Saturday, February 26, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Shasta County man shoots mountain lion who mauled pets State Department of Fish and Game officials say a Shasta County man shot and killed a mountain lion in his back yard that had earlier killed the family's pet dog. John Trunnell lives about 15 miles east of Redding. He was clearing brush Thursday when he heard the small dog barking in the bushes. Game warden Daniel Fehr says when the mountain lion emerged with the dog in its mouth, Trunnell threw a rock, causing the big cat to drop the dog and run. The dog's wounds proved fatal. When the family returned to their home, the mountian lion was again in the back yard -- probably to feed on a house cat that it had killed and hidden....
U.S. to suspend wolf-breeding program The federal government will suspend a red wolf breeding program at Bull Island that has played a key role in saving the endangered species from extinction. A family of red wolves that roamed the island will be shipped to other federal preserves because wildlife managers say the animals are needed more at those sites. Since 1987, the government has kept pairs of red wolves on Bull Island so they would breed and raise pups in the wild. Biologists would later move pups from the undeveloped barrier island to the vast Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. The young Bull Island wolves would be adapted to the wild, making it easier for them to survive at Alligator River....
Trapper kills Denali wolf pack's alpha female The alpha female in the Toklat wolf pack, which has delighted visitors to Denali National Park and Preserve for years, was killed by a trapper outside park boundaries. Gordon Haber, an independent wildlife scientist who has studied the pack for 40 years, said the radio-collared wolf was killed Feb. 11 by a trapper on state land on the Savage River within a few hundred feet of the park's northeast boundary and on the outside edge of a wolf buffer zone created in 2001. Haber reported the wolf kill to the National Park Service. An Alaska State Trooper later determined that the trapping site was legal and just outside the wolf buffer zone....
Editorial: Split estate law will help Wyo The passage of Senate File 60, the split estate bill, is a huge step forward for the state's minerals developers and surface landowners. In Wyoming, nearly half of all private land falls in the split estate category. The surface rights are owned by one party, while another party owns the mineral rights. As a result, split estate conflicts have been common in the state for much of its modern history. And because mineral rights holders have primacy over surface rights holders, oil and gas companies and mining companies have held the upper hand in such disputes. Those companies have routinely entered into voluntary agreements with surface owners to compensate for damages to the surface and to coordinate drilling activities. In most cases, industry and landowners cooperated, working together toward a mutual benefit. But in some cases, landowners were left with depleted water resources, rutted roads, scarred landscapes and little or no payment to show for it. Until now, cooperative agreements weren't required, and no standards existed for notification, negotiation, damages or mediation....
Judge said BLM study on coal-bed methane development inadequate A Bureau of Land Management study of the potential environmental effects of coal-bed methane development in the Powder River Basin is inadequate because it failed to analyze a phased-development alternative, a federal magistrate decided Friday. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Anderson said his findings do not automatically mean that all development activities must cease pending further administrative review. Rather, he set an evidentiary hearing for March to determine the extent of relief, if any, to grant in the challenges brought by a conservation group and the Northern Cheyenne Indian tribe. "From the record presently before it, the court cannot determine to what extent, if at all, development should be suspending during the completion of a new environmental impact statement that includes a phased development alternative," he wrote....
Arizona Trust Land Effort Falls Apart A package of state trust land changes to benefit education funding, preservation of open space and planned development around urban areas has foundered at the Legislature. Talks on numerous issues related to the state’s 9.3 million acres held in trust to benefit public schools, universities and other institutions broke off amid disagreements on at least two major issues, lawmakers and interest-group advocates said this week. The development could doom chances for lawmakers to act on the trust land issue this year in any comprehensive or even piecemeal fashion, several participants in the talks said....
Ozone levels rise but don't threaten Yellowstone The world's smog continues to creep into the air over Yellowstone National Park. Ground-level ozone - an invisible gaseous mix mostly of machinery exhaust that's cooked in the sun's rays - is increasing over several national parks in the West, according to a study released by the National Park Service. In Yellowstone, though, the ozone isn't threatening human health or, apparently, even plants that are sensitive to ozone damage. But the trend, which includes other parks in the Rocky Mountains, has piqued the curiosity of air researchers, especially because ozone levels are dropping in many urban areas....
Ranchers, tribes make water deal Ranchers who irrigate out of streams above Upper Klamath Lake have reached an agreement with leaders of the Klamath Tribes over how to resolve a longstanding dispute over water rights. Under the agreement, ranchers and other landowners will drop their opposition to the Tribes' claim for water rights that would maintain high streamflows in the Sprague, Williamson and Wood rivers and their tributaries. In exchange, the tribes have agreed to not exercise their water right in a way that would harm irrigators whose claims to water were established before July 1, 1961. The agreement announced today was described as a modest start to untangling a complex tangle of claims and protests among hundreds of water users in the Klamath Basin....
U.S. officials find no evidence to sway them from dropping cattle ban The U.S. Agriculture Department gave Canada good marks on safety measures to combat mad cow disease Friday, saying there's no impediment to resuming the cattle trade next month. A U.S. technical team that's been looking at Canada's compliance with cattle feed rules released a positive report, affirming the decision to lift the ban March 7. The team arrived in Canada on Jan. 24 after the discovery last month of two new mad cow cases. One of the cows caused particular concern because it was born after new feed regulations to combat mad cow went into effect in August 1997. And some American politicians complained that Canadian feed companies were flouting the laws. But U.S. officials found solid compliance by feed mills and rendering facilities and said Canada, like the United States, is always looking for ways to make it even better....
Animal lobby protests at Campbell Soup The video looped repeatedly, showing scenes of cattle being violently jerked from their hooves in rodeos. Far from entertaining, the film was meant to shock - and it did, slowing traffic Wednesday evening outside Campbell Soup Co.'s headquarters. An animal-rights group launched a protest at the site with a four-sided video truck showing scenes of what they said was cruel and inhumane treatment of some rodeo animals. The group, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness, wants Pace - a Campbell subsidiary that makes salsa and other food products - to withdraw as a sponsor of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, the largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo. But officials from Campbell and PRCA say the animal-rights group's video doesn't tell the whole story. The company and the rodeo association both claim the animals are maintained well and that very few are injured in events....
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Shasta County man shoots mountain lion who mauled pets State Department of Fish and Game officials say a Shasta County man shot and killed a mountain lion in his back yard that had earlier killed the family's pet dog. John Trunnell lives about 15 miles east of Redding. He was clearing brush Thursday when he heard the small dog barking in the bushes. Game warden Daniel Fehr says when the mountain lion emerged with the dog in its mouth, Trunnell threw a rock, causing the big cat to drop the dog and run. The dog's wounds proved fatal. When the family returned to their home, the mountian lion was again in the back yard -- probably to feed on a house cat that it had killed and hidden....
U.S. to suspend wolf-breeding program The federal government will suspend a red wolf breeding program at Bull Island that has played a key role in saving the endangered species from extinction. A family of red wolves that roamed the island will be shipped to other federal preserves because wildlife managers say the animals are needed more at those sites. Since 1987, the government has kept pairs of red wolves on Bull Island so they would breed and raise pups in the wild. Biologists would later move pups from the undeveloped barrier island to the vast Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina. The young Bull Island wolves would be adapted to the wild, making it easier for them to survive at Alligator River....
Trapper kills Denali wolf pack's alpha female The alpha female in the Toklat wolf pack, which has delighted visitors to Denali National Park and Preserve for years, was killed by a trapper outside park boundaries. Gordon Haber, an independent wildlife scientist who has studied the pack for 40 years, said the radio-collared wolf was killed Feb. 11 by a trapper on state land on the Savage River within a few hundred feet of the park's northeast boundary and on the outside edge of a wolf buffer zone created in 2001. Haber reported the wolf kill to the National Park Service. An Alaska State Trooper later determined that the trapping site was legal and just outside the wolf buffer zone....
Editorial: Split estate law will help Wyo The passage of Senate File 60, the split estate bill, is a huge step forward for the state's minerals developers and surface landowners. In Wyoming, nearly half of all private land falls in the split estate category. The surface rights are owned by one party, while another party owns the mineral rights. As a result, split estate conflicts have been common in the state for much of its modern history. And because mineral rights holders have primacy over surface rights holders, oil and gas companies and mining companies have held the upper hand in such disputes. Those companies have routinely entered into voluntary agreements with surface owners to compensate for damages to the surface and to coordinate drilling activities. In most cases, industry and landowners cooperated, working together toward a mutual benefit. But in some cases, landowners were left with depleted water resources, rutted roads, scarred landscapes and little or no payment to show for it. Until now, cooperative agreements weren't required, and no standards existed for notification, negotiation, damages or mediation....
Judge said BLM study on coal-bed methane development inadequate A Bureau of Land Management study of the potential environmental effects of coal-bed methane development in the Powder River Basin is inadequate because it failed to analyze a phased-development alternative, a federal magistrate decided Friday. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Anderson said his findings do not automatically mean that all development activities must cease pending further administrative review. Rather, he set an evidentiary hearing for March to determine the extent of relief, if any, to grant in the challenges brought by a conservation group and the Northern Cheyenne Indian tribe. "From the record presently before it, the court cannot determine to what extent, if at all, development should be suspending during the completion of a new environmental impact statement that includes a phased development alternative," he wrote....
Arizona Trust Land Effort Falls Apart A package of state trust land changes to benefit education funding, preservation of open space and planned development around urban areas has foundered at the Legislature. Talks on numerous issues related to the state’s 9.3 million acres held in trust to benefit public schools, universities and other institutions broke off amid disagreements on at least two major issues, lawmakers and interest-group advocates said this week. The development could doom chances for lawmakers to act on the trust land issue this year in any comprehensive or even piecemeal fashion, several participants in the talks said....
Ozone levels rise but don't threaten Yellowstone The world's smog continues to creep into the air over Yellowstone National Park. Ground-level ozone - an invisible gaseous mix mostly of machinery exhaust that's cooked in the sun's rays - is increasing over several national parks in the West, according to a study released by the National Park Service. In Yellowstone, though, the ozone isn't threatening human health or, apparently, even plants that are sensitive to ozone damage. But the trend, which includes other parks in the Rocky Mountains, has piqued the curiosity of air researchers, especially because ozone levels are dropping in many urban areas....
Ranchers, tribes make water deal Ranchers who irrigate out of streams above Upper Klamath Lake have reached an agreement with leaders of the Klamath Tribes over how to resolve a longstanding dispute over water rights. Under the agreement, ranchers and other landowners will drop their opposition to the Tribes' claim for water rights that would maintain high streamflows in the Sprague, Williamson and Wood rivers and their tributaries. In exchange, the tribes have agreed to not exercise their water right in a way that would harm irrigators whose claims to water were established before July 1, 1961. The agreement announced today was described as a modest start to untangling a complex tangle of claims and protests among hundreds of water users in the Klamath Basin....
U.S. officials find no evidence to sway them from dropping cattle ban The U.S. Agriculture Department gave Canada good marks on safety measures to combat mad cow disease Friday, saying there's no impediment to resuming the cattle trade next month. A U.S. technical team that's been looking at Canada's compliance with cattle feed rules released a positive report, affirming the decision to lift the ban March 7. The team arrived in Canada on Jan. 24 after the discovery last month of two new mad cow cases. One of the cows caused particular concern because it was born after new feed regulations to combat mad cow went into effect in August 1997. And some American politicians complained that Canadian feed companies were flouting the laws. But U.S. officials found solid compliance by feed mills and rendering facilities and said Canada, like the United States, is always looking for ways to make it even better....
Animal lobby protests at Campbell Soup The video looped repeatedly, showing scenes of cattle being violently jerked from their hooves in rodeos. Far from entertaining, the film was meant to shock - and it did, slowing traffic Wednesday evening outside Campbell Soup Co.'s headquarters. An animal-rights group launched a protest at the site with a four-sided video truck showing scenes of what they said was cruel and inhumane treatment of some rodeo animals. The group, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness, wants Pace - a Campbell subsidiary that makes salsa and other food products - to withdraw as a sponsor of the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association, the largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo. But officials from Campbell and PRCA say the animal-rights group's video doesn't tell the whole story. The company and the rodeo association both claim the animals are maintained well and that very few are injured in events....
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Friday, February 25, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Final report also blames Forest Service safety lapses for deaths in Cramer fire The third and final investigative report into the July 22, 2003 deaths of two firefighters on the Salmon-Challis National Forest agrees with two previous reports that the fatalities may have been prevented had Forest Service (FS) fire managers followed standard safety procedures. Jeff Allen, 24, Salmon and Shane Heath, 22, Melba, were killed the afternoon of July 22, 2003 when the Cramer Fire burned over them. “Had existing FS fire suppression policies and tactics been followed in a prudent manner, particularly by the IC [Alan Hackett, the incident commander], the fatalities of Heath and Allen may have been prevented,” said the report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General. The report agrees with a 2003 FS accident report that determined Hackett and the firefighting team violated all of the agency’s 10 “Standard Firefighting Orders” and 10 of the FS’ 18 “Watch Out Situations.”....
Couple Questioned About Ventura County Tiger State authorities investigating how a 425-pound tiger wound up roaming eastern Ventura County have questioned a Moorpark couple whose menagerie of exotic cats was confiscated from their rental home in the Tierra Rejada Valley earlier this month. The couple had a state permit for three tigers, though authorities who originally inspected the cages found only two. Officials had been alerted to the presence of exotic cats by neighbors who reported that a bobcat had escaped from the property. Fish and Game officials said Thursday that after reports of large paw prints in the area surfaced, they returned to interview Abby and Emma Hedengran about the possibility of a missing tiger. Authorities declined to provide details of the questioning, and the couple could not be reached for comment. When first visiting the couple Feb. 9, the state officials had not yet learned about the prints discovered Feb. 8 at a nursery in the Santa Rosa Valley near Moorpark, according to Steve Martarano, a Fish and Game spokesman. The tiger that left those tracks was shot dead by trackers Wednesday in a narrow ravine off California 23 in Moorpark....
State DNR seeks OK to trap wolves Stung by a court ruling that put the gray wolf back on the endangered species list in Wisconsin and other states, the Department of Natural Resources has asked federal authorities for approval to once again kill and trap problem wolves. DNR officials briefed members of the natural resources and agriculture boards on Wednesday about their efforts to reclaim some of their authority after a federal judge's ruling. The agency has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permission to trap wolves so that the state could continue its monitoring program. Trapping also would allow the state to again move problem wolves to other parts of the state where it is believed they would be less of a nuisance. The DNR also is asking federal authorities for approval to kill wolves where they have repeatedly killed farm animals....
Editorial: Water conservationists should be commended Finally there is consensus among some of the major players on the Rio Grande that water conservation and ecological values are worthy. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez and a coalition of six environmental groups on Wednesday announced an agreement they say will ensure the survival of the river, whose waters are the source of much competition and conflict. They are to be commended for compromising rather than continuing a protracted and costly legal confrontation that was counterproductive. In exchange for significant conservation concessions from the city that acknowledge the need for water to sustain the river itself as an ecosystem, the environmental groups agreed to end their litigation over the city's San Juan-Chama water diversion project....
Big day for a little fish Gila topminnows that dart beneath mats of algae and Sonoran mud turtles that slide down boulders to splash in pools here surely don't realize this is a big day for them. But those species and others in this watery habitat stand to benefit from a major land purchase being announced today. Rather than subdividing the bulk of Coal Mine Canyon into 36-acre ranchettes, First United Realty is selling 2,628 acres to the state so it can be protected in perpetuity. The $2.25 million deal in Santa Cruz County is mainly motivated by conservation of the tiny topminnow, one of the first species listed as endangered by the federal government....
Bush Team Readying Backdoor Route to Drill Arctic Refuge Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the issue. Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)....
List puts N.M. park in Arizona This natural wonderland made it onto a list of 10 favorite hidden parks - but the list hid it even more, by locating it in Arizona. The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees this week released a list of members' favorite parks, but accidentally listed the archaeological site in Arizona instead of Chaco Canyon. The 400-member group discovered the mistake and fixed it, said coalition coordinator Bill Wade. "That mistake slipped through several reviewers, but really, we know it's in New Mexico," Wade said. "Having been there myself, I know how beautiful it is." Chaco Canyon is home to massive ancestral Pueblo Indian ruins that date from A.D. 850 to A.D. 1250. Archaeologists consider it one of the most important sites in the Southwest....
Former U.S. Park Police Chief Suing Interior Department Former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers is suing the Interior Department, alleging that he supervisor withheld documents that could have cleared her of charges raised in her firing. Chambers was suspended in 2003 after going public with complaints that her department was understaffed and underfunded. her superiors also contended that5 she was insubordinate. She was fired in July. The group representing Chambers in her legal struggle, PEER, says Chambers is trying to get U.S. Park Service officials to release a her performance evaluation....
Interior Dept. rebuts criticism The Interior Department has a strong commitment to environmental regulations intended to protect wildlife and their habitat, Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson told Trout Unlimited, reacting to criticism from the conservation group. A week ago, Trout Unlimited accused the federal agency of allowing rapid, inadequately researched oil and gas development in the West. The group advocates the protection and restoration of North America's coldwater fisheries. Watson sent Trout Unlimited a letter Thursday focusing on concerns the organization raised in its recent letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton....
Tiny trees spur new growth in industry A question is humming around the edges of the Oregon Logging Conference this week, like the distant sound of a chain saw bucking firewood. Can a small-time logger find a new living with tiny trees - thinned from federal or private forests - that are most commonly chipped for pulp or burned on slash heaps? Now appears to be a good time for small operators to find niche markets for logs as small as 3 to 5 inches in diameter, a few Northwest firms are finding. They're converting the tiny waste trees into products such as tongue-and-grove flooring for homes, produce bins for grocery stores and round-log stud or beam replacement in construction....
Where the Critters Roam On Frank Long's foothills, cow pies apparently are signs of good health for nature. The ubiquitous dark blobs mean cows have been eating the grass, opening up many places in the thick green carpet where small critters flourish and buttercups, lupines and poppies put on brilliant spring shows. After 54 years of ranching here, Long has no wish to see houses in place of critters, wildflowers or even cow pies. He sold the development rights to conservationists who won't allow homes, commercial development, oak tree removal or other significant changes on about 2,900 acres near Mariposa. His property will remain a working ranch, even as development reaches into the oak-studded foothills between the new University of California at Merced and Yosemite National Park....
Roosevelt Lake swells, boosting Valley supply Roosevelt Lake will reach historic high levels today and likely will fill to capacity by spring, three years after the giant reservoir nearly dried up. Runoff from a series of winter storms has more than doubled the lake's size in just 55 days. Water is now lapping up against never-before-used sections of Roosevelt Dam, which was expanded in 1996 just as a record nine-year drought began. As a result, the Valley's water supply is in its best shape in more than a decade. Salt River Project, which manages Roosevelt and five other reservoirs, will head into the warm-weather months with a nearly full system for the first time since the early 1990s, allowing the utility to stop tapping backup wells....
Utah loses key battle over N-waste A utility consortium planning to store 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste on the Skull Valley reservation reached a major milestone Thursday when a panel of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) judges swept aside the last of Utah's administrative objections. The two Atomic Safety Licensing Board rulings - on separate appeals from the state and Private Fuel Storage (PFS) - cleared the way for the NRC to approve a license for the consortium to build and operate the facility 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The ruling is a significant setback in the state's efforts to stop construction of the facility....
Editorial: Support Bush's `Clear Skies' Environmentalists are foolish to oppose President Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative to reduce air pollution from power plants. The proposal contains provisions that would make it more effective than existing law. Clear Skies would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury from power plants by more than 70 percent. It also would permanently cap plant emissions nationwide, meaning pollutant levels could not increase regardless of how much additional power were generated in the future. These rules would apply equally to older power plants, which now must add pollution controls only when they modernize, and thus would render obsolete the controversial "new source review" rule....
Horse sale grows out of 'crazy' idea Seven hundred, thirty-two horses -- and an ample number of their human counterparts -- from around the country are converging on Shawnee this weekend for the Triangle Sales Co. Inc. Mid-Winter Classic Sale. It's the largest sale of it's kind in the world -- supplying horses to buyers in 47 states and attracting attention from buyers in Japan, Germany and Israel. But, it is still organized out of the addition built on a rambling blue house on Benson Park Road. Cindy Bowling Garner began the business 26 years ago with husband, John Bowling, before his death in 1994. A "crazy idea" to hold a horse sale in the winter led them to the Heart of Oklahoma Expo Center in Shawnee, which then had the only heated facility around....
John Wayne Still Biggest Movie Money-Maker Get back, pilgrim. Legendary movie cowboy John Wayne has outshot Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" and has cruised by Tom Cruise. The late actor has been named as the Top Money-Maker of All Time in the Quigley Publishing Company annual star poll. Born Marion Michael Morrison, Wayne made movies for more than 50 years, including classic westerns "Stagecoach" (1939), "Fort Apache" (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), "Rio Grande" (1950) and "The Alamo" (1960). He won a best actor Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in 1969's "True Grit." In order to compare The Duke's box-office sales to that earned by contemporary stars, a weighted score was given to the star's ranking for each year: 10 points for finishing first, nine for finishing second, etc. Theater owners placed Wayne on the poll 25 times from 1949 to 1974, yielding a total of 172 points....
Hooked on barbed wire? It is a simple reproduction of nature, yet considered to be an invention of genius requiring numerous patents. It connected points while disorienting people and animals. It is treacherous, yet considered a thing of beauty and is housed in museums. If you have not guessed what it is, these questions might give it away: What was rumored to be a northern plot to wipe out cattle, and was thought to be the work of the devil? Barbed Wire. Yes, barbwire fencing, that is now taken for granted, was controversial in its early years. It may still raise some barbs when you realize that the first patent for barbwire was issued in France in 1860 for fencing, which the French called "artificial thorns." In the United States, several factors set the stage for a desperate need for cheap fencing....
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Final report also blames Forest Service safety lapses for deaths in Cramer fire The third and final investigative report into the July 22, 2003 deaths of two firefighters on the Salmon-Challis National Forest agrees with two previous reports that the fatalities may have been prevented had Forest Service (FS) fire managers followed standard safety procedures. Jeff Allen, 24, Salmon and Shane Heath, 22, Melba, were killed the afternoon of July 22, 2003 when the Cramer Fire burned over them. “Had existing FS fire suppression policies and tactics been followed in a prudent manner, particularly by the IC [Alan Hackett, the incident commander], the fatalities of Heath and Allen may have been prevented,” said the report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General. The report agrees with a 2003 FS accident report that determined Hackett and the firefighting team violated all of the agency’s 10 “Standard Firefighting Orders” and 10 of the FS’ 18 “Watch Out Situations.”....
Couple Questioned About Ventura County Tiger State authorities investigating how a 425-pound tiger wound up roaming eastern Ventura County have questioned a Moorpark couple whose menagerie of exotic cats was confiscated from their rental home in the Tierra Rejada Valley earlier this month. The couple had a state permit for three tigers, though authorities who originally inspected the cages found only two. Officials had been alerted to the presence of exotic cats by neighbors who reported that a bobcat had escaped from the property. Fish and Game officials said Thursday that after reports of large paw prints in the area surfaced, they returned to interview Abby and Emma Hedengran about the possibility of a missing tiger. Authorities declined to provide details of the questioning, and the couple could not be reached for comment. When first visiting the couple Feb. 9, the state officials had not yet learned about the prints discovered Feb. 8 at a nursery in the Santa Rosa Valley near Moorpark, according to Steve Martarano, a Fish and Game spokesman. The tiger that left those tracks was shot dead by trackers Wednesday in a narrow ravine off California 23 in Moorpark....
State DNR seeks OK to trap wolves Stung by a court ruling that put the gray wolf back on the endangered species list in Wisconsin and other states, the Department of Natural Resources has asked federal authorities for approval to once again kill and trap problem wolves. DNR officials briefed members of the natural resources and agriculture boards on Wednesday about their efforts to reclaim some of their authority after a federal judge's ruling. The agency has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permission to trap wolves so that the state could continue its monitoring program. Trapping also would allow the state to again move problem wolves to other parts of the state where it is believed they would be less of a nuisance. The DNR also is asking federal authorities for approval to kill wolves where they have repeatedly killed farm animals....
Editorial: Water conservationists should be commended Finally there is consensus among some of the major players on the Rio Grande that water conservation and ecological values are worthy. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez and a coalition of six environmental groups on Wednesday announced an agreement they say will ensure the survival of the river, whose waters are the source of much competition and conflict. They are to be commended for compromising rather than continuing a protracted and costly legal confrontation that was counterproductive. In exchange for significant conservation concessions from the city that acknowledge the need for water to sustain the river itself as an ecosystem, the environmental groups agreed to end their litigation over the city's San Juan-Chama water diversion project....
Big day for a little fish Gila topminnows that dart beneath mats of algae and Sonoran mud turtles that slide down boulders to splash in pools here surely don't realize this is a big day for them. But those species and others in this watery habitat stand to benefit from a major land purchase being announced today. Rather than subdividing the bulk of Coal Mine Canyon into 36-acre ranchettes, First United Realty is selling 2,628 acres to the state so it can be protected in perpetuity. The $2.25 million deal in Santa Cruz County is mainly motivated by conservation of the tiny topminnow, one of the first species listed as endangered by the federal government....
Bush Team Readying Backdoor Route to Drill Arctic Refuge Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the issue. Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)....
List puts N.M. park in Arizona This natural wonderland made it onto a list of 10 favorite hidden parks - but the list hid it even more, by locating it in Arizona. The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees this week released a list of members' favorite parks, but accidentally listed the archaeological site in Arizona instead of Chaco Canyon. The 400-member group discovered the mistake and fixed it, said coalition coordinator Bill Wade. "That mistake slipped through several reviewers, but really, we know it's in New Mexico," Wade said. "Having been there myself, I know how beautiful it is." Chaco Canyon is home to massive ancestral Pueblo Indian ruins that date from A.D. 850 to A.D. 1250. Archaeologists consider it one of the most important sites in the Southwest....
Former U.S. Park Police Chief Suing Interior Department Former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers is suing the Interior Department, alleging that he supervisor withheld documents that could have cleared her of charges raised in her firing. Chambers was suspended in 2003 after going public with complaints that her department was understaffed and underfunded. her superiors also contended that5 she was insubordinate. She was fired in July. The group representing Chambers in her legal struggle, PEER, says Chambers is trying to get U.S. Park Service officials to release a her performance evaluation....
Interior Dept. rebuts criticism The Interior Department has a strong commitment to environmental regulations intended to protect wildlife and their habitat, Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson told Trout Unlimited, reacting to criticism from the conservation group. A week ago, Trout Unlimited accused the federal agency of allowing rapid, inadequately researched oil and gas development in the West. The group advocates the protection and restoration of North America's coldwater fisheries. Watson sent Trout Unlimited a letter Thursday focusing on concerns the organization raised in its recent letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton....
Tiny trees spur new growth in industry A question is humming around the edges of the Oregon Logging Conference this week, like the distant sound of a chain saw bucking firewood. Can a small-time logger find a new living with tiny trees - thinned from federal or private forests - that are most commonly chipped for pulp or burned on slash heaps? Now appears to be a good time for small operators to find niche markets for logs as small as 3 to 5 inches in diameter, a few Northwest firms are finding. They're converting the tiny waste trees into products such as tongue-and-grove flooring for homes, produce bins for grocery stores and round-log stud or beam replacement in construction....
Where the Critters Roam On Frank Long's foothills, cow pies apparently are signs of good health for nature. The ubiquitous dark blobs mean cows have been eating the grass, opening up many places in the thick green carpet where small critters flourish and buttercups, lupines and poppies put on brilliant spring shows. After 54 years of ranching here, Long has no wish to see houses in place of critters, wildflowers or even cow pies. He sold the development rights to conservationists who won't allow homes, commercial development, oak tree removal or other significant changes on about 2,900 acres near Mariposa. His property will remain a working ranch, even as development reaches into the oak-studded foothills between the new University of California at Merced and Yosemite National Park....
Roosevelt Lake swells, boosting Valley supply Roosevelt Lake will reach historic high levels today and likely will fill to capacity by spring, three years after the giant reservoir nearly dried up. Runoff from a series of winter storms has more than doubled the lake's size in just 55 days. Water is now lapping up against never-before-used sections of Roosevelt Dam, which was expanded in 1996 just as a record nine-year drought began. As a result, the Valley's water supply is in its best shape in more than a decade. Salt River Project, which manages Roosevelt and five other reservoirs, will head into the warm-weather months with a nearly full system for the first time since the early 1990s, allowing the utility to stop tapping backup wells....
Utah loses key battle over N-waste A utility consortium planning to store 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste on the Skull Valley reservation reached a major milestone Thursday when a panel of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) judges swept aside the last of Utah's administrative objections. The two Atomic Safety Licensing Board rulings - on separate appeals from the state and Private Fuel Storage (PFS) - cleared the way for the NRC to approve a license for the consortium to build and operate the facility 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The ruling is a significant setback in the state's efforts to stop construction of the facility....
Editorial: Support Bush's `Clear Skies' Environmentalists are foolish to oppose President Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative to reduce air pollution from power plants. The proposal contains provisions that would make it more effective than existing law. Clear Skies would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury from power plants by more than 70 percent. It also would permanently cap plant emissions nationwide, meaning pollutant levels could not increase regardless of how much additional power were generated in the future. These rules would apply equally to older power plants, which now must add pollution controls only when they modernize, and thus would render obsolete the controversial "new source review" rule....
Horse sale grows out of 'crazy' idea Seven hundred, thirty-two horses -- and an ample number of their human counterparts -- from around the country are converging on Shawnee this weekend for the Triangle Sales Co. Inc. Mid-Winter Classic Sale. It's the largest sale of it's kind in the world -- supplying horses to buyers in 47 states and attracting attention from buyers in Japan, Germany and Israel. But, it is still organized out of the addition built on a rambling blue house on Benson Park Road. Cindy Bowling Garner began the business 26 years ago with husband, John Bowling, before his death in 1994. A "crazy idea" to hold a horse sale in the winter led them to the Heart of Oklahoma Expo Center in Shawnee, which then had the only heated facility around....
John Wayne Still Biggest Movie Money-Maker Get back, pilgrim. Legendary movie cowboy John Wayne has outshot Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" and has cruised by Tom Cruise. The late actor has been named as the Top Money-Maker of All Time in the Quigley Publishing Company annual star poll. Born Marion Michael Morrison, Wayne made movies for more than 50 years, including classic westerns "Stagecoach" (1939), "Fort Apache" (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), "Rio Grande" (1950) and "The Alamo" (1960). He won a best actor Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in 1969's "True Grit." In order to compare The Duke's box-office sales to that earned by contemporary stars, a weighted score was given to the star's ranking for each year: 10 points for finishing first, nine for finishing second, etc. Theater owners placed Wayne on the poll 25 times from 1949 to 1974, yielding a total of 172 points....
Hooked on barbed wire? It is a simple reproduction of nature, yet considered to be an invention of genius requiring numerous patents. It connected points while disorienting people and animals. It is treacherous, yet considered a thing of beauty and is housed in museums. If you have not guessed what it is, these questions might give it away: What was rumored to be a northern plot to wipe out cattle, and was thought to be the work of the devil? Barbed Wire. Yes, barbwire fencing, that is now taken for granted, was controversial in its early years. It may still raise some barbs when you realize that the first patent for barbwire was issued in France in 1860 for fencing, which the French called "artificial thorns." In the United States, several factors set the stage for a desperate need for cheap fencing....
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Thursday, February 24, 2005
Feds claim 91.9% of Nevada Nevada is getting smaller. At least the parts of it that Nevadans can call their own. All but 8.1 percent of the state is in the hands of federal agencies, according to an inventory by the U.S. General Services Administration. This information is not new. The 91.9 percent calculation of federal land comes from a 2003 report by GSA. However, lawmakers and state officials continue to quote a lower figure of 87 percent when talking about the amount of federal land in Nevada, and the state Department of Conservation & Natural Resources posts an even lower 86.1 percent on its Web site. Federal land managers keep close tabs on their holdings in each state, but the GSA report consolidates statistics from all departments. Lands controlled by the Department of Defense and Indian reservations apparently were not included in earlier estimates....
NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT 9TH CIRCUIT NOMINEE ROLE IN SLEAZY DEAL In a curious report that raises more questions than it answers, the Interior Office of Inspector General last night released a report blasting an improper settlement reached with a politically connected Wyoming rancher. In a press statement sent only to selected reporters, but not posted on its web site, the Office of Inspector General contends that it has cleared William Myers, the former Solicitor for the Department of Interior, who has been re-nominated by President Bush to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, of any wrongdoing. That conclusion is strongly disputed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) whose complaint prompted the OIG report. The report blames a deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management and an associate Solicitor, hand-picked by Myers for reaching and enforcing a deal of questionable legality that virtually immunized the rancher from penalties for grazing violations and left BLM’s own employees in legal jeopardy. “Under Earl Devaney, the Office of Inspector General has become the Office of Deflector General; its reports target obscure middle managers while shielding the higher-ups who gave the orders,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that OIG admitted that it “could not determine what motivated senior BLM officials to propose and advance the idea of a settlement.”....
Ranchers must learn how to negotiate, speakers say Don Spellman has worked with 10 different companies since coal-bed methane development came to his Campbell County ranch seven years ago. One of the first companies made a bad impression. The company had a high turnover rate, so he was never quite sure who to talk to. Then Spellman and a company representative agreed to a new two-track road. Later, Spellman watched a bulldozer peel a two-mile-long swath across his ranch. "That's not my idea of a two-track road," Spellman said....
Lawmakers unlikely to pass coalbed legislation Those hoping the 2005 Legislature would approve new regulations for coalbed methane development in the state are finding those wishes quickly dashed, with three major bills already dead and at least one other stalled and unlikely to pass. Proponents of the measures blame their defeat largely on what they characterized as a mind-set of some lawmakers that the energy industry is too important to the state to burden with additional regulations. Lawmakers introduced a handful of measures earlier this session that were intended to address energy exploration in Montana, particularly growing interest in coalbed methane, a type of natural gas found in coal seams. One of the more prominent bills was one by Sen. Mike Wheat, D-Bozeman, that was intended to give surface owners more bargaining power when dealing with developers with mineral or gas leases under their property....
Trackers Kill Tiger in Ventura County Sharpshooters searching for a 425-pound tiger that had prowled the hills of Simi Valley for two weeks shot and killed it Wednesday after a family awoke to find it walking past their backyard. The decision by government trackers to use high-powered rifles instead of tranquilizer darts to bring down the elusive cat outraged animal rights activists. But state officials said they had no alternative but to shoot to kill, because the animal could have attacked or bolted onto a highway or into a public park nearby. Thus ended a bizarre two-week saga that brought wilderness trappers to suburbia and forced families to keep children and pets indoors after huge cat tracks started being spotted throughout the oak-studded hills of eastern Ventura County....
Senate OKs bill calling for more radio-collared wolves The Montana Senate has passed a bill that would require state officials to capture and radio collar more wolves. Senate Bill 461 passed by a wide margin and is now awaiting action in the House. The bill would require the state spend about $25,000 the first year for equipment and personnel to monitor collared wolves. The bill has since been amended to give the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks the responsibility and to focus efforts on areas where depredations on livestock are "chronic or likely." Montana has about 40 wolf packs, which are defined as "two or more animals running together," Smith said. Of those packs, about 20 are in areas where trouble with livestock is more likely, he said, and 15 of the packs already have a collared animal among them....
Coyote bounty focus of legislative effort Four years ago, three western Minnesota counties put $10 bounties on coyotes in hope of reducing their numbers. But the counties soon discovered a major problem: The bounties were illegal. Now, bills in the Legislature would allow Minnesota counties to pay bounties on coyotes. Bob Padula says the idea is a no-brainer. "Coyotes eat sheep. I've had four attacked in the last five years," said Padula, a sheep rancher in Montevideo in western Minnesota and president of the Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers Association....
Albuquerque, group reach deal on minnows The city of Albuquerque and environmental groups reached a settlement Wednesday in a five-year legal battle over the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. Organizations including the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society agreed to pursue no further legal action against the city in exchange for measures they said will help the tiny fish species to survive. Under the settlement, Albuquerque will set aside 30,000 acre-feet of water in a city reservoir to help preserve the minnow. Environmentalists said that will make the reservoir one of only a few in the West with significant space devoted to an environmental effort. An acre-foot is the amount of water that can cover an acre to a depth of 1 foot. The city also agreed to commit $250,000 from the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Authority and $25,000 from environmental groups to a water-leasing program for the middle Rio Grande. The program would increase water flow, which will help further protect the minnow and other species....
Alaskan otter sick with parasite killing California otters An injured sea otter found last month tested positive for a lethal parasite that has infected or killed hundreds of California sea otters in an outbreak blamed on domestic cats. This appears to be Alaska's first confirmed case of an otter sick with Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan that matures only inside cats and spreads through their feces. The otter is under care at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward after being found in Resurrection Bay....
Wild horse advocates voice disappointment in Reid’s inaction Wild horse advocates said Wednesday that they’re disappointed in U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s position on handling of the animals, arguing he should be doing more to preserve and protect the living symbols of the West. In a demonstration outside the Nevada Legislative Building just before the Democratic senator addressed state lawmakers, about a dozen wild horse supporters said Reid needs to use his leverage as Senate minority leader to help prevent the sale and slaughter of the animals....
2 Utahns admit to killing 9 wild horses Two Utah men Tuesday admitted to killing nine wild horses on federal land in Iron County. Fred Eugene Woods and Russell Wesley Jones each pleaded guilty to three criminal counts — one felony charge of injuring U.S. property and two misdemeanor counts of causing the death of a wild, free-roaming horse. Woods, 48, acknowledged shooting six horses — including a 1 1/2-year-old buckskin filly and a 4-year-old bay stallion — and Jones, 30, admitted killing three — including two black stallions, one 7 years old and the other 2 years old. The case is believed to be the first in which the killing of wild horses has resulted in a felony conviction....
County to buy ranches for open space An array of desert grasslands and archaeological sites will be in public hands once Pima County closes on a multimillion-dollar deal that's part of a larger effort to preserve open space. County supervisors voted unanimously this week to spend $20.6 million to buy a nearly 10,000-acre ranch near the rural town of Arivaca and a smaller ranch southwest of Tucson. The larger ranch, called Rancho Seco, is the largest of nine properties the county has agreed to purchase with open-space bonds approved by voters last year....
Senate OKs end to Choteau bird preserve Lawmakers voted Tuesday to eliminate a bird preserve near Choteau, citing complaints about damage the deer population has caused in and around the preserve. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Joe Tropila, D-Great Falls, eliminates the Teton Spring Creek Bird Preserve, which was established in 1923. Ranchers with land in and around the preserve boundaries have complained for years that the deer living there eat a lot of hay and leave much more unusable as livestock feed because of droppings and urine. Rifle hunting is not allowed within the preserve, but the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks began allowing limited archery hunting within the boundaries in 1976....
More Utah wilderness proposed A coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday unveiled a proposal to designate as wilderness 3.6 million acres of sprawling canyons, blue-ribbon trout streams, twisting red rock formations, and popular hunting and hiking areas in the three national forests in southern Utah. The coalition, consisting of 12 groups, first presented its plans to the U.S. Forest Service in the fall but did not publicly unveil them until now. They come as the Dixie, Fishlake and Manti-LaSal national forests are working on forest-management plans that could end up redrawing wilderness boundaries. Wilderness designations within the forests would bar users from operating off-road vehicles in the area and prevent industry from logging or drilling for oil and gas. If the groups' recommendations were accepted, those restrictions would apply to 75 percent of the three forests' combined 4.8 million acres....
Cadre grows to rein in message The ranks of federal public affairs officials swelled during the Bush administration's first term, but that hasn't meant that government information is easier to get. The staffs that handle public relations for government agencies grew even faster than the federal work force, personnel records show, yet at the same time the White House tightened its control over messages to the news media and restricted access to public information. Between September 2000 and September 2004, the number of public affairs officials rose 9 percent, from 4,327 to 4,703, in executive-branch agencies, according to U.S. Office of Personnel Management statistics. Meanwhile, the federal work force grew 6 percent. Nearly half the jump at Agriculture came at its Forest Service, which oversees the vast tracts of national forests and now has 306 public affairs staff. Lennon said his staff grew, in part, because of a growing number of advisory panels required by Congress and a controversial program that opens some forests to logging over environmentalists objections....
Rains put forests at new risk This winter's relentless storms have decimated an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the 1,300 miles of back roads that lace the San Bernardino National Forest, leaving them impassable and useless with fire season a few months away and sufficient funding for repairs nowhere in sight. "My immediate concern is fire suppression through the course of the summer," San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman said Wednesday. "Those forest roads are incredibly important." U.S. Forest Service surveys by helicopter and crews on the ground revealed the vast majority of visible roads have been washed away, covered with mudslides and strewn with boulders, forest engineer Mike Florey said....
Hunter Ordered to Pay $18M in Calif. Fire A lost hunter who started a forest fire in northern California while trying to keep warm was ordered to pay $18.2 million in restitution Wednesday. The fire in the Mendocino National Forest burned 6,058 acres and cost $33 million to suppress, authorities said. The restitution covers the U.S. Forest Service's cost of fighting the fire and restoring the burned area, prosecutors said. Jason Hoskey, 26, of Willows, lit a campfire when he got lost hunting on Sept. 27, 2003. The fire spread after he fell asleep. Flames had been banned in the area because of extreme fire danger. Prosecutors said Hoskey also violated the ban by smoking several cigarettes....
Forest chief answers critics Stanislaus National Forest's leader yesterday faced a roomful of upset mill workers who blame the Forest Service for recent layoffs. Forest Supervisor Tom Quinn attended the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting to explain why timber sales on the forest have dropped. Sierra Pacific Industries officials and workers say the drop resulted in temporary layoffs of about 150 employees at the company's Standard and Chinese Camp mills. Supervisors asked Quinn to explain why 12 million board feet of lumber is harvested annually when about 300 million board feet grows in the forest....
Judge upholds limits on off-road vehicles in Big Cypress preserve A federal judge has upheld limits on swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles at Big Cypress National Preserve. U.S. District Judge John E. Steele ruled Tuesday that the National Park Service followed the law in preparing a plan that restricted off-road vehicles to certain areas of the neighbor of Everglades National Park. He rejected arguments by hunting clubs that the park service failed to consider the consequences or alternatives. The ruling caps a long battle between hunters and environmental groups over how the park should be used....
Critical juncture for property rights Given the prominent role courts have come to play in every facet of American life, each meeting of the U.S. Supreme Court can result in rulings with profound implications for us all. But this session is shaping up as one of the most momentous yet on the subject of property rights; more specifically, the question of what constitutes a government "taking" under the Fifth Amendment. On Tuesday, the black robes heard arguments in Kelo v. New London (Conn.), a fairly typical takings case in which a city used the power of eminent domain to confiscate private property based on its claim that a waterfront redevelopment project qualifies as a "public good" under the law. Today, the court begins mulling an even more intriguing case, touching on the question of whether government actions that deprived California farmers of irrigation water also qualifies as a "taking," requiring that compensation be paid....
Under NAFTA provision, Canadians want U.S. to pay for beef ban Under an obscure provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadian cattlemen are asking the U.S. government to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to cover losses they incurred when the border was closed to Canadian beef after mad-cow disease turned up in Alberta. With the ban set to be lifted early next month, the case spotlights NAFTA's little-known Chapter 11, which allows companies to claim damages from governments if their laws or actions damage trading partners. About 500 cattlemen, mostly from the province of Alberta, have filed 121 claims under NAFTA seeking at least $325 million in compensation from U.S. taxpayers for the May 2003 decision to halt imports of Canadian beef and cattle, their lawyer said....
Burning Manure In Nebraska Finally Goes Out It took nearly four months, but to the relief of neighbors miles around, a burning manure pile has been extinguished. David Dickinson, owner and manager of Midwest Feeding Co., said Wednesday that several weeks of pulling the 2,000-ton pile apart proved effective by late last week. "We got far enough through it, that it quit," Dickinson said. Dickinson's feedlot, about 20 miles west of Lincoln, takes in as many as 12,000 cows at a time from farmers and ranchers and fattens them for market. Byproducts from the massive operation resulted in a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide. Heat from the decomposing manure deep inside the pile is believed to have eventually ignited the manure....
CHAMPIONS SQUARE OFF SATURDAY AT LOS ALAMITOS Champions Catchmeinyourdreams and Whosleavingwho will break from posts 3 and 6, respectively, in Saturday’s $251,200 Los Alamitos Winter Championship (G1). The winner of the 400-yard stakes will earn the season’s first berth to this year’s Champion of Champions (G1), American Quarter Horse racing’s richest and most prestigious race for older horses. Racing for Kirk Goodfellow of Minden, Texas, and trained by Chris O’Dell, Catchmeinyourdreams is the sport’s reigning champion aged gelding. The Pritzi Dash gelding is coming off of a season in which he won the Grade 1 Go Man Go Handicap and Los Alamitos Invitational Championship and earned $208,493. Cody Jensen, who rode Catchmeinyourdreams in those stakes wins, will ride him again on Saturday. Whosleavingwho shared the sport’s world champion title with Streakin Sin Tacha in 2002. Owned by Arizona-based ranchers Jim Geiler and Kim Kissinger, and trained by Paul Jones, the 7-year-old gelding by Chicks Beduino has won 20 of 41 races – including eight stakes – and has earned $1,121,127. Alejandro Luna will ride Whosleavingwho on Saturday, as the gelding attempts to qualify to the Champion of Champions for the fourth consecutive year....
Cowboy poets, musicians to perform this weekend Roughhewn cowboy poetry, folksongs of the West and a hearty cowboy breakfast around the campfire. That’s what it’s all about Friday through Sunday (Feb. 25-27) at the 19th Annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine. Sul Ross State University will serve as host and gathering place Friday through Sunday for the 49 performers and singers scheduled to entertain this year, at the second oldest cowboy poetry gathering in the country. Only the cowboy poetry gathering in Elko, Nev., is larger and older, said Michael Stevens, president of the organizing committee....
Calling All Cowgirls: Montana's Mountain Sky Beckons 'Wild Women' Seeking Western Adventure Women yearning to heed the call of the Wild West are invited to drop their briefcases and house chores and head for Big Sky country to enjoy a special offer filled with adventure and pampering at beautiful Mountain Sky Guest Ranch in Montana. Nestled within more than 6,000 acres of breathtaking countryside, this historic guest ranch is offering a " Wild West Women Adventure" package, tailored to meet every need for fun, food and friendship. From Saturday, May 7 through Wednesday, May 11, cowgirls from California to the Carolinas can gather their friends and lasso this special four-night adventure, which includes accommodations in refurbished rustic or modern guest cabins, gourmet dining, unlimited riding and ranch activities, a Yellowstone Park tour, airport transportation and gratuities - all for just $1,000....
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NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT 9TH CIRCUIT NOMINEE ROLE IN SLEAZY DEAL In a curious report that raises more questions than it answers, the Interior Office of Inspector General last night released a report blasting an improper settlement reached with a politically connected Wyoming rancher. In a press statement sent only to selected reporters, but not posted on its web site, the Office of Inspector General contends that it has cleared William Myers, the former Solicitor for the Department of Interior, who has been re-nominated by President Bush to serve on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, of any wrongdoing. That conclusion is strongly disputed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) whose complaint prompted the OIG report. The report blames a deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management and an associate Solicitor, hand-picked by Myers for reaching and enforcing a deal of questionable legality that virtually immunized the rancher from penalties for grazing violations and left BLM’s own employees in legal jeopardy. “Under Earl Devaney, the Office of Inspector General has become the Office of Deflector General; its reports target obscure middle managers while shielding the higher-ups who gave the orders,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that OIG admitted that it “could not determine what motivated senior BLM officials to propose and advance the idea of a settlement.”....
Ranchers must learn how to negotiate, speakers say Don Spellman has worked with 10 different companies since coal-bed methane development came to his Campbell County ranch seven years ago. One of the first companies made a bad impression. The company had a high turnover rate, so he was never quite sure who to talk to. Then Spellman and a company representative agreed to a new two-track road. Later, Spellman watched a bulldozer peel a two-mile-long swath across his ranch. "That's not my idea of a two-track road," Spellman said....
Lawmakers unlikely to pass coalbed legislation Those hoping the 2005 Legislature would approve new regulations for coalbed methane development in the state are finding those wishes quickly dashed, with three major bills already dead and at least one other stalled and unlikely to pass. Proponents of the measures blame their defeat largely on what they characterized as a mind-set of some lawmakers that the energy industry is too important to the state to burden with additional regulations. Lawmakers introduced a handful of measures earlier this session that were intended to address energy exploration in Montana, particularly growing interest in coalbed methane, a type of natural gas found in coal seams. One of the more prominent bills was one by Sen. Mike Wheat, D-Bozeman, that was intended to give surface owners more bargaining power when dealing with developers with mineral or gas leases under their property....
Trackers Kill Tiger in Ventura County Sharpshooters searching for a 425-pound tiger that had prowled the hills of Simi Valley for two weeks shot and killed it Wednesday after a family awoke to find it walking past their backyard. The decision by government trackers to use high-powered rifles instead of tranquilizer darts to bring down the elusive cat outraged animal rights activists. But state officials said they had no alternative but to shoot to kill, because the animal could have attacked or bolted onto a highway or into a public park nearby. Thus ended a bizarre two-week saga that brought wilderness trappers to suburbia and forced families to keep children and pets indoors after huge cat tracks started being spotted throughout the oak-studded hills of eastern Ventura County....
Senate OKs bill calling for more radio-collared wolves The Montana Senate has passed a bill that would require state officials to capture and radio collar more wolves. Senate Bill 461 passed by a wide margin and is now awaiting action in the House. The bill would require the state spend about $25,000 the first year for equipment and personnel to monitor collared wolves. The bill has since been amended to give the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks the responsibility and to focus efforts on areas where depredations on livestock are "chronic or likely." Montana has about 40 wolf packs, which are defined as "two or more animals running together," Smith said. Of those packs, about 20 are in areas where trouble with livestock is more likely, he said, and 15 of the packs already have a collared animal among them....
Coyote bounty focus of legislative effort Four years ago, three western Minnesota counties put $10 bounties on coyotes in hope of reducing their numbers. But the counties soon discovered a major problem: The bounties were illegal. Now, bills in the Legislature would allow Minnesota counties to pay bounties on coyotes. Bob Padula says the idea is a no-brainer. "Coyotes eat sheep. I've had four attacked in the last five years," said Padula, a sheep rancher in Montevideo in western Minnesota and president of the Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers Association....
Albuquerque, group reach deal on minnows The city of Albuquerque and environmental groups reached a settlement Wednesday in a five-year legal battle over the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow. Organizations including the Sierra Club and National Audubon Society agreed to pursue no further legal action against the city in exchange for measures they said will help the tiny fish species to survive. Under the settlement, Albuquerque will set aside 30,000 acre-feet of water in a city reservoir to help preserve the minnow. Environmentalists said that will make the reservoir one of only a few in the West with significant space devoted to an environmental effort. An acre-foot is the amount of water that can cover an acre to a depth of 1 foot. The city also agreed to commit $250,000 from the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Authority and $25,000 from environmental groups to a water-leasing program for the middle Rio Grande. The program would increase water flow, which will help further protect the minnow and other species....
Alaskan otter sick with parasite killing California otters An injured sea otter found last month tested positive for a lethal parasite that has infected or killed hundreds of California sea otters in an outbreak blamed on domestic cats. This appears to be Alaska's first confirmed case of an otter sick with Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoan that matures only inside cats and spreads through their feces. The otter is under care at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward after being found in Resurrection Bay....
Wild horse advocates voice disappointment in Reid’s inaction Wild horse advocates said Wednesday that they’re disappointed in U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s position on handling of the animals, arguing he should be doing more to preserve and protect the living symbols of the West. In a demonstration outside the Nevada Legislative Building just before the Democratic senator addressed state lawmakers, about a dozen wild horse supporters said Reid needs to use his leverage as Senate minority leader to help prevent the sale and slaughter of the animals....
2 Utahns admit to killing 9 wild horses Two Utah men Tuesday admitted to killing nine wild horses on federal land in Iron County. Fred Eugene Woods and Russell Wesley Jones each pleaded guilty to three criminal counts — one felony charge of injuring U.S. property and two misdemeanor counts of causing the death of a wild, free-roaming horse. Woods, 48, acknowledged shooting six horses — including a 1 1/2-year-old buckskin filly and a 4-year-old bay stallion — and Jones, 30, admitted killing three — including two black stallions, one 7 years old and the other 2 years old. The case is believed to be the first in which the killing of wild horses has resulted in a felony conviction....
County to buy ranches for open space An array of desert grasslands and archaeological sites will be in public hands once Pima County closes on a multimillion-dollar deal that's part of a larger effort to preserve open space. County supervisors voted unanimously this week to spend $20.6 million to buy a nearly 10,000-acre ranch near the rural town of Arivaca and a smaller ranch southwest of Tucson. The larger ranch, called Rancho Seco, is the largest of nine properties the county has agreed to purchase with open-space bonds approved by voters last year....
Senate OKs end to Choteau bird preserve Lawmakers voted Tuesday to eliminate a bird preserve near Choteau, citing complaints about damage the deer population has caused in and around the preserve. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Joe Tropila, D-Great Falls, eliminates the Teton Spring Creek Bird Preserve, which was established in 1923. Ranchers with land in and around the preserve boundaries have complained for years that the deer living there eat a lot of hay and leave much more unusable as livestock feed because of droppings and urine. Rifle hunting is not allowed within the preserve, but the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks began allowing limited archery hunting within the boundaries in 1976....
More Utah wilderness proposed A coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday unveiled a proposal to designate as wilderness 3.6 million acres of sprawling canyons, blue-ribbon trout streams, twisting red rock formations, and popular hunting and hiking areas in the three national forests in southern Utah. The coalition, consisting of 12 groups, first presented its plans to the U.S. Forest Service in the fall but did not publicly unveil them until now. They come as the Dixie, Fishlake and Manti-LaSal national forests are working on forest-management plans that could end up redrawing wilderness boundaries. Wilderness designations within the forests would bar users from operating off-road vehicles in the area and prevent industry from logging or drilling for oil and gas. If the groups' recommendations were accepted, those restrictions would apply to 75 percent of the three forests' combined 4.8 million acres....
Cadre grows to rein in message The ranks of federal public affairs officials swelled during the Bush administration's first term, but that hasn't meant that government information is easier to get. The staffs that handle public relations for government agencies grew even faster than the federal work force, personnel records show, yet at the same time the White House tightened its control over messages to the news media and restricted access to public information. Between September 2000 and September 2004, the number of public affairs officials rose 9 percent, from 4,327 to 4,703, in executive-branch agencies, according to U.S. Office of Personnel Management statistics. Meanwhile, the federal work force grew 6 percent. Nearly half the jump at Agriculture came at its Forest Service, which oversees the vast tracts of national forests and now has 306 public affairs staff. Lennon said his staff grew, in part, because of a growing number of advisory panels required by Congress and a controversial program that opens some forests to logging over environmentalists objections....
Rains put forests at new risk This winter's relentless storms have decimated an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the 1,300 miles of back roads that lace the San Bernardino National Forest, leaving them impassable and useless with fire season a few months away and sufficient funding for repairs nowhere in sight. "My immediate concern is fire suppression through the course of the summer," San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman said Wednesday. "Those forest roads are incredibly important." U.S. Forest Service surveys by helicopter and crews on the ground revealed the vast majority of visible roads have been washed away, covered with mudslides and strewn with boulders, forest engineer Mike Florey said....
Hunter Ordered to Pay $18M in Calif. Fire A lost hunter who started a forest fire in northern California while trying to keep warm was ordered to pay $18.2 million in restitution Wednesday. The fire in the Mendocino National Forest burned 6,058 acres and cost $33 million to suppress, authorities said. The restitution covers the U.S. Forest Service's cost of fighting the fire and restoring the burned area, prosecutors said. Jason Hoskey, 26, of Willows, lit a campfire when he got lost hunting on Sept. 27, 2003. The fire spread after he fell asleep. Flames had been banned in the area because of extreme fire danger. Prosecutors said Hoskey also violated the ban by smoking several cigarettes....
Forest chief answers critics Stanislaus National Forest's leader yesterday faced a roomful of upset mill workers who blame the Forest Service for recent layoffs. Forest Supervisor Tom Quinn attended the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting to explain why timber sales on the forest have dropped. Sierra Pacific Industries officials and workers say the drop resulted in temporary layoffs of about 150 employees at the company's Standard and Chinese Camp mills. Supervisors asked Quinn to explain why 12 million board feet of lumber is harvested annually when about 300 million board feet grows in the forest....
Judge upholds limits on off-road vehicles in Big Cypress preserve A federal judge has upheld limits on swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles at Big Cypress National Preserve. U.S. District Judge John E. Steele ruled Tuesday that the National Park Service followed the law in preparing a plan that restricted off-road vehicles to certain areas of the neighbor of Everglades National Park. He rejected arguments by hunting clubs that the park service failed to consider the consequences or alternatives. The ruling caps a long battle between hunters and environmental groups over how the park should be used....
Critical juncture for property rights Given the prominent role courts have come to play in every facet of American life, each meeting of the U.S. Supreme Court can result in rulings with profound implications for us all. But this session is shaping up as one of the most momentous yet on the subject of property rights; more specifically, the question of what constitutes a government "taking" under the Fifth Amendment. On Tuesday, the black robes heard arguments in Kelo v. New London (Conn.), a fairly typical takings case in which a city used the power of eminent domain to confiscate private property based on its claim that a waterfront redevelopment project qualifies as a "public good" under the law. Today, the court begins mulling an even more intriguing case, touching on the question of whether government actions that deprived California farmers of irrigation water also qualifies as a "taking," requiring that compensation be paid....
Under NAFTA provision, Canadians want U.S. to pay for beef ban Under an obscure provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadian cattlemen are asking the U.S. government to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to cover losses they incurred when the border was closed to Canadian beef after mad-cow disease turned up in Alberta. With the ban set to be lifted early next month, the case spotlights NAFTA's little-known Chapter 11, which allows companies to claim damages from governments if their laws or actions damage trading partners. About 500 cattlemen, mostly from the province of Alberta, have filed 121 claims under NAFTA seeking at least $325 million in compensation from U.S. taxpayers for the May 2003 decision to halt imports of Canadian beef and cattle, their lawyer said....
Burning Manure In Nebraska Finally Goes Out It took nearly four months, but to the relief of neighbors miles around, a burning manure pile has been extinguished. David Dickinson, owner and manager of Midwest Feeding Co., said Wednesday that several weeks of pulling the 2,000-ton pile apart proved effective by late last week. "We got far enough through it, that it quit," Dickinson said. Dickinson's feedlot, about 20 miles west of Lincoln, takes in as many as 12,000 cows at a time from farmers and ranchers and fattens them for market. Byproducts from the massive operation resulted in a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide. Heat from the decomposing manure deep inside the pile is believed to have eventually ignited the manure....
CHAMPIONS SQUARE OFF SATURDAY AT LOS ALAMITOS Champions Catchmeinyourdreams and Whosleavingwho will break from posts 3 and 6, respectively, in Saturday’s $251,200 Los Alamitos Winter Championship (G1). The winner of the 400-yard stakes will earn the season’s first berth to this year’s Champion of Champions (G1), American Quarter Horse racing’s richest and most prestigious race for older horses. Racing for Kirk Goodfellow of Minden, Texas, and trained by Chris O’Dell, Catchmeinyourdreams is the sport’s reigning champion aged gelding. The Pritzi Dash gelding is coming off of a season in which he won the Grade 1 Go Man Go Handicap and Los Alamitos Invitational Championship and earned $208,493. Cody Jensen, who rode Catchmeinyourdreams in those stakes wins, will ride him again on Saturday. Whosleavingwho shared the sport’s world champion title with Streakin Sin Tacha in 2002. Owned by Arizona-based ranchers Jim Geiler and Kim Kissinger, and trained by Paul Jones, the 7-year-old gelding by Chicks Beduino has won 20 of 41 races – including eight stakes – and has earned $1,121,127. Alejandro Luna will ride Whosleavingwho on Saturday, as the gelding attempts to qualify to the Champion of Champions for the fourth consecutive year....
Cowboy poets, musicians to perform this weekend Roughhewn cowboy poetry, folksongs of the West and a hearty cowboy breakfast around the campfire. That’s what it’s all about Friday through Sunday (Feb. 25-27) at the 19th Annual Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine. Sul Ross State University will serve as host and gathering place Friday through Sunday for the 49 performers and singers scheduled to entertain this year, at the second oldest cowboy poetry gathering in the country. Only the cowboy poetry gathering in Elko, Nev., is larger and older, said Michael Stevens, president of the organizing committee....
Calling All Cowgirls: Montana's Mountain Sky Beckons 'Wild Women' Seeking Western Adventure Women yearning to heed the call of the Wild West are invited to drop their briefcases and house chores and head for Big Sky country to enjoy a special offer filled with adventure and pampering at beautiful Mountain Sky Guest Ranch in Montana. Nestled within more than 6,000 acres of breathtaking countryside, this historic guest ranch is offering a " Wild West Women Adventure" package, tailored to meet every need for fun, food and friendship. From Saturday, May 7 through Wednesday, May 11, cowgirls from California to the Carolinas can gather their friends and lasso this special four-night adventure, which includes accommodations in refurbished rustic or modern guest cabins, gourmet dining, unlimited riding and ranch activities, a Yellowstone Park tour, airport transportation and gratuities - all for just $1,000....
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Judicial Nominee Cleared in BLM Case Interior Department Inspector General Earl E. Devaney absolved former department solicitor William G. Myers III of blame in a case involving a January 2003 legal settlement between the Bureau of Land Management and a Wyoming rancher. In a 24-page report made public yesterday but dated Oct. 13, Devaney criticized the conduct of BLM Deputy Director Frances Cherry, Associate Solicitor Robert Comer and an unnamed lawyer in the solicitor's office for reaching the settlement with rancher Harvey Frank Robbins despite written objections from the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney's office in Cheyenne, Wyo., and career BLM staffers. "While the report speaks for itself, the inspector general has expressed his hope that it will dispel the criticisms directed at former Solicitor William G. Myers, III," Roy Kime, a spokesman for the inspector general's office, said in a written statement yesterday. "In transmitting the report to the present solicitor and assistant secretary for land and minerals, the inspector general ascribed no fault whatsoever to Mr. Myers. To the contrary, a fair reading of the report would suggest that Myers was, in fact, victimized when he was given a distorted explanation by one of his senior associate solicitors." Myers, now an Idaho-based lawyer whom President Bush has nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has been a target of the environmental group Community Rights Counsel, which argued this month that the settlement gave Robbins "carte blanche authority to violate federal grazing laws."....
Officials limit use of ATVs in retrieving downed animals Grand Mesa National Forest officials have announced plans to discontinue a provision that allows the use of all-terrain vehicles on non-designated routes to retrieve downed game. The new rule goes into effect for big-game hunting seasons in 2005. Previously, hunters were allowed to drive off designated routes during the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to retrieve any downed game. District Ranger Connie Clementson said Forest Service employees found that many hunters were abusing the privilege by traveling into areas without following the rules, disrupting the hunting experience for others and complicating forest management....
Molas Pass battle reaches new level Silverton snowmobile riders are butting heads with a Snowcat skiing operator on Molas Pass over the wintertime use of the land there. Mounting tensions between Tim Kuss, owner of El Diablo Alpine Guides, and the Silverton Snowmobile Club came to a head on Saturday, Feb. 5, after Adam DeVeny of Silverton and a group of snowmobilers were approached by a gun-toting Kuss, who was also on a snowmobile. DeVeny and the group wanted to snowmobile where Kuss planned to take skiers. "He said it was an A-area (closed to motor vehicles), and he said we were on his ski hill," recalled DeVeny, who said he thought they were in an area where motorized vehicles are allowed. "But he was entirely out of line bringing a shotgun into the whole issue." DeVeny said Kuss never pointed the gun at anyone and kept its breach open and unloaded. Kuss said he was carrying the weapon because he had felt threatened by snowmobilers in the past who "became pretty violent right off the bat."....
Sleds vs. Skico in the backcountry On the back of Aspen Mountain exists an enormous winter playground choked with deep powder and crisscrossed with public and private land. Whether accessed by foot or motorized vehicle, the area has been used by an assortment of backcountry enthusiasts for years. But now, snowmobilers - mainly those who are backcountry skiers using their sleds to spin quicker laps - are being told they can no longer access national forest land. Meanwhile, Aspen Mountain Powder Tours, a snowcat-skiing operation that conducts trips on the back of Aspen Mountain, is permitted to go wherever they please. It's a common occurrence in mountain towns of the West, where land-use issues have been the source of more clashes than 1980s ski fashion....
Top Forest Service official says user fees 'here to stay' People who visit national forests can expect to pay fees more often at special attractions like the Maroon Bells, but access to the vast majority of the public lands will remain free, according to a top U.S. Forest Service official. Regional Forester Rick Cables said he believes charging user fees at a few, select sites is an excellent way for the U.S. Forest Service to stretch its limited budget. He points to the Maroon Bells as a poster child for the program's success. Traffic to the internationally famous Maroon Bells is restricted during the heart of summer. Visitors pay $5 to ride a bus. Cables said 80 percent of the funds raised get plowed back into facilities and staffing at the area....
On different frequencies Tracking surveys of radio-collared Canada lynx show the shy cats have been located hundreds of times inside the White River National Forest since the state reintroduced them to southern Colorado in 1999. Yet a top U.S. Department of Agriculture official in December ordered forest officials to scrap strong lynx protections in the new management plan for the forest based on the "lack of documented lynx sightings." Ongoing state studies show lynx were recorded within the 2.3-million-acre forest at least 300 times. Biologists identified 43 individual animals - including two females that denned on the forest's southern boundary last year - based on their unique radio-collar frequencies....
Groups oppose plan to lower water level It isn't the poisoning, it's the yo-yoing water levels that pose the biggest problems with a plan to save Diamond Lake, according to Francis Eatherington, the conservation director for Umpqua Watersheds Inc. The group, along with the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the Cascadia Wildlands Project filed an appeal with the Umpqua National Forest of an approved plan to lower the lake, poison invasive tui chubs -- along with other gill-breathers in Diamond Lake -- refill it, then restock it with trout. A decision on the appeal by officials with the U.S. Forest Service is due in March. Diamond Lake is a popular fishing and recreation lake just north of Crater Lake in southwest Oregon....
California farmers ask high court to help them get paid for water Supreme Court justices were wading into the West's contentious water wars Wednesday, hearing arguments from Central Valley farmers who want the government to pay them for water they say they were due but never received. The government said the water had to be diverted to protect two threatened fish. Government lawyers also said the farmers don't have standing to sue the Bureau of Reclamation directly, because water districts, not individual land owners, negotiate government water deals. The state of California and environmental groups are backing the government. At issue is a water service contract between the federal agency responsible for managing water in the West, and Westlands Water District, which encompasses 600,000 acres of farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties....
Park rules on Rainbow Bridge stand A National Park Service policy asking guests to respect the sacred status of Rainbow Bridge in southern Utah by not walking under the mammoth archway will not be reviewed by the Supreme Court, the justices announced Tuesday. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society and Evelyn Johnson and Earl DeWaal sued the Park Service in 2000, claiming the policy is unconstitutional because it grants special treatment to American Indian religions. The 275-foot redrock span, the largest natural bridge in the world, is a significant cultural site for several American Indian tribes, including the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Paiute....
U.S. Fish & Wildlife May Outsource Biological Staff The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service may soon be replacing hundreds of its biological technicians and fish hatchery workers with private contractors. The USFWS Director, however, is asking his superiors at the Department of Interior to stop the process, according to the all-employee email released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). On February 8,USFWS Director Steve Williams sent out an all-employee email confessing his unhappiness with the way contractor competitions (under a Bush Administration initiative called “Competitive Sourcing”) had been conducted for its biological science technicians and aquatic husbandry staff. Williams contended that the competition results did not match departmental needs and were not conducted in a manner that “is fair to both our employees and to potential private bidders.” Williams’ action strongly implies that the private companies underbid the federal employees and are in a position to take over these job classes. Offices of Personnel Management records show USFWS employing 659 biological science technicians, who conduct much of the fieldwork for agency scientists, and 90 aquatic husbandry personnel, who support the agency fishery and hatchery operations....
Column - Hell on wheels: ORVs invade desert Like clockwork, every major holiday, our communities are invaded by a hoard of off-road vehicle riders who terrorize residents, trespass with abandon, tear up our public lands and permanently mar the landscape. They come from Los Angeles and Orange County with their RVs and trailers full of off-road vehicles and consider our home their playground. This last President's Day weekend was a virtual hell for residents and homeowners who saw a doubling of the number of ORVs grinding day and night. Well, guess what? This is our home and community and we are not going to let irresponsible people destroy the reason why we live here!....
The Waning Reign of Monarchs High on a remote mountaintop, Alfredo Cruz Colin gazed at a panorama of giant pines and firs where millions of orange and black monarch butterflies spend the winter after flying as far as 2,000 miles from Canada and the United States. He saw two things: one of North America's most spectacular natural wonders and trees that could be sawed down and sold for $300 each. "We can contemplate the butterflies," said Cruz, a lawyer. "Or we can send our children to school and feed our families" with the cash from the cut trees. "It's a tough choice." The winter migration of monarch butterflies to Mexico, a stunning sight that draws vast numbers of tourists to mountain forests 100 miles west of Mexico City, has been devastated this year. One of the chief causes is logging that destroys butterfly sanctuaries, according to Mexican and U.S. environmentalists. The butterfly population this winter is the lowest since researchers began detailed surveys 12 years ago and perhaps the smallest since the 1970s, when international scientists first discovered the colonies in central Mexico, according to Lincoln P. Brower, a biology professor at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia and an authority on monarch butterflies....
U.S., Germany to Agree Climate Change Measures The United States, criticized for its refusal to sign the U.N. Kyoto climate pact, will agree with Germany to strengthen efforts to limit global warming, according to a draft agreement obtained by Reuters. The agreement, to be sealed during President Bush's visit to Germany on Wednesday, outlines plans to improve energy efficiency and cut emissions of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases, without setting targets or giving details. The two countries will agree to improve environmental and energy-efficient technologies, to cooperate in expanding climate research and to find common measures to cut greenhouse gases at home and abroad....
The Choice Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond. : Viking, 2004, 575 pp. Huls Farm and Gardar Farm seem to be models of successful agricultural enterprise. Both have lush settings, good grass, and imposing barns that house 200 head of cattle, and they are owned by respected community leaders. They also face significant difficulties: their high-latitude locations make for short growing seasons, and a changing climate signals greater problems to come. The two farms form the center of an anecdote that comes at the beginning of Jared Diamond's Collapse, and the story's O. Henry ending, stealthily arrived at, encapsulates the book's message. Huls, Diamond reveals, is a still-expanding fifth-generation farm in Montana's Bitterroot Valley; Gardar, despite its apparent prosperity, was abandoned 500 years ago when Greenland's Norse society collapsed amid starvation and civic unrest. One might draw from this parallel a pessimistic conclusion about Montana's environmental future, but Diamond is no pessimist. The fall of Greenland's Norse society was not inevitable: its inhabitants could have saved themselves but, trapped by tradition and blinded by prejudice, declined to take the necessary steps. The collapse of Gardar Farm thus serves not as a warning of imminent apocalypse but as evidence that if modern society can learn from the failures of its predecessors, it can avoid their fate....
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Judicial Nominee Cleared in BLM Case Interior Department Inspector General Earl E. Devaney absolved former department solicitor William G. Myers III of blame in a case involving a January 2003 legal settlement between the Bureau of Land Management and a Wyoming rancher. In a 24-page report made public yesterday but dated Oct. 13, Devaney criticized the conduct of BLM Deputy Director Frances Cherry, Associate Solicitor Robert Comer and an unnamed lawyer in the solicitor's office for reaching the settlement with rancher Harvey Frank Robbins despite written objections from the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney's office in Cheyenne, Wyo., and career BLM staffers. "While the report speaks for itself, the inspector general has expressed his hope that it will dispel the criticisms directed at former Solicitor William G. Myers, III," Roy Kime, a spokesman for the inspector general's office, said in a written statement yesterday. "In transmitting the report to the present solicitor and assistant secretary for land and minerals, the inspector general ascribed no fault whatsoever to Mr. Myers. To the contrary, a fair reading of the report would suggest that Myers was, in fact, victimized when he was given a distorted explanation by one of his senior associate solicitors." Myers, now an Idaho-based lawyer whom President Bush has nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has been a target of the environmental group Community Rights Counsel, which argued this month that the settlement gave Robbins "carte blanche authority to violate federal grazing laws."....
Officials limit use of ATVs in retrieving downed animals Grand Mesa National Forest officials have announced plans to discontinue a provision that allows the use of all-terrain vehicles on non-designated routes to retrieve downed game. The new rule goes into effect for big-game hunting seasons in 2005. Previously, hunters were allowed to drive off designated routes during the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to retrieve any downed game. District Ranger Connie Clementson said Forest Service employees found that many hunters were abusing the privilege by traveling into areas without following the rules, disrupting the hunting experience for others and complicating forest management....
Molas Pass battle reaches new level Silverton snowmobile riders are butting heads with a Snowcat skiing operator on Molas Pass over the wintertime use of the land there. Mounting tensions between Tim Kuss, owner of El Diablo Alpine Guides, and the Silverton Snowmobile Club came to a head on Saturday, Feb. 5, after Adam DeVeny of Silverton and a group of snowmobilers were approached by a gun-toting Kuss, who was also on a snowmobile. DeVeny and the group wanted to snowmobile where Kuss planned to take skiers. "He said it was an A-area (closed to motor vehicles), and he said we were on his ski hill," recalled DeVeny, who said he thought they were in an area where motorized vehicles are allowed. "But he was entirely out of line bringing a shotgun into the whole issue." DeVeny said Kuss never pointed the gun at anyone and kept its breach open and unloaded. Kuss said he was carrying the weapon because he had felt threatened by snowmobilers in the past who "became pretty violent right off the bat."....
Sleds vs. Skico in the backcountry On the back of Aspen Mountain exists an enormous winter playground choked with deep powder and crisscrossed with public and private land. Whether accessed by foot or motorized vehicle, the area has been used by an assortment of backcountry enthusiasts for years. But now, snowmobilers - mainly those who are backcountry skiers using their sleds to spin quicker laps - are being told they can no longer access national forest land. Meanwhile, Aspen Mountain Powder Tours, a snowcat-skiing operation that conducts trips on the back of Aspen Mountain, is permitted to go wherever they please. It's a common occurrence in mountain towns of the West, where land-use issues have been the source of more clashes than 1980s ski fashion....
Top Forest Service official says user fees 'here to stay' People who visit national forests can expect to pay fees more often at special attractions like the Maroon Bells, but access to the vast majority of the public lands will remain free, according to a top U.S. Forest Service official. Regional Forester Rick Cables said he believes charging user fees at a few, select sites is an excellent way for the U.S. Forest Service to stretch its limited budget. He points to the Maroon Bells as a poster child for the program's success. Traffic to the internationally famous Maroon Bells is restricted during the heart of summer. Visitors pay $5 to ride a bus. Cables said 80 percent of the funds raised get plowed back into facilities and staffing at the area....
On different frequencies Tracking surveys of radio-collared Canada lynx show the shy cats have been located hundreds of times inside the White River National Forest since the state reintroduced them to southern Colorado in 1999. Yet a top U.S. Department of Agriculture official in December ordered forest officials to scrap strong lynx protections in the new management plan for the forest based on the "lack of documented lynx sightings." Ongoing state studies show lynx were recorded within the 2.3-million-acre forest at least 300 times. Biologists identified 43 individual animals - including two females that denned on the forest's southern boundary last year - based on their unique radio-collar frequencies....
Groups oppose plan to lower water level It isn't the poisoning, it's the yo-yoing water levels that pose the biggest problems with a plan to save Diamond Lake, according to Francis Eatherington, the conservation director for Umpqua Watersheds Inc. The group, along with the Oregon Natural Resources Council and the Cascadia Wildlands Project filed an appeal with the Umpqua National Forest of an approved plan to lower the lake, poison invasive tui chubs -- along with other gill-breathers in Diamond Lake -- refill it, then restock it with trout. A decision on the appeal by officials with the U.S. Forest Service is due in March. Diamond Lake is a popular fishing and recreation lake just north of Crater Lake in southwest Oregon....
California farmers ask high court to help them get paid for water Supreme Court justices were wading into the West's contentious water wars Wednesday, hearing arguments from Central Valley farmers who want the government to pay them for water they say they were due but never received. The government said the water had to be diverted to protect two threatened fish. Government lawyers also said the farmers don't have standing to sue the Bureau of Reclamation directly, because water districts, not individual land owners, negotiate government water deals. The state of California and environmental groups are backing the government. At issue is a water service contract between the federal agency responsible for managing water in the West, and Westlands Water District, which encompasses 600,000 acres of farmland in western Fresno and Kings counties....
Park rules on Rainbow Bridge stand A National Park Service policy asking guests to respect the sacred status of Rainbow Bridge in southern Utah by not walking under the mammoth archway will not be reviewed by the Supreme Court, the justices announced Tuesday. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society and Evelyn Johnson and Earl DeWaal sued the Park Service in 2000, claiming the policy is unconstitutional because it grants special treatment to American Indian religions. The 275-foot redrock span, the largest natural bridge in the world, is a significant cultural site for several American Indian tribes, including the Navajo, Hopi and San Juan Paiute....
U.S. Fish & Wildlife May Outsource Biological Staff The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service may soon be replacing hundreds of its biological technicians and fish hatchery workers with private contractors. The USFWS Director, however, is asking his superiors at the Department of Interior to stop the process, according to the all-employee email released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). On February 8,USFWS Director Steve Williams sent out an all-employee email confessing his unhappiness with the way contractor competitions (under a Bush Administration initiative called “Competitive Sourcing”) had been conducted for its biological science technicians and aquatic husbandry staff. Williams contended that the competition results did not match departmental needs and were not conducted in a manner that “is fair to both our employees and to potential private bidders.” Williams’ action strongly implies that the private companies underbid the federal employees and are in a position to take over these job classes. Offices of Personnel Management records show USFWS employing 659 biological science technicians, who conduct much of the fieldwork for agency scientists, and 90 aquatic husbandry personnel, who support the agency fishery and hatchery operations....
Column - Hell on wheels: ORVs invade desert Like clockwork, every major holiday, our communities are invaded by a hoard of off-road vehicle riders who terrorize residents, trespass with abandon, tear up our public lands and permanently mar the landscape. They come from Los Angeles and Orange County with their RVs and trailers full of off-road vehicles and consider our home their playground. This last President's Day weekend was a virtual hell for residents and homeowners who saw a doubling of the number of ORVs grinding day and night. Well, guess what? This is our home and community and we are not going to let irresponsible people destroy the reason why we live here!....
The Waning Reign of Monarchs High on a remote mountaintop, Alfredo Cruz Colin gazed at a panorama of giant pines and firs where millions of orange and black monarch butterflies spend the winter after flying as far as 2,000 miles from Canada and the United States. He saw two things: one of North America's most spectacular natural wonders and trees that could be sawed down and sold for $300 each. "We can contemplate the butterflies," said Cruz, a lawyer. "Or we can send our children to school and feed our families" with the cash from the cut trees. "It's a tough choice." The winter migration of monarch butterflies to Mexico, a stunning sight that draws vast numbers of tourists to mountain forests 100 miles west of Mexico City, has been devastated this year. One of the chief causes is logging that destroys butterfly sanctuaries, according to Mexican and U.S. environmentalists. The butterfly population this winter is the lowest since researchers began detailed surveys 12 years ago and perhaps the smallest since the 1970s, when international scientists first discovered the colonies in central Mexico, according to Lincoln P. Brower, a biology professor at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia and an authority on monarch butterflies....
U.S., Germany to Agree Climate Change Measures The United States, criticized for its refusal to sign the U.N. Kyoto climate pact, will agree with Germany to strengthen efforts to limit global warming, according to a draft agreement obtained by Reuters. The agreement, to be sealed during President Bush's visit to Germany on Wednesday, outlines plans to improve energy efficiency and cut emissions of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases, without setting targets or giving details. The two countries will agree to improve environmental and energy-efficient technologies, to cooperate in expanding climate research and to find common measures to cut greenhouse gases at home and abroad....
The Choice Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond. : Viking, 2004, 575 pp. Huls Farm and Gardar Farm seem to be models of successful agricultural enterprise. Both have lush settings, good grass, and imposing barns that house 200 head of cattle, and they are owned by respected community leaders. They also face significant difficulties: their high-latitude locations make for short growing seasons, and a changing climate signals greater problems to come. The two farms form the center of an anecdote that comes at the beginning of Jared Diamond's Collapse, and the story's O. Henry ending, stealthily arrived at, encapsulates the book's message. Huls, Diamond reveals, is a still-expanding fifth-generation farm in Montana's Bitterroot Valley; Gardar, despite its apparent prosperity, was abandoned 500 years ago when Greenland's Norse society collapsed amid starvation and civic unrest. One might draw from this parallel a pessimistic conclusion about Montana's environmental future, but Diamond is no pessimist. The fall of Greenland's Norse society was not inevitable: its inhabitants could have saved themselves but, trapped by tradition and blinded by prejudice, declined to take the necessary steps. The collapse of Gardar Farm thus serves not as a warning of imminent apocalypse but as evidence that if modern society can learn from the failures of its predecessors, it can avoid their fate....
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Land war goes before Supreme Court A fight by homeowners to save their New London, Connecticut, neighborhood from city officials and private developers -- an important property rights case with an unusual twist -- will reach the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. At issue is whether governments can forcibly seize homes and businesses, for private economic development. Under a practice known as eminent domain, a person's property may be condemned and the land converted for a greater "public use." It has traditionally been employed to eliminate slums, or to build highways, schools or other public works. The New London case tests the muscle of local and state governments to raise what they see as much-needed revenue, which they argue serves a greater "public purpose." Legal analysts said they see the case as having major implications nationwide in property rights and redevelopment issues....
Comments support wilderness area Bighorn National Forest officials are considering creation of a new wilderness area based on public support for the idea. Nearly twice as many people submitting comments from the four-county area surrounding the forest favored an option designating additional wilderness than those who did not. "There was a little bit more local support than we expected (for the wilderness option)," said Bernie Bornong, forest planner. As a result, the Forest Service is considering revising its preferred management plan - which originally did not call for further wilderness designation - to include a new wilderness area near Rock Creek, he said....
Seismic-test questions asked Dan Renner's 300 acres on the Beartooth Front are going to undergo seismic testing to see if oil and gas lie under the land where his horses now graze. But before he signed the release allowing Quantum Geophysical Inc. to set off explosive charges to conduct the 3-D seismic mapping for Windsor Energy Group, Renner asked some questions. "What happens if one of the charges doesn't detonate?" he asked. "Who is liable? Is that covered under my property insurance?" The answers he got back surprised him. Not only would his insurance be canceled, but no one had asked this question before. And under Wyoming law, if Renner didn't sign the release, his property could be condemned under eminent domain and the testing could be conducted anyway. "I'm faced with a Catch-22 - I either allow them on my property or get condemned. If I let them on my property, I lose my insurance," Renner said. "So what do you do?"....
County rejects methane company's road request County commissioners turned down a drilling company's request to open a remote private road to the public, rejecting the contention that the road was illegally abandoned by Campbell County 30 years ago. Williams Production RMT Co. sought to overturn the action of the Campbell County Commission in 1975 because it wants access to the road, which leads to the company's nearby coal-bed methane leases. The company has been unable to reach agreement with landowner William P. Maycock regarding access....
Threatened sturgeon could delay beach project The five-mile beach renourishment project, expected to start here next month, could be delayed because of a fish. The Gulf sturgeon, a threatened species of fish that can grow to 8 feet long and weigh more than 200 pounds, is why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has asked the Board of Supervisors to delay the $500,000 project. "We have a letter that's telling us not to do anything," said board President Rocky Pullman. Pullman said the National Marine Fisheries Service wants more time to study the sturgeon population near the Bay of St. Louis. The fish is regulated by the Fisheries Service, according to the Endangered Species Act....
School district faces habitat penalties The Escondido Union High School District contends it misunderstood the city's directive to clear a 100-foot-wide fire break when it bulldozed 10.7 acres of land, including 1.45 acres of coastal sage scrub, home of the endangered California gnatcatcher bird. To attempt to make up for the damage, the school district must either buy occupied sage scrub land in a conservation area, or buy similar land that will be independently preserved and managed, said Barbara Redlitz, principal planner for the city. Redlitz said California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines for destroying coastal sage scrub without a permit is for the culprit to buy four acres of habitat for preservation for every acre that they damage. The stiffer penalty discourages others from grading sensitive habitats without permits, Redlitz said....
In Fish vs. Farmer Cases, the Fish Loses Its Edge Legal fights over water in the West are as common as summer rains are rare. But a flurry of cases in California is attracting intense attention from scholars and state officials who see them as an extraordinary assault by agricultural interests on protections for endangered fish and other wildlife. In a series of lawsuits, including one to be argued before the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday, farmers and water districts are pushing property-rights claims to the forefront of the debate over how to divvy up water among farms, cities and the environment. In doing so, they are demanding compensation from the government for irrigation water diverted for environmental purposes, calling into question rules mandated by Congress under the Endangered Species Act that favor the protection of fish over the growing of food when water is in short supply. It is an approach that has won sympathy from the Bush administration, which in December agreed to pay $16.7 million to farmers in Tulare and Kern Counties in one lawsuit over reduced water supplies. But the claims have alarmed California officials and many conservation groups, who fear that demands for payment for lost water could spread to other Western states and undermine protections for wildlife....
A Big Bump on the Road to Riches There is just one problem. The family - some named Sharpe, some named Hill - do not technically own the land. It seems that their patriarch, Louie Sharpe, neglected to have an official witness sign the deed to his homestead 60 years ago, and now the federal government has restaked its claim to the family's home. "Mr. Sharpe never completed his application," said Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. "The family doesn't have true title. I know this sounds like evil government trying to kick these poor Native Americans off their lands, but that's farthest from the truth. No action has been taken to remove them." The bureau says it cannot overlook the forgotten signature and simply award the family its ancestral land, because homesteading was abolished by the federal government in 1976. The family does have the first right, however, to buy the land. "I'm scared," Ms. Hill said, standing in the wind dressed in thin shoes and an old sweater. "We have nowhere to go if they throw us off. There's nothing left for the grandchildren."....
Editorial: Environmentalists must alter tactics Almost 35 years after the first Earth Day, U.S. environmentalists are in a fix. Membership and donations are up for many organizations, but broad support for the movement appears to be stagnant, if not retreating. In the last four years, membership in the Sierra Club increased by 22 per cent. Revenues and membership in other environmental groups also grew, apparently mobilized in opposition to Bush administration environmental policies. Yet there are not many recent accomplishments environmental organizations can claim for all that influx of money and members. There may even be an erosion of public enthusiasm for environmental causes....
Noise makers Every 20 seconds, a boom like a whale striking its hull rips through the research vessel Maurice Ewing as the ship's powerful air guns fire deep into the ocean's floor. For the last month, the US vessel has been conducting seismic tests of a meteor crater off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in hopes of cracking the mystery of why the dinosaurs went extinct. But the study has triggered heated protests from environmentalists in the latest in a growing international debate over underwater testing. Advocates say the research has crucial applications, including helping to predict underwater earthquakes like the one that caused the devastating Dec. 24 tsunami in Asia. They also argue that there is little evidence that the tests cause widespread harm to marine mammals. But critics say that underwater testing is responsible for dozens of whale strandings over the past decade and should be banned....
Column: Be honest about Kyoto pact How important to the world's future is the Kyoto global-warming pact, which went into effect last week? It can't be that important, since Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told the Washington Post: "The greatest value is symbolic." Symbolic is the word. The Kyoto treaty won't reduce emissions in America, because this country never ratified it. What's more, negotiators at Kyoto in 1997 had to know the United States never would ratify the pact. Before Vice President Al Gore left to attend the Kyoto summit, the Senate voted 95-0 in favor of a resolution warning that the Senate would not support a global-warming pact that exempted developing nations such as China and India. Kyoto won't make a difference in those developing nations because they don't have to reduce emissions or even agree to curb how much their pollution grows. While 141 countries ratified the pact, Kyoto's emission caps apply only to some 35 countries....
Nuclear waste pile worries western U.S. The Bush administration is risking yet another nuclear controversy in the West as the president's Energy Department hems and haws over what to do about a huge pile of radioactive waste rock heaped uncomfortably close to the Colorado River. The Energy Department and its incoming secretary, Samuel Bodman, have yet to give any solid reassurances to area governors that their concerns that the Moab, Utah, site won't be pushed aside as they were when the president pushed ahead with the controversial nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. "We cannot afford to assume the risks associated with having uranium tailings strewn along river banks and bars of the Colorado River below Moab," Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman insisted in a letter sent last week to the Moab project manager. "Good science and good sense tell us the tailings must be moved."....
Sempra Energy buying up water An energy company’s recent purchase of options on water rights on the Smoke Creek Desert — where a coal-fired power plant has been proposed — is drawing opposition from area residents. Sempra Energy officials said they have rounded up options on 25,000 acre-feet of water, a crucial step toward building the proposed $2 billion plant in northern Washoe County. The amount is 9,000 acre-feet more than is naturally replenished each year, according to a 60-year-old U.S. Geological Survey....
A vision to share logging's history Inside the banquet room of a 1922 Colonial mansion built for a lumber baron, an intimate gathering hears a pitch about creating a larger-than-life bronze sculpture to memorialize the thousands who have died while logging in Washington. "I'm not a logger and I'm not an artist," Enumclaw jewelry-store owner Tom Poe tells about 20 prospective donors. A full-color rendering of the sculpture is projected onto a screen beside him — a man driving two oxen pulling a log with a chain. Poe then delivers the punch line: the "Logging Legacy" monument is budgeted to cost $450,000....
Colorado ranchers head for Wyoming The Isaksons are part of a trend of northern Colorado farmers - and ranchers in particular - who are moving their operations north because they are finding it more and more difficult to keep those operations running around encroaching urban sprawl. And they can get good ranch land on the high plains of eastern Wyoming at a good price. Sidwell Herefords, with a main ranch between Nunn and Carr in Colorado just south of Cheyenne since 1941, is in the process of moving north across the border. Harold Sidwell said development led to the decision to make the move. "For every acre we sold down here we were able to buy five acres in Wyoming, which is another reason for the move," Sidwell said, noting new homes going up in northern Weld County and escalating cost of land made it impossible to enlarge the main ranch....
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Land war goes before Supreme Court A fight by homeowners to save their New London, Connecticut, neighborhood from city officials and private developers -- an important property rights case with an unusual twist -- will reach the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. At issue is whether governments can forcibly seize homes and businesses, for private economic development. Under a practice known as eminent domain, a person's property may be condemned and the land converted for a greater "public use." It has traditionally been employed to eliminate slums, or to build highways, schools or other public works. The New London case tests the muscle of local and state governments to raise what they see as much-needed revenue, which they argue serves a greater "public purpose." Legal analysts said they see the case as having major implications nationwide in property rights and redevelopment issues....
Comments support wilderness area Bighorn National Forest officials are considering creation of a new wilderness area based on public support for the idea. Nearly twice as many people submitting comments from the four-county area surrounding the forest favored an option designating additional wilderness than those who did not. "There was a little bit more local support than we expected (for the wilderness option)," said Bernie Bornong, forest planner. As a result, the Forest Service is considering revising its preferred management plan - which originally did not call for further wilderness designation - to include a new wilderness area near Rock Creek, he said....
Seismic-test questions asked Dan Renner's 300 acres on the Beartooth Front are going to undergo seismic testing to see if oil and gas lie under the land where his horses now graze. But before he signed the release allowing Quantum Geophysical Inc. to set off explosive charges to conduct the 3-D seismic mapping for Windsor Energy Group, Renner asked some questions. "What happens if one of the charges doesn't detonate?" he asked. "Who is liable? Is that covered under my property insurance?" The answers he got back surprised him. Not only would his insurance be canceled, but no one had asked this question before. And under Wyoming law, if Renner didn't sign the release, his property could be condemned under eminent domain and the testing could be conducted anyway. "I'm faced with a Catch-22 - I either allow them on my property or get condemned. If I let them on my property, I lose my insurance," Renner said. "So what do you do?"....
County rejects methane company's road request County commissioners turned down a drilling company's request to open a remote private road to the public, rejecting the contention that the road was illegally abandoned by Campbell County 30 years ago. Williams Production RMT Co. sought to overturn the action of the Campbell County Commission in 1975 because it wants access to the road, which leads to the company's nearby coal-bed methane leases. The company has been unable to reach agreement with landowner William P. Maycock regarding access....
Threatened sturgeon could delay beach project The five-mile beach renourishment project, expected to start here next month, could be delayed because of a fish. The Gulf sturgeon, a threatened species of fish that can grow to 8 feet long and weigh more than 200 pounds, is why the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has asked the Board of Supervisors to delay the $500,000 project. "We have a letter that's telling us not to do anything," said board President Rocky Pullman. Pullman said the National Marine Fisheries Service wants more time to study the sturgeon population near the Bay of St. Louis. The fish is regulated by the Fisheries Service, according to the Endangered Species Act....
School district faces habitat penalties The Escondido Union High School District contends it misunderstood the city's directive to clear a 100-foot-wide fire break when it bulldozed 10.7 acres of land, including 1.45 acres of coastal sage scrub, home of the endangered California gnatcatcher bird. To attempt to make up for the damage, the school district must either buy occupied sage scrub land in a conservation area, or buy similar land that will be independently preserved and managed, said Barbara Redlitz, principal planner for the city. Redlitz said California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines for destroying coastal sage scrub without a permit is for the culprit to buy four acres of habitat for preservation for every acre that they damage. The stiffer penalty discourages others from grading sensitive habitats without permits, Redlitz said....
In Fish vs. Farmer Cases, the Fish Loses Its Edge Legal fights over water in the West are as common as summer rains are rare. But a flurry of cases in California is attracting intense attention from scholars and state officials who see them as an extraordinary assault by agricultural interests on protections for endangered fish and other wildlife. In a series of lawsuits, including one to be argued before the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday, farmers and water districts are pushing property-rights claims to the forefront of the debate over how to divvy up water among farms, cities and the environment. In doing so, they are demanding compensation from the government for irrigation water diverted for environmental purposes, calling into question rules mandated by Congress under the Endangered Species Act that favor the protection of fish over the growing of food when water is in short supply. It is an approach that has won sympathy from the Bush administration, which in December agreed to pay $16.7 million to farmers in Tulare and Kern Counties in one lawsuit over reduced water supplies. But the claims have alarmed California officials and many conservation groups, who fear that demands for payment for lost water could spread to other Western states and undermine protections for wildlife....
A Big Bump on the Road to Riches There is just one problem. The family - some named Sharpe, some named Hill - do not technically own the land. It seems that their patriarch, Louie Sharpe, neglected to have an official witness sign the deed to his homestead 60 years ago, and now the federal government has restaked its claim to the family's home. "Mr. Sharpe never completed his application," said Kirsten Cannon, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. "The family doesn't have true title. I know this sounds like evil government trying to kick these poor Native Americans off their lands, but that's farthest from the truth. No action has been taken to remove them." The bureau says it cannot overlook the forgotten signature and simply award the family its ancestral land, because homesteading was abolished by the federal government in 1976. The family does have the first right, however, to buy the land. "I'm scared," Ms. Hill said, standing in the wind dressed in thin shoes and an old sweater. "We have nowhere to go if they throw us off. There's nothing left for the grandchildren."....
Editorial: Environmentalists must alter tactics Almost 35 years after the first Earth Day, U.S. environmentalists are in a fix. Membership and donations are up for many organizations, but broad support for the movement appears to be stagnant, if not retreating. In the last four years, membership in the Sierra Club increased by 22 per cent. Revenues and membership in other environmental groups also grew, apparently mobilized in opposition to Bush administration environmental policies. Yet there are not many recent accomplishments environmental organizations can claim for all that influx of money and members. There may even be an erosion of public enthusiasm for environmental causes....
Noise makers Every 20 seconds, a boom like a whale striking its hull rips through the research vessel Maurice Ewing as the ship's powerful air guns fire deep into the ocean's floor. For the last month, the US vessel has been conducting seismic tests of a meteor crater off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in hopes of cracking the mystery of why the dinosaurs went extinct. But the study has triggered heated protests from environmentalists in the latest in a growing international debate over underwater testing. Advocates say the research has crucial applications, including helping to predict underwater earthquakes like the one that caused the devastating Dec. 24 tsunami in Asia. They also argue that there is little evidence that the tests cause widespread harm to marine mammals. But critics say that underwater testing is responsible for dozens of whale strandings over the past decade and should be banned....
Column: Be honest about Kyoto pact How important to the world's future is the Kyoto global-warming pact, which went into effect last week? It can't be that important, since Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told the Washington Post: "The greatest value is symbolic." Symbolic is the word. The Kyoto treaty won't reduce emissions in America, because this country never ratified it. What's more, negotiators at Kyoto in 1997 had to know the United States never would ratify the pact. Before Vice President Al Gore left to attend the Kyoto summit, the Senate voted 95-0 in favor of a resolution warning that the Senate would not support a global-warming pact that exempted developing nations such as China and India. Kyoto won't make a difference in those developing nations because they don't have to reduce emissions or even agree to curb how much their pollution grows. While 141 countries ratified the pact, Kyoto's emission caps apply only to some 35 countries....
Nuclear waste pile worries western U.S. The Bush administration is risking yet another nuclear controversy in the West as the president's Energy Department hems and haws over what to do about a huge pile of radioactive waste rock heaped uncomfortably close to the Colorado River. The Energy Department and its incoming secretary, Samuel Bodman, have yet to give any solid reassurances to area governors that their concerns that the Moab, Utah, site won't be pushed aside as they were when the president pushed ahead with the controversial nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. "We cannot afford to assume the risks associated with having uranium tailings strewn along river banks and bars of the Colorado River below Moab," Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman insisted in a letter sent last week to the Moab project manager. "Good science and good sense tell us the tailings must be moved."....
Sempra Energy buying up water An energy company’s recent purchase of options on water rights on the Smoke Creek Desert — where a coal-fired power plant has been proposed — is drawing opposition from area residents. Sempra Energy officials said they have rounded up options on 25,000 acre-feet of water, a crucial step toward building the proposed $2 billion plant in northern Washoe County. The amount is 9,000 acre-feet more than is naturally replenished each year, according to a 60-year-old U.S. Geological Survey....
A vision to share logging's history Inside the banquet room of a 1922 Colonial mansion built for a lumber baron, an intimate gathering hears a pitch about creating a larger-than-life bronze sculpture to memorialize the thousands who have died while logging in Washington. "I'm not a logger and I'm not an artist," Enumclaw jewelry-store owner Tom Poe tells about 20 prospective donors. A full-color rendering of the sculpture is projected onto a screen beside him — a man driving two oxen pulling a log with a chain. Poe then delivers the punch line: the "Logging Legacy" monument is budgeted to cost $450,000....
Colorado ranchers head for Wyoming The Isaksons are part of a trend of northern Colorado farmers - and ranchers in particular - who are moving their operations north because they are finding it more and more difficult to keep those operations running around encroaching urban sprawl. And they can get good ranch land on the high plains of eastern Wyoming at a good price. Sidwell Herefords, with a main ranch between Nunn and Carr in Colorado just south of Cheyenne since 1941, is in the process of moving north across the border. Harold Sidwell said development led to the decision to make the move. "For every acre we sold down here we were able to buy five acres in Wyoming, which is another reason for the move," Sidwell said, noting new homes going up in northern Weld County and escalating cost of land made it impossible to enlarge the main ranch....
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Monday, February 21, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Woman killed in Sierra Nevada avalanche A cross-country skier was killed after she became trapped by a backcountry avalanche in the Sierra Nevada, authorities said. The woman was skiing with a party of 11 people when the avalanche occurred Sunday morning in steep, rugged terrain between the Sugar Bowl and Squaw Valley ski resorts north of Lake Tahoe, Placer County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Wells said. The victim's name and hometown were not immediately released. Two other members of the party were trapped by the avalanche, but they escaped unharmed after emerging from the snow relatively quickly, Wells said....
Spotted frogs rebound in Oregon The spotted frog, a candidate for the federal threatened and endangered species list since 1991, appears to be making a comeback in parts of Oregon. Biologists Christopher Pearl and Jay Bowerman are already counting down until mid-March, when the frogs are expected to emerge from their winter resting spots and migrate toward a shallow pond to mate. Pearl and Bowerman have spent the past five years studying a population of Oregon spotted frogs that was transplanted downstream on the Deschutes River from its former home at Wickiup Dam....
Conservation group considers seeking protection for Sonoran Desert tortoises A conservation group is deciding whether to ask the federal government to list the Sonoran Desert tortoise as an endangered species. New Mexico-based Forest Guardians says it has been analyzing the tortoises for two years. If Sonoran tortoises were listed, they could affect land use across a broad swath of Arizona south and west of a line roughly extending from Kingman to Phoenix to Tucson. In Southern California, management of Mojave Desert tortoise habitat has been the subject of bitter court fights among environmentalists, ranchers, off-road vehicle groups and government agencies. In Las Vegas, the tortoise has forced developers to pay a $550-per-acre fee to support habitat conservation in outlying areas in exchange for the right to build near the city.
Nevada acquires habitat for threatened fish in Nye County State wildlife officials have acquired habitat considered crucial for recovery of a threatened fish in Railroad Valley about 100 miles east of Tonopah. With the help of a federal grant, the state acquired 460 acres next to the Railroad Valley Wildlife Management Area for $750,000, state wildlife officials said. The land to be managed by the Nevada Department of Wildlife features three major spring systems containing the Railroad Valley springfish. The Trust for Public Land based in San Francisco arranged the purchase from a private landowner. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Recovery Lands Acquisition Program provided the bulk of the funding, while the state kicked in $190,000....
Older Fish Spawn Better Than Younger Ones Recent studies show that larger, older fish produce more eggs and surviving offspring than younger fish, researchers said yesterday, adding that policymakers need to protect broader swaths of the ocean to preserve these efficient spawners. Steven Berkeley, a research biologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who described his findings at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, said sustained overharvesting of Pacific rockfish and other species is undermining these populations' ability to recover. "We're really running up a debt, and it's becoming harder to repay it," said Berkeley, who found that a 31.5-inch Bocaccio rockfish produces 10 times as many larvae as one that spans nearly 20 inches, and the larger fish's offspring were more than three times as likely to flourish."....
Freudenthal asks Park Service to postpone Yellowstone road work Plans to close Yellowstone National Park's east entrance for road construction should be postponed to help the area's businesses recover from unplanned closures in 2003 and 2004, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said in a letter to park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis. The closures are planned in May and October. Freudenthal thinks they should wait until 2007, particularly given the absence of a federal highway bill....
Lost Coast Finds New Guardians Pounding waves scour these jutting headlands, dredging rock and sand into the surf. The rain-soaked hillsides periodically shrug, sending tons of land into the path of the waves. The sea reciprocates by regurgitating sand up on the ever-shifting beach. Nature's primitive architecture defines this 26-mile run of spectacular coast, the longest stretch of undeveloped coastline in the continental U.S. Its compelling landscape is the centerpiece of an ambitious wilderness bill that would bestow the nation's highest protections on an area known as the Lost Coast in Humboldt County. Like the coast itself, supporters of the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act say, this bill is special. The more than 300,000 acres of federal land have been hand-selected for their beauty, suitability and broad base of support, including that of local ranchers, hunters and California's largest homebuilder....
A Timber Giant Threatens to Topple The demise of Pacific Lumber — with its own town and the world's largest privately owned groves of ancient redwoods — would strike Humboldt County like a 300-foot redwood toppling to the forest floor. Pacific Lumber remains the biggest taxpayer and private employer, with friends and former employees in key places in county government and the state Capitol. The company supports charities and community affairs — and offers college scholarships to employees' children. Since the early 1990s, Pacific Lumber has been at the center of one of the country's longest and most volatile environmental battles over the fate of some of the world's tallest trees and the wildlife they support. To end the strife, six years ago the state and federal governments made a $480-million deal for 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber's oldest, grandest trees, creating the new Headwaters Preserve. The deal also required the firm to limit logging on its remaining 200,000 acres. But now the company contends that the terms are a huge financial burden and that it can't get enough logging permits to turn a profit....
U.S. move signals hope for saving marine habitats Seeking to protect deep-sea coral beds and other sensitive fish habitat, a U.S. federal fishing council banned bottom trawling this month over more than 370,000 square miles off Alaska's Aleutian Islands, the largest such action taken anywhere in the world. In bottom trawling, fishing boats drag huge nets and steel plates along the ocean floor for miles in very deep water near mountains known as seamounts that rise from the sea floor, hunting species such as fluke, cod and mackerel. The nets catch everything in their path, digging out deep-sea corals and sponge forests that scientists think may be essential to the ecosystem....
Great Salt Lake Mercury Levels Alarming Scientists Federal scientists studying the Great Salt Lake have found some of the highest levels of mercury ever measured anywhere -prompting concern about some of the migratory birds that feed on the lake's brine shrimp. U.S. Geological Survey and Fish and Wildlife Service researchers were initially gathering information on selenium in the lake, but decided also to test the samples for mercury. Concentrations of methylmercury _ the element's most poisonous form _ exceeded 25 nanograms per liter of water. Fish consumption warnings have been issued when there was just 1 nanogram per liter....
Column: Feds deep-six water use penalty Colorado water users owe a debt of gratitude to Sen. Wayne Allard for his leadership and dogged determination on their behalf. Thanks to Allard, the U.S. Forest Service recently committed to discontinue its infrequent but outrageous practice of demanding Colorado farmers, ranchers, and municipalities relinquish a portion of their water rights when renewing permits for existing water diversion structures on national forest lands. Previously, the Forest Service could require Colorado water right owners to forgo a significant portion of their historical water supply simply to renew an existing permit to continue operating historical water diversion structures located on Forest Service land. While defending the environment is a sound mission, doing so by taking water from cities, farms, ranches, and other historical water users is not....
Senator seeks records from groups critical of Bush clean-air plan The Republican head of the Senate's environment committee directed two national organizations to turn over their financial records after they criticized President Bush's plan for cutting air pollution. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., also requested membership lists and tax returns in a letter to the groups' representative who told a Senate subcommittee last month that Bush's Clear Skies Initiative was too lenient and undermined state efforts to regulate emissions. The organizations said the action was meant to intimidate opponents....
Panelists Decry Bush Science Policies The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting. Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions. The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists. And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community....
Smokeless but Still Tobacco More people chew tobacco in Wyoming than in any other state except West Virginia, health officials say. Five percent of young women, 21% of high school boys and 17% of adult men use it. Last week, Wyoming launched "Through With Chew Week," an effort to make what's called spit, smokeless, snuff or chewing tobacco less popular. Educators, dentists and cancer patients traveled throughout the state trying to persuade users to spit it out for good. That's not an easy task in a state where the cowboy ethos reigns supreme and thumbing one's nose at outside authority is a cherished tradition....
Looming problem in rural America: Who will care for the cows? The story ends happily because Thorp was in the right place at the right time — on Sterly's farm in this Emmet County township near Petoskey. But in northern Michigan and many rural areas across the nation, the availability of veterinarians willing to treat large farm animals is increasingly uncertain. As older practitioners retire, younger vets show less interest in large-animal care, creating what some in the profession describe as a growing shortage. Farm organizations are worried, and agriculture experts say the problem could affect the nation's ability to handle outbreaks of catastrophic animal diseases. "We do see a trend and it's quite alarming," says Ray Stock, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). His group is among sponsors of a Kansas State University study to determine the extent of the problem....
Cowboy boot theft baffles owner, artists Call it the Zero Road Mystery: Why would anyone steal a cowboy boot? Particularly this cowboy boot: It's 8 feet tall, weighs about 150 pounds and is brightly painted with pictures of rodeo clowns. When Dr. Leslie Madden went to bed on Friday night it was there in her front yard at 8016 Zero Road west of Casper, where the sculpture has been since she bought the unique artwork in October at a Cheyenne Frontier Days fund-raiser. The hollow sculpture, which is made of fiberglass, was bolted to a rectangular box made of railroad ties....
Tie-down roper secures title in money time Veteran tie-down roper Jeff Chapman has historically won money at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, and Sunday was no different. This time he won his second championship as the 16-day rodeo came to a close before a packed house at the SBC Center. The event came down to a climactic finish after Chapman's 8.9-second run left it up to seven-time world champion Fred Whitfield to try to unseat him. Whitfield, who has won five titles here, came roaring out of the box, but just seconds too soon, breaking the barrier and eliminating him from the title run. He had been leading the aggregate for nearly two weeks....
Riding her dream She was born into a big city, high society life, with a Vassar education in opera and a Yalie husband. But she yearned to be a cowgirl. "I hated the New York City life from the minute I was born," says famed rodeo photographer Louise Serpa, who has made Tucson her home for the past 45 years. Far from the big city lights, Serpa made an indelible mark on the world as the first female rodeo photographer, dodging hooves and horns in arenas around the globe. This week may mark the last time she enters the arena to shoot the events of her beloved Tucson Rodeo (La Fiesta de los Vaqueros), which she has photographed for more than 40 years. Serpa, 79, suffers from what she calls creeping decrepitude. Her knees are going, and she has a bad hip. She says the majority of rodeo folks take one look and think "what is that old lady doing out in the arena?" But her work remains unequaled. Serpa is the recipient of the 2002 Tad Lucas Memorial Award through the Rodeo Historical Society, and was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Her work is among the collections of the likes of Ralph Lauren....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Good looks can cloud a cowboy's mind Sometimes a cowboy will ride a good-lookin' bad horse for longer than it makes sense. This flawed thinking may have a more universal application, i.e., hangin' on to a pickup, dog or girlfriend long after they've bit you or konked out. It's even worse when the injured party thinks he can make a good horse, dog or wife out of a pretty renegade. Roy was a California cowboy and an experienced horseman. Out of respect, the boss had given him the big, fancy 3-year-old bay to use in his string. He was green-broke, cinchy, snorty and antsy, but he looked so good in his white stockings and star....
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Woman killed in Sierra Nevada avalanche A cross-country skier was killed after she became trapped by a backcountry avalanche in the Sierra Nevada, authorities said. The woman was skiing with a party of 11 people when the avalanche occurred Sunday morning in steep, rugged terrain between the Sugar Bowl and Squaw Valley ski resorts north of Lake Tahoe, Placer County sheriff's Sgt. Dave Wells said. The victim's name and hometown were not immediately released. Two other members of the party were trapped by the avalanche, but they escaped unharmed after emerging from the snow relatively quickly, Wells said....
Spotted frogs rebound in Oregon The spotted frog, a candidate for the federal threatened and endangered species list since 1991, appears to be making a comeback in parts of Oregon. Biologists Christopher Pearl and Jay Bowerman are already counting down until mid-March, when the frogs are expected to emerge from their winter resting spots and migrate toward a shallow pond to mate. Pearl and Bowerman have spent the past five years studying a population of Oregon spotted frogs that was transplanted downstream on the Deschutes River from its former home at Wickiup Dam....
Conservation group considers seeking protection for Sonoran Desert tortoises A conservation group is deciding whether to ask the federal government to list the Sonoran Desert tortoise as an endangered species. New Mexico-based Forest Guardians says it has been analyzing the tortoises for two years. If Sonoran tortoises were listed, they could affect land use across a broad swath of Arizona south and west of a line roughly extending from Kingman to Phoenix to Tucson. In Southern California, management of Mojave Desert tortoise habitat has been the subject of bitter court fights among environmentalists, ranchers, off-road vehicle groups and government agencies. In Las Vegas, the tortoise has forced developers to pay a $550-per-acre fee to support habitat conservation in outlying areas in exchange for the right to build near the city.
Nevada acquires habitat for threatened fish in Nye County State wildlife officials have acquired habitat considered crucial for recovery of a threatened fish in Railroad Valley about 100 miles east of Tonopah. With the help of a federal grant, the state acquired 460 acres next to the Railroad Valley Wildlife Management Area for $750,000, state wildlife officials said. The land to be managed by the Nevada Department of Wildlife features three major spring systems containing the Railroad Valley springfish. The Trust for Public Land based in San Francisco arranged the purchase from a private landowner. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Recovery Lands Acquisition Program provided the bulk of the funding, while the state kicked in $190,000....
Older Fish Spawn Better Than Younger Ones Recent studies show that larger, older fish produce more eggs and surviving offspring than younger fish, researchers said yesterday, adding that policymakers need to protect broader swaths of the ocean to preserve these efficient spawners. Steven Berkeley, a research biologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who described his findings at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, said sustained overharvesting of Pacific rockfish and other species is undermining these populations' ability to recover. "We're really running up a debt, and it's becoming harder to repay it," said Berkeley, who found that a 31.5-inch Bocaccio rockfish produces 10 times as many larvae as one that spans nearly 20 inches, and the larger fish's offspring were more than three times as likely to flourish."....
Freudenthal asks Park Service to postpone Yellowstone road work Plans to close Yellowstone National Park's east entrance for road construction should be postponed to help the area's businesses recover from unplanned closures in 2003 and 2004, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said in a letter to park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis. The closures are planned in May and October. Freudenthal thinks they should wait until 2007, particularly given the absence of a federal highway bill....
Lost Coast Finds New Guardians Pounding waves scour these jutting headlands, dredging rock and sand into the surf. The rain-soaked hillsides periodically shrug, sending tons of land into the path of the waves. The sea reciprocates by regurgitating sand up on the ever-shifting beach. Nature's primitive architecture defines this 26-mile run of spectacular coast, the longest stretch of undeveloped coastline in the continental U.S. Its compelling landscape is the centerpiece of an ambitious wilderness bill that would bestow the nation's highest protections on an area known as the Lost Coast in Humboldt County. Like the coast itself, supporters of the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act say, this bill is special. The more than 300,000 acres of federal land have been hand-selected for their beauty, suitability and broad base of support, including that of local ranchers, hunters and California's largest homebuilder....
A Timber Giant Threatens to Topple The demise of Pacific Lumber — with its own town and the world's largest privately owned groves of ancient redwoods — would strike Humboldt County like a 300-foot redwood toppling to the forest floor. Pacific Lumber remains the biggest taxpayer and private employer, with friends and former employees in key places in county government and the state Capitol. The company supports charities and community affairs — and offers college scholarships to employees' children. Since the early 1990s, Pacific Lumber has been at the center of one of the country's longest and most volatile environmental battles over the fate of some of the world's tallest trees and the wildlife they support. To end the strife, six years ago the state and federal governments made a $480-million deal for 7,500 acres of Pacific Lumber's oldest, grandest trees, creating the new Headwaters Preserve. The deal also required the firm to limit logging on its remaining 200,000 acres. But now the company contends that the terms are a huge financial burden and that it can't get enough logging permits to turn a profit....
U.S. move signals hope for saving marine habitats Seeking to protect deep-sea coral beds and other sensitive fish habitat, a U.S. federal fishing council banned bottom trawling this month over more than 370,000 square miles off Alaska's Aleutian Islands, the largest such action taken anywhere in the world. In bottom trawling, fishing boats drag huge nets and steel plates along the ocean floor for miles in very deep water near mountains known as seamounts that rise from the sea floor, hunting species such as fluke, cod and mackerel. The nets catch everything in their path, digging out deep-sea corals and sponge forests that scientists think may be essential to the ecosystem....
Great Salt Lake Mercury Levels Alarming Scientists Federal scientists studying the Great Salt Lake have found some of the highest levels of mercury ever measured anywhere -prompting concern about some of the migratory birds that feed on the lake's brine shrimp. U.S. Geological Survey and Fish and Wildlife Service researchers were initially gathering information on selenium in the lake, but decided also to test the samples for mercury. Concentrations of methylmercury _ the element's most poisonous form _ exceeded 25 nanograms per liter of water. Fish consumption warnings have been issued when there was just 1 nanogram per liter....
Column: Feds deep-six water use penalty Colorado water users owe a debt of gratitude to Sen. Wayne Allard for his leadership and dogged determination on their behalf. Thanks to Allard, the U.S. Forest Service recently committed to discontinue its infrequent but outrageous practice of demanding Colorado farmers, ranchers, and municipalities relinquish a portion of their water rights when renewing permits for existing water diversion structures on national forest lands. Previously, the Forest Service could require Colorado water right owners to forgo a significant portion of their historical water supply simply to renew an existing permit to continue operating historical water diversion structures located on Forest Service land. While defending the environment is a sound mission, doing so by taking water from cities, farms, ranches, and other historical water users is not....
Senator seeks records from groups critical of Bush clean-air plan The Republican head of the Senate's environment committee directed two national organizations to turn over their financial records after they criticized President Bush's plan for cutting air pollution. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., also requested membership lists and tax returns in a letter to the groups' representative who told a Senate subcommittee last month that Bush's Clear Skies Initiative was too lenient and undermined state efforts to regulate emissions. The organizations said the action was meant to intimidate opponents....
Panelists Decry Bush Science Policies The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting. Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions. The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists. And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community....
Smokeless but Still Tobacco More people chew tobacco in Wyoming than in any other state except West Virginia, health officials say. Five percent of young women, 21% of high school boys and 17% of adult men use it. Last week, Wyoming launched "Through With Chew Week," an effort to make what's called spit, smokeless, snuff or chewing tobacco less popular. Educators, dentists and cancer patients traveled throughout the state trying to persuade users to spit it out for good. That's not an easy task in a state where the cowboy ethos reigns supreme and thumbing one's nose at outside authority is a cherished tradition....
Looming problem in rural America: Who will care for the cows? The story ends happily because Thorp was in the right place at the right time — on Sterly's farm in this Emmet County township near Petoskey. But in northern Michigan and many rural areas across the nation, the availability of veterinarians willing to treat large farm animals is increasingly uncertain. As older practitioners retire, younger vets show less interest in large-animal care, creating what some in the profession describe as a growing shortage. Farm organizations are worried, and agriculture experts say the problem could affect the nation's ability to handle outbreaks of catastrophic animal diseases. "We do see a trend and it's quite alarming," says Ray Stock, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). His group is among sponsors of a Kansas State University study to determine the extent of the problem....
Cowboy boot theft baffles owner, artists Call it the Zero Road Mystery: Why would anyone steal a cowboy boot? Particularly this cowboy boot: It's 8 feet tall, weighs about 150 pounds and is brightly painted with pictures of rodeo clowns. When Dr. Leslie Madden went to bed on Friday night it was there in her front yard at 8016 Zero Road west of Casper, where the sculpture has been since she bought the unique artwork in October at a Cheyenne Frontier Days fund-raiser. The hollow sculpture, which is made of fiberglass, was bolted to a rectangular box made of railroad ties....
Tie-down roper secures title in money time Veteran tie-down roper Jeff Chapman has historically won money at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, and Sunday was no different. This time he won his second championship as the 16-day rodeo came to a close before a packed house at the SBC Center. The event came down to a climactic finish after Chapman's 8.9-second run left it up to seven-time world champion Fred Whitfield to try to unseat him. Whitfield, who has won five titles here, came roaring out of the box, but just seconds too soon, breaking the barrier and eliminating him from the title run. He had been leading the aggregate for nearly two weeks....
Riding her dream She was born into a big city, high society life, with a Vassar education in opera and a Yalie husband. But she yearned to be a cowgirl. "I hated the New York City life from the minute I was born," says famed rodeo photographer Louise Serpa, who has made Tucson her home for the past 45 years. Far from the big city lights, Serpa made an indelible mark on the world as the first female rodeo photographer, dodging hooves and horns in arenas around the globe. This week may mark the last time she enters the arena to shoot the events of her beloved Tucson Rodeo (La Fiesta de los Vaqueros), which she has photographed for more than 40 years. Serpa, 79, suffers from what she calls creeping decrepitude. Her knees are going, and she has a bad hip. She says the majority of rodeo folks take one look and think "what is that old lady doing out in the arena?" But her work remains unequaled. Serpa is the recipient of the 2002 Tad Lucas Memorial Award through the Rodeo Historical Society, and was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Her work is among the collections of the likes of Ralph Lauren....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Good looks can cloud a cowboy's mind Sometimes a cowboy will ride a good-lookin' bad horse for longer than it makes sense. This flawed thinking may have a more universal application, i.e., hangin' on to a pickup, dog or girlfriend long after they've bit you or konked out. It's even worse when the injured party thinks he can make a good horse, dog or wife out of a pretty renegade. Roy was a California cowboy and an experienced horseman. Out of respect, the boss had given him the big, fancy 3-year-old bay to use in his string. He was green-broke, cinchy, snorty and antsy, but he looked so good in his white stockings and star....
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Sunday, February 20, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Folk lore and remedies - from the wood stove to the rocking chair
By Julie Carter
We all know who the great old-timey cooks were. They were the women who knew how to make anything taste good. They grew up during the lean times of the l920’s and 30’s on rural farms.
Their day started at 5 a.m. with chores done by lantern-light, meals cooked on the wood cook stove, food refrigerated in the spring house and water carried to the kitchen in buckets.
The wood cook stove was the signature for cooks who toiled for hours cooking, canning and keeping the family fed. When gas and electric ranges became available, many put them along side the ever faithful wood stove, not trusting yet to give up the very center to every family kitchen.
Of interest are the remedies, folklore, weather predictions, and superstitions that evolved from the kitchens of that era.
In the cake lore category you heard: Always bake a cake while the sun is going up. (Or it will fall.) Don’t throw away the egg shells until after the cake is baked. Stop the clock while the cake is baking.
It was thought that anyone born while the mulberries were ripe had a good chance of being red-headed. Other direct pieces of advice were: A fat kitchen, a lean will. Don’t fall out with your bread and butter. A rotten apple spoils its companion.
Then there were the vegetable insults. His family is like potatoes, all that is good of them is underground. She rattles around her house like one pea in a pod. He’s too lazy to shuck corn if you gave it to him.
Using bread for weather forecasting was undoubtedly as accurate as anything used then or now. To take the last piece of bread on the plate foretells rain. If you drop a piece of buttered bread upside down on the floor, it will soon rain. If, handling a loaf of bread, it breaks into two parts, it’ll rain all week.
Folk remedies were often worse than what they were intended to cure. For baldness the cure was to consume the gall of a lizard, fresh mouse meat or mole’s blood. To prevent a cold, tie a big red onion to the bedpost. A good spring tonic is anvil dust mixed with cream.
Necessity is the mother of invention and also the source of the many “mock” recipes that sprang up during the depression. Finding themselves without money or access to needed ingredients birthed the mock cherry pie made from cranberries and raisins.
Mock turtle soup was created using cow’s tongue and soda crackers were substituted for macaroni. Mock coconut macaroons used rolled oats and almond extract and mock honey was created from sugar, oranges, eggs and butter.
The only thing harder than all the cooking done in that era was the laundry. A recipe for doing the laundry, as written by a West Virginia grandmother, gave a 12-step chronology for the job. It began with “Bild fire in back yard and het kettle of rain water.”
Step three instructed “Shave one hold cake lie sope in biling water.” After the clothing sort, the scrubbing, boiling, “renching” and spreading items on the grass and fence to dry, the “rench water” was poured on the flower bed and the porch was scrubbed with the soapy water.
Step twelve was advice we can all use today. “Turn tubs up and dress-smooth hair with side combs. Brew cup of tee, set and rest and rock a spell and count Blessings.”
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Please email me your submissions for this feature. Items may be fiction or nonfiction.
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Folk lore and remedies - from the wood stove to the rocking chair
By Julie Carter
We all know who the great old-timey cooks were. They were the women who knew how to make anything taste good. They grew up during the lean times of the l920’s and 30’s on rural farms.
Their day started at 5 a.m. with chores done by lantern-light, meals cooked on the wood cook stove, food refrigerated in the spring house and water carried to the kitchen in buckets.
The wood cook stove was the signature for cooks who toiled for hours cooking, canning and keeping the family fed. When gas and electric ranges became available, many put them along side the ever faithful wood stove, not trusting yet to give up the very center to every family kitchen.
Of interest are the remedies, folklore, weather predictions, and superstitions that evolved from the kitchens of that era.
In the cake lore category you heard: Always bake a cake while the sun is going up. (Or it will fall.) Don’t throw away the egg shells until after the cake is baked. Stop the clock while the cake is baking.
It was thought that anyone born while the mulberries were ripe had a good chance of being red-headed. Other direct pieces of advice were: A fat kitchen, a lean will. Don’t fall out with your bread and butter. A rotten apple spoils its companion.
Then there were the vegetable insults. His family is like potatoes, all that is good of them is underground. She rattles around her house like one pea in a pod. He’s too lazy to shuck corn if you gave it to him.
Using bread for weather forecasting was undoubtedly as accurate as anything used then or now. To take the last piece of bread on the plate foretells rain. If you drop a piece of buttered bread upside down on the floor, it will soon rain. If, handling a loaf of bread, it breaks into two parts, it’ll rain all week.
Folk remedies were often worse than what they were intended to cure. For baldness the cure was to consume the gall of a lizard, fresh mouse meat or mole’s blood. To prevent a cold, tie a big red onion to the bedpost. A good spring tonic is anvil dust mixed with cream.
Necessity is the mother of invention and also the source of the many “mock” recipes that sprang up during the depression. Finding themselves without money or access to needed ingredients birthed the mock cherry pie made from cranberries and raisins.
Mock turtle soup was created using cow’s tongue and soda crackers were substituted for macaroni. Mock coconut macaroons used rolled oats and almond extract and mock honey was created from sugar, oranges, eggs and butter.
The only thing harder than all the cooking done in that era was the laundry. A recipe for doing the laundry, as written by a West Virginia grandmother, gave a 12-step chronology for the job. It began with “Bild fire in back yard and het kettle of rain water.”
Step three instructed “Shave one hold cake lie sope in biling water.” After the clothing sort, the scrubbing, boiling, “renching” and spreading items on the grass and fence to dry, the “rench water” was poured on the flower bed and the porch was scrubbed with the soapy water.
Step twelve was advice we can all use today. “Turn tubs up and dress-smooth hair with side combs. Brew cup of tee, set and rest and rock a spell and count Blessings.”
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Please email me your submissions for this feature. Items may be fiction or nonfiction.
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
SOUTH DAKOTA LANDOWNERS DODGE A BULLET
Imagine: property owners notice that an armed hunter is trespassing on their property. They advise him that the land is private property, that he is in trespass, and that he should leave and hunt elsewhere. He readily agrees and quickly departs; however, after he has walked a few paces, he turns and begins shooting at the landowners with his high-powered rifle. When the shooting is over, six lay dead or dying and the hunter is on the run. That was the horrific reality last fall near Hayward, Wisconsin, which shocked the nation, even in the wake of the deadly fighting during the liberation of Fallujah. Today, the Wisconsin men have been buried, the Minnesota hunter has been apprehended, and the trial for first degree murder has been scheduled. People wonder, however, could it happen again? Amazingly, last summer the South Dakota Attorney General took a position in court that might have ensured that it would reoccur! How could that be? For decades, South Dakota law has allowed hunting along section lines or other roads if such rights-of-way are used for vehicular traffic; however, hunters were not allowed to fire over or onto privately-owned land without the landowner’s permission. That all changed on March 22, 2003, when the State Legislature amended state law to permit hunters to fire at and kill small game on private property if that game takes flight from a right-of-way. Thus, property owners may not prevent hunters from firing over or onto their land at such game....
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SOUTH DAKOTA LANDOWNERS DODGE A BULLET
Imagine: property owners notice that an armed hunter is trespassing on their property. They advise him that the land is private property, that he is in trespass, and that he should leave and hunt elsewhere. He readily agrees and quickly departs; however, after he has walked a few paces, he turns and begins shooting at the landowners with his high-powered rifle. When the shooting is over, six lay dead or dying and the hunter is on the run. That was the horrific reality last fall near Hayward, Wisconsin, which shocked the nation, even in the wake of the deadly fighting during the liberation of Fallujah. Today, the Wisconsin men have been buried, the Minnesota hunter has been apprehended, and the trial for first degree murder has been scheduled. People wonder, however, could it happen again? Amazingly, last summer the South Dakota Attorney General took a position in court that might have ensured that it would reoccur! How could that be? For decades, South Dakota law has allowed hunting along section lines or other roads if such rights-of-way are used for vehicular traffic; however, hunters were not allowed to fire over or onto privately-owned land without the landowner’s permission. That all changed on March 22, 2003, when the State Legislature amended state law to permit hunters to fire at and kill small game on private property if that game takes flight from a right-of-way. Thus, property owners may not prevent hunters from firing over or onto their land at such game....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Endangered Species Act Finally Meets the Fifth Amendment
Last December, the Bush administration quietly settled a landmark lawsuit involving a federal trial court judgment that the government’s enforcement of the Endangered Species Act had violated the constitutionally-protected property rights of farmers in California’s Central Valley. The judge had ordered the government to pay $26 million in damages, including interest, for the undelivered water — under the settlement, the government agreed to pay $16.7 million. Even though settlement of a trial court judgment is not precedent-setting (only appellate court decisions establish precedent), we now have, for the first time since ESA became law, a court ruling that government’s ESA enforcement triggers the Fifth Amendment’s “just compensation” provision. In the 31 years since the Endangered Species Act became law, owners denied use of their property through its enforcement have filed numerous lawsuits charging the government with taking private property for public use (i.e., species protection) and seeking “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment. Their claims seem clearly to be supported by the Act itself. Congress declared in its “findings” incorporated into the ESA — Section 2(a)(3) — that endangered or threatened “species of fish, wildlife, and plants are of aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.” Yet, despite this unambiguous statement of ESA’s purpose as serving a “public use,” no federal agency and no federal court — until now — has ever recognized ESA enforcement as serving a public use, or that the regulation of private property under ESA is a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment, or that the government should pay damaged property owners “just compensation.” At the heart of this case (Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District v. United States) is the federal government’s Central Valley Water Project and California’s State Water Project — the natural and man-made systems of dams, reservoirs, pumping stations, and aqueducts that transport water from Northern California through the Central Valley to Southern California....
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Endangered Species Act Finally Meets the Fifth Amendment
Last December, the Bush administration quietly settled a landmark lawsuit involving a federal trial court judgment that the government’s enforcement of the Endangered Species Act had violated the constitutionally-protected property rights of farmers in California’s Central Valley. The judge had ordered the government to pay $26 million in damages, including interest, for the undelivered water — under the settlement, the government agreed to pay $16.7 million. Even though settlement of a trial court judgment is not precedent-setting (only appellate court decisions establish precedent), we now have, for the first time since ESA became law, a court ruling that government’s ESA enforcement triggers the Fifth Amendment’s “just compensation” provision. In the 31 years since the Endangered Species Act became law, owners denied use of their property through its enforcement have filed numerous lawsuits charging the government with taking private property for public use (i.e., species protection) and seeking “just compensation” under the Fifth Amendment. Their claims seem clearly to be supported by the Act itself. Congress declared in its “findings” incorporated into the ESA — Section 2(a)(3) — that endangered or threatened “species of fish, wildlife, and plants are of aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.” Yet, despite this unambiguous statement of ESA’s purpose as serving a “public use,” no federal agency and no federal court — until now — has ever recognized ESA enforcement as serving a public use, or that the regulation of private property under ESA is a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment, or that the government should pay damaged property owners “just compensation.” At the heart of this case (Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District v. United States) is the federal government’s Central Valley Water Project and California’s State Water Project — the natural and man-made systems of dams, reservoirs, pumping stations, and aqueducts that transport water from Northern California through the Central Valley to Southern California....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Diminishing Biodiverse Returns
It took 20 tortuous years to get from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree to a medication for breast cancer. But now Taxol is a common treatment for women with early breast cancer, and despite the false leads and blind alleys in the laboratory, researchers and pharmaceutical companies had incentive to pursue the cure. That could change drastically if rules for patenting new discoveries derived from natural molecules (like those found in the yew plant) are changed. This week environmental ministers and delegates from around the globe have gathered in Bangkok to shape the future of so-called bioprospecting -- the process of collecting samples of raw living material, developing medication from it and then sharing the fruits of commercialization with the source country. The Bangkok meeting, sponsored by the United Nations, is officially called the Third Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Asset and Benefit Sharing of the Convention on Biodiversity. It is small by U.N. standards, but the stakes for drug development are far-reaching if a group of 17 developing countries succeed in altering international patent law....
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Diminishing Biodiverse Returns
It took 20 tortuous years to get from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree to a medication for breast cancer. But now Taxol is a common treatment for women with early breast cancer, and despite the false leads and blind alleys in the laboratory, researchers and pharmaceutical companies had incentive to pursue the cure. That could change drastically if rules for patenting new discoveries derived from natural molecules (like those found in the yew plant) are changed. This week environmental ministers and delegates from around the globe have gathered in Bangkok to shape the future of so-called bioprospecting -- the process of collecting samples of raw living material, developing medication from it and then sharing the fruits of commercialization with the source country. The Bangkok meeting, sponsored by the United Nations, is officially called the Third Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Asset and Benefit Sharing of the Convention on Biodiversity. It is small by U.N. standards, but the stakes for drug development are far-reaching if a group of 17 developing countries succeed in altering international patent law....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
PRIVATE INITIATIVES PRESERVE SPECIES
Conservation of natural resources is better left to the private sector, according to a report published by the Reason Foundation.
Michael DeAlessi, Director of Natural Resources Policy, argues that federal oversight of environmental protection is ineffective for many reasons:
* Federal regulations are more process-oriented than results-oriented; for example, the Endangered Species Act has recovered only 10 of 1,300 species over its 30-year life span.
* Public ownership of land, such as National Parks, provides little incentive for individuals to care for it; indeed, one-third of American land is owned by the federal government, but much of it is deteriorating.
* Special interest groups influence the policy-making process in order to create gains for themselves, often at the expense of other groups.
However, private initiatives make all groups better off. When property rights are well-defined, individuals are more likely to care for resources for a future return on their investment. For example:
* Ducks Unlimited, a private organization founded by California sportsmen in 1937, works to restore and improve wetlands to ensure continued populations of waterfowl for future hunting.
* The Louisiana chapter of the Audubon Society earned almost one million dollars in the early 1980s by allowing oil and gas development on Rainey Sanctuary, a 26,000 acre nature preserve owned by society.
Private initiatives show that economic development and habitat preservation can peacefully co-exist, says DeAlessi.
Source: Michael DeAlessi, “Conservation Through Private Initiative: Harnessing American Ingenuity to Preserve our Nation’s Resources,” Policy Study 328, Reason Foundation, January 2005.
For text: http://www.rppi.org/ps328.pdf
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PRIVATE INITIATIVES PRESERVE SPECIES
Conservation of natural resources is better left to the private sector, according to a report published by the Reason Foundation.
Michael DeAlessi, Director of Natural Resources Policy, argues that federal oversight of environmental protection is ineffective for many reasons:
* Federal regulations are more process-oriented than results-oriented; for example, the Endangered Species Act has recovered only 10 of 1,300 species over its 30-year life span.
* Public ownership of land, such as National Parks, provides little incentive for individuals to care for it; indeed, one-third of American land is owned by the federal government, but much of it is deteriorating.
* Special interest groups influence the policy-making process in order to create gains for themselves, often at the expense of other groups.
However, private initiatives make all groups better off. When property rights are well-defined, individuals are more likely to care for resources for a future return on their investment. For example:
* Ducks Unlimited, a private organization founded by California sportsmen in 1937, works to restore and improve wetlands to ensure continued populations of waterfowl for future hunting.
* The Louisiana chapter of the Audubon Society earned almost one million dollars in the early 1980s by allowing oil and gas development on Rainey Sanctuary, a 26,000 acre nature preserve owned by society.
Private initiatives show that economic development and habitat preservation can peacefully co-exist, says DeAlessi.
Source: Michael DeAlessi, “Conservation Through Private Initiative: Harnessing American Ingenuity to Preserve our Nation’s Resources,” Policy Study 328, Reason Foundation, January 2005.
For text: http://www.rppi.org/ps328.pdf
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Why I Hunt
“Why do you go hunting?” The lady was a casual acquaintance asking a question that truly seemed important to her. I smiled and said I had been doing it since I was a kid and that I really enjoyed it. She smiled but I could see she didn’t understand and vaguely felt sorry for me. The conversation twisted in other directions and soon was but a memory. Her question and my answer often come back to me when I put down a book or stare into a fire. Why do I hunt and fish and often think of trapping again? Could it be the memories of my father and long gone friends sharing a day of fellowship? Could it be all the books and articles and magazines and catalogues and plans laid to make the next trip as good as can be? Could it be the sunrises and sunsets and wild weather that composed a canvas worthy of Renoir? Could it be the guns and shooting and the smell of gun oil in the evening? Could it be all the dogs I have known and hunted over?....
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Why I Hunt
“Why do you go hunting?” The lady was a casual acquaintance asking a question that truly seemed important to her. I smiled and said I had been doing it since I was a kid and that I really enjoyed it. She smiled but I could see she didn’t understand and vaguely felt sorry for me. The conversation twisted in other directions and soon was but a memory. Her question and my answer often come back to me when I put down a book or stare into a fire. Why do I hunt and fish and often think of trapping again? Could it be the memories of my father and long gone friends sharing a day of fellowship? Could it be all the books and articles and magazines and catalogues and plans laid to make the next trip as good as can be? Could it be the sunrises and sunsets and wild weather that composed a canvas worthy of Renoir? Could it be the guns and shooting and the smell of gun oil in the evening? Could it be all the dogs I have known and hunted over?....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Kyoto Protocol Simply Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which comes into force this week, represents a massive act of folly by many of the world's industrialized nations. It sets the world on a course to economic disaster while doing nothing to alleviate global warming. It is the wrong solution to the wrong problem at the wrong time. Kyoto attempts to alleviate what may be a major cause of warming—the emission of greenhouse gases—by suppressing energy use in the developed world. Yet energy use is vital to modern health and wealth. The Kyoto treaty itself recognizes this fact by exempting developing countries, eager to achieve prosperity, from greenhouse gas reductions. As a result, China and India are likely to become the major emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet within a few decades. This means that, even with Kyoto, global emissions of greenhouse gases will continue to increase. So the Kyoto Protocol will do virtually nothing to halt any possible global temperature increase— the temperature that would have been reached in 2100 will be reached in 2106. Yet independent analyses of the annual cost to the world of complying with Kyoto put it at between $150 billion and $350 billion a year (the global development aid budget is $50 billion annually). The cost of the "solution" vastly outweighs any purported benefits....
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Kyoto Protocol Simply Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
The Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which comes into force this week, represents a massive act of folly by many of the world's industrialized nations. It sets the world on a course to economic disaster while doing nothing to alleviate global warming. It is the wrong solution to the wrong problem at the wrong time. Kyoto attempts to alleviate what may be a major cause of warming—the emission of greenhouse gases—by suppressing energy use in the developed world. Yet energy use is vital to modern health and wealth. The Kyoto treaty itself recognizes this fact by exempting developing countries, eager to achieve prosperity, from greenhouse gas reductions. As a result, China and India are likely to become the major emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet within a few decades. This means that, even with Kyoto, global emissions of greenhouse gases will continue to increase. So the Kyoto Protocol will do virtually nothing to halt any possible global temperature increase— the temperature that would have been reached in 2100 will be reached in 2106. Yet independent analyses of the annual cost to the world of complying with Kyoto put it at between $150 billion and $350 billion a year (the global development aid budget is $50 billion annually). The cost of the "solution" vastly outweighs any purported benefits....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Waking Up to Kyoto
On 15 July 2004 the European Environment Agency (EEA) released the following statement: "EU15 greenhouse gas emissions decline after two years of increases." The news release explained that in 2002 the EU15's emissions were 0.5 percent lower than the year before. It may look like a small step: under the Kyoto Protocol, which takes effect this week, the continent is committed to reducing its emissions by 8 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012 . Thus, the EEA argues, "assuming the 8 percent reduction were to follow a linear path, emissions should have fallen 4.8 percent by 2002," vis-à-vis the actual data of the EU15 being just 2.9 percent below the reference year. The problem is complicated by two facts. First, the emission cut is more modest if you look only at carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, which accounts for over four-fifths of total emissions. In 2002 CO2 dropped by just 0.3 percent below 2001 levels. And it is still 1.4 percent higher than in 1990, "largely because of growing emissions from road transport." Secondly, the EEA recognizes that "on this basis, only four countries are on track to comply with the national targets." They are France, Germany, Sweden, and United Kingdom. At least three of them enjoy such a situation because of past actions that have nothing to do with the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, this trend is likely to be reversed in the next few years. In fact, France is a low emitter because some 80 percent of its electricity is generated by nuclear plants....
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Waking Up to Kyoto
On 15 July 2004 the European Environment Agency (EEA) released the following statement: "EU15 greenhouse gas emissions decline after two years of increases." The news release explained that in 2002 the EU15's emissions were 0.5 percent lower than the year before. It may look like a small step: under the Kyoto Protocol, which takes effect this week, the continent is committed to reducing its emissions by 8 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012 . Thus, the EEA argues, "assuming the 8 percent reduction were to follow a linear path, emissions should have fallen 4.8 percent by 2002," vis-à-vis the actual data of the EU15 being just 2.9 percent below the reference year. The problem is complicated by two facts. First, the emission cut is more modest if you look only at carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, which accounts for over four-fifths of total emissions. In 2002 CO2 dropped by just 0.3 percent below 2001 levels. And it is still 1.4 percent higher than in 1990, "largely because of growing emissions from road transport." Secondly, the EEA recognizes that "on this basis, only four countries are on track to comply with the national targets." They are France, Germany, Sweden, and United Kingdom. At least three of them enjoy such a situation because of past actions that have nothing to do with the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, this trend is likely to be reversed in the next few years. In fact, France is a low emitter because some 80 percent of its electricity is generated by nuclear plants....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
HOCKEY STICK GRAPH HAS TEAMS FEUDING
The latest debate over global warming focuses on a well-publicized graph depicting temperatures over the past 1,000 years, but some observers argue the graph, which is known as the “hockey stick,” is inaccurate.
Created by Dr. Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, the graph indicates fairly stable temperatures up until the 20th century, and a sharp acceleration over the last century, graphically depicting the shape of a hockey stick.
However, Stephen McIntyre, a minerals consultant from Toronto, first disputed the calculations behind the graph, and his skepticism now has scientists questioning its accuracy as well. According to McIntyre and other skeptics:
* Dr. Mann's mathematical technique in drawing the graph is prone to generating hockey-stick shapes even when applied to random data, therefore, McIntyre argues, it proves nothing.
* Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada, a government agency, says he now agrees that Dr. Mann's statistical method "preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data."
* The graph pays little emphasis to the “medieval warm period” around A.D. 1000 and a 15th century “little ice age,” and it relies too heavily on tree ring data from a small number of trees.
* According to scientist Hans von Storch of Germany’s GKSS Center, the graph sharply underestimates previous variations in temperature, suggested that the 20th-century jump in temperature is not as drastic as depicted on the graph.
Other researchers, including Mann argue that even if the mathematical method used in producing the graph is a little off, the end results are the same: major global temperature increases are correlated with the 20th century.
However, each side accuses the other of playing politics. McIntyre argues that Kyoto supporters are pushing the hockey-stick graph to further their cause, despite the skepticism that abounds.
Source: Antonio Regalado, “In Climate Debate, the ‘Hockey Stick’ Leads to a Face-Off,” Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005.
For text (subscription required):
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834031507653590,00.html
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HOCKEY STICK GRAPH HAS TEAMS FEUDING
The latest debate over global warming focuses on a well-publicized graph depicting temperatures over the past 1,000 years, but some observers argue the graph, which is known as the “hockey stick,” is inaccurate.
Created by Dr. Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, the graph indicates fairly stable temperatures up until the 20th century, and a sharp acceleration over the last century, graphically depicting the shape of a hockey stick.
However, Stephen McIntyre, a minerals consultant from Toronto, first disputed the calculations behind the graph, and his skepticism now has scientists questioning its accuracy as well. According to McIntyre and other skeptics:
* Dr. Mann's mathematical technique in drawing the graph is prone to generating hockey-stick shapes even when applied to random data, therefore, McIntyre argues, it proves nothing.
* Statistician Francis Zwiers of Environment Canada, a government agency, says he now agrees that Dr. Mann's statistical method "preferentially produces hockey sticks when there are none in the data."
* The graph pays little emphasis to the “medieval warm period” around A.D. 1000 and a 15th century “little ice age,” and it relies too heavily on tree ring data from a small number of trees.
* According to scientist Hans von Storch of Germany’s GKSS Center, the graph sharply underestimates previous variations in temperature, suggested that the 20th-century jump in temperature is not as drastic as depicted on the graph.
Other researchers, including Mann argue that even if the mathematical method used in producing the graph is a little off, the end results are the same: major global temperature increases are correlated with the 20th century.
However, each side accuses the other of playing politics. McIntyre argues that Kyoto supporters are pushing the hockey-stick graph to further their cause, despite the skepticism that abounds.
Source: Antonio Regalado, “In Climate Debate, the ‘Hockey Stick’ Leads to a Face-Off,” Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2005.
For text (subscription required):
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110834031507653590,00.html
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