Saturday, July 17, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Gray wolf makes a comeback The nearly extinct eastern population of gray wolves has recovered and will be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton announced yesterday. The wolves were given federal protection three decades ago, but their numbers have since increased substantially, and the administration is proposing that management of the species be given to individual states from Maine to the Dakotas. The Southwestern and Western populations of gray wolves will remain under federal protection as threatened species....
Sierra Club Calls Bush Administration's Wolf Delisting Ill-Advised The Sierra Club today called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plan to remove the "eastern population" of gray wolves from the endangered species list a case of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” The USFWS announced that wolves in all of the states in and east of the Dakotas will be delisted, including the wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. “What ought to be a celebration of a conservation success is instead a cruel hoax,” said Ginny Yingling, a member of the Sierra Club’s national working group on wolf issues....
Column: When Does Garbage Become Archaeology? A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana's Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage --everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these dumpsites as archaeological, we carefully let our findings be. But our search posed questions: When does garbage become historic and thereby protected? What separates junk left to rot and historic treasures in our national parks and wilderness areas?....
Vote Scheduled on Judicial Nominee William Myers Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) continued his attempts to divide the American people today by trying to force a vote next Tuesday on controversial judicial nominee William G. Myers III, a former beef and mining industry lobbyist. This morning, Senator Frist announced that he will file a cloture petition this afternoon to end debate on whether Myers' should be confirmed, setting off a filibuster of another of president Bush's extreme judicial nominees. For the first time, a judicial nominee's extreme record on protections for the environment and Native American rights will be the focus of a filibuster. Myers' nomination to a lifetime seat on the powerful Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has prompted record opposition by tribal leaders, conservation groups, labor, and civil rights organizations-including many groups that have never before opposed a judicial nominee....
Calif. condors respond to W. Nile virus vaccine California condors, giant birds once driven to near extinction, are being vaccinated against a deadly virus and seem to be responding well, according to the scientist who developed the vaccine. The majority of the roughly 188 condors that have been tested since they were vaccinated against West Nile virus have developed antibodies, said Jeff Chang, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research microbiologist who developed the vaccine....
Column: How treaties trump the Constitution Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate private property. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to manage wildlife or prescribe land-use regulations within the various states. By what authority, then, has the federal government constructed the expansive bureaucracy that now forces wolves, panthers and bears on states and communities that don't want them, or levied fines, and jailed people who dare dig a ditch or dump a load of sand on their own private property?....
Demolition begins on one of most deadly buildings Demolition began Thursday on what has been called "the most dangerous building in America," where workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear plant once handled highly radioactive plutonium used in triggers for nuclear weapons. Rocky Flats started producing plutonium triggers in the 1950s and was closed in 1989 when chronic safety violations led to a raid by federal agents. The Cold War's end scuttled plans to reopen the plant. Work began in 1994 on decommissioning Rocky Flats, which will eventually be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage as a wildlife refuge....
Editorial: Petty Politics in Yosemite At one point late last year, when Rep. George P. Radanovich was pushing his bill to have LeConte Memorial Lodge moved out of Yosemite Valley, he told a reporter, "I think John Muir would be rolling over in his grave if he knew this thing had been built in the valley."Presumably the Republican from Mariposa has learned by now that pioneer conservationist Muir not only approved but was the Sierra Club president when the club-owned lodge was built in 1903 and had been a prime mover in having it erected.The lodge is not a likely flashpoint for political controversy....
Preserving and Promoting our National Parks Editor's note: The National Park Service and the Bush administration have received criticism in recent months from some liberal organizations and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for not doing enough to improve and protect America's Crown Jewels, our National Parks. TCS Deputy Editor Duane D. Freese sat down with Interior Secretary Gale Norton to discuss those criticisms and find out what steps the administration has taken to restore luster to America's historical sites and natural wonders....
Landowner opposition sinks Gaviota seashore proposal In the hope of keeping it that way, conservationists have urged for more than a decade that the Gaviota coast be accorded formal protection as a national seashore. They almost got their wish, persuading Congress to authorize a study of that possibility five years ago. This spring, however, the federal government dashed their hopes by issuing a report concluding that such protection was warranted but "not feasible."The finding stands in stark contrast to the expansionary tendencies of the National Park Service during the Clinton administration and illustrates the growing influence of property-rights activists in the conservation arena now that legislators sympathetic to their cause control the White House and both chambers of Congress....
Surveyors begin Caliente rail corridor groundwork Government surveyors have been in the field in northern Nye County measuring grades, mapping terrain and marking landforms in an effort to lay the engineering groundwork for the railroad to build from Caliente, near the Utah state line. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the natives are getting restless.Pahute Mesa. Cactus Flat. Stone Cabin Valley. It all sounds like the trappings of a script for a Western movie. But instead of Indians, outlaws or a greedy banker as the villain, in this updated version it's the distant federal government that wears the black hat....
OSU creates weedmapper for war on weeds The spread of noxious, exotic (non-native) weeds in Oregon costs the state millions of dollars annually in lost economic productivity and resources spent on weed control programs. Researchers at Oregon State University hope to enlist the help of landowners and land managers throughout the state in the war on weeds via an online-based weed information exchange called Weedmapper. "The idea behind Weedmapper is to provide agency officials, land managers and Oregon landowners with quick and easy access to the latest information available on the location and extent of noxious weed infestations around the state," said Doug Johnson, a rangeland ecologist in the OSU Department of Rangeland Resources, and leader of theWeedmapper project....
Editorial: How the West will be won The Kerry-Edwards campaign launched a Western issues agenda this week, laying out a policy position on wildfires that focuses on prevention, safeguarding communities and protecting the environment. On these dry, hot days when fires are scorching hundreds of acres in Western states, we think it's high time the presidential candidates attend to issues that will resonate in the West. President Bush and Vice President Cheney vacation in their home states of Texas and Wyoming, and enjoy familiarity with Western issues that will surely allow for a vigorous debate between the two parties....
Yeah, That's the Ticket: How does John Edwards stack up on the environment? When John Edwards was tapped to be John Kerry's veep last week, everyone interested in ousting Bush erupted into convulsions of praise -- and the enviros were no exception. So it may come as a surprise that Edwards' lifetime voting record on the environment, determined by LCV's scorecard, is 63 percent (that would be a D-) -- quite a bit lower than Kerry's 92 percent, one of the highest records in Senate history....
Homeless horses: Wild animals major challenge for feds This year the federal government is spending about $17,500 each day just to feed wild horses protected from slaughter and too old to adopt out. Some will live more than 30 years. More than 20,000 wild horses and burros have accumulated in recent years in government corrals and sanctuaries. About 36,000 more roam public space managed by the BLM, competing with cattle for food, stressing the ecosystem, reproducing at a rate that can double their population every four years and facing few natural predators. Taxpayers are picking up the bill, which is increasing rapidly. In 2000 - when the total wild horse and burro population was about 51,000 - the program cost about $21 million. In its current budget request - with 36,000 horses on the range and 20,000 in holding pens and sanctuaries - the BLM is asking for $42 million....
Hahn Rethinking Owens Valley Plan Two weeks ago Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn talked about creating a land conservancy to protect the Owens Valley from future development.Now he's not so sure and says he won't make up his mind until he visits the valley and talks to residents. Now Hahn finds himself caught between the environmentalists and DWP board President Dominick Rubalcava, who has been one of the mayor's top advisors and fundraisers. Rubalcava is adamantly opposed to a conservancy, wants the land to stay in DWP hands and has indicated he is not against limited development in the valley....
Maine Churches Add Environmentalism to Ministries Efforts like those of Mr. Bliss, his congregation and other like-minded churchgoers have put Maine in the forefront of religiously motivated environmental activity, said Paul Gorman, director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an organization of Christian and Jewish groups, in Washington. About 36 congregations now have mostly lay-led environmental groups called EarthCare teams, up from 24 last fall, said Anne Burt, director of the Maine Council of Churches' Environmental Justice Program in Portland. Congregations have been introducing environmentalism into Sunday schools, undergoing energy audits of their churches, reducing cars idling and changing the very buildings in which they meet, with window replacements and added insulation. "We are building an environmental movement in the pews," Burt added....
Bonneville summer spill plan opposed by Oregon Governor Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Friday the state will join a lawsuit filed by environmentalists, fishermen and Northwest Indian tribes to block the Bonneville Power Administration summer spill plan for salmon. Kulongoski is the only one of four Northwest governors to oppose the plan to reduce spills at four hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in August....
Environmentalists Fear Anti-Wetlands Rules Wetland regulation is in flux because of a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prompted states to begin retooling their rules governing "isolated" wetlands -- low-lying areas without a surface link to a waterway. The court declared that the federal government does not have unlimited authority over these wetlands, delighting developers, farmers and others who had long complained that earlier wetland regulations unduly hampered growth. Environmentalists like Tedesco, however, fear the changes will accelerate the loss of unique habitat. And she said what's often overlooked is that wetlands, even tiny ones, act as giant, filtering sponges that suck up storm runoff and ease flooding....
Questions over Hearst Ranch's value lead to conflict allegation The California Coastal Commission is questioning an appraisal that says Hearst Ranch is worth more than twice the $95 million the state is being asked to pay to preserve it. A Hearst attorney, however, says one of the commission employees raising the issue has a conflict of interest because she spoke out against the plan as a member of a conservation group....
Archaeologist believes find is proof of lost Indian culture A government archaelogist believes ancient fire pits and pottery recently unearthed in south-central Montana are the works of an Indian culture that disappeared hundreds of years ago from its home range in modern-day Colorado and Utah.Glade Hadden, a Bureau of Reclamation archaeologist, said evidence found at the site near Bridger strongly suggests the area was inhabited by Fremont people, an Indian culture known for its masonry work and fine pottery."There is no doubt in my mind," Hadden said....
Extreme conditions persist on range lands Despite a soggy spring in parts of Montana, about 40 percent of the state's counties continue to languish in a withering drought - including more than half of Montana's cattle country, the governor's Drought Advisory Committee concluded this week. But a band from Beaverhead to Carter counties continues to weather a long-term, extreme drought. And that, said Peggy Stringer, state statistician for the Montana Agricultural Statistics Service, is where 56 percent of all the range land in the state is, accounting for 51 percent of all Montana's cattle.....
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes In a landmark decision greeted with jubilation by representatives of the Hoopa and Yurok tribes, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the release of flows proscribed under the Trinity River Record of Decision (ROD) of December 2000. "Nothing remains to prevent the full implementation of the ROD, including its complete flow plan for the Trinity River," the Court ruled on Tuesday, July 13. Marshall said the decision would compel the federal Bureau of Reclamation to release 47 percent of river flows for fish and 53 percent for agriculture and power. Prior to the ROD, up to 90 percent of the river had been diverted to agriculture and power users, resulting in dramatic declines in salmon and steelhead populations....
Interior agencies win backing from House panel to recruit volunteers The Interior Department may recruit and train volunteers to help with activities of more of its agencies under legislation approved Wednesday by the House Resources Committee. The legislation opens up the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Office of the Secretary to volunteer assistance. Volunteer programs already exist in some other Interior agencies, including the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management....
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Gray wolf makes a comeback The nearly extinct eastern population of gray wolves has recovered and will be removed from the list of threatened and endangered species, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton announced yesterday. The wolves were given federal protection three decades ago, but their numbers have since increased substantially, and the administration is proposing that management of the species be given to individual states from Maine to the Dakotas. The Southwestern and Western populations of gray wolves will remain under federal protection as threatened species....
Sierra Club Calls Bush Administration's Wolf Delisting Ill-Advised The Sierra Club today called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plan to remove the "eastern population" of gray wolves from the endangered species list a case of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” The USFWS announced that wolves in all of the states in and east of the Dakotas will be delisted, including the wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. “What ought to be a celebration of a conservation success is instead a cruel hoax,” said Ginny Yingling, a member of the Sierra Club’s national working group on wolf issues....
Column: When Does Garbage Become Archaeology? A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana's Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage --everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these dumpsites as archaeological, we carefully let our findings be. But our search posed questions: When does garbage become historic and thereby protected? What separates junk left to rot and historic treasures in our national parks and wilderness areas?....
Vote Scheduled on Judicial Nominee William Myers Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) continued his attempts to divide the American people today by trying to force a vote next Tuesday on controversial judicial nominee William G. Myers III, a former beef and mining industry lobbyist. This morning, Senator Frist announced that he will file a cloture petition this afternoon to end debate on whether Myers' should be confirmed, setting off a filibuster of another of president Bush's extreme judicial nominees. For the first time, a judicial nominee's extreme record on protections for the environment and Native American rights will be the focus of a filibuster. Myers' nomination to a lifetime seat on the powerful Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has prompted record opposition by tribal leaders, conservation groups, labor, and civil rights organizations-including many groups that have never before opposed a judicial nominee....
Calif. condors respond to W. Nile virus vaccine California condors, giant birds once driven to near extinction, are being vaccinated against a deadly virus and seem to be responding well, according to the scientist who developed the vaccine. The majority of the roughly 188 condors that have been tested since they were vaccinated against West Nile virus have developed antibodies, said Jeff Chang, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research microbiologist who developed the vaccine....
Column: How treaties trump the Constitution Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate private property. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to manage wildlife or prescribe land-use regulations within the various states. By what authority, then, has the federal government constructed the expansive bureaucracy that now forces wolves, panthers and bears on states and communities that don't want them, or levied fines, and jailed people who dare dig a ditch or dump a load of sand on their own private property?....
Demolition begins on one of most deadly buildings Demolition began Thursday on what has been called "the most dangerous building in America," where workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear plant once handled highly radioactive plutonium used in triggers for nuclear weapons. Rocky Flats started producing plutonium triggers in the 1950s and was closed in 1989 when chronic safety violations led to a raid by federal agents. The Cold War's end scuttled plans to reopen the plant. Work began in 1994 on decommissioning Rocky Flats, which will eventually be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage as a wildlife refuge....
Editorial: Petty Politics in Yosemite At one point late last year, when Rep. George P. Radanovich was pushing his bill to have LeConte Memorial Lodge moved out of Yosemite Valley, he told a reporter, "I think John Muir would be rolling over in his grave if he knew this thing had been built in the valley."Presumably the Republican from Mariposa has learned by now that pioneer conservationist Muir not only approved but was the Sierra Club president when the club-owned lodge was built in 1903 and had been a prime mover in having it erected.The lodge is not a likely flashpoint for political controversy....
Preserving and Promoting our National Parks Editor's note: The National Park Service and the Bush administration have received criticism in recent months from some liberal organizations and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry for not doing enough to improve and protect America's Crown Jewels, our National Parks. TCS Deputy Editor Duane D. Freese sat down with Interior Secretary Gale Norton to discuss those criticisms and find out what steps the administration has taken to restore luster to America's historical sites and natural wonders....
Landowner opposition sinks Gaviota seashore proposal In the hope of keeping it that way, conservationists have urged for more than a decade that the Gaviota coast be accorded formal protection as a national seashore. They almost got their wish, persuading Congress to authorize a study of that possibility five years ago. This spring, however, the federal government dashed their hopes by issuing a report concluding that such protection was warranted but "not feasible."The finding stands in stark contrast to the expansionary tendencies of the National Park Service during the Clinton administration and illustrates the growing influence of property-rights activists in the conservation arena now that legislators sympathetic to their cause control the White House and both chambers of Congress....
Surveyors begin Caliente rail corridor groundwork Government surveyors have been in the field in northern Nye County measuring grades, mapping terrain and marking landforms in an effort to lay the engineering groundwork for the railroad to build from Caliente, near the Utah state line. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the natives are getting restless.Pahute Mesa. Cactus Flat. Stone Cabin Valley. It all sounds like the trappings of a script for a Western movie. But instead of Indians, outlaws or a greedy banker as the villain, in this updated version it's the distant federal government that wears the black hat....
OSU creates weedmapper for war on weeds The spread of noxious, exotic (non-native) weeds in Oregon costs the state millions of dollars annually in lost economic productivity and resources spent on weed control programs. Researchers at Oregon State University hope to enlist the help of landowners and land managers throughout the state in the war on weeds via an online-based weed information exchange called Weedmapper. "The idea behind Weedmapper is to provide agency officials, land managers and Oregon landowners with quick and easy access to the latest information available on the location and extent of noxious weed infestations around the state," said Doug Johnson, a rangeland ecologist in the OSU Department of Rangeland Resources, and leader of theWeedmapper project....
Editorial: How the West will be won The Kerry-Edwards campaign launched a Western issues agenda this week, laying out a policy position on wildfires that focuses on prevention, safeguarding communities and protecting the environment. On these dry, hot days when fires are scorching hundreds of acres in Western states, we think it's high time the presidential candidates attend to issues that will resonate in the West. President Bush and Vice President Cheney vacation in their home states of Texas and Wyoming, and enjoy familiarity with Western issues that will surely allow for a vigorous debate between the two parties....
Yeah, That's the Ticket: How does John Edwards stack up on the environment? When John Edwards was tapped to be John Kerry's veep last week, everyone interested in ousting Bush erupted into convulsions of praise -- and the enviros were no exception. So it may come as a surprise that Edwards' lifetime voting record on the environment, determined by LCV's scorecard, is 63 percent (that would be a D-) -- quite a bit lower than Kerry's 92 percent, one of the highest records in Senate history....
Homeless horses: Wild animals major challenge for feds This year the federal government is spending about $17,500 each day just to feed wild horses protected from slaughter and too old to adopt out. Some will live more than 30 years. More than 20,000 wild horses and burros have accumulated in recent years in government corrals and sanctuaries. About 36,000 more roam public space managed by the BLM, competing with cattle for food, stressing the ecosystem, reproducing at a rate that can double their population every four years and facing few natural predators. Taxpayers are picking up the bill, which is increasing rapidly. In 2000 - when the total wild horse and burro population was about 51,000 - the program cost about $21 million. In its current budget request - with 36,000 horses on the range and 20,000 in holding pens and sanctuaries - the BLM is asking for $42 million....
Hahn Rethinking Owens Valley Plan Two weeks ago Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn talked about creating a land conservancy to protect the Owens Valley from future development.Now he's not so sure and says he won't make up his mind until he visits the valley and talks to residents. Now Hahn finds himself caught between the environmentalists and DWP board President Dominick Rubalcava, who has been one of the mayor's top advisors and fundraisers. Rubalcava is adamantly opposed to a conservancy, wants the land to stay in DWP hands and has indicated he is not against limited development in the valley....
Maine Churches Add Environmentalism to Ministries Efforts like those of Mr. Bliss, his congregation and other like-minded churchgoers have put Maine in the forefront of religiously motivated environmental activity, said Paul Gorman, director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an organization of Christian and Jewish groups, in Washington. About 36 congregations now have mostly lay-led environmental groups called EarthCare teams, up from 24 last fall, said Anne Burt, director of the Maine Council of Churches' Environmental Justice Program in Portland. Congregations have been introducing environmentalism into Sunday schools, undergoing energy audits of their churches, reducing cars idling and changing the very buildings in which they meet, with window replacements and added insulation. "We are building an environmental movement in the pews," Burt added....
Bonneville summer spill plan opposed by Oregon Governor Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Friday the state will join a lawsuit filed by environmentalists, fishermen and Northwest Indian tribes to block the Bonneville Power Administration summer spill plan for salmon. Kulongoski is the only one of four Northwest governors to oppose the plan to reduce spills at four hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in August....
Environmentalists Fear Anti-Wetlands Rules Wetland regulation is in flux because of a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prompted states to begin retooling their rules governing "isolated" wetlands -- low-lying areas without a surface link to a waterway. The court declared that the federal government does not have unlimited authority over these wetlands, delighting developers, farmers and others who had long complained that earlier wetland regulations unduly hampered growth. Environmentalists like Tedesco, however, fear the changes will accelerate the loss of unique habitat. And she said what's often overlooked is that wetlands, even tiny ones, act as giant, filtering sponges that suck up storm runoff and ease flooding....
Questions over Hearst Ranch's value lead to conflict allegation The California Coastal Commission is questioning an appraisal that says Hearst Ranch is worth more than twice the $95 million the state is being asked to pay to preserve it. A Hearst attorney, however, says one of the commission employees raising the issue has a conflict of interest because she spoke out against the plan as a member of a conservation group....
Archaeologist believes find is proof of lost Indian culture A government archaelogist believes ancient fire pits and pottery recently unearthed in south-central Montana are the works of an Indian culture that disappeared hundreds of years ago from its home range in modern-day Colorado and Utah.Glade Hadden, a Bureau of Reclamation archaeologist, said evidence found at the site near Bridger strongly suggests the area was inhabited by Fremont people, an Indian culture known for its masonry work and fine pottery."There is no doubt in my mind," Hadden said....
Extreme conditions persist on range lands Despite a soggy spring in parts of Montana, about 40 percent of the state's counties continue to languish in a withering drought - including more than half of Montana's cattle country, the governor's Drought Advisory Committee concluded this week. But a band from Beaverhead to Carter counties continues to weather a long-term, extreme drought. And that, said Peggy Stringer, state statistician for the Montana Agricultural Statistics Service, is where 56 percent of all the range land in the state is, accounting for 51 percent of all Montana's cattle.....
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes In a landmark decision greeted with jubilation by representatives of the Hoopa and Yurok tribes, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the release of flows proscribed under the Trinity River Record of Decision (ROD) of December 2000. "Nothing remains to prevent the full implementation of the ROD, including its complete flow plan for the Trinity River," the Court ruled on Tuesday, July 13. Marshall said the decision would compel the federal Bureau of Reclamation to release 47 percent of river flows for fish and 53 percent for agriculture and power. Prior to the ROD, up to 90 percent of the river had been diverted to agriculture and power users, resulting in dramatic declines in salmon and steelhead populations....
Interior agencies win backing from House panel to recruit volunteers The Interior Department may recruit and train volunteers to help with activities of more of its agencies under legislation approved Wednesday by the House Resources Committee. The legislation opens up the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Office of the Secretary to volunteer assistance. Volunteer programs already exist in some other Interior agencies, including the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management....
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Friday, July 16, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Editorial: Roadless Rules Write-Off "VENEMAN ACTS to Conserve Roadless Areas in National Forests." So read the Orwellian headline on the Agriculture Department's announcement Monday about Secretary Ann M. Veneman's move to junk a Clinton administration rule that protected nearly 60 million acres of national forest from road-building, logging and other development. But no one should buy the Bush administration's effort to give this anti-environmental action a green spin: It had pledged to uphold the roadless measure, but its proposal would instead eviscerate protections for some of the country's last unspoiled wilderness....
Happy trails? Forest Service proposal guardedly welcomed by 4x4 clubs Responding to a dramatic increase in off-road vehicle activity, the U.S. Forest Service announced a new proposal July 7 that it hopes will help curb abuses and protect national forest lands. Local forest rangers and off-road enthusiasts, while applauding the intent, wonder how it will be enforced by the already financially strapped agency....
Conservation groups asks for halt to six timber sales Conservationists have asked a federal court in Medford for a temporary restraining order to halt old growth logging in the area burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire. The group — comprised of eight environmental groups including the Sierra Club — are asking the court to halt six sales in old growth reserves of the Siskiyou National Forest....
Agency Seeks to End Gray Wolf Protection The gray wolf, which once nearly disappeared in the lower 48 states, is making such a comeback that the Interior Department wants to lift federal protection for the animal in the eastern two-thirds of the country. Interior Secretary Gale Norton was to announce on Friday a proposed rule that would lift protection under the Endangered Species act for gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are significant populations, as well as in at least 20 other states....
'Science' and the decline of the spotted owl Ten years ago, an allegedly declining number of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest was used by environmentalists and the Clinton administration to virtually shut down the cutting of so-called old growth forests on public lands across the region. The policy, not surprisingly, has been catastrophic for the area's economy and turned many once-thriving timber towns into rural ghettos, with high unemployment rates and increased reliance on government handouts, including federal "spotted owl payments." But a decade later, what has resulted from of this costly effort to save the beloved spotted owl? Nothing much, as it turns out. The owl's numbers aren't rebounding, as expected, and this trend has less to do with the preservation of forests, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatory predilections of a winged rival, the barred owl....
Redford on record Robert Redford said he’s earned the right to criticize the Bush administration’s environmental record. And he does it with gusto. “Don’t try to change this administration ; they’re not going to change,” Redford told a crowd of several hundred people Wednesday at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe. “They seem to almost enjoy trying to destroy the environment.”....
Kerry vs. Bush on environmental issues Environmental issues are shaping up to play a larger role in the presidential race than many political analysts had expected as both the Bush and Kerry campaigns seek to leverage their support in swing states. Democratic candidate John Kerry has sought to portray President Bush as sacrificing the environment to curry favor with industry allies, while Bush charges that the Massachusetts senator's environmental proposals would cost millions of jobs and devastate the economy. While those arguments may be overshadowed nationally by public concern about Iraq and the war on terrorism, both campaigns are waging a fierce contest over a range of environmental issues that have special regional significance....
Officials frustrated by parks studies Park County leaders say they are frustrated by plans for yet another study of snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. "How many times do we have to do this?" Commissioner Tim French asked recently. "Round and round we go, over and over again." The National Park Service, following a federal court order, has been working on a temporary winter-use plan for the parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway. The plan will guide winter management while two federal lawsuits over the issue are being resolved....
Hearst Land Plan Gains Support Overflowing a beachfront veterans hall Thursday night, a generally enthusiastic crowd of 400 people heard the details of a plan to preserve the Hearst Ranch and bring to an end three decades of public wrangling over the fate of one of the state's most beguiling stretches of coastal real estate. It was the first airing of a proposal that would transfer 13 miles of beaches to the state and bar development on most of the rest of the ranch. In return, the Hearsts would receive $95 million and rights to build a 100-room hotel, 27 homes scattered across 200 acres, 15 units of employee housing and 3,600 acres of orchards, vineyards and row crops....
GC Trust ready to saddle up A Flagstaff-based environmental group is getting into the ranching business. The Grand Canyon Trust announced Wednesday that it has partnered with the Virginia-headquartered Conservation Fund to secure a purchase option for the Kane and Two Mile ranches. But it still has to raise $4.5 million to complete the deal....
Poisoning too little, too late for grasshopper plague, ranchers say Clouds of grasshoppers splattered onto the windshield of Walt Ford's truck as he drove through Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge on the Silver Lake Highway Thursday."They have been marching across this road for two weeks," said Ford, manager of the refuge....
BLM to round up horses near Eureka The U.S. Bureau of Land Management successfully rounded up horses near Eureka only to find it is going to have to do it again. John Winnepenninkx, assistant field manager for renewable resources for the Battle Mountain BLM office, said some 338 horses being gathered in the Diamond Mountain Complex east of Eureka are “agile and in good shape.” But he said horses west of Eureka, in the Fish Creek Herd Management Area, are in trouble because their water source has dried up, so BLM hauled two large water tanks to them earlier this week....
Conservation groups oppose rural Nevada land bill Conservation and ranching groups are opposing a congressional bill they say would let Southern Nevada drain rural Nevada counties of water and harm the region’s environment. The group contends the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2004 would authorize a route for a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline to send water from sensitive areas in Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas....
Warming up to a new treaty? WHEN SEN. JOHN Edwards addressed The Chronicle editorial board in February before the Democratic primaries, I asked him if he would ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty. "Yes," the presidential candidate answered. Then, he added, he believed Sen. John Kerry shared his position. Wrong. The next day, when presidential candidate Kerry talked to The Chronicle editorial board, he said that he would not ask the Senate to ratify Kyoto....
Kulongoski's Natural Resources Advisor resigns Gov. Ted Kulongoski's top natural resources advisor, who was sometimes a target of environmentalists, is resigning after 19 months on the job, according to the governor's office. Jim Brown, Kulongoski's director of natural resources policy, will retire Sept. 1, after 19 months on the job, citing a desire to spend more time with his family, according to a statement released Thursday by the governor's office....
Group with no-growth objective calls it quits As Andy Kerr sees it, Alternatives to Growth Oregon failed at a lofty goal: trying to change the course of western civilization. Blaming evaporating funding, group leaders last month gave up their five-year effort to slow or halt population growth in Oregon. The organization was the state's only voice consistently linking traffic congestion, pollution and other problems to a swelling population. "We staked out a goal that was not going to be met, at least in the short term," said Kerr, the founder. "The whole course of western civilization has been growth, growth, growth, growth."....
Basque sheepherders left their mark with bark art With dates that extend well back into the 1920s, many of the aspen carvings -- known as dendroglyphs -- were left by Basque sheepherders. They arrived in northern Arizona in the late 1800s after a series of events led them to the Southwest's mountain regions....
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Editorial: Roadless Rules Write-Off "VENEMAN ACTS to Conserve Roadless Areas in National Forests." So read the Orwellian headline on the Agriculture Department's announcement Monday about Secretary Ann M. Veneman's move to junk a Clinton administration rule that protected nearly 60 million acres of national forest from road-building, logging and other development. But no one should buy the Bush administration's effort to give this anti-environmental action a green spin: It had pledged to uphold the roadless measure, but its proposal would instead eviscerate protections for some of the country's last unspoiled wilderness....
Happy trails? Forest Service proposal guardedly welcomed by 4x4 clubs Responding to a dramatic increase in off-road vehicle activity, the U.S. Forest Service announced a new proposal July 7 that it hopes will help curb abuses and protect national forest lands. Local forest rangers and off-road enthusiasts, while applauding the intent, wonder how it will be enforced by the already financially strapped agency....
Conservation groups asks for halt to six timber sales Conservationists have asked a federal court in Medford for a temporary restraining order to halt old growth logging in the area burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire. The group — comprised of eight environmental groups including the Sierra Club — are asking the court to halt six sales in old growth reserves of the Siskiyou National Forest....
Agency Seeks to End Gray Wolf Protection The gray wolf, which once nearly disappeared in the lower 48 states, is making such a comeback that the Interior Department wants to lift federal protection for the animal in the eastern two-thirds of the country. Interior Secretary Gale Norton was to announce on Friday a proposed rule that would lift protection under the Endangered Species act for gray wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are significant populations, as well as in at least 20 other states....
'Science' and the decline of the spotted owl Ten years ago, an allegedly declining number of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest was used by environmentalists and the Clinton administration to virtually shut down the cutting of so-called old growth forests on public lands across the region. The policy, not surprisingly, has been catastrophic for the area's economy and turned many once-thriving timber towns into rural ghettos, with high unemployment rates and increased reliance on government handouts, including federal "spotted owl payments." But a decade later, what has resulted from of this costly effort to save the beloved spotted owl? Nothing much, as it turns out. The owl's numbers aren't rebounding, as expected, and this trend has less to do with the preservation of forests, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatory predilections of a winged rival, the barred owl....
Redford on record Robert Redford said he’s earned the right to criticize the Bush administration’s environmental record. And he does it with gusto. “Don’t try to change this administration ; they’re not going to change,” Redford told a crowd of several hundred people Wednesday at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe. “They seem to almost enjoy trying to destroy the environment.”....
Kerry vs. Bush on environmental issues Environmental issues are shaping up to play a larger role in the presidential race than many political analysts had expected as both the Bush and Kerry campaigns seek to leverage their support in swing states. Democratic candidate John Kerry has sought to portray President Bush as sacrificing the environment to curry favor with industry allies, while Bush charges that the Massachusetts senator's environmental proposals would cost millions of jobs and devastate the economy. While those arguments may be overshadowed nationally by public concern about Iraq and the war on terrorism, both campaigns are waging a fierce contest over a range of environmental issues that have special regional significance....
Officials frustrated by parks studies Park County leaders say they are frustrated by plans for yet another study of snowmobiling in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. "How many times do we have to do this?" Commissioner Tim French asked recently. "Round and round we go, over and over again." The National Park Service, following a federal court order, has been working on a temporary winter-use plan for the parks and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway. The plan will guide winter management while two federal lawsuits over the issue are being resolved....
Hearst Land Plan Gains Support Overflowing a beachfront veterans hall Thursday night, a generally enthusiastic crowd of 400 people heard the details of a plan to preserve the Hearst Ranch and bring to an end three decades of public wrangling over the fate of one of the state's most beguiling stretches of coastal real estate. It was the first airing of a proposal that would transfer 13 miles of beaches to the state and bar development on most of the rest of the ranch. In return, the Hearsts would receive $95 million and rights to build a 100-room hotel, 27 homes scattered across 200 acres, 15 units of employee housing and 3,600 acres of orchards, vineyards and row crops....
GC Trust ready to saddle up A Flagstaff-based environmental group is getting into the ranching business. The Grand Canyon Trust announced Wednesday that it has partnered with the Virginia-headquartered Conservation Fund to secure a purchase option for the Kane and Two Mile ranches. But it still has to raise $4.5 million to complete the deal....
Poisoning too little, too late for grasshopper plague, ranchers say Clouds of grasshoppers splattered onto the windshield of Walt Ford's truck as he drove through Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge on the Silver Lake Highway Thursday."They have been marching across this road for two weeks," said Ford, manager of the refuge....
BLM to round up horses near Eureka The U.S. Bureau of Land Management successfully rounded up horses near Eureka only to find it is going to have to do it again. John Winnepenninkx, assistant field manager for renewable resources for the Battle Mountain BLM office, said some 338 horses being gathered in the Diamond Mountain Complex east of Eureka are “agile and in good shape.” But he said horses west of Eureka, in the Fish Creek Herd Management Area, are in trouble because their water source has dried up, so BLM hauled two large water tanks to them earlier this week....
Conservation groups oppose rural Nevada land bill Conservation and ranching groups are opposing a congressional bill they say would let Southern Nevada drain rural Nevada counties of water and harm the region’s environment. The group contends the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2004 would authorize a route for a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline to send water from sensitive areas in Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas....
Warming up to a new treaty? WHEN SEN. JOHN Edwards addressed The Chronicle editorial board in February before the Democratic primaries, I asked him if he would ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty. "Yes," the presidential candidate answered. Then, he added, he believed Sen. John Kerry shared his position. Wrong. The next day, when presidential candidate Kerry talked to The Chronicle editorial board, he said that he would not ask the Senate to ratify Kyoto....
Kulongoski's Natural Resources Advisor resigns Gov. Ted Kulongoski's top natural resources advisor, who was sometimes a target of environmentalists, is resigning after 19 months on the job, according to the governor's office. Jim Brown, Kulongoski's director of natural resources policy, will retire Sept. 1, after 19 months on the job, citing a desire to spend more time with his family, according to a statement released Thursday by the governor's office....
Group with no-growth objective calls it quits As Andy Kerr sees it, Alternatives to Growth Oregon failed at a lofty goal: trying to change the course of western civilization. Blaming evaporating funding, group leaders last month gave up their five-year effort to slow or halt population growth in Oregon. The organization was the state's only voice consistently linking traffic congestion, pollution and other problems to a swelling population. "We staked out a goal that was not going to be met, at least in the short term," said Kerr, the founder. "The whole course of western civilization has been growth, growth, growth, growth."....
Basque sheepherders left their mark with bark art With dates that extend well back into the 1920s, many of the aspen carvings -- known as dendroglyphs -- were left by Basque sheepherders. They arrived in northern Arizona in the late 1800s after a series of events led them to the Southwest's mountain regions....
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Thursday, July 15, 2004
MAD COW DISEASE
USDA says mandatory mad cow tests wouldn't work Mandatory testing of cattle for mad cow disease would not improve on the current voluntary system because the government still could never be sure producers were complying, an Agriculture Department official said Wednesday.Even under mandatory testing, if a producer did not want an animal tested, ''it would be very difficult for us to find out,'' said Dr. Ron DeHaven, administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service....
USDA defends mad cow monitoring system U.S. Department of Agriculture officials Wednesday defended a new program that monitors mad cow disease in the United States, saying they have fixed many of the flaws found in its previous version. "I do believe that the food supply is safer today,"said Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, responding to members of Congress who questioned its validity. "We have done everything that we can to give as much information as we can to the public and maintain our credibility." Veneman and two other USDA officials testified for three hours before a joint hearing of the House Committees on Government Reform and Agriculture. She said an expanded testing program and tighter procedures for handling sick cattle should reassure the public that beef is safe to eat....
U.S. agriculture chief concedes testing program still needs work In the face of a critical audit from her own department's inspector general, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Wednesday that the expanded testing program for mad cow disease is on track but conceded some adjustments might be needed. "Not surprisingly, given the scope of our task, our efforts continue to evolve in order to assure the successful implementation of such an extensive undertaking," Veneman said during a joint hearing of the House Agriculture and Government Reform committees. A draft of an audit prepared by the Agriculture Department Office of Inspector General concluded that the testing program has serious flaws that could undermine its credibility and lead to questionable estimates of how widespread the disease is among the nation's cattle and dairy herds....
Column: Mad cow hysteria The federal government is fanning the flames of a consumer panic at the expense of common-sense food safety. Just in time for your July Fourth barbeque, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) jumped the gun and announced two cases of "inconclusive" Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease. Only after making its ominous announcement did the agency later announce, "Oops, never mind." That the USDA was concerned enough to follow up its initial assessment with more elaborate testing is well and good. That it blew the whistle before securing all of the facts is asinine....
U.S. eyes renewed beef sales to Japan The Bush administration hopes this summer to reach terms with Japan that would allow a resumption of beef exports.Japan, the top overseas destination for U.S. beef, and other markets banned red meat from America after the December discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state. While U.S. consumers generally have remained confident in the safety of meat, major trade partners have not."We are hopeful we will see an opening of the Japanese market in the near future," Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said yesterdayat a joint hearing by the House Government Reform and Agriculture committees....
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USDA says mandatory mad cow tests wouldn't work Mandatory testing of cattle for mad cow disease would not improve on the current voluntary system because the government still could never be sure producers were complying, an Agriculture Department official said Wednesday.Even under mandatory testing, if a producer did not want an animal tested, ''it would be very difficult for us to find out,'' said Dr. Ron DeHaven, administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service....
USDA defends mad cow monitoring system U.S. Department of Agriculture officials Wednesday defended a new program that monitors mad cow disease in the United States, saying they have fixed many of the flaws found in its previous version. "I do believe that the food supply is safer today,"said Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, responding to members of Congress who questioned its validity. "We have done everything that we can to give as much information as we can to the public and maintain our credibility." Veneman and two other USDA officials testified for three hours before a joint hearing of the House Committees on Government Reform and Agriculture. She said an expanded testing program and tighter procedures for handling sick cattle should reassure the public that beef is safe to eat....
U.S. agriculture chief concedes testing program still needs work In the face of a critical audit from her own department's inspector general, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said Wednesday that the expanded testing program for mad cow disease is on track but conceded some adjustments might be needed. "Not surprisingly, given the scope of our task, our efforts continue to evolve in order to assure the successful implementation of such an extensive undertaking," Veneman said during a joint hearing of the House Agriculture and Government Reform committees. A draft of an audit prepared by the Agriculture Department Office of Inspector General concluded that the testing program has serious flaws that could undermine its credibility and lead to questionable estimates of how widespread the disease is among the nation's cattle and dairy herds....
Column: Mad cow hysteria The federal government is fanning the flames of a consumer panic at the expense of common-sense food safety. Just in time for your July Fourth barbeque, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) jumped the gun and announced two cases of "inconclusive" Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease. Only after making its ominous announcement did the agency later announce, "Oops, never mind." That the USDA was concerned enough to follow up its initial assessment with more elaborate testing is well and good. That it blew the whistle before securing all of the facts is asinine....
U.S. eyes renewed beef sales to Japan The Bush administration hopes this summer to reach terms with Japan that would allow a resumption of beef exports.Japan, the top overseas destination for U.S. beef, and other markets banned red meat from America after the December discovery of mad cow disease in Washington state. While U.S. consumers generally have remained confident in the safety of meat, major trade partners have not."We are hopeful we will see an opening of the Japanese market in the near future," Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said yesterdayat a joint hearing by the House Government Reform and Agriculture committees....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Appeals court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over bison hazing A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a judge's decision to dismiss a lawsuit environmental groups filed to stop the hazing of bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park. A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell properly dismissed the suit in April 2003 because the groups had not proven their case against the federal agencies involved in the management of bison. The groups had argued that efforts to haze or capture bison that leave the park were adversely affecting nearby nesting bald eagles, and that officials had not properly studied the effects on the protected birds....
Column: Roads to Perdition Many political observers thought President Bush would lay off the environment during the election season. After all, he faces an opponent with a well-burnished rep as an environmental good boy. Seems they've misunderestimated Dubyah yet again. On Monday, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced a Bush administration plan to scrap the hard-won Clinton-era "roadless rule" -- a move that Phil Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust, ranks as "one of the top five biggest attacks on the environment since the Bush administration set foot in the White House, not to mention the single biggest giveaway to the timber industry in the history of the national forests."....
Editorial: Spare the chain saw, spoil the forest Kerry on Tuesday talked of cutting the Forest Service's commercial logging activities by $100 million and spending it, instead, on a new Forest Restoration Corps. Heaven knows, our forests can use the investment. The West alone has tens of millions of acres of forests in need of thinning, streams that need protection from erosion and range lands that could bear rehabbing. And with every major forest fire, there are thousands more acres in need of reclamation and replanting. But the idea that this work can be done at the expense of commercial logging is delusional. The Bush administration errs in putting too much emphasis on commercial logging as the solution to complex forest-health problems, but Kerry is mistaken in seeing logging and forest restoration as mutually exclusive. We aren't going to truly restore our forests if we focus mostly on the big trees most valuable to loggers, but good stewardship isn't going to happen without loggers, either....
Editorial: National forests, goodbye Thanks to a new Bush administration policy, the fate of untouched Alaskan landscapes will largely be left up to the whims of local politics. The new policy will effectively convert the national forest system into a collection of state forests. Each state will soon be driving the political decision-making process to open up roadless areas for mining and timber harvesting....
Editorial: Protecting roadless forests The most important bottom line regarding roadless forest policy in the West is that protection is the right approach. The economic future of the region does not depend on expensive timber-cutting access to roadless areas and old-growth timber. The Bush administration's announcement this week that it was removing blanket protections for roadless areas in national forests may not lead to wholesale assaults on those areas -- but the government will have to move with great care and clarity to assure that....
Editorial: America's forests A new Bush administration plan eliminating the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects America's national forests puts millions of acres of pristine forest up for grabs by logging companies. The rule put into effect by the Clinton administration on its way out of office in 2001 has been struck down twice in federal court. The latest ruling is being appealed by environmentalists in one of several pending court challenges....
Editorial: Roadless reversal victory for federalism The Bush administration this week made good on a promise to revise the Clinton-era roadless rule, and like clockwork a number of environmental groups immediately warned of armies of chainsaw-bearing loggers razing the national forests. But a much less hysterical reading is that the U.S. may be returning to the sensible "multiple-use" policy that had long guided management of most public lands. Imposed by executive fiat in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the rule banned road construction on about 30 percent of the national forests. With the stroke of a pen, 60 million acres were declared de facto wilderness and taken off the table even for consideration of potential timber harvesting, mineral extraction, and other activities....
Column: It takes a tree-hugger to raze a forest In fact, the plot would just overturn a giveaway penned by Bill Clinton in one of his last days in office — proclaiming some 59 million acres of federal forestland off-limits to any road building. Under the new plan, states and governors would be given the power to reconsider: Those who wished to maintain the status quo would petition the federal government to maintain the roadless rule within their borders. So what are the Democratic governors so upset about? Richardson and Oregon's Gov. Ted Kulongoski will be empowered to keep their pristine tinderboxes under a signature of their own. But judging by their responses, it's not as appealing to support radical environmental policies when your office is on the line — such things are more conven-iently accomplished through presidential fiat than persuading voters....
Column: One Big Step For years, environmental groups like the Bluewater Network have warned of the coming plague of jetskis, snowmobiles and the many versions of all-terrain vehicles on our public lands. Now, the plague is upon us, and while the impacts of these machines have been documented in countless studies, more and more people are witnessing the damage first-hand to our air and water quality, wildlife, cultural resources, soils and wildlife. Recognizing this damage from these so-called "outlaw trails," the Forest Service proposed a rule July 7 that would ban riding off designated trails, though no extra money has been set aside to enforce closures. The proposed rule, open for comment for 60 days, defines ORVs as dirt bikes and four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicles, but exempts snowmobiles....
Limits on OHV access opposed Clarence Pollard says his family has been hunting in upper Beaver Canyon since 1875, and now he fears that will become more difficult -- if not impossible -- if off-highway vehicles are restricted or prohibited. The owner of Beaver Sport and Pawn -- which claims to be Utah's biggest seller of guns -- predicts the proposed changes for OHV use in Fishlake National Forest will meet with stiff opposition. "The problem's not with the public, but with forest management," Pollard maintains, adding that he believes most OHV riders are responsible, and that only one-half of 1 percent cause problems for everyone else....
Environmentalists Seek Limits on Sonar Environmental and animal rights groups threatened Wednesday to sue the Navy unless it takes new steps to protect whales and other species from booming waves of sonar designed to detect enemy submarines. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, the groups said dozens of whales off the coast of Washington, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, Portugal and other locations have beached themselves during Navy maneuvers sometimes hemorrhaging blood through their eyes and ears....
America's Hunters & Anglers Oppose Major Administration Conservation Policies But Praise Several Funding Initiatives "A majority of America's hunters and anglers, while praising specific Bush Administration's wildlife funding initiatives, say the administration's priorities are wrong on major conservation policies," Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, said here today at a press conference presenting the findings of a first of its kind survey of the nation's sportsmen....
Column: Feds attempt to advance the "green" movement This could prove to be a frightening week for anyone who owns property in America. Legislation being considered in Washington, D.C. will be some of the most dangerous that property owners can face. This week could determine if the American people will lose millions of acres more of their land. Legislation designed to place more controls and fund more programs for acquisition will be heard in Senate Committee meetings. The American Heritage Partnership Act (S2543) will be voted on in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today and the New CARA bill, now called Get Outdoors (S2590) providing $57 billion for land acquisitions is scheduled in the same committee on Tuesday, July 20....
Mexico urged to mark its piece of Anza Trail If enthusiastic Sonoran tourism supporters get their way, Arizona and its northern Mexico neighbor soon may have only the second binationally recognized historic trail running through their states. At issue is what level of recognition Mexico is willing to give to the trail blazed by Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza in the mid-1770s across Sonora and Arizona en route to founding a presidio and mission in the San Francisco Bay area. That expedition expanded Spanish influence in the New World far to the west and opened an immigration and supply route to northern California....
Interior officials oppose cut in trona royalty Interior Department officials on Wednesday put a damper on Wyoming lawmakers' bid to reduce the federal royalty that trona companies pay from 6 percent to 2 percent. The rejection came in written testimony presented to a Senate Energy Committee panel that was holding a hearing on a proposal by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo. Despite the opposition, Wyoming lawmakers say they remain optimistic about the proposal's prospects....
National-forest squatters spur call for restrictions Squatters who set up illegal campsites in national forests have become such a problem that Forest Service officials are considering limiting the use of forests near urban areas. Among the possible changes: restrictions on camping, target shooting and off-road-vehicle use in places within a two-hour drive of urban areas....
EPA weighs pollution lawsuits at 22 sites The owners of nearly two dozen coal-burning power plants could face lawsuits from the Environmental Protection Agency for clean air violations stemming from plant expansions or improvements, according to agency officials and documents. The EPA and the Justice Department are considering actions against operators of 22 plants for alleged violations of a regulation that the Bush administration has been trying to scale back and make less burdensome to industry....
Repeal of cyanide mining ban qualifies for ballot A proposal to repeal a 6-year-old ban on using cyanide in new gold and silver mines has qualified for the November ballot, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday. The office verified the petition signatures of 21,166 voters and said the initiative qualified in 39 of Montana's 56 counties. To get on the ballot, the measure needed a minimum of 20,510 signatures representing at least 5 percent of those voted for governor in the 2000 election from each of at least 28 counties....
Actor Robert Redford headlines environmentalist rally Environmentalists used a Hollywood film star and Governor Richardson on Wednesday morning to rally voters for the November general. Actor Robert Redford, Richardson and others criticized Bush administration policies as damaging to the environment. They say the Bush administration’s policies are tilted in favor of oil and natural gas development. Redford was the featured speaker at a Santa Fe rally organized by the Environmental Accountability Fund. That’s a project by the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund targeting Bush environmental policies....
EPA: No link between hydraulic fracturing, well contamination In a rebuff to charges leveled by citizen groups in Alabama and other states, federal regulators have concluded that a common coalbed methane drilling technique, known as hydraulic fracturing, poses "little or no threat" to underground drinking water supplies. In the recently released report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it found no confirmed incidents of well contamination linked to fracturing....
Panhandle water authority explores cheaper new source The main supplier of water to 11 communities in drought-parched West Texas wants to place hundreds of small wells along its pipeline between Amarillo and Lamesa over the next 20 years. The board of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, which has been looking for other sources of water as Lake Meredith remains low, approved a study of the proposed project Wednesday at a meeting in Sanford. The move comes two months after Dallas oil tycoon and Panhandle landowner T. Boone Pickens declined to sell the authority water rights he owns or controls on about 110,000 Panhandle acres, Satterwhite said....
Private Partnership Creates Model to Balance Wildlife Habitat and Working Ranchland Conservation The Grand Canyon Trust (GCT) and The Conservation Fund announced today that they have purchased an exclusive option from the Kane Ranch Land Stewardship & Cattle Company, LLC to buy the Kane and Two Mile Ranches, which own or control grazing permits on nearly 900,000 acres north of the Grand Canyon. The grazing allotments of the ranches share a boundary of approximately 80 miles with Grand Canyon National Park including some of the most varied wildlife habitat in the West. The ranches include 1,000 acres of private land in House Rock Valley, along the Vermilion Cliffs and on the Paria Plateau. Tied to this base property are federal and state grazing permits for nearly 900,000 acres....
The Pope of Gringo Pass A big, silver Cadillac inches along the dirt runway a few hundred feet from the Mexican border. The driver--a geezer in a straw hat--holds a Mexican stogie, and he's waving it like a wand as he holds forth on the state of border politics, smuggling, power-hungry bureaucrats, dark-eyed senioritas and what he calls the U.S. Border Patrol's "Gestapo tactics." He chomps the end of the cigar and spits the wet leaf out the window....
Kiddin' with the Kid The horse thus accounted for was a magnificent Arabian, which William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, actually gave - going through the motions of a sale, for the record - to Dr. Hoyt, the first civilian physician in the Texas Panhandle. Hoyt and Billy Bonney had become friends during the several months that the outlaw spent encamped near Tascosa, Texas. Upon hearing that Dr. Hoyt would be moving away, Bonney rode into town and presented the horse as a farewell gift. The witnesses were the proprietors of a general store. Dr. Hoyt eventually became Surgeon General of the United States....
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Appeals court upholds dismissal of lawsuit over bison hazing A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a judge's decision to dismiss a lawsuit environmental groups filed to stop the hazing of bison wandering from Yellowstone National Park. A three-member panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell properly dismissed the suit in April 2003 because the groups had not proven their case against the federal agencies involved in the management of bison. The groups had argued that efforts to haze or capture bison that leave the park were adversely affecting nearby nesting bald eagles, and that officials had not properly studied the effects on the protected birds....
Column: Roads to Perdition Many political observers thought President Bush would lay off the environment during the election season. After all, he faces an opponent with a well-burnished rep as an environmental good boy. Seems they've misunderestimated Dubyah yet again. On Monday, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced a Bush administration plan to scrap the hard-won Clinton-era "roadless rule" -- a move that Phil Clapp, president of National Environmental Trust, ranks as "one of the top five biggest attacks on the environment since the Bush administration set foot in the White House, not to mention the single biggest giveaway to the timber industry in the history of the national forests."....
Editorial: Spare the chain saw, spoil the forest Kerry on Tuesday talked of cutting the Forest Service's commercial logging activities by $100 million and spending it, instead, on a new Forest Restoration Corps. Heaven knows, our forests can use the investment. The West alone has tens of millions of acres of forests in need of thinning, streams that need protection from erosion and range lands that could bear rehabbing. And with every major forest fire, there are thousands more acres in need of reclamation and replanting. But the idea that this work can be done at the expense of commercial logging is delusional. The Bush administration errs in putting too much emphasis on commercial logging as the solution to complex forest-health problems, but Kerry is mistaken in seeing logging and forest restoration as mutually exclusive. We aren't going to truly restore our forests if we focus mostly on the big trees most valuable to loggers, but good stewardship isn't going to happen without loggers, either....
Editorial: National forests, goodbye Thanks to a new Bush administration policy, the fate of untouched Alaskan landscapes will largely be left up to the whims of local politics. The new policy will effectively convert the national forest system into a collection of state forests. Each state will soon be driving the political decision-making process to open up roadless areas for mining and timber harvesting....
Editorial: Protecting roadless forests The most important bottom line regarding roadless forest policy in the West is that protection is the right approach. The economic future of the region does not depend on expensive timber-cutting access to roadless areas and old-growth timber. The Bush administration's announcement this week that it was removing blanket protections for roadless areas in national forests may not lead to wholesale assaults on those areas -- but the government will have to move with great care and clarity to assure that....
Editorial: America's forests A new Bush administration plan eliminating the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects America's national forests puts millions of acres of pristine forest up for grabs by logging companies. The rule put into effect by the Clinton administration on its way out of office in 2001 has been struck down twice in federal court. The latest ruling is being appealed by environmentalists in one of several pending court challenges....
Editorial: Roadless reversal victory for federalism The Bush administration this week made good on a promise to revise the Clinton-era roadless rule, and like clockwork a number of environmental groups immediately warned of armies of chainsaw-bearing loggers razing the national forests. But a much less hysterical reading is that the U.S. may be returning to the sensible "multiple-use" policy that had long guided management of most public lands. Imposed by executive fiat in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the rule banned road construction on about 30 percent of the national forests. With the stroke of a pen, 60 million acres were declared de facto wilderness and taken off the table even for consideration of potential timber harvesting, mineral extraction, and other activities....
Column: It takes a tree-hugger to raze a forest In fact, the plot would just overturn a giveaway penned by Bill Clinton in one of his last days in office — proclaiming some 59 million acres of federal forestland off-limits to any road building. Under the new plan, states and governors would be given the power to reconsider: Those who wished to maintain the status quo would petition the federal government to maintain the roadless rule within their borders. So what are the Democratic governors so upset about? Richardson and Oregon's Gov. Ted Kulongoski will be empowered to keep their pristine tinderboxes under a signature of their own. But judging by their responses, it's not as appealing to support radical environmental policies when your office is on the line — such things are more conven-iently accomplished through presidential fiat than persuading voters....
Column: One Big Step For years, environmental groups like the Bluewater Network have warned of the coming plague of jetskis, snowmobiles and the many versions of all-terrain vehicles on our public lands. Now, the plague is upon us, and while the impacts of these machines have been documented in countless studies, more and more people are witnessing the damage first-hand to our air and water quality, wildlife, cultural resources, soils and wildlife. Recognizing this damage from these so-called "outlaw trails," the Forest Service proposed a rule July 7 that would ban riding off designated trails, though no extra money has been set aside to enforce closures. The proposed rule, open for comment for 60 days, defines ORVs as dirt bikes and four-wheel drive all-terrain vehicles, but exempts snowmobiles....
Limits on OHV access opposed Clarence Pollard says his family has been hunting in upper Beaver Canyon since 1875, and now he fears that will become more difficult -- if not impossible -- if off-highway vehicles are restricted or prohibited. The owner of Beaver Sport and Pawn -- which claims to be Utah's biggest seller of guns -- predicts the proposed changes for OHV use in Fishlake National Forest will meet with stiff opposition. "The problem's not with the public, but with forest management," Pollard maintains, adding that he believes most OHV riders are responsible, and that only one-half of 1 percent cause problems for everyone else....
Environmentalists Seek Limits on Sonar Environmental and animal rights groups threatened Wednesday to sue the Navy unless it takes new steps to protect whales and other species from booming waves of sonar designed to detect enemy submarines. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, the groups said dozens of whales off the coast of Washington, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, Portugal and other locations have beached themselves during Navy maneuvers sometimes hemorrhaging blood through their eyes and ears....
America's Hunters & Anglers Oppose Major Administration Conservation Policies But Praise Several Funding Initiatives "A majority of America's hunters and anglers, while praising specific Bush Administration's wildlife funding initiatives, say the administration's priorities are wrong on major conservation policies," Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, said here today at a press conference presenting the findings of a first of its kind survey of the nation's sportsmen....
Column: Feds attempt to advance the "green" movement This could prove to be a frightening week for anyone who owns property in America. Legislation being considered in Washington, D.C. will be some of the most dangerous that property owners can face. This week could determine if the American people will lose millions of acres more of their land. Legislation designed to place more controls and fund more programs for acquisition will be heard in Senate Committee meetings. The American Heritage Partnership Act (S2543) will be voted on in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today and the New CARA bill, now called Get Outdoors (S2590) providing $57 billion for land acquisitions is scheduled in the same committee on Tuesday, July 20....
Mexico urged to mark its piece of Anza Trail If enthusiastic Sonoran tourism supporters get their way, Arizona and its northern Mexico neighbor soon may have only the second binationally recognized historic trail running through their states. At issue is what level of recognition Mexico is willing to give to the trail blazed by Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza in the mid-1770s across Sonora and Arizona en route to founding a presidio and mission in the San Francisco Bay area. That expedition expanded Spanish influence in the New World far to the west and opened an immigration and supply route to northern California....
Interior officials oppose cut in trona royalty Interior Department officials on Wednesday put a damper on Wyoming lawmakers' bid to reduce the federal royalty that trona companies pay from 6 percent to 2 percent. The rejection came in written testimony presented to a Senate Energy Committee panel that was holding a hearing on a proposal by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo. Despite the opposition, Wyoming lawmakers say they remain optimistic about the proposal's prospects....
National-forest squatters spur call for restrictions Squatters who set up illegal campsites in national forests have become such a problem that Forest Service officials are considering limiting the use of forests near urban areas. Among the possible changes: restrictions on camping, target shooting and off-road-vehicle use in places within a two-hour drive of urban areas....
EPA weighs pollution lawsuits at 22 sites The owners of nearly two dozen coal-burning power plants could face lawsuits from the Environmental Protection Agency for clean air violations stemming from plant expansions or improvements, according to agency officials and documents. The EPA and the Justice Department are considering actions against operators of 22 plants for alleged violations of a regulation that the Bush administration has been trying to scale back and make less burdensome to industry....
Repeal of cyanide mining ban qualifies for ballot A proposal to repeal a 6-year-old ban on using cyanide in new gold and silver mines has qualified for the November ballot, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday. The office verified the petition signatures of 21,166 voters and said the initiative qualified in 39 of Montana's 56 counties. To get on the ballot, the measure needed a minimum of 20,510 signatures representing at least 5 percent of those voted for governor in the 2000 election from each of at least 28 counties....
Actor Robert Redford headlines environmentalist rally Environmentalists used a Hollywood film star and Governor Richardson on Wednesday morning to rally voters for the November general. Actor Robert Redford, Richardson and others criticized Bush administration policies as damaging to the environment. They say the Bush administration’s policies are tilted in favor of oil and natural gas development. Redford was the featured speaker at a Santa Fe rally organized by the Environmental Accountability Fund. That’s a project by the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund targeting Bush environmental policies....
EPA: No link between hydraulic fracturing, well contamination In a rebuff to charges leveled by citizen groups in Alabama and other states, federal regulators have concluded that a common coalbed methane drilling technique, known as hydraulic fracturing, poses "little or no threat" to underground drinking water supplies. In the recently released report, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it found no confirmed incidents of well contamination linked to fracturing....
Panhandle water authority explores cheaper new source The main supplier of water to 11 communities in drought-parched West Texas wants to place hundreds of small wells along its pipeline between Amarillo and Lamesa over the next 20 years. The board of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, which has been looking for other sources of water as Lake Meredith remains low, approved a study of the proposed project Wednesday at a meeting in Sanford. The move comes two months after Dallas oil tycoon and Panhandle landowner T. Boone Pickens declined to sell the authority water rights he owns or controls on about 110,000 Panhandle acres, Satterwhite said....
Private Partnership Creates Model to Balance Wildlife Habitat and Working Ranchland Conservation The Grand Canyon Trust (GCT) and The Conservation Fund announced today that they have purchased an exclusive option from the Kane Ranch Land Stewardship & Cattle Company, LLC to buy the Kane and Two Mile Ranches, which own or control grazing permits on nearly 900,000 acres north of the Grand Canyon. The grazing allotments of the ranches share a boundary of approximately 80 miles with Grand Canyon National Park including some of the most varied wildlife habitat in the West. The ranches include 1,000 acres of private land in House Rock Valley, along the Vermilion Cliffs and on the Paria Plateau. Tied to this base property are federal and state grazing permits for nearly 900,000 acres....
The Pope of Gringo Pass A big, silver Cadillac inches along the dirt runway a few hundred feet from the Mexican border. The driver--a geezer in a straw hat--holds a Mexican stogie, and he's waving it like a wand as he holds forth on the state of border politics, smuggling, power-hungry bureaucrats, dark-eyed senioritas and what he calls the U.S. Border Patrol's "Gestapo tactics." He chomps the end of the cigar and spits the wet leaf out the window....
Kiddin' with the Kid The horse thus accounted for was a magnificent Arabian, which William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, actually gave - going through the motions of a sale, for the record - to Dr. Hoyt, the first civilian physician in the Texas Panhandle. Hoyt and Billy Bonney had become friends during the several months that the outlaw spent encamped near Tascosa, Texas. Upon hearing that Dr. Hoyt would be moving away, Bonney rode into town and presented the horse as a farewell gift. The witnesses were the proprietors of a general store. Dr. Hoyt eventually became Surgeon General of the United States....
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Wednesday, July 14, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Kerry proposes $100M for new Forest Corps --Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry proposes cutting $100 million in annual government subsidies to the timber industry to pay for a new Forest Restoration Corps that would invest in the long-term health of national forests, his campaign said Tuesday. Shifting spending from commercial logging operations on federal lands would create jobs while restoring forests, streams and rangelands that have been mismanaged or severely damaged by wildfires, campaign aides said. The program -- reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt established during the Great Depression -- is one of the highlights in a three-page plan unveiled Tuesday near the site of a wildfire that burned 1,200 acres on the western edge of Reno two weeks ago. A Kerry administration would pledge to budget annually to cover all federal firefighting costs, make necessary additions to aerial firefighting fleets, and focus reduction of fuels in overstocked forests on those areas posing the most immediate threats to communities, according to the plan....
Editorial: Chain saws trump sound forest policy Grab the chain saws, rev up the bulldozers, open the federal Treasury to subsidize construction of more logging roads. The Bush administration has made its decision on continuing former President Clinton's protection of millions of acres of roadless areas in national forests. It prefers not to. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman tried to disguise her profligate giveaway of environmental protection, wildlife habitat and federal authority as promoting greater cooperation. Fine idea, but there's reason to worry about her definition of cooperation....
Editorial: Roads to Forest Ruination There's a difference between modifying an environmental protection and ripping its insides out, but the Bush administration hasn't picked up on the distinction. For years, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman has talked about tweaking a Clinton-era mandate that banned road-building in nearly 60 million of the most untouched acres of national forest. She wanted just enough flexibility to protect public safety and wildlife habitats, she said. With the roadless rule placed in the hands of Undersecretary Mark E. Rey, a former timber lobbyist, no one expected a forest-friendly proposal to emerge. A year ago, Rey talked about letting governors appeal to open certain forest areas to roads. "We are trying to make available relief in limited circumstances," Rey said at the time....
Police arrest forest fireman A member of the Stanislaus National Forest's elite firefighting team — the Stanislaus Hotshots — faces a felony charge of failing to register as a sex offender and a misdemeanor charge of public drunkenness. Jimmy John Quesada, 30, was hired in February as an apprentice firefighter and is currently working on the Sonora-based Hotshots crew, said forest spokesman Jerry Snyder. On Saturday Quesada was arrested in downtown Sonora on the intoxication charge. During the arrest and booking process at the Tuolumne County Jail, officers discovered he had been previously convicted in Riverside County in 1992 on one count of second-degree robbery and four counts of unlawful sexual activity....
Clash intensifies over access to forest lands For decades, politicians, environmentalists, and commercial interests have wrangled over what to do with the millions of acres of national forest land that remains pristine. Leave it that way? Bulldoze in roads to provide access for loggers, miners, and energy developers? This week, the Bush administration signaled its intent to allow more roads to be built for resource extraction and other commercial development in national forest roadless areas. The decision overturns a Clinton-era rule preventing road-building on such federally managed land. The process of managing roadless parts of national forests began during the Carter administration with a complex inventory of such lands. While 39 states have some roadless national forest areas, 97 percent of the total - 57 million acres - is concentrated in 12 western states....
Tree-cutting leads to investigation The U.S. Forest Service has launched an investigation into the illegal use of chainsaws in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area during removal of hazardous roadside trees following the Biscuit fire. Between 10 and 20 trees were cut with chainsaws along Bald Mountain Road where it borders the wilderness in the Siskiyou National Forest, according to Judy McHugh, spokeswoman for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. The problem is that it’s illegal to use motorized equipment in a wilderness area, she said....
Five forests may close trails to off-roaders Impending restrictions on off-road motor vehicles on public lands around the Valley reflect the mounting environmental effect of Arizona’s urban growth on its open spaces. The U.S. Forest Service last week announced a proposal to limit off-road motorized vehicle use in national forests in response to increasing ecological damage with rapidly rising numbers of off-roaders. Public land managers in Arizona and the Valley, where the problem is particularly severe, are ahead of the national effort. Next month, a final environmental study is to be released for a plan to close numerous trails to off-road motor vehicles on five national forests in Arizona....
Defense appropriations bill becoming magnet for emergency spending House and Senate negotiators on the fiscal 2005 Defense appropriations conference report are mulling the possibility of including $500 million in emergency wildfire suppression funds for the current fiscal year, congressional aides said Monday. While no final decision has been made, a move to speed delivery of emergency fiscal 2004 firefighting funds reflects the urgency of the problem facing the Forest Service, which might have to borrow as much as $250 million to avoid dipping into other accounts before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, according to initial estimates provided to congressional staff....
Ranch's Condor Proposal Faulted Environmental groups and local residents Tuesday criticized a tentative plan by the Tejon Ranch Co. and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that protects ranch developers if they accidentally harm or kill endangered California condors, but also takes steps to protect the huge birds. The ranch company is seeking a federal "incidental take" permit that would shield it from liability if it unintentionally harmed North America's largest bird during ranch activities or while building three large projects planned on the 270,000-acre property north of Los Angeles....
Ranchers, Rounds discuss concerns over prairie dogs "We understand the severity of the problem," Rounds said, addressing the handful of Canata Basin ranchers at a question and answer session in the Wall Community Center. Lewis and Clark did South Dakota a disservice when they named the rodent the prairie dog instead of the prairie rat, Rounds said. Rounds said that South Dakota's prairie dog management plan, which would establish a half-mile buffer zone between federal and private land, is not perfect. "We know that a half-mile is not enough," he said, "but it's what we thought the federal government would accept."....
One voice to fit all tribes at species act hearing Four American Indian tribes involved in the dispute over water in the Klamath Basin will be represented by one voice at a U.S. congressional field hearing Saturday in Klamath Falls. Troy Fletcher, executive director of the Yurok Tribes, will speak on the behalf of his tribe and the Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath tribes at the hearing, which is focused on the Endangered Species Act and the Klamath Reclamation Project. The meeting is being organized by members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee....
Carnivore Species Are Predicted To Be At Increased Extinction Risk From Human Population Growth Research published online today reveals that many of the world's carnivores are at greater risk of extinction than previously thought. Close to a quarter of the world's mammals are already at high risk of extinction. Any chance of reversing this trend depends on understanding what makes some species vulnerable and others resilient. And that depends on being able to predict extinction risk. Now, a new model based on a phylogenetic analysis of the mammalian order Carnivora, described online in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, could help focus conservation efforts by predicting which species face greatest risk....
Bird Watchers and Researchers Have A New Online Database for North American Bird Species If you are a bird fanatic, you will be interested in a new site dedicated to over 2000 North American bird species. (NABS) The new site (Http://North-American-Bird-Species.org) focuses on news, endangered species, species-specific information, and literally anything that can be found on the web about all bird species in North America....
Mexican gray wolf killed by feds The US Fish and Wildlife Service says a Mexican gray wolf has been killed and removed from the wild. Trappers had been trying to capture the wolf since March but the rough terrain and the wolf’s erratic movements made it too difficult. The agency in June authorized the lethal take because the wolf had been preying on cattle....
Drought forces horse relocation The Bureau of Land Management hopes by today to relocate 50 to 60 wild horses that are in distress and in danger of dying of thirst near Eureka. Drought conditions have lowered the Coils Creek Slough about 12 miles west of Eureka near to a “mud hole” that no longer provides drinking water for the horses, said John Winnepenninkx of the BLM’s Battle Mountain office....
NRA Takes On the Sierra Club The NRA is pulling no punches when it comes to outdoor groups like the Sierra Club. But the spat between the NRA and these groups has the Outdoor Writers Association of America angry. The writers group's newfound disdain for NRA comes following a speech last month by Kayne B. Robinson, president of the 4-million-strong NRA, at the association's annual meeting in Spokane, Wash. There, Kayne criticized the liberal environmental group Sierra Club for its alleged motives regarding a new campaign to protect wildlife habitat....
The Bobby Lobby Lately Kennedy ranks with Michael Moore, Al Gore, and Al Franken as one of the most vociferous and effective critics of the Bush administration. But unlike many other detractors, Kennedy concentrates his reproach on environmental rollbacks -- an issue that usually registers as barely more than a tremor on the Richter scale of election-year concerns. For the past six months, Kennedy has been storming the lecture circuit and helping to fill the coffers of the John Kerry campaign. This August, he will release Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy, a book that will be, if all goes well, the green community's Fahrenheit 9/11....
Fake letter prompts investigation A fraudulent letter to the editor of The Montana Standard has set off an investigation by the Forest Service law enforcement. "We would like to stop whoever is doing this," said Jack de Golia, the public affairs officer for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The letter was printed under a false name in Monday's newspaper and concerned farmers and ranchers in the Beaverhead County area allegedly draining water reserves. The writer fraudulently identified himself as Tom Osen, the Dillon district ranger....
Appeals Court OKs Trinity River Increase A federal appeals court Tuesday approved a congressional plan to increase flows into the Trinity River to restore fish habitat, reducing water to California farmers and hydroelectric plants. Most of the water in the Trinity, which originates in northern California's Trinity Alps and flows west into the Klamath River, has been diverted for decades to serve a fast-growing population in a state where much of the water is located far from where people live and farm....
Congressional delegation joins in protesting fed water ruling Colorado's Republican Congressional delegation, at the urging of Sen. Wayne Allard, has sent letters asking the federal government to appeal a Colorado federal court decision on the amount of water in the Poudre River needed to maintain fish habitat. The decision revolves around a lawsuit filed in 1994 by Trout Unlimited and others against the U.S. Forest Service, the cities of Greeley and Fort Collins, and the Water Supply and Storage Co., an irrigation company that provides water for more than 50,000 acres in Larimer and Weld counties. The decision means the cities and irrigation company must release water from Long Draw throughout the year to protect fish habitat in the Poudre....
New Sierra artifacts may shine new light on Donner Party Newly discovered bone fragments and wagon train artifacts may help separate truth from myth in the Donner Party's 157-year-old tale of starvation, cannibalism and redemption, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Forest Service officials scheduled a news conference near Truckee Wednesday to discuss the latest findings of archaeologists digging and sifting soil this week at Alder Creek Camp on national forest land about 30 miles west of Reno. They are investigating what is believed to be the camps of the George and Jacob Donner families that were trapped in the Sierra during the terrible winter of 1846-47....
Utahn is expert at cooking with cast iron and coals Only her nose knows when dinner is ready. Colleen Sloan of Sandy may be the only woman in Utah to make her living with a cast-iron pot. That refined sense of smell — and a brain packed with every conceivable cooking tip — has kept Colleen Sloan spreading the Dutch oven gospel of good grub for the past 40 years. The legend of backcountry Dutch oven cooking in this country dates to 1707, she says, when a Brit named Abraham Darby brought his cast-iron pots across the Atlantic and began selling them to settlers in the New World. Impressed by their durability and versatility, backcountry cooks would talk them up, telling how a "Dutch" man would show up occasionally to sell his ovens. Thus the moniker "Dutch oven." And much like word of Darby's pots spread from friend to friend, tales of Sloan's expertise with food and a few briquets has spread nationwide, to the point that she has been commissioned this summer by organizers of the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration to demonstrate how the legendary expedition turned big game into bite-sized fare....
Sundance Kid's girlfriend remains a mystery woman Who was Etta Place, the Sundance Kid's girlfriend? Historians aren't sure. In early 1901, Butch, Sundance and Etta Place met in New York, where she and Sundance posed for the only known photograph of her. The three sailed for South America, where they are known to have spent about five years as respectable ranchers in Argentina....
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Kerry proposes $100M for new Forest Corps --Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry proposes cutting $100 million in annual government subsidies to the timber industry to pay for a new Forest Restoration Corps that would invest in the long-term health of national forests, his campaign said Tuesday. Shifting spending from commercial logging operations on federal lands would create jobs while restoring forests, streams and rangelands that have been mismanaged or severely damaged by wildfires, campaign aides said. The program -- reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps that President Franklin D. Roosevelt established during the Great Depression -- is one of the highlights in a three-page plan unveiled Tuesday near the site of a wildfire that burned 1,200 acres on the western edge of Reno two weeks ago. A Kerry administration would pledge to budget annually to cover all federal firefighting costs, make necessary additions to aerial firefighting fleets, and focus reduction of fuels in overstocked forests on those areas posing the most immediate threats to communities, according to the plan....
Editorial: Chain saws trump sound forest policy Grab the chain saws, rev up the bulldozers, open the federal Treasury to subsidize construction of more logging roads. The Bush administration has made its decision on continuing former President Clinton's protection of millions of acres of roadless areas in national forests. It prefers not to. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman tried to disguise her profligate giveaway of environmental protection, wildlife habitat and federal authority as promoting greater cooperation. Fine idea, but there's reason to worry about her definition of cooperation....
Editorial: Roads to Forest Ruination There's a difference between modifying an environmental protection and ripping its insides out, but the Bush administration hasn't picked up on the distinction. For years, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman has talked about tweaking a Clinton-era mandate that banned road-building in nearly 60 million of the most untouched acres of national forest. She wanted just enough flexibility to protect public safety and wildlife habitats, she said. With the roadless rule placed in the hands of Undersecretary Mark E. Rey, a former timber lobbyist, no one expected a forest-friendly proposal to emerge. A year ago, Rey talked about letting governors appeal to open certain forest areas to roads. "We are trying to make available relief in limited circumstances," Rey said at the time....
Police arrest forest fireman A member of the Stanislaus National Forest's elite firefighting team — the Stanislaus Hotshots — faces a felony charge of failing to register as a sex offender and a misdemeanor charge of public drunkenness. Jimmy John Quesada, 30, was hired in February as an apprentice firefighter and is currently working on the Sonora-based Hotshots crew, said forest spokesman Jerry Snyder. On Saturday Quesada was arrested in downtown Sonora on the intoxication charge. During the arrest and booking process at the Tuolumne County Jail, officers discovered he had been previously convicted in Riverside County in 1992 on one count of second-degree robbery and four counts of unlawful sexual activity....
Clash intensifies over access to forest lands For decades, politicians, environmentalists, and commercial interests have wrangled over what to do with the millions of acres of national forest land that remains pristine. Leave it that way? Bulldoze in roads to provide access for loggers, miners, and energy developers? This week, the Bush administration signaled its intent to allow more roads to be built for resource extraction and other commercial development in national forest roadless areas. The decision overturns a Clinton-era rule preventing road-building on such federally managed land. The process of managing roadless parts of national forests began during the Carter administration with a complex inventory of such lands. While 39 states have some roadless national forest areas, 97 percent of the total - 57 million acres - is concentrated in 12 western states....
Tree-cutting leads to investigation The U.S. Forest Service has launched an investigation into the illegal use of chainsaws in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area during removal of hazardous roadside trees following the Biscuit fire. Between 10 and 20 trees were cut with chainsaws along Bald Mountain Road where it borders the wilderness in the Siskiyou National Forest, according to Judy McHugh, spokeswoman for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. The problem is that it’s illegal to use motorized equipment in a wilderness area, she said....
Five forests may close trails to off-roaders Impending restrictions on off-road motor vehicles on public lands around the Valley reflect the mounting environmental effect of Arizona’s urban growth on its open spaces. The U.S. Forest Service last week announced a proposal to limit off-road motorized vehicle use in national forests in response to increasing ecological damage with rapidly rising numbers of off-roaders. Public land managers in Arizona and the Valley, where the problem is particularly severe, are ahead of the national effort. Next month, a final environmental study is to be released for a plan to close numerous trails to off-road motor vehicles on five national forests in Arizona....
Defense appropriations bill becoming magnet for emergency spending House and Senate negotiators on the fiscal 2005 Defense appropriations conference report are mulling the possibility of including $500 million in emergency wildfire suppression funds for the current fiscal year, congressional aides said Monday. While no final decision has been made, a move to speed delivery of emergency fiscal 2004 firefighting funds reflects the urgency of the problem facing the Forest Service, which might have to borrow as much as $250 million to avoid dipping into other accounts before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30, according to initial estimates provided to congressional staff....
Ranch's Condor Proposal Faulted Environmental groups and local residents Tuesday criticized a tentative plan by the Tejon Ranch Co. and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that protects ranch developers if they accidentally harm or kill endangered California condors, but also takes steps to protect the huge birds. The ranch company is seeking a federal "incidental take" permit that would shield it from liability if it unintentionally harmed North America's largest bird during ranch activities or while building three large projects planned on the 270,000-acre property north of Los Angeles....
Ranchers, Rounds discuss concerns over prairie dogs "We understand the severity of the problem," Rounds said, addressing the handful of Canata Basin ranchers at a question and answer session in the Wall Community Center. Lewis and Clark did South Dakota a disservice when they named the rodent the prairie dog instead of the prairie rat, Rounds said. Rounds said that South Dakota's prairie dog management plan, which would establish a half-mile buffer zone between federal and private land, is not perfect. "We know that a half-mile is not enough," he said, "but it's what we thought the federal government would accept."....
One voice to fit all tribes at species act hearing Four American Indian tribes involved in the dispute over water in the Klamath Basin will be represented by one voice at a U.S. congressional field hearing Saturday in Klamath Falls. Troy Fletcher, executive director of the Yurok Tribes, will speak on the behalf of his tribe and the Karuk, Hoopa Valley and Klamath tribes at the hearing, which is focused on the Endangered Species Act and the Klamath Reclamation Project. The meeting is being organized by members of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee....
Carnivore Species Are Predicted To Be At Increased Extinction Risk From Human Population Growth Research published online today reveals that many of the world's carnivores are at greater risk of extinction than previously thought. Close to a quarter of the world's mammals are already at high risk of extinction. Any chance of reversing this trend depends on understanding what makes some species vulnerable and others resilient. And that depends on being able to predict extinction risk. Now, a new model based on a phylogenetic analysis of the mammalian order Carnivora, described online in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, could help focus conservation efforts by predicting which species face greatest risk....
Bird Watchers and Researchers Have A New Online Database for North American Bird Species If you are a bird fanatic, you will be interested in a new site dedicated to over 2000 North American bird species. (NABS) The new site (Http://North-American-Bird-Species.org) focuses on news, endangered species, species-specific information, and literally anything that can be found on the web about all bird species in North America....
Mexican gray wolf killed by feds The US Fish and Wildlife Service says a Mexican gray wolf has been killed and removed from the wild. Trappers had been trying to capture the wolf since March but the rough terrain and the wolf’s erratic movements made it too difficult. The agency in June authorized the lethal take because the wolf had been preying on cattle....
Drought forces horse relocation The Bureau of Land Management hopes by today to relocate 50 to 60 wild horses that are in distress and in danger of dying of thirst near Eureka. Drought conditions have lowered the Coils Creek Slough about 12 miles west of Eureka near to a “mud hole” that no longer provides drinking water for the horses, said John Winnepenninkx of the BLM’s Battle Mountain office....
NRA Takes On the Sierra Club The NRA is pulling no punches when it comes to outdoor groups like the Sierra Club. But the spat between the NRA and these groups has the Outdoor Writers Association of America angry. The writers group's newfound disdain for NRA comes following a speech last month by Kayne B. Robinson, president of the 4-million-strong NRA, at the association's annual meeting in Spokane, Wash. There, Kayne criticized the liberal environmental group Sierra Club for its alleged motives regarding a new campaign to protect wildlife habitat....
The Bobby Lobby Lately Kennedy ranks with Michael Moore, Al Gore, and Al Franken as one of the most vociferous and effective critics of the Bush administration. But unlike many other detractors, Kennedy concentrates his reproach on environmental rollbacks -- an issue that usually registers as barely more than a tremor on the Richter scale of election-year concerns. For the past six months, Kennedy has been storming the lecture circuit and helping to fill the coffers of the John Kerry campaign. This August, he will release Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy, a book that will be, if all goes well, the green community's Fahrenheit 9/11....
Fake letter prompts investigation A fraudulent letter to the editor of The Montana Standard has set off an investigation by the Forest Service law enforcement. "We would like to stop whoever is doing this," said Jack de Golia, the public affairs officer for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The letter was printed under a false name in Monday's newspaper and concerned farmers and ranchers in the Beaverhead County area allegedly draining water reserves. The writer fraudulently identified himself as Tom Osen, the Dillon district ranger....
Appeals Court OKs Trinity River Increase A federal appeals court Tuesday approved a congressional plan to increase flows into the Trinity River to restore fish habitat, reducing water to California farmers and hydroelectric plants. Most of the water in the Trinity, which originates in northern California's Trinity Alps and flows west into the Klamath River, has been diverted for decades to serve a fast-growing population in a state where much of the water is located far from where people live and farm....
Congressional delegation joins in protesting fed water ruling Colorado's Republican Congressional delegation, at the urging of Sen. Wayne Allard, has sent letters asking the federal government to appeal a Colorado federal court decision on the amount of water in the Poudre River needed to maintain fish habitat. The decision revolves around a lawsuit filed in 1994 by Trout Unlimited and others against the U.S. Forest Service, the cities of Greeley and Fort Collins, and the Water Supply and Storage Co., an irrigation company that provides water for more than 50,000 acres in Larimer and Weld counties. The decision means the cities and irrigation company must release water from Long Draw throughout the year to protect fish habitat in the Poudre....
New Sierra artifacts may shine new light on Donner Party Newly discovered bone fragments and wagon train artifacts may help separate truth from myth in the Donner Party's 157-year-old tale of starvation, cannibalism and redemption, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Forest Service officials scheduled a news conference near Truckee Wednesday to discuss the latest findings of archaeologists digging and sifting soil this week at Alder Creek Camp on national forest land about 30 miles west of Reno. They are investigating what is believed to be the camps of the George and Jacob Donner families that were trapped in the Sierra during the terrible winter of 1846-47....
Utahn is expert at cooking with cast iron and coals Only her nose knows when dinner is ready. Colleen Sloan of Sandy may be the only woman in Utah to make her living with a cast-iron pot. That refined sense of smell — and a brain packed with every conceivable cooking tip — has kept Colleen Sloan spreading the Dutch oven gospel of good grub for the past 40 years. The legend of backcountry Dutch oven cooking in this country dates to 1707, she says, when a Brit named Abraham Darby brought his cast-iron pots across the Atlantic and began selling them to settlers in the New World. Impressed by their durability and versatility, backcountry cooks would talk them up, telling how a "Dutch" man would show up occasionally to sell his ovens. Thus the moniker "Dutch oven." And much like word of Darby's pots spread from friend to friend, tales of Sloan's expertise with food and a few briquets has spread nationwide, to the point that she has been commissioned this summer by organizers of the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial celebration to demonstrate how the legendary expedition turned big game into bite-sized fare....
Sundance Kid's girlfriend remains a mystery woman Who was Etta Place, the Sundance Kid's girlfriend? Historians aren't sure. In early 1901, Butch, Sundance and Etta Place met in New York, where she and Sundance posed for the only known photograph of her. The three sailed for South America, where they are known to have spent about five years as respectable ranchers in Argentina....
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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Bush drops 'roadless' forest rule The Bush administration yesterday abandoned a sweeping Clinton-era rule that blocked road access to 56 million acres of national forests, saying the regulation has become bogged down in litigation from states and environmentalists. The Forest Service instead will begin a process that gives the affected 39 states a major role in how "roadless" areas will be conserved and protected....
Beetles Take a Devastating Toll on Western Forests It is a growing problem around the West. Unusually warm temperatures have extended the life and range of this and other bark beetles over the last several years. Trees have been weakened by several years of severe drought. Decades of zero tolerance for forest fires (a policy that is changing) left many forests far too dense with trees, a fertile environment for hungry beetles. All of it has led to an explosion of insect-killed trees in conifer forests. From Alaska to Arizona and South Dakota to California, several kinds of bark beetles are killing large swaths of ponderosa, piñon and lodgepole pines and other trees. Much of the kill is taking place in publicly owned forests, but many private landowners who built homes in the forest are also watching as the trees around them die....
Column: Alaska needs to revitalize dormant timber industry Our federal forest management places a high level of importance on conservation. Under the 1997 Tongass Land Management Plan less than 10 percent of the remaining high-volume coarse canopy old growth would ever be cut. There are 4.1 million acres on the Tongass suitable for timber production. Only 16 percent of the Tongass forest's timberland - a sustainable level - would ever be harvested. We need to revitalize our dormant timber industry. To do this, we need to review history and take advantage of new technologies....
Column: Wilderness dilemma As we near the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act, it becomes more obvious that wilderness designation is not a good way to protect land from the ravages of humanity. The idea was good, to set aside parcels "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." But it hasn't worked that way; many wilderness areas have become popular destinations and get trammeled hard. This puts federal land management agencies, like the Forest Service and the BLM, in a quandary....
Sick Birds Washing Ashore Puzzle Avian Experts Avian experts are trying to determine why an unusually high number of California brown pelicans are washing up on local shores — weak, dehydrated and near death. Tissue samples from birds that have died have been sent to laboratories run by the state and federal governments and the UC Davis veterinary school....
Jack Morrow Hills plan includes oil, gas development A final management plan for the Jack Morrow Hills will result in oil and gas development, some new jobs and substantial revenues for local communities in southwest Wyoming. But conservationists fear the development will come at the expense of what they believe is one of Wyoming's unique and scenic jewels. They say the plan does little to protect sage grouse strutting grounds, elk migration corridors and thousands of acres of potential wilderness lands....
Idyllwild is home of heavy environmental hitter The strategy room for launching some of the region's biggest confrontations between preservation and development is a cabin in an idyllic mountain setting where a half-dozen environmentalists work with mixed-breed dogs at their feet. "In some ways, it's an emergency room," said Brendan Cummings, one of four attorneys who works in the Center for Biological Diversity's Southern California headquarters in Idyllwild....
Utah Seeks to Save June Sucker Population Wildlife officials may begin removing carp from Utah Lake as early as next spring in an effort to save endangered June sucker populations. Carp are devastating Utah Lake, said Chris Keleher, conservation biologist with the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program. "All indicators are that the carp population is extremely large," Keleher said. "At this point, we don't see any natural control of that population."....
Battle brewing over sage grouse protection In the heart of the nation's natural gas territory, a bird most Americans have never heard of is threatening a piece of the multibillion-dollar energy industry. The greater sage grouse, looking much like an oversize quail, is declining in numbers, and federal scientists are weighing whether to put it on the endangered species list. If that happens, it's likely to mean significant restrictions on energy development across a huge swath of the West. Much of the bird's habitat overlaps with the nation's prime gas drilling territory, in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Utah. Grouse advocates argue that the intensive development threatens nesting areas and is pushing the bird toward extinction — a claim that could significantly disrupt the Bush administration's push for a gas industry boom in the West....
Tribes to stage hearing protest Members of the Klamath Tribes say they will stage a protest Saturday outside a congressional field hearing in Klamath Falls because their tribal chairman isn't being given a turn at the microphone. Tribal officials announced Friday that Allen Foreman, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, wasn't included in the list of witnesses set to give testimony regarding the Endangered Species Act at the House Resources Committee field hearing....
Duck Population Drops by 11 Percent The duck population in the United States and Canada dropped 11 percent from a year ago as drought dried up breeding grounds, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service on Monday. This year's duck population of 32.2 million birds was 11 percent less than the 36.2 million birds tallied a year ago....
Everyone has a theory about the missing pelicans The air here this time of year usually is filled with the grunts and squawks of thousands of white pelicans and their chicks. The giant birds have made the refuge their home for at least 100 years. Now their nesting grounds are quiet. The pelicans are gone — and no one knows why. Everybody, from biologists to bartenders, has a theory....
New twist in fight over fly Most cities use community development block grants to construct senior centers, build sidewalks or renovate houses in low-income neighborhoods. But the Colton City Council wants to use $452,000 in federal poverty funds to destroy roads and open a trust fund for a fly. The plan to rip up streets to create insect "flyways" and endow a maintenance fund must first pass muster with the county, which distributes the grants, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Neither is a sure thing. However, Colton's proposal illustrates the lengths to which the city must go to satisfy the federal agency's legal responsibility to establish wildlife preserves for the endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. Safeguarding the shrinking breeding grounds of the only fly to receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act has cost this blue-collar city an estimated $300 million in lost investments and 700 to 1,000 jobs, city officials say....
Conservationists protest the boundry rule Twenty-eight conservationists from the Silver City area circled the parking lot of the Bayard Community Center on Friday afternoon before a meeting of the Mexican Wolf Adaptive Management Work Group to protest what they deemed mismanagement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Howling and waving signs that read, "Save the Cibola Pack," and "Wolves Can't Read Maps: Repeal the Boundary Rule," protestors responded to the news that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will begin trapping a pack of wolves in the Cibola National Forest today....
Greens snapping up huge swath of land An Arizona-based environmental group is poised to take control of nearly 1 million acres of grazing land north of the Grand Canyon. On Monday, the Grand Canyon Trust signed an option agreement to purchase 1,000 acres of private ranch lands in northern Arizona and more than 900,000 acres of grazing permits on adjacent public lands, including a sliver of southern Utah. The group's ranching operation, however, will not be like your granddad's. "We're going to run as few cows as we possibly can," said trust director Bill Hedden....
Fallon tribe concerned over sacred sites Leaders of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe are asking for more protection of area sites sacred to them that are being desecrated as more people move to Churchill County. The tribe is urging creation of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern on 22,477 acres surrounding the Grimes Point Archaeological Area off U.S. 50, about 11 miles east of Fallon, and on nearly all of the Stillwater Mountain range northeast of there....
Agents scour desert in search of fugitive In the desert valleys where Oregon, California and Nevada come together, residents watch and wonder these days at the planes, helicopters, FBI agents and teams of deputies from various law enforcement agencies. The search is on for a fugitive who has been living in the desert and pillaging remote homes and cabins for supplies. More and more local residents are making the comparison of this modern-day fugitive to the well-known Claude Dallas, who frequented the area while hiding from the law in the 1970s....
Counties gain greater say in governance of state land County boards have new veto power over whether some state land will be classified as environmentally sensitive, under a new law signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty over the objections of his Department of Natural Resources commissioner. The law could prevent the department from designating new scientific and natural areas, or SNAs. The change, which passed the 2004 Legislature as a five-line amendment to a 74-page bill, requires the DNR to get county board approval for SNA management plans....
Public gets first detailed look at deal to preserve Hearst Ranch The public got its first detailed look Monday at a plan to preserve 80,000 acres of Hearst Ranch, which protects a stunning 18-mile swath of California's coast but does not offer public access through the majority of the land. The plan, which would cost taxpayers $95 million, has been in negotiations for five years. A tentative agreement was reached last month....
Essays on Rio rise above bitter debate and offer wise views Anyone who's really interested in water in New Mexico must pick up a copy of "La Vida Del Rio Grande: Our River - Our Life." Published this year by the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, "La Vida Del Rio Grande" is the most informative collection of essays on contemporary water issues and traditional agricultural practices I've read....
Champion's cabin lives on The event was the culmination of two summers of work for two Casper Kelly Walsh High School teachers, Joe Feiler and Jamie Cordonier, who were hired by Hole-in-the-Wall Ranch owner John Wold to restore the cabin where Champion was attacked. The incident helped lead to the Johnson County War, which pitted homesteaders like Champion, who had been accused of rustling, against the wealthy ranchers who ran the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association. While Champion survived this brush with death, a small army of men hired by the ranchers managed to kill him on April 9, 1892, after setting fire to his cabin at the KC Ranch and riddling his body with more than 24 bullets....
Farrier Considers Teaching John Corkery started at Prince’s right front hoof, moved to the left front then the rear, pulling and discarding the Percheron’s worn shoes, trimming his hooves with nippers, filing them with a rasp, then measuring and fitting the huge horse for new shoes. A licensed farrier, horseshoeing is the only job Corkery has. Corkery recently moved from New Mexico to Fort Smith. He’s shod horses for “some 38 years.” An Illinois native, Corkery started his career at the Chicago stockyards where his father was in the cattle business. He grew up riding horses, and still rides and rodeos — rustles steers....
The Stock Broker The rodeo world remains very much a man’s world. Young men test their strength and skills in a battle against nature as their fathers and grandfathers did. So, when Vold, 31, took over as manager of her father’s legendary rodeo stock company, the Harry Vold Rodeo Co., in 1998, heads turned, rumors flew and even some tempers flared. Vold handled it all the same way she handles an uncooperative bucking horse: with patience, determination and Western moxie. Over the last six years, she’s managed to convince even some stubborn cowboys that there’s a place for a cowgirl in the rodeo world....
It's All Trew: Rodeo booster trips early promotional fare Among my fonder memories experienced as a musician were the rodeo booster trips we participated in down through the years. Most towns celebrated their founding with an annual event of some sort. Usually parades, carnivals, rodeos and public dances were involved. Western bands made good money at the dances so promoters usually conned the bands into making promotional tours to the surrounding towns advertising the upcoming events. No pay was involved but what we missed in money we made up for in fun....
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Bush drops 'roadless' forest rule The Bush administration yesterday abandoned a sweeping Clinton-era rule that blocked road access to 56 million acres of national forests, saying the regulation has become bogged down in litigation from states and environmentalists. The Forest Service instead will begin a process that gives the affected 39 states a major role in how "roadless" areas will be conserved and protected....
Beetles Take a Devastating Toll on Western Forests It is a growing problem around the West. Unusually warm temperatures have extended the life and range of this and other bark beetles over the last several years. Trees have been weakened by several years of severe drought. Decades of zero tolerance for forest fires (a policy that is changing) left many forests far too dense with trees, a fertile environment for hungry beetles. All of it has led to an explosion of insect-killed trees in conifer forests. From Alaska to Arizona and South Dakota to California, several kinds of bark beetles are killing large swaths of ponderosa, piñon and lodgepole pines and other trees. Much of the kill is taking place in publicly owned forests, but many private landowners who built homes in the forest are also watching as the trees around them die....
Column: Alaska needs to revitalize dormant timber industry Our federal forest management places a high level of importance on conservation. Under the 1997 Tongass Land Management Plan less than 10 percent of the remaining high-volume coarse canopy old growth would ever be cut. There are 4.1 million acres on the Tongass suitable for timber production. Only 16 percent of the Tongass forest's timberland - a sustainable level - would ever be harvested. We need to revitalize our dormant timber industry. To do this, we need to review history and take advantage of new technologies....
Column: Wilderness dilemma As we near the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act, it becomes more obvious that wilderness designation is not a good way to protect land from the ravages of humanity. The idea was good, to set aside parcels "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." But it hasn't worked that way; many wilderness areas have become popular destinations and get trammeled hard. This puts federal land management agencies, like the Forest Service and the BLM, in a quandary....
Sick Birds Washing Ashore Puzzle Avian Experts Avian experts are trying to determine why an unusually high number of California brown pelicans are washing up on local shores — weak, dehydrated and near death. Tissue samples from birds that have died have been sent to laboratories run by the state and federal governments and the UC Davis veterinary school....
Jack Morrow Hills plan includes oil, gas development A final management plan for the Jack Morrow Hills will result in oil and gas development, some new jobs and substantial revenues for local communities in southwest Wyoming. But conservationists fear the development will come at the expense of what they believe is one of Wyoming's unique and scenic jewels. They say the plan does little to protect sage grouse strutting grounds, elk migration corridors and thousands of acres of potential wilderness lands....
Idyllwild is home of heavy environmental hitter The strategy room for launching some of the region's biggest confrontations between preservation and development is a cabin in an idyllic mountain setting where a half-dozen environmentalists work with mixed-breed dogs at their feet. "In some ways, it's an emergency room," said Brendan Cummings, one of four attorneys who works in the Center for Biological Diversity's Southern California headquarters in Idyllwild....
Utah Seeks to Save June Sucker Population Wildlife officials may begin removing carp from Utah Lake as early as next spring in an effort to save endangered June sucker populations. Carp are devastating Utah Lake, said Chris Keleher, conservation biologist with the June Sucker Recovery Implementation Program. "All indicators are that the carp population is extremely large," Keleher said. "At this point, we don't see any natural control of that population."....
Battle brewing over sage grouse protection In the heart of the nation's natural gas territory, a bird most Americans have never heard of is threatening a piece of the multibillion-dollar energy industry. The greater sage grouse, looking much like an oversize quail, is declining in numbers, and federal scientists are weighing whether to put it on the endangered species list. If that happens, it's likely to mean significant restrictions on energy development across a huge swath of the West. Much of the bird's habitat overlaps with the nation's prime gas drilling territory, in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Utah. Grouse advocates argue that the intensive development threatens nesting areas and is pushing the bird toward extinction — a claim that could significantly disrupt the Bush administration's push for a gas industry boom in the West....
Tribes to stage hearing protest Members of the Klamath Tribes say they will stage a protest Saturday outside a congressional field hearing in Klamath Falls because their tribal chairman isn't being given a turn at the microphone. Tribal officials announced Friday that Allen Foreman, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, wasn't included in the list of witnesses set to give testimony regarding the Endangered Species Act at the House Resources Committee field hearing....
Duck Population Drops by 11 Percent The duck population in the United States and Canada dropped 11 percent from a year ago as drought dried up breeding grounds, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service on Monday. This year's duck population of 32.2 million birds was 11 percent less than the 36.2 million birds tallied a year ago....
Everyone has a theory about the missing pelicans The air here this time of year usually is filled with the grunts and squawks of thousands of white pelicans and their chicks. The giant birds have made the refuge their home for at least 100 years. Now their nesting grounds are quiet. The pelicans are gone — and no one knows why. Everybody, from biologists to bartenders, has a theory....
New twist in fight over fly Most cities use community development block grants to construct senior centers, build sidewalks or renovate houses in low-income neighborhoods. But the Colton City Council wants to use $452,000 in federal poverty funds to destroy roads and open a trust fund for a fly. The plan to rip up streets to create insect "flyways" and endow a maintenance fund must first pass muster with the county, which distributes the grants, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Neither is a sure thing. However, Colton's proposal illustrates the lengths to which the city must go to satisfy the federal agency's legal responsibility to establish wildlife preserves for the endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. Safeguarding the shrinking breeding grounds of the only fly to receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act has cost this blue-collar city an estimated $300 million in lost investments and 700 to 1,000 jobs, city officials say....
Conservationists protest the boundry rule Twenty-eight conservationists from the Silver City area circled the parking lot of the Bayard Community Center on Friday afternoon before a meeting of the Mexican Wolf Adaptive Management Work Group to protest what they deemed mismanagement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Howling and waving signs that read, "Save the Cibola Pack," and "Wolves Can't Read Maps: Repeal the Boundary Rule," protestors responded to the news that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will begin trapping a pack of wolves in the Cibola National Forest today....
Greens snapping up huge swath of land An Arizona-based environmental group is poised to take control of nearly 1 million acres of grazing land north of the Grand Canyon. On Monday, the Grand Canyon Trust signed an option agreement to purchase 1,000 acres of private ranch lands in northern Arizona and more than 900,000 acres of grazing permits on adjacent public lands, including a sliver of southern Utah. The group's ranching operation, however, will not be like your granddad's. "We're going to run as few cows as we possibly can," said trust director Bill Hedden....
Fallon tribe concerned over sacred sites Leaders of the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe are asking for more protection of area sites sacred to them that are being desecrated as more people move to Churchill County. The tribe is urging creation of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern on 22,477 acres surrounding the Grimes Point Archaeological Area off U.S. 50, about 11 miles east of Fallon, and on nearly all of the Stillwater Mountain range northeast of there....
Agents scour desert in search of fugitive In the desert valleys where Oregon, California and Nevada come together, residents watch and wonder these days at the planes, helicopters, FBI agents and teams of deputies from various law enforcement agencies. The search is on for a fugitive who has been living in the desert and pillaging remote homes and cabins for supplies. More and more local residents are making the comparison of this modern-day fugitive to the well-known Claude Dallas, who frequented the area while hiding from the law in the 1970s....
Counties gain greater say in governance of state land County boards have new veto power over whether some state land will be classified as environmentally sensitive, under a new law signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty over the objections of his Department of Natural Resources commissioner. The law could prevent the department from designating new scientific and natural areas, or SNAs. The change, which passed the 2004 Legislature as a five-line amendment to a 74-page bill, requires the DNR to get county board approval for SNA management plans....
Public gets first detailed look at deal to preserve Hearst Ranch The public got its first detailed look Monday at a plan to preserve 80,000 acres of Hearst Ranch, which protects a stunning 18-mile swath of California's coast but does not offer public access through the majority of the land. The plan, which would cost taxpayers $95 million, has been in negotiations for five years. A tentative agreement was reached last month....
Essays on Rio rise above bitter debate and offer wise views Anyone who's really interested in water in New Mexico must pick up a copy of "La Vida Del Rio Grande: Our River - Our Life." Published this year by the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, "La Vida Del Rio Grande" is the most informative collection of essays on contemporary water issues and traditional agricultural practices I've read....
Champion's cabin lives on The event was the culmination of two summers of work for two Casper Kelly Walsh High School teachers, Joe Feiler and Jamie Cordonier, who were hired by Hole-in-the-Wall Ranch owner John Wold to restore the cabin where Champion was attacked. The incident helped lead to the Johnson County War, which pitted homesteaders like Champion, who had been accused of rustling, against the wealthy ranchers who ran the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association. While Champion survived this brush with death, a small army of men hired by the ranchers managed to kill him on April 9, 1892, after setting fire to his cabin at the KC Ranch and riddling his body with more than 24 bullets....
Farrier Considers Teaching John Corkery started at Prince’s right front hoof, moved to the left front then the rear, pulling and discarding the Percheron’s worn shoes, trimming his hooves with nippers, filing them with a rasp, then measuring and fitting the huge horse for new shoes. A licensed farrier, horseshoeing is the only job Corkery has. Corkery recently moved from New Mexico to Fort Smith. He’s shod horses for “some 38 years.” An Illinois native, Corkery started his career at the Chicago stockyards where his father was in the cattle business. He grew up riding horses, and still rides and rodeos — rustles steers....
The Stock Broker The rodeo world remains very much a man’s world. Young men test their strength and skills in a battle against nature as their fathers and grandfathers did. So, when Vold, 31, took over as manager of her father’s legendary rodeo stock company, the Harry Vold Rodeo Co., in 1998, heads turned, rumors flew and even some tempers flared. Vold handled it all the same way she handles an uncooperative bucking horse: with patience, determination and Western moxie. Over the last six years, she’s managed to convince even some stubborn cowboys that there’s a place for a cowgirl in the rodeo world....
It's All Trew: Rodeo booster trips early promotional fare Among my fonder memories experienced as a musician were the rodeo booster trips we participated in down through the years. Most towns celebrated their founding with an annual event of some sort. Usually parades, carnivals, rodeos and public dances were involved. Western bands made good money at the dances so promoters usually conned the bands into making promotional tours to the surrounding towns advertising the upcoming events. No pay was involved but what we missed in money we made up for in fun....
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Monday, July 12, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Conservationists, ranchers, government agencies try nonlethal vigilance in Montana Standing on a ridge, drinking in the shadowy landscape between sips of hot cocoa, Ebbie Kunesh prepares for the last ride of a day she began well before sunrise. She listens for any bellowing or howls and then sets off — guided by a brilliant full moon, her horse and instinct — to make her presence among the cows and calves known to any gray wolves that may lurk nearby. Somewhere else in the Madison Valley, her husband, Bob, has been doing the same. The Arizona couple are "range riders," hired to spend five months camping among, and protecting, nearly 2,000 head of cattle grazing on mostly public lands in rugged, remote southwest Montana — an area in which conflicts have resulted in both cattle and wolves being killed....
Gate's locking when the fed's a knocking A handful of ranchers in northeastern Wyoming say they're prepared to bar any federal agents from entering their private property -- even if all they want to do is sample a little water. Some believe it's another sign that property owners in the Powder River Basin are becoming wary of the parade of government feet that come with developing coalbed methane gas....
Bill will settle property fight Don Ayers spent two years building his dream retirement home on a hill nestled by the Mark Twain National Forest and overlooking Table Rock Lake. A year after he moved in, the federal government informed him a new survey put his driveway, storage shed and the three-car garage attached to his house squarely on forest land. The U.S. Forest Service offered what it called a compromise: It offered to sell Ayers back his acre of land at fair market value. "It’s just asinine," said Ayers, who retired to Shell Knob in 1998. Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, along with Rep. Roy Blunt, agreed the government should live with its mistake and let Ayers and his southwest Missouri neighbors keep their land....
On the ground, grizzly study can be a tough job It is an easy outing Monday compared to dozens of other excursions being carried out simultaneously across 8 million acres as part of the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. More common are grueling hikes on tight schedules, through rain and heavy brush, around cliffs, across creeks and over fallen timber. The hard work is aimed at a simple objective: collecting bear hair....
Beetles prey on pines Nearly 70 percent of southwestern Colorado's piñon pines have been killed since 2002 by two types of tunneling beetle that prey on drought- weakened trees. If the drought persists, the pests could kill up to 80 percent of the piñons statewide, said U.S. Forest Service entomologist Tom Eager. "You go to some areas, and your jaw will drop," Eager said Friday. "You won't see a single green speck across the landscape."....
Timber wolves could be removed from federal endangered list The efforts to bring the timber wolf back from the brink of extinction in Minnesota have been succesful, and as evidence the federal government will soon announce plans to remove the wolves from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a news conference Friday at the wolf research facility in Forest Lake to announce a proposal to remove the wolf from the endangered species list....
Ex-chief of Park Police denounces firing One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file. Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies....
Use of dunes visitors fees to study flower widely criticized In the past nine months, every visitor to the popular Imperial Sand Dunes east of El Centro paid 70 cents for a park project they have probably never heard of. It wasn't for new restrooms, improved campgrounds, more park rangers or better trash service. It was to study a purple flower. Visitors fees paid for a $900,000 report on the endangered Pierson's milk vetch, in part because California officials – angry that President Bush wants to allow off-roading on more of the dunes – are refusing to spend state money on the park....
Editorial: Endless forest hassle, Give up? Another week, another forest controversy. Actually, the same old controversy: Plans to salvage timber from the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon are running into stiff opposition, and court action is likely to cause further delays. One wonders why people interested in prudent management of our federal lands don't just throw up their hands and forget it. The fire covered roughly 500,000 acres and cost a reported $153 million to bring under control. It wiped out stands of timber several hundred years old. The climate has changed since those stands began, and there's a question whether that forest can restore itself. Prudence suggests that we give nature a hand - log some of the dead timber and use the proceeds to launch an aggressive project to replant....
Families dig in heels over keeping Sequoia cabins A fight that has festered for decades is coming to a head in the dark woods of Sequoia National Park. A community whose roots stretch back to the 1870s is struggling to hang on to rustic cabins that were handed down through families for generations to the people who today use them for summer vacations. The private cabins were built on public land — a contradiction that has been argued all the way to the Supreme Court and to Congress. Park officials now want to reclaim the area as part of a long-term master plan for the national park....
Editorial: Kerry and the West John Kerry was born in Colorado and with his heiress wife owns a playground retreat in Ketchum, Idaho, that supporters have suggested could become the "Western White House" if he is elected president. But these facts hardly guarantee the Massachusetts senator understands Western issues. Indeed, if anything proves Kerry is out of touch with the concerns of Westerners it's his opposition to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. In attempting to prevent fire and disease by streamlining the environmental review process for thinning projects, the act must so far be judged a success....
New bison manager facing challenges He's juggled competing interests and withstood intense scrutiny before, but Steve Kallin faces an unprecedented challenge as the new manager of the National Bison Range. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes recently announced their acceptance of a proposal to assume some management of the 18,000-acre complex. The partial handover is expected sometime next year, as is the realignment of some employees from federal to tribal responsibility. The switch will likely be a complicated process. Kallin is aware of the challenges, but says he's ready that he arrives with no baggage or prejudments....
Administration confirming plans to open more forests to logging The Bush administration will propose a new plan to open up national forests to more logging, confirming a draft plan published two weeks ago, The Associated Press learned. Under the plan, to be announced by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Monday, governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests, replacing a national rule against such projects adopted by the Clinton administration....
Editorial: Off-road policy steers in right direction Motor vehicles have a place in the national forests. It's just not every place. A new policy announced the other day by the U.S. Forest Service offers hope that people with the money to buy and interest in using off-road vehicles will continue to have plenty of places to play in the forest, while at the same time ensuring the forests aren't overrun. Under the new policy, the Forest Service will designate roads and trails where off-road vehicles are permitted to travel. Vehicles will be prohibited from wherever they aren't explicitly permitted. It's a shame this policy wasn't enacted decades ago....
Navy sonar under fire for whales in distress Residents of Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai woke up last weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing clear signs of stress. To keep the animals from beaching, the locals kept a vigil all day and through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea. So far, only one young whale has been found dead....
Native Americans divided over land battle Now President Bush hopes to settle one of America's longest running land disputes in approving a $140m payment from Congress to the Western Shoshone Indians. In return, the American government would get the Shoshone ancestral lands seized by settlers and speculators in the 19th Century. But in the president's way stand two unlikely and increasingly isolated figures of resistance. Carrie and Mary Dann are Shoshone sisters who have spent all their lives on the family's ramshackle ranch in Nevada's Crescent Valley. It is a 10-hour road trip from Las Vegas to their ranch....
Cities' water needs uprooting Colorado farms With cities offering much higher prices for water than farmers could ever get from crops or selling their land, experts and others fear that brisk water sales will hasten the erosion of whole farming communities in Colorado. And the onset of drought has only quickened a farming exodus. Over the last decade, Colorado has lost an average of 90,000 farm acres a year to drought and other reasons; 4,000 of the state's 51,000 farmers could get out of the business this year, according to Colorado State University researchers. With $17 billion in annual sales, agriculture is the state's third-leading industry and the biggest consumer of water....
Editorial: Drought's effect on electricity Two of the West's most difficult problems, drought and air pollution, are on a collision course, triggered by the region's growing demand for electric power. The years-long drought has drained Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border to the lowest levels in generations, as The Denver Post's Theo Stein reported last Sunday. If the drought continues, in a few years the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may have to stop generating power from the huge hydroelectric plants at Hoover and Glen Canyon dams....
‘Witching' for water Ken Roberts figures he's made a lot of people happy during the past 40 years. That's how long he's been "water witching," or locating water beneath the ground using nothing more than a forked branch from a chokecherry or serviceberry bush. Not only can he find water, he can usually tell how far beneath the surface it is. It's an art form he's perfected since he first tried it in 1963. He estimates he's got a 95 percent success rate in finding water....
Horses ride again at local lounge Around 50 locals and tourists watched horses ride through the interior of Trails West Lounge on East Tucumcari Boulevard Thursday evening as part of the kickoff of the Route 66 Festival this weekend. The third annual ‘Trail Ride’ Thursday evening was part of an attempt to revive an old New Mexico tradition in which bar patrons ride horses up to the bar and order a beer. Linda Walker of Tucumcari said she thinks the revival of the tradition has taken hold. “I think this tradition is going to last,” said Walker....
Pickett Rodeo draws a crowd Cowboy legend Bill Pickett would be proud, but really not surprised that more than 3,000 spectators -- predominantly African-Americans -- turned out here Saturday afternoon for the 20th annual Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. When Pickett -- the cowboy who invented the rodeo sport of steer wrestling -- was born in 1870, one out of every three cowpokes riding the range and driving cows up the Chisholm Trail were was black, said Jesse Guillory, the rodeo's general manager....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Hay! Be careful handling bales To properly handle 1,200 pound round bales and giant square bales requires the proper equipment. And because some farmers live on that ragged edge between "the old days" and "the new ways," they are forced to improvise. In an effort to cut costs, Arnie decided to buy one big square bale from his neighbor. It saved him money and would last several weeks. He only had a few sheep, a couple show steers and a horse to feed. Arnie actually built a small open-sided shed to cover the bale....
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Conservationists, ranchers, government agencies try nonlethal vigilance in Montana Standing on a ridge, drinking in the shadowy landscape between sips of hot cocoa, Ebbie Kunesh prepares for the last ride of a day she began well before sunrise. She listens for any bellowing or howls and then sets off — guided by a brilliant full moon, her horse and instinct — to make her presence among the cows and calves known to any gray wolves that may lurk nearby. Somewhere else in the Madison Valley, her husband, Bob, has been doing the same. The Arizona couple are "range riders," hired to spend five months camping among, and protecting, nearly 2,000 head of cattle grazing on mostly public lands in rugged, remote southwest Montana — an area in which conflicts have resulted in both cattle and wolves being killed....
Gate's locking when the fed's a knocking A handful of ranchers in northeastern Wyoming say they're prepared to bar any federal agents from entering their private property -- even if all they want to do is sample a little water. Some believe it's another sign that property owners in the Powder River Basin are becoming wary of the parade of government feet that come with developing coalbed methane gas....
Bill will settle property fight Don Ayers spent two years building his dream retirement home on a hill nestled by the Mark Twain National Forest and overlooking Table Rock Lake. A year after he moved in, the federal government informed him a new survey put his driveway, storage shed and the three-car garage attached to his house squarely on forest land. The U.S. Forest Service offered what it called a compromise: It offered to sell Ayers back his acre of land at fair market value. "It’s just asinine," said Ayers, who retired to Shell Knob in 1998. Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, along with Rep. Roy Blunt, agreed the government should live with its mistake and let Ayers and his southwest Missouri neighbors keep their land....
On the ground, grizzly study can be a tough job It is an easy outing Monday compared to dozens of other excursions being carried out simultaneously across 8 million acres as part of the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. More common are grueling hikes on tight schedules, through rain and heavy brush, around cliffs, across creeks and over fallen timber. The hard work is aimed at a simple objective: collecting bear hair....
Beetles prey on pines Nearly 70 percent of southwestern Colorado's piñon pines have been killed since 2002 by two types of tunneling beetle that prey on drought- weakened trees. If the drought persists, the pests could kill up to 80 percent of the piñons statewide, said U.S. Forest Service entomologist Tom Eager. "You go to some areas, and your jaw will drop," Eager said Friday. "You won't see a single green speck across the landscape."....
Timber wolves could be removed from federal endangered list The efforts to bring the timber wolf back from the brink of extinction in Minnesota have been succesful, and as evidence the federal government will soon announce plans to remove the wolves from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a news conference Friday at the wolf research facility in Forest Lake to announce a proposal to remove the wolf from the endangered species list....
Ex-chief of Park Police denounces firing One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file. Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies....
Use of dunes visitors fees to study flower widely criticized In the past nine months, every visitor to the popular Imperial Sand Dunes east of El Centro paid 70 cents for a park project they have probably never heard of. It wasn't for new restrooms, improved campgrounds, more park rangers or better trash service. It was to study a purple flower. Visitors fees paid for a $900,000 report on the endangered Pierson's milk vetch, in part because California officials – angry that President Bush wants to allow off-roading on more of the dunes – are refusing to spend state money on the park....
Editorial: Endless forest hassle, Give up? Another week, another forest controversy. Actually, the same old controversy: Plans to salvage timber from the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon are running into stiff opposition, and court action is likely to cause further delays. One wonders why people interested in prudent management of our federal lands don't just throw up their hands and forget it. The fire covered roughly 500,000 acres and cost a reported $153 million to bring under control. It wiped out stands of timber several hundred years old. The climate has changed since those stands began, and there's a question whether that forest can restore itself. Prudence suggests that we give nature a hand - log some of the dead timber and use the proceeds to launch an aggressive project to replant....
Families dig in heels over keeping Sequoia cabins A fight that has festered for decades is coming to a head in the dark woods of Sequoia National Park. A community whose roots stretch back to the 1870s is struggling to hang on to rustic cabins that were handed down through families for generations to the people who today use them for summer vacations. The private cabins were built on public land — a contradiction that has been argued all the way to the Supreme Court and to Congress. Park officials now want to reclaim the area as part of a long-term master plan for the national park....
Editorial: Kerry and the West John Kerry was born in Colorado and with his heiress wife owns a playground retreat in Ketchum, Idaho, that supporters have suggested could become the "Western White House" if he is elected president. But these facts hardly guarantee the Massachusetts senator understands Western issues. Indeed, if anything proves Kerry is out of touch with the concerns of Westerners it's his opposition to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. In attempting to prevent fire and disease by streamlining the environmental review process for thinning projects, the act must so far be judged a success....
New bison manager facing challenges He's juggled competing interests and withstood intense scrutiny before, but Steve Kallin faces an unprecedented challenge as the new manager of the National Bison Range. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes recently announced their acceptance of a proposal to assume some management of the 18,000-acre complex. The partial handover is expected sometime next year, as is the realignment of some employees from federal to tribal responsibility. The switch will likely be a complicated process. Kallin is aware of the challenges, but says he's ready that he arrives with no baggage or prejudments....
Administration confirming plans to open more forests to logging The Bush administration will propose a new plan to open up national forests to more logging, confirming a draft plan published two weeks ago, The Associated Press learned. Under the plan, to be announced by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Monday, governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests, replacing a national rule against such projects adopted by the Clinton administration....
Editorial: Off-road policy steers in right direction Motor vehicles have a place in the national forests. It's just not every place. A new policy announced the other day by the U.S. Forest Service offers hope that people with the money to buy and interest in using off-road vehicles will continue to have plenty of places to play in the forest, while at the same time ensuring the forests aren't overrun. Under the new policy, the Forest Service will designate roads and trails where off-road vehicles are permitted to travel. Vehicles will be prohibited from wherever they aren't explicitly permitted. It's a shame this policy wasn't enacted decades ago....
Navy sonar under fire for whales in distress Residents of Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai woke up last weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing clear signs of stress. To keep the animals from beaching, the locals kept a vigil all day and through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea. So far, only one young whale has been found dead....
Native Americans divided over land battle Now President Bush hopes to settle one of America's longest running land disputes in approving a $140m payment from Congress to the Western Shoshone Indians. In return, the American government would get the Shoshone ancestral lands seized by settlers and speculators in the 19th Century. But in the president's way stand two unlikely and increasingly isolated figures of resistance. Carrie and Mary Dann are Shoshone sisters who have spent all their lives on the family's ramshackle ranch in Nevada's Crescent Valley. It is a 10-hour road trip from Las Vegas to their ranch....
Cities' water needs uprooting Colorado farms With cities offering much higher prices for water than farmers could ever get from crops or selling their land, experts and others fear that brisk water sales will hasten the erosion of whole farming communities in Colorado. And the onset of drought has only quickened a farming exodus. Over the last decade, Colorado has lost an average of 90,000 farm acres a year to drought and other reasons; 4,000 of the state's 51,000 farmers could get out of the business this year, according to Colorado State University researchers. With $17 billion in annual sales, agriculture is the state's third-leading industry and the biggest consumer of water....
Editorial: Drought's effect on electricity Two of the West's most difficult problems, drought and air pollution, are on a collision course, triggered by the region's growing demand for electric power. The years-long drought has drained Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border to the lowest levels in generations, as The Denver Post's Theo Stein reported last Sunday. If the drought continues, in a few years the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may have to stop generating power from the huge hydroelectric plants at Hoover and Glen Canyon dams....
‘Witching' for water Ken Roberts figures he's made a lot of people happy during the past 40 years. That's how long he's been "water witching," or locating water beneath the ground using nothing more than a forked branch from a chokecherry or serviceberry bush. Not only can he find water, he can usually tell how far beneath the surface it is. It's an art form he's perfected since he first tried it in 1963. He estimates he's got a 95 percent success rate in finding water....
Horses ride again at local lounge Around 50 locals and tourists watched horses ride through the interior of Trails West Lounge on East Tucumcari Boulevard Thursday evening as part of the kickoff of the Route 66 Festival this weekend. The third annual ‘Trail Ride’ Thursday evening was part of an attempt to revive an old New Mexico tradition in which bar patrons ride horses up to the bar and order a beer. Linda Walker of Tucumcari said she thinks the revival of the tradition has taken hold. “I think this tradition is going to last,” said Walker....
Pickett Rodeo draws a crowd Cowboy legend Bill Pickett would be proud, but really not surprised that more than 3,000 spectators -- predominantly African-Americans -- turned out here Saturday afternoon for the 20th annual Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. When Pickett -- the cowboy who invented the rodeo sport of steer wrestling -- was born in 1870, one out of every three cowpokes riding the range and driving cows up the Chisholm Trail were was black, said Jesse Guillory, the rodeo's general manager....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Hay! Be careful handling bales To properly handle 1,200 pound round bales and giant square bales requires the proper equipment. And because some farmers live on that ragged edge between "the old days" and "the new ways," they are forced to improvise. In an effort to cut costs, Arnie decided to buy one big square bale from his neighbor. It saved him money and would last several weeks. He only had a few sheep, a couple show steers and a horse to feed. Arnie actually built a small open-sided shed to cover the bale....
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Sunday, July 11, 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Dense Forests Are A Fire Waiting to Happen
California’s forests are thicker than they were 100 years ago, putting wildlife populations at risk and increasing the chance of catastrophic fires, says author George E. Gruell.
Among the risks, say Gruell:
---Thick trees block out sunlight and inhibit the growth of non-tree herbs and shrubs, which wildlife populations depend on for food; so highly dense forests means that smaller plants are less available.
---Intense wildfires created by overgrown forests lead to devastating impacts on the environment -- increased erosion, air pollution, damage to watersheds, and the destruction of protected wildlife habitat.
The Forest Service expects to reduce the percentage of forest lost to fires to 30 percent over the next 50 years. Part of the plan includes harvesting less than one percent of “medium” trees (those with trunks between 20 and 30 inches in diameter), but environmental activists oppose cutting even a small number of trees.
But thinning forests may be the only solution to preserving them. It could also save lives, enhance critical wildlife habitat and improve other resource values, says Gruell.
Source: George E. Gruell, “Other View: The Real Picture of Sierra Nevada Forests,” The Sacramento Bee, July 2, 2004
For text: http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/forum/story/9858779p-10781071c.html
The Economic Hardship Act
Not that there isn't credible evidence for warming of about 1 deg. F over the last 100 years or so. What isn't so certain is how much of this warming is man-made, or how much there will be in the future, and most of all, whether any significant amount of future warming can be forestalled without driving mankind back to the stone age. McCain admitted that the Climate Stewardship Act is just a very small first step. Much more will be needed in the way of GHG reductions in the future in order to have much effect at all on warming. This is true, no matter what you believe that future warming to be.
What worries me is that the Act represents a government mandated brake on economic growth. This feels to me like one of those slippery slopes you keep hearing about. Affordable energy is the lifeblood of economies, and we are now going to limit it by punishing the use of energy. The United States is already very efficient at energy use per unit of GDP, and that efficiency is getting better every year. Free markets naturally lead to increased efficiency because it reduces cost and improves productivity. But through the Climate Stewardship Act, our government will require sharply higher efficiencies to be realized, or else we'll just have to stop producing....
Admission Fees: An Efficient Way to Fund Nation's Parks
In 1996, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of fees by public land managers in select areas to provide supplemental funding -- a pilot program that is set to expire in October 2004. According to J. Bishop Grewell, a researcher with the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC), the new fees effectively raise money to maintain the nation’s parks without hurting low-income earners:
---In 2002, the program allowed the National Park Service to complete 136 deferred maintenance projects.
---That same year, admission fees funded the repairs of 47 mile of trails in Washington State’s Olympic National Forest, after maintenance of the trails had been deferred for eight years.
---Recreational fees have helped reduce vandalism, litter, and crime on public lands.
Fees also have the potential to reduce congestion problems by offering lower rates on weekdays and during off-peak recreational periods. Nevertheless, some have criticized the new fees on the grounds of fairness, justice and morality. Grewell dismisses such concerns:
---By far the greatest hurdle to low-income visitors is the cost associated with traveling to a site and buying the goods necessary for recreation, not small admission fees.
---If concerns persist, recreation vouchers could be offered to the poor as well as providing a limited number of free admission tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis.
---Worries about commercialization through park fees ignore the fact that public lands already are commercial -- one noteworthy example is Yellowstone National Park.
---Fees increase accountability of land managers to park visitors, while reliance on federal funding tends to promote more “congressionally identified” initiatives rather than projects recommended by on-the-ground park personnel.
Source: J. Bishop Grewell, “Recreation Fees -- Four Philosophical Questions,” Property & Environment Research Center, PERC Policy Series No. PS-31, June 2004.
What Ernst Mayr Teaches Us
Ernst Mayr, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, at Harvard just turned 100 years old. He reaches this honorable age as one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. With his uncommonly lucid descriptive power, Mayr also writes graciously of modern biological sciences for the educated layperson.
Mayr clears away the mysticism protecting a speculation in biology, called Gaia, so that it can be cast as a testable, falsifiable scientific hypothesis.
The Gaia hypothesis, laid out in the mid-1960s primarily by scientist James Lovelock, tries to explain the observed, complex interaction between life and its environment in a global context....
Cleaner Air Brings Dirtier Tricks
How strange! The cleaner our air gets, the sicker we become. At this rate, when the air becomes absolutely pure over L.A. we'll all keel right over. Or so you might believe from a downloadable new report of a group called Clear the Air, "Dirty Power, Dirty Air."
The prettily-decorated document attempts to persuade readers to support one of two Democratic bills introduced in the Senate over a Republican one, although all three would "tighten the lid" on allowable air emissions from power plants. Not incidentally it chooses the legislation that is by far the most expensive. By its own reckoning, in the year 2020 it will cost $34 billion versus $9.3 for the alternative Democratic bill and $6.2 for what it labels the "Bush bill."....
PETA Briefs
Americans accustomed to hearing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) describe vegetarianism as a moral imperative are sometimes shocked to learn about the group's less-than-moral "black eyes" -- advocating arson and funding domestic terrorists, for example. Now add an Education Manager (Jacqueline Domac, the employee tasked with outreach to children) who engaged in a long-term tryst with a 16-year-old high-school actor while she was his tutor....
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Dense Forests Are A Fire Waiting to Happen
California’s forests are thicker than they were 100 years ago, putting wildlife populations at risk and increasing the chance of catastrophic fires, says author George E. Gruell.
Among the risks, say Gruell:
---Thick trees block out sunlight and inhibit the growth of non-tree herbs and shrubs, which wildlife populations depend on for food; so highly dense forests means that smaller plants are less available.
---Intense wildfires created by overgrown forests lead to devastating impacts on the environment -- increased erosion, air pollution, damage to watersheds, and the destruction of protected wildlife habitat.
The Forest Service expects to reduce the percentage of forest lost to fires to 30 percent over the next 50 years. Part of the plan includes harvesting less than one percent of “medium” trees (those with trunks between 20 and 30 inches in diameter), but environmental activists oppose cutting even a small number of trees.
But thinning forests may be the only solution to preserving them. It could also save lives, enhance critical wildlife habitat and improve other resource values, says Gruell.
Source: George E. Gruell, “Other View: The Real Picture of Sierra Nevada Forests,” The Sacramento Bee, July 2, 2004
For text: http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/forum/story/9858779p-10781071c.html
The Economic Hardship Act
Not that there isn't credible evidence for warming of about 1 deg. F over the last 100 years or so. What isn't so certain is how much of this warming is man-made, or how much there will be in the future, and most of all, whether any significant amount of future warming can be forestalled without driving mankind back to the stone age. McCain admitted that the Climate Stewardship Act is just a very small first step. Much more will be needed in the way of GHG reductions in the future in order to have much effect at all on warming. This is true, no matter what you believe that future warming to be.
What worries me is that the Act represents a government mandated brake on economic growth. This feels to me like one of those slippery slopes you keep hearing about. Affordable energy is the lifeblood of economies, and we are now going to limit it by punishing the use of energy. The United States is already very efficient at energy use per unit of GDP, and that efficiency is getting better every year. Free markets naturally lead to increased efficiency because it reduces cost and improves productivity. But through the Climate Stewardship Act, our government will require sharply higher efficiencies to be realized, or else we'll just have to stop producing....
Admission Fees: An Efficient Way to Fund Nation's Parks
In 1996, the U.S. Congress authorized the use of fees by public land managers in select areas to provide supplemental funding -- a pilot program that is set to expire in October 2004. According to J. Bishop Grewell, a researcher with the Property & Environment Research Center (PERC), the new fees effectively raise money to maintain the nation’s parks without hurting low-income earners:
---In 2002, the program allowed the National Park Service to complete 136 deferred maintenance projects.
---That same year, admission fees funded the repairs of 47 mile of trails in Washington State’s Olympic National Forest, after maintenance of the trails had been deferred for eight years.
---Recreational fees have helped reduce vandalism, litter, and crime on public lands.
Fees also have the potential to reduce congestion problems by offering lower rates on weekdays and during off-peak recreational periods. Nevertheless, some have criticized the new fees on the grounds of fairness, justice and morality. Grewell dismisses such concerns:
---By far the greatest hurdle to low-income visitors is the cost associated with traveling to a site and buying the goods necessary for recreation, not small admission fees.
---If concerns persist, recreation vouchers could be offered to the poor as well as providing a limited number of free admission tickets on a first-come, first-serve basis.
---Worries about commercialization through park fees ignore the fact that public lands already are commercial -- one noteworthy example is Yellowstone National Park.
---Fees increase accountability of land managers to park visitors, while reliance on federal funding tends to promote more “congressionally identified” initiatives rather than projects recommended by on-the-ground park personnel.
Source: J. Bishop Grewell, “Recreation Fees -- Four Philosophical Questions,” Property & Environment Research Center, PERC Policy Series No. PS-31, June 2004.
What Ernst Mayr Teaches Us
Ernst Mayr, the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, at Harvard just turned 100 years old. He reaches this honorable age as one of the greatest evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. With his uncommonly lucid descriptive power, Mayr also writes graciously of modern biological sciences for the educated layperson.
Mayr clears away the mysticism protecting a speculation in biology, called Gaia, so that it can be cast as a testable, falsifiable scientific hypothesis.
The Gaia hypothesis, laid out in the mid-1960s primarily by scientist James Lovelock, tries to explain the observed, complex interaction between life and its environment in a global context....
Cleaner Air Brings Dirtier Tricks
How strange! The cleaner our air gets, the sicker we become. At this rate, when the air becomes absolutely pure over L.A. we'll all keel right over. Or so you might believe from a downloadable new report of a group called Clear the Air, "Dirty Power, Dirty Air."
The prettily-decorated document attempts to persuade readers to support one of two Democratic bills introduced in the Senate over a Republican one, although all three would "tighten the lid" on allowable air emissions from power plants. Not incidentally it chooses the legislation that is by far the most expensive. By its own reckoning, in the year 2020 it will cost $34 billion versus $9.3 for the alternative Democratic bill and $6.2 for what it labels the "Bush bill."....
PETA Briefs
Americans accustomed to hearing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) describe vegetarianism as a moral imperative are sometimes shocked to learn about the group's less-than-moral "black eyes" -- advocating arson and funding domestic terrorists, for example. Now add an Education Manager (Jacqueline Domac, the employee tasked with outreach to children) who engaged in a long-term tryst with a 16-year-old high-school actor while she was his tutor....
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