Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Access or excess

Spend a few days in the woods and you’ll see, hear, or smell traces of a species that is quickly rising to the top of the food chain in National Forests.

Whether you hike, bike, hunt or ride horses in the forests, plains or deserts of the Rocky Mountain West, you’re likely to discover recent evidence of vehicles.

Off-road vehicles – including all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), dirt bikes, jeeps, dune buggies and snowmobiles -- are built and marketed to get deep into the backcountry. As a result, a form of recreation enjoyed by a minority of visitors to national forests has demanded an increasing share of the natural and financial resources of our public lands and become one of the most contentious management topics of the day....
NEWS ROUNDUP

Biz leaders move to block 'roadless rule' return In a "friend of the court" brief filed last week by the Western Business Roundtable and the Colorado, Wyoming and Utah Mining Associations, Western business leaders urged the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold Brimmer's decision. The business leaders say that Brimmer's decision striking down the Clinton Roadless Rule was correct because the original rule would have created 58.5 million acres of 'de facto' wilderness, in violation of the federal Wilderness Act, which reserves approval of such designations specifically with Congress. The Clinton Rule also violated the National Environmental Protection Act by failing to adequately consider the environmental and social consequences of the Rule, the coalition argues....
Drought may give rise to coal-seam fires Imagine a fire that starts in a coal seam near the surface, then follows the seam underground, burning for decades beyond the reach of any efforts to put it out, undermining the integrity of roads or buildings that happen to be above it, all while releasing tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. That's a coal-seam fire. They burn in spots throughout the world, including La Plata County. A coal-seam fire that started on Southern Ute Indian Tribe land near the New Mexico border in the Cinder Butte area in 1998 is still burning today, in spite of concerted efforts by the tribe to stop it by injecting extinguishing agents into the ground....
Bicyclist fights off grizzly bear A mountain biker on Togwotee Pass fought off a grizzly bear that repeatedly charged him until a companion drove the animal off with pepper spray. Kirk Speckhals escaped his encounter without a scratch; he had only four dirt marks from the bear's claws on his forearm, a punctured bicycle tire and a bent rim. He said he hopes others learn from the mistakes he made during his ride around Pinnacle Buttes - including not making enough noise to warn bears, not riding together and not carrying pepper spray....
Cougar management debated as mountain lions advance into Napa's rural neighborhoods Animal rights advocates, state wildlife officials, scientists and local ranchers may agree on just one thing when it comes to cougars: As new homes are built in Napa County's prime cougar territory each year, human encounters with the solitary, cunning cats will increase. But on virtually every other aspect of cougar management, there are unanswered questions, disagreements or confusion....
Talks slated on grizzly plans Six national forests in the greater Yellowstone area -- including three in Wyoming -- will hold open houses next week to discuss plans for managing grizzly bear habitat on forest lands. The Wyoming meetings are scheduled for Cody on Wednesday and Alpine on Thursday. Federal biologists believe grizzly bear numbers have reached sufficient levels to allow for the removal of the animal's federal protections under the Endangered Species Act, perhaps as early as late 2005....
Yosemite underfunded, park advocates claim Funding shortfalls at Yosemite National Park have triggered cuts to staff, trail maintenance and educational activities that are affecting the quality of tourists' visits, advocates said Monday. Yosemite needs an extra $18.5 million per year to maintain infrastructure and meet the needs of visitors, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a park advocacy organization with 300,000 members....
German cowgirls arrive for TV show filming Wide-eyed and a bit weary, five German women bought cowboy boots and hats Saturday morning in downtown Cheyenne. The group attracted more attention than most customers as they were surrounded by a Tangram Film camera crew. The five women were selected from 1,000 who applied to be in a five-part documentary series called "Cowgirls." The show will air on a French-German cultural channel. For the next three weeks, the women, ages 22 to 61, will learn to be cowgirls at the Colorado Cattle Company in New Raymer, Colo., about 100 miles southeast of Cheyenne....
Want a horse? Go see Ralph In Spain there's a famous horse fair conducted by gypsies that has been held on the outskirts of Seville since the days of the Roman Empire. Horse trading in the Americas probably began in 1519 as a gleam in Aztec ruler Montezuma's eye when Hernan Cortez pranced by aboard a Spanish stallion -- Montezuma dropped to his knees in awe -- he thought it was a single creature, half-man and half-beast. A centaur....
Riding on Ropes and Dreams Ramiro Gurrola of Hawaiian Gardens is one of the best riders, or charros, in Mexican rodeo. But when the chute opened one blistering Sunday this summer, the bull he was riding inexplicably collapsed, like a boxer taking a dive. Midway through the regional Mexican rodeo championships in Sacramento, Gurrola was in fourth place, fighting a bad streak of charro luck. The belief in charro luck rules the world of Mexican rodeo, known as charreria. In a distinctly Mexican view of life, talent takes a back seat to destiny. A lazy bull, a slow horse or a rainstorm can defeat even the best-trained cowboy....
It's All Trew: Man oh man, how our kin could can! My grandmother, mother and wife, Ruth, have canned a lot of home-grown produce in their lives. Each of them enjoyed great satisfaction from hearing the "ping" sound of a freshly-prepared container sealing properly after being removed from the pressure cooker. This meant their work and efforts had provided one more tasty, well-preserved ingredient for a family meal....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: More women than men are horse people I've always thought that one is either a horse person or one is not. It is evident even in little children. You hold them up to a horse's head, some children immediately reach out to pet it, and others draw away. It is a level of comfort and trust that is noticed by the horse as well. More girls than boys, to my observation, naturally relate to the mind inside the horse's head. I often have to explain to boys that there is no mechanical linkage, no steering column, set of cogs, hydraulic brake lines or transmission gears that connect their rein hand to the horse's feet....

Monday, September 06, 2004

OPINION/COMMENTARY

It's Time To End Laney Grazing Case

Kit Laney's decision to plead guilty to charges stemming from the court-ordered removal of his cattle from a wilderness grazing allotment should be the final chapter in this sad saga.

Nine years of legal wrangling made the facts clear: Laney and his ex-wife and ranching partner Sherry Farr balked at U.S. Forest Service directives to reduce the herd on their allotment in the Gila National Wilderness. The Forest Service ordered the reduction in part because of overgrazing.

The pair also refused to remove their cattle after their grazing permit expired in January 1996. Then, in March 2003, Laney was accused of trying to trample Forest Service officers with his horse and attempting to tear down a corral where they'd penned his cattle. The officers were trying to carry out a court order to remove his cattle from the public land.

The 43-year-old rancher, who was facing up to 63 years in prison for charges stemming from the incident, now says he'll plead guilty to assault on a federal officer and obstruction of a court order.

Though Laney still faces up to 32 months in jail on the remaining charges, locking him up would be overkill.

Laney has lost his cattle, most if not all of the land on which to graze them and, according to his legal adviser, he's broke. Laney spent some time in jail after the March incident, and still owes the federal government an estimated $230,000 -- all of which should be taken into account at sentencing.

The case has been a wedge issue between ranchers and the Forest Service, especially in a period when drought conditions force reduction of herds.

Steve Libby, range staff officer for the Gila National Forest, said, "We're trying very hard to reassure our grazing permitees that this (case) in no way reflects an attitude on the part of the Forest Service that is anti-grazing on Forest Service lands. We are trying to restore the relationship with the grazing industry."

Closing the last chapter of the sad Laney saga by resolving this case can only help improve those relations.
NEWS ROUNDUP

The fight for Alaska's forest Stretching as far as the eye can see, the Tongass is the world's largest temperate rainforest - home to eagles, wolves and bears. It is made up of a lush archipelago of 1,000 forested islands and fjords across the panhandle of south-east Alaska. It's called a rainforest because it rains here up to five metres a year....
Foreign weeds growing into a major threat in Colorado With roots in your own backyard, foreign weeds are a growing environmental catastrophe that threatens to permanently change the landscape of the West within a few decades. Think of them as The Killer Bees for a new generation. Fed by wildfires, drought and apathy, the bitter and often poisonous weeds are driving out native plants....
Big Snowy plan under challenge The Forest Service's plan for managing vehicle use in the Big Snowy Mountains south of Lewistown is challenged in a lawsuit by the Central Montana Wildlands Association. The group claims that the proposed travel plan fails to protect the Big Snowies Wilderness Study Area, a 1977 classification that takes in most of the range. "The law is very clear and instructs them to protect the wilderness character," said Tom Woodbury, a lawyer for Forest Defense, which represents the Wildlands Association....
Prairie dog policy revision criticized Lewis and Clark saw their first prairie dogs 200 years ago this Tuesday, and wildlife conservation groups are using the occasion to blast state and federal moves to kill prairie dogs on federal land in South Dakota. On Sept. 7, 1804, the Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, came across its first black-tailed prairie dogs in present-day South Dakota, about 25 miles above the Niobrara River. Clark called the animals "barking squirrels" as the expedition continued to see them across the West....
GF&P Commission moves to allow prairie dog shooting An emergency rule adopted by the state Game, Fish & Parks Commission could lead to the shooting of prairie dogs on part of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in Conata Basin south of Wall. Federal shooting restrictions remain in place for now. The commission's action in a teleconference meeting on Thursday is intended to allow shooting to begin when the federal restriction is lifted. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages Buffalo Gap National Grassland, plans to allow hunting within a one-mile buffer zone on the federal grassland where it lies next to private land....
Editorial: Ski "green" policies genuine? In an age when skiers and other outdoors enthusiasts are keenly aware of the environment, it's good business for ski areas to adopt "green" practices. In fact, Summit County recently nixed a plan to nearly double the size of Copper Mountain's village because of public opposition. But a report by two public-policy scholars, Jorge Rivera of George Washington University and Peter de Leon of the University of Colorado at Denver, raises the possibility that for some facilities, the industry's Sustainable Slopes Program is not much more than a marketing ploy....
Lack of Wildfires Helps Boost West Tourism Tourism officials from Oregon to Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park say this has been one of the best summer seasons in years thanks to a lack of devastating fires, a recovering economy that encouraged more travel and even rain. While pockets of the West still struggling with drought have reported a drop in visitors, most areas have seen steady to higher numbers despite gas prices topping $2 a gallon, the lingering worries about a terrorist attack and the ongoing war with Iraq....
Power company says it needs wilderness site Too far from Southeast Alaska's existing hydroelectric power plants for an affordable link, a Gustavus power company says it needs a slice of federally protected wilderness to build its own. Some question the precedent of taking 1,050 of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve's 2.8 million acres of designated wilderness. It would be like trading Yellowstone National Park's geysers for geothermal-powered cities, they said....
Editorial: Digging a big hole Badly needed repairs and construction at Grand Canyon National Park were supposed to be finished by now. Campgrounds fixed up. Roads restriped. A new entrance station built at Desert View. A waste-water treatment plant constructed on the South Rim. But the work has stopped in midstream. Instead, we've got a management and financial mess. It jeopardizes dozens of subcontractors in Arizona and Utah. It sets back critical maintenance at the crown jewel of Arizona tourism. The story started when the Grand Canyon contracted with Pacific General Inc., a California company, to do millions of dollars of work. But the company abruptly shut down in March, leaving $2.5 million in unpaid bills to almost 50 subcontractors....
'Ritual and party all in one' at Burning Man A terrasphere made of four facing satellite dishes seems to beam and communicate with itself, stories about the universe flash on the ceiling of a dome, a Milky Way installation seems to float and rotate (the wrong way, mind you) in mid air. The northeastern Nevada desert was dotted with lighted art installations, most in keeping with this year's theme for the Burning Man arts festival, the "Vault of Heaven." Then there's the 40-foot man being torched amid much hoopla on Saturday night....
A Rocky Path for Pilgrims The column of young Mormon pilgrims stretched for nearly a mile as the sun set over the glacial peaks of Wyoming's Wind River mountain range. Teenagers clad in 19th-century pioneer outfits strained mightily to pull unwieldy wooden handcarts over rocky terrain while keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. Nervous broods of sage grouse scattered as the first trekkers approached. Poised on nearby ridgelines, pronghorn antelope kept a wary vigil....
Millions of Tax Payers Dollars are Being Wasted on Wild Horse Eradication, Due to Pressure from Special Interest Groups A team of wild horse experts — under the coalition banner of The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign (AWHPC) — is alerting the public to the fact that that America’s wild horses are being eradicated from public lands in violation of the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse & Burro Act, which protects wild horses as “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.” Special interests have been successful in pressuring the government to systematically remove wild horses from public lands — specifically the cattle industry, which wants the horses replaced with cattle for subsidized grazing. While the aggressive removal policy currently being implemented is costing over thirty million taxpayer dollars annually, in-the-wild management -- as mandated by federal law -- would save millions of taxpayers’ dollars....
Across more of South Dakota, the deer hunt is off "No hunting" signs are sprouting throughout South Dakota, an organized "lock-out" aimed at forcing game officials to honor property rights and share revenue with landowners who help to sustain the wildlife. More than 1.8 million acres have been closed so far by about 1,000 owners, said Betty Olson, a Harding County rancher and lockout organizer. Beard said that landowners should be compensated directly for providing habitat, perhaps by sharing in license revenue collected by the state, or state law should be changed to allow landowners to obtain big-game licenses they could then sell to hunters....
Hikers in East Bay Parks Have a Beef With Cows Danville electrical engineer Greg Schneider has made cow attacks one of the main issues in a personal campaign against cattle grazing on public lands. Schneider, 55, says that while walking his two dogs in the publicly owned Sycamore Valley Open Space near his home, "I was chased by six different cows at different times over about a 20-minute period." With 96,000 acres spread over 65 sites in the seasonally dry valleys and hills east of Oakland, the East Bay Regional Park District is the largest urban park system in the country. But with 8,000 to 10,000 cattle grazing the land, it is also a major working ranch that local cattlemen lease to fatten their herds. Especially during late-summer calving season, the cows and park visitors occasionally collide, adding to concerns about the use of public parklands for cattle operations. Park officials estimate there are four or five serious cow attacks — resulting in injury — each year. Schneider says that the problem is more serious and that dozens more cases involving minor injuries or no injury go unreported....
Beef ranching today a world apart from past practices Cattle ranching may be one of the East Bay's oldest industries, but keeping history alive is not always easy for the families that have run grazing operations for more than 140 years. As cities have paved over huge chunks of open land, an increasing number of ranchers have moved their operations to less expensive land in other regions of Northern California. For instance, operators of the Nielsen Ranch in Dublin have acquired two ranches outside the area, totalling 16,000 acres, one near Chico and the other near the Oregon border....
Reservoir worries spill over The federal government should slash water releases from Lake Powell if the ongoing drought extends through the winter, officials from Colorado and neighboring states said last week. The states' request for the Bureau of Reclamation to make a midyear correction to Lake Powell's operation is an unprecedented reaction to dwindling water supplies, officials with the Upper Colorado River Commission said. In a letter sent Thursday, regional officials also asked that the bureau reduce flows during the winter and spring as a precaution....
Column: It's our water, right? Right as rain But something else is sitting downhill of all that money. Working clockwise from the top, they are the states of Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, a sliver of Oklahoma, New Mexico, the tiniest corner of Arizona, and Utah. You probably already know that the people in these states think Colorado water is pretty neat stuff. Even beyond these states, millions of others benefit from water that makes its start in the world here. Not surprisingly, Colorado has tried to keep as much of what we consider our water as possible. Hey, if it falls on our mountains and runs into our rivers, and puddles in our reservoirs, it's our water, right? Right as rain....
Secret dam talks see light Minutes were made available last week from a secret meeting held in August 2003 over who was responsible for $162 million in cost overruns for the Animas-La Plata Project. The minutes, which a judge recently determined are public record, offer few details of the discussion except that participants, which included Four Corners tribes, water districts and lawyers, were angered and frustrated by the Bureau of Reclamation's attempts to blame all of the overruns on the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe....
Reflections on Lewis & Clark: Nez Perce offer alternate look at history As a boy growing up here 60 years ago in the Clearwater River basin, an area the Nez Perce call the "land of the butterflies," Allen Pinkham fished for trout by day and listened at night by lantern light to his aging father's tales of Lewis and Clark. Now a Nez Perce elder himself and a national leader of the Lewis and Clark exploration commemoration, Pinkham, 66, is bringing this unwritten Nez Perce history out of the shadows. He wants tribal children and the world to know the Nez Perce heritage. A descendant of the Nez Perce chiefs Timothy, Lookingglass, Joseph and Red Bear, Pinkham is working to broaden the story of the Corps of Discovery's epic voyage from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River in 1804-1806....

Saturday, September 04, 2004

OPINION/COMMENTARY

NRDC: Biting the Taxpayers Who Feed Them Incredibly, taxpayer money is subsidizing these Efforts. Federal grants to green groups that engage in anti-Bush activism have increased substantially over the past four years, and NRDC has received a generous helping of federal funds. During the first three years of the Bush Administration, NRDC received more than $1.6 million from the Environmental Protection Agency alone— the most recent grant in September of 2003. Meanwhile, the group goes after the Administration, suing in court to hamper, halt or reverse Bush environmental policies. These lawsuits— many ruled frivolous by the courts— have imposed further costs on taxpayers. Ironically, they also have drained the resources and diverted the attention of the very agencies that are supposed to focus on environmental pro-tection. And on those relatively rare occasions when NRDC does win in court, the results are often harmful— to taxpayers, to our national security, and to the environment itself....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

SLOPPY SCIENCE FOR FEDERAL DOLLARS

Many “scientific” papers predicting dire consequences from global warming are flawed, says Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute. Furthermore, doom-and-gloom research on global warming is motivated by the promise of federal research dollars.

According to Michaels, the latest paper which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicts that global warming will create numerous deaths in California and destroy the state’s wine industry.

However, the paper is flawed for several reasons:

It uses 15-year-old research on heat-related deaths and a computer model that is incapable of predicting U.S. temperatures (much less California temperatures).
One of the models -- from the British Meteorological Office -- was used in a similar version by the Clinton administration, but it was shown to perform worse than a table of random numbers in predicting temperature changes by decade.
The paper down-scaled the original model (which covered a resolution of 36,000 square miles) to 56 square miles to predict California’s temperature, in spite of the fact that it could not accurately predict surface temperatures.
Moreover, a model that cannot accurate predict surface temperatures, says Michaels, cannot accurately predict precipitation either, even though the paper estimated that decreased rainfall would ruin California vineyards.

Furthermore, the 15-year-old research on heat-related deaths did not take into account the ways since then in which people have adapted to heat, through air conditioning, improved emergency care and new precautions. It instead assumes what scientists refer to as the “dumb people scenario” -- that inhabitants will “fry and die” instead of adapting to changing climate.

However, without sloppy science predicting the dire consequences of global warming, scientists might miss out on the $4 billion allotted annually to climate change research.

Source: Patrick J. Michaels, “Global Warming has Doomsayers Riding Federal Gravy Train,” Investor’s Business Daily, August 24, 2004, Kathryn Hayhoe, et al, “Emissions Pathways, Climate Change and Impacts on California,” PNAS 2004 101.
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Oil Prices and the Federal Reserve The recent spike in international oil prices towards $50 a barrel has conjured up distant memories of earlier oil price shocks. In some quarters it has also raised calls for the Federal Reserve to speed up its planned return to more normal interest rates for fear of allowing inflation again to rear its ugly head. Before heeding such advice, the Federal Reserve would do well to examine how the present run up in international oil prices differs from previous such episodes. For such an examination might reveal that raising interest rates now would be a costly mistake....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Bear attacks man trying to distract it in Angeles National Forest The injured 39-year-old man, who was not identified, heard the animal rummaging through the family's ice chest at about 2 a.m. while camping with his wife and daughters at the Chilao campground, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles. The couple agreed that the man would distract the bear while the wife and two daughters ran for their vehicle. The bear retaliated after the man threw something at him, forest spokeswoman Kathy Peterson said....
Hungry bears forcing safety precautions To battle a growing number of bears rummaging through trash and scouring porches for scraps, tribal wildlife managers have placed 25 new bear-proof garbage containers across the Blackfeet Reservation. A weak berry crop has bears searching for food and causing problems across Montana, but the reservation has been hit particularly hard. Wildlife managers have had to kill at least 15 black bears on the reservation this summer, including at least eight in the St. Mary area....
Two Lynx Moving Through Utah Two radio-collared Canada lynx released in Colorado have been moving through Utah, with one most recently reported in the north and the other in the southwest. One moved through the Book Cliffs, the Strawberry Valley and north along the Wasatch Mountains. On Aug. 22, he was near the mouth of Weber Canyon. The other lynx was last reported around Panguitch....
Homes Burn, Horses Killed In Wildfires Fire fighters were battling wildfires late into the night Friday as gusty winds fanned several blazes across Northern California. In Vacaville, 32 miles southwest of Sacramento, a 30-acre grassfire destroyed a farmhouse and several barns, killing eight horses. And a fire in nearby Davis jumped a highway, burned two homes and injured three people....
Idaho farmers may be asked to dry up 100,000 acres Lawmakers are looking at a federal program that could pay farmers to dry up 100,000 acres of farmland as a way of stabilizing groundwater levels in south central Idaho. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering spending $18 million to expand a successful land conservation program now limited to 800,000 acres of dry farm land to include lands irrigated with water pumped from the Snake River Plain Aquifer....
Mysteries of San Andreas Fault Are Explored by a Drill There is nothing more nerve-racking for many Californians than the unpredictable and irritable San Andreas fault, which leveled much of San Francisco the last time it kicked up a big earthquake in 1906. That might explain one of the more anxious questions commonly posed to several dozen scientists who gathered on a cattle ranch here on Thursday to marvel at a huge drill mounted on an 18-story rig, poking at the fault. Might the drilling not trigger an earthquake? Dubbed by the National Science Foundation as a modern-day journey to the center of the earth, the drilling here is part of a $250 million project called EarthScope that is studying the tectonics of North America. Though the scientists say the project is not intended to devise a way to predict earthquakes, that has been one of the biggest unspoken expectations since a test hole was drilled here two years ago....
Dowser 'can't tell you why' he senses water Joliet rancher Carl Hansen, 82, paces across his barnyard with an L-shaped steel rod in one hand. As he crosses his water line, the rod swings firmly to the left. "I can show you how this works, but I can't tell you why," he said, grinning as he demonstrated the ancient practice of dowsing. Theories about how dowsing works run the gamut from auras to electromagnetic fields. Some doubt that it works at all, while others say it's a normal sensory perception - the same sense that tells birds where to migrate - a sense that allowed early humans to survive....
Riding the Western Trail Scores of wagons and riders are gathering here to embark Monday on a 680-mile trek along a route that millions of steers followed north during frontier-era cattle drives. The 48-day ride, slated to culminate Oct. 23 in Dodge City, Kan., is part of a multi-state publicity campaign for "The Western Trail," the most heavily traveled cattle thoroughfare of the 1800s. The excursion will cover about 16 miles daily — far less demanding than when the route first was blazed in 1874....
A frontier murder mystery, Texas-style About a quarter till nine on the night of May 11, 1752, three men ate their dinner at a rough, wooden table in a small room in a mission out in the wilderness of Spanish Texas. Two were Catholic priests РMiguel de Pinilla and Juan Jos̩ de Ganzabal. The third was Juan Jos̩ Ceballos, a hangdog soldier whose pretty wife's illicit affair with his captain had become a scandal. Even the mission Indians knew. Most were Cocos, a band of the sometimes cannibalistic Karankawas....
Bushyhead 101 not your typical ropin’ and racin’ The Bushyhead Pasture Roping and Barrel Racing, which begins Sunday and runs through Monday, could never be an indoor event, even if organizer Clem McSpadden wanted it to be. The roping event, for instance, gives the calf a 101-foot head start, instead of just a few seconds. The ropers have all of a 260-acre pasture to secure the steer, or try to. Barrel racers, meanwhile, must navigate a half-mile, three point course. Winning times approaching 50 seconds are not uncommon. The events are intended to provide a throwback to when roping and excellent horsemanship were necessary to live and work west of the Mississippi River....

Friday, September 03, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest fire lookout hit by hunting arrow A volunteer forest fire lookout is in stable condition at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena after being shot in the left shoulder by a hunting arrow Thursday afternoon, authorities said. The unidentified man said the arrow fell from the sky and that he did not see anyone in the area, said Kathy Peterson, spokeswoman for the Angeles National Forest. Bow hunting season does not open until Saturday, Peterson said, which makes it a more serious violation if the incident was accidental. The Sheriff's department and the U.S. Forest Service law enforcement agency are conducting an investigation into the incident....
Conservationists Sue Federal Government to Conserve Endangered Fish Habitat Four conservation groups filed a lawsuit today in Federal District Court in Atlanta, Georgia aimed at protecting the habitat of two species of endangered fish. The Goldline Darter and the Blue Shiner are species of southeastern freshwater fish whose habitat has been markedly diminished in Georgia, Alabama (and for the Blue Shiner, also in Tennessee). Both species face extinction due to habitat destruction and fragmentation from sewage pollution, the construction of dams, sedimentation, and increased sprawl development....
5 Federal Agencies To Give National Public Lands Day Volunteers 'Fee-Free' Day Volunteers pitching in on National Public Lands Day will be rewarded with a free entry day during the next year at any public land site managed by five federal agencies. For the first time, NPLD volunteers who work at a site managed by the agencies will receive a coupon good for a "fee-free" day at any of the agency sites. Those agencies, which have entry fees, are the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and USDA Forest Service....
Arizona anglers concerned about decline in fishing The Mesa bait and tackle shop is suffering from a years-long downturn in sport fishing brought about by drought, wildfires, a soft economy, fish kills and maybe even a general lack of interest in heading out with a rod and reel. A federal study shows the number of fishing license holders in Arizona decreased by 60,000 from 445,000 in 1996 to 385,000 in 2002. Another government study says the number of anglers in the Grand Canyon State dropped from 443,000 in 1996 to 394,000 in 2001. When expenditures over the past decade are factored, the snag is even worse....
Montana, Wyoming ask judge to strike snowmobile ban Attorneys for snowmobile manufacturers, winter resorts and the states of Montana and Wyoming on Thursday implored a judge to strike down, once and for all, a Clinton-era rule banning snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Doing so would provide certainty for businesses that rely on winter use of the parks and prevent a federal judge in Washington, D.C., from resurrecting the ban a second time, the lawyers argued....
Extraordinary rainfall puts snakes on the move With extraordinary rainfall throughout the Big Bend Country in 2004, indications are that our legless friends are having a banner year. Snakes are on the move, and those encountered are apparently having plenty of success in finding prey. From mid-May to October, the communities of the Big Bend are inundated annually by numbers of snake collectors. During daylight hours, these collectors generally prefer to go unnoticed, but become obvious at night when walking highway road cuts with floodlights in search of their secretive inhabitants....
Park ponders bison vaccination The National Park Service is beginning a formal study on the question of whether it should vaccinate bison for brucellosis, using "biobullets" fired from a pneumatic rifle. If it goes ahead, this will be the first vaccination of free-roaming bison in Yellowstone National Park. Last winter, about 125 young bison were vaccinated after being captured in a trap near Gardiner. However, vaccinating a trapped bison with a hypodermic is one thing. Doing so at a distance with a free bison is another....
Column: DA's Office refutes National Seashore statements about probe of rangers At first I was simply shocked when two Park Service rangers on July 28 pepper-sprayed the eyes of a brother and sister from Inverness Park. It happened in Point Reyes Station far from park property, and both teenagers were restrained at the time, and the girl was in handcuffs. Now, however, I am increasingly confused by Point Reyes National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher’s handling of the incident. I have always considered Neubacher my friend even when I was decrying the Park Service’s destroying historic buildings or evicting residents from historic towns. In the past month, however, Neubacher hasn’t seemed to be the everybody’s-friend Smoky the Bear with whom we have all been familiar....
History on horseback seminar scheduled A history on horseback seminar will be offered at Big Bend National Park on Oct. 17 by the Big Bend Natural History Association. The history on horseback seminar was one of the most popular seminars introduced last year at the park. This fall, the trip will penetrate a different area of the park, taking the Apache Canyon Trail west of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive to an early homestead and stone corral. Nearby is extensive evidence of the presence of Native Americans over the centuries in an area of spectacular geological variety. The trail is easy, and the views are commanding. Horses and a picnic lunch are supplied by a local outfitter....
CIRI's elite guests help bid for disputed parkland Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Region Inc. and the National Park Service are moving to resolve a long-standing legal battle over a fish camp in Lake Clark National Park that attracts high-roller executives, deep-pocketed philanthropists, and the occasional U.S. senator with a taste for silver salmon. CIRI's nonprofit organizations and the Rasmuson Foundation entertain potential donors at the rustic camp, on the western shores of Cook Inlet across from Ninilchik. The groups also hold staff retreats and strategic planning sessions at the 5-acre camp....
Official: 7 busted for illegal hunting Seven hunters received notices Wednesday morning from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for allegedly hunting dove on baited land in the south Gila Valley. Becky Wright, law enforcement program manager for the Yuma office of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said game authorities received a call Tuesday afternoon about a possible baited area off of Avenue 7E and south of Highway 95. She said officials went out to the site and determined it was baited, and this morning they said they found seven hunters illegally taking dove on the land....
Column: We Can Still Halt Bush's Assault on Wilderness The Wilderness Act was signed into law 40 years ago because Americans feared that what remained of our wild places would be paved over or plowed under if we didn't protect it. People worried that they'd no longer have wilderness in which to fish, camp, hike, canoe, hunt and savor the beauty of the great outdoors. Our species lived in the wild for eons, and even modern humans instinctively feel a profound bond with untamed landscapes. The Bush administration, however, seems to have overcome this instinct, motivated by a desire to open public lands to logging, mining and, especially, oil and gas development....
BLM mascot ‘Sluggo’ bows to old age A “resident” at the Kingman office of the Bureau of Land Management will no longer stick out his tongue at visitors. “Sluggo, “ a Gila monster kept in a large wooden cage, died Monday, apparently of old age. Bob Hall, public affairs officer for the BLM in Kingman, said the agency received Sluggo in 1984 from the Arizona Department of Game and Fish after the lizard was displaced by a housing project on the outskirts of Phoenix....
Campground unease The daytime beauty of the wilderness can turn into nighttime danger in southern Arizona campgrounds, and authorities have a warning: Be prepared. "Take time to understand the urban influence in the wilderness areas of the Tucson basin," said Vic Brown, law enforcement supervisor for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees Ironwood Forest National Monument northwest of Marana. Illegal immigrants and drug traffickers often move through the backcountry to avoid contact with the public, he said....
Column: Wilderness Act turns 40, and people are still arguing about it Few pieces of environmental legislation have had such far-reaching effects as the Wilderness Act, which observes its 40th anniversary today. The federal act designated 9.1 million acres as wilderness, described by the bill's framers as land "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." More than anything else, the 1964 bill planted the concept in the American consciousness that wilderness has innate public value, that it contributes to the common good....
Bear Hunt Foes Appeal to Governor Two animal protection groups asked Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Thursday to halt Maryland's proposed black bear hunt and conduct an independent scientific review of the bear population. The Fund for Animals and the Humane Society of the United States also said that if the hunt isn't stopped, it should be limited to private lands where bears have damaged crops or property....
Memorial to be built near birthplace of Geronimo A memorial will be built near Geronimo's birthplace near the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument as a joint effort of Geronimo's family, Harlyn and Karen Geronimo of Mescalero; the Forest Service; the Trail of the Mountain Spirits Scenic Byway Committee; and the Silver City-Grant County Chamber of Commerce. "We put oral history and written history together to find the birthplace," Harlyn Geronimo said. "We made a trip up the canyon to the confluence of the Middle and West forks of the Gila River, where history said my great-grandfather was born." Harlyn Geronimo; Joe Saenz, an area Warm Springs Apache descendant; and Fran Land, scenic byway committee chairwoman, held a private prayer session at the site....
Truth is, the DA ain't investigating rangers in pepper spray case

Point Reyes National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher surprised the more than 200 people at last week’s community meeting by saying he’d asked the District Attorney’s Office to conduct its own investigation in the July 28 incident when two rangers pepper-sprayed a brother and sister, 18 and 17, from Inverness Park.

The DA’s Office this week told The Light that what the public and press understood Neubacher to mean was not accurate.

The community meeting was called after many West Marin residents were angered that the rangers – off park property in Point Reyes Station – pepper-sprayed the siblings in the eyes repeatedly although both were restrained.

Neubacher told the meeting that not only was the Park Service conducting an internal investigation into the rangers’ behavior, but the National Seashore had also asked the DA to conduct its own investigation. The park superintendent added that he hoped both investigations would come to the same conclusion.

Assistant DA Ed Berbarian, however, told The Light this week, "There has been no request from the National Park Service for an investigation with regard to the conduct of their rangers nor have we self-initiated any such investigation."

Instead, the National Seashore has asked his office to look into whether there was enough evidence to charge someone in the public with resisting arrest. He added that the DA’s Office does not deal with anyone under 18. The Park Service, he said, had directly asked the Juvenile Probation Department to see if charges could be brought against a juvenile.

Wynn Miller, the teenagers’ mother, on Monday told The Light that Juvenile Probation has now notified Jessica that it is considering whether to charge her with resisting arrest, a misdemeanor.

Who is preparing the information for the DA and Juvenile Probation to review? The county will "review evidence presented by the National Park Service," assistant DA Berbarian replied....

Thursday, September 02, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

New effort underway to protect spotted owl An owl that lives in old-growth forests in Inland mountains and the Sierra Nevadas is facing increasing threats that could lead to its demise, environmental groups alleged. The groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity in Idyllwild, on Wednesday filed a second petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking protection for the California spotted owl on the federal endangered species list. The petition is in addition to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against the agency after it rejected the first petition....
The blighted oak For nearly a decade, scientists have been watching oaks die in Northern California's coastal forests. In some years, the blight that is killing them spreads slowly, giving scientists hope that they might figure out ways to control it before it spirals totally out of control. But in other years, it has spread much more quickly until, by now, its impact is readily apparent even to the casual observer. The cause is a disease called sudden oak death, which started cropping up in 1995 and has since killed tens of thousands of trees. And that's just the beginning: More trees are dying each month....
ATV Industry Supports U.S. Forest Service Proposal to Limit Off-Highway Vehicle Travel The Specialty Vehicle Institute of America (SVIA) supports limiting off-highway vehicle (OHV) travel to designated routes on United States Forest Service-managed land, as provided for in the Forest Service's proposed rule regarding OHV management. According to SVIA President Tim Buche, "The ATV industry shares the Forest Service's desire to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of our nation's forests for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The proper management of OHV recreational areas can help meet this objective and provide appropriate off-road riding opportunities for the over 16 million all-terrain vehicle (ATV) riders in the United States."....
Aphids Causing Aspens To Turn Early More moisture and warm weather have promoted population surges in aphids that eat the leaves of cottonwoods, aspens and box elders, experts said. Stressed by aphids and spider mites, the leaves of the deciduous trees are turning brown and dropping weeks before normal. Most of the impact is visible in urban settings where trees are under constant stress....
Agency moves to remove protection of murrelet Going against a recommendation from its own scientists, the Bush administration took another step toward removing the marbled murrelet from the threatened species list, which could ultimately increase logging in old-growth forests. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided yesterday that marbled murrelets in Washington, Oregon and California, although they continue to decline in population, should not be considered for protection apart from their more abundant cousins in Canada and Alaska....
Legal Agreement sets Timeline to Protect Seven Imperiled Swallowtail Butterflies The Center for Biological Diversity and the Xerces Society yesterday reached an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on a timeline to protect seven foreign swallowtail butterfly species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Specifically, the FWS has agreed to make a final decision as to whether or not these butterflies warrant threatened or endangered status under the ESA. The FWS must make this ruling by November 30, 2004. On January 10, 1994, the FWS received a petition to list seven foreign swallowtail butterfly species as threatened or endangered under the ESA....
Timber Rattlers Take Over Town Residents of one town are on the lookout for some unwanted neighbors: more than a dozen timber rattlesnakes. Animal control workers have wrangled over a dozen timber rattlesnakes around homes in the town of Ringwood, N.J. But officials said there is only so much residents can do -- the reptiles are protected under state law as an endangered species. Residents have been adivised to stay away from the snakes and call for help....
Elk to be killed to control growth of herd Federal wildlife officials have approved a plan to kill as many as 60 elk to control the burgeoning population in a protected area near the Hanford nuclear reservation. Initially, five cow elk would be shot by state or federal wildlife agents within the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve. Over time, the plan would cull about 10 percent of the Rattlesnake Mountain elk herd that has grown to 600....
Yellowstone leads parks in ranger attacks 2003 was a rough year for law enforcement rangers at Yellowstone National Park. They were shoved, hit, grabbed and threatened with a gun, a knife and even a wooden shelf. For the 103 law enforcement rangers in Yellowstone last year, there were 32 reports of threats and assaults, by far more than at any other national park in the United States, according to 2003 figures. Twenty of those incidents were threats - instances in which rangers believed an assailant would carry out harm - and the rest were assaults....
Federal help sought on air pollution Two conservation groups on Wednesday urged the U.S. Interior Department to take immediate action to protect Rocky Mountain National Park from air pollution drifting into the mountains from urban areas to the east. Environmental Defense and Colorado Trout Unlimited filed an administrative petition with Interior Secretary Gale Norton's office and with Park Superintendent Vaughn Baker. The 47-page document asks the Interior Department to declare that the park is being harmed by air pollution, to establish caps on pollution levels in the park, and to push state and federal regulatory agencies to fix the problem....
BLM divvies up desert playground The Bureau of Land Management recently released a final management and recreation plan for 72,235 acres of desert lands north of Fruita. The amended plan gives mountain bikers 5,298 acres of cheatgrass-tufted rolling hills and rocky ledges to call their own. Motorized visitors have a designated 435-acre area for zipping around off trails. About 65 miles of existing user-created trails will be closed and 8.5 miles of new biking trails will be created....
Energy Industry, the Party Animals Corporate invitation-only parties have become a staple of political conventions. And one big player serving as party host this year in Boston, where the Democrats gathered last month, and in New York, where the Republicans are meeting, is the energy industry. The party for Barton was paid for by the Edison Electric Institute, the American Gas Assn., the National Mining Assn. and the Nuclear Energy Institute. In the presidential race, energy campaign dollars have gone overwhelmingly to President Bush. But the money spent on corporate parties at conventions is unregulated and its use more nuanced....
Groups look to stop drilling A coalition of conservation groups filed suit Wednesday to stop drilling in the Desolation Flats area of Adobe Town while the merits of a larger case are being decided. The request for a "stay" was filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Washington, D.C. "We'd like them to cease and desist with the bulldozing until the court can decide whether the project is even valid," Erik Molvar with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance said....
BLM may try horse birth control There are nearly 200 wild horses in the Antelope Hills/Cyclone Rim herd south of Lander. The problem is there are only supposed to be from 60 to 80 horses. So federal land managers plan to use roundups and a fertility control program to significantly reduce wild horse numbers in the southwestern Wyoming herd later this fall....
BLM spikes big coal sale More than $100 million that would have flowed to the state's School Capital Construction Account will not flow there now, because the federal government thinks the state is entitled to more. That's one consequence of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's decision this week to reject the $237.5 million bid of BTU Western Resources Inc., for about 324.6 million tons of coal. The company, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy Corp., was the sole bidder at a BLM auction Tuesday for the North Antelope Rochelle North tract, which the company had nominated for a lease auction....
County's drilling review limited Pitkin County government is accustomed to flexing its muscles on land-use issues but it's uncertain if there is much to flex when it comes to regulating the natural gas industry. County officials are assessing this week how much regulatory power they have over gas well drilling in the extreme western part of the county - where exploration is looming. The county has some review powers on "off-site impacts" such as air quality, water quality, noise and effects on roads - but how much is open to debate. The state government, through the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission, exercises most of the review power and claims it as its exclusive domain....
Bunkhouse to hit the Bradenton trail A one-of-a-kind cowboy bunkhouse dating from 1915 is being moved to Bradenton, preserving a piece of ranching history. George Harrison, former owner of Harrison Ranch, said the bunkhouse was a place cowboys could rest their heads when it got late or a place for them to get an early start the next day. In 1915, Wildes and Furman Harrison constructed a small bunkhouse that could sleep about five or six. The bunkhouse was used until the 1950s....
A Historical Perspective of the Western Trail The image of a dusty cowhand trailing a giant herd of longhorns across an unspoiled plain, looking to the far horizon and dreaming of the whisky and girls at the end of the trail is one which pervades our collective image of Texas and the West. In reality it was a hard dangerous trek and one that was abandoned as soon as a reasonable option was available. The era of the cattle drive lasted only as long as it took for the rail lines to reach south into Texas and find their way ever westward into cow country. Yet the audacious nature of the enterprise is a iconic legend that speaks of a undaunted people carving out a new nation and doing what they had to in order to make it work, it is this image that I suspect has branded itself into our psyche and thus has enshrined the “cattle drive” as a symbol of the American West....

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Nevada Live Stock Association Thrilled Judge Says "No"

For Immediate Release

Reno, NV 9/1/04 Second Judicial District Court Judge, Janet Berry, on August 26, dismissed the Nevada Department of Agriculture’s Petition for Judicial Confirmation thereby denying the State’s request to "retroactively confirm its actions" in the highly publicized, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) para-military style cattle impoundments in Nevada. Agriculture Department Director, Don Henderson had petitioned the Court for the retroactive judicial blessing of the Department’s procedure for transferring ownership of cattle on the mere signatures of an agent of the BLM.

"We were delighted with the Court’s dismissal of this case," commented Nevada Live Stock Association Chairman and former U.S. Congressman Helen Chenoweth-Hage. "It is clear there is no blessing from the Court for the BLM or anyone to take property while avoiding proper due process of law, in particular, the necessary step of seeking a court order before they seize and sell a rancher’s very livelihood in his live stock."

Nevada Live Stock Association’s (NLSA) defending attorneys, Michael Van Zandt, of San Francisco, CA, and Joel Hansen of Las Vegas, were also pleased with the ruling. Van Zandt commented, "We are happy with the result in that the Court denied the Petition and in essence has given no judicial approval for these cattle confiscations. We don’t believe the Agriculture Department should be abdicating the State’s responsibilities under the brand laws to the federal government. The State cannot compromise away personal private property without due process of law. They are shirking the responsibility the Nevada legislature has imposed on the Department of Agriculture State and abandoning its citizens."

David Holmgren, NLSA Vice Chairman, his wife Jackie Holmgren ranchers from Mineral County and Bevan Lister, NLSA member and rancher from Pioche, Nevada, had testified before Judge Berry. After receiving notice of the ruling David Holmgren said, "This is no small matter for Nevada’s ranchers or the West as a whole. We as an organization have once again fought the good fight against those who should have known better. It defies cowboy logic that the BLM was able to take our own brand department into partnership with them, use an unconstitutional cooperative agreement to, loosely speaking...rustle, the very cattle they were formed to protect! Charley Russell himself couldn't paint that picture."

The Court found that the law the Department invoked for seeking judicial confirmation, "is unconstitutional as it violates the separation of powers clause of the Nevada Constitution." Instead, the Court urged the damaged parties, specifically Bevan Lister, a Lincoln County rancher, and the Nevada Live Stock Association (NLSA) to seek a legislative remedy for the "important concerns of Nevada Ranchers."

"I’m not sure we need a legislative fix. What we do need is for the agencies, both federal and state, to respect the existing laws that are on the books," commented NLSA Board Member, Ramona Morrison.

In a related matter, an Esmeralda County Grand Jury has convened to determine if head Brand Inspector, Jim Connelley, violated state law by transferring ownership of Esmeralda County rancher Ben Colvin’s livestock in August of 2001 to the BLM on the mere signatures of a State brand inspector and BLM agent. Based upon the Court’s ruling the Grand Jury may conclude that is exactly what happened.

# # # # #

For further information contact: David and Jackie Holmgren 406-321-1215 (cell) or Ramona Morrison 775-722-2517. Attorney Michael J. Van Zandt can be reached at 415-905-0200.

Nevada Live Stock Association
9732 State Route 445, #305
Sparks, NV 89436
rhmorrison@sbcglobal.net
NEWS ROUNDUP

Report: Cities' Water Needs Will Dry Up Farmland About 10 percent of irrigated farmland statewide is expected to disappear by 2030 as thirsty cities try to buy their water, according to a new state study. That amounts to as much as 300,000 acres, an area bigger than Rocky Mountain National Park, the study said. The findings come from the $2.7 million Statewide Water Supply Initiative, sponsored by the Colorado Water Conservation Board. The study, launched 14 months ago in response to the drought, is to be completed in November. It is designed to show policymakers how much water the state uses, how much it will need and where supplies will come from....
Landowners deride new proposal The Wyoming Surface Owner Coordination Act offers a way for landowners to resolve conflicts with the owners of the mineral rights underneath the surface, a coalition of energy and agriculture groups told the 11-member Joint Executive Legislative Committee on Split Estates. But some landowners, many of whom are ranchers or inherited ranch land, told the committee at the hearing at the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that the proposal favors the energy industry and will do nothing to solve their problems of ruined property values....
Appalachian Trail is vulnerable to new forest rules About one of every 13 miles of the Appalachian Trail between Maine and Georgia passes through national forests where a Bush administration plan could allow clear cutting of wooded areas, an environmental group said Tuesday. The Campaign to Protect America's Lands said it found that 163 of the popular trail's 2,174 miles fall within the 58 million acres where the Bush administration proposed lifting a ban on logging, road-building, and other development....
Unhappy campers protest Bush plans A dozen lovers of backcountry pitched tents at the U.S. Forest Service regional office Tuesday to protest President Bush's plans to open roadless areas. "Public lands don't just belong to the Bush administration," said Rebecca Dickson of the Sierra Club. "They don't just belong to the mining or logging industry."....
Report details global warming's role in wildfire risk Of all the Western states, Montana's wildfire season could be most affected by the warmer temperatures associated with global climate change, according to a new report. Published in Conservation Biology magazine, the research suggests the acreage burned each summer in Montana could increase five-fold by the end of the century. And more frequent, more extensive wildfires would likely reduce the number and size of the state's already patchy old-growth forests, in turn threatening the existence of old growth-dependent species, said researchers at the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland, Ore., and the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington. Overall, the area burned by wildfires in 11 Western states could double by 2100 if the summertime climate warms by 1.6 degrees, the scientists said....
Interior encourages BLM land sales In August, Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, who oversees the BLM, wrote to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., asking for legislative amendments to FLTFA that would encourage the BLM to sell off more land. She has asked Congress to make the identification and selling of disposable land an ongoing process, rather than one limited to land identified before the July 2000 cutoff date. Twenty percent of any revenue would still go to the BLM’s administrative costs, but under Scarlett’s proposal, only 60 percent of the money would go toward land acquisition. The other 20 percent would go toward "conservation enhancement projects," to fund local projects such as riparian improvement or removing invasive weeds....
Proposals target invasive weeds The U.S. Forest Service wants to change procedures it uses to control invasive weeds in Northwest forests. In a draft environmental impact statement, the agency is proposing to kill weeds through hand pulling and applying an expanded roster of herbicides; and, it wants to require logging contractors to wash their heavy equipment and tour guides to feed their horses weed-free feed - both to prevent the spread of seeds. Aggressive weeds have invaded 420,000 acres of 24 million acres of federal forest land in Washington and Oregon, agency statistics show....
Billings County officials at odds with Forest Service Billings County officials say Forest Service firefighting methods in the grasslands are a waste of money. In one fire, elite smoke jumpers dropped onto a hay field, jumped into a van and were driven to fight a fire on the Little Missouri National Grasslands northeast of Medora. "The smoke jumpers never jumped on the line. They could have driven to anywhere on the fire," said Billings County fire chief Don Heiser....
Second Timber Sale Approved Since Overturning of Roadless Rule Last week, the U.S. Forest Service approved another timber sale in an area previously protected from logging by the controversial Clinton-era "roadless rule." Both of the new timber sales are to take place in Southeast Alaska, where dwindling natural resources and a sluggish economy have conspired to drive unemployment rates to unprecedented highs. This latest sale under the new plan is scheduled to take place on Gravina Island, across Tongass Narrows from Ketchikan, and would yield 38 million board feet of timber from approximately 1,800 acres. The first sale since overturning the roadless rule—a 665-acre harvest on Kuiu Island nearby—was approved last month....
Director of off-road vehicle group cited for unlicensed outfitting The director of the BlueRibbon Coalition has been placed on indefinite administrative leave after being cited earlier this month for outfitting without a license in the Sawtooth National Forest. Bill Dart was placed on leave without pay pending resolution of the charge against him, said Clark Collins, former director of the off-road vehicle group who is serving as acting director in the interim....
Spotted owl habitat plan ruffles feathers The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated more than 8.6 million acres of forests in Arizona and three other states as critical habitat for the Mexican spotted owl, a plan critics say could actually speed the demise of the threatened bird. Federal officials said Tuesday the proposal complies with a court order to designate habitat for the owl, but environmental groups accuse the agency of ignoring science and favoring the timber industry. The groups say they will ask a judge to reject this plan as he did the last one....
U.S. Says It Won't Remove Dams The Bush administration announced Tuesday that it will not remove dams on the Columbia and Snake river system to save endangered salmon. The announcement rules out what the federal government had once described as the most scientifically sound -- if politically problematic -- method for saving salmon in the heavily dammed river system....
Column: Poisons with purpose This may sound harsh, but it's true: Environmentalists tend not to see, handle or understand fish, to distrust agencies dedicated to their recovery and to set up mental spam-filters for facts about short-lived fish poisons. Usually, these poisons are the only tools managers have for saving native trout from being eaten, outcompeted or hybridized out of existence by alien species. During the 70 years that fish managers have used the fish poison rotenone - derived from derris root - there is not one documented case of human injury....
EPA appears set to relax standards for toxic metal Over the objections of several federal scientists, the Bush administration is preparing to relax national standards for selenium - a toxic metal that caused mass deformities of waterfowl in California's Central Valley during the 1980s. The revised U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards are outlined in an EPA draft notice obtained by The Sacramento Bee. Critics say the proposed standards are based on a study that even its author says was interpreted improperly. The standards follow years of lobbying by power companies, farming interests and mining officials, all of whom say the current federal standards are overly restrictive....
Group deems brucellosis goal too rosy Wyoming wildlife officials say 2010 is an unrealistic goal for an interagency committee to eliminate brucellosis in the Yellowstone region. The goal of the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Committee (GYIBC) is to wipe out the contagious disease by 2010, but that date set a decade ago was too optimistic, members said....
Enzi mulls Mormon Trail fees While there are instances where fees paid for public land use are necessary, U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has not yet decided on a proposal to waive fees on a portion of Wyoming's historic trails. Enzi said last week he has been approached by members of the Mormon Church to waive a proposed $4 fee per person per night for use of the historic Mormon Trail on Bureau of Land Management property west of Casper....
Agency raises offer for Fallon water rights A state agency trying to settle a water dispute by buying and retiring thousands of acre-feet of water rights from willing Fallon-area farmers has sweetened its offer by $600 per acre-foot. The Carson Water Subconservancy District said it will pay $2,200 per water right acre on the Carson River and $3,800 per acre-foot for Truckee River water rights in the Newlands Project. The subconservancy district is hoping to purchase and retire 6,500 acre-feet of water rights in the Newlands Project by July 2006. It’s an attempt to settle more than 2,000 protests of Newlands Project water rights claims filed by the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe....
Editorial: Washoe County land grab Evans Creek proceeded to jump through all the proper regulatory hoops -- no matter how Byzantine -- in order to proceed with the peaceful and orderly development of its land. But it soon became obvious (according to Timothy Nelson, an officer for the firm) that the county was pursuing a "sometimes-deceptive agenda" actually designed not to help the owners meet local zoning ordinances, but to in fact prevent any development of the land at all, squeezing Evans Creek into selling off a property thus rendered worthless by regulation, at a lowball price. Sure enough, Washoe County officials last Friday filed a lawsuit seeking to "condemn" the 1,019-acre Ballardini Ranch and "preserve the land as public open space." Environmentalists hailed this complete disregard for private property rights....
Judge orders cattlemen to pay $70,000 for Tyson attorneys' fees A federal judge ordered cattlemen who sued Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. to pay the company $70,000 in attorneys' fees after a verdict in the cattlemen's favor was thrown out for a lack of evidence. Six cattlemen, claiming to represent thousands more, sued in 1994 claiming Tyson had used contracts with a select few ranchers to drive down the price of cattle on the open, or cash, market....
FOREST SERVICE MINING RULE

This information was sent along by Julie Kay Smithson at www.PropertyRightsResearch.org.
The deadline for comments is September 7th.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Any faxed correspondence should have the following as a heading:
USDA-Forest Service, Minerals and Geology Management (MGM)
Staff (2810)
Mail Stop 1126
Washington, DC 20250-1125
36cfr228a@fs.fed.us
703-605-4852
Fax: 703-605-1575
Attn: Secretary Ann Veneman; Undersecretary Mark Rey; Director of Minerals and Geology Management; and Staff Member Sam Hotchkiss
Re: PUBLIC COMMENTS ON THE INTERIM RULE
In accordance with the Request for Public Comments and Notice of Interim Rule:
Federal Register Notice, Friday, July 9 2004, (69 FR 41428)(2004 WL 1530411 (F.R.)), (RIN 0596-AC17) Interim Rule, allegedly, interpreting 36 CFR § 228.4, (the "Interim Rule"), and was signed by Mark Rey.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/shastatrinity/news/2004/releases/046-aug3-mining-regulations.shtml
http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/nezperce/newsreleases/mining_regulations_07_15_04.pdf

Dear Secretary Veneman, Undersecretary Rey; Mr. Hotchkiss, and Director of MGM:

August 9, 2004

My name is Patrick Keene; I am part of a third generation family owned business that has served the mining community for 55 years.

Keene Engineering is the largest supplier of small scale and portable mining equipment in the world. Our company and many other manufacturers, sells to small businesses and dealers, who provide goods to prospectors and miners throughout the United States.

On July 7, 2004, there was a notice in the Federal Register announcing Forest Service plans to clarify the language of 36CFR228.4 that will negatively impact gold prospecting -- and any other activities -- on mining claims.

By removing the word significant from "significant surface disturbance," this will allow District Rangers to make arbitrary and capricious decisions as to the activities, which may cause "any" surface disturbance.

Significant surface disturbance, by definition, meant mechanized earth-moving equipment such as bulldozers, backhoes, cutting of trees, and now they are amending the regulation to include, panning, sluicing, small hand held suction dredges and hand tools in the same category.

A suction dredge vacuums material through a suction hose and carries the material into a sluice box. The water and material flows over gravity traps to remove heavy materials such as, gold and also removes lead and mercury which are natural occurring and hazardous to the environment.

Studies have proven that suction dredging does not harm fish or any other types of aquatic species and provides beneficial habitat.

There are over 167,000 small-scale independent miners, which support the economic infrastructure of the U.S. The annual economic benefit generated by small-scale independent miners is $253,000,000 in 2001. Source: U.S. Commerce Department. The Forest Service does not believe that the Economic Impact will not have an annual economic impact of $100,000,000 or more on the economy; which is [utterly false].

This Forest Service rule violates and circumvents the Administration Procedures Act, the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the Regulatory Flexibility Act and many other important laws that give people rights on public lands.

The new language in the 36CFR-228.4 will not allow our industry and many others who provide prospecting supplies to survive, due to extreme economic impacts, because of this new regulation.

The Forest Service also feels that it requires no congressional authority to undermine the 1872 Mining Law.

Small-scale independent miners spend a large amount of money to benefit the small towns, counties, and the State's economies. Small-scale independent miners purchase fuel, groceries and camping supplies and many other amenities. It is important for miner to exercise their rights on public lands to explore and developed potential mineral resources for our country's economy. Most small businesses, which provide prospecting supplies and services, are struggling to survive in this political climate. The Forest Service by this interim rule is trying to eliminate the small-scale independent miners and their rights to prospect on public lands.

The opinion of the Forest Service is that a miner does not have the statuary right to occupy his valid mining claim for the purpose of mining even if it is incidental to a mining operation and that he should therefore be required file a mandatory, Notice of Intent. Which of coarse would require a Plan of Operation and a Bond.

You cannot obtain a bond if no one will bond you. Suction dredging has been exempt in the past The final determination is up to the District Ranger for he or she will be free to make any determination as to what they personally feel will be significant, whether the activity would be such as panning or sluicing of gold.

These regulations could collapse the recreational mining industry. It is essential that Americans maintain their rights to mine on public lands, because of the 1872 Mining law.

Mining is what made this country what it is today.

In conclusion, the new rule in affect will not clarify anything, but leave individuals to make their own interpretations by according to their own agenda, (which could be arbitrary and capricious).

Sincerely,

Patrick Keene
Keene Engineering
20201 Bahama Street
Chatsworth, CA 91311
800-841-7833 (outside CA)
800-392-4653 (in CA)
Fax: 818-993-0447

Pat@KeeneEng.com
http://www.keeneeng.com/contact.html