NEWS ROUNDUP

Udall puts limits on Army plans for Pinon Canyon Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., jumped into the controversy over the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site by attaching a ban on the use of eminent domain, plus a list of restrictive requirements on any future expansion, to the Pentagon's 2008 budget authorization bill Wednesday night. Udall put the Pinon Canyon amendment on the budget authorization bill during a full-committee meeting. His amendment comes on the heels of Gov. Bill Ritter signing legislation earlier this month to deny state approval for the Army to use eminent domain to expand the 238,000-acre training site southwest of La Junta. Still, Udall's amendment would have the effect of restricting how the Army could expand the training site. He has also asked the full committee for a hearing on the proposed expansion. Saying the full committee is not prepared to block the expansion at this time, Udall said his amendment sends the Army a warning that Congress expects any expansion to protect the regional economy and environment. The amendment, however, was criticized by the coalition of ranchers and others opposed to the expansion because it authorizes the Army's planning to go forward, even with restrictions. Lon Robertson, president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, said Udall was engaging in "double speak" by setting out limits on what is still an authorization bill for the Army's expansion plans. He said Ritter and the General Assembly have made it clear they oppose the expansion. "What part of 'no' doesn't Mark Udall understand?" Robertson said in a statement....
Conservationists: Thune plays politics with ferrets Efforts in South Dakota to restore the black-footed ferret have provoked two possible lawsuits and pulled Sen. John Thune into a national debate over political influence on endangered species biology. In April, Thune helped delay ferret reintroduction at Wind Cave National Park by writing to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. And last year, Thune pushed the U.S. Forest Service to consider poisoning more prairie dogs at a successful reintroduction site in the Conata Basin, south of Wall. Black-footed ferrets do not bother ranchers directly, but they eat almost nothing but prairie dogs. That ties the very rare predator to the fate of its abundant, controversial prey. "What's more important, ferrets or people?" said Rick Fox of Hermosa, summing up the position of West River ranchers, most of whom see prairie dogs as a blight on their cattle range. Fox is president of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, which is considering a lawsuit to stop the Wind Cave reintroduction. The debate has flared up just as new evidence emerges of political tampering with biological findings elsewhere in the U.S. Some conservationists say Thune has improperly used his influence, but Thune said he is simply advocating for his constituents....
Groups ask for suspension of wolf control policy More than two dozen conservation groups have asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to suspend a policy that they say is undermining the endangered Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program in New Mexico and Arizona. The policy in question sets guidelines for dealing with wolves that prey on livestock. After three confirmed depredations in a certain period, officials with the reintroduction program can permanently remove a wolf from the wild, either by capturing it or using lethal means. "This wolf-destroying policy is a pox on the lobo," Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity said Wednesday. "But unlike parvovirus or distemper, (the policy) is a bureaucratic affliction." The conservation groups say the wolf control policy _ known as SOP 13 _ doesn't take into account the wolf's genetic value, its social relationship with other pack members, its reproductive status or other factors. In a letter sent Wednesday to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the groups argue that enforcement of the policy threatens to eliminate at least two wolf packs currently in the wild. The letter asks that the policy be temporarily suspended until the agency has more than 100 wolves, including 18 breeding pairs, in the wild....Go here(pdf) to read the letter.
Cow Slaughtering Wolf Pack Squats On Private Land - No Wilderness in Sight fter leaving the wilderness more than a week ago the Durango wolf pack continues to travel on and near private land. In our last update of the Killer Mexican Wolf Durango Pack, it was clear that US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), AZ Game and Fish and NM Department of Game and Fish members working on the wolf program were NOT providing local residents information as to the Durango Pack locations. The official statement, was that they could not get signals on the Durango Mexican wolves in the area. Sometimes people were told by wolf Management personnel, that the Durango wolves are more than 10 miles away. Yet the flight reports pin point these wolves again, in and around private land. This flight report puts these wolves only 7 miles from the cow calf kill on 4/30/2007. This location could be on the private land at Bear Springs and large pieces of private land are only 1.2 miles to the west. This latest flight location is only 7.5 mile trot from the last sighting on a day earlier. A short stroll for a wolf....
Forest Service closes most roads on Eberts Ranch For now, there's only one road for driving around the newest public land in North Dakota. The U.S. Forest Service, which completed its purchase of the 5,200-acre Eberts Ranch north of Medora last month, has closed off all but the main Billings County road until further notice. A series of other scoria roads, mainly to service oil wells on the ranch land, will be posted prohibiting motorized travel. Access on those roads and the ranch acres by foot, bicycle and horse and for permitted uses like grazing and oil service, will be allowed. Forest Service supervisor Dave Pieper said the restrictions are for public safety and to protect the area. The restrictions will remain in place until the Forest Service develops a plan to manage the ranch. It plans to hold public meetings to get citizen ideas for using the property, which consists of Badlands pasture acreage, the Eberts ranch headquarters buildings and frontage along the Little Missouri River. The ranch is crossed by the agency's popular Maah Daah Hey Trail....
Editorial - Public roadless lands in limbo Gov. Bill Ritter's heart is in the right place on protecting Colorado's 4.1 million acres of roadless public forests. But for the moment - and it could be a very long moment - he's little more than a bystander in the lengthy battle over 59 million roadless acres nationwide. Last month Ritter wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, requesting some tightening up of a roadless area protection plan sent to Washington last November by then-Gov. Bill Owens. Owens' proposal basically incorporated the recommendations of the broad-based Colorado Roadless Area Review Task Force, which sought protection of most roadless national forest lands. It was a sound process, based on extensive study and public comment. The USDA oversees the Forest Service and Ritter asked for some improvements in the plan, including additional road restrictions in some western Colorado coal-mining areas, guaranteed involvement in the process for state agencies and, most importantly, a guarantee that roadless areas would be protected while government review was underway. Ritter's plan has been criticized by some environmental groups, but it is basically sound. The Owens and Ritter proposals followed the direction of a 2005 federal policy that gave individual states the responsibility to develop roadless plans for federal review. But, that process is on ice because of federal court action....
Bison advocate charged with felony A member of a bison advocacy group was charged Thursday with felony criminal endangerment after an incident during a hazing effort north of West Yellowstone on Highway 191. The arrests shattered several years of cooperation between law enforcement and the advocacy group, which is committed to documenting government treatment of bison outside Yellowstone Park. Members of the group and a Montana Highway Patrol official gave different accounts of the incident. A spokeswoman for the Buffalo Field Campaign said Peter Bogusko pleaded not guilty to the felony charge and a misdemeanor charge of obstructing during an initial court appearance Thursday in Gallatin County. Efforts were being made Thursday afternoon to post a $3,000 bond set in the case, said Stephany Seay, the spokeswoman. Bogusko and fellow BFC member Dan Brister were arrested about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday as state and federal officials were pushing about 300 bison back into Yellowstone Park. Brister, a longtime member of the advocacy group, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and obstructing an officer....
Editorial - BLM appears to ignore the rules it doesn't like A plan to allow a mining lease near Mount St. Helens has us steaming like a volcano. In March, the Bureau of Land Management issued a preliminary hardrock mineral lease to Idaho General Mines for land on the northeastern edge of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. The lease, which can't be finalized until Monday, when a two-month public comment period ends, would give Idaho General Mines the right to apply for permits to begin mining. The 217-acre site was purchased by the U.S. Forest Service with the intent of preserving the Green River. Sen. Maria Cantwell has called on the BLM to reconsider its plans. In a letter to BLM Acting Director Jim Hughes, Cantwell noted that the Forest Service purchased the land using Land and Water Conservation Funds, which are appropriated by Congress for conservation and recreation purposes. Apparently the BLM doesn't understand that mining doesn't fall under either of those categories. The BLM's lack of respect for citizens, the land and the law is beyond arrogance. That it ignores its own environmental assessment appears par for the course....
New bill seeks royalties from mineral mines A key House chairman introduced legislation Thursday to overhaul the 1872 mining law and require companies to pay an 8 percent royalty on gold, uranium and other minerals taken from public lands. The CEO of Tiffany & Co. joined two lawmakers in announcing the legislation, which has the support of a coalition of taxpayer groups, conservationists and sportsmen. Proponents say they have the best chance in more than a decade to push through a bill, which they hope to do by next year. The National Mining Association expressed willingness to work on reforms but objected to some parts of the bill. The group said royalties may not be the best way to ensure a fair return to taxpayers. A key Republican also raised concerns over jobs. The legislation would overhaul the General Mining Law of 1872. House Natural Resources Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the bill's main sponsor, noted that Custer's Last Stand was still four years away when the original legislation passed. "It is far past the time for responsible reform of the Jurassic Park of all federal laws," he said....
ORV scars being erased It's been an uphill battle — literally — but after three years of hard work, the U.S. Forest Service is starting to see progress in repairing the hills above Pleasant Grove and Lindon. There, the scars left by rampant, illegal off-road vehicle use in the Dry Canyon trail area of the Uinta Forest are slowly being erased and replaced with erosion blankets and freshly sprouted native grasses. The fading dirt tracks — which previously sprawled 13 miles across the mountainside — and the efforts to restore the area are the result of a collaborative effort among volunteers, the Uinta National Forest, neighboring cities, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and other governmental agencies. It's taken boulders, barricades and at least $200,000 to have an impact on this ground, and the battle is not over yet, says Pam Gardner, Pleasant Grove District Ranger. "I think a lot of (people who illegally ride off-road with their vehicles) don't realize the impacts they have," Gardner said. "A lot of people think (the vegetation) will grow right back, but this is a really fragile environment, and it's not very resilient to impacts. The scars just open the door for weeds."....
Residents sound off on forest rules A work session held by the U.S. Forest Service Thursday in Alamogordo to gather public input on proposed changes to its motor vehicle use policy turned occasionally nasty Thursday. Several people in attendance loudly admonished Forest Service personnel, accusing them of poor management that has led to a high fire danger in the Sacramento Mountains. "What are you doing about the forest that is dying and has been dying for years?" asked Gwinna Reese, referring to insect infestations in the Lincoln National Forest that are believed to have increased the fire danger. Attendees also accused the Forest Service of having already made their decision about road closures and camping restrictions, and the work session amounted to a humoring of the crowd. "Go to a table and talk to anyone you want," said Reese. "It doesn't matter." Joseph Garcia of the Forest Service denied that the issue has already been decided. Jacqueline Buchanan, deputy forest supervisor, said public input was required by federal law. Some went as far as to blame the current problems facing the wooded areas around Cloudcroft and Timberon on the meddling of "tree huggers," liberals and other assorted environmentalists who insist on saving the Mexican spotted owl at the expense of those who live in the forest and their rights as citizens....
Houses sprouting in the hot zone he last time the kindling hills over this Southern California boomtown burned they stoked a fire so hot it raged for more than a week and incinerated nearly 1,000 homes. Now they're ready to burn again. "It could happen this year," says Tom O'Keefe, a chief in California's state fire department. "It will burn again. We just don't know when." That certainty hasn't stopped houses from sprouting along the slopes that rise above Highland and other towns around San Bernardino and Riverside, Calif. Nowhere has the West's migration to areas beset by frequent wildfires been more rapid. Misty McWaters-Agrawal says she at first resisted looking at houses in the San Bernardino foothills, in part because of the area's wildfire reputation. But in November, she moved with her husband to a new house on a steep Highland hillside. In the end, she says, the neighborhood's affordability and its twinkling nighttime views of the Los Angeles suburbs won out. "It still freaks me out," she says of the potential danger, "but it's worth the trade-off."....
Environmental film fest debuts in Boise Documentaries are more popular than ever, and films with nature and environmental themes have helped spur the boom. Just look at Al Gore's global warming opus "An Inconvenient Truth," which won two Oscars earlier this year, including best documentary. The environmental film genre even has its own international festival, Planet in Focus. In addition to the annual festival in Toronto, Planet in Focus tours films and offers them to groups for special events. On Saturday, six short films from the festival, along with three additional environmental movies, will be screened during the Land Trust of the Treasure Valley's first annual Planet in Focus Film Festival. Originally screened between 2004 and 2006, the Planet in Focus films include a rare showdown between a spider and a bee, a look at the rise of organic farming in California and a post-apocalyptic animated allegory about the resilience of nature....
Rural Land Institute works for the family A relatively new non-profit with a small staff is creating programs it hopes will help sustain family-scale farms and ranches in the Northern Plains and Northern Rockies. Backers of the Bozeman-based Rural Landscape Institute are especially high on a new informational DVD called "Path to Eden." With commentary by former NBC anchor and Montana property owner Tom Brokaw, it offers new out-of-state landowners advice on the challenges, responsibilities and opportunities of rural land ownership, including being good neighbors. Among other promising ideas in the works: putting together a college curriculum of the more varied skills that today's ranch managers must know, and creating an agri-tourism Web site and resource center to help working farmers and ranchers connect with tourists who want to spend a few days working as real producers. Friends Bill Cook and Bill Bryan began working together informally in 1972 on issues involving the plight of small farmers and ranchers in the West. Cook owns ranches near Belgrade and in California and Arizona, while Bryan is involved in agri-tourism and founded Off the Beaten Path, which specializes in custom trips to the Rocky Mountain West....
Climate change will bring scorching summers, NASA scientists say NASA scientists predict average summer temperatures in the eastern United States will rise as much as five degrees Celsius by the 2080s as a result of global warming from rising amounts of greenhouse gases. The study's climate model predicts temperatures in the region higher than those predicted by global models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said temperatures would rise between two and 3.5 degrees C in the same region by 2100. This difference in predicted temperature is in large part because the NASA model takes into account the variation of rainfall in the region, said lead author Barry Lynn of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies....
Bush and Democrats in Accord on Trade Deals The Bush administration reached agreement on Thursday with the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats to attach environmental and worker protections in several pending trade accords, clearing the way for early passage of some pacts and improving prospects for others. The unusual agreement, which came after weeks of negotiations, would guarantee workers the right to organize, ban child labor and prohibit forced labor in trading-partner countries. It would also require trading partners to enforce environmental laws already on their books and comply with several international environmental agreements. While the understanding was a victory for Democrats, it also represented a shrewd compromise by the White House. The agreement is the first major bipartisan economic deal to emerge since Democrats took control of Congress in January. It has immediate importance for four countries — Colombia, Panama, Peru and South Korea — that are seeking to enter into trade pacts with the United States. But officials in Washington predicted that the agreement’s effect would go beyond those countries and could be a template for all trade deals, including a possible worldwide accord....
Johanns Outlines 2007 Farm Bill Proposals to Expand, Improve Trade Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today described the Administration's farm bill proposals regarding international trade, pointing out that the trade provisions complement the entire farm bill package. "During the Farm Bill Forums many participants voiced concern about interests from other parts of the world attempting to set our farm policy. We believe that the proposals we have put forward will put American agriculture on a more competitive footing for years to come," Johanns told the World Agricultural Forum. "The proposed changes to our commodity programs reduce trade distorting support. These initiatives stand on their own merits but they will also put U.S. producers in a more secure position under international trade rules," he said. The Administration's proposals for trade would increase funding for the Market Access Program; target funds to boost international markets for specialty crops; increase the U.S. presence within international trade standard-setting organizations; provide additional tools to respond to unfair trade practices and strengthen our efforts to revitalize the agricultural sectors in fragile regions. In addition, they would also give us new flexibility when delivering international food aid in emergencies by providing the authority to use up to 25 percent of Public Law 480 (P.L. 480) Title II funds to make cash purchases of food near the site of a food crisis....
Senators want halt to ag program cuts U.S. negotiators should refrain from trading more cuts in domestic farm programs for a Doha Round agreement that offers little increased market access for U.S. agricultural products, a majority of the U.S. Senate says. The Bush administration is on record opposing such a move, but reports say the subject has arisen again as the U.S. Trade Representative tried to help revive the stalled World Trade Organization talks. The reports prompted a bipartisan group of 58 senators to sign a letter urging the White House to reject such a proposal. “We cannot support a deal that directly reduces new farm income through steep cuts in farm programs in return for minimal market access gains whose effect on farm gate receipts would be speculative at the best,” according to the April 16 letter, written by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Disagreements over market access, one of the three “pillars” of the Doha negotiations, led to the suspension of the Round in Geneva, Switzerland, last summer. Administration officials had proposed a 60-percent reduction in U.S. farm subsidies, but the European Union and India refused to make more than token reductions in trade barriers....
No Danger From Young Cows Infected With BSE, Japanese Claim Japanese experts have concluded that their tests failed to demonstrate that young cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy posed any danger to humans, according to what Kyodo News called "informed sources." Representing Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the team injected 11 mice with brain fluid extracted from two young BSE-infected cows in Japan and discovered that the rodents had not developed the disease up to 927 days after the injection, the sources said. The 21- and 23-month-old cows were found to have been infected with BSE in 2003, prompting Tokyo to limit imports of U.S. beef to meat from cattle younger than 21 months old. With these results, Japanese officials apparently are bracing for pressure from the United States to raise the age limit to 30 months of age, a threshold already deemed safe by the World Organization for Animal Health and adopted by many nations....
For Tooele ranchers, roundup is chance to reaffirm connections to the past But it's pretty easy to block all that out and focus on the sounds of meadowlarks mixing with the sounds of lowing cattle. You can look across the field, up toward Deseret Peak, and see maybe 15 or 20 guys on horseback tending the herd. From a distance, they look just like any cowboys you've seen in the old Westerns. When it's time to get moving, a few "Hi-yees" echo in the air, and the herd begins to amble on down the length of the field to the pens. A few of the animals take off in different directions and must be chased down, but for the most part, the herd moves on to the cadence of anxious mamas calling to their calves and the yells of the cowboys. It is spring roundup time on the Clegg family ranch. They are continuing a tradition that has existed in these parts for more than a century and in this family for several generations. You don't want to romanticize it too much, because it is obviously hot, dusty, hard work. Yet, it is hard not to see those connections to the past, to see in these modern-day, real-life cowboys a larger-than-life element. For the Cleggs, spring roundup is when the cattle that have wintered on the Grantsville Soil Conservation District on the other side of the valley are gathered up and brought in so calves can be branded, ear-marked, vaccinated, castrated or otherwise taken care of, and then the herd can be moved onto the summer range — some locally, some in Wyoming....
Quanah Parker made tribe’s transition ‘on his terms’ Quanah Parker was the last Chief of the Comanche Indians. He never lost a battle with the white man. The life of Quanah Parker is the story of a remarkable man who made the transition from Indian life to that of the white man but on his own terms. He was the son of Comanche Chief Pete Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker. His mother was white and taken captive as a child of nine in 1836 when Comanches raided a settlement calleda Parker’s Fort in east central Texas. In time she accepted the Indian’s way of life and became the wife of Chief Nocona as a teenager. Soon she gave birth to a boy who was named Quanah after the fragrance of flowers. He was the first of three children she bore. Exactly when Quanah was born is unknown, but it was between 1845 and 1852. He grew into a strong man and capable warrior. In the early 1860s, however, Texas Rangers rode into the Indian’s camp on the Pease River innorthwest Texas, while the Indian men were away. Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter Prairie Flower were taken to Fort Cooper....