Candy Magnate Loses Bid to Bar Drilling on Ranch A state judge has ruled that an energy company has the right to explore and drill for natural gas on a sprawling cattle ranch owned by the billionaire candy magnate Forrest E. Mars Jr., despite his opposition. The company, Pinnacle Gas Resources, began drilling 90 minutes after the judge issued his ruling Tuesday, because its leases were set to expire this week if Pinnacle did not act. “The company expects to learn a lot by drilling this first well,” said Chris Mangen, a lawyer who represented Pinnacle. “I expect they hope to find lots of gas.” Lonnie Wright, the son-in-law of Forrest Mars and the manager of the 82,000-acre Diamond Cross ranch, said he had no choice but to let the company in. “I don’t contemplate any other action,” Mr. Wright said. “I got lots I could add but nothing that would help the situation.” On Monday, ranch officials prevented Pinnacle workers from entering the property, telling them they would be in a “breach of the peace” if they tried to do so. The conflict is the latest skirmish in a long war between ranchers and energy companies over a natural gas known as coal-bed methane. Technology created in the 1990s allowed producers to cheaply tap natural gas that occurs near the surface in underground coal deposits. That prompted a boom in the West, especially in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The technology has also generated controversy in cattle country because of something called split estate. The Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 gave land to ranchers, but reserved the mineral rights underneath for the federal government, which leased it to energy companies. There are about 60 million acres of split-estate land in the West....
Livestock Lobby Pressures to Retain Wildlife Poisons As a public comment deadline looms, the livestock industry is ramping up to fight growing calls to ban two of the most deadly poisons used to kill wild mammals, according to documents released today by Sinapu and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The two poisons are sodium cyanide (used in M-44 ejectors) and sodium fluoroacetate, commonly called Compound 1080, used in “livestock protection collars” strapped onto the heads of sheep and goats. The poisons are distributed by Wildlife Services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture which used these two agents during 2006 to “dispatch” an average of 1.6 animals every hour. The poisons are part of a $100 million Wildlife Services’ program that killed more than 1.6 million animals during 2006. Last week, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) also introduced legislation outlawing production and use of the two agents, which EPA classifies as having the highest degree of “acute toxicity.” The basis for the proposed bans is growing reports of accidental poisonings of pets and “non-target” wildlife, including endangered species, and environmental damage. Nonetheless, the ranching lobby has opened a vigorous double-barreled campaign to block the poison bans. For example, nearly a month before Rep. DeFazio introduced his bill, the industry recruited Rep. John Salazar (D-CO) to circulate a letter discouraging co-authors....
Injured horse in Arizona confirmed as having been attacked by wolves A horse in Nutrioso, Ariz., was al­legedly attacked by wolves Sunday. Jess Carey, Catron County wolf investigator, gave the first report, saying that seven chunks had been bitten out of a horse belonging to Cindy Sessions. Sessions said she called Wildlife Services to report the attack and a representative investigated. She said he told her that the size of the bite marks indicated that they were caused by a wolf or wolves.
Chris Carrillo, district super­visor of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services and Animal and Plant Services, con­firmed that “based on the evidence at the scene, the attack was consistent with a wolf attack.' Session said that during the winter she and her family throw feed out to the horses in a 37-acre pasture adja­cent to the house. She said they went out about 7:30 or 8 Sunday morning, and four of their five horses came up to the fence. When the fifth one, Captain, didn’t move, they went to check on him. “His right front leg from the low shoulder down, and both rear legs from the knee down were covered in blood, and, although he was standing up, he was unresponsive,' Sessions said....
Wyden calls for thinning Sen. Ron Wyden has announced that he is working on legislation to overcome gridlock in national forest logging projects designed to reduce wildfires. Wyden, who plans to introduce a bill next month, identified two key issues to break the thinning gridlock: the U.S. Forest Service lacks the funding it needs to do major thinning projects, and too many projects that log large trees to pay for thinning are being delayed by appeals and lawsuits. He noted that less than 100,000 acres of forest have been thinned since the 2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act appropriated $760 million to reduce hazardous fuel buildup on 20 million acres of national forests. According to Wyden, he was heavily influenced by the testimonies of K. Norman Johnson and Jerry F. Franklin at a recent subcommittee meeting to make a legislative change. ...in their Dec. 13 testimony Johnson and Franklin stated, “We will lose these forests to catastrophic disturbance events unless we undertake aggressive active management programs.” They called for a focus on "forest restoration" and active management in the national forests of Oregon and Washington with an emphasis on reducing stand densities that can contribute to catastrophic wildfires and Western pine beetle infestations in old-growth stands. “To conserve these forests, we need to modify stand structure (e.g., treat fuels) on one-half to two-thirds of the landscape,” they testified....
Environmentalists Score Victory The Bush administration has dropped its appeal of a 2007 court decision that had overturned new management rules for 191 million acres of national forests. Opponents to the rules had argued they weakened protection for wildlife and the environment to the benefit of the timber industry. The Justice Department notified the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week that it was withdrawing its appeal, saying that the other parties, including the timber industry, would do likewise. "We are glad the Bush administration has thrown in the towel," said Trent Orr, an attorney for Earthjustice, one of the environmental advocacy groups that had challenged the new forest management rules in court. The court papers, filed Monday, were made available to reporters Tuesday by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center, both of which were involved in the case. Last March, a federal district court in California found that the U.S. Forest Service had bypassed required environmental reviews and provisions under the Endangered Species Act in its overhaul of the management rules, including changes in logging limits, for its national forests....
Enviros Object To Gas Line In Roadless Area An environmental group says it will sue to block construction of a natural gas pipeline through roadless forest land in western Colorado. The 25.5-mile Bull Mountain pipeline is planned south of Silt on the White River and Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests. The U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management gave final approval Monday to the project to be used by Gunnison Energy and SG Interests in northern Gunnison County. The pipeline will run through three roadless areas: two in the White River forest and one in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison forest. Sloan Shoemaker of the Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop said the pipeline would violate a 2001 federal ban on development of roadless national forest land. BLM spokesman David Boyd said no roads will be built and the new pipeline will parallel an existing pipeline. Federal officials explored building the line around the roadless areas but concluded that would have greater environmental impacts because the route would be longer and go through riparian areas, Boyd said....
Shooting one owl to save another Biologists grappled Tuesday with the realities of shooting barred owls that invade the older forest habitat of federally protected northern spotted owls, a strategy critics say the Bush administration employs to help spotted owls while also trimming away at their preserves in an effort to open up logging. A scientist who experimented with barred owl control in Northern California said it proved relatively easy, at least in limited areas of accessible forests, and removing some adult barred owls before nesting season could control the broader population and open a window for spotted owls to come back. The cost would be relatively minor, Lowell Diller, a biologist with Green Diamond Resource Co. in Northern California, told researchers meeting Tuesday in Portland. He cautioned he wasn't trying to make light of it, but said, "This is almost like a redneck sport -- you do it from the tail of your pickup." The researchers are reviewing the scientific basis for a spotted owl recovery plan drafted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The plan is the Bush administration's attempt to lay out a blueprint for the resurrection of the spotted owl, which suffered from intensive logging in past decades and is now being shouldered out of forests by the barred owl....
Rabbit review It should take about a year for the federal government to decide whether the pygmy rabbit receives protection under the Endangered Species Act. In the meantime, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department will conduct and share research with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to assist in making a decision, a Game and Fish spokesman said Tuesday. “The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is conducting monitoring and research to learn more about this species,” Eric Keszler said. “We will be providing our data to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as they proceed with their status review.” In Wyoming, the pygmy rabbit is located primarily in Sweetwater, Uinta, Lincoln and Sublette counties. It has been identified as a "species of concern" by Game and Fish. Habitat for the rabbit is fairly secure today, Keszler said, but there are potential threats from oil and gas development. The Fish and Wildlife Service's Tuesday decision, commonly known as a 90-day finding, is based on scientific information about the species provided in a petition requesting listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act. The agency had earlier determined that the pygmy rabbit didn’t warrant protection, but will now undertake, under court order, a more thorough review to determine whether to list the species....
Salazars offer compromise on Roan Plateau drilling U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and his brother, U.S. Rep. John Salazar, both Colorado Democrats, said Tuesday they will drop their opposition to natural gas drilling atop the state's majestic Roan Plateau, while they work to minimize environmental impacts. The Salazars said their new stance is in the spirit of compromise, after they previously sought a one-year moratorium or even an outright ban on drilling on the Western Slope landmark. Those efforts were killed in the Senate version of the energy bill. "We may not get everything we want, but this is a pretty good compromise," Rep. Salazar said Tuesday in a news conference at the state Capitol. The Salazars' approach aligns them with Gov. Bill Ritter, who last month said he would work with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to minimize the impact of gas drilling atop the plateau....
F.T.C. Asks if Carbon-Offset Money Is Well Spent Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects to balance the emissions created by, say, using a laptop computer or flying on a jet. But where exactly is that money going? The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, raised the question Tuesday in its first hearing in a series on green marketing, this one focusing on carbon offsets. As more companies use offset programs to create an environmental halo over their products, the commission said it was growing increasingly concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated. Environmentalists have a word for such misleading advertising: “greenwashing.” With the rapid growth of green programs like carbon offsets, “there’s a heightened potential for deception,” said Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the commission. The F.T.C. has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create definitions for phrases that are common now — like renewable energy, carbon offsets and sustainability....