House Votes to Create Six New 'Heritage' Areas The House on Wednesday passed the Celebrating America's Heritage Act (H.R. 1483), which would create new National Heritage Areas, but some critics say the bill "tramples" on personal liberties and property rights. The bill would establish six national heritage areas (NHAs), which are non-federal lands and communities managed privately in conjunction with the National Park Service. It would also provide funding for nine existing NHAs. The six new projects include the Journey Through Hallowed Ground NHA in Maryland and Virginia; Niagara Falls NHA in New York; Muscle Shoals NHA in Alabama; Freedom's Way NHA in Massachusetts and New Hampshire; Abraham Lincoln NHA in Illinois; and Santa Cruz Valley NHA in Arizona. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), lead sponsor of the Santa Cruz Valley NHA, said that NHA designation provides federal recognition and financial support. Through annual congressional appropriations administered by local National Park unit partners, up to $10 million in 50-percent match funding is available to each National Heritage Area over a period of 15 years. But Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), who opposes the bill and in particular the Journey Through Hallowed Ground NHA that runs through his district, said, "All of our nation's founders knew of the intimate connection between personal liberty, taxpayers' interests and property rights. H.R. 1483 tramples over rather than honors these hallowed principles."....
Coast Guard Plans to Set Up Arctic Base A Coast Guard reconnaissance team is heading to the far north this week to scope out a final frontier that is opening up to ship traffic in a warming Arctic climate. The Coast Guard plans to set up an operations base in Barrow as early as next spring to monitor waters now free of ice for longer periods. Weather permitting, a scouting crew on Thursday will fly the 1,183-mile trek from the northernmost U.S. town to the North Pole. "This is a new area for us to do surveillance," said Rear Adm. Arthur E. Brooks, commander of the Coast Guard's Alaska district. "We're going primarily to see what's there, what ships, if any, are up there." Thinning ice has made travel along the northern coast increasingly attractive, said Brooks, who plans to accompany the crew in the C-130 flight. Tankers and even cruise ships are beginning to venture into the domain once traveled only by indigenous hunters and research vessels such as the Coast Guard ice-cutter Healy....
Man told to pay $15K for eagles' deaths The unintentional killing of three eagles will cost a Terry rancher $15,000. U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby on Thursday sentenced Ronald Eugene Tibbetts, 61, to six months of unsupervised probation and ordered him to pay $15,000 restitution. There was no fine. "I made a mistake," Tibbetts told the judge. "I never really thought the whole picture through." Tibbetts asked the judge to consider a smaller restitution amount based on Montana law. "I feel $15,000 is fairly high. I realize this is a federal court issue, but we are in Montana," he said. Tibbetts pleaded guilty in July to one misdemeanor count of illegally killing a migratory bird. Tibbetts admitted that he went after skunks and raccoons with meatballs laced with Furidan, a poison, in 2004 and 2005. The animals ate the meatballs and died. The coyotes ate their carcasses and died. And one mature bald eagle and two immature golden eagles that fed on the coyotes also died. Ostby followed sentencing recommendations in a plea agreement and heard testimony about the value of eagles from Doug Goessman, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Goessman said the agency uses restitution amounts based on information from private organizations on what it costs to rehabilitate sick or injured raptors. An organization the agency has used for years places the value of one immature bald or golden eagle at $5,000; a mature eagle is valued at $10,000 because it is able to reproduce....
Barrasso brings bill to protect Wyoming Range Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Thursday introduced long-anticipated legislation that would put 1.2 million acres of the Wyoming Range off limits to any new energy development and allow existing leases there to be retired. "Today is Wyoming's day, literally," he said in a speech on the Senate floor. "It's a long-awaited day. A day that is special, a day that is as special as the mountain range that this day centers on." The late Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., had planned to introduce similar legislation the week that he died. Under the Wyoming Range Legacy Act of 2007, no additional mining patents or geothermal or mineral leasing, including oil and gas, would be allowed in the 100-mile-long area of the range in western Wyoming....
Grizzlies die at unusually high rates Grizzly bears in the region in and around Yellowstone National Park have suffered unusually high mortality rates so far this year, likely because of a dearth of natural food sources, a researcher said. Chuck Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said officials tallied 25 known and probable grizzly mortalities. Twenty-two of those mortalities were human-caused, two of the deaths resulted from natural causes, and the cause of one death was undetermined. For every bear that was reported dead, two more deaths likely went unreported, Schwartz said. "This is not a good year for bears, as far as mortality is concerned," Schwartz told a group of wildlife managers and conservationists at the annual meeting of the Yellowstone Grizzly Coordinating Committee on Wednesday. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team is a group of researchers who have monitored grizzlies in Yellowstone since the bears were put on the endangered-species list. It is funded by the U.S. Geological Survey....
The Western Inferno The 2007 forest fire season is ending with a costly bang in Southern California, and it is another record breaker. This year much of the American West was under smoky skies for most of the summer. Even before the California catastrophe, as of October 1st approximately 65,000 fires had burned 8.2 million acres nationwide, destroying 409 homes burned. Seven firefighters lost their lives, to make a total of 113 for the last five years. The United States Forest Service (USFS) has spent roughly $1 billion to fight these fires. Large blazes burned in the South this year, especially in Florida and Georgia, but the majority of these scorched acres were on the Western public lands. The continuing lethal combinations of drought, bark beetle infestations, and heavy fuel loads due to decades of zealous fire suppression and less logging -along with a brutally hot summer-have produced a fire season not unlike the extreme examples seen periodically since the late 1990s, with burned-acreage totals routinely running five to ten million per summer. Six out of the last eight summers are among the ten worst fire seasons recorded since 1960. Forest health also means logging, at least the thinning of crowded tracts that have too many trees per acre. In the last two decades attempts to log national forest lands has brought on much bad behavior from the Green Left and their -- surprise! -- attorneys. Thousands of harassing lawsuits filed over timber sales have produced in the USFS a self described "analysis paralysis", as environmentalists using litigation clog up an already slow bureaucratic process....
The Basics of Wildland Firefighting Using chainsaws, shovels, and Pulaskis, firefighters generally work shifts of 12 to a maximum of 16 hours constructing breaks in the fire's fuel, or "fireline". A fireline is cleared of vegetation down to the mineral soil. Pulaskis were developed by a Forest Service Ranger Ed Pulaski that saved 30 men at the risk of his personal safety in the fires of 1910. The tool named for Ranger Pulaski is an ax on one side and digging hoe on the other. In some suitable areas, bulldozers are used to build fireline with the same purpose of eliminating burnable fuels from the path of the fire. All fireline must be rehabilitated to allow for future vegetation growth. Firefighters also slow the spread of fires using portable pumps leading from water bodies such as streams and lakes to wet down fuels, helicopters to pinpoint drop water on hot spots, airtankers to lay down a line of retardant that slows the fire allowing firefighters to proceed more effectively. Watertenders are tanker trucks that transport water to various parts of the fire. They will water down dusty roads to improve travel safety, refill engines, and add water to portable holding bags called 'pumpkins' because of their orange color that serve as dipping facilities for helicopters. Engines are small trucks equipped with water, pumps, water hose and tools to respond to and support ongoing fire suppression activities....
Study: National forests generally meet sustainable standards A new study says national forests generally meet "green certification" standards for sustainable management to ensure they remain healthy but balancing the demands for logging, recreation and conservation remain a challenge. The 2-year study was conducted to help the U.S. Forest Service decide whether to join private timber companies seeking independent certification of sustainable management practices to boost forest product sales to gren-minded consumers. The Washington, D.C.-based Pinchot Institute for Conservation studied five national forests, including the Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon. Overall, the forests rated well for planning, community involvement and for identifying threatened or endangered species. But the study indicated improvement was needed in various areas, including old growth timber management and a backlog of road maintenance.
Federal Government Killing Record Number of Carnivores The federal government is killing record numbers of warm-blooded animals, particularly carnivores, according to agency statistics compiled by Sinapu and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In addition, the number of federally protected wolves killed has been steadily rising - up six-fold over the past decade - with nearly 300 wolves dispatched last year alone. Wildlife Services, a euphemistically named arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, spent $108 million in 2006 to kill more than 1.6 million animals deemed a "nuisance" to ranchers, farmers, and others. That total includes a record number of mammals (207,341) up more than 21% over the previous year, including a record number of animals protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. "We have one arm of the federal government trying to protect wildlife while a different arm is doing its best to eradicate the same animals - how much sense does that make?" asked PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "Our federal government does not have a coherent let alone coordinated wildlife policy." The 2006 Wildlife Service kill totals for mammals were up sharply from previous years:...
Provision in farm bill would shorten time meatpackers own cows The farm bill approved Thursday by the Senate Agriculture Committee would ban meatpackers from owning cattle more than two weeks before slaughter, legislation advocated by Montana and Wyoming lawmakers. The legislation is a priority for High Plains ranchers who own smaller operations and are hoping to stem competition from larger companies. Supporters of the ban have long pushed for the law to prevent large meatpacking companies from having control over cattle for a long period of time. That way, the companies would be forced to pay current market prices for meat. Advocates say meatpackers can manipulate the prices they pay for cattle with “captive supplies,” or stock they own or control through contracts and marketing agreements. They argue that such control lets meatpackers time their purchases, allowing them to save money but also depress prices. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., may offer an additional amendment on the Senate floor that would require packers to have a fixed base price in their contracts and to put contracts up for bid in the open market. Enzi maintains this would prevent the large meatpacking companies from manipulating the base price after the point of sale....
Authorities concerned about mutilation of bulls in E. Idaho Authorities in eastern Idaho are investigating the deaths of two bulls they say apparently died after first being tranquilized and then having their sexual organs removed. "We come across stuff like this every now and then," said Clark County Sheriff Craig King. "But when they're this close together, it's a concern." Monteview rancher Kyle Stoddard reported the first bull, valued at $2,000, killed on Oct. 16. "I don't know what's going on in the world," Stoddard told the Post Register. "It's really sick that someone would do this." On Sunday, a second sexually mutilated bull was reported at a ranch in Dubois owned by Jim Thomas. King said it appeared both animals were tranquilized first and afterward died of shock, though neither animal was examined by a veterinarian. He said he did not know the reason behind the mutilations, but suspected some type of ritual. Area ranchers are being informed of the incidents....
Mad cattlemen seek compensation for BSE A University of Calgary professor is fighting on behalf of a group of Canadian cattlemen who were adversely affected by the closure of the American border to Canadian beef following a case of BSE on an Alberta ranch May 2003. U of C faculty of law professor Todd Grierson-Weiler, is a leading expert on the North American Free Trade Agreement and international arbitration, is among a team of lawyers who are attempting to use the NAFTA as a mechanism to compensate a group of 120 cattlemen to the tune of no less than $300 million. Within hours of the official announcement that the Alberta cow had tested positive for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow disease, the American border was sealed to all Canadian beef exports. While studies--including a Harvard University BSE Risk Assessment--suggested that the risk to humans was minimal and recommended that the border be reopened, it would be two years before live cattle started moving south again. The provincial government estimated that BSE had cost the cattle industry $7 billion. The CCFT originally formed from a group of Alberta feedlot owners but has grown into a Canada-wide organization. According to their website, the CCFT's two goals are to ensure that the Canada/United States border remains open and to obtain compensation for its members as a result of the arbitrary nature of the border closure....