YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Taxpayers are putting in their two cents worth
The penny is not what is used to be. Congress 25 years ago eliminated most of the copper from the coin due to a big spike in the cost of the metal. Since then, zinc has been the main ingredient — over 97% — with copper being limited to a thin coating into which Abraham Lincoln’s face in engraved. Now, with the price of zinc soaring, it costs taxpayers over 1.7 cents to make each 1-cent coin. In other words, it costs nearly twice as much to make a penny as the thing is worth. The U.S. Mint cranks out roughly 8 billion new ones each year to the tune of well over $100 million annually. (Each nickel also costs about 10 cents in production costs, by the way.) Can you imagine a company continuing to manufacture a product that costs twice as much to produce as it can charge for the product? Just picture a meeting at General Motors where a young, enthusiastic automotive executive provides detailed information about a new SUV that the company would produce at a cost of $40,000 — and market for $20,000. Surely somebody would point out that the young executive had seemingly transposed the figures; that the cost of production and retail appeared to be reversed. Nobody in their right mind would move ahead with such a project …unless they were spending taxpayer money...So why do we keep producing pennies that cost nearly two cents each? As usual, the answer lies in following the money. A Tennessee-based company, Jarden Corp., spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year lobbying to maintain its highly profitable sole source “penny contract.” That company has been paid more than $170 million from 2004 to 2006 under the contract with the Mint, a contract that can be extended through September 2008 and could reach a total of $450 million....
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Feds say wolf killed sheep Federal officials say a wolf killed one sheep and wounded another on a ranch northwest of Jordan this week. Wildlife Services investigators said they found tracks of a single wolf at the scene. Ten sheep were also killed on a nearby ranch, but the evidence wasn't conclusive that a wolf was the culprit, state officials said. The area is not known to have any wolf packs. Earlier this year, a "domestic" wolf was caught in the area and was believed to be responsible for killing more than 120 sheep in Garfield and McCone Counties in 2006, according to state officials. After the incident near Jordan this week, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks authorized a shoot-on-sight permit for the rancher, allowing a wolf to be killed....
Judge rules Klamath toxin case against energy company can proceed A group of environmentalists, fishermen and Karuk tribe members filed suit Thursday to force the regional water board to regulate discharges of highly toxic algae in the Klamath River. The lawsuit filed in Sonoma County Superior Court alleges that the North Coast Regional Quality Control Board has failed to establish limits on discharges from California dams and reservoirs owned by Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp. The plaintiffs - the Klamath Riverkeeper, the Karuk tribe of California and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations - have long pushed for removal of the Iron Gate and Copco dams, which they claim harms water quality and salmon runs in the river along the California-Oregon border. Earlier this year, the groups petitioned the regional water board to regulate PacifiCorp's discharges, but the board said it lacked the authority to regulate the company - a claim the plaintiffs dispute in Thursday's lawsuit....
Montana Legislature unsure how to pay for firefighting expenses Montana's wildfire bill for this summer is already $4 million more than the all the money set aside to pay for fires and other disasters for the next two years, state figures show. As of last Friday, the state had written checks for $2.4 million to pay for the firefighting efforts that began on July 1, the beginning of the state's financial year, said Mary Sexton, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the agency that oversees firefighting. But that's only a fraction of the estimated $20 million firefighting bill the state has racked up since July 1, she said. As is the norm, the 2007 Legislature did not set aside money specifically for firefighting. Instead, the only money easily at hand to will come out of the governor's $16 million emergency account. Even if DNRC spent all the emergency money, an estimated $4 million of the firefighting bill would be unpaid. So far, $14 million of the emergency fund has been allocated for firefighting, said Clayton Schenck, legislative financial analyst....
Film explores the fate of wild horses Filmmaker James Kleinert’s newest documentary, “The American Wild Horse,” gets to the heart of a controversial issue in the West. The 30-minute film, screening at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Missouri Heights Schoolhouse outside of Carbondale, covers the controversy surrounding wild horses and their management. Former Bureau of Land Management employees, historians, wildlife managers, ranchers and land stewards offer their insights on the future of the horses. “It’s a documentary that explores both sides of the issue,” said Nancy Wilhelms, of WestGroup Marketing Communications, the local firm promoting the film. “Some people really are for the wild horses, and some are against them. They want them off their land.” The documentary — not recommended for young children because of some graphic scenes — mixes scenery and substance for an impactful statement on the issue, Wilhelms said....
Gov tells oil industry to back wildlife efforts Though the oil and gas industry in Wyoming has proven itself adept at meeting technological and environmental challenges in the field, it hasn't done as well on the political side, according to Gov. Dave Freudenthal. Freudenthal told industry officials at the Petroleum Association of Wyoming's annual convention on Wednesday that he can't understand why the industry lobbies against fully funding the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund. "It is in your best interest" to use the funds that oil and gas injects into state coffers to mitigate the impacts of development, the governor said. The trust fund was created in 2005 to enhance and conserve wildlife habitat in the state. The Legislature appropriated millions of dollars to the fund, and the Nature Conservancy contributed $250,000. Other conservation groups have also anted in, but so far no energy company or energy group has contributed. Freudenthal said industry's lobby should ask legislators to fully fund the program, or the state and the Bureau of Land Management will likely "extract" funding from the companies directly when it comes time to permit oil and gas activity....
Anti-U.N. resolution passed The Otero County commission officially passed a resolution of absolute opposition to the White Sands National Monument being considered as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site at a special meeting on Thursday. Entered as Resolution No. 08-23-07/96-10, the issue drew no opposition whatsoever before its passing. "We have sent a letter to the National Parks Service and to our congressional delegation expressing our official desires that White Sands be removed from the list of those sites being considered as World Heritage Sites," said commission chair Doug Moore. "I think this resolution does a great job in capturing our feelings." Moore also said it has come to his attention the Trinity Site has been on the list of tentative World Heritage Sites since 1990 and that he will encourage the nominating committee to drop that location from the list....
Easement aimed at preventing future development of site A Miles City-area ranch family has put its 14,000-acre ranch into the Grasslands Reserve Program in an agreement in perpetuity with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Terry Haughian said the family loves the open space of Eastern Montana and "we want to keep it that way." "It will always be kept as open rangeland," he said of the ranch at Kinsey. The ranch was founded in 1901, he said, and his three children represent the fourth generation on the land. In the event the land is ever sold, the conservation easement goes with it and cannot be converted to another use such as for a subdivision. "This is a positive exercise of conservation," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of natural resources and environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said the land value is decreased by the future encumbrance on the land, but that the property becomes easier to deal with as an estate. Rey said the agreement was a cause for celebration and that the grassland set-aside is the largest in the country....
NASA, U.S. Forest Service Test Technology to Fight Wildfires NASA is testing new technologies that have strong possibilities to evolve as a tool for improving wildlife imaging and mapping capabilities. NASA is working on this project in collaboration with U.S. Forest Service. Currently tests are under way in the area covered by West Coast of United States that has suffered extremely high temperature and drought conditions during this summer. NASA is conducting flights of a remotely piloted unmanned aircraft system for these tests. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center is operating the whole project with newly developed imaging and real-time communications equipment. During the first flight of these testing operations on August 16, 2007, NASA captured images of California wildfire and Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County .This first test flight collected important data during its 1,200 miles traverse that lasted for ten long hours. The images captured from this test flight opens up a new hope for fighting the wildfires." This technology captured images through the smoke and provided real time information on what the fire was doing," said Zaca Incident Commander Mike Dietrich. NASA is using "Ikhana" aircraft for these test flights. Ikhana's sensor payload collects detailed and minute data through thermal infrared imagery of wildfires. Unmanned aircraft system is proving itself a substantial alternative to collect data stretched over a long period of 12 to 24 hours continuously. Ikhana will fly for its second round of tests over Idaho on August 23 for about 20 hours....Before you know it, these things will be flying over your ranch, counting livestock and wildlife, measuring ground cover, etc. Get ready.
President orders hunting focus A new presidential executive order has directed federal agencies to promote expansion and enhancement of hunting opportunities on federal lands and the management of game species and their habitat. But exactly what that may mean for hunters and wildlife in Wyoming is uncertain. President Bush's order directs the interior and agriculture secretaries to work with the Sporting Conservation Council to develop “a comprehensive recreational hunting and wildlife conservation plan" along with a 10-year agenda for fulfilling the executive order. The council focuses on wildlife conservation issues such as hunting access, education, healthy landscapes and energy development. The Sporting Conservation Council was created by then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton, just before she resigned last year. Members include representatives of the National Wild Turkey Federation, National Rifle Association, Safari Club, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Boone and Crockett Club, North American Grouse Partnership, Ruffled Grouse Society, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation....Go here to read the Executive Order.
Insurance company sends in private fire crew to protect expensive homes A private fire crew dispatched by a national insurance company that caters to wealthy clients is guarding 22 high-end homes threatened by the Castle Rock Fire, a blaze that has forced the evacuation of hundreds of million-dollar homes west of Ketchum. The crew will protect only homes insured by AIG Private Client Group, an insurance company that offers "loss-prevention services" to its wealthiest customers. A truck and two-man crew sent by AIG from Montana arrived in Ketchum about 2 p.m. Wednesday to start dousing properties with Phos-Chek, the same fire retardant dropped from U.S. Forest Service aircraft. "We're not going out there to fight the fire," said Dorothy Sarna, vice president and national director of risk-management services and loss prevention for the New York-based company. "We're out there to protect our clients." Veteran fire managers now working the Castle Rock fire say they've never heard of a private fire crew protecting individual homes in the midst of a wildfire, said Dave Olson, a spokesman for the Forest Service. The private crew has been granted access to areas closed to residents, but not all officials with public fire agencies were thrilled by the sight of the truck scooting through a smoky web of government fire crews. "That sounds ridiculous to me," said Kim Rogers, a Ketchum Police Department spokesman, "especially since we haven't lost any structures. I mean, this is a Forest Service fire, not a private fire."....That last statement is the most ignorant comment I've read in a long time. I guess "la policia" just can't stand competition from the private sector.
Two groups file lawsuit against Helena Forest Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit this week in federal court in Helena to stop a fuel reduction project in Elliston. The decision by the Helena National Forest to do the so-called “Elliston Face” project was “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and/or otherwise not in compliance with the law,” according to the complaint filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council. Michael Garrity, executive director for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said this isn’t the first time they’ve challenged the Helena National Forest on this project. “The main issue is that the first time we appealed, they had a 2005 document by their biologist saying the project area is in an elk winter range, and we won that appeal,” Garrity said on Wednesday. “The second time they put this project forward, that document had disappeared. We supplied it to them, but they ignored it.” Since the project sits within the winter range for about 100 elk, and calls for winter logging, Garrity said it’s inconsistent with the Helena National Forest’s overall management plan. In addition, he claims the final result of the project wouldn’t provide adequate thermal cover for the elk....The elk will have plenty of "thermal cover" when the whole damn countryside burns up.
Colorado appeals court hears arguments in ski village lawsuit Attorneys for a proposed ski resort told an appeals court that a district judge overstepped when he ruled the development did not have adequate access to a highway. Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, the Texas-based developer of the Village at Wolf Creek, wants the Colorado Court of Appeals to overturn a 2005 ruling by Mineral County District Judge John Kuenhold that voided county approval of the plan. The appeals court heard oral arguments Tuesday but did not indicate when it would rule. Leavell-McCombs’ plans call for a development at the base of the rustic Wolf Creek ski area that would eventually house up to 10,500 people and include 222,100 square feet of commercial space. Andrew Shoemaker, a lawyer for the Wolf Creek ski area — which opposes the development — told the appeals court the dirt road linking the site to a state highway is closed during snow season and is not suitable for a large development. A second legal battle over the development is under way in federal court, where environmental groups filed a lawsuit alleging the Forest Service approved the project without an adequate review.
Solution to fires: privatize Idaho's forests As forest fires now threaten the homes of the rich and the famous in the Sun Valley area, it's worth taking another look at possible solutions to what has been a catastrophic fire season in Idaho. Common sense tells us that people are inclined to take better care of property they own than property they don't, and, as even the Idaho Statesman's environmental reporter Rocky Barker reveals, perhaps the solution to devastating forest fires is to take timber management out of the hands of the federal government and put it in the hands of private enterprise through lease arrangements or sales. Barker revealed in a story that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Statesman that the number of fires burning in private forests in Idaho is "effectively zero." Private forest fires are extinguished almost immediately by the quick response of owners. One manager of private timber lands says the worst fire he's seen on private land is about 100 acres, which is a long ways from the well over 700,000 acres currently ablaze in national forests in Idaho....
La Cienega: BLM expands area rich in ruins, habitat About 178 acres of rolling hills, basalt cliffs and wetlands eight miles southwest of Santa Fe have been acquired by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But don’t expect to go hiking or camping there. The land has become part of the 4,500-acre La Cienega Area of Critical Environmental Concern that includes pre-Columbian ruins and rock art as well as sensitive habitat for the Southwestern willow flycatcher along a half-mile of the lower Santa Fe River. The Trust for Public Land recently purchased the property from 23 heirs of the late Alonzo Rael for $2.235 million, then sold it to the BLM for the same amount. The nonprofit often arranges for donations of land for conservation purposes, with the former owners obtaining tax breaks. But in this case, the heirs preferred to be paid, said Karyn Stockdale, the trust’s acting state director. The Rael family previously had used the property, between the villages of La Cienega and La Cieneguilla, to graze cattle....
Cowboy breakfast celebrates historic ranch's salvation From the way his grandson talked of the old days at Steam Pump Ranch, George Pusch would have approved of the shindig on the lawn. “This place was a busy place,” Hank Zipf recalled Wednesday morning as more than 100 guests gathered for a cowboy breakfast to celebrate Oro Valley’s acquisition of the historic ranch. “There was an old dirt road then, and anyone passing by was invited in for a drink of water, sometimes whiskey,” said Zipf, a former Oro Valley council member now retired and living in Tubac. Zipf said the ranch, one of two his grandfather owned in Southern Arizona, attracted a variety of visitors. In addition to ranchers who watered livestock there, prospectors would come in for provisions, and on occasion, a troop from the Army’s Fort Lowell would visit. The ranch gained its fame and attraction as the first ranch in the area to draw water with a steam pump. Oro Valley officials have been working to acquire the land and save the ranch since 2004 when a developer proposed razing the structures and creating a commercial facility....
Cows Are Killed And Butchered In Pasture Authorities in Lincoln County are looking for the people who killed and butchered cattle in a pasture. A neighboring rancher discovered the four dead cattle, valued at approximately $11,000, on a road 6.5 miles south of Maxwell. Sheriff Jerome Kramer said each of the four cows had been shot twice. Three cows and one 400-pound calf were killed, Kramer said. One of the cows was partly butchered, missing a hindquarter. The calf was completely butchered. The two other cows were left untouched, Kramer said. The animals were discovered August 12. The incident could have taken place as early as August 10....
Big Sandy rancher’s novel well worth the read Arnold Hokanson’s saga of Bears Paw Mountain ranchers is a read that transcends Montana. Published by AuthorHouse, the 525-page novel , which came out just before Christmas, proves that quality fiction requires a good storyteller, not a top grammarian. The story is without blemish. And anyone who knows northcentral Montana, the intermingled plots and character development are more than believable; they’re recognizable. The saga spans about 70 years, from the birth of the protagonist, Ace Bowens in 1914, to the surprising climax in the 1980s. Those 70 years are little more than half as long as Hokanson’s family has owned its spread abutting the community of Warrick. The family settled in the Bears Paws in 1892 and has had the same brand — 3 bar reverse B brand — for nearly as long. Hokanson said he had heard a story when he was young about a confrontation between Montana cattlemen and a German spy on a train from Havre to Chicago during World War II. “Some people I got to know in later years were on that train and spoke of the story,” he said. While Hokanson embellished the tale, using it to get the story going, the largest part of the book revolves around Montana family ranch life....
Feds say wolf killed sheep Federal officials say a wolf killed one sheep and wounded another on a ranch northwest of Jordan this week. Wildlife Services investigators said they found tracks of a single wolf at the scene. Ten sheep were also killed on a nearby ranch, but the evidence wasn't conclusive that a wolf was the culprit, state officials said. The area is not known to have any wolf packs. Earlier this year, a "domestic" wolf was caught in the area and was believed to be responsible for killing more than 120 sheep in Garfield and McCone Counties in 2006, according to state officials. After the incident near Jordan this week, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks authorized a shoot-on-sight permit for the rancher, allowing a wolf to be killed....
Judge rules Klamath toxin case against energy company can proceed A group of environmentalists, fishermen and Karuk tribe members filed suit Thursday to force the regional water board to regulate discharges of highly toxic algae in the Klamath River. The lawsuit filed in Sonoma County Superior Court alleges that the North Coast Regional Quality Control Board has failed to establish limits on discharges from California dams and reservoirs owned by Portland, Ore.-based PacifiCorp. The plaintiffs - the Klamath Riverkeeper, the Karuk tribe of California and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations - have long pushed for removal of the Iron Gate and Copco dams, which they claim harms water quality and salmon runs in the river along the California-Oregon border. Earlier this year, the groups petitioned the regional water board to regulate PacifiCorp's discharges, but the board said it lacked the authority to regulate the company - a claim the plaintiffs dispute in Thursday's lawsuit....
Montana Legislature unsure how to pay for firefighting expenses Montana's wildfire bill for this summer is already $4 million more than the all the money set aside to pay for fires and other disasters for the next two years, state figures show. As of last Friday, the state had written checks for $2.4 million to pay for the firefighting efforts that began on July 1, the beginning of the state's financial year, said Mary Sexton, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, the agency that oversees firefighting. But that's only a fraction of the estimated $20 million firefighting bill the state has racked up since July 1, she said. As is the norm, the 2007 Legislature did not set aside money specifically for firefighting. Instead, the only money easily at hand to will come out of the governor's $16 million emergency account. Even if DNRC spent all the emergency money, an estimated $4 million of the firefighting bill would be unpaid. So far, $14 million of the emergency fund has been allocated for firefighting, said Clayton Schenck, legislative financial analyst....
Film explores the fate of wild horses Filmmaker James Kleinert’s newest documentary, “The American Wild Horse,” gets to the heart of a controversial issue in the West. The 30-minute film, screening at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Missouri Heights Schoolhouse outside of Carbondale, covers the controversy surrounding wild horses and their management. Former Bureau of Land Management employees, historians, wildlife managers, ranchers and land stewards offer their insights on the future of the horses. “It’s a documentary that explores both sides of the issue,” said Nancy Wilhelms, of WestGroup Marketing Communications, the local firm promoting the film. “Some people really are for the wild horses, and some are against them. They want them off their land.” The documentary — not recommended for young children because of some graphic scenes — mixes scenery and substance for an impactful statement on the issue, Wilhelms said....
Gov tells oil industry to back wildlife efforts Though the oil and gas industry in Wyoming has proven itself adept at meeting technological and environmental challenges in the field, it hasn't done as well on the political side, according to Gov. Dave Freudenthal. Freudenthal told industry officials at the Petroleum Association of Wyoming's annual convention on Wednesday that he can't understand why the industry lobbies against fully funding the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust Fund. "It is in your best interest" to use the funds that oil and gas injects into state coffers to mitigate the impacts of development, the governor said. The trust fund was created in 2005 to enhance and conserve wildlife habitat in the state. The Legislature appropriated millions of dollars to the fund, and the Nature Conservancy contributed $250,000. Other conservation groups have also anted in, but so far no energy company or energy group has contributed. Freudenthal said industry's lobby should ask legislators to fully fund the program, or the state and the Bureau of Land Management will likely "extract" funding from the companies directly when it comes time to permit oil and gas activity....
Anti-U.N. resolution passed The Otero County commission officially passed a resolution of absolute opposition to the White Sands National Monument being considered as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site at a special meeting on Thursday. Entered as Resolution No. 08-23-07/96-10, the issue drew no opposition whatsoever before its passing. "We have sent a letter to the National Parks Service and to our congressional delegation expressing our official desires that White Sands be removed from the list of those sites being considered as World Heritage Sites," said commission chair Doug Moore. "I think this resolution does a great job in capturing our feelings." Moore also said it has come to his attention the Trinity Site has been on the list of tentative World Heritage Sites since 1990 and that he will encourage the nominating committee to drop that location from the list....
Easement aimed at preventing future development of site A Miles City-area ranch family has put its 14,000-acre ranch into the Grasslands Reserve Program in an agreement in perpetuity with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Terry Haughian said the family loves the open space of Eastern Montana and "we want to keep it that way." "It will always be kept as open rangeland," he said of the ranch at Kinsey. The ranch was founded in 1901, he said, and his three children represent the fourth generation on the land. In the event the land is ever sold, the conservation easement goes with it and cannot be converted to another use such as for a subdivision. "This is a positive exercise of conservation," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of natural resources and environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said the land value is decreased by the future encumbrance on the land, but that the property becomes easier to deal with as an estate. Rey said the agreement was a cause for celebration and that the grassland set-aside is the largest in the country....
NASA, U.S. Forest Service Test Technology to Fight Wildfires NASA is testing new technologies that have strong possibilities to evolve as a tool for improving wildlife imaging and mapping capabilities. NASA is working on this project in collaboration with U.S. Forest Service. Currently tests are under way in the area covered by West Coast of United States that has suffered extremely high temperature and drought conditions during this summer. NASA is conducting flights of a remotely piloted unmanned aircraft system for these tests. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center is operating the whole project with newly developed imaging and real-time communications equipment. During the first flight of these testing operations on August 16, 2007, NASA captured images of California wildfire and Zaca fire in Santa Barbara County .This first test flight collected important data during its 1,200 miles traverse that lasted for ten long hours. The images captured from this test flight opens up a new hope for fighting the wildfires." This technology captured images through the smoke and provided real time information on what the fire was doing," said Zaca Incident Commander Mike Dietrich. NASA is using "Ikhana" aircraft for these test flights. Ikhana's sensor payload collects detailed and minute data through thermal infrared imagery of wildfires. Unmanned aircraft system is proving itself a substantial alternative to collect data stretched over a long period of 12 to 24 hours continuously. Ikhana will fly for its second round of tests over Idaho on August 23 for about 20 hours....Before you know it, these things will be flying over your ranch, counting livestock and wildlife, measuring ground cover, etc. Get ready.
President orders hunting focus A new presidential executive order has directed federal agencies to promote expansion and enhancement of hunting opportunities on federal lands and the management of game species and their habitat. But exactly what that may mean for hunters and wildlife in Wyoming is uncertain. President Bush's order directs the interior and agriculture secretaries to work with the Sporting Conservation Council to develop “a comprehensive recreational hunting and wildlife conservation plan" along with a 10-year agenda for fulfilling the executive order. The council focuses on wildlife conservation issues such as hunting access, education, healthy landscapes and energy development. The Sporting Conservation Council was created by then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton, just before she resigned last year. Members include representatives of the National Wild Turkey Federation, National Rifle Association, Safari Club, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Boone and Crockett Club, North American Grouse Partnership, Ruffled Grouse Society, International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and the Congressional Sportsmen Foundation....Go here to read the Executive Order.
Insurance company sends in private fire crew to protect expensive homes A private fire crew dispatched by a national insurance company that caters to wealthy clients is guarding 22 high-end homes threatened by the Castle Rock Fire, a blaze that has forced the evacuation of hundreds of million-dollar homes west of Ketchum. The crew will protect only homes insured by AIG Private Client Group, an insurance company that offers "loss-prevention services" to its wealthiest customers. A truck and two-man crew sent by AIG from Montana arrived in Ketchum about 2 p.m. Wednesday to start dousing properties with Phos-Chek, the same fire retardant dropped from U.S. Forest Service aircraft. "We're not going out there to fight the fire," said Dorothy Sarna, vice president and national director of risk-management services and loss prevention for the New York-based company. "We're out there to protect our clients." Veteran fire managers now working the Castle Rock fire say they've never heard of a private fire crew protecting individual homes in the midst of a wildfire, said Dave Olson, a spokesman for the Forest Service. The private crew has been granted access to areas closed to residents, but not all officials with public fire agencies were thrilled by the sight of the truck scooting through a smoky web of government fire crews. "That sounds ridiculous to me," said Kim Rogers, a Ketchum Police Department spokesman, "especially since we haven't lost any structures. I mean, this is a Forest Service fire, not a private fire."....That last statement is the most ignorant comment I've read in a long time. I guess "la policia" just can't stand competition from the private sector.
Two groups file lawsuit against Helena Forest Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit this week in federal court in Helena to stop a fuel reduction project in Elliston. The decision by the Helena National Forest to do the so-called “Elliston Face” project was “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and/or otherwise not in compliance with the law,” according to the complaint filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Native Ecosystems Council. Michael Garrity, executive director for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, said this isn’t the first time they’ve challenged the Helena National Forest on this project. “The main issue is that the first time we appealed, they had a 2005 document by their biologist saying the project area is in an elk winter range, and we won that appeal,” Garrity said on Wednesday. “The second time they put this project forward, that document had disappeared. We supplied it to them, but they ignored it.” Since the project sits within the winter range for about 100 elk, and calls for winter logging, Garrity said it’s inconsistent with the Helena National Forest’s overall management plan. In addition, he claims the final result of the project wouldn’t provide adequate thermal cover for the elk....The elk will have plenty of "thermal cover" when the whole damn countryside burns up.
Colorado appeals court hears arguments in ski village lawsuit Attorneys for a proposed ski resort told an appeals court that a district judge overstepped when he ruled the development did not have adequate access to a highway. Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, the Texas-based developer of the Village at Wolf Creek, wants the Colorado Court of Appeals to overturn a 2005 ruling by Mineral County District Judge John Kuenhold that voided county approval of the plan. The appeals court heard oral arguments Tuesday but did not indicate when it would rule. Leavell-McCombs’ plans call for a development at the base of the rustic Wolf Creek ski area that would eventually house up to 10,500 people and include 222,100 square feet of commercial space. Andrew Shoemaker, a lawyer for the Wolf Creek ski area — which opposes the development — told the appeals court the dirt road linking the site to a state highway is closed during snow season and is not suitable for a large development. A second legal battle over the development is under way in federal court, where environmental groups filed a lawsuit alleging the Forest Service approved the project without an adequate review.
Solution to fires: privatize Idaho's forests As forest fires now threaten the homes of the rich and the famous in the Sun Valley area, it's worth taking another look at possible solutions to what has been a catastrophic fire season in Idaho. Common sense tells us that people are inclined to take better care of property they own than property they don't, and, as even the Idaho Statesman's environmental reporter Rocky Barker reveals, perhaps the solution to devastating forest fires is to take timber management out of the hands of the federal government and put it in the hands of private enterprise through lease arrangements or sales. Barker revealed in a story that appeared in the Sunday edition of the Statesman that the number of fires burning in private forests in Idaho is "effectively zero." Private forest fires are extinguished almost immediately by the quick response of owners. One manager of private timber lands says the worst fire he's seen on private land is about 100 acres, which is a long ways from the well over 700,000 acres currently ablaze in national forests in Idaho....
La Cienega: BLM expands area rich in ruins, habitat About 178 acres of rolling hills, basalt cliffs and wetlands eight miles southwest of Santa Fe have been acquired by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But don’t expect to go hiking or camping there. The land has become part of the 4,500-acre La Cienega Area of Critical Environmental Concern that includes pre-Columbian ruins and rock art as well as sensitive habitat for the Southwestern willow flycatcher along a half-mile of the lower Santa Fe River. The Trust for Public Land recently purchased the property from 23 heirs of the late Alonzo Rael for $2.235 million, then sold it to the BLM for the same amount. The nonprofit often arranges for donations of land for conservation purposes, with the former owners obtaining tax breaks. But in this case, the heirs preferred to be paid, said Karyn Stockdale, the trust’s acting state director. The Rael family previously had used the property, between the villages of La Cienega and La Cieneguilla, to graze cattle....
Cowboy breakfast celebrates historic ranch's salvation From the way his grandson talked of the old days at Steam Pump Ranch, George Pusch would have approved of the shindig on the lawn. “This place was a busy place,” Hank Zipf recalled Wednesday morning as more than 100 guests gathered for a cowboy breakfast to celebrate Oro Valley’s acquisition of the historic ranch. “There was an old dirt road then, and anyone passing by was invited in for a drink of water, sometimes whiskey,” said Zipf, a former Oro Valley council member now retired and living in Tubac. Zipf said the ranch, one of two his grandfather owned in Southern Arizona, attracted a variety of visitors. In addition to ranchers who watered livestock there, prospectors would come in for provisions, and on occasion, a troop from the Army’s Fort Lowell would visit. The ranch gained its fame and attraction as the first ranch in the area to draw water with a steam pump. Oro Valley officials have been working to acquire the land and save the ranch since 2004 when a developer proposed razing the structures and creating a commercial facility....
Cows Are Killed And Butchered In Pasture Authorities in Lincoln County are looking for the people who killed and butchered cattle in a pasture. A neighboring rancher discovered the four dead cattle, valued at approximately $11,000, on a road 6.5 miles south of Maxwell. Sheriff Jerome Kramer said each of the four cows had been shot twice. Three cows and one 400-pound calf were killed, Kramer said. One of the cows was partly butchered, missing a hindquarter. The calf was completely butchered. The two other cows were left untouched, Kramer said. The animals were discovered August 12. The incident could have taken place as early as August 10....
Big Sandy rancher’s novel well worth the read Arnold Hokanson’s saga of Bears Paw Mountain ranchers is a read that transcends Montana. Published by AuthorHouse, the 525-page novel , which came out just before Christmas, proves that quality fiction requires a good storyteller, not a top grammarian. The story is without blemish. And anyone who knows northcentral Montana, the intermingled plots and character development are more than believable; they’re recognizable. The saga spans about 70 years, from the birth of the protagonist, Ace Bowens in 1914, to the surprising climax in the 1980s. Those 70 years are little more than half as long as Hokanson’s family has owned its spread abutting the community of Warrick. The family settled in the Bears Paws in 1892 and has had the same brand — 3 bar reverse B brand — for nearly as long. Hokanson said he had heard a story when he was young about a confrontation between Montana cattlemen and a German spy on a train from Havre to Chicago during World War II. “Some people I got to know in later years were on that train and spoke of the story,” he said. While Hokanson embellished the tale, using it to get the story going, the largest part of the book revolves around Montana family ranch life....
Thursday, August 23, 2007
CLIMATE CHANGE
Western States, BC Agree to 15% Greenhouse Gas Cuts
California, four other western states and British Columbia agreed to cut greenhouse gas output to 15 percent below 2005 emission levels by 2020 to curb a forecast rise in global temperatures. California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico in February announced plans to set an emissions target this year and develop a market-based system to help businesses in those states reach that goal next year. In a statement today, the states and British Columbia agreed to the cuts. ``This is the first step to create a regional process to enhance the steps each state is taking on their own,'' Tom Peterson, an adviser to the Western Climate Initiative, said today in a phone interview. ``The states can help each other address climate change in a more cost-effective way.'' Governors of the states, which account for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population, said in February they are seeing decreased snowfall, drought and worsening fires from the impact of global warming. Utah and Canada's Manitoba have joined the group and haven't yet adopted the cuts in their plans... The states plan to meet the reductions by increasing use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, forcing automakers to trim tailpipe emissions, and improving efficiency of home appliances and other big electrical equipment. The plans lays groundwork for a European-style system across the region that will limit emissions and allow businesses to buy or sell pollution credits if they exceed, or fall short, of their goals. The states want to link up to other systems, such as the northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and to Europe's trading plan....
New Mexico Joins Seven States, Provinces to Reduce Emissions by 15 Percent Below 2005 Levels by 2020
The eight members of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) today announced the establishment of a regional goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the West to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. n February of this year the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington created the WCI with a long-term commitment to significantly reduce regional GHG emissions thus lowering the risk of dangerous threats to the climate. Since February the state of Utah and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba also have joined the WCI. Presently, four other U.S. states (Colorado, Kansas, Nevada and Wyoming), three other Canadian provinces (Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan) and one Mexican state (Sonora) are participating as observers to the WCI’s deliberations. Some of these entities, as well as others, may seek to join the WCI as full members. "States and provinces are leading the way by working to solve – not just debating – the problem of climate change,” said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. “Our goal is the most aggressive regional goal in North America – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020. Next the partners in the Western Climate Initiative will develop a cap-and-trade program and do our part to tackle global warming.”
Western States, BC Agree to 15% Greenhouse Gas Cuts
California, four other western states and British Columbia agreed to cut greenhouse gas output to 15 percent below 2005 emission levels by 2020 to curb a forecast rise in global temperatures. California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico in February announced plans to set an emissions target this year and develop a market-based system to help businesses in those states reach that goal next year. In a statement today, the states and British Columbia agreed to the cuts. ``This is the first step to create a regional process to enhance the steps each state is taking on their own,'' Tom Peterson, an adviser to the Western Climate Initiative, said today in a phone interview. ``The states can help each other address climate change in a more cost-effective way.'' Governors of the states, which account for nearly one-fifth of the U.S. population, said in February they are seeing decreased snowfall, drought and worsening fires from the impact of global warming. Utah and Canada's Manitoba have joined the group and haven't yet adopted the cuts in their plans... The states plan to meet the reductions by increasing use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, forcing automakers to trim tailpipe emissions, and improving efficiency of home appliances and other big electrical equipment. The plans lays groundwork for a European-style system across the region that will limit emissions and allow businesses to buy or sell pollution credits if they exceed, or fall short, of their goals. The states want to link up to other systems, such as the northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and to Europe's trading plan....
New Mexico Joins Seven States, Provinces to Reduce Emissions by 15 Percent Below 2005 Levels by 2020
The eight members of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) today announced the establishment of a regional goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the West to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. n February of this year the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington created the WCI with a long-term commitment to significantly reduce regional GHG emissions thus lowering the risk of dangerous threats to the climate. Since February the state of Utah and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba also have joined the WCI. Presently, four other U.S. states (Colorado, Kansas, Nevada and Wyoming), three other Canadian provinces (Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan) and one Mexican state (Sonora) are participating as observers to the WCI’s deliberations. Some of these entities, as well as others, may seek to join the WCI as full members. "States and provinces are leading the way by working to solve – not just debating – the problem of climate change,” said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. “Our goal is the most aggressive regional goal in North America – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2020. Next the partners in the Western Climate Initiative will develop a cap-and-trade program and do our part to tackle global warming.”
DONA ANA WILDERNESS
Domenici in no hurry on wilderness U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said Wednesday he won't pursue creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County unless local officials and other groups reach more consensus about how it should be done. Domenici, R-N.M., during a visit to the Sun-News Wednesday said he initially considered introducing legislation that would create wilderness after a group of local officials approached him in 2005 with a plan. The officials put forth a unified front, he said, but conservationist groups entered the picture soon after, opposing a component that would have released federal land for sale. "It was gone all of the sudden — from a position of frontal positiveness to disappearing from the scene," he said. "When (conservation groups) had a meeting and said they were going to organize to be against it, that was enough. It was over with." He said ranchers then stepped forward with their own objections, and "the unity of people fell apart some more." Domenici said he has backed the creation of other wilderness in the state, but said there must be local support for him to decide to do so in Doña Ana County. "To the extent I'm supposed to be a catalyst here to get everything sweetly put together, I'm not," he said. "I'm not scared of a fight, but you can't fight ... a two- or three-way battle to everyone's satisfaction." Domenici said stakeholders and local officials will have to reach more consensus, possibly by breaking up the wilderness proposal into smaller pieces....
Doña Ana Wilderness Plan Has Grown Out of Control As ranchers in Doña Ana County, we find ourselves on the opposite page from the wilderness proponents. Our reaction to the creation of 425,000 acres of wilderness and NCAs in our county is one of great concern. We know that where wilderness, land management agencies, environmental advocacy groups and ranchers collide, ranchers lose. It is a simple matter of fact. In the conditions that we ranch, it is imperative that we have full access to our water systems, our protein dispensers and our cattle distributions. Our business, like all businesses, continues to evolve. In the West, labor has continued to be spread ever further. The need is to cover large areas as quickly as possible. Cattle are being worked more intensively for the purposes of identification for food safety as well as genetic selection for the purposes of fitting our herds to the conditions of our ranges. These are moves to be ever more sensitive to the lands we occupy and to contribute to the best food safety system in the world. Cattle are hauled more and handled less by horseback. Roads become more important for general monitoring. Being shut out of areas or being restricted from access because of wilderness administrative protocol can be catastrophic to our herds and our ability to deal with the conditions of the arid Southwest....
Wilderness designation too restrictive As the battle heated, the prowilderness effort remained unwavering in the demand to lock these lands up in wilderness status regardless of the arguments. They reassured the public that covenants within the act would protect ranchers and their concern of not being able to continue operating and that a MOU would allow the Border Patrol to access the wilderness areas. What covenants and what MOU? The covenants became the pass words to reassure the public that the ranchers didn't have an argument, that their operations would be taken care of by "cherry stemming" roads and they could apply for entry to work on their improvements. The MOU shed light on a huge issue of most of these lands and that was national security and law enforcement. It was learned that current federal employees don't talk, but retired ones do. Where wilderness is established illegal traffic escalates. Where wilderness is established land management agencies have extremely difficult responsibilities of managing stakeholder interests. Where wilderness is established the wilderness groups tend to start suing. They demonstrate the propensity to sue for the return of the wilderness management to original intent of the act. They sue federal agencies for overflight of aircraft. They exert pressure and threaten suit on the Border Patrol to remove sensor repeaters from such places as Big Hatchet Mountain and they fail to mention that the MOU is an intra agency agreement between the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior and Agriculture. Local law enforcement including the Sheriff's Department, the State Police, the New Mexico Livestock Board, and the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game have no parallel rights to negotiate entry or pursuit....hat tip to PFPOWH
Domenici in no hurry on wilderness U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici said Wednesday he won't pursue creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County unless local officials and other groups reach more consensus about how it should be done. Domenici, R-N.M., during a visit to the Sun-News Wednesday said he initially considered introducing legislation that would create wilderness after a group of local officials approached him in 2005 with a plan. The officials put forth a unified front, he said, but conservationist groups entered the picture soon after, opposing a component that would have released federal land for sale. "It was gone all of the sudden — from a position of frontal positiveness to disappearing from the scene," he said. "When (conservation groups) had a meeting and said they were going to organize to be against it, that was enough. It was over with." He said ranchers then stepped forward with their own objections, and "the unity of people fell apart some more." Domenici said he has backed the creation of other wilderness in the state, but said there must be local support for him to decide to do so in Doña Ana County. "To the extent I'm supposed to be a catalyst here to get everything sweetly put together, I'm not," he said. "I'm not scared of a fight, but you can't fight ... a two- or three-way battle to everyone's satisfaction." Domenici said stakeholders and local officials will have to reach more consensus, possibly by breaking up the wilderness proposal into smaller pieces....
Doña Ana Wilderness Plan Has Grown Out of Control As ranchers in Doña Ana County, we find ourselves on the opposite page from the wilderness proponents. Our reaction to the creation of 425,000 acres of wilderness and NCAs in our county is one of great concern. We know that where wilderness, land management agencies, environmental advocacy groups and ranchers collide, ranchers lose. It is a simple matter of fact. In the conditions that we ranch, it is imperative that we have full access to our water systems, our protein dispensers and our cattle distributions. Our business, like all businesses, continues to evolve. In the West, labor has continued to be spread ever further. The need is to cover large areas as quickly as possible. Cattle are being worked more intensively for the purposes of identification for food safety as well as genetic selection for the purposes of fitting our herds to the conditions of our ranges. These are moves to be ever more sensitive to the lands we occupy and to contribute to the best food safety system in the world. Cattle are hauled more and handled less by horseback. Roads become more important for general monitoring. Being shut out of areas or being restricted from access because of wilderness administrative protocol can be catastrophic to our herds and our ability to deal with the conditions of the arid Southwest....
Wilderness designation too restrictive As the battle heated, the prowilderness effort remained unwavering in the demand to lock these lands up in wilderness status regardless of the arguments. They reassured the public that covenants within the act would protect ranchers and their concern of not being able to continue operating and that a MOU would allow the Border Patrol to access the wilderness areas. What covenants and what MOU? The covenants became the pass words to reassure the public that the ranchers didn't have an argument, that their operations would be taken care of by "cherry stemming" roads and they could apply for entry to work on their improvements. The MOU shed light on a huge issue of most of these lands and that was national security and law enforcement. It was learned that current federal employees don't talk, but retired ones do. Where wilderness is established illegal traffic escalates. Where wilderness is established land management agencies have extremely difficult responsibilities of managing stakeholder interests. Where wilderness is established the wilderness groups tend to start suing. They demonstrate the propensity to sue for the return of the wilderness management to original intent of the act. They sue federal agencies for overflight of aircraft. They exert pressure and threaten suit on the Border Patrol to remove sensor repeaters from such places as Big Hatchet Mountain and they fail to mention that the MOU is an intra agency agreement between the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior and Agriculture. Local law enforcement including the Sheriff's Department, the State Police, the New Mexico Livestock Board, and the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game have no parallel rights to negotiate entry or pursuit....hat tip to PFPOWH
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Judge: Bush officials broke law by not reporting on warming The Bush administration has violated a 2004 congressional deadline for presenting the latest scientific research about global warming to lawmakers and the public and must submit its report by next spring, a federal judge ruled today. Federal officials have "unlawfully withheld action they are required to take,'' preparing a new scientific assessment by November 2004 and a research plan by July 2006, said U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of Oakland. "Congress has imposed clear-cut, unambiguous deadlines for compliance.'' A 1990 federal law requires the government to produce a scientific report every four years on climate change and its effects on the environment, including land, water, air, plant and animal life and human health. The Clinton administration issued the first report in October 2000, warning of severe effects on different regions. The Bush administration has not issued a report and, according to environmental groups that filed the lawsuit last November, has tried to bury the Clinton report....
Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts Steve Johnson scans the hot, translucent sky. He wants to make rain -- needs to make rain for the parched farms and desperate hydro companies in this California valley. But first, he must have clouds. The listless sky offers no hint of clouds. Inside a darkened room near the Fresno airport, Johnson's colleagues study an array of radar screens. If a promising thunderstorm appears, Johnson will send his pilots into it in sturdy but ice-battered single-engine planes, burning flares of silver iodide to try to coax rain from the clouds. This year, there have been few promising clouds, to the dismay of the farmers, ranchers and power companies who hire Johnson's cloud seeders. "We can increase the rainfall by 10 percent. But Mother Nature has to cooperate. Ten percent of zero is zero," says Johnson, a meteorologist and director of Atmospherics Inc. A few miles south of Fresno, Steve Arthur is looking the other way for water. His company is working around the clock drilling wells to irrigate fields in California's 400-mile-long Central Valley, one of the most productive food-growing areas in the world. "People are really starting to panic for water," said Arthur, whose father started drilling wells in 1959. They must drill ever deeper to tap the sinking water table....
Panel approves rules for railroad eminent domain New rules that likely will help determine whether the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad can use eminent domain to acquire land for its proposed expansion project were approved Tuesday by a legislative panel. The Legislature’s Rules Review Committee endorsed rules that the state Transportation Commission passed last week. The commission has been asked to grant the Sioux Falls-based DM&E eminent domain to acquire land in western South Dakota so it can extend its east-west line into Wyoming’s coal fields in the Powder River Basin. Before state agencies’ rules can take effect, the legislative committee must first approve them. Tuesday’s action means the DOT commission’s rules take effect about Sept. 10. Once that happens, the commission can restart the process of considering DM&E’s application for the right to condemn property....
$25M Punitive Award Against Texaco Tossed in Mont. Pollution Case A divided Montana Supreme Court has reversed a jury's $25 million punitive damages award against Texaco Inc. for contaminating a town's groundwater and properties with benzene. In a 5-2 ruling the high court said the trial court's decision to exclude testimony from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality on talks with Texaco about the contamination was erroneous. "These negotiations could have shed light on Texaco's state of mind and correspondingly whether it acted with actual fraud or actual malice," the high court said. However, the Supreme Court upheld a $16 million jury award to fund the restoration of a school and 82 neighboring properties. Texaco operated a gasoline refinery outside Sunburst, Mont., from 1924 until 1961. Gasoline leaked from pipes for many years and contaminated the surrounding soil, according to court documents....
Rep. Salazar seeks support on Pinon Canyon Rep. John Salazar remains "hopeful" that his brother, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, will ultimately decide to support a yearlong moratorium on the Army's plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site when Congress resumes work in September. "He hasn't told me 'no' and I am hopeful that he will ultimately support our legislation," John Salazar, the 3rd District Democrat, said Monday. "Believe me, I intend to keep working on him. Ken is still hoping there is a middle ground, but I don't think there is." The legislation is the 2008 military construction appropriations bill, which the House approved in June, including an amendment from John Salazar and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., to block the Army from spending any money on the expansion next year, including money for preliminary studies. The 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon site is located in Las Animas County northeast of Trinidad, within the 3rd District. The Army intends to add 414,000 acres to the site, most of it coming from Las Animas County....
Federal forest official faces contempt hearing A federal judge in Montana has ordered the Bush administration's top forestry official to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for the U.S. Forest Service's failure to analyze the environmental impacts of dropping fish-killing fire retardant on wildfires. If found in contempt, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, could go to jail until the Forest Service complies with the court order to do the environmental review. Noting that Rey had blocked implementation of an earlier review, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Malloy in Missoula, Mont., ordered Rey to appear in his court Oct. 15 unless the Forest Service completes the analysis before that time -- an outcome Malloy deemed unlikely. "It has been six years since Forest Service staff completed a 'retardant EA' -- only to have higher-up officials embargo it," Malloy wrote in an order issued late Friday. "The time I am giving is likely to prove insufficient if: 1) the agency is simply unwilling to follow the law; or, 2) it is prevented from following the law by its political masters, as was the case when Under Secretary of Agriculture Mark Rey ordered that formal (Endangered Species Act) consultation regarding fire retardant not to occur." Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the agency was working on the analysis, but he could not say whether they would meet the new deadline, because it was two months away. Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an environmental group based in Eugene, filed the lawsuit in 2003, a year after more than 20,000 fish were killed when toxic retardant was dropped in Fall Creek in central Oregon....
War on fire takes a toll on fish One fish kill stretched five miles down Washington’s Omak Creek, and wiped out more than 10,000 trout and steelhead. Another fish kill hit five miles of Colorado’s Mancos River. Others hit several Oregon streams. The cause? Fire retardants dropped by airplanes, as federal agencies battled wildfires during the past three years. The plume of chemicals reaches streams in “less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all the retardant drops,” estimates Alice Forbes, at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. But with 15 to 18 million gallons dropped mostly by federal agencies in an average year, and as much as 44 million gallons dropped in a bad fire year, even the small percentage ending up in streams is too much, says Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics....
Basin man found guilty of fencing Forest Service land for grazing A Basin-area man has been found guilty of fencing off U.S. Forest Service land to graze his horses. Joseph Robertson, 68, who lives five miles northeast of Basin, was tried in absentia after failing to appear at his bench trial Aug. 9. Prosecutors said sometime before Oct. 15, 2006, Robertson used cable and signs saying "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" to block a short section of road in Big Lumber Gulch north of Basin. Robertson later excavated trenches, fenced off 5 acres of Forest Service land for a horse pasture and let his horses run free on land surrounding his private land, according to court records. U.S. Magistrate Keith Strong found Robertson guilty of two counts of blocking or interfering with the use of a road, trail or gate; damaging a road or trail; constructing a fence or enclosure on National Forest Service land without authority and allowing unauthorized livestock to enter the Forest Service lands. A sixth charge of allowing livestock on public lands without a permit or lease was dismissed. Robertson was fined a total of $2,625....
Sage grouse span multiple breeding areas In the quest for the perfect male, female sage grouse in Jackson Hole move from lek to lek, a finding that could have important implications as sage grouse populations continue to decline in the rest of the state. This past summer, Craighead Beringia South biologists used Global Positioning System collars and radio collars to track 15 breeding-aged female sage grouse as they moved among leks at the Jackson Hole Airport, on the National Elk Refuge and in Grand Teton National Park. A lek is where male sage grouse gather to put on a competitive mating display for females. Dominant males defend key locations in the lek from potential rivals. Females then choose the male they wish to breed with, usually the dominant males. According to Beringia biologist Bryan Bedrosian, scientists previously thought that female sage grouse stayed at one lek for the duration of the breeding season. Though the results of the study are preliminary, Bedrosian said its clear that some females in Jackson Hole used more than one breeding area....
Idaho Officials Trap Grizzly Bear Family It’s like a real-life story of Goldilocks and the three bears – but there’s no Goldilock, just the three bears, some beds and some porridge. In this story, the three rambunctious grizzly bears in the Island Park Ranger District of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest of Southeastern Idaho have been captured. The bear family is a five-year-old female and her two cubs. The momma bear was first captured two summers ago in Harriman State Park after getting nosy with a trash compactor. She was given number 502. The momma bear actually is more like Goldilocks in this story because it appears she’s been finding trouble all over the area: raiding apple trees near Ashton, Idaho, (that’s kind of like the porridge part) and being relocated twice. This time the bear was raiding a vacant tent (that’s kind of like the bed part) near Moose Creek on August 16. U.S. Forest Service officials closed the area and let biologists and conservation officers set traps to snare the bad news bears....
Group sues to block project Concerning the impact to wildlife, there's no disagreement. Yet there is a lawsuit. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership filed suit against the U.S. Department of Interior on Friday over the authorization of 2,000 new oil and gas wells in south-central Wyoming. The Atlantic Rim project, according to the Interior's own Bureau of Land Management, would "have adverse impact to suitable habitat for many wildlife species," including iconic big game species including mule deer, elk and antelope. The 1,000 miles of pipeline and 1,000 miles of new roads associated with the wells would transform the hunters' paradise "to an industrial setting," according to the BLM's Atlantic Rim environmental impact statement. The conservation group, and others, agree. The rub is that the BLM said the development should proceed anyway....
Feds hope new report will lead to drilling in Arctic oil reserve Under orders from a federal judge, the Interior Department on Monday released a revised report of how oil and gas exploration would affect one of the most important habitats for calving caribou and migratory birds in northern Alaska. The department hopes the updated report will help put it back on track to lease 400,000 acres around Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas companies eager to expand operations on the fuel-rich North Slope. “This sets the stage for determining future actions,” said Sharon Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management in Anchorage. The report by the Bureau of Land Management contains broader descriptions than before of wildlife, industry and Alaska Native communities in the region, but makes few concrete appraisals about how drilling would affect the area....
BLM requires helicopters for logging by hiking trails Bill Taylor pauses along one of his regular mountain-biking routes near the Molalla River and fishes a seemingly endless line of string from the forest floor. The string, discarded after it was used to lay out an upcoming tree-thinning operation, can be murder when it gets wound up in bike sprockets, Taylor said. It also hints at potential conflicts between recreational users and commercial loggers in the next few years. This summer, the federal Bureau of Land Management sold about 10.5 million board feet of timber in an area that includes the Molalla River Shared-Use Trail System. The thinning operation, known as the Annie's Cabin timber sale, will affect 566 acres sprinkled in small patches throughout the area, which includes about 25 miles of recreational trails built almost entirely by volunteers. The winning bidder for the $1.9 million sale was the family-owned Freres Lumber Co., headquartered in Lyons, where about 435 employees produce veneer, plywood and lumber. Thinning likely will begin next year if there are no valid appeals, said Rudy Hefter, natural resource staff administrator for the BLM's Cascade Resource Area....
BLM cuts scope of auction in half Responding to protests from environmental groups and hunting and fishing interests, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has slashed by half the size of today's auction of oil and gas leases in Utah. The BLM said it will offer at its auction this morning 39 parcels of oil and gas leases encompassing about 68,521 acres in Juab, Millard, Rich, San Juan, Summit and Uintah counties. However, it originally planned to auction mineral leases to 81 properties, or about 141,000 acres. "We've deferred action on 42 parcels so that we can go back and revisit all of our data and documentation to make sure that we didn't make any errors in offering those properties for lease," said Terry Catlin, energy support team leader at the BLM's Utah office in Salt Lake City. Under federal law, BLM state offices are required to hold an auction of oil and gas leases at least four times a year. As part of that process, anyone can file a protest questioning whether it is appropriate for the agency to offer any or all of the properties for lease....
New prion protein discovered by Canadian scientists may offer insight into mad cow disease Scientists have discovered a new protein that may offer fresh insights into brain function in mad cow disease. “Our team has defined a second prion protein called ‘Shadoo’, that exists in addition to the well-known prion protein called ‘PrP’ ” said Professor David Westaway, director of the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases at the University of Alberta. “For decades we believed PrP was a unique nerve protein that folded into an abnormal shape and caused prion disease: end of story. This view is no longer accurate,” Westaway adds. The study was conducted jointly by the University of Toronto, University of Alberta, Case Western Reserve University (Ohio) and the McLaughlin Research Institute (Montana). The research is published today in the EMBO Journal and represents a culmination of work initiated at the University of Toronto in 1999, and then continued more recently at the University of Alberta. This is the first discovery since 1985 of a new brain prion protein....
Battle over cattle tags pits food safety against Amish religious rights Glen Mast doesn't own a computer and doesn't want one, but he and other Amish farmers complain the state Department of Agriculture is insisting they tag their cattle with electronic chips in violation of their religious beliefs. State agriculture officials say the radio frequency chips are necessary to track animal diseases and protect public health. Mast and other Amish farmers say the chips' 15-digit number is the Mark of the Beast warned of in the Bible's book of Revelation. ``We're a people who are inclined to mind our own business,'' Mast said, sitting in the wood shop he operates without electricity on his Isabella County farm. His small herd of dairy cows lounged in the shade of the barn. Across the road, one of his sons raked hay with a team of horses. ``We're never happier than when we're just left alone,'' Mast said. ``That's all we're asking.'' All over Michigan, Amish farmers are resisting the state program requiring that all cattle be tagged with the electronic chips before they can be sold. Some say they will quit farming if it comes to it. Some say they will leave the state. ``They keep saying that, and that's their choice,'' said Kevin Kirk, who coordinates the program for the state agriculture department. ``Our No. 1 goal is animal health, human health and food safety. I know it's hard sometimes to trust the government, but that's what we're asking is trust us.''....
Montana’s new horse testing rule deadline extended The grace period for Montana’s new horse testing rule has been extended to Sept. 7. The Montana Board of Livestock recently approved a new rule to require all horses coming into Montana be tested for Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA), a respiratory virus that also causes abortion in mares. The new testing requirement was supposed to go into effect on Aug. 20. “That’s just too soon,” said Dr. Jeanne Rankin, acting state veterinarian Dr. Jeanne Rankin. “Some of the tests are complicated and take a long time to run.” Also, a stallion could test positive because he contracted the virus naturally or has been vaccinated previously. If a horse tests positive for EVA, further complex tests that identify the specific virus must be run before the horse is allowed into Montana. The complexity of the tests require specialized equipment so veterinarians must send samples to either the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa, or the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Fort Collins, Colo....
Horseback traveler headed to Wyoming Bill Inman has no doubt that he will finish what was started nearly three months ago, when he left his hometown of Lebanon, Ore., and embarked on a horseback journey across the United States. "This is the most rewarding and hardest thing I've done in my life," said Inman, who is headed into Wyoming this week after traveling nearly 900 miles through Oregon and southern Idaho astride his horse, Blackie, followed by his small support team in a pickup truck. He hopes to wrap up his expedition early next year in Hendersonville, N.C. A videographer is capturing on film the dozens of interviews Inman has conducted with ordinary and extraordinary small-town folks he has met along the way. Two dozen clips from the journey are posted online on YouTube. Inman hopes to ultimately make the footage available in a more comprehensive package, possibly in a documentary showcasing a side of rural American life that he believes is overlooked by mainstream media. "What I've seen so far is the real America - the heartland," Inman said. "We've met some incredible people from all different backgrounds."....
A pampered, yet unridden bull in the Burch Rodeo string could be the next big name in pro rodeo circles Outwardly, little separates the black bull from his brothers. Like many of the Burch Rodeo bulls, he weighs 1,200 pounds or more. He may be a bit taller or wider, but not by much. Sure, he has no horns. But that just seems to add to his attitude. “He looks like a black muley right now,” owner Matt Burch says. “But it don't matter what they look like. It's a matter of what they do.” This is one mean, ornery bull, but he doesn't often show it. Until he's around humans, that is. The co-owner of Burch Rodeo with his brother, Chad Burch, Matt's speciality is raising bulls. He's ridden bulls in the past, as well, but even he shivers at the idea of taking on Huskemaw. “For a dude that big, it's hard to believe what he can do,” Burch said. “I wouldn't want on him. He doesn't like people.” The 5-year-old bull has made eight trips in pro rodeos so far this year. He's made up to 35 trips overall, since he healed after tearing off a toe at the age of 3....
It's All Trew: Myths of the South Plains Ever wonder why the Panhandle of Texas and the South Plains were among the last areas of the Great Plains to be settled? The book "Land of Bright Promise" by Jan Blodgett tells why and how it all happened. Here are a few excerpts from his excellent volume. The Spanish explorers were the first non-Indian visitors to the Llano Estacado. Their journals were well-documented but were written in Spanish and mostly confined to the Mexican Republic. The first American explorers, Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long, were more interested in finding a way to the Pacific Ocean and saw the Great Plains as being "an obstacle blocking the path of the explorers intent on what lay beyond." Myths and images of the area had taken hold of the public imagination at the time. Government reports, travel journals, textbooks, articles and illustrations in magazines, newspapers and novels all introduced the Panhandle and South Plains as "a desert, a haven for desperate characters, heartless ranchers and renegade Indians." In 1819, the Stephen Long Expedition christened the area as "the Great American Desert" and wrote the title across the map he drew of the area. By 1882, and for the next 50 years, map publishers copied the Long map for all publications....
Judge: Bush officials broke law by not reporting on warming The Bush administration has violated a 2004 congressional deadline for presenting the latest scientific research about global warming to lawmakers and the public and must submit its report by next spring, a federal judge ruled today. Federal officials have "unlawfully withheld action they are required to take,'' preparing a new scientific assessment by November 2004 and a research plan by July 2006, said U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of Oakland. "Congress has imposed clear-cut, unambiguous deadlines for compliance.'' A 1990 federal law requires the government to produce a scientific report every four years on climate change and its effects on the environment, including land, water, air, plant and animal life and human health. The Clinton administration issued the first report in October 2000, warning of severe effects on different regions. The Bush administration has not issued a report and, according to environmental groups that filed the lawsuit last November, has tried to bury the Clinton report....
Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts Steve Johnson scans the hot, translucent sky. He wants to make rain -- needs to make rain for the parched farms and desperate hydro companies in this California valley. But first, he must have clouds. The listless sky offers no hint of clouds. Inside a darkened room near the Fresno airport, Johnson's colleagues study an array of radar screens. If a promising thunderstorm appears, Johnson will send his pilots into it in sturdy but ice-battered single-engine planes, burning flares of silver iodide to try to coax rain from the clouds. This year, there have been few promising clouds, to the dismay of the farmers, ranchers and power companies who hire Johnson's cloud seeders. "We can increase the rainfall by 10 percent. But Mother Nature has to cooperate. Ten percent of zero is zero," says Johnson, a meteorologist and director of Atmospherics Inc. A few miles south of Fresno, Steve Arthur is looking the other way for water. His company is working around the clock drilling wells to irrigate fields in California's 400-mile-long Central Valley, one of the most productive food-growing areas in the world. "People are really starting to panic for water," said Arthur, whose father started drilling wells in 1959. They must drill ever deeper to tap the sinking water table....
Panel approves rules for railroad eminent domain New rules that likely will help determine whether the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad can use eminent domain to acquire land for its proposed expansion project were approved Tuesday by a legislative panel. The Legislature’s Rules Review Committee endorsed rules that the state Transportation Commission passed last week. The commission has been asked to grant the Sioux Falls-based DM&E eminent domain to acquire land in western South Dakota so it can extend its east-west line into Wyoming’s coal fields in the Powder River Basin. Before state agencies’ rules can take effect, the legislative committee must first approve them. Tuesday’s action means the DOT commission’s rules take effect about Sept. 10. Once that happens, the commission can restart the process of considering DM&E’s application for the right to condemn property....
$25M Punitive Award Against Texaco Tossed in Mont. Pollution Case A divided Montana Supreme Court has reversed a jury's $25 million punitive damages award against Texaco Inc. for contaminating a town's groundwater and properties with benzene. In a 5-2 ruling the high court said the trial court's decision to exclude testimony from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality on talks with Texaco about the contamination was erroneous. "These negotiations could have shed light on Texaco's state of mind and correspondingly whether it acted with actual fraud or actual malice," the high court said. However, the Supreme Court upheld a $16 million jury award to fund the restoration of a school and 82 neighboring properties. Texaco operated a gasoline refinery outside Sunburst, Mont., from 1924 until 1961. Gasoline leaked from pipes for many years and contaminated the surrounding soil, according to court documents....
Rep. Salazar seeks support on Pinon Canyon Rep. John Salazar remains "hopeful" that his brother, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, will ultimately decide to support a yearlong moratorium on the Army's plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site when Congress resumes work in September. "He hasn't told me 'no' and I am hopeful that he will ultimately support our legislation," John Salazar, the 3rd District Democrat, said Monday. "Believe me, I intend to keep working on him. Ken is still hoping there is a middle ground, but I don't think there is." The legislation is the 2008 military construction appropriations bill, which the House approved in June, including an amendment from John Salazar and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., to block the Army from spending any money on the expansion next year, including money for preliminary studies. The 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon site is located in Las Animas County northeast of Trinidad, within the 3rd District. The Army intends to add 414,000 acres to the site, most of it coming from Las Animas County....
Federal forest official faces contempt hearing A federal judge in Montana has ordered the Bush administration's top forestry official to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for the U.S. Forest Service's failure to analyze the environmental impacts of dropping fish-killing fire retardant on wildfires. If found in contempt, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, could go to jail until the Forest Service complies with the court order to do the environmental review. Noting that Rey had blocked implementation of an earlier review, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Malloy in Missoula, Mont., ordered Rey to appear in his court Oct. 15 unless the Forest Service completes the analysis before that time -- an outcome Malloy deemed unlikely. "It has been six years since Forest Service staff completed a 'retardant EA' -- only to have higher-up officials embargo it," Malloy wrote in an order issued late Friday. "The time I am giving is likely to prove insufficient if: 1) the agency is simply unwilling to follow the law; or, 2) it is prevented from following the law by its political masters, as was the case when Under Secretary of Agriculture Mark Rey ordered that formal (Endangered Species Act) consultation regarding fire retardant not to occur." Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said the agency was working on the analysis, but he could not say whether they would meet the new deadline, because it was two months away. Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an environmental group based in Eugene, filed the lawsuit in 2003, a year after more than 20,000 fish were killed when toxic retardant was dropped in Fall Creek in central Oregon....
War on fire takes a toll on fish One fish kill stretched five miles down Washington’s Omak Creek, and wiped out more than 10,000 trout and steelhead. Another fish kill hit five miles of Colorado’s Mancos River. Others hit several Oregon streams. The cause? Fire retardants dropped by airplanes, as federal agencies battled wildfires during the past three years. The plume of chemicals reaches streams in “less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all the retardant drops,” estimates Alice Forbes, at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. But with 15 to 18 million gallons dropped mostly by federal agencies in an average year, and as much as 44 million gallons dropped in a bad fire year, even the small percentage ending up in streams is too much, says Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics....
Basin man found guilty of fencing Forest Service land for grazing A Basin-area man has been found guilty of fencing off U.S. Forest Service land to graze his horses. Joseph Robertson, 68, who lives five miles northeast of Basin, was tried in absentia after failing to appear at his bench trial Aug. 9. Prosecutors said sometime before Oct. 15, 2006, Robertson used cable and signs saying "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" to block a short section of road in Big Lumber Gulch north of Basin. Robertson later excavated trenches, fenced off 5 acres of Forest Service land for a horse pasture and let his horses run free on land surrounding his private land, according to court records. U.S. Magistrate Keith Strong found Robertson guilty of two counts of blocking or interfering with the use of a road, trail or gate; damaging a road or trail; constructing a fence or enclosure on National Forest Service land without authority and allowing unauthorized livestock to enter the Forest Service lands. A sixth charge of allowing livestock on public lands without a permit or lease was dismissed. Robertson was fined a total of $2,625....
Sage grouse span multiple breeding areas In the quest for the perfect male, female sage grouse in Jackson Hole move from lek to lek, a finding that could have important implications as sage grouse populations continue to decline in the rest of the state. This past summer, Craighead Beringia South biologists used Global Positioning System collars and radio collars to track 15 breeding-aged female sage grouse as they moved among leks at the Jackson Hole Airport, on the National Elk Refuge and in Grand Teton National Park. A lek is where male sage grouse gather to put on a competitive mating display for females. Dominant males defend key locations in the lek from potential rivals. Females then choose the male they wish to breed with, usually the dominant males. According to Beringia biologist Bryan Bedrosian, scientists previously thought that female sage grouse stayed at one lek for the duration of the breeding season. Though the results of the study are preliminary, Bedrosian said its clear that some females in Jackson Hole used more than one breeding area....
Idaho Officials Trap Grizzly Bear Family It’s like a real-life story of Goldilocks and the three bears – but there’s no Goldilock, just the three bears, some beds and some porridge. In this story, the three rambunctious grizzly bears in the Island Park Ranger District of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest of Southeastern Idaho have been captured. The bear family is a five-year-old female and her two cubs. The momma bear was first captured two summers ago in Harriman State Park after getting nosy with a trash compactor. She was given number 502. The momma bear actually is more like Goldilocks in this story because it appears she’s been finding trouble all over the area: raiding apple trees near Ashton, Idaho, (that’s kind of like the porridge part) and being relocated twice. This time the bear was raiding a vacant tent (that’s kind of like the bed part) near Moose Creek on August 16. U.S. Forest Service officials closed the area and let biologists and conservation officers set traps to snare the bad news bears....
Group sues to block project Concerning the impact to wildlife, there's no disagreement. Yet there is a lawsuit. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership filed suit against the U.S. Department of Interior on Friday over the authorization of 2,000 new oil and gas wells in south-central Wyoming. The Atlantic Rim project, according to the Interior's own Bureau of Land Management, would "have adverse impact to suitable habitat for many wildlife species," including iconic big game species including mule deer, elk and antelope. The 1,000 miles of pipeline and 1,000 miles of new roads associated with the wells would transform the hunters' paradise "to an industrial setting," according to the BLM's Atlantic Rim environmental impact statement. The conservation group, and others, agree. The rub is that the BLM said the development should proceed anyway....
Feds hope new report will lead to drilling in Arctic oil reserve Under orders from a federal judge, the Interior Department on Monday released a revised report of how oil and gas exploration would affect one of the most important habitats for calving caribou and migratory birds in northern Alaska. The department hopes the updated report will help put it back on track to lease 400,000 acres around Teshekpuk Lake in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas companies eager to expand operations on the fuel-rich North Slope. “This sets the stage for determining future actions,” said Sharon Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management in Anchorage. The report by the Bureau of Land Management contains broader descriptions than before of wildlife, industry and Alaska Native communities in the region, but makes few concrete appraisals about how drilling would affect the area....
BLM requires helicopters for logging by hiking trails Bill Taylor pauses along one of his regular mountain-biking routes near the Molalla River and fishes a seemingly endless line of string from the forest floor. The string, discarded after it was used to lay out an upcoming tree-thinning operation, can be murder when it gets wound up in bike sprockets, Taylor said. It also hints at potential conflicts between recreational users and commercial loggers in the next few years. This summer, the federal Bureau of Land Management sold about 10.5 million board feet of timber in an area that includes the Molalla River Shared-Use Trail System. The thinning operation, known as the Annie's Cabin timber sale, will affect 566 acres sprinkled in small patches throughout the area, which includes about 25 miles of recreational trails built almost entirely by volunteers. The winning bidder for the $1.9 million sale was the family-owned Freres Lumber Co., headquartered in Lyons, where about 435 employees produce veneer, plywood and lumber. Thinning likely will begin next year if there are no valid appeals, said Rudy Hefter, natural resource staff administrator for the BLM's Cascade Resource Area....
BLM cuts scope of auction in half Responding to protests from environmental groups and hunting and fishing interests, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has slashed by half the size of today's auction of oil and gas leases in Utah. The BLM said it will offer at its auction this morning 39 parcels of oil and gas leases encompassing about 68,521 acres in Juab, Millard, Rich, San Juan, Summit and Uintah counties. However, it originally planned to auction mineral leases to 81 properties, or about 141,000 acres. "We've deferred action on 42 parcels so that we can go back and revisit all of our data and documentation to make sure that we didn't make any errors in offering those properties for lease," said Terry Catlin, energy support team leader at the BLM's Utah office in Salt Lake City. Under federal law, BLM state offices are required to hold an auction of oil and gas leases at least four times a year. As part of that process, anyone can file a protest questioning whether it is appropriate for the agency to offer any or all of the properties for lease....
New prion protein discovered by Canadian scientists may offer insight into mad cow disease Scientists have discovered a new protein that may offer fresh insights into brain function in mad cow disease. “Our team has defined a second prion protein called ‘Shadoo’, that exists in addition to the well-known prion protein called ‘PrP’ ” said Professor David Westaway, director of the Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases at the University of Alberta. “For decades we believed PrP was a unique nerve protein that folded into an abnormal shape and caused prion disease: end of story. This view is no longer accurate,” Westaway adds. The study was conducted jointly by the University of Toronto, University of Alberta, Case Western Reserve University (Ohio) and the McLaughlin Research Institute (Montana). The research is published today in the EMBO Journal and represents a culmination of work initiated at the University of Toronto in 1999, and then continued more recently at the University of Alberta. This is the first discovery since 1985 of a new brain prion protein....
Battle over cattle tags pits food safety against Amish religious rights Glen Mast doesn't own a computer and doesn't want one, but he and other Amish farmers complain the state Department of Agriculture is insisting they tag their cattle with electronic chips in violation of their religious beliefs. State agriculture officials say the radio frequency chips are necessary to track animal diseases and protect public health. Mast and other Amish farmers say the chips' 15-digit number is the Mark of the Beast warned of in the Bible's book of Revelation. ``We're a people who are inclined to mind our own business,'' Mast said, sitting in the wood shop he operates without electricity on his Isabella County farm. His small herd of dairy cows lounged in the shade of the barn. Across the road, one of his sons raked hay with a team of horses. ``We're never happier than when we're just left alone,'' Mast said. ``That's all we're asking.'' All over Michigan, Amish farmers are resisting the state program requiring that all cattle be tagged with the electronic chips before they can be sold. Some say they will quit farming if it comes to it. Some say they will leave the state. ``They keep saying that, and that's their choice,'' said Kevin Kirk, who coordinates the program for the state agriculture department. ``Our No. 1 goal is animal health, human health and food safety. I know it's hard sometimes to trust the government, but that's what we're asking is trust us.''....
Montana’s new horse testing rule deadline extended The grace period for Montana’s new horse testing rule has been extended to Sept. 7. The Montana Board of Livestock recently approved a new rule to require all horses coming into Montana be tested for Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA), a respiratory virus that also causes abortion in mares. The new testing requirement was supposed to go into effect on Aug. 20. “That’s just too soon,” said Dr. Jeanne Rankin, acting state veterinarian Dr. Jeanne Rankin. “Some of the tests are complicated and take a long time to run.” Also, a stallion could test positive because he contracted the virus naturally or has been vaccinated previously. If a horse tests positive for EVA, further complex tests that identify the specific virus must be run before the horse is allowed into Montana. The complexity of the tests require specialized equipment so veterinarians must send samples to either the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa, or the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Fort Collins, Colo....
Horseback traveler headed to Wyoming Bill Inman has no doubt that he will finish what was started nearly three months ago, when he left his hometown of Lebanon, Ore., and embarked on a horseback journey across the United States. "This is the most rewarding and hardest thing I've done in my life," said Inman, who is headed into Wyoming this week after traveling nearly 900 miles through Oregon and southern Idaho astride his horse, Blackie, followed by his small support team in a pickup truck. He hopes to wrap up his expedition early next year in Hendersonville, N.C. A videographer is capturing on film the dozens of interviews Inman has conducted with ordinary and extraordinary small-town folks he has met along the way. Two dozen clips from the journey are posted online on YouTube. Inman hopes to ultimately make the footage available in a more comprehensive package, possibly in a documentary showcasing a side of rural American life that he believes is overlooked by mainstream media. "What I've seen so far is the real America - the heartland," Inman said. "We've met some incredible people from all different backgrounds."....
A pampered, yet unridden bull in the Burch Rodeo string could be the next big name in pro rodeo circles Outwardly, little separates the black bull from his brothers. Like many of the Burch Rodeo bulls, he weighs 1,200 pounds or more. He may be a bit taller or wider, but not by much. Sure, he has no horns. But that just seems to add to his attitude. “He looks like a black muley right now,” owner Matt Burch says. “But it don't matter what they look like. It's a matter of what they do.” This is one mean, ornery bull, but he doesn't often show it. Until he's around humans, that is. The co-owner of Burch Rodeo with his brother, Chad Burch, Matt's speciality is raising bulls. He's ridden bulls in the past, as well, but even he shivers at the idea of taking on Huskemaw. “For a dude that big, it's hard to believe what he can do,” Burch said. “I wouldn't want on him. He doesn't like people.” The 5-year-old bull has made eight trips in pro rodeos so far this year. He's made up to 35 trips overall, since he healed after tearing off a toe at the age of 3....
It's All Trew: Myths of the South Plains Ever wonder why the Panhandle of Texas and the South Plains were among the last areas of the Great Plains to be settled? The book "Land of Bright Promise" by Jan Blodgett tells why and how it all happened. Here are a few excerpts from his excellent volume. The Spanish explorers were the first non-Indian visitors to the Llano Estacado. Their journals were well-documented but were written in Spanish and mostly confined to the Mexican Republic. The first American explorers, Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike and Stephen Long, were more interested in finding a way to the Pacific Ocean and saw the Great Plains as being "an obstacle blocking the path of the explorers intent on what lay beyond." Myths and images of the area had taken hold of the public imagination at the time. Government reports, travel journals, textbooks, articles and illustrations in magazines, newspapers and novels all introduced the Panhandle and South Plains as "a desert, a haven for desperate characters, heartless ranchers and renegade Indians." In 1819, the Stephen Long Expedition christened the area as "the Great American Desert" and wrote the title across the map he drew of the area. By 1882, and for the next 50 years, map publishers copied the Long map for all publications....
Monday, August 20, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Senators say fire danger is emergency With tall stands of pines surrounding them, Tahoe's senators called for a temporary emergency declaration in the Lake Tahoe Basin to override regulations that hinder fuels reduction. "The number one issue facing the basin is fire," Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) said. "It's time to cut through the red tape." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) suggested declaring a temporary emergency in the Tahoe Basin after hearing a presentation in Glenbrook by the Nevada Fire Safe Council. Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) immediately responded to the idea and asked U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell to set up a meeting in September in Washington for the three senators to meet and discuss the action, along with Kimbell and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. Declaring an emergency in the Tahoe Basin would allow the U.S. Forest Service and other fire agencies to reduce the forest fuels in the basin without going through regulatory agencies and their requirements....
Editorial - Light a fire under basin regulations The South Shore wildfire, ignited by a campfire, started June 24 and destroyed 254 homes and burned 3,100 acres of forest before it was extinguished. The nearness of the wildfire gave pause to many homeowners and communities, forcing them to assess their personal and neighborhood defensible space. The wildfire's devastation caused angry voices to point fingers at regulations of the agencies which govern the Tahoe Basin. Whether they are fair or unfair accusations, it has fueled an ongoing debate over forest health practices in the Tahoe Basin. The effects of the wildfire and the health of Lake Tahoe's forests were at the forefront of this week's visits to the Tahoe Basin by our Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. With the Lake Tahoe Forum prompting appearances by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark E. Rey and U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell, the issue was of uptmost concern this week. While listening to a presentation in Glenbrook by the Nevada Fire Safe Council, the senators expressed frustration at how regulations slow the ability to complete forest health projects in the basin, especially with funding already approved, but unspent. Right there among the Glenbrook trees, the senators made plans to meet in September to discuss what can be done to speed things up - even considering a temporary emergency declaration so federal, state and local forestry and fire officials can thin out and clean up the basin's forests. One agency, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has heard the criticism, loud and clear....
Firefighting tab: $828M and counting The U.S. Forest Service has spent $828 million fighting wildfires across the country since last Oct. 1, with new cost containment measures having a real impact, agency officials said Thursday. That figure, current as of Monday, is higher than the $750 million the agency had spent on fire suppression at the same point last year. But many more acres have burned this fire season, said Tom Harbour, the agency's director of fire and aviation management. "It's been an extraordinary season," Harbour said. "We've burned to date about 300 percent, three times the numbers of acres that we would typically burn based on a 10-year average. We've burned about 170 percent of the acres we burned at this time last year." The total money the Forest Service has banked to spend on fire suppression this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, is $1.2 billion. The agency is working hard to stay within that amount, but it's "tough for me to know" whether it will, Harbour said....
Howl: Living precariously with wolves and cattle Through the end of June last year, we got along fine with the wolves. I was working on a ranch in Montana’s Madison Valley, where the wolves ran elk to exhaustion in the high country while yearling cattle fattened on the lower pastures of the ranch. Peaceful coexistence with predators seemed within our grasp, and that was our goal, just to get along. Near the middle of July, we gathered 780 heifers from the grassy flats by the river and drove them onto the Squaw Creek Allotment, a crumpled tablecloth of tree-covered draws, bare ridges and seeps at the base of the Madison Range. We settled our herd and left them munching Forest Service grass. Within 24 hours, we were in trouble. On the first morning, a heifer stood apart. As I walked her up the fence, I saw the bloody stripes just under her tail, gaped at the rip in her bag that opened to darkness with every step. From then on, life accelerated to a blur. What I recall clearly is that the animal corpses appeared with maddening frequency. One lay bloated in a stream. Two others were gnawed to bare bone. I couldn’t help it: My rage grew with the body count. I thought of Aldo Leopold’s famous line about a fierce green fire in a wolf’s eye, and I wanted to see it die. After performing an autopsy on one of the cows, Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks issued a shoot-on-sight permit for two wolves. A few days later, with a borrowed 30-30, I filled half of it....
Bears by the numbers Whether a grizzly bear becomes famous or infamous, or lives anonymously in some remote wilderness, often depends on location and luck. Some bears live out their lives without ever getting into trouble with people. Others become habituated as cubs to associate people with food. These are often doomed to untimely death. Other bears operate between these two extremes, alternating between the high country when there are good crops of whitebark pine nuts and army cutworm moths, to cruising valley floors, farmyards, backyards and trash bins when seeds and moths are poor. "When there's a good food year, we don't have many problem bears," said Mark Bruscino, head of the grizzly recovery program for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The department is up to bear No. 550 -- all the bears that have been radio-collared, tracked and studied since 1975....
Problem bears: Two case histories Some bears never learn to coexist with people or livestock. For example, meet bear No. 212 -- first captured in 1993 as a sub-adult male, weighing 150 pounds. "We first ran into him in the Meeteetse area," said Mark Bruscino, who heads Wyoming's grizzly recovery efforts. The young male had developed an early and ultimately fatal habit: killing and eating livestock. He was captured and moved away from grazing allotments in 1997, but found his way back and graduated from mutton to beef on the hoof, killing at least 20 cattle before he was killed by game wardens in 2000. Curiously, the Meeteetse community dubbed the bear "Little Wahb," after the orphan bear in the novel "Biography of a Grizzly" by Earnest Thompson Seton. By then, No. 212 was a lot bigger, weighing between 600 and 700 pounds....
Wild horse herd wins reprieve Hundreds of wild horses and burros slated for roundup at a national wildlife refuge along the Nevada-Oregon line will continue to roam free, at least for now, to the relief of wild horse advocates and dismay of some other environmentalists and wildlife officials. After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service canceled a planned gather last month under pressure from horse advocates and a House committee chairman, horse groups applauded. But wildlife officials fear the herds will gobble up scarce resources and destroy habitat for the animals the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge was created to protect. The victory for horses endangers pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, pygmy rabbits, sage grouse, mule deer and untold species found in isolated springs, they say. Other environmental groups, while not necessarily opposed to wild horses, argue too many will significantly degrade the delicate western Great Basin ecosystem and pillage the refuge's financial resources. "We simply can't put the needs of horses above all other wildlife, especially when law requires these refuges be managed for specific species," said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, an independent nonprofit organization that advocates for refuges....
Odd coalition looks to protect Idaho open spaces A coalition of ranchers, environmental groups, timber growers and farmers worried about disappearing open spaces in Idaho say they will again push the 2008 Legislature to enact tax breaks for conservation easements. The Idaho Working Lands Initiative wants an income tax credit for lands protected from development. The conservation easements could be with government or private land trusts. A measure last year that set the tax credit at 50% of the appraised value of the lands failed. But sponsors say they will revive it in 2008....
Modern day 'Gold Rush' threatens Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Iconic locations in the western United States such as the Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon risk being intensively mined, according to a new study conducted by a Washington DC based non-profit research group. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) cited data from the US Bureau of Land Management to identify 2900 new mining claims that have been staked within five miles of national parks since 2003. "This is a modern-day land rush," said Dusty Horwitt, one of the authors of the report. Horwitt said, though mining is prohibited within national parks, nearby activity could damage ecosystems inside the protected areas....
Burning Man tries to cope with cash Inside the Alamo Square apartment of Larry Harvey, the co-founder and impresario of Burning Man, there is a wooden statuette of Ganesh, the Hindu deity known for his patronage of arts and science. The expensive artifact was part of a splurge Harvey allowed himself three years ago, when he finally was able to redecorate his rental apartment and turn it from the paper-infested swamp he'd lived in for the past 22 years to the elegant bachelor pad it is today, adorned with Far Eastern decor and inhabited by a man who, by his own definition, has done well for himself. Harvey, 59, politely declined to share how much he paid for the item. "If I tell you," Harvey said, "they'll think me rich." Appearing rich has become a problem for Harvey and his 21-year-old counterculture arts festival. This Labor Day weekend, Burning Man is expected to generate $10 million in revenue from 45,000 ticket-buying customers, each of whom will pay $195 to $280 for entrance to a patch of Nevada desert called Black Rock City. And Harvey's ex-partner is suing him for either a cut of the festival's worth or an agreement to turn over the Burning Man trademark "to the public domain." In art circles and around the blogosphere, Burners are asking: Is this famously anti-monetary event getting ruined by too much cash?....
Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars. Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C. Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars. It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.” Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil....
Dead Men Farming By now you've probably heard that a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states: From 1999 through 2005, the USDA "paid $1.1 billion in farm payments in the names of 172,801 deceased individuals. ... 40 percent went to those who had been dead for three or more years, and 19 percent to those dead for seven or more years." One dead farmer got more than $400,000 during those years. And they say you can't take it with you. Defending the USDA, the GAO adds, "The complex nature of some farming operations -- such as entities embedded within other entities -- can make it difficult for USDA to avoid making payments to deceased individuals." Exactly. The agricultural section of the U.S. code is nearly 1,800 pages. There's an easy way to avoid such absurdities: Abolish all farm subsidies....
Disaster looms for cattle ranchers Utah ranchers devastated by recent wildfires have lost nearly eight times the number of cattle previously thought - and need more than 1,600 semitrailer truckloads of hay to feed surviving herds moved from burned-out ranges. The disaster facing the state's No. 1 agriculture industry is told in the numbers of a Utah Department of Agriculture and Food survey of ranchers released Friday: Nearly 300 cattle and calves were killed by fire, 90 were injured and 1,285 are unaccounted for. Initial reports had placed the number of cattle killed at 200. Fires and drought have pushed nearly half of all cattle in the state off summer ranges - forcing ranchers to sell off herds or find the money to buy hay, says a U.S. Statistical Service report. Some 78 ranchers affected by wildfires say they need at least 38,500 tons of hay to feed nearly 9,700 displaced animals, according to the Agriculture Department survey. Those numbers don't include other producers in 25 of the state's 29 counties coping with severe drought, Utah agriculture officials say....
Buyers prize boards that have been aged by the elements It has the character of barn wood, without the destructive down side. Pull a barn down in order to sell the wood, and the barn is gone for good. But pull the face boards off a snow fence, and the boards can easily be replaced. Then a decade or so later, the next generation of aged wood is ready to harvest. Such is the business approach of Centennial Woods Inc. of Laramie, whose focus is exploiting the market potential of old snow fences. Tearing down a barn is a salvage model, said Gene Klawetter, president and CEO of Centennial Woods. His company follows a recycling, or even a farming model. When the snow fence wood is ripe, it's time to harvest and replant. And Wyoming is fertile ground for such a crop, with an estimated 15 million to 18 million linear feet of snow fence, which is perhaps 95 percent of all the snow fence in the nation, thanks to the state's harsh weather and ferocious wind....
Senators say fire danger is emergency With tall stands of pines surrounding them, Tahoe's senators called for a temporary emergency declaration in the Lake Tahoe Basin to override regulations that hinder fuels reduction. "The number one issue facing the basin is fire," Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) said. "It's time to cut through the red tape." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) suggested declaring a temporary emergency in the Tahoe Basin after hearing a presentation in Glenbrook by the Nevada Fire Safe Council. Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) immediately responded to the idea and asked U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell to set up a meeting in September in Washington for the three senators to meet and discuss the action, along with Kimbell and Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. Declaring an emergency in the Tahoe Basin would allow the U.S. Forest Service and other fire agencies to reduce the forest fuels in the basin without going through regulatory agencies and their requirements....
Editorial - Light a fire under basin regulations The South Shore wildfire, ignited by a campfire, started June 24 and destroyed 254 homes and burned 3,100 acres of forest before it was extinguished. The nearness of the wildfire gave pause to many homeowners and communities, forcing them to assess their personal and neighborhood defensible space. The wildfire's devastation caused angry voices to point fingers at regulations of the agencies which govern the Tahoe Basin. Whether they are fair or unfair accusations, it has fueled an ongoing debate over forest health practices in the Tahoe Basin. The effects of the wildfire and the health of Lake Tahoe's forests were at the forefront of this week's visits to the Tahoe Basin by our Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign, and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. With the Lake Tahoe Forum prompting appearances by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark E. Rey and U.S. Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell, the issue was of uptmost concern this week. While listening to a presentation in Glenbrook by the Nevada Fire Safe Council, the senators expressed frustration at how regulations slow the ability to complete forest health projects in the basin, especially with funding already approved, but unspent. Right there among the Glenbrook trees, the senators made plans to meet in September to discuss what can be done to speed things up - even considering a temporary emergency declaration so federal, state and local forestry and fire officials can thin out and clean up the basin's forests. One agency, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has heard the criticism, loud and clear....
Firefighting tab: $828M and counting The U.S. Forest Service has spent $828 million fighting wildfires across the country since last Oct. 1, with new cost containment measures having a real impact, agency officials said Thursday. That figure, current as of Monday, is higher than the $750 million the agency had spent on fire suppression at the same point last year. But many more acres have burned this fire season, said Tom Harbour, the agency's director of fire and aviation management. "It's been an extraordinary season," Harbour said. "We've burned to date about 300 percent, three times the numbers of acres that we would typically burn based on a 10-year average. We've burned about 170 percent of the acres we burned at this time last year." The total money the Forest Service has banked to spend on fire suppression this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, is $1.2 billion. The agency is working hard to stay within that amount, but it's "tough for me to know" whether it will, Harbour said....
Howl: Living precariously with wolves and cattle Through the end of June last year, we got along fine with the wolves. I was working on a ranch in Montana’s Madison Valley, where the wolves ran elk to exhaustion in the high country while yearling cattle fattened on the lower pastures of the ranch. Peaceful coexistence with predators seemed within our grasp, and that was our goal, just to get along. Near the middle of July, we gathered 780 heifers from the grassy flats by the river and drove them onto the Squaw Creek Allotment, a crumpled tablecloth of tree-covered draws, bare ridges and seeps at the base of the Madison Range. We settled our herd and left them munching Forest Service grass. Within 24 hours, we were in trouble. On the first morning, a heifer stood apart. As I walked her up the fence, I saw the bloody stripes just under her tail, gaped at the rip in her bag that opened to darkness with every step. From then on, life accelerated to a blur. What I recall clearly is that the animal corpses appeared with maddening frequency. One lay bloated in a stream. Two others were gnawed to bare bone. I couldn’t help it: My rage grew with the body count. I thought of Aldo Leopold’s famous line about a fierce green fire in a wolf’s eye, and I wanted to see it die. After performing an autopsy on one of the cows, Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks issued a shoot-on-sight permit for two wolves. A few days later, with a borrowed 30-30, I filled half of it....
Bears by the numbers Whether a grizzly bear becomes famous or infamous, or lives anonymously in some remote wilderness, often depends on location and luck. Some bears live out their lives without ever getting into trouble with people. Others become habituated as cubs to associate people with food. These are often doomed to untimely death. Other bears operate between these two extremes, alternating between the high country when there are good crops of whitebark pine nuts and army cutworm moths, to cruising valley floors, farmyards, backyards and trash bins when seeds and moths are poor. "When there's a good food year, we don't have many problem bears," said Mark Bruscino, head of the grizzly recovery program for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The department is up to bear No. 550 -- all the bears that have been radio-collared, tracked and studied since 1975....
Problem bears: Two case histories Some bears never learn to coexist with people or livestock. For example, meet bear No. 212 -- first captured in 1993 as a sub-adult male, weighing 150 pounds. "We first ran into him in the Meeteetse area," said Mark Bruscino, who heads Wyoming's grizzly recovery efforts. The young male had developed an early and ultimately fatal habit: killing and eating livestock. He was captured and moved away from grazing allotments in 1997, but found his way back and graduated from mutton to beef on the hoof, killing at least 20 cattle before he was killed by game wardens in 2000. Curiously, the Meeteetse community dubbed the bear "Little Wahb," after the orphan bear in the novel "Biography of a Grizzly" by Earnest Thompson Seton. By then, No. 212 was a lot bigger, weighing between 600 and 700 pounds....
Wild horse herd wins reprieve Hundreds of wild horses and burros slated for roundup at a national wildlife refuge along the Nevada-Oregon line will continue to roam free, at least for now, to the relief of wild horse advocates and dismay of some other environmentalists and wildlife officials. After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service canceled a planned gather last month under pressure from horse advocates and a House committee chairman, horse groups applauded. But wildlife officials fear the herds will gobble up scarce resources and destroy habitat for the animals the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge was created to protect. The victory for horses endangers pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, pygmy rabbits, sage grouse, mule deer and untold species found in isolated springs, they say. Other environmental groups, while not necessarily opposed to wild horses, argue too many will significantly degrade the delicate western Great Basin ecosystem and pillage the refuge's financial resources. "We simply can't put the needs of horses above all other wildlife, especially when law requires these refuges be managed for specific species," said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, an independent nonprofit organization that advocates for refuges....
Odd coalition looks to protect Idaho open spaces A coalition of ranchers, environmental groups, timber growers and farmers worried about disappearing open spaces in Idaho say they will again push the 2008 Legislature to enact tax breaks for conservation easements. The Idaho Working Lands Initiative wants an income tax credit for lands protected from development. The conservation easements could be with government or private land trusts. A measure last year that set the tax credit at 50% of the appraised value of the lands failed. But sponsors say they will revive it in 2008....
Modern day 'Gold Rush' threatens Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Iconic locations in the western United States such as the Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon risk being intensively mined, according to a new study conducted by a Washington DC based non-profit research group. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) cited data from the US Bureau of Land Management to identify 2900 new mining claims that have been staked within five miles of national parks since 2003. "This is a modern-day land rush," said Dusty Horwitt, one of the authors of the report. Horwitt said, though mining is prohibited within national parks, nearby activity could damage ecosystems inside the protected areas....
Burning Man tries to cope with cash Inside the Alamo Square apartment of Larry Harvey, the co-founder and impresario of Burning Man, there is a wooden statuette of Ganesh, the Hindu deity known for his patronage of arts and science. The expensive artifact was part of a splurge Harvey allowed himself three years ago, when he finally was able to redecorate his rental apartment and turn it from the paper-infested swamp he'd lived in for the past 22 years to the elegant bachelor pad it is today, adorned with Far Eastern decor and inhabited by a man who, by his own definition, has done well for himself. Harvey, 59, politely declined to share how much he paid for the item. "If I tell you," Harvey said, "they'll think me rich." Appearing rich has become a problem for Harvey and his 21-year-old counterculture arts festival. This Labor Day weekend, Burning Man is expected to generate $10 million in revenue from 45,000 ticket-buying customers, each of whom will pay $195 to $280 for entrance to a patch of Nevada desert called Black Rock City. And Harvey's ex-partner is suing him for either a cut of the festival's worth or an agreement to turn over the Burning Man trademark "to the public domain." In art circles and around the blogosphere, Burners are asking: Is this famously anti-monetary event getting ruined by too much cash?....
Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars. Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C. Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars. It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.” Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil....
Dead Men Farming By now you've probably heard that a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report states: From 1999 through 2005, the USDA "paid $1.1 billion in farm payments in the names of 172,801 deceased individuals. ... 40 percent went to those who had been dead for three or more years, and 19 percent to those dead for seven or more years." One dead farmer got more than $400,000 during those years. And they say you can't take it with you. Defending the USDA, the GAO adds, "The complex nature of some farming operations -- such as entities embedded within other entities -- can make it difficult for USDA to avoid making payments to deceased individuals." Exactly. The agricultural section of the U.S. code is nearly 1,800 pages. There's an easy way to avoid such absurdities: Abolish all farm subsidies....
Disaster looms for cattle ranchers Utah ranchers devastated by recent wildfires have lost nearly eight times the number of cattle previously thought - and need more than 1,600 semitrailer truckloads of hay to feed surviving herds moved from burned-out ranges. The disaster facing the state's No. 1 agriculture industry is told in the numbers of a Utah Department of Agriculture and Food survey of ranchers released Friday: Nearly 300 cattle and calves were killed by fire, 90 were injured and 1,285 are unaccounted for. Initial reports had placed the number of cattle killed at 200. Fires and drought have pushed nearly half of all cattle in the state off summer ranges - forcing ranchers to sell off herds or find the money to buy hay, says a U.S. Statistical Service report. Some 78 ranchers affected by wildfires say they need at least 38,500 tons of hay to feed nearly 9,700 displaced animals, according to the Agriculture Department survey. Those numbers don't include other producers in 25 of the state's 29 counties coping with severe drought, Utah agriculture officials say....
Buyers prize boards that have been aged by the elements It has the character of barn wood, without the destructive down side. Pull a barn down in order to sell the wood, and the barn is gone for good. But pull the face boards off a snow fence, and the boards can easily be replaced. Then a decade or so later, the next generation of aged wood is ready to harvest. Such is the business approach of Centennial Woods Inc. of Laramie, whose focus is exploiting the market potential of old snow fences. Tearing down a barn is a salvage model, said Gene Klawetter, president and CEO of Centennial Woods. His company follows a recycling, or even a farming model. When the snow fence wood is ripe, it's time to harvest and replant. And Wyoming is fertile ground for such a crop, with an estimated 15 million to 18 million linear feet of snow fence, which is perhaps 95 percent of all the snow fence in the nation, thanks to the state's harsh weather and ferocious wind....
Sunday, August 19, 2007
A Bell Ranch Cowboy
by Lee Pitts
I was once asked what was my favorite of the stories I’ve written. My answer surprised even me. It was an essay I wrote a long time ago in an attempt to prove I could write to an editor who couldn’t. I think all of three people read the story. “A Branding On The Bell’ is memorable to me, not because of the words I wrote, but because of the time I spent heel-squattin' around a fire, sleeping on the ground and branding calves with the cowboys on the Bell Ranch. Those two days and nights were about the best I’ve ever spent on this spinning orb of ours.
If you care at all about cows and cowboys then you’ve heard of the Bell Ranch. Once over a million acres, and still sizable, the Bell is named after a ding-dong-shaped mesa on the ranch. William Noble Lane was a Chicago industrialist who built a Fortune 1000 company and bought the Bell in 1969 because he thought that land represented true wealth. When he died in an automobile accident on the ranch he left the Bell in a trust insuring, he thought, that a Lane would own the ranch for at least 120 years.
My invite to the ranch came from a lanky, mustached cowboy who one would surmise, at first glance, was making day wages. In reality he was the immensely likable son of Bill Lane. Jeffrey could have had a high roller’s life back in Chicago but he chose instead to earn his spurs amongst the most critical crowd there is on earth: cowboys.
There’s never been any room for crybabies or sissies on the Bell, where it takes 42 acres to support a cow and a few beans and potatoes twice a day to support a cowboy. I had the opportunity to ride with 18 men, aged 13 to 72, on the Spring roundup, a tradition that has gone on uninterrupted on the Bell since the 1870’s.
Jeff picked out a gentle horse for me from the 120 head remuda and, although I’ve never felt comfortable riding another man’s saddle, riding with Jeff was pure joy. I’m sure we didn’t gather our share of pairs but when we said “adios” I knew I had a new friend for life. That’s why the news of Jeffrey’s death hit me like a ton of bricks.
Next to raising great kids with his wonderful wife Janet, Jeff liked best being a cowboy and flying his airplane. But the plane wasn’t just a toy. On a big spread like the Bell it can be the difference between life, or in Jeffrey’s case, death.
The thing I’ll always remember about Jeff is that he loved to wear a wild rag around his neck, a big hat on top of his head and tall boots with his pant legs stuck in them. I asked him once why the cowboys in these parts wore their boots like that and he told me it was to keep red ants out, or, so your legs wouldn’t chap after long hours in the saddle. But I think it’s also so the world will know you’re a special kind of creature: a New Mexico cowboy. And not just any cowboy but one who belonged to the Bell. For 130 years that’s been as good a resume as any hand could have.
Some high-priced lawyers broke the trust that Bill Lane set up and the Bell is up for sale. I guess you can’t blame the other members of the family but I felt bad for Jeffrey. At first he fought it and then he tried to keep a little piece of the ranch he loved, but when he realized it would be a deal-breaker he gave in for the good of the family.
I can’t picture Jeff living in a Chicago high-rise like some caged cat or leashed Border Collie. Jeff’s death is tragic and I feel for his family but I like to think Jeff was doing what he loved and had everything he ever wanted. Living a life most Americans think has vanished. Today I’m very sad but some tiny part of me is grateful that Jeff will never have to see someone else riding herd on the Bell. He’ll never have to leave the ranch he loved, looking back with a tear in his eye and a lump in his throat beneath his wild rag.
Jeffrey was a man who could’ve taken the easy way out in life but instead wanted to prove that he was a man worthy of the west. And prove it he did, for Jeffrey Lane belonged to that very special species known as a Bell Ranch cowboy.
The above article will appear in the September issue of The New Mexico Stockman.
The pre-apology plan
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
Like most of the critters at the ranch, some cowboys are smarter than others. Tom happened to be one of the smarter ones.
He and Sue Ann worked together almost every day on a big ranch. He had figured out that at some point during the day the cattle, the horses or the hired help would do something that would require him to yell at Sue Ann.
I've mentioned before that a cowboy has this tendency to bark orders or a correction at his wife so that the people that need to hear it won't be offended but will still become informed.
Sue Ann's historical reaction to this tactic wasn't something Tom recalled with pleasantries. In view of the fact that most days she was the best help he had, he considered several options of minimizing the effect of his methods.
One morning at breakfast he decided to "pre-apologize" for any mistakes he might make during the day.
A pre-apology could and would cover almost everything, save time during the working day and enable him to be comfortable in his recliner at day's end while she fixed supper instead of using that time to soothe her at the saddle house.
What goes up must come down is not a solid physics theory when it comes to cattle, and especially yearlings.
Sometimes the mistake of parking a semi-truck of cattle to be unloaded pointed downhill makes for an exciting moment. Nothing short of a thunderbolt will stop the stampede before they get to the bottom.
Give those same cattle a hill or mountain to climb and they'll find the top and take up permanent residence without any intention of coming back down unless, first, it becomes their idea.
When it's their idea, especially if you get a bunch of them gathered up on the top of the hill and pointed downward, refer to the previous paragraph and thunderbolt theory.
On this particular day, Fall was approaching. Tom and Sue Ann had started moving the cattle from the high country to shipping pastures at lower elevations. The hired help had gathered up as day was breaking, slickers tied to the backs of their saddles for the inevitable afternoon showers.
Tom, Sue Ann and crew worked their way up the mountain trail to get above the cattle.
Yearlings can be pretty snakey in the brush. They have been known to sneak around behind the riders or even end up on the side of a cliff-like place where the only method to get them to move is the very un-cowboy method of throwing rocks at them.
That is one of those cowboy skills you don't hear talked about much.
When a sizeable bunch had been collected to a clearing, the hands started moving the cattle down a steep ridge top complete with plenty of rocks and deadfall. Sue Ann was riding point to the left of the front of the herd, charged with keeping them headed in the right direction.
As will happen, something that nobody but the cattle saw or heard, spooked them and the race was on. At a dead run downhill they raced but, of course, not in any direction they needed to be going.
Sue Ann jumped up in the front of her saddle and rode hell-bent-for- leather through the treacherous steep terrain trying to head the cattle. In a effort to not kill herself or her horse in the rescue, she did have to pull up in a few places and select a less lethal path through a natural gauntlet of dangers.
Finally, a little further down the hill than Tom had planned, everything came to a halt. Tom, already calculating the pounds and dollars that just ran off the cattle, simply couldn't help himself even when he knew better. He rode over to Sue Ann and asked her why she let the cattle run and why she didn't get them stopped sooner.
It was good thinking on his part that he had already pre-apologized.
See Julie’s Web site at julie-carter.com. Her book is on sale now!
by Lee Pitts
I was once asked what was my favorite of the stories I’ve written. My answer surprised even me. It was an essay I wrote a long time ago in an attempt to prove I could write to an editor who couldn’t. I think all of three people read the story. “A Branding On The Bell’ is memorable to me, not because of the words I wrote, but because of the time I spent heel-squattin' around a fire, sleeping on the ground and branding calves with the cowboys on the Bell Ranch. Those two days and nights were about the best I’ve ever spent on this spinning orb of ours.
If you care at all about cows and cowboys then you’ve heard of the Bell Ranch. Once over a million acres, and still sizable, the Bell is named after a ding-dong-shaped mesa on the ranch. William Noble Lane was a Chicago industrialist who built a Fortune 1000 company and bought the Bell in 1969 because he thought that land represented true wealth. When he died in an automobile accident on the ranch he left the Bell in a trust insuring, he thought, that a Lane would own the ranch for at least 120 years.
My invite to the ranch came from a lanky, mustached cowboy who one would surmise, at first glance, was making day wages. In reality he was the immensely likable son of Bill Lane. Jeffrey could have had a high roller’s life back in Chicago but he chose instead to earn his spurs amongst the most critical crowd there is on earth: cowboys.
There’s never been any room for crybabies or sissies on the Bell, where it takes 42 acres to support a cow and a few beans and potatoes twice a day to support a cowboy. I had the opportunity to ride with 18 men, aged 13 to 72, on the Spring roundup, a tradition that has gone on uninterrupted on the Bell since the 1870’s.
Jeff picked out a gentle horse for me from the 120 head remuda and, although I’ve never felt comfortable riding another man’s saddle, riding with Jeff was pure joy. I’m sure we didn’t gather our share of pairs but when we said “adios” I knew I had a new friend for life. That’s why the news of Jeffrey’s death hit me like a ton of bricks.
Next to raising great kids with his wonderful wife Janet, Jeff liked best being a cowboy and flying his airplane. But the plane wasn’t just a toy. On a big spread like the Bell it can be the difference between life, or in Jeffrey’s case, death.
The thing I’ll always remember about Jeff is that he loved to wear a wild rag around his neck, a big hat on top of his head and tall boots with his pant legs stuck in them. I asked him once why the cowboys in these parts wore their boots like that and he told me it was to keep red ants out, or, so your legs wouldn’t chap after long hours in the saddle. But I think it’s also so the world will know you’re a special kind of creature: a New Mexico cowboy. And not just any cowboy but one who belonged to the Bell. For 130 years that’s been as good a resume as any hand could have.
Some high-priced lawyers broke the trust that Bill Lane set up and the Bell is up for sale. I guess you can’t blame the other members of the family but I felt bad for Jeffrey. At first he fought it and then he tried to keep a little piece of the ranch he loved, but when he realized it would be a deal-breaker he gave in for the good of the family.
I can’t picture Jeff living in a Chicago high-rise like some caged cat or leashed Border Collie. Jeff’s death is tragic and I feel for his family but I like to think Jeff was doing what he loved and had everything he ever wanted. Living a life most Americans think has vanished. Today I’m very sad but some tiny part of me is grateful that Jeff will never have to see someone else riding herd on the Bell. He’ll never have to leave the ranch he loved, looking back with a tear in his eye and a lump in his throat beneath his wild rag.
Jeffrey was a man who could’ve taken the easy way out in life but instead wanted to prove that he was a man worthy of the west. And prove it he did, for Jeffrey Lane belonged to that very special species known as a Bell Ranch cowboy.
The above article will appear in the September issue of The New Mexico Stockman.
The pre-apology plan
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
Like most of the critters at the ranch, some cowboys are smarter than others. Tom happened to be one of the smarter ones.
He and Sue Ann worked together almost every day on a big ranch. He had figured out that at some point during the day the cattle, the horses or the hired help would do something that would require him to yell at Sue Ann.
I've mentioned before that a cowboy has this tendency to bark orders or a correction at his wife so that the people that need to hear it won't be offended but will still become informed.
Sue Ann's historical reaction to this tactic wasn't something Tom recalled with pleasantries. In view of the fact that most days she was the best help he had, he considered several options of minimizing the effect of his methods.
One morning at breakfast he decided to "pre-apologize" for any mistakes he might make during the day.
A pre-apology could and would cover almost everything, save time during the working day and enable him to be comfortable in his recliner at day's end while she fixed supper instead of using that time to soothe her at the saddle house.
What goes up must come down is not a solid physics theory when it comes to cattle, and especially yearlings.
Sometimes the mistake of parking a semi-truck of cattle to be unloaded pointed downhill makes for an exciting moment. Nothing short of a thunderbolt will stop the stampede before they get to the bottom.
Give those same cattle a hill or mountain to climb and they'll find the top and take up permanent residence without any intention of coming back down unless, first, it becomes their idea.
When it's their idea, especially if you get a bunch of them gathered up on the top of the hill and pointed downward, refer to the previous paragraph and thunderbolt theory.
On this particular day, Fall was approaching. Tom and Sue Ann had started moving the cattle from the high country to shipping pastures at lower elevations. The hired help had gathered up as day was breaking, slickers tied to the backs of their saddles for the inevitable afternoon showers.
Tom, Sue Ann and crew worked their way up the mountain trail to get above the cattle.
Yearlings can be pretty snakey in the brush. They have been known to sneak around behind the riders or even end up on the side of a cliff-like place where the only method to get them to move is the very un-cowboy method of throwing rocks at them.
That is one of those cowboy skills you don't hear talked about much.
When a sizeable bunch had been collected to a clearing, the hands started moving the cattle down a steep ridge top complete with plenty of rocks and deadfall. Sue Ann was riding point to the left of the front of the herd, charged with keeping them headed in the right direction.
As will happen, something that nobody but the cattle saw or heard, spooked them and the race was on. At a dead run downhill they raced but, of course, not in any direction they needed to be going.
Sue Ann jumped up in the front of her saddle and rode hell-bent-for- leather through the treacherous steep terrain trying to head the cattle. In a effort to not kill herself or her horse in the rescue, she did have to pull up in a few places and select a less lethal path through a natural gauntlet of dangers.
Finally, a little further down the hill than Tom had planned, everything came to a halt. Tom, already calculating the pounds and dollars that just ran off the cattle, simply couldn't help himself even when he knew better. He rode over to Sue Ann and asked her why she let the cattle run and why she didn't get them stopped sooner.
It was good thinking on his part that he had already pre-apologized.
See Julie’s Web site at julie-carter.com. Her book is on sale now!
FLE
Egos Trump Action as Terror Cells Remain Uninvestigated A new report by the Inspectors General of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice spotlights a dysfunctional relationship between agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It seems that ICE doesn't like working with the FBI on cases involving terrorist financing. The report alluded to the fact that there were a few reasons why ICE had its nose out of joint with the FBI, but the one reason that made my jaw drop was that ICE agents felt slighted where acknowledgment regarding successful cases was concerned. Unbelievable. How pathetic is it that agents from two of our chief law enforcement agencies -- during a time of war -- would be more concerned with who gets credit for successfully executing their jobs than actually doing the jobs to the best of their abilities?....
Secret Court Asks For White House View on Inquiry A secret U.S. intelligence court has ordered the Bush administration to register its views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the court to release a series of pivotal orders issued earlier this year about the National Security Agency's wiretapping program. The move is highly unusual, because the court -- which approves warrants for electronic surveillance within the United States by intelligence and counterterrorism agencies -- operates in almost total secrecy and has made only one ruling public in its 29-year history. In a scheduling order issued Thursday and released yesterday by the ACLU, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court instructed the government to respond to the ACLU's request by Aug. 31. The civil liberties group has until Sept. 14 to file its own response. "This is an unprecedented request that warrants further briefing," wrote U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who serves as the intelligence court's presiding judge. The ACLU has asked the court for copies of orders it issued in January related to the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, which had been operated without court oversight since late 2001 and which has been the focus of fierce congressional debate. The group is also seeking a copy of one or more court orders issued in the spring that, according to administration officials and congressional Republicans, concluded that parts of the program are illegal. The orders helped provoke Congress to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this month, giving U.S. spy agencies expanded powers to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order....
Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said. This may give the administration even more authority than people thought,” said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations and a co-author of “National Security Investigation and Prosecutions,” a new book on surveillance law. Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States. These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns....
FBI Director's Notes Contradict Gonzales's Version Of Ashcroft Visit Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital room confrontation in March 2004 with Alberto R. Gonzales, who wanted Ashcroft to approve a warrantless wiretapping program over Justice Department objections, according to notes from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that were released yesterday. One of Mueller's entries in five pages of a daily log pertaining to the dispute also indicated that Ashcroft's deputy was so concerned about undue pressure by Gonzales and other White House aides for the attorney general to back the wiretapping program that the deputy asked Mueller to bar anyone other than relatives from later entering Ashcroft's hospital room. Mueller's description of Ashcroft's physical condition that night contrasts with testimony last month from Gonzales, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ashcroft was "lucid" and "did most of the talking" during the brief visit. It also confirms an account of the episode by former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, who said Ashcroft told the two men he was not well enough to make decisions in the hospital. "Saw AG," Mueller writes in his notes for 8:10 p.m. on March 10, 2004, only minutes after Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had visited Ashcroft. "Janet Ashcroft in the room. AG in chair; is feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed."....
Census will seek halt to raids during 2010 count Census workers know it will be difficult counting illegal immigrants for the 2010 population tally and even tougher if those immigrants are hiding from enforcement agents. "If you have federal officials going door to door trying to count people, and federal officials going door to door trying to deport people, it doesn't work," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. To make it easier, the Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the population count, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an interview. Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 Census. But today's political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration. Enforcement agents "have a job to do," Waite said. "They may not be able to give us as much of a break" in 2010. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman declined to say whether immigration officials would halt raids. "If we were, we wouldn't talk about it," Pat Reilly said....
CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program. The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday. The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches. The program allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to the popular Internet encyclopedia where anyone can submit and edit entries....
Drug War Crimes Kill, Incarcerate Innocent Late last month, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the death of the Kathryn Johnston, the 92-year-old Atlanta woman killed by police during a November 2006 drug raid on her home. Johnston died when she mistook a team of narcotics officers for criminal intruders. When the police broke down her door, she met them with an old pistol. They opened fire, and killed her. A subsequent investigation revealed that the entire chain of events up to and shortly after Johnston's death were beset with lies, planted evidence, and cover-up on the part of the narcotics cops. They fabricated an imaginary informant to get the search warrant for Ms. Johnston's home. They planted evidence on a convicted felon, arrested him, then let him off in exchange for his tip—which he made up from whole cloth—that they'd find drugs in Ms. Johnston's house. When they realized their mistake, they then tried to portray an innocent old woman as a drug dealer. They planted marijuana in Ms. Johnston's basement while she lay handcuffed and bleeding on the floor....n one eye-popping exchange, two congressmen—one Democrat and one Republican—confronted Wayne Murphy, the assistant director of the FBI Directorate of Intelligence about the way the FBI uses drug informants. Rep. Dan Lundgren, R-Calif., and Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., told Murphy they were troubled by reports that the FBI had looked the other way while some of its drug informants participated in violent crimes, and that the agency then failed to notify local authorities, leaving many of those crimes unsolved. Lundgren and Delahunt said they were also troubled by reports that in order to protect the identity of its informants, the FBI had withheld exculpatory evidence from criminal trials, resulting in innocent people going to prison. This is worth repeating. The FBI has determined that in some cases, it's better to let innocent people be assaulted, murdered, or wrongly sent to prison than to halt a drug investigation involving one of its confidential informants....Shortly after the Johnston hearings concluded, another informant scandal emerged. Jarrell Bray, a longtime informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Cleveland field office, admitted that with the cooperation of DEA agent Lee Lucas, he had repeatedly lied in court to secure the convictions of innocent people. Bray said he and Lucas fabricated evidence, falsely accused people who had done nothing wrong, then concocted bogus testimony to secure their convictions....
Egos Trump Action as Terror Cells Remain Uninvestigated A new report by the Inspectors General of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice spotlights a dysfunctional relationship between agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It seems that ICE doesn't like working with the FBI on cases involving terrorist financing. The report alluded to the fact that there were a few reasons why ICE had its nose out of joint with the FBI, but the one reason that made my jaw drop was that ICE agents felt slighted where acknowledgment regarding successful cases was concerned. Unbelievable. How pathetic is it that agents from two of our chief law enforcement agencies -- during a time of war -- would be more concerned with who gets credit for successfully executing their jobs than actually doing the jobs to the best of their abilities?....
Secret Court Asks For White House View on Inquiry A secret U.S. intelligence court has ordered the Bush administration to register its views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the court to release a series of pivotal orders issued earlier this year about the National Security Agency's wiretapping program. The move is highly unusual, because the court -- which approves warrants for electronic surveillance within the United States by intelligence and counterterrorism agencies -- operates in almost total secrecy and has made only one ruling public in its 29-year history. In a scheduling order issued Thursday and released yesterday by the ACLU, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court instructed the government to respond to the ACLU's request by Aug. 31. The civil liberties group has until Sept. 14 to file its own response. "This is an unprecedented request that warrants further briefing," wrote U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who serves as the intelligence court's presiding judge. The ACLU has asked the court for copies of orders it issued in January related to the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, which had been operated without court oversight since late 2001 and which has been the focus of fierce congressional debate. The group is also seeking a copy of one or more court orders issued in the spring that, according to administration officials and congressional Republicans, concluded that parts of the program are illegal. The orders helped provoke Congress to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this month, giving U.S. spy agencies expanded powers to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order....
Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said. This may give the administration even more authority than people thought,” said David Kris, a former senior Justice Department lawyer in the Bush and Clinton administrations and a co-author of “National Security Investigation and Prosecutions,” a new book on surveillance law. Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States. These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns....
FBI Director's Notes Contradict Gonzales's Version Of Ashcroft Visit Then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was "feeble," "barely articulate" and "stressed" moments after a hospital room confrontation in March 2004 with Alberto R. Gonzales, who wanted Ashcroft to approve a warrantless wiretapping program over Justice Department objections, according to notes from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that were released yesterday. One of Mueller's entries in five pages of a daily log pertaining to the dispute also indicated that Ashcroft's deputy was so concerned about undue pressure by Gonzales and other White House aides for the attorney general to back the wiretapping program that the deputy asked Mueller to bar anyone other than relatives from later entering Ashcroft's hospital room. Mueller's description of Ashcroft's physical condition that night contrasts with testimony last month from Gonzales, who told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ashcroft was "lucid" and "did most of the talking" during the brief visit. It also confirms an account of the episode by former deputy attorney general James B. Comey, who said Ashcroft told the two men he was not well enough to make decisions in the hospital. "Saw AG," Mueller writes in his notes for 8:10 p.m. on March 10, 2004, only minutes after Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had visited Ashcroft. "Janet Ashcroft in the room. AG in chair; is feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed."....
Census will seek halt to raids during 2010 count Census workers know it will be difficult counting illegal immigrants for the 2010 population tally and even tougher if those immigrants are hiding from enforcement agents. "If you have federal officials going door to door trying to count people, and federal officials going door to door trying to deport people, it doesn't work," said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. To make it easier, the Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the population count, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an interview. Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 Census. But today's political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration. Enforcement agents "have a job to do," Waite said. "They may not be able to give us as much of a break" in 2010. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman declined to say whether immigration officials would halt raids. "If we were, we wouldn't talk about it," Pat Reilly said....
CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program. The changes may violate Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest guidelines, a spokeswoman for the site said on Thursday. The program, WikiScanner, was developed by Virgil Griffith of the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico and posted this month on a Web site that was quickly overwhelmed with searches. The program allows users to track the source of computers used to make changes to the popular Internet encyclopedia where anyone can submit and edit entries....
Drug War Crimes Kill, Incarcerate Innocent Late last month, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the death of the Kathryn Johnston, the 92-year-old Atlanta woman killed by police during a November 2006 drug raid on her home. Johnston died when she mistook a team of narcotics officers for criminal intruders. When the police broke down her door, she met them with an old pistol. They opened fire, and killed her. A subsequent investigation revealed that the entire chain of events up to and shortly after Johnston's death were beset with lies, planted evidence, and cover-up on the part of the narcotics cops. They fabricated an imaginary informant to get the search warrant for Ms. Johnston's home. They planted evidence on a convicted felon, arrested him, then let him off in exchange for his tip—which he made up from whole cloth—that they'd find drugs in Ms. Johnston's house. When they realized their mistake, they then tried to portray an innocent old woman as a drug dealer. They planted marijuana in Ms. Johnston's basement while she lay handcuffed and bleeding on the floor....n one eye-popping exchange, two congressmen—one Democrat and one Republican—confronted Wayne Murphy, the assistant director of the FBI Directorate of Intelligence about the way the FBI uses drug informants. Rep. Dan Lundgren, R-Calif., and Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., told Murphy they were troubled by reports that the FBI had looked the other way while some of its drug informants participated in violent crimes, and that the agency then failed to notify local authorities, leaving many of those crimes unsolved. Lundgren and Delahunt said they were also troubled by reports that in order to protect the identity of its informants, the FBI had withheld exculpatory evidence from criminal trials, resulting in innocent people going to prison. This is worth repeating. The FBI has determined that in some cases, it's better to let innocent people be assaulted, murdered, or wrongly sent to prison than to halt a drug investigation involving one of its confidential informants....Shortly after the Johnston hearings concluded, another informant scandal emerged. Jarrell Bray, a longtime informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Cleveland field office, admitted that with the cooperation of DEA agent Lee Lucas, he had repeatedly lied in court to secure the convictions of innocent people. Bray said he and Lucas fabricated evidence, falsely accused people who had done nothing wrong, then concocted bogus testimony to secure their convictions....
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