Activists Want Chimp Declared a 'Person'
In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV. But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't actually a person—at least not yet. In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26- year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person." Hiasl's supporters argue he needs that status to become a legal entity that can receive donations and get a guardian to look out for his interests. "Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Vienna animal rights group. "We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions," Theuer said. "We're not talking about the right to vote here." The campaign began after the animal sanctuary where Hiasl (pronounced HEE-zul) and another chimp, Rosi, have lived for 25 years went bankrupt. Activists want to ensure the apes don't wind up homeless if the shelter closes. Both have already suffered: They were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled in a crate to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter. Their food and veterinary bills run about $6,800 a month....
Friday, May 04, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
US 'biggest culprit' of climate change: WWF The United States, the world's top belcher of greenhouse gas emissions, is "the biggest culprit" of climate change, the WWF said Thursday, urging Washington to take swift action against global warming. "They are the biggest culprit and they are the biggest offender of climate," said Stephan Singer, head of the environmental group WWF's climate change policy unit. "The United States should take climate change seriously," Singer told reporters in Bangkok, where scientists around the world are attending the week-long session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's leading authority on global warming. While accusing the US of "ignoring science" on global warming, the WWF still urged Washington to lead the world in combating climate change....
Ritter signs Pinon Canyon bill but warns it may not be enough Even though he's not sure the state has the power to say "no" to the federal government, Gov. Bill Ritter on Thursday signed a bill aimed at stopping the Army from using eminent domain to expand a training site in southeastern Colorado. Ranchers have mobilized to fight the Army's proposal to expand the Pinon Canyon maneuver site by 418,000 acres - or 653 square miles. That's nearly triple the land the Army now owns, and the expansion would swallow up dozens of ranches. The Army is still studying how the expansion would be accomplished, but officials say they can't rule out the use of eminent domain if the plans move ahead. Eminent domain is the power to force a landowner to sell to make way for a project for the public good. As ranchers, students and lawmakers looked on, Ritter said he didn't want the new law (House Bill 1069) to raise expectations that the state could definitely stop the Army from forcing ranchers to sell. But he said it is a tool the state can use to help protect ranchers whose families have been living in the area since the turn of the last century....
Bush administration again opposes Mount Hood wilderness expansion The Bush administration said Thursday it opposes a plan to expand the Mount Hood wilderness area -- the second time in as many years the administration has opposed plans to increase wilderness protections on Oregons highest peak. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, said the administration opposes the wilderness bill as drafted, saying it moves to seal off more land than is appropriate and includes an unacceptable land swap. "While we strongly support public involvement and community collaboration, the concept of legislating management direction (on the mountain) is problematic," Rey told a Senate subcommittee. "We find the land exchange provisions and several of the wilderness designations to be especially troubling." Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith proposed the wilderness expansion in February. The plan would extend wilderness protection to an additional 128,600 acres surrounding Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge. The bill would increase existing wilderness protection on the mountain by about two-thirds and add "wild and scenic" protection to nearly 80 miles of rivers. Rey said the administration could support as much as 59,000 acres of new wilderness on Mount Hood, but believes the current plan is too expansive....
Grizzly Delisting Will Test States, Forest Service My main concern is isolation. The Yellowstone ecosystem is one of six isolated grizzly populations south of Canada. Island populations are more vulnerable, especially without viable travel corridors to other populations to foster genetic diversity and to supplement low numbers. In most cases, wildlife scientists reject the idea of institutionalizing an island population. The same agency, even some of the same people in fact, have rejected the idea of delisting the wolf in the Yellowstone area only, insisting we should wait and remove the species in the entire recovery area (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) at one time. At this point, we do not have safe travel corridors for grizzlies to travel from northwestern Montana to the Yellowstone ecosystem, but this has not delayed delisting. The need for secure travel corridors puts pressure on the state agencies and the Forest Service (FS) to protect the habitat and security of these corridors from human activities that could prevent movement of grizzlies from one ecosystem to the other. Will this happen? Everybody agrees that the viability of the Yellowstone grizzly population depends on maintenance of key habitat outside of the national park, primarily in the surrounding national forests. The FS has woeful track record of protecting wildlife habitat, but in this case the agency has made commitments to protect critical bear habitat near the park. To meet this commitment, the agency must come through with the new policies required to make this a reality, such as realistic limits on motorized use of grizzly habitat. Will this really happen?....
Tribe presses N-waste fight The Skull Valley Goshutes and their private-industry partners are trying to dodge a new obstacle in their fight for permission to store nuclear-reactor waste in Tooele County. In a Washington, D.C., appeals court, the state of Utah is pushing to have the project's license put on ice until the Skull Valley Band and its partners clear two other stumbling blocks created last fall by the U.S. Interior Department. The state, the nuclear project's harshest critic, has argued in legal papers over the past two months that the court should not bother making any final decision now on the project's license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. First, the state insists, project proponents must prove they have approval to get the waste to the site and secure a valid lease. A ruling last September from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management blocked the transportation plan. Another issued the same day by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs nixed a required lease agreement between Private Fuel Storage and the Goshutes. The rulings from the Interior Department agencies prompted U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and state leaders to declare the nuclear project "dead." Proponents have pressed forward anyhow. PFS and the tribe indicate in the latest flurry of legal papers that they plan to appeal both Interior Department decisions, although they have not done so yet. They have more than five years to appeal the rulings in court. Their plans call for storing up to 44,000 tons of used reactor waste on a 100-acre pad just across the highway from the tribal village in Tooele County, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The high-level radioactive waste would be parked on the pads for up to 40 years in steel-and-concrete containers....
BLM mostly backs Colorado River land-swap bill A proposed land deal aimed at preserving scenic areas along the Colorado River received the backing of the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday, although the agency said it would like to see some changes in the proposed swap. The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act would transfer about 45,000 acres of scattered parcels managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration along the Colorado River to the federal government, including areas popular with bicyclists and river rafters. In exchange, the state trust would get about 40,000 acres of federal lands, which hold more potential for economic development. The bill is supported by the trust lands administration, as well as various environmental groups, which spent months negotiating the terms. "It's such a logical idea that it's hard to get done," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. BLM Director Jim Hughes said the agency has some concerns about the way the potential value of oil shale would be appraised, and it is not comfortable with restrictions on oil and gas drilling and mining on the lands BLM would receive. But, Hughes said, the BLM supports the goal of the legislation and hopes to resolve the issues....
Skepticism greets $36M offer by anticline drillers A $36 million offer by three energy producers to improve wildlife habitat and preserve migration routes around their gas drilling sites in the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming met with skepticism from conservationists. While the offer is generous, whether it will succeed is in question, according to Linda Baker of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition, which represents landowners in the valley. "It seems to me that before we invest any more money into mitigation, that we have a realistic plan for success," Baker said. The $36 million offer from Questar Corp., Ultra Resources Inc., and Shell Exploration and Production Co. comes as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management crafts a plan for expanded drilling in the anticline south of Pinedale. The companies are seeking year-round drilling on parts of the anticline. Currently, gas development is restricted by seasonal closures to protect wildlife that spend the winter in the area and sage grouse that nest in the spring. Baker said Wednesday that additional wells should be limited to core areas, with surrounding areas set aside and maintained for wildlife. Ultra, Shell and Questar promised to leave the outskirts of the anticline alone and continue studies on how gas development affects habitat and wildlife if the companies can concentrate drilling in certain areas of the anticline....
Groups want judge to enforce Eagle Mountain land-swap ruling Inland environmental groups asked a federal judge to enforce his 2005 ruling that struck down a land swap and effectively quashed an effort to turn an old iron-ore mine into one of the nation's largest landfills near Joshua Tree National Park. The groups contend that those involved in the land swap -- Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management -- have done little to put the land back into public hands. In addition, they said, Kaiser has leased its adjacent lands to a company that allows the military to conduct exercises with live munitions and helicopters in a fragile desert environment. A June 4 hearing has been scheduled on the matter before U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin. At issue is a 1999 land swap between the bureau and Kaiser, which wanted to turn its old iron-ore pits into the proposed Eagle Mountain landfill. The federal agency gave Kaiser 3,481 acres of public land around the old Kaiser Steel Co. mining pits to be used for a landfill. In return, Kaiser gave the bureau almost 2,500 acres of land along its 52-mile railroad in Riverside County....
US must focus on species's survival, Interior Secretary says The United States needed to focus more on ensuring the survival of wildlife rather than concentrating on listing species as endangered, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Friday. Kempthorne is under fire over the Bush administration's new interpretation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which critics say jeopardizes animals such as wolves and grizzly bears. The new reading of the law proposed by the Interior Department would enable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect animals and plants only where they are battling for survival. The agency would not have to protect them where they are in good shape. Kempthorne, in Canberra to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, said Friday he did not believe the new direction damaged his administration's environment credentials. "I think we need to put greater emphasis on recovery and efforts in that direction," Kempthorne told reporters, adding that only one percent of the 1,500 species listed as endangered in the past 30 years had recovered. As an example, he said the government was moving to improve the habitat of the of sage grouse, whose numbers are declining, so that that bird is never listed as endangered....
Griz-human conflicts are likely to rise Grizzly bear 398 walked west through the snow covering the towering Teton Range this spring, living the good life in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The 16-year-old male grizzly was at the top of the pecking order for predators in the region, so he could pick his territory. He chose the forests and meadows around Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. There, he had an ample supply of elk calves, roots, whitebark pine nuts and winter-killed moose and deer to eat. Biologists had captured him for research that allowed them map his range with global positioning systems. He had lived his entire life naturally and without incident just yards from hundreds of thousands of national park visitors. His existence was a walking testimonial to the recovery program that had brought Yellowstone's bears back from the brink of extinction. On Monday, grizzly bears were removed from the threatened species list. But grizzly 398's attack on 33-year-old Tetonia carpenter Timothy Henderson on April 10 and his own death at the hands of wardens and deputies four days later mars what is one of the early environmental success stories of the 21st century....
Canada's Tenth Mad Cow Rouses Concern South of the Border U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, introduced legislation today that would prevent the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, from expanding imports of Canadian cattle until the agency implements a system that allows consumers to see in which country their meat was produced. That system, known as Country of Origin Labeling, COOL, was scheduled, by law, to be in place by September 30, 2004. But the Bush administration has delayed its implementation several times. It is now not scheduled to be in place until September 30, 2008. After the first Canadian mad cow was found in 2003, the United States banned the import of Canadian beef, but in 2006 lifted the ban for some products. Currently cattle from Canada younger than 30 months, and boxed beef are allowed to enter the United States. In January, the Bush administration proposed allowing animals older than 30 months to enter the U.S. sometime later this year. "There is no longer any excuse for delaying implementation of COOL," Dorgan said today. "Consumers have the right to know where their meat is coming from, and to make their own decision - fully informed decisions - about whether they want to be putting beef from Canada on their dinner table, under the current circumstances. Speaking for the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, R-CALF USA, CEO Bill Bullard agrees. From his office in Billings, Montana, Bullard said, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has failed its responsibility to adequately protect the U.S. cattle herd, the U.S. beef supply, U.S. export markets and U.S. consumers from Canada’s widespread problem with bovine spongiform encephalopathy." "Despite a very limited amount of testing, six cases of BSE have been confirmed in Canadian cattle born after Canada implemented its feed ban in 1997 – despite USDA’s unsupported insistence that the Canadian feed ban has been effective in preventing the spread of the disease," Bullard said....
Cloning: Scientists vs. Consumers Should the U.S. become the first country in the world to allow food from cloned animals onto supermarket shelves? That is the debate that has raged at the Food & Drug Administration for four months, until the period for public comment on the issue closed on May 3. The FDA said on Dec. 28 that it was inclined to allow such foods into U.S. stores, based on the evidence it had reviewed, but asked for outside comment. With the public comment period closed, it's clear that the cloning debate boils down to scientists vs. consumers. Thousands of individuals wrote to the government to voice their opposition to the prospect of cloned products being allowed into the food supply. In large part, they made emotion appeals that cloning was immoral or that cloned food was repulsive. "Unethical, disturbing, and disgusting," wrote one consumer, Lea Askren. Scientists, on the other hand, are almost completely unified in their support of cloning. They see the technology as an effective, important way to produce higher-quality, healthier food. "We have to invest in technology to move forward," says Terry Etherton, head of the Dairy & Animal Science Dept. at Penn State University. This week, the Federation of Animal Science Societies took out an advertisement in one daily paper with a picture of a cloned cow grazing peacefully with her naturally bred calf. "What's wrong with this picture?" it asked. "Absolutely nothing." The clear divergence suggests that cloned foods will indeed be introduced to U.S. consumers in the near future. The FDA has said that it will consider only scientific arguments in its decision, while popular opinion and emotional appeals will carry no weight. While there are a handful of comments that make some science-based points against cloning, there is surprisingly little in the public comments that is likely to outweigh the FDA's inclination to proceed with cloned foods....
New Kind Of Cattle Promises To Be Healthier Historically, red meat has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. But a new kind of cattle being bred in Texas promises to be healthier and improve health as well. The cattle is from Japan, from Akaushi cattle. The Texas Department of Agriculture says Texas ranchers were able to get some of these cattle due to a loophole in the trade act. Now that it's available for market, they say it is a healthy choice. New to the U.S. market is HeartBrand Meat. The Texas Department of Agriculture is hoping the health claims will beef up sales. “It prevents coronary heart disease as well as cancer and diabetes,” Catherine O’Gorman, with HeartBrand Meat, said. This cattle originally is said to be genetically geared to produce conjugated linoleic acid or CLA. That's what producers say will promote good health. But, so far, doctors say CLA has only been studied in mice....
Starving vultures kill cattle HUGE flocks of starving vultures have started attacking live animals in northern Spain, officials in the city of Burgos said this week. In one incident, about 100 vultures killed a cow and her newborn calf, a rancher from the Mena Valley said, according to the Spanish Government's office in Burgos, quoted by state news agency EFE. Ranchers have complained that vultures started attacking livestock several months ago when a feeding station set up in the Ordunte mountains was closed by the neighbouring province of Vizcaya. Vultures prefer to feed on the carcasses of dead animals, but carrion is scarce in modern Spain.
US 'biggest culprit' of climate change: WWF The United States, the world's top belcher of greenhouse gas emissions, is "the biggest culprit" of climate change, the WWF said Thursday, urging Washington to take swift action against global warming. "They are the biggest culprit and they are the biggest offender of climate," said Stephan Singer, head of the environmental group WWF's climate change policy unit. "The United States should take climate change seriously," Singer told reporters in Bangkok, where scientists around the world are attending the week-long session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's leading authority on global warming. While accusing the US of "ignoring science" on global warming, the WWF still urged Washington to lead the world in combating climate change....
Ritter signs Pinon Canyon bill but warns it may not be enough Even though he's not sure the state has the power to say "no" to the federal government, Gov. Bill Ritter on Thursday signed a bill aimed at stopping the Army from using eminent domain to expand a training site in southeastern Colorado. Ranchers have mobilized to fight the Army's proposal to expand the Pinon Canyon maneuver site by 418,000 acres - or 653 square miles. That's nearly triple the land the Army now owns, and the expansion would swallow up dozens of ranches. The Army is still studying how the expansion would be accomplished, but officials say they can't rule out the use of eminent domain if the plans move ahead. Eminent domain is the power to force a landowner to sell to make way for a project for the public good. As ranchers, students and lawmakers looked on, Ritter said he didn't want the new law (House Bill 1069) to raise expectations that the state could definitely stop the Army from forcing ranchers to sell. But he said it is a tool the state can use to help protect ranchers whose families have been living in the area since the turn of the last century....
Bush administration again opposes Mount Hood wilderness expansion The Bush administration said Thursday it opposes a plan to expand the Mount Hood wilderness area -- the second time in as many years the administration has opposed plans to increase wilderness protections on Oregons highest peak. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, said the administration opposes the wilderness bill as drafted, saying it moves to seal off more land than is appropriate and includes an unacceptable land swap. "While we strongly support public involvement and community collaboration, the concept of legislating management direction (on the mountain) is problematic," Rey told a Senate subcommittee. "We find the land exchange provisions and several of the wilderness designations to be especially troubling." Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith proposed the wilderness expansion in February. The plan would extend wilderness protection to an additional 128,600 acres surrounding Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge. The bill would increase existing wilderness protection on the mountain by about two-thirds and add "wild and scenic" protection to nearly 80 miles of rivers. Rey said the administration could support as much as 59,000 acres of new wilderness on Mount Hood, but believes the current plan is too expansive....
Grizzly Delisting Will Test States, Forest Service My main concern is isolation. The Yellowstone ecosystem is one of six isolated grizzly populations south of Canada. Island populations are more vulnerable, especially without viable travel corridors to other populations to foster genetic diversity and to supplement low numbers. In most cases, wildlife scientists reject the idea of institutionalizing an island population. The same agency, even some of the same people in fact, have rejected the idea of delisting the wolf in the Yellowstone area only, insisting we should wait and remove the species in the entire recovery area (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming) at one time. At this point, we do not have safe travel corridors for grizzlies to travel from northwestern Montana to the Yellowstone ecosystem, but this has not delayed delisting. The need for secure travel corridors puts pressure on the state agencies and the Forest Service (FS) to protect the habitat and security of these corridors from human activities that could prevent movement of grizzlies from one ecosystem to the other. Will this happen? Everybody agrees that the viability of the Yellowstone grizzly population depends on maintenance of key habitat outside of the national park, primarily in the surrounding national forests. The FS has woeful track record of protecting wildlife habitat, but in this case the agency has made commitments to protect critical bear habitat near the park. To meet this commitment, the agency must come through with the new policies required to make this a reality, such as realistic limits on motorized use of grizzly habitat. Will this really happen?....
Tribe presses N-waste fight The Skull Valley Goshutes and their private-industry partners are trying to dodge a new obstacle in their fight for permission to store nuclear-reactor waste in Tooele County. In a Washington, D.C., appeals court, the state of Utah is pushing to have the project's license put on ice until the Skull Valley Band and its partners clear two other stumbling blocks created last fall by the U.S. Interior Department. The state, the nuclear project's harshest critic, has argued in legal papers over the past two months that the court should not bother making any final decision now on the project's license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. First, the state insists, project proponents must prove they have approval to get the waste to the site and secure a valid lease. A ruling last September from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management blocked the transportation plan. Another issued the same day by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs nixed a required lease agreement between Private Fuel Storage and the Goshutes. The rulings from the Interior Department agencies prompted U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and state leaders to declare the nuclear project "dead." Proponents have pressed forward anyhow. PFS and the tribe indicate in the latest flurry of legal papers that they plan to appeal both Interior Department decisions, although they have not done so yet. They have more than five years to appeal the rulings in court. Their plans call for storing up to 44,000 tons of used reactor waste on a 100-acre pad just across the highway from the tribal village in Tooele County, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The high-level radioactive waste would be parked on the pads for up to 40 years in steel-and-concrete containers....
BLM mostly backs Colorado River land-swap bill A proposed land deal aimed at preserving scenic areas along the Colorado River received the backing of the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday, although the agency said it would like to see some changes in the proposed swap. The Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act would transfer about 45,000 acres of scattered parcels managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration along the Colorado River to the federal government, including areas popular with bicyclists and river rafters. In exchange, the state trust would get about 40,000 acres of federal lands, which hold more potential for economic development. The bill is supported by the trust lands administration, as well as various environmental groups, which spent months negotiating the terms. "It's such a logical idea that it's hard to get done," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. BLM Director Jim Hughes said the agency has some concerns about the way the potential value of oil shale would be appraised, and it is not comfortable with restrictions on oil and gas drilling and mining on the lands BLM would receive. But, Hughes said, the BLM supports the goal of the legislation and hopes to resolve the issues....
Skepticism greets $36M offer by anticline drillers A $36 million offer by three energy producers to improve wildlife habitat and preserve migration routes around their gas drilling sites in the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming met with skepticism from conservationists. While the offer is generous, whether it will succeed is in question, according to Linda Baker of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition, which represents landowners in the valley. "It seems to me that before we invest any more money into mitigation, that we have a realistic plan for success," Baker said. The $36 million offer from Questar Corp., Ultra Resources Inc., and Shell Exploration and Production Co. comes as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management crafts a plan for expanded drilling in the anticline south of Pinedale. The companies are seeking year-round drilling on parts of the anticline. Currently, gas development is restricted by seasonal closures to protect wildlife that spend the winter in the area and sage grouse that nest in the spring. Baker said Wednesday that additional wells should be limited to core areas, with surrounding areas set aside and maintained for wildlife. Ultra, Shell and Questar promised to leave the outskirts of the anticline alone and continue studies on how gas development affects habitat and wildlife if the companies can concentrate drilling in certain areas of the anticline....
Groups want judge to enforce Eagle Mountain land-swap ruling Inland environmental groups asked a federal judge to enforce his 2005 ruling that struck down a land swap and effectively quashed an effort to turn an old iron-ore mine into one of the nation's largest landfills near Joshua Tree National Park. The groups contend that those involved in the land swap -- Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management -- have done little to put the land back into public hands. In addition, they said, Kaiser has leased its adjacent lands to a company that allows the military to conduct exercises with live munitions and helicopters in a fragile desert environment. A June 4 hearing has been scheduled on the matter before U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin. At issue is a 1999 land swap between the bureau and Kaiser, which wanted to turn its old iron-ore pits into the proposed Eagle Mountain landfill. The federal agency gave Kaiser 3,481 acres of public land around the old Kaiser Steel Co. mining pits to be used for a landfill. In return, Kaiser gave the bureau almost 2,500 acres of land along its 52-mile railroad in Riverside County....
US must focus on species's survival, Interior Secretary says The United States needed to focus more on ensuring the survival of wildlife rather than concentrating on listing species as endangered, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Friday. Kempthorne is under fire over the Bush administration's new interpretation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which critics say jeopardizes animals such as wolves and grizzly bears. The new reading of the law proposed by the Interior Department would enable the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect animals and plants only where they are battling for survival. The agency would not have to protect them where they are in good shape. Kempthorne, in Canberra to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, said Friday he did not believe the new direction damaged his administration's environment credentials. "I think we need to put greater emphasis on recovery and efforts in that direction," Kempthorne told reporters, adding that only one percent of the 1,500 species listed as endangered in the past 30 years had recovered. As an example, he said the government was moving to improve the habitat of the of sage grouse, whose numbers are declining, so that that bird is never listed as endangered....
Griz-human conflicts are likely to rise Grizzly bear 398 walked west through the snow covering the towering Teton Range this spring, living the good life in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The 16-year-old male grizzly was at the top of the pecking order for predators in the region, so he could pick his territory. He chose the forests and meadows around Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park. There, he had an ample supply of elk calves, roots, whitebark pine nuts and winter-killed moose and deer to eat. Biologists had captured him for research that allowed them map his range with global positioning systems. He had lived his entire life naturally and without incident just yards from hundreds of thousands of national park visitors. His existence was a walking testimonial to the recovery program that had brought Yellowstone's bears back from the brink of extinction. On Monday, grizzly bears were removed from the threatened species list. But grizzly 398's attack on 33-year-old Tetonia carpenter Timothy Henderson on April 10 and his own death at the hands of wardens and deputies four days later mars what is one of the early environmental success stories of the 21st century....
Canada's Tenth Mad Cow Rouses Concern South of the Border U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, introduced legislation today that would prevent the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, from expanding imports of Canadian cattle until the agency implements a system that allows consumers to see in which country their meat was produced. That system, known as Country of Origin Labeling, COOL, was scheduled, by law, to be in place by September 30, 2004. But the Bush administration has delayed its implementation several times. It is now not scheduled to be in place until September 30, 2008. After the first Canadian mad cow was found in 2003, the United States banned the import of Canadian beef, but in 2006 lifted the ban for some products. Currently cattle from Canada younger than 30 months, and boxed beef are allowed to enter the United States. In January, the Bush administration proposed allowing animals older than 30 months to enter the U.S. sometime later this year. "There is no longer any excuse for delaying implementation of COOL," Dorgan said today. "Consumers have the right to know where their meat is coming from, and to make their own decision - fully informed decisions - about whether they want to be putting beef from Canada on their dinner table, under the current circumstances. Speaking for the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, R-CALF USA, CEO Bill Bullard agrees. From his office in Billings, Montana, Bullard said, "The U.S. Department of Agriculture has failed its responsibility to adequately protect the U.S. cattle herd, the U.S. beef supply, U.S. export markets and U.S. consumers from Canada’s widespread problem with bovine spongiform encephalopathy." "Despite a very limited amount of testing, six cases of BSE have been confirmed in Canadian cattle born after Canada implemented its feed ban in 1997 – despite USDA’s unsupported insistence that the Canadian feed ban has been effective in preventing the spread of the disease," Bullard said....
Cloning: Scientists vs. Consumers Should the U.S. become the first country in the world to allow food from cloned animals onto supermarket shelves? That is the debate that has raged at the Food & Drug Administration for four months, until the period for public comment on the issue closed on May 3. The FDA said on Dec. 28 that it was inclined to allow such foods into U.S. stores, based on the evidence it had reviewed, but asked for outside comment. With the public comment period closed, it's clear that the cloning debate boils down to scientists vs. consumers. Thousands of individuals wrote to the government to voice their opposition to the prospect of cloned products being allowed into the food supply. In large part, they made emotion appeals that cloning was immoral or that cloned food was repulsive. "Unethical, disturbing, and disgusting," wrote one consumer, Lea Askren. Scientists, on the other hand, are almost completely unified in their support of cloning. They see the technology as an effective, important way to produce higher-quality, healthier food. "We have to invest in technology to move forward," says Terry Etherton, head of the Dairy & Animal Science Dept. at Penn State University. This week, the Federation of Animal Science Societies took out an advertisement in one daily paper with a picture of a cloned cow grazing peacefully with her naturally bred calf. "What's wrong with this picture?" it asked. "Absolutely nothing." The clear divergence suggests that cloned foods will indeed be introduced to U.S. consumers in the near future. The FDA has said that it will consider only scientific arguments in its decision, while popular opinion and emotional appeals will carry no weight. While there are a handful of comments that make some science-based points against cloning, there is surprisingly little in the public comments that is likely to outweigh the FDA's inclination to proceed with cloned foods....
New Kind Of Cattle Promises To Be Healthier Historically, red meat has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. But a new kind of cattle being bred in Texas promises to be healthier and improve health as well. The cattle is from Japan, from Akaushi cattle. The Texas Department of Agriculture says Texas ranchers were able to get some of these cattle due to a loophole in the trade act. Now that it's available for market, they say it is a healthy choice. New to the U.S. market is HeartBrand Meat. The Texas Department of Agriculture is hoping the health claims will beef up sales. “It prevents coronary heart disease as well as cancer and diabetes,” Catherine O’Gorman, with HeartBrand Meat, said. This cattle originally is said to be genetically geared to produce conjugated linoleic acid or CLA. That's what producers say will promote good health. But, so far, doctors say CLA has only been studied in mice....
Starving vultures kill cattle HUGE flocks of starving vultures have started attacking live animals in northern Spain, officials in the city of Burgos said this week. In one incident, about 100 vultures killed a cow and her newborn calf, a rancher from the Mena Valley said, according to the Spanish Government's office in Burgos, quoted by state news agency EFE. Ranchers have complained that vultures started attacking livestock several months ago when a feeding station set up in the Ordunte mountains was closed by the neighbouring province of Vizcaya. Vultures prefer to feed on the carcasses of dead animals, but carrion is scarce in modern Spain.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
GAO
Interstate Compacts: An Overview of the Structure and Governance of Environment and Natural Resource Compacts. GAO-07-519, April 3. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-519
Climate Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades are Potentially Significant, by John B. Stephenson, director, natural resources and environment, before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. GAO-07-820T, May 3. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-820T
Interstate Compacts: An Overview of the Structure and Governance of Environment and Natural Resource Compacts. GAO-07-519, April 3. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-519
Climate Change: Financial Risks to Federal and Private Insurers in Coming Decades are Potentially Significant, by John B. Stephenson, director, natural resources and environment, before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. GAO-07-820T, May 3. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-820T
NEWS ROUNDUP
Low snowpack heightens fears of new drought California's final snow survey of the year, taking place today in the Sierra Nevada, is expected to reveal early signs of a drought. Automated monitors already show the snowpack's water content is only 29 percent of average. Today's field measurement is expected to confirm that -- perhaps producing even worse numbers. The National Drought Mitigation Center, based in Lincoln, Neb., has declared drought conditions in nearly all of California. Its Web site paints the state in shades of dry, ranging from yellow to deep red -- deeper trouble -- from north to south. Mark Svoboda, climatologist at the center, said 27 percent of the western United States was in drought at this time last year. Now it's 51 percent. "All in all, the drought has got a strong foothold on the region," Svoboda said. "Right now there's nothing in the cards saying it's going to be over until we reassess this time next year, at least in the case of California." Despite the thin snowpack, the California Department of Water Resources predicts no water shortages this summer because reservoirs and groundwater basins are full from last winter, the fifth-wettest on record in Northern California....
Elk at risk? Otero County ranchers and farmers are calling on the county commission to demand action from the state game department regarding damages being caused by elk herds to forage, fences and crops. They are also asking for permission to shoot some elk. One such permit has already been granted, and an environmental group has raised its voice in protest. Rancher Charles Walker addressed Wednesday's commission work session and told the commission similar problems are being experienced in Lincoln, Chaves and Eddy counties. He said ranchers' pleas for compensation for the damages, or for increased landowner hunting permits, have fallen on deaf ears. Walker said under the grazing allotments with the Bureau of Land Management, the forage belongs to the ranchers. The refusal to either thin the herds or repay the allotment holders for damages represents an illegal "taking," Walker said. He and other ranchers say the problem has persisted for decades but has now become particularly acute. Commission Chairman Doug Moore said county staff are working on drafting a package of ordinances that would address the problem. He noted allotment holders have been required to reduce their herds by some 20 percent, yet no effort is being made to increase the number of elk that can be hunted each year. Moore said the elk are using as much as 80 percent of the forage resources on some of the allotments....
Litterers among 500 on marshals' warrant list Federal authorities are kicking off a blitz to arrest some 500 people in Arizona who have disobeyed laws protecting federal land. The people committed gruesome crimes, such as leaving litter at a campsite. Or getting drunk and disorderly on a mountaintop. Or perhaps even peeing in a park. The feds had offered people with outstanding tickets for such misdemeanors a Safe Surrender Day on Tuesday to come clean with their offenses. They could have visited their local federal courthouse or the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service office in Mesa to clear their records. One person showed up. "I don't know what (crime) he did, but he paid a $250 fine," said Tonto National Forest spokesman Vincent Picard. Now, those who didn't show up can expect a knock on the door, Picard said, adding that the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish & Wildlife will work in concert with the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix to nab those 500 scofflaws who now have warrants out for their arrest....
America's Forests in State of Renewal and Re-Growth The United States of America is covered by 750 million acres of forestland, an amount that has remained essentially unchanged over the past 100 years, reports a landmark new study released today by the Society of American Foresters (SAF). In addition, forestland in the United States has increased by more than 10 million acres over the past 20 years. The report is available for viewing or downloading at http://www.safnet.org/. The new study found that replanting and reforestation efforts, as well as natural forest re-growth on abandoned agricultural lands has generally offset any loss of forestland during the 20th century due to urban/suburban growth. Technological advances have made farming more efficient, vastly reducing the amount of land needed to produce food, thereby allowing forestland to regenerate, the report found. The State of America's Forests reports there is good reason to believe that the positive trends will continue. The new report is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed analysis of a wide variety of data regarding forestland in the United States from a broad range of sources, including the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The report was authored by forestry expert Mila Alvarez, a professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute's College of Natural Resources and principal of Solutions for Nature, a natural resources management consulting firm. The release of The State of America's Forests comes on the heels of a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report in March that also found the United States had annual increases in forest area in the 1990s and through 2005. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences released a study in November 2006 that came to a similar conclusion, finding a widespread pattern of reforestation in the United States and calling the United States a world leader in forestland re-growth....
A controversial 'Walk with Bears' Lynn Rogers grew up terrified of bears. Now he spends much of his time alongside them -- literally, within arm's length, even feeding them by hand. He knows his casual interactions with bears -- particularly the hand-feeding aspect -- go against the conventional wisdom of wildlife managers around the country. But he is also convinced that his way, not their way, is appropriate. "People are moving into bear country like never before," said Rogers, 68, who this weekend will open the North American Bear Center, an extension of the Wildlife Research Institute he has overseen since 1971 near rural Ely, Minn. "The message today has to be coexistence, rather than the frontier mentality of whenever you see a bear, shoot it, trap it, poison it, so (bears) keep their distance." Nor does Rogers think his actions -- chronicled in a documentary film, "The Man Who Walks with Bears," that has been nationally televised on such channels at Discovery's Animal Planet more than 70 times -- are apt to endanger others trying to experience the same kind of proximity with bears in the wild....
Honda Opens Unique 'Environmental Learning Center' in Irving, Texas Honda today opened an Environmental Learning Center (ELC) in Irving, Texas, the company's third such facility in the country. The ELC is designed to be a unique community resource that promotes a responsible land use ethic through a greater understanding of the varied regional ecology. Honda also has ELCs in Colton, Calif., and Alpharetta, Georgia. Honda's Irving ELC consists of approximately four acres surrounding an existing four-acre Rider Education Center where more than 30,000 street, dirt and ATV riders have been trained since it opened in 1989. The ELC features a trail system and species of plants, grasses and trees representing ten different Texas ecosystems as part of the Center's state-of-the-art off highway training facility. "Our ELCs serve as both an environmental resource for youth organizations as well as motorcycle training centers teaching environmentally responsible rider ethics to both beginners and experienced riders," said Dave Edwards, national manager of environment and education for the Motorcycle Division of American Honda Motor Co., Inc....
N.J. man died of thirst during wilderness survival adventure in the Utah desert By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person. After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water. But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness. And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water. Buschow wasn’t told that, and he wasn’t offered any....
Mountains Say Goodbye to Mom-and-Pop Ski Schools It sounds like the plot for a bad Jason London movie: A ski mogul with an eye on the bottom line takes over a local resort and cancels contracts with the community-based ski schools that have traditionally served the slopes, then asks the ski bums to join the corporate ranks. Lessons double in cost. Longtime skiers and snowboarders are outraged. The National Forest Service washes its hands of the matter. Will the underdog community schools yield to big business? Can snow-loving families afford the increased cost of lessons? Will the feds step in? Coming in winter 2008: Cold War, starring London, Tara Reid, Stephen Baldwin, Cuba Gooding Jr., and a pack of drunken sled dogs. Trite as this make-believe plot may sound, it's not far from reality at Crystal Mountain, where John Kircher and Boyne USA, owners of the Mount Rainier resort for the past nine years, are jettisoning the concession ski schools that have traditionally managed multiweek programs in the Northwest, and consolidating instruction on the mountain to a single in-house school....
Wildlife agency denies protection for Nevada butterfly A butterfly found only at a popular Nevada off-road vehicle site won't receive federal protection as a threatened or endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided Wednesday. After a 12-month review, agency officials said federal listing under the Endangered Species Act is unwarranted because of recently adopted measures to protect the habitat of the Sand Mountain blue butterfly. Also, higher-than-expected numbers of the insect were found during a survey last year, fish and wildlife officials said. "Our finding, after looking at all the available information and the conservation strategy being implemented, is that the threat of the species becoming extinct is no longer there," said Bob Williams, field supervisor of the agency's Nevada office....
Congressional delegation weighs in against closing pass All three members of Wyoming's congressional delegation sent a joint statement Wednesday to planners at Yellowstone National Park opposing the proposed closure of the East Entrance to snowmobiles and snow coaches. "This decision is unacceptable to us and to our constituents," the letter said, urging the National Park Service to reconsider the proposal. Signed by Rep. Barbara Cubin and Sens. Mike Enzi and Craig Thomas, all Republicans, the letter was a formal comment from the legislators on a draft plan that would also set a daily limit of 720 snowmobiles allowed in the park. "It is our belief that it is possible to keep reasonable access available to Yellowstone through the East Entrance," said the letter, which was also sent to Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett and National Park Service Director Mary Bomar....
Tester rapped for panel vote on liquid coal amendment Although he says he supports the technology, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., on Wednesday helped sink a measure pushed by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., to increase the production of liquid fuels from coal. Thomas accused Tester and other Democrats of failing to act on their words of praise for transportation fuels made from coal. But Tester said he couldn't support the amendment because it would have scuttled the entire bill to which it was attached. Tester voted against the provision during a meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to assemble an energy package. The legislation contains measures boosting biofuels, energy efficiency and research and development on carbon capture and storage technology. Thomas' amendment would have required 21 billion gallons of coal-based fuels to be used annually by 2022. The bill already had a provision mandating 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. The amendment was defeated on a 12-11 party-line vote....
Washington will destroy dams to revive a river High hopes ride on knocking down two aging hydroelectric dams along the blue-green waters of the Elwha River: robust salmon runs, replenished beaches, restored wildlife habitat, a tourism windfall, access to sacred Indian sites long submerged. But the dams' demise — one would be the tallest ever demolished in the USA — may play a larger role. Hundreds of dams built in the past century are near the end of their usefulness and pose dilemmas for policymakers: remove them or make costly upgrades to keep them functioning. The Elwha River project, which won state approval in March, could be a model for how to bring a river back to life, environmentalists and biologists say. Hundreds of small dams have been torn out around the country in recent years, but none as high as the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon, the taller of the two on the Elwha....
Making ethanol of corn takes far too much water Many crops can be distilled into ethanol, but most makers are choosing corn. And corn is the most water-intensive of all the possible ethanol crops. How much water? How much corn? The answers are startling. First, many studies have suggested that corn-based ethanol isn't the best solution to breaking our oil addiction. Corn-based ethanol is far less efficient as a fuel than sugar-cane ethanol. And diverting corn from other uses, such as feeding cows and chickens, likely will drive the costs of food and farming higher. Big companies who deal in growing and marketing corn would prefer we ignore such facts. But it's harder to ignore the amount of water that using corn-based ethanol would require. This is a back-of-the-napkin look at ethanol's impact on California water. The conclusions are imprecise, because no energy, water or utility agency has gotten into this yet. Let's start with two assumptions: Corn will remain the crop of choice, and California will have to grow its own corn because other states will be using their own corn for making fuel. The Water Education Foundation says it takes about 118 gallons of water to grow a pound of corn. How many pounds of corn does it take to produce a gallon of ethanol? About 21 pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Doing the multiplication, each gallon of ethanol will take roughly 2,500 gallons of water....
USDA promises to do better on protecting personal info Last month, USDA announced it had accidentally published the Social Security numbers of over 29,000 farm and rural development program participants on a public Internet web site. And Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing on data security at USDA. USDA Chief Financial Officer Charles Christopherson was the primary witness. He opened his remarks with an apology and a promise. "We regret the incident that has occurred," Christopherson intoned. "We are committed to taking care of the individuals who are affected and we will fix the problems that led to this issue." According to Christopherson, USDA had attempted to contact all those who had had their Social Security numbers inadvertently released, and had reached all but a couple of dozen. He said those affected had been offered a free year of credit monitoring and a $20,000 insurance policy against the threat of identity theft. Christopherson also said USDA had quickly removed the Social Security numbers, which were embedded in a longer, 15-digit account number, from the public web site on which they'd been published. In fact, Christopherson testified that USDA had already begun a data security project over 10 months ago, shortly after the Veterans Affairs Department lost over 26,000,000 Social Security numbers. USDA’s goal, Christopherson said, is to replace Social Security numbers as record identifiers within all of USDA's information technology (IT) systems. But with 56 separate IT systems to go through, Christopherson told lawmakers the project could take a long, long time....
Reading Green: Ten books to help understand and save the environment. With all the world’s pressing environmental problems—not the least of which is the fact that humans are changing the planet’s climate—it’s all too easy to get caught up in fear and despair. It’s time to temper the bad news with knowledge. What follows is a list of books that will help anyone learn more about the state of the environment and, more specifically, the state of the West. The environmental movement has its classics, books like Thoreau’s On Walden Pond and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring; there are also excellent anthologies on everything from wilderness to environmental justice. In short, there are thousands of great books on the environment—and everyone has their favorites—but these 10 are invaluable....
Author signs to Bantam after newest book Even as a first-grader, Heather Sharfeddin had a natural knack as a storyteller, often telling exaggerated stories to her friends and classmates. Fast forward to the last several years and Sherwood's Sharfeddin is now the critically acclaimed author of two novels, "Blackbelly," and the recently released "Mineral Spirits." A Sherwood-area resident for 12 years, Sharfeddin's novels capture the contemporary West and its people. Her setting for "Blackbelly" is Central Idaho, a location where the 41-year-old writer spent a portion of her life, and still recalls the seemingly simple everyday things about the area, including the taste of the well water and the smell of the dirt. Her latest work, "Mineral Spirits" takes place in the sparsely populated Mineral County, Mont.....
Low snowpack heightens fears of new drought California's final snow survey of the year, taking place today in the Sierra Nevada, is expected to reveal early signs of a drought. Automated monitors already show the snowpack's water content is only 29 percent of average. Today's field measurement is expected to confirm that -- perhaps producing even worse numbers. The National Drought Mitigation Center, based in Lincoln, Neb., has declared drought conditions in nearly all of California. Its Web site paints the state in shades of dry, ranging from yellow to deep red -- deeper trouble -- from north to south. Mark Svoboda, climatologist at the center, said 27 percent of the western United States was in drought at this time last year. Now it's 51 percent. "All in all, the drought has got a strong foothold on the region," Svoboda said. "Right now there's nothing in the cards saying it's going to be over until we reassess this time next year, at least in the case of California." Despite the thin snowpack, the California Department of Water Resources predicts no water shortages this summer because reservoirs and groundwater basins are full from last winter, the fifth-wettest on record in Northern California....
Elk at risk? Otero County ranchers and farmers are calling on the county commission to demand action from the state game department regarding damages being caused by elk herds to forage, fences and crops. They are also asking for permission to shoot some elk. One such permit has already been granted, and an environmental group has raised its voice in protest. Rancher Charles Walker addressed Wednesday's commission work session and told the commission similar problems are being experienced in Lincoln, Chaves and Eddy counties. He said ranchers' pleas for compensation for the damages, or for increased landowner hunting permits, have fallen on deaf ears. Walker said under the grazing allotments with the Bureau of Land Management, the forage belongs to the ranchers. The refusal to either thin the herds or repay the allotment holders for damages represents an illegal "taking," Walker said. He and other ranchers say the problem has persisted for decades but has now become particularly acute. Commission Chairman Doug Moore said county staff are working on drafting a package of ordinances that would address the problem. He noted allotment holders have been required to reduce their herds by some 20 percent, yet no effort is being made to increase the number of elk that can be hunted each year. Moore said the elk are using as much as 80 percent of the forage resources on some of the allotments....
Litterers among 500 on marshals' warrant list Federal authorities are kicking off a blitz to arrest some 500 people in Arizona who have disobeyed laws protecting federal land. The people committed gruesome crimes, such as leaving litter at a campsite. Or getting drunk and disorderly on a mountaintop. Or perhaps even peeing in a park. The feds had offered people with outstanding tickets for such misdemeanors a Safe Surrender Day on Tuesday to come clean with their offenses. They could have visited their local federal courthouse or the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service office in Mesa to clear their records. One person showed up. "I don't know what (crime) he did, but he paid a $250 fine," said Tonto National Forest spokesman Vincent Picard. Now, those who didn't show up can expect a knock on the door, Picard said, adding that the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish & Wildlife will work in concert with the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix to nab those 500 scofflaws who now have warrants out for their arrest....
America's Forests in State of Renewal and Re-Growth The United States of America is covered by 750 million acres of forestland, an amount that has remained essentially unchanged over the past 100 years, reports a landmark new study released today by the Society of American Foresters (SAF). In addition, forestland in the United States has increased by more than 10 million acres over the past 20 years. The report is available for viewing or downloading at http://www.safnet.org/. The new study found that replanting and reforestation efforts, as well as natural forest re-growth on abandoned agricultural lands has generally offset any loss of forestland during the 20th century due to urban/suburban growth. Technological advances have made farming more efficient, vastly reducing the amount of land needed to produce food, thereby allowing forestland to regenerate, the report found. The State of America's Forests reports there is good reason to believe that the positive trends will continue. The new report is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed analysis of a wide variety of data regarding forestland in the United States from a broad range of sources, including the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The report was authored by forestry expert Mila Alvarez, a professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute's College of Natural Resources and principal of Solutions for Nature, a natural resources management consulting firm. The release of The State of America's Forests comes on the heels of a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report in March that also found the United States had annual increases in forest area in the 1990s and through 2005. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences released a study in November 2006 that came to a similar conclusion, finding a widespread pattern of reforestation in the United States and calling the United States a world leader in forestland re-growth....
A controversial 'Walk with Bears' Lynn Rogers grew up terrified of bears. Now he spends much of his time alongside them -- literally, within arm's length, even feeding them by hand. He knows his casual interactions with bears -- particularly the hand-feeding aspect -- go against the conventional wisdom of wildlife managers around the country. But he is also convinced that his way, not their way, is appropriate. "People are moving into bear country like never before," said Rogers, 68, who this weekend will open the North American Bear Center, an extension of the Wildlife Research Institute he has overseen since 1971 near rural Ely, Minn. "The message today has to be coexistence, rather than the frontier mentality of whenever you see a bear, shoot it, trap it, poison it, so (bears) keep their distance." Nor does Rogers think his actions -- chronicled in a documentary film, "The Man Who Walks with Bears," that has been nationally televised on such channels at Discovery's Animal Planet more than 70 times -- are apt to endanger others trying to experience the same kind of proximity with bears in the wild....
Honda Opens Unique 'Environmental Learning Center' in Irving, Texas Honda today opened an Environmental Learning Center (ELC) in Irving, Texas, the company's third such facility in the country. The ELC is designed to be a unique community resource that promotes a responsible land use ethic through a greater understanding of the varied regional ecology. Honda also has ELCs in Colton, Calif., and Alpharetta, Georgia. Honda's Irving ELC consists of approximately four acres surrounding an existing four-acre Rider Education Center where more than 30,000 street, dirt and ATV riders have been trained since it opened in 1989. The ELC features a trail system and species of plants, grasses and trees representing ten different Texas ecosystems as part of the Center's state-of-the-art off highway training facility. "Our ELCs serve as both an environmental resource for youth organizations as well as motorcycle training centers teaching environmentally responsible rider ethics to both beginners and experienced riders," said Dave Edwards, national manager of environment and education for the Motorcycle Division of American Honda Motor Co., Inc....
N.J. man died of thirst during wilderness survival adventure in the Utah desert By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person. After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water. But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness. And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water. Buschow wasn’t told that, and he wasn’t offered any....
Mountains Say Goodbye to Mom-and-Pop Ski Schools It sounds like the plot for a bad Jason London movie: A ski mogul with an eye on the bottom line takes over a local resort and cancels contracts with the community-based ski schools that have traditionally served the slopes, then asks the ski bums to join the corporate ranks. Lessons double in cost. Longtime skiers and snowboarders are outraged. The National Forest Service washes its hands of the matter. Will the underdog community schools yield to big business? Can snow-loving families afford the increased cost of lessons? Will the feds step in? Coming in winter 2008: Cold War, starring London, Tara Reid, Stephen Baldwin, Cuba Gooding Jr., and a pack of drunken sled dogs. Trite as this make-believe plot may sound, it's not far from reality at Crystal Mountain, where John Kircher and Boyne USA, owners of the Mount Rainier resort for the past nine years, are jettisoning the concession ski schools that have traditionally managed multiweek programs in the Northwest, and consolidating instruction on the mountain to a single in-house school....
Wildlife agency denies protection for Nevada butterfly A butterfly found only at a popular Nevada off-road vehicle site won't receive federal protection as a threatened or endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided Wednesday. After a 12-month review, agency officials said federal listing under the Endangered Species Act is unwarranted because of recently adopted measures to protect the habitat of the Sand Mountain blue butterfly. Also, higher-than-expected numbers of the insect were found during a survey last year, fish and wildlife officials said. "Our finding, after looking at all the available information and the conservation strategy being implemented, is that the threat of the species becoming extinct is no longer there," said Bob Williams, field supervisor of the agency's Nevada office....
Congressional delegation weighs in against closing pass All three members of Wyoming's congressional delegation sent a joint statement Wednesday to planners at Yellowstone National Park opposing the proposed closure of the East Entrance to snowmobiles and snow coaches. "This decision is unacceptable to us and to our constituents," the letter said, urging the National Park Service to reconsider the proposal. Signed by Rep. Barbara Cubin and Sens. Mike Enzi and Craig Thomas, all Republicans, the letter was a formal comment from the legislators on a draft plan that would also set a daily limit of 720 snowmobiles allowed in the park. "It is our belief that it is possible to keep reasonable access available to Yellowstone through the East Entrance," said the letter, which was also sent to Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett and National Park Service Director Mary Bomar....
Tester rapped for panel vote on liquid coal amendment Although he says he supports the technology, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., on Wednesday helped sink a measure pushed by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., to increase the production of liquid fuels from coal. Thomas accused Tester and other Democrats of failing to act on their words of praise for transportation fuels made from coal. But Tester said he couldn't support the amendment because it would have scuttled the entire bill to which it was attached. Tester voted against the provision during a meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to assemble an energy package. The legislation contains measures boosting biofuels, energy efficiency and research and development on carbon capture and storage technology. Thomas' amendment would have required 21 billion gallons of coal-based fuels to be used annually by 2022. The bill already had a provision mandating 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. The amendment was defeated on a 12-11 party-line vote....
Washington will destroy dams to revive a river High hopes ride on knocking down two aging hydroelectric dams along the blue-green waters of the Elwha River: robust salmon runs, replenished beaches, restored wildlife habitat, a tourism windfall, access to sacred Indian sites long submerged. But the dams' demise — one would be the tallest ever demolished in the USA — may play a larger role. Hundreds of dams built in the past century are near the end of their usefulness and pose dilemmas for policymakers: remove them or make costly upgrades to keep them functioning. The Elwha River project, which won state approval in March, could be a model for how to bring a river back to life, environmentalists and biologists say. Hundreds of small dams have been torn out around the country in recent years, but none as high as the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon, the taller of the two on the Elwha....
Making ethanol of corn takes far too much water Many crops can be distilled into ethanol, but most makers are choosing corn. And corn is the most water-intensive of all the possible ethanol crops. How much water? How much corn? The answers are startling. First, many studies have suggested that corn-based ethanol isn't the best solution to breaking our oil addiction. Corn-based ethanol is far less efficient as a fuel than sugar-cane ethanol. And diverting corn from other uses, such as feeding cows and chickens, likely will drive the costs of food and farming higher. Big companies who deal in growing and marketing corn would prefer we ignore such facts. But it's harder to ignore the amount of water that using corn-based ethanol would require. This is a back-of-the-napkin look at ethanol's impact on California water. The conclusions are imprecise, because no energy, water or utility agency has gotten into this yet. Let's start with two assumptions: Corn will remain the crop of choice, and California will have to grow its own corn because other states will be using their own corn for making fuel. The Water Education Foundation says it takes about 118 gallons of water to grow a pound of corn. How many pounds of corn does it take to produce a gallon of ethanol? About 21 pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Doing the multiplication, each gallon of ethanol will take roughly 2,500 gallons of water....
USDA promises to do better on protecting personal info Last month, USDA announced it had accidentally published the Social Security numbers of over 29,000 farm and rural development program participants on a public Internet web site. And Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing on data security at USDA. USDA Chief Financial Officer Charles Christopherson was the primary witness. He opened his remarks with an apology and a promise. "We regret the incident that has occurred," Christopherson intoned. "We are committed to taking care of the individuals who are affected and we will fix the problems that led to this issue." According to Christopherson, USDA had attempted to contact all those who had had their Social Security numbers inadvertently released, and had reached all but a couple of dozen. He said those affected had been offered a free year of credit monitoring and a $20,000 insurance policy against the threat of identity theft. Christopherson also said USDA had quickly removed the Social Security numbers, which were embedded in a longer, 15-digit account number, from the public web site on which they'd been published. In fact, Christopherson testified that USDA had already begun a data security project over 10 months ago, shortly after the Veterans Affairs Department lost over 26,000,000 Social Security numbers. USDA’s goal, Christopherson said, is to replace Social Security numbers as record identifiers within all of USDA's information technology (IT) systems. But with 56 separate IT systems to go through, Christopherson told lawmakers the project could take a long, long time....
Reading Green: Ten books to help understand and save the environment. With all the world’s pressing environmental problems—not the least of which is the fact that humans are changing the planet’s climate—it’s all too easy to get caught up in fear and despair. It’s time to temper the bad news with knowledge. What follows is a list of books that will help anyone learn more about the state of the environment and, more specifically, the state of the West. The environmental movement has its classics, books like Thoreau’s On Walden Pond and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring; there are also excellent anthologies on everything from wilderness to environmental justice. In short, there are thousands of great books on the environment—and everyone has their favorites—but these 10 are invaluable....
Author signs to Bantam after newest book Even as a first-grader, Heather Sharfeddin had a natural knack as a storyteller, often telling exaggerated stories to her friends and classmates. Fast forward to the last several years and Sherwood's Sharfeddin is now the critically acclaimed author of two novels, "Blackbelly," and the recently released "Mineral Spirits." A Sherwood-area resident for 12 years, Sharfeddin's novels capture the contemporary West and its people. Her setting for "Blackbelly" is Central Idaho, a location where the 41-year-old writer spent a portion of her life, and still recalls the seemingly simple everyday things about the area, including the taste of the well water and the smell of the dirt. Her latest work, "Mineral Spirits" takes place in the sparsely populated Mineral County, Mont.....
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
MAD COW DISEASE
Canada confirms new mad cow case
Another Canadian case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, has been confirmed in a mature dairy cow in the province of British Columbia, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Wednesday. The CFIA said the cow was 66 months old, within the age range of other Canadian cattle found to have the disease. The agency has the animal's carcass and no part of it entered the human or animal feed systems. The case is the tenth found in Canadian cattle since 2003, and the second in less than three months. Many of the cases have been blamed on exposure to contaminated feed. The CFIA did not specify the likely cause of the new case, but said in its release the animal likely came into contact with invective material during the first year of its life. The agency is now seeking out the animal's herdmates....
Another Canadian case of BSE born after feed ban
Canada found its tenth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) within its borders Wednesday. This latest one, like several before it, was also born after that country implemented a ruminant-to-ruminant feeding ban. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the latest BSE-positive animal is a dairy cow in British Columbia that was born 66 months ago. That puts its date of birth in or near November of 2001. Canada implemented its feed ban, which when effectively administered, prevents the transmission of BSE, in August of 1997. A rule pending final approval by USDA would allow all Canadian cattle born after March of 1999, 18 months after Canada implemented its feed ban, into the country on an essentially unrestricted basis. When Dr. John Clifford, the top veterinarian for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced that proposed final rule earlier this year, he conceded the March, 1999 date had been a "back of the envelope" calculation that surmised an 18-month window would be sufficient to allow Canada's feed ban to take effect. America's first case of BSE involved an older dairy cow in Washington State that had been imported from Canada. USDA has since found two other native born cases, both involving animals born before the U.S. implemented its own ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban....
Canada confirms new mad cow case
Another Canadian case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, has been confirmed in a mature dairy cow in the province of British Columbia, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said on Wednesday. The CFIA said the cow was 66 months old, within the age range of other Canadian cattle found to have the disease. The agency has the animal's carcass and no part of it entered the human or animal feed systems. The case is the tenth found in Canadian cattle since 2003, and the second in less than three months. Many of the cases have been blamed on exposure to contaminated feed. The CFIA did not specify the likely cause of the new case, but said in its release the animal likely came into contact with invective material during the first year of its life. The agency is now seeking out the animal's herdmates....
Another Canadian case of BSE born after feed ban
Canada found its tenth case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) within its borders Wednesday. This latest one, like several before it, was also born after that country implemented a ruminant-to-ruminant feeding ban. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the latest BSE-positive animal is a dairy cow in British Columbia that was born 66 months ago. That puts its date of birth in or near November of 2001. Canada implemented its feed ban, which when effectively administered, prevents the transmission of BSE, in August of 1997. A rule pending final approval by USDA would allow all Canadian cattle born after March of 1999, 18 months after Canada implemented its feed ban, into the country on an essentially unrestricted basis. When Dr. John Clifford, the top veterinarian for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced that proposed final rule earlier this year, he conceded the March, 1999 date had been a "back of the envelope" calculation that surmised an 18-month window would be sufficient to allow Canada's feed ban to take effect. America's first case of BSE involved an older dairy cow in Washington State that had been imported from Canada. USDA has since found two other native born cases, both involving animals born before the U.S. implemented its own ruminant-to-ruminant feed ban....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Interior Official Quits Ahead of Hearing An Interior Department official accused of pressuring government scientists to make their research fit her policy goals has resigned. Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, submitted her resignation letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a department spokesman said Tuesday. MacDonald resigned a week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. MacDonald was recently rebuked by the department's inspector general, who told Congress in a report last month that she broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups. Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery confirmed MacDonald's resignation but declined to comment further. Environmentalists cheered the departure of MacDonald, who they say tried to bully government scientists into altering their findings, often without scientific basis....
Corps Asked to Explain Pump Contract When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications - typos and all - from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found. The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party. While it may not be a violation of federal regulations to adopt a company's technical specifications, it is frowned on, especially for large jobs like the MWI contract, because it could give the impression the job was rigged for the benefit of a certain company, contractors familiar with Corps practices say....
EU-U.S. summit call for "urgent" climate action The European Union and the United States agreed on Monday that global warming is an "urgent" priority, and President George W. Bush conceded he must work to convince Russia of the need for a missile shield in Europe. At a joint news conference in the Rose Garden, the European side said it felt progress was made on the issue, despite an absence of concrete steps the EU and the United States can take together to address the problem. "I really welcome the fact that there was progress in this meeting," said Barroso. "We agree there's a threat, there's a very serious and global threat. We agree that there is a need to reduce emissions. We agree that we should work together." Bush, who critics charged was late to recognize climate change as a problem, made clear he felt any agreement between the United States and Europe would have a limited impact as long as developing countries like China are not included. "The United States could shut our economy and emit no greenhouse gases, and all it would take is for China in about 18 months to produce as much as we had been producing" to make up the difference, he said. But Merkel retorted that the developed world must lead the effort to reduce carbon emissions. "If the developed countries with the best technologies do nothing, then it will be very tough to convince the others. Without convincing the others, worldwide CO2 emissions won't go down," she said....
Albertans demand action on 'vile' well water When Fiona Lauridsen turns on her tap, the smelly water that flows out fizzes and burps. “The water coming out of my well is vile,” said Mrs. Lauridsen, who farms with her husband and family near Rosebud, Alta., a hamlet located about 100 kilometres east of Calgary. She and a small group of landowners and farmers travelled Tuesday to the Alberta Legislature to raise concerns about whether rampant oil and gas production around the country's fastest growing province may be poisoning their groundwater. The group, which is supported by the Alberta Liberals, is circulating a petition to urge the provincial and federal governments to act immediately. In Mrs. Lauridsen's case, she suspects that nearby coal-bed methane drilling – a source of natural gas – has led to her water problems. She said lab tests revealed high levels of methane....
Agents push bison back into park State and federal wildlife managers began hazing hundreds of bison back into Yellowstone National Park Tuesday ahead of a May 15 deadline, after which any bison outside the park likely will be sent to slaughter. For the first time in recent years, bison had been allowed to linger outside the park this spring, on U.S. Forest Service land about 10 miles north of West Yellowstone, Mont., said Melissa Frost with the Montana Department of Fish, Parks and Wildlife. Because they carry brucellosis, and ranchers are concerned it could be spread to cattle, the bison must be off that land and any private property outside the park so cattle can return to their summer ranges in the West Yellowstone Basin. "Any bison outside of the park after May 15 will likely be lethally removed," Frost said. State officials contend that when hazing the bison fails, they have no option but slaughter given the threat brucellosis poses to the cattle industry. Brucellosis causes cattle to abort. Widespread vaccination of bison is not considered feasible because of the potential cost and difficulty of vaccinating every bison....
Report: Drilling squeezes hunters, habitat Loss of wildlife habitat and fewer places for sportsmen to hunt in the West are blamed in a new report on Bush administration energy policies that spurred a boom in oil and gas drilling. Drilling on federal lands in five Western states doubled over the last decade, to more than 2,000 wells per year, according to the report to be released today by the Environmental Working Group and the National Wildlife Federation. That so-called "rush to drill" in Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico is squeezing hunters off public land and destroying crucial habitat for species including antelope, mule deer, elk and sage grouse, the report says. The environmental groups' report was based on comparisons of state wildlife agency habitat maps with BLM oil and gas lease sales. Their analysis showed the agency has leased 23 million acres of mule deer habitat, 18 million acres of antelope habitat, 17 million acres of sage grouse habitat and 13 million acres of elk habitat....Go here to read the report.
Officials tout CO2 injection Government and company officials and scientists on Tuesday urged more federal attention and funding for new technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide when burning coal, keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Witnesses at the joint hearing of two House Natural Resources subcommittees estimated that the technology could be in widespread commercial use in 10 to 15 years, but only if well funded and researched projects begin now. The technology would allow carbon dioxide to be captured and injected deep underground in geologic formations, where it would remain trapped. The issue is of great interest in Wyoming, the nation's leading coal producer. Carl Bauer, executive director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, said that at its most rapid development the technology would be available in a decade, with broader commercial use in 15 to 20 years. For the technology to have significant impact on reducing greenhouse gases, several hundred to several thousand carbon capture and storage facilities would need to be built around the world, he said....
Pinon bill ready for Governor's signature Gov. Bill Ritter will sign a measure Thursday aimed at making it more difficult for the U.S. Army to use its eminent domain powers to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southeastern Colorado. The measure, HB1069, withdraws the state's permission for the Army to use eminent domain in expanding Pinon Canyon. No state has attempted this in the past. Introduced by Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, and Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, legislators hope the bill will force the Army to acquire land through easement agreements or outright purchases. The Army, which has said it plans to do that anyway, is looking to expand the 238,000-acre training site by as many as 418,000 acres. The governor will sign the measure at a bill-signing ceremony on the east steps of the state Capitol at 1:15 p.m. Thursday. Ranchers and other landowners from the area surrounding the site are expected to attend....
Letter - Expansion's costs In a recent Pueblo Chieftain, Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, is quoted by Charles Ashby in an article entitled, "Senate delivers Army a message." Sen. Morse stated, "Some of our citizens will pay a disproportionate cost to support our national defense. Some of our ranchers will pay that cost in having to sell their land. I’m not saying that is fair. It seems to me that patriotism is about accepting your cost even if it is disproportionate." How dare you make the Pinon Canyon expansion into a patriot vs. non-patriot fight! How dare you openly imply that we, the ranchers in SE Colorado, are not patriotic, because we want to keep our land! How dare you make us out to be un-American because we are not jumping at the opportunity to vacate our homes, our land and our lives and try to pick up the pieces somewhere else? According to Sen. Morse’s statement, if this is what patriotism is all about, then all of you in Colorado Springs and Pueblo should quit worrying about where the troops are going to live and where their kids are going to go to school. After all, you are all patriots, right? Then you will just give up your homes to the incoming troops and their families, quit your jobs so their spouses will have jobs and have your children vacate their school desks for their children. After all, " . . . patriotism is about accepting your cost even if it is disproportionate."....
Fears of eminent domain arising Officials say two words are striking fear in the hearts of Texas landowners who have been contacted in recent days about handing over their riverfront property for a massive border wall: eminent domain. That's the term for the government's power to condemn private land for public use, and some say it's being thrown around in South Texas, where federal authorities are actively planning to build more than 125 miles of fencing, officials say. "Right now, landowners are very, very reluctant to have this happen," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Cuellar met with landowners last week in tiny Roma, in the Rio Grande Valley, where officials are eyeing numerous private tracts for the wall. He said officials with the Department of Homeland Security mentioned its condemnation authority "within the first 15 words" spoken to landowners in recent meetings in the district he represents. "Keep in mind we can take away your property through eminent domain," the officials said, according to Cuellar. State Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Democrat who represents Roma in the Legislature, said landowners in his district want Congress to halt the wall before their land is seized. But Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios said he is not aware of any current discussions about condemnation of private land for a border wall. He said that authorities are reaching out to private landowners and seeking their cooperation and that forceful condemnation "is not even being considered right now."....
Appeals court halts big timber sale A federal appeals court has halted a large timber sale on the eastern end of the Uinta Mountains, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service failed to follow federal environmental laws in approving the project. The 26-page decision handed down late Monday by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court ruling that had upheld the project and rejected a lawsuit filed by the Utah Environmental Congress and the High Uintas Primitive Council. The appeals court ruled that the Forest Service had failed to use the "best available science" in granting approval for the Trout Slope West project, which took in 18,500 acres in the Vernal Ranger District of the Ashley National Forest and had a projected yield of 9.2 million board feet of lumber. "We're thrilled to have yet another victory that halts logging on this tremendous scale in high-elevation old-growth forests," said Kevin Mueller, executive director of the Utah Environmental Congress. The court declined to rule on the other challenges in the lawsuit, including the impacts the project would have on water quality and the Colorado River cutthroat trout. But in ruling that the Forest Service had failed to use the best available science, the appeals court rejected the district court's approval of the timber project.
Forest drops tree-thinning proposal A Forest Service plan to thin trees on about 180 acres in the Crazy Mountains north of Big Timber has been withdrawn, following an appeal by the Native Ecosystems Council and WildWest Institute. The Big Timber Ranger District said Tuesday that the project proposed as a way to control the spread of bark beetles in Douglas fir will undergo a broader analysis, and a new decision may be issued this fall. The Big Timber Canyon Vegetation Treatment Project called for thinning Douglas fir, by helicopter. "Small forest health projects like this one have been done for years on national forests without significant impacts," but the Forest Service faces increasing court action as the agency goes about its work, and "we need to ensure our analysis can withstand that type of challenge," said Bill Avey, the district ranger. Jeff Juel of WildWest said the project was objectionable because part of it involved removing trees from an area of old-growth timber. "They were focusing on logging old growth, and it looked like a timber sale more than an actual (fire) fuel reduction. Getting those purposes mixed up is not a good idea."....
Column - Making the case for trees It is rare when the entire Colorado congressional delegation can find agreement on a matter of importance. So it was disappointing that there was so little notice recently when the delegation unanimously protested budget cuts by the U.S. Forest Service, cuts that threaten the health of Western forests, including those in Colorado. Yes, officials here are worried about the upcoming fire season and the damage already inflicted by the mountain pine beetle and a variety of other insects and diseases. There is a very good reason for these concerns. The Forest Service cut $4.3 million from the Rocky Mountain region's budget, one that had been already greatly reduced by an increase in forest fires. Under existing federal policy, there appears to be no cap on how much can be spent putting out fires. Any excess costs can be covered either with a supplemental appropriation or by borrowing (or stealing) from other programs. Last year, the total fire-suppression expense was over $1 billion, a record in what is already a bad decade. Those fire-suppression expenses are the price for past management failures, but they are also squeezing out programs for such things as timber sales and reforestation. In 2006, fire costs were 41 percent of the national budget. Next year, they will consume 44 percent of the total....
Workshops to study 'travel management' in Lincoln National Forest Public workshops covering Travel Management on the Lincoln National Forest will kick off at the Guadalupe Ranger District on May 3, followed by a session May 7 in Ruidoso. The Travel Management Rule was issued by U.S. Forest Service officials in November 2005. The new rule requires that each National Forest designate a system of roads, trails and areas that will be open to motorized travel. The Lincoln National Forest has a travel management policy in place since 1987 that identifies roads and trails open to motorized use. Public input from the workshops will be used to identify potential changes to the travel system that better protect natural and cultural resources, address user conflicts and secure sustainable opportunities for public enjoyment of national forests, Forest Service officials say. The end product of the designation process will be a Motor Vehicle Use Map that will be published showing a system of roads, trails and/or areas designated for motorized use. Any motorized use outside of the designated system will be prohibited....
Oklahoma Officials Arrest 29 In Drug Operation A push last week by Oklahoma law enforcement resulted in 29 arrests on drug-related offenses, as well as the seizure of various drugs and weapons. The District 16 Drug Task Force, which covers LeFlore and Latimer counties, participated in Operation Byrne Drugs 2 as part of a national week of stepped-up drug enforcement efforts, according to a news release from District Attorney Jeff Smith’s office. In a phone interview Monday, Smith said the District 16 task force had the most arrests last week of any of the 19 tasks forces in the state, as well as the largest amount of drugs, money and firearms confiscated. Agencies assisting the task force included the LeFlore and Latimer County sheriff’s departments, police departments from Poteau, Panama, Shady Point, Spiro, Pocola, Howe, Heavener and Arkoma, as well as the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement, the Choctaw Nation Tribal Police and the Oklahoma National Guard Air Raid unit....Is this the same Forest Service that is always complaining about a shortage of law enforcement types to protect our Federal lands? If there really is such a shortage, why are they involved with drug raids on non-federal property?
Energy firms offer millions to improve wildlife habitat Three energy producers are offering to contribute $36 million to improve wildlife habitat and preserve wildlife migration routes around their gas drilling sites in the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming. The companies offered the money as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management crafts a plan based on their proposal to allow year-round drilling on parts of the anticline. Currently, gas development is restricted by seasonal closures to protect wildlife that spend the winter in the area and sage grouse that nest in the spring. Conservationists have voiced opposition to dropping the seasonal restrictions, saying year- round development would disturb wildlife even more than now and cause more air pollution, among other impacts. The $36 million offer from Questar Corp., Ultra Resources Inc., and Shell Exploration and Production Co. comes relatively late in the lengthy bureaucratic process for considering such proposals....
Conservation group, gas firm reach a compromise A conservation group that challenged a natural gas drilling plan that had received federal approval decided to try another way to protect a wilderness-quality area in the Uinta Basin: a phone call. On Monday, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance announced they had reached an agreement that would protect a citizen-proposed wilderness area near the White River while also assuring natural gas development in the vicinity would continue. Anadarko will proceed with planned infill development in the Natural Buttes natural gas field, while SUWA will have assurances that Anadarko won't pursue its Bonanza development north of the White River, about 40 miles south of Vernal. "This was a very sensible way to solve this amicably," said Anadarko's Houston-based spokesman John Christiansen. The dispute over the Bonanza development followed the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's February approval of the project based on an environmental assessment. SUWA appealed the decision to the state director of the BLM in Utah. Then, SUWA reached out....
Higher Wildfire risk in West, South The West and Southeast face an increased wildfire risk this year because of ongoing drought and an expected hotter than average summer, the National Interagency Fire Center reported Tuesday. The center identified broad swaths of those regions - including all of Florida - and central Alaska as having increased chances of catching fire. "One of the things that strikes me is the breadth of the fire season, stretching from Florida and Georgia all the way up to Alaska," said Rick Ochoa, national fire weather program manager at the center. The National Wildland Fire Outlook report predicts the wildfire danger for May through August. It is based on past and expected weather patterns combined with the predicted amount and dryness of fire fuels and their potential to ignite. This year's map looks similar to last year, said Tom Wordell, wildland fire analyst at the center. In 2006, a record 9.8 million acres burned, 2,300 buildings were destroyed, fire suppression costs totaled $1.4 billion, and 24 wildland firefighters died....
Nez Perce sign water rights deal A landmark $193 million-dollar water rights settlement to resolve claims by the Nez Perce Tribe in North Idaho has been signed nearly three years after it was negotiated. Federal, state and tribal officials signed the complex consent decree that was issued by Idaho's 5th District Court over the weekend, and it will be implemented after the terms are published in the Federal Register, probably in about three weeks, the Lewiston Tribune reported Tuesday. The Nez Perce agreed to drop most of their claims to water in the Snake River basin in exchange for about $83 million, 11,000 acres of land now managed by the Bureau of Land Management and salmon conservation measures, including requirements for water releases from dams to aid migrating fish. "The entire process was fraught with deep emotion for the Nez Perce people as we came to grips with the magnitude of the decision to try and settle our claim to the water in that area that our people have inhabited for thousands of years," Tribal Chairwoman Rebecca A. Miles said in a prepared release....
California Hotels Replace Bible With Gore's Book Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming. They'll also find the Gaia equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper as it marches toward becoming California's first hotel certified as ``green,'' or benevolent to the environment. Similar features are found 35 miles south at San Francisco's Orchard Garden Hotel, which competes for customers with neighboring luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont. ``I'm not your traditional Birkenstocks and granola type of guy,'' said Stefan Muehle, general manager of the Orchard Garden, who said green measures are reducing energy costs as much as 25 percent a month. ``We're trying to dispel the myth that being green and being luxurious are mutually exclusive.'' The Gaia and Orchard are seeking to be the first hotels in California certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, which has authenticated 800 buildings across the U.S. and has about 6,000 in the process, including 30 hotels. San Francisco and other cities offer financial incentives to lessen water and energy use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions....
Ranchers worry as too-few April showers leave California dry After a dry winter that left the Central Valley's sheep and cattle with parched rangeland to graze, projections for summer water supplies are running as low as this year's rainfall. The forecasts spell trouble for California ranchers, who say they expect to lose millions in revenue this year after spending more to feed animals who may not grow as big as their owners want and therefore won't fetch premium prices when they are sold. Mike Blasingame, a fifth-generation rancher in the Fresno County foothills, said the unusually parched spring has left the calves he buys from throughout the country less natural grass to eat. He fattens them up during California's mild winters before selling them to large slaughterhouses in the Midwest. "My business is all about the gain," said Blasingame. "How much can they gain is if there's nothing out there for them to eat?" he said. With grass in short supply before the hot summer months, many ranchers supplement their livestock with hay, which becomes expensive and scarce when a whole region is dry at the same time....
Interior Official Quits Ahead of Hearing An Interior Department official accused of pressuring government scientists to make their research fit her policy goals has resigned. Julie MacDonald, deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, submitted her resignation letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a department spokesman said Tuesday. MacDonald resigned a week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. MacDonald was recently rebuked by the department's inspector general, who told Congress in a report last month that she broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups. Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery confirmed MacDonald's resignation but declined to comment further. Environmentalists cheered the departure of MacDonald, who they say tried to bully government scientists into altering their findings, often without scientific basis....
Corps Asked to Explain Pump Contract When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications - typos and all - from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found. The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Bush's brother, to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party. While it may not be a violation of federal regulations to adopt a company's technical specifications, it is frowned on, especially for large jobs like the MWI contract, because it could give the impression the job was rigged for the benefit of a certain company, contractors familiar with Corps practices say....
EU-U.S. summit call for "urgent" climate action The European Union and the United States agreed on Monday that global warming is an "urgent" priority, and President George W. Bush conceded he must work to convince Russia of the need for a missile shield in Europe. At a joint news conference in the Rose Garden, the European side said it felt progress was made on the issue, despite an absence of concrete steps the EU and the United States can take together to address the problem. "I really welcome the fact that there was progress in this meeting," said Barroso. "We agree there's a threat, there's a very serious and global threat. We agree that there is a need to reduce emissions. We agree that we should work together." Bush, who critics charged was late to recognize climate change as a problem, made clear he felt any agreement between the United States and Europe would have a limited impact as long as developing countries like China are not included. "The United States could shut our economy and emit no greenhouse gases, and all it would take is for China in about 18 months to produce as much as we had been producing" to make up the difference, he said. But Merkel retorted that the developed world must lead the effort to reduce carbon emissions. "If the developed countries with the best technologies do nothing, then it will be very tough to convince the others. Without convincing the others, worldwide CO2 emissions won't go down," she said....
Albertans demand action on 'vile' well water When Fiona Lauridsen turns on her tap, the smelly water that flows out fizzes and burps. “The water coming out of my well is vile,” said Mrs. Lauridsen, who farms with her husband and family near Rosebud, Alta., a hamlet located about 100 kilometres east of Calgary. She and a small group of landowners and farmers travelled Tuesday to the Alberta Legislature to raise concerns about whether rampant oil and gas production around the country's fastest growing province may be poisoning their groundwater. The group, which is supported by the Alberta Liberals, is circulating a petition to urge the provincial and federal governments to act immediately. In Mrs. Lauridsen's case, she suspects that nearby coal-bed methane drilling – a source of natural gas – has led to her water problems. She said lab tests revealed high levels of methane....
Agents push bison back into park State and federal wildlife managers began hazing hundreds of bison back into Yellowstone National Park Tuesday ahead of a May 15 deadline, after which any bison outside the park likely will be sent to slaughter. For the first time in recent years, bison had been allowed to linger outside the park this spring, on U.S. Forest Service land about 10 miles north of West Yellowstone, Mont., said Melissa Frost with the Montana Department of Fish, Parks and Wildlife. Because they carry brucellosis, and ranchers are concerned it could be spread to cattle, the bison must be off that land and any private property outside the park so cattle can return to their summer ranges in the West Yellowstone Basin. "Any bison outside of the park after May 15 will likely be lethally removed," Frost said. State officials contend that when hazing the bison fails, they have no option but slaughter given the threat brucellosis poses to the cattle industry. Brucellosis causes cattle to abort. Widespread vaccination of bison is not considered feasible because of the potential cost and difficulty of vaccinating every bison....
Report: Drilling squeezes hunters, habitat Loss of wildlife habitat and fewer places for sportsmen to hunt in the West are blamed in a new report on Bush administration energy policies that spurred a boom in oil and gas drilling. Drilling on federal lands in five Western states doubled over the last decade, to more than 2,000 wells per year, according to the report to be released today by the Environmental Working Group and the National Wildlife Federation. That so-called "rush to drill" in Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico is squeezing hunters off public land and destroying crucial habitat for species including antelope, mule deer, elk and sage grouse, the report says. The environmental groups' report was based on comparisons of state wildlife agency habitat maps with BLM oil and gas lease sales. Their analysis showed the agency has leased 23 million acres of mule deer habitat, 18 million acres of antelope habitat, 17 million acres of sage grouse habitat and 13 million acres of elk habitat....Go here to read the report.
Officials tout CO2 injection Government and company officials and scientists on Tuesday urged more federal attention and funding for new technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide when burning coal, keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. Witnesses at the joint hearing of two House Natural Resources subcommittees estimated that the technology could be in widespread commercial use in 10 to 15 years, but only if well funded and researched projects begin now. The technology would allow carbon dioxide to be captured and injected deep underground in geologic formations, where it would remain trapped. The issue is of great interest in Wyoming, the nation's leading coal producer. Carl Bauer, executive director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, said that at its most rapid development the technology would be available in a decade, with broader commercial use in 15 to 20 years. For the technology to have significant impact on reducing greenhouse gases, several hundred to several thousand carbon capture and storage facilities would need to be built around the world, he said....
Pinon bill ready for Governor's signature Gov. Bill Ritter will sign a measure Thursday aimed at making it more difficult for the U.S. Army to use its eminent domain powers to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southeastern Colorado. The measure, HB1069, withdraws the state's permission for the Army to use eminent domain in expanding Pinon Canyon. No state has attempted this in the past. Introduced by Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, and Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, legislators hope the bill will force the Army to acquire land through easement agreements or outright purchases. The Army, which has said it plans to do that anyway, is looking to expand the 238,000-acre training site by as many as 418,000 acres. The governor will sign the measure at a bill-signing ceremony on the east steps of the state Capitol at 1:15 p.m. Thursday. Ranchers and other landowners from the area surrounding the site are expected to attend....
Letter - Expansion's costs In a recent Pueblo Chieftain, Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, is quoted by Charles Ashby in an article entitled, "Senate delivers Army a message." Sen. Morse stated, "Some of our citizens will pay a disproportionate cost to support our national defense. Some of our ranchers will pay that cost in having to sell their land. I’m not saying that is fair. It seems to me that patriotism is about accepting your cost even if it is disproportionate." How dare you make the Pinon Canyon expansion into a patriot vs. non-patriot fight! How dare you openly imply that we, the ranchers in SE Colorado, are not patriotic, because we want to keep our land! How dare you make us out to be un-American because we are not jumping at the opportunity to vacate our homes, our land and our lives and try to pick up the pieces somewhere else? According to Sen. Morse’s statement, if this is what patriotism is all about, then all of you in Colorado Springs and Pueblo should quit worrying about where the troops are going to live and where their kids are going to go to school. After all, you are all patriots, right? Then you will just give up your homes to the incoming troops and their families, quit your jobs so their spouses will have jobs and have your children vacate their school desks for their children. After all, " . . . patriotism is about accepting your cost even if it is disproportionate."....
Fears of eminent domain arising Officials say two words are striking fear in the hearts of Texas landowners who have been contacted in recent days about handing over their riverfront property for a massive border wall: eminent domain. That's the term for the government's power to condemn private land for public use, and some say it's being thrown around in South Texas, where federal authorities are actively planning to build more than 125 miles of fencing, officials say. "Right now, landowners are very, very reluctant to have this happen," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Cuellar met with landowners last week in tiny Roma, in the Rio Grande Valley, where officials are eyeing numerous private tracts for the wall. He said officials with the Department of Homeland Security mentioned its condemnation authority "within the first 15 words" spoken to landowners in recent meetings in the district he represents. "Keep in mind we can take away your property through eminent domain," the officials said, according to Cuellar. State Rep. Ryan Guillen, a Democrat who represents Roma in the Legislature, said landowners in his district want Congress to halt the wall before their land is seized. But Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios said he is not aware of any current discussions about condemnation of private land for a border wall. He said that authorities are reaching out to private landowners and seeking their cooperation and that forceful condemnation "is not even being considered right now."....
Appeals court halts big timber sale A federal appeals court has halted a large timber sale on the eastern end of the Uinta Mountains, ruling that the U.S. Forest Service failed to follow federal environmental laws in approving the project. The 26-page decision handed down late Monday by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court ruling that had upheld the project and rejected a lawsuit filed by the Utah Environmental Congress and the High Uintas Primitive Council. The appeals court ruled that the Forest Service had failed to use the "best available science" in granting approval for the Trout Slope West project, which took in 18,500 acres in the Vernal Ranger District of the Ashley National Forest and had a projected yield of 9.2 million board feet of lumber. "We're thrilled to have yet another victory that halts logging on this tremendous scale in high-elevation old-growth forests," said Kevin Mueller, executive director of the Utah Environmental Congress. The court declined to rule on the other challenges in the lawsuit, including the impacts the project would have on water quality and the Colorado River cutthroat trout. But in ruling that the Forest Service had failed to use the best available science, the appeals court rejected the district court's approval of the timber project.
Forest drops tree-thinning proposal A Forest Service plan to thin trees on about 180 acres in the Crazy Mountains north of Big Timber has been withdrawn, following an appeal by the Native Ecosystems Council and WildWest Institute. The Big Timber Ranger District said Tuesday that the project proposed as a way to control the spread of bark beetles in Douglas fir will undergo a broader analysis, and a new decision may be issued this fall. The Big Timber Canyon Vegetation Treatment Project called for thinning Douglas fir, by helicopter. "Small forest health projects like this one have been done for years on national forests without significant impacts," but the Forest Service faces increasing court action as the agency goes about its work, and "we need to ensure our analysis can withstand that type of challenge," said Bill Avey, the district ranger. Jeff Juel of WildWest said the project was objectionable because part of it involved removing trees from an area of old-growth timber. "They were focusing on logging old growth, and it looked like a timber sale more than an actual (fire) fuel reduction. Getting those purposes mixed up is not a good idea."....
Column - Making the case for trees It is rare when the entire Colorado congressional delegation can find agreement on a matter of importance. So it was disappointing that there was so little notice recently when the delegation unanimously protested budget cuts by the U.S. Forest Service, cuts that threaten the health of Western forests, including those in Colorado. Yes, officials here are worried about the upcoming fire season and the damage already inflicted by the mountain pine beetle and a variety of other insects and diseases. There is a very good reason for these concerns. The Forest Service cut $4.3 million from the Rocky Mountain region's budget, one that had been already greatly reduced by an increase in forest fires. Under existing federal policy, there appears to be no cap on how much can be spent putting out fires. Any excess costs can be covered either with a supplemental appropriation or by borrowing (or stealing) from other programs. Last year, the total fire-suppression expense was over $1 billion, a record in what is already a bad decade. Those fire-suppression expenses are the price for past management failures, but they are also squeezing out programs for such things as timber sales and reforestation. In 2006, fire costs were 41 percent of the national budget. Next year, they will consume 44 percent of the total....
Workshops to study 'travel management' in Lincoln National Forest Public workshops covering Travel Management on the Lincoln National Forest will kick off at the Guadalupe Ranger District on May 3, followed by a session May 7 in Ruidoso. The Travel Management Rule was issued by U.S. Forest Service officials in November 2005. The new rule requires that each National Forest designate a system of roads, trails and areas that will be open to motorized travel. The Lincoln National Forest has a travel management policy in place since 1987 that identifies roads and trails open to motorized use. Public input from the workshops will be used to identify potential changes to the travel system that better protect natural and cultural resources, address user conflicts and secure sustainable opportunities for public enjoyment of national forests, Forest Service officials say. The end product of the designation process will be a Motor Vehicle Use Map that will be published showing a system of roads, trails and/or areas designated for motorized use. Any motorized use outside of the designated system will be prohibited....
Oklahoma Officials Arrest 29 In Drug Operation A push last week by Oklahoma law enforcement resulted in 29 arrests on drug-related offenses, as well as the seizure of various drugs and weapons. The District 16 Drug Task Force, which covers LeFlore and Latimer counties, participated in Operation Byrne Drugs 2 as part of a national week of stepped-up drug enforcement efforts, according to a news release from District Attorney Jeff Smith’s office. In a phone interview Monday, Smith said the District 16 task force had the most arrests last week of any of the 19 tasks forces in the state, as well as the largest amount of drugs, money and firearms confiscated. Agencies assisting the task force included the LeFlore and Latimer County sheriff’s departments, police departments from Poteau, Panama, Shady Point, Spiro, Pocola, Howe, Heavener and Arkoma, as well as the U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement, the Choctaw Nation Tribal Police and the Oklahoma National Guard Air Raid unit....Is this the same Forest Service that is always complaining about a shortage of law enforcement types to protect our Federal lands? If there really is such a shortage, why are they involved with drug raids on non-federal property?
Energy firms offer millions to improve wildlife habitat Three energy producers are offering to contribute $36 million to improve wildlife habitat and preserve wildlife migration routes around their gas drilling sites in the Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming. The companies offered the money as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management crafts a plan based on their proposal to allow year-round drilling on parts of the anticline. Currently, gas development is restricted by seasonal closures to protect wildlife that spend the winter in the area and sage grouse that nest in the spring. Conservationists have voiced opposition to dropping the seasonal restrictions, saying year- round development would disturb wildlife even more than now and cause more air pollution, among other impacts. The $36 million offer from Questar Corp., Ultra Resources Inc., and Shell Exploration and Production Co. comes relatively late in the lengthy bureaucratic process for considering such proposals....
Conservation group, gas firm reach a compromise A conservation group that challenged a natural gas drilling plan that had received federal approval decided to try another way to protect a wilderness-quality area in the Uinta Basin: a phone call. On Monday, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance announced they had reached an agreement that would protect a citizen-proposed wilderness area near the White River while also assuring natural gas development in the vicinity would continue. Anadarko will proceed with planned infill development in the Natural Buttes natural gas field, while SUWA will have assurances that Anadarko won't pursue its Bonanza development north of the White River, about 40 miles south of Vernal. "This was a very sensible way to solve this amicably," said Anadarko's Houston-based spokesman John Christiansen. The dispute over the Bonanza development followed the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's February approval of the project based on an environmental assessment. SUWA appealed the decision to the state director of the BLM in Utah. Then, SUWA reached out....
Higher Wildfire risk in West, South The West and Southeast face an increased wildfire risk this year because of ongoing drought and an expected hotter than average summer, the National Interagency Fire Center reported Tuesday. The center identified broad swaths of those regions - including all of Florida - and central Alaska as having increased chances of catching fire. "One of the things that strikes me is the breadth of the fire season, stretching from Florida and Georgia all the way up to Alaska," said Rick Ochoa, national fire weather program manager at the center. The National Wildland Fire Outlook report predicts the wildfire danger for May through August. It is based on past and expected weather patterns combined with the predicted amount and dryness of fire fuels and their potential to ignite. This year's map looks similar to last year, said Tom Wordell, wildland fire analyst at the center. In 2006, a record 9.8 million acres burned, 2,300 buildings were destroyed, fire suppression costs totaled $1.4 billion, and 24 wildland firefighters died....
Nez Perce sign water rights deal A landmark $193 million-dollar water rights settlement to resolve claims by the Nez Perce Tribe in North Idaho has been signed nearly three years after it was negotiated. Federal, state and tribal officials signed the complex consent decree that was issued by Idaho's 5th District Court over the weekend, and it will be implemented after the terms are published in the Federal Register, probably in about three weeks, the Lewiston Tribune reported Tuesday. The Nez Perce agreed to drop most of their claims to water in the Snake River basin in exchange for about $83 million, 11,000 acres of land now managed by the Bureau of Land Management and salmon conservation measures, including requirements for water releases from dams to aid migrating fish. "The entire process was fraught with deep emotion for the Nez Perce people as we came to grips with the magnitude of the decision to try and settle our claim to the water in that area that our people have inhabited for thousands of years," Tribal Chairwoman Rebecca A. Miles said in a prepared release....
California Hotels Replace Bible With Gore's Book Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming. They'll also find the Gaia equipped with waterless urinals, solar lighting and recycled paper as it marches toward becoming California's first hotel certified as ``green,'' or benevolent to the environment. Similar features are found 35 miles south at San Francisco's Orchard Garden Hotel, which competes for customers with neighboring luxury hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and Fairmont. ``I'm not your traditional Birkenstocks and granola type of guy,'' said Stefan Muehle, general manager of the Orchard Garden, who said green measures are reducing energy costs as much as 25 percent a month. ``We're trying to dispel the myth that being green and being luxurious are mutually exclusive.'' The Gaia and Orchard are seeking to be the first hotels in California certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, which has authenticated 800 buildings across the U.S. and has about 6,000 in the process, including 30 hotels. San Francisco and other cities offer financial incentives to lessen water and energy use and reduce carbon dioxide emissions....
Ranchers worry as too-few April showers leave California dry After a dry winter that left the Central Valley's sheep and cattle with parched rangeland to graze, projections for summer water supplies are running as low as this year's rainfall. The forecasts spell trouble for California ranchers, who say they expect to lose millions in revenue this year after spending more to feed animals who may not grow as big as their owners want and therefore won't fetch premium prices when they are sold. Mike Blasingame, a fifth-generation rancher in the Fresno County foothills, said the unusually parched spring has left the calves he buys from throughout the country less natural grass to eat. He fattens them up during California's mild winters before selling them to large slaughterhouses in the Midwest. "My business is all about the gain," said Blasingame. "How much can they gain is if there's nothing out there for them to eat?" he said. With grass in short supply before the hot summer months, many ranchers supplement their livestock with hay, which becomes expensive and scarce when a whole region is dry at the same time....
FLE
Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January. Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants. As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States. But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants. During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants. “Sir, the president’s authority under Article II is in the Constitution,” Mr. McConnell said. “So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president’s call.”....
Record Number of Secret Warrants in 2006 A secret court approved all but one of the government's requests last year to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies, according to Justice Department data released Tuesday. In all, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off on 2,176 warrants targeting people in the United States believed to be linked to international terror organizations or spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One application was denied in part, and 73 required changes before being approved. The disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law. It was released as a Senate intelligence panel examined changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that could let the government more easily monitor homegrown terrorists. But in its three-page public report, sent to Senate and House leaders, the Justice Department said it could not yet provide data on how many times the FBI secretly sought telephone, Internet and banking records about U.S. citizens and residents without court approval. The department is still compiling those numbers amid an internal investigation of the FBI's improper — and in some cases illegal — use of so-called national security letters. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval....
States Wiretap Far More Often Than Feds State investigators listened in on more than 3 million phone conversations last year as local prosecutors sought a record number of wiretaps, mostly to investigate drug crimes. As the federal government has focused its resources on national security investigations, the responsibility for drug investigations — the focus of 80 percent of wiretaps — has fallen to state and local authorities. A decade ago, federal and state investigators sought about the same number of wiretaps. Last year, state prosecutors obtained nearly three times as many wiretap authorizations as their federal counterparts: 1,378 to 461, according to an annual report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Before tapping someone's phone, prosecutors must persuade a judge there is probable cause to believe the person is breaking the law. No federal or state judge denied such a request last year. Of the more than 15,000 applications filed in the last decade, only five were denied. Technological advances have made it easier for local investigators to tap telephones and cell phones....
Privacy Laws Slow Efforts on Gun-Buyer Data Momentum is building in Congress behind a measure that would push states to report their mental health records to the federal database used to conduct background checks on gun buyers. But a thicket of obstacles, most notably state privacy laws, have thwarted repeated efforts to improve the reporting of such records in the past and are likely to complicate this latest effort, even after the worst mass shooting in United States history at Virginia Tech last month. Federal law prohibits anyone who has been adjudicated as a “mental defective,” as well as anyone involuntarily committed to a mental institution, from buying a firearm. But only 22 states now submit any mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, against which all would-be gun purchasers must be checked. The erratic reporting is a problem to which gun-control advocates, law enforcement officials and others have sought to draw attention for years. “We’ve had these wake-up calls for years, and all we ever do is push the snooze button,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The federal system, in fact, contained only about 235,000 mental health records as of January 2006, even though it is estimated that as many as 2.7 million people have been involuntarily institutionalized nationwide....
Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January. Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants. As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States. But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants. During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants. “Sir, the president’s authority under Article II is in the Constitution,” Mr. McConnell said. “So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president’s call.”....
Record Number of Secret Warrants in 2006 A secret court approved all but one of the government's requests last year to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies, according to Justice Department data released Tuesday. In all, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed off on 2,176 warrants targeting people in the United States believed to be linked to international terror organizations or spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. One application was denied in part, and 73 required changes before being approved. The disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law. It was released as a Senate intelligence panel examined changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that could let the government more easily monitor homegrown terrorists. But in its three-page public report, sent to Senate and House leaders, the Justice Department said it could not yet provide data on how many times the FBI secretly sought telephone, Internet and banking records about U.S. citizens and residents without court approval. The department is still compiling those numbers amid an internal investigation of the FBI's improper — and in some cases illegal — use of so-called national security letters. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge's approval....
States Wiretap Far More Often Than Feds State investigators listened in on more than 3 million phone conversations last year as local prosecutors sought a record number of wiretaps, mostly to investigate drug crimes. As the federal government has focused its resources on national security investigations, the responsibility for drug investigations — the focus of 80 percent of wiretaps — has fallen to state and local authorities. A decade ago, federal and state investigators sought about the same number of wiretaps. Last year, state prosecutors obtained nearly three times as many wiretap authorizations as their federal counterparts: 1,378 to 461, according to an annual report by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Before tapping someone's phone, prosecutors must persuade a judge there is probable cause to believe the person is breaking the law. No federal or state judge denied such a request last year. Of the more than 15,000 applications filed in the last decade, only five were denied. Technological advances have made it easier for local investigators to tap telephones and cell phones....
Privacy Laws Slow Efforts on Gun-Buyer Data Momentum is building in Congress behind a measure that would push states to report their mental health records to the federal database used to conduct background checks on gun buyers. But a thicket of obstacles, most notably state privacy laws, have thwarted repeated efforts to improve the reporting of such records in the past and are likely to complicate this latest effort, even after the worst mass shooting in United States history at Virginia Tech last month. Federal law prohibits anyone who has been adjudicated as a “mental defective,” as well as anyone involuntarily committed to a mental institution, from buying a firearm. But only 22 states now submit any mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, against which all would-be gun purchasers must be checked. The erratic reporting is a problem to which gun-control advocates, law enforcement officials and others have sought to draw attention for years. “We’ve had these wake-up calls for years, and all we ever do is push the snooze button,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The federal system, in fact, contained only about 235,000 mental health records as of January 2006, even though it is estimated that as many as 2.7 million people have been involuntarily institutionalized nationwide....
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Wolf killed following recent livestock attack A rancher west of Springdale shot and killed a gray wolf on Monday, about two weeks after wolves fatally injured one of the rancher's cows. The year-old male wolf was shot under a federal shoot-on-site permit issued last week to the rancher, whose name was not released. One of the rancher's heifers had been attacked April 17 and was later put down due to its injuries, said Jon Trapp, a wolf management specialist with the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks. It was unknown if the wolf shot Monday was involved in the attack. The state's policy is to remove wolves "as close in time and space as possible" to such an attack, Trapp said. Trapp said the rancher's permit was for one wolf only, although federal rules allow the taking of additional wolves if caught in the act of harassing or injuring livestock. "If the rancher comes out now and sees a wolf crossing his property he cannot shoot it. If he comes out and sees one chasing livestock he can shoot," Trapp said. Wolf-rancher conflicts have been on the upswing in recent years as packs expand their territories in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. In 2006, a record 142 wolves were killed by ranchers or federal wildlife agents in response to livestock attacks....
Fish poison plan goes on display Fisheries biologists are preparing to save native trout populations deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness by poisoning several lakes, a complex and controversial plan four years in the making. “This project has been through years and years of review,” said John Fraley, spokesman for the Kalispell office of the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Our intent is to begin implementation this October.” Specifically, the intent is to poison Black and Blackfoot lakes, both located in the remote Jewel Basin hiking area. Those lakes, and 19 more in and around the wilderness area, are home to hybrid fish, genetic cross-breeds mixing the genes of native westslope cutthroat trout with nonresident Yellowstone cutthroats and rainbows. The plan is to apply fish toxins that attack trout gills, leaving other aquatic residents unharmed. The poison, Fraley said, breaks down in a matter of days and dissipate. (Its half-life is about two weeks.) Still, he said, “we've had a lot of people interested in this project.” Some are anglers who enjoy fishing the 21 targeted lakes. Some are wilderness advocates opposed to toxins in the wilds. And some are critics of motors and machines, saying the planes and boats that will be used to apply the toxins have no place in designated wilderness areas. Forest Service officials have granted special permits allowing some machines in areas otherwise off-limits, Fraley said, making the backcountry work possible....Special permits to poison fish is ok, but just let a rancher request a special permit to clean out a dirt tank, haul in fencing supplies or doctor a sick cow and see what happens.
Davenport can't scale Forest Service rules Aspenite Chris Davenport’s plan to show a film of him skiing 14,000-foot high peaks in Colorado has run into a challenge as great as the feat itself. The White River National Forest and five other national forests in Colorado denied two requests by Davenport and filmmaker Ben Galland to commercially film him skiing high peaks within wilderness, White River Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson announced Monday. The U.S. Forest Service concluded the film would not promote the wilderness characteristics of solitude and untrammeled nature, according to a statement released by the agency. Davenport, 36, successfully completed a goal to climb and ski all 54 of the “fourteeners” in Colorado within one year. He accomplished his goal on Jan. 19 with three days to spare. Rich Doak, the acting recreation staff officer in the White River, headquartered in Glenwood Springs, said the agency wasn’t discrediting Davenport’s accomplishment. However, agency officials felt the film does not promote wilderness values or ethics but rather focuses on the concept of the “ski challenge." “Really good skiing doesn’t promote wilderness,” Doak said....Doak is right. Only using a helicopter to poison fish does that.
Counting On Trees: Scientists Are Creating A National Biomass And Carbon Dataset For USA After completing a two-year pilot phase, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are expanding the scope of the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000), the first ever inventory of its kind, by moving into the production phase. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover data, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the U.S. Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will be an invaluable baseline data set for the assessment of the carbon stock in U.S. forest vegetation and will improve current methods of determining carbon flux between vegetation and the atmosphere. Work on the remaining 61 mapping zones will be completed at a rate of roughly one zone every seven working days. According to Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center who is leading the project, "Understanding this flux is critical for the quantification and prediction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, a major determinant of the greenhouse warming effect in the climate system. Thus, this initiative will directly support the North American Carbon Program, which is a major component of the U.S. Climate Change Research Program."....
Lawmakers rush to slow oil-shale push When energy company executives gather in a room and start talking about trillions of barrels of oil, most of it locked within oil shale conveniently located near the junction of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, they appear overcome with a firm sense of optimism, as they did in April at the Utah Energy Summit. The Piceance Basin, Utah’s Uinta Basin and Wyoming’s Green River Basin, they say, could be a one-stop shop for answers to America’s energy independence. “There’s enough oil reserves in the United States (primarily those in the Green River Valley) to satisfy us at present energy demands for the next 400 years,” Dan Elcan, chief executive of Oil Shale Exploration Co., or OSEC, said at the summit. One hundred days into Ritter’s first term, he and his staff are trying to grasp the full impact of commercial oil-shale development within a congressionally mandated time frame the Ritter administration sees as far too narrow. A change in the Energy Policy Act may be needed just for the state to get a handle on what full-scale commercial oil shale production might mean for Colorado, he said. The Ritter administration will soon begin discussions with the Interior Department and the state’s congressional delegation to try to buy the state more time to understand the impacts of oil shale production before it goes commercial in Colorado, Sherman said....
White River oil-shale mine to reopen in Utah The Bureau of Land Management on Monday gave its blessing to Oil Shale Exploration Co.’s plans to reopen the White River oil-shale mine in Utah about 20 miles west of Rangely. The BLM approved the environmental assessment for the company’s multiphase, oil-shale research project at White River Mine, clearing the way for the agency to issue the sixth and final 160-acre oil-shale research and development lease. The other five leases have been issued to energy companies in Colorado. In the first phase, oil shale already mined from the site will be sent to Canada to be processed in a surface retort originally developed for the processing of tar sands. The BLM will be able to determine from OSEC’s Canadian retorting operation whether spent shale at White River Mine would need to be isolated from the environment. Later, the retort will be moved to the mine site....
Fire restrictions announced for Colorado River area until Oct. 31 Roughly 2.5 million acres of public lands along the Colorado River in Arizona and California have fire restrictions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. To curtail what could be a devastating fire season, land management officials began the restrictions Monday on the BLM's Yuma and Lake Havasu field office jurisdictions. In effect through Oct. 31, subject to being extended or withdrawn based on the severity ratings, "The restrictions are the result of the extreme potential for wildfire within this region," stated Chris Delaney, acting fire manager officer. The BLM is asking the public to use extreme caution when visiting public lands this summer. Currently there are no plans to close any areas along the Colorado River area to public use....
BLM Suicide Underscores Bureaucratic Inhumanity Bureaucratic indifference and official callousness contributed to a suicide by a Bureau of Land Management national monument manager, according to an internal investigation report released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, workplace surveys show deepening distrust and plummeting morale within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other agencies within the Interior Department. On May 2, 2005, Marlene Braun, the manager of the Carrizo Plains National Monument in California killed herself, leaving a suicide note citing abuse, humiliation and unprofessional conduct by her chain-of-command. The Inspector General "Report of Investigation", dated April 19, 2006, found that "BLM did not take action to resolve longstanding differences... or to diffuse inter-office conflict, despite the availability of alternative dispute resolution methods." As a result, the report concludes "a breakdown in trust, communication and cooperation…adversely affected management of the Carrizo Plains…" The report, extracted by PEER nine months after its first Freedom of Information Act request to the Inspector General's office, leaves lingering questions....
Beak to the future In this sparsely populated town, where the gas station and cafe are boarded up, locals are pinning their hopes for the future on a sandy-brown bird with skinny legs. The mountain plover is a desert bird that likes to nest in wide-open fields of prairie-dog towns and cow pies. A few months ago, ranchers realized the bird's economic potential to draw bird lovers who want to add the mountain plover to their lifetime birding lists. So last weekend, this Eastern Plains town of a few hundred people hosted the inaugural Mountain Plover Festival, drawing bird lovers to Karval for a $75 package of educational sessions about the bird, morning viewings and meet-and-greets with locals. "We tried to come up with something that we could capitalize on," said rancher Carl Stogsdill, 63. "And open space and wildlife is about all we have." The festival drew 14 birders. Organizers called it a success, since they had expected only seven. The festival is part of an eco- tourism trend in rural America aimed at preserving the small- town way of life. Galeton, Pa., is drawing astronomers with its star-filled skies. In western Oklahoma, bleachers have been set up near the Cimarron River for spectators to watch freight trains. In the Flint Hills of Kansas, tourists come to ignite prairie fires. City dwellers are paying for Western experiences such as building fences, saddling horses and branding cattle. "There are an amazing number of things that Americans are interested in, particularly Americans who are interested in the authentic," said Ted Eubanks, of Austin, Texas, founder of Fermata Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in nature tourism. With 70 million birders in the nation, birds are proving to be a top eco-tourism lure, he said....
White House seeks more coastal drilling The Bush administration moved yesterday to open an area off the Virginia coast to oil and gas drilling, a step that environmentalists warned could lead to the weakening of the long-standing ban on new energy exploration off much of the U.S. coast. That ban was inspired by a devastating oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969. But with high gasoline prices and concern about U.S. dependence on foreign oil, pro-drilling forces are more hopeful of persuading Congress -- even with its Democratic majority -- to relax the drilling ban. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne unveiled yesterday a five-year plan that calls for offering drilling leases in an area off Virginia that has been off limits since the 1980s, a move that is subject to presidential and congressional approval. He also proposed expanding drilling off Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Gasoline prices continued to rise yesterday, hitting a nationwide average price of $2.95 for a gallon of self-serve regular, according to AAA. California prices rose 4.3 cents in the past week to set a record high average of $3.359 a gallon. Environmental groups vowed to lobby Congress to block the proposed drilling off Virginia and in an area off Alaska that President Bush previously moved to open to exploration....
Grizzly's delisting affects mostly bureaucrats Yellowstone grizzly bears stepped into a new era at 12:01 a.m. Monday. That's when the rule to remove them from the endangered species list officially took effect. Not that the bears caught on. The switch - the product of 30 years of recovery efforts - will do little to change the immediate management of the 500 or so grizzlies that live in and around Yellowstone National Park. "The bears are noticing no difference," said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For many, delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly is a major success story under the Endangered Species Act. When the bears were first listed in 1975, there were between 136 and 312 in the Yellowstone ecosystem, according to government estimates. But in recent years, the population has been growing and rebounded enough to remove it from the endangered list, federal officials said. The change means bears will be managed under a "conservation strategy" approved by state agencies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming along with the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The plan governs the treatment of bears and bear habitat over 9,200 square miles. Delisting also means state agencies can authorize grizzly bear hunts. Game agencies in Montana and Idaho have expressed an interest in a hunt but have said it's not going to happen immediately....
Freudenthal skeptical of Range drilling Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal says he "doubts the veracity" of a Texas energy company's claim that it intends to drill just three exploratory wells in the Wyoming Range. In comments filed with the U.S. Forest Service on Monday, Freudenthal says he's concerned that allowing an initial exploratory drilling project in the Wyoming Range could be the "first domino" toward industrialization of national forest land in the state. Freudenthal wrote to Big Piney District Ranger Greg Clark asking his agency to consider delaying a proposed drilling project because of concerns over its effect on the Wyoming Range. He commented on a document called the Plains Exploratory Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Plains Exploration and Production Co. of Houston is seeking permission to drill three exploratory oil and gas wells on leases located about seven miles southeast of Bondurant. An attempt to reach Plains Exploration after business hours on Monday was unsuccessful, and company officials did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press. In addition to opposition from Freudenthal, the drilling project proposed in north Sublette County has drawn fire from conservationists and others who say oil and gas development doesn't belong within the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Wyoming Range....
Timber Industry Uses Draft Bush Endangered Species Act Regulations On March 27, 2007, the media published draft Bush administration regulations that radically undermine the Endangered Species Act, causing a public uproar. In response, the administration asserted that it did not intend to implement the draft as written. In legal papers filed today, however, environmental groups show that Mark Rutzick, a former Bush official now representing the timber industry, has filed a lawsuit based on the draft regulations. “The Bush administration’s draft regulations gutting the Endangered Species Act haven’t even been publicly proposed yet, but the timber industry is already trying to strip the nation’s wildlife of protection,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice. “Once again, the Bush administration is undermining protection of our nation’s endangered species to benefit their friends and campaign contributors in the timber industry.” The timber lawsuit was filed on March 7, 2007, nearly one month before the draft regulations surfaced. Industry lawyers are trying to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the marbled murrelet from the federal threatened list under a provision of the draft regulations. Current regulations contain no such requirement....
Wyden to Hold Interior Nominee Until Ethics Concerns are Addressed Citing serious ethics transgressions committed by a high-ranking Interior Department official, Julie MacDonald, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced today that he will place a hold on Senate confirmation of Lyle Laverty, the President’s nominee for Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, until he is satisfied that such transgressions will not happen again. In his letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (see below), Wyden references a recent report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General, Earl Devaney, which documents MacDonald’s actions as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. According to the Inspector General’s findings, Ms. MacDonald repeatedly leaked internal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) documents to business groups who opposed the FWS and its environmental decision making in court. Some of these internal documents later surfaced as evidence in lawsuits filed against FWS. President Bush nominated Mr. Laverty to be Assistant Interior Secretary on March 26th....
Changes to US laws threaten endangered species As many as 80% of protected US species may be threatened by federal plans to amend the nation's Endangered Species Act, environmental activists say. The US government says it is making the move so that its conservation activities are not driven by lawsuits. "In the last decade, 95% of our activities have been driven by court order deadlines and lawsuits," Valerie Fellows, a spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), told New Scientist. "Because of lack of funding, the Fish and Wildlife Service have been in a bit of a bind," says Mike Parr, Vice President of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). "They have been unable to list species, therefore in order to get species listed groups have had to resort to litigation." Parr says the lack of funding has led to a vicious circle, with the USFWS spending its limited funding on litigation, thereby further restricting their budget and increasing the number of law suits. "To be honest, the amendment proposals that are floating around do not seem to be very clear," says Par. "My overall sense is there is an attempt to weaken the act by giving more initiative to the states and rather than having the Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for everything."....
Korean wolf cloning confirmed The authors of a study describing the first-ever cloning of endangered gray wolves have been cleared of intentional data manipulation by investigators at Seoul National University (SNU), where the research was conducted. On Friday (April 27), SNU's Research Integrity Committee proclaimed the two wolves, Snuwolf and Snuwolffy, genuine clones after two labs -- one at SNU and the other outside of the university -- used tissue testing to confirm successful cloning. However, the university said that the SNU researchers who conducted the study made several "unintentional" mistakes when writing the manuscript, including three data entry errors in two tables listing the microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA sequences of the study animals....
Wyo joins in water deal Wyoming and six other Colorado River states signed a landmark water supply plan Monday that, if approved by the federal Interior Department, will allow Wyoming and other upper-basin states to deliver less water if the drought continues. Under existing rules, the upper-basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico must deliver 8.23 million acre feet of water per year to the remaining three lower-basin states: Nevada, Arizona and California. Under the new agreement, the lower-basin states would have to make adjustments by augmenting their supplies by created water surpluses. California might “bank” agricultural water for future use, by holding it in Lake Mead, then use it later. There are also incentives for desalinization projects, protection of canal water from seepage or evaporation, and removal of water-gulping salt cedar and Russian olive trees. According to Wyoming State Engineer Pat Tyrrell, “This agreement reduces the risk of both equitable apportionment and interstate river litigation as well as the risk of Wyoming water users having to curtail uses."....
La. Plan to Reclaim Land Would Divert the Mississippi Over two centuries, engineers have restrained the Mississippi River's natural urge to wriggle disastrously out of its banks by building hundreds of miles of levees that work today like a riverine straitjacket. But it is time, Louisiana officials propose, to let the river loose. To save the state from washing into the ocean at the astonishing rate of 24 square miles per year, Louisiana officials are developing an epic $50 billion plan that would rebuild the land by rerouting one of the world's biggest rivers. The proposal envisions enormous projects to provide flood protection and reclaim land-building sediment from the river, which now flows uselessly out into the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the project, which was initiated by the legislature after hurricanes Katrina and Rita revealed the dangers of the sinking coast, dwarfs those of other megaprojects such as the $14 billion "Big Dig" in Boston and the $8 billion Everglades restoration. "This will be one of the great engineering challenges of the 21st century -- on the order of the Channel Tunnel or the Three Gorges Dam," said Denise J. Reed, a scientist at the University of New Orleans who has focused on the river. "What is obvious to everyone is that something has to be done." Specifics are still being worked out, but the plan calls for allowing the Mississippi to flow out of its levees in more than a dozen places in Louisiana, creating, at seven or more sites, new waterways that would carry a volume of water similar to that of the Potomac River. At least three of those waterways, in fact, would run many times as fast as the Potomac....
Wolf killed following recent livestock attack A rancher west of Springdale shot and killed a gray wolf on Monday, about two weeks after wolves fatally injured one of the rancher's cows. The year-old male wolf was shot under a federal shoot-on-site permit issued last week to the rancher, whose name was not released. One of the rancher's heifers had been attacked April 17 and was later put down due to its injuries, said Jon Trapp, a wolf management specialist with the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks. It was unknown if the wolf shot Monday was involved in the attack. The state's policy is to remove wolves "as close in time and space as possible" to such an attack, Trapp said. Trapp said the rancher's permit was for one wolf only, although federal rules allow the taking of additional wolves if caught in the act of harassing or injuring livestock. "If the rancher comes out now and sees a wolf crossing his property he cannot shoot it. If he comes out and sees one chasing livestock he can shoot," Trapp said. Wolf-rancher conflicts have been on the upswing in recent years as packs expand their territories in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. In 2006, a record 142 wolves were killed by ranchers or federal wildlife agents in response to livestock attacks....
Fish poison plan goes on display Fisheries biologists are preparing to save native trout populations deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness by poisoning several lakes, a complex and controversial plan four years in the making. “This project has been through years and years of review,” said John Fraley, spokesman for the Kalispell office of the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Our intent is to begin implementation this October.” Specifically, the intent is to poison Black and Blackfoot lakes, both located in the remote Jewel Basin hiking area. Those lakes, and 19 more in and around the wilderness area, are home to hybrid fish, genetic cross-breeds mixing the genes of native westslope cutthroat trout with nonresident Yellowstone cutthroats and rainbows. The plan is to apply fish toxins that attack trout gills, leaving other aquatic residents unharmed. The poison, Fraley said, breaks down in a matter of days and dissipate. (Its half-life is about two weeks.) Still, he said, “we've had a lot of people interested in this project.” Some are anglers who enjoy fishing the 21 targeted lakes. Some are wilderness advocates opposed to toxins in the wilds. And some are critics of motors and machines, saying the planes and boats that will be used to apply the toxins have no place in designated wilderness areas. Forest Service officials have granted special permits allowing some machines in areas otherwise off-limits, Fraley said, making the backcountry work possible....Special permits to poison fish is ok, but just let a rancher request a special permit to clean out a dirt tank, haul in fencing supplies or doctor a sick cow and see what happens.
Davenport can't scale Forest Service rules Aspenite Chris Davenport’s plan to show a film of him skiing 14,000-foot high peaks in Colorado has run into a challenge as great as the feat itself. The White River National Forest and five other national forests in Colorado denied two requests by Davenport and filmmaker Ben Galland to commercially film him skiing high peaks within wilderness, White River Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson announced Monday. The U.S. Forest Service concluded the film would not promote the wilderness characteristics of solitude and untrammeled nature, according to a statement released by the agency. Davenport, 36, successfully completed a goal to climb and ski all 54 of the “fourteeners” in Colorado within one year. He accomplished his goal on Jan. 19 with three days to spare. Rich Doak, the acting recreation staff officer in the White River, headquartered in Glenwood Springs, said the agency wasn’t discrediting Davenport’s accomplishment. However, agency officials felt the film does not promote wilderness values or ethics but rather focuses on the concept of the “ski challenge." “Really good skiing doesn’t promote wilderness,” Doak said....Doak is right. Only using a helicopter to poison fish does that.
Counting On Trees: Scientists Are Creating A National Biomass And Carbon Dataset For USA After completing a two-year pilot phase, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are expanding the scope of the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000), the first ever inventory of its kind, by moving into the production phase. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover data, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the U.S. Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will be an invaluable baseline data set for the assessment of the carbon stock in U.S. forest vegetation and will improve current methods of determining carbon flux between vegetation and the atmosphere. Work on the remaining 61 mapping zones will be completed at a rate of roughly one zone every seven working days. According to Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center who is leading the project, "Understanding this flux is critical for the quantification and prediction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, a major determinant of the greenhouse warming effect in the climate system. Thus, this initiative will directly support the North American Carbon Program, which is a major component of the U.S. Climate Change Research Program."....
Lawmakers rush to slow oil-shale push When energy company executives gather in a room and start talking about trillions of barrels of oil, most of it locked within oil shale conveniently located near the junction of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, they appear overcome with a firm sense of optimism, as they did in April at the Utah Energy Summit. The Piceance Basin, Utah’s Uinta Basin and Wyoming’s Green River Basin, they say, could be a one-stop shop for answers to America’s energy independence. “There’s enough oil reserves in the United States (primarily those in the Green River Valley) to satisfy us at present energy demands for the next 400 years,” Dan Elcan, chief executive of Oil Shale Exploration Co., or OSEC, said at the summit. One hundred days into Ritter’s first term, he and his staff are trying to grasp the full impact of commercial oil-shale development within a congressionally mandated time frame the Ritter administration sees as far too narrow. A change in the Energy Policy Act may be needed just for the state to get a handle on what full-scale commercial oil shale production might mean for Colorado, he said. The Ritter administration will soon begin discussions with the Interior Department and the state’s congressional delegation to try to buy the state more time to understand the impacts of oil shale production before it goes commercial in Colorado, Sherman said....
White River oil-shale mine to reopen in Utah The Bureau of Land Management on Monday gave its blessing to Oil Shale Exploration Co.’s plans to reopen the White River oil-shale mine in Utah about 20 miles west of Rangely. The BLM approved the environmental assessment for the company’s multiphase, oil-shale research project at White River Mine, clearing the way for the agency to issue the sixth and final 160-acre oil-shale research and development lease. The other five leases have been issued to energy companies in Colorado. In the first phase, oil shale already mined from the site will be sent to Canada to be processed in a surface retort originally developed for the processing of tar sands. The BLM will be able to determine from OSEC’s Canadian retorting operation whether spent shale at White River Mine would need to be isolated from the environment. Later, the retort will be moved to the mine site....
Fire restrictions announced for Colorado River area until Oct. 31 Roughly 2.5 million acres of public lands along the Colorado River in Arizona and California have fire restrictions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. To curtail what could be a devastating fire season, land management officials began the restrictions Monday on the BLM's Yuma and Lake Havasu field office jurisdictions. In effect through Oct. 31, subject to being extended or withdrawn based on the severity ratings, "The restrictions are the result of the extreme potential for wildfire within this region," stated Chris Delaney, acting fire manager officer. The BLM is asking the public to use extreme caution when visiting public lands this summer. Currently there are no plans to close any areas along the Colorado River area to public use....
BLM Suicide Underscores Bureaucratic Inhumanity Bureaucratic indifference and official callousness contributed to a suicide by a Bureau of Land Management national monument manager, according to an internal investigation report released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, workplace surveys show deepening distrust and plummeting morale within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other agencies within the Interior Department. On May 2, 2005, Marlene Braun, the manager of the Carrizo Plains National Monument in California killed herself, leaving a suicide note citing abuse, humiliation and unprofessional conduct by her chain-of-command. The Inspector General "Report of Investigation", dated April 19, 2006, found that "BLM did not take action to resolve longstanding differences... or to diffuse inter-office conflict, despite the availability of alternative dispute resolution methods." As a result, the report concludes "a breakdown in trust, communication and cooperation…adversely affected management of the Carrizo Plains…" The report, extracted by PEER nine months after its first Freedom of Information Act request to the Inspector General's office, leaves lingering questions....
Beak to the future In this sparsely populated town, where the gas station and cafe are boarded up, locals are pinning their hopes for the future on a sandy-brown bird with skinny legs. The mountain plover is a desert bird that likes to nest in wide-open fields of prairie-dog towns and cow pies. A few months ago, ranchers realized the bird's economic potential to draw bird lovers who want to add the mountain plover to their lifetime birding lists. So last weekend, this Eastern Plains town of a few hundred people hosted the inaugural Mountain Plover Festival, drawing bird lovers to Karval for a $75 package of educational sessions about the bird, morning viewings and meet-and-greets with locals. "We tried to come up with something that we could capitalize on," said rancher Carl Stogsdill, 63. "And open space and wildlife is about all we have." The festival drew 14 birders. Organizers called it a success, since they had expected only seven. The festival is part of an eco- tourism trend in rural America aimed at preserving the small- town way of life. Galeton, Pa., is drawing astronomers with its star-filled skies. In western Oklahoma, bleachers have been set up near the Cimarron River for spectators to watch freight trains. In the Flint Hills of Kansas, tourists come to ignite prairie fires. City dwellers are paying for Western experiences such as building fences, saddling horses and branding cattle. "There are an amazing number of things that Americans are interested in, particularly Americans who are interested in the authentic," said Ted Eubanks, of Austin, Texas, founder of Fermata Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in nature tourism. With 70 million birders in the nation, birds are proving to be a top eco-tourism lure, he said....
White House seeks more coastal drilling The Bush administration moved yesterday to open an area off the Virginia coast to oil and gas drilling, a step that environmentalists warned could lead to the weakening of the long-standing ban on new energy exploration off much of the U.S. coast. That ban was inspired by a devastating oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969. But with high gasoline prices and concern about U.S. dependence on foreign oil, pro-drilling forces are more hopeful of persuading Congress -- even with its Democratic majority -- to relax the drilling ban. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne unveiled yesterday a five-year plan that calls for offering drilling leases in an area off Virginia that has been off limits since the 1980s, a move that is subject to presidential and congressional approval. He also proposed expanding drilling off Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Gasoline prices continued to rise yesterday, hitting a nationwide average price of $2.95 for a gallon of self-serve regular, according to AAA. California prices rose 4.3 cents in the past week to set a record high average of $3.359 a gallon. Environmental groups vowed to lobby Congress to block the proposed drilling off Virginia and in an area off Alaska that President Bush previously moved to open to exploration....
Grizzly's delisting affects mostly bureaucrats Yellowstone grizzly bears stepped into a new era at 12:01 a.m. Monday. That's when the rule to remove them from the endangered species list officially took effect. Not that the bears caught on. The switch - the product of 30 years of recovery efforts - will do little to change the immediate management of the 500 or so grizzlies that live in and around Yellowstone National Park. "The bears are noticing no difference," said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For many, delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly is a major success story under the Endangered Species Act. When the bears were first listed in 1975, there were between 136 and 312 in the Yellowstone ecosystem, according to government estimates. But in recent years, the population has been growing and rebounded enough to remove it from the endangered list, federal officials said. The change means bears will be managed under a "conservation strategy" approved by state agencies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming along with the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The plan governs the treatment of bears and bear habitat over 9,200 square miles. Delisting also means state agencies can authorize grizzly bear hunts. Game agencies in Montana and Idaho have expressed an interest in a hunt but have said it's not going to happen immediately....
Freudenthal skeptical of Range drilling Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal says he "doubts the veracity" of a Texas energy company's claim that it intends to drill just three exploratory wells in the Wyoming Range. In comments filed with the U.S. Forest Service on Monday, Freudenthal says he's concerned that allowing an initial exploratory drilling project in the Wyoming Range could be the "first domino" toward industrialization of national forest land in the state. Freudenthal wrote to Big Piney District Ranger Greg Clark asking his agency to consider delaying a proposed drilling project because of concerns over its effect on the Wyoming Range. He commented on a document called the Plains Exploratory Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Plains Exploration and Production Co. of Houston is seeking permission to drill three exploratory oil and gas wells on leases located about seven miles southeast of Bondurant. An attempt to reach Plains Exploration after business hours on Monday was unsuccessful, and company officials did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press. In addition to opposition from Freudenthal, the drilling project proposed in north Sublette County has drawn fire from conservationists and others who say oil and gas development doesn't belong within the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Wyoming Range....
Timber Industry Uses Draft Bush Endangered Species Act Regulations On March 27, 2007, the media published draft Bush administration regulations that radically undermine the Endangered Species Act, causing a public uproar. In response, the administration asserted that it did not intend to implement the draft as written. In legal papers filed today, however, environmental groups show that Mark Rutzick, a former Bush official now representing the timber industry, has filed a lawsuit based on the draft regulations. “The Bush administration’s draft regulations gutting the Endangered Species Act haven’t even been publicly proposed yet, but the timber industry is already trying to strip the nation’s wildlife of protection,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice. “Once again, the Bush administration is undermining protection of our nation’s endangered species to benefit their friends and campaign contributors in the timber industry.” The timber lawsuit was filed on March 7, 2007, nearly one month before the draft regulations surfaced. Industry lawyers are trying to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the marbled murrelet from the federal threatened list under a provision of the draft regulations. Current regulations contain no such requirement....
Wyden to Hold Interior Nominee Until Ethics Concerns are Addressed Citing serious ethics transgressions committed by a high-ranking Interior Department official, Julie MacDonald, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced today that he will place a hold on Senate confirmation of Lyle Laverty, the President’s nominee for Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, until he is satisfied that such transgressions will not happen again. In his letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (see below), Wyden references a recent report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General, Earl Devaney, which documents MacDonald’s actions as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. According to the Inspector General’s findings, Ms. MacDonald repeatedly leaked internal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) documents to business groups who opposed the FWS and its environmental decision making in court. Some of these internal documents later surfaced as evidence in lawsuits filed against FWS. President Bush nominated Mr. Laverty to be Assistant Interior Secretary on March 26th....
Changes to US laws threaten endangered species As many as 80% of protected US species may be threatened by federal plans to amend the nation's Endangered Species Act, environmental activists say. The US government says it is making the move so that its conservation activities are not driven by lawsuits. "In the last decade, 95% of our activities have been driven by court order deadlines and lawsuits," Valerie Fellows, a spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), told New Scientist. "Because of lack of funding, the Fish and Wildlife Service have been in a bit of a bind," says Mike Parr, Vice President of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). "They have been unable to list species, therefore in order to get species listed groups have had to resort to litigation." Parr says the lack of funding has led to a vicious circle, with the USFWS spending its limited funding on litigation, thereby further restricting their budget and increasing the number of law suits. "To be honest, the amendment proposals that are floating around do not seem to be very clear," says Par. "My overall sense is there is an attempt to weaken the act by giving more initiative to the states and rather than having the Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for everything."....
Korean wolf cloning confirmed The authors of a study describing the first-ever cloning of endangered gray wolves have been cleared of intentional data manipulation by investigators at Seoul National University (SNU), where the research was conducted. On Friday (April 27), SNU's Research Integrity Committee proclaimed the two wolves, Snuwolf and Snuwolffy, genuine clones after two labs -- one at SNU and the other outside of the university -- used tissue testing to confirm successful cloning. However, the university said that the SNU researchers who conducted the study made several "unintentional" mistakes when writing the manuscript, including three data entry errors in two tables listing the microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA sequences of the study animals....
Wyo joins in water deal Wyoming and six other Colorado River states signed a landmark water supply plan Monday that, if approved by the federal Interior Department, will allow Wyoming and other upper-basin states to deliver less water if the drought continues. Under existing rules, the upper-basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico must deliver 8.23 million acre feet of water per year to the remaining three lower-basin states: Nevada, Arizona and California. Under the new agreement, the lower-basin states would have to make adjustments by augmenting their supplies by created water surpluses. California might “bank” agricultural water for future use, by holding it in Lake Mead, then use it later. There are also incentives for desalinization projects, protection of canal water from seepage or evaporation, and removal of water-gulping salt cedar and Russian olive trees. According to Wyoming State Engineer Pat Tyrrell, “This agreement reduces the risk of both equitable apportionment and interstate river litigation as well as the risk of Wyoming water users having to curtail uses."....
La. Plan to Reclaim Land Would Divert the Mississippi Over two centuries, engineers have restrained the Mississippi River's natural urge to wriggle disastrously out of its banks by building hundreds of miles of levees that work today like a riverine straitjacket. But it is time, Louisiana officials propose, to let the river loose. To save the state from washing into the ocean at the astonishing rate of 24 square miles per year, Louisiana officials are developing an epic $50 billion plan that would rebuild the land by rerouting one of the world's biggest rivers. The proposal envisions enormous projects to provide flood protection and reclaim land-building sediment from the river, which now flows uselessly out into the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the project, which was initiated by the legislature after hurricanes Katrina and Rita revealed the dangers of the sinking coast, dwarfs those of other megaprojects such as the $14 billion "Big Dig" in Boston and the $8 billion Everglades restoration. "This will be one of the great engineering challenges of the 21st century -- on the order of the Channel Tunnel or the Three Gorges Dam," said Denise J. Reed, a scientist at the University of New Orleans who has focused on the river. "What is obvious to everyone is that something has to be done." Specifics are still being worked out, but the plan calls for allowing the Mississippi to flow out of its levees in more than a dozen places in Louisiana, creating, at seven or more sites, new waterways that would carry a volume of water similar to that of the Potomac River. At least three of those waterways, in fact, would run many times as fast as the Potomac....
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