Friday, November 11, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Ex-wildfire chief accused of setting fires The former commander of an elite wildfire team that battled the largest blaze in Arizona history and aided in recovery efforts at the World Trade Center is accused of starting two fires last year, federal prosecutors said. Van Bateman, 55, was indicted Wednesday for allegedly setting the fires in the Coconino National Forest in 2004. He faces two federal counts of setting timber afire and two counts of arson on public lands. The first charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, while arson is punishable by up to 20 years, prosecutors said Thursday. Bateman was a Type I incident commander, the head of a wildfire management crew that is called in for the biggest and most severe wildfires. His four-year term in that position expired in 2004 and he became leader of a slightly lower level team until he was indicted and put on paid leave, according to Forest Service officials....
‘Old Broad’ calls for wilderness Wilderness areas, which are off-limits to motorized vehicles, at some point become inaccessible to people as they age. But that’s all right, according to an official with a group formed to prove that older people could access wilderness areas. Veronica “Ronnie” Egan, executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, explained the origins of the group to a crowd attending the fourth annual Wilderness Symposium on Thursday in Rapid City. Egan, of Durango, Colo., said the group formed 16 years ago in response to arguments by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that older people aren’t able to visit wilderness areas because they can’t use vehicles. Egan, 59, said about a dozen “ladies of a certain age” who enjoyed hiking in the Escalante canyons in Utah formed Great Old Broads for Wilderness “to represent older citizens who were, first of all, dedicated to being in wilderness, and secondly, to the concept that even if they got to the point where they couldn’t get there under their own steam, that was OK. We’ve had our chance, as it were, and wilderness is valuable for its own sake and not just for the recreational proclivities of the young, buff elite,” Egan told the crowd of more than 100 people at Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn....
Mountain lion on the prowl in Mount Madonna Park A mountain lion prowling Santa Clara's Mount Madonna County Park has killed 18 deer, descendants of a pair donated by media mogul William Randolph Hearst in the 1930s. Since March, a female mountain lion has bounded over an 8-foot fence at least eight times and into a pen where the white fallow deer call home, according to John Heenan, senior park ranger at Mount Madonna. The deer, native to Persia, were given to Gilroy cattle rancher Henry Miller, who owned property in the park, as a gift from Hearst in 1935. In addition to the 18 killed by the mountain lion, six others have died of natural causes, according to park officials. Only 27 are left in the herd....
PETA PRESIDENT SELLS FOR $43,600 ON EBAY PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk, founder of the world’s largest animal rights organization and author of several books on how to be kind to animals, gave lab chiefs and steakhouse owners a chance to get back at her when she auctioned herself off as personal assistant for a day on eBay. In an auction that ended this morning, Newkirk landed more than 40 bids, and in the end, Sandy Boss and Gary Reamer, a married couple from Encinitas, Calif., paid a whopping $43,600 to hire Newkirk for the day. Newkirk had put her services up for bid on October 31 as a novel way to help fund her campaigners’ travel to protest sites around the globe. The auction resulted in hundreds of raunchy, nasty messages, including ranchers who wanted her to "milk" bull’s semen, exotic animal dealers who thought that she should answer their company telephone, anglers who told her that she’d have to gut their fish all day, and deer hunters and pit bull breeders who were eager to put her next to a gun or an aggressive dog....
WWGA Responds To Editorial Attacks On October 31, the Casper Star Tribune published one of its nameless, faceless editorials that it is famous for wherein it chastised the Wyoming Wool Growers Association for proposing a bill to the Wyoming legislature which would enhance existing statute which provides for a penalty for anyone abandoning sheep on the open range. This proposed bill would increase the potential penalty to any worker who voluntarily walks off and abandons these animals, but would also provide penalties for anyone who entices a worker to do this, as well as penalties to those who knowingly hire anyone who intentionally abandons these animals and leaves them to fend for themselves out on the range in Wyoming. As is typical for the Casper Star Tribune, the editorial had an anti-agriculture, anti-ranching tone and feel to it. What was particularly egregious about this editorial, however, was the fact that the Casper Star did not make any attempt to contact our organization for background information, did not make any attempt (that we are aware of) to contact any rancher or herder who was potentially affected by the bill, and didn’t even bother to send a reporter to the legislative hearing at which the bill was proposed. All basic Journalism 101, but apparently not tenets that the Casper Star believes it should have to follow. In order to set the record straight, and to hopefully rectify the damage inflicted upon our Association and industry by this editorial (which we believe was the underlying and real intent of it), we ask the citizens of Wyoming to consider the following information, which was not provided by the Casper Star....
Poll says Montanans support Buffalo hunt, delisting of wolves Montanans strongly favor the new bison hunt scheduled to start next week, and like the idea of removing the gray wolf from federal protection and opening up the state for more coal mining, results of a new poll shows. The bison hunt, set to make a comeback next week, had the support of 73 percent of the poll's respondents. Only 18 percent opposed the hunt, and 9 percent were undecided. Among men, 80 percent supported the hunt, while 65 percent of women liked the idea. A question asking if the gray wolf should be desisted, a hot topic among ranchers in the state, found that 57 percent said it is time to remove protections for the wolf. Twenty-eight percent opposed delisting the wolf, and 15 percent were undecided. Republicans and people living in rural areas were a little more likely to support delisting the wolf. A large majority, 68 percent, also support the idea of more coal mining in the state, while 19 percent oppose it and 14 percent are undecided. Coal mining had support from across the political spectrum, but Republicans were the most likely to support the idea, the poll found....
Natural wonder sits precariously atop valuable methane Oscar Simpson scrabbles up a sandstone wall 1,000 feet above the forest floor and rests at the top, looking. Below him, nearly 40,000 acres of the Valle Vidal stretch out with mint and olive greens, slivers of rusty reds and cornstalk yellows, dots of chocolaty browns. It's photogenic terrain superior to what any landscape painter could depict, home to thousands of Rocky Mountain elk, Rio Grande cutthroat trout and microscopic fairy shrimp. Simpson, president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, takes a breath, looking across the slice of northern New Mexico framed by some of the state's highest peaks. To him, the eastern section of the 101,000 acres of the Carson known as the Valle Vidal Unit is a treasure that provides once-in-a-lifetime elk hunts, fishing, camping and horseback riding. Others see it as a potential site for coal-bed methane drilling....
NEPA process shouldn’t be allowed to drive cattle off public lands “Businesses, families, and communities cannot fail because the government does not complete paperwork,” says Brenda Richards, a ranch operator from Murphy, Idaho speaking about the procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Representing the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC), Richards testified today before the House Resources Committee on the problems with NEPA. “It is hard to imagine that the authors of NEPA would have intended to harm personal businesses, lives, and communities,” says Richards. “But the cumbersome consideration of environmental consequences mandated by NEPA leaves public land ranchers on a precipice of uncertainty.” NCBA and PLC have historically worked with agency officials and called for congressional legislation that would prevent interruption of grazing permits while federal agencies struggle to meet environmental documentation obligations required by the grazing permit renewal process....
Column: When a forest goes feral, it's time for volunteers Wallace Stegner once wrote that the worst thing that can happen to a piece of land, short of coming into the hands of an unscrupulous developer, is to be left open to the unmanaged public. His great fear seems to be coming true. With the downsizing of the federal workforce and the increasing mountain of unfunded federal regulations, our public lands are witnessing the kind of neglect that befell the thousands of victims of hurricane Katrina. During a recent Senate hearing, while I was waiting to speak about the declining health of the West's public lands, I heard a Western senator berate a Forest Service staffer for failing to work with ranchers who had grazing leases on federal land. To the official's credit, he reminded the senator that his employees did not choose to spend their days in government offices grinding out federal documents. These natural resource managers, the agency official pointed out, wanted to be out on the land, exercising the stewardship skills they had learned....
Forest Service chief praises bill to speed salvage logging A bill to speed up logging dead timber and planting new trees after storms and wildfires won praise Thursday from the head of the U.S. Forest Service. In fact, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said he wished the bill were already in effect, so the agency could better restore Southern forests damaged by Hurricane Katrina. "It would allow us to move more quickly to respond to the needs on the ground after the hurricane," he said. Even under current law, plans are moving relatively quickly, Bosworth said. Clean-up efforts to repair huge swaths of forests damaged or destroyed in the hurricane are well underway, and an environmental assessment for long-term restoration should be completed within a few weeks. Work on projects to restore Southern pine forests in Mississippi and Louisiana should begin early next year, he said....
Court rules timber sale can proceed A federal appeals court has ruled the U.S. Forest Service can proceed with a controversial timber sale near Gardiner. The Darroch Eagle sale has been in and out of court for almost six years. This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that it can be harvested. The court ruled against three environmental groups trying to halt the project. They are the Gardiner-based Bear Creek Council and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Ecology Center, both based in Missoula. The groups had argued that the harvest of 2.9 million board feet on 195 acres in the Jardine area would harm grizzly bear habitat and that the Forest Service used "arbitrary and capricious" methods in its accounting and its calculations of old growth. They also argued that the timber shouldn't have been sold before the legal case was solved. The Forest Service sold the logs to RY Lumber for $840,000. The court sided with the Forest Service on all counts....
How to un-cut a tree Yes, the Forest Service will talk openly about the mistake it made this summer fighting the Cedar Fire on the Clearwater National Forest. No, it didn’t volunteer the information to the general public; and no, it evidently hasn’t been previously reported by Montana or Idaho media. In early August, lightning sparked a fire about a half-mile inside the wilderness boundary and a couple of miles from Elk Summit Road, which spurs off Idaho’s Highway 12 and climbs about 20 miles before ending at Hoodoo Lake. Wilderness fires are treated differently than most, due to the 1964 Wilderness Act, which declares that designated wilderness, unlike most of the planet, “is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Practically speaking, this means federal agencies need approval for each and every incursion, from deciding whether to suppress a fire to determining which tools can be used to get the job done, says Chris Ryan, who’s charged with overseeing wilderness management in the Northern Region....
Is “wild” too mild? What’s in a name? It’s a tough question if you’re asking anyone familiar with the Kootenai National Forest’s new draft management plan. Bob Castaneda, supervisor of the Kootenai National Forest, decided Oct. 17 to change all Kootenai lands formerly designated as “recommended wilderness” to “wild lands.” The change affects 124,000 acres. According to Castaneda, there is no difference between “recommended wilderness” and “wild lands.” He says recommended wilderness, wild lands and federally recognized wilderness all prohibit use of motorized vehicles, logging, most chainsaw use and other high-impact activities. He says he changed the name to alleviate tension between environmental and multiple-use groups over the phrase “recommended wilderness.” “It’s still a gain for wilderness values,” Castaneda says, noting that the new management plan protects an additional 50,000 acres in the same manner as recommended wilderness. But not everyone thinks the name change is so benign, and the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) is calling it a sham....
Feds to announce proposal to remove grizzly bears from endangered list Grizzly bears in areas surrounding Yellowstone National Park would be removed from the endangered species list under a proposal to be announced next week, officials said Thursday. The Interior Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on the proposal, but a congressional official and a state government official who were each informed of the announcement confirmed the government's plan. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been made public. Mike Volesky, a policy adviser to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, said an announcement on grizzly bears was planned, but he did not have details. Federal wildlife officials estimate that more than 600 grizzly bears live in the region surrounding Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Those numbers represent a significant recovery. Only 200 or 250 grizzlies were in that region in 1975, when grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were listed under the Endangered Species Act....
Pitching Legend Hits Home Run on the Grill; Nolan Ryan Offers Line of Signature Steaks With higher prices at the gas pump and in stores, the National Retail Federation is predicting more and more consumers will by-pass the hassle and go online for a chunk of their holiday shopping. "While I don't know much about online shopping I do know a lot about baseball, ranching and great steaks," says baseball legend Nolan Ryan, who not only puts his name on a line of gourmet beef products, but also oversees their production. Beefmaster Cattlemen and the Nolan Ryan's Tender Aged Beef brand are owned by Nolan Ryan and other participating ranchers. Ryan decided the only way he could guarantee beef that was tender and good every time was to start his own brand. "Cattle in the program only come from licensed facilities and adhere to strict production standards," says Ryan. "Our products are minimally processed with no artificial ingredients to ensure a great-tasting and tender steak. Every bite. Every time."....
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Ex-wildfire chief accused of setting fires The former commander of an elite wildfire team that battled the largest blaze in Arizona history and aided in recovery efforts at the World Trade Center is accused of starting two fires last year, federal prosecutors said. Van Bateman, 55, was indicted Wednesday for allegedly setting the fires in the Coconino National Forest in 2004. He faces two federal counts of setting timber afire and two counts of arson on public lands. The first charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, while arson is punishable by up to 20 years, prosecutors said Thursday. Bateman was a Type I incident commander, the head of a wildfire management crew that is called in for the biggest and most severe wildfires. His four-year term in that position expired in 2004 and he became leader of a slightly lower level team until he was indicted and put on paid leave, according to Forest Service officials....
‘Old Broad’ calls for wilderness Wilderness areas, which are off-limits to motorized vehicles, at some point become inaccessible to people as they age. But that’s all right, according to an official with a group formed to prove that older people could access wilderness areas. Veronica “Ronnie” Egan, executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, explained the origins of the group to a crowd attending the fourth annual Wilderness Symposium on Thursday in Rapid City. Egan, of Durango, Colo., said the group formed 16 years ago in response to arguments by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that older people aren’t able to visit wilderness areas because they can’t use vehicles. Egan, 59, said about a dozen “ladies of a certain age” who enjoyed hiking in the Escalante canyons in Utah formed Great Old Broads for Wilderness “to represent older citizens who were, first of all, dedicated to being in wilderness, and secondly, to the concept that even if they got to the point where they couldn’t get there under their own steam, that was OK. We’ve had our chance, as it were, and wilderness is valuable for its own sake and not just for the recreational proclivities of the young, buff elite,” Egan told the crowd of more than 100 people at Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn....
Mountain lion on the prowl in Mount Madonna Park A mountain lion prowling Santa Clara's Mount Madonna County Park has killed 18 deer, descendants of a pair donated by media mogul William Randolph Hearst in the 1930s. Since March, a female mountain lion has bounded over an 8-foot fence at least eight times and into a pen where the white fallow deer call home, according to John Heenan, senior park ranger at Mount Madonna. The deer, native to Persia, were given to Gilroy cattle rancher Henry Miller, who owned property in the park, as a gift from Hearst in 1935. In addition to the 18 killed by the mountain lion, six others have died of natural causes, according to park officials. Only 27 are left in the herd....
PETA PRESIDENT SELLS FOR $43,600 ON EBAY PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk, founder of the world’s largest animal rights organization and author of several books on how to be kind to animals, gave lab chiefs and steakhouse owners a chance to get back at her when she auctioned herself off as personal assistant for a day on eBay. In an auction that ended this morning, Newkirk landed more than 40 bids, and in the end, Sandy Boss and Gary Reamer, a married couple from Encinitas, Calif., paid a whopping $43,600 to hire Newkirk for the day. Newkirk had put her services up for bid on October 31 as a novel way to help fund her campaigners’ travel to protest sites around the globe. The auction resulted in hundreds of raunchy, nasty messages, including ranchers who wanted her to "milk" bull’s semen, exotic animal dealers who thought that she should answer their company telephone, anglers who told her that she’d have to gut their fish all day, and deer hunters and pit bull breeders who were eager to put her next to a gun or an aggressive dog....
WWGA Responds To Editorial Attacks On October 31, the Casper Star Tribune published one of its nameless, faceless editorials that it is famous for wherein it chastised the Wyoming Wool Growers Association for proposing a bill to the Wyoming legislature which would enhance existing statute which provides for a penalty for anyone abandoning sheep on the open range. This proposed bill would increase the potential penalty to any worker who voluntarily walks off and abandons these animals, but would also provide penalties for anyone who entices a worker to do this, as well as penalties to those who knowingly hire anyone who intentionally abandons these animals and leaves them to fend for themselves out on the range in Wyoming. As is typical for the Casper Star Tribune, the editorial had an anti-agriculture, anti-ranching tone and feel to it. What was particularly egregious about this editorial, however, was the fact that the Casper Star did not make any attempt to contact our organization for background information, did not make any attempt (that we are aware of) to contact any rancher or herder who was potentially affected by the bill, and didn’t even bother to send a reporter to the legislative hearing at which the bill was proposed. All basic Journalism 101, but apparently not tenets that the Casper Star believes it should have to follow. In order to set the record straight, and to hopefully rectify the damage inflicted upon our Association and industry by this editorial (which we believe was the underlying and real intent of it), we ask the citizens of Wyoming to consider the following information, which was not provided by the Casper Star....
Poll says Montanans support Buffalo hunt, delisting of wolves Montanans strongly favor the new bison hunt scheduled to start next week, and like the idea of removing the gray wolf from federal protection and opening up the state for more coal mining, results of a new poll shows. The bison hunt, set to make a comeback next week, had the support of 73 percent of the poll's respondents. Only 18 percent opposed the hunt, and 9 percent were undecided. Among men, 80 percent supported the hunt, while 65 percent of women liked the idea. A question asking if the gray wolf should be desisted, a hot topic among ranchers in the state, found that 57 percent said it is time to remove protections for the wolf. Twenty-eight percent opposed delisting the wolf, and 15 percent were undecided. Republicans and people living in rural areas were a little more likely to support delisting the wolf. A large majority, 68 percent, also support the idea of more coal mining in the state, while 19 percent oppose it and 14 percent are undecided. Coal mining had support from across the political spectrum, but Republicans were the most likely to support the idea, the poll found....
Natural wonder sits precariously atop valuable methane Oscar Simpson scrabbles up a sandstone wall 1,000 feet above the forest floor and rests at the top, looking. Below him, nearly 40,000 acres of the Valle Vidal stretch out with mint and olive greens, slivers of rusty reds and cornstalk yellows, dots of chocolaty browns. It's photogenic terrain superior to what any landscape painter could depict, home to thousands of Rocky Mountain elk, Rio Grande cutthroat trout and microscopic fairy shrimp. Simpson, president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, takes a breath, looking across the slice of northern New Mexico framed by some of the state's highest peaks. To him, the eastern section of the 101,000 acres of the Carson known as the Valle Vidal Unit is a treasure that provides once-in-a-lifetime elk hunts, fishing, camping and horseback riding. Others see it as a potential site for coal-bed methane drilling....
NEPA process shouldn’t be allowed to drive cattle off public lands “Businesses, families, and communities cannot fail because the government does not complete paperwork,” says Brenda Richards, a ranch operator from Murphy, Idaho speaking about the procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Representing the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC), Richards testified today before the House Resources Committee on the problems with NEPA. “It is hard to imagine that the authors of NEPA would have intended to harm personal businesses, lives, and communities,” says Richards. “But the cumbersome consideration of environmental consequences mandated by NEPA leaves public land ranchers on a precipice of uncertainty.” NCBA and PLC have historically worked with agency officials and called for congressional legislation that would prevent interruption of grazing permits while federal agencies struggle to meet environmental documentation obligations required by the grazing permit renewal process....
Column: When a forest goes feral, it's time for volunteers Wallace Stegner once wrote that the worst thing that can happen to a piece of land, short of coming into the hands of an unscrupulous developer, is to be left open to the unmanaged public. His great fear seems to be coming true. With the downsizing of the federal workforce and the increasing mountain of unfunded federal regulations, our public lands are witnessing the kind of neglect that befell the thousands of victims of hurricane Katrina. During a recent Senate hearing, while I was waiting to speak about the declining health of the West's public lands, I heard a Western senator berate a Forest Service staffer for failing to work with ranchers who had grazing leases on federal land. To the official's credit, he reminded the senator that his employees did not choose to spend their days in government offices grinding out federal documents. These natural resource managers, the agency official pointed out, wanted to be out on the land, exercising the stewardship skills they had learned....
Forest Service chief praises bill to speed salvage logging A bill to speed up logging dead timber and planting new trees after storms and wildfires won praise Thursday from the head of the U.S. Forest Service. In fact, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth said he wished the bill were already in effect, so the agency could better restore Southern forests damaged by Hurricane Katrina. "It would allow us to move more quickly to respond to the needs on the ground after the hurricane," he said. Even under current law, plans are moving relatively quickly, Bosworth said. Clean-up efforts to repair huge swaths of forests damaged or destroyed in the hurricane are well underway, and an environmental assessment for long-term restoration should be completed within a few weeks. Work on projects to restore Southern pine forests in Mississippi and Louisiana should begin early next year, he said....
Court rules timber sale can proceed A federal appeals court has ruled the U.S. Forest Service can proceed with a controversial timber sale near Gardiner. The Darroch Eagle sale has been in and out of court for almost six years. This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that it can be harvested. The court ruled against three environmental groups trying to halt the project. They are the Gardiner-based Bear Creek Council and the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Ecology Center, both based in Missoula. The groups had argued that the harvest of 2.9 million board feet on 195 acres in the Jardine area would harm grizzly bear habitat and that the Forest Service used "arbitrary and capricious" methods in its accounting and its calculations of old growth. They also argued that the timber shouldn't have been sold before the legal case was solved. The Forest Service sold the logs to RY Lumber for $840,000. The court sided with the Forest Service on all counts....
How to un-cut a tree Yes, the Forest Service will talk openly about the mistake it made this summer fighting the Cedar Fire on the Clearwater National Forest. No, it didn’t volunteer the information to the general public; and no, it evidently hasn’t been previously reported by Montana or Idaho media. In early August, lightning sparked a fire about a half-mile inside the wilderness boundary and a couple of miles from Elk Summit Road, which spurs off Idaho’s Highway 12 and climbs about 20 miles before ending at Hoodoo Lake. Wilderness fires are treated differently than most, due to the 1964 Wilderness Act, which declares that designated wilderness, unlike most of the planet, “is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Practically speaking, this means federal agencies need approval for each and every incursion, from deciding whether to suppress a fire to determining which tools can be used to get the job done, says Chris Ryan, who’s charged with overseeing wilderness management in the Northern Region....
Is “wild” too mild? What’s in a name? It’s a tough question if you’re asking anyone familiar with the Kootenai National Forest’s new draft management plan. Bob Castaneda, supervisor of the Kootenai National Forest, decided Oct. 17 to change all Kootenai lands formerly designated as “recommended wilderness” to “wild lands.” The change affects 124,000 acres. According to Castaneda, there is no difference between “recommended wilderness” and “wild lands.” He says recommended wilderness, wild lands and federally recognized wilderness all prohibit use of motorized vehicles, logging, most chainsaw use and other high-impact activities. He says he changed the name to alleviate tension between environmental and multiple-use groups over the phrase “recommended wilderness.” “It’s still a gain for wilderness values,” Castaneda says, noting that the new management plan protects an additional 50,000 acres in the same manner as recommended wilderness. But not everyone thinks the name change is so benign, and the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) is calling it a sham....
Feds to announce proposal to remove grizzly bears from endangered list Grizzly bears in areas surrounding Yellowstone National Park would be removed from the endangered species list under a proposal to be announced next week, officials said Thursday. The Interior Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on the proposal, but a congressional official and a state government official who were each informed of the announcement confirmed the government's plan. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been made public. Mike Volesky, a policy adviser to Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, said an announcement on grizzly bears was planned, but he did not have details. Federal wildlife officials estimate that more than 600 grizzly bears live in the region surrounding Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Those numbers represent a significant recovery. Only 200 or 250 grizzlies were in that region in 1975, when grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were listed under the Endangered Species Act....
Pitching Legend Hits Home Run on the Grill; Nolan Ryan Offers Line of Signature Steaks With higher prices at the gas pump and in stores, the National Retail Federation is predicting more and more consumers will by-pass the hassle and go online for a chunk of their holiday shopping. "While I don't know much about online shopping I do know a lot about baseball, ranching and great steaks," says baseball legend Nolan Ryan, who not only puts his name on a line of gourmet beef products, but also oversees their production. Beefmaster Cattlemen and the Nolan Ryan's Tender Aged Beef brand are owned by Nolan Ryan and other participating ranchers. Ryan decided the only way he could guarantee beef that was tender and good every time was to start his own brand. "Cattle in the program only come from licensed facilities and adhere to strict production standards," says Ryan. "Our products are minimally processed with no artificial ingredients to ensure a great-tasting and tender steak. Every bite. Every time."....
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Thursday, November 10, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
At 97, still master of the hunt In the home of Clyde Johns, there are two elk mounted on the wall behind his favorite chair. On the left is one he bagged in 1933, when the season opened for the first time in Grant County. The one on the right he shot 70 years later, in the same area, in 2003. And again this year, for the 89th year he’s been hunting, Johns, 97, has bagged another elk, a 6x6 among the bigger of the animals he has shot in his lifetime. Johns has lived in the area for almost all of his life. His family moved to Grant County and started a homestead when he was three years old, and since he was a child he has been involved with the outdoors in many ways. “When you’ve got a big ranch, you’ve done everything,” Johns said. “And I’ve hunted my whole life. I got my first buck at eight. I also fished off my horse down Fox Creek when I was a kid. I never had to get off the horse the whole six miles down the stream.”....
Still not sorry, mink activist gets 2 years An animal rights activist who remained unrepentant about releasing an estimated 8,000 mink from Midwestern farms in 1997 was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years in prison and ordered to complete 360 hours of community service and repay $254,840 to his victims. Peter Young, 27, of Mercer Island, Wash., told Federal Magistrate Stephen Crocker that his biggest regret was, "I wish I could do more." "It was an act of conscience not directly against the farmers but in behalf of the animals," Young said. But to the mink farmers present, Young said, "It was absolute pleasure to have visited your farms ... and I wish I could have put more of you in bankruptcy."....
Judge orders family off Forest Service land A federal judge has issued a preliminary order that a family must vacate U.S. Forest Service land it has occupied since at least 1939. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon ruled on Oct. 28 that Dave Stratton and his 80-year-old mother, Vady Stratton, must leave the property in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. "Our family is devastated. We are very distraught," Dave Stratton told The Montana Standard in Wednesday's edition. "We will comply with the judge's orders, and we are developing a plan for dismantling the historic structures." Forest Service officials are pleased with the ruling, which concludes a dispute that stretches back to the 1990s. The government filed a lawsuit in 2003 to evict the Strattons after they rejected a land swap in which they would purchase another parcel of land for the Forest Service and keep the land they occupied. A member of the Stratton family applied for homestead rights in 1912 or 1913, but the application was denied because the area had been declared U.S. Forest land in 1906, court records show....
Lawsuit seeks to block plans to spray herbicides near Yosemite A coalition of environmental groups has sued the U.S. Forest Service over its plans to spray herbicide by helicopter near Yosemite National Park. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Fresno, seeks to block the Forest Service's plans to burn and spray about 4,300 acres in Stanislaus National Forest over ten years. The lawsuit says the agency's reforestation project would destroy important wildlife habitat. The Larson Project aims to plant conifers on national forest land that was damaged in a 1987 fire. But environmentalists say the area has already developed a rich black oak forest with dependent wildlife. "These oak lands are critical if we're going to have this wildlife," said Janet Cobb, president of the California Oak Foundation. "There are more than 300 species of animals and plants that depend on the black oaks there."....
Federal agency defines critical habitat for Canada lynx Habitat critical to the future of the Canada lynx belongs in a category that in some cases could restrict logging or other activities on those lands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. The agency proposed a critical-habitat designation for parts of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota and Maine, but did so tepidly. Lori Nordstrom, a Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist in Helena, said the agency doubts the effectiveness of the designation, but seeks to implement it to satisfy legal requirements. "That's pretty much been their policy for some time and they include boilerplate language to that effect in virtually every designation," said Michael Senatore of Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. "We don't agree with it."....
Forest Service Officials: Should wildfires be allowed to burn? Should the U.S. Forest Service be allowed to let certain fires on national forest lands burn without hindrance? That is the question attendees at the recent public meeting here hosted by U.S. Forest Service officials were asked to consider. Forest service officials are proposing the use of a fire tool called Wildland Fire Use as a way to manage naturally occurring fires in public wild lands. During the meeting, officials noted that most fires occurring in wild land environments are started by natural causes such as lightning. Many experts now concur that naturally occurring fires are important for the health of the forest, with a number of species of animals and plants depending on fire for survival. Also noted was that when fires are suppressed, trees, grasses, needles, leaves, brush and other natural fuels often build up. Those fuels do not just disappear, officials said, and eventually a fire erupts. Those fires are often catastrophic because there is so much vegetation burning. Such catastrophic fires can devastate large portions of the land, burning everything from the roots to the tree tops....
11 WESTERN STATES ON TAP FOR ENERGY CORRIDORS Residents in 11 western states will soon know if they'll be coping with more major utility corridors crisscrossing the land. As mandated by the recently-passed Energy Bill, five federal agencies have begun planning energy transmission corridors throughout the West (AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY). The goal of the "West-wide Energy Corridor" project is to accommodate growth, improve reliability, relieve congestion, and otherwise enhance grids for oil, gas, and electricity transmission and distribution, and to accommodate a potential new source, hydrogen (Sept. 28, 2005, Federal Register notice). The two primary federal departments charged with developing corridor plans are Energy and Interior (BLM). Other frontline agencies include Agriculture (Forest Service), Commerce, and Defense. They plan to announce proposed corridor alignments by early spring 2006. A final environmental impact statement is tentatively scheduled for August 2007. The corridor alignments technically affect just federal lands, but also will influence alignments on private lands....
Forest service seeks comment on huckleberry preservation The U.S. Forest Service seeks public comment for its amendment plans for the Huckleberry Patch, a 9,500-acre area it aims to designate a "special interest area." The Huckleberry Patch is a swath of land that straddles the Tiller Ranger District and Prospect Ranger District in Douglas and Jackson counties, part of the Rogue River National Forest. It is an area where American Indians once spent late summer and fall gathering huckleberries for food. Fire repression over the years has allowed conifers to encroach upon the perimeter of meadows where the berries thrive. Land managers want to conduct projects that benefit the huckleberries, such as prescribed burning or thinning near the meadows. The projects would also benefit wildlife such as bear, deer, elk and songbirds that need open areas to thrive....
Some say language hides park entrance fees Some hikers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts say the federal government is improperly charging fees for access to thousands of acres of federal forests and public lands across the country. At issue is a law passed late last year that specifically forbids charging entrance fees for the more than 450 million acres managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and the Interior Department's land management and reclamation bureaus. Other fees, called "standard amenity recreation fees," can be charged but only when certain services are present, such as parking, toilets and picnic tables. Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the Colorado-based Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, said federal officials have skirted the intent of the law by avoiding the term "entrance" when charging fees at entrance points to federal land. For example, at the Arapaho National Recreation Area in north-central Colorado, tape on a sign covered the words that said the fee was for "entry to" the area, she said. Substituted were the words "use of."....
Editorial: Ruling vindicates Forest Service For years, environmentalists have been using the courts to challenge federal forest projects, and for years it’s been working like a charm. The reason is simple. When environmentalists accused the Forest Service and other agencies of failing to properly follow complicated laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, they usually were right. The court had no choice but to agree with them. But that’s changing, and this week’s ruling by a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a forest-thinning project on the Helena National Forest is a case in point. The Forest Service was vindicated, and it was the plaintiffs in the case who were shown to be way out on a shaky legal limb. The case involved the Jimtown Project, designed to prevent high-intensity wildfires in a region north of Canyon Ferry Lake. The Helena Forest published an environmental assessment of the plan in December, 2000. The Native Ecosystem Council filed suit, making a number of legal arguments, most of which centered around the goshawk, a raptor considered a “sensitive” species in the area....
Executives try to strengthen proposed mine's image Executives for a company planning to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness are on a Montana road trip, trying to spread a message of environmental responsibility and economic development. Revett Minerals chief executive William Orchow called the trip an "educational tour" saying Wednesday that he found much of the reporting about the proposed Rock Creek mine reflected "the point of view of our opposition." Revett wants to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwestern Montana, a project that jeweler Tiffany & Co. criticized in a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post last year. Although mining would be beneath the wilderness, disturbance of the land's surface would be outside wilderness boundaries. Environmental groups' lawsuits, one the subject of a hearing last week in Helena, have sought to block the project....
Freudenthal: Don't toss winter-drilling rules Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal took his opposition to removing restrictions on winter drilling on federal lands to the U.S. Senate. Following his letter last month to Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, on the issue, Freudenthal this week wrote to the senior members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee urging them to keep seasonal wildlife stipulations in place in order to protect the state's wildlife. "Our present approach of imposing winter stipulations and having industry request a variance from these stipulations has protected both game and non-game species while still allowing industry to conduct necessary operations when appropriate and carefully crafted," Freudenthal stated....
Utah Asks Federal Appeals Court to Reject Skull Valley Nuclear Dump Utah asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to overturn a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision approving a nuclear waste storage site in the state's western desert. The six-page petition, filed by lawyers in Washington, D.C., challenges a license authorized but not yet issued by the commission to let a group of nuclear-power utilities stockpile 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Gov. Jon Huntsman directed lawyers to file the petition as part of an effort to block the dump in the courts, in Congress with a plan to designate a Skull Valley wilderness area and with the help of other federal agencies. The papers were filed at the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We're just going to keep fighting as hard as we can until it's dead," Huntsman's general counsel, Mike Lee, said Wednesday....
Agencies propose big land swap The State Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management are proposing what could be the largest, most comprehensive land swap the two agencies have undertaken to consolidate ownership and ease land-use conflicts in the state. About 200,000 acres across the state are involved, affecting livestock-grazing leases, mineral ownership and public access, according to officials. “We are in the beginning stages of looking at a land exchange,” state BLM Director Linda Rundell said in a news release. “We foresee a tremendous cost and workload savings that will make both agencies more efficient in their land-management capabilities and give the public better access to their public lands.” New Mexico’s lands were carved up in the early 1900s, creating a checkerboard of parcels owned by state, federal, tribal and private entities. Both agencies hope to merge parcels so each can manage whole geographic areas instead of small pieces....
House Shelves Alaska Drilling in Budget Fight House Republican leaders were forced to jettison a plan for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Wednesday night to save a sweeping spending bill, a concession that came one day after the party suffered significant election loses. In dropping the drilling plan and a second provision, on coastal exploration, the leadership was trying to win over moderates in the party to enhance the chances of winning initial approval on Thursday of more than $50 billion in spending cuts demanded by House conservatives. But the decision is likely to meet objections from the Senate, where senior lawmakers are insisting on the drilling plan, a priority for President Bush. The last-ditch effort by the leadership to avoid an embarrassing legislative defeat was the latest symptom of party unrest arising from instability in the leadership and anxiety about the 2006 elections....
Susie's Letter to Mexico "Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to go to Safeway and push my cart down the aisle without thinking about what's happening at my house at that moment," she says. "Or what I'll find there when I get home. Or who I'll find there." She knows that's hard to grasp. She shrugs at how funny it must sound. But when you realize that cross-border thieves have broken into her home six times in five years--an average of once every 10 months--you begin to understand. This is what the invasion across our border does. It turns ordinary moms into rocking-chair sentries, prepared to do whatever is necessary. Sonny has had to change the way he cowboys, too. When he approaches a pasture, he checks it with binoculars, then scouts the perimeter for signs of danger. He never rides into these mountains on a horse raised on the flats. He wants one that can handle the rocky hills. He tries to save his horse, too, in case he has to make a run for it. He does everything he can to avoid the illegals and their gangster partners. But sometimes, he can't. Sometimes he turns a corner, and there they are. Sonny has a strategy for that....
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At 97, still master of the hunt In the home of Clyde Johns, there are two elk mounted on the wall behind his favorite chair. On the left is one he bagged in 1933, when the season opened for the first time in Grant County. The one on the right he shot 70 years later, in the same area, in 2003. And again this year, for the 89th year he’s been hunting, Johns, 97, has bagged another elk, a 6x6 among the bigger of the animals he has shot in his lifetime. Johns has lived in the area for almost all of his life. His family moved to Grant County and started a homestead when he was three years old, and since he was a child he has been involved with the outdoors in many ways. “When you’ve got a big ranch, you’ve done everything,” Johns said. “And I’ve hunted my whole life. I got my first buck at eight. I also fished off my horse down Fox Creek when I was a kid. I never had to get off the horse the whole six miles down the stream.”....
Still not sorry, mink activist gets 2 years An animal rights activist who remained unrepentant about releasing an estimated 8,000 mink from Midwestern farms in 1997 was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to two years in prison and ordered to complete 360 hours of community service and repay $254,840 to his victims. Peter Young, 27, of Mercer Island, Wash., told Federal Magistrate Stephen Crocker that his biggest regret was, "I wish I could do more." "It was an act of conscience not directly against the farmers but in behalf of the animals," Young said. But to the mink farmers present, Young said, "It was absolute pleasure to have visited your farms ... and I wish I could have put more of you in bankruptcy."....
Judge orders family off Forest Service land A federal judge has issued a preliminary order that a family must vacate U.S. Forest Service land it has occupied since at least 1939. U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon ruled on Oct. 28 that Dave Stratton and his 80-year-old mother, Vady Stratton, must leave the property in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. "Our family is devastated. We are very distraught," Dave Stratton told The Montana Standard in Wednesday's edition. "We will comply with the judge's orders, and we are developing a plan for dismantling the historic structures." Forest Service officials are pleased with the ruling, which concludes a dispute that stretches back to the 1990s. The government filed a lawsuit in 2003 to evict the Strattons after they rejected a land swap in which they would purchase another parcel of land for the Forest Service and keep the land they occupied. A member of the Stratton family applied for homestead rights in 1912 or 1913, but the application was denied because the area had been declared U.S. Forest land in 1906, court records show....
Lawsuit seeks to block plans to spray herbicides near Yosemite A coalition of environmental groups has sued the U.S. Forest Service over its plans to spray herbicide by helicopter near Yosemite National Park. The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Fresno, seeks to block the Forest Service's plans to burn and spray about 4,300 acres in Stanislaus National Forest over ten years. The lawsuit says the agency's reforestation project would destroy important wildlife habitat. The Larson Project aims to plant conifers on national forest land that was damaged in a 1987 fire. But environmentalists say the area has already developed a rich black oak forest with dependent wildlife. "These oak lands are critical if we're going to have this wildlife," said Janet Cobb, president of the California Oak Foundation. "There are more than 300 species of animals and plants that depend on the black oaks there."....
Federal agency defines critical habitat for Canada lynx Habitat critical to the future of the Canada lynx belongs in a category that in some cases could restrict logging or other activities on those lands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. The agency proposed a critical-habitat designation for parts of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota and Maine, but did so tepidly. Lori Nordstrom, a Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist in Helena, said the agency doubts the effectiveness of the designation, but seeks to implement it to satisfy legal requirements. "That's pretty much been their policy for some time and they include boilerplate language to that effect in virtually every designation," said Michael Senatore of Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. "We don't agree with it."....
Forest Service Officials: Should wildfires be allowed to burn? Should the U.S. Forest Service be allowed to let certain fires on national forest lands burn without hindrance? That is the question attendees at the recent public meeting here hosted by U.S. Forest Service officials were asked to consider. Forest service officials are proposing the use of a fire tool called Wildland Fire Use as a way to manage naturally occurring fires in public wild lands. During the meeting, officials noted that most fires occurring in wild land environments are started by natural causes such as lightning. Many experts now concur that naturally occurring fires are important for the health of the forest, with a number of species of animals and plants depending on fire for survival. Also noted was that when fires are suppressed, trees, grasses, needles, leaves, brush and other natural fuels often build up. Those fuels do not just disappear, officials said, and eventually a fire erupts. Those fires are often catastrophic because there is so much vegetation burning. Such catastrophic fires can devastate large portions of the land, burning everything from the roots to the tree tops....
11 WESTERN STATES ON TAP FOR ENERGY CORRIDORS Residents in 11 western states will soon know if they'll be coping with more major utility corridors crisscrossing the land. As mandated by the recently-passed Energy Bill, five federal agencies have begun planning energy transmission corridors throughout the West (AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, OR, UT, WA, and WY). The goal of the "West-wide Energy Corridor" project is to accommodate growth, improve reliability, relieve congestion, and otherwise enhance grids for oil, gas, and electricity transmission and distribution, and to accommodate a potential new source, hydrogen (Sept. 28, 2005, Federal Register notice). The two primary federal departments charged with developing corridor plans are Energy and Interior (BLM). Other frontline agencies include Agriculture (Forest Service), Commerce, and Defense. They plan to announce proposed corridor alignments by early spring 2006. A final environmental impact statement is tentatively scheduled for August 2007. The corridor alignments technically affect just federal lands, but also will influence alignments on private lands....
Forest service seeks comment on huckleberry preservation The U.S. Forest Service seeks public comment for its amendment plans for the Huckleberry Patch, a 9,500-acre area it aims to designate a "special interest area." The Huckleberry Patch is a swath of land that straddles the Tiller Ranger District and Prospect Ranger District in Douglas and Jackson counties, part of the Rogue River National Forest. It is an area where American Indians once spent late summer and fall gathering huckleberries for food. Fire repression over the years has allowed conifers to encroach upon the perimeter of meadows where the berries thrive. Land managers want to conduct projects that benefit the huckleberries, such as prescribed burning or thinning near the meadows. The projects would also benefit wildlife such as bear, deer, elk and songbirds that need open areas to thrive....
Some say language hides park entrance fees Some hikers, mountain bikers and other outdoor enthusiasts say the federal government is improperly charging fees for access to thousands of acres of federal forests and public lands across the country. At issue is a law passed late last year that specifically forbids charging entrance fees for the more than 450 million acres managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and the Interior Department's land management and reclamation bureaus. Other fees, called "standard amenity recreation fees," can be charged but only when certain services are present, such as parking, toilets and picnic tables. Kitty Benzar, co-founder of the Colorado-based Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, said federal officials have skirted the intent of the law by avoiding the term "entrance" when charging fees at entrance points to federal land. For example, at the Arapaho National Recreation Area in north-central Colorado, tape on a sign covered the words that said the fee was for "entry to" the area, she said. Substituted were the words "use of."....
Editorial: Ruling vindicates Forest Service For years, environmentalists have been using the courts to challenge federal forest projects, and for years it’s been working like a charm. The reason is simple. When environmentalists accused the Forest Service and other agencies of failing to properly follow complicated laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, they usually were right. The court had no choice but to agree with them. But that’s changing, and this week’s ruling by a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals regarding a forest-thinning project on the Helena National Forest is a case in point. The Forest Service was vindicated, and it was the plaintiffs in the case who were shown to be way out on a shaky legal limb. The case involved the Jimtown Project, designed to prevent high-intensity wildfires in a region north of Canyon Ferry Lake. The Helena Forest published an environmental assessment of the plan in December, 2000. The Native Ecosystem Council filed suit, making a number of legal arguments, most of which centered around the goshawk, a raptor considered a “sensitive” species in the area....
Executives try to strengthen proposed mine's image Executives for a company planning to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness are on a Montana road trip, trying to spread a message of environmental responsibility and economic development. Revett Minerals chief executive William Orchow called the trip an "educational tour" saying Wednesday that he found much of the reporting about the proposed Rock Creek mine reflected "the point of view of our opposition." Revett wants to mine copper and silver beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwestern Montana, a project that jeweler Tiffany & Co. criticized in a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post last year. Although mining would be beneath the wilderness, disturbance of the land's surface would be outside wilderness boundaries. Environmental groups' lawsuits, one the subject of a hearing last week in Helena, have sought to block the project....
Freudenthal: Don't toss winter-drilling rules Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal took his opposition to removing restrictions on winter drilling on federal lands to the U.S. Senate. Following his letter last month to Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyoming, on the issue, Freudenthal this week wrote to the senior members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee urging them to keep seasonal wildlife stipulations in place in order to protect the state's wildlife. "Our present approach of imposing winter stipulations and having industry request a variance from these stipulations has protected both game and non-game species while still allowing industry to conduct necessary operations when appropriate and carefully crafted," Freudenthal stated....
Utah Asks Federal Appeals Court to Reject Skull Valley Nuclear Dump Utah asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to overturn a Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision approving a nuclear waste storage site in the state's western desert. The six-page petition, filed by lawyers in Washington, D.C., challenges a license authorized but not yet issued by the commission to let a group of nuclear-power utilities stockpile 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Gov. Jon Huntsman directed lawyers to file the petition as part of an effort to block the dump in the courts, in Congress with a plan to designate a Skull Valley wilderness area and with the help of other federal agencies. The papers were filed at the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We're just going to keep fighting as hard as we can until it's dead," Huntsman's general counsel, Mike Lee, said Wednesday....
Agencies propose big land swap The State Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management are proposing what could be the largest, most comprehensive land swap the two agencies have undertaken to consolidate ownership and ease land-use conflicts in the state. About 200,000 acres across the state are involved, affecting livestock-grazing leases, mineral ownership and public access, according to officials. “We are in the beginning stages of looking at a land exchange,” state BLM Director Linda Rundell said in a news release. “We foresee a tremendous cost and workload savings that will make both agencies more efficient in their land-management capabilities and give the public better access to their public lands.” New Mexico’s lands were carved up in the early 1900s, creating a checkerboard of parcels owned by state, federal, tribal and private entities. Both agencies hope to merge parcels so each can manage whole geographic areas instead of small pieces....
House Shelves Alaska Drilling in Budget Fight House Republican leaders were forced to jettison a plan for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Wednesday night to save a sweeping spending bill, a concession that came one day after the party suffered significant election loses. In dropping the drilling plan and a second provision, on coastal exploration, the leadership was trying to win over moderates in the party to enhance the chances of winning initial approval on Thursday of more than $50 billion in spending cuts demanded by House conservatives. But the decision is likely to meet objections from the Senate, where senior lawmakers are insisting on the drilling plan, a priority for President Bush. The last-ditch effort by the leadership to avoid an embarrassing legislative defeat was the latest symptom of party unrest arising from instability in the leadership and anxiety about the 2006 elections....
Susie's Letter to Mexico "Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to go to Safeway and push my cart down the aisle without thinking about what's happening at my house at that moment," she says. "Or what I'll find there when I get home. Or who I'll find there." She knows that's hard to grasp. She shrugs at how funny it must sound. But when you realize that cross-border thieves have broken into her home six times in five years--an average of once every 10 months--you begin to understand. This is what the invasion across our border does. It turns ordinary moms into rocking-chair sentries, prepared to do whatever is necessary. Sonny has had to change the way he cowboys, too. When he approaches a pasture, he checks it with binoculars, then scouts the perimeter for signs of danger. He never rides into these mountains on a horse raised on the flats. He wants one that can handle the rocky hills. He tries to save his horse, too, in case he has to make a run for it. He does everything he can to avoid the illegals and their gangster partners. But sometimes, he can't. Sometimes he turns a corner, and there they are. Sonny has a strategy for that....
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005
GAO
CORRESPONDENCE
Mad Cow Disease: An Evaluation of a Small Feed Testing Program FDA Implemented in 2003 With Recommendations for Making the Program a Better Oversight Tool. GAO-06-157R, October 11.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-157R
TESTIMONIES
1. Army Corps of Engineers: History of the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, GAO-06-244T, November 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-244T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06244thigh.pdf
Permalink 0 comments
CORRESPONDENCE
Mad Cow Disease: An Evaluation of a Small Feed Testing Program FDA Implemented in 2003 With Recommendations for Making the Program a Better Oversight Tool. GAO-06-157R, October 11.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-157R
TESTIMONIES
1. Army Corps of Engineers: History of the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, GAO-06-244T, November 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-244T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06244thigh.pdf
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Mountain lion concerns grow One of the founders of Safari Club International has planted a disturbing thought in the minds of outdoor enthusiasts: Their activities could endanger their lives. "I think that, eventually, mountain lions could make lunch out of people," said Bill Sherman, one of the founders of the SCI and the current Los Angeles chapter president. "People call to say they are watching mountain lions watching kids go to school. The (mountain lions) are out of control." Sherman, a former Arcadia resident, said that with no natural predator left, mountain lions have become emboldened. He believes that as their population increases, they will attack more people. "Mountain lions have to go somewhere," he said. "I think we could have trouble." Sherman's solution? A limited mountain lion hunting season. But he has a big problem: A 30-year ban on hunting lions, created by a statewide initiative that can only be removed through another initiative....
Column: The perils of 'psychic environmentalism' Rep. Brian Baird has now come to understand the special power of environmentalists. No, the Washington state Democrat is not cowering before them. He remains committed to co-sponsoring the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act with Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. But Baird has come face to face with green power. Environmentalists who talked to him knew just what they didn't like about this bill. It waives environmental laws on the federal lands. It keeps the public out of the land-management decisions. It paves the way for roads in "roadless areas." It clears the way for massive clear-cuts and tree plantations on restored lands. There was one problem with the greenies' gripes. Walden and Baird hadn't introduced the bill yet. Make that two problems: The stuff they opposed was not in the unintroduced bill. Baird calls it "psychic environmentalism."....
Column: Endangering the Act For now, Pombo's bill is stalled in the Senate. But his isn't the only Republican challenge to Section 7. In June of 2003, long before the bill's drafting, the Bush administration's Interior Department had already issued new regulations under the ESA that allowed much the same thing. In certain cases, important species-protection decisions have been moved from the government's long-time conservation experts to the very agencies that the ESA was meant to regulate, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service. Pombo's bill, if passed into law, would legislatively enshrine the Interior Department's new rules. But if courts uphold those rules, now under legal challenge, the effect could essentially be the same. While environmental lawyer Eric Glitzenstein calls the new rules "the biggest regulatory change" to the ESA carried out under the Bush administration, he and other environmental advocates point to many other actions and appointments whose goal at heart, they say, is to gut the Act. According to Clark, under Bush the expert agencies have annually listed, on average, less than 10 new species as endangered or threatened; under Clinton the yearly average was 65, under the first President Bush it was 58....
Endangered Species Act in cross hairs Congress is taking steps to rewrite the Endangered Species Act for the first time in its 32-year history to make it more friendly to landowners and builders, a move decried by conservationists and welcomed by developers. Environmentalists view the act as a signature accomplishment that has been vital in protecting the nation's natural heritage, from bald eagles to whooping cranes. But critics of the 1973 legislation have long charged that it shows more concern for the northern spotted owl and snail darter than for workers and property owners. The House passed a bill to significantly rewrite the law in September, and the Senate is expected to adopt at least some of those changes. The House bill would require, for example, that the government pay developers if the act prevents them from building, and it would eliminate the government's ability to designate a creature's "critical habitat" where building is forbidden....
Mineral rights issue remains at Rocky Flats The $7 billion, 10-year closure of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant has been declared complete, but questions remain about private mineral rights that must be acquired so it can be turned into a national wildlife refuge. The U.S.
Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a defense authorization bill that includes $10 million to buy some of the mineral rights on the 6,240-acre site, where gravel mining has occurred on the edges for decades. Surrounding communities, however, have urged the federal government to buy all the mineral rights -- even those with a low potential of development. One of the mineral rights owners questioned whether $10 million will be enough to ensure that development doesn't hinder efforts to turn the grassy plains and rolling hills northwest of Denver into a wildlife haven....
The fleeting lives of pronghorns PARCHED GOLD HILLS roll out around the Carrizo Plain, encircling the valley like a giant bowl. From anywhere here, you can see just about anywhere else. This is California antelope country, and a century ago it might have teemed with pronghorns like an American Serengeti. The fastest land animal in North America, pronghorns can sprint over 50 miles per hour. During the Pleistocene, armed with vision comparable to eight-power binoculars, they outpaced some of the most monstrous carnivores the world had ever seen — hulking North American cheetahs, giant hyenas and saber-tooth cats. But though they eluded these prehistoric predators, they couldn't escape the 19th century threats of hunters' bullets and ranchers' barbed wire. But today, these magnificent creatures, these icons of the West that hide in the open, are disappearing from sight. Half a million pronghorns may have roamed California's plains and inland valleys at the time of Spanish conquest. Now there are fewer than 1% as many. About 4,400 remain in Modoc County, and a few hundred in Southern California, including 87 on the Carrizo Plain, just north of the Los Padres National Forest....
Republican wants to help poor gather firewood The Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee on Tuesday proposed waiving fees on collecting firewood in U.S. national forests as a way to help "families cope with the high costs of home heating" this winter. Natural gas household heating costs in the U.S. Midwest will soar by nearly 50 percent this winter while heating oil in the Northeast will rise by 25 percent, according to government estimates. "Rural American families who depend on firewood to heat their homes will be hit just as hard as those who use oil and natural gas," California Rep. Richard Pombo said in a press release. Pombo proposed legislation waiving fees for the U.S. Forest Service's Self Help Firewood Program, which he said charges consumers about $10 to $15 to gather a stack of wood 4 feet long, 4 feet wide and 8 feet high. The waiver would last one year, with a cap of $1,000....
Column: Marking the end of conservation? The American conservationist may be an endangered species, both in numbers and public influence. That's the bleak news suggested by some attendees at the National Conservation Learning Summit, held this weekend at the sprawling woodland campus of the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. Some estimates indicate that as many as 60 percent of the most senior federal employees are eligible to retire in 2007. Many of those are in conservation and natural resource fields. Over one-half of the senior executives at the Department of the Interior, USDA Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency will retire by 2007. Within that same period, the Department of Interior will lose 61 percent of its program managers, the Forest Service will lose 81 percent of its entomologists and 49 percent of its foresters, and the EPA will lose 45 percent of its toxicologists and around 30 percent of its environmental specialists....
Groups to file suit over decline of fish below Glen Canyon Dam A pair of environmental groups have filed notice that they intend to sue the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service over the decline and extinction of native fish species below Glen Canyon Dam in Grand Canyon National Park. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity and Moab-based Living Rivers notified the two federal agencies, and the Department of Interior, on Tuesday, citing what they call violations of the Endangered Species Act. The two groups are leaning heavily on a report released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey, which concluded that efforts since 1991 to restore the Colorado River below the dam to something resembling its original state "have not produced the hoped for restoration and maintenance" of endangered fish species, such as the federally protected humpback chub. In fact, the study says, three of the original eight native fish species - including the roundtail chub, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow - have been eliminated from the Colorado River in Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon, while the humpback chub population has declined between 30 percent and 60 percent....
Groups say U.S. lags in species protection The government has allowed 283 species identified as possibly facing extinction to languish without protection under the Endangered Species Act, a coalition of environmental groups contends in a lawsuit against the Interior Department. Some 24 candidate species have gone extinct waiting for protections in the past 32 years, the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, Forest Guardians in New Mexico and other advocacy groups allege in the suit filed late Monday in U.S. District Court here. Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Arizona-based group, said the Interior Department hasn't acted as quickly as the law requires in adding wildlife to its endangered species list. The species - ranging from the Dakota skipper butterfly in the northern Great Plains to the Oregon spotted frog - have waited an average of 17 years to be added to the list, the suit says....
Column: Claws and Effects Every damn kid in the U.S., son of cabbie or Catholic, knows and cares about dinosaurs. But few have heard of gomphotheres, which lived here much more recently. In the late summer, this North American elephant -- along with some of its contemporaries, like American camels, cheetahs, lions, and giant tortoises -- crept into the minds of many Americans, as the press reported on a proposal put forth by my colleagues and me to bring large animals back to North America. Our big idea brought an even bigger response from the press, public, and scientific community. It was a wild week of knee-jerking, gasps, and groans -- mixed with some joyful salutations and celebratory fists in the air. Much of the press got it wrong; a few got it so right. Many scientists fired off emails and rebuttals; fewer apparently actually sat down and carefully read the paper before firing....
McCloskey looks to challenge Pombo Former congressman Pete McCloskey is getting closer to taking on Rep. Richard Pombo. In what he called a “revolt of the elders,” the 78-year-old Republican said he would run in a June primary if he can’t find anyone else by the end of the year to take on Pombo, R-Tracy. “Every professional has told us that the only way to beat Pombo is in a primary,” McCloskey said Monday in a meeting with the Tracy Press editorial board. McCloskey, who represented the San Francisco peninsula from 1967 to 1983, said he hasn’t had much luck in months of searching for a young, vibrant Republican challenger for the 11th District’s seven-term incumbent. McCloskey was one of the authors of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and he is an outspoken opponent of Pombo’s attempts to overhaul the landmark environmental law....
Critics lambaste mining measure as land giveaway Critics including environmentalists and hunters are denouncing a mining proposal tucked in a massive budget bill as a push to sell tens of millions of acres of public land in the West to the highest bidder and gut environmental reviews of oil and gas drilling and other development. The provisions in the bill by the House Resources Committee are aimed at updating the 1872 mining law, long criticized for selling off federal lands in some of the country's most scenic areas for rock-bottom prices: $2.50 to $5 an acre. Opponents say the language of the bill is so loose that anybody with the money can stake a mining claim and buy the land without having to mine it. Representatives of the House Resources Committee and a trade group dismissed as "greatly exaggerated" claims that the measure would open more than 200 million acres of federal land to development. The bill would increase the price of mining lands to $1,000 an acre. Critics, though, contend it would also open much of the federal land in the West to development - such as building ski resorts and mountaintop trophy homes - under the guise of reforming a law dating to the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. Two committees have approved the bill, which could be considered by the full House as early as Thursday....
State and Federal Partnership forms to Restore Great Basin Rangelands The U.S. Geological Survey is among nine organizations that will share a $12.9 million award from the federal government´s Joint Fire Science Program for an interdisciplinary, 5-year research project that will explore ways to improve the health of sagebrush rangelands across the Great Basin in the western United States. The project, known as SageSTEP (Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project), is a collaboration among the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, University of Reno-Nevada, Brigham Young University, USDA Forest Service, USDA Agriculture Research Service, and Bureau of Land Management. "Healthy sagebrush rangelands in the Great Basin are rapidly diminishing," said Kate Kitchell, Deputy Director of the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. "This is due to invasion of cheatgrass (a highly flammable, non-native weed), severe wildfires, and expansion of pinyon and juniper woodlands." The sagebrush steppe, a type of land that features large, dry, open areas with few trees, is one of the most endangered in North America. Scientists say that as much as half of this land type already has been lost in the Great Basin, and the risk of wildfire continues to increase. In August 1999 alone, wildfires burned across approximately 1.7 million acres of the Great Basin, and the Bureau of Land Management estimates that cheatgrass spreads to an additional 4,000 acres each day....
Documentary Explores Environmental Threats to Native American Lands Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, which will screen at the Denver International Film Festival on November 15 and 16 and on Montana Public Television on November 8, offers a compelling, in-depth look at the environmental pressures that Native American reservations across the country are currently facing. In four segments filmed in Montana, Alaska, New Mexico, and Maine, director Roberta Grossman illustrates how Native Americans are fighting incursions on their land. The Bush administration’s policy of exploiting all possible sources of energy in the United States has pitted many tribes against the federal government and energy companies in the most intense legal battles they’ve faced since the last U.S. energy crisis of the 1970’s. Although each of the segments offers a David-versus-Goliath-like tale of an impoverished Indian reservation struggling against some of the wealthiest corporations in the country, Homeland is a hopeful film, in large part because of the charismatic, indefatigable tribal leaders who are heading up the fight....
Groups urge state protection for lynx Too many lynx are being killed by traps set for other animals, and the state should move to protect the rare forest cats, conservationists say. Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group, recently brought that concern to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Gene Merriam. The Defenders, along with the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, want the state to take immediate steps to prevent the accidental trapping. The groups aren't saying trappers are targeting lynx and they aren't seeking to ban all trapping of other animals. But they say traps set for other animals are taking lynx and threatening their comeback....
Idaho urging anglers to kill more trout to save kokanee salmon Newcomers are overtaking long-established residents, changing the very way of life at Lake Pend Oreille. No, this isn't a story about out-of-state investors and the real estate market. This is about crashing kokanee salmon populations and how the balance between fish species is being changed in a single human generation. To restore balance, Idaho Fish and Game Department officials say, quick action is needed. "The kokanee population is literally on the very brink of collapse," said Ned Horner, the department's manager of Panhandle fisheries. "We just can't keep going on like this."....
Wyoming aims to manage grizzlies Wyoming wildlife officials are moving forward with plans to take over management of the grizzly bears in the state from the federal government. Both state and federal officials say the grizzly bear population has reached the point that federal protections can be dropped and the state can take over management of bears outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is hearing Monday and today from wildlife managers on the issue of delisting the grizzly bear. The commission is meeting in Gillette. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are scheduled to address the commission on the status of delisting the grizzly bear. Federal rules require Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to have federally approved state management plans in place before they can submit a petition seeking to delist the grizzly bears....
Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium to make fervent calls for cleaner, greener energy policy. In a speech delivered two weeks ago to a group of investors gathered at the Cleantech Venture Forum in Washington, D.C., Clinton staked out her ground, outlining a plan "to get America on track for a smarter, more secure, and cleaner energy future." She argued that Katrina and Rita "have exposed the administration's policy for what it is -- using an umbrella to fend off a hurricane," and proposed that Big Oil, now raking in sky-high profits, pay fees that could add up to $20 billion annually for a "Strategic Energy Fund" that would defray soaring home-heating costs and bankroll alternative-energy development. She called for doubling current tax credits for the purchase of hybrids and clean-diesel vehicles, and proposed that the feds stop buying "old-fashioned" cars and trucks by 2010 and start replacing fleets with cleaner, more efficient models....
Arctic Oil Drilling Goes to House Vote For 25 years, environmentalists have staved off drilling in an oil-rich, 1.5-million-acre stretch of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a wilderness that shelters birthing caribou as well as musk oxen and millions of migratory birds. But record-high gasoline prices and last year's electoral gains by Republicans may have shifted the political dynamic, and Congress now stands on the verge of opening the region to energy development. On Thursday the Senate voted 51 to 48 to allow drilling in the refuge as part of a massive budget package; this week the House is expected to take up its version, probably with identical wording. The House vote remains too close to call, but proponents say they are within reach of victory....
Why environmentalists should embrace economics: Part two Does this mean private property rights solve everything? Of course not; however, the worst forms of environmental abuse generally occur in areas where property rights and markets are non-existent, or where the market is distorted by perverse subsidies that encourage over-exploitation. Even with enforceable property rights and a solid system of environmental accounting, markets are not perfect and are subject to unintended consequences. Global warming presents a particularly difficult challenge. The atmosphere is the world's preeminent open access resource, and exclusion is impossible. Some of the solutions currently being discussed for long-term climate management are enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions through a system of tradable atmospheric pollution permits. While some environmentalists oppose pollution permits on the grounds that they establish a "right to pollute," all industrial activities require some level of greenhouse-gas pollution and tradable permits may provide both the cheapest and most equitable way of achieving targeted reductions (big greenhouse polluters like the U.S. would likely end up buying credits from less-polluting nations)....
Yucca Nuclear Dump's Funding to Be Slashed Lawmakers agreed Monday to cut 2006 spending for Yucca Mountain well below past-year levels and President Bush's budget request, reflecting the faltering prospects for locating the nation's nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert. House and Senate negotiators also ditched a House plan to supplement Yucca Mountain with interim storage sites for nuclear waste, settling instead on spending $50 million to promote the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. In finishing work on a $30.5-billion bill to fund energy and water projects, lawmakers agreed to spend $450 million in 2006 on Yucca Mountain, the planned underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste. The project's budget was $577 million in each of the last two years, and Bush asked for $650 million for the dump in his 2006 budget request....
Voters reject Sonoma ban on genetically modified crops A proposed ban on planting or cultivating genetically altered crops was rejected by Sonoma County voters Tuesday night. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Measure M lost 56 to 44 percent in one of the county's most expensive ballot fights ever. Supporters and opponents of the proposed 10-year ban spent a combined $850,000. Only three counties in the nation - all in California - currently ban genetically altered crops. Sonoma County joined Humboldt, Butte and San Luis Obispo counties, which also voted down similar biotechnology bans in November 2004....
Rustlers Keeping Busy In Texas And Oklahoma A remnant of the old West remains alive and well - cattle rustling. Larry Gray with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association says rustling has doubled from last year to this year in Oklahoma and Texas. Gray says the association recovered about $4 million in stolen livestock and equipment in 2004 and is on pace to recover $9 million this year. Inspector Joe Rector says he's recovered about $1.2 million in cattle stolen from 15 counties in central Oklahoma this year. Gray says a weak economy has increased thefts and drug users have realized they can make a quick buck off high-priced livestock....
Bulldozers Demolish Gilley's Rodeo Arena Gilley's, the Pasadena landmark made famous by the 1980 movie "Urban Cowboy," was demolished Tuesday morning. Bulldozers made way for a new school at the site where Gilley's Rodeo Arena stood on Watters at Spencer Highway. The Pasadena Independent School District bought the property and plans to build a new middle school on the site. The arena was the last structure left from the old Gilley's nightclub. Most of the rest of the club was destroyed in a fire in 1990.
Mortensen still waiting for his hot streak Dan Mortensen is a lot of things. He's a seven-time world champion, one of the greatest saddle bronc riders of his generation, a good husband, son and brother, a loyal friend, a quality spokesperson for his sport and still approachable to fans. The list is a long one. But patient he is not. This has been a rodeo season of waiting for the Billings cowboy. He's waiting for his ankle to heal completely and is still waiting for that hot streak that every world-class cowboy catches during a year. "I never felt like I got in a groove,'' Mortensen described of his 2005. "I would ride well and think, 'This is it.' Then I'd go screw it up on the next one,'' he added with a laugh. Despite the uneven year, Mortensen still won saddle bronc titles at eight rodeos, including Rapid City, S.D., and Fort Collins, Colo., recently. He is seventh in the PRCA world standings with $92,933 won and has qualified for his 15th National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas....
Cowboy bucks ‘Champ’ lore It’s a photograph that has puzzled one South Dakota family and made another cowboy a legend. In his Rapid City apartment, Darrel Little has what he says is a photograph of his brother Don Little in an eight-second ride on the back of the famed Butler Brothers rodeo saddle bronc named Necktie. Darrel Little, 71, said the photo was taken at a Custer rodeo sometime in the early 1950s while his older brother still followed the rodeo circuit. During that time, as is the custom now, photographers took action shots of bronc riders on the bucking stock. In Little’s tinted black-and-white image, the photographer has captured the horse coming down on its front hooves, and the rider is leaning back with his arm extended away from his body. The rider’s chaps have whipped back from the force of the landing, but his head is still enough that the checkered pattern beneath the straw hat’s brim remains unblurred. “He was going pretty good then. He was in his prime,” Darrel said about his brother. But others contend that the photo is not of the former South Dakota rodeo rider but that of six-time world champion cowboy Casey Tibbs riding Necktie. Edd Hayes, a sculptor from Old Town Spring, Texas, used a photo supplied to him by Tibbs to create the bronze statue “The Champ.” The bronze stands today at the entrance of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo....
A Country Classic With Mass Appeal The COWBOY BOOT has high-stepped its way to the fashion forefront. And those getting corralled? They aren't all Toby Keith devotees. As industry watchers tell it, the allure of the cowboy boot has long transcended its Wild West heritage. “There's this romance behind it,'' says Fred King, of El Paso-based Lucchese Boot Co., which has manufactured the style since 1883. “It's a way for anyone to live that part of America that almost doesn't exist anymore.'' For some shoppers, the fact that celebrities have taken to the boots just adds another layer to the fantasy. Wherever Jessica Simpson and Sienna Miller tread, sartorially speaking, they are happy to follow. “The real cowboys who come in, they buy ropers,'' says Michael Corbett, of Boot Hill Western Store in Woodbridge, Va., referring to a simple work boot that's more functional than fashionable. “But these customers, they're buying these totally crazy fad boots, like really funky bright green with a lizard print.''....
Chuck wagon cook proudly leads cattle drive Tom Perini enjoys his spot on the chuck wagon, out in front of the cattle drive. That's where he'll be today when 100 longhorn steers ramble down Dallas' Main Street. And history says that's where he belongs – out front, not bringing up the rear as some TV Westerns might have you believe. "Back in the old days, the chuck wagon preceded the cattle on the cattle drive," said Mr. Perini, a cowboy cook from Buffalo Gap who has taken his chuck wagon cuisine all the way to the White House. "They'd get going early in the day, and the drovers would try to tell them where to go to find water and wood so they could set up and start their work." The cattle drive represents the traditional opening of Texas Stampede, three days of professional rodeo and concerts at American Airlines Center. The event runs Friday through Sunday....
Russell Auction to add a day More art available during big week in March he jurors selecting pieces for the 2006 C.M. Russell Auction March 16-19 had a little extra work to do on Monday. A new event on the Thursday night of the annual event will feature 75 works of art beyond the 300 or so up for sale in the traditional big nights on Friday and Saturday. Auction organizers Monday also revealed three Russell pieces that will be included. Two illustrated letters, "Hello Bob," from 1910 and "Friend Bob" from 1908 are part of the lineup. Two watercolors, including a small Indian portrait and "Judith Basin Cowboy," round out the Russell's. During the new Thursday night "fixed price" show, potential buyers will drop their names and an "intent to purchase" in a box next to each piece. Three names are drawn from each box, with the first person drawn having the opportunity to buy the lot or pass. Johna Wilcox, 2006 auction chairwoman, said the Thursday event is being added because an increasing number of artists are submitting their work for the show....
DNA Test Could Confirm Billy The Kid Claim Two southeastern New Mexico investigators have obtained DNA from a cowboy who claimed to be Billy the Kid. Before dying in the 1930s, John Miller told friends and a son that he was the legendary Western outlaw. Former Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan and Capitan Mayor Steve Sederwall obtained the DNA last May from Miller's remains, which are buried in Prescott, Ariz. They say they will compare it with blood traces taken from a 19th-century bench that is believed to be the one the Kid's body was placed on after he was shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881. The bench was discovered on a Fort Sumner ranch. Should the samples match, Sullivan and Sederwall say they could have a break that upends accepted historical accounts of the Kid's life and death. Over the last century, at least two men surfaced claiming to be Billy the Kid - Miller and Ollie P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts of Hico, Texas....
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Mountain lion concerns grow One of the founders of Safari Club International has planted a disturbing thought in the minds of outdoor enthusiasts: Their activities could endanger their lives. "I think that, eventually, mountain lions could make lunch out of people," said Bill Sherman, one of the founders of the SCI and the current Los Angeles chapter president. "People call to say they are watching mountain lions watching kids go to school. The (mountain lions) are out of control." Sherman, a former Arcadia resident, said that with no natural predator left, mountain lions have become emboldened. He believes that as their population increases, they will attack more people. "Mountain lions have to go somewhere," he said. "I think we could have trouble." Sherman's solution? A limited mountain lion hunting season. But he has a big problem: A 30-year ban on hunting lions, created by a statewide initiative that can only be removed through another initiative....
Column: The perils of 'psychic environmentalism' Rep. Brian Baird has now come to understand the special power of environmentalists. No, the Washington state Democrat is not cowering before them. He remains committed to co-sponsoring the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act with Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. But Baird has come face to face with green power. Environmentalists who talked to him knew just what they didn't like about this bill. It waives environmental laws on the federal lands. It keeps the public out of the land-management decisions. It paves the way for roads in "roadless areas." It clears the way for massive clear-cuts and tree plantations on restored lands. There was one problem with the greenies' gripes. Walden and Baird hadn't introduced the bill yet. Make that two problems: The stuff they opposed was not in the unintroduced bill. Baird calls it "psychic environmentalism."....
Column: Endangering the Act For now, Pombo's bill is stalled in the Senate. But his isn't the only Republican challenge to Section 7. In June of 2003, long before the bill's drafting, the Bush administration's Interior Department had already issued new regulations under the ESA that allowed much the same thing. In certain cases, important species-protection decisions have been moved from the government's long-time conservation experts to the very agencies that the ESA was meant to regulate, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service. Pombo's bill, if passed into law, would legislatively enshrine the Interior Department's new rules. But if courts uphold those rules, now under legal challenge, the effect could essentially be the same. While environmental lawyer Eric Glitzenstein calls the new rules "the biggest regulatory change" to the ESA carried out under the Bush administration, he and other environmental advocates point to many other actions and appointments whose goal at heart, they say, is to gut the Act. According to Clark, under Bush the expert agencies have annually listed, on average, less than 10 new species as endangered or threatened; under Clinton the yearly average was 65, under the first President Bush it was 58....
Endangered Species Act in cross hairs Congress is taking steps to rewrite the Endangered Species Act for the first time in its 32-year history to make it more friendly to landowners and builders, a move decried by conservationists and welcomed by developers. Environmentalists view the act as a signature accomplishment that has been vital in protecting the nation's natural heritage, from bald eagles to whooping cranes. But critics of the 1973 legislation have long charged that it shows more concern for the northern spotted owl and snail darter than for workers and property owners. The House passed a bill to significantly rewrite the law in September, and the Senate is expected to adopt at least some of those changes. The House bill would require, for example, that the government pay developers if the act prevents them from building, and it would eliminate the government's ability to designate a creature's "critical habitat" where building is forbidden....
Mineral rights issue remains at Rocky Flats The $7 billion, 10-year closure of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant has been declared complete, but questions remain about private mineral rights that must be acquired so it can be turned into a national wildlife refuge. The U.S.
Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a defense authorization bill that includes $10 million to buy some of the mineral rights on the 6,240-acre site, where gravel mining has occurred on the edges for decades. Surrounding communities, however, have urged the federal government to buy all the mineral rights -- even those with a low potential of development. One of the mineral rights owners questioned whether $10 million will be enough to ensure that development doesn't hinder efforts to turn the grassy plains and rolling hills northwest of Denver into a wildlife haven....
The fleeting lives of pronghorns PARCHED GOLD HILLS roll out around the Carrizo Plain, encircling the valley like a giant bowl. From anywhere here, you can see just about anywhere else. This is California antelope country, and a century ago it might have teemed with pronghorns like an American Serengeti. The fastest land animal in North America, pronghorns can sprint over 50 miles per hour. During the Pleistocene, armed with vision comparable to eight-power binoculars, they outpaced some of the most monstrous carnivores the world had ever seen — hulking North American cheetahs, giant hyenas and saber-tooth cats. But though they eluded these prehistoric predators, they couldn't escape the 19th century threats of hunters' bullets and ranchers' barbed wire. But today, these magnificent creatures, these icons of the West that hide in the open, are disappearing from sight. Half a million pronghorns may have roamed California's plains and inland valleys at the time of Spanish conquest. Now there are fewer than 1% as many. About 4,400 remain in Modoc County, and a few hundred in Southern California, including 87 on the Carrizo Plain, just north of the Los Padres National Forest....
Republican wants to help poor gather firewood The Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee on Tuesday proposed waiving fees on collecting firewood in U.S. national forests as a way to help "families cope with the high costs of home heating" this winter. Natural gas household heating costs in the U.S. Midwest will soar by nearly 50 percent this winter while heating oil in the Northeast will rise by 25 percent, according to government estimates. "Rural American families who depend on firewood to heat their homes will be hit just as hard as those who use oil and natural gas," California Rep. Richard Pombo said in a press release. Pombo proposed legislation waiving fees for the U.S. Forest Service's Self Help Firewood Program, which he said charges consumers about $10 to $15 to gather a stack of wood 4 feet long, 4 feet wide and 8 feet high. The waiver would last one year, with a cap of $1,000....
Column: Marking the end of conservation? The American conservationist may be an endangered species, both in numbers and public influence. That's the bleak news suggested by some attendees at the National Conservation Learning Summit, held this weekend at the sprawling woodland campus of the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. Some estimates indicate that as many as 60 percent of the most senior federal employees are eligible to retire in 2007. Many of those are in conservation and natural resource fields. Over one-half of the senior executives at the Department of the Interior, USDA Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency will retire by 2007. Within that same period, the Department of Interior will lose 61 percent of its program managers, the Forest Service will lose 81 percent of its entomologists and 49 percent of its foresters, and the EPA will lose 45 percent of its toxicologists and around 30 percent of its environmental specialists....
Groups to file suit over decline of fish below Glen Canyon Dam A pair of environmental groups have filed notice that they intend to sue the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service over the decline and extinction of native fish species below Glen Canyon Dam in Grand Canyon National Park. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity and Moab-based Living Rivers notified the two federal agencies, and the Department of Interior, on Tuesday, citing what they call violations of the Endangered Species Act. The two groups are leaning heavily on a report released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey, which concluded that efforts since 1991 to restore the Colorado River below the dam to something resembling its original state "have not produced the hoped for restoration and maintenance" of endangered fish species, such as the federally protected humpback chub. In fact, the study says, three of the original eight native fish species - including the roundtail chub, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow - have been eliminated from the Colorado River in Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon, while the humpback chub population has declined between 30 percent and 60 percent....
Groups say U.S. lags in species protection The government has allowed 283 species identified as possibly facing extinction to languish without protection under the Endangered Species Act, a coalition of environmental groups contends in a lawsuit against the Interior Department. Some 24 candidate species have gone extinct waiting for protections in the past 32 years, the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, Forest Guardians in New Mexico and other advocacy groups allege in the suit filed late Monday in U.S. District Court here. Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Arizona-based group, said the Interior Department hasn't acted as quickly as the law requires in adding wildlife to its endangered species list. The species - ranging from the Dakota skipper butterfly in the northern Great Plains to the Oregon spotted frog - have waited an average of 17 years to be added to the list, the suit says....
Column: Claws and Effects Every damn kid in the U.S., son of cabbie or Catholic, knows and cares about dinosaurs. But few have heard of gomphotheres, which lived here much more recently. In the late summer, this North American elephant -- along with some of its contemporaries, like American camels, cheetahs, lions, and giant tortoises -- crept into the minds of many Americans, as the press reported on a proposal put forth by my colleagues and me to bring large animals back to North America. Our big idea brought an even bigger response from the press, public, and scientific community. It was a wild week of knee-jerking, gasps, and groans -- mixed with some joyful salutations and celebratory fists in the air. Much of the press got it wrong; a few got it so right. Many scientists fired off emails and rebuttals; fewer apparently actually sat down and carefully read the paper before firing....
McCloskey looks to challenge Pombo Former congressman Pete McCloskey is getting closer to taking on Rep. Richard Pombo. In what he called a “revolt of the elders,” the 78-year-old Republican said he would run in a June primary if he can’t find anyone else by the end of the year to take on Pombo, R-Tracy. “Every professional has told us that the only way to beat Pombo is in a primary,” McCloskey said Monday in a meeting with the Tracy Press editorial board. McCloskey, who represented the San Francisco peninsula from 1967 to 1983, said he hasn’t had much luck in months of searching for a young, vibrant Republican challenger for the 11th District’s seven-term incumbent. McCloskey was one of the authors of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and he is an outspoken opponent of Pombo’s attempts to overhaul the landmark environmental law....
Critics lambaste mining measure as land giveaway Critics including environmentalists and hunters are denouncing a mining proposal tucked in a massive budget bill as a push to sell tens of millions of acres of public land in the West to the highest bidder and gut environmental reviews of oil and gas drilling and other development. The provisions in the bill by the House Resources Committee are aimed at updating the 1872 mining law, long criticized for selling off federal lands in some of the country's most scenic areas for rock-bottom prices: $2.50 to $5 an acre. Opponents say the language of the bill is so loose that anybody with the money can stake a mining claim and buy the land without having to mine it. Representatives of the House Resources Committee and a trade group dismissed as "greatly exaggerated" claims that the measure would open more than 200 million acres of federal land to development. The bill would increase the price of mining lands to $1,000 an acre. Critics, though, contend it would also open much of the federal land in the West to development - such as building ski resorts and mountaintop trophy homes - under the guise of reforming a law dating to the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. Two committees have approved the bill, which could be considered by the full House as early as Thursday....
State and Federal Partnership forms to Restore Great Basin Rangelands The U.S. Geological Survey is among nine organizations that will share a $12.9 million award from the federal government´s Joint Fire Science Program for an interdisciplinary, 5-year research project that will explore ways to improve the health of sagebrush rangelands across the Great Basin in the western United States. The project, known as SageSTEP (Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project), is a collaboration among the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, University of Reno-Nevada, Brigham Young University, USDA Forest Service, USDA Agriculture Research Service, and Bureau of Land Management. "Healthy sagebrush rangelands in the Great Basin are rapidly diminishing," said Kate Kitchell, Deputy Director of the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. "This is due to invasion of cheatgrass (a highly flammable, non-native weed), severe wildfires, and expansion of pinyon and juniper woodlands." The sagebrush steppe, a type of land that features large, dry, open areas with few trees, is one of the most endangered in North America. Scientists say that as much as half of this land type already has been lost in the Great Basin, and the risk of wildfire continues to increase. In August 1999 alone, wildfires burned across approximately 1.7 million acres of the Great Basin, and the Bureau of Land Management estimates that cheatgrass spreads to an additional 4,000 acres each day....
Documentary Explores Environmental Threats to Native American Lands Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, which will screen at the Denver International Film Festival on November 15 and 16 and on Montana Public Television on November 8, offers a compelling, in-depth look at the environmental pressures that Native American reservations across the country are currently facing. In four segments filmed in Montana, Alaska, New Mexico, and Maine, director Roberta Grossman illustrates how Native Americans are fighting incursions on their land. The Bush administration’s policy of exploiting all possible sources of energy in the United States has pitted many tribes against the federal government and energy companies in the most intense legal battles they’ve faced since the last U.S. energy crisis of the 1970’s. Although each of the segments offers a David-versus-Goliath-like tale of an impoverished Indian reservation struggling against some of the wealthiest corporations in the country, Homeland is a hopeful film, in large part because of the charismatic, indefatigable tribal leaders who are heading up the fight....
Groups urge state protection for lynx Too many lynx are being killed by traps set for other animals, and the state should move to protect the rare forest cats, conservationists say. Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group, recently brought that concern to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Gene Merriam. The Defenders, along with the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, want the state to take immediate steps to prevent the accidental trapping. The groups aren't saying trappers are targeting lynx and they aren't seeking to ban all trapping of other animals. But they say traps set for other animals are taking lynx and threatening their comeback....
Idaho urging anglers to kill more trout to save kokanee salmon Newcomers are overtaking long-established residents, changing the very way of life at Lake Pend Oreille. No, this isn't a story about out-of-state investors and the real estate market. This is about crashing kokanee salmon populations and how the balance between fish species is being changed in a single human generation. To restore balance, Idaho Fish and Game Department officials say, quick action is needed. "The kokanee population is literally on the very brink of collapse," said Ned Horner, the department's manager of Panhandle fisheries. "We just can't keep going on like this."....
Wyoming aims to manage grizzlies Wyoming wildlife officials are moving forward with plans to take over management of the grizzly bears in the state from the federal government. Both state and federal officials say the grizzly bear population has reached the point that federal protections can be dropped and the state can take over management of bears outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is hearing Monday and today from wildlife managers on the issue of delisting the grizzly bear. The commission is meeting in Gillette. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are scheduled to address the commission on the status of delisting the grizzly bear. Federal rules require Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to have federally approved state management plans in place before they can submit a petition seeking to delist the grizzly bears....
Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium to make fervent calls for cleaner, greener energy policy. In a speech delivered two weeks ago to a group of investors gathered at the Cleantech Venture Forum in Washington, D.C., Clinton staked out her ground, outlining a plan "to get America on track for a smarter, more secure, and cleaner energy future." She argued that Katrina and Rita "have exposed the administration's policy for what it is -- using an umbrella to fend off a hurricane," and proposed that Big Oil, now raking in sky-high profits, pay fees that could add up to $20 billion annually for a "Strategic Energy Fund" that would defray soaring home-heating costs and bankroll alternative-energy development. She called for doubling current tax credits for the purchase of hybrids and clean-diesel vehicles, and proposed that the feds stop buying "old-fashioned" cars and trucks by 2010 and start replacing fleets with cleaner, more efficient models....
Arctic Oil Drilling Goes to House Vote For 25 years, environmentalists have staved off drilling in an oil-rich, 1.5-million-acre stretch of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a wilderness that shelters birthing caribou as well as musk oxen and millions of migratory birds. But record-high gasoline prices and last year's electoral gains by Republicans may have shifted the political dynamic, and Congress now stands on the verge of opening the region to energy development. On Thursday the Senate voted 51 to 48 to allow drilling in the refuge as part of a massive budget package; this week the House is expected to take up its version, probably with identical wording. The House vote remains too close to call, but proponents say they are within reach of victory....
Why environmentalists should embrace economics: Part two Does this mean private property rights solve everything? Of course not; however, the worst forms of environmental abuse generally occur in areas where property rights and markets are non-existent, or where the market is distorted by perverse subsidies that encourage over-exploitation. Even with enforceable property rights and a solid system of environmental accounting, markets are not perfect and are subject to unintended consequences. Global warming presents a particularly difficult challenge. The atmosphere is the world's preeminent open access resource, and exclusion is impossible. Some of the solutions currently being discussed for long-term climate management are enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions through a system of tradable atmospheric pollution permits. While some environmentalists oppose pollution permits on the grounds that they establish a "right to pollute," all industrial activities require some level of greenhouse-gas pollution and tradable permits may provide both the cheapest and most equitable way of achieving targeted reductions (big greenhouse polluters like the U.S. would likely end up buying credits from less-polluting nations)....
Yucca Nuclear Dump's Funding to Be Slashed Lawmakers agreed Monday to cut 2006 spending for Yucca Mountain well below past-year levels and President Bush's budget request, reflecting the faltering prospects for locating the nation's nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert. House and Senate negotiators also ditched a House plan to supplement Yucca Mountain with interim storage sites for nuclear waste, settling instead on spending $50 million to promote the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. In finishing work on a $30.5-billion bill to fund energy and water projects, lawmakers agreed to spend $450 million in 2006 on Yucca Mountain, the planned underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste. The project's budget was $577 million in each of the last two years, and Bush asked for $650 million for the dump in his 2006 budget request....
Voters reject Sonoma ban on genetically modified crops A proposed ban on planting or cultivating genetically altered crops was rejected by Sonoma County voters Tuesday night. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Measure M lost 56 to 44 percent in one of the county's most expensive ballot fights ever. Supporters and opponents of the proposed 10-year ban spent a combined $850,000. Only three counties in the nation - all in California - currently ban genetically altered crops. Sonoma County joined Humboldt, Butte and San Luis Obispo counties, which also voted down similar biotechnology bans in November 2004....
Rustlers Keeping Busy In Texas And Oklahoma A remnant of the old West remains alive and well - cattle rustling. Larry Gray with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association says rustling has doubled from last year to this year in Oklahoma and Texas. Gray says the association recovered about $4 million in stolen livestock and equipment in 2004 and is on pace to recover $9 million this year. Inspector Joe Rector says he's recovered about $1.2 million in cattle stolen from 15 counties in central Oklahoma this year. Gray says a weak economy has increased thefts and drug users have realized they can make a quick buck off high-priced livestock....
Bulldozers Demolish Gilley's Rodeo Arena Gilley's, the Pasadena landmark made famous by the 1980 movie "Urban Cowboy," was demolished Tuesday morning. Bulldozers made way for a new school at the site where Gilley's Rodeo Arena stood on Watters at Spencer Highway. The Pasadena Independent School District bought the property and plans to build a new middle school on the site. The arena was the last structure left from the old Gilley's nightclub. Most of the rest of the club was destroyed in a fire in 1990.
Mortensen still waiting for his hot streak Dan Mortensen is a lot of things. He's a seven-time world champion, one of the greatest saddle bronc riders of his generation, a good husband, son and brother, a loyal friend, a quality spokesperson for his sport and still approachable to fans. The list is a long one. But patient he is not. This has been a rodeo season of waiting for the Billings cowboy. He's waiting for his ankle to heal completely and is still waiting for that hot streak that every world-class cowboy catches during a year. "I never felt like I got in a groove,'' Mortensen described of his 2005. "I would ride well and think, 'This is it.' Then I'd go screw it up on the next one,'' he added with a laugh. Despite the uneven year, Mortensen still won saddle bronc titles at eight rodeos, including Rapid City, S.D., and Fort Collins, Colo., recently. He is seventh in the PRCA world standings with $92,933 won and has qualified for his 15th National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas....
Cowboy bucks ‘Champ’ lore It’s a photograph that has puzzled one South Dakota family and made another cowboy a legend. In his Rapid City apartment, Darrel Little has what he says is a photograph of his brother Don Little in an eight-second ride on the back of the famed Butler Brothers rodeo saddle bronc named Necktie. Darrel Little, 71, said the photo was taken at a Custer rodeo sometime in the early 1950s while his older brother still followed the rodeo circuit. During that time, as is the custom now, photographers took action shots of bronc riders on the bucking stock. In Little’s tinted black-and-white image, the photographer has captured the horse coming down on its front hooves, and the rider is leaning back with his arm extended away from his body. The rider’s chaps have whipped back from the force of the landing, but his head is still enough that the checkered pattern beneath the straw hat’s brim remains unblurred. “He was going pretty good then. He was in his prime,” Darrel said about his brother. But others contend that the photo is not of the former South Dakota rodeo rider but that of six-time world champion cowboy Casey Tibbs riding Necktie. Edd Hayes, a sculptor from Old Town Spring, Texas, used a photo supplied to him by Tibbs to create the bronze statue “The Champ.” The bronze stands today at the entrance of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo....
A Country Classic With Mass Appeal The COWBOY BOOT has high-stepped its way to the fashion forefront. And those getting corralled? They aren't all Toby Keith devotees. As industry watchers tell it, the allure of the cowboy boot has long transcended its Wild West heritage. “There's this romance behind it,'' says Fred King, of El Paso-based Lucchese Boot Co., which has manufactured the style since 1883. “It's a way for anyone to live that part of America that almost doesn't exist anymore.'' For some shoppers, the fact that celebrities have taken to the boots just adds another layer to the fantasy. Wherever Jessica Simpson and Sienna Miller tread, sartorially speaking, they are happy to follow. “The real cowboys who come in, they buy ropers,'' says Michael Corbett, of Boot Hill Western Store in Woodbridge, Va., referring to a simple work boot that's more functional than fashionable. “But these customers, they're buying these totally crazy fad boots, like really funky bright green with a lizard print.''....
Chuck wagon cook proudly leads cattle drive Tom Perini enjoys his spot on the chuck wagon, out in front of the cattle drive. That's where he'll be today when 100 longhorn steers ramble down Dallas' Main Street. And history says that's where he belongs – out front, not bringing up the rear as some TV Westerns might have you believe. "Back in the old days, the chuck wagon preceded the cattle on the cattle drive," said Mr. Perini, a cowboy cook from Buffalo Gap who has taken his chuck wagon cuisine all the way to the White House. "They'd get going early in the day, and the drovers would try to tell them where to go to find water and wood so they could set up and start their work." The cattle drive represents the traditional opening of Texas Stampede, three days of professional rodeo and concerts at American Airlines Center. The event runs Friday through Sunday....
Russell Auction to add a day More art available during big week in March he jurors selecting pieces for the 2006 C.M. Russell Auction March 16-19 had a little extra work to do on Monday. A new event on the Thursday night of the annual event will feature 75 works of art beyond the 300 or so up for sale in the traditional big nights on Friday and Saturday. Auction organizers Monday also revealed three Russell pieces that will be included. Two illustrated letters, "Hello Bob," from 1910 and "Friend Bob" from 1908 are part of the lineup. Two watercolors, including a small Indian portrait and "Judith Basin Cowboy," round out the Russell's. During the new Thursday night "fixed price" show, potential buyers will drop their names and an "intent to purchase" in a box next to each piece. Three names are drawn from each box, with the first person drawn having the opportunity to buy the lot or pass. Johna Wilcox, 2006 auction chairwoman, said the Thursday event is being added because an increasing number of artists are submitting their work for the show....
DNA Test Could Confirm Billy The Kid Claim Two southeastern New Mexico investigators have obtained DNA from a cowboy who claimed to be Billy the Kid. Before dying in the 1930s, John Miller told friends and a son that he was the legendary Western outlaw. Former Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan and Capitan Mayor Steve Sederwall obtained the DNA last May from Miller's remains, which are buried in Prescott, Ariz. They say they will compare it with blood traces taken from a 19th-century bench that is believed to be the one the Kid's body was placed on after he was shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881. The bench was discovered on a Fort Sumner ranch. Should the samples match, Sullivan and Sederwall say they could have a break that upends accepted historical accounts of the Kid's life and death. Over the last century, at least two men surfaced claiming to be Billy the Kid - Miller and Ollie P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts of Hico, Texas....
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
HOLLYWOOD ROCKED: 'GAY COWBOY' MOVIE BECOMES AN OSCAR FRONTRUNNER Arriving with nudity and explicit gay sex scenes between two cowboys, UNIVERSAL/FOCUS FILMS's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has quietly become an award season frontrunner, interviews with Academy members reveal. "It could very well be the last film standing at this year's Oscars," a top Hollywood producer not associated with the film explained from Hollywood. "There was not a dry eye in the house at the screening at Telluride [Film Festival in Colorado]," says the producer, who asked not to be named out of respect for the cast and crew of the producer's own Oscar contender. "Watch it come out of the gate at the Golden Globes with super controversy." NEW YORK DAILY NEWS critic Jack Mathews predicts the gay cowboy movie, which takes place in Wyoming, may be "too much for red-state audiences, but it gives the liberal-leaning Academy a great chance to stick its thumb in conservatives' eyes." Director Ang Lee's movie staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this fall....a special post for Bob Jones....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Class prepares hunters for bison season The five men said little as the slides, narrated by state wildlife officials, clicked along - revealing the dos and don'ts of hunting bison that leave Yellowstone National Park. Do bring a handful of friends to help tend to the carcass. Don't bring any hotheads who might escalate tensions with potential protesters. “We don't know what's gonna happen here; we just want to be prepared,” Harold Guse, a warden captain at the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, told the men during a recent hunter training class here. Hunting restrictions, the proper way to shoot bison and tips for dealing with or avoiding news reporters were also covered during the nearly one-hour class, which wildlife officials say all 50 hunters must attend before participating in the state's first bison hunt in 15 years. The three-month season opens Nov. 15....
Editorial: Ranchers as environmentalists Usually environmentalists and ranchers get along as well as the Hatfields and McCoys. But in southern Utah, they are forming an alliance to beat back growth. Near Zion National Park, the Utah Nature Conservancy signed an agreement with four ranchers to preserve 2,500 acres of land as open space in perpetuity. The agreement allows the ranchers, one of whom is the brother of former Gov. Mike Leavitt, to continue ranching on the land. For the ranchers, it was a way to protect their family land from being developed into housing in a fast-growing market. For the environmentalists, it was an opportunity to preserve some of Utah's wild lands in their natural state. It's not the first time something like this has been done. In 2002, the state's Quality Growth Commission and Provo purchased a development easement protecting the Despain Ranch from developers. The easement allows the Despain family to continue using the land for agriculture, but keeps developers at bay. But the Nature Conservancy deal in southern Utah represents private people coming together for the public good. In the end, everyone wins....
Court backs Helena-area timber sale A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the Helena National Forest's plans to log and burn about 1,500 acres in the Jimtown Road area near Canyon Ferry Dam east of here to reduce the risk of wildfires. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by the Native Ecosystems Council that the U.S. Forest Service broke two federal acts in drafting the project. The environmental group claimed the project would further limit prime habitat for the goshawk, a small raptor, in an area already damaged by the Cave Gulch fire of 2000, the Jimtown fire of 2003 and the logging and prescribed burning done in nearby Bull Run and Sweats Gulch in 1996. The group also claimed the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, saying analysis of the project was incomplete and that it called for logging on land where it would not be appropriate. Sara Johnson of the Native Ecosystems Council was out of town Monday and unavailable for comment. In March, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula ruled that the Forest Service took the necessary ''hard look'' at the project through its Environmental Assessment, and didn't need to do a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement, as the Native Ecosystems Council had requested. The appeals court upheld Molloy's ruling unanimously....
Automated firefighting plan tested Federal fire managers and IBM researchers are announcing the second phase of a $36 million system to computerize the process of dispatching wildfire crews and equipment, a move intended to boost efficiency and cut costs. The first module of the Fire Program Analysis software automates firefighting resources in the initial attack phase of a blaze. Completed by IBM in October 2004, it's now being tested by the Department of Interior, Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the second phase, IBM researchers plan to work with federal officials to design a similar program to calculate suppression needs when fires burn for an extended period of time and over a large area. The 1995 federal wildland fire policy called for creating an interagency system for fire management planning. In 2002, Congress inserted language into spending bills that ordered the Interior and Agriculture departments to create a common program for calculating fire readiness and estimating suppression costs....
Diverse group fights to help environment Bill Coates remembers when loggers and environmentalists in Quincy hated each other so much, they wouldn't eat in the same restaurant. "You couldn't go to a Little League game or down the aisle in Safeway without insults being traded," Coates said Saturday at the second portion of the Forest Sustainability Conference in Grass Valley. But that has changed in the past 10 years, thanks to the former Plumas County supervisor and others bringing the factions and community members together to form The Quincy Library Group. The group, which first met in the library to keep the argument noise down, now has projects going for habitat and economic growth in the Plumas and Lassen national forests and the Sierraville District of the Tahoe National Forest. The group's common goal brought all of its members to the negotiating table....
Snowbird drilling Euro-style ski tunnel The light at the end of Snowbird's tunnel is still a year away. But mining crews are nearly finished excavating a 595-foot tunnel between Peruvian Gulch and Mineral Basin back bowl, the most intriguing of a busy offseason of projects for the Little Cottonwood Canyon ski resort. Of more interest to government regulators and environmentalists was the reconfiguration of the resort's lower parking levels and the construction nearby of a day lodge with large bay windows and a heated deck. Those projects will serve customers and reduce silt and salt runoff into Little Cottonwood Creek, a drinking water source for Salt Lake City. The tunnel, by contrast, is a more fanciful idea that emerged less than a year ago and left Jim Baker, Snowbird's director of mountain planning and development, initially skeptical. "The more we got into it and got into the ground, the better it seemed. Next thing we know, we're standing at the end of a tunnel at Mineral Basin," he said. Six feet from the end, technically. Snowbird is leaving that much ground uncut until summer to let a related improvement catch up. Down in the Salt Lake Valley, Doppelmayr CTEC is building a $5.6 million high-speed lift that will replace the creaky, vintage Peruvian chair lift, which is on its last winter moving skiers to mid-mountain....
Government has failed to protect northern spotted owl, suit says he northern spotted owl, an icon of the Northwest's environmental movement, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, but federal officials still have not bothered to come up with a plan for protecting it, said a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Monday. "They've been telling us for years they were going to do it," said Alex Morgan, conservation director at the Seattle Audubon Society, which joined the Kittitas Audubon Society in filing the suit. "This is 15 years late." Joan Jewett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, acknowledged that federal officials never completed a final recovery plan for the northern spotted owl....
Deal May Be Near on Power Plant Southern California Edison Co. is close to reaching a deal with two Indian tribes and the world's largest coal company that would bolster the utility's effort to keep open a Nevada power plant that provides cheap electricity to Southern California — but is a major source of air pollution. Closed-door talks among Edison, the Hopi and Navajo tribes of northern Arizona and mining giant Peabody Energy Corp. are aimed at resolving water-use issues that threaten the future of Peabody's coal-mining operations on Indian land, tribal leaders said. The Black Mesa mine is the only source of coal for the giant Mohave power plant near Laughlin, Nev., and is a vital pillar of the Hopi economy. "Essentially, the parties are very near to some agreements" on how best to share the region's scarce water supply and other issues related to the mine, Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor said. Ensuring a steady supply of coal and water is crucial to Edison's attempt to keep the 1,580-megawatt plant open despite a court-ordered Jan. 1 deadline requiring the utility to either install costly pollution-control equipment or shutter the 34-year-old generating facility....
Column: Why environmentalists should embrace economics: Part one Economics is largely the study of incentives, resource distribution, and how institutional arrangements affect behaviors and outcomes -- and therefore, economics is largely the study of trade-offs. Above all, economics is based on simple principles of how people generally act in the real world, not necessarily how we would like them to act. Let us begin with the primary problem surrounding open-access resources. Open-access resources are those for which there are no clear and enforceable property rights and to which it is very difficult to limit access. The world's ocean fisheries and much of the world's largest forests are prime examples. Unless there is some type of agreement by the parties who access the resources to better manage and preserve them, rational individuals acting in their own self-interest will exploit them (catching fish or cutting down trees) until the resources are exhausted. In this way they obtain all the benefits from their efforts while the costs (the ultimate degradation of the resources) are dispersed among the entire population. So what are the solutions?....
Column: Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him? Ansel Adams came to the White House in 1975 to deliver a print of a photograph from Yosemite National Park desired by President Ford and Betty Ford. Adams, still smarting from President Nixon's neglect of public lands, asked Ford to redefine the meaning of our parks, maintain their funding, and put a 'new emphasis on preservation and environmental responsibilities." In 1983, Adams met with President Reagan, and not to deliver a photograph. He was a vocal critic of Reagan's rollbacks on environmental protection and preservation of wild areas. He said Reagan's land policies were ones of 'rape, ruin, and run!" According to Adams, had the nation been under the vision in the 1930s of Reagan's infamous Interior Secretary James Watt, Kings Canyon National Park would today 'look like part of the outskirts of Las Vegas." After Adams told Playboy magazine in 1983, 'I hate Reagan," an embarrassed White House had the beloved photographer sit with Reagan for nearly an hour. Adams left unimpressed, borrowing from Oscar Wilde to say, 'They know the price of everything and the value of nothing." One can only guess what sparks would fly if Adams, who died in 1984, could witness President Bush's resurrection of Reagan's rape, ruin, and run....
Forest Service reflects changing America Fred and Cherie Cooper joined the U.S. Forest Service in the early stages of its boom. During the next 30 years, the couple saw the federal agency through hiring spikes and downturns, changes in forest practices and philosophies, and differences in the roles of female employees. But the work experiences of the Coopers don't simply tell a story about the inner workings of a federal agency, which marked its 100-year anniversary this year. The Coopers' careers reflected the major changes in society. "It is eye-opening to me the way in which one agency helps explain American culture and vice versa," said Char Miller, a history professor at Trinity University in San Antonio and an expert on the U.S. Forest Service....
Kane readies monument suit Kane County is planning to sue the Interior Department over two elements of the management plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The County Commission discussed the issue in executive session Monday. Under the statute of limitations in the Administrative Procedure Act, commissioners said they have until Monday to file a protest to the plan formed six years ago to guide the management of the 91-million-acre monument in Kane and Garfield counties. The two counties have been at odds with the monument and the anticipated action is the latest in a legal web involving the county, state, environmental groups and Bureau of Land Management, the agency under the auspices of the Interior Department that manages the monument. Much of the controversy has evolved out of differences on access to roads on the monument, and that was one of the reasons cited by the commission for deciding to file the suit in U.S. District Court....
Utah's delegation optimistic on plan to block nuke dump One of Utah's best options for blocking a nuclear waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation will probably not be part of a Defense Department policy bill before the Senate this week. But Utah's delegation says the chances for passage of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness provision, which would block rail access to the reservation, are the best they have ever been. The Cedar Mountain language would create a new wilderness area near the reservation, preventing the Bureau of Land Management from approving a rail line to deliver waste to the dump proposed by Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities that wants to store 44,000 tons of waste at the site. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, got the wilderness designation included in the House version of a Defense Department policy bill passed earlier this year....
Uranium deposits on Arizona Strip attract miners Prospectors are rushing to a remote stretch of northern Arizona in search of uranium. Prices for the metal are soaring, leading to renewed interest in mining on the Arizona Strip, a stretch of Arizona cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon. "The Strip mines are still, I think, some of the richest mines in the United States," said Ron Hockstein, president of International Uranium Corp., which has four mines there. "We'd like to put those into production as quickly as we can."....
Power crunch in the desert National energy problems have driven prices painfully high at the gasoline pump, and huge bills for winter heating are predicted. The next energy pinch may grow out of this area's blazing summer heat. Phoenix added more people - and more air-conditioners - than any other city in the country last year. As a result, on a typical 100-degree-plus day, Phoenix and surrounding communities use more electricity than Manhattan. "I would say in the West over the next few years you've got some substantial problems with having enough electricity available to satisfy the demand," said Lester Lave, a Carnegie Mellon University economist and co-director of the Pittsburgh university's Electricity Industry Center....
Yellowstone study shows pollution levels within limits The levels of air and noise pollution that Yellowstone National Park workers were exposed to declined after new limits on the number and type of snowmobiles allowed in the park went into effect, a new study shows. But researchers say further study is needed before any direct correlation can be made between the declines and the new snowmobile rules. "We'll see if (the results) change this winter," said Terry Spear, the study's lead author and head of the Safety, Health and Industrial Hygiene Department at Montana Tech in Butte. The study, commissioned by the National Park Service, is one of several that park officials say they will take into account as they develop a long-range plan for winter use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks....
Interior won't release names of juvenile fatalities The Department of the Interior, which oversees about 500 million acres of public lands in the United States, says it will not release the names of juveniles who die in accidents on the public lands. The ruling comes in response to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Salt Lake Tribune and is an apparent departure from Interior's previous practice of releasing names of fatal juvenile victims. From December to July, Interior's National Park Service publicly identified at least 10 people under the age of 18 who died in accidents in national parks around the country. Among them was Luke Sanburg, a Boy Scout from Montana who disappeared June 24 after falling into the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park. But when The Tribune requested reports on two fatal accidents involving juveniles at Lake Powell this summer, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area's chief ranger redacted the victims' names....
Series Gives Unprecedented Access Into the Lives of Professional Bull Riders TLC executive vice president and general manager David Abraham announced today that the network will debut a new 10- part series BEYOND THE BULL, to premiere on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 9 PM (ET/PT). "In launching a series like BEYOND THE BULL, we turn our lens on a group of men who have a passion for life -- and risk it -- each and every weekend," noted Abraham. "BEYOND THE BULL is a natural addition to TLC's programming slate as these stories touch viewers and ignite an appreciation for living life to its fullest while engaging in one of the world's most dangerous sports." Based on a Scarborough Sports Marketing survey, the number of people who watched or attended a Professional Bull Rider (PBR) event ballooned by 52 percent from 2002 to 2004, making it the fastest-growing professional sport in America. And -- with a fan base of 16 million -- the dynamic sport that officially broke off of the rodeo circuit in 1992 is commanding new audiences across the nation and the world. BEYOND THE BULL spotlights three riders as they compete, chase the purse and tempt fate. Each leads a hectic life -- balancing careers, families and children, and battling personal demons and fears. And with every bull he mounts, each rider risks broken bones, dashed dreams and a crushed ego. Viewers will meet dashing young Australian Brendon Clark, who navigates through his sophomore season on the circuit; cattle rancher and newly engaged J.W. Hart, who has been successful but hasn't reached the championship pinnacle; and veteran family man and Brazilian native Adriano Moraes, who is vying for an unprecedented third crown. In addition to the riders themselves, BEYOND THE BULL also follows PBR medical director Dr. Tandy Freeman; J.W.'s fiance LeAnn Stilley; Adriano's wife Flavia Moraes; and Brendon's girlfriend Anna Hunt....
It's All Trew: Past can continue to serve the present No doubt time marches on with progress as inevitable as tomorrow's sunrise. This seems to be more evident in the rural areas as our small towns and older communities slowly disappear or change identities. From time to time, Ruth and I note where favorite old houses or barns we have passed by and admired for years, are torn down, bulldozed into a pit and covered. We know that many families have lived within those walls for many years. We also know from experience most of these places could still be serving their owners if they had been kept in good repair. I know of three places on our ranch where depressions in the soil designate the location of an old dirt cellar. This structure means that at some time or another people lived nearby, using it for shelter, storage and protection. What a story these old cellars could tell if they could talk. Our ranch home dates back to 1918 when a young man built two rooms for his new bride-to-be....
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Class prepares hunters for bison season The five men said little as the slides, narrated by state wildlife officials, clicked along - revealing the dos and don'ts of hunting bison that leave Yellowstone National Park. Do bring a handful of friends to help tend to the carcass. Don't bring any hotheads who might escalate tensions with potential protesters. “We don't know what's gonna happen here; we just want to be prepared,” Harold Guse, a warden captain at the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, told the men during a recent hunter training class here. Hunting restrictions, the proper way to shoot bison and tips for dealing with or avoiding news reporters were also covered during the nearly one-hour class, which wildlife officials say all 50 hunters must attend before participating in the state's first bison hunt in 15 years. The three-month season opens Nov. 15....
Editorial: Ranchers as environmentalists Usually environmentalists and ranchers get along as well as the Hatfields and McCoys. But in southern Utah, they are forming an alliance to beat back growth. Near Zion National Park, the Utah Nature Conservancy signed an agreement with four ranchers to preserve 2,500 acres of land as open space in perpetuity. The agreement allows the ranchers, one of whom is the brother of former Gov. Mike Leavitt, to continue ranching on the land. For the ranchers, it was a way to protect their family land from being developed into housing in a fast-growing market. For the environmentalists, it was an opportunity to preserve some of Utah's wild lands in their natural state. It's not the first time something like this has been done. In 2002, the state's Quality Growth Commission and Provo purchased a development easement protecting the Despain Ranch from developers. The easement allows the Despain family to continue using the land for agriculture, but keeps developers at bay. But the Nature Conservancy deal in southern Utah represents private people coming together for the public good. In the end, everyone wins....
Court backs Helena-area timber sale A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the Helena National Forest's plans to log and burn about 1,500 acres in the Jimtown Road area near Canyon Ferry Dam east of here to reduce the risk of wildfires. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by the Native Ecosystems Council that the U.S. Forest Service broke two federal acts in drafting the project. The environmental group claimed the project would further limit prime habitat for the goshawk, a small raptor, in an area already damaged by the Cave Gulch fire of 2000, the Jimtown fire of 2003 and the logging and prescribed burning done in nearby Bull Run and Sweats Gulch in 1996. The group also claimed the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, saying analysis of the project was incomplete and that it called for logging on land where it would not be appropriate. Sara Johnson of the Native Ecosystems Council was out of town Monday and unavailable for comment. In March, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula ruled that the Forest Service took the necessary ''hard look'' at the project through its Environmental Assessment, and didn't need to do a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement, as the Native Ecosystems Council had requested. The appeals court upheld Molloy's ruling unanimously....
Automated firefighting plan tested Federal fire managers and IBM researchers are announcing the second phase of a $36 million system to computerize the process of dispatching wildfire crews and equipment, a move intended to boost efficiency and cut costs. The first module of the Fire Program Analysis software automates firefighting resources in the initial attack phase of a blaze. Completed by IBM in October 2004, it's now being tested by the Department of Interior, Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the second phase, IBM researchers plan to work with federal officials to design a similar program to calculate suppression needs when fires burn for an extended period of time and over a large area. The 1995 federal wildland fire policy called for creating an interagency system for fire management planning. In 2002, Congress inserted language into spending bills that ordered the Interior and Agriculture departments to create a common program for calculating fire readiness and estimating suppression costs....
Diverse group fights to help environment Bill Coates remembers when loggers and environmentalists in Quincy hated each other so much, they wouldn't eat in the same restaurant. "You couldn't go to a Little League game or down the aisle in Safeway without insults being traded," Coates said Saturday at the second portion of the Forest Sustainability Conference in Grass Valley. But that has changed in the past 10 years, thanks to the former Plumas County supervisor and others bringing the factions and community members together to form The Quincy Library Group. The group, which first met in the library to keep the argument noise down, now has projects going for habitat and economic growth in the Plumas and Lassen national forests and the Sierraville District of the Tahoe National Forest. The group's common goal brought all of its members to the negotiating table....
Snowbird drilling Euro-style ski tunnel The light at the end of Snowbird's tunnel is still a year away. But mining crews are nearly finished excavating a 595-foot tunnel between Peruvian Gulch and Mineral Basin back bowl, the most intriguing of a busy offseason of projects for the Little Cottonwood Canyon ski resort. Of more interest to government regulators and environmentalists was the reconfiguration of the resort's lower parking levels and the construction nearby of a day lodge with large bay windows and a heated deck. Those projects will serve customers and reduce silt and salt runoff into Little Cottonwood Creek, a drinking water source for Salt Lake City. The tunnel, by contrast, is a more fanciful idea that emerged less than a year ago and left Jim Baker, Snowbird's director of mountain planning and development, initially skeptical. "The more we got into it and got into the ground, the better it seemed. Next thing we know, we're standing at the end of a tunnel at Mineral Basin," he said. Six feet from the end, technically. Snowbird is leaving that much ground uncut until summer to let a related improvement catch up. Down in the Salt Lake Valley, Doppelmayr CTEC is building a $5.6 million high-speed lift that will replace the creaky, vintage Peruvian chair lift, which is on its last winter moving skiers to mid-mountain....
Government has failed to protect northern spotted owl, suit says he northern spotted owl, an icon of the Northwest's environmental movement, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, but federal officials still have not bothered to come up with a plan for protecting it, said a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Monday. "They've been telling us for years they were going to do it," said Alex Morgan, conservation director at the Seattle Audubon Society, which joined the Kittitas Audubon Society in filing the suit. "This is 15 years late." Joan Jewett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, acknowledged that federal officials never completed a final recovery plan for the northern spotted owl....
Deal May Be Near on Power Plant Southern California Edison Co. is close to reaching a deal with two Indian tribes and the world's largest coal company that would bolster the utility's effort to keep open a Nevada power plant that provides cheap electricity to Southern California — but is a major source of air pollution. Closed-door talks among Edison, the Hopi and Navajo tribes of northern Arizona and mining giant Peabody Energy Corp. are aimed at resolving water-use issues that threaten the future of Peabody's coal-mining operations on Indian land, tribal leaders said. The Black Mesa mine is the only source of coal for the giant Mohave power plant near Laughlin, Nev., and is a vital pillar of the Hopi economy. "Essentially, the parties are very near to some agreements" on how best to share the region's scarce water supply and other issues related to the mine, Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor said. Ensuring a steady supply of coal and water is crucial to Edison's attempt to keep the 1,580-megawatt plant open despite a court-ordered Jan. 1 deadline requiring the utility to either install costly pollution-control equipment or shutter the 34-year-old generating facility....
Column: Why environmentalists should embrace economics: Part one Economics is largely the study of incentives, resource distribution, and how institutional arrangements affect behaviors and outcomes -- and therefore, economics is largely the study of trade-offs. Above all, economics is based on simple principles of how people generally act in the real world, not necessarily how we would like them to act. Let us begin with the primary problem surrounding open-access resources. Open-access resources are those for which there are no clear and enforceable property rights and to which it is very difficult to limit access. The world's ocean fisheries and much of the world's largest forests are prime examples. Unless there is some type of agreement by the parties who access the resources to better manage and preserve them, rational individuals acting in their own self-interest will exploit them (catching fish or cutting down trees) until the resources are exhausted. In this way they obtain all the benefits from their efforts while the costs (the ultimate degradation of the resources) are dispersed among the entire population. So what are the solutions?....
Column: Where is Ansel Adams When We Need Him? Ansel Adams came to the White House in 1975 to deliver a print of a photograph from Yosemite National Park desired by President Ford and Betty Ford. Adams, still smarting from President Nixon's neglect of public lands, asked Ford to redefine the meaning of our parks, maintain their funding, and put a 'new emphasis on preservation and environmental responsibilities." In 1983, Adams met with President Reagan, and not to deliver a photograph. He was a vocal critic of Reagan's rollbacks on environmental protection and preservation of wild areas. He said Reagan's land policies were ones of 'rape, ruin, and run!" According to Adams, had the nation been under the vision in the 1930s of Reagan's infamous Interior Secretary James Watt, Kings Canyon National Park would today 'look like part of the outskirts of Las Vegas." After Adams told Playboy magazine in 1983, 'I hate Reagan," an embarrassed White House had the beloved photographer sit with Reagan for nearly an hour. Adams left unimpressed, borrowing from Oscar Wilde to say, 'They know the price of everything and the value of nothing." One can only guess what sparks would fly if Adams, who died in 1984, could witness President Bush's resurrection of Reagan's rape, ruin, and run....
Forest Service reflects changing America Fred and Cherie Cooper joined the U.S. Forest Service in the early stages of its boom. During the next 30 years, the couple saw the federal agency through hiring spikes and downturns, changes in forest practices and philosophies, and differences in the roles of female employees. But the work experiences of the Coopers don't simply tell a story about the inner workings of a federal agency, which marked its 100-year anniversary this year. The Coopers' careers reflected the major changes in society. "It is eye-opening to me the way in which one agency helps explain American culture and vice versa," said Char Miller, a history professor at Trinity University in San Antonio and an expert on the U.S. Forest Service....
Kane readies monument suit Kane County is planning to sue the Interior Department over two elements of the management plan for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The County Commission discussed the issue in executive session Monday. Under the statute of limitations in the Administrative Procedure Act, commissioners said they have until Monday to file a protest to the plan formed six years ago to guide the management of the 91-million-acre monument in Kane and Garfield counties. The two counties have been at odds with the monument and the anticipated action is the latest in a legal web involving the county, state, environmental groups and Bureau of Land Management, the agency under the auspices of the Interior Department that manages the monument. Much of the controversy has evolved out of differences on access to roads on the monument, and that was one of the reasons cited by the commission for deciding to file the suit in U.S. District Court....
Utah's delegation optimistic on plan to block nuke dump One of Utah's best options for blocking a nuclear waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation will probably not be part of a Defense Department policy bill before the Senate this week. But Utah's delegation says the chances for passage of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness provision, which would block rail access to the reservation, are the best they have ever been. The Cedar Mountain language would create a new wilderness area near the reservation, preventing the Bureau of Land Management from approving a rail line to deliver waste to the dump proposed by Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities that wants to store 44,000 tons of waste at the site. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, got the wilderness designation included in the House version of a Defense Department policy bill passed earlier this year....
Uranium deposits on Arizona Strip attract miners Prospectors are rushing to a remote stretch of northern Arizona in search of uranium. Prices for the metal are soaring, leading to renewed interest in mining on the Arizona Strip, a stretch of Arizona cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon. "The Strip mines are still, I think, some of the richest mines in the United States," said Ron Hockstein, president of International Uranium Corp., which has four mines there. "We'd like to put those into production as quickly as we can."....
Power crunch in the desert National energy problems have driven prices painfully high at the gasoline pump, and huge bills for winter heating are predicted. The next energy pinch may grow out of this area's blazing summer heat. Phoenix added more people - and more air-conditioners - than any other city in the country last year. As a result, on a typical 100-degree-plus day, Phoenix and surrounding communities use more electricity than Manhattan. "I would say in the West over the next few years you've got some substantial problems with having enough electricity available to satisfy the demand," said Lester Lave, a Carnegie Mellon University economist and co-director of the Pittsburgh university's Electricity Industry Center....
Yellowstone study shows pollution levels within limits The levels of air and noise pollution that Yellowstone National Park workers were exposed to declined after new limits on the number and type of snowmobiles allowed in the park went into effect, a new study shows. But researchers say further study is needed before any direct correlation can be made between the declines and the new snowmobile rules. "We'll see if (the results) change this winter," said Terry Spear, the study's lead author and head of the Safety, Health and Industrial Hygiene Department at Montana Tech in Butte. The study, commissioned by the National Park Service, is one of several that park officials say they will take into account as they develop a long-range plan for winter use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks....
Interior won't release names of juvenile fatalities The Department of the Interior, which oversees about 500 million acres of public lands in the United States, says it will not release the names of juveniles who die in accidents on the public lands. The ruling comes in response to a recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Salt Lake Tribune and is an apparent departure from Interior's previous practice of releasing names of fatal juvenile victims. From December to July, Interior's National Park Service publicly identified at least 10 people under the age of 18 who died in accidents in national parks around the country. Among them was Luke Sanburg, a Boy Scout from Montana who disappeared June 24 after falling into the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park. But when The Tribune requested reports on two fatal accidents involving juveniles at Lake Powell this summer, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area's chief ranger redacted the victims' names....
Series Gives Unprecedented Access Into the Lives of Professional Bull Riders TLC executive vice president and general manager David Abraham announced today that the network will debut a new 10- part series BEYOND THE BULL, to premiere on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 9 PM (ET/PT). "In launching a series like BEYOND THE BULL, we turn our lens on a group of men who have a passion for life -- and risk it -- each and every weekend," noted Abraham. "BEYOND THE BULL is a natural addition to TLC's programming slate as these stories touch viewers and ignite an appreciation for living life to its fullest while engaging in one of the world's most dangerous sports." Based on a Scarborough Sports Marketing survey, the number of people who watched or attended a Professional Bull Rider (PBR) event ballooned by 52 percent from 2002 to 2004, making it the fastest-growing professional sport in America. And -- with a fan base of 16 million -- the dynamic sport that officially broke off of the rodeo circuit in 1992 is commanding new audiences across the nation and the world. BEYOND THE BULL spotlights three riders as they compete, chase the purse and tempt fate. Each leads a hectic life -- balancing careers, families and children, and battling personal demons and fears. And with every bull he mounts, each rider risks broken bones, dashed dreams and a crushed ego. Viewers will meet dashing young Australian Brendon Clark, who navigates through his sophomore season on the circuit; cattle rancher and newly engaged J.W. Hart, who has been successful but hasn't reached the championship pinnacle; and veteran family man and Brazilian native Adriano Moraes, who is vying for an unprecedented third crown. In addition to the riders themselves, BEYOND THE BULL also follows PBR medical director Dr. Tandy Freeman; J.W.'s fiance LeAnn Stilley; Adriano's wife Flavia Moraes; and Brendon's girlfriend Anna Hunt....
It's All Trew: Past can continue to serve the present No doubt time marches on with progress as inevitable as tomorrow's sunrise. This seems to be more evident in the rural areas as our small towns and older communities slowly disappear or change identities. From time to time, Ruth and I note where favorite old houses or barns we have passed by and admired for years, are torn down, bulldozed into a pit and covered. We know that many families have lived within those walls for many years. We also know from experience most of these places could still be serving their owners if they had been kept in good repair. I know of three places on our ranch where depressions in the soil designate the location of an old dirt cellar. This structure means that at some time or another people lived nearby, using it for shelter, storage and protection. What a story these old cellars could tell if they could talk. Our ranch home dates back to 1918 when a young man built two rooms for his new bride-to-be....
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Monday, November 07, 2005
DANIEL MARTINEZ---USFS
For background on this issue, go here, here and here.
November 8, 2005
Elaine Zieroth Express Mail: EQ 196764084 US
Apache Sistgraves Supervisor
P.O. Box 640
Springerville, Arizona 86938
Don Butler
Arizona Dept. of Agriculture
1688 W. Adams St.
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
______________________________
Notice to Agent is Notice to Principal
Notice to Principal is Notice to Agent
______________________________
Dear Elaine Zieroth:
I received your extortion letter dated November 1, 2005 on November 2, 2005. You, the USFS and your agents the Binghams, have stolen my cattle and are holding my property. This is without my consent and without a Court Order. You are doing an unjust enrichment to yourselves because I haven’t had any Due Processes of Law. If you sell my property, my cattle, you will be selling stolen property.
There has been no determination of a Court of proper jurisdiction that has ruled that I am trespassing. I am on my private property. My cattle were on my private property prior to them being stolen and removed from my property. How can you get a notice of impound without a determination of trespass first? In order to do a lawful impound the USFS has to take me to Court and get a Court Order to give you authority to impound my cattle.
The law is clear on authority of public officers and employee’s of Federal and State government and the requirement that they have the delegated authority to act. Your CFR’S only apply to you, federal employee’s. I am not a Federal or State employee. The CFR’S do not give you any authority to act outside of your delegated authority. Please reference C.J.S., “officers,” Sec 190-199; C.J.S., “Public Admin.Law,” Sec 49-58; Am.Jur 2d, “Public Officers,” Sec 298-311; Am Jur 2d, “Admin. Law,” Sec 69-74 and 221-226. Related: 65 ALR 811, and 107 ALR 1483.
“No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives,” 106 U.S., at 220.
“Shall it be said….that the courts cannot give remedy when the citizen has been deprived of his property by force, his estate seized and converted to the use of the government without any lawful authority, without any process of law and without any compensation, because the president has ordered it and his officers are in possession? If such be the law of this county, it sanctions a tyranny which has no existence in the monarchies of Europe, nor in any other government which has a just claim to well-regulated liberty and the protection of personal rights.” 106 U.S. at 220, 221, United States v. Lee 106 U.S. 196 1 S. Ct. 240.
“ A regulation dies with the statute from which it gains its life” United States v Hawthorne, 31 F. Supp. 827, 829.
“The extent of authority of the people’s public agents is measured by the statute from which they derive their authority, not by their own acts and assumption of authority.” “Public officers have and can exercise only such powers as are conferred on them by law…” Sittler v Board of Control of Michigan College of Mining and technology. 333 Mich. 681, 53 N.W.2d 681 (1952).
The Organic Act of 1897 that set up the Forest Reserves as codified in 16 USC Sec 475 did not grant you the authority to be doing this criminal activity that you are doing.
You have gone to great lengths to create the illusion that my cattle are on Forest System Lands when in fact they are on my property. You are going to great lengths to protect that illusion, even doing so outside of any delegated authority and totally contrary to the U.S. Constitution, Federal Statutes, the Arizona Constitution and Arizona statutes.
Under the Federal Torts Claims Act codified at 28 U.S.C. Sec 1346 under this law, the United States is liable for torts committed by its employees if committed within the scope of their employment. If the act in question was not committed in the scope of employment the employee is liable and the United States is not.
If your actions are outside of Agency policies and General Orders, Risk Management will not pay the damages, you will. This is Vicarious Liability. You and everyone employed will be personally liable to me for the damages. Criminal Activity has no immunities.
Immunity depends upon delegated authority. The following cases demonstrate that a government employee must have some specific delegated authority, based upon statutes, regulations or delegation orders, in order to be authorized to act. The absence of such authority, when challenged, therefore requires a holding that the employee’s acts were unauthorized and thus beyond the scope of his employment. Paly v United States 125 F. Supp. 789 (D.Md 1954), Jones v. F.B.I. 139 F Supp. 38, 42 (D.Md 1956), James v. United States, 467 F. 2d 832 (4th Cir 1972), White v. Hardy, 678 F.2d 485, 487 (4th Cir 1982), Hughes v United States, 662 F. 2d 219 (4th Cir. 1981), Mider v United States 322 F. 2d 193 (6th Cir. 1963), Bellis v. United States, 635 F. 2d 1144 (5th Cir. 1981), Turner v. United States 595 F. Supp. 708 (W.D. La 1984), Doggett v. United States 858 F. 2d 555 (9th Cir 1988), Lutz v. United States, 685 F.2d 1178 (9th Cir. 1982).
It was established long ago that whenever an officer exceeds his authority and wrongfully seizes or levies upon property, he is personally liable in tort for that act.
You are still on my property and I want you to pack up and leave and return my chattels. You have been warned about trespassing on my rights before. Now it is criminal. Everyone involved is personally liable to me for the damages. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU PERSONALLY CONTACT RISK MANAGEMENT TO SEE IF THEY COVER CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
I will pay any reasonable amount requested as long as you can show me where I have consented to you impounding my chattels, or a proper Warrant or Court Order or where you have the authority as per an act of Congress or a Federal Statutes that applies within the state of Arizona. If you cannot provide the above said documentation you are in fact extorting me and I ask that you show contrition for your criminal acts and return my chattels to my property.
Respectfully,
_________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
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For background on this issue, go here, here and here.
November 8, 2005
Elaine Zieroth Express Mail: EQ 196764084 US
Apache Sistgraves Supervisor
P.O. Box 640
Springerville, Arizona 86938
Don Butler
Arizona Dept. of Agriculture
1688 W. Adams St.
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
______________________________
Notice to Agent is Notice to Principal
Notice to Principal is Notice to Agent
______________________________
Dear Elaine Zieroth:
I received your extortion letter dated November 1, 2005 on November 2, 2005. You, the USFS and your agents the Binghams, have stolen my cattle and are holding my property. This is without my consent and without a Court Order. You are doing an unjust enrichment to yourselves because I haven’t had any Due Processes of Law. If you sell my property, my cattle, you will be selling stolen property.
There has been no determination of a Court of proper jurisdiction that has ruled that I am trespassing. I am on my private property. My cattle were on my private property prior to them being stolen and removed from my property. How can you get a notice of impound without a determination of trespass first? In order to do a lawful impound the USFS has to take me to Court and get a Court Order to give you authority to impound my cattle.
The law is clear on authority of public officers and employee’s of Federal and State government and the requirement that they have the delegated authority to act. Your CFR’S only apply to you, federal employee’s. I am not a Federal or State employee. The CFR’S do not give you any authority to act outside of your delegated authority. Please reference C.J.S., “officers,” Sec 190-199; C.J.S., “Public Admin.Law,” Sec 49-58; Am.Jur 2d, “Public Officers,” Sec 298-311; Am Jur 2d, “Admin. Law,” Sec 69-74 and 221-226. Related: 65 ALR 811, and 107 ALR 1483.
“No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it. It is the only supreme power in our system of government and every man who by accepting office participates in its functions is only the more strongly bound to submit to that supremacy and to observe the limitations which it imposes upon the exercise of the authority which it gives,” 106 U.S., at 220.
“Shall it be said….that the courts cannot give remedy when the citizen has been deprived of his property by force, his estate seized and converted to the use of the government without any lawful authority, without any process of law and without any compensation, because the president has ordered it and his officers are in possession? If such be the law of this county, it sanctions a tyranny which has no existence in the monarchies of Europe, nor in any other government which has a just claim to well-regulated liberty and the protection of personal rights.” 106 U.S. at 220, 221, United States v. Lee 106 U.S. 196 1 S. Ct. 240.
“ A regulation dies with the statute from which it gains its life” United States v Hawthorne, 31 F. Supp. 827, 829.
“The extent of authority of the people’s public agents is measured by the statute from which they derive their authority, not by their own acts and assumption of authority.” “Public officers have and can exercise only such powers as are conferred on them by law…” Sittler v Board of Control of Michigan College of Mining and technology. 333 Mich. 681, 53 N.W.2d 681 (1952).
The Organic Act of 1897 that set up the Forest Reserves as codified in 16 USC Sec 475 did not grant you the authority to be doing this criminal activity that you are doing.
You have gone to great lengths to create the illusion that my cattle are on Forest System Lands when in fact they are on my property. You are going to great lengths to protect that illusion, even doing so outside of any delegated authority and totally contrary to the U.S. Constitution, Federal Statutes, the Arizona Constitution and Arizona statutes.
Under the Federal Torts Claims Act codified at 28 U.S.C. Sec 1346 under this law, the United States is liable for torts committed by its employees if committed within the scope of their employment. If the act in question was not committed in the scope of employment the employee is liable and the United States is not.
If your actions are outside of Agency policies and General Orders, Risk Management will not pay the damages, you will. This is Vicarious Liability. You and everyone employed will be personally liable to me for the damages. Criminal Activity has no immunities.
Immunity depends upon delegated authority. The following cases demonstrate that a government employee must have some specific delegated authority, based upon statutes, regulations or delegation orders, in order to be authorized to act. The absence of such authority, when challenged, therefore requires a holding that the employee’s acts were unauthorized and thus beyond the scope of his employment. Paly v United States 125 F. Supp. 789 (D.Md 1954), Jones v. F.B.I. 139 F Supp. 38, 42 (D.Md 1956), James v. United States, 467 F. 2d 832 (4th Cir 1972), White v. Hardy, 678 F.2d 485, 487 (4th Cir 1982), Hughes v United States, 662 F. 2d 219 (4th Cir. 1981), Mider v United States 322 F. 2d 193 (6th Cir. 1963), Bellis v. United States, 635 F. 2d 1144 (5th Cir. 1981), Turner v. United States 595 F. Supp. 708 (W.D. La 1984), Doggett v. United States 858 F. 2d 555 (9th Cir 1988), Lutz v. United States, 685 F.2d 1178 (9th Cir. 1982).
It was established long ago that whenever an officer exceeds his authority and wrongfully seizes or levies upon property, he is personally liable in tort for that act.
You are still on my property and I want you to pack up and leave and return my chattels. You have been warned about trespassing on my rights before. Now it is criminal. Everyone involved is personally liable to me for the damages. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU PERSONALLY CONTACT RISK MANAGEMENT TO SEE IF THEY COVER CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.
I will pay any reasonable amount requested as long as you can show me where I have consented to you impounding my chattels, or a proper Warrant or Court Order or where you have the authority as per an act of Congress or a Federal Statutes that applies within the state of Arizona. If you cannot provide the above said documentation you are in fact extorting me and I ask that you show contrition for your criminal acts and return my chattels to my property.
Respectfully,
_________________________________
Daniel Gabino Martinez
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Timothy Treadwell’s deadly obsession The short, heartless version of the story was simply: "The Doofus Dies." At least, that's how some Alaskans saw it, says Nick Jans, the Juneau-based author of a new book, "The Grizzly Maze," about Timothy Treadwell's fatal obsession with Alaska's huge coastal brown bears. Two years ago, he might not have argued, knowing only the earliest details of how a big grizzly had just killed Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in a bear-haunted thicket of Katmai National Park. While German filmmaker Werner Herzog, in his critically acclaimed documentary “Grizzly Man,” appropriated more than a hundred hours of Treadwell’s films to paint a vivid portrait of his volatile persona, Jans used his own knowledge of the Alaska Bush — as a nature writer and longtime teacher in northwest Alaska — to analyze Treadwell’s special relationship with bears. In fact, his book is as much about bears as Treadwell, Jans said. “Timothy Treadwell is just the lens. Timothy Treadwell is dead as a doornail on Page 111, and the book is 274 pages long,” he said. “The book is dedicated to bears, and I think he would have liked that.”....
Keeping them out of the haystacks Tucked into the hillsides near the Gros Ventre River, down a long dirt road at the base of the giant landslide near Kelly that created Slide Lake, Glenn Taylor and his family pass their days with cattle and wildlife. Taylor, 71, moved with his parents in 1950 to the Taylor Ranch, where they raised cattle. He later took over the business. Although not an "old-timer" by early Jackson Hole standards, Taylor is certainly an old-timer for today. He lived up the Gros Ventre before the three elk feedgrounds there -- Alkali, Patrol Cabin and Fish Creek -- were officially established and stocked by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "The elk have always been here," Taylor said. "But we haven't encouraged them to stay." The Taylors have maintained elk-proof haystacks with fencing since 1955. Game and Fish provide the fence, which the Taylors install. It is because of people including Taylor who came to Jackson Hole as homesteaders -- and ultimately the 18,000 people in Teton County today -- that the elk feedground system was established....
'Fence Pulling' Becomes a Wilderness Pastime If you had wanted to visit with John Witzel one recent warm and cloudless day, you would have driven 20 miles outside town, along a dusty ranch road here in the high desert of southeastern Oregon, then jumped on a horse. You would have ridden five miles through the bull thistle cactus, juniper trees and lupin that dot the brown hills. Once you got to Straw Hat Pass and let your horse have a drink at Wildhorse Creek, you would have traveled up a rust-colored canyon and come upon Witzel, a sinewy man wearing jeans, chaps and a purple cowboy shirt. He stood firmly, his arms circling as he cranked a large aluminum spool, and his face was dripping sweat. Witzel looked as if he were trying to land a giant fish — though he was reeling in a 100-foot strand of rusty barbed-wire fence. Here in the nation's first officially designated "cow-free wilderness," Witzel and dozens of other volunteers have been using Witzel's invention, a non-mechanized roller, to remove mile after mile of fencing, not far from the border with Nevada....
Buffer zone around Fort Hood draws fire from landowners Army officials here hoped they could create a buffer zone around the nation's largest military base through friendly negotiations – offering neighbors cash to keep their land rural. What they didn't expect was that landowners would view the buffer zone as a battle front in an epic war over property rights. Fort Hood is seeking to participate in the new “Army Compatible Use Buffer” program, which is intended to prevent residential and commercial development near military training ranges. Authorized by Congress in 2003, the program is also intended to help protect wildlife habitat around Army bases and relieve the pressure to protect endangered species on bases. Fort Hood is considering a buffer of about 90,000 acres, said Maj. Gen. James Simmons, III Corps deputy commanding general and the post's No. 2 official. Gen. Simmons said the agreements would be completely voluntary, and the terms, such as the length of the agreement, would be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. “It is an incentive program that says, we want to pay you to keep your land in its current rural condition, as opposed to selling your land for a subdivision or business entity,” Simmons said....
House passes property rights protection act The U.S. House of Representatives is moving to curb the actions of local government and states that receive federal economic development funds who use eminent domain to acquire property for such purposes. The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005 (HR 4128) was co-sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-New Mexico, who said the passage of the bill reaffirms owners' private property rights as a value of American society. But the bill, which now goes before the U.S. Senate, could have serious implications for the city of Albuquerque, which has already expended $1.6 million dollars to acquire blighted property in the Southeast Heights quadrant of the city that it would like to redevelop into affordable housing. If a version of the legislation is agreed to by both the House and Senate, President Bush must sign it before it can become law. Under the newest bill, a court can reimburse attorneys' fees to a property owner who was the target of an improper eminent domain action. The bill also extends its protection to farmers and ranchers with rural or agricultural properties. The bill does not prevent the continued use of eminent domain for public health and safety or other public uses, such as roads and public utilities....
Judge's land-use suit adds ethics to Measure 37 saga Just when Oregon's property rights drama seemed to be stabilizing, a Marion County judge wrote a Shakespearean twist. Paul Lipscomb, who overthrew Measure 37's predecessor four years ago, sued the state this week for approving his neighbor's application to split farmland into 5-acre plots. His litigation comes weeks after colleague Mary Mertens James tossed out Measure 37. The clincher: The case will be heard in Marion Circuit Court, where Lipscomb is the presiding judge. "You don't see this every day," said Kevin Neely of the state attorney general's office. No kidding. The saga -- which is raising new questions about Measure 37 and judicial ethics -- started in earnest five years ago....
Wolf v. Elk: Jury Still Out On Which Totemic Beast Will Rule The West Robert Fanning, Jr. calls the whole idea of wolf recovery a "fraud." He's the founder of the congenial-enough sounding "Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd," a Montana-based faction of 3,742 hunters, big game outfitters and fans of blood sports who, like Wyoming, are challenging the federal government's dominion over state wildlife rights. Admittedly, the group's name rings ironic‹ as a principal FNYEH goal is to restore elk to happy-making numbers, so members can resume hunting them before, as they say, wolves gobble up the last of their dearly beloved and decimated herds. "The introduction of the gray wolf, canis lupus, on top of the indigenous timber wolf, canis irremotus, well," Fanning paused, measuring his words, "I hesitate to even call it a 'reintroduction,' because it's not." While at a loss for the Latinate nuances in this crazy-making tongue of eco-speak, my inner city slicker still recognized potent fighting words when it heard them. Fanning is a gregariously well-spoken, passionately devout Catholic, ex-Notre Damer. At 55, the Pray, Mont., rancher, retired CEO and corporate refugee, with a degree in biology, is on a crusade to make "wolf control" a national debate. He'll even take it all the way to the Supreme Court, he says, if he has to....
Cattlemen oppose grazing cuts in wilderness bill A congressional hearing last week on a wilderness bill proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson R-Idaho, brought together some unlikely forces. The Idaho Cattle Association, federal land management agencies and singer-songwriter Carole King all expressed concerns about the bill, which sets aside 300,000 acres in the Boulder-White Cloud mountains in central Idaho as wilderness. The opposition, however, came about for quite different reasons. Cattlemen are concerned because the bill would end livestock grazing in much of the region. Ranchers have already had their grazing permits drastically reduced in the region, said ICA President-elect Mike Webster, a rancher from Roberts, Idaho. “Livestock grazing is a wise and sustainable use of the land and, as a sound management tool, should never be removed from consideration,” Webster said. In addition to its role is sustaining local economies in Idaho, public lands grazing fosters a good ecological balance as it promotes good grass growth, prevents or lessens the threat of wildfires and controls the spread of weeds, he said....
Island rounds up resident roamers -- In 1893, bison -- all but wiped out after decades of slaughter -- came to Antelope Island, but not because of the Endangered Species Act or a firestorm from environmentalists. They came because businessmen, cattle ranchers and hunters wanted their chance -- so common in 1850, so rare in 1890 -- to drop the one-ton beasts. By 1893, an Antelope Island State Park brochure estimates there were only about 800 bison -- down from a high of at least 45 million -- remaining in the United States that year, when the first dozen were shipped to the island. It wasn't a reintroduction. There is no evidence that bison roamed Antelope Island before Kit Carson named it for the herds of antelope found there. There were mule deer, coyotes, bobcats and bighorn sheep, and maybe the occasional mountain lion or elk, according to Clay Shelley, curator of Fielding Garr Ranch. But no bison. It wasn't an attempt to save the species, either. Opportunity simply knocked -- when William Glasmann couldn't draw people to his Buffalo Park on the Great Salt Lake's south shore, he put his dozen bison on the auction block -- and Antelope Island owner John Dooly answered....
Snowy plover hatchlings thrive on coast The western snowy plover had another good year on the Oregon Coast, with hatchlings reaching 77, the second-highest numbers on record. The 77 survived long enough during this year's nesting season to fly and leave their parents, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. There were 107 last year, but it's still more than twice the average of 37 since biologists began tracking the birds in 1990. As of now from 153 to 158 plovers live on the Oregon Coast, the highest number since monitoring began. In 1993, the shorebirds were listed by the Fish & Wildlife Service as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. "We are thrilled to see another record year for nesting plovers," said Kerrie Palermo, senior wildlife biologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Coos Bay. "We believe it shows all the effort we put into coordinated plover management is worth it. Of course, nature has a hand in this success as well." Biologists credit restored habitat, predator control and separation of beach users from plover nesting areas....
Bigfork bears like lunch served tall, thin Imagine a 300-pound beaver with a propensity for power poles. That's essentially what they're dealing with at Bigfork in northern Minnesota. It seems that tough-mouthed black bears there have a strange hankering for wooden power poles. The bruins are standing on their rear feet and chewing the poles to the core about 6 feet above ground, threatening a bear-induced blackout.
About 22 poles owned by North Itasca Electric Cooperative might need to be replaced, at a cost of up to $60,000....
Column: The big rush to drill There's a big push by the oil and gas industries and their political allies to reduce public oversight and roll back protections for wildlife in order to increase energy production in the West. For decades, the industry has complained that it is locked out of Western public lands that could free America from dependence on foreign oil. "We've taken large chunks of the country and put it off limits to any kind of exploration or development," Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oilman, told a town hall meeting in Arkansas last year. "Large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off limits." Government data tell a far different story: Oil and gas companies have enjoyed widespread access to public lands but have produced precious little energy to show for it....
Old claims being mined for new digs At 11,400 feet, the chilly mountain wind whistles through the blank windows of the abandoned Paris Mill, a ghostly relic from the mining boom and an improbable anchor for a modern-day land rush. Here in Buckskin Gulch, 2 miles up a washboard road from the collection of false-fronted buildings of Alma, developers Bill Cincilla and Jeff Wright envision five new homes on some of Colorado's last affordable mountain real estate: patented mining claims. "This is one of those rare opportunities where we have a unique site, just absolutely drop-dead gorgeous surroundings, where we can do something like this," said Cincilla, an engineer describing his first foray as a developer. They have a contract on four adjacent mining claims that cover 94 acres and currently are listed together for $445,000, while similar undeveloped home sites 20 minutes away in Breckenridge fetch as much as $1 million an acre. Cincilla and Wright are among a growing legion of real estate investors driven by high prices out of Colorado's resort towns and up into the nearby hills, where mining claims dating from the late 1800s remain available for development - and present a lingering conundrum for government agencies, conservation groups and historical preservationists....
Congressmen believe criticism is misleading Congressman Greg Walden said criticism by some environmentalists of the bill he and fellow Northwest Rep. Brian Baird introduced to speed up logging dead timber and planting new trees after catastrophic storms and wildfires has been misleading or downright preposterous. Walden, a Republican from Oregon, and Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, introduced the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act on Thursday in the nation’s capital. It has 98 co-sponsors representing both parties. “Today in America’s forests, it can take three years for the federal government to cut a burned, dead tree after a fire,” Walden said, and by then, most trees have rotted or become bug infested. His bill would speed up the scientific and environmental review process to about 120 days but still provide 90 days for public comment and preserve the right to administrative and judicial appeal....
Ferret recovery blooms in prairie "mansion" Unceremoniously named "Son of Alice" after his mother, the recent transfer from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs is one of about 200 ferrets housed at the new Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center. The $8 million facility north of Wellington in Larimer County is the epicenter for national efforts to help recover North America's only native ferret, among the nation's most endangered species. Once abundant in the West, the ferrets began disappearing at the turn of the century as a result of prairie dog eradication efforts and disease. In the mid-1970s, wildlife experts thought the ferret was extinct, until finding a small group near Meeteetse, Wyo....
Eskimos turn to supersonic 'grenade' for humane whale kills A supersonic explosive has begun to replace Yankee whaling-era black powder as Alaska Natives seek more humane weaponry in the traditional hunt for bowhead whales. "It's a lot safer," said Eugene Brower, a Barrow whaling captain who chairs the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission's weapons improvement program. Brower trains Native whaling captains to handle a harpoon-launched grenade loaded with penthrite, a World War I-era explosive used in demolition. "They love it," Brower said of captains from the North Slope villages of Kaktovik, Nuiqsit and Barrow who have converted to the penthrite device for the spring and fall hunts. "It's four times the strength of black powder. With black powder, the meat has a gas taste."....
Lawmaker warns of water concerns in arid Nevada Nevada, the most arid state in the nation, needs a thorough inventory of its water resources because of an unrelenting, growth-induced demand on those resources, a state lawmaker said Friday. Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, also said at a Carson River symposium that there are many questions about water right transfers and the point at which the state water engineer steps in to prevent excessive pumping. Goicoechea, a rancher who serves on an interim legislative panel studying possible water law changes, also said in an interview that he'd favor a new law calling for forfeiture of a water right for violations such as pumping too much. Currently, he said such violations are considered misdemeanors punishable by a fine of up to $500, so there's not much pressure on a violator to honor a cease-and-desist order from the state....
Conservationist: Rio Grande is headed for a train wreck It happened in late October 2001. The mighty Rio Grande, storied river of cowboy lore, icon of the West, petered out before it reached the sea. And the same thing happened the next year. A river that once disgorged a vast plume of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico was transformed into little more than a brook that finally disappeared in the dry, flat country on the Texas and Mexico border, about 100 yards from the sea. To be sure, the mouth of the Rio Grande dried up during a drier-than-normal year that parched the western United States. But the drought was not the only reason the Rio Grande ran out of water, or even the major reason. From Colorado through New Mexico and all along the Texas and Mexico border that the river forms, the Rio Grande is tapped for agriculture and, in places, drinking water; so much so that the river’s flow is but a fraction of what it once was — and demand for its water continues to grow....
When Cleaner Air Is a Biblical Obligation In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally. With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming. In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions. Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth. "Genesis 2:15," said Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs, citing a passage that serves as the justification for the effort: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."....
Sentries in U.S. Seek Early Signs of the Avian Flu With the country waiting nervously for avian flu to arrive, catching wild birds is no hobby. It has become part of a national early detection effort, and Ms. Lee, a researcher at the University of California here, is a sentry on the country's epidemiological ramparts. She is one of hundreds of ornithologists, veterinarians, amateur bird-watchers, park rangers and others being recruited by the National Wildlife Health Center to join a surveillance effort along the major American migratory flyways. They will test wild birds caught in nets; birds shot by hunters on public lands, who must check in with game wardens; and corpses from large bird die-offs in public parks or on beaches. The plan also calls for sampling bodies of water for the influenza virus, which is shed in bird feces. And it is designating some ducks and geese - like those in backyard flocks or living year-round in park ponds - as "sentinels" to be captured, tested, released and periodically retested....
Help sought in cattle shootings The Oregon State Police put out a call for help, and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association pledged up to $1,000 in reward money after a roadside cattle shooting in rural Douglas County. On Wednesday, Smith River landowners added $4,000 to the reward, according to rancher Paul Bailey. Trooper Levi Harris said two black Angus cows were shot and killed in the Oct. 29 incident. Bailey, who lives at milepost 22, east of Reedsport up the Smith River, said it’s the second livestock shooting incident in as many years. In 2004 Bailey found a gunshot-killed calf near the county road. This time, he recalled hearing explosions – he thought maybe it was thunder – then hearing a diesel pickup truck drive off. Bailey found one cow, a bullet in its skull, Oct. 30. He called OSP. Harris said he found the second body while processing the crime scene Oct. 31....
85-year-old resident sells fresh eggs from his Menifee Road home The original sign was as sparse as the dirt road along which it was posted: "I got eggs." Frank Gomez never intended to spend his retirement selling eggs, however. The lifelong rancher and 13-year Menifee resident just wanted to keep active, and maintaining animals seemed second nature to him. "I bought so many chickens, so I had too many eggs," said Gomez, 85, whose street, Menifee Road, has since been paved. "So my wife said to put up a sign. That started the egg business." Soon after he bought the Menifee property, he was tending to sheep, goats, rabbits and chickens. "Now all I got are chickens," he said. "At my age, I couldn't handle anything else."....
McWhat? When Veronica Crowell walks her dog, Roscoe, in Riverside Park, as she often does, people always ask what kind of dog he is. When she tells them he's a McNab, they say, "A what?" McNabs were originally bred by a rancher named Alexander McNab, who moved from Scotland to Northern California in the mid-1800s. They are still bred in the area, mostly as cattle dogs, said Art Goldsmith of West Sacramento, Calif., who has owned and bred McNabs for 17 years. McNabs "are probably the toughest cattle dog in the world" and smarter than most people, Goldsmith said. "It's amazing what you can teach them. You can teach them anything." McNabs are not recognized by the American Kennel Club but are registered with the National Stockdog Registry. Goldsmith said McNabs are one-person dogs that are natural retrievers and tireless workers. "They will work all day and all night," he said....
Hall Ranch: A heritage of hospitality The Hall Ranch in Bruneau River Valley is not just a gathering place for horses and cattle. For more than 100 years, the 300-acre site and its 1879 two-story farmhouse have been a social center for the valley’s rural community. “At one time it was the finest home in Bruneau Valley,” said Berklee Cudmore of Boise, 80, whose grandparents, Albert and Mary Loveridge, owned the ranch prior to 1917. “The upstairs was a big room where they used to hold dances. At that time it was probably the only place large enough to have a big crowd.” The population was smaller back then, she said, and “of course, everybody knew everybody else.” In 1917, Fred and Betty Hall bought the ranch, moving in from a more remote homestead so their children could attend school. Their last child, Tom, the youngest of five, was born at the ranch house in 1923 and still lives there....
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Timothy Treadwell’s deadly obsession The short, heartless version of the story was simply: "The Doofus Dies." At least, that's how some Alaskans saw it, says Nick Jans, the Juneau-based author of a new book, "The Grizzly Maze," about Timothy Treadwell's fatal obsession with Alaska's huge coastal brown bears. Two years ago, he might not have argued, knowing only the earliest details of how a big grizzly had just killed Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in a bear-haunted thicket of Katmai National Park. While German filmmaker Werner Herzog, in his critically acclaimed documentary “Grizzly Man,” appropriated more than a hundred hours of Treadwell’s films to paint a vivid portrait of his volatile persona, Jans used his own knowledge of the Alaska Bush — as a nature writer and longtime teacher in northwest Alaska — to analyze Treadwell’s special relationship with bears. In fact, his book is as much about bears as Treadwell, Jans said. “Timothy Treadwell is just the lens. Timothy Treadwell is dead as a doornail on Page 111, and the book is 274 pages long,” he said. “The book is dedicated to bears, and I think he would have liked that.”....
Keeping them out of the haystacks Tucked into the hillsides near the Gros Ventre River, down a long dirt road at the base of the giant landslide near Kelly that created Slide Lake, Glenn Taylor and his family pass their days with cattle and wildlife. Taylor, 71, moved with his parents in 1950 to the Taylor Ranch, where they raised cattle. He later took over the business. Although not an "old-timer" by early Jackson Hole standards, Taylor is certainly an old-timer for today. He lived up the Gros Ventre before the three elk feedgrounds there -- Alkali, Patrol Cabin and Fish Creek -- were officially established and stocked by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. "The elk have always been here," Taylor said. "But we haven't encouraged them to stay." The Taylors have maintained elk-proof haystacks with fencing since 1955. Game and Fish provide the fence, which the Taylors install. It is because of people including Taylor who came to Jackson Hole as homesteaders -- and ultimately the 18,000 people in Teton County today -- that the elk feedground system was established....
'Fence Pulling' Becomes a Wilderness Pastime If you had wanted to visit with John Witzel one recent warm and cloudless day, you would have driven 20 miles outside town, along a dusty ranch road here in the high desert of southeastern Oregon, then jumped on a horse. You would have ridden five miles through the bull thistle cactus, juniper trees and lupin that dot the brown hills. Once you got to Straw Hat Pass and let your horse have a drink at Wildhorse Creek, you would have traveled up a rust-colored canyon and come upon Witzel, a sinewy man wearing jeans, chaps and a purple cowboy shirt. He stood firmly, his arms circling as he cranked a large aluminum spool, and his face was dripping sweat. Witzel looked as if he were trying to land a giant fish — though he was reeling in a 100-foot strand of rusty barbed-wire fence. Here in the nation's first officially designated "cow-free wilderness," Witzel and dozens of other volunteers have been using Witzel's invention, a non-mechanized roller, to remove mile after mile of fencing, not far from the border with Nevada....
Buffer zone around Fort Hood draws fire from landowners Army officials here hoped they could create a buffer zone around the nation's largest military base through friendly negotiations – offering neighbors cash to keep their land rural. What they didn't expect was that landowners would view the buffer zone as a battle front in an epic war over property rights. Fort Hood is seeking to participate in the new “Army Compatible Use Buffer” program, which is intended to prevent residential and commercial development near military training ranges. Authorized by Congress in 2003, the program is also intended to help protect wildlife habitat around Army bases and relieve the pressure to protect endangered species on bases. Fort Hood is considering a buffer of about 90,000 acres, said Maj. Gen. James Simmons, III Corps deputy commanding general and the post's No. 2 official. Gen. Simmons said the agreements would be completely voluntary, and the terms, such as the length of the agreement, would be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. “It is an incentive program that says, we want to pay you to keep your land in its current rural condition, as opposed to selling your land for a subdivision or business entity,” Simmons said....
House passes property rights protection act The U.S. House of Representatives is moving to curb the actions of local government and states that receive federal economic development funds who use eminent domain to acquire property for such purposes. The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005 (HR 4128) was co-sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-New Mexico, who said the passage of the bill reaffirms owners' private property rights as a value of American society. But the bill, which now goes before the U.S. Senate, could have serious implications for the city of Albuquerque, which has already expended $1.6 million dollars to acquire blighted property in the Southeast Heights quadrant of the city that it would like to redevelop into affordable housing. If a version of the legislation is agreed to by both the House and Senate, President Bush must sign it before it can become law. Under the newest bill, a court can reimburse attorneys' fees to a property owner who was the target of an improper eminent domain action. The bill also extends its protection to farmers and ranchers with rural or agricultural properties. The bill does not prevent the continued use of eminent domain for public health and safety or other public uses, such as roads and public utilities....
Judge's land-use suit adds ethics to Measure 37 saga Just when Oregon's property rights drama seemed to be stabilizing, a Marion County judge wrote a Shakespearean twist. Paul Lipscomb, who overthrew Measure 37's predecessor four years ago, sued the state this week for approving his neighbor's application to split farmland into 5-acre plots. His litigation comes weeks after colleague Mary Mertens James tossed out Measure 37. The clincher: The case will be heard in Marion Circuit Court, where Lipscomb is the presiding judge. "You don't see this every day," said Kevin Neely of the state attorney general's office. No kidding. The saga -- which is raising new questions about Measure 37 and judicial ethics -- started in earnest five years ago....
Wolf v. Elk: Jury Still Out On Which Totemic Beast Will Rule The West Robert Fanning, Jr. calls the whole idea of wolf recovery a "fraud." He's the founder of the congenial-enough sounding "Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd," a Montana-based faction of 3,742 hunters, big game outfitters and fans of blood sports who, like Wyoming, are challenging the federal government's dominion over state wildlife rights. Admittedly, the group's name rings ironic‹ as a principal FNYEH goal is to restore elk to happy-making numbers, so members can resume hunting them before, as they say, wolves gobble up the last of their dearly beloved and decimated herds. "The introduction of the gray wolf, canis lupus, on top of the indigenous timber wolf, canis irremotus, well," Fanning paused, measuring his words, "I hesitate to even call it a 'reintroduction,' because it's not." While at a loss for the Latinate nuances in this crazy-making tongue of eco-speak, my inner city slicker still recognized potent fighting words when it heard them. Fanning is a gregariously well-spoken, passionately devout Catholic, ex-Notre Damer. At 55, the Pray, Mont., rancher, retired CEO and corporate refugee, with a degree in biology, is on a crusade to make "wolf control" a national debate. He'll even take it all the way to the Supreme Court, he says, if he has to....
Cattlemen oppose grazing cuts in wilderness bill A congressional hearing last week on a wilderness bill proposed by Rep. Mike Simpson R-Idaho, brought together some unlikely forces. The Idaho Cattle Association, federal land management agencies and singer-songwriter Carole King all expressed concerns about the bill, which sets aside 300,000 acres in the Boulder-White Cloud mountains in central Idaho as wilderness. The opposition, however, came about for quite different reasons. Cattlemen are concerned because the bill would end livestock grazing in much of the region. Ranchers have already had their grazing permits drastically reduced in the region, said ICA President-elect Mike Webster, a rancher from Roberts, Idaho. “Livestock grazing is a wise and sustainable use of the land and, as a sound management tool, should never be removed from consideration,” Webster said. In addition to its role is sustaining local economies in Idaho, public lands grazing fosters a good ecological balance as it promotes good grass growth, prevents or lessens the threat of wildfires and controls the spread of weeds, he said....
Island rounds up resident roamers -- In 1893, bison -- all but wiped out after decades of slaughter -- came to Antelope Island, but not because of the Endangered Species Act or a firestorm from environmentalists. They came because businessmen, cattle ranchers and hunters wanted their chance -- so common in 1850, so rare in 1890 -- to drop the one-ton beasts. By 1893, an Antelope Island State Park brochure estimates there were only about 800 bison -- down from a high of at least 45 million -- remaining in the United States that year, when the first dozen were shipped to the island. It wasn't a reintroduction. There is no evidence that bison roamed Antelope Island before Kit Carson named it for the herds of antelope found there. There were mule deer, coyotes, bobcats and bighorn sheep, and maybe the occasional mountain lion or elk, according to Clay Shelley, curator of Fielding Garr Ranch. But no bison. It wasn't an attempt to save the species, either. Opportunity simply knocked -- when William Glasmann couldn't draw people to his Buffalo Park on the Great Salt Lake's south shore, he put his dozen bison on the auction block -- and Antelope Island owner John Dooly answered....
Snowy plover hatchlings thrive on coast The western snowy plover had another good year on the Oregon Coast, with hatchlings reaching 77, the second-highest numbers on record. The 77 survived long enough during this year's nesting season to fly and leave their parents, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. There were 107 last year, but it's still more than twice the average of 37 since biologists began tracking the birds in 1990. As of now from 153 to 158 plovers live on the Oregon Coast, the highest number since monitoring began. In 1993, the shorebirds were listed by the Fish & Wildlife Service as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. "We are thrilled to see another record year for nesting plovers," said Kerrie Palermo, senior wildlife biologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Coos Bay. "We believe it shows all the effort we put into coordinated plover management is worth it. Of course, nature has a hand in this success as well." Biologists credit restored habitat, predator control and separation of beach users from plover nesting areas....
Bigfork bears like lunch served tall, thin Imagine a 300-pound beaver with a propensity for power poles. That's essentially what they're dealing with at Bigfork in northern Minnesota. It seems that tough-mouthed black bears there have a strange hankering for wooden power poles. The bruins are standing on their rear feet and chewing the poles to the core about 6 feet above ground, threatening a bear-induced blackout.
About 22 poles owned by North Itasca Electric Cooperative might need to be replaced, at a cost of up to $60,000....
Column: The big rush to drill There's a big push by the oil and gas industries and their political allies to reduce public oversight and roll back protections for wildlife in order to increase energy production in the West. For decades, the industry has complained that it is locked out of Western public lands that could free America from dependence on foreign oil. "We've taken large chunks of the country and put it off limits to any kind of exploration or development," Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oilman, told a town hall meeting in Arkansas last year. "Large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off limits." Government data tell a far different story: Oil and gas companies have enjoyed widespread access to public lands but have produced precious little energy to show for it....
Old claims being mined for new digs At 11,400 feet, the chilly mountain wind whistles through the blank windows of the abandoned Paris Mill, a ghostly relic from the mining boom and an improbable anchor for a modern-day land rush. Here in Buckskin Gulch, 2 miles up a washboard road from the collection of false-fronted buildings of Alma, developers Bill Cincilla and Jeff Wright envision five new homes on some of Colorado's last affordable mountain real estate: patented mining claims. "This is one of those rare opportunities where we have a unique site, just absolutely drop-dead gorgeous surroundings, where we can do something like this," said Cincilla, an engineer describing his first foray as a developer. They have a contract on four adjacent mining claims that cover 94 acres and currently are listed together for $445,000, while similar undeveloped home sites 20 minutes away in Breckenridge fetch as much as $1 million an acre. Cincilla and Wright are among a growing legion of real estate investors driven by high prices out of Colorado's resort towns and up into the nearby hills, where mining claims dating from the late 1800s remain available for development - and present a lingering conundrum for government agencies, conservation groups and historical preservationists....
Congressmen believe criticism is misleading Congressman Greg Walden said criticism by some environmentalists of the bill he and fellow Northwest Rep. Brian Baird introduced to speed up logging dead timber and planting new trees after catastrophic storms and wildfires has been misleading or downright preposterous. Walden, a Republican from Oregon, and Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, introduced the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act on Thursday in the nation’s capital. It has 98 co-sponsors representing both parties. “Today in America’s forests, it can take three years for the federal government to cut a burned, dead tree after a fire,” Walden said, and by then, most trees have rotted or become bug infested. His bill would speed up the scientific and environmental review process to about 120 days but still provide 90 days for public comment and preserve the right to administrative and judicial appeal....
Ferret recovery blooms in prairie "mansion" Unceremoniously named "Son of Alice" after his mother, the recent transfer from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs is one of about 200 ferrets housed at the new Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center. The $8 million facility north of Wellington in Larimer County is the epicenter for national efforts to help recover North America's only native ferret, among the nation's most endangered species. Once abundant in the West, the ferrets began disappearing at the turn of the century as a result of prairie dog eradication efforts and disease. In the mid-1970s, wildlife experts thought the ferret was extinct, until finding a small group near Meeteetse, Wyo....
Eskimos turn to supersonic 'grenade' for humane whale kills A supersonic explosive has begun to replace Yankee whaling-era black powder as Alaska Natives seek more humane weaponry in the traditional hunt for bowhead whales. "It's a lot safer," said Eugene Brower, a Barrow whaling captain who chairs the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission's weapons improvement program. Brower trains Native whaling captains to handle a harpoon-launched grenade loaded with penthrite, a World War I-era explosive used in demolition. "They love it," Brower said of captains from the North Slope villages of Kaktovik, Nuiqsit and Barrow who have converted to the penthrite device for the spring and fall hunts. "It's four times the strength of black powder. With black powder, the meat has a gas taste."....
Lawmaker warns of water concerns in arid Nevada Nevada, the most arid state in the nation, needs a thorough inventory of its water resources because of an unrelenting, growth-induced demand on those resources, a state lawmaker said Friday. Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, also said at a Carson River symposium that there are many questions about water right transfers and the point at which the state water engineer steps in to prevent excessive pumping. Goicoechea, a rancher who serves on an interim legislative panel studying possible water law changes, also said in an interview that he'd favor a new law calling for forfeiture of a water right for violations such as pumping too much. Currently, he said such violations are considered misdemeanors punishable by a fine of up to $500, so there's not much pressure on a violator to honor a cease-and-desist order from the state....
Conservationist: Rio Grande is headed for a train wreck It happened in late October 2001. The mighty Rio Grande, storied river of cowboy lore, icon of the West, petered out before it reached the sea. And the same thing happened the next year. A river that once disgorged a vast plume of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico was transformed into little more than a brook that finally disappeared in the dry, flat country on the Texas and Mexico border, about 100 yards from the sea. To be sure, the mouth of the Rio Grande dried up during a drier-than-normal year that parched the western United States. But the drought was not the only reason the Rio Grande ran out of water, or even the major reason. From Colorado through New Mexico and all along the Texas and Mexico border that the river forms, the Rio Grande is tapped for agriculture and, in places, drinking water; so much so that the river’s flow is but a fraction of what it once was — and demand for its water continues to grow....
When Cleaner Air Is a Biblical Obligation In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally. With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming. In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions. Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth. "Genesis 2:15," said Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs, citing a passage that serves as the justification for the effort: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."....
Sentries in U.S. Seek Early Signs of the Avian Flu With the country waiting nervously for avian flu to arrive, catching wild birds is no hobby. It has become part of a national early detection effort, and Ms. Lee, a researcher at the University of California here, is a sentry on the country's epidemiological ramparts. She is one of hundreds of ornithologists, veterinarians, amateur bird-watchers, park rangers and others being recruited by the National Wildlife Health Center to join a surveillance effort along the major American migratory flyways. They will test wild birds caught in nets; birds shot by hunters on public lands, who must check in with game wardens; and corpses from large bird die-offs in public parks or on beaches. The plan also calls for sampling bodies of water for the influenza virus, which is shed in bird feces. And it is designating some ducks and geese - like those in backyard flocks or living year-round in park ponds - as "sentinels" to be captured, tested, released and periodically retested....
Help sought in cattle shootings The Oregon State Police put out a call for help, and the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association pledged up to $1,000 in reward money after a roadside cattle shooting in rural Douglas County. On Wednesday, Smith River landowners added $4,000 to the reward, according to rancher Paul Bailey. Trooper Levi Harris said two black Angus cows were shot and killed in the Oct. 29 incident. Bailey, who lives at milepost 22, east of Reedsport up the Smith River, said it’s the second livestock shooting incident in as many years. In 2004 Bailey found a gunshot-killed calf near the county road. This time, he recalled hearing explosions – he thought maybe it was thunder – then hearing a diesel pickup truck drive off. Bailey found one cow, a bullet in its skull, Oct. 30. He called OSP. Harris said he found the second body while processing the crime scene Oct. 31....
85-year-old resident sells fresh eggs from his Menifee Road home The original sign was as sparse as the dirt road along which it was posted: "I got eggs." Frank Gomez never intended to spend his retirement selling eggs, however. The lifelong rancher and 13-year Menifee resident just wanted to keep active, and maintaining animals seemed second nature to him. "I bought so many chickens, so I had too many eggs," said Gomez, 85, whose street, Menifee Road, has since been paved. "So my wife said to put up a sign. That started the egg business." Soon after he bought the Menifee property, he was tending to sheep, goats, rabbits and chickens. "Now all I got are chickens," he said. "At my age, I couldn't handle anything else."....
McWhat? When Veronica Crowell walks her dog, Roscoe, in Riverside Park, as she often does, people always ask what kind of dog he is. When she tells them he's a McNab, they say, "A what?" McNabs were originally bred by a rancher named Alexander McNab, who moved from Scotland to Northern California in the mid-1800s. They are still bred in the area, mostly as cattle dogs, said Art Goldsmith of West Sacramento, Calif., who has owned and bred McNabs for 17 years. McNabs "are probably the toughest cattle dog in the world" and smarter than most people, Goldsmith said. "It's amazing what you can teach them. You can teach them anything." McNabs are not recognized by the American Kennel Club but are registered with the National Stockdog Registry. Goldsmith said McNabs are one-person dogs that are natural retrievers and tireless workers. "They will work all day and all night," he said....
Hall Ranch: A heritage of hospitality The Hall Ranch in Bruneau River Valley is not just a gathering place for horses and cattle. For more than 100 years, the 300-acre site and its 1879 two-story farmhouse have been a social center for the valley’s rural community. “At one time it was the finest home in Bruneau Valley,” said Berklee Cudmore of Boise, 80, whose grandparents, Albert and Mary Loveridge, owned the ranch prior to 1917. “The upstairs was a big room where they used to hold dances. At that time it was probably the only place large enough to have a big crowd.” The population was smaller back then, she said, and “of course, everybody knew everybody else.” In 1917, Fred and Betty Hall bought the ranch, moving in from a more remote homestead so their children could attend school. Their last child, Tom, the youngest of five, was born at the ranch house in 1923 and still lives there....
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Sunday, November 06, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Sacred Horses
by Larry Gabriel
Congress has decided the French and Germans should stop eating American horses. Why? Because the American horse is a sacred cow in Washington, DC.
Of course, being professional politicians they never mentioned Frenchmen or Germans or sacred cows. They just changed the language of federal meat inspection laws in a way to prohibit horse slaughter in the United States for human consumption.
Out here on the prairie we don't eat our horses, although some of our ancestors found it necessary to do so at times, up to and including during World War II.
Generally, we don't eat bugs, bird nests, kangaroos and snails either, but we don't care if others do.
Our horses were a sacred cow in only one regard. You could be hanged for stealing one.
Congress has no idea what sacred means. The buffalo are sacred to the Indians, but they eat them. Many things in nature were sacred to the natives of America. That meant they had proper respect for those things. It was not a prohibition on using them.
Congress seems to have taken the Hindu view of sacred cows and applied it to the horse. They can't eat one, but they can dump the carcass in the nearest river when it dies.
Do you think that doesn't happen in India? Do you think something like it won't happen here? Do you think every owner of an old sick horse will pay $200 to euthanize it? If so, you might qualify for Congress.
One of the original supporters of this measure reversed his position when he found out that it will not help horses, may move the slaughter to Canada or Mexico, or may cause thousands of old horses to suffer slow and agonizing deaths from disease. Slaughter is more humane.
But, a good set of facts has never deterred Congress from doing the politically correct thing, once it determines what that is.
I heard about an old dog like that. He got "brain lock" about every six months and would just take off. You could see it coming in his face. His eyes would glaze over and his brows would knot up. No bribe and no threat could dissuade him from his course while that look was there.
Congress has brain lock on this issue. There is no talking to them about better, wiser, more efficient, more humane alternatives. They are going to make their run.
When its over, they will find this: the federal government owns about 56,500 wild horses and burros. The herd doubles every five years. About 24,000 of those are in holding facilities and cost us $20 million a year. That can't continue forever.
Don't worry. Brain lock doesn't last forever. Sooner or later the dog catcher shows up.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.
Cotton and the cow buyer
By Julie Carter
Cotton was a cowboy by trade. He could day work and ride colts with the best of them and with a confidence that only comes from lots of hours in the saddle.
Owning cattle had always seemed riskier than riding green broke colts in snowstorms tending to somebody else’s sick yearling cattle. So he opted to simply draw wages.
He had a dependable reputation and while not having a regular boss, he almost always had work. Those that needed his help would find him at the filling station, feed store, at home or as happened this time, the local watering hole.
The Buggy Wheel Bar was one of the regular stops on his route and served as his post office and message center. It was the kind of place you could drink with your hat on and make sure the appropriate amount of bull was shot before heading home.
One day when he had just about finished his first cool one, a new cattle owner of his acquaintance wandered into the Buggy Wheel Bar. This wealthy but foolish man had just purchased on the highest market in recorded history 150 head of young crossbred cows with calves by their side.
These cattle had been gathered, penned and shipped without being worked. They were not branded, inoculated or pregnancy tested. They were not accustomed to horses or people and were in no mood to get that way. They were currently standing in this man’s pens and he had come to give Cotton a chance to make a little extra money.
Cotton asked the intelligent correct questions about the pens, the medicine, history of the cattle and what the owner had in his mind to have done. The owner was open to suggestion having no idea that any of that made any difference. Cotton outlined the standard procedure and gave a rough estimate of the cost of doing what needed done minus the labor.
After the new owner sat down awhile and caught his breath, he asked what Cotton would charge to do the work. Cotton stated his normal fee and indicated he would need a couple other good hands to help move the cattle through the chute and administer the required shots, brands and ear marks. These hands would have to be paid standard day wages.
The owner with all these high priced cattle standing in pens, could not in good conscience pay that much to get done what they didn’t even do in the movies. He left the Buggy Wheel Bar; Cotton finished his beverage and headed home to sleep.
In the morning Cotton’s phone was ringing and he listened patiently to the cow owner’s counter offer on wages. He passed on the offer and left the man with absolutely no idea what to do. Same thing happened the next morning.
By this time the cow owner was getting tired of putting out feed for the penned cattle and so he accepted Cotton’s price. The only catch was that he didn’t see the need for any extra cowboy day help. His proposal this time was “I’ll pay your price and I have a couple carpenters working on the house. I’ll send you those boys to help.”
Last time Cotton heard, the new owner was still feeding and had given up trying to find somebody to work that bunch of crossbred cows and calves. He is now looking for a new owner for them.
© Julie Carter 2005
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Sacred Horses
by Larry Gabriel
Congress has decided the French and Germans should stop eating American horses. Why? Because the American horse is a sacred cow in Washington, DC.
Of course, being professional politicians they never mentioned Frenchmen or Germans or sacred cows. They just changed the language of federal meat inspection laws in a way to prohibit horse slaughter in the United States for human consumption.
Out here on the prairie we don't eat our horses, although some of our ancestors found it necessary to do so at times, up to and including during World War II.
Generally, we don't eat bugs, bird nests, kangaroos and snails either, but we don't care if others do.
Our horses were a sacred cow in only one regard. You could be hanged for stealing one.
Congress has no idea what sacred means. The buffalo are sacred to the Indians, but they eat them. Many things in nature were sacred to the natives of America. That meant they had proper respect for those things. It was not a prohibition on using them.
Congress seems to have taken the Hindu view of sacred cows and applied it to the horse. They can't eat one, but they can dump the carcass in the nearest river when it dies.
Do you think that doesn't happen in India? Do you think something like it won't happen here? Do you think every owner of an old sick horse will pay $200 to euthanize it? If so, you might qualify for Congress.
One of the original supporters of this measure reversed his position when he found out that it will not help horses, may move the slaughter to Canada or Mexico, or may cause thousands of old horses to suffer slow and agonizing deaths from disease. Slaughter is more humane.
But, a good set of facts has never deterred Congress from doing the politically correct thing, once it determines what that is.
I heard about an old dog like that. He got "brain lock" about every six months and would just take off. You could see it coming in his face. His eyes would glaze over and his brows would knot up. No bribe and no threat could dissuade him from his course while that look was there.
Congress has brain lock on this issue. There is no talking to them about better, wiser, more efficient, more humane alternatives. They are going to make their run.
When its over, they will find this: the federal government owns about 56,500 wild horses and burros. The herd doubles every five years. About 24,000 of those are in holding facilities and cost us $20 million a year. That can't continue forever.
Don't worry. Brain lock doesn't last forever. Sooner or later the dog catcher shows up.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.
Cotton and the cow buyer
By Julie Carter
Cotton was a cowboy by trade. He could day work and ride colts with the best of them and with a confidence that only comes from lots of hours in the saddle.
Owning cattle had always seemed riskier than riding green broke colts in snowstorms tending to somebody else’s sick yearling cattle. So he opted to simply draw wages.
He had a dependable reputation and while not having a regular boss, he almost always had work. Those that needed his help would find him at the filling station, feed store, at home or as happened this time, the local watering hole.
The Buggy Wheel Bar was one of the regular stops on his route and served as his post office and message center. It was the kind of place you could drink with your hat on and make sure the appropriate amount of bull was shot before heading home.
One day when he had just about finished his first cool one, a new cattle owner of his acquaintance wandered into the Buggy Wheel Bar. This wealthy but foolish man had just purchased on the highest market in recorded history 150 head of young crossbred cows with calves by their side.
These cattle had been gathered, penned and shipped without being worked. They were not branded, inoculated or pregnancy tested. They were not accustomed to horses or people and were in no mood to get that way. They were currently standing in this man’s pens and he had come to give Cotton a chance to make a little extra money.
Cotton asked the intelligent correct questions about the pens, the medicine, history of the cattle and what the owner had in his mind to have done. The owner was open to suggestion having no idea that any of that made any difference. Cotton outlined the standard procedure and gave a rough estimate of the cost of doing what needed done minus the labor.
After the new owner sat down awhile and caught his breath, he asked what Cotton would charge to do the work. Cotton stated his normal fee and indicated he would need a couple other good hands to help move the cattle through the chute and administer the required shots, brands and ear marks. These hands would have to be paid standard day wages.
The owner with all these high priced cattle standing in pens, could not in good conscience pay that much to get done what they didn’t even do in the movies. He left the Buggy Wheel Bar; Cotton finished his beverage and headed home to sleep.
In the morning Cotton’s phone was ringing and he listened patiently to the cow owner’s counter offer on wages. He passed on the offer and left the man with absolutely no idea what to do. Same thing happened the next morning.
By this time the cow owner was getting tired of putting out feed for the penned cattle and so he accepted Cotton’s price. The only catch was that he didn’t see the need for any extra cowboy day help. His proposal this time was “I’ll pay your price and I have a couple carpenters working on the house. I’ll send you those boys to help.”
Last time Cotton heard, the new owner was still feeding and had given up trying to find somebody to work that bunch of crossbred cows and calves. He is now looking for a new owner for them.
© Julie Carter 2005
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Blight loophole could allow cities to grab homes, land
For most people, urban blight means crumbling homes, abandoned offices, and toxic waste sites. But for many municipal authorities blight is anything that comes in the way of their grand redevelopment plans. The Michigan Senate today is likely to vote on a constitutional amendment to protect property owners from government seizures after the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Kelo decision. This decision allowed New Haven city authorities in Connecticut to use their eminent domain powers to condemn property owned by poor homeowners and transfer it to rich developers. But if supporters are serious about deterring property grab abuses in Michigan, they should allow only a narrow exception for blight. Anyone who doubts this should consider the case of Nancy Kurdziel, president of Prime Housing Group Inc. in East Lansing. For eight years, Kurdziel, a mother of two, has worked hard to maintain the seven apartment buildings she jointly owns with her parents and rents out to Michigan State University students. Some buildings were under receivership when her parents bought them. Keeping them profitable requires constant, daily attention, Kurdziel says. But East Lansing city authorities have declared her properties blight. Why? Not because they are unsafe or unkempt: Rental properties have to pass city inspections to renew their license every year. Rather, they are located in a 35-acre area near the university where authorities have decided property values of homes are not rising fast enough and the conversion of single-family homes to multifamily rental properties and commercial buildings is undesirable. Most would regard such real estate fluctuations as a normal and necessary market response to shifting demographics and demand. Not East Lansing authorities. They see them as evidence of creeping blight....
The Environmental Disaster That Wasn't
Of all the energy-related bad news brought on by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, one piece of good news has gone largely unnoticed. The two powerful storms did not cause any major offshore oil spills despite dealing a knockout punch to America’s biggest oil producing region. This remarkable accomplishment in environmental safety should not be ignored in the upcoming debate over expanding domestic oil drilling to new areas. The hurricanes swept through the central and western Gulf of Mexico, home to 25 percent of the nation’s domestic oil production, and the impact was extensive. Over 100 offshore oil facilities were completely destroyed, and many others have yet to start up again. Production is still low and will not reach pre-hurricane levels for months. “One might have expected the entire Gulf to be blackened with oil,” said Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton at an October 27th Senate hearing on post-Katrina energy issues. Instead, “there were no significant spills from any of our wells.” The Department of the Interior, which has authority over most offshore drilling, had mandated a number of safety features to prevent massive spills from the sea floor, such as those that occurred off the Santa Barbara coast in 1969 and in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979. Katrina and Rita provided what Norton calls “the toughest test of our offshore safety,” and the results are highly encouraging....
Trusting the land trusts
In the latest issue of the PERC Policy Series, PERC Senior Fellow Dominic Parker examines the impact federal tax policy has on land trusts and conservation easements. Land trusts are nonprofit organizations that conserve land in order to preserve biodiversity or protect open spaces. They have been used in recent decades to address issues related to sprawl, development and wildlife conservation. In 2003, land trusts came under fire, as critics alleged that some trusts were providing what amounted to tax shelters for developers. Parker summarizes the history of land trusts and conservation easements, examines their effectiveness, takes a close look at tax policies and the incentives they provide to private landowners to conserve open spaces, and recommends alternatives. Parker’s “Conservation Easements: A Closer Look at Federal Tax Policy” is available as a .PDF.
Media Myths: Gas Hysteria
October was a month for scares and the broadcast news shows did their part. Even though gas prices fell 45 cents in a little more than three weeks, the media continued to talk about “record-high” or “soaring” prices. Gas prices dropped every day for 17 straight business days, but the media covered rising or high prices roughly four times as often as falling prices. Gas prices fell steadily from October 6 and continued through the end of the month. The decline had little impact on media coverage. Stories about falling prices still made up just 21 percent of the coverage through October 30. In fact, the national average price for regular gasoline isn’t just lower than it was before Rita, it’s now more than 10 cents per gallon below pre-Katrina levels, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report. ABC was the worst of the three broadcast networks covering gas prices. Its reporters acknowledged falling prices only once since prices began to fall – just 9 percent of the time. On October 27, with gas prices at $2.57, down 37 cents per gallon from its post-Rita high of October 5, reporter Betsy Stark of ABC’s “World News Tonight” claimed that “consumers [are] still paying close to $3 a gallon to fill up.” She was off nearly 17 percent. Even though gas fell every business day from October 6 through October 30, only one of ABC’s 11 stories about gasoline during that period mentioned it. One of the common themes for gasoline reporting all summer was to claim “record prices,” even though the reality was much different. Inflation raises overall prices over time, causing the raw number to go up. A gallon of gas might have cost 25 cents decades ago. That’s why inflation-adjusted prices are the only accurate way to compare costs from one decade to the next. According to the Energy Department, the inflation-adjusted high for a gallon of regular gas is $3.11, set in 1981. But Katrina and Rita sent the media scurrying for stories, and “record highs” were mentioned at least eight times. CBS was especially fond of the term. It appeared three times during the CBS stories....
Phony Animal-Rights “Physicians” Group Ranks Airport Food
Today the deceptively named Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an affiliate of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that masquerades as a mainstream health charity, congratulated airport restaurants for serving “healthy” meals. Consistent with PCRM’s animal-rights agenda, its annual survey awards points to restaurants solely on the basis of how many vegetarian entrees they make available. Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom called on PCRM to stop misleading holiday travelers by implying that all non-vegetarian fare is unhealthy. When PCRM’s 2004 airport-food survey was released, The New York Times concluded: “[T]he physicians' committee has a PETA link, and its food rankings reflect that agenda.” Also in 2004, PCRM was exposed in Newsweek as an animal rights group with connections to violent activism. “This is just another page from PCRM’s well-worn animal rights playbook,” said David Martosko, the Center for Consumer Freedom’s Director of Research. “The only thing that’s changed is the group’s choice of spokesperson. Last year it was a former PETA activist who had previously bragged about stripping for animal rights. But PCRM’s ridiculous message -- that vegetarian eating is the only healthy option -- is just as absurd as it’s always been.”....
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Blight loophole could allow cities to grab homes, land
For most people, urban blight means crumbling homes, abandoned offices, and toxic waste sites. But for many municipal authorities blight is anything that comes in the way of their grand redevelopment plans. The Michigan Senate today is likely to vote on a constitutional amendment to protect property owners from government seizures after the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Kelo decision. This decision allowed New Haven city authorities in Connecticut to use their eminent domain powers to condemn property owned by poor homeowners and transfer it to rich developers. But if supporters are serious about deterring property grab abuses in Michigan, they should allow only a narrow exception for blight. Anyone who doubts this should consider the case of Nancy Kurdziel, president of Prime Housing Group Inc. in East Lansing. For eight years, Kurdziel, a mother of two, has worked hard to maintain the seven apartment buildings she jointly owns with her parents and rents out to Michigan State University students. Some buildings were under receivership when her parents bought them. Keeping them profitable requires constant, daily attention, Kurdziel says. But East Lansing city authorities have declared her properties blight. Why? Not because they are unsafe or unkempt: Rental properties have to pass city inspections to renew their license every year. Rather, they are located in a 35-acre area near the university where authorities have decided property values of homes are not rising fast enough and the conversion of single-family homes to multifamily rental properties and commercial buildings is undesirable. Most would regard such real estate fluctuations as a normal and necessary market response to shifting demographics and demand. Not East Lansing authorities. They see them as evidence of creeping blight....
The Environmental Disaster That Wasn't
Of all the energy-related bad news brought on by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, one piece of good news has gone largely unnoticed. The two powerful storms did not cause any major offshore oil spills despite dealing a knockout punch to America’s biggest oil producing region. This remarkable accomplishment in environmental safety should not be ignored in the upcoming debate over expanding domestic oil drilling to new areas. The hurricanes swept through the central and western Gulf of Mexico, home to 25 percent of the nation’s domestic oil production, and the impact was extensive. Over 100 offshore oil facilities were completely destroyed, and many others have yet to start up again. Production is still low and will not reach pre-hurricane levels for months. “One might have expected the entire Gulf to be blackened with oil,” said Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton at an October 27th Senate hearing on post-Katrina energy issues. Instead, “there were no significant spills from any of our wells.” The Department of the Interior, which has authority over most offshore drilling, had mandated a number of safety features to prevent massive spills from the sea floor, such as those that occurred off the Santa Barbara coast in 1969 and in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979. Katrina and Rita provided what Norton calls “the toughest test of our offshore safety,” and the results are highly encouraging....
Trusting the land trusts
In the latest issue of the PERC Policy Series, PERC Senior Fellow Dominic Parker examines the impact federal tax policy has on land trusts and conservation easements. Land trusts are nonprofit organizations that conserve land in order to preserve biodiversity or protect open spaces. They have been used in recent decades to address issues related to sprawl, development and wildlife conservation. In 2003, land trusts came under fire, as critics alleged that some trusts were providing what amounted to tax shelters for developers. Parker summarizes the history of land trusts and conservation easements, examines their effectiveness, takes a close look at tax policies and the incentives they provide to private landowners to conserve open spaces, and recommends alternatives. Parker’s “Conservation Easements: A Closer Look at Federal Tax Policy” is available as a .PDF.
Media Myths: Gas Hysteria
October was a month for scares and the broadcast news shows did their part. Even though gas prices fell 45 cents in a little more than three weeks, the media continued to talk about “record-high” or “soaring” prices. Gas prices dropped every day for 17 straight business days, but the media covered rising or high prices roughly four times as often as falling prices. Gas prices fell steadily from October 6 and continued through the end of the month. The decline had little impact on media coverage. Stories about falling prices still made up just 21 percent of the coverage through October 30. In fact, the national average price for regular gasoline isn’t just lower than it was before Rita, it’s now more than 10 cents per gallon below pre-Katrina levels, according to AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report. ABC was the worst of the three broadcast networks covering gas prices. Its reporters acknowledged falling prices only once since prices began to fall – just 9 percent of the time. On October 27, with gas prices at $2.57, down 37 cents per gallon from its post-Rita high of October 5, reporter Betsy Stark of ABC’s “World News Tonight” claimed that “consumers [are] still paying close to $3 a gallon to fill up.” She was off nearly 17 percent. Even though gas fell every business day from October 6 through October 30, only one of ABC’s 11 stories about gasoline during that period mentioned it. One of the common themes for gasoline reporting all summer was to claim “record prices,” even though the reality was much different. Inflation raises overall prices over time, causing the raw number to go up. A gallon of gas might have cost 25 cents decades ago. That’s why inflation-adjusted prices are the only accurate way to compare costs from one decade to the next. According to the Energy Department, the inflation-adjusted high for a gallon of regular gas is $3.11, set in 1981. But Katrina and Rita sent the media scurrying for stories, and “record highs” were mentioned at least eight times. CBS was especially fond of the term. It appeared three times during the CBS stories....
Phony Animal-Rights “Physicians” Group Ranks Airport Food
Today the deceptively named Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an affiliate of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that masquerades as a mainstream health charity, congratulated airport restaurants for serving “healthy” meals. Consistent with PCRM’s animal-rights agenda, its annual survey awards points to restaurants solely on the basis of how many vegetarian entrees they make available. Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom called on PCRM to stop misleading holiday travelers by implying that all non-vegetarian fare is unhealthy. When PCRM’s 2004 airport-food survey was released, The New York Times concluded: “[T]he physicians' committee has a PETA link, and its food rankings reflect that agenda.” Also in 2004, PCRM was exposed in Newsweek as an animal rights group with connections to violent activism. “This is just another page from PCRM’s well-worn animal rights playbook,” said David Martosko, the Center for Consumer Freedom’s Director of Research. “The only thing that’s changed is the group’s choice of spokesperson. Last year it was a former PETA activist who had previously bragged about stripping for animal rights. But PCRM’s ridiculous message -- that vegetarian eating is the only healthy option -- is just as absurd as it’s always been.”....
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