NEWS ROUNDUP

Senate narrowly passes Pinon Canyon delay A week ago, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar faced a room full of Colorado Springs business people and military officers and said he would "find a way forward" in the bitter dispute over the Army's planned 414,000-acre expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad. Backers of the expansion left that meeting encouraged, while ranchers fighting the Army wondered if Salazar was abandoning them. The freshman Democrat believes he did find a middle ground Thursday when the full Senate narrowly approved - 47 to 45 - his amendment that would force a year's delay in the Army's expansion effort. Two Kansas Republicans, Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, broke ranks to support Salazar, who had the backing of all the other Senate Democrats on hand for the vote. Salazar's amendment may be a preview to changes he is expected to offer later this month to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which would require the Army to spell out in detail its justification for wanting more land at Pinon Canyon....
Enviromental group appeals $600K jury verdict An environmental group is asking the state's high court to overturn a jury verdict that it defamed a Southern Arizona rancher and has to pay him $600,000. Attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity contend they cannot be held liable because the statement at the center of the dispute, and photographs published on the group's Web site and in a news release, were substantially true. That truth, they argue, means James Chilton cannot contend he was libeled. The Tucson-based group also contends its statements are legally privileged. If nothing else, the organization is arguing the $500,000 in punitive damages awarded is excessive, particularly because it is a nonprofit organization. The verdict, and the size of the award, was not only upheld by a trial judge, but the state Court of Appeals refused to set aside the award....
Landowners offer 'safe harbor' to prairie dogs Allen Henri doesn't like prairie dogs — their burrows jam up his farm equipment — but soon, he'll open the gates of his ranch to a whole colony of the foot-high, furry animals. Henri, the first to sign up for a prairie dog conservation project called "safe harbor," agreed to allow the prairie dogs to set up camp in his cattle-grazing pasture in exchange for a new fence and some land improvements. "I'm a long ways from an environmentalist, but they've taken the stance that they need to work with the farmers and make it worth our time to have prairie dogs," he said. "I figured this was good for my ranch and the prairie dogs." Nine different environmental organizations, including the Farm Bureau and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, recently banded together to back the safe harbor program, which focuses on creating alliances with private landowners by offering incentives for letting prairie dogs live on their property....
Mt. Lemmon hiker found guilty for not paying fee A Tucson hiker's battle over her refusal to pay the $5 Mount Lemmon recreation fee ended in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Christine Wallace, a legal secretary, was found guilty and ordered to pay the maximum fine of $100, spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said. The case began two years ago when Wallace went on a couple of hikes without paying the required $5 entrance fee and received two tickets for $30 each, according to an earlier story in the Tucson Citizen. "They weren't parking tickets," Wallace's lawyer, Mary Ellen Barilotti, said earlier. "They were for 'recreating.' " U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles R. Pyle had ruled in her favor, saying the places she parked were not within the area in which a fee should be charged and did not have the amenities, such as restrooms, that fees are used to fund. But the magistrate's order was vacated after U.S. District Judge Chief John M. Roll ruled in January that the Forest Service was justified in ticketing vehicles parked along the Mount Lemmon Highway. Roll held a bench trial Wednesday and found Wallace guilty, Hornbuckle said....
Land managers short on climate change data Federal agencies that manage nearly a third of the land in the United States and more than half of Oregon's land aren't adequately considering the effects of climate change, despite clear evidence that warming already is affecting public lands, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday. Land managers for the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and other agencies oversee plans for logging, mining, water use, recreation, environmental protection, fishing, hunting and other activities. But the managers "have limited guidance about whether or how to address climate change and, therefore, are uncertain about what actions, if any, they should take," the GAO said in the report issued to Congress. Climate change is not a high priority for federal agencies, the report said, despite a 2001 Department of Interior order to include it in planning. That's a particular problem in the Northwest, where much of the snowpack is at relatively low elevations....
New tool to fight global warming: endangered species act? Environmentalists may have gained a powerful new legal weapon to fight global warming: the Endangered Species Act. That's the fallout some expect from a settlement last week between environmentalists and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The government agency agreed to protect the "critical habitat" of elkhorn and staghorn coral, the first species to be recognized as threatened by global warming. By protecting habitat, not just species, the federal government could be in a position to fight any threats to that habitat, including possibly, global warming, some environmentalists say. While no one expects the US to stop, say, a coal-fired power plant in the Midwest to save Florida coral, the settlement does expand the leverage of the 1973 law that protects species from extinction. "We think this victory on coral critical habitat actually moves the entire Endangered Species Act [ESA] onto a firm legal foundation for challenging global-warming pollution," says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz., that filed both coral suits. Indeed, the coral-protection victory may be just the beginning of a push to use the ESA to fight global warming, he and other environmentalists suggest....
Manure causes stink for lawmakers and farmers Manure generated on large U.S. livestock farms, which can later contaminate soil and water, has lead to a fierce debate over whether farmers and ranchers should be held responsible for cleaning up the mess. A lawsuit by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson against Arkansas poultry companies claims phosphorus runoff from their chicken litter has polluted streams and rivers in Oklahoma. The lawsuit includes Tyson Foods Inc., the largest U.S. meat company. "States like Oklahoma need legal tools to help stop and clean up animal-waste contamination, which is destroying significant and irreplaceable public resources," Edmondson told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Thursday. So-called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are becoming more common in the United States, with an estimated 19,000 in existence, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water with the EPA, said states do "have the right to sue" since they are the ones that carry out the programs overseen by the agency. Bipartisan legislation, introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate earlier this year, would clarify that livestock manure is exempt from the EPA's "Superfund law" created in 1980 to address cleanup of hazardous and toxic chemical spills. Previous efforts to exempt manure from the Superfund law have foundered....
Land-starved livestock get access to grazing areas Federal "grass banks" in five counties have been released for emergency grazing as ranchers struggle to feed their livestock after record wildfires and drought. Ranchers who have taken their land out of production in exchange for government payments will soon be able to open property for their own livestock and their neighbors' cattle in Juab, Cache, Box Elder, Millard and San Juan counties. The number of conservation lands to be released and how long cattle can graze will be determined by local managers, said Bruce Richeson, Utah director for the U.S. Farm Service Agency, which overseas the conservation program. "This is a little bit of help," said Kevin Stanley, Juab County director for the Farm Service Agency. "But in this situation, anything we can do is important." The federal government paid nearly $7 million to landowners enrolled in the reserve program in 2005, and more than $112 million during the past decade, according to the Environmental Working Group, a farm watchdog organization. Government payments to ranchers for land held in the Conservation Reserve Program will be reduced by 10 percent during the emergency grazing period....
More Utah cattle shot with arrows There has been a second incident of cows being shot in less than a week. ABC 4 first reported six cows shot with arrows in Strawberry Valley. This time, a cow suffered similar injuries from an arrow at Hobble Creek in Springville. A cow was shot through the back of her neck with an arrow over the weekend. It’s the latest in a string of cow shootings. Ranchers say they're angry and appalled by this violence. Calvin Crandall, a rancher and member of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association says, “It's like me walking up to you and just slugging you in the arm or hitting you in the nose just because you're there.” Just last week, six cattle near Clyde Creek outside Heber suffered the same fate. Questions are still left unanswered. Who would do this? And why? Crandall says, “I don't know if it's a random act of violence or if they have an issue with livestock up there.”....
Virus is key suspect in honeybee decline Researchers have fingered a prime suspect in a disorder that is causing massive declines among honeybees, a tiny insect with the monumental job of pollinating $14.6 billion worth of the nation's fruit and vegetable crops annually. After freezing bees, grinding them up, extracting the DNA, and using sophisticated genetic sequencing to identify every organism present, the researchers have settled upon a little-known virus discovered in Israel only three years ago. There, symptoms of a mysterious bee malady came in the form of shivering wings. Then the bees became paralyzed and died. Thus, the name: Israeli acute paralysis virus, or IAPV. Researchers don't know how the virus got here. They don't know how to cure it. Nor do they know if IAPV alone can account for Colony Collapse Disorder, which has killed tens of billions of bees since last fall....
Robots May Become Essential on US Farms With authorities promising tighter borders, some farmers who rely on immigrant labor are eyeing an emerging generation of fruit-picking robots and high-tech tractors to do everything from pluck premium wine grapes to clean and core lettuce. Such machines, now in various stages of development, could become essential for harvesting delicate fruits and vegetables that are still picked by hand. "If we want to maintain our current agriculture here in California, that's where mechanization comes in," said Jack King, national affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau. California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, according to the state Food and Agriculture Department. The California Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the job requires about 225,000 workers year-round and double that during the peak summer season. More than half of all farm workers in the country are illegal immigrants, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics....
Texans Make Cabrito Barbecue of Choice as Goats Drive Exports Every part of Texas has its barbecue tradition. In McCulloch County, it's goat. Fifteen thousand people gathered in the county seat of Brady last weekend for its 34th annual goat cook-off. More than 150 barbecuers vied for the champion's trophy and $1,000 prize. Texans aren't the only ones eating goat. Ranches across the state can't keep up with the U.S. appetite for goat meat, fueled by a wave of immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East and Caribbean nations. The ranchers were in trouble 12 years ago, when federal subsidies dried up. Now, goats outnumber people in McCulloch County. ``Consumer demand has gone up,'' said Robert Swize, executive director of the American Boer Association in San Angelo. ``You have ethnic communities within most major metropolitan cities and they desire to return to the foods of their cultures.'' Texas produces more goat meat than any other state, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Most of it is shipped east. Immigrants in New York and along the East Coast caused U.S. goat-meat consumption to almost double to 51 million pounds (23 million kilograms) between 1997 and 2003, the latest figures available from the Agriculture Department....