Friday, August 04, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Blast Rites James Bowe, a lifelong resident of Whitesville, W.Va., knows the mountains around his home better than he knows himself. He's seen friends and family buried there, and has devoted countless hours to protecting his loved ones' resting places and the Indian burial grounds that stand alongside them. So when Bowe pulled up on his four-wheeler in early April and spotted a coal company drilling in the middle of what he says was a known, if unnamed, cemetery on White Oak Mountain, he was livid -- and determined to stop them. Knowing how quickly surface-mining operations can scrape away any trace of a mountain's natural landscape, Bowe immediately filed a formal complaint with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. For the next three days, he waited anxiously for intervention. On the fourth day, a DEP officer arrived, but it was too late: There was nothing left of the headstones that had been there, and only a small section of border fence remained. The investigator's report said he believed "a cemetery did exist at this site," but concluded that the cemetery "was unknown to the core drilling company ... and the West Virginia DEP when this permit was issued." Bowe was, and remains, incredulous. "I don't see how the company wouldn't have known -- there was a tombstone sitting there," he said later. "You can't miss that. When you see crosses on top of something and sandstone markers, what do you usually associate that with?"....
Hunter calls it quits after wolves kill dogs Both men headed down a hill as fast as they could. Richards said he stopped in his tracks when he saw a dark colored wolf attacking his dog Blackey. “I was screaming louder than I ever screamed in my life,” said Richards, but the wolf ignored him. “Every time Blackey tried to run the wolf would sink his teeth into Blackey’s hindquarters.” Richards closed to within 12 feet and picked up a stick and struck a tree. At the sound of the broken limb, Richards said the wolf turned and lunged at him. He turned and ran to his truck. “When that wolf lunged at me I believed I would have been seriously hurt or dead if not for Blackey…what I heard was my dog giving his life to save me,” said Richards. When he reached the truck he found Bryon digging for a gun. Armed, the men returned to the scene to save their dogs. “I wanted to hear a bell dingle or a bark but nothing.” In the melee, Bryon was able to fight off three wolves and save two dogs. Equipment in hand, they found Halley alive, whose stomach had been ripped open and her entrails hanging out. She had more than 60 bite marks and deep gashes. Bryon wrapped his shirt around her stomach and they took her to the vet. She miraculously survived, recently fighting off a battle with infection. Richards said they found Blackey in a pool of blood, ripped to pieces. “He was bit and torn so full of holes I just fell to the ground bawling and crying,” said Richards....
Wildlife board nearly triples bison hunt The number of licenses to hunt bison that wander into Montana from Yellowstone National Park this winter will almost triple from last season, state wildlife commissioners decided Thursday. In June, the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission endorsed a tentative plan to authorize 100 licenses, double last season's number. On Thursday they added another 40. The increase will focus on bison cows, making the hunt more of a herd management tool "rather than just tipping them over for trophies," Commissioner Shane Colton said. Activists opposed to any hunting of Yellowstone bison said the commission's decision to boost the number of licenses simply worsens a bad idea. "If you want a public relations nightmare, I think you're moving in the right direction," said Dan Brister of the Buffalo Field Campaign. The state considers the hunt part of a plan to manage bison that migrate from Yellowstone and may carry the cattle disease brucellosis, which is present in Yellowstone's bison herds....
Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act Five years of hard work is finally paying off. On Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo introduced wide-ranging legislation that could set a standard for future public lands management. The Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act will end decades of public lands conflict in southwestern Idaho, and establish a path for future management of that area. All agencies involve believe this compromise is a win-win for everyone. "This can't be called a ranching bill, or a wilderness bill, or an Air Force bill, or a tribal bill, it's a comprehensive land management bill," said Sen. Mike Crapo, (R) Idaho. On Thursday, Crapo introduced the Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act. It's a bill that resolves decades of land-use conflict in Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands, by agreeing on how to manage those areas. "The Owyhee Initiative transforms conflict and uncertainty into conflict resolution and assurance of future activity," said Sen. Crapo. The act would create more than half-a-million acres of protected wilderness, preserve access to an air force training range, prevent damage to prehistoric artifacts and insure that ranchers can continue their livestock operations....
Montana senator blasted after verbal attack on firefighters Sen. Conrad Burns' recent verbal attack on a firefighting team for its work on a Montana blaze angered some firefighters, drew harsh criticism in state newspapers and has left the three-term Republican scrambling to repair the political damage. Burns, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the fall elections, confronted members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport on July 23 and told them they had done a "piss-poor job," according to an official state report and the U.S. Forest Service. Burns, a third-term lawmaker already facing questions about his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is trying to turn back a challenge from Democrat Jon Tester. The Missoulian newspaper said in an editorial that "Burns' remarks were characteristic of the kind of know-nothing blather you sometimes hear from the local malcontent in a bar or coffee shop." The Montana Standard of Butte wrote, "The way things are going for Montana's Conrad Burns, all challenger Jon Tester may have to do is to stay quiet until November to win the hotly contested seat."....
Motorcycle enthusiasts, Native Americans clash in South Dakota When folks around here say the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally doubles the population of South Dakota, it's only a slight exaggeration. More than 500,000 bikers invade the Black Hills each August; 776,000 people live in the state. As the influx revs up this week, so does the tension that has been mounting for several years between the party-hearty biker culture and Native Americans trying to preserve their religious traditions. It came to a boil this year when Arizona entrepreneur Jay Allen started building what he proudly calls the world's biggest biker bar just two miles from Bear Butte, one of the most sacred sites of the Plains tribes. "Imagine sitting in a church or sitting in a synagogue, trying to have a ... prayer service, and you have half a million bikes running by every minute of the day and night for three weeks," said Debra White Plume, a Lakota Sioux from the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. "That's what the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally does to this environment." White Plume is one of the organizers of a monthlong prayer vigil at Bear Butte, a volcanic formation just a few miles east of Sturgis. Since July 4, several hundred Native Americans have been camped at the foot of the hill they revere as the North American equivalent of Mt. Sinai....
Settlement reached in grizzly country logging suit The federal government has agreed to evaluate the effect of helicopter logging on grizzly bears to settle a conservation group's lawsuit over a timber sale in the Selkirk Mountains, spokesmen said Thursday. If the proposed settlement is approved by U.S. District Judge Edward Shea, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agree to avoid helicopter logging in a large portion of the Boundary Timber sale area, considered key habitat for the endangered grizzly, pending completion of that review. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed suit here July 5, seeking to stop the sale, involving 15 million board feet of timber on 1,242 acres in the Panhandle National Forests of northern Idaho and northeastern Washington state. It's been estimated that no more than 40 grizzly bears live in the Selkirks....
Performing high-altitude research on global warming Stately corpses of bristlecone pine trees, some dead for 2,000 years but still refusing to lie down, stood watch as botanist Ann Dennis and a crew of naturalists stepped off plots on the shoulders of 14,246-foot White Mountain Peak near the Nevada-California border. Working more than 10,000 feet above the sunbaked floor of the Owens Valley, the scientists were transforming one of California's highest mountaintops into a living laboratory of climate change. Dennis and her colleagues are part of a global network of mountain-climbing researchers, all using precisely the same methods to observe the impact of global warming at high altitudes on five continents simultaneously. "This is an international effort to deal with an international problem," Dennis said. High mountain environments may be uniquely suited to the globe-spanning, cookie-cutter approach. They support many of the same types of species, forced to eke out a meager existence in the most punishing conditions imaginable. And because of those difficult conditions, above-tree-line and sub-alpine environments are for the most part free of obvious human impacts that can mask evidence of global warming's impact on the ground....
Company agrees to sale of front leases Conservationists consider the deal with Startech Energy Corp. a key step in their efforts to protect the Front from new oil and gas drilling. The buyout, announced Thursday by the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, seeks to prevent federal minerals leased by Startech from ever being offered for sale again. But for that to happen, Congress must pass legislation, still pending, that would put federal lands on the Front off-limits to new oil and gas leasing. The deal with Startech is contingent on the measure's passage, said Kel Johnston, president of Startech's parent company, Alberta Clipper Energy Inc. "I think of it as a great development," Chuck Blixrud, a coalition member with a guest ranch on the Front, said of the agreement. But he added, "I'm holding my breath now." Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The coalition said the agreement affects 23,310 acres, a portion of which -- 8,460 acres -- involves federal leases....
Senate to take up salvage logging Key Senate Republicans said Wednesday they will move to take up a House bill to speed up the logging of burned forests and planting of new trees after storms and wildfires, in hopes of moving legislation through Congress quickly. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of a Senate forestry subcommittee, said he wants a vote on the Senate floor before the end of the year. “This legislation is about more than forest fires,” Crapo said. “It is about what happens after a tornado. ... It is about what happens after hurricanes tear through vast stretches of forest land. It is about what happens after insects infest forests, threatening neighboring communities.” Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced a similar bill in the Senate last fall. But Smith and Crapo say it makes more sense to press the House bill since it already has passed one chamber....
Judge rejects second effort to block Bitterroot project For the second time in less than a month, a federal judge here has dismissed efforts by two environmental groups to halt a fuels-reduction project in the Bitterroot National Forest. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy declined to issue an emergency injunction requested by the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot. The decision allows the Bitterroot National Forest to accept bids for the project. Bids are due Aug. 21. The case involves the Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana's first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests initiative. The proposal in the Bitterroot National Forest consists of logging on about 6,000 acres. The Forest Service contends the project would help protect area homes from massive wildfires like those that swept through the Bitterroot Valley in 2000....
Endangered Canyon fish appears to be rebounding The population of an endangered fish that makes its home in the Grand Canyon area of the Colorado River may be stabilizing, according to biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey. The number of adult humpback chub between 2001 and 2005 now appears to have stabilized at about 5,000 fish, according to research by federal biologists announced Thursday. "The possible stabilization of adult fish numbers is exciting news for the recovery effort because it means that conditions exist in Grand Canyon that allow adult fish to reach reproductive age," USGS biologist Matthew Anderson said in a statement. Until recently, the chub population in the Canyon was steadily declining because adult fish were dying at a rate of 15 percent to 20 percent a year, and young fish were not surviving in large enough numbers to replace them....
Casino Attempting to Save Endangered Pupfish Wildlife experts in Nevada are trying to rescue one of the world's most endangered species by breeding them in, of all places, a Las Vegas casino. For decades a fence has protected the unique habitat of one of the world's rarest animals. It's Devil's Hole, a cave near Death Valley. The water goes hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet deep. The tiny Devil's Hole Pupfish lives it's whole life there. It depends on a reliable water level; it spawns only on a small rock shelf just inches below the surface. Terry Baldino, Death Valley National Park: "When you think of an animal living in the world today whose entire existence survives on something that small, and has done so for thousands of years quite successfully, that makes for a pretty amazing little critter." But now there's a crisis. Pupfish numbers are mysteriously dropping; there are only 38 left in the latest count....
Success of stream restoration projects go largely unknown Dollars spent on restoring America's rivers are increasing exponentially, but does anyone know how effective river restoration projects really are? Finding the answer to that question prompted Duke University Assistant Professor Emily Bernhardt to participate in a survey study. The results of that study were presented July 27 in a lecture titled "Measuring, managing and restoring freshwater ecosystem services" as part of the University of Montana Biological Station Summer Seminar series Thursday evenings at Yellow Bay. Despite the fact that river systems represent just one percent of all freshwater on earth, Bernhardt said 90 percent of U.S. rivers have been strongly impacted by channel manipulation and fragmentation, dams, reservoirs, diversions or irrigation. In addition, 20 percent of freshwater fishes are threatened or extinct and freshwater species represent 47 percent of all endangered species in the U.S....
Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Plans to Illegally Deny Protection for 152 Imperiled Species The Center for Biological Diversity obtained a July 21, 2006 email from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dale Hall that states that the agency will actively work to avoid providing Endangered Species Act protection to 152 of the 281 species currently recognized as candidates for listing as threatened or endangered. On average, these species have been waiting for protection for 15 years, and research by the Center shows that at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct before they received the protections of the Act. Candidate species by definition warrant protection as threatened or endangered species. Under the Endangered Species Act, FWS can delay protection of these species only if their listing is delayed by actions to protect other higher priority species and if the agency is making expeditious progress to protect them. In the email, Director Hall stated that the agency will “use all Service resources to find conservation strategies for lesser priority candidate species to preclude the need to list,” identifying 152 of the candidate species as being the target of these efforts. The statement responds to a lawsuit that charges the agency with failing to make expeditious progress towards protecting candidate species, which the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations filed last year....
GOP Also-Rans Rally Around Pombo’s Democratic Foe It is unusual for candidates who lose to an incumbent in a primary to then bolt and endorse the nominee of the other major party. So Gerald M. “Jerry” McNerney — a wind turbine company executive who is the Democratic House nominee in California’s 11th District for the second consecutive election — was pleased to accept the backing of the former Republican contenders who held seven-term incumbent Richard W. Pombo to a subpar 62 percent of the vote in the June 6 GOP primary: former Rep. Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey Jr. and local businessman Tom Benigno. At a news conference July 26, McCloskey pursued a theme he used during the primary and which is the Democrats’ main justification for declaring the conservative-leaning 11th as a serious takeover target: that Pombo is too cozy with business interests in his role as chairman of the House Resources Committee, and that he was a recipient of campaign donations from now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates who mainly included American Indian tribes with casino gambling interests. But Pombo has strongly denied unethical behavior. He says his actions as Resources chairman, which include efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, conform with a goal he has pursued throughout a House career that dates back to 1993: the loosening of federal land use regulations that he contends are economically damaging and deprive landowners of property rights. He also says he had no close ties to Abramoff and never did official favors in exchange for campaign donations....
Senate Vote to Fund 370 Miles of Border Triple Wall Will Destroy Endangered Species and Ecosystems The Center for Biological Diversity blasted Wednesday’s U.S. Senate vote to fund the construction of a massive triple wall over 370 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, calling the plan a colossal environmental disaster and declaring that it will not stem the tide of illegal immigration. More border walls, militarization, low-level aircraft and roads would further damage already-stressed wildlife and places, such as the Cactus Pygmy Owl and Sonoran Pronghorn in Arizona, Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard and Peninsular Ranges Bighorn Sheep in California, Jaguar and Mexican Gray Wolves in New Mexico, and the Rio Grande River, Ocelot, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. Triple walls are harmful to wildlife blocking critical migration corridors and destroying valuable habitat. The distance of the triple wall – 370 miles – is approximately the distance of the entire border in Arizona. “It’s a sad day for America. In 1987, President Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and stated, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ but less than 20 years later, the Senate votes to build a new Berlin Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border," said Michael Finkelstein, Executive Director with the Center for Biological Diversity.....
Border rancher more concerned about disease from illegal crossers Back in the 1970s, it was a major event when a Mexican cow would wander on to the Palominas border-front ranch of Jack Ladd and his son, John. But after tightened border security in San Diego and El Paso began to funnel illegal immigration through Arizona in the early 1990s, holes began to appear more regularly along the 10 miles of barbed-wire fence separating the ranch from Mexico. The holes, cut by individual migrants or blasted out by fence-crashing vehicles, also created an easy passageway for cattle. So, in an effort to keep Mexican cows out and their own cows in, the Ladds would devote an entire day each week to repairing the breaches. About three years ago, they gave up. “We'd start down in Naco and work west, but by the time we'd get to the end of the fence, the stuff we'd fixed would already be cut again,” John Ladd said. Federal authorities told him barbed wire was useless in stopping human traffic, and so the government was not interested in replacing it. During the past 2½ years, Ladd said he has returned 468 cows to Mexico....
Ranchers Putting Cattle Out to Pasture Fred Nick has always served his cows a pretty bland menu: grass, grass and more grass. Then, a few years ago, he learned that meat from exclusively grass-fed animals was gaining popularity among consumers for its reported health benefits. Now his steaks and burgers are showing up for sale at a health food store near his 1,300-acre ranch along California's central coast. "We didn't even know we had a health product," the 72-year-old Nick said. Nick is one of a small but growing number of ranchers who are bucking convention, letting their animals graze on grassy pastures until slaughter. About 45,000 grass-fed head of cattle were produced in the United States in 2005, livestock marketing consultant Allen Williams said. That's a pittance next to the roughly 30 million animals that spend their final months in feedlots, getting big and juicy on a diet of grain. Still, the current number of grass-fed cattle represents a huge increase over the roughly 5,000 produced 10 years ago, Williams said. He expects the nation's yield of grass-fed beef to more than double, to about 100,000 head, in 2006....
Wendell Robie: The man who started it all Twenty-two years after his death and 51 years removed from leading his first, monumental 100-mile ride from high in the Sierra, Wendell Robie continues to cast a long shadow over Auburn. Robie was the penultimate mover and shaker in Auburn and its environs for much of the 20th century. His work to get the Tevis Cup ride off the ground in the mid-1950s led to an event that continues to attract a field of riders from around the nation and several foreign countries. In 1955, Robie and four other men set out from Tahoe City on a ride to Auburn that would be the first of what now is called the granddaddy of ultra-endurance horse rides. The object was to travel 100 miles in under 24 hours -- a challenge Robie was finding other people thought to be insurmountable. Robie's legendary reply was: "By God, I'll show you that it can be done." The first ride started at 4 a.m. on Aug. 7, 1955, and ended in Auburn 22 hours and 45 minutes later. Robie had proved his detractors wrong. After delivering a ceremonial packet of mail he'd brought with him from Tahoe City, he reined his horse around and rode another mile home to his Robie Point house....
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Blast Rites James Bowe, a lifelong resident of Whitesville, W.Va., knows the mountains around his home better than he knows himself. He's seen friends and family buried there, and has devoted countless hours to protecting his loved ones' resting places and the Indian burial grounds that stand alongside them. So when Bowe pulled up on his four-wheeler in early April and spotted a coal company drilling in the middle of what he says was a known, if unnamed, cemetery on White Oak Mountain, he was livid -- and determined to stop them. Knowing how quickly surface-mining operations can scrape away any trace of a mountain's natural landscape, Bowe immediately filed a formal complaint with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. For the next three days, he waited anxiously for intervention. On the fourth day, a DEP officer arrived, but it was too late: There was nothing left of the headstones that had been there, and only a small section of border fence remained. The investigator's report said he believed "a cemetery did exist at this site," but concluded that the cemetery "was unknown to the core drilling company ... and the West Virginia DEP when this permit was issued." Bowe was, and remains, incredulous. "I don't see how the company wouldn't have known -- there was a tombstone sitting there," he said later. "You can't miss that. When you see crosses on top of something and sandstone markers, what do you usually associate that with?"....
Hunter calls it quits after wolves kill dogs Both men headed down a hill as fast as they could. Richards said he stopped in his tracks when he saw a dark colored wolf attacking his dog Blackey. “I was screaming louder than I ever screamed in my life,” said Richards, but the wolf ignored him. “Every time Blackey tried to run the wolf would sink his teeth into Blackey’s hindquarters.” Richards closed to within 12 feet and picked up a stick and struck a tree. At the sound of the broken limb, Richards said the wolf turned and lunged at him. He turned and ran to his truck. “When that wolf lunged at me I believed I would have been seriously hurt or dead if not for Blackey…what I heard was my dog giving his life to save me,” said Richards. When he reached the truck he found Bryon digging for a gun. Armed, the men returned to the scene to save their dogs. “I wanted to hear a bell dingle or a bark but nothing.” In the melee, Bryon was able to fight off three wolves and save two dogs. Equipment in hand, they found Halley alive, whose stomach had been ripped open and her entrails hanging out. She had more than 60 bite marks and deep gashes. Bryon wrapped his shirt around her stomach and they took her to the vet. She miraculously survived, recently fighting off a battle with infection. Richards said they found Blackey in a pool of blood, ripped to pieces. “He was bit and torn so full of holes I just fell to the ground bawling and crying,” said Richards....
Wildlife board nearly triples bison hunt The number of licenses to hunt bison that wander into Montana from Yellowstone National Park this winter will almost triple from last season, state wildlife commissioners decided Thursday. In June, the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission endorsed a tentative plan to authorize 100 licenses, double last season's number. On Thursday they added another 40. The increase will focus on bison cows, making the hunt more of a herd management tool "rather than just tipping them over for trophies," Commissioner Shane Colton said. Activists opposed to any hunting of Yellowstone bison said the commission's decision to boost the number of licenses simply worsens a bad idea. "If you want a public relations nightmare, I think you're moving in the right direction," said Dan Brister of the Buffalo Field Campaign. The state considers the hunt part of a plan to manage bison that migrate from Yellowstone and may carry the cattle disease brucellosis, which is present in Yellowstone's bison herds....
Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act Five years of hard work is finally paying off. On Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo introduced wide-ranging legislation that could set a standard for future public lands management. The Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act will end decades of public lands conflict in southwestern Idaho, and establish a path for future management of that area. All agencies involve believe this compromise is a win-win for everyone. "This can't be called a ranching bill, or a wilderness bill, or an Air Force bill, or a tribal bill, it's a comprehensive land management bill," said Sen. Mike Crapo, (R) Idaho. On Thursday, Crapo introduced the Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act. It's a bill that resolves decades of land-use conflict in Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands, by agreeing on how to manage those areas. "The Owyhee Initiative transforms conflict and uncertainty into conflict resolution and assurance of future activity," said Sen. Crapo. The act would create more than half-a-million acres of protected wilderness, preserve access to an air force training range, prevent damage to prehistoric artifacts and insure that ranchers can continue their livestock operations....
Montana senator blasted after verbal attack on firefighters Sen. Conrad Burns' recent verbal attack on a firefighting team for its work on a Montana blaze angered some firefighters, drew harsh criticism in state newspapers and has left the three-term Republican scrambling to repair the political damage. Burns, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the fall elections, confronted members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport on July 23 and told them they had done a "piss-poor job," according to an official state report and the U.S. Forest Service. Burns, a third-term lawmaker already facing questions about his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is trying to turn back a challenge from Democrat Jon Tester. The Missoulian newspaper said in an editorial that "Burns' remarks were characteristic of the kind of know-nothing blather you sometimes hear from the local malcontent in a bar or coffee shop." The Montana Standard of Butte wrote, "The way things are going for Montana's Conrad Burns, all challenger Jon Tester may have to do is to stay quiet until November to win the hotly contested seat."....
Motorcycle enthusiasts, Native Americans clash in South Dakota When folks around here say the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally doubles the population of South Dakota, it's only a slight exaggeration. More than 500,000 bikers invade the Black Hills each August; 776,000 people live in the state. As the influx revs up this week, so does the tension that has been mounting for several years between the party-hearty biker culture and Native Americans trying to preserve their religious traditions. It came to a boil this year when Arizona entrepreneur Jay Allen started building what he proudly calls the world's biggest biker bar just two miles from Bear Butte, one of the most sacred sites of the Plains tribes. "Imagine sitting in a church or sitting in a synagogue, trying to have a ... prayer service, and you have half a million bikes running by every minute of the day and night for three weeks," said Debra White Plume, a Lakota Sioux from the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. "That's what the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally does to this environment." White Plume is one of the organizers of a monthlong prayer vigil at Bear Butte, a volcanic formation just a few miles east of Sturgis. Since July 4, several hundred Native Americans have been camped at the foot of the hill they revere as the North American equivalent of Mt. Sinai....
Settlement reached in grizzly country logging suit The federal government has agreed to evaluate the effect of helicopter logging on grizzly bears to settle a conservation group's lawsuit over a timber sale in the Selkirk Mountains, spokesmen said Thursday. If the proposed settlement is approved by U.S. District Judge Edward Shea, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agree to avoid helicopter logging in a large portion of the Boundary Timber sale area, considered key habitat for the endangered grizzly, pending completion of that review. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed suit here July 5, seeking to stop the sale, involving 15 million board feet of timber on 1,242 acres in the Panhandle National Forests of northern Idaho and northeastern Washington state. It's been estimated that no more than 40 grizzly bears live in the Selkirks....
Performing high-altitude research on global warming Stately corpses of bristlecone pine trees, some dead for 2,000 years but still refusing to lie down, stood watch as botanist Ann Dennis and a crew of naturalists stepped off plots on the shoulders of 14,246-foot White Mountain Peak near the Nevada-California border. Working more than 10,000 feet above the sunbaked floor of the Owens Valley, the scientists were transforming one of California's highest mountaintops into a living laboratory of climate change. Dennis and her colleagues are part of a global network of mountain-climbing researchers, all using precisely the same methods to observe the impact of global warming at high altitudes on five continents simultaneously. "This is an international effort to deal with an international problem," Dennis said. High mountain environments may be uniquely suited to the globe-spanning, cookie-cutter approach. They support many of the same types of species, forced to eke out a meager existence in the most punishing conditions imaginable. And because of those difficult conditions, above-tree-line and sub-alpine environments are for the most part free of obvious human impacts that can mask evidence of global warming's impact on the ground....
Company agrees to sale of front leases Conservationists consider the deal with Startech Energy Corp. a key step in their efforts to protect the Front from new oil and gas drilling. The buyout, announced Thursday by the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, seeks to prevent federal minerals leased by Startech from ever being offered for sale again. But for that to happen, Congress must pass legislation, still pending, that would put federal lands on the Front off-limits to new oil and gas leasing. The deal with Startech is contingent on the measure's passage, said Kel Johnston, president of Startech's parent company, Alberta Clipper Energy Inc. "I think of it as a great development," Chuck Blixrud, a coalition member with a guest ranch on the Front, said of the agreement. But he added, "I'm holding my breath now." Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The coalition said the agreement affects 23,310 acres, a portion of which -- 8,460 acres -- involves federal leases....
Senate to take up salvage logging Key Senate Republicans said Wednesday they will move to take up a House bill to speed up the logging of burned forests and planting of new trees after storms and wildfires, in hopes of moving legislation through Congress quickly. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of a Senate forestry subcommittee, said he wants a vote on the Senate floor before the end of the year. “This legislation is about more than forest fires,” Crapo said. “It is about what happens after a tornado. ... It is about what happens after hurricanes tear through vast stretches of forest land. It is about what happens after insects infest forests, threatening neighboring communities.” Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced a similar bill in the Senate last fall. But Smith and Crapo say it makes more sense to press the House bill since it already has passed one chamber....
Judge rejects second effort to block Bitterroot project For the second time in less than a month, a federal judge here has dismissed efforts by two environmental groups to halt a fuels-reduction project in the Bitterroot National Forest. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy declined to issue an emergency injunction requested by the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot. The decision allows the Bitterroot National Forest to accept bids for the project. Bids are due Aug. 21. The case involves the Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana's first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests initiative. The proposal in the Bitterroot National Forest consists of logging on about 6,000 acres. The Forest Service contends the project would help protect area homes from massive wildfires like those that swept through the Bitterroot Valley in 2000....
Endangered Canyon fish appears to be rebounding The population of an endangered fish that makes its home in the Grand Canyon area of the Colorado River may be stabilizing, according to biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey. The number of adult humpback chub between 2001 and 2005 now appears to have stabilized at about 5,000 fish, according to research by federal biologists announced Thursday. "The possible stabilization of adult fish numbers is exciting news for the recovery effort because it means that conditions exist in Grand Canyon that allow adult fish to reach reproductive age," USGS biologist Matthew Anderson said in a statement. Until recently, the chub population in the Canyon was steadily declining because adult fish were dying at a rate of 15 percent to 20 percent a year, and young fish were not surviving in large enough numbers to replace them....
Casino Attempting to Save Endangered Pupfish Wildlife experts in Nevada are trying to rescue one of the world's most endangered species by breeding them in, of all places, a Las Vegas casino. For decades a fence has protected the unique habitat of one of the world's rarest animals. It's Devil's Hole, a cave near Death Valley. The water goes hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet deep. The tiny Devil's Hole Pupfish lives it's whole life there. It depends on a reliable water level; it spawns only on a small rock shelf just inches below the surface. Terry Baldino, Death Valley National Park: "When you think of an animal living in the world today whose entire existence survives on something that small, and has done so for thousands of years quite successfully, that makes for a pretty amazing little critter." But now there's a crisis. Pupfish numbers are mysteriously dropping; there are only 38 left in the latest count....
Success of stream restoration projects go largely unknown Dollars spent on restoring America's rivers are increasing exponentially, but does anyone know how effective river restoration projects really are? Finding the answer to that question prompted Duke University Assistant Professor Emily Bernhardt to participate in a survey study. The results of that study were presented July 27 in a lecture titled "Measuring, managing and restoring freshwater ecosystem services" as part of the University of Montana Biological Station Summer Seminar series Thursday evenings at Yellow Bay. Despite the fact that river systems represent just one percent of all freshwater on earth, Bernhardt said 90 percent of U.S. rivers have been strongly impacted by channel manipulation and fragmentation, dams, reservoirs, diversions or irrigation. In addition, 20 percent of freshwater fishes are threatened or extinct and freshwater species represent 47 percent of all endangered species in the U.S....
Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Plans to Illegally Deny Protection for 152 Imperiled Species The Center for Biological Diversity obtained a July 21, 2006 email from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dale Hall that states that the agency will actively work to avoid providing Endangered Species Act protection to 152 of the 281 species currently recognized as candidates for listing as threatened or endangered. On average, these species have been waiting for protection for 15 years, and research by the Center shows that at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct before they received the protections of the Act. Candidate species by definition warrant protection as threatened or endangered species. Under the Endangered Species Act, FWS can delay protection of these species only if their listing is delayed by actions to protect other higher priority species and if the agency is making expeditious progress to protect them. In the email, Director Hall stated that the agency will “use all Service resources to find conservation strategies for lesser priority candidate species to preclude the need to list,” identifying 152 of the candidate species as being the target of these efforts. The statement responds to a lawsuit that charges the agency with failing to make expeditious progress towards protecting candidate species, which the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations filed last year....
GOP Also-Rans Rally Around Pombo’s Democratic Foe It is unusual for candidates who lose to an incumbent in a primary to then bolt and endorse the nominee of the other major party. So Gerald M. “Jerry” McNerney — a wind turbine company executive who is the Democratic House nominee in California’s 11th District for the second consecutive election — was pleased to accept the backing of the former Republican contenders who held seven-term incumbent Richard W. Pombo to a subpar 62 percent of the vote in the June 6 GOP primary: former Rep. Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey Jr. and local businessman Tom Benigno. At a news conference July 26, McCloskey pursued a theme he used during the primary and which is the Democrats’ main justification for declaring the conservative-leaning 11th as a serious takeover target: that Pombo is too cozy with business interests in his role as chairman of the House Resources Committee, and that he was a recipient of campaign donations from now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates who mainly included American Indian tribes with casino gambling interests. But Pombo has strongly denied unethical behavior. He says his actions as Resources chairman, which include efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, conform with a goal he has pursued throughout a House career that dates back to 1993: the loosening of federal land use regulations that he contends are economically damaging and deprive landowners of property rights. He also says he had no close ties to Abramoff and never did official favors in exchange for campaign donations....
Senate Vote to Fund 370 Miles of Border Triple Wall Will Destroy Endangered Species and Ecosystems The Center for Biological Diversity blasted Wednesday’s U.S. Senate vote to fund the construction of a massive triple wall over 370 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, calling the plan a colossal environmental disaster and declaring that it will not stem the tide of illegal immigration. More border walls, militarization, low-level aircraft and roads would further damage already-stressed wildlife and places, such as the Cactus Pygmy Owl and Sonoran Pronghorn in Arizona, Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard and Peninsular Ranges Bighorn Sheep in California, Jaguar and Mexican Gray Wolves in New Mexico, and the Rio Grande River, Ocelot, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. Triple walls are harmful to wildlife blocking critical migration corridors and destroying valuable habitat. The distance of the triple wall – 370 miles – is approximately the distance of the entire border in Arizona. “It’s a sad day for America. In 1987, President Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and stated, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ but less than 20 years later, the Senate votes to build a new Berlin Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border," said Michael Finkelstein, Executive Director with the Center for Biological Diversity.....
Border rancher more concerned about disease from illegal crossers Back in the 1970s, it was a major event when a Mexican cow would wander on to the Palominas border-front ranch of Jack Ladd and his son, John. But after tightened border security in San Diego and El Paso began to funnel illegal immigration through Arizona in the early 1990s, holes began to appear more regularly along the 10 miles of barbed-wire fence separating the ranch from Mexico. The holes, cut by individual migrants or blasted out by fence-crashing vehicles, also created an easy passageway for cattle. So, in an effort to keep Mexican cows out and their own cows in, the Ladds would devote an entire day each week to repairing the breaches. About three years ago, they gave up. “We'd start down in Naco and work west, but by the time we'd get to the end of the fence, the stuff we'd fixed would already be cut again,” John Ladd said. Federal authorities told him barbed wire was useless in stopping human traffic, and so the government was not interested in replacing it. During the past 2½ years, Ladd said he has returned 468 cows to Mexico....
Ranchers Putting Cattle Out to Pasture Fred Nick has always served his cows a pretty bland menu: grass, grass and more grass. Then, a few years ago, he learned that meat from exclusively grass-fed animals was gaining popularity among consumers for its reported health benefits. Now his steaks and burgers are showing up for sale at a health food store near his 1,300-acre ranch along California's central coast. "We didn't even know we had a health product," the 72-year-old Nick said. Nick is one of a small but growing number of ranchers who are bucking convention, letting their animals graze on grassy pastures until slaughter. About 45,000 grass-fed head of cattle were produced in the United States in 2005, livestock marketing consultant Allen Williams said. That's a pittance next to the roughly 30 million animals that spend their final months in feedlots, getting big and juicy on a diet of grain. Still, the current number of grass-fed cattle represents a huge increase over the roughly 5,000 produced 10 years ago, Williams said. He expects the nation's yield of grass-fed beef to more than double, to about 100,000 head, in 2006....
Wendell Robie: The man who started it all Twenty-two years after his death and 51 years removed from leading his first, monumental 100-mile ride from high in the Sierra, Wendell Robie continues to cast a long shadow over Auburn. Robie was the penultimate mover and shaker in Auburn and its environs for much of the 20th century. His work to get the Tevis Cup ride off the ground in the mid-1950s led to an event that continues to attract a field of riders from around the nation and several foreign countries. In 1955, Robie and four other men set out from Tahoe City on a ride to Auburn that would be the first of what now is called the granddaddy of ultra-endurance horse rides. The object was to travel 100 miles in under 24 hours -- a challenge Robie was finding other people thought to be insurmountable. Robie's legendary reply was: "By God, I'll show you that it can be done." The first ride started at 4 a.m. on Aug. 7, 1955, and ended in Auburn 22 hours and 45 minutes later. Robie had proved his detractors wrong. After delivering a ceremonial packet of mail he'd brought with him from Tahoe City, he reined his horse around and rode another mile home to his Robie Point house....
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Thursday, August 03, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Scientists believe a disease they haven’t identified is killing the area’s aspen trees While mountain pine beetles continue to ravage large swaths of forests in the West, the region’s aspen groves are falling prey to an unknown disease that could wipe out 10 percent or more of the iconic trees. Dale Bartos, an ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Logan, Utah, said it’s not clear what’s causing the problem with the aspens, although unlike the beetles killing the pines, the aspens are likely being attacked by some kind of disease. “It’s something we don’t understand,” Bartos said. “I could speculate, but I’d probably be wrong. It’s something we need to address.” Unlike many trees and plants, aspens don’t reproduce sexually but, rather, through cloning from new shoots — called “suckers” — emerging from within their interconnected root systems. Bartos said researchers are seeing the trees’ clones dying off completely so that stands can’t regenerate themselves....
Environmental coalition recommends drilling changes A coalition of environmental organizations and sportsmen's groups are urging federal land managers to step up protections for wildlife in the face of an unprecedented boom in natural gas drilling in western Colorado they fear could have a devastating effect on wildlife habitat. "We're now talking about drilling wells from horizon to horizon -- literally as far as you can see," said Bob Elderkin, with the Colorado Mule Deer Foundation. "All of a sudden, the habitat fragmentation is going to become bigger than anything we've ever dreamt of in the past." Some 25 groups have signed on to a list of recommendations they plan to take to state and federal regulators and legislators, urging less dense, more careful development in areas where drilling rigs and wildlife may collide. It's part of a growing alliance between outdoor interests that have at times been at odds. Recently, conservationists have found allies among hunters, anglers and others in the outdoor industry as they find common ground in what they perceive as threats to wildlife and wild places....
Unexpected environmentalists Child doesn’t look like an environmentalist. He doesn’t wear Birkenstocks, tie-dye shirts or a peace sign tied around his neck with a length of hemp rope. He looks and talks more like a rancher, with a cowboy hat and a weathered face. Child doesn’t really act like an environmentalist either. Instead of ambushing mink coats with cans of spray paint, Child makes a living leading hunters into the woods to kill elk, deer, moose, antelope and mountain lions. It’s July 27, five days before the BLM will lease roughly 12,000 acres of land on the Wyoming Range for energy development including Child’s camp and most of the land where he takes his clients to hunt. Child represents a recent addition to the environmental movement. Ever since the Forest Service earmarked Child’s hunting grounds for oil and gas development, the owner of Trophy Mountain Outfitters has joined a growing coalition of sportsmen working to preserve the wild lands where they work and play....
Oil, gas leases take a blow The Bush administration's attempts to override federal environmental laws to speed oil and gas development in the West took a hit Wednesday when a Utah federal judge ruled 16 U.S. Bureau of Land Management leases on wilderness-quality public lands in Utah were sold illegally. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled in favor of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society, who claimed the BLM ignored federal law and its own wilderness-related findings when it used outdated land-use plans to sidestep federal law to sell the leases. The ruling calls into question many more oil and gas lease sales, said Steve Bloch, SUWA staff attorney. The leases were the first sold after the 2003 "No More Wilderness" settlement that then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt struck to end a lawsuit the state brought against the federal government over wilderness inventories conducted during the Clinton administration. The BLM also relied on land plans so old they didn't include analyses of the potential effects of oil and gas development on the lease parcels, a violation of NEPA's fundamental objective to make sure "an agency will not act on information only to regret its decision after it is too late to correct," Kimball wrote....
Grand Junction residents push to regulate drilling A movement to strictly regulate energy development in Grand Junction’s watershed picked up steam Tuesday when activists turned in double the signatures they need to get proposed rules on the November ballot. The group Concerned Citizens Alliance submitted petitions with 4,150 signatures to the city clerk, who will determine if there are enough valid signatures from registered voters. At least 1,580 signatures are needed to qualify for the city ballot. The alliance, a chapter of Western Colorado Congress, a conservation group, launched the initiative drive after federal oil and gas leases were sold on thousands of acres in the watersheds of Grand Junction and neighboring Palisade. Both communities have protested the leases, which are on hold while the Bureau of Land Management considers the protests. Alliance members said the “overwhelming response” by Grand Junction residents to the petition drive sends a strong message across Colorado that some areas should be off-limits as more and more natural gas wells are drilled in the state....
Hunters and anglers turn GOP "greener" Hunters and anglers are increasingly joining environmentalists in efforts to block oil and natural- gas drilling and other development on wildlife-rich lands in the Rocky Mountain West. Traditionally a Republican constituency, hunters and anglers have won over GOP lawmakers and land administrators in Washington who often view environmentalists as radicals aligned with the Democratic Party. "We're beginning to see hunters and anglers weighing in in ways we haven't seen (in recent years)," said Chris Wood of Trout Unlimited. In the past few weeks, pressure brought by hunting and fishing groups has helped drive a spate of measures blocking drilling in three areas of the Rocky Mountain West: Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., reversed his stance on drilling Montana's scenic Rocky Mountain Front. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., often a supporter of oil and gas development, came out against a drilling plan in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest, adding that there shouldn't be drilling in most national forests. The Republican-controlled House passed a bill blocking drilling in the 101,000-acre Valle Vidal section of New Mexico's Carson National Forest....
Congress looks to speed up salvage logging With fire season underway in the West, Congress is looking at speeding up salvage logging in burned stands of timber on public lands by limiting environmental reviews. The timber industry and the Bush administration say too many acres of fire-damaged trees have been left to rot while the U.S. Forest Service does environmental reviews or fights off lawsuits by conservation groups. "In many cases, active management can restore a forest faster than letting nature take its course," said Mark Rey, an agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service. "The alternative is to simply let the trees go to waste, which is not a very conservationist point of view." So, the administration is backing the concept behind a bill by Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Brian Baird, D-Wash., that streamlines environmental procedures to get chainsaws into burned or storm-damaged forests faster. But some caution against the rush to log burned forests, saying fire is a natural part of the landscape, and foresters should be more willing to let burned forests regenerate on their own....
Forest-plan delay spurs critics U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar has joined environmental and conservation groups in questioning an unexpected delay in the release of a management plan for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests. The plan was scheduled to be released July 21, and 16,000 copies of the summary, and an undisclosed number of weighty full drafts and CDs, had been printed when the release was delayed by a review in the office of Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and environment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A spokesman for Rey's office insists the review is routine. Initially, spokesman Dan Jiron said the review would delay the release only a few days. He said a week later that the draft plan was under scrutiny to make sure it complies with the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Environmental and conservation groups have expressed concerns that energy companies pressured Rey to make the plan, which governs activities in the forests, more energy friendly....
Former Aztec superintendent thought to be nation's oldest living park ranger Few people ever get to see their 100th birthday. Evidently, fewer people still get to see their 100th birthday if they once worked as National Park Service ranger. Irving Townsend, formerly of Aztec, who celebrated his 100th birthday Wednesday, is thought to be the oldest living former park ranger. Only a few others, including former U.S. President Gerald Ford who, at 93, once worked as a park ranger for a summer in his youth, are known to come close, according to the National Park Service. "The park service is interested in (my father) since he could be the oldest living park ranger in the U.S.," said Townsend's son, who also is named Irving Townsend. "They seem to think he is." Townsend worked as the first superintendent at Aztec Ruins National Monument in 1944. He moved to the San Juan County area after working as a park ranger at Yosemite National Park in California beginning in 1929. While on patrol, he was known for doing his rounds on a motorcycle, horseback or skis, depending on his mood and the weather. When Townsend moved to Aztec to take charge of the Ruins, he was immediately confronted with a slew of troubles....
Tribes Call for Removal of Dams That Block Journey of Salmon Indian tribes along the Klamath River rallied in Portland on Wednesday for the removal of four hydroelectric dams that block salmon from spawning in their historic habitat upriver, and they said they intended to pressure the governors of Oregon and California to help push for removing the dams. The Yurok and Karuk tribes in California and the Klamath tribes of Oregon also said public comments by Bill Fehrman, the new president of PacifiCorp, the power company that owns the dams on the Klamath, reflected new potential for a settlement in one of the most enduring disputes at the nexus of fishing, farming and power supply in the Northwest. Mr. Fehrman, in a statement released Wednesday, said: “We have heard the tribes’ concerns. We are not opposed to dam removal or other settlement opportunities as long as our customers are not harmed and our property rights are respected.”....
More Than 100 Conservation Organizations Call for Withdrawal of Proposed Rules Expanding Aerial Gunning and Trapping in Wilderness Areas A coalition of more than 100 conservation organizations today submitted comments opposing controversial new rules proposed by the U.S. Forest Service that would permit the use of motorized vehicles in wilderness areas to trap and kill predators like bears, coyotes, wolves, bobcats and mountain lions. “The Bush administration is famous for its disdain for public resources,” said Erik Ryberg, Staff Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “But these rules are the worst of the worst. They bring motorized vehicles into wilderness areas and permit aerial gunning of animals that aren’t even implicated in livestock depredation. They could give ranchers complete freedom in wilderness areas, permitting them to kill anything they want.” The new rules would also permit the use of controversial “M-44” sodium-cyanide traps, which are a danger to domestic pets and children. When triggered, the buried traps explode in a cloud of lethal sodium-cyanide crystals. The Center for Biological Diversity has spearheaded the campaign to get the proposed rules withdrawn, and was the author of the opposition letter that has been endorsed by more than 100 other conservation organizations from Arizona to Maine....
14 states, including N.M., petition for hazardous labeling Attorneys general from 14 states, including New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to require the listing of all hazardous ingredients in pesticides on product labels. Herbicides and pesticides are sprayed or dripped onto land, houses and pets to control insects and weeds. Some are designed to kill only a specific insect, fungus or plant. Others are broad-based, killing all organisms in a certain area for a time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires companies to list a product's active ingredients used to kill a pest or weed. But the EPA doesn't require companies to list inert or "other ingredients" used to preserve or improve the effectiveness of active ingredients in a pesticide, according to the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. "Although almost 400 chemicals used for this purpose have been found by EPA or other federal agencies to be hazardous to human health and the environment, EPA does not require them to be identified on pesticide labels," according to a joint statement from the attorneys general....
Horse Genome Sequence in the Works "It puts a whole new set of tools in play...it's as if you are farmers that are used to relying on plows pulled by a draft animal, and all the sudden you have tractors," says Jamie MacLeod, VMD, PhD, professor of veterinary science and Knight Chair for Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Research Center, of the news that the horse genome will be sequenced. A Thoroughbred mare will soon join the human, mouse, dog, and other species on the list of mammals whose genomes have been sequenced and mapped. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is currently working on a high-level equine genome sequence, which is a major breakthrough for equine genetic researchers who want to better understand and solve common health conditions in the horse. Additionally, the horse genome map will assist human researchers in unlocking human health mysteries. Scientists at the Broad Institute, a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are churning out segments of the horse genome sequence daily and posting them on a web site, where they are available for immediate use by equine researchers. Before this development, if an individual began a project on a particular DNA region, he or she first would have to obtain a DNA sequence for that region. This preliminary work would take six to eight months and cost up to $80,000. Now the process is akin to pulling a reference book out of a library. The high density sequencing of the horse should cost roughly $30 million....
Western States Horse Expo Draws Top Talent, Thousands of Attendees Thousands of horse enthusiasts poured through the main gate at the Cal Expo fairgrounds in Sacramento, Calif., during the three-day expo in June. They funneled through four huge buildings that housed over 500 retail exhibitors, then spilled out onto the concourse of 11 acres of trailers, six arenas hopping with demonstrations, breed exhibits, horse sales, full-size barns, the Magnificent 7 stock horse competition, acres of tractors and trucks, and the Extreme Cowboy Race. A diversity of headliners captivated audiences with their skills. Cutting horse legend Leon Harrel convinced the audience that everyone--without exception--could achieve cutting horse success. He even had his ten-year-old grandson, Peyton, demonstrate the art of cutting while riding bareback and bridleless!....
Barbaro's Right Hind Leg Healing Well By now, Barbaro should have been close to casting aside any doubts that he could make a full recovery from the devastating right hind leg injuries he suffered at the Preakness Stakes. Instead, the winner of the Kentucky Derby still has a tedious, long recovery ahead because of the often-fatal disease that's stricken his left hind leg. Dean Richardson, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, said Tuesday that the painful hoof disease the colt has is preventing the cast on his right hind from being removed because the colt could not protect himself by bearing more weight on the left hind. Barbaro suffered life-threatening injuries when he broke three bones above and below his right rear ankle at the start of the May 20 Preakness. "If he hadn't had the founder (laminitis) on his left hind, he'd probably be out of the cast and he'd probably be in a splinted bandage on the shoe," Richardson said in a telephone interview. "That's where we'd likely be. I can't do that because his left hind is the more sore of the two legs right now." Barbaro's left hind hoof, which was stricken with a severe case of laminitis, is improving and started to show slight signs of re-growing after 80% of it was removed. Barbaro needs to regrow the hoof if he is to have any shot of walking -- albeit with a hitch in his gait....
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Scientists believe a disease they haven’t identified is killing the area’s aspen trees While mountain pine beetles continue to ravage large swaths of forests in the West, the region’s aspen groves are falling prey to an unknown disease that could wipe out 10 percent or more of the iconic trees. Dale Bartos, an ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Logan, Utah, said it’s not clear what’s causing the problem with the aspens, although unlike the beetles killing the pines, the aspens are likely being attacked by some kind of disease. “It’s something we don’t understand,” Bartos said. “I could speculate, but I’d probably be wrong. It’s something we need to address.” Unlike many trees and plants, aspens don’t reproduce sexually but, rather, through cloning from new shoots — called “suckers” — emerging from within their interconnected root systems. Bartos said researchers are seeing the trees’ clones dying off completely so that stands can’t regenerate themselves....
Environmental coalition recommends drilling changes A coalition of environmental organizations and sportsmen's groups are urging federal land managers to step up protections for wildlife in the face of an unprecedented boom in natural gas drilling in western Colorado they fear could have a devastating effect on wildlife habitat. "We're now talking about drilling wells from horizon to horizon -- literally as far as you can see," said Bob Elderkin, with the Colorado Mule Deer Foundation. "All of a sudden, the habitat fragmentation is going to become bigger than anything we've ever dreamt of in the past." Some 25 groups have signed on to a list of recommendations they plan to take to state and federal regulators and legislators, urging less dense, more careful development in areas where drilling rigs and wildlife may collide. It's part of a growing alliance between outdoor interests that have at times been at odds. Recently, conservationists have found allies among hunters, anglers and others in the outdoor industry as they find common ground in what they perceive as threats to wildlife and wild places....
Unexpected environmentalists Child doesn’t look like an environmentalist. He doesn’t wear Birkenstocks, tie-dye shirts or a peace sign tied around his neck with a length of hemp rope. He looks and talks more like a rancher, with a cowboy hat and a weathered face. Child doesn’t really act like an environmentalist either. Instead of ambushing mink coats with cans of spray paint, Child makes a living leading hunters into the woods to kill elk, deer, moose, antelope and mountain lions. It’s July 27, five days before the BLM will lease roughly 12,000 acres of land on the Wyoming Range for energy development including Child’s camp and most of the land where he takes his clients to hunt. Child represents a recent addition to the environmental movement. Ever since the Forest Service earmarked Child’s hunting grounds for oil and gas development, the owner of Trophy Mountain Outfitters has joined a growing coalition of sportsmen working to preserve the wild lands where they work and play....
Oil, gas leases take a blow The Bush administration's attempts to override federal environmental laws to speed oil and gas development in the West took a hit Wednesday when a Utah federal judge ruled 16 U.S. Bureau of Land Management leases on wilderness-quality public lands in Utah were sold illegally. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled in favor of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society, who claimed the BLM ignored federal law and its own wilderness-related findings when it used outdated land-use plans to sidestep federal law to sell the leases. The ruling calls into question many more oil and gas lease sales, said Steve Bloch, SUWA staff attorney. The leases were the first sold after the 2003 "No More Wilderness" settlement that then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton and then-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt struck to end a lawsuit the state brought against the federal government over wilderness inventories conducted during the Clinton administration. The BLM also relied on land plans so old they didn't include analyses of the potential effects of oil and gas development on the lease parcels, a violation of NEPA's fundamental objective to make sure "an agency will not act on information only to regret its decision after it is too late to correct," Kimball wrote....
Grand Junction residents push to regulate drilling A movement to strictly regulate energy development in Grand Junction’s watershed picked up steam Tuesday when activists turned in double the signatures they need to get proposed rules on the November ballot. The group Concerned Citizens Alliance submitted petitions with 4,150 signatures to the city clerk, who will determine if there are enough valid signatures from registered voters. At least 1,580 signatures are needed to qualify for the city ballot. The alliance, a chapter of Western Colorado Congress, a conservation group, launched the initiative drive after federal oil and gas leases were sold on thousands of acres in the watersheds of Grand Junction and neighboring Palisade. Both communities have protested the leases, which are on hold while the Bureau of Land Management considers the protests. Alliance members said the “overwhelming response” by Grand Junction residents to the petition drive sends a strong message across Colorado that some areas should be off-limits as more and more natural gas wells are drilled in the state....
Hunters and anglers turn GOP "greener" Hunters and anglers are increasingly joining environmentalists in efforts to block oil and natural- gas drilling and other development on wildlife-rich lands in the Rocky Mountain West. Traditionally a Republican constituency, hunters and anglers have won over GOP lawmakers and land administrators in Washington who often view environmentalists as radicals aligned with the Democratic Party. "We're beginning to see hunters and anglers weighing in in ways we haven't seen (in recent years)," said Chris Wood of Trout Unlimited. In the past few weeks, pressure brought by hunting and fishing groups has helped drive a spate of measures blocking drilling in three areas of the Rocky Mountain West: Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., reversed his stance on drilling Montana's scenic Rocky Mountain Front. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., often a supporter of oil and gas development, came out against a drilling plan in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest, adding that there shouldn't be drilling in most national forests. The Republican-controlled House passed a bill blocking drilling in the 101,000-acre Valle Vidal section of New Mexico's Carson National Forest....
Congress looks to speed up salvage logging With fire season underway in the West, Congress is looking at speeding up salvage logging in burned stands of timber on public lands by limiting environmental reviews. The timber industry and the Bush administration say too many acres of fire-damaged trees have been left to rot while the U.S. Forest Service does environmental reviews or fights off lawsuits by conservation groups. "In many cases, active management can restore a forest faster than letting nature take its course," said Mark Rey, an agriculture undersecretary who oversees the Forest Service. "The alternative is to simply let the trees go to waste, which is not a very conservationist point of view." So, the administration is backing the concept behind a bill by Reps. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Brian Baird, D-Wash., that streamlines environmental procedures to get chainsaws into burned or storm-damaged forests faster. But some caution against the rush to log burned forests, saying fire is a natural part of the landscape, and foresters should be more willing to let burned forests regenerate on their own....
Forest-plan delay spurs critics U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar has joined environmental and conservation groups in questioning an unexpected delay in the release of a management plan for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests. The plan was scheduled to be released July 21, and 16,000 copies of the summary, and an undisclosed number of weighty full drafts and CDs, had been printed when the release was delayed by a review in the office of Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and environment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A spokesman for Rey's office insists the review is routine. Initially, spokesman Dan Jiron said the review would delay the release only a few days. He said a week later that the draft plan was under scrutiny to make sure it complies with the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Environmental and conservation groups have expressed concerns that energy companies pressured Rey to make the plan, which governs activities in the forests, more energy friendly....
Former Aztec superintendent thought to be nation's oldest living park ranger Few people ever get to see their 100th birthday. Evidently, fewer people still get to see their 100th birthday if they once worked as National Park Service ranger. Irving Townsend, formerly of Aztec, who celebrated his 100th birthday Wednesday, is thought to be the oldest living former park ranger. Only a few others, including former U.S. President Gerald Ford who, at 93, once worked as a park ranger for a summer in his youth, are known to come close, according to the National Park Service. "The park service is interested in (my father) since he could be the oldest living park ranger in the U.S.," said Townsend's son, who also is named Irving Townsend. "They seem to think he is." Townsend worked as the first superintendent at Aztec Ruins National Monument in 1944. He moved to the San Juan County area after working as a park ranger at Yosemite National Park in California beginning in 1929. While on patrol, he was known for doing his rounds on a motorcycle, horseback or skis, depending on his mood and the weather. When Townsend moved to Aztec to take charge of the Ruins, he was immediately confronted with a slew of troubles....
Tribes Call for Removal of Dams That Block Journey of Salmon Indian tribes along the Klamath River rallied in Portland on Wednesday for the removal of four hydroelectric dams that block salmon from spawning in their historic habitat upriver, and they said they intended to pressure the governors of Oregon and California to help push for removing the dams. The Yurok and Karuk tribes in California and the Klamath tribes of Oregon also said public comments by Bill Fehrman, the new president of PacifiCorp, the power company that owns the dams on the Klamath, reflected new potential for a settlement in one of the most enduring disputes at the nexus of fishing, farming and power supply in the Northwest. Mr. Fehrman, in a statement released Wednesday, said: “We have heard the tribes’ concerns. We are not opposed to dam removal or other settlement opportunities as long as our customers are not harmed and our property rights are respected.”....
More Than 100 Conservation Organizations Call for Withdrawal of Proposed Rules Expanding Aerial Gunning and Trapping in Wilderness Areas A coalition of more than 100 conservation organizations today submitted comments opposing controversial new rules proposed by the U.S. Forest Service that would permit the use of motorized vehicles in wilderness areas to trap and kill predators like bears, coyotes, wolves, bobcats and mountain lions. “The Bush administration is famous for its disdain for public resources,” said Erik Ryberg, Staff Attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “But these rules are the worst of the worst. They bring motorized vehicles into wilderness areas and permit aerial gunning of animals that aren’t even implicated in livestock depredation. They could give ranchers complete freedom in wilderness areas, permitting them to kill anything they want.” The new rules would also permit the use of controversial “M-44” sodium-cyanide traps, which are a danger to domestic pets and children. When triggered, the buried traps explode in a cloud of lethal sodium-cyanide crystals. The Center for Biological Diversity has spearheaded the campaign to get the proposed rules withdrawn, and was the author of the opposition letter that has been endorsed by more than 100 other conservation organizations from Arizona to Maine....
14 states, including N.M., petition for hazardous labeling Attorneys general from 14 states, including New Mexico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to require the listing of all hazardous ingredients in pesticides on product labels. Herbicides and pesticides are sprayed or dripped onto land, houses and pets to control insects and weeds. Some are designed to kill only a specific insect, fungus or plant. Others are broad-based, killing all organisms in a certain area for a time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires companies to list a product's active ingredients used to kill a pest or weed. But the EPA doesn't require companies to list inert or "other ingredients" used to preserve or improve the effectiveness of active ingredients in a pesticide, according to the New Mexico Attorney General's Office. "Although almost 400 chemicals used for this purpose have been found by EPA or other federal agencies to be hazardous to human health and the environment, EPA does not require them to be identified on pesticide labels," according to a joint statement from the attorneys general....
Horse Genome Sequence in the Works "It puts a whole new set of tools in play...it's as if you are farmers that are used to relying on plows pulled by a draft animal, and all the sudden you have tractors," says Jamie MacLeod, VMD, PhD, professor of veterinary science and Knight Chair for Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Research Center, of the news that the horse genome will be sequenced. A Thoroughbred mare will soon join the human, mouse, dog, and other species on the list of mammals whose genomes have been sequenced and mapped. The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is currently working on a high-level equine genome sequence, which is a major breakthrough for equine genetic researchers who want to better understand and solve common health conditions in the horse. Additionally, the horse genome map will assist human researchers in unlocking human health mysteries. Scientists at the Broad Institute, a part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are churning out segments of the horse genome sequence daily and posting them on a web site, where they are available for immediate use by equine researchers. Before this development, if an individual began a project on a particular DNA region, he or she first would have to obtain a DNA sequence for that region. This preliminary work would take six to eight months and cost up to $80,000. Now the process is akin to pulling a reference book out of a library. The high density sequencing of the horse should cost roughly $30 million....
Western States Horse Expo Draws Top Talent, Thousands of Attendees Thousands of horse enthusiasts poured through the main gate at the Cal Expo fairgrounds in Sacramento, Calif., during the three-day expo in June. They funneled through four huge buildings that housed over 500 retail exhibitors, then spilled out onto the concourse of 11 acres of trailers, six arenas hopping with demonstrations, breed exhibits, horse sales, full-size barns, the Magnificent 7 stock horse competition, acres of tractors and trucks, and the Extreme Cowboy Race. A diversity of headliners captivated audiences with their skills. Cutting horse legend Leon Harrel convinced the audience that everyone--without exception--could achieve cutting horse success. He even had his ten-year-old grandson, Peyton, demonstrate the art of cutting while riding bareback and bridleless!....
Barbaro's Right Hind Leg Healing Well By now, Barbaro should have been close to casting aside any doubts that he could make a full recovery from the devastating right hind leg injuries he suffered at the Preakness Stakes. Instead, the winner of the Kentucky Derby still has a tedious, long recovery ahead because of the often-fatal disease that's stricken his left hind leg. Dean Richardson, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, said Tuesday that the painful hoof disease the colt has is preventing the cast on his right hind from being removed because the colt could not protect himself by bearing more weight on the left hind. Barbaro suffered life-threatening injuries when he broke three bones above and below his right rear ankle at the start of the May 20 Preakness. "If he hadn't had the founder (laminitis) on his left hind, he'd probably be out of the cast and he'd probably be in a splinted bandage on the shoe," Richardson said in a telephone interview. "That's where we'd likely be. I can't do that because his left hind is the more sore of the two legs right now." Barbaro's left hind hoof, which was stricken with a severe case of laminitis, is improving and started to show slight signs of re-growing after 80% of it was removed. Barbaro needs to regrow the hoof if he is to have any shot of walking -- albeit with a hitch in his gait....
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Wednesday, August 02, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Senate Approves More Offshore Drilling The Senate wants to expand oil and gas drilling to a large chunk of the Gulf of Mexico that has been off limits to energy companies. But the House has a more ambitious plan: Open coastal waters to drilling everywhere unless a state objects. Opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas rigs has moved to the center of the energy debate in Congress where lawmakers for months have struggled to respond to growing anger among voters over high energy prices — a particular problem in an election year. By a vote of 71-25 Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill directing the Interior Department to begin selling leases for oil and gas development in 8.3 million acres of the east-central Gulf of Mexico — about 100 miles from the nearest land and 125 to 310 miles from Florida beaches....
Tragedy looms over wildland debate Nearly 15 months after the manager of the Carrizo Plain National Monument killed herself after months of frustration on the job, the federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving the process of creating a management plan for the 250,000-acre grasslands preserve that will be forever associated with Marlene Braun's tragic death. Braun committed suicide on May 2, 2005, capping a months-long dispute with her BLM bosses over how the preserve should be managed, and in the process earning reprimands and suspensions for what her superiors concluded were intemperate acts of insubordination. The backdrop for the battles was more political than personal. Created by presidential proclamation just hours before President Clinton left office in 2001, the Carrizo Plain had become a battleground over cattle grazing on public lands -- an issue on which the BLM typically found itself siding with cattlemen. It just so happened that these public lands, on the border between Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, are the last big patch of wild grasslands left in California and the home of the largest concentration of endangered species in the state. Some, like the giant kangaroo rat, are in direct competition with cattle. Braun had openly complained that she felt efforts to curtail grazing were being resisted at higher pay grades in the agency, and that she was suffering the fallout....
Editorial: Verbal attack on fire crew scorches Burns Exactly what did the junior senator from Montana say to a group of 20 highly trained front-line Virginia firefighters as they waited for a plane at Billings Logan Airport on July 23? The public may never know the whole conversation. The Augusta Hot Shots from the U.S. Forest Service had been fighting a 92,000-acre wildfire in Yellowstone County and were awaiting transportation to their next assignment when they were accosted by Sen. Conrad Burns. From reporting by The Gazette State Bureau and Associated Press, it is known that Burns said enough to cause these professional firefighters to call for help. A Montana Department of Natural Resources employee who had been serving as information officer on the fire was dispatched to the airport to hear what Burns had to say. He had plenty to say, none of it constructive, none of it recognizing the heroic efforts of firefighters in this fiery summer. Burns pointed to a firefighter and told the DNRC employee: "See that guy over there? He hasn't done a goddamned thing. They sit around. I saw it up on the Wedge fire and in northwestern Montana some years ago. It's wasteful. You probably paid that guy $10,000 to sit around. It's gotta change." The quote reveals the senator's approach to dealing with what his apology described as "frustration" after talking to landowners "critical of the way the fire was handled."....
Sen. Burns' comments detailed in reports The Forest Service report included criticisms that Burns made to Paula Rosenthal, a public information officer from the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, about how the Bundy Railroad fire was fought. Rosenthal was called to the airport by Forest Service officials to talk to Burns after he criticized some members of the Augusta, Va., Hotshots. Her separate state report was made public last Thursday. Burns, she wrote, had these comments: “This command/control doesn't work.” “Managing these fires from Boise does not work.” “Ranchers complaining firefighters/engines driving right by while their land is burning.” The Forest Service documents also included a firsthand account of the airport incident by Gabe Templeton, one of the Augusta Hotshots, describing what happened to him and fellow team members Jeff Cleek and Jude Waerig. It said the three men were sitting in the Billings airport waiting for their flight when Burns approached them with an outstretched hand and asked if they were firefighters. “I shook his hand and replied yes,” Templeton wrote. “He shook my hand, introduced himself and then replied, ‘What a piss poor job' we were doing. I replied, ‘Have a nice day.' The senator mentioned that we were ‘wasting a lot of money and creating a cottage industry.' He also told us that we needed to listen more to the ranchers. I replied that ‘we are pretty low on the totem pole.' Then he walked off.”....
Wolves eating more livestock Early planners also thought that wolves wouldn’t eat livestock as long as they lived near an abundance of natural prey. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Kaminski said. Wolf predations on livestock have increased dramatically since 2003 despite early predictions and control efforts. In the Greater Yellowstone Area, 20 of 27 packs that overlapped grazing lands killed livestock in 2004. Wolf control officials killed seven packs that year. By 2005, 32 packs killed livestock and officials had to kill 10 packs. But even removing the wolves, either by killing the animals or relocating them, rarely solves the problem. Relocated packs will most likely return to the site or find new livestock to depredate. On the other hand, killing a pack often leaves survivors that infiltrate or start other packs. Eventually, the packs that absorb these survivors usually start to kill livestock as well. Biologists have learned that a wolf that develops a taste for beef or lamb keeps coming back. “Once they start, it’s difficult to stop them,” he said. “Many of these packs depredate consistently.”....
4 wolves killed after livestock deaths; more killings authorized Federal Wildlife Services agents have shoot-to-kill orders for as many as six more wolves in central Idaho, after killing four wolves in the last two weeks. The targeted wolves were suspected of killing or harassing cattle and sheep in the mountainous region. The latest killings bring the number of federally protected wolves shot by Wildlife Services officers in 2006 to 14, with another nine killed by ranchers through Tuesday. The ranchers have been allowed to shoot the animals under relaxed rules of engagement in place since early 2005, said Steve Nadeau, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's wolf specialist. In all of 2005, 27 wolves were killed legally by officers and ranchers. Nadeau expects the number of wolf control actions this year to rise, as wolf numbers in the state have grown to 600 since the reintroduction of 35 animals in 1995 and 1996. Idaho and Montana want the animals cleared from Endangered Species Act protections, but the effort has been stymied because neighboring Wyoming's plan to manage wolves hasn't won federal approval. "We're finding wolves in new areas now, where we haven't had them previously. They're taking sheep or cattle, so we're having to address that," Nadeau said....
Woman escapes after wolf pounces The wolf saw Becky Wanamaker first. She was strolling through a campground just off the Dalton Highway, along the Arctic Circle, waiting for her four traveling companions to wake up. A long day in the car ahead, she decided to stretch her legs. Then she saw the wolf. Its eyes fixed on her. The animal was mostly gray and bigger than a husky, Wanamaker said Wednesday, now safely home in Anchorage after Friday's attack. And it had long, long legs. "And I don't remember if it was moving toward me or if it was stopped when I first saw it," she said. "But I just freaked and I bolted and ran toward the (campground) outhouses. That's what was in my head -- run faster, get inside. I kept running -- just thinking, don't fall. If you fall, you're done." But wolves run faster than schoolteachers....
Pinon Canyon expansion measure pending before Senate Pushing through a list of bills before going on its August recess, the Senate may take up the Pentagon's 2007 budget bill this week - including an amendment to force the Army to give lawmakers extensive information about any future expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., attached the amendment to the Defense Department's 2007 appropriation bill last month and it requires the Army to provide Congress with a list of information about its need to expand the 240,000-acre training site. Whether the Senate will get to the budget bill before recessing until after the Labor Day weekend is uncertain, according to Allard's spokeswoman, Laura Condeluci. The Senate intends to recess on Friday until September. The House has completed its version of the defense budget bill and is already in recess, but that version of the bill does not contain any restrictions on the proposed Pinon Canyon project. When the Senate finishes its version, a final bill will be worked out in a conference between House and Senate members....
Legality of Forest Service road plan questioned A federal judge said Tuesday that the Bush administration had the right to overturn a ban on road construction in untouched parts of the national forests but questioned whether it could do so without weighing the possible environmental effects. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte said the Forest Service appeared to be ''on solid ground'' last year when it reversed a Clinton administration rule banning new roads on nearly a third of federal forests. But she questioned whether the agency violated federal law by skipping environmental studies -- the heart of two lawsuits brought by 20 environmental groups and the states of California, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington. The cases have since been consolidated, and all parties presented arguments Tuesday in Laporte's courtroom. Laporte said she did not know when she would make a final decision in the case. ''The court's role is not to endorse one approach over the other,'' Laporte said, referring to Forest Service management plans. Rather, she said, the question is whether federal procedures were violated when Bush overturned the ban on road building that President Clinton ordered in January 2001, eight days before he left office. If so, that could prompt Laporte to invalidate a new state-by-state management strategy endorsed by the Bush administration and restore the road-building ban....
Logjam blasting prompts debate Last week's dynamiting of a logjam on the Salmon River in central Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness has prompted criticism from groups who say federally protected reserves are no place for high-explosive intrusions on nature. The logjam, the result of a washout from a sudden storm last Sunday, forced 250 whitewater rafters on guided trips to camp upstream for three days until Forest Service officials removed the obstruction. Agency officials analyzed several options, including waiting for spring floods to wash out the logs jammed into the tight Pistol Creek Rapids. They also considered evacuating boaters. While guides and outfitters who earn millions from rafting trips annually say blasting was a "common sense" solution, George Nickas, the Missoula, Mont.-based director of Wilderness Watch, said letting human schedules dictate wilderness management goes against the whole idea of what wilderness is about: protecting an area where man is a visitor, but doesn't remain....
Scientists concerned over forest legislation On the eve of a hearing on a controversial forestry bill, a letter signed by 546 scientists was released Tuesday warning about the negative impacts of logging after wildfires. The Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act is slated for discussion by the Senate Agriculture Committee's forest subcommittee on Wednesday. The legislation's sponsors say it would help the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management fund restoration, reforestation and research. Environmental groups are worried the legislation (HR 4200) would fast-track logging by suspending environmental safeguards and reducing the public's ability to give input on how national forests are managed. “We are concerned that HR 4200 will bind us to land management practices that, perhaps logical in the past, are no longer tenable in the light of recent scientific understanding,” the scientists' letter said. “Neither ecological benefits nor economic efficiency result from post-disturbance logging.”....
Caring for a wounded waterway Every day, saltwater floods the marsh surrounding Highway 101 just south of the popular Cascade Head hiking trail. It is a natural process in a place that looks like it has been a tidal marsh for centuries. The grasses grow higher than humans here, the air is salty and fresh and fish feed and hide from predators. But this area isn't as pristine as it first seems. It used to be a pasture for cows -- cut off with dikes and dams from the flow of ocean water up the Salmon River. Remnants of the past are hidden between the clumps of grasses. A team of graduate students has spent the past several weeks exploring the history of the Salmon River estuary, an area where seawater and freshwater mix....
BLM land-lease sale plan draws protests Environmental groups and outfitters have filed protests involving nearly three dozen parcels that have been proposed by the Bureau of Land Management for its upcoming gas and oil lease sale. The Utah BLM office plans to offer leases on 334,000 acres - the second-largest total in state history - in its regular quarterly sale on Aug. 15. Protests received by Monday's deadline total just over 41,000 acres, including parcels near Arches National Park, along the San Juan River, the Green River in Labyrinth Canyon and around the railroad grade in the Golden Spike National Historic Site. But the focus of the protests this time center on the parcels around Arches. The National Park Service requested a deferment on 20 parcels near the park - including some within sight of the landmark Delicate Arch - because of viewshed, water quality, water quantity and nighttime illumination issues. "Visual analysis of parcels generally closer than 5 miles to the park shows that all or portions of these parcels are visible from multiple vista points in the park," wrote Arches National Park Superintendent Laura Joss in a May 31 letter to the BLM. "Potential impacts include light pollution from flaring and lighting drill rigs or production facilities which dilutes the night skies, an important park value."....
Court in Nevada case rules BLM must widen look at mining effects A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday ordered a lower court to review the environmental effects of operations at two gold mines in northern Nevada in a ruling that advocates said could force closer scrutiny of the use of federal lands in the West. Newmont Mining Corp., which owns the mines, downplayed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which instructed the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management to consider cumulative effects of mining at two sites northwest of Carlin. "Operations continue as normal," said Mary Korpi, a spokeswoman in Reno for Denver-based Newmont. Basically, we're very pleased with the ruling. We're not impacted." Korpi noted that the court upheld most BLM and Interior findings on air quality, public water reserves, bonding to ensure reclamation of mined lands, a requirement for separate environmental studies on the two mines, and cumulative impacts for water. However, the three-judge panel, quoting arguments by the environmental group Great Basin Mine Watch, also said the BLM "'cannot simply offer conclusions.'" "'Rather, it must identify and discuss the impacts that will be caused by each successive (project),'" the court said in San Francisco, "'including how the combination of those various impacts is expected to affect the environment.'"....
Idaho tribe, BPA at odds over new Oregon chinook hatchery The Bonneville Power Administration says it won’t spend $16.4 million to build a fish hatchery in northeast Oregon unless it gets confirmation that, in light of a recent court ruling, the hatchery will help threatened chinook salmon. The Nez Perce Tribe, which wants to start construction on the hatchery this winter, says the BPA is holding the money hostage. “From the tribe’s perspective, it appears BPA is holding Northeast Oregon Hatchery ‘hostage’ in order to meet its own desire to receive some specific ‘ESA credit’ from NOAA Fisheries,’’ wrote tribal Chairwoman Rebecca Miles in a June 13 letter to BPA Administrator Steven Wright. The proposed hatchery was listed in biological opinions covering federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers as one of the measures that would help chinook salmon recover. However, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland recently ruled against management plans for dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, saying they would not prevent chinook salmon from going extinct. A new biological opinion is being written by federal agencies and plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Redden’s decision. The BPA wants to make sure the new hatchery will be considered a help to recovering salmon runs and not be ruled as detrimental after it is built....
How (Not) to Protect the Environment For the FBI, environmental activism — with its arson, vandalism and more — has become synonymous with “domestic terrorism.” But in the forests of southern Oregon, there’s been another way. Check out a photo gallery from Chris LaMarca, a photojournalist who spent four years with a diverse group — from college kids to ranchers — working to stop old-growth logging through civil disobedience and legal action. “We can all learn a lot from these people,” he says. It’s unbelievable how smart they are, how organized they are. They’re not a bunch of homeless kids being idiots running around the forest. They’re a collective of strong-willed people who believe in protecting what’s wild and raw....
Unions Say E.P.A. Bends to Political Pressure Unions representing thousands of staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency say the agency is bending to political pressure and ignoring sound science in allowing a group of toxic chemicals to be used in agricultural pesticides. Leaders of several federal employee unions say the chemicals pose serious risks for fetuses, pregnant women, young children and the elderly through food and exposure and should not be approved by Thursday, the Congressional deadline for completing an agency review of thousands of substances in pesticides. “We are concerned that the agency has not, consistent with its principles of scientific integrity and sound science, adequately summarized or drawn conclusions” about the chemicals, union leaders told the agency administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, in a newly disclosed letter sent May 25. The leaders also wrote that they believed that under priorities of E.P.A. management, “the concerns of agriculture and the pesticide industry come before our responsibility to protect the health of our nation’s citizens.” Nine union leaders representing 9,000 agency scientists and other personnel around the country signed the letter....
Where rural life, city growth clash When horse trainer and rancher Jack Teague ambles into the desert that surrounds his north Scottsdale home, he sees power lines, rooftops and construction trucks dotting the once-barren landscape. It frustrates him because he knows what's coming. Teague's 5-acre ranch is adjacent to nearly 10 square miles of state trust land in northeast Phoenix. In the coming years, the rocks and hiking trails, cactuses and coyotes that surround his property will give way to thousands of houses plus restaurants and shopping centers. And there is nothing he can do to stop the onslaught of growth. More and more Valley residents are finding themselves in Teague's position these days, as the State Land Department continues to sell off parcels of pristine desert to keep up with the state's booming population. Last year, the agency sold a record $515 million in land. Later this year, it will sell its largest parcel to date: a 275-square mile swath of terrain in the East Valley known as Superstition Vistas....
Oklahoma Cattleman Defends Property Rights to Senate Subcommittee The government should not be regulating wetlands or ditches on farmers' and ranchers' private property under the Clean Water Act, according to Keith Kisling, a cattle rancher and wheat farmer from Burlington, Oklahoma. Kisling says recent decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court limit the waters subject to regulation under the Act, and the government needs to act accordingly. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water called the hearing to discuss the impact of the Supreme Court's decisions in the joint cases of Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on "The Waters of the United States." Kisling testified today on behalf of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) and National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG). "The challenge for society in using private lands is to strike a sensible balance between the demands of food production and conservation of natural resources," said Kisling. "Regulation has been allowed to proceed unlawfully and directly at odds with teachings from the leading Supreme Court cases." Cattlemen cite examples of government officials trying to use the Clean Water Act to regulate prairie potholes, ponds, irrigation ditches, and intermittent streams on private lands. "Not only does this create an unstable working environment for farmers and ranchers, but it's legally unfounded," says Jeff Eisenberg, NCBA's director of federal lands....
Western governors push for federal disaster assistance Gov. John Hoeven and his counterparts in Western states are urging Congress to pass drought aid legislation. Hoeven drafted a letter signed by 17 members of the Western Governors' Association, including South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, the chairman. "Current forecasts in some areas are predicting more dry weather, with little promise of relief," the letter said. "These weather conditions in combination with increased production costs, are taking a terrible toll on our farmers and ranchers, and their livestock and crops." The letter was delivered to congressional leaders on Tuesday. In addition to Hoeven and Rounds, the letter was signed by the governors of Wyoming, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Washington....
Grassfed cows may yield healthier meat "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser, in examining how to restore the disconnect between farm and table, wasted no time getting to the point as he spoke to the third annual American Grassfed Association conference held in Colorado Springs late last month. "It should come as no surprise that American beef can't be sold in Japan, Korea and the European Union," he said. "A recent report showed that 75 percent of Japanese consumers didn't want to eat American beef because the USDA has succeeded in giving American meat a bad name. This room is the solution." While praising the assembled ranchers for their commitment to open-pasture grazing, he reiterated the importance of connecting food producers with consumers. In doing so, Schlosser reaffirmed his disdain for factory farms that produce much of the nation's meat. Ranchers from as close by as Utah and Wyoming, and as far away as Texas, Georgia and Missouri gathered in Colorado Springs to explore a range of eco-friendly, sustainable ranching and marketing techniques at the conference, "Grazing America." Schlosser's book has been hailed by environmentalists and dietitians as a well-researched critique of so-called "factory farms." Written in 2001, it also raised hackles among large-scale cattle growers and the lobbyists who represent them. A film based on the book is due to be released in October, and his most recent book, "Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food," is directed toward a younger audience....
It’s The Pitts: All Hat/No Cattle Like everyone in the auction business I often get asked to volunteer my time to serve as auctioneer at charity auctions for groups like private schools, the local Chamber of Commerce and even the occasional garden club. I got roped into this year’s charity auction at the local Garden Club by an ex-friend of mine. He’s a pig farmer who did the auction last year and afterwards came down with a ghastly allergic reaction to flowers. The idea of a pig farmer who can't stand the sweet smell of flowers should have tipped me off right there. Anyway, he volunteered my services as auctioneer for the Garden Club's Annual Charity Auction and Potted Plant Sale. I must say that the buying crowd was different than those at cattle sales....
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Senate Approves More Offshore Drilling The Senate wants to expand oil and gas drilling to a large chunk of the Gulf of Mexico that has been off limits to energy companies. But the House has a more ambitious plan: Open coastal waters to drilling everywhere unless a state objects. Opening the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and gas rigs has moved to the center of the energy debate in Congress where lawmakers for months have struggled to respond to growing anger among voters over high energy prices — a particular problem in an election year. By a vote of 71-25 Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill directing the Interior Department to begin selling leases for oil and gas development in 8.3 million acres of the east-central Gulf of Mexico — about 100 miles from the nearest land and 125 to 310 miles from Florida beaches....
Tragedy looms over wildland debate Nearly 15 months after the manager of the Carrizo Plain National Monument killed herself after months of frustration on the job, the federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving the process of creating a management plan for the 250,000-acre grasslands preserve that will be forever associated with Marlene Braun's tragic death. Braun committed suicide on May 2, 2005, capping a months-long dispute with her BLM bosses over how the preserve should be managed, and in the process earning reprimands and suspensions for what her superiors concluded were intemperate acts of insubordination. The backdrop for the battles was more political than personal. Created by presidential proclamation just hours before President Clinton left office in 2001, the Carrizo Plain had become a battleground over cattle grazing on public lands -- an issue on which the BLM typically found itself siding with cattlemen. It just so happened that these public lands, on the border between Kern and San Luis Obispo counties, are the last big patch of wild grasslands left in California and the home of the largest concentration of endangered species in the state. Some, like the giant kangaroo rat, are in direct competition with cattle. Braun had openly complained that she felt efforts to curtail grazing were being resisted at higher pay grades in the agency, and that she was suffering the fallout....
Editorial: Verbal attack on fire crew scorches Burns Exactly what did the junior senator from Montana say to a group of 20 highly trained front-line Virginia firefighters as they waited for a plane at Billings Logan Airport on July 23? The public may never know the whole conversation. The Augusta Hot Shots from the U.S. Forest Service had been fighting a 92,000-acre wildfire in Yellowstone County and were awaiting transportation to their next assignment when they were accosted by Sen. Conrad Burns. From reporting by The Gazette State Bureau and Associated Press, it is known that Burns said enough to cause these professional firefighters to call for help. A Montana Department of Natural Resources employee who had been serving as information officer on the fire was dispatched to the airport to hear what Burns had to say. He had plenty to say, none of it constructive, none of it recognizing the heroic efforts of firefighters in this fiery summer. Burns pointed to a firefighter and told the DNRC employee: "See that guy over there? He hasn't done a goddamned thing. They sit around. I saw it up on the Wedge fire and in northwestern Montana some years ago. It's wasteful. You probably paid that guy $10,000 to sit around. It's gotta change." The quote reveals the senator's approach to dealing with what his apology described as "frustration" after talking to landowners "critical of the way the fire was handled."....
Sen. Burns' comments detailed in reports The Forest Service report included criticisms that Burns made to Paula Rosenthal, a public information officer from the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, about how the Bundy Railroad fire was fought. Rosenthal was called to the airport by Forest Service officials to talk to Burns after he criticized some members of the Augusta, Va., Hotshots. Her separate state report was made public last Thursday. Burns, she wrote, had these comments: “This command/control doesn't work.” “Managing these fires from Boise does not work.” “Ranchers complaining firefighters/engines driving right by while their land is burning.” The Forest Service documents also included a firsthand account of the airport incident by Gabe Templeton, one of the Augusta Hotshots, describing what happened to him and fellow team members Jeff Cleek and Jude Waerig. It said the three men were sitting in the Billings airport waiting for their flight when Burns approached them with an outstretched hand and asked if they were firefighters. “I shook his hand and replied yes,” Templeton wrote. “He shook my hand, introduced himself and then replied, ‘What a piss poor job' we were doing. I replied, ‘Have a nice day.' The senator mentioned that we were ‘wasting a lot of money and creating a cottage industry.' He also told us that we needed to listen more to the ranchers. I replied that ‘we are pretty low on the totem pole.' Then he walked off.”....
Wolves eating more livestock Early planners also thought that wolves wouldn’t eat livestock as long as they lived near an abundance of natural prey. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Kaminski said. Wolf predations on livestock have increased dramatically since 2003 despite early predictions and control efforts. In the Greater Yellowstone Area, 20 of 27 packs that overlapped grazing lands killed livestock in 2004. Wolf control officials killed seven packs that year. By 2005, 32 packs killed livestock and officials had to kill 10 packs. But even removing the wolves, either by killing the animals or relocating them, rarely solves the problem. Relocated packs will most likely return to the site or find new livestock to depredate. On the other hand, killing a pack often leaves survivors that infiltrate or start other packs. Eventually, the packs that absorb these survivors usually start to kill livestock as well. Biologists have learned that a wolf that develops a taste for beef or lamb keeps coming back. “Once they start, it’s difficult to stop them,” he said. “Many of these packs depredate consistently.”....
4 wolves killed after livestock deaths; more killings authorized Federal Wildlife Services agents have shoot-to-kill orders for as many as six more wolves in central Idaho, after killing four wolves in the last two weeks. The targeted wolves were suspected of killing or harassing cattle and sheep in the mountainous region. The latest killings bring the number of federally protected wolves shot by Wildlife Services officers in 2006 to 14, with another nine killed by ranchers through Tuesday. The ranchers have been allowed to shoot the animals under relaxed rules of engagement in place since early 2005, said Steve Nadeau, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's wolf specialist. In all of 2005, 27 wolves were killed legally by officers and ranchers. Nadeau expects the number of wolf control actions this year to rise, as wolf numbers in the state have grown to 600 since the reintroduction of 35 animals in 1995 and 1996. Idaho and Montana want the animals cleared from Endangered Species Act protections, but the effort has been stymied because neighboring Wyoming's plan to manage wolves hasn't won federal approval. "We're finding wolves in new areas now, where we haven't had them previously. They're taking sheep or cattle, so we're having to address that," Nadeau said....
Woman escapes after wolf pounces The wolf saw Becky Wanamaker first. She was strolling through a campground just off the Dalton Highway, along the Arctic Circle, waiting for her four traveling companions to wake up. A long day in the car ahead, she decided to stretch her legs. Then she saw the wolf. Its eyes fixed on her. The animal was mostly gray and bigger than a husky, Wanamaker said Wednesday, now safely home in Anchorage after Friday's attack. And it had long, long legs. "And I don't remember if it was moving toward me or if it was stopped when I first saw it," she said. "But I just freaked and I bolted and ran toward the (campground) outhouses. That's what was in my head -- run faster, get inside. I kept running -- just thinking, don't fall. If you fall, you're done." But wolves run faster than schoolteachers....
Pinon Canyon expansion measure pending before Senate Pushing through a list of bills before going on its August recess, the Senate may take up the Pentagon's 2007 budget bill this week - including an amendment to force the Army to give lawmakers extensive information about any future expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., attached the amendment to the Defense Department's 2007 appropriation bill last month and it requires the Army to provide Congress with a list of information about its need to expand the 240,000-acre training site. Whether the Senate will get to the budget bill before recessing until after the Labor Day weekend is uncertain, according to Allard's spokeswoman, Laura Condeluci. The Senate intends to recess on Friday until September. The House has completed its version of the defense budget bill and is already in recess, but that version of the bill does not contain any restrictions on the proposed Pinon Canyon project. When the Senate finishes its version, a final bill will be worked out in a conference between House and Senate members....
Legality of Forest Service road plan questioned A federal judge said Tuesday that the Bush administration had the right to overturn a ban on road construction in untouched parts of the national forests but questioned whether it could do so without weighing the possible environmental effects. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte said the Forest Service appeared to be ''on solid ground'' last year when it reversed a Clinton administration rule banning new roads on nearly a third of federal forests. But she questioned whether the agency violated federal law by skipping environmental studies -- the heart of two lawsuits brought by 20 environmental groups and the states of California, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington. The cases have since been consolidated, and all parties presented arguments Tuesday in Laporte's courtroom. Laporte said she did not know when she would make a final decision in the case. ''The court's role is not to endorse one approach over the other,'' Laporte said, referring to Forest Service management plans. Rather, she said, the question is whether federal procedures were violated when Bush overturned the ban on road building that President Clinton ordered in January 2001, eight days before he left office. If so, that could prompt Laporte to invalidate a new state-by-state management strategy endorsed by the Bush administration and restore the road-building ban....
Logjam blasting prompts debate Last week's dynamiting of a logjam on the Salmon River in central Idaho's Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness has prompted criticism from groups who say federally protected reserves are no place for high-explosive intrusions on nature. The logjam, the result of a washout from a sudden storm last Sunday, forced 250 whitewater rafters on guided trips to camp upstream for three days until Forest Service officials removed the obstruction. Agency officials analyzed several options, including waiting for spring floods to wash out the logs jammed into the tight Pistol Creek Rapids. They also considered evacuating boaters. While guides and outfitters who earn millions from rafting trips annually say blasting was a "common sense" solution, George Nickas, the Missoula, Mont.-based director of Wilderness Watch, said letting human schedules dictate wilderness management goes against the whole idea of what wilderness is about: protecting an area where man is a visitor, but doesn't remain....
Scientists concerned over forest legislation On the eve of a hearing on a controversial forestry bill, a letter signed by 546 scientists was released Tuesday warning about the negative impacts of logging after wildfires. The Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act is slated for discussion by the Senate Agriculture Committee's forest subcommittee on Wednesday. The legislation's sponsors say it would help the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management fund restoration, reforestation and research. Environmental groups are worried the legislation (HR 4200) would fast-track logging by suspending environmental safeguards and reducing the public's ability to give input on how national forests are managed. “We are concerned that HR 4200 will bind us to land management practices that, perhaps logical in the past, are no longer tenable in the light of recent scientific understanding,” the scientists' letter said. “Neither ecological benefits nor economic efficiency result from post-disturbance logging.”....
Caring for a wounded waterway Every day, saltwater floods the marsh surrounding Highway 101 just south of the popular Cascade Head hiking trail. It is a natural process in a place that looks like it has been a tidal marsh for centuries. The grasses grow higher than humans here, the air is salty and fresh and fish feed and hide from predators. But this area isn't as pristine as it first seems. It used to be a pasture for cows -- cut off with dikes and dams from the flow of ocean water up the Salmon River. Remnants of the past are hidden between the clumps of grasses. A team of graduate students has spent the past several weeks exploring the history of the Salmon River estuary, an area where seawater and freshwater mix....
BLM land-lease sale plan draws protests Environmental groups and outfitters have filed protests involving nearly three dozen parcels that have been proposed by the Bureau of Land Management for its upcoming gas and oil lease sale. The Utah BLM office plans to offer leases on 334,000 acres - the second-largest total in state history - in its regular quarterly sale on Aug. 15. Protests received by Monday's deadline total just over 41,000 acres, including parcels near Arches National Park, along the San Juan River, the Green River in Labyrinth Canyon and around the railroad grade in the Golden Spike National Historic Site. But the focus of the protests this time center on the parcels around Arches. The National Park Service requested a deferment on 20 parcels near the park - including some within sight of the landmark Delicate Arch - because of viewshed, water quality, water quantity and nighttime illumination issues. "Visual analysis of parcels generally closer than 5 miles to the park shows that all or portions of these parcels are visible from multiple vista points in the park," wrote Arches National Park Superintendent Laura Joss in a May 31 letter to the BLM. "Potential impacts include light pollution from flaring and lighting drill rigs or production facilities which dilutes the night skies, an important park value."....
Court in Nevada case rules BLM must widen look at mining effects A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday ordered a lower court to review the environmental effects of operations at two gold mines in northern Nevada in a ruling that advocates said could force closer scrutiny of the use of federal lands in the West. Newmont Mining Corp., which owns the mines, downplayed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which instructed the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management to consider cumulative effects of mining at two sites northwest of Carlin. "Operations continue as normal," said Mary Korpi, a spokeswoman in Reno for Denver-based Newmont. Basically, we're very pleased with the ruling. We're not impacted." Korpi noted that the court upheld most BLM and Interior findings on air quality, public water reserves, bonding to ensure reclamation of mined lands, a requirement for separate environmental studies on the two mines, and cumulative impacts for water. However, the three-judge panel, quoting arguments by the environmental group Great Basin Mine Watch, also said the BLM "'cannot simply offer conclusions.'" "'Rather, it must identify and discuss the impacts that will be caused by each successive (project),'" the court said in San Francisco, "'including how the combination of those various impacts is expected to affect the environment.'"....
Idaho tribe, BPA at odds over new Oregon chinook hatchery The Bonneville Power Administration says it won’t spend $16.4 million to build a fish hatchery in northeast Oregon unless it gets confirmation that, in light of a recent court ruling, the hatchery will help threatened chinook salmon. The Nez Perce Tribe, which wants to start construction on the hatchery this winter, says the BPA is holding the money hostage. “From the tribe’s perspective, it appears BPA is holding Northeast Oregon Hatchery ‘hostage’ in order to meet its own desire to receive some specific ‘ESA credit’ from NOAA Fisheries,’’ wrote tribal Chairwoman Rebecca Miles in a June 13 letter to BPA Administrator Steven Wright. The proposed hatchery was listed in biological opinions covering federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers as one of the measures that would help chinook salmon recover. However, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland recently ruled against management plans for dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers, saying they would not prevent chinook salmon from going extinct. A new biological opinion is being written by federal agencies and plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Redden’s decision. The BPA wants to make sure the new hatchery will be considered a help to recovering salmon runs and not be ruled as detrimental after it is built....
How (Not) to Protect the Environment For the FBI, environmental activism — with its arson, vandalism and more — has become synonymous with “domestic terrorism.” But in the forests of southern Oregon, there’s been another way. Check out a photo gallery from Chris LaMarca, a photojournalist who spent four years with a diverse group — from college kids to ranchers — working to stop old-growth logging through civil disobedience and legal action. “We can all learn a lot from these people,” he says. It’s unbelievable how smart they are, how organized they are. They’re not a bunch of homeless kids being idiots running around the forest. They’re a collective of strong-willed people who believe in protecting what’s wild and raw....
Unions Say E.P.A. Bends to Political Pressure Unions representing thousands of staff scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency say the agency is bending to political pressure and ignoring sound science in allowing a group of toxic chemicals to be used in agricultural pesticides. Leaders of several federal employee unions say the chemicals pose serious risks for fetuses, pregnant women, young children and the elderly through food and exposure and should not be approved by Thursday, the Congressional deadline for completing an agency review of thousands of substances in pesticides. “We are concerned that the agency has not, consistent with its principles of scientific integrity and sound science, adequately summarized or drawn conclusions” about the chemicals, union leaders told the agency administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, in a newly disclosed letter sent May 25. The leaders also wrote that they believed that under priorities of E.P.A. management, “the concerns of agriculture and the pesticide industry come before our responsibility to protect the health of our nation’s citizens.” Nine union leaders representing 9,000 agency scientists and other personnel around the country signed the letter....
Where rural life, city growth clash When horse trainer and rancher Jack Teague ambles into the desert that surrounds his north Scottsdale home, he sees power lines, rooftops and construction trucks dotting the once-barren landscape. It frustrates him because he knows what's coming. Teague's 5-acre ranch is adjacent to nearly 10 square miles of state trust land in northeast Phoenix. In the coming years, the rocks and hiking trails, cactuses and coyotes that surround his property will give way to thousands of houses plus restaurants and shopping centers. And there is nothing he can do to stop the onslaught of growth. More and more Valley residents are finding themselves in Teague's position these days, as the State Land Department continues to sell off parcels of pristine desert to keep up with the state's booming population. Last year, the agency sold a record $515 million in land. Later this year, it will sell its largest parcel to date: a 275-square mile swath of terrain in the East Valley known as Superstition Vistas....
Oklahoma Cattleman Defends Property Rights to Senate Subcommittee The government should not be regulating wetlands or ditches on farmers' and ranchers' private property under the Clean Water Act, according to Keith Kisling, a cattle rancher and wheat farmer from Burlington, Oklahoma. Kisling says recent decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court limit the waters subject to regulation under the Act, and the government needs to act accordingly. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water called the hearing to discuss the impact of the Supreme Court's decisions in the joint cases of Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on "The Waters of the United States." Kisling testified today on behalf of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) and National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG). "The challenge for society in using private lands is to strike a sensible balance between the demands of food production and conservation of natural resources," said Kisling. "Regulation has been allowed to proceed unlawfully and directly at odds with teachings from the leading Supreme Court cases." Cattlemen cite examples of government officials trying to use the Clean Water Act to regulate prairie potholes, ponds, irrigation ditches, and intermittent streams on private lands. "Not only does this create an unstable working environment for farmers and ranchers, but it's legally unfounded," says Jeff Eisenberg, NCBA's director of federal lands....
Western governors push for federal disaster assistance Gov. John Hoeven and his counterparts in Western states are urging Congress to pass drought aid legislation. Hoeven drafted a letter signed by 17 members of the Western Governors' Association, including South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, the chairman. "Current forecasts in some areas are predicting more dry weather, with little promise of relief," the letter said. "These weather conditions in combination with increased production costs, are taking a terrible toll on our farmers and ranchers, and their livestock and crops." The letter was delivered to congressional leaders on Tuesday. In addition to Hoeven and Rounds, the letter was signed by the governors of Wyoming, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Washington....
Grassfed cows may yield healthier meat "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser, in examining how to restore the disconnect between farm and table, wasted no time getting to the point as he spoke to the third annual American Grassfed Association conference held in Colorado Springs late last month. "It should come as no surprise that American beef can't be sold in Japan, Korea and the European Union," he said. "A recent report showed that 75 percent of Japanese consumers didn't want to eat American beef because the USDA has succeeded in giving American meat a bad name. This room is the solution." While praising the assembled ranchers for their commitment to open-pasture grazing, he reiterated the importance of connecting food producers with consumers. In doing so, Schlosser reaffirmed his disdain for factory farms that produce much of the nation's meat. Ranchers from as close by as Utah and Wyoming, and as far away as Texas, Georgia and Missouri gathered in Colorado Springs to explore a range of eco-friendly, sustainable ranching and marketing techniques at the conference, "Grazing America." Schlosser's book has been hailed by environmentalists and dietitians as a well-researched critique of so-called "factory farms." Written in 2001, it also raised hackles among large-scale cattle growers and the lobbyists who represent them. A film based on the book is due to be released in October, and his most recent book, "Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food," is directed toward a younger audience....
It’s The Pitts: All Hat/No Cattle Like everyone in the auction business I often get asked to volunteer my time to serve as auctioneer at charity auctions for groups like private schools, the local Chamber of Commerce and even the occasional garden club. I got roped into this year’s charity auction at the local Garden Club by an ex-friend of mine. He’s a pig farmer who did the auction last year and afterwards came down with a ghastly allergic reaction to flowers. The idea of a pig farmer who can't stand the sweet smell of flowers should have tipped me off right there. Anyway, he volunteered my services as auctioneer for the Garden Club's Annual Charity Auction and Potted Plant Sale. I must say that the buying crowd was different than those at cattle sales....
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
GAO
Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: Forest Service and BLM Could Benefit from Improved Information on Status of Needed Work. GAO-06-670, June 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-670
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06670high.pdf
Clean Air Act: EPA Should Improve the Management of Its Air Toxics Program. GAO-06-669, June 23.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-669
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06669high.pdf
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Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: Forest Service and BLM Could Benefit from Improved Information on Status of Needed Work. GAO-06-670, June 30.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-670
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06670high.pdf
Clean Air Act: EPA Should Improve the Management of Its Air Toxics Program. GAO-06-669, June 23.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-669
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06669high.pdf
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COURT CASE
Great Basin Mine Watch v. Hankins, No. 04-16125 (9th Cir. August 01, 2006)
Summary judgment on claims under federal statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), brought against federal agencies involving the approval of two gold mining permits for a company is reversed in part where vague and conclusory statements in final environmental impact statements (EIS), without any supporting data, did not constitute a "hard look" at the environmental consequences of the action as required by NEPA, and thus, the cumulative impacts analysis was insufficient.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0416125p.pdf
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Great Basin Mine Watch v. Hankins, No. 04-16125 (9th Cir. August 01, 2006)
Summary judgment on claims under federal statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), brought against federal agencies involving the approval of two gold mining permits for a company is reversed in part where vague and conclusory statements in final environmental impact statements (EIS), without any supporting data, did not constitute a "hard look" at the environmental consequences of the action as required by NEPA, and thus, the cumulative impacts analysis was insufficient.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0416125p.pdf
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Secretary Kempthorne, Sen. Domenici Highlight Reintroduction of Northern Aplomado Falcons to New Mexico
WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Sen. Pete Domenici today highlighted the latest step in one of the country’s most successful endangered species recovery programs – the reintroduction of the aplomado falcon to New Mexico on Thursday. The release of the birds, the only domestic falcons still listed as endangered, builds upon a highly successful reintroduction effort in Texas during the past decade and will move the species closer to restoration throughout its historic range in the southwestern United States. “With this reintroduction, aplomado falcons will once again soar in the skies over New Mexico,” Kempthorne said. “The reintroduction of the falcon to Texas in the mid-1990s demonstrated the power of cooperative conservation to recover threatened and endangered species. We fully expect the same spirit of partnership to bring this graceful raptor back to New Mexico.” “I appreciate Secretary Kempthorne’s involvement in this matter,” said Domenici, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I have worked hard for many years to obtain federal funds to support efforts to reintroduce the aplomado falcon to New Mexico, and I’m very pleased that we’ve reached a point where it is happening. The Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with the Peregrine Fund to set up a sensible plan for reintroduction based on cooperation, and I look forward to the day where a self-sustaining falcon population will once again roam our skies.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Peregrine Fund, an Idaho-based nonprofit organization, will reintroduce 11 northern aplomado falcons in south-central New Mexico on Thursday. In the mid-1990s, no one had seen an aplomado falcon in the United States for decades. A small remaining population existed in Mexico. Working in cooperation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, The Peregrine Fund, the state of Texas and many other partners, including private landowners who agreed to have birds released on their property, reintroduced the species to Texas in 1995. The state now has a fast-growing population. The Service and The Peregrine Fund will release the 11 falcons on the Armenderis Ranch east of Truth or Consequences. The 300,000 acre ranch, owned by Ted Turner, is managed by Turner Enterprises in an economically sustainable and ecologically sensitive manner while conserving native species. The falcons will come from The Peregrine Fund’s captive propagation facility in Idaho. The same facility also supplies birds for the Service’s ongoing recovery efforts in Texas. The Service anticipates releasing falcons at the site for at least the next 10 years and will evaluate the program every five years. The Service has provided funds to The Peregrine Fund under the Private Stewardship Grant program, which was established under the Bush Administration. More than $530,000 in grants has been awarded since 2003. In addition, Sen. Domenici sponsored $150,000 in additional appropriations this year, which boosts federal financial support for northern aplomado falcon reintroduction and recovery to $682,064. Since so much of the land in Texas is privately owned, the Service works with private landowners to reintroduce falcons using Safe Harbor agreements. These agreements allow individuals to participate in endangered species recovery. New Mexico’s equal mix of private and federal lands called for a different approach to encourage falcon recovery. The northern aplomado falcons in New Mexico will be considered an experimental, non-essential population. This method allows the Service to introduce falcons into their historical range under more flexible regulations. In both states, the falcon will be protected from intentional take or harm; however, in New Mexico, there are no land use restrictions. The northern aplomado falcon (Falco femoralis septentrionalis) once occupied a significant portion of the American Southwest. Often hunting cooperatively in pairs, this strikingly beautiful falcon feeds on medium-sized birds, insects, and bats. Prior to the 1930s, this species was regarded as fairly common throughout the humid coastal savannas and interior grasslands of northern Mexico, southern Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The bird disappeared beginning in the 1930s for undetermined reasons, possibly due to changes in its habitat. The 11 falcons slated for reintroduction in New Mexico will be split between two hack towers on the Armendaris Ranch. On August 3, the hack tower boxes will be opened. The young falcons will be allowed to come and go freely. Biologists will provide food on the tower, and initially, the falcons will return each day to feed. Eventually, the falcons will begin chasing prey, making their own kills, and spending more and more time away from the hack site. A falcon is considered to be “successfully released” when it is no longer dependent on food provided at the hack site. The process generally takes from three to six weeks but can be extended to ensure a successful reintroduction. If a bird does not attain independence, it may be returned to The Peregrine Fund propagation facility in Boise.
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WASHINGTON – Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Sen. Pete Domenici today highlighted the latest step in one of the country’s most successful endangered species recovery programs – the reintroduction of the aplomado falcon to New Mexico on Thursday. The release of the birds, the only domestic falcons still listed as endangered, builds upon a highly successful reintroduction effort in Texas during the past decade and will move the species closer to restoration throughout its historic range in the southwestern United States. “With this reintroduction, aplomado falcons will once again soar in the skies over New Mexico,” Kempthorne said. “The reintroduction of the falcon to Texas in the mid-1990s demonstrated the power of cooperative conservation to recover threatened and endangered species. We fully expect the same spirit of partnership to bring this graceful raptor back to New Mexico.” “I appreciate Secretary Kempthorne’s involvement in this matter,” said Domenici, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I have worked hard for many years to obtain federal funds to support efforts to reintroduce the aplomado falcon to New Mexico, and I’m very pleased that we’ve reached a point where it is happening. The Fish and Wildlife Service has worked with the Peregrine Fund to set up a sensible plan for reintroduction based on cooperation, and I look forward to the day where a self-sustaining falcon population will once again roam our skies.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Peregrine Fund, an Idaho-based nonprofit organization, will reintroduce 11 northern aplomado falcons in south-central New Mexico on Thursday. In the mid-1990s, no one had seen an aplomado falcon in the United States for decades. A small remaining population existed in Mexico. Working in cooperation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, The Peregrine Fund, the state of Texas and many other partners, including private landowners who agreed to have birds released on their property, reintroduced the species to Texas in 1995. The state now has a fast-growing population. The Service and The Peregrine Fund will release the 11 falcons on the Armenderis Ranch east of Truth or Consequences. The 300,000 acre ranch, owned by Ted Turner, is managed by Turner Enterprises in an economically sustainable and ecologically sensitive manner while conserving native species. The falcons will come from The Peregrine Fund’s captive propagation facility in Idaho. The same facility also supplies birds for the Service’s ongoing recovery efforts in Texas. The Service anticipates releasing falcons at the site for at least the next 10 years and will evaluate the program every five years. The Service has provided funds to The Peregrine Fund under the Private Stewardship Grant program, which was established under the Bush Administration. More than $530,000 in grants has been awarded since 2003. In addition, Sen. Domenici sponsored $150,000 in additional appropriations this year, which boosts federal financial support for northern aplomado falcon reintroduction and recovery to $682,064. Since so much of the land in Texas is privately owned, the Service works with private landowners to reintroduce falcons using Safe Harbor agreements. These agreements allow individuals to participate in endangered species recovery. New Mexico’s equal mix of private and federal lands called for a different approach to encourage falcon recovery. The northern aplomado falcons in New Mexico will be considered an experimental, non-essential population. This method allows the Service to introduce falcons into their historical range under more flexible regulations. In both states, the falcon will be protected from intentional take or harm; however, in New Mexico, there are no land use restrictions. The northern aplomado falcon (Falco femoralis septentrionalis) once occupied a significant portion of the American Southwest. Often hunting cooperatively in pairs, this strikingly beautiful falcon feeds on medium-sized birds, insects, and bats. Prior to the 1930s, this species was regarded as fairly common throughout the humid coastal savannas and interior grasslands of northern Mexico, southern Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The bird disappeared beginning in the 1930s for undetermined reasons, possibly due to changes in its habitat. The 11 falcons slated for reintroduction in New Mexico will be split between two hack towers on the Armendaris Ranch. On August 3, the hack tower boxes will be opened. The young falcons will be allowed to come and go freely. Biologists will provide food on the tower, and initially, the falcons will return each day to feed. Eventually, the falcons will begin chasing prey, making their own kills, and spending more and more time away from the hack site. A falcon is considered to be “successfully released” when it is no longer dependent on food provided at the hack site. The process generally takes from three to six weeks but can be extended to ensure a successful reintroduction. If a bird does not attain independence, it may be returned to The Peregrine Fund propagation facility in Boise.
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Senate Is Close to Passing Bill for Gulf Drilling The Senate moved closer Monday to passing a bill that would open vast new areas of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, voting to cut off debate before a final vote, expected no later than Wednesday. The vote was 72 to 23, well over the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and a clear sign that the bipartisan bill had enough support to move it into negotiations with the House. But that may be the only thing that is clear about the measure’s future. The House has passed a drilling bill that would open the nation’s entire coastline to drilling, a prospect that sponsors of the Senate bill regard as too ambitious. President Bush has expressed eagerness to sign a new drilling bill into law, and a failure by the House and the Senate to agree on a compromise would probably doom all prospects for major energy legislation this year. Yet for now, the chief sponsors of the bills do not sound as if a compromise is imminent. Senator Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the energy committee and the Senate bill’s lead sponsor, told reporters before Monday’s vote that he was confident that negotiations would produce a final bill that more closely resembled the Senate’s version than the House’s....
Talk of eminent domain stirs fears in Ogden This pocket of Ogden probably isn't the vision of the American dream. It's old. Two sets of bone-rattling railroad tracks cross the street. Some yards are unkempt, and several homes are deteriorating. For Christina Rodriguez, this is home. She has no plans to leave. But Rodriguez could be vetoed in months to come. The Utah League of Cities and Towns, along with a handful of the state's most influential communities, is studying a way to bring back the power of eminent domain - the tool that allows government to force sales of land - to spur private development. "It makes me sad to even hear that," Rodriguez said. "If we had wanted to be rich, we'd be up there negotiating, negotiating and renegotiating." League officials argue they don't plan to try to bring eminent domain back as it was. They suggest language that would add more protection for property owners. For instance: Two-thirds of the property owners within a project area would have to be willing sellers, cities would have to comply with a "necessity test" to ensure a project's need, and a supermajority of a city council must endorse the use of eminent domain....
DNRC working on post-fire range rehabilitation On Wednesday afternoon, Conrad Yerger thought the Pine Ridge fire of two weeks ago had flared again as black smoke issued from his timberland northwest of Hardin. Instead, the wind was blowing soot clouds from the charred remains of the 122,000-acre fire that straddled the Yellowstone County-Big Horn County line. The fire began July 11. Where the fire had swept through the timber, there was nothing to hold the ground down. In an adjacent wheat field, where the fire had singed the stubble down to the dirt, clouds of dust, several hundred yards in length, pushed across the landscape. Yerger's land needs rain and rehabilitation now....
Builders behind habitat proposal The bugs, frogs and oaks in the hills surrounding this residential boom town have some new friends: The builders behind the boom. Ryan Voorhees, the builder of the Gold Creek Estates subdivision, and golf course designer Dave Tanner are leading a loose coalition of developers and landowners in an effort to help Calaveras County set up what is known as a habitat conservation plan, or HCP. They are putting up money toward the estimated $500,000 cost of crafting such a plan and have hired a former legislative advocate for the Audubon Society to facilitate the work of creating the plan. Such a plan takes fees from developers for every acre covered with houses and uses that money to set up wildlife preserves somewhere else. State and federal wildlife officials and environmentalists praise HCPs already operating in Southern California, Sacramento County and San Joaquin County for ensuring that development will not entirely eliminate the places where birds and animals can live. Developers like HCPs because the plans allow them to know how much it will cost to make up for habitat loss. Also, an HCP means developers do not have to do detailed habitat plans for every separate project....
American Indians protest biker rally nearing sacred site Once a year, amid the hammering August heat, this Black Hills hamlet becomes a bikers' paradise by hosting the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally — a weeklong celebration of leather, bikes and beer that draws as many as 500,000 riders. That's in a town of 6,400 in a state of only 776,000 people. It's also a tradition for local critics to decry the increasing size and commercialism of the 66-year-old event, which once again will congest highways and hotels (and jails) when rally week starts Monday. This summer's clamor is louder and more emotional, however, mainly because of a clash that pits Native American heritage against chrome-and-steel capitalism. The battle is being waged over Bear Butte, a mountain 6 miles outside Sturgis that the Plains Indians have long considered sacred. Indians from across the USA are gathering today for a four-day summit, and protests — including efforts to deflect biker traffic from the site — are planned....
Powerful water interests sure to focus on Yampa River Standing in a high-mountain meadow on a June morning in the summer of his 94th year, John Fetcher likes what he sees. Sand Mountain — and its lingering snowfields — dominates the view from the upper Fetcher Ranch. Fetcher is irrigating his cattle pasture, and the world seems right. But the early summer breeze that rustles the willows along the creek whispers of changes to come. “Isn’t that beautiful?” Fetcher says with a note of boyish enthusiasm. “I get water up here to the pasture from the creek by gravity. In three weeks, or two weeks, this creek will be way down. We usually run out of water on July 4. Pretty soon, we’ll start haying.” Never one to not work, Fetcher still goes to his office at the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District several days a week — when he isn’t working on the ranch. Lanky and with powerful hands, he expresses dismay at the dead timber he encounters near one of his irrigation ditches. He threatens to return the next day and clean it up with a chain saw. Fetcher’s adult life has been devoted to ensuring and enhancing the water supply for the people of the Yampa Valley. His work has done more to shape the future of the Yampa River Basin than that of any other person. He’s had a hand in damming rivers and building reservoirs for agriculture, municipal consumption and power generation....
Talks cool ballot hopes Backers of a ballot initiative on oil and gas surface rights are scrambling to get petition signatures after homebuilders abandoned their cause in favor of joining Gov. Bill Owens in talks with the gas industry. The lead proponent of the initiative, John Gorman, said there is a "low probability" that his volunteers will be able to get the required 68,000 signatures by Aug. 7, the deadline to get the measure on November's ballot. "I have to give credit where credit's due. The oil and gas industry did a superb job of maneuvering," Gorman said. The talks convened by Owens effectively splintered an unusual coalition of Realtors, developers and environmentalists, who joined last year to support state legislation to give landowners more power when gas companies want to drill wells on their property. The bill - by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, and Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus - set off one of the biggest fights of the 2006 Legislative session. Isgar ultimately killed the bill when environmentalists and the real-estate industry pulled their support. That shifted the action to the ballot initiative sponsored by Gorman's group, Colorado Land Owners for Fairness. After Isgar's bill died, Owens summoned developers and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and urged them to work out their differences, said Dan Hopkins, Owens' spokesman....
In Fort Worth Neighborhoods, Residents Know the Drill Gary Hogan bought his Spanish-tile-roofed stucco house on the western edge of the city in 1992 because it offered the perfect combination of city and country living -- only 10 miles from downtown, yet surrounded by pasture land roamed by gentle cows. But now the pasture is gone. So are the cows. Today Hogan's backyard gate opens onto a huge natural gas well site that, not long ago, kept him up nights as roughnecks drilled 50-foot-long pipes more than a mile underground, aided by industrial spotlights that lighted up the neighborhood. A second well is being drilled 1,500 feet away; 10 more wells are planned in and around his neighborhood. "I used to open this gate and sit on my patio and look out, and I felt like J.R. Ewing. I had cattle out there and I didn't even have to take care of the critters," Hogan said. "I was used to very quiet countryside. Then it was bing! Bam! Boom!" Welcome to the newest, largest, most productive and most urban natural gas drilling site in the nation. As a huge billboard ad for drilling services just south of downtown Fort Worth says: "If you want a gas well . . . get one!"....
Resources stretched, feds call up reinforcements Federal land management agencies are being asked to make more employees available to fight wildfires because existing crews and equipment have been stretched to the limit by nearly 60 major blazes burning around the West. For the first time since 2003, the National Interagency Fire Center raised its response status to the highest threat level over the weekend, a move triggered when nearly all available crews and firefighting resources were committed. ''Preparedness Level 5'' allows federal firefighting coordinators to summon additional federal employees, military reinforcements and foreign fire crews if necessary. ''It's a proactive move that kicks in the thinking about where the next round of resources is going to come from,'' said Randy Eardley, U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman at the federal firefighting center headquartered here. ''It frees up what we call the militia, agency employees whose regular job may be as a biologist or realty specialist but who are trained in fire duty and can now be called up to help.'' While military firefighting mobilization coordinators and a liaison for the Canadian government's firefighters can now participate in national fire response planning, Eardley said there are no current plans to summon those reinforcements. More than 24,000 firefighters were working on fires across the West on Monday, including 58 large fires of 500 acres or more. The biggest active fire in the country was the Winters fire in northern Nevada, which had burned nearly 300 square miles of grass and sagebrush....
New rumbling over salvage logging Oregon State University scientists who tried to delay publication of a study that found logging after wildfires both delayed forest recovery and increased the risk of future fires said Monday they were following their code of ethics and trying to clarify the findings. In peer-reviewed papers to be published in the Aug. 4 edition of Science, researchers from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service criticized the original study on areas burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire as lacking context and supporting information. "I hope the record is clearer now on why we did what we did," Mike Newton, OSU professor emeritus of forest ecology, said from Corvallis. "We were following our professional code of ethics and attempting to instill rigor" in the findings of the original study. The brief description of the study as it was originally published, "left the reader, whether it be the public or the policy makers or the land managers, vulnerable to misinterpreting the results that the scientist found," Steve Tesch, head of OSU's Forest Engineering Department, said from a conference in Idaho. The authors of the original study published in January, OSU graduate student Daniel Donato, Forest Service researcher Boone Kauffman and others, defended their work with an expanded explanation....
Port plan to cut trees in flight path gets OK Multnomah County officials have given permission to cut hundreds of cottonwood trees jutting into the flight path of airplanes using Troutdale airport, but no chain saws can rev up until a 14-day appeal period runs out. The trees make it impossible for large firefighting air tankers to use the airport, causing the U.S. Forest Service to close its air tanker base at the airport until the trees are cut. But county officials say if a major wildfire creates an emergency, the trees could be cut so tankers could use the airport and a permit issued later. The problem surfaced in 2002 when the Federal Aviation Administration notified the Port of Portland, which runs the airport, that a few trees along the Sandy River were too high. But Port officials later realized many more trees were on the verge of infringing on planes, too. Many of the trees are growing on state land, and the Port has an easement allowing the trees to be cut to keep the airport approach clear. But the trees also stand inside the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, where special rules apply to protect the scenic and natural conditions....
Forest Service seeks a more rustic design at Sam's Knob The Aspen Skiing Co. must redesign its new restaurant at Sam's Knob at Snowmass after the U.S. Forest Service found the initial architecture "too contemporary and modern." "It's not that we denied the design. We just asked them to bring it up to our standards," said Sally Spaulding, public affairs specialist for the White River National Forest. The Skico can alter its design or submit a new one, she said. "The net effect was to send us back to the drawing board," said David Corbin, Skico vice president of planning and development. The Skico hoped to start construction this summer on a new 250-seat, 13,000-square-foot restaurant on public land leased from the Forest Service. The old restaurant - which many people, both inside and outside of the company, believed was outdated and dysfunctional - was demolished prior to last ski season. The Skico was going to pour the foundation of the new structure this summer, then complete the restaurant prior to the 2007-08 ski season. But White River National Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson sent the company a letter June 22 asking it to alter the design to comply with the agency's criteria....
Investigators find weaknesses in munitions storage on Forest Service land Terrorists could arm themselves with howitzers, recoilless rifles and explosives stashed on Forest Service land, federal investigators fear. The weapons and munitions are stored in 335 sites nationwide, including a number in California and other Western states. Ski resorts and federal land managers use the equipment to blast boulders and control avalanches. But three years after they first pinpointed potential weaknesses in the Forest Service's munitions security, investigators found that important reforms remained unfinished. "We attributed this inaction to lack of accountability at the national level for security over the agency's munitions (and) explosives program," investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted in a new report....
GAO urges more post-fire restoration A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Monday shows that federal agencies need to put more emphasis on restoring and rehabilitating forests after wildfire. According to the report, which was requested by the Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, “wildland fires can sometimes leave behind a burned landscape that threatens human safety, property and ecosystems. In areas of steep terrain, post-fire rainstorms can cause mudslides that bury homes, destroy roads and clog streams.” The GAO recommends that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service do a much better job at tracking and reporting the extent to which they are restoring forests. The report identified the Forest Service, in particular, as having “no national guidance on how to identify, prioritize and fund post-fire rehabilitation and restoration work,” and recommended that the agencies do more research in restoration techniques....
Controversial Fence Through Independence Mall Could Go Up Next Spring The National Park Service's plan to build an 8-foot fence across the middle of the city's most historic square is drawing renewed complaints from local lawmakers. Funds for the $2 million Independence Square security plan have been included in the Bush administration's budget for next year. If approved by Congress, construction could start as early as next spring. "I don't like the fence," said U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican. "I'm troubled by the proposal, and I'm more than troubled by the apparent intransigence of bureaucrats and their unwillingness to listen to the community." The plan has emerged as the most visible element in the National Park Service's response to post-Sept. 11 security directives from the Bush administration. Criticism was leveled since the Park Service in 2004 unveiled its plan to erect a wrought-iron fence through the middle of Independence Square, the tree-shaded park behind Independence Hall and the site where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the public on July 8, 1776....
Radicals in the Woodwork His daddy was doing time for armed robbery, and Jacob Ferguson grew up on the streets of New York, sleeping on sidewalks, squatting in abandoned buildings, stealing cars, selling heroin and ripping off suburban kids who came into the big city to score dope. At 19, Ferguson hit the road, hopping trains to New Orleans, Minneapolis, the West Coast. In 1996 he jumped off a train in Eugene, Ore., and bummed a meal at a place called Food Not Bombs, where he fell in with a crowd of self-styled anarchists and radical environmentalists. Soon he was leading an eco-arson group that torched forest ranger stations, car dealerships and corporate offices around the Pacific Northwest. Ferguson is the main character in Vanessa Grigoriadis's excellent article "The Rise and Fall of the Eco-Radical Underground" in the Aug. 10 issue of Rolling Stone. It's a fascinating update of the old American story of idealists who turn violent, set in a subculture of anarchist coffeehouses, heavy-metal bands, radical vegans, neo-pagans and women who are herbalists by day and arsonists by night. Ferguson joined a group of environmentalists who were camped in an old-growth forest in Warner Creek, Ore., in a successful attempt to prevent logging of ancient trees. There, Ferguson found an outlet for his antisocial inclinations....
The Rural Vote - More Important Than Ever in '06 During the 2004 presidential election, slightly more than 50 percent of registered voters went to the polls to choose our nation’s leader for the next four years. That contrasts with years without a presidential election on the ballot, when poll turnout typically drops to about one-third of eligible voters. The same scenario is likely to play out in November, which presents an incredible opportunity for rural voters – farmers and non-farmers alike – to make their voices heard. This year Americans will elect 36 state governors, 33 seats in the U.S. Senate, the entire House of Representatives. This year, there is considerable speculation regarding the partisan balance of Congress. In addition, hundreds of officials at the state, county, parish and township levels will be selected. Although residents of rural America make up 20 to 23 percent of our nation’s population, research shows they tend to turn out at the polls in far greater numbers then their urban and suburban counterparts. If the overall voter apathy trend continues among urban and suburban residents, while rural residents come out to the polls in droves, each vote cast becomes even more significant....
Agency moves on disease plans The Wyoming Game and Fish Department's approach to eliminating brucellosis in western Wyoming elk is drawing mixed reviews. Some say the approach is inadequate and exclusionary. Others see it as a step forward. The plan offers a series of options to help eradicate the disease, which is a major headache for Wyoming cattle producers. The Game and Fish Department is holding public meetings focusing on the nine options for each of the seven elk herds that use state-run feedgrounds during the winter. Options are tweaked for each herd unit based on input from livestock producers in the area. Some are concerned Game and Fish is working in cooperation with ranchers and federal officials only, not others who may be considered "stakeholders" in the fight to end brucellosis....
Horse-Eating Foreigners Finding Friends In United States Congress For a while, this newspaper was one of the lonely few covering the fervid national debate over horses and whether they are just livestock and food for foreigners, or something more respected and treasured in American culture. Now, reporters and columnists all over the country are weighing in on the issue, and Congress took up the matter last week. As usual, Congress screwed it up beyond belief. Here’s an update. Three Belgian-owned horse-killing plants -- two in Texas and one in Illinois -- slaughter about 95,000 American horses a year, mostly for export to Japan and several European countries, where the flesh is considered a delicacy and goes at retail for about $15 to $23 a pound. When you get that kind of a profit spread described above, you know someone is going to fight to keep the system going -- and the three foreign-owned slaughterhouses have and are. Collectively, they sold about $60 million worth of horsemeat for foreign consumption last year. The House and Senate are scheduled to vote soon on a bill that would make such slaughter permanently illegal -- a vote which probably will occur during the first week of September when members of Congress return from their August recess vacations....
Canadian Co Sees New BSE Test Available Within 2 Years An Edmonton-based company is hoping to have a new, inexpensive test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on the market within the next two years. Ron Arnold, of BSE Prion Solutions, says the urine test will be able to detect BSE as well as other prion diseases such as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Alzheimer's disease in humans. He explained that the test will detect prions as well as the precursor prions, which, when found, indicates a susceptibility to BSE. "If everything goes well, it could be less than two years until the test is available," Arnold said. "It depends on how fast the data is accumulated." "If we can show through routine testing that every animal in Canada can be tested - and there's no reason it can't be - it will enhance risk management, food safety, consumer confidence and the marketability of the product," he said....
How the west was fun It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. With respect to the rodeo, the old axiom certainly holds true. While rodeos are a summer tradition in the West which draw spectators to events as small as the Brule Ruff-Out Rodeo and as large as the internationally recognized Calgary Stampede -- the idea of jumping on the back of a bucking bronco originated out of practical necessity. Back in the days when the west was young, roping steers, branding cattle and breaking in a bucking horse were all part of the daily routine of those early cowboys who made the West their home. However, as with many occupations, the ability to do something well is soon challenged by someone who feels they can do it just a little bit better. Soon the practical need of breaking in new horses and managing herds of cattle became a matter of bragging rights around the camp fire as to who could stay on a new horse the longest or rope and tie a cow the fastest. The path from bragging rights to wagering was perhaps a brief one, but somewhere along the line cowboys began putting their money where their talents were and into an upturned Stetson for the winner to take home. Today that prize money has evolved from wagers stuffed into a cowboy’s hat to some pretty large purses offered at rodeos throughout North America, including the Mary Reimer Memorial Rodeo, which runs from Aug. 4-6. The largest rodeo in Canada -- billed as the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth -- is the Calgary Stampede, which was started in 1912 by an American trick roper by the name of Guy Weadick. But while rodeos are now a long-standing North American tradition, the word itself actually owes its origin to the Spanish, who brought horses to Mexico in the 16th century....
Trew: Texas, Oklahoma line ever-shifting until 1930 A study of a Texas Panhandle survey map of private property reminds the examiner of a jigsaw puzzle. Originally, all survey lines were square sections laid out by the State Land Office in 1876. What happened since to these originally neat, square metes and bounds is recorded in the "Shattuck, Oklahoma, History Book." The town is on Wolf Creek very near the Texas-Oklahoma state line and experienced many boundary problems. History states the entire area was home to the Indians until the 1500s when the Spanish Conquistadors began passing through in the years 1541, 1601 and 1634. England, Spain and France all claimed the area at various times until the Louisiana Purchase in 1819, making the United States the new and final owner. During all changes in previous ownership, the boundaries had been loosely defined, but in 1819 the first defined wording was introduced. A part of the eastern boundary of the purchase was described as "starting at a point on the Red River where the 100th meridian crosses the stream, thence north to the Arkansas River."....
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Senate Is Close to Passing Bill for Gulf Drilling The Senate moved closer Monday to passing a bill that would open vast new areas of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, voting to cut off debate before a final vote, expected no later than Wednesday. The vote was 72 to 23, well over the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and a clear sign that the bipartisan bill had enough support to move it into negotiations with the House. But that may be the only thing that is clear about the measure’s future. The House has passed a drilling bill that would open the nation’s entire coastline to drilling, a prospect that sponsors of the Senate bill regard as too ambitious. President Bush has expressed eagerness to sign a new drilling bill into law, and a failure by the House and the Senate to agree on a compromise would probably doom all prospects for major energy legislation this year. Yet for now, the chief sponsors of the bills do not sound as if a compromise is imminent. Senator Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the energy committee and the Senate bill’s lead sponsor, told reporters before Monday’s vote that he was confident that negotiations would produce a final bill that more closely resembled the Senate’s version than the House’s....
Talk of eminent domain stirs fears in Ogden This pocket of Ogden probably isn't the vision of the American dream. It's old. Two sets of bone-rattling railroad tracks cross the street. Some yards are unkempt, and several homes are deteriorating. For Christina Rodriguez, this is home. She has no plans to leave. But Rodriguez could be vetoed in months to come. The Utah League of Cities and Towns, along with a handful of the state's most influential communities, is studying a way to bring back the power of eminent domain - the tool that allows government to force sales of land - to spur private development. "It makes me sad to even hear that," Rodriguez said. "If we had wanted to be rich, we'd be up there negotiating, negotiating and renegotiating." League officials argue they don't plan to try to bring eminent domain back as it was. They suggest language that would add more protection for property owners. For instance: Two-thirds of the property owners within a project area would have to be willing sellers, cities would have to comply with a "necessity test" to ensure a project's need, and a supermajority of a city council must endorse the use of eminent domain....
DNRC working on post-fire range rehabilitation On Wednesday afternoon, Conrad Yerger thought the Pine Ridge fire of two weeks ago had flared again as black smoke issued from his timberland northwest of Hardin. Instead, the wind was blowing soot clouds from the charred remains of the 122,000-acre fire that straddled the Yellowstone County-Big Horn County line. The fire began July 11. Where the fire had swept through the timber, there was nothing to hold the ground down. In an adjacent wheat field, where the fire had singed the stubble down to the dirt, clouds of dust, several hundred yards in length, pushed across the landscape. Yerger's land needs rain and rehabilitation now....
Builders behind habitat proposal The bugs, frogs and oaks in the hills surrounding this residential boom town have some new friends: The builders behind the boom. Ryan Voorhees, the builder of the Gold Creek Estates subdivision, and golf course designer Dave Tanner are leading a loose coalition of developers and landowners in an effort to help Calaveras County set up what is known as a habitat conservation plan, or HCP. They are putting up money toward the estimated $500,000 cost of crafting such a plan and have hired a former legislative advocate for the Audubon Society to facilitate the work of creating the plan. Such a plan takes fees from developers for every acre covered with houses and uses that money to set up wildlife preserves somewhere else. State and federal wildlife officials and environmentalists praise HCPs already operating in Southern California, Sacramento County and San Joaquin County for ensuring that development will not entirely eliminate the places where birds and animals can live. Developers like HCPs because the plans allow them to know how much it will cost to make up for habitat loss. Also, an HCP means developers do not have to do detailed habitat plans for every separate project....
American Indians protest biker rally nearing sacred site Once a year, amid the hammering August heat, this Black Hills hamlet becomes a bikers' paradise by hosting the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally — a weeklong celebration of leather, bikes and beer that draws as many as 500,000 riders. That's in a town of 6,400 in a state of only 776,000 people. It's also a tradition for local critics to decry the increasing size and commercialism of the 66-year-old event, which once again will congest highways and hotels (and jails) when rally week starts Monday. This summer's clamor is louder and more emotional, however, mainly because of a clash that pits Native American heritage against chrome-and-steel capitalism. The battle is being waged over Bear Butte, a mountain 6 miles outside Sturgis that the Plains Indians have long considered sacred. Indians from across the USA are gathering today for a four-day summit, and protests — including efforts to deflect biker traffic from the site — are planned....
Powerful water interests sure to focus on Yampa River Standing in a high-mountain meadow on a June morning in the summer of his 94th year, John Fetcher likes what he sees. Sand Mountain — and its lingering snowfields — dominates the view from the upper Fetcher Ranch. Fetcher is irrigating his cattle pasture, and the world seems right. But the early summer breeze that rustles the willows along the creek whispers of changes to come. “Isn’t that beautiful?” Fetcher says with a note of boyish enthusiasm. “I get water up here to the pasture from the creek by gravity. In three weeks, or two weeks, this creek will be way down. We usually run out of water on July 4. Pretty soon, we’ll start haying.” Never one to not work, Fetcher still goes to his office at the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District several days a week — when he isn’t working on the ranch. Lanky and with powerful hands, he expresses dismay at the dead timber he encounters near one of his irrigation ditches. He threatens to return the next day and clean it up with a chain saw. Fetcher’s adult life has been devoted to ensuring and enhancing the water supply for the people of the Yampa Valley. His work has done more to shape the future of the Yampa River Basin than that of any other person. He’s had a hand in damming rivers and building reservoirs for agriculture, municipal consumption and power generation....
Talks cool ballot hopes Backers of a ballot initiative on oil and gas surface rights are scrambling to get petition signatures after homebuilders abandoned their cause in favor of joining Gov. Bill Owens in talks with the gas industry. The lead proponent of the initiative, John Gorman, said there is a "low probability" that his volunteers will be able to get the required 68,000 signatures by Aug. 7, the deadline to get the measure on November's ballot. "I have to give credit where credit's due. The oil and gas industry did a superb job of maneuvering," Gorman said. The talks convened by Owens effectively splintered an unusual coalition of Realtors, developers and environmentalists, who joined last year to support state legislation to give landowners more power when gas companies want to drill wells on their property. The bill - by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, and Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus - set off one of the biggest fights of the 2006 Legislative session. Isgar ultimately killed the bill when environmentalists and the real-estate industry pulled their support. That shifted the action to the ballot initiative sponsored by Gorman's group, Colorado Land Owners for Fairness. After Isgar's bill died, Owens summoned developers and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and urged them to work out their differences, said Dan Hopkins, Owens' spokesman....
In Fort Worth Neighborhoods, Residents Know the Drill Gary Hogan bought his Spanish-tile-roofed stucco house on the western edge of the city in 1992 because it offered the perfect combination of city and country living -- only 10 miles from downtown, yet surrounded by pasture land roamed by gentle cows. But now the pasture is gone. So are the cows. Today Hogan's backyard gate opens onto a huge natural gas well site that, not long ago, kept him up nights as roughnecks drilled 50-foot-long pipes more than a mile underground, aided by industrial spotlights that lighted up the neighborhood. A second well is being drilled 1,500 feet away; 10 more wells are planned in and around his neighborhood. "I used to open this gate and sit on my patio and look out, and I felt like J.R. Ewing. I had cattle out there and I didn't even have to take care of the critters," Hogan said. "I was used to very quiet countryside. Then it was bing! Bam! Boom!" Welcome to the newest, largest, most productive and most urban natural gas drilling site in the nation. As a huge billboard ad for drilling services just south of downtown Fort Worth says: "If you want a gas well . . . get one!"....
Resources stretched, feds call up reinforcements Federal land management agencies are being asked to make more employees available to fight wildfires because existing crews and equipment have been stretched to the limit by nearly 60 major blazes burning around the West. For the first time since 2003, the National Interagency Fire Center raised its response status to the highest threat level over the weekend, a move triggered when nearly all available crews and firefighting resources were committed. ''Preparedness Level 5'' allows federal firefighting coordinators to summon additional federal employees, military reinforcements and foreign fire crews if necessary. ''It's a proactive move that kicks in the thinking about where the next round of resources is going to come from,'' said Randy Eardley, U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokesman at the federal firefighting center headquartered here. ''It frees up what we call the militia, agency employees whose regular job may be as a biologist or realty specialist but who are trained in fire duty and can now be called up to help.'' While military firefighting mobilization coordinators and a liaison for the Canadian government's firefighters can now participate in national fire response planning, Eardley said there are no current plans to summon those reinforcements. More than 24,000 firefighters were working on fires across the West on Monday, including 58 large fires of 500 acres or more. The biggest active fire in the country was the Winters fire in northern Nevada, which had burned nearly 300 square miles of grass and sagebrush....
New rumbling over salvage logging Oregon State University scientists who tried to delay publication of a study that found logging after wildfires both delayed forest recovery and increased the risk of future fires said Monday they were following their code of ethics and trying to clarify the findings. In peer-reviewed papers to be published in the Aug. 4 edition of Science, researchers from OSU and the U.S. Forest Service criticized the original study on areas burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire as lacking context and supporting information. "I hope the record is clearer now on why we did what we did," Mike Newton, OSU professor emeritus of forest ecology, said from Corvallis. "We were following our professional code of ethics and attempting to instill rigor" in the findings of the original study. The brief description of the study as it was originally published, "left the reader, whether it be the public or the policy makers or the land managers, vulnerable to misinterpreting the results that the scientist found," Steve Tesch, head of OSU's Forest Engineering Department, said from a conference in Idaho. The authors of the original study published in January, OSU graduate student Daniel Donato, Forest Service researcher Boone Kauffman and others, defended their work with an expanded explanation....
Port plan to cut trees in flight path gets OK Multnomah County officials have given permission to cut hundreds of cottonwood trees jutting into the flight path of airplanes using Troutdale airport, but no chain saws can rev up until a 14-day appeal period runs out. The trees make it impossible for large firefighting air tankers to use the airport, causing the U.S. Forest Service to close its air tanker base at the airport until the trees are cut. But county officials say if a major wildfire creates an emergency, the trees could be cut so tankers could use the airport and a permit issued later. The problem surfaced in 2002 when the Federal Aviation Administration notified the Port of Portland, which runs the airport, that a few trees along the Sandy River were too high. But Port officials later realized many more trees were on the verge of infringing on planes, too. Many of the trees are growing on state land, and the Port has an easement allowing the trees to be cut to keep the airport approach clear. But the trees also stand inside the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, where special rules apply to protect the scenic and natural conditions....
Forest Service seeks a more rustic design at Sam's Knob The Aspen Skiing Co. must redesign its new restaurant at Sam's Knob at Snowmass after the U.S. Forest Service found the initial architecture "too contemporary and modern." "It's not that we denied the design. We just asked them to bring it up to our standards," said Sally Spaulding, public affairs specialist for the White River National Forest. The Skico can alter its design or submit a new one, she said. "The net effect was to send us back to the drawing board," said David Corbin, Skico vice president of planning and development. The Skico hoped to start construction this summer on a new 250-seat, 13,000-square-foot restaurant on public land leased from the Forest Service. The old restaurant - which many people, both inside and outside of the company, believed was outdated and dysfunctional - was demolished prior to last ski season. The Skico was going to pour the foundation of the new structure this summer, then complete the restaurant prior to the 2007-08 ski season. But White River National Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson sent the company a letter June 22 asking it to alter the design to comply with the agency's criteria....
Investigators find weaknesses in munitions storage on Forest Service land Terrorists could arm themselves with howitzers, recoilless rifles and explosives stashed on Forest Service land, federal investigators fear. The weapons and munitions are stored in 335 sites nationwide, including a number in California and other Western states. Ski resorts and federal land managers use the equipment to blast boulders and control avalanches. But three years after they first pinpointed potential weaknesses in the Forest Service's munitions security, investigators found that important reforms remained unfinished. "We attributed this inaction to lack of accountability at the national level for security over the agency's munitions (and) explosives program," investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted in a new report....
GAO urges more post-fire restoration A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Monday shows that federal agencies need to put more emphasis on restoring and rehabilitating forests after wildfire. According to the report, which was requested by the Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, “wildland fires can sometimes leave behind a burned landscape that threatens human safety, property and ecosystems. In areas of steep terrain, post-fire rainstorms can cause mudslides that bury homes, destroy roads and clog streams.” The GAO recommends that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service do a much better job at tracking and reporting the extent to which they are restoring forests. The report identified the Forest Service, in particular, as having “no national guidance on how to identify, prioritize and fund post-fire rehabilitation and restoration work,” and recommended that the agencies do more research in restoration techniques....
Controversial Fence Through Independence Mall Could Go Up Next Spring The National Park Service's plan to build an 8-foot fence across the middle of the city's most historic square is drawing renewed complaints from local lawmakers. Funds for the $2 million Independence Square security plan have been included in the Bush administration's budget for next year. If approved by Congress, construction could start as early as next spring. "I don't like the fence," said U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican. "I'm troubled by the proposal, and I'm more than troubled by the apparent intransigence of bureaucrats and their unwillingness to listen to the community." The plan has emerged as the most visible element in the National Park Service's response to post-Sept. 11 security directives from the Bush administration. Criticism was leveled since the Park Service in 2004 unveiled its plan to erect a wrought-iron fence through the middle of Independence Square, the tree-shaded park behind Independence Hall and the site where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the public on July 8, 1776....
Radicals in the Woodwork His daddy was doing time for armed robbery, and Jacob Ferguson grew up on the streets of New York, sleeping on sidewalks, squatting in abandoned buildings, stealing cars, selling heroin and ripping off suburban kids who came into the big city to score dope. At 19, Ferguson hit the road, hopping trains to New Orleans, Minneapolis, the West Coast. In 1996 he jumped off a train in Eugene, Ore., and bummed a meal at a place called Food Not Bombs, where he fell in with a crowd of self-styled anarchists and radical environmentalists. Soon he was leading an eco-arson group that torched forest ranger stations, car dealerships and corporate offices around the Pacific Northwest. Ferguson is the main character in Vanessa Grigoriadis's excellent article "The Rise and Fall of the Eco-Radical Underground" in the Aug. 10 issue of Rolling Stone. It's a fascinating update of the old American story of idealists who turn violent, set in a subculture of anarchist coffeehouses, heavy-metal bands, radical vegans, neo-pagans and women who are herbalists by day and arsonists by night. Ferguson joined a group of environmentalists who were camped in an old-growth forest in Warner Creek, Ore., in a successful attempt to prevent logging of ancient trees. There, Ferguson found an outlet for his antisocial inclinations....
The Rural Vote - More Important Than Ever in '06 During the 2004 presidential election, slightly more than 50 percent of registered voters went to the polls to choose our nation’s leader for the next four years. That contrasts with years without a presidential election on the ballot, when poll turnout typically drops to about one-third of eligible voters. The same scenario is likely to play out in November, which presents an incredible opportunity for rural voters – farmers and non-farmers alike – to make their voices heard. This year Americans will elect 36 state governors, 33 seats in the U.S. Senate, the entire House of Representatives. This year, there is considerable speculation regarding the partisan balance of Congress. In addition, hundreds of officials at the state, county, parish and township levels will be selected. Although residents of rural America make up 20 to 23 percent of our nation’s population, research shows they tend to turn out at the polls in far greater numbers then their urban and suburban counterparts. If the overall voter apathy trend continues among urban and suburban residents, while rural residents come out to the polls in droves, each vote cast becomes even more significant....
Agency moves on disease plans The Wyoming Game and Fish Department's approach to eliminating brucellosis in western Wyoming elk is drawing mixed reviews. Some say the approach is inadequate and exclusionary. Others see it as a step forward. The plan offers a series of options to help eradicate the disease, which is a major headache for Wyoming cattle producers. The Game and Fish Department is holding public meetings focusing on the nine options for each of the seven elk herds that use state-run feedgrounds during the winter. Options are tweaked for each herd unit based on input from livestock producers in the area. Some are concerned Game and Fish is working in cooperation with ranchers and federal officials only, not others who may be considered "stakeholders" in the fight to end brucellosis....
Horse-Eating Foreigners Finding Friends In United States Congress For a while, this newspaper was one of the lonely few covering the fervid national debate over horses and whether they are just livestock and food for foreigners, or something more respected and treasured in American culture. Now, reporters and columnists all over the country are weighing in on the issue, and Congress took up the matter last week. As usual, Congress screwed it up beyond belief. Here’s an update. Three Belgian-owned horse-killing plants -- two in Texas and one in Illinois -- slaughter about 95,000 American horses a year, mostly for export to Japan and several European countries, where the flesh is considered a delicacy and goes at retail for about $15 to $23 a pound. When you get that kind of a profit spread described above, you know someone is going to fight to keep the system going -- and the three foreign-owned slaughterhouses have and are. Collectively, they sold about $60 million worth of horsemeat for foreign consumption last year. The House and Senate are scheduled to vote soon on a bill that would make such slaughter permanently illegal -- a vote which probably will occur during the first week of September when members of Congress return from their August recess vacations....
Canadian Co Sees New BSE Test Available Within 2 Years An Edmonton-based company is hoping to have a new, inexpensive test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, on the market within the next two years. Ron Arnold, of BSE Prion Solutions, says the urine test will be able to detect BSE as well as other prion diseases such as chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Alzheimer's disease in humans. He explained that the test will detect prions as well as the precursor prions, which, when found, indicates a susceptibility to BSE. "If everything goes well, it could be less than two years until the test is available," Arnold said. "It depends on how fast the data is accumulated." "If we can show through routine testing that every animal in Canada can be tested - and there's no reason it can't be - it will enhance risk management, food safety, consumer confidence and the marketability of the product," he said....
How the west was fun It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. With respect to the rodeo, the old axiom certainly holds true. While rodeos are a summer tradition in the West which draw spectators to events as small as the Brule Ruff-Out Rodeo and as large as the internationally recognized Calgary Stampede -- the idea of jumping on the back of a bucking bronco originated out of practical necessity. Back in the days when the west was young, roping steers, branding cattle and breaking in a bucking horse were all part of the daily routine of those early cowboys who made the West their home. However, as with many occupations, the ability to do something well is soon challenged by someone who feels they can do it just a little bit better. Soon the practical need of breaking in new horses and managing herds of cattle became a matter of bragging rights around the camp fire as to who could stay on a new horse the longest or rope and tie a cow the fastest. The path from bragging rights to wagering was perhaps a brief one, but somewhere along the line cowboys began putting their money where their talents were and into an upturned Stetson for the winner to take home. Today that prize money has evolved from wagers stuffed into a cowboy’s hat to some pretty large purses offered at rodeos throughout North America, including the Mary Reimer Memorial Rodeo, which runs from Aug. 4-6. The largest rodeo in Canada -- billed as the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth -- is the Calgary Stampede, which was started in 1912 by an American trick roper by the name of Guy Weadick. But while rodeos are now a long-standing North American tradition, the word itself actually owes its origin to the Spanish, who brought horses to Mexico in the 16th century....
Trew: Texas, Oklahoma line ever-shifting until 1930 A study of a Texas Panhandle survey map of private property reminds the examiner of a jigsaw puzzle. Originally, all survey lines were square sections laid out by the State Land Office in 1876. What happened since to these originally neat, square metes and bounds is recorded in the "Shattuck, Oklahoma, History Book." The town is on Wolf Creek very near the Texas-Oklahoma state line and experienced many boundary problems. History states the entire area was home to the Indians until the 1500s when the Spanish Conquistadors began passing through in the years 1541, 1601 and 1634. England, Spain and France all claimed the area at various times until the Louisiana Purchase in 1819, making the United States the new and final owner. During all changes in previous ownership, the boundaries had been loosely defined, but in 1819 the first defined wording was introduced. A part of the eastern boundary of the purchase was described as "starting at a point on the Red River where the 100th meridian crosses the stream, thence north to the Arkansas River."....
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Monday, July 31, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Court Decision Lifts Endangered Species Act Threat to Rights of Way Across Federal Lands A decision by a federal appellate court lifts a cloud of uncertainty for Idahoans who hold rights of way across federal lands, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that six rights of way used to move water across federal lands are not subject to general regulation by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The court based its ruling upon the fact that the rights of way had been recognized by Congress under an 1866 statute. The case involved six rights of way across land managed by the BLM in the Upper Salmon River Basin. Thousands of similar rights of way exist elsewhere in Idaho and throughout the West. Two environmental groups brought the case, Western Watersheds Project v. Matejko, against BLM in 2001. The groups contended that, under the Endangered Species Act, the BLM was required to “consult” on the ongoing use of the rights of way. The State of Idaho entered the case because consultation could have resulted in a significant change in established law that would have disrupted state water rights and could have resulted in costly modifications as a condition for continued use of the rights of way on public lands. In the latest ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously reversed a March 2004 decision in which the Federal District Court held that consultation was required. The appeals court found no duty on BLM's part to engage in Endangered Species Act consultation because the federal agency had taken no action to fund, permit or use the rights of way and had no general ongoing regulatory responsibility with respect to their use....go here to read the decision.
In the New West, Do They Want Buffalo to Roam? What are the Northern Plains good for? The soil is bad, the weather worse and the landscape achingly dull. Collapsing barns punctuate a scraggly sea of brown grass and bleached boulders. The population peaked a century ago, and remaining ranchers cannot stop their children from running off to a less lonesome life. But a grand new vision is taking shape for this depopulated patch of the prairie. It includes wild herds of buffalo and boomtowns of prairie dogs, as well as restaurants and hotels for high-end tourists who would descend on small towns such as Malta. If all goes according to plan, land south of here would be resurrected as the Serengeti of North America, joining Yellowstone and Glacier national parks as must-see destinations in the West. As local acceptance allowed, wolves and grizzly bears would join buffalo, elk, moose, mule deer and bighorn sheep on a restored grassland ecosystem, similar to what 19th century explorer Meriwether Lewis described as a scene of "visionary inchantment." The American Prairie Foundation, which is closely allied with the World Wildlife Fund, expects to have about 60,000 acres of ranchland under its control by fall. Over the next several decades, it intends to buy hundreds of thousands more acres and link them up with federal land -- much of which is now grazed by cattle -- to create a reserve of about 3.5 million acres. Buffalo would run free on much of this land, while fences, cows and cattle ranches would go away....
Rancher, foresters spar over access A Two Dot-area rancher's attempt to gain access across Forest Service land to his private holdings has made its way to the U.S. Senate. Mac White wants to build a road to a section and three-quarters of land he owns along the northeastern front of the Crazy Mountains, south of Big Elk Canyon. The Forest Service, which has property between his private holdings, is willing to grant White access. But in return it wants the nearby road up Big Elk Canyon opened to public use, which would give access to about 10,000 acres of Lewis and Clark National Forest land in the Crazies. "That's not an agreeable thing to do for me," White said Thursday. "The (forest) terrain we're looking at is about 1,000 square feet per corner crossing. That isn't very much. And they want two miles of unrestricted access through me." White did, however, offer to allow the Forest Service administrative use of the Big Elk Canyon Road. White first approached the Forest Service in 2001, he said. Talks dragged on as forest specialists, such as a wildlife biologist and archaeologist, looked over the land. Two years later, talks came to a standstill over the reciprocity issue and public access. White then took his complaint to Montana's congressional delegation. The result was a rider written into the Department of Interior's 2007 appropriations bill that would "direct the Chief (of the Forest Service) to seek an easement for administrative access to Big Elk Canyon across private land and upon securing such an easement to reciprocate by offering a road easement across corners of (Lewis and Clark National Forest) for access to private inholdings." Sen. Conrad Burns is chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on Interior....
Senator Apologizes For Criticizing Firefighters U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on Thursday apologized for criticizing a firefighter team for their work on a blaze in southern Montana. In a statement issued Thursday night, Burns said he should have "chosen my words more carefully." Burns gathered state wide criticisms Thursday after a state official's report said he approached a Virginia firefighting team at the Billings airport and told them they had done a "poor job" in putting off the fire. According to Paula Rosenthal, a state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation employee, the crew members of "hotshot" wildfire were awaiting a flight home, Sunday, when they confronted Burns. "In retrospect, I wish I had chosen my words more carefully," Burns said in a statement issued Thursday night. "My criticism of the way in which the fire was handled should not have been directed at those who were working hard to put it out." Burns said his frustration came from a "meeting with landowners who were critical of the way the fire was handled."....
The browning of green Colorado Irrigated farmland is disappearing at an astonishing rate in Colorado, reaching its lowest point in 32 years, state and federal data show. About 1 million acres of irrigated farmland have dried up since hitting a high point in the 1970s, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, with the majority of the loss occurring since 1997. The prolonged drought is partly to blame. But so are new laws reducing the use of irrigation wells and the sale of farm water to thirsty, fast-growing cities. The drying of these lands raises major lifestyle questions for the state, from preserving the lush farms that ensure fresh produce at farmers' markets to keeping green open space along urban corridors. The alarming dry-up also puts critical water-sharing agreements now on the table between cities and rural regions at risk....
More Than 60 Percent of U.S. in Drought More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said. "It's the epicenter," he said. "It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota." Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people. Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds. Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment....
Critic sees grazing problems A grazing watchdog is calling on the U.S. Forest Service to halt any grazing permits issued through a swift program authorized by Congress last year, saying grazing is operating unchecked and hurting the landscape. Jonathan Ratner with the Western Watersheds Project visited the Greys River cattle allotment near Alpine in western Wyoming and took photos of trammeled stream banks and flattened, dried-out forage. "This is an extremely gross example that they should know about," Ratner said of Bridger-Teton National Forest officials. "When something like this got to this point, that to me is a massive red flag that says, 'Whoa, we need to slow down here and take a way better look.'" Last year, Congress authorized Forest Service officials to reissue grazing permits through "categorical exclusions," meaning without an exhaustive environmental review. Ratner said those exemptions have increased in recent months, indicating a directive from Washington, D.C., for forest officials to "get going" and authorize the permits....
Some in Santa Fe Pine For Lost Symbol, But Others Move On(subscription) The piñon tree has long been an established part of the Southwest, where the aromatic pine has graced views from the backyard to the back country of public forests. It is the state tree of New Mexico, where towns have lovingly named hospitals, restaurants and streets after the gnarled, dwarfish pines. The trouble now is that a lot of them are dead. As many as 80 million piñons died in New Mexico and Arizona between 2001 and 2005 during one of the worst droughts in decades, the U.S. Forest Service estimates. Their skeletons remain along a band about 500 miles long from east to west and 100 miles wide. In many places, more than 90% of the piñons have died. Ground zero of the destruction is Santa Fe, where an estimated four million of the trees have died. Many residents reacted with alarm as the piñons started dying before their eyes a few years ago, says Shelley Nolde, an urban-wildland specialist for the city....
Celebrating wildflowers A new "Botany: Celebrating Wildflowers" Web site is up and running thanks to the U.S. Forest Service. Every region, forest, grassland and prairie contributed to the content. Detailers from across the nation assisted in the development of content — pollinators, beauty of it all, native gardening, Just for Kids and teacher resources to name a few. The new site is a gateway to an enormous amount of botanical information. Station Cove and Falls in the Sumter National Forest is one of two sites featured in South Carolina. Site visitors can elect a Forest Service Region on the map display to see local "Celebrating Wildflower" events, wildflower viewing areas and wildflower photographs. Alternative text links to regional Web pages are also provided. A number of other modules such as rare plants, native plant materials, ethnobotany, lichens, ferns and other botany-subject areas are currently under development and will be posted to the site as they become finalized....
Task force debates new roadless rules Coloradans have been down this road before. The 13 people charged with crafting a statewide rule on roadless areas in national forests are set to meet by telephone Thursday - possibly their last meeting before opening up their plan to public comments and sending it to Gov. Bill Owens. Over the last year, the group has reached consensus in many areas, but some of the remaining disagreements come down to philosophies rooted as deeply as century-old spruce trees. One side believes forest rangers should have the flexibility to manage the forest, including through measures such as logging. The other side opposes new roads, which timber companies would need for logging projects. Opponents of new roads point out that the large majority of public comments given to the task force favor protecting roadfewer areas. "The whole thing will have been a waste of time if we vote to do something opposite of what the majority of the public has told us," said Dave Petersen of Durango, a task force member and roadless expert from Trout Unlimited. But task force member Joe Duda, a state forester, said the complicated issue is often misunderstood. "What do you mean by protect? Don't do anything?" Duda asked. Foresters sometimes need to build roads to deal with new conditions in the forest, he said. For example, the bark-beetle crisis was not a problem 10 years ago. But a prohibition on road-building will make it much harder to deal with beetles or wildfire risks, Duda said....
Editorial - Inaction rooted in logging angst The 2003 law enacted to help hasten restoration of the national forests and reduce the dangers of wildfire to homeowners and communities hasn't worked, the head of a Missoula-based environmental group told U.S. senators at a recent hearing in Washington, D.C. “The purpose of this hearing is to review implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act,” Matthew Koehler of the WildWest Institute reminded the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests July 19. “Š This is a somewhat difficult task for the simple reason that since the HFRA was signed into law in December 2003, so little work has been accomplished under the HFRA by the U.S. Forest Service.” The rich irony, of course, is that Koehler heads the Missoula group that has gone to court seeking to prevent the Forest Service from moving forward with a healthy-forest project up the East Fork of the Bitterroot. The environmental groups that recently merged to form WildWest failed to halt the project, the first and largest attempted by the Forest Service in Montana under the new law, but they without doubt it slowed things down. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act was spawned by growing concerns over the condition of our national forests. Topping the list of concerns is fire danger. Many forests that evolved with periodic fires have changed over the near-century that people have been fighting forest fires. Fire suppression has resulted in denser forests, insect and disease epidemics that kill trees on a massive scale, and other ecological changes that leave forests more likely to fuel large, intense fire when lightning, campfire or some other spark inevitably kindles a blaze. It's a manageable situation - or could be....
Group soldiers on in name of harmony Pausing as he pushed a jogging stroller piled with supplies up a dusty hill, Art Goodtimes proudly called himself a holdover from the Summer of Love days in the 1960s. With a bushy, gray beard and a bare, bulging belly, Goodtimes believes in the ideal offered by the Rainbow Family, the loose-knit band of hippies that preaches love, peace and harmony and is best known for its huge gatherings every July. Yet the 60-year-old Goodtimes has seen enough of the world to know that enjoying a weeklong commune with thousands of others doesn't make it real. "It's an experiment to see if we can live like this for at least a week, to see if we can get along," said Goodtimes, who happens to be a three-term commissioner from Colorado's San Miguel County. And for a week, they do. Most of the time. The Rainbow Family is a living relic of the 1960s, claiming to be the largest unorganized organization in the country. In fact, members revel in the disorganization. There are smaller gatherings all year, but the big event comes in the first week of July when thousands gather in a national forest -- to the dismay of the U.S. Forest Service -- to exchange hugs, beat drums and just "be."....
Bear grabs man asleep in his tent Wakened from sleep in a tent at the Russian River Campground early Saturday, Chicago tourist Daniel Kuczero didn't consider the possibility that a grizzly bear tugging at the nylon woke him. He figured it had to be a dog he heard outside in the 4:30 a.m. stillness, witnesses say. Then the animal collapsed the tent on him. That, according to Russian River campground manager Butch Bishop and others, was the first indication Kuczero had that the animal probably wasn't a dog. Kuczero apparently decided the best thing to do was play dead. He changed his mind when the bear grabbed his body -- still wrapped up in a sleeping bag inside the tent -- by the shoulder, in-law Rich Dunn said by telephone from Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula on Saturday afternoon. That was enough to start Kuczero screaming. "When it bit him in the shoulder,'' Dunn said, "he yelled.''....
The mother of all air tankers: Modified DC-10s, 747s may join CDF's fleet over north state blazes It used to haul 380 vacationers across 2,300 miles of ocean to the Hawaiian Islands, but now it is swooping down over fires in California, dropping up to a 4-mile-long line of retardant. "We expect it to be a game changer," said Rick Hatton, partner in 10 Tanker Air Carrier, the company that gave a former American Airlines DC-10 new life as an air tanker. The DC-10 is not your average tanker. Three external tanks hold 12,000 gallons of retardant -- thousands of gallons more than the next biggest tanker in the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's fleet. The plane first went into action earlier this month on fires in Southern California, and it could be soaring the skies of the north state soon....
Rey: Plan to sell USFS lands to be revived While the effort to sell U.S. Forest Service lands to raise money for schools probably is dead this year, Mark Rey, Department of Agriculture undersecretary, expects it will be resurrected in some form next year. “I think we’ve run out of time this year,” Rey said on Friday. “I think the real issue is can we find an alternative that is acceptable? Should land sales be part of the mix?” The sale of public lands is nothing new — only a few years ago, Montana’s Congressional delegation created legislation that forced the Bureau of Reclamation to sell 265 sites to cabin owners who had leased the land around Canyon Ferry Reservoir. But when President Bush’s 2007 budget proposed identifying 300,000 acres of National Forest lands that could be offered for sale to raise money for the Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, the plan was widely criticized, even though Rey said the administration only anticipated selling about 175,000 acres to raise $800 million, and that was only a fraction of the 193 million acres managed by the Forest Service....
Editorial - Can’t see the fires for the trees? Here’s the choice: Mow down a few hundred cottonwoods that obstruct large-craft landings at Troutdale Airport, or place thousands of acres of trees throughout Oregon and Washington at greater risk of fire. The logic of clearing the flight path at an airport critical for battling Northwest forest fires would seem plain. But up until Tuesday, bureaucratic process had the upper hand over rational thought. Removal of the trees has been delayed for months — even years — because the cottonwoods are within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and also under the jurisdiction of the slow-moving Multnomah County land-use division. Fortunately, top county officials, working with the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies, have taken a more practical view of the situation and come up with a better determination: If there’s an emergency, the county legally can allow immediate removal of the trees — a chore that would take several days. That’s an improvement, but perhaps still too slow to keep up with fast-moving forest fires....
'Never in my backyard' A wolf sanctuary near the tourist-based town of Wolf Creek initially seemed like a good fit for the wolves and the community. But words of welcome suddenly turned to threats of violence at a recent neighborhood barbecue, say officials at Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary. "They came unglued," said Sherrie LaBat, founder of the nonprofit operation which takes in abandoned and abused wolves raised by humans that are unable to live in the wild. "They threatened to kill us and the wolves," she said. Negotiations were going well on the bowl-shaped 100-acre property known as Golden Coyote Wetlands, said LaBat. The former mining site is currently undergoing reclamation efforts, and is surrounded by Bureau of Land Management proprerty on three sides. "The property was perfect for us," LaBat said. But neighbors on nearby Coyote Creek Road say they don't want the sanctuary moving to the area, resident Terry Mancuso said. "Who wants 29 wolves down there barking and howling?" Mancuso said. "If they care about the wolves, they won't bring them here."....
BLM vetoes oil and gas development in Arches The Bureau of Land Management has rejected parcels for oil and gas drilling that would have marred views from Arches National Park and invade nearby bighorn sheep habitat. Henri Bisson, the BLM's acting Utah director, said Friday his agency also acted to protect the Utah prairie dog, a federally listed endangered species, by turning down other drilling parcels in southern Utah. Those parcels will not be among the 334,000 acres of public land the BLM plans to auction Aug. 15 at a quarterly lease sale. Bisson mentioned the rejections Friday during a news conference-turned lengthy discourse on oil and gas development. Bisson called a news conference to defend his agency's mission to open public lands for energy development and criticized environmental groups for filing objections....
Wilderness groups challenge reversal Wilderness groups were in federal court Friday trying to reverse a decision by the Bush administration that stopped a federal agency from creating wilderness study areas or doing surveys for wilderness-quality public lands. The policy shift at the Bureau of Land Management was formalized by the settlement of a lawsuit Utah had filed against the federal government in 1996. The deal reached by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2003 changed the way the BLM protects land across the West. Earthjustice attorney Jim Angell, representing 10 wilderness groups, said the federal government can't surrender or bargain authority he said was vested in BLM to protect wilderness-quality lands. Chief Utah federal judge Dee Benson didn't issue an immediate decision after Friday's hearing. The wilderness groups want the judge to declare the Leavitt-Norton deal violates federal environmental law and overturn it. Gary Randall, a Department of Justice attorney, argued the wilderness groups had no standing to sue because nobody has suffered harm or damage, and that the settlement wasn't a "final" agency action subject to litigation. Randall said the wilderness groups needed a "site-specific" decision by the BLM to make a case in court....
Workers end suit for $2.2 million Seven workers at the Lakewood-based National Information Resource Management Center have obtained a $2.2 million settlement in an age- discrimination lawsuit. The group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2000, claiming they were asked to relocate to Washington, D.C., as a result of their ages. The center, a division of the BLM, was undergoing reorganization that included staff reductions, according to legal documents. "The younger employees received preferential transfers, and the older employees were directed to the East Coast to positions that may not even have existed," said Todd McNamara, a partner at McNamara and Martinez LLP and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. Twelve employees in their 40s, 50s and 60s were asked to relocate to Washington, without being told what their new jobs would require them to do, according to Florence Michael, the lead plaintiff....
Editorial - How the West Was Sold NOT EVERY IOTA OF FEDERALLY owned land is an environmental treasure crying out for protection. Some portions would be better sold for private development. That's especially true within the vast Western holdings of the Bureau of Land Management. The federal government owns about two-thirds of the land in Utah and more than 80% of Nevada, a product of Western states' history — they were federal territories before they were states. Some isolated communities, surrounded by these protected swaths of unused land, cannot respond to the pressures of growth because they have nowhere left to grow. Selling off chunks of fenced-off land makes sense. But new proposals to auction BLM property near these towns come with a troubling twist: The money, which could easily run into the billions, wouldn't go to the Treasury to pay down the deficit or otherwise benefit U.S. taxpayers. Instead, a hefty portion would be directed to the communities to build local projects, such as water lines, roads and schools. The rest would be used for federal programs, but only near where the land was sold. Using federal lands as a piggybank for local projects is a waste of national resources, and as a result might earmark hundreds of millions in federal funds for what won't be the most worthy or urgent public projects. Worse, it gives local communities a strong incentive to pressure the federal government to sell land that might otherwise be preserved for good reason. How about that new highway you've been wanting but haven't been able to afford? Just get the feds to sell off some nearby land and give you the proceeds....
A year after state buyout of water rights, Bell Rapids farms face uncertain future Financially, the deal made sense. It’s the logical part that still gets John O’Connor. Why dry up thousands of acres of the most productive farmland in southern Idaho? The former Bell Rapids farmer asks the question with a smile but a hint of sadness lingers in his eyes. The answer, of course, is water. “It was great soil. It was very productive,” O’Connor said. More than a year has passed since the state bought up rights to water used to irrigate the Bell Rapids project — a roughly 25,000-acre plateau above Hagerman. Two years ago, Bell Rapids abounded with green fields of sugar beets, potatoes and beans. Today, in the shadows of giant wind turbines, thousands of acres slowly return to their native state — land prime for cattle grazing. The changes also will affect area wildlife....
Early Herders’ Life, as Seen Through Art Carved in Trees For decades, anthropologists have combed the red rock landscape of the Southwest for petroglyphs, the prehistoric scrawlings of American Indians. Now researchers in the Northwest are beginning to discover a trove of arborglyphs: 19th- and 20th-century tree carvings tattooed on the bark of aspens and cedars by Basque sheepherders. Some are rousing political slogans from the Basque homeland, and others depict sexual exploits. Like modern graffiti, a great many carvings note for posterity that Joe, Jose or, most likely, Joxe “was here.” Scholars say the drawings provide a blueprint for Basque immigration patterns across the Western United States and give a look into the psyche of the solitary sheepherder. “These give us insight into a group that largely did not leave behind a written word,” said John Bieter, the executive director of the Cenarrusa Center for Basque Studies at Boise State University. Basques hail from a semiautonomous region joining the Pyrenees of northern Spain and a slice of coastal territory in southern France. Their culture and language are of mysterious origins, but Basques are believed to be some of the oldest inhabitants of Europe....
Sale of ranches pending A sale is pending for two historic ranches that cover thousands of acres of pristine, rolling hills and nine miles of ocean coastline in the Jalama Road area south of Lompoc. Sotheby's International Realty is handling a private sale for an unidentified buyer at an undisclosed price, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Realtors at Sotheby's in Los Angeles declined to answer any questions, as did representatives of Bixby Ranch Company, the owners of the property. Both referred questions to a spokeswoman who did not return calls Thursday. Although no sale price is known, Rancho El Cojo was listed at $110 million and the Jalama Ranch was listed at $45 million. An unattributed report by KCOY-TV put the sale price at $120 million. The TV report said the sale will be in escrow for several months. The secrecy surrounding the pending sale sparked concern among neighbors, who said they fear development of the property....
USDA halts work on rule on older Canada cattle The U.S. Agriculture Department has withdrawn a proposed rule that would allow imports of older Canadian cattle while Canada investigates its latest case, a USDA spokeswoman said on Friday. "It makes sense to revisit this," said Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "Right now, we are waiting for that information (from the Canadian investigation)." Eggert said USDA would not act on its proposed rule -- to allow imports of cattle over 30 months of age -- until Canada completed its investigation. USDA withdrew the rule from White House review on Thursday. The latest Canadian case, reported this month, was a 50-month-old dairy cow in the province of Alberta, born well after 1997, when Canada banned the use of cattle parts in making cattle feed. Scientists say mad cow is spread through contaminated feed....
Canada seeks to clarify U.S. decision to keep ban on older cattle imports The Canadian Food Inspection Agency insisted Friday that any impact on Canada's cattle industry would be minimal following a U.S. decision to delay lifting a ban on imports of older cattle from Canada. "For now it's a delay only," said Francis Lord, director of animal health at the agency, in an interview Friday. "Not such a big deal. We had a new case and they just want to be sure that everything is accounted for in their risk assessment." Earlier this month, a cow in northern Alberta tested positive for BSE. The animal was born after the introduction of new feed regulations that were supposed to stop the spread of the disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday it was postponing the re-opening of the border to older Canadian cattle pending an investigation into the latest case. Lord said a joint Canada-U.S. investigation is close to completion. Federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl said he's hopeful the decision will be just an interruption in the progress towards opening the border....
Should dinner table be legal finish line for horses? Should Congress pass a law that would keep Mr. Ed from ending up on the menu of some fancy French restaurant? Lawmakers could decide this fall whether the slaughter of horses for human consumption should continue in a culture that exalts cowboys on pintos, cherishes childhood dreams of ponies and groans a collective "eewww" at the thought of a grilled tenderloin of stallion. Horse slaughter is "un-American," said T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oilman and rancher and a supporter of the legislative ban. "The horse has a special place in American culture and history." But a majority of the House Agriculture Committee argued last week that the proposed legislation is a threat to horse owners, taxpayers and the farm economy. "This bill is part of a larger agenda for the animal-rights activists--an agenda against all of agriculture," said Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). The committee has recommended that the bill not pass. The proposed amendment to the Horse Protection Act would "prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption." Witnesses told the committee that each year 90,000 to 120,000 American horses are sent to slaughterhouses--either in the United States or to a foreign facility--to be turned into meat for the dinner table. The meat is processed under Department of Agriculture regulations. France, Japan and Belgium are among the countries that import U.S. horse meat--a total for the three of nearly 40 million pounds in 2005....
Western author Grey gets overdue attention Zane Grey is the world's best known writer of Western romance and historical novels. From l903, when his first novel, “Betty Zane,” was published, to “Western Union” of l939, the last one during his lifetime, the times Grey was off the best-seller lists were few and far between. At one point, he was the third best-seller - after the Bible and McGuffey's Reader - in American literary history. Such novels as “Riders of the Purple Sage” thrilled generations of readers in the 20th century and now, so it appears, well into the 21st. Altogether, he penned some 40 western novels, 20 or so of them published after his death in l939, at 67. Despite his huge popularity with the reading public (many of his novels were serialized in McCall's, Nation, and Field & Stream before coming out in book form), Grey suffered at the hands of “sophisticated” critics, many of whom called his work “sub-literary.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Mainstream media not in touch with mainstream Sometimes I think I live in a different country than the ones I read about in the newspapers or hear on the radio and TV. For instance, I was in Sacramento, Calif., recently. It is not the same California you read about in the letters to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle or see on Entertainment Tonight! California is a state (a small country, really) that believes in the work ethic and not in fairy tales. It is profoundly patriotic, enormously productive and regardless of their political leanings, agrees that Hollywood hype and San Francisco politics are bizarre. I lived in Colorado for many years. It is still just as beautiful and breathtaking, and still draws tourists and refugees from Texas and California as it always has....
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Court Decision Lifts Endangered Species Act Threat to Rights of Way Across Federal Lands A decision by a federal appellate court lifts a cloud of uncertainty for Idahoans who hold rights of way across federal lands, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that six rights of way used to move water across federal lands are not subject to general regulation by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The court based its ruling upon the fact that the rights of way had been recognized by Congress under an 1866 statute. The case involved six rights of way across land managed by the BLM in the Upper Salmon River Basin. Thousands of similar rights of way exist elsewhere in Idaho and throughout the West. Two environmental groups brought the case, Western Watersheds Project v. Matejko, against BLM in 2001. The groups contended that, under the Endangered Species Act, the BLM was required to “consult” on the ongoing use of the rights of way. The State of Idaho entered the case because consultation could have resulted in a significant change in established law that would have disrupted state water rights and could have resulted in costly modifications as a condition for continued use of the rights of way on public lands. In the latest ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously reversed a March 2004 decision in which the Federal District Court held that consultation was required. The appeals court found no duty on BLM's part to engage in Endangered Species Act consultation because the federal agency had taken no action to fund, permit or use the rights of way and had no general ongoing regulatory responsibility with respect to their use....go here to read the decision.
In the New West, Do They Want Buffalo to Roam? What are the Northern Plains good for? The soil is bad, the weather worse and the landscape achingly dull. Collapsing barns punctuate a scraggly sea of brown grass and bleached boulders. The population peaked a century ago, and remaining ranchers cannot stop their children from running off to a less lonesome life. But a grand new vision is taking shape for this depopulated patch of the prairie. It includes wild herds of buffalo and boomtowns of prairie dogs, as well as restaurants and hotels for high-end tourists who would descend on small towns such as Malta. If all goes according to plan, land south of here would be resurrected as the Serengeti of North America, joining Yellowstone and Glacier national parks as must-see destinations in the West. As local acceptance allowed, wolves and grizzly bears would join buffalo, elk, moose, mule deer and bighorn sheep on a restored grassland ecosystem, similar to what 19th century explorer Meriwether Lewis described as a scene of "visionary inchantment." The American Prairie Foundation, which is closely allied with the World Wildlife Fund, expects to have about 60,000 acres of ranchland under its control by fall. Over the next several decades, it intends to buy hundreds of thousands more acres and link them up with federal land -- much of which is now grazed by cattle -- to create a reserve of about 3.5 million acres. Buffalo would run free on much of this land, while fences, cows and cattle ranches would go away....
Rancher, foresters spar over access A Two Dot-area rancher's attempt to gain access across Forest Service land to his private holdings has made its way to the U.S. Senate. Mac White wants to build a road to a section and three-quarters of land he owns along the northeastern front of the Crazy Mountains, south of Big Elk Canyon. The Forest Service, which has property between his private holdings, is willing to grant White access. But in return it wants the nearby road up Big Elk Canyon opened to public use, which would give access to about 10,000 acres of Lewis and Clark National Forest land in the Crazies. "That's not an agreeable thing to do for me," White said Thursday. "The (forest) terrain we're looking at is about 1,000 square feet per corner crossing. That isn't very much. And they want two miles of unrestricted access through me." White did, however, offer to allow the Forest Service administrative use of the Big Elk Canyon Road. White first approached the Forest Service in 2001, he said. Talks dragged on as forest specialists, such as a wildlife biologist and archaeologist, looked over the land. Two years later, talks came to a standstill over the reciprocity issue and public access. White then took his complaint to Montana's congressional delegation. The result was a rider written into the Department of Interior's 2007 appropriations bill that would "direct the Chief (of the Forest Service) to seek an easement for administrative access to Big Elk Canyon across private land and upon securing such an easement to reciprocate by offering a road easement across corners of (Lewis and Clark National Forest) for access to private inholdings." Sen. Conrad Burns is chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on Interior....
Senator Apologizes For Criticizing Firefighters U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on Thursday apologized for criticizing a firefighter team for their work on a blaze in southern Montana. In a statement issued Thursday night, Burns said he should have "chosen my words more carefully." Burns gathered state wide criticisms Thursday after a state official's report said he approached a Virginia firefighting team at the Billings airport and told them they had done a "poor job" in putting off the fire. According to Paula Rosenthal, a state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation employee, the crew members of "hotshot" wildfire were awaiting a flight home, Sunday, when they confronted Burns. "In retrospect, I wish I had chosen my words more carefully," Burns said in a statement issued Thursday night. "My criticism of the way in which the fire was handled should not have been directed at those who were working hard to put it out." Burns said his frustration came from a "meeting with landowners who were critical of the way the fire was handled."....
The browning of green Colorado Irrigated farmland is disappearing at an astonishing rate in Colorado, reaching its lowest point in 32 years, state and federal data show. About 1 million acres of irrigated farmland have dried up since hitting a high point in the 1970s, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, with the majority of the loss occurring since 1997. The prolonged drought is partly to blame. But so are new laws reducing the use of irrigation wells and the sale of farm water to thirsty, fast-growing cities. The drying of these lands raises major lifestyle questions for the state, from preserving the lush farms that ensure fresh produce at farmers' markets to keeping green open space along urban corridors. The alarming dry-up also puts critical water-sharing agreements now on the table between cities and rural regions at risk....
More Than 60 Percent of U.S. in Drought More than 60 percent of the United States now has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said. "It's the epicenter," he said. "It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota." Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people. Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds. Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment....
Critic sees grazing problems A grazing watchdog is calling on the U.S. Forest Service to halt any grazing permits issued through a swift program authorized by Congress last year, saying grazing is operating unchecked and hurting the landscape. Jonathan Ratner with the Western Watersheds Project visited the Greys River cattle allotment near Alpine in western Wyoming and took photos of trammeled stream banks and flattened, dried-out forage. "This is an extremely gross example that they should know about," Ratner said of Bridger-Teton National Forest officials. "When something like this got to this point, that to me is a massive red flag that says, 'Whoa, we need to slow down here and take a way better look.'" Last year, Congress authorized Forest Service officials to reissue grazing permits through "categorical exclusions," meaning without an exhaustive environmental review. Ratner said those exemptions have increased in recent months, indicating a directive from Washington, D.C., for forest officials to "get going" and authorize the permits....
Some in Santa Fe Pine For Lost Symbol, But Others Move On(subscription) The piñon tree has long been an established part of the Southwest, where the aromatic pine has graced views from the backyard to the back country of public forests. It is the state tree of New Mexico, where towns have lovingly named hospitals, restaurants and streets after the gnarled, dwarfish pines. The trouble now is that a lot of them are dead. As many as 80 million piñons died in New Mexico and Arizona between 2001 and 2005 during one of the worst droughts in decades, the U.S. Forest Service estimates. Their skeletons remain along a band about 500 miles long from east to west and 100 miles wide. In many places, more than 90% of the piñons have died. Ground zero of the destruction is Santa Fe, where an estimated four million of the trees have died. Many residents reacted with alarm as the piñons started dying before their eyes a few years ago, says Shelley Nolde, an urban-wildland specialist for the city....
Celebrating wildflowers A new "Botany: Celebrating Wildflowers" Web site is up and running thanks to the U.S. Forest Service. Every region, forest, grassland and prairie contributed to the content. Detailers from across the nation assisted in the development of content — pollinators, beauty of it all, native gardening, Just for Kids and teacher resources to name a few. The new site is a gateway to an enormous amount of botanical information. Station Cove and Falls in the Sumter National Forest is one of two sites featured in South Carolina. Site visitors can elect a Forest Service Region on the map display to see local "Celebrating Wildflower" events, wildflower viewing areas and wildflower photographs. Alternative text links to regional Web pages are also provided. A number of other modules such as rare plants, native plant materials, ethnobotany, lichens, ferns and other botany-subject areas are currently under development and will be posted to the site as they become finalized....
Task force debates new roadless rules Coloradans have been down this road before. The 13 people charged with crafting a statewide rule on roadless areas in national forests are set to meet by telephone Thursday - possibly their last meeting before opening up their plan to public comments and sending it to Gov. Bill Owens. Over the last year, the group has reached consensus in many areas, but some of the remaining disagreements come down to philosophies rooted as deeply as century-old spruce trees. One side believes forest rangers should have the flexibility to manage the forest, including through measures such as logging. The other side opposes new roads, which timber companies would need for logging projects. Opponents of new roads point out that the large majority of public comments given to the task force favor protecting roadfewer areas. "The whole thing will have been a waste of time if we vote to do something opposite of what the majority of the public has told us," said Dave Petersen of Durango, a task force member and roadless expert from Trout Unlimited. But task force member Joe Duda, a state forester, said the complicated issue is often misunderstood. "What do you mean by protect? Don't do anything?" Duda asked. Foresters sometimes need to build roads to deal with new conditions in the forest, he said. For example, the bark-beetle crisis was not a problem 10 years ago. But a prohibition on road-building will make it much harder to deal with beetles or wildfire risks, Duda said....
Editorial - Inaction rooted in logging angst The 2003 law enacted to help hasten restoration of the national forests and reduce the dangers of wildfire to homeowners and communities hasn't worked, the head of a Missoula-based environmental group told U.S. senators at a recent hearing in Washington, D.C. “The purpose of this hearing is to review implementation of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act,” Matthew Koehler of the WildWest Institute reminded the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests July 19. “Š This is a somewhat difficult task for the simple reason that since the HFRA was signed into law in December 2003, so little work has been accomplished under the HFRA by the U.S. Forest Service.” The rich irony, of course, is that Koehler heads the Missoula group that has gone to court seeking to prevent the Forest Service from moving forward with a healthy-forest project up the East Fork of the Bitterroot. The environmental groups that recently merged to form WildWest failed to halt the project, the first and largest attempted by the Forest Service in Montana under the new law, but they without doubt it slowed things down. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act was spawned by growing concerns over the condition of our national forests. Topping the list of concerns is fire danger. Many forests that evolved with periodic fires have changed over the near-century that people have been fighting forest fires. Fire suppression has resulted in denser forests, insect and disease epidemics that kill trees on a massive scale, and other ecological changes that leave forests more likely to fuel large, intense fire when lightning, campfire or some other spark inevitably kindles a blaze. It's a manageable situation - or could be....
Group soldiers on in name of harmony Pausing as he pushed a jogging stroller piled with supplies up a dusty hill, Art Goodtimes proudly called himself a holdover from the Summer of Love days in the 1960s. With a bushy, gray beard and a bare, bulging belly, Goodtimes believes in the ideal offered by the Rainbow Family, the loose-knit band of hippies that preaches love, peace and harmony and is best known for its huge gatherings every July. Yet the 60-year-old Goodtimes has seen enough of the world to know that enjoying a weeklong commune with thousands of others doesn't make it real. "It's an experiment to see if we can live like this for at least a week, to see if we can get along," said Goodtimes, who happens to be a three-term commissioner from Colorado's San Miguel County. And for a week, they do. Most of the time. The Rainbow Family is a living relic of the 1960s, claiming to be the largest unorganized organization in the country. In fact, members revel in the disorganization. There are smaller gatherings all year, but the big event comes in the first week of July when thousands gather in a national forest -- to the dismay of the U.S. Forest Service -- to exchange hugs, beat drums and just "be."....
Bear grabs man asleep in his tent Wakened from sleep in a tent at the Russian River Campground early Saturday, Chicago tourist Daniel Kuczero didn't consider the possibility that a grizzly bear tugging at the nylon woke him. He figured it had to be a dog he heard outside in the 4:30 a.m. stillness, witnesses say. Then the animal collapsed the tent on him. That, according to Russian River campground manager Butch Bishop and others, was the first indication Kuczero had that the animal probably wasn't a dog. Kuczero apparently decided the best thing to do was play dead. He changed his mind when the bear grabbed his body -- still wrapped up in a sleeping bag inside the tent -- by the shoulder, in-law Rich Dunn said by telephone from Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula on Saturday afternoon. That was enough to start Kuczero screaming. "When it bit him in the shoulder,'' Dunn said, "he yelled.''....
The mother of all air tankers: Modified DC-10s, 747s may join CDF's fleet over north state blazes It used to haul 380 vacationers across 2,300 miles of ocean to the Hawaiian Islands, but now it is swooping down over fires in California, dropping up to a 4-mile-long line of retardant. "We expect it to be a game changer," said Rick Hatton, partner in 10 Tanker Air Carrier, the company that gave a former American Airlines DC-10 new life as an air tanker. The DC-10 is not your average tanker. Three external tanks hold 12,000 gallons of retardant -- thousands of gallons more than the next biggest tanker in the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's fleet. The plane first went into action earlier this month on fires in Southern California, and it could be soaring the skies of the north state soon....
Rey: Plan to sell USFS lands to be revived While the effort to sell U.S. Forest Service lands to raise money for schools probably is dead this year, Mark Rey, Department of Agriculture undersecretary, expects it will be resurrected in some form next year. “I think we’ve run out of time this year,” Rey said on Friday. “I think the real issue is can we find an alternative that is acceptable? Should land sales be part of the mix?” The sale of public lands is nothing new — only a few years ago, Montana’s Congressional delegation created legislation that forced the Bureau of Reclamation to sell 265 sites to cabin owners who had leased the land around Canyon Ferry Reservoir. But when President Bush’s 2007 budget proposed identifying 300,000 acres of National Forest lands that could be offered for sale to raise money for the Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, the plan was widely criticized, even though Rey said the administration only anticipated selling about 175,000 acres to raise $800 million, and that was only a fraction of the 193 million acres managed by the Forest Service....
Editorial - Can’t see the fires for the trees? Here’s the choice: Mow down a few hundred cottonwoods that obstruct large-craft landings at Troutdale Airport, or place thousands of acres of trees throughout Oregon and Washington at greater risk of fire. The logic of clearing the flight path at an airport critical for battling Northwest forest fires would seem plain. But up until Tuesday, bureaucratic process had the upper hand over rational thought. Removal of the trees has been delayed for months — even years — because the cottonwoods are within the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area and also under the jurisdiction of the slow-moving Multnomah County land-use division. Fortunately, top county officials, working with the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies, have taken a more practical view of the situation and come up with a better determination: If there’s an emergency, the county legally can allow immediate removal of the trees — a chore that would take several days. That’s an improvement, but perhaps still too slow to keep up with fast-moving forest fires....
'Never in my backyard' A wolf sanctuary near the tourist-based town of Wolf Creek initially seemed like a good fit for the wolves and the community. But words of welcome suddenly turned to threats of violence at a recent neighborhood barbecue, say officials at Howling Acres Wolf Sanctuary. "They came unglued," said Sherrie LaBat, founder of the nonprofit operation which takes in abandoned and abused wolves raised by humans that are unable to live in the wild. "They threatened to kill us and the wolves," she said. Negotiations were going well on the bowl-shaped 100-acre property known as Golden Coyote Wetlands, said LaBat. The former mining site is currently undergoing reclamation efforts, and is surrounded by Bureau of Land Management proprerty on three sides. "The property was perfect for us," LaBat said. But neighbors on nearby Coyote Creek Road say they don't want the sanctuary moving to the area, resident Terry Mancuso said. "Who wants 29 wolves down there barking and howling?" Mancuso said. "If they care about the wolves, they won't bring them here."....
BLM vetoes oil and gas development in Arches The Bureau of Land Management has rejected parcels for oil and gas drilling that would have marred views from Arches National Park and invade nearby bighorn sheep habitat. Henri Bisson, the BLM's acting Utah director, said Friday his agency also acted to protect the Utah prairie dog, a federally listed endangered species, by turning down other drilling parcels in southern Utah. Those parcels will not be among the 334,000 acres of public land the BLM plans to auction Aug. 15 at a quarterly lease sale. Bisson mentioned the rejections Friday during a news conference-turned lengthy discourse on oil and gas development. Bisson called a news conference to defend his agency's mission to open public lands for energy development and criticized environmental groups for filing objections....
Wilderness groups challenge reversal Wilderness groups were in federal court Friday trying to reverse a decision by the Bush administration that stopped a federal agency from creating wilderness study areas or doing surveys for wilderness-quality public lands. The policy shift at the Bureau of Land Management was formalized by the settlement of a lawsuit Utah had filed against the federal government in 1996. The deal reached by former Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2003 changed the way the BLM protects land across the West. Earthjustice attorney Jim Angell, representing 10 wilderness groups, said the federal government can't surrender or bargain authority he said was vested in BLM to protect wilderness-quality lands. Chief Utah federal judge Dee Benson didn't issue an immediate decision after Friday's hearing. The wilderness groups want the judge to declare the Leavitt-Norton deal violates federal environmental law and overturn it. Gary Randall, a Department of Justice attorney, argued the wilderness groups had no standing to sue because nobody has suffered harm or damage, and that the settlement wasn't a "final" agency action subject to litigation. Randall said the wilderness groups needed a "site-specific" decision by the BLM to make a case in court....
Workers end suit for $2.2 million Seven workers at the Lakewood-based National Information Resource Management Center have obtained a $2.2 million settlement in an age- discrimination lawsuit. The group filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2000, claiming they were asked to relocate to Washington, D.C., as a result of their ages. The center, a division of the BLM, was undergoing reorganization that included staff reductions, according to legal documents. "The younger employees received preferential transfers, and the older employees were directed to the East Coast to positions that may not even have existed," said Todd McNamara, a partner at McNamara and Martinez LLP and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. Twelve employees in their 40s, 50s and 60s were asked to relocate to Washington, without being told what their new jobs would require them to do, according to Florence Michael, the lead plaintiff....
Editorial - How the West Was Sold NOT EVERY IOTA OF FEDERALLY owned land is an environmental treasure crying out for protection. Some portions would be better sold for private development. That's especially true within the vast Western holdings of the Bureau of Land Management. The federal government owns about two-thirds of the land in Utah and more than 80% of Nevada, a product of Western states' history — they were federal territories before they were states. Some isolated communities, surrounded by these protected swaths of unused land, cannot respond to the pressures of growth because they have nowhere left to grow. Selling off chunks of fenced-off land makes sense. But new proposals to auction BLM property near these towns come with a troubling twist: The money, which could easily run into the billions, wouldn't go to the Treasury to pay down the deficit or otherwise benefit U.S. taxpayers. Instead, a hefty portion would be directed to the communities to build local projects, such as water lines, roads and schools. The rest would be used for federal programs, but only near where the land was sold. Using federal lands as a piggybank for local projects is a waste of national resources, and as a result might earmark hundreds of millions in federal funds for what won't be the most worthy or urgent public projects. Worse, it gives local communities a strong incentive to pressure the federal government to sell land that might otherwise be preserved for good reason. How about that new highway you've been wanting but haven't been able to afford? Just get the feds to sell off some nearby land and give you the proceeds....
A year after state buyout of water rights, Bell Rapids farms face uncertain future Financially, the deal made sense. It’s the logical part that still gets John O’Connor. Why dry up thousands of acres of the most productive farmland in southern Idaho? The former Bell Rapids farmer asks the question with a smile but a hint of sadness lingers in his eyes. The answer, of course, is water. “It was great soil. It was very productive,” O’Connor said. More than a year has passed since the state bought up rights to water used to irrigate the Bell Rapids project — a roughly 25,000-acre plateau above Hagerman. Two years ago, Bell Rapids abounded with green fields of sugar beets, potatoes and beans. Today, in the shadows of giant wind turbines, thousands of acres slowly return to their native state — land prime for cattle grazing. The changes also will affect area wildlife....
Early Herders’ Life, as Seen Through Art Carved in Trees For decades, anthropologists have combed the red rock landscape of the Southwest for petroglyphs, the prehistoric scrawlings of American Indians. Now researchers in the Northwest are beginning to discover a trove of arborglyphs: 19th- and 20th-century tree carvings tattooed on the bark of aspens and cedars by Basque sheepherders. Some are rousing political slogans from the Basque homeland, and others depict sexual exploits. Like modern graffiti, a great many carvings note for posterity that Joe, Jose or, most likely, Joxe “was here.” Scholars say the drawings provide a blueprint for Basque immigration patterns across the Western United States and give a look into the psyche of the solitary sheepherder. “These give us insight into a group that largely did not leave behind a written word,” said John Bieter, the executive director of the Cenarrusa Center for Basque Studies at Boise State University. Basques hail from a semiautonomous region joining the Pyrenees of northern Spain and a slice of coastal territory in southern France. Their culture and language are of mysterious origins, but Basques are believed to be some of the oldest inhabitants of Europe....
Sale of ranches pending A sale is pending for two historic ranches that cover thousands of acres of pristine, rolling hills and nine miles of ocean coastline in the Jalama Road area south of Lompoc. Sotheby's International Realty is handling a private sale for an unidentified buyer at an undisclosed price, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Realtors at Sotheby's in Los Angeles declined to answer any questions, as did representatives of Bixby Ranch Company, the owners of the property. Both referred questions to a spokeswoman who did not return calls Thursday. Although no sale price is known, Rancho El Cojo was listed at $110 million and the Jalama Ranch was listed at $45 million. An unattributed report by KCOY-TV put the sale price at $120 million. The TV report said the sale will be in escrow for several months. The secrecy surrounding the pending sale sparked concern among neighbors, who said they fear development of the property....
USDA halts work on rule on older Canada cattle The U.S. Agriculture Department has withdrawn a proposed rule that would allow imports of older Canadian cattle while Canada investigates its latest case, a USDA spokeswoman said on Friday. "It makes sense to revisit this," said Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "Right now, we are waiting for that information (from the Canadian investigation)." Eggert said USDA would not act on its proposed rule -- to allow imports of cattle over 30 months of age -- until Canada completed its investigation. USDA withdrew the rule from White House review on Thursday. The latest Canadian case, reported this month, was a 50-month-old dairy cow in the province of Alberta, born well after 1997, when Canada banned the use of cattle parts in making cattle feed. Scientists say mad cow is spread through contaminated feed....
Canada seeks to clarify U.S. decision to keep ban on older cattle imports The Canadian Food Inspection Agency insisted Friday that any impact on Canada's cattle industry would be minimal following a U.S. decision to delay lifting a ban on imports of older cattle from Canada. "For now it's a delay only," said Francis Lord, director of animal health at the agency, in an interview Friday. "Not such a big deal. We had a new case and they just want to be sure that everything is accounted for in their risk assessment." Earlier this month, a cow in northern Alberta tested positive for BSE. The animal was born after the introduction of new feed regulations that were supposed to stop the spread of the disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday it was postponing the re-opening of the border to older Canadian cattle pending an investigation into the latest case. Lord said a joint Canada-U.S. investigation is close to completion. Federal Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl said he's hopeful the decision will be just an interruption in the progress towards opening the border....
Should dinner table be legal finish line for horses? Should Congress pass a law that would keep Mr. Ed from ending up on the menu of some fancy French restaurant? Lawmakers could decide this fall whether the slaughter of horses for human consumption should continue in a culture that exalts cowboys on pintos, cherishes childhood dreams of ponies and groans a collective "eewww" at the thought of a grilled tenderloin of stallion. Horse slaughter is "un-American," said T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oilman and rancher and a supporter of the legislative ban. "The horse has a special place in American culture and history." But a majority of the House Agriculture Committee argued last week that the proposed legislation is a threat to horse owners, taxpayers and the farm economy. "This bill is part of a larger agenda for the animal-rights activists--an agenda against all of agriculture," said Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). The committee has recommended that the bill not pass. The proposed amendment to the Horse Protection Act would "prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption." Witnesses told the committee that each year 90,000 to 120,000 American horses are sent to slaughterhouses--either in the United States or to a foreign facility--to be turned into meat for the dinner table. The meat is processed under Department of Agriculture regulations. France, Japan and Belgium are among the countries that import U.S. horse meat--a total for the three of nearly 40 million pounds in 2005....
Western author Grey gets overdue attention Zane Grey is the world's best known writer of Western romance and historical novels. From l903, when his first novel, “Betty Zane,” was published, to “Western Union” of l939, the last one during his lifetime, the times Grey was off the best-seller lists were few and far between. At one point, he was the third best-seller - after the Bible and McGuffey's Reader - in American literary history. Such novels as “Riders of the Purple Sage” thrilled generations of readers in the 20th century and now, so it appears, well into the 21st. Altogether, he penned some 40 western novels, 20 or so of them published after his death in l939, at 67. Despite his huge popularity with the reading public (many of his novels were serialized in McCall's, Nation, and Field & Stream before coming out in book form), Grey suffered at the hands of “sophisticated” critics, many of whom called his work “sub-literary.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Mainstream media not in touch with mainstream Sometimes I think I live in a different country than the ones I read about in the newspapers or hear on the radio and TV. For instance, I was in Sacramento, Calif., recently. It is not the same California you read about in the letters to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle or see on Entertainment Tonight! California is a state (a small country, really) that believes in the work ethic and not in fairy tales. It is profoundly patriotic, enormously productive and regardless of their political leanings, agrees that Hollywood hype and San Francisco politics are bizarre. I lived in Colorado for many years. It is still just as beautiful and breathtaking, and still draws tourists and refugees from Texas and California as it always has....
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Sunday, July 30, 2006
Resistance
by Larry Gabriel
Not all farmers and ranchers in the world are open to government programs. In news items from around the world, we can see some common traits in farmers dealing with government.
Indonesia is the world's hot bed for bird flu. The virus is spreading through much of the open-range chicken industry in that nation and has killed 43 people, but some of its farmers still don't believe it is real.
The reaction of some Indonesians was to debunk what government officials said and openly drink chicken blood in the town squares to prove that it is safe. They also continued to eat chickens that died of illness in defiance of government advice.
We might attribute such a reaction to ignorance and expect better educated farmers to be more cooperative in combating a potential worldwide health threat. That is not always so.
I recently read a news item about efforts by the State of Vermont to prepare for arrival of the bird flu by creating a database of locations (farms) with animals that might get it or spread it.
The reaction of some Vermont farmers was not totally unlike the farmers' reaction in Indonesia. They did not drink any blood in protest, but they did mistrust the government, refuse to comply, claim it was none of the government's business, and compare the effort to actions by "Nazis".
We have heard similar arguments from ranchers in discussions about livestock tracking. They don't want their location and herd size recorded in a government database, because they feel it is nobody else's business.
I don't know if we fear the government too much, but I know we do not fear bird flu enough. Half the people who get H5N1 (bird flu) die despite the best efforts of modern medicine. That is something to fear. Nearly all infected poultry die. Other mammals (such as domestic cats) can get it from birds and die too.
In three reported cases, people contracted bird flu directly from wild birds. Nobody knows for sure how it spreads. We do know the virus is in the saliva and nasal droppings of sick birds and that seed-eating birds drop a lot of food out of their mouths. It is possible other birds pick up those contaminated food droppings. It is also possible shared water sources spread the disease.
Whatever small measures we take to prepare for bird flu will be inadequate when it arrives. In any contagious animal disease situation, quarantine is an essential tool. The government can't do that effectively without information on animal locations.
The tendency of farmers to resist government intrusion is not all bad. The United States of America was created by farmers and their firm belief in individual liberty. Secretly, we admire them for that.
Besides, when the emergency is really here, American farmers and ranchers will put their narrow thinking aside and do what is best for everyone. That is one of the things that sets us apart from others around the world.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.
Following the paper trail
By Julie Carter
A roadmap of my life for the past four years is stored in a cardboard apple box. Inside that box I can find a story or photo that will document where I was at the time and what I was doing there. It is better than a diary.
The press industry calls them "tear sheets." These are pages torn out of the newspaper that contain a story I wrote, photos I took or both. I have haphazardly saved them all.
If I were a better organized person they would be in some sort of numerical order by date. But of course that would make it too easy to dig out a particular story in a particular issue of a given month and year.
Because I'm officially now an employee of the Ruidoso News and no longer a contract writer, I can, this year, enter the New Mexico Press Association contest. I will compete in four categories. That will involve sorting through a lot of tear sheets covering newspaper issues from July 1, 2005 until June 30, 2006.
True to the industry, I push all deadlines to the limit including this one. Entries must be post marked by July 31 - two days from now. So I took a trip through my four year history with the paper by sorting this big box of tear sheets by year (that's as organized as I got) and then began the one page at a time page selection through the appropriate months for this contest.
Each issue brought back a remembrance of people, places, and events. I took photos of school kids that are now in college, of old folks that are now in heaven and businesses that have come and gone in spite of their optimistic enthusiasm on opening day.
Year after year of tradition is documented in the lighting of the luminarias at Christmas, the annual Fourth of July events, the county fair in August, homecomings, proms, and a long list of award ceremonies for an even longer list of organizations. A blur of football, volleyball, basketball, track and rodeo photos almost become animated as I flip the pages of my journalistic life.
Politicians have come and gone. The faces of new mayors, police chiefs, school boards, superintendents, principals, and other assorted authoritarian figures dot the pages and bring the realization that nothing is forever and definitely not in government, public service, or education.
And then there are my columns. Fifty-two of them to chose from and I must select just two. As I look them over I smile at the things that made me laugh, feel sorrow at the rare serious moments I brought to your attention and stand amazed at the range of topics that can be covered in a year.
I told you stories of rescued chickens, over-pampered pups, and how "Martha, Maxine and Me" had our similarities. We discussed duct tape, baling wire, WD-40 and camouflage. Fashion critiquing came up frequently over the bling-bling rage and the wadded-up ostrich-plumed version of today's "fashionable" cowboy hat.
I explained the importance of never underestimating the power of good story telling or dressing for success even in the cowboying business. It took a three-part series to warn you about the hazards of horse traders and sale barn horses.
And I tried to keep the male side of the ranch out of trouble with reminders of what happens "when momma ain't happy" and the importance of gift selection. I was very clear that sometimes a new wood-splitting maul or a double-bit axe isn't exactly what she had in mind.
Whichever stories make it to the top of the heap and into the contest envelope; I know I'm a winner before it ever gets postmarked. I won the day my "voice" was given place on these pages week after week.
The best reward a writer ever receives is the knowledge that someone is reading what they write and looking for more. You my gentle readers (who said that?)have given me that.
© Julie Carter
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by Larry Gabriel
Not all farmers and ranchers in the world are open to government programs. In news items from around the world, we can see some common traits in farmers dealing with government.
Indonesia is the world's hot bed for bird flu. The virus is spreading through much of the open-range chicken industry in that nation and has killed 43 people, but some of its farmers still don't believe it is real.
The reaction of some Indonesians was to debunk what government officials said and openly drink chicken blood in the town squares to prove that it is safe. They also continued to eat chickens that died of illness in defiance of government advice.
We might attribute such a reaction to ignorance and expect better educated farmers to be more cooperative in combating a potential worldwide health threat. That is not always so.
I recently read a news item about efforts by the State of Vermont to prepare for arrival of the bird flu by creating a database of locations (farms) with animals that might get it or spread it.
The reaction of some Vermont farmers was not totally unlike the farmers' reaction in Indonesia. They did not drink any blood in protest, but they did mistrust the government, refuse to comply, claim it was none of the government's business, and compare the effort to actions by "Nazis".
We have heard similar arguments from ranchers in discussions about livestock tracking. They don't want their location and herd size recorded in a government database, because they feel it is nobody else's business.
I don't know if we fear the government too much, but I know we do not fear bird flu enough. Half the people who get H5N1 (bird flu) die despite the best efforts of modern medicine. That is something to fear. Nearly all infected poultry die. Other mammals (such as domestic cats) can get it from birds and die too.
In three reported cases, people contracted bird flu directly from wild birds. Nobody knows for sure how it spreads. We do know the virus is in the saliva and nasal droppings of sick birds and that seed-eating birds drop a lot of food out of their mouths. It is possible other birds pick up those contaminated food droppings. It is also possible shared water sources spread the disease.
Whatever small measures we take to prepare for bird flu will be inadequate when it arrives. In any contagious animal disease situation, quarantine is an essential tool. The government can't do that effectively without information on animal locations.
The tendency of farmers to resist government intrusion is not all bad. The United States of America was created by farmers and their firm belief in individual liberty. Secretly, we admire them for that.
Besides, when the emergency is really here, American farmers and ranchers will put their narrow thinking aside and do what is best for everyone. That is one of the things that sets us apart from others around the world.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.
Following the paper trail
By Julie Carter
A roadmap of my life for the past four years is stored in a cardboard apple box. Inside that box I can find a story or photo that will document where I was at the time and what I was doing there. It is better than a diary.
The press industry calls them "tear sheets." These are pages torn out of the newspaper that contain a story I wrote, photos I took or both. I have haphazardly saved them all.
If I were a better organized person they would be in some sort of numerical order by date. But of course that would make it too easy to dig out a particular story in a particular issue of a given month and year.
Because I'm officially now an employee of the Ruidoso News and no longer a contract writer, I can, this year, enter the New Mexico Press Association contest. I will compete in four categories. That will involve sorting through a lot of tear sheets covering newspaper issues from July 1, 2005 until June 30, 2006.
True to the industry, I push all deadlines to the limit including this one. Entries must be post marked by July 31 - two days from now. So I took a trip through my four year history with the paper by sorting this big box of tear sheets by year (that's as organized as I got) and then began the one page at a time page selection through the appropriate months for this contest.
Each issue brought back a remembrance of people, places, and events. I took photos of school kids that are now in college, of old folks that are now in heaven and businesses that have come and gone in spite of their optimistic enthusiasm on opening day.
Year after year of tradition is documented in the lighting of the luminarias at Christmas, the annual Fourth of July events, the county fair in August, homecomings, proms, and a long list of award ceremonies for an even longer list of organizations. A blur of football, volleyball, basketball, track and rodeo photos almost become animated as I flip the pages of my journalistic life.
Politicians have come and gone. The faces of new mayors, police chiefs, school boards, superintendents, principals, and other assorted authoritarian figures dot the pages and bring the realization that nothing is forever and definitely not in government, public service, or education.
And then there are my columns. Fifty-two of them to chose from and I must select just two. As I look them over I smile at the things that made me laugh, feel sorrow at the rare serious moments I brought to your attention and stand amazed at the range of topics that can be covered in a year.
I told you stories of rescued chickens, over-pampered pups, and how "Martha, Maxine and Me" had our similarities. We discussed duct tape, baling wire, WD-40 and camouflage. Fashion critiquing came up frequently over the bling-bling rage and the wadded-up ostrich-plumed version of today's "fashionable" cowboy hat.
I explained the importance of never underestimating the power of good story telling or dressing for success even in the cowboying business. It took a three-part series to warn you about the hazards of horse traders and sale barn horses.
And I tried to keep the male side of the ranch out of trouble with reminders of what happens "when momma ain't happy" and the importance of gift selection. I was very clear that sometimes a new wood-splitting maul or a double-bit axe isn't exactly what she had in mind.
Whichever stories make it to the top of the heap and into the contest envelope; I know I'm a winner before it ever gets postmarked. I won the day my "voice" was given place on these pages week after week.
The best reward a writer ever receives is the knowledge that someone is reading what they write and looking for more. You my gentle readers (who said that?)have given me that.
© Julie Carter
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Feds make pain at the pump worse
Washington has embraced an alternative to $3-a-gallon gasoline -- $4-a-gallon ethanol. That’s the cost of this federally mandated fuel additive, when you take everything into account. Ethanol, produced mostly from Midwestern corn, currently wholesales for more than $3 a gallon. And that’s the Midwest price -- ethanol costs even more on the coasts because it can’t be sent through pipelines and thus is costlier to ship than gasoline. At these prices, adding even small amounts of ethanol to gas can boost pump prices by 20 cents per gallon or more. In addition, the Department of Energy reports, “ethanol has only about two-thirds the energy content of an equivalent volume of gasoline,” so it substantially reduces fuel economy. In effect, using it is like switching to a larger vehicle. And in many big cities, ethanol cannot be added to ordinary gas without the resulting mixture violating federal air-quality regulations. It has to be added to a costly base blend that compensates for ethanol’s environmental shortcomings. When you take into account all the direct and indirect costs of using ethanol, it’s the equivalent of $4-a-gallon gasoline -- and closer to $5 if you consider its lousy fuel economy. Give the feds credit. It isn’t easy to find something worse for consumers than $3 gas, but they managed to do it....
New ANWR / Renewable Energy Bill Introduced in the House
A bipartisan coaltion, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, has introduced a bill that would open 2000 acres of ANWR to responsible oil development, and direct all associated lease and royalty revenue into a trust to fund alternative, renewable, and advanced energy incentives. The bill, the “American-Made Energy Freedom Act”, provides a comprehensive, common sense approach to lessening our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic oil production in the short term while funding alternatives energies for the future. In the short term, the Act opens the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain of the nearly 20 million acre ANWR to responsible oil exploration, limits the footprint of development to just 2000 acres, sets the strictest environmental conditions ever developed for energy development on federal lands, and bans the export of this American oil. At peak production, this small parcel of land could deliver to the lower 48 states an additional 1.5 million barrels per day - an amount equal to the daily supply America lost in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Katrina, and nearly equal to the amount we import from Saudi Arabia every day. The “American-Made Energy Freedom Act” also secures long term solutions by requiring that all of the lease and royalty revenue from oil production in ANWR be used to fund renewable and alternative energy projects. ANWR’s direct revenue to the Treasury is estimated at $40 billion during its lifetime of production. All of these monies — at no cost to the taxpayer — would be placed into an investment fund to incubate the development of new technologies, including the development of cellulosic biomass, coal-to-liquid clean fuels, solar and other alternatives to foreign oil. This is THE LARGEST FUND EVER PROPOSED for alternative energies for the future....
Nuclear Power May Be Answer To Global Warming
As former Vice President Al Gore's global warming movie nears the end of its run in theaters, a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) suggests combating climate change requires creative thinking about the world's energy needs. According to the report, nuclear power holds the most promise as a clean, practical alternative to fossil fuels that could help satisfy the world economy's growing demand for energy. Sustaining economic growth in developed countries and accelerating growth in the developing world means that energy demand will increase dramatically in the coming century. The International Energy Agency projects world energy demand will grow 65 percent by 2020. According to the report, reducing the amount of CO2 humans put into the atmosphere, while still meeting the energy demands of an expected population of more than 9 billion people by 2050, requires reconsidering nuclear power - a safe, practical alternative. Despite opposition, nuclear power currently produces much of the electric power in developed countries. * Nuclear power provides about 75 percent of the electricity in France and 20 percent in the United States. * With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power meets the electrical needs of more than a billion people. * China alone is planning to build 30 nuclear reactors over the next five years. Nuclear power has advantages over fossil fuels. A single, quarter-ounce pellet of uranium generates as much energy as 3.5 barrels of oil, 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 1,780 pounds of coal, with none of the CO2 emissions....
Designer Jeans From Designer Genes
As the "new biotechnology" -- gene-splicing, or "genetic modification" (GM) -- enjoys ever more varied and impressive successes, the intractable opposition from environmental and other activists has become reminiscent of the old cartoon cliché about the person who year after year inaccurately predicts the end of the world. Activists' antagonism belies the fact that gene-splicing offers enhanced efficiency for a vast array of processes, and proven benefits to both human health and the environment. For example, a single issue of a prominent monthly biotech journal contained three unrelated articles that illustrate a good part of the spectrum of benefits of the technology: agronomic improvement in an important crop plant, improved nutrition in another, and decreased animal waste deposited in the environment. The first of these involved moving two barley genes into rice, which increases more than four-fold the yield in alkaline soil (a problem in thirty per cent of arable land worldwide). The second showed that moving a single gene from the petunia into tomato markedly increases the concentration of antioxidant compounds called flavonols, the consumption of which in food appears to be correlated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. The third was a proof-of-principle experiment that demonstrated that the addition of a single bacterial gene to a mammal (in this case a mouse, used as a model system) enables the animal to more efficiently metabolize phosphates from feed, thereby reducing the phosphate content of their excreta. Adapted to large animals like cows and pigs, this approach could lower the phosphate content of manure from intensively farmed livestock and reduce the phosphate runoff into waterways and aquifers....
Endangered humans
If you live in Texas, you have 81. North Dakota has only nine. Florida is home to 100 and California has a whopping 276. In fact, every state in America has at least a handful that have the potential to disrupt and even ruin lives. What is this ominous presence? Plants and/or animals that are protected under the Endangered Species Act as either threatened or endangered. Signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon, the Endangered Species Act currently has 407 animal species and 598 plant species listed as threatened or endangered. There are two more animals and one plant that are proposed to be added to the ESA. Another 138 animals and 144 plants are candidates for listing. The odds that you actually have an endangered or threatened species in your area are probably low. However, if the federal government or, heaven forbid, a radical environmental group even believes you might have transgressed the rights of an endangered or threatened species, your life could be turned upside down. Consider the plight of a Michigan man who in 2003 killed a poisonous snake he thought was a threat to a child. He was found guilty of “killing a protected reptile or amphibian without a state permit.”....
When Eminent Domain Loses
In a unanimous 7-0 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of Norwood property owners who were challenging the confiscation of their land through eminent domain. (Norwood is a suburb surrounded by Cincinnati.) It marked the first eminent-domain ruling by a state supreme court since Kelo, and will surely set a precedent for other states wrangling over this issue. "It gives guidance to courts for the future," says Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which litigated the case in behalf of the appellants. The decision in Norwood v. Horney was an amalgam of several rulings, all of which laid out benchmarks for judging the legality of property seizures. First: The Ohio High Court implicitly rejected the rationale behind Kelo. "Although economic factors may be considered in determining whether private property may be appropriated," wrote Justice Maureen O'Connor, "the fact that the appropriation would provide an economic benefit to the government and community, standing alone, does not satisfy the public-use requirement of Section 19, Article I of the Ohio Constitution." In Norwood, the demolition of property was to make room for a sprawling, $125-million project known as Rookwood Exchange, which would include office space, luxury condos, and retail stores. Second: The court called for "heightened scrutiny when reviewing statutes that regulate the use of eminent-domain powers." The city of Norwood had, on the basis of a study funded by Rookwood Partners, the private developer, declared the relevant neighborhood to be "blighted" and "deteriorating." A trial court later ruled that Norwood had abused its discretion in finding the location "blighted" but was correct to deem it "deteriorating." The "deteriorating" standard was considered sufficient to trigger the city's eminent-domain power. The Ohio Supreme Court said this was rubbish. "We find that Norwood's use of 'deteriorating area' as a standard for appropriation is void for vagueness," wrote Justice O'Connor. "We further hold that the use of the term 'deteriorating area' as a standard for a taking is unconstitutional because the term inherently incorporates speculation as to the future condition of the property to be appropriated rather than the condition of the property at the time of the taking." In plain English, that means Norwood grossly abused its authority. The mere possibility--or even probability--that an area may one day be blighted can hardly pass muster as legitimate grounds for property seizures. Indeed, by the yardsticks employed in Norwood--cracked sidewalks, light pollution, proximity to the highway, weeds, dead-end streets, and "diversity of ownership"--large bits of middle-class, suburban America are "deteriorating." Third: The court rejected as unconstitutional the portion of Ohio's eminent-domain statute that--get this--barred judges from enjoining the seizure and redevelopment of property prior to appellant review. The law had essentially allowed developers to tear down homes after they provided just compensation but before the completion of the appeals process. According to the Ohio Supremes, this "violates the separation-of-powers doctrine."....
A War on Energy—Again?
With oil prices continuing to set new records this summer, President Bush is pushing his energy independence plan—sprinkling a few dollars on select energy sectors in the name of the war on terrorism. But according to a publication released today by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), rising prices, not government handouts, should be the primary motivation for the US to move away from oil reliance. “Despite the generous claims of national security made on its behalf, the President’s energy program looks decidedly unserious,” reports Doug Bandow, author of “A War on Energy—Again?." “If the US faces a dire security threat from importing petroleum from an unstable region teeming with enemies of America, then Washington presumably should take a far stronger hand in redesigning the energy economy.” Currently the program mostly means handing out more money to companies already on the federal dole. For example, solar power received $148 million. Wind power received $44 million. $335 million was allocated for coal research. All this appears to yield more political than economic benefits....
Misnamed “Cancer Project” Promotes Animal-Rights Propaganda
This weekend the "Cancer Project," a dietary program of the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), is hosting its first symposium on cancer and nutrition. And the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom is re-launching www.PhysicianScam.com to alert Americans that "The Cancer Project" is an animal-rights initiative in disguise. The website chronicles PCRM's anti-meat and anti-dairy campaigns, its active boycott of leading legitimate cancer research charities, and its ties to the animal rights movement’s violent underbelly. Throughout the course of Saturday's event, a mobile billboard provided by CCF will circle the Hyatt Regency Bethesda to inform attendees and the general public that PCRM’s "Cancer Project" is really an "Animal Rights Project." The mobile billboard will also advertise www.PhysicianScam.com. "The Cancer Project" advocates a strict vegan (read: PETA-approved) diet as a means of minimizing cancer risks and improving cancer survival. And it suggests that biomedical research using animals -- which holds the best hope to cure the disease -- is ineffective and unnecessary. These sentiments demonstrate "The Cancer Project’s" broad aim of placing the needs of animals above those of cancer patients. They have also been rejected repeatedly by leading physicians and researchers....
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Feds make pain at the pump worse
Washington has embraced an alternative to $3-a-gallon gasoline -- $4-a-gallon ethanol. That’s the cost of this federally mandated fuel additive, when you take everything into account. Ethanol, produced mostly from Midwestern corn, currently wholesales for more than $3 a gallon. And that’s the Midwest price -- ethanol costs even more on the coasts because it can’t be sent through pipelines and thus is costlier to ship than gasoline. At these prices, adding even small amounts of ethanol to gas can boost pump prices by 20 cents per gallon or more. In addition, the Department of Energy reports, “ethanol has only about two-thirds the energy content of an equivalent volume of gasoline,” so it substantially reduces fuel economy. In effect, using it is like switching to a larger vehicle. And in many big cities, ethanol cannot be added to ordinary gas without the resulting mixture violating federal air-quality regulations. It has to be added to a costly base blend that compensates for ethanol’s environmental shortcomings. When you take into account all the direct and indirect costs of using ethanol, it’s the equivalent of $4-a-gallon gasoline -- and closer to $5 if you consider its lousy fuel economy. Give the feds credit. It isn’t easy to find something worse for consumers than $3 gas, but they managed to do it....
New ANWR / Renewable Energy Bill Introduced in the House
A bipartisan coaltion, led by Rep. Devin Nunes, has introduced a bill that would open 2000 acres of ANWR to responsible oil development, and direct all associated lease and royalty revenue into a trust to fund alternative, renewable, and advanced energy incentives. The bill, the “American-Made Energy Freedom Act”, provides a comprehensive, common sense approach to lessening our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by increasing domestic oil production in the short term while funding alternatives energies for the future. In the short term, the Act opens the 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain of the nearly 20 million acre ANWR to responsible oil exploration, limits the footprint of development to just 2000 acres, sets the strictest environmental conditions ever developed for energy development on federal lands, and bans the export of this American oil. At peak production, this small parcel of land could deliver to the lower 48 states an additional 1.5 million barrels per day - an amount equal to the daily supply America lost in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Katrina, and nearly equal to the amount we import from Saudi Arabia every day. The “American-Made Energy Freedom Act” also secures long term solutions by requiring that all of the lease and royalty revenue from oil production in ANWR be used to fund renewable and alternative energy projects. ANWR’s direct revenue to the Treasury is estimated at $40 billion during its lifetime of production. All of these monies — at no cost to the taxpayer — would be placed into an investment fund to incubate the development of new technologies, including the development of cellulosic biomass, coal-to-liquid clean fuels, solar and other alternatives to foreign oil. This is THE LARGEST FUND EVER PROPOSED for alternative energies for the future....
Nuclear Power May Be Answer To Global Warming
As former Vice President Al Gore's global warming movie nears the end of its run in theaters, a new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) suggests combating climate change requires creative thinking about the world's energy needs. According to the report, nuclear power holds the most promise as a clean, practical alternative to fossil fuels that could help satisfy the world economy's growing demand for energy. Sustaining economic growth in developed countries and accelerating growth in the developing world means that energy demand will increase dramatically in the coming century. The International Energy Agency projects world energy demand will grow 65 percent by 2020. According to the report, reducing the amount of CO2 humans put into the atmosphere, while still meeting the energy demands of an expected population of more than 9 billion people by 2050, requires reconsidering nuclear power - a safe, practical alternative. Despite opposition, nuclear power currently produces much of the electric power in developed countries. * Nuclear power provides about 75 percent of the electricity in France and 20 percent in the United States. * With 434 operating reactors worldwide, nuclear power meets the electrical needs of more than a billion people. * China alone is planning to build 30 nuclear reactors over the next five years. Nuclear power has advantages over fossil fuels. A single, quarter-ounce pellet of uranium generates as much energy as 3.5 barrels of oil, 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 1,780 pounds of coal, with none of the CO2 emissions....
Designer Jeans From Designer Genes
As the "new biotechnology" -- gene-splicing, or "genetic modification" (GM) -- enjoys ever more varied and impressive successes, the intractable opposition from environmental and other activists has become reminiscent of the old cartoon cliché about the person who year after year inaccurately predicts the end of the world. Activists' antagonism belies the fact that gene-splicing offers enhanced efficiency for a vast array of processes, and proven benefits to both human health and the environment. For example, a single issue of a prominent monthly biotech journal contained three unrelated articles that illustrate a good part of the spectrum of benefits of the technology: agronomic improvement in an important crop plant, improved nutrition in another, and decreased animal waste deposited in the environment. The first of these involved moving two barley genes into rice, which increases more than four-fold the yield in alkaline soil (a problem in thirty per cent of arable land worldwide). The second showed that moving a single gene from the petunia into tomato markedly increases the concentration of antioxidant compounds called flavonols, the consumption of which in food appears to be correlated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. The third was a proof-of-principle experiment that demonstrated that the addition of a single bacterial gene to a mammal (in this case a mouse, used as a model system) enables the animal to more efficiently metabolize phosphates from feed, thereby reducing the phosphate content of their excreta. Adapted to large animals like cows and pigs, this approach could lower the phosphate content of manure from intensively farmed livestock and reduce the phosphate runoff into waterways and aquifers....
Endangered humans
If you live in Texas, you have 81. North Dakota has only nine. Florida is home to 100 and California has a whopping 276. In fact, every state in America has at least a handful that have the potential to disrupt and even ruin lives. What is this ominous presence? Plants and/or animals that are protected under the Endangered Species Act as either threatened or endangered. Signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon, the Endangered Species Act currently has 407 animal species and 598 plant species listed as threatened or endangered. There are two more animals and one plant that are proposed to be added to the ESA. Another 138 animals and 144 plants are candidates for listing. The odds that you actually have an endangered or threatened species in your area are probably low. However, if the federal government or, heaven forbid, a radical environmental group even believes you might have transgressed the rights of an endangered or threatened species, your life could be turned upside down. Consider the plight of a Michigan man who in 2003 killed a poisonous snake he thought was a threat to a child. He was found guilty of “killing a protected reptile or amphibian without a state permit.”....
When Eminent Domain Loses
In a unanimous 7-0 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of Norwood property owners who were challenging the confiscation of their land through eminent domain. (Norwood is a suburb surrounded by Cincinnati.) It marked the first eminent-domain ruling by a state supreme court since Kelo, and will surely set a precedent for other states wrangling over this issue. "It gives guidance to courts for the future," says Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which litigated the case in behalf of the appellants. The decision in Norwood v. Horney was an amalgam of several rulings, all of which laid out benchmarks for judging the legality of property seizures. First: The Ohio High Court implicitly rejected the rationale behind Kelo. "Although economic factors may be considered in determining whether private property may be appropriated," wrote Justice Maureen O'Connor, "the fact that the appropriation would provide an economic benefit to the government and community, standing alone, does not satisfy the public-use requirement of Section 19, Article I of the Ohio Constitution." In Norwood, the demolition of property was to make room for a sprawling, $125-million project known as Rookwood Exchange, which would include office space, luxury condos, and retail stores. Second: The court called for "heightened scrutiny when reviewing statutes that regulate the use of eminent-domain powers." The city of Norwood had, on the basis of a study funded by Rookwood Partners, the private developer, declared the relevant neighborhood to be "blighted" and "deteriorating." A trial court later ruled that Norwood had abused its discretion in finding the location "blighted" but was correct to deem it "deteriorating." The "deteriorating" standard was considered sufficient to trigger the city's eminent-domain power. The Ohio Supreme Court said this was rubbish. "We find that Norwood's use of 'deteriorating area' as a standard for appropriation is void for vagueness," wrote Justice O'Connor. "We further hold that the use of the term 'deteriorating area' as a standard for a taking is unconstitutional because the term inherently incorporates speculation as to the future condition of the property to be appropriated rather than the condition of the property at the time of the taking." In plain English, that means Norwood grossly abused its authority. The mere possibility--or even probability--that an area may one day be blighted can hardly pass muster as legitimate grounds for property seizures. Indeed, by the yardsticks employed in Norwood--cracked sidewalks, light pollution, proximity to the highway, weeds, dead-end streets, and "diversity of ownership"--large bits of middle-class, suburban America are "deteriorating." Third: The court rejected as unconstitutional the portion of Ohio's eminent-domain statute that--get this--barred judges from enjoining the seizure and redevelopment of property prior to appellant review. The law had essentially allowed developers to tear down homes after they provided just compensation but before the completion of the appeals process. According to the Ohio Supremes, this "violates the separation-of-powers doctrine."....
A War on Energy—Again?
With oil prices continuing to set new records this summer, President Bush is pushing his energy independence plan—sprinkling a few dollars on select energy sectors in the name of the war on terrorism. But according to a publication released today by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), rising prices, not government handouts, should be the primary motivation for the US to move away from oil reliance. “Despite the generous claims of national security made on its behalf, the President’s energy program looks decidedly unserious,” reports Doug Bandow, author of “A War on Energy—Again?." “If the US faces a dire security threat from importing petroleum from an unstable region teeming with enemies of America, then Washington presumably should take a far stronger hand in redesigning the energy economy.” Currently the program mostly means handing out more money to companies already on the federal dole. For example, solar power received $148 million. Wind power received $44 million. $335 million was allocated for coal research. All this appears to yield more political than economic benefits....
Misnamed “Cancer Project” Promotes Animal-Rights Propaganda
This weekend the "Cancer Project," a dietary program of the Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), is hosting its first symposium on cancer and nutrition. And the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom is re-launching www.PhysicianScam.com to alert Americans that "The Cancer Project" is an animal-rights initiative in disguise. The website chronicles PCRM's anti-meat and anti-dairy campaigns, its active boycott of leading legitimate cancer research charities, and its ties to the animal rights movement’s violent underbelly. Throughout the course of Saturday's event, a mobile billboard provided by CCF will circle the Hyatt Regency Bethesda to inform attendees and the general public that PCRM’s "Cancer Project" is really an "Animal Rights Project." The mobile billboard will also advertise www.PhysicianScam.com. "The Cancer Project" advocates a strict vegan (read: PETA-approved) diet as a means of minimizing cancer risks and improving cancer survival. And it suggests that biomedical research using animals -- which holds the best hope to cure the disease -- is ineffective and unnecessary. These sentiments demonstrate "The Cancer Project’s" broad aim of placing the needs of animals above those of cancer patients. They have also been rejected repeatedly by leading physicians and researchers....
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