Arctic May Hold 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, U.S. Says The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years, the U.S. Geological Survey said. One-third of the undiscovered oil is in Alaskan territory, the agency found in a study released today. By contrast, a geologic formation beneath the North Pole claimed by Russian scientists last year probably holds just 1.2 percent of the Arctic's crude, the U.S. report showed. Energy producers such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp. have accelerated exploration of the northernmost regions for untapped reserves amid record prices and receding access to deposits in more hospitable climates. Russia's move to scrap a United Nations convention and carve out an exclusive Arctic zone sparked protests from Canada, the U.S., Norway and Denmark. ``Most of the Arctic, especially offshore, is essentially unexplored with respect to petroleum,'' Donald Gautier, the project chief for the assessment, said in the report. ``The extensive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.''....
Arctic's oil could meet world demand for 3 years The Arctic Circle holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil, enough supply to meet current world demand for almost three years, the U.S. Geological Survey forecast on Wednesday. The government agency also said the area could contain 1,670 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas. The Arctic accounts for about 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids, the agency said in the first publicly available petroleum resource estimate of the entire area north of the Arctic Circle....
To Clean a Dirt Tank and the Real Loss I am not a range specialist, a botanist, or a biologist. The environmental impact of grazing will be left for others to argue. However, I do know a little about time. People pay for me my time, time I spend thinking or writing. I try to live my life by advice I was given as a teenager: where I allocate my time reveals what I value. So when I heard it took Tom Mobley, a rancher and retired banker, five months to navigate the Bureau of Land Management’s permit process to clean a dirt tank, I blanched and dialed his number. Mobley agreed to meet with me at his home, north of Las Cruces. I arrived 15 minutes late. On a ranch, you fix what breaks. Fences are mended, levees repaired, tractors older than grandchildren are made to run. Fixing what is broken is half the job. Summer floods breached a dirt tank on Mobley’s grazing allotment in the Sierra de las Uvas. The Citizen’s Proposal recommends 11,068 acres in the Sierra de las Uvas be designated as wilderness. Mobley grazes 900 acres adjoining his ranch of the proposed wilderness, now a Wilderness Study Area. Rains in the Sierra De Las Uvas come fast and sudden, carving rivers down the slopes, rushing to the Rio Grande. The breached dirt tank stores a little of the West’s most precious resource for livestock and passing wildlife....
Tug of war over Pinon Canyon ongoing Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar has held off the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site for a year and the Democrat repeated his intention Wednesday to keep a ban on the expansion in the federal budget through next year. "I will continue to fight for that moratorium and want us to succeed in keeping it in place through next year," he told reporters in a telephone press conference Wednesday. "In the meantime, the Army has released a report that takes some steps in the right direction by reducing the amount of acreage it wants and it speaks to preserving the ranching heritage of the area." Salazar credited the Army with shrinking its land request from 414,000 acres to just 100,000 acres - but said he found the Army's promise to create 100 or more civilian jobs at the training site to be vague and pegged too far in the future, perhaps in 2014 or 2015, to be convincing. He argued the Army made many promises 20 years ago in acquiring Pinon Canyon that it never kept. The ranchers and other critics opposing the expansion are not interested in seeing the Army expand the 238,000-acre training site, regardless of whether the Army can find a willing seller or offers economic incentives to local communities. They have been urging Salazar this week to keep resisting the expansion, arguing the Army has yet to prove any need for more land in Colorado. "In calling for this report, Congress directed the Army to do two things: Explain why it wanted to take more land from the people of Colorado and to fully explore other options," Lon Robertson, president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, said in a statement. "It's clear from the report the Army did neither."....
SUV, pickup sales feel affects of gas crunch The rise in the price of oil and gas has had mixed effects on the sales of full-size pickups and sport utility vehicles, according to Clovis and Portales dealerships. “With the rise in gas prices we’ve seen an increased interest in fuel efficient cars and pickups with smaller engines,” said Shawn Hamilton, owner of Big Country Ford in Clovis and Hamilton GM Country in Portales. “The sales market in this area has been predominately SUVs and trucks,” Hamilton said. Hamilton said that the sale of SUVs and pickups has not stopped it just evened out with the sales of cars. The sales of pickups and SUVs was 3-1 when compared to car sales, Hamilton said. People that were buying the larger vehicles because they liked them, and didn’t necessarily need them for work, are now looking towards the fuel efficient cars., said Hamilton. “The ranchers and farmers in the area are still buying the trucks because they need them.”....
How the west is tamed Colorado’s history can be told in the history of its land. Land that has been taken, land that has been transferred, land that has been handed down within families, and land that has been lost. When interest in mining waned, Eagle County shifted to agriculture and ranching, generally favoring lettuce and potatoes. Surrounding areas like Steamboat Springs relied more heavily on cattle ranching, and had enough open space to allow the practice to flourish. Finally, skiing struck a chord with the public, and the industry took hold in the region. The town of Vail was jumpstarted, and quickly organized itself around the new industry. The rest is history. Development and rising real estate prices has pushed Eagle County’s ranching heritage to the western part of the county. Even there, development is squeezing ranchers out. Cattle ranching, once the hub of the local economy and kindling for the legend of Steamboat, appears to be riding off into the sunset. “It’s not one thing that’s changing in Steamboat, it’s everything,” said Andy Wirth, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of sales and marketing for Intrawest. “The scope and scale of improvements coming to Steamboat are without compare in the ski area’s history.”....
Boondoggle in the Fields The Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, was established in 1985. Designed to keep marginal lands out of Ag production, CRP pays farmers and ranchers to retire acreage from commodity production in exchange for an annual rental fee. In 2007 the cost of the program was $1.8 billion. With the raising price for commodities like corn and other grains due to the ethanol craze, farmers and ranchers are now crying to have their (CRP) contracts terminated. They are appealing to the Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, to terminate the contracts due to “national emergency” which they claim is the need to grow more food to reduce consumer prices. Of course, it is really about growing farmer and rancher bank accounts. Some environmental groups are opposing contract termination, and are trying to keep these lands in the CRP program, for a host of reason, not the least that CRP does reduce soil erosion, improvements in water quality, and provides wildlife habitat. Allowing farmers and ranchers to opt out of their contracts simply because they can “earn” more money farming the land for its green gold than farming the US Treasury is not a good reason to cancel the CRP contracts. The attempt to terminate contracts displays one of the greatest weaknesses of the CRP program—its lack of permanence. CRP benefits are transitory and at a high price--$36 billion so far and counting. It’s time to reconsider its future....
After Cattle Found Dead, Local Ranchers Suspect Oil Leakage Is To Blame A gruesome discovery for some Harrison County cattle ranchers when a number of their stock are mysteriously found dead. The ranch is a lease property off of FM 2879, about 6 miles north of Longview. KLTV 7's Bob Hallmark has more on the ranchers, who believe they know what happened to some of their cattle. "I found one calf dead. I come on over, and I found two more dead, and I've got eleven missing," Bev Davis tells us. "We were shocked, and then we didn't know what was wrong," says Alice Davis. The Davis' lease the land to graze cattle. An exploration company has a gas well on the land. It's a transfer line that helps the natural gas and oil. The Davis' suspect the problem is the well tank that overflowed into a retaining area....
Tests show 7 more infected cows in Daniel herd State Veterinarian Walt Cook said Thursday that seven more cows have tested positive for brucellosis in a western Wyoming cattle herd infected with the livestock disease. The results bring the total number of brucellosis-infected cattle in the herd to 36. So far, the 650-head herd near Daniel is the only herd in Wyoming to test positive for the bacterial infection, which can cause cows to suffer abortions and infertility. Wyoming and federal livestock officials are testing 14 other cattle herds that had contact with the infected herd. Of the two contact herds tested so far, both turned up negative. A third rancher opted to spay his herd, thereby preventing the potential spread of the disease, rather than test them. The state will lose its federal brucellosis-free status if another herd tests positive for brucellosis within two years....
State vet: Brucellosis came from elk Montana livestock officials announced this morning that the brucellosis that infected a Paradise Valley cow this spring likely came from elk, not bison. Marty Zaluski, the Montana state veterinarian, said recently completed genetic tests of the bacteria, along with other studies of the case, suggest the cow did not get the disease from bison in and around Yellowstone National Park, nor did the disease come from domestic stock. “We’ve now had two cases of the disease in two years, and no contact with bison in either case,” Zaluski said. “It supports our conclusion that elk were the source in both cases.” Brucellosis is a serious disease in livestock and wildlife that causes cows to abort their calves. The disease has been eradicated in the United States, except for bison and elk in and around Yellowstone Park, where the animals contracted the disease for domestic stock almost 100 years ago. Montana has recently experienced two incidents of the disease in cattle, which means the state will lose its official “brucellosis-free” status. The change means Montana ranchers will have to conduct more tests of their stock before shipping them to the out-of-state markets where almost all Montana’s cattle crop ends up....
State gets 45 herd buyouts in fight against bovine TB A state official said Thursday that a "significant step toward eradicating bovine TB from northwest Minnesota" has been taken. The Board of Animal Health has received 45 herd buyout contracts signed by cattle producers in the bovine tuberculosis management zone. Sixty-seven producers were eligible for the buyout. The board estimates that 6,800 cattle will be removed from the TB disease management area as a result of the buyout program. Herd owners participating in the buyout will be paid $500 per head, plus $75 per head per year until Minnesota regains TB-free status. All animals that are part of the buyout must be removed from the zone or slaughtered by Jan. 31, 2009....
Frontier spirit lives on in breakaway U.S. 'state' In early 1939, as talk of war in Europe clouded the horizon and hard economic times gripped the nation, a group of business and political leaders in this northern Wyoming city hatched an audacious, if not quite ridiculous, plan to break off huge chunks of Wyoming, South Dakota and Montana and form a new state. The tale of the would-be rebels, who called their new state Absaroka (accent on the second syllable), from the Crow word meaning "children of the large-beaked bird," then faded into the mist. Details were forgotten - how a baseball-player-turned-street-commissioner in Sheridan named A.R. Swickard appointed himself governor and began hearing writs of grievance, and how license plates were distributed along with pictures of Miss Absaroka 1939, the first and apparently last of her breed. There was even an Absarokan state visit, when the king of Norway made a swing through Montana. But here is the great open secret of this part of the West: The frontier spirit of the state that never was lives on....
Ranch Rodeo brings out true ranch skills A great night of family entertainment was delivered Ranch Rodeo style at the North Dakota State Fair. Twelve teams of five ranchers competed in five non-traditional rodeo events as they tried to chase down the 2008 State Fair Ranch Rodeo competition in the All Seasons Arena. Unlike a regular rodeo, the events at this skills event were the Trailer Relay, Trailer Loading, Range Doctoring, Steer Mugging and the most dangerous event of all, the Wild Cow Milking. The Gooseneck Implement team out of Palermo/Stanley won two of the five events to help them to the title. Team members Wade Skaar, Jeff Ruud, Jodi Bohmbach, Jed Bohmbach and Curt Meyer performed steady all-night long as they built a 40-point lead going into the last event and won the overall competition with 400 points. "We have all been doing all the rope skills since we were young," said team captain Wade Skaar. "The members on our team have been ranching for most of our lives." Jed Bohmbach stated that the Ranch Rodeo concept had been around for years, but went away for a long time. The event is just starting to reappear. The Gooseneck team finished third in last year's inaugural State Fair event....
Book recounts Rough Riders Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. What you may not know is the account of Rough Rider Billy McGinty, who was from right here in Oklahoma. “Oklahoma Rough Rider: Billy McGinty’s Own Story” is a manuscript written by McGinty himself with commentary and notes by Jim Fulbright and Albert Stehno. Fulbright and Stehno held a book-signing in Enid Tuesday evening at Soap-weed and Cactus. “It’s a rare firsthand account,” Fulbright said. “There are a lot of things in there people don’t know.” The manuscript, which has never before been published, was given to Stehno by McGinty’s granddaughter, Delma Imogene Crozier, in 1995. “(McGinty) had written one book that was published and it is scarce, and he had written this one, which was never published,” said Stehno, a Billings rancher and member of the Cherokee Strip Historical Society board. Stehno, a longtime friend of the McGinty family, began to research the story and the events therein and later collaborated with Fulbright to edit and write a commentary to this one-of-a-kind account....
Cookoff at the better-than-OK Cheyenne corral Walker Ryan poked at the crackling fire pit by his chuck wagon. He wore his game face, complete with bristly mustache. Come Saturday, he and his wife, Linda, face more than a half-dozen other challengers at the Frontier Days' chuck wagon cookoff in Cheyenne. It's at high noon, naturally. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday had their six-guns. The Ryans come armed with 300 pounds of cast-iron Lodge cookware, black as night and beautifully seasoned. A 16-inch-diameter Dutch oven that turns out feathery biscuits weighs 40 pounds. "Believe me, they've been well-used," Walker told me. "That 20-inch skillet? There's no telling how many potatoes have been fried in it." The Ryans hail from Ryan, Okla., a town named after Walker's great-uncle. They're beef ranchers, though Linda has a beauty salon on the side. They've competed in cowboy cookoffs for nearly a dozen years. It all started at the Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering in Fort Worth, Texas. Over the years, the Ryans have patiently assembled a collection of vintage cooking gear: knives, a sharpening steel, a vintage coffee grinder, enamelware, ceramic crocks and a wooden water barrel. Judges at these events, where top prizes run about $1,000, assess contestants' campsites and wagons. Cookoff categories are meat, beans, potatoes, bread and dessert, which I suppose constitutes the cowboy food pyramid....