NEWS ROUNDUP

Environmentalists request goshawk protection The petition filed Tuesday includes all national forests in Idaho, Montana and western Wyoming and asks for the protection of all existing old-growth forests and all roadless areas of more than 1,000 acres. The notice came under the federal Administrative Procedures Act, which gives citizens the right to petition government agencies to issue a rule or regulation.... Florida Wilderness Fire Threatens Homes A fire that started as a prescribed burn but leapt out of control had swept through about 30,000 acres by late Tuesday and forced the evacuation of about 35 homes in north Florida, officials said Tuesday. The blaze was damaging valuable timber in national and state forests, officials said.... Bitterroot forest employees among group that sent explicit e-mails Eight Bitterroot National Forest employees had disciplinary actions taken against them in past two weeks for forwarding or sending inappropriate e-mails, said David Bull, forest supervisor. "It's pretty clear in memos to all employees that what certain employees were doing in forwarding this stuff on is not permitted by our rules," said Bull. Due to privacy laws, the names of the employees disciplined will not be released.... Public lands endorsed by state Supreme Court A decision Monday by the Colorado Supreme Court could result in preservation of thousands of acres of open space around Aspen and guarantee that the Mount Sopris Tree Farm in El Jebel remains in public hands. The Supreme Court ruled Pitkin County's process of acquiring a mining claim on the back of Aspen Mountain through a tax sale nearly a century ago was legitimate. The plaintiff had claimed the sale was flawed and, therefore, the land was in private rather than public hands. The case, which cannot be appealed any higher, could set a precedent for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of such tax sales made during Aspen's quiet years - when the town was withering after the collapse of silver prices.... Tucson's Sabino Canyon closed for mountain lions The popular Sabino Canyon Recreation Area was scheduled to close Wednesday while animal trackers search for mountain lions. Closure of the area, where some 1.5 million people hike or take tram rides in the canyon annually, could last up to two weeks, Coronado National Forest officials said.... Forest Service's 'Healthy Forests' Budget Shortchanges Crucial Programs; Fails to Adequately Protect Communities As the House of Representatives Committee on Resources prepares to convene Wednesday, March 10, all eyes are on questionable figures in the US Forest Service budget that reveal a plan that may leave several programs dangerously underfunded. In a forthcoming report, The Wilderness Society reveals an illogical system of borrowing and reallocation of funds that will fail to meet the long-term goals of effective wildland fire management and long-term conservation needs. The money to pay for fire suppression is raided from critical forest fuels reduction projects, and other programs, which Congress has failed to fully repay....Go here(pdf) for an executive summary of the report.... Hayman Fire restitution sought Government attorneys argued today the former Forest Service employee who set the largest wildfire in Colorado history should be forced to pay $14.7 million in restitution. U.S. Attorney John Suthers, arguing his case in person, told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Terry Lynn Barton should be ordered to pay the amount agreed to by prosecutors and defense attorneys.... Column: Let's bring back public hearings Public hearings, and your right to tell the government what you think, are becoming things of the past in Juneau. So is your right to hear what other citizens think. The U.S. Forest Service held an "open house" supposedly to inform the community about the proposed Kensington mine and allow the public to express their thoughts about the project's draft supplemental environmental impact statement. While attending, many people were stunned to learn that nothing they said at the open house would be recorded or officially acknowledged in any way. The acting regional director of the Forest Service told a group of us that the only way to get our thoughts into the official record is to put them in writing. This new policy and the "open house" format that a growing number of government agencies are using to replace public hearings, seriously damage the public's ability to influence decisions.... Turtle Advocate Fights Key West Dredging A sea turtle advocate said Tuesday that the Navy's plan to dredge Key West Harbor violates the Endangered Species Act, and he has notified the government of his intent to sue. Ritchie Moretti said dredging equipment that sucks up sand and silt is a "turtle killer" and the Navy and Army Corps of Engineers need to catch any of the protected animals in the path of the machine and move them out of danger. Moretti, who founded the only state-certified veterinary hospital for sea turtles, filed notice Monday of an intent to sue with the Army, Navy, Corps of Engineers, Commerce Department and National Marine Fisheries Service.... Some encouraging signs in swift fox program Half the swift foxes reintroduced in central South Dakota have died, but that's an expected mortality rate in the wild, a biologist said. Sixty swift foxes were released on Ted Turner's Bad River Ranches in 2002 and 2003. Thirty foxes are known to be dead, 21 are known to be alive and nine are missing, according to Kevin Honness, a project biologist with the Turner Endangered Species Fund.... Unchecked Development Wiping Out Front Range Wildlife; Conservation Groups Act to Stop Wildlife Decline A coalition of conservation groups moved to intervene in a lawsuit by an anti- environmental law firm aiming to eliminate protection for the Preble's meadow jumping mouse and its Front Range streamside habitat. The Preble's meadow jumping mouse was protected in 1998 under the Endangered Species Act because unmanaged sprawl had devastated riparian ecosystems in Colorado from Colorado Springs to Ft. Collins and northward into southern Wyoming.... Midwest farmers find common ground with Western loggers It might seem odd to have a Montana logger standing at the podium and talking to a group of Quincy area farmers and agribusinessmen. But Bruce Vincent says the two groups, the area farm community and the timber industry half a nation away, share some traits and face many of the same challenges. Vincent hails from the small logging community of Libby in the extreme northwest part of Montana, where environmental concerns closed off access to much of the public land, shut down sawmills and cost jobs in the name of protecting the forest. He says that is a microcosm of what's happening across rural America.... Federal officials to eradicate two Madison Valley wolf packs The discovery Tuesday of two more cattle attacked by wolves in the Madison Valley has prompted federal officials to begin efforts to eradicate two wolf packs that are preying on livestock. The carcass of a 1-year-old steer was found in a coulee on a ranch east of Ennis Lake, said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It had been killed by wolves. On the same ranch, a 1-year-old heifer had been so badly injured by wolves Tuesday morning that the rancher had to euthanize it.... Ranch destined to be sanctuary A Central Texas ranch that includes several of the towering sandstone-capped mesas known as the Yegua Knobs will be managed by a land trust after a national conservation group bought the tract with proceeds from an air pollution settlement. The 302-acre ranch about 18 miles northeast of Bastrop includes habitat of the endangered Houston toad and will be used for scientific research, with a management plan to eventually include limited recreation. Trust for Public Land recently used $574,000 from the settlement with Alcoa Inc. to buy the tract from Roy Knippa of New Braunfels, then transfer it to the Bastrop-based Pines and Prairies Land Trust.... White House not backing bill to repair ailing missions The Bush administration will not support legislation funding repairs to San Gabriel Arcangel and California's 20 other crumbling historic missions, a Department of Interior official said Tuesday. The bill authorizing $10 million in federal matching funds to repair missions from San Diego to Sonoma also faced opposition at a Senate hearing from a church-state separation watchdog who said taxpayers should not fund church repairs.... Judge delays contempt ruling Legal jockeying that could determine if or how many snowmobiles are permitted in the park next year began in a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected a request by Bush administration and snowmobile industry lawyers to transfer a case on snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park to a federal court in Wyoming. At the hearing, Sullivan also delayed a decision on a request by environmental groups that the Interior Department be held in contempt of court for rejecting his ruling on use of snowmobiles in the parks.... Suspect in booby trap case to quit post A 54-year-old management consultant accused of setting booby traps along a public trail near Placitas will step down from the board of directors of an Albuquerque research center, an official there confirmed. Michael Delongchamp of Placitas will relinquish his position with the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest, business manager Dan Calabrese said Monday.... Western drought expected to ease The drought that has gripped the West for the last several years is expected to ease some in the coming year, although Bush administration officials warned Tuesday that water wars will continue. Much of New Mexico and parts of Montana and Idaho are forecast to continue suffering from a severe drought, according to projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But the long-term drought has left reservoirs in Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Oregon with less than half of their normal reserve, and it could take as many as 20 years worth of normal precipitation to replenish the supply.... BOR agency plans to present beetle proposal The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is proposing to make a field release of leaf-eating beetles as an alternative to chemical control of salt cedar. The bio-control beetle, which originates from Greece, would be released on BOR salt cedar lands in the Carlsbad area. Federal government researchers hope the beetle will help control the spread of the salt cedar, which can use up to 200 gallons of water per day per tree. That would allow more water to stay in the river, which could help local farmers irrigate their crops, officials said.... Editorial: Water deal blazes new path The innovative water-leasing deal between Arkansas Valley farmers and the city of Aurora brings a welcome new tool to the state's water management - an issue that has more often been addressed with bombast and invective than reasonable compromise in Colorado. The $5.5 million deal will boost Aurora's water supply by almost 25 percent this year. In turn, the farmers will idle 8,550 acres of land that would otherwise have been irrigated to grow such crops as hay or corn. The payment to the farmers works out to $643 per acre - more than double the likely cash value of the crops that could have been grown with the water.... Editorial: Wheeling the water The federal government is evaluating a controversial plan that would allow Southern Nevada to dump water it already owns into tributaries of the Colorado River far upstream -- and then reclaim its own water as it flows past the Las Vegas water intakes, downstream in Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority owns 128,000 acre-feet of surface water rights on the Muddy and Virgin rivers -- the former flowing past the village of Moapa 60 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the latter stretching an additional hundred miles, across a corner of the Arizona strip and into Utah, as far as Zion National Park. "Wheeling" this water through the Colorado would not only be vastly less expensive than building a pipeline to haul the same water overland to Las Vegas, it would make better environmental sense, as well.... Mexico's Ban on U.S. Beef Imports Raises Inflation Mexican inflation accelerated in February as a temporary ban on U.S. beef pushed up the price of items such as the tacos served at street carts in Mexico City. Meat prices in Mexico have risen from 15 to 40 percent since Mexico banned imports of U.S. beef in December after the discovery of a cow infected in Washington state with mad cow disease, said Jesus Ancheta, commercial director at the Sinaloa Cattle Union. Mexico eased the import restrictions last week.... How do you like your iguana? On a blustery afternoon, a delivery truck creeps through a cluster of ethnic food warehouses in northeast Washington and parks by the section of dock belonging to Distribuidora Cuscatlan, an importer of foods from El Salvador. Frank Rodriguez, Cuscatlan's manager, walks past crates of rice before stepping into a gargantuan stainless-steel freezer. He opens a box that contains what many consider a culinary delicacy - iguana. For centuries, iguana has been consumed throughout Central America; now it's showing up on a small but growing number of North American dinner tables.... Mesa couple gather 'round chuck wagon After the Civil War, cowboys - and they were boys, 14, 15, 16 years old - began rounding up the cattle that had roamed wild in the West during the war and drove those herds to feed beef-hungry Easterners. With nothing like a refrigerated cooler or a Coleman stove, cowboy food amounted to beans, rice and dried salt pork cooked in an iron pot over an open fire. Dessert was as fancy as bread drizzled with molasses. In his native Texas, the sport has grown from half a dozen cooks restoring and cooking from chuck wagons 30 years ago to hundreds of competitors today who travel a circuit around the country matching wits and barbecue pits with other contestants, Perini says. More than two dozen are expected to compete at the Festival of the West, March 18-21 at WestWorld in Scottsdale.... President Bush Meets Privately With ProRodeo's 2003 World Champs During his visit to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, President George W. Bush met privately with the 2003 ProRodeo world champions and Steven J. Hatchell, commissioner of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), at Reliant Stadium. Bush was presented with a Number One back number from the 2003 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) bearing his name; a black leather bomber jacket; and a black cowboy hat....