Navy's Use of Sonar Is Severely Limited A federal judge yesterday severely limited the Navy's ability to use mid-frequency sonar on a training range off the Southern California coast, ruling that the loud sounds would harm whales and other marine mammals if not tightly controlled. The decision is a blow to the Navy, which has argued that it needs the flexibility to train its sonar operators without undue restrictions. In her decision, however, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said the Navy could conduct productive training under the limitations, which she said were required under several environmental laws. In particular, Cooper banned the use of the sonar within 12 nautical miles of the California coast, expanded from 1,100 yards to 2,200 yards the Navy's proposed "shut down" zone in which sonar must be turned off whenever a marine mammal is spotted, required monitoring for the presence of animals for one hour before exercises involving sonar begin, and required that two National Marine Fisheries Service-trained lookouts be posted for monitoring during exercises. The judge also forbade sonar use in the Catalina Basin, an area with many marine mammals. Cooper's ruling comes as the Navy is in the midst of a two-year series of training exercises off Southern California that involve extensive use of active sonar, which is used to find a new generation of harder-to-detect submarines now operated by 41 nations....
Ranchers, farmers keep nature in and feds out Southern Colorado ranchers are setting aside land for conservation and inviting scientists on their property to study the imperiled Gunnison sage grouse. On the Eastern Plains, farmers are flagging nesting sites of the mountain plover to avoid plowing over them. The goal of the ranchers and the farmers is the same — to avoid strict regulations under the federal Endangered Species Act by helping animals at risk of extinction. These days, the embattled federal law that is designed to prevent the extinction of plants and animals often accomplishes its purpose in Colorado without ever being invoked. Local and state officials — and often private landowners — are scrambling to keep imperiled plants and animals off the endangered-species list by protecting habitat voluntarily rather than under the restrictions of federal law....
Drilling boom spurs demand for landmen Today, they're all working the Barnett Shale as landmen -- people who collect and manage mineral-rights leases. By most accounts, there are perhaps 1,000 landmen in Tarrant County and at least that many more throughout the region. The figure is hard to pin down because there are no licensing requirements and the vast majority are independent contractors, not employees of energy companies. The natural gas drilling boom in the vast field underlying Tarrant County and many surrounding areas has sparked demand for landmen to handle everything from researching deeds to gaining signatures from homeowners. Lured by pay that can top $450 a day for experienced landmen -- more than $100,000 a year -- hundreds of workers, many of them young people, have flocked to North Texas for a chance to get a piece of the Barnett action. They're jumping into a market that bears little resemblance to the past. "In the old days, you went out and talked to the farmer or rancher, came back and wrote up a report," said Terry McInturff, director of the Center for Energy Commerce at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. "You could do it so much more quickly. When you need, say, 160 acres for a well, a rancher with 10,000 acres is pretty sweet," he said. All that has changed now that drilling has moved into urban areas....
Regulating the wind The high winds that are part of life in southeast Wyoming make it a prime target for the development of systems to turn the gusts into a usable source of electricity. To prepare for the expected influx of towers and turbines that may dot the landscape, Laramie County is creating rules to monitor the future installation, operation and potential abandonment of wind energy systems. County officials say the proposed regulations are designed to ensure the orderly development of the systems. They also seek to protect public infrastructure and the quality of life for residents while encouraging the growth of this alternative energy source for personal and commercial uses. The proposal sets limits on how close wind towers can be to houses, utility lines and public roads as well as other wind energy systems. Also, power lines serving the systems would have to be buried, and advertising on the towers would be prohibited. Restrictions on the noise and light from the towers are also included. Many ranchers and large landowners say the rules make sense. But they caution that the final form of the regulations should be considered carefully, particularly because of the potential revenue wind farms can bring....
Big oil casts big shadow over Colorado's water future No one has ever rowed a boat across Stillwater Reservoir. Or caught a fish at Fourteenmile Reservoir. Or stood on the beach of Roan Creek Reservoir. These are all imaginary lakes. They exist only in the minds of oil company executives and attorneys. But the oil companies own legal rights to build and fill these reservoirs, which would be in Garfield and Rio Blanco counties. And as the companies take another look at Colorado's oil- shale deposits, which would require vast amounts of water to develop, they might make those imaginary lakes a reality. Their water rights are huge, and getting bigger. Shell has been buying large water rights on the Western Slope for the last five years and just completed a major purchase in July. State leaders are watching. "I've seen estimates that oil shale, if it is developed, would consume 100 percent of the remaining water in the Colorado River system," said U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar....
Supreme Court won't hear water rights case (subscription) Chalk one up for Goliath (in this case, the federal government), even though he got whupped by David (two Idaho ranching families). By refusing to hear a landmark Idaho water rights case, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it official: An individual can defeat the U.S. government in court in every major battle but lose the war. The court declined to hear a case involving two Idaho ranching families who fought the government for nearly a decade over federal rangeland water rights. That means the two families, who were victorious in their cases, cannot recover attorney fees. Essentially, they've reached the end of their road in legal terms and face a bleak financial outlook after a long battle to defend their stock-watering rights. The two ranches were vindicated earlier this year when the Idaho Supreme Court ruled the federal government does not hold federal rangeland water rights. The ranches won on every major point and the court even said the government's argument reflected "a serious misunderstanding of water law." However, in a serious setback to the ranching operations, the court also ruled they could not recover attorney fees from the government. Considering they owe about $1.5 million combined - an amount roughly equal to the value of the ranches - that's no small matter. The two Owyhee County ranches, Joyce Livestock Co. and LU Ranching Co., appealed the court's decision not to award them attorney fees to the U.S. Supreme Court. They found out Oct. 31 the court would not hear their appeal. "We knew going in the Supreme Court took a mighty small percentage of cases," said LU Ranching owner Tim Lowry. "We were hoping against hope they'd take this one. But they didn't." Lowry said their next step would be "to figure out how to get the attorneys paid. Our options are pretty limited." The Idaho Supreme Court agreed with the ranches on virtually every point in their battle with the federal government over water rights on land covered by federally administered grazing allotments....
Bison market on the move “In the past five years, the bison industry definitely has rebounded,” said Russ Miller, who manages media mogul Ted Turner's 15 ranches, all but one of which run bison. With 45,000 animals, Turner is by far the biggest bison rancher in the nation. The next largest is a Wyoming operation that runs about 3,000 head. Just on Turner's Flying D Ranch south of Bozeman, about 3,500 bison roam, Miller said. Turner has played a large role in the turnaround of the bison industry, in part through the construction of 54 Ted's Montana Grill restaurants around the country, places where people are encouraged to sink their teeth into a slab of bison meat. The restaurants have introduced bison to a wide swath of diners. “They provide a good job of providing a good quality first bite of bison,” said Jim Matheson, assistant director of the National Bison Association. Turner's high profile celebrity status clearly helps bring people in the doors, and they get a dose of Turner's environmental ethic as well, which is part of marketing bison. Turner and other bison ranchers maintain that the shaggy giants are easier on the land than nonnative beef cows, plus the meat is higher in protein and lower in fat than most other meats. The restaurants help move a lot of bison but they also have a secondary effect. If customers enjoy their meal, they start looking a little more closely at the bison meat they're starting to see more regularly in supermarket coolers....
Leaner Pastures: As Horses Multiply,Neglect Cases Rise Across the U.S., the number of horses whose owners won't or can't properly care for them is mushrooming. Spurred by retiring baby boomers and their penchant for second homes in the country, horse ownership boomed in the U.S. over the past decade. Americans own more than nine million horses today, up from just over six million horses in the mid-1990s, according to the American Horse Council, a trade association. Along with the boom came backyard breeding, as owners without the discipline or financial muscle to obtain award-winning genes settled for whatever nature produced. More than two million Americans own horses, and more than a third of those owners have a household income of less than $50,000. As the horse population soared -- and the economy ceased to gallop -- selling the animals became more difficult. Some owners could no longer afford their investment. Until recently, a little-advertised market for unwanted horses existed at equine slaughterhouses, which in 2004 killed an estimated 65,000 horses, largely for human consumption in Europe and Japan. But the last three such plants closed in 2007, under pressure from animal-rights groups. "Animal lovers with big hearts and no idea what's required to take care of a horse have shut down slaughterhouses that were needed," says C.J. Hadley, publisher of a cowboy magazine called Range, based in Carson City, Nev. Calling horse lovers who oppose slaughterhouses "innocent," Ms. Hadley says, "Ranchers love their horses enough to put them down when the time comes." Now, some unwanted American horses wind up at Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses. But others linger and starve, often ending up at rescue homes and other charities....
Iconic Stetson First Made At Base Of Pikes Peak National park rangers proudly wear them. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have donned them for more than a century. Colorado State Patrol troopers wear them, too. Boy Scout leaders, military drill sergeants and even Smokey Bear, the renowned champion of forest protection, wear Stetson Boss of the Plains ranger hats. Perhaps they should be standard issue for Colorado Springs police, given that the distinctive flat-brimmed, felt hat with the "mountain peak" crown and leather band was conceived and created by John B. Stetson at a campfire at the base of Pikes Peak in 1862. Stetson, the son of a New Jersey hatmaker, was diagnosed with tuberculosis, so he left the family business and went to explore the West before he died. He worked as a brickmaker in St. Joseph, Mo., before joining a Pikes Peak gold-mining expedition. According to historical accounts, he was camped with a dozen men near Pikes Peak when he drew on his skills to fashion a hat out of beaver fur to protect him from the sun, rain and wind. Stetson wore his wide-brimmed, domed hat throughout the expedition that year -- at a time when bowlers and smaller hats were popular. He sold his first hat for a $5 gold piece to a cowboy on horseback in a mountainside mining camp....
Rancher Kenedy's known as more than just a pretty face As historic figures go, Petra's must have been terrific. Her looks stunned frontiersmen. And after researching her for years, biographers Jane Clements Monday and Frances Brannen Vick concluded that Petra (1825-1885) was beautiful not merely physically, but spiritually as well. Forever helping friends, kin and her Catholic church, she gave away a wagonload of money to charities way before such acts earned tax credits. Historian John Henry Brown called her "a woman of superior accomplishments and great natural intelligence." He noted, "She was considered one of the handsomest women of her day." Indian warriors killed her father, ex-governor of Spanish Texas, and carried off three of her sisters, one of whom was never rescued. After marrying a Mexican army colonel, Petra Vela de Vidal had six children. Widowed, she then married steamboat tycoon Mifflin Kenedy and had six more children. She helped the captain build a ranching empire whose tall bunchgrasses and mesquites adorned oil deposits unknown to them that today are worth untold millions. If it weren't footnoted, Petra's Legacy: The South Texas Ranching Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy (Texas A&M Press) might be mistaken for soaring fiction. It is chockablock with crooked politics, cattle rustlers, land fraud, warfare, and enough illicit sex to populate South Texas courtrooms for generations. There were once about 300 claimants to the Kenedy estate....