Ontario man killed in wolf attack, coroner's jury finds A coroner's jury in Saskatchewan has determined that Ontario university student Kenton Carnegie was killed in a wolf attack. Carnegie was 22 when he died in November 2005 near Points North Landing, Sask. On a work term for a company at the mining exploration camp, located about 750 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, Carnegie went for a walk and didn't come back. Searchers later found his body surrounded by wolves. The jury's finding is significant, because there are no documented cases in North America of a healthy wolf killing a human in the wild. The jury made a series of recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents. Among them is a requirement for the Saskatchewan Environment Department to provide proper fencing and supervision at all landfills where there are known to be wildlife feeding....
Drought anxiety rises as water levels fall The prolonged drought gripping the Southeast, perhaps most acutely in this booming metropolis, is creating anxiety not seen in previous dry spells. It's partly those haunting pictures of a slowly dying Lake Lanier, Atlanta's main water source, seen almost daily on the evening news here. It's partly the underlying drumbeat of an escalating water war among Georgia, Alabama and Florida. It's partly the discouraging forecast, which calls for a dry winter, and partly the sneaking suspicion that the Southeast might have grown too much too fast. This drought is affecting the region's psyche, and the anxiety level is heightened by local countdowns to the day the water could be gone....
Federal Agency Seeks To Change Mouse Protection In Colorado And Wyoming Preble's meadow jumping mouse, a tiny rodent that lives only along the Front Range of Colorado and Wyoming could lose federal protection as a threatened species in Wyoming. However, the mouse could still continue to enjoy the status as a threatened subspecies in Colorado, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on Thursday. The federal agency reached to the controversial proposal after analysis found that populations in Wyoming are not likely to become threatened or endangered in the foreseeable future. However, the federal government maintains that the mouse is indeed a distinct subspecies. The rodent that hindered development and disrupted agriculture in some places was listed as endangered in 1998. Acting Fish and Wildlife regional director Steve Guertin told the Associated Press, "New information indicates to us that Preble's populations in Wyoming are much more widely distributed than we assumed at the original time of listing."....
Warming problems seen in Navajo dunes' moving As the Southwest warms, sand dunes on the Navajo Nation are poised to move, causing problems for residents. For every 1.8 degrees temperatures climb — and some researchers predict temperatures will increase by 11 degrees by the end of the century — about 2 inches of water will evaporate, according to forecasts by Margaret Hiza Redsteer of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. With some parts of the Navajo Nation receiving just 5-7 inches of precipitation yearly now, this spells death for the plants that stabilize sand dunes and provide grazing land for sheep and cattle. And when the plants die, Hiza Redsteer said, the dunes become mobile, consuming whatever lies in their way. Speaking at a conference on climate change and the Colorado Plateau, Hiza Redsteer flashes to a picture of a hogan mostly buried in sand. A lot of the land commonly vegetated now is sand below, she said....
Nation's roadless rivers are in serious jeopardy Paddling a river is an ancient activity - possibly the first human mode of transportation not involving putting one foot in front of the other. Yet while the world has grown since people first took to the water, there are still some places in our country where you can dip a paddle into a pristine river, feel the tug of the current and silently glide downstream. And thanks to the roadless areas found in our national forests, there are more such havens than most would expect. Unfortunately, roadless areas occupy a legal netherworld where they are neither easily developed nor really protected. Even worse, efforts to weaken protections for these last undeveloped places, by the Washington allies of mining and logging interests, have put these regions in serious jeopardy. Leaders in Congress, however, have kicked off a renewed effort to protect such natural treasures once and for all. This year, more than 140 members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, joined together to introduce legislation that would provide permanent protection for 58.5 million acres of pristine forestland in 39 states. This bipartisan initiative in the House was joined by a companion measure in the Senate, introduced with the support of 18 original co-sponsors....
Spraying to begin Monday in Lincoln The Lincoln National Forest will begin spraying areas around Cloudcroft for loopers on Monday, weather permitting. A news release from the Lincoln stated 4,419 acres of affected forest that is adjacent to private property will be sprayed. Spraying by Otero County and the village of Cloudcroft will begin prior to work by the Forest Service, according to the release. That spraying will include the entire village of Cloudcroft and some 1,677 acres of private land around Cloudcroft. Spraying by the Lincoln is expected to continue through Friday. The western portion of the Sacramento Mountains has seen two successive years of defoliation by a winter-feeding species known as Janet's looper. The Lincoln said spraying is needed to minimize tree mortality, reduce fire risk and to maintain "visual quality objectives."....
Conservationists claim golf course's trapping, moving of prairie dogs is killing some The beleaguered Utah prairie dog is running wild on Cedar City's public golf course. But catching the critters and releasing them elsewhere is killing them, which is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to find a different way to manage the threatened species, a new lawsuit says. Three Western conservation organizations - Forest Guardians, Utah Environmental Congress and the Center for Native Ecosystems - along with naturalist-author Terry Tempest Williams on Tuesday sued the Fish and Wildlife Service. They claim the agency's plan to protect the threatened species actually would exterminate them, an act they say is illegal under federal environmental protection law. In the middle of the dispute is the Cedar Ridge golf course, where Utah prairie dogs not only pock fairways and the rough with their mounds, they snatch golf balls and hide them in their burrows....
Feds want to charge for photographing in national parks The Society of Professional Journalists and 18 journalism-advocacy organizations signed onto an Oct. 19 letter opposing Department of Interior attempts to codify agency rules on photography, filming and sound-recording on the public lands it administers. According to Regulations.gov , The Department of the Interior is seeking to revise filming regulations by implementing legislation that would require fees for commercial filming activities or similar projects, such as still photography, and to respond to applicants for commercial filming or still photography permits in a timely manner. “Public land should be safeguarded, but the rules the department is seeking to codify simply go too far,” SPJ National President Clint Brewer said. “These regulations should invite documentation and journalistic coverage of public land, not discourage it.” Although current agency policy exempts “news coverage” from permit requirements, only “breaking” or “spot” news such as a wildfires or presidential photo opportunities are referenced as being exempt in agency documentation....
Lawsuit filed over feds' border fence construction waiver Two environmental groups on Thursday asked a judge to void part of a 2005 law that let Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff ignore various federal laws to build a stretch of fence along the border. legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington contend Congress unconstitutionally delegated its powers to decide laws to "a politically appointed executive branch official.'' Attorneys for Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club said that makes the decision by Chertoff to use that law both illegal and unenforceable. The move comes as the government has resumed work on the barriers it plans to install along the southern edge of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle last month barred further work on nearly two miles of fence and vehicle barriers, concluding there was strong evidence federal officials had not complied with environmental laws. The delay was designed to give the two environmental groups a chance to make their case for a permanent injunction. But Chertoff, rather than wait for that hearing -- and risk losing -- last week invoked his power under the Real ID Act and declared the project exempt from not only the three environmental laws cited in the lawsuit but 16 other laws as well....
Onshore drilling threatens environment, House panel told Onshore oil and gas activity in the Rocky Mountains is threatening public health and the environment in producing areas, witnesses told a US House committee on Oct. 31. State and federal government officials countered that current regulations are being enforced, and they balance the need to develop more domestic energy with adequate environmental protection. Their observations came as the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee examined oil and gas exemptions to federal environmental safeguards which chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) characterized as loopholes. Specifically, said Waxman, the Safe Drinking Water Act makes it illegal to inject toxic chemicals into underground aquifers and the Clean Water Act requires companies and individual homeowners to control erosion while a property is under construction. Neither provision applies to oil and gas producers, he said....
Concerns Remain Over BLM Leasing The withdrawal of roughly 57,000 acres from a federal oil and gas lease sale in Colorado provides a chance to thoroughly review the potential impacts of energy development on communities and wildlife already under pressure, say state and local officials who sought the time-out. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is taking the proposed leases off the block in its Nov. 8 auction in Denver while still putting 129,726 acres up for bid. The decision to yank the parcels from the auction followed a request from the state Division of Wildlife to postpone action on land in the heart of greater sage grouse habitat and formal protests from western Colorado communities and conservationists. The parcels could be offered at later auctions. Some of the parcels are on federal land while others are split estate: the surface is owned by someone else and the federal government owns the minerals underneath. Companies that lease the minerals have the right to reasonable access to the surface to extract the oil or gas. Most of the leases are for natural gas. Colorado is experiencing record gas drilling rates. Wang and other elected officials complained that the BLM didn't notify them before putting the land up for lease....
Pipeline could water Wyo, too The Colorado entrepreneur who wants to pipe water from Wyoming's Green River to the booming Colorado Front Range says a portion of the flow may be available for use in the Cowboy State. Aaron Million, who spoke at the Wyoming Water Association annual meeting in Cheyenne Wednesday, said it might be possible to provide 40,000 to 45,000 acre feet of water annually to towns, agricultural operations and power plants inside Wyoming. Laramie and Cheyenne officials have already signaled interest in the flows. Million, who studied resource economics at Colorado State University, has been working for about three years to pipe unclaimed water from the Green River to the Front Range along major highway routes, including Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming. The 400-mile, $3 billion pipeline project is based on the theory that because the Green River loops briefly into Colorado from Utah, it's a legal tributary of the Colorado River mainstem, and Colorado can lay claim to the roughly 165,000 to 240,000 acre feet that Million's project would deliver annually....
Study: Hydrogen Cars Don't Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions Switching from gasoline-powered cars to hydrogen cars would not reduce greenhouse gas emissions nor would it eliminate America's dependence on the Middle East's energy supplies, according to a new Reason Foundation study. The Reason Foundation report shows that if the U.S. replaced 20 percent of today's vehicles with hydrogen cars, CO2 emissions would either drop a tiny amount from 1.67 billion tons per year to 1.63 billion tons, or actually rise to 2.13 billion tons a year, depending upon what method is used to produce the hydrogen. "Hydrogen isn't the quick-fix we've been led to believe it could be," said Adrian Moore, vice president of research at Reason Foundation and the study's project director. "Producing and transporting hydrogen for use in fuel-cell cars requires significant amounts of conventional energy and therefore won't reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When you look at the facts you see hydrogen isn't a solution to global warming and it isn't going to decrease our dependence on foreign energy." While hydrogen cars would reduce American reliance on crude oil, they would also significantly increase the need for foreign-produced natural gas. The countries with the largest natural gas reserves are Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates....
Technology deployed to help track cattle The Agriculture Department is paving the way for a national communications network that would monitor the flow of beef from field to supermarket and register cattle facilities online via existing commercial tools. The campaign to convince cattlemen, feedlot owners, meat packers, veterinarians and other organizations in the supply chain to register their premises is operated by a federally selected nonprofit group Agriculture has funded to choose and pay a prime contractor to run the project. The prime contractor, Integrated Management Information, also known as IMI Global, is an established vendor of online services to the cattle industry. Under the agreement announced today, IMI Global will become the prime contractor for the National Animal Identification System, a program designed to register premises as well as identify and trace animals in the event of disease outbreak. The contractor will use its verification and online products and services in coordination with HFAC to educate livestock-related organizations on the importance of registering their premises with NAIS....
Is it El Chupacabra? Was the hairless canine-turned-roadkill last summer near Cuero a Chupacabra? That question, which has fueled speculation across the globe, might be settled tonight as KENS-5 in San Antonio opens an envelope with the results of DNA tests on the carcass. The event will be broadcast live during the TV station's 10 p.m. broadcast, said Joe Conger, reporter for KENS-5. Opening the envelope, however, will be done by Phylis Canion of Cuero, who took possession of the creature in July after it was killed on a road near her ranch south of Cuero, the county seat of DeWitt County. The venue will be the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos. The biology department there conducted the tests, which were funded by KENS-5....
Tests reveal identity of chupacabra The identity of a strange creature many believe is a chupacabra was revealed Thursday night. A rancher in South Texas found the carcass on her property. Phylis Canion says it had been eating cats and chickens around her ranch for years. Their blood had been sucked dry, but all the meat was left on their bones. The corpse was sent to Texas State University for DNA testing. Scientists announced Thursday night that the corpse’s DNA is a perfect match to a typical Texas coyote. They could not explain why it doesn’t have any hair.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Sustainable development a huge failure in Canada A decade-old plan to introduce sustainable development strategies and green thinking into the Canadian government's daily work has failed miserably, the environment commissioner said Tuesday. The 1997 plan "to encourage government departments to green their policies and programs" has become a "major disappointment," said environment commissioner Ron Thompson, releasing his annual audit. "We have found little evidence that the strategies have encouraged departments to integrate protection of the environment with economic and social issues in a substantive or meaningful way," he said. The sustainability idea emerged in a series of international meetings and reports during the 1970s and 1980s that promoted the idea of environmental protection in the self-interest of the human species. These eventually led to two statements of principle and a global agenda on sustainable development at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, the ambition and momentum that existed in the early stages of sustainable development strategies has faded," Thompson said....
Bush Chooses Former North Dakota Governor as Agriculture Secretary President Bush on Wednesday named former North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer as Agriculture secretary. Schafer would succeed former Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns , who resigned Sept. 20 to run for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Chuck Hagel. In 1990, Schafer ran against Sen. Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., capturing only 35 percent of the vote. He was elected North Dakota governor in 1992, and subsequently won re-election in 1996. He did not seek re-election in 2000. Schafer is currently chief executive of Extend America, a start-up wireless communications company, and is an advisor for the North Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a nationwide pro-growth organization....
Fortification ranchers worry about interference from BLM Rancher Brad Sorenson was nervous about the line drawn around his property straddling the southeast corner of Sheridan County and the northeast corner of Johnson County. He said so at Tuesday evening’s meeting attended by 20 to 30 people and hosted by the Bureau of Land Management Buffalo Field Office — a meeting seeking public input on the future management of Fortification Creek, a 123,000-acre area supporting a rare herd of 230 prairie elk. “We get nervous when the government starts drawing lines,” Sorenson said. “We own a lot of that land being circled in.” He added that much of that surface is privately owned. But some of the minerals beneath are federal. The line drawn around Sorenson’s ranch is the elk’s year-long range. It’s an area they’re known to inhabit because of radio collar tracking....
Flying coyotes Wichita County game warden Eddie Hood listened as a rancher told a crowd at a recent wildlife meeting that from his tractor he watched cattle egrets feeding on baby bobwhite quail hatched only three days before. The veteran Texas Parks & Wildlife Department field warden shook his head and called these protected, white birds, "The coyote of the bird world!" In other words the cattle egrets, though mainly insect feeders, will eat anything when it is available. I don't know if the description of an egret being the coyote of the bird world originated with him but I'm giving Hood credit for bringing it to the attention of the public. I first saw these white birds in 1962 when working in deep South Texas. When I asked about them I was told over the years they had worked their way up from South America where thy had been introduced in the 1880s. They had just emerged from Mexico and were thick along the gulf coast between Corpus Christi, Victoria, Houston, on into Louisiana and even Florida. In the past 45 years they have moved across the state and are now entering Oklahoma and Arkansas....
Senators seek input on canyon proposal Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., are asking Mesa, Montrose and Delta county commissioners what they think about a proposed Dominguez Canyon National Conservation Area. The senators say they are trying to determine whether legislation should be introduced in Congress as a first step in creating such an area. Their interest follows the release last week of a report by the Mesa State College Natural Resources and Land Policy Institute, which recommends wilderness protection for Big and Little Dominguez canyons and the creation of a national conservation area out of surrounding public land. The two canyons are at the heart of the proposed conservation area, which, if approved, would include more than 210,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land on the northeast slope of the Uncompahgre Plateau between Delta and Whitewater. Mesa County Commissioner Steve Acquafresca, who will represent the commission at the meeting, said Tuesday he will support the proposal only if ranchers’ objections are accounted for....
Cattle-grazing on San Mateo County parkland to cut wildfire risk Someday soon, hikers at the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve in San Mateo County will be able to enjoy the rural spectacle of cattle munching their way up a hill. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District will re-introduce grazing to two former ranches within the preserve this winter as a naturally efficient way to manage weed buildup and cut back on wildfire risk. Come February, a grassy 240-acre portion of the popular 2,143-acre preserve will be home to as many as 40 cow-calf pairs or up to 60 steers. The district says the animals will feed on the invasive, non-native grasses that are conquering fields of native California grasses and wildflowers, such as California broom, purple needle grass, clarkias and irises. "The non-native grasses are much more prolific, and they're just crowding out the other, native species. That's what we're trying to reverse," said Kirk Lenington, resource planner for the district. "If you can get the cattle to start grazing, you'll put pressure on those species and they'll have reduced cover."....
Camping limit rankles hunter Nick Dole has set up a hunting camp in the same area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest every year since 1982 and stayed there for up to five weeks at a time, so it bothers him that the U.S. Forest Service stands to break his tradition by enforcing a 16-day limit on camping. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., also finds the decision disturbing and wants the regional head of the Forest Service to intervene. "Our personal camp has been -- what, a 20-some-year situation -- and they want to change it," Dole said Monday from the camp he and friends use as a base for hunting deer and elk in the Little Belt Mountains east of Helena. The site is an undeveloped piece of ground with no toilet and not even a fire ring, but the road access is good. "We've been here for this many years, and we kind of know where the game is and where it travels," said Dole, who is 65, retired from the food delivery business and lives southwest of Billings. He and several friends set up their camp -- featuring a tent with plywood walls, a gas-powered refrigerator and two stoves -- in time for the Oct. 21 opening of Montana's big-game season and plan to be there until it closes on Nov. 25. That's OK this year, but it won't be in 2008, the Forest Service says. Starting next year, the agency no longer will waive a 16-day limit on camping. People who wish to dwell in the forest longer must move to a different place, at least five air miles away, the Forest Service said....
Despite Wyden's block, Bush appointee gets Interior job A new assistant Interior secretary may owe his political promotion to an Oregon senator's newborn twins. Lyle Laverty, former director of Colorado State Parks, was confirmed this week as assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. He will oversee the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Laverty's confirmation came as his chief political opponent -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- was away from the Capitol celebrating the birth Friday of a twin boy and girl. Wyden's absence allowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule a vote on Laverty's nomination, despite a hold Wyden had placed on Laverty because of concerns about ethics violations at the Interior Department. Without Wyden there to object, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Laverty's nomination late Monday on a voice vote....
Biologists for Agency Endorse Dams Plan Federal fisheries officials in Seattle on Wednesday endorsed, with minor modifications, a plan for the government’s continued operation of the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. They said it did not jeopardize the survival of 13 stocks of salmon and steelhead that the government must protect under the Endangered Species Act. The endorsement, a draft analysis from the National Marine Fisheries Service, agreed with dozens of proposed protective actions that would provide enhanced measures to get juvenile fish past the dams as they swim seaward, improve habitat in the river and discourage predators like California sea lions and Caspian terns. Wednesday’s draft represents the fisheries agency’s third effort to find a binding, legally acceptable solution to the Northwest’s tug of war between salmon and dams....
House Close to Dismantling 1872 Statute on Mining The House is expected Thursday to take a major step toward dismantling the last significant law remaining from efforts to settle the American Wild West, an 1872 mining statute that has allowed vast treasures of gold and other minerals to be carted off federal lands without any royalties paid to the government. For 135 years, the General Mining Law has permitted prospectors to stake private claims to federal lands, although miners now tend to be corporate conglomerates, not frontiersmen with pickaxes. Environmentalists say the law has also left Western states deeply scarred by abandoned toxic mines. A House bill, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act, would permanently bar the sale of federal lands to miners and would require them for the first time to pay royalties of up to 8 percent of gross income from mining, which would go to a fund to clean up abandoned mines. It would also establish new permitting and environmental rules. Supporters say such changes are long overdue. “This is the last that I know of those frontier-era legislation to remain on the books,” said Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who for more than 20 years has been working to overturn the 1872 law....
BLM urged to deny Kane County access to route A national coalition of environmentalists charged the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday with conspiring to "surrender control" of a road that crosses federal land in Kane County. The coalition, comprised of The Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Wild Utah Project and Center for Biological Diversity, object to the BLM's preliminary non-binding determination that Bald Knoll Road is a valid R.S. 2477 public right-of-way. "Kane County's application (to designate Bald Knoll Road as an R.S. 2477 route) contains illegible aerial photos, an undated map, and contradictory stories from a few residents," said Ted Zukoski of Earthjustice, another environmental group voicing opposition to the BLM's proposal. "Kane County admits that it has no official records concerning highway construction or maintenance during the years necessary to prove its claim. For this reason alone, the BLM must reject the county's application." Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said the county has "followed to the letter" what was required of it by the federal government's designation procedure. "All that is required for a non-binding designation on Bald Knoll Road is for the county to submit a preponderance of evidence," he said. "We think we have far exceeded that burden."
93 sign House letter urging ban on off-highway vehicles in Utah wilderness A band of House members sent a letter Tuesday urging the federal government to block off-highway vehicle use in some of Utah's most remote lands, citing the cultural and archaeological treasures that might be damaged. One out of every five members of the House of Representatives signed the letter sent to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne - but none of them represents Utah. "I don't presume to set transportation policy for Chicago or New York," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "So I would appreciate my colleagues - none of whom are from Utah - not trying to protect Utah from Utahns." The letter, backed by a number of environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is just the latest salvo in the fight over new federal land-use plans nationwide....
PREMISES ID REQUIREMENT ADOPTED FOR ILLINOIS FAIRS A premises identification number will be required to exhibit livestock at state, county, 4-H and FFA fairs beginning in 2008, the Illinois Department of Agriculture announced today. Premises registration is the first step toward the establishment of a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and will greatly improve the ability of Illinois animal health professionals to contain disease outbreaks. “Knowing the location of each and every livestock operation in the state would enable us to quickly trace the movement of infected animals, impose quarantines and, perhaps, prevent the disease from spreading to neighboring farms if an outbreak were to occur,” Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke said. “The information is absolutely critical to our disease-fighting capabilities, especially at events like fairs where large numbers of animals are confined for short periods of time and then moved. This is one, reasonable step we can take to protect not only the health of livestock, but also the livelihood of the entire livestock industry.” Nearly 9,000 Illinois livestock operations already have enrolled in the NAIS, 30 percent of the state’s premises....
Cattlemen Must Join The Battle Against Animal Rights Extremism Animal rights activism is a significant and growing threat to the livelihood of cattle feeders and the livestock industry must unite to confront it, according to Kay Johnson Smith, executive vice president of the Animal Agriculture Alliance. Speaking at the 2007 Texas Cattle Feeders Association Annual Convention, Smith said cattlemen must understand that, for animal rights activists, their work “is not a job for them. It is a life mission. And they go to sleep thinking about it. They wake up thinking about it. They live to try to find opportunities to put you out of business.” Smith said the activist organizations like The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Farm Sanctuary and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) routinely work together and have ample financial resources. The combined annual income of 22 top animal rights groups amounts to more than $300 million a year, according to Smith. Much of the money animal rights activists accumulate is being used to purchase stocks in restaurant chains, grocery store chains and other companies involved in the food and animal business. Smith said, although that may seem to be an odd investment choice for people strongly opposed to animal agriculture, “the reason (for buying stocks) is so that they can introduce shareholder resolutions. If they can make change from inside companies, they have a lot more control, and they can control that change.” Their fiscal strength is also making animal rights organizations a major player in the political arena, Smith said. For example, the $3.4 million HSUS spent on the 2006 elections exceeded the amount spent by Exxon Mobil Corporation on supporting candidates....
U.S. Imports, Need To Improve Product Safety Measures Grow Regulators hoping to bolster the safety of U.S. imports have their work cut out for them if data presented at the Meat Industry Research Conference in Chicago is any indicator. According to presenter Patricia Wester, global regional manager with SGS-USTC Food Safety Services, some 2 trillion products annually enter 300 U.S. seaports at the behest of 825,000 U.S. importers. Further, imports are expected to triple by 2015. Among the top exporters to the United States? China, which has faced mounting criticism for exporting defective or adulterated product to U.S. interests. By food category, seafood is the top U.S. import, followed by meat and poultry, and cereal and cereal preparations, according to Wester, who noted that cereal preparations often are used as ingredients in meat....
It's in the Blood Long recognized as one of the country’s outstanding ranch and rodeo families, the Suttons of South Dakota attribute much of their success to bloodlines and breeding. For as lon as there has been organized rodeo on the Northern Great Plains, Sutton Rodeo of Onida, South Dakota, has been a part of it. And, far from being a regional phenomenon, the stock contracting combine’s influence has extended far beyond the plains of north-central South Dakota, to such hallowed grounds as the National Finals Rodeo and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Hall of Fame. What’s more, the family behind Sutton Rodeo is just one branch of a tree that boasts an equally impressive history in cattle and buffalo ranching, and Quarter Horse breeding. To what does the clan owe its long list of accomplishments? According to Sutton Rodeo patriarch Jim Sutton, hard work and perseverance have most certainly played a part. So, too, he says, have bloodlines and breeding. “My ancestors came to South Dakota in 1883,” Sutton says. “My great-grandfather Jacob Sutton shipped his family and belongings to the rail end at Redfield, and then hauled them 100 miles by ox team to his homestead in Potter County....
Bush Chooses Former North Dakota Governor as Agriculture Secretary President Bush on Wednesday named former North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer as Agriculture secretary. Schafer would succeed former Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns , who resigned Sept. 20 to run for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Chuck Hagel. In 1990, Schafer ran against Sen. Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., capturing only 35 percent of the vote. He was elected North Dakota governor in 1992, and subsequently won re-election in 1996. He did not seek re-election in 2000. Schafer is currently chief executive of Extend America, a start-up wireless communications company, and is an advisor for the North Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a nationwide pro-growth organization....
Fortification ranchers worry about interference from BLM Rancher Brad Sorenson was nervous about the line drawn around his property straddling the southeast corner of Sheridan County and the northeast corner of Johnson County. He said so at Tuesday evening’s meeting attended by 20 to 30 people and hosted by the Bureau of Land Management Buffalo Field Office — a meeting seeking public input on the future management of Fortification Creek, a 123,000-acre area supporting a rare herd of 230 prairie elk. “We get nervous when the government starts drawing lines,” Sorenson said. “We own a lot of that land being circled in.” He added that much of that surface is privately owned. But some of the minerals beneath are federal. The line drawn around Sorenson’s ranch is the elk’s year-long range. It’s an area they’re known to inhabit because of radio collar tracking....
Flying coyotes Wichita County game warden Eddie Hood listened as a rancher told a crowd at a recent wildlife meeting that from his tractor he watched cattle egrets feeding on baby bobwhite quail hatched only three days before. The veteran Texas Parks & Wildlife Department field warden shook his head and called these protected, white birds, "The coyote of the bird world!" In other words the cattle egrets, though mainly insect feeders, will eat anything when it is available. I don't know if the description of an egret being the coyote of the bird world originated with him but I'm giving Hood credit for bringing it to the attention of the public. I first saw these white birds in 1962 when working in deep South Texas. When I asked about them I was told over the years they had worked their way up from South America where thy had been introduced in the 1880s. They had just emerged from Mexico and were thick along the gulf coast between Corpus Christi, Victoria, Houston, on into Louisiana and even Florida. In the past 45 years they have moved across the state and are now entering Oklahoma and Arkansas....
Senators seek input on canyon proposal Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., are asking Mesa, Montrose and Delta county commissioners what they think about a proposed Dominguez Canyon National Conservation Area. The senators say they are trying to determine whether legislation should be introduced in Congress as a first step in creating such an area. Their interest follows the release last week of a report by the Mesa State College Natural Resources and Land Policy Institute, which recommends wilderness protection for Big and Little Dominguez canyons and the creation of a national conservation area out of surrounding public land. The two canyons are at the heart of the proposed conservation area, which, if approved, would include more than 210,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land on the northeast slope of the Uncompahgre Plateau between Delta and Whitewater. Mesa County Commissioner Steve Acquafresca, who will represent the commission at the meeting, said Tuesday he will support the proposal only if ranchers’ objections are accounted for....
Cattle-grazing on San Mateo County parkland to cut wildfire risk Someday soon, hikers at the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve in San Mateo County will be able to enjoy the rural spectacle of cattle munching their way up a hill. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District will re-introduce grazing to two former ranches within the preserve this winter as a naturally efficient way to manage weed buildup and cut back on wildfire risk. Come February, a grassy 240-acre portion of the popular 2,143-acre preserve will be home to as many as 40 cow-calf pairs or up to 60 steers. The district says the animals will feed on the invasive, non-native grasses that are conquering fields of native California grasses and wildflowers, such as California broom, purple needle grass, clarkias and irises. "The non-native grasses are much more prolific, and they're just crowding out the other, native species. That's what we're trying to reverse," said Kirk Lenington, resource planner for the district. "If you can get the cattle to start grazing, you'll put pressure on those species and they'll have reduced cover."....
Camping limit rankles hunter Nick Dole has set up a hunting camp in the same area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest every year since 1982 and stayed there for up to five weeks at a time, so it bothers him that the U.S. Forest Service stands to break his tradition by enforcing a 16-day limit on camping. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., also finds the decision disturbing and wants the regional head of the Forest Service to intervene. "Our personal camp has been -- what, a 20-some-year situation -- and they want to change it," Dole said Monday from the camp he and friends use as a base for hunting deer and elk in the Little Belt Mountains east of Helena. The site is an undeveloped piece of ground with no toilet and not even a fire ring, but the road access is good. "We've been here for this many years, and we kind of know where the game is and where it travels," said Dole, who is 65, retired from the food delivery business and lives southwest of Billings. He and several friends set up their camp -- featuring a tent with plywood walls, a gas-powered refrigerator and two stoves -- in time for the Oct. 21 opening of Montana's big-game season and plan to be there until it closes on Nov. 25. That's OK this year, but it won't be in 2008, the Forest Service says. Starting next year, the agency no longer will waive a 16-day limit on camping. People who wish to dwell in the forest longer must move to a different place, at least five air miles away, the Forest Service said....
Despite Wyden's block, Bush appointee gets Interior job A new assistant Interior secretary may owe his political promotion to an Oregon senator's newborn twins. Lyle Laverty, former director of Colorado State Parks, was confirmed this week as assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. He will oversee the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Laverty's confirmation came as his chief political opponent -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. -- was away from the Capitol celebrating the birth Friday of a twin boy and girl. Wyden's absence allowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule a vote on Laverty's nomination, despite a hold Wyden had placed on Laverty because of concerns about ethics violations at the Interior Department. Without Wyden there to object, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Laverty's nomination late Monday on a voice vote....
Biologists for Agency Endorse Dams Plan Federal fisheries officials in Seattle on Wednesday endorsed, with minor modifications, a plan for the government’s continued operation of the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. They said it did not jeopardize the survival of 13 stocks of salmon and steelhead that the government must protect under the Endangered Species Act. The endorsement, a draft analysis from the National Marine Fisheries Service, agreed with dozens of proposed protective actions that would provide enhanced measures to get juvenile fish past the dams as they swim seaward, improve habitat in the river and discourage predators like California sea lions and Caspian terns. Wednesday’s draft represents the fisheries agency’s third effort to find a binding, legally acceptable solution to the Northwest’s tug of war between salmon and dams....
House Close to Dismantling 1872 Statute on Mining The House is expected Thursday to take a major step toward dismantling the last significant law remaining from efforts to settle the American Wild West, an 1872 mining statute that has allowed vast treasures of gold and other minerals to be carted off federal lands without any royalties paid to the government. For 135 years, the General Mining Law has permitted prospectors to stake private claims to federal lands, although miners now tend to be corporate conglomerates, not frontiersmen with pickaxes. Environmentalists say the law has also left Western states deeply scarred by abandoned toxic mines. A House bill, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act, would permanently bar the sale of federal lands to miners and would require them for the first time to pay royalties of up to 8 percent of gross income from mining, which would go to a fund to clean up abandoned mines. It would also establish new permitting and environmental rules. Supporters say such changes are long overdue. “This is the last that I know of those frontier-era legislation to remain on the books,” said Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who for more than 20 years has been working to overturn the 1872 law....
BLM urged to deny Kane County access to route A national coalition of environmentalists charged the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday with conspiring to "surrender control" of a road that crosses federal land in Kane County. The coalition, comprised of The Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Wild Utah Project and Center for Biological Diversity, object to the BLM's preliminary non-binding determination that Bald Knoll Road is a valid R.S. 2477 public right-of-way. "Kane County's application (to designate Bald Knoll Road as an R.S. 2477 route) contains illegible aerial photos, an undated map, and contradictory stories from a few residents," said Ted Zukoski of Earthjustice, another environmental group voicing opposition to the BLM's proposal. "Kane County admits that it has no official records concerning highway construction or maintenance during the years necessary to prove its claim. For this reason alone, the BLM must reject the county's application." Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw said the county has "followed to the letter" what was required of it by the federal government's designation procedure. "All that is required for a non-binding designation on Bald Knoll Road is for the county to submit a preponderance of evidence," he said. "We think we have far exceeded that burden."
93 sign House letter urging ban on off-highway vehicles in Utah wilderness A band of House members sent a letter Tuesday urging the federal government to block off-highway vehicle use in some of Utah's most remote lands, citing the cultural and archaeological treasures that might be damaged. One out of every five members of the House of Representatives signed the letter sent to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne - but none of them represents Utah. "I don't presume to set transportation policy for Chicago or New York," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. "So I would appreciate my colleagues - none of whom are from Utah - not trying to protect Utah from Utahns." The letter, backed by a number of environmental groups, including the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is just the latest salvo in the fight over new federal land-use plans nationwide....
PREMISES ID REQUIREMENT ADOPTED FOR ILLINOIS FAIRS A premises identification number will be required to exhibit livestock at state, county, 4-H and FFA fairs beginning in 2008, the Illinois Department of Agriculture announced today. Premises registration is the first step toward the establishment of a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and will greatly improve the ability of Illinois animal health professionals to contain disease outbreaks. “Knowing the location of each and every livestock operation in the state would enable us to quickly trace the movement of infected animals, impose quarantines and, perhaps, prevent the disease from spreading to neighboring farms if an outbreak were to occur,” Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke said. “The information is absolutely critical to our disease-fighting capabilities, especially at events like fairs where large numbers of animals are confined for short periods of time and then moved. This is one, reasonable step we can take to protect not only the health of livestock, but also the livelihood of the entire livestock industry.” Nearly 9,000 Illinois livestock operations already have enrolled in the NAIS, 30 percent of the state’s premises....
Cattlemen Must Join The Battle Against Animal Rights Extremism Animal rights activism is a significant and growing threat to the livelihood of cattle feeders and the livestock industry must unite to confront it, according to Kay Johnson Smith, executive vice president of the Animal Agriculture Alliance. Speaking at the 2007 Texas Cattle Feeders Association Annual Convention, Smith said cattlemen must understand that, for animal rights activists, their work “is not a job for them. It is a life mission. And they go to sleep thinking about it. They wake up thinking about it. They live to try to find opportunities to put you out of business.” Smith said the activist organizations like The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Farm Sanctuary and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) routinely work together and have ample financial resources. The combined annual income of 22 top animal rights groups amounts to more than $300 million a year, according to Smith. Much of the money animal rights activists accumulate is being used to purchase stocks in restaurant chains, grocery store chains and other companies involved in the food and animal business. Smith said, although that may seem to be an odd investment choice for people strongly opposed to animal agriculture, “the reason (for buying stocks) is so that they can introduce shareholder resolutions. If they can make change from inside companies, they have a lot more control, and they can control that change.” Their fiscal strength is also making animal rights organizations a major player in the political arena, Smith said. For example, the $3.4 million HSUS spent on the 2006 elections exceeded the amount spent by Exxon Mobil Corporation on supporting candidates....
U.S. Imports, Need To Improve Product Safety Measures Grow Regulators hoping to bolster the safety of U.S. imports have their work cut out for them if data presented at the Meat Industry Research Conference in Chicago is any indicator. According to presenter Patricia Wester, global regional manager with SGS-USTC Food Safety Services, some 2 trillion products annually enter 300 U.S. seaports at the behest of 825,000 U.S. importers. Further, imports are expected to triple by 2015. Among the top exporters to the United States? China, which has faced mounting criticism for exporting defective or adulterated product to U.S. interests. By food category, seafood is the top U.S. import, followed by meat and poultry, and cereal and cereal preparations, according to Wester, who noted that cereal preparations often are used as ingredients in meat....
It's in the Blood Long recognized as one of the country’s outstanding ranch and rodeo families, the Suttons of South Dakota attribute much of their success to bloodlines and breeding. For as lon as there has been organized rodeo on the Northern Great Plains, Sutton Rodeo of Onida, South Dakota, has been a part of it. And, far from being a regional phenomenon, the stock contracting combine’s influence has extended far beyond the plains of north-central South Dakota, to such hallowed grounds as the National Finals Rodeo and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Hall of Fame. What’s more, the family behind Sutton Rodeo is just one branch of a tree that boasts an equally impressive history in cattle and buffalo ranching, and Quarter Horse breeding. To what does the clan owe its long list of accomplishments? According to Sutton Rodeo patriarch Jim Sutton, hard work and perseverance have most certainly played a part. So, too, he says, have bloodlines and breeding. “My ancestors came to South Dakota in 1883,” Sutton says. “My great-grandfather Jacob Sutton shipped his family and belongings to the rail end at Redfield, and then hauled them 100 miles by ox team to his homestead in Potter County....
FLE
Federal agents mum about show of force in Kelso Kelso police joined about 10 heavily armed agents from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Park Service in a mysterious raid of a South Kelso residence early Tuesday. Agents on the scene referred questions to U.S. district attorneys, who declined to reveal any information about the action. The residence in question, 1100 Elm Street, is owned by James and Jeannette Stacey of Kalama. Reached by phone Tuesday, Jeannette Stacey confirmed that her daughter and son-in-law Tina and David Wixon live at that address. Asked what may have motivated the raid, Jeannette Stacey said "coyote pelts." "My husband and David are both predator hunters. They hunt coyotes," Stacey said. "It's legal, totally legal. I know for a fact they haven't been hunting at all this year." The Wixons could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Agents on the scene wore "Police U.S. Agent" jackets, bulletproof vests and carried handguns and rifles. Six sport utility vehicles, some unmarked, some marked "Ranger," surrounded the house....
Mafia girlfriend cross-examined in trial of ex-FBI agent A mobster's girlfriend who has emerged as the star witness in the corruption case against a former FBI agent faced a barrage of questions on Tuesday suggesting she concocted the sensational allegations for profit. Linda Schiro, 62, faced cross-examination in the trial of R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. Prosecutors say Schiro's mobster boyfriend-turned informant, Gregory Scarpa, plied DeVecchio with cash, jewelry, liquor and prostitutes in exchange for confidential information he used to rub out suspected rats and rivals in the late 1980s and early '90s. Scarpa died behind bars in 1994. Schiro testified that she was present whenever the Colombo crime family capo met with DeVecchio, his official FBI handler, on a weekly basis for more than a decade....
Software Glitches Put Virtual Border Fence Months Behind Schedule Efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to establish a 28-mile digital fence along the U.S. border with Mexico are four months behind schedule, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office. Project 28, a $20 million project to secure 28 miles of the Arizona border with radar, sensors, computers and other technology, has fallen four months behind schedule due to software problems, according to the report. Project 28 is the first of several programs aimed at electronic surveillance. Project 28 is part of SBInet, a $7.6 billion, five-year Secure Border Initiative program aimed at developing a border protection system that mixes security infrastructure, including 570 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fences, with technology-based measures such as radar, cameras, and computers. The GAO report blames the government contractor, Boeing, for the delays, saying while the company delivered and deployed the project's hardware components on schedule, "the delays are primarily attributed to software integration problems - such as long delays in radar information being displayed in command centers."....
Federal agents mum about show of force in Kelso Kelso police joined about 10 heavily armed agents from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Park Service in a mysterious raid of a South Kelso residence early Tuesday. Agents on the scene referred questions to U.S. district attorneys, who declined to reveal any information about the action. The residence in question, 1100 Elm Street, is owned by James and Jeannette Stacey of Kalama. Reached by phone Tuesday, Jeannette Stacey confirmed that her daughter and son-in-law Tina and David Wixon live at that address. Asked what may have motivated the raid, Jeannette Stacey said "coyote pelts." "My husband and David are both predator hunters. They hunt coyotes," Stacey said. "It's legal, totally legal. I know for a fact they haven't been hunting at all this year." The Wixons could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Agents on the scene wore "Police U.S. Agent" jackets, bulletproof vests and carried handguns and rifles. Six sport utility vehicles, some unmarked, some marked "Ranger," surrounded the house....
Mafia girlfriend cross-examined in trial of ex-FBI agent A mobster's girlfriend who has emerged as the star witness in the corruption case against a former FBI agent faced a barrage of questions on Tuesday suggesting she concocted the sensational allegations for profit. Linda Schiro, 62, faced cross-examination in the trial of R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. Prosecutors say Schiro's mobster boyfriend-turned informant, Gregory Scarpa, plied DeVecchio with cash, jewelry, liquor and prostitutes in exchange for confidential information he used to rub out suspected rats and rivals in the late 1980s and early '90s. Scarpa died behind bars in 1994. Schiro testified that she was present whenever the Colombo crime family capo met with DeVecchio, his official FBI handler, on a weekly basis for more than a decade....
Software Glitches Put Virtual Border Fence Months Behind Schedule Efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to establish a 28-mile digital fence along the U.S. border with Mexico are four months behind schedule, according to a report released last week by the Government Accountability Office. Project 28, a $20 million project to secure 28 miles of the Arizona border with radar, sensors, computers and other technology, has fallen four months behind schedule due to software problems, according to the report. Project 28 is the first of several programs aimed at electronic surveillance. Project 28 is part of SBInet, a $7.6 billion, five-year Secure Border Initiative program aimed at developing a border protection system that mixes security infrastructure, including 570 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fences, with technology-based measures such as radar, cameras, and computers. The GAO report blames the government contractor, Boeing, for the delays, saying while the company delivered and deployed the project's hardware components on schedule, "the delays are primarily attributed to software integration problems - such as long delays in radar information being displayed in command centers."....
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Environmentalists: make it 'Hallowgreen' The most frightening part of Halloween is what it is doing to our planet, according to some environmental experts. When you think of Halloween, the environment may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, the Nature Conservancy is out to make Halloween eco-friendly by publishing a segment on their Web site called "Green Your Halloween." "Green Your Halloween" warns against buying "chocolate that's unsustainably harvested, prepackaged costumes made of non-recyclable materials, lighted decorations that suck energy like a vampire and pumpkins trucked in from thousands of miles away." Melanie Lenart, research associate for the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, said too much waste is generated on Halloween, and people should take the time to reduce their purchasing of disposable items. And if you want to take the extra step to raise awareness about environmental issues with your costume this year, Suite101.com suggests "10 eco-friendly costume ideas," such as dressing up like a compact fluorescent light bulb or even "global warming."....
DOW kills bear that attacked woman State and federal wildlife officers on Saturday killed a male bear that attacked and injured an Aspen woman on Oct. 17. According to a statement from the Colorado Division of Wildlife, officers located the bear using a GPS tracking collar placed on it earlier this year as part of a wildlife research project monitoring black bear behavior. They killed the bear about a mile east of Aspen around 3 p.m. Saturday. “By verifying collar tracking data, officers are sure that they have eliminated the bear responsible for the earlier incident,” Wildlife Division spokesman Randy Hampton said in the statement. “Tracking equipment had enabled wildlife officers to get close to the bear on several previous attempts, but nearby homes made it impossible to safely shoot the bear on those occasions.” On Oct. 17 the bear, which weighed approximately 450 pounds and was likely 5 to 10 years old, opened a sliding glass door and entered a Judith Garrison’s Aspen condo at about 1:30 a.m. The woman surprised the bear in the kitchen, and the bear clawed her in the face, causing serious injuries....
Wind farms generate bird worries The rapid expansion of wind energy farms in the Columbia River Gorge's shrub steppes could put hawks, eagles and other raptors on a collision course with fields of giant turbines and their 150-foot blades. By year's end, more than 1,500 turbines will be churning out electricity in the gorge, a windy corridor at the forefront of a nationwide effort to produce cleaner energy. Until now, most of the projects have gone up in wheat fields -- cultivated land that long ago drove away the rodents that raptors hunt. But as wind energy developers move into wilder areas along the gorge's ridge lines, near canyons and amid shrub-covered rangeland, the potential for conflict rises. If bird studies confirm the fears of Oregon and Washington state wildlife biologists, the green-minded Northwest might be forced to weigh its pursuit of pollution-free energy against the toll on raptors and other birds. The numbers sound small: Nationwide, collisions kill about 2.3 birds of all varieties per turbine per year, studies show. In the Northwest, it's about 1.9 birds per turbine. That could mean more than 3,000 bird deaths a year in the gorge. But birders say those numbers are meaningless because the totals make no distinction between abundant and rare species....
Environmental groups sue over 'mothball fleet' pollution Several environmental groups announced plans Monday to sue the federal government over toxic pollution caused by a fleet of mothballed warships floating near San Francisco Bay. The groups accuse the U.S. Maritime Administration of violating state and federal environmental regulations as dozens of decaying ships linger well past a congressional deadline ordering their removal. The suit was set to be filed Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. More than 70 ships comprise the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, some dating back to World War II. The old ships were once kept afloat in case of war, but many have fallen into disrepair, overtaken by rust and rot. The suit asks the court to order the federal agency to prepare an official review of the environmental impact caused by the ships and to remove hazardous wastes – including paint, discarded oil and asbestos – from the vessels....
Mercury emitters rush to meet new U.S. rules The big power plant that hugs the shoreline of the winding James River just south of Richmond is getting bigger. Construction of a sprawling pollution-control project will almost double the size of Dominion Resources' Chesterfield plant, which supplies electricity to about 300,000 homes and businesses in central Virginia. When it's all over, the complex — including metal towers, a tile-lined wet scrubber and a towering new chimney — will cut the plant's emissions of mercury and other pollutants by an estimated 90%. Just six years ago, the coal-burning plant was one of the nation's largest mercury polluters, releasing 1,300 pounds of the metal into the air. But even before the new pollution controls could be installed, the plant's mercury output was cut to 360 pounds in 2005. While the plant is now burning coal that is lower in mercury content, part of the reduction is explained by more accurate emissions estimates. The work is part of a $2 billion investment that Dominion committed to after reaching a settlement in 2003 with the Environmental Protection Agency, which threatened to sue the company over emissions. That decision put Dominion in front of the rest of the industry, now rushing to install similar pollution-control equipment to meet federal and state regulations....
Powerful cattleman accepts fine for letting manure into river A prominent cattleman accepted a $40,000 fine for leaking manure into the Snake River, ending a standoff that has kept regulators from resolving how they will keep cattle waste out of Idaho's waterways. Eric Davis, owner of the Bruneau Cattle Co. feedlot in Owyhee County, acknowledged he allowed manure from his 4,000-head feedlot to flow into a canal running into the Snake River during heavy rains in 2005. Davis, a former president of the National Cattle Association, is one of the most politically powerful cattlemen in Idaho. After Environmental Protection Agency inspectors made a surprise visit to his ranch in February 2006, Idaho's governor, its congressional delegation and others wrote EPA Administrator Steve Johnson, urging him to intercede in Davis' case. But Johnson stayed out of the issue and the agency issued notices of violation against Davis last fall. EPA said Davis had repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act by allowing waste to run into the South Side Canal, which runs into C.J. Strike Reservoir on the Snake River....
Take the Federal Out of Farming Here's how the American free enterprise system works. You have an idea for a business. You find the money to start it up. You try to give customers something they want at a price low enough to keep them happy but high enough to earn a profit. Either your plan works, allowing you to make a living, or it doesn't, indicating you should find a different line of work. Unless, of course, you are a farmer, in which case all this may sound unfamiliar. A lot of American agriculture operates in an environment where none of the usual rules apply—where the important thing is not catering to the consumer, but tapping the Treasury. It's a sector that, ever since the Great Depression, has been a ward of the government, both coddled and controlled. By any reasonable standard, federal agriculture policy is past due for a major overhaul. But judging from the latest farm legislation moving through Congress, not much is going to change. Back in the 1930s, when the economy was a wreck, the survival of capitalism was in doubt and Oklahoma was blowing away, you could understand the impulse for Washington to intervene on behalf of farmers. But the days when agriculture meant a lifetime of toil for a meager living are just a memory. Today, farmers monitor soil conditions by computer, drive air-conditioned tractors and have a higher average income than nonfarmers....
DOW kills bear that attacked woman State and federal wildlife officers on Saturday killed a male bear that attacked and injured an Aspen woman on Oct. 17. According to a statement from the Colorado Division of Wildlife, officers located the bear using a GPS tracking collar placed on it earlier this year as part of a wildlife research project monitoring black bear behavior. They killed the bear about a mile east of Aspen around 3 p.m. Saturday. “By verifying collar tracking data, officers are sure that they have eliminated the bear responsible for the earlier incident,” Wildlife Division spokesman Randy Hampton said in the statement. “Tracking equipment had enabled wildlife officers to get close to the bear on several previous attempts, but nearby homes made it impossible to safely shoot the bear on those occasions.” On Oct. 17 the bear, which weighed approximately 450 pounds and was likely 5 to 10 years old, opened a sliding glass door and entered a Judith Garrison’s Aspen condo at about 1:30 a.m. The woman surprised the bear in the kitchen, and the bear clawed her in the face, causing serious injuries....
Wind farms generate bird worries The rapid expansion of wind energy farms in the Columbia River Gorge's shrub steppes could put hawks, eagles and other raptors on a collision course with fields of giant turbines and their 150-foot blades. By year's end, more than 1,500 turbines will be churning out electricity in the gorge, a windy corridor at the forefront of a nationwide effort to produce cleaner energy. Until now, most of the projects have gone up in wheat fields -- cultivated land that long ago drove away the rodents that raptors hunt. But as wind energy developers move into wilder areas along the gorge's ridge lines, near canyons and amid shrub-covered rangeland, the potential for conflict rises. If bird studies confirm the fears of Oregon and Washington state wildlife biologists, the green-minded Northwest might be forced to weigh its pursuit of pollution-free energy against the toll on raptors and other birds. The numbers sound small: Nationwide, collisions kill about 2.3 birds of all varieties per turbine per year, studies show. In the Northwest, it's about 1.9 birds per turbine. That could mean more than 3,000 bird deaths a year in the gorge. But birders say those numbers are meaningless because the totals make no distinction between abundant and rare species....
Environmental groups sue over 'mothball fleet' pollution Several environmental groups announced plans Monday to sue the federal government over toxic pollution caused by a fleet of mothballed warships floating near San Francisco Bay. The groups accuse the U.S. Maritime Administration of violating state and federal environmental regulations as dozens of decaying ships linger well past a congressional deadline ordering their removal. The suit was set to be filed Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. More than 70 ships comprise the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, some dating back to World War II. The old ships were once kept afloat in case of war, but many have fallen into disrepair, overtaken by rust and rot. The suit asks the court to order the federal agency to prepare an official review of the environmental impact caused by the ships and to remove hazardous wastes – including paint, discarded oil and asbestos – from the vessels....
Mercury emitters rush to meet new U.S. rules The big power plant that hugs the shoreline of the winding James River just south of Richmond is getting bigger. Construction of a sprawling pollution-control project will almost double the size of Dominion Resources' Chesterfield plant, which supplies electricity to about 300,000 homes and businesses in central Virginia. When it's all over, the complex — including metal towers, a tile-lined wet scrubber and a towering new chimney — will cut the plant's emissions of mercury and other pollutants by an estimated 90%. Just six years ago, the coal-burning plant was one of the nation's largest mercury polluters, releasing 1,300 pounds of the metal into the air. But even before the new pollution controls could be installed, the plant's mercury output was cut to 360 pounds in 2005. While the plant is now burning coal that is lower in mercury content, part of the reduction is explained by more accurate emissions estimates. The work is part of a $2 billion investment that Dominion committed to after reaching a settlement in 2003 with the Environmental Protection Agency, which threatened to sue the company over emissions. That decision put Dominion in front of the rest of the industry, now rushing to install similar pollution-control equipment to meet federal and state regulations....
Powerful cattleman accepts fine for letting manure into river A prominent cattleman accepted a $40,000 fine for leaking manure into the Snake River, ending a standoff that has kept regulators from resolving how they will keep cattle waste out of Idaho's waterways. Eric Davis, owner of the Bruneau Cattle Co. feedlot in Owyhee County, acknowledged he allowed manure from his 4,000-head feedlot to flow into a canal running into the Snake River during heavy rains in 2005. Davis, a former president of the National Cattle Association, is one of the most politically powerful cattlemen in Idaho. After Environmental Protection Agency inspectors made a surprise visit to his ranch in February 2006, Idaho's governor, its congressional delegation and others wrote EPA Administrator Steve Johnson, urging him to intercede in Davis' case. But Johnson stayed out of the issue and the agency issued notices of violation against Davis last fall. EPA said Davis had repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act by allowing waste to run into the South Side Canal, which runs into C.J. Strike Reservoir on the Snake River....
Take the Federal Out of Farming Here's how the American free enterprise system works. You have an idea for a business. You find the money to start it up. You try to give customers something they want at a price low enough to keep them happy but high enough to earn a profit. Either your plan works, allowing you to make a living, or it doesn't, indicating you should find a different line of work. Unless, of course, you are a farmer, in which case all this may sound unfamiliar. A lot of American agriculture operates in an environment where none of the usual rules apply—where the important thing is not catering to the consumer, but tapping the Treasury. It's a sector that, ever since the Great Depression, has been a ward of the government, both coddled and controlled. By any reasonable standard, federal agriculture policy is past due for a major overhaul. But judging from the latest farm legislation moving through Congress, not much is going to change. Back in the 1930s, when the economy was a wreck, the survival of capitalism was in doubt and Oklahoma was blowing away, you could understand the impulse for Washington to intervene on behalf of farmers. But the days when agriculture meant a lifetime of toil for a meager living are just a memory. Today, farmers monitor soil conditions by computer, drive air-conditioned tractors and have a higher average income than nonfarmers....
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
EPA urges nuclear licensing authority to consider terrorism in decision on NY power plants The Environmental Protection Agency, in a break from the federal nuclear authority, says the potential impact of terrorism should be considered in deciding whether to relicense the Indian Point nuclear power plants north of New York City. In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued Oct. 10 and made public Monday, the EPA requested that eight issues, including terrorism, "be discussed in the environmental impact statement for these license renewals." The plants' owner, Entergy Nuclear, has applied for new licenses that would keep the two plants running until 2033 and 2035. Opponents of the plants, which have drawn increased public scrutiny since the terrorist attacks of 2001, have focused on the relicensing as a chance to shut the plants down in the next decade. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has just begun the lengthy relicensing process, has turned away demands from the public and politicians that terrorism be considered, saying that is beyond the scope of relicensing....
Pair of endangered wolves to be removed from wild Two endangered Mexican gray wolves have been targeted for removal from the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the trapping of the wolves, both part of the Aspen Pack, because the pack has killed a horse and five cows since the beginning of the year. “One of the reasons we’re trying to bring them in is to disrupt the behavior of the pack,” Elizabeth Slown, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, said Monday. Slown noted the order approved late Friday is unlike ones issued for other wolves, which called for the animals to be shot if trapping efforts failed. Some partners of the wolf reintroduction program did not agree with a lethal take order in the case of the Aspen alpha male and his yearling, she said. Ranchers have consistently complained about depredation of their livestock, while conservationists have criticized the program’s management — specifically a policy calling for the removal or killing of any wolf linked to three livestock killings within a year. Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity took issue Monday with the latest removal order, saying the Aspen pair is genetically vital to the reintroduction program....
On the Prowl Imperial saguaro cactuses embrace the Arizona sky with thorn-studded limbs, presiding over a realm of spiny ocotillos, prickly pear, cat's-claw and all manner of skin-shredding brush. Halfway up a rock-strewn trail, a young wildlife biologist named Emil McCain kneels next to a metal box affixed to a gnarled oak. The box was designed to thwart the errant curiosity of wandering bears, but McCain has found it stands up equally well to wandering humans. The box houses a digital camera equipped with a heat and motion sensor that snaps photographs of whatever moves on the trail; the camera has taken 26 shots since McCain last checked it a month ago. Viewing them, he scrolls through a veritable catalog of local wildlife: jack rabbit, white-tailed deer, rock squirrel, javelina (a sort of wild boar), coyote, bobcat, a woman in hiking boots. Suddenly, he looks up, an impish grin spreading across his face. "Hey, you guys, you wanna see a jaguar?" This jaguar is one of four that have been documented in the United States over the past decade. Some think that others live undetected in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico....
'04 Calif. report urged better cooperation with military in fires Three years ago, a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said finding ways to quickly get military helicopters and planes airborne to battle out of control wildfires should be a "high priority." Yet, last week, delays launching aircraft revealed a system still suffering from communication and planning shortfalls. The Gov.'s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, formed after 2003 wildfires destroyed more than 3,600 homes, urged the state to "clarify and improve" policies and regulations for using military aircraft in firefighting. The report also recommended a host of other changes, including buying new helicopters and fire engines. Schwarzenegger said as far back as September 2004 that his administration was working with the federal government to make sure plans to use military helicopters and airplanes were "efficient and effective." However, when the latest fires flamed out of control on Oct. 21, not all available military aircraft were quickly pressed into service. The Associated Press reported last week that Marine, Navy and National Guard helicopters were grounded because state personnel required to be on board weren't immediately available....
New era of wildfires requires new rules Southern California on fire is not a pretty sight: Images of inflamed ridgelines, smoldering churches, gutted Jaguars, and burning homes; along with an arsenal of firefighting equipment and yellow-coated, grime-stained firefighters cutting fire breaks, have been the staple of evening news for the past week. But what those flickering images cannot capture is the scale: The flames stretch more than 200 miles from Santa Barbara to northern Baja, Mexico. The costs: San Diego alone has suffered damages topping $1 billion. Or the extent of loss: To date, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, 500,000 acres have been burned, and 2,000 homes have been consumed. Neither can they convey that the air tastes like charcoal and leaves an acrid residue on tongue and throat. Some days the smoke has been so thick that the sun has been well-nigh blotted out; day has become night. Yet most confounding has been the response to the fires. No one questions that Southern California has always burned. But many anguished homeowners are convinced that once these fires are extinguished, life will go back to normal....
Logging plan cuts fuel for a Sierra wildfire The buzz of the chain saw cuts cleanly through the quiet as it slices a pine tree marked for removal by foresters. Next comes the cracking sound as the 60-foot tree begins to fall, picking up speed before smacking the ground with an earth-shaking WHOOMPF. This logging project near a small community a few miles northeast of Oakhurst will benefit thousands of acres of national forestlands, as well as a nearby grove of giant sequoias. It and dozens of similar efforts scheduled in the coming years are designed to prevent a small blaze from becoming a massive firestorm similar to those that devastated Southern California last week. The project is aimed at removing "ladder fuels," the thick undergrowth of immature or fallen trees, thickly piled needles and other combustibles that have built up for decades throughout forestlands....
How Environmental Laws Serve Hidden Agendas Few would doubt the sincerity of those who worked to obtain passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Certainly Congress intended the act be applied to each species on the merits of the case for preservation. Congress said in 1973 the act was intended "to provide a means whereby the eco-systems upon which an endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program, for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species." Evidently no one foresaw how easily the act could be perverted to achieve hidden agendas of special-interest groups. There is no longer any question that the act has been applied in a manner far beyond what any of us envisioned when it was written more than 30 years ago. The northern spotted owl was the species used to prevent logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Fully $22.5 million was spent to protect the owl in the early years when environmentalists claimed it could breed only in old-growth forests. In fact, northern spotted owls were found in large numbers in many private forests where old growth was not present. The owls adapted to second-growth forests extremely well. Whether or not old-growth forests should be preserved is not the question; the question is whether an act to protect species should be perverted to protect forests. n the 1990s the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the spotted owl. As a result, the Forest Service reduced timber harvesting by 50 percent in 10 California national forests, thereby achieving the goals of the NRDC in one fell swoop....
Taser time on America's public lands At about the same time University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was getting tasered by overly heated campus security guards during an appearance by Sen. John Kerry, TASER International Inc. announced that it had received an order from the United States Forest Service for 700 TASER (r) X26 electronic control devices and related accessories. John C. Twiss, director of the service's law-enforcement branch, said that after years of studying the devices, it would give its 700 officers, who police 153 national forests, "an option other than deadly force in certain law-enforcement situations." "The Forest Service will likely justify this order by saying that the forests are a dangerous place filled with marijuana growers, meth lab workers and illegal aliens," Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, an Oregon-based grassroots environmental organization, said in an e-mail interview. "I'd say that the Forest Service is simply looking to further build up its police capabilities and to be better positioned to act violently, albeit non-lethally, when it feels justified in so doing," Silver pointed out....
Proposed land use measure raises debate Ballot Measure 49, one of two that Oregon voters will be deciding on in the Nov. 6 election, is as controversial as the measure it is supposed to clarify — Ballot Measure 37 — regarding land owners’ rights to develop and protect some types of land use. According to the summary statement of the new measure, Ballot Measure 49 would, if approved, give land owners with Measure 37 claims the right to build homes as compensation for land use restrictions imposed after they acquired their properties. Land owners would be able to build up to three homes, according to the measure, when they acquired their properties, four to 10 homes if owners can document reductions in property values that justify additional homes, but they may not build more than three homes on high-value farmlands, forest land or groundwater-restricted lands. The ballot measure has split the agriculture industry across the state, as different county Farm Bureau Chapters have staked opposite positions. The Oregon State Farm Bureau has come out in support of Ballot Measure 49 as protection for family farms and ranchers, while the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is opposed to the measure, saying it would allow Oregon’s state, regional and local governments to take private property with zero compensation....
U.S. ranchers group goes to court again in bid to block Canadian cows A U.S. ranchers group has gone to court again in a bid to block older Canadian cattle and beef products from crossing the border next month. But this time, R-CALF U.S.A. has been joined by 10 critics of the cattle trade: four individual cattle producers and six groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, which has millions of members. The Montana-based ranching group, which has spearheaded several court cases since Canada's first mad cow case in May 2003, has filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a South Dakota district court. It was unclear what impact the lawsuit might have on the resumption of imports, scheduled for Nov. 19. R-CALF, as it has in the past, argues that resuming trade increases the risk of infection of the U.S. cattle herd with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Other groups who have signed on to the complaint include Food and Water Watch, Public Citizen, the Center for Food Safety, the South Dakota Stockgroers Association and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation....
K-State Seeks True Cost and Benefit of Animal ID Systems K-State researchers have received a $499,462 grant from USDA to determine the benefits and costs of electronic animal identification systems, including the impact of these systems on livestock disease management. Though the United States has had limited exposure to any severe livestock disease, an increasingly global society and heightened bioterrorism threat make an outbreak more probable. Over the past couple of years alone, foot-and-mouth disease has broken out in 17 countries, according to Ted Schroeder, a K-State professor of agricultural economics and principal investigator on the project. The animal identification systems study is an outgrowth of prior work by Schroeder and a team of agricultural economists that predicted as much as a $945 million economic impact in Kansas if foot-and-mouth disease was intentionally introduced into a handful of large-scale cattle operations in the state. Schroeder predicts that widespread implementation of an animal ID system would substantially reduce those losses. "If animal trace-backs were 90% successful within 24 hours, total producer and consumer welfare losses would be expected to be nearly 40% less than with current animal identification methods," Schroeder says....So, being a lackey for the USDA is worth half a million.
Ranchers voice concerns over proposed split-state status Montana cattlemen have a choice to make - to pursue a split-state status in the case of another brucellosis outbreak around the Yellow-stone National Park - or not. “The governor is leaving it up to the cattle industry,” said Jan French, Board of Livestock member from Hobson, Mont., during a recent meeting discussing split-state status in Lewistown, Mont. “I'm pretty sure we will lose our brucellosis class-free status at one time or another, but this is an option.” Montana's Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked an official from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) what the state could do to mitigate the risk of losing its brucellosis class-free status while a hotbed of brucellosis reservoirs is roaming free in the Yellowstone National Park. The answer given was 11 points of criteria to fill for split-state status. The split-state status would require the Montana Board of Livestock to use wildlife movement, disease management and landscapes to determine a concrete well-defined area which would be considered in a Class A status, if another case of brucellosis were discovered within that area, while the remainder of the state retained its class-free status. This method could divide counties but not a person's property, said French....
Churchill barn quarantined due to herpes virus The Kentucky Department of Agriculture quarantined barn 47 at Churchill Downs on Friday after a horse trained by David Carroll tested positive for equine herpesvirus (EHV1), a contagious, potentially fatal disease that can cause upper respiratory problems and loss of coordination. Carroll said the horse, a 3-year-old he declined to identify, began showing neurological problems Thursday and was shipped to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Tests taken revealed the presence of the virus Thursday evening. He said the horse is "going to be fine, make a complete recovery." The quarantine order - which confines horses stabled in barn 47 and prohibits them from being shipped, trained, or raced - affects approximately 35 horses, split between two trainers, Carroll and Al Stall Jr. A separate division of Carroll-trained horses at Churchill Downs Trackside are not under quarantine....
Country Star Porter Wagoner Dies at 80 Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton. Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans. The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous. He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others. Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."....
On the Prowl Imperial saguaro cactuses embrace the Arizona sky with thorn-studded limbs, presiding over a realm of spiny ocotillos, prickly pear, cat's-claw and all manner of skin-shredding brush. Halfway up a rock-strewn trail, a young wildlife biologist named Emil McCain kneels next to a metal box affixed to a gnarled oak. The box was designed to thwart the errant curiosity of wandering bears, but McCain has found it stands up equally well to wandering humans. The box houses a digital camera equipped with a heat and motion sensor that snaps photographs of whatever moves on the trail; the camera has taken 26 shots since McCain last checked it a month ago. Viewing them, he scrolls through a veritable catalog of local wildlife: jack rabbit, white-tailed deer, rock squirrel, javelina (a sort of wild boar), coyote, bobcat, a woman in hiking boots. Suddenly, he looks up, an impish grin spreading across his face. "Hey, you guys, you wanna see a jaguar?" This jaguar is one of four that have been documented in the United States over the past decade. Some think that others live undetected in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico....
'04 Calif. report urged better cooperation with military in fires Three years ago, a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said finding ways to quickly get military helicopters and planes airborne to battle out of control wildfires should be a "high priority." Yet, last week, delays launching aircraft revealed a system still suffering from communication and planning shortfalls. The Gov.'s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, formed after 2003 wildfires destroyed more than 3,600 homes, urged the state to "clarify and improve" policies and regulations for using military aircraft in firefighting. The report also recommended a host of other changes, including buying new helicopters and fire engines. Schwarzenegger said as far back as September 2004 that his administration was working with the federal government to make sure plans to use military helicopters and airplanes were "efficient and effective." However, when the latest fires flamed out of control on Oct. 21, not all available military aircraft were quickly pressed into service. The Associated Press reported last week that Marine, Navy and National Guard helicopters were grounded because state personnel required to be on board weren't immediately available....
New era of wildfires requires new rules Southern California on fire is not a pretty sight: Images of inflamed ridgelines, smoldering churches, gutted Jaguars, and burning homes; along with an arsenal of firefighting equipment and yellow-coated, grime-stained firefighters cutting fire breaks, have been the staple of evening news for the past week. But what those flickering images cannot capture is the scale: The flames stretch more than 200 miles from Santa Barbara to northern Baja, Mexico. The costs: San Diego alone has suffered damages topping $1 billion. Or the extent of loss: To date, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, 500,000 acres have been burned, and 2,000 homes have been consumed. Neither can they convey that the air tastes like charcoal and leaves an acrid residue on tongue and throat. Some days the smoke has been so thick that the sun has been well-nigh blotted out; day has become night. Yet most confounding has been the response to the fires. No one questions that Southern California has always burned. But many anguished homeowners are convinced that once these fires are extinguished, life will go back to normal....
Logging plan cuts fuel for a Sierra wildfire The buzz of the chain saw cuts cleanly through the quiet as it slices a pine tree marked for removal by foresters. Next comes the cracking sound as the 60-foot tree begins to fall, picking up speed before smacking the ground with an earth-shaking WHOOMPF. This logging project near a small community a few miles northeast of Oakhurst will benefit thousands of acres of national forestlands, as well as a nearby grove of giant sequoias. It and dozens of similar efforts scheduled in the coming years are designed to prevent a small blaze from becoming a massive firestorm similar to those that devastated Southern California last week. The project is aimed at removing "ladder fuels," the thick undergrowth of immature or fallen trees, thickly piled needles and other combustibles that have built up for decades throughout forestlands....
How Environmental Laws Serve Hidden Agendas Few would doubt the sincerity of those who worked to obtain passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Certainly Congress intended the act be applied to each species on the merits of the case for preservation. Congress said in 1973 the act was intended "to provide a means whereby the eco-systems upon which an endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program, for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species." Evidently no one foresaw how easily the act could be perverted to achieve hidden agendas of special-interest groups. There is no longer any question that the act has been applied in a manner far beyond what any of us envisioned when it was written more than 30 years ago. The northern spotted owl was the species used to prevent logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Fully $22.5 million was spent to protect the owl in the early years when environmentalists claimed it could breed only in old-growth forests. In fact, northern spotted owls were found in large numbers in many private forests where old growth was not present. The owls adapted to second-growth forests extremely well. Whether or not old-growth forests should be preserved is not the question; the question is whether an act to protect species should be perverted to protect forests. n the 1990s the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the spotted owl. As a result, the Forest Service reduced timber harvesting by 50 percent in 10 California national forests, thereby achieving the goals of the NRDC in one fell swoop....
Taser time on America's public lands At about the same time University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was getting tasered by overly heated campus security guards during an appearance by Sen. John Kerry, TASER International Inc. announced that it had received an order from the United States Forest Service for 700 TASER (r) X26 electronic control devices and related accessories. John C. Twiss, director of the service's law-enforcement branch, said that after years of studying the devices, it would give its 700 officers, who police 153 national forests, "an option other than deadly force in certain law-enforcement situations." "The Forest Service will likely justify this order by saying that the forests are a dangerous place filled with marijuana growers, meth lab workers and illegal aliens," Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, an Oregon-based grassroots environmental organization, said in an e-mail interview. "I'd say that the Forest Service is simply looking to further build up its police capabilities and to be better positioned to act violently, albeit non-lethally, when it feels justified in so doing," Silver pointed out....
Proposed land use measure raises debate Ballot Measure 49, one of two that Oregon voters will be deciding on in the Nov. 6 election, is as controversial as the measure it is supposed to clarify — Ballot Measure 37 — regarding land owners’ rights to develop and protect some types of land use. According to the summary statement of the new measure, Ballot Measure 49 would, if approved, give land owners with Measure 37 claims the right to build homes as compensation for land use restrictions imposed after they acquired their properties. Land owners would be able to build up to three homes, according to the measure, when they acquired their properties, four to 10 homes if owners can document reductions in property values that justify additional homes, but they may not build more than three homes on high-value farmlands, forest land or groundwater-restricted lands. The ballot measure has split the agriculture industry across the state, as different county Farm Bureau Chapters have staked opposite positions. The Oregon State Farm Bureau has come out in support of Ballot Measure 49 as protection for family farms and ranchers, while the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is opposed to the measure, saying it would allow Oregon’s state, regional and local governments to take private property with zero compensation....
U.S. ranchers group goes to court again in bid to block Canadian cows A U.S. ranchers group has gone to court again in a bid to block older Canadian cattle and beef products from crossing the border next month. But this time, R-CALF U.S.A. has been joined by 10 critics of the cattle trade: four individual cattle producers and six groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, which has millions of members. The Montana-based ranching group, which has spearheaded several court cases since Canada's first mad cow case in May 2003, has filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a South Dakota district court. It was unclear what impact the lawsuit might have on the resumption of imports, scheduled for Nov. 19. R-CALF, as it has in the past, argues that resuming trade increases the risk of infection of the U.S. cattle herd with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Other groups who have signed on to the complaint include Food and Water Watch, Public Citizen, the Center for Food Safety, the South Dakota Stockgroers Association and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation....
K-State Seeks True Cost and Benefit of Animal ID Systems K-State researchers have received a $499,462 grant from USDA to determine the benefits and costs of electronic animal identification systems, including the impact of these systems on livestock disease management. Though the United States has had limited exposure to any severe livestock disease, an increasingly global society and heightened bioterrorism threat make an outbreak more probable. Over the past couple of years alone, foot-and-mouth disease has broken out in 17 countries, according to Ted Schroeder, a K-State professor of agricultural economics and principal investigator on the project. The animal identification systems study is an outgrowth of prior work by Schroeder and a team of agricultural economists that predicted as much as a $945 million economic impact in Kansas if foot-and-mouth disease was intentionally introduced into a handful of large-scale cattle operations in the state. Schroeder predicts that widespread implementation of an animal ID system would substantially reduce those losses. "If animal trace-backs were 90% successful within 24 hours, total producer and consumer welfare losses would be expected to be nearly 40% less than with current animal identification methods," Schroeder says....So, being a lackey for the USDA is worth half a million.
Ranchers voice concerns over proposed split-state status Montana cattlemen have a choice to make - to pursue a split-state status in the case of another brucellosis outbreak around the Yellow-stone National Park - or not. “The governor is leaving it up to the cattle industry,” said Jan French, Board of Livestock member from Hobson, Mont., during a recent meeting discussing split-state status in Lewistown, Mont. “I'm pretty sure we will lose our brucellosis class-free status at one time or another, but this is an option.” Montana's Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked an official from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) what the state could do to mitigate the risk of losing its brucellosis class-free status while a hotbed of brucellosis reservoirs is roaming free in the Yellowstone National Park. The answer given was 11 points of criteria to fill for split-state status. The split-state status would require the Montana Board of Livestock to use wildlife movement, disease management and landscapes to determine a concrete well-defined area which would be considered in a Class A status, if another case of brucellosis were discovered within that area, while the remainder of the state retained its class-free status. This method could divide counties but not a person's property, said French....
Churchill barn quarantined due to herpes virus The Kentucky Department of Agriculture quarantined barn 47 at Churchill Downs on Friday after a horse trained by David Carroll tested positive for equine herpesvirus (EHV1), a contagious, potentially fatal disease that can cause upper respiratory problems and loss of coordination. Carroll said the horse, a 3-year-old he declined to identify, began showing neurological problems Thursday and was shipped to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Tests taken revealed the presence of the virus Thursday evening. He said the horse is "going to be fine, make a complete recovery." The quarantine order - which confines horses stabled in barn 47 and prohibits them from being shipped, trained, or raced - affects approximately 35 horses, split between two trainers, Carroll and Al Stall Jr. A separate division of Carroll-trained horses at Churchill Downs Trackside are not under quarantine....
Country Star Porter Wagoner Dies at 80 Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton. Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans. The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous. He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others. Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."....
Monday, October 29, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Hunter charging grizzly Sitting on his butt and aiming a 30-06 rifle with one arm, Carl Haggar of East Glacier fired the shot of his life — and maybe saved it. The 350-pound grizzly that was closing in on him hit the ground — dead — just five feet away. "It was an amazing sound," said Haggar, recalling the bear's heavy collapse, "because it was a lifeless sound." Haggar, who was hunting elk, said he felt terrible after killing the bear, which happened late Tuesday morning near the South Fork of the Two Medicine River in the Lewis and Clark National Forest southwest of East Glacier. But, he figured, it was the bear or him. "I would have been killed if I hadn't had a killing blow," he said. The hunter-grizzly run-in was the second in 10 days along the Rocky Mountain Front. Brian Grand of Stevensville was seriously injured after being mauled by a young male bear while hunting pheasants east of Dupuyer on Oct. 15. He got off one shot at the bear but missed. Haggar hit the mark, just above the left eye, and didn't receive a scratch. He considers himself lucky, but added he kept his cool....
Nature center volunteer bitten by brown bear A volunteer at the Eagle River Nature Center is recovering after being bitten by a brown bear sow. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say Sarah Wallmer was bitten on the buttocks on the Crow Pass Trail, about a mile from the nature center. The attack happened Thursday as Wallmer was traveling to the Rapids camp yurt. She was running with her dog, about 10 minutes ahead of another volunteer. Officials say she was making noise on the trail to announce her presence, but the blowing wind probably obscured her voice. The bear charged her, and she dropped her dog’s leash and turned her back to the sow. The bear bit her once. The bear roared and left, presumably to chase the dog. The dog came back about 10 minutes later with the other volunteer on a four-wheeler....
Editorial - Fowl play Nobody knows the Gunnison sage grouse better than folks in Gunnison County. But the professional litigants at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), based in Tucson, presume to know better. The group is suing to force federal protection of this prairie chicken subspecies, despite extraordinary local efforts to keep the birds off the endangered species list dating back to 1997. In fact, what’s been occurring in the Gunnison area should serve as a model for how voluntary efforts, led by private landowners and local officials, can help protect threatened or endangered species without the need for the kind of regulatory overkill and trampling of property rights that normally accompany federal intervention. It’s been a good example of cooperative conservation in action, in other words, something the Bush administration has tried to adopt in lieu of the standard, old, heavy-handed approach. And that probably helps explain why extremists are trying to monkey-wrench things. “Gunnison County has not and will not sign onto that lawsuit,” Jim Cochran, the county’s sagebrush conservation coordinator, told a local newspaper. “We believe that a locally led program, not listing it under endangered species, is more effective in preserving the grouse. If it becomes listed, it would come under (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife, and we feel like we have a good program.” But no local program could ever be as “good” — meaning as inflexible and Draconian — as a federal program, at least in the eyes of eco-authoritarians, which is why the CBD is attempting to pre-empt Gunnison County’s program in the courts....
Valles Caldera issues stir passions Standing outside a Valles Caldera public meeting, Tracy Hephner, a Trustee, mused aloud: "I thought that water rights issues drew out passions, but nothing compares with this place," she said. Indeed, for the past seven years of its existence and for many decades prior, the preserve has inspired an unusual degree of ardor. With an area of around 89,000 acres, the Valles Caldera National Preserve represents only about a tenth of one percent of the state's land area. However, it has attracted the interest, curiosity, labor and enthusiasm of hundreds of individuals and scores of organizations all working in some way to support the preserve or to fashion it according to their own visions. The Northern New Mexico Stockman's Association, a 20-year-old organization representing around 15,000 families, has initiated political efforts to significantly change how the preserve is managed, particularly with respect to elk hunting, cattle grazing and public access. Dave Sanchez, an association board member and cattle-grazing permitee said that there is growing frustration and impatience with the Valles Caldera Trust and management. "The preserve is clearly not living up to the legislative goals to enhance the economic well being of the surrounding area," he stated....
Ranchers pitch land planA group of ranchers opposed to creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County has released its own version of a land-protection plan. The draft proposal would place some 302,000 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land into special preservation areas and rangeland preservation areas — two new categories being proposed by the group. Ranchers say it will leave their operations intact. The plan wouldn't create federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County, and wilderness backers say it would lead to less protection of land than currently exists. Frank DuBois, a member of the group People for Preserving Our Western Heritage, said the proposal addresses the major concern of the community — keeping land free from development — but is less restrictive than an all-out wilderness designation. The lands "can never be sold, they can never be exchanged, and all of the areas are withdrawn from mining or the mineral leasing laws, so there could never be any oil or gas leasing," he said. "These lands would be just like wilderness; the difference is we're more tolerant of the general public having access to these lands."....
3 States Compete for Water From Shrinking Lake Lanier No gauges are necessary at Lake Lanier to measure the ravages of the Southeast's drought. Wooden fishing docks tower 10 feet over dried mud that used to be squishy lake bottom. Boat ramps begin at the parking lot and end in sand. New islands emerge from shallows. The waters of Lake Lanier, funneled through federal dams along the Chattahoochee River, sustain about 2.8 million people in the Atlanta metropolitan area, a nuclear power plant that lights up much of Alabama, and the marine life in Florida's Apalachicola River and Bay. Now, amid one of the worst droughts on record, all three places feel uncomfortably close to running dry. That has prompted a three-state fight that has simmered for years to erupt into testy exchanges over which one has the right to the lake's dwindling water supply and which one is or is not doing its share to conserve it. In court papers, Florida's principal leverage in forcing a larger flow has been the fact that three federally protected species -- two types of mussel and the Gulf sturgeon -- are believed to need fresh water to maintain their habitat. The demands of the little-known species has led Georgia officials to characterize the debate as a contest of "man versus mussel" -- suggesting that Georgians should get the water before mussels do....
Rethinking Fire Policy in the Tinderbox Zone As Californians sift through the cinders of this week’s deadly wildfires, there is a growing consensus that the state’s war against such disasters — as it is currently being fought — cannot be won. “California has lost 1.5 million acres in the last four years,” said Richard A. Minnich, a professor of earth sciences who teaches fire ecology at the University of California, Riverside. “When do we declare the policy a failure?” Fire-management experts like Professor Minnich, who has compared fire histories in San Diego County and Baja California in Mexico, say the message is clear: Mexico has smaller fires that burn out naturally, regularly clearing out combustible underbrush and causing relatively little destruction because the cycle is still natural. California has giant ones because its longtime policies of fire suppression — in which the government has kept fires from their normal cycle — has created huge pockets of fuel that erupt into conflagrations that must be fought. “We’re on all year round,” said Brett Chapman, a firefighter with the United States Forest Service who worked 15-hour shifts this week in the Lake Arrowhead area east of Los Angeles....
Wolves at the door There’s a moment in William Campbell’s new documentary when a Paradise Valley rancher looks across the pasture and says, “Wolves and cows don’t mix.” Over the next hour, Campbell, an award-winning photographer with Time Magazine and a journalist with CNN, explores the strange waltz taking place between environmentalists and ranchers when it comes to living with wolves in Montana. “Wolves are emblematic of the future of the West in a lot of ways,” Campbell said. “You can use the wolf issue to get in touch with the development issue and the land issue, because they affect the landscape in such a dramatic way.” Filmed in southwest Montana, “Wolves in Paradise” follows the wolves from their release in Yellowstone Park during reintroduction in 1995. It tracks the animals as they expand outward, challenging the adaptability of humans when coping with their presence....
Wolf shot; animal had killed cattle A young male wolf whose pack was suspected of killing cattle west of Kalispell was shot this week by federal wildlife agents, a situation that is becoming more common as wolf populations expand dramatically in northwest Montana. “Livestock depredations are still low,” said Kent Laudon, “but it's been a busy year, busier than we've seen in a long time.” Laudon is a wolf management specialist for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and his territory ranges across miles of northwest Montana, from Canada to Interstate 90, and from Idaho to the Rocky Mountain Front. Wolf numbers, he said, are exploding there, as new packs pop up faster than biologists can keep count. With a pack home range of 200 square miles or more, and individual dispersers traveling upward of 500 miles, it wasn't long before the Glacier wolves began to repopulate the region - crossing, in the process, considerable private acres, including acres thick with livestock. In 1980, one Montana wolf was documented. In 1986, 16 wolves. By 1993, 55 wolves. More than 70 were counted in northwest Montana by 1996. And last year, a whopping 316 wolves roamed the region....
Wolves in N. Idaho wilderness elude officials An attempt by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to attach radio collars to wolves in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness Area in northern Idaho has failed. But officials said they learned the wolves’ habits over the summer, including the rendezvous sites of several packs, and are optimistic of success next year. “If you can focus efforts where you know wolves are coming to, as opposed to just randomly trapping a wolf, your success rates are radically different,” said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the department. The department wants to place a radio collar on at least one wolf in each wolf pack in Idaho so the state can have a better understanding of wolf populations and their movements when it takes over management of wolves from the federal government. Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are seeking to end federal oversight of wolves by each state taking over management of the animals within their borders. Each state would be required to maintain a minimum of 100 wolves including 10 breeding pairs. Idaho has an estimated 788 wolves, up from 673 last year....
Old trees, new plan Once again, the big trees of Western Oregon are at the center of a battle. The basic question is simple: Should the old, federally owned trees be left standing, or should a sizable number be logged? Many people thought the fight over old growth was settled in 1994 when the federal government adopted the Northwest Forest Plan, which drastically curtailed logging and set aside reserves for northern spotted owls and other species at risk of extinction. But the timber industry and the Bush administration are in the midst of a major push against those restrictions. The new logging war still rouses the passions of the old one, which dominated headlines from the late 1980s through 1994. It’s the same fight with some challenging new dynamics....
Fingerpointing ensues over copters grounded during California wildfires State and federal officials on Saturday blamed each other for allowing nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters to sit idle while deadly wildfires ravaged Southern California, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to improve the state's response to battling wildfires. The head of the state's firefighting agency lashed out at the Marines and U.S. Forest Service, saying the military had failed to commit to the training necessary to launch helicopters more quickly. The Forest Service had neglected to provide enough helicopter managers to launch the aircrafts when they became available, he said. "We're getting all of this criticism and I don't want to get into saying it should have been the Forest Service, should have been the Marines," said Ruben Grijalva, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "But that's why I'm talking today because it's affecting the morale of this organization." The Forest Service disputed Grijalva's claim, saying that providing fire spotters for Marines wasn't solely a federal responsibility. Forest Service officials also cast doubt on assertions by members of the military and several members of California's Congressional delegation that the Marine helicopters were ready days before they were called into action. Dennis Hulbert, Regional Aviation Officer for the U.S. Forest Service in California, said the Marines were primarily responsible for the delay....
Red Tape Hampers Firefighting Capabilities Reporters covering the wildfires in California have been effusive about the capacities of the converted DC-10 airliner that has been dropping retardant on the blazes around Lake Arrowhead, and the enthusiasm is warranted. Sometimes called the Tanker 910, and sometimes the 10 Tanker Air Carrier, the plane can carry 12,000 gallons of fire retardant or water in tanks attached under its belly. That’s 10 times as much liquid as the other available California air tankers, and four times the capacity of the largest-available tankers operated by the federal government. It can create a fire line three-quarters of a mile long — or drop water over a mile-long, 300-foot-wide swath — in eight seconds. It can be refilled in eight minutes. And it would be nice to have more such planes available, don’t you think? If the federal government had had its way, Tanker 910 almost certainly wouldn’t have been flying this week. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut through some red tape a few months ago to make this one available. And, as useful as the Tanker 910 has shown itself to be, the U.S. Forest Service still hasn’t certified this plane for use over federal lands....
Environmentalist informant pleads guilty to arson The informant who helped convict many of the 10 radical environmentalists known as "the Family" pleaded guilty in federal court today to arson and attempted arson. Thirty-five-year-old Jacob Ferguson admitted setting fire to the U.S Forest Service Ranger Station in Detroit, Ore., and a government pickup in 1996. Ferguson turned informant three years ago as investigators were closing in on the group who had set 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001, causing more than $40 million in damage. All 10 were sentenced this year after pleading guilty to arson and other charges. Sentencing for Ferguson was set for Jan. 10.
History, management of park horses being debated The grace and beauty of the wild horses roaming in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are not in dispute, but there is disagreement about where they came from, and how to manage them. A roundup, called off earlier this month after a helicopter crash that injured two people, was to cull 75 of the park's herd of about 125 horses for auction to bring the herd down to 50, a size park officials consider more manageable. The National Park Service, unlike the Bureau of Land Management, does not maintain a large number of wild horses. The BLM has about 31,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states that are protected by federal law. The National Park Service has fewer than 700 wild horses, in five national parks. Minnesota horse breeders Nola and Dave Robson and Bob and Deb Fjetland are among those who believe the horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are descendants of horses owned by the Plains Indians. They call the breed Nokota, and are dedicated to its preservation.....
Texas senators block energy bill Texas' two senators have blocked Congress' ambitious energy legislation from moving forward, arguing the ethanol-friendly bill would hurt dominant industries in their home state. The massive energy bill has provisions that have attracted the scrutiny of virtually every special interest group. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who last week placed a procedural hold on the bill, argues that it would be particularly bad for Texas' oil and gas and agriculture sectors. Oil companies are fighting the bill's attempt to repeal tax incentives that were intended to spur domestic oil production. Texas' agriculture interests worry that a proposed doubling of the mandated use of ethanol, which mostly comes from corn, would make commodity prices skyrocket and hurt ranchers and feedlots....
BLM scraps historic Chicken dredge A rich piece of Alaska’s gold mining history is sitting in a dump in Tok after being demolished because the Bureau of Land Management deemed it dangerous. The Jack Wade Dredge at Mile 86 of the Taylor Highway was dismantled last month. The abandoned dredge sat on the bank of Jack Wade Creek for 72 years and was a popular tourist attraction on the 160-mile road from Tok to Eagle. “People loved to camp at it and to pan for gold there,” said Robin Hammond, the postmaster in the small mining town of Chicken a few miles south of where the dredge sat. One of the first bucket-line dredges in the famed Fortymile mining country, the Jack Wade Dredge was freighted up the Fortymile River from Dawson in the winter of 1906-07....
Cattle movement across Canadian border expected to be slow When the U.S. border opens to Canadian cattle older than 30 months on Nov. 19, the influx of older cattle coming south will be minimal, ranchers in Alberta and Saskatchewan say. Age verification requirements, currency parity and transportation costs will limit movement. Nevertheless, Montana cattlemen argue that the timing of the opening is poor for the U.S. cull market and is premature in that age limitations on U.S. cattle/beef exports should first be resolved with Japan and South Korea. Also, the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy contamination from Canadian cattle is too great, some say. The specters of congressional intervention or judicial injunction are hovering just offstage, too. The mid-November deadline is the latest chapter in a saga that began in 2003 with the discovery of BSE in cattle on both sides of the border. Since that time, 10 Canadian animals have been verified with BSE; three animals in the United States have been confirmed, the first being an import from Canada....
Nevada's great cloud-rustling controversy About 30 miles south of Gardnerville is an unremarkable patch of land that was once the center of a hurricane of controversy involving the right to claim water in rain clouds. In December 1947, Nevada rancher Dick Haman and partner Freeman Fairfield filed a claim to all the water clouds passing over their 12,300-acre spread near Topaz Lake (located adjacent to the Holbrook Junction). At the time, the 35-year-old Haman was manager of Fairfield's Rocking F Ranch. A former University of Nevada football star, Haman had worked as a Hollywood studio artist and a professional boxer before returning to Nevada. Haman helped Fairfield purchase the Rocking F Ranch in 1946 and agreed to manage the property. Immediately, he was confronted with the fact that the property had no water....
On the edge of common sense: Regeneration, like life, doesn't always play fair Every time I see a moose head mounted on somebody's wall, I marvel at the size of their horns. They must weigh 40 pounds. It would be the equivalent of me wearing a cowboy hat made of cinder blocks. Night and day for months in a row. What is even more amazing is that they shed these giant racks annually, take a few weeks off and then spend the next year growing them back. The same thing applies to deer and elk, but for sheer mass of bone, the moose puts them to shame. Why is it that longhorn steers, wildebeest and pronghorn antelope don't shed their horns? Are they shy? Is it a fashion consideration, a long-term commitment. ... Do they need them year round to fight, dig roots, or write their name in the bark? If you want to salute the king of regeneration, look at the lizard. He has the ability to lose his tail, have it broken off, and grow a new one back. Talk about commitment. That would be comparable to an elephant shedding his trunk and growing a new one....
Hunter charging grizzly Sitting on his butt and aiming a 30-06 rifle with one arm, Carl Haggar of East Glacier fired the shot of his life — and maybe saved it. The 350-pound grizzly that was closing in on him hit the ground — dead — just five feet away. "It was an amazing sound," said Haggar, recalling the bear's heavy collapse, "because it was a lifeless sound." Haggar, who was hunting elk, said he felt terrible after killing the bear, which happened late Tuesday morning near the South Fork of the Two Medicine River in the Lewis and Clark National Forest southwest of East Glacier. But, he figured, it was the bear or him. "I would have been killed if I hadn't had a killing blow," he said. The hunter-grizzly run-in was the second in 10 days along the Rocky Mountain Front. Brian Grand of Stevensville was seriously injured after being mauled by a young male bear while hunting pheasants east of Dupuyer on Oct. 15. He got off one shot at the bear but missed. Haggar hit the mark, just above the left eye, and didn't receive a scratch. He considers himself lucky, but added he kept his cool....
Nature center volunteer bitten by brown bear A volunteer at the Eagle River Nature Center is recovering after being bitten by a brown bear sow. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say Sarah Wallmer was bitten on the buttocks on the Crow Pass Trail, about a mile from the nature center. The attack happened Thursday as Wallmer was traveling to the Rapids camp yurt. She was running with her dog, about 10 minutes ahead of another volunteer. Officials say she was making noise on the trail to announce her presence, but the blowing wind probably obscured her voice. The bear charged her, and she dropped her dog’s leash and turned her back to the sow. The bear bit her once. The bear roared and left, presumably to chase the dog. The dog came back about 10 minutes later with the other volunteer on a four-wheeler....
Editorial - Fowl play Nobody knows the Gunnison sage grouse better than folks in Gunnison County. But the professional litigants at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), based in Tucson, presume to know better. The group is suing to force federal protection of this prairie chicken subspecies, despite extraordinary local efforts to keep the birds off the endangered species list dating back to 1997. In fact, what’s been occurring in the Gunnison area should serve as a model for how voluntary efforts, led by private landowners and local officials, can help protect threatened or endangered species without the need for the kind of regulatory overkill and trampling of property rights that normally accompany federal intervention. It’s been a good example of cooperative conservation in action, in other words, something the Bush administration has tried to adopt in lieu of the standard, old, heavy-handed approach. And that probably helps explain why extremists are trying to monkey-wrench things. “Gunnison County has not and will not sign onto that lawsuit,” Jim Cochran, the county’s sagebrush conservation coordinator, told a local newspaper. “We believe that a locally led program, not listing it under endangered species, is more effective in preserving the grouse. If it becomes listed, it would come under (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife, and we feel like we have a good program.” But no local program could ever be as “good” — meaning as inflexible and Draconian — as a federal program, at least in the eyes of eco-authoritarians, which is why the CBD is attempting to pre-empt Gunnison County’s program in the courts....
Valles Caldera issues stir passions Standing outside a Valles Caldera public meeting, Tracy Hephner, a Trustee, mused aloud: "I thought that water rights issues drew out passions, but nothing compares with this place," she said. Indeed, for the past seven years of its existence and for many decades prior, the preserve has inspired an unusual degree of ardor. With an area of around 89,000 acres, the Valles Caldera National Preserve represents only about a tenth of one percent of the state's land area. However, it has attracted the interest, curiosity, labor and enthusiasm of hundreds of individuals and scores of organizations all working in some way to support the preserve or to fashion it according to their own visions. The Northern New Mexico Stockman's Association, a 20-year-old organization representing around 15,000 families, has initiated political efforts to significantly change how the preserve is managed, particularly with respect to elk hunting, cattle grazing and public access. Dave Sanchez, an association board member and cattle-grazing permitee said that there is growing frustration and impatience with the Valles Caldera Trust and management. "The preserve is clearly not living up to the legislative goals to enhance the economic well being of the surrounding area," he stated....
Ranchers pitch land planA group of ranchers opposed to creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County has released its own version of a land-protection plan. The draft proposal would place some 302,000 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land into special preservation areas and rangeland preservation areas — two new categories being proposed by the group. Ranchers say it will leave their operations intact. The plan wouldn't create federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County, and wilderness backers say it would lead to less protection of land than currently exists. Frank DuBois, a member of the group People for Preserving Our Western Heritage, said the proposal addresses the major concern of the community — keeping land free from development — but is less restrictive than an all-out wilderness designation. The lands "can never be sold, they can never be exchanged, and all of the areas are withdrawn from mining or the mineral leasing laws, so there could never be any oil or gas leasing," he said. "These lands would be just like wilderness; the difference is we're more tolerant of the general public having access to these lands."....
3 States Compete for Water From Shrinking Lake Lanier No gauges are necessary at Lake Lanier to measure the ravages of the Southeast's drought. Wooden fishing docks tower 10 feet over dried mud that used to be squishy lake bottom. Boat ramps begin at the parking lot and end in sand. New islands emerge from shallows. The waters of Lake Lanier, funneled through federal dams along the Chattahoochee River, sustain about 2.8 million people in the Atlanta metropolitan area, a nuclear power plant that lights up much of Alabama, and the marine life in Florida's Apalachicola River and Bay. Now, amid one of the worst droughts on record, all three places feel uncomfortably close to running dry. That has prompted a three-state fight that has simmered for years to erupt into testy exchanges over which one has the right to the lake's dwindling water supply and which one is or is not doing its share to conserve it. In court papers, Florida's principal leverage in forcing a larger flow has been the fact that three federally protected species -- two types of mussel and the Gulf sturgeon -- are believed to need fresh water to maintain their habitat. The demands of the little-known species has led Georgia officials to characterize the debate as a contest of "man versus mussel" -- suggesting that Georgians should get the water before mussels do....
Rethinking Fire Policy in the Tinderbox Zone As Californians sift through the cinders of this week’s deadly wildfires, there is a growing consensus that the state’s war against such disasters — as it is currently being fought — cannot be won. “California has lost 1.5 million acres in the last four years,” said Richard A. Minnich, a professor of earth sciences who teaches fire ecology at the University of California, Riverside. “When do we declare the policy a failure?” Fire-management experts like Professor Minnich, who has compared fire histories in San Diego County and Baja California in Mexico, say the message is clear: Mexico has smaller fires that burn out naturally, regularly clearing out combustible underbrush and causing relatively little destruction because the cycle is still natural. California has giant ones because its longtime policies of fire suppression — in which the government has kept fires from their normal cycle — has created huge pockets of fuel that erupt into conflagrations that must be fought. “We’re on all year round,” said Brett Chapman, a firefighter with the United States Forest Service who worked 15-hour shifts this week in the Lake Arrowhead area east of Los Angeles....
Wolves at the door There’s a moment in William Campbell’s new documentary when a Paradise Valley rancher looks across the pasture and says, “Wolves and cows don’t mix.” Over the next hour, Campbell, an award-winning photographer with Time Magazine and a journalist with CNN, explores the strange waltz taking place between environmentalists and ranchers when it comes to living with wolves in Montana. “Wolves are emblematic of the future of the West in a lot of ways,” Campbell said. “You can use the wolf issue to get in touch with the development issue and the land issue, because they affect the landscape in such a dramatic way.” Filmed in southwest Montana, “Wolves in Paradise” follows the wolves from their release in Yellowstone Park during reintroduction in 1995. It tracks the animals as they expand outward, challenging the adaptability of humans when coping with their presence....
Wolf shot; animal had killed cattle A young male wolf whose pack was suspected of killing cattle west of Kalispell was shot this week by federal wildlife agents, a situation that is becoming more common as wolf populations expand dramatically in northwest Montana. “Livestock depredations are still low,” said Kent Laudon, “but it's been a busy year, busier than we've seen in a long time.” Laudon is a wolf management specialist for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and his territory ranges across miles of northwest Montana, from Canada to Interstate 90, and from Idaho to the Rocky Mountain Front. Wolf numbers, he said, are exploding there, as new packs pop up faster than biologists can keep count. With a pack home range of 200 square miles or more, and individual dispersers traveling upward of 500 miles, it wasn't long before the Glacier wolves began to repopulate the region - crossing, in the process, considerable private acres, including acres thick with livestock. In 1980, one Montana wolf was documented. In 1986, 16 wolves. By 1993, 55 wolves. More than 70 were counted in northwest Montana by 1996. And last year, a whopping 316 wolves roamed the region....
Wolves in N. Idaho wilderness elude officials An attempt by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to attach radio collars to wolves in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness Area in northern Idaho has failed. But officials said they learned the wolves’ habits over the summer, including the rendezvous sites of several packs, and are optimistic of success next year. “If you can focus efforts where you know wolves are coming to, as opposed to just randomly trapping a wolf, your success rates are radically different,” said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the department. The department wants to place a radio collar on at least one wolf in each wolf pack in Idaho so the state can have a better understanding of wolf populations and their movements when it takes over management of wolves from the federal government. Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are seeking to end federal oversight of wolves by each state taking over management of the animals within their borders. Each state would be required to maintain a minimum of 100 wolves including 10 breeding pairs. Idaho has an estimated 788 wolves, up from 673 last year....
Old trees, new plan Once again, the big trees of Western Oregon are at the center of a battle. The basic question is simple: Should the old, federally owned trees be left standing, or should a sizable number be logged? Many people thought the fight over old growth was settled in 1994 when the federal government adopted the Northwest Forest Plan, which drastically curtailed logging and set aside reserves for northern spotted owls and other species at risk of extinction. But the timber industry and the Bush administration are in the midst of a major push against those restrictions. The new logging war still rouses the passions of the old one, which dominated headlines from the late 1980s through 1994. It’s the same fight with some challenging new dynamics....
Fingerpointing ensues over copters grounded during California wildfires State and federal officials on Saturday blamed each other for allowing nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters to sit idle while deadly wildfires ravaged Southern California, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to improve the state's response to battling wildfires. The head of the state's firefighting agency lashed out at the Marines and U.S. Forest Service, saying the military had failed to commit to the training necessary to launch helicopters more quickly. The Forest Service had neglected to provide enough helicopter managers to launch the aircrafts when they became available, he said. "We're getting all of this criticism and I don't want to get into saying it should have been the Forest Service, should have been the Marines," said Ruben Grijalva, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "But that's why I'm talking today because it's affecting the morale of this organization." The Forest Service disputed Grijalva's claim, saying that providing fire spotters for Marines wasn't solely a federal responsibility. Forest Service officials also cast doubt on assertions by members of the military and several members of California's Congressional delegation that the Marine helicopters were ready days before they were called into action. Dennis Hulbert, Regional Aviation Officer for the U.S. Forest Service in California, said the Marines were primarily responsible for the delay....
Red Tape Hampers Firefighting Capabilities Reporters covering the wildfires in California have been effusive about the capacities of the converted DC-10 airliner that has been dropping retardant on the blazes around Lake Arrowhead, and the enthusiasm is warranted. Sometimes called the Tanker 910, and sometimes the 10 Tanker Air Carrier, the plane can carry 12,000 gallons of fire retardant or water in tanks attached under its belly. That’s 10 times as much liquid as the other available California air tankers, and four times the capacity of the largest-available tankers operated by the federal government. It can create a fire line three-quarters of a mile long — or drop water over a mile-long, 300-foot-wide swath — in eight seconds. It can be refilled in eight minutes. And it would be nice to have more such planes available, don’t you think? If the federal government had had its way, Tanker 910 almost certainly wouldn’t have been flying this week. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut through some red tape a few months ago to make this one available. And, as useful as the Tanker 910 has shown itself to be, the U.S. Forest Service still hasn’t certified this plane for use over federal lands....
Environmentalist informant pleads guilty to arson The informant who helped convict many of the 10 radical environmentalists known as "the Family" pleaded guilty in federal court today to arson and attempted arson. Thirty-five-year-old Jacob Ferguson admitted setting fire to the U.S Forest Service Ranger Station in Detroit, Ore., and a government pickup in 1996. Ferguson turned informant three years ago as investigators were closing in on the group who had set 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001, causing more than $40 million in damage. All 10 were sentenced this year after pleading guilty to arson and other charges. Sentencing for Ferguson was set for Jan. 10.
History, management of park horses being debated The grace and beauty of the wild horses roaming in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are not in dispute, but there is disagreement about where they came from, and how to manage them. A roundup, called off earlier this month after a helicopter crash that injured two people, was to cull 75 of the park's herd of about 125 horses for auction to bring the herd down to 50, a size park officials consider more manageable. The National Park Service, unlike the Bureau of Land Management, does not maintain a large number of wild horses. The BLM has about 31,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states that are protected by federal law. The National Park Service has fewer than 700 wild horses, in five national parks. Minnesota horse breeders Nola and Dave Robson and Bob and Deb Fjetland are among those who believe the horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are descendants of horses owned by the Plains Indians. They call the breed Nokota, and are dedicated to its preservation.....
Texas senators block energy bill Texas' two senators have blocked Congress' ambitious energy legislation from moving forward, arguing the ethanol-friendly bill would hurt dominant industries in their home state. The massive energy bill has provisions that have attracted the scrutiny of virtually every special interest group. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who last week placed a procedural hold on the bill, argues that it would be particularly bad for Texas' oil and gas and agriculture sectors. Oil companies are fighting the bill's attempt to repeal tax incentives that were intended to spur domestic oil production. Texas' agriculture interests worry that a proposed doubling of the mandated use of ethanol, which mostly comes from corn, would make commodity prices skyrocket and hurt ranchers and feedlots....
BLM scraps historic Chicken dredge A rich piece of Alaska’s gold mining history is sitting in a dump in Tok after being demolished because the Bureau of Land Management deemed it dangerous. The Jack Wade Dredge at Mile 86 of the Taylor Highway was dismantled last month. The abandoned dredge sat on the bank of Jack Wade Creek for 72 years and was a popular tourist attraction on the 160-mile road from Tok to Eagle. “People loved to camp at it and to pan for gold there,” said Robin Hammond, the postmaster in the small mining town of Chicken a few miles south of where the dredge sat. One of the first bucket-line dredges in the famed Fortymile mining country, the Jack Wade Dredge was freighted up the Fortymile River from Dawson in the winter of 1906-07....
Cattle movement across Canadian border expected to be slow When the U.S. border opens to Canadian cattle older than 30 months on Nov. 19, the influx of older cattle coming south will be minimal, ranchers in Alberta and Saskatchewan say. Age verification requirements, currency parity and transportation costs will limit movement. Nevertheless, Montana cattlemen argue that the timing of the opening is poor for the U.S. cull market and is premature in that age limitations on U.S. cattle/beef exports should first be resolved with Japan and South Korea. Also, the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy contamination from Canadian cattle is too great, some say. The specters of congressional intervention or judicial injunction are hovering just offstage, too. The mid-November deadline is the latest chapter in a saga that began in 2003 with the discovery of BSE in cattle on both sides of the border. Since that time, 10 Canadian animals have been verified with BSE; three animals in the United States have been confirmed, the first being an import from Canada....
Nevada's great cloud-rustling controversy About 30 miles south of Gardnerville is an unremarkable patch of land that was once the center of a hurricane of controversy involving the right to claim water in rain clouds. In December 1947, Nevada rancher Dick Haman and partner Freeman Fairfield filed a claim to all the water clouds passing over their 12,300-acre spread near Topaz Lake (located adjacent to the Holbrook Junction). At the time, the 35-year-old Haman was manager of Fairfield's Rocking F Ranch. A former University of Nevada football star, Haman had worked as a Hollywood studio artist and a professional boxer before returning to Nevada. Haman helped Fairfield purchase the Rocking F Ranch in 1946 and agreed to manage the property. Immediately, he was confronted with the fact that the property had no water....
On the edge of common sense: Regeneration, like life, doesn't always play fair Every time I see a moose head mounted on somebody's wall, I marvel at the size of their horns. They must weigh 40 pounds. It would be the equivalent of me wearing a cowboy hat made of cinder blocks. Night and day for months in a row. What is even more amazing is that they shed these giant racks annually, take a few weeks off and then spend the next year growing them back. The same thing applies to deer and elk, but for sheer mass of bone, the moose puts them to shame. Why is it that longhorn steers, wildebeest and pronghorn antelope don't shed their horns? Are they shy? Is it a fashion consideration, a long-term commitment. ... Do they need them year round to fight, dig roots, or write their name in the bark? If you want to salute the king of regeneration, look at the lizard. He has the ability to lose his tail, have it broken off, and grow a new one back. Talk about commitment. That would be comparable to an elephant shedding his trunk and growing a new one....
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The sustenance of rural living
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
If ever, even for one short minute, you doubted why you live in a small community where everybody knows your business, what you eat for lunch, where and with whom, what you drive and when you last washed it, what your real hair color is and how you look before 6 a.m., stop wondering.
The heart of a close-knit hamlet is as big as the countryside around it. Sometimes you don't see it until you, or someone you know, needs it.
You may not even know you need it until the community pours its understanding, sentiment, prayers, ideas, suggestions, and even a few casseroles, upon you.
It happened this week; it has happened often in the many years before.
A death in the family, tragedy of any kind, accident or something that affected a child happens and the people put down their causes, their differences and their issues and rally around for support.
"Let me know if there is something I can do," echoes through the air day and night and comes from the deepest sincerity.
Phone calls, emails and chats on the sidewalk, in cafés, offices and at the post office supersede any mass-media attempts to offer information, condolences or support.
When the saints pray, heaven moves. When the community rallies, walls fall.
This time, it was one of our kids who pulled back the curtain and exposed the power of caring people.
As teenagers will do, he got almost grown up, he thought, and decided he didn't have to live at home, be in school and all that "stuff" that requires meeting standards and following rules.
So he walked away from school and left his mother, dad and hundreds of people looking for him, praying for him, sharing information about what they might know and seeking to find resolution in something that could happen to any of us.
Right now, he thinks it is all about him and what he wants. He has no idea the things his emotional decision set in motion behind him.
However, his family does. His friends do. His school friends, his teachers, his church and pastors, neighbors, and friends and associates of his parents do.
Within 24 hours people in half-a-dozen states were sending prayers and support to the appropriate places.
There is a long list of teen runaway statistics.
Between 1.3 and 2.8 million runaway and homeless youth live on the streets of America each year.
One in seven youths will run away from home before the age of 18.
This incident became a statistic in the big picture. But locally, he is one of ours. He has a name, a face, a personality, and he belongs to us.
For us, he is not a statistic. He is one of ours.
His peers have watched this unfold. There is a lesson here for the teens that he passed in the halls every day at the high school. A lesson they need to grab ahold of and remember always.
Life gets hard, life seems unfair and sometimes, life, right at the heart of where you live, seems unbearable.
The remedy for that is not being somewhere else out of reach of the people who can help you. The antidote is right where you stand with the people who know you, love you and are willing to help you without ulterior motives.
What I want them to understand is, if they run, they only take the pain with them. They also leave plenty of it behind with a community who will take it on until things are made right again.
Then, and only then, will we return to the normalcy of small-town living in the endless blur of small talk, local politics and weather predictions.
Meet Julie on her Web site at www.julie-carter.com
It’s The Pitts: Wasted Wisdom
Darol and I were sitting around commenting on the condition of our country when a rare and highly improbable thing happened: Darol got a great idea.
It may never happen again in our lifetime.
Darol thinks that Congress and the President might cut down on their expensive errors and idiotic ideas if they had an advisory council of old folks to warn them when they were about to do something really stupid.
I like the idea. Advisory councils are cheaper than consultants and use smaller words than economists and professors. Admittedly, some advisory councils are largely ceremonial but what Darol has in mind is an active advisory council made up of really ancient people. Since the government likes long names, which they can then abbreviate, we thought we’d call the advisory council the United States OLD Council of Obviously Terminal Seniors or, USOLDCOOTS for short. A lot of wisdom is just going to waste in this country and our politicians could benefit from the advice of people who have seen and done everything. For example, before going to war our politicians might ask the advice of someone who had actually been in one before.
An advisory council would provide a continuity to our government that we don’t have now. For example, how many Secretaries of Agriculture have we had under this administration? I lost count. They don’t seem to last as long as a bunch of bananas in a monkey house. Which seems an apt description, don’t you think? With USOLDCOOTS on the job our government might not keep repeating the same old mistakes.
As for the makeup of USOLDCOOTS Darol and I would like to see it composed of an octogenarian rancher, a retired grunt from the military and a school teacher wife who has raised at least three kids and supported her farmer/husband for a minimum of 35 years. Here’s an example of the type of person we’d want on USOLDCOOTS.
Lester Wilshire, Darol’s grandfather, received a visitor from the USDA who wanted to count his cows. It was during the Depression and USDA was giving farmers about 35 cents for every cow they killed. It was like the dairy buyout only with bullets.
When the USDA official got out of his official USDA car he handed Lester his impressive business card. It shone with a bright luster and had his name and USDA logo embossed on it with a six-line Washington DC address and all sorts of big words. The USDA man was quite full of himself and puffed up bigger than a bloated bull. You could just tell he was a real expert, the kind of guy who could look at any animal and tell you instantly if it was a male or a female and be right about half the time.
The USDA official stated his business with a great degree of confidence as he put on some rubber booties over his shiny soft shoes and explained to Lester that he was going to go into his pasture and count his cows. Lester offered to gather the cattle and place them in a holding corral but the USDA official would have none of it. He wanted to make sure that there’d be no cheating the government out of 35 cents.
Lester tried to warn the USDA man that there were dangers lurking in the tall grass but the USDA man paid him no heed and went off tiptoeing through the cow pies. Lester was not at all surprised when, in less than five minutes, here came the USDA official running faster than Jesse Owens with Lester’s Jersey bull breathing right down his trailer hitch. I think you get the picture. The USDA official looked to be in considerable distress as he passed Lester going 40 miles per hour and was begging Lester for either help and/or advice on how to deal with his present pursuer. Because the USDA official and the Jersey bull were rapidly getting out of hearing range Lester yelled at the top of his voice, “Show him your card. Show him your card.”
Now that’s the kind of person I’d put on the old persons advisory council.
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
If ever, even for one short minute, you doubted why you live in a small community where everybody knows your business, what you eat for lunch, where and with whom, what you drive and when you last washed it, what your real hair color is and how you look before 6 a.m., stop wondering.
The heart of a close-knit hamlet is as big as the countryside around it. Sometimes you don't see it until you, or someone you know, needs it.
You may not even know you need it until the community pours its understanding, sentiment, prayers, ideas, suggestions, and even a few casseroles, upon you.
It happened this week; it has happened often in the many years before.
A death in the family, tragedy of any kind, accident or something that affected a child happens and the people put down their causes, their differences and their issues and rally around for support.
"Let me know if there is something I can do," echoes through the air day and night and comes from the deepest sincerity.
Phone calls, emails and chats on the sidewalk, in cafés, offices and at the post office supersede any mass-media attempts to offer information, condolences or support.
When the saints pray, heaven moves. When the community rallies, walls fall.
This time, it was one of our kids who pulled back the curtain and exposed the power of caring people.
As teenagers will do, he got almost grown up, he thought, and decided he didn't have to live at home, be in school and all that "stuff" that requires meeting standards and following rules.
So he walked away from school and left his mother, dad and hundreds of people looking for him, praying for him, sharing information about what they might know and seeking to find resolution in something that could happen to any of us.
Right now, he thinks it is all about him and what he wants. He has no idea the things his emotional decision set in motion behind him.
However, his family does. His friends do. His school friends, his teachers, his church and pastors, neighbors, and friends and associates of his parents do.
Within 24 hours people in half-a-dozen states were sending prayers and support to the appropriate places.
There is a long list of teen runaway statistics.
Between 1.3 and 2.8 million runaway and homeless youth live on the streets of America each year.
One in seven youths will run away from home before the age of 18.
This incident became a statistic in the big picture. But locally, he is one of ours. He has a name, a face, a personality, and he belongs to us.
For us, he is not a statistic. He is one of ours.
His peers have watched this unfold. There is a lesson here for the teens that he passed in the halls every day at the high school. A lesson they need to grab ahold of and remember always.
Life gets hard, life seems unfair and sometimes, life, right at the heart of where you live, seems unbearable.
The remedy for that is not being somewhere else out of reach of the people who can help you. The antidote is right where you stand with the people who know you, love you and are willing to help you without ulterior motives.
What I want them to understand is, if they run, they only take the pain with them. They also leave plenty of it behind with a community who will take it on until things are made right again.
Then, and only then, will we return to the normalcy of small-town living in the endless blur of small talk, local politics and weather predictions.
Meet Julie on her Web site at www.julie-carter.com
It’s The Pitts: Wasted Wisdom
Darol and I were sitting around commenting on the condition of our country when a rare and highly improbable thing happened: Darol got a great idea.
It may never happen again in our lifetime.
Darol thinks that Congress and the President might cut down on their expensive errors and idiotic ideas if they had an advisory council of old folks to warn them when they were about to do something really stupid.
I like the idea. Advisory councils are cheaper than consultants and use smaller words than economists and professors. Admittedly, some advisory councils are largely ceremonial but what Darol has in mind is an active advisory council made up of really ancient people. Since the government likes long names, which they can then abbreviate, we thought we’d call the advisory council the United States OLD Council of Obviously Terminal Seniors or, USOLDCOOTS for short. A lot of wisdom is just going to waste in this country and our politicians could benefit from the advice of people who have seen and done everything. For example, before going to war our politicians might ask the advice of someone who had actually been in one before.
An advisory council would provide a continuity to our government that we don’t have now. For example, how many Secretaries of Agriculture have we had under this administration? I lost count. They don’t seem to last as long as a bunch of bananas in a monkey house. Which seems an apt description, don’t you think? With USOLDCOOTS on the job our government might not keep repeating the same old mistakes.
As for the makeup of USOLDCOOTS Darol and I would like to see it composed of an octogenarian rancher, a retired grunt from the military and a school teacher wife who has raised at least three kids and supported her farmer/husband for a minimum of 35 years. Here’s an example of the type of person we’d want on USOLDCOOTS.
Lester Wilshire, Darol’s grandfather, received a visitor from the USDA who wanted to count his cows. It was during the Depression and USDA was giving farmers about 35 cents for every cow they killed. It was like the dairy buyout only with bullets.
When the USDA official got out of his official USDA car he handed Lester his impressive business card. It shone with a bright luster and had his name and USDA logo embossed on it with a six-line Washington DC address and all sorts of big words. The USDA man was quite full of himself and puffed up bigger than a bloated bull. You could just tell he was a real expert, the kind of guy who could look at any animal and tell you instantly if it was a male or a female and be right about half the time.
The USDA official stated his business with a great degree of confidence as he put on some rubber booties over his shiny soft shoes and explained to Lester that he was going to go into his pasture and count his cows. Lester offered to gather the cattle and place them in a holding corral but the USDA official would have none of it. He wanted to make sure that there’d be no cheating the government out of 35 cents.
Lester tried to warn the USDA man that there were dangers lurking in the tall grass but the USDA man paid him no heed and went off tiptoeing through the cow pies. Lester was not at all surprised when, in less than five minutes, here came the USDA official running faster than Jesse Owens with Lester’s Jersey bull breathing right down his trailer hitch. I think you get the picture. The USDA official looked to be in considerable distress as he passed Lester going 40 miles per hour and was begging Lester for either help and/or advice on how to deal with his present pursuer. Because the USDA official and the Jersey bull were rapidly getting out of hearing range Lester yelled at the top of his voice, “Show him your card. Show him your card.”
Now that’s the kind of person I’d put on the old persons advisory council.
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