Friday, March 24, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
BLM hears public's concerns on drilling The "inherent conflict" that exists when the federal government leases the underlying minerals to exploration companies could be eased if surface owners received part of the royalties, several speakers told a Bureau of Land Management "listening tour" Wednesday. "Perhaps a small portion of the royalties that currently go to the federal government, perhaps 1 percent, would smooth things out," said Phil Moyer, of Grand Junction. "There is high conflict because the geography dictates high-density drilling." Mesa County Commissioner Craig Meis also urged top BLM resource managers to make recommendations that 1 percent of the royalties go to the surface owners. "Those that own the development rights don't mind the impacts so much because they're getting paid and are less likely to complain," Meis said. "But so far, this suggestion has been laughed at." A number of property owners in resource-rich western Colorado also touted the royalty share proposal and urged the BLM to devote more time, staff and money to inspection of drilling operations and enforcement of regulations. Also high on their list was notification of property owners before lease parcels are offered for sale, with several saying that people often have no idea the mineral rights under their land have been leased until a representative of a drilling company shows up at their door. Many also spoke of damage to their land, noise from drills and service trucks, impacts on water and wildlife, light pollution at night and other disruptions to rural areas....
State, feds differ on split estate It has been nearly nine months since Wyoming's Split Estates Act became law, yet little has happened regarding a showdown with the Bureau of Land Management, which claims the law cannot be applied to millions of acres of federally managed lands in Wyoming. BLM managers will be in Casper Friday to listen to concerns regarding split-estate issues. Laurie Goodman, president of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, said it's important for all citizens to attend the BLM's "listening" sessions, because there's much at stake -- not only for surface owners, but also for those who enjoy all the opportunities federal lands offer. "It's been one year, and the Split Estates Act has not slowed down drilling. It has not caused a huge cost burden on the producers at all. I'm going to ask the BLM, 'Why can't you simply recognize the state's statutes?"' Goodman said. When the BLM took the position that Wyoming's Split Estates Act did not have authority over federal minerals, Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank made it clear the state intends to defend its position that it does. But so far, there have been no legal challenge launched from either side....
Methane wells ordered to halt Saying it's the worst violation it has dealt with in the coalbed methane industry, the Wyoming state engineer's office has ordered a producer to cease production in 14 coalbed methane wells. The office has also issued stop-use orders for at least four storage reservoirs that were in operation without proper permits. "This is the most severe order we've issued," said State Engineer Patrick Tyrrell. The office has not yet decided whether to take legal action against Pinnacle Gas Resources Inc., but it did reject the company's pending applications for 83 wells and several storage reservoirs in the Wild Horse Creek drainage area in eastern Campbell County earlier this month....
Kayak Park Bill hits floor of Colorado Senate With meager runoff the past few years, my runs down the lower Blue River, north of Silverthorne, more often than not ended up with my kayak shoaled out in the shallows, stuck in the mud. That's about where the Colorado State Legislature appears to be with its latest effort to define Recreational In-Channel Diversions (RICDs), those stream flows sought by towns to sustain whitewater kayak parks. Like a water fight among rafters, boaters and traditional water users - developers, ranchers, cities and farmers - are circling each other and splashing the river with their political paddles. If they find a compromise, it could help establish some certainty for how those recreational water rights are claimed and administered. But the bill that's up for discussion on the Senate floor this week would create a second class water right under Colorado's first-in-time, first-in-right doctrine, as The Mountain Mail in Salida reported March 20. At issue is the ability of towns to claim river flows for kayak play areas. Existing state law includes provisions for such facilities, but in a case involving a whitewater park in Gunnison, the Colorado Supreme Court said the rules are still a bit murky, essentially sending the issue back to the Legislature....
Wind Energy Demand Booming: Cost Dropping Below Conventional Sources "When Austin Energy, the publicly owned utility in Austin, Texas, launched its GreenChoice program in 2000, customers opting for green electricity paid a premium. During the fall of 2005, climbing natural gas prices pulled conventional electricity costs above those of wind-generated electricity, the source of most green power. This crossing of the cost lines in Austin and several other communities is a milestone in the U.S. shift to a renewable energy economy," says Lester Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute. Austin Energy buys wind-generated electricity under 10-year, fixed-price contracts and passes this stable price on to its GreenChoice subscribers. This fixed-price energy product is quite attractive to Austin's 388 corporate GreenChoice customers, including Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, IBM, Samsung, and 3M. Advanced Micro Devices expects to save $4 million over the next decade through this arrangement. School districts are also signing up. Round Rock School District, for example, projects 10-year savings to local taxpayers at $2 million. A similar situation has unfolded in Colorado with Xcel Energy, which is the state's largest electricity supplier. Xcel's 33,000 Windsource customers, who until late 2005 were paying $6 more each month for their electricity, are now paying slightly less than those using conventional electricity, which comes mostly from natural gas and coal....
16,000 acres of forest offered for sale to Conservation Fund Home to spotted owls, coho salmon and steelhead trout, the Big River tract and the Salmon Creek watershed represent almost 16,000 acres of redwood and Douglas fir forest in Mendocino County. The land is currently owned by the Hopland Timber Company, but may soon be sold to conservationists. "We recognize that there are certain values in those two watersheds and we believe that a conservation group could do good work there," said Stephen Levesque, area manager for Campbell Timber Management, the company overseeing the sale for the Hopland Timber Company. Levesque said the land is not currently up for public sale. The Conservation Fund, a group that gathers money to buy privately held land in order to promote economic development and environmental protection, has been offered the opportunity to buy the land. The group hopes to raise $48 million to purchase the land in order to protect the endangered species living on it. Kelly said the fund plans to raise the $48 million through loans and grants from California Public Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Board. The loans would be repaid from revenue generated by harvesting timber from the land using methods less harmful to the environment....
Beetle 'epidemic' rends Northwest forests The region's largest infestation of mountain pine beetles in 20 years has hit more than a million acres of forests in northern Idaho and Montana, while 2.5 million acres in Washington face disease and insect problems. Recent flight surveys by the U.S. Forest Service and state forest management agencies found that years of drought have left forests in the Northwest vulnerable. The surveys found that 1.1 million acres of forest came under attack by mountain pine beetle in northern Idaho and Montana in 2005, an increase from the 675,000 acres the year before. The Washington Department of Natural Resources reported that mountain pine beetles were at "epidemic" levels, with a 28 percent increase to 554,000 acres. Overall, insect and disease problems are present in 2.5 million of Washington's 21 million acres of forest, up from 1.9 million acres the previous year....
Column: Interior Department Recruits Hunters, Anglers, Yea-Sayers The Department of Interior will announce the formation of the Sporting Conservation Council today, a group of men and women drawn from prominent shooting sports and hunting organizations. According to the press release: "The council will provide important input in the areas of habitat restoration and protection; the impact of energy development on wildlife resources; forest and rangeland health; hunting access to federal lands; and other issues in which the sporting and conservation community can provide a valuable perspective to resource managers and senior leaders throughout the department…" Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton says, "We wanted to find a way of institutionalizing the role of sportsmen and women in the decision-making process at Interior. Now, for the first time, sportsmen and women will have an officially sanctioned committee to advise Interior on issues important to them and the country." Any hint that the current Department of Interior is listening to citizens who spend time in the outdoors, and seem to value wildlife, for whatever reason, is welcome. The forming of the council is a result of the extraordinary activism of hunters and fishermen in opposing some of the most extreme plans of both the Department of Interior and the Bush administration in general....
Owl inducted into owl hall of fame Could it have been any other owl? Fat Broad, the spotted owl from Corvallis, became the first bird inducted into the North American Owl Hall of Fame. Honored earlier the month, Fat Broad is perhaps best remembered as the face of the spotted owl controversy, appearing with a logger in a January 1991 LIFE magazine photograph. ``Neither of them look too happy; it really kind of captured the whole controversy,'' said her longtime handler, Eric Forsman, a U.S. Forest Service research biologist....
National Forests To Allow Corporate Ads he U.S. Forest Service is opening its landscapes, roads, marinas and ski resorts to corporate advertising under new rules slated to become permanent this spring, according to comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The rules would also preempt state and local restrictions governing promotion of alcohol, tobacco products and gambling. "Vistas of our national forests may soon include giant inflatable beer bottles, banners for chewing tobacco and snack food kiosks," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "Under this plan, every tacky commercial promotion will be welcomed, subject only to approval by a Bush administration appointee." The focus of the plan is to encourage corporate donations to support "special events, such as races, competitions [and] festivals" on national forest lands....
Judge backs Forest Service on Tomahawk timber sale A federal judge has backed plans by the U.S. Forest Service to allow logging in an area of the Superior National Forest north of Isabella. Judge Joan Erickson said the Forest Service adequately studied the environmental effects of logging in the Tomahawk area, just south of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Forest Service received help defending the logging plan in court from the state's timber industry. The Sierra Club filed the suit in federal district court in May to stop the Forest Service from selling trees in the area. The Sierra Club said the Forest Service failed to consider the effects of logging near the BWCAW....
Canyon raft trips shifted; lottery replaces wait list More people will be able to raft down the Colorado River each year, but visitors will be spread out over a longer period of time and will be forced to travel in smaller groups, according to a new plan the National Park Service formally adopted Thursday. More rafters will be shifted to fall, winter and spring months while the number of daily summertime launches will decrease. The result will be more tourists overall. The new plan also eliminates the waiting list for those who want to raft the river in non-commercial boats, replacing it with a lottery system. More than 7,000 trip leaders are on the waiting list, said Jeffrey Cross, project manager for the plan. Many people have been waiting to go on trips for more than a decade, he said....
Climate Data Hint at Irreversible Rise in Seas Within the next 100 years, the growing human influence on Earth's climate could lead to a long and irreversible rise in sea levels by eroding the planet's vast polar ice sheets, according to new observations and analysis by several teams of scientists. One team, using computer models of climate and ice, found that by about 2100, average temperatures could be four degrees higher than today and that over the coming centuries, the oceans could rise 13 to 20 feet — conditions last seen 129,000 years ago, between the last two ice ages. The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are consistent with other recent studies of melting and erosion at the poles. Many experts say there are still uncertainties about timing, extent and causes....
87-year-old woman resists selling ranch Marie Wissler wants to hang on to her 814-acre ranch, a rural island of rolling grassland amid custom homes on large lots in northern El Paso County. But Wissler, 87, and the ranch that her late husband’s family homesteaded are facing new pressure. The Lewis-Palmer School District wants 61 acres on the ranch for a second high school. The district has offered Wissler $955,000 for the land. She said no. Property values in the area are soaring, but the price is not the issue. “I don’t need the money,” said Wissler, widowed 12 years ago. She roams the ranch on an ATV and now checks a certain hillside for the purple anemones that herald spring. She said she’s turned down larger sums from developers. Wissler’s three grown daughters, who live in other states, also have said no to the school district. Dave Dilley, district superintendent, said the school board is reviewing its legal rights. The Wissler family says that means an eminent domain claim and forced sale through condemnation. Dilley said district officials have never used those terms....
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BLM hears public's concerns on drilling The "inherent conflict" that exists when the federal government leases the underlying minerals to exploration companies could be eased if surface owners received part of the royalties, several speakers told a Bureau of Land Management "listening tour" Wednesday. "Perhaps a small portion of the royalties that currently go to the federal government, perhaps 1 percent, would smooth things out," said Phil Moyer, of Grand Junction. "There is high conflict because the geography dictates high-density drilling." Mesa County Commissioner Craig Meis also urged top BLM resource managers to make recommendations that 1 percent of the royalties go to the surface owners. "Those that own the development rights don't mind the impacts so much because they're getting paid and are less likely to complain," Meis said. "But so far, this suggestion has been laughed at." A number of property owners in resource-rich western Colorado also touted the royalty share proposal and urged the BLM to devote more time, staff and money to inspection of drilling operations and enforcement of regulations. Also high on their list was notification of property owners before lease parcels are offered for sale, with several saying that people often have no idea the mineral rights under their land have been leased until a representative of a drilling company shows up at their door. Many also spoke of damage to their land, noise from drills and service trucks, impacts on water and wildlife, light pollution at night and other disruptions to rural areas....
State, feds differ on split estate It has been nearly nine months since Wyoming's Split Estates Act became law, yet little has happened regarding a showdown with the Bureau of Land Management, which claims the law cannot be applied to millions of acres of federally managed lands in Wyoming. BLM managers will be in Casper Friday to listen to concerns regarding split-estate issues. Laurie Goodman, president of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, said it's important for all citizens to attend the BLM's "listening" sessions, because there's much at stake -- not only for surface owners, but also for those who enjoy all the opportunities federal lands offer. "It's been one year, and the Split Estates Act has not slowed down drilling. It has not caused a huge cost burden on the producers at all. I'm going to ask the BLM, 'Why can't you simply recognize the state's statutes?"' Goodman said. When the BLM took the position that Wyoming's Split Estates Act did not have authority over federal minerals, Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank made it clear the state intends to defend its position that it does. But so far, there have been no legal challenge launched from either side....
Methane wells ordered to halt Saying it's the worst violation it has dealt with in the coalbed methane industry, the Wyoming state engineer's office has ordered a producer to cease production in 14 coalbed methane wells. The office has also issued stop-use orders for at least four storage reservoirs that were in operation without proper permits. "This is the most severe order we've issued," said State Engineer Patrick Tyrrell. The office has not yet decided whether to take legal action against Pinnacle Gas Resources Inc., but it did reject the company's pending applications for 83 wells and several storage reservoirs in the Wild Horse Creek drainage area in eastern Campbell County earlier this month....
Kayak Park Bill hits floor of Colorado Senate With meager runoff the past few years, my runs down the lower Blue River, north of Silverthorne, more often than not ended up with my kayak shoaled out in the shallows, stuck in the mud. That's about where the Colorado State Legislature appears to be with its latest effort to define Recreational In-Channel Diversions (RICDs), those stream flows sought by towns to sustain whitewater kayak parks. Like a water fight among rafters, boaters and traditional water users - developers, ranchers, cities and farmers - are circling each other and splashing the river with their political paddles. If they find a compromise, it could help establish some certainty for how those recreational water rights are claimed and administered. But the bill that's up for discussion on the Senate floor this week would create a second class water right under Colorado's first-in-time, first-in-right doctrine, as The Mountain Mail in Salida reported March 20. At issue is the ability of towns to claim river flows for kayak play areas. Existing state law includes provisions for such facilities, but in a case involving a whitewater park in Gunnison, the Colorado Supreme Court said the rules are still a bit murky, essentially sending the issue back to the Legislature....
Wind Energy Demand Booming: Cost Dropping Below Conventional Sources "When Austin Energy, the publicly owned utility in Austin, Texas, launched its GreenChoice program in 2000, customers opting for green electricity paid a premium. During the fall of 2005, climbing natural gas prices pulled conventional electricity costs above those of wind-generated electricity, the source of most green power. This crossing of the cost lines in Austin and several other communities is a milestone in the U.S. shift to a renewable energy economy," says Lester Brown, President of Earth Policy Institute. Austin Energy buys wind-generated electricity under 10-year, fixed-price contracts and passes this stable price on to its GreenChoice subscribers. This fixed-price energy product is quite attractive to Austin's 388 corporate GreenChoice customers, including Advanced Micro Devices, Dell, IBM, Samsung, and 3M. Advanced Micro Devices expects to save $4 million over the next decade through this arrangement. School districts are also signing up. Round Rock School District, for example, projects 10-year savings to local taxpayers at $2 million. A similar situation has unfolded in Colorado with Xcel Energy, which is the state's largest electricity supplier. Xcel's 33,000 Windsource customers, who until late 2005 were paying $6 more each month for their electricity, are now paying slightly less than those using conventional electricity, which comes mostly from natural gas and coal....
16,000 acres of forest offered for sale to Conservation Fund Home to spotted owls, coho salmon and steelhead trout, the Big River tract and the Salmon Creek watershed represent almost 16,000 acres of redwood and Douglas fir forest in Mendocino County. The land is currently owned by the Hopland Timber Company, but may soon be sold to conservationists. "We recognize that there are certain values in those two watersheds and we believe that a conservation group could do good work there," said Stephen Levesque, area manager for Campbell Timber Management, the company overseeing the sale for the Hopland Timber Company. Levesque said the land is not currently up for public sale. The Conservation Fund, a group that gathers money to buy privately held land in order to promote economic development and environmental protection, has been offered the opportunity to buy the land. The group hopes to raise $48 million to purchase the land in order to protect the endangered species living on it. Kelly said the fund plans to raise the $48 million through loans and grants from California Public Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Board. The loans would be repaid from revenue generated by harvesting timber from the land using methods less harmful to the environment....
Beetle 'epidemic' rends Northwest forests The region's largest infestation of mountain pine beetles in 20 years has hit more than a million acres of forests in northern Idaho and Montana, while 2.5 million acres in Washington face disease and insect problems. Recent flight surveys by the U.S. Forest Service and state forest management agencies found that years of drought have left forests in the Northwest vulnerable. The surveys found that 1.1 million acres of forest came under attack by mountain pine beetle in northern Idaho and Montana in 2005, an increase from the 675,000 acres the year before. The Washington Department of Natural Resources reported that mountain pine beetles were at "epidemic" levels, with a 28 percent increase to 554,000 acres. Overall, insect and disease problems are present in 2.5 million of Washington's 21 million acres of forest, up from 1.9 million acres the previous year....
Column: Interior Department Recruits Hunters, Anglers, Yea-Sayers The Department of Interior will announce the formation of the Sporting Conservation Council today, a group of men and women drawn from prominent shooting sports and hunting organizations. According to the press release: "The council will provide important input in the areas of habitat restoration and protection; the impact of energy development on wildlife resources; forest and rangeland health; hunting access to federal lands; and other issues in which the sporting and conservation community can provide a valuable perspective to resource managers and senior leaders throughout the department…" Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton says, "We wanted to find a way of institutionalizing the role of sportsmen and women in the decision-making process at Interior. Now, for the first time, sportsmen and women will have an officially sanctioned committee to advise Interior on issues important to them and the country." Any hint that the current Department of Interior is listening to citizens who spend time in the outdoors, and seem to value wildlife, for whatever reason, is welcome. The forming of the council is a result of the extraordinary activism of hunters and fishermen in opposing some of the most extreme plans of both the Department of Interior and the Bush administration in general....
Owl inducted into owl hall of fame Could it have been any other owl? Fat Broad, the spotted owl from Corvallis, became the first bird inducted into the North American Owl Hall of Fame. Honored earlier the month, Fat Broad is perhaps best remembered as the face of the spotted owl controversy, appearing with a logger in a January 1991 LIFE magazine photograph. ``Neither of them look too happy; it really kind of captured the whole controversy,'' said her longtime handler, Eric Forsman, a U.S. Forest Service research biologist....
National Forests To Allow Corporate Ads he U.S. Forest Service is opening its landscapes, roads, marinas and ski resorts to corporate advertising under new rules slated to become permanent this spring, according to comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The rules would also preempt state and local restrictions governing promotion of alcohol, tobacco products and gambling. "Vistas of our national forests may soon include giant inflatable beer bottles, banners for chewing tobacco and snack food kiosks," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "Under this plan, every tacky commercial promotion will be welcomed, subject only to approval by a Bush administration appointee." The focus of the plan is to encourage corporate donations to support "special events, such as races, competitions [and] festivals" on national forest lands....
Judge backs Forest Service on Tomahawk timber sale A federal judge has backed plans by the U.S. Forest Service to allow logging in an area of the Superior National Forest north of Isabella. Judge Joan Erickson said the Forest Service adequately studied the environmental effects of logging in the Tomahawk area, just south of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Forest Service received help defending the logging plan in court from the state's timber industry. The Sierra Club filed the suit in federal district court in May to stop the Forest Service from selling trees in the area. The Sierra Club said the Forest Service failed to consider the effects of logging near the BWCAW....
Canyon raft trips shifted; lottery replaces wait list More people will be able to raft down the Colorado River each year, but visitors will be spread out over a longer period of time and will be forced to travel in smaller groups, according to a new plan the National Park Service formally adopted Thursday. More rafters will be shifted to fall, winter and spring months while the number of daily summertime launches will decrease. The result will be more tourists overall. The new plan also eliminates the waiting list for those who want to raft the river in non-commercial boats, replacing it with a lottery system. More than 7,000 trip leaders are on the waiting list, said Jeffrey Cross, project manager for the plan. Many people have been waiting to go on trips for more than a decade, he said....
Climate Data Hint at Irreversible Rise in Seas Within the next 100 years, the growing human influence on Earth's climate could lead to a long and irreversible rise in sea levels by eroding the planet's vast polar ice sheets, according to new observations and analysis by several teams of scientists. One team, using computer models of climate and ice, found that by about 2100, average temperatures could be four degrees higher than today and that over the coming centuries, the oceans could rise 13 to 20 feet — conditions last seen 129,000 years ago, between the last two ice ages. The findings, being reported today in the journal Science, are consistent with other recent studies of melting and erosion at the poles. Many experts say there are still uncertainties about timing, extent and causes....
87-year-old woman resists selling ranch Marie Wissler wants to hang on to her 814-acre ranch, a rural island of rolling grassland amid custom homes on large lots in northern El Paso County. But Wissler, 87, and the ranch that her late husband’s family homesteaded are facing new pressure. The Lewis-Palmer School District wants 61 acres on the ranch for a second high school. The district has offered Wissler $955,000 for the land. She said no. Property values in the area are soaring, but the price is not the issue. “I don’t need the money,” said Wissler, widowed 12 years ago. She roams the ranch on an ATV and now checks a certain hillside for the purple anemones that herald spring. She said she’s turned down larger sums from developers. Wissler’s three grown daughters, who live in other states, also have said no to the school district. Dave Dilley, district superintendent, said the school board is reviewing its legal rights. The Wissler family says that means an eminent domain claim and forced sale through condemnation. Dilley said district officials have never used those terms....
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Thursday, March 23, 2006
FLE
Oregon man cleared of petroglyph theft says 'my life was trashed'
One of two men whose federal conviction for stealing American Indian artwork was overturned says the pair simply wanted to protect the ancient petroglyphs from encroaching development. Carroll Mizell, who served 10 months in prison after being found guilty in June 2004 of stealing the rock art, said "we wanted to save the property. "My whole intent was to free these things so they wouldn't be destroyed," Mizell told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Redmond, Ore. "We didn't do this because we wanted to put them on e-Bay," he said. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department failed to prove the rock art taken from a national forest on the edge of Reno had a market value of more than $1,000, a requirement for a felony conviction of government theft. Mizell and John Ligon of Reno admitted during their federal court trial in Reno that they took three boulders with etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest....
Supreme Court Backs Searches in Some Cases
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot always search a home when one resident says to come in but another objects, and the court's new leader complained that the ruling could hamper investigations of domestic abuse. Justices, in a 5-3 decision, said that police did not have the authority to enter and search the home of a small town Georgia lawyer even though the man's wife invited them in. The officers, who did not have a search warrant, found evidence of illegal drugs. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches covers a scenario when one home occupant wants to allow a search and another occupant does not. The ruling by Justice David H. Souter stopped short of fully answering that question - saying only that in the Georgia case it was clear that Scott Fitz Randolph denied the officers entry. In his first written dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said that "the end result is a complete lack of practical guidance for the police in the field, let alone for the lower courts." The case fractured a court that has shown surprising unanimity in the five months since Roberts became chief justice. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas filed separate dissents, and Justice John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer wrote their own opinions to explain their votes in favor of the man whose home was searched....
New Scrutiny for Law on Detaining Witnesses
A 22-year-old federal law that allows people to be held without charges if they have information about others' crimes is coming under fresh scrutiny in the courts, in Congress and within the Justice Department after reports that it has been abused in terrorism investigations. The law allows so-called material witnesses to be held long enough to secure their testimony if there is reason to think they will flee. But lawyers for people detained as material witnesses say the law has been used to hold people who the government fears will commit terrorist acts in the future but whom it lacks probable cause to charge with a crime. Concerns about how the law has been used have prompted calls from across the political spectrum for a reassessment. That debate has also ignited a broader one: whether the United States should join the several Western nations that have straightforward preventive detention laws. A bill introduced by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, would curtail the use of the material witness law to hold people suspected of plotting terrorist acts. Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he would introduce similar legislation in the House. "It's being stretched beyond its original purpose," Mr. Flake said of the material witness law. "Individuals are being indefinitely detained who might be suspects. If that's the case, they need to be charged." But Mr. Flake added that he might be receptive to arguments that federal prosecutors need tools to hold some people they consider dangerous. "If you need something else," he said, "come to us." Recent prosecutions, lawsuits and internal investigations by the government have all focused attention on the potential misuse of the material witness law in terrorism investigations. The Justice Department, for instance, recently opened an inquiry into 21 instances of possible misuses of the law, its Office of the Inspector General said. A Justice Department spokesman would not elaborate on the inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or name the detainees involved....
F.B.I. Agent Testifies Superiors Didn't Pursue Moussaoui Case
The F.B.I. agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury on Monday how he had tried repeatedly to get his superiors in Washington to help confirm his certainty that Mr. Moussaoui was involved in an imminent terrorist airline hijacking plot. But, said the agent, Harry Samit, he was regularly thwarted by senior bureau officials whose obstructionism he later described to Justice Department investigators as "criminally negligent" and who were, he believed, motivated principally by a need to protect their careers. Mr. Samit's testimony added a wealth of detail to the notion that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation played down, ignored and purposely mischaracterized the increasingly dire warnings from field agents in the Minneapolis office that they had a terrorist on their hands in Mr. Moussaoui. "I accused the people in F.B.I. headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Mr. Samit acknowledged under intense questioning by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer. Mr. Samit confirmed that he had told Justice Department investigators that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Mr. Moussaoui's belongings and computer. He testified that he had come to believe that "the wager was a national tragedy." Mr. Samit was a witness for the prosecution, which is trying to have Mr. Moussaoui executed for the deaths that occurred on Sept. 11. In his direct testimony more than a week ago, he bolstered the prosecutors' case by saying that had Mr. Moussaoui answered his questions honestly when he arrested him for immigration violations, it would have set off a chain of inquiries that could have foiled the Sept. 11 plot. But under Mr. MacMahon's questions, Mr. Samit provided much new evidence and testimony suggesting strongly that the more significant factors in the failure to learn of the plot from Mr. Moussaoui involved the decisions of senior F.B.I. officials....
Top FBI Official Unaware of Moussaoui Terror Ties
The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before September 11 said on Tuesday he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act. Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories. Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, testified on Monday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack. Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks. The trial -- the only one in the United States in connection with the attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death. Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman of Moroccan descent had ``radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs'' and thought he was part of a bigger plot to attack the United States. In a message to his superiors on August 18, 2001, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was ''conspiring to commit a terrorist act.'' But Rolince said although he knew of Moussaoui's arrest, he did not know about the contents of a long message that Samit had sent to FBI headquarters....
FBI, police spying is rising, groups allege
Political activists from New York to Colorado to California report that they believe police and FBI surveillance of their activities has increased markedly since the terror attacks 4-1/2 years ago since Congress approved the USA Patriot Act loosening some of the strictures on law enforcement. They include environmental groups like Time's UP!, peace activists in Pittsburgh, and even a police union protesting for higher wages in New York City. To try to find out if law officers are spying on them, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed Freedom of Information requests for more than 150 groups and individuals in more than 20 states who believe their first amendment rights are being violated. Time's UP! is one of the groups that says the alleged surveillance is aimed at intimidating them. They acknowledge public events can be watched by anyone but they're concerned police have crossed the line into inappropriate spying to discourage people's from publicly criticizing government policies. Local police and the FBI insist that none of their activities is aimed at chilling political speech. All investigations are conducted under strict guidelines put in place after abuses were documented during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Before any investigation of a political group proceeds, law officers require reasonable suspicion or information that an individual or a group is involved in criminal or terrorist-related activities....
Disarming the Law-Abiding
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ residents got an idea of what life is like without the rule of law. They had no telephones, no way to call 911. Even if they had, the police who reported for duty were busy with rescue missions, not fighting crime. Citizens had to protect themselves. This was made rather difficult by the city’s confiscation of guns, even from law-abiding citizens. After five months of denial in federal district court, the city last week made an embarrassing admission: in the aftermath of the hurricane, the severely overworked police apparently had the time to confiscate thousands of guns from law-abiding citizens. Numerous media stories have shown how useful guns were to the ordinary citizens of New Orleans who weren’t forcibly disarmed. Fox News reported several defensive gun uses. One city resident, John Carolan, was taking care of many family members, including his three-year-old granddaughter, when three men came to his house asking about his generator, threatening him with a machete. Carolan showed them his gun and they left. Another resident, Finis Shelnutt, recounts a similar story that the gangs left him alone after seeing “I have a very large gun.” Signs painted on boarded up windows in various parts of town warned criminals in advance not to try: the owner had shotguns inside. Last September 8, a little more than a week after the hurricane, New Orleans’ police superintendent, Eddie Compass announced: “No one will be able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.” Even legally registered firearms were seized, though exceptions were made for select businesses and for some wealthy individuals to hire guards. Undoubtedly, selected businesses and well-connected wealthy individuals had good reason to want protection, but so did others without the same political pull. One mother saw the need for a gun after she and her two children (ages 9 and 12) saw someone killed in New Orleans after the hurricane. The mother said: “I was a card-carrying, anti-gun liberal – not anymore.” John C. Guidos was successfully guarding his tavern on St. Claude Ave on September 7, when police took his shotgun and pistol; indeed, it was the only time that he saw any cops. Soon afterwards robbers looted the tavern....
Airline screeners fail government bomb tests
Imagine an explosion strong enough to blow a car's trunk apart, caused by a bomb inside a passenger plane. Government sources tell NBC News that federal investigators recently were able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports. In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials. NBC News briefed former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, on the results. "I'm appalled," he said. "I'm dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they're not." Investigators for the Government Accountability Office conducted the tests between October and January, at the request of Congress. The goal was to determine how vulnerable U.S. airlines are to a suicide bomber using cheap, readily available materials....
Death raises concern at police tactics The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States. Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions. Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour. But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant. As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi. Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all". Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year....
N.Y.C.'s crime fight to get more eyes
The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops. "They'll serve to reinforce safety already stabilized by Operation Impact, and serve as a high-visibility deterrent and investigative tool in other outdoor, public places," Kelly said. Recording high-quality images, the electronic sentinels will help the city's Finest track down criminals and terrorists as well as provide valuable evidence to convict them. Most of the cameras will be clearly marked so crooks know that their every move is being recorded by the cops....
Pulled over in Kansas? Get ready to show your license, registration — and fingerprints
If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints. The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station. Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii. “This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.” The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI’s statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Called the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, it is a statewide database of more than 10 million fingerprints taken from people arrested in Kansas. The Missouri Highway Patrol maintains a similar database. Both systems link to the FBI fingerprint database....
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Oregon man cleared of petroglyph theft says 'my life was trashed'
One of two men whose federal conviction for stealing American Indian artwork was overturned says the pair simply wanted to protect the ancient petroglyphs from encroaching development. Carroll Mizell, who served 10 months in prison after being found guilty in June 2004 of stealing the rock art, said "we wanted to save the property. "My whole intent was to free these things so they wouldn't be destroyed," Mizell told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Redmond, Ore. "We didn't do this because we wanted to put them on e-Bay," he said. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department failed to prove the rock art taken from a national forest on the edge of Reno had a market value of more than $1,000, a requirement for a felony conviction of government theft. Mizell and John Ligon of Reno admitted during their federal court trial in Reno that they took three boulders with etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest....
Supreme Court Backs Searches in Some Cases
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot always search a home when one resident says to come in but another objects, and the court's new leader complained that the ruling could hamper investigations of domestic abuse. Justices, in a 5-3 decision, said that police did not have the authority to enter and search the home of a small town Georgia lawyer even though the man's wife invited them in. The officers, who did not have a search warrant, found evidence of illegal drugs. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches covers a scenario when one home occupant wants to allow a search and another occupant does not. The ruling by Justice David H. Souter stopped short of fully answering that question - saying only that in the Georgia case it was clear that Scott Fitz Randolph denied the officers entry. In his first written dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said that "the end result is a complete lack of practical guidance for the police in the field, let alone for the lower courts." The case fractured a court that has shown surprising unanimity in the five months since Roberts became chief justice. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas filed separate dissents, and Justice John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer wrote their own opinions to explain their votes in favor of the man whose home was searched....
New Scrutiny for Law on Detaining Witnesses
A 22-year-old federal law that allows people to be held without charges if they have information about others' crimes is coming under fresh scrutiny in the courts, in Congress and within the Justice Department after reports that it has been abused in terrorism investigations. The law allows so-called material witnesses to be held long enough to secure their testimony if there is reason to think they will flee. But lawyers for people detained as material witnesses say the law has been used to hold people who the government fears will commit terrorist acts in the future but whom it lacks probable cause to charge with a crime. Concerns about how the law has been used have prompted calls from across the political spectrum for a reassessment. That debate has also ignited a broader one: whether the United States should join the several Western nations that have straightforward preventive detention laws. A bill introduced by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, would curtail the use of the material witness law to hold people suspected of plotting terrorist acts. Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he would introduce similar legislation in the House. "It's being stretched beyond its original purpose," Mr. Flake said of the material witness law. "Individuals are being indefinitely detained who might be suspects. If that's the case, they need to be charged." But Mr. Flake added that he might be receptive to arguments that federal prosecutors need tools to hold some people they consider dangerous. "If you need something else," he said, "come to us." Recent prosecutions, lawsuits and internal investigations by the government have all focused attention on the potential misuse of the material witness law in terrorism investigations. The Justice Department, for instance, recently opened an inquiry into 21 instances of possible misuses of the law, its Office of the Inspector General said. A Justice Department spokesman would not elaborate on the inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or name the detainees involved....
F.B.I. Agent Testifies Superiors Didn't Pursue Moussaoui Case
The F.B.I. agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury on Monday how he had tried repeatedly to get his superiors in Washington to help confirm his certainty that Mr. Moussaoui was involved in an imminent terrorist airline hijacking plot. But, said the agent, Harry Samit, he was regularly thwarted by senior bureau officials whose obstructionism he later described to Justice Department investigators as "criminally negligent" and who were, he believed, motivated principally by a need to protect their careers. Mr. Samit's testimony added a wealth of detail to the notion that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation played down, ignored and purposely mischaracterized the increasingly dire warnings from field agents in the Minneapolis office that they had a terrorist on their hands in Mr. Moussaoui. "I accused the people in F.B.I. headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Mr. Samit acknowledged under intense questioning by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer. Mr. Samit confirmed that he had told Justice Department investigators that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Mr. Moussaoui's belongings and computer. He testified that he had come to believe that "the wager was a national tragedy." Mr. Samit was a witness for the prosecution, which is trying to have Mr. Moussaoui executed for the deaths that occurred on Sept. 11. In his direct testimony more than a week ago, he bolstered the prosecutors' case by saying that had Mr. Moussaoui answered his questions honestly when he arrested him for immigration violations, it would have set off a chain of inquiries that could have foiled the Sept. 11 plot. But under Mr. MacMahon's questions, Mr. Samit provided much new evidence and testimony suggesting strongly that the more significant factors in the failure to learn of the plot from Mr. Moussaoui involved the decisions of senior F.B.I. officials....
Top FBI Official Unaware of Moussaoui Terror Ties
The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before September 11 said on Tuesday he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act. Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories. Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, testified on Monday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack. Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks. The trial -- the only one in the United States in connection with the attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death. Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman of Moroccan descent had ``radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs'' and thought he was part of a bigger plot to attack the United States. In a message to his superiors on August 18, 2001, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was ''conspiring to commit a terrorist act.'' But Rolince said although he knew of Moussaoui's arrest, he did not know about the contents of a long message that Samit had sent to FBI headquarters....
FBI, police spying is rising, groups allege
Political activists from New York to Colorado to California report that they believe police and FBI surveillance of their activities has increased markedly since the terror attacks 4-1/2 years ago since Congress approved the USA Patriot Act loosening some of the strictures on law enforcement. They include environmental groups like Time's UP!, peace activists in Pittsburgh, and even a police union protesting for higher wages in New York City. To try to find out if law officers are spying on them, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed Freedom of Information requests for more than 150 groups and individuals in more than 20 states who believe their first amendment rights are being violated. Time's UP! is one of the groups that says the alleged surveillance is aimed at intimidating them. They acknowledge public events can be watched by anyone but they're concerned police have crossed the line into inappropriate spying to discourage people's from publicly criticizing government policies. Local police and the FBI insist that none of their activities is aimed at chilling political speech. All investigations are conducted under strict guidelines put in place after abuses were documented during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Before any investigation of a political group proceeds, law officers require reasonable suspicion or information that an individual or a group is involved in criminal or terrorist-related activities....
Disarming the Law-Abiding
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ residents got an idea of what life is like without the rule of law. They had no telephones, no way to call 911. Even if they had, the police who reported for duty were busy with rescue missions, not fighting crime. Citizens had to protect themselves. This was made rather difficult by the city’s confiscation of guns, even from law-abiding citizens. After five months of denial in federal district court, the city last week made an embarrassing admission: in the aftermath of the hurricane, the severely overworked police apparently had the time to confiscate thousands of guns from law-abiding citizens. Numerous media stories have shown how useful guns were to the ordinary citizens of New Orleans who weren’t forcibly disarmed. Fox News reported several defensive gun uses. One city resident, John Carolan, was taking care of many family members, including his three-year-old granddaughter, when three men came to his house asking about his generator, threatening him with a machete. Carolan showed them his gun and they left. Another resident, Finis Shelnutt, recounts a similar story that the gangs left him alone after seeing “I have a very large gun.” Signs painted on boarded up windows in various parts of town warned criminals in advance not to try: the owner had shotguns inside. Last September 8, a little more than a week after the hurricane, New Orleans’ police superintendent, Eddie Compass announced: “No one will be able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.” Even legally registered firearms were seized, though exceptions were made for select businesses and for some wealthy individuals to hire guards. Undoubtedly, selected businesses and well-connected wealthy individuals had good reason to want protection, but so did others without the same political pull. One mother saw the need for a gun after she and her two children (ages 9 and 12) saw someone killed in New Orleans after the hurricane. The mother said: “I was a card-carrying, anti-gun liberal – not anymore.” John C. Guidos was successfully guarding his tavern on St. Claude Ave on September 7, when police took his shotgun and pistol; indeed, it was the only time that he saw any cops. Soon afterwards robbers looted the tavern....
Airline screeners fail government bomb tests
Imagine an explosion strong enough to blow a car's trunk apart, caused by a bomb inside a passenger plane. Government sources tell NBC News that federal investigators recently were able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports. In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials. NBC News briefed former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, on the results. "I'm appalled," he said. "I'm dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they're not." Investigators for the Government Accountability Office conducted the tests between October and January, at the request of Congress. The goal was to determine how vulnerable U.S. airlines are to a suicide bomber using cheap, readily available materials....
Death raises concern at police tactics The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States. Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions. Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour. But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant. As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi. Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all". Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year....
N.Y.C.'s crime fight to get more eyes
The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops. "They'll serve to reinforce safety already stabilized by Operation Impact, and serve as a high-visibility deterrent and investigative tool in other outdoor, public places," Kelly said. Recording high-quality images, the electronic sentinels will help the city's Finest track down criminals and terrorists as well as provide valuable evidence to convict them. Most of the cameras will be clearly marked so crooks know that their every move is being recorded by the cops....
Pulled over in Kansas? Get ready to show your license, registration — and fingerprints
If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints. The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station. Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii. “This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.” The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI’s statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Called the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, it is a statewide database of more than 10 million fingerprints taken from people arrested in Kansas. The Missouri Highway Patrol maintains a similar database. Both systems link to the FBI fingerprint database....
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Of Mice and Men
Here in Colorado, the hottest political issue of the day may not be the war in Iraq or the out-of-control federal budget, but rather the plight of a tiny mouse. Back in 1998, a frisky eight-inch rodent known as the Preble's meadow jumping mouse gained protective status under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA). What has Coloradans hot under the collar is that some 31,000 acres of local government and privately owned land in the state and stretching into Wyoming--an area larger than the District of Columbia--was essentially quarantined from all development so as not to disrupt the mouse's natural habitat. Even the Fish and Wildlife Service concedes that the cost to these land owners could reach $183 million. What we have here is arguably the most contentious dispute over the economic impact of the ESA since the famous early-'90s clash between the timber industry and the environmentalist lobby over the "endangered" listing of the spotted owl in the Northwest. That dispute eventually forced the closure of nearly 200 mills and the loss of thousands of jobs. Last week the war over the fate of the Preble's mouse escalated when a coalition of enraged homeowners, developers and farmers petitioned the Department of the Interior to have the mouse immediately delisted as "endangered" because of reliance on faulty data. The property-rights coalition would seem to have a fairly persuasive case based on the latest research on the mouse. It turns out that not only is the mouse not endangered, but it isn't even a unique species. The man who is almost singlehandedly responsible for exposing the truth about the Preble's mouse is Rob Roy Ramey, a biologist and lifelong conservationist, who used to serve as a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Mr. Ramey's research--published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Animal Conservation--concluded that the Preble's mouse "is not a valid subspecies based on physical features and genetics." The scientist who conducted the original research classifying Preble's as unique now agrees with Mr. Ramey's assessment. Even scientists who defend extending the mouse's "endangered" status admit that it is 99.5% genetically similar to other strains of mice....
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Here in Colorado, the hottest political issue of the day may not be the war in Iraq or the out-of-control federal budget, but rather the plight of a tiny mouse. Back in 1998, a frisky eight-inch rodent known as the Preble's meadow jumping mouse gained protective status under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA). What has Coloradans hot under the collar is that some 31,000 acres of local government and privately owned land in the state and stretching into Wyoming--an area larger than the District of Columbia--was essentially quarantined from all development so as not to disrupt the mouse's natural habitat. Even the Fish and Wildlife Service concedes that the cost to these land owners could reach $183 million. What we have here is arguably the most contentious dispute over the economic impact of the ESA since the famous early-'90s clash between the timber industry and the environmentalist lobby over the "endangered" listing of the spotted owl in the Northwest. That dispute eventually forced the closure of nearly 200 mills and the loss of thousands of jobs. Last week the war over the fate of the Preble's mouse escalated when a coalition of enraged homeowners, developers and farmers petitioned the Department of the Interior to have the mouse immediately delisted as "endangered" because of reliance on faulty data. The property-rights coalition would seem to have a fairly persuasive case based on the latest research on the mouse. It turns out that not only is the mouse not endangered, but it isn't even a unique species. The man who is almost singlehandedly responsible for exposing the truth about the Preble's mouse is Rob Roy Ramey, a biologist and lifelong conservationist, who used to serve as a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Mr. Ramey's research--published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Animal Conservation--concluded that the Preble's mouse "is not a valid subspecies based on physical features and genetics." The scientist who conducted the original research classifying Preble's as unique now agrees with Mr. Ramey's assessment. Even scientists who defend extending the mouse's "endangered" status admit that it is 99.5% genetically similar to other strains of mice....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Coyote's on prowl in park An "adventurous" coyote that has roamed Central Park for four days shook off pursuers with dart guns and eluded capture last night. Park officers and cops cornered the coyote - only the second spotted in the park in seven years - in the 4-acre Hallett Nature Center about 5 p.m. But it leaped over a fence and vanished. "The wily coyote escaped," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. As NYPD aviation units flew overhead, park enforcement control officers hunted the tawny creature, which left a pile of feathers from its last meal in the preserve. Benepe believes the coyote, which weighs about 60 pounds and resembles a lean German shepherd, came from Westchester County or the Bronx, either swimming across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek or crossing a bridge....
Cops catch wily coyote A wild coyote's run through Manhattan came to an end this morning when he was taken down by a tranquilizer dart in Central Park as a national audience watched live on television. The tawny-colored male coyote, nicknamed 'Hal,' was captured after leading authorities on a picturesque chase through the park. He eluded authorities several times by ducking under a bridge, running through ball fields and using the Wollman ice skating rink as an escape hatch. But around 10 a.m., as news helicopters whirled overhead, the coyote ran out of moves. He was shot with a dart by an NYPD police officer near Belvedere Castle, close to 79th Street and Central Park West....
Mining company, Nevada ranch reduce grazing in deal with enviros The world's biggest gold mining company and a sprawling Nevada ranch have agreed to dramatically reduce livestock grazing across nearly 800 square miles of rangeland - four-fifths of it federally owned - in a deal conservationists say is a major victory for the environment. The agreement reduces grazing levels by up to 75 percent through February 2007 across a vast stretch of land leased from the federal government by Barrick Goldstrike Co. of Canada and Ellison Ranching Co. of Tuscarora, Nev. The companies also agreed to lower grazing levels on some land they own. Officials of the Bureau of Land Management confirmed Wednesday that the settlement was reached in negotiations between the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project and the two companies. As a result, the conservation group agreed to drop efforts to block all livestock grazing on the 596 square miles of public land in the area. "It's a major reduction in livestock use - a great victory for fish and wildlife," Katie Fite, the project's director of biodiversity, told The Associated Press....
Are lawmakers trying to sabotage a state land initiative? The Arizona Legislature is moving closer to putting a proposition on the November ballot to compete with a citizen initiative to reform the state trust land system. The House of Representatives voted 32-23 last week to approve House Concurrent Resolution 2045, which would ask voters to set aside an initial 42,000 acres of state trust land for conservation. But the proposal is a lousy deal compared to Conserving Arizona's Future, an ongoing initiative campaign that also seeks to reform the state land system, says Steve Roman, a political consultant who is among the campaign's leaders. State trust land reform has been a contentious environmental issue for years in Arizona. About 11 million acres were set aside at statehood to be held in trust for a variety of beneficiaries, primarily schoolchildren. State trust land was originally laid out across the state in a checkerboard pattern, with little consideration to any ecological value the parcels might have....
Extermination Of Santa Cruz Island Pigs Nearing Completion The hunting of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island has eliminated them on about 85 percent of the land, which will reopen to camping, authorities said. The National Park Service said Monday that it is ending a camping ban on some areas of the island. The ban was imposed in November for safety reasons while a New Zealand-based company killed the pigs in those areas. The animals are descended from pigs brought to the island by ranchers in the 1850s. Authorities say they destroy native plants and archaeological sites and threaten rare animals such as the Santa Cruz Island fox. Since last April, about 4,800 pigs have been killed, said Yvonne Menard, a park service spokeswoman. The $5-million hunt is expected to finish clearing the 96-square-mile island of pigs by next summer....
Column: We can hasten forest recovery How U.S. forests look 100 years from now depends on the decisions we make today. Most Americans sit on the side of forest management debates. As long as they can buy lumber and vacation in forested mountains, all must be right with the world. But nearly 12.5 million acres have burned in the West in the past five years. Lumber demand, meanwhile, is at an all-time high. Too often after fires, we watch valuable timber simply rot. Look at Julian outside San Diego, or around the Giant Sequoia National Monument where the McNally Fire burned 150,000 acres. The difference between reforesting charred landscapes and leaving them alone to let nature take its course can be stark. Private forestland owners harvest dead trees after fires to accelerate the return of a healthy forest. They plant native-species seedlings, minimize erosion and provide diverse wildlife habitat. But on public lands, it's a different story....
Firefighter hiring practices studied The U.S. Forest Service must strengthen its oversight of contract firefighters hired to battle wildfires and take steps to ensure those workers have sufficient training and English language skills, a federal audit has concluded. Questions were raised about the effectiveness of the crews the agency hires through contractors following the 2002 Biscuit fire, which burned nearly 500,000 acres in southwestern Oregon and cost nearly $150 million to douse. Fire bosses noted numerous problems with poorly trained and inexperienced contract crews in the Pacific Northwest that year, prompting reviews by the Government Accountability Office and others. In a new audit released yesterday, the U.S. Agriculture Department's inspector general found that the Forest Service had corrected some of the problems identified in earlier reports, but other issues remained unresolved....
Column: Eco-crime and Punishment In case you hadn't noticed, 12 young people (average age 33) have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit arson in several Western states. The 83-page indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury in Oregon, and it must be important because the story made the front page of the Western edition of the New York Times on Jan. 21. Above the crease. In commenting on their arrests (some are being held without bail), Attorney General Gonzales and FBI chief Mueller played the "domestic eco-terrorism" card before the media, often dropping the "eco" part. Arson, terrorism or not, is, of course, a crime, a serious crime of which the dozen have only been accused. Fire scares people. It would scare me, if I were in one. But a bunch of unarmed treehuggers torching some trucks and buildings (including a ski-resort restaurant at Vail and a packing plant for wild mustangs) at night, after making certain that no two-leggeds or four-leggeds were anywhere close, is not, it seems to me, something I would compare to taking out the Oklahoma City Federal Building during working hours. The 12, by the way (shades of the Dirty Dozen?) are now 11. Bill Rodgers of Prescott, Ariz., managed to take his life with a plastic bag while in custody. One of his several suicide notes, the one addressed to "my friends and supporters," reads:....
Groups Urge Removal of Logging Executive from Forestry Panel More than a dozen public interest and environmental organizations today protested the presence of a top forest products industry executive on a National Academies of Science (NAS) committee charged with evaluating the impact of forest management practices on the nation’s water quality. The NAS appointed George Weyerhaeuser, Jr., a vice president of Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the largest forest products companies in the world, to the Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management Committee despite NAS rules prohibiting the appointment of scientists with conflicts of interest to its advisory panels. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation had asked for the study committee, whose first meeting is Wednesday. “This study committee will have a direct impact the Weyerhaeuser Company so having an executive from that company on the panel is a direct conflict of interest,” said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest....
Group backs delisting plan for Yellowstone-area grizzlies A leading organization of wildlife scientists on Wednesday announced its support for lifting Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area. The Wildlife Society was joined by the National Wildlife Federation, which reaffirmed its support for the plan just two days after a letter signed by over 250 scientists and researchers was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to oppose "delisting" the bears. "This is to make sure that the public understands there is a debate within the scientific community. And many scientists and biologists are very much behind delisting because we really have achieved a success for bears in Yellowstone," Tom France, director of the National Wildlife Federation's Northern Rockies office, said in an interview. "We're just trying to balance the record," he added....
Building, farm groups challenge 'endangered' listing of killer whales The Washington state Farm Bureau and the Building Industry Association of Washington filed suit in federal court this week, seeking to invalidate the listing of Puget Sound's killer whales as an endangered species. The listing, issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service last November, "will result in needless water and land-use restrictions on Washington farms, especially those located near rivers inhabited by salmon," the orcas' prime food source, the groups wrote in the lawsuit filed Monday. "As a result, farmers could face fines and even imprisonment for the most basic farm practices should such actions allegedly disturb salmon," they wrote — a scenario environmentalists described as far-fetched, though deliberately harassing a protected species can carry a year in jail. The groups' lawyers, Russell C. Brooks and Andrew C. Cook of the Pacific Legal Foundation, attempt to base their complaint against the fisheries service on a fine technical point: The three orca pods that live in Western Washington inland waters from late spring to early fall every year are a distinct population of a subspecies, the Northern Pacific resident orcas, which include orcas off Alaska and Russia. Under the Endangered Species Act, the lawyers argue, only a distinct population of a species — not a subspecies — can be listed....
Officials plan more sea lion harassment Officials in Oregon and Washington are hoping to close the "Bonneville buffet" in April. Hazing of sea lions below the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam will be expanded 12 miles downriver on the Columbia River the first week of April into concerted effort by Fish and Wildlife departments in both states, as well as ongoing efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers, to try to curb salmon losses at the choke point for fish passage. "The activities between the dam and Marker 85 (12 miles downriver), will focus on individual animals utilizing all of the tools that are available to us for hazing techniques," said Steve Williams. "In an attempt to address the salmon issue, but also the sturgeon issue ..." The high-profile situation at the dam, with footage on nightly newscasts of California sea lions munching on spring-run chinook salmon, some federally protected, and Stellar sea lions killing and eating spawning-size sturgeon, caused commission member Skip Klarquist of Portland to refer to the situation as the "Bonneville buffet."....
Group seeks federal protection for grouse In the early 1870s, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse were so numerous in Utah that "scores" were reported killed when they flew into the first telegraph wire in Cache Valley. Today the birds are extinct along the Wasatch Front. The 11,000 Columbian sharp-tailed grouse found in a pocket in and around Box Elder County are all that remain in Utah, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources data. "Today, sharp-tailed grouse in the West are leading a precarious existence," wrote DWR officials in a recent report on the birds. On Monday, a coalition of conservation groups went to court in an attempt to change that, demanding the federal government begin the process that could give the birds protected status under the Endangered Species Act....
Column: Domino effect of Klamath River mismanagement Management of Northern California's remote Klamath River could well serve as the ultimate model of a federal government gone completely haywire - strangled by agencies with overlapping responsibilities, stymied by politicians who refuse to make cogent decisions and governed by unbendable laws that prohibit any common sense or semblance of cooperation. In 2002, mismanagement of the Klamath resulted in a fish kill of 78,000 adult king salmon, not to mention the deaths of 100,000 juveniles that didn't make it to the ocean. Since salmon have a four-year lifecycle, effects of that devastating kill are haunting us now. Federal biologists predict 29,000 salmon will return to spawn this year, well below the 35,000 goals set for the river by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. But here's the rub. Klamath River salmon mingle with other salmon and migrate up and down more than 700 miles of the California coastline. While the Sacramento River produces more than 85 percent of salmon found off the coast - more than 650,000 adult chinook are cruising about the ocean this year - the fact that anglers will catch some Klamath River salmon has put the whole season in doubt....
Road guidelines issued Outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton issued guidelines Wednesday defining what qualifies as a locally owned road and likely sparking a new round of disputes between environmentalists and local development interests. Norton's memo outlining the policy upholds a September ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that state officials say is good news but environmentalists say threatens protected areas with potential road construction and maintenance. But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year in a case brought by SUWA that the Bureau of Land Management did not have the authority to determine what constituted a road and rejected several requirements a road claim needed to meet, such as that roads must be established by mechanical construction. SUWA had long contended that county governments were grading cattle trails, streambeds and long-abandoned jeep tracks across public lands to hurt the chances of the land from being designated as wilderness. The court also ruled that while only courts could finally determine the ownership issue, state law — such as Utah's statute that says an R.S.2477 route is a road if it had continuous use for 10 years prior to 1976 — is good enough to establish a right of way....Go here to see Interior's press release.
Secretary Norton Names Paul Hoffman As New Deputy Assistant Secretary For Performance, Accountability And Human Resources Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary for Policy Management and Budget Tom Weimer today announced the appointment of Paul Hoffman as the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance, Accountability and Human Resources. Hoffman, who has served for four years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, replaces Scott Cameron, who recently left Interior for the private sector. "We are glad to tap Paul's management expertise to assist with the challenges of Interior's complex responsibilities," Weimer said. "We know that he can hit the ground running from his four years of stellar accomplishments in the Fish and Wildlife and Parks office at the department." While at Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Hoffman was a champion for many of the President's Management Agenda goals....Paul should be congratulated for taking the Parkies head on, but this is what happens to anyone who does. The Republicans control the White House, both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, but still don't have the power/guts to successfully take on the Parkies.
BLM reviewing drilling rules he Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director Jim Hughes is in Grand Junction today hearing testimony on changing the rules for natural gas drillers working on land owned by people who don’t own the rights to the riches under their land. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing its policies and procedures for administering Federal natural gas and oil resources under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The agency owns much of the mineral rights to natural gas rich Western Colorado, where many landowners have discovered they do not control access to mineral wealth lying below. A bill is pending in the state legislature to give landowners additional clout in negotiating payment for damages from drilling....
Western states dig for middle ground on 'split estate' The construction crew showed up at Orlyn and Carol Bell's 110-acre ranch in western Colorado and began clearing a road to build a drilling pad for four natural gas wells on their hay pasture. For the Bells, the bulldozers arriving capped nine months of frustrating negotiations with energy giant EnCana over how the company would drill on their land. When the construction was imminent in September 2004, the couple capitulated to the company's terms: a payment of $2,000 for each of the roughly 8 acres used for drilling, roads and pipelines, rather than $4,500 an acre they had sought. The Bells' experience reflects a sometimes painful reality in much of the West, where people who own millions of acres don't own the minerals below ground. For landowners without mineral rights, there is nothing they can do to prevent drilling on their property, and often little they can do if the energy company declines to be helpful. That land-ownership pattern, much of it a holdover from 19th-century homesteading laws that gave settlers free land but left the mineral rights with the government, is known as a "split estate." Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management controls mineral rights on about 58 million acres of private land and is selling the rights at a rapid pace to energy companies. Mineral rights on millions more acres are controlled by private parties other than landowners....
Land preservation pushed Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson on Wednesday presented draft legislation that would create a comprehensive plan for managing public lands in Washington County and preserve more than 219,000 acres of southern Utah land in and near Zion National Park as wilderness. Highlights of the proposal include selling around 25,000 acres of public land and using 15 percent of the proceeds for public education, water projects and fire and flood protection. The other 85 percent of the money would be earmarked to preserve historic rangeland and vital watersheds, buy more land to protect endangered species, and improve conservation efforts on numerous projects throughout the county. The proposal would designate 219,299 acres as wilderness , including 123,743 acres of National Park Service land within Zion National Park, plus 92,914 acres of Bureau of Land Management Land and 2,642 acres of Forest Service Land. The additions would mean nearly 280,000 acres in Washington County would be managed under the National Wilderness Preservation System. For the first time ever in Utah, 170 miles of the Virgin River within Zion National Park would receive protection under the Wild and Scenic River Act. The proposed legislation also would preserve 61,000 acres of desert-tortoise habitat to the north of St. George, as the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. A system of trails for off-highway vehicles would be identified and managed for responsible use. Utility, transportation and water corridors, including the Lake Powell pipeline, would also be designated....
Park Service plans to hold captured bison for later release Officials at Yellowstone National Park captured about 300 bison near the park's northern border yesterday. They plan to hold them until there's sufficient spring forage in the park, to keep the animals from wandering into Montana looking for food. Park spokesman Al Nash says it could be two to three weeks before the bison are released from the Stephens Creek capture site. The hazing and capture of bison is allowed under a state-federal management plan, aimed at reducing the risk that bison will spread brucellosis to cattle in Montana. Nash says holding the bison temporarily keeps them from mingling with cattle, and allows for their eventual release....
Conservation group seeks farmer, rancher opinions on natural resources Starting this week, 1,800 farmers and ranchers across the southern High Plains will be receiving a survey in the mail asking for their opinions about the Ogallala Aquifer, wetlands, and other natural resources in the region. The questionnaire – entitled the "High Plains Landowner Survey" – is being conducted by the Playa Lakes Joint Venture, a non-profit partnership of wildlife and agriculture agencies, corporations and conservation groups and landowners dedicated to conserving wildlife habitat in the Ogallala Aquifer region. The survey aims to assess agricultural producers' experience with and willingness to conduct natural resource conservation. The data collected will help resource managers create future and modify existing conservation programs to better serve producers' needs. "Private landowners and land managers are key to our country's agricultural productivity and natural resource conservation. Their opinions count tremendously in the development of programs and incentives to maintain sustainable working lands and wildlife habitat." said PLJV Communications Team Leader Debbie Slobe....
Supervisors to continue open range discussion Tehama County is still considering a grazing ordinance. With a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, the Tehama County Board of Supervisors voted to continue discussing a possible ordinance that would establish the right of cattlemen to graze cattle in the county and decrease their liability in cases where a car collides with a cow. Supervisors Charles Willard and Ron Warner urged the board to end the discussion after seven years despite cattlemen arguing that without an ordinance, the agricultural landscape of Tehama County would be forever changed. If passed, the ordinance would label almost two-thirds of the unincorporated county as chiefly devoted to grazing. It would establish the right of cattlemen to graze livestock and, the cattlemen argued, it is necessary to help the county's $17 million cattle industry afford insurance and continue business in the county....
Western Grasslands' pasture-raised beef stampedes to fast sales growth Since taking control of Western Grasslands in December 2004, Graves has helped Western become what he believes is the biggest U.S. company raising grass-fed beef, with nearly threefold growth in sales last year. "We want to make 'grass-fed' synonymous with Western Grasslands," he said. Western Grasslands procures most of its beef from Northern California ranches. It does not have a true headquarters. Year-round availability makes Western Grasslands unique among grass-fed beef companies, said Rick Harrison, an owner of Pete's Valley Cattle, based in Woodland, and one of 43 West Coast ranchers whom Graves said have agreed to follow stringent guidelines for raising grass-fed beef cattle for sale to Western Grasslands. "We're year-round, not seasonal. Western Grasslands' grass-fed beef sales have increased steadily since it was established in 2002. "We had a little more than $6 million in sales in 2005, grossing about 2.5 times over the previous year," said Graves, who declined to provide profit tallies. "We're budgeting to be about 2.5 times larger at the end of 2006."....
Reserve land opens for grazing The U.S. Agriculture Department on Tuesday announced that ranchers in 27 Texas counties hit by recent wildfires can graze their cattle on land that's part of a federal conservation program and bale hay off of it, both at no charge. Ranchers in six Oklahoma counties whose land has burned also can use the Conservation Reserve Program land. Program participants in the two states' counties can voluntarily remove excess dry grass cover on land enrolled in the federal land management plan, which also will help reduce fuel for any potential fires. County offices of the USDA's Farm Service Agency will grant authority on a case-by-case basis for program participants to remove the dry grass for the next 30 days....
Cowboy Collectibles Bill Manns, who's profiled in our April print feature ("Playing Cowboys with Authentic Gear", has spent a lifetime collecting western memorabilia, much of which forms the basis for historic Old West books he creates at Zon Publishing. According to Bill, there still are western-collectible treasures to be found. "Look on eBay or Antiques Roadshow, and you realize how many things are still in people's households, unbelievable numbers of things." However, not every old thing stuck in the attic is a valuable collectible. Nor is refurbishing a bona fide antique always a great idea. Here, Bill offers some guidelines for the budding western-memorabilia collector to use the next time he or she raids grandma's attic or visits the local second-hand store....
Cowboy Cooking Chicken fajitas with sliced onion and bell peppers. Stolen chicken, drunken peach cobbler (with half a cup of Jack Daniels) and migas with pico de gallo. These are just a few of the tantalizing — and intriguing — recipes you will find in Texas Chuckwagon Cuisine – Real Cowboy Cooking by Evan Moore. The small, pocket-sized book packs a punch with recipes for colorful dishes like warm cowboy bread, splatter dabs and chuckwagon mush (potatoes and onion with two cups of corn bread, real good with eggs on a cold morning). Many of the recipes come from generous contributors, but Moore himself contributed his recipe for cornmeal pancakes with chopped onion, jalapeño and black pepper....
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Coyote's on prowl in park An "adventurous" coyote that has roamed Central Park for four days shook off pursuers with dart guns and eluded capture last night. Park officers and cops cornered the coyote - only the second spotted in the park in seven years - in the 4-acre Hallett Nature Center about 5 p.m. But it leaped over a fence and vanished. "The wily coyote escaped," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. As NYPD aviation units flew overhead, park enforcement control officers hunted the tawny creature, which left a pile of feathers from its last meal in the preserve. Benepe believes the coyote, which weighs about 60 pounds and resembles a lean German shepherd, came from Westchester County or the Bronx, either swimming across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek or crossing a bridge....
Cops catch wily coyote A wild coyote's run through Manhattan came to an end this morning when he was taken down by a tranquilizer dart in Central Park as a national audience watched live on television. The tawny-colored male coyote, nicknamed 'Hal,' was captured after leading authorities on a picturesque chase through the park. He eluded authorities several times by ducking under a bridge, running through ball fields and using the Wollman ice skating rink as an escape hatch. But around 10 a.m., as news helicopters whirled overhead, the coyote ran out of moves. He was shot with a dart by an NYPD police officer near Belvedere Castle, close to 79th Street and Central Park West....
Mining company, Nevada ranch reduce grazing in deal with enviros The world's biggest gold mining company and a sprawling Nevada ranch have agreed to dramatically reduce livestock grazing across nearly 800 square miles of rangeland - four-fifths of it federally owned - in a deal conservationists say is a major victory for the environment. The agreement reduces grazing levels by up to 75 percent through February 2007 across a vast stretch of land leased from the federal government by Barrick Goldstrike Co. of Canada and Ellison Ranching Co. of Tuscarora, Nev. The companies also agreed to lower grazing levels on some land they own. Officials of the Bureau of Land Management confirmed Wednesday that the settlement was reached in negotiations between the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project and the two companies. As a result, the conservation group agreed to drop efforts to block all livestock grazing on the 596 square miles of public land in the area. "It's a major reduction in livestock use - a great victory for fish and wildlife," Katie Fite, the project's director of biodiversity, told The Associated Press....
Are lawmakers trying to sabotage a state land initiative? The Arizona Legislature is moving closer to putting a proposition on the November ballot to compete with a citizen initiative to reform the state trust land system. The House of Representatives voted 32-23 last week to approve House Concurrent Resolution 2045, which would ask voters to set aside an initial 42,000 acres of state trust land for conservation. But the proposal is a lousy deal compared to Conserving Arizona's Future, an ongoing initiative campaign that also seeks to reform the state land system, says Steve Roman, a political consultant who is among the campaign's leaders. State trust land reform has been a contentious environmental issue for years in Arizona. About 11 million acres were set aside at statehood to be held in trust for a variety of beneficiaries, primarily schoolchildren. State trust land was originally laid out across the state in a checkerboard pattern, with little consideration to any ecological value the parcels might have....
Extermination Of Santa Cruz Island Pigs Nearing Completion The hunting of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island has eliminated them on about 85 percent of the land, which will reopen to camping, authorities said. The National Park Service said Monday that it is ending a camping ban on some areas of the island. The ban was imposed in November for safety reasons while a New Zealand-based company killed the pigs in those areas. The animals are descended from pigs brought to the island by ranchers in the 1850s. Authorities say they destroy native plants and archaeological sites and threaten rare animals such as the Santa Cruz Island fox. Since last April, about 4,800 pigs have been killed, said Yvonne Menard, a park service spokeswoman. The $5-million hunt is expected to finish clearing the 96-square-mile island of pigs by next summer....
Column: We can hasten forest recovery How U.S. forests look 100 years from now depends on the decisions we make today. Most Americans sit on the side of forest management debates. As long as they can buy lumber and vacation in forested mountains, all must be right with the world. But nearly 12.5 million acres have burned in the West in the past five years. Lumber demand, meanwhile, is at an all-time high. Too often after fires, we watch valuable timber simply rot. Look at Julian outside San Diego, or around the Giant Sequoia National Monument where the McNally Fire burned 150,000 acres. The difference between reforesting charred landscapes and leaving them alone to let nature take its course can be stark. Private forestland owners harvest dead trees after fires to accelerate the return of a healthy forest. They plant native-species seedlings, minimize erosion and provide diverse wildlife habitat. But on public lands, it's a different story....
Firefighter hiring practices studied The U.S. Forest Service must strengthen its oversight of contract firefighters hired to battle wildfires and take steps to ensure those workers have sufficient training and English language skills, a federal audit has concluded. Questions were raised about the effectiveness of the crews the agency hires through contractors following the 2002 Biscuit fire, which burned nearly 500,000 acres in southwestern Oregon and cost nearly $150 million to douse. Fire bosses noted numerous problems with poorly trained and inexperienced contract crews in the Pacific Northwest that year, prompting reviews by the Government Accountability Office and others. In a new audit released yesterday, the U.S. Agriculture Department's inspector general found that the Forest Service had corrected some of the problems identified in earlier reports, but other issues remained unresolved....
Column: Eco-crime and Punishment In case you hadn't noticed, 12 young people (average age 33) have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit arson in several Western states. The 83-page indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury in Oregon, and it must be important because the story made the front page of the Western edition of the New York Times on Jan. 21. Above the crease. In commenting on their arrests (some are being held without bail), Attorney General Gonzales and FBI chief Mueller played the "domestic eco-terrorism" card before the media, often dropping the "eco" part. Arson, terrorism or not, is, of course, a crime, a serious crime of which the dozen have only been accused. Fire scares people. It would scare me, if I were in one. But a bunch of unarmed treehuggers torching some trucks and buildings (including a ski-resort restaurant at Vail and a packing plant for wild mustangs) at night, after making certain that no two-leggeds or four-leggeds were anywhere close, is not, it seems to me, something I would compare to taking out the Oklahoma City Federal Building during working hours. The 12, by the way (shades of the Dirty Dozen?) are now 11. Bill Rodgers of Prescott, Ariz., managed to take his life with a plastic bag while in custody. One of his several suicide notes, the one addressed to "my friends and supporters," reads:....
Groups Urge Removal of Logging Executive from Forestry Panel More than a dozen public interest and environmental organizations today protested the presence of a top forest products industry executive on a National Academies of Science (NAS) committee charged with evaluating the impact of forest management practices on the nation’s water quality. The NAS appointed George Weyerhaeuser, Jr., a vice president of Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the largest forest products companies in the world, to the Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management Committee despite NAS rules prohibiting the appointment of scientists with conflicts of interest to its advisory panels. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation had asked for the study committee, whose first meeting is Wednesday. “This study committee will have a direct impact the Weyerhaeuser Company so having an executive from that company on the panel is a direct conflict of interest,” said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest....
Group backs delisting plan for Yellowstone-area grizzlies A leading organization of wildlife scientists on Wednesday announced its support for lifting Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area. The Wildlife Society was joined by the National Wildlife Federation, which reaffirmed its support for the plan just two days after a letter signed by over 250 scientists and researchers was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to oppose "delisting" the bears. "This is to make sure that the public understands there is a debate within the scientific community. And many scientists and biologists are very much behind delisting because we really have achieved a success for bears in Yellowstone," Tom France, director of the National Wildlife Federation's Northern Rockies office, said in an interview. "We're just trying to balance the record," he added....
Building, farm groups challenge 'endangered' listing of killer whales The Washington state Farm Bureau and the Building Industry Association of Washington filed suit in federal court this week, seeking to invalidate the listing of Puget Sound's killer whales as an endangered species. The listing, issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service last November, "will result in needless water and land-use restrictions on Washington farms, especially those located near rivers inhabited by salmon," the orcas' prime food source, the groups wrote in the lawsuit filed Monday. "As a result, farmers could face fines and even imprisonment for the most basic farm practices should such actions allegedly disturb salmon," they wrote — a scenario environmentalists described as far-fetched, though deliberately harassing a protected species can carry a year in jail. The groups' lawyers, Russell C. Brooks and Andrew C. Cook of the Pacific Legal Foundation, attempt to base their complaint against the fisheries service on a fine technical point: The three orca pods that live in Western Washington inland waters from late spring to early fall every year are a distinct population of a subspecies, the Northern Pacific resident orcas, which include orcas off Alaska and Russia. Under the Endangered Species Act, the lawyers argue, only a distinct population of a species — not a subspecies — can be listed....
Officials plan more sea lion harassment Officials in Oregon and Washington are hoping to close the "Bonneville buffet" in April. Hazing of sea lions below the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam will be expanded 12 miles downriver on the Columbia River the first week of April into concerted effort by Fish and Wildlife departments in both states, as well as ongoing efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers, to try to curb salmon losses at the choke point for fish passage. "The activities between the dam and Marker 85 (12 miles downriver), will focus on individual animals utilizing all of the tools that are available to us for hazing techniques," said Steve Williams. "In an attempt to address the salmon issue, but also the sturgeon issue ..." The high-profile situation at the dam, with footage on nightly newscasts of California sea lions munching on spring-run chinook salmon, some federally protected, and Stellar sea lions killing and eating spawning-size sturgeon, caused commission member Skip Klarquist of Portland to refer to the situation as the "Bonneville buffet."....
Group seeks federal protection for grouse In the early 1870s, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse were so numerous in Utah that "scores" were reported killed when they flew into the first telegraph wire in Cache Valley. Today the birds are extinct along the Wasatch Front. The 11,000 Columbian sharp-tailed grouse found in a pocket in and around Box Elder County are all that remain in Utah, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources data. "Today, sharp-tailed grouse in the West are leading a precarious existence," wrote DWR officials in a recent report on the birds. On Monday, a coalition of conservation groups went to court in an attempt to change that, demanding the federal government begin the process that could give the birds protected status under the Endangered Species Act....
Column: Domino effect of Klamath River mismanagement Management of Northern California's remote Klamath River could well serve as the ultimate model of a federal government gone completely haywire - strangled by agencies with overlapping responsibilities, stymied by politicians who refuse to make cogent decisions and governed by unbendable laws that prohibit any common sense or semblance of cooperation. In 2002, mismanagement of the Klamath resulted in a fish kill of 78,000 adult king salmon, not to mention the deaths of 100,000 juveniles that didn't make it to the ocean. Since salmon have a four-year lifecycle, effects of that devastating kill are haunting us now. Federal biologists predict 29,000 salmon will return to spawn this year, well below the 35,000 goals set for the river by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. But here's the rub. Klamath River salmon mingle with other salmon and migrate up and down more than 700 miles of the California coastline. While the Sacramento River produces more than 85 percent of salmon found off the coast - more than 650,000 adult chinook are cruising about the ocean this year - the fact that anglers will catch some Klamath River salmon has put the whole season in doubt....
Road guidelines issued Outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton issued guidelines Wednesday defining what qualifies as a locally owned road and likely sparking a new round of disputes between environmentalists and local development interests. Norton's memo outlining the policy upholds a September ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that state officials say is good news but environmentalists say threatens protected areas with potential road construction and maintenance. But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year in a case brought by SUWA that the Bureau of Land Management did not have the authority to determine what constituted a road and rejected several requirements a road claim needed to meet, such as that roads must be established by mechanical construction. SUWA had long contended that county governments were grading cattle trails, streambeds and long-abandoned jeep tracks across public lands to hurt the chances of the land from being designated as wilderness. The court also ruled that while only courts could finally determine the ownership issue, state law — such as Utah's statute that says an R.S.2477 route is a road if it had continuous use for 10 years prior to 1976 — is good enough to establish a right of way....Go here to see Interior's press release.
Secretary Norton Names Paul Hoffman As New Deputy Assistant Secretary For Performance, Accountability And Human Resources Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary for Policy Management and Budget Tom Weimer today announced the appointment of Paul Hoffman as the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance, Accountability and Human Resources. Hoffman, who has served for four years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, replaces Scott Cameron, who recently left Interior for the private sector. "We are glad to tap Paul's management expertise to assist with the challenges of Interior's complex responsibilities," Weimer said. "We know that he can hit the ground running from his four years of stellar accomplishments in the Fish and Wildlife and Parks office at the department." While at Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Hoffman was a champion for many of the President's Management Agenda goals....Paul should be congratulated for taking the Parkies head on, but this is what happens to anyone who does. The Republicans control the White House, both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, but still don't have the power/guts to successfully take on the Parkies.
BLM reviewing drilling rules he Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director Jim Hughes is in Grand Junction today hearing testimony on changing the rules for natural gas drillers working on land owned by people who don’t own the rights to the riches under their land. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing its policies and procedures for administering Federal natural gas and oil resources under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The agency owns much of the mineral rights to natural gas rich Western Colorado, where many landowners have discovered they do not control access to mineral wealth lying below. A bill is pending in the state legislature to give landowners additional clout in negotiating payment for damages from drilling....
Western states dig for middle ground on 'split estate' The construction crew showed up at Orlyn and Carol Bell's 110-acre ranch in western Colorado and began clearing a road to build a drilling pad for four natural gas wells on their hay pasture. For the Bells, the bulldozers arriving capped nine months of frustrating negotiations with energy giant EnCana over how the company would drill on their land. When the construction was imminent in September 2004, the couple capitulated to the company's terms: a payment of $2,000 for each of the roughly 8 acres used for drilling, roads and pipelines, rather than $4,500 an acre they had sought. The Bells' experience reflects a sometimes painful reality in much of the West, where people who own millions of acres don't own the minerals below ground. For landowners without mineral rights, there is nothing they can do to prevent drilling on their property, and often little they can do if the energy company declines to be helpful. That land-ownership pattern, much of it a holdover from 19th-century homesteading laws that gave settlers free land but left the mineral rights with the government, is known as a "split estate." Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management controls mineral rights on about 58 million acres of private land and is selling the rights at a rapid pace to energy companies. Mineral rights on millions more acres are controlled by private parties other than landowners....
Land preservation pushed Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson on Wednesday presented draft legislation that would create a comprehensive plan for managing public lands in Washington County and preserve more than 219,000 acres of southern Utah land in and near Zion National Park as wilderness. Highlights of the proposal include selling around 25,000 acres of public land and using 15 percent of the proceeds for public education, water projects and fire and flood protection. The other 85 percent of the money would be earmarked to preserve historic rangeland and vital watersheds, buy more land to protect endangered species, and improve conservation efforts on numerous projects throughout the county. The proposal would designate 219,299 acres as wilderness , including 123,743 acres of National Park Service land within Zion National Park, plus 92,914 acres of Bureau of Land Management Land and 2,642 acres of Forest Service Land. The additions would mean nearly 280,000 acres in Washington County would be managed under the National Wilderness Preservation System. For the first time ever in Utah, 170 miles of the Virgin River within Zion National Park would receive protection under the Wild and Scenic River Act. The proposed legislation also would preserve 61,000 acres of desert-tortoise habitat to the north of St. George, as the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. A system of trails for off-highway vehicles would be identified and managed for responsible use. Utility, transportation and water corridors, including the Lake Powell pipeline, would also be designated....
Park Service plans to hold captured bison for later release Officials at Yellowstone National Park captured about 300 bison near the park's northern border yesterday. They plan to hold them until there's sufficient spring forage in the park, to keep the animals from wandering into Montana looking for food. Park spokesman Al Nash says it could be two to three weeks before the bison are released from the Stephens Creek capture site. The hazing and capture of bison is allowed under a state-federal management plan, aimed at reducing the risk that bison will spread brucellosis to cattle in Montana. Nash says holding the bison temporarily keeps them from mingling with cattle, and allows for their eventual release....
Conservation group seeks farmer, rancher opinions on natural resources Starting this week, 1,800 farmers and ranchers across the southern High Plains will be receiving a survey in the mail asking for their opinions about the Ogallala Aquifer, wetlands, and other natural resources in the region. The questionnaire – entitled the "High Plains Landowner Survey" – is being conducted by the Playa Lakes Joint Venture, a non-profit partnership of wildlife and agriculture agencies, corporations and conservation groups and landowners dedicated to conserving wildlife habitat in the Ogallala Aquifer region. The survey aims to assess agricultural producers' experience with and willingness to conduct natural resource conservation. The data collected will help resource managers create future and modify existing conservation programs to better serve producers' needs. "Private landowners and land managers are key to our country's agricultural productivity and natural resource conservation. Their opinions count tremendously in the development of programs and incentives to maintain sustainable working lands and wildlife habitat." said PLJV Communications Team Leader Debbie Slobe....
Supervisors to continue open range discussion Tehama County is still considering a grazing ordinance. With a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, the Tehama County Board of Supervisors voted to continue discussing a possible ordinance that would establish the right of cattlemen to graze cattle in the county and decrease their liability in cases where a car collides with a cow. Supervisors Charles Willard and Ron Warner urged the board to end the discussion after seven years despite cattlemen arguing that without an ordinance, the agricultural landscape of Tehama County would be forever changed. If passed, the ordinance would label almost two-thirds of the unincorporated county as chiefly devoted to grazing. It would establish the right of cattlemen to graze livestock and, the cattlemen argued, it is necessary to help the county's $17 million cattle industry afford insurance and continue business in the county....
Western Grasslands' pasture-raised beef stampedes to fast sales growth Since taking control of Western Grasslands in December 2004, Graves has helped Western become what he believes is the biggest U.S. company raising grass-fed beef, with nearly threefold growth in sales last year. "We want to make 'grass-fed' synonymous with Western Grasslands," he said. Western Grasslands procures most of its beef from Northern California ranches. It does not have a true headquarters. Year-round availability makes Western Grasslands unique among grass-fed beef companies, said Rick Harrison, an owner of Pete's Valley Cattle, based in Woodland, and one of 43 West Coast ranchers whom Graves said have agreed to follow stringent guidelines for raising grass-fed beef cattle for sale to Western Grasslands. "We're year-round, not seasonal. Western Grasslands' grass-fed beef sales have increased steadily since it was established in 2002. "We had a little more than $6 million in sales in 2005, grossing about 2.5 times over the previous year," said Graves, who declined to provide profit tallies. "We're budgeting to be about 2.5 times larger at the end of 2006."....
Reserve land opens for grazing The U.S. Agriculture Department on Tuesday announced that ranchers in 27 Texas counties hit by recent wildfires can graze their cattle on land that's part of a federal conservation program and bale hay off of it, both at no charge. Ranchers in six Oklahoma counties whose land has burned also can use the Conservation Reserve Program land. Program participants in the two states' counties can voluntarily remove excess dry grass cover on land enrolled in the federal land management plan, which also will help reduce fuel for any potential fires. County offices of the USDA's Farm Service Agency will grant authority on a case-by-case basis for program participants to remove the dry grass for the next 30 days....
Cowboy Collectibles Bill Manns, who's profiled in our April print feature ("Playing Cowboys with Authentic Gear", has spent a lifetime collecting western memorabilia, much of which forms the basis for historic Old West books he creates at Zon Publishing. According to Bill, there still are western-collectible treasures to be found. "Look on eBay or Antiques Roadshow, and you realize how many things are still in people's households, unbelievable numbers of things." However, not every old thing stuck in the attic is a valuable collectible. Nor is refurbishing a bona fide antique always a great idea. Here, Bill offers some guidelines for the budding western-memorabilia collector to use the next time he or she raids grandma's attic or visits the local second-hand store....
Cowboy Cooking Chicken fajitas with sliced onion and bell peppers. Stolen chicken, drunken peach cobbler (with half a cup of Jack Daniels) and migas with pico de gallo. These are just a few of the tantalizing — and intriguing — recipes you will find in Texas Chuckwagon Cuisine – Real Cowboy Cooking by Evan Moore. The small, pocket-sized book packs a punch with recipes for colorful dishes like warm cowboy bread, splatter dabs and chuckwagon mush (potatoes and onion with two cups of corn bread, real good with eggs on a cold morning). Many of the recipes come from generous contributors, but Moore himself contributed his recipe for cornmeal pancakes with chopped onion, jalapeño and black pepper....
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Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Bush's Yard Sale
The Bush administration proposed a novel idea recently: Sell off a tiny fraction of National Forest land to save money and raise funds for rural schools. Far from a revival of the Homestead Act signed up President Lincoln in 1862 and which distributed some 80 million federal acres over the following century, the idea is closer to holding a federal yard sale to clear out some of the junk that has accumulated over the years. The National Forest Service controls some 192 million of the federal government's 600 million acres. What the president proposed in his budget this year was to sell off about one-tenth of one percent of that land--some300,000 acres that provides little benefit to the taxpayer but who nonetheless pays for its upkeep and maintenance. But even the whisper of such a sale can set off a torrent of criticism from political packrats. Among them are Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Republican Sens. Larry Craig of Idaho and Conrad Burns of Montana. Shortly after the announcement, Sen. Burns declared the idea "dead in the water" and vowed to strike it from legislation. The sale, however, may yet be held. Why? First, as one environmental newsletter put it, there may be no alternative. Second, it's a good idea. According to David Tenny, Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture, the lands that have been selected are no longer serving the goals of the Forest Service. Many are isolated parcels surrounded by private land with little or no public access. At least one-quarter of the lands proposed for sale in the Gallatin National Forest near Bozeman, Mont., are inaccessible to the public. Other acreage is near metropolitan areas and has lost its Forest Service character: A small Forest Service parcel in Oregon is in the middle of a parking lot; another is being used to grow crops. Finally, some of these lands were previously designated for land exchange (trades with other agencies or private owners). To ensure there are no "sneakers" in there, as Mr. Tenney calls them, the public will have a chance to comment on all acres proposed for sale....
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The Bush administration proposed a novel idea recently: Sell off a tiny fraction of National Forest land to save money and raise funds for rural schools. Far from a revival of the Homestead Act signed up President Lincoln in 1862 and which distributed some 80 million federal acres over the following century, the idea is closer to holding a federal yard sale to clear out some of the junk that has accumulated over the years. The National Forest Service controls some 192 million of the federal government's 600 million acres. What the president proposed in his budget this year was to sell off about one-tenth of one percent of that land--some300,000 acres that provides little benefit to the taxpayer but who nonetheless pays for its upkeep and maintenance. But even the whisper of such a sale can set off a torrent of criticism from political packrats. Among them are Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Republican Sens. Larry Craig of Idaho and Conrad Burns of Montana. Shortly after the announcement, Sen. Burns declared the idea "dead in the water" and vowed to strike it from legislation. The sale, however, may yet be held. Why? First, as one environmental newsletter put it, there may be no alternative. Second, it's a good idea. According to David Tenny, Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture, the lands that have been selected are no longer serving the goals of the Forest Service. Many are isolated parcels surrounded by private land with little or no public access. At least one-quarter of the lands proposed for sale in the Gallatin National Forest near Bozeman, Mont., are inaccessible to the public. Other acreage is near metropolitan areas and has lost its Forest Service character: A small Forest Service parcel in Oregon is in the middle of a parking lot; another is being used to grow crops. Finally, some of these lands were previously designated for land exchange (trades with other agencies or private owners). To ensure there are no "sneakers" in there, as Mr. Tenney calls them, the public will have a chance to comment on all acres proposed for sale....
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Monday, March 20, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
BLM, environmentalists accused of grazing plot The Bureau of Land Management unlawfully awarded livestock grazing rights to environmentalists who were determined to reduce grazing in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, according to a federal lawsuit filed by ranchers and local governments. Garfield and Kane counties and several local ranchers accuse the BLM of violating the requirements of the Taylor Grazing Act and Interior Department regulations. The lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court, in Salt Lake City. The complaint stems from a Jan. 26 decision by Interior Department administrative-law judge James H. Heffernan in Salt Lake City, who ruled that Canyonlands Grazing Corp. legally owns three grazing permits in the national monument. Presently, Canyonlands is involved in grazing. Besides the Grand Staircase-Escalante area, it has a large grazing area in northern Arizona, Hedden said in January. However, Canyonlands Grazing Corp.'s Web site says the group is dedicated to the elimination of livestock grazing on public land. "Specifically, its principal business is the purchase, sale and assignment of grazing preferences on the public lands with the sole intention of compelling the BLM to retire the (Clark Bench) allotment from further livestock grazing," the lawsuit asserts. The plaintiffs claim that "Canyonlands Grazing Corp. eventually acquired a few livestock, utilized its grazing permit for what amounts to a conservation purpose, and effectively mothballed its grazing permits for the past three grazing seasons."....
Judge rules CBM company can't discharge into streambeds A district judge has ruled that a coal-bed methane operator can't discharge production water onto a rancher's property because the streambeds it would flow into don't meet the legal definition of state watercourses. Ruling in an ongoing condemnation case between Williams Production RMT Co. and rancher William P. Maycock II, Judge Keith G. Kautz of Wheatland concluded that while watercourses don't have to flow continuously to be recognized as containing waters of the state, "the flow needs to occur at 'regular season,' and not at irregular portions of days." The decision comes after Williams unsuccessfully tried to condemn a right of way for its discharged water across Maycock's ranch last fall. The company failed to provide Kautz with a survey and the judge ruled he couldn't make a decision without one. The company then claimed a right to discharge the water into the streambeds. Wendtland said he expects Williams will try to file another condemnation lawsuit. If so, Wendtland said he will push to require the company to install a pipeline across his client's land, rather than have the water drain across the surface....
Gale Norton's stewardship Gale Norton's legacy as Secretary of the Interior will not be a tale of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, but one of engaging citizens as environmental stewards. In her five-year tenure, which will end on March 31, Mrs. Norton has turned the virtuous idea of grass-roots conservation, which she has called "cooperative conservation," into a workable reality and a blueprint for subsequent conservation policy. The initiative offers officials from city and county governments an active role in the policy-making process with federal officials. In determining land-use regulations, for instance, Bureau of Land Management officials would sit down with representatives from the local communities to decide how the land should be used. Building interest in conservation for the people who use the land -- be they farmers, ranchers, sportsmen or other outdoor enthusiasts -- is essential to creating a lasting conservation effort, and Mrs. Norton's policies are built on this foundation....
From Brothel Owner to Park Ranger, Interior Secretary Roams Far Pop star Jessica Simpson once mistook Gale Norton for an interior decorator. Simpson isn't the only one confused over the role of a U.S. Interior secretary. The Cabinet post is one of the most wide-ranging and least- understood jobs in Washington. Interior's far-flung duties include controlling a fifth of U.S. land and 68 percent of oil and gas reserves; coordinating budgets for a string of Pacific island territories; and running schools for some 50,000 American Indian children. At one point, the department even owned Nevada's Mustang Ranch brothel, prompting Norton to observe: ``It gives the phrase `Madame Secretary' a whole new meaning.'' Congress created Interior in 1849 and charged it with duties ranging from issuing patents to running Washington's jail. Over the years, it ran much of what is now the Energy Department and even appointed the leaders of U.S. territories in the Pacific....
Land plan draws fire Selling off Bureau of Land Management property to help cover the nation's debts is a misguided and short-sighted idea, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and members of the public said Monday in Billings. Baucus hosted a public meeting at Montana State University-Billings to get input and rally opposition to the BLM proposal. "I think it's outrageous for the United States government to sell public lands, pure and simple," Baucus said. Proposals to sell BLM and U.S. Forest Service land are still alive in Washington, D.C., and Westerners need to stand up and speak against them, he said....
Conservationists vie to buy forest habitat The Big River tract in California's Mendocino County is a sprawling expanse of towering redwoods and Douglas firs, woods that for years have provided an ideal habitat for rare spotted owls and endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout. Now, it's all up for sale. Big River, neighboring Salmon Creek and dozens of other forests across the nation have come on the market in recent years as timber companies shed holdings that are worth more as real estate than as a source of lumber. The trend has spurred a land rush that has conservation groups scrambling to raise money to buy environmentally sensitive tracts in competition with private investors seeking to snap up the land for development. A recent U.S. Forest Service study predicted that more than 44 million acres of private forest land, an area twice the size of Maine, will be sold over the next 25 years. The consulting firm U.S. Forest Capital estimates that half of all U.S. timberland has changed hands in the past decade. The Bush administration also wants to sell off forest land, by auctioning more than 300,000 acres of national forest to fund a rural school program....
Lawmakers Kill Wolf Creek Development Resolution A resolution criticizing the Forest Service over plans to allow 2,000 housing units to be built near the Wolf Creek Ski Area was killed Monday after a parade of witnesses told lawmakers the federal review process was flawed. If approved, the Village at Wolf Creek could eventually include 222,100 square feet of commercial space and enough housing for up to 10,500 people. The surrounding county has fewer than 1,000 full-time residents. Dusty Hicks, spokesman for the development project, rejected suggestions from witnesses at Monday's hearing that there was collusion or a payoff....
Column: Restoring Healthy Forests One of us runs a large timber company. The other leads a major conservation organization. But despite our differing roles and perspectives, we agree on a positive solution to an urgent and vexing problem. Fires have always played an important role in maintaining healthy forests. After decades of fire suppression, vast areas of Oregon's forests and woodlands are in unhealthy, unnatural condition. They are overcrowded with young trees and highly vulnerable to unnaturally severe wildfires, insect outbreaks and disease. The problem is growing worse every year. An analysis by The Nature Conservancy of the most recent forest health data suggests that, of the 34 million acres of forests and woodlands in Oregon, more than 25 million acres need active treatment -- thinning, controlled burning or both -- to restore safer and more natural conditions. More than 15 million of these acres are on public land....
Groups protest oil, gas leasing In what is likely the start of a series of protests, Trout Unlimited and the National Outdoor Leadership School -- along with some outfitters and guides -- announced Monday they are protesting the oil and gas lease sale of parcels in the Wyoming Range. The lease sale, set for April 4, is for 11 separate parcels that total nearly 20,000 acres in the Upper Green River drainage. Energy development could harm fishable mountain streams including North Horse Creek, Dead Cow Creek, Lead Creek, South Cottonwood Creek and South Beaver Creek, all of which are Green River tributaries and home to native Colorado River cutthroats, according to Trout Unlimited. Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM, has said protests are not unusual. In August, 123 lease parcels were protested of the 188 put up for sale. In June, 142 out of 189 were protested, and in April, 83 of 227 were protested. In addition to concern for fisheries, Trout Unlimited cited the possible presence of Canada lynx, effects on air quality, and a lack of assessment of current and foreseeable impacts are reasons for the latest lease protest....
Verdict still out on wildlife plan in the Jonah Field Oil and gas industry officials are excited about a first-ever plan designed to help wildlife affected by increased drilling in the Jonah Field in southwest Wyoming, but conservationists are more skeptical about the plan. EnCana Oil and Gas Inc. and other operators received federal approval last week to boost natural gas production in the field by doing "in-fill" drilling, which allows wells to be placed closer together within the overall boundary of the field. The drilling is intended to speed up gas extraction. As part of the project, the plan calls for improving wildlife habitat in areas surrounding the field to make up for land that is harmed by the anticipated drilling of more than 3,000 new natural gas wells in the future. The project area covers about 30,500 acres of mostly federal public lands about 30 miles southeast of Pinedale. The plan calls for the Bureau of Land Management to establish an interagency office in Pinedale to monitor reclamation efforts and to oversee offsite mitigation projects. The office and its work will be funded by a $24.5 million grant from EnCana Oil and Gas Inc....
Wilderness: The new anti-nuclear weapon On Jan. 6, President Bush signed into law the first new Utah wilderness area since 1984 - and made it a little harder for nuclear power plant operators to ship radioactive waste to a nearby Indian reservation. The new Cedar Mountain Wilderness protects some 100,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. But it also blocks the right-of-way for a railroad line to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, a key component of the tribes' plan to accept waste from nuclear power plants around the country. Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, a longtime nemesis of the local wilderness community, first proposed the idea of using wilderness to fight nuclear waste in 2002, just before he retired....
BLM plans sports park in eastern Utah More than 1,200 acres in eastern Utah could become a park for off-road vehicles, drag racers, rock climbers and ultralight aircraft, under a proposal by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Approval could be granted by summer to allow Uintah County to develop the park, about 4.5 miles east of Vernal. The BLM would give Uintah County the land for the park, to be called the Buckskin Hills Recreation Area. Private groups would be responsible for constructing the various parts. An environmental assessment found no reason to block the deal, and there were few negative comments about the proposal during a recent public review. BLM and county officials said the park would divert off-roaders from protected lands....
Grand Canyon battles traffic jams near its entrances Clogged roadways at the Grand Canyon have prompted the National Park Service to launch a new planning round aimed at reducing vehicle traffic near the natural wonder. Park officials are asking the public to comment on ways to fix the traffic problem. The option the park is using as a starting point would put one new 450-vehicle parking lot outside the south entrance to the park and another adjacent to the park's visitor orientation center, and expand bus service within the park. There were 4.3 million recreational visitors to the canyon in 2004 and 4.4 million last year. In the peak visitor days of summer, tourists sometimes sweat in their cars for up to an hour just to reach the entrance station. Earlier proposals calling for building a costly light rail line will not be among the eventual options, park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said....
Developers covet areas surrounding national parks People who cherish Joshua Tree National Park's desert probably don't want wayward tee shots, pets or trash spoiling the serenity and scenery, but it could happen. Development is closing in on Joshua Tree and many other national parks. "It is happening all over the country," said Curt Sauer, superintendent of Joshua Tree, "and it is going to continue to happen." It isn't difficult to find examples: • In West Virginia, there are proposals to build more than 2,000 homes at the edge of the New River Gorge National River — including up to 550 homes on a site chosen to appear on the back of the quarter. • In Florida, there's a proposal to fill wetlands at the edge of the Everglades National Park to make way for 6,000 homes, shops, schools and a movie theater. • In Ohio, there are plans for at least five subdivisions just outside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. • In Arkansas, population growth is putting pressure on Hot Springs National Park and Pea Ridge National Military Park, said Ernie Quintana, Midwest regional director of the National Park Service....
Parks Struggle to Keep Wildlife Healthy and Other Interests Happy A tractor engine roars to life along Muddy Creek, and for several hundred wild elk it is a dinner bell. They splash through deep snow and line up for hay tossed on the ground from a tractor-pulled wagon. This scene, played out here and at 22 other feeding grounds at the southern end of the Yellowstone ecosystem, may seem benign. But feeding concentrates the elk in such large numbers that brucellosis spreads easily and reaches levels 10 times as great as the natural rate, or even higher. The disease causes elk cows to abort their calves. Brucellosis is one of several diseases that affect wildlife and domestic animals and that have appeared in the national parks. Controlling them poses a challenge to the National Park Service, which has to decide on strategies and try to meet a number of competing needs of hunters, tourists, ranchers and the animals....
Scientists Say Grizzly Proposal Premature More than 250 scientists and researchers have signed a letter opposing a federal proposal to lift Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem. They contend, among other things, that there is inadequate habitat protections, genetic concerns and too few bears to merit lifting federal protections. The letter, dated Monday, was addressed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator, Chris Servheen, who could not be reached immediately for comment. Monday marked the end of an extended comment period on the federal "delisting" proposal for Yellowstone-area grizzlies....
Bush Administration Opposes World Heritage Convention Action to Protect Glacier National Park and Other Sites The U.S. government is strongly opposing efforts by the United Nations to protect some of the most vulnerable World Heritage Sites from the impacts of global warming. The move comes as a meeting of experts convened by the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) begins today in Paris in response to petitions to protect World Heritage Sites threatened by climate change, including Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (in the U.S. and Canada), on Mount Everest and the Peruvian Andes where glaciers are rapidly melting, and the Belize Reef and Great Barrier Reefs (in Australia) which are being damaged due to climate change. In a position paper posted on the conference website, the Bush administration argues against any action under the World Heritage Convention and attempts to cast doubt on the science of global warming....
Reclamation commissioner retires after 40 years John W. Keys, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation for the last five years, said Friday that he will step down after nearly 40 years with the agency, which controls dams, power plants and canals across the West. Keys is the second high-profile Interior Department official to retire this month. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced last week that she would step down at the end of March. Bureau spokesman Kip White said Keys wanted to spend more time with his family. He and his wife live in Moab, Utah, where they both fly planes as a hobby. “He is a consensus builder who spent a long career with the Bureau of Reclamation and then agreed to join my team to lead the bureau as commissioner,” Norton said in a statement. “He will be missed.” A native of Sheffield, Ala., Keys joined the agency in 1964 as a civil and hydraulic engineer and later worked as the Pacific Northwest regional director. He had retired from the government when President Bush tapped him to return to head the bureau....
The fast-reproducing feral hog is bringing its destructive behavior to populated areas It's not just George Bush Park, and it's not just soccer fields. Across Texas, feral hogs have become a maddening and destructive presence. With 1.5 million to 2 million swine roaming all but about 20 of its 254 counties, Texas has the nation's largest feral hog population. In 1990, only 19 states — mainly in the Southeast — had feral hogs, and the nationwide population was 1 million to 2 million, said John Mayer, co-author of Wild Pigs in the United States. By 2004, hogs were in 35 states and numbered 4 million to 5 million. "If you don't have them now, get ready — they're coming," said Mark Mapston, a district supervisor with Texas Wildlife Services and author of the booklet Feral Hogs in Texas. Locally, wild hogs ruin fairways and greens at suburban golf courses, pose a threat to costly wetlands created by Harris County to offset new development, and are so common in some areas that motorists occasionally hit them at night....
'Eat potatoes and buckskin' When Freda Glassier glances out her kitchen window to the south she sees the vast fields of the Emma area where, for most of her 90 years, she coaxed things to grow. She's been in her house on Hook Spur Lane for 58 years. It's less than a mile from where she was born and raised, the daughter of immigrants from Italy. It's also less than a mile from the house where she and her husband, Fred, first scraped out a living as potato farmers and cattle ranchers. Freda is brutally, and refreshingly, honest about her life. There were no frills. She didn't travel much. She never even took the train to Aspen. She loved the simple life on the ranch. Hard work wasn't reserved for special projects. It was a way of life....
Rodeo champ, rancher, artist In the summer, the whitewashed shelves that run up the west wall inside the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds Hall of Champions usually house the prize vegetables and blue ribbons of 4-H contestants. In their place last week rested the size 7E black boots, championship belt buckles and defining pictures of a rodeo champion, rancher, husband and a dad. A framed panoramic shot of the Brewer Ranch showed where Bill Brewer, who died March 9 at the age of 81, lived as full a life as anyone. From the angle the picture was taken, you couldn’t see the barn door where he’d painted the likeness of four young horsemen riding home. He was a family man first, said his oldest son Bill, one of Brewer’s four boys depicted on horseback on that barn door. In his 60s, he took three consecutive team roping world championships in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association. “I just like to win,” Bill once said in an interview with the Wyoming Wrangler. “I never plan to quit. As long as I can swing a rope I’ll keep roping. If a fellow just puts his feet up and sits back - that’s no good.”....
It's All Trew: Folklore sayings come in all shapes, sizes A previous article contained numerous folklore-type sayings passed down in my family, and it brought in many responses from readers. A book, titled "Black Cats, Hoot Owls and Water Witches," added other superstitious phrases to the subject. My favorite weather saying is, "The morning rain is like an old women's dance. It is soon over." My apologies to the elder ladies. Another saying that I intend to watch in the coming year is, "Frost on a moonlit night won't kill." I am also watching for the saying, "Big raindrops, little rain. Little raindrops mean big rain." Common sense says, "A short horse is quickly curried."....
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BLM, environmentalists accused of grazing plot The Bureau of Land Management unlawfully awarded livestock grazing rights to environmentalists who were determined to reduce grazing in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, according to a federal lawsuit filed by ranchers and local governments. Garfield and Kane counties and several local ranchers accuse the BLM of violating the requirements of the Taylor Grazing Act and Interior Department regulations. The lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court, in Salt Lake City. The complaint stems from a Jan. 26 decision by Interior Department administrative-law judge James H. Heffernan in Salt Lake City, who ruled that Canyonlands Grazing Corp. legally owns three grazing permits in the national monument. Presently, Canyonlands is involved in grazing. Besides the Grand Staircase-Escalante area, it has a large grazing area in northern Arizona, Hedden said in January. However, Canyonlands Grazing Corp.'s Web site says the group is dedicated to the elimination of livestock grazing on public land. "Specifically, its principal business is the purchase, sale and assignment of grazing preferences on the public lands with the sole intention of compelling the BLM to retire the (Clark Bench) allotment from further livestock grazing," the lawsuit asserts. The plaintiffs claim that "Canyonlands Grazing Corp. eventually acquired a few livestock, utilized its grazing permit for what amounts to a conservation purpose, and effectively mothballed its grazing permits for the past three grazing seasons."....
Judge rules CBM company can't discharge into streambeds A district judge has ruled that a coal-bed methane operator can't discharge production water onto a rancher's property because the streambeds it would flow into don't meet the legal definition of state watercourses. Ruling in an ongoing condemnation case between Williams Production RMT Co. and rancher William P. Maycock II, Judge Keith G. Kautz of Wheatland concluded that while watercourses don't have to flow continuously to be recognized as containing waters of the state, "the flow needs to occur at 'regular season,' and not at irregular portions of days." The decision comes after Williams unsuccessfully tried to condemn a right of way for its discharged water across Maycock's ranch last fall. The company failed to provide Kautz with a survey and the judge ruled he couldn't make a decision without one. The company then claimed a right to discharge the water into the streambeds. Wendtland said he expects Williams will try to file another condemnation lawsuit. If so, Wendtland said he will push to require the company to install a pipeline across his client's land, rather than have the water drain across the surface....
Gale Norton's stewardship Gale Norton's legacy as Secretary of the Interior will not be a tale of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park, but one of engaging citizens as environmental stewards. In her five-year tenure, which will end on March 31, Mrs. Norton has turned the virtuous idea of grass-roots conservation, which she has called "cooperative conservation," into a workable reality and a blueprint for subsequent conservation policy. The initiative offers officials from city and county governments an active role in the policy-making process with federal officials. In determining land-use regulations, for instance, Bureau of Land Management officials would sit down with representatives from the local communities to decide how the land should be used. Building interest in conservation for the people who use the land -- be they farmers, ranchers, sportsmen or other outdoor enthusiasts -- is essential to creating a lasting conservation effort, and Mrs. Norton's policies are built on this foundation....
From Brothel Owner to Park Ranger, Interior Secretary Roams Far Pop star Jessica Simpson once mistook Gale Norton for an interior decorator. Simpson isn't the only one confused over the role of a U.S. Interior secretary. The Cabinet post is one of the most wide-ranging and least- understood jobs in Washington. Interior's far-flung duties include controlling a fifth of U.S. land and 68 percent of oil and gas reserves; coordinating budgets for a string of Pacific island territories; and running schools for some 50,000 American Indian children. At one point, the department even owned Nevada's Mustang Ranch brothel, prompting Norton to observe: ``It gives the phrase `Madame Secretary' a whole new meaning.'' Congress created Interior in 1849 and charged it with duties ranging from issuing patents to running Washington's jail. Over the years, it ran much of what is now the Energy Department and even appointed the leaders of U.S. territories in the Pacific....
Land plan draws fire Selling off Bureau of Land Management property to help cover the nation's debts is a misguided and short-sighted idea, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and members of the public said Monday in Billings. Baucus hosted a public meeting at Montana State University-Billings to get input and rally opposition to the BLM proposal. "I think it's outrageous for the United States government to sell public lands, pure and simple," Baucus said. Proposals to sell BLM and U.S. Forest Service land are still alive in Washington, D.C., and Westerners need to stand up and speak against them, he said....
Conservationists vie to buy forest habitat The Big River tract in California's Mendocino County is a sprawling expanse of towering redwoods and Douglas firs, woods that for years have provided an ideal habitat for rare spotted owls and endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout. Now, it's all up for sale. Big River, neighboring Salmon Creek and dozens of other forests across the nation have come on the market in recent years as timber companies shed holdings that are worth more as real estate than as a source of lumber. The trend has spurred a land rush that has conservation groups scrambling to raise money to buy environmentally sensitive tracts in competition with private investors seeking to snap up the land for development. A recent U.S. Forest Service study predicted that more than 44 million acres of private forest land, an area twice the size of Maine, will be sold over the next 25 years. The consulting firm U.S. Forest Capital estimates that half of all U.S. timberland has changed hands in the past decade. The Bush administration also wants to sell off forest land, by auctioning more than 300,000 acres of national forest to fund a rural school program....
Lawmakers Kill Wolf Creek Development Resolution A resolution criticizing the Forest Service over plans to allow 2,000 housing units to be built near the Wolf Creek Ski Area was killed Monday after a parade of witnesses told lawmakers the federal review process was flawed. If approved, the Village at Wolf Creek could eventually include 222,100 square feet of commercial space and enough housing for up to 10,500 people. The surrounding county has fewer than 1,000 full-time residents. Dusty Hicks, spokesman for the development project, rejected suggestions from witnesses at Monday's hearing that there was collusion or a payoff....
Column: Restoring Healthy Forests One of us runs a large timber company. The other leads a major conservation organization. But despite our differing roles and perspectives, we agree on a positive solution to an urgent and vexing problem. Fires have always played an important role in maintaining healthy forests. After decades of fire suppression, vast areas of Oregon's forests and woodlands are in unhealthy, unnatural condition. They are overcrowded with young trees and highly vulnerable to unnaturally severe wildfires, insect outbreaks and disease. The problem is growing worse every year. An analysis by The Nature Conservancy of the most recent forest health data suggests that, of the 34 million acres of forests and woodlands in Oregon, more than 25 million acres need active treatment -- thinning, controlled burning or both -- to restore safer and more natural conditions. More than 15 million of these acres are on public land....
Groups protest oil, gas leasing In what is likely the start of a series of protests, Trout Unlimited and the National Outdoor Leadership School -- along with some outfitters and guides -- announced Monday they are protesting the oil and gas lease sale of parcels in the Wyoming Range. The lease sale, set for April 4, is for 11 separate parcels that total nearly 20,000 acres in the Upper Green River drainage. Energy development could harm fishable mountain streams including North Horse Creek, Dead Cow Creek, Lead Creek, South Cottonwood Creek and South Beaver Creek, all of which are Green River tributaries and home to native Colorado River cutthroats, according to Trout Unlimited. Steven Hall, spokesman for the BLM, has said protests are not unusual. In August, 123 lease parcels were protested of the 188 put up for sale. In June, 142 out of 189 were protested, and in April, 83 of 227 were protested. In addition to concern for fisheries, Trout Unlimited cited the possible presence of Canada lynx, effects on air quality, and a lack of assessment of current and foreseeable impacts are reasons for the latest lease protest....
Verdict still out on wildlife plan in the Jonah Field Oil and gas industry officials are excited about a first-ever plan designed to help wildlife affected by increased drilling in the Jonah Field in southwest Wyoming, but conservationists are more skeptical about the plan. EnCana Oil and Gas Inc. and other operators received federal approval last week to boost natural gas production in the field by doing "in-fill" drilling, which allows wells to be placed closer together within the overall boundary of the field. The drilling is intended to speed up gas extraction. As part of the project, the plan calls for improving wildlife habitat in areas surrounding the field to make up for land that is harmed by the anticipated drilling of more than 3,000 new natural gas wells in the future. The project area covers about 30,500 acres of mostly federal public lands about 30 miles southeast of Pinedale. The plan calls for the Bureau of Land Management to establish an interagency office in Pinedale to monitor reclamation efforts and to oversee offsite mitigation projects. The office and its work will be funded by a $24.5 million grant from EnCana Oil and Gas Inc....
Wilderness: The new anti-nuclear weapon On Jan. 6, President Bush signed into law the first new Utah wilderness area since 1984 - and made it a little harder for nuclear power plant operators to ship radioactive waste to a nearby Indian reservation. The new Cedar Mountain Wilderness protects some 100,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. But it also blocks the right-of-way for a railroad line to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, a key component of the tribes' plan to accept waste from nuclear power plants around the country. Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, a longtime nemesis of the local wilderness community, first proposed the idea of using wilderness to fight nuclear waste in 2002, just before he retired....
BLM plans sports park in eastern Utah More than 1,200 acres in eastern Utah could become a park for off-road vehicles, drag racers, rock climbers and ultralight aircraft, under a proposal by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Approval could be granted by summer to allow Uintah County to develop the park, about 4.5 miles east of Vernal. The BLM would give Uintah County the land for the park, to be called the Buckskin Hills Recreation Area. Private groups would be responsible for constructing the various parts. An environmental assessment found no reason to block the deal, and there were few negative comments about the proposal during a recent public review. BLM and county officials said the park would divert off-roaders from protected lands....
Grand Canyon battles traffic jams near its entrances Clogged roadways at the Grand Canyon have prompted the National Park Service to launch a new planning round aimed at reducing vehicle traffic near the natural wonder. Park officials are asking the public to comment on ways to fix the traffic problem. The option the park is using as a starting point would put one new 450-vehicle parking lot outside the south entrance to the park and another adjacent to the park's visitor orientation center, and expand bus service within the park. There were 4.3 million recreational visitors to the canyon in 2004 and 4.4 million last year. In the peak visitor days of summer, tourists sometimes sweat in their cars for up to an hour just to reach the entrance station. Earlier proposals calling for building a costly light rail line will not be among the eventual options, park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge said....
Developers covet areas surrounding national parks People who cherish Joshua Tree National Park's desert probably don't want wayward tee shots, pets or trash spoiling the serenity and scenery, but it could happen. Development is closing in on Joshua Tree and many other national parks. "It is happening all over the country," said Curt Sauer, superintendent of Joshua Tree, "and it is going to continue to happen." It isn't difficult to find examples: • In West Virginia, there are proposals to build more than 2,000 homes at the edge of the New River Gorge National River — including up to 550 homes on a site chosen to appear on the back of the quarter. • In Florida, there's a proposal to fill wetlands at the edge of the Everglades National Park to make way for 6,000 homes, shops, schools and a movie theater. • In Ohio, there are plans for at least five subdivisions just outside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. • In Arkansas, population growth is putting pressure on Hot Springs National Park and Pea Ridge National Military Park, said Ernie Quintana, Midwest regional director of the National Park Service....
Parks Struggle to Keep Wildlife Healthy and Other Interests Happy A tractor engine roars to life along Muddy Creek, and for several hundred wild elk it is a dinner bell. They splash through deep snow and line up for hay tossed on the ground from a tractor-pulled wagon. This scene, played out here and at 22 other feeding grounds at the southern end of the Yellowstone ecosystem, may seem benign. But feeding concentrates the elk in such large numbers that brucellosis spreads easily and reaches levels 10 times as great as the natural rate, or even higher. The disease causes elk cows to abort their calves. Brucellosis is one of several diseases that affect wildlife and domestic animals and that have appeared in the national parks. Controlling them poses a challenge to the National Park Service, which has to decide on strategies and try to meet a number of competing needs of hunters, tourists, ranchers and the animals....
Scientists Say Grizzly Proposal Premature More than 250 scientists and researchers have signed a letter opposing a federal proposal to lift Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem. They contend, among other things, that there is inadequate habitat protections, genetic concerns and too few bears to merit lifting federal protections. The letter, dated Monday, was addressed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator, Chris Servheen, who could not be reached immediately for comment. Monday marked the end of an extended comment period on the federal "delisting" proposal for Yellowstone-area grizzlies....
Bush Administration Opposes World Heritage Convention Action to Protect Glacier National Park and Other Sites The U.S. government is strongly opposing efforts by the United Nations to protect some of the most vulnerable World Heritage Sites from the impacts of global warming. The move comes as a meeting of experts convened by the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) begins today in Paris in response to petitions to protect World Heritage Sites threatened by climate change, including Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (in the U.S. and Canada), on Mount Everest and the Peruvian Andes where glaciers are rapidly melting, and the Belize Reef and Great Barrier Reefs (in Australia) which are being damaged due to climate change. In a position paper posted on the conference website, the Bush administration argues against any action under the World Heritage Convention and attempts to cast doubt on the science of global warming....
Reclamation commissioner retires after 40 years John W. Keys, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation for the last five years, said Friday that he will step down after nearly 40 years with the agency, which controls dams, power plants and canals across the West. Keys is the second high-profile Interior Department official to retire this month. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced last week that she would step down at the end of March. Bureau spokesman Kip White said Keys wanted to spend more time with his family. He and his wife live in Moab, Utah, where they both fly planes as a hobby. “He is a consensus builder who spent a long career with the Bureau of Reclamation and then agreed to join my team to lead the bureau as commissioner,” Norton said in a statement. “He will be missed.” A native of Sheffield, Ala., Keys joined the agency in 1964 as a civil and hydraulic engineer and later worked as the Pacific Northwest regional director. He had retired from the government when President Bush tapped him to return to head the bureau....
The fast-reproducing feral hog is bringing its destructive behavior to populated areas It's not just George Bush Park, and it's not just soccer fields. Across Texas, feral hogs have become a maddening and destructive presence. With 1.5 million to 2 million swine roaming all but about 20 of its 254 counties, Texas has the nation's largest feral hog population. In 1990, only 19 states — mainly in the Southeast — had feral hogs, and the nationwide population was 1 million to 2 million, said John Mayer, co-author of Wild Pigs in the United States. By 2004, hogs were in 35 states and numbered 4 million to 5 million. "If you don't have them now, get ready — they're coming," said Mark Mapston, a district supervisor with Texas Wildlife Services and author of the booklet Feral Hogs in Texas. Locally, wild hogs ruin fairways and greens at suburban golf courses, pose a threat to costly wetlands created by Harris County to offset new development, and are so common in some areas that motorists occasionally hit them at night....
'Eat potatoes and buckskin' When Freda Glassier glances out her kitchen window to the south she sees the vast fields of the Emma area where, for most of her 90 years, she coaxed things to grow. She's been in her house on Hook Spur Lane for 58 years. It's less than a mile from where she was born and raised, the daughter of immigrants from Italy. It's also less than a mile from the house where she and her husband, Fred, first scraped out a living as potato farmers and cattle ranchers. Freda is brutally, and refreshingly, honest about her life. There were no frills. She didn't travel much. She never even took the train to Aspen. She loved the simple life on the ranch. Hard work wasn't reserved for special projects. It was a way of life....
Rodeo champ, rancher, artist In the summer, the whitewashed shelves that run up the west wall inside the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds Hall of Champions usually house the prize vegetables and blue ribbons of 4-H contestants. In their place last week rested the size 7E black boots, championship belt buckles and defining pictures of a rodeo champion, rancher, husband and a dad. A framed panoramic shot of the Brewer Ranch showed where Bill Brewer, who died March 9 at the age of 81, lived as full a life as anyone. From the angle the picture was taken, you couldn’t see the barn door where he’d painted the likeness of four young horsemen riding home. He was a family man first, said his oldest son Bill, one of Brewer’s four boys depicted on horseback on that barn door. In his 60s, he took three consecutive team roping world championships in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association. “I just like to win,” Bill once said in an interview with the Wyoming Wrangler. “I never plan to quit. As long as I can swing a rope I’ll keep roping. If a fellow just puts his feet up and sits back - that’s no good.”....
It's All Trew: Folklore sayings come in all shapes, sizes A previous article contained numerous folklore-type sayings passed down in my family, and it brought in many responses from readers. A book, titled "Black Cats, Hoot Owls and Water Witches," added other superstitious phrases to the subject. My favorite weather saying is, "The morning rain is like an old women's dance. It is soon over." My apologies to the elder ladies. Another saying that I intend to watch in the coming year is, "Frost on a moonlit night won't kill." I am also watching for the saying, "Big raindrops, little rain. Little raindrops mean big rain." Common sense says, "A short horse is quickly curried."....
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Ranchers, outfitters crying wolf People claiming wolves have the upper hand in Montana, attacking livestock and wildlife, accused the state wildlife agency Friday of not doing enough to get wolves removed from the list of federally protected species so that Montana will have more control over them. ‘‘We already have more wolves than we need,’’ Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, said at a meeting of the Montana Environmental Quality Council, on which he serves. McGee joined outfitters and ranchers in contending that the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks should be working harder to advance wolves’ removal from the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. Outfitter Bill Hoppe of Gardiner, a Yellowstone gateway, said that area of Montana used to be rich with wildlife but has become ‘‘a predator pit.’’ Robert Fanning said his Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd has tried to advance the so-called delisting of wolves. Fanning said he finds ‘‘a greater chance that (Playboy Playmate) Anna Nicole Smith will join a convent,’’ than that Fish, Wildlife and Parks will work vigorously on the wolves’ status....
Ranch troubles highlight feedground debate As a ranch owner outside Jackson is forced to test his cattle for brucellosis after elk and cattle commingled, both sides of the elk feedground debate are pointing to the episode as reason to support their cases. Conservationists said this week the uproar strengthens the call for phasing out feedgrounds; ranchers say the incident shows exactly why feedgrounds are needed. Up the Gros Ventre drainage outside Jackson -- where three elk feedgrounds have existed for decades -- elk came down the valley onto a cattle ranch this winter, forcing the rancher to test his cattle for brucellosis. Those three feedgrounds have been targeted by some conservationists as ones that would possibly be phased out so elk can disburse and forage on native winter range. Albert Sommers, a Pinedale rancher and member of the Upper Green River Cattlemen's Association, said the situation up the Gros Ventre reinforces the need for feedgrounds. "If there were no feedgrounds, what happened to (the rancher) would be a common occurrence," Sommers said....
Schweitzer: Look at buying out leases Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Friday it's time to consider buying out the leases of ranchers who graze cattle near Yellowstone National Park before the state loses its brucellosis free status. Schweitzer made his comments at a meeting of the state Environmental Quality Council. Schweitzer said about 740 cattle graze in what he calls "mixing zones," areas where bison leave the park in winter and cattle later graze. He wants to explore a deal that would pay cattlemen not to graze their animals in those places and suggested federal funding might be available. Schweitzer said the present federal and state management plan, that allows for hazing bison back into the park and slaughtering bison with brucellosis, does not do enough to protect the state livestock industry's brucellosis-free status. Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, an EQC member, said Schweitzer's proposal matches that of environmental groups, including Ted Turner's Endangered Species Foundation....
Editorial: Reject the 'spoiler' aimed at trust reforms Spoiler. The Legislature's proposed constitutional amendment on state trust land is full of complex legal wording. But it all boils down to one word. This is a spoiler, meant to confuse voters. It aims to shoot down an initiative, Conserving Arizona's Future, that would reform our antiquated system of managing state trust land. Arizona received the trust land from the federal government at statehood as a way to raise money for public services, mostly education. The rules for managing these 9.2 million acres date back almost a century, and they make as much sense for today's Arizona as driving a Wells Fargo stagecoach on Interstate 10. Conserving Arizona's Future is the fast, finely tuned, efficient vehicle we need. A citizen's initiative that is in the process of qualifying for the November ballot, it promotes education, conservation and development. The Arizona Cattlemen's Association, a reluctant partner last year, has been seeking changes that essentially give ranchers a permanent hold on any trust land they lease. The cattlemen are attacking the initiative's conservation components as a giveaway - ignoring the immense value of open space, both for adjoining land and the entire region. Opposition from the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona is more puzzling....
Reclaiming relationships in CBM Using satellite imagery from 400 miles up, artist John Amos noted the distinct changes that coal-bed methane gas activity made in certain areas of the Powder River Basin from 1999 to 2003. A network of fine white lines, or roads, appeared connecting numerous bare patches (well sites) and little blue spots (water ponds) popped up everywhere. "We need to protect the resources and livelihoods, not just the ones we have today, but in the future, too," Amos said. "We have an opportunity to get it right and that's important to the entire nation." Using an illustration a little closer to the ground, Tony Line shared the biggest lesson he'd learned in his experience with coal-bed methane developers on the Padlock Ranch, where he manages operations....
Column: Gale Norton's legacy The resignation of Gale Norton as secretary of the Department of the Interior brought a flood of assessments of her job performance. True to our customs, the critics of departing secretaries of the Interior seldom remember the historical context and political constraints in which these individuals serve and instead often hold them accountable for problems and policies not of their making. Gale Norton and other officials - and her nominated successor, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne - deserve to be evaluated with a better understanding of what lies within - and what lies beyond - their actual control. Westerners have never been slow to step forward with complaints about the federal government and its oversight of the West's public lands and resources. The Department of Interior in particular, with its supervision of 58 national parks and 262 million acres of Bureau of Land Management lands, has taken a lot of heat in recent decades. (The national forests, because of a quirk of history, fall under the Department of Agriculture, but are hardly spared them from contention over federal land management.) A calm, historical appraisal of Interior's intermittent bouts of unpopularity would see their origins not in the actions of any one official but rather in basic contradictions built into the purposes and uses that the United States has assigned to its public lands....
Save a little water for tomorrow One hundred years ago, William Mulholland introduced the citizens of California to a new concept in state politics: the water grab. Charged with securing water supplies for a small, thirsty town in a desert, the baron of the Los Angeles Department of Water hit on an imaginative response. He quietly bought up water rights in the Owens Valley, 230 miles to the north, built an aquifer across the blistering Mojave Desert, and took the water to downtown Los Angeles. When local ranchers protested by dynamiting his aquifer, Mulholland declared war, responding with a massive show of armed force. Nowadays southern Californians fight over water in courts of law. Angelenos have some of America's greenest lawns and biggest swimming pools, not to mention a desert that blooms with cotton and fruit. Keeping it that way means piping in water from hundreds of miles away and draining a Colorado River so depleted that it barely reaches the sea. And it means disputing every drop of the Colorado with Arizona....
Forest Service will track fewer species If you're wondering about the health of our national forests, ask an elk. The U.S. Forest Service and some environmentalists agree on that much, but differ over the agency's decision to cut back on what animals and plants it monitors to track the health of the White River National Forest, which stretches from Summit County and Vail to Aspen and west of Glenwood Springs. Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson has decided to more than halve the number of species the Forest Service tracks to measure how well the forest is being managed. There are now seven so-called "management indicator species" on the forest's list. "That's not good, and we'll have to consider challenging that," said Rocky Smith, forest watch coordinator for the environmental group Colorado Wild....
Tribal hatchery raises sturgeon Each year, endangered white sturgeon lay millions of fertilized eggs on the silty bed of the Kootenai River where it curls across the top of Idaho. Yet experts estimate perhaps only 10 of the baby sturgeon hatched from those millions of eggs survive. The white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in North America, has not successfully reproduced in the Kootenai since Libby Dam was completed in Montana in 1974, reducing the river velocity and trapping critical nutrients upstream. Downstream, however, pools at a hatchery run by the Kootenai Indian Tribe teem with thousands of year-old sturgeon, inch-long miniature replicas of the two armor-plated wild adults in another tank, each measuring six-to-seven feet long. Another tank holds the medium-sized fish raised at the hatchery since birth, including a striking all-white sturgeon, a ghost of a prehistoric past. Bred from captured wild sturgeon, the young sturgeon may represent the last hope biologists have of preventing the extinction of the species....
How many bears are there? No one, not federal biologists or conservation activists, knows how many grizzly bears there are in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. That could be a problem, because federal and state officials have seized upon the number of 588 grizzly bears in the drive to remove the animal's protection under the Endangered Species Act. The number used to justify delisting the grizzly was generated in 2004, based on the sightings of 49 bear sows with cubs, then processed through a much-tweaked formula to come up with 588 -- a widely mentioned number that some say “proves” the species is recovered in the Yellowstone area. Yet in 2005, there were only 31 sow/cub sightings -- a 40 percent decline -- the lowest number of female-with-cubs-of-the-year sightings since 1997. If that sightings number is processed exactly as it had been the year before, it would produce a population number of roughly 350 bears. While U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Department officials have repeatedly trumpeted the 588 figure, there has been no public discussion of the 350-bear figure....
For Interior, a collaborative conservative Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to the head the Interior Department, has both the experience and the record of collaboration that could help smooth the way in the often-contentious position. As governor of Idaho, a former US senator, and mayor of Boise before that, Mr. Kempthorne is known to work in concert with those who don't agree with him. He believes that the level of government closest to a problem is the best place to find a solution. And though his environmental record - according to those who score such things - is a pale shade of green, he is not a fire-breathing ideologue likely to dismiss endangered species in the name of corporate ranching or a new highway. "I've been dealing with this guy for years," says Rick Johnson, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. "He's not overtly anti-environment. He is overtly states' rights." The West, for all its wide-open spaces where most of Interior's 500 million acres of responsibility lie, in fact is becoming the most urban region of the country. Cities like Boise, growing rapidly, are more conservation-minded than in the past, says Mr. Johnson. As a result, many newcomers to the West value environmental quality - something reflected in some of Kempthorne's policies....
Editorial: Interior designs President Bush's nominee to be secretary of Interior, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, brings a Northwest sensibility to the job. Or at least that is our wishfully determinedly optimistic view. The president had lots of Gale Norton clones to choose among for her replacement, but he picked a Western governor and former senator who knows the region and has worked cooperatively with his elected colleagues in Oregon, Washington and Montana. Kempthorne's sound-bite résumé is full of dismaying quotes and politically opportune moments, such as the time he was "on the verge of inviting the EPA to leave Idaho" over cleanup plans for a toxic Superfund site. He successfully fought plans to reintroduce grizzlies into the Bitterroot Range. He has grumbled about the Endangered Species Act and opposed expanded roadless protection in the national forests. Yet Kempthorne cannot be boss of federal lands, national parks and resource extraction without the legacy of his own state in the back of his mind. Mining trashed parts of Idaho and put more than the environment in harm's way. There are consequences to fire-sale practices at Interior....
Pick for Interior Said to Show More Charm Than Substance He rides motorcycles, battles a bad back, does a killer impersonation of fellow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and sometimes forgets to balance his checkbook. Even those who don't like his politics call him "Dirk," the way he prefers to be addressed. And they speak of him like he's the guy next door who just happens to be governor. But the ready smile and neighborly style of Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne don't always get the job done, some supporters and critics say. They contend that the man President Bush has picked to succeed Gale A. Norton as secretary of the Interior often exhibits more charm than substance. Fellow Republicans and business leaders say Kempthorne, 54, knows how to create consensus but is too politically cautious. Local Democrats and environmentalists say that he is gifted at making people feel heard but that, at the end of the day, his loyalties lie squarely with development and corporate interests. If confirmed, what kind of Interior secretary will Kempthorne be?....
Editorial: America the bulldozed GALE NORTON resigned earlier this month as secretary of the Interior Department amid charges of uncollected royalties from oil drillers and questions about her connections with Jack Abramoff and his lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes. But she was supported by the industries -- including mining, timber, and energy -- that enjoyed the carte blanche she gave them to exploit the nation's public lands. Dirk Kempthorne, the Idaho governor nominated by President Bush to succeed Norton, is clear-cut from the same cloth. His one term of service in the Senate and his sympathy for the antienvironmental views of its Republican majority should guarantee him an easy confirmation. But senators should use the hearing process to grill him closely on the missing royalties, lobbyist influence in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and proposed new policies for the National Park Service that would encourage use of the parks by off-road-vehicle riders. So far, he has taken no position on a Bush administration plan to sell thousands of acres from the Bureau of Land Management, which Interior controls, and the Forest Service. Senators should get his view on this and also try to extract a commitment from him to fight for funding to defray the national parks' maintenance backlog, which the Congressional Research Service recently pegged as high as $9.7 billion. Also, has this month's biggest-ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope weakened his support for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, as it should?....
Editorial: The West and the next Interior chief If Dirk Kempthorne becomes the next U.S. Interior secretary, he's expected to continue the Bush administration's pro-development policies on the West's public lands. Even so, we hope the Idaho governor and former U.S. senator also brings to the job a sense of the modern West, a region that cherishes its wildlife and pristine lands. The key quality for a good interior secretary is a keen understanding of the need to balance development with environmental protection. Kempthorne is expected to be confirmed, but senators still should use his hearings to quiz him about that balance. For example, Kempthorne has harshly criticized the Endangered Species Act, yet as interior secretary he would oversee the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the law. He should explain how he plans to administer the law....
Rare pair of falcons find a home at San Jose building The upper floors of San Jose's 18-story City Hall tower are abuzz over a couple of visitors who might be involved in a romance. And there may be a family come spring. A pair of peregrine falcons have found a perch outside the glass offices at City Hall, generating excitement and creating a new crop of bird-watchers. "It just makes everyone's day when they see them," said Nancy Price, who has a clear view of the raptors from her San Jose Redevelopment Agency office on the 14th floor. Mayor Ron Gonzales and then-City Manager Del Borgsdorf discovered the falcons a few months ago while they were in a meeting in the mayor's 18th floor office. All at once they saw feathers floating down outside the large window: One of the falcons apparently was shredding a pigeon on the roof. There are only about two dozen pairs of falcons in the greater Bay Area, said Glenn Stewart of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, and 200 to 300 pairs in California, where the birds are on the endangered species list....
Plan to protect Florida panthers creates identity complex But now a new plan for saving the vaunted predator is reopening awkward questions for the animal's admirers: What, exactly, is a Florida panther? Scientists believe there are only about 80 left in Florida. And given the shortage of habitat in the cat's rapidly developing namesake state, the draft recovery plan for the Florida panther, issued recently by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, proposes to export some of the predators out of state -- and names potential sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. The Florida panther roamed those states long ago, wildlife biologists said, and reintroducing it in those areas could enable it to establish populations large enough to ward off extinction. But the proposal to expand the range of the predator, which is being met warily from officials in other states -- where farmers fear attacks on livestock -- is also restarting debates about whether the Florida panther, officially considered an endangered subspecies, is for all practical purposes identical to the cougar, a far more common animal that lives in much of western North America. ''I'm not even sure at this point that a Florida panther, as a subspecies, exists," said David Goad, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, who opposes bringing the animal to Arkansas. Crossbreeding between Texas cougars and Florida panthers, combined with modern genetic testing showing fewer distinctions between the two than previously believed, has led many to question the unique identity of Florida's fearsome mascot....
Habitat of Newly Discovered Salamander Slated for Logging The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild), and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed suit today against the California Departments of Forestry and Fish and Game for approving logging of crucial habitat for the newly discovered Scott Bar salamander. The species was first described in May of 2005 and has one of the smallest ranges of any salamander. “In Arkansas, hundreds of volunteers and scientists are combing the woods trying to confirm the location of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which was driven to near extinction by careless logging of its habitat,” states Noah Greenwald, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Meanwhile, in California, the Departments of Forestry and Fish and Game are putting the newly discovered Scott Bar salamander on the road to extinction by approving logging of its habitat.” The Scott Bar salamander was previously considered the same species as the Siskiyou Mountains salamander, but was recently discovered to be a separate species by researchers who published their findings last May in the journal Herpetologica. The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is listed as “threatened” under California’s Endangered Species Act, giving it a measure of protection from logging....
Marsh rules would ban bridges, halt development along SC coast Homebuilder Ted Mamunes wants to build a bridge to span nearly 300 feet of marsh onto his unnamed Beaufort County island, but proposed state rules on bridges to these tiny parcels are one of a couple obstacles preventing him from getting the go-ahead. His struggle is part of an ongoing dispute between developers along the coast and conservationists who want to protect South Carolina's pristine salt-water marshes and habitats. Mamunes' island is one of roughly 3,400 small marsh islands along the South Carolina coast. He says the rules meant to prevent major development are keeping him from building a single-family home. "It's useless to me if I can't get to it," Mamunes said. Mamunes, 63, agrees that the coast is overcrowded, but he wants only to build, and eventually sell, one home on this 9-acre island, which has distant views of thick salt marsh, oyster beds and shrimp boats....
Court rules government must keep counting fish A federal appeals court ordered the government late Friday to continue funding an agency that counts young salmon crossing dams in the West. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of two challenges environmentalists brought against a move to discontinue funding the Portland, Ore.-based Fish Passage Center, whose $1.3 million budget was to expire Sunday. Instead, the court said funding for the center's 11 employees should be continued until the litigation is resolved. The lawsuits, by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, challenged a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, directing the Bonneville Power Administration to eliminate the center's budget. Craig's move came after U.S. District Judge James Redden of Oregon took control of dam operations along the Columbia and Snake rivers after concluding the Bush administration offered an inadequate plan for protecting salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act....
Fence fight And then, a wire fence stretches bank-to-bank. Choked with debris and limbs, with no way through, the fence requires a portage around it for a kayaker to continue downstream. For decades, cattlemen and other large landowners have treated the 31-mile-long Peace Creek -- referred to in some sections as the Peace Creek Canal -- as if they owned it, stringing barbed-wire fences across the water's flow and hanging "No Trespassing" signs wherever they pleased. In fact, some contend they do own the creek. And the state says they may own parts of it. No matter, it's theoretically illegal to obstruct the water in a canal like the Peace Creek Canal under state law. Accusations of favoritism and sweetheart deals allowing people to ignore the law have been tossed around, and formal complaints against the local state attorney have been filed with the Florida attorney general. It seems this little tributary of the Peace River has sparked more than its share of strife....
Lack of ID registry thwarts mad cow data hunt Investigators may never figure out where the Alabama cow with mad cow disease was born and raised, in part because the United States lacks a livestock tracking system that the Bush administration had promised two years ago. After the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in December 2003, the government pledged to get a nationwide program into place quickly so officials could track cows, pigs and chickens from their birth to the dinner table. Today, however, the system is a long way off. Alabama officials saw the need firsthand last week as they tried to determine where the infected cow came from. The animal had no ear tags, tattoos or brands, and spent less than a year on the farm where she died. The trail seems to have gone cold at an auction where she was sold last year....
Column: Government's idea of 'tracking' animals Reaction to the National Animal Identification System is shining a light on a growing problem that independent producers believe is threatening the entire livestock industry. Vertical marketing practices in the meat processing industry, combined with the industry's access to and influence on the Department of Agriculture and Congress, has the small producer against the ropes. The NAIS may be the final blow that puts independent ranchers and small farmers down for the count. The goal of the NAIS is to create a national system that would enable the federal government to trace, within 48 hours, the origin of any animal in the food chain found to be infected, either by disease or by terrorists. To achieve this objective, a massive database has been proposed that would contain the location of all premises where animals are kept, identification of every individual animal, as well as a method of tracking any movement from the premises' location. Some people fear that a system capable of tracking the movement of every animal in America is a very small step away from applying a similar system to track the movement of every American....
Navajo film to hold casting calls Actors are needed to audition this week for a film slated for production on the Navajo Nation by a local family. Ray Baldwin Louis, aka "Razor Saltboy," is teaming up with his sons' production company, Saltboy Films, to produce a film based on his published play "Butterfly of Hope." Hondo Baldwin Louis is producing the project, while brother Kumen is working as the project's casting director. Ray Baldwin Louis is known throughout Native American communities as a singer and songwriter who has released three albums. He also has extensive experience as an actor and playwright. According to a statement released by Hondo Baldwin Louis, the play is set in the 1860s when Native American tribes were being displaced from their homelands onto reservations....
History in its adobe walls Walking up to the Felipe Chavez Hacienda on Lala Street in Belen, it's hard to imagine what life was like in the mid-1800s when the home was built. But as you step through the front door and into this grand home, a rush of history and culture sweeps through your mind. The three-foot-wide adobe walls and the original wooden floors take you back in time to the days when Belen was a pivotal stop along the Camino Real. The Felipe Chavez house, which is was placed on the State and National Historical Registers in 1980, was built in 1860 by a pioneer merchant, trader and rancher. Felipe Chavez made his fortune with business interests ranging from the New York Stock Exchange to mining in Mexico. Although there were several haciendas in the area, the Chavez estate was the largest. It included cornfields, extensive pasture, cottonwood groves, a mercantile and, eventually, a school for girls. Chavez was, for a time, a judge in Belen and even built a small adobe jailhouse in the courtyard behind his home. As the legend goes, he would sentence cattle rustlers and other criminals to death and walk them a few steps from the jail to a large cottonwood tree where they were hanged for their crimes. Both the jail and the tree remain on the property....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Careful who you camp with on hunting trip Hunting with a companion who enjoys it as much as you do is one of life's greatest gifts. It's like two horse people or two pilots finding each other in a crowded room. You finally have someone who will actually listen to your stories! Doug went by Phil's house right after lunch to pick him up. They had a trip planned to go chukker hunting near Gerlach. Unfortunately, Doug walked in on the middle of a family spat; doors were slamming, plates were flying, tension was twanging and the air was blue. Phil grabbed his shotgun and shooting vest, ducked a gravy boat and scrambled out the door. That night on the high desert the boys cooked over an open fire and taste-tested a six-pack of Night Train Express, a subtle wine (mixed fruit, 17 percent alcohol and bottled in Modesto). Since Phil had no coat, bedroll, blanket, long johns or earmuffs, they scrounged him up some bedding. It consisted of rubber floor mats, Doug's canvas fender cover, a seat cushion and a blue plastic tarp....
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Ranchers, outfitters crying wolf People claiming wolves have the upper hand in Montana, attacking livestock and wildlife, accused the state wildlife agency Friday of not doing enough to get wolves removed from the list of federally protected species so that Montana will have more control over them. ‘‘We already have more wolves than we need,’’ Sen. Dan McGee, R-Laurel, said at a meeting of the Montana Environmental Quality Council, on which he serves. McGee joined outfitters and ranchers in contending that the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks should be working harder to advance wolves’ removal from the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act. Outfitter Bill Hoppe of Gardiner, a Yellowstone gateway, said that area of Montana used to be rich with wildlife but has become ‘‘a predator pit.’’ Robert Fanning said his Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd has tried to advance the so-called delisting of wolves. Fanning said he finds ‘‘a greater chance that (Playboy Playmate) Anna Nicole Smith will join a convent,’’ than that Fish, Wildlife and Parks will work vigorously on the wolves’ status....
Ranch troubles highlight feedground debate As a ranch owner outside Jackson is forced to test his cattle for brucellosis after elk and cattle commingled, both sides of the elk feedground debate are pointing to the episode as reason to support their cases. Conservationists said this week the uproar strengthens the call for phasing out feedgrounds; ranchers say the incident shows exactly why feedgrounds are needed. Up the Gros Ventre drainage outside Jackson -- where three elk feedgrounds have existed for decades -- elk came down the valley onto a cattle ranch this winter, forcing the rancher to test his cattle for brucellosis. Those three feedgrounds have been targeted by some conservationists as ones that would possibly be phased out so elk can disburse and forage on native winter range. Albert Sommers, a Pinedale rancher and member of the Upper Green River Cattlemen's Association, said the situation up the Gros Ventre reinforces the need for feedgrounds. "If there were no feedgrounds, what happened to (the rancher) would be a common occurrence," Sommers said....
Schweitzer: Look at buying out leases Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Friday it's time to consider buying out the leases of ranchers who graze cattle near Yellowstone National Park before the state loses its brucellosis free status. Schweitzer made his comments at a meeting of the state Environmental Quality Council. Schweitzer said about 740 cattle graze in what he calls "mixing zones," areas where bison leave the park in winter and cattle later graze. He wants to explore a deal that would pay cattlemen not to graze their animals in those places and suggested federal funding might be available. Schweitzer said the present federal and state management plan, that allows for hazing bison back into the park and slaughtering bison with brucellosis, does not do enough to protect the state livestock industry's brucellosis-free status. Rep. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon, an EQC member, said Schweitzer's proposal matches that of environmental groups, including Ted Turner's Endangered Species Foundation....
Editorial: Reject the 'spoiler' aimed at trust reforms Spoiler. The Legislature's proposed constitutional amendment on state trust land is full of complex legal wording. But it all boils down to one word. This is a spoiler, meant to confuse voters. It aims to shoot down an initiative, Conserving Arizona's Future, that would reform our antiquated system of managing state trust land. Arizona received the trust land from the federal government at statehood as a way to raise money for public services, mostly education. The rules for managing these 9.2 million acres date back almost a century, and they make as much sense for today's Arizona as driving a Wells Fargo stagecoach on Interstate 10. Conserving Arizona's Future is the fast, finely tuned, efficient vehicle we need. A citizen's initiative that is in the process of qualifying for the November ballot, it promotes education, conservation and development. The Arizona Cattlemen's Association, a reluctant partner last year, has been seeking changes that essentially give ranchers a permanent hold on any trust land they lease. The cattlemen are attacking the initiative's conservation components as a giveaway - ignoring the immense value of open space, both for adjoining land and the entire region. Opposition from the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona is more puzzling....
Reclaiming relationships in CBM Using satellite imagery from 400 miles up, artist John Amos noted the distinct changes that coal-bed methane gas activity made in certain areas of the Powder River Basin from 1999 to 2003. A network of fine white lines, or roads, appeared connecting numerous bare patches (well sites) and little blue spots (water ponds) popped up everywhere. "We need to protect the resources and livelihoods, not just the ones we have today, but in the future, too," Amos said. "We have an opportunity to get it right and that's important to the entire nation." Using an illustration a little closer to the ground, Tony Line shared the biggest lesson he'd learned in his experience with coal-bed methane developers on the Padlock Ranch, where he manages operations....
Column: Gale Norton's legacy The resignation of Gale Norton as secretary of the Department of the Interior brought a flood of assessments of her job performance. True to our customs, the critics of departing secretaries of the Interior seldom remember the historical context and political constraints in which these individuals serve and instead often hold them accountable for problems and policies not of their making. Gale Norton and other officials - and her nominated successor, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne - deserve to be evaluated with a better understanding of what lies within - and what lies beyond - their actual control. Westerners have never been slow to step forward with complaints about the federal government and its oversight of the West's public lands and resources. The Department of Interior in particular, with its supervision of 58 national parks and 262 million acres of Bureau of Land Management lands, has taken a lot of heat in recent decades. (The national forests, because of a quirk of history, fall under the Department of Agriculture, but are hardly spared them from contention over federal land management.) A calm, historical appraisal of Interior's intermittent bouts of unpopularity would see their origins not in the actions of any one official but rather in basic contradictions built into the purposes and uses that the United States has assigned to its public lands....
Save a little water for tomorrow One hundred years ago, William Mulholland introduced the citizens of California to a new concept in state politics: the water grab. Charged with securing water supplies for a small, thirsty town in a desert, the baron of the Los Angeles Department of Water hit on an imaginative response. He quietly bought up water rights in the Owens Valley, 230 miles to the north, built an aquifer across the blistering Mojave Desert, and took the water to downtown Los Angeles. When local ranchers protested by dynamiting his aquifer, Mulholland declared war, responding with a massive show of armed force. Nowadays southern Californians fight over water in courts of law. Angelenos have some of America's greenest lawns and biggest swimming pools, not to mention a desert that blooms with cotton and fruit. Keeping it that way means piping in water from hundreds of miles away and draining a Colorado River so depleted that it barely reaches the sea. And it means disputing every drop of the Colorado with Arizona....
Forest Service will track fewer species If you're wondering about the health of our national forests, ask an elk. The U.S. Forest Service and some environmentalists agree on that much, but differ over the agency's decision to cut back on what animals and plants it monitors to track the health of the White River National Forest, which stretches from Summit County and Vail to Aspen and west of Glenwood Springs. Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson has decided to more than halve the number of species the Forest Service tracks to measure how well the forest is being managed. There are now seven so-called "management indicator species" on the forest's list. "That's not good, and we'll have to consider challenging that," said Rocky Smith, forest watch coordinator for the environmental group Colorado Wild....
Tribal hatchery raises sturgeon Each year, endangered white sturgeon lay millions of fertilized eggs on the silty bed of the Kootenai River where it curls across the top of Idaho. Yet experts estimate perhaps only 10 of the baby sturgeon hatched from those millions of eggs survive. The white sturgeon, the largest freshwater fish in North America, has not successfully reproduced in the Kootenai since Libby Dam was completed in Montana in 1974, reducing the river velocity and trapping critical nutrients upstream. Downstream, however, pools at a hatchery run by the Kootenai Indian Tribe teem with thousands of year-old sturgeon, inch-long miniature replicas of the two armor-plated wild adults in another tank, each measuring six-to-seven feet long. Another tank holds the medium-sized fish raised at the hatchery since birth, including a striking all-white sturgeon, a ghost of a prehistoric past. Bred from captured wild sturgeon, the young sturgeon may represent the last hope biologists have of preventing the extinction of the species....
How many bears are there? No one, not federal biologists or conservation activists, knows how many grizzly bears there are in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. That could be a problem, because federal and state officials have seized upon the number of 588 grizzly bears in the drive to remove the animal's protection under the Endangered Species Act. The number used to justify delisting the grizzly was generated in 2004, based on the sightings of 49 bear sows with cubs, then processed through a much-tweaked formula to come up with 588 -- a widely mentioned number that some say “proves” the species is recovered in the Yellowstone area. Yet in 2005, there were only 31 sow/cub sightings -- a 40 percent decline -- the lowest number of female-with-cubs-of-the-year sightings since 1997. If that sightings number is processed exactly as it had been the year before, it would produce a population number of roughly 350 bears. While U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Department officials have repeatedly trumpeted the 588 figure, there has been no public discussion of the 350-bear figure....
For Interior, a collaborative conservative Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to the head the Interior Department, has both the experience and the record of collaboration that could help smooth the way in the often-contentious position. As governor of Idaho, a former US senator, and mayor of Boise before that, Mr. Kempthorne is known to work in concert with those who don't agree with him. He believes that the level of government closest to a problem is the best place to find a solution. And though his environmental record - according to those who score such things - is a pale shade of green, he is not a fire-breathing ideologue likely to dismiss endangered species in the name of corporate ranching or a new highway. "I've been dealing with this guy for years," says Rick Johnson, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. "He's not overtly anti-environment. He is overtly states' rights." The West, for all its wide-open spaces where most of Interior's 500 million acres of responsibility lie, in fact is becoming the most urban region of the country. Cities like Boise, growing rapidly, are more conservation-minded than in the past, says Mr. Johnson. As a result, many newcomers to the West value environmental quality - something reflected in some of Kempthorne's policies....
Editorial: Interior designs President Bush's nominee to be secretary of Interior, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, brings a Northwest sensibility to the job. Or at least that is our wishfully determinedly optimistic view. The president had lots of Gale Norton clones to choose among for her replacement, but he picked a Western governor and former senator who knows the region and has worked cooperatively with his elected colleagues in Oregon, Washington and Montana. Kempthorne's sound-bite résumé is full of dismaying quotes and politically opportune moments, such as the time he was "on the verge of inviting the EPA to leave Idaho" over cleanup plans for a toxic Superfund site. He successfully fought plans to reintroduce grizzlies into the Bitterroot Range. He has grumbled about the Endangered Species Act and opposed expanded roadless protection in the national forests. Yet Kempthorne cannot be boss of federal lands, national parks and resource extraction without the legacy of his own state in the back of his mind. Mining trashed parts of Idaho and put more than the environment in harm's way. There are consequences to fire-sale practices at Interior....
Pick for Interior Said to Show More Charm Than Substance He rides motorcycles, battles a bad back, does a killer impersonation of fellow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and sometimes forgets to balance his checkbook. Even those who don't like his politics call him "Dirk," the way he prefers to be addressed. And they speak of him like he's the guy next door who just happens to be governor. But the ready smile and neighborly style of Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne don't always get the job done, some supporters and critics say. They contend that the man President Bush has picked to succeed Gale A. Norton as secretary of the Interior often exhibits more charm than substance. Fellow Republicans and business leaders say Kempthorne, 54, knows how to create consensus but is too politically cautious. Local Democrats and environmentalists say that he is gifted at making people feel heard but that, at the end of the day, his loyalties lie squarely with development and corporate interests. If confirmed, what kind of Interior secretary will Kempthorne be?....
Editorial: America the bulldozed GALE NORTON resigned earlier this month as secretary of the Interior Department amid charges of uncollected royalties from oil drillers and questions about her connections with Jack Abramoff and his lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes. But she was supported by the industries -- including mining, timber, and energy -- that enjoyed the carte blanche she gave them to exploit the nation's public lands. Dirk Kempthorne, the Idaho governor nominated by President Bush to succeed Norton, is clear-cut from the same cloth. His one term of service in the Senate and his sympathy for the antienvironmental views of its Republican majority should guarantee him an easy confirmation. But senators should use the hearing process to grill him closely on the missing royalties, lobbyist influence in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and proposed new policies for the National Park Service that would encourage use of the parks by off-road-vehicle riders. So far, he has taken no position on a Bush administration plan to sell thousands of acres from the Bureau of Land Management, which Interior controls, and the Forest Service. Senators should get his view on this and also try to extract a commitment from him to fight for funding to defray the national parks' maintenance backlog, which the Congressional Research Service recently pegged as high as $9.7 billion. Also, has this month's biggest-ever oil spill on Alaska's North Slope weakened his support for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, as it should?....
Editorial: The West and the next Interior chief If Dirk Kempthorne becomes the next U.S. Interior secretary, he's expected to continue the Bush administration's pro-development policies on the West's public lands. Even so, we hope the Idaho governor and former U.S. senator also brings to the job a sense of the modern West, a region that cherishes its wildlife and pristine lands. The key quality for a good interior secretary is a keen understanding of the need to balance development with environmental protection. Kempthorne is expected to be confirmed, but senators still should use his hearings to quiz him about that balance. For example, Kempthorne has harshly criticized the Endangered Species Act, yet as interior secretary he would oversee the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the law. He should explain how he plans to administer the law....
Rare pair of falcons find a home at San Jose building The upper floors of San Jose's 18-story City Hall tower are abuzz over a couple of visitors who might be involved in a romance. And there may be a family come spring. A pair of peregrine falcons have found a perch outside the glass offices at City Hall, generating excitement and creating a new crop of bird-watchers. "It just makes everyone's day when they see them," said Nancy Price, who has a clear view of the raptors from her San Jose Redevelopment Agency office on the 14th floor. Mayor Ron Gonzales and then-City Manager Del Borgsdorf discovered the falcons a few months ago while they were in a meeting in the mayor's 18th floor office. All at once they saw feathers floating down outside the large window: One of the falcons apparently was shredding a pigeon on the roof. There are only about two dozen pairs of falcons in the greater Bay Area, said Glenn Stewart of the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group, and 200 to 300 pairs in California, where the birds are on the endangered species list....
Plan to protect Florida panthers creates identity complex But now a new plan for saving the vaunted predator is reopening awkward questions for the animal's admirers: What, exactly, is a Florida panther? Scientists believe there are only about 80 left in Florida. And given the shortage of habitat in the cat's rapidly developing namesake state, the draft recovery plan for the Florida panther, issued recently by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, proposes to export some of the predators out of state -- and names potential sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. The Florida panther roamed those states long ago, wildlife biologists said, and reintroducing it in those areas could enable it to establish populations large enough to ward off extinction. But the proposal to expand the range of the predator, which is being met warily from officials in other states -- where farmers fear attacks on livestock -- is also restarting debates about whether the Florida panther, officially considered an endangered subspecies, is for all practical purposes identical to the cougar, a far more common animal that lives in much of western North America. ''I'm not even sure at this point that a Florida panther, as a subspecies, exists," said David Goad, deputy director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, who opposes bringing the animal to Arkansas. Crossbreeding between Texas cougars and Florida panthers, combined with modern genetic testing showing fewer distinctions between the two than previously believed, has led many to question the unique identity of Florida's fearsome mascot....
Habitat of Newly Discovered Salamander Slated for Logging The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center (KS Wild), and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed suit today against the California Departments of Forestry and Fish and Game for approving logging of crucial habitat for the newly discovered Scott Bar salamander. The species was first described in May of 2005 and has one of the smallest ranges of any salamander. “In Arkansas, hundreds of volunteers and scientists are combing the woods trying to confirm the location of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which was driven to near extinction by careless logging of its habitat,” states Noah Greenwald, conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Meanwhile, in California, the Departments of Forestry and Fish and Game are putting the newly discovered Scott Bar salamander on the road to extinction by approving logging of its habitat.” The Scott Bar salamander was previously considered the same species as the Siskiyou Mountains salamander, but was recently discovered to be a separate species by researchers who published their findings last May in the journal Herpetologica. The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is listed as “threatened” under California’s Endangered Species Act, giving it a measure of protection from logging....
Marsh rules would ban bridges, halt development along SC coast Homebuilder Ted Mamunes wants to build a bridge to span nearly 300 feet of marsh onto his unnamed Beaufort County island, but proposed state rules on bridges to these tiny parcels are one of a couple obstacles preventing him from getting the go-ahead. His struggle is part of an ongoing dispute between developers along the coast and conservationists who want to protect South Carolina's pristine salt-water marshes and habitats. Mamunes' island is one of roughly 3,400 small marsh islands along the South Carolina coast. He says the rules meant to prevent major development are keeping him from building a single-family home. "It's useless to me if I can't get to it," Mamunes said. Mamunes, 63, agrees that the coast is overcrowded, but he wants only to build, and eventually sell, one home on this 9-acre island, which has distant views of thick salt marsh, oyster beds and shrimp boats....
Court rules government must keep counting fish A federal appeals court ordered the government late Friday to continue funding an agency that counts young salmon crossing dams in the West. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of two challenges environmentalists brought against a move to discontinue funding the Portland, Ore.-based Fish Passage Center, whose $1.3 million budget was to expire Sunday. Instead, the court said funding for the center's 11 employees should be continued until the litigation is resolved. The lawsuits, by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Indian Nation, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, challenged a legislative move by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, directing the Bonneville Power Administration to eliminate the center's budget. Craig's move came after U.S. District Judge James Redden of Oregon took control of dam operations along the Columbia and Snake rivers after concluding the Bush administration offered an inadequate plan for protecting salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act....
Fence fight And then, a wire fence stretches bank-to-bank. Choked with debris and limbs, with no way through, the fence requires a portage around it for a kayaker to continue downstream. For decades, cattlemen and other large landowners have treated the 31-mile-long Peace Creek -- referred to in some sections as the Peace Creek Canal -- as if they owned it, stringing barbed-wire fences across the water's flow and hanging "No Trespassing" signs wherever they pleased. In fact, some contend they do own the creek. And the state says they may own parts of it. No matter, it's theoretically illegal to obstruct the water in a canal like the Peace Creek Canal under state law. Accusations of favoritism and sweetheart deals allowing people to ignore the law have been tossed around, and formal complaints against the local state attorney have been filed with the Florida attorney general. It seems this little tributary of the Peace River has sparked more than its share of strife....
Lack of ID registry thwarts mad cow data hunt Investigators may never figure out where the Alabama cow with mad cow disease was born and raised, in part because the United States lacks a livestock tracking system that the Bush administration had promised two years ago. After the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in December 2003, the government pledged to get a nationwide program into place quickly so officials could track cows, pigs and chickens from their birth to the dinner table. Today, however, the system is a long way off. Alabama officials saw the need firsthand last week as they tried to determine where the infected cow came from. The animal had no ear tags, tattoos or brands, and spent less than a year on the farm where she died. The trail seems to have gone cold at an auction where she was sold last year....
Column: Government's idea of 'tracking' animals Reaction to the National Animal Identification System is shining a light on a growing problem that independent producers believe is threatening the entire livestock industry. Vertical marketing practices in the meat processing industry, combined with the industry's access to and influence on the Department of Agriculture and Congress, has the small producer against the ropes. The NAIS may be the final blow that puts independent ranchers and small farmers down for the count. The goal of the NAIS is to create a national system that would enable the federal government to trace, within 48 hours, the origin of any animal in the food chain found to be infected, either by disease or by terrorists. To achieve this objective, a massive database has been proposed that would contain the location of all premises where animals are kept, identification of every individual animal, as well as a method of tracking any movement from the premises' location. Some people fear that a system capable of tracking the movement of every animal in America is a very small step away from applying a similar system to track the movement of every American....
Navajo film to hold casting calls Actors are needed to audition this week for a film slated for production on the Navajo Nation by a local family. Ray Baldwin Louis, aka "Razor Saltboy," is teaming up with his sons' production company, Saltboy Films, to produce a film based on his published play "Butterfly of Hope." Hondo Baldwin Louis is producing the project, while brother Kumen is working as the project's casting director. Ray Baldwin Louis is known throughout Native American communities as a singer and songwriter who has released three albums. He also has extensive experience as an actor and playwright. According to a statement released by Hondo Baldwin Louis, the play is set in the 1860s when Native American tribes were being displaced from their homelands onto reservations....
History in its adobe walls Walking up to the Felipe Chavez Hacienda on Lala Street in Belen, it's hard to imagine what life was like in the mid-1800s when the home was built. But as you step through the front door and into this grand home, a rush of history and culture sweeps through your mind. The three-foot-wide adobe walls and the original wooden floors take you back in time to the days when Belen was a pivotal stop along the Camino Real. The Felipe Chavez house, which is was placed on the State and National Historical Registers in 1980, was built in 1860 by a pioneer merchant, trader and rancher. Felipe Chavez made his fortune with business interests ranging from the New York Stock Exchange to mining in Mexico. Although there were several haciendas in the area, the Chavez estate was the largest. It included cornfields, extensive pasture, cottonwood groves, a mercantile and, eventually, a school for girls. Chavez was, for a time, a judge in Belen and even built a small adobe jailhouse in the courtyard behind his home. As the legend goes, he would sentence cattle rustlers and other criminals to death and walk them a few steps from the jail to a large cottonwood tree where they were hanged for their crimes. Both the jail and the tree remain on the property....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Careful who you camp with on hunting trip Hunting with a companion who enjoys it as much as you do is one of life's greatest gifts. It's like two horse people or two pilots finding each other in a crowded room. You finally have someone who will actually listen to your stories! Doug went by Phil's house right after lunch to pick him up. They had a trip planned to go chukker hunting near Gerlach. Unfortunately, Doug walked in on the middle of a family spat; doors were slamming, plates were flying, tension was twanging and the air was blue. Phil grabbed his shotgun and shooting vest, ducked a gravy boat and scrambled out the door. That night on the high desert the boys cooked over an open fire and taste-tested a six-pack of Night Train Express, a subtle wine (mixed fruit, 17 percent alcohol and bottled in Modesto). Since Phil had no coat, bedroll, blanket, long johns or earmuffs, they scrounged him up some bedding. It consisted of rubber floor mats, Doug's canvas fender cover, a seat cushion and a blue plastic tarp....
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Sunday, March 19, 2006
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Ag Week
by Larry Gabriel
Agriculture is the most important industry in South Dakota. This is the week we celebrate that fact. March 19 through 25 is National Ag Week.
South Dakota produces about $6 billion worth of crops and livestock each year, but the total economic impact of agriculture on the state's economy is almost $17 billion, according to an SDSU study in 2002.
These dollar amounts are significant. They impact every person living in this state. But they don't tell the whole story.
Not so long ago, some doubted that our industry would be able to feed the world. They reasoned that there is only so much arable land and fresh water, and since most of that is already in use, production will not be able to keep up with population growth.
Those people who doubted were mistaken. During the last 40 years, food production has grown faster than world population. There is no reason to believe it won't continue.
According to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, world food production must double by 2025 to feed the world. We can do that. We have done it before.
Our farmers and ranchers are extremely productive when we allow them to be. Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food. No country in the world can match that.
United States taxpayers work three times longer to pay annual taxes than they work to pay for all the food they buy each year. Even then, about 27 percent (96 billion pounds) of that food is thrown away or wasted.
In addition to food, agriculture provides us with many other products, such as: alternative fuels, pharmaceuticals, surgical sutures, ointments, latex gloves, x-ray film, gelatin for capsules, heart valves, lumber, paints, brushes, tar paper, dry wall, tool handles, lubricants, antifreeze, tires, upholstery, adhesives, solvents, detergents, paper, ink, film, shampoo, cosmetics, lotions, fingernail polish, toothpaste, crayons, textbooks, chalk, desks, pencils, clothing, baseball bats, leather equipment, and shoes.
In addition to providing food security, cheap food, and thousands of other products, our farmers and ranchers contribute to the society in many other ways. They are the best stewards of the land. They provide food and habitat for 75 percent of the nation's wildlife. Ninety percent are still "family" farms and ranches that are producing the next generation of rural Americans.
Today's farmers and ranchers are better educated and more sophisticated than some traditional "business people". Today's ag is expanding into new products, developing specialty crops, and improving methods of producing and using traditional crops. Can they feed the future world? Absolutely! A farmer can harvest enough wheat for 70 loaves of bread in 9 seconds.
All that we need is for the international politicians to get out of the way, and let our farmers and ranchers do what they do better than anyone in the world.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
If we have tomorrow
By Julie Carter
Most often in the lines of this column I laugh with you, laugh at myself or just tell you a story.
Today I'm not writing funny stories because I find a burden in my heart for so many. Sometimes it takes another's misfortune for us to recognize our own good fortune.
Never has it seemed more evident to me than in the past year of hurricanes and fires, that we live in a world where nothing is certain. Not for even for a moment.
As I watched in horror the photos and videos of hundreds of thousands of acres of charred Texas land, burned cattle and lost homes, I knew that there "but for the grace of God" go most of us.
By us, I mean just about everyone who is reading this that doesn't live on a boat or isn't slushing through mud and snow to do morning chores.
This part of the West is a tinderbox and we are only one fool away from the very the same flames that are devouring the Panhandle. One dropped cigarette, one careless "oh look we are camping" fire, or one illegal fire cracker will put us on the national news by nightfall.
Then there are the uncalculated dangers of downed sparking power lines, an errant strike of fire from a passing train, or a car pulled off the road onto a grassy shoulder -- its own heat sparking a fire before it even occurs to the driver it could happen.
How do we even grasp what it is like for those farmers and ranchers who are finding their livestock either burned alive or long gone through fences that burned to the ground?
If their homes are still intact, are they standing on the porch viewing blackened pastures and farm ground wondering where and how to deal with tomorrow?
Do they find within themselves the ability to say, "it could have been worse" and know that if they have their lives they have the only thing that is really important? Could I do that?
We live in a world long past understanding what is foundationally important in life. Gone are the days when people worked back-breaking hard to just survive and didn't have time to fuss over things that had no value in the survival scheme. They went to bed tired and woke in the morning thinking they were blessed.
We live in a world where we expect much and offer little. Disasters have a way of leveling the playing field. When the fires rolled over the Texas plains it didn't have an address list for the big shots so it could miss them.
This country and its people are being tested, one test at a time. We are being put in a place to choose between fluff and value with the ability to do that buried somewhere deep within us.
We are two generations away from any learned survival skills for the really tough stuff. Our hardest decisions usually revolve around satellite or cable, butter or margarine, and finding the gas station with the cheapest fuel.
God bless those people who got the test first. May we learn from them and seek our own response to disaster before we need it.
And let us not forget that tomorrow is never promised
© Julie Carter 2006
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Ag Week
by Larry Gabriel
Agriculture is the most important industry in South Dakota. This is the week we celebrate that fact. March 19 through 25 is National Ag Week.
South Dakota produces about $6 billion worth of crops and livestock each year, but the total economic impact of agriculture on the state's economy is almost $17 billion, according to an SDSU study in 2002.
These dollar amounts are significant. They impact every person living in this state. But they don't tell the whole story.
Not so long ago, some doubted that our industry would be able to feed the world. They reasoned that there is only so much arable land and fresh water, and since most of that is already in use, production will not be able to keep up with population growth.
Those people who doubted were mistaken. During the last 40 years, food production has grown faster than world population. There is no reason to believe it won't continue.
According to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, world food production must double by 2025 to feed the world. We can do that. We have done it before.
Our farmers and ranchers are extremely productive when we allow them to be. Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food. No country in the world can match that.
United States taxpayers work three times longer to pay annual taxes than they work to pay for all the food they buy each year. Even then, about 27 percent (96 billion pounds) of that food is thrown away or wasted.
In addition to food, agriculture provides us with many other products, such as: alternative fuels, pharmaceuticals, surgical sutures, ointments, latex gloves, x-ray film, gelatin for capsules, heart valves, lumber, paints, brushes, tar paper, dry wall, tool handles, lubricants, antifreeze, tires, upholstery, adhesives, solvents, detergents, paper, ink, film, shampoo, cosmetics, lotions, fingernail polish, toothpaste, crayons, textbooks, chalk, desks, pencils, clothing, baseball bats, leather equipment, and shoes.
In addition to providing food security, cheap food, and thousands of other products, our farmers and ranchers contribute to the society in many other ways. They are the best stewards of the land. They provide food and habitat for 75 percent of the nation's wildlife. Ninety percent are still "family" farms and ranches that are producing the next generation of rural Americans.
Today's farmers and ranchers are better educated and more sophisticated than some traditional "business people". Today's ag is expanding into new products, developing specialty crops, and improving methods of producing and using traditional crops. Can they feed the future world? Absolutely! A farmer can harvest enough wheat for 70 loaves of bread in 9 seconds.
All that we need is for the international politicians to get out of the way, and let our farmers and ranchers do what they do better than anyone in the world.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
If we have tomorrow
By Julie Carter
Most often in the lines of this column I laugh with you, laugh at myself or just tell you a story.
Today I'm not writing funny stories because I find a burden in my heart for so many. Sometimes it takes another's misfortune for us to recognize our own good fortune.
Never has it seemed more evident to me than in the past year of hurricanes and fires, that we live in a world where nothing is certain. Not for even for a moment.
As I watched in horror the photos and videos of hundreds of thousands of acres of charred Texas land, burned cattle and lost homes, I knew that there "but for the grace of God" go most of us.
By us, I mean just about everyone who is reading this that doesn't live on a boat or isn't slushing through mud and snow to do morning chores.
This part of the West is a tinderbox and we are only one fool away from the very the same flames that are devouring the Panhandle. One dropped cigarette, one careless "oh look we are camping" fire, or one illegal fire cracker will put us on the national news by nightfall.
Then there are the uncalculated dangers of downed sparking power lines, an errant strike of fire from a passing train, or a car pulled off the road onto a grassy shoulder -- its own heat sparking a fire before it even occurs to the driver it could happen.
How do we even grasp what it is like for those farmers and ranchers who are finding their livestock either burned alive or long gone through fences that burned to the ground?
If their homes are still intact, are they standing on the porch viewing blackened pastures and farm ground wondering where and how to deal with tomorrow?
Do they find within themselves the ability to say, "it could have been worse" and know that if they have their lives they have the only thing that is really important? Could I do that?
We live in a world long past understanding what is foundationally important in life. Gone are the days when people worked back-breaking hard to just survive and didn't have time to fuss over things that had no value in the survival scheme. They went to bed tired and woke in the morning thinking they were blessed.
We live in a world where we expect much and offer little. Disasters have a way of leveling the playing field. When the fires rolled over the Texas plains it didn't have an address list for the big shots so it could miss them.
This country and its people are being tested, one test at a time. We are being put in a place to choose between fluff and value with the ability to do that buried somewhere deep within us.
We are two generations away from any learned survival skills for the really tough stuff. Our hardest decisions usually revolve around satellite or cable, butter or margarine, and finding the gas station with the cheapest fuel.
God bless those people who got the test first. May we learn from them and seek our own response to disaster before we need it.
And let us not forget that tomorrow is never promised
© Julie Carter 2006
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OPINIONL/COMMENTARY
LIABILITY – From Indonesian Troops to Saskatchewan Wolves
Wolves are killing all manner of dogs wherever they encounter them. Wolves are killing all manner of livestock regularly. Wolves are reducing big game herds and steadily eliminating annual surpluses of such wildlife and thereby hunting seasons and hunting license revenue. Wolves are causing increasingly restricted and stressful rural living for the elderly, parents leaving children at winter bus stops, and visiting grandchildren; thereby reducing rural residency and rural economies. Other effects go unmentioned such as when fewer dogs are use for hunting, fewer hunting licenses are sold and less money is spent in rural economies and for sporting goods. All of the above represent losses of property both private (dogs, stock, rural land values, etc.) and public (huntable wildlife populations, “user-pays” fish and wildlife agencies). Rural economies are hobbled as “Critical Habitats” (for other “Endangered Species”), Wilderness, Road Closures, and elimination of natural resource management programs couple with wolf epidemiology to take their toll. Additionally, the loss of “domestic tranquility” (a primary Constitutional charge to the US Federal government) and the mental stress caused throughout rural areas inhabited by wolves are also losses caused by wolves. But it is not these catastrophic effects of wolves that is the subject of this piece, it is rather the liability for homicide and endangering the life of another. Specifically, I am referring to the liability for the death of a Mr. Carnegie recently in Saskatchewan and the attack on Mr.Desjariasis a resident of Saskatchewan. Both men were attacked by wolves. Mr. Desjariasis was, very fortunately, able to fend off the wolves due to his strength and determination. Mr. Carnegie was not so fortunate, he disappeared but the evidence at the scene of his disappearance left no doubt that wolves had killed him. Mr. Desjariasis’ account is irrefutable. Wolves attacked with the intent to kill him and probably eat him. End of story. So it not unexpectedly receives little press coverage outside the local area. Mr. Carnegie’s legacy (since the only witness is gone) is subject to and the victim of government, University, and environmental organization cover-up, distortion and lies....
Running Out of Oil? History, Technology and Abundance
Almost since the first discoveries of oil in the U.S. in 1859, people have been saying we're running out. In 1874, the state geologist of the nation's leading oil producer, Pennsylvania, warned the U.S. had enough oil to last just four years. In 1914, the federal government said we had a ten-year supply. The government announced in 1940 that reserves would be depleted within a decade and a half. The Club of Rome made similar claims in the 1970s. President Carter famously predicted in 1977 that unless we made drastic cuts in our oil consumption, "Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil — from any country, at any acceptable price." And so it goes today, where a slew of books and Web sites make fantastic claims about dwindling supplies of crude. The chief problem with those who say the world is running out is that they have always looked at the issue the wrong way. Questions about energy supply shouldn't be thought of in terms of how much is available, but in terms of how good mankind is at finding and extracting it. In the years after Col. Drake discovered oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania, on the eve of the Civil War, wildcatters could only drill down several hundred feet. If we were confined to relying solely upon the technology available in the 19th century — or, for that matter, the tools available just three decades ago — then yes, quite possibly we could be looking at the end of oil....
Ethanol is good, except when it's not
Ethanol is a fuel made from corn or other plants. Basically, it is moonshine: corn is ground up and soaked until it ferments (becomes alcoholic), and then distilled so that it becomes even stronger. At this point you could drink it (and get drunk very easily), or you could put in your gas tank. If you want to sell it for human consumption, the federal government would probably hit you with the liquor tax. If you want to sell it for automotive consumption, the federal government and state governments will subsidize you until you start blushing. The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration, say that we subsidize ethanol because it's good for the planet. They explain that when ethanol is burnt in a car engine, it gives off much less pollution and CO2 than does petroleum. On that very specific claim, they are correct. However, some scientists argue that ethanol, on the whole, is worse for the planet: it leads farmers to plant only corn, thus degrading the soil; the fuel needed to grow, distill, and ship the ethanol is more than the end product yields; and it evaporates more easily, leading to more hydrocarbons in the air. But the federal government doesn't give these claims or studies much weight....
Burning Forests for Energy
Environmental causes are endlessly fashionable in Europe and America. You know a movie star or successful entrepreneur has arrived when he or she announces they have become an environmentalist. What’s usually overlooked is how these fashionable causes play out in the rest of the world, particularly underdeveloped countries. There’ve been more than a few bad examples. The banning of DDT has led to a huge resurgence of malaria in the tropics. Boycotting genetically engineered foods in Europe has played havoc with African farming. Now it’s emerging that “biofuels”—the latest environmental craze— is leading to the decimation of forests in South America and Asia. The result may be the end of a few more endangered species plus a big new boost in global warming. Turning our attention to another pet cause of fashionable environmentalists, now comes the news that biofuels are accelerating the decimation of tropical forests. American and European environmentalists have long urged that we should replace oil imports with “solar energy” by burning corn-based ethanol in our gas tanks. President Jimmy Carter gave it a federal gas tax exemption, of which Archer-Daniels, the agribusiness giant, has become the chief beneficiary, producing more than half our output. Seven percent of the U.S. corn crop now goes into “gasohol,” a 90/10 blend of gasoline and ethyl alcohol that replaces 2 percent of our oil. Still, environmentalists aren’t satisfied. They point to Brazil, where one quarter of the cars are built to burn any amount of alcohol from sugar cane. Why can’t we be like them? What they don’t recognize is that Brazil is cutting down huge tracts of Amazon forest in order to make way for this crop. In spite of this destruction in the name of (ostensibly) sound environmental policy, Southeast Asia is joining the parade. Tropical forests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, where the entire crop will be sold to Europe and America as “biodiesel.”....
No Policy Is a Good Policy
An attempt to create a national energy policy is about as likely to succeed as an attempt to set a national dinner menu. The energy sources pushed in these policies fail in the market and will only be made with heavy government support. An article in the April Discover magazine tells the story of a plant in Carthage, Missouri that turns turkey guts and pig fat into high quality oil. The article goes on at great length about the technical marvel they have achieved, which they have. But the kicker is that the people running the project originally estimated that their production costs for a 42-gallon barrel would total $15, and that the plant would be profitable from day one. In fact, production costs are around $80 per barrel. Only when the government granted a subsidy of a dollar a gallon was the plant able to begin turning a slim profit of $4 per barrel. Each barrel produced by the plant now costs taxpayers $42. A recent Indianapolis Star commentary piece by Peter Grossman, a professor of Economics at Butler University, pointed out that replacing 85% of our oil use with corn-based ethanol would require quadrupling the acreage planted in corn, with all of the output going for ethanol production. That, according to Professor Grossman, would result in dramatically higher prices for most foods and the ethanol, which is already economically uncompetitive. It would probably also result in environmental degradation, since more grasslands and wooded areas would have to be put to the plow. This is already happening in Brazil and Southeast Asia, as William Tucker noted in his TAE Online Right Idea column. The basic problem with setting a national energy policy is that it presupposes the ability of a few wise heads to outperform the countless number of decisions made by consumers and businesses that represent the collective wisdom of markets....
U.S. regulations big part of high gas prices
It isn't an anniversary to celebrate, but Chicago passed the one-year mark of gasoline above $2 per gallon. And, thanks in part to our federal government, another year at this level is a real possibility. Of course, the main culprit is the high price of oil. After staying comfortably below $20 per barrel throughout most the 1990s, the cost of crude ballooned to $56 in 2005, and currently sits at $62.17. Each dollar-per-barrel rise translates into roughly 2.5 cents more per gallon. Strong global demand is the primary cause of the increase. But oil prices aren't the only reason. Federal regulations also have played a big part. This includes complicated fuel requirements that have led to a variety of costly, specialized gasoline blends, dubbed "boutique fuels." In addition, the EPA has created a maze of red tape that makes it difficult for refiners to expand capacity to meet growing demand. These regulations have disproportionately hurt the Chicago market, which has both tough fuel requirements and tight refining capacity....
PETA's Three-Ring Hypocrisy
This week a Virginia jury tossed a lawsuit brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against the owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. The animal rights group claimed (and ultimately failed to prove) that he engaged in a "massive conspiracy" to harm PETA -- including infiltrating the group, monitoring its activities, and acquiring secret documents from inside PETA. In other words, PETA accused the circus of playing by PETA's rules. If infiltrating and spying on adversaries is the stuff lawsuits are made of, PETA had better hire a fleet of new defense attorneys. On one of its websites, PETA urges activists to "apply for a full-time position as an undercover investigator." In one infamous 1997 case, Michelle Rokke (then a PETA employee) kick-started the violent campaign against a New Jersey medical research company by stealing 8,000 pages of documents and making 50 hours of secret video recordings during her "undercover" work. PETA's ring of spies has secretly surveilled other business that run afoul of the group's "total animal liberation" ethic -- including an animal shelter, a kosher slaughterhouse, a pet food company, and even circuses. And PETA's vendetta against the Greatest Show on Earth includes targeting children who would otherwise actually enjoy themselves at the circus....
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LIABILITY – From Indonesian Troops to Saskatchewan Wolves
Wolves are killing all manner of dogs wherever they encounter them. Wolves are killing all manner of livestock regularly. Wolves are reducing big game herds and steadily eliminating annual surpluses of such wildlife and thereby hunting seasons and hunting license revenue. Wolves are causing increasingly restricted and stressful rural living for the elderly, parents leaving children at winter bus stops, and visiting grandchildren; thereby reducing rural residency and rural economies. Other effects go unmentioned such as when fewer dogs are use for hunting, fewer hunting licenses are sold and less money is spent in rural economies and for sporting goods. All of the above represent losses of property both private (dogs, stock, rural land values, etc.) and public (huntable wildlife populations, “user-pays” fish and wildlife agencies). Rural economies are hobbled as “Critical Habitats” (for other “Endangered Species”), Wilderness, Road Closures, and elimination of natural resource management programs couple with wolf epidemiology to take their toll. Additionally, the loss of “domestic tranquility” (a primary Constitutional charge to the US Federal government) and the mental stress caused throughout rural areas inhabited by wolves are also losses caused by wolves. But it is not these catastrophic effects of wolves that is the subject of this piece, it is rather the liability for homicide and endangering the life of another. Specifically, I am referring to the liability for the death of a Mr. Carnegie recently in Saskatchewan and the attack on Mr.Desjariasis a resident of Saskatchewan. Both men were attacked by wolves. Mr. Desjariasis was, very fortunately, able to fend off the wolves due to his strength and determination. Mr. Carnegie was not so fortunate, he disappeared but the evidence at the scene of his disappearance left no doubt that wolves had killed him. Mr. Desjariasis’ account is irrefutable. Wolves attacked with the intent to kill him and probably eat him. End of story. So it not unexpectedly receives little press coverage outside the local area. Mr. Carnegie’s legacy (since the only witness is gone) is subject to and the victim of government, University, and environmental organization cover-up, distortion and lies....
Running Out of Oil? History, Technology and Abundance
Almost since the first discoveries of oil in the U.S. in 1859, people have been saying we're running out. In 1874, the state geologist of the nation's leading oil producer, Pennsylvania, warned the U.S. had enough oil to last just four years. In 1914, the federal government said we had a ten-year supply. The government announced in 1940 that reserves would be depleted within a decade and a half. The Club of Rome made similar claims in the 1970s. President Carter famously predicted in 1977 that unless we made drastic cuts in our oil consumption, "Within ten years we would not be able to import enough oil — from any country, at any acceptable price." And so it goes today, where a slew of books and Web sites make fantastic claims about dwindling supplies of crude. The chief problem with those who say the world is running out is that they have always looked at the issue the wrong way. Questions about energy supply shouldn't be thought of in terms of how much is available, but in terms of how good mankind is at finding and extracting it. In the years after Col. Drake discovered oil at Titusville, Pennsylvania, on the eve of the Civil War, wildcatters could only drill down several hundred feet. If we were confined to relying solely upon the technology available in the 19th century — or, for that matter, the tools available just three decades ago — then yes, quite possibly we could be looking at the end of oil....
Ethanol is good, except when it's not
Ethanol is a fuel made from corn or other plants. Basically, it is moonshine: corn is ground up and soaked until it ferments (becomes alcoholic), and then distilled so that it becomes even stronger. At this point you could drink it (and get drunk very easily), or you could put in your gas tank. If you want to sell it for human consumption, the federal government would probably hit you with the liquor tax. If you want to sell it for automotive consumption, the federal government and state governments will subsidize you until you start blushing. The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration and the first Bush administration, say that we subsidize ethanol because it's good for the planet. They explain that when ethanol is burnt in a car engine, it gives off much less pollution and CO2 than does petroleum. On that very specific claim, they are correct. However, some scientists argue that ethanol, on the whole, is worse for the planet: it leads farmers to plant only corn, thus degrading the soil; the fuel needed to grow, distill, and ship the ethanol is more than the end product yields; and it evaporates more easily, leading to more hydrocarbons in the air. But the federal government doesn't give these claims or studies much weight....
Burning Forests for Energy
Environmental causes are endlessly fashionable in Europe and America. You know a movie star or successful entrepreneur has arrived when he or she announces they have become an environmentalist. What’s usually overlooked is how these fashionable causes play out in the rest of the world, particularly underdeveloped countries. There’ve been more than a few bad examples. The banning of DDT has led to a huge resurgence of malaria in the tropics. Boycotting genetically engineered foods in Europe has played havoc with African farming. Now it’s emerging that “biofuels”—the latest environmental craze— is leading to the decimation of forests in South America and Asia. The result may be the end of a few more endangered species plus a big new boost in global warming. Turning our attention to another pet cause of fashionable environmentalists, now comes the news that biofuels are accelerating the decimation of tropical forests. American and European environmentalists have long urged that we should replace oil imports with “solar energy” by burning corn-based ethanol in our gas tanks. President Jimmy Carter gave it a federal gas tax exemption, of which Archer-Daniels, the agribusiness giant, has become the chief beneficiary, producing more than half our output. Seven percent of the U.S. corn crop now goes into “gasohol,” a 90/10 blend of gasoline and ethyl alcohol that replaces 2 percent of our oil. Still, environmentalists aren’t satisfied. They point to Brazil, where one quarter of the cars are built to burn any amount of alcohol from sugar cane. Why can’t we be like them? What they don’t recognize is that Brazil is cutting down huge tracts of Amazon forest in order to make way for this crop. In spite of this destruction in the name of (ostensibly) sound environmental policy, Southeast Asia is joining the parade. Tropical forests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, where the entire crop will be sold to Europe and America as “biodiesel.”....
No Policy Is a Good Policy
An attempt to create a national energy policy is about as likely to succeed as an attempt to set a national dinner menu. The energy sources pushed in these policies fail in the market and will only be made with heavy government support. An article in the April Discover magazine tells the story of a plant in Carthage, Missouri that turns turkey guts and pig fat into high quality oil. The article goes on at great length about the technical marvel they have achieved, which they have. But the kicker is that the people running the project originally estimated that their production costs for a 42-gallon barrel would total $15, and that the plant would be profitable from day one. In fact, production costs are around $80 per barrel. Only when the government granted a subsidy of a dollar a gallon was the plant able to begin turning a slim profit of $4 per barrel. Each barrel produced by the plant now costs taxpayers $42. A recent Indianapolis Star commentary piece by Peter Grossman, a professor of Economics at Butler University, pointed out that replacing 85% of our oil use with corn-based ethanol would require quadrupling the acreage planted in corn, with all of the output going for ethanol production. That, according to Professor Grossman, would result in dramatically higher prices for most foods and the ethanol, which is already economically uncompetitive. It would probably also result in environmental degradation, since more grasslands and wooded areas would have to be put to the plow. This is already happening in Brazil and Southeast Asia, as William Tucker noted in his TAE Online Right Idea column. The basic problem with setting a national energy policy is that it presupposes the ability of a few wise heads to outperform the countless number of decisions made by consumers and businesses that represent the collective wisdom of markets....
U.S. regulations big part of high gas prices
It isn't an anniversary to celebrate, but Chicago passed the one-year mark of gasoline above $2 per gallon. And, thanks in part to our federal government, another year at this level is a real possibility. Of course, the main culprit is the high price of oil. After staying comfortably below $20 per barrel throughout most the 1990s, the cost of crude ballooned to $56 in 2005, and currently sits at $62.17. Each dollar-per-barrel rise translates into roughly 2.5 cents more per gallon. Strong global demand is the primary cause of the increase. But oil prices aren't the only reason. Federal regulations also have played a big part. This includes complicated fuel requirements that have led to a variety of costly, specialized gasoline blends, dubbed "boutique fuels." In addition, the EPA has created a maze of red tape that makes it difficult for refiners to expand capacity to meet growing demand. These regulations have disproportionately hurt the Chicago market, which has both tough fuel requirements and tight refining capacity....
PETA's Three-Ring Hypocrisy
This week a Virginia jury tossed a lawsuit brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against the owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. The animal rights group claimed (and ultimately failed to prove) that he engaged in a "massive conspiracy" to harm PETA -- including infiltrating the group, monitoring its activities, and acquiring secret documents from inside PETA. In other words, PETA accused the circus of playing by PETA's rules. If infiltrating and spying on adversaries is the stuff lawsuits are made of, PETA had better hire a fleet of new defense attorneys. On one of its websites, PETA urges activists to "apply for a full-time position as an undercover investigator." In one infamous 1997 case, Michelle Rokke (then a PETA employee) kick-started the violent campaign against a New Jersey medical research company by stealing 8,000 pages of documents and making 50 hours of secret video recordings during her "undercover" work. PETA's ring of spies has secretly surveilled other business that run afoul of the group's "total animal liberation" ethic -- including an animal shelter, a kosher slaughterhouse, a pet food company, and even circuses. And PETA's vendetta against the Greatest Show on Earth includes targeting children who would otherwise actually enjoy themselves at the circus....
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