Ecoterrorist Sentenced to Six Years A California woman convicted in an ecoterrorism attack at the University of Washington has been sentenced to six years in prison and to pay $6 million in restitution. A Seattle television station, KIRO, reported that the woman, Briana Waters of Berkeley, had asked for mercy because she has a 3-year-old daughter. Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year sentence. Ms. Waters, 32, was sentenced in Federal District Court in Tacoma after being convicted of arson on March 6. She was a student at Evergreen State College in 2001 when she acted as a lookout as others set fire to the Center for Urban Horticulture. The Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized radical environmental group that has been linked to acts of ecoterrorism in the Northwest, claimed responsibility because it believed, mistakenly, that a researcher was genetically modifying poplar trees. The blaze, which destroyed the plant research center, was one of at least 17 fires set from 1996 to 2001 by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. In all, more than a dozen people were arrested; four suspects remain at large....
The politics of intimidation In his essay “The latest trend in name-calling” (HCN, June 9, 2008) Ed Quillen has again given us food for thought as well as entertaining observations. Ed identifies use of the word “Eco-terrorists” by both environmentalists and their opponents with emergence of the Bush Administration’s “global war on terror” after 9/11. But in fact use of the term by opponents of the Environmental Movement emerged much earlier. I should know; I have been labeled an “eco-terrorist” many times over the past fifteen years or so by those who oppose my work as a forest and river activist. I first began hearing the term “eco-terrorist” used to describe environmentalists in the early 1990s – in the middle of the struggle over the Northern Spotted Owl and the Ancient Forests of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest....
Wyden proposes forest restoration and old growth protection Sen. Ron Wyden has drafted a bill designed to stop the long-standing battles over forests in Oregon by prohibiting the logging of old growth, providing a steady stream of timber and restoring the health of stands in danger from wildfire and insects. The Oregon Democrat hopes to file the bill this year, with the ultimate goal of getting a nationwide discussion of forest policy going that will capture the interest of the new president taking office next year. "For the sake of our environment, economy and our way of life, we must come together to pursue a concerted, new focus on sustainable forestry management that will create thousands of new jobs and restore the health of our forests," Wyden said in a statement. "The only way to produce this kind of change is put new ideas forward, seek common ground, and break away from the old politics that led us to this dysfunctional and dangerous situation." The Wyden bill is intended to turn the focus of the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management from timber production to forest restoration, said Josh Kardon, Wyden's chief of staff. But even with a focus on restoration, preliminary estimates are that the bill would significantly boost timber production from federal lands, Johnson said. The bill divides forests into those that are dry, primarily on the east side of the Cascades, and those that are moist, primarily on the west side of the Cascades. In moist forests, stands and individual trees older than 120 years would be off-limits to logging. In dry forests, trees older than 150 years could not be cut, but younger trees in those stands would be logged to reduce fire danger, improve forest health, and promote fish and wildlife habitat....
BLM plans geothermal meetings as West's energy hunger grows Federal land managers will hold meetings in 11 Western states and Alaska next month on a plan to accelerate development of geothermal resources to help supply the region's rapacious appetite for energy. The 13 scheduled meetings start July 8 in Anchorage and conclude July 30 in Sacramento, with a session planned for Boise on July 21. As part of its 2005 energy plan, Congress gave marching orders to federal agencies to take stock of the region's geothermal resources. Among other things, land managers at the meetings will discuss efforts to identify Western public lands with geothermal potential and open them to development....
U.S. Forest Service cuts grazing on National Grasslands The U.S. Forest Service manages grasses in the National Grasslands. They communicate with the grazing associations in their region to work out contract agreements and manage for grass conditions. This year, Forest Service district ranger Ron Jablonski, who manages the Medora district in southwestern North Dakota, decided the drought had significantly affected grass growth in the district. He decided grazing needed to be cut 30 percent across the board in National Grasslands in Slope and Billings counties. Jerry Lambourn, a cow-calf operator 18 miles north of Rhame, said he was “surprised” when the Little Missouri Grazing Association received a fax telling them about the 30 percent cuts. His federal grassland pastures are in a region that received good moisture from the spring snowstorm in South Dakota. In fact, his pastures had received “just short of 5 inches” and were green when he attended the annual meeting at the grazing association. The fax arrived at the meeting during a break when no one was in the office. The ranchers returned and found the fax. “I was surprised because we have had a lot of moisture this spring,” Lambourn said. Pope thought the timing of the fax was unusual because U.S. Forest Service personnel were coming in person that afternoon to give a talk at the meeting anyway. “The Forest Service did not come out and check the allotments with us before they decided on this 30 percent across-the-board cut,” Pope said. “With 5 inches of rain, it's not needed.”....
Study: Removing biomass from forests does no harm and prevents fires Things are changing in the woods. In the past, loggers would cut down trees, and take the trunks to the sawmills and pulp mills, and leave the tree tops and branches on the ground to rot and feed the soil, to support the next generation of trees. About a year and a half ago, the Iron Range cities of Virginia and Hibbing built a boiler that would burn wood to produce electricity. Since then, loggers have been chipping up some of the tops and branches and hauling the chips to the boiler. Don Arnosti was one of many environmentalists who worried about how much of that biomass could be removed from the woods without harming the forest. He was also aware of another problem: the branches, and even young trees, provide fuel for forest fires. "When you have high volumes of this material, you can have large catastrophic fires like we've experienced twice in the last couple of years," says Arnosti, a forestry expert with the non-profit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis who organized the study. Arnosti recruited some university researchers, loggers, and officials from the Superior National Forest. They set up a series of nine experimental biomass harvests....
U.S. set to track environment The White House has directed four agencies to develop yardsticks for charting changes in the amount and quality of the nation's water. Clay Johnson, a deputy director of the White House budget office, said Tuesday that various indicators will be used to evaluate whether environmental policies and programs are working. The water benchmarks will not be released until 2009, according to administration officials. That will be too late to evaluate the effectiveness of the Bush administration's environmental policies. The Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency, Forest Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were directed to develop the indicators.
New Mexico 4-Wheelers - 50 Years Of Trail Riding 1958-2008 It's been an exciting 50-year ride for the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based New Mexico 4-Wheelers (NM4W). Incorporated in 1958, the original club name was Albuquerque Jeep Herders. However, the club was never restricted to Jeeps, and the name, New Mexico 4-Wheelers, was adopted in 1976. Regardless of name, the club has always been committed to fun, safe, responsible, and family-oriented off-highway adventure. Twenty people attended the first Albuquerque Jeep Herders meeting held on August 6, 1958. The newspaper notice invited "all owners of vehicles with 4WD or rough-road capabilities." One of the first club runs was to the Mt. Taylor area of the Cibola National Forest, 70 miles west of Albuquerque. It was September 1958, and four vehicles participated: a CJ-3, CJ-5, and two Willys Station Wagons. The off-highway section was a Forest Service road that wound up the mountains through pine forests and open meadows and ended at the La Mosca Peak fire lookout (elevation 11,038 feet). Those carburetors must have been well-tuned!....
State stops aerial pesticide spraying over neighborhoods In a victory for thousands of Northern California residents, state officials Thursday announced they will no longer aerially spray urban areas with chemicals to fight the invasive light brown apple moth. Instead, planes will spray pheromone CheckMate LBAM-F over agricultural or undeveloped areas only, according to state Department of Food and Agriculture Director A.G. Kawamura. The decision follows months of protests and lawsuits from residents of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, and around California, after airplanes sprayed parts of the two counties with the chemicals last year. "We want to move away from the tools of the past," said A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the state's Department of Food and Agriculture. "Our focus right now is, let's all work together to eradicate this pest." The Monterey Bay counties originally were slated to be sprayed again with CheckMate LBAM-F this summer, along with others in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area. The chemical pheromone mimics the smell of female moths and distracts the males from mating. Judges in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, as well as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, stalled those plans last month until environmental reviews and health tests wrapped up. Now, though, the state's plan to aerially spray neighborhoods to fight the apple moth has been tossed....
Thoroughbred industry in Congressional hot seat Lawmakers examining the health and safety of thoroughbred racehorses on Thursday advocated for a centralized governing authority that would regulate the sport, as critics of the racing industry called for congressional intervention to create that body. "We're looking for Arnold Schwarzenegger's upper body and then we go to Don Knotts' legs and knees," said Jess Jackson, owner of Curlin, the 2007 Horse of the Year. "We don't need all of the inbreeding we have. I go to Argentina to buy horses; I go to Germany to buy horses because they have stronger bones and better knees. We need a league and a commissioner. We need action, please. Congress, help." The hearing by a House consumer protection subcommittee came less than two months after the post-race death of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, an event that created a public outcry and a sense of urgency for reform from inside and outside the sport. Critics want a body that would regulate the industry, rather than leaving the ability to enforce rules and penalties to each of the 38 states where thoroughbred racing is permitted. "They are like fiefdoms, and they each have their Nero-like CEOs," Arthur Hancock, a longtime thoroughbred owner and breeder, told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection. "We are too fragmented and too diverse. . . . Only a federal racing commission or commissioner can save us from ourselves." The meeting, called by Reps. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), the panel's chairman, and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), also examined breeding practices, the safety of various track surfaces and the use of steroids....