NEWS ROUNDUP

Bad-bear surge stirs unease Wildlife officers have killed seven "problem" bears in the past nine days in western Colorado, raising fears for what may come during the animals' late-summer feeding frenzy. "I'm up to my eyeballs in bears," said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "In any given summer, you're going to have isolated pockets of bear activity," Hampton said. "This year, it seems like the pockets aren't so isolated." Facing a diminished supply of natural food and pushed by encroachment from development, the black bears have learned to associate human habitation with food, breaking into homes and campsites, digging through garbage and raiding bird feeders. The toll includes a 425-pound bear that was trapped and destroyed after smashing through doors of houses in Aspen. "That was a spectacular bear," Hampton said. "He had to have been around for a long time. But he was literally knocking over doors. People weren't safe in their homes. There was no choice in this one." At least three other bears have been destroyed in the southwestern part of the state in the past month, said division spokesman Joe Lewandowski....
Utah Coal Area, a Region Apart, Knows Well the Perils of Mining Coal is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when people think about Utah, and there is good reason for that. Through a fluke of geology and deep time, much of Utah’s coal was concentrated in one spot, here in the red rock country of the state’s high east-central plateau, where bituminous coal is king. And the same forces then pushed it down fiercely into the earth. Some of the deepest coal mines in the nation are here, including one just down the road where miners are pushing toward 3,000 feet beneath the surface. The coal, in turn, shaped the region’s ethnicity, culture and politics. Greeks and Italians arrived to work as miners in the early 20th century and stayed on to build a distinctive rural enclave among the Mormon farmers. Later, the political jousting of mine owners and workers forged a tradition of voting for Democrats in an overwhelmingly Republican part of the nation. It is at moments like this, people here say, that the culture of the Utah mine country comes out in full flower. By any measure, they say, the six men who were trapped early Monday when part of the Crandall Canyon Mine here in Huntington spectacularly collapsed were more than just local working men who got unlucky....
Land access fight heats up A landowner disputes the state's assertion that it can appoint energy companies to act as "agents of the state" in order to cross his private surface to access state land in the absence of an easement. Rancher Kenny Clabaugh has not denied the state access to a state parcel within his ranching operation, but he has denied access to coal-bed methane companies that do not have an easement agreement with him. It's the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Clabaugh and the state. State regulatory agencies permitted a number of coal-bed methane water discharges upstream from Clabaugh without considering the cumulative impact of the volumes of water in the drainage. The water has flooded large portions of low-lying grazing pastures on Clabaugh's ranch, severely degrading the ranch's agricultural use. Clabaugh has asked to state to either reduce the flow of coal-bed methane water coming down the drainage, or pipe it across his property. The state wants to order construction of a ditch through the pasture instead....
Carbon cowboys Managed correctly, though, farming and ranching is usually a carbon-neutral industry. Some agricultural operations can even provide a "carbon sink," which means managing soil and plants so that they take in more carbon dioxide than they emit. Storing, or "sequestering," CO2 is a new market, and one that could prove profitable for agriculture. Some farmers and ranchers in Wyoming figure they might earn a few extra thousand dollars a year by selling their carbon offsets to coal-fired utilities and others who emit greenhouse gases. Browder, for one, is using more off-creek watering and busily dividing large pastures into smaller ones so he can intensify his existing rotational grazing program -- all practices proven to store more carbon than is emitted. Within the next year, he could be enrolled with a group of farmers and ranchers who sell carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. "Everything we do to sequester (carbon) is good for wildlife, good for watersheds -- all down the line," Browder said....
Idaho senator opposes river protection bill A bill introduced by the late Sen. Craig Thomas to protect portions of the Snake River headwaters under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is drawing opposition from Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Craig, who sits on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said he is concerned the designation of 42 miles of the Snake River between Jackson Lake Dam and Palisades Reservoir would harm water rights held by Idaho farmers. "That water is used to irrigate farmland in southeast Idaho," Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said Thursday. "His concern is that with the designation it wouldn't be managed for irrigators." Irrigators in Idaho hold the rights to about 96 percent of the water in Jackson Lake. Protected status does not affect private-property rights and uses or water rights, supporters of the bill stressed. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, who was appointed to temporarily replace Thomas, also does not believe the bill affects any existing water rights on the river, his press secretary Cameron Hardy said....
Sheep rancher seeks peace with wolves It's about as thickly populated by wolves as anywhere in the region, but environmentally conscious sheep producer Lava Lake Land & Livestock is developing a track record of minimal conflicts in and around the rugged Boulder Mountains of Central Idaho. The methods are varied, but the gist remains. The huge Hailey-based sheep producer has not lost sheep to wolves since 2005 when 25 sheep and a guard dog were killed in two consecutive nights. The sheep were killed northwest of Ketchum on the North Fork of the Big Lost River in the eastern Boulder Mountains. Lava Lake President Mike Stevens said the developing track record is, in part, due to preventative measures the company is taking to minimize the number of dead sheep and, therefore, dead wolves. "It's an issue of how can we coexist," he said....
Salazar: I can't stop Army expansion in Pinon Canyon Torn between a loyalty to the ranching community in which he was raised and national security needs, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said Tuesday that he could not say no to the Army’s plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Salazar met with commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Bent and Otero counties to hear their concerns and carry those concerns to Washington when the Senate reconvenes in September. As many as 300 people, who rallied outside the courthouse, listened in from an adjacent park via loud speaker. "It would be easy," the senator said, "to simply say ‘no, hell no, no more expansion.’ ” But, he said, there are problems with that approach. Salazar told the crowd that as much as he has sworn to protect agriculture in rural Colorado, he must also protect America and its military veterans. "You have to know that I believe that we in Colorado are the crown jewel of national security," he said. "We have the capacity through our facilities to protect the country. They have to have the money they need to make the improvements they need to make."....Salazar may say he is torn between agriculture and national security, but what he is really doing is siding with the more populous Colorado Springs and their chamber of commerce against the less populous rural areas and the ranchers. He's made a political decision that has nothing to do with national security.
Feds ask for input on gray wolves program Federal wildlife officials hope the public will suggest ways to revamp and improve the troubled program to recover and reintroduce Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border. The program has been under fire from both environmentalists and ranchers. Conservationists, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, are angered because of the number of wolves that federal agents have killed or removed after preying on cattle. Many ranchers within the recovery area, particularly in New Mexico's Catron County, have fiercely opposed the recovery effort since its inception in 1998, calling the program a nightmare that won't go away. "There are a lot of things that we could change about it to make it better and we'd like to hear from people about what they think should be changed to make it better," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown....
Cash infusion accelerates NW logging Northwest national forests are hurriedly boosting federal logging to the highest levels in years with a new infusion of cash, even as they close campgrounds and other recreation sites because money for them is drying up. The push for logging came so fast that some forests could not accelerate cutting as rapidly as top officials wanted, according to documents obtained by The Oregonian through the Freedom of Information Act. The extra cash for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees and other work to make way for cutting flowed from a legal deal between the Bush administration and timber industry. It's pumping life into federal land logging after years of decline. But dollars for other work in public forests remain scarce. As a result, U.S. Forest Service is likely to renege on its promise to fix existing, poorly maintained roads in Washington that violate clean water laws, for instance. Roads torn apart by storms last winter remain closed, cutting off access to trailheads and campgrounds. The new logging money is drawn from forests in other parts of the country and will underwrite new roads that will carry trucks loaded with freshly cut trees....
Fired Forest Service worker sues for job A former U.S. Forest Service official has sued the federal government, saying it wrongfully fired him after he came forward with allegations of pesticide misuse in forests across the Southwest. Doug Parker, who worked as the pesticide coordinator and assistant director of forestry health for the agency's Southwestern region, wants a jury to hear his story—and his job back. "I have a fierce resolve to see this through, to correct what they did to me," said Parker, who worked for the agency for nearly four decades before being fired in September 2005. According to the lawsuit, Parker became the subject of hostile treatment by his supervisors after complaining about what he called a "systemic problem" when it came to proper pesticide use across several forests in New Mexico and Arizona. Parker had accused some managers of not preparing environmental risk assessments and failing to get approval from agency officials who had the authority to make decisions about pesticides. While forest officials have remained mum on Parker's case, they have maintained that all projects involving pesticides and herbicides undergo a process to ensure that the public is involved and that requirements spelled out by federal law are met....
DiCaprio takes on forest industry With all the sky-is-falling fervour that one might expect from a feature documentary titled "The 11th Hour," the experts who contributed to Leonardo DiCaprio's new take on environmental destruction hit the publicity tour Wednesday to take on the earth's ecological evil-doers. Among them was Tzeporah Berman, a homegrown environmental gadfly whose cell phone was madly ringing as she scrambled across Los Angeles to do a series of interviews in the runup to Wednesday's premiere there of the movie, which is narrated and produced by Mr. DiCaprio. The Vancouver-based co-founder of activist group Forest Ethics was getting an early start on slagging Canada's forestry industry whose logging activities, she said -- both in the film and in an interview -- produce more greenhouse gas emissions every year than does every car on the road in California. But there is a problem with her argument: its underlying facts are wrong -- or at least, misleading -- according to the Canadian federal government's own reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the globe's global warming intelligence centre. In fact, in 11 of the past 16 years, Canada's managed forests have sucked up more greenhouse gases than they have emitted....
Couple sue Forest Service on harassment claims A couple who live in a cabin in the Cleveland National Forest has sued the U.S. Forest Service in federal court on claims that they were harassed by agency employees. David and Martine Mednansky said at least six Forest Service employees and a sheriff's deputy showed up unannounced at their home June 9, 2004, for an annual inspection of the 1.3 acres they lease in the forest. The couple says the employees cut a lock to a chain across their driveway and were hostile to the couple. The suit, filed this week in federal court, seeks unspecified damages for alleged violation of civil rights and emotional distress. Forest Service district ranger Thomas Gillett said in a September 2004 letter to David Mednansky that the inspector was told to bring law enforcement because the inspector had felt threatened during a previous visit. Gillett wrote that, in hindsight, sending three officers and a sheriff's deputy was "excessive."....
Fed Panel Tweaks Colorado Roadless Plan A federal advisory panel has recommended, with a few tweaks, approval of Colorado's petition to keep development off the bulk of some 4 million acres of roadless national forest land in the state. The recommendation now goes to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who will make the final decision. U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said Monday that Johanns likely will announce a decision in about a week. If Johanns accepts the petition, the state and Forest Service will write rules implementing the plan, expected to take about 18 months. In an Aug. 2 letter to Johanns, the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee called the Colorado petition, written by a 13-member task force, "a model public process."....
Where's the Beef, Indeed: A Steak Shortage Hits N.Y. he country's effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York's purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse. The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said. "It's getting worse," the owner of Ben Benson's Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. "The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive." Brooklyn's Peter Luger Steakhouse now serves a rib eye. On some nights at Ben Benson's in Midtown, diners can order buffalo steak. The Old Homestead of the meatpacking district serves one of the city's best Kobe burgers. The new menu items at some city steakhouses are a result of an increase in the price of top-notch beef and a decrease in its availability....
Bone Cave tells tales The people who lived in Utah Valley thousands of years ago depended on the Utah Lake for fresh food and water but counted on the mountain sheep from American Fork Canyon for meat. Bone Cave in particular illustrates how important the sheep were to the ancient Indians, said Charmaine Thompson, a Forest Service archaeologist with the Uinta National Forest. Thompson talked about the ancient people and the history of the canyon as it related to their lifestyle at a recent Monday evening lecture at the Timpanogos Cave National Monument Visitor Center. Thompson said the cave, located a quarter-mile from the famed Timpanogos Cave, was found to be full of mountain sheep bones piled up to 6 feet deep. There were also plenty of arrow and spear points and some grindstones found in the cave. Thompson said that showed the tribes probably killed their prey in the canyon and dragged it to the cave to butcher and skin it, saving themselves having to drag the whole carcass down to the lake for winter storage....
Study blames Europe for bison mass killings North Americans have always taken the heat for killing off millions of American bison during the early 1800s. A new study, however, pins the blame on Europeans. Europe's advanced tanning expertise drove the large, iconic mammal to near extinction in the United States, according to a a review of international trade records, diaries and other historical documents conducted by University of Calgary environmental economist M. Scott Taylor. "The story of the buffalo slaughter is surprisingly not, at bottom, an American one," Taylor said. Taylor says the guilty party sat on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The swift bison extermination was a result of an expertise in tanning heavy hides into leather developed in Europe, he wrote in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research earlier this year. The innovation, not practiced in the United States at the time, sustained European's high demand for bison hides. "These market forces overwhelmed the ability of a young and still expanding nation, just out of a bloody civil war, to carefully steward its natural resources," Taylor said....