Study: Key Western reservoirs in danger Climate change and a growing demand for water could drain two of the nation's largest manmade reservoirs within 13 years, depriving several Southwestern states of key water sources, scientists warn. Researchers at San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Wednesday that there's a 50 percent chance that lakes Mead and Powell will dry up by 2021, and a 10 percent chance the lakes will run out of usable water by 2013. "We were surprised that it was so soon," said climate scientist David Pierce, co-author of the institution's study that detailed the findings. The study, which was released Tuesday, found that if current conditions persist, there's a 50 percent chance the reservoirs will no longer be able to generate hydropower by 2017. Lake Mead, on the Arizona-Nevada border and the West's largest storage reservoir, and Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah border, have been hit hard by a regional drought and are half full. Both lakes were created by dams built on the Colorado River, which provides water for about 27 million people in seven states. Researchers said that if Lake Mead water levels drop below 1,000 feet, Nevada would lose access to all its river allocation, Arizona would lose much of the water that flows through the Central Arizona Project Canal, and power production would cease before the lake level reached bottom....
Bush forest budget called disastrous A Bush administration spending plan that would slash money for the Forest Service could lead to massive layoffs at the agency charged with managing 193 million acres of national forests, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday. Spending for the Forest Service would be cut by nearly 8 percent next year, to $4.1 billion, in a budget plan submitted by President Bush. The plan could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs — nearly 10 percent of the agency's work force — as well as reductions in dozens of non-fire related programs, from road and trail maintenance to state assistance, land acquisition and recreation, lawmakers said. The only bright spot in the budget was a request to increase spending to fight wildfires by about $148 million to just under $1 billion, Dicks said....
New crop of Western ranchers buck cattle industry to go green Seth Nitschke spent his early 20s working at the country's biggest feed lots before he returned home to start a business raising beef cattle fed on the grasses of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Nitschke, 31, who makes his living herding heifers through pastures near Yosemite National Park, would never call himself an environmental activist, though he's planting saplings to protect nearby streams and runs a light herd to let his pastures breathe. Unlike some of his conservative counterparts in traditional livestock production, he and a new crop of cattlemen are quietly working to minimize their industry's ecological footprint, and are forging unlikely alliances with environmental groups. Throughout the West, cattlemen and environmentalists have locked horns over grazing practices for decades. But increasingly, ranchers are buying into the idea that they have a role to play in protecting open space, be it through preserving private wildlands or promoting sustainable grazing techniques that help endangered species flourish. "This new generation of ranchers knows they have to work on the environmental part of it to survive," said Neil McDougald, a rancher at the University of California Cooperative Extension office in Madera County. "I'll guarantee you the guys driving cows today have a better environmental conscience than the ranchers who were riding around holding up stage coaches."....So there you have it Mr. & Mrs. rancher. You either have an "environmental conscience" or you are a robber of stage coaches. My recommendation to all you stage coach robber types is that you better learn how to sing about peace and love.
Unnatural preservation During the past three years, however, Bradley has been checking on the breeding sites of the black, burrow-nesting Cassin’s auklet, and he’s been finding abandoned eggs; dead, black, cue-ball-sized chicks; and skinny, faltering fledglings. “Most of the chicks have died,” says Bradley, a research biologist with PRBO Conservation Science, a nonprofit founded as the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, that has spent the past 40 years counting and observing the birds that nest yearly on the Farallons. “This was as complete a failure response as we’d ever seen before. And we’d been following this species for 35 years.” The apparent culprit: Ocean currents, redirected by rising sea temperature, have swept out of range the millions of tiny krill that the adult birds scoop into their beaks, chew into purple, smelly goo and then spit up for their young. In other words, this unprecedented starvation wave may be a result of global warming. Bradley is one of the experts who knows most about the auklet die-off. Just the same, he’s adamant in his belief that he should not attempt to save any of the dying chicks. To do so, he says, would be considered unnatural and unscientific. “You definitely grimace when you see the guy next door who hasn’t done so well and has died at a very young age,” Bradley says. “We try to maintain ourselves as scientists. But we really feel for the birds.” In the world of natural preservation, it’s not just scientists who take Bradley’s don’t-mess-with-Mother-Nature stance....
Ranchers offered offset grasslands The Forest Service met with 16 Billings County ranchers this week and offered to sell each of them up to a section of land to offset the agency's acquisition of the former Eberts ranch. The ranchers have six months to take their deal or leave it. The agency received congressional authorization in late December to sell odd lots, ranging from a quarter to a section of land, on the Little Missouri National Grasslands, so the 5,200-acre Eberts' ranch does not increase the Forest Service's net holdings in North Dakota. However, Congress did not authorize use of the Eberts' ranch as a grass bank. The authorization dictates that the agency must continue leasing out the former Eberts ranch under grazing agreements with the Medora Grazing Association. The Forest Service bought the ranch last year, renaming it the Elkhorn Ranchlands, to preserve it for its association with Theodore Roosevelt, who free-ranged cattle there in the 1880s. The deal cost $5.3 million, with all but $500,000 from federal funds. Congress also said multiple uses of grazing, hunting and oil development have to continue. By authorization, the offset offers had to go to ranchers who are already leasing the parcels in conjunction with their privately owned headquarters....
Governor raps drilling proposal A small exploratory drilling project proposed for Little Mountain south of Rock Springs is a bad idea that could lead to large-scale development of a popular recreation and wildlife area, Gov. Dave Freudenthal told federal officials this week. Freudenthal panned the proposal by the Oklahoma-based Devon Energy Co. to drill two exploratory natural gas wells in the area. The governor expressed "significant concerns" about the proposal in comments submitted to the Bureau of Land Management. The governor worried about impacts on recreation, critical wildlife habitat, sensitive species, air and water quality, among others, and pointed to the area's importance to the quality of life for southwest Wyoming residents. Freudenthal said he doesn't want the project to "trigger the full industrialization" of an "irreplaceable" recreation area. Although the initial proposal is just two wells, "the pressure to expand from two wells seems inevitable," he wrote....
EPA: Reconsider gas field air controls An environmental group seeking stricter air-pollution controls on Colorado's growing natural gas industry is praising a federal order it hopes will "ripple through the Rocky Mountain West." The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the state to respond to objections from Denver-based Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action over a permit for a natural gas compressor station in northeast Colorado. The group argued that state air-quality regulators should have bunched the compressor station together with nearby gas wells owned by the same company when it considered whether to issue an air-quality permit. The state issued a permit based only on the compressor station's emissions. An order issued Friday and signed by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson doesn't reverse the decision but directs regulators to explain it and make any appropriate changes. Grouping the compressor station with the wells as a single source of pollution could trigger the need for more stringent air-pollution controls under the federal Clean Air Act, which Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action favors....
BLM official accused of child rape resigns post Accused rapist Rex Lee Smart has retired from the Bureau of Land Management, ending a 25-year career with the federal agency and six years as head of the Kanab office. BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield said Wednesday he could not say whether the departure is related to the 13 felony charges Smart faces in a child sex-abuse case. "It is our policy not to comment on personnel issues," Crutchfield said. Smart, 60, faces two sodomy counts, six forcible-sexual-abuse counts, two kidnapping counts and a rape charge, all first-degree felonies. He also is accused of two second-degree felony counts of forcible sexual abuse....
Celebrating Wilderness Wilderness preservation is an American invention -- a unique contribution of our nation to world civilization. The 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act (September 3, l964) has come and gone, and Americans should renew their pride in and commitment to the National Wilderness Preservation System. It is one of the best ideas our country ever had. One place to start the celebration is with the recognition that wilderness is the basic component of American culture. From the its raw materials we built a civilization. With the idea of wilderness we sought to give that civilization identity and meaning. Our early environmental history is inextricably tied to wild country. Hate it or love it, if you want to understand American history there is no escaping the need to come to terms with our wilderness past. From this perspective, designated Wilderness Areas are historical documents; destroying them is comparable to tearing pages from our books and laws. We can not teach our children what is special about our history on freeways or in shopping malls. As a professional historian I deeply believe that the present owes the future a chance to know its wilderness past....
Coyote 'working' wild turkeys entertains Rankin ranching couple Sundown was settling in when a lone coyote came trotting onto Tommy and Edra Owens' homeplace on hardy ranchland north of Rankin down south from Midland. It was suppertime for the coyote, a clever, savvy, adaptable and legendary prairie and rangeland survivor -- the prairie wolf. The Owens couple had finished their supper when Tommy heard the squawking of wild turkeys, who roost in pine trees in their back yard. Tommy went out and along came Edra. They have lived in this old, mostly dry and rugged country for just about forever. Tommy and coyotes both make their livelihood off of less cunning critters, such as sheep and goats, which Tommy raises. Coyotes also savor the taste of fresh meats, such as that of rabbits, mice and other rodents, birds, snakes and insects. They cotton to fruits and vegetables and, when all else fails, carrion. For supper this evening, wild turkey was on the coyote's menu. "We've got coyotes galore down here," Edra said. "But we have all of these wild turkeys." Once outside, Tommy and Edra were "watching this coyote work those turkeys just like a sheepdog." Tommy, who is a hardy and most likeable 6-foot-4 fellow, gentle and blessed with humor and talent, scurried into house and returned with his .30-06-caliber (thirty-ought-six) rifle and, as Edra tells the tale, "shot at him, but he missed. The coyote ran off."....
How ‘bout them cowboys? These guys and gals are America’s finest. If you’re looking for piercings and tattoos, they’re not readily apparent. In high school they wore cowboy hats and called themselves red necks. Certain administrators thought they were “bad boys.” We knew differently. They were (and are) the greatest products that America manufactures. Honest kids. Polite — shake your hand, look you in the eye — kids who grew up in rural environments where they were force fed solid values and learned basic life skills. They can hunt, fish, rope and weld a blade on the front of an American tank, should someone get caught in hedge rows in France. These days, certain dead souls want to put down cattle and ranching in general. There is a movement against beef — an attack on Ag. Those folks don’t get it. The finest kids this nation has ever produced were weaned on farms and ranches. Curtail farming and you kill the culture these kids were raised in. We should promote Ag, if, for nothing else, the kind of children it produces. You can’t bottle character and sell it. It’s home grown. Like the cattle they raise. How ‘bout them cowboys?....
Trail drives began here in South Texas South Texas, birthplace of the cattle industry, was also the birthplace of trail drives. Cattle were driven from this part of Mexico across Louisiana bayous in the 1700s. After the Texas Revolution, "cowboys" rounded up cattle in the Nueces Strip and drove them east. Cattle were trailed to Ohio, Missouri, and California during the Gold Rush. Herds were driven east to feed the Confederacy during the Civil War, At war's end, vast herds roamed South Texas ranges at a time when there was a great demand for beef in Northern cities. Cattle could be bought cheap in Texas and sold for high prices at railhead towns in Kansas. Texas cattlemen began driving herds north. The great cattle-driving era -- which lasted for about two decades -- began the year after the war, in 1866, when 250,000 longhorns went up the trail. The greatest drive occurred in 1871 when 700,000 head of cattle went north....