NEWS ROUNDUP

Anger Drives Property Rights Measures Cheeks chapped, patience thinned, Katie Breckenridge had no trouble making up her mind about an Idaho ballot measure that would make the government pay property owners if zoning rules reduce the value of their land. “Do I think this is almost swinging the pendulum back too far in the other direction? I do,” said Ms. Breckenridge, 61, a rancher just in from tending to cattle and quarter horses. “But do I think we’ve got to do something to bring the balance back to property rights? I do, and I’m going to vote for it.” More than a year after Suzette Kelo and several of her neighbors in New London, Conn., lost their battle against eminent domain in the United States Supreme Court, the backlash against the ruling has made property rights one of the most closely watched ballot issues nationwide. Already, 30 state legislatures have enacted restrictions on eminent domain in response to the court ruling. Now voters here and in 11 other states will consider property rights measures in November, making it the election’s most prevalent ballot issue. Most of the measures would limit eminent domain to some degree, while others, in Western states, would go further, imposing new restrictions on government’s ability to enforce zoning laws, even if those laws are intended to reduce sprawl and improve safety. Supporters of the ballot efforts in the West — often called “Kelo-plus” — say they want to stop so-called regulatory takings, the idea that government effectively takes private property when zoning laws limit how it can be used....
Balancing interests in environmental issues is an ongoing battle On the frontlines of environmental issues, it’s often a case of one person’s word against another’s. And many times, those words are angry ones. Such is the situation in the most recent cattle-grazing battle over Trout Creek, in the southern Sawtooth National Forest. Environmentalist Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, said that on Sept. 27 he saw about 150 cattle near the riparian area along Trout Creek, including a dying animal in the creek, and notified the Sawtooth National Forest office on Monday. Marvel said it looked like the animals had been along the creek for weeks. Rancher Bud Bedke, whose cattle were near Trout Creek at the end of last month, admits about 700 of his animals got into the restricted grazing area, but said they were there for only three days and had gotten into the area because an environmentalist opened the gate to the creek in an effort to set him up. “You bet ... it was sabotage,” Bedke said. “If it wasn’t (Marvel), it was somebody like him.”....
Gas boom stirring up life in loneliest county If nothing else, Delores Smith says the drilling rig across the street has spiced up Mentone's nightlife. Smith and her husband, 87-year-old Kenneth, are both decadeslong residents of this desolate West Texas area and acknowledge not much happens in the least-populated county in the United States. By Sheriff Billy Hopper's count, Loving County has 81 residents, which amounts to about eight square miles per person. It has never even had potable running water. Things could be changing, though, now that Loving County turns out to be centered in one of the nation's hottest natural gas plays, attracting some of the world's largest energy companies. Rigs like those shadowing the Smith home in Mentone (population 18) are prowling this part of the Chihuahuan Desert between the Big Bend and the New Mexico line, and more are on the way. The natural gas boom has shattered the usual peace and quiet of Loving County's squat 71-year-old courthouse. Hopper says anywhere from two to 20 landmen — agents who scan title records on behalf of prospective drillers — can be found wandering the modest building. Geologically speaking, two types of drilling are sparking interest in several promising pockets across the country, including Loving County. Some, such as large independents Anadarko Petroleum and Chesapeake Energy, are focusing on "tight gas," which is highly pressurized inside dense sand deposits that have low permeability. Others are drilling hard shale beds, which are more prominent in neighboring counties. Neither technique was considered worthwhile until market prices rose sharply this decade while technology caused drilling costs to fall....
No room for strutting Sage grouse mating rituals could be described as goofy, astonishing or even magical. The large, speckled birds faithfully return to their breeding grounds - called leks - every year in spring, where males gather early each morning to strut, fret and heave out their chests in search of a mate. Birders and locals alike often flock to see the yearly ritual by a bird that a former Wyoming Game and Fish Department director called "as distinctively western as the Stetson hat." Yet if energy development continues as it is right now, there will be a lot less strutting in the future, according to new research by Wyoming and Montana scientists, and that could mean that environmental groups will again petition for the listing of the sage grouse under the federal Endangered Species Act. Should the bird be listed as endangered, ranchers, drillers and anyone else whose activities could impact sage grouse would be subject to much more stringent regulations. Several studies, released within the last year, are finding that sage grouse populations are declining in the Pinedale Anticline and Jonah Field in western Wyoming and Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming. Those are areas with gas and coal-bed methane development, seriously threatening the birds' future. Similar levels of oil and gas development are planned for other sage grouse strongholds, including the Red Desert of southern Wyoming....
Elk That Escaped From Game Farm Are Seen as Threat to Wild Herds There is an elk hunt going on in the forests and farm fields near here at the foot of the craggy Teton Mountains. Ordinarily, that would be no great surprise, but the reason behind it is. The elk are domesticated animals, raised on a game farm less than 10 miles from Yellowstone National Park, which is home to thousands of wild elk. Recently, a bear tore open a fence and the elk escaped, said Dr. Rex Rammell, a veterinarian who owned the farm. And that has led to a state-ordered death warrant against them. Domestic elk are controversial in the West. Idaho wildlife officials worry that the animals could pollute the genetic purity of the region’s native elk or could carry chronic wasting disease or other illnesses and infect the wild herds. Dr. Rammell condemned the shooting of his escaped animals, saying they were pure elk and posed no threat because of genetics or disease. “It’s all false information to get the extermination of my herd and the elk industry in Idaho,” he said. Dr. Rammell, who said he has sold his ranch and is getting out of the business, said that 100 to 160 animals escaped. The elk escaped around mid-August, but state officials say they were not notified of the escape until September. On Sept. 7, Gov. James E. Risch issued an order that allowed state wildlife officials to destroy the animals. Seven three-man “shooter teams” were sent to kill as many as possible. Dr. Rammell said he could have captured the escaped elk by luring them into a trap baited with grain and molasses, but once the shooting started, he said, the herd scattered. “They are pretty spooked right now,” he said....
Island park game focus of tug of war There are hunters who dream about places like this. The game animals - unusually large Kaibab deer, Roosevelt elk that lope like thoroughbreds along the wind-scoured ridgelines - are trophy-quality. All it takes to bag one is a 30-mile trip across the Santa Barbara Channel, a rifle, good aim, a minimum fee of about $8,000 and the existing agreement by the National Park Service to close 45,000 acres of parkland to the public, August through December. Close a public park to make way for a private hunt? That is not the Park Service's preference. When it acquired Santa Rosa Island at the time the Channel Islands National Park was formed in 1986, it accepted a 25-year transition period during which the hunting would continue. It wants the animals off the island. The 1,150 deer and elk, park officials say, compromise the native ecosystem - for instance, by munching on seedlings of the rare island oaks. An advocacy group, the National Parks Conservation Association, is also arguing against continuing to open parkland to private pursuits. Their late-1990s lawsuit ensured that the herd's 100-year history on the island would end. Starting in 2008, the herd would be whittled down - either shipped out or shot. By 2011, it would be gone. That was the deal, until Rep. Duncan Hunter came along. A powerful congressional committee chairman who seems named, if not born, for this dispute....
Sen. Burns expects talks about road dispute A road provision that was undertaken by Sen. Conrad Burns and benefits a friend was not intended to be permanent and may be reversed by the Montana senator, his spokesman says. Earlier this year, Burns added to a bill a provision that allows friend and campaign supporter Mac White to build a private road across public land near the Crazy Mountains. The provision does not provide for equal public access to nearby public lands, as federal regulations require. “The language was inserted as a placeholder” and was not intended to be permanent, said James Pendleton, spokesman for the Republican senator. Burns hoped the provision would encourage parties to reach agreement about the road issue in a discussion he intends to coordinate after the Nov. 7 election, Pendleton said. “Hunters and anglers ... are watching these (road) negotiations and we think they are inappropriate, at least in the way they have occurred so far,” Craig Sharpe of the Montana Wildlife Federation told the Lee Newspapers of Montana. At issue are roads on the east side of the Crazy Mountains, where there is scant public access to Lewis and Clark National Forest and Gallatin National Forest lands in the mountains. White, who said his family has known Burns for close to 30 years, wants to build a private road that would cross Forest Service lands so he will have access almost two sections of his land now locked behind public land. White said the only way he now can access the land is by horse or on foot. He said forests on his land are overgrown and with no road, he is unable to thin them....
Loss of sheep devastates family For four generations, the sounds of October on the Slaven family ranch have been ones of renewal, the bleating of ewes giving birth and the cries of newborn lambs. This year, the sounds are only of grief. A wildfire that tore through the family's rolling ranchland northwest of Sacramento in late September decimated the family's herd, leading to the deaths of 75 percent of the family's 1,200 sheep. For the past two weeks, the family and veterinarians from UC Davis have endured a wrenching, daily ritual. They examine the surviving sheep and divide those that stand a chance of living from those too badly injured to survive. Most of the dead are being dumped into a massive burial pit in a remote corner of the family ranch. "I don't know where it's going to lead to," said Mike Slaven, who co-owns the ranch with his parents, Bill and Joan. "Even with the sheep that are left, to me, it's a total loss." About 100 of the sheep escaped the fire unscathed. The remaining 200 or so survivors may never fully recover, said Dr. John Madigan, head of the Veterinary Emergency Response Team from UC Davis, which has been tending to the sheep since the fire....
State's first female attorney argued case before high court Sarah Herring became Arizona's first female attorney in 1892 because her father was grieving over the loss of his only son and law partner. And because she had the ability to do so. That was just the beginning. She would go on to set another milestone: being the first woman attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court without the assistance of a male lawyer. Herring was born Jan. 15, 1861, in New York City, the first of five children of William and Mary Herring. The elder Herring's mining venture proved unsuccessful when investors declined to provide additional funding, and he opened a law practice in Tombstone in 1881 - the same year that the boom town witnessed its most notorious event: the shootout near the OK Corral. Sarah and her siblings joined the family in Tombstone the following year, and she began a 10-year teaching career that included serving as librarian and principal. Brother Howard had become a lawyer, and he joined his proud father as the junior partner of the expanded law office of Herring & Herring. A tragedy struck, however, on Nov. 2, 1891, when 27-year-old Howard went to a Tombstone dentist to have some teeth extracted....
Life in 1881 Tombstone, Arizona What was life like in Tombstone in 1881? As part of my ongoing series of articles centered around the 125th anniversary of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, we’re going to do some time traveling.Southern Arizona in the late 1870s was a very dangerous place to live. The Apache, having been consigned to reservation living, weren’t happy with the state of affairs. Geronimo was making life very interesting for any non-Apache who dared to venture into what is now Cochise County, Arizona. For many years intrepid prospectors tried to exploit the vast mineral wealth in an area known as “Goose Flats”. Their fatal adventures read like a Stephen King novel with murder upon murder, betrayal, violence, massacre, and that was just among "friends". So, in the late spring of 1879,when Ed Schieffelin, safe at Fort Huachuca, announced he was heading a bit east to prospect, everyone told him he would never make it out alive. His now famous retort, “So, I’ll find my Tombstone.” Which he did. Schieffelin tapped into what was one of the greatest mineral bonanzas thus far discovered in the United States. Naturally he couldn’t keep a good thing to himself. Within just a few months of filing his claim, a small town began to grow at “Goose Flats”. It was soon moved a few miles to Tombstone. By December of 1879 the Earps had arrived in a bustling boom-town.....
It's All Trew: 1930s brought a war with the grasshoppers If you can remember mixing and spreading grasshopper poison in the “dirty-thirties” you have probably quit lying and started bragging about your age. A chapter in the book, “Coming of Age in The Great Depression” by Richard Melzer describes the grasshopper plagues that devastated some areas in the Dust Bowl. In what became known as The Grasshopper Wars, farmers and ranchers already plagued by continued drought and terrible dirt storms found further misery as an invasion of destructive grasshoppers struck parts of the Great Plains. Northeastern New Mexico and the upper Panhandle of Texas suffered heavy damage in 1936 and 1937 with 20 to 30 of the insects counted per square foot of ground. A cold winter killed the insects, but their eggs hatched the next spring, bringing another plague worse than before. In one area consisting of some 25,000 acres in Union and Colfax counties in New Mexico, the hordes were advancing a half mile per day, stripping the land of every leaf and blade of grass. Driving the paved roads was dangerous as the insects made the surface slick. Women complained the grasshoppers ate holes in their clothes hanging on the clothes line after washing . State and federal authorities declared war on the insects, placing all available manpower in action to help the landowners in their plight. The National Guard, Works Progress Administration employees and Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees marched into the battle just like regular war. CCC trucks were filled with sawdust at sawmills and hauled to poison mixing stations. WPA workers mixed wheat bran and arsenic poison with the sawdust in huge batches for landowners to spread on their lands. This treatment was used from 1936 to 1940 before the plague finally diminished. My father built a grasshopper bait spreader out of a Model T rear-end using a metal fuel barrel as a hopper to hold the mixture....