NEWS ROUNDUP
Schwarzenegger Fires Flood Control Panel Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday fired all six members of the state Reclamation Board, an agency that oversees flood control along California's two biggest rivers and had recently become more aggressive about slowing development on flood plains. The Republican governor replaced the members — who serve indefinite terms at the governor's pleasure — with seven of his own appointees, most with ties to agriculture and the engineering profession. One board seat had been vacant since spring. Five of the fired members had been appointed by Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and one had first been appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, then reappointed by Davis....
Protesters tell Pombo: Hands off Species Act A group of environmentalists, farmers, and fishermen gathered in Stockton Monday to protest legislation by Rep. Richard Pombo that it says tears holes in the federal safety net for wildlife living on the brink of extinction. The group, following a brief news conference, hand-delivered to Pombo's Stockton office the signatures of 3,000 Californians objecting to Pombo's revised version of the Endangered Species Act. Former Rep. Pete McCloskey -- a Republican like Pombo -- co-authored the original 1973 law and stood nearby when President Nixon signed it into law. McClosky said he's so angry about Pombo's bill, he is tempted to leave retirement, move from his home in Yolo County and oppose the former Tracy city councilman in the next congressional election....
Editorial: Does protecting endangered species cost too much? While it is noble that great measures have been taken to protect the desert tortoise and mohave ground squirrel, one has to wonder how these animals have been placed at such a high priority that we must now spend millions of dollars to protect them. Because environmental activists say the burrowing tortoise is threatened by cattle, people and mines, millions of dollars are spent to save the turtles at the expense of ranchers and highway drivers. There are nearly 4 million acres of California desert which has been set aside as critical habitat for the desert tortoise. It appears the desert tortoise is so sacred, those willing to protect them will do so by killing anything that doesn't have a shell on it....
Farm Bureau Calls for House to Pass Improved ESA To improve and strengthen what has worked in the original Endangered Species Act, the American Farm Bureau Federation is calling on the House to pass H.R. 3824, the Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act. In a letter sent Monday to House members, AFBF President Bob Stallman explained how more than 75 percent of ESA-listed species inhabit private lands, and, therefore, cooperation with private landowners, many of them farmers and ranchers, is essential for species to recover. “H.R. 3824 provides for voluntary species recovery agreements that allow private landowners the flexibility to take actions that benefit species recovery, producing a ‘win-win’ situation for species and landowners alike,” Stallman noted. He further noted that landowners deserve more involvement in consultations about how to save species....
Grizzlies make inroads in Idaho Cattle ranchers Larry and Deanna Orme have been charged by a grizzly and already have lost eight calves to bears this year. Blair and Velma Calaway, also ranchers, had a bear ransack their cabin near Yellowstone's southwest boundary. The ranchers have learned to tolerate grizzlies. Whether other Idahoans do will play a critical role in determining whether the bears continue to thrive. "I view that as an evolutionary process in Idaho," Chris Servheen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, told the Idaho Statesman. "The average person who works, lives or plays in bear habitat has changed the way they act." The grizzly grows to 600 pounds, can run faster than a horse, and occasionally eats people. There was about one human injury per year from grizzly bears in the backcountry in Yellowstone from 1970 through 1997...
Forest Service official upholds timber harvest appeal A Forest Service official has overturned a proposed timber harvest in the Kootenai National Forest because it did not adequately address potential effects on grizzly bears. In June, Bob Castaneda, Kootenai Forest supervisor, approved the North East Yaak timber sale in the Cabinet Ranger District. His decision authorized logging 13.5 million board feet of timber on about 1,860 acres in the Three Rivers Ranger District. It also cleared the way for harvesting in old growth on 116 acres and thinning another 286 acres, plus six temporary roads. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Ecology Center appealed the decision to the Forest Service's regional headquarters in Missoula. On Monday, Lynn Roberts, Forest Service appeal deciding officer, ruled that the environmental impact statement did not adequately address effects of the project on grizzly bears....
Biologists count fewer grizzlies with cubs Bear biologists, trying to gauge the health of grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park, saw fewer females with cubs in 2005 than in any year since 1997. But they cautioned Tuesday that the dip isn't necessarily an indication that the Yellowstone population, which the federal government hopes to remove from the endangered species list soon, is declining. More likely other factors affected how many females with cubs were observed this year, including a "bumper crop" of cubs in recent years that left many females unable to breed, and persistent snow at some feeding sites that kept away bears that otherwise would have been counted, the biologists said....
Wilderness designation for Dominguez Canyon debated Federal wilderness designation for the Dominguez Canyon Wilderness Study Area could bring too many tourists and damage its fragile desert ecology, a rancher with grazing rights in the area warned the Delta County Board of Commissioners on Monday. “We were there for years and didn’t have any problems until there was this wilderness (study area) designation,” said Oscar Massey, who has been wintering cattle in the Dominguez Canyon area for more than three decades. Ponds that he built there to water cattle have also benefitted wildlife, Massey said. “There’s quite a population that uses that water, elk and deer,” he said. He counted a herd of 1,400 elk last winter in the area, Massey said. “You put that ‘W’ on a map,” and tourists will flock to see the newly designated wilderness, he said....
International Wilderness Conference To Convene in Alaska How can human beings coexist with the wilderness, sustaining themselves and the lands they inhabit? That is a critical question in many parts of the world and the focus of an international meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, September 30 to October 6. More than 1,100 delegates from 55 nations will be in Anchorage for the 8thWorld Wilderness Congress (8WWC), a meeting described as the world’s longest-running public environmental forum. The meeting’s theme is “Wilderness, Wildlands and People: A Partnership for the Future,” with sessions devoted to addressing “the practicalities of realizing benefits to human communities from protecting and sustaining wilderness, wildlands and wildlife,” said Vance Martin, president of the WILD Foundation, a principal organizer of the congress. “I’m hoping we can learn from that,” said Liz Close of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), “and bring people in this country closer to their wilderness and make sure that people understand the benefits that are derived from this land.”....
Column: Our Parks in Peril Is Congressman Richard Pombo (R-CA), the chairman of the House Resources Committee, joking? Did he really circulate a razed-earth anti-parks bill as a rather mean-spirited joke, or was he for real? It’s a little hard to tell with him, but the national parks sections are certainly laughable. If Pombo’s bill was a joke, it was an elaborate one, paid for with federal dollars: • Section 6302 requires the National Park Service (NPS) to raise $10 million by selling advertising in official maps and guidebooks, as well as placing billboards on buses, trams and vans. The Interior Department would also be required to sell commercial sponsorship of visitor and education centers, museums trails, theaters and other facilities. Thus the “Exxon/Mobil Visitors Center” or other such designations. (If the place was already named after an individual, it would get a reprieve); • Section 6306 requires NPS to sell for private use any park that receives less than 10,000 visitors per day. Most of the 15 parks that meet that designation are in Alaska, and all are national treasures. The parks that would go on the block for poor performance include 23 percent of total park system acreage....
Editorial: Storms emphasize faults in energy bill It seems like only yesterday — but it was Aug. 8 — that Congress, after years of dithering, finally got around to passing a major energy bill. It was a low-octane flop, in our opinion, larded with too many corporate welfare handouts and subsidies for pie-in-the-sky energy panaceas, while skimping on the regulatory reforms required to move the country toward more domestic production and self-sufficiency. But that was before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita laid bare the fragility of the nation’s energy infrastructure and led to price spikes that got the public’s attention. Whatever gets the public angry also draws the attention of politicians, so two new energy bills are being considered by Congress that will go back and fill gaps left by the earlier effort. The August bill adroitly sidestepped the controversial issue of opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and outer continental shelf to drilling, for instance. But one new bill would open ANWR to drilling and give states the power to overrule federal offshore drilling bans. Apparently, backers of the new measures are betting that Americans had a change of attitude after gasoline prices jumped to more than $3 per gallon and experts began predicting a 70 percent jump in natural gas prices for some parts of the country this winter. Many Americans still may care about alleged threats to caribou herds and potentially ruined views from beachfront highrises — but not if such aesthetic abstractions begin taking a big enough bite out of their pocketbooks....
Interior Secretary Says U.S. Will Push Search for Energy Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said Tuesday that after the two destructive gulf hurricanes that battered the nation's energy heartland, the Bush administration would intensify its push to expand energy development on public lands including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the nation's coastal waters. "The vulnerability of having all the energy supplies and refining and processing capacity in one geographic area reinforces the idea that we need diversity of supply," Ms. Norton said in an interview. Citing government reports on the increasing demand for petroleum and natural gas and the sustained high prices that tend to result, she said, "The hurricanes have brought more attention to the fundamental issue." While Ms. Norton took no position on a Congressional proposal to end a 25-year moratorium on oil leases on the outer continental shelf and to eliminate internal departmental appeals of administration decisions to lease public lands, she did not reject its approach....
Republicans take aim at energy restrictions Hoping to ride the wave of concern resulting from Gulf Coast hurricanes, U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin and other congressional Republicans are trying again to loosen some restrictions on oil and gas development. The proposals didn't make it in the recently approved energy bill, but supporters say Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- which hit some energy suppliers on the Gulf Coast -- show the need to eliminate some environmental restrictions if the domestic energy supply is rattled. The bill, set for committee review this week with a possible House vote as early as next week, calls in part for an end to seasonal stipulations -- such as big game winter closures -- for industry in times deemed by the president as a "significant adverse effect on the supply of domestic energy resources." The measure, pushed by House Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and supported by Cubin, also would suspend legal challenges to energy lease decisions, and would force private landowners to comply with industry when subsurface minerals were at stake....
Feds wary about proposed Utah land swap The Interior Department has reservations about a Utah land exchange along the Colorado River, expressing little interest in nearly a quarter of the land it would get in the deal and treading carefully on the sensitive issue of how lands would be appraised. But Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Chad Calvert said in testimony to the House Resources subcommittee Tuesday that he hopes the concerns can be worked out. And a state official said he thinks the land exchange remains on track. The state is seeking to transfer 45,000 acres along the Colorado River to the Bureau of Land Management. Much of it is environmentally sensitive, including parcels near Arches National Park, a portion of the renowned Slickrock bike trail, the Corona natural arch and lands inside a wilderness study area. In exchange, the state would get about 40,000 federal acres with oil and gas or other development potential....
Gathering horses If they could do it again, the 30 mustangs rounded up in Sandwash Basin on Tuesday morning probably wouldn't follow the "Judas" horse into the trap. But as it stands, the helicopter hovering above and the domestic horse trained to lead wild horses into the trap proved effective enough to draw the wild horses into the holding pen. Bureau of Land Management officials hope to have 200 mustangs rounded up in the Sandwash area by the end of the week. If the crews from Cattoor Livestock Roundup hit their goal, the mustang population in the area northwest of Maybell will be down from about 360 horses to about 160. BLM will auction 50 of the 200 horses this weekend at Sandwash corrals. The remainder will be sent to the BLM's wild horse adoption facility in Cañon City....
Nevada files opposition to Yucca rail corridor land restrictions The federal Energy Department hasn't laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada argues in a statement opposing the plan. "It's poor planning and the wrong agency is in charge," Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday of the Energy Department plan to build a railroad to haul radioactive waste across the state. Loux filed a seven-page letter Friday opposing the Energy Department proposal to withdraw 308,600 acres from public use across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties. Public comments end Wednesday. "Apart from causing impacts and disruption to existing land users, the proposed action has the potential to negatively affect the environment, grazing allotments, mining and energy development activities, property values, the economy, important cultural resources and more," the state said....
New religious group advocates environmentalism Three University professors have joined a newly-formed alliance created to oppose a proposed Congressional bill that would change the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Noah Alliance, a partnership of Jews and evangelical Christians, issued concurrent statements by the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life opposing the bill. Signatories include rabbis, a Nobel laureate and 30 prominent Jewish scientists, as well as ecology and evolutionary biology professors David Wilcove, Daniel Rubenstein and Simon Levin. Wilcove, who is affiliated with the Wilson School, said he hopes the religious slant of the Alliance will "appeal to people who are primarily motivated by their religious faith to consider what their religion may say about obligations to protect species on Earth."....
Thousands of head of cattle dead or imperiled Hurricane Rita hit the heart of Louisiana beef cattle country, drowning thousands of head, dispersing others 10 to 15 miles inland and leaving those surviving with brackish water and no forage, state officials said Tuesday. "We’re in a pretty serious crisis right now," said Paul Coreil, director of the state’s extension service. His agents are helping the Louisiana Agriculture Department and the Louisiana Cattlemen’s Association coordinate emergency deliveries of fresh water, baled hay and fencing material to the marshy, low-lying coastal parishes of southwest Louisiana. Ranchers enlisted neighbors and anyone who had a pickup, horse or airboat to coax cattle out of the water and to higher land, he said. Extension agent Andrew Granger in Vermilion said cows were run out of the water and onto state Highway 82 where a temporary cattle pen held the livestock until they could be trucked to safety. The region has upwards of 200,000 cattle, mainly part of Brahman-cross cow-calf operations....
Tanker crash leaves lengthy cleanup Hazardous materials teams are still cleaning up an oil spill west of Platteville following a fatal accident Sunday in which a semitrailer plowed into a small herd of cattle on Colo. Highway 66. The Colorado State Patrol, meanwhile, confirmed Monday that officials are not seeking charges against the owner of the farm from which the cows escaped. According to the state patrol, the owner of the cows cannot be cited criminally because Colorado is legally an “open range state.” “Livestock — horses, sheep or cattle — have the permission to roam on state property, including highways,” Colorado State Trooper Don Moseman said. “There’s no law requiring farmers to fence in livestock.” “We’re a Western, rural state,” Moseman said. “We can’t control deer or elk either, but there are a lot more wild animal accidents than ranch animal accidents.”....
Montage captures a piece of Texas history It is a symbol of early American life that most Texans have had the opportunity to see. Some roll freely with the wind, some, worn and broken, stand still - a reminder of how life once was on the Texas countryside. They are windmills and Hunt County photographer Rick Vanderpool has captured their essence in his newest photographic montage titled, “Who has seen the wind?” Vanderpool, of Commerce, became known for his montage of the word Texas. “Looking for Texas” was the first of several montages Vanderpool has created. His windmill montage is his sixth Texas-inspired project. “Who has seen the wind?” contains about 100 pictures of windmills from across the United States....
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Durango lawyer wins forest ruling A Durango lawyer has successfully overturned the part of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Initiative that barred appeals by the public on small forest projects. Matt Kenna, representing the Western Environmental Law Center, had asked that the U.S. Forest Service be held in contempt for not enforcing a July order that applies to all forests nationwide. The judge declined to hold the Forest Service in contempt this time, but said he could in the future. On Friday the agency agreed to follow the July ruling. Kenna had argued the Healthy Forests Initiative violated the 1992 Appeals Reform Act, which allows the public to comment on and appeal all Forest Service projects. "The Forest Service is committed to fully and immediately complying with the judge's order," said Jim Maxwell, press officer for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service. The Washington, D.C., office is drafting instructions that could be ready by today to specify which projects must allow public comment, Maxwell said. The judge said emergency acts dealing with wildfires or hurricanes are exempt, but he offered little guidance about what other projects might not require public appeal....
Bill aims to waive energy rules Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have Republicans in Congress again calling for relaxing environmental restrictions on energy development on public lands in the West. They say those restrictions get in the way of oil and gas companies providing energy to the public. So House Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo on Monday proposed legislation eliminating many rules that energy companies have complained about. Pombo's legislation, scheduled for a committee vote Wednesday, is part of a multipronged GOP effort to cut back environmental regulation in the wake of the storms. Pombo's bill would allow the Interior Department to waive limitations on drilling - such as those protecting wildlife in winter - in the event of a "significant disruption" in supply. Not all the exemptions would require an emergency. The bill would approve the use of private workers paid by the gas industry to process permits for drilling on public lands and would bar appeals of drilling decisions by the BLM....
Family patriarch indicted on sexual assault charges A man who lived with his wife and 15 children inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park - and engaged in a widely publicized feud with the park service - has been charged with numerous counts of sexual assault and incest. Alaska State Troopers searched Monday for Robert A. Hale, 64, who goes by the name Papa Pilgrim. "He could be anywhere," said agency spokesman Greg Wilkinson. Hale was indicted Thursday by a state grand jury on 30 felony counts, including 10 counts of sexual assault, one count of kidnapping, eight counts of incest, eight counts of coercion and three counts of assault. The indictment lists just one victim....
Judge won't stop killing of Calif. pigs Thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island can be destroyed, a federal judge ruled Monday, but a businessman pledged to continue his fight to save the animals. The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, say the pigs must go because they're damaging archaeological sites and threatening native species like the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox. The pigs are descended from animals that ranchers brought to the island in the 1850s. Rick Feldman, a Santa Barbara businessman suing to stop the killings, said he would appeal federal Judge Dickran Tevrizian's decision to reject a preliminary injunction....
Editorial: Creatures cannot survive without habitat According to the chairman of the House Resources Committee, it's not the eagles, owls, minnows and lizards that stand in the way of development, profits and the paving of North America. No, indeed. It's just all those troublesome forests, rivers, prairies and deserts that the little critters insist on living in that stand in the way of the new Manifest Destiny. Thus the chairman, California Republican Richard Pombo, has crafted a major rewrite of the 32-year-old cornerstone of American environmentalism, the Endangered Species Act. It purports to call upon the federal government to come up with "species recovery plans" for identified flora and fauna while making it much, much easier for developers to have their way with the lands that those very species live on, under and above. Good politician that he is, Pombo makes his bill, already rammed through his committee and referred to the full House, sound like a workable compromise, the kind that might lead to the rescue of more endangered species without all those nasty and expensive lawsuits. The only problem is, it cannot work....
Editorial: 'No regulation without compensation' The law, now 30 years old, is badly in need of updating, though it won't happen without a fight, given the leverage the act gives green extremists bent on trampling private-property rights, dictating land-use policies and obstructing energy development. Even talking about reform can open one to accusations of being indifferent to the wanton slaughter of eagles, whales, bunnies and butterflies. But in spite of such risks, a few intrepid politicians are stepping forward to rein in the rogue law. And they will need all the support they can get. There are three or four changes we think are critical to an updated Endangered Species Act, starting with a strengthening of the science behind it. As people in Colorado learned the hard way, after the rodent formerly known as the Preble's meadow jumping mouse was exposed as a fraud, federal officials sometimes act to protect a species with only a vague idea about its true identity or status. About a third of the animals removed from the endangered species list over the years were on the list because of flawed science. Given the law's incredible power to impact property values, dictate development trends, limit access to public lands and hamper the economy, Americans deserve assurances that the law's regulate-first, worry-about-the-science-later approach is reversed. It's time to start compensating people when Endangered Species Act protections adversely impact their property values. Regulators and environmentalists hate this idea and are reluctant to relinquish their license to regulate at will, with little regard to how their actions are impacting people's lives. Paying compensation would not only be the fair and constitutional thing to do, since the Fifth Amendment requires that citizens be paid when government's actions deprive them of the full use of their property, but it would also underscore the fact that regulations come with a price tag, which someone must pay....
Feds cut back habitat for snowy plover The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses. The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years due primarily to limiting recreation. "The economic analyses are playing an increasingly significant role in determinations of critical habitat," said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Al Donner in Sacramento, Calif. "That's triggered by court decisions that have directed us to do more rigorous economic reviews of proposed critical habitat and their impacts."....
Area under habitat conservation plans could soar Timber companies, developers, local governments and others are seeking federal permission to nearly triple the 37 million acres that fall under the nation's controversial and underfunded habitat conservation program. Of the 433 pending plans listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most are in the West and South, where development and timber-cutting most frequently collide with endangered species, records obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer show. In the Pacific Northwest, more than two dozen habitat plans are officially under review, according to Fish and Wildlife records released under the Freedom of Information Act. One of the largest is a 9.1 million-acre deal in Washington that would shield much of the state's private timber industry from prosecution for harming salmon, steelhead, bull trout and 47 other kinds of fish. Approval of the 50-year "Forests and Fish" deal is expected later this year....
Author sets out to discover the real Timothy Treadwell The short, heartless version of the story was simply: "The Doofus Dies." At least, that's how some Alaskans saw it, says Nick Jans, the Juneau-based author of a new book, "The Grizzly Maze," about Timothy Treadwell's fatal obsession with Alaska's huge coastal brown bears. Two years ago, he might not have argued, knowing only the earliest details of how a big grizzly had just killed Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in a bear-haunted thicket of Katmai National Park. Treadwell, it was thought, had only himself to blame, having invited such danger by fashioning himself as a "bear whisperer" who could walk within a few feet of a lounging Katmai brown bear, turn his back and calmly smile into his camcorder. He gave the bears names like Booble and Mr. Chocolate. Sometimes he touched them with his hand....
Ranchers try to save livestock from flood Cattlemen on boats, barges and horseback Monday tried to save what's left of their herds after floods unleashed by Hurricane Rita in coastal parishes from Lafourche to Cameron. Their counterparts in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes - two areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina less than a month before – watched as Rita swept away cattle that survived the first storm. Ranchers across coastal Louisiana badly need trucks, hay and a place to house the surviving rescued cattle, said Bob Felknor, director of Louisiana Cattlemen's Association....
Lawyers fight over exhuming millionaire's body Lawyers are scheduled to argue Thursday before the Texas Supreme Court whether to exhume the body of rancher John G. Kenedy Jr. for DNA tests to determine if the supposedly sterile millionaire fathered a daughter with a maid. At issue is an inheritance estimated between $500 million and $1 billion - including a 400,000-acre, oil-rich ranch near Kingsville - left to two charities. In the lawsuit, Dr. Ray Fernandez and his mother Ann Fernandez claim Kenedy had at least one out-of-wedlock child with Maria Rowland Goates, Ann's mother. Judge Guy Herman had ordered Kenedy's remains exhumed after preliminary genetic testing appeared to support the Fernandezes' claim. But lawyers for the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation and the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust appealed, saying Kenedy's estate was legally settled years ago....
Synthetic saddlery Like most every Wyoming rancher, Tom Harrower has an interest in saddles. The difference between Harrower and other ranchers is his particular interest in plastic saddles. That's right, plastic saddles. A native of Kemmerer, Harrower manages the family ranching operations. A 1965 graduate of Western College of Auctioneering in Billings, Mont., he has rubbed shoulders with thousands of buyers and sellers. Over the past 40 years he began developing an appreciation for unusual horse-related items. That interest evolved from his ranching background and hands-on experience with saddle horses, draft horses, buggy horses and several pairs of oxen. Along the way Harrower became seriously interested in plastic saddles and equipment made in Lusk and in Scottsbluff, Neb. For the past four years, he has researched, documented and compiled the history of the All Western Plastic Co....
The Vaquero way The presiding spirits of this rodeo, known as the Carmel Valley Ranchers' Days, are the brothers Bill and Tom Dorrance, inventors of what is often called natural horsemanship. The Dorrances are legendary in this part of the world. Bill, who died in 1999, and Tom, who died in 2003, left a legacy that has helped transform the relationship between people and horses. While popular culture has given due attention to "horse-whispering" — thanks mostly to the Robert Redford movie — the Dorrances' story is a California story, little known outside horse circles. BILL and Tom Dorrance grew up in eastern Oregon. Born in 1906, Bill was older by four years. They came from a family of ranchers and were surrounded by horses and cattle all their lives. In the 1930s they settled in California, where they found themselves exposed to the vaquero tradition — a way of working with horses that brings into play not just horsemanship but roping and rawhide braiding. The Dorrances came to value the vaquero approach, which is as much a philosophy as a methodology. "Listen to the horse," Tom would famously say. "Try to find out what the horse is trying to tell you." On the ranch, the brothers needed quiet horses that were cooperative and capable of acting as partners in the endless work of finding, moving, herding, separating and tending to cows, calves and bulls....
It's All Trew: You can't get some things off some people's minds We often quote my father, J. T. Trew, who used to say, "I'll go anywhere you want to take me just so we get back home by dark-thirty." When we suggested flying somewhere, Mother was ready to climb on board but Dad would say, "Y'all go on and enjoy yourselves. I don't plan on getting any higher off the ground than the stirrups on a tall horse." Bill Moore, a longtime friend from the Clarendon/Goodnight area, was a good cowman, fun to be around and a good conversationalist, that is if you were willing to talk about cows. Start with any subject from politics, war, weather, pretty ladies or the price of eggs in China and by the third sentence Bill would be back on cows. We tried every gambit we could think of to keep the conversation on other subjects, all to no avail. When with Bill, we talked cows....
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Durango lawyer wins forest ruling A Durango lawyer has successfully overturned the part of the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Initiative that barred appeals by the public on small forest projects. Matt Kenna, representing the Western Environmental Law Center, had asked that the U.S. Forest Service be held in contempt for not enforcing a July order that applies to all forests nationwide. The judge declined to hold the Forest Service in contempt this time, but said he could in the future. On Friday the agency agreed to follow the July ruling. Kenna had argued the Healthy Forests Initiative violated the 1992 Appeals Reform Act, which allows the public to comment on and appeal all Forest Service projects. "The Forest Service is committed to fully and immediately complying with the judge's order," said Jim Maxwell, press officer for the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service. The Washington, D.C., office is drafting instructions that could be ready by today to specify which projects must allow public comment, Maxwell said. The judge said emergency acts dealing with wildfires or hurricanes are exempt, but he offered little guidance about what other projects might not require public appeal....
Bill aims to waive energy rules Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have Republicans in Congress again calling for relaxing environmental restrictions on energy development on public lands in the West. They say those restrictions get in the way of oil and gas companies providing energy to the public. So House Resources Committee chairman Richard Pombo on Monday proposed legislation eliminating many rules that energy companies have complained about. Pombo's legislation, scheduled for a committee vote Wednesday, is part of a multipronged GOP effort to cut back environmental regulation in the wake of the storms. Pombo's bill would allow the Interior Department to waive limitations on drilling - such as those protecting wildlife in winter - in the event of a "significant disruption" in supply. Not all the exemptions would require an emergency. The bill would approve the use of private workers paid by the gas industry to process permits for drilling on public lands and would bar appeals of drilling decisions by the BLM....
Family patriarch indicted on sexual assault charges A man who lived with his wife and 15 children inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park - and engaged in a widely publicized feud with the park service - has been charged with numerous counts of sexual assault and incest. Alaska State Troopers searched Monday for Robert A. Hale, 64, who goes by the name Papa Pilgrim. "He could be anywhere," said agency spokesman Greg Wilkinson. Hale was indicted Thursday by a state grand jury on 30 felony counts, including 10 counts of sexual assault, one count of kidnapping, eight counts of incest, eight counts of coercion and three counts of assault. The indictment lists just one victim....
Judge won't stop killing of Calif. pigs Thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island can be destroyed, a federal judge ruled Monday, but a businessman pledged to continue his fight to save the animals. The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, say the pigs must go because they're damaging archaeological sites and threatening native species like the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox. The pigs are descended from animals that ranchers brought to the island in the 1850s. Rick Feldman, a Santa Barbara businessman suing to stop the killings, said he would appeal federal Judge Dickran Tevrizian's decision to reject a preliminary injunction....
Editorial: Creatures cannot survive without habitat According to the chairman of the House Resources Committee, it's not the eagles, owls, minnows and lizards that stand in the way of development, profits and the paving of North America. No, indeed. It's just all those troublesome forests, rivers, prairies and deserts that the little critters insist on living in that stand in the way of the new Manifest Destiny. Thus the chairman, California Republican Richard Pombo, has crafted a major rewrite of the 32-year-old cornerstone of American environmentalism, the Endangered Species Act. It purports to call upon the federal government to come up with "species recovery plans" for identified flora and fauna while making it much, much easier for developers to have their way with the lands that those very species live on, under and above. Good politician that he is, Pombo makes his bill, already rammed through his committee and referred to the full House, sound like a workable compromise, the kind that might lead to the rescue of more endangered species without all those nasty and expensive lawsuits. The only problem is, it cannot work....
Editorial: 'No regulation without compensation' The law, now 30 years old, is badly in need of updating, though it won't happen without a fight, given the leverage the act gives green extremists bent on trampling private-property rights, dictating land-use policies and obstructing energy development. Even talking about reform can open one to accusations of being indifferent to the wanton slaughter of eagles, whales, bunnies and butterflies. But in spite of such risks, a few intrepid politicians are stepping forward to rein in the rogue law. And they will need all the support they can get. There are three or four changes we think are critical to an updated Endangered Species Act, starting with a strengthening of the science behind it. As people in Colorado learned the hard way, after the rodent formerly known as the Preble's meadow jumping mouse was exposed as a fraud, federal officials sometimes act to protect a species with only a vague idea about its true identity or status. About a third of the animals removed from the endangered species list over the years were on the list because of flawed science. Given the law's incredible power to impact property values, dictate development trends, limit access to public lands and hamper the economy, Americans deserve assurances that the law's regulate-first, worry-about-the-science-later approach is reversed. It's time to start compensating people when Endangered Species Act protections adversely impact their property values. Regulators and environmentalists hate this idea and are reluctant to relinquish their license to regulate at will, with little regard to how their actions are impacting people's lives. Paying compensation would not only be the fair and constitutional thing to do, since the Fifth Amendment requires that citizens be paid when government's actions deprive them of the full use of their property, but it would also underscore the fact that regulations come with a price tag, which someone must pay....
Feds cut back habitat for snowy plover The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses. The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years due primarily to limiting recreation. "The economic analyses are playing an increasingly significant role in determinations of critical habitat," said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Al Donner in Sacramento, Calif. "That's triggered by court decisions that have directed us to do more rigorous economic reviews of proposed critical habitat and their impacts."....
Area under habitat conservation plans could soar Timber companies, developers, local governments and others are seeking federal permission to nearly triple the 37 million acres that fall under the nation's controversial and underfunded habitat conservation program. Of the 433 pending plans listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most are in the West and South, where development and timber-cutting most frequently collide with endangered species, records obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer show. In the Pacific Northwest, more than two dozen habitat plans are officially under review, according to Fish and Wildlife records released under the Freedom of Information Act. One of the largest is a 9.1 million-acre deal in Washington that would shield much of the state's private timber industry from prosecution for harming salmon, steelhead, bull trout and 47 other kinds of fish. Approval of the 50-year "Forests and Fish" deal is expected later this year....
Author sets out to discover the real Timothy Treadwell The short, heartless version of the story was simply: "The Doofus Dies." At least, that's how some Alaskans saw it, says Nick Jans, the Juneau-based author of a new book, "The Grizzly Maze," about Timothy Treadwell's fatal obsession with Alaska's huge coastal brown bears. Two years ago, he might not have argued, knowing only the earliest details of how a big grizzly had just killed Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, in a bear-haunted thicket of Katmai National Park. Treadwell, it was thought, had only himself to blame, having invited such danger by fashioning himself as a "bear whisperer" who could walk within a few feet of a lounging Katmai brown bear, turn his back and calmly smile into his camcorder. He gave the bears names like Booble and Mr. Chocolate. Sometimes he touched them with his hand....
Ranchers try to save livestock from flood Cattlemen on boats, barges and horseback Monday tried to save what's left of their herds after floods unleashed by Hurricane Rita in coastal parishes from Lafourche to Cameron. Their counterparts in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes - two areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina less than a month before – watched as Rita swept away cattle that survived the first storm. Ranchers across coastal Louisiana badly need trucks, hay and a place to house the surviving rescued cattle, said Bob Felknor, director of Louisiana Cattlemen's Association....
Lawyers fight over exhuming millionaire's body Lawyers are scheduled to argue Thursday before the Texas Supreme Court whether to exhume the body of rancher John G. Kenedy Jr. for DNA tests to determine if the supposedly sterile millionaire fathered a daughter with a maid. At issue is an inheritance estimated between $500 million and $1 billion - including a 400,000-acre, oil-rich ranch near Kingsville - left to two charities. In the lawsuit, Dr. Ray Fernandez and his mother Ann Fernandez claim Kenedy had at least one out-of-wedlock child with Maria Rowland Goates, Ann's mother. Judge Guy Herman had ordered Kenedy's remains exhumed after preliminary genetic testing appeared to support the Fernandezes' claim. But lawyers for the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Memorial Foundation and the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust appealed, saying Kenedy's estate was legally settled years ago....
Synthetic saddlery Like most every Wyoming rancher, Tom Harrower has an interest in saddles. The difference between Harrower and other ranchers is his particular interest in plastic saddles. That's right, plastic saddles. A native of Kemmerer, Harrower manages the family ranching operations. A 1965 graduate of Western College of Auctioneering in Billings, Mont., he has rubbed shoulders with thousands of buyers and sellers. Over the past 40 years he began developing an appreciation for unusual horse-related items. That interest evolved from his ranching background and hands-on experience with saddle horses, draft horses, buggy horses and several pairs of oxen. Along the way Harrower became seriously interested in plastic saddles and equipment made in Lusk and in Scottsbluff, Neb. For the past four years, he has researched, documented and compiled the history of the All Western Plastic Co....
The Vaquero way The presiding spirits of this rodeo, known as the Carmel Valley Ranchers' Days, are the brothers Bill and Tom Dorrance, inventors of what is often called natural horsemanship. The Dorrances are legendary in this part of the world. Bill, who died in 1999, and Tom, who died in 2003, left a legacy that has helped transform the relationship between people and horses. While popular culture has given due attention to "horse-whispering" — thanks mostly to the Robert Redford movie — the Dorrances' story is a California story, little known outside horse circles. BILL and Tom Dorrance grew up in eastern Oregon. Born in 1906, Bill was older by four years. They came from a family of ranchers and were surrounded by horses and cattle all their lives. In the 1930s they settled in California, where they found themselves exposed to the vaquero tradition — a way of working with horses that brings into play not just horsemanship but roping and rawhide braiding. The Dorrances came to value the vaquero approach, which is as much a philosophy as a methodology. "Listen to the horse," Tom would famously say. "Try to find out what the horse is trying to tell you." On the ranch, the brothers needed quiet horses that were cooperative and capable of acting as partners in the endless work of finding, moving, herding, separating and tending to cows, calves and bulls....
It's All Trew: You can't get some things off some people's minds We often quote my father, J. T. Trew, who used to say, "I'll go anywhere you want to take me just so we get back home by dark-thirty." When we suggested flying somewhere, Mother was ready to climb on board but Dad would say, "Y'all go on and enjoy yourselves. I don't plan on getting any higher off the ground than the stirrups on a tall horse." Bill Moore, a longtime friend from the Clarendon/Goodnight area, was a good cowman, fun to be around and a good conversationalist, that is if you were willing to talk about cows. Start with any subject from politics, war, weather, pretty ladies or the price of eggs in China and by the third sentence Bill would be back on cows. We tried every gambit we could think of to keep the conversation on other subjects, all to no avail. When with Bill, we talked cows....
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Monday, September 26, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Buy one now: Parks put up for purchase U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources committee, has proposed to raise money by selling off 15 national parks, including seven in Alaska, according to a draft bill circulating Friday. Park supporters declared themselves outraged. But Pombo's spokesman, Brian Kennedy, said the 285-page draft is not to be taken seriously. Its purpose, Kennedy said, was to come up with proposals that would raise as much money for the federal government as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Pombo ardently supports. Drilling opponents should see that if Congress doesn't open ANWR "it would be outrageous and absurd alternatives, like selling national park units," Kennedy said. "So you see the joke."....
Drilling is hot, as is its debate From the Front Range to the Western Slope, energy development in Colorado is escalating at a record pace that will generate more than $8 billion in revenue this year - a 60 percent increase in just two years. The projected 3,950 new drilling permits - up by a third since last year - and nearly 29,000 operating wells in 2005 are both records, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission says. "This is the first time that we've had oil and gas production from one end of the state to the other," said state Department of Natural Resources director Russell George. "The real question for us as public managers is, 'How do we manage and balance all of the effects?"' George said. The drilling has drawn opposition from groups as diverse as Weld County housing developers concerned that well pads are gobbling up prime real estate, and La Plata County hunting guides worried that development will harm forests. Gas seeps, linked to drilling in Garfield County, have released methane and benzene into creeks and wells and pushed residents to demand a study of possible health impacts. With the increasing national reliance on natural gas, experts expect the industry to have a big presence in Colorado for three or four more decades....
Old La Sal's defenders fear the sting of developer's drills A few years ago, William Perritt fell in love with the La Sal Mountains. He purchased 6.6 acres with an eye on eventually retiring in the Deer Haven subdivision of Old La Sal, some 40 miles southeast of Moab. But now, an exploratory seismic survey proposed for federal lands surrounding his piece of heaven has angered Perritt and other nearby landowners. During a community meeting Tuesday night, representatives from Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. and the Forest Service outlined project details and responded to questions from residents and business owners who are concerned that opening the area to oil and gas exploration will damage land and wildlife, endanger the aquifer and disrupt the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of Old La Sal. Bill Barrett Operations Manager Michael FitzMaurice said the company will use small “buggy” drills in roaded areas. Elsewhere on the 13,693-acres project site, a portable drill transported by helicopter will be used to drill holes for specialized explosives that create ground vibrations, revealing the underground geologic features of the area through a process called three-dimensional geophysical seismic testing....
BLM OKs more winter drilling The Wyoming Bureau of Land Management has issued a "finding of no significant impact," opening the way for more winter drilling in big game winter range in the Pinedale Anticline. Anschutz Pinedale Corp., Shell Exploration & Production Co. and Ultra Resources Inc. filed a joint proposal to drill a "demonstration project" of up to 45 new wells using 32 drilling pads per section with directional drilling in order to reduce impacts to wildlife and habitat. BLM officials ultimately decided to lift seasonal restrictions this winter for up to 52 wells, concurring with industry officials who say there are benefits to year-round drilling. Directional drilling allows operators to sink multiple wells from single well pads on the surface. The companies have also agreed to carpool workers into the area during the winter and use extra pollution controls.
Producers: Pick up the pace Energy producers around Pinedale and in the Powder River Basin say time is of the essence for their development projects, because lingering questions and drawn-out projects reduce cost efficiency for companies. Specifically, many producers said here Friday that regulatory changes and requirements have slowed development, which means projects and planning efforts are "on hold" as companies wait to see how things shake out. At the same time, company representatives said they were still ramping up production in their respective areas. J.R. Justus, asset manager for Shell Exploration & Production Co., said in a presentation to about 200 people at the ninth annual Wyoming Natural Gas Fair Friday that his company was trying to drill year-round in the Pinedale Anticline in order to maximize efficiency and reduce the overall time spent on the field....
Three Wyoming Black Hills thinning projects stalled Three timber-thinning projects on more than 50,000 acres of the Black Hills National Forest in northeast Wyoming have been stalled by environmental appeals. The delays show that despite changes in federal regulations and a new federal law to speed up such decisions, forest management disputes can still bring logging and thinning to a halt. The three projects in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills would have resulted in the sale of almost 35 million board feet of timber. But the U.S. Forest Service withdrew each of the proposals this summer. Biodiversity, an environmental group based in Laramie, appealed the projects, saying they were based on incomplete data, failed to protect sensitive species, old growth timber stands and, most importantly, allowed extensive logging in one of the most remote parts of the Black Hills. Nichols said old-growth timber and stands left to die and decay through natural process provide valuable habitat for such species as goshawks, pygmy nuthatches and bats....
Editorial: It’s time to fix Endangered Species Act As it is applied today, the law is a blunt instrument that has been used against farmers, ranchers, loggers and others to halt activities and developments that don’t meet the wishes of certain litigious special-interest groups. In the name of fish, many farms, ranches and irrigation projects have been threatened or damaged. In the name of birds, timber operations have been hobbled or halted. Instead of protecting endangered species, the law is used as a lever to dictate the management of public and private lands. Judges have replaced professional land managers as the final arbiter of what is best for a certain species, watershed or region. After all of the lawsuits and billions of dollars that have been drained from the pocketbooks of farmers, ranchers, timber operators and the public, one would hope that many species have been rescued from extinction. Hardly....
Editorial: Reform plan will endanger species An effort to supposedly improve the Endangered Species Act will instead gut one of the nation's most important environmental laws. The 32-year-old law needs to be revamped to reduce some time-consuming bureaucratic procedures. But HR 3824 instead rips out the heart of the law. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., the bill's provisions take aim at the most essential steps for preserving endangered wildlife and plants. The bill passed the House Resources Committee last week 26-12, with eight Democrats voting "yes." Most species become endangered because their habitats have been damaged, so the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to identify and preserve critical habitat. Pombo wants to eliminate this most fundamental provision. His plan also would erase the requirement that before federal agencies take action, they first must examine how their decisions might affect endangered species. It makes no sense to let federal agencies look only after they have leapt, when it might be too late....
Editorial: Species act reform is long overdue It's about time. The wheels on the Endangered Species Act have been wobbling and squeaking for years, to the great discomfort of many Americans, and finally, Congress is taking tangible steps to fix the problems. Rep. Rick Pombo, R-Calif., has proposed a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Endangered Species Act through legislation that is poised to clear the House Resources Committee. Even some liberal Democrats on the committee announced that they agree with some of the proposed changes. And that is a refreshing acknowledgment, considering that the standard, robotic defense of the 1974 law is that it is some kind of unassailable, sacred book that has grown, as a result of case law, to volumes of books. For years, environmental groups have been clinging to that idea, arguing that the law isn't broken, so why fix it. But that has become a ridiculous claim, because the Endangered Species Act clearly is broken. That's why it has risen to the top of the legislative priority list for dozens of interest groups, ranging from Realtors to recreation groups. Government officials, too, have pointed to inefficiencies and high costs associated with the act....
Debate: Is the future of grizzly bears in danger? The federal government's proposal to take grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem off the Endangered Species Act's threatened species list represents a tremendous achievement. It also demonstrates America's enduring commitment to wildlife conservation. The National Wildlife Federation - one of the nation's largest conservation groups - has reached this conclusion only after a thorough review of the facts and documents on which the proposal was based. Two major reasons led us to our decision: First is the success on the ground. Because of the law's protections and the focused management efforts it has stimulated, the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem has been growing at a rate of 4-7 percent a year for 15 years. There are now more than 600 bears in the population, and all demographic and distribution parameters in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grizzly Recovery Plan have been met or exceeded. Second, according to the Endangered Species Act, once a species meets the goals set for its recovery, federal protection as a listed species must cease if adequate regulatory mechanisms are in place to assure that the species will not again decline....
Bears aren't out of the woods yet Grizzlies and Yellowstone -- bears and geysers. People have been coming from around the world to see the national park's main attractions for decades. Now, the Bush administration wants to remove the Yellowstone grizzlies from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. I think delisting is premature, because we need more bears, more habitat and true habitat protection to do the job right. Yellowstone's grizzlies need more than Yellowstone Park; they also need millions of acres of surrounding national forest. This land has seen some oil and gas development as well as logging and road-building through the years, but the big question is what will happen in the future. The grizzly by nature will eat almost anything, has a long memory and is mighty inquisitive. This is fine, except that almost all Yellowstone grizzlies die because humans kill them. Once a bear develops a taste for a picnic basket or unprotected human garbage, that bear has a bullet with its name on it....
As Population of Yellowstone Grizzlies Grows, Further Protection Is Up for Debate By all accounts the turnaround of the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-too-rare success story of the Endangered Species Act. After dwindling to 200 or so by the 1970's, the number of the big bears in the mountains and grassy meadows around Yellowstone National Park has grown to more than 600, thanks to the federal protections given to the species in 1975. "It's the biggest success story under the Endangered Species Act because grizzly bears are one of the toughest species to manage," said Chris Servheen, who has been working on efforts to protect and to re-establish grizzlies in Yellowstone and elsewhere for 25 years and is coordinator for grizzly bear recovery for the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service in Missoula, Mont. While there is widespread agreement that the story is a good one, however, there is disagreement on the next chapter. The Fish and Wildlife Service, saying that the mission to bring the bear back has been accomplished, will propose removing the bear from the list of threatened species this fall and, after a comment period, make a final decision in 2006. Delisting has happened for only about 15 species out of the 1,830 on the imperiled list. But opponents of delisting say the bear is still endangered, primarily because of threats to critical food sources. Both sides say the science is on their side....
Bear advocates question deliberate grain spills On Aug. 26, several tons of corn spilled along the southern edge of Glacier National Park when a handful of freight cars left the tracks in an early morning railroad accident. But what wasn't an accident was the railroad's cleanup response, which involved tipping and spilling nearly 20 additional corn cars in order to open the line as soon as possible. "I understand Burlington Northern has a corporate bottom line, and that is to make money," said Brian Peck, a grizzly bear recovery specialist with the Great Bear Foundation. "But I think they have a responsibility once it's spilled not to make the situation worse. And I think they would be hard-pressed to say they haven't made the situation worse." Peck is involved because history has shown grain and corn spills south of the park can be bad news for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Derailments, spills and bears first made headlines back in the late 1980s, when railroad policy was to simply bury the spill on site. But rains caused the corn and grain to ferment, drawing sharp-nosed bears from miles around....
NASA Technology Monitors Wildlife Habitats From The Air Two rare species, California spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada and the Delmarva fox squirrel in the mid-Atlantic U.S. have something in common. Using NASA technology, scientists have been able to identify habitats to help forest managers monitor and protect these species and other wildlife. The recent research shows that airborne laser scanning with Light Detecting And Ranging (LiDAR) can be especially valuable in ensuring that forests and other lands continue to be diverse, healthy, and productive, while still meeting the needs of society and the environment. The study, funded by the NASA/University of Maryland Vegetation Canopy LiDAR (VCL) mission and a NASA Interdisciplinary Science (IDS) Program grant, was published in the June 2005 issue of the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment. "When we compared the data gathered from the LiDAR, including information on canopy height and cover, to measurements taken on the ground, we found that LiDAR was very accurate, even in extremely rugged mountainous terrain," said Peter Hyde of the Department of Geography, University of Maryland-College Park, and lead author of the study. "The use of such technology is advantageous compared with field-based measurements of forest structure that are very time consuming and often limited by accessibility, resulting in relatively small field studies."....
Federal trappers kill wolf blamed for attack on cow Federal trappers killed one gray wolf Friday and are hunting another from the Chesimia Pack that roams an area of north Idaho between Dworshak Reservoir and Elk River. The pack killed a cow earlier this month, the third cow death blamed on the wolves this summer. The pack is also blamed for killing several hunting dogs on its home range over the past year. Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting gray wolves, authorized the trappers to kill two adult members of the pack. Wolves in most of Idaho are protected under the Endangered Species Act as a nonessential experimental population. The special designation allows wolves that prey on livestock to be lethally removed....
Victims of Mojave Preserve wildfire blame Park Service policies They hoped to spend a comfortable retirement in their rural retreats. Instead, they spent the summer picking through ashes to salvage melted mementos. Many of those who lost homes when wildfire swept the Mojave National Preserve in late June say their property was destroyed as much by bad policy as bad luck. And they blame the National Park Service. "They can call it a preserve, but they haven't actually preserved anything here in the 10 years they've had it," said Sandi McIntosh, 61, who said her home and horses escaped mostly undamaged by a stroke of luck. Scattered across the federal lands were tracts of private homesteads, including cattle ranches. The Park Service discontinued grazing leases and bought out nearly all the ranches. In a decade, those who had built vacation homes on the range found themselves surrounded by land either designated wilderness or managed as if it were. Cattle were gone and wild burros were being removed. After the wettest winter in memory, grass grew deep with few grazing animals to eat it. With the onset of hot weather, the fuels became tinder-dry....
Head of BLM spends day in Farmington Protecting the environment and boosting business are not mutually exclusive tasks, according to the woman who oversees more than 2,000,000 miles of the nation’s public lands. Kathleen Clarke, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was in Farmington on Saturday to participate in a community clean-up in conjunction with National Public Lands Day. Communities throughout the nation celebrate National Public Lands Day, but Clarke said she decided to spend the day in Farmington because she was impressed with the spirit of cooperation between the community and the oil and gas industry. “I heard about the CUPID (Clean Up and Prevention of Illegal Dumping) clean-up and was impressed,” Clark said. “This is exactly the kind of stewardship we need. I wanted to come here and showcase the cooperation between the people and industry that goes on in this community. She said even if oil drilling does increase in Farmington and the Four Corners area, the BLM will continue to re-vegitate wells that have gone dry. “Grass and grazing lands won’t be affected at all,” she added. “There are still federal laws in place that will protect grazing lands.”...posted especially for Bill Humphries....
Editorial - R.S. 2477 ROADS: Where wilderness is at issue, lawsuits will continue The governor's office announced the other day that the state and counties will record a list of roads in each county that cross public lands. The purpose is to identify rights of way across federal lands granted under an 1866 law commonly known as R.S. 2477. The announcement by Lynn Stevens, the state's public lands policy coordinator, suggested that recording these lists, coupled with an agreement now in the works with the federal Bureau of Land Management about how roads across BLM-managed lands will be maintained, would put an end to legal struggles over most of these roads in Utah. We doubt that. If the state and counties continue to press aggressively for rights of way on jeep trails and similar roads through sensitive federal lands in Utah where potential wilderness designation is at stake, the environmental groups will rightly continue to wage legal war against these claims. Ultimately, these disputes will have to be decided by the courts....
An Interview with Charles Sullivan I began my many years of activism during the latter part of the seventies. I began with Earth First! defending our National Forests from degradation and destruction under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Service. It is never in the mainstream news, but we are living in the midst of the greatest extinction crises since the disappearance of the great reptiles some sixty-five million years ago at the close of the Cretaceous Era. That crisis is anthropogenic in nature--it is human induced. We have an ethical obligation to fight for the right of those plants and animals to exist and to fulfill their own respective evolutionary destinies. I have been on the front lines of the wild forest movement. I have participated in direct actions on behalf of the forests. I have committed acts of civil disobedience that were outside of the law. The words of Thoreau have inspired me to act. He said, 'Let your life be a friction against the machine.' Unjust laws exist. When we encounter unjust laws we should not hesitate to break them. The trouble with America today is not civil disobedience. It is civil obedience. Progressives tend to be too civil and too obedient. Our political enemies do not have that problem....
Migrants leaving ugly mark on land Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage. The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens. Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up. Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week. "It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Mrs. Kay, 62....
Rancher envisions major ski resort near Missoula For now, the ski trails on the Maclay Ranch are just freshly turned bands of brown earth. But they are the beginnings of what Tom Maclay hopes will someday be a world-class resort rivaling Vail, Sun Valley or Lake Tahoe. In Maclay's vision for the mountains south of Missoula, skiing will extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883. Maclay wants to put skiers on Lolo Peak in a national forest near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and market an extraordinary vertical drop of 5,342 feet. Skiers — possibly as many as 7,500 a day — would descend north-facing slopes to the ranch and its alpine and Nordic skiing, 2,200 houses and condominiums, and a resort village. Golf, a hotel, conference and sports centers and access to excellent fly fishing are part of the four-season Bitterroot Resort plan. Critics worry about harm to public land and wildlife and about overloading this increasingly popular swath of Montana....
Rancher gets reprieve on lease A 21,000-acre ranch in the heart of a 40-square-mile area that state officials want to develop won a reprieve from a Denver judge Thursday, allowing the cows to keep their home on the range - at least for now. Chuck Pancost, an Arapahoe County rancher who feared he and his 800-head herd of Angus cattle would be evicted from their leased land this week, will be able to stay at least temporarily. Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon granted Pancost a stay from an eviction order that had been issued by his landlord, the State Board of Land Commissioners. The stay will enable Pancost to remain until the courts hear his challenge of the eviction order, which may take up to two years. Pancost has lived on 21,000 acres of state land board property east of Aurora for more than 30 years. He's raised four children there and calls the property the Pancost Ranch. But the land is at the center of a redevelopment plan state officials are working on that likely will call for building thousands of new homes on what once was home to the Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range....
In California, Agriculture Takes Center Stage in Pollution Debate On a clear day, San Joaquin looks like a bucolic farming community, complete with almond groves, cornfields and orange trees. But most of the time the valley -- trapped between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, with two major highways running north to south through it -- is smoggy, filled with air that has fostered widespread respiratory disease. Fifteen percent of the region's children have asthma, a rate three times the national average. Fresno -- the valley's biggest city -- has the third-highest rate of asthma in the country, and the San Joaquin Valley rivals Los Angeles and Houston for the dubious title of worst air quality in the nation. On bad air days, some schools hoist a red flag so parents can keep their children indoors; on good days, they raise a green flag. Agriculture does not occupy a prominent place in America's environmental policy debates, but farming has arguably more of an impact on the land, air and water than any other sector in the U.S. economy, environmental and industry experts say. In addition to producing airborne emissions, farms take up nearly half of the nation's land, and nutrient-laden runoff from farms affects such waterways as local streams and the Gulf of Mexico....
A century worth of memories The old smoke house is the only building that remains on the homestead that Buntrock's grandfather, Albert, farmed more than 100 years ago. The original house burned down in 1934, was rebuilt and now that's where Buntrock's twin brother Duane and his wife Judy live. The Buntrock Brothers farm is one of 57 - and the only one in Brown County - named Century Farms this year in South Dakota. Dwight Buntrock said it's believed his grandfather, Albert, came from Germany to South Dakota, by way of Minnesota, in 1884. In 1886 or 1887, a Timber Culture - a homestead law allowing people who plant and care for trees on their land to receive free acreage - was enacted on the land. According to records, Albert Buntrock made full payment on the land in December of 1892. However, the wooden sign that sits at the end of the driveway to the Buntrock Brothers farm references the year 1897. "Anyway you look at it, it's still been well over 100 years," Dwight Buntrock said with a laugh. "In the Buntrock family tradition, we were just late applying for it."....
In Utah's west desert, you treasure what you have So it goes for virtually everybody who calls the tiny ranching communities of Partoun, Trout Creek and Callao home. Located at least 90 miles from the nearest city and 50 miles from the closest paved road, the 100 or so people who reside out here live in a challenging environment and face daily hurdles that most other Utahns cannot possibly grasp. They wouldn't have it any other way. "I've been bitten by rattlesnakes. I've been thrown off of horses. This place has its challenges," says Callao rancher Cecil Garland. "But I've lived overseas. I've lived in Montana. I've lived in Las Vegas. And nothing compares to this. I live in a land of indescribable beauty and solitude. The conditions are harsh at times, but the wide open spaces out here are something to be most treasured."....
Ranches reveal fate of the West Three ranches, three counties, three very different development scenarios - all within one valley. In a microcosm of what's going on throughout Colorado and the rest of the West, three of the last real cattle ranches in the Roaring Fork Valley are headed toward conversion into luxury subdivisions. The ranches are located within about 12 miles of one another, as the crow flies, but the geopolitical oddities of the Roaring Fork Valley place them in three different jurisdictions. Because of that, they will end up looking vastly different....
Longtime clown has serious calling, sobering message A Montana rancher says he has been coming to the Pendleton Round-Up for about 14 or 15 years. But he doesn’t come to watch, he comes to work. Loyd Ketchum and his wife, Ashlee, operate a ranch near Miles City, Mont. He runs about 125 “momma cows,” Ketchum said, “just enough to keep us in debt.” Ranching comes naturally to Ketchum. “It’s something I grew up around and enjoy … and my wife does.” But Ketchum is not known for the work he does with momma cows. He’s best known for working with bulls. Ketchum is in the cowboy protection business and is a professional rodeo bullfighter....
Peasant tries polo, the sport of royalty When you say polo, the first image for most people is a line of fashionable clothes or expensive cologne and a guy named Ralph. Me, I think about galloping horses, smacking a ball with a stick, and a couple of guys named Roberto and Esteban down in Argentina. Earlier this year, I was chosen to be part of a small delegation of young people from across the United States to go to Argentina and Uruguay as part of a leadership exchange. So, a couple of weeks ago, I wrapped the twine on my last hay bale, put the cattle on fresh pasture, kissed my family goodbye and struck out for the southern side of our hemisphere. We kept a hectic schedule on the trip, but one weekend allowed for a couple of hours of free time in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Most of the crew opted to go shopping. I asked if I could catch a game of polo....
On the Edge of Common Sense: He was hit by a tyrannosaurus Holstein 'Isn't that Larry's heifer?" asked Dick. The two-year old black whiteface was running down the fence line along Highway 90. Traffic was moderate on the 4-lane highway. The shoulder was not smooth. Arroyos and ridges thick with rocks and brush made any chase risky. "Pull over!" said Dick. The south gate was new. It had a cattle guard but no cattle gate beside it. Dick turned the frightened cow back to the north. "Call Larry!" he shouted to his wife in the truck. Larry's wife took the call. Within five minutes Larry had appeared and stationed himself by the north gate to turn the heifer. She was smart enough or scared enough to stay off the highway but she became unreasonable. Larry knew her well. She would actually eat feed out of his hand. He was surprised by her rowdy behavior. It is a common flaw in cowmen. They form opinions about specific animals. They come to trust them. I've seen grown men put two-year-old kids on the back of tame Brahma bulls. But cows can revert to their primitive behavioral origins. I don't mean baby calf, I mean buffalo, mastodon, tyrannosaurus Holstein! It is a scientific phenomenon called "getting on the fight!"....
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Buy one now: Parks put up for purchase U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources committee, has proposed to raise money by selling off 15 national parks, including seven in Alaska, according to a draft bill circulating Friday. Park supporters declared themselves outraged. But Pombo's spokesman, Brian Kennedy, said the 285-page draft is not to be taken seriously. Its purpose, Kennedy said, was to come up with proposals that would raise as much money for the federal government as oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Pombo ardently supports. Drilling opponents should see that if Congress doesn't open ANWR "it would be outrageous and absurd alternatives, like selling national park units," Kennedy said. "So you see the joke."....
Drilling is hot, as is its debate From the Front Range to the Western Slope, energy development in Colorado is escalating at a record pace that will generate more than $8 billion in revenue this year - a 60 percent increase in just two years. The projected 3,950 new drilling permits - up by a third since last year - and nearly 29,000 operating wells in 2005 are both records, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission says. "This is the first time that we've had oil and gas production from one end of the state to the other," said state Department of Natural Resources director Russell George. "The real question for us as public managers is, 'How do we manage and balance all of the effects?"' George said. The drilling has drawn opposition from groups as diverse as Weld County housing developers concerned that well pads are gobbling up prime real estate, and La Plata County hunting guides worried that development will harm forests. Gas seeps, linked to drilling in Garfield County, have released methane and benzene into creeks and wells and pushed residents to demand a study of possible health impacts. With the increasing national reliance on natural gas, experts expect the industry to have a big presence in Colorado for three or four more decades....
Old La Sal's defenders fear the sting of developer's drills A few years ago, William Perritt fell in love with the La Sal Mountains. He purchased 6.6 acres with an eye on eventually retiring in the Deer Haven subdivision of Old La Sal, some 40 miles southeast of Moab. But now, an exploratory seismic survey proposed for federal lands surrounding his piece of heaven has angered Perritt and other nearby landowners. During a community meeting Tuesday night, representatives from Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp. and the Forest Service outlined project details and responded to questions from residents and business owners who are concerned that opening the area to oil and gas exploration will damage land and wildlife, endanger the aquifer and disrupt the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of Old La Sal. Bill Barrett Operations Manager Michael FitzMaurice said the company will use small “buggy” drills in roaded areas. Elsewhere on the 13,693-acres project site, a portable drill transported by helicopter will be used to drill holes for specialized explosives that create ground vibrations, revealing the underground geologic features of the area through a process called three-dimensional geophysical seismic testing....
BLM OKs more winter drilling The Wyoming Bureau of Land Management has issued a "finding of no significant impact," opening the way for more winter drilling in big game winter range in the Pinedale Anticline. Anschutz Pinedale Corp., Shell Exploration & Production Co. and Ultra Resources Inc. filed a joint proposal to drill a "demonstration project" of up to 45 new wells using 32 drilling pads per section with directional drilling in order to reduce impacts to wildlife and habitat. BLM officials ultimately decided to lift seasonal restrictions this winter for up to 52 wells, concurring with industry officials who say there are benefits to year-round drilling. Directional drilling allows operators to sink multiple wells from single well pads on the surface. The companies have also agreed to carpool workers into the area during the winter and use extra pollution controls.
Producers: Pick up the pace Energy producers around Pinedale and in the Powder River Basin say time is of the essence for their development projects, because lingering questions and drawn-out projects reduce cost efficiency for companies. Specifically, many producers said here Friday that regulatory changes and requirements have slowed development, which means projects and planning efforts are "on hold" as companies wait to see how things shake out. At the same time, company representatives said they were still ramping up production in their respective areas. J.R. Justus, asset manager for Shell Exploration & Production Co., said in a presentation to about 200 people at the ninth annual Wyoming Natural Gas Fair Friday that his company was trying to drill year-round in the Pinedale Anticline in order to maximize efficiency and reduce the overall time spent on the field....
Three Wyoming Black Hills thinning projects stalled Three timber-thinning projects on more than 50,000 acres of the Black Hills National Forest in northeast Wyoming have been stalled by environmental appeals. The delays show that despite changes in federal regulations and a new federal law to speed up such decisions, forest management disputes can still bring logging and thinning to a halt. The three projects in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills would have resulted in the sale of almost 35 million board feet of timber. But the U.S. Forest Service withdrew each of the proposals this summer. Biodiversity, an environmental group based in Laramie, appealed the projects, saying they were based on incomplete data, failed to protect sensitive species, old growth timber stands and, most importantly, allowed extensive logging in one of the most remote parts of the Black Hills. Nichols said old-growth timber and stands left to die and decay through natural process provide valuable habitat for such species as goshawks, pygmy nuthatches and bats....
Editorial: It’s time to fix Endangered Species Act As it is applied today, the law is a blunt instrument that has been used against farmers, ranchers, loggers and others to halt activities and developments that don’t meet the wishes of certain litigious special-interest groups. In the name of fish, many farms, ranches and irrigation projects have been threatened or damaged. In the name of birds, timber operations have been hobbled or halted. Instead of protecting endangered species, the law is used as a lever to dictate the management of public and private lands. Judges have replaced professional land managers as the final arbiter of what is best for a certain species, watershed or region. After all of the lawsuits and billions of dollars that have been drained from the pocketbooks of farmers, ranchers, timber operators and the public, one would hope that many species have been rescued from extinction. Hardly....
Editorial: Reform plan will endanger species An effort to supposedly improve the Endangered Species Act will instead gut one of the nation's most important environmental laws. The 32-year-old law needs to be revamped to reduce some time-consuming bureaucratic procedures. But HR 3824 instead rips out the heart of the law. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., the bill's provisions take aim at the most essential steps for preserving endangered wildlife and plants. The bill passed the House Resources Committee last week 26-12, with eight Democrats voting "yes." Most species become endangered because their habitats have been damaged, so the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to identify and preserve critical habitat. Pombo wants to eliminate this most fundamental provision. His plan also would erase the requirement that before federal agencies take action, they first must examine how their decisions might affect endangered species. It makes no sense to let federal agencies look only after they have leapt, when it might be too late....
Editorial: Species act reform is long overdue It's about time. The wheels on the Endangered Species Act have been wobbling and squeaking for years, to the great discomfort of many Americans, and finally, Congress is taking tangible steps to fix the problems. Rep. Rick Pombo, R-Calif., has proposed a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Endangered Species Act through legislation that is poised to clear the House Resources Committee. Even some liberal Democrats on the committee announced that they agree with some of the proposed changes. And that is a refreshing acknowledgment, considering that the standard, robotic defense of the 1974 law is that it is some kind of unassailable, sacred book that has grown, as a result of case law, to volumes of books. For years, environmental groups have been clinging to that idea, arguing that the law isn't broken, so why fix it. But that has become a ridiculous claim, because the Endangered Species Act clearly is broken. That's why it has risen to the top of the legislative priority list for dozens of interest groups, ranging from Realtors to recreation groups. Government officials, too, have pointed to inefficiencies and high costs associated with the act....
Debate: Is the future of grizzly bears in danger? The federal government's proposal to take grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem off the Endangered Species Act's threatened species list represents a tremendous achievement. It also demonstrates America's enduring commitment to wildlife conservation. The National Wildlife Federation - one of the nation's largest conservation groups - has reached this conclusion only after a thorough review of the facts and documents on which the proposal was based. Two major reasons led us to our decision: First is the success on the ground. Because of the law's protections and the focused management efforts it has stimulated, the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem has been growing at a rate of 4-7 percent a year for 15 years. There are now more than 600 bears in the population, and all demographic and distribution parameters in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grizzly Recovery Plan have been met or exceeded. Second, according to the Endangered Species Act, once a species meets the goals set for its recovery, federal protection as a listed species must cease if adequate regulatory mechanisms are in place to assure that the species will not again decline....
Bears aren't out of the woods yet Grizzlies and Yellowstone -- bears and geysers. People have been coming from around the world to see the national park's main attractions for decades. Now, the Bush administration wants to remove the Yellowstone grizzlies from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. I think delisting is premature, because we need more bears, more habitat and true habitat protection to do the job right. Yellowstone's grizzlies need more than Yellowstone Park; they also need millions of acres of surrounding national forest. This land has seen some oil and gas development as well as logging and road-building through the years, but the big question is what will happen in the future. The grizzly by nature will eat almost anything, has a long memory and is mighty inquisitive. This is fine, except that almost all Yellowstone grizzlies die because humans kill them. Once a bear develops a taste for a picnic basket or unprotected human garbage, that bear has a bullet with its name on it....
As Population of Yellowstone Grizzlies Grows, Further Protection Is Up for Debate By all accounts the turnaround of the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-too-rare success story of the Endangered Species Act. After dwindling to 200 or so by the 1970's, the number of the big bears in the mountains and grassy meadows around Yellowstone National Park has grown to more than 600, thanks to the federal protections given to the species in 1975. "It's the biggest success story under the Endangered Species Act because grizzly bears are one of the toughest species to manage," said Chris Servheen, who has been working on efforts to protect and to re-establish grizzlies in Yellowstone and elsewhere for 25 years and is coordinator for grizzly bear recovery for the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service in Missoula, Mont. While there is widespread agreement that the story is a good one, however, there is disagreement on the next chapter. The Fish and Wildlife Service, saying that the mission to bring the bear back has been accomplished, will propose removing the bear from the list of threatened species this fall and, after a comment period, make a final decision in 2006. Delisting has happened for only about 15 species out of the 1,830 on the imperiled list. But opponents of delisting say the bear is still endangered, primarily because of threats to critical food sources. Both sides say the science is on their side....
Bear advocates question deliberate grain spills On Aug. 26, several tons of corn spilled along the southern edge of Glacier National Park when a handful of freight cars left the tracks in an early morning railroad accident. But what wasn't an accident was the railroad's cleanup response, which involved tipping and spilling nearly 20 additional corn cars in order to open the line as soon as possible. "I understand Burlington Northern has a corporate bottom line, and that is to make money," said Brian Peck, a grizzly bear recovery specialist with the Great Bear Foundation. "But I think they have a responsibility once it's spilled not to make the situation worse. And I think they would be hard-pressed to say they haven't made the situation worse." Peck is involved because history has shown grain and corn spills south of the park can be bad news for grizzly bears, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Derailments, spills and bears first made headlines back in the late 1980s, when railroad policy was to simply bury the spill on site. But rains caused the corn and grain to ferment, drawing sharp-nosed bears from miles around....
NASA Technology Monitors Wildlife Habitats From The Air Two rare species, California spotted owls in the Sierra Nevada and the Delmarva fox squirrel in the mid-Atlantic U.S. have something in common. Using NASA technology, scientists have been able to identify habitats to help forest managers monitor and protect these species and other wildlife. The recent research shows that airborne laser scanning with Light Detecting And Ranging (LiDAR) can be especially valuable in ensuring that forests and other lands continue to be diverse, healthy, and productive, while still meeting the needs of society and the environment. The study, funded by the NASA/University of Maryland Vegetation Canopy LiDAR (VCL) mission and a NASA Interdisciplinary Science (IDS) Program grant, was published in the June 2005 issue of the journal Remote Sensing of the Environment. "When we compared the data gathered from the LiDAR, including information on canopy height and cover, to measurements taken on the ground, we found that LiDAR was very accurate, even in extremely rugged mountainous terrain," said Peter Hyde of the Department of Geography, University of Maryland-College Park, and lead author of the study. "The use of such technology is advantageous compared with field-based measurements of forest structure that are very time consuming and often limited by accessibility, resulting in relatively small field studies."....
Federal trappers kill wolf blamed for attack on cow Federal trappers killed one gray wolf Friday and are hunting another from the Chesimia Pack that roams an area of north Idaho between Dworshak Reservoir and Elk River. The pack killed a cow earlier this month, the third cow death blamed on the wolves this summer. The pack is also blamed for killing several hunting dogs on its home range over the past year. Officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting gray wolves, authorized the trappers to kill two adult members of the pack. Wolves in most of Idaho are protected under the Endangered Species Act as a nonessential experimental population. The special designation allows wolves that prey on livestock to be lethally removed....
Victims of Mojave Preserve wildfire blame Park Service policies They hoped to spend a comfortable retirement in their rural retreats. Instead, they spent the summer picking through ashes to salvage melted mementos. Many of those who lost homes when wildfire swept the Mojave National Preserve in late June say their property was destroyed as much by bad policy as bad luck. And they blame the National Park Service. "They can call it a preserve, but they haven't actually preserved anything here in the 10 years they've had it," said Sandi McIntosh, 61, who said her home and horses escaped mostly undamaged by a stroke of luck. Scattered across the federal lands were tracts of private homesteads, including cattle ranches. The Park Service discontinued grazing leases and bought out nearly all the ranches. In a decade, those who had built vacation homes on the range found themselves surrounded by land either designated wilderness or managed as if it were. Cattle were gone and wild burros were being removed. After the wettest winter in memory, grass grew deep with few grazing animals to eat it. With the onset of hot weather, the fuels became tinder-dry....
Head of BLM spends day in Farmington Protecting the environment and boosting business are not mutually exclusive tasks, according to the woman who oversees more than 2,000,000 miles of the nation’s public lands. Kathleen Clarke, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), was in Farmington on Saturday to participate in a community clean-up in conjunction with National Public Lands Day. Communities throughout the nation celebrate National Public Lands Day, but Clarke said she decided to spend the day in Farmington because she was impressed with the spirit of cooperation between the community and the oil and gas industry. “I heard about the CUPID (Clean Up and Prevention of Illegal Dumping) clean-up and was impressed,” Clark said. “This is exactly the kind of stewardship we need. I wanted to come here and showcase the cooperation between the people and industry that goes on in this community. She said even if oil drilling does increase in Farmington and the Four Corners area, the BLM will continue to re-vegitate wells that have gone dry. “Grass and grazing lands won’t be affected at all,” she added. “There are still federal laws in place that will protect grazing lands.”...posted especially for Bill Humphries....
Editorial - R.S. 2477 ROADS: Where wilderness is at issue, lawsuits will continue The governor's office announced the other day that the state and counties will record a list of roads in each county that cross public lands. The purpose is to identify rights of way across federal lands granted under an 1866 law commonly known as R.S. 2477. The announcement by Lynn Stevens, the state's public lands policy coordinator, suggested that recording these lists, coupled with an agreement now in the works with the federal Bureau of Land Management about how roads across BLM-managed lands will be maintained, would put an end to legal struggles over most of these roads in Utah. We doubt that. If the state and counties continue to press aggressively for rights of way on jeep trails and similar roads through sensitive federal lands in Utah where potential wilderness designation is at stake, the environmental groups will rightly continue to wage legal war against these claims. Ultimately, these disputes will have to be decided by the courts....
An Interview with Charles Sullivan I began my many years of activism during the latter part of the seventies. I began with Earth First! defending our National Forests from degradation and destruction under the auspices of the U.S. Forest Service. It is never in the mainstream news, but we are living in the midst of the greatest extinction crises since the disappearance of the great reptiles some sixty-five million years ago at the close of the Cretaceous Era. That crisis is anthropogenic in nature--it is human induced. We have an ethical obligation to fight for the right of those plants and animals to exist and to fulfill their own respective evolutionary destinies. I have been on the front lines of the wild forest movement. I have participated in direct actions on behalf of the forests. I have committed acts of civil disobedience that were outside of the law. The words of Thoreau have inspired me to act. He said, 'Let your life be a friction against the machine.' Unjust laws exist. When we encounter unjust laws we should not hesitate to break them. The trouble with America today is not civil disobedience. It is civil obedience. Progressives tend to be too civil and too obedient. Our political enemies do not have that problem....
Migrants leaving ugly mark on land Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage. The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens. Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up. Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week. "It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Mrs. Kay, 62....
Rancher envisions major ski resort near Missoula For now, the ski trails on the Maclay Ranch are just freshly turned bands of brown earth. But they are the beginnings of what Tom Maclay hopes will someday be a world-class resort rivaling Vail, Sun Valley or Lake Tahoe. In Maclay's vision for the mountains south of Missoula, skiing will extend beyond the 2,960-acre ranch where his great-grandfather settled in 1883. Maclay wants to put skiers on Lolo Peak in a national forest near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and market an extraordinary vertical drop of 5,342 feet. Skiers — possibly as many as 7,500 a day — would descend north-facing slopes to the ranch and its alpine and Nordic skiing, 2,200 houses and condominiums, and a resort village. Golf, a hotel, conference and sports centers and access to excellent fly fishing are part of the four-season Bitterroot Resort plan. Critics worry about harm to public land and wildlife and about overloading this increasingly popular swath of Montana....
Rancher gets reprieve on lease A 21,000-acre ranch in the heart of a 40-square-mile area that state officials want to develop won a reprieve from a Denver judge Thursday, allowing the cows to keep their home on the range - at least for now. Chuck Pancost, an Arapahoe County rancher who feared he and his 800-head herd of Angus cattle would be evicted from their leased land this week, will be able to stay at least temporarily. Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon granted Pancost a stay from an eviction order that had been issued by his landlord, the State Board of Land Commissioners. The stay will enable Pancost to remain until the courts hear his challenge of the eviction order, which may take up to two years. Pancost has lived on 21,000 acres of state land board property east of Aurora for more than 30 years. He's raised four children there and calls the property the Pancost Ranch. But the land is at the center of a redevelopment plan state officials are working on that likely will call for building thousands of new homes on what once was home to the Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range....
In California, Agriculture Takes Center Stage in Pollution Debate On a clear day, San Joaquin looks like a bucolic farming community, complete with almond groves, cornfields and orange trees. But most of the time the valley -- trapped between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, with two major highways running north to south through it -- is smoggy, filled with air that has fostered widespread respiratory disease. Fifteen percent of the region's children have asthma, a rate three times the national average. Fresno -- the valley's biggest city -- has the third-highest rate of asthma in the country, and the San Joaquin Valley rivals Los Angeles and Houston for the dubious title of worst air quality in the nation. On bad air days, some schools hoist a red flag so parents can keep their children indoors; on good days, they raise a green flag. Agriculture does not occupy a prominent place in America's environmental policy debates, but farming has arguably more of an impact on the land, air and water than any other sector in the U.S. economy, environmental and industry experts say. In addition to producing airborne emissions, farms take up nearly half of the nation's land, and nutrient-laden runoff from farms affects such waterways as local streams and the Gulf of Mexico....
A century worth of memories The old smoke house is the only building that remains on the homestead that Buntrock's grandfather, Albert, farmed more than 100 years ago. The original house burned down in 1934, was rebuilt and now that's where Buntrock's twin brother Duane and his wife Judy live. The Buntrock Brothers farm is one of 57 - and the only one in Brown County - named Century Farms this year in South Dakota. Dwight Buntrock said it's believed his grandfather, Albert, came from Germany to South Dakota, by way of Minnesota, in 1884. In 1886 or 1887, a Timber Culture - a homestead law allowing people who plant and care for trees on their land to receive free acreage - was enacted on the land. According to records, Albert Buntrock made full payment on the land in December of 1892. However, the wooden sign that sits at the end of the driveway to the Buntrock Brothers farm references the year 1897. "Anyway you look at it, it's still been well over 100 years," Dwight Buntrock said with a laugh. "In the Buntrock family tradition, we were just late applying for it."....
In Utah's west desert, you treasure what you have So it goes for virtually everybody who calls the tiny ranching communities of Partoun, Trout Creek and Callao home. Located at least 90 miles from the nearest city and 50 miles from the closest paved road, the 100 or so people who reside out here live in a challenging environment and face daily hurdles that most other Utahns cannot possibly grasp. They wouldn't have it any other way. "I've been bitten by rattlesnakes. I've been thrown off of horses. This place has its challenges," says Callao rancher Cecil Garland. "But I've lived overseas. I've lived in Montana. I've lived in Las Vegas. And nothing compares to this. I live in a land of indescribable beauty and solitude. The conditions are harsh at times, but the wide open spaces out here are something to be most treasured."....
Ranches reveal fate of the West Three ranches, three counties, three very different development scenarios - all within one valley. In a microcosm of what's going on throughout Colorado and the rest of the West, three of the last real cattle ranches in the Roaring Fork Valley are headed toward conversion into luxury subdivisions. The ranches are located within about 12 miles of one another, as the crow flies, but the geopolitical oddities of the Roaring Fork Valley place them in three different jurisdictions. Because of that, they will end up looking vastly different....
Longtime clown has serious calling, sobering message A Montana rancher says he has been coming to the Pendleton Round-Up for about 14 or 15 years. But he doesn’t come to watch, he comes to work. Loyd Ketchum and his wife, Ashlee, operate a ranch near Miles City, Mont. He runs about 125 “momma cows,” Ketchum said, “just enough to keep us in debt.” Ranching comes naturally to Ketchum. “It’s something I grew up around and enjoy … and my wife does.” But Ketchum is not known for the work he does with momma cows. He’s best known for working with bulls. Ketchum is in the cowboy protection business and is a professional rodeo bullfighter....
Peasant tries polo, the sport of royalty When you say polo, the first image for most people is a line of fashionable clothes or expensive cologne and a guy named Ralph. Me, I think about galloping horses, smacking a ball with a stick, and a couple of guys named Roberto and Esteban down in Argentina. Earlier this year, I was chosen to be part of a small delegation of young people from across the United States to go to Argentina and Uruguay as part of a leadership exchange. So, a couple of weeks ago, I wrapped the twine on my last hay bale, put the cattle on fresh pasture, kissed my family goodbye and struck out for the southern side of our hemisphere. We kept a hectic schedule on the trip, but one weekend allowed for a couple of hours of free time in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Most of the crew opted to go shopping. I asked if I could catch a game of polo....
On the Edge of Common Sense: He was hit by a tyrannosaurus Holstein 'Isn't that Larry's heifer?" asked Dick. The two-year old black whiteface was running down the fence line along Highway 90. Traffic was moderate on the 4-lane highway. The shoulder was not smooth. Arroyos and ridges thick with rocks and brush made any chase risky. "Pull over!" said Dick. The south gate was new. It had a cattle guard but no cattle gate beside it. Dick turned the frightened cow back to the north. "Call Larry!" he shouted to his wife in the truck. Larry's wife took the call. Within five minutes Larry had appeared and stationed himself by the north gate to turn the heifer. She was smart enough or scared enough to stay off the highway but she became unreasonable. Larry knew her well. She would actually eat feed out of his hand. He was surprised by her rowdy behavior. It is a common flaw in cowmen. They form opinions about specific animals. They come to trust them. I've seen grown men put two-year-old kids on the back of tame Brahma bulls. But cows can revert to their primitive behavioral origins. I don't mean baby calf, I mean buffalo, mastodon, tyrannosaurus Holstein! It is a scientific phenomenon called "getting on the fight!"....
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Sunday, September 25, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Western fashion trends have a big bling bling
By Julie Carter
The West and those that live in it will often lean toward trends of fashion dictated by the folks in the city. Practical is not always an issue for those garbed for the public somewhere beyond the barbwire boundaries of the ranch.
For a couple of years now western fashion has taken on a retro look of shiny satin, contrasting colored piping, embroidered flowers, fringed everything and the newly coined phrase of “bling bling.”
The bling is offered up in the flash and shine of embedded rhinestones covering everything you can imagine in the accessory category. From the assortment of western wear catalogs to the buckle babe seen walking around the rodeo grounds, bling is definitely “in.”
The brilliant luminescence radiates from hoop earrings the size of dinner plates, horseshoe shaped medallions hung from a rope around the neck and western belts that have more rhinestone candle power than even Las Vegas would try to claim. There is no color of bling you can’t find to match your wardrobe, including those hot pink, cerulean blue or lime green “fat baby” boots.
Rest assured in case you weren’t, that western wear hasn’t missed the current trend of low riding jeans and clingy high riding shirts for the chickadees. The real problem with that is bottom line (pun intended) the space in between and how it looks fluffing over those bling bling belts in rolls of “weight issues.” It is a fact of the world that not everyone - no matter the age - is cut out for every fashion trend that comes down the pike.
Bling is also available on an assortment of accessories for the horse including critical gear such as breast collars and bridles. I think it’s a natural migration from the other people trends that ended up on their horses.
Years ago it was “speed beads”—a braided beaded necklace for the performance horse to wear either as a decoration or the promise of a faster time in the speed events. It was my experience the “speed” thing was false advertising.
A real deal ranch wife friend of mine recently took part in what she called “an old hide ride” which was a trail ride for women who were on approach to those fabled golden years. She said she was the only one on the trip that didn’t have a pair of rhinestone rimmed sunglasses and the little snug skull hugging caps with some sort of bling bling rhinestone emblem on it.
She was nearly an outcast. The bling has spanned the age gap in most circles and if you can’t wear it well on the waist at least in good fashion conscience you are to wear it on your head. There is absolutely no reason any longer to not “shine shine shine” no matter where you are.
Perhaps though, this too shall pass to only show up again in 30 years. I recently did a double take when I saw the pointed- toe wing-tipped boots of late 60’s-early 70’s fame back on the “western” fashion forefront.
Back then it was the hippies vs. the cowboys. Now it is hard to tell us apart.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Time to pause
by Larry Gabriel
Nothing in life is perfect, but South Dakota has some fall days that come really close.
This is not a place of sky scrapers and millions of yards of concrete.
Ours is a natural world dominated by big clear sky, the land, and things of the land.
In the winter, we listen to the winds howl. In the spring, we listen to the rains pound. In the summer, we listen to the corn grow. In the fall, we listen to the quiet.
There are precious few days with no wind in South Dakota, but they are most precious in the fall, when the temperatures are mild and it is a joy to be outside for any reason.
On such days leaves float straight down as they fall from the trees. The sky has a pale blue cast caused by a few high clouds.
The sunlight is now warm instead of hot, and its harsh glare is replaced with a softer light that brings every detail of the landscape into focus.
You can watch a Monarch butterfly travel south for a quarter of a mile if you keep your eye on it.
The hawks and sea gulls are migrating. The blackbirds are talking about it in large swarms. Waterfowl will soon follow. Many of the smaller birds and doves are already gone.
The trees are mostly quiet, but for the squirrel who is more worried about where to hide his food than he is about the passing cars.
The small grain crops are in and beans and corn harvests are underway. The gardens are picked. The salsa and other canned goods are on the shelf.
Even the livestock are less anxious, possibly because their young are now big enough to fend for themselves.
The children are in school giving quiet rest to streets, homes and parents.
Bands of foolish young pheasants are roaming the roads as if they owned them. Let them have their day. Their time is short and a day of surprise is not far away.
Capitol Lake is empty and quiet. The thousands of noisy geese that will converge on it are still grazing someplace in Canada, I suspect.
At such times, it almost feels like the world has stopped. Nature never really stops, but each fall she seems to pause and quietly admire herself.
There is no particular point to this column. Fall is simply a good time for us to pause and remember just how lucky we are to live in a place like this.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
No matter where we live, it wouldn't hurt to pause and give thanks for what we have.
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.
===
Western fashion trends have a big bling bling
By Julie Carter
The West and those that live in it will often lean toward trends of fashion dictated by the folks in the city. Practical is not always an issue for those garbed for the public somewhere beyond the barbwire boundaries of the ranch.
For a couple of years now western fashion has taken on a retro look of shiny satin, contrasting colored piping, embroidered flowers, fringed everything and the newly coined phrase of “bling bling.”
The bling is offered up in the flash and shine of embedded rhinestones covering everything you can imagine in the accessory category. From the assortment of western wear catalogs to the buckle babe seen walking around the rodeo grounds, bling is definitely “in.”
The brilliant luminescence radiates from hoop earrings the size of dinner plates, horseshoe shaped medallions hung from a rope around the neck and western belts that have more rhinestone candle power than even Las Vegas would try to claim. There is no color of bling you can’t find to match your wardrobe, including those hot pink, cerulean blue or lime green “fat baby” boots.
Rest assured in case you weren’t, that western wear hasn’t missed the current trend of low riding jeans and clingy high riding shirts for the chickadees. The real problem with that is bottom line (pun intended) the space in between and how it looks fluffing over those bling bling belts in rolls of “weight issues.” It is a fact of the world that not everyone - no matter the age - is cut out for every fashion trend that comes down the pike.
Bling is also available on an assortment of accessories for the horse including critical gear such as breast collars and bridles. I think it’s a natural migration from the other people trends that ended up on their horses.
Years ago it was “speed beads”—a braided beaded necklace for the performance horse to wear either as a decoration or the promise of a faster time in the speed events. It was my experience the “speed” thing was false advertising.
A real deal ranch wife friend of mine recently took part in what she called “an old hide ride” which was a trail ride for women who were on approach to those fabled golden years. She said she was the only one on the trip that didn’t have a pair of rhinestone rimmed sunglasses and the little snug skull hugging caps with some sort of bling bling rhinestone emblem on it.
She was nearly an outcast. The bling has spanned the age gap in most circles and if you can’t wear it well on the waist at least in good fashion conscience you are to wear it on your head. There is absolutely no reason any longer to not “shine shine shine” no matter where you are.
Perhaps though, this too shall pass to only show up again in 30 years. I recently did a double take when I saw the pointed- toe wing-tipped boots of late 60’s-early 70’s fame back on the “western” fashion forefront.
Back then it was the hippies vs. the cowboys. Now it is hard to tell us apart.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Time to pause
by Larry Gabriel
Nothing in life is perfect, but South Dakota has some fall days that come really close.
This is not a place of sky scrapers and millions of yards of concrete.
Ours is a natural world dominated by big clear sky, the land, and things of the land.
In the winter, we listen to the winds howl. In the spring, we listen to the rains pound. In the summer, we listen to the corn grow. In the fall, we listen to the quiet.
There are precious few days with no wind in South Dakota, but they are most precious in the fall, when the temperatures are mild and it is a joy to be outside for any reason.
On such days leaves float straight down as they fall from the trees. The sky has a pale blue cast caused by a few high clouds.
The sunlight is now warm instead of hot, and its harsh glare is replaced with a softer light that brings every detail of the landscape into focus.
You can watch a Monarch butterfly travel south for a quarter of a mile if you keep your eye on it.
The hawks and sea gulls are migrating. The blackbirds are talking about it in large swarms. Waterfowl will soon follow. Many of the smaller birds and doves are already gone.
The trees are mostly quiet, but for the squirrel who is more worried about where to hide his food than he is about the passing cars.
The small grain crops are in and beans and corn harvests are underway. The gardens are picked. The salsa and other canned goods are on the shelf.
Even the livestock are less anxious, possibly because their young are now big enough to fend for themselves.
The children are in school giving quiet rest to streets, homes and parents.
Bands of foolish young pheasants are roaming the roads as if they owned them. Let them have their day. Their time is short and a day of surprise is not far away.
Capitol Lake is empty and quiet. The thousands of noisy geese that will converge on it are still grazing someplace in Canada, I suspect.
At such times, it almost feels like the world has stopped. Nature never really stops, but each fall she seems to pause and quietly admire herself.
There is no particular point to this column. Fall is simply a good time for us to pause and remember just how lucky we are to live in a place like this.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
No matter where we live, it wouldn't hurt to pause and give thanks for what we have.
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.
===
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Greens Blocked Plan That May Have Saved New Orleans
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project designed to prevent a Category 5-hurricane-storm surge from filling Lake Pontchartrain and flooding New Orleans was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving “natural water flow” in 1977. Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) used a lawsuit against the Corps based on the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to halt the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project. SOWL’s argument against the Corps’ Lake Ponchartrain project claimed the Corps’ environmental impact statement was inadequate. U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., agreed, issuing an injunction prohibiting the project. “Testimony reveals serious questions as to the adequacy of cost-benefit analysis of the plan,” he wrote in his opinion. “It is the opinion of the court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they and in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the barrier project based on the August 1974 FEIS [Federal Environmental Impact Study] is allowed to continue.” Schwartz also ruled that associated flood prevention plans in Chalmette and New Orleans East must be stopped. U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse, who represented the Corps, argued the project should be exempt from environmental standards because it was “necessary to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane.” The project would have built flood gates to block storm surges from moving into Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and also would have built additional levees in flood-prone areas. It had been drafted in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1964, and authorized as part of the Flood Control Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, five years before NEPA came into effect. Johannes Westerink, a civil engineering professor at Notre Dame who specializes in hurricane storm surge prediction for the Corps, the Navy and a number of states, including Louisiana, believes the 1977 project would have stopped the mean water level in Lake Pontchartrain from rising. “If you had the gates there [from the canceled project], you would stop that water from being pushed into Lake Pontchartrain,” he said....
Tony Blair Pulls the Plug on Kyoto at Clinton Summit
Kyoto Treaty RIP. That's not the headline in any newspaper this morning emerging from the first day of the Clinton Global Initiative, but it could have been -- and should have been. Onstage with former president Bill Clinton at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was going to speak with "brutal honesty" about Kyoto and global warming, and he did. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some blunt talk, too. Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, further prefaced his remarks by noting, "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now? "No country," he declared, "is going to cut its growth." That is, no country is going to allow the Kyoto treaty, or any other such global-warming treaty, to crimp -- some say cripple -- its economy. Looking ahead to future climate-change negotiations, Blair said of such fast-growing countries as India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China, of course, weren't covered by Kyoto in the first place, which was one of the fatal flaws in the treaty. But now Blair is acknowledging the obvious: that after the current Kyoto treaty -- which the US never acceded to -- expires in 2012, there's not going to be another worldwide deal like it. So what will happen instead? Blair answered: "What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology….There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it." Bingo! That's what eco-realists have been saying all along, of course -- that the only feasible way to deal with the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming is through technological breakthroughs, not draconian cutbacks....
Fish and Wildlife Service Agrees to Perform Status Reviews for 194 Species in California
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to perform status reviews for all 194 California species that Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit earlier this year to compel. Although the Endangered Species Act requires that the government review the status of listed species every five years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to perform the reviews for about two-thirds of California’s listed species. A federal court approved a settlement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and PLF this morning. Under the terms of the agreement, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to perform all of the reviews over the next eight years, with the first wave of reviews beginning by the end of this month. The agency agreed to prioritize the species reviews according to how much is known about the species in question and how onerous their listing has been for California property owners and businesses. "The government has recognized that there is no justification for failing to comply with the law. This settlement allows the Fish and Wildlife Service the time to do a thorough analysis of each species, and make sure that taxpayer dollars are only being spent on species that truly need protecting," said Pacific Legal Foundation Principal Attorney Rob Rivett. "When federal regulation is restricting land use, raising home prices, and killing jobs, the government owes it to Californians to do the work necessary to determine if those regulations are actually necessary," said Rivett. "We expect this effort will allow Californians to get back to work building the schools and homes they need that have been mired in gridlock because of outdated listings." Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the Fish and Wildlife Service must perform status reviews of listed species every five years to determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified....
Global Warming Dilemma – Coal or Nuclear?
In the next few years, New Jersey and Vermont will do the entire country a favor by resolving the dilemma as to whether we can stop global warming without nuclear power. The two states have joined Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Delaware in a remarkably innovative pact to cut carbon dioxide emissions—the prime suspect in what now appears to be serious evidence of climate change. The Northeastern Pact will set a cap of 150 million tons of carbon dioxide per year until 2015 and then allow states to start trading emissions permits to lower the figure. Since first introduced in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, this “cap-and-trade” model has already proved stunningly successful in lowering sulfur dioxide emissions. In only fifteen years, sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced 50 percent at a cost of about 1/10th of what the Environmental Protection Agency originally predicted. Now the Northeastern states are taking the lead by applying the same strategy to carbon dioxide. But New Jersey and Vermont have a problem: Environmentalists are jockeying to close down the two nuclear plants that serve as prime sources of energy for the two states. The 635-megawatt Oyster Creek Nuclear Station in Monmouth County provides 9 percent of New Jersey’s electricity. It comes up for re-licensing in 2009. Vermont Yankee, near Brattleboro, generates 535 MW, one-third the state’s energy and 70 percent of what the state doesn’t have to import. Without these two nuclear stations, coal or natural gas will have to be substituted and carbon emissions will rise considerably. As usual, environmentalists are assuring everyone it can be done with “renewables” – wind, solar, and other “alternative” energies. But there is no myth more damaging in diverting the nation’s attention from its energy problems....
Hostility Toward Key Provision of Pombo Endangered Species Reform Bill Shows Environmentalists Aren't Committed to Public's "Right to Know"
The environmental movement's strong opposition to a key provision of Rep. Richard Pombo's Endangered Species Act reform bill suggests they aren't serious about protecting the public's "right to know," says The National Center for Public Policy Research. It also suggests environmentalists aren't serious about saving endangered species, the group says. "For perhaps the first time, Congress is considering a proposal to stop penalizing private stewardship and thus create an ESA that offers the potential of being good for both people and good for species," said R.J. Smith, senior fellow at The National Center. The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), which was introduced by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and others September 19, includes a provision that would require the federal government to inform property owners within 90 days whether their proposed activities would harm species listed under the Endangered Species Act. But environmental groups such as Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity oppose the provision, arguing it would harm species. "Environmental groups say they support the public's 'right to know,'" said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. "But they apparently don't think this right should extend to American landowners-they would rather keep them in the dark." The 90-day review period could be a means of not only protecting the rights of property owners, but of saving species, according to The National Center....
Earth Sense in the Balance
This week, Bush-administration officials are meeting in Vienna to discuss a United Nations plan to globalize environmental regulation. Dubbed the "Strategic Approach to Global Management of Chemicals" or SAICM, the program is anything but strategic. SAICM would attempt to regulate basically all substances in commerce — manmade and natural — and would attempt to manage all the world's solid and hazardous waste. And in time, it could easily spill into other areas — air and water. If you read the documents published by SAICM negotiators, you might think you are reading Al Gore's 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, in which he proposed making the environment the "central organizing principle for civilization." In the chapter titled "A Global Marshall Plan," Gore outlines a utopian vision for a "Strategic Environment Initiative" through which world regulators could effectively "discourage and phase out" supposedly "inappropriate technologies and the same time develop and disseminate a new generation of environmentally benign substitutes." This sounds an awful lot like SAICM's "Global Action Plan." Among 288 "concrete measures" proposed in SAICM's plan are intentions to "restrict availability" of "highly toxic pesticides;" substitute "highly toxic pesticides;" "promote substitution of hazardous chemicals;" "regulate the availability, distribution and use of pesticides;" "halt the sale of and recall products" that pose "unacceptable risks;" "eliminate the use" of certain "hazardous chemicals;" and so on. Such policies would be pushed by an international chemicals bureaucracy and implemented by "stakeholders" — government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations. Somehow we are supposed to believe that these parties know better than the rest of us — the actors in the world marketplace who must live with the consequences of such decisions....
Big Wins for Energy in Courts, Congress; Legal Merits Wins Out Over Environmental Absolutism
Sound science, judicial restraint and democracy have scored big wins lately both in the courts and in Congress over the combined forces of parochial politics and environmental absolutism, according to National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow Dr. H. Sterling Burnett. In one instance, a case brought by several states and environmental lobby groups against energy companies to force them to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, was tossed out of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Judge Loretta A. Preska noted in her decision, “Were judges to resolve political questions, there would be no check on their resolutions, because the judiciary is not accountable to any other branch or to the people.” She also pointed out that Congress has addressed emission limits many times and opted not to impose restrictions. “These lawsuits have no legal merit,” Dr. Burnett agreed. “The court showed appropriate deference to findings by the legislative and executive branches of government.” In addition, the U.S. Senate last week rejected an attempt to overturn the Bush Administration’s new mercury emission rules for power plants, which should be a victory for public health, according to Dr. Burnett....
Consumer Group Asks Virginia State Veterinarian To Protect New Orleans Pets “Rescued” By PETA
The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom sent a letter today to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services asking Dr. Richard Wilkes, State Veterinarian, to audit the condition of 32 dogs taken in by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers descended on Louisiana after the hurricane, capturing homeless dogs to bring back to PETA’s Norfolk headquarters. PETA’s record of animal care suggests that after suffering through the devastation of Katrina, these pets could well be euthanized at PETA’s hands. Documents obtained by the Center for Consumer Freedom from the State of Virginia show that PETA has a long-standing practice of killing thousands of adoptable dogs and cats. Between 1998 and 2004, PETA put to death more than 12,400 domestic animals. In 2004 alone, PETA killed over 85 percent of the animals it took in. That same year, other shelters in the region did much better comparatively. The Norfolk SPCA euthanized less than five percent of the animals in its care, while the Virginia Beach SPCA put down 27 percent of its animals. Additionally, in October two PETA employees are scheduled to face 62 counts of felony animal-cruelty in a North Carolina courtroom. The pair were arrested at a shopping center on June 15, where police found 18 dead dogs—including seven very adoptable puppies—in a nearby dumpster, and 13 more dead animals in a PETA-owned van....
===
Greens Blocked Plan That May Have Saved New Orleans
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project designed to prevent a Category 5-hurricane-storm surge from filling Lake Pontchartrain and flooding New Orleans was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving “natural water flow” in 1977. Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) used a lawsuit against the Corps based on the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to halt the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project. SOWL’s argument against the Corps’ Lake Ponchartrain project claimed the Corps’ environmental impact statement was inadequate. U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., agreed, issuing an injunction prohibiting the project. “Testimony reveals serious questions as to the adequacy of cost-benefit analysis of the plan,” he wrote in his opinion. “It is the opinion of the court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they and in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the barrier project based on the August 1974 FEIS [Federal Environmental Impact Study] is allowed to continue.” Schwartz also ruled that associated flood prevention plans in Chalmette and New Orleans East must be stopped. U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse, who represented the Corps, argued the project should be exempt from environmental standards because it was “necessary to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane.” The project would have built flood gates to block storm surges from moving into Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and also would have built additional levees in flood-prone areas. It had been drafted in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1964, and authorized as part of the Flood Control Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, five years before NEPA came into effect. Johannes Westerink, a civil engineering professor at Notre Dame who specializes in hurricane storm surge prediction for the Corps, the Navy and a number of states, including Louisiana, believes the 1977 project would have stopped the mean water level in Lake Pontchartrain from rising. “If you had the gates there [from the canceled project], you would stop that water from being pushed into Lake Pontchartrain,” he said....
Tony Blair Pulls the Plug on Kyoto at Clinton Summit
Kyoto Treaty RIP. That's not the headline in any newspaper this morning emerging from the first day of the Clinton Global Initiative, but it could have been -- and should have been. Onstage with former president Bill Clinton at a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was going to speak with "brutal honesty" about Kyoto and global warming, and he did. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had some blunt talk, too. Blair, a longtime supporter of the Kyoto treaty, further prefaced his remarks by noting, "My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now? "No country," he declared, "is going to cut its growth." That is, no country is going to allow the Kyoto treaty, or any other such global-warming treaty, to crimp -- some say cripple -- its economy. Looking ahead to future climate-change negotiations, Blair said of such fast-growing countries as India and China, "They're not going to start negotiating another treaty like Kyoto." India and China, of course, weren't covered by Kyoto in the first place, which was one of the fatal flaws in the treaty. But now Blair is acknowledging the obvious: that after the current Kyoto treaty -- which the US never acceded to -- expires in 2012, there's not going to be another worldwide deal like it. So what will happen instead? Blair answered: "What countries will do is work together to develop the science and technology….There is no way that we are going to tackle this problem unless we develop the science and technology to do it." Bingo! That's what eco-realists have been saying all along, of course -- that the only feasible way to deal with the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming is through technological breakthroughs, not draconian cutbacks....
Fish and Wildlife Service Agrees to Perform Status Reviews for 194 Species in California
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to perform status reviews for all 194 California species that Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit earlier this year to compel. Although the Endangered Species Act requires that the government review the status of listed species every five years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to perform the reviews for about two-thirds of California’s listed species. A federal court approved a settlement between the Fish and Wildlife Service and PLF this morning. Under the terms of the agreement, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to perform all of the reviews over the next eight years, with the first wave of reviews beginning by the end of this month. The agency agreed to prioritize the species reviews according to how much is known about the species in question and how onerous their listing has been for California property owners and businesses. "The government has recognized that there is no justification for failing to comply with the law. This settlement allows the Fish and Wildlife Service the time to do a thorough analysis of each species, and make sure that taxpayer dollars are only being spent on species that truly need protecting," said Pacific Legal Foundation Principal Attorney Rob Rivett. "When federal regulation is restricting land use, raising home prices, and killing jobs, the government owes it to Californians to do the work necessary to determine if those regulations are actually necessary," said Rivett. "We expect this effort will allow Californians to get back to work building the schools and homes they need that have been mired in gridlock because of outdated listings." Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the Fish and Wildlife Service must perform status reviews of listed species every five years to determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified....
Global Warming Dilemma – Coal or Nuclear?
In the next few years, New Jersey and Vermont will do the entire country a favor by resolving the dilemma as to whether we can stop global warming without nuclear power. The two states have joined Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and Delaware in a remarkably innovative pact to cut carbon dioxide emissions—the prime suspect in what now appears to be serious evidence of climate change. The Northeastern Pact will set a cap of 150 million tons of carbon dioxide per year until 2015 and then allow states to start trading emissions permits to lower the figure. Since first introduced in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, this “cap-and-trade” model has already proved stunningly successful in lowering sulfur dioxide emissions. In only fifteen years, sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced 50 percent at a cost of about 1/10th of what the Environmental Protection Agency originally predicted. Now the Northeastern states are taking the lead by applying the same strategy to carbon dioxide. But New Jersey and Vermont have a problem: Environmentalists are jockeying to close down the two nuclear plants that serve as prime sources of energy for the two states. The 635-megawatt Oyster Creek Nuclear Station in Monmouth County provides 9 percent of New Jersey’s electricity. It comes up for re-licensing in 2009. Vermont Yankee, near Brattleboro, generates 535 MW, one-third the state’s energy and 70 percent of what the state doesn’t have to import. Without these two nuclear stations, coal or natural gas will have to be substituted and carbon emissions will rise considerably. As usual, environmentalists are assuring everyone it can be done with “renewables” – wind, solar, and other “alternative” energies. But there is no myth more damaging in diverting the nation’s attention from its energy problems....
Hostility Toward Key Provision of Pombo Endangered Species Reform Bill Shows Environmentalists Aren't Committed to Public's "Right to Know"
The environmental movement's strong opposition to a key provision of Rep. Richard Pombo's Endangered Species Act reform bill suggests they aren't serious about protecting the public's "right to know," says The National Center for Public Policy Research. It also suggests environmentalists aren't serious about saving endangered species, the group says. "For perhaps the first time, Congress is considering a proposal to stop penalizing private stewardship and thus create an ESA that offers the potential of being good for both people and good for species," said R.J. Smith, senior fellow at The National Center. The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), which was introduced by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo and others September 19, includes a provision that would require the federal government to inform property owners within 90 days whether their proposed activities would harm species listed under the Endangered Species Act. But environmental groups such as Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity oppose the provision, arguing it would harm species. "Environmental groups say they support the public's 'right to know,'" said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. "But they apparently don't think this right should extend to American landowners-they would rather keep them in the dark." The 90-day review period could be a means of not only protecting the rights of property owners, but of saving species, according to The National Center....
Earth Sense in the Balance
This week, Bush-administration officials are meeting in Vienna to discuss a United Nations plan to globalize environmental regulation. Dubbed the "Strategic Approach to Global Management of Chemicals" or SAICM, the program is anything but strategic. SAICM would attempt to regulate basically all substances in commerce — manmade and natural — and would attempt to manage all the world's solid and hazardous waste. And in time, it could easily spill into other areas — air and water. If you read the documents published by SAICM negotiators, you might think you are reading Al Gore's 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, in which he proposed making the environment the "central organizing principle for civilization." In the chapter titled "A Global Marshall Plan," Gore outlines a utopian vision for a "Strategic Environment Initiative" through which world regulators could effectively "discourage and phase out" supposedly "inappropriate technologies and the same time develop and disseminate a new generation of environmentally benign substitutes." This sounds an awful lot like SAICM's "Global Action Plan." Among 288 "concrete measures" proposed in SAICM's plan are intentions to "restrict availability" of "highly toxic pesticides;" substitute "highly toxic pesticides;" "promote substitution of hazardous chemicals;" "regulate the availability, distribution and use of pesticides;" "halt the sale of and recall products" that pose "unacceptable risks;" "eliminate the use" of certain "hazardous chemicals;" and so on. Such policies would be pushed by an international chemicals bureaucracy and implemented by "stakeholders" — government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations. Somehow we are supposed to believe that these parties know better than the rest of us — the actors in the world marketplace who must live with the consequences of such decisions....
Big Wins for Energy in Courts, Congress; Legal Merits Wins Out Over Environmental Absolutism
Sound science, judicial restraint and democracy have scored big wins lately both in the courts and in Congress over the combined forces of parochial politics and environmental absolutism, according to National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow Dr. H. Sterling Burnett. In one instance, a case brought by several states and environmental lobby groups against energy companies to force them to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, was tossed out of U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Judge Loretta A. Preska noted in her decision, “Were judges to resolve political questions, there would be no check on their resolutions, because the judiciary is not accountable to any other branch or to the people.” She also pointed out that Congress has addressed emission limits many times and opted not to impose restrictions. “These lawsuits have no legal merit,” Dr. Burnett agreed. “The court showed appropriate deference to findings by the legislative and executive branches of government.” In addition, the U.S. Senate last week rejected an attempt to overturn the Bush Administration’s new mercury emission rules for power plants, which should be a victory for public health, according to Dr. Burnett....
Consumer Group Asks Virginia State Veterinarian To Protect New Orleans Pets “Rescued” By PETA
The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom sent a letter today to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services asking Dr. Richard Wilkes, State Veterinarian, to audit the condition of 32 dogs taken in by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers descended on Louisiana after the hurricane, capturing homeless dogs to bring back to PETA’s Norfolk headquarters. PETA’s record of animal care suggests that after suffering through the devastation of Katrina, these pets could well be euthanized at PETA’s hands. Documents obtained by the Center for Consumer Freedom from the State of Virginia show that PETA has a long-standing practice of killing thousands of adoptable dogs and cats. Between 1998 and 2004, PETA put to death more than 12,400 domestic animals. In 2004 alone, PETA killed over 85 percent of the animals it took in. That same year, other shelters in the region did much better comparatively. The Norfolk SPCA euthanized less than five percent of the animals in its care, while the Virginia Beach SPCA put down 27 percent of its animals. Additionally, in October two PETA employees are scheduled to face 62 counts of felony animal-cruelty in a North Carolina courtroom. The pair were arrested at a shopping center on June 15, where police found 18 dead dogs—including seven very adoptable puppies—in a nearby dumpster, and 13 more dead animals in a PETA-owned van....
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Friday, September 23, 2005
GAO REPORTS
Information Quality Act: National Agricultural Statistics Service Implements First Steps, but Documentation of Census of Agriculture Could Be Improved. GAO-05-644, September 23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-644
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05644high.pdf
Nuclear Cleanup: Preliminary Results of the Review of the Department of Energy's Rocky Flats Closure Project. GAO-05-1044R, September 22.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-1044R
Information Quality Act: National Agricultural Statistics Service Implements First Steps, but Documentation of Census of Agriculture Could Be Improved. GAO-05-644, September 23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-644
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05644high.pdf
Nuclear Cleanup: Preliminary Results of the Review of the Department of Energy's Rocky Flats Closure Project. GAO-05-1044R, September 22.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-1044R
NEWS ROUNDUP
Panel OKs rewrite of Endangered Species Act A House committee on Thursday approved a sweeping rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that hands major new rights to property owners while limiting the federal government's ability to protect plant and animal habitat. The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., bars the government from establishing ''critical habitat'' for species where development is limited, and sets deadlines for property owners to get answers from the government about whether their development plans would hurt protected species. If the government doesn't answer in time, the development could go forward. If the government blocks a development, the property owner would be compensated. The bill ''will place a new emphasis on recovery and eliminates dysfunctional critical habitat provisions,'' Pombo said. ''It's about a new era in protecting species and protecting habitat at the same time we protect property owners.'' Pombo's committee approved the bill on a 26-12 vote, over objections from some Democrats and moderate Republicans who said it would disfigure the landmark 32-year-old law that environmentalists credit with preserving species like the bald eagle and California sea otter....
Environmentalists, industry, battle over what is old-growth After failing to halt two timber sales in Washington and Oregon in federal court, environmental groups are now accusing Boise Cascade Co. of reneging on its 2003 promise not to buy wood from old-growth forests. The Boise-based company began logging 10 million board feet of timber in the Deschutes National Forest in eastern Oregon last week. It expects to begin cutting 6.5 million board feet from the Wenatchee National Forest in northeastern Washington within days. Both areas were damaged by 2003 fires. Environmentalists say it's old growth. Boise Cascade says it isn't. Forestry experts say the disagreement highlights the difficulty of defining just what makes up old-growth forests, which for years have been at the center of the clash between loggers and preservationists....
Activists removed from Bitterroot forest office during EIS press conference Three environmental activists were escorted out of the Bitterroot National Forest office under armed guard Thursday after attempting to attend a news conference on the release of the environmental review of a controversial timber sale. "I've never been turned away from that building," said Jim Miller, Friends of the Bitterroot president. "I've been coming here for decades." Miller said he was led out of the building by a "fully armed" officer wearing a bulletproof vest. The Forest Service held the news conference to release the final Middle East Fork Environmental Impact Statement, which is Montana's first project to be released under the authority of President Bush's Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The agency invited six Ravalli County residents who supported the Forest Service's preferred alternative to meet with the press. Bitterroot Forest Supervisor Dave Bull said the others were excluded because the agency wanted to provide a "safe environment" for community members who had helped craft the agency's preferred alternative....
Column: The Hopi Way may vanish so skiers can play Since ancient times Hopi people have regarded the San Francisco Peaks as "Nuvatukyaovi," which in the Hopi language means "place of snow on the peaks." Nuvatukyaovi is central to Hopi culture and religion. It is the home of Katsina spirits who, in the growing season, drift as clouds from the Peaks and descend on my homeland, bringing rain, hope and guidance to the Hopi people. Hopi children are initiated into Katsina societies, which teach them to live humble, respectful lives, in balance with all living and non-living things; values at the heart of a life path known as the Hopi Way. Of course, American Indians are a conquered people. Since Spanish and European settlement we have lost lives, most of our land and much of our culture and traditions....
Attempts continue to protect Valle Vidal Different agencies in New Mexico are working in different ways on the same issue, but they all have a common goal: protecting Valle Vidal. Four state agencies are working together on a petition to nominate Valle Vidal for the designation of Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW). Officials of each agency or department were present at a Town Meeting at the Philmont Training Center Wednesday. In an overview of the ONRW designation, the proposed document explains, “Water is the lifeblood of the area’s wildlife populations ... The headwater streams of the Valle Vidal flow into two major drainages, the Rio Grande (on the west side) and the South Canadian (on the east side).”....
Column: Government gone bad The next time you hear someone lament that citizens are growing more apathetic about getting involved in government decision-making, you might want to point to the actions of the Bitterroot National Forest managers as a helluva good reason why. Recent revelations of the blatant and arrogant disregard for what citizens have to say about the future of their own national forest lands is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that a government agency has gone bad—but it’s a shocker, nonetheless. As reported this week, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Native Forest Network show the Bitterroot National Forest spent $162,000 preparing for the Middle East Fork hazardous fuels reduction project. Given the unbelievably reckless spending proclivities of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress that have erased the surplus and left us with mounting trillions in national debt, this piddling amount of money is certainly not that big of a deal, except for one thing: the forest managers spent it to mark the cut for their “preferred alternative” while the public comment period on the proposal was still open. In other words, the agency had already made its decision and was moving ahead to implement it with total disregard for whatever the public might say. Everyone who has ever had contact with state or federal agencies knows that their personnel—especially those charged with stewarding the fish, wildlife and natural resources on public lands—consider themselves “trained professionals.” Those of us in the public, who just happen to own these resources, are relegated to a lesser category of uninformed amateurs who either support them as “friends” or oppose them and are dubbed “troublemakers.” Given this rather dismal regard for the public, it is not uncommon for agencies to disparage public opinion in favor of the decisions made by their “professional managers.”....
Plan to ship trash to desert site derailed The nation's largest proposed landfill next to Joshua Tree National Park suffered a major setback when a federal judge rejected a land swap that is key to the project moving forward. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin said in a 26-page opinion released Tuesday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to fully consider the environmental consequences of permitting a landfill on 3,481 acres the federal agency traded to Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures. Kaiser wanted to exchange the land for 2,486 acres of private land scattered throughout the Riverside County desert in order to develop the Eagle Mountain landfill. Environmentalists hope the decision will make it almost impossible to revive the project because Los Angeles County can also use the Mesquite landfill in Imperial County, which is similar in size to Eagle Mountain....
Hatch introduces nuke waste bill Just days after Utah's junior senator made a U-turn on nuclear waste, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced legislation that would block any radioactive waste from coming to a private facility in Utah. Much of the waste going to that facility would roll through Utah County. U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who long has supported a proposed federal waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Tuesday dropped his support for that beleaguered project, which would hold the nation's commercial spent reactor fuel. Though Hatch has introduced a nuclear waste bill, Bennett instead expressed support for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who plans to introduce legislation that would turn over responsibility for the spent fuel to the Energy Department, keeping the waste at reactor sites while the country rethinks its nuclear waste policy. But Reid can't help Utah, Hatch says. Joining Reid would alienate the Bush administration and others who are in a position to block a proposed private spent fuel storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley....
Editorial: Bennett's about-face It does not happen very often that a U.S. senator or congressional representative changes his or her mind. On those rare occasions when reversals are made, more often than not, it is done in the dark of night during a protracted legislative battle, and they attempt to do so with as little public notice as possible. Credit Utah's Sen. Bob Bennett for having the guts to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in the daylight, and proclaim his change of heart for everyone to see and hear. Bennett says he now has come to believe that a federal plan to store, permanently, high-level nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain "does not make sense and we need to move in some future direction." It is a complete about-face: Three years ago, he and Sen. Orrin Hatch voted to continue building the Yucca Mountain facility....
Cowboy creates comedy in poems Louis L'Amour? That's grand and all. But when Baxter Black talks about being a cowboy, that's not the type he's referring to. "I don't know anything about being a cowboy in 1880 or relate to the songs they sing," said the poet, novelist and radio personality. "Not that I'm a spokesman, but that's the feeling about us in the cow business. "We like Roy Rogers and Louis L'Amour, but they don't have a clue what we're doing. . . . I write about cowboys today. Cow people. Livestock. Sheep people." A veterinarian for large animals for years before becoming a writer and gaining fame for his essays on National Public Radio, Black lives in Arizona near the Mexico border, an area with a rich history that suits the storyteller....
Western design feted Ask a dozen people at the Western Design Conference to explain exactly what "Western design" is, and you're likely to get at least 13 different answers. The answers follow a continuum of influences from rustic to lodge to American Indian to cowboy chic. And that full range was on display Thursday as nearly 100 exhibitors showcasing furniture, fashion and housewares gathered in Cody's Riley Arena for the opening of the Western Design Conference exhibition and sale. Those expecting to see a compendium of cowboy kitsch were greeted instead with a decidedly fresh and diverse take on Western design. "This has been surprising," said Larry Lefner of Woody Creek, Colo. "I didn't expect this much culture in a little bitty town in Wyoming, but it's fantastic. There's a lot of very good talent on display here today."....
Strange sickness affecting horses in Ennis Teri Freeman watched her appaloosa horse Lucky die of a strange liver disease within a day of showing symptoms in early July. In the evening, the 27-year-old horse became lethargic, demented and jaundiced. Freeman sat with him all night. By the morning Lucky was dead. ‘‘He died in my arms,'' Freeman said recently at the Rusty Cowboy, an antique store she rents on the south end of Main Street in Ennis. Her partner Bobby Bock's Arab pinto horse Splash showed similar symptoms a few weeks later: becoming lethargic, walking in circles and having her skin flake off in huge clumps that look like peeling paint. It was a bizarre sickness, Bock said. ‘‘None of the old cowboys around here have seen anything like this,'' he said. They rushed Splash to Ennis veterinarian Eileen White, who took the horse to a veterinarian in Belgrade who specializes in internal medicine for horses. White said Splash showed signs of dementia and had jaundiced eyes. She ran tests on the horses liver and found it just wasn't working....
Riders shoot from horseback Kevin Fink, 48, pops balloons as a hobby. From horseback. With a gun. "It is a true adrenaline rush - the whole experience of training a horse to let you shoot a gun while you are on his back and then riding through a course at top speed trying to hit all the targets," Fink said. Fink, a retired rodeo cowboy, and 12 others are keeping the Old West tradition of mounted shooting alive. Their group, Dakota Territory Shooters, formed in Lennox this summer. "We keep everything as authentic to the Old West as possible," said Tea resident Mick Nesseim, 50. "We use all leather equipment, dress like the Old West cowboy and only shoot single-action revolvers of .45 Colt caliber, the same guns they used back then." Mounted shooting is a timed competition. A horse and rider navigate one of 57 courses approved by the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association....
CPRA to stand on own two feet It’s the cowboy way to go it alone and it’s the only logical choice for the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association after a recent U.S.-Canada split in the rodeo ranks. The CPRA was feeling a little gored last month after news that its U.S. counterpart put the hooves to a longstanding sanctioning agreement between the two organizations. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, announced on Aug. 18 the termination of an arrangement that saw all CPRA rodeos co-sanctioned by its American cousin. With the agreement gone by 2006, all CPRA rodeos will no longer count in the PRCA standings. CPRA president Bob Robinson sought to put a positive spin on recent events when the organization announced on Sept. 7 its intentions to forge ahead with or without its southern counterpart. “We’re big enough to stand on our own two feet and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “The CPRA is completely self-sustainable. We have a great product and we’re ready to showcase it to the world on our own. Now we will be able to think about ourselves and not worry about what another association thinks when developing our policies and strategies.” Just how this new world order in the rodeo ring will shape up is not yet clear. The CPRA will mull over several scenarios over the next few months, including expanding the current options available to non-Canadians and their ability to qualify for the annual Canadian Finals Rodeo....
Champion responds well to last-chance pressure It's well documented that six-time world champion tie-down roper Fred Whitfield performs best in clutch situations. With his back against the wall, Whitfield always rises to the occasion. It doesn't matter whether it's at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the Pace Picante series, or at a regular rodeo during the season. The Hockley, Texas, cowboy knows how to handle pressure. His latest clutch run came Saturday at the 95th annual Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, the final stop on the Wrangler ProRodeo Summer Tour. Whitfield knew he needed to make every run count if he was going to earn a place in the $350,000 Pace Picante ProRodeo Challenge in Omaha, Neb., Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Entering Pendleton, he was 31st in the standings, and only the top 12 qualify for Omaha. It didn't take Whitfield long to make his move. He came out firing in the first round with a 9.4-second run, which was good enough for a fourth-place finish in the round. He encountered a little more trouble in the second (11.5). But the total was enough to make the Wrangler Tour final round, and that was all Whitfield needed. He roped and tied his calf in 8.5 seconds to finish atop the leaderboard and capture the aggregate title with a time of 29.4 seconds on three head. When the dust finally settled, Whitfield had collected 25.5 points and moved into a tie for 11th place with 49.5 points, securing a spot in the Pace Challenge....
Rodeo-themed Extreme Makeover to air Oct. 2 When the ABC mega-hit show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition knocked on the doors of the PRCA Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., in mid-July, the ProRodeo family couldn't wait to jump in and get dirty. Wrangler, Justin Brands and virtually every other PRCA corporate partner opened their pocketbooks and hearts to a Colorado Springs-area family whose 101-year-old, 2,000-square-foot farmhouse could no longer meet the needs of six children and their parents. Billy Jack and Anne Barrett and their kids — four are adopted out of foster care programs — live in the tiny town of Peyton, which is situated a few miles east of Colorado Springs. The Barretts were chosen for the makeover for opening their lives and home to troubled and disadvantaged children. More than 3,000 applications are considered each day by the show. ABC will be airing the Barrett Family episode on Sunday, Oct. 2, beginning at 8 ET. This is the second episode in the show's third season lineup, which begins on Sunday, Sept. 25. The Barretts are horse people and love the sport of rodeo. The ABC Extreme Makeover team's task was to tear down the family's existing home and build a new house that represented the family's passion for rodeo and the Western culture....
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Panel OKs rewrite of Endangered Species Act A House committee on Thursday approved a sweeping rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that hands major new rights to property owners while limiting the federal government's ability to protect plant and animal habitat. The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., bars the government from establishing ''critical habitat'' for species where development is limited, and sets deadlines for property owners to get answers from the government about whether their development plans would hurt protected species. If the government doesn't answer in time, the development could go forward. If the government blocks a development, the property owner would be compensated. The bill ''will place a new emphasis on recovery and eliminates dysfunctional critical habitat provisions,'' Pombo said. ''It's about a new era in protecting species and protecting habitat at the same time we protect property owners.'' Pombo's committee approved the bill on a 26-12 vote, over objections from some Democrats and moderate Republicans who said it would disfigure the landmark 32-year-old law that environmentalists credit with preserving species like the bald eagle and California sea otter....
Environmentalists, industry, battle over what is old-growth After failing to halt two timber sales in Washington and Oregon in federal court, environmental groups are now accusing Boise Cascade Co. of reneging on its 2003 promise not to buy wood from old-growth forests. The Boise-based company began logging 10 million board feet of timber in the Deschutes National Forest in eastern Oregon last week. It expects to begin cutting 6.5 million board feet from the Wenatchee National Forest in northeastern Washington within days. Both areas were damaged by 2003 fires. Environmentalists say it's old growth. Boise Cascade says it isn't. Forestry experts say the disagreement highlights the difficulty of defining just what makes up old-growth forests, which for years have been at the center of the clash between loggers and preservationists....
Activists removed from Bitterroot forest office during EIS press conference Three environmental activists were escorted out of the Bitterroot National Forest office under armed guard Thursday after attempting to attend a news conference on the release of the environmental review of a controversial timber sale. "I've never been turned away from that building," said Jim Miller, Friends of the Bitterroot president. "I've been coming here for decades." Miller said he was led out of the building by a "fully armed" officer wearing a bulletproof vest. The Forest Service held the news conference to release the final Middle East Fork Environmental Impact Statement, which is Montana's first project to be released under the authority of President Bush's Healthy Forests Restoration Act. The agency invited six Ravalli County residents who supported the Forest Service's preferred alternative to meet with the press. Bitterroot Forest Supervisor Dave Bull said the others were excluded because the agency wanted to provide a "safe environment" for community members who had helped craft the agency's preferred alternative....
Column: The Hopi Way may vanish so skiers can play Since ancient times Hopi people have regarded the San Francisco Peaks as "Nuvatukyaovi," which in the Hopi language means "place of snow on the peaks." Nuvatukyaovi is central to Hopi culture and religion. It is the home of Katsina spirits who, in the growing season, drift as clouds from the Peaks and descend on my homeland, bringing rain, hope and guidance to the Hopi people. Hopi children are initiated into Katsina societies, which teach them to live humble, respectful lives, in balance with all living and non-living things; values at the heart of a life path known as the Hopi Way. Of course, American Indians are a conquered people. Since Spanish and European settlement we have lost lives, most of our land and much of our culture and traditions....
Attempts continue to protect Valle Vidal Different agencies in New Mexico are working in different ways on the same issue, but they all have a common goal: protecting Valle Vidal. Four state agencies are working together on a petition to nominate Valle Vidal for the designation of Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW). Officials of each agency or department were present at a Town Meeting at the Philmont Training Center Wednesday. In an overview of the ONRW designation, the proposed document explains, “Water is the lifeblood of the area’s wildlife populations ... The headwater streams of the Valle Vidal flow into two major drainages, the Rio Grande (on the west side) and the South Canadian (on the east side).”....
Column: Government gone bad The next time you hear someone lament that citizens are growing more apathetic about getting involved in government decision-making, you might want to point to the actions of the Bitterroot National Forest managers as a helluva good reason why. Recent revelations of the blatant and arrogant disregard for what citizens have to say about the future of their own national forest lands is not the first time, and will certainly not be the last, that a government agency has gone bad—but it’s a shocker, nonetheless. As reported this week, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Native Forest Network show the Bitterroot National Forest spent $162,000 preparing for the Middle East Fork hazardous fuels reduction project. Given the unbelievably reckless spending proclivities of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress that have erased the surplus and left us with mounting trillions in national debt, this piddling amount of money is certainly not that big of a deal, except for one thing: the forest managers spent it to mark the cut for their “preferred alternative” while the public comment period on the proposal was still open. In other words, the agency had already made its decision and was moving ahead to implement it with total disregard for whatever the public might say. Everyone who has ever had contact with state or federal agencies knows that their personnel—especially those charged with stewarding the fish, wildlife and natural resources on public lands—consider themselves “trained professionals.” Those of us in the public, who just happen to own these resources, are relegated to a lesser category of uninformed amateurs who either support them as “friends” or oppose them and are dubbed “troublemakers.” Given this rather dismal regard for the public, it is not uncommon for agencies to disparage public opinion in favor of the decisions made by their “professional managers.”....
Plan to ship trash to desert site derailed The nation's largest proposed landfill next to Joshua Tree National Park suffered a major setback when a federal judge rejected a land swap that is key to the project moving forward. U.S. District Judge Robert J. Timlin said in a 26-page opinion released Tuesday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to fully consider the environmental consequences of permitting a landfill on 3,481 acres the federal agency traded to Ontario-based Kaiser Ventures. Kaiser wanted to exchange the land for 2,486 acres of private land scattered throughout the Riverside County desert in order to develop the Eagle Mountain landfill. Environmentalists hope the decision will make it almost impossible to revive the project because Los Angeles County can also use the Mesquite landfill in Imperial County, which is similar in size to Eagle Mountain....
Hatch introduces nuke waste bill Just days after Utah's junior senator made a U-turn on nuclear waste, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced legislation that would block any radioactive waste from coming to a private facility in Utah. Much of the waste going to that facility would roll through Utah County. U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who long has supported a proposed federal waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Tuesday dropped his support for that beleaguered project, which would hold the nation's commercial spent reactor fuel. Though Hatch has introduced a nuclear waste bill, Bennett instead expressed support for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who plans to introduce legislation that would turn over responsibility for the spent fuel to the Energy Department, keeping the waste at reactor sites while the country rethinks its nuclear waste policy. But Reid can't help Utah, Hatch says. Joining Reid would alienate the Bush administration and others who are in a position to block a proposed private spent fuel storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley....
Editorial: Bennett's about-face It does not happen very often that a U.S. senator or congressional representative changes his or her mind. On those rare occasions when reversals are made, more often than not, it is done in the dark of night during a protracted legislative battle, and they attempt to do so with as little public notice as possible. Credit Utah's Sen. Bob Bennett for having the guts to stand on the floor of the U.S. Senate, in the daylight, and proclaim his change of heart for everyone to see and hear. Bennett says he now has come to believe that a federal plan to store, permanently, high-level nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain "does not make sense and we need to move in some future direction." It is a complete about-face: Three years ago, he and Sen. Orrin Hatch voted to continue building the Yucca Mountain facility....
Cowboy creates comedy in poems Louis L'Amour? That's grand and all. But when Baxter Black talks about being a cowboy, that's not the type he's referring to. "I don't know anything about being a cowboy in 1880 or relate to the songs they sing," said the poet, novelist and radio personality. "Not that I'm a spokesman, but that's the feeling about us in the cow business. "We like Roy Rogers and Louis L'Amour, but they don't have a clue what we're doing. . . . I write about cowboys today. Cow people. Livestock. Sheep people." A veterinarian for large animals for years before becoming a writer and gaining fame for his essays on National Public Radio, Black lives in Arizona near the Mexico border, an area with a rich history that suits the storyteller....
Western design feted Ask a dozen people at the Western Design Conference to explain exactly what "Western design" is, and you're likely to get at least 13 different answers. The answers follow a continuum of influences from rustic to lodge to American Indian to cowboy chic. And that full range was on display Thursday as nearly 100 exhibitors showcasing furniture, fashion and housewares gathered in Cody's Riley Arena for the opening of the Western Design Conference exhibition and sale. Those expecting to see a compendium of cowboy kitsch were greeted instead with a decidedly fresh and diverse take on Western design. "This has been surprising," said Larry Lefner of Woody Creek, Colo. "I didn't expect this much culture in a little bitty town in Wyoming, but it's fantastic. There's a lot of very good talent on display here today."....
Strange sickness affecting horses in Ennis Teri Freeman watched her appaloosa horse Lucky die of a strange liver disease within a day of showing symptoms in early July. In the evening, the 27-year-old horse became lethargic, demented and jaundiced. Freeman sat with him all night. By the morning Lucky was dead. ‘‘He died in my arms,'' Freeman said recently at the Rusty Cowboy, an antique store she rents on the south end of Main Street in Ennis. Her partner Bobby Bock's Arab pinto horse Splash showed similar symptoms a few weeks later: becoming lethargic, walking in circles and having her skin flake off in huge clumps that look like peeling paint. It was a bizarre sickness, Bock said. ‘‘None of the old cowboys around here have seen anything like this,'' he said. They rushed Splash to Ennis veterinarian Eileen White, who took the horse to a veterinarian in Belgrade who specializes in internal medicine for horses. White said Splash showed signs of dementia and had jaundiced eyes. She ran tests on the horses liver and found it just wasn't working....
Riders shoot from horseback Kevin Fink, 48, pops balloons as a hobby. From horseback. With a gun. "It is a true adrenaline rush - the whole experience of training a horse to let you shoot a gun while you are on his back and then riding through a course at top speed trying to hit all the targets," Fink said. Fink, a retired rodeo cowboy, and 12 others are keeping the Old West tradition of mounted shooting alive. Their group, Dakota Territory Shooters, formed in Lennox this summer. "We keep everything as authentic to the Old West as possible," said Tea resident Mick Nesseim, 50. "We use all leather equipment, dress like the Old West cowboy and only shoot single-action revolvers of .45 Colt caliber, the same guns they used back then." Mounted shooting is a timed competition. A horse and rider navigate one of 57 courses approved by the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association....
CPRA to stand on own two feet It’s the cowboy way to go it alone and it’s the only logical choice for the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association after a recent U.S.-Canada split in the rodeo ranks. The CPRA was feeling a little gored last month after news that its U.S. counterpart put the hooves to a longstanding sanctioning agreement between the two organizations. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), which is headquartered in Colorado Springs, announced on Aug. 18 the termination of an arrangement that saw all CPRA rodeos co-sanctioned by its American cousin. With the agreement gone by 2006, all CPRA rodeos will no longer count in the PRCA standings. CPRA president Bob Robinson sought to put a positive spin on recent events when the organization announced on Sept. 7 its intentions to forge ahead with or without its southern counterpart. “We’re big enough to stand on our own two feet and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “The CPRA is completely self-sustainable. We have a great product and we’re ready to showcase it to the world on our own. Now we will be able to think about ourselves and not worry about what another association thinks when developing our policies and strategies.” Just how this new world order in the rodeo ring will shape up is not yet clear. The CPRA will mull over several scenarios over the next few months, including expanding the current options available to non-Canadians and their ability to qualify for the annual Canadian Finals Rodeo....
Champion responds well to last-chance pressure It's well documented that six-time world champion tie-down roper Fred Whitfield performs best in clutch situations. With his back against the wall, Whitfield always rises to the occasion. It doesn't matter whether it's at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the Pace Picante series, or at a regular rodeo during the season. The Hockley, Texas, cowboy knows how to handle pressure. His latest clutch run came Saturday at the 95th annual Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, the final stop on the Wrangler ProRodeo Summer Tour. Whitfield knew he needed to make every run count if he was going to earn a place in the $350,000 Pace Picante ProRodeo Challenge in Omaha, Neb., Sept. 30-Oct. 1. Entering Pendleton, he was 31st in the standings, and only the top 12 qualify for Omaha. It didn't take Whitfield long to make his move. He came out firing in the first round with a 9.4-second run, which was good enough for a fourth-place finish in the round. He encountered a little more trouble in the second (11.5). But the total was enough to make the Wrangler Tour final round, and that was all Whitfield needed. He roped and tied his calf in 8.5 seconds to finish atop the leaderboard and capture the aggregate title with a time of 29.4 seconds on three head. When the dust finally settled, Whitfield had collected 25.5 points and moved into a tie for 11th place with 49.5 points, securing a spot in the Pace Challenge....
Rodeo-themed Extreme Makeover to air Oct. 2 When the ABC mega-hit show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition knocked on the doors of the PRCA Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., in mid-July, the ProRodeo family couldn't wait to jump in and get dirty. Wrangler, Justin Brands and virtually every other PRCA corporate partner opened their pocketbooks and hearts to a Colorado Springs-area family whose 101-year-old, 2,000-square-foot farmhouse could no longer meet the needs of six children and their parents. Billy Jack and Anne Barrett and their kids — four are adopted out of foster care programs — live in the tiny town of Peyton, which is situated a few miles east of Colorado Springs. The Barretts were chosen for the makeover for opening their lives and home to troubled and disadvantaged children. More than 3,000 applications are considered each day by the show. ABC will be airing the Barrett Family episode on Sunday, Oct. 2, beginning at 8 ET. This is the second episode in the show's third season lineup, which begins on Sunday, Sept. 25. The Barretts are horse people and love the sport of rodeo. The ABC Extreme Makeover team's task was to tear down the family's existing home and build a new house that represented the family's passion for rodeo and the Western culture....
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Thursday, September 22, 2005
FARM AID CONTROVERSY
Farm Aid expenses eat away donations Even before Willie Nelson strums his first chord Sunday at this year's Farm Aid show in Tinley Park, one of the concert's missions will have been accomplished: Upholding the family farm as an American icon. But how much the Farm Aid organization helps those farmers financially is a different matter. The percentage of funds given away by the group is exceedingly low compared with money eaten up by expenses or not used. Last year, Farm Aid donated less than 28 percent of its revenue, according to a review of the non-profit's records and policies. An organization should be giving away at least 65 percent of its revenue to be considered performing adequately, said Naomi Levine, a New York University expert on philanthropy. The high-profile concert itself, which is also burdened by high expenses, provides only a small percentage of revenue to philanthropic causes. Farm Aid, which has been more successful than any other group -- maybe even farmers themselves -- at advocating the need for family farms, dispensed $387,641 in 57 grants to local organizations in 2004. This was on total revenue of slightly more than $1.4 million, according to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Evelyn Shriver, president of Bandit Records and a director on Farm Aid's board, said she was "shocked" that such a small percentage of the money raised went to grants last year....
Farm Aid singer rips up, stomps on newspaper In a press conference after the Farm Aid concert last weekend in Tinley Park, musician Neil Young tore up a copy of a Chicago newspaper and stomped on it. What made him mad was an article critical of the farm charity for giving away less than 28 percent of its budget in direct grants. "We are not purely raising money to give to farmers," Young said. "That's only a small part of what we do. We are available 24/7, 365 days a year to the American farmer. That's what we do. That costs a little bit of money.'' If those expenditures were included in the total, it would show that the charity spent 76 percent of its budget on its mission of helping farmers, with the remaining 24 percent going for administrative and fund-raising expenses, Farm Aid officials said. That's well above standards set by the Better Business Bureau and other charity watchdog groups that recommend charities spend at least 65 percent on program services, according to Glenda Yoder, associate director at Farm Aid....
Farm Aid show backs Katrina aid, organics Farm Aid staged its 20th annual star-studded benefit concert on Sunday, pledging help for overlooked rural victims of Hurricane Katrina and defending against charges of financial waste. The day-long show at an outdoor arena south of Chicago grossed $1.3 million in ticket sales and played to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 28,000. Farm Aid's founder, country music legend Willie Nelson, performed alongside board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews as well as Wilco, Buddy Guy, Widespread Panic and other performers. Conceived by Nelson in the depths of the U.S. farm crisis and first staged in Champaign, Illinois, in 1985, Farm Aid is now closely associated with the "good food movement" and a push-back by small-scale and organic producers against huge factory farms and corporate-driven production agriculture. "We are here to promote food from family farms," said Caroline Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid. "Changing the food you buy changes the way your food is grown."....
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Farm Aid expenses eat away donations Even before Willie Nelson strums his first chord Sunday at this year's Farm Aid show in Tinley Park, one of the concert's missions will have been accomplished: Upholding the family farm as an American icon. But how much the Farm Aid organization helps those farmers financially is a different matter. The percentage of funds given away by the group is exceedingly low compared with money eaten up by expenses or not used. Last year, Farm Aid donated less than 28 percent of its revenue, according to a review of the non-profit's records and policies. An organization should be giving away at least 65 percent of its revenue to be considered performing adequately, said Naomi Levine, a New York University expert on philanthropy. The high-profile concert itself, which is also burdened by high expenses, provides only a small percentage of revenue to philanthropic causes. Farm Aid, which has been more successful than any other group -- maybe even farmers themselves -- at advocating the need for family farms, dispensed $387,641 in 57 grants to local organizations in 2004. This was on total revenue of slightly more than $1.4 million, according to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Evelyn Shriver, president of Bandit Records and a director on Farm Aid's board, said she was "shocked" that such a small percentage of the money raised went to grants last year....
Farm Aid singer rips up, stomps on newspaper In a press conference after the Farm Aid concert last weekend in Tinley Park, musician Neil Young tore up a copy of a Chicago newspaper and stomped on it. What made him mad was an article critical of the farm charity for giving away less than 28 percent of its budget in direct grants. "We are not purely raising money to give to farmers," Young said. "That's only a small part of what we do. We are available 24/7, 365 days a year to the American farmer. That's what we do. That costs a little bit of money.'' If those expenditures were included in the total, it would show that the charity spent 76 percent of its budget on its mission of helping farmers, with the remaining 24 percent going for administrative and fund-raising expenses, Farm Aid officials said. That's well above standards set by the Better Business Bureau and other charity watchdog groups that recommend charities spend at least 65 percent on program services, according to Glenda Yoder, associate director at Farm Aid....
Farm Aid show backs Katrina aid, organics Farm Aid staged its 20th annual star-studded benefit concert on Sunday, pledging help for overlooked rural victims of Hurricane Katrina and defending against charges of financial waste. The day-long show at an outdoor arena south of Chicago grossed $1.3 million in ticket sales and played to an enthusiastic crowd of more than 28,000. Farm Aid's founder, country music legend Willie Nelson, performed alongside board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews as well as Wilco, Buddy Guy, Widespread Panic and other performers. Conceived by Nelson in the depths of the U.S. farm crisis and first staged in Champaign, Illinois, in 1985, Farm Aid is now closely associated with the "good food movement" and a push-back by small-scale and organic producers against huge factory farms and corporate-driven production agriculture. "We are here to promote food from family farms," said Caroline Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid. "Changing the food you buy changes the way your food is grown."....
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