Saturday, December 18, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Mountain Lions Move East, Breeding Fear "Iowa is the state with the highest mountain lion hysteria." So explained Ron Andrews, furbearer resource specialist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. His standing-room-only audience was mostly farmers and their wives, weatherworn men with feed caps, sturdy women with sensible shoes. They looked more suspicious than hysterical. They had crowded into a community center here in the heart of hog and corn country to find out the skulking particulars on the world's fourth-largest cat. State records show that mountain lions disappeared from Iowa in 1867. But with increasing and unnerving regularity, the ambush predator -- which will kill and eat house pets, livestock and humans but much prefers deer -- is back on the prowl across the Midwest. It's turning up on farms, in suburbs and even in occasional appearances downtown....
Barton grateful for court "blessing" The woman who started the Hayman fire, Terry Lynn Barton, didn't realize at first the magnitude of Thursday's ruling by the Colorado Court of Appeals, which threw out her 12-year state prison sentence. Her attorney assured her that it was a big deal. "He said: 'Merry Christmas. No one deserved it better than you,"' Barton said in a telephone interview Friday from a Fort Worth, Texas, prison....
‘Gateway to paradise’ might be sold A lake and private enclave east of Lake Tahoe could be sold to the federal government for $75 million under a proposal recently submitted to the Bureau of Land Management. The sale of Incline Lake near the Mount Rose summit is one of about $120 million worth of sensitive land acquisitions in Northern Nevada proposed in the latest round of land deals under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act....
Family accused of misusing trust A lawsuit filed this week by the state attorney general's office accuses a Big Bear family of mishandling hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds that were supposed to go to an environmental trust. The directors of the Natural Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group with more than $2 million in assets and land holdings, include Christian Lindblad and his parents Robert L. Lindblad and Samantha Lindblad, who are also involved in an attempted murder case from June 2002. The organization received about $600,000 in state grants to maintain a nature preserve in the Big Bear Valley over the past decade but has failed to account for more than $400,000 of that money, said Tania Ibanez, a deputy attorney general....
Feds propose reducing critical habitat for western snowy plover The federal government proposed Friday to protect smaller but more numerous sections of West Coast beaches as habitat for the western snowy plover, saying it hoped to reduce conflicts between the tiny shore bird and people playing in the sand. The new critical habitat proposal, prompted by a federal court order won by Coos County commissioners on grounds the original did not include a proper economic impact statement, comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also considering petitions to lift Endangered Species Act protection for the bird. Paul Henson, assistant manager of the agency's California-Nevada Operations Office, said he hoped to use the critical habitat process to open as much beach as possible to recreation while providing what the plover needs to recover, without having to resort to heavy-handed regulation....
Anthropologist Pleads To Selling Parts Of Endangered Animals A cultural anthropologist who sold her Brazilian tribal art collection to the future head of the Smithsonian Institution pleaded guilty to selling parts of animals protected as endangered species. Rosita Heredia pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating federal law protecting endangered species by selling her collection to Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence M. Small. He paid $400,000 in 1998 -- two years before he took over at the Smithsonian -- for the headdresses, ceremonial clothing and weapons for his private gallery in Washington, D.C. Heredia had permits to own the artifacts -- which included body parts and feathers of protected animals including harpy eagle, jaguar, leopard and giant armadillo -- for an educational purpose....
California activists call for lead ammunition ban to aid condors A coalition of environmentalists, American Indians and hunters is asking regulators to issue an emergency ban on lead ammunition in the condor's feeding territory and eventually statewide. "This is imperative to get this going. We feel this is an emergency issue for the condor," said Jeff Miller, a researcher with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups filing the petition with the state Fish and Game Commission. The move comes 18 months after state wildlife managers started a voluntary plan to protect California condors from lead poisoning. Separate studies for the state and federal wildlife agencies last year found condor lead poisoning increased during the fall hunting season.....
Government wants to open trails at former weapons plant The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endorsed a plan Friday that would let visitors roam 16 miles of trails across a scenic, wind-swept plateau that once housed the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. A state health official said the 6,240-acre site will be safe for public use after a $7 billion cleanup of plutonium, but an activist disagreed. The cleanup of the site, set against the foothills northwest of Denver, is expected to be complete in 2006, and the refuge could open in 2008. Parts would remain off-limits because of buried wastes, but officials say the cleanup will remove surface contamination....
Coalbed leases to face new scrutiny Prompted by court and administrative rulings, federal land managers will review more than 400 coalbed methane leases issued before management plans were updated to reflect the industry's impact on air and water - a decision that could halt some existing development in the Powder River Basin. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Buffalo Field Office on Thursday issued two separate notices providing for environmental assessments in the basin, the state's most productive gas field. One is a review of 421 leases issued before the office's 1985 resource management plan was updated in 2003 to take into account unique effects of coalbed methane development, an industry federal land managers had not foreseen in the 1980s. The second assessment is a review of the impacts of those leasing decisions and the potential for changing the way methane leases on federal property are permitted in the future....
Column: A grandfather's tales of wild horses come true No man is allowed to live here, in the restricted area of the Yakama. Just the wind, and wild horses. Fifty years ago, my grandfather told me what I might see today, and in the rustle of the wheatgrass this afternoon I hear his Alabama twang: "Cayuses everywhere -- you know, mustangs, boy! There's enough wild hosses up in Horse Heaven Hills a whole damn horizon couldn't hold 'em." I am here to prove to myself these horses exist -- the feds insist that they do not -- and I am here because the same government has given me reason to worry for their future....
Letter: Controlling wild horses part of balanced range management Wild horses are in conflict with healthy rangelands, rather than with ranchers and their livestock. In this time when current range management theory dictates that public land ranchers need to have some grazing system, some method for rotating the areas his or her livestock use in order to provide periods of rest for the range, it is simply no longer acceptable that large herds of horses graze the same range all year, every year. No one is proposing that all the wild horses be removed from the ranges; the sale of older horses is simply the most practical way to allow for the reduction of horse numbers to levels which approach a balance with the health of their ranges....
Government finds no bias by consultant in Steens case Federal investigators found no bias in the work of a consultant tied to the mining industry who helped the U.S. government draft a new blueprint for the protected Steens Mountain region in south-central Oregon. However, the review by the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General showed the government was two years late in making sure its contract with the consultant included provisions to guard against conflicts of interest. The review was conducted at the request of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. He made the request after The Oregonian reported last year that officers of a Nevada company hired by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to work on the Steens Mountain blueprint were leaders of pro-mining groups....
Water users urged to consider 'worst-case scenarios' The commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation had a message for Western water officials on Friday: Get ready to make do with less. Just in case. John Keys told the Colorado River Water Users Association here that the bureau is developing "worst-case scenarios" should the current six-year drought persist. And among those scenarios are water allocation reductions from Lake Powell, perhaps as early as 2006, and from Lake Mead in early 2007. Mexico's water take beyond the 1.5 million acre-feet it receives as part of the Colorado Compact could be put on the table as well. "What I must emphasize is that this is only an example of the trade-offs we will have to make," Keys told the group, which wrapped up two days of meetings on Friday. "You all have an interest in how these issues are resolved, in a way that meets the needs of the entire [Colorado River] basin, while also following the Law of the River."....
Locke unveils Columbia River proposal In what is likely one of his last acts before leaving office, Gov. Gary Locke announced a new plan for managing the Columbia River, seeking to provide more water for farmers and cities in Eastern Washington while protecting fish and wildlife. Water users and conservationists have been battling for decades over water rights for the Columbia and its tributaries, with one side seeking more water for communities and commerce while the other side fights for sufficient water for threatened fish. Locke made finding a solution a priority in his second term, working to resolve hundreds of water-rights applications and reduce litigation on the issue....
Salt Lake City mayor pushes green crusade Attending a conference in Argentina this week, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wore his beliefs around his neck with a lanyard that read: "Yes to Kyoto. No to Bush." Under the Democratic mayor, Salt Lake City said "yes" in 2002 to the international agreement to cut carbon-dioxide emissions that President Bush rejected because, the White House said, it would harm the economy. On Thursday, a day after returning from the U.N. climate conference in Buenos Aires, Anderson said local governments have an important role in protecting the environment, especially in the face of Bush's "irresponsible" policy....
Western Governors' Wildfire panel says plan is working poorly Three years after Western governors and the Bush administration agreed on a plan to reduce wildfire danger, money is still lacking and the partnership between the federal government and state and local agencies isn't working well. A report by the Western Governors' Association advisory committee outlined how the plan is going. ''The central message of the report is that the federal government talks the talk on collaboration, but doesn't walk the walk,'' said Niel Lawrence, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's forestry project and a member of the panel that wrote the report. The plan, approved in 2001, called for improved fire prevention and suppression, fuels reduction, a long-term strategy for restoring wildlife habitat and community involvement....
Agency opted not to use DNA test on feed The Canadian Food Inspection Agency decided against using a DNA test on contaminated cattle feed that one expert says would have allowed it to determine if the feed contained banned cattle parts, The Vancouver Sun has learned. On Thursday, The Sun reported that a series of secret CFIA tests on vegetable-based cattle feed and feed ingredients found that 41 of the 70 samples (59 per cent) contained "undeclared animal materials." The CFIA has stressed that those tests -- conducted by looking at feed samples under a microscope -- do not allow it to determine whether cattle remains were fed to other cattle, the primary method in which mad-cow disease is spread....
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Mountain Lions Move East, Breeding Fear "Iowa is the state with the highest mountain lion hysteria." So explained Ron Andrews, furbearer resource specialist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. His standing-room-only audience was mostly farmers and their wives, weatherworn men with feed caps, sturdy women with sensible shoes. They looked more suspicious than hysterical. They had crowded into a community center here in the heart of hog and corn country to find out the skulking particulars on the world's fourth-largest cat. State records show that mountain lions disappeared from Iowa in 1867. But with increasing and unnerving regularity, the ambush predator -- which will kill and eat house pets, livestock and humans but much prefers deer -- is back on the prowl across the Midwest. It's turning up on farms, in suburbs and even in occasional appearances downtown....
Barton grateful for court "blessing" The woman who started the Hayman fire, Terry Lynn Barton, didn't realize at first the magnitude of Thursday's ruling by the Colorado Court of Appeals, which threw out her 12-year state prison sentence. Her attorney assured her that it was a big deal. "He said: 'Merry Christmas. No one deserved it better than you,"' Barton said in a telephone interview Friday from a Fort Worth, Texas, prison....
‘Gateway to paradise’ might be sold A lake and private enclave east of Lake Tahoe could be sold to the federal government for $75 million under a proposal recently submitted to the Bureau of Land Management. The sale of Incline Lake near the Mount Rose summit is one of about $120 million worth of sensitive land acquisitions in Northern Nevada proposed in the latest round of land deals under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act....
Family accused of misusing trust A lawsuit filed this week by the state attorney general's office accuses a Big Bear family of mishandling hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds that were supposed to go to an environmental trust. The directors of the Natural Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group with more than $2 million in assets and land holdings, include Christian Lindblad and his parents Robert L. Lindblad and Samantha Lindblad, who are also involved in an attempted murder case from June 2002. The organization received about $600,000 in state grants to maintain a nature preserve in the Big Bear Valley over the past decade but has failed to account for more than $400,000 of that money, said Tania Ibanez, a deputy attorney general....
Feds propose reducing critical habitat for western snowy plover The federal government proposed Friday to protect smaller but more numerous sections of West Coast beaches as habitat for the western snowy plover, saying it hoped to reduce conflicts between the tiny shore bird and people playing in the sand. The new critical habitat proposal, prompted by a federal court order won by Coos County commissioners on grounds the original did not include a proper economic impact statement, comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is also considering petitions to lift Endangered Species Act protection for the bird. Paul Henson, assistant manager of the agency's California-Nevada Operations Office, said he hoped to use the critical habitat process to open as much beach as possible to recreation while providing what the plover needs to recover, without having to resort to heavy-handed regulation....
Anthropologist Pleads To Selling Parts Of Endangered Animals A cultural anthropologist who sold her Brazilian tribal art collection to the future head of the Smithsonian Institution pleaded guilty to selling parts of animals protected as endangered species. Rosita Heredia pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating federal law protecting endangered species by selling her collection to Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence M. Small. He paid $400,000 in 1998 -- two years before he took over at the Smithsonian -- for the headdresses, ceremonial clothing and weapons for his private gallery in Washington, D.C. Heredia had permits to own the artifacts -- which included body parts and feathers of protected animals including harpy eagle, jaguar, leopard and giant armadillo -- for an educational purpose....
California activists call for lead ammunition ban to aid condors A coalition of environmentalists, American Indians and hunters is asking regulators to issue an emergency ban on lead ammunition in the condor's feeding territory and eventually statewide. "This is imperative to get this going. We feel this is an emergency issue for the condor," said Jeff Miller, a researcher with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups filing the petition with the state Fish and Game Commission. The move comes 18 months after state wildlife managers started a voluntary plan to protect California condors from lead poisoning. Separate studies for the state and federal wildlife agencies last year found condor lead poisoning increased during the fall hunting season.....
Government wants to open trails at former weapons plant The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endorsed a plan Friday that would let visitors roam 16 miles of trails across a scenic, wind-swept plateau that once housed the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. A state health official said the 6,240-acre site will be safe for public use after a $7 billion cleanup of plutonium, but an activist disagreed. The cleanup of the site, set against the foothills northwest of Denver, is expected to be complete in 2006, and the refuge could open in 2008. Parts would remain off-limits because of buried wastes, but officials say the cleanup will remove surface contamination....
Coalbed leases to face new scrutiny Prompted by court and administrative rulings, federal land managers will review more than 400 coalbed methane leases issued before management plans were updated to reflect the industry's impact on air and water - a decision that could halt some existing development in the Powder River Basin. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Buffalo Field Office on Thursday issued two separate notices providing for environmental assessments in the basin, the state's most productive gas field. One is a review of 421 leases issued before the office's 1985 resource management plan was updated in 2003 to take into account unique effects of coalbed methane development, an industry federal land managers had not foreseen in the 1980s. The second assessment is a review of the impacts of those leasing decisions and the potential for changing the way methane leases on federal property are permitted in the future....
Column: A grandfather's tales of wild horses come true No man is allowed to live here, in the restricted area of the Yakama. Just the wind, and wild horses. Fifty years ago, my grandfather told me what I might see today, and in the rustle of the wheatgrass this afternoon I hear his Alabama twang: "Cayuses everywhere -- you know, mustangs, boy! There's enough wild hosses up in Horse Heaven Hills a whole damn horizon couldn't hold 'em." I am here to prove to myself these horses exist -- the feds insist that they do not -- and I am here because the same government has given me reason to worry for their future....
Letter: Controlling wild horses part of balanced range management Wild horses are in conflict with healthy rangelands, rather than with ranchers and their livestock. In this time when current range management theory dictates that public land ranchers need to have some grazing system, some method for rotating the areas his or her livestock use in order to provide periods of rest for the range, it is simply no longer acceptable that large herds of horses graze the same range all year, every year. No one is proposing that all the wild horses be removed from the ranges; the sale of older horses is simply the most practical way to allow for the reduction of horse numbers to levels which approach a balance with the health of their ranges....
Government finds no bias by consultant in Steens case Federal investigators found no bias in the work of a consultant tied to the mining industry who helped the U.S. government draft a new blueprint for the protected Steens Mountain region in south-central Oregon. However, the review by the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General showed the government was two years late in making sure its contract with the consultant included provisions to guard against conflicts of interest. The review was conducted at the request of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. He made the request after The Oregonian reported last year that officers of a Nevada company hired by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to work on the Steens Mountain blueprint were leaders of pro-mining groups....
Water users urged to consider 'worst-case scenarios' The commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation had a message for Western water officials on Friday: Get ready to make do with less. Just in case. John Keys told the Colorado River Water Users Association here that the bureau is developing "worst-case scenarios" should the current six-year drought persist. And among those scenarios are water allocation reductions from Lake Powell, perhaps as early as 2006, and from Lake Mead in early 2007. Mexico's water take beyond the 1.5 million acre-feet it receives as part of the Colorado Compact could be put on the table as well. "What I must emphasize is that this is only an example of the trade-offs we will have to make," Keys told the group, which wrapped up two days of meetings on Friday. "You all have an interest in how these issues are resolved, in a way that meets the needs of the entire [Colorado River] basin, while also following the Law of the River."....
Locke unveils Columbia River proposal In what is likely one of his last acts before leaving office, Gov. Gary Locke announced a new plan for managing the Columbia River, seeking to provide more water for farmers and cities in Eastern Washington while protecting fish and wildlife. Water users and conservationists have been battling for decades over water rights for the Columbia and its tributaries, with one side seeking more water for communities and commerce while the other side fights for sufficient water for threatened fish. Locke made finding a solution a priority in his second term, working to resolve hundreds of water-rights applications and reduce litigation on the issue....
Salt Lake City mayor pushes green crusade Attending a conference in Argentina this week, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wore his beliefs around his neck with a lanyard that read: "Yes to Kyoto. No to Bush." Under the Democratic mayor, Salt Lake City said "yes" in 2002 to the international agreement to cut carbon-dioxide emissions that President Bush rejected because, the White House said, it would harm the economy. On Thursday, a day after returning from the U.N. climate conference in Buenos Aires, Anderson said local governments have an important role in protecting the environment, especially in the face of Bush's "irresponsible" policy....
Western Governors' Wildfire panel says plan is working poorly Three years after Western governors and the Bush administration agreed on a plan to reduce wildfire danger, money is still lacking and the partnership between the federal government and state and local agencies isn't working well. A report by the Western Governors' Association advisory committee outlined how the plan is going. ''The central message of the report is that the federal government talks the talk on collaboration, but doesn't walk the walk,'' said Niel Lawrence, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's forestry project and a member of the panel that wrote the report. The plan, approved in 2001, called for improved fire prevention and suppression, fuels reduction, a long-term strategy for restoring wildlife habitat and community involvement....
Agency opted not to use DNA test on feed The Canadian Food Inspection Agency decided against using a DNA test on contaminated cattle feed that one expert says would have allowed it to determine if the feed contained banned cattle parts, The Vancouver Sun has learned. On Thursday, The Sun reported that a series of secret CFIA tests on vegetable-based cattle feed and feed ingredients found that 41 of the 70 samples (59 per cent) contained "undeclared animal materials." The CFIA has stressed that those tests -- conducted by looking at feed samples under a microscope -- do not allow it to determine whether cattle remains were fed to other cattle, the primary method in which mad-cow disease is spread....
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Friday, December 17, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Court throws out 12-year prison sentence in Colorado's largest wildfire An appeals court Thursday threw out a former U.S. Forest Service employee's 12-year prison sentence for starting the biggest wildfire in Colorado history. The Colorado Court of Appeals said state Judge Edward Colt gave Terry Lynn Barton too harsh a sentence and had at least "the appearance of prejudice" because smoke from the fire had prompted the judge to leave his own home for a night. The court ordered a new sentencing before a new judge for Barton, who admitted starting the June 2002 fire when she burned a letter from her ex-husband in a drought-stricken area....
Forest plan might not protect grizzly bears After reviewing management plans for the national forests around Yellowstone National Park, environmentalists have an easy answer for how well they think grizzly bears will be protected. "Not well at all," said Louisa Wilcox, wild bears project director for the National Resources Defense Council. The group thinks the big bears may become extinct. Wilcox and a handful of other grizzly bear defenders announced their analysis of new amendments to the plan Wednesday and said if grizzlies are de-listed from the Endangered Species Act - which could happen as early as next year - there's a good chance of extinction....
Dozens rally against condos lawsuit Dozens of residents and environmentalists rallied Thursday to condemn a federal lawsuit filed against an activist and three U.S. Forest Service employees. The Marina Point Development project began in 1981 when a group of investors bought a 15.5-acre property along the north edge of Big Bear Lake - in Fawnskin, a town of 400 people. The project has more than 100 condos. The development has been stalled by various bureaucratic and environmental delays, the most recent of which is a court-ordered injunction granted as a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of Fawnskin. In November, lawyers for the developers filed a federal lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, naming San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman and biologists Scott and Robin Eliason....
Pentagon Proposes Loosening Its Environmental Policy The Defense Department, which has won congressional exemptions from environmental laws in the last two years, now wants to change an internal policy that commits the department to sound environmental practices. A draft of the proposal, which would replace a 1996 directive, eliminates the Pentagon's vow to "display environmental security leadership within DOD activities worldwide." It stresses, instead, the "national defense mission." The new proposal replaces a list of concrete responsibilities with vague guidance to the military about how to prevent pollution and guarantee compliance with federal and international laws. The directive would not affect any ongoing cleanup efforts by the Defense Department....
Wash. Orcas Get Feds' 'Threatened' Status Two years after denying Endangered Species Act protection to killer whales that live much of the year near Washington's San Juan Islands, the federal fisheries agency said Thursday it plans to list the struggling population as a threatened species. A federal judge last year had ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider its decision on the whales after eight environmental groups and concerned individuals filed suit. The threatened-species designation could become final a year from now, following a period of public comment....
Crow tribal member gets probation in eagle’s death A former Garryowen resident who admitted illegally possessing a bald eagle carcass will spend three years on federal probation. U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson on Thursday sentenced Duane Neil Costa, now of Ronan, after an hourlong hearing in which attorneys argued over restitution and whether Costa should get credit for accepting responsibility. Anderson gave Costa credit for accepting responsibility, a decision that qualified him for probation instead of a minimum eight months in prison. The judge did not impose restitution because the government did not present a basis for determining a fair amount. Anderson ordered that four months of probation be spent in home confinement and barred Costa from hunting, fishing or trapping during his probation....
Group seeks status review on 198 California endangered species Nearly 300 rare creatures, from the Arroyo Southwestern toad to the White sedge, are considered threatened or in danger of extinction in California, yet there has been no recent review whether two-thirds of the plants and animals still merit protection. Every five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to consider the 298 species' status under the Endangered Species Act, but it says it's so tied up in competing lawsuits from environmental groups and opponents that most decisions now are driven by judges' orders. To prod the service to act, a conservative legal group will notify it Friday that it will add a new lawsuit in 60 days unless the agency starts or schedules status reviews on all 198 listed species that have gone unchallenged for five years or more....
Snowy plover protection plan OKd A state panel endorsed a plan Thursday for protecting the threatened western snowy plover that could lead to new restrictions on such activities as driving, kite flying and playing with dogs on about 20 percent of the coast's sandy beaches. The state Parks and Recreation Commission approved the plan but held off on imposing new rules pending federal actions. The plan goes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approval and for its drafting of an environmental impact statement, which officials said could take up to two years....
Center Files Notice on "Accidental" Government Killing of Jaguars The Center for Biological Diversity today filed formal 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services for actions taken by the latter agency that are likely to result in the "take" of endangered jaguars (panthera onca) in the United States. "Take" under the Endangered Species Act means "harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing trapping, capturing, collecting, or attempting to engage in any such conduct." The notice letter points to failures of USDA's Orwellianly-named Wildlife Services agency to abide by Fish and Wildlife Service requirements in the former agency's wildlife poisoning, trapping and neck-snaring program, that Wildlife Services map out occupied habitat of jaguars and limit its killing techniques in these areas....
Dispute over listing sage grouse as endangered species The greater sage grouse has been nominated for protection as an endangered species, launching a high-voltage debate about its status among biologists, politicians, lobbyists, activists and agency managers. Terri Russi, supervisory wildlife biologist in the Bureau of Land Management's Bishop field office, and his wildlife biologist colleague, Steve Nelson, have been keeping careful tabs on the local sage grouse population in the hope they can determine how many birds there are and whether the number in their area is stable, increasing or declining. So far, their data suggest the grouse population in most of the Bishop area - the westernmost grouse habitat in the United States - is relatively stable, although it fluctuates from year to year. To help keep the grouse from disappearing, they've developed a conservation strategy in partnership with members of the local community, based on maintaining desired levels of vegetation health. They have used those standards to manage grazing and other activities with the potential to degrade sagebrush habitat....
Column: Governors Take Aim at Wounded Species Judging by their comments last week at a meeting in La Jolla, Calif., Western governors have thought a lot about the Endangered Species Act and its consequences for ranching, farming and real-estate development in their states. It became equally clear during the meeting that many governors have not thought clearly about this most far-reaching of federal environmental regulations. Or maybe they're just ignoring what they know. The Western Governors Association hoped to come up with strategies for amending the Endangered Species Act to make it work better. Many of the proposals that emerged from the panel discussions and presentations were for reasonable tweaks in the process: greater involvement by the states in conservation efforts, incentives for private landowner cooperation, making the designation of critical habitat part of the recovery planning for a species rather than one of the first steps in the process. But again and again, in their remarks, the governors and several of their invited speakers -- among them Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican from California's Central Valley who has been spearheading his party's efforts to revise the ESA for a decade, and who now chairs the House Resources Committee -- made it clear that they don't believe the law needs minor improvement....
Park Service proposes allowing more river runners in Grand Canyon More river runners may soon be challenging the rapids of the Colorado River through the depths of the Grand Canyon. The National Park Service wants to increase the total yearly passengers by 38-hundred from 22-thousand-461 to 26-thousand-317 as part of a revised Colorado River management plan. A panel of scientists, geologists, professors and consultants is considering increasing the passenger totals. At the same time, the number and length of trips, as well as group sizes for some areas would be reduced....
Chambers Files Appeal for Immediate Reinstatement Teresa Chambers today filed a legal action to overturn her removal as Chief of the U.S. Park Police. Her 232-page petition cites more than 40 legal errors made by the judge who upheld Chief Chambers’ termination this past fall, according to a copy of the petition released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an October 6th ruling, an administrative judge for the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board issued “an initial decision” that Chief Chambers’ firing was justified due to statements she made in an interview with The Washington Post. The judge did, however, throw out two of the six administrative charges that the Department of Interior had leveled against Chief Chambers....
Yellowstone Trails Lead Bison to Slaughter As the snowmobile season begins in Yellowstone National Park, The Fund For Animals, Bluewater Network and other groups filed suit in Washington D.C. challenging the National Park Service's (NPS) one-two punch against Yellowstone's magnificent bison herd -- grooming snow-packed roads that facilitate bison leaving Yellowstone, and then participating in the slaughter of those very animals when they leave the Park. "It is time for NPS to stop leading Yellowstone bison to their slaughter, by grooming the very trails that help bison find their way out of the Park each winter," said Michael Markarian, president of The Fund for Animals....
Ohio's Regula raises ire in West over park fees In Ohio, he is known as a powerful but genial congressman who has long had a soft spot for the wide-open spaces of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the cattle farm he calls home. Out West, though, Rep. Ralph Regula has a different reputation these days among some outdoorsy types. They accuse the Republican from Navarre of using a sneaky move last month to pass legislation that will force nature lovers to "pay through the nose" for the foreseeable future to visit federally owned recreation areas....
Coal lease bids top $1 billion in '04 Kennecott Energy Co. secured an additional 195 million tons of federal coal in the Powder River Basin with a $146.3 million bid this week. The West Antelope "bonus bid" pushes Wyoming's total for coal lease sales this year beyond $1 billion, half of which comes back to the state. That means: * $1.6 million for community colleges in Wyoming. * $7.5 million for cities, counties and highways. * And $527 million for K-12 school capital construction....
New Oil, Gas Wells Decline This Year Even as the Bush administration issued a record 5,824 oil and gas drilling permits for Western public lands in 2004, the number of new wells drilled declined by 10 percent this year to 2,489, according Bureau of Land Management figures. Environmentalists seized upon the figures -- publicized by the Wilderness Society -- as evidence that companies do not need to expand exploration into sensitive lands. "Why does the Bush administration continue to offer leases on wilderness-quality lands that should be set aside and protected?" asked the Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth....
BLM starting roundup of 2,000 Nevada mustangs Federal land managers have begun efforts to round up nearly two-thousand wild horses in eastern Nevada. Officials for the US Bureau of Land Management met with contractors Wednesday to finalize plans for the gather of 1,916 mustangs in the Antelope complex about 60 miles south of Wells and 60 miles north of Ely. The BLM intends to return about 440 of those horses back to the range and make nearly 1,500 available for adoption. BLM spokesman Mike Brown says the gather is expected to begin Thursday or Friday and last for about 60 days, depending on weather conditions....
Water vote sinks: Delegates walk out on reading of proposed settlement Just when everyone thought the Navajo Nation Council had a clear-cut choice Wednesday of pushing the green button to vote "yes" on the proposed San Juan River water rights settlement or pushing the red button to vote "no," delegates came up with yellow. Following nearly half a day of debate on the issue, Speaker Lawrence Morgan adjourned the meeting around 4:45 p.m. for lack of a quorum after Coalmine/Toh nanes dizi Delegate Hope MacDonald-Lonetree pulled out the rule book and rocked the boat. The proposed settlement agreement nearly 200 pages had not been read into the record. As Phephelia Johnson began the laborious task, delegates headed for the door....
A river flowing to the past Explorer and mountain man Jedediah Smith roamed the West in the 1820s, trapping for "plews" -- cured beaver pelts. These furs could make his fortune, or at minimum, fund future treks. He also hunted for the Rio Buenaventura, a Hudson's Bay Co. fantasy of a river that might run west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The dream of such a river was so seductive that 20 years later, John C. Fremont still quested for it....
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Court throws out 12-year prison sentence in Colorado's largest wildfire An appeals court Thursday threw out a former U.S. Forest Service employee's 12-year prison sentence for starting the biggest wildfire in Colorado history. The Colorado Court of Appeals said state Judge Edward Colt gave Terry Lynn Barton too harsh a sentence and had at least "the appearance of prejudice" because smoke from the fire had prompted the judge to leave his own home for a night. The court ordered a new sentencing before a new judge for Barton, who admitted starting the June 2002 fire when she burned a letter from her ex-husband in a drought-stricken area....
Forest plan might not protect grizzly bears After reviewing management plans for the national forests around Yellowstone National Park, environmentalists have an easy answer for how well they think grizzly bears will be protected. "Not well at all," said Louisa Wilcox, wild bears project director for the National Resources Defense Council. The group thinks the big bears may become extinct. Wilcox and a handful of other grizzly bear defenders announced their analysis of new amendments to the plan Wednesday and said if grizzlies are de-listed from the Endangered Species Act - which could happen as early as next year - there's a good chance of extinction....
Dozens rally against condos lawsuit Dozens of residents and environmentalists rallied Thursday to condemn a federal lawsuit filed against an activist and three U.S. Forest Service employees. The Marina Point Development project began in 1981 when a group of investors bought a 15.5-acre property along the north edge of Big Bear Lake - in Fawnskin, a town of 400 people. The project has more than 100 condos. The development has been stalled by various bureaucratic and environmental delays, the most recent of which is a court-ordered injunction granted as a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of Fawnskin. In November, lawyers for the developers filed a federal lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, naming San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman and biologists Scott and Robin Eliason....
Pentagon Proposes Loosening Its Environmental Policy The Defense Department, which has won congressional exemptions from environmental laws in the last two years, now wants to change an internal policy that commits the department to sound environmental practices. A draft of the proposal, which would replace a 1996 directive, eliminates the Pentagon's vow to "display environmental security leadership within DOD activities worldwide." It stresses, instead, the "national defense mission." The new proposal replaces a list of concrete responsibilities with vague guidance to the military about how to prevent pollution and guarantee compliance with federal and international laws. The directive would not affect any ongoing cleanup efforts by the Defense Department....
Wash. Orcas Get Feds' 'Threatened' Status Two years after denying Endangered Species Act protection to killer whales that live much of the year near Washington's San Juan Islands, the federal fisheries agency said Thursday it plans to list the struggling population as a threatened species. A federal judge last year had ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to reconsider its decision on the whales after eight environmental groups and concerned individuals filed suit. The threatened-species designation could become final a year from now, following a period of public comment....
Crow tribal member gets probation in eagle’s death A former Garryowen resident who admitted illegally possessing a bald eagle carcass will spend three years on federal probation. U.S. Magistrate Richard Anderson on Thursday sentenced Duane Neil Costa, now of Ronan, after an hourlong hearing in which attorneys argued over restitution and whether Costa should get credit for accepting responsibility. Anderson gave Costa credit for accepting responsibility, a decision that qualified him for probation instead of a minimum eight months in prison. The judge did not impose restitution because the government did not present a basis for determining a fair amount. Anderson ordered that four months of probation be spent in home confinement and barred Costa from hunting, fishing or trapping during his probation....
Group seeks status review on 198 California endangered species Nearly 300 rare creatures, from the Arroyo Southwestern toad to the White sedge, are considered threatened or in danger of extinction in California, yet there has been no recent review whether two-thirds of the plants and animals still merit protection. Every five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is required to consider the 298 species' status under the Endangered Species Act, but it says it's so tied up in competing lawsuits from environmental groups and opponents that most decisions now are driven by judges' orders. To prod the service to act, a conservative legal group will notify it Friday that it will add a new lawsuit in 60 days unless the agency starts or schedules status reviews on all 198 listed species that have gone unchallenged for five years or more....
Snowy plover protection plan OKd A state panel endorsed a plan Thursday for protecting the threatened western snowy plover that could lead to new restrictions on such activities as driving, kite flying and playing with dogs on about 20 percent of the coast's sandy beaches. The state Parks and Recreation Commission approved the plan but held off on imposing new rules pending federal actions. The plan goes to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approval and for its drafting of an environmental impact statement, which officials said could take up to two years....
Center Files Notice on "Accidental" Government Killing of Jaguars The Center for Biological Diversity today filed formal 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services for actions taken by the latter agency that are likely to result in the "take" of endangered jaguars (panthera onca) in the United States. "Take" under the Endangered Species Act means "harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing trapping, capturing, collecting, or attempting to engage in any such conduct." The notice letter points to failures of USDA's Orwellianly-named Wildlife Services agency to abide by Fish and Wildlife Service requirements in the former agency's wildlife poisoning, trapping and neck-snaring program, that Wildlife Services map out occupied habitat of jaguars and limit its killing techniques in these areas....
Dispute over listing sage grouse as endangered species The greater sage grouse has been nominated for protection as an endangered species, launching a high-voltage debate about its status among biologists, politicians, lobbyists, activists and agency managers. Terri Russi, supervisory wildlife biologist in the Bureau of Land Management's Bishop field office, and his wildlife biologist colleague, Steve Nelson, have been keeping careful tabs on the local sage grouse population in the hope they can determine how many birds there are and whether the number in their area is stable, increasing or declining. So far, their data suggest the grouse population in most of the Bishop area - the westernmost grouse habitat in the United States - is relatively stable, although it fluctuates from year to year. To help keep the grouse from disappearing, they've developed a conservation strategy in partnership with members of the local community, based on maintaining desired levels of vegetation health. They have used those standards to manage grazing and other activities with the potential to degrade sagebrush habitat....
Column: Governors Take Aim at Wounded Species Judging by their comments last week at a meeting in La Jolla, Calif., Western governors have thought a lot about the Endangered Species Act and its consequences for ranching, farming and real-estate development in their states. It became equally clear during the meeting that many governors have not thought clearly about this most far-reaching of federal environmental regulations. Or maybe they're just ignoring what they know. The Western Governors Association hoped to come up with strategies for amending the Endangered Species Act to make it work better. Many of the proposals that emerged from the panel discussions and presentations were for reasonable tweaks in the process: greater involvement by the states in conservation efforts, incentives for private landowner cooperation, making the designation of critical habitat part of the recovery planning for a species rather than one of the first steps in the process. But again and again, in their remarks, the governors and several of their invited speakers -- among them Rep. Richard Pombo, a Republican from California's Central Valley who has been spearheading his party's efforts to revise the ESA for a decade, and who now chairs the House Resources Committee -- made it clear that they don't believe the law needs minor improvement....
Park Service proposes allowing more river runners in Grand Canyon More river runners may soon be challenging the rapids of the Colorado River through the depths of the Grand Canyon. The National Park Service wants to increase the total yearly passengers by 38-hundred from 22-thousand-461 to 26-thousand-317 as part of a revised Colorado River management plan. A panel of scientists, geologists, professors and consultants is considering increasing the passenger totals. At the same time, the number and length of trips, as well as group sizes for some areas would be reduced....
Chambers Files Appeal for Immediate Reinstatement Teresa Chambers today filed a legal action to overturn her removal as Chief of the U.S. Park Police. Her 232-page petition cites more than 40 legal errors made by the judge who upheld Chief Chambers’ termination this past fall, according to a copy of the petition released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an October 6th ruling, an administrative judge for the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board issued “an initial decision” that Chief Chambers’ firing was justified due to statements she made in an interview with The Washington Post. The judge did, however, throw out two of the six administrative charges that the Department of Interior had leveled against Chief Chambers....
Yellowstone Trails Lead Bison to Slaughter As the snowmobile season begins in Yellowstone National Park, The Fund For Animals, Bluewater Network and other groups filed suit in Washington D.C. challenging the National Park Service's (NPS) one-two punch against Yellowstone's magnificent bison herd -- grooming snow-packed roads that facilitate bison leaving Yellowstone, and then participating in the slaughter of those very animals when they leave the Park. "It is time for NPS to stop leading Yellowstone bison to their slaughter, by grooming the very trails that help bison find their way out of the Park each winter," said Michael Markarian, president of The Fund for Animals....
Ohio's Regula raises ire in West over park fees In Ohio, he is known as a powerful but genial congressman who has long had a soft spot for the wide-open spaces of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the cattle farm he calls home. Out West, though, Rep. Ralph Regula has a different reputation these days among some outdoorsy types. They accuse the Republican from Navarre of using a sneaky move last month to pass legislation that will force nature lovers to "pay through the nose" for the foreseeable future to visit federally owned recreation areas....
Coal lease bids top $1 billion in '04 Kennecott Energy Co. secured an additional 195 million tons of federal coal in the Powder River Basin with a $146.3 million bid this week. The West Antelope "bonus bid" pushes Wyoming's total for coal lease sales this year beyond $1 billion, half of which comes back to the state. That means: * $1.6 million for community colleges in Wyoming. * $7.5 million for cities, counties and highways. * And $527 million for K-12 school capital construction....
New Oil, Gas Wells Decline This Year Even as the Bush administration issued a record 5,824 oil and gas drilling permits for Western public lands in 2004, the number of new wells drilled declined by 10 percent this year to 2,489, according Bureau of Land Management figures. Environmentalists seized upon the figures -- publicized by the Wilderness Society -- as evidence that companies do not need to expand exploration into sensitive lands. "Why does the Bush administration continue to offer leases on wilderness-quality lands that should be set aside and protected?" asked the Wilderness Society's Dave Alberswerth....
BLM starting roundup of 2,000 Nevada mustangs Federal land managers have begun efforts to round up nearly two-thousand wild horses in eastern Nevada. Officials for the US Bureau of Land Management met with contractors Wednesday to finalize plans for the gather of 1,916 mustangs in the Antelope complex about 60 miles south of Wells and 60 miles north of Ely. The BLM intends to return about 440 of those horses back to the range and make nearly 1,500 available for adoption. BLM spokesman Mike Brown says the gather is expected to begin Thursday or Friday and last for about 60 days, depending on weather conditions....
Water vote sinks: Delegates walk out on reading of proposed settlement Just when everyone thought the Navajo Nation Council had a clear-cut choice Wednesday of pushing the green button to vote "yes" on the proposed San Juan River water rights settlement or pushing the red button to vote "no," delegates came up with yellow. Following nearly half a day of debate on the issue, Speaker Lawrence Morgan adjourned the meeting around 4:45 p.m. for lack of a quorum after Coalmine/Toh nanes dizi Delegate Hope MacDonald-Lonetree pulled out the rule book and rocked the boat. The proposed settlement agreement nearly 200 pages had not been read into the record. As Phephelia Johnson began the laborious task, delegates headed for the door....
A river flowing to the past Explorer and mountain man Jedediah Smith roamed the West in the 1820s, trapping for "plews" -- cured beaver pelts. These furs could make his fortune, or at minimum, fund future treks. He also hunted for the Rio Buenaventura, a Hudson's Bay Co. fantasy of a river that might run west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The dream of such a river was so seductive that 20 years later, John C. Fremont still quested for it....
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Thursday, December 16, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
State agency proposes paying compensation due to wolf kills State wildlife officials are beginning to work out the details for a program that would pay ranchers for livestock lost to wolves, the first such program in Montana. How the program would work, and how much it would cost, are unknown at this time, said Chris Smith, chief of staff for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. However, officials are hoping to improve on similar programs in other states and Canadian provinces and on the existing program in Montana, which is funded voluntarily by the environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife....
Hage Case to Go To Judge For Judgement Wayne Hage, a Tonopah, Nevada rancher reported at the last Nevada Live Stock Association’s (NLSA) Directors’ meeting on December 10, 2004 that his case is now squarely before Judge Loren Smith of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Judge Smith, at the completion of closing arguments in Reno, Nevada in October of this year, had strongly urged the parties to enter into settlement discussions. At the NLSA meeting, Wayne Hage and his wife, NLSA Chairman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage, who was conducting the meeting, received confirmation from their attorneys in San Francisco that settlement was impossible; the two parties were too far apart. Chairman Chenoweth-Hage told the directors and others present that many people had been contacting them asking them not to settle, to “please take this case to completion.” Now that will be possible....
Enviros sue over bull trout habitat Two Montana environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's decision to cut habitat protection for bull trout by 90 percent. They contend the administration relied on uncertain local protections, ignored economic benefits of restoring fish, and did not consider the best science. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan, two Montana environmental groups filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. It seeks an injunction to compel Fish and Wildlife to designate adequate habitat for bull trout, allowing the bull trout to be removed from threatened and endangered species lists. This is the latest development in a continuing fight between environmental groups and the Bush administration over enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, particularly the provision that calls for earmarking habitat critical to getting a species off the threatened or endangered species lists....
Decision by federal court holds up growth rule Even though the Bush administration last Friday reissued a rule that is key to western Riverside County's growth plan, officials said this week the county's plan cannot yet count on the controversial "no surprises" rule. That rule gives a blanket assurance to the county and developers that they will face no further requirements once they have a federally approved plan to set up a reserve system to protect endangered species. The rule's aim is to speed up development outside the reserves with fewer environmental restrictions. But earlier this year, a federal judge sided with environmental groups and blocked the no-surprises rule, saying it lacked adequate public comment, just as the county was getting federal approval for its plan....
Grizzly arguments take shape Conservationists Wednesday criticized a U.S. Forest Service proposal outlining habitat criteria for grizzly bears, saying the agency's preferred plan doesn't go far enough. At the same time, county commissioners in Fremont County passed a second resolution saying bears are not wanted in their area, even though the northwest part of the county is known habitat for the bear. Commissioners in Sublette County are expected to pass a similar resolution next week....
Environmental group petitions to protect shovel-nose snake An environmental group on Wednesday petitioned federal wildlife officials for protection of the Tucson Shovel-nosed snake. Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has one year to determine whether the snake is eligible to be listed as threatened or endangered. The Center for Biological Diversity and Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection contend the snake's population has been driven into decline by urban sprawl and agriculture....
Drilling Fears Not Addressed, Groups Say Federal biologists had concerns about protections for wildlife and plant habitat on Otero Mesa early in the planning for oil and gas drilling there. Environmental groups now charge that many of those concerns were never addressed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in its plan to expand resource development in the southern New Mexico area. The BLM insists that the concerns were taken into consideration and that adequate protections have been incorporated in the proposed plan. Handwritten notes, taken by Fish and Wildlife Service biologists during meetings with the BLM, were obtained by Earthjustice and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance through a Freedom of Information Act request. "The Fish and Wildlife Service had serious questions with the BLM and the BLM ignored their inquiries as they ignored our inquiries," said wilderness alliance Executive Director Stephen Capra....
Wyoming joins suit against ban on snowmobiles The state of Wyoming has joined a tourism group's lawsuit that challenges National Park Service snowmobile rules in Yellowstone National Park. The lawsuit, originally filed last month by the Wyoming Lodging and Restaurant Association in U.S. District Court, seeks to loosen restrictions that limit the number of snowmobiles allowed in Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton National Park. The Park Service has issued temporary rules that restrict the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone to 720 a day and would require all recreational snowmobile users in the park to travel with a commercial guide. The rules allow 140 snowmobiles, with no guiding requirement, in Grand Teton and on the parkway connecting the two parks....
Leadership puts Eberts ranch buy on fast track Money to buy the Eberts ranch in the Badlands for a first-ever state preserve could be one of the first items taken up by the Legislature in January. Senate Majority Leader Bob Stenehjem, R-Bismarck, said he'll try to fast-track a bill to appropriate the state's share of the $3.5 million purchase. Stenehjem said it's possible the bill could be heard in committee by Jan. 7, the opening week of the 2005 session....
Loads of 'history' on D.C. to-do list The 108th Congress has turned out the lights for the year with some important business left undone. No, we're not talking about intelligence reforms, federal finances or the like; lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill to take care of those issues. Rather, left in Congress' "to do" stack was a massive package of bills, passed by the Senate but ignored by the House, that would designate a potpourri of national historic sites, trails, districts, heritage areas, wilderness and even boundary adjustments for national parks. Most, if not all, will be reintroduced next year....
Column: Green bigots international First they destroyed the gasoline station, so that you have to drive miles out of your way to get gas. Then they destroyed a parking lot. Now they want to destroy a dam and a reservoir that supplies more than 2 million people with water. No, these are not al-Qaeda terrorists. These are our own home-grown fanatics -- and the places mentioned are all in Yosemite National Park. They call themselves environmentalists but a more accurate term would be green bigots. What makes someone a bigot is that he wishes to deny other people the same rights he has. That is the hallmark of the environmental zealot....
Column: The Prophets, False Prophets, and Profiteers of Kyoto Actual satellite and weather balloon data – as well as historic and geologic records of numerous warming and cooling cycles – contradict computer models, theories and assertions that humans are causing disastrous weather events and climate shifts. Arctic temperatures were even higher in the 1930s, before cooling again for several decades. Science’s editors didn’t mention countless studies that analyze natural warming and cooling cycles – or the fact that 18,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they see “no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are disrupting the earth’s climate. All the countries in the world together are responsible for less than 3% of the Earth’s total greenhouse gas emissions (the rest are natural), and the U.S. emits only 1/5 of this. The Kyoto treaty would force the U.S. to slash emissions and fossil fuel use by some 25% over the next decade – an impossible task that would cost millions of jobs and over $300 billion annually, according to government and other studies....
Kyoto format should be ditched if US, China, India remain outside: Italy The Kyoto Treaty may have to die a natural death after 2012 and be replaced by bilateral deals if the United States and big developing countries refuse to make specific promises about curbing greenhouse-gas pollution, Italian Environment Minister Altero Matteoli was quoted on Wednesday as saying. In its present format, the UN's climate-change pact is opposed by the United States, the world's biggest carbon polluter, and it does not require fast-growing developing countries like China and India to make targeted cuts in their emissions....
Mistletoe: It's not just for kissing Mistletoe - the white-berried and green-leafed cluster commonly found hanging above doorways during the holidays - is part of a fairly old kissing ritual for people, but it's also important in other ways. Mistletoe provides essential food, cover and nesting sites for an amazing number of critters in the United States and elsewhere, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In fact, USGS researcher Rob Bennetts said, some animals couldn't even survive without mistletoe, including some birds, butterflies, and insects....
Water war begins to brew "In California, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over," said Jim Edmondson of California Trout. In the Eastern Sierra, they're ready to rumble. The fight is over whether water from Mammoth Creek should be irrigating golf courses and flushing toilets in new $1 million condominiums in the ski town or be left in streams to sustain wild trout. CalTrout, an anglers' conservation group that works to protect and restore the state's wild trout and steelhead, said this amounts to a water grab that will seriously hurt the area's prime fishing streams....
Big farms found to get most water subsidies California's corporate farms are guzzling a disproportionate share of subsidized federal water, a new study concludes. The report by the Environmental Working Group analyzed federal and state records from 2002 to compile a list of the top recipients of subsidized agricultural water from the Central Valley Project, the huge federal water delivery system that supplies roughly one-fifth of the state's domestic and irrigation water - about 7 million acre feet annually. About 6,800 farms use project water, accounting for about 2.7 million acre feet of the deliveries. Central Valley farmers typically pay a fraction of the cost south state urbanites pay for the federal water....
Nevada study looks at paying California to desalinate water Nevada doesn't have an ocean, but it has money and a thriving thirsty city where officials are beginning to consider paying Southern California to convert salt water to fresh water. The idea would be to seek in return some of California's allocation of water from the Colorado River, said McClain Peterson, a Colorado River Commission of Nevada natural resources manager. Peterson presented what he called a first-ever comparative analysis of such a dollars-for-water trade to a conference that ended Tuesday at the Caesars Palace hotel-casino....
New Rawhide is movin' out to Wild Horse Pass Casino The Gila River Indian Community has lured Rawhide Western Town & Steakhouse, the faux-1880s cow town, which is closing its Scottsdale home of 33 years. Details are scheduled to be disclosed this morning at a news conference near the Wild Horse Pass Casino, said Gary Bohnee, spokesman for the community. The new Rawhide will be north of the casino and will include a new Native American village. "We'll almost rewrite history," said Letha Lamb, board member of the Wild Horse Pass Development Authority, about locating a cowboy town in an Indian community....
Bin Laden's horse survives at modest stables The horse Osama bin Laden used to ride now lives in the run-down stables of a colonial-era racetrack on the edge of Khartoum. Her name is Swift Like the Wind, but a more appropriate one might be Victim of Circumstance. At 12, she's too old to race. Last year she almost starved to death. Now she spends her days in a small caged area, next to a grimy pool of water turtles. There was a time when the spirited white mare, dusted with gray spots, was one of a dozen prized horses that galloped in glory along the dusty stretch of track. In bin Laden's heyday here, as a wealthy exile in the mid-1990s, Swift ran in Sudan's most prestigious races....
El Último Vaquero Habla Español (The Last Cowboy Speaks Spanish) When René Alberto Vera Reyes got on a bus to come to the United States, he was 21 years old. He left the village of Cochrane—in Chilean Patagonia, population 2,000—in April 1999, carrying only a duffel bag that contained two pairs of pants, a pair of riding boots, a couple of shirts, a wool poncho, an awl, and several yards of horsehide pita, thin strips used to weave bridles and bullwhips. What he wanted, though, was to be an American cowboy. He wanted to wear a big belt buckle and Wrangler jeans, and to make enough money to trade his horse for a pickup and to buy land someday back in Chile. To get these things, he'd signed a three-year contract with the Western Range Association, a 200-member Citrus Heights, California–based consortium of sheep ranchers that imports hundreds of South Americans a year to work on ranches all over the West....
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State agency proposes paying compensation due to wolf kills State wildlife officials are beginning to work out the details for a program that would pay ranchers for livestock lost to wolves, the first such program in Montana. How the program would work, and how much it would cost, are unknown at this time, said Chris Smith, chief of staff for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. However, officials are hoping to improve on similar programs in other states and Canadian provinces and on the existing program in Montana, which is funded voluntarily by the environmental group, Defenders of Wildlife....
Hage Case to Go To Judge For Judgement Wayne Hage, a Tonopah, Nevada rancher reported at the last Nevada Live Stock Association’s (NLSA) Directors’ meeting on December 10, 2004 that his case is now squarely before Judge Loren Smith of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Judge Smith, at the completion of closing arguments in Reno, Nevada in October of this year, had strongly urged the parties to enter into settlement discussions. At the NLSA meeting, Wayne Hage and his wife, NLSA Chairman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage, who was conducting the meeting, received confirmation from their attorneys in San Francisco that settlement was impossible; the two parties were too far apart. Chairman Chenoweth-Hage told the directors and others present that many people had been contacting them asking them not to settle, to “please take this case to completion.” Now that will be possible....
Enviros sue over bull trout habitat Two Montana environmental groups have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's decision to cut habitat protection for bull trout by 90 percent. They contend the administration relied on uncertain local protections, ignored economic benefits of restoring fish, and did not consider the best science. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Wild Swan, two Montana environmental groups filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland. It seeks an injunction to compel Fish and Wildlife to designate adequate habitat for bull trout, allowing the bull trout to be removed from threatened and endangered species lists. This is the latest development in a continuing fight between environmental groups and the Bush administration over enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, particularly the provision that calls for earmarking habitat critical to getting a species off the threatened or endangered species lists....
Decision by federal court holds up growth rule Even though the Bush administration last Friday reissued a rule that is key to western Riverside County's growth plan, officials said this week the county's plan cannot yet count on the controversial "no surprises" rule. That rule gives a blanket assurance to the county and developers that they will face no further requirements once they have a federally approved plan to set up a reserve system to protect endangered species. The rule's aim is to speed up development outside the reserves with fewer environmental restrictions. But earlier this year, a federal judge sided with environmental groups and blocked the no-surprises rule, saying it lacked adequate public comment, just as the county was getting federal approval for its plan....
Grizzly arguments take shape Conservationists Wednesday criticized a U.S. Forest Service proposal outlining habitat criteria for grizzly bears, saying the agency's preferred plan doesn't go far enough. At the same time, county commissioners in Fremont County passed a second resolution saying bears are not wanted in their area, even though the northwest part of the county is known habitat for the bear. Commissioners in Sublette County are expected to pass a similar resolution next week....
Environmental group petitions to protect shovel-nose snake An environmental group on Wednesday petitioned federal wildlife officials for protection of the Tucson Shovel-nosed snake. Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has one year to determine whether the snake is eligible to be listed as threatened or endangered. The Center for Biological Diversity and Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection contend the snake's population has been driven into decline by urban sprawl and agriculture....
Drilling Fears Not Addressed, Groups Say Federal biologists had concerns about protections for wildlife and plant habitat on Otero Mesa early in the planning for oil and gas drilling there. Environmental groups now charge that many of those concerns were never addressed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in its plan to expand resource development in the southern New Mexico area. The BLM insists that the concerns were taken into consideration and that adequate protections have been incorporated in the proposed plan. Handwritten notes, taken by Fish and Wildlife Service biologists during meetings with the BLM, were obtained by Earthjustice and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance through a Freedom of Information Act request. "The Fish and Wildlife Service had serious questions with the BLM and the BLM ignored their inquiries as they ignored our inquiries," said wilderness alliance Executive Director Stephen Capra....
Wyoming joins suit against ban on snowmobiles The state of Wyoming has joined a tourism group's lawsuit that challenges National Park Service snowmobile rules in Yellowstone National Park. The lawsuit, originally filed last month by the Wyoming Lodging and Restaurant Association in U.S. District Court, seeks to loosen restrictions that limit the number of snowmobiles allowed in Yellowstone and nearby Grand Teton National Park. The Park Service has issued temporary rules that restrict the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone to 720 a day and would require all recreational snowmobile users in the park to travel with a commercial guide. The rules allow 140 snowmobiles, with no guiding requirement, in Grand Teton and on the parkway connecting the two parks....
Leadership puts Eberts ranch buy on fast track Money to buy the Eberts ranch in the Badlands for a first-ever state preserve could be one of the first items taken up by the Legislature in January. Senate Majority Leader Bob Stenehjem, R-Bismarck, said he'll try to fast-track a bill to appropriate the state's share of the $3.5 million purchase. Stenehjem said it's possible the bill could be heard in committee by Jan. 7, the opening week of the 2005 session....
Loads of 'history' on D.C. to-do list The 108th Congress has turned out the lights for the year with some important business left undone. No, we're not talking about intelligence reforms, federal finances or the like; lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill to take care of those issues. Rather, left in Congress' "to do" stack was a massive package of bills, passed by the Senate but ignored by the House, that would designate a potpourri of national historic sites, trails, districts, heritage areas, wilderness and even boundary adjustments for national parks. Most, if not all, will be reintroduced next year....
Column: Green bigots international First they destroyed the gasoline station, so that you have to drive miles out of your way to get gas. Then they destroyed a parking lot. Now they want to destroy a dam and a reservoir that supplies more than 2 million people with water. No, these are not al-Qaeda terrorists. These are our own home-grown fanatics -- and the places mentioned are all in Yosemite National Park. They call themselves environmentalists but a more accurate term would be green bigots. What makes someone a bigot is that he wishes to deny other people the same rights he has. That is the hallmark of the environmental zealot....
Column: The Prophets, False Prophets, and Profiteers of Kyoto Actual satellite and weather balloon data – as well as historic and geologic records of numerous warming and cooling cycles – contradict computer models, theories and assertions that humans are causing disastrous weather events and climate shifts. Arctic temperatures were even higher in the 1930s, before cooling again for several decades. Science’s editors didn’t mention countless studies that analyze natural warming and cooling cycles – or the fact that 18,000 scientists have signed a petition saying they see “no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are disrupting the earth’s climate. All the countries in the world together are responsible for less than 3% of the Earth’s total greenhouse gas emissions (the rest are natural), and the U.S. emits only 1/5 of this. The Kyoto treaty would force the U.S. to slash emissions and fossil fuel use by some 25% over the next decade – an impossible task that would cost millions of jobs and over $300 billion annually, according to government and other studies....
Kyoto format should be ditched if US, China, India remain outside: Italy The Kyoto Treaty may have to die a natural death after 2012 and be replaced by bilateral deals if the United States and big developing countries refuse to make specific promises about curbing greenhouse-gas pollution, Italian Environment Minister Altero Matteoli was quoted on Wednesday as saying. In its present format, the UN's climate-change pact is opposed by the United States, the world's biggest carbon polluter, and it does not require fast-growing developing countries like China and India to make targeted cuts in their emissions....
Mistletoe: It's not just for kissing Mistletoe - the white-berried and green-leafed cluster commonly found hanging above doorways during the holidays - is part of a fairly old kissing ritual for people, but it's also important in other ways. Mistletoe provides essential food, cover and nesting sites for an amazing number of critters in the United States and elsewhere, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In fact, USGS researcher Rob Bennetts said, some animals couldn't even survive without mistletoe, including some birds, butterflies, and insects....
Water war begins to brew "In California, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over," said Jim Edmondson of California Trout. In the Eastern Sierra, they're ready to rumble. The fight is over whether water from Mammoth Creek should be irrigating golf courses and flushing toilets in new $1 million condominiums in the ski town or be left in streams to sustain wild trout. CalTrout, an anglers' conservation group that works to protect and restore the state's wild trout and steelhead, said this amounts to a water grab that will seriously hurt the area's prime fishing streams....
Big farms found to get most water subsidies California's corporate farms are guzzling a disproportionate share of subsidized federal water, a new study concludes. The report by the Environmental Working Group analyzed federal and state records from 2002 to compile a list of the top recipients of subsidized agricultural water from the Central Valley Project, the huge federal water delivery system that supplies roughly one-fifth of the state's domestic and irrigation water - about 7 million acre feet annually. About 6,800 farms use project water, accounting for about 2.7 million acre feet of the deliveries. Central Valley farmers typically pay a fraction of the cost south state urbanites pay for the federal water....
Nevada study looks at paying California to desalinate water Nevada doesn't have an ocean, but it has money and a thriving thirsty city where officials are beginning to consider paying Southern California to convert salt water to fresh water. The idea would be to seek in return some of California's allocation of water from the Colorado River, said McClain Peterson, a Colorado River Commission of Nevada natural resources manager. Peterson presented what he called a first-ever comparative analysis of such a dollars-for-water trade to a conference that ended Tuesday at the Caesars Palace hotel-casino....
New Rawhide is movin' out to Wild Horse Pass Casino The Gila River Indian Community has lured Rawhide Western Town & Steakhouse, the faux-1880s cow town, which is closing its Scottsdale home of 33 years. Details are scheduled to be disclosed this morning at a news conference near the Wild Horse Pass Casino, said Gary Bohnee, spokesman for the community. The new Rawhide will be north of the casino and will include a new Native American village. "We'll almost rewrite history," said Letha Lamb, board member of the Wild Horse Pass Development Authority, about locating a cowboy town in an Indian community....
Bin Laden's horse survives at modest stables The horse Osama bin Laden used to ride now lives in the run-down stables of a colonial-era racetrack on the edge of Khartoum. Her name is Swift Like the Wind, but a more appropriate one might be Victim of Circumstance. At 12, she's too old to race. Last year she almost starved to death. Now she spends her days in a small caged area, next to a grimy pool of water turtles. There was a time when the spirited white mare, dusted with gray spots, was one of a dozen prized horses that galloped in glory along the dusty stretch of track. In bin Laden's heyday here, as a wealthy exile in the mid-1990s, Swift ran in Sudan's most prestigious races....
El Último Vaquero Habla Español (The Last Cowboy Speaks Spanish) When René Alberto Vera Reyes got on a bus to come to the United States, he was 21 years old. He left the village of Cochrane—in Chilean Patagonia, population 2,000—in April 1999, carrying only a duffel bag that contained two pairs of pants, a pair of riding boots, a couple of shirts, a wool poncho, an awl, and several yards of horsehide pita, thin strips used to weave bridles and bullwhips. What he wanted, though, was to be an American cowboy. He wanted to wear a big belt buckle and Wrangler jeans, and to make enough money to trade his horse for a pickup and to buy land someday back in Chile. To get these things, he'd signed a three-year contract with the Western Range Association, a 200-member Citrus Heights, California–based consortium of sheep ranchers that imports hundreds of South Americans a year to work on ranches all over the West....
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
State releases plan for prairie dogs South Dakota officials have released a prairie-dog management plan that calls for the state to poison prairie dogs encroaching from federal land onto nearby private land, just as it did this summer and fall. The plan also would require landowners to poison prairie dogs on their property if the rodents are moving onto a neighbor's land. But it also would stop poisoning if the prairie-dog population drops below a threshold level....
State Police to enforce local forest closure laws An agreement reached between the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service officials will improve enforcement of laws intended to protect wildlife and watersheds from unauthorized motor vehicle use. The agreement, signed this month, will allow the Oregon State Police, in cooperation with the Forest Service and ODFW, to cite road closure violators within the Metolius Basin mule deer winter range on the Crooked River National Grassland and the South Boundary Road Closure Area of the Lookout Mountain Ranger District. It also allows officers to enter and patrol the areas....
Conservation groups push for more snowmobile restrictions Conservation groups, which say snowmobilers are harming caribou in both the United States and Canada, have pledged to fight for greater recreation restrictions on both sides of the border. Representatives from groups in the two countries met Monday in Spokane, Wash., with state, federal and provincial scientists to discuss caribou recovery efforts. Mark Sprengel, executive director of the Priest Lake, Idaho-based Selkirk Conservation Alliance, said protecting old growth forest remains the best hope for caribou's long-term survival. But Sprengel said action is needed now to safeguard the shy animals from snowmobiles penetrating deep into the backcountry....
Editorial: Better, not weaker, is key to reform The act sometimes seems to protect bureaucracy more than species. It relies far too much on sticks and far too little on carrots to encourage compliance. It sometimes asks individuals to bear too much of the cost or sacrifice needed to serve public interests. It puts too much emphasis on process and not nearly enough on results. But few of the would-be reformers bother to feign interest in saving more species, much less manage to convey a sincere desire to make the popular but underperforming law work better. Reformers will gain traction in their efforts when they abandon the hopeless cause of persuading Americans to agree that property rights must always trump mankind's moral obligation to husband Creation....
Agencies at odds over river permit One federal agency has asked another to deny permission for a large riprap and diversion-barb project proposed for the Yellowstone River east of Big Timber. If completed, the 500 feet of riprap and 10 barbs, each of which would extend 40 feet into the river along a 1,500-foot reach, would have big impacts on the river and on the fish and wildlife that depend on it, according R. Mark Wilson, field supervisor in Helena for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Mormon cricket control strategy in the works Traveling at 15 miles a year, an infestation of Mormon crickets could reach Susanville in three years and county, state and federal officials are working to slow them down. Regional ecologist Don Armentrout, of the Susanville Bureau of Land Management office, agreed on Thursday, Dec. 2 to sit down with county and federal agriculture officials and start work on a strategy. The idea is to control the infestation that may reach 250,000 insects in the Honey Lake area in the summer of 2005. Armentrout said the strategy must follow the bureau direction to not do anything to increase chances the sage grouse will be listed as an endangered species....
Fish and Wildlife Service estimates costs of conserving the endangered Lane Mountain milk vetch The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft analysis that estimates costs associated with the conservation of Lane Mountain milk-vetch (Astragalus jaegerianus), a plant found in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. Between 1998 - when the milk-vetch was listed as an endangered species - and the final critical habitat designation in 2005, costs for the conservation of the species are estimated between $1.6 million and $2 million. From 2005 to 2025, costs for the species' conservation are estimated between $5.8 million and $13 million. The Service proposed 29,522 acres as critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch in April of this year in response to a lawsuit filed against the Service by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society....
Tribes, state to sign Bison Range deal today The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will sign a controversial and quite likely precedent-setting agreement Wednesday, allowing the tribal government to take over important management functions at the National Bison Range Complex on the Flathead Reservation. The tribes will be reimbursed for their work by the federal government, with the money taken out of the Fish and Wildlife Service budget for the Bison Range. Both governments say the consequences to taxpayers will be negligible. The agreement will automatically take effect in 90 days unless Congress intervenes....
Off-roaders win one, lose one in disputes over trail use An off-road vehicle advocacy group has won one and lost one in an ongoing battle to maintain motorized access on Utah public lands. The Utah Shared Access Alliance, a coalition of off-highway vehicle (OHV) organizations, filed suit earlier this year to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's decision to close 23 miles of trails in Uinta National Forest, and declared victory Tuesday following the agency's recent decision to reopen most of those trails. But the OHV advocates also suffered a setback Tuesday when a federal judge rejected their complaint against the Bureau of Land Management over off-road restrictions on public land in northern Box Elder County....
TNC buys Pahsimeroi ranch
A 1,800-acre ranch acquired by The Nature Conservancy-Idaho this month includes roughly 40 percent of the active wild salmon spawning habitat in the Pahsimeroi Valley, but the non-profit organization doesn't plan to hold on to the ranch for long. As part of its acquisition blueprint, the conservancy will transfer river access to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. This portion of the property, which will amount to approximately 200 acres, will be managed as a public fishing, hunting and recreation area. The remainder of the property will be saddled with conservation easements to protect wildlife habitat, ranching characteristics and in-stream water flows, and then sold to local ranchers....
BLM official says some plans for Roan Plateau would hurt recreation Recreation would be ''dramatically reduced'' on western Colorado's Roan Plateau under two possible plans for energy development, a government official says. Greg Goodenow, planning and environmental coordinator in the Glenwood Springs office of the Bureau of Land Management, said the loss of undeveloped areas would be caused in part by natural gas-related activities. Goodenow made the comment on Monday during a public meeting to discuss the draft management plan and environmental impact statement for the 73,602-acre area west of Rifle. The plan includes several options; he said two would hit backcountry recreation hard....
Scientists Warn of Global Warming Results Scientists warned Tuesday that a long-term increase in global temperature of 3.5 degrees could threaten Latin American water supplies, reduce food yields in Asia and result in a rise in extreme weather conditions in the Caribbean. The warnings came in a report by a group of European scientists on the sidelines of an annual U.N. conference on climate change....
Water Contract Renewals Stir Debate Between Environmentalists and Farmers in California The time has come for thousands of farmers in California to renew their water contracts with the federally run Central Valley Project, the country's largest irrigation system and for many years a major source of friction between the state's powerful agricultural and environmental interests. The farms served by the Central Valley Project cover nearly 4,700 square miles and get about 20 percent of California's water supply. That has made the new contracts, some for 25 years and some for 40 years with options to renew, the center of a debate over how much water in the state should be dedicated to growing crops and at what price. When construction of the Central Water Project began in 1937, the idea was to protect the state's farmland from water shortages and floods and provide cheap water for family farmers. But as the state has grown in population, there has been a growing push by cities and environmentalists to break the farmers' grip on the water, or at least make them pay more for it....
Mad cow feed still a problem, Cantwell says A year after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported, Sen. Maria Cantwell says the Food and Drug Administration still has not fulfilled its promise to tighten animal feed rules to help prevent future cases. "The beef industry and other federal agencies have worked overtime to restore confidence in the world's safest beef supply, but the FDA has failed to act on its promise to close loopholes in the mad cow feed ban," Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a news release yesterday. Last January, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced new FDA proposals to close loopholes that allow cattle to be fed such things as cow blood, restaurant scraps and chicken litter....
"How Cold WAS It?" How cold was it on that December morning 23 years ago at Lamar Ranch in Terrell, Texas? It was cold. At zero degrees with a 30 mile-an-hour wind out of the north, I, along with my crew of four cowboys, couldn’t seem to get on enough clothes to get warm. I know some of you gentle readers are sayin’ to yourself, “Heck, that ain’t cold, Mad Jack, I remember the time it was 40 below and I was stripped down to my underwear tryin’ to pull a calf.”....
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State releases plan for prairie dogs South Dakota officials have released a prairie-dog management plan that calls for the state to poison prairie dogs encroaching from federal land onto nearby private land, just as it did this summer and fall. The plan also would require landowners to poison prairie dogs on their property if the rodents are moving onto a neighbor's land. But it also would stop poisoning if the prairie-dog population drops below a threshold level....
State Police to enforce local forest closure laws An agreement reached between the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service officials will improve enforcement of laws intended to protect wildlife and watersheds from unauthorized motor vehicle use. The agreement, signed this month, will allow the Oregon State Police, in cooperation with the Forest Service and ODFW, to cite road closure violators within the Metolius Basin mule deer winter range on the Crooked River National Grassland and the South Boundary Road Closure Area of the Lookout Mountain Ranger District. It also allows officers to enter and patrol the areas....
Conservation groups push for more snowmobile restrictions Conservation groups, which say snowmobilers are harming caribou in both the United States and Canada, have pledged to fight for greater recreation restrictions on both sides of the border. Representatives from groups in the two countries met Monday in Spokane, Wash., with state, federal and provincial scientists to discuss caribou recovery efforts. Mark Sprengel, executive director of the Priest Lake, Idaho-based Selkirk Conservation Alliance, said protecting old growth forest remains the best hope for caribou's long-term survival. But Sprengel said action is needed now to safeguard the shy animals from snowmobiles penetrating deep into the backcountry....
Editorial: Better, not weaker, is key to reform The act sometimes seems to protect bureaucracy more than species. It relies far too much on sticks and far too little on carrots to encourage compliance. It sometimes asks individuals to bear too much of the cost or sacrifice needed to serve public interests. It puts too much emphasis on process and not nearly enough on results. But few of the would-be reformers bother to feign interest in saving more species, much less manage to convey a sincere desire to make the popular but underperforming law work better. Reformers will gain traction in their efforts when they abandon the hopeless cause of persuading Americans to agree that property rights must always trump mankind's moral obligation to husband Creation....
Agencies at odds over river permit One federal agency has asked another to deny permission for a large riprap and diversion-barb project proposed for the Yellowstone River east of Big Timber. If completed, the 500 feet of riprap and 10 barbs, each of which would extend 40 feet into the river along a 1,500-foot reach, would have big impacts on the river and on the fish and wildlife that depend on it, according R. Mark Wilson, field supervisor in Helena for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Mormon cricket control strategy in the works Traveling at 15 miles a year, an infestation of Mormon crickets could reach Susanville in three years and county, state and federal officials are working to slow them down. Regional ecologist Don Armentrout, of the Susanville Bureau of Land Management office, agreed on Thursday, Dec. 2 to sit down with county and federal agriculture officials and start work on a strategy. The idea is to control the infestation that may reach 250,000 insects in the Honey Lake area in the summer of 2005. Armentrout said the strategy must follow the bureau direction to not do anything to increase chances the sage grouse will be listed as an endangered species....
Fish and Wildlife Service estimates costs of conserving the endangered Lane Mountain milk vetch The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft analysis that estimates costs associated with the conservation of Lane Mountain milk-vetch (Astragalus jaegerianus), a plant found in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. Between 1998 - when the milk-vetch was listed as an endangered species - and the final critical habitat designation in 2005, costs for the conservation of the species are estimated between $1.6 million and $2 million. From 2005 to 2025, costs for the species' conservation are estimated between $5.8 million and $13 million. The Service proposed 29,522 acres as critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch in April of this year in response to a lawsuit filed against the Service by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society....
Tribes, state to sign Bison Range deal today The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will sign a controversial and quite likely precedent-setting agreement Wednesday, allowing the tribal government to take over important management functions at the National Bison Range Complex on the Flathead Reservation. The tribes will be reimbursed for their work by the federal government, with the money taken out of the Fish and Wildlife Service budget for the Bison Range. Both governments say the consequences to taxpayers will be negligible. The agreement will automatically take effect in 90 days unless Congress intervenes....
Off-roaders win one, lose one in disputes over trail use An off-road vehicle advocacy group has won one and lost one in an ongoing battle to maintain motorized access on Utah public lands. The Utah Shared Access Alliance, a coalition of off-highway vehicle (OHV) organizations, filed suit earlier this year to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's decision to close 23 miles of trails in Uinta National Forest, and declared victory Tuesday following the agency's recent decision to reopen most of those trails. But the OHV advocates also suffered a setback Tuesday when a federal judge rejected their complaint against the Bureau of Land Management over off-road restrictions on public land in northern Box Elder County....
TNC buys Pahsimeroi ranch
A 1,800-acre ranch acquired by The Nature Conservancy-Idaho this month includes roughly 40 percent of the active wild salmon spawning habitat in the Pahsimeroi Valley, but the non-profit organization doesn't plan to hold on to the ranch for long. As part of its acquisition blueprint, the conservancy will transfer river access to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. This portion of the property, which will amount to approximately 200 acres, will be managed as a public fishing, hunting and recreation area. The remainder of the property will be saddled with conservation easements to protect wildlife habitat, ranching characteristics and in-stream water flows, and then sold to local ranchers....
BLM official says some plans for Roan Plateau would hurt recreation Recreation would be ''dramatically reduced'' on western Colorado's Roan Plateau under two possible plans for energy development, a government official says. Greg Goodenow, planning and environmental coordinator in the Glenwood Springs office of the Bureau of Land Management, said the loss of undeveloped areas would be caused in part by natural gas-related activities. Goodenow made the comment on Monday during a public meeting to discuss the draft management plan and environmental impact statement for the 73,602-acre area west of Rifle. The plan includes several options; he said two would hit backcountry recreation hard....
Scientists Warn of Global Warming Results Scientists warned Tuesday that a long-term increase in global temperature of 3.5 degrees could threaten Latin American water supplies, reduce food yields in Asia and result in a rise in extreme weather conditions in the Caribbean. The warnings came in a report by a group of European scientists on the sidelines of an annual U.N. conference on climate change....
Water Contract Renewals Stir Debate Between Environmentalists and Farmers in California The time has come for thousands of farmers in California to renew their water contracts with the federally run Central Valley Project, the country's largest irrigation system and for many years a major source of friction between the state's powerful agricultural and environmental interests. The farms served by the Central Valley Project cover nearly 4,700 square miles and get about 20 percent of California's water supply. That has made the new contracts, some for 25 years and some for 40 years with options to renew, the center of a debate over how much water in the state should be dedicated to growing crops and at what price. When construction of the Central Water Project began in 1937, the idea was to protect the state's farmland from water shortages and floods and provide cheap water for family farmers. But as the state has grown in population, there has been a growing push by cities and environmentalists to break the farmers' grip on the water, or at least make them pay more for it....
Mad cow feed still a problem, Cantwell says A year after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported, Sen. Maria Cantwell says the Food and Drug Administration still has not fulfilled its promise to tighten animal feed rules to help prevent future cases. "The beef industry and other federal agencies have worked overtime to restore confidence in the world's safest beef supply, but the FDA has failed to act on its promise to close loopholes in the mad cow feed ban," Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a news release yesterday. Last January, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced new FDA proposals to close loopholes that allow cattle to be fed such things as cow blood, restaurant scraps and chicken litter....
"How Cold WAS It?" How cold was it on that December morning 23 years ago at Lamar Ranch in Terrell, Texas? It was cold. At zero degrees with a 30 mile-an-hour wind out of the north, I, along with my crew of four cowboys, couldn’t seem to get on enough clothes to get warm. I know some of you gentle readers are sayin’ to yourself, “Heck, that ain’t cold, Mad Jack, I remember the time it was 40 below and I was stripped down to my underwear tryin’ to pull a calf.”....
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Tuesday, December 14, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Gray wolves lope toward Colo. release In three to five years, wolves could hit the ground running in southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico, according to several members of the federal recovery team. And the wolf that appears headed for reintroduction in the Four Corners region, including perhaps the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, is the imperiled Mexican gray. Although nothing has been finalized, scientists on the team are leaning toward release of the smaller and greatly endangered Mexican gray wolf rather than the northern grays released in Yellowstone National Park....
Column: Wild Spending No Way To Corral Wild Horse Problem So then where does the money go? Last year, $11.6 million dollars was spent on the Adopt a Horse Program. Americans adopted 6,165 horses. The average person paid $185 to adopt their new equine. Now let's do some cowboy arithmetic. Over one third of the total Wild Horse budget was spent adopting 6,165 horses which means the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spent nearly $2000 per horse to find it a new owner. This excessive cost has lead some to believe that it is time to end the Adopt a Horse program. A few years ago a horse contraceptive program was investigated and has been deemed effective, but too little too late. This is being administrated today in some herds but will not address the immediate problem. So what is the answer? Before last week, the answer by authorities looked to be what the BLM calls "Long term holding facilities". These facilities are where horses that were not adopted go to live out the rest of their lives. They are located in Kansas and Oklahoma and the BLM is now entering long-term contracts with landowners. The contracts pay the landowners $1.65 to $1.90 per day to house the horses. There are currently about 15,000+ horses in these facilities. The BLM reports a cost of $465 per year per animal to warehouse these otherwise unwanted hay burners....
Group rallies against Gallatin off-road proposal A group of bikers, snowmobilers and all-terrain vehicle riders is fighting a proposal by the Gallatin National Forest to close significant areas to motor vehicles. The forest wants to ban snowmobiles from 356,000 of its 1.8 million acres under a revised travel plan due out in January. Motorcycle trails would fall by about 50 percent and ATV trails by 40 percent. The plan also calls for 34,000 fewer off-trail acres for horseback riders in alpine areas of the Beartooth Plateau, and a drop in off-road access for mountain bikers. A weekend rally against the proposal by Citizens for Balanced Use, a new group formed by motorized use advocate Kerry White, drew more than 200 people, including several local and county officials....
Federal plan may not end river boater duel A federal plan to manage boating on a wild section of the Rogue River is unlikely to end the battle between commercial jet boat operators and float tours, officials say. Federal river managers, under court order to examine commercial use of the lower Rogue, are proposing a status quo plan that calls for no cutbacks in permits for tour companies, fishing guides or wilderness lodges — the businesses that run most of the jet boats. River activists, who filed the 2001 lawsuit that prompted the court order, say the plan continues to favor motorboats over float boats in violation of the 1968 law that made the Rogue one of the nation's first congressionally designated wild rivers....
New sales reignite timber battles This is the Meteor timber sale, one of a series of controversial timber sales authorized by the Bush administration for the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity and Mendocino national forests, all in northwest California. Biologists consider the northwest forests one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere, supporting a vast array of temperate woodland species. Heavily logged in the 1970s and 1980s, the forests have been slowly healing. But new sales such as the Meteor, say environmentalists, are threatening that recovery. They say the sales are an under-the-radar attempt by the administration to gut the Northwest Forest Plan -- a view rigorously countered by the U.S. Forest Service....
Effects of oil spill in Alaska could linger in remote bay It took a few hours for the Selendang Ayu to spill thousands of gallons of oil into a remote Alaska bay. The effects could linger for years. The immediate damage has already become apparent, as biologists tell of at least one sea otter and various birds swimming amid oil and thick goo along the western side of Unalaska Island. But the toll of oil lingering amid rocks or settling on the sea bed could prove much harder to gauge, measured in damage to otters' livers and subtle survival problems for fish....
Editorial: A water giveaway WHO OWNS California's water? That issue, which has shaped California's history, is at the heart of a legal battle that could gut implementation of the Endangered Species Act in California and place insurmountable hurdles in the state's ability to manage its water. The controversy dates back to the extended California drought in the early 1990s, when the federal government held back water from two San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts to protect the Chinook salmon and delta smelt populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta....
UN Climate Conference Called 'Meeting About Nothing' The United Nations climate change conference here is being panned as a "conference about nothing" by a free market advocate. "The Kyoto Protocol is a treaty about nothing. It's the Seinfeld (TV sitcom) conference," declared Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free market environmental group Competitive Enterprise Institute. Horner was referring to the former NBC sitcom that billed itself as a show about nothing. Horner, a skeptic of alarmist global warming claims, is attending the conference along with a delegation of international free market activists who oppose the United Nation's economic and environmental policies. "This is a conference where on the very first day, the participants agreed that they would not issue an agreement at the end of the conference -- which is the only thing they typically produce [at these conferences] besides lots of C02," Horner told CNSNews.com on Sunday....
Column: Global Warming Extremists on the Run This week, 5,400 delegates from 189 countries have gathered in Buenos Aires for what's called COP 10, the 10th annual conference of the parties to the United Nations agreement to combat climate change. That agreement spawned the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed nations to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels like petroleum and coal) 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. I have been attending these extravaganzas for five years now, and they are an exercise, in the grandly self-important style of the U.N., in wheel-spinning and America-bashing. But something is changing. While a superficial glance indicates the extremists are winning, they are, in fact, on the run. They've failed -- largely because opponents like MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen, who has called warming theory a "religious belief" rather than sound science, haven't been intimidated. Now, a consensus is building to tackle global warming the right away....
Crichton fans will embrace 'Fear' State of Fear is sure to rile liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, the media, academics, lawyers, politicians, celebrities and average citizens as Crichton challenges commonly held beliefs about global warming and the environment. Are the self-proclaimed guardians of the planet, he wonders, acting on data-backed principles or reacting to inaccurate information fed to the masses by irresponsible journalists, well-meaning but ignorant tree-huggers and self-serving celebrities, scientists and lawyers? State of Fear follows the global adventures of four heroes, led by geo-environmental scientist John Kenner. They fight eco-terrorists who use technology to manipulate nature to cause tsunamis, flash floods and killer storms and to break up glaciers....
White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation The White House plans to push Congress to retool the nation's air quality laws early next year, according to administration and industry officials. The move has alarmed environmentalists, who fear that President Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal -- which has not moved in Congress since he unveiled it in 2002 -- would undercut existing federal standards more than the administration's pending plan to revise pollution controls through regulation....
Ecoterror - a clearer threat WHEN ARSONISTS torched a 206-unit housing project under construction in an environmentally sensitive area of San Diego last year, they left behind a 12-foot banner declaring: "If you build it, we will burn it. The ELF's are mad." The acronym is for Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized ecoterrorism group that FBI officials say is setting a rising number of fires nationally targeting urban sprawl, SUVs and other symbols of harm to the environment. The ELF has avoided killing or injuring people, but it usually leaves a sign to make a political statement, according to the FBI. Last week, when 26 new homes were burned near an environmentally sensitive area in Charles County, investigators found no signs of ELF or similar groups, no spray paint and no e-mails to media claiming credit....
Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trapping Policies Set Stage for Modern Environmental Struggles The Pacific Northwest has seen its share of major environmental battles. Now a new historical study of the fur trade indicates that early Europeans and Americans in the region struggled with similar issues nearly two centuries ago as they sought to exploit and preserve the area's natural resources. In a pilot study examining the historical record for the National Park Service, a University of Washington researcher has found that the Hudson's Bay Company, the dominant outside force in the region during the early years of the 19th century, set the stage for later environmental struggles through its own sometimes conflicting policies. In addition, it forever altered the Northwest landscape with the introduction of European farming methods and crops to supply its far-flung fur-trading empire. And later, when the supply of beaver pelts began to decline, the company began switching its focus from furs to firs. Export of commodities such as timber, fish and agricultural products from its farms became increasingly important sources of revenue....
Bootmaker crafts a legacy EL PASO — Tres Outlaws makes cowboy boots the old-fashioned way, and owner Jerry Black isn't modest about the quality. "I think I make the best boots in the country," said Black, who operates a 10-person shop near the Mexican border. "We make them the way they were made 100 years ago. ... They'll last forever and fit perfect. If you can't wear them all day the first day, then there's something wrong." Tyler Beard, a leading authority on cowboy boots who's written three books on the subject, called Black and his partners "mad but brilliant wizards." He counts Tres Outlaws among the top three bootmakers in a world where cowboy boots have acquired a "cult following." "Their work confounds and astounds other bootmakers. They have incredible visions," said Beard, whose books include "Art of the Boot."....
Champ upholds family tradition Wesley Galyean, a 21-year-old competing in the open division for the first time, fulfilled a lifetime dream by winning the NCHA World Championship Futurity in front of an overflow crowd in Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum on Sunday night. The Ardmore, Okla., cowboy rode his sorrel stallion Spots Hot to a 225 score, besting the field by three points to pocket $200,000. Roger Wagner finished second with a 222, riding Quintan Blue. In claiming the National Cutting Horse Association's most prestigious trophy, Wesley equaled the feat of his father, Jody Galyean, who won the 1986 Futurity on Royal Silver King. Jody was also in the field Sunday, finishing 10th with a 213 atop A Black Widow....
Etbauer head and shoulders above the rest Billy Etbauer of Edmond, Okla., came into the NFR in fifth spot in saddle bronc but was clearly the best saddle bronc rider, racking up $117,744. Etbauer, who matched his own arena record yesterday with a 93 on Kesler's Cool Alley, ran away with his fifth world crown ($222,591). The other winners were....
It's All Trew: Everything old is new again at Tulsa's Cain Ballroom After parking our cars in the ditch and turning on our parking lights, we waited until 11 p.m. when KVOO, the 50,000-watt station in Tulsa, Okla., broadcast an hour of western swing music by Johnny Lee Wills and all the boys live and direct from Cain's Ballroom. We danced for an hour, allowing cars to pass, sometimes stealing a kiss in between tunes. I can remember it like yesterday in spite of it happening more than 50 years ago. In mid-June of 2004 we attended the International Route 66 Festival in Tulsa and guess what? The kick-off dance was held on Thursday night at Cain's Ballroom just two blocks up the street from the convention. Asleep At The Wheel played Bob Wills music until midnight. Talk about nostalgia at its best. We danced nearly every tune....
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Gray wolves lope toward Colo. release In three to five years, wolves could hit the ground running in southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico, according to several members of the federal recovery team. And the wolf that appears headed for reintroduction in the Four Corners region, including perhaps the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, is the imperiled Mexican gray. Although nothing has been finalized, scientists on the team are leaning toward release of the smaller and greatly endangered Mexican gray wolf rather than the northern grays released in Yellowstone National Park....
Column: Wild Spending No Way To Corral Wild Horse Problem So then where does the money go? Last year, $11.6 million dollars was spent on the Adopt a Horse Program. Americans adopted 6,165 horses. The average person paid $185 to adopt their new equine. Now let's do some cowboy arithmetic. Over one third of the total Wild Horse budget was spent adopting 6,165 horses which means the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spent nearly $2000 per horse to find it a new owner. This excessive cost has lead some to believe that it is time to end the Adopt a Horse program. A few years ago a horse contraceptive program was investigated and has been deemed effective, but too little too late. This is being administrated today in some herds but will not address the immediate problem. So what is the answer? Before last week, the answer by authorities looked to be what the BLM calls "Long term holding facilities". These facilities are where horses that were not adopted go to live out the rest of their lives. They are located in Kansas and Oklahoma and the BLM is now entering long-term contracts with landowners. The contracts pay the landowners $1.65 to $1.90 per day to house the horses. There are currently about 15,000+ horses in these facilities. The BLM reports a cost of $465 per year per animal to warehouse these otherwise unwanted hay burners....
Group rallies against Gallatin off-road proposal A group of bikers, snowmobilers and all-terrain vehicle riders is fighting a proposal by the Gallatin National Forest to close significant areas to motor vehicles. The forest wants to ban snowmobiles from 356,000 of its 1.8 million acres under a revised travel plan due out in January. Motorcycle trails would fall by about 50 percent and ATV trails by 40 percent. The plan also calls for 34,000 fewer off-trail acres for horseback riders in alpine areas of the Beartooth Plateau, and a drop in off-road access for mountain bikers. A weekend rally against the proposal by Citizens for Balanced Use, a new group formed by motorized use advocate Kerry White, drew more than 200 people, including several local and county officials....
Federal plan may not end river boater duel A federal plan to manage boating on a wild section of the Rogue River is unlikely to end the battle between commercial jet boat operators and float tours, officials say. Federal river managers, under court order to examine commercial use of the lower Rogue, are proposing a status quo plan that calls for no cutbacks in permits for tour companies, fishing guides or wilderness lodges — the businesses that run most of the jet boats. River activists, who filed the 2001 lawsuit that prompted the court order, say the plan continues to favor motorboats over float boats in violation of the 1968 law that made the Rogue one of the nation's first congressionally designated wild rivers....
New sales reignite timber battles This is the Meteor timber sale, one of a series of controversial timber sales authorized by the Bush administration for the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity and Mendocino national forests, all in northwest California. Biologists consider the northwest forests one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere, supporting a vast array of temperate woodland species. Heavily logged in the 1970s and 1980s, the forests have been slowly healing. But new sales such as the Meteor, say environmentalists, are threatening that recovery. They say the sales are an under-the-radar attempt by the administration to gut the Northwest Forest Plan -- a view rigorously countered by the U.S. Forest Service....
Effects of oil spill in Alaska could linger in remote bay It took a few hours for the Selendang Ayu to spill thousands of gallons of oil into a remote Alaska bay. The effects could linger for years. The immediate damage has already become apparent, as biologists tell of at least one sea otter and various birds swimming amid oil and thick goo along the western side of Unalaska Island. But the toll of oil lingering amid rocks or settling on the sea bed could prove much harder to gauge, measured in damage to otters' livers and subtle survival problems for fish....
Editorial: A water giveaway WHO OWNS California's water? That issue, which has shaped California's history, is at the heart of a legal battle that could gut implementation of the Endangered Species Act in California and place insurmountable hurdles in the state's ability to manage its water. The controversy dates back to the extended California drought in the early 1990s, when the federal government held back water from two San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts to protect the Chinook salmon and delta smelt populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta....
UN Climate Conference Called 'Meeting About Nothing' The United Nations climate change conference here is being panned as a "conference about nothing" by a free market advocate. "The Kyoto Protocol is a treaty about nothing. It's the Seinfeld (TV sitcom) conference," declared Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free market environmental group Competitive Enterprise Institute. Horner was referring to the former NBC sitcom that billed itself as a show about nothing. Horner, a skeptic of alarmist global warming claims, is attending the conference along with a delegation of international free market activists who oppose the United Nation's economic and environmental policies. "This is a conference where on the very first day, the participants agreed that they would not issue an agreement at the end of the conference -- which is the only thing they typically produce [at these conferences] besides lots of C02," Horner told CNSNews.com on Sunday....
Column: Global Warming Extremists on the Run This week, 5,400 delegates from 189 countries have gathered in Buenos Aires for what's called COP 10, the 10th annual conference of the parties to the United Nations agreement to combat climate change. That agreement spawned the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed nations to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels like petroleum and coal) 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. I have been attending these extravaganzas for five years now, and they are an exercise, in the grandly self-important style of the U.N., in wheel-spinning and America-bashing. But something is changing. While a superficial glance indicates the extremists are winning, they are, in fact, on the run. They've failed -- largely because opponents like MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen, who has called warming theory a "religious belief" rather than sound science, haven't been intimidated. Now, a consensus is building to tackle global warming the right away....
Crichton fans will embrace 'Fear' State of Fear is sure to rile liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, the media, academics, lawyers, politicians, celebrities and average citizens as Crichton challenges commonly held beliefs about global warming and the environment. Are the self-proclaimed guardians of the planet, he wonders, acting on data-backed principles or reacting to inaccurate information fed to the masses by irresponsible journalists, well-meaning but ignorant tree-huggers and self-serving celebrities, scientists and lawyers? State of Fear follows the global adventures of four heroes, led by geo-environmental scientist John Kenner. They fight eco-terrorists who use technology to manipulate nature to cause tsunamis, flash floods and killer storms and to break up glaciers....
White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation The White House plans to push Congress to retool the nation's air quality laws early next year, according to administration and industry officials. The move has alarmed environmentalists, who fear that President Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal -- which has not moved in Congress since he unveiled it in 2002 -- would undercut existing federal standards more than the administration's pending plan to revise pollution controls through regulation....
Ecoterror - a clearer threat WHEN ARSONISTS torched a 206-unit housing project under construction in an environmentally sensitive area of San Diego last year, they left behind a 12-foot banner declaring: "If you build it, we will burn it. The ELF's are mad." The acronym is for Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized ecoterrorism group that FBI officials say is setting a rising number of fires nationally targeting urban sprawl, SUVs and other symbols of harm to the environment. The ELF has avoided killing or injuring people, but it usually leaves a sign to make a political statement, according to the FBI. Last week, when 26 new homes were burned near an environmentally sensitive area in Charles County, investigators found no signs of ELF or similar groups, no spray paint and no e-mails to media claiming credit....
Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trapping Policies Set Stage for Modern Environmental Struggles The Pacific Northwest has seen its share of major environmental battles. Now a new historical study of the fur trade indicates that early Europeans and Americans in the region struggled with similar issues nearly two centuries ago as they sought to exploit and preserve the area's natural resources. In a pilot study examining the historical record for the National Park Service, a University of Washington researcher has found that the Hudson's Bay Company, the dominant outside force in the region during the early years of the 19th century, set the stage for later environmental struggles through its own sometimes conflicting policies. In addition, it forever altered the Northwest landscape with the introduction of European farming methods and crops to supply its far-flung fur-trading empire. And later, when the supply of beaver pelts began to decline, the company began switching its focus from furs to firs. Export of commodities such as timber, fish and agricultural products from its farms became increasingly important sources of revenue....
Bootmaker crafts a legacy EL PASO — Tres Outlaws makes cowboy boots the old-fashioned way, and owner Jerry Black isn't modest about the quality. "I think I make the best boots in the country," said Black, who operates a 10-person shop near the Mexican border. "We make them the way they were made 100 years ago. ... They'll last forever and fit perfect. If you can't wear them all day the first day, then there's something wrong." Tyler Beard, a leading authority on cowboy boots who's written three books on the subject, called Black and his partners "mad but brilliant wizards." He counts Tres Outlaws among the top three bootmakers in a world where cowboy boots have acquired a "cult following." "Their work confounds and astounds other bootmakers. They have incredible visions," said Beard, whose books include "Art of the Boot."....
Champ upholds family tradition Wesley Galyean, a 21-year-old competing in the open division for the first time, fulfilled a lifetime dream by winning the NCHA World Championship Futurity in front of an overflow crowd in Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum on Sunday night. The Ardmore, Okla., cowboy rode his sorrel stallion Spots Hot to a 225 score, besting the field by three points to pocket $200,000. Roger Wagner finished second with a 222, riding Quintan Blue. In claiming the National Cutting Horse Association's most prestigious trophy, Wesley equaled the feat of his father, Jody Galyean, who won the 1986 Futurity on Royal Silver King. Jody was also in the field Sunday, finishing 10th with a 213 atop A Black Widow....
Etbauer head and shoulders above the rest Billy Etbauer of Edmond, Okla., came into the NFR in fifth spot in saddle bronc but was clearly the best saddle bronc rider, racking up $117,744. Etbauer, who matched his own arena record yesterday with a 93 on Kesler's Cool Alley, ran away with his fifth world crown ($222,591). The other winners were....
It's All Trew: Everything old is new again at Tulsa's Cain Ballroom After parking our cars in the ditch and turning on our parking lights, we waited until 11 p.m. when KVOO, the 50,000-watt station in Tulsa, Okla., broadcast an hour of western swing music by Johnny Lee Wills and all the boys live and direct from Cain's Ballroom. We danced for an hour, allowing cars to pass, sometimes stealing a kiss in between tunes. I can remember it like yesterday in spite of it happening more than 50 years ago. In mid-June of 2004 we attended the International Route 66 Festival in Tulsa and guess what? The kick-off dance was held on Thursday night at Cain's Ballroom just two blocks up the street from the convention. Asleep At The Wheel played Bob Wills music until midnight. Talk about nostalgia at its best. We danced nearly every tune....
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Monday, December 13, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Third body found in Utah avalanches At least three people have been killed in weekend avalanches in Utah’s backcountry, and a fourth man remained missing. Rescue crews Sunday recovered the body of Melvin Denis, 32, who was snowshoeing with a friend a day earlier in Wasatch-Cache National Forest east of Salt Lake City when an avalanche trapped them, police said. A skier was killed Friday when he was swept up in an avalanche in the national forest. Saturday, a man died after being buried in four feet of snow while snowmobiling in Wasatch County....
Editorial: Prioritize land swap It's regrettable that Congress adjourned last week without passing the largest land exchange in Arizona history. The compromise bill was set and ready to go. It cleared the Senate, but the House, ready to adjourn once it passed legislation reorganizing the nation's intelligence community, simply ran out of time. It's little consolation for Yavapai Ranch owner Fred Ruskin. For five years he has worked hard, lining up support in the Verde Valley and in other communities in northern Arizona. The Arizona delegation is solidly behind the bill for the right reasons: It's good for economic development. It doubles the amount of U.S. Forest Service land for public access and recreation. And it imposes limits on the amount of groundwater withdrawals....
Judge forbids logging `live' trees A federal judge has ruled that an old growth tree cannot be logged unless it is dead, even if it is in the process of dying. U.S. District Judge Garr King sided with conservation groups Friday when he issued an injunction ordering a halt to a U.S. Forest Service plan to log more than 200 acres of old growth trees in an area of the Malheur National Forest burned in the 2002 High Roberts fire. By law, old growth trees that are more than 21 inches in diameter cannot be logged, unless the tree is dead....
Latinos criticize U.S. Forest Service hiring At the Angeles National Forest, where nearly one in three workers is Latino, employment discrimination may not seem like a big problem. But the forest's work force did not become diverse by accident. In fact, the Angeles and every other national forest in California is operating under a consent decree requiring it to go out of its way to hire and keep Latino employees. This fall, the workers wrote a letter to the Department of Justice asserting the agency is still not doing enough....
Forest users rally Bikers, snowmobilers and ATV riders need to start getting loud if they don't want to lose access to parts of the Gallatin National Forest, about 200 people were told at a Saturday rally. People need to "show up at the meetings and get in the face of the people who make the decisions," motorized use advocate Kerry White told the crowd. "That's what we have to do." White is running a new organization called Citizens for Balanced Use, which is fighting proposals by the Gallatin National Forest to close some significant areas to motor vehicles....
Editorial: McMustang burgers? MORE THAN 4 million head of cattle graze on the remaining open range of the American West. Their owners pay a cut-rate fee of about $1.35 a month for each animal feeding off this publicly owned resource. Yet there doesn't seem to be enough room to also accommodate the 37,000 wild horses for which the land has been home for centuries. Thus, Congress, in a midnight maneuver of which few lawmakers were aware, agreed to sell off some of the horses for slaughter so they can become gourmet meals overseas. They're used for grilled meat mostly, but horse sushi is quite the rage in Japan. This solution to the space squeeze is as simplistic as it is unseemly....
Editorial: Forbes agreement saves land A stunning Colorado landscape will be preserved thanks to an agreement between the non-profit Colorado Open Lands trust and Forbes Inc. to protect more than 80,000 acres on the west side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The monumental deal is more than twice as big as the next largest conservation easement in Colorado. Combined with other easements and public lands, the Forbes pact means most of the western Sangres and eastern San Luis Valley have been permanently protected from development. The Forbes Trinchera Ranch is the largest remaining undeveloped private parcel on what originally was the 1 million acre Sangre de Cristo Mexican land grant of 1843....
Gibbons sees hope for mining reform U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, says the time is right for significant reform of federal mining laws, including changes in demands for reclamation. “We need to do it now, when there is a narrow window of opportunity,” he said at the Northwest Mining Association’s annual convention in Spokane, Wash. Gibbons wants the law to include changes to allow mines in closure to leave the infrastructure behind for another use, rather than the entire site be cleared and reclaimed as now required. He also wants the law to include a “fee” that would be fair and across-the-board, including those who mine on public lands as well as private land. Spreading the fee out to all those who mine should help keep the fee low, Gibbons said....
State preparing for water battle Colorado will spend as much as $2 million in the next two years to build a legal war chest shoring up its rights to the drought-plagued Colorado River. The new initiative comes as Lake Powell and Lake Mead - the river's giant storage ponds - have reached historic lows, triggering anxiety over future supplies from Los Angeles to Denver. The money is being spent on new computer models detailing how the river's supplies will be affected by ongoing drought and on creating a computerized historic archive documenting Colorado's use of the river under the 1922 Colorado River Compact. It also will pay for new legal research to help guide the state in the unlikely event that the lingering drought prompts new claims to Colorado's share of the river's supplies, George said....
Cowboy museum a celebration of Western art Just don't call it the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Not that it's ashamed of its former name. This museum still is proud to wear its spurs and celebrate the riders of the range. But the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum changed its name in 2000 to show it wasn't just a bunch of plaques, said Lynda Haller, director of public relations at the museum. The 220,000-square-foot facility is much more than that. Visitors get a taste of the variety inside the museum when they step into the building and see "End of the Trail." The sculpture, which James Earle Fraser created for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1917, is 18 feet long and weighs four tons....
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Third body found in Utah avalanches At least three people have been killed in weekend avalanches in Utah’s backcountry, and a fourth man remained missing. Rescue crews Sunday recovered the body of Melvin Denis, 32, who was snowshoeing with a friend a day earlier in Wasatch-Cache National Forest east of Salt Lake City when an avalanche trapped them, police said. A skier was killed Friday when he was swept up in an avalanche in the national forest. Saturday, a man died after being buried in four feet of snow while snowmobiling in Wasatch County....
Editorial: Prioritize land swap It's regrettable that Congress adjourned last week without passing the largest land exchange in Arizona history. The compromise bill was set and ready to go. It cleared the Senate, but the House, ready to adjourn once it passed legislation reorganizing the nation's intelligence community, simply ran out of time. It's little consolation for Yavapai Ranch owner Fred Ruskin. For five years he has worked hard, lining up support in the Verde Valley and in other communities in northern Arizona. The Arizona delegation is solidly behind the bill for the right reasons: It's good for economic development. It doubles the amount of U.S. Forest Service land for public access and recreation. And it imposes limits on the amount of groundwater withdrawals....
Judge forbids logging `live' trees A federal judge has ruled that an old growth tree cannot be logged unless it is dead, even if it is in the process of dying. U.S. District Judge Garr King sided with conservation groups Friday when he issued an injunction ordering a halt to a U.S. Forest Service plan to log more than 200 acres of old growth trees in an area of the Malheur National Forest burned in the 2002 High Roberts fire. By law, old growth trees that are more than 21 inches in diameter cannot be logged, unless the tree is dead....
Latinos criticize U.S. Forest Service hiring At the Angeles National Forest, where nearly one in three workers is Latino, employment discrimination may not seem like a big problem. But the forest's work force did not become diverse by accident. In fact, the Angeles and every other national forest in California is operating under a consent decree requiring it to go out of its way to hire and keep Latino employees. This fall, the workers wrote a letter to the Department of Justice asserting the agency is still not doing enough....
Forest users rally Bikers, snowmobilers and ATV riders need to start getting loud if they don't want to lose access to parts of the Gallatin National Forest, about 200 people were told at a Saturday rally. People need to "show up at the meetings and get in the face of the people who make the decisions," motorized use advocate Kerry White told the crowd. "That's what we have to do." White is running a new organization called Citizens for Balanced Use, which is fighting proposals by the Gallatin National Forest to close some significant areas to motor vehicles....
Editorial: McMustang burgers? MORE THAN 4 million head of cattle graze on the remaining open range of the American West. Their owners pay a cut-rate fee of about $1.35 a month for each animal feeding off this publicly owned resource. Yet there doesn't seem to be enough room to also accommodate the 37,000 wild horses for which the land has been home for centuries. Thus, Congress, in a midnight maneuver of which few lawmakers were aware, agreed to sell off some of the horses for slaughter so they can become gourmet meals overseas. They're used for grilled meat mostly, but horse sushi is quite the rage in Japan. This solution to the space squeeze is as simplistic as it is unseemly....
Editorial: Forbes agreement saves land A stunning Colorado landscape will be preserved thanks to an agreement between the non-profit Colorado Open Lands trust and Forbes Inc. to protect more than 80,000 acres on the west side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The monumental deal is more than twice as big as the next largest conservation easement in Colorado. Combined with other easements and public lands, the Forbes pact means most of the western Sangres and eastern San Luis Valley have been permanently protected from development. The Forbes Trinchera Ranch is the largest remaining undeveloped private parcel on what originally was the 1 million acre Sangre de Cristo Mexican land grant of 1843....
Gibbons sees hope for mining reform U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, says the time is right for significant reform of federal mining laws, including changes in demands for reclamation. “We need to do it now, when there is a narrow window of opportunity,” he said at the Northwest Mining Association’s annual convention in Spokane, Wash. Gibbons wants the law to include changes to allow mines in closure to leave the infrastructure behind for another use, rather than the entire site be cleared and reclaimed as now required. He also wants the law to include a “fee” that would be fair and across-the-board, including those who mine on public lands as well as private land. Spreading the fee out to all those who mine should help keep the fee low, Gibbons said....
State preparing for water battle Colorado will spend as much as $2 million in the next two years to build a legal war chest shoring up its rights to the drought-plagued Colorado River. The new initiative comes as Lake Powell and Lake Mead - the river's giant storage ponds - have reached historic lows, triggering anxiety over future supplies from Los Angeles to Denver. The money is being spent on new computer models detailing how the river's supplies will be affected by ongoing drought and on creating a computerized historic archive documenting Colorado's use of the river under the 1922 Colorado River Compact. It also will pay for new legal research to help guide the state in the unlikely event that the lingering drought prompts new claims to Colorado's share of the river's supplies, George said....
Cowboy museum a celebration of Western art Just don't call it the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Not that it's ashamed of its former name. This museum still is proud to wear its spurs and celebrate the riders of the range. But the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum changed its name in 2000 to show it wasn't just a bunch of plaques, said Lynda Haller, director of public relations at the museum. The 220,000-square-foot facility is much more than that. Visitors get a taste of the variety inside the museum when they step into the building and see "End of the Trail." The sculpture, which James Earle Fraser created for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1917, is 18 feet long and weighs four tons....
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Sunday, December 12, 2004
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Christmas shopping guide for the cowboy on your list
By Julie Carter
Let’s say you have a favorite cowboy you want to buy a gift for this Christmas and let’s say you are new to cowboy shopping. Let me give you an extensive list of cowboy shopping do’s and don’ts.
Keep in mind there are always exceptions to the rule, here are this year’s do not buy:
--Anything made of polyester but certainly not a polyester sport coat.
--Designer socks or silk jockey shorts.
--Tofu anything and white wine.
--A sweater vest
--A salad spinner
--A George Foreman get all the fat off the meat grill
--A vehicle without 4-wheel drive and less than ¾ ton capacity.
--Season tickets to the opera including opera glasses.
--Tennis, backgammon, or croquet lessons
--Complete set of Danielle Steele romance novels
--Driving gloves
--Gold chains and earrings
--Velour, embroidered or lace trimmed articles of clothing.
--Self Help books on how to get in touch with your feminine side.
--Speedos
--Any beverage holder with less than a four finger handle.
--Beano—he won’t use it.
--A manicure set with anything smaller than #9 wire pliers and a hoof rasp.
--Line dance lessons
--A day at the spa
--Subscription to GQ magazine.
--A gourmet cookbook
--Color coordinated shirt and tie by Ralph Lauren
--A smoking jacket
--A set of instructions for anything
Sure-fire pleasers under the Christmas tree for the cowboy are:
--Anything from the feed store.
--Anything from the hardware store.
--Tickets to the National Finals Rodeo and a subscription to ProRodeo News
--Membership to his favorite rodeo association and a gift certificate for a years worth of entry fees in his chosen event.
--Make that vest a leather, canvas duck or nylon down- filled one.
--Anything labeled Wrangler, Levi, Stetson, Tony Lama, Justin, or Carhart.
--Cast iron --especially if it’s a skillet complete with the promise of a years supply of fried steak, potatoes, okra, bacon, eggs, and even refried beans.
--A one-ton flatbed truck complete with a propane fuel tank, grill guard, headache rack, gun rack, mud and snow tires all the way around and a new chain, shovel and axe in a tool box in the back.
--Tools that say “life time warranty, guaranteed forever”
--A good pocket knife, made in the USA and a new whetstone
--Lots of cammo and ammo
--Pinto beans by the gunny sack full.
--Cookbook called 101 ways to cook venison
--A book called “Teach your woman to run a trap line”
--New five-buckle overshoes—boot style
--Heavy duty one-gazillion candle power spotlight for calving season
--A gift basket full of beanie weenies, spam, Vienna sausages, beef jerkey and huntin’ license good for anywhere to shoot anything.
--A roll of Copenhagen or Skoal for his stocking hung by the fire with care
--A tooled leather, belt mounted cell phone case.
These ideas of course are only suggested as guidelines and can be mixed and matched to suit the cowboy in your life. Happy shopping!
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2004
I would welcome any submissions, just hit the "email me" icon and send me what you would like to have posted. Fiction, non-fiction, short remembrances, poetry, opinion pieces, etc., we will consider posting it.
Permalink 0 comments
Christmas shopping guide for the cowboy on your list
By Julie Carter
Let’s say you have a favorite cowboy you want to buy a gift for this Christmas and let’s say you are new to cowboy shopping. Let me give you an extensive list of cowboy shopping do’s and don’ts.
Keep in mind there are always exceptions to the rule, here are this year’s do not buy:
--Anything made of polyester but certainly not a polyester sport coat.
--Designer socks or silk jockey shorts.
--Tofu anything and white wine.
--A sweater vest
--A salad spinner
--A George Foreman get all the fat off the meat grill
--A vehicle without 4-wheel drive and less than ¾ ton capacity.
--Season tickets to the opera including opera glasses.
--Tennis, backgammon, or croquet lessons
--Complete set of Danielle Steele romance novels
--Driving gloves
--Gold chains and earrings
--Velour, embroidered or lace trimmed articles of clothing.
--Self Help books on how to get in touch with your feminine side.
--Speedos
--Any beverage holder with less than a four finger handle.
--Beano—he won’t use it.
--A manicure set with anything smaller than #9 wire pliers and a hoof rasp.
--Line dance lessons
--A day at the spa
--Subscription to GQ magazine.
--A gourmet cookbook
--Color coordinated shirt and tie by Ralph Lauren
--A smoking jacket
--A set of instructions for anything
Sure-fire pleasers under the Christmas tree for the cowboy are:
--Anything from the feed store.
--Anything from the hardware store.
--Tickets to the National Finals Rodeo and a subscription to ProRodeo News
--Membership to his favorite rodeo association and a gift certificate for a years worth of entry fees in his chosen event.
--Make that vest a leather, canvas duck or nylon down- filled one.
--Anything labeled Wrangler, Levi, Stetson, Tony Lama, Justin, or Carhart.
--Cast iron --especially if it’s a skillet complete with the promise of a years supply of fried steak, potatoes, okra, bacon, eggs, and even refried beans.
--A one-ton flatbed truck complete with a propane fuel tank, grill guard, headache rack, gun rack, mud and snow tires all the way around and a new chain, shovel and axe in a tool box in the back.
--Tools that say “life time warranty, guaranteed forever”
--A good pocket knife, made in the USA and a new whetstone
--Lots of cammo and ammo
--Pinto beans by the gunny sack full.
--Cookbook called 101 ways to cook venison
--A book called “Teach your woman to run a trap line”
--New five-buckle overshoes—boot style
--Heavy duty one-gazillion candle power spotlight for calving season
--A gift basket full of beanie weenies, spam, Vienna sausages, beef jerkey and huntin’ license good for anywhere to shoot anything.
--A roll of Copenhagen or Skoal for his stocking hung by the fire with care
--A tooled leather, belt mounted cell phone case.
These ideas of course are only suggested as guidelines and can be mixed and matched to suit the cowboy in your life. Happy shopping!
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2004
I would welcome any submissions, just hit the "email me" icon and send me what you would like to have posted. Fiction, non-fiction, short remembrances, poetry, opinion pieces, etc., we will consider posting it.
Permalink 0 comments
OPINION/COMMENTARY
ENVIRONMENTALISTS RESTRICT AMERICANS’ ENERGY CHOICES
Environmental lobbyists opposed to oil production on public lands claim that the oil in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) equals only a six-month supply. This is true, however, only if one imagines that the United States stopped using oil from any other source -- no imports, no domestic production, nothing else -- which is unrealistic, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
---The Energy Information Agency estimates that ANWR contains between 6 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil.
---By comparison, the United States imports 7 million barrels of oil per day; if only 6 billion barrels of oil were recovered in ANWR, in a time of emergency, the United States could cut all imports of foreign oil for two years with little or no effect on our economy.
---Put another way, ANWR could deliver enough oil to the United States to free us from Saudi Arabian oil for more than 20 years.
And, contrary to environmentalists' claims, there is no reason for thinking that oil production and environmental quality are incompatible, says Burnett.
---Caribou herds have expanded in and around Prudhoe Bay and other wildlife have flourished as well, apparently unaffected by the relatively primitive (by today's standards) oil and gas development in the area.
---And environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society allow oil drilling on some of their most unique properties; as with the rest of the economy, technology has improved in the oil patch.
Environmentalists' objections to drilling on public lands aren't really about protecting pristine places at all. Rather, it is about restricting Americans' energy choices, says Burnett.
Source: H. Sterling Burnett, “America can safely seek new oil,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 3, 2004.
For text http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_279173.html
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ENVIRONMENTALISTS RESTRICT AMERICANS’ ENERGY CHOICES
Environmental lobbyists opposed to oil production on public lands claim that the oil in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) equals only a six-month supply. This is true, however, only if one imagines that the United States stopped using oil from any other source -- no imports, no domestic production, nothing else -- which is unrealistic, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
---The Energy Information Agency estimates that ANWR contains between 6 billion and 16 billion barrels of oil.
---By comparison, the United States imports 7 million barrels of oil per day; if only 6 billion barrels of oil were recovered in ANWR, in a time of emergency, the United States could cut all imports of foreign oil for two years with little or no effect on our economy.
---Put another way, ANWR could deliver enough oil to the United States to free us from Saudi Arabian oil for more than 20 years.
And, contrary to environmentalists' claims, there is no reason for thinking that oil production and environmental quality are incompatible, says Burnett.
---Caribou herds have expanded in and around Prudhoe Bay and other wildlife have flourished as well, apparently unaffected by the relatively primitive (by today's standards) oil and gas development in the area.
---And environmental groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Audubon Society allow oil drilling on some of their most unique properties; as with the rest of the economy, technology has improved in the oil patch.
Environmentalists' objections to drilling on public lands aren't really about protecting pristine places at all. Rather, it is about restricting Americans' energy choices, says Burnett.
Source: H. Sterling Burnett, “America can safely seek new oil,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, December 3, 2004.
For text http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_279173.html
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
A Chilling Tale
We know that nature can kill. What most people don't know is that stupid ideas about nature can kill, too. In "State of Fear" (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95), Michael Crichton delivers a lightning-paced technopolitical thriller that turns on a controversial notion: All that talk we've been hearing about global warming—you know, polar ice caps melting, weather systems sent into calamitous confusion, beach weather lingering well into January—might be at best misguided, at worst dead wrong. Think "The Da Vinci Code" with real facts, violent storms and a different kind of faith altogether. The book opens with the murder of an American graduate student studying ocean-wave dynamics. ("State of Fear" is the sort of thriller that makes even nerd-occupations seem daring.) A boatyard owner renting deep-sea submarines in Vancouver is also murdered, as is a man purchasing illicit rocket guide wires in London. We soon learn that such skullduggery is being coordinated, or so it seems, by Nick Drake, a Ralph Nader clone—intense, single-minded and (apologies to Mr. Nader's many fans) unhinged. He is president of the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF), an organization founded by lawyers, not scientists, and devoted to pushing a radical environmental agenda. The fund is clearly modeled on the real-life Natural Resources Defense Council, whose annual budget is about the same: $44 million....
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A Chilling Tale
We know that nature can kill. What most people don't know is that stupid ideas about nature can kill, too. In "State of Fear" (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95), Michael Crichton delivers a lightning-paced technopolitical thriller that turns on a controversial notion: All that talk we've been hearing about global warming—you know, polar ice caps melting, weather systems sent into calamitous confusion, beach weather lingering well into January—might be at best misguided, at worst dead wrong. Think "The Da Vinci Code" with real facts, violent storms and a different kind of faith altogether. The book opens with the murder of an American graduate student studying ocean-wave dynamics. ("State of Fear" is the sort of thriller that makes even nerd-occupations seem daring.) A boatyard owner renting deep-sea submarines in Vancouver is also murdered, as is a man purchasing illicit rocket guide wires in London. We soon learn that such skullduggery is being coordinated, or so it seems, by Nick Drake, a Ralph Nader clone—intense, single-minded and (apologies to Mr. Nader's many fans) unhinged. He is president of the National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF), an organization founded by lawyers, not scientists, and devoted to pushing a radical environmental agenda. The fund is clearly modeled on the real-life Natural Resources Defense Council, whose annual budget is about the same: $44 million....
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