bases which are, apparently, accessible to federal agencies, federal law enforcement officials, and almost certainly thousands of other state and federal employees (as well as, most likely, employees of private companies). Along these lines, the Department of Homeland Security last month promulgated proposed regulations for enforcement of the so-called Real ID Act of 2005 (.pdf). Those regulations require that every state issue technologically compatible Driver's Licenses which enable, in essence, uniform and nationwide tracking of all sorts of private information about every individual. Just as the Prescription Drug Tracking Law is "justified" by the Drug War, these national ID cards are justified by the War on Terrorism....
REAL ID Act hurts Michigan If you think going to the Secretary of State's office is a pain now, wait until the REAL ID Act takes effect in May of next year. If Michigan complies, it will be required to overhaul its drivers' licenses to meet strict federal guidelines, creating a de facto national ID card. Data on every American driver would be entered into a national database. Understandably, many people have privacy concerns about REAL ID. But this is just one reason for Michigan to join the three other states that have already refused to comply with the act. For starters, there are significant cost concerns. Originally estimated by the National Conference of State Legislatures to cost $11 billion nationwide, the Department of Homeland Security now says implementing the law will cost $17 billion. This burden would fall disproportionately on Michigan because of its large population. The reason the feds are imposing these costs is because they think it will increase national security. Many people are fixated on the Sept. 11 attack, and it was a significant event, to be sure. But we must build our security systems to address future attacks coming from any number of threats. REAL ID would be, at best, a modest inconvenience to foreigners plotting an attack, and no inconvenience at all to domestic attackers -- well, no more inconvenience than every American would have to suffer in line at the secretary of state's office. Identification is not a defense against the threats that matter most, and we should not rely on the secretary of state employees for our security. REAL ID's costs in privacy and civil liberties are not to be ignored. A nationally standardized card would be used by governments and corporations alike to harvest data about all of us, increasing the power of organizations over individuals. Ironically, REAL ID may also increase identity theft. Hackers have repeatedly broken into the Department of Veterans Affairs' veteran health care records. In 2005, Bank of America lost computer tapes containing records on 1.2 million customers. There is no reason to think that REAL ID's nationally available databases would be any less vulnerable -- and they would contain information on every American with a driver's license....
White House seeks boost to spy powers The proposal would revise the way the government gets warrants from the secretive FISA court to investigate suspected terrorists, spies and other national security threats. The administration wants to be able to monitor foreign nationals on American soil if they are thought to have significant intelligence information, but no known links to a foreign power. Under current law, the government must convince a FISA judge that an individual is an agent of a government, terror group or some other foreign adversary. The administration also wants new provisions to ease surveillance of people suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction internationally. And the administration wants to allow government lawyers to decide whether a FISA court order is needed for electronic eavesdropping based on the target of the monitoring, not the mode of communication or the location where the surveillance is being conducted. One effect of such a change: the National Security Agency would have the authority to monitor foreigners without seeking court approval, even if the surveillance is conducted by tapping phones and e-mail accounts in the United States. Most often used by the FBI and the NSA, the 1978 FISA law has been updated several times since it was first passed, including in 2001 to allow government access to certain business records. Among other tools available now, the government can break into homes, hotel rooms and cars to install hidden cameras and listening devices, as well as search drawers, luggage or hard drives....
Border Patrol agent who shot illegal entrant charged with murder A U.S. Border Patrol agent who fatally shot a Mexican illegal entrant in January has been charged with murder by the Cochise County Attorney who said Monday that the shooting was not justified. On Monday, Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer filed a complaint against agent Nicholas Corbett charging him with four counts of homicide: first-degree and second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. Monday's filing comes more than three months after Corbett, 39, shot and killed Francisco Javier Domínguez Rivera, 22, of Puebla, Mexico, on Jan. 12 about 150 yards north of the border between Bisbee and Douglas. The shooting occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Domínguez Rivera and three others who were trying to enter the country illegally. "Based on the extensive investigation presented to this office by the Cochise County Sheriff's Department, as well as the physical evidence itself, we must come to the unfortunate but inescapable conclusion that this shooting was not legally justified," said Rheinheimer in a written statement released Monday. "The evidence shows that at the time he was shot, Mr. Dominguez Rivera presented no threat to agent Corbett and agent Corbett did not act in reasonable apprehension of imminent death or serious physical injury," the statement says....
Agents: No confidence in border chief The leaders of the U.S. Border Patrol's rank-and-file agents have unanimously voted a no-confidence resolution against Chief David V. Aguilar, citing, among other things, his willingness to believe the "perjured allegations" of criminal aliens over his own agents. The resolution won endorsement from all 100 top leaders of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), which represents all 11,000 of the U.S. Border Patrol's nonsupervisory field agents, and targeted Chief Aguilar's lack of support for field agents, several of whom have been prosecuted on civil rights grounds involving arrests of illegal aliens and drug-smuggling suspects. "Front-line Border Patrol agents who risk their lives protecting our borders have every reason to expect that the leadership of their own agency will support them," T.J. Bonner, NBPC president, told The Washington Times yesterday. "When this does not occur, and instead they are undermined by their so-called leaders, no one should be surprised when they express a loss of confidence in those managers." The group will release the resolution to the public today. The NBPC leadership and rank-and-file agents have criticized the chief for failing to publicly support Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, convicted in Texas and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for violating the civil rights of a drug-smuggling suspect they shot in the buttocks as he fled back into Mexico after abandoning 743 pounds of marijuana....
On tighter US border with Mexico, violence rises The harder it gets to sneak illicit cargo – immigrants or drugs or other contraband – into the US, the more violence-prone the border has become, not only for border-crossers but also for law officers trying to halt the smuggling. The escalation in violent crime is most pronounced here in Arizona, where border-tightening measures have put a clamp on the preferred route of "coyotes" and smuggling rings. During the first three months of the year, roaming bandits, heavily armed and looking to hijack valuable payloads, waged at least eight attacks on illicit shipments of people or drugs traversing Arizona. Though no US border patrol agents have been killed, they've been assaulted more often by illegal immigrants this year – 112 attacks, an 18 percent jump – in the state, compared with the same three-month period a year ago. Along the entire US-Mexico border, there's been a 3 percent increase in such attacks. Recent federal raids at drop houses in metropolitan Phoenix, say officials with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have also turned up bigger and more sophisticated weapons caches, along with people suspected of illegal entry. "It is an unintended consequence of the hardening of the border," says Alonzo Peña, special agent in charge of ICE for Arizona. "Because of stronger border patrol, it's harder for the smugglers to get their commodity – whether drugs or aliens – across. It's costing [the smugglers] more, so the value for that commodity goes up, as does the level of protection, usually through violence." The law-enforcement agencies that track crime along the border – county sheriffs' offices, ICE, the border patrol – report an uptick in almost every category of crime in recent months, a period corresponding to the US border crackdown. Few are surprised, however....
Deputies along border to be trained in U.S. immigration law Border-crime deputies will be cross-trained in immigration law and certified by the federal government, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said today. But he said that is not a change in his position of not enforcing federal immigration law at the expense of local law enforcement in the county. The certification will allow deputies to set up roadblocks to stop people and determine their residency status in the United States. Those would not be permitted under state law, which allows only for anti-DUI roadblocks, Dupnik said. He said any illegal immigrant would be detained briefly to be turned over to the Border Patrol, as has been the department's practice for years. They would not be arrested and booked into jail by sheriff's deputies. It costs $50 to $60 a day to incarcerate one person, for which the county is reimbursed at 3 cents on the dollar by federal law enforcement agencies, according to Pima County Supervisor Sharon Bronson, who attended today's news conference with Dupnik....
Border Patrol hiring goals raise concerns about quality of new agents The U.S. Border Patrol's push to expand the number of agents on the lookout for illegal crossings has some current and former agents worried that the pressure will lead to corner cutting and jeopardize public safety. Raising the Border Patrol's numbers from about 12,000 to 18,000 by the end of 2008 is a key element of President Bush's plan to improve security along the border, crossed by tens of thousands of illegal immigrants each year. The sprawling Border Patrol Academy in southeastern New Mexico recently started launching two 50-student classes each week, compared to one class every two or three weeks before the expansion plan was announced nearly a year ago. Some critics worry that pressure to meet the hiring goal will lead the agency to admit recruits with integrity problems. "That's a very real fear that a lot of agents have, that they will lower the standards," said T.J. Bonner, president of a union representing agents. "They have done it before." Nearly 5,000 new agents were added in a five-year period that began in 1996. That expansion was criticized for poor screening that let in some agents who were later accused of wrongdoing....
Our benevolent surveillance state The expansion of the Surveillance State is endless. Buried within an ABC report on the Virginia Tech shootings is this paragraph (h/t reader DT): Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search. Is there any good reason whatsoever why the federal government should be maintaining "files" which contain information about the pharmaceutical products which all Americans are consuming? The noxious idea has taken root in our country -- even before the Bush presidency, though certainly greatly bolstered during it -- that one of the functions of the federal government is to track the private lives of American citizens and maintain dossiers on what we do. If that sounds hyperbolic, just review the disclosures over the course of recent years concerning what data bases the Federal Government has created and maintained and the vast amounts of data they contain -- everything from every domestic telephone call we make and receive to the content of our international calls to "risk assessment" records based on our travel activities to all sorts of information obtained by the FBI's use of NSLs. And none of that includes, obviously, the as-yet-undisclosed surveillance programs undertaken by the most secretive administration in history. The federal government data base which contains all of our controlled substance prescriptions, for instance, was mandated by a law -- The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act -- passed in 2005 by the Republican-controlled Congress (though with full bipartisan support) and signed into law by the "conservative" Leader. That law appropriates funds to each state to create and maintain these data bases which are, apparently, accessible to federal agencies, federal law enforcement officials, and almost certainly thousands of other state and federal employees (as well as, most likely, employees of private companies). Along these lines, the Department of Homeland Security last month promulgated proposed regulations for enforcement of the so-called Real ID Act of 2005 (.pdf). Those regulations require that every state issue technologically compatible Driver's Licenses which enable, in essence, uniform and nationwide tracking of all sorts of private information about every individual. Just as the Prescription Drug Tracking Law is "justified" by the Drug War, these national ID cards are justified by the War on Terrorism....
REAL ID Act hurts Michigan If you think going to the Secretary of State's office is a pain now, wait until the REAL ID Act takes effect in May of next year. If Michigan complies, it will be required to overhaul its drivers' licenses to meet strict federal guidelines, creating a de facto national ID card. Data on every American driver would be entered into a national database. Understandably, many people have privacy concerns about REAL ID. But this is just one reason for Michigan to join the three other states that have already refused to comply with the act. For starters, there are significant cost concerns. Originally estimated by the National Conference of State Legislatures to cost $11 billion nationwide, the Department of Homeland Security now says implementing the law will cost $17 billion. This burden would fall disproportionately on Michigan because of its large population. The reason the feds are imposing these costs is because they think it will increase national security. Many people are fixated on the Sept. 11 attack, and it was a significant event, to be sure. But we must build our security systems to address future attacks coming from any number of threats. REAL ID would be, at best, a modest inconvenience to foreigners plotting an attack, and no inconvenience at all to domestic attackers -- well, no more inconvenience than every American would have to suffer in line at the secretary of state's office. Identification is not a defense against the threats that matter most, and we should not rely on the secretary of state employees for our security. REAL ID's costs in privacy and civil liberties are not to be ignored. A nationally standardized card would be used by governments and corporations alike to harvest data about all of us, increasing the power of organizations over individuals. Ironically, REAL ID may also increase identity theft. Hackers have repeatedly broken into the Department of Veterans Affairs' veteran health care records. In 2005, Bank of America lost computer tapes containing records on 1.2 million customers. There is no reason to think that REAL ID's nationally available databases would be any less vulnerable -- and they would contain information on every American with a driver's license....
White House seeks boost to spy powers The proposal would revise the way the government gets warrants from the secretive FISA court to investigate suspected terrorists, spies and other national security threats. The administration wants to be able to monitor foreign nationals on American soil if they are thought to have significant intelligence information, but no known links to a foreign power. Under current law, the government must convince a FISA judge that an individual is an agent of a government, terror group or some other foreign adversary. The administration also wants new provisions to ease surveillance of people suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction internationally. And the administration wants to allow government lawyers to decide whether a FISA court order is needed for electronic eavesdropping based on the target of the monitoring, not the mode of communication or the location where the surveillance is being conducted. One effect of such a change: the National Security Agency would have the authority to monitor foreigners without seeking court approval, even if the surveillance is conducted by tapping phones and e-mail accounts in the United States. Most often used by the FBI and the NSA, the 1978 FISA law has been updated several times since it was first passed, including in 2001 to allow government access to certain business records. Among other tools available now, the government can break into homes, hotel rooms and cars to install hidden cameras and listening devices, as well as search drawers, luggage or hard drives....
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