Saturday, October 16, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Judge blocks Klamath logging plan A federal judge has blocked logging proposed for the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County, chiding the U.S. Forest Service for its review of the environmental damage that would result. The service should have done a full environmental review and done a better job projecting the impact on wildlife and forest conditions, ruled U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. He barred any logging until a review is completed. The forest service wanted to log 1,354 acres along Beaver Creek northwest of Yreka, selling enough timber to generate more than $500,000 to improve the watershed....
Film on valley filled with tension, offers hope A cross section of Flathead Valley residents, separated by ideology but united in their desire to improve community dialogue, filled Kalispell's Liberty Theatre for the first public screening of "The Fire Next Time" Wednesday evening. The documentary, produced for television's Public Broadcasting Service by Patrice O'Neill of The Working Group, featured valley residents venting their frustrations, anger and fear over natural resource issues and rapid change. The final product was created from interviews with about 100 people and more than 200 hours of footage shot over a two-year period....
Commission approves draft plan to manage wolves Oregonians will have until the end of the year to help shape the rules and regulations for managing wolves expected to migrate into the state from Idaho. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously Friday to give preliminary approval to the draft management plan produced by a 14-member task force representing various interest groups. The vote sets up a series of public hearings around the state and chances for people to comment on rules and regulations before the commission takes up final approval on Jan. 7....
Lynx sought in Wyoming Range Biologists plan to ski and ride snowmobiles to remote parts of the Wyoming Range and around Togwotee Pass this winter in search of lynx tracks. Lynx haven't been confirmed in the Wyoming Range since 2002, but Bridger-Teton National Forest has a long history of lynx sightings, according to Nate Berg, a lynx researcher. Berg's team came across lynx tracks in the Gros Ventre Wilderness, on Togwotee Pass and in Snake River Canyon last winter while studying wolverines....
Agency withdraws wolf program Working with wolves in Wyoming is controversial - emotions come with the territory, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife wolf biologist Mike Jimenez. Yet he says controversy in Park County did not lead to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's withdrawl from Northwest College's wolf-tracking internship program this semester. "We have limited resources," Jimenez said. "The program has been beneficial to everyone. But sometimes we can be involved in this kind of thing, and sometimes we can't."....
Rancher says wolves attacked horse A Sublette County man said this week it appears one of his horses was attacked by wolves, but the animals didn't eat the horse. Bill Saunders of the Riverbend Ranch near Bondurant on the Hoback River, just outside Teton County, said he had seen wolves in fields near the ranch in the weeks before. He discovered the injured horse Oct. 8 and speculated it was attacked the night before or on the same day. "He cut all the tendons in his hind legs, and we had to put him down," Saunders said....
Bear Baiting as a Way of Life Is on the Ballot Black bears are so plentiful in G.M.U. 7 that the hunting season is year-round. For two months in the spring, state officials also allow baiting, in which hunters haul old donuts, fish grease and other food scraps into the woods to lure bears into the open. The meat of black bears is considered tastiest just after hibernation, and hunters here on the Kenai Peninsula have participated in the springtime baiting ritual for years, with about 40 percent of bears killed in Unit 7 taken at bait stations. That amounted to 60 bears last year, second only to the 117 at bait stations outside Fairbanks. But baiting is under assault across Alaska by wildlife advocates who say it is the equivalent of killing animals in a zoo at feeding time. They also fear that it encourages bears to seek human contact....
Dreaded predator found in lake The fish pulled out of Burnham Harbor was so strange looking that the angler who caught it posted its picture on the Internet. Long and slender, with a grotesque mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, the creature at first glance looked like a mottled cousin of the northern pike, a fish commonly found in Lake Michigan. But when scientists around the country saw the fisherman's grainy image, they immediately suspected that one of the nation's most feared ecological invaders--the northern snakehead--had arrived in the Great Lakes....
Judge rejects Yellowstone snowmobile ban A federal judge Friday struck down a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks — a move expected to leave the parks open to the vehicles for at least the next three winters. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled that the ban — aimed at preventing air and noise pollution and protecting wildlife — was imposed without adequate participation from the public and the states of Montana and Wyoming. The 2001 rule was "the product of a prejudged, political decision to ban snowmobiles from all the national parks," Brimmer said....
Elk escapees spark new wildlife worries Two Utah hunters were surprised earlier this month when bull elk they killed on public land north of Price had ear tags indicating they were from a hunting ranch in Montrose, Colo. The tagged animals were not on the lam from the Colorado facility, but from the approximately 2,500-acre Royal Rut Hunting Preserve in Indian Canyon, where domestic elk are stalked by clients paying $12,000 and beyond to kill a trophy bull....
League aims to make the White House a little greener The mission of the League of Conservation Voters is to get political candidates with good environmental records elected. Republican, Democrat, they don't care - as long as the record is right. They've never endorsed a presidential candidate. Until now. For 34 years the league has been grading presidents on how good a job they're doing on keeping air and water clean, public lands protected, animals off the endangered list. President Clinton rated an unimpressive "C." Sen. John Kerry scored a 92 for the record he racked up in nearly two decades in the Senate. And President Bush? For the first time, the league flunked a president and decided they had to take action....
Cal-Fed bill a study in the ways of Washington President Bush is about to sign a $395 million California water bill that's also a case study in how Congress works. The bill certainly creates waves. It authorizes studies of dams on the Upper San Joaquin River and in Colusa County. It tries to ensure Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water quality. It prescribes Tracy Pumping Plant fish screens and other environmental protections. But there's also more than meets the eye in the Cal-Fed legislation formally sent to the White House on Wednesday. It showcases the kind of subsurface deal-making, creative ambiguity and occasional sleight-of-hand that enable a bill to become law....
Lawsuit blocks state's water rights calculations The water conservancy boards in two Eastern Washington counties have filed suit against the state, accusing it of failing to follow proper procedures in how it calculates changes to water rights. The boards in Benton and Franklin counties allege the state Department of Ecology's new standards for how it calculates the amount of water that can be kept when a water right is transferred or changed are improper. Benton County Superior Court Judge Carrie Runge issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday to block the state from using the new standards....
Independence ghost town faces death sentence On July 4, 1891, Winfield Scott Stratton ignored the patriotic gunfire, fireworks, drinking and oratory to concentrate on prospecting. That day he found the Independence Mine, which he would sell eight years later to a London firm for $11 million. This first bonanza in the Cripple Creek District gave birth to the nearby town of Independence, on the hillside between the towns of Goldfield and Altman. The 9,780-foot- high town site on the slope of Battle Mountain was so steep that many buildings, including the California Hotel, had to be built with stilts on their downhill side....
Permalink 8 comments
Judge blocks Klamath logging plan A federal judge has blocked logging proposed for the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County, chiding the U.S. Forest Service for its review of the environmental damage that would result. The service should have done a full environmental review and done a better job projecting the impact on wildlife and forest conditions, ruled U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. He barred any logging until a review is completed. The forest service wanted to log 1,354 acres along Beaver Creek northwest of Yreka, selling enough timber to generate more than $500,000 to improve the watershed....
Film on valley filled with tension, offers hope A cross section of Flathead Valley residents, separated by ideology but united in their desire to improve community dialogue, filled Kalispell's Liberty Theatre for the first public screening of "The Fire Next Time" Wednesday evening. The documentary, produced for television's Public Broadcasting Service by Patrice O'Neill of The Working Group, featured valley residents venting their frustrations, anger and fear over natural resource issues and rapid change. The final product was created from interviews with about 100 people and more than 200 hours of footage shot over a two-year period....
Commission approves draft plan to manage wolves Oregonians will have until the end of the year to help shape the rules and regulations for managing wolves expected to migrate into the state from Idaho. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously Friday to give preliminary approval to the draft management plan produced by a 14-member task force representing various interest groups. The vote sets up a series of public hearings around the state and chances for people to comment on rules and regulations before the commission takes up final approval on Jan. 7....
Lynx sought in Wyoming Range Biologists plan to ski and ride snowmobiles to remote parts of the Wyoming Range and around Togwotee Pass this winter in search of lynx tracks. Lynx haven't been confirmed in the Wyoming Range since 2002, but Bridger-Teton National Forest has a long history of lynx sightings, according to Nate Berg, a lynx researcher. Berg's team came across lynx tracks in the Gros Ventre Wilderness, on Togwotee Pass and in Snake River Canyon last winter while studying wolverines....
Agency withdraws wolf program Working with wolves in Wyoming is controversial - emotions come with the territory, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife wolf biologist Mike Jimenez. Yet he says controversy in Park County did not lead to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's withdrawl from Northwest College's wolf-tracking internship program this semester. "We have limited resources," Jimenez said. "The program has been beneficial to everyone. But sometimes we can be involved in this kind of thing, and sometimes we can't."....
Rancher says wolves attacked horse A Sublette County man said this week it appears one of his horses was attacked by wolves, but the animals didn't eat the horse. Bill Saunders of the Riverbend Ranch near Bondurant on the Hoback River, just outside Teton County, said he had seen wolves in fields near the ranch in the weeks before. He discovered the injured horse Oct. 8 and speculated it was attacked the night before or on the same day. "He cut all the tendons in his hind legs, and we had to put him down," Saunders said....
Bear Baiting as a Way of Life Is on the Ballot Black bears are so plentiful in G.M.U. 7 that the hunting season is year-round. For two months in the spring, state officials also allow baiting, in which hunters haul old donuts, fish grease and other food scraps into the woods to lure bears into the open. The meat of black bears is considered tastiest just after hibernation, and hunters here on the Kenai Peninsula have participated in the springtime baiting ritual for years, with about 40 percent of bears killed in Unit 7 taken at bait stations. That amounted to 60 bears last year, second only to the 117 at bait stations outside Fairbanks. But baiting is under assault across Alaska by wildlife advocates who say it is the equivalent of killing animals in a zoo at feeding time. They also fear that it encourages bears to seek human contact....
Dreaded predator found in lake The fish pulled out of Burnham Harbor was so strange looking that the angler who caught it posted its picture on the Internet. Long and slender, with a grotesque mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, the creature at first glance looked like a mottled cousin of the northern pike, a fish commonly found in Lake Michigan. But when scientists around the country saw the fisherman's grainy image, they immediately suspected that one of the nation's most feared ecological invaders--the northern snakehead--had arrived in the Great Lakes....
Judge rejects Yellowstone snowmobile ban A federal judge Friday struck down a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks — a move expected to leave the parks open to the vehicles for at least the next three winters. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled that the ban — aimed at preventing air and noise pollution and protecting wildlife — was imposed without adequate participation from the public and the states of Montana and Wyoming. The 2001 rule was "the product of a prejudged, political decision to ban snowmobiles from all the national parks," Brimmer said....
Elk escapees spark new wildlife worries Two Utah hunters were surprised earlier this month when bull elk they killed on public land north of Price had ear tags indicating they were from a hunting ranch in Montrose, Colo. The tagged animals were not on the lam from the Colorado facility, but from the approximately 2,500-acre Royal Rut Hunting Preserve in Indian Canyon, where domestic elk are stalked by clients paying $12,000 and beyond to kill a trophy bull....
League aims to make the White House a little greener The mission of the League of Conservation Voters is to get political candidates with good environmental records elected. Republican, Democrat, they don't care - as long as the record is right. They've never endorsed a presidential candidate. Until now. For 34 years the league has been grading presidents on how good a job they're doing on keeping air and water clean, public lands protected, animals off the endangered list. President Clinton rated an unimpressive "C." Sen. John Kerry scored a 92 for the record he racked up in nearly two decades in the Senate. And President Bush? For the first time, the league flunked a president and decided they had to take action....
Cal-Fed bill a study in the ways of Washington President Bush is about to sign a $395 million California water bill that's also a case study in how Congress works. The bill certainly creates waves. It authorizes studies of dams on the Upper San Joaquin River and in Colusa County. It tries to ensure Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water quality. It prescribes Tracy Pumping Plant fish screens and other environmental protections. But there's also more than meets the eye in the Cal-Fed legislation formally sent to the White House on Wednesday. It showcases the kind of subsurface deal-making, creative ambiguity and occasional sleight-of-hand that enable a bill to become law....
Lawsuit blocks state's water rights calculations The water conservancy boards in two Eastern Washington counties have filed suit against the state, accusing it of failing to follow proper procedures in how it calculates changes to water rights. The boards in Benton and Franklin counties allege the state Department of Ecology's new standards for how it calculates the amount of water that can be kept when a water right is transferred or changed are improper. Benton County Superior Court Judge Carrie Runge issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday to block the state from using the new standards....
Independence ghost town faces death sentence On July 4, 1891, Winfield Scott Stratton ignored the patriotic gunfire, fireworks, drinking and oratory to concentrate on prospecting. That day he found the Independence Mine, which he would sell eight years later to a London firm for $11 million. This first bonanza in the Cripple Creek District gave birth to the nearby town of Independence, on the hillside between the towns of Goldfield and Altman. The 9,780-foot- high town site on the slope of Battle Mountain was so steep that many buildings, including the California Hotel, had to be built with stilts on their downhill side....
Permalink 8 comments
Friday, October 15, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Forest Service will limit ATV use, chief says The head of the federal U.S. Forest Service is advocating restrictions on all-terrain vehicles in national forests. Dale Bosworth backs a proposal that would allow the managers of individual national forests and grasslands to designate roads and trails where off-road travel would be allowed. When the designations are completed, cross-country travel in the federal lands would be banned. "It's reached a level in my opinion that we can no longer allow motorized vehicles to go wherever they want to go," he said after delivering a speech to all-terrain vehicle dealers at the Kentucky International Convention Center....
Salvage Logging a Key Issue in Oregon The massive Biscuit fire that scorched this forest two summers ago has become a wedge issue in the presidential race in Oregon, a swing state where the contest remains too close to call. President Bush used the Biscuit fire in 2002 as a smoldering launchpad for his Healthy Forests Initiative, a plan to fight future fires by logging burned trees, many of them in previously protected stands of old-growth timber. On an evening campaign stop in southern Oregon on Thursday, Bush criticized his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), for voting to oppose the initiative. "My opponent says he's in touch with the West, but sometimes I think he means western Massachusetts," Bush said, according the Associated Press....
Biologist finds new dens for rogue rattlers John Rohrer smiled broadly as, one by one, 17 rattlesnakes slid slowly down the dark hole that will be their new home this winter. There were no spitting tongues or threatening rattles as he lifted each with 4-foot long tongs and placed their heads at the den's entrance at the base of a table-sized rock. A few circled around and poked their heads out into the sunshine, but willingly slithered back into darkness and out of sight when coaxed. After keeping these rogue rattlers -- caught this summer in people's yards and driveways -- in a terrarium in his back yard, the U.S. Forest Service biologist was clearly happy to be releasing them into the wild....
One-third of amphibian species called threatened The first vertebrate species to begin hopping and crawling on land 350 million years ago may be the first to die out, according to a study released yesterday that found a third of all amphibian species worldwide are threatened with extinction. Isolated reports of silent forests and empty streams began to circulate about three decades ago, but the latest assessment is the first to provide a complete snapshot of a global decline in the diversity of frogs, salamanders, newts, and worm-like caecilians, and to show that they are at greater risk than both birds and mammals....
Groups seek endangered listing for grouse A broad coalition of conservation groups, led by Forest Guardians, Thursday petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Due to threats including livestock grazing and conversion of native habitat to croplands, this bird, which once ranged across 11 Western states, has vanished from over 90 percent of its historic range, and is imperiled over at least 92 percent of its range....
Official: Grizzly shooting appears legitimate Evidence appears to back an Indiana man's story of shooting a grizzly bear in self-defense after it had mauled another hunter, a special investigator said. Roy Brown, special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who is investigating the bear's death, said it appears the bear ran in a path that led it directly to the hunter who killed it although bears normally try to avoid humans. ''From the evidence on the ground, (the story) is holding up,'' Brown said Wednesday....
Editorial: BLM action on Front drilling a welcome step Two significant things happened recently for the Rocky Mountain Front. First the federal Bureau of Land Management suspended work on permits for three controversial gas wells, opening the door for a longer-term — maybe permanent — timeout on energy development in this unique and accessible swath of spectacular scenery and wildlife. Second, a sibling agency in the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, announced a parallel aggressive effort to place as much as 170,000 acres of private land along the Front under conservation easements. Taken together, the two steps constitute the most significant movement toward keeping the Front the way it is since then-Lewis and Clark Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora declared Forest Service land on the Front off limits to new leases back in 1997....
Park drops efforts to prosecute four teenagers Point Reyes National Seashore and the Marin District Attorney’s Office this week revealed that neither the federal government nor county government will prosecute any of the four teenagers connected with the July 28 pepper-spraying incident. "At the request of the Park Service and based on our own review, there will be no charges filed," Assistant DA Ed Berberian told The Light on Tuesday. The Park Service request came in the form of a letter to DA Paula Kamena from National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher. "We appreciate our working relationship with the District Attorney’s Office and your staff time on the Miller Case (No. 04002)," the park superintendent wrote Sept. 28. "After a thorough review by our office, we have decided to not proceed with pressing charges in this matter."....
Truckee River's dams helped with logging The Truckee River starts at Lake Tahoe, and the first and most important dam was constructed there for the Truckee lumber industry. In 1870, the Donner Boom & Flume Company built a wood-cribbed and rock-filled dam to back up and store water in Tahoe. The water was released in summer in surges that floated logs downstream. It backed up water at least six feet high onto the shores of Lake Tahoe. The dam has been referred to as belonging to Alexis von Schmidt. Von Schmidt proposed to tap the waters of Tahoe, and build a tunnel through the Sierra at Squaw Valley. The plan was to use the water for domestic uses in the foothills and in San Francisco. Von Schmidt had plans for another dam built near the present River Ranch. Politics in San Francisco and in Nevada prevented the completion of this project....
Column: Water and politics Water and politics have always been an exciting mix in Colorado. This election year and the upcoming legislative session are no exception. The campaigns are full of fearsome rhetoric, how one side will “sell us out” and how they, like the white knights that they all are, will save us and “protect our water.” Water issues are brought up so much, with so many twists and half truths that it becomes background noise and is often tuned out by the voters. Still, water in Colorado is a serious issue and needs to be taken seriously. As Tip O’Neal said, “All politics is local,” and there is nothing more local than the water in our streams and homes. Colorado’s political foundation is laid on water....
Pact with California agency would let Vegas 'bank' river water Southern Nevada would get a new water savings account, while California would gain access to more of the Colorado River under an accord approved by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The interstate agreement reached Tuesday seeks to send a portion of Nevada's unused Colorado River water downstream for use by California. In return, Nevada would get credit for the water and the ability to draw it out of Lake Mead at a later date, when the state needs more than the 300,000 acre-feet that make up its annual allocation. Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, called the agreement a "virtual bank" for Nevada and said the state's first deposit of 10,000 acre-feet could come before the end of the year....
State to raise water complaint Montana water rights will draw an international spotlight when a board in Canada next week considers whether the state gets its due from the St. Mary-Milk river system. Claims that too much of the water goes to Alberta and Saskatchewan while neighboring Montana gets short shrift will be taken up by the International Joint Commission, meeting in Ottawa. A 1909 treaty established the IJC, consisting of three members from the United States and three from Canada, to prevent and resolve disputes over waters that the two countries share. Montana officials believe that the state gets less water than it deserves from the system consisting of the St. Mary River, which originates in Glacier National Park and flows into Canada, and the Milk River....
Mystery Oil Spill Stains Wash. State Coast An oil spill stained Tacoma's Commencement Bay and spread to beaches on nearby islands Thursday, polluting an ecologically rich area where grebes, ducks and other birds spend their winters. State Department of Ecology and U.S. Coast Guard officials estimated the spill at 1,000 gallons, Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said. The oil, first reported about 1 a.m. Thursday, spread over five or six miles around the southern tip of Vashon Island north of Tacoma, and tainted nearby Maury Island....
Mad cow petition demands reopening of border to Canadian cattle Two Alberta businessmen, frustrated with the ongoing mad cow border stalemate, delivered a 105,000-name petition to Parliament Hill on Thursday. The paper calls for reopening the Canada-U.S. border to all Canadian cattle. The U.S. closed the border to live cattle last year after a single Alberta cow was found to have mad cow disease. The Liberal government has been pressing the Americans to open the doors again, but Washington has refused. The Open The Border petition includes signatures from hundreds of American farmers who wanted to show solidarity with their suffering Canadian counterparts....
After decades, Western-wear 'trend' holds on to its looks In the old West, cowboy clothes had a purpose: to shield ranch hands from the rigors of their job. Sturdy shirts protected their arms from rope burns, and leather saved their bodies from bruises. In the 1940s, Western wear started seeping into the American fashion culture. More than 60 years later, urban dwellers in Colorado who have never ridden a horse, baled hay or swept a stall sport Western boots and jeans, cowboy shirts and Stetsons....
Permalink 0 comments
Forest Service will limit ATV use, chief says The head of the federal U.S. Forest Service is advocating restrictions on all-terrain vehicles in national forests. Dale Bosworth backs a proposal that would allow the managers of individual national forests and grasslands to designate roads and trails where off-road travel would be allowed. When the designations are completed, cross-country travel in the federal lands would be banned. "It's reached a level in my opinion that we can no longer allow motorized vehicles to go wherever they want to go," he said after delivering a speech to all-terrain vehicle dealers at the Kentucky International Convention Center....
Salvage Logging a Key Issue in Oregon The massive Biscuit fire that scorched this forest two summers ago has become a wedge issue in the presidential race in Oregon, a swing state where the contest remains too close to call. President Bush used the Biscuit fire in 2002 as a smoldering launchpad for his Healthy Forests Initiative, a plan to fight future fires by logging burned trees, many of them in previously protected stands of old-growth timber. On an evening campaign stop in southern Oregon on Thursday, Bush criticized his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), for voting to oppose the initiative. "My opponent says he's in touch with the West, but sometimes I think he means western Massachusetts," Bush said, according the Associated Press....
Biologist finds new dens for rogue rattlers John Rohrer smiled broadly as, one by one, 17 rattlesnakes slid slowly down the dark hole that will be their new home this winter. There were no spitting tongues or threatening rattles as he lifted each with 4-foot long tongs and placed their heads at the den's entrance at the base of a table-sized rock. A few circled around and poked their heads out into the sunshine, but willingly slithered back into darkness and out of sight when coaxed. After keeping these rogue rattlers -- caught this summer in people's yards and driveways -- in a terrarium in his back yard, the U.S. Forest Service biologist was clearly happy to be releasing them into the wild....
One-third of amphibian species called threatened The first vertebrate species to begin hopping and crawling on land 350 million years ago may be the first to die out, according to a study released yesterday that found a third of all amphibian species worldwide are threatened with extinction. Isolated reports of silent forests and empty streams began to circulate about three decades ago, but the latest assessment is the first to provide a complete snapshot of a global decline in the diversity of frogs, salamanders, newts, and worm-like caecilians, and to show that they are at greater risk than both birds and mammals....
Groups seek endangered listing for grouse A broad coalition of conservation groups, led by Forest Guardians, Thursday petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Due to threats including livestock grazing and conversion of native habitat to croplands, this bird, which once ranged across 11 Western states, has vanished from over 90 percent of its historic range, and is imperiled over at least 92 percent of its range....
Official: Grizzly shooting appears legitimate Evidence appears to back an Indiana man's story of shooting a grizzly bear in self-defense after it had mauled another hunter, a special investigator said. Roy Brown, special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who is investigating the bear's death, said it appears the bear ran in a path that led it directly to the hunter who killed it although bears normally try to avoid humans. ''From the evidence on the ground, (the story) is holding up,'' Brown said Wednesday....
Editorial: BLM action on Front drilling a welcome step Two significant things happened recently for the Rocky Mountain Front. First the federal Bureau of Land Management suspended work on permits for three controversial gas wells, opening the door for a longer-term — maybe permanent — timeout on energy development in this unique and accessible swath of spectacular scenery and wildlife. Second, a sibling agency in the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, announced a parallel aggressive effort to place as much as 170,000 acres of private land along the Front under conservation easements. Taken together, the two steps constitute the most significant movement toward keeping the Front the way it is since then-Lewis and Clark Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora declared Forest Service land on the Front off limits to new leases back in 1997....
Park drops efforts to prosecute four teenagers Point Reyes National Seashore and the Marin District Attorney’s Office this week revealed that neither the federal government nor county government will prosecute any of the four teenagers connected with the July 28 pepper-spraying incident. "At the request of the Park Service and based on our own review, there will be no charges filed," Assistant DA Ed Berberian told The Light on Tuesday. The Park Service request came in the form of a letter to DA Paula Kamena from National Seashore Supt. Don Neubacher. "We appreciate our working relationship with the District Attorney’s Office and your staff time on the Miller Case (No. 04002)," the park superintendent wrote Sept. 28. "After a thorough review by our office, we have decided to not proceed with pressing charges in this matter."....
Truckee River's dams helped with logging The Truckee River starts at Lake Tahoe, and the first and most important dam was constructed there for the Truckee lumber industry. In 1870, the Donner Boom & Flume Company built a wood-cribbed and rock-filled dam to back up and store water in Tahoe. The water was released in summer in surges that floated logs downstream. It backed up water at least six feet high onto the shores of Lake Tahoe. The dam has been referred to as belonging to Alexis von Schmidt. Von Schmidt proposed to tap the waters of Tahoe, and build a tunnel through the Sierra at Squaw Valley. The plan was to use the water for domestic uses in the foothills and in San Francisco. Von Schmidt had plans for another dam built near the present River Ranch. Politics in San Francisco and in Nevada prevented the completion of this project....
Column: Water and politics Water and politics have always been an exciting mix in Colorado. This election year and the upcoming legislative session are no exception. The campaigns are full of fearsome rhetoric, how one side will “sell us out” and how they, like the white knights that they all are, will save us and “protect our water.” Water issues are brought up so much, with so many twists and half truths that it becomes background noise and is often tuned out by the voters. Still, water in Colorado is a serious issue and needs to be taken seriously. As Tip O’Neal said, “All politics is local,” and there is nothing more local than the water in our streams and homes. Colorado’s political foundation is laid on water....
Pact with California agency would let Vegas 'bank' river water Southern Nevada would get a new water savings account, while California would gain access to more of the Colorado River under an accord approved by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The interstate agreement reached Tuesday seeks to send a portion of Nevada's unused Colorado River water downstream for use by California. In return, Nevada would get credit for the water and the ability to draw it out of Lake Mead at a later date, when the state needs more than the 300,000 acre-feet that make up its annual allocation. Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, called the agreement a "virtual bank" for Nevada and said the state's first deposit of 10,000 acre-feet could come before the end of the year....
State to raise water complaint Montana water rights will draw an international spotlight when a board in Canada next week considers whether the state gets its due from the St. Mary-Milk river system. Claims that too much of the water goes to Alberta and Saskatchewan while neighboring Montana gets short shrift will be taken up by the International Joint Commission, meeting in Ottawa. A 1909 treaty established the IJC, consisting of three members from the United States and three from Canada, to prevent and resolve disputes over waters that the two countries share. Montana officials believe that the state gets less water than it deserves from the system consisting of the St. Mary River, which originates in Glacier National Park and flows into Canada, and the Milk River....
Mystery Oil Spill Stains Wash. State Coast An oil spill stained Tacoma's Commencement Bay and spread to beaches on nearby islands Thursday, polluting an ecologically rich area where grebes, ducks and other birds spend their winters. State Department of Ecology and U.S. Coast Guard officials estimated the spill at 1,000 gallons, Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said. The oil, first reported about 1 a.m. Thursday, spread over five or six miles around the southern tip of Vashon Island north of Tacoma, and tainted nearby Maury Island....
Mad cow petition demands reopening of border to Canadian cattle Two Alberta businessmen, frustrated with the ongoing mad cow border stalemate, delivered a 105,000-name petition to Parliament Hill on Thursday. The paper calls for reopening the Canada-U.S. border to all Canadian cattle. The U.S. closed the border to live cattle last year after a single Alberta cow was found to have mad cow disease. The Liberal government has been pressing the Americans to open the doors again, but Washington has refused. The Open The Border petition includes signatures from hundreds of American farmers who wanted to show solidarity with their suffering Canadian counterparts....
After decades, Western-wear 'trend' holds on to its looks In the old West, cowboy clothes had a purpose: to shield ranch hands from the rigors of their job. Sturdy shirts protected their arms from rope burns, and leather saved their bodies from bruises. In the 1940s, Western wear started seeping into the American fashion culture. More than 60 years later, urban dwellers in Colorado who have never ridden a horse, baled hay or swept a stall sport Western boots and jeans, cowboy shirts and Stetsons....
Permalink 0 comments
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@landrights.org or alra@governance.net
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003
Kerry Named Enemy of Property Rights
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 14, 2003
CONTACT:
Chuck Cushman
(360) 687-3087
League of Private Property Voters Names John Kerry and John Edwards Enemies of Property Rights
(BATTLE GROUND, WA) – The League of Private Property Voters (LPPV) today released an analysis of the votes of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and John Edwards (D-SC) from the Private Property Congressional Vote Index from 1999 through 2003.
Every Senator and Representative who scores at least 80% receives a "Champion" of Private Property Right’s certificate. Every Member who gets 20% or less is rated an "Enemy" of Private Property Rights. Full size examples of actual "Champion" and "Enemy" certificates are printed in each Vote Index.
Senator Kerry achieved a score of “zero” on private property and resource issues all five years. Senator Edwards score was 14% for 2001, 20% for 2002 and “zero” for 2003 the only years he was in the Senate.
Senator Kerry was given the prestigious positioning in the scorecard by having his “Enemy of Property Rights” certificate printed full size inside.
Senator Kerry voted multiple times to stop death tax repeal and against ranchers with grazing permits. He supported stopping Klamath River irrigation, for political speech restrictions, against oil and gas exploration in national monuments, for international court powers, against forest fire protection funding, against the Healthy Forest Act, for a farmland land grab, for a tax break for land trusts, and co-sponsored the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), the largest land grab bill in history.
A greater search of Senator Kerry’s record shows that in the late 90’s he opposed working toward energy independence by opposing drilling in ANWR on the coastal plain of Alaska, opposed the Private Property Rights Implementation Act, opposed RS 2477 Rights-of-way, and opposed sales of excess Federal land.
Senator Edwards opposed repealing the death tax several times, supported environmental pork projects, and a tax break for land trusts. He supported political speech restrictions, opposed oil and gas exploration in national monuments, supported giving an international court powers over US Soldiers and others, and against fire protection funding.
For comparison purposes, President George Bush supported drilling at ANWR on coastal plain of Alaska, supported the Healthy Forest Initiative, supported repealing the death tax, supported exploration for oil and gas in national monuments, was against giving US Sovereignty to international courts, and supported forest fire protection funding.
The League of Private Property Voters is a national non-partisan coalition of over 600 co-sponsoring organizations including the American Land Rights Association, Alliance for America, People for the USA, Blue Ribbon Coalition, American Policy Center, numerous Farm Bureaus, mining, grazing, forestry and agriculture groups as well as most national, regional and local private property, multiple-use and taxpayer organizations.
The 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index is available in both printed form and on our highly regarded landrights.org website.
Go to http://www.landrights.org for the complete 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index including all the individual scores for every Senator and Representative....
Permalink 0 comments
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400 – Battle Ground, WA 98604
Phone: 360-687-3087 – Fax: 360-687-2973
E-mail: alra@landrights.org or alra@governance.net
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE – Washington, DC 20003
Kerry Named Enemy of Property Rights
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 14, 2003
CONTACT:
Chuck Cushman
(360) 687-3087
League of Private Property Voters Names John Kerry and John Edwards Enemies of Property Rights
(BATTLE GROUND, WA) – The League of Private Property Voters (LPPV) today released an analysis of the votes of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and John Edwards (D-SC) from the Private Property Congressional Vote Index from 1999 through 2003.
Every Senator and Representative who scores at least 80% receives a "Champion" of Private Property Right’s certificate. Every Member who gets 20% or less is rated an "Enemy" of Private Property Rights. Full size examples of actual "Champion" and "Enemy" certificates are printed in each Vote Index.
Senator Kerry achieved a score of “zero” on private property and resource issues all five years. Senator Edwards score was 14% for 2001, 20% for 2002 and “zero” for 2003 the only years he was in the Senate.
Senator Kerry was given the prestigious positioning in the scorecard by having his “Enemy of Property Rights” certificate printed full size inside.
Senator Kerry voted multiple times to stop death tax repeal and against ranchers with grazing permits. He supported stopping Klamath River irrigation, for political speech restrictions, against oil and gas exploration in national monuments, for international court powers, against forest fire protection funding, against the Healthy Forest Act, for a farmland land grab, for a tax break for land trusts, and co-sponsored the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), the largest land grab bill in history.
A greater search of Senator Kerry’s record shows that in the late 90’s he opposed working toward energy independence by opposing drilling in ANWR on the coastal plain of Alaska, opposed the Private Property Rights Implementation Act, opposed RS 2477 Rights-of-way, and opposed sales of excess Federal land.
Senator Edwards opposed repealing the death tax several times, supported environmental pork projects, and a tax break for land trusts. He supported political speech restrictions, opposed oil and gas exploration in national monuments, supported giving an international court powers over US Soldiers and others, and against fire protection funding.
For comparison purposes, President George Bush supported drilling at ANWR on coastal plain of Alaska, supported the Healthy Forest Initiative, supported repealing the death tax, supported exploration for oil and gas in national monuments, was against giving US Sovereignty to international courts, and supported forest fire protection funding.
The League of Private Property Voters is a national non-partisan coalition of over 600 co-sponsoring organizations including the American Land Rights Association, Alliance for America, People for the USA, Blue Ribbon Coalition, American Policy Center, numerous Farm Bureaus, mining, grazing, forestry and agriculture groups as well as most national, regional and local private property, multiple-use and taxpayer organizations.
The 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index is available in both printed form and on our highly regarded landrights.org website.
Go to http://www.landrights.org for the complete 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index including all the individual scores for every Senator and Representative....
Permalink 0 comments
Disaster relief approved for farmers hammered by drought, floods
Congress approved $14.4 billion in disaster relief for farmers and others who suffered losses from this year’s hurricanes and for farmers hurt by drought, floods or natural disasters in 2003 or 2004. But the manner in which it was approved and funded created rancor that is sure to pill over onto the campaign trail, especially in races like that between Reps. Charles Stenholm and Randy Neugebauer, who are running for the same congressional seat in the High Plains of Texas. The legislation, which was attached to the annual military construction bill, sends $11.5 billion in aid to businesses, farms, individuals and government installations damaged by hurricanes and storms in Florida and other East Coast states. It also provides $2.9 billion for farmers hurt by droughts, floods and other weather-related problems in other areas....Like the disaster bill passed in 2003, farmers must have lost at least 35 percent of their crop to drought, flood or other natural disaster either in 2003 or 2004. Benefits will be in addition to proceeds from federal crop insurance claims. Funding will be provided through the Crop Disaster Program, Quality Loss Program and Livestock Assistance Program. Growers cannot collect more than 95 percent of what they would have earned from an average crop on the payments, which are expected to being reaching farmers by the end of the year....
Permalink 0 comments
Congress approved $14.4 billion in disaster relief for farmers and others who suffered losses from this year’s hurricanes and for farmers hurt by drought, floods or natural disasters in 2003 or 2004. But the manner in which it was approved and funded created rancor that is sure to pill over onto the campaign trail, especially in races like that between Reps. Charles Stenholm and Randy Neugebauer, who are running for the same congressional seat in the High Plains of Texas. The legislation, which was attached to the annual military construction bill, sends $11.5 billion in aid to businesses, farms, individuals and government installations damaged by hurricanes and storms in Florida and other East Coast states. It also provides $2.9 billion for farmers hurt by droughts, floods and other weather-related problems in other areas....Like the disaster bill passed in 2003, farmers must have lost at least 35 percent of their crop to drought, flood or other natural disaster either in 2003 or 2004. Benefits will be in addition to proceeds from federal crop insurance claims. Funding will be provided through the Crop Disaster Program, Quality Loss Program and Livestock Assistance Program. Growers cannot collect more than 95 percent of what they would have earned from an average crop on the payments, which are expected to being reaching farmers by the end of the year....
Permalink 0 comments
NEWS ROUNDUP
Jumping Frogs: Hopping Into Oblivion? It was a momentous day last December when the children of a California ranching family found a red-legged frog in one of their cow pastures. The three-inch, greenish-brown amphibian is widely considered Mark Twain’s inspiration for “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” and it had been 35 years since the species was last spotted within Calaveras County. Now surviving in scattered areas around California, the red-legged frog was declared threatened in 1996 under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Three years later, environmentalists won a court decision ordering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to draw the required critical habitat boundaries. The resulting effort produced the second-largest critical habitat area ever mapped—4.1 million acres—and since then, the frog has transformed from a treasured icon of Gold Rush California into a symbol of the ongoing fight over federal species protection....
State agencies, conservation groups debate impacts of states’ grizzly management plan Protecting and managing Yellowstone-area grizzly bears will continue long after they are removed from the endangered species list, said Christopher Servheen, a United States Fish and Wildlife biologist in Missoula. “People think that delisting a species means that protection does not exist,” said Servheen, who’s been working with bears in and around Montana for the past 29 years. Servheen supports the proposed 2005 delisting of the population in and around Yellowstone National Park. Critics argue that it’s premature and not enough of the habitat would be protected under the proposed plan....
Group intends to sue USFWS over trout habitat A local environmental group has threatened to sue the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service if it doesn't designate more critical habitat for bull trout in the Northwest. "We're happy not to file (a lawsuit) if they agree to follow the law," said Michael Garrity, director for the Montana-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Jack Tuholske, a Missoula lawyer for Garrity's group and Friends of the Wild Swan, sent the Fish and Wildlife Service a letter last week outlining their intent to file a lawsuit in 60 days, if the recent decision on critical habitat designation wasn't changed....
Frozen DNA may help preserve endangered species If Noah were still around, he'd surely give his blessing to an international science project called the Frozen Ark - an attempt to preserve the DNA of thousands of the world's endangered species before they go extinct. As Noah saved doomed creatures from the biblical flood on his wooden ark, so the scientists' goal is to salvage the rapidly shrinking biological record of life on Earth. In the distant future, they may even try to resurrect vanished creatures. DNA, the genetic code for building all living things, theoretically could be used to reconstruct a simple animal like a beetle or a jellyfish, but likely not a ``Jurassic Park''-style dinosaur....
Life under one tree's rule? Now, Whitham and colleagues in the US, Canada, and Australia are on the trail of a more ambitious proposition - that a gene or a set of genes from a single species can lay the foundation for an entire ecosystem. That idea borders on heresy for many biologists, who argue that any one gene plays only a small role in the complex interactions of ecosystems. But if the researchers are right, then the genetic diversity of one dominant species can have a huge impact on the biological riches of its surroundings. And conservationists may have to take a new look at everything from preserving endangered species to evaluating the effects of genetically modified crops. The test subjects for the theory: cottonwoods in the American West. Previous experiments by Whitham and his collaborators suggested that a single cottonwood gene could influence thousands of organisms in the larger ecosystem....
Habitat proposal deemed critical for bird's survival Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday proposed to designate more than 100 miles of creek-side forests in San Bernardino County as land critical for the survival of an endangered bird. Such a critical habitat designation, if finalized, could restrict activities on the heavily used waterways, which include the Santa Ana River, to protect nesting and breeding grounds for the southwestern willow flycatcher....
Tests on Flats deer show little radiation Tests on deer culled at Rocky Flats show scant uptake of radioactive materials into the animals' bodies, preliminary tests show. The finding supports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans to allow limited hunting on the property when it becomes a wildlife refuge. All but about 1,000 acres of the roughly 6,300-acre site of a former nuclear-weapons plant will be turned over to the Wildlife Service to create the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge....
BLM and States Develop Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategies The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is collaborating with state wildlife management agencies to create the first nationwide approach to wildlife management. Under legislation passed by Congress in 2001, all states and six U.S. territories must complete comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies for species found within their borders in order to remain eligible for Federal funding through the State Wildlife Grant (SWG) program. The legislation directs states to gather input for their plans from Federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, conservation groups and other state agencies. The BLM is working at both the national and State Office levels to make recommendations on species and habitats that should be addressed in each plan, to identify threats to these species and habitats, and to recommend conservation actions....
Park Service Sticks With Biblical Explanation For Grand Canyon The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite telling members of Congress and the public that the legality and appropriateness of the National Park Service offering a creationist book for sale at Grand Canyon museums and bookstores was “under review at the national level by several offices,” no such review took place, according to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the real agency position was expressed by NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy as quoted in the Baptist Press News: “Now that the book has become quite popular, we don’t want to remove it.”....
Running on regulation? In the mid-1990s when Republicans in Congress were pushing to make regulations harder to enact, consumer, labor and environmental groups sought an ally committed to government oversight and capable of grasping the complexity of the rules. Their choice was John Kerry. Since coming to Congress in 1985, Kerry had advocated the stricter regulatory agenda that liberal groups say will protect consumers, workers and the environment but that businesses charge hurt the economy. Now as Kerry runs for president, many close advisers come from those special-interest groups, and his platform supports some of their causes....
Military tries to exempt acres from environmental laws When soldiers from the Army National Guard show up here for artillery training, they fire their howitzers indoors — on simulators. The EPA ordered a halt to live artillery training at Edwards in 1997 because munitions chemicals were leaching toward the aquifer that provides drinking water for all of Cape Cod — more than 500,000 people in summer. Now the restrictions here are the Pentagon's Exhibit A in a controversial campaign for legislation that would exempt more than 20 million acres of military land from key facets of the Clean Air Act and the two federal laws governing hazardous-waste disposal and cleanup....
States, government agree on Klamath Basin The Bush administration and the governors of California and Oregon said Wednesday they have agreed to work together to resolve water issues in the drought-starved Klamath Basin. The new Klamath River Watershed Coordination Agreement expands on a 2½-year-old effort among federal agencies that deal with Klamath issues. A Cabinet-level working group, headed by Norton, includes representatives of the Interior, Commerce and Agriculture departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaders of all four agencies have pledged to work together to ensure that farmers in the Klamath Basin have access to sufficient water, while complying with Indian trust obligations and protecting salmon and other threatened fish....
Fla. Steps In to Speed Up State-Federal Everglades Cleanup Florida Gov. Jeb Bush plans to announce an ambitious plan Thursday to accelerate the flagging $8 billion effort to restore the Everglades ecosystem, shifting a great deal of power over the largest environmental initiative in history from his brother's federal government to his own state government three weeks before Election Day. Gov. Bush's plan -- dubbed "Acceler8" because it aims to complete eight major projects to expand water storage, improve water quality and restore water flows by 2010 -- would speed up the current 30-year effort to revive South Florida's subtropical wilderness while enhancing flood control and water supply for cities and farms....
Valuable Willamette Valley wetlands get protection A $1.4 million, 165-acre conservation easement purchase will safeguard valuable Willamette Valley wetland habitat forever. The agreement is between the Bonneville Power Administration and The Nature Conservancy. The cooperative effort also includes the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the City of Eugene. BPA purchased a conservation easement on four properties totaling 165 acres just west of Eugene, Ore. The acquired lands will become part of the West Eugene Wetlands/Willow Creek Wildlife Mitigation Area, which includes an existing 340 acres for a total of 505 acres of protected wetland managed by The Nature Conservancy....
Wind farm attorneys fight lawsuit 'filed by' animals The motion came in response to the complaint by the plaintiffs - Robert Bittner, a bald eagle, an Indiana bat, a northern harrier and numerous migratory birds - that the 33-turbine wind energy project will violate several endangered species acts and has been misrepresented to the public as environmentally sound. The second motion, to be filed today, hinges on plaintiffs' attorney Geoffrey Baker's legal standing to practice law in the state. Michael Blazer, an attorney representing the $60 million Crescent Ridge project already under construction southeast of Tiskilwa, argued the non-human plaintiffs have no standing to file suit....
Senate approves conservation funding fix Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) joined with Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) to sponsor and obtain Senate approval of a bill that aims to correct the way USDA manages technical assistance for farm bill conservation programs. They say the bill would achieve the intended effect of the 2002 Farm Bill, which was to provide funding for conservation technical assistance directly from the funding provided in the farm bill for each of the programs. Over the past two years, Harkin says, the Bush administration and USDA have denied farmers, ranchers and landowners more than $200 million in conservation funds provided in the farm bill for specific programs because the funds were transferred to pay for technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)....
'Will Rogers' filled with humor, inspiration With the nation in the middle of a presidential election that is as vicious and polarizing as any in living memory, America needs Will Rogers. With the two political parties tearing each other to pieces, America needs the common sense and smart humor of Will Rogers, the cowboy philosopher whose comic wisdom helped the country weather the worst years of the Depression. Rogers died in a tragic air crash in 1935, but his memory is so precious, his laughter, at Congress and presidents and human foibles, so strong and honest that it still lives....
Permalink 0 comments
Jumping Frogs: Hopping Into Oblivion? It was a momentous day last December when the children of a California ranching family found a red-legged frog in one of their cow pastures. The three-inch, greenish-brown amphibian is widely considered Mark Twain’s inspiration for “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” and it had been 35 years since the species was last spotted within Calaveras County. Now surviving in scattered areas around California, the red-legged frog was declared threatened in 1996 under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Three years later, environmentalists won a court decision ordering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to draw the required critical habitat boundaries. The resulting effort produced the second-largest critical habitat area ever mapped—4.1 million acres—and since then, the frog has transformed from a treasured icon of Gold Rush California into a symbol of the ongoing fight over federal species protection....
State agencies, conservation groups debate impacts of states’ grizzly management plan Protecting and managing Yellowstone-area grizzly bears will continue long after they are removed from the endangered species list, said Christopher Servheen, a United States Fish and Wildlife biologist in Missoula. “People think that delisting a species means that protection does not exist,” said Servheen, who’s been working with bears in and around Montana for the past 29 years. Servheen supports the proposed 2005 delisting of the population in and around Yellowstone National Park. Critics argue that it’s premature and not enough of the habitat would be protected under the proposed plan....
Group intends to sue USFWS over trout habitat A local environmental group has threatened to sue the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service if it doesn't designate more critical habitat for bull trout in the Northwest. "We're happy not to file (a lawsuit) if they agree to follow the law," said Michael Garrity, director for the Montana-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Jack Tuholske, a Missoula lawyer for Garrity's group and Friends of the Wild Swan, sent the Fish and Wildlife Service a letter last week outlining their intent to file a lawsuit in 60 days, if the recent decision on critical habitat designation wasn't changed....
Frozen DNA may help preserve endangered species If Noah were still around, he'd surely give his blessing to an international science project called the Frozen Ark - an attempt to preserve the DNA of thousands of the world's endangered species before they go extinct. As Noah saved doomed creatures from the biblical flood on his wooden ark, so the scientists' goal is to salvage the rapidly shrinking biological record of life on Earth. In the distant future, they may even try to resurrect vanished creatures. DNA, the genetic code for building all living things, theoretically could be used to reconstruct a simple animal like a beetle or a jellyfish, but likely not a ``Jurassic Park''-style dinosaur....
Life under one tree's rule? Now, Whitham and colleagues in the US, Canada, and Australia are on the trail of a more ambitious proposition - that a gene or a set of genes from a single species can lay the foundation for an entire ecosystem. That idea borders on heresy for many biologists, who argue that any one gene plays only a small role in the complex interactions of ecosystems. But if the researchers are right, then the genetic diversity of one dominant species can have a huge impact on the biological riches of its surroundings. And conservationists may have to take a new look at everything from preserving endangered species to evaluating the effects of genetically modified crops. The test subjects for the theory: cottonwoods in the American West. Previous experiments by Whitham and his collaborators suggested that a single cottonwood gene could influence thousands of organisms in the larger ecosystem....
Habitat proposal deemed critical for bird's survival Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday proposed to designate more than 100 miles of creek-side forests in San Bernardino County as land critical for the survival of an endangered bird. Such a critical habitat designation, if finalized, could restrict activities on the heavily used waterways, which include the Santa Ana River, to protect nesting and breeding grounds for the southwestern willow flycatcher....
Tests on Flats deer show little radiation Tests on deer culled at Rocky Flats show scant uptake of radioactive materials into the animals' bodies, preliminary tests show. The finding supports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plans to allow limited hunting on the property when it becomes a wildlife refuge. All but about 1,000 acres of the roughly 6,300-acre site of a former nuclear-weapons plant will be turned over to the Wildlife Service to create the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge....
BLM and States Develop Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategies The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is collaborating with state wildlife management agencies to create the first nationwide approach to wildlife management. Under legislation passed by Congress in 2001, all states and six U.S. territories must complete comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies for species found within their borders in order to remain eligible for Federal funding through the State Wildlife Grant (SWG) program. The legislation directs states to gather input for their plans from Federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, conservation groups and other state agencies. The BLM is working at both the national and State Office levels to make recommendations on species and habitats that should be addressed in each plan, to identify threats to these species and habitats, and to recommend conservation actions....
Park Service Sticks With Biblical Explanation For Grand Canyon The Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite telling members of Congress and the public that the legality and appropriateness of the National Park Service offering a creationist book for sale at Grand Canyon museums and bookstores was “under review at the national level by several offices,” no such review took place, according to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the real agency position was expressed by NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy as quoted in the Baptist Press News: “Now that the book has become quite popular, we don’t want to remove it.”....
Running on regulation? In the mid-1990s when Republicans in Congress were pushing to make regulations harder to enact, consumer, labor and environmental groups sought an ally committed to government oversight and capable of grasping the complexity of the rules. Their choice was John Kerry. Since coming to Congress in 1985, Kerry had advocated the stricter regulatory agenda that liberal groups say will protect consumers, workers and the environment but that businesses charge hurt the economy. Now as Kerry runs for president, many close advisers come from those special-interest groups, and his platform supports some of their causes....
Military tries to exempt acres from environmental laws When soldiers from the Army National Guard show up here for artillery training, they fire their howitzers indoors — on simulators. The EPA ordered a halt to live artillery training at Edwards in 1997 because munitions chemicals were leaching toward the aquifer that provides drinking water for all of Cape Cod — more than 500,000 people in summer. Now the restrictions here are the Pentagon's Exhibit A in a controversial campaign for legislation that would exempt more than 20 million acres of military land from key facets of the Clean Air Act and the two federal laws governing hazardous-waste disposal and cleanup....
States, government agree on Klamath Basin The Bush administration and the governors of California and Oregon said Wednesday they have agreed to work together to resolve water issues in the drought-starved Klamath Basin. The new Klamath River Watershed Coordination Agreement expands on a 2½-year-old effort among federal agencies that deal with Klamath issues. A Cabinet-level working group, headed by Norton, includes representatives of the Interior, Commerce and Agriculture departments, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. Leaders of all four agencies have pledged to work together to ensure that farmers in the Klamath Basin have access to sufficient water, while complying with Indian trust obligations and protecting salmon and other threatened fish....
Fla. Steps In to Speed Up State-Federal Everglades Cleanup Florida Gov. Jeb Bush plans to announce an ambitious plan Thursday to accelerate the flagging $8 billion effort to restore the Everglades ecosystem, shifting a great deal of power over the largest environmental initiative in history from his brother's federal government to his own state government three weeks before Election Day. Gov. Bush's plan -- dubbed "Acceler8" because it aims to complete eight major projects to expand water storage, improve water quality and restore water flows by 2010 -- would speed up the current 30-year effort to revive South Florida's subtropical wilderness while enhancing flood control and water supply for cities and farms....
Valuable Willamette Valley wetlands get protection A $1.4 million, 165-acre conservation easement purchase will safeguard valuable Willamette Valley wetland habitat forever. The agreement is between the Bonneville Power Administration and The Nature Conservancy. The cooperative effort also includes the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and the City of Eugene. BPA purchased a conservation easement on four properties totaling 165 acres just west of Eugene, Ore. The acquired lands will become part of the West Eugene Wetlands/Willow Creek Wildlife Mitigation Area, which includes an existing 340 acres for a total of 505 acres of protected wetland managed by The Nature Conservancy....
Wind farm attorneys fight lawsuit 'filed by' animals The motion came in response to the complaint by the plaintiffs - Robert Bittner, a bald eagle, an Indiana bat, a northern harrier and numerous migratory birds - that the 33-turbine wind energy project will violate several endangered species acts and has been misrepresented to the public as environmentally sound. The second motion, to be filed today, hinges on plaintiffs' attorney Geoffrey Baker's legal standing to practice law in the state. Michael Blazer, an attorney representing the $60 million Crescent Ridge project already under construction southeast of Tiskilwa, argued the non-human plaintiffs have no standing to file suit....
Senate approves conservation funding fix Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) joined with Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) to sponsor and obtain Senate approval of a bill that aims to correct the way USDA manages technical assistance for farm bill conservation programs. They say the bill would achieve the intended effect of the 2002 Farm Bill, which was to provide funding for conservation technical assistance directly from the funding provided in the farm bill for each of the programs. Over the past two years, Harkin says, the Bush administration and USDA have denied farmers, ranchers and landowners more than $200 million in conservation funds provided in the farm bill for specific programs because the funds were transferred to pay for technical assistance for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)....
'Will Rogers' filled with humor, inspiration With the nation in the middle of a presidential election that is as vicious and polarizing as any in living memory, America needs Will Rogers. With the two political parties tearing each other to pieces, America needs the common sense and smart humor of Will Rogers, the cowboy philosopher whose comic wisdom helped the country weather the worst years of the Depression. Rogers died in a tragic air crash in 1935, but his memory is so precious, his laughter, at Congress and presidents and human foibles, so strong and honest that it still lives....
Permalink 0 comments
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Daschle pleased with timber sales Timber sales are up in the Black Hills National Forest, and Sen. Tom Daschle has urged the U.S. Forest Service to continue the trend. "On balance, going from zero in 2001 to over 65 million board feet in 2004 is extremely good news," Daschle wrote in a letter Tuesday to Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth. Daschle also told Bosworth he expects even more timber sales next year. "The Forest Service must continue to work to ensure 70 million board feet in 2005 and sufficient sale volumes to sustain the timber industry in South Dakota in the future," he wrote....Looks like every six years SD has a great senator ....
Column: Bush Bites the Biscuit In the summer of 2002, dry lightning touched off several fires in the middle of the Siskiyou Wildlands. One point of ignition was a pillow of uplifted peridotite rock that the early miners had named Biscuit Mountain for its shape. Those fellows must have had breakfast on their minds -- Sourdough camp is nearby. It was mid July and hot. The call went out for air tankers to get a jump on the situation, but none were to be had. A strong, hot wind rose up from the east. The fire blew up and local residents saw a pillar of smoke that turned into a mushroom cloud as the fire roared through the steep Siskiyou canyons. Nothing could put this fire out but Nature herself. When the rains finally arrived in October, the fire perimeter had grown to 500,000 acres....
Estimates say shared control of Bison Range may be cheaper It will be much cheaper than previously thought to begin shared tribal-federal management of the National Bison Range, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a letter released Tuesday. And the annual funding agreement between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and USFWS for bison range management could actually save the government money over five years, the agency said. The agency now says it will cost the government only an additional $23,000 for the first year of the annual funding agreement, a much lower estimated cost than the $300,000 to $500,000 made by USFWS regional director Richard Coleman at public meetings in September in Polson and Missoula....
Researchers to study decline in Yellowstone cutthroat Researchers from the University of Wyoming are trying to determine why the cutthroat trout population in Yellowstone National Park continues to decline and what steps can be taken to preserve the native fish. Cutthroat in Yellowstone Lake, which harbors about 80 percent of the remaining Yellowstone cutthroat population, have been hit hard by whirling disease, predation by nonnative lake trout and the ongoing drought, which cuts migration from streams to the lake....
Parrot falls prey to bobcat For 10 years, Shirley the parrot was the life of her back yard, fluttering from her perch squawking "love love" and "bark the dog." Now she's a pile of scattered feathers, a victim of an apparent bobcat along a street plastered with missing-pet signs. "Bobcats or coyotes will take anything they can," said Lt. Martin Wall, patrol officer for the state Department of Fish and Game in Los Angeles County....
Democrats fuming over GOP mailing In a taxpayer-financed mailing to 166,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin snowmobile owners last week, House Republicans touted their efforts with President Bush to protect access to Yellowstone National Park. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., of the House Resources Committee, authorized the expenditure of $68,081 for the full-color mailing as official business, panel spokesman Brian Kennedy said Tuesday. He said the mailing also went to 9,658 snowmobilers in Montana and Wyoming....
Editorial: Uncle Sam's expanding lands Leave it to the barons at the Bureau of Land Management to foul up some perfectly good legislation. Nevada's lawmakers had introduced a bill to reconfigure vast areas of federal land in Lincoln County. The bill offered two immediate benefits: the designation of a utility corridor to allow the construction of a groundwater pipeline from rural counties to the thirsty Las Vegas Valley, and the release of some 90,000 acres for sale to the public. Alas, the pot wasn't sweet enough for the BLM. The bill set aside only half the proceeds from land sales for the agency's use on Nevada projects. Lincoln County would have received 45 percent, and the other 5 percent would have gone into the state's interest-earning education account. A revised bill, passed by the Senate on Sunday, keeps the key components intact, but ups the BLM's revenue share to 85 percent -- Lincoln County would garner only a paltry 10 percent. What will the BLM do with much of this windfall? Why, it will buy more Nevada land deemed "environmentally sensitive" and worthy of protection from private development, of course -- forever removing it from county tax rolls....
Editorial: Big-Oil Blather Kicking Halliburton and ExxonMobil while touting alternative-fuel miracles may net some votes. But all this hot air won't bring gas prices down. With demand high and supplies tight, it strikes us as ironic that some politicians would demonize the very people who are trying to get more fuel to U.S. businesses and consumers. Rather than slam oil companies, a responsible leader at a time of high demand and high prices would be calling for more supply — that is, letting those companies do their job. Bush has done that, to the extent Congress has allowed. For that, Kerry attacks him....
Judge rejects environmentalists' bid to halt Trinity County mine A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an emergency petition from environmental groups to stop an exploratory one-acre mining pit near a popular Trinity County creek west of Weaverville. A meeting Monday between nearby residents and operators of mining company Master Petroleum Inc. proved fruitless as well. Residents and the environmental groups said they will drop their efforts to block the test pit, which is the first step in a large proposal for 23 acres of open pit mines near Canyon Creek, along the main entrance to the Trinity Alps Wilderness....
Caucus backs U.S. Mining Law reform The new Congressional Reid-Gibbons Mining Law Technical Committee, which aims to chart the future of exploration on U.S. public lands, has received critical endorsements from western lawmakers. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), and members of the House Western Caucus have all expressed their strong support for what will probably emerge as a revision of the 1872 Mining Law. What originally began as a controversial committee in mining circles is now gaining acceptance within the industry....
Gravel-mine foes pursue buyout, despite price tag While waiting for a key legal decision, opponents of a proposed gravel-barging operation on Maury Island still hope to resolve the battle with a buyout of the 235-acre mining site. The King County and federal governments have pooled $8 million for a possible deal, and the Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved legislation from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would add an additional $2 million. The pending appropriation, which has not been passed by the full Senate, would double the $2 million approved by Congress last year....
Eco-terrorism Scare The FBI is trying to determine if a radical environmental activist group is responsible for a massive disruption on the Schuylkill Expressway. The problems started yesterday when a suspicious device was found along the Belmont Avenue off-ramp. During Monday's rush hour, authorities cut off all traffic between Belmont and the Blue Route because a suspicious metal box was found attached to a PECO high tension line. The FBI is still trying to determine whether the box, with the letters ELF on it, was left by a radical environmental group called the Earth Liberation Front....
Environment worsened under Bush in many key areas, data show Over the past 30 years, the nation's air and water have become dramatically cleaner, but the steady improvement has stalled or gone into reverse in several areas since Bush took office, according to government statistics. On Bush's watch, America's environment deteriorated in many critical areas - including the quality of air in cities and the quality of water that people drink - and gained in very few. Knight Ridder compiled 14 pollution-oriented indicators from government and university statistics. Nine of the 14 indicators showed a worsening trend, two showed improvements and three others zigzagged....
Water rights holders face new fee hikes The illegal imposition of so-called "fees" on those California landowners and agencies holding water rights continues. The State Water Resources Control Board has issued an emergency regulation that includes a new schedule of fees for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which started July 1. This action follows similar rulemaking last December that set a fee schedule for the second half of the 2003-04 fiscal year, which ended June 30. The new schedule adopted for 2004-05 imposes a $100 minimum annual fee on each water-rights permit or license, plus an additional fee of 2.5 cents per acre-foot in excess of 10 acre-feet....
Mysterious animal puzzles experts Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year. "What is that?" are the first words out of anyone's mouth when shown photos of the animal, according to Stacy Womack. The animal's blue-grey skin is almost hairless and appears to be covered with mange. A closer look at the animal's jaw line reveals a serious overbite and four huge canine teeth, and a long, rat-like tail curls behind the animal's emaciated frame. The animal was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday after crawling under her mother's house in Pollok....
Japan's may extend ban on U.S. beef Japan is unlikely to resume U.S. beef imports this year because of objections from the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to a report published Wednesday. Japan's Agriculture and Health ministries have proposed exempting cattle younger than 21 months from testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - "mad cow disease" -- because, according to the ministries, young cattle rarely test positive, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. According to the report, the ministries had intended to ask Japan's Food Safety Commission to deliberate on their proposal as early as Wednesday, after receiving the endorsement of the governing Liberal Democratic Party....
Rodeo Notes For the first time in the Professional Bull Riders' 12-year history, three brothers have qualified for the association's World Finals. They are 2004 world title race leader Adriano Moraes, Allan Moraes and Andre Moraes. The brothers are natives of Brazil and live in Keller when they are competing in North America. They are among 45 qualifiers who advanced to the association's World Finals when the season concluded last weekend at a Columbus, Ohio, tour stop. The championships are scheduled Oct. 22-24 and Oct. 28-31 in Las Vegas....
Henry N. 'Tommy' Vaden, fiddler, dies at 79 Heartbreak led Henry Newton ''Tommy'' Vaden to put his fiddle away on Dec. 20, 1999. That's the day his longtime friend, boss and musical crony Hank Snow — whose sound he is credited with helping to create — died. He was 79. ''He hadn't played since Hank Snow died,'' remembered his daughter-in-law, Mary Jane Vaden yesterday. ''He never wanted to play again. His last time on the Opry was with Hank. He just didn't have the heart after he died.'' A longtime member of Snow's band, Mr. Vaden died Monday at Beverly Health Care in Springfield after a long battle with prostate cancer....
City cattle drive finds coverage If Mayor "Wild" Bill Smith gets knocked out of his saddle during Friday's downtown cattle drive, at least he won't have to pay for the splint. After two weeks of trying, organizers of the River City Roundup have finally managed to line up insurance coverage for the event. It wasn't easy. Susan O'Connor, general manager of Friends of Pro Rodeo and one of the drive organizers, said they first got in touch with the city's risk management office. "They hooked us up with one underwriter out of Toronto who said they could do it for a $13,000 premium, 24 hours of coverage," she said. "That's, what, $500 an hour?....
Permalink 0 comments
Daschle pleased with timber sales Timber sales are up in the Black Hills National Forest, and Sen. Tom Daschle has urged the U.S. Forest Service to continue the trend. "On balance, going from zero in 2001 to over 65 million board feet in 2004 is extremely good news," Daschle wrote in a letter Tuesday to Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth. Daschle also told Bosworth he expects even more timber sales next year. "The Forest Service must continue to work to ensure 70 million board feet in 2005 and sufficient sale volumes to sustain the timber industry in South Dakota in the future," he wrote....Looks like every six years SD has a great senator ....
Column: Bush Bites the Biscuit In the summer of 2002, dry lightning touched off several fires in the middle of the Siskiyou Wildlands. One point of ignition was a pillow of uplifted peridotite rock that the early miners had named Biscuit Mountain for its shape. Those fellows must have had breakfast on their minds -- Sourdough camp is nearby. It was mid July and hot. The call went out for air tankers to get a jump on the situation, but none were to be had. A strong, hot wind rose up from the east. The fire blew up and local residents saw a pillar of smoke that turned into a mushroom cloud as the fire roared through the steep Siskiyou canyons. Nothing could put this fire out but Nature herself. When the rains finally arrived in October, the fire perimeter had grown to 500,000 acres....
Estimates say shared control of Bison Range may be cheaper It will be much cheaper than previously thought to begin shared tribal-federal management of the National Bison Range, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a letter released Tuesday. And the annual funding agreement between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and USFWS for bison range management could actually save the government money over five years, the agency said. The agency now says it will cost the government only an additional $23,000 for the first year of the annual funding agreement, a much lower estimated cost than the $300,000 to $500,000 made by USFWS regional director Richard Coleman at public meetings in September in Polson and Missoula....
Researchers to study decline in Yellowstone cutthroat Researchers from the University of Wyoming are trying to determine why the cutthroat trout population in Yellowstone National Park continues to decline and what steps can be taken to preserve the native fish. Cutthroat in Yellowstone Lake, which harbors about 80 percent of the remaining Yellowstone cutthroat population, have been hit hard by whirling disease, predation by nonnative lake trout and the ongoing drought, which cuts migration from streams to the lake....
Parrot falls prey to bobcat For 10 years, Shirley the parrot was the life of her back yard, fluttering from her perch squawking "love love" and "bark the dog." Now she's a pile of scattered feathers, a victim of an apparent bobcat along a street plastered with missing-pet signs. "Bobcats or coyotes will take anything they can," said Lt. Martin Wall, patrol officer for the state Department of Fish and Game in Los Angeles County....
Democrats fuming over GOP mailing In a taxpayer-financed mailing to 166,000 Minnesota and Wisconsin snowmobile owners last week, House Republicans touted their efforts with President Bush to protect access to Yellowstone National Park. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., of the House Resources Committee, authorized the expenditure of $68,081 for the full-color mailing as official business, panel spokesman Brian Kennedy said Tuesday. He said the mailing also went to 9,658 snowmobilers in Montana and Wyoming....
Editorial: Uncle Sam's expanding lands Leave it to the barons at the Bureau of Land Management to foul up some perfectly good legislation. Nevada's lawmakers had introduced a bill to reconfigure vast areas of federal land in Lincoln County. The bill offered two immediate benefits: the designation of a utility corridor to allow the construction of a groundwater pipeline from rural counties to the thirsty Las Vegas Valley, and the release of some 90,000 acres for sale to the public. Alas, the pot wasn't sweet enough for the BLM. The bill set aside only half the proceeds from land sales for the agency's use on Nevada projects. Lincoln County would have received 45 percent, and the other 5 percent would have gone into the state's interest-earning education account. A revised bill, passed by the Senate on Sunday, keeps the key components intact, but ups the BLM's revenue share to 85 percent -- Lincoln County would garner only a paltry 10 percent. What will the BLM do with much of this windfall? Why, it will buy more Nevada land deemed "environmentally sensitive" and worthy of protection from private development, of course -- forever removing it from county tax rolls....
Editorial: Big-Oil Blather Kicking Halliburton and ExxonMobil while touting alternative-fuel miracles may net some votes. But all this hot air won't bring gas prices down. With demand high and supplies tight, it strikes us as ironic that some politicians would demonize the very people who are trying to get more fuel to U.S. businesses and consumers. Rather than slam oil companies, a responsible leader at a time of high demand and high prices would be calling for more supply — that is, letting those companies do their job. Bush has done that, to the extent Congress has allowed. For that, Kerry attacks him....
Judge rejects environmentalists' bid to halt Trinity County mine A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an emergency petition from environmental groups to stop an exploratory one-acre mining pit near a popular Trinity County creek west of Weaverville. A meeting Monday between nearby residents and operators of mining company Master Petroleum Inc. proved fruitless as well. Residents and the environmental groups said they will drop their efforts to block the test pit, which is the first step in a large proposal for 23 acres of open pit mines near Canyon Creek, along the main entrance to the Trinity Alps Wilderness....
Caucus backs U.S. Mining Law reform The new Congressional Reid-Gibbons Mining Law Technical Committee, which aims to chart the future of exploration on U.S. public lands, has received critical endorsements from western lawmakers. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), and members of the House Western Caucus have all expressed their strong support for what will probably emerge as a revision of the 1872 Mining Law. What originally began as a controversial committee in mining circles is now gaining acceptance within the industry....
Gravel-mine foes pursue buyout, despite price tag While waiting for a key legal decision, opponents of a proposed gravel-barging operation on Maury Island still hope to resolve the battle with a buyout of the 235-acre mining site. The King County and federal governments have pooled $8 million for a possible deal, and the Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved legislation from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would add an additional $2 million. The pending appropriation, which has not been passed by the full Senate, would double the $2 million approved by Congress last year....
Eco-terrorism Scare The FBI is trying to determine if a radical environmental activist group is responsible for a massive disruption on the Schuylkill Expressway. The problems started yesterday when a suspicious device was found along the Belmont Avenue off-ramp. During Monday's rush hour, authorities cut off all traffic between Belmont and the Blue Route because a suspicious metal box was found attached to a PECO high tension line. The FBI is still trying to determine whether the box, with the letters ELF on it, was left by a radical environmental group called the Earth Liberation Front....
Environment worsened under Bush in many key areas, data show Over the past 30 years, the nation's air and water have become dramatically cleaner, but the steady improvement has stalled or gone into reverse in several areas since Bush took office, according to government statistics. On Bush's watch, America's environment deteriorated in many critical areas - including the quality of air in cities and the quality of water that people drink - and gained in very few. Knight Ridder compiled 14 pollution-oriented indicators from government and university statistics. Nine of the 14 indicators showed a worsening trend, two showed improvements and three others zigzagged....
Water rights holders face new fee hikes The illegal imposition of so-called "fees" on those California landowners and agencies holding water rights continues. The State Water Resources Control Board has issued an emergency regulation that includes a new schedule of fees for the 2004-05 fiscal year, which started July 1. This action follows similar rulemaking last December that set a fee schedule for the second half of the 2003-04 fiscal year, which ended June 30. The new schedule adopted for 2004-05 imposes a $100 minimum annual fee on each water-rights permit or license, plus an additional fee of 2.5 cents per acre-foot in excess of 10 acre-feet....
Mysterious animal puzzles experts Local animal experts are having a hard time identifying a strange looking animal killed in Angelina County on Friday -- an animal that looks eerily similar to the as yet unidentified "Elmendorf Beast" killed near San Antonio earlier this year. "What is that?" are the first words out of anyone's mouth when shown photos of the animal, according to Stacy Womack. The animal's blue-grey skin is almost hairless and appears to be covered with mange. A closer look at the animal's jaw line reveals a serious overbite and four huge canine teeth, and a long, rat-like tail curls behind the animal's emaciated frame. The animal was shot and killed shortly before noon Friday after crawling under her mother's house in Pollok....
Japan's may extend ban on U.S. beef Japan is unlikely to resume U.S. beef imports this year because of objections from the country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, according to a report published Wednesday. Japan's Agriculture and Health ministries have proposed exempting cattle younger than 21 months from testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - "mad cow disease" -- because, according to the ministries, young cattle rarely test positive, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. According to the report, the ministries had intended to ask Japan's Food Safety Commission to deliberate on their proposal as early as Wednesday, after receiving the endorsement of the governing Liberal Democratic Party....
Rodeo Notes For the first time in the Professional Bull Riders' 12-year history, three brothers have qualified for the association's World Finals. They are 2004 world title race leader Adriano Moraes, Allan Moraes and Andre Moraes. The brothers are natives of Brazil and live in Keller when they are competing in North America. They are among 45 qualifiers who advanced to the association's World Finals when the season concluded last weekend at a Columbus, Ohio, tour stop. The championships are scheduled Oct. 22-24 and Oct. 28-31 in Las Vegas....
Henry N. 'Tommy' Vaden, fiddler, dies at 79 Heartbreak led Henry Newton ''Tommy'' Vaden to put his fiddle away on Dec. 20, 1999. That's the day his longtime friend, boss and musical crony Hank Snow — whose sound he is credited with helping to create — died. He was 79. ''He hadn't played since Hank Snow died,'' remembered his daughter-in-law, Mary Jane Vaden yesterday. ''He never wanted to play again. His last time on the Opry was with Hank. He just didn't have the heart after he died.'' A longtime member of Snow's band, Mr. Vaden died Monday at Beverly Health Care in Springfield after a long battle with prostate cancer....
City cattle drive finds coverage If Mayor "Wild" Bill Smith gets knocked out of his saddle during Friday's downtown cattle drive, at least he won't have to pay for the splint. After two weeks of trying, organizers of the River City Roundup have finally managed to line up insurance coverage for the event. It wasn't easy. Susan O'Connor, general manager of Friends of Pro Rodeo and one of the drive organizers, said they first got in touch with the city's risk management office. "They hooked us up with one underwriter out of Toronto who said they could do it for a $13,000 premium, 24 hours of coverage," she said. "That's, what, $500 an hour?....
Permalink 0 comments
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Congressmen want to tax federal government on public land to fund schools Blaming the federal government for meager education funding in Western states, two congressional Republicans on Monday announced an ambitious plan to levy taxes on the vast landholdings the federal government has across 12 states. U.S. Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop said the government has broken a promise to the states by failing to sell the land it now manages - some of which is environmentally protected. The two say that if the government is going to keep the land instead of selling it, it owes states a one-time payment amounting to 5 percent of its value and should pay yearly taxes on the land. The one-time payment in Utah would net $836 million, and across all 12 states would amount to billions of dollars. The annual property taxes would total $116 million here and anywhere from $26 million to $782 million in the other 11 states outlined in literature. Nine Western states have passed resolutions calling for the government to start paying taxes on the land it owns, but Cannon said he believes this is the first official crack at it in Congress....
Relocation of elk planned for Rogue Valley These "urban elk" have become common sights in the Rogue Valley, where residents often marvel at seeing Oregon's largest big-game animal stroll across the road or lounge in a nearby field. But they feast on expensive pears, damage trees and tromp fences. "Elk are absolute pests," said Scott Cully, one of two orchard directors for Bear Creek Corp. "Two years ago, it was estimated that we lost 100 tons of pears." In most damage cases, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife issues permits to hunt problem elk, said agency wildlife biologist Mark Vargas. But many landowners in these areas do not allow hunting on their property, Vargas said....
U.S. Senate passes Highlands Conservation Act The U.S. Senate has passed the $100 million Highlands Conservation Act, which dedicates open space in New Jersey and neighboring states. The act was passed unanimously Sunday night _ the bill now goes to the House. The bill authorizes $100 million in spending over 10 years for open space purchases in the Highlands region that stretches from Pennsylvania and New Jersey through New York and Connecticut. An additional $1 million annually was authorized for planning assistance from the U.S. Forest Service....
Land purchase plan wins some, loses some in gorge Last June, Dave Cannard finally prevailed in his eight-year campaign to secure public ownership of Pioneer Point, a promontory above the Columbia River, when the Forest Service bought his 68 acres atop a sheer cliff northeast of Cape Horn for $740,000. But Pioneer Point, with its million-dollar view from 1,200 feet above the river, may be one of the Forest Service's last major land purchases in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area for the foreseeable future. A sharp cutback in funding from Congress has put several high-priority gorge properties at risk of development....
Column: How Welfare Ranchers and Their Livestock Are Damaging Public Land Twenty years ago, much of the public land around the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona resembled the barren and desolate landscape found in a Sub-Saharan desert. For years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had granted grazing permits to ranchers for thousands of acres of fragile land along the San Pedro. At any given time 10,000 cows were grazing in the area, trampling the river's banks and causing it to widen out and become precariously shallow. The cows also devoured native grasses and shrubs near the river, transforming the once-healthy landscape to little more than a vista of dry earth, lumps of cow pies, and sparse vegetation....
Column: Ensuring Healthy Forests Last Fall, Congress passed the bipartisan Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The Act built upon the foundations of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative -- an effort to protect communities and restore forest health by selectively removing overly dense vegetation and tree stands. The Initiative is making a difference. In just four years, federal agencies have nearly quadrupled the number of acres treated to remove hazardous, excess vegetative fuels from public lands. In 2004, federal agencies set a goal of improving land condition on 3.7 million acres -- a goal the agencies exceeded by removing hazardous fuels from some 4 million acres....
State taking lead role in management of wolves John Kraft can't be sure what created the mayhem that caused 20 calves to panic and pile up in the end of alley way over the weekend at the ranch he manages near Cameron. All he knows for sure is that 20 of them died. "They smothered each other," said Kraft. The next night the remaining calves panicked again, broke down the corrals and scattered all over the ranch. "We didn't lose any that time around, but they sure were stressed," he said....
Experts concerned about bear deaths Human-caused grizzly bear deaths in the Northern Rockies are at or nearing a record, officials said Monday. There have been 24 grizzly losses in the region so far this year, and at least 14 have been females, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're way beyond our normal levels of morality," Servheen said. Brian Peck of the Great Bear Foundation, a grizzly bear conservation group, said this year's losses are the greatest since 1974, when there were 20 nonhunting deaths and 17 legally killed by hunters....
Effort under way to protect habitat of threatened trout in Nevada Two federal land agencies are trying to improve the habitat of the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout in a remote corner of northern Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are joining forces with Newmont Mining Corp. on the project designed to help the large native fish in Summit Lake about 175 miles north of Reno. BLM spokesman Jamie Thompson said efforts are under way to protect the habitat of Mahogany Creek, the sole spawning ground for the lake's trout....
Tempting trash foils wild condor breeding effort While the captive release program continues to expand -- combined releases at Pinnacles National Monument and in Big Sur this fall will mark the largest send-off in California since condor reintroductions began in 1992 -- breeding in the wild is still stuck in the nest cave. For the past three years, wild hatchlings have died after ingesting large amounts of trash. Last month, a chick brought in with a broken wing was found with a record 35 bottle caps in its stomach....
Congress Passes Lewis and Clark Park Congress has sent to President Bush a bill that would establish the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Oregon and Washington state. The measure would expand and rename Fort Clatsop National Memorial in Oregon in honor of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It also would add three sites along the lower Columbia River, bringing the park for the first time into Washington state....
Lincoln Memorial Video Removed Without notice or explanation, the National Park Service (NPS) has removed from public display the videotape containing footage of demonstrations and other events that took place at the Lincoln Memorial. The agency took down the video the day after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) publicly released agency records showing that the Bush Administration has spent nearly $200,000 in an effort to edit out filmed scenes of gay rights and pro-choice demonstrations that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial. The controversy surrounding the video has been building for more than a year. In November 2003, under pressure from Christian fundamentalist groups, the Bush Administration announced that it would alter the eight-minute video....
Court Rules Bush Administration Is Illegally Hiding Wilderness Documents Last Friday, October 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Bush administration violated the Freedom of Information Act by concealing documents related to a deal cut in secret that makes development possible on millions of acres of America’s last wild lands. On Friday, Federal District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the Interior Department to release the documents within 30 days or come up with a legal explanation for withholding them. Judge Walton found that none of the reasons provided by the agency for hiding documents met the law’s strict limits on when the government can keep information from the public....
Senate approves revised bill to sell Lincoln County land The Senate has approved a revised Lincoln County lands bill, after recalculating how millions of dollars from federal land auctions in southern Nevada would be distributed. The bill, passed without dissent during a rare Sunday session in Washington, D.C., keeps key provisions designating a utility corridor for construction of a water pipeline from rural Nevada to Las Vegas. But facing resistance from the Bush administration, Nevada senators raised the share of money that would go to the Bureau of Land Management to 85 percent. The federal agency would have to spend the money within Nevada. A House version of the bill that passed Oct. 4 would give the BLM half the revenues from Lincoln County land sales, and the county 45 percent....
Reinterpreting a review Perhaps no issue epitomizes the Bush administration's approach to environmental rulemaking than the high-stakes struggle over the "New Source Review" provisions of the Clean Air Act. Lobbyists and political appointees with ties to industry played a central role in making policy changes that would, if upheld by the courts, let companies upgrade old power plants, refineries and factories without installing modern pollution-control equipment....
A facelift at the EPA To some activists and career agency employees, Lisa Jaeger had the ideal resume to win a top appointment at the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency: She had spent much of her professional life helping clients fight environmental regulations....
That's just Brando blowing through After Marlon Brando died at 80 on July 1, his family had him cremated. They left some of his ashes on his island in the South Pacific. The rest, my colleague Robert Welkos reported recently, they scattered at an undisclosed spot in Death Valley, along with ashes of his longtime friend Wally Cox. It develops that Cox, best known for his television roles on "Hollywood Squares," "Mr. Peepers" and "Underdog" (he was the voice), visited the desert often with Brando before dying of a heart attack at 48 in 1973. Brando had held onto his ashes for more than three decades. Death Valley is one among scores of national parks that allow families to scatter ashes of their loved ones....
Warnings for a shrinking world Ben Wattenberg's "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future" is a remarkable book and, in terms of its importance for our country and the world, it should attract a great deal more attention than most of the presidential campaign advertising. Mr. Wattenberg reports conclusively that the world will have far fewer people than was expected even a decade ago, that in numbers and age and gender patterns this smaller population will be distributed in ways that will be significant, and that the implications for the environment, the economy and national security will be quite profound....
Senate OKs water disputes bill The U.S. Senate approved legislation to resolve a long-standing dispute over how much Arizona owes the federal government for construction of the Central Arizona Project. The bill also settles Indian water rights, some of which have been in dispute for decades. "It's the biggest water settlement in the history of the United States," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Monday of the bill passed Sunday by the Senate. The House is expected to vote on the measure after the November election. The legislation resolves a complicated web of disputes and claims by dozens of parties....
NCBA Hails Bill Passage Cattlemen scored a victory in the U.S. House last week with passage of the conference report on the American Jobs Creation Act (H.R. 4520), which contains a number of provisions important for cattlemen, according to a NCBA news release. Included in H.R. 4520 is the Rancher Help Act, which extends from two years to four years the amount of time cattle producers have to reinvest in livestock without paying capital gains taxes on cattle sold due to drought or another natural disaster. The bill also extends Section 179 expensing and allows cattle producers to write off equipment purchases in the year of purchase without having to depreciate the expense over time....
Cowboy cuts costs by using work dogs "These dogs are working dogs, headers and heelers," said Scott Allison, describing the canines he uses to replace cowboys and still get the cows where he wants them. While most cowdogs are willing to work the heels of a bovine, Hangin' Tree Cowdogs will work the bulls up front. "They've got courage," the Dillon-area cowboy said proudly. Allison, 31, said the need to reduce labor costs on the 100,000-acre deeded and leased operation near Grant south of Dillon pushed him into dogs. "We had to figure out how to get the work done," he said. After some study, he settled on the mixed breed developed by Gary Erickson of Salmon, Idaho, who started the registry 25 years ago. The composite Hangin' Tree is a combination of Spanish Catahoula leopard dog, border collie and Australian kelpie....
Rodeo pioneer enjoys baking for grandsons Dixie Reger Mosley has been a pioneer for women's rodeo since she was roped into it at the tender age of 5. By 11 she was jumping a horse over a car to entertain the rodeo crowd. She was also a calf roper, trick rider and roper, bull rider and an official rodeo clown. In 1948, she co-founded the Girls Rodeo Association, which is the oldest women's sport association in the U.S., Mosley said. "We formed the association to have uniform rules for the women," Mosley said....
One Man's Crowning Glory John Batterson Stetson was never one to follow the herd. He was the seventh of a dozen children born to a successful hat maker in East Orange, N.J. In his early '30s, tuberculosis changed his life. The need to recover sent Stetson (1830-1906) west to St. Joseph, Mo. He stayed in the area to work in the lumber trade and searched for gold to no avail. But during these years, he found himself in the company of cowboys, then called drovers and bullwhackers....
Permalink 0 comments
Congressmen want to tax federal government on public land to fund schools Blaming the federal government for meager education funding in Western states, two congressional Republicans on Monday announced an ambitious plan to levy taxes on the vast landholdings the federal government has across 12 states. U.S. Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop said the government has broken a promise to the states by failing to sell the land it now manages - some of which is environmentally protected. The two say that if the government is going to keep the land instead of selling it, it owes states a one-time payment amounting to 5 percent of its value and should pay yearly taxes on the land. The one-time payment in Utah would net $836 million, and across all 12 states would amount to billions of dollars. The annual property taxes would total $116 million here and anywhere from $26 million to $782 million in the other 11 states outlined in literature. Nine Western states have passed resolutions calling for the government to start paying taxes on the land it owns, but Cannon said he believes this is the first official crack at it in Congress....
Relocation of elk planned for Rogue Valley These "urban elk" have become common sights in the Rogue Valley, where residents often marvel at seeing Oregon's largest big-game animal stroll across the road or lounge in a nearby field. But they feast on expensive pears, damage trees and tromp fences. "Elk are absolute pests," said Scott Cully, one of two orchard directors for Bear Creek Corp. "Two years ago, it was estimated that we lost 100 tons of pears." In most damage cases, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife issues permits to hunt problem elk, said agency wildlife biologist Mark Vargas. But many landowners in these areas do not allow hunting on their property, Vargas said....
U.S. Senate passes Highlands Conservation Act The U.S. Senate has passed the $100 million Highlands Conservation Act, which dedicates open space in New Jersey and neighboring states. The act was passed unanimously Sunday night _ the bill now goes to the House. The bill authorizes $100 million in spending over 10 years for open space purchases in the Highlands region that stretches from Pennsylvania and New Jersey through New York and Connecticut. An additional $1 million annually was authorized for planning assistance from the U.S. Forest Service....
Land purchase plan wins some, loses some in gorge Last June, Dave Cannard finally prevailed in his eight-year campaign to secure public ownership of Pioneer Point, a promontory above the Columbia River, when the Forest Service bought his 68 acres atop a sheer cliff northeast of Cape Horn for $740,000. But Pioneer Point, with its million-dollar view from 1,200 feet above the river, may be one of the Forest Service's last major land purchases in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area for the foreseeable future. A sharp cutback in funding from Congress has put several high-priority gorge properties at risk of development....
Column: How Welfare Ranchers and Their Livestock Are Damaging Public Land Twenty years ago, much of the public land around the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona resembled the barren and desolate landscape found in a Sub-Saharan desert. For years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had granted grazing permits to ranchers for thousands of acres of fragile land along the San Pedro. At any given time 10,000 cows were grazing in the area, trampling the river's banks and causing it to widen out and become precariously shallow. The cows also devoured native grasses and shrubs near the river, transforming the once-healthy landscape to little more than a vista of dry earth, lumps of cow pies, and sparse vegetation....
Column: Ensuring Healthy Forests Last Fall, Congress passed the bipartisan Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The Act built upon the foundations of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative -- an effort to protect communities and restore forest health by selectively removing overly dense vegetation and tree stands. The Initiative is making a difference. In just four years, federal agencies have nearly quadrupled the number of acres treated to remove hazardous, excess vegetative fuels from public lands. In 2004, federal agencies set a goal of improving land condition on 3.7 million acres -- a goal the agencies exceeded by removing hazardous fuels from some 4 million acres....
State taking lead role in management of wolves John Kraft can't be sure what created the mayhem that caused 20 calves to panic and pile up in the end of alley way over the weekend at the ranch he manages near Cameron. All he knows for sure is that 20 of them died. "They smothered each other," said Kraft. The next night the remaining calves panicked again, broke down the corrals and scattered all over the ranch. "We didn't lose any that time around, but they sure were stressed," he said....
Experts concerned about bear deaths Human-caused grizzly bear deaths in the Northern Rockies are at or nearing a record, officials said Monday. There have been 24 grizzly losses in the region so far this year, and at least 14 have been females, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're way beyond our normal levels of morality," Servheen said. Brian Peck of the Great Bear Foundation, a grizzly bear conservation group, said this year's losses are the greatest since 1974, when there were 20 nonhunting deaths and 17 legally killed by hunters....
Effort under way to protect habitat of threatened trout in Nevada Two federal land agencies are trying to improve the habitat of the threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout in a remote corner of northern Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are joining forces with Newmont Mining Corp. on the project designed to help the large native fish in Summit Lake about 175 miles north of Reno. BLM spokesman Jamie Thompson said efforts are under way to protect the habitat of Mahogany Creek, the sole spawning ground for the lake's trout....
Tempting trash foils wild condor breeding effort While the captive release program continues to expand -- combined releases at Pinnacles National Monument and in Big Sur this fall will mark the largest send-off in California since condor reintroductions began in 1992 -- breeding in the wild is still stuck in the nest cave. For the past three years, wild hatchlings have died after ingesting large amounts of trash. Last month, a chick brought in with a broken wing was found with a record 35 bottle caps in its stomach....
Congress Passes Lewis and Clark Park Congress has sent to President Bush a bill that would establish the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Oregon and Washington state. The measure would expand and rename Fort Clatsop National Memorial in Oregon in honor of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It also would add three sites along the lower Columbia River, bringing the park for the first time into Washington state....
Lincoln Memorial Video Removed Without notice or explanation, the National Park Service (NPS) has removed from public display the videotape containing footage of demonstrations and other events that took place at the Lincoln Memorial. The agency took down the video the day after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) publicly released agency records showing that the Bush Administration has spent nearly $200,000 in an effort to edit out filmed scenes of gay rights and pro-choice demonstrations that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial. The controversy surrounding the video has been building for more than a year. In November 2003, under pressure from Christian fundamentalist groups, the Bush Administration announced that it would alter the eight-minute video....
Court Rules Bush Administration Is Illegally Hiding Wilderness Documents Last Friday, October 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Bush administration violated the Freedom of Information Act by concealing documents related to a deal cut in secret that makes development possible on millions of acres of America’s last wild lands. On Friday, Federal District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the Interior Department to release the documents within 30 days or come up with a legal explanation for withholding them. Judge Walton found that none of the reasons provided by the agency for hiding documents met the law’s strict limits on when the government can keep information from the public....
Senate approves revised bill to sell Lincoln County land The Senate has approved a revised Lincoln County lands bill, after recalculating how millions of dollars from federal land auctions in southern Nevada would be distributed. The bill, passed without dissent during a rare Sunday session in Washington, D.C., keeps key provisions designating a utility corridor for construction of a water pipeline from rural Nevada to Las Vegas. But facing resistance from the Bush administration, Nevada senators raised the share of money that would go to the Bureau of Land Management to 85 percent. The federal agency would have to spend the money within Nevada. A House version of the bill that passed Oct. 4 would give the BLM half the revenues from Lincoln County land sales, and the county 45 percent....
Reinterpreting a review Perhaps no issue epitomizes the Bush administration's approach to environmental rulemaking than the high-stakes struggle over the "New Source Review" provisions of the Clean Air Act. Lobbyists and political appointees with ties to industry played a central role in making policy changes that would, if upheld by the courts, let companies upgrade old power plants, refineries and factories without installing modern pollution-control equipment....
A facelift at the EPA To some activists and career agency employees, Lisa Jaeger had the ideal resume to win a top appointment at the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency: She had spent much of her professional life helping clients fight environmental regulations....
That's just Brando blowing through After Marlon Brando died at 80 on July 1, his family had him cremated. They left some of his ashes on his island in the South Pacific. The rest, my colleague Robert Welkos reported recently, they scattered at an undisclosed spot in Death Valley, along with ashes of his longtime friend Wally Cox. It develops that Cox, best known for his television roles on "Hollywood Squares," "Mr. Peepers" and "Underdog" (he was the voice), visited the desert often with Brando before dying of a heart attack at 48 in 1973. Brando had held onto his ashes for more than three decades. Death Valley is one among scores of national parks that allow families to scatter ashes of their loved ones....
Warnings for a shrinking world Ben Wattenberg's "Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future" is a remarkable book and, in terms of its importance for our country and the world, it should attract a great deal more attention than most of the presidential campaign advertising. Mr. Wattenberg reports conclusively that the world will have far fewer people than was expected even a decade ago, that in numbers and age and gender patterns this smaller population will be distributed in ways that will be significant, and that the implications for the environment, the economy and national security will be quite profound....
Senate OKs water disputes bill The U.S. Senate approved legislation to resolve a long-standing dispute over how much Arizona owes the federal government for construction of the Central Arizona Project. The bill also settles Indian water rights, some of which have been in dispute for decades. "It's the biggest water settlement in the history of the United States," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Monday of the bill passed Sunday by the Senate. The House is expected to vote on the measure after the November election. The legislation resolves a complicated web of disputes and claims by dozens of parties....
NCBA Hails Bill Passage Cattlemen scored a victory in the U.S. House last week with passage of the conference report on the American Jobs Creation Act (H.R. 4520), which contains a number of provisions important for cattlemen, according to a NCBA news release. Included in H.R. 4520 is the Rancher Help Act, which extends from two years to four years the amount of time cattle producers have to reinvest in livestock without paying capital gains taxes on cattle sold due to drought or another natural disaster. The bill also extends Section 179 expensing and allows cattle producers to write off equipment purchases in the year of purchase without having to depreciate the expense over time....
Cowboy cuts costs by using work dogs "These dogs are working dogs, headers and heelers," said Scott Allison, describing the canines he uses to replace cowboys and still get the cows where he wants them. While most cowdogs are willing to work the heels of a bovine, Hangin' Tree Cowdogs will work the bulls up front. "They've got courage," the Dillon-area cowboy said proudly. Allison, 31, said the need to reduce labor costs on the 100,000-acre deeded and leased operation near Grant south of Dillon pushed him into dogs. "We had to figure out how to get the work done," he said. After some study, he settled on the mixed breed developed by Gary Erickson of Salmon, Idaho, who started the registry 25 years ago. The composite Hangin' Tree is a combination of Spanish Catahoula leopard dog, border collie and Australian kelpie....
Rodeo pioneer enjoys baking for grandsons Dixie Reger Mosley has been a pioneer for women's rodeo since she was roped into it at the tender age of 5. By 11 she was jumping a horse over a car to entertain the rodeo crowd. She was also a calf roper, trick rider and roper, bull rider and an official rodeo clown. In 1948, she co-founded the Girls Rodeo Association, which is the oldest women's sport association in the U.S., Mosley said. "We formed the association to have uniform rules for the women," Mosley said....
One Man's Crowning Glory John Batterson Stetson was never one to follow the herd. He was the seventh of a dozen children born to a successful hat maker in East Orange, N.J. In his early '30s, tuberculosis changed his life. The need to recover sent Stetson (1830-1906) west to St. Joseph, Mo. He stayed in the area to work in the lumber trade and searched for gold to no avail. But during these years, he found himself in the company of cowboys, then called drovers and bullwhackers....
Permalink 0 comments
Monday, October 11, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Melancholy Valley: A once-quiet area becomes a research park and monument Wheeler and a growing number of residents who live in the mountain's shadow say the latest earthquakes and steam bursts from St. Helens have stirred up more than a haze of ash dust. They have brought back bad memories of a scary time and reinforced the feeling that their back yard has been taken over by strangers. "The scientists have squeezed us out. The Forest Service has squeezed us out," Wheeler said. "We want it back." Access to favorite campgrounds, fishing streams, hunting grounds and picnic areas has been cut off, first by the destructive eruption and then by the rules and borderlines set in place when the mountain became a national monument....
Forest Service trying to recoup firefighting costs The US Forest Service is trying to recover about $10 million in firefighting costs from an 18-year-old man. The Peshastin man has been cited for starting the Fischer Fire. The Forest Service is required to try to recover supression costs. In this case that adds up to about two-thirds of the nearly $15 million it took to put out the more than 16,000 acre fire....
Colorado Wild sues over Wolf Creek development Colorado Wild filed a lawsuit against the Rio Grande National Forest in U.S. District Court on Friday to block the development being proposed by Texas billionaire Billy Joe "Red" McCombs and his partners. The lawsuit, filed in Denver, claims a March 11 letter from the Forest Service to Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, the company behind the proposed 2,172-unit village, violated a 1999 agreement between Colorado Wild and the Forest Service....
Prairie dog pops up in S.D. race Who hates prairie dogs the most? The answer to that Great Plains political question might swing the tight Senate race in South Dakota, determine the fate of the Senate’s top Democrat and perhaps even decide which party will control the narrowly divided Senate after next month’s election. To cover his right flank in conservative South Dakota, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has moved on several fronts this year to demonstrate his profound antipathy toward the rodent, which Easterners often describe as cute but which generations of rural South Dakotans have shot, poisoned and cussed as a no-good varmint....
National forest fees could be permanent Recreational fees required to use national forests and parks could become permanent if the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act is approved by Congress this month. The fee program began in 1996 to ease the cost of operating and maintaining federal recreation sites. Congress also stressed the fees would be used to improve quality. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service collected $175.7 million during fiscal 2002, up from $172.8 million in 2001. But while some money was redirected into local projects, data released by the four federal agencies also revealed that a substantial amount of the fees has remained unused each year. The money has been accumulating year after year, reaching $295.8 million....
Big, bad reputation for Wisconsin wolves But wolves recently killed and nearly devoured a prized bear-hunting dog owned by Rob Stalsholt of New Richmond. It was one of at least 11 expensively trained trail hounds killed this year by Wisconsin wolves. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has cautioned against "wolf hysteria," but it also has confirmed 21 cases of wolves killing farm livestock this year, up from 14 cases last year and eight in 2002. The state pays farmers for those losses, but the amount will be topped this year by compensation paid to trail dog owners, whose radio-collared hounds sortie deep into the woods in pursuit of bears....
BLM re-thinking its request for more authority After an outcry from county authorities around the state, federal land managers are re-thinking a request for more law enforcement powers on public lands, a bureau spokesperson said Thursday. A second round of public comment on a proposal to give federal rangers enforcement authority over such crimes as driving while under the influence and possession of alcohol by a minor drew 76 comments. "Many of them were negative," said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Maxine Shane. The bureau began seeking the new powers last spring....
Utahn fighting U.S. over land liability Utah land developer James Doyle once had it all: a thriving business, a fair amount of money in his pocket and dreams of developing a golf course community near St. George that would have made him a small fortune. Today, Doyle lives with a friend in Arizona as he works through the details of his Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He has been forced to sell his home, business and about everything he owns. His land — technically it's still his — is fenced off with a sign that reads Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. The future golf course, taken by the federal government without compensation, has become a preserve for the desert tortoise. Adding insult to injury, he still has to pay $112,000 a year in property taxes on the land he cannot use....
BLM plans horse roundup Bureau of Land Management wranglers will remove about 415 wild horses from public rangelands in two separate gathering operations planned for later this month in Fremont County. One of the roundups will also involve the use of birth control measures in about 20 mares, according to plans. The removal of approximately 270 wild horses from four herds north of Lander and another 145 excess wild horses from public rangelands south of Lander will bring the herds more into line with appropriate management levels, BLM officials said....
BLM requires more study for seismic project The Bureau of Land Management is requiring surveys of possible cultural sites here before it will allow a company to explore for oil and gas. The decision means a seismic survey of a 47-square mile area at the base of the Beartooth Mountains will be put off for now. Some local residents oppose the seismic survey, which entails loading 74 shot holes with 10-pound explosive charges and detonating them to get a 3-D picture of what minerals lay beneath the surface....
Editorial: Oil takes offense at enviros Whether they're feeling their oats about having cohorts in the White House, or worried that George Bush and Dick Cheney might not be there much longer, oil-and-gas executives came to town last week with chips on their shoulders. They're spoiling for a fight with environmentalists who've been trying to rein in their plans to drill the American West. They're trying to shut us down, insisted one petro-pro. Not so, say the enviros; the oil-and-gas guys are running roughshod over 95 percent of our public lands; we just want to see the other 5 percent spared....
An environmental battleground "Multiple-use" is the land-use doctrine that politicians courting Westerners have proclaimed as a mantra since the 1970s. But the last two occupants of the White House interpreted that standard in stark contrast. Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, presided over a period of land conservation initiatives that critics dubbed the "War on the West." The past four years, the administration of Republican President George Bush has re-written regulations and crafted policies that generally favor energy and mining industries, drawing not only the expected outcry from environmentalists, but also the surprisingly strong resentment of sportsmen concerned over the loss of blue-ribbon trout streams and prime hunting spots....
Bush: U.S. can drill for oil and protect the environment For much of the last four years, President Bush has sought to roll back the public lands legacy of the Clinton administration, re-opening areas for recreation, stimulating oil and gas drilling and trying to clear away bureaucratic tangles. A second term would likely see more of the same as the administration seeks to expand energy production in the Rocky Mountain West and ease the government burden on ranchers and recreationists in the Republican-leaning states....
Atlanta Gold plan raises eyebrows A Canadian mining company's plans to open a gold mine in the headwaters of the Boise River face stiff opposition from environmental groups. But if Atlanta Gold Corp. can meet federal and state environmental laws, a 19th century federal law says federal officials have no choice but to issue a permit. Company officials say they can mine the more than 500,000 ounces of gold, create more than 200 jobs for six to 10 years and protect the quality of the Boise River and fish such as the endangered bull trout....
Working to Save the West As subdivisions devour the last open spaces of the American West, cowboys and "tree huggers," once bitter antagonists, are joining forces to save endangered landscapes like McMaster's ranch from development. The improbable allies face formidable market pressures. Population in the seven Rocky Mountain states has surged 47 percent in the past two decades. Over the last five years, more than 15 million acres of rangeland has been converted from grazing to other uses, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An additional 25 million acres of ranchland in the Rocky Mountain West is at risk of being developed for housing by 2020, according to the American Farmland Trust (AFT), an advocacy group. The three- to five-acre "ranchettes" creeping out from the edges of virtually every Western city may seem like state parks to the average East Coast suburbanite. But development foes say the web of roads, lawns, power lines and shopping centers serving these new settlements has fragment-ed landscapes vital to wildlife and drained fragile waterways....
Wind power growth hampered by tax, transmission The wind-swept Great Plains could easily augment the nation's thirst for electricity by removing political and practical roadblocks to major expansion of modern wind farms, industry officials say. Electricity from wind amounts to less than 1 percent of all of the power generated in the United States. But industry leaders say wind someday could generate up to 20 percent of energy needs. But the lack of adequate lines to deliver extra electricity to power-hungry cities and uncertainty over a federal tax credit are big obstacles. The tax credit is locked in at 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years that wind farms operate, making them competitive with the cost of power plants run on natural gas. Congress recently reinstated the credit through 2005, but the federal incentive has lapsed three times since first passed in 1992. Each expiration sent wind-farm plans into a tailspin. Wind projects totaling more than $2 billion had been on hold since Dec. 31, when the tax credit last lapsed....
Land-use initiative is still up for grabs Should Utahns shell out about $14 a year over the next decade to protect their drinking water, improve air quality and conserve critical wildlife habitat and farm lands? Proponents of Initiative One, which proposes to do all of those things with a $150 million bond backed by a small sales tax increase, say it's a bargain-basement price to preserve and even enhance the state's quality of life. But opponents call it a fiscal boondoggle that would constrain lawmakers from bonding for other needed projects, and they predict that the ballot measure would usher in an era of California-style "government-by- initiative."....
GOP environmentalists just say no On the phone Jim DiPeso is a pretty upbeat guy. Considering what he does for a living, you'd think he'd be mighty lonely. Jim is the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection - which would sound about as unlikely as a "Utahns for a Democratic Majority." Based in Albuquerque, REP, with only 2,000 members, is small for an environmental organization. It was created in 1995, the same year the Republican right took over Congress, to resist the party's march backward to the environmental dark ages. Its members, who tend to be older, are keepers of the flame....
Ex-property owner says IPL took land, hearts A farmer is suing for millions of dollars he claims Indianapolis Power & Light Co. should have paid him and other former property owners when it sold thousands of acres of land in Morgan County it originally said would be used for a power plant. William R. O'Neal alleges that beginning in the 1970s, he and the others lost land that had been in their families for generations when IPL used pressure tactics to get them to sell the property. The state bought part of the land and, earlier this year, turned it into a park. The lawsuit filed recently in Morgan Superior Court stems from the $13 million sale of the forest and farmland to the state and private investors in late 2003....
Hispanics forced off land for LANL may be paid A U.S. Senate-House conference committee on Friday agreed to retain a proposed $10 million fund to compensate Hispanic homesteaders who were forced off their land in the Los Alamos area more than 60 years ago. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote language in the Senate-passed version of the defense authorization bill to create the compensation program. A conference committee that reconciled differences between the House and Senate versions agreed to keep the Pajarito Plateau homesteaders compensation fund in the bill. Hispanic homesteaders contend they were inadequately compensated for land taken for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II and which eventually became Los Alamos National Laboratory....
Budget problems threaten parkland buys in California California has stopped acquiring land for state parks for the foreseeable future because it can't afford to staff and maintain new parkland, according to a newspaper report. Facing a budget deficit next year of up to $10 billion, state public works officials quietly decided in March to stop accepting or buying new parkland, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Following outcries from environmentalists and conservationists, however, the California Public Works Board agreed Friday to add 1,000 acres of redwoods to Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But in a compromise with park supporters, the board also decided to keep the newly acquired acreage unmarked and closed to public access to save money....
Arizona's shrinking lake provides a stark warning to America's thirsty west An unexpected sight greets the holidaymaker out for a gentle cruise on the 186-mile Lake Powell in Arizona. A mile or so upriver from the Glen Canyon dam stand red and green channel markers to guide those on the water. But the signs planted in the riverbank are of little use today: thanks to a drought which is entering its sixth year, the lake's water level has dropped by 40 metres (130ft), leaving the signs on each bank stranded at the top of a cliff. Steve Ward, who works for a tourism company, steers his motorboat into a bay and points to an island across the sparkling blue water. "Normally we'd go across there to leave the bay," he says, "Right now we can't, because there's land in the way." That land, like the many newly emerged beaches dotted around the lake, would normally be under 30 metres of water....
Water district threatens ouster Schmaljohn and two neighbors near Cherry Creek off of East Iliff Avenue face condemnation by the Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District. It wants their combined six acres for an 11-acre water-storage project that the district says will result in a cheaper way to provide water to areas it serves. And despite losing the support of the Arapahoe County Planning Commission, the sanitation district can ask its board of directors for a favorable vote - and maybe tell Schmaljohn and the others to pack up. But Schmaljohn doesn't want to move. The widower's one-bedroom home is filled with more than 50 years of stories....
Montana ranchers offering paying guest bunkhouse hospitality Fellow cattle ranchers Leo and Lois Cremer warily view it as a way to salvage a lifestyle dating back to the era when their families came to the sweet-grass country in wagons. With similar skepticism, neighbors Kenny and Donna Laubach see it as a chance to put a favorable face on their culture while learning about other cultures they may never experience. The three Sweet Grass County families, along with five others scattered among the hayfields and coulees, have undertaken a unique venture they hope will sustain a fading lifestyle for themselves, their children and grandchildren. They're calling it Montana Bunkhouses, a co-op of eight vast spreads offering paying guests authentic ranching experiences....
Sentencing set for man accused in cattle fraud case A Dec. 2 sentencing has been set for a Watertown businessman convicted of grand theft in a cattle fraud case. Phillip Cyre, 52, was accused of stealing more than $1 million in a failed value-added beef venture involving Sturgis Meat Service. A Meade County jury convicted him on 16 counts of grand theft by deception for his role in the scheme in which some ranchers were not paid for cattle delivered and others did not recover their investment. He also was convicted of grand theft by deception for his part in obtaining a $300,000 loan from Lantry rancher and former legislator Dean Schrempp....
Nez Perce trail tells stories of honor, sorrow A trail, and its story, snakes through thousands of ponderosa and lodgepole pines high in the Bitterroot Mountains. While most may never get near it, there are those who can still see the Nez Perce women and children who walked it 127 years ago. Pines on this trail tell a story. Voices bleed through slabs of bark peeled from the trees. It is the story of extraordinary grit, one that led 750 Nez Perce - two thirds of them women and children - on a 1,700-mile flight through Washington, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The tribe surrendered on a snowy October day in 1877....
Ketchum relives its woolly history If you've ever wondered what "Mary Had a Little Lamb" sounds like on bagpipes, you had the chance to find out during Sunday's eighth annual Trailing of the Sheep Parade. The Boise Highlanders played that mutton-friendly tune and helped lead a band of some 1,500 sheep down the middle of Main Street in the culmination of Ketchum's three-day festival. A number of groups, each representing a different sheep-raising culture, joined local ranchers in the parade....
Feasting on sheep culture Once a bone of contention, the annual Training of the Sheep Festival has changed into a cultural feast for the Wood River Valley. Based on the practical need to drive sheep south to winter pastures, today's noon parade of sheep down Ketchum's Main Avenue is the centerpiece for a celebration in its eighth year. Crowds flocked to see dancers, musicians, wool vendors, sheep shearing demonstrations and herding demonstrations....
‘Helicopter cowboy’ tells of life above the range W.J. Tiller’s experiences, retold in his book, “The Adventures of a Helicopter Cowboy,” seem like they should be nestled between the chapters about Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan in a children’s book. But Tiller, 78, spent four years sifting through about 6,000 pictures and 20 years worth of stories from working on some of South Texas’ largest ranches to tell his story as a most unusual cowboy. Some of the most compelling recollections in Tiller’s book are from rounding up more than 10,000 head of cattle on the El Sauz Ranch in Willacy County, and of capturing a sea of red Santa Gertrudis cattle on film while on the King Ranch. With about 1,000 heifers calving, Tiller and the cowboys on horseback killed 102 coyotes that had come to feast on the newborns....
J.R. Simplot keeps potato business all in the family In August, J.R. Simplot, the 95-year-old billionaire who founded the food and fertilizer company that bears his name, buttonholed his son Scott. He wanted to talk about Scott Simplot's plan to cut the company's cattle holdings - reversing his father's decadeslong practice of maintaining large feedlots. The pair became ensnared in a drawn-out argument about strategy. Scott says he kept walking away, muttering, ''Whatever you say, Dad.'' Exasperated, the father shot back. ''Well, dang it - you're fired.'' For J.R. Simplot, the outburst was futile because he no longer owns voting stock in the company and doesn't have any real control over its operations. For his son, it was the latest episode in a long struggle to modernize a storied American company and the legacy created by his own father....
It's All Trew: Quills, nibs, ink bladders were part of daily life If you know how to trim a quill or clean a nib the president is probably sending you birthday greetings on a regular basis. A quill is an ink pen made from sharpening a feather to a fine point then dipping it into ink to write. A nib is the metal point attached to a wooden staff of an old-time writing pen. To clean a nib you hold it over the top of a lamp chimney to burn the old dried ink from the metal. Once clean, dip the nib in ink and write....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Cowboy logic says get back to hunting Now that the Atkins all-meat, all-fat diet has been acknowledged by most as effective for weight loss, the newest book is promoting its value in controlling diabetes. All this is great news for cattlemen, rib joints and the Egg Board, but the bagel and vegan crowd continue to be skeptical, mostly based on the idea that something that tastes so good must be bad for you. Most anthropologists agree that prehistoric humans' rapid advancement was affected by their ability to hunt, digest rich protein (meat), and think. It freed them from the daily grazing grind of herbivores like mastodons, koalas and gorillas who, to this day remain incapable of inventing the wheel....
Permalink 0 comments
Melancholy Valley: A once-quiet area becomes a research park and monument Wheeler and a growing number of residents who live in the mountain's shadow say the latest earthquakes and steam bursts from St. Helens have stirred up more than a haze of ash dust. They have brought back bad memories of a scary time and reinforced the feeling that their back yard has been taken over by strangers. "The scientists have squeezed us out. The Forest Service has squeezed us out," Wheeler said. "We want it back." Access to favorite campgrounds, fishing streams, hunting grounds and picnic areas has been cut off, first by the destructive eruption and then by the rules and borderlines set in place when the mountain became a national monument....
Forest Service trying to recoup firefighting costs The US Forest Service is trying to recover about $10 million in firefighting costs from an 18-year-old man. The Peshastin man has been cited for starting the Fischer Fire. The Forest Service is required to try to recover supression costs. In this case that adds up to about two-thirds of the nearly $15 million it took to put out the more than 16,000 acre fire....
Colorado Wild sues over Wolf Creek development Colorado Wild filed a lawsuit against the Rio Grande National Forest in U.S. District Court on Friday to block the development being proposed by Texas billionaire Billy Joe "Red" McCombs and his partners. The lawsuit, filed in Denver, claims a March 11 letter from the Forest Service to Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, the company behind the proposed 2,172-unit village, violated a 1999 agreement between Colorado Wild and the Forest Service....
Prairie dog pops up in S.D. race Who hates prairie dogs the most? The answer to that Great Plains political question might swing the tight Senate race in South Dakota, determine the fate of the Senate’s top Democrat and perhaps even decide which party will control the narrowly divided Senate after next month’s election. To cover his right flank in conservative South Dakota, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has moved on several fronts this year to demonstrate his profound antipathy toward the rodent, which Easterners often describe as cute but which generations of rural South Dakotans have shot, poisoned and cussed as a no-good varmint....
National forest fees could be permanent Recreational fees required to use national forests and parks could become permanent if the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act is approved by Congress this month. The fee program began in 1996 to ease the cost of operating and maintaining federal recreation sites. Congress also stressed the fees would be used to improve quality. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service collected $175.7 million during fiscal 2002, up from $172.8 million in 2001. But while some money was redirected into local projects, data released by the four federal agencies also revealed that a substantial amount of the fees has remained unused each year. The money has been accumulating year after year, reaching $295.8 million....
Big, bad reputation for Wisconsin wolves But wolves recently killed and nearly devoured a prized bear-hunting dog owned by Rob Stalsholt of New Richmond. It was one of at least 11 expensively trained trail hounds killed this year by Wisconsin wolves. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has cautioned against "wolf hysteria," but it also has confirmed 21 cases of wolves killing farm livestock this year, up from 14 cases last year and eight in 2002. The state pays farmers for those losses, but the amount will be topped this year by compensation paid to trail dog owners, whose radio-collared hounds sortie deep into the woods in pursuit of bears....
BLM re-thinking its request for more authority After an outcry from county authorities around the state, federal land managers are re-thinking a request for more law enforcement powers on public lands, a bureau spokesperson said Thursday. A second round of public comment on a proposal to give federal rangers enforcement authority over such crimes as driving while under the influence and possession of alcohol by a minor drew 76 comments. "Many of them were negative," said U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Maxine Shane. The bureau began seeking the new powers last spring....
Utahn fighting U.S. over land liability Utah land developer James Doyle once had it all: a thriving business, a fair amount of money in his pocket and dreams of developing a golf course community near St. George that would have made him a small fortune. Today, Doyle lives with a friend in Arizona as he works through the details of his Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He has been forced to sell his home, business and about everything he owns. His land — technically it's still his — is fenced off with a sign that reads Red Cliffs Desert Reserve. The future golf course, taken by the federal government without compensation, has become a preserve for the desert tortoise. Adding insult to injury, he still has to pay $112,000 a year in property taxes on the land he cannot use....
BLM plans horse roundup Bureau of Land Management wranglers will remove about 415 wild horses from public rangelands in two separate gathering operations planned for later this month in Fremont County. One of the roundups will also involve the use of birth control measures in about 20 mares, according to plans. The removal of approximately 270 wild horses from four herds north of Lander and another 145 excess wild horses from public rangelands south of Lander will bring the herds more into line with appropriate management levels, BLM officials said....
BLM requires more study for seismic project The Bureau of Land Management is requiring surveys of possible cultural sites here before it will allow a company to explore for oil and gas. The decision means a seismic survey of a 47-square mile area at the base of the Beartooth Mountains will be put off for now. Some local residents oppose the seismic survey, which entails loading 74 shot holes with 10-pound explosive charges and detonating them to get a 3-D picture of what minerals lay beneath the surface....
Editorial: Oil takes offense at enviros Whether they're feeling their oats about having cohorts in the White House, or worried that George Bush and Dick Cheney might not be there much longer, oil-and-gas executives came to town last week with chips on their shoulders. They're spoiling for a fight with environmentalists who've been trying to rein in their plans to drill the American West. They're trying to shut us down, insisted one petro-pro. Not so, say the enviros; the oil-and-gas guys are running roughshod over 95 percent of our public lands; we just want to see the other 5 percent spared....
An environmental battleground "Multiple-use" is the land-use doctrine that politicians courting Westerners have proclaimed as a mantra since the 1970s. But the last two occupants of the White House interpreted that standard in stark contrast. Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, presided over a period of land conservation initiatives that critics dubbed the "War on the West." The past four years, the administration of Republican President George Bush has re-written regulations and crafted policies that generally favor energy and mining industries, drawing not only the expected outcry from environmentalists, but also the surprisingly strong resentment of sportsmen concerned over the loss of blue-ribbon trout streams and prime hunting spots....
Bush: U.S. can drill for oil and protect the environment For much of the last four years, President Bush has sought to roll back the public lands legacy of the Clinton administration, re-opening areas for recreation, stimulating oil and gas drilling and trying to clear away bureaucratic tangles. A second term would likely see more of the same as the administration seeks to expand energy production in the Rocky Mountain West and ease the government burden on ranchers and recreationists in the Republican-leaning states....
Atlanta Gold plan raises eyebrows A Canadian mining company's plans to open a gold mine in the headwaters of the Boise River face stiff opposition from environmental groups. But if Atlanta Gold Corp. can meet federal and state environmental laws, a 19th century federal law says federal officials have no choice but to issue a permit. Company officials say they can mine the more than 500,000 ounces of gold, create more than 200 jobs for six to 10 years and protect the quality of the Boise River and fish such as the endangered bull trout....
Working to Save the West As subdivisions devour the last open spaces of the American West, cowboys and "tree huggers," once bitter antagonists, are joining forces to save endangered landscapes like McMaster's ranch from development. The improbable allies face formidable market pressures. Population in the seven Rocky Mountain states has surged 47 percent in the past two decades. Over the last five years, more than 15 million acres of rangeland has been converted from grazing to other uses, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An additional 25 million acres of ranchland in the Rocky Mountain West is at risk of being developed for housing by 2020, according to the American Farmland Trust (AFT), an advocacy group. The three- to five-acre "ranchettes" creeping out from the edges of virtually every Western city may seem like state parks to the average East Coast suburbanite. But development foes say the web of roads, lawns, power lines and shopping centers serving these new settlements has fragment-ed landscapes vital to wildlife and drained fragile waterways....
Wind power growth hampered by tax, transmission The wind-swept Great Plains could easily augment the nation's thirst for electricity by removing political and practical roadblocks to major expansion of modern wind farms, industry officials say. Electricity from wind amounts to less than 1 percent of all of the power generated in the United States. But industry leaders say wind someday could generate up to 20 percent of energy needs. But the lack of adequate lines to deliver extra electricity to power-hungry cities and uncertainty over a federal tax credit are big obstacles. The tax credit is locked in at 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for the first 10 years that wind farms operate, making them competitive with the cost of power plants run on natural gas. Congress recently reinstated the credit through 2005, but the federal incentive has lapsed three times since first passed in 1992. Each expiration sent wind-farm plans into a tailspin. Wind projects totaling more than $2 billion had been on hold since Dec. 31, when the tax credit last lapsed....
Land-use initiative is still up for grabs Should Utahns shell out about $14 a year over the next decade to protect their drinking water, improve air quality and conserve critical wildlife habitat and farm lands? Proponents of Initiative One, which proposes to do all of those things with a $150 million bond backed by a small sales tax increase, say it's a bargain-basement price to preserve and even enhance the state's quality of life. But opponents call it a fiscal boondoggle that would constrain lawmakers from bonding for other needed projects, and they predict that the ballot measure would usher in an era of California-style "government-by- initiative."....
GOP environmentalists just say no On the phone Jim DiPeso is a pretty upbeat guy. Considering what he does for a living, you'd think he'd be mighty lonely. Jim is the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection - which would sound about as unlikely as a "Utahns for a Democratic Majority." Based in Albuquerque, REP, with only 2,000 members, is small for an environmental organization. It was created in 1995, the same year the Republican right took over Congress, to resist the party's march backward to the environmental dark ages. Its members, who tend to be older, are keepers of the flame....
Ex-property owner says IPL took land, hearts A farmer is suing for millions of dollars he claims Indianapolis Power & Light Co. should have paid him and other former property owners when it sold thousands of acres of land in Morgan County it originally said would be used for a power plant. William R. O'Neal alleges that beginning in the 1970s, he and the others lost land that had been in their families for generations when IPL used pressure tactics to get them to sell the property. The state bought part of the land and, earlier this year, turned it into a park. The lawsuit filed recently in Morgan Superior Court stems from the $13 million sale of the forest and farmland to the state and private investors in late 2003....
Hispanics forced off land for LANL may be paid A U.S. Senate-House conference committee on Friday agreed to retain a proposed $10 million fund to compensate Hispanic homesteaders who were forced off their land in the Los Alamos area more than 60 years ago. Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., wrote language in the Senate-passed version of the defense authorization bill to create the compensation program. A conference committee that reconciled differences between the House and Senate versions agreed to keep the Pajarito Plateau homesteaders compensation fund in the bill. Hispanic homesteaders contend they were inadequately compensated for land taken for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II and which eventually became Los Alamos National Laboratory....
Budget problems threaten parkland buys in California California has stopped acquiring land for state parks for the foreseeable future because it can't afford to staff and maintain new parkland, according to a newspaper report. Facing a budget deficit next year of up to $10 billion, state public works officials quietly decided in March to stop accepting or buying new parkland, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Following outcries from environmentalists and conservationists, however, the California Public Works Board agreed Friday to add 1,000 acres of redwoods to Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But in a compromise with park supporters, the board also decided to keep the newly acquired acreage unmarked and closed to public access to save money....
Arizona's shrinking lake provides a stark warning to America's thirsty west An unexpected sight greets the holidaymaker out for a gentle cruise on the 186-mile Lake Powell in Arizona. A mile or so upriver from the Glen Canyon dam stand red and green channel markers to guide those on the water. But the signs planted in the riverbank are of little use today: thanks to a drought which is entering its sixth year, the lake's water level has dropped by 40 metres (130ft), leaving the signs on each bank stranded at the top of a cliff. Steve Ward, who works for a tourism company, steers his motorboat into a bay and points to an island across the sparkling blue water. "Normally we'd go across there to leave the bay," he says, "Right now we can't, because there's land in the way." That land, like the many newly emerged beaches dotted around the lake, would normally be under 30 metres of water....
Water district threatens ouster Schmaljohn and two neighbors near Cherry Creek off of East Iliff Avenue face condemnation by the Cherry Creek Valley Water and Sanitation District. It wants their combined six acres for an 11-acre water-storage project that the district says will result in a cheaper way to provide water to areas it serves. And despite losing the support of the Arapahoe County Planning Commission, the sanitation district can ask its board of directors for a favorable vote - and maybe tell Schmaljohn and the others to pack up. But Schmaljohn doesn't want to move. The widower's one-bedroom home is filled with more than 50 years of stories....
Montana ranchers offering paying guest bunkhouse hospitality Fellow cattle ranchers Leo and Lois Cremer warily view it as a way to salvage a lifestyle dating back to the era when their families came to the sweet-grass country in wagons. With similar skepticism, neighbors Kenny and Donna Laubach see it as a chance to put a favorable face on their culture while learning about other cultures they may never experience. The three Sweet Grass County families, along with five others scattered among the hayfields and coulees, have undertaken a unique venture they hope will sustain a fading lifestyle for themselves, their children and grandchildren. They're calling it Montana Bunkhouses, a co-op of eight vast spreads offering paying guests authentic ranching experiences....
Sentencing set for man accused in cattle fraud case A Dec. 2 sentencing has been set for a Watertown businessman convicted of grand theft in a cattle fraud case. Phillip Cyre, 52, was accused of stealing more than $1 million in a failed value-added beef venture involving Sturgis Meat Service. A Meade County jury convicted him on 16 counts of grand theft by deception for his role in the scheme in which some ranchers were not paid for cattle delivered and others did not recover their investment. He also was convicted of grand theft by deception for his part in obtaining a $300,000 loan from Lantry rancher and former legislator Dean Schrempp....
Nez Perce trail tells stories of honor, sorrow A trail, and its story, snakes through thousands of ponderosa and lodgepole pines high in the Bitterroot Mountains. While most may never get near it, there are those who can still see the Nez Perce women and children who walked it 127 years ago. Pines on this trail tell a story. Voices bleed through slabs of bark peeled from the trees. It is the story of extraordinary grit, one that led 750 Nez Perce - two thirds of them women and children - on a 1,700-mile flight through Washington, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The tribe surrendered on a snowy October day in 1877....
Ketchum relives its woolly history If you've ever wondered what "Mary Had a Little Lamb" sounds like on bagpipes, you had the chance to find out during Sunday's eighth annual Trailing of the Sheep Parade. The Boise Highlanders played that mutton-friendly tune and helped lead a band of some 1,500 sheep down the middle of Main Street in the culmination of Ketchum's three-day festival. A number of groups, each representing a different sheep-raising culture, joined local ranchers in the parade....
Feasting on sheep culture Once a bone of contention, the annual Training of the Sheep Festival has changed into a cultural feast for the Wood River Valley. Based on the practical need to drive sheep south to winter pastures, today's noon parade of sheep down Ketchum's Main Avenue is the centerpiece for a celebration in its eighth year. Crowds flocked to see dancers, musicians, wool vendors, sheep shearing demonstrations and herding demonstrations....
‘Helicopter cowboy’ tells of life above the range W.J. Tiller’s experiences, retold in his book, “The Adventures of a Helicopter Cowboy,” seem like they should be nestled between the chapters about Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan in a children’s book. But Tiller, 78, spent four years sifting through about 6,000 pictures and 20 years worth of stories from working on some of South Texas’ largest ranches to tell his story as a most unusual cowboy. Some of the most compelling recollections in Tiller’s book are from rounding up more than 10,000 head of cattle on the El Sauz Ranch in Willacy County, and of capturing a sea of red Santa Gertrudis cattle on film while on the King Ranch. With about 1,000 heifers calving, Tiller and the cowboys on horseback killed 102 coyotes that had come to feast on the newborns....
J.R. Simplot keeps potato business all in the family In August, J.R. Simplot, the 95-year-old billionaire who founded the food and fertilizer company that bears his name, buttonholed his son Scott. He wanted to talk about Scott Simplot's plan to cut the company's cattle holdings - reversing his father's decadeslong practice of maintaining large feedlots. The pair became ensnared in a drawn-out argument about strategy. Scott says he kept walking away, muttering, ''Whatever you say, Dad.'' Exasperated, the father shot back. ''Well, dang it - you're fired.'' For J.R. Simplot, the outburst was futile because he no longer owns voting stock in the company and doesn't have any real control over its operations. For his son, it was the latest episode in a long struggle to modernize a storied American company and the legacy created by his own father....
It's All Trew: Quills, nibs, ink bladders were part of daily life If you know how to trim a quill or clean a nib the president is probably sending you birthday greetings on a regular basis. A quill is an ink pen made from sharpening a feather to a fine point then dipping it into ink to write. A nib is the metal point attached to a wooden staff of an old-time writing pen. To clean a nib you hold it over the top of a lamp chimney to burn the old dried ink from the metal. Once clean, dip the nib in ink and write....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Cowboy logic says get back to hunting Now that the Atkins all-meat, all-fat diet has been acknowledged by most as effective for weight loss, the newest book is promoting its value in controlling diabetes. All this is great news for cattlemen, rib joints and the Egg Board, but the bagel and vegan crowd continue to be skeptical, mostly based on the idea that something that tastes so good must be bad for you. Most anthropologists agree that prehistoric humans' rapid advancement was affected by their ability to hunt, digest rich protein (meat), and think. It freed them from the daily grazing grind of herbivores like mastodons, koalas and gorillas who, to this day remain incapable of inventing the wheel....
Permalink 0 comments
Sunday, October 10, 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY
WESTWATCHING
There is something of great importance emerging from the Northern and Southern Rocky Mountain states today that all Americans need to keep an eye on. The past thirty years have seen the passage of increasingly harsh and harmful Federal environmental laws and regulations. This has led to Federal agencies closing Federal lands and declaring rights for plants and animals that supercede the rights of citizens to their property and their traditions and cultures. This has decimated rural economies, rural communities, and the ranches, farms, and activities that have made Americans the envy of the world. Nowhere have these harms to citizens from Federal laws been as numerous or egregious as in the West. Because they are at the forefront of these harms, westerners have been forced to try and protect their interests and rights. The alternatives are to lose those rights such as use of their own property, or access to public property that goes unmanaged more every year, to even being able to access their own property by road. What have they found?....
Permalink 0 comments
WESTWATCHING
There is something of great importance emerging from the Northern and Southern Rocky Mountain states today that all Americans need to keep an eye on. The past thirty years have seen the passage of increasingly harsh and harmful Federal environmental laws and regulations. This has led to Federal agencies closing Federal lands and declaring rights for plants and animals that supercede the rights of citizens to their property and their traditions and cultures. This has decimated rural economies, rural communities, and the ranches, farms, and activities that have made Americans the envy of the world. Nowhere have these harms to citizens from Federal laws been as numerous or egregious as in the West. Because they are at the forefront of these harms, westerners have been forced to try and protect their interests and rights. The alternatives are to lose those rights such as use of their own property, or access to public property that goes unmanaged more every year, to even being able to access their own property by road. What have they found?....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
FEDERAL PRAIRIE DOG FINE IS LEGAL, SAYS APPEALS BOARD
A $15,000 fine assessed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) against a southern Utah landowner is legal, an ad hoc panel of the U.S. Department of the Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled today nearly two years after Mr. Lin Drake, of Cedar City, Utah, filed his appeal. In rejecting Drake’s appeal, the panel concluded that the FWS need not produce evidence that any prairie dogs had been injured or killed by the physical changes that Drake made to purported prairie dog habitat on his land. Mr. Drake had argued that an administrative law judge (ALJ) had erred by approving the FWS’s fine because he neither “harmed” nor “harassed” prairie dogs, as defined in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). “By its decision today, the federal government has ruled that, simply by using his private property to construct single-family homes, Lin Drake violated the federal law when he ‘disturbed’ the habitat of protected prairie dogs, thus ‘harming’ and ‘harassing’ them,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents Drake....
Permalink 0 comments
FEDERAL PRAIRIE DOG FINE IS LEGAL, SAYS APPEALS BOARD
A $15,000 fine assessed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) against a southern Utah landowner is legal, an ad hoc panel of the U.S. Department of the Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled today nearly two years after Mr. Lin Drake, of Cedar City, Utah, filed his appeal. In rejecting Drake’s appeal, the panel concluded that the FWS need not produce evidence that any prairie dogs had been injured or killed by the physical changes that Drake made to purported prairie dog habitat on his land. Mr. Drake had argued that an administrative law judge (ALJ) had erred by approving the FWS’s fine because he neither “harmed” nor “harassed” prairie dogs, as defined in the Endangered Species Act (ESA). “By its decision today, the federal government has ruled that, simply by using his private property to construct single-family homes, Lin Drake violated the federal law when he ‘disturbed’ the habitat of protected prairie dogs, thus ‘harming’ and ‘harassing’ them,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents Drake....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
DO’S & DON’TS
At the Federal level, while the Senate fiddles and the House toys with “sound science” as a remedy for Endangered Species damage to the nation, Federal agencies exercise growing powers at frightening rates. The big land managing agencies (Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and National Park Service) reduce their natural resource management programs as they simultaneously close more public lands to uses and access, claim more private and State property, propose increasingly massive spending programs to expand their power based on contrived theories, and reduce State agencies and State governments to little more than local power outlets for Federal power. So what do we do?....
Permalink 0 comments
DO’S & DON’TS
At the Federal level, while the Senate fiddles and the House toys with “sound science” as a remedy for Endangered Species damage to the nation, Federal agencies exercise growing powers at frightening rates. The big land managing agencies (Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, and National Park Service) reduce their natural resource management programs as they simultaneously close more public lands to uses and access, claim more private and State property, propose increasingly massive spending programs to expand their power based on contrived theories, and reduce State agencies and State governments to little more than local power outlets for Federal power. So what do we do?....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
PLF Fights For Water Rights In The West
In the last few years, Pacific Legal Foundation’s Western Water Law Project has been sending federal, state, and local regulators and environmentalists a powerful message that PLF will enforce through legal precedent: Where the government takes water rights away from ranchers, farmers, and even from entire water districts for a public benefit, it has to pay for it. Indeed, in 2001, the Court of Federal Claims embraced the arguments filed by PLF and recognized that government diversion of water away from the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District in central California to benefit the winter-run chinook salmon constituted a regulatory “taking” no different in kind than the government taking of private land by eminent domain to build a highway bypass across a cornfield....
Permalink 0 comments
PLF Fights For Water Rights In The West
In the last few years, Pacific Legal Foundation’s Western Water Law Project has been sending federal, state, and local regulators and environmentalists a powerful message that PLF will enforce through legal precedent: Where the government takes water rights away from ranchers, farmers, and even from entire water districts for a public benefit, it has to pay for it. Indeed, in 2001, the Court of Federal Claims embraced the arguments filed by PLF and recognized that government diversion of water away from the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District in central California to benefit the winter-run chinook salmon constituted a regulatory “taking” no different in kind than the government taking of private land by eminent domain to build a highway bypass across a cornfield....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Ketchup: More than a Vegetable?
While we don’t buy the notion that organic products are any more wholesome than others, the marketing potential of the term is clear. But if the reporter had gone back just a few more decades, he would have discovered some interesting history concerning a less appreciated aspect of organic food—profiteering. Ironically, this episode involves the source of Teresa Kerry’s fortune, the H. J. Heinz Company, and its best known product, ketchup. The “pure food” movement began in the early 1900s, as technological advances in such areas as canning and preservatives revolutionized food processing. Consumers benefited from lower prices and increased choice, but at the same time new methods of food adulteration arose. While the health hazards of such adulteration were frequently exaggerated, there was some cause for concern. A movement arose to eliminate preservatives from processed foods. One of its earliest battles was over the use of benzoate as a preservative in ketchup....
Permalink 0 comments
Ketchup: More than a Vegetable?
While we don’t buy the notion that organic products are any more wholesome than others, the marketing potential of the term is clear. But if the reporter had gone back just a few more decades, he would have discovered some interesting history concerning a less appreciated aspect of organic food—profiteering. Ironically, this episode involves the source of Teresa Kerry’s fortune, the H. J. Heinz Company, and its best known product, ketchup. The “pure food” movement began in the early 1900s, as technological advances in such areas as canning and preservatives revolutionized food processing. Consumers benefited from lower prices and increased choice, but at the same time new methods of food adulteration arose. While the health hazards of such adulteration were frequently exaggerated, there was some cause for concern. A movement arose to eliminate preservatives from processed foods. One of its earliest battles was over the use of benzoate as a preservative in ketchup....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
The Toxic Politics of Biotech
How far does grass pollen travel? Ask someone who has hay fever, and the response is likely to be "much too far." But unsatisfied with that answer, the folks at our Environmental Protection Agency decided they needed an elaborate experiment—which they performed with a gene-spliced, herbicide-resistant grass. They found that the pollen spread more than a dozen miles downwind, farther than previously had been measured. Predictably, the results have been blown out of all proportion by hot air from anti-biotechnology activists. Hard-core opponents of biotechnology are practically giddy with delight. "This does confirm what a lot of people feared—expected, really," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Well, she's right about one thing: There is nothing about this study's results that were unexpected. In fact, finding that pollen is blown downwind is a revelation on a par with the discovery that you get wet if you venture outside in a thunderstorm....
Permalink 0 comments
The Toxic Politics of Biotech
How far does grass pollen travel? Ask someone who has hay fever, and the response is likely to be "much too far." But unsatisfied with that answer, the folks at our Environmental Protection Agency decided they needed an elaborate experiment—which they performed with a gene-spliced, herbicide-resistant grass. They found that the pollen spread more than a dozen miles downwind, farther than previously had been measured. Predictably, the results have been blown out of all proportion by hot air from anti-biotechnology activists. Hard-core opponents of biotechnology are practically giddy with delight. "This does confirm what a lot of people feared—expected, really," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Well, she's right about one thing: There is nothing about this study's results that were unexpected. In fact, finding that pollen is blown downwind is a revelation on a par with the discovery that you get wet if you venture outside in a thunderstorm....
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Biotech: Enormous Potential Compromised by Self-Interest, Bad Science, and Excessive Government Regulation
In The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution, food safety experts Henry Miller and Gregory Conko have written a brilliant account of how self-interest, bad science, and excessive government regulation have profoundly compromised the potential of the new biotechnology. This book is a call to action for policymakers to resist a destructive political process that is currently denying enormous potential benefits to consumers throughout the world. The authors make a persuasive case not only that the benefits of food biotechnology far exceed the risks, but also that there has been an abject failure in the formulation of public policy. The result has been, they argue, gross over-regulation of the technology and its products, disincentives to research and development, and fewer choices and inflated prices for consumers....
Permalink 0 comments
Biotech: Enormous Potential Compromised by Self-Interest, Bad Science, and Excessive Government Regulation
In The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution, food safety experts Henry Miller and Gregory Conko have written a brilliant account of how self-interest, bad science, and excessive government regulation have profoundly compromised the potential of the new biotechnology. This book is a call to action for policymakers to resist a destructive political process that is currently denying enormous potential benefits to consumers throughout the world. The authors make a persuasive case not only that the benefits of food biotechnology far exceed the risks, but also that there has been an abject failure in the formulation of public policy. The result has been, they argue, gross over-regulation of the technology and its products, disincentives to research and development, and fewer choices and inflated prices for consumers....
Permalink 0 comments
