NEWS ROUNDUP

Feds developing map project to determine risk of wildfire The federal government is developing a $40 million mapping program that can be used to identify communities most at risk of wildfire, but an environmental group has criticized the project because it contains ecological data but none on where people live. Federal officials have said that the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Project, or Landfire, will improve their ability to choose high-priority fire-prevention projects. A recent independent government audit cited the project as one way to overcome problems with federal projects to reduce vegetation that can fuel wildfires. The report found that the Forest Service has not developed national guidelines to assess the risks communities face from wildfires and is unable to ensure that the most important fire-prevention projects are funded first. "Forest Service officials believe that Landfire, a new system being developed, will provide more accurate nationwide data so that they can more accurately define and identify a community most at risk," the report said. A shared project of the Forest Service and the Interior Department, Landfire uses satellite imagery to map the land and software models to provide more detailed information about soil, vegetation, climate and fire history. Partners on the project include the Forest Service's Missoula Fire Sciences Lab and the Nature Conservancy....
Enterprise will give $50 million to the Arbor Day Foundation The gift has a ring to it: $50 million for 50 million trees over 50 years. Enterprise Rent-A-Car will announce on Thursday its gift to the National Arbor Day Foundation, which will use the money to help the U.S. Forest Service plant seedlings in national forests that have been damaged by fire, storm or disease. Laura Bush plans to attend the 2:30 p.m. ceremonial planting at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park. Four white pine seedlings will planted in a tub that will be transferred to Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri, one of 155 national forests that will be supported by the gift along with some European and Canadian forests. Arbor Day Foundation president John Rosenow said it was the biggest gift ever to the organization. "The size of the gift is big time," Rosenow said. "But we’re also thrilled with the certainty and the flexibility of it." The gift comes as the U.S. Forest Service struggles to cope with record fires and tight budgets....
Conservation corps gets green light The conservation corps, a public works program that dates back to the 1930s, will be reconstituted in Wyoming next year to improve state and federal parks and facilities. Thanks to two recent grants from Serve Wyoming and the Wyoming Community Foundation, the Wyoming Conservation Corps will be able to field crews of young adults next summer. "Things are looking really good, and it's just going through nuts and bolts of contract work and setting up projects for May," said organizer Nick Agopian, a law student at the University of Wyoming who conceived the idea. Projects the crews will work on are still tentative. But they could include refencing grizzly bear habitat for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, working at Devils Tower National Monument for the National Park Service, rehabilitating the areas around gauge houses on lakes and rivers for the state engineer's office, working on the trail system under construction at Curt Gowdy State Park and helping build the Continental Divide Trail for the Bureau of Land Management....
Outdoors sportsmen play bigger role inWest's energy development Outdoors guide Keith Goddard remembers when he could go for hours or even days and not see another person on top of western Colorado's Roan Plateau. "Up until a few years ago, you could stand right here all day long, and if you'd seen one or two vehicles, you'd seen a bunch," Goddard said, peering from a field of wildflowers to rocky, wooded slopes below. As he spoke, three 18-wheelers sped by in a noisy reminder of the natural gas boom many expect to get even bigger in this stretch of land 180 miles west of Denver. It is prized by both energy companies and by people like Goddard, a 42-year-old member of the so-called "hook and bullet" crowd that is wielding more and more clout when it comes to managing public land -- clout that's being noticed by industry officials and politicians on both sides of the aisle. Fearing that energy development sweeping through the Rockies could permanently scar the landscape, hunters and anglers are forming alliances with environmental groups like The Wilderness Society and Sierra Club. The two sides, who have sparred in the past, are trying to protect such areas as northern Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, Wyoming's Jack Morrow Hills and New Mexico's Valle Vidal. Standing on the Roan, where there are already some 30 natural gas wells on private land, Goddard said he doesn't want his favorite hunting ground developed, but sees it as inevitable. He said he just hopes the impact is minimized and drilling is banned in the most wild and environmentally sensitive areas. "If they do it heavy-scale and take a shotgun approach on the Roan and it's real tight density and spacing, it will put us out of business and it will disperse the deer and elk herds," Goddard said....
State, BLM clash on Piceance oil projects Two state officials are criticizing the Bureau of Land Management over its environmental assessment of an oil-shale project in Rio Blanco County, saying the agency's proposal would allow it to ignore state regulations. Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Co. is proposing oil-shale research and development projects in the Piceance Basin. In a recent environmental assessment, the BLM said the company must comply with state and local regulations and get applicable permits for rights of way and road access. But the BLM said it would waive the requirement for such compliance if it determines that state regulations conflict with the "achievement of a congressionally approved use of public lands." Colorado Water Quality Control Division Director Steve Gunderson and Air Pollution Control Division Director Margie Perkins said in a Sept. 15 letter to the BLM that the state "strongly disagrees" that the agency can "unilaterally waive state and local laws and disregard state permit conditions."....
Greens sound alarm on drilling pollution Estimates show that fine particulate matter in the air above the Jonah Field would exceed Environmental Protection Agency standards if the proposed 3,100 wells were built using current technology, according to a Bureau of Land Management report. Development of the Jonah infill project, which would increase the density of wells in the field, would add between 44 and 49.4 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter to the air, for a cumulative 24-hour concentration of roughly 62 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the project’s environmental impact statement. The current EPA standards, adopted last month, say that fine particulate matter levels cannot exceed 35 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter over 24 hours. Previous standards put the limit at 65 micrograms per cubic meter. Environmental groups say the infill violates the Clean Air Act and, further, warn that these small particles and liquid droplets could exacerbate respiratory illnesses such as asthma and other chronic pulmonary disease. Sublette County Health Officer Dr. Thomas Johnston expressed worries for the residents living in Sublette County. “The smaller the air particle the further down your lung it goes,” he said. “The further down in the lung it goes the more damage it causes.”....
Government Money: Kindling Start a fire; put it out. Start a fire; put it out. It sounds like a cruel punishment cooked up by a vengeful deity, but to Bureau of Land Management firefighter Levi Miller, it's "fun and easy." Miller copped to the quote in Idaho's Seventh District Court last week while pleading guilty to charges of felony solicitation of arson. Miller admitted that he tried to pay a teenager in Salmon $100 to start a fire on the outskirts of town in order to help the federally paid firefighters like himself make some money, according to the Idaho Falls Post Register. Of course, teens being what they are, the offer worked. The resulting fire burned about a half-acre of grass and brush in August before fire crews extinguished it. In a followup call, Miller gave the teen instruction on how to dispose of evidence from the arson. At his November sentencing, Miller could face up to 12-and-a-half years in prison and up to $25,0000 in fines for the solicitation. In the phone conversation, Miller boasted about starting eight other fires in the Salmon area in 2003. One of the fires, according to court records quoted in the story, was less than 250 yards from Miller's residence and had been started with a stick of incense and some matches....
Chapman to Focus on Otero Mesa in UNM Maxwell Museum Lecture Richard Chapman, director of the Office of Contract Archeology, a program within the University of New Mexico's Maxwell Museum, will present “Otero Mesa: An Illustrated Tour of the Otero Triangle” on Wednesday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. in Anthropology Lecture Hall rm. 163. This installment of the Maxwell Museum Southwest Lecture Series focuses on the results of preliminary research into the 12,000-year span of human interaction with the varied Otero Mesa environment. The New Mexico region commonly known as “Otero Mesa,” is a 1,600 square mile triangle of landscape located at the Texas-New Mexico border in southern Otero County, NM. Landholders include the NM State Land Office, Bureau of Land Management and private ownership. BLM-administered lands have recently been proposed for oil and gas exploration by the federal government. In response to concerns about the effects this development might have on this sparsely populated and isolated part of the Chihuahua desert, a number of studies of vegetation, wildlife, water and soils have been launched to assess possible impacts. The Office of Contract Archeology was awarded a contract by the New Mexico State Land Office to conduct a preliminary assessment of the knowledge about prehistoric and historic cultural resources in the region. Chapman will discuss the assessment results....
Burning Questions From high atop a horse named Cruiser, it’s easy to see what ails so much of America’s West. Above and below an equestrian path in the Gallatin National Forest, pine trees and Douglas firs crowd together like rush-hour subway commuters. Many are shorter and thinner than normal, due to intense competition for water, nutrients, and light. Among these upright evergreens, dead trunks, limbs, and branches litter the arid ground. They are parched white, like the bones of a carcass bleached beneath the searing sunshine. “This hasn’t burned since the 1940s,” says Ryan Neel, a wrangler from the nearby Lone Mountain Ranch. One well-placed lightning bolt could turn this overgrown hillside into a furnace. Compare this neglected patch of the federal property portfolio to the practically groomed habitat at CNN founder Ted Turner’s 175-square-mile Flying D Ranch, about 50 miles away. Young and old members of assorted arboreal species stand comfortably apart from each other, minimizing fire risk. On this private land, (managed by Turner Enterprises) foresters carefully pick trees to sell, and then carefully remove them by helicopter. Despite such costly techniques, Turner Enterprises turns a profit. “Fire safety is an ancillary benefit of thinning for pest and disease control,” says general manager Russ Miller. “Spacing out the trees makes it more difficult for insects and flames to spread from tree to tree.” This contrast between public mismanagement and private stewardship recurs across the West. The enormous fires that routinely engulf millions of acres from the Rockies to the Pacific tend to devour federal lands. Washington, D.C., owns, for instance, 29.9 percent of Montana, 45.3 percent of California, and 84.5 percent of Nevada. Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, 54.1 percent of America’s West is federal property. Actively maintained, private forests usually enjoy health and fire resistance, thanks to deadwood clearance, controlled burns, and selective harvesting....
DNA testing on possible wolf will take time The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the lead role in unraveling the mystery of a 91-pound canine shot Oct. 1 in North Troy, but it could be months before it's known whether the animal shot by a hunter is a coyote, a wolf, a once-domestic animal or of mixed genealogy. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department has sent tissue samples to three laboratories for DNA analysis, said Kim Royar, furbearer biologist for the state. Royar said it could be as long as a year before results are returned. "My experience has been that it takes much longer than you expect," Royar said. Vermont has sent samples to laboratories in Vermont, Idaho and New York, she said. Meanwhile, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the carcass of the animal that hunter Charlie Hammond turned over to state officials in St. Johnsbury. Hammond said he thought he was shooting a large coyote when he pulled the trigger....
Out of fire's destruction comes new growth For all of a wildfire's smoke, heat and bluster, it doesn't always leave behind death and destruction. In recent weeks, carpets of bright green grass have sprung up in places charred and blackened by this summer's largest fires, including the Derby Mountain, Pine Ridge and Bundy Railroad complexes. "That stuff is coming on pretty fast," said Chuck Roloff, with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Big Timber, who has been tracking the aftermath of the Derby Mountain fire. As fire burns across the landscape, it releases huge amounts of nutrients tied up in slowly decomposing plants, leaves, twigs and trees. When those nutrients settle into the soil and slow, steady rains come - as they have recently - the underground roots get a charge and life springs from the ground....
Bikers provide ecological study input Mountain bike enthusiasts and recreation managers have a new ally in preserving places to ride: scientific research. Land managers, policy makers and cyclists have faced the challenges of crowded mountain trails, irresponsible trail use, increased demands for more trails and degradation of existing trails caused by the explosion of mountain biking as a popular national pastime. In the absence of sound scientific information, managers often have chosen to take regulatory action – or to restrict use of recreational resources. In an effort to understand the ecological impacts of mountain bike use on trails, the Arizona State Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Shimano American Corp. launched and funded a collaborative research project led by recreational ecologists Dave White from ASU and Pam Foti from Northern Arizona University. Their efforts provide managers with assessment guides that inform their decision-making, and help sustain the trail systems as well as this increasingly popular outdoor activity....
Reign of the Monarchs How can an insect the size of a matchbook and half the weight fly from Massachusetts to Mexico -- a faraway land it's never visited before -- in only two months? That's the magic of the monarch butterfly. For weeks, record numbers of these orange and black creatures have been fluttering across northeastern Massachusetts, captivating residents as they pass through on their annual southern migration. ``This has been the best year for monarchs that I've ever seen," said Steve Haydock of Newbury, who volunteers for the state chapter of Monarch Watch, a tracking program based at the University of Kansas. ``They are everywhere this year." Each fall, monarchs make their way across the United States to spend the winter near Mexico City and other points south. Along the way, they roost overnight wherever there is water, which provides warmth, Haydock said. But for reasons less clearly understood by authorities on butterflies, monarchs are amassing here this year in numbers not seen for decades....
Feds push grizzly delisting At a meeting in Jackson Wednesday, federal officials said they would go ahead with efforts to remove grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act protection after receiving over 200,000 comments on the proposal. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen said the agency hopes to address the public comments and delist grizzly bears by early 2007. Servheen said the public comments include “a wide range of concerns” from people who want more protections for the bears and also from people who think that too many bears live in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. “We have to answer all of those [comments] in a logical way,” he said. Conservation groups such as Earthjustice say the decision to delist the grizzly bear is premature and ill-advised, citing concerns about a lack of appropriate habitat protections, inadequate oversight, and declining food sources....
The Saudi-Osama Connection It was supposed to be one of those international “ho-hum” conferences, dedicated to endangered species. But in a surprise move, the government of Saudi Arabia turned it into an international confrontation, using its veto power to prevent an American conservationist group from presenting what it called “actionable information” that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda. UN officials called the Saudi move to ban the U.S group, which had official United Nations observer status, “unprecedented.” The UN actually tried to facilitate the appearance of the U.S. group at last Friday’s meeting in Geneva of the 54th Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). That may have been a first in UN history. The conservationist group, the Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), said it was prepared to present “new evidence” of ongoing smuggling operations that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda. In a letter outlying their proposed testimony, the UCR said that it would present evidence of bribes paid to UN officials by UAE and Saudi officials in order to allow the smuggling of hunting falcons....
Park Service deputy chief resigns National Park Service Deputy Director Donald Murphy has resigned from his position and will leave at the end of this week, the Park Service has confirmed. Murphy is a central figure in the case of former Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers, who was fired in July 2004 after publicly complaining about budget and staffing shortfalls at the agency. She has fought to be reinstated since that time. Murphy has made conflicting statements under oath about the existence of a positive appraisal of Chambers' performance. His resignation comes on the heels of a federal judge's rejection of the Interior Department's motion to dismiss a case in which Chambers claimed her performance appraisal was illegally kept from her in violation of the 1974 Privacy Act. David Barna, the Park Service's chief of public affairs, confirmed Murphy's departure, but declined to elaborate on it other than to say, "It doesn't have anything to do with Teresa Chambers." Barna said Murphy was unavailable to comment. His replacement has not been named. In late September, the Senate confirmed Mary A. Bomar, a career Park Service employee, to be the new director of the agency, succeeding Fran Mainella....
Wyoming women receive wool grant Mountain Meadow Wool Company, Inc. received a $296,000 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase 2 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its proposal to create a wool processing facility in Wyoming.
Mountain Meadow Wool Company, Inc. is a small wool marketing company, based in Buffalo, Wyo. Over the next two years, the company hopes to build a processing mill in the state. “A processing facility in the state will allow Wyoming wool producers to establish a value-added product, and will provide for the beginnings of a wool textile sector,” said Valerie L. Spanos, president of the Mountain Meadow Wool Company. Although Wyoming ranks second in the nation in wool production, no commercial scouring facility exists in this region. “Unfortunately, the wool is shipped out of state before processing, meaning that Wyoming ranchers cannot benefit from their superior product,” Spanos said....
Quick learner is a real grand champion Dusty Blue is no run-of-the-mill jackass. An adopted animal originally from Ridgecrest, Calif., Dusty Blue won Grand Champion All-Around at the recent Bishop (Calif.) Wild Horse, Donkey, and Mule Show. And that was after only five months of training, and his very first show at that. Dusty Blue is a wild donkey that was adopted by Bob Crock from Bureau of Land Management land when he was two years old. Crock said that when they first adopted Dusty, he was "wilder than wild." But it would appear that Dusty, now 7, has settled down a bit. Tom Shiloh, a horse and mule trainer who runs Performance Horses, trained Dusty Blue. Shiloh said that normally an adopted donkey has to be trained a little at a time, focusing on each class of competition separately. He said that it usually takes about a year for a donkey to earn grand champion in a competition. But after five months, Shiloh said of Dusty Blue, "You name it, he does well-groomed and well-mannered they are; and halter, which involves the animals' physical appearance; as well as several other events including barrel racing. In order to achieve the title of Grand Champion All Around, Dusty Blue placed in each of the classes and had the highest overall point tally. "As far as training donkeys and mules, he's probably the smartest donkey I've ever trained," said Shiloh. "He's a thinker."....
Taiwan halts Canadian beef from U.S. Taiwan is no longer accepting imports of Canadian beef products from the United States, according to a news release from R-CALF USA. The Billings, Mont., advocacy group said the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service on Tuesday issued updated export requirements for Taiwan regarding fresh and frozen boneless beef derived from Canadian cattle under 30 months of age. Effective Monday, Oct. 9, beef products derived from cattle imported from Canada for immediate slaughter are not eligible for export to Taiwan, according to the news release from the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America. R-CALF USA is among groups that have pushed USDA to keep Canadian beef and cattle out of the U.S. because of the number of mad cow disease cases in Canada. Mad cow is known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE....