NEWS ROUNDUP

Embattled warden once recognized by state A federal game warden in Pierre who is now being shunned by the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department for alleged heavy-handed law enforcement was once honored by that same agency. But Prieksat is now the object of public criticism from Rob Skjonsberg, chief of staff to Gov. Mike Rounds, for law-enforcement techniques that Skjonsberg claims have been overzealous and abusive. Skjonsberg wants the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reassign Prieksat, who currently oversees law enforcement for that agency in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. Skjonsberg also has ordered GF&P conservation officers not to work with Prieksat, except in special situations approved individually by GF&P Secretary Jeff Vonk. Although the state can’t control Prieksat or determine Fish and Wildlife Service personnel policy, it can isolate the federal agent from state officers, Skjonsberg said. “My message is actually very simple. This agent is not our employee, and we are not obligated to do anything with him. And if the federal agency isn’t going to do something about his behavior, then I can certainly make a management decision within state government that limits our exposure to him.”....
Pinon Canyon expansion foes sue Army over information requests Opponents of a plan to nearly triple the size of a military training site in remote southeastern Colorado sued the Army on Friday, claiming it has failed to provide information requested under the Freedom of Information Act. An attorney for the group Not 1 More Acre said the group needs documents from Fort Carson on the proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site to comment "effectively and fully" on a draft environmental study of the proposal released in October. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, attorney Stephen Harris asked a judge to rule that the Army has violated the Freedom of Information Act and order it to provide all the records the group is seeking. The lawsuit said the group filed five requests for records between Dec. 11 and Dec. 14. Fort Carson officials told the group that one request had been forwarded to a different agency, but the lawsuit said it had received no response to the other four requests, despite an Army regulation requiring some response within 20 days of a Freedom of Information Act request....
Senators have key voice on Pinon Canyon Ray Kogovsek learned the hard way back in 1981 that it is almost impossible for a congressman, even a member of the majority party, to stop the Pentagon once it starts pushing to acquire land. "I was trying to stop the first Pinon Canyon land acquisition and I went to House Speaker Tip O'Neill and told him I needed help, that the Army was going to take land in my (3rd District)," the former Democratic congressman recalled last week. "I loved Tip, but he took me aside and said, ‘Ray, it's just about impossible to stop the Army,’ and he turned out to be right." Now the Army wants to more than double the size of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, adding another 418,000 acres to the training area that straddles the Purgatoire River southwest of La Junta. As in 1981, many if not all the area ranchers are angry and want the expansion stopped, afraid they will lose their land through condemnation or the use of it by being engulfed by the larger training area. While the Army downplays the likelihood that will happen, the real battle over the expansion will be in the halls of the Senate and the House, as lawmakers weigh the Pentagon's request. But there are two votes that matter more than any others Ñ the votes of Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar. And just the opposition of one of them would be enough to block the expansion....
Rancher says wolves drove him out One day after selling his cattle, hay and farm machinery, Mike Kasten Sr. visited with his good friend, John Eischeid, in the office of Tri-County Livestock Auction Inc. Still sporting his cowboy hat and boots, Kasten pulled up a chair and explained why he decided to sell. Last June, he said he was getting his two grandsons off to summer school classes when he noticed trouble in a pasture close his house. "The cows were up close, calving," he recalled, "and there were three timber wolves, two of them working the cow. One calf took off running toward the brush, and I ran to get my .243. "When I got back, they were by another cow that had just calved that morning, and they were trying to get her." Kasten said the adult female wolf ran off, but he managed to shoot two young males. He notified the local authorities, who in turn summoned a DNR official and trapper from the USDA office in Grand Rapids. By midwinter, Kasten said he had lost several more calves to wolves, but he had no carcasses to prove his damages. He said it is common knowledge that wolves can tear carcasses to pieces, dragging them away to their den....
Wyo looks to operate state conservation corps A proposal to create a Wyoming conservation corps is rapidly heading to the governor’s desk, and will be modeled on similar programs in Utah, Montana and Colorado. Senate File 85 was approved on second reading in the House on Friday, and would create the conservation corps under the auspices of the University of Wyoming at the William D. Ruckelshaus Institute and Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources. Based on the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s New Deal days, youth corps programs put their participants to task on labor-intensive conservation and stewardship projects, such as fencing, weed mitigation, park development, rehabilitation of sensitive riparian areas, historical restoration, biological research, community service and trail maintenance, in both urban and rural areas....
House panel hears of management mess The Interior Department has "a culture replete with a lack of accountability" and at least a half-dozen major management problems that have festered for years, federal officials testified Friday. The department faces "enormous challenges in several areas," Inspector General Earl Devaney said at an oversight hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee. In the last two years alone, Devaney's office has uncovered golf outings, dinners, hunting trips, concert tickets and box seats at sporting events being accepted against the rules by Interior officials. The office also uncovered exclusive access and special favors by Interior employees to select outside groups. "Throughout the department, the appearance of preferential treatment in awarding contracts and procurements has come to our attention far too frequently, and the failure of department officials to remain at arm's length from prohibited sources is pervasive," Devaney said. The offending officials, many of them political appointees, were "primarily scolded or counseled and directed to take ethics training," while for others no action was taken whatsoever, Devaney said....
Rule would give landowners say on CBM water Landowners would have more say over whether water from coalbed methane wells is discharged on their land and the amount of water would be considered by the state in issuing discharge permits, under a rule change approved Friday by a divided state Environmental Quality Council. Advocates for landowners adversely affected by methane water applauded the action, while representatives of methane developers withheld comment until they could study the proposed rule. Other provisions in the Powder River Basin Resource Council petition seeking tougher standards on the level of chemicals allowed in the methane water were put off by the council until new scientific studies could be completed. The proposed change still needs the approval of Gov. Dave Freudenthal before it would take effect. Rob Black, a spokesman for the governor, said Freudenthal was reserving comment until he studies the proposal....
Ag producers worry about CBM water When the soil in Roger Muggli's fields turned bad last year, damaging more than 300 acres of alfalfa, the third-generation farmer quickly settled on a culprit: coal-bed methane drilling along the nearby Tongue River. It's a charge that has made Muggli few friends in a region where economic development is desperately sought after and future coal-bed methane development could mean hundreds of new jobs. His claims are denied by industry representatives and some federal scientists, who say there is no way to prove Muggli's assertion of a tie between coal-bed methane and his bad soil. But state officials and an independent researcher who investigated the case warned that Muggli's problems could be a harbinger of more to come, as the industry prepares to dramatically ramp up operations across 20 million acres in southeastern Montana in coming years. They said his fields bear the hallmarks of coal-bed methane effects, though they were careful to add that a direct link was impossible to prove. "We knew this was coming and we wanted to prepare for it," said Richard Opper, director of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. "It's definitely a wake-up call when you see the impact." At issue are millions of gallons of water pumped daily from coal seams to access trapped methane, or natural gas. The water, which can be loaded with salts harmful to plants or soil, is sometimes treated or used to water livestock. Other times it is pumped directly into local stream and river drainages....
Column - Wolves here to stay Politically, Idaho didn't appear to be a friendly place for wolves, either. Then-Gov. Phil Batt and the state legislature said they wanted nothing to do with wolves. So the federal government handed over management to the Nez Perce Tribe, though without adequate funding. Fortunately, Idaho's wolves didn't notice their second-class status because today, Idaho has a wolf population twice the size of Yellowstone's. At more than 650 animals, Idaho has more wolves than Montana and Wyoming combined, and the state's wolf numbers have exceeded federal recovery goals. Most important, Idaho's leaders and most of the livestock community have learned to live with the predators. They helped put together a wolf management plan that, for all of its anti-wolf rhetoric, allows the animals to flourish. Yet Otter expressed his true feelings - and the feelings of many ranchers and hunters - when he said he wanted to manage wolves for the minimum population goals, which would be 10 packs and a little over 100 animals. This immediately concerned wolf advocates, who foresaw a great slaughter as soon as wolves were removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. But most wolf experts - scientists who have studied both wolves and their prey - doubt that such a slaughter could occur even if the state decided to sanction it. Jim Peek, University of Idaho wildlife management professor emeritus, said hunting won't by itself result in a dramatic decrease in wolf numbers. The more wolves killed, the more productive they become, as females have larger litters and breed more often in the face of reduced numbers. Idaho might be able to cut numbers through helicopter-gunning, but that's a practice that's both expensive and unpopular. Trapping, too, has its difficulties. It may have proved effective a century ago, but in Quebec, Canada, for example, where officials are trapping to reduce the population, wolves have become as wary as coyotes....
Climate and homes factors in increasing wildfire deaths The number of people killed fighting wildfires in the U.S. hit 24 last year — five of them a U.S. Forest Service engine crew overrun by flames as they tried to protect homes in Southern California chaparral country. The 2006 death toll is not an all-time high, but is part of a rising trend — double the number in 2005, and six more than the average of the past 10 years. The 10-year average has been rising, too, from 6.6 in the 1930s to 18 in the 2000s. Experts warn that the size and intensity of wildfires is increasing due to longer, hotter and drier summers and a buildup of fuel from trying to put out every fire. As a result, wildland firefighters face greater dangers, particularly trying to protect the growing number of homes in the woods....
Editorial - Bush budget misses mark on public lands "Stay the course" has been excised from the White House phrasebook, but the philosophy seems very much alive in the administration's public lands policy. Unfortunately, it's the wrong course. President Bush's budget for 2007-08 includes funding for the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service. We were disappointed to see that the White House simply patched up and resubmitted its widely disparaged plan for Forest Service land sales. And the parks budget also includes some all too familiar and all too unacceptable elements. The overall budget for the Forest Service is disquieting enough; the administration has proposed spending $4.6 billion in fiscal year 2007-08, down from about $5 billion during the current year. But what's really drawn attention is the administration's recycled plan to sell up to about 274,000 acres of forest land. This gambit would raise about $800 million over five years. While some conservationists recoil at the idea of selling off any federal green- space, it's not a significant chunk of the inventory. Forest Service holdings nationwide are more than 192 million acres. Any sales receipts would be used to aid rural counties that have lost federal aid because of declining government timber sales. The financial problems of those local governments are real, particularly in the Northwest. But it makes no sense to use one-time asset sales to finance a continuing need. Since the administration is stuck in the land-sales rut, Congress needs to solve the problem another way....
Protection Granted for Mountain Caribou The last remaining mountain caribou in the lower 48 states received an extra measure of protection from the Eastern District Court in Washington. The court issued a February 14 ruling that will allow the endangered caribou to migrate from the northern areas to the southern areas of their habitat, while still permitting snowmobiles in much of the Priest Lake region. “This ruling demonstrates that Idaho is big enough for both snowmobiles and mountain caribou, something we’ve believed all along,” said Mike Petersen with The Lands Council in Spokane. “Once a species goes extinct, there’s no bringing it back, so we have to protect the few caribou we have.” A single herd of mountain caribou, recently estimated at approximately 37 animals, remain in the lower 48 states, making them the most endangered large mammal in North America. Like elk and other wildlife, caribou are most vulnerable in the winter when they are stressed by cold weather and deep snows. Snowmobiles and other recreational vehicles passing through caribou habitat have put additional strain on the herd....
Father of Green Revolution Receives Top Civilian Honor Scientist Norman Borlaug received the nation's highest civilian honor--the Congressional Gold Medal--on December 6, 2006, making him one of only 300 or so people who have received the medal since it was first given to George Washington in 1776. Borlaug is widely regarded as the "Father of the Green Revolution" and was lauded by Congress for developing technologies that dramatically increased food production, particularly in Third World nations. Those technologies include the use of pesticides to fend off crop-destroying insects, nitrogen fertilizer to increase plant growth and food yields, irrigation projects to expand crop acreage, and high-yield seeds created to absorb additional nitrogen from the soil....
Flagstaff man rejects plea deal in eco-saboteur case A man accused of stringing heavy cables across forest trails to stop motorcyclists has rejected a plea deal with prosecutors who filed felony charges that could lead to a 31-year prison term. J.D. Protiva, 72, said he refused the deal offered by Coconino County prosecutors because he wanted to take jurors into the forest to show them the damage caused by off-highway vehicles. The deal he refused Tuesday could have resulted in probation or up to two years in prison. Protiva said Coconino National Forest officials were allowing the off-road use, to the detriment of endangered species habitat on the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff....