Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Judge orders federal government to decide polar bear listing A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken agreed with conservation groups that the department missed a Jan. 9 deadline for a decision. She rejected a government request for a further delay and ordered it to act by May 15. "Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish the listing determination for nearly 120 days," the judge, based in Oakland, Calif., wrote in a decision issued late Monday. "Other than the general complexity of finalizing the rule, Defendants offer no specific facts that would justify the delay, much less further delay." Allowing more time would violate the Endangered Species Act and congressional intent that time was of the essence in listing threatened species, Wilken wrote. The ruling is a victory for conservation groups that claim the Bush administration has delayed a polar bear decision to avoid addressing global warming and to avoid roadblocks to development such as the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast to oil company bidders. A decision to list polar bears due to global warming could trigger a recovery plan with consequences beyond Alaska. Opponents fear it would subject new power plants and other development projects to federal review if they generate greenhouse gasses that add to warming in the Arctic....
State Management of Wolves Recipe for Conflict A month ago the wolf was delisted under the Endangered Species Act and state wildlife agencies were permitted to take over wolf management. Most state wildlife agencies profess a desire to minimize human-wolf conflicts. Yet their management plans are, without exception, guaranteed to create greater conflicts. All state wildlife agencies (and FWS employees in charge of managing wolves are as guilty) conveniently ignore the socio-biological relationship of predators like the wolf which makes any indiscriminate killing of animals counter productive. Just as a hundred years of coyote persecution has failed to reduce rancher/coyote conflicts, so called wolf “management” by the states will have the same effect. Indiscriminate killing of predators--and hunting by sportsmen and/or predator control by wildlife services is indiscriminate--disrupts wolf social relationships within packs, relations with other packs, as well as relations with other predators. Even if hunting/predator control worked--which it doesn’t--it is a blunt tool at best for resolving wolf-human conflicts....
LA Times - Keeping gray wolves alive That didn't take long. One month after the gray wolves of the northern Rockies were expelled from the endangered species list, at least 35 have been shot and killed. That's nearly twice the number killed in the first four months of last year, when shooting the wolves was allowed almost solely to protect livestock. The federal government will not intervene again on the wolves' behalf until their numbers fall as low as 300. Taxpayers will then bear the burden of re-listing the wolves. That's partly why environmentalists have gone to court over the delisting. The Fish and Wildlife Service should re-list the wolves until it receives more reasonable management plans from the states involved, and should demand that the population fall no lower than 1,000. The wolves weren't reintroduced to provide target practice for hunters....
Association of Counties opposes Mexican gray wolf reintroduction Members of New Mexico Association of Counties recently banded together to oppose the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into New Mexico. "These wolves were kicked out of Arizona," said Tony Atkinson, chairman of San Juan County Commission. "They're not wild." Atkinson is vice president of the Association of Counties. The group acted during its meeting last month, held in Truth or Consequences. The wolves are of more concern to New Mexico's southern counties, where cattle ranching plays a larger part of local economies than in San Juan County. The animals migrate, however, and that habit prompted the statewide group to band together against their reintroduction. "The New Mexico Association of Counties shall oppose any rule or proposed rule related to the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf that does not provide the opportunity for continual involvement of New Mexico's county elected officials in the decision-making process," the resolution stated. The group's opposition is keyed to the present lack of recognition to county officials to protect the safety, health and prosperity of their citizens and communities....
Wild Sky Wilderness bill finally clears Congress Dreams of a Wild Sky Wilderness are a pen stroke from reality today. A bill providing permanent federal protection on 106,000 acres of public land in eastern Snohomish County cleared its final hurdle in Congress on Tuesday and is headed to President Bush for approval. The president is expected to sign the bill that would give Washington its first new wilderness area in a generation. "It does feel real now," said Tom Uniack, conservation director of the Washington Wilderness Coalition that campaigned for Wild Sky. "The bill has passed Congress and that has been the uphill hike." The final legislative action came Tuesday when the House of Representatives voted 291-117 to pass the Consolidated Natural Resources Act. This package of 61 different bills dealing mostly with federal properties includes legislation to create Wild Sky. The Senate approved the same bill April 10....
Pickens sends landowners letters A select number of property owners from Childress to Jacksboro learned this week that T. Boone Pickens would like to do a little business with them. The man who has made billions in gas, oil and hedge funds has an ambitious plan to build a combination water pipeline and electric transmission line from Roberts County in the Panhandle to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Landowners along the proposed route got notification that Pickens’ company is interested in buying right-of-way from them — or seizing it through the law of eminent domain. The North Texas properties are in Hardeman, Wilbarger, Wichita, Archer and Jack counties. The notices, on joint letterhead from Mesa Power and the Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District, invited property owners along the route to attend a series of open houses to learn more. “It scared me,” said one woman who lives on a single acre near Scotland in Archer County and received a notice. “They talk pretty tough in the letters,” said Wichita County Commissioner Bill Presson. The proposed pipeline route runs through a portion of his precinct near Electra. Presson said it appears that by teaming with the water district, Pickens essentially created a public utility, giving him the power of eminent domain....
To Save a Species, Serve It for Dinner SOME people would just as soon ignore the culinary potential of the Carolina flying squirrel or the Waldoboro green neck rutabaga. To them, the creamy Hutterite soup bean is too obscure and the Tennessee fainting goat, which keels over when startled, sounds more like a sideshow act than the centerpiece of a barbecue. But not Gary Paul Nabhan. He has spent most of the past four years compiling a list of endangered plants and animals that were once fairly commonplace in American kitchens but are now threatened, endangered or essentially extinct in the marketplace. He has set out to save them, which often involves urging people to eat them. Mr. Nabhan’s list, 1,080 items and growing, forms the basis of his new book, an engaging journey through the nooks and crannies of American culinary history titled “Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods” (Chelsea Green Publishing, $35). “This is not just about the genetics of the seeds and breeds,” said Mr. Nabhan, an ethnobotanist and an expert on Native American foods who raises Navajo churro sheep and heritage crops in Arizona. “If we save a vegetable but we don’t save the recipes and the farmers don’t benefit because no one eats it, then we haven’t done our work.”....
Bison Can Thrive Again, Study Says
Bison can repopulate large areas from Alaska to Mexico over the next 100 years provided a series of conservation and restoration measures are taken, according to continental assessment of this iconic species by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. The assessment was authored by a diverse group of conservationists, scientists, ranchers, and Native Americans/First Nations peoples, and appears in the April issue of the journal Conservation Biology. The authors say that ecological restoration of bison, a keystone species in American natural history, could occur where conservationists and others see potential for large, unfettered landscapes over the next century. The general sites identified in the paper range from grasslands and prairies in the southwestern U.S., to Arctic lowland taiga in Alaska where the sub-species wood bison could once again roam. Large swaths of mountain forests and grasslands are identified as prime locations across Canada and the U.S., while parts of the desert in Mexico could also again support herds that once lived there....
Relief, disappointment expressed after Rio Arriba drilling halt Rio Arriba County may be the recipient of legal action from a Fort Worth, Texas-based oil producing company in the wake of county commissioners' unanimous vote April 24 to halt oil and gas drilling for four months. The commissioners' action pertains to "the entirety of the territory of Rio Arriba County, except for state, federal and tribal lands, over which the county has no jurisdiction, and any lands within the zoning jurisdiction of a municipality." "This is better than I expected it to be, but I also believe it is unnecessary," said Tom Mullins, principal/engineering manager of Synergy Operating, LLC. in Farmington. "We have more than sufficient regulations and rules to protect the environment." The moratorium won't affect Mullins' company, which holds leases only on federal lands. The vote was enough to prompt Texas company Approach Resources to indicate in a letter hand-delivered to commissioners that legal action was likely. Rio Arriba County Manager Lorenzo J. Valdez would not divulge the contents of the letter, other than to say that it specified amounts of damages Approach Resources wanted to recoup from the county....
Ex-fire boss pleads guilty in 4 deaths A former fire boss on Tuesday pleaded guilty to reduced charges in the deaths of four firefighters in the 2001 Thirtymile Fire near Winthrop, Okanogan County. Ellreese Daniels, 47, of Lake Wenatchee, Chelan County, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle to two misdemeanor counts of making false statements to investigators. In exchange, the government dropped four felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and seven felony counts of making false statements. Sentencing was set for July 23 in what is believed to be the first criminal case against a wildland firefighter for the death of comrades on the line. "Like all plea agreements, there was a recognition of the evidence and the law as it exists," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice. "We feel this is an appropriate disposition of the case." Daniels' trial was set to begin Monday. Federal defender Tina Hunt, Daniels' lawyer, said the agreement was fair because Daniels had not committed any crimes and should not face felony charges....
Officials probe poison deaths of prairie dogs State wildlife officials are investigating the poisoning deaths of at least 11 Utah prairie dogs in a southwestern Utah subdivision. Lynn Chamberlain, a spokesman for the Division of Wildlife Resources, said Tuesday that 10 of the dead prairie dogs were lactating females and that each probably was nursing about four pups. Chamberlain said the agency became aware of the problem Monday, when a woman out for her daily walk in Enoch noticed just a few of the federally protected rodents poking their heads aboveground from their burrows. Normally there are 100 or more. "She thought it was unusual and called," Chamberlain said. When investigators arrived at the subdivision The Fields, they recovered 57 peanut-butter balls laced with poisoned grain. They had been placed over the weekend around and in the rodent burrows and in the yards of some houses. The culprit or culprits could face state and federal felony charges. Chamberlain said a reward of at least $1,000 will be offered for information leading to an arrest....
Officials Challenge Mark Rey on Plum Creek Road Easements The dust kicked up by closed-door negotiations between the U.S. Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Company to amend forest road easements brought Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey to Missoula Monday, where he apologized for keeping western Montana counties in the dark but did little to ease concerns that local communities will increasingly bear the burden of Plum Creek's transition into residential real estate. Rey, a Bush Administration appointee and overseer of the Forest Service, said he's "extremely sensitive" to the effects the development of Plum Creek's timber lands could have -- increased firefighting in the wildland-urban interface, road maintenance and other public service costs, plus environmental impacts -- "but that sensitivity does not empower me to write new laws," he said, and in the end Plum Creek can do whatever it wants with its land. "You ought to think harder about executing these responsibilities yourselves," he said, whether through zoning or other means. Rey acknowledged where this controversy may be headed: court. "We get sued a lot," he said. "I don't expect this will be any different."....
Stolen truck hits Juneau police vehicle A stolen truck struck a Juneau police cruiser Monday morning on Egan Drive after officers attempted to stop the vehicle, according to the police. Police reported that the truck's driver, a 14-year-old boy, failed to stop after police attempted to initiate a traffic stop near the intersection of Mendenhall Loop Road and Glacier Highway. According to the police, officers followed the truck, which slowed for a traffic light at Egan Drive. A Juneau police officer and a Forest Service law enforcement officer used their vehicles to surround the truck. According to the report, the truck collided with the police cruiser, causing $1,500 in damage. No injuries were reported....Remember this story the next time you hear the Forest Service claim they don't have enough money or personnel for law enforcement. They are too busy arresting car thieves.
Wyoming’s air is getting thick Recently, I heard an ozone warning for the first time on Wyoming radio. I grew up in the tiny town of Saratoga and have lived in Wyoming for 27 of my 34 years, and during that time I’ve watched air quality decrease in other places — like Denver. But I never expected to hear air-quality alerts in Sublette County, Wyo., where hardly anybody lives. The warning meant that children and the elderly should not go outside and breathe the mountain air; although the radio did not say that, the local newspaper did. The ozone is caused by pollutants emitted from natural gas fields in the area combined with weather conditions and temperature inversions. The warning was repeated three times over the course of 12 days. To think that this rural region is faced with air-quality issues similar to Los Angeles and Denver is downright sad. Then for this last Christmas, the Bureau of Land Management gave the citizens of Sublette County an ominous present: the Pinedale Anticline Draft Revised Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. The bureaucratic mouthful is a proposal for 4,000 new gas wells in a field that already has 500 and that is the root cause of our decreased air quality....
Bull trout to remain listed as threatened species in Lower 48 Bull trout should remain listed as a threatened species in the Lower 48, and some populations may be studied for additional protections under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday. The agency announced its decision after a five-year review of the status of the fish, which is found in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. "This maintains the status quo and provides opportunities for future considerations," said Ted Koch, a Fish and Wildlife biologist in Boise, Idaho. Koch said a decision will be made later this year on whether to break bull trout into five distinct populations that will be evaluated separately for future protection and recovery efforts. Environmentalists praised the decision, but said it is time to end studies and act to restore bull trout numbers. Bull trout were designated as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1998 and 1999. A member of the salmon family, they are typically found in high mountain streams, where the water is clean and cold....
Report Targets Costs Of Factory Farming Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs. The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs. Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes. Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests. In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena....
Experts urge U.S. to bar drugs in animal feed A panel of experts, assembled in part by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is recommending that the United States ban the routine use of antibiotics in farm animal feed. The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production also proposes better tracking of diseases among farm animals, to help prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to humans. "We've got too many animals too close together producing too much waste without any realistic way of handling the waste," said John Carlin, a farmer and former Kansas governor who chairs the commission. The routine use of antibiotics in hogs and chickens in Pennsylvania, Maryland and elsewhere has prompted complaints from neighbors and researchers who suggest it can create drug-resistant supergerms. Feeding antibiotics to animals weakens the ability of the drugs to fight diseases in humans. A 111-page report released yesterday by the Pew Commission suggested that meat processing companies should share the responsibility of disposing of animal waste so that it doesn't run off into waterways....
FDA's new animal feed rules will hurt livestock-related industries Tighter federal restrictions on animal feed are expected to put added financial pressure on the livestock production, slaughter and rendering industries. The Food and Drug Administration's final rule banning certain materials from use in all animal feed, which took effect April 25, will cost livestock-related industries up to $81 million a year, according to the agency's economic analysis. Under the new rule, the brains and spinal cords of cattle over 30 months of age - closely linked to the transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - cannot be rendered for use in any animal food. The previous feed ban, enacted in 1997, only barred these materials from use in ruminant feed. The new rule prohibits making feed from rendered whole carcasses, such as those supplied by on-farm cattle deaths, unless it's proven the dead animals were under 30 months of age or the brain and spinal cords were removed. This may effectively saddle cattle producers with an additional $39 million in disposal costs and another $3.5 million to replace the lost feed. Slaughter facilities, meanwhile, are expected to lose $2.4 million annually in labor, facilities and other expenses. Rendering plants stand to lose $36 million, largely due to the loss of raw material and disposal costs....
Gunman uses cows for target practice A Tooele County rancher says he lost nine head of cattle and a calf to a gunman who apparently used his herd for target practice on public land in Skull Valley. Martin Anderson, of Grantsville, said he found the 10 Charlet cross beef cattle ''strewn around'' a popular climbing rock Friday in fields where his family's herd has grazed for 50 years. Six of the animals and the calf were shot dead; the other three were euthanized, Anderson said. "The calves were all lying by their dead mothers - that's a sad sight to see," Anderson said. The animals had bullet wounds in their heads, torsos, shoulders and hips, and many were shot multiple times, he said. When Anderson found them Friday evening, their injuries appeared to be a day or so old, he said. The financial loss is $10,000 to $15,000, he estimated. The Humane Society of Utah is offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the shooter....

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Feds sued for taking gray wolves off endangered list Environmental and animal rights groups sued the federal government Monday, seeking to restore endangered species status for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted federal protections for the estimated 1,500 wolves in March. It turned over management responsibilities to state officials in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana for the first time in more than three decades. The lawsuit alleges those states lack adequate laws to ensure wolves are not again eradicated from the region. At least 37 were killed in the last month. The groups are seeking an immediate court order to restore federal control over the species until the case is resolved. "We're very concerned that absent an injunction, hundreds of wolves could be killed under existing state management plans," said attorney Jason Rylander with Defenders of Wildlife, one of twelve groups that filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Missoula. The lawsuit argues that a "spate of wolf killings" last month showed state management could quickly reverse the wolf's fortunes. The injunction said state officials would allow wolves to be eliminated across most of Wyoming and large parts of Montana and Idaho....
Don't halt states' wolf management plans A federal judge in Montana should reject an attempt by environmental and animal rights groups to stop the killing of wolves in the Northern Rockies. The groups have asked for an emergency injunction to halt state wolf management plans in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and again place the animals under federal protection. But there's no emergency. There's no evidence that the wolf population is in danger of being wiped out. That said, it should be noted that Wyoming's insistence on a dual classification system for wolves led to Monday's court challenge. The state created a trophy game area in northwest Wyoming where the animals are given some protection. Outside this zone, however, wolves can be shot on sight. And quite a few have been killed by hunters and ranchers during the first month of state management. By insisting on making most of the state a predator zone, Wyoming opened the door to a lawsuit. Without the dual classification system, wolf advocates might not have been so quick to go to court. But now that the groups have filed a lawsuit, it will be up to a judge to decide whether Wyoming's wolf management plan is legal. In the meantime, there's no reason for the court at this point to halt state management with an injunction. Despite the uproar over increased wolf killings this month, in prior years many wolves that killed and harassed livestock were legally killed by federal wildlife agents. Mike Jimenez, head of the federal wolf recovery project before being hired last week to coordinate Wyoming's wolf management plan, noted that entire packs have been killed in the past due to livestock conflicts....
Where the buffalo roam -- and die More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program. More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures. As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the culling program early. "There has never been a slaughter like this of the bison since the 1800s in this country, and it's disgusting," said Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group seeking to stop the slaughter program for good. Government officials say the slaughter prevents the spread of the disease brucellosis from the Yellowstone bison to cattle on land near the park. Brucellosis can cause miscarriages, infertility and reduced milk production in domestic cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that half of Yellowstone's bison herd is infected with the bacterium....
Mountain is symbolic to many Tsoodzil, Kaweshtima, Turquoise Mountain and Mount Taylor are names that have been given over the years to the dormant volcano on the horizon. The mountain represents sacred sites and the home of gods to some Native American neighbors and a place for recreation, ranching, Land Grant communities and appreciation of nature for others. Currently there has been a growing interest in resuming uranium mining on Mount Taylor, coinciding with some designations of protection by both the U.S. Forest Service and the New Mexico Cultural Properties Review Committee. These state and federal designations have produced debate in Grants and led to allegations about how the measures would limit public activity on the mountain. The emergency listing of Mount Taylor will be temporary for one year while the committee investigates the property and makes a determination if it should be permanently placed on the state register. The nominating parties - the Pueblos of Acoma, Zuni, Laguna, the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe must spend that year documenting the importance of Mount Taylor as an archaeological site, the traditional values and the historic and prehistoric uses of the site....
Road agreement language comes back to haunt land managers For decades, the U.S. Forest Service and private timber companies have shared logging roads, negotiating access across one another's ground and agreeing to split the cost of shared roads. The intent of those agreements was to enable both the agency and the companies to cut timber and haul logs. But that intent was not spelled out in any specific way. Instead, the easements were written with the broadest of language. Now, the breadth of that historic language is causing headaches for modern land managers, as forest values and uses change. In 1999, Plum Creek Timber Co. restructured as a real estate investment trust, turning to residential land sales to bolster its bottom line - and turning logging roads into subdivision gateways. The Forest Service viewed the easements narrowly: logging use only. Plum Creek viewed them broadly: all uses, including residential access. Neither wanted to test its opinion in court, however, because there was too much at stake for the loser. And so they talked. Beginning in fall 2006, the agency and the company embarked on closed-door negotiations aimed at hammering out a middle ground. They succeeded, but just as they were finishing, word of the talks leaked....
Rey says authority over real estate development is limited
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey says the federal government has limited control over a timber company's plans to develop its vast Montana land holdings. As the Plum Creek Timber Co. moves to be a bigger player in the real estate industry, the company is negotiating with the federal government to renew approximately 200 road easements through publicly owned forests in Montana. Commissioners from several western Montana counties want new restrictions on those easements, to address increased future demand for firefighting, road maintenance and other public services. But Rey says federal law guarantees Plum Creek access through U.S. Forest Service land. He adds that he has little power over what the company does with its own property.
New tool may help soil hurt by roads The Bitterroot National Forest is known for its mountain views, but Cole Mayn looks at what's underfoot - and under the surface - when he's out tracking the impact that heavy logging equipment has on the landscape. Nationwide, millions of miles of old logging roads and skid trails crisscross public lands, promoting noxious weeds, disrupting surface and subterranean ecosystems, and bleeding soil into streams for decades. Now, the Bitterroot National Forest and a few other federal land agencies are investing in a new tool that rehabilitates deeply compacted soils and encourages native vegetation and microorganisms to recolonize the land's scars. Mayn, the soil scientist and watershed program manager for the Bitterroot, said the tool, called a subsoiling grapple rake, is revolutionary. The grapple rake uses a narrow shank to penetrate 6 to 12 inches below the surface to shatter compacted layers. The dirt can be as hard as concrete in the wake of log skidders, dozers, trucks and other heavy equipment. Unlike traditional tilling, the grapple rake raises the soil surface only slightly and leaves a small furrow on the surface. The grapple rake leaves the nutrient-rich surface layer largely intact, while allowing water, microscopic fungus and native plant roots to penetrate more deeply. That helps to stabilize the soil and restore its natural biological balance of nitrogen, carbon and other nutrients....
Feds' consultant hire at issue The U.S. Forest Service is reviewing the recent hiring process for a consulting firm to help draft an environmental document for the proposed Rosemont mine. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Tucson asked the service to spell out how and why it picked SWCA Environmental Consultants, a Giffords aide said last week. Also, fellow U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva said he will ask the Inspector General's Office of the U.S. Agriculture Department, the service's parent agency, to review SWCA's hiring. Grijalva, like Giffords a Democrat, is concerned about whether the company can be objective in judging the Rosemont mine application, given a long track record representing developers and other businesses. The Rosemont mine, proposed by Canadian firm Augusta Resources, would be built in the Santa Rita Mountains on 995 acres of private land, 3,670 acres of national forest, 15 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and 75 acres of state trust land. A draft environmental statement is due in March 2009. A final statement is due in November 2009. Opponents have raised concerns that the mine will draw down the water table, pollute the air, hurt water quality and cause traffic safety problems....
Wire thieves leave hazardous waste at Idaho campsites Authorities say that what looks like the ashes of burned rope at campsites in Idaho may be hazardous waste. A sharp increase has been reported in illegal burning of wire insulation on public lands throughout the West. The Bureau of Land Management, for example, reports four cases in the last three months in the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area south of Boise. The agency's top official in Idaho, Loren Good, says drug addicts steal electrical wire, then burn off the insulation to get a bigger payoff from scrap meal recyclers. The insulation is dangerous to human health as well as the environment, and removing the ashes properly can cost $500 to thousands of dollars. Another BLM official, Steve Moore, says anyone who encounters wire insulation ashes should contact authorities.
CBD Opposes oil & gas leasing in Nevada because of global warming Today the Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments urging the federal Bureau of Land Management to scrap its proposal to open 1.7 million acres of public lands in Lander and Nye counties to oil and gas development because the drilling would exacerbate global climate change and further threaten imperiled species. At the heart of the Center’s complaint is the Bureau’s failure to analyze or even acknowledge the environmental impacts from the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the development and consumption of oil and gas produced from the area, despite the National Environmental Policy Act’s mandate to fully disclose the environmental impacts from federal actions. The impacts of climate change on Nevada include prolonged heat waves and higher night-time temperatures, severe droughts, more wildfires, widespread beetle infestations in both low and high elevation forests, loss of species, and the spread of diseases such as the West Nile virus. Nevada’s water supply is also threatened by climate change, due to less snowfall and earlier runoff in both local mountains as well as the headwaters of the Colorado River....
Five more sea lions trapped at Bonneville Dam State authorities trapped another five California sea lions at Bonneville Dam on Monday, sending four of them to their new home at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma. A fifth was branded and released. Fishery managers remain concerned about sea lions eating endangered salmon. They plan to stage similar trap-and-haul operations twice a week for another month. With the bulk of the spring salmon and steelhead run still to arrive at the dam, state officials say they remain concerned about sea lions eating fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. The fish are being attacked where they’re most vulnerable, before passing the dam. “We’ll probably go toward the end of May,” said Rick Hargrave, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Washington, Oregon and Idaho state fishery managers received approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service last month to kill as many as 85 California sea lions per year at the dam. A federal court ruled last week that the sea lions could not be killed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case next month and issue a ruling after the salmon season ends....
Saving polar bears, an excuse to grab control There's no documented, let alone alarming loss of lovable, fuzzy polar bears. But freedom-loving Americans ought to be alarmed at what's proposed under the guise of saving the furry critters. The federal government is considering designating polar bears as an endangered species, a leap in logic in light of the confusion about whether their numbers are increasing or decreasing. Global warming alarmists insist polar bears are at risk of extinction because of a string of "ifs." If manmade greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere, and if increases in climate temperature continue, and if that warming leads to melting of arctic ice, and if that leads to bears being unable to find food or getting enmeshed in oil that might spill if drilling is permitted where ice used to be, and if these marvelous swimming creatures start to drown because of the lack of ice, then the alarmists may be right. This strikes us as a rather iffy proposition. Whether receding arctic ice actually poses a threat to polar bears is problematic, at best. The most obvious evidence that the species is hardy enough to weather this storm of "ifs" ought to be the fact that without man's help bears thrive in an area that 1,000 years ago was substantially warmer. The Vikings farmed in what today is icy Greenland. It's called Greenland for a reason....
Opec says oil could hit $200 Opec’s president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel and there would be little the cartel could do to help. The comments made by Chakib Khelil, Algeria’s energy minister, came as oil prices hit a historic peak close to $120 a barrel, putting further pressure on global economies. His remarks suggest Algeria wants Opec to continue to resist calls by US and European leaders for the cartel to pump more oil to help ease prices. But Mr Khelil blamed record oil prices on the weak dollar and global political insecurity. He told El Moudjahid, Algeria’s government newspaper: “I don’t think that an increase in production would help lower prices, because there is a balance between supply and demand and the stocks of gasoline in the United States have recorded a surplus and are at their highest level for five years.” He added: “The prices are high due to the recession in the United States and the economic crisis, which has touched several countries, a situation that has an effect on the value of the dollar. Each time the dollar falls 1 per cent, the price of the barrel rises by $4 and of course vice versa.”....
Storm brewing for William Gray By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting and teaching 70 graduate students who now populate the National Hurricane Center and other research outposts, William Gray turned a city far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca. But now the institution in Fort Collins, Colo., where he has worked for nearly half a century, has told Gray it may end its support of his seasonal forecasting. As he enters his 25th year of predicting hurricane season activity, Colorado State University officials say handling media inquiries related to Gray's forecasting requires too much time and detracts from efforts to promote other professors' work. But Gray, a highly visible and sometimes acerbic skeptic of climate change, says that's a "flimsy excuse" for the real motivation — a desire to push him aside because of his global warming criticism. Among other comments, Gray has said global warming scientists are "brainwashing our children." Now an emeritus professor, Gray declined to comment on the university's possible termination of promotional support....
The Food Crisis As everyone knows by this point, we are in the midst of a food crisis. Domestic prices of basic foods have risen by 46% over the past year, putting even more pressure on already stressed consumers. Overseas, food riots have occurred in Haiti, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Indonesia, Yemen, and as close to our borders as Mexico. These riots were severe enough to bring down the Haitian government of Jacques Edouard Alexis. Others may follow. Any number of explanations have been offered. Global warming has taken its accustomed bow, only to be immediately pushed to one side by other candidates including market pressure created by higher living standards in India and China and increased fuel and fertilizer costs thanks to OPEC's price-raising spree. Overpopulation has been dragged from the closet and dusted off one more time. The dour ghost of economist Thomas Malthus, with his lethal equation that food supply increases arithmetically while population increases geometrically, has made yet another appearance. How will we feed the world, the cry arises. The feast is over; the era of cheap food has come to an end. The West (as ever), must mend its ways, give up its McDonald's and KFC for the common good, learn to content itself with a bowl of cabbage soup and a handful of bamboo shoots a day. Soylent Green is just around the corner. Within a year, the prophet of the 1200-calorie international diet will begin his campaign, in much the same way as Al Gore (perhaps it will even be Al Gore, if global warming goes south quickly enough), pursuing that Nobel aglow just over the horizon. Ecoterrorists will develop new targets to add to loggers and fur-wearers....
Cattle Towns: Medora, North Dakota A 24-year old French nobleman, the Marquis De Mores, founded the town of Medora in April 1883. He named the town for his bride, the former, Medora Von Hoffman, daughter of a wealthy New York City banker. The Marquis de Mores arrived in the valley a few weeks after the abandonment of Badlands Cantonment in early 1883. With financial backing from his father-in-law, he founded the town of Medora east of the river, building a meat packing plant, a brick plant, a hotel, stores, and a large home (Chateau de Mores) overlooking his new town. Another colorful individual drawn to this area was a young New York politician named Theodore Roosevelt. He first arrived to hunt buffalo in September 1883, immediately fell in love with the land, and invested in cattle raising. He would eventually own two large ranches - the Maltese Cross, about seven miles south of Medora, and the Elkhorn, about 35 miles north of town. In 1901 Roosevelt, at age 42, became the youngest president in United States history, serving until 1909. He called his years in the Badlands "the romance of my life," and often credited his Dakota experiences with enabling him to become president....
A Western tradition and delicacy Sitting in a field on his ranch a few weeks ago on a nice spring afternoon, with the sun peeking in and out of the clouds, Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, and Mike Roach of Meridian went to work cleaning a bucket of "calf fries" after a day of branding on Little's ranch south of Emmett. Growing up in Montana and Wyoming around family who are ranchers, I have been to my share of spring brandings. And calf fries - bull fries, Rocky Mountain oysters, whatever you want to call them - have always been a part of the cowboy culture and cuisine. The Littles have had a get-together with family and friends for years after branding season to serve up the calf fries that were collected and cleaned, then battered and fried. Little said the dinner started out as a bird-hunting event, and the "fries" were lamb, not calf, because the Littles were in the sheep business back then. Only later did that change to cattle. I also came across a story from the early 1900s of a Yugoslavian immigrant named Theo Yordanoff who lived in Texas. He was said to have served calf fries in the 1920s in his Forth Worth restaurant. Story goes that a cowboy came into the restaurant and asked for the delicacy. After explaining what exactly they were to the cook, Yordanoff went to the nearest stockyard and was told he could have as many calf fries as he wanted for free if he would just take them away. Yordanoff created a calf fries sandwich that he sold for 15 cents, and it was a big success....

Monday, April 28, 2008

Molly the Pony Romps to a New Role in Life

I’ve written plenty of articles over the years about horses who survived amputation surgery. There was Boitron, the California Thoroughbred stallion who could service mares after amputation surgery. There were Dr. Ric Redden’s dramatic cases of founder survivors who galloped around his paddock on artificial feet with "transplanted frogs". Dr. Chris Colles had the never-say-die Appaloosa in England with the spring-loaded foot. And who can forget that paint yearling in India? Or the landmine-maimed elephant amputee in Thailand? Longtime Hoofcare and Lameness Journal readers will remember them all. Now, my friends, meet Molly. She’s a gray-speckled "POA" pony who was abandoned by her owners when Katrina hit southern Louisiana. She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a pit bull terrier, and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to LSU for help. But LSU was overwhelmed, and this pony was a welfare case. You know how that goes. But after surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly, he changed his mind. He saw how the pony was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn't seem to get sores, and how she allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight, and didn’t overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic. Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and her story really begins there....

Go here for the original post which has pictures.
Food Crisis Starts Eclipsing Climate Change Worries With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down. One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America’s corn crop now goes to fuel, not food. “I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels. Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.” “We were criticized for being alarmist at the time,” Mr. Runge said. “I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative.” Ethanol was initially promoted as a vehicle for America to cut back on foreign oil. In recent years, biofuels have also been touted as a way to fight climate change, but the food crisis does not augur well for ethanol’s prospects. Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming. “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said. “There are lots of solutions, real solutions to climate change. We need to get to those.”....
Undoing America's Ethanol Mistake - Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson The Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once said, "One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." When Congress passed legislation to greatly expand America's commitment to biofuels, it intended to create energy independence and protect the environment. But the results have been quite different. America remains equally dependent on foreign sources of energy, and new evidence suggests that ethanol is causing great harm to the environment. In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing recession, Congress needs to reform its "food-to-fuel" policies and look at alternatives to strengthen energy security. On Dec. 19, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Energy Independence and Security Act. This legislation had several positive features, including higher fuel standards for cars and greater investment in renewable energies such as solar power. However, the bill required a huge spike in the biofuel production requirement, from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 to 36 billion in 2022. This was a well-intentioned measure, but it was also impractical. Nearly all our domestic corn and grain supply is needed to meet this mandate, robbing the world of one of its most important sources of food....
Natural-gas vehicles hot in Utah, where the fuel is cheap Troy Anderson was at the gas pump and couldn't have been happier, filling up at a rate of $5 per tank. Anderson was paying 63.8 cents per gallon equivalent for compressed natural gas, making Utah a hot market for vehicles that run on the fuel. It's the country's cheapest rate for compressed gas, according to the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition, and far less than the $3.56 national average price for a gallon of gasoline. "I'm totally celebrating," crowed Anderson, a 44-year-old social worker, who picked up a used Honda Civic GX two months ago. "This is the greatest thing. I can't believe more people aren't talking about it. This is practically free." Personal ownership of natural gas-fueled vehicles in Utah soared from practically nothing a few years ago to an estimated 5,000 vehicles today, overwhelming a growing refueling network, where compressors sometimes can't maintain enough pressure to fill tanks completely for every customer. "Nobody expected this kind of growth. We got caught by the demand," said Gordon Larsen, a supervisor at Utah utility Questar Gas. Utah has 91 stations, including 20 open to the public, mostly in the Salt Lake City area. The others are reserved for commercial drivers, such as school districts, bus fleets and big businesses such as a Coca-Cola distributor. It's possible to drive the interstates between Rock Springs, Wyo., and St. George, Utah - a distance of 477 miles - and find 22 places to pull off and fill up....
Forget Carbon: You Should Be Checking Your Water Footprint The concept of water footprints -- or "virtual water" -- will tell consumers the amount of precious H2O that has been used in the manufacture of products they buy. As with carbon footprints, a "virtual water" figure will indicate the extent to which a particular product has cost the earth. And, as with carbon footprints, the message is clear: less is better. A new website run by the University of Twente in the Netherlands, waterfootprint.org, gives ethically minded consumers a chance to work out the hidden implications of their shopping habits. Common commodities including groceries, clothes, stationery and electrical goods are evaluated according to a water footprint calculator. In each case, the water footprint covers both the manufacture and transport of the goods. The results are striking. An apple weighing 100g has a water footprint of 70 litres, while a 125ml cup of coffee has a water footprint twice that size, 140 litres. But the water used in producing wheat or meat is much greater. A single kilogram of barley has a water footprint of 1,300 litres, while the industrial production of a kilogram of beef amasses a water footprint of 15,500 litres....
Irrational Green Exuberance The last few years have witnessed an Internet-stock bubble and a real-estate bubble. Could we be approaching the bursting point of the climate-change bubble? The intensity of the current climate crusade, Al Gore’s $300 million ad campaign, and Time’s fifth panicky global-warming cover in three years (“Be Worried, Be Very Worried” read the 2006 cover) are all good contrary indicators suggesting that the hysteria is reaching its terminal stage. Like mortgage-backed securities dealers, the climate campaigners are in a panic because the public isn’t buying what they’re selling. The latest annual Gallup survey on the environment shows that only 37 percent of Americans say they worry “a great deal” about global warming, down from 41 percent last year, about the same level as a decade ago. Americans put global warming way down on their list of major environmental concerns, behind air and water pollution, toxic waste, and the loss of open space. The League of Conservation Voters is apoplectic that the TV anchors aren’t asking more climate-change questions in the presidential primary debates — and, if global warming is indeed the gravest threat in the history of mankind, they do have a point. Perhaps the blasé performance of the media on this matter is telling us something....
Are You Stomping the Environment Flat? Are you an ecological bigfoot? Various environmental groups now offer websites where you can supposedly find out. The site provided by the folks at Redefining Progress informs me that if everyone on the planet lived my lifestyle, we would need the resources of 6.5 Earths to supply everyone. I took the test again, this time selecting all the ecological choices, including living a 500-square-foot apartment filled with second-hand furniture in a large apartment building heated with biomass, using electricity generated by solar panels, equipped with low flow toilets and showers, buying all my food at farmers markets, planting my own garden fertilized by compost from my food scraps, eating a vegan diet, recycling all my paper, plastic, aluminum, glass and electronics, owning no car, never flying and traveling no more than 2,000 miles by bus or rail each year. If everyone lived like that we would only need 0.93 earths to accommodate everyone. What happens if I choose a slightly less-ascetic lifestyle? For example, what if I decided to drive my hybrid car 10,000 miles per year, added occasional dairy products to my diet, and did not grow a garden? Redefining Progress calculates that the planet would be on its way to destruction because we would need 1.10 earths to provide that same lifestyle for everyone....
Rabid bobcat attacks Ariz. hikers, is killed with hammer A couple hiking in the mountains outside Tucson were clawed and bitten by a rabid bobcat that did not relent until the man killed it with his geologist's hammer. Rich Thompson, a geologist at the University of Arizona, and his wife, a marine biologist at the school, were receiving rabies shots after Saturday's attack. Thompson said he knew the cat was rabid the moment he saw it staring at him and Katrina Mangin in the Santa Rita Mountains. He said they tried to get away but the bobcat pursued them, lunging at Mangin, climbing up her legs and wrapping its body around her, clawing and biting. The couple fought off the bobcat, but it continued attacking and jumped on Thompson's back. "I hit it with the backpack over my shoulder," he said. The cat fell to the dirt and lunged again. "It attacked me again, and I threw it down." Finally, Thompson took out his hammer and killed the animal. "It's very sad," Thompson said. "This poor kitty cat was deranged by its disease-riddled brain. I love the native cats. It was terrible to have to kill it."....
A Fish Tale There is more than just fish in the sea. It would be hard to know it from observing the progress of the Marine Life Protection Act in Northern California. Otherwise known as the MLPA, it is a multi-year process to redesign California’a nearly 100 state Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) into networks of protected marine habitats. But those working to implement the MLPA along the North Central coast are so narrowly focused on fish they are missing the proverbial forest for the trees. The MLPA is a forward thinking law passed by the California legislature in 1999 that mandates that our state system of MPAs be redesigned using principles of ecosystem management for our marine environment. The first two goals of the MLPA mandate that we “protect the natural diversity and abundance of marine life, and the structure, function, and integrity of marine ecosystems” and “help sustain, conserve, and protect marine life populations, including those of economic value, and rebuild those that are depleted.” The MLPA process along the North Central Coast is making great progress towards protecting fish. The level of conflict and tension between conservationists and the fishing community appears to have been replaced by cooperation....
California farm groups split over June ballot proposition on eminent domain When it comes to water, thirsty California farm groups normally fight as one. But it is water that is behind a growing split in the agriculture community over an eminent domain measure on the June 3 ballot. Proposition 98, backed by the California Farm Bureau Federation and an anti-tax group, would prohibit governments from seizing property, including farmland, for private use. But some farm groups – including the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League and Western Growers Association – fear the measure would block use of eminent domain for construction of long-sought pipelines, canals and reservoirs, including one targeted for east of Fresno. The anti-98 campaign picked up more steam last week when Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, came out against the measure. The congressman is normally aligned with the farm bureau and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the measure's other backer. But in a letter last week, he said "serious questions have been raised regarding the impact this constitutional initiative will have on our ability to guarantee a plentiful and safe water supply in the future." The farm bureau – which has spent more than $298,000 on the "yes" campaign so far – is standing by the measure and has support from multiple farm groups....
Off endangered list, wolves face new pressure from hunters Tony Saunders stalked his prey for 35 miles by snowmobile through western Wyoming's Hoback Basin, finally reaching a clearing where he took out a .270-caliber rifle and shot the wolf twice from 30 yards away. Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies have been taken off the endangered species list and are being hunted freely for the first time since they were placed on that list three decades ago, and nowhere is that hunting easier than Wyoming. Most of the state with the exception of the Yellowstone National Park area has been designated a "predator zone," where wolves can be shot at will. For Saunders, killing that wolf was a long-awaited chance to even things out because he has lost two horses to wolves and blames the canines for depleting local big game herds. "It's hard for people to understand how devastating they can be," said Saunders, 39, who ranches at Bondurant, Wyo., 30 miles southeast of Jackson, Wyo. Since federal protection was lifted March 28 and states took over wolf management, 37 wolves have been killed, just over 2 percent of their population. Since 66 animals were transplanted to the region 13 years ago, an estimated 1,500 now roam Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Environmental and animal rights groups plan to file a lawsuit Monday seeking an emergency injunction to block the killings and trying to put wolves back on the endangered list....
Protection weighed for bird in West's energy areas The fate of basic industries across the Intermountain West — grazing, mining, energy — soon could be at least partially tied to that of a bird about the size of a chicken. The federal government is under a judge's order to reconsider an earlier decision against listing the sage grouse as endangered, and wildlife biologists are scouring the species' customary mating grounds to see how many are left. The species was seen as recently as 2004 over an area as large as California and Texas combined, but its habitat used to be close to twice that and research has shown that many types of human activity continue to harm it. States and even some companies have made efforts to protect the sage grouse on their own, hoping to avoid a federal listing that could stretch across 11 states. The prospect of listing the species has drawn comparisons to the northern spotted owl, whose listing as a threatened species in 1990 drew the ire of logging interests in the Northwest. But the grouse occupies several times as much land as the owl. "It will affect everything we do and know (as) a Western state, everything from livestock grazing to mining to development of sage brush habitat, wind energy," said Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada wildlife department....
Farmers fret over icy Oregon lakes Wallowa Lake is still a bank-to-bank sheet of translucent ice. And despite huge snowpacks in the nearby Eagle Cap Wilderness, the gemlike northeastern Oregon lake's water level remains unusually low for late April. The condition of this glacial lake at a 4,300 feet elevation typifies something that worries farmers, ranchers and county officials across much of eastern Oregon: Snowpacks aren't melting, storage reservoirs aren't refilling, and chilly spring temperatures have delayed the growing season. The snowpack could also make life difficult for anglers. Many Oregonians will head to higher elevations today for the opening of lake-trout season, and they'll find lakes iced over or surrounded by snow. Besides Wallowa, that includes popular Diamond Lake in southern Oregon, where dedicated anglers might have to drag out the ice augers. In central Oregon, only a handful of lakes will be open. The water content of the state's rugged and sparsely settled northeast corner was at 145 percent of average earlier this week, said Jon Lea, a hydrologist with the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service. The water content of all Oregon mountain snowpacks stood at 185 percent of average. "It has been gaining; it hasn't been melting," he said of the snowpacks, which ordinarily would be sending millions of gallons of spring runoff frothing downstream into storage reservoirs....
Breaking the public lands impasse in Washington County The debate over how to manage growth and preserve public lands in Utah has been wedged in a stalemate for decades. The Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2008 is the compromise that breaks the impasse and strikes a balance between conservation and growth. The wilderness debate in Utah is characterized by a lot of rhetoric but very little progress. With this bill, conservation groups that once opposed our efforts are now endorsing the 2008 legislation recognizing the great strides taken to protect wilderness. William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, said it best when testifying that this bill "represents a breakthrough in what has been a long polarized debate in Utah over land protection." The bill designates 264,394 acres of public land as wilderness, which means one out of every five acres, or 20 percent, in Washington County will be wilderness. Other conservation provisions include the first Wild and Scenic River designation in Utah spanning 165.5 miles of the Virgin River, the creation of two National Conservation Areas to protect the desert tortoise on nearly 140,000 acres and enhanced management of off-highway vehicles. We also have prohibited motorized travel in national conservation areas except on designated roads. Some have raised concerns with the sale and proceeds of non-environmentally sensitive public lands. The lands directed for sale represent less than three-tenths of 1 percent of all land in the county....
An end in sight for Cemex in Soledad Canyon? An agreement announced Friday by U.S. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon could halt a nearly decade-long battle between the city of Santa Clarita and global mining company Cemex, Inc. over a planned large-scale mine in Soledad Canyon. McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, on Thursday introduced what he called "win-win" legislation that would cancel Cemex's two, ten-year mining contracts with the federal Bureau of Land Management, effectively ending any chance that the company could mine at the Soledad Canyon site. Through H.R. 5887, Cemex would be given thousands of acres land in Victorville equivalent to the value of the contracts. Cemex would then sell the land to the city of Victorville and other private buyers for purposes other than mining. The legislation would create the methodology for the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine the value of the contracts, said Mike Murphy, Santa Clarita's intergovernmental relations officer. The value of the contracts will determine how much land would be handed over to Cemex. The parties have identified about 5,000 acres of federal land for Cemex in Victorville, which lands within McKeon's 25th congressional district. If the value of the contracts is determined to be more than the value of the 5,000 acres, Cemex could acquire additional land in another area of Victorville with 3,000 available acres. The bill contains a provision that the Victorville land "will not and cannot be used for any future mining," said McKeon. "We're not trading one mine for another."....
Wyo OKs prairie dog export The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission agreed Friday to fill Montana's request for white-tailed prairie dogs and offered to continue exporting the animals each summer through 2010. Montana wildlife officials petitioned Wyoming last week for permission to trap up to 100 of the squirrel-like rodents and relocate them to open country south of Billings, Mont., where they would supplement an existing prairie dog colony. "We have more white-tailed prairie dogs than any state in the nation," said Bill Williams, a Wyoming Game and Fish commissioner from Thermopolis, during a Friday meeting in Casper. "If we're going to transplant some and help out a state with a marginal population, we're the obvious choice as a donor state." Biologists say the prairie dogs occupy hundreds of thousands of acres in Wyoming. In Montana, the animals reside on about 250 acres in Carbon County. Biologists gauge their population by land area and not by a head count. "They're dealing with very small colonies that are sparsely populated on the landscape," said Martin Grenier, a biologist with the Wyoming department. White-tailed prairie dogs, which are cousins of the black-tailed prairie dogs, weigh from 1 to 3 pounds and live in burrows underground. Conservation groups sought federal endangered-species protection for the white-tailed animals in 2004. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection but has decided to reconsider that decision....
Spotted owls struggle to survive as rival moves in Two birds of prey are competing for food and habitat on the same small patch of old-growth forest in the Marin Headlands. Muir Woods is a sanctuary for the white-freckled and gold-streaked creature of the night, the northern spotted owl, listed as threatened since 1990. But another owl, an aggressive hunter with the ability to imitate mating calls and adapt to the same living conditions as the northern spotted owl, has been pushing its way westward. The barred owl, native to Eastern and Southeastern states, is now making a home in the same forests that the spotted owl needs for survival. Ranking among the largest in North America, the northern spotted owl once flourished under the canopy of trees found in old-growth forests. They need the cover of redwoods, Douglas firs, oak and Western red cedar trees to build their sometimes lifelong nests and to provide shelter when they hunt. Until recently, development, deforestation and a disease that kills coastal trees, known as sudden oak death, had been the agents of the owl's demise. But now biologists fear that the highly adaptive barred owl could displace the remaining spotted owls by stealing their food and nests. Some imitate the spotted owls' behavior quite successfully and even mate with the female spotted owls, changing their DNA and creating hybrids....
The pace of conservation Intrigued by an encounter with a coyote while out on horseback near her home in upstate New York, author Holly Menino embarks on an intellectual journey to discover what the coyote is doing there. Eventually, her curiosity leads her to the Channel Islands off the coast of California, to a remote park in Chile, to Panama, and on a coyote trapping expedition with field researchers in New York. Her adventures spring to life in the pages of Darwin's Fox and My Coyote. On the Channel Islands, Menino shadows a researcher trying to explain the sudden and almost complete disappearance of the island fox, a tiny but voracious predator that once sat atop the islands' food web. In Chile she helps gather data on the elusive Darwin's fox -- so named because Charles Darwin brought one's pelt back from his historic, New World voyage. In Panama, Menino traverses the treetops in search of nocturnal, raccoon-like mammals called kinkajous. Menino makes a good point towards the end of her book: "Somehow we need to put enough drag on land degradation to give wildlife management time to work through science -- and to give the animals a chance." This optimal integration of natural processes and scientific effort is Menino's take-home message, and it serves as the underlying theme for the issues she discusses in Darwin's Fox. She writes so compellingly of the field researchers' pursuit of information that will conserve species on the brink of extinction that the reader gets caught up in the quest....
A Green Revolution Today's headlines are filled with Americans expressing their fears of food shortages and frustration with spiraling grocery prices. As part of the solution, it's time to give genetically modified crops a try. There's much resistance to overcome, however. In the fall of 2006, Friends of the Earth publicly asked governments in the hungry African countries of Ghana and Sierra Leone to recall American food aid that contained genetically modified rice. Four years earlier, when southern Africa was tormented by famine, the U.S. offered 540,000 tons of genetically modified grain. Though the World Health Organization estimated that nearly 14 million Africans, including 2.3 million children under 5, were at risk of starvation, leaders in the region rejected the food. One, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, called it "poison." Had Mwanawasa been listening to environmentalists from rich nations too much? Progress-phobic activists have campaigned hard against genetically modified, or biotech, crops. They call them "frankenfood" and fret about their risks and "unnatural" character. Destruction of property — from hazmat-suit-wearing Greenpeace mobs trampling a field of genetically engineered plants in Britain during the 1990s, to radicals destroying crops more recently at a California research center — is just another part of the crusade. There's no evidence that biotech foods, which are some of the most thoroughly tested products in history, are harmful. Humans have been safely altering their food sources for 10,000 years, cross-breeding livestock and agriculture. Genetically modified crops are part of this advance. Yet opposition remains, fueled by ignorance and hysteria....
A feel for a saddle Durango custom saddlemaker Tom Barnes likes to tell about one of the first rigs he ever built on his own. With an antique finish and silver-capped horn, the saddle was a veritable work of art. "I was all proud of it; it was just a fabulous saddle," he said. After the owner paid for the saddle, Barnes cringed as the man - a welder - tossed it unceremoniously into the bed of his truck. "He threw it over the side in with his gear," Barnes said. "I almost took it back, but I needed the money." Now, dozens of saddles later, the tables have turned. Barnes often has to convince clients to take their new saddles out of their living rooms and start riding in them. "A saddle should get beat up," he said. "That gives it character and stories to tell, like where this or that scratch came from." Barnes, 38, builds his saddles in the back of Durango Custom Hats & Saddles, which he owns and operates with his wife, custom hat maker Melissa Barnes, 37....
The real deal: La Grande, Ore., cowboy nears 100 There are cowboys and there are wannabe cowboys. Mike McFetridge is the real deal. McFetridge is due to turn 100 Nov. 16, and for nearly all of his century he's been a real-life cowboy. Although in an assisted care facility now, it wasn't too long ago that he was in the saddle and doing odd jobs around his ranch. He began riding horses at age 8 and was still riding his tractor, harrowing his field at age 98. "He still kept everything up," his son, Gary, said. McFetridge was born on a ranch that was homesteaded in 1901 on Elk Mountain about nine miles northeast of Enterprise. He started work at age 8 helping move cattle and greasing the log chute on Elk Mountain. In 1926 McFetridge won the Wallowa County Fair All-Around Champion Cowboy award at the Wallowa County Rodeo in Enterprise. His mother, Mertie, took his $125 winnings, went to Pendleton and bought him a saddle with his name across the back in silver, Gary said. Back when McFetridge competed, rodeo was different. Rodeos were more or less an extension of life on a ranch, not a professional athlete's sport. McFetridge had said that they just did it for fun back then. In McFetridge's day, saddle bronc riders had to stay on a full 10 seconds rather than the 8 seconds now required in Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association events. And, bucking chutes didn't come along until later....
Cattle trails crisscrossed Indian Territory before statehood About 1841, a few Texas cattle ranchers began driving herds of longhorns across Indian Territory to sell in Missouri and points east. The long drives were necessary because there were no good cattle markets in Texas. The Texans did not realize they were doing things that legends are made of. Their trail drives would later attract writers of dime novels to the makers of modern Hollywood westerns. The Texans entered Indian Territory at Rock Bluff on the Red River near modern day Preston, Texas. They drove their cattle northeast to Fort Gibson and then followed a military road north along the Grand River before crossing into southwest Missouri. The Texans called the route the Shawnee Trail. In the 1850s, another Texas cattle trail evolved following the Shawnee Trail from the Red River to where Eufaula is located, where it branched east to Fort Smith, Ark. There it turned north to where Maysville, Ark., is now located before crossing into Missouri. After Sedalia, Mo., was founded in 1857, this route was called the Sedalia Trail. Several thousand Texas cattle were driven across Indian Territory in the 1840s and early '50s. The flow of Texas cattle slowed after stock raisers in Missouri noticed that many of their cattle got sick and died after having contact with the longhorns. Missourians called the sickness Texas Fever. Years later, the sickness was traced to ticks carried by the Texas cattle. Angry Missouri farmers organized vigilance committees to stop Texans from driving cattle into their state. In 1855, the Missouri legislature made it illegal to drive cattle from any other state into Missouri....

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A generation at the door
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

It's that time of year again. Almost daily, my mailbox brings me a cleverly designed photo card with a scripted invitation to that giant curve in the road of life - high school graduation.

One small card, all four faces filled with photos, shares, at a glance, 18-years of the embarking teen's life.

Chubby baby cheeks give way to pre-school cuteness followed by sports shots, county fair, FFA and then model-perfect poses of beauty that only a teen can achieve.

At homes everywhere, there is a teen whose head is spinning with a calendar full of lasts - last prom, last classes, last finals, last high school rodeo, last look at a school bus twice a day.

Moms are sorting clothes, sorting hours in the day, making lists and more lists.

She is filling every corner of her heart with busy in an effort to make those last high school memories great ones. And maybe, if she stuffs and pokes and pushes down hard enough, she can ignore, for a little longer, the tug of loneliness that is trying to take over.

Her baby is leaving home. Her baby isn't hers anymore. Her baby, whether it's the first one to leave or the last, will never again need her like he or she has the last 18 years.

That curve in the road of life isn't just for the graduating teen. It's for the family who has been a unit of a certain size in a certain way for a certain number of years. Now it will all change.

It might not all happen right after the caps and gowns are returned and the graduation party is behind them.

After all, there is still summer and plenty to do at home and with assorted activities. But the ticking clock will seem to pick up speed and volume as June and July slip by to the inevitable first day of college classes.

If this is the first one to go, it's horribly hard, as Mom makes her way through unfamiliar territory, dreading what she can't see or plan for ahead.

If this is the last one to go, it's horribly hard as Mom knows the road, but also knows how it drops off at the end.

Graduation seems to signify some right of passage for a teen that says, "Okay Mom, I've got it handled now."

Wasn't it just last week he was checking daily in the mirror to see if he had enough facial hair to justify shaving? He was almost willing it grow overnight, like that would mean he was a little tougher and more "mature."

Is this the same kid, who during "the talk," became mortified when the word hormone was used because he had it confused with hemorrhoids and didn't want to talk about anything having to do with his butt. Somehow, a raging hemorrhoid is not a good explanation for much of anything.

Wasn't it just last week she was wearing frosted bubblegum lip-gloss, plastic beaded bracelets and wanting her ears pierced? Her firsts were mascara, dates, a bra and trying to figure out just what it was that was supposed to make thong underwear fun.

Now she has her own car and spends every spare minute planning her own apartment and a life completely free of her perceptions of her mother's nagging. It will be many years before she realizes how much she is her mom.

In the meantime, contrary to what graduates think is going to happen, moms don't resign their post that easily. Every now and then I have to show my AARP card to my mother to remind her, "I got it handled, Mom."

Julie has lived through this twice, with one more to go, sometime after he starts shaving.

Visit Julie’s website at www.julie-carter.com
FLE

From Mexico, Drug Violence Spills Into U.S. Javier Emilio Pérez Ortega, a workaholic Mexican police chief, showed up at the sleepy, two-lane border crossing here last month and asked U.S. authorities for political asylum. Behind him, law and order was vanishing fast. In the four months he had served as Puerto Palomas police chief, drug traffickers had threatened to kill him and his officers if they tried to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines into the United States, his former colleagues said on condition of anonymity. After a particularly menacing telephone call, his 10-man force resigned en masse. His bodyguards quit, too. Abandoned by his men and unable to trust the notoriously corrupt Mexican authorities, Pérez Ortega turned to the only place he believed he could find refuge -- the United States, the former colleagues said. As President Bush meets this week with Mexican President Felipe Calderón in New Orleans, the repercussions of Mexico's battle with drug cartels are increasingly gushing into the United States, giving rise to thorny new problems for Mexican and U.S. officials, as well as the millions of people who live along the border. A U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in January while chasing suspected traffickers fleeing back to Mexico, AK-47 bullets have been found a half-mile inside U.S. territory after shootouts in Mexican border towns, and wounded Mexican police have been taken to the United States for treatment at heavily guarded hospitals....
Catching smugglers - on way to Mexico Thousands of border agents, dozens of checkpoints and hundreds of miles of barriers are set up to stop contraband and illegal immigrants getting into the United States. But little more than a chance roadside inspection stops smugglers going the other way. That imbalance shows no sign of changing soon, but it has given rise to a novel experiment under way in Pima County. There, the Sheriff's Department has set up an 11-member unit to disrupt southbound smugglers and bandits who steal drugs and hijack people coming north. The sheriff's Border Crimes Unit, established a year ago, added a second full-time squad in December. "For every load that comes north, something goes south to fund that activity," said Lt. Jeff Palmer, who is in charge of the team. "For as much as we are catching, there is tenfold getting through. It's a war zone." There is a growing recognition among Arizona criminal investigators that choking off southbound guns and cash can effectively disrupt Mexican drug- and human-smuggling cartels. The logic goes like this: Seize a ton of marijuana, and cartels grow another crop. Arrest an illegal immigrant, and he'll try again. But if investigators stop the southbound smugglers, they can seize the profits that make smuggling worthwhile and the guns used to protect the profits.Investigators estimate that thousands of firearms and hundreds of millions of dollars are smuggled from Arizona to Mexican cartels every year....
Border fence may not meet end of year completion date
At a cost of up to $4 million a mile, the concrete and steel fence rising along the Southwest border constitutes one of the most ambitious public works projects in years, encompassing legions of federal bureaucrats and a lineup of blue-ribbon contractors. But as it slices through forbidding terrain, tribal lands, private property and sensitive wildlife habitats, the barrier faces its own towering wall of challenges, raising doubt that the projected 670 miles of pedestrian fences and vehicle barriers will be in place when the Bush administration comes to an end in January. Facing a deadline of Dec. 31, the Department of Homeland Security was over halfway to its goal as of April 25, with just under 300 miles awaiting construction. A companion element to the physical barriers — a so-called virtual wall of radars, cameras and sensors — faces uncertainty after developing worrisome technical problems in a test project. For the remaining phase, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing construction from its offices in Fort Worth, Texas, has selected just over two dozen contractors from an initial round of bidding. The contractors have been divided into smaller bidding pools — with three or four in each pool — to compete for task orders totaling $3.4 billion to build specific segments of the fence. By design, some of the contractors are minority owned or come from economically depressed areas....
Border Agents Can Search Laptops Without Cause, Appeals Court Rules Federal agents at the border do not need any reason to search through travelers' laptops, cell phones or digital cameras for evidence of crimes, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, extending the government's power to look through belongings like suitcases at the border to electronics. The unanimous three-judge decision reverses a lower court finding that digital devices were "an extension of our own memory" and thus too personal to allow the government to search them without cause. Instead, the earlier ruling said, Customs agents would need some reasonable and articulable suspicion a crime had occurred in order to search a traveler's laptop. On appeal, the government argued that was too high a standard, infringing upon its right to keep the country safe and enforce laws. Civil rights groups, joined by business traveler groups, weighed in, defending the lower court ruling. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the government, finding that the so-called border exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches applied not just to suitcases and papers, but also to electronics....
Airlines Resist Plan to Expand Fingerprinting(subscription) The airline industry is readying for a protracted fight with the Department of Homeland Security over plans to collect fingerprints from foreign travelers leaving the U.S. The department wants air carriers and cruise operators to start taking biometric data from most foreign passengers starting early next year. The idea is to match the digital fingerprint and photograph visitors already give to officials when they arrive in the country as part of the US-VISIT program in order to better track when people enter and leave the country. The proposed change, which is designed to meet border-security recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, would cost carriers about $2.7 billion over 10 years, said the department's assistant secretary for policy, Stewart Baker. He said most of the cost would come as a result of the extra time required for air and cruise staff to ask passengers to provide a fingerprint. Airline-industry groups said US-VISIT -- U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology -- is a federal responsibility and should be carried out and paid for by the government. The Air Transport Association described the proposal as an "unconscionable" burden on "an industry in crisis." Sending digital images of fingerprints would require an overhaul of airlines' computer systems, said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association. "To try to turn airline employees into border-protection agents makes no sense whatsoever," Mr. Lott said. Mr. Baker said the new requirements are an extension of the biographical information carriers already collect for the government, and that there are no plans to reimburse the costs or provide additional equipment....
States act to shield gun holders South Carolina last week became the latest in a growing number of states to make the names of people who have a license to carry a concealed weapon a state secret. Five other states might not be far behind in a battle that pits a public policy of open government against the right of people to keep their gun ownership records private. Bills that would make concealed gun permit records confidential have been introduced in eight other states this year — Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — according to Janna Goodwin of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Tennessee bill was defeated, in a House subcommittee vote earlier this month. West Virginia's bill was tabled, and Virginia's legislative session ended before a bill could be considered, Goodwin said. Action is pending in the five other states, she said. Concealed-weapon records always have been confidential in many states, said Colin Weaver, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Prior to South Carolina's action, the Brady Campaign counted 26 states where the records are confidential. The trend of states closing records intensified last year, partly in response to media outlets in Virginia, Florida and elsewhere posting those records online, said South Carolina state Rep. Michael Pitts, a Republican. "People think this one is absolutely a Second Amendment issue, but it's not," said Pitts, a former police officer who introduced his state's bill to close gun-permit records. "It's as much an issue of where does the sunshine on government stop and the protection on individual privacy begin."....
Court broadens police power in searches The Supreme Court affirmed yesterday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law. The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him on a traffic-ticket offense. David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go. Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors said drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence. "We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. Justice Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to think a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety. Moore was convicted on a drug charge and sentenced to 3½ years in prison. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that police should have released Moore and could not lawfully conduct a search. The state's high court said state law restricted officers to issuing a ticket in exchange for a promise to appear later in court. Virginia courts dismissed the indictment against Moore. Moore argued that the Fourth Amendment permits a search only following a lawful state arrest....
The War on Terror Feeding Frenzy Nearly seven years after Sept. 11, 2001, what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious domestic terror threat, is the War on Terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and still expanding? The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda’s most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes, but to hijack our political system. For a multitude of politicians, interest groups, professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and state governments and federal agency officials, the War on Terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, project, grant and contract proposals. For the country as a whole, however, it has become a maelstrom of waste and worry that distracts us from more serious problems. Consider the congressional response. In mid-2003, the Department of Homeland Security compiled a list of 160 potential terrorist targets, triggering intense efforts by representatives, senators and their constituents to find potential targets in their districts that might require protection and therefore be eligible for federal funding. The result? Widened definitions and blurrier categories of potential targets and mushrooming increases in the infrastructure and assets deemed worthy of protection. By late 2003, the list had increased more than tenfold to 1,849; by 2004 it had grown to 28,364; by 2005 it mushroomed to 77,069; and by 2006 it was approximately 300,000. Across the country, hundreds of interest groups recast their traditional objectives and funding proposals to reflect the new imperatives of the new war. The National Rifle Association declared that the War on Terror means more Americans should own firearms to defend against terrorists. The gun control lobby argued that fighting the War on Terror means passing stricter gun control laws to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Schools of veterinary medicine called for quadrupling funding to train veterinarians to defend the country against terrorists using foot-and-mouth disease to decimate cattle herds. Pharmacists advocated the creation of pharmaceutical SWAT teams to respond quickly with appropriate drugs to the victims of terrorist attacks. According to a 2005 report by the Small Business Administration (SBA) inspector general, 85 percent of the businesses granted low-interest SBA counterterrorism loans failed to establish their eligibility. The SBA authorized 7,000 loans worth more than $3 billion, including $22 million in loans to Dunkin’ Donuts franchises in nine states....
Prison Nation Americans, perhaps like all people, have a remarkable capacity for tuning out unpleasantries that do not directly affect them. I'm thinking here of wars on foreign lands, but also the astonishing fact that the United States has become the world's most jail-loving country, with well over 1 in 100 adults living as slaves in a prison. Building and managing prisons, and locking people up, have become major facets of government power in our time, and it is long past time for those who love liberty to start to care. Before we get to the reasons why, look at the facts as reported by the New York Times. The U.S. leads the world in prisoner production. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. China, with four times as many people, has 1.6 million in prison. In terms of population, the US has 751 people in prison for every 100,000, while the closest competitor in this regard is Russia with 627. I'm struck by this figure: 531 in Cuba. The median global rate is 125. What's amazing is that most of this imprisoning trend is recent, dating really from the 1980s, and most of the change is due to drug laws. From 1925 to 1975, the rate of imprisonment was stable at 110, lower than the international average, which is what you might expect in a country that purports to value freedom. But then it suddenly shot up in the 1980s. There were 30,000 people in jail for drugs in 1980, while today there are half a million....
Reconsidering Absolute Prosecutorial Immunity While certainly the vast majority of prosecutors are ethical lawyers engaged in vital public service, the undeniable fact is that many innocent people have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct.1 Prosecutors are rarely disciplined or criminally prosecuted for their misconduct,2 and the victims of this misconduct are generally denied any civil remedy because of prosecutorial immunities.3 In litigation under the major federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, two kinds of immunity apply to prosecutors: absolute immunity and qualified immunity. The immunity that applies depends on the function the prosecutor was performing at the time of the misconduct.4 When prosecutors act as advocates, absolute immunity applies.5 Under absolute immunity, prosecutors are immunized even when the plaintiff establishes that the prosecutor acted intentionally, in bad faith, and with malice.6 When prosecutors act as investigators or administrators, qualified immunity applies.7 Under qualified immunity, prosecutors are immunized unless the misconduct violated clearly established law of which a reasonable prosecutor would have known.8 This functional approach to prosecutorial immunity has created confusion and conflict in the lower courts.9 Together, these immunities deny civil remedies to innocent people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct....
A Crack in the Shield of Immunity for Prosecutors? I read in the LA Times that the United States Supreme Court will take up a case to decide if a former Los Angeles County District Attorney can be sued for his part in a man's wrongful conviction. The case involves former Marine Tom Goldstein who spent 24 years in prison on a murder conviction that was primarily based upon the testimony of a jailhouse snitch. The prosecution had no fingerprints, forensic evidence, or weapon. They did have the testimony of an informant who was a pro and who had a long history that should have been known by the defense at trial – but it was not known by the defense, since the prosecution did not disclose that information. If the defense had known details about the snitch they would have had the opportunity to show to the jury that this was testimony bought and paid for by the prosecution. However, management at the District Attorney's Office did not put any system in place to track informants. Also, identities of informants and any information on their records was protected information. So an innocent man spends 24 years in jail because of the record-keeping rules in the District Attorney's Office, in addition to the use of false testimony. "Goldstein said he was bitter about how he had been treated. He has always maintained his innocence and had been convicted on the basis of testimony from an unreliable jailhouse informant and an eyewitness who later recanted. In recent years, five federal judges all agreed that Goldstein's constitutional rights had been violated by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office." Many Americans are unaware that it is an undeniable fact that many innocent people have been wrongly convicted of crimes as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. In spite of the evidence of many instances of misconduct, prosecutors are very rarely disciplined for their misconduct. Even more rare is the prosecutor who is charged with a criminal count due to his misconduct in the handling of a case. Worse still, the victims of any misconduct are generally denied civil remedy because of prosecutorial immunity. In other words, the prosecutor may commit heinous abuses of one's civil rights and there is generally nothing anyone can do about it. Surprised? I was. The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that "prosecutors, like judges, must be free to do their jobs without fear of being sued later" and that this rule of "absolute immunity" applies when a prosecutor "acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties." This means that the prosecutor knows beforehand that almost no action that he takes in a case will result in civil or criminal punishment. This is an open invitation and temptation to act in the manner of a tyrant. History is full of examples of what happens when a powerful man is not held accountable for his actions....
Absolute Immunity Is Too Much Goldstein's case is unusual because he's suing John Van de Camp, the district attorney who oversaw the office that convicted him. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has allowed Goldstein's case to go forward, setting up the hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit stems from federal law 42 U.S.C. 1983, which states that "…[e]very person" who acts under color of state law to deprive another of a constitutional rights shall be answerable to that person in a suit for damages," and provides a means for those wronged by government officials to file suit in federal court. But there are exceptions to Section 1983 suits...In the case Imbler v. Pachtman 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out a gaping exception for prosecutors. Prosecutors have what's known as "absolute immunity" from civil rights suits, provided they're acting in their capacity as prosecutors. Few people enjoy such protections in their own line of work. But this complete shield from accountability is especially problematic when we're talking about prosecutors. It's a job that's already plagued by incentive problems—unfortunately, we tend to measure a prosecutor's performance based on how many people he's able to throw in jail, not necessarily by how well he metes out justice. Rarely, for example, does a prosecutor get public recognition for the cases he doesn't take. So we have people in a position where they have the enormous power to take away someone's freedom, incentives nudging them to err on the side of prosecuting aggressively, and absolute immunity from lawsuits should they overstep their bounds. It's a recipe for disaster....
California Brewery Faces Federal Fines for Telling Consumers to 'Try Legal Weed' Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the Northern California town where he brews his beer — Weed. Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say "Try Legal Weed." While reviewing the proposed label for Dillmann's latest beer, Lemurian Lager, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau said the message on the caps he has been using for his five current beers amounts to a drug reference. In a letter explaining its decision, the agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could "mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage." The town of 3,000, sitting beneath Mount Shasta about 230 miles north of the state capital, takes its name from Abner Weed, a timber baron who opened a lumber mill there in 1901 and eventually was elected to the state Senate. Dillmann, 61, started the Mount Shasta Brewing Co. in 2004. He said he has always used the town's name on his beers and named the company's first official brew Abner Weed's Pale Ale. His bottle labels follow a long tradition of exploiting the town's name. Even city officials do it. A sign posted on the way out of town reads, "Temporarily Out of Weed," while another says "100 Percent Pure Weed." Dillmann noted those examples in an appeal letter he sent to the alcohol bureau. Once, Dillmann said, his wife, a former teacher, was delayed on a field trip to San Francisco as tourists clamored to pose next to the school bus, which said "Weed High."....