NEWS ROUNDUP

Cartels grow pot on 'national treasures' Marijuana cultivation on public land in the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar business, run by Mexican drug cartels and guarded by heavily armed members of U.S.-based street gangs and Mexican nationals, says the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "Our national treasures are now ground zero for international and domestic drug cultivation and trafficking," said drug czar John P. Walters. Mr. Walters made his comments last week during Operation Alesia, a multiagency marijuana-eradication initiative in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, the largest national forest in California. Coordinated by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office with the support of the California National Guard, the weeklong operation involved 17 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies. He said California's public lands are exceptionally vulnerable, adding that nine out of the top 10 marijuana-producing sites are found in that state and that 57 percent of all marijuana produced on public land in the U.S. is grown in California....
Report: 'Dead Zone' Growing in Gulf Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles - its largest in at least 22 years. The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen from the Mississippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico. It discounts the effect storms might have. The "dead zone" in the northern Gulf, at the end of the Mississippi River system, is one of the largest areas of oxygen-depleted coastal waters in the world. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, can be caused by pollution from farm fertilizer, soil erosion and discharge from sewage treatment plants, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The pollution is carried downstream by the Mississippi and comes from throughout the U.S....
Weld County residents oppose uranium plans The soaring price of uranium and plans for scores of new nuclear power plants are driving a controversial plan for a Front Range uranium mine.
Powertech Uranium Corp. is proposing a 5,760-acre development in western Weld County that eventually could produce 8 million pounds of the nuclear fuel. At the current price of $129 a pound, the operation could generate $1 billion in revenue. Yet the $20 million proposal has generated strong opposition from northern Colorado landowners who fear environmental damage and health problems from the mine. The company is proposing a mining process known as "in-situ" in which a solvent solution is injected underground to dissolve uranium and pump it to the surface. The process is safer and less invasive than traditional open-pit or underground mining, said Richard Blubaugh, vice president of environmental health and safety resources for Powertech. Nunn cattle rancher Daryl Burkhart is not convinced by Powertech's claims. "I'm worried about cancer and about them messing with my water and destroying my aquifer," he said. "It's a health risk getting that uranium out, and once you've done it, you've got a poison that you can never get rid of."....
Oil drilling fears erupt in Galisteo, Cerrillos More than 6,000 acres of state mineral rights plus at least 54,000 acres of private mineral rights in southern Santa Fe County, between Cerrillos and Galisteo, have been leased for petroleum exploration, causing worries of an oil boom that might pollute the environment. Concerned residents are meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at Eldorado Community Center to hear from Tweeti Blancett, an Aztec rancher who will talk about how oil and gas exploration has harmed her ranch. Johnny Micou, who lives between Cerrillos and Galisteo, said he and his wife learned about the exploration by Tecton Energy of Houston in April after seeing several petroleum-drilling trucks near their home. Micou said they formed Drilling Santa Fe and created a Web site at drillingsantafe.com ``to at least bring to light that Santa Fe County has thousands of acres leased for drilling, exploration and then maybe development. ``Some of those areas are highly sensitive areas, such as water aquifers or archaeological sites,'' he said. ``It's something that this county has really not been up against before.''....
The changes to come Global warming discussions usually focus on the dramatic, catastrophic changes that are taking place in faraway places. Glaciers at the top of the world receding at alarming rates, or computer simulators showing heavily populated seacoasts battered by hurricanes and engulfed by rising seas. But what about right here on the rangelands of Wyoming? Will noxious weeds, unpalatable to livestock and wildlife, take over the state's grasslands? Or will native grasses flourish? Will droughts become more frequent? At this point no one knows for sure. This summer on the hot, windswept prairie a few miles outside of Cheyenne, scientists and students from the University of Wyoming are down on their knees searching in the grass for answers. The scientists' outdoor laboratory is on a plot of United States Department of Agriculture property called PHACE, short for the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment experiment. Here scientists are manipulating circular plots of prairie grass to simulate the atmospheric conditions expected to exist at the end of the century. Fxpected decades from now are warmer temperatures and elevated levels of carbon dioxide, up from today's CO2 levels in the air of 380 parts per billion to 600 parts per billion. Heaters surround some of the circular plots of grass, while others are gassed with extra doses of CO2. Some plots receive both treatments. Control groups receive neither. Some are watered, some are not. By monitoring the rangeland's response to these manipulations, scientists may be able to help Wyoming's ranchers, land managers, wildlife agencies and everyday people prepare for the future....
Pueblo chamber backs Army studies of Pinon Canyon The Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce has weighed in on the debate over the Army's planned expansion of its Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, sending a letter to Colorado's senators that urges them to permit the initial Army studies to go forward. Rod Slyhoff, the chamber president, said the board's June 20 letter urges Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., to remove an amendment to the 2008 military construction appropriations bill that would prohibit the Army from spending any money on the expansion next year. Slyhoff said the chamber is not taking a position yet on the 414,000-acre expansion, but wants the Army to go forward with its environmental and economic impact studies, which are the first steps in its land acquisition process. Reps. John Salazar, D-Colo., and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., put that amendment on the House version of the military construction bill in June on an overwhelming vote of 383 to 34....Another fine example of urban businessmen. Use eminent domain to take private property, destroy the living of rural residents and relinquish the culture and customs they and their families bring to the area. All so they can rake in a little more cash at their stores, restaurants and bars. Do they really think they can build a more vibrant economy by growing the presence of the federal government in their community? May they rue the day they violated solid principle and turned on their neighbors. And let's not forget the sorry role of the military in turning one group of individuals against another.
Tahoe officials: Rehab efforts inadequate Emergency restoration plans by the U.S. Forest Service for areas burned by the disastrous Angora Fire fail to adequately protect homes, a high school and Lake Tahoe's sensitive environment, South Lake Tahoe officials said Monday. City officials are concerned that rainfall could cause debris flows, threatening city property where it abuts national forest land burned by the fire. Last week, the Forest Service issued a report detailing nearly $2.2 million in emergency erosion control improvements believed necessary to offset immediate erosion problems in the burn area. They don't go far enough, said South Lake Tahoe City Manager David Jinkens. "It's not going to handle the runoff," Jinkens said. "We don't think the current plan will handle the runoff that's expected." In a letter to Terri Marceron, supervisor of the Forest Service's Lake Tahoe unit, city Public Works Director John Greenhut identified four specific areas of concern....
Judge: Science on coho ignored It seemed like a rare good-news story for Northwest salmon: a Democratic governor rallies industry to help a troubled species, a supportive Republican White House hands the reins to the state, and happily, salmon numbers bounce back. The only problem: A federal judge concluded Friday that the story of Oregon coast coho was based on smoke and mirrors. The only evidence things are looking up for the salmon was a faulty analysis by Oregon officials that federal scientists said "does not meet the red face test," the judge said. Although federal biologists warned that Oregon's analysis had serious flaws, the Bush administration used that analysis to drop Endangered Species Act protections for the coho, leaving the state in charge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart concluded. Stewart found that the Bush administration's decision was illegal because it ignored the best available science about what's really happening to coho -- which is not as rosy as Oregon suggested....
Stanley activist wants wolves out of Idaho Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Not Ron Gillett, though he wants the creature removed from Idaho. An outdoor outfitter from Stanley and anti-wolf activist, Gillett is leading a campaign to rid the state of Canadian gray wolves. He's traveling to each of Idaho's 44 counties, urging commissioners to pass resolutions that endorse wolf removal. Gillett said wolves ravage Idaho's elk population, drive hunters from the state and cost businesses money when the hunters disappear. He met Monday with commissioners in Jerome and Twin Falls counties - the seventh and eighth stops on his campaign - and gave a passionate presentation about what he calls "the most cruel predator in North America." Commissioners in Jerome County seemed interested in Gillett's proposal, agreeing to table the issue until they could gather more information. Twin Falls commissioners indicated wolves were a non-issue....
Biggest water idea in decades? Aaron Million’s idea to pump water from Utah and Wyoming to the Front Range was the first major new water idea in several decades in Colorado. The reception has been polite, if in some cases skeptical. The water committee for Club 20, the Western Slope advocacy group, gave Million a friendly reception this winter. In May, The Denver Post lent an editorial pat-on-the-back. Without mentioning Million’s project, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregg Hobbes agreed with the concept of additional storage as an answer to global warming-induced drought. But Million’s plan has also been met by what Ed Quillen, publisher of a Salida-based magazine called Colorado Central, calls hostility. He believes that major water organizations see Million invading what they consider to be their turf. Nearly all water projects of the last century were conceived by public or quasi-public agencies. Million’s is essentially a private venture....
Congress Will Hold Hearing on Cheney’s Role in Klamath Fish Kill Representative Nick Rahall (D-West Virginia), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, will convene an oversight hearing on the role that Vice President Dick Cheney played in Klamath River Basin decisions leading to the Klamath fish kill of 2002. The hearing is set for July 31 in Washington D.C. As reported in the Washington Post article, “Leaving No Tracks,” by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman on June 27, Cheney's intervention in the development of a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River resulted in a September 2002 die-off of an estimated 68,000 to 80,000 adult salmon in the lower Klamath - the largest fish kill in U.S. history. The cutoff of water was made in spite of evidence from state, federal, tribal and independent scientists that a fish kill was imminent in September because of low, warm water conditions that prevailed in the river when the salmon began their annual migration upriver. In the spring of 2002, hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon and steelhead perished because of the low flows and high water temperatures as the fish moved downriver....
Chunk of state water may be cut The state's water supply could be cut dramatically under a plan submitted last week to address California's increasingly chaotic Delta-based water system. The proposal filed in federal court sent shudders through water agencies from the Bay Area to Southern California, where surprised planners late in the week were still trying to figure out how dire its effects might be. The state Department of Water Resources said the plan could reduce water deliveries out of the Delta by more than one-third in a year of average rain and snow. "These impacts are dramatic," said the department's deputy director, Jerry Johns. "This is absolutely phenomenal." At the forefront of that crisis is the Delta smelt, a tiny imperiled fish whose numbers have collapsed repeatedly to lower and lower levels. In a declaration filed last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top endangered species regulator in California linked the collapse of Delta smelt with the increase in water pumping out of the Delta that began in 2000. Steve Thompson acknowledged other factors could also be contributing to the ecological crisis and added that evidence linking increased water deliveries and the collapse of fish populations remains circumstantial....
He can dig it: dog knows scat The brownish-gray "sample" was about the size of a quarter and didn't smell like much to a human. But Rio, a 95-pound German shepherd with a discerning nose, sniffed out the bit of dried kit fox poop in a landscape littered with Frisbee-sized cow pies. "Good boy!" said handler Deborah Smith, rewarding Rio with a slap on the back and a few seconds of play. Then the pair resumed their scientific prowl for poop. Rio is a scent detection dog, trained to find a variety of animal scat (that's poop to you and me) and even plants. He and Smith, a wildlife biologist and dog trainer/handler, represent a leading edge of research in the San Joaquin Valley as scientists collect more information about the endangered kit fox. "[In] the use of scent dogs for work with endangered species ... she is one of the pioneers," said Patrick Kelly, a zoology professor and coordinator of the Endangered Species Recovery Program based at California State University, Stanislaus....
Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Site Becomes a Wildlife Refuge Sixteen miles northwest of Denver, the site where once the trigger mechanisms for nearly every nuclear weapon in the United States were made, has become the country's newest wildlife refuge. The U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, transferred nearly 4,000 acres of its former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday. The transfer creates the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Over the warnings of some citizens groups, public access will be allowed to large portions of the site. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management James Rispoli said, "We are proud to transfer this space to the U.S. Department of Interior and we will continue with plans to complete environmental cleanup work at five more sites across the country by 2009."....
Farm Subsidies for Millionaires Washington spends more on corporate welfare than on homeland security — and farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program. This year, as lawmakers rewrite the farm programs and push up their spending, they will invoke Norman Rockwell imagery to portray farm subsidies as a vital lifeboat for small, struggling family farmers. Don’t believe a word of it. Farms have come a long way since subsidies were introduced as a temporary solution to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. Today, the average farm household earns $81,420 and has a net worth of $838,875 — both well above the national average. Farm incomes are setting records, and farms have one of the lowest failure rates of any industry. To be sure, some family farmers continue to struggle. But if farm subsidies were really about alleviating farmer poverty, then lawmakers could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of 185 percent of the federal level ($38,203 for a family of four) for under $5 billion annually — one-fifth the current cost of farm subsidies. Instead, small farmers are largely excluded from farm subsidies. Farm subsidy payments are based on acreage, so by definition, the largest agribusinesses get the largest subsidies. Consequently, commercial farmers — who report an average income of $200,000 and net worth of nearly $2 million — now collect the majority of farm subsidies. Most farm subsidy dollars go to millionaires....
R-CALF sues former president, directors Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, R-CALF, has filed suit against several former members and board members. A lawsuit was filed in Montana District Court against former president of the organization, Chuck Kiker, and former regional directors Jonathan Wooster and Dennis McDonald. The lawsuit also names five unnamed defendants John Doe 1 to 5. The lawsuit claims breach of fiduciary duty, violation of the Montana Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Conversion and Injunctive Relief. R-CALF claims that what was intended as a confidential report commissioned by the group was disseminated by the defendants, resulting in damage to the R-CALF organization. The suit also hopes to keep the defendants from using R-CALF membership lists. Chuck Kiker was removed as president of R-CALF earlier this year, and regional directors Wooster and McDonald were among the board members who resigned in protest....
Tombstone Or Bust! A group of five people are traveling from Texarkana, Ark., to Tombstone, Ariz., at 4 miles per hour. How long does it take them? Nine months. That's because the group is traveling in horse-drawn covered wagons. Mike Smith, 58, has been planning this trip for three years and on July 4 the caravan left Texarkana. The rancher spent half of that time building the two wagons the group is riding in. Smith's grandson, Clint Culpepper, 18, leads the caravan riding a horse. Smith departed July 4 because he has to get though the last set of mountains in New Mexico before the ice hits....
Idaho's range wars made Diamond Field Jack famous When two Cassia County sheepherders were found shot to death in their 1896 winter camp, Gov. William J. McConnell issued a statement to the newspapers: "It is a most terrible thing that men who are suffering the hardships incident to taking care of sheep in the winter months out upon the range, isolated by themselves from the support and comfort of their fellow men, should be shot down like wild beasts. The civilization of this age is shocked at the possibility of such men going unpunished." A cowboy named Jackson Lee Davis, who had become known by the nickname Diamond Field Jack, was the first suspect. He had come by the name because of an earlier involvement in an Owyhee County scam over worthless quartz crystals their promoters claimed were diamonds. Davis worked for the Sparks-Harrel Cattle Co. with the job of intimidating sheep owners to keep them from crossing an imaginary "dead line" that divided Cassia County. Cattle interests claimed the western half of the county and wanted sheep to stay on the eastern half. The role was a natural for Jack, a small man who liked to talk and act big, but he overplayed his part this time. He had told anyone who would listen that he had been hired to kill sheepherders. Davis had been involved in a scrape in November 1895, in which a sheepherder named Tolman was injured....
It's All Trew: Stables were cultural hub I found that the "stables" of today had replaced "livery stables" located in cities during the height of the horsepower era before the advent of the gas-powered automobile. Livery stable is derived from "delivery stable" for at one time almost all goods purchased in stores in the city were delivered by the store to the customer's home. This required large outlays of barns, horses, wagons and buggies for delivery purposes, thus the name livery stable. The term "livery" used by itself, seems to have been coined in the smaller towns of the Midwest. Here, stores were smaller and often contracted or hired private firms for customer deliveries. These private firms often rented mounts, teams and equipment to the public along with farrier and grooming services. Along with liveries, livery stables and stables there were also freight companies for heavier hauling of products. Some blacksmith shops were versatile, offering farrier service, wagon repair, saddle and harness repairs and gun-smithing. Any of these businesses might also offer livestock sales in conjunction with the other services. All of these evolved from the old time "wagon yard." Both in Europe and early America, travelers sought nightly comfort and protection at remote taverns and inns who offered fenced or walled courtyards and stables for stock. Many of these "traveler way-stations" later became stagecoach stops and grew into villages or towns....