Friday, February 29, 2008
Wheat Tops $12 a Bushel for First Time on Rising Food Demand Wheat climbed above $12 a bushel for the first time in Chicago, as investors poured money into agricultural commodities on signs that crop production isn't keeping pace with demand. Global wheat stockpiles probably will fall to a 30-year low this year, while corn inventories are headed for the lowest since 1984, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Feb. 8. Almost $1.5 billion flowed into farm commodities in the week to Feb. 19, investment bank UBS AG said yesterday. The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials has jumped 15 percent this year. Wheat, soybeans, corn and palm oil are among commodities that have touched records this month, stoking prices of bread, noodles and crackers worldwide. The gains have driven up costs for food companies from Kellogg Co. to Premier Foods Plc and complicated efforts to curb prices in China, India and Malaysia....
Harkin: Meat safety requires ID program Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., says this month’s massive beef recall shows that it’s time to have a national animal identification system. Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said today that a lot of meat could have been saved if inspectors had been able to trace some suspect cows slaughtered by a California packing plant. Instead, the processor was forced to recall 143 million pounds of beef, a full two years’ worth of production. Harkin said his panel would pursue the ID issue once work on the farm bill is finished, but he stopped short of saying that Congress should make the program mandatory. Many cattle producers strongly oppose being required to participate in an ID system. “This is a matter of public safety, and we’ve got to get to it very soon,” Harkin said....
California sues U.S. Forest Service California sued the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday over plans that would open more than 500,000 acres to roads and oil drilling in the state's largest national forests. The four Southern California forests -- Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland -- comprise more than 3.5 million acres that stretch from Big Sur to the Mexican border. The suit alleges that the Forest Service violated the federal National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act by not informing the state of potential environmental impacts of its plan, and by not working with the state's laws and policies. Since 2006, California has had a moratorium on road construction in pristine areas of its national forests. State officials also took issue with the roughly 500,000 acres the Forest Service has set aside as wilderness land, an amount that environmentalists and scientists said is half of what would be necessary to protect habitat....
Canada Lynx May Win Back Critical Habitat Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released revised plans to establish critical habitat for Canada lynx in Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Washington and Wyoming. The new habitat protection plan is in response to an investigation that found that a Bush administration political appointees interfered with the scientific process in the original decision. "The possibility of stronger protection for the Canada lynx is welcome news," said Tara Thornton, Northeast representative for the Endangered Species Coalition, a national network of hundreds of conservation, scientific, religious, sporting, outdoor recreation, business and community organizations. Today’s proposal would add 40,913 square miles to the 1,841 square miles of critical habitat for the lynx proposed previously, bringing the total to 42,753 square miles. The new rule may have an impact on land use decisions and development in the affected states....
Canada lynx "critical habitat" leaves Colorado out of it again Colorado has again been left out of the "critical habitat" area for the Canada lynx, despite the state's effort to bring back the threatened species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday proposed an expanded territory for the reclusive cat across the northern Rockies. Colorado's reintroduced population of an estimated 125 lynx was not yet "biologically sustainable," the agency said. Conservationists said not having a critical habitat designation, which requires federal and private landowners to take into consideration the impact of land-use activities on species recovery, was a setback. "The whole point of critical habitat is recovery, and we're not going to recover the lynx if we don't have adequate protection," said Josh Pollock, conservation director for the Center for Native Ecosystems. The state Division of Wildlife said a critical habitat designation would have little effect on the reintroduction effort, which suffered a setback last spring when no new kittens were believed to have been born....
Canada lynx "critical habitat" leaves Colorado out of it again Colorado has again been left out of the "critical habitat" area for the Canada lynx, despite the state's effort to bring back the threatened species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday proposed an expanded territory for the reclusive cat across the northern Rockies. Colorado's reintroduced population of an estimated 125 lynx was not yet "biologically sustainable," the agency said. Conservationists said not having a critical habitat designation, which requires federal and private landowners to take into consideration the impact of land-use activities on species recovery, was a setback. "The whole point of critical habitat is recovery, and we're not going to recover the lynx if we don't have adequate protection," said Josh Pollock, conservation director for the Center for Native Ecosystems. The state Division of Wildlife said a critical habitat designation would have little effect on the reintroduction effort, which suffered a setback last spring when no new kittens were believed to have been born....
Cowboy Hats & The First Amendment Tony Seno walked away not much richer in dollars, but with the satisfaction of a judgment upholding his right and that of other citizens to speak to elected boards, hat-on or hat-off. After a four-hour federal court arbitration hearing, Seno accepted a settlement of $10,500 from Lincoln County for an incident connected to two commission meetings in May 2005, when Seno refused to remove his cowboy hat while speaking at the podium. Former commission chairman Rick Simpson ordered Seno to be removed at the second meeting. A federal judge in January ruled Simpson violated Seno's First Amendment rights and ordered the two sides to a settlement hearing. Seno said the important concept established was that the average citizen has the protection of the Constitution, no matter how much money he has or the position he holds....
Animal practices are under attack Fallout from the Westland/Hallmark debacle continues. But it might already be considered a defining moment in the history of U.S. animal agriculture, for the sector is under attack as never before. Today, the issue is inhumane handling of spent dairy cows. Tomorrow, it will be hogs lying prone in a truck because of mild heat stress. After that, it might be the branding of calves. Under these circumstances, the livestock industry must urgently work together to get out front of the next "exposé." It must ask itself: What will the next video show? For there will be more. I am told that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which exposed the inhumane handling of cows at the Hallmark plant, already has a video of the "mishandling" of spent sows at another southern California plant. Make no mistake. There are animal activists who are dedicated to exposing any hint of cruelty to animals. What’s to stop PETA and other groups sneaking onto ranches, dairy farms and other open spaces to film scenes of distressed cattle and putting them on the Web? Producers beware—the big bad non-profit with a vegetarian agenda is after you. I was in Virginia recently to address cattlemen there. I congratulated them on keeping their beef cow herds largely intact after their terrible drought last year. I also suggested they keep their leanest cows that aren’t in the best of shape at the back of the farm, well away from anyone who might film them. A few days later, I joined a media teleconference hosted by HSUS during which Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said the Westland/Hallmark episode clearly showed that the U.S. food safety system is collapsing. Rep. George Miller of California and HSUS President Wayne Pacelle made similarly emotive comments. That was all to be expected. What disappointed me was the absence of any kind of response or rebuttal statements by USDA or the industry. So all the media stories I read the next morning were totally unbalanced. Ordinary Americans might therefore reasonably believe that the food they eat has become less safe, when, as we know, the opposite is true. The U.S. meat and livestock industry urgently needs an industry-wide public relations body or mechanism to monitor and respond to every challenge and claim about industry practices and other issues as they arise. If the secretary of agriculture is unwilling to immediately rebut such outrageous accusations from members of Congress, then someone representing this vital sector of the U.S. economy must. There is a war going on for the hearts and minds, and I would add the stomachs, of all Americans. We can all sit back and say: "Well, Americans will always eat meat and poultry products." That’s true, but it is missing the point. If the industry continues to allow HSUS and others to make all the plays, the industry will have forced on it more and more legislative and regulatory restrictions that will make it even harder for people to stay in business. A shrinking of the industry will mean consumers will simply eat more imported products. The beef industry is already downsizing at the packing plant and cattle feedlot levels because of declining cattle numbers in North America. Current estimates suggest the feeding sector has 30 percent over-capacity and the packing sector 20 percent over-capacity even after Tyson Foods ceased slaughtering at its Emporia, KS, plant. I would be horrified if further downsizing occurs because the industry did not come together and act very rapidly to tell its story, be it on animal welfare or food safety, in a forceful, factual way. To do that, the industry must speak with one voice. It needs to have one or more highly credible spokesmen or women who can articulate to the American public that much of what HSUS and other industry critics are saying today, and will say tomorrow, is simply not true. The industry should also consider an extensive campaign to educate members of Congress with the facts as to food safety, animal welfare, and other management practices in the industry. The industry must take steps to anticipate what targets might be next and work to get ahead of any future attacks, be they on confined animal feeding operations, the use of growth promotants and other pharmaceutical tools cattle and hog producers use, branding, the castrating of male cattle and hogs, and other animal husbandry practices. The enemies of the beef industry, and U.S. animal agriculture, have identified themselves and have revealed their tactics. It is time for the meat and livestock industry to draw up its battle plan and counter-attack. — Steve Kay
(Steve Kay is editor/publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly, an industry newsletter published at P.O. Box 2533, Petaluma, CA 94953; 707/765-1725. His monthly column appears exclusively in WLJ.)
(Steve Kay is editor/publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly, an industry newsletter published at P.O. Box 2533, Petaluma, CA 94953; 707/765-1725. His monthly column appears exclusively in WLJ.)
Wind Farms May Threaten Whooping Cranes Whooping cranes have waged a valiant fight against extinction, but federal officials warn of a new potential threat to the endangered birds: wind farms. Down to about 15 in 1941, the gargantuan birds that migrate each fall from Canada to Texas now number 266, thanks to conservation efforts. But because wind energy has gained such traction, whooping cranes could again be at risk - either from crashing into the towering wind turbines and transmission lines or because of habitat lost to the wind farms. "Basically you can overlay the strongest, best areas for wind turbine development with the whooping crane migration corridor," said Tom Stehn, whooping crane coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The service estimates as many as 40,000 turbines will be erected in the U.S. section of the whooping cranes' 200-mile wide migration corridor....
Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says Up until two years ago, only 15 of Indiana's 92 counties set their clocks an hour ahead in the spring and an hour back in the fall. The rest stayed on standard time all year, in part because farmers resisted the prospect of having to work an extra hour in the morning dark. But many residents came to hate falling in and out of sync with businesses and residents in neighboring states and prevailed upon the Indiana Legislature to put the entire state on daylight-saving time beginning in the spring of 2006. Indiana's change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next. Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings....My, my, my. Daylight Savings Time causes increased energy consumption, wind farms slaughter whooping cranes, ethanol consumes more energy than it produces, ethanol creates increased danger and costs for firefighters, and the pythons are coming! Why don't the deep thinkers in DC just leave us alone.
National commission says tribe can't open casino The federal government told an Oklahoma Indian tribe Thursday that it can't open a gambling casino in southern New Mexico. The National Indian Gaming Commission issued a letter to the leader of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe warning that the agency would take enforcement action to close the casino if the tribe opened it even for a few hours. Gov. Bill Richardson released the letter at a news conference and said he hoped the commission's action would end a dispute over whether the tribe could legally operate a casino in New Mexico. The state contends that no gambling whether high-stakes bingo or Las Vegas-style gambling can take place on the tribe's land along Interstate 10 near Deming. ''The ruling today is crucial,'' Richardson said. ''It means that there will be no illegal gaming in New Mexico.'' But Fort Sill Apache Chairman Jeff Houser saw it differently....
Drought forces grazing cutbacks again For the fourth straight year, drought is prompting Forest Service officials to reduce the amount of livestock grazing they will allow on the Fall River Ranger District of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The drought looks likely to continue based on the latest forecasts, and vegetation throughout most of the Fall River district is in tough shape after an eight- or nine-year drought, according to Bob Novotny, rangeland specialist for the district. “Nothing in Fall River County looks good right now,” Novotny said. “It’s just because of the drought.” The Fall River District covers roughly 320,000 acres in Fall River, Custer and Pennington counties. The reductions will affect more than 100 ranching operations, Novotny said. He said the reductions in the number of cattle allowed will vary greatly. In the area around Oelrichs, reductions will begin at 30 percent, but there can be adjustments up or down, depending on the range conditions. Some allotments will be cut back 50 percent or more....
Homes may overtake old ranch Back in the early 1970s, when Arizona rancher Don Martin chose to run cattle in northern Pima County, the chances of being squeezed out of business one day seemed remote. That day now looms. The Arizona State Land Department recently announced plans for a 15,900-home development on land that includes the area where Martin's cows graze around his Rail X Ranch. Martin is the only rancher who would be directly affected by the 9,100-acre proposed Arroyo Grande. But the plan, which also includes commercial development, has prompted strong opposition from residents of neighboring Catalina. Martin is philosophical about the development plan. "I can't do anything about it. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen," he said, sounding resigned. Martin owns some private land in the area, he said. But he leases most of it — nearly 26,000 acres of state trust land — for a ranching operation that straddles the Pima-Pinal county line. Like other ranchers, Martin has a 10-year grazing lease the state can cancel at any time. Such leases also can be converted into special land-use permits that allow grazing on a temporary basis, Hogue said. The rancher's lease, which expires in 2015, also could be amended, she said. Doing so would exclude some of the land closer to North Oracle Road, which is slated for development, and allow Martin to keep some of the land....
BLM backs Soda Mountain Wilderness The U.S. Bureau of Land Management supports creating the proposed 23,000-acre Soda Mountain Wilderness in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Luke Johnson, the agency's deputy director, made the announcement Wednesday while testifying before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. "We believe these areas are manageable as wilderness, and we support the designation," Johnson told the subcommittee chaired by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Johnson was testifying in response to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Voluntary and Equitable Grazing Conflict Resolution Act (Senate Bill 2379), introduced late last year by Wyden and U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. In addition to creating the wilderness in the 52,947-acre monument, the bill would provide one-time federal payments to ranchers holding BLM grazing leases on the monument. The BLM opposes this portion of the bill. The proposed buyout is $300 per AUM, making the total buyout slightly more than $800,000....
100 more Yellowstone bison captured; total tops 600 One hundred bison were captured for slaughter Thursday as they left Yellowstone National Park, bringing the total captured this winter to 617 under a program to keep the wild animals away from cattle. The Montana livestock industry and government agencies say the bison could transmit a disease that causes some pregnant livestock to abort their calves. With heavy snowfall in Yellowstone this winter, bison have been moving to lower elevations outside the park in search of food. Almost all the animals captured this winter have come from the park's northern herd, including those rounded up Thursday near the town of Gardiner. The herd is one of two in Yellowstone and had roughly 1,500 animals at the start of winter, said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash. Another 30 bison have been captured on the west side of the park, with more captures planned in coming days. State Department of Livestock officials have said they will run a more aggressive capture program in that area this year....
USDA sued over 'downer' cow rules The Humane Society sued the federal government Wednesday over what it said is a legal loophole that allows sick or crippled cattle, called "downers," into the food supply. A U.S. Department of Agriculture rule change made in July allows some downer cows into the food supply, the Humane Society of the United States alleges in its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. In 2004, the USDA tightened regulations to prohibit the slaughter of all "downer" cows - animals that cannot stand - after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state. The lawsuit alleges that under last year's change, cows that fell down after an initial veterinarian inspection but appeared otherwise healthy were allowed to be slaughtered. The lawsuit asks the USDA to close the loophole to protect consumers and ensure the humane treatment of animals. The lawsuit, citing USDA documents, says that even cows whose inability to walk stems from broken limbs are about 50 times more likely to have mad cow disease. The illness weakens their muscles, making them prone to falls....
Re-enactor shares Leap Year ties with Sheriff Pat Garrett It was late morning on Leap Day in 1908, when cowboy Jessie Wayne Brazel walked into the Dona Ana County sheriff's office, laid his Colt .45 on the desk in front of Deputy Sheriff Felipe Lopez, and declared he had killed Pat Garrett. At first, Lopez thought it was a joke, until Brazel's companion, Carl Adamson, confirmed the story that led to Brazel's arrest. Today, 100 years later, the life and times of Pat Garrett, best known for killing Billy the Kid, is memorialized by Ron Grimes, a former Carlsbad educator and an avid historian of the early west, through his portrayal and reenactment of Garrett's deeds. According to the Web site www.westernoutlaw.com, author Chuck Hornung notes that it was a Saturday, about mid-morning, when 57-year-old Pat Garrett met his fate at a mesquite-covered desert crossroads called Alameda Arroyo on the desolate mail road located a few miles east of Las Cruces. A short time after Brazel turned himself in, a sheriff's posse found Garrett lying on his back, dead. Brazel claimed Garrett was about to shoot him with his shotgun when he, in self defense, was force to shoot the former lawman in the back. Brazel was put on trial, but with powerful allies in his corner who hated Garrett, Brazel was acquitted of Garrett's murder following a jury trial....
Daylight Saving Wastes Energy, Study Says Up until two years ago, only 15 of Indiana's 92 counties set their clocks an hour ahead in the spring and an hour back in the fall. The rest stayed on standard time all year, in part because farmers resisted the prospect of having to work an extra hour in the morning dark. But many residents came to hate falling in and out of sync with businesses and residents in neighboring states and prevailed upon the Indiana Legislature to put the entire state on daylight-saving time beginning in the spring of 2006. Indiana's change of heart gave University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant a unique way to see how the time shift affects energy use. Using more than seven million monthly meter readings from Duke Energy Corp., covering nearly all the households in southern Indiana for three years, they were able to compare energy consumption before and after counties began observing daylight-saving time. Readings from counties that had already adopted daylight-saving time provided a control group that helped them to adjust for changes in weather from one year to the next. Their finding: Having the entire state switch to daylight-saving time each year, rather than stay on standard time, costs Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills. They conclude that the reduced cost of lighting in afternoons during daylight-saving time is more than offset by the higher air-conditioning costs on hot afternoons and increased heating costs on cool mornings....My, my, my. Daylight Savings Time causes increased energy consumption, wind farms slaughter whooping cranes, ethanol consumes more energy than it produces, ethanol creates increased danger and costs for firefighters, and the pythons are coming! Why don't the deep thinkers in DC just leave us alone.
National commission says tribe can't open casino The federal government told an Oklahoma Indian tribe Thursday that it can't open a gambling casino in southern New Mexico. The National Indian Gaming Commission issued a letter to the leader of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe warning that the agency would take enforcement action to close the casino if the tribe opened it even for a few hours. Gov. Bill Richardson released the letter at a news conference and said he hoped the commission's action would end a dispute over whether the tribe could legally operate a casino in New Mexico. The state contends that no gambling whether high-stakes bingo or Las Vegas-style gambling can take place on the tribe's land along Interstate 10 near Deming. ''The ruling today is crucial,'' Richardson said. ''It means that there will be no illegal gaming in New Mexico.'' But Fort Sill Apache Chairman Jeff Houser saw it differently....
Drought forces grazing cutbacks again For the fourth straight year, drought is prompting Forest Service officials to reduce the amount of livestock grazing they will allow on the Fall River Ranger District of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. The drought looks likely to continue based on the latest forecasts, and vegetation throughout most of the Fall River district is in tough shape after an eight- or nine-year drought, according to Bob Novotny, rangeland specialist for the district. “Nothing in Fall River County looks good right now,” Novotny said. “It’s just because of the drought.” The Fall River District covers roughly 320,000 acres in Fall River, Custer and Pennington counties. The reductions will affect more than 100 ranching operations, Novotny said. He said the reductions in the number of cattle allowed will vary greatly. In the area around Oelrichs, reductions will begin at 30 percent, but there can be adjustments up or down, depending on the range conditions. Some allotments will be cut back 50 percent or more....
Homes may overtake old ranch Back in the early 1970s, when Arizona rancher Don Martin chose to run cattle in northern Pima County, the chances of being squeezed out of business one day seemed remote. That day now looms. The Arizona State Land Department recently announced plans for a 15,900-home development on land that includes the area where Martin's cows graze around his Rail X Ranch. Martin is the only rancher who would be directly affected by the 9,100-acre proposed Arroyo Grande. But the plan, which also includes commercial development, has prompted strong opposition from residents of neighboring Catalina. Martin is philosophical about the development plan. "I can't do anything about it. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen," he said, sounding resigned. Martin owns some private land in the area, he said. But he leases most of it — nearly 26,000 acres of state trust land — for a ranching operation that straddles the Pima-Pinal county line. Like other ranchers, Martin has a 10-year grazing lease the state can cancel at any time. Such leases also can be converted into special land-use permits that allow grazing on a temporary basis, Hogue said. The rancher's lease, which expires in 2015, also could be amended, she said. Doing so would exclude some of the land closer to North Oracle Road, which is slated for development, and allow Martin to keep some of the land....
BLM backs Soda Mountain Wilderness The U.S. Bureau of Land Management supports creating the proposed 23,000-acre Soda Mountain Wilderness in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Luke Johnson, the agency's deputy director, made the announcement Wednesday while testifying before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. "We believe these areas are manageable as wilderness, and we support the designation," Johnson told the subcommittee chaired by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Johnson was testifying in response to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument Voluntary and Equitable Grazing Conflict Resolution Act (Senate Bill 2379), introduced late last year by Wyden and U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. In addition to creating the wilderness in the 52,947-acre monument, the bill would provide one-time federal payments to ranchers holding BLM grazing leases on the monument. The BLM opposes this portion of the bill. The proposed buyout is $300 per AUM, making the total buyout slightly more than $800,000....
100 more Yellowstone bison captured; total tops 600 One hundred bison were captured for slaughter Thursday as they left Yellowstone National Park, bringing the total captured this winter to 617 under a program to keep the wild animals away from cattle. The Montana livestock industry and government agencies say the bison could transmit a disease that causes some pregnant livestock to abort their calves. With heavy snowfall in Yellowstone this winter, bison have been moving to lower elevations outside the park in search of food. Almost all the animals captured this winter have come from the park's northern herd, including those rounded up Thursday near the town of Gardiner. The herd is one of two in Yellowstone and had roughly 1,500 animals at the start of winter, said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash. Another 30 bison have been captured on the west side of the park, with more captures planned in coming days. State Department of Livestock officials have said they will run a more aggressive capture program in that area this year....
USDA sued over 'downer' cow rules The Humane Society sued the federal government Wednesday over what it said is a legal loophole that allows sick or crippled cattle, called "downers," into the food supply. A U.S. Department of Agriculture rule change made in July allows some downer cows into the food supply, the Humane Society of the United States alleges in its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. In 2004, the USDA tightened regulations to prohibit the slaughter of all "downer" cows - animals that cannot stand - after a case of mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state. The lawsuit alleges that under last year's change, cows that fell down after an initial veterinarian inspection but appeared otherwise healthy were allowed to be slaughtered. The lawsuit asks the USDA to close the loophole to protect consumers and ensure the humane treatment of animals. The lawsuit, citing USDA documents, says that even cows whose inability to walk stems from broken limbs are about 50 times more likely to have mad cow disease. The illness weakens their muscles, making them prone to falls....
Re-enactor shares Leap Year ties with Sheriff Pat Garrett It was late morning on Leap Day in 1908, when cowboy Jessie Wayne Brazel walked into the Dona Ana County sheriff's office, laid his Colt .45 on the desk in front of Deputy Sheriff Felipe Lopez, and declared he had killed Pat Garrett. At first, Lopez thought it was a joke, until Brazel's companion, Carl Adamson, confirmed the story that led to Brazel's arrest. Today, 100 years later, the life and times of Pat Garrett, best known for killing Billy the Kid, is memorialized by Ron Grimes, a former Carlsbad educator and an avid historian of the early west, through his portrayal and reenactment of Garrett's deeds. According to the Web site www.westernoutlaw.com, author Chuck Hornung notes that it was a Saturday, about mid-morning, when 57-year-old Pat Garrett met his fate at a mesquite-covered desert crossroads called Alameda Arroyo on the desolate mail road located a few miles east of Las Cruces. A short time after Brazel turned himself in, a sheriff's posse found Garrett lying on his back, dead. Brazel claimed Garrett was about to shoot him with his shotgun when he, in self defense, was force to shoot the former lawman in the back. Brazel was put on trial, but with powerful allies in his corner who hated Garrett, Brazel was acquitted of Garrett's murder following a jury trial....
FLE
Arrested development In his fiscal 2009 budget, President Bush has proposed eliminating the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which reimburses states for incarcerating illegal aliens who commit crimes. As America hardens its stance against illegal aliens, the program is yet another tool against sanctuary cities, and it promotes tighter border security. The program offers states roughly 15 cents for every dollar spent on holding illegal residents who are found committing non-federal crimes. States receive payments for holding only those criminals who meet a narrow set of criteria; payments overwhelmingly go to states like California, New York, Texas and Florida, which are battling a troubling crush of illegal aliens. White House budget officials say the program is not directly reducing crime and thus is "not demonstrating results." The Office of Management and Budget also states the program is failing because it lacks clear goals. It is true that the program could benefit from reform, such as increased accountability measures to ensure proper disbursement of federal money and coordination with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to deport these criminals. However, as Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Times, the purpose of the program is clear: to help state and local government officials who are apprehending criminals who shouldn't be here in the first place but remain in the United States due to failed federal policies....
U.S. Steps Up Deportation Of Immigrant Criminals Immigration officials are increasingly scouring jails and courts nationwide and reviewing years-old criminal records to identify deportable immigrants, efforts that have contributed to a steep rise in deportations and strained the immigration court system. Long accused of failing to do enough to deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, federal authorities have recently strengthened partnerships with local corrections systems and taken other steps to monitor immigrants facing charges, officials said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, it placed 164,000 criminals in deportation proceedings, a sharp increase from the 64,000 the agency said it identified and placed in proceedings the year before. The agency estimates that the number will rise to 200,000 this year. Two groups of people are now more likely to be placed in deportation proceedings: illegal immigrants who might once have been criminally prosecuted without coming to the attention of immigration authorities, and legal immigrants whose visas and residency permits are being revoked because of criminal convictions. The number of deported immigrants with criminal convictions has increased steadily this decade, from about 73,000 in 2001 to more than 91,000 in 2007, according to ICE....
Officials Split on Viability of Border-Fence Project A top Homeland Security Department official said Thursday that a pilot project to create a virtual fence along parts of the Mexican border had been a success, but he said the technology was never intended to be used — and would not be used — across the entire length of the border. “It is working, and it met the requirements,” Jayson P. Ahern, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said of the pilot project during a briefing with reporters in Washington. Mr. Ahern’s assessment was in line with an announcement last Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff but contradicted testimony on Wednesday by an official from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog arm of Congress. The official, Richard M. Stana, who handles domestic security and justice issues for the accountability office, told a House subcommittee that the pilot project had “resulted in a product that did not fully meet user needs.” He also said “the project’s design will not be used as the basis” for future development of a virtual fence along the border because of the problems. The conflicting accounts about the pilot project and its applicability elsewhere add to the confusion and debate that has surrounded the virtual fence almost since its inception....
Management, technology short-circuit DHS's "virtual fence" A U.S. government plan to build a "virtual fence" along the border of Mexico and Canada, using radar, satellites, sensors and communication links to rapidly dispatch border patrol, has all the earmarks of a technology boondoggle. Congress was told this week that project is being delayed, and for reasons likely familiar to IT managers: the users weren't involved in the project's development, and the technology's complexity was underestimated. Roger Krone, president of The Boeing Co.'s Network and Space Systems, the project vendor, was asked to explain to two U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittees in a joint hearing Wednesday what happened and what's being done to fix it. The first segment of the 28-mile electronic fence was built along part of Arizona's border with Mexico. Congress was told this week that initial plans to extend the fence out to El Paso, Texas, will likely take until the end of 2011....
Plan for Texas Border Fence Laid Out Homeland Security officials on Thursday presented details of plans to build about 57 miles of border fencing and add other border enforcement technology in the El Paso area. Barry Morrisey, a Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said federal officials presented the plans at a city ballroom Thursday to get reaction on an environmental assessment drafted in advance of construction. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. Officials explained proposed locations for five sections of double-layer steel fencing that will stretch from just east of downtown El Paso to just east of the port of entry at Fort Hancock. All told, 56.7 miles of fencing is expected to be built across largely rural areas in El Paso and Hudspeth counties, Morrisey said. Construction plans also don't call for the use of private land, he said....
Columbine To Va. Tech To NIU: Gun-Free Zones Or Killing Fields? As Northern Illinois University restarts classes this week, one thing is clear: Six minutes proved too long. It took six minutes before the police were able to enter the classroom that horrible Thursday, and in that short time five people were murdered, 16 wounded. Six minutes is actually record-breaking speed for the police arriving at such an attack, but it was simply not fast enough. Still, the police were much faster than at the Virginia Tech attack last year. 12,000 people, including relatives of the Northern Illinois University students killed Feb. 14, attend a memorial Sunday in DeKalb, Ill. 12,000 people, including relatives of the Northern Illinois University students killed Feb. 14, attend a memorial Sunday in DeKalb, Ill. The previous Thursday, five people were killed in the city council chambers in Kirkwood, Mo. There was even a police officer already there when the attack occurred. But, as happens time after time in these attacks when uniformed police are there, the killers either wait for the police to leave the area or they are the first people killed. In Kirkwood, the police officer was killed immediately when the attack started. People cowered or were reduced to futilely throwing chairs at the killer. Just like attacks last year at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City and the recent attack at the Tinley Park Mall in Illinois, or all the public school attacks, they had one thing in common: They took place in "gun-free zones," where private citizens were not allowed to carry their guns with them....
Oakland’s Gun Buy-Back Misfires On Feb. 9, Oakland police, led by state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, offered to buy handguns and assault weapons for $250 each, “no questions asked, no ID required.” The “One Less Gun” buy-back program attracted so many eager sellers that the money quickly ran out. But instead of closing up shop, the police handed out IOUs good for a future buy back. The Oakland police are now stuck with a bill for $170,000. The buy back has been criticized as a poorly organized fiasco, but even the critics say it was “the right idea” and “a step in the right direction.” On the contrary, the buy back was a bad idea from the beginning. Gun buy backs have been tried before, in cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and they simply don’t work. In an authoritative study, the National Academy of Sciences reported that “the theory underlying gun buy-back programs is badly flawed and the empirical evidence demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these programs.” It doesn’t take much insight to understand why gun buy backs don’t work. Gun buy backs attract low-quality guns from people who aren’t likely to use them to commit crimes. The Oakland police, for example, bought a dozen guns from seniors living in an assisted-living facility. Are you relieved to know that Perata disarmed these dangerous senior citizens? The Oakland buy back was especially absurd because of the high price offered: $250. Why didn’t anyone running the program think to look at the price of a new gun? In fact, the first two people in line at one of the three buy-back locations were gun dealers with 60 firearms packed in the trunk of their cars....
Park Rangers Oppose Bid to Ease Gun Ban Park rangers, retirees and conservation groups are protesting a plan by the Interior Department to reconsider regulations restricting loaded guns in national parks. The groups say current regulations requiring that visitors to national parks render their weapons inaccessible were working and have made national parks among the safest places in America. "Loaded guns are not needed and are not appropriate in our national parks," said Doug Morris, a retired park superintendent and member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. The plan to reconsider the gun regulations "could break what is not broken and change the nature of our national parks," Morris said Monday. Morris spoke at a news conference called in response to an announcement Friday that the Interior Department will review gun laws on lands administered by the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service....
Who'da thunk? Guns best crime deterrent after all And that, says a new brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by police officers and prosecutors in a controversial gun-ban dispute, is why gun ownership is important and should be available to individuals in the United States. The arguments come in an amicus brief submitted by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, whose spokesman, Ted Deeds, told WND there now are 92 different law enforcement voices speaking together to the Supreme Court in the Heller case. That pending decision will decide whether an appeals court ruling striking down a District of Columbia ban on handguns because it violates the 2nd Amendment will stand or not. The gun ban promoters essentially argue that any gun restriction that is ruled "reasonable" is therefore constitutional, such as the D.C. handgun ban. Deeds said this probably is the largest unified law enforcement statement in support of the 2nd Amendment ever, and includes nearly a dozen organizations that represent tens of thousands of police officers across the country, dozens of state attorneys general, dozens of prosecutors and a long list of federal law enforcement experts up to and including federal judges....
'Thousands of Aliens' in U.S. Flight Schools Illegally Thousands of foreign student pilots have been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses from U.S. flight schools, despite tough laws passed in the wake of the 9/ll attacks, according to internal government documents obtained by ABC News. "Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," wrote one regional security official to his boss at the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration. "Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes," wrote the TSA official, Richard A. Horn, in 2005, complaining that the students did not have the proper visas. Under the new laws, American flight schools are only supposed to provide pilot training to foreign students who have been given a background check by the TSA and have a specific type of visa....
InfraGard: An Unhealthy Government Alliance There is an organization that is quietly and secretly becoming very large and powerful. The FBI started this partnership or alliance between the federal government and the private sector in 1996 in Cleveland with a few select people. After September 11, 2001, when the general population replaced their rationality with fear, this organization, called InfraGard, continued growing, and with little notice. By 2005 more than 11,000 members were involved, but as of today, according to the InfraGard website, there are 23,682 members, including FBI personnel. InfraGard’s stated goal “is to promote ongoing dialogue and timely communications between members and the FBI.” Pay attention to this next part: Infragard members gain access to information that enables them to protect their assets and in turn give information to government that facilitates its responsibilities to prevent and address terrorism and other crimes. I take from this statement that there is a distinct tradeoff, a tradeoff not available to the rest of us, whereby InfraGard members are privy to inside information from government to protect themselves and their assets; in return they give the government information it desires. This is done under the auspices of preventing terrorism and other crimes. Of course, as usual, “other crimes” is not defined, leaving us to guess just what information is being transferred....
U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence. The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of "automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world." The publicly available report -- which was mandated by Congress following earlier concerns over data-mining programs -- also mentions several other data-mining initiatives. These include: * Video Analysis and Content Extraction - software to automatically identify faces, events and objects in video * Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination - This tool is reminiscent of the supposedly-defunct Total Information Awareness program. It seeks to access disparate databases to find patterns of known bad behavior. The program plans to work with domestic law enforcement and Homeland Security....
Report: 1 in every 100 Americans behind bars For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs. The report, released today by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said. Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world....
Arrested development In his fiscal 2009 budget, President Bush has proposed eliminating the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which reimburses states for incarcerating illegal aliens who commit crimes. As America hardens its stance against illegal aliens, the program is yet another tool against sanctuary cities, and it promotes tighter border security. The program offers states roughly 15 cents for every dollar spent on holding illegal residents who are found committing non-federal crimes. States receive payments for holding only those criminals who meet a narrow set of criteria; payments overwhelmingly go to states like California, New York, Texas and Florida, which are battling a troubling crush of illegal aliens. White House budget officials say the program is not directly reducing crime and thus is "not demonstrating results." The Office of Management and Budget also states the program is failing because it lacks clear goals. It is true that the program could benefit from reform, such as increased accountability measures to ensure proper disbursement of federal money and coordination with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to deport these criminals. However, as Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Times, the purpose of the program is clear: to help state and local government officials who are apprehending criminals who shouldn't be here in the first place but remain in the United States due to failed federal policies....
U.S. Steps Up Deportation Of Immigrant Criminals Immigration officials are increasingly scouring jails and courts nationwide and reviewing years-old criminal records to identify deportable immigrants, efforts that have contributed to a steep rise in deportations and strained the immigration court system. Long accused of failing to do enough to deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, federal authorities have recently strengthened partnerships with local corrections systems and taken other steps to monitor immigrants facing charges, officials said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, it placed 164,000 criminals in deportation proceedings, a sharp increase from the 64,000 the agency said it identified and placed in proceedings the year before. The agency estimates that the number will rise to 200,000 this year. Two groups of people are now more likely to be placed in deportation proceedings: illegal immigrants who might once have been criminally prosecuted without coming to the attention of immigration authorities, and legal immigrants whose visas and residency permits are being revoked because of criminal convictions. The number of deported immigrants with criminal convictions has increased steadily this decade, from about 73,000 in 2001 to more than 91,000 in 2007, according to ICE....
Officials Split on Viability of Border-Fence Project A top Homeland Security Department official said Thursday that a pilot project to create a virtual fence along parts of the Mexican border had been a success, but he said the technology was never intended to be used — and would not be used — across the entire length of the border. “It is working, and it met the requirements,” Jayson P. Ahern, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said of the pilot project during a briefing with reporters in Washington. Mr. Ahern’s assessment was in line with an announcement last Friday by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff but contradicted testimony on Wednesday by an official from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog arm of Congress. The official, Richard M. Stana, who handles domestic security and justice issues for the accountability office, told a House subcommittee that the pilot project had “resulted in a product that did not fully meet user needs.” He also said “the project’s design will not be used as the basis” for future development of a virtual fence along the border because of the problems. The conflicting accounts about the pilot project and its applicability elsewhere add to the confusion and debate that has surrounded the virtual fence almost since its inception....
Management, technology short-circuit DHS's "virtual fence" A U.S. government plan to build a "virtual fence" along the border of Mexico and Canada, using radar, satellites, sensors and communication links to rapidly dispatch border patrol, has all the earmarks of a technology boondoggle. Congress was told this week that project is being delayed, and for reasons likely familiar to IT managers: the users weren't involved in the project's development, and the technology's complexity was underestimated. Roger Krone, president of The Boeing Co.'s Network and Space Systems, the project vendor, was asked to explain to two U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittees in a joint hearing Wednesday what happened and what's being done to fix it. The first segment of the 28-mile electronic fence was built along part of Arizona's border with Mexico. Congress was told this week that initial plans to extend the fence out to El Paso, Texas, will likely take until the end of 2011....
Plan for Texas Border Fence Laid Out Homeland Security officials on Thursday presented details of plans to build about 57 miles of border fencing and add other border enforcement technology in the El Paso area. Barry Morrisey, a Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said federal officials presented the plans at a city ballroom Thursday to get reaction on an environmental assessment drafted in advance of construction. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2008. Officials explained proposed locations for five sections of double-layer steel fencing that will stretch from just east of downtown El Paso to just east of the port of entry at Fort Hancock. All told, 56.7 miles of fencing is expected to be built across largely rural areas in El Paso and Hudspeth counties, Morrisey said. Construction plans also don't call for the use of private land, he said....
Columbine To Va. Tech To NIU: Gun-Free Zones Or Killing Fields? As Northern Illinois University restarts classes this week, one thing is clear: Six minutes proved too long. It took six minutes before the police were able to enter the classroom that horrible Thursday, and in that short time five people were murdered, 16 wounded. Six minutes is actually record-breaking speed for the police arriving at such an attack, but it was simply not fast enough. Still, the police were much faster than at the Virginia Tech attack last year. 12,000 people, including relatives of the Northern Illinois University students killed Feb. 14, attend a memorial Sunday in DeKalb, Ill. 12,000 people, including relatives of the Northern Illinois University students killed Feb. 14, attend a memorial Sunday in DeKalb, Ill. The previous Thursday, five people were killed in the city council chambers in Kirkwood, Mo. There was even a police officer already there when the attack occurred. But, as happens time after time in these attacks when uniformed police are there, the killers either wait for the police to leave the area or they are the first people killed. In Kirkwood, the police officer was killed immediately when the attack started. People cowered or were reduced to futilely throwing chairs at the killer. Just like attacks last year at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City and the recent attack at the Tinley Park Mall in Illinois, or all the public school attacks, they had one thing in common: They took place in "gun-free zones," where private citizens were not allowed to carry their guns with them....
Oakland’s Gun Buy-Back Misfires On Feb. 9, Oakland police, led by state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, offered to buy handguns and assault weapons for $250 each, “no questions asked, no ID required.” The “One Less Gun” buy-back program attracted so many eager sellers that the money quickly ran out. But instead of closing up shop, the police handed out IOUs good for a future buy back. The Oakland police are now stuck with a bill for $170,000. The buy back has been criticized as a poorly organized fiasco, but even the critics say it was “the right idea” and “a step in the right direction.” On the contrary, the buy back was a bad idea from the beginning. Gun buy backs have been tried before, in cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and they simply don’t work. In an authoritative study, the National Academy of Sciences reported that “the theory underlying gun buy-back programs is badly flawed and the empirical evidence demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these programs.” It doesn’t take much insight to understand why gun buy backs don’t work. Gun buy backs attract low-quality guns from people who aren’t likely to use them to commit crimes. The Oakland police, for example, bought a dozen guns from seniors living in an assisted-living facility. Are you relieved to know that Perata disarmed these dangerous senior citizens? The Oakland buy back was especially absurd because of the high price offered: $250. Why didn’t anyone running the program think to look at the price of a new gun? In fact, the first two people in line at one of the three buy-back locations were gun dealers with 60 firearms packed in the trunk of their cars....
Park Rangers Oppose Bid to Ease Gun Ban Park rangers, retirees and conservation groups are protesting a plan by the Interior Department to reconsider regulations restricting loaded guns in national parks. The groups say current regulations requiring that visitors to national parks render their weapons inaccessible were working and have made national parks among the safest places in America. "Loaded guns are not needed and are not appropriate in our national parks," said Doug Morris, a retired park superintendent and member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. The plan to reconsider the gun regulations "could break what is not broken and change the nature of our national parks," Morris said Monday. Morris spoke at a news conference called in response to an announcement Friday that the Interior Department will review gun laws on lands administered by the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service....
Who'da thunk? Guns best crime deterrent after all And that, says a new brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by police officers and prosecutors in a controversial gun-ban dispute, is why gun ownership is important and should be available to individuals in the United States. The arguments come in an amicus brief submitted by the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, whose spokesman, Ted Deeds, told WND there now are 92 different law enforcement voices speaking together to the Supreme Court in the Heller case. That pending decision will decide whether an appeals court ruling striking down a District of Columbia ban on handguns because it violates the 2nd Amendment will stand or not. The gun ban promoters essentially argue that any gun restriction that is ruled "reasonable" is therefore constitutional, such as the D.C. handgun ban. Deeds said this probably is the largest unified law enforcement statement in support of the 2nd Amendment ever, and includes nearly a dozen organizations that represent tens of thousands of police officers across the country, dozens of state attorneys general, dozens of prosecutors and a long list of federal law enforcement experts up to and including federal judges....
'Thousands of Aliens' in U.S. Flight Schools Illegally Thousands of foreign student pilots have been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses from U.S. flight schools, despite tough laws passed in the wake of the 9/ll attacks, according to internal government documents obtained by ABC News. "Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," wrote one regional security official to his boss at the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration. "Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes," wrote the TSA official, Richard A. Horn, in 2005, complaining that the students did not have the proper visas. Under the new laws, American flight schools are only supposed to provide pilot training to foreign students who have been given a background check by the TSA and have a specific type of visa....
InfraGard: An Unhealthy Government Alliance There is an organization that is quietly and secretly becoming very large and powerful. The FBI started this partnership or alliance between the federal government and the private sector in 1996 in Cleveland with a few select people. After September 11, 2001, when the general population replaced their rationality with fear, this organization, called InfraGard, continued growing, and with little notice. By 2005 more than 11,000 members were involved, but as of today, according to the InfraGard website, there are 23,682 members, including FBI personnel. InfraGard’s stated goal “is to promote ongoing dialogue and timely communications between members and the FBI.” Pay attention to this next part: Infragard members gain access to information that enables them to protect their assets and in turn give information to government that facilitates its responsibilities to prevent and address terrorism and other crimes. I take from this statement that there is a distinct tradeoff, a tradeoff not available to the rest of us, whereby InfraGard members are privy to inside information from government to protect themselves and their assets; in return they give the government information it desires. This is done under the auspices of preventing terrorism and other crimes. Of course, as usual, “other crimes” is not defined, leaving us to guess just what information is being transferred....
U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence. The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of "automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world." The publicly available report -- which was mandated by Congress following earlier concerns over data-mining programs -- also mentions several other data-mining initiatives. These include: * Video Analysis and Content Extraction - software to automatically identify faces, events and objects in video * Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination - This tool is reminiscent of the supposedly-defunct Total Information Awareness program. It seeks to access disparate databases to find patterns of known bad behavior. The program plans to work with domestic law enforcement and Homeland Security....
Report: 1 in every 100 Americans behind bars For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report tracking the surge in inmate population and urging states to rein in corrections costs with alternative sentencing programs. The report, released today by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said. Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world....
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Rey expresses regret: Ag chief says Forest Service ‘dropped ball' on retardan Faced with possible jail time, U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey apologized Tuesday to a federal judge in Missoula for the Forest Service's delays in evaluating how wildfire retardant affects the environment. But Rey, the Bush administration's top forest official, insisted the agency has complied with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. Rey testified before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in a watchdog group's lawsuit accusing the Forest Service of violating the nation's top environmental laws through its use of fire retardant. The hearing, which is scheduled to resume Wednesday, could result in Rey being jailed for contempt or placed on electronic monitoring. The Forest Service also could be prohibited from dropping anything but water on wildfires until it complies with the judge's earlier orders....
Agriculture chief not in contempt over fire study A federal judge has decided not to hold Agriculture Secretary Mark Rey in contempt over court orders requiring the U.S. Forest Service to study the environmental effects of a chemical fire retardant. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy had threatened to send Rey to jail for being slow to respond to the court orders, accusing the Forest Service of trying to skirt environmental law. As agriculture secretary, Rey oversees the Forest Service. Although Molloy was critical of the agency for being slow, he said it ultimately filed the necessary documents. He added the threat of contempt helped spur the agency into action. After the hearing, Rey said he believed the agency made every effort to comply with the court orders....
Booming oil patch lights up North Dakota rangeland Landing lights for a long, remote runway. Christmas decorations left on all day, all night, all year. The scattered campfires of a large invading army that shows no sign of withdrawing anytime soon. Pick your metaphor for the landmark flares brightening the winter night over a broad expanse of western North Dakota rangeland. Thanks to record prices for oil and new technology that allows for easier extraction, the state's oil patch is booming again, creating riches for farmers, ranchers, retirees and speculators lucky or smart enough to own mineral rights in the Bakken Formation, a vast oil deposit stretching from the Dakotas into Montana and Canada. Nearly 60 drilling rigs are operating in western North Dakota now, the most since the last oil boom in the early 1980s, leaving the horizon littered in all directions with new wells marked by the bright, noisy flaring of escaping natural gas being burned off....
Instream flow bill good for trout, landowners It has been a long haul, but the Utah Legislature finally signed off on a bill that will allow fishing groups to protect and restore water flows in the name of trout. Various versions of HB117, which now awaits the governor's signature, have been around since 2003. Tim Hawkes, then a staffer for Trout Unlimited's national office based in Utah, picked up the battle for the instream flow bill in 2005. He worked hard with legislators, agricultural groups, state agencies and other water interests on the bill and was on the verge of seeing it passed in 2007 when it hit a snag over endangered species concerns. With those concerns addressed, Hawkes - now working at a law firm in Washington, D.C., but serving as a TU volunteer to get the bill passed - watched as the Instream Flow To Protect Trout Habitat bill sailed through the session this year. Hawkes says the bill does not change the definition or principles of water law, but allows for a 10-year pilot program that makes it possible for farmers or ranchers to lease all or part of a water right on a temporary basis to groups like Trout Unlimited....
Eminent domain change heads to governor The South Dakota House voted 54-16 Tuesday in favor of a bill that will speed the use of eminent domain by railroads to force the sale of rights of way. The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad sought the measure, which will require the state Transportation Commission to rule on eminent domain cases within 90 days of applications. "This is a bill that would provide fairness in eminent domain cases and allow an important economic development project to move forward," Rep. Tim Rave, R-Baltic, said. DM&E officials say a few West River landowners who oppose the project have delayed it. The landowners, however, say DM&E itself has caused the delays. They also say the 90-day deadline for decisions cuts the time they have to prepare their case before the Transportation Commission....
Satan's Dog George Brown has managed the Hoodoo ranch, a cow-calf operation near Cody, Wyo., for 40 years. His grandfather arrived in northwestern Wyoming in 1900. By that time, much of the American West’s gray wolf population had been decimated through private and federal bounties. By the mid-20th century the species had been all but wiped out in the lower 48 states. Brown, now 77, has a perspective on wolves that may seem a bit out of touch with a society that has largely celebrated the speedy return of a sizable gray wolf population to the northern ranges of the American Rockies. By Brown’s estimation, the only good wolf is a dead one. “That’s a pretty fair way to describe how I feel,” he said. Brown is a member of an aging ranching population where financial and social influences have taken a heavy toll. The reintroduction of the gray wolf in the mid ’90s was perceived by some as the return of a nearly forgotten threat to the ranching livelihood....
Senators hear Wyo Range support Time is running out on efforts to protect the Wyoming Range from oil and gas leasing, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal told U.S. senators Wednesday during testimony for the Wyoming Range Legacy Act. Freudenthal was one of five people to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests on Sen. John Barrasso’s bill. The bill would prohibit further leasing on about 1.2 million acres of mountainous land south of Jackson. Freudenthal said the Forest Service is feverishly speeding efforts to finish environmental studies that would finalize 44,000 acres of additional energy leases. Those leases were sold, but the Interior Board of Land Appeals found the environmental studies used to justify the sale were insufficient and ordered a supplemental environmental impact statement before the federal government could complete the sale....
Study: Contaminent levels high in parks Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on national parks across the West and Alaska, turning up at sometimes dangerously high levels in lakes, plants and fish. A sweeping, six-year federal study released Tuesday found evidence of 70 contaminants in 20 national parks and monuments - from Denali in Alaska and Glacier in Montana, to Big Bend in Texas and Yosemite in California. The findings revealed that some of the Earth's most pristine wilderness is still within reach of the toxic byproducts of the industrial age. "Contaminants are everywhere. You can't get more remote than these northern parts of Alaska and the high Rockies," said Michael Kent, a fish researcher with Oregon State University who co-authored the study. The substances detected ranged from mercury produced by power plants and industrial chemicals such as PCBs to the banned insecticides dieldrin and DDT. Those can cause health problems in humans including nervous system damage, dampened immune system responses and lowered reproductive success....
Bison Advocate Closes Trap; Forcibly Removed & Arrested The man who perched upon a platform suspended from the top of a pair of poles on public land inside the Horse Butte bison trap in protest of bison slaughter, Nathan Drake, 26, was forcibly removed and arrested Monday night by state and federal agents. He was charged with three misdemeanors: obstruction, trespassing, and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bail, reportedly the highest yet for bison-related direct action protest. Montana Department of Livestock agents, Gallatin National Forest law enforcement and a Gallatin County sheriff were present and participated in the removal of the citizen. “The agents who made their way up to my perch with an eighty foot cherry picker were unconcerned with my safety,” said Nathan. “They cut my sleeping bag that was my protection from the Montana winter, took off my boots and threw them to the ground, attempting to freeze me out of my lock box. The sheriff and Forest Service agent cut my safety line, attached me to the cherry-picker bucket and threw me in it.”....
Feds target Crested Butte 'smoke shacks' U.S. Forest Service agents have scoured Crested Butte’s ski area in search of illegal “smoke shacks” after some skiers were busted for smoking pot in one of the shacks on Feb. 17, according to a report in the Crested Butte News. The shacks, from simple lean-tos to fully enclosed treehouses, are illegal structures, built on public land without permission. “I’m sure we’ve got a few… I know they’re probably all over just about every ski area in Colorado,” Crested Butte Mountain Resort Vice President Ken Stone told the town’s newspaper last week. In fact, just last spring, a Forest Service official ordered smoke shacks at Snowmass to be taken down. “It’s becoming an issue all over the place,” Jim Stark, winter sports administrator for the White River National Forest, told The Aspen Times at the time....No fun on federal land. They'll be tearin' down shacks and arresting folks right up 'til the pythons get us.
New Web-based Smoke Management System Being Tested at K-State A new method of smoke modeling is being researched by a Kansas State University team led by Jay Ham, professor of agronomy. This new method could help manage the extent and impact of smoke plumes from the Flint Hills. Ham explained that there are two components to BlueSkyRAINS. "BlueSky" is a computer model developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to predict the impacts of smoke from prescribed, wildland, and agricultural fires. "RAINS" (Rapid Access Information System) is a Geographic Information System product of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Forest Service merged the two products into BlueSkyRAINS....What a bunch of outhouse soup. They are using this program to track down all them "smoke shacks." NFOFL - No fun on federal land.
Council has a Battle Mountain on its hands Developer Bobby Ginn saw something no one else could see in the mine-polluted hills above this former railroad town. It was so clear to him that, more than three years ago, he plunked down $32.75 million for the 5,300 acres of steep forest and toxic mining claims. Since then, he has done everything he can to persuade the leaders of the small town of Minturn to share his vision for a private ski area, a golf course and 1,700 luxury homes on a mountainous parcel that nearby Vail Resorts once considered more suited to conservation than development. Tonight, the Florida-based chief of a billion-dollar-a-year resort real-estate-development firm will know how well he conveyed his dream when the Minturn Town Council renders a final vote on annexing land for the proposed resort, known as Battle Mountain. With four of seven council seats up for election in April, it happens now or the whole approval process begins anew....
Snowmobile group opposes wilderness expansion The state's largest coalition of snowmobile riders has decided to be a "voice in the wilderness." Colorado Snowmobile Association (CSA) president Janelle Kukuk said Monday that the group is opposed to the proposed 12,840-acre expansion of the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness Area, spearheaded by the Ridgway-Ouray Community Council (ROCC) and endorsed by both Ridgway and Ouray town and city councils, as well as Ouray County's Board of County Commissioners. CSA opposes wilderness designations on several principles, according to Kukuk, including the concept that wilderness effectively shuts out a large proportion of the population from recreating in an area. In a letter responding to ROCC member Al Berni, who invited CSA to comment on the proposal, Kukuk noted that wilderness areas are closed off to "the youngest, oldest and disabled." "Wilderness does not allow for any motorized and mechanized access," wrote Kukuk. "This includes wheelchairs and bicycles, so these methods that make traveling easier for so many are shut out. It makes a very exclusive group that has access to an area, and we feel that this is in direct contradiction to the multi-use mandate given to the federal land managers to uphold."....
Blogger levels heated threat against Sierra Club A string of red-hot wildfire seasons has claimed millions of Western forest acres and not a few homes and lives, and Mike Dubrasich reckons he's figured out at least part of the solution for future summers: “If you know a Sierra Club member, please feel free to set their home on fire.” That's the suggestion - “I'm suggesting it, but I'm not advocating it” - Dubrasich posted on his Web site last week. “Personally,” said Bob Clark, “I thought that was a little over the top.” Clark is a Sierra Club representative based out of Missoula, and he keeps a whole file of death threats in his office. Some have been forwarded to the FBI, some to the state attorney general, some to the Montana Human Rights Network. Dubrasich, of Lebanon, Ore., describes himself as a forester, a consultant and a blogger, among other things. His Web network - the Western Institute for Study of the Environment - includes 11 separate sites. Eight are what he calls “educational colloquia,” all about forests and fires and wildlife and paleobotany and rural culture. The others are a mix of news and commentary, clippings and first-person opinion pieces. It was one of those opinions - posted Feb. 20 on the “SOS Forests” portion of his site - that caught Clark's attention....
Palm Desert 'Cave Man' Arrested A man barricaded himself in a cave near Palm Desert Wednesday before being arrested for trespassing, authorities said. Federal Bureau of Land Management officials contacted Riverside County sheriff's deputies shortly before noon about a suspect who was bivouacked in a cave roughly a mile south of the Palm Desert Visitor Center at Highway 111 and El Paseo Avenue, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Herlinda Valenzuela. She said Kenneth Bunzell, a 59-year-old transient, refused BLM rangers' orders to leave the cave, and sheriff's deputies were called in to assist....This was probably a "smoke cave." NFOFL
Argentina Blocks Beef Exports as Prices Increase, Clarin Says Argentina's government has blocked beef exports in a bid to persuade meatpackers and ranchers to lower domestic prices, Clarin reported. The government shut an export register while Agriculture Secretary Javier de Urquiza and producers negotiate a new price cap for March and April, the newspaper reported, without saying how it got the information. Domestic beef prices have risen 10 percent this year amid shortages to 4 pesos to 4.40 pesos ($1.27 to $1.39) a kilogram, more than the government's indicated price cap of 3.30 to 3.60 pesos, the newspaper said. Some ranchers are selling animals on the black market to avoid price and export limits, Clarin said. Former President Nestor Kirchner first started restrictions on exports in 2005 to stem inflation in the South American country.
R-CALF: Another Livestock Competition Study Will Be Too Little, Too Late In a letter sent this week to the leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Agriculture Committee, R-CALF USA urged the chairmen to reject any suggestion that passage of competition reforms in the 2007 Farm Bill should be delayed in order to fund yet another study of the situation live cattle producers find themselves in today. During development of the 2002 Farm Bill, the Senate led a bipartisan effort to include a prohibition on packer ownership of livestock to reduce the erosion of competition occurring within U.S. livestock markets. The measure was passed by Senate conferees but House conferees took no action. Later, during the FY 2003 appropriations process, the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock was relegated to a multi-million dollar study to be managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Four years later, in January 2007, the study, known as the RTI study, was completed. Though the RTI study erroneously presumed that the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock would prohibit all forms of alternative marketing agreements, it nonetheless found a causal relationship between packer-owned livestock and decreased livestock prices. Specifically, the RTI study found that, “A 1 % increase in packer-owned hogs causes the cash/spot price to decline by 0.24%.” Currently, the Senate version of the Farm Bill once again contains the Prohibition on Packer Ownership of Livestock....
Cattle Brands: First Recorded Brand Richard H. Chisholm owned perhaps the first recorded brand, registered in Gonzales County in 1832. Richard H. Chisholm (1799 - 1855) and Hardina Taylor Chisholm (1812 - unknown) had three children, Mary Ann, Bradford A., and Glenn Thornton Chisholm. Glenn was the retail boss for Crockett Cardwell when he put his first herd of cattle together and drove them from DeWitt County, up the "Chisholm Trail" to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1866. The Chisholms of DeWitt County claimed that the "Chisholm Trail" was named for Glenn Thornton Chisholm because he set the path on the first trail drive. Glenn Thornton Chisholm was accidentally killed by a freight wagon that rolled over him when a breast chain broke while he was going up a steep hill. He was buried by the wagon trail near Burnet, Texas, in March, 1868. The Chisholm Trail was the major route out of Texas for livestock. Although it was used only from 1867 to 1884, the longhorn cattleqv driven north along it provided a steady source of income that helped the impoverished state recover from the Civil War.qv Youthful trail hands on mustangsqv gave a Texas flavor to the entire range cattle industry of the Great Plains and made the cowboy an enduring folk hero. When the Civil War ended the state's only potential assets were its countless longhorns, for which no market was available—Missouri and Kansas had closed their borders to Texas cattle in the 1850s because of the deadly Texas feverqv they carried. In the East was a growing demand for beef, and many men, among them Joseph G. McCoy of Illinois, sought ways of supplying it with Texas cattle. In the spring of 1867 he persuaded Kansas Pacific officials to lay a siding at the hamlet of Abilene, Kansas, on the edge of the quarantine area. He began building pens and loading facilities and sent word to Texas cowmen that a cattle market was available. That year he shipped 35,000 head; the number doubled each year until 1871, when 600,000 head glutted the market....
Agriculture chief not in contempt over fire study A federal judge has decided not to hold Agriculture Secretary Mark Rey in contempt over court orders requiring the U.S. Forest Service to study the environmental effects of a chemical fire retardant. U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy had threatened to send Rey to jail for being slow to respond to the court orders, accusing the Forest Service of trying to skirt environmental law. As agriculture secretary, Rey oversees the Forest Service. Although Molloy was critical of the agency for being slow, he said it ultimately filed the necessary documents. He added the threat of contempt helped spur the agency into action. After the hearing, Rey said he believed the agency made every effort to comply with the court orders....
Booming oil patch lights up North Dakota rangeland Landing lights for a long, remote runway. Christmas decorations left on all day, all night, all year. The scattered campfires of a large invading army that shows no sign of withdrawing anytime soon. Pick your metaphor for the landmark flares brightening the winter night over a broad expanse of western North Dakota rangeland. Thanks to record prices for oil and new technology that allows for easier extraction, the state's oil patch is booming again, creating riches for farmers, ranchers, retirees and speculators lucky or smart enough to own mineral rights in the Bakken Formation, a vast oil deposit stretching from the Dakotas into Montana and Canada. Nearly 60 drilling rigs are operating in western North Dakota now, the most since the last oil boom in the early 1980s, leaving the horizon littered in all directions with new wells marked by the bright, noisy flaring of escaping natural gas being burned off....
Instream flow bill good for trout, landowners It has been a long haul, but the Utah Legislature finally signed off on a bill that will allow fishing groups to protect and restore water flows in the name of trout. Various versions of HB117, which now awaits the governor's signature, have been around since 2003. Tim Hawkes, then a staffer for Trout Unlimited's national office based in Utah, picked up the battle for the instream flow bill in 2005. He worked hard with legislators, agricultural groups, state agencies and other water interests on the bill and was on the verge of seeing it passed in 2007 when it hit a snag over endangered species concerns. With those concerns addressed, Hawkes - now working at a law firm in Washington, D.C., but serving as a TU volunteer to get the bill passed - watched as the Instream Flow To Protect Trout Habitat bill sailed through the session this year. Hawkes says the bill does not change the definition or principles of water law, but allows for a 10-year pilot program that makes it possible for farmers or ranchers to lease all or part of a water right on a temporary basis to groups like Trout Unlimited....
Eminent domain change heads to governor The South Dakota House voted 54-16 Tuesday in favor of a bill that will speed the use of eminent domain by railroads to force the sale of rights of way. The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad sought the measure, which will require the state Transportation Commission to rule on eminent domain cases within 90 days of applications. "This is a bill that would provide fairness in eminent domain cases and allow an important economic development project to move forward," Rep. Tim Rave, R-Baltic, said. DM&E officials say a few West River landowners who oppose the project have delayed it. The landowners, however, say DM&E itself has caused the delays. They also say the 90-day deadline for decisions cuts the time they have to prepare their case before the Transportation Commission....
Satan's Dog George Brown has managed the Hoodoo ranch, a cow-calf operation near Cody, Wyo., for 40 years. His grandfather arrived in northwestern Wyoming in 1900. By that time, much of the American West’s gray wolf population had been decimated through private and federal bounties. By the mid-20th century the species had been all but wiped out in the lower 48 states. Brown, now 77, has a perspective on wolves that may seem a bit out of touch with a society that has largely celebrated the speedy return of a sizable gray wolf population to the northern ranges of the American Rockies. By Brown’s estimation, the only good wolf is a dead one. “That’s a pretty fair way to describe how I feel,” he said. Brown is a member of an aging ranching population where financial and social influences have taken a heavy toll. The reintroduction of the gray wolf in the mid ’90s was perceived by some as the return of a nearly forgotten threat to the ranching livelihood....
Senators hear Wyo Range support Time is running out on efforts to protect the Wyoming Range from oil and gas leasing, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal told U.S. senators Wednesday during testimony for the Wyoming Range Legacy Act. Freudenthal was one of five people to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests on Sen. John Barrasso’s bill. The bill would prohibit further leasing on about 1.2 million acres of mountainous land south of Jackson. Freudenthal said the Forest Service is feverishly speeding efforts to finish environmental studies that would finalize 44,000 acres of additional energy leases. Those leases were sold, but the Interior Board of Land Appeals found the environmental studies used to justify the sale were insufficient and ordered a supplemental environmental impact statement before the federal government could complete the sale....
Study: Contaminent levels high in parks Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on national parks across the West and Alaska, turning up at sometimes dangerously high levels in lakes, plants and fish. A sweeping, six-year federal study released Tuesday found evidence of 70 contaminants in 20 national parks and monuments - from Denali in Alaska and Glacier in Montana, to Big Bend in Texas and Yosemite in California. The findings revealed that some of the Earth's most pristine wilderness is still within reach of the toxic byproducts of the industrial age. "Contaminants are everywhere. You can't get more remote than these northern parts of Alaska and the high Rockies," said Michael Kent, a fish researcher with Oregon State University who co-authored the study. The substances detected ranged from mercury produced by power plants and industrial chemicals such as PCBs to the banned insecticides dieldrin and DDT. Those can cause health problems in humans including nervous system damage, dampened immune system responses and lowered reproductive success....
Bison Advocate Closes Trap; Forcibly Removed & Arrested The man who perched upon a platform suspended from the top of a pair of poles on public land inside the Horse Butte bison trap in protest of bison slaughter, Nathan Drake, 26, was forcibly removed and arrested Monday night by state and federal agents. He was charged with three misdemeanors: obstruction, trespassing, and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bail, reportedly the highest yet for bison-related direct action protest. Montana Department of Livestock agents, Gallatin National Forest law enforcement and a Gallatin County sheriff were present and participated in the removal of the citizen. “The agents who made their way up to my perch with an eighty foot cherry picker were unconcerned with my safety,” said Nathan. “They cut my sleeping bag that was my protection from the Montana winter, took off my boots and threw them to the ground, attempting to freeze me out of my lock box. The sheriff and Forest Service agent cut my safety line, attached me to the cherry-picker bucket and threw me in it.”....
Feds target Crested Butte 'smoke shacks' U.S. Forest Service agents have scoured Crested Butte’s ski area in search of illegal “smoke shacks” after some skiers were busted for smoking pot in one of the shacks on Feb. 17, according to a report in the Crested Butte News. The shacks, from simple lean-tos to fully enclosed treehouses, are illegal structures, built on public land without permission. “I’m sure we’ve got a few… I know they’re probably all over just about every ski area in Colorado,” Crested Butte Mountain Resort Vice President Ken Stone told the town’s newspaper last week. In fact, just last spring, a Forest Service official ordered smoke shacks at Snowmass to be taken down. “It’s becoming an issue all over the place,” Jim Stark, winter sports administrator for the White River National Forest, told The Aspen Times at the time....No fun on federal land. They'll be tearin' down shacks and arresting folks right up 'til the pythons get us.
New Web-based Smoke Management System Being Tested at K-State A new method of smoke modeling is being researched by a Kansas State University team led by Jay Ham, professor of agronomy. This new method could help manage the extent and impact of smoke plumes from the Flint Hills. Ham explained that there are two components to BlueSkyRAINS. "BlueSky" is a computer model developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to predict the impacts of smoke from prescribed, wildland, and agricultural fires. "RAINS" (Rapid Access Information System) is a Geographic Information System product of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Forest Service merged the two products into BlueSkyRAINS....What a bunch of outhouse soup. They are using this program to track down all them "smoke shacks." NFOFL - No fun on federal land.
Council has a Battle Mountain on its hands Developer Bobby Ginn saw something no one else could see in the mine-polluted hills above this former railroad town. It was so clear to him that, more than three years ago, he plunked down $32.75 million for the 5,300 acres of steep forest and toxic mining claims. Since then, he has done everything he can to persuade the leaders of the small town of Minturn to share his vision for a private ski area, a golf course and 1,700 luxury homes on a mountainous parcel that nearby Vail Resorts once considered more suited to conservation than development. Tonight, the Florida-based chief of a billion-dollar-a-year resort real-estate-development firm will know how well he conveyed his dream when the Minturn Town Council renders a final vote on annexing land for the proposed resort, known as Battle Mountain. With four of seven council seats up for election in April, it happens now or the whole approval process begins anew....
Snowmobile group opposes wilderness expansion The state's largest coalition of snowmobile riders has decided to be a "voice in the wilderness." Colorado Snowmobile Association (CSA) president Janelle Kukuk said Monday that the group is opposed to the proposed 12,840-acre expansion of the Mt. Sneffels Wilderness Area, spearheaded by the Ridgway-Ouray Community Council (ROCC) and endorsed by both Ridgway and Ouray town and city councils, as well as Ouray County's Board of County Commissioners. CSA opposes wilderness designations on several principles, according to Kukuk, including the concept that wilderness effectively shuts out a large proportion of the population from recreating in an area. In a letter responding to ROCC member Al Berni, who invited CSA to comment on the proposal, Kukuk noted that wilderness areas are closed off to "the youngest, oldest and disabled." "Wilderness does not allow for any motorized and mechanized access," wrote Kukuk. "This includes wheelchairs and bicycles, so these methods that make traveling easier for so many are shut out. It makes a very exclusive group that has access to an area, and we feel that this is in direct contradiction to the multi-use mandate given to the federal land managers to uphold."....
Blogger levels heated threat against Sierra Club A string of red-hot wildfire seasons has claimed millions of Western forest acres and not a few homes and lives, and Mike Dubrasich reckons he's figured out at least part of the solution for future summers: “If you know a Sierra Club member, please feel free to set their home on fire.” That's the suggestion - “I'm suggesting it, but I'm not advocating it” - Dubrasich posted on his Web site last week. “Personally,” said Bob Clark, “I thought that was a little over the top.” Clark is a Sierra Club representative based out of Missoula, and he keeps a whole file of death threats in his office. Some have been forwarded to the FBI, some to the state attorney general, some to the Montana Human Rights Network. Dubrasich, of Lebanon, Ore., describes himself as a forester, a consultant and a blogger, among other things. His Web network - the Western Institute for Study of the Environment - includes 11 separate sites. Eight are what he calls “educational colloquia,” all about forests and fires and wildlife and paleobotany and rural culture. The others are a mix of news and commentary, clippings and first-person opinion pieces. It was one of those opinions - posted Feb. 20 on the “SOS Forests” portion of his site - that caught Clark's attention....
Palm Desert 'Cave Man' Arrested A man barricaded himself in a cave near Palm Desert Wednesday before being arrested for trespassing, authorities said. Federal Bureau of Land Management officials contacted Riverside County sheriff's deputies shortly before noon about a suspect who was bivouacked in a cave roughly a mile south of the Palm Desert Visitor Center at Highway 111 and El Paseo Avenue, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Herlinda Valenzuela. She said Kenneth Bunzell, a 59-year-old transient, refused BLM rangers' orders to leave the cave, and sheriff's deputies were called in to assist....This was probably a "smoke cave." NFOFL
Argentina Blocks Beef Exports as Prices Increase, Clarin Says Argentina's government has blocked beef exports in a bid to persuade meatpackers and ranchers to lower domestic prices, Clarin reported. The government shut an export register while Agriculture Secretary Javier de Urquiza and producers negotiate a new price cap for March and April, the newspaper reported, without saying how it got the information. Domestic beef prices have risen 10 percent this year amid shortages to 4 pesos to 4.40 pesos ($1.27 to $1.39) a kilogram, more than the government's indicated price cap of 3.30 to 3.60 pesos, the newspaper said. Some ranchers are selling animals on the black market to avoid price and export limits, Clarin said. Former President Nestor Kirchner first started restrictions on exports in 2005 to stem inflation in the South American country.
R-CALF: Another Livestock Competition Study Will Be Too Little, Too Late In a letter sent this week to the leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Agriculture Committee, R-CALF USA urged the chairmen to reject any suggestion that passage of competition reforms in the 2007 Farm Bill should be delayed in order to fund yet another study of the situation live cattle producers find themselves in today. During development of the 2002 Farm Bill, the Senate led a bipartisan effort to include a prohibition on packer ownership of livestock to reduce the erosion of competition occurring within U.S. livestock markets. The measure was passed by Senate conferees but House conferees took no action. Later, during the FY 2003 appropriations process, the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock was relegated to a multi-million dollar study to be managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Four years later, in January 2007, the study, known as the RTI study, was completed. Though the RTI study erroneously presumed that the prohibition on packer ownership of livestock would prohibit all forms of alternative marketing agreements, it nonetheless found a causal relationship between packer-owned livestock and decreased livestock prices. Specifically, the RTI study found that, “A 1 % increase in packer-owned hogs causes the cash/spot price to decline by 0.24%.” Currently, the Senate version of the Farm Bill once again contains the Prohibition on Packer Ownership of Livestock....
Cattle Brands: First Recorded Brand Richard H. Chisholm owned perhaps the first recorded brand, registered in Gonzales County in 1832. Richard H. Chisholm (1799 - 1855) and Hardina Taylor Chisholm (1812 - unknown) had three children, Mary Ann, Bradford A., and Glenn Thornton Chisholm. Glenn was the retail boss for Crockett Cardwell when he put his first herd of cattle together and drove them from DeWitt County, up the "Chisholm Trail" to St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1866. The Chisholms of DeWitt County claimed that the "Chisholm Trail" was named for Glenn Thornton Chisholm because he set the path on the first trail drive. Glenn Thornton Chisholm was accidentally killed by a freight wagon that rolled over him when a breast chain broke while he was going up a steep hill. He was buried by the wagon trail near Burnet, Texas, in March, 1868. The Chisholm Trail was the major route out of Texas for livestock. Although it was used only from 1867 to 1884, the longhorn cattleqv driven north along it provided a steady source of income that helped the impoverished state recover from the Civil War.qv Youthful trail hands on mustangsqv gave a Texas flavor to the entire range cattle industry of the Great Plains and made the cowboy an enduring folk hero. When the Civil War ended the state's only potential assets were its countless longhorns, for which no market was available—Missouri and Kansas had closed their borders to Texas cattle in the 1850s because of the deadly Texas feverqv they carried. In the East was a growing demand for beef, and many men, among them Joseph G. McCoy of Illinois, sought ways of supplying it with Texas cattle. In the spring of 1867 he persuaded Kansas Pacific officials to lay a siding at the hamlet of Abilene, Kansas, on the edge of the quarantine area. He began building pens and loading facilities and sent word to Texas cowmen that a cattle market was available. That year he shipped 35,000 head; the number doubled each year until 1871, when 600,000 head glutted the market....
Flooded Village Files Suit, Citing Corporate Link to Climate Change Lawyers for the Alaska Native coastal village of Kivalina, which is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic climate, filed suit in federal court here Tuesday arguing that 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country’s largest coal company were responsible for the village’s woes. The suit is the latest effort to hold companies like BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy and the Southern Company responsible for the impact of global warming because they emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases, or, in the case of Peabody, mine and market carbon-laden coal that is burned by others. It accused the companies of creating a public nuisance. In an unusual move, those five companies and three other defendants — the Exxon Mobil Corporation, American Electric Power and the Conoco Phillips Company — are also accused of conspiracy. “There has been a long campaign by power, coal and oil companies to mislead the public about the science of global warming,” the suit says. The campaign, it says, contributed “to the public nuisance of global warming by convincing the public at large and the victims of global warming that the process is not man-made when in fact it is.” Kivalina, an Inupiat village of 400 people on a barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and two rivers, is being buffeted by waves that, in colder times, were blocked by sea ice, the suit says. “The result of the increased storm damage is a massive erosion problem,” it says. “Houses and buildings are in imminent danger of falling into the sea.”The estimated cost of relocating the village is up to $400 million, the suit says....
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases....
Students on Spring Break to Put Heat on 'King Coal' Instead of partying on the beach this Spring Break, more than 100 college students will spend their vacations in Ohio and Virginia experiencing first-hand "the coal industry's environmental and social degradation," a coalition of energy activists announced on Tuesday. During Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB), young adults will spend March 1-9 in southwestern Virginia and March 22-30 in Meigs County, Ohio, locations chosen by the organizers because they are "coal-impacted areas" that are ready for "corporate and political action." While in Virginia, students will "help clean up a river dirtied by King Coal" and travel to Wise County - the epicenter of Virginia's current coal fight - "to oppose mountaintop coal removal and a proposed coal plant in the region," the news release announcing the project stated. Then, in Ohio, the college kids plan to team up with people from the community who are already fighting new proposals for surface mines and coal plants, the statement added....
Ethanol poses challenge to firefighters The nation's drive toward alternative fuels carries a danger many communities have been to slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special type of firefighting foam. Many fire departments around the country do not have the foam, do not have enough of it, or are not well trained in how to apply it, firefighting specialists say. It is also more expensive than conventional foam. "It is not unusual to find a fire department that is still just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids," said Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. The problem is that water does not put out ethanol fires, and the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary gasoline blazes does not work well against the grain-alcohol fuel. Wrecks involving ordinary cars and trucks are not the major concern. They carry modest amounts of fuel, and it is typically a low-concentration, 10 percent blend of ethanol and gasoline. A large amount of conventional foam can usually extinguish such fires. Instead, the real danger involves the many tanker trucks and railcars that roll out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 or 95 percent ethanol and carry it to parts of the country unaccustomed to dealing with it....
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down. Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases....
Students on Spring Break to Put Heat on 'King Coal' Instead of partying on the beach this Spring Break, more than 100 college students will spend their vacations in Ohio and Virginia experiencing first-hand "the coal industry's environmental and social degradation," a coalition of energy activists announced on Tuesday. During Mountain Justice Spring Break (MJSB), young adults will spend March 1-9 in southwestern Virginia and March 22-30 in Meigs County, Ohio, locations chosen by the organizers because they are "coal-impacted areas" that are ready for "corporate and political action." While in Virginia, students will "help clean up a river dirtied by King Coal" and travel to Wise County - the epicenter of Virginia's current coal fight - "to oppose mountaintop coal removal and a proposed coal plant in the region," the news release announcing the project stated. Then, in Ohio, the college kids plan to team up with people from the community who are already fighting new proposals for surface mines and coal plants, the statement added....
Ethanol poses challenge to firefighters The nation's drive toward alternative fuels carries a danger many communities have been to slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline ones and require a special type of firefighting foam. Many fire departments around the country do not have the foam, do not have enough of it, or are not well trained in how to apply it, firefighting specialists say. It is also more expensive than conventional foam. "It is not unusual to find a fire department that is still just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids," said Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. The problem is that water does not put out ethanol fires, and the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary gasoline blazes does not work well against the grain-alcohol fuel. Wrecks involving ordinary cars and trucks are not the major concern. They carry modest amounts of fuel, and it is typically a low-concentration, 10 percent blend of ethanol and gasoline. A large amount of conventional foam can usually extinguish such fires. Instead, the real danger involves the many tanker trucks and railcars that roll out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 or 95 percent ethanol and carry it to parts of the country unaccustomed to dealing with it....
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Giant Python Could Be 'Health Hazard for Small People' in USA The giant Burmese python, which can grow to more than 20 feet in length and weigh up to 250 pounds, has established a foothold in southern Florida and could spread to other warm-weather regions of the United States, posing "a health hazard for small people," scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned last week....You will recall in my original post on the pythons, I pointed out that toward the end of that article it stated, "The Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans." I guess the USGS hadn't thought about small people at that juncture. Are there still small people in the US? I thought we were all obese.
Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break Compact fluorescent lamps - those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming - can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday. But the reports, issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project, urged homeowners to keep using compact fluorescents because their energy-saving benefits far outweigh the risk posed by mercury released from a broken lamp. They said most danger could be avoided if people exercised common-sense caution, such as not using compact fluorescents in table lamps that could be knocked over by children or pets and properly cleaning up broken bulbs. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the states of Massachusetts and Vermont said yesterday that, based on the Maine study, they are revising their recommendations for where to use compact fluorescents in a home and how to clean up when one breaks. For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times....It must be nice to have a politically correct product. I mean, can you think of another product that is a possible threat to infants, children and pregnant women with the potential to leak poison at 100 times federal guidelines, and the consumer advocates say "just use common sense"?
Farms May Be Exempted From Emission Rules Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases, despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health threat. The EPA acknowledges that the emissions can pose a threat to people living and working nearby, but it says local emergency responders don't use the reports, making them unnecessary. But local air-quality agencies, environmental groups and lawmakers who oppose the rule change say the reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce. Opponents of the rule change say agriculture lobbyists orchestrated a campaign to convince the EPA that the reports are not useful and misrepresented the effort as reflecting the views of local officials. They say the plan to drop the reporting requirement is emblematic of a broader effort by the Bush-era EPA to roll back federal pollution rules....A good example of a not politically correct product.
Norway Opens 'Doomsday' Seed Vault in Arctic Mountain A "doomsday" seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is our insurance policy," Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told delegates at the opening ceremony. "It is the Noah's Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations." European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya were among the dozens of guests who had bundled up for the ceremony inside the vault, about 425 feet deep inside a frozen mountain. "This is a frozen Garden of Eden," Barroso said. The vault will serve as a backup for hundreds of other seed banks worldwide. It has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the world and shield them from man-made and natural disasters. Dug into the permafrost of the mountain, it has been built to withstand an earthquake or a nuclear strike....
19 years later, Exxon oil spill before high court For many in this coastal town, it is known simply as the Oil Spill, an event so crushing that hard-bitten fishermen still get teary-eyed recalling ruined livelihoods, broken marriages and suicides. But mostly, people in Cordova talk about the numbing wait for legal retribution for the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It’s been almost 19 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground at Alaska’s Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages. That amount has since been cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon Mobil Corp. Now the town of 2,200 looks anxiously to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from Exxon on why the company should not have to pay punitive damages at all....
Big birding town risks funds over cats Suspected by the feds of a few killings, Cape May's feral felines were all set to start new lives far from where endangered shorebirds nest. Then howls from the cats' backers persuaded the Cape May City Council to back down on the relocation plan and risk losing millions of dollars in federal sand replenishment. In this historic beach community, where both cats and birds are wildly popular, the debate is more than the love of fur vs. feather. Cape May is also one of the prime bird-watching spots in all of North America. The World Series of Birding is held here each year. The cats have become the top suspect in many deaths of the endangered piping plover, a fist-sized, white-and-brown fuzzball of a bird that has closed beaches and stopped development projects in the interest of protecting their habitat. Cat-lovers said people are the real threat to endangered shorebirds....Just wait 'til the pythons get up there.
The big mystery that is McCain's environmental policy Nowadays, any Republican running for president needs one liberal issue he can point to as proof that he is not the scary sort of conservative. In 2000, George Bush had education. For John McCain in the months ahead, that issue may well be the environment. His vow to tackle global warming has already won him acclaim from outlets like The New York Times editorial page. One of his top strategists, Steve Schmidt, was an architect of Arnold Schwarzenegger's green-themed 2006 reelection drive in California, when the governor traversed the state in a pea-colored bus with a Yosemite National Park vista painted on its side, unveiling solar-paneled schools and signing climate legislation. "Schmidt is a closet environmentalist," chuckles one veteran of that campaign. "He doesn't want people to know, because his clients"--including Dick Cheney--"have all been Republicans, but he's shrewd. He gets that this is an issue that ... resonates with the majority of voters." It wouldn't be wholly outlandish for McCain to follow in Schwarzenegger's steps: After all, during the early Bush years, the Arizona senator did more than just about anyone to put climate change on Congress's radar. On the other hand, his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a dismal 24 percent, and he's generally more likely to side with miners, developers, and loggers than the EPA. So, while it's possible a McCain presidency could offer a Nixon-to-China moment on global warming, it's also possible McCain could say all the right things on the campaign trail and disappoint environmentalists once in office. How green is John McCain, anyway?....
EPA chief warned not to deny California on emission standard A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning. Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Administrator Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers." These internal warnings were included in EPA documents released Tuesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment Committee and had requested the records. Johnson turned down California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act on Dec. 19, after months of review. He overruled the recommendations of senior staff members, according to several media reports, and the documents released Tuesday provide some examples....
New Case of Mad Cow Reported in Canada Canadian officials confirmed a new case of mad cow disease Tuesday, the second such case in two months and the 12th since the disease was first discovered in Canada in 2003. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said no part of the carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains. The cow was detected in Alberta under a national monitoring program that targets cattle most at risk for the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The agency says it expects to detect a small number of cases over the next 10 years as Canada moves toward its goal of eliminating the disease from its herds. U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner said Canada's latest case would not affect trade with the U.S. "This is no cause for concern," Conner said....
Mercury leaks found as new bulbs break Compact fluorescent lamps - those spiral, energy-efficient bulbs popular as a device to combat global warming - can pose a small risk of mercury poisoning to infants, young children, and pregnant women if they break, two reports concluded yesterday. But the reports, issued by the state of Maine and the Vermont-based Mercury Policy Project, urged homeowners to keep using compact fluorescents because their energy-saving benefits far outweigh the risk posed by mercury released from a broken lamp. They said most danger could be avoided if people exercised common-sense caution, such as not using compact fluorescents in table lamps that could be knocked over by children or pets and properly cleaning up broken bulbs. The US Environmental Protection Agency and the states of Massachusetts and Vermont said yesterday that, based on the Maine study, they are revising their recommendations for where to use compact fluorescents in a home and how to clean up when one breaks. For the Maine study, researchers shattered 65 compact fluorescents to test air quality and cleanup methods. They found that, in many cases, immediately after the bulb was broken - and sometimes even after a cleanup was attempted - levels of mercury vapor exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure by as much as 100 times....It must be nice to have a politically correct product. I mean, can you think of another product that is a possible threat to infants, children and pregnant women with the potential to leak poison at 100 times federal guidelines, and the consumer advocates say "just use common sense"?
Farms May Be Exempted From Emission Rules Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases, despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health threat. The EPA acknowledges that the emissions can pose a threat to people living and working nearby, but it says local emergency responders don't use the reports, making them unnecessary. But local air-quality agencies, environmental groups and lawmakers who oppose the rule change say the reports are one of the few tools rural communities have for holding large livestock operations accountable for the pollution they produce. Opponents of the rule change say agriculture lobbyists orchestrated a campaign to convince the EPA that the reports are not useful and misrepresented the effort as reflecting the views of local officials. They say the plan to drop the reporting requirement is emblematic of a broader effort by the Bush-era EPA to roll back federal pollution rules....A good example of a not politically correct product.
Norway Opens 'Doomsday' Seed Vault in Arctic Mountain A "doomsday" seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is our insurance policy," Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told delegates at the opening ceremony. "It is the Noah's Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations." European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai of Kenya were among the dozens of guests who had bundled up for the ceremony inside the vault, about 425 feet deep inside a frozen mountain. "This is a frozen Garden of Eden," Barroso said. The vault will serve as a backup for hundreds of other seed banks worldwide. It has the capacity to store 4.5 million seed samples from around the world and shield them from man-made and natural disasters. Dug into the permafrost of the mountain, it has been built to withstand an earthquake or a nuclear strike....
19 years later, Exxon oil spill before high court For many in this coastal town, it is known simply as the Oil Spill, an event so crushing that hard-bitten fishermen still get teary-eyed recalling ruined livelihoods, broken marriages and suicides. But mostly, people in Cordova talk about the numbing wait for legal retribution for the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It’s been almost 19 years since the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground at Alaska’s Bligh Reef, spurting 11 million gallons of crude into the rich fishing waters of Prince William Sound. In 1994, an Anchorage jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages. That amount has since been cut in half by other courts on appeals by Exxon Mobil Corp. Now the town of 2,200 looks anxiously to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Wednesday from Exxon on why the company should not have to pay punitive damages at all....
Big birding town risks funds over cats Suspected by the feds of a few killings, Cape May's feral felines were all set to start new lives far from where endangered shorebirds nest. Then howls from the cats' backers persuaded the Cape May City Council to back down on the relocation plan and risk losing millions of dollars in federal sand replenishment. In this historic beach community, where both cats and birds are wildly popular, the debate is more than the love of fur vs. feather. Cape May is also one of the prime bird-watching spots in all of North America. The World Series of Birding is held here each year. The cats have become the top suspect in many deaths of the endangered piping plover, a fist-sized, white-and-brown fuzzball of a bird that has closed beaches and stopped development projects in the interest of protecting their habitat. Cat-lovers said people are the real threat to endangered shorebirds....Just wait 'til the pythons get up there.
The big mystery that is McCain's environmental policy Nowadays, any Republican running for president needs one liberal issue he can point to as proof that he is not the scary sort of conservative. In 2000, George Bush had education. For John McCain in the months ahead, that issue may well be the environment. His vow to tackle global warming has already won him acclaim from outlets like The New York Times editorial page. One of his top strategists, Steve Schmidt, was an architect of Arnold Schwarzenegger's green-themed 2006 reelection drive in California, when the governor traversed the state in a pea-colored bus with a Yosemite National Park vista painted on its side, unveiling solar-paneled schools and signing climate legislation. "Schmidt is a closet environmentalist," chuckles one veteran of that campaign. "He doesn't want people to know, because his clients"--including Dick Cheney--"have all been Republicans, but he's shrewd. He gets that this is an issue that ... resonates with the majority of voters." It wouldn't be wholly outlandish for McCain to follow in Schwarzenegger's steps: After all, during the early Bush years, the Arizona senator did more than just about anyone to put climate change on Congress's radar. On the other hand, his lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters is a dismal 24 percent, and he's generally more likely to side with miners, developers, and loggers than the EPA. So, while it's possible a McCain presidency could offer a Nixon-to-China moment on global warming, it's also possible McCain could say all the right things on the campaign trail and disappoint environmentalists once in office. How green is John McCain, anyway?....
EPA chief warned not to deny California on emission standard A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning. Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Administrator Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers." These internal warnings were included in EPA documents released Tuesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment Committee and had requested the records. Johnson turned down California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act on Dec. 19, after months of review. He overruled the recommendations of senior staff members, according to several media reports, and the documents released Tuesday provide some examples....
New Case of Mad Cow Reported in Canada Canadian officials confirmed a new case of mad cow disease Tuesday, the second such case in two months and the 12th since the disease was first discovered in Canada in 2003. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said no part of the carcass entered the human food or animal feed chains. The cow was detected in Alberta under a national monitoring program that targets cattle most at risk for the disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The agency says it expects to detect a small number of cases over the next 10 years as Canada moves toward its goal of eliminating the disease from its herds. U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner said Canada's latest case would not affect trade with the U.S. "This is no cause for concern," Conner said....
Agri-terrorism concerns officials About 30 farmers and ranchers heard Dr. Dave Sparks, veterinarian with Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, urge county commissioners, county law enforcement and county emergency management directors to make plans to prevent agri-terrorism and plans on how to control it if it does occur. Sparks noted that while Homeland Security personnel were searching airplane passengers for guns and weapons, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested one Asian man last year with a bottle of cattle blood contaminated with the hoof-and-mouth disease virus. Sparks cautioned those attending to not confuse hoof-and-mouth disease with a disease called hand-foot-and-mouth disease which infects children. Hoof-and-mouth disease only infects animals with cloven hooves, such as cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. It does not infect humans but can be carried by humans, he said. He noted that the hoof-and-mouth disease virus, if set loose in Oklahoma City, could infect the entire state within four days. The disease is not usually fatal to animals, but leaves them debilitated, and those which survive become carriers, Sparks said. Hoof-and-mouth disease is airborne, and has been shown to spread about 30 miles per day....
Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average." China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them. And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past. The ice is back. Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year....
U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”....
Feds may drop park gun ban Park rangers, retirees and conservation groups are protesting a plan by the Interior Department to reconsider regulations restricting loaded guns in national parks. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates, meanwhile, are hailing the review as the first step to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks. The Interior Department announced Friday that it will review gun laws on lands administered by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The department will draw up new rules by April 30 for public comment, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a letter to 50 senators who requested the review....
Bison slaughter could approach '04-05 figure The bison death toll continues to climb for Yellowstone National Park, as park officials say they plan to slaughter an estimated 180 animals captured Monday to prevent the spread of disease. The bison were captured on the north end of the park near the town of Gardiner -- not far from Yellowstone's famed Roosevelt Arch. More capture operations were planned today near Gardiner and in the West Yellowstone area, where a herd of about 180 bison has lingered outside the park for days, state and federal officials said. A 2000 agreement between Montana and the federal government says the animals must be captured if they leave the park and enter areas where they could encounter cattle. Many bison carry the disease brucellosis. It can cause pregnant livestock to abort their calves and suffer other health problems....
Protest over bison policy shut down Law enforcement officials removed a man Monday from an impromptu perch erected at a bison capture facility near West Yellowstone to protest bison management policies. The bipod, as it was called, was atop two poles and included a blue tarp and a sign that said: "I called, I wrote and no response ... This is my response." "It will be down by the end of the day," Christian Mackay, executive director of the Montana Department of Livestock, said earlier Monday afternoon. "It's nothing we haven't dealt with in the past." A few hours later, the man was removed and officials were preparing to disassemble his structure, said Marna Daley, a spokeswoman for Gallatin National Forest. The protester has not been identified. The incident happened while about 180 bison were captured along Yellowstone National Park's north border Monday and state officials on the western border were preparing to do the same. All of the bison caught are expected to be sent to slaughter....
Officials brush aside worry over wolf kills State wildlife officials dismiss warnings by critics of Wyoming's wolf management plan of the imminent slaughter of up to two-thirds of the state's wolves after the animal loses protection under the federal Endangered Species Act next month. A core part of Wyoming's wolf management plan is dual classification of wolves in Wyoming - as a protected trophy species in the state's northwestern corner and as a predator species in the rest of the state. In the areas where wolves are classified as predators, they can be shot on sight and without limits, provided that kills are reported within 10 days. Critics say that plan will lead to mass wolf killing. But Bill Rudd, Cheyenne assistant division chief of the state Game and Fish Department, doubts that will happen. Rudd said the department will manage the trophy wolf population conservatively at first. He said the goal is to keep wolves from being listed as an endangered species again....
Indian tribes exercising water rights For decades, ranchers and farmers across the West have tapped into rivers and streams on or near Indian reservations. Now, as drought conditions plague big parts of the region, they're concerned their access to those sources could dry up. Although the U.S. Supreme Court gave tribes the primary rights to streams on their reservations in 1908, until recently, 19 tribes in the West had not exercised those rights. This year, tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada and California are on the verge of securing their claims. That could result in less water, or higher water prices, for non-Indian agricultural producers and communities downstream, according to Victor Marshall, an attorney who represents irrigators in New Mexico's San Juan Valley. Marshall acknowledges that Indian tribes have more water coming to them. But he argues the amounts they are seeking are more than they can realistically use on the reservation....
Incline Village woman pleads not guilty in felling of 3 trees An Incline Village woman charged with hiring a company to chop down three Ponderosa pines on public land next to her property pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court. Patricia M. Vincent, 58, was indicted on two federal charges in January for allegedly ordering the cutting of the 80- to 100-year-old trees in April 2007 to improve her view of Lake Tahoe. U.S. Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke accepted Vincent's plea and set her trial for April 29. Vincent will remain out of jail on a personal-recognizance release. Vincent's lawyer, Scott Freeman, said the next step was to find out why Vincent was indicted in the first place. "We're going to be reviewing the charges to determine why this case is a criminal matter," Freeman said after the short hearing in U.S. District Court in Reno. "It's highly unusual for a case like this to be prosecuted." At the time the indictment was released, both the U.S. attorney's office and a spokesman for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency acknowledged that they had not seen such a case in recent history. Vincent was charged with one count of willingly injuring U.S. property and one count of stealing government property. She faces as many as 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted. In 2006, John Fitzhenry was fined $50,000 for poisoning three Jeffrey pines on his Lake Tahoe property....Well, at least she was released. She should be glad David Iglesias wasn't the US Attorney. And let's see, $17,000 a tree for poisoning three trees on your own property...a very reasonable fine by the feds, don'tcha think?
Purchase of vast watershed protects a pristine river The crown jewel of American rivers, the Smith River in Northern California, has been given new luster with the purchase last week of the vast Goose Creek watershed. Goose Creek is one of the Smith's largest tributaries, a vital feeder to the Smith's pristine flows for salmon and steelhead. The Western Rivers Conservancy helped the U.S. Forest Service purchase a 9,483-acre parcel that encompasses the watershed and adds the land to the Smith River National Recreation Area. Goose Creek enters the South Fork Smith River near the bridge for the Gasquet-Orleans Road, right at the line for legal steelhead fishing on the South Fork. Goose Creek is big enough to be called the Goose Fork of the Smith, and while the forest was logged virtually to water's edge in the past, fishery scientists call it "an incredible fish stream" that will now be protected forever. The Conservancy purchased Goose Creek land in several phases in the past six years. U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both California Democrats) and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, helped arrange for $3.1 million from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to allow the Forest Service to close the deal....
San Juan Basin stakeholders group forms With a nudge from a U.S. congressman, a new stakeholders group has been formed to give voice to individuals affected by coal-bed methane drilling in the northern San Juan Basin. The group will hold its first open house early in March. U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, asked U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials to create working groups after Salazar toured the HD Mountains east of Bayfield in 2006. Salazar heard concerns from many residents, especially regarding drilling in or near the 1½-mile Fruitland outcrop. The formation of a technical working group was included in the Environmental Impact Statement that was approved in April 2007. However, Matt Janowiak with the San Juan Public Lands Center in Durango said the group created, which was mostly comprised of energy-industry representatives, engineers and geologists, was too technical to represent private landowners and residents. "We identified what we would call core stakeholders last year, but what we're trying to do is see who and what other groups we would consider as part of that core," Janowiak said. "So we're opening it up to everyone to come in and say 'we're stakeholders in the San Juan Basin, too.'" Janowiak said the stakeholders group will include landowner representatives, elected officials and other less technically minded people....
U.S. officials monitoring fire that crossed over from Mexico A day-old forest fire in the San Rafael Valley crossed from Sonora, Mexico, into the United States toward the Huachuca Mountains on Sunday, a U.S. Forest Service official said. Reaching the Coronado National Forest were three fingers of blazing ground comprising 27.5 acres that had branched out from the nearby main body of fire, 350 acres, in Mexico, said Heidi Schewel, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service. The fire crossed the border about seven miles southeast of Parker Canyon Lake on the western side of the Huachuca Mountains. The cause is under investigation. “We sent an engine and a chase truck into Mexico after we got permission, and they assisted in fire suppression,” Schewel said. The fire was burning on Saturday, visible to a number of people in southern Cochise County in the Hereford/Palominas area. The Forest Service has named the blaze the 103 Fire, because it is close to the 103 border marker....
Bush kisses off Forest Service On Valentine's Day, the Bush administration sent the U.S. Forest Service a great big kiss. Or rather a great big kiss-off: The president's 2008 budget slashes the agency's spending by 8 percent, leading to the loss of 2,700 jobs and forcing the agency, which manages more than 3.5 million acres in Southern California, to narrow its focus to firefighting. This bad-news budget should come with a name change: the Forest Service now should be called the U.S. Fire Service. The shift would not be in name only, marking instead a radical break in national-forest history. Founded in 1905 to protect lands critical to the nation's welfare, the Forest Service acted in concert with its Organic Administrative Act (1897): "No national forest shall be established, except ... for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens." Over the next half-century, the agency replanted forests, upgraded grasslands, and restored watersheds, contributing to the growth and development of California, the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific Northwest. These environmental ramifications and economic consequences were of a piece with founding Chief Gifford Pinchot's maxim: "the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."....
Storms reveal secrets on Oregon's coast The storms that have lashed Oregon's scenic coast this winter have dredged up an unusual array of once-buried secrets: old shipwrecks, historic cannons, ghost forests - even strangely shaped iron deposits. The curiosities began showing up after December when Pacific storms pummeled the state, damaging thousands of homes and causing an estimated $60 million in damage to roads, bridges and public buildings. The storms also brought high seas, which caused beach erosion. Although sands commonly shift in winter, this season appeared especially dramatic. There were reports that up to 17 feet of sand eroded away at Arch Cape. Ghost forests are groves of tree stumps, some an estimated 4,000 years old, that were engulfed by the sea. Because of shifting sands, many have suddenly popped up. The stumps are especially impressive at Arch Cape, where locals say they haven't seen them for some 40 years, according to Tiffany Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium. "The forest floor is actually uncovered too. You can see the floor," she said. "There's like these mud cliffs. As your walking on it, it resembles clay. It's definitely not sand at all." Arch Cape also was where a pair of historic cannons were recently discovered by beachcombers. The origin of the cannons, each weighing between 800 and 1,000 pounds, is not known....
Rancher sees his kind as endangered species Rancher Tim Koopmann stands on a hillside nurtured by heavy winter rains, scanning his expansive property between Pleasanton and Sunol dotted with roaming cattle, majestic oaks and hovering red-tailed hawks. It takes more than a second before he reluctantly turns toward the humming of cars on the adjacent Interstate 680 and scrutinizes the explosion of commercial and residential development that has drastically transformed the serene open space of his childhood into the bustling urban center of the Tri-Valley. "All of this is new in my lifetime," says Koopmann of the growth in Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore. "It makes me appreciate my property even more, ... all the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into this ranch." Koopmann, 55, is proud and protective of his not-so-little piece of rural heaven that today is penned in by the freeway, mega-mansions and an 18-hole municipal golf course. And, like a death-row inmate who receives the governor's pardon at the eleventh hour, Koopmann's appreciation is tangible when he talks of how he deftly averted a possible forced sale of the ranch in the late 1990s. By working in cooperation with local, state and federal officials, Koopmann has successfully established wildlife habitat easements on his 853-acre ranch, protecting the threatened California tiger salamanders, red-legged frog — and the threatened California rancher....
LMA asks Supreme Court to review horse slaugher ruling An Illinois law that closed a state horse processing plant, and the federal appeals court decision upholding the law, have effectively exempted 40,000 n 60,000 horses from humane slaughter. That is a key reason why the U.S. Supreme Court should hear the appeal of the decision by the plant, Cavel International, Inc., according to an “amicus curiae” (friend of the court) brief filed on Feb. 22 by Livestock Marketing Association. When the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the Illinois law that closed the DeKalb, Ill., plant last year, it “failed to address the adverse impact” of the law, LMA’s brief said. As a result, “tens of thousands of horses…will die each year because they are at the end of their useful lives, (and) which will now die of neglect or be killed using procedures which are outside the protection accorded by the Humane Slaughter Act,” the brief said. Cavel slaughtered 40,000-60,000 horses annually, all under provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act, which only applies to U.S. plants. The court rulings “have provided an incentive for the export of horses to foreign slaughterhouses, and are contributing factors in an increase of equine neglect,” the brief said, citing news accounts on this topic. Agreeing to review the case “provides the (Supreme Court’s) last and only opportunity to restore the…Slaughter Act’s coverage in connection with horses.” The Appeals Court also said it upheld the Illinois law because the law was “somewhat tenuously supported by a legitimate state interest.” The amicus brief disagreed, saying “the de facto exemption” of the thousands of horses slaughtered by Cavel from provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act “more than outweighs” that somewhat “tenuous…state interest.”....
Rice and U.S. Beef Lobbyist Offer Reassurance in Seoul The largest food recall in U.S. history is reverberating abroad, and the White House is helping the meat industry counter the fallout in an important Asian market. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice included Andy Groseta, the chief of the nation's biggest beef lobby, in her six-person entourage at yesterday's inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul. Secretary Rice will focus on North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, but the administration wants progress on a free-trade pact that has been slowed by South Korea's 2003 ban of U.S. beef imports. Mr. Groseta, an Arizona rancher who presides over the million-member National Cattlemen's Beef Association, will help Wendy Cutler, assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation affairs, answer South Korean officials' questions about U.S. beef processing and its safety. Japan and South Korea were the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. beef in 2003, topping Mexico and Canada. The two Asian nations implemented a ban on U.S. beef imports in late December 2003, when mad-cow disease -- which can cause a rare but fatal brain disease in humans -- was found in the U.S....
Riding Into History On Cracker's Back It's easy to forget, in the ribbons of highway and rows of two-car garage homes, that Florida was built by real horse power. For more than 400 years, a relatively small breed of horse carried people through the pines and palmettos of a wilder landscape, starting with armor-clad Spanish conquistadors and later missionaries, settlers, American Indians and cowboys who drove cattle across an open range. Monday, two little horses had no trouble looking the part of their ancestors as they prepared to carry riders 300 miles from Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve to Tallahassee. "These horses have been a major part of all phases of Florida history," James Levy, a state historian dressed in late 1800s garb, told a small crowd that gathered at the preserve to see the riders off. For centuries, descendants of Spanish horses pulled carts and plows and carried men into battle, Levy said. Levy, also executive director of the Florida Cracker Horse Association, said the trek is intended to remind people of the state's equine heritage and build support for a bill that would name the Cracker the official state horse....
Delta folks strap on the bunny ears and hop to a hare-raising record Here's a question: What do you call a line of 3,841 Utahns wearing bunny ears and hopping in unison? A. Crazy B. Saturday night at Donny Osmond's house C. A new world record As the proud folks in Delta will tell you, the correct answer is C. Residents of the west desert town learned this month that they'll be featured in the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, out this fall. The category: "Largest Bunny Hop." Didn't think people keep records on this kind of stuff, did you? It all started early last year when Delta community leaders, looking for a special event to commemorate the city's centennial, decided to take aim at the world bunny hop record, set in 2006 by 1,880 people in Lake Geneva, Wis. Organizers chose the bunny in honor of Delta High School, whose mascot is the rabbit. (Not the most fearsome animal to name your football team after, but hey, the track team must love it.)....
U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”....
Feds may drop park gun ban Park rangers, retirees and conservation groups are protesting a plan by the Interior Department to reconsider regulations restricting loaded guns in national parks. The National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates, meanwhile, are hailing the review as the first step to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks. The Interior Department announced Friday that it will review gun laws on lands administered by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The department will draw up new rules by April 30 for public comment, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a letter to 50 senators who requested the review....
Bison slaughter could approach '04-05 figure The bison death toll continues to climb for Yellowstone National Park, as park officials say they plan to slaughter an estimated 180 animals captured Monday to prevent the spread of disease. The bison were captured on the north end of the park near the town of Gardiner -- not far from Yellowstone's famed Roosevelt Arch. More capture operations were planned today near Gardiner and in the West Yellowstone area, where a herd of about 180 bison has lingered outside the park for days, state and federal officials said. A 2000 agreement between Montana and the federal government says the animals must be captured if they leave the park and enter areas where they could encounter cattle. Many bison carry the disease brucellosis. It can cause pregnant livestock to abort their calves and suffer other health problems....
Protest over bison policy shut down Law enforcement officials removed a man Monday from an impromptu perch erected at a bison capture facility near West Yellowstone to protest bison management policies. The bipod, as it was called, was atop two poles and included a blue tarp and a sign that said: "I called, I wrote and no response ... This is my response." "It will be down by the end of the day," Christian Mackay, executive director of the Montana Department of Livestock, said earlier Monday afternoon. "It's nothing we haven't dealt with in the past." A few hours later, the man was removed and officials were preparing to disassemble his structure, said Marna Daley, a spokeswoman for Gallatin National Forest. The protester has not been identified. The incident happened while about 180 bison were captured along Yellowstone National Park's north border Monday and state officials on the western border were preparing to do the same. All of the bison caught are expected to be sent to slaughter....
Officials brush aside worry over wolf kills State wildlife officials dismiss warnings by critics of Wyoming's wolf management plan of the imminent slaughter of up to two-thirds of the state's wolves after the animal loses protection under the federal Endangered Species Act next month. A core part of Wyoming's wolf management plan is dual classification of wolves in Wyoming - as a protected trophy species in the state's northwestern corner and as a predator species in the rest of the state. In the areas where wolves are classified as predators, they can be shot on sight and without limits, provided that kills are reported within 10 days. Critics say that plan will lead to mass wolf killing. But Bill Rudd, Cheyenne assistant division chief of the state Game and Fish Department, doubts that will happen. Rudd said the department will manage the trophy wolf population conservatively at first. He said the goal is to keep wolves from being listed as an endangered species again....
Indian tribes exercising water rights For decades, ranchers and farmers across the West have tapped into rivers and streams on or near Indian reservations. Now, as drought conditions plague big parts of the region, they're concerned their access to those sources could dry up. Although the U.S. Supreme Court gave tribes the primary rights to streams on their reservations in 1908, until recently, 19 tribes in the West had not exercised those rights. This year, tribes in Montana, New Mexico, Idaho, Nevada and California are on the verge of securing their claims. That could result in less water, or higher water prices, for non-Indian agricultural producers and communities downstream, according to Victor Marshall, an attorney who represents irrigators in New Mexico's San Juan Valley. Marshall acknowledges that Indian tribes have more water coming to them. But he argues the amounts they are seeking are more than they can realistically use on the reservation....
Incline Village woman pleads not guilty in felling of 3 trees An Incline Village woman charged with hiring a company to chop down three Ponderosa pines on public land next to her property pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court. Patricia M. Vincent, 58, was indicted on two federal charges in January for allegedly ordering the cutting of the 80- to 100-year-old trees in April 2007 to improve her view of Lake Tahoe. U.S. Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke accepted Vincent's plea and set her trial for April 29. Vincent will remain out of jail on a personal-recognizance release. Vincent's lawyer, Scott Freeman, said the next step was to find out why Vincent was indicted in the first place. "We're going to be reviewing the charges to determine why this case is a criminal matter," Freeman said after the short hearing in U.S. District Court in Reno. "It's highly unusual for a case like this to be prosecuted." At the time the indictment was released, both the U.S. attorney's office and a spokesman for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency acknowledged that they had not seen such a case in recent history. Vincent was charged with one count of willingly injuring U.S. property and one count of stealing government property. She faces as many as 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine if convicted. In 2006, John Fitzhenry was fined $50,000 for poisoning three Jeffrey pines on his Lake Tahoe property....Well, at least she was released. She should be glad David Iglesias wasn't the US Attorney. And let's see, $17,000 a tree for poisoning three trees on your own property...a very reasonable fine by the feds, don'tcha think?
Purchase of vast watershed protects a pristine river The crown jewel of American rivers, the Smith River in Northern California, has been given new luster with the purchase last week of the vast Goose Creek watershed. Goose Creek is one of the Smith's largest tributaries, a vital feeder to the Smith's pristine flows for salmon and steelhead. The Western Rivers Conservancy helped the U.S. Forest Service purchase a 9,483-acre parcel that encompasses the watershed and adds the land to the Smith River National Recreation Area. Goose Creek enters the South Fork Smith River near the bridge for the Gasquet-Orleans Road, right at the line for legal steelhead fishing on the South Fork. Goose Creek is big enough to be called the Goose Fork of the Smith, and while the forest was logged virtually to water's edge in the past, fishery scientists call it "an incredible fish stream" that will now be protected forever. The Conservancy purchased Goose Creek land in several phases in the past six years. U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both California Democrats) and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, helped arrange for $3.1 million from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to allow the Forest Service to close the deal....
San Juan Basin stakeholders group forms With a nudge from a U.S. congressman, a new stakeholders group has been formed to give voice to individuals affected by coal-bed methane drilling in the northern San Juan Basin. The group will hold its first open house early in March. U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, asked U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management officials to create working groups after Salazar toured the HD Mountains east of Bayfield in 2006. Salazar heard concerns from many residents, especially regarding drilling in or near the 1½-mile Fruitland outcrop. The formation of a technical working group was included in the Environmental Impact Statement that was approved in April 2007. However, Matt Janowiak with the San Juan Public Lands Center in Durango said the group created, which was mostly comprised of energy-industry representatives, engineers and geologists, was too technical to represent private landowners and residents. "We identified what we would call core stakeholders last year, but what we're trying to do is see who and what other groups we would consider as part of that core," Janowiak said. "So we're opening it up to everyone to come in and say 'we're stakeholders in the San Juan Basin, too.'" Janowiak said the stakeholders group will include landowner representatives, elected officials and other less technically minded people....
U.S. officials monitoring fire that crossed over from Mexico A day-old forest fire in the San Rafael Valley crossed from Sonora, Mexico, into the United States toward the Huachuca Mountains on Sunday, a U.S. Forest Service official said. Reaching the Coronado National Forest were three fingers of blazing ground comprising 27.5 acres that had branched out from the nearby main body of fire, 350 acres, in Mexico, said Heidi Schewel, a fire information officer with the U.S. Forest Service. The fire crossed the border about seven miles southeast of Parker Canyon Lake on the western side of the Huachuca Mountains. The cause is under investigation. “We sent an engine and a chase truck into Mexico after we got permission, and they assisted in fire suppression,” Schewel said. The fire was burning on Saturday, visible to a number of people in southern Cochise County in the Hereford/Palominas area. The Forest Service has named the blaze the 103 Fire, because it is close to the 103 border marker....
Bush kisses off Forest Service On Valentine's Day, the Bush administration sent the U.S. Forest Service a great big kiss. Or rather a great big kiss-off: The president's 2008 budget slashes the agency's spending by 8 percent, leading to the loss of 2,700 jobs and forcing the agency, which manages more than 3.5 million acres in Southern California, to narrow its focus to firefighting. This bad-news budget should come with a name change: the Forest Service now should be called the U.S. Fire Service. The shift would not be in name only, marking instead a radical break in national-forest history. Founded in 1905 to protect lands critical to the nation's welfare, the Forest Service acted in concert with its Organic Administrative Act (1897): "No national forest shall be established, except ... for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens." Over the next half-century, the agency replanted forests, upgraded grasslands, and restored watersheds, contributing to the growth and development of California, the Rocky Mountain region and the Pacific Northwest. These environmental ramifications and economic consequences were of a piece with founding Chief Gifford Pinchot's maxim: "the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run."....
Storms reveal secrets on Oregon's coast The storms that have lashed Oregon's scenic coast this winter have dredged up an unusual array of once-buried secrets: old shipwrecks, historic cannons, ghost forests - even strangely shaped iron deposits. The curiosities began showing up after December when Pacific storms pummeled the state, damaging thousands of homes and causing an estimated $60 million in damage to roads, bridges and public buildings. The storms also brought high seas, which caused beach erosion. Although sands commonly shift in winter, this season appeared especially dramatic. There were reports that up to 17 feet of sand eroded away at Arch Cape. Ghost forests are groves of tree stumps, some an estimated 4,000 years old, that were engulfed by the sea. Because of shifting sands, many have suddenly popped up. The stumps are especially impressive at Arch Cape, where locals say they haven't seen them for some 40 years, according to Tiffany Boothe of the Seaside Aquarium. "The forest floor is actually uncovered too. You can see the floor," she said. "There's like these mud cliffs. As your walking on it, it resembles clay. It's definitely not sand at all." Arch Cape also was where a pair of historic cannons were recently discovered by beachcombers. The origin of the cannons, each weighing between 800 and 1,000 pounds, is not known....
Rancher sees his kind as endangered species Rancher Tim Koopmann stands on a hillside nurtured by heavy winter rains, scanning his expansive property between Pleasanton and Sunol dotted with roaming cattle, majestic oaks and hovering red-tailed hawks. It takes more than a second before he reluctantly turns toward the humming of cars on the adjacent Interstate 680 and scrutinizes the explosion of commercial and residential development that has drastically transformed the serene open space of his childhood into the bustling urban center of the Tri-Valley. "All of this is new in my lifetime," says Koopmann of the growth in Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore. "It makes me appreciate my property even more, ... all the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into this ranch." Koopmann, 55, is proud and protective of his not-so-little piece of rural heaven that today is penned in by the freeway, mega-mansions and an 18-hole municipal golf course. And, like a death-row inmate who receives the governor's pardon at the eleventh hour, Koopmann's appreciation is tangible when he talks of how he deftly averted a possible forced sale of the ranch in the late 1990s. By working in cooperation with local, state and federal officials, Koopmann has successfully established wildlife habitat easements on his 853-acre ranch, protecting the threatened California tiger salamanders, red-legged frog — and the threatened California rancher....
LMA asks Supreme Court to review horse slaugher ruling An Illinois law that closed a state horse processing plant, and the federal appeals court decision upholding the law, have effectively exempted 40,000 n 60,000 horses from humane slaughter. That is a key reason why the U.S. Supreme Court should hear the appeal of the decision by the plant, Cavel International, Inc., according to an “amicus curiae” (friend of the court) brief filed on Feb. 22 by Livestock Marketing Association. When the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the Illinois law that closed the DeKalb, Ill., plant last year, it “failed to address the adverse impact” of the law, LMA’s brief said. As a result, “tens of thousands of horses…will die each year because they are at the end of their useful lives, (and) which will now die of neglect or be killed using procedures which are outside the protection accorded by the Humane Slaughter Act,” the brief said. Cavel slaughtered 40,000-60,000 horses annually, all under provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act, which only applies to U.S. plants. The court rulings “have provided an incentive for the export of horses to foreign slaughterhouses, and are contributing factors in an increase of equine neglect,” the brief said, citing news accounts on this topic. Agreeing to review the case “provides the (Supreme Court’s) last and only opportunity to restore the…Slaughter Act’s coverage in connection with horses.” The Appeals Court also said it upheld the Illinois law because the law was “somewhat tenuously supported by a legitimate state interest.” The amicus brief disagreed, saying “the de facto exemption” of the thousands of horses slaughtered by Cavel from provisions of the Humane Slaughter Act “more than outweighs” that somewhat “tenuous…state interest.”....
Rice and U.S. Beef Lobbyist Offer Reassurance in Seoul The largest food recall in U.S. history is reverberating abroad, and the White House is helping the meat industry counter the fallout in an important Asian market. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice included Andy Groseta, the chief of the nation's biggest beef lobby, in her six-person entourage at yesterday's inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul. Secretary Rice will focus on North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, but the administration wants progress on a free-trade pact that has been slowed by South Korea's 2003 ban of U.S. beef imports. Mr. Groseta, an Arizona rancher who presides over the million-member National Cattlemen's Beef Association, will help Wendy Cutler, assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation affairs, answer South Korean officials' questions about U.S. beef processing and its safety. Japan and South Korea were the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. beef in 2003, topping Mexico and Canada. The two Asian nations implemented a ban on U.S. beef imports in late December 2003, when mad-cow disease -- which can cause a rare but fatal brain disease in humans -- was found in the U.S....
Riding Into History On Cracker's Back It's easy to forget, in the ribbons of highway and rows of two-car garage homes, that Florida was built by real horse power. For more than 400 years, a relatively small breed of horse carried people through the pines and palmettos of a wilder landscape, starting with armor-clad Spanish conquistadors and later missionaries, settlers, American Indians and cowboys who drove cattle across an open range. Monday, two little horses had no trouble looking the part of their ancestors as they prepared to carry riders 300 miles from Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve to Tallahassee. "These horses have been a major part of all phases of Florida history," James Levy, a state historian dressed in late 1800s garb, told a small crowd that gathered at the preserve to see the riders off. For centuries, descendants of Spanish horses pulled carts and plows and carried men into battle, Levy said. Levy, also executive director of the Florida Cracker Horse Association, said the trek is intended to remind people of the state's equine heritage and build support for a bill that would name the Cracker the official state horse....
Delta folks strap on the bunny ears and hop to a hare-raising record Here's a question: What do you call a line of 3,841 Utahns wearing bunny ears and hopping in unison? A. Crazy B. Saturday night at Donny Osmond's house C. A new world record As the proud folks in Delta will tell you, the correct answer is C. Residents of the west desert town learned this month that they'll be featured in the 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records book, out this fall. The category: "Largest Bunny Hop." Didn't think people keep records on this kind of stuff, did you? It all started early last year when Delta community leaders, looking for a special event to commemorate the city's centennial, decided to take aim at the world bunny hop record, set in 2006 by 1,880 people in Lake Geneva, Wis. Organizers chose the bunny in honor of Delta High School, whose mascot is the rabbit. (Not the most fearsome animal to name your football team after, but hey, the track team must love it.)....
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