A push for animal-friendly roads A stream of traffic flows along Picture Rocks Road, past two roadside culverts where Natasha Kline is checking for animal tracks. The tunnels, intended to drain a sandy wash, are serving instead as life-saving byways for wildlife along this busy commuter route through Saguaro National Park. As a park biologist, Ms. Kline knows such crossings can be crucial. A recent study counted as many as 53,000 animals killed on Saguaro's roads each year. "It's a huge problem," she says, "and our issue will be every park's issue in 10 years or so." Efforts to solve the problem have spawned a new discipline called road ecology. The practice brings together transportation planners, scientists, and wildlife activists who plan new road projects to minimize impacts on animals. By using a variety of strategies - from lowered speed limits in wildlife areas to high-tech, vegetated overpasses where cameras monitor animal use - they hope to reduce the number of animals killed and improve road safety for drivers....
Bush administration working on new plan to delist wolves The Bush administration is working on a new plan for removing Endangered Species Act protections for thriving populations of gray wolves in the Great Lakes and Northern Rockies after deciding not to fight a federal court ruling that found the old plan illegal. Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson, in a statement released Tuesday in Washington, D.C., said he continued to believe the old plan was "biologically and legally sound" – but the Department of the Interior would be issuing a new proposal "as early as possible in 2006." Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the case, said the center would not oppose removing Endangered Species Act protections for wolves introduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park, or those naturally occurring in northern Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin – as long as the Bush administration does not try to "gerrymander" the population boundaries again....
"Eco-Terrorism": Cui Bono? In the 1980s in the North Santiam Canyon east of Salem, OR, Ancient Forest activism was peaking after years of dogged effort. This is the area of the famous 1986-89 North Roaring Devil blockade and tree sit (the second ever pro-forest tree sit; the first coming in the nearby South Santiam's Millennium Grove actions of 1985). North Roaring Devil protection efforts went on for three years, over sixty folks were arrested for non-violent Civil Disobedience at the logging site; sixty-three acres of five-hundred-plus year old trees were leveled; but, in the end, a lawsuit stopped the logging of an additional 170 acres and even led to the Willamette National Forest Plan being thrown out and redone. The entire area is now a part of a 49,000 acre reserve. Naturally, this effort gained a lot of notoriety. It was the first such effort to garner national attention to the plight of our fast-vanishing old growth forests, bringing in reporters from around the world. It led to a spread in National Geographic and some TV documentaries....
Eco-terror endangers worthy cause I don't know if federal prosecutors were blowing smoke last week when they said Chelsea "Country Girl" Gerlach and Bill Rodgers helped burn down Two Elk lodge in Vail in 1998. Gerlach's lawyer and Rodgers' friends say it isn't so. Whatever the pair's roles in the unsolved Vail arson, I know true environmentalists welcomed this so-called eco-terrorism like they would an epidemic of chronic wasting disease. Almost all eco-terrorism "would be laughable if it wasn't so serious," said Roger Flynn, who directs the Western Mining Action Project. "Let's burn a few SUVs. Let's burn a ski lodge." An eco-terrorist, Flynn said, is "like a child who throws a tantrum."....
Lawsuit challenges Franklin Basin snowmobile access Cross country skiers and other nonmotorized winter recreationalists are feeling squeezed by a revised land-use plan put forth by the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Now they have filed a lawsuit over the changes. Four conservation groups - Nordic United, the Bridgerland Audubon Society, the Winter Wildlands Alliance and the Bear River Watershed Council - filed a complaint in U.S. District Court last week charging that the Forest Service flouted environmental laws last summer by reopening the Franklin Basin/Tony Grove area in Logan Canyon to snowmobile use after closing the section to motorized recreation as part of its 2003 Forest Plan....
Environmentalists Declare Opposition to Alito for Supreme Court Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has run into opposition from environmentalists in his bid to assume the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Five environmental groups and a nonprofit, public interest environmental law firm today formally declared their opposition to Alito for the lifetime Supreme Court appointment - the first environmentalist campaign against a Supreme Court nominee in 18 years. The Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, National Environmental Trust, and Greenpeace joined the law firm Earthjustice in stating that Alito's nomination endangers laws that Americans rely upon, including fundamental safeguards for public health and the environment....
BLM starts environmental study of oil shale extraction in 3 states The Bureau of Land Management has launched an environmental review intended to guide oil shale development on huge stretches of federal land in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah over the next several years. The BLM, which oversees millions of acres in the three states, has 18 months to gather public comments and complete an environmental impact statement. The push, mandated in a federal energy bill, comes more than two decades after the first oil-shale boom busted, leaving western Colorado's economy reeling for years. Soaring oil prices and demand are behind the revived interest in trying to tap the large reserves of oil trapped in rock and sand....
Forest narrows review of drilling work The U.S. Forest Service is extending categorical exclusion status to small oil and gas projects, hoping to reduce red tape while saving time and money. Conservationists take a more jaundiced view of the initiative. "It's a classic shell game," said Tim Preso, an Earthjustice attorney based in Bozeman. Typically, Forest Service officials say they want to defer environmental assessments or impact statements when oil and gas leases are put up for sale, saying they'll study environmental impact issues when the energy companies want to start exploring and drilling, Preso said. "Now, with this categorical exclusion, there'll be no studies at all," Preso said. Patricia Dowd of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition echoed Preso's concern. "Based on the Forest Service's own history, it is not clear that the public's concerns about cumulative impacts will be addressed," she said....
Forest Service buys 2,100 acres of conservation easements in SNRA The snowmobile trail connecting Stanley to Redfish Lake, and beyond, within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area north of Ketchum, is now open as a result of the U.S. Forest Service's recent purchase of the trail easement and conservation easements from the Piva family. Normally, the conservation easements do not provide for public access. However, Forest Service spokesman Ed Waldapfel said, this conservation easement acquired a trail route over the Piva Ranch adjoining the city of Stanley south of the Stanley Airport. The conservation easement also purchased the development rights on the bench that the trail crosses. This will reduce future use conflicts and protect the cherished scenic, historic and pastoral qualities of the Stanley Basin, Waldapfel said....
Snowmobiles in Yellowstone still too noisy Despite technology and fewer numbers, noise is still an issue with snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park, according to a new report. Snowmobiles exceeded noise thresholds near Old Faithful, Madison Junction and the West Entrance, according to National Park Service sound tests conducted last winter. Snowcoaches also went beyond the limits, but much less frequently. Overall, noise levels were "substantially lower" than the 2002-2003 season, the report said, but not low enough at times to meet goals set by the Park Service. "One thing that's clear is there's further improvements to be made," said Mike Yochim, an outdoor recreation planner at Yellowstone....
River dredging rushed to beat new regulations Annual dredging of the Snohomish River will be completed earlier than usual because of new federal protections for salmon. The Army Corps of Engineers removes sandy material each year in a six-mile stretch of the Snohomish River, starting at its mouth, from one of two collector basins on the river's bottom. In the past, the work was usually completed around February. But because of new regulations to protect salmon in Washington, Oregon and Northern California, the work must be completed by Jan. 2, when the rules will go into effect, said Patricia Miller, the corps' project manager for the dredging....
A Solid Take on the New Old West Chilton Williamson definitely cares about the West. Every essay in his collection The Hundredth Meridian – Seasons and Travels in the New Old West makes this abundantly clear. Most of the writings have been culled from columns he wrote for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. From wanderings in the high country near his home in the same community of Kemmerer, Wyoming to a mildly eccentric homage visit to the approximate grave site of writer Ed Abbey to Navajoland scenes I and II and beyond, every word Williamson lays down indicates a man who is tied into the land, the heritage and the mythology of the Old West especially as it evolves into the New West. The author is one of us, and by that I mean someone who calls the high plains and Rocky Mountains home, someone who is more than a little bit fed up and disgusted with and has little time for people who would or do move here dragging the baggage they’re fleeing with them or, perhaps worse yet, those who pontificate from the distance of other parts of the country about how the West should be run. The “tree huggers” with little awareness, concern or compassion for how the land operates as a natural system. The self-satisfied, misinformed crew that supports sadly-confused groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), those who would turn the land into a theme park. Williamson prefers the company of individuals who get their hands dirty out this way – the ranchers, roughnecks and loggers. He has no desire to see this vast landscape turned into an industrial park but he doesn’t want to see the region subjugated and degraded into a The author is one of us, and by that I mean someone who calls the high plains and Rocky Mountains home, someone who is more than a little bit fed up and disgusted with and has little time for people who would or do move here dragging the baggage they’re fleeing with them or, perhaps worse yet, those who pontificate from the distance of other parts of the country about how the West should be run. The “tree huggers” with little awareness, concern or compassion for how the land operates as a natural system. The self-satisfied, misinformed crew that supports sadly-confused groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), those who would turn the land into a theme park. Williamson prefers the company of individuals who get their hands dirty out this way – the ranchers, roughnecks and loggers. He has no desire to see this vast landscape turned into an industrial park but he doesn’t want to see the region subjugated and degraded into a homogenized, milquetoast arcade like Yellowstone National Park has become....
Shrewd strategy fuels Bush policy efforts The Bush administration is using a savvy strategy to sidestep opposition to its environmental policies while remaining within the law, a new book co-written by a Northern Arizona University professor asserts. His victory is all about Republicans presenting a unified front, using terms like "common sense" to describe sweeping proposals and timing legislation to coincide with sweeping wildfires in California and Oregon, Northern Arizona University political science professor Jacqueline Vaughn and former NAU professor Hanna Cortner write in a new book, "George W. Bush's Healthy Forests, Reframing the Environmental Debate." In the case of Bush's Healthy Forest Restoration Act that environmental groups dubbed a timber giveaway, which passed right after fires consumed 750,000 acres of California's desert brush, Bush won by getting all Republicans to work from the same playbook and present a unified front. "The book just shows how the Bush administration pulled off what it wanted in terms of forest policy," Vaughn said. "That same strategy is being used for some other policy now."....