NEWS ROUNDUP
Feds order lethal hunt for endangered wolf pack The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday ordered the killing of a pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves that has been preying on livestock in the Gila National Forest. The Francisco pack has killed four animals in the past several weeks. Officials with the agency's wolf reintroduction program said field teams attempted to haze the wolves using noisemakers and rubber bullets following the first attack. "Despite our best efforts these wolves continued to kill livestock and that is unacceptable," Southwest regional director H. Dale Hall said Wednesday. "Wolves that repeatedly depredate endanger the recovery of the species as a whole." Since hazing failed, Hall said lethal means will be the most responsive method to address the needs of those economically affected by the wolf program....
Grizzlies stir uproar: Big predators' future in Idaho is on the line Members of several wildlife conservation groups such as the National Rural Defense Council, Earthjustice and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition have been trying to return grizzlies to the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area of central Idaho for decades. Some of the reasoning behind the effort to move grizzlies into the area is to develop a corridor that could link populations of bears all the way from Alaska to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The idea has been coined Y2Y (Yukon to Yellowstone.) Lance Craighead, a wildlife biologist who runs the Craighead Environmental Resource Institute, said he would like to see bear populations connect because it would provide greater genetic variation in the whole population....
Tests to reveal pups' parentage Are they dogs or wolf-dogs? Wildlife officials want to know, and they've taken six pups from a den in eastern Arizona to determine their parentage. If the 6-week-old animals are determined to be anything other than purebred Mexican wolves, they likely will be euthanized, said John Morgart, coordinator of the Mexican wolf recovery program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're not in the business of producing hybrids," he said. "We want to keep the genetics pure." The pups were captured Tuesday, and blood was drawn from the pups late Wednesday. The samples are being sent to a Fish and Wildlife forensic laboratory for analysis. Morgart said it would be weeks before results come back....
Pesticide appearing in watershed Five years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency moved to phase out homeowner sales of diazinon, a popular lawn insecticide that posed human health risks and had shown up at elevated levels in Seattle-area streams. As diazinon has disappeared from retail shelves, many Puget Sound homeowners have turned to carbaryl, a chemical that federal sampling now detects in the Seattle watershed of Thornton Creek. Carbaryl, sold under the brand name Sevin, is toxic to aquatic bugs that are an important source of food for fish and birds, and its presence in the waterway was flagged this week in an analysis released by the Washington Toxics Coalition, which has been campaigning to reduce pesticide use in the Puget Sound region. Chemical-company officials say that carbaryl has been in widespread use for more than a half century, and proved to be a safe and effective chemical against a wide range of pests. Bayer CropScience, maker of Sevin, calls it "one of the most environmentally responsible pesticides you can use." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a letter to the EPA earlier this year, said it was concerned about carbaryl's risks to threatened and endangered species, and noted "a growing body of literature" about the chronic effects of carbaryl on aquatic organisms....
Judge Closes 700 Miles of Off-road trails on Eldorado National Forest A federal court judge yesterday tentatively ordered the United States Forest Service to close over 700 miles of roads and trails on the Eldorado National Forest to off-road vehicle (ORV) use. Judge Lawrence K. Karlton announced his tentative order at the conclusion of a remedy hearing in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups challenging the Forest Service’s management of ORVs throughout the Forest. The court’s closure order follows its February determination that the Service adopted its 1990 ORV plan for the Forest in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Judge Karlton also gave the Forest Service 30 days to propose a time-schedule for completing the required, forest-wide NEPA analysis for its forest-wide ORV plan. The plaintiffs, Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation, Center for Biological Diversity and California Wilderness Coalition, and the ORV groups that intervened in the lawsuit, will have 30 days to respond to the Forest Service’s proposal before Judge Karlton makes his order final....
Park Service memo sparks concern over job competitions A memo on National Park Service job competitions set off a brief firestorm after a watchdog group interpreted the document as meaning that entire parks could be outsourced to private contractors. Tuesday, the Washington-based advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sent out a statement saying, "We have now reached the point where Disney or Bally's Resorts can bid on entire national park operations with almost no public debate on whether that is appropriate." NPS was quick to refute that interpretation. "We are definitely not, nor are we going to be, doing any kind of competitive sourcing for an entire park--that's just not going to happen," said Elaine Sevy, NPS spokeswoman....
BLM pulls 14 parcels from auction; congressman says it’s not enough The Bureau of Land Management decided Wednesday to remove 17,502 acres of privately owned lands in Colorado from today’s mineral lease auction, a move that didn’t go far enough, said U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo. Salazar had requested the entire auction be postponed until August, action the BLM said it can’t take under federal law if it has lands nominated for quarterly auctions. Today’s auction will proceed in the BLM state office in Lakewood with 56 parcels that cover 30,043 acres. Fourteen parcels in Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties, where the federal government owns the mineral rights, were removed. Another 32 such split-estate leases remain in the auction, state BLM Communications Director Vaughn Whatley said. The BLM had not heard much concern expressed or protests made about those areas, he said....
BLM, oil and gas companies join to end dumping of produced water The Bureau Of Land Management’s Carlsbad Field Office has formed a partnership with oil and gas companies in Eddy and Lea counties to address illegal dumping of produced water on public lands. “Produced water is a byproduct of oil and gas production that is pulled up with petroleum and must be disposed of properly,” explained Tony Herrell, BLM Carlsbad Field Office manager. “Most produced water is very salty, and some of it may contain heavy metals and volatile organic compounds that can sterilize the ground and kill off vegetation and wildlife.” Herrell said his office is partnering with the BLM’s state counterpart, the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, and local oil and gas companies, including Marbob, Devon Energy and Yates Petroleum....
Energy bill stirs debate At issue is a section of the 1,000-plus-page energy bill passed by the House late last month. It calls for certain "limitations on required review" under the National Environmental Policy Act. That law requires federal land managers to conduct environmental studies before allowing significant development, and those studies include solicitation of public comments. Under the House energy bill -- which needs Senate approval before becoming law -- companies looking to drill wells 5 acres in size or less may be exempt from NEPA review. So would permits to drill in already developed areas. And wastewater discharge from things such as coal-bed methane drilling would not be subject to NEPA -- only to the federal water pollution control act. Just what these provisions might mean is the subject of deep debate....
Escalante grazing-permit case postponed After listening to three days of testimony, a judge on Wednesday placed on hold until September an appeal of grazing transfers in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Kane and Garfield counties are appealing the federal Bureau of Land Management's decision to transfer grazing rights for 1,200 cattle to the Canyonlands Grazing Corp., which was organized by the Grand Canyon Trust to run its grazing operations on public lands. Administrative law Judge Jim Heffernan's decision to postpone further deliberations came after attorneys for the two southern Utah counties claimed the corporation is not qualified under government statutes to graze cattle. "The Canyonlands Grazing Corp. is not engaged in the livestock business, does not intend nor want the land in question for grazing use and is not qualified to hold the grazing preference on the allotment," the attorneys stated in their appeal. Critics of the BLM's decision fear a ruling in favor of the Grand Canyon Trust would be the death knell of grazing - not only on the monument, but eventually on all public lands. Grazing is an integral element of the area's culture, traditions and economy, Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw told Heffernan at Wednesday's hearing. Like others who testified for the appellants at the hearing, Habbeshaw implied that the BLM is illegally conspiring with conservationists to end grazing on the monument by showing favoritism to conservation groups in the transfer of grazing allotments....
Huge water, conservation deal linked Flagstaff would have a reliable source of water beyond 2015 and northern Arizona could see a huge tract of private and public land conserved as ranchland and open space if the City Council moves on plans to buy 5,500 acres of the Bar T Bar Ranch 35 miles east of Flagstaff, stakeholders said Monday. Up to 100,000 acres of private and state land -- 156 square miles -- would become unattractive to developers, including 45,000 acres put entirely off limits to new houses southeast of the Navajo Nation's proposed casino. State land that checkerboards Judy and Bob Prosser's Bar T Bar Ranch would be surrounded by conservation land, effectively putting tens of thousands of acres out of reach for development for the next 20 years. The city would buy the 5,500 acres for $13.5 million to pump between 8,000 and 10,000 acre-feet of drinking water per year but would be partially reimbursed with $3 million in rent over 25 years for allowing 27 wind turbines to operate there in the Sunshine Wind Energy Park....
Pentagon seeks more waivers on rules Defense Department officials hope to use an upcoming defense authorization bill to expand the military's exemptions from several environmental and public health regulations, arguing the restrictions infringe on national security. The Pentagon has drafted provisions that would free it from specified air pollution and hazardous waste laws, provisions the House and Senate Armed Services Committee could take up this week as part of broader legislation giving the military spending authority. Environmentalists, joined by congressional Democrats and state and local officials, have launched an aggressive campaign to defeat the Pentagon's plan. They argue that the military -- which the government ranks as the nation's biggest polluter -- should meet its existing legal obligations. The Defense Department accounts for more than 10 percent of the country's top priority Superfund cleanup sites and generated 16.5 million pounds of toxic waste in 2002, according to government estimates....
Conservancy buys huge Ramona ranch he Nature Conservancy has bought more than 4,000 acres of ranch land south of Ramona, the national nonprofit group announced Wednesday. The sprawling mosaic of rock-studded hills and oak- and sycamore-lined valleys could eventually become a state or county park, conservancy officials said. Cam Tredennick, project director for the conservancy, called the purchase of the expansive Monte Vista Ranch a coup for the people of San Diego County....
Senate Finally Confirms Johnson as EPA Head After a month and a half of debate, the Senate has finally confirmed Stephen Johnson to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Johnson, an EPA lifer and the first scientist to be tapped to lead the agency in its three-decade history, must have breathed a sigh of relief after enduring criticism of agency policies from several Democratic Senators. First off, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) grilled Johnson regarding a controversial study slated to document the impact on household pesticides on children in Duval County, Florida. As a result of the questioning, Johnson killed the $9 million study. Then last week, Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE) blocked a vote on Johnson's confirmation to protest the EPA's unwillingness to analyze how White House proposals to reduce air pollution compared with competing approaches....
Nevada senator backs off property rights bill Faced with strong opposition from environmentalists and local officials, a Nevada legislator has backed off his proposal to prohibit governments from seizing private property for use as open space. Senator Terry Care's bill would have prohibited governments from using eminent domain authority to acquire property for open-space or wildlife habitat preservation. It would have affected all pending cases in the state, including the fight over development of the Ballardini Ranch south of Reno. Care says he still believes eminent domain shouldn't be used to preserve open space. But he says there was too much opposition to push the issue this session....
Nonresident hunting limits stand Wyoming and other Western states will be able to continue limiting nonresident hunting and fishing licenses under a bill passed Tuesday by Congress. A supplemental appropriations bill approved by the Senate on Tuesday includes an amendment that will protect the traditional authority of states to regulate hunting and fishing, said U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., who cosponsored the bill. The bill allows states including Wyoming to continue distinguishing between residents and nonresidents when issuing hunting and fishing licenses. Enzi's measure was prompted by a 2002 ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling said that Arizona's law allotting just 10 percent of bull elk and antlered deer hunting tags to nonresidents was an act of "overt discrimination."....
Tyson Boosts Canada Beef Output as U.S. Bans Cattle Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest beef processor, said it will boost production capacity at a plant in Alberta by 24 percent next month as a ban on Canadian cattle imports limits supplies for the company's U.S. facilities. A $17 million expansion at the Brooks, Alberta, plant will increase production capacity to 4,700 head of cattle a day from 3,800, Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson Foods said today in a statement. Tyson has cut production at its U.S. plants because of the cattle shortage that developed after the U.S. suspended imports when mad cow disease was found in Canada in May 2003. The U.S. meatpacking industry will permanently lose jobs to Canada unless the ban on Canadian cattle is lifted, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has warned. In March, he said Canada's processing capacity had increased 20 percent in the past year and may increase another 10 percent by the end of 2005. Tyson said the expansion at the Brooks plant will add as many as 300 jobs....
Big Bend history unfolds in memories at the regional historical commission meeting I had lunch that day with Charlie and Sixie Davis from Fort Stockton, who drove over for the meeting. Charlie, who admits to being 80, played shortstop for H.L. Kokernot Jr.’s Alpine Cowboys from 1946 to 1953, and he has a stack of scrapbooks and photographs from those days. He told me that in 1958, when Kokernot decided to put lights on the Cowboys’ stadium, the electrician doing the job asked him how many lights he wanted. “Call Yankee Stadium and find out how many lights they have,” Kokernot said. “I want one more than that.” Charlie’s wife, Sixie, grew up on her family’s ranch at Hovey, between Fort Stockton and Alpine. Over lunch, Sixie told me about the day in 1955 that a jet fighter plane crashed on her parents’ ranch. She was there, helping her father shear sheep, and they heard the crash and saw the plume of smoke. Sixie jumped in an old jeep and went to investigate....
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Thursday, May 12, 2005
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Measure would compensate people exposed to nuclear tests Montana residents, including those in Lewis and Clark, Broadwater and Jefferson Counties, sickened by Nevada's nuclear tests in the 1950s may receive compensation for their illnesses under a measure Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is trying to push through Congress. Burns' bill, introduced Monday, would amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to add 15 Montana counties to the areas currently eligible to receive compensation. The law provides $50,000 for individuals with diseases tied to radiation who lived in parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona at the time of the tests. A National Academy of Sciences report released last month noted that Montanans are not eligible to receive compensation even though they are some of the most profoundly affected from the tests, many of which were held in Nevada between 1952 and 1957....
National Parks Director Says "Whole Parks" May Be Outsourced The National Park Service is now considering contracting out the entire operations of three national parks, according to a memo from NPS Director Fran Mainella released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Previously, the National Park Service looked to outsource certain types of jobs, such as maintenance, among several parks but is now looking at park units in their entirety for future bids by private firms. The three parks under review are Boston National Historical Park, San Juan Island National Historic Site (in Washington state) and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Altogether, these three parks employ 312 NPS employees on a full-time basis. In an April 15, 2005 memo, NPS Director Fran Mainella cited these three parks as the subject of "preliminary [competitive sourcing] planning efforts for FY 2005. We will be reviewing whole parks to achieve the most efficient operations possible."....
Editorial: Roadless rules less than meets the eye It's now official: Governors now have the ability to offer the U.S. Forest Service recommendations for managing roadless tracts of national forest in their states. The Bush administration in recent days has been trumpeting the new roadless-land management regulations as a significant improvement over former President Clinton's 2001 executive order effectively setting aside from development more than 58 million acres nationwide. To hear some environmentalists howl, you would think the administration's change in regulations will open large expanses of wild land to road-building, logging and mining. It's possible there are people in the Bush administration who are pleased with this assessment, given that the truth is considerably less exciting and possibly will prove less pleasing to the industries and political factions who wouldn't mind a chance to develop some of the backcountry. In fact - and remember, you heard it here first - the on-the-ground effect of the Bush administration roadless-land regulations is unlikely to be a whole lot different from what Clinton did....
"Bear central" raises its guard Even in a community that is a vanguard of bearproofing in America, the battle of wits between bruins and humans is never-ending. New bear-deflecting tactics are expected to be needed in what is shaping up to be a second straight bad bear year, with 20 calls already to Snowmass wildlife officials. One bear has poked its head in a doggie door. Another has ripped at the metal around a skylight in an attempt to make an aerial entrance. One bruin has been pushing at windows and doors in a burglar-like test for weak spots. "If they are doing that already, it's kind of a clue that we're in for some trouble," said Tina White, who, along with Laurie Smith, provides full-time animal-control services for Snowmass Village....
Sharpshooters aim to cull flock of cormorants Under ominous gray clouds that spit rain showers, flocks of cormorants came and went. It was a typical spring day Monday for the growing cormorant colony on Leech Lake, estimated at nearly 10,000 birds last year. But the presence of two cylindrical hunting blinds -- elevated on stilts -- and the occasional pop-pop-pop of a shotgun from a nearby island signalled that something unusual was going on. Federal officials are shooting double-crested cormorants. Although the birds are federally protected, sharpshooters using air rifles and shotguns are killing nesting adult cormorants on Leech Lake because of concerns that the fish-eating water birds are hurting the walleye population on one of the state's prime fishing lakes....
Lewis and Clark tourism not living up to the hype In Idaho, boxes upon boxes of Lewis and Clark refrigerator magnets occupy the back room of Dave Hunt's gift shop. He wonders whether they'll ever sell. In Great Falls, Mont., dismal orders for advance tickets haunt an upcoming monthlong festival pegged to the bicentennial of the explorers' push into the Rockies. And downstream on the Missouri River, Williston, N.D., hotel operator Tom Kasperson flatly assesses the effect of Lewis and Clark tourism on his business: "Zero." Westward-rolling truckloads of "Corps of Discovery II" exhibits, bound for the Pacific coast by year's end, reached Kasperson's town in March. Moving at the pace of the original expedition, the National Park Service's road show confirmed his suspicions that Lewis and Clark buffs rarely travel in herds....
Feds acknowledge state title to Porcupine riverbed The state of Alaska owns the land under the Porcupine River, the federal government acknowledged Tuesday. A top official in the U.S. Department of Interior signed a decision stating the federal government has no property interest in 214 miles of the riverbed. Gov. Frank Murkowski's administration asked for the decision. The Porcupine River flows into northeast Alaska from Canada and joins the Yukon River at Fort Yukon. Under federal law, states own the beds of navigable waters. However, determining which waters are navigable has been a time-consuming process often only resolvable by courts. In at least one Alaska case, even a court was unable to rule....
Kane County Commission ready to settle sign squabble in court The Kane County Commission has several more days to decide whether it will comply with a letter from the Bureau of Land Management asking it to remove signs on roads across federal property or face potential legal action. In a letter dated April 26, Sally Wisely, director of the BLM office in Salt Lake City, gave commissioners two weeks to remove the signs that designate the roads for off-road-vehicle (ORV) use. Some of the signs are posted adjacent to BLM signs designating wilderness study areas off-limits to ORVs. The letter said the deadline for removal of the signs was Tuesday. But Don Banks, spokesman with the federal agency in Salt Lake City, said the deadline was moved to Monday of next week because the certified letter was not signed for until April 29. So far, the BLM has not heard what the county plans to do....
Big-tire shortage slows mining industry Steve Walker was ready to sell four 200-ton dump trucks, with price tags as high as $3 million, when the orders were canceled. The buyer, a coal company planning to open a new mine site, was ready to buy. It just couldn't find the 12-foot-tall tires to get the trucks rolling. The mammoth tires, which can cost up to $30,000 apiece, are in short supply worldwide, leaving earth-moving industries, including coal, in a lurch. The shortage is due to a rise in equipment orders, an increase in worldwide mining because of increased mineral prices and growth in China and other Asian counties. "It's definitely a problem at this time," said Utah Mining Association President David Litvin, citing impacts on two open pit mines: Kennecott's Bingham Canyon copper mine and a surface phosphate mine that Simplot Mining and Manufacturing operates outside of Vernal. "We understand this shortage could continue through 2006 if the increase in mineral production worldwide continues," he added. "And we're starting to see some impact on smaller tires, such as the ones used on large loaders."....
GE kicks off ambitious green initiative Last night, General Electric Chair and CEO Jeffrey Immelt canoodled with Congress members and industry top brass at a swish cocktail party on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., celebrating the launch of "ecomagination," an initiative he announced earlier in the day to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company's Goliath-like environmental footprint. Guests nibbled organic canapés and sipped wine produced by a solar-powered California vineyard (equipped with GE's own photovoltaic panels) as they perused exhibitions of the company's new technologies -- here a life-sized model of a hybrid-engine train and a state-of-the-art wind-turbine blade, there a super-efficient washing machine and a sophisticated diorama of coal-gasification technology. After a speech in which Immelt announced that "it's no longer a zero-sum game -- things that are good for the environment are also good for business" and vowed that GE was embarking on this initiative "not because it is trendy or moral, but because it will accelerate [economic] growth," he presented a series of "ecomagination" television ads that will be airing nationwide over the next several months....
Column: THE CLIMATE OF MAN—III In February, 2003, a series of ads on the theme of inundation began appearing on Dutch TV. The ads were sponsored by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management, and they featured a celebrity weatherman named Peter Timofeeff. In one commercial, Timofeeff, who looks a bit like Albert Brooks and a bit like Gene Shalit, sat relaxing on the shore in a folding chair. “Sea level is rising,” he announced, as waves started creeping up the beach. He continued to sit and talk even as a boy who had been building a sandcastle abandoned it in panic. At the end of the ad, Timofeeff, still seated, was immersed in water up to his waist....
Popularity of Flat Iron Steak Increasing Gerrine Kirby didn't know what she was getting herself into the first time she saw it. A new cut of steak? After all these years? Kirby, who teaches a culinary arts class, hesitantly took a bite of the curiously shaped piece of meat, which looks like an old-fashioned flat iron. Her fears turned out to be unwarranted. "It was excellent," she said. "It's kind of become the darling of chefs across the nation," said Jane Gibson, a spokeswoman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Denver. The Nebraska-born tender cut has skyrocketed in popularity since it started being sold about four years ago, finding its way into farmer's markets, grocery stores and restaurants....
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Measure would compensate people exposed to nuclear tests Montana residents, including those in Lewis and Clark, Broadwater and Jefferson Counties, sickened by Nevada's nuclear tests in the 1950s may receive compensation for their illnesses under a measure Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is trying to push through Congress. Burns' bill, introduced Monday, would amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to add 15 Montana counties to the areas currently eligible to receive compensation. The law provides $50,000 for individuals with diseases tied to radiation who lived in parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona at the time of the tests. A National Academy of Sciences report released last month noted that Montanans are not eligible to receive compensation even though they are some of the most profoundly affected from the tests, many of which were held in Nevada between 1952 and 1957....
National Parks Director Says "Whole Parks" May Be Outsourced The National Park Service is now considering contracting out the entire operations of three national parks, according to a memo from NPS Director Fran Mainella released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Previously, the National Park Service looked to outsource certain types of jobs, such as maintenance, among several parks but is now looking at park units in their entirety for future bids by private firms. The three parks under review are Boston National Historical Park, San Juan Island National Historic Site (in Washington state) and the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Altogether, these three parks employ 312 NPS employees on a full-time basis. In an April 15, 2005 memo, NPS Director Fran Mainella cited these three parks as the subject of "preliminary [competitive sourcing] planning efforts for FY 2005. We will be reviewing whole parks to achieve the most efficient operations possible."....
Editorial: Roadless rules less than meets the eye It's now official: Governors now have the ability to offer the U.S. Forest Service recommendations for managing roadless tracts of national forest in their states. The Bush administration in recent days has been trumpeting the new roadless-land management regulations as a significant improvement over former President Clinton's 2001 executive order effectively setting aside from development more than 58 million acres nationwide. To hear some environmentalists howl, you would think the administration's change in regulations will open large expanses of wild land to road-building, logging and mining. It's possible there are people in the Bush administration who are pleased with this assessment, given that the truth is considerably less exciting and possibly will prove less pleasing to the industries and political factions who wouldn't mind a chance to develop some of the backcountry. In fact - and remember, you heard it here first - the on-the-ground effect of the Bush administration roadless-land regulations is unlikely to be a whole lot different from what Clinton did....
"Bear central" raises its guard Even in a community that is a vanguard of bearproofing in America, the battle of wits between bruins and humans is never-ending. New bear-deflecting tactics are expected to be needed in what is shaping up to be a second straight bad bear year, with 20 calls already to Snowmass wildlife officials. One bear has poked its head in a doggie door. Another has ripped at the metal around a skylight in an attempt to make an aerial entrance. One bruin has been pushing at windows and doors in a burglar-like test for weak spots. "If they are doing that already, it's kind of a clue that we're in for some trouble," said Tina White, who, along with Laurie Smith, provides full-time animal-control services for Snowmass Village....
Sharpshooters aim to cull flock of cormorants Under ominous gray clouds that spit rain showers, flocks of cormorants came and went. It was a typical spring day Monday for the growing cormorant colony on Leech Lake, estimated at nearly 10,000 birds last year. But the presence of two cylindrical hunting blinds -- elevated on stilts -- and the occasional pop-pop-pop of a shotgun from a nearby island signalled that something unusual was going on. Federal officials are shooting double-crested cormorants. Although the birds are federally protected, sharpshooters using air rifles and shotguns are killing nesting adult cormorants on Leech Lake because of concerns that the fish-eating water birds are hurting the walleye population on one of the state's prime fishing lakes....
Lewis and Clark tourism not living up to the hype In Idaho, boxes upon boxes of Lewis and Clark refrigerator magnets occupy the back room of Dave Hunt's gift shop. He wonders whether they'll ever sell. In Great Falls, Mont., dismal orders for advance tickets haunt an upcoming monthlong festival pegged to the bicentennial of the explorers' push into the Rockies. And downstream on the Missouri River, Williston, N.D., hotel operator Tom Kasperson flatly assesses the effect of Lewis and Clark tourism on his business: "Zero." Westward-rolling truckloads of "Corps of Discovery II" exhibits, bound for the Pacific coast by year's end, reached Kasperson's town in March. Moving at the pace of the original expedition, the National Park Service's road show confirmed his suspicions that Lewis and Clark buffs rarely travel in herds....
Feds acknowledge state title to Porcupine riverbed The state of Alaska owns the land under the Porcupine River, the federal government acknowledged Tuesday. A top official in the U.S. Department of Interior signed a decision stating the federal government has no property interest in 214 miles of the riverbed. Gov. Frank Murkowski's administration asked for the decision. The Porcupine River flows into northeast Alaska from Canada and joins the Yukon River at Fort Yukon. Under federal law, states own the beds of navigable waters. However, determining which waters are navigable has been a time-consuming process often only resolvable by courts. In at least one Alaska case, even a court was unable to rule....
Kane County Commission ready to settle sign squabble in court The Kane County Commission has several more days to decide whether it will comply with a letter from the Bureau of Land Management asking it to remove signs on roads across federal property or face potential legal action. In a letter dated April 26, Sally Wisely, director of the BLM office in Salt Lake City, gave commissioners two weeks to remove the signs that designate the roads for off-road-vehicle (ORV) use. Some of the signs are posted adjacent to BLM signs designating wilderness study areas off-limits to ORVs. The letter said the deadline for removal of the signs was Tuesday. But Don Banks, spokesman with the federal agency in Salt Lake City, said the deadline was moved to Monday of next week because the certified letter was not signed for until April 29. So far, the BLM has not heard what the county plans to do....
Big-tire shortage slows mining industry Steve Walker was ready to sell four 200-ton dump trucks, with price tags as high as $3 million, when the orders were canceled. The buyer, a coal company planning to open a new mine site, was ready to buy. It just couldn't find the 12-foot-tall tires to get the trucks rolling. The mammoth tires, which can cost up to $30,000 apiece, are in short supply worldwide, leaving earth-moving industries, including coal, in a lurch. The shortage is due to a rise in equipment orders, an increase in worldwide mining because of increased mineral prices and growth in China and other Asian counties. "It's definitely a problem at this time," said Utah Mining Association President David Litvin, citing impacts on two open pit mines: Kennecott's Bingham Canyon copper mine and a surface phosphate mine that Simplot Mining and Manufacturing operates outside of Vernal. "We understand this shortage could continue through 2006 if the increase in mineral production worldwide continues," he added. "And we're starting to see some impact on smaller tires, such as the ones used on large loaders."....
GE kicks off ambitious green initiative Last night, General Electric Chair and CEO Jeffrey Immelt canoodled with Congress members and industry top brass at a swish cocktail party on Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., celebrating the launch of "ecomagination," an initiative he announced earlier in the day to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company's Goliath-like environmental footprint. Guests nibbled organic canapés and sipped wine produced by a solar-powered California vineyard (equipped with GE's own photovoltaic panels) as they perused exhibitions of the company's new technologies -- here a life-sized model of a hybrid-engine train and a state-of-the-art wind-turbine blade, there a super-efficient washing machine and a sophisticated diorama of coal-gasification technology. After a speech in which Immelt announced that "it's no longer a zero-sum game -- things that are good for the environment are also good for business" and vowed that GE was embarking on this initiative "not because it is trendy or moral, but because it will accelerate [economic] growth," he presented a series of "ecomagination" television ads that will be airing nationwide over the next several months....
Column: THE CLIMATE OF MAN—III In February, 2003, a series of ads on the theme of inundation began appearing on Dutch TV. The ads were sponsored by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management, and they featured a celebrity weatherman named Peter Timofeeff. In one commercial, Timofeeff, who looks a bit like Albert Brooks and a bit like Gene Shalit, sat relaxing on the shore in a folding chair. “Sea level is rising,” he announced, as waves started creeping up the beach. He continued to sit and talk even as a boy who had been building a sandcastle abandoned it in panic. At the end of the ad, Timofeeff, still seated, was immersed in water up to his waist....
Popularity of Flat Iron Steak Increasing Gerrine Kirby didn't know what she was getting herself into the first time she saw it. A new cut of steak? After all these years? Kirby, who teaches a culinary arts class, hesitantly took a bite of the curiously shaped piece of meat, which looks like an old-fashioned flat iron. Her fears turned out to be unwarranted. "It was excellent," she said. "It's kind of become the darling of chefs across the nation," said Jane Gibson, a spokeswoman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Denver. The Nebraska-born tender cut has skyrocketed in popularity since it started being sold about four years ago, finding its way into farmer's markets, grocery stores and restaurants....
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Lynx more than mirage in White River forest Bowing to reality presented by Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists, the regional forester for the Rocky Mountains announced last week that lynx habitat will be protected throughout the White River National Forest. That’s a welcome change from a decision handed down from Washington, D.C. last December, which overturned lynx protection specified in the White River National Forest Management Plan. Not only did Deputy Agriculture Undersecretary David Tenny overturn years of public involvement and compromise that went into the White River plan, he ignored any information available from the Division of Wildlife to conclude there was no evidence of lynx using the White River. Therefore, Tenny determined, there was no reason to believe the wild felines would benefit from the habitat protection. In fact, state biologists have said that tracking collars on lynx show more than 300 visits by the shy cats to the White River National Forest since lynx were first transplanted to Colorado in 1999. State officials also determined that at least two females have dens in the White River....
Editorial: Nature at Bay The Bush administration's efforts to capitalize on the recent discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker were bizarre. Gale Norton, the interior secretary, announced a $10 million program to enlarge the bird's habitat, proclaiming that "second chances to save wildlife once thought to be extinct are rare." But what about first chances? The woodpecker, if it indeed has returned, is as much warning as gift. President Bush's policies suggest that he not only has failed to learn from past mistakes, but is determined to repeat them on a more destructive scale. The obvious example is his fixation on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This bespeaks an intellectually bankrupt energy policy and would certainly cause trouble for wildlife....
Conservationists find eggs in nest of burrowing owl When Greg Clark inserted a video camera into the den of burrowing owls, he knew the relocation of nine of the small birds just over the Utah state line in Arizona was a success. "There are some eggs," Clark told a handful of volunteers watching the portable video monitor as the infrared camera snaked into the darkened hole. "That's pretty much what we were looking for." Clark heads relocation efforts for Wild at Heart, a nonprofit group responsible for saving burrowing owls from development around metropolitan areas in Arizona....
Hatcheries may be releasing pollutants along with fish When environmental regulators last winter tried to solve the mystery of how a toxic chemical wound up in the mountain-fed waters of Icicle Creek, they stumbled on a surprising potential culprit: a federal fish hatchery. Tipped by news reports of a Montana hatchery that had polluted a local stream with paint from the walls of concrete fish tanks, Washington regulators tested paint chips from the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery. They discovered the paint contained PCBs, once-ubiquitous industrial chemicals now banned because they are toxic in minute levels and stay around for years. Alerted to the findings, hatchery managers shut down tanks containing 1.6 million tiny chinook salmon, moved them into tanks without the paint and started testing hatchery fish and nearby stream sediments for contamination....
36 Senators Seek More Money for National Parks The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) today praised Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), and the 34 other U.S. Senators who this week sent a letter to the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee seeking much-needed funding for America's national parks. "This letter illustrates the strong, bipartisan support for increased national park funding as Congress prepares the parks' fiscal year 2006 budget," said NPCA President Tom Kiernan. The letter that Sen. Thomas, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee, and Ranking Member Akaka sponsored was signed by a total of 36 U.S. Senators, and requested an additional $150 million for the fiscal year 2006 operations of the national parks. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) sponsored a similar letter in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was signed by 78 members of Congress....
Drilling Near Nuclear Blast Cavity Called Risky Business On a bright fall afternoon 36 years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission and a Texas oil company detonated a 40-kiloton nuclear device inside an 8,000-foot shaft on a high meadow, an effort to crack into a bounty of natural gas trapped in a dense subterranean rock formation. Here on Colorado's energy-rich Western Slope, the nuclear experiment yielded mixed results. A rich lode of gas was indeed shaken out of its rock casing, but the gas that rushed to the surface was too radioactive to be commercially useful. Federal officials assured the community that the Rulison test site, named after a nearby community, was safe. Still, they forbade oil or gas drilling on 40 acres surrounding the blast. Last year, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission added another half a mile to the federal off-limits zone. But now, another Texas energy company has proposed drilling within the half-mile zone. The company, Presco, says it will extract the gas using a nonnuclear process called hydraulic fracing, which like the original experiment is designed to shatter underground rock and tap into embedded stores of natural gas. The company says this can be done without disturbing the radioactive material that remains buried in the blast cavity....
Energy boom is crowding ranchers Now the onetime professional steer roper and other ranchers here face a new test - energy companies intensifying their search for natural gas beneath the same lands used by grazing herds. The trend, causing tension across the American West, stems from the policy of "split estates" - where the owners of at least 50 million acres of private land have surface rights, while energy developers can own the mineral rights beneath or lease them from the federal government. That means scores of ranchers here in the Powder River basin may have little say over thousands wellheads that could soon proliferate. While some landowners will reap benefits, anything from monetary compensation to ranch improvements, most feel helpless against an industry that they see threatening to mar the landscape and contaminate precious groundwater. A growing number of ranchers are fighting back against the federal government with lawsuits aimed to strengthen landowners' influence over energy development practices within their acres....
Column: The House Passes Green Energy Bill The House recently passed a bill purportedly for the purpose of improving our ability to produce energy. President Bush has called it "a good energy bill" and has urged the Senate to act so that Congress can send him a bill by this summer that he can sign into law. However, the proposal passed by the House makes many concessions to environmentalists and therefore won't achieve its purported end if signed into law. Why is this the case? While the bill increases access to federal lands for oil and gas exploration and eases some regulations (such as speeding up the approval process for certain new refineries), it also provides billions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives for various environmentalist-inspired endeavors, including the promotion of energy efficiency and the development of "alternative" fuels....
BLM pulls rock art site from lease sale As expected, the Bureau of Land Management has pulled back a series of parcels around Parowan Gap - a nationally recognized collection of American Indian rock art in Iron County - from an oil and gas lease sale set for next week. The BLM has removed a six parcels that comprise about 20 square miles both in and around the petroglyph site from the May 17 auction, although officials would not rule out putting at least some of the tracts up for sale at a later date. "They've been deferred from the May sale in order to give us time to confer with Native American groups and ensure that we have the proper protections in place," Don Banks, the BLM's state chief of external affairs, said Monday....
Washington, activists argue a 'new' energy With the nation paying dearly for its power consumption, large energy corporations would like to build 30 to 40 LNG terminals in the United States, mostly in coastal communities. But such ideas are meeting with resistance at every step of the way. Any day now, for example, a federal appeals court in California is expected to issue an important ruling on who has jurisdiction over California's waters to site potential LNG terminals. And, both the president in recent speeches and Congress in pending energy legislation are getting involved - at a time when natural gas prices are close to an all-time high. "This is a debate that needs to happen," says James Hoecker, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during the Clinton administration and is now a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins in Washington. "It will be helpful that Congress has decided to express what it believes national policy ought to be."....
Land exchange refloated in House Utah officials are pitching an 88,000-acre land swap that would protect popular recreation destinations along the Colorado River, world-renowned mountain bike trails, and soaring redrock arches in sensitive wilderness areas while helping fund Utah schools. "It's quite unique," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who is sponsoring the exchange in the U.S. House. "We've got a lot of support on it. We hope it will go very smoothly and we'll get it done very quickly." It is the first exchange proposed since Utah's bid to swap out land in the San Rafael Swell collapsed in 2002 after whistle-blowers at the Bureau of Land Management alleged it was a $100 million boondoggle for federal taxpayers. Utah would get land in the Uinta Basin believed to contain valuable oil deposits. Oil royalties could generate considerable revenue earmarked for the state's schools. The state also would get parcels near the town of Green River and the Moab airport....
Nature Conservancy says complaints misunderstandings Complaints about a fence blocking a path used by wild horses to get to the Truckee River at the McCarran Ranch east of Sparks are based on misunderstandings, The Nature Conservancy said. Lance Gilman, co-owner of Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park and the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa brothel next door, also is upset that The Nature Conservancy began raising Northern Leopard frogs in ponds at the ranch without telling anybody in the county. The frog has been listed by the state as a protected species. For now, that gives the frog no legal protection. But Gilman fears an endangered species listing could someday make building his industrial park more difficult....
A Web of Sensors, Taking Earth's Pulse In the wilds of the San Jacinto Mountains, along a steep canyon, scientists are turning 30 acres of pines and hardwoods in California into a futuristic vision of environmental study. They are linking up more than 100 tiny sensors, robots, cameras and computers, which are beginning to paint an unusually detailed portrait of this lush world, home to more than 30 rare and endangered species. Much of the instrumentation is wireless. Devices the size of a deck of cards - known as motes, after dust motes - can measure light, wind speed, rainfall, temperature, humidity and barometric pressure, detecting the presence of a warm body or tracking the progress of a chill wind up the canyon....
Water worries spark moratoriums A once-in-500-year drought has prompted counties and residents in the Magic Valley to take water matters into their own hands. Worries over water quality and quantity nudged two counties into adopting temporary moratoriums on confined animal feeding operations while two other counties consider similar steps. Today, Lincoln County residents will take their concerns for this scarce resource one step further when they ask county commissioners for a moratorium on all changes to land use -- including subdivisions and dairies -- until a comprehensive land use plan can be adopted. Members of the Lincoln Rural Council assert that development in Lincoln County is "out of control." Not only have a number of wells gone dry in the county but some have also seen increases in nitrate levels, said Susan Westendorf, a spokeswoman for the council....
Tribes buy into political process Ten years ago, Native American tribes were still the minor political players they'd been for centuries, with their campaign donations barely registering on the national radar. But tribes, enriched by casino profits, are among the nation's fastest-growing contributors, pumping more than $7 million into federal campaigns in last year's elections. That's more than mining, textile and environmental groups. They've also bolstered their lobbying teams. Like other groups, they're trying to build influence to protect their gains -- including the right to operate gambling centers -- and to expand into untapped territory....
Congress Is Staying Clear of Dispute Over Mad Cow Congress appears to be unlikely to step in the middle of a standoff between the Bush administration and American cattlemen over reopening the border to imports of cattle from Canada. The cattlemen are concerned about whether the Canadian cows would infect the American herd with the deadly mad cow disease. The Senate, responding to that concern, narrowly voted in March to block the Agriculture Department's ruling that deemed Canadian cattle healthy enough to allow the border to be reopened. With the deadline for Congressional action on Saturday, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, has no plans to bring the issue up for a vote, a spokesman for the committee said Monday. Mr. Goodlatte, who opposed the Senate vote, plans to let the issue play out in the courts before considering any action, the spokesman said. That could set up a showdown in the Montana courtroom of Judge Richard F. Cebull of Federal District Court, who was sharply critical of the Agriculture Department's assurances that measures were in place to assure the safety of the beef coming from Canada....
Riding high The city is stretching awake, the streets still deserted and dark, as Dennis McQueen wheels into the parking lot on Fort Worth's north side. It's 5 a.m. -- four hours before the officers of the Fort Worth Police Mounted Patrol will arrive at the stables on the edge of Cowtown's historic Stockyards District, but McQueen has work to do. At 48, he is the old man of the yard, the horse trainer and riding teacher for the mounted patrol, one of Fort Worth's most recognizable images. McQueen is the man who makes horses and riders ready for duty in this town that values Western heritage. Many officers have never ridden a horse before applying for the mounted patrol, and they have McQueen to thank for their confidence on the street. But few outside the division know his name....
Champion steer wrestler competes with diabetes About seven years ago, when Luke Branquinho was a freshman at West Hills College in Coalinga, he was diagnosed with a disease that changed his life. After hallucinating and experiencing repeated symptoms of extreme fatigue, Branquinho, 17 at the time, went to the doctor and found out disturbing news. He had Type II diabetes. Branquinho tests his sugar levels four to five times a day. If they're low before a performance, he drinks a Coke before jumping on the horse. In between events, he carries a $4,000 pump that looks like a pager and automatically injects insulin into his veins. It takes the guesswork out of the injections because it's connected almost 24 hours a day, delivering small doses of insulin through a flexible, plastic catheter. His approach is working. Two years after being diagnosed, Branquinho won the 2000 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association overall and steer wrestling Rookie of the Year awards. And his career skyrocketed from there. Last year, he won the PRCA steer wrestling world title in Las Vegas and pocketed almost $200,000 in earnings....
Dual champions at George Paul For only the third time in its 28-year history, the George Paul Memorial Bull Riding competition has co-champions. B.J. Schumacher, of Hillsboro, Wis., scored 179 points on two bulls Sunday afternoon to tie Mike Scarlavai of Michigan atop the leader board at this yearÕs event, held at the Val Verde County Fairgrounds. Scarlavai scored his points Saturday night....
It's All Trew: Little black box start of family photography Long before the modern term of PC, personal computer, appeared, another PC came along in the form of a personal camera most people called a Kodak. This simple black box performed the miracle of taking photographs anywhere and at anytime. Kodaking became a national fad and a serious hobby for millions of people. History has certainly been enhanced by these images that preserved the authentic past. Its use caught on like wildfire, especially with the younger set. The first Kodaks were simple devices with a peep hole to focus, a lens, click button and a knob to advance the film forward for the next picture. There were no adjustments. Most new operators ruined or double-exposed a roll or two of film while learning. These old boxes soon gave way to Brownies with many new improvements....
===
Lynx more than mirage in White River forest Bowing to reality presented by Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists, the regional forester for the Rocky Mountains announced last week that lynx habitat will be protected throughout the White River National Forest. That’s a welcome change from a decision handed down from Washington, D.C. last December, which overturned lynx protection specified in the White River National Forest Management Plan. Not only did Deputy Agriculture Undersecretary David Tenny overturn years of public involvement and compromise that went into the White River plan, he ignored any information available from the Division of Wildlife to conclude there was no evidence of lynx using the White River. Therefore, Tenny determined, there was no reason to believe the wild felines would benefit from the habitat protection. In fact, state biologists have said that tracking collars on lynx show more than 300 visits by the shy cats to the White River National Forest since lynx were first transplanted to Colorado in 1999. State officials also determined that at least two females have dens in the White River....
Editorial: Nature at Bay The Bush administration's efforts to capitalize on the recent discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker were bizarre. Gale Norton, the interior secretary, announced a $10 million program to enlarge the bird's habitat, proclaiming that "second chances to save wildlife once thought to be extinct are rare." But what about first chances? The woodpecker, if it indeed has returned, is as much warning as gift. President Bush's policies suggest that he not only has failed to learn from past mistakes, but is determined to repeat them on a more destructive scale. The obvious example is his fixation on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. This bespeaks an intellectually bankrupt energy policy and would certainly cause trouble for wildlife....
Conservationists find eggs in nest of burrowing owl When Greg Clark inserted a video camera into the den of burrowing owls, he knew the relocation of nine of the small birds just over the Utah state line in Arizona was a success. "There are some eggs," Clark told a handful of volunteers watching the portable video monitor as the infrared camera snaked into the darkened hole. "That's pretty much what we were looking for." Clark heads relocation efforts for Wild at Heart, a nonprofit group responsible for saving burrowing owls from development around metropolitan areas in Arizona....
Hatcheries may be releasing pollutants along with fish When environmental regulators last winter tried to solve the mystery of how a toxic chemical wound up in the mountain-fed waters of Icicle Creek, they stumbled on a surprising potential culprit: a federal fish hatchery. Tipped by news reports of a Montana hatchery that had polluted a local stream with paint from the walls of concrete fish tanks, Washington regulators tested paint chips from the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery. They discovered the paint contained PCBs, once-ubiquitous industrial chemicals now banned because they are toxic in minute levels and stay around for years. Alerted to the findings, hatchery managers shut down tanks containing 1.6 million tiny chinook salmon, moved them into tanks without the paint and started testing hatchery fish and nearby stream sediments for contamination....
36 Senators Seek More Money for National Parks The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) today praised Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.), Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), and the 34 other U.S. Senators who this week sent a letter to the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee seeking much-needed funding for America's national parks. "This letter illustrates the strong, bipartisan support for increased national park funding as Congress prepares the parks' fiscal year 2006 budget," said NPCA President Tom Kiernan. The letter that Sen. Thomas, chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee, and Ranking Member Akaka sponsored was signed by a total of 36 U.S. Senators, and requested an additional $150 million for the fiscal year 2006 operations of the national parks. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) sponsored a similar letter in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was signed by 78 members of Congress....
Drilling Near Nuclear Blast Cavity Called Risky Business On a bright fall afternoon 36 years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission and a Texas oil company detonated a 40-kiloton nuclear device inside an 8,000-foot shaft on a high meadow, an effort to crack into a bounty of natural gas trapped in a dense subterranean rock formation. Here on Colorado's energy-rich Western Slope, the nuclear experiment yielded mixed results. A rich lode of gas was indeed shaken out of its rock casing, but the gas that rushed to the surface was too radioactive to be commercially useful. Federal officials assured the community that the Rulison test site, named after a nearby community, was safe. Still, they forbade oil or gas drilling on 40 acres surrounding the blast. Last year, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission added another half a mile to the federal off-limits zone. But now, another Texas energy company has proposed drilling within the half-mile zone. The company, Presco, says it will extract the gas using a nonnuclear process called hydraulic fracing, which like the original experiment is designed to shatter underground rock and tap into embedded stores of natural gas. The company says this can be done without disturbing the radioactive material that remains buried in the blast cavity....
Energy boom is crowding ranchers Now the onetime professional steer roper and other ranchers here face a new test - energy companies intensifying their search for natural gas beneath the same lands used by grazing herds. The trend, causing tension across the American West, stems from the policy of "split estates" - where the owners of at least 50 million acres of private land have surface rights, while energy developers can own the mineral rights beneath or lease them from the federal government. That means scores of ranchers here in the Powder River basin may have little say over thousands wellheads that could soon proliferate. While some landowners will reap benefits, anything from monetary compensation to ranch improvements, most feel helpless against an industry that they see threatening to mar the landscape and contaminate precious groundwater. A growing number of ranchers are fighting back against the federal government with lawsuits aimed to strengthen landowners' influence over energy development practices within their acres....
Column: The House Passes Green Energy Bill The House recently passed a bill purportedly for the purpose of improving our ability to produce energy. President Bush has called it "a good energy bill" and has urged the Senate to act so that Congress can send him a bill by this summer that he can sign into law. However, the proposal passed by the House makes many concessions to environmentalists and therefore won't achieve its purported end if signed into law. Why is this the case? While the bill increases access to federal lands for oil and gas exploration and eases some regulations (such as speeding up the approval process for certain new refineries), it also provides billions of dollars in subsidies and tax incentives for various environmentalist-inspired endeavors, including the promotion of energy efficiency and the development of "alternative" fuels....
BLM pulls rock art site from lease sale As expected, the Bureau of Land Management has pulled back a series of parcels around Parowan Gap - a nationally recognized collection of American Indian rock art in Iron County - from an oil and gas lease sale set for next week. The BLM has removed a six parcels that comprise about 20 square miles both in and around the petroglyph site from the May 17 auction, although officials would not rule out putting at least some of the tracts up for sale at a later date. "They've been deferred from the May sale in order to give us time to confer with Native American groups and ensure that we have the proper protections in place," Don Banks, the BLM's state chief of external affairs, said Monday....
Washington, activists argue a 'new' energy With the nation paying dearly for its power consumption, large energy corporations would like to build 30 to 40 LNG terminals in the United States, mostly in coastal communities. But such ideas are meeting with resistance at every step of the way. Any day now, for example, a federal appeals court in California is expected to issue an important ruling on who has jurisdiction over California's waters to site potential LNG terminals. And, both the president in recent speeches and Congress in pending energy legislation are getting involved - at a time when natural gas prices are close to an all-time high. "This is a debate that needs to happen," says James Hoecker, who was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during the Clinton administration and is now a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins in Washington. "It will be helpful that Congress has decided to express what it believes national policy ought to be."....
Land exchange refloated in House Utah officials are pitching an 88,000-acre land swap that would protect popular recreation destinations along the Colorado River, world-renowned mountain bike trails, and soaring redrock arches in sensitive wilderness areas while helping fund Utah schools. "It's quite unique," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who is sponsoring the exchange in the U.S. House. "We've got a lot of support on it. We hope it will go very smoothly and we'll get it done very quickly." It is the first exchange proposed since Utah's bid to swap out land in the San Rafael Swell collapsed in 2002 after whistle-blowers at the Bureau of Land Management alleged it was a $100 million boondoggle for federal taxpayers. Utah would get land in the Uinta Basin believed to contain valuable oil deposits. Oil royalties could generate considerable revenue earmarked for the state's schools. The state also would get parcels near the town of Green River and the Moab airport....
Nature Conservancy says complaints misunderstandings Complaints about a fence blocking a path used by wild horses to get to the Truckee River at the McCarran Ranch east of Sparks are based on misunderstandings, The Nature Conservancy said. Lance Gilman, co-owner of Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park and the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa brothel next door, also is upset that The Nature Conservancy began raising Northern Leopard frogs in ponds at the ranch without telling anybody in the county. The frog has been listed by the state as a protected species. For now, that gives the frog no legal protection. But Gilman fears an endangered species listing could someday make building his industrial park more difficult....
A Web of Sensors, Taking Earth's Pulse In the wilds of the San Jacinto Mountains, along a steep canyon, scientists are turning 30 acres of pines and hardwoods in California into a futuristic vision of environmental study. They are linking up more than 100 tiny sensors, robots, cameras and computers, which are beginning to paint an unusually detailed portrait of this lush world, home to more than 30 rare and endangered species. Much of the instrumentation is wireless. Devices the size of a deck of cards - known as motes, after dust motes - can measure light, wind speed, rainfall, temperature, humidity and barometric pressure, detecting the presence of a warm body or tracking the progress of a chill wind up the canyon....
Water worries spark moratoriums A once-in-500-year drought has prompted counties and residents in the Magic Valley to take water matters into their own hands. Worries over water quality and quantity nudged two counties into adopting temporary moratoriums on confined animal feeding operations while two other counties consider similar steps. Today, Lincoln County residents will take their concerns for this scarce resource one step further when they ask county commissioners for a moratorium on all changes to land use -- including subdivisions and dairies -- until a comprehensive land use plan can be adopted. Members of the Lincoln Rural Council assert that development in Lincoln County is "out of control." Not only have a number of wells gone dry in the county but some have also seen increases in nitrate levels, said Susan Westendorf, a spokeswoman for the council....
Tribes buy into political process Ten years ago, Native American tribes were still the minor political players they'd been for centuries, with their campaign donations barely registering on the national radar. But tribes, enriched by casino profits, are among the nation's fastest-growing contributors, pumping more than $7 million into federal campaigns in last year's elections. That's more than mining, textile and environmental groups. They've also bolstered their lobbying teams. Like other groups, they're trying to build influence to protect their gains -- including the right to operate gambling centers -- and to expand into untapped territory....
Congress Is Staying Clear of Dispute Over Mad Cow Congress appears to be unlikely to step in the middle of a standoff between the Bush administration and American cattlemen over reopening the border to imports of cattle from Canada. The cattlemen are concerned about whether the Canadian cows would infect the American herd with the deadly mad cow disease. The Senate, responding to that concern, narrowly voted in March to block the Agriculture Department's ruling that deemed Canadian cattle healthy enough to allow the border to be reopened. With the deadline for Congressional action on Saturday, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, has no plans to bring the issue up for a vote, a spokesman for the committee said Monday. Mr. Goodlatte, who opposed the Senate vote, plans to let the issue play out in the courts before considering any action, the spokesman said. That could set up a showdown in the Montana courtroom of Judge Richard F. Cebull of Federal District Court, who was sharply critical of the Agriculture Department's assurances that measures were in place to assure the safety of the beef coming from Canada....
Riding high The city is stretching awake, the streets still deserted and dark, as Dennis McQueen wheels into the parking lot on Fort Worth's north side. It's 5 a.m. -- four hours before the officers of the Fort Worth Police Mounted Patrol will arrive at the stables on the edge of Cowtown's historic Stockyards District, but McQueen has work to do. At 48, he is the old man of the yard, the horse trainer and riding teacher for the mounted patrol, one of Fort Worth's most recognizable images. McQueen is the man who makes horses and riders ready for duty in this town that values Western heritage. Many officers have never ridden a horse before applying for the mounted patrol, and they have McQueen to thank for their confidence on the street. But few outside the division know his name....
Champion steer wrestler competes with diabetes About seven years ago, when Luke Branquinho was a freshman at West Hills College in Coalinga, he was diagnosed with a disease that changed his life. After hallucinating and experiencing repeated symptoms of extreme fatigue, Branquinho, 17 at the time, went to the doctor and found out disturbing news. He had Type II diabetes. Branquinho tests his sugar levels four to five times a day. If they're low before a performance, he drinks a Coke before jumping on the horse. In between events, he carries a $4,000 pump that looks like a pager and automatically injects insulin into his veins. It takes the guesswork out of the injections because it's connected almost 24 hours a day, delivering small doses of insulin through a flexible, plastic catheter. His approach is working. Two years after being diagnosed, Branquinho won the 2000 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association overall and steer wrestling Rookie of the Year awards. And his career skyrocketed from there. Last year, he won the PRCA steer wrestling world title in Las Vegas and pocketed almost $200,000 in earnings....
Dual champions at George Paul For only the third time in its 28-year history, the George Paul Memorial Bull Riding competition has co-champions. B.J. Schumacher, of Hillsboro, Wis., scored 179 points on two bulls Sunday afternoon to tie Mike Scarlavai of Michigan atop the leader board at this yearÕs event, held at the Val Verde County Fairgrounds. Scarlavai scored his points Saturday night....
It's All Trew: Little black box start of family photography Long before the modern term of PC, personal computer, appeared, another PC came along in the form of a personal camera most people called a Kodak. This simple black box performed the miracle of taking photographs anywhere and at anytime. Kodaking became a national fad and a serious hobby for millions of people. History has certainly been enhanced by these images that preserved the authentic past. Its use caught on like wildfire, especially with the younger set. The first Kodaks were simple devices with a peep hole to focus, a lens, click button and a knob to advance the film forward for the next picture. There were no adjustments. Most new operators ruined or double-exposed a roll or two of film while learning. These old boxes soon gave way to Brownies with many new improvements....
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Monday, May 09, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Editorial: What's that howling? Wild wolves roam Arizona because reason triumphed over the Little Red Riding Hood myths that led to the federally funded slaughter of these top predators years ago. Yet it wasn't easy to launch this effort, and some ranchers still oppose the reintroduction of the endangered Mexican gray wolf that began in 1998 in Arizona and New Mexico. They left fingerprints on a recent proposal that wolf advocates say would undercut the process of building a sustainable population of this endangered species in the wild. That proposal was the result of an invitation-only meetings orchestrated by New Mexico Republican Rep. Stevan Pearce. He brought wolf-averse New Mexico ranchers together with high-level officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for private meetings....
Rights of passage After an absence of 40 years, salmon could return to the rivers and streams of Central Oregon by the end of the decade. It would be the largest single salmon and steelhead reintroduction in Oregon's history -- reaching from the Ochoco Mountains to the foothills of the Cascades. To succeed, the fish will have to overcome not only a legacy of failed salmon policies in the upper Deschutes River basin, but also the challenges of present-day politics. But along with the hopes of restoring the lost fishery are the fears of farmers, ranchers and others who rely on the basin's rivers for irrigation. They're worried that the ensuing competition for water could devolve into a Klamath-style confrontation....
Large male bear may have killed fellow griz A dead male grizzly bear, apparently the victim of another grizzly, was found Tuesday west of Choteau. Ranchers discovered the bear on Willow Creek near their property and contacted Fish, Wildlife & Parks, said Mike Madel, FWP bear specialist in the Choteau area. He said it appears the 5- or 6-year-old male grizzly was killed by a larger grizzly. "He was beaten and bitten," Madel said. "We know these males get into severe fights." He suspects the two grizzlies were fighting over a female grizzly that had been spotted in the same area. "We could see where the two encountered each other, and there were seven or eight circles that they treaded out while fighting," Madel said. The grizzly bear that was killed weighed between 450 and 500 pounds. Bear specialists found fur and a broken claw in the area. Wayne Gollehon said the bear was killed near his family property. "There was some tore up ground and hair and blood scattered around," he said. "I was quite surprised. I'd never heard of an adult bear being killed by another adult."....
Editorial: Roadless Rules ON ITS OWN, the Bush administration's rationale for radically amending the "roadless rule" sounds reasonable. The rule, a Clinton administration regulation designed to prevent logging, mineral extraction or road construction of any kind within some 56.5 million acres of pristine national forestland, has been contested by several states and has been overturned by two federal judges. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who is responsible for the Forest Service, says he wants to eliminate the one-size-fits-all federal rule in favor of a "state by state process." Mr. Rey says that this would give governors more say in how the rule is applied and therefore reduce the amount of "ill will" that the rule created. That argument is fine, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it overlooks the bigger picture. It overlooks the fact that one of the court decisions against the rule has been successfully overturned by a higher court, and another appeal is pending: Surely that means that it's at least possible for the government to keep the legal process going. It overlooks the fact that the rule is supported not only by public opinion -- millions of people have signed petitions in its favor -- but by scientific evidence....
Pilots speak out on fire fleet From the father of aerial firefighting to pilots who recently flew through fiery debris in Southern California wildfires, aviators are saying the U.S. firefighting fleet is undergoing fundamental changes that may cost extra lives and homes. Federal agencies' shift from aging, big air tankers toward more helicopters and small, single-engine planes -- rather than finding new, large air tankers -- is based on faulty fiscal conclusions and flawed accident statistics, according to several pilots who have broken a 50-year-old code of silence. The Aerial Firefighting Industry Association -- representing 15 firms that supply planes, maintenance and pilots to government agencies -- also is touting a decade-old National Air Tanker Study that showed an overwhelming benefit-to-cost ratio for big air tankers and envisioned a fleet of 41 modern aircraft by now....
Loving NEPA to death If the first public hearing on changing the nation's landmark environmental protection act is any indication, the law may be liked to death. No one at the hearing on reforming the National Environmental Policy Act attacked the law, although Republicans noted repeatedly that it needed to be reformed. The debate over NEPA is one of those obtuse insider battles that the general public often ignores, but which are profoundly important. President Nixon signed NEPA in 1970, and it serves as the basis for federal management of public lands. The law requires federal agencies to conduct lengthy environmental reviews before approving projects. It is key to limiting development on public land and protecting endangered species. But critics, many of them in the GOP, contend the law has spawned a nightmare of litigation as lawsuits are filed to stop or alter proposed projects. They contend the law has also produced "paralysis by analysis'' as projects are delayed....
Wetlands project upsets some A barbed-wire fence on the east end of The Nature Conservancy’s land at the McCarran Ranch east Sparks has wild horse advocates and officials for the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center all riled up, but an official from the conservancy says the complaints are based on misunderstandings. The 300-foot fence put up about a year ago has cut off a path traditionally used by wild horses to drink from the Truckee River at the McCarran Ranch. And Lance Gilman, co-owner of Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park and the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa brothel next door, is upset that The Nature Conservancy began raising Northern Leopard frogs in a series of ponds at the McCarran Ranch — without telling anybody in the county....
'Green' energy another threat to grouse Wind power, a clean energy source that is plentiful in western Oklahoma, presents a threat to a dwindling population of birds on the Great Plains, conservationists and researchers say. The concern is that planned wind farms may damage bird habitat. Scientists are attempting to map the areas where potential wind farms and bird habitats overlap. Prairie grouse, whose numbers have taken a nosedive, particularly concern conservationists. The lesser prairie chicken, whose population has fallen from about 2 million to fewer than 50,000 in the past century, seem vulnerable to any sign of human activity in their breeding grounds, which stretch from northern Oklahoma into Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, said Ron Wolfe of the Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, Okla....
Huntsman policies delight rural factions but leave greens uneasy A little over four months into his first term, Huntsman's rural constituents are happy enough with his approach to public lands issues. But the state's environmental and outdoor recreation communities are getting nervous. "We are working with the governor. We believe he understands the importance of conservation for the long-term economic vibrancy of Utah," says Peter Metcalf, CEO of Black Diamond Equipment, a Holladay-based outdoor recreation company. "But we are concerned about what we're seeing coming out of his administration. What's happening seems to be contrary to the principles he has articulated and contrary to the economic goals of the state." Since Huntsman's inauguration the state has:....
BLM considers direct sales It might be faster. It might be cheaper. And it might not be as controversial. For all these reasons, the Bureau of Land Management is proposing a policy change that would allow it to sell property directly rather than rely on often complicated land exchanges. Those exchanges have been under the microscope in recent months as the bureau considers trading off "Area 51" west of Redding to a developer in exchange for his private land in Trinity County. Neighbors have blasted the trade, saying that Area 51 is likely worth much more than the Trinity land, and complaining that the exchange process is difficult for the public to monitor. The BLM still will use exchanges when conditions merit, officials said Friday....
Former oil town hopes to become vast wasteland This small West Texas town grew its economy on oil but may hang its hopes on what some folks think is their next boom: storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists owns 14,400 acres about 30 miles outside town near the New Mexico border. About 1,340 acres are set aside for hazardous waste storage and disposal, and the company will manage tons of federal uranium byproduct waste by year's end. Some residents think the site will bring dozens of jobs from spin-off industries, and city leaders anticipate it will pump millions of dollars into the economy. It's a reverse NIMBY — not in my back yard — with Andrews welcoming the radioactive waste rather than fighting to keep it out....
Conservation easement benefits ranching family, wildlife, sportsmen Warren Gore, whose grandfather Glen homesteaded the original Gore ranch on Glade Park in the 1920s, swept an arm over the spring-green landscape that is his family’s home as well as home to elk, deer, bear, mountain lions and a small population of Gunnison sage grouse. “It’s always been our hope that we could keep this in ranching,” said Gore, accompanied by his father Don and two of Warren’s children, Madeline, 11, and Marshall, 8, on that blustery day, buffeted by a west wind bearing the taste of snow. “We’ve always been interested in preserving the wildlife habitat at the same time. And from the family side, keeping the ranch is important to our kids, too.” Saving that ranching future, and saving the wildlife habitat seriously threatened by the octopus of development slithering across the flats of Glade Park, will be easier now that the Gore family, headed by patriarch Don Gore, has agreed to put 4,433 acres of their land into a conservation easement with the Colorado Division of Wildlife....
Land in the rearview mirror Scobey School Superintendent Dave Selvig can record the fading of Daniels County's population by counting heads on the playground. This spring, 24 seniors will graduate. Next fall, 17 kindergarteners will enroll. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the graduates will go to college, Selvig said. Few of them will be back. "There's just nothing to keep people here,'' he sighed. Between the 1930 and 2000 censuses, 29 of Montana's 56 counties lost population. Some, like tiny Petroleum County just east of the state's center line, are down to less than one-quarter of peaks recorded in 1930. Many more, mostly in rural Eastern Montana, have lost half their numbers. Depopulation, especially in counties dependent on agriculture, appears to be accelerating and, so far, unstoppable. While Montana's population grew 12.9 percent between 1990 and 2000, much of the farm and ranch land east of the mountains saw alarming losses....
Elmendorf creature wasn't part of legend Forget the chupacabra. Those mysterious beasts that have been spotted in Texas have nothing to do with the monster of Puerto Rican folklore. The strange animals are merely common coyotes inflicted with bad cases of mange — very bad cases, according to a Lubbock professor who has spent nearly 20 years studying the skin disease. The only thing the chupacabra and these sickly coyotes have in common is their horrendous hides. "We looked at it, and of course it's a mange coyote," said Danny Pence, a professor of parasitology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. "There's no doubt in our minds whatsoever."....
Horses once were backbone of state's ag labor How's this for a trend? Horse numbers are increasing and cattle numbers are decreasing. The reasons are fairly clear. More and more Montanans own horses for pleasure and recreation, especially affluent people who purchase acreage in rural areas. At the same time, cattle numbers have declined because of drought and market conditions. Although beef prices have been good for the past year or two, cattle are at a decade-low count of about 2.4 million head. This shift may not be a permanent one, but the upsurge of interest in horses harks back to a time when land was plowed by teams of horses, when hay rakes were pulled by horses and when the U.S. Army was buying thousands of horses on the open market. The only way to get to town until 1910 or 1915 was on horseback or by horse-drawn wagon. The business of raising, rounding up and selling horses was an active one....
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Editorial: What's that howling? Wild wolves roam Arizona because reason triumphed over the Little Red Riding Hood myths that led to the federally funded slaughter of these top predators years ago. Yet it wasn't easy to launch this effort, and some ranchers still oppose the reintroduction of the endangered Mexican gray wolf that began in 1998 in Arizona and New Mexico. They left fingerprints on a recent proposal that wolf advocates say would undercut the process of building a sustainable population of this endangered species in the wild. That proposal was the result of an invitation-only meetings orchestrated by New Mexico Republican Rep. Stevan Pearce. He brought wolf-averse New Mexico ranchers together with high-level officials of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for private meetings....
Rights of passage After an absence of 40 years, salmon could return to the rivers and streams of Central Oregon by the end of the decade. It would be the largest single salmon and steelhead reintroduction in Oregon's history -- reaching from the Ochoco Mountains to the foothills of the Cascades. To succeed, the fish will have to overcome not only a legacy of failed salmon policies in the upper Deschutes River basin, but also the challenges of present-day politics. But along with the hopes of restoring the lost fishery are the fears of farmers, ranchers and others who rely on the basin's rivers for irrigation. They're worried that the ensuing competition for water could devolve into a Klamath-style confrontation....
Large male bear may have killed fellow griz A dead male grizzly bear, apparently the victim of another grizzly, was found Tuesday west of Choteau. Ranchers discovered the bear on Willow Creek near their property and contacted Fish, Wildlife & Parks, said Mike Madel, FWP bear specialist in the Choteau area. He said it appears the 5- or 6-year-old male grizzly was killed by a larger grizzly. "He was beaten and bitten," Madel said. "We know these males get into severe fights." He suspects the two grizzlies were fighting over a female grizzly that had been spotted in the same area. "We could see where the two encountered each other, and there were seven or eight circles that they treaded out while fighting," Madel said. The grizzly bear that was killed weighed between 450 and 500 pounds. Bear specialists found fur and a broken claw in the area. Wayne Gollehon said the bear was killed near his family property. "There was some tore up ground and hair and blood scattered around," he said. "I was quite surprised. I'd never heard of an adult bear being killed by another adult."....
Editorial: Roadless Rules ON ITS OWN, the Bush administration's rationale for radically amending the "roadless rule" sounds reasonable. The rule, a Clinton administration regulation designed to prevent logging, mineral extraction or road construction of any kind within some 56.5 million acres of pristine national forestland, has been contested by several states and has been overturned by two federal judges. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who is responsible for the Forest Service, says he wants to eliminate the one-size-fits-all federal rule in favor of a "state by state process." Mr. Rey says that this would give governors more say in how the rule is applied and therefore reduce the amount of "ill will" that the rule created. That argument is fine, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it overlooks the bigger picture. It overlooks the fact that one of the court decisions against the rule has been successfully overturned by a higher court, and another appeal is pending: Surely that means that it's at least possible for the government to keep the legal process going. It overlooks the fact that the rule is supported not only by public opinion -- millions of people have signed petitions in its favor -- but by scientific evidence....
Pilots speak out on fire fleet From the father of aerial firefighting to pilots who recently flew through fiery debris in Southern California wildfires, aviators are saying the U.S. firefighting fleet is undergoing fundamental changes that may cost extra lives and homes. Federal agencies' shift from aging, big air tankers toward more helicopters and small, single-engine planes -- rather than finding new, large air tankers -- is based on faulty fiscal conclusions and flawed accident statistics, according to several pilots who have broken a 50-year-old code of silence. The Aerial Firefighting Industry Association -- representing 15 firms that supply planes, maintenance and pilots to government agencies -- also is touting a decade-old National Air Tanker Study that showed an overwhelming benefit-to-cost ratio for big air tankers and envisioned a fleet of 41 modern aircraft by now....
Loving NEPA to death If the first public hearing on changing the nation's landmark environmental protection act is any indication, the law may be liked to death. No one at the hearing on reforming the National Environmental Policy Act attacked the law, although Republicans noted repeatedly that it needed to be reformed. The debate over NEPA is one of those obtuse insider battles that the general public often ignores, but which are profoundly important. President Nixon signed NEPA in 1970, and it serves as the basis for federal management of public lands. The law requires federal agencies to conduct lengthy environmental reviews before approving projects. It is key to limiting development on public land and protecting endangered species. But critics, many of them in the GOP, contend the law has spawned a nightmare of litigation as lawsuits are filed to stop or alter proposed projects. They contend the law has also produced "paralysis by analysis'' as projects are delayed....
Wetlands project upsets some A barbed-wire fence on the east end of The Nature Conservancy’s land at the McCarran Ranch east Sparks has wild horse advocates and officials for the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center all riled up, but an official from the conservancy says the complaints are based on misunderstandings. The 300-foot fence put up about a year ago has cut off a path traditionally used by wild horses to drink from the Truckee River at the McCarran Ranch. And Lance Gilman, co-owner of Tahoe-Reno Industrial Park and the Wild Horse Adult Resort & Spa brothel next door, is upset that The Nature Conservancy began raising Northern Leopard frogs in a series of ponds at the McCarran Ranch — without telling anybody in the county....
'Green' energy another threat to grouse Wind power, a clean energy source that is plentiful in western Oklahoma, presents a threat to a dwindling population of birds on the Great Plains, conservationists and researchers say. The concern is that planned wind farms may damage bird habitat. Scientists are attempting to map the areas where potential wind farms and bird habitats overlap. Prairie grouse, whose numbers have taken a nosedive, particularly concern conservationists. The lesser prairie chicken, whose population has fallen from about 2 million to fewer than 50,000 in the past century, seem vulnerable to any sign of human activity in their breeding grounds, which stretch from northern Oklahoma into Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas, said Ron Wolfe of the Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, Okla....
Huntsman policies delight rural factions but leave greens uneasy A little over four months into his first term, Huntsman's rural constituents are happy enough with his approach to public lands issues. But the state's environmental and outdoor recreation communities are getting nervous. "We are working with the governor. We believe he understands the importance of conservation for the long-term economic vibrancy of Utah," says Peter Metcalf, CEO of Black Diamond Equipment, a Holladay-based outdoor recreation company. "But we are concerned about what we're seeing coming out of his administration. What's happening seems to be contrary to the principles he has articulated and contrary to the economic goals of the state." Since Huntsman's inauguration the state has:....
BLM considers direct sales It might be faster. It might be cheaper. And it might not be as controversial. For all these reasons, the Bureau of Land Management is proposing a policy change that would allow it to sell property directly rather than rely on often complicated land exchanges. Those exchanges have been under the microscope in recent months as the bureau considers trading off "Area 51" west of Redding to a developer in exchange for his private land in Trinity County. Neighbors have blasted the trade, saying that Area 51 is likely worth much more than the Trinity land, and complaining that the exchange process is difficult for the public to monitor. The BLM still will use exchanges when conditions merit, officials said Friday....
Former oil town hopes to become vast wasteland This small West Texas town grew its economy on oil but may hang its hopes on what some folks think is their next boom: storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists owns 14,400 acres about 30 miles outside town near the New Mexico border. About 1,340 acres are set aside for hazardous waste storage and disposal, and the company will manage tons of federal uranium byproduct waste by year's end. Some residents think the site will bring dozens of jobs from spin-off industries, and city leaders anticipate it will pump millions of dollars into the economy. It's a reverse NIMBY — not in my back yard — with Andrews welcoming the radioactive waste rather than fighting to keep it out....
Conservation easement benefits ranching family, wildlife, sportsmen Warren Gore, whose grandfather Glen homesteaded the original Gore ranch on Glade Park in the 1920s, swept an arm over the spring-green landscape that is his family’s home as well as home to elk, deer, bear, mountain lions and a small population of Gunnison sage grouse. “It’s always been our hope that we could keep this in ranching,” said Gore, accompanied by his father Don and two of Warren’s children, Madeline, 11, and Marshall, 8, on that blustery day, buffeted by a west wind bearing the taste of snow. “We’ve always been interested in preserving the wildlife habitat at the same time. And from the family side, keeping the ranch is important to our kids, too.” Saving that ranching future, and saving the wildlife habitat seriously threatened by the octopus of development slithering across the flats of Glade Park, will be easier now that the Gore family, headed by patriarch Don Gore, has agreed to put 4,433 acres of their land into a conservation easement with the Colorado Division of Wildlife....
Land in the rearview mirror Scobey School Superintendent Dave Selvig can record the fading of Daniels County's population by counting heads on the playground. This spring, 24 seniors will graduate. Next fall, 17 kindergarteners will enroll. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the graduates will go to college, Selvig said. Few of them will be back. "There's just nothing to keep people here,'' he sighed. Between the 1930 and 2000 censuses, 29 of Montana's 56 counties lost population. Some, like tiny Petroleum County just east of the state's center line, are down to less than one-quarter of peaks recorded in 1930. Many more, mostly in rural Eastern Montana, have lost half their numbers. Depopulation, especially in counties dependent on agriculture, appears to be accelerating and, so far, unstoppable. While Montana's population grew 12.9 percent between 1990 and 2000, much of the farm and ranch land east of the mountains saw alarming losses....
Elmendorf creature wasn't part of legend Forget the chupacabra. Those mysterious beasts that have been spotted in Texas have nothing to do with the monster of Puerto Rican folklore. The strange animals are merely common coyotes inflicted with bad cases of mange — very bad cases, according to a Lubbock professor who has spent nearly 20 years studying the skin disease. The only thing the chupacabra and these sickly coyotes have in common is their horrendous hides. "We looked at it, and of course it's a mange coyote," said Danny Pence, a professor of parasitology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. "There's no doubt in our minds whatsoever."....
Horses once were backbone of state's ag labor How's this for a trend? Horse numbers are increasing and cattle numbers are decreasing. The reasons are fairly clear. More and more Montanans own horses for pleasure and recreation, especially affluent people who purchase acreage in rural areas. At the same time, cattle numbers have declined because of drought and market conditions. Although beef prices have been good for the past year or two, cattle are at a decade-low count of about 2.4 million head. This shift may not be a permanent one, but the upsurge of interest in horses harks back to a time when land was plowed by teams of horses, when hay rakes were pulled by horses and when the U.S. Army was buying thousands of horses on the open market. The only way to get to town until 1910 or 1915 was on horseback or by horse-drawn wagon. The business of raising, rounding up and selling horses was an active one....
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Sunday, May 08, 2005
OPINION/COMMENTARY
JP Morgan Becomes Tool of Green Activists
JP Morgan Chase's chief executive, William Harrison, is a dream come true for Left-wing anti-business activists. Not only did Mr. Harrison announce last week that JP Morgan Chase would fully surrender to their demand that the bank adopt activist approved lending policies - he also announced plans to make the bank an active tool of the radical environmental movement. Following activist demands, JP Morgan will compel its borrowers to embrace the unsubstantiated hysteria about global warming—thus putting their businesses at significant financial risk. Borrowers will be forced to disclose emissions of greenhouse gases—a practice likely to benefit only trial lawyers eager to sue businesses based on allegations that their greenhouse gas emissions contributed to global warming, which the lawyers hope to link to property damage from natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe weather events. Borrowers will also be pressured to include on their balance sheets liabilities for global warming—essentially imaginary liabilities that will compel borrowers to reserve monies for paying off trial lawyers, Green activists, and their allies in the property and casualty insurance industry. JP Morgan Chase also agreed to allow the activists to dictate where the bank may lend money. Areas designated by activists as being of "high ecological" value will be "no-go" zones where lending is restricted. Since there are no objective standards for identifying areas of "high ecological value"—thereby leaving the activists in charge of designating those areas—the policy essentially gives the activists a veto over bank lending....
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JP Morgan Becomes Tool of Green Activists
JP Morgan Chase's chief executive, William Harrison, is a dream come true for Left-wing anti-business activists. Not only did Mr. Harrison announce last week that JP Morgan Chase would fully surrender to their demand that the bank adopt activist approved lending policies - he also announced plans to make the bank an active tool of the radical environmental movement. Following activist demands, JP Morgan will compel its borrowers to embrace the unsubstantiated hysteria about global warming—thus putting their businesses at significant financial risk. Borrowers will be forced to disclose emissions of greenhouse gases—a practice likely to benefit only trial lawyers eager to sue businesses based on allegations that their greenhouse gas emissions contributed to global warming, which the lawyers hope to link to property damage from natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe weather events. Borrowers will also be pressured to include on their balance sheets liabilities for global warming—essentially imaginary liabilities that will compel borrowers to reserve monies for paying off trial lawyers, Green activists, and their allies in the property and casualty insurance industry. JP Morgan Chase also agreed to allow the activists to dictate where the bank may lend money. Areas designated by activists as being of "high ecological" value will be "no-go" zones where lending is restricted. Since there are no objective standards for identifying areas of "high ecological value"—thereby leaving the activists in charge of designating those areas—the policy essentially gives the activists a veto over bank lending....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Why green has gone out of fashion
For 35 years now, environmentalists have specialized in “Chicken Little scare tactics and doomsday prophesying,” said Chip Giller in The Boston Globe. But the movement reached new “depths of gloominess” when it recently announced “the death of itself.” Two prominent environmentalists, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, have published a paper, bluntly titled “The Death of Environmentalism,” declaring that environmentalists have become irrelevant. Activists are so mired in “narrow policy fixes” and bureaucratic jargon, the authors say, that they’ve stopped connecting with ordinary Americans. As a result, they’ve lost popular support in their battle with the Bush administration on issues ranging from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to mercury emissions from power plants. Last week’s Earth Day observances should have been a celebration of the movement’s many successes in bringing cleaner water and air to all Americans. But activists were too busy lamenting their new political “impotence.” The greens shouldn’t be so hard on themselves, said Sally Pipes in National Review Online. There’s a good reason most Americans are no longer moved by dire warnings about species becoming extinct or the oceans boiling over: Thanks to decades of environmental activism, the Earth is doing just fine. Ozone air pollution has fallen to its lowest level in U.S. history. Air quality in the 10 largest metropolitan areas has improved by more than 53 percent since 1980. Forests and wetlands are thriving. Our national symbol, the bald eagle, was down to only 500 nesting pairs in 1965; now there are 7,500 of them, and they’re being taken off the Endangered Species List. “All the good news may put green lobbies in a panic,” because their agenda still calls for “draconian” regulation. But “it’s time Americans gave themselves a pat on the back” for helping to forge a “greener and cleaner Earth.”....
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Why green has gone out of fashion
For 35 years now, environmentalists have specialized in “Chicken Little scare tactics and doomsday prophesying,” said Chip Giller in The Boston Globe. But the movement reached new “depths of gloominess” when it recently announced “the death of itself.” Two prominent environmentalists, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, have published a paper, bluntly titled “The Death of Environmentalism,” declaring that environmentalists have become irrelevant. Activists are so mired in “narrow policy fixes” and bureaucratic jargon, the authors say, that they’ve stopped connecting with ordinary Americans. As a result, they’ve lost popular support in their battle with the Bush administration on issues ranging from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to mercury emissions from power plants. Last week’s Earth Day observances should have been a celebration of the movement’s many successes in bringing cleaner water and air to all Americans. But activists were too busy lamenting their new political “impotence.” The greens shouldn’t be so hard on themselves, said Sally Pipes in National Review Online. There’s a good reason most Americans are no longer moved by dire warnings about species becoming extinct or the oceans boiling over: Thanks to decades of environmental activism, the Earth is doing just fine. Ozone air pollution has fallen to its lowest level in U.S. history. Air quality in the 10 largest metropolitan areas has improved by more than 53 percent since 1980. Forests and wetlands are thriving. Our national symbol, the bald eagle, was down to only 500 nesting pairs in 1965; now there are 7,500 of them, and they’re being taken off the Endangered Species List. “All the good news may put green lobbies in a panic,” because their agenda still calls for “draconian” regulation. But “it’s time Americans gave themselves a pat on the back” for helping to forge a “greener and cleaner Earth.”....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Reports of Environmentalism's Death May Be Exaggerated
Environmentalism is in a funk these days. Not only has their favorite political party been voted out of office but there's plenty of dissention in the ranks. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus's "The Death of Environmentalism" typifies this malaise. Although actually a call by a pair of "green-diaper-babies" for greater environmental extremism, this manifesto has been taken in the press at face value. Environmentalism, as the authors say, has become "just another interest group," lobbying Congress and the bureaucracy over obscure regulatory minutia while browbeating its supporters in the hinterlands for more contributions. Some of the reasons environmentalist has lost its steam were revealed in AEI's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, released last week in its 10th anniversary edition, which was presented complete with a press conference and panel discussion. "Air pollution is at the lowest levels ever recorded," said Steve Hayward, a fellow at both AEI and the Pacific Research Institute, which co-sponsor the report. "Bald eagles, whales, ocean fishing stocks, forest and wetlands are coming back. More than 70 percent of Americans say they are happy with the environment." Reflecting the generally upbeat reports, general alarm over the continuing environmental crisis is also ebbing. "For the first time since polling began in 1984, the public puts economic growth and environmental protection almost on a par--49-44 percent in favor of the environment," reported Hayward. "As recently as 1999, people chose the environment over the economy by 70-23 percent."....
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Reports of Environmentalism's Death May Be Exaggerated
Environmentalism is in a funk these days. Not only has their favorite political party been voted out of office but there's plenty of dissention in the ranks. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus's "The Death of Environmentalism" typifies this malaise. Although actually a call by a pair of "green-diaper-babies" for greater environmental extremism, this manifesto has been taken in the press at face value. Environmentalism, as the authors say, has become "just another interest group," lobbying Congress and the bureaucracy over obscure regulatory minutia while browbeating its supporters in the hinterlands for more contributions. Some of the reasons environmentalist has lost its steam were revealed in AEI's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, released last week in its 10th anniversary edition, which was presented complete with a press conference and panel discussion. "Air pollution is at the lowest levels ever recorded," said Steve Hayward, a fellow at both AEI and the Pacific Research Institute, which co-sponsor the report. "Bald eagles, whales, ocean fishing stocks, forest and wetlands are coming back. More than 70 percent of Americans say they are happy with the environment." Reflecting the generally upbeat reports, general alarm over the continuing environmental crisis is also ebbing. "For the first time since polling began in 1984, the public puts economic growth and environmental protection almost on a par--49-44 percent in favor of the environment," reported Hayward. "As recently as 1999, people chose the environment over the economy by 70-23 percent."....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Pumping the Bizarre
The tenor of the energy debate now reaching a crescendo on Capitol Hill is increasingly bizarre. The periodic panic over “foreign-oil dependence” is back as is the unshakable faith in the magical power of taxpayer subsidies to deliver a fuel that will replace gasoline in transportation markets without bankrupting the economy. Those ideas have been aided and abetted by the ostensible party of free markets — the Republican party — whose leaders argue not whether the invisible hand ought to be banished but only the manner in which the market ought to be rigged in its absence. The hostility directed at “foreign” oil is ridiculous. The amount of oil we import has no bearing on the impact of world oil-market shocks on our economy. Even if the United States imported no oil at all (and we did not restrict trade), supply disruptions abroad would have a similar effect on our economy as if all our oil came from overseas. That’s because oil is traded in global markets: Anything that affects supply or demand anywhere affects prices everywhere. Great Britain discovered this in 1979. The North Sea crude the U.K. relied upon for all its oil consumption became just as costly as similar grades of Iranian crude when the Shah fell in 1979, an event that increased prices in energy independent and energy-dependent nations alike. Not only would energy independence not help us, removing ourselves from international energy markets in a quest for independence would make us more vulnerable to supply disruptions for two reasons. First, it’s easier for terrorists to disrupt energy production if the sources of supply are geographically concentrated rather than dispersed. Second, if a domestic disruption were to occur and a trading infrastructure were not in place, we would not be able to avail ourselves easily of supplies elsewhere. If reducing foreign-oil imports won’t protect us from supply disruptions overseas, should we reconsider our reliance on oil altogether?...
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Pumping the Bizarre
The tenor of the energy debate now reaching a crescendo on Capitol Hill is increasingly bizarre. The periodic panic over “foreign-oil dependence” is back as is the unshakable faith in the magical power of taxpayer subsidies to deliver a fuel that will replace gasoline in transportation markets without bankrupting the economy. Those ideas have been aided and abetted by the ostensible party of free markets — the Republican party — whose leaders argue not whether the invisible hand ought to be banished but only the manner in which the market ought to be rigged in its absence. The hostility directed at “foreign” oil is ridiculous. The amount of oil we import has no bearing on the impact of world oil-market shocks on our economy. Even if the United States imported no oil at all (and we did not restrict trade), supply disruptions abroad would have a similar effect on our economy as if all our oil came from overseas. That’s because oil is traded in global markets: Anything that affects supply or demand anywhere affects prices everywhere. Great Britain discovered this in 1979. The North Sea crude the U.K. relied upon for all its oil consumption became just as costly as similar grades of Iranian crude when the Shah fell in 1979, an event that increased prices in energy independent and energy-dependent nations alike. Not only would energy independence not help us, removing ourselves from international energy markets in a quest for independence would make us more vulnerable to supply disruptions for two reasons. First, it’s easier for terrorists to disrupt energy production if the sources of supply are geographically concentrated rather than dispersed. Second, if a domestic disruption were to occur and a trading infrastructure were not in place, we would not be able to avail ourselves easily of supplies elsewhere. If reducing foreign-oil imports won’t protect us from supply disruptions overseas, should we reconsider our reliance on oil altogether?...
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Environmentalism, RIP? Not So Fast
Is environmentalism dead? Yes, say environmental activists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus in a recent essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” that has sparked serious debate within the green Left. They argue that the movement is losing ground, and that it might need to abandon the drapery of environmentalism to pursue their overarching goal: “progressivism.” Environmental activism may be in transition, but the contention that the movement is losing major ground is belied by its ongoing impact on American life—an impact on both our pocketbooks and our personal freedom. Indeed, Americans who value freedom over the “progressive” nanny state should be very concerned about the scope and power of the environmental progressives today. Shellenberger and Nordhaus are surprisingly forthcoming. They and many other activists are unhappy because they don’t measure success based on whether the air and water are getting cleaner (which they clearly are), but on whether the movement has passed any new, major laws that increase their power. As the authors bluntly note, they evaluate their policy successes “not only for whether they will get us the environmental protections we need but also whether they will define the debate, divide our opponents, and build our political power over time.” And they want that political power to lord over the rest of us. As Shellenberger and Nordhaus plainly state, the greens want to pass a global warming law to “remake the global economy in ways that will transform the lives of six billion people,” which they admit is an “undertaking of monumental size and complexity.”....
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Environmentalism, RIP? Not So Fast
Is environmentalism dead? Yes, say environmental activists Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus in a recent essay, “The Death of Environmentalism,” that has sparked serious debate within the green Left. They argue that the movement is losing ground, and that it might need to abandon the drapery of environmentalism to pursue their overarching goal: “progressivism.” Environmental activism may be in transition, but the contention that the movement is losing major ground is belied by its ongoing impact on American life—an impact on both our pocketbooks and our personal freedom. Indeed, Americans who value freedom over the “progressive” nanny state should be very concerned about the scope and power of the environmental progressives today. Shellenberger and Nordhaus are surprisingly forthcoming. They and many other activists are unhappy because they don’t measure success based on whether the air and water are getting cleaner (which they clearly are), but on whether the movement has passed any new, major laws that increase their power. As the authors bluntly note, they evaluate their policy successes “not only for whether they will get us the environmental protections we need but also whether they will define the debate, divide our opponents, and build our political power over time.” And they want that political power to lord over the rest of us. As Shellenberger and Nordhaus plainly state, the greens want to pass a global warming law to “remake the global economy in ways that will transform the lives of six billion people,” which they admit is an “undertaking of monumental size and complexity.”....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
Ecoterrorist Will Spend Seven Years in Federal Prison
A federal judge ruled on April 18 that 24-year-old William Jensen Cottrell should serve more than seven years in federal prison and pay more than $3.5 million in restitution for an August 2003 firebombing spree that damaged or destroyed some 125 sport utility vehicles at dealerships and homes outside Los Angeles. Cottrell will be required to serve at least 85 percent of the eight-year, four-month sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner. Cottrell was convicted in November 2004 of seven counts of arson and one of conspiracy. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, using a destructive device in a crime of violence, which would have carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison. Cottrell, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, and two former Caltech students threw Molotov cocktails at Hummers and other SUVs after spray-painting them with such slogans as "Fat, Lazy Americans" and "ELF," for the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front. Cottrell said at trial that he was a member of ELF, and the group claimed responsibility for the firebomings. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Cottrell's co-conspirators, Tyler Johnson and his girlfriend, Michie Oe, who are believed to have fled the country. "Acts of ecoterrorism have been on the rise over the past four years," commented Sandy Liddy Bourne, director of legislation and policy for the American Legislative Exchange Council, "causing millions of dollars in damage to private property and research facilities. It is heartening to see a conviction with a stiff sentence that will send a message to radical environmental activists and animal rights zealots. They consider violence a means to advance a political agenda, but that will not be tolerated in the United States."....
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Ecoterrorist Will Spend Seven Years in Federal Prison
A federal judge ruled on April 18 that 24-year-old William Jensen Cottrell should serve more than seven years in federal prison and pay more than $3.5 million in restitution for an August 2003 firebombing spree that damaged or destroyed some 125 sport utility vehicles at dealerships and homes outside Los Angeles. Cottrell will be required to serve at least 85 percent of the eight-year, four-month sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner. Cottrell was convicted in November 2004 of seven counts of arson and one of conspiracy. He was acquitted of the most serious charge, using a destructive device in a crime of violence, which would have carried a sentence of at least 30 years in prison. Cottrell, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, and two former Caltech students threw Molotov cocktails at Hummers and other SUVs after spray-painting them with such slogans as "Fat, Lazy Americans" and "ELF," for the environmental terrorist group Earth Liberation Front. Cottrell said at trial that he was a member of ELF, and the group claimed responsibility for the firebomings. Warrants have been issued for the arrest of Cottrell's co-conspirators, Tyler Johnson and his girlfriend, Michie Oe, who are believed to have fled the country. "Acts of ecoterrorism have been on the rise over the past four years," commented Sandy Liddy Bourne, director of legislation and policy for the American Legislative Exchange Council, "causing millions of dollars in damage to private property and research facilities. It is heartening to see a conviction with a stiff sentence that will send a message to radical environmental activists and animal rights zealots. They consider violence a means to advance a political agenda, but that will not be tolerated in the United States."....
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OPINION/COMMENTARY
States Battle EPA over Clean Air Designations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has erroneously designated several regions across the country as out of compliance with federal standards for soot and particulate matter, according to government officials in several states. While some of their objections have convinced EPA to reconsider nonattainment designations, others are likely to be decided in federal court. New, more stringent federal standards regarding airborne particulate matter (PM) and soot are being implemented across the country. In December 2004 EPA provided notice that 225 counties in 20 states had failed to meet the new standards. Those counties must submit to EPA a compliance implementation plan by 2008 and meet the new standards by 2010. Counties that fail to meet the mandates will lose federal transportation money. The compliance implementation mandates are expected to take a heavy economic toll on regions currently not in compliance with the new standards. Industry is unlikely to establish operations in a region where new and costly soot abatement programs are necessary, especially when other regions of the state and country do not impose such costly mandates. "When you're out there trying to get businesses and industry to come to your community, and to have a black cloud hanging unfairly, that's a big hit," explained Vince Griffin, vice president of environmental and energy policy for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, in the March 8 Indianapolis Star. "A lot of counties will not even get up to bat." Local officials frequently assert EPA's reading stations are placed in unfair locations unrepresentative of regional air quality. Officials also argue EPA misidentifies the offending region by failing to hold upwind counties responsible for particulate matter that drifts into other counties and regions. Moreover, "Some (pollution) forms after a chemical reaction, so you could see emissions from one county impacting another county," EPA air expert Jim Mooney told the Star....
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States Battle EPA over Clean Air Designations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has erroneously designated several regions across the country as out of compliance with federal standards for soot and particulate matter, according to government officials in several states. While some of their objections have convinced EPA to reconsider nonattainment designations, others are likely to be decided in federal court. New, more stringent federal standards regarding airborne particulate matter (PM) and soot are being implemented across the country. In December 2004 EPA provided notice that 225 counties in 20 states had failed to meet the new standards. Those counties must submit to EPA a compliance implementation plan by 2008 and meet the new standards by 2010. Counties that fail to meet the mandates will lose federal transportation money. The compliance implementation mandates are expected to take a heavy economic toll on regions currently not in compliance with the new standards. Industry is unlikely to establish operations in a region where new and costly soot abatement programs are necessary, especially when other regions of the state and country do not impose such costly mandates. "When you're out there trying to get businesses and industry to come to your community, and to have a black cloud hanging unfairly, that's a big hit," explained Vince Griffin, vice president of environmental and energy policy for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, in the March 8 Indianapolis Star. "A lot of counties will not even get up to bat." Local officials frequently assert EPA's reading stations are placed in unfair locations unrepresentative of regional air quality. Officials also argue EPA misidentifies the offending region by failing to hold upwind counties responsible for particulate matter that drifts into other counties and regions. Moreover, "Some (pollution) forms after a chemical reaction, so you could see emissions from one county impacting another county," EPA air expert Jim Mooney told the Star....
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Saturday, May 07, 2005
Western Caucus Applauds Chairman Taylor’s Efforts to Decrease Federal Land Acquisition
Washington, D.C. – Members of the Congressional Western Caucus reacted positively to news from the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee that federal land acquisition funds would be reduced in the FY 2006 Interior Appropriations bill to $43 million – a reduction of $212 million.
For the fifth year in a row, the subcommittee has proposed decreasing funds allocated for federal land acquisition while increasing funding for the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) program. The subcommittee also calls for a $30 million increase for PILT from the President’s FY 2006 proposed budget. The decrease in land acquisitions closely mirrors the request made in a letter to the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies earlier in the week by the Western Caucus.
Rep. Chris Cannon (UT-03), Chairman of the Western Caucus, said, “While many of the facilities in our national parks and on public lands have millions of dollars in maintenance backlogs, we’ve continued to add land to the national portfolio. This is ludicrous. Before we continue to purchase additional land, I want to make sure all 1,900 counties throughout the nation adequately receive PILT funding for the federal land already in their jurisdiction. I commend Chairman Taylor for opposing additional funding for federal land acquisition.”....
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Washington, D.C. – Members of the Congressional Western Caucus reacted positively to news from the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee that federal land acquisition funds would be reduced in the FY 2006 Interior Appropriations bill to $43 million – a reduction of $212 million.
For the fifth year in a row, the subcommittee has proposed decreasing funds allocated for federal land acquisition while increasing funding for the Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) program. The subcommittee also calls for a $30 million increase for PILT from the President’s FY 2006 proposed budget. The decrease in land acquisitions closely mirrors the request made in a letter to the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies earlier in the week by the Western Caucus.
Rep. Chris Cannon (UT-03), Chairman of the Western Caucus, said, “While many of the facilities in our national parks and on public lands have millions of dollars in maintenance backlogs, we’ve continued to add land to the national portfolio. This is ludicrous. Before we continue to purchase additional land, I want to make sure all 1,900 counties throughout the nation adequately receive PILT funding for the federal land already in their jurisdiction. I commend Chairman Taylor for opposing additional funding for federal land acquisition.”....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Ranchers howl in protest of wolf management plan Jean Stetson already has felt the rake of a wolf’s claws, and the predator officially isn’t even in Colorado. Stetson, a third-generation rancher from Craig, was one of four livestock producers on the 13-person Wolf Management Working Group that painstakingly hammered out a wolf management plan adopted unanimously Thursday by the Colorado Wildlife Commission. The panel was composed of ranchers, sportsmen and conservation groups, and Stetson said the group’s decision to allow migrating wolves to come into the state brought howls of protest from the ranching community, some of whom clawed at Stetson and accused her of selling out by signing off on the group decision. The state plan allows wolves to migrate into Colorado without being harassed. However, once a wolf gets into trouble, including killing livestock, a quick response is urged. That might not be possible, ranchers fear, in the light of an Oregon judge’s recent decision to return the wolves to endangered status....
Gray-wolf releases could be postponed Wildlife officials want to hold off on Mexican gray-wolf introductions in eastern Arizona for a year, drawing criticism that the plan panders to ranchers. "They've bent over backwards to accommodate these ranchers, who are ranching on public land," said Sandy Bahr, conservation director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club. Wildlife officials don't deny that the moratorium was proposed to answer ranchers' complaints. But they said the one-year break would buy them valuable time to get a clearer count of how many wolves are in the wild, complete a recovery plan for the next five years and determine which practices are best for relocating wolves, among other things. State and federal wildlife officials estimate the current population at 45 to 50. Ranchers paint a different picture, saying there could be as many as 100 wolves between the two states. Their concerns about the wolf program got a receptive ear with U.S. Rep. Stevan Pearce, R-N.M.,who convened a special meeting between ranchers and wildlife officials that resulted in the moratorium proposal. The plan is open for public comment until May 31. A decision is due June 17....
Livestock-killing wolf pack being dissuaded with rubber bullets A wildlife team has been using rubber bullets to drive away a pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves from livestock in the Gila National Forest. The pack - an adult female, male and a yearling - killed two cows, one confirmed Thursday and the other confirmed April 29, said Vicki Fox, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. The interagency field team has been monitoring and tracking the Francisco pack and will make future decisions about the pack based on what the wolves do, she said. Meanwhile, the Aspen pack - an adult male and female along with three pups - was captured after the animals bit a calf and a dog in Arizona, Fox said....
Editorial: Local control of national forests could harm pristine areas Roadless areas in national forests have been kept off-limits to oil and gas drilling, logging and mining because these largely pristine areas are among the last bastions of wildness in this country. President Bush's order to end federal protection of these areas wrongly takes their management out of the hands of far-sighted federal agencies and gives it to governors, most of them in the West, who are much more open to pressure from potential campaign donors and local industries looking to make a fast buck. The fate of Utah's 4 million acres of remaining roadless forests - some of the most important for water quality, recreation and wildlife habitat - will be left largely in the hands of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., whose overriding concern is economic development....
Brush burn scaled back to protect sage grouse Under fire from state wildlife biologists, the Forest Service agreed Friday to dramatically scale back plans to conduct a prescribed burn this month on northern Nevada rangeland that is home to the sage grouse. The agency still hopes to set fire to about 300 acres of the 2,000-acre project area about 40 miles northeast of Winnemucca if unusually wet weather subsides in the coming weeks, said Bob Vaught, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Biologists for the Nevada Division of Wildlife will accompany Forest Service officials on a visit to the area near the Santa Rosa Mountains to help identify which 300 acres can be burned without threatening any grouse or their nests, Vaught said....
Sheep ranch to become conservation bank for endangered shrimp A sheep ranch is set to become Solano County's first conservation bank for endangered species such as fairy shrimp and tadpole shrimp that live in vernal pools. The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service announced yesterday the creation of the conservation bank on Campbell Ranch. A growing number of landowners are converting their land to conservation banks to protect their property while allowing development to go forward elsewhere....
Judges resign from FREE board Three federal judges have resigned from a Bozeman think tank's board of directors following allegations that their involvement with the group was unethical. Judge Andre Davis of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Baltimore resigned last month from the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment's board of directors. FREE is a libertarian-leaning group that advocates free-market approaches to environmental protection. The resignation came on the heels of ethics complaints filed last year against four judges who sit on FREE's board. The complaints were filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Community Rights Council. In addition, Douglas Ginsburg, chief judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and Judge Jane Roth of the 3rd Circuit Court in Philadelphia resigned from FREE's board Friday. The complaint against FREE board member Danny J. Boggs, chief judge of the 6th Circuit Court in Kentucky, is still pending. CRC alleged last year that corporate interests were trying to influence judges who had environmental lawsuits pending in their courts....
Strange bedfellows unite against Nevada water pipeline Rural Republicans, urban Democrats, ranchers and environmentalists have found something they agree on in northern Nevada: They don't want to give their water to Las Vegas. "It's unanimous," said Bill Kohlmoos, a former Ely rancher. He was among about a 100 people who turned out at a federal public hearing Thursday night to oppose a proposed pipeline to tap groundwater in rural northeast Nevada to meet future growth in southern Nevada. As in previous hearings hosted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, speaker after speaker lashed out against the $2 billion plan to build a network of 345 miles of pipeline across federal land....
Calif. shepherds are without basic amenities Most of California's shepherds are legal migrant workers from Peru, Chile and Mongolia. The few dozen immigrants roam the state's grasslands, deserts and foothills during grazing season. In 2001, lawmakers boosted monthly wages and required that living quarters include toilets, heating, drinking water, regular mail service, transportation to the nearest town and access to a telephone or radio for emergencies. Ranchers such as Dominique Minaberrigarai said California's mandated wage increase, from $900 to $1,200 a month, has hurt an industry that already was facing competition from synthetic fibers and the entry of China and other countries into the wool market....
Northwest has higher risk of mad cow exposure There is still a risk, though slight, of mad cow disease in the United States, and it is greatest in the three Northwestern states bordering Canada, according to Agriculture Department investigators. The investigators, after tracing the history of the four cows with the disease in North America, said the U.S. has minimized the risk by banning cattle remains in feed, the primary way mad cow disease is believed to spread. Three infected Canadian cows, including one from Alberta that turned up in the United States, probably ate feed contaminated with the same infected remains, and a fourth may have as well, investigators said. In its report, the team said the northwestern United States, particularly Washington, Idaho and Montana, could be considered at higher risk of exposure to BSE because it imported a substantial amount of cattle from western Canada along with a small amount of high-risk meat and bone meal. However, they said the feed ban and other measures "have effectively minimized the risk of transmission or amplification of the BSE agent."....
S. Dakota Is Bullish on Idea Of Carving Luxury Beef Niche South Dakota is trying to give this story a happier ending. This spring the legislature passed and the governor signed a first-in-the-nation law that catapults the state into the luxury beef business. The goal is to reinvent South Dakota beef as a gourmet foodstuff for upscale, socially conscious meat lovers. In effect, the state intends to drive a steak -- a homegrown, environmentally correct, premium-priced steak -- through the heart of its demographic decline. If all goes according to plan, increased profits from the steaks will stay home on the farm -- and so will more of the kids. In return, South Dakota is promising something that, so far, at least, no other cow-raising state is willing to match. Enlisting its police and administrative authority, the state guarantees consumers who buy South Dakota Certified Beef that they will be partaking of a computer-tracked cow that was born, fed and butchered inside state borders, using exacting standards of nutrition, with a humane upbringing and walled off from all possible contact with mad cow disease. After a consumer takes home the beef, he or she can use the Internet to find a photograph of the South Dakota family ranch where it came from. And if a rancher or a butcher cheats in caring for cows under the new rules, the state is ready and willing to charge him with a felony and send him to prison for two years....
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Ranchers howl in protest of wolf management plan Jean Stetson already has felt the rake of a wolf’s claws, and the predator officially isn’t even in Colorado. Stetson, a third-generation rancher from Craig, was one of four livestock producers on the 13-person Wolf Management Working Group that painstakingly hammered out a wolf management plan adopted unanimously Thursday by the Colorado Wildlife Commission. The panel was composed of ranchers, sportsmen and conservation groups, and Stetson said the group’s decision to allow migrating wolves to come into the state brought howls of protest from the ranching community, some of whom clawed at Stetson and accused her of selling out by signing off on the group decision. The state plan allows wolves to migrate into Colorado without being harassed. However, once a wolf gets into trouble, including killing livestock, a quick response is urged. That might not be possible, ranchers fear, in the light of an Oregon judge’s recent decision to return the wolves to endangered status....
Gray-wolf releases could be postponed Wildlife officials want to hold off on Mexican gray-wolf introductions in eastern Arizona for a year, drawing criticism that the plan panders to ranchers. "They've bent over backwards to accommodate these ranchers, who are ranching on public land," said Sandy Bahr, conservation director of the Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club. Wildlife officials don't deny that the moratorium was proposed to answer ranchers' complaints. But they said the one-year break would buy them valuable time to get a clearer count of how many wolves are in the wild, complete a recovery plan for the next five years and determine which practices are best for relocating wolves, among other things. State and federal wildlife officials estimate the current population at 45 to 50. Ranchers paint a different picture, saying there could be as many as 100 wolves between the two states. Their concerns about the wolf program got a receptive ear with U.S. Rep. Stevan Pearce, R-N.M.,who convened a special meeting between ranchers and wildlife officials that resulted in the moratorium proposal. The plan is open for public comment until May 31. A decision is due June 17....
Livestock-killing wolf pack being dissuaded with rubber bullets A wildlife team has been using rubber bullets to drive away a pack of endangered Mexican gray wolves from livestock in the Gila National Forest. The pack - an adult female, male and a yearling - killed two cows, one confirmed Thursday and the other confirmed April 29, said Vicki Fox, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. The interagency field team has been monitoring and tracking the Francisco pack and will make future decisions about the pack based on what the wolves do, she said. Meanwhile, the Aspen pack - an adult male and female along with three pups - was captured after the animals bit a calf and a dog in Arizona, Fox said....
Editorial: Local control of national forests could harm pristine areas Roadless areas in national forests have been kept off-limits to oil and gas drilling, logging and mining because these largely pristine areas are among the last bastions of wildness in this country. President Bush's order to end federal protection of these areas wrongly takes their management out of the hands of far-sighted federal agencies and gives it to governors, most of them in the West, who are much more open to pressure from potential campaign donors and local industries looking to make a fast buck. The fate of Utah's 4 million acres of remaining roadless forests - some of the most important for water quality, recreation and wildlife habitat - will be left largely in the hands of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., whose overriding concern is economic development....
Brush burn scaled back to protect sage grouse Under fire from state wildlife biologists, the Forest Service agreed Friday to dramatically scale back plans to conduct a prescribed burn this month on northern Nevada rangeland that is home to the sage grouse. The agency still hopes to set fire to about 300 acres of the 2,000-acre project area about 40 miles northeast of Winnemucca if unusually wet weather subsides in the coming weeks, said Bob Vaught, supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Biologists for the Nevada Division of Wildlife will accompany Forest Service officials on a visit to the area near the Santa Rosa Mountains to help identify which 300 acres can be burned without threatening any grouse or their nests, Vaught said....
Sheep ranch to become conservation bank for endangered shrimp A sheep ranch is set to become Solano County's first conservation bank for endangered species such as fairy shrimp and tadpole shrimp that live in vernal pools. The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service announced yesterday the creation of the conservation bank on Campbell Ranch. A growing number of landowners are converting their land to conservation banks to protect their property while allowing development to go forward elsewhere....
Judges resign from FREE board Three federal judges have resigned from a Bozeman think tank's board of directors following allegations that their involvement with the group was unethical. Judge Andre Davis of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Baltimore resigned last month from the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment's board of directors. FREE is a libertarian-leaning group that advocates free-market approaches to environmental protection. The resignation came on the heels of ethics complaints filed last year against four judges who sit on FREE's board. The complaints were filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Community Rights Council. In addition, Douglas Ginsburg, chief judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and Judge Jane Roth of the 3rd Circuit Court in Philadelphia resigned from FREE's board Friday. The complaint against FREE board member Danny J. Boggs, chief judge of the 6th Circuit Court in Kentucky, is still pending. CRC alleged last year that corporate interests were trying to influence judges who had environmental lawsuits pending in their courts....
Strange bedfellows unite against Nevada water pipeline Rural Republicans, urban Democrats, ranchers and environmentalists have found something they agree on in northern Nevada: They don't want to give their water to Las Vegas. "It's unanimous," said Bill Kohlmoos, a former Ely rancher. He was among about a 100 people who turned out at a federal public hearing Thursday night to oppose a proposed pipeline to tap groundwater in rural northeast Nevada to meet future growth in southern Nevada. As in previous hearings hosted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, speaker after speaker lashed out against the $2 billion plan to build a network of 345 miles of pipeline across federal land....
Calif. shepherds are without basic amenities Most of California's shepherds are legal migrant workers from Peru, Chile and Mongolia. The few dozen immigrants roam the state's grasslands, deserts and foothills during grazing season. In 2001, lawmakers boosted monthly wages and required that living quarters include toilets, heating, drinking water, regular mail service, transportation to the nearest town and access to a telephone or radio for emergencies. Ranchers such as Dominique Minaberrigarai said California's mandated wage increase, from $900 to $1,200 a month, has hurt an industry that already was facing competition from synthetic fibers and the entry of China and other countries into the wool market....
Northwest has higher risk of mad cow exposure There is still a risk, though slight, of mad cow disease in the United States, and it is greatest in the three Northwestern states bordering Canada, according to Agriculture Department investigators. The investigators, after tracing the history of the four cows with the disease in North America, said the U.S. has minimized the risk by banning cattle remains in feed, the primary way mad cow disease is believed to spread. Three infected Canadian cows, including one from Alberta that turned up in the United States, probably ate feed contaminated with the same infected remains, and a fourth may have as well, investigators said. In its report, the team said the northwestern United States, particularly Washington, Idaho and Montana, could be considered at higher risk of exposure to BSE because it imported a substantial amount of cattle from western Canada along with a small amount of high-risk meat and bone meal. However, they said the feed ban and other measures "have effectively minimized the risk of transmission or amplification of the BSE agent."....
S. Dakota Is Bullish on Idea Of Carving Luxury Beef Niche South Dakota is trying to give this story a happier ending. This spring the legislature passed and the governor signed a first-in-the-nation law that catapults the state into the luxury beef business. The goal is to reinvent South Dakota beef as a gourmet foodstuff for upscale, socially conscious meat lovers. In effect, the state intends to drive a steak -- a homegrown, environmentally correct, premium-priced steak -- through the heart of its demographic decline. If all goes according to plan, increased profits from the steaks will stay home on the farm -- and so will more of the kids. In return, South Dakota is promising something that, so far, at least, no other cow-raising state is willing to match. Enlisting its police and administrative authority, the state guarantees consumers who buy South Dakota Certified Beef that they will be partaking of a computer-tracked cow that was born, fed and butchered inside state borders, using exacting standards of nutrition, with a humane upbringing and walled off from all possible contact with mad cow disease. After a consumer takes home the beef, he or she can use the Internet to find a photograph of the South Dakota family ranch where it came from. And if a rancher or a butcher cheats in caring for cows under the new rules, the state is ready and willing to charge him with a felony and send him to prison for two years....
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Friday, May 06, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Governors' input allowed on roadless areas New guidelines for managing the nation's public forests received wildly mixed reviews Thursday, with industry cheering and conservationists preparing for a fight. The Bush administration's rule, which pulls states into the controversy regarding roadless lands, "represents a better way," said U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey. Rey met with reporters in a Thursday morning teleconference, saying the battle over how best to manage roadless lands dates back some four decades. Several administrations have tackled the issue, he said, trying to determine how to handle lands that have not yet been roaded, logged, mined or drilled, but also have not yet been protected with wilderness designations. Nationwide, he said, some 58 million roadless acres are in administrative limbo, with 97 percent of that land in 12 Western states. The new rule, crafted by the Bush administration and announced by Rey on Thursday, rolled back roadless protections, replacing the Clinton rule with a process allowing individual governors to help design state-specific roadless plans. States have 18 months to petition the federal government with a roadless proposal. If a governor does not make a petition to be involved, the chore will fall to the Forest Service. The new rule also creates "advisory committees," Rey said, to help produce the state-specific management plans....
Labor Unions Support Bush Administration's Final Roadless Rule "The unions of the Forest Products Industry National Labor Management Committee and our 500,000 members applaud the Bush Administration's decision to finalize the so-called Roadless Rule. The previous Rule was an unworkable policy that would have done more harm than good to our national forests. "As announced earlier today, the new Rule returns the decisions that will guide management of the forests to the local level -- to the people who live near the land and know it, and its needs, the best. This is best done through local community involvement in the development of individual forest plans and the new rule will ensure this principle."....
Wolves kill three bear hounds in northern Idaho Wolves from a north Idaho pack have killed three bear hounds in the latest clash between hunters in this rural state and four-legged predators reintroduced into Idaho in the mid 1990s. The number of wolves in the state is expected to exceed 450 with this year's litter of new pups. Travis Reggear, a professional hunter in Orofino, Idaho, said he and nine Walker hounds were with clients Tuesday on the third day of the black bear season north of the Dworshak Reservoir. All nine dogs set off after a bear but only six re-emerged from a steep, heavily wooded slope on land managed by the Idaho Department of Lands, Reggear said Wednesday. Reggear, who said he never saw the wolves, wants federal and state officials to either relocate the wolves or kill them. He believes members of the Chesimia pack killed three of his dogs earlier this year as they were used by another Reggear Outfitters employee to pursue mountain lion in the same area. Disputes over wolves have galvanized ranchers and hunters across Idaho -- and across the West. The battle is often framed as a fight over property rights....
Wildlife panel OKs wolf return The Colorado Wildlife Commission on Thursday set a course toward reconciliation with an old enemy: the wolf. The Wildlife Commission, which sets policy for the state Division of Wildlife, agreed to accept the return of the migrating predators from Yellowstone National Park and to formalize a plan to manage the state's first packs. The vote on the policy, set forth in a report by the Wolf Working Group, a panel of sportsmen, ranchers and conservation groups, was unanimous....
Silver State, feds fight over burning sage grouse habitat State wildlife officials denounced federal land managers’ plans Thursday to burn as much as 2,000 acres of sagebrush-covered rangeland in Northern Nevada that is home to the troubled sage grouse. Nevada Division of Wildlife officials urged U.S. Forest Service officials to postpone plans to set the fires 40 miles northeast of Winnemucca, saying the prescribed burn could harm populations of the dwindling game bird during prime nesting season. “We’re not opposed to prescribed burns, but they should be done in the late winter or early spring, not when birds are on their nests,” Wildlife Division spokesman Chris Healy said Thursday. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists in Nevada share the state’s concerns about the timing of the project, said Jody Brown, the agency’s deputy field director. Most of the area to be burned is in Humboldt County near the Santa Rosa mountains and is high quality sagebrush habitat — much of it favorable to nesting and brood rearing, Healy said. Forest Service officials insist they’ll take care not to burn the birds or their nests and that the fires will improve grouse habitat over time....
FS considers privatizing work of informing public The jobs of Forest Service employees who give information to the public are being scrutinized to see whether they might be better handled by private public relations firms. The evaluation is part of a process that the Bush administration says could "increase the cost-effectiveness of Forest Service work," according to agency memos. But a national government employee watchdog group - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibil-ity - said this is a ploy to manipulate information. "Civil servants are under a legal obligation to tell the public the truth while PR firms specialize in shading it. Outsourcing the public information function risks putting a premium on spin at the expense of candor," said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. Ruch said the plan calls for surveying 700 of the agency's informational positions, with an eye on putting 100 of those jobs out to bid at private public relations firms. The Forest Service would make decisions this fall, and contractors could be in place by January. He said hundreds of other Forest Service positions may be subject to similar privatization in 2006....
Federal land agencies plan to restrict off-road vehicles in West For decades, off-road vehicle enthusiasts have been mostly free to roam federal forests and rangelands at will. But their freewheeling days could be numbered. In a move expected to generate controversy, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are developing plans to restrict the vehicles to designated routes and areas. Federal officials say the proposal is essential to curb environmental damage and ease conflict among users of public lands. Nationally, they cite a sevenfold increase from 1972 to 2000 in the number of off-roaders to 36 million....
BLM orders railroad to halt flood repairs The Bureau of Land Management has ordered Union Pacific Railroad to stop repairs to flood-damaged tracks near the Meadow Valley Wash because construction might threaten wilderness and archaeological sites. The track repair work began after a series of severe winter storms caused flooding earlier this year to portions of Lincoln and Clark counties. The BLM has launched a preliminary investigation into whether the railroad violated the Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, all federal laws designed to protect sensitive habitats, species and ancient sites of early humans, said BLM spokesman Chris Hanefeld. Biologists, archaeologists and law enforcement officers were in the remote wash on Monday as part of the investigation, Hanefeld said....
Coalition seeks action against rancher A coalition of environmental groups is pressuring federal authorities to crack down on an eastern Arizona rancher who has failed to pay his grazing fees and maintain the grazing land he has leased from the U.S. government. The groups say that rancher Abelardo Martinez has ignored an August order from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests to remove his cattle from Forest Service land. Martinez was given 30 days to remove the livestock, but he has not done so, nor have forest officials carried through on their threats to impound the cattle, the groups state. This week, the groups gave the required 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as Martinez and his son, Dan, who also grazes cattle on forest land....
Environmental sirens in Delta are screaming The Delta's open-water fish populations are mysteriously collapsing in a crisis that threatens to unravel the food web of the West Coast's largest estuary. Delta smelt, already a threatened species, fell last fall to the lowest level ever measured. Same with young striped bass, according to the results of annual surveys by the California Department of Fish and Game. And the key food source for small fish in the Delta, tiny organisms called copepods, are plummeting as well, with numbers of a key species falling to extremely low levels. The rapid, multispecies decline could trigger measures that might affect water quality and supply from Contra Costa County to Southern California. Scientists say information in a number of different surveys of the Delta and Suisun Marsh revealed an ongoing, sweeping population crash that could not be explained by drought or any other easily identifiable cause....
Bush plan to tap Nevada land sales money resurfaces in Congress A Bush administration plan to divert federal land sale profits out of Nevada has resurfaced in Congress. "We still think it's a fair proposal," said John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee. The panel on Wednesday directed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to report how the government has spent money from lucrative land sales conducted under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998. President Bush in February asked Congress to change the law requiring all land sale revenues to be spent in Nevada. The administration proposal would instead funnel 70 percent of profits to the U.S. Treasury, leaving Nevada with 30 percent....
Sparse support shown in Las Vegas for big water pipeline plan Just one of more than 100 people raised a hand at a public meeting to show support for a plan to build a $2 billion pipeline to supply water from rural counties to southern Nevada. Others providing public comment Wednesday said that before building the pipeline to White Pine County, the Southern Nevada Water Authority should consider controlling growth, increasing water conservation and making deals to get more water from the Colorado River or by desalinating Pacific Ocean water. Jerald Anderson worried that pumping underground water and piping it 240 miles south to Clark County could wipe out wildlife and family owned ranches and farms....
Soaking up knowledge More than 500 fourth-grade students from every elementary school in Carlsbad are learning all about water at the first Children’s Water Festival. The children gathered Thursday for the start of the two-day event at the Pecos River Village Conference Center, where they learned about water agreements, erosion, conservation, water safety testing, run off and much more. The event was sponsored by the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts, said Amber Hughes, who wrote a grant to the federal Bureau of Reclamation to fund the event. “Students will negotiate water-sharing agreements and purify water from the Pecos River,” she said. “They’ll look for ‘bugs’ in the water to determine its purity, create a mini-river and use a groundwater model to ‘see’ how water moves underground.”....
Column: Jagged Little Drill When the energy bill sailed through the House of Representatives late last month, the media reported that it was the same old grotesquely corpulent package that the GOP leadership had previously tried -- and failed -- to pass through Congress four times in the last four years. This is true. But what flew under the radar were a few new provisions snuck in at the 11th hour by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Resources Committee, which have made the bill even more environmentally threatening than previous versions, many Democrats and environmentalists say. The environmental statute Pombo is targeting this time: the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, long considered a cornerstone of U.S. environmental law. A Pombo-backed amendment sponsored by Rep. John Peterson (R-Penn.) and added to the bill the day before markup would allow energy companies to skirt NEPA requirements in a number of situations, with the aim of speeding energy development on federal land. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, told Muckraker it would grant the energy industry "carte blanche to conduct drilling and exploration activities on public lands without any kind of meaningful environmental review, and remove the legal grounds for scientists, communities, and local governments to intercede. It is an affront to the American people."....
State mineral rights bill likely to pass Environmentalists say they'll fight a bill that passed in the U.S. House on Thursday and is expected to pass the Senate next week, a measure they fear will open the Gulf Islands National Seashore to oil and gas exploration and drilling. U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., introduced an amendment to a defense and tsunami-relief spending bill that he said clarifies Mississippi's rights to any oil and gas underneath the federal Gulf Islands National Seashore, or Barrier Islands. State leaders pushing to explore and tap the state's offshore oil and gas reserves said Mississippi already had these rights, and asked Cochran to help intervene to prevent any litigation with the National Park Service, which questioned the state's rights to test and drill. Cochran's provision says the state retains the mineral rights to the islands it deeded to the federal park system in the early 1970s, and has the right to perform seismic testing in and around the islands and to extract minerals through "directional drilling," as long as it's done from outside the one-mile protective barrier around the islands....
Will wood help fill US energy needs? Forget corn processing. Don't wait for switch grass. The real key to producing enough ethanol for America's cars and trucks this century is wood. That's the contention of researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY). By revamping the way paper is made, they've found an economical way to extract important energy-rich sugars from the trees and then convert these sugars into ethanol, a gasoline additive, and other useful chemicals. It's a process the researchers call a biorefinery. Installed at the nation's paper mills, biorefineries could produce 2.4 billion gallons of ethanol a year, they estimate, or 80 percent of the nation's projected need this year....
Growers say it with organic flowers To many Americans, Mother's Day means three things: brunch, a card and flowers. But few doting sons and daughters realize that producing those pretty posies is one of the most pesticide- and poison-intensive agricultural endeavors on the planet. Organic flowers don't look or smell any different from non-organic flowers. And there's no good evidence that they're any healthier for the lucky recipient. But they are better for the environment, and especially for the tens of thousands of workers, most of them young women, who work in floral greenhouses in Central and South America, says Martha Olson Jarocki of the Pesticide Action Network. "Flowers are such a high-value crop that it takes a huge amount of pesticides to make them perfect," she says. That includes dousing them with insecticides, fungicides and growth regulators, Jarocki says, and fumigation with toxic methyl bromide....damn, we can't even celebrate Mother's Day without engendering environmental wrath....
'Dean of bootmakers' passes away at 93 A couple of years ago, Schuyler Jones overheard a disgruntled elderly rancher trying to buy boots at a western store. "He had a pile of boots three feet deep lying in front of him, and nothing he tried would fit, according to him," Jones said. "He started swearing and complaining. I was several yards away and heard him say, 'I haven't had a decent pair of books since Carl McDowell retired!' " Such was the reputation of Wichitan Carl McDowell, known as one of the finest bootmakers in the nation and nicknamed "the dean of Kansas bootmakers" by loyal customers, who sought out his hand-shaped soft-leather boots for decades. Mr. McDowell died Saturday at 93. Among his loyal customers were top military and political celebrities. "My father designed a battle boot that (Gen. George) Patton always ordered from us -- and Carl made those. He also made a pair of riding boots for Eleanor Roosevelt," Jones said....
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Governors' input allowed on roadless areas New guidelines for managing the nation's public forests received wildly mixed reviews Thursday, with industry cheering and conservationists preparing for a fight. The Bush administration's rule, which pulls states into the controversy regarding roadless lands, "represents a better way," said U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey. Rey met with reporters in a Thursday morning teleconference, saying the battle over how best to manage roadless lands dates back some four decades. Several administrations have tackled the issue, he said, trying to determine how to handle lands that have not yet been roaded, logged, mined or drilled, but also have not yet been protected with wilderness designations. Nationwide, he said, some 58 million roadless acres are in administrative limbo, with 97 percent of that land in 12 Western states. The new rule, crafted by the Bush administration and announced by Rey on Thursday, rolled back roadless protections, replacing the Clinton rule with a process allowing individual governors to help design state-specific roadless plans. States have 18 months to petition the federal government with a roadless proposal. If a governor does not make a petition to be involved, the chore will fall to the Forest Service. The new rule also creates "advisory committees," Rey said, to help produce the state-specific management plans....
Labor Unions Support Bush Administration's Final Roadless Rule "The unions of the Forest Products Industry National Labor Management Committee and our 500,000 members applaud the Bush Administration's decision to finalize the so-called Roadless Rule. The previous Rule was an unworkable policy that would have done more harm than good to our national forests. "As announced earlier today, the new Rule returns the decisions that will guide management of the forests to the local level -- to the people who live near the land and know it, and its needs, the best. This is best done through local community involvement in the development of individual forest plans and the new rule will ensure this principle."....
Wolves kill three bear hounds in northern Idaho Wolves from a north Idaho pack have killed three bear hounds in the latest clash between hunters in this rural state and four-legged predators reintroduced into Idaho in the mid 1990s. The number of wolves in the state is expected to exceed 450 with this year's litter of new pups. Travis Reggear, a professional hunter in Orofino, Idaho, said he and nine Walker hounds were with clients Tuesday on the third day of the black bear season north of the Dworshak Reservoir. All nine dogs set off after a bear but only six re-emerged from a steep, heavily wooded slope on land managed by the Idaho Department of Lands, Reggear said Wednesday. Reggear, who said he never saw the wolves, wants federal and state officials to either relocate the wolves or kill them. He believes members of the Chesimia pack killed three of his dogs earlier this year as they were used by another Reggear Outfitters employee to pursue mountain lion in the same area. Disputes over wolves have galvanized ranchers and hunters across Idaho -- and across the West. The battle is often framed as a fight over property rights....
Wildlife panel OKs wolf return The Colorado Wildlife Commission on Thursday set a course toward reconciliation with an old enemy: the wolf. The Wildlife Commission, which sets policy for the state Division of Wildlife, agreed to accept the return of the migrating predators from Yellowstone National Park and to formalize a plan to manage the state's first packs. The vote on the policy, set forth in a report by the Wolf Working Group, a panel of sportsmen, ranchers and conservation groups, was unanimous....
Silver State, feds fight over burning sage grouse habitat State wildlife officials denounced federal land managers’ plans Thursday to burn as much as 2,000 acres of sagebrush-covered rangeland in Northern Nevada that is home to the troubled sage grouse. Nevada Division of Wildlife officials urged U.S. Forest Service officials to postpone plans to set the fires 40 miles northeast of Winnemucca, saying the prescribed burn could harm populations of the dwindling game bird during prime nesting season. “We’re not opposed to prescribed burns, but they should be done in the late winter or early spring, not when birds are on their nests,” Wildlife Division spokesman Chris Healy said Thursday. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists in Nevada share the state’s concerns about the timing of the project, said Jody Brown, the agency’s deputy field director. Most of the area to be burned is in Humboldt County near the Santa Rosa mountains and is high quality sagebrush habitat — much of it favorable to nesting and brood rearing, Healy said. Forest Service officials insist they’ll take care not to burn the birds or their nests and that the fires will improve grouse habitat over time....
FS considers privatizing work of informing public The jobs of Forest Service employees who give information to the public are being scrutinized to see whether they might be better handled by private public relations firms. The evaluation is part of a process that the Bush administration says could "increase the cost-effectiveness of Forest Service work," according to agency memos. But a national government employee watchdog group - Public Employees for Environmental Responsibil-ity - said this is a ploy to manipulate information. "Civil servants are under a legal obligation to tell the public the truth while PR firms specialize in shading it. Outsourcing the public information function risks putting a premium on spin at the expense of candor," said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. Ruch said the plan calls for surveying 700 of the agency's informational positions, with an eye on putting 100 of those jobs out to bid at private public relations firms. The Forest Service would make decisions this fall, and contractors could be in place by January. He said hundreds of other Forest Service positions may be subject to similar privatization in 2006....
Federal land agencies plan to restrict off-road vehicles in West For decades, off-road vehicle enthusiasts have been mostly free to roam federal forests and rangelands at will. But their freewheeling days could be numbered. In a move expected to generate controversy, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are developing plans to restrict the vehicles to designated routes and areas. Federal officials say the proposal is essential to curb environmental damage and ease conflict among users of public lands. Nationally, they cite a sevenfold increase from 1972 to 2000 in the number of off-roaders to 36 million....
BLM orders railroad to halt flood repairs The Bureau of Land Management has ordered Union Pacific Railroad to stop repairs to flood-damaged tracks near the Meadow Valley Wash because construction might threaten wilderness and archaeological sites. The track repair work began after a series of severe winter storms caused flooding earlier this year to portions of Lincoln and Clark counties. The BLM has launched a preliminary investigation into whether the railroad violated the Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, all federal laws designed to protect sensitive habitats, species and ancient sites of early humans, said BLM spokesman Chris Hanefeld. Biologists, archaeologists and law enforcement officers were in the remote wash on Monday as part of the investigation, Hanefeld said....
Coalition seeks action against rancher A coalition of environmental groups is pressuring federal authorities to crack down on an eastern Arizona rancher who has failed to pay his grazing fees and maintain the grazing land he has leased from the U.S. government. The groups say that rancher Abelardo Martinez has ignored an August order from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests to remove his cattle from Forest Service land. Martinez was given 30 days to remove the livestock, but he has not done so, nor have forest officials carried through on their threats to impound the cattle, the groups state. This week, the groups gave the required 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as Martinez and his son, Dan, who also grazes cattle on forest land....
Environmental sirens in Delta are screaming The Delta's open-water fish populations are mysteriously collapsing in a crisis that threatens to unravel the food web of the West Coast's largest estuary. Delta smelt, already a threatened species, fell last fall to the lowest level ever measured. Same with young striped bass, according to the results of annual surveys by the California Department of Fish and Game. And the key food source for small fish in the Delta, tiny organisms called copepods, are plummeting as well, with numbers of a key species falling to extremely low levels. The rapid, multispecies decline could trigger measures that might affect water quality and supply from Contra Costa County to Southern California. Scientists say information in a number of different surveys of the Delta and Suisun Marsh revealed an ongoing, sweeping population crash that could not be explained by drought or any other easily identifiable cause....
Bush plan to tap Nevada land sales money resurfaces in Congress A Bush administration plan to divert federal land sale profits out of Nevada has resurfaced in Congress. "We still think it's a fair proposal," said John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee. The panel on Wednesday directed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to report how the government has spent money from lucrative land sales conducted under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998. President Bush in February asked Congress to change the law requiring all land sale revenues to be spent in Nevada. The administration proposal would instead funnel 70 percent of profits to the U.S. Treasury, leaving Nevada with 30 percent....
Sparse support shown in Las Vegas for big water pipeline plan Just one of more than 100 people raised a hand at a public meeting to show support for a plan to build a $2 billion pipeline to supply water from rural counties to southern Nevada. Others providing public comment Wednesday said that before building the pipeline to White Pine County, the Southern Nevada Water Authority should consider controlling growth, increasing water conservation and making deals to get more water from the Colorado River or by desalinating Pacific Ocean water. Jerald Anderson worried that pumping underground water and piping it 240 miles south to Clark County could wipe out wildlife and family owned ranches and farms....
Soaking up knowledge More than 500 fourth-grade students from every elementary school in Carlsbad are learning all about water at the first Children’s Water Festival. The children gathered Thursday for the start of the two-day event at the Pecos River Village Conference Center, where they learned about water agreements, erosion, conservation, water safety testing, run off and much more. The event was sponsored by the New Mexico Association of Conservation Districts, said Amber Hughes, who wrote a grant to the federal Bureau of Reclamation to fund the event. “Students will negotiate water-sharing agreements and purify water from the Pecos River,” she said. “They’ll look for ‘bugs’ in the water to determine its purity, create a mini-river and use a groundwater model to ‘see’ how water moves underground.”....
Column: Jagged Little Drill When the energy bill sailed through the House of Representatives late last month, the media reported that it was the same old grotesquely corpulent package that the GOP leadership had previously tried -- and failed -- to pass through Congress four times in the last four years. This is true. But what flew under the radar were a few new provisions snuck in at the 11th hour by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Resources Committee, which have made the bill even more environmentally threatening than previous versions, many Democrats and environmentalists say. The environmental statute Pombo is targeting this time: the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, long considered a cornerstone of U.S. environmental law. A Pombo-backed amendment sponsored by Rep. John Peterson (R-Penn.) and added to the bill the day before markup would allow energy companies to skirt NEPA requirements in a number of situations, with the aim of speeding energy development on federal land. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, told Muckraker it would grant the energy industry "carte blanche to conduct drilling and exploration activities on public lands without any kind of meaningful environmental review, and remove the legal grounds for scientists, communities, and local governments to intercede. It is an affront to the American people."....
State mineral rights bill likely to pass Environmentalists say they'll fight a bill that passed in the U.S. House on Thursday and is expected to pass the Senate next week, a measure they fear will open the Gulf Islands National Seashore to oil and gas exploration and drilling. U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., introduced an amendment to a defense and tsunami-relief spending bill that he said clarifies Mississippi's rights to any oil and gas underneath the federal Gulf Islands National Seashore, or Barrier Islands. State leaders pushing to explore and tap the state's offshore oil and gas reserves said Mississippi already had these rights, and asked Cochran to help intervene to prevent any litigation with the National Park Service, which questioned the state's rights to test and drill. Cochran's provision says the state retains the mineral rights to the islands it deeded to the federal park system in the early 1970s, and has the right to perform seismic testing in and around the islands and to extract minerals through "directional drilling," as long as it's done from outside the one-mile protective barrier around the islands....
Will wood help fill US energy needs? Forget corn processing. Don't wait for switch grass. The real key to producing enough ethanol for America's cars and trucks this century is wood. That's the contention of researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY). By revamping the way paper is made, they've found an economical way to extract important energy-rich sugars from the trees and then convert these sugars into ethanol, a gasoline additive, and other useful chemicals. It's a process the researchers call a biorefinery. Installed at the nation's paper mills, biorefineries could produce 2.4 billion gallons of ethanol a year, they estimate, or 80 percent of the nation's projected need this year....
Growers say it with organic flowers To many Americans, Mother's Day means three things: brunch, a card and flowers. But few doting sons and daughters realize that producing those pretty posies is one of the most pesticide- and poison-intensive agricultural endeavors on the planet. Organic flowers don't look or smell any different from non-organic flowers. And there's no good evidence that they're any healthier for the lucky recipient. But they are better for the environment, and especially for the tens of thousands of workers, most of them young women, who work in floral greenhouses in Central and South America, says Martha Olson Jarocki of the Pesticide Action Network. "Flowers are such a high-value crop that it takes a huge amount of pesticides to make them perfect," she says. That includes dousing them with insecticides, fungicides and growth regulators, Jarocki says, and fumigation with toxic methyl bromide....damn, we can't even celebrate Mother's Day without engendering environmental wrath....
'Dean of bootmakers' passes away at 93 A couple of years ago, Schuyler Jones overheard a disgruntled elderly rancher trying to buy boots at a western store. "He had a pile of boots three feet deep lying in front of him, and nothing he tried would fit, according to him," Jones said. "He started swearing and complaining. I was several yards away and heard him say, 'I haven't had a decent pair of books since Carl McDowell retired!' " Such was the reputation of Wichitan Carl McDowell, known as one of the finest bootmakers in the nation and nicknamed "the dean of Kansas bootmakers" by loyal customers, who sought out his hand-shaped soft-leather boots for decades. Mr. McDowell died Saturday at 93. Among his loyal customers were top military and political celebrities. "My father designed a battle boot that (Gen. George) Patton always ordered from us -- and Carl made those. He also made a pair of riding boots for Eleanor Roosevelt," Jones said....
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Thursday, May 05, 2005
LICENSE TO KILL, PART 3
Scientists fault state habitat plan
The TV spots have been airing for years now, paid for by big timber companies in Washington. Their quest? A 50-year federal guarantee against prosecution under the Endangered Species Act. It would apply across 9.1 million acres -- one-fifth of the state, the bulk of private forestland in Washington. By next Thursday, federal officials want the public to weigh in: Does the industry's promise to keep waterways healthy justify granting nearly airtight legal refuge for logging that accidentally kills or harms salmon and 49 other kinds of fish, five kinds of salamanders and two types of frogs? If approved by federal officials, the Forest Practices Habitat Conservation Plan would be the largest in the West -- second nationally only to a Georgia deal that aims to protect red-cockaded woodpeckers. However, internal documents from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveal conflicted agencies with serious internal disagreements about the plan, known as Forests and Fish. One government scientist even worried about "voodoo science" behind the plan....
Other articles in the series:
Best-laid plans can't foresee all
'Political realities' helped shape urban preserve
Lessons learned elsewhere put to good use in Arizona
Big thinking is required to overhaul habitat program
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Scientists fault state habitat plan
The TV spots have been airing for years now, paid for by big timber companies in Washington. Their quest? A 50-year federal guarantee against prosecution under the Endangered Species Act. It would apply across 9.1 million acres -- one-fifth of the state, the bulk of private forestland in Washington. By next Thursday, federal officials want the public to weigh in: Does the industry's promise to keep waterways healthy justify granting nearly airtight legal refuge for logging that accidentally kills or harms salmon and 49 other kinds of fish, five kinds of salamanders and two types of frogs? If approved by federal officials, the Forest Practices Habitat Conservation Plan would be the largest in the West -- second nationally only to a Georgia deal that aims to protect red-cockaded woodpeckers. However, internal documents from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reveal conflicted agencies with serious internal disagreements about the plan, known as Forests and Fish. One government scientist even worried about "voodoo science" behind the plan....
Other articles in the series:
Best-laid plans can't foresee all
'Political realities' helped shape urban preserve
Lessons learned elsewhere put to good use in Arizona
Big thinking is required to overhaul habitat program
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A LICENSE TO KILL, PART 2
Too often, inadequate science hampers habitat planning
There is plenty of mystery surrounding Cave X -- an underground limestone cavern where insects have mutated over countless years, adapting to the darkness. It is the home of an extremely rare, itsy-bitsy spider -- eyeless with a creamy hue. There are only two places on Earth where the blind spider, Cicurina cueva, is known to exist, and one of them is Cave X, where the primary defense from extinction is a chain-link fence. The fence is supposed to shield the cave from intruders and suburban sprawl. But as environmentalist Bill Bunch stands there, surveying the row of two-story homes, the sprawling private school with the long asphalt driveway, the delivery trucks -- he knows the "postage stamp" preserve will fail. With all that development, how could groundwater feeding the cavern remain pure? What will happen to the foraging crickets and other animals that bring nutrients underground -- a crucial link in the food web? Scientists know little about the spiders and other subterranean creatures here. And yet the subdivisions sprouting around the scattered caves have the blessing of the federal agency responsible for protecting most endangered species....
Other articles in the series:
Lone voice challenges 'no surprises'
Idle preserves turn to eyesores
The public often has little role in the drafting of habitat plans
Montana's bull trout runs threatened
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Too often, inadequate science hampers habitat planning
There is plenty of mystery surrounding Cave X -- an underground limestone cavern where insects have mutated over countless years, adapting to the darkness. It is the home of an extremely rare, itsy-bitsy spider -- eyeless with a creamy hue. There are only two places on Earth where the blind spider, Cicurina cueva, is known to exist, and one of them is Cave X, where the primary defense from extinction is a chain-link fence. The fence is supposed to shield the cave from intruders and suburban sprawl. But as environmentalist Bill Bunch stands there, surveying the row of two-story homes, the sprawling private school with the long asphalt driveway, the delivery trucks -- he knows the "postage stamp" preserve will fail. With all that development, how could groundwater feeding the cavern remain pure? What will happen to the foraging crickets and other animals that bring nutrients underground -- a crucial link in the food web? Scientists know little about the spiders and other subterranean creatures here. And yet the subdivisions sprouting around the scattered caves have the blessing of the federal agency responsible for protecting most endangered species....
Other articles in the series:
Lone voice challenges 'no surprises'
Idle preserves turn to eyesores
The public often has little role in the drafting of habitat plans
Montana's bull trout runs threatened
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USDA UNVEILS MULTI-YEAR DRAFT STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today unveiled a thinking paper and timeline on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and called on agriculture producers, leaders, and industry partners to provide feedback. Both documents are available on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's NAIS Web site at http://www.usda.gov/nais and will be published in the Federal Register. "The documents we're releasing today offer a draft plan to move the public discussion forward on this important initiative," said Johanns. "We created these documents with guidance from the NAIS advisory committee and with a great deal of input from producers. We're proposing answers to some of the key questions about how we envision this system moving forward. Now, I'm eager to hear from farmers and ranchers so we can develop a final plan." A comprehensive description of system standards will be determined over time through field trials, user experience and the federal rulemaking process. These documents lay out in more detail projected timelines and potential avenues to achieve system milestones. For example, these documents propose requiring stakeholders to identify premises and animals according to NAIS standards by January 2008. Requiring full recording of defined animal movements is proposed by January 2009. The Federal Register notice acknowledges the outstanding concerns of some stakeholders and frames questions for which USDA will be seeking answers as it moves forward with the NAIS. These questions pertain to funding for the system, confidentiality of data in the system and flexibility of the system, among other things....
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Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today unveiled a thinking paper and timeline on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and called on agriculture producers, leaders, and industry partners to provide feedback. Both documents are available on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's NAIS Web site at http://www.usda.gov/nais and will be published in the Federal Register. "The documents we're releasing today offer a draft plan to move the public discussion forward on this important initiative," said Johanns. "We created these documents with guidance from the NAIS advisory committee and with a great deal of input from producers. We're proposing answers to some of the key questions about how we envision this system moving forward. Now, I'm eager to hear from farmers and ranchers so we can develop a final plan." A comprehensive description of system standards will be determined over time through field trials, user experience and the federal rulemaking process. These documents lay out in more detail projected timelines and potential avenues to achieve system milestones. For example, these documents propose requiring stakeholders to identify premises and animals according to NAIS standards by January 2008. Requiring full recording of defined animal movements is proposed by January 2009. The Federal Register notice acknowledges the outstanding concerns of some stakeholders and frames questions for which USDA will be seeking answers as it moves forward with the NAIS. These questions pertain to funding for the system, confidentiality of data in the system and flexibility of the system, among other things....
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