NEWS ROUNDUP

Bill threatens to delay Pinon Canyon A military funding bill moving through the Senate is unlikely to be popular with Ft. Carson brass, or some local political and business leaders. The bill contains two amendments, introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar, which would bring the Pinon Canyon expansion plan to a grinding halt for one year. It would also demand answers to questions. The main question has to do with the Army's need for more land. "The BRAC commission found the training facilities were sufficient," Salazar said. "They didn't need any additional land. What's changed between 2005 and now? That's a legitimate question. It needs to be asked. It needs to be answered and I direct the Army to answer the question." Reaction to the Senator's amendments have been immediate and pointed. "It is nothing less than hypocritical and irresponsible for us as a state and a community to now deny the Army the ability to do the work it needs to do," State Rep. Bob Gardner said. "He's been getting information from the Army on a regular basis as has all the rest of our elected officials for the last two years, why would we want to proceed with another study trying to justify the expansion when all the information is there already," said Lon Robertson, a rancher who opposes the expansion....
Colorado woman embraces beavers, champions nature's engineers The two caged beavers in the back seat of Sherri Tippie's aging red Isuzu Trooper - affectionately named Bubba - are awash in their own dank musk as ice bags drip down their backs. "I love that smell. Don't you just love it? Nothing smells better to me," says Sherri Tippie, inhaling deeply. "I was born for beavers." As Colorado's lone licensed live trapper and relocator of beavers, the opinionated part-time jail barber from Lakewood has become a legend among beaver lovers. For 22 years, she has battled stereotypes - and centuries of history - that paint beavers as water-hoarding pests worth more as soft hats than wild animals. Tippie has relocated several hundred, maybe even a thousand of the industrious, family-centric creatures. She traps the engineering animals in metro Denver's urban streams and releases them in rural areas where their labor is appreciated for creating wetlands, raising water tables, restoring silty top soil and cleaning water....
Appeals seek to block White Pass plan Two influential organizations have come out against expansion plans for the White Pass Ski Area west of Yakima. The Yakama Nation and the Sierra Club Cascade Chapter are challenging the U.S. Forest Service decision to allow the ski area to double in size by expanding into the Hogback Basin, a haven for backcountry skiers. Both groups, along with two private citizens, filed appeals to the agency's conclusion that expansion should be allowed as a way to reduce ski area congestion and improve safety. The adopted alternative would amend the ski area master development plan to increase the site to 1,572 acres, add two new chairlifts and a midmountain lodge, expand a trail network and expand paved parking....
Way to play the new demand for offsets Free-market advocates have to admire one outcome of the global-warming craze. Many people are now generating new wealth from an industry that was totally nonexistent a mere 10 years ago. The demand for carbon offsets has seemingly just begun. As the Cult of Global Warming ramps up, the hysteria over polar bears and killer hurricanes, increasing numbers of carbon criminals will seek absolution by purchasing carbon credits. We all know that Al Gore and John Edwards purchase a vast number of carbon credits. They can then go on their merry way, traveling by private jet and living in mansions with a huge electric bill. They can certainly afford a few bucks to have their carbon sins forgiven, with their $100,000 lecture fees or their personal-injury legal fees. Please note that I am not against anyone making a pile of money by jetting about and spouting cherished opinions to the faithful. Nor is it a problem when a successful malpractice lawyer owns an outsized mansion that requires 50 times more energy than the home of an average American. High-profile cases such as these help generate demand among socially conscious fusspots for a lifestyle that is "carbon neutral."....
Feds might cut outdoor uses in southern Ariz. Three federal proposals would mean fewer places to enjoy the outdoors in southern Arizona - especially in winter - despite projections that our population will continue to grow. Coronado National Forest is mulling cutbacks of campsites, picnic tables and toilets, and Saguaro National Park is considering closing some popular trails used by hikers and equestrians. Neither proposal is a done deal. Details will come later, and residents will have chances to comment on both proposals. The Coronado National Forest Recreation Facility Analysis, required by federal law, suggests a framework for the next five years. By seasonally closing more campgrounds and trimming some picnic areas and beefing up others, the Forest Service hopes to better align what's there with what people want, spokeswoman Heidi Schewel said. Campers are more rare now than people who use the forest for day trips, and the forest needs to adjust accordingly to avoid maintenance on underused sites, Schewel said....
Study: Trout Restoration Used Wrong Fish A 20-year government effort to restore the population of an endangered native trout in Colorado has made little progress because biologists have been stocking some of the waterways with the wrong fish, a new study says. Biologists called the finding a setback and a potential black eye but said there is still hope for restoring the greenback cutthroat trout because at least four pure populations of the fish have been identified. The three-year study was led by University of Colorado researchers and published online in Molecular Ecology on Aug. 28. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is heading the recovery effort, said it is reviewing the findings. The study said that out of nine populations of fish believed to be endangered greenback cutthroat trout that were descendants of survivors, five were actually the Colorado River cutthroat trout, which look similar but are a separate and more common subspecies....
Forest Service increases patrols to combat pot farms The U.S. Forest Service is doubling the number of law enforcement officers in California to fight illegal marijuana growing operations. By next spring, 160 law enforcement officers, patrol captains and special agents will be patrolling the state's 18 national forests, said Ron Pugh, special agent in charge of the Forest Service region that covers California. The effort will cost $6 million but will help control environmental damage to the forests. The increase comes as the Forest Service is cutting employees elsewhere. It is part of a 10-point plan to deter illegal marijuana gardens on public land. Other steps include better coordination with other state, federal and local agencies and improving intelligence gathering and public education. Still, Pugh said the Forest Service will have a hard time patrolling millions of acres of national forest. He said 160 officers is only about a third of what the agency needs to do the job....
BLM asks engineers to re-examine dam safety The fate of the Little Hyatt Lake dam on Keene Creek remains up in the air. Although U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials last week said they expected to make a decision on Wednesday, they have asked an engineering firm that inspected the dam to take another look. Engineers have concluded the dam, which houses an 11-acre reservoir, poses a safety hazard because of crumbling concrete. The agency wants the engineers to make sure its earlier assessment of the 1923-circa dam, from its structural condition to the cost of shoring it up, was still on the mark, explained BLM Medford District spokesman Jim Whittington. "We want to make the best decision possible with the best information available," Whittington said. "But we want to make it quick because of the safety issue." A petition drive by those wanting to keep the dam, which gathered more than 900 signatures on Labor Day weekend, was not a factor in delaying the decision, he said....
BLM moves forward with Roan road closures The Bureau of Land Management is proceeding with closing nearly 100 miles of routes to motorized vehicles on and surrounding the Roan Plateau. The action follows the federal agency's issuance of a final decision in June on how to manage activities on much of the Roan. Although that decision has drawn attention mostly because it will allow oil and gas development on the plateau top, it also called for the closure of 96 miles in the 73,602-acre planning area to motorized vehicles. Those routes still will be designated for foot and horse travel, and in some cases for limited motorized vehicle access for administrative purposes such as government use. The travel management portion of the Roan plan covers 259 miles of routes across the planning area. That includes 157 miles on top of the plateau, of which 71 miles will be restricted to foot and horse traffic only, said BLM spokesman David Boyd....
Report identifies centuries' worth of unleased coal in Powder River Basin There's enough unleased coal on federal lands in the Powder River Basin to feed the United States' current appetite for coal for 493 years, according to federal figures released Wednesday. Roughly 89 percent of that coal can be mined under certain restrictions and about 11 percent is off-limits from leasing, said the report by three federal agencies. The basin, which straddles the Montana and Wyoming line, contains about 550 billion tons of federal coal, about 58 percent of coal on all federal lands, the report said. That doesn't include the 11.6 billion tons already under lease or applied for. Overall, the basin provides about 38 percent of all of the coal produced in the country. "Were it not for coal mined on public lands in the Powder River Basin, many of the houses in America would not able to turn on their lights," Mike Nedd, BLM's assistant director for minerals, realty and resource protection, said in a prepared statement Wednesday. The report, which examined coal resources across about 8,400 square miles in the Powder River Basin, was produced by the Departments of Interior, Energy and Agriculture to meet requirements of a 2005 law....
Moose makes its way into Pocatello home At least it turns out acts of vandalism by rampaging moose are covered by her insurance policy. Anita Ovard moved to the little cabin near Bureau of Land Management property in Pocatello because she wanted to see more wildlife. But she got a little more than she bargained for when a momma moose made its way inside her home. Ovard pulled into her driveway yesterday to find two baby moose in her front yard and a mother moose bashing through her front door. Ovard ran to the back of the house, opening the sliding glass door, and then ran away as fast as she could. The equally frightened moose ran back out the front, bounding away from the home....
Rabid bear killed trying to enter Garrett Co. home A rabid black bear trying to rip out a window air conditioner lost its tug-of-war with a terrified housewife when her husband blasted the beast with a shotgun, the woman and a state wildlife official said today. The bear rushed the house after Charlotte Stanton yelled out her screen door to try to scare it away from a goat pen. Stanton, 39, of rural Grantsville in Garrett County, said she was losing her tussle with the 134-pound sow when Michael Stanton pulled the trigger. "I finally yelled at my husband, because I couldn't hold on to that air conditioner much longer," she said. "It seemed like forever, but I'm sure it was just seconds." The load of buckshot didn't kill the bear, which lay bleeding and moaning in the yard of the Western Maryland home for about 30 minutes Aug. 29 before a state Natural Resources Police officer arrived to remove it. All four family members -- including daughter Caitlin, 10, and son James Winebrenner, 15 -- will receive a series of rabies shots because of their exposure to the animal's blood and saliva, Mrs. Stanton said....
Guzzlers installed for desert big horns Scores of volunteers and the state have delivered over 30,000 gallons of water to remote areas to sustain desert bighorn sheep this summer. “If we want to preserve our state animal, we need to help desert bighorn along,” said Mike Cox, big game biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. Water developments or “guzzlers” catch and store precipitation and disperse it viadrinking troughs to a variety of animals. Desert bighorn sheep drink at least one gallon of water daily during the hot summer months. With the prolonged drought leaving natural water sources dry, Nevada Department of Wildlife biologists grew concerned. By early summer many guzzlers were low or nearly dry. “Water levels were low going into the summer period,” said Craig Stevenson, NDOW biologist. With just a few phone calls, funding was arranged and volunteers organized to ferry water into numerous water developments....
Wyoming moving forward with wolf management plan The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it plans to release a study next week analyzing its proposal to ease restrictions on killing wolves in the northern Rockies to protect other wildlife and domesticated animals. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena, Mont., said Wednesday he expects his agency will release an environmental assessment next week. The public will have 30 days to comment on it. Bangs said his agency has already received hundreds of thousands of comments on aspects of its ongoing proposal to remove wolves from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act possibly as soon as early next year. nvironmental groups have protested the federal proposal and promise legal action to try to block the plan. Wyoming officials, however, say they're pleased with what they see as progress to approve a state management plan for wolves that would allow an end to federal oversight. Wyoming for the past several years has been the only one of the three states without a federally approved wolf management plan in place. The state continues to press a lawsuit over the federal governments' rejection of its original 2003 management plan....
Schwarzenegger administration promotes new dams as delta fix The Schwarzenegger administration on Wednesday dusted off a failed dam proposal as a way to shore up California water supplies in light of a federal judge's ruling limiting shipments from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But it seemed doubtful that the Democrat-controlled Legislature—long-opposed to new dams—would go along in the waning days of its 2007 session. At a Capitol news conference flanked by city water leaders, farm and building industry representatives, Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said an Aug. 31 ruling by a federal judge in Fresno could cut water flows out of the delta by about a third while doing little to protect the threatened delta smelt, a small fish that is threatened with extinction. The pumping limitations could leave farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and cities from the San Francisco Bay area to San Diego scrambling to cope with water shortages beginning in December, officials said. "This decision is proof that the delta is indeed broken," said Chrisman. "What it also points out is the need to safeguard our water system." Both Chrisman and Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow urged lawmakers to immediately reconsider a $5.9 billion water facilities bond plan that the governor offered in January....
Lincoln forest officials plan to spray insects The U.S. Forest Service plans to spray portions of the Lincoln National Forest to control a native caterpillar that has been defoliating trees. Forest Supervisor Lou Woltering signed a finding of no significant impact for the project to control Nepytia janetae — an inch worm that feeds on the needles of conifer trees. Woltering's decision authorizes aerial spraying on about 4,419 acres of national forest land near Cloudcroft with Bacillus thuringiensis, or Btk, beginning in November. The idea is to minimize further spread of the native caterpillar onto private land around the village and to minimize additional defoliation and loss of trees around developed campgrounds, forest officials said. In March, the Otero County Commission declared a disaster and a state of emergency for the Lincoln National Forest because of dead and dying trees. County officials said they were concerned about increased fire danger posed by large numbers of dead trees and about how large swathes of bare trees would hurt tourism in the Sacramento Mountains....
Valles' elk hunted, studied, debated on
In 1907, only 41,000 elk roamed the United States. Today, the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates a population of 1.2 million. The New Mexico Game and Fish Department calculates about 5,000 elk reside in the Jemez Ranger District and many of them spend most of the year on the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The fact that trophy and general elk hunting produces nearly half of the preserve's annual $790,000 in revenue indicates the wild animals' financial importance to the preserve. Based on hunter success rates around 70 percent, the preserve's autumn elk hunt is the best in the state. James Lucero, a representative for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation personally believes that this hunting is the highest quality in the U.S. However, managing this resource has been challenging because of the unique relationship between the preserve and the Game and Fish Department. "The Department manages the elk herd and we manage the forage," said Dennis Trujillo, the preserve's manager. This means that decisions are jointly discussed and planning is done "on a two-year moving window." The preserve is even more remarkable because Bob Parmenter, the preserve's chief scientist, is producing scientific information in greater volume than in any other area of the state. Parmenter's team measures the size and type of the elk's favorite grass, the number and type of predators, the fat content of harvested animals, grazing patterns, and the ratio of calves per hundred cows-an indicator of the overall health of the herd....
Hooves of Gold, Stomachs of Iron I was riding my bike over the weekend on the bike path through CU’s Research Park when I came upon a herd of goats. Grazing away in the brush along the creek, hooved and horned, with a dozen or so interested spectators of the human variety. I pulled up and talked to their herder, a weathered, friendly woman named Lou Colby. After we chatted a few minutes I asked her where her permanent base is. “Well, don’t have one right now.” This took a minute to sink in. So, do they live in hotels or what? It turns out Lou is an itinerant goat rancher with a mobile herd of around 145 animals, offering “subscription grazing services” for the control of unwanted brush and weeds. Doing business as Golden Hooves Grazing Services, she’s been contracting with the Grounds Dept. at CU for a few years now, and she moves from job to job across the West, wintering in Arizona. Ms. Colby used to manage a 10,000 acre ranch in SE Montana; now she and her goats and her herding dogs are fully mobile, 365 days a year. She’s thinking about buying a place, though: Life on the road full-time “is getting kind of old,” she admitted....
San Angelo windmill maker doesn't fret new technology Kees Verheul builds Aermotor Windmills that produce water — not juice. Like electricity-generating turbines, they convert kinetic energy in the wind into useful power, although Aermotor mills use that power to lift underground water to the surface. A 71-year-old engineer who has owned the 119-year-old company since 1998, Verheul said he isn't worried about new technology making his windmills obsolete. "It's so simple, it's brilliant," he said, noting that the mechanism's design has not changed since 1933. "It will last 100 years with proper maintenance. Cowboys can fix them." The same can't be said for solar panels that are prone to wearing out prematurely and malfunctioning. Aermotor sold more than 1,000 windmills in 2006, its best year in more than a decade. That represented a 69 percent increase from the previous year. Aermotor parts and mills, with "San Angelo, TX" stenciled on every vane, shipped to all 48 contiguous states last year, plus 13 foreign countries....
Even scientific tests might not quell 'chupacabra' mania Texas' favorite Mysterious Devil Beast is back. This time, a college biology lab will try to end the mystery. The story is all over the San Antonio TV news. A South Texas rancher found four weird, blue, hairless critters dead. Right away, TV reporters said the word that brought crowds rushing to Cuero: Chupacabra. If you think that giant spider web east of Dallas is a big deal, then you haven't followed the TV tale of rancher Phylis Canion, 55, and her roadkill. Canion said something was killing chickens and goats, even sucking their blood. In South Texas, that stirred up the legend of the famous livestock-killing monster, El Chupacabras. Then, on July 14, she found a dead beast on the highway. It weighed about 40 pounds, the size of a coyote, but this was blue and had long fangs. It didn't take long before one of Canion's neighbors told the TV cameras, "It's a chupacabra!" El Chupacabras -- his proper name -- is the Bigfoot of the borderlands, a mythical creature seen from Phoenix to Puerto Rico....
Solid 'Yuma' harkens to classic Westerns The next time you hear someone say they don't make movies like they used to, point to the refreshingly retro Western "3:10 To Yuma" as evidence to counter that claim. While the movie is bloodier and contains more profanity then the classic Westerns of the 1950s and '60s, the 21st Century film still could have been made 50 years ago. In fact, movie buffs might know that "3:10 To Yuma" was made 50 years ago. The 1957 film starred Glen Ford playing against type as a bad guy and Van Heflin as the good guy. That earlier film was a tense, nicely constructed Western that was good but didn't reach the same heights of such classics as "The Magnificent Seven" or "High Noon." The remake falls into the same category. It is a solid, entertaining piece of filmmaking full of strong performances, expertly mounted action scenes and a terrific musical score that has echoes of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s....