NEWS ROUNDUP

1,000 New Fires Blaze Across West International wildfire crews could be called to help fight blazes in the bone-dry West as U.S. officials on Wednesday boosted the nation's wildfire alert to its highest level. "It's driven by a couple of things: The number of large fires we have, and also the fires are occurring in several states and in several geographic areas," Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center here, told The Associated Press. "The resources we have are being stretched thin." The wildfire preparedness level was raised to five as dry lightning blasted and sparked dozens of new blazes in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah, where firefighters have been stretched thin by nearly 70 fires bigger than 100 acres burning in 12 states. National Guard units also could be mobilized under new level. Since Monday, there have been more than 1,000 new fires reported across the West, Eardley said....
Ranchers, wilderness advocates lock horns Events Thursday showed at least two distinctive camps have formed in a debate over land use for Dona Ana County: those who want a federally designated wilderness area and those who don't. Ranchers, an off-highway vehicle club and a sportsmen's group highlighted their concerns during a news conference early Thursday afternoon at the New Mexico Farm Bureau Center. Among their fears are that the federal designation will cut off access to the land and hurt ranchers' ability to make a living. Ranchers part of a group called People For Preserving Our Western Heritage were quick to say they're not opposed to protecting federal lands in the county that are being considered for wilderness. Rather, they said, Congress should protect the lands by taking away their potential to be developed. "The ranchers are for protection of these lands, but they believe they have a better way to do it by withdrawing these lands from disposal," said Frank DuBois, a former secretary for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. "If you designate wilderness, you're going to limit these ranchers' ability to maintain improvements," he said, referring to structures such as windmills. Ranchers hold grazing leases on much of the federal land being considered for wilderness a designation that prohibits most mechanized travel. DuBois said the designation could also lead to more restrictions on grazing and accessing land....
Let's hope state resource managers learn from this summer's wildfires Ranchers can often be taciturn while possessing the ability to put complicated ecological principles into simple plain talk. Such was the case last week with Pete Yardley, a Beaver rancher who lost cattle and feed to the blaze that scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in Millard and Beaver counties. He made two cogent points. First, he wondered why there were no controlled burns in this area over the past 10 years to improve habitat for domestic livestock and many wildlife species. Such controlled burns may not have prevented the wildfire in this extraordinarily dry summer, but damages may have been more limited. Second, Yardley said that in two years, the fire could make this land much more valuable than it is now. The logic, put out by another worker in the area, is that fewer trees mean more grass, which is good for domestic livestock and wildlife. But that point remains in question. The Milford Flat fire was so large that it is going to be all but impossible for state and federal ecologists and land managers to reseed the land with native plant species, which would provide good food for livestock and wildlife while helping keep out the invasive cheat grass that will fuel future fires....
Officials: Pinon Expansion Will Cut Cattle Herds Officials say that if the Army's Pinon Canyon expansion plan was in place, they would not have been able to run as many cattle as they did during a drought-impacted time last year. The Colorado State University Extension office says ranchers in Las Animas County ran 51,000 cattle, about two-thirds the average size of their herd. If the Army had taken the land it wants, they would have only been able to run 41,000 cattle. County's extension agent Dean Oatman said that would have meant a loss of $6 million in cattle sales. And he said he's being conservative in estimating that the loss would have only been 10,000 head. He said ranchers normally would have run a third more cattle, but drought conditions forced them to reduce their herds.
Environmental Defense Warns About Conservation Spending In a statement published on Tuesday, Environmental Defense said that the latest plan being put before the House of Representatives' Agricultural Committee does not do enough to meet the needs of most farmers or the environment. In the proposal, USDA spending on conservation measures would only increase by $3 billion over the next five years. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and the Bush Administration have given estimates on conservation spending needs that greatly surpass that amount. Environmental Defense says that its analysis shows numerous farmers and ranchers whose representatives are sitting in Congress would benefit significantly more if Congress drastically reduced farm subsidies and rewarded environmental stewardship instead of merely voting "the status quo". The call for reductions in U.S. government farm subsidies does not begin or end with this matter. Foreign nations including Canada have repeatedly said that the United States is in violation of its World Trade Organization cap on farm subsidizing and that American farmers are so heavily subsidized that their exports distort the world market and make competition almost impossible....
Can state order ditches? Landowner advocates say they're alarmed at a proposal tinkering with the state's use of eminent domain powers. State Engineer Patrick Tyrrell wants to accommodate the surface discharge of groundwater in the oil and gas industry by ordering ditching and other reconstruction where ephemeral stream channels disappear into wide pastures. The idea builds on case law in which private companies have pointed to the state's water easement authority to force coal-bed methane water onto private property. Ditching, Tyrrell said, comes from the state's right to order drainage works. In the same way, the state can order in capacity of a natural channel. In its written comments to the task force, the Powder River Basin Resource Council said the state engineer's proposal does nothing to protect landowners. "Our overall concern with the proposals of the state engineer to convert ephemeral drainages into perennial CBM ditches is that it allows lands to be destroyed without just compensation to landowners," said the group's chairman, Bob LeResche. Moreover, the measure doesn't seem to be in keeping with the intent of Wyoming's eminent domain laws, he said....
State looks to curtail home building in fire-prone areas Bone-dry conditions and large amounts of brush threaten increasing numbers of homes near wild land, officials told a legislative committee Wednesday. A lawmaker, meanwhile, left open the possibility that the Legislature would step in if cities and counties did not do more to restrict development in fire-prone places. Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-San Barbara, compared local government's allowing homes in high-fire risk areas to allowing homes in flood plains -- something the Legislature has tried to curtail. In Riverside County 4,500 miles of homes line fire-prone chaparral and forests, an increase of 1,000 miles from 15 years ago, said Thomas Scott, associate director of UC Riverside's Center for Conservation Biology. Earlier this month, Riverside County officials recommended sweeping land-use changes to restrict home construction in fire-prone places....
Study Pinpoints How Humans and Urban Sprawl Influence California Fire Regimes A new study quantifies how distribution of housing developments and the kinds of fire fuels at the wildland-urban interface can help predict fires in California, a state that experiences monumental fire hazards. The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oregon State University, Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S. Geological Survey confirms some assumptions but also contains some surprises. Published in the July issue of Ecological Applications, the study underscores the importance of using human as well as biological and physical factors to assess fire risk. The scientists weren't surprised when their research documented that increasing human settlement is exacerbating fire hazard in California. However, what was initially more startling to the authors is that their research also revealed that fire ignitions progressively declined after human population and development reached a threshold density. The authors suggest this finding is likely the result of diminished and fragmented open space containing insufficient fuels (for example, shrubs and other vegetation) to sustain fire in highly populated areas. In addition, the researchers noted that above a certain population threshold, fire suppression resources, such as fire engine crews, are likely to be more concentrated at the wildland-urban interface....
Leases on 300K acres protested Conservation groups have filed another round of protests against Bureau of Land Management oil and gas sales, targeting leases to be auctioned later this month on almost 300,000 acres in central and southern Montana. The BLM has faced mounting pressure in recent months from state wildlife officials, researchers and private groups that say the agency is opening public land to drilling without adequate safeguards for wildlife. The latest protests challenge 127 leases south of the Fort Peck Reservoir in Garfield and McCone counties and six in Clark County near the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone River. They were filed by the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers and Trout Unlimited. The groups say the leases in Garfield and McCone counties lack suitable protection for sage grouse, elk, pronghorn and mule deer. The Clark County protests, filed by Trout Unlimited, were over potential effects of oil and gas development on Yellowstone cutthroat trout....
Spotted owl saga not over For the past year, Dominick DellaSala has been part of a 12-member team charged with creating a recovery plan for the northern spotted owl. Now a draft of the recovery plan has been released to the public, and he has become one of that plan’s most outspoken critics. It seems that the spotted owl, which was so controversial in the 1990s, is still a magnet for conflict. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public input on the new draft recovery plan for the spotted owl. “It’s probably the most significant hearing that we’ve had on the spotted owl in over a decade,” says Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland. But before the public can voice an opinion, it needs to understand the draft plan and its implications, which is no mean feat....
Harvesting the Secret Gardens Last week, an unprecedented collaboration among federal, state, and local agencies began a well-publicized blitz campaign in northern California’s Shasta County to root out illegal marijuana gardens hidden in national parks and forests – a phenomenon that occurs statewide and is partly the result of stepped-up eradication efforts and tighter border security. At a news conference in Redding, officials involved in what is known as Operation Alesia trumpeted the successes of the three-tiered campaign, which involves at least 400 people from Shasta County law enforcement, the National Guard, and 15 other agencies. Officials say most pot gardens are run by organized Mexican drug cartels who are armed and pose a threat to the public, citing instances in which passersby were threatened and shotgun-rigged booby traps were discovered. Law enforcement groups say 80 percent of the environmentally intrusive marijuana gardens are located on public lands, often near recreational hunting and fishing areas, where growers can run water into remote areas through irrigation piping. Only 20 percent of gardens on public lands are found and eradicated, Odle says....
Flesh-eating bacteria put man's life at risk A Nacogdoches man who was infected by flesh-eating bacteria while swimming off Galveston County's Crystal Beach still faces the threat of losing a leg — and possibly his life — despite three surgeries. Steve Gilpatrick is fighting necrotizing fasciitis, a tissue-destroying disease caused by a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus. The retired oil company marketing consultant also is suffering from multiple organ failure because the disease has caused a blood infection, his physician said Tuesday. Gilpatrick, 58, was listed in critical but stable condition. The bacterium thrives in warm salt water and is most prevalent during summer months. Gilpatrick's wife, Linda, said she and her husband routinely vacation in Galveston each summer....