NEWS

Into a new mineral paradigm The days of the kitchen-table handshake between the oil company and the rancher are over. Beginning July 1, a handshake is no good unless it's documented under Wyoming's new "Split Estates Procedures for Oil and Gas Operations" law. "Senate File 60 puts both sides in an environment where they have to document every communication," said Joe Icenogle, spokesman for Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. Icenogle spoke as a panelist in a split-estate forum here Friday at the CBM Education Fair. Under pressure from growing energy development across the state, Wyoming lawmakers earlier this year passed Senate File 60 -- the Legislature's third and successful attempt at a split-estate law. Its aim is to ensure reasonable notice and compensation to surface owners who don't own the minerals below their property, but host drilling and production activities on their surface. Landowners had argued they needed more leverage in striking reasonable "surface use" agreements with oil and gas companies because they can't refuse access to the mineral lessee under Wyoming statute. Now, the new law requires a good-faith attempt for both sides to strike a surface use agreement, and that it contain compensation for "loss of land value."....
Fish role eyed in coal-bed methane debate Ever since developers learned how to tap coal seams in the Powder River Basin for natural gas, they've struggled with what to do with the brackish groundwater that comes out first. A fish may be the answer. Water is being pumped from coal-bed methane wells in rural, northern Wyoming to John Woiwode's tilapia farm in an area where cattle roam. About 1,300 of the small, pink fish now delight in the water - flipping, flopping and pooping in it. It's the squiggles of poop that interest researchers like Woiwode, and whether that waste could help make the water into a more usable asset instead of a pollutant....
Colo. basks in region's oil-gas boom Federal oil and gas leasing revenues rose 22 percent for Colorado and three neighboring states to more than $1.1 billion in 2004, according to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management report. Colorado had the largest percentage jump in royalties, 41 percent, to $89 million, mainly due to increased drilling in the Piceance Basin in the western part of the state. Wyoming received more than $600 million in federal payments in 2004, New Mexico about $383 million and Utah about $73 million, according to the BLM report released in May....
Drilling ignites battle over Western paradise Near the entrance of a pristine national forest area called the Valle Vidal, or "valley of life," a Halliburton tanker truck rumbles past a huge crater among the sculpted sandstone cliffs, herds of elk and ponderosa pines. It's a blasted circle, two acres wide, around a pit of foul-smelling water, a heap of shattered stone and a hissing 20-foot-tall pump sucking methane gas from the earth. The truck contains yet another shipment of liquid nitrogen, which will be injected into the ground at extreme pressure to crack more rock and release more gas. This jarring intrusion of industry into wilderness is increasingly common on public lands across the West, evidence of the rising number of gas and oil drilling permits approved by the Bush administration. Six years ago, 1,639 such permits on federal land were approved. Last year, the administration granted more than three times that number, 6,052....
Living with grizzlies For Michelle Sauerwein, living in grizzly bear country has changed in the last five years. The Wapiti resident has seen bears trapped on her front lawn, and she spent at least four hours on her barn roof to avoid a grizzly sow with cubs. Sauerwein did this as her infant slept in the main house, with no supervision. "Everything is more complicated, to hold this balance of living in a happy medium with these bears," she said. Sauerwein, and about 15 other residents of Wapiti and rural Park County, all had similar messages to send to state legislators and county commissioners gathered here last week for a tour of grizzly bear country....
Anger Piqued Beneath a Peak Three years ago, avid hiker Jim Walters made his first 11-mile, lung-busting trek to the summit of Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 states. "You see … azure blue water and snow … the play of the clouds and the distant mountains and forests," recalled the 59-year-old medical ethics professor from Claremont. "It is just spectacular." But now Walters, who describes himself as a longtime Sierra Club member and a dedicated conservationist, wants to develop a 74-acre luxury housing subdivision below the jagged gray 14,494-foot peak and amid the brown, boulder-strewn hills used for countless Hollywood movie shoots. Walters stands to make several million dollars from the venture, although he is making himself anathema to fellow environmentalists in the process. "I see myself as a tree hugger, but there are those who hug the trees more tightly than do I. And [they] do not want to see any development," he said....
Federal judge declines to stop timber sale near Lewis and Clark Trail A federal judge has refused to stop the Wendover Fire Salvage Project, a timber sale near the trail used by Lewis and Clark 200 years ago on their historic trek to the Pacific Ocean. A coalition of environmental groups filed suit in U.S. District Court last week, contending the Forest Service's plan failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal regulations and that the agency was cutting down healthy trees as well as those killed or damaged by fire. But Judge Edward Lodge ruled Friday that the Forest Service adequately reviewed the project before it began cutting the trees on 117 acres in the Clearwater National Forest in northern Idaho. He cited a memo the agency released in March after public comment hearings....
No end to this Rainbow After three months sitting in prison, barred from fresh air and the sun’s rays, Barry Adams prefers to hold his interview in a patch of sunshine in his backyard. He’s happy to be back in Missoula, to once again take on obligations like fixing the lawnmower and caring for his daughter. He was sprung May 20 from a federal prison in Seattle after serving 90 days and paying a $500 fine for “unauthorized use of National Forests systems land without authorization when such authorization is required.” The charge stems from the 2000 Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering that drew 36,000 people to southwestern Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Adams, now 59, was accused of being a leader of the Rainbows after he applied for personal use of national forest land and attended the gathering after his application was denied. He explains that the feds insist Rainbows are an organized group, and there must be leaders, but that’s not how it works....
Wildflower on Development Site Prompts Criminal Investigation Opponents of a controversial housing project turned an endangered wild flower into a weapon to block construction on a site that borders a wetlands area, according to investigators with the state's Fish and Game department. Robert Evans, an opponent of the Laguna Vista housing development in Sebastopol reported finding specimens of the rare Sebastopol meadowfoam on the development site in April. Investigators determined that the 30 flowers did not grow on the site but had been transplanted. "The location of the plants, the type of clusters that were found, the fact that they were on sloping areas that normally this type of plant is not found on, gave us the first indication," Fish and Game's Troy Swauger told KCBS reporter Larry Chiaroni. "To find this on a development site at this point indicates to us that they have been transplanted. We're considering this a criminal act."....
Suit challenges fishing season cut A California-based legal foundation filed a lawsuit in Eugene Friday on behalf of two Oregon fishermen's associations, charging that the federal government broke the law when it cut the commercial fishing season for chinook salmon in half. The Pacific Legal Foundation alleged that the National Marine Fisheries Service wrongly distinguished between naturally spawning and hatchery chinook salmon and failed to consider the "severe economic and safety impacts" of a shortened trolling season on coastal fishing communities. A spokesman for the state's largest advocacy group for fishermen criticized the lawsuit, however, saying the shortened season is necessary to protect the struggling Klamath chinook, which intermingle "all up and down the coast."....
Visitor center to highlight Grand Staircase wildlife The birds and the bees and other wildlife, vegetation and even microscopic organisms are the theme of the newest visitor center connected with the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument that opens to the public Saturday. Located in the tiny town of Escalante in southern Utah, the new facility - constructed with a liberal use of glass and jagged stones from the surrounding area - is dedicated to the biology and ecology of the monument spread over 1.9 million acres of rugged and isolated terrain in Garfield and Kane counties....
Democrats put Pombo on their list Democratic leaders, looking for districts they think they can win in 2006 to regain control of the House after a dozen years, are eyeing the seat of the lone Republican in the Democratic-dominated Bay Area -- powerful Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy. Pombo, a rancher first elected in 1992 whose district straddles the Altamont Pass, was one of 12 Republican House members targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over the Memorial Day weekend with radio ads. Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee, is a strong GOP fund- raiser, based on his advocacy of property owners' rights and his criticism of the Endangered Species Act, which he calls a runaway train that values preservation of animal and vegetation species habitats over people....
Groups reach $134 million agreement for recovering salmon After three years, a group of residents, farmers, environmentalists, tribal members and government officials has agreed on a $134 million plan for helping salmon runs recover in the Snohomish River Basin. The 38-member Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Forum on Thursday unanimously adopted a plan aimed at restoring chinook salmon and bull trout populations. Both species are listed as threatened in the Puget Sound region under the Endangered Species Act. The idea of the Snohomish River plan is to improve specific habitats on the river's tributaries, on the main river, in the delta and along the shores of Possession Sound near the mouth of the river, Martha Neuman, a senior planner for Snohomish County, told The Herald of Everett. The group expects to raise the money needed through a variety of state, federal and other grant programs....
Complexity in Ecology and Conservation: Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Challenges Creative approaches at the interface of ecology, statistics, mathematics, informatics, and computational science are essential for improving our understanding of complex ecological systems. For example, new information technologies, including powerful computers, spatially embedded sensor networks, and Semantic Web tools, are emerging as potentially revolutionary tools for studying ecological phenomena. These technologies can play an important role in developing and testing detailed models that describe real-world systems at multiple scales. Key challenges include choosing the appropriate level of model complexity necessary for understanding biological patterns across space and time, and applying this understanding to solve problems in conservation biology and resource management....
Bison ranch owners swap animal tales Pia opened doors and jumped on beds at the Red Canyon Ranch outside of Thermopolis. Then she gained 500 pounds. "We had moon-shaped hoof marks torn into the mattress," said Kathleen Gear of her "bottle baby" bison. Pia became imprinted with the Gears as a calf. Now, at more than 1,000 pounds, Pia still likes to be petted, even while nursing a calf of her own. Leggs - otherwise known as 'Earl the Girl' - is another imprint case. She had trouble walking after birth and couldn't nurse with her mother. Lyman rancher Rex Snyder bottle-fed the bison, and now he has the equivalent of a 900-pound puppy dog. "She runs alongside the pickup," Snyder said. "She follows me everywhere. She's been kicked out of the Marriott twice."....
Two American idols who put a little wild in the West Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America; Larry McMurtry; Simon & Schuster: 246 pp., $26. Novelist, essayist and screenwriter McMurtry (author of "Lonesome Dove," "Terms of Endearment," "The Last Picture Show," "Streets of Laredo" and "Texasville," to name just a handful) is one of our ablest and most amiable chroniclers of the American West. As a shrewd observer of the American scene, he also takes a keen interest in the phenomenon of celebrity. So it's not surprising to find him in this book combining his two interests as he revisits and reconsiders what is known about the lives of these two early "superstars." The Colonel and Little Missie were certainly not a couple, and indeed don't even seem to have had an especially close professional relationship: The term that best seems to characterize their association would be mutual respect. Both had grown up poor — virtually destitute in her case; a more ordinary mix of hard times and better in his. Both had learned to kill game and sell meat to support themselves and their families....
Mariposa Wagon Train rides again The 30th anniversary of the Mariposa County Pioneer Wagon Train is set for June 8 through 11. Every second weekend in June for the past 29 years, men, women, children, mules and horses have headed out on a 32-mile adventure. The train begins near the south entrance to Yosemite National Park, proceeds over the Sierra Nevada and finally circles up at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds for an evening of cowboy poetry, dinner and dancing. The trek is open to mule- and horse-drawn vehicles, mounted riders and walkers, and period dress is encouraged....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: The long shot holds soft spot in our hearts But would I have cheered Giacomo down the home stretch? Would I have shredded my program in the excitement? Would I have felt that primal, goose-bumpy surge well up from deep inside as he crossed the finish line? Would I have experienced innocent, emotional, unprotected, unexpected joy for his success? Absolutely! "Unbelievable," I would repeat, over and over, as they gave ol' FIFTY to ONE the roses. And I'm just an innocent bystander!....

===