NEWS ROUNDUP

Army Hasn't Ruled Out Pinon Canyon Condemnations Sen. Wayne Allard says the Army has told him it prefers to buy land from willing sellers to expand its Pinon Canyon training site in southeastern Colorado, but it has not ruled out condemnations. Some farmers and ranchers are opposed to the expansion and fear they will be forced to sell their land, which is located along the historic Santa Fe Trail. Steve Wymer, Allard's spokesman, said others in the area are open to selling their land. Te Legislature is debating a bill that would bar the Army from using state eminent domain law to require landowners to sell, but even its backers admit the measure would be more symbolic. Wymer said the Army has long said that forcing landowners to sell "would be a last resort." Rancher Lon Robertson, the leader of a group opposing the expansion, said there are always some ranches for sale in the area but the majority of landowners don't want to sell. He the latest Army statement is nothing new....
Public: Slow Pinedale area gas development No one who spoke during four open houses hosted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said they backed the agency's plan for energy development in the Pinedale area. The BLM's preferred alternative is to allow a mixture of oil and gas development while making some areas off limits to drilling and related activity. But those who spoke at open houses in Rock Springs, Jackson, Pinedale and Marbleton said they want the agency to slow development and do more to protect wildlife and natural resources. The biggest turnout was in Pinedale, where a crowd spent several hours speaking about the proposed development plan, which remain open for public comment until May 18....
Coal-bed methane water appeals on rise Appeals of coal-bed methane water discharge permits are on the rise, complicating gas development in the Powder River Basin. Coal-bed methane wells extract natural gas by pumping water off underground coal seams. Oftentimes the groundwater is useful for ranchers in arid northeast Wyoming, but other times the water can flood low-lying grazing areas. Terri Lorenzon, director of the state Environmental Quality Council, thinks the shifting areas of the coal-bed methane play may have something to do with the increase in permit appeals. "These discharges are where they impact people more and more," she said. The state Department of Environmental Quality also has noticed an increase in appeals. John Wagner, a water quality supervisor for the agency, said 11 appeals are pending. "We're getting appeals from both sides, environmental and industry," he said. "It's just that coal-bed methane is very controversial, and there seems to be an unwillingness to compromise on both sides."....
Cooperative range monitoring fosters trust in western Wyoming Western Wyoming ranchers who hold permits to graze livestock on federal lands say their relationship with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management has gone from contentious to cooperative. This new sense of goodwill, according to the ranchers, stems from a monitoring program spearheaded by the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service. Livestock producers and personnel from the two federal agencies voluntarily participate. "We get along better with the USFS since we started the cooperative permittee monitoring. We also have a lot more knowledge about the range resource and how to care for it," said Wayne Jensen, who raises cattle near Boulder. "That's allowing us to keep our cattle up there longer, and they are in better shape when they come out." Another Boulder-area rancher, Joel Bousman, said, "Since we started the joint monitoring programs, our working relationship with the Forest Service and BLM improved dramatically." Bousman, president of the Silver Creek Grazing Association, added, "With the help of UW CES, we got out on the grazing allotments and started monitoring based on sound science using quantitative, long-term trend data, not someone's opinion."....
Prairie chickens making comeback The lesser prairie chicken was once prolific across the shortgrass prairies of the Great Plains. The birds were often the only meat on a pioneer family’s table in hard times, which never seemed to go away for the plains sodbuster. Experts say the birds nearly met their demise, not from hunting, but from loss of habitat during the 20th century. Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service includes the species as eligible for listing through the Endangered Species Act. Landowners and several groups working to protect the lesser prairie chicken won a major battle in the last year when the New Mexico Game Commission recommended they not be included on the state’s endangered species list. “It would limit what we do out here because then everything we do would be federally regulated,” said Tish McDaniel, The Nature Conservancy’s Southern Shortgrass Prairie project coordinator. “We don’t want it to become listed because that’s a statement right there that we’re losing.” McDaniel said the key to saving and improving prairie chicken habitat lies with landowners, who ranch on most of the prime land for the birds. She tries to match federal and state programs and other conservation sources to a cattleman’s goals for his land. She said at the same time she’s winning valuable habitat for prairie chickens....
Ranchers get creative with wolves Barbed wire used to be the only thing keeping Emma Ellison's cows from the Baker Mountain wolf pack. This spring, there's a stiffer line of defense: electrified wire draped with red strips of flagging. "It you touch your nose on it, it'll get your attention," said Brian Finnan, Ellison's friend and neighbor who helps keep an eye on the place. The fencing went up last month around a 40-acre pasture as an experiment to see how well it works at keeping hungry wolves from cows and calves. Wolves are suspected of killing a few cows on the ranch two years ago, but it was never officially confirmed. Still, the mere presence of wolves nearby was enough to give the electrified fencing and flagging a try. The strips of red material -- called fladry -- exploit a quirk in wolves' personality that steers them away from new, unfamiliar objects. The 7,000 volts pulsing through the wires, in a souped-up version called "turbo-fladry," add a body-jarring jolt to those bold enough to test it....
Interior probe clears BLM The Department of Interior's chief investigator found no wrongdoing in private discussions Bureau of Land Management officials held with promoters of oil and gas development in Utah. "We found no evidence to substantiate that BLM officials engaged in any behavior that could be characterized as improper dealings for the purpose of promoting local economic interests at the expense of wilderness protections," said Inspector General Earl Devaney. Devaney released his finding in an April 4 letter to U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., sponsor of Utah's 9.5 million-acre Red Rock Wilderness Act, a bill held up in Congress for years. Hinchey had asked Devaney to look into an e-mail written by a lobbyist who gave an account of a private meeting in Vernal last summer when, the lobbyist said, BLM officials promised to fix bureaucratic problems holding up oil and gas development on public lands. The federal government owns 64 percent of the land in Utah. In the e-mail leaked by wilderness groups, Robert Weidner, a lobbyist for rural Utah counties, said the Bush administration was "on the same page" with oil and gas interests....
Wildlife conflicts grow After eight years working Wyoming's booming energy fields, truck driver Eric Ransom suddenly finds his future threatened by an unlikely nemesis: a chicken-sized brown bird with a penchant for colorful courtship rituals and an aversion to heavy equipment. Ransom delivers water, gravel and other materials to the sprawling coal-bed methane fields east of Buffalo. In the past, when one company hit a slow period, he jumped easily to another that needed more drivers. No longer. As the methane, or natural gas, is tapped out beneath the flat rangeland of eastern Wyoming, energy companies are migrating west and into richer habitat along the Powder River, where protected birds such as the sage grouse live. Federal rules mandate months-long prohibitions on drilling near sage grouse breeding grounds, leaving contractors like Ransom scrambling to find work. The industry slowdown goes beyond that one bird population, and reflects a broader shift taking place in the debate over domestic energy development. It comes amid new evidence that some wildlife populations are on the decline after almost a decade of intense exploration....
Company faces unusual well problem, too much water Coal bed methane development developers usually face the problem of getting enough water into the ground to get the gas out. EnCana Oil and Gas USA is facing the opposite problem, forcing it to shut 24 coal bed methane wells east of Mamm Creek. There's too much water. "It's one of the things that's going to make us not an economical venture anymore," EnCana land negotiator Greg Ryan told the Daily Sentinel last week during an energy and environment symposium at Western State College. The wells are producing between 300 and 3,000 barrels daily, compared with normal water production of up to 15 barrels. "We can't de-water the coals because we don't know what to do with the water," Ryan said. Treating the water has failed, as has evaporating it. The mineral- and saline-laden water is too dirty. Company spokesman Wendy Wiedenbeck said the company is still working on treating the water or re-injecting it below ground....
Group buys gas leases on Rocky Front Trout Unlimited has bought leases for natural-gas drilling on 4,900 acres of the Rocky Mountain Front, and the conservation group said it will seek to have the leases retired for good. Trout Unlimited announced the purchase Thursday, less than a year after the organization accepted Front leases from Questar Corp. The company donated several petroleum leases, which Trout Unlimited said would be returned to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for retirement. The latest leases were bought from Donald Epperson, a private energy investor from Helena, and are on two tracts of land. Trout Unlimited spokesman Chris Hunt said that under terms of the deal, the purchase price would not be disclosed. The lease transfer allows the land to be used for the benefit of hunters and anglers, Hunt said. "This is land that really isn't appropriate for oil and gas drilling in the first place, so to see these leases given to TU, and to know they'll be retired and never drilled is really satisfying," he said....
Tribe pulls out of water negotiations Two years of water compact negotiations between the Blackfeet Tribe and the state of Montana went into a tailspin on Thursday after tribal council members said they had been blindsided and then declared a negotiation session over. Tribal leaders were disturbed after learning the state had pushed a $140 million authorization through a U.S. Senate committee to build a water diversion project within the Blackfeet Reservation borders without the tribe's consent or knowledge. "We want this issue cleared up before we go any further," said Blackfeet Chief Earl Old Person during an ardent speech in which he stood before the negotiation team members. "It's not in our favor. We were not notified. We need to be part of this. ... We need to know how this is going to affect our people." Tribal attorney Jeannie Whiteing reminded commission members that the tribe has repeatedly sought to have its federal reserved water rights quantified before money was set aside to rebuild the St. Mary water diversion project. Tribal members said they only recently learned of the $140 million authorization, which they called a betrayal....
Eberts Ranch deal to close The U.S. Forest Service plans to complete the purchase of the 5,200-acre Eberts Ranch on April 25. That will close the $5.3 million purchase and fold the ranch into the Forest Service's management on the Little Missouri National Grasslands. By April 26, the entire ranch will be available for such activities as hiking, bird watching and any seasonal hunting. The Forest Service had purchased 1,900 acres of the Eberts Ranch in September, and this month's deal will be to acquire the remaining 3,300. The Eberts family has been trying to sell the ranch for public conservation for nearly four years, first to the National Park Service and then to North Dakota as a first-ever state preserve. When the preserve failed for lack of legislative funding in 2005, the Forest Service stepped forward....
Judge allows logging dead trees A U.S. district judge has lifted an injunction on logging beetle-killed trees on 2,600 acres in and around the Basin Creek watershed south of here. 0.U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy of Missoula issued the order Tuesday, saying a U.S. Forest Service analysis showed the project would not significantly impact soils. Three environmental groups vowed to appeal the case Thursday. "The project is a bad idea," said Jeff Juel of the Wild West Institute, formerly the Ecology Center, in Missoula. "We're committed to following our legal options to bring some good management to the area." The Ecology Center, the Native Ecosystems Council and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies sued the Forest Service over its Basin Creek Hazardous Fuels Reduction Project in 2005. The groups said they oppose the project because it included clear-cutting 1,100 acres and building 14 miles of new roads. Juel said he also believes that claims that the dead trees create a fire hazard are greatly exaggerated....
Blair and Merkel lean on Bush to join battle against climate change President George Bush is coming under unprecedented pressure from Tony Blair and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to agree to tough new international measures to stop global warming accelerating out of control. The measures are contained in a strongly worded draft communiqué for June's G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany - obtained by The Independent on Sunday - which warns that "tackling climate change is an imperative, not a choice". It adds that if "resolute and concerted international action" is not "urgently" taken, global warming will become "largely unmanageable". The United States and Canada are resisting key elements of the draft, but Mrs Merkel is determined not to water it down. She is backed by the Prime Minister, who is ringing Mr Bush weekly to try to persuade him to change his position. The draft warns that "global warming caused largely by human activities is accelerating" and that it "will seriously damage our common natural environment and severely weaken [the] global economy, with implications for international security"....
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well. The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives....
Dozens of nilgai antelope killed to stop tick spread South Texas ranchers brought nilgai antelope from a California zoo decades ago, when it became fashionable to stock their sprawling acreage with exotic quarry. These days the species native to India and Pakistan are not so much a rarity in South Texas as a nuisance. For cattle ranchers they are a possible nemesis, threatening to spread a deadly tick to their herds. Federal wildlife officials say they are competing with native Rio Grande Valley species for food and trampling the brush they are trying so hard to preserve. The fast-running, 600-pound antelope have wandered all around the region, where at least one picked up a kind of fever tick from Mexico that once nearly wiped out American cattle. The ticks spread among the population and threaten the cattle. Federal officials said they had no choice but to hire a "helicopter and gunner" last week to slaughter them. Thirty-seven were killed during the two-day hunt on a portion of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge that runs along the border....
Rancher says pipes were radioactive A member of one of Texas' oldest ranching families has locked horns with an oil company in a bizarre dispute involving pet rhinos, steel pipe and allegations of radiation poisoning and a corporate vendetta. Rancher Jimmy McAllen, the 10th generation of his family to work the 70,000-acre ranch in South Texas, says that the old pipe he used to build a corral for two African black rhinoceroses in the mid-1990s proved to be loaded with radioactive material. He blames the radiation for the mysterious 1995 death of one of his rhinos. And he says he suspects it caused the rare form of cancer that cost him his lower right leg in 2005. Moreover, he says the Forest Oil Co. - which holds a lease to drill for gas on his property and gave him the old pipe for the corral and other projects around the ranch - deliberately poisoned his land in retaliation for a dispute the two sides had over gas payments....
Baseball flips lid, tosses out wool cap It didn’t stand a chance, utterly alone as it was, with vanquished woolen sportswear littering the playing fields all around it: football jerseys, hockey sweaters, ski jackets, golf pants and the like. Each had long ago succumbed to a tide of manmade textiles boasting superlative stretchiness, stain resistance, insulation, water repellence — innovations that spawned revolutions in sports fashion and fabric terminology alike. (Doubtful that Honus Wagner ever pondered the ‘‘breatheability’’ and ‘‘wicking’’ abilities of his famously rumpled lid.) So it shouldn’t have surprised anyone this winter when Major League Baseball quietly announced it was tossing the wool cap for good. New Era Cap Co., the Buffalo, N.Y.-based manufacturer of baseball’s signature vestment for decades, declared that a new polyester-blend model would debut on opening day. From a business perspective, the immediate impact of the change may only be felt by New Era’s wool suppliers; the larger consequence for wool producers comes in the form of perception. ‘‘It’s significant in the visibility that it’s had,’’ said Rita Samuelson, marketing director for the American Wool Council, a nonprofit association representing U.S. sheep ranchers. ‘‘It was one of the last places in sports where wool was used, and so many people are now hearing that wool is being replaced by high-performance fiber. Samuelson knows of at least one wool producer in Canada that may have to shutter its mill with the decreased demand....
Proposed Texas Body Farm Draws Criticism Plans by Texas State University to create a forensic field laboratory in San Marcos, Texas, have drawn strong opposition from area residents. San Marcos residents allege the facility, which would be used to study the decomposition of human corpses, would draw unwanted attention from area wildlife and possibly contaminate regional rivers, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman said Saturday. Area rancher Harrell Tietjen also said residents were not informed early enough by the college about the creation of the site, which would be the largest of its type in the nation. "When I went to the school up here, it was a place of higher education," he said. "But I think you've gotten so high, you've fallen off." A university spokesman said the site would likely never keep more than 10 bodies at one time and they would be screened for communicable diseases....
Ranchers find increased profits with natural beef Wyoming ranchers are increasingly marketing natural beef - meaning cattle raised on family ranches instead of corporate feedlots - and happy customers around the country are eating it up. "I'm a little guy raising 80 head," said John Sutherland, a Laramie County rancher whose family came to Wyoming in the 1860s. "We're too small to really compete with the big guys, so we need a niche market." Sutherland's family is among a growing number of Wyoming ranchers who are turning to marketing natural beef. The Sutherlands entered the natural beef market two years ago and last year sold 16 of the 74 cattle they raised as natural beef. The USDA regulates the term "natural beef," which means beef raised without the use of hormones or antibiotics. The meat can't contain artificial ingredients and must be minimally processed. It took Sutherland's daughter about 40 hours to fill out the necessary federal paperwork to earn the right to use the term "natural."....
B.'s widow defends herself Already portrayed as a calculating gold digger who manipulated a man mentally crippled by years of alcohol abuse, the widow of South Texas multimillionaire B.K. Johnson took the stand Friday to defend her late husband's will from his children and grandchildren. Accusations of backstabbing and money-grubbing flew inside the packed courtroom, as lawyers asked Laura McAllister Johnson whether she had referred to her stepdaughters as "vile" and "not smart," with children who were "horrible." Yes, she said, indeed she had. Tensions ran high Friday inside Probate Court 1, where the inheritance battle over the King Ranch scion's millions finished its third week. Johnson, a descendent of King Ranch founder Richard King, died in 2001, leaving an estate estimated at more than $40 million — but not to his children. The trial is expected to last up to three months. During the daylong testimony, the lawyer representing the daughters, daughter-in-law and grandchildren of the rancher and businessman known simply as "B." painted Laura Johnson as one who began attending his estate planning meetings even before they married in 1996....
Enid had its outlaws and its tales Nelson Ellsworth Wyatt was a bad guy. He probably was the most written-about bad guy who robbed and killed in the Enid area in the days right after the greatest land run of them all on Sept. 16, 1893. Nelson Ellsworth Wyatt, also was known as Zip Wyatt and Dick Yeager. Nothing is known about Wyatt’s background. He probably made his living stealing horses and selling them, or committing a robbery now and then to support himself. But he was a brawler, too, as well as a killer. He broke out of jail twice at Guthrie; he was involved in a brawl at Mulhall; and he and some friends killed a Kansas sheriff and two settlers who got in their way en route to a hideout. So Wyatt, who might look like a John Wayne-type character with his blue eyes, auburn hair, lean appearance and his Texas drawl, was not one of the nice guys. People, who visited his cell in the Enid jail in August 1895 said he didn’t look like a bad guy, and opined he was not as bad as he was made out to be. There are plenty of stories to the contrary....
Trip to Nevada City takes you back to 1860s You've got to love the place. It has character; it has history; it has local heroes – and it had bad guys. Nevada City, Mont., offers noncommercialized, preserved Old West history at its best. At first, it's a little confusing. This Nevada City is not in the state of Nevada. It was a town of several hundred people whose homes and businesses were leveled in the quest for gold. Yet, there are more than 100 mostly preserved and some restored buildings on the town site. Nevada City was one of a series of towns built along Alder Gulch in what was then Montana Territory. The rush for gold in the 1860s created a demand for mining supplies and services, so a string of towns was mostly thrown together. Other towns along the gulch were Junction City, Adobetown, Central City, Union City, Summit and Virginia City, housing a total population of around 7,000. There was gold – and lots of it. That is where the bad guys come in. These guys were really bad. It is estimated they were responsible for 102 murders and stole $250,000 in gold. They called themselves "The Innocents." One of the bad-guy leaders, Henry Plummer, was elected sheriff. Nevada City was a stronghold for Plummer and his gang. Enter the good guys. In 1863, the townsfolk had had enough and put together a vigilante group called "The Stranglers," who took their name seriously. During 1863, they hanged 23 of the robbers and murderers and ran the rest out of town....