Ranchers want Army records on expenses for planning Ranchers fighting the Army's effort to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site have filed a federal open records claim with Fort Carson to get an accounting of what money and time is being spent on expansion planning. The ranchers argue the Army's action is illegal under the terms of the 2008 federal budget law. Mack Louden, a rancher and board member of the group, Not 1 More Acre, argued the records will show the Army is continuing to use contractors, particularly the Booz Allen Hamilton public relations firm, to do expansion planning. That planning includes the recent meetings with Southern Colorado community members to discuss the planned 414,000-acre expansion of the Pinon Canyon training area. Louden and other opponents point to the 2008 federal budget law signed by President Bush in January because it contains a one-year moratorium on the Army spending any money on the Pinon Canyon expansion. That ban was authored and sponsored by Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and John Salazar, who claim that expanding Pinon Canyon would ruin the ranching economy of Las Animas County and the region....
Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico Oil and natural gas companies have their eye on eastern Mora County, but first they'll have to deal with residents who, unlike many New Mexicans, own the mineral rights on their land. Some Mora County residents began receiving letters a few months regarding their mineral rights. At a recent meeting at the Ocate Community Center, landman Knute Lee Jr. made a pitch to residents to lease their oil and gas mineral rights through his Albuquerque company, KHL Inc. "Many were interested in how the royalty and rental system works. The rest were quiet but not very welcoming," said Ojo Feliz resident Rose Josefa. "I didn't get the sense that people were jumping up and down over his offer." Eastern Mora County is the latest area in New Mexico where landmen such as Lee, who negotiate mineral leases for oil and gas companies, are looking. Like residents in the Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe who are concerned over drilling plans by Tecton Energy, some Ojo Feliz and Ocate residents are gearing up to fight plans for oil and gas pumping in their area. But unlike the Galisteo Basin, many landowners in Mora County also own their mineral rights. New Mexico is under a split estate system, which considers mineral rights and the property rights above them to be distinct. Those rights can be sold or leased separately....
All the better to hunt elk, my dear A wolf-advocacy group said Monday it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation. The decision to use the sharpshooters was made in December but signed Friday by Mike Snyder, intermountain director for the National Park Service. A WildEarth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down. Elk - there are an estimated 2,000 in the park - are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk....
Cross-border studies reveal secrets of pronghorn antelope migration Pronghorn antelope can run as fast as 60 mph for short distances. But it's the great distances they travel — not their remarkable sprints — that might prove to be more insightful in the long run. Using collars that communicate with space satellites, private and government researchers in Montana and Canada are tracking the pronghorns' journeys between the United States, Alberta and Saskatchewan. They've been stunned by round-trip migrations of more than 500 miles. The specific goal of the first-of-its-kind study is to learn more about historical migration routes and threats to them, such as fences and oil and gas development. But researchers say the country-trotting ungulates could end up telling a much bigger story about fragmentation of sagebrush habitat, which is a threat to a lot of wildlife. "It's a canary on the prairie," said Cormack Gates, who serves on the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary...Not "keystone" or "canary in a coal mine," but "canary on the prairie." That's two in two days.
Ariz. leaders look anew at land reform Voters may get another chance this year to make preservation of large swaths of the state's unspoiled desert and mountains more affordable for taxpayers. Gov. Janet Napolitano has gathered key players to hammer out legislation that would change the way Arizona conserves - or develops - its open desert. Cities and environmental groups have plans to conserve land in Pima County, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tucson, Flagstaff and smaller communities. A defeated 2006 ballot measure would have made 700,000 acres available for cities and other agencies to acquire either free or off the auction block for potentially less than open bidding would bring. Trust land was granted to Arizona at statehood, with the federal government reasoning that sales would fund schools and other public agencies. Trust-land auctions continue to help fund classrooms. The State Land Department decides when it can get a good price for land and then puts it up for auction. But that builds in a conflict - one not foreseen in the 19th century - with conservationists and cities saying it is also a priority to preserve open land for future generations. Although the governor and legislators are still haggling over details of a new proposal to present to voters this year, the new measure would allow cities and conservationists to buy some of the acres without facing developers at auction....
Congress wants your water The new version would delete the word “navigable” and replace it with the word “all.” Therefore, no longer would federal jurisdiction apply only to lakes and rivers, but it would be extended to all bodies of water — permanent or intermittent — everywhere in the United States, be they in your backyard or on your farm. The federal definition will be extended to include, among other things, streams, wetlands, sloughs, wet meadows, and ponds. This land grab would allow the federal government through the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to regulate how you manage any body of water on your own private property, even though said water will never come in contact with the properties of others. They will be allowed to control what you do and how you do it and will be empowered to force you to mitigate anything they might perceive as detrimental. This will have an undeniably negative impact on millions of property owners. Those who will have to answer to someone for land and water they own will be people who manage their ponds for fishing and leisure, miners who need water to pump their mines and wells, ranchers who need watering holes for their cattle, and farmers who need to irrigate their fields....
Air tankers used in West vulnerable, feds report U.S. Forest Service air tankers used in California and other Western states are potentially vulnerable to accidents, investigators warn in a new report. Despite making strides to improve air safety, the Forest Service could still use more money, better long-range planning and stricter aircraft inspections, among other improvements, federal investigators said. "The Forest Service has suffered numerous, potentially preventable aviation accidents over the years, and continues to be at risk for more," the investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted this week. In June 2002, for instance, three crewmen died when their 45-year-old air tanker broke apart over the mountains north of Yosemite National Park. National Transportation Safety Board investigators subsequently cited "inadequate maintenance" that overlooked cracks in a wing of the Lockheed C-130. More recently, two Forest Service contractors died in August 2006 when their heavy-duty Sikorsky helicopter crashed into the Klamath River. Part of the 40-year-old helicopter's tail rotor fell off shortly before the crash, investigators found. Almost exactly a year later, another firefighting pilot died when his Bell helicopter clipped a tree and crashed in the Klamath National Forest. All told, 28 crashes of Forest Service helicopters and airplanes occurred between 2002 and 2006. Sixteen crashes of the Forest Service's firefighting aircraft occurred between 1997 and 2001....
Nevada water 'grab' hearings wrap up State hearings into a plan to pump billions of gallons of rural Nevada water to Las Vegas ended Friday with proponents saying they're entitled to the water and opponents warning that the pumping could have a catastrophic impact. State Engineer Tracy Taylor will review the testimony and voluminous paperwork submitted during two weeks of hearings and issue a ruling at a later date on the Southern Nevada Water Authority pumping plan. A final decision isn't likely for several months. Paul Taggart, attorney for SNWA which wants to draw more than 11.3 billion gallons of groundwater a year from Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave valleys, argued that the water authority met all requirements for the pumping and critics' disaster scenarios are unfounded. Simeon Herskovits, attorney for the Great Basin Water (NASDAQ:BWTR) Network which opposes the plan, countered that SNWA tried to hide evidence that the pumping may harm existing water users and the environment in rural Nevada because there's not enough water in the valleys for long-term exportation. Herskovits was backed by Greg Walch, representing Cave Valley Ranch LLC which wants to develop land in that valley. Walch said that despite its remoteness, the valley has potential -- but not without water....
National Biomass And Carbon Dataset Now Available For US Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center working to produce the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000) are releasing data from nine project mapping zones. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover information, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the USDA Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will provide an invaluable baseline for quantifying the carbon stock in U.S. forests and will improve current methods of assessing the carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere. According to Dr. Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center and project leader, "The availability of a high resolution dataset containing estimates of forest biomass and associated carbon stock is an important step forward in enabling researchers to better understand the North American carbon balance." As part of the NBCD2000 initiative, begun in 2005 and funded by NASA's Earth Science Program with additional support from the USGS/LANDFIRE, mapping is being conducted within 67 ecologically diverse regions, termed "mapping zones", which span the conterminous United States. Wayne Walker, a research associate at the Center who is also working on the project adds, "The data sets that are now available should be of interest to natural resource managers across the U.S. For the first time, high resolution estimates of vegetation canopy height and biomass are being produced consistently for the entire conterminous U.S."....
Resort growth plan stirs fight A proposal to carve ski trails from out-of-bounds glades known as a "locals' stash" is sparking a battle over ski-area expansion and competing ideals of skiing. Breckenridge resort officials have asked the U.S. Forest Service to open 450 acres of terrain on Peak 6, north of the resort's existing boundary, to help disperse skiers at the busiest ski area in the country. A league of hard-core backcountry skiers and environmentalists have, however, taken a stand against the plan — arguing that expansion is unwarranted and would erode an untrammeled natural area. "Having something that's untouched is pretty important," said Ellen Hollinshead, a local leader of the Backcountry Skiers' Alliance....
Conservation Groups Petition Fish and Wildlife Service for Emergency Actions to Save Imperiled Bats From Deadly New Disease Citing a threat to bats from a new disease that is widespread, severe, and imminent, conservation organizations today petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for immediate action to prevent further harm to endangered bats. State wildlife agencies have reported that tens of thousands of bats are dying from an unknown malady informally known as “white-nose syndrome.” It was first discovered last year in four bat hibernating caves in New York. This year, the fungus has been observed on bats at virtually every significant bat hibernation site in New York, along with one cave in Vermont. Biologists throughout the Northeast have been scrambling to determine the extent and source of the die-off. Conservation organizations are asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to pull permits for federal projects that will harm imperiled bats and to close bat hibernation sites to the public. “Logging, burning, road building — all these actions harm endangered bats,” said Mollie Matteson, public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity....
State game director convicted of illegally killing deer The director of the state Department of Game and Fish has been convicted of shooting a deer without permission on land in southeastern New Mexico. Lincoln County Magistrate Martha Proctor sentenced Bruce Thompson to 182 days in jail Monday but suspended the time and placed him on probation. The conditions of Thompson's unsupervised probation require that he not violate any local, state or federal laws for 182 days. Thompson also was ordered to pay a $500 fine. He had pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge. Thompson still faces a related misdemeanor count of unlawfully hunting or possessing a protected species. He has pleaded not guilty to that charge. A jury trial is scheduled for April 21 in Carrizozo. The charges had stemmed from a Nov. 17 hunt on the Diamond T Ranch west of Roswell in which Thompson shot a deer. It is illegal to hunt on private property in New Mexico without permission from the landowner....
Ruling draws ire of farmers A new interpretation of an old federal law will result in regulating farmers when they transport harvested grain from the field to the grain elevator. The Kansas Corporation Commission interpretation of the federal law has determined that a farmer hauling grain from the harvest field to the grain elevator is the first leg of interstate commerce and can be regulated like professional truckers, said Brad Harrelson, state policy director for Kansas Farm Bureau. It is a federal law that has been on the books since the 1930s and it is the recent interpretation that could put farmers under federal regulation, said Kansas Rep. Mitch Holmes. As the interpretation stands, drivers would have to have an annual medical physical. Farmers would have pay a fee for a United States Department of Transportation uniform registry fee for a decal they would have to display on the side of all their vehicles, said state Sen. Ruth Teichman....
Arrest made in cow abuse case Police have arrested a slaughterhouse worker whose alleged abuse of sick and injured cows has contributed to the largest recall of beef in U.S. history. Daniel Ugarte Navarro of Pomona was arrested at his home Saturday afternoon on a $75,000 warrant. He was released from jail about 6:30 a.m. Sunday after posting bail. Navarro, 48, worked as a pen manager at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., one of the largest suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. In what they called an unprecedented case, prosecutors charged Navarro on Friday with felony animal abuse and misdemeanor counts of illegally moving crippled cows. He could face more than eight years in prison, if convicted as charged. A second employee, Luis Sanchez, was also charged, but has not yet been arrested. A warrant has been issued for his arrest....
USDA will step up inspections at slaughterhouses The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would step up oversight at 900 slaughterhouses in the USA to check for inhumane handling violations like those that led to the biggest meat recall ever on Sunday. "I don't have reason to believe this is widespread. But the extra checks will give us a better handle on it," said Kenneth Petersen, USDA assistant administrator. Westland/Hallmark Meat of Chino, Calif., recalled 143 million pounds of beef manufactured over two years after a USDA investigation sparked by abuses uncovered by the Humane Society of the United States. The USDA found that Westland did not always alert federal inspectors when cows that passed an initial USDA inspection became unable to walk before they were slaughtered. Such "downer" cattle are supposed to be excluded from the U.S. food supply because they're at higher risk of carrying mad cow disease, which affects the brain, and E. coli and salmonella bacteria. USDA inspectors check cattle headed to slaughter to see if they can walk. If cattle pass and then go down, they must be checked again. They can be slaughtered if they've suffered an injury, such as a broken leg, and don't pose a food-safety risk. Of 11,000 cattle slaughtered monthly at the plant, the USDA banned 30 to 40 downers, an average number, Petersen says....
Humane deaths for horses 'too costly' Despite his wide eyes and shimmering chestnut coat, horse 8778 had no takers. With a heavy limp in his gait, the crippled sorrel was hardly worth his weight to those at the weekly Willcox Livestock Auction. The gelding likely would be on his way to Mexico for slaughter — a journey that has become common for horses decrepit and old. Since the closure of the three U.S. horse slaughter plants in Illinois and Texas in 2006, for violating state laws, there has been a spike in horses going across the U.S. border to Mexico for slaughter. These cross-border journeys are often grueling, stretching for hundreds of miles with the horses crammed into double-decker trailers. For those horses arriving in Mexico each week, the deaths are potentially far more gruesome than they would have been in the United States. Some horses have been slaughtered in Mexico by repeatedly being stabbed. More than 45,000 horses went to Mexico for slaughter last year, up from about 11,000 the year before, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. But many ranchers use the gruesome deaths to argue for the need to reopen the U.S. slaughterhouses. The closures, they say, have only added to the ranks of unwanted and undervalued horses at a time when gas and hay prices have skyrocketed. "People have no place to go with them," said Wayne Earven, a former state livestock inspector who was recently selling a horse at auction in Willcox. "To be real honest with you, we haven't seen the worst of it yet."....
No room at the pen A dying dog is 40 pounds of family sadness. A dying horse is a physics problem, and 1,000 pounds of emotional debate over what we should do with the iconic Western companion at the end of its useful life. "The bottom line is there are more horses than there are people with properties who can adequately care for them," said Keith Roehr, a veterinarian with the state of Colorado. Overbreeding has saturated the horse market, driving down values, while feed-grain prices have tripled. At the same time, changing ethical standards have shut off a generations-old relief valve for ranchers — slaughtering horses for meat to be consumed in foreign countries. The glut puts more horses in peril every month. More are being abandoned on public lands. Neglected horses crowd rescue shelters. The pool of farms willing to put Old Paint out to pasture is shrinking....
Montana faces shortage of sheep shearers as shearing season nears There is somewhat of a crisis in the sheep industry in Montana. The price ranchers are getting for wool is up, but finding someone to get the wool from the sheep is difficult. According to Jim Moore, Montana State University (MSU) Sheep Institute Exten-sion Agent, the state does not have enough sheep to justify shearing as a full time career. “In some cases people just aren't getting their sheep sheared,” he said. “Crews just can't get to them.” The only way to get all of the sheep sheared is if shearers come from other countries because there just are not enough domestic shearers to take care of all the sheep, he added. There are several reasons for a shearer shortage in the state. There are only about 260,000 sheep, which means there are not enough to do that as a full time profession. Also, shearing is extremely hard work....
History for the taking The collection is free, but there will be a $100,000 price tag with accepting a voluminous donation of historical material detailing the modern origins of Temecula. The great-grandson of Walter Vail, the man who formed the vast ranch where Temecula now stands, in September offered volumes of maps, deeds and documents ---- dating back to the late 1800s ---- to the city. Members of the Temecula Valley Museum determined that the collection being offered by Sandy Wilkinson's family members is one of the most extensive archives of material pertaining to local history ever amassed. Whitney Vail Wilkinson, the son of the late Sandy Wilkinson and the great-grandson of Walter Vail, is the executor of the family estate. Sandy Wilkinson, who died in 2006, was a longtime employee of Vail Ranch and lived his entire life in Temecula. He was in charge of the water rights and issues involved in the building of the Vail Dam ---- then the largest privately built dam in the United States. The dam created Vail Lake, once the key water source for the Temecula Valley and surrounding areas. The original dam and lake are still in operation today, roughly 10 miles east of Temecula along Highway 79 South....
Windmill machinist keeps western icon alive It's hard to imagine the American frontier without a windmill poking out of the horizon, its silver vanes slicing the crosswinds. Though electricity-generating giants have sometimes sprouted in their place, the traditional windmills that once pumped groundwater for thirsty livestock have largely become decorative fixtures. Along with the windmills have gone the windmill men. Derrill Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Windmill & Supply Inc. in Fort Sumner, says he is among the last of his kind. "It's a dying art," Mitchell says as he takes a moment from machining new parts to wipe his brow. The metallic shavings of discarded gears catch the afternoon sun as they cascade to the floor of his workshop. Mitchell says he is the only windmill man in New Mexico who still machines parts, one of a dwindling number across the country. Windmills haven't changed much over the years, he says: "A part from a 1935 Aermotor still fits a 1962, or a 1989 or a 2008." Mitchell and his crew have been called on to install or repair windmills across the Southwest, through America's breadbasket and beyond....
Oscar Town: Marfa, Texas? A thousand feet above a wind-swept, drought-browned valley, a man steps out of a late-70s Ford Granada on a deserted two-lane. He is confronted by a second man, who raises a pneumatic bolt gun to his forehead and deals a fatal blow. Chip Love -- or "Man in Ford," as Oscar-nominated "No Country For Old Men" would come to credit him -- collapses to his knees on the blacktop, where Texas Ranch Road 2810 cuts through the crest of a hill covered in volcanic rock and tall, thick-trunked yuccas. He gets up. He's shot again. And again. And again. Eight times altogether he rises and falls. Getting it right pretty much takes all day. "It's not as easy as it looks," Love, 50, a local rancher and bank manager, laughs about his role as an early victim of psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. On another day, just a few miles to the west of Love's "death," a crew of oilfield workers bounds down the stairs of a dusty depot, emptying a train pulled by an early 20th century steam locomotive. But this is a scene that will play out in "There Will Be Blood," another film up for multiple Academy Awards. This is no mere coincidence....
Oscar-nominated films 'Blood,' 'Country' bring Hollywood to heart of Texas Joel and Ethan Coen had just pulled into this one-stoplight town to scout shooting No Country for Old Men when a drifter approached their limousine. Unshaven and unsteady, he hobbled toward the car with a sign under his arm. When he reached the directors, he raised the board above his head. "Repent, Hollywood scum," it read. This is not a place easily impressed by money or fame. Still, the high-desert town of 2,100 cowboys, ranch hands and rogue artists has become the unlikely epicenter of Sunday's Academy Awards. No Country and There Will Be Blood were shot here, and the Westerns, which led all movies with eight nominations apiece, including best picture, are expected to dominate the Oscars. Not that many Marfans have seen either film. The closest theater is in Alpine, 26 miles east. The tiny Rangra Theater, however, does have two screens. One is showing No Country, the other Blood. Neither sells out much. "I thought they were OK," retired rancher Bill Owens, 61, says over an enormous dill pickle, a favorite theater concession. "I hope they win (Oscars) because it'll be good for Marfa. A little artsy-fartsy, though. They weren't no Giant, I'll tell you that." He's referring to the 1956 James Dean oil epic that put Marfa on the map and, until this year, was one of the few films shot in these parts. It remains a favorite of locals who still prefer heroes who get the girl,occasionally sing and keep their cussing to a minimum....
Clovis woman sentenced to hang in 1928 “According to records that I have,” he said, “no person sentenced from Curry County has been put to death since the state of New Mexico began executing its condemned felons at the State Prison in 1933. However, prior to then, those sentenced to die were hanged locally by the sheriffs in the counties. Do you have any record of any legal hangings that might have occurred in Clovis or in Curry County prior to 1933? Enclosed is 13 cents postage for your reply.” I wrote and said I didn’t know of any hangings, but told him there where some people in and around Clovis who should have been hung. But in October 1978 I learned about a woman from southwest of Artesia, Nannie Catherine Halsey, who was accused of killing her rancher husband, Fred Halsey. Three people were involved in the killing and all three were found quilty and sentenced to hang on Aug. 1, 1924. They appealed it to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1925 and Nannie Halsey was granted a new trial. The second trial was held in Clovis, beginning Sept. 24, 1928. O.O. Askren was her attorney....
It's All Trew: Chilly among cattle In about 1942, if I remember correctly, at the age of 9, it was mid-winter and cold as heck in Ochiltree County. There was snow on the ground, all the playa lakes were frozen over and school had adjourned for the Christmas holidays. It was also a time before horse trailers, good pickup heaters and paved roads in our part of the area. My father had a lot of cattle on wheat pasture and occasionally a group had to be moved to another field. It seemed to me he always picked the coldest day to drive the herds into the coldest north winds each time we worked. Since the county roads were dirt and usually fenced, we pushed the cattle out into the roads and "the men" rode ahead to close gates and guide while my job was to follow and make sure no livestock dropped out. Time after time I thought I would freeze to death before the drive ended. It was a mystery to me how the men seemed impervious to the same cold that I was suffering from. Then one day I caught them taking a nip from a flat-shaped bottle carried in their chaps pockets. I did not think this was fair and decided to do something about it....