NEWS ROUNDUP

Democrats move to protect species act Rep. Norm Dicks and senior Democrats warned the Interior Department on Wednesday against making major changes in the Endangered Species Act without involving Congress. The quick and unambiguous response came one day after reports that the Interior Department has been working for months to reinterpret the 1973 law in a way that environmentalists said would gut the primary tool for protecting plants and animals on the verge of extinction. The Bush administration and some Republicans have been working for years to change the act, which they say is onerous and overly expensive for landowners. At each step, however, Congress has blocked the changes. The new approach would change the law unilaterally by changing the way it is interpreted. Those changes surfaced in a 117-page document and in departmental memos that discuss ways to restrict the law without needing congressional approval....
Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found. Their report, sent to Congress this week by the department’s inspector general, does not accuse the official, Julie A. MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, of any crime. But it does find that she violated federal rules when she sent internal agency documents to industry lobbyists. Ms. MacDonald, an engineer by training, has provoked complaints from some wildlife biologists and lawyers in the agency for aggressive advocacy for industries’ views of the science that underlies agency decisions. The words of more than a dozen high-ranking career employees, from Interior Department headquarters and regional offices in California and Oregon, who are quoted usually by title in the report, describe a manager determined to see that agency findings and the underlying science conform with policy goals....
Federal officials seek critical habitat for Pecos sunflower The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to designate as critical habitat nearly 1,600 acres for the Pecos sunflower — a native plant protected under the Endangered Species Act. The showy plant survives in fewer than two dozen locations in the desert wetlands of New Mexico and West Texas. The critical habitat include areas of Chaves, Cibola, Guadalupe, Socorro and Valencia counties in New Mexico, and Pecos and Reeves counties in Texas. "The future of this plant can be secured through habitat protection, restoration projects and maintenance of core populations," said Benjamin Tuggle, Southwest regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Public comments on the proposal are being accepted until May 29....
Judge denies listing of westslope cutthroat A federal judge has ruled the westslope cutthroat trout does not merit the protection of the Endangered Species Act, likely ending environmental groups' decade-long effort to gain protection for the fish. U.S. District Judge Emmett G. Sullivan issued his ruling Monday in Washington, D.C. "We don't have any immediate plans to appeal it," said Sean Regnerus, water program coordinator for American Wildlands, a national group based in Bozeman, and one of several that sought the listing. Sullivan's ruling came down on the side of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a debate over whether crossbred westslope cutthroats counted as cutthroats. Montana and other western states that study westslope cutthroat populations define the fish as those with at least 80 percent westslope cutthroat genes, Interior Department officials have said. That same definition was used in the federal study....
Adopt the carrot approach to endangered species recovery Carrots could become farmers' new favorite vegetable if the Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2007 is adopted. It proposes offering farmers "carrots" for protecting endangered species rather than beating them with a stick for not protecting them. The bipartisan act provides for tax credits for landowners who own habitat or incur costs to recover species and who are a party to a qualifying agreement. Grant income received by a landowner to do a conservation project also won't be included in taxable income. Political commentators are calling the approach "groundbreaking," but it's only so because the concept of offering incentives rather than pressing down with the heavy weight of regulation hasn't been used enough when it comes to endangered species. "ESRA," as it's called, has the support of nearly a hundred property rights, environmental, resource, and hunting and fishing groups, including the American Farm Bureau. More than 80 percent of endangered species live on private property--much of it owned by farmers or ranchers--so it makes sense to offer property owners an incentive to care for endangered critters and plants. Farmers and ranchers are some of the best stewards of the land and the vast majority want to enjoy the listed species found on their property. But they have been put off by restrictions on the use of their land by Endangered Species Act regulations....
Groups fight wolf bounty Alaska's offer of $150 for each wolf killed under its predator control program is nothing more than an illegal bounty and should be stopped immediately, conservation groups said Tuesday in court filings. The groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club and Friends of Animals, are asking a state Superior Court to stop the state of Alaska from offering the cash payments in what Defenders describes as a "poorly disguised bounty program." "Such a program is clearly illegal," the court document says. "Over two decades ago, the Legislature revoked any authority the defendants had to pay bounties to hunters."....
Editorial - Grizzlies are ESA success story The federal government’s announcement that the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population shall be removed from the Endangered Species List is a significant milestone. Whether it will actually happen remains to be seen. Environmental groups are aligning for litigation that could delay actual delisting for months if not years. Predictably. One conservation group, however, is saying that it’s time to embrace success when it arrives, and allow for a species to be managed and protected without the Endangered Species Act. National Wildlife Federation spokesman David Miller said the act should be used as “emergency room treatment” rather than a long-term management strategy. We couldn’t agree more. The ESA shouldn’t be wielded as the cudgel of a perpetual litigation industry, which it has been so far....
CRY WOLF Congressman Mark Udall has seen wolves in the wild. “I felt fortunate to have the opportunity to see wolves in their natural habitat, and I reflected on how much wolves exemplify the wilderness experience,” he recounts in the foreword to Comeback Wolves, a 2005 collection of stories and poems that support wolf restoration in the West. The words exemplify Udall’s appreciation for and alliance with conservation causes. But with his eye on a Senate run — and a need to build statewide political appeal — the five-term congressman from Eldorado Springs is sending mixed signals to environmentalists. In February, he introduced legislation that would allow licensed hunters to kill elk inside Rocky Mountain National Park, carrying out a park plan to thin the binging herd. The bill offers a twist, however, on the National Park Service’s proposal to hire government sharpshooters to cull the local elk population. But both the Park Service plan and Udall’s bill perplex wolf supporters, who believe the predators’ return to the park could most effectively thin the elk herd and balance the park’s ecosystem. Wolf recovery in Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere back up their argument....
Divide Widening Over Gray Wolf Program State Game Commission members on Wednesday got an earful of the sharp differences between supporters and opponents of the endangered Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program. But Catron County officials, ranchers and some hunters said the wolves are killing livestock, threatening the viability of some ranches, thinning elk herds and frightening children and parents. Catron County Commissioner Ed Wehrheim requested that all "habituated wolves"— those that appear to show no fear of humans— be removed from the recovery area. Arizona psychiatrist Julia Martin, who interviewed Catron County children at the commission's request, said most of those she interviewed startled more easily than before wolf reintroduction and were more "clingy" with parents. Some parents now prohibit their children from playing outside unsupervised and in the woods, she said. Nine-year-old Stacy Miller of the Diamond Creek area of Catron County said she saw a wolf "ripping (her dog) to shreds" outside her family's ranch home....
Appeals court upholds water for fish before farms A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a ruling forcing a federal irrigation project to boost flows in the Klamath River to help threatened salmon even if it means shutting off water to farms. Winter snowpack and reservoir levels this year hold enough water to provide irrigation as well as flows to sustain Klamath River coho salmon, said Cecil Lesley, chief of the water and lands division of the Klamath Basin office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. But the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could set up a repeat of the 2001 irrigation shut-off to farms on the Klamath Reclamation Project the next time drought hits southern Oregon and Northern California. Farmers had sought to lift an injunction imposed last year by U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong in Oakland, Calif., which said irrigators will have to do without water in years when there is not enough for both farms and fish....
Energy Department Fined $1 Million The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday fined the federal Energy Department $1.1 million over violations of an agreement to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear site. The fine involved operations at a landfill that is the primary repository for contaminated soils, debris and other hazardous and radioactive waste from cleanup operations across the site. After first shutting down operations upon discovery of the failures, the EPA has permitted the landfill to resume operations under strict oversight. The EPA pointed out problems in a letter to the Energy Department on Tuesday, saying that workers did not perform weekly inspections that would reduce the risk of leaks in landfill liners and that operations did not comply with tests on compacted waste for structural stability. The violations did not release any radioactive waste, said Nick Ceto, the EPA's Hanford Project Manager....
Senate approves extension of timber payments The Senate on Wednesday approved a plan to extend payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging. The Senate plan would authorize about $2.8 billion to continue the county payments law through 2011. Another $1.9 billion would be directed to rural states through a proposal to fund fully the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, which reimburses state and local governments for federally owned property. The plan, approved 75-22, faces an uncertain fate because it is attached to an emergency spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush has vowed to veto the bill because it contains a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Even so, Western lawmakers were ecstatic....
Uranium Ignites ‘Gold Rush’ in the West The revival of uranium mining in the West, though, has less to do with the renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to greenhouse-gas-belching coal plants than to the convoluted economics and intense speculation surrounding the metal that has pushed up the price of uranium to levels not seen since the heyday of the industry in the mid-1970s. Prices for processed uranium ore, also called U308, or yellowcake, are rising rapidly. Yellowcake is trading at $90 a pound, nearing the record high, adjusted for inflation, of about $120 in the mid-1970s. The price has more than doubled in the last six months alone. As recently as late 2002, it was below $10....
Park service revises Sylvan snowmobile proposal A revised winter-use plan for Yellowstone National Park would allow snowmobiles and snowcoaches to cross Sylvan Pass near the park’s East Entrance next winter but not after that. A draft plan released in December drew heavy criticism from Cody residents and others worried about losing wintertime tourism. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said the draft plan wasn’t clear about whether access would be allowed this coming winter. “We remedied that in the version for public review,” he said. The National Park Service released the revised plan Tuesday. Park officials are concerned about avalanches on Sylvan Pass. They say that besides potentially threatening traffic on the route, avalanches are a risk for park employees who fire a howitzer to release snow under controlled conditions....
Are you looking at me? The dog-sized toad Environmentalists trying to wipe out the cane toad, one of Australia's worst pests, have captured one of the biggest specimens ever seen here: a male the size of a small dog. The giant cane toad, one of dozens engaged in a "breeding frenzy" in the northern city of Darwin, is 8 inches long, weighs nearly 2lb, and has a body as big as a football. "It's huge, to put it mildly," said Graeme Sawyer, the co-ordinator of the group FrogWatch, which conducts regular nocturnal hunts for the toxic creatures. The biggest toads are usually females, but this one was a rampant male... I would hate to meet his big sister." Cane toads were introduced into Queensland in the 1930s in an effort to control cane beetles ravaging the sugar crop. While the beetle still thrives, the toads have fanned out across the continent, ravaging populations of native fauna including snakes, goanna lizards and quolls (cat-sized marsupials). Their skin is poisonous, so animals that eat them die....
Judge adds odd twist to rancher's sentence Cattleman Darrell Kunzler will spend one month in jail and another month surveying fences along Cache County roadways under a state judge's sentence imposed Wednesday. Kunzler, 72, had pleaded no contest to a class A misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment in connection with the November 2004 accident that killed a 40-year-old Washington woman. A felony charge of manslaughter will be dismissed in two years if Kunzler continues to keep his cattle off roadways. First District Judge Gordon Low said he wants Kunzler to spend 200 hours of community service determining whether Cache County fences are reasonably sufficient to keep cattle off of roadways, and the judge ordered him to report the results to the animals' owners, the county attorney and Department of Corrections....
City to seek AG's opinion on cattle issue The Fernley City Council took no action on an agenda item to create a bill to establish penalties for damage created by cattle within the City of Fernley. Instead, at the advice of City Attorney Paul Taggart, the city will request an opinion from the Nevada Attorney Generals Office concerning whether the city can establish a law to declare it illegal for cattle owners to allow their cattle to roam in the City of Fernley, which may cause property damage or personal injury, and if such acts do occur, the cattle owner would face a misdemeanor charge. The city attorney told cattle owners, Dellis Bone and Don Alt that the city was not banning open grazing but making it unlawful for cattle to roam in city subdivisions. The issue came to light following complaints from Desert Bluff subdivision property owners that found Bone's bulls grazing on their lawns....
Japan supermarket chain resumes sales of U.S. beef A Tokyo supermarket on Thursday became the first major Japanese outlet to resume sales of U.S. beef since a ban was lifted last summer, and one of its first customers was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. The United States has exported beef to Japan since a ban imposed due to mad cow concerns was lifted in July 2006, but sales have been sluggish due in part to trade restrictions and consumer concerns about food safety. "I've been waiting all week to come out here," U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said at a Seiyu Ltd. (8268.T: Quote, Profile, Research) store in downtown Tokyo. The resumption of sales came a day after U.S. President George W. Bush told American ranchers that Japan, once its top export market for beef, and South Korea should fully open their markets to U.S. beef. Bush's remarks fueled the view that beef would again be a hot topic at a meeting expected to take place between the U.S. president and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, in late April or early May....