Southern Arizona family faces off with feds Part One
A scrappy little breeze careens through the Dos Cabezas Pioneer Cemetery, setting tufts of grass dancing among the cockeyed grave stones. Amid this rambunctious parley of wind, spirit and bone, John and Delia Klump share eternal views east to the Dos Cabezas Mountains and south to the sunburned flats of Sulphur Springs Valley.
Strong, lanky and tough, John Sherman Klump arrived in these hills before statehood, before the Endangered Species Act, before such things as tree-huggers, trail joggers and grazing fees. It was rough-and-tumble country back then; lovely country, a land where hard-working folks could live simple and free.
Klump spent his early manhood riding the range, raising kids and dispensing meager family funds in Willcox saloons. When his first wife hit the road, he cleaned up his act, got hitched to pretty Delia and settled into respectable child-rearing. Before many years had passed, his prodigious progeny would total six boys and a girl. In turn, these youngsters would grow into pillars of ranching power, their combined holdings nearing 300,000 acres of range land stretched across southeastern Arizona and New Mexico.
In recent years, some Klumps would also make a name for themselves as rural rebels, spending much of their time fighting for a cause that city folks--and some of their own colleagues--find awfully far-fetched.
Still, these are merely temporal matters. Here on this peaceful hillside, the winds of change no longer afflict John and Delia Klump. They are tenacious, backcountry breezes, and that is all.
Up the road in downtown Tucson, one of those six sons, Luther Wallace "Wally" Klump, sits upright as Federal District Judge John Roll strides into the courtroom one day earlier this month. Even after a year in prison, Wally is a deeply etched, rustic figure. He's here because, in the end, he was forced to bend.
Out in the hall, Wally's son, Levi, a compact and studious man, is worried.
"Obviously, prison has really taken a toll on Dad," he says. "He has really deteriorated."
A month earlier, Wally Klump was still full of spit and vinegar, still defying Roll's order to pull his 28 cows from the Simmons Peak Allotment, a U. S. Bureau of Land Management property near Willcox to which Klump holds no realistic claim. During his year in jail for contempt, Wally became a minor celebrity (and BLM public relations headache), garnering a story in The New York Times, a "Free Wally!" Web site and a grim following among angry ranchers dotting the West.
But the BLM stuck to its guns.
"For us, it's simply a matter of enforcing the rules," says Diane Drobka, spokeswoman for the agency's Safford office, which oversees several Klump grazing allotments. "Mr. Klump held his fate in his own hands the whole time."
Cardiac murmurs, however, can give a 71-year-old man far from his family a change of heart. One morning in early May, Wally awoke feeling odd. In federal court, he appears silent and gaunt. His attorney, Heather Williams, rises to explain that her client will finally comply, and remove his cattle from Simmons Peak.
But that's not the court's only gripe against Wally. Roll is also displeased with the defendant's repeated threats to plug any government official who attempted to move his cows. Fortunately, this matter also seems headed for resolution. Klump "submitted a letter last week renouncing his Second Amendment rights," says Williams, adding that Wally only mentioned his gun rights in Willcox newspaper ads "out of frustration at the situation he and his family are in. He doesn't plan to ever hurt anybody over a cow."
Williams pauses, glancing down at Wally.
"I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Klump, for speaking up against injustice," she says. "We may not always agree with him, but people like him are why our country exists."
Jennifer Guerin, chief assistant U.S. attorney, stands to say she won't object to Klump's release. But she notes that his pacifism is rather fresh, considering that he'd issued more dark warnings just days earlier to a reporter from The New York Times.
"This was a very explicit threat to us," Guerin says, and Roll agrees, calling Wally's "very intemperate statements" the "seminal feature of this case." Nonetheless, Roll will grant Klump his freedom, contingent on a status report in five weeks that confirms the Simmons Peak cattle have found other accommodations.
Wally Klump stands slowly, and handcuffs are slipped from his wrists. Later, Williams calls it "the best Mother's Day gift" she could receive. "Obviously," she says, "I don't think he should have been there in the first place."
And, in the end, it's hard to gauge what his sacrifice accomplished. After a year in the slammer, Wally Klump is now just an ailing old man, and one too long removed from the wily Dos Cabezas.
By and large, the Klumps never cared much for the federal government, or its habit of enforcing grazing laws on public lands. But the family didn't actively provoke the feds until the late 1980s, when brothers Wally and Wayne began sporadically locking access roads to public property.
Feuding heated up in the early 1990s, when Wally and the BLM tangled over a parcel called the Badger Den Allotment. Wally repeatedly ignored permit requirements, and finally the BLM ordered that he remove his cattle. He appealed all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court, losing every time. According to an agency report, "Mr. Klump's public lands grazing permit was cancelled by the BLM for one basic reason: his continuing failure to follow the terms and conditions of his grazing permit."
Again, the BLM "requested that Mr. Klump remove his trespassing livestock from public lands," according to the agency release. Again, Wally refused. When he then "claimed that he owned the public lands because he had worked on them," the BLM filed a Notice of Intent to Impound his cattle, and hauled them off for sale.
Meanwhile, Wayne had lost his grazing privileges on the Simmons Peak Allotment.
"I had a permit," he explains, "but my cattle kept losing their ear tags in the brush. Then the BLM went up there three times, kept on seeing cattle without tags, and yanked the permit through no fault of our own. This was at the same time they were claiming our water rights on the property."
Eventually, a judge in Tucson ordered Wayne to pull his cattle or face a $200-per-animal fine for each day they remained.
"This was the early 1990s," Wayne says, "and a cow was only worth $200. The whole thing was kind of nuts."
Adding fuel to the fire, the Klump brothers decided on another option: They'd move Wayne's cattle from Simmons Peak and replace them with Wally's small herd. As a result, Wally's cows were once again trespassing on federal land.
The two contentious allotments--Badger Den and Simmons Peak--total 52,957 acres. Of that acreage, only 2,110 is private land owned by the Klumps. To date, Wally Klump has never had legal grazing privileges on Simmons Peak.
Finally, the frustrated BLM filed a civil complaint against Wally over his Simmons Peak cattle, and on July 31, 2002, Judge John Roll ordered the herd removed. Wally refused, and by April 21, 2003, he was on his way to a prison in Florence.
And that's where he sat on principle, until he was released earlier this month after agreeing to have Wayne pull the cows from Simmons Peak.
Heading east from Tucson, the boulder-strewn Dragoon Mountains offer the first broad vistas of Klump country. It is a gnarled land, spare and lean, a place where city scents are soon replaced by the acrid smell of creosote, and pavement pierces the scruffy horizon with a shimmering rigor mortis.
Rolling down the long, hard hill into Willcox, the commerce of cattle is still visible--rail yards and stock trucks and feed stores.
Just a handful of miles from Willcox--a few weeks before Wally's liberation--Wayne Klump stands in the shadow of his parents' old house. His own home rises just a few yards away. A boxy two-story in faded yellow, it overlooks a broad, pleasant meadow accented by grassy knobs and a hulking piece of antique mining equipment. On the meadow's far side, a squat, frontier cabin peeks from a grove of trees.
Tall, wiry and cowboy-polite, with a wide smile and brushy mustache, Wayne Klump could have just ridden in from some old John Ford movie set. Still, the youngest son of John and Delia isn't entirely a man of the 19th century as some claim: At the moment, he's simultaneously tugging an ATV from his garage and pointing out his solar-power system on the roof.
Nor is he immune to checking his cell phone from time to time. But he does hanker for the days when the government left folks like him alone.
"When my dad came here, it was all public domain, open range," he says. "You ran your cattle anywhere you wanted to."
Setting one's personal boundaries was easier, too.
"My dad drew lines around the property," Wayne says, "and this guy from the Department of the Interior came out there. My dad showed him his water rights, and so the guy says, 'OK, we'll draw lines around it, and this land is your allotment.' And everything was fine."
Better than fine, actually: By the 1940s, John Klump had moved his family a few miles east of Willcox to tiny Bowie and began sinking every extra cent into buying more and more property.
Klump family fights federal removal of cattle Part Two
"My dad was a cowboy," Wayne says. "And he was a little cowboy, in the business sense. But he was a hard worker, putting in long days.
"We weren't rich by any means. But while a lot of people spent all their money on a nice house and a fancy car, we didn't. We lived really cheap, and saved our money to buy another piece of land."
He squints up at the sun, and points to his folks' onetime home, now vacant-eyed and crumbling in spots.
"That's the house I grew up in," he says. "It was kind of tough. For a long time, we had to carry in our water. We had an outhouse and no electricity. But we had plenty to eat, and we were loved."
Wayne fires up the ATV, and a few bumpy minutes later, he stops and stills the machine, just down the hill from a few contentious Simmons Peak cows. The black-faced cattle raise their heads nonchalantly, and go back to nibbling desert scrub. Wayne steps along the path, and points out a thick, black line running down the slope, from a natural spring into a tidy stock pond.
Among his greatest fears, he says, is that the feds will maneuver the family out of their long-held water rights around Simmons Peak. Without water, this land would be useless to a Klump.
But his feelings reach beyond the purely practical, to settle in the primal pastures of memory.
"Listen, when I was growing up, we'd come up here with my dad and work on the spring," he says quietly. "We took pride in building the fences and doing a good job. A lot of kids these days live in the cities. They don't have an opportunity to be outdoors and work like we did. And that's too bad."
To embittered ranchers, Wayne Hage is a revered hero capable of battling the feds to a draw. And he just may win his current fight in a Reno, Nev., courthouse. For Hage, a powerful cattleman married to a former congresswoman, the Reno showdown is only the latest skirmish in an ongoing war with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service over grazing, water and property rights.
Like the Klumps, Hage's fight was sparked in the '80s, when he was forced to reduce the number of his cattle grazing on Forest Service land. He fought back, and detailed his struggle in the 1989 tome of rebellion, Storm Over the Rangelands.
During the Reno trial, which started in early May, ranching families from South Dakota to New Mexico arrived to show support for Hage's basic philosophy: that many of them hold private property rights on federal land. Through grazing restrictions, he argues, the government deprives ranchers of income and owes them compensation.
"What we're talking about here," he told The Associated Press in Reno, "is how the government -- working with the environmentalists -- took the property from me. This ruling could have a dramatic impact on Western states' rights and the proper jurisdiction of federal lands in the West. It's the first time in nearly a century that someone has effectively challenged the government over who owns the range rights and water rights out here on these federal lands."
To be sure, Hage's position is the same old "takings" bluster regularly bandied about by property rights zealots--but with a twist: Hage holds that such grazing restrictions squelch the "preexisting rights" of Western ranchers to range land, rights that predate the establishment of forest preserves in the 19th century.
Not surprisingly, Wayne and Wally Klump are pretty fond of Hage and his ideas.
"He has a ranch in Nevada, and the Forest Service and BLM took his cows and sold them," Wayne says. "But he didn't go to federal district court--he went straight to federal claims court."
Wayne narrows his eyes.
"And here's the deal," he says. "Hage didn't argue with the feds about whether they had the right to come and take his cows. He says, 'You're the government; you're bigger than I am. You have the right to take them. But pay me for them.' "
That notion raises a grin.
"Heck, I might just go up there to Reno," Wayne says. "It's going to be a month-long trial, and it's going to determine how much the government owes him and what his rights are."
While he wishes the same principle could help himself and Wally, "The hell of it," he says, "is that we've already gone to court and lost."
But others say ranchers shouldn't pin much hope on Hage's crusade. Among them is Debra Donahue, a University of Wyoming law professor and author of The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock From Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. Published in 1999, her book raised such a ruckus that Wyoming's senate president threatened to gut the state law college in revenge.
But Donahue didn't blink. She says federal laws "are absolutely clear that a grazing permit confers no right, title or interest in public lands. And no one can acquire a right against the government by long-time use of government land unless the government so provides, as it did in some 'preemption' acts in favor of squatters in the 19th century."
Further, she doesn't believe there's much public support for the posturing of Wayne Hage and the Klumps.
"People like the Klumps will attract some sympathy," she says, "but only among those uninformed about the law and about the ecological impacts of grazing."
Some suggest that radical ranchers are simply grasping at straws.
"They're an anachronism," says Rod Mondt, a longtime Tucson environmental activist who's rubbed shoulders with the Klumps. "They're living in a world that doesn't exist anymore, and they're fearful of the world around them that's changing so fast. And in many cases, they don't have any other choices. They have everything sunk into their ranches. So that fear of change is magnified by (the fear) that they're losing control."
It's late March, a little more than a month before Wally will leave the pokey, and the jailhouse phone is quite scratchy. But even lousy connections can't diminish a defiant Klump.
To Wally, his cattle are four-legged symbols of freedom. And that's why he's locked up. "I thought this was probably the most important thing I would do in my life," he says.
His rationale for incarceration is simple: The government doesn't own Simmons Peak. For the old cowboy with little left to lose, everything's at stake. This prompts a bit of philosophizing.
"For example," he says, "we have a formula for water. But a thing as important as freedom, we don't have any formula for. The best that most people come up with for freedom is private property.
"When private property is owned only by the rich guy, though, that's no longer freedom for the people working for him--the working guy is a slave to the rich guy. What I come up with is this: Private property should be owned by the guy who does the work on it. That's my formula for liberty and freedom."
It's an interesting concept. But even more interesting to many folks who know the Klumps is just how far Wally will go to achieve it. This question helps explain why his cattle remained illegally on Simmons Peak for so long.
Recalls Jennifer Guerin, the U.S. attorney: "Once, his son told me, 'You know, we're not bad people.' And I said, 'OK, you say you're not bad, that you're not dangerous. But then you make these kind of threats to hurt people. How can you say that's not bad?' "
Guerin also discussed the threats with Wally. "And he told me, 'Oh no, don't get me wrong. We're not saying we're going to kill people. We're saying we're going to kill government employees.'
"They had made it very clear that if the BLM or the court interfered (with their cattle), that they would take action against it," she says. "So why should (federal agents) go out there armed, and risk their lives and the lives of the Klumps, to remove them? I mean, who wants a Ruby Ridge over cattle?"
At the same time, BLM spokeswoman Diane Drobka says the Klumps reinforce negative public attitudes about ranching, and make life harder for the "99.9 percent of ranchers who are complying with the rules. And I think a lot of ranchers are becoming concerned about that."
Her point is echoed by Doc Lane, director of natural resources for the Arizona Cattle Growers Association.
"It rubs off in a lot of different ways," especially in the court of public opinion, he says. "The public sees these lands as recreational. But for the ranchers, it's their livelihood, and that makes it very personal. We don't condone what they've done--it's hard to imagine someone getting so frustrated that they snap like that. Still, it's a tough deal."
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Monday, May 31, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
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It moved in. Fearlessly. Decisively. And spotted owls fled. Barred owls loom about 20 percent larger than spotted owls. They don't much care that their smaller cousin is protected by the Endangered Species Act. And they don't take kindly to company.... Liability: The Silent Player In The Water-Bomber Debate The Forest Service cancelled air-tanker contracts in part because it was afraid of being sued if any of them crashed, according to a report in the Billings Gazette. In a remarkably candid interview (for a government official concerned about liability) Tony Kern, the Forest Service's assistant director of aviation management, said the safety of air crews and people on the ground was the first consideration but liability was also a concern. In late April, an NTSB report on two air-tanker crashes said many of the planes are potentially dangerous and, because they are "public use" aircraft, they are outside the FAA's certification jurisdiction while fighting fires. That put all the responsibility on the Forest Service and it responded May 10 by canceling contracts for 33 large tankers. Kern noted the decision was made a little easier by the unnamed mayor of an unnamed Rocky Mountain city who wrote a letter saying she expected the federal government to "guarantee" that the planes flying over her city "will not come apart over the heads of the public." Kern said her letter brought the issue home for the Forest Service. "This could end up with a plane landing on a school," Kern said. "You are talking about the potential for negligent homicide." Officials at Neptune Aviation, an air-tanker operator, told the Gazette they were shocked by Kern's admission of liability and said the comments could open up the Forest Service to lawsuits resulting from the 2002 crashes.... More species threatened by climate change The Bufo periglenes, the golden toad of Costa Rica, vanished from its habitat in 1987 in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica. It is the first animal species credited with being driven to extinction by climate change. Biologists do not expect it to be the last. Camille Parmesan, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Texas, called the golden toad "a very rare prized endangered species, which has always been very restricted, only ever known from Monteverde, and that's been linked with climate change." "One extinction of an entire species has been solidly linked to climate change," Parmesan told United Press International, "and lots and lots of population extinctions.".... Colorado conversion? A 47-year-old lawyer who grew up on a Colorado ranch, herding sheep, Raley is arguably the nation's most powerful water broker. He and his boss, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, have their fingers on a federal faucet that feed cities, farms, hydropower plants and rivers across the West. But Raley also harbors a little secret that might surprise some of his environmental foes, and alarm those on the other side. According to boatmen and associates I've interviewed, Raley has contracted river fever - a mildly euphoric, somewhat mystical devotion to the canyon that comes from spending several days in its belly. John Wesley Powell caught the fever when he explored the canyon in the 1800s. Raley is now severely infected, having run the river three years in a row.... Va. Sting Targets Trade in Bear Parts, Ginseng His wife had been stricken with breast and colon cancer, and in August 2002, Soo Kil Seo turned hopefully to the possibilities of Asian folk medicine. The 59-year-old Alexandria dry cleaner drove to a rural hunting store that had advertised bear for sale in Korean newspapers, paid $1,200 for two bear carcasses and removed the prized and supposedly curative gallbladders for his wife. The home-style prescription proved far more costly, though, than he had ever imagined. Seo and dozens of other Koreans from the Washington area have been charged with multiple felony counts for alleged violations of wildlife protection statutes, all swept up in a sting operation run from a sham hunting supply store in the Shenandoah Valley. Investigators say they were aiming to stem the illegal trade in wild ginseng and black bears.... Feds win most competed jobs; contractors troubled Federal workers won nearly 89 percent of 17,595 jobs subjected to contractor competitions last year, according to new data from the Office of Management and Budget. OMB predicts the result of those job contests, aimed at driving market-based competition into the government, should save taxpayers an estimated $1.1 billion over the next three to five years as employees reorganize into more efficient organizations and adopt new technology. Still, there is room for improvement in achieving better value when competing government jobs against the private sector, said the study, “Report on Competitive Sourcing Results,” posted on the OMB Web site May 25.... Editorial: National parks are hurting financially The Bush administration should be honest about our national parks' finances. Instead, officials who oversee the nation's 382 parks and historic sites want to paint a happy face on an increasingly serious problem. Actually, the U.S. Park Service's bosses might win public understanding if they were upfront about how grave the situation has become. For years, the parks have had a $1 billion maintenance backlog. Now, annual revenues may fall $600 million short of what's needed to provide basic services, says The National Parks and Conservation Association, an environmental group.... Editorial: Lands in Need of Care t was clear from the moment they took power that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were determined to greatly accelerate oil and gas drilling on the public lands of the West. Driven by a belief that energy independence could be achieved by aggressive exploitation of the public domain, the administration set its sights on doubling the number of wells on lands controlled by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management and urged the environmental community not to block its efforts with frivolous lawsuits. The truth of the matter is that nobody, including conservationists, challenged the government's right or need to look for oil and gas, given the tight markets for both. All anyone asked for was a balanced approach that would broadly respect the requirements of nature and spare particularly fragile landscapes. To the dismay of some Western governors, fish and game commissioners, ranchers and hunters — many of them lifelong Republicans — the administration has not produced a balanced policy. Both Washington and the regional B.L.M offices have repeatedly made clear their belief that extraction of oil and gas trumps all other uses of the public lands. This being an election year, the administration is making noises about a more nuanced approach, and has begun to reach out to its critics among the ranchers and sportsmen. There are 90 different land use plans or leasing proposals on the table. Four are especially controversial. How they come out will tell much about whether the administration has had a genuine change of heart.... Riders, ranchers seek common ground The debate over the future of the Owyhee Mountains was barely on the Wells family's radar as they spent Sunday enjoying their main weekend pastime, riding motorcycles in Owyhee County. They and the few riders at the popular Hemingway Butte trailhead Sunday morning either supported an effort to protect wilderness, ranchers and motorized access called the Owyhee Initiative, or said they were unaware of it. Motorized users have a seat at the table of the Owyhee Initiative talks, organized by the Owyhee County commissioners to seek a resolution to federal land disputes in the 4.9 million-acre southwest corner of Idaho. Other participants include ranchers, environmental groups and outfitters.... Column: Get serious about energy Oil is the lifeblood of our industrial society. But it's been under attack since the early 1970s. Environmentalists told us we'd all choke from the exhaust fumes back then. Then they lied to us about the dangers of nuclear power and succeeded in shutting down plants and averting the construction of new ones. Then they lied about global warming. Then they lied about the ozone hole. Then they complained about oil drilling in Alaska. Then they complained about drilling for natural gas. Then they complained about oil drilling offshore. Then they complained about reliance on foreign oil and told us we must conserve.... Most Federal Oil, Gas Leases Unproductive Nearly three-fourths of the 40 million acres of public land currently leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States isn't producing any oil or gas, federal records show, even as the Bush administration pushes to open more environmentally sensitive public lands for oil and gas development. An Associated Press computer analysis of Bureau of Land Management records found that 80 percent of federal lands leased for oil and gas production in Wyoming are producing no oil or gas. Neither are 83 percent of the leased acres in Montana, 77 percent in Utah, 71 percent in Colorado, 36 percent in New Mexico and 99 percent in Nevada. 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Those who identified themselves as environmentalists were almost evenly divided within the 3 percent margin of error, 43 percent choosing the economy to 46 percent preferring the environment.... Rancher's battle casts shadow over Scripps For five years, Charles Vavrus has watched his ranch near the end of Northlake Boulevard become overrun by exotic trees. The drainage ditches are so covered with brush, he claims they no longer work properly. And birds roost on about 27 miles of neglected fence. The ranch owner was ordered in 1999 to halt most of the agricultural operation on the 4,763-acre tract, after the city filed suit against him for chopping down trees. Just over a third of the ranch is slated to be part of The Scripps Research Institute's biotech village. Vavrus' five-year legal battle with the city has complicated the project, which will transform the ranchland into a village of homes and research-related businesses with a town center.... Ballot issues call for electing game managers Colorado's principal wildlife managers should be elected by voters, not appointed for political reasons, say the authors of two petitions filed with the state for inclusion on the November ballot. Voters, not legislators, also should have the last word on setting resident hunting and fishing license fees. Those are the hopes of a self-described "grassroots" group of sportsmen that believes state wildlife management has grown too much under the thumb of politics and profit.... Drought burns change into farm life A nearly decade-long drought is changing the way Frank Martin does business at Crooked Sky Farms. He still grows organic lettuce, beets, bok choi, cabbage and cauliflower on his 26-acre farm in Glendale, Ariz. But growing water-intensive crops like sweet corn is a thing of the past. The drought is forcing a transformation at many Western farms. Like Crooked Sky, they're shifting to different crops. They're also scaling back their acreage, implementing conservation measures and installing water-saving devices.... Mad Cow-Resistant Bovine Developed Japanese and U.S. scientists have genetically engineered a bovine embryo that is resistant to the deadly mad cow disease and they plan to breed several of the cows to use them to make medicines to treat human diseases, an official said Monday. The embryo was implanted in a cow and is expected be born early next year, said Kumi Nakano, spokeswoman for Kirin Brewery, which diversified recently into pharmaceuticals and jointly conducted the research with U.S.-based biotechnology company Hematech. The cows will not be bred to produce mad-cow-free meat. Instead, blood and milk extracted from them will be used in drugs to fight pneumonia, hepatitis C and rheumatic diseases such as arthritis, for the U.S. market by 2013, Nakano said.... Mexican cowboy tradition taking hold in North Texas The charros were in Wilmer on Sunday to ride horses and bulls, and twirl and toss the lasso. They were also there to preserve and perpetuate the cultural tradition of Mexican cowboys. "We don't want to lose our heritage, especially those of us who're second-generation," said Roberto Silva, the son of Mexican immigrants and secretary and treasurer of the Dallas Charro Association. "The sport is barely starting to grow in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Twelve years ago, we had five charro clubs. Now we have 14.".... The cowboy way Cowboy Roundup USA is a celebration of the area's ranching heritage and the people who made the cattle business what it is today. Keeping in line with its mission, Cowboy Roundup USA will begin recognizing the Rancher of the Year. The recipient will be honored during the Saturday performance of the Coors Ranch Rodeo at the Amarillo National Center, said Quien Stapleton, Cowboy Roundup USA president.... Final-run victory caps Windy Ryon Roping Teddy Johnson pulled off a come-from-behind victory over Rope Myers in the Steer Wrestling Challenge and Guy Allen won his fifth steer roping title as the 30th annual Windy Ryon Memorial Roping came to an exciting conclusion Sunday. Johnson, the reigning world champion, stole the crown when Myers, the 2001 world champion, couldn't hold on to his steer on the final run, taking a time of 30 seconds. Johnson dogged his final steer in 4.8 seconds to finish with 77.1 seconds on eight head to take the win. It was the first time he had led during the match.... It's All Trew: Horse manure stunk up Fort Sumner politics While visiting a museum in Fort Sumner, N.M., I saw a leather license plate with tooled numbers on its face. The curator related this story about the unique item. Back in the horse and buggy days of Fort Sumner, there were a lot of horses tied at the hitch rails on the main street, especially in front of the saloons. In summertime, the odor from droppings became overpowering and drew flies by the cloud. The city fathers forced the town buggy and delivery wagon owners to buy a parking permit using the leather license plate for identification. This income was used to hire a local man to take shovel and wheelbarrow and clean the streets once a day. This was the first city tax enforced....
Fire Damages Fire Research Center A fire caused about $1.5 million in damage to a building at the Fire Sciences Laboratory west of here, a rural fire department said. No one was injured. The metal building housed offices, a small maintenance shop and a laboratory. Investigators believe the fire started in the lab and have ruled the blaze accidental. The Fire Sciences Laboratory is an arm of the U.S. Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station based in Colorado. The lab researches the behavior, chemistry and effects of wildfires.... Canada reviews Tre Arrow's refugee claim A Canadian immigration panel began hearings Monday to decide if one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives is a terrorist or not before allowing him to apply for refugee status in Canada. Tre Arrow is wanted for his alleged role in the 2001 firebombing of logging and cement trucks in Oregon. The FBI claims he is associated with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), its number one domestic terrorist priority.... Ranchers face tough times during drought Six years of drought have forced the Bureau of Land Management to tell local ranchers they won't have as much forage for their cattle this summer on public lands in southwest Montana. Livestock producers south and west of Dillon are asked to cut back by as much as 40 percent and ranchers grazing cattle on the BLM east of Dillon are asked to cut back by up to 20 percent. ‘‘These are tough times for livestock operators,'' said Tim Bozorth, Dillon Field Manager. ‘‘At BLM we want to thank our local permittees for their cooperation and willingness to do what is right for rangeland health.''.... A no-holds-barred owl war The barred owl has what you might call a serious image problem. It is known in the Northwest as an invading bully that has tossed one heckuva monkey wrench into efforts to save the northern spotted owl. As loggers were shut out of most of the region's public forests to let the spotted owl be, the barred owl had a different idea. It moved in. Fearlessly. Decisively. And spotted owls fled. Barred owls loom about 20 percent larger than spotted owls. They don't much care that their smaller cousin is protected by the Endangered Species Act. And they don't take kindly to company.... Liability: The Silent Player In The Water-Bomber Debate The Forest Service cancelled air-tanker contracts in part because it was afraid of being sued if any of them crashed, according to a report in the Billings Gazette. In a remarkably candid interview (for a government official concerned about liability) Tony Kern, the Forest Service's assistant director of aviation management, said the safety of air crews and people on the ground was the first consideration but liability was also a concern. In late April, an NTSB report on two air-tanker crashes said many of the planes are potentially dangerous and, because they are "public use" aircraft, they are outside the FAA's certification jurisdiction while fighting fires. That put all the responsibility on the Forest Service and it responded May 10 by canceling contracts for 33 large tankers. Kern noted the decision was made a little easier by the unnamed mayor of an unnamed Rocky Mountain city who wrote a letter saying she expected the federal government to "guarantee" that the planes flying over her city "will not come apart over the heads of the public." Kern said her letter brought the issue home for the Forest Service. "This could end up with a plane landing on a school," Kern said. "You are talking about the potential for negligent homicide." Officials at Neptune Aviation, an air-tanker operator, told the Gazette they were shocked by Kern's admission of liability and said the comments could open up the Forest Service to lawsuits resulting from the 2002 crashes.... More species threatened by climate change The Bufo periglenes, the golden toad of Costa Rica, vanished from its habitat in 1987 in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica. It is the first animal species credited with being driven to extinction by climate change. Biologists do not expect it to be the last. Camille Parmesan, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Texas, called the golden toad "a very rare prized endangered species, which has always been very restricted, only ever known from Monteverde, and that's been linked with climate change." "One extinction of an entire species has been solidly linked to climate change," Parmesan told United Press International, "and lots and lots of population extinctions.".... Colorado conversion? A 47-year-old lawyer who grew up on a Colorado ranch, herding sheep, Raley is arguably the nation's most powerful water broker. He and his boss, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, have their fingers on a federal faucet that feed cities, farms, hydropower plants and rivers across the West. But Raley also harbors a little secret that might surprise some of his environmental foes, and alarm those on the other side. According to boatmen and associates I've interviewed, Raley has contracted river fever - a mildly euphoric, somewhat mystical devotion to the canyon that comes from spending several days in its belly. John Wesley Powell caught the fever when he explored the canyon in the 1800s. Raley is now severely infected, having run the river three years in a row.... Va. Sting Targets Trade in Bear Parts, Ginseng His wife had been stricken with breast and colon cancer, and in August 2002, Soo Kil Seo turned hopefully to the possibilities of Asian folk medicine. The 59-year-old Alexandria dry cleaner drove to a rural hunting store that had advertised bear for sale in Korean newspapers, paid $1,200 for two bear carcasses and removed the prized and supposedly curative gallbladders for his wife. The home-style prescription proved far more costly, though, than he had ever imagined. Seo and dozens of other Koreans from the Washington area have been charged with multiple felony counts for alleged violations of wildlife protection statutes, all swept up in a sting operation run from a sham hunting supply store in the Shenandoah Valley. Investigators say they were aiming to stem the illegal trade in wild ginseng and black bears.... Feds win most competed jobs; contractors troubled Federal workers won nearly 89 percent of 17,595 jobs subjected to contractor competitions last year, according to new data from the Office of Management and Budget. OMB predicts the result of those job contests, aimed at driving market-based competition into the government, should save taxpayers an estimated $1.1 billion over the next three to five years as employees reorganize into more efficient organizations and adopt new technology. Still, there is room for improvement in achieving better value when competing government jobs against the private sector, said the study, “Report on Competitive Sourcing Results,” posted on the OMB Web site May 25.... Editorial: National parks are hurting financially The Bush administration should be honest about our national parks' finances. Instead, officials who oversee the nation's 382 parks and historic sites want to paint a happy face on an increasingly serious problem. Actually, the U.S. Park Service's bosses might win public understanding if they were upfront about how grave the situation has become. For years, the parks have had a $1 billion maintenance backlog. Now, annual revenues may fall $600 million short of what's needed to provide basic services, says The National Parks and Conservation Association, an environmental group.... Editorial: Lands in Need of Care t was clear from the moment they took power that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were determined to greatly accelerate oil and gas drilling on the public lands of the West. Driven by a belief that energy independence could be achieved by aggressive exploitation of the public domain, the administration set its sights on doubling the number of wells on lands controlled by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management and urged the environmental community not to block its efforts with frivolous lawsuits. The truth of the matter is that nobody, including conservationists, challenged the government's right or need to look for oil and gas, given the tight markets for both. All anyone asked for was a balanced approach that would broadly respect the requirements of nature and spare particularly fragile landscapes. To the dismay of some Western governors, fish and game commissioners, ranchers and hunters — many of them lifelong Republicans — the administration has not produced a balanced policy. Both Washington and the regional B.L.M offices have repeatedly made clear their belief that extraction of oil and gas trumps all other uses of the public lands. This being an election year, the administration is making noises about a more nuanced approach, and has begun to reach out to its critics among the ranchers and sportsmen. There are 90 different land use plans or leasing proposals on the table. Four are especially controversial. How they come out will tell much about whether the administration has had a genuine change of heart.... Riders, ranchers seek common ground The debate over the future of the Owyhee Mountains was barely on the Wells family's radar as they spent Sunday enjoying their main weekend pastime, riding motorcycles in Owyhee County. They and the few riders at the popular Hemingway Butte trailhead Sunday morning either supported an effort to protect wilderness, ranchers and motorized access called the Owyhee Initiative, or said they were unaware of it. Motorized users have a seat at the table of the Owyhee Initiative talks, organized by the Owyhee County commissioners to seek a resolution to federal land disputes in the 4.9 million-acre southwest corner of Idaho. Other participants include ranchers, environmental groups and outfitters.... Column: Get serious about energy Oil is the lifeblood of our industrial society. But it's been under attack since the early 1970s. Environmentalists told us we'd all choke from the exhaust fumes back then. Then they lied to us about the dangers of nuclear power and succeeded in shutting down plants and averting the construction of new ones. Then they lied about global warming. Then they lied about the ozone hole. Then they complained about oil drilling in Alaska. Then they complained about drilling for natural gas. Then they complained about oil drilling offshore. Then they complained about reliance on foreign oil and told us we must conserve.... Most Federal Oil, Gas Leases Unproductive Nearly three-fourths of the 40 million acres of public land currently leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States isn't producing any oil or gas, federal records show, even as the Bush administration pushes to open more environmentally sensitive public lands for oil and gas development. An Associated Press computer analysis of Bureau of Land Management records found that 80 percent of federal lands leased for oil and gas production in Wyoming are producing no oil or gas. Neither are 83 percent of the leased acres in Montana, 77 percent in Utah, 71 percent in Colorado, 36 percent in New Mexico and 99 percent in Nevada. How much exploration has occurred on the nearly 30 million acres of non-producing public land leases is difficult to say. BLM officials could provide no details on the number of exploratory wells drilled on those leases, despite repeated requests for that information over the past two months.... EPA weighs new fuel ratings The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing changes to the way it calculates fuel economy ratings posted on new cars and trucks to better reflect real-world driving conditions. The review, which comes as concerns rise over escalating oil prices, could result in lower posted fuel economy ratings and potentially impact sales of profitable but gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs.... Climate disaster 'upon us' Humans have done so much damage to the atmosphere that even if they stop burning all fossil fuels immediately, they risk leaving an impoverished Earth for their descendants, a giant of research in the field will say this week. James Lovelock, who detected the build-up of ozone-destroying CFCs and formulated the Gaia theory now widely adopted by environmentalists and biologists, will tell a conference in Devon: "We have not yet awakened to the seriousness of global warming." The Gaia hypothesis is that life itself regulates the chemistry of the atmosphere, the oceans and the bedrock for life's collective benefit. Any disturbance of the process could have dramatic consequences.... Column: Forget gasoline prices, Texans need to talk water But tell that to the Texans who jammed into a conference room there two weeks ago to listen to representatives of Boone Pickens' water company present their plans for shipping water to the Dallas-Fort Worth area from the Panhandle. Lawyers. Ranchers. Hydrologists. Planners. Environmentalists. They all came. And for a good reason. The marketing of water is central to the lives of North Texans and Panhandle residents.... Sentinel chickens on guard against West Nile virus They cluck, peck at the ground and lay eggs like other chickens. But three flocks of Klamath County fowl are actually undercover agents of public health. Every two weeks, a few drops of blood are drawn from each "sentinel chicken" and tested for three mosquito-borne viruses, including West Nile.... Americans put cash above environment More Americans prefer healthy wallets over protecting the environment, according to a poll by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Of 1,000 persons polled, 54 percent said that protecting the environment is important, but it is more important to keep the economy growing. Broken down by groups, 52 percent of men and 55 percent of women agreed, as did 59 percent of senior citizens. Republicans topped the group with 67 percent, and Democrats split 48 percent to 45 percent who said protecting the environment should be a top priority, even if that means higher consumer prices. Those who identified themselves as environmentalists were almost evenly divided within the 3 percent margin of error, 43 percent choosing the economy to 46 percent preferring the environment.... Rancher's battle casts shadow over Scripps For five years, Charles Vavrus has watched his ranch near the end of Northlake Boulevard become overrun by exotic trees. The drainage ditches are so covered with brush, he claims they no longer work properly. And birds roost on about 27 miles of neglected fence. The ranch owner was ordered in 1999 to halt most of the agricultural operation on the 4,763-acre tract, after the city filed suit against him for chopping down trees. Just over a third of the ranch is slated to be part of The Scripps Research Institute's biotech village. Vavrus' five-year legal battle with the city has complicated the project, which will transform the ranchland into a village of homes and research-related businesses with a town center.... Ballot issues call for electing game managers Colorado's principal wildlife managers should be elected by voters, not appointed for political reasons, say the authors of two petitions filed with the state for inclusion on the November ballot. Voters, not legislators, also should have the last word on setting resident hunting and fishing license fees. Those are the hopes of a self-described "grassroots" group of sportsmen that believes state wildlife management has grown too much under the thumb of politics and profit.... Drought burns change into farm life A nearly decade-long drought is changing the way Frank Martin does business at Crooked Sky Farms. He still grows organic lettuce, beets, bok choi, cabbage and cauliflower on his 26-acre farm in Glendale, Ariz. But growing water-intensive crops like sweet corn is a thing of the past. The drought is forcing a transformation at many Western farms. Like Crooked Sky, they're shifting to different crops. They're also scaling back their acreage, implementing conservation measures and installing water-saving devices.... Mad Cow-Resistant Bovine Developed Japanese and U.S. scientists have genetically engineered a bovine embryo that is resistant to the deadly mad cow disease and they plan to breed several of the cows to use them to make medicines to treat human diseases, an official said Monday. The embryo was implanted in a cow and is expected be born early next year, said Kumi Nakano, spokeswoman for Kirin Brewery, which diversified recently into pharmaceuticals and jointly conducted the research with U.S.-based biotechnology company Hematech. The cows will not be bred to produce mad-cow-free meat. Instead, blood and milk extracted from them will be used in drugs to fight pneumonia, hepatitis C and rheumatic diseases such as arthritis, for the U.S. market by 2013, Nakano said.... Mexican cowboy tradition taking hold in North Texas The charros were in Wilmer on Sunday to ride horses and bulls, and twirl and toss the lasso. They were also there to preserve and perpetuate the cultural tradition of Mexican cowboys. "We don't want to lose our heritage, especially those of us who're second-generation," said Roberto Silva, the son of Mexican immigrants and secretary and treasurer of the Dallas Charro Association. "The sport is barely starting to grow in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Twelve years ago, we had five charro clubs. Now we have 14.".... The cowboy way Cowboy Roundup USA is a celebration of the area's ranching heritage and the people who made the cattle business what it is today. Keeping in line with its mission, Cowboy Roundup USA will begin recognizing the Rancher of the Year. The recipient will be honored during the Saturday performance of the Coors Ranch Rodeo at the Amarillo National Center, said Quien Stapleton, Cowboy Roundup USA president.... Final-run victory caps Windy Ryon Roping Teddy Johnson pulled off a come-from-behind victory over Rope Myers in the Steer Wrestling Challenge and Guy Allen won his fifth steer roping title as the 30th annual Windy Ryon Memorial Roping came to an exciting conclusion Sunday. Johnson, the reigning world champion, stole the crown when Myers, the 2001 world champion, couldn't hold on to his steer on the final run, taking a time of 30 seconds. Johnson dogged his final steer in 4.8 seconds to finish with 77.1 seconds on eight head to take the win. It was the first time he had led during the match.... It's All Trew: Horse manure stunk up Fort Sumner politics While visiting a museum in Fort Sumner, N.M., I saw a leather license plate with tooled numbers on its face. The curator related this story about the unique item. Back in the horse and buggy days of Fort Sumner, there were a lot of horses tied at the hitch rails on the main street, especially in front of the saloons. In summertime, the odor from droppings became overpowering and drew flies by the cloud. The city fathers forced the town buggy and delivery wagon owners to buy a parking permit using the leather license plate for identification. This income was used to hire a local man to take shovel and wheelbarrow and clean the streets once a day. This was the first city tax enforced....
Sunday, May 30, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Drought, beetles may trump artificial forest thinning Even as the nation devotes billions of dollars to artificially thinning crowded forests, a stressed-out Mother Nature is taking matters into her own hands on a catastrophic scale humans can't hope to match, scientists say. An epidemic of bark beetles is killing untold millions of trees from Alaska to Arizona. And an eight-year drought across the Southwest is killing many of the trees the beetles don't get.... Forest-Edge Communities Take Precautions, But Many Still at Risk Prescott, a town of 34,000, is hardly alone this fire season. The Agriculture and Interior departments identified 11,376 communities across the United States in 2001 that were highly susceptible to damage from a wildfire on federal land. Since that time, many communities have gotten more aggressive about reducing underbrush and other fire hazards near homes, said fire and forest officials. But they also agree the job isn't done.... Oregon company faces barrage of letters, phone calls over Alaska mill The well-connected environmental organization, with more than a million members, in its February newsletter called for a letter-writing campaign against Timber Products. The goal: to stop Timber Products from buying and restarting a bankrupt veneer mill in Ketchikan, Alaska. The NRDC worries that restarting the mill would lead the U.S. Forest Service to open roadless areas of the nearby 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest to logging. The NRDC sought, at the very least, a public pledge from Timber Products that the company would not use Tongass timber if the firm decided to buy the mill. The Tongass is the country's largest national forest, with almost a third designated as wilderness.... Grizzlies may lose threatened status U.S. officials are making plans to take grizzly bears off the endangered species list, where they have been listed as threatened since 1975. The bears were put on the list that year when the number of grizzlies in the lower 48 states had plummeted to between 200 and 250. Pressure from hunters, ranching and development made their numbers drop precipitously from the early 19th century, when as many as 50,000 roamed the West, ranging as far south as Mexico. But since coming under strict federal protection, the number of grizzlies in the lower 48 states has bounced back to between 1,200 and 1,400, the Washington Posted reported Sunday, along with 35,000 in Alaska, where the grizzly has never been listed as threatened.... Editorial: In the end, it's about wild fish Comparing the Bush administration's new hatchery policy with its old one is like examining a hatchery salmon and a wild one swimming side by side. There are significant differences, but they are hard to see on the surface. In interviews Thursday, the top administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the agency's leader in the Northwest said all the right things about wild salmon, habitat and the future role of hatcheries. "The object of the policy is naturally spawning wild salmon runs -- that's the ultimate goal of the Endangered Species Act and that's what we intend to enforce," said Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., the NOAA administrator.... Those lion sightings could have some teeth From Beaver to Bradford counties and scattered locales between, have come recent reports of mountain lion sightings. Though the Pennsylvania Game Commission does not acknowledge the existence of wild free-ranging lions in Pennsylvania, the state has yielded more panther reports since 1990 than any other state in the East. Not far behind are the reports from West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. It does seem that some kind of feline phenomenon is unfolding in the eastern mountains. It's easy to understand why eastern states are less than enthusiastic about embracing the possibility of naturally reproducing eastern panther populations. As a listed endangered species, the return of the eastern panther could complicate public land management, recreational development and even private land use in the areas where cats were deemed to occur.... Sagebrush under siege after years of drought After six years of drought in much of the West, sagebrush lands -- critical to wildlife, agriculture and underground water supplies -- are dying. "The drought probably rang the bell on these sites," said A.J. Martinez, natural resources specialist for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). "Ecologically, some of these sites have crashed.".... Panther removed from preserve Wildlife officers removed a Florida panther from Big Cypress National Preserve on Friday after the Miccosukee Tribe complained the cat was spending a frightening amount of time near homes and occupying the site of the tribe's annual Green Corn Dance. State and federal wildlife officers tracked down the panther with dogs, treed it just south of Tamiami Trail and darted it with a tranquilizer gun.... Critics Say Clean-Air Plan May Be a Setback for Parks The Cherokee called the lush Appalachian upheaval "the land of blue smoke," in homage to the steamy billows that roll up from the valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park after summer thunderstorms. The summertime haze that often swallows up the majestic views of forested ridges these days is something else entirely: a pollution-rich brew of sulfates that scatter light and small particles that obscure it. Not only can one often not see clearly in the park, the most visited in the nation, one often cannot breathe cleanly. Nitrogen oxide cooks in the sun with other chemicals to form ozone pollution, which discolors leaves and pains lowland lungs.... Rancher, Newcomer, BLM Fight Over Water A bitter legal battle has erupted in the remote back-country of Southwestern Utah. This battle pits a rancher and a federal agency against a newcomer who moved there, ironically, to get away from neighbors and the government. This is ranching country we're talking about so you can probably guess what they're fighting about -- it's water. Dave Brown claims God led him to a spring. But the legal question is: Does he have a right to use it? Bill Hall and his in-laws have run cows here for nearly a century. When he drives across the Hamlin Valley, the antelope play, and wild horses romp in the distance. Nothing is more important here than water.... Buying the Ranch It's been more than five years since Earl Boardman hauled out his shotgun to greet a coalbed methane representative at his ranch. The move earned Boardman a sit-down with the Johnson County Sheriff and changed the way landowner disputes get settled in the gas fields. Now the cankerous relationship between the industry and those surface owners who don't care to host the activity has evolved from a show of firearms to a show of property deeds. At least three of the industry's top producers have opted to buy ranchland property rather than try to balance their regulatory obligations with a rancher's existing operations.... Elko motocross racetrack a go Backers of a plan to build a motocross racetrack near Elko have won a five-year special recreation permit from the Bureau of Land Management. The Elko Riders and Racing Club hopes to begin construction at the end of a 30-day public appeal period. Appeals must be filed by June 28th. The BLM conducted an environmental assessment before approving the project for a reclaimed gravel pit on Bullion Road three miles southwest of Elko. BLM officials say the motocross area, including parking for about 100 vehicles, would be located within the ten-acre gravel pit area.... Law enforcement agencies seek border-crossers inside refuge The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge apparently isn’t just for birds and butterflies anymore. Multiple law enforcement agencies joined forces last weekend to watch for undocumented immigrants using the popular nature preserve as a border crossing zone. U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers, U.S. Border Patrol officers from the Weslaco station and Hidalgo County deputy constables joined forces May 22-23 to scour the wildlife preserve — situated along the Rio Grande, seven miles south of Alamo — for any undocumented immigrants who might try to take refuge there.... Governor is greener than was expected They didn't support him during last year's recall campaign, but a growing number of California environmental leaders say Schwarzenegger is turning out to be greener than they anticipated. They still grumble regularly that he owns gas-guzzling Hummers -- though he has sold four of the seven and is retrofitting one to run on hydrogen. And they say his administration has major tests ahead. Yet on issues from coastal protection to his staff appointments, from air pollution to water supply, Schwarzenegger has taken actions that environmentalists are cautiously cheering. "Arnold is green," said John White, a veteran Sacramento Sierra Club lobbyist. "He's a throwback to the old days when Republicans were good on these issues.".... Low water limits Colter Bay to canoes Low water will prevent water-skiing, cruises and other motorboat activities at Jackson Lake's Colter Bay Marina this summer. Services including 100 boat slips and buoys, a fuel dock and cruises to Elk Island will be unavailable. Only canoe rentals and a store will be open at the marina in Grand Teton National Park. Jackson Lake is expected to fill only 3 feet above the boat ramp at Colter Bay -- too low for most boats, according to Bob O'Neil, director of guest activities for Grand Teton Lodge Co....
Drought, beetles may trump artificial forest thinning Even as the nation devotes billions of dollars to artificially thinning crowded forests, a stressed-out Mother Nature is taking matters into her own hands on a catastrophic scale humans can't hope to match, scientists say. An epidemic of bark beetles is killing untold millions of trees from Alaska to Arizona. And an eight-year drought across the Southwest is killing many of the trees the beetles don't get.... Forest-Edge Communities Take Precautions, But Many Still at Risk Prescott, a town of 34,000, is hardly alone this fire season. The Agriculture and Interior departments identified 11,376 communities across the United States in 2001 that were highly susceptible to damage from a wildfire on federal land. Since that time, many communities have gotten more aggressive about reducing underbrush and other fire hazards near homes, said fire and forest officials. But they also agree the job isn't done.... Oregon company faces barrage of letters, phone calls over Alaska mill The well-connected environmental organization, with more than a million members, in its February newsletter called for a letter-writing campaign against Timber Products. The goal: to stop Timber Products from buying and restarting a bankrupt veneer mill in Ketchikan, Alaska. The NRDC worries that restarting the mill would lead the U.S. Forest Service to open roadless areas of the nearby 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest to logging. The NRDC sought, at the very least, a public pledge from Timber Products that the company would not use Tongass timber if the firm decided to buy the mill. The Tongass is the country's largest national forest, with almost a third designated as wilderness.... Grizzlies may lose threatened status U.S. officials are making plans to take grizzly bears off the endangered species list, where they have been listed as threatened since 1975. The bears were put on the list that year when the number of grizzlies in the lower 48 states had plummeted to between 200 and 250. Pressure from hunters, ranching and development made their numbers drop precipitously from the early 19th century, when as many as 50,000 roamed the West, ranging as far south as Mexico. But since coming under strict federal protection, the number of grizzlies in the lower 48 states has bounced back to between 1,200 and 1,400, the Washington Posted reported Sunday, along with 35,000 in Alaska, where the grizzly has never been listed as threatened.... Editorial: In the end, it's about wild fish Comparing the Bush administration's new hatchery policy with its old one is like examining a hatchery salmon and a wild one swimming side by side. There are significant differences, but they are hard to see on the surface. In interviews Thursday, the top administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the agency's leader in the Northwest said all the right things about wild salmon, habitat and the future role of hatcheries. "The object of the policy is naturally spawning wild salmon runs -- that's the ultimate goal of the Endangered Species Act and that's what we intend to enforce," said Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., the NOAA administrator.... Those lion sightings could have some teeth From Beaver to Bradford counties and scattered locales between, have come recent reports of mountain lion sightings. Though the Pennsylvania Game Commission does not acknowledge the existence of wild free-ranging lions in Pennsylvania, the state has yielded more panther reports since 1990 than any other state in the East. Not far behind are the reports from West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina. It does seem that some kind of feline phenomenon is unfolding in the eastern mountains. It's easy to understand why eastern states are less than enthusiastic about embracing the possibility of naturally reproducing eastern panther populations. As a listed endangered species, the return of the eastern panther could complicate public land management, recreational development and even private land use in the areas where cats were deemed to occur.... Sagebrush under siege after years of drought After six years of drought in much of the West, sagebrush lands -- critical to wildlife, agriculture and underground water supplies -- are dying. "The drought probably rang the bell on these sites," said A.J. Martinez, natural resources specialist for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). "Ecologically, some of these sites have crashed.".... Panther removed from preserve Wildlife officers removed a Florida panther from Big Cypress National Preserve on Friday after the Miccosukee Tribe complained the cat was spending a frightening amount of time near homes and occupying the site of the tribe's annual Green Corn Dance. State and federal wildlife officers tracked down the panther with dogs, treed it just south of Tamiami Trail and darted it with a tranquilizer gun.... Critics Say Clean-Air Plan May Be a Setback for Parks The Cherokee called the lush Appalachian upheaval "the land of blue smoke," in homage to the steamy billows that roll up from the valleys of Great Smoky Mountains National Park after summer thunderstorms. The summertime haze that often swallows up the majestic views of forested ridges these days is something else entirely: a pollution-rich brew of sulfates that scatter light and small particles that obscure it. Not only can one often not see clearly in the park, the most visited in the nation, one often cannot breathe cleanly. Nitrogen oxide cooks in the sun with other chemicals to form ozone pollution, which discolors leaves and pains lowland lungs.... Rancher, Newcomer, BLM Fight Over Water A bitter legal battle has erupted in the remote back-country of Southwestern Utah. This battle pits a rancher and a federal agency against a newcomer who moved there, ironically, to get away from neighbors and the government. This is ranching country we're talking about so you can probably guess what they're fighting about -- it's water. Dave Brown claims God led him to a spring. But the legal question is: Does he have a right to use it? Bill Hall and his in-laws have run cows here for nearly a century. When he drives across the Hamlin Valley, the antelope play, and wild horses romp in the distance. Nothing is more important here than water.... Buying the Ranch It's been more than five years since Earl Boardman hauled out his shotgun to greet a coalbed methane representative at his ranch. The move earned Boardman a sit-down with the Johnson County Sheriff and changed the way landowner disputes get settled in the gas fields. Now the cankerous relationship between the industry and those surface owners who don't care to host the activity has evolved from a show of firearms to a show of property deeds. At least three of the industry's top producers have opted to buy ranchland property rather than try to balance their regulatory obligations with a rancher's existing operations.... Elko motocross racetrack a go Backers of a plan to build a motocross racetrack near Elko have won a five-year special recreation permit from the Bureau of Land Management. The Elko Riders and Racing Club hopes to begin construction at the end of a 30-day public appeal period. Appeals must be filed by June 28th. The BLM conducted an environmental assessment before approving the project for a reclaimed gravel pit on Bullion Road three miles southwest of Elko. BLM officials say the motocross area, including parking for about 100 vehicles, would be located within the ten-acre gravel pit area.... Law enforcement agencies seek border-crossers inside refuge The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge apparently isn’t just for birds and butterflies anymore. Multiple law enforcement agencies joined forces last weekend to watch for undocumented immigrants using the popular nature preserve as a border crossing zone. U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers, U.S. Border Patrol officers from the Weslaco station and Hidalgo County deputy constables joined forces May 22-23 to scour the wildlife preserve — situated along the Rio Grande, seven miles south of Alamo — for any undocumented immigrants who might try to take refuge there.... Governor is greener than was expected They didn't support him during last year's recall campaign, but a growing number of California environmental leaders say Schwarzenegger is turning out to be greener than they anticipated. They still grumble regularly that he owns gas-guzzling Hummers -- though he has sold four of the seven and is retrofitting one to run on hydrogen. And they say his administration has major tests ahead. Yet on issues from coastal protection to his staff appointments, from air pollution to water supply, Schwarzenegger has taken actions that environmentalists are cautiously cheering. "Arnold is green," said John White, a veteran Sacramento Sierra Club lobbyist. "He's a throwback to the old days when Republicans were good on these issues.".... Low water limits Colter Bay to canoes Low water will prevent water-skiing, cruises and other motorboat activities at Jackson Lake's Colter Bay Marina this summer. Services including 100 boat slips and buoys, a fuel dock and cruises to Elk Island will be unavailable. Only canoe rentals and a store will be open at the marina in Grand Teton National Park. Jackson Lake is expected to fill only 3 feet above the boat ramp at Colter Bay -- too low for most boats, according to Bob O'Neil, director of guest activities for Grand Teton Lodge Co....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
APPEAL ARGUED IN ARIZONA SACRED PRIVATE LANDS CASE
The case of an Arizona man barred by Arizona officials from using his private property because of assertions by American Indians that his land is sacred, was argued today before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Dale McKinnon of Holbrook, Arizona, challenges a January 2003 ruling by an Arizona federal district court dismissing his lawsuit against Arizona officials because the regulation that they used is “facially constitutional.” McKinnon, whose company, Cholla Ready Mix, has been unable to extract aggregate for use in roads and bridges from Woodruff Butte, which McKinnon owns, argues that Arizona’s application of the regulation violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
“The question before the district court was whether Arizona applied its regulation in an unconstitutional manner, not whether the regulation was, on its face, constitutional,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents McKinnon and his tiny company. “There is no question that the lawsuit should have been allowed to go forward; we are hopeful that the Ninth Circuit will agree and Mr. McKinnon will have his day in court. When that day comes, we are confident that a trial court will find that Arizona officials acted in an unconstitutional manner when they barred Mr. McKinnon from using his property because third parties think it is sacred. If the Establishment Clause bars anything, it bars such state action.”....
The Day After Tomorrow: Liberal utopia
So what will life be like this Saturday -- the day after "The Day After Tomorrow" opens?
Will Bush's reelection campaign be finished and John Kerry guaranteed the presidency, as the Guardian newspaper has predicted?
Will environmentalists seize their "teachable moment", harness a fearful and outraged public, and strongarm Congress into "seeing the light" and resuscitating the Kyoto Protocol?
In other words, will liberals get their fairy tale ending?
In a word: Nope....
For more views on the movie see Storm Warning, Will Tomorrow Ever Come? and Thank Poor Al Gore.
Putin Hits Russia’s Economic Future, Let’s Hope Senate Doesn’t in the U.S
Russia’s Academy of Science declared early last week: “The Kyoto Protocol has no scientific foundation.” Andrei Illarinov, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been quite vocal in warning of the ill economic effects for Russia if that nation signs on to Kyoto.
Nonetheless, on Friday, May 21, Putin declared: “We are in favor of the Kyoto process, we support it.” The treaty, though, still has to be approved by Russia’s parliament. Putin chose to ignore his economic and science advisers. Why?
Well, it does not seem to be some deep commitment to the global warming cause. Instead, it was a case of political horse-trading. Putin wanted Western Europe’s support to gain entry into the World Trade Organization. Indeed, Putin declared on Friday: “The fact that the EU has met us halfway in negotiations on the WTO entry could not but have helped Moscow’s attitude to the question of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.”
While gaining entry to the WTO is important for Russia’s economy, so is avoiding the restrictions that would come with Kyoto. Putin’s best hope must be that without the U.S., Australia and all developing countries reducing and capping CO2 emissions, the Kyoto Protocol will amount to nothing more than mere symbolism, without any actual impact, in the end....
Are We Out of Gas?
With gasoline oil prices seemingly rocketing to Jupiter, and with newly-published books like "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil" and "The End of Oil," it seems fair to ask if the world's fuel tank needle isn't finally tilting towards "E."
Let's get a little historical perspective. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted American oil reserves would last merely a decade. In both 1939 and 1951, the Interior Department estimated oil supply at only 13 years. "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade," declared Pres. Jimmy Carter gloomily in 1977. In fact, the earliest claim that we were running out of oil dates back to 1855 -- four years before the first well was drilled!
Certainly supply isn't declining yet. "Proved" oil reserves increased from 677 billion barrels in 1982 to 1048 billion in 2002, a 55 percent increase. ("Proved" means quantities that with reasonable certainty can be recovered from known reservoirs under existing economic and operation conditions.) Meanwhile worldwide consumption increased only 13 percent.
That's not a particularly scary trend....
Advertising Wars in the Washington Post: Anti Fish Ad Blasted
Last week, Washington Post readers were exposed to old line bait and switch. The misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) ran an ad designed to scare consumers—hook, line and sinker—away from eating fish. Today the Center for Consumer Freedom exposes PCRM’s fishy claims with its own Post ad, exposing the self-described medical charity as a front group for the animal rights movement. PCRM has undeniable ties to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the radical group that wants to end all consumption of beef, chicken, pork, eggs, dairy food -- and even fish, one of the healthiest foods on Americans’ plates.
“Legitimate medical authorities like the American Heart Association and the American Dietetic Association recommend eating fish for better health,” said Center for Consumer Freedom Executive Director Richard Berman. “But PETA’s extremists care more about fish than people, so their pseudo-medical front group is muddying the waters with animal-rights arguments masquerading as medical science.”....
The Domino Theory, Redux
Exactly 50 years ago, the idea of the "domino theory" first found its way into popular discourse in the context of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. While it sounds a bit like a Cold War relic today, the phrase remains useful to explain certain events. Consider the activist Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) recently concluded four-year campaign against Citigroup, one of America's most respected financial institutions.
In 2000, RAN accused Citigroup of loaning money to economic development projects that were purportedly destroying the world's "remaining old growth forests" and "accelerat[ing] climate change." When Citigroup disputed the charges, RAN strategists went to work. Over the next four years, RAN staged dozens of anti-Citigroup stunts, including student rallies and boycotts, anti-Citigroup TV ads, and street protests. RAN activists also hung banners in front of Citigroup's New York headquarters and demanded that Citigroup not make loans to economic development projects in undeveloped regions of the world, to ensure that they remain pristine.
Last January, Citigroup gave in--it sued for peace. In exchange for an end to RAN's campaign, Citigroup promised to "promote higher environmental standards through its business practices," particularly in the areas of "endangered ecosystems, illegal logging, ecologically sustainable development, and climate change." Translation: Citigroup will no longer help finance projects that environmentalists don't like. It will help NGOs start drawing what an activist once referred to as "green lines" around poor countries, setting them off-limits for conventional forms of intense development....
Measuring Santa Monica's Feet
Back at the turn of the month Santa Monica City Council proudly announced that they had reduced the ecological footprint of their pleasant urb by 167 square miles. As the city occupies only 8.3 square miles, perhaps a little investigation is in order?
The concept of such footprints comes from a paper in PNAS in 2002, edited by one Edward O. Wilson of Harvard (a name and place to send shivers down the spines of the economically literate). In essence, an attempt is made to add up all the land needed to support various lifestyles and then compare that to the amount of land on the earth. As always with the ecologically correct the answer is that we ran out of land a decade ago and will all be dead by next Tuesday. Amazingly enough they do reach one vaguely correct conclusion via a series of woeful misunderstandings.
Their first error is that they regard resources as something that exist ab initio. There is great play made of the fact that there is only so much arable land to go around, and that it is this land that tends to get built on. This whole idea is of course completely ignorant. Resources are created by human beings via technology. As arable means "suitable for ploughing" it is obvious that before we invented the plough and agriculture some 10,000 years ago there was no such thing as "arable land." There was just "land. " Further, we increased the supply of arable land with the invention of deep ploughing methods by varied tribes and the associated deforestation of northern Europe, again with the invention of the cast iron plough which allowed the prairies to be farmed and did it yet again last decade in opening up the Brazilian Cerrado with acid resistant strains of crop....
Polls Show Little Interest in Green Agenda
American voters are generally happy with the condition of their local environment and the performance of their elected representatives on environment issues, according to several recent public opinion polls. As a result, the polls show, environment issues rank near the bottom of concerns for American voters this election season.
According to Gallup's annual Earth Day poll, 35 percent of Americans fret over the current state of the environment. The number of Americans who worry a "great deal" or "fair amount" about the environment has dropped 15 points since Gallup's 2001 poll.
According to Gallup, fewer than half of poll respondents felt environmental protection should take priority over economic matters. A "record low proportion of Americans have chosen environmental protection over economic growth," reported Gallup.
Gallup's Lydia Saad, one of the architects of the Earth Day poll, noted, "for whatever reason, the public doesn't see the environment worsening, and that's why it's not getting a lot of attention."....
Small Businesses Fear the day after "McCain-Lieberman"
The idea that the United States Senate would even consider voting on legislation that would dramatically raise U.S. energy costs for small businesses and consumers seems rather outlandish, right? Why would the U.S. Senate vote on legislation that would reverse the progress made on our economic recovery and hurt U.S. competitiveness? At the same time that our political leaders are concerned about the future of our job creating capacity and jobs “going overseas” why would they advance policies that result in sending more abroad?
If you are similarly concerned -- as small businesses are -- about a future of high energy costs, losing U.S. jobs and making our small businesses less competitive in the global marketplace, we urge you to vote against the Climate Stewardship Act (S. 139).
The Senate wisely rejected this measure in October 2003, and should do so again....
APPEAL ARGUED IN ARIZONA SACRED PRIVATE LANDS CASE
The case of an Arizona man barred by Arizona officials from using his private property because of assertions by American Indians that his land is sacred, was argued today before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Dale McKinnon of Holbrook, Arizona, challenges a January 2003 ruling by an Arizona federal district court dismissing his lawsuit against Arizona officials because the regulation that they used is “facially constitutional.” McKinnon, whose company, Cholla Ready Mix, has been unable to extract aggregate for use in roads and bridges from Woodruff Butte, which McKinnon owns, argues that Arizona’s application of the regulation violates the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
“The question before the district court was whether Arizona applied its regulation in an unconstitutional manner, not whether the regulation was, on its face, constitutional,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents McKinnon and his tiny company. “There is no question that the lawsuit should have been allowed to go forward; we are hopeful that the Ninth Circuit will agree and Mr. McKinnon will have his day in court. When that day comes, we are confident that a trial court will find that Arizona officials acted in an unconstitutional manner when they barred Mr. McKinnon from using his property because third parties think it is sacred. If the Establishment Clause bars anything, it bars such state action.”....
The Day After Tomorrow: Liberal utopia
So what will life be like this Saturday -- the day after "The Day After Tomorrow" opens?
Will Bush's reelection campaign be finished and John Kerry guaranteed the presidency, as the Guardian newspaper has predicted?
Will environmentalists seize their "teachable moment", harness a fearful and outraged public, and strongarm Congress into "seeing the light" and resuscitating the Kyoto Protocol?
In other words, will liberals get their fairy tale ending?
In a word: Nope....
For more views on the movie see Storm Warning, Will Tomorrow Ever Come? and Thank Poor Al Gore.
Putin Hits Russia’s Economic Future, Let’s Hope Senate Doesn’t in the U.S
Russia’s Academy of Science declared early last week: “The Kyoto Protocol has no scientific foundation.” Andrei Illarinov, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been quite vocal in warning of the ill economic effects for Russia if that nation signs on to Kyoto.
Nonetheless, on Friday, May 21, Putin declared: “We are in favor of the Kyoto process, we support it.” The treaty, though, still has to be approved by Russia’s parliament. Putin chose to ignore his economic and science advisers. Why?
Well, it does not seem to be some deep commitment to the global warming cause. Instead, it was a case of political horse-trading. Putin wanted Western Europe’s support to gain entry into the World Trade Organization. Indeed, Putin declared on Friday: “The fact that the EU has met us halfway in negotiations on the WTO entry could not but have helped Moscow’s attitude to the question of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.”
While gaining entry to the WTO is important for Russia’s economy, so is avoiding the restrictions that would come with Kyoto. Putin’s best hope must be that without the U.S., Australia and all developing countries reducing and capping CO2 emissions, the Kyoto Protocol will amount to nothing more than mere symbolism, without any actual impact, in the end....
Are We Out of Gas?
With gasoline oil prices seemingly rocketing to Jupiter, and with newly-published books like "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil" and "The End of Oil," it seems fair to ask if the world's fuel tank needle isn't finally tilting towards "E."
Let's get a little historical perspective. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted American oil reserves would last merely a decade. In both 1939 and 1951, the Interior Department estimated oil supply at only 13 years. "We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade," declared Pres. Jimmy Carter gloomily in 1977. In fact, the earliest claim that we were running out of oil dates back to 1855 -- four years before the first well was drilled!
Certainly supply isn't declining yet. "Proved" oil reserves increased from 677 billion barrels in 1982 to 1048 billion in 2002, a 55 percent increase. ("Proved" means quantities that with reasonable certainty can be recovered from known reservoirs under existing economic and operation conditions.) Meanwhile worldwide consumption increased only 13 percent.
That's not a particularly scary trend....
Advertising Wars in the Washington Post: Anti Fish Ad Blasted
Last week, Washington Post readers were exposed to old line bait and switch. The misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) ran an ad designed to scare consumers—hook, line and sinker—away from eating fish. Today the Center for Consumer Freedom exposes PCRM’s fishy claims with its own Post ad, exposing the self-described medical charity as a front group for the animal rights movement. PCRM has undeniable ties to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the radical group that wants to end all consumption of beef, chicken, pork, eggs, dairy food -- and even fish, one of the healthiest foods on Americans’ plates.
“Legitimate medical authorities like the American Heart Association and the American Dietetic Association recommend eating fish for better health,” said Center for Consumer Freedom Executive Director Richard Berman. “But PETA’s extremists care more about fish than people, so their pseudo-medical front group is muddying the waters with animal-rights arguments masquerading as medical science.”....
The Domino Theory, Redux
Exactly 50 years ago, the idea of the "domino theory" first found its way into popular discourse in the context of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. While it sounds a bit like a Cold War relic today, the phrase remains useful to explain certain events. Consider the activist Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) recently concluded four-year campaign against Citigroup, one of America's most respected financial institutions.
In 2000, RAN accused Citigroup of loaning money to economic development projects that were purportedly destroying the world's "remaining old growth forests" and "accelerat[ing] climate change." When Citigroup disputed the charges, RAN strategists went to work. Over the next four years, RAN staged dozens of anti-Citigroup stunts, including student rallies and boycotts, anti-Citigroup TV ads, and street protests. RAN activists also hung banners in front of Citigroup's New York headquarters and demanded that Citigroup not make loans to economic development projects in undeveloped regions of the world, to ensure that they remain pristine.
Last January, Citigroup gave in--it sued for peace. In exchange for an end to RAN's campaign, Citigroup promised to "promote higher environmental standards through its business practices," particularly in the areas of "endangered ecosystems, illegal logging, ecologically sustainable development, and climate change." Translation: Citigroup will no longer help finance projects that environmentalists don't like. It will help NGOs start drawing what an activist once referred to as "green lines" around poor countries, setting them off-limits for conventional forms of intense development....
Measuring Santa Monica's Feet
Back at the turn of the month Santa Monica City Council proudly announced that they had reduced the ecological footprint of their pleasant urb by 167 square miles. As the city occupies only 8.3 square miles, perhaps a little investigation is in order?
The concept of such footprints comes from a paper in PNAS in 2002, edited by one Edward O. Wilson of Harvard (a name and place to send shivers down the spines of the economically literate). In essence, an attempt is made to add up all the land needed to support various lifestyles and then compare that to the amount of land on the earth. As always with the ecologically correct the answer is that we ran out of land a decade ago and will all be dead by next Tuesday. Amazingly enough they do reach one vaguely correct conclusion via a series of woeful misunderstandings.
Their first error is that they regard resources as something that exist ab initio. There is great play made of the fact that there is only so much arable land to go around, and that it is this land that tends to get built on. This whole idea is of course completely ignorant. Resources are created by human beings via technology. As arable means "suitable for ploughing" it is obvious that before we invented the plough and agriculture some 10,000 years ago there was no such thing as "arable land." There was just "land. " Further, we increased the supply of arable land with the invention of deep ploughing methods by varied tribes and the associated deforestation of northern Europe, again with the invention of the cast iron plough which allowed the prairies to be farmed and did it yet again last decade in opening up the Brazilian Cerrado with acid resistant strains of crop....
Polls Show Little Interest in Green Agenda
American voters are generally happy with the condition of their local environment and the performance of their elected representatives on environment issues, according to several recent public opinion polls. As a result, the polls show, environment issues rank near the bottom of concerns for American voters this election season.
According to Gallup's annual Earth Day poll, 35 percent of Americans fret over the current state of the environment. The number of Americans who worry a "great deal" or "fair amount" about the environment has dropped 15 points since Gallup's 2001 poll.
According to Gallup, fewer than half of poll respondents felt environmental protection should take priority over economic matters. A "record low proportion of Americans have chosen environmental protection over economic growth," reported Gallup.
Gallup's Lydia Saad, one of the architects of the Earth Day poll, noted, "for whatever reason, the public doesn't see the environment worsening, and that's why it's not getting a lot of attention."....
Small Businesses Fear the day after "McCain-Lieberman"
The idea that the United States Senate would even consider voting on legislation that would dramatically raise U.S. energy costs for small businesses and consumers seems rather outlandish, right? Why would the U.S. Senate vote on legislation that would reverse the progress made on our economic recovery and hurt U.S. competitiveness? At the same time that our political leaders are concerned about the future of our job creating capacity and jobs “going overseas” why would they advance policies that result in sending more abroad?
If you are similarly concerned -- as small businesses are -- about a future of high energy costs, losing U.S. jobs and making our small businesses less competitive in the global marketplace, we urge you to vote against the Climate Stewardship Act (S. 139).
The Senate wisely rejected this measure in October 2003, and should do so again....
Saturday, May 29, 2004
A RESIDENT'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE PEPPIN FIRE
The following is a list of my observations on the Peppin Fire in the Capitan Mountains:
May 14, 2004 - There was no fire observed.
May 15, 2004 - There was a small plume of smoke coming from a fire half way up the side of the Capitan Mountains, on the south side. This was North of the turn off to Fort Stanton. At this point the fire could have been put out by a couple of drops by the small tanker planes that were being used later.
May 16, 2004 - The fire had grown to approximately 5 acres (my estimation) and was growing (still could have been put out). I observed a sign along US 380, in the morning, between Capitan and Lincoln that said CONTROL BURN. This sign looked like a stop sign. It was painted red with white lettering. It had been removed by the evening. We watched the smoke from the Billy the Kid Pageant Grounds, in Lincoln, all of this day.
May 17, 2004 - The fire was still small but had grown to approximately 10 to 15 acres (my estimation and still could have been put out).
May 18 thru 21, 2004 - Could see smoke coming over the top of the Capitans from our home North of the mountains.
May 22, 2004 - Watched the fire top out and start down the North side of the mountain and expand East and West.
May 23 thru 28, 2004 - The rest is history and recorded in various news stories.
This is what happens when the US Forest Service “observes” a fire during hot, dry and windy conditions.
Lloyd Maness
The following is a list of my observations on the Peppin Fire in the Capitan Mountains:
May 14, 2004 - There was no fire observed.
May 15, 2004 - There was a small plume of smoke coming from a fire half way up the side of the Capitan Mountains, on the south side. This was North of the turn off to Fort Stanton. At this point the fire could have been put out by a couple of drops by the small tanker planes that were being used later.
May 16, 2004 - The fire had grown to approximately 5 acres (my estimation) and was growing (still could have been put out). I observed a sign along US 380, in the morning, between Capitan and Lincoln that said CONTROL BURN. This sign looked like a stop sign. It was painted red with white lettering. It had been removed by the evening. We watched the smoke from the Billy the Kid Pageant Grounds, in Lincoln, all of this day.
May 17, 2004 - The fire was still small but had grown to approximately 10 to 15 acres (my estimation and still could have been put out).
May 18 thru 21, 2004 - Could see smoke coming over the top of the Capitans from our home North of the mountains.
May 22, 2004 - Watched the fire top out and start down the North side of the mountain and expand East and West.
May 23 thru 28, 2004 - The rest is history and recorded in various news stories.
This is what happens when the US Forest Service “observes” a fire during hot, dry and windy conditions.
Lloyd Maness
NEWS ROUNDUP
Neptune Aviation defends its performance Regional Forester Gail Kimbell spent 90 minutes late Friday afternoon touring Neptune Aviation's hangar in Missoula, seeing firsthand the airtanker company's maintenance and training regimen. "And we're just getting started," Greg Jones, Neptune's director of maintenance and operations, said at tour's end. Kimbell, who oversees the Forest Service's Northern Region, had seen enough - for the time being. "Your care for your ships, as well as for your employees, is very evident," she said. "I appreciate what I've seen here today.".... Cabin Owners Mourn Homes Lost In Peppin Fire Landowners who recently lost their cabins in the Peppin fire are upset, blaming the Forest Service for letting the blaze burn and grow to become the nation's largest wildfire. They claim this all could've been prevented. Some cabin owners are angry because they say they weren't properly forewarned. The Forest Service said its property was a priority, but safety in a dangerous area came first. Cabin owner Michael Francis said despite the loss, he hopes to rebuild, and so do the others in the area, but that could be tricky. Some cabin owners are angry because they say they weren't properly forewarned. The Forest Service said its property was a priority, but safety in a dangerous area came first. Cabin owner Michael Francis said despite the loss, he hopes to rebuild, and so do the others in the area, but that could be tricky. The land is leased from the government, and it's up to the Forest Service to decide if the owners can rebuild.... Scientists Focus Research on Understanding Causes of Changes in Western Mountains A group of federal and university scientists today announced the launch of the Western Mountain Initiative, a 5-year effort funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to better understand ongoing changes in the mountains of the western United States. Their aim is to unravel the causes of sudden, often unwanted changes in mountainous areas, such as the recent die-off of trees on millions of acres in New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. The consortium will bring together more than a decade of research conducted in national parks and other protected areas in the west. Because these areas have experienced minimal direct intervention by humans, national parks and other protected areas are ideal laboratories for detecting the effects of climatic changes.... Experts clash over stolen petroglyphs in U.S. court in Reno Expert witnesses disagree about the value, age and authenticity of American Indian petroglyphs two men are accused of stealing from national forest land bordering a Reno subdivision. One scientist testifying for the defense Friday suggested federal prosecutors had not done the proper scientific homework to establish the age of the rock art that local tribal leaders say is at least 1,000 years old. But archaeologists for the Forest Service and the state of Nevada said they are confident the etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep are older than the 100 years required to prove they are a federally protected archaeological resource.... Vandals damage logging equipment in salvage area Vandals damaged five pieces of logging equipment being used in a controversial timber salvage operation in south Baker County, authorities said Friday. The FBI has joined the investigation. Between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, someone poured metal shavings into the engines, fuel tanks and hydraulic systems of the logging machines, which belong to J&D Logging of Prairie City, said Baker County Undersheriff Ken Draze. He told the Baker City Herald repair costs would be about $100,000.... Public Outcry Follows Calif. Lion Shooting Police in Palo Alto, California recently shot and killed a mountain lion that wandered into a highly populated neighborhood. Sightings and even attacks by mountain lions have shot up in recent years throughout the western United States. But despite the threat that the big cats pose to humans, reaction to the Palo Alto shooting surprised a lot of people, especially the police who were trying to protect the public. The killing unleashed a flood of angry complaints. One letter said, "I hope you all rot in Hell.".... Hatchery Salmon Plan Announced The Bush administration announced here on Friday a plan to consider hatchery salmon, which are bred in concrete pens, when deciding whether wild stream-bred salmon deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act. In explaining the new policy, which caused a regional uproar when it was leaked last month, the regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service said that hatchery fish will be used to "contribute to the rebuilding" of endangered wild runs of salmon. But Bob Lohn emphasized that hatchery fish will not, by themselves, become "the solution." Hatchery salmon are pumped into regional rivers by the hundreds of millions each year.... Proposal to Stop Protecting Yellowstone Grizzlies Meets Opposition Word leaked out last week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is ready to submit a formal proposal to take grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park off the federal Endangered Species List next year. According to agency officials, recovery efforts for Yellowstone's grizzlies, which began in earnest in the 1980s, are now complete, with the population having doubled in the last two decades. But others, including some agency biologists as well as many environmentalists, disagree with the delisting proposal, citing on-going threats to Yellowstone's grizzlies, including the lack of suitable food sources to maintain the population at its current size.... Federal District Court judge rules goshawk not endangered in Southeast, but orders a review for Canada A federal District Court judge has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted appropriately in not listing a Southeast Alaska species of goshawk as threatened or endangered. But Judge Ricardo Urbina's ruling keeps the issue open by mandating a study of the Queen Charlotte goshawk's habitat and protection on Canada's Vancouver Island. Environmentalists said Wednesday the ruling keeps the 10-year-old court battle alive because the study could conclude that Canadian habitat protection is insufficient and that restrictions on logging in the Tongass National Forest are required.... Dogs, vehicles shut out of Gold Beach on plover concern A pair of snowy plovers has been found on Gold Bluffs Beach north of Orick, and Redwood National and State Parks has imposed a 30-day ban on vehicle traffic and dogs to protect them. The plovers, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are rearing their chicks. It's the first time in more than 20 years that a nesting pair of birds has been known to use the beach. The chicks can't fly for 30 days, and the park, after consulting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, is imposing strict temporary restrictions for that time.... Feds not told of killings of three grizzlies Three grizzly bears were illegally killed in the Swan Valley last year, and federal officials only learned of the killings after investigations concluded recently. The three deaths adjusted the 2003 mortality count from 13 to 16 in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, a 6-million-acre recovery zone for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator, mentioned the killings at a meeting of land and wildlife managers charged with grizzly bear recovery last week in Kalispell.... Defense Department to take migratory birds? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will propose a rule that will allow the Department of Defense (DOD) to incidentally take migratory birds during military readiness training as directed by the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act. The proposed rule will print in the Federal Register on June 2, 2004. The proposed regulations require the Department of Defense to assess the adverse effects of military readiness activities on migratory birds in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act. They also require the DOD to develop appropriate conservation measures if a proposed action may have a significant adverse effect on a population of migratory bird species of concern. In addition, the proposal requires the Department of Defense to monitor the effects of such military readiness activities on migratory bird species of concern and the effectiveness of conservation measures.... Service's role in bison issue questioned An official with the Humane Society says the National Park Service had enough cause to stop transferring bison to the Three Affiliated Tribes at least two years before it did. Dave Pauli, a member of Montana's humane bison review committee and regional director of the Northern Rockies Humane Society, said Theodore Roosevelt National Park continued to give bison to the tribes in 2002 even though the tribes had at least twice as many bison as the pasture could support under federal stocking standards.... Judge imposes restrictions on Alaska leases Oil companies may bid next week for rights to explore in a frontier region of Alaska's North Slope, but no work may be allowed that disturbs the ground for at least several months, a federal judge ruled late Friday. U.S. District Court Judge James Singleton stopped short of granting the ultimate request of environmental groups that had sued the federal government -- the postponement of Wednesday's much-anticipated lease sale for the northwestern third of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.... Column: Wilderness shouldn't be off-limits to firefighting We were called to a lightning-caused fire just a half a mile from our captain's home. The strike had started a burn just inside of a "wilderness study area" on the south side of the Centennial Valley. Initially the fire was only 5 to 10 trees and stayed at this stage for several hours. During this time, due to the amount of down and standing dead trees in the area, we were not allowed to go and fight the fire. We just sat there and watched it burn while it was being determined whether or not we could even use engines and other equipment (including chain saws) in the initial attack on this fire. This whole wilderness area had the basic issue tied up in knots. It was finally determined that fire retardant could be used in the wilderness. I have two points to make about the Winslow fire. First, when private property is in immediate harm's way, the wilderness or roadless area designations should have a clause that allows any fire control methods needed to quickly and safely control these fires. It will not eliminate the huge fires that take millions of dollars to put out, but a clause like this would definitely allow for quick control of most forest and range fires.... Mexico City faces water crisis as demand spirals Standing with her feet in a tangle of hose pipes, shantytown dweller Belen Hernandez prepares for the twice weekly ritual of siphoning precious water up the steep hillside to her breeze block home. The mother of three is among more than a million residents of the Mexican capital and surrounding area who depend on a roving fleet of water trucks, or "pipas," to meet their basic need for water as the capital faces a deepening crisis. Once a thriving Aztec citadel set on a broad highland lake, Latin America's largest city is threatened with outages, rationing and an angry population as the water needs of its growing population outstrip hard-squeezed supplies.... U.S.-Central American trade pact signed The U.S. trade representative and ministers of five Central American countries Friday signed the U.S. Central American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement will eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers and expand regional opportunities for the workers, manufacturers, consumers, farmers, ranchers and service providers of all the countries, a USTR statement said.... Farm groups divided on effect of CAFTA on agriculture CAFTA will immediately eliminate tariffs on more than 80% of US exports of consumer and industrial products, phasing out the rest over 10 years. The Central American countries already enjoy duty free access to the US for more than 75% of their exports, according to the USTR. The agreement expands their opportunities. USTR says CAFTA has been endorsed by every national business association and "virtually every" farm association. "The American Farm Bureau Federation believes that the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement will provide a substantial competitive advantage to US agriculture," AFBF president Bob Stallman said in a statement Friday.... USDA steps up efforts to track livestock Every cow in the United States may someday have a unique ID number. "We want to allocate an individual identification, just like you and I have Social Security numbers," said Bill Hawks, an undersecretary of marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.... Where the Racing Is Down to Earth HERE are three great passions in south central Louisiana: spicy food, Cajun music and horse racing. It's a tossup which comes first. Most people know about gumbo and zydeco, but to pick up on the horseracing fever, you have to go to Evangeline Downs, just north of Lafayette. The racing at Evangeline is strictly minor league. The purse money is a pittance compared with racetracks like Santa Anita, Churchill Downs or Belmont, and it's a pretty safe bet that not too many of the local horses are headed for the Kentucky Derby. Lots of the horses are trained by their owners, who may race no more than two or three of them in the course of a season. This is racing at the grass roots. It's not glamorous, but like the local cuisine, it has savor and spice. The Daily Racing Form is filled with surnames like Desormeaux, Guidry, Bourque, Lanerie and LeBlanc, and most of their owners come from the heart of Acadiana, where boys as young as 8 or 9 ride in match races at the bush tracks scattered all over the area. Even the names that don't sound French often turn out to be Cajun. Shane Sellers and Robby Albarado, two of the country's top riders, come from little towns near Lafayette, and like most of their fellow Cajun jockeys, they started their careers at Evangeline, the only track in America where, when the starting gate opens, the track announcer doesn't say "They're off!"; instead, he says, "Ils sont partis!"....
Neptune Aviation defends its performance Regional Forester Gail Kimbell spent 90 minutes late Friday afternoon touring Neptune Aviation's hangar in Missoula, seeing firsthand the airtanker company's maintenance and training regimen. "And we're just getting started," Greg Jones, Neptune's director of maintenance and operations, said at tour's end. Kimbell, who oversees the Forest Service's Northern Region, had seen enough - for the time being. "Your care for your ships, as well as for your employees, is very evident," she said. "I appreciate what I've seen here today.".... Cabin Owners Mourn Homes Lost In Peppin Fire Landowners who recently lost their cabins in the Peppin fire are upset, blaming the Forest Service for letting the blaze burn and grow to become the nation's largest wildfire. They claim this all could've been prevented. Some cabin owners are angry because they say they weren't properly forewarned. The Forest Service said its property was a priority, but safety in a dangerous area came first. Cabin owner Michael Francis said despite the loss, he hopes to rebuild, and so do the others in the area, but that could be tricky. Some cabin owners are angry because they say they weren't properly forewarned. The Forest Service said its property was a priority, but safety in a dangerous area came first. Cabin owner Michael Francis said despite the loss, he hopes to rebuild, and so do the others in the area, but that could be tricky. The land is leased from the government, and it's up to the Forest Service to decide if the owners can rebuild.... Scientists Focus Research on Understanding Causes of Changes in Western Mountains A group of federal and university scientists today announced the launch of the Western Mountain Initiative, a 5-year effort funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to better understand ongoing changes in the mountains of the western United States. Their aim is to unravel the causes of sudden, often unwanted changes in mountainous areas, such as the recent die-off of trees on millions of acres in New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California. The consortium will bring together more than a decade of research conducted in national parks and other protected areas in the west. Because these areas have experienced minimal direct intervention by humans, national parks and other protected areas are ideal laboratories for detecting the effects of climatic changes.... Experts clash over stolen petroglyphs in U.S. court in Reno Expert witnesses disagree about the value, age and authenticity of American Indian petroglyphs two men are accused of stealing from national forest land bordering a Reno subdivision. One scientist testifying for the defense Friday suggested federal prosecutors had not done the proper scientific homework to establish the age of the rock art that local tribal leaders say is at least 1,000 years old. But archaeologists for the Forest Service and the state of Nevada said they are confident the etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep are older than the 100 years required to prove they are a federally protected archaeological resource.... Vandals damage logging equipment in salvage area Vandals damaged five pieces of logging equipment being used in a controversial timber salvage operation in south Baker County, authorities said Friday. The FBI has joined the investigation. Between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, someone poured metal shavings into the engines, fuel tanks and hydraulic systems of the logging machines, which belong to J&D Logging of Prairie City, said Baker County Undersheriff Ken Draze. He told the Baker City Herald repair costs would be about $100,000.... Public Outcry Follows Calif. Lion Shooting Police in Palo Alto, California recently shot and killed a mountain lion that wandered into a highly populated neighborhood. Sightings and even attacks by mountain lions have shot up in recent years throughout the western United States. But despite the threat that the big cats pose to humans, reaction to the Palo Alto shooting surprised a lot of people, especially the police who were trying to protect the public. The killing unleashed a flood of angry complaints. One letter said, "I hope you all rot in Hell.".... Hatchery Salmon Plan Announced The Bush administration announced here on Friday a plan to consider hatchery salmon, which are bred in concrete pens, when deciding whether wild stream-bred salmon deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act. In explaining the new policy, which caused a regional uproar when it was leaked last month, the regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service said that hatchery fish will be used to "contribute to the rebuilding" of endangered wild runs of salmon. But Bob Lohn emphasized that hatchery fish will not, by themselves, become "the solution." Hatchery salmon are pumped into regional rivers by the hundreds of millions each year.... Proposal to Stop Protecting Yellowstone Grizzlies Meets Opposition Word leaked out last week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is ready to submit a formal proposal to take grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park off the federal Endangered Species List next year. According to agency officials, recovery efforts for Yellowstone's grizzlies, which began in earnest in the 1980s, are now complete, with the population having doubled in the last two decades. But others, including some agency biologists as well as many environmentalists, disagree with the delisting proposal, citing on-going threats to Yellowstone's grizzlies, including the lack of suitable food sources to maintain the population at its current size.... Federal District Court judge rules goshawk not endangered in Southeast, but orders a review for Canada A federal District Court judge has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted appropriately in not listing a Southeast Alaska species of goshawk as threatened or endangered. But Judge Ricardo Urbina's ruling keeps the issue open by mandating a study of the Queen Charlotte goshawk's habitat and protection on Canada's Vancouver Island. Environmentalists said Wednesday the ruling keeps the 10-year-old court battle alive because the study could conclude that Canadian habitat protection is insufficient and that restrictions on logging in the Tongass National Forest are required.... Dogs, vehicles shut out of Gold Beach on plover concern A pair of snowy plovers has been found on Gold Bluffs Beach north of Orick, and Redwood National and State Parks has imposed a 30-day ban on vehicle traffic and dogs to protect them. The plovers, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are rearing their chicks. It's the first time in more than 20 years that a nesting pair of birds has been known to use the beach. The chicks can't fly for 30 days, and the park, after consulting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, is imposing strict temporary restrictions for that time.... Feds not told of killings of three grizzlies Three grizzly bears were illegally killed in the Swan Valley last year, and federal officials only learned of the killings after investigations concluded recently. The three deaths adjusted the 2003 mortality count from 13 to 16 in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, a 6-million-acre recovery zone for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery coordinator, mentioned the killings at a meeting of land and wildlife managers charged with grizzly bear recovery last week in Kalispell.... Defense Department to take migratory birds? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will propose a rule that will allow the Department of Defense (DOD) to incidentally take migratory birds during military readiness training as directed by the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act. The proposed rule will print in the Federal Register on June 2, 2004. The proposed regulations require the Department of Defense to assess the adverse effects of military readiness activities on migratory birds in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act. They also require the DOD to develop appropriate conservation measures if a proposed action may have a significant adverse effect on a population of migratory bird species of concern. In addition, the proposal requires the Department of Defense to monitor the effects of such military readiness activities on migratory bird species of concern and the effectiveness of conservation measures.... Service's role in bison issue questioned An official with the Humane Society says the National Park Service had enough cause to stop transferring bison to the Three Affiliated Tribes at least two years before it did. Dave Pauli, a member of Montana's humane bison review committee and regional director of the Northern Rockies Humane Society, said Theodore Roosevelt National Park continued to give bison to the tribes in 2002 even though the tribes had at least twice as many bison as the pasture could support under federal stocking standards.... Judge imposes restrictions on Alaska leases Oil companies may bid next week for rights to explore in a frontier region of Alaska's North Slope, but no work may be allowed that disturbs the ground for at least several months, a federal judge ruled late Friday. U.S. District Court Judge James Singleton stopped short of granting the ultimate request of environmental groups that had sued the federal government -- the postponement of Wednesday's much-anticipated lease sale for the northwestern third of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.... Column: Wilderness shouldn't be off-limits to firefighting We were called to a lightning-caused fire just a half a mile from our captain's home. The strike had started a burn just inside of a "wilderness study area" on the south side of the Centennial Valley. Initially the fire was only 5 to 10 trees and stayed at this stage for several hours. During this time, due to the amount of down and standing dead trees in the area, we were not allowed to go and fight the fire. We just sat there and watched it burn while it was being determined whether or not we could even use engines and other equipment (including chain saws) in the initial attack on this fire. This whole wilderness area had the basic issue tied up in knots. It was finally determined that fire retardant could be used in the wilderness. I have two points to make about the Winslow fire. First, when private property is in immediate harm's way, the wilderness or roadless area designations should have a clause that allows any fire control methods needed to quickly and safely control these fires. It will not eliminate the huge fires that take millions of dollars to put out, but a clause like this would definitely allow for quick control of most forest and range fires.... Mexico City faces water crisis as demand spirals Standing with her feet in a tangle of hose pipes, shantytown dweller Belen Hernandez prepares for the twice weekly ritual of siphoning precious water up the steep hillside to her breeze block home. The mother of three is among more than a million residents of the Mexican capital and surrounding area who depend on a roving fleet of water trucks, or "pipas," to meet their basic need for water as the capital faces a deepening crisis. Once a thriving Aztec citadel set on a broad highland lake, Latin America's largest city is threatened with outages, rationing and an angry population as the water needs of its growing population outstrip hard-squeezed supplies.... U.S.-Central American trade pact signed The U.S. trade representative and ministers of five Central American countries Friday signed the U.S. Central American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement will eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers and expand regional opportunities for the workers, manufacturers, consumers, farmers, ranchers and service providers of all the countries, a USTR statement said.... Farm groups divided on effect of CAFTA on agriculture CAFTA will immediately eliminate tariffs on more than 80% of US exports of consumer and industrial products, phasing out the rest over 10 years. The Central American countries already enjoy duty free access to the US for more than 75% of their exports, according to the USTR. The agreement expands their opportunities. USTR says CAFTA has been endorsed by every national business association and "virtually every" farm association. "The American Farm Bureau Federation believes that the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement will provide a substantial competitive advantage to US agriculture," AFBF president Bob Stallman said in a statement Friday.... USDA steps up efforts to track livestock Every cow in the United States may someday have a unique ID number. "We want to allocate an individual identification, just like you and I have Social Security numbers," said Bill Hawks, an undersecretary of marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.... Where the Racing Is Down to Earth HERE are three great passions in south central Louisiana: spicy food, Cajun music and horse racing. It's a tossup which comes first. Most people know about gumbo and zydeco, but to pick up on the horseracing fever, you have to go to Evangeline Downs, just north of Lafayette. The racing at Evangeline is strictly minor league. The purse money is a pittance compared with racetracks like Santa Anita, Churchill Downs or Belmont, and it's a pretty safe bet that not too many of the local horses are headed for the Kentucky Derby. Lots of the horses are trained by their owners, who may race no more than two or three of them in the course of a season. This is racing at the grass roots. It's not glamorous, but like the local cuisine, it has savor and spice. The Daily Racing Form is filled with surnames like Desormeaux, Guidry, Bourque, Lanerie and LeBlanc, and most of their owners come from the heart of Acadiana, where boys as young as 8 or 9 ride in match races at the bush tracks scattered all over the area. Even the names that don't sound French often turn out to be Cajun. Shane Sellers and Robby Albarado, two of the country's top riders, come from little towns near Lafayette, and like most of their fellow Cajun jockeys, they started their careers at Evangeline, the only track in America where, when the starting gate opens, the track announcer doesn't say "They're off!"; instead, he says, "Ils sont partis!"....
Thursday, May 27, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
Drought, bugs may be permanently killing forests Western forests may be on the brink of epochal change, driven to permanent retreat in lower elevations by years of drought and decades of fire-suppression that has made them vulnerable to a scourge of insects, scientists warned Wednesday. The die-off in turn is resulting in uncontrollable wildfires of the sort that swept Southern California last fall, and Arizona and Colorado the previous summer. A hundred of the West's top scientists are gathered by invitation only for a three-day Lake Tahoe conference to share the latest studies on global warming and its impact, and to plot what research is needed over the next five years. "There's stuff dying all across the montane forests of the western U.S.," said Craig D. Allen of the U.S. Geological Survey. "It's a big deal -- socially, environmentally and economically." Other researchers compared the current drought and rising temperatures to a similar episode 13,000 years ago. Mountain forests died off or were wiped out by fire, to be replaced by woodlands, grasslands and desert scrub that had been prevalent at lower elevations or farther south.... Lawyers for men accused of petroglyph theft blame Forest Service Lawyers for two men accused of looting American Indian artifacts said Thursday that the real culprit is the U.S. Forest Service because it failed to mark the site on the edge of Reno as culturally significant. Federal prosecutors urged a U.S. District Court jury to hold the two men responsible for stealing three boulders with artwork etchings that tribal leaders say are priceless and more than 1,000 years old. But the defense lawyers said John Ligon, 40, Reno, and Carrol Mizell, 44, Van Nuys, Calif., removed three boulders with the petroglyphs from national forest land and placed them in Ligon's front yard to protect them from an encroaching subdivision. "He would have never taken them and displayed them in his front yard if he thought they were government property," said Scott Freeman, Ligon's lawyer.... Reid promises help on Jarbidge U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has agreed to look into helping Elko County resolve the South Canyon Road issue at Jarbidge in light of questions arising from the latest court opinion. Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury, who was in the meeting with Reid, said today the county is looking at congressional action to back up the agreement the county and federal agencies already signed. "We need something to keep us out of 9th Circuit Court, which we thought the agreement did," Woodbury said.... Environmentalists Sue Over Forest Policy Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Thursday, objecting to recent changes in the Northwest Forest Plan that they say endanger salmon and clean water. The suit, filed in federal court in Seattle, follows a suit filed last month objecting to another change in the forest plan that eased restrictions on logging of old-growth forests. The administration announced the new rules in March, completing changes that had been in the works for more than a year. One change relaxes a rule requiring that forest managers look for rare plants and animals before logging; another allows agencies to meet clean-water goals on a broad, watershed-wide basis rather than through evaluation of individual projects.... Editorial: Reasonable approach sought on off-road use The U.S. Forest Service and recreationists should look for common ground on road usage rather than resort to heavy-handed regulations. The Forest Service is expected to release a report for public comment within days that will address inconsistencies in how forest roads are managed for off-road use. But some off-roaders are rightfully wary whether the report is actually a route to reducing availability of roads. If the proposal focuses on uniformity and helps educate off-roaders about which trails are open, season availability, etc., then this will be a positive addition for all trail users. If the regulations are a smoke screen used to decrease the number of trails available for off-road use, then the Forest Service could be acting arbitrarily against a particular segment of the public.... Fencing off Spawn Creek could reduce whirling disease Cattle and trout have coexisted in the West for more than a century, with mixed results. Members of Cache Anglers have come up with an idea to help protect a vital native Bonneville cutthroat trout spawning area and slow the spread of whirling disease in Logan Canyon without affecting free-range cattle in the area. The plan to line 1 1/2 miles of aptly named Spawn Creek with fencing has, however, encountered resistance from some grazing-permit owners who worry the $80,000 project could set a precedent.... Owens taps $1.3 million to hire firefighting aircraft Gov. Bill Owens released $1.3 million from the state's Disaster Emergency Fund on Thursday to contract two additional air tankers and a helicopter to help fight wildfires. "As the drought continues, the wildfire potential is something we will have to confront aggressively all summer," Owens said. The U.S. Forest Service grounded federal air tankers recently because of safety concerns.... In about-face, Army scraps plans for environmental cutbacks The Army scrapped plans on Thursday to curtail some environmental protections and contracts after learning from Pentagon budget officials it could make do with cuts elsewhere. The about-face came after a report earlier Thursday about an Army memorandum directing base commanders to shift money out of environmental programs. The Army later said it would carry out other measures — such as a hiring freeze and lower spending for travel and conferences — to help pay for costly military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Anders Aadland, in a May 11 email, had ordered garrison commanders worldwide to "take additional risk in environmental programs." He told them to "terminate environmental contracts and delay all nonstatutory enforcement actions" until the beginning of the government's next fiscal year in October.... State offers prairie dog management plan The state of South Dakota has drafted a prairie dog management plan that would establish buffer zones aimed at preventing prairie dogs on federal land from encroaching onto adjacent private land. The plan would also establish an emergency interim process to help private landowners next to federal lands control prairie dogs until the U.S. Forest Service can begin action in the buffer zones on federal lands, possibly next year. The plan, which state officials hope to finalize by early July, drew criticism both from grazing interests who say it doesn't do enough to control prairie dogs and from wildlife advocates who say the buffer zones would hurt recovery efforts for black-footed ferrets.... Red-legged golf lawsuit? Two environmental groups are threatening to sue Morgan Hill and The Institute Golf Course if they don’t comply with the Endangered Species Act, according to letters sent to two government agencies. In a letter sent Thursday to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Committee for Green Foothills noted its intention to sue after 60 days if the city and The Institute don’t comply with the Endangered Species Act. “The (city and Institute) are causing illegal ‘take’ that harms and harasses the California red-legged frog, a species listed as ‘threatened’ under the ESA,” the letter said. “The ESA prohibits all activities that cause a ‘take’ of an endangered species.”.... Biologists move to protect Mojave rare plant habitat The Center for Biological Diversity (Center), Utah Native Plant Society (UNPS) and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) today noticed the Bush administration Interior Dept. -- Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) of an intent to sue over their failure to designate critical habitat and to implement a recovery plan for two endangered Mojave Desert plants, the Holmgren milkvetch and the Shivwits milkvetch, as required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).... NOAA expects no big change in salmon runs under draft policy The federal government's new draft plan for counting hatchery fish alongside wild salmon in determining whether some runs need protection could create some confusion among salmon fishermen, but it won't immediately change much else. "There is no lightning bolt," said Commerce Undersecretary Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., who oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "Nothing here is going to change that much." This morning, NOAA officials will release their response to a 2001 court ruling that said the government had wrongly excluded fish reared in hatcheries when deciding whether salmon should be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).... Groups' lawsuit seeks lamprey protection The Pacific lamprey deserves protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to a lawsuit filed by a dozen conservation groups. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Portland, asks the court to require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take legal steps to protect the Pacific, river, western brook and Kern brook species of lamprey. The eel-like fish once numbered in the thousands in West Coast rivers, but numbers on the Snake River declined from 50,000 in the early 1960s to fewer than 1,000 in the 1990s.... Plan would use hatchery salmon to boost wild stocks Stung by criticism from federal judges, property-rights advocates and environmentalists, the Bush administration today plans to propose allowing salmon produced in hatcheries to boost struggling wild populations -- some to the point they could lose federal protections. The decision is bound to set off another round of lawsuits over one of the prickliest and most complicated factors in struggles over how to restore the iconic salmon of the Pacific Northwest. But it may satisfy Native American tribes, who say hatcheries could help wild salmon rebound if the rivers where both kinds of fish live are protected. The policy foresees allowing Native Americans and others to keep catching hatchery-produced fish so long as they're not needed to help wild stocks rebound.... Tests show hatchery-raised salmon, trout aren't free of chemicals Atlantic salmon and trout raised in five federal hatcheries are safe to eat, but have high enough levels of dioxin and other pollutants to trigger advisories limiting consumption, according to tests done by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency commissioned the tests on the brood stock fish to determine whether they were picking up PCBs and other contaminants from feed. The tests came after other researchers found that farm-raised salmon, fed the same diet, had higher levels of the chemicals than wild fish.... Park Retirees: Hidden Cuts at National Parks at Odds With Bush Administration Assurances of 'Outstanding Visitor Services' A new national survey based in part on information from 12 representative U.S. national parks reveals a combination of significant cuts in budget, staff and visitor services at all of the parks, a finding that casts into doubt the truthfulness of March 24, 2004 testimony by National Park Service Director Fran Mainella, who told angry members of Congress that Americans would not see major park cuts this summer and that "outstanding visitor services" would be provided. Compiled by the 250-member Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, the new report, which is entitled "Pretending to Protect the Parks: Mainella and Norton's Legacy of Neglected National Parks in Decline," finds:.... BLM still doesn't have power to cite underage drinkers Proposed new rules to give U.S. Bureau of Land Management rangers authority to cite people for alcohol-related offenses won't be in effect this Memorial Day weekend - the busiest weekend of the year in terms of visitors. Churchill County District Attorney Arthur Mallory isn't so sure the BLM should ever have that power. "My theory is government that is closest to the people is the best for the people," Mallory said.... Greenpeace sets up in Josephine Greenpeace, the conservation group best known for its work with whales, is planning to open its first mobile "forest rescue station" in Josephine County. The station will be an education and campaign center for the group, which has called for an end to logging on federally-owned lands. The exact location of the station, a solar-powered facility which consists of several giant domes, will be revealed next Tuesday.... Endangered Forests Rally at White House Conservation and religious groups rallied at the White House today at noon to call on the Bush administration to protect the nation's remaining old growth and endangered National Forests. The Endangered Forests Rally marks the "Summer Kickoff" (May 27 to June 4 - www.endangeredforests.org) during which environmentalists from Oregon to Virginia will be speaking out to expose the truth regarding the Bush administration's policies that hand over our National Forests to corporate special interests. "The stage is set for the next big showdown over America's endangered National Forests. The Bush administration has derailed sensible and balanced protections for National Forests, and the summer of 2004 may bring ancient forest logging and more development in roadless wildlands," stated Jake Kreilick, Endangered Forests Project Coordinator of the National Forest Protection Alliance. Editorial: BLM needs to heed wishes of the people The obstinate U.S. Bureau of Land Management is asking for it. And Gov. Bill Richardson, and a growing and potent group of local and national conservation organizations, should give the disrespectful federal bureaucrats and the Bush administration all they deserve. New Mexico should fight to protect Otero Mesa from oil and gas drilling, in the courts if necessary.... Disaster film has scientists laughing Slouched in their seats and munching popcorn, a group of climate scientists from the University of Washington pronounced their verdict on the Hollywood blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow" with giggles and guffaws. When star Dennis Quaid, playing a hunky paleoclimatologist, solemnly warns that a massive storm unleashed by global warming is going to plunge the Northern Hemisphere into a new Ice Age — within days! — the real experts nudge each other and snicker. When helicopters freeze midair and the Atlantic Ocean swamps Manhattan, peals of laughter erupt.... If owl rules roost, center gets boot: Native bird may force nature haven to migrate A bird on New Jersey's threatened species list is threatening plans to build a $3 million environmental center where children would learn about such imperiled animals. The fluffy barred owl was spotted in a wooded area of Roseland where Essex County wants to build the 8,900-square-foot center. The Department of Environmental Protection has now refused to approve construction until it can determine if the new center will jeopardize the owl's habitat.... Feds may investigate Canadian beef imports The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General is considering opening an investigation to determine why the agency violated its own policy and allowed the import of millions of pounds of Canadian processed beef products that were banned due to concerns about mad cow disease, United Press International has learned. If the OIG proceeds with an investigation, it would be the fourth inquiry it has launched involving mad cow disease-related issues since the first case of the deadly disease in U.S. herds was discovered last December....
Drought, bugs may be permanently killing forests Western forests may be on the brink of epochal change, driven to permanent retreat in lower elevations by years of drought and decades of fire-suppression that has made them vulnerable to a scourge of insects, scientists warned Wednesday. The die-off in turn is resulting in uncontrollable wildfires of the sort that swept Southern California last fall, and Arizona and Colorado the previous summer. A hundred of the West's top scientists are gathered by invitation only for a three-day Lake Tahoe conference to share the latest studies on global warming and its impact, and to plot what research is needed over the next five years. "There's stuff dying all across the montane forests of the western U.S.," said Craig D. Allen of the U.S. Geological Survey. "It's a big deal -- socially, environmentally and economically." Other researchers compared the current drought and rising temperatures to a similar episode 13,000 years ago. Mountain forests died off or were wiped out by fire, to be replaced by woodlands, grasslands and desert scrub that had been prevalent at lower elevations or farther south.... Lawyers for men accused of petroglyph theft blame Forest Service Lawyers for two men accused of looting American Indian artifacts said Thursday that the real culprit is the U.S. Forest Service because it failed to mark the site on the edge of Reno as culturally significant. Federal prosecutors urged a U.S. District Court jury to hold the two men responsible for stealing three boulders with artwork etchings that tribal leaders say are priceless and more than 1,000 years old. But the defense lawyers said John Ligon, 40, Reno, and Carrol Mizell, 44, Van Nuys, Calif., removed three boulders with the petroglyphs from national forest land and placed them in Ligon's front yard to protect them from an encroaching subdivision. "He would have never taken them and displayed them in his front yard if he thought they were government property," said Scott Freeman, Ligon's lawyer.... Reid promises help on Jarbidge U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has agreed to look into helping Elko County resolve the South Canyon Road issue at Jarbidge in light of questions arising from the latest court opinion. Elko County District Attorney Gary Woodbury, who was in the meeting with Reid, said today the county is looking at congressional action to back up the agreement the county and federal agencies already signed. "We need something to keep us out of 9th Circuit Court, which we thought the agreement did," Woodbury said.... Environmentalists Sue Over Forest Policy Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Thursday, objecting to recent changes in the Northwest Forest Plan that they say endanger salmon and clean water. The suit, filed in federal court in Seattle, follows a suit filed last month objecting to another change in the forest plan that eased restrictions on logging of old-growth forests. The administration announced the new rules in March, completing changes that had been in the works for more than a year. One change relaxes a rule requiring that forest managers look for rare plants and animals before logging; another allows agencies to meet clean-water goals on a broad, watershed-wide basis rather than through evaluation of individual projects.... Editorial: Reasonable approach sought on off-road use The U.S. Forest Service and recreationists should look for common ground on road usage rather than resort to heavy-handed regulations. The Forest Service is expected to release a report for public comment within days that will address inconsistencies in how forest roads are managed for off-road use. But some off-roaders are rightfully wary whether the report is actually a route to reducing availability of roads. If the proposal focuses on uniformity and helps educate off-roaders about which trails are open, season availability, etc., then this will be a positive addition for all trail users. If the regulations are a smoke screen used to decrease the number of trails available for off-road use, then the Forest Service could be acting arbitrarily against a particular segment of the public.... Fencing off Spawn Creek could reduce whirling disease Cattle and trout have coexisted in the West for more than a century, with mixed results. Members of Cache Anglers have come up with an idea to help protect a vital native Bonneville cutthroat trout spawning area and slow the spread of whirling disease in Logan Canyon without affecting free-range cattle in the area. The plan to line 1 1/2 miles of aptly named Spawn Creek with fencing has, however, encountered resistance from some grazing-permit owners who worry the $80,000 project could set a precedent.... Owens taps $1.3 million to hire firefighting aircraft Gov. Bill Owens released $1.3 million from the state's Disaster Emergency Fund on Thursday to contract two additional air tankers and a helicopter to help fight wildfires. "As the drought continues, the wildfire potential is something we will have to confront aggressively all summer," Owens said. The U.S. Forest Service grounded federal air tankers recently because of safety concerns.... In about-face, Army scraps plans for environmental cutbacks The Army scrapped plans on Thursday to curtail some environmental protections and contracts after learning from Pentagon budget officials it could make do with cuts elsewhere. The about-face came after a report earlier Thursday about an Army memorandum directing base commanders to shift money out of environmental programs. The Army later said it would carry out other measures — such as a hiring freeze and lower spending for travel and conferences — to help pay for costly military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Anders Aadland, in a May 11 email, had ordered garrison commanders worldwide to "take additional risk in environmental programs." He told them to "terminate environmental contracts and delay all nonstatutory enforcement actions" until the beginning of the government's next fiscal year in October.... State offers prairie dog management plan The state of South Dakota has drafted a prairie dog management plan that would establish buffer zones aimed at preventing prairie dogs on federal land from encroaching onto adjacent private land. The plan would also establish an emergency interim process to help private landowners next to federal lands control prairie dogs until the U.S. Forest Service can begin action in the buffer zones on federal lands, possibly next year. The plan, which state officials hope to finalize by early July, drew criticism both from grazing interests who say it doesn't do enough to control prairie dogs and from wildlife advocates who say the buffer zones would hurt recovery efforts for black-footed ferrets.... Red-legged golf lawsuit? Two environmental groups are threatening to sue Morgan Hill and The Institute Golf Course if they don’t comply with the Endangered Species Act, according to letters sent to two government agencies. In a letter sent Thursday to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Committee for Green Foothills noted its intention to sue after 60 days if the city and The Institute don’t comply with the Endangered Species Act. “The (city and Institute) are causing illegal ‘take’ that harms and harasses the California red-legged frog, a species listed as ‘threatened’ under the ESA,” the letter said. “The ESA prohibits all activities that cause a ‘take’ of an endangered species.”.... Biologists move to protect Mojave rare plant habitat The Center for Biological Diversity (Center), Utah Native Plant Society (UNPS) and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) today noticed the Bush administration Interior Dept. -- Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) of an intent to sue over their failure to designate critical habitat and to implement a recovery plan for two endangered Mojave Desert plants, the Holmgren milkvetch and the Shivwits milkvetch, as required by the Endangered Species Act (ESA).... NOAA expects no big change in salmon runs under draft policy The federal government's new draft plan for counting hatchery fish alongside wild salmon in determining whether some runs need protection could create some confusion among salmon fishermen, but it won't immediately change much else. "There is no lightning bolt," said Commerce Undersecretary Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., who oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "Nothing here is going to change that much." This morning, NOAA officials will release their response to a 2001 court ruling that said the government had wrongly excluded fish reared in hatcheries when deciding whether salmon should be listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).... Groups' lawsuit seeks lamprey protection The Pacific lamprey deserves protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to a lawsuit filed by a dozen conservation groups. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Portland, asks the court to require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take legal steps to protect the Pacific, river, western brook and Kern brook species of lamprey. The eel-like fish once numbered in the thousands in West Coast rivers, but numbers on the Snake River declined from 50,000 in the early 1960s to fewer than 1,000 in the 1990s.... Plan would use hatchery salmon to boost wild stocks Stung by criticism from federal judges, property-rights advocates and environmentalists, the Bush administration today plans to propose allowing salmon produced in hatcheries to boost struggling wild populations -- some to the point they could lose federal protections. The decision is bound to set off another round of lawsuits over one of the prickliest and most complicated factors in struggles over how to restore the iconic salmon of the Pacific Northwest. But it may satisfy Native American tribes, who say hatcheries could help wild salmon rebound if the rivers where both kinds of fish live are protected. The policy foresees allowing Native Americans and others to keep catching hatchery-produced fish so long as they're not needed to help wild stocks rebound.... Tests show hatchery-raised salmon, trout aren't free of chemicals Atlantic salmon and trout raised in five federal hatcheries are safe to eat, but have high enough levels of dioxin and other pollutants to trigger advisories limiting consumption, according to tests done by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency commissioned the tests on the brood stock fish to determine whether they were picking up PCBs and other contaminants from feed. The tests came after other researchers found that farm-raised salmon, fed the same diet, had higher levels of the chemicals than wild fish.... Park Retirees: Hidden Cuts at National Parks at Odds With Bush Administration Assurances of 'Outstanding Visitor Services' A new national survey based in part on information from 12 representative U.S. national parks reveals a combination of significant cuts in budget, staff and visitor services at all of the parks, a finding that casts into doubt the truthfulness of March 24, 2004 testimony by National Park Service Director Fran Mainella, who told angry members of Congress that Americans would not see major park cuts this summer and that "outstanding visitor services" would be provided. Compiled by the 250-member Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, the new report, which is entitled "Pretending to Protect the Parks: Mainella and Norton's Legacy of Neglected National Parks in Decline," finds:.... BLM still doesn't have power to cite underage drinkers Proposed new rules to give U.S. Bureau of Land Management rangers authority to cite people for alcohol-related offenses won't be in effect this Memorial Day weekend - the busiest weekend of the year in terms of visitors. Churchill County District Attorney Arthur Mallory isn't so sure the BLM should ever have that power. "My theory is government that is closest to the people is the best for the people," Mallory said.... Greenpeace sets up in Josephine Greenpeace, the conservation group best known for its work with whales, is planning to open its first mobile "forest rescue station" in Josephine County. The station will be an education and campaign center for the group, which has called for an end to logging on federally-owned lands. The exact location of the station, a solar-powered facility which consists of several giant domes, will be revealed next Tuesday.... Endangered Forests Rally at White House Conservation and religious groups rallied at the White House today at noon to call on the Bush administration to protect the nation's remaining old growth and endangered National Forests. The Endangered Forests Rally marks the "Summer Kickoff" (May 27 to June 4 - www.endangeredforests.org) during which environmentalists from Oregon to Virginia will be speaking out to expose the truth regarding the Bush administration's policies that hand over our National Forests to corporate special interests. "The stage is set for the next big showdown over America's endangered National Forests. The Bush administration has derailed sensible and balanced protections for National Forests, and the summer of 2004 may bring ancient forest logging and more development in roadless wildlands," stated Jake Kreilick, Endangered Forests Project Coordinator of the National Forest Protection Alliance. Editorial: BLM needs to heed wishes of the people The obstinate U.S. Bureau of Land Management is asking for it. And Gov. Bill Richardson, and a growing and potent group of local and national conservation organizations, should give the disrespectful federal bureaucrats and the Bush administration all they deserve. New Mexico should fight to protect Otero Mesa from oil and gas drilling, in the courts if necessary.... Disaster film has scientists laughing Slouched in their seats and munching popcorn, a group of climate scientists from the University of Washington pronounced their verdict on the Hollywood blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow" with giggles and guffaws. When star Dennis Quaid, playing a hunky paleoclimatologist, solemnly warns that a massive storm unleashed by global warming is going to plunge the Northern Hemisphere into a new Ice Age — within days! — the real experts nudge each other and snicker. When helicopters freeze midair and the Atlantic Ocean swamps Manhattan, peals of laughter erupt.... If owl rules roost, center gets boot: Native bird may force nature haven to migrate A bird on New Jersey's threatened species list is threatening plans to build a $3 million environmental center where children would learn about such imperiled animals. The fluffy barred owl was spotted in a wooded area of Roseland where Essex County wants to build the 8,900-square-foot center. The Department of Environmental Protection has now refused to approve construction until it can determine if the new center will jeopardize the owl's habitat.... Feds may investigate Canadian beef imports The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General is considering opening an investigation to determine why the agency violated its own policy and allowed the import of millions of pounds of Canadian processed beef products that were banned due to concerns about mad cow disease, United Press International has learned. If the OIG proceeds with an investigation, it would be the fourth inquiry it has launched involving mad cow disease-related issues since the first case of the deadly disease in U.S. herds was discovered last December....
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
NEWS ROUNDUP
As Fire Season Approaches, Dread Grows in the West The Lower South Fork fire, which carved a black scar in the mountainside north of here three weeks ago, never became a monster. No homes or lives were lost. But it frightened many of the seasoned firefighters who responded to it because it did not behave the way fires in the high Rockies in early May are supposed to. Lower South Fork surged and crowned - flames leaping from tree to tree - and it ran up the steep alpine slopes, burning like a fire in the driest, hottest days of July and August. "Most of the people on that fire, including myself, were pretty alarmed by the fire behavior - it doesn't bode well for the rest of the fire season," said Kelly Rogers, an assistant district forester for the Colorado State Forest Service.... Forest Service admits flaws in job competition effort The Forest Service has acknowledged several significant shortcomings in its competitive sourcing program that were uncovered in a congressional report, and is working with the Office of Management and Budget to correct them. In the meantime, agency officials have decided to hold off on initiating any new public-private contests in fiscal 2004. A bipartisan congressional report issued Tuesday revealed a variety of flaws in the Forest Service's implementation of President Bush's initiative to let contractors compete for federal jobs.... Grazing Resolution: Rancher, Forest Service reach agreement Intervention and mediation by local elected officials resulted in an agreement signed Tuesday between the U.S. Forest Service and Elko County rancher Mike Riordan, ending a conflict over grazing rights on the west side of the Ruby Mountains. "We have more than we had at the beginning of the process," Riordan said. "I sure appreciate all the people that came together to help.".... Feds pledge a decision on prairie dog by August U.S. Department of Interior officials have pledged to decide by August whether to remove the black-tailed prairie dog from the candidate list for protection under the Endangered Species Act, according to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. The Interior Department promise came as a result of Daschle's meeting with Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week, Daschle spokesman Ted Miller said Tuesday. "Common sense tells us that the prairie dog should be removed from this list, so I am hopeful that's the decision the Department will announce in August," Daschle said.... Editorial: Folly of tanker decision already clear Well, it didn't take long to demonstrate the folly of the Forest Service's decision this month to fight wildfires without all the right tools. In southern New Mexico, the Captain fire is burning more than 23,000 acres and has sent dozens of homeowners fleeing. "I was shocked to be told this fire could have been held to a single acre if the heavy air tankers had been available at the beginning," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. But, of course, air tankers weren't available at the beginning. And it doesn't look as though they're going to be available at the beginning of the next fire, or the ones after that.... Forest Service stands firm on grounding of air tankers The Forest Service official in charge of aerial firefighting said Wednesday that the agency would not reverse its decision to ground the nation's fleet of air tankers. "People keep talking about a near-term, stroke-of-the-pen reversal," said Tony Kern, Forest Service assistant director of aviation management. "That will not happen. This will be a data-driven decision. At the end of the day it will not be an emotional decision." Executives at Missoula-based Neptune Aviation Inc. were furious and promised to fight to get their planes back in the air.... Court strikes down USFWS decision to not list the Queen Charlotte Goshawk under the Endangered Species Act In a long awaited legal ruling, the D.C. District Court yesterday issued new hope in the longtime effort to save the Queen Charlotte goshawk from extinction at the hands of the U.S. and Canadian timber industry. Though the species has lost millions of acres of its old growth forest habitat, and will lose more under government logging plans, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled in 1997 that the species is not yet endangered. The court struck down this decision, ordering the agency to assess whether the areas of past and planned logging constitute a significant portion of the species total range. Though the Endangered Species Act clearly requires such an analysis, the Fish and Wildlife Service purposefully avoided it because the goshawk is clearly endangered in over two-thirds of its range.... Drought hurting ranchers’ efforts at saving arctic grayling The ongoing drought is thwarting local ranchers' efforts at keeping arctic grayling off the endangered species list at the same time an Arizona group is seeking an emergency listing for the fish. The Big Hole Watershed Committee has worked for years to keep enough water in the Big Hole River to help preserve the last native population of arctic grayling in the lower 48 states. But after five years of drought, rancher Harold Peterson is beginning to wonder if there's much else that can be done, even with a proposed $1 million federal conservation payment to help offset ranchers' costs to keep additional water in the river.... Interior secretary signs conservation pact with International Paper U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton signed a landmark agreement with International Paper Co. to conserve freshwater ecosystems in nine Southern states. The environmental partnership covers 5.5 million acres owned by International Paper in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The partnership between the scientists and researchers at International Paper and those of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow unprecedented monitoring of aquatic species across the Southeast, officials said.... Feds seek comment on toad 'safe harbors' The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public comment on a plan to expand the habitat of the endangered Wyoming toad by using ranch land. Wyoming toads currently live only at Mortenson Lake southwest of Laramie. Wildlife biologists, however, say the lake has grown too salty and alkaline due to the drought and could be hindering reintroduction. Under proposed "safe harbor" agreements, ranchers who allow toad releases on their properties would be protected if they fail to thrive. The ranchers can continue traditional irrigation and grazing practices.... BLM plans meetings in Tonopah, Pioche on Yucca Mountain rail plan The federal Bureau of Land Management is scheduling two open-house meetings in rural Nevada about a proposal to build a new rail line to haul radioactive nuclear waste across the state to Yucca Mountain. The BLM is collecting comments on a DOE request to withdraw from public use a mile-wide swath of land for the 319-mile rail corridor. It would run from a rail head near Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.... GOP says no to Young act Alaska Republicans again rejected one of U.S. Rep. Don Young's favorite initiatives, a bill to put more than $3 billion a year into public land purchases, recreational facilities and projects loosely related to coastal conservation. The state Republican Party, at its convention this past weekend in Soldotna, passed a resolution opposing Young's proposed Get Outdoors Act. Young, a Republican, announced the bill's introduction last month with co-sponsor Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. They were backed by sports celebrities, outdoor and recreational gear manufacturers, and public land advocates.... Residents oppose BLM enforcement Do not allow additional police powers for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. That was the message directed to the Elko County Public Land Use Advisory Commission Tuesday night from every member of the public who spoke to the board. PLUAC was reviewing a proposal by the BLM to increase its law enforcement authority over use of drugs and alcohol on public lands.... New Information Documents Bush Administration's Land-Management Shift Although Federal law requires that public lands be managed to balance environmental protection and commercial exploitation, new information released today by The Wilderness Society (TWS) shows that the Bush administration has used a series of arcane and interrelated administrative decisions, and the settlement of a key "friendly" lawsuit, to make oil and gas development the dominant use of federal public lands. For example, a BLM instruction memorandum issued in August 2001 instructed BLM state directors to issue oil and gas leases and drilling permits on lands where new land use plans had not yet been completed. Another memorandum, issued in February of this year, in effect required BLM state directors to issue leases on demand to the oil and gas industry(Go here to see the report).... Utah farmers are told to use water or lose it With Utah in its sixth year of drought, the Utah Legislature has given farmers an ironic ultimatum: Use all your water, or what's not used may be taken away. In 2002, the Legislature modified provisions of Utah's water law to address the problem of what's often referred to as "partial" forfeiture — when people aren't using their full water allocation. What had been a long-standing right, allowing people to keep their water rights as long as they use at least some of it over a period of five years, is no longer the case. Now, water users are under enormous pressure to use their entire water allocation because if they fail to use some of the water for five years without notifying the state, their right to it is automatically forfeited. The unused portion of that water right then reverts to the public.... Community sees auction house fade into the past Down in Central Point, they're tearing down the Rogue Valley Livestock Auction and putting up a franchise Dutch Bros. drive-through coffee shop. Some people think change means something better is on the horizon. But a lot of folks in Southern Oregon are sad this week as employees of the auction house clean out the buildings that have seen a lot of cows, horses, pigs, sheep and goats trade hands in the past half-century. To say nothing of the social life that revolved around the place. "Everybody used to go there every Thursday," says Teresa Rippey, a longtime customer who raises horses outside Gold Hill. "Millionaires rubbed elbows with cowboys. It was just a treasure."....
As Fire Season Approaches, Dread Grows in the West The Lower South Fork fire, which carved a black scar in the mountainside north of here three weeks ago, never became a monster. No homes or lives were lost. But it frightened many of the seasoned firefighters who responded to it because it did not behave the way fires in the high Rockies in early May are supposed to. Lower South Fork surged and crowned - flames leaping from tree to tree - and it ran up the steep alpine slopes, burning like a fire in the driest, hottest days of July and August. "Most of the people on that fire, including myself, were pretty alarmed by the fire behavior - it doesn't bode well for the rest of the fire season," said Kelly Rogers, an assistant district forester for the Colorado State Forest Service.... Forest Service admits flaws in job competition effort The Forest Service has acknowledged several significant shortcomings in its competitive sourcing program that were uncovered in a congressional report, and is working with the Office of Management and Budget to correct them. In the meantime, agency officials have decided to hold off on initiating any new public-private contests in fiscal 2004. A bipartisan congressional report issued Tuesday revealed a variety of flaws in the Forest Service's implementation of President Bush's initiative to let contractors compete for federal jobs.... Grazing Resolution: Rancher, Forest Service reach agreement Intervention and mediation by local elected officials resulted in an agreement signed Tuesday between the U.S. Forest Service and Elko County rancher Mike Riordan, ending a conflict over grazing rights on the west side of the Ruby Mountains. "We have more than we had at the beginning of the process," Riordan said. "I sure appreciate all the people that came together to help.".... Feds pledge a decision on prairie dog by August U.S. Department of Interior officials have pledged to decide by August whether to remove the black-tailed prairie dog from the candidate list for protection under the Endangered Species Act, according to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. The Interior Department promise came as a result of Daschle's meeting with Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week, Daschle spokesman Ted Miller said Tuesday. "Common sense tells us that the prairie dog should be removed from this list, so I am hopeful that's the decision the Department will announce in August," Daschle said.... Editorial: Folly of tanker decision already clear Well, it didn't take long to demonstrate the folly of the Forest Service's decision this month to fight wildfires without all the right tools. In southern New Mexico, the Captain fire is burning more than 23,000 acres and has sent dozens of homeowners fleeing. "I was shocked to be told this fire could have been held to a single acre if the heavy air tankers had been available at the beginning," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. But, of course, air tankers weren't available at the beginning. And it doesn't look as though they're going to be available at the beginning of the next fire, or the ones after that.... Forest Service stands firm on grounding of air tankers The Forest Service official in charge of aerial firefighting said Wednesday that the agency would not reverse its decision to ground the nation's fleet of air tankers. "People keep talking about a near-term, stroke-of-the-pen reversal," said Tony Kern, Forest Service assistant director of aviation management. "That will not happen. This will be a data-driven decision. At the end of the day it will not be an emotional decision." Executives at Missoula-based Neptune Aviation Inc. were furious and promised to fight to get their planes back in the air.... Court strikes down USFWS decision to not list the Queen Charlotte Goshawk under the Endangered Species Act In a long awaited legal ruling, the D.C. District Court yesterday issued new hope in the longtime effort to save the Queen Charlotte goshawk from extinction at the hands of the U.S. and Canadian timber industry. Though the species has lost millions of acres of its old growth forest habitat, and will lose more under government logging plans, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled in 1997 that the species is not yet endangered. The court struck down this decision, ordering the agency to assess whether the areas of past and planned logging constitute a significant portion of the species total range. Though the Endangered Species Act clearly requires such an analysis, the Fish and Wildlife Service purposefully avoided it because the goshawk is clearly endangered in over two-thirds of its range.... Drought hurting ranchers’ efforts at saving arctic grayling The ongoing drought is thwarting local ranchers' efforts at keeping arctic grayling off the endangered species list at the same time an Arizona group is seeking an emergency listing for the fish. The Big Hole Watershed Committee has worked for years to keep enough water in the Big Hole River to help preserve the last native population of arctic grayling in the lower 48 states. But after five years of drought, rancher Harold Peterson is beginning to wonder if there's much else that can be done, even with a proposed $1 million federal conservation payment to help offset ranchers' costs to keep additional water in the river.... Interior secretary signs conservation pact with International Paper U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton signed a landmark agreement with International Paper Co. to conserve freshwater ecosystems in nine Southern states. The environmental partnership covers 5.5 million acres owned by International Paper in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The partnership between the scientists and researchers at International Paper and those of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow unprecedented monitoring of aquatic species across the Southeast, officials said.... Feds seek comment on toad 'safe harbors' The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public comment on a plan to expand the habitat of the endangered Wyoming toad by using ranch land. Wyoming toads currently live only at Mortenson Lake southwest of Laramie. Wildlife biologists, however, say the lake has grown too salty and alkaline due to the drought and could be hindering reintroduction. Under proposed "safe harbor" agreements, ranchers who allow toad releases on their properties would be protected if they fail to thrive. The ranchers can continue traditional irrigation and grazing practices.... BLM plans meetings in Tonopah, Pioche on Yucca Mountain rail plan The federal Bureau of Land Management is scheduling two open-house meetings in rural Nevada about a proposal to build a new rail line to haul radioactive nuclear waste across the state to Yucca Mountain. The BLM is collecting comments on a DOE request to withdraw from public use a mile-wide swath of land for the 319-mile rail corridor. It would run from a rail head near Caliente, 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.... GOP says no to Young act Alaska Republicans again rejected one of U.S. Rep. Don Young's favorite initiatives, a bill to put more than $3 billion a year into public land purchases, recreational facilities and projects loosely related to coastal conservation. The state Republican Party, at its convention this past weekend in Soldotna, passed a resolution opposing Young's proposed Get Outdoors Act. Young, a Republican, announced the bill's introduction last month with co-sponsor Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. They were backed by sports celebrities, outdoor and recreational gear manufacturers, and public land advocates.... Residents oppose BLM enforcement Do not allow additional police powers for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. That was the message directed to the Elko County Public Land Use Advisory Commission Tuesday night from every member of the public who spoke to the board. PLUAC was reviewing a proposal by the BLM to increase its law enforcement authority over use of drugs and alcohol on public lands.... New Information Documents Bush Administration's Land-Management Shift Although Federal law requires that public lands be managed to balance environmental protection and commercial exploitation, new information released today by The Wilderness Society (TWS) shows that the Bush administration has used a series of arcane and interrelated administrative decisions, and the settlement of a key "friendly" lawsuit, to make oil and gas development the dominant use of federal public lands. For example, a BLM instruction memorandum issued in August 2001 instructed BLM state directors to issue oil and gas leases and drilling permits on lands where new land use plans had not yet been completed. Another memorandum, issued in February of this year, in effect required BLM state directors to issue leases on demand to the oil and gas industry(Go here to see the report).... Utah farmers are told to use water or lose it With Utah in its sixth year of drought, the Utah Legislature has given farmers an ironic ultimatum: Use all your water, or what's not used may be taken away. In 2002, the Legislature modified provisions of Utah's water law to address the problem of what's often referred to as "partial" forfeiture — when people aren't using their full water allocation. What had been a long-standing right, allowing people to keep their water rights as long as they use at least some of it over a period of five years, is no longer the case. Now, water users are under enormous pressure to use their entire water allocation because if they fail to use some of the water for five years without notifying the state, their right to it is automatically forfeited. The unused portion of that water right then reverts to the public.... Community sees auction house fade into the past Down in Central Point, they're tearing down the Rogue Valley Livestock Auction and putting up a franchise Dutch Bros. drive-through coffee shop. Some people think change means something better is on the horizon. But a lot of folks in Southern Oregon are sad this week as employees of the auction house clean out the buildings that have seen a lot of cows, horses, pigs, sheep and goats trade hands in the past half-century. To say nothing of the social life that revolved around the place. "Everybody used to go there every Thursday," says Teresa Rippey, a longtime customer who raises horses outside Gold Hill. "Millionaires rubbed elbows with cowboys. It was just a treasure."....
DIAMOND BAR CATTLE COMPANY
Hi there,
Kit Laney, having shown himself to be non-violent and no flight risk, has finally been granted release on his own recognizance with the condition that he not stray into Catron County since his father's home is there and there are still cattle being removed from that ranch although they are being moved by family members. There have also been several other good news turn around this week in the case surrounding the Diamond Bar.
Beginning with a very successful concert in Truth or Consequences thanks to the generosity of Michael Martin Murphey. Ending with Kit's release granted yesterday. Other notable events this week is the animal cruelty investigation opened by DA Clint Wellborn, and the granting of discovery to the Paragon foundation case over the Livestock Boards violation of the open meetings act in the approval of a MOU between it's executive director and the USFS.
Laura Schneberger
www.cowboysandcattlecountry.0catch.com
Hi there,
Kit Laney, having shown himself to be non-violent and no flight risk, has finally been granted release on his own recognizance with the condition that he not stray into Catron County since his father's home is there and there are still cattle being removed from that ranch although they are being moved by family members. There have also been several other good news turn around this week in the case surrounding the Diamond Bar.
Beginning with a very successful concert in Truth or Consequences thanks to the generosity of Michael Martin Murphey. Ending with Kit's release granted yesterday. Other notable events this week is the animal cruelty investigation opened by DA Clint Wellborn, and the granting of discovery to the Paragon foundation case over the Livestock Boards violation of the open meetings act in the approval of a MOU between it's executive director and the USFS.
Laura Schneberger
www.cowboysandcattlecountry.0catch.com
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