NEWS ROUNDUP

Buy one now: Parks put up for purchase U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources committee, has proposed to raise money by selling off 15 national parks, including seven in Alaska, according to a draft bill circulating Friday. Park supporters declared themselves outraged. But Pombo's spokesman, Brian Kennedy, said the 285-page draft is not to be taken seriously. Its purpose, Kennedy said, was to come up with proposals that would raise as much money for the federal government as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Pombo ardently supports. Drilling opponents should see that if Congress doesn't open ANWR "it would be outrageous and absurd alternatives, like selling national park units," Kennedy said. "So you see the joke."....
Drilling is hot, as is its debate From the Front Range to the Western Slope, energy development in Colorado is escalating at a record pace that will generate more than $8 billion in revenue this year - a 60 percent increase in just two years. The projected 3,950 new drilling permits - up by a third since last year - and nearly 29,000 operating wells in 2005 are both records, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission says. "This is the first time that we've had oil and gas production from one end of the state to the other," said state Department of Natural Resources director Russell George. "The real question for us as public managers is, 'How do we manage and balance all of the effects?"' George said. The drilling has drawn opposition from groups as diverse as Weld County housing developers concerned that well pads are gobbling up prime real estate, and La Plata County hunting guides worried that development will harm forests. Gas seeps, linked to drilling in Garfield County, have released methane and benzene into creeks and wells and pushed residents to demand a study of possible health impacts. With the increasing national reliance on natural gas, experts expect the industry to have a big presence in Colorado for three or four more decades....
Old La Sal's defenders fear the sting of developer's drills A few years ago, William Perritt fell in love with the La Sal Mountains. He purchased 6.6 acres with an eye on eventually retiring in the Deer Haven subdivision of Old La Sal, some 40 miles southeast of Moab. But now, an exploratory seismic survey proposed for federal lands surrounding his piece of heaven has angered Perritt and other nearby landowners. During a community meeting Tuesday night, representatives from Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. and the Forest Service outlined project details and responded to questions from residents and business owners who are concerned that opening the area to oil and gas exploration will damage land and wildlife, endanger the aquifer and disrupt the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of Old La Sal. Bill Barrett Operations Manager Michael FitzMaurice said the company will use small “buggy” drills in roaded areas. Elsewhere on the 13,693-acres project site, a portable drill transported by helicopter will be used to drill holes for specialized explosives that create ground vibrations, revealing the underground geologic features of the area through a process called three-dimensional geophysical seismic testing....
BLM OKs more winter drilling The Wyoming Bureau of Land Management has issued a "finding of no significant impact," opening the way for more winter drilling in big game winter range in the Pinedale Anticline. Anschutz Pinedale Corp., Shell Exploration & Production Co. and Ultra Resources Inc. filed a joint proposal to drill a "demonstration project" of up to 45 new wells using 32 drilling pads per section with directional drilling in order to reduce impacts to wildlife and habitat. BLM officials ultimately decided to lift seasonal restrictions this winter for up to 52 wells, concurring with industry officials who say there are benefits to year-round drilling. Directional drilling allows operators to sink multiple wells from single well pads on the surface. The companies have also agreed to carpool workers into the area during the winter and use extra pollution controls.
Producers: Pick up the pace Energy producers around Pinedale and in the Powder River Basin say time is of the essence for their development projects, because lingering questions and drawn-out projects reduce cost efficiency for companies. Specifically, many producers said here Friday that regulatory changes and requirements have slowed development, which means projects and planning efforts are "on hold" as companies wait to see how things shake out. At the same time, company representatives said they were still ramping up production in their respective areas. J.R. Justus, asset manager for Shell Exploration & Production Co., said in a presentation to about 200 people at the ninth annual Wyoming Natural Gas Fair Friday that his company was trying to drill year-round in the Pinedale Anticline in order to maximize efficiency and reduce the overall time spent on the field....
Three Wyoming Black Hills thinning projects stalled Three timber-thinning projects on more than 50,000 acres of the Black Hills National Forest in northeast Wyoming have been stalled by environmental appeals. The delays show that despite changes in federal regulations and a new federal law to speed up such decisions, forest management disputes can still bring logging and thinning to a halt. The three projects in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills would have resulted in the sale of almost 35 million board feet of timber. But the U.S. Forest Service withdrew each of the proposals this summer. Biodiversity, an environmental group based in Laramie, appealed the projects, saying they were based on incomplete data, failed to protect sensitive species, old growth timber stands and, most importantly, allowed extensive logging in one of the most remote parts of the Black Hills. Nichols said old-growth timber and stands left to die and decay through natural process provide valuable habitat for such species as goshawks, pygmy nuthatches and bats....
Editorial: It’s time to fix Endangered Species Act As it is applied today, the law is a blunt instrument that has been used against farmers, ranchers, loggers and others to halt activities and developments that don’t meet the wishes of certain litigious special-interest groups. In the name of fish, many farms, ranches and irrigation projects have been threatened or damaged. In the name of birds, timber operations have been hobbled or halted. Instead of protecting endangered species, the law is used as a lever to dictate the management of public and private lands. Judges have replaced professional land managers as the final arbiter of what is best for a certain species, watershed or region. After all of the lawsuits and billions of dollars that have been drained from the pocketbooks of farmers, ranchers, timber operators and the public, one would hope that many species have been rescued from extinction. Hardly....
Editorial: Reform plan will endanger species An effort to supposedly improve the Endangered Species Act will instead gut one of the nation's most important environmental laws. The 32-year-old law needs to be revamped to reduce some time-consuming bureaucratic procedures. But HR 3824 instead rips out the heart of the law. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., the bill's provisions take aim at the most essential steps for preserving endangered wildlife and plants. The bill passed the House Resources Committee last week 26-12, with eight Democrats voting "yes." Most species become endangered because their habitats have been damaged, so the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to identify and preserve critical habitat. Pombo wants to eliminate this most fundamental provision. His plan also would erase the requirement that before federal agencies take action, they first must examine how their decisions might affect endangered species. It makes no sense to let federal agencies look only after they have leapt, when it might be too late....
Editorial: Species act reform is long overdue It's about time. The wheels on the Endangered Species Act have been wobbling and squeaking for years, to the great discomfort of many Americans, and finally, Congress is taking tangible steps to fix the problems. Rep. Rick Pombo, R-Calif., has proposed a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Endangered Species Act through legislation that is poised to clear the House Resources Committee. Even some liberal Democrats on the committee announced that they agree with some of the proposed changes. And that is a refreshing acknowledgment, considering that the standard, robotic defense of the 1974 law is that it is some kind of unassailable, sacred book that has grown, as a result of case law, to volumes of books. For years, environmental groups have been clinging to that idea, arguing that the law isn't broken, so why fix it. But that has become a ridiculous claim, because the Endangered Species Act clearly is broken. That's why it has risen to the top of the legislative priority list for dozens of interest groups, ranging from Realtors to recreation groups. Government officials, too, have pointed to inefficiencies and high costs associated with the act....
Debate: Is the future of grizzly bears in danger? The federal government's proposal to take grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem off the Endangered Species Act's threatened species list represents a tremendous achievement. It also demonstrates America's enduring commitment to wildlife conservation. The National Wildlife Federation - one of the nation's largest conservation groups - has reached this conclusion only after a thorough review of the facts and documents on which the proposal was based. Two major reasons led us to our decision: First is the success on the ground. Because of the law's protections and the focused management efforts it has stimulated, the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem has been growing at a rate of 4-7 percent a year for 15 years. There are now more than 600 bears in the population, and all demographic and distribution parameters in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grizzly Recovery Plan have been met or exceeded. Second, according to the Endangered Species Act, once a species meets the goals set for its recovery, federal protection as a listed species must cease if adequate regulatory mechanisms are in place to assure that the species will not again decline....
Bears aren't out of the woods yet Grizzlies and Yellowstone -- bears and geysers. People have been coming from around the world to see the national park's main attractions for decades. Now, the Bush administration wants to remove the Yellowstone grizzlies from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. I think delisting is premature, because we need more bears, more habitat and true habitat protection to do the job right. Yellowstone's grizzlies need more than Yellowstone Park; they also need millions of acres of surrounding national forest. This land has seen some oil and gas development as well as logging and road-building through the years, but the big question is what will happen in the future. The grizzly by nature will eat almost anything, has a long memory and is mighty inquisitive. This is fine, except that almost all Yellowstone grizzlies die because humans kill them. Once a bear develops a taste for a picnic basket or unprotected human garbage, that bear has a bullet with its name on it....
As Population of Yellowstone Grizzlies Grows, Further Protection Is Up for Debate By all accounts the turnaround of the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-too-rare success story of the Endangered Species Act. After dwindling to 200 or so by the 1970's, the number of the big bears in the mountains and grassy meadows around Yellowstone National Park has grown to more than 600, thanks to the federal protections given to the species in 1975. "It's the biggest success story under the Endangered Species Act because grizzly bears are one of the toughest species to manage," said Chris Servheen, who has been working on efforts to protect and to re-establish grizzlies in Yellowstone and elsewhere for 25 years and is coordinator for grizzly bear recovery for the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service in Missoula, Mont. While there is widespread agreement that the story is a good one, however, there is disagreement on the next chapter. The Fish and Wildlife Service, saying that the mission to bring the bear back has been accomplished, will propose removing the bear from the list of threatened species this fall and, after a comment period, make a final decision in 2006. Delisting has happened for only about 15 species out of the 1,830 on the imperiled list. But opponents of delisting say the bear is still endangered, primarily because of threats to critical food sources. Both sides say the science is on their side....
Bear advocates question deliberate grain spills On Aug. 26, several tons of corn spilled along the southern edge of Glacier National Park when a handful of freight cars left the tracks in an early morning railroad accident. But what wasn't an accident was the railroad's cleanup response, which involved tipping and spilling nearly 20 additional corn cars in order to open the line as soon as possible. "I understand Burlington Northern has a corporate bottom line, and that is to make money," said Brian Peck, a grizzly bear recovery specialist with the Great Bear Foundation. "But I think they have a responsibility once it's spilled not to make the situation worse. And I think they would be hard-pressed to say they haven't made the situation worse." Peck is involved because history has shown grain and corn spills south of the park can be bad news for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Derailments, spills and bears first made headlines back in the late 1980s, when railroad policy was to simply bury the spill on site. But rains caused the corn and grain to ferment, drawing sharp-nosed bears from miles around....
NASA Technology Monitors Wildlife Habitats From The Air Two rare species, California spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada and the Delmarva fox squirrel in the mid-Atlantic U.S. have something in common. Using NASA technology, scientists have been able to identify habitats to help forest managers monitor and protect these species and other wildlife. The recent research shows that airborne laser scanning with Light Detecting And Ranging (LiDAR) can be especially valuable in ensuring that forests and other lands continue to be diverse, healthy, and productive, while still meeting the needs of society and the environment. The study, funded by the NASA/University of Maryland Vegetation Canopy LiDAR (VCL) mission and a NASA Interdisciplinary Science (IDS) Program grant, was published in the June 2005 issue of the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment. "When we compared the data gathered from the LiDAR, including information on canopy height and cover, to measurements taken on the ground, we found that LiDAR was very accurate, even in extremely rugged mountainous terrain," said Peter Hyde of the Department of Geography, University of Maryland-College Park, and lead author of the study. "The use of such technology is advantageous compared with field-based measurements of forest structure that are very time consuming and often limited by accessibility, resulting in relatively small field studies."....
Federal trappers kill wolf blamed for attack on cow Federal trappers killed one gray wolf Friday and are hunting another from the Chesimia Pack that roams an area of north Idaho between Dworshak Reservoir and Elk River. The pack killed a cow earlier this month, the third cow death blamed on the wolves this summer. The pack is also blamed for killing several hunting dogs on its home range over the past year. Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting gray wolves, authorized the trappers to kill two adult members of the pack. Wolves in most of Idaho are protected under the Endangered Species Act as a nonessential experimental population. The special designation allows wolves that prey on livestock to be lethally removed....
Victims of Mojave Preserve wildfire blame Park Service policies They hoped to spend a comfortable retirement in their rural retreats. Instead, they spent the summer picking through ashes to salvage melted mementos. Many of those who lost homes when wildfire swept the Mojave National Preserve in late June say their property was destroyed as much by bad policy as bad luck. And they blame the National Park Service. "They can call it a preserve, but they haven't actually preserved anything here in the 10 years they've had it," said Sandi McIntosh, 61, who said her home and horses escaped mostly undamaged by a stroke of luck. Scattered across the federal lands were tracts of private homesteads, including cattle ranches. The Park Service discontinued grazing leases and bought out nearly all the ranches. In a decade, those who had built vacation homes on the range found themselves surrounded by land either designated wilderness or managed as if it were. Cattle were gone and wild burros were being removed. After the wettest winter in memory, grass grew deep with few grazing animals to eat it. With the onset of hot weather, the fuels became tinder-dry....
Head of BLM spends day in Farmington Protecting the environment and boosting business are not mutually exclusive tasks, according to the woman who oversees more than 2,000,000 miles of the nation’s public lands. Kathleen Clarke, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was in Farmington on Saturday to participate in a community clean-up in conjunction with National Public Lands Day. Communities throughout the nation celebrate National Public Lands Day, but Clarke said she decided to spend the day in Farmington because she was impressed with the spirit of cooperation between the community and the oil and gas industry. “I heard about the CUPID (Clean Up and Prevention of Illegal Dumping) clean-up and was impressed,” Clark said. “This is exactly the kind of stewardship we need. I wanted to come here and showcase the cooperation between the people and industry that goes on in this community. She said even if oil drilling does increase in Farmington and the Four Corners area, the BLM will continue to re-vegitate wells that have gone dry. “Grass and grazing lands won’t be affected at all,” she added. “There are still federal laws in place that will protect grazing lands.”...posted especially for Bill Humphries....
Editorial - R.S. 2477 ROADS: Where wilderness is at issue, lawsuits will continue The governor's office announced the other day that the state and counties will record a list of roads in each county that cross public lands. The purpose is to identify rights of way across federal lands granted under an 1866 law commonly known as R.S. 2477. The announcement by Lynn Stevens, the state's public lands policy coordinator, suggested that recording these lists, coupled with an agreement now in the works with the federal Bureau of Land Management about how roads across BLM-managed lands will be maintained, would put an end to legal struggles over most of these roads in Utah. We doubt that. If the state and counties continue to press aggressively for rights of way on jeep trails and similar roads through sensitive federal lands in Utah where potential wilderness designation is at stake, the environmental groups will rightly continue to wage legal war against these claims. Ultimately, these disputes will have to be decided by the courts....
An Interview with Charles Sullivan I began my many years of activism during the latter part of the seventies. I began with Earth First! defending our National Forests from degradation and destruction under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Service. It is never in the mainstream news, but we are living in the midst of the greatest extinction crises since the disappearance of the great reptiles some sixty-five million years ago at the close of the Cretaceous Era. That crisis is anthropogenic in nature--it is human induced. We have an ethical obligation to fight for the right of those plants and animals to exist and to fulfill their own respective evolutionary destinies. I have been on the front lines of the wild forest movement. I have participated in direct actions on behalf of the forests. I have committed acts of civil disobedience that were outside of the law. The words of Thoreau have inspired me to act. He said, 'Let your life be a friction against the machine.' Unjust laws exist. When we encounter unjust laws we should not hesitate to break them. The trouble with America today is not civil disobedience. It is civil obedience. Progressives tend to be too civil and too obedient. Our political enemies do not have that problem....
Migrants leaving ugly mark on land Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage. The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens. Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up. Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week. "It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Mrs. Kay, 62....
Rancher envisions major ski resort near Missoula For now, the ski trails on the Maclay Ranch are just freshly turned bands of brown earth. But they are the beginnings of what Tom Maclay hopes will someday be a world-class resort rivaling Vail, Sun Valley or Lake Tahoe. In Maclay's vision for the mountains south of Missoula, skiing will extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883. Maclay wants to put skiers on Lolo Peak in a national forest near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and market an extraordinary vertical drop of 5,342 feet. Skiers — possibly as many as 7,500 a day — would descend north-facing slopes to the ranch and its alpine and Nordic skiing, 2,200 houses and condominiums, and a resort village. Golf, a hotel, conference and sports centers and access to excellent fly fishing are part of the four-season Bitterroot Resort plan. Critics worry about harm to public land and wildlife and about overloading this increasingly popular swath of Montana....
Rancher gets reprieve on lease A 21,000-acre ranch in the heart of a 40-square-mile area that state officials want to develop won a reprieve from a Denver judge Thursday, allowing the cows to keep their home on the range - at least for now. Chuck Pancost, an Arapahoe County rancher who feared he and his 800-head herd of Angus cattle would be evicted from their leased land this week, will be able to stay at least temporarily. Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon granted Pancost a stay from an eviction order that had been issued by his landlord, the State Board of Land Commissioners. The stay will enable Pancost to remain until the courts hear his challenge of the eviction order, which may take up to two years. Pancost has lived on 21,000 acres of state land board property east of Aurora for more than 30 years. He's raised four children there and calls the property the Pancost Ranch. But the land is at the center of a redevelopment plan state officials are working on that likely will call for building thousands of new homes on what once was home to the Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range....
In California, Agriculture Takes Center Stage in Pollution Debate On a clear day, San Joaquin looks like a bucolic farming community, complete with almond groves, cornfields and orange trees. But most of the time the valley -- trapped between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, with two major highways running north to south through it -- is smoggy, filled with air that has fostered widespread respiratory disease. Fifteen percent of the region's children have asthma, a rate three times the national average. Fresno -- the valley's biggest city -- has the third-highest rate of asthma in the country, and the San Joaquin Valley rivals Los Angeles and Houston for the dubious title of worst air quality in the nation. On bad air days, some schools hoist a red flag so parents can keep their children indoors; on good days, they raise a green flag. Agriculture does not occupy a prominent place in America's environmental policy debates, but farming has arguably more of an impact on the land, air and water than any other sector in the U.S. economy, environmental and industry experts say. In addition to producing airborne emissions, farms take up nearly half of the nation's land, and nutrient-laden runoff from farms affects such waterways as local streams and the Gulf of Mexico....
A century worth of memories The old smoke house is the only building that remains on the homestead that Buntrock's grandfather, Albert, farmed more than 100 years ago. The original house burned down in 1934, was rebuilt and now that's where Buntrock's twin brother Duane and his wife Judy live. The Buntrock Brothers farm is one of 57 - and the only one in Brown County - named Century Farms this year in South Dakota. Dwight Buntrock said it's believed his grandfather, Albert, came from Germany to South Dakota, by way of Minnesota, in 1884. In 1886 or 1887, a Timber Culture - a homestead law allowing people who plant and care for trees on their land to receive free acreage - was enacted on the land. According to records, Albert Buntrock made full payment on the land in December of 1892. However, the wooden sign that sits at the end of the driveway to the Buntrock Brothers farm references the year 1897. "Anyway you look at it, it's still been well over 100 years," Dwight Buntrock said with a laugh. "In the Buntrock family tradition, we were just late applying for it."....
In Utah's west desert, you treasure what you have So it goes for virtually everybody who calls the tiny ranching communities of Partoun, Trout Creek and Callao home. Located at least 90 miles from the nearest city and 50 miles from the closest paved road, the 100 or so people who reside out here live in a challenging environment and face daily hurdles that most other Utahns cannot possibly grasp. They wouldn't have it any other way. "I've been bitten by rattlesnakes. I've been thrown off of horses. This place has its challenges," says Callao rancher Cecil Garland. "But I've lived overseas. I've lived in Montana. I've lived in Las Vegas. And nothing compares to this. I live in a land of indescribable beauty and solitude. The conditions are harsh at times, but the wide open spaces out here are something to be most treasured."....
Ranches reveal fate of the West Three ranches, three counties, three very different development scenarios - all within one valley. In a microcosm of what's going on throughout Colorado and the rest of the West, three of the last real cattle ranches in the Roaring Fork Valley are headed toward conversion into luxury subdivisions. The ranches are located within about 12 miles of one another, as the crow flies, but the geopolitical oddities of the Roaring Fork Valley place them in three different jurisdictions. Because of that, they will end up looking vastly different....
Longtime clown has serious calling, sobering message A Montana rancher says he has been coming to the Pendleton Round-Up for about 14 or 15 years. But he doesn’t come to watch, he comes to work. Loyd Ketchum and his wife, Ashlee, operate a ranch near Miles City, Mont. He runs about 125 “momma cows,” Ketchum said, “just enough to keep us in debt.” Ranching comes naturally to Ketchum. “It’s something I grew up around and enjoy … and my wife does.” But Ketchum is not known for the work he does with momma cows. He’s best known for working with bulls. Ketchum is in the cowboy protection business and is a professional rodeo bullfighter....
Peasant tries polo, the sport of royalty When you say polo, the first image for most people is a line of fashionable clothes or expensive cologne and a guy named Ralph. Me, I think about galloping horses, smacking a ball with a stick, and a couple of guys named Roberto and Esteban down in Argentina. Earlier this year, I was chosen to be part of a small delegation of young people from across the United States to go to Argentina and Uruguay as part of a leadership exchange. So, a couple of weeks ago, I wrapped the twine on my last hay bale, put the cattle on fresh pasture, kissed my family goodbye and struck out for the southern side of our hemisphere. We kept a hectic schedule on the trip, but one weekend allowed for a couple of hours of free time in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Most of the crew opted to go shopping. I asked if I could catch a game of polo....
On the Edge of Common Sense: He was hit by a tyrannosaurus Holstein 'Isn't that Larry's heifer?" asked Dick. The two-year old black whiteface was running down the fence line along Highway 90. Traffic was moderate on the 4-lane highway. The shoulder was not smooth. Arroyos and ridges thick with rocks and brush made any chase risky. "Pull over!" said Dick. The south gate was new. It had a cattle guard but no cattle gate beside it. Dick turned the frightened cow back to the north. "Call Larry!" he shouted to his wife in the truck. Larry's wife took the call. Within five minutes Larry had appeared and stationed himself by the north gate to turn the heifer. She was smart enough or scared enough to stay off the highway but she became unreasonable. Larry knew her well. She would actually eat feed out of his hand. He was surprised by her rowdy behavior. It is a common flaw in cowmen. They form opinions about specific animals. They come to trust them. I've seen grown men put two-year-old kids on the back of tame Brahma bulls. But cows can revert to their primitive behavioral origins. I don't mean baby calf, I mean buffalo, mastodon, tyrannosaurus Holstein! It is a scientific phenomenon called "getting on the fight!"....

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