NEWS ROUNDUP

Jury: Rancher shortchanged for SH 130 land A Travis County jury ruled last week that the state underpaid an Austin cattle rancher almost $5 million when it condemned his land last year to make way for the new State Highway 130. The jury awarded Austin rancher Sam Harrell almost $7 million last week in his fight against the Texas Department of Transportation for taking 174 acres of his 290-acre organic cattle ranch located about four miles north of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. In July 2005, TxDOT offered Harrell's Harrell Ranch Ltd. about $2 million for the land. Harrell rejected the offer and the Travis County Special Commissioners' Panel then offered a little more -- $2.1 million. But Harrell's lawyer, Kevin Maguire with the Dallas office of Strasburger & Price LLP, says Harrell's ranch is no ordinary piece of ground. "It was a very unique property," he says. In fact, its one of the few ranches in the country certified to raise prized Japanese Kobe beef, which dines on beer and enjoys massages. So Harrell appealed the panel's award to trial before a Travis County jury....
Pombo in a tight contest Richard Pombo, clad in a beige polo shirt and jeans, is leaning back in a folding chair, his trademark ostrich-skin boots under a table. He's bantering with a reporter and an aide, and appears at peace. But he really isn't. Pombo, a seven-term Republican congressman, is in the tightest race he has seen in more than a decade to hold on to his once-safe seat -- and he knows it. Despite the comments of his Democratic opponent, Jerry McNerney, and the accumulated evidence of national voter surveys, Pombo thinks his troubles have nothing to do with Iraq, ethics or the general state of the nation. "I don't think it has anything to do with that," Pombo explained in his cluttered campaign office here. "I think it has to do with the millions of dollars that they've spent trashing me."....
Country, city clash over prairie dog problem Prairie dogs might be the most divisive rodents in America. To tourists and city folk, they are cute enough to send back home on a postcard. To drought-stricken western South Dakota, they are pasture-wrecking vermin worthy only of poisoning. The conflict is intensifying, especially in the Conata Basin, south of Wall, a devastated piece of cattle country that also is home to a crucial colony of black-footed ferrets. Ferrets eat prairie dogs and often are called the country's most endangered mammal. A conservation group will hold a fundraiser in Denver on Wednesday to help South Dakota's ferrets. At the same time, ranching groups are pushing political leaders to change how the federal government manages ferrets and prairie dogs. Even government agencies can't agree. Some want to poison more prairie dogs, but others are using insecticides and even vaccine to protect them from a very different threat: plague. For most of the ongoing drought, the Conata Basin has looked like a wasteland, stripped bare of grass by prairie dogs. "The grass is being overgrazed by prairie dogs to the point that the grass is being killed, and will result in soil erosion - wind and water erosion - that should be intolerable to the rest of us, the citizens of South Dakota," said state Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel in Pierre....
Global Warming: What about water? Charles Holmgren says it's the little things that he notices. The Box Elder County farmer, who grows a variety of crops on 1,200 acres near here, has seen the spring runoff come down the Corrine Canal from the Bear River flows sooner than it used to. After nearly a lifetime of getting three cuts a season out of his alfalfa crop, Holmgren notes that he's now regularly getting four. And he and fellow members of the irrigation company that feeds the area's farms are paying out more in attorneys fees than they ever have before to settle water rights disputes. Holmgren can't specifically point to climate change as the culprit; it's all anecdotal at this point. But he does sense that things are different now. And he can't help but wonder what lies ahead. "It's a two-edged sword," he says. "If you have livestock, you like the warmer, drier winters. But when crop time comes around in June and July, you really need that water. It doesn't help when it comes down in February or March. Once it goes down the river, it's gone." More than any other aspect of global warming, water will likely be what defines the issue in Utah and the rest of the Intermountain West in the coming decades. The nation's most arid and sparsely populated region has been transformed by explosive growth and development in recent decades, growth that has been based largely on an ability to manage scarce and vitally important water....
Calif. wildfire fully corralled, investigation steps up An arson wildfire that killed four firefighters and charred more than 60 square miles of brushland was fully corralled as the investigation into who set it moved into high gear. Two people were brought into a sheriff's station Monday for questioning and released, according to James Crowell, assistant special agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle cautioned investigators would be interviewing a number of people in the case. No arrests have been made and the reward for information topped $500,000. "We're trying to work through the leads that we have, and going through the process," Doyle said in a telephone interview. Before firefighters contained it Monday evening, the fire scorched 40,200 acres - or about 63 square miles - and destroyed 34 homes. It erupted Thursday as fierce Santa Ana winds blew through the region....
Tribes, Forest Service agree on plant gathering rights Four American Indian tribes have reached an agreement with the federal government over gathering plants in two national forests. The tribes and the U-S Forest Service held a ceremony in Traverse City today to seal the agreement, which covers the Huron-Manistee National Forests and the Hiawatha National Forest. Both forests are within territory the tribes ceded to the United States under an 1836 treaty....
Supreme Court hears arguments on legal immunity for feds The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday about the extent of federal employees' immunity from on-the-job lawsuits. Under the 1988 Westfall Act, federal employees are immune from suits so long as the Attorney General certifies that they were doing their job when the incident in question occurred. The government then substitutes itself as the defendant. In the case argued Monday, Osborn v. Haley, the high court must decide whether the Attorney General can certify an act as job-related simply by denying that the incident ever occurred. If an employee is sued for an act clearly not in his or her job description, can the government defend the employee anyway if they believe in the employee's innocence?....
Landowners, access group in dispute over road to BLM land Members of a land access group say two landowners in Blaine County have no authority to limit access on a road that crosses their property to reach thousands of acres of rugged public land. At issue is the route known as the Bullwhacker Road, which provides access to 50,000 acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Public Lands Access Association Inc., a small group based in Billings, claims the Bullwhacker Road is a public route under a law enacted in 1866. But the road travels through an island of 3.8 miles of private land owned by Bill and Ronnie Robinson of Lloyd. They have controlled access to the road in the past by requiring verbal or written permission to cross their land. Right now, there's a sign-in box near the gate where people must fill in permission slips to access the Robinsons' property. A note in the box denies access when the road is wet....
Ah Nei critic presses new lawsuit A Shepherd-area resident is again suing the Bureau of Land Management over its popular off-road vehicle site near his home. Brian Biggs, who lives next to the Shepherd Ah Nei Off-Highway Vehicle Area, alleges that the BLM's environmental study and decision allowing all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles to use the site violate federal law. Since Ah Nei reopened under the BLM's decision about a year ago, Biggs contends the noise and damage to public lands and his property have increased....
Horse roundup is taking the heat for deaths, injuries During a roundup of the Sulphur Herd this year, however, Nield said she witnessed a callous disregard for the horses during a roundup conducted by a BLM national contractor. "It was the first time I've seen a bad gather," she said. "The whole way the contractor did things bothered me." Nield said two mares and a foal were killed during the roundup, which was conducted in July. One mare suffered neck injuries after being roped and later died, while another mare died after running into a horse panel, breaking its neck. Another horse kicked the foal after it was rounded up with the adult horses, killing it. Gus Warr, who heads up Utah's Wild Horse and Burro Program for the BLM, said several "unavoidable accidents" occurred during the July roundup....
La Llorona haunts barrios, waterways of Yuma If you've ever been walking by the Colorado River at night, or any of the canals that run through Yuma, you might have heard her. The moans, faint at first, become more audible, then followed by sobs and intense wailing of: "Mis hijos, mis hijos," or, "my children, my children." La Llorona, or the "Weeping Woman," has been walking the banks of waterways in the Southwest and Latin America for a long time, lamenting the children she drowned to get revenge on her wayward husband. Mary Larona, a descendent of one of Yuma's founding fathers, can remember a much smaller Yuma and a time when sounds carried throughout the city. Sounds from the river. There are different versions of the legend. A popular one is that there was a mother with a wayward husband who took up with another woman. Distraught, the mother takes their two children to the river and drowns them in an insane act of revenge. Almost immediately she regrets her decision, but it's too late. The children are swept away. She is doomed forever to walk the banks of waterways, wailing and sobbing, in search of her children. The story goes even further back to pre-Colombian times, and different places in Latin America have similar versions.Miguel Leon-Portilla's book "The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico" talks of a series of omens that foretold the arrival of the Spaniards into Mexico. One of the omens is a weeping woman the people heard night after night.n Honduras, an apparition called "La Sucia," or the dirty one, wanders the river washing her clothes and lures wayward men walking late at night....
It's all Trew: Old gardeners avoided 'feast or famine' route My personal gardening experiences always seemed to take “the feast or famine” route where I suffered failure or had to give the surplus away before it ruined. The old-timers were smarter than I, and planted at intervals about two weeks apart, so that produce continued to grow and ripen on a regular basis. Not only did they plant at intervals, but they double-cropped things like turnips, which filled their root cellars just before frost. Some crops like corn furnished early roasting ears for eating then made hard grain later for grinding. Turnips furnished delicious top greens and hardy below-ground vegetables later in the fall. The better and more detailed the planting, the more produce provided and preserved. Few rural families went hungry unless the ravages of weather destroyed their gardens. During the early days of frontier settlement, most meat was derived from hunting wild game. If you needed meat, go hunting. Since most game was small pounds in edible meat, the carcass was consumed before spoilage occurred....