OPINION/COMMENTARY

A month into office, Idaho's Otter governs from his gut As a freshly minted lieutenant governor, C.L. "Butch" Otter caused a furor 20 years ago by vetoing a bill lifting Idaho's drinking age to 21 from 19 that lawmakers passed to keep the feds in Washington, D.C., from denying highway payments. Gov. Cecil Andrus had left town, and Otter, a 44-year-old just two months on the job, took a populist swipe at "usurpation ... of Idaho's sovereign power by the Congress" _ his words at the time. Andrus later boosted the drinking age anyway, bAAut Otter had made his mark, for better or for worse. A month into his term as Idaho's chief executive, the now 64-year-old Republican still governs from his gut, confounding some members of his own party by putting a chokehold on the Capitol expansion. He's won the love of wolf foes, saying he'll be the first to shoot one of the predators once federal protections get lifted. And he says he wants to build more dams on Idaho's rivers, to keep more water here. "People need answers," Otter told The Associated Press Friday. "Obviously, my remarks are going to be targeted at what they can expect me to do on issues of concern to them." Remarkably, critics and allies alike say very similar things about the three-term U.S. congressman and millionaire rancher, whose offices feature cowboy prints and gigantic rodeo belt buckles: He's real, and if there's something that strikes him as good horse sense, he'll speak up....
Oil trucks are taking their toll on county roads Looking out onto the gravel road that runs along his ranch, Allan Schmidt sees something new to his serene southwest corner of this rural county: Heavy traffic. One after another, large trucks rumble by Schmidt's property, kicking up clouds of dust onto his cattle and wearing away at the gravel road. "Before, it was just us, the mailman, and the school bus," said Schmidt, who's been ranching the land since 1977. The surge of traffic in Dunn County is a direct result of the latest energy boom. As world oil prices climbed throughout 2005 and 2006, western North Dakota has come alive with oil rigs and pump jacks for the first time since the early 1980s. But the stream of heavy trucks that haul drilling machinery in and oil out have created a headache for both ranchers and county officials, who are scrambling to maintain the roads with limited budgets and small road crews....
Conflicting leases roil Legislature Conflicting bids over state land leases, and whether prior lease holders should get preferential treatment at the expense of public education revenues has spilled over into the Wyoming Legislature. House Bill 318 would generally point away from conservation groups willing to pay two-to-three times as much for state land leases than the livestock producers who have long held those leases. And one of the livestock producers who could lose some long-time leases includes Jim Magagna, executive director of the Wyoming Stock Growers and one of the state’s foremost advocates for agricultural interests. Magagna was targeted deliberately, said Jon Marvel, executive director of the conservation group Western Watersheds Project. “Mr. Magagna is the representative and the face of Wyoming livestock interests,” said Marvel. “We’ve bid on state grazing leases to symbolize the giveaway leasing to ranchers.” Marvel said he’d like to see greater competition over grazing leases, just as there is wide-open competition for mineral leases....
Cattle rancher wins conservation award Darrell Wood of Pete's Creek Partnership, one of the founding ranches of Panorama Meats, Inc. -- an Angus grass-fed beef company based in Vina -- has received one of three 2006 National Wetlands Conservation Awards from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Wood received the award for his management of the Pete's Creek wetland and riparian restoration project on 1,262 acres of the partnership's ranch, located in Lassen County just north of Susanville. The land was also certified as organic grazing land for panorama grass-fed beef cattle in July 2006. Wood is a fifth-generation California cattle rancher whose family has been grazing cattle on this land almost continually since the 1930s. The annual award recognizes the contributions by private-sector individuals and organizations to the development, restoration and enhancement of wetlands....
Column - The Withering of the American Environmental Movement A kind of political narcolepsy has settled over the American environmental movement. Call it eco-ennui. You may know the feeling: restlessness, lack of direction, evaporating budgets, diminished expectations, a simmering discontent. The affliction appears acute, possibly systemic. Unfortunately, the antidote isn't as simple as merely filing a new lawsuit in the morning or skipping that PowerPoint presentation to join a road blockade for the day. No, something much deeper may be called for: a rebellion of the heart. Just like in the good old days, not that long ago. What is it, precisely, that's going on? Was the environmental movement bewitched by eight years of Bruce Babbitt and Al Gore? Did it suffer an allergic reaction to the New Order of Things? Are we simply adrift in a brief lacuna in the evolution of the conservation movement, one of those Gouldian (Stephen Jay) pauses before a new creative eruption? Environmentalism has never thrived on an adherence to etiquette or quiet entreaties. Yet, that became the mode of operation during Clinton and it has continued through the rougher years of Bush and Cheney. Direct confrontation of governmental authority and corporate villainy was once our operation metier. No longer.....
Mont. sues for more Wyo water For rancher Art Hayes of Birney, Mont., adequate water is the "lifeblood" needed to turn lifeless ground into fertile fields for his cattle. After seven years of drought, that lifeblood is running short. Yet as the nearby Tongue River dropped to a trickle in recent years, Hayes looked upstream, toward Wyoming, and saw that things were different -- greener, he says -- across the state line. "They always seem to be irrigating there," he said Thursday. "They're holding that water up, and that water should be coming to Montana. We're in a water crisis here, and it's getting worse and worse and worse." Responding to the complaints of Hayes and others, the state of Montana filed a lawsuit against Wyoming over water rights on Thursday in the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit claims Wyoming's excessive use of water from the Tongue and a second river, the Powder, is leaving downstream ranches and farms dry....
Bill would pay to retire water rights A bill to launch a new program to pay irrigators willing to retire water rights along the upper Arkansas river drew the tentative backing of farmer and rancher groups testifying to a Senate committee Thursday. A Kansas Farm Bureau spokesman said the effort could help the region avoid further state regulation of a depleting groundwater supply and help to cushion the economic effect of declining water levels. "Clearly (the program) will not be for everyone, but shouldn't those individuals holding the water rights have the opportunity to make that decision?" said Steve Swaffar, Farm Bureau director of natural resources. But farm-related businesses opposed Senate Bill 123, which authorizes the start of the program in 10 southwest counties along the river. They pointed to a Kansas State University study showing an $8.7 million economic ripple effect on local communities from removing 100,000 acres of crop production....
Proposed ban on 'canned' hunting raises heated debate A proposal to ban private hunting preserves in North Dakota would infringe on private property rights and hurt tourism, opponents say. Supporters of the idea say "canned" hunting is unethical and may contribute to the spread of animal diseases. The debate in the North Dakota Senate's Natural Resources Committee on Thursday had people on both sides claiming that former President Theodore Roosevelt, who ranched and hunted in the North Dakota Badlands, would favor their position. "I believe he'd turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on," said Gary Masching, a Bismarck hunter who opposes game farms. Sen. Connie Triplett, D-Grand Forks, said if state lawmakers were to infringe on hunting rights, "I think Teddy Roosevelt would crawl out of his grave and come get us." The proposed bill would ban fee hunting on so-called "high fence" game farms. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. After a hearing Thursday, the Natural Resources Committee recommended that the bill be defeated. The full Senate will vote on the measure later....
N.D. Saltwater Spill Prompts Questions A year after a ruptured pipeline spilled nearly 1 million gallons of saltwater into a northwestern North Dakota creek, Ned Hermanson is giving up. He intends to move his 400 cows to pastures far from the oil fields here, away from one of the biggest environmental disasters in state history. "I live day-to-day next to a neighbor that's an oil company, and they're a bad neighbor," said Hermanson, a wiry man who dips tobacco and wears a softball-sized rodeo belt buckle. "Life is too short to be mad every day at them, so I'm leaving." Officials say the plight faced by Hermanson and a dozen ranchers affected by the spill shows the need to pay more attention to wastewater pipelines nationwide. Nathan Wiser, an environmental scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, said there are no specific federal regulations for saltwater disposal lines....
Bill favors wolf, grizzly hunts A Senate committee unanimously endorsed legislation Thursday that would allow the hunting of wolves and grizzly bears in Montana once the animals are removed from federal protections. The bill by Sen. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman, drew no opposition in a Senate Fish and Game Committee hearing, and is backed by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. It now goes to the Senate floor for further debate. "Will this solve the wolf problem? Unfortunately, no. ... But I do believe it's one piece of the puzzle to try to control their numbers," Balyeat said. Wolves were reintroduced to the northern Rockies a decade ago after being hunted to near-extinction. More than 1,200 now live in the region. Balyeat's bill creates wolf hunting licenses for residents and out-of-state hunters and sets up an annual lottery for wolf and grizzly bear tags. It also establishes restitution for illegal wolf killings and includes wolves in state game wasting rules....
Goodbye, Bighorn Canyon? Sandy gullies and endless sagebrush offer little hint of the watersports Mecca once envisioned for this small town near the Montana border. Back when the Big Horn River flowed strong out of the distant Wind River Mountains, it backed up seven miles from the Yellowtail Dam in Montana south to the outskirts of Lovell -- a man-made lake that once drew almost half a million visitors annually. But drought has choked the Big Horn going on eight years, chopping 30 miles off Bighorn Lake in recent summers and prompting tourists to vacation elsewhere. And now a U.S. senator from Montana -- anxious to tap the reservoir to feed a downstream trout fishery -- could crush Lovell's recreational aspirations for good. Flexing his newfound muscle as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus has introduced legislation that could further deplete the lake. It would force the federal Bureau of Reclamation to ensure a steady flow of water out of Yellowtail Dam, drought notwithstanding....
Wild horse roundup ends Federal cowboys were able to round up about 920 wild horses last month in southwest Wyoming before bad weather shut down gathering operations this week, officials said. The roundup fell short of the Bureau of Land Management's goal of removing about 1,400 wild horses from the area in an effort to achieve herd management objectives. The agency permanently removed 846 of the horses gathered in the operation from the range, officials said. Another 41 mares were treated with a fertility control vaccine and returned to the area. BLM spokeswoman Cindy Wertz said the gathering operations aimed to reduce two overpopulated wild horse herds that roam eastern Sweetwater County within the adjacent Salt Wells and Adobe Town herd management units. Wyoming's wild horse population in recent years has reached as high as 7,000 animals. That's more than double the BLM's target management level of 3,263 wild horses statewide. Most of the state's wild horse populations are concentrated in southwest Wyoming....
Refuge plan: Cut elk, bison numbers People watching elk on the National Elk Refuge will likely see one-third fewer elk there over the next 15 years, after some animals are moved off feedlines and others are hunted. The reduction, from a target of 7,500 elk to a goal of 5,000 animals, is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to manage elk and bison in the area. That plan has been in the works for a decade, and a final version was released Thursday. Bison appear to take the biggest hit in numbers, with wildlife managers looking to trim their numbers by more than half on lands around Jackson Hole. There are now about 1,200 bison on the refuge, and the management plan aims for 500. That reduction will come through hunting starting this fall. Elk numbers will also be reduced through hunting -- primarily the Grand Teton segment of the Jackson elk herd. Some hunting may be allowed on the southern end of the refuge near the town of Jackson....
Outdoor groups rally behind proposal for oil, gas well guidelines A state lawmaker said he hopes to create a national model for balancing wildlife protection and energy development when he introduces a bill laying out guidelines for softening the impact of oil and gas drilling. Supporters say 55 environmental, hunting and fishing groups are behind the proposal. Democratic Rep. Dan Gibbs of Silverthorne, the sponsor, said wildlife and energy are both important to Colorado’s economy. “I think we can strike a balance that’s reasonable,” said Gibbs, a hunter. The guidelines include reducing the amount of land disturbed by development; speeding restoration; and encouraging consultation between energy companies, landowners and wildlife officials. The bill would apply to private and state land, but not federal, where much of the development in western Colorado is taking place. “I think this could be a model for potential federal legislation as well,” Gibbs said....
Forest official: Give rules chance New rules doing away with formal environmental impact statements for long-term forest management plans make them more relevant to the public and the U.S. Forest Service head for the five-state Rocky Mountain Region said he hopes skeptics give them a chance. Critics say the new rules undermine environmental protection, but Regional Forester Rick Cables says he hopes foresters get the benefit of the doubt as they update closely watched management plans under the new set of rules. The Forest Service announced the new rules in December, saying management plans have no environmental effects and that environmental reviews can be done when individual projects envisioned in the plan are considered. "The rationale is that the plans are not making decisions that affect the land. The plans are more oriented toward sitting down with the public and agreeing on a desired future condition for the landscape," Cables said....
Experts see hope for timber industry Despite such recent news such as the closure of a Weyerhaeuser sawmill near Lebanon, economists and observers say the long-term outlook for the timber industry in Oregon is healthy. The harvest level, though, will be lower than the mid-1980s highs, and the current housing slowdown will mean a rough patch, they say. "It's a new stable industry, and it's growing," said Richard Haynes, an economist with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland. "The region has recovered from what happened in the 1990s." In 1990, the wood manufacturing industry in Oregon employed 46,100 people. That was 3.7 percent of a 1990 nonfarm payroll of 1.25 million workers. In 2006, 32,100 people were employed in the industry, 1.9 percent of the nonfarm payroll of 1.71 million. The number of logging jobs in Oregon has fallen from 11,300 in 1990 to 7,000 in 2006. The state continues as the nation's largest producer of lumber: 31 percent more in 2004 than Washington, its nearest competitor, according to the Western Wood Products Association....
A riveting sight: 100 bald eagles on way to breakfast Dark sky, silent flight: The bald eagles lift off from their night forest roosts and rise over you in rafts as they head to the frozen valley floor of the Klamath Basin and their daily duck feast. Their eight-foot wingspans are silhouettes against the dawn sky and their white heads glisten in the muted light. In one 20-minute sequence, if you know the exact spot to wait, you might see 75 to 100 or bald eagles fly right over the top of you, one of winter's most electrifying wildlife scenes. Put this one on your life list. It's a long, grueling trip to the Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge, longer yet to see this spectacular dawn scene. But it's difficult for me to imagine having the gift of life on this world and not seeing the en masse flight of the bald eagles even once....
Railroad grant paved way for huge land holdings The road runs arrow-straight, fresh blacktop laid smooth through logged-over forest, a string pulled tight between Montana's past and its future. At one end of the road: a hole tunneled through mountain, evidence of the railroad that once followed this same track west. At the other: a soaring rock and timber entryway, rustic chic highlighted in wrought iron. Welcome to Meadowbrooke, a brand new Old West subdivision slowly rising in the woods west of Kalispell. That it's being developed by the real-estate arm of Plum Creek Timber Co. is a sure sign of things to come. That its primary artery sits directly atop the old railroad bed is an indication of how things came to be. “The past is driving the future on these lands,” said George Draffen. “If you want to understand what's happening, you have to understand what happened.” Draffen is a researcher and writer, co-author of “Railroads and Clearcuts,” and according to him what happened - and what's happening - was and is the hijacking of the public trust. “The two million acres Plum Creek started with were federal lands,” Draffen said, “public land they got for free from the citizens of the United States.” Not surprisingly, Plum Creek president and CEO Rick Holley has a different take on history....
Timber in transition: Booming values shift Plum Creek from logging to real estate Used to be, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce would get together once a year for a field trip into the woods. They called them “timber tours,” and according to chamber president Joe Unterreiner, “early on, these actually were timber tours.” But those were the days when the business of timber was the business of western Montana. Times have changed. On a soggy afternoon last fall, Unterreiner arrived on forestland owned by Plum Creek Timber Co. for a very different sort of tour. He called it “timber lite,” adding that today's Chamber of Commerce field trips emphasize “the changing economics of what's happening with timberlands.” Montana has been discovered, he said, its real estate is commanding premium prices, and companies such as Plum Creek are realizing their trees are worth more vertical than horizontal. So they're selling off big chunks of land to developers - and developing other pieces on their own....
Firefighter Pleads Guilty To Arson One of three former Mill Creek firefighters charged in November with setting fires was sentenced this week. Dewey Alvin Bell, 22, pleaded guilty in Carteret County Superior Court to two counts of second-degree arson and one count each of malicious use of an explosive device, burning personal property, and burning a boat. Bell received suspended prison sentences on Monday for each of the offenses and will be under a 60-month supervised probation period. The first six months he will face intensive supervision, said Jim Parker, Judicial District 3B manager for the N.C. Division of Community Corrections. Over the next five years, Bell will also be required to participate in paying the total $46,000 restitution to the victims in the case, Parker said. Depending on the outcome of their cases, the two others accused in the Mill Creek arsons would share in paying the restitution....
Grazing fees down from 2006 The fee for grazing livestock on federal lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service is dropping this year, the BLM announced Friday. Effective March 1, the fee will be $1.35 per animal unit month, down from $1.56 last year, the Forest Service said. An animal unit month is the amount of forage needed to sustain a cow and a calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. The fee is adjusted annually to take into account private grazing rates, cattle prices and the cost of livestock production. It applies to public land in 16 Western states administered by the BLM or the Forest Service. The states are Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming....
AEI Critiques of Warming Questioned A Washington-based think tank has been soliciting critiques of the just-released international assessment of the evidence on climate change, a move that prompted some academics and environmentalists to accuse the group of seeking to distort the latest evidence for global warming. Advocacy groups such as Greenpeace and the Public Interest Research Group questioned why the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has offered $10,000 to academics willing to contribute to a book on climate- change policy, an overture that was first reported Friday in London's Guardian newspaper. AEI visiting scholar Kenneth Green -- one of two researchers who has sought to commission the critiques -- said in an interview that his group is examining the policy debate on global warming, not the science. "It's completely policy-oriented," said Green, adding that a third of the academics AEI solicited for the project are interested in participating. "Somebody wants to distort this."....
Enzi, Senators Say ‘Whoa’ To USDA Beef Import Rule The United States Department of Agriculture should hold up on its proposed plan to expand beef imports from Canada, according to U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and John Thune, R-S.D. Permitting the importation of live Canadian cattle born after March 1, 1999 and beef from animals of any age, would harm American producers economically and further endanger the U.S. market with the threat of mad cow disease. The senators sent a Feb. 2 letter to USDA Secretary Mike Johanns, urging him not to implement the rule. The text of the letter follows....
Bushels vs. beef Corn prices are at 10-year highs, but not everyone is profiting in farm country. Nearly 56 percent of U.S. corn is fed to livestock. And when feed prices go up, profits for local pork and beef producers go down. The explosive demand for corn to make ethanol fuel is sending corn prices to above $4 a bushel for the first time in about a decade, generating higher income for farmers strictly in the business of growing grain. Prices of soybeans, also a source of feed and biodiesel fuel, have risen, though less rapidly. Meanwhile, livestock producers are making adjustments, such as using alternative feed sources or selling livestock at lower weights at market, until either livestock prices rise or corn prices lower. How a livestock producer adjusts depends on the operation's overhead and set-up....
Inner city school kids adopt Montana loggers, farmers Plywood does not just appear at Home Depot and milk does not come from a carton, but there are children in our country who do not realize this. With the majority of the United States growing up in urban cultures far from the people who produce the food they need to survive, there is great disconnect and misunderstanding between consumers and producers. Provider Pals is an organization that is trying to educate the youth of our nation and hopefully create a future where decisions are based on reality rather than rumor. It is an urban-rural cultural exchange program building a bridge between urban and rural America. More than a decade ago, Bruce Vincent of Libby, Mont., was talking to a classroom of kids in Seeley Lake, Mont., about the life of a logger and forestry. As he was leaving the room the teacher mentioned the following day a woman with a wolf was going to visit and the kids would “adopt” this wolf. Vincent knew she was not only bringing a wolf to that class, but politics, as well. She would likely tell the kids that mining, ranching and logging were bad for the wolf, he recalled. “It occurred to me the only thing we had to offer the American public is us,” said Vincent. “I asked the teacher, ‘Would you like to adopt a logger?'”....
Dog Saves Craig County Rancher An Oklahoma ranch family credits their dog with saving a life. The News on 6’s Emory Bryan reports on Jackie, the hero dog. The “Circle Lazy C Ranch” is home of national champion Appaloosa horses and some Texas Longhorn Cattle. But it's the ranch dog, Jackie, that is the most valuable animal on the ranch. “She's been a sweetheart since day one,” rancher Bill Cass said. Cass runs the ranch; his wife Ethelyn runs everything else. Marked on her calendar is the cold and icy day they almost lost Bill. “I was just a churning in a big ‘ol hurry and my feet went out from under me,” said Cass. “I went as high as my head, my feet did, and there I laid.” Cass was going out to feed the horses, and he's not the kind of fella that carries a cell phone, but Jackie was by his side....
Son of Ore. rancher won't be charged in shootout One of two survivors of a deadly shooting on a northeast Oregon ranch will face no charges, the county district attorney said Thursday. Travis Beach, 28, accompanied his father Jan. 18 to a ranch where they intended to retrieve four cows, suspecting they had been rustled, Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen said. The father, Dennis Beach, and a caretaker at the ranch, Shane Huntsman, died as a result of a confrontation. Steen said a state brand inspector determined the cattle belonged to Beach. Huntsman and the elder Beach were shot by the same .30-caliber rifle, Steen said. Steen told the La Grande Observer that one scenario under consideration is that Huntsman shot Dennis Beach; Travis Beach and Huntsman fought; and then Travis Beach shot Huntsman....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Old westerns offered a higher standard An open letter to Hollywood from a cowboy: Making a western movie implies an obligation to a higher standard. Louis L'Amour, Gene Autry, Zane Gray, Roy Rogers, John Ford and John Wayne understood this. They acknowledged the responsibility they bore to the generations of young minds who loved their movies. We would be hard put today to name a western movie you could take a 12-year-old to. "Brokeback Mountain"? "Unforgiven"? "All The Pretty Horses"? The only new western TV show is "Deadwood." As time marches on, our children have become more sophisticated. Which, unfortunately, means profanity, lewdness, explicit violence and egregious horror are part of their everyday experience as a grade-schooler. Got cable? I'm sure this sounds like a disgruntled rant, but it's more like wishful thinking. Why is it necessary to unearth the feet of clay of our heroes? No one knows better then real cowboys that the image portrayed in the old westerns was made through rose-colored glasses....