NEWS ROUNDUP
Montana Pollution Rules Draw Federal Objections Federal energy officials are opposing new rules by Montana to force companies that extract methane gas from underground coal beds to clean up the water pollution caused by drilling operations, even as state officials cite an unreleased 2003 federal report that says cleanup costs are relatively inexpensive. The Denver office of the Environmental Protection Agency produced the report but never published it, saying it related to a proposed drilling application that was dropped. A Montana consulting firm obtained a copy of the EPA report, however, and handed it over to Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D). Last month, Montana's Board of Environmental Review, citing the EPA paper and other economic studies, voted to force coalbed methane companies to leave the state's streams as clean as they were before drilling started, although the companies do not have to clean up existing pollution. "We want to develop energy in Montana, but we want to do it right," Schweitzer said in an interview. "Here's the bottom line with the federal government: They're usually not helpful, and they weren't this time, either." The Energy Department and the Wyoming congressional delegation are backing companies that are trying to block Montana's new rules, on the grounds that they could hamper energy development. The department submitted analyses by two of its national laboratories concluding that the state's regulations were "unnecessarily stringent" and "inconsistent."....
Cities move to defend against railroad attacks Boston officials envision keeping rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals at least 10 miles away unless the city is their destination. A plan in Chicago would prohibit such tanker cars in its downtown Loop. In Cleveland, city officials are considering banning them near Lake Erie, water treatment plants, and crowded neighborhoods. Transport of these chemicals presents one of the knottiest public policy problems in the effort to protect the nation's cities from terrorist attack. Federal law requires railroads to carry such chemicals, which are used in manufacturing, water-purification systems, and wastewater-treatment plants. But with no federal regulations for securing the transport of these chemicals, The District of Columbia has enacted rules of its own and at least five other cities are considering them. These moves have drawn a sharp rebuke from industry and federal officials, who say such piecemeal efforts are misguided. Since 9/11, they point out, railroads have fortified rail yards and worked with the chemical industry to conceal where and when these tanker cars pass near or through cities. The threat looms large. Government studies suggest that the explosion of one tanker car carrying, say, chlorine would cause up to 100,000 deaths in a densely populated area. So Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago have proposed ordinances requiring that such deadly chemicals be rerouted around them unless they're destined for the cities themselves. The fact that the rail industry, with federal support, has sued the District of Columbia over its law has not deterred them....
Bush's Interior Nominee: Comfort in Consensus Eagle Island State Park here has horse-riding trails, picnic tables and a water slide. Under a recent compromise between the Idaho Legislature and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to oversee the nation's public lands as secretary of the interior, the park may one day get its own gravel mine, too. Aides to Mr. Kempthorne defend gravel mining at Eagle Island, outside Boise, as a way to raise money for park improvements without causing undue environmental harm. But others see it as a lobbed softball that his critics in the United States Senate will smack toward the fences at his confirmation hearing, raising questions about his judgment and environmental priorities. The hearing may begin as early as next month. Is it your position, Governor — pause, clear throat, sip from water glass — that mining inside America's parks is good public policy? "It's going to be like stepping on a rake," said Justin Hayes, program director for the Idaho Conservation League, an environmental advocacy group concerned about the mining plan. Governor Kempthorne, a second-term Republican, declined to be interviewed. But an analysis of his positions and votes over a 20-year public career in Idaho, and interviews with people who have worked with him, suggest that the plan, which he accepted as a provision of a parks improvement bill approved this week by the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature, reveals much about him....
Buried treasure in Texas From atop a 40-foot-high walkway on a towering natural gas rig, Doug Hampton scans the grassy scrubland that has served ranchers since the 19th century. He doesn't see much evidence of that history now -- no cattle, horses or cowboys. Instead, out on the horizon, he sees the future of this vast expanse north of Fort Worth. "Just look out there. See?" he said, pointing to another solitary steel structure. "There's a rig over there, another out there and another way out there." Mr. Hampton is a project manager for Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., one of several companies tapping into the nation's fastest-growing natural gas field -- the Barnett Shale. The reservoir is vital to a tight U.S. supply market, has become a template for other fields nationwide, and is turning oil and gas into this region's most important industry. The changing landscape is making wells on high schools and private property a familiar sight. Even Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is reviewing its options with 12 companies to lease land for drilling....
Couple still waiting for government's promised Clark Fork River cleanup work some 20 years later Some 20 years ago, Kathy Hadley was fuming. She and her husband Wayne had already spent years writing letters, going to meetings, doing whatever they could to try and convince government officials they'd forgotten an important piece of the puzzle when they designated areas around Butte and the Milltown Reservoir as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup sites. “I'd show them the map and point to that thin little blue line that connected Butte with Milltown,” Hadley said. “I told them they'd forgotten the Clark Fork River.” So finally, she called her sister and lined up a trip to Washington, D.C. Before they boarded the homeward-bound airplane, the upper Clark Fork had become part of the largest Superfund site in the country. Two decades later and the Hadleys are still waiting for the promised cleanup of the upper 120 river miles of the Clark Fork River. The Environmental Protection Agency signed a Record of Decision outlining the cleanup 2 1/2 years ago. But work won't start until a consent decree is also signed, outlining who will pay for what. No one knows for sure when that will be completed, although there are rumblings that it's getting close. The Hadleys aren't going to hold their breath....
Park's wolf idea causes worries With an elk population nearly double what biologists say it should be, Rocky Mountain National Park officials are looking for ways to manage the overgrown population. Officials at the park, which straddles the Continental Divide in Larimer and Grand counties, are considering a variety of options to cut back on elk. Re-introducing gray wolves is one of the options being considered. But the prospect of re-introducing the carnivores, which were eradicated from Colorado more than 60 years ago, has raised concerns from Colorado ranchers, including those in Moffat County. Les Hampton, a former Moffat County commissioner working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife on wolf issues, said this week that he is worried about the U.S. Park Service's plans. Hampton told the Moffat County commissioners Tuesday that re-introducing wolves in Rocky Mountain National Park could lead to wolves being re-introduced at other national parks, including Dinosaur National Monument. "I don't like what's going on," Hampton said....
Environmentalists appeal forest grazing ruling An environmental group continues to seek an end to grazing in Medicine Bow National Forest between Cheyenne and Laramie, appealing its federal court case. The Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance claims that cattle have been causing unacceptably high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in creeks in the forest's Pole Mountain section. The group says that violates the Clean Water Act. In January, the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled against the alliance and another plaintiff, the Center for Native Ecosystems, saying they needed to show not only a Clean Water Act violation, but lack of good faith in implementing best management practices. "We feel the district court was wrong," alliance spokesman Jeremy Nichols said. Ranchers who graze cattle and sheep in the forest, represented by Mark Eisele, president of the Pole Mountain Cattlemen's Association, have said they operate legally and have taken many measures to reduce the effect cattle have on streams. Such measures include pumping water out of streams and wetlands to water tanks to help keep cattle and their droppings away from those streams and wetlands....
Utah lawmakers revive lands-for-schools issue A recent finding by the U.S. Census Bureau that Utah remains last in the nation in the amount of money it spends per school child is reviving interest in a plan to make the federal government turn over some of the vast public lands it holds to pay for schools. Versions of the idea have been around for years, and they mostly have gone nowhere. But in an election year in which school funding remains a big issue, lawmakers' interest is picking up again. This past week, Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced legislation first championed by fellow Utah Republican Rep. Rob Bishop. And Bishop recently plugged it before what he said was a receptive audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. "I'm encouraged," Bishop said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think there is some traction with the idea." The bill would require the Interior Department and Forest Service to give 5 percent of public land to Western states. States would hold the land in trust to be sold or leased with the proceeds going to public schools. The idea is based on the argument that Utah and 12 other Western states lose out on sales tax because of their vast acres of public land. The federal government owns on average just over half the land in those states, compared to about 4 percent in the rest of the country. Western lawmakers argue that Westerners put a larger share of their personal incomes toward state and local taxes as a result....
Suit over motorized closures is settled Four environmental and recreation groups have reached a settlement with the U.S. Forest Service over a lawsuit that was filed last December. The settlement restores the motorized closures made in the March 2003 Revised Forest Plan for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The suit - filed by Nordic United, Bridgerland Audubon Society, Winter Wildlands and the Bear River Watershed Council - was sparked by a Forest Service decision made last July that cut in half a 9,000-acre area set aside for nonmotorized recreation in the Franklin Basin area of Logan Canyon. Under the terms of the settlement, the area will be restored to the acreage established in the 2003 Forest Plan. "This settlement agreement illustrates the willingness of skiers and conservation organizations to work with the Forest Service to resolve winter recreation conflicts in the Bear River Range," Wally MacFarlane, president of Nordic United, said in a statement....
Trail Controversy: Shawnee plan leaves many equestrian spots open It's the start of tourism season in Southern Illinois, and campground owner Tom Luchies has plenty of empty sites. In fact, all of the campsites at 34 Ranch, an equestrian campground in Herod, were open at the beginning of April, one month after the forest administration for the Shawnee National Forest announced its adoption of a trail designation plan. Luchies said campers riding their horses out of his campground into the Shawnee National Forest last year faced too many hassles from hikers and Forest Service personnel for them to feel welcome in the forest. Luchies watched one of his last permanent campers pulling out of his campground one pleasant Wednesday in early April. He said those campers had reserved a site for the full year last year. This year, he said they told him they feel there are less stressful recreational opportunities elsewhere....
Prospects dimming for Senate passage of endangered species bill A bipartisan group of senators trying to craft an Endangered Species Act rewrite has failed to reach consensus, signaling dwindling prospects of Senate action in the wake of House passage of an endangered species bill last year. Although talks continue, the stalemate is welcome news for environmentalists. They viewed the House-passed bill as dangerously extreme and feared that no matter what the Senate produced, the final product could be unacceptable because of the need to combine the two efforts. "If I cried, it's probably crocodile tears," said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. "It's hard to see, with an extremist piece of legislation like that, how anything acceptable could result." For property rights advocates, though, Senate inaction would be a missed opportunity. The House bill by Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., would require the government to compensate property owners if steps needed to protect species thwart development plans. It also would stop the government from designating "critical habitat" where development is limited....
Corral your inner cowboy Weathered cowboys on horseback swing lassoes skyward roping the first of 400 calves to be branded in traditional ranch fashion. Men and women in dusty Stetsons and worn chaps swoop in, each with a job in the branding process. Short and sassy Nancy Wilson, the 56-year-old matriarch of Wilson Ranches, burns the identifying LE on the bawling calf's side. It's a sight to see for a city dweller, which is just the point at Wilson Ranches Retreat Bed and Breakfast. Phil and Nancy Wilson, owners of the 9,000-acre spread near Fossil in Central Oregon, opened the B&B six years ago, wanting to share their Western life. Granted, it's not a vacation for everyone, particularly those who like the pampered grandeur of swank hotels. The ranch resides a good three hours east of Portland, on sprawling acreage dotted with cows and horses and the occasional coyote. The bunkhouse -- a renovated 1910 Sears Roebuck catalog home -- offers seven comfortable rooms, two with private baths. One of those has a clawfoot tub and lots of Epsom salts for post-riding soaks....
Cattle jam on Daly City street in run-up to rodeo It's something you might see in a dream: 21 adult Texas longhorns weighing up to a ton each, and 85 young steers at 600 pounds each, trotting up Geneva Avenue. That was a real-life responsibility for the chaps-wearin', gun-totin', lasso-throwin' cowhands who guided the herd Thursday morning from the Baylands' former railway yard to the Cow Palace for the 61st Grand National Rodeo. The Daly City institution began Friday and runs through April 15, and plenty of livestock will be on hand for urban cowboys and girls to take a gander at, among other draws. About 17 riders kept tabs on the Thursday procession, which recreated the kind of cattle drive that funneled steers from trains to the rodeo grounds until truck shipping became the norm. "We herd the cars, they herd the cows," said Daly City Police Sgt. Lou Pezzola, 43, who has done traffic control for the cattle drive for the past four years. "The cattle pretty much know the routine better than us."....
Boys with true grit Frederick is a small, bucolic community. The traffic is sparse and the signal lights are treated as more of a suggestion than the rule of law. This is where President Theodore Roosevelt came to hunt in the summer of 1905. It is where Comanche Chief Quanah Parker leased his tribe's pastures to Texas ranchers W.T. Waggoner and Burk Burnett. It is where Jack "Catch 'Em Alive" Abernathy built his reputation for catching wolves live, by driving his fist down their throats. It was a feat that both bewildered and thrilled Roosevelt....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Be careful with that big mustache With the advent of cowboy poetry has come a leap in the wearing of large mustaches not seen since the administration of Chester A. Arthur. And along with its popularity, it has stirred an increased scrutiny in the realm of fashion vs. sanitation that last appeared during the Afro-wearing years. As any Afro-wearer can tell you, if you wanted a job in the college cafeteria, you were required to wear a net. To date I have not seen any cowboy waiters at Dairy Queen wearing a net on their 'stache, but it can't be too far off. To comply with the International Bureau of Grooming and Fastidiousness, Reg. 002, on this date of the Hirsute Moon in regards to public display of facial hair defined as, though not limited to: mustache, cookie duster, pencil thin, handle bar, caterpillar, cow catcher, lip brush, broom, nose tickler, flavor enhancer, Copenhagen reservoir, soup strainer, ant trail, moth attracter, louse nest and bird house for the migrating house fly, a copy of this regulation should be prominently displayed over the sink in Spanish and English, in establishments where food is being served, animals are allowed to run free or surgery is being performed....
Monday, April 10, 2006
Sunday, April 09, 2006
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Spring
by Larry Gabriel
On the ranch, it is calving time. The early morning ride to check the cattle is the best part of each day, best because all the world is soaked in peace and life.
As my horse (Blackberry) and I leave the yard, I can hear the Canada geese calling to each other. They are offspring of geese planted years before. They have many places to nest undisturbed on the prairie where no one expects to find them.
The wild turkeys seem to be jabbering at each other about what they will do today. I hear them too above the constant chatter of smaller birds and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
During that first hour of light, the wind is calm and the first warmth of sun mellows the morning crispness of the air. Later the wind will come up. By afternoon it may be howling, but for now even the wind is at peace with the earth.
Blackberry notices the cottontail rabbits darting around at the sound of her hooves. She pays them no mind, unless they take her by surprise.
My mind just sits there drinking from the fountain of early morning. Thoughts of office, and phones and politics and problems are not to be found. They are not even distant. They don't exist.
An Indian man once told me that his father believed that God is closer to the earth in the early morning. When he lay dying, his only request was to die in the early morning for that closeness. The now famous "star" on star quilts is said to be the morning star. Maybe that has something to do with the idea.
I am no expert on Indian beliefs. I don't know if that was unique to his tribe or is a general belief shared by all Native Americans, but I suspect it is common to all people of the land.
On that early morning ride, I too am one of the people of the land. If not religious, it is certainly a spiritual bond between the people and the land.
It is not nature worship, as some city folks believe. It is just being part of the land, by remaining quiet and in awe of creation. There is nothing else like it. I hold onto it.
When I return to my office job (as I occasionally must do), I take it with me. I recall those moments and take them out and look at them, like little nuggets of gold found without effort.
I suspect every farmer and rancher experiences a similar thing. They may not think about it, but it is there. If they too were tied to a desk and phone for a while, they would do more thinking about it.
It is not January 1st on the wall calendar, but it is the beginning of my year. It always is a time of great hope and excitement about good things to be accomplished.
Spring is to my year what early morning is to my day, my favorite part.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Martha, Maxine and Me
By Julie Carter
I’ve picked on Martha Stewart before and she is probably used it to by now. Besides, right now she is busy with Donald Trump and a poison pen trade of words and name calling.
I’m pretty sure I’ll stay under the radar if I again mention a few things Martha never had to deal with like baby calf afterbirth under her nails and broken stock tank floats. I doubt she ever found herself having to wait on the hens to lay an egg so she could finish baking a batch of cookies.
So I think that qualifies me to speak from a position of authority from my side of the cattle guard.
There is Martha’s way and then there is my way, which to save a plagiarizing charge, also happens to be Maxine’s way. You all know Maxine, that crabby character from Hallmark that is so very witty, flippant, and the irreverent lady of one-liners. She’s my hero. I like the way she thinks.
Maxine has a way of cutting to the bottom line. A real shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal.
A few kitchen hints from Martha invoked Maxine’s brazen honesty.
· When a cake recipe calls for flouring a baking pan, use a bit of dry cake mix instead and there won’t be any white residue on the outside of the cake. To which Maxine replies: “Go to the bakery! They’ll even decorate it for you.”
. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the back with them. Maxine’s hint is: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.
Maxine’s sound logic is painfully honest and laughably correct:
--The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
--Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
--Living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
--After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
Every now and then we rural women get an urge to be more like Martha and less like Maxine. Fortunately we recover from that lapse in judgment fairly quickly.
A ranch wife friend said she changed hair stylists which meant she went from a beautician to a stylist. She had been told a stylist was a much higher class person and while she is still not so sure the class was higher, the price certainly was.
Since no one seemed to be appreciating her “inner beauty” she was making an attempt to improve the outer version. After getting styled, she said the grocery stop at Wal-Mart was pretty basic in an attempt to put some balance back into her household budget.
When I grow up I want to be just like Maxine. Some will tell you I’m already dangerously close. I’ve NEVER been accused of being like Martha. Although, when Martha got out of jail last year it was reported she went to “her large ranch 40 minutes from New York.” And here I thought the closest thing to “ranch” Martha ever came was her homemade ranch dressing.
It could happen-- perhaps we, Martha and I, could go out in the garden and see if those bulbs I didn’t plant didn’t come up.
Or better yet, Martha and I would go riding off into the sunset with Maxine snidely commenting about the size of our “buckets” in the saddles.
© Julie Carter 2006
Received via email:
11 PEOPLE ON A ROPE
Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, ten men and one woman.
The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.
They were unable to decide who would let go, until the woman gave a very touching speech. She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids and for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.
As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping.
Spring
by Larry Gabriel
On the ranch, it is calving time. The early morning ride to check the cattle is the best part of each day, best because all the world is soaked in peace and life.
As my horse (Blackberry) and I leave the yard, I can hear the Canada geese calling to each other. They are offspring of geese planted years before. They have many places to nest undisturbed on the prairie where no one expects to find them.
The wild turkeys seem to be jabbering at each other about what they will do today. I hear them too above the constant chatter of smaller birds and the songs of robins and meadowlarks.
During that first hour of light, the wind is calm and the first warmth of sun mellows the morning crispness of the air. Later the wind will come up. By afternoon it may be howling, but for now even the wind is at peace with the earth.
Blackberry notices the cottontail rabbits darting around at the sound of her hooves. She pays them no mind, unless they take her by surprise.
My mind just sits there drinking from the fountain of early morning. Thoughts of office, and phones and politics and problems are not to be found. They are not even distant. They don't exist.
An Indian man once told me that his father believed that God is closer to the earth in the early morning. When he lay dying, his only request was to die in the early morning for that closeness. The now famous "star" on star quilts is said to be the morning star. Maybe that has something to do with the idea.
I am no expert on Indian beliefs. I don't know if that was unique to his tribe or is a general belief shared by all Native Americans, but I suspect it is common to all people of the land.
On that early morning ride, I too am one of the people of the land. If not religious, it is certainly a spiritual bond between the people and the land.
It is not nature worship, as some city folks believe. It is just being part of the land, by remaining quiet and in awe of creation. There is nothing else like it. I hold onto it.
When I return to my office job (as I occasionally must do), I take it with me. I recall those moments and take them out and look at them, like little nuggets of gold found without effort.
I suspect every farmer and rancher experiences a similar thing. They may not think about it, but it is there. If they too were tied to a desk and phone for a while, they would do more thinking about it.
It is not January 1st on the wall calendar, but it is the beginning of my year. It always is a time of great hope and excitement about good things to be accomplished.
Spring is to my year what early morning is to my day, my favorite part.
Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Martha, Maxine and Me
By Julie Carter
I’ve picked on Martha Stewart before and she is probably used it to by now. Besides, right now she is busy with Donald Trump and a poison pen trade of words and name calling.
I’m pretty sure I’ll stay under the radar if I again mention a few things Martha never had to deal with like baby calf afterbirth under her nails and broken stock tank floats. I doubt she ever found herself having to wait on the hens to lay an egg so she could finish baking a batch of cookies.
So I think that qualifies me to speak from a position of authority from my side of the cattle guard.
There is Martha’s way and then there is my way, which to save a plagiarizing charge, also happens to be Maxine’s way. You all know Maxine, that crabby character from Hallmark that is so very witty, flippant, and the irreverent lady of one-liners. She’s my hero. I like the way she thinks.
Maxine has a way of cutting to the bottom line. A real shoot-from-the-hip kinda gal.
A few kitchen hints from Martha invoked Maxine’s brazen honesty.
· When a cake recipe calls for flouring a baking pan, use a bit of dry cake mix instead and there won’t be any white residue on the outside of the cake. To which Maxine replies: “Go to the bakery! They’ll even decorate it for you.”
. To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the back with them. Maxine’s hint is: Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix and keep it in the pantry for up to a year.
Maxine’s sound logic is painfully honest and laughably correct:
--The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
--Drinking makes some husbands see double and feel single.
--Living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
--After a certain age, if you don’t wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
Every now and then we rural women get an urge to be more like Martha and less like Maxine. Fortunately we recover from that lapse in judgment fairly quickly.
A ranch wife friend said she changed hair stylists which meant she went from a beautician to a stylist. She had been told a stylist was a much higher class person and while she is still not so sure the class was higher, the price certainly was.
Since no one seemed to be appreciating her “inner beauty” she was making an attempt to improve the outer version. After getting styled, she said the grocery stop at Wal-Mart was pretty basic in an attempt to put some balance back into her household budget.
When I grow up I want to be just like Maxine. Some will tell you I’m already dangerously close. I’ve NEVER been accused of being like Martha. Although, when Martha got out of jail last year it was reported she went to “her large ranch 40 minutes from New York.” And here I thought the closest thing to “ranch” Martha ever came was her homemade ranch dressing.
It could happen-- perhaps we, Martha and I, could go out in the garden and see if those bulbs I didn’t plant didn’t come up.
Or better yet, Martha and I would go riding off into the sunset with Maxine snidely commenting about the size of our “buckets” in the saddles.
© Julie Carter 2006
Received via email:
11 PEOPLE ON A ROPE
Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, ten men and one woman.
The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to leave, because otherwise they were all going to fall.
They were unable to decide who would let go, until the woman gave a very touching speech. She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope, because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids and for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return.
As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping.
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Goldman Sachs Called on to Correct Statement Made at Annual Meeting
Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (http://www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com), called on Goldman Sachs today to correct a statement made at its annual meeting and requested that CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr. reimburse the company for any shareholder assets spent to advance his personal interests. In response to a shareholder resolution presented at the meeting by Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center (http://www.nlpc.org), Goldman Sachs' board member John Bryant responded, in part, by denying that the Nature Conservancy -- whose chairman is Goldman CEO Paulson -- was involved in the Goldman Sachs donation of 680,000 acres in Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society. "The Nature Conservancy's tax return for 2004 states that Goldman Sachs paid the environmental group $144,895 between August 2003 and June 2004 for consulting services related to the Chilean land deal," said Steve Milloy of AFM. "When I pointed that fact at the Goldman Sachs shareholder meeting last week, my comment was met with silence by Mr. Bryan and the rest of Goldman Sachs' board." "The board's denial of facts that are contained in federal records underscores the need for a thorough and independent review of the land deal -- the sort of review already requested in a letter from us to Goldman's board in January and the shareholder resolution presented at the meeting," said AFM's Tom Borelli. "Another aspect of the Chilean land deal that we're interested in is why the donation was made, as evidenced by the group's tax return, from a Goldman Sachs partnership through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund -- a non-profit charity previously focused on providing scholarships, according to its tax returns -- rather than directly to the donee, the Wildlife Conservation Society," stated Milloy. CEO Paulson announced on April 3 -- the next business day after the March 31 shareholder meeting -- that he was transferring 637,000 shares of his own Goldman Sachs stock to a charitable foundation he established to donate to environmental causes....
Global Warming Hysteria Has Arrived
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it. The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is currently underway. The latest issue of Time magazine has a cover story on global warming entitled "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid". (I wonder if this is meant to provide some balance for stories about the coming ice age that Time published as recently as 1994?) One of the new Public Service Commission's TV ads uses a freight train about to hit a little girl as a metaphor for the horrible impact of global warming on our children's future in just thirty years. (Even if the recent warming trend, since the 1970's, continues for another thirty years, global temperatures will only rise another 1 degree F.) For those of us who are visual learners, Al Gore has a new global warming movie coming out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" which no doubt will be met by critical acclaim, Oscar nominations (probably not for best actor, though), and a possible Nobel Prize. Science magazine recently stuffed as many articles as it could find on the world's melting ice sheets, even though the bulk of the published temperature evidence shows no warming over Greenland or most of Antarctica in recent decades. One wonders, what in the world is going on here? It seems an undercurrent of anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-humanity sentiment is beginning to grip our culture....
Senators Domenici and Bingaman Work Together for Higher Energy Prices
Today’s Senate conference on mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits is the latest attempt by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) to force the United States into a future of fewer choices and higher energy prices. The witness list, stacked with alarmist environmental activist groups and opportunistic corporations, demonstrates that Domenici and Bingaman have decided to shut out critical voices and proceed with an expensive energy rationing scheme regardless of its damaging effects on the economy. “Senators Domenici and Bingaman should be issuing white papers and convening experts to identify political barriers to the development of affordable energy for all Americans,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. “Instead, they are pushing a Kyoto-lite agenda that would force consumers to pay more for gasoline, home heating oil, electricity, and natural gas. For shame!” An emissions trading program of the kind envisioned by Domenici and Bingaman would attempt to enact incrementally the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol global warming treaty, which was previously rejected in the Senate by a vote of 95-0. This “Kyoto-by-Inches” strategy would amount to an undeclared tax on energy, raising the costs of energy and energy-intensive products for consumers in order to secure profits for a handful of well-positioned corporations. “Chairman Domenici and Senator Bingaman have decided to ask special interests what would be best for those special interests. It looks a lot like a gang of pirates gathering ’round to divvy up the booty....
America's Oil Weapon
President Bush has bemoaned what he calls the United States' addiction to oil. He has demonized America's oil use in speeches, and talked about the need to move beyond the petroleum-based economy. The president is certainly correct to point out harmful side effects to our use of oil and the need for us to address them. But in using the expressly negative language of addiction, the President not only cast a dark cloud over the fuel that presently underpins a huge portion of our economy, he badly confused a set of issues that demand clear thinking and fair analysis. It would be useful, then, to keep in mind the positive benefits our petroleum use has afforded. To start, oil was largely responsible for the right side winning the three epic wars of the 20th century. Call it the Oil Weapon, wielded by the United States and its allies with an expertise that should make OPEC blush. In the run-up to the First World War, Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made the daring decision to switch the British navy's ships from coal to oil, the better to outrun German predators. When fighting broke out, the major oil powers like Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell saw to it that the Allied powers' military forces were always supplied. Meanwhile the Allies were able to deny the Kaiser's forces access to the oilfields in Romania and Baku at critical junctures in the war, ensuring victory. As the British statesman Lord Curzon noted, "The Allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil." The story was similar in World War II....
Native Stewardship?
Lacking farms to grow food, California’s native Indians hunted its wild bird species nearly to extinction. When the first white pioneers settled California in the early 1800s, they found the San Francisco Bay area teeming with geese, ducks, shore birds, deer and elk. One early settler said “The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay…in flocks of millions.” This wildlife abundance seemed to endorse the legend that native Indians lived in supportive harmony with the wild birds and animals, harvesting only what their small communities needed to subsist. That legend has spread guilt among modern Americans whose food comes from crop fields that were once wildlife habitat. A painstaking California archeologist has now blown the Indian conservation legend into tiny fragments. Over seven years, he analyzed 5,700 bird bones from a huge Indian shell/waste mound on the shores of San Francisco Bay. The bones laid out a 1900-year history of the Indians’ bird hunting. They’d hunted dozens of wild bird species to local extinction, starting with the biggest geese and working their way clear down to tiny sandpipers. Archeologist Jack Broughton, a native Californian, says he found the bones of 64 different bird species, mostly waterbirds, but also quail and even eagles. The Bay Indians raided the island breeding colonies of cormorants, and caught the sea ducks floating far from shore. The early European settlers found birds in abundance, says Broughton, only because Spanish explorers had inadvertently brought such epidemic diseases as smallpox and measles, starting about 1500 AD. The shell mound shows that the Indian population crashed by 90 percent, and the Bay area bird populations then recovered....
Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet's Tahoe SUV
As Americans become increasingly interested in fuel economy and global warming, they are beginning to make choices about the vehicles they drive based on fuel economy and to a lesser degree emissions. But many of those choices aren't actually the best in terms of vehicle lifetime energy usage and the cost to society over the full lifetime of a car or truck. CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables. To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a "dollars per lifetime mile" figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48 cents. While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version. One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package. And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted sport utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced....
PETA 'Vegetarian' Celebrity Update
Singer P!nk (yes, that's an exclamation point -- she's just that hip) recently signed her name to a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign condemning KFC for not conforming to standards invented by PETA. Her petition comes hot on the heels of lengthy profiles of the singer published recently in two UK newspapers. Displaying just how deep the singer's animal-rights philosophy goes, one article mentions the PETA spokes-rocker's leather boots, and the other her taste for fish. Speaking of the difference between PETA's official rhetoric and what people actually do: Shortly after we reported on Thursday that the rappers known as Little Brother are not actually vegetarians (as PETA has claimed), PETA removed its hip-hop hijacking of their image from the "PETA World" animal-rights website. PETA has given no reason for the quick turnaround, but it's only a partial return to reality: The group is still distributing anti-meat leaflets featuring a photo of Big Brother MC "Phonte." We note also that PETA's online list of "Sexiest Vegetarian 2005" finalists still includes Reese "Everything's Better With Bacon" Witherspoon. And PETA has yet to stop (ab)using the names of other famous figures in its materials....
Goldman Sachs Called on to Correct Statement Made at Annual Meeting
Action Fund Management LLC (AFM), investment adviser to the Free Enterprise Action Fund (http://www.FreeEnterpriseActionFund.com), called on Goldman Sachs today to correct a statement made at its annual meeting and requested that CEO Henry M. Paulson, Jr. reimburse the company for any shareholder assets spent to advance his personal interests. In response to a shareholder resolution presented at the meeting by Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center (http://www.nlpc.org), Goldman Sachs' board member John Bryant responded, in part, by denying that the Nature Conservancy -- whose chairman is Goldman CEO Paulson -- was involved in the Goldman Sachs donation of 680,000 acres in Chile to the Wildlife Conservation Society. "The Nature Conservancy's tax return for 2004 states that Goldman Sachs paid the environmental group $144,895 between August 2003 and June 2004 for consulting services related to the Chilean land deal," said Steve Milloy of AFM. "When I pointed that fact at the Goldman Sachs shareholder meeting last week, my comment was met with silence by Mr. Bryan and the rest of Goldman Sachs' board." "The board's denial of facts that are contained in federal records underscores the need for a thorough and independent review of the land deal -- the sort of review already requested in a letter from us to Goldman's board in January and the shareholder resolution presented at the meeting," said AFM's Tom Borelli. "Another aspect of the Chilean land deal that we're interested in is why the donation was made, as evidenced by the group's tax return, from a Goldman Sachs partnership through the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund -- a non-profit charity previously focused on providing scholarships, according to its tax returns -- rather than directly to the donee, the Wildlife Conservation Society," stated Milloy. CEO Paulson announced on April 3 -- the next business day after the March 31 shareholder meeting -- that he was transferring 637,000 shares of his own Goldman Sachs stock to a charitable foundation he established to donate to environmental causes....
Global Warming Hysteria Has Arrived
On April 4, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing to discuss a white paper that Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) released on a mandatory cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of panelists that will provide testimony in the hearing are for a cap-and-trade program, suggesting the Committee views global warming to be a serious problem and that a cap-and-trade approach is the preferred mechanism for fighting it. The hearing's timing couldn't be better, as it coincides with an intense global warming propaganda campaign by the media that is currently underway. The latest issue of Time magazine has a cover story on global warming entitled "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid". (I wonder if this is meant to provide some balance for stories about the coming ice age that Time published as recently as 1994?) One of the new Public Service Commission's TV ads uses a freight train about to hit a little girl as a metaphor for the horrible impact of global warming on our children's future in just thirty years. (Even if the recent warming trend, since the 1970's, continues for another thirty years, global temperatures will only rise another 1 degree F.) For those of us who are visual learners, Al Gore has a new global warming movie coming out in May entitled "An Inconvenient Truth" which no doubt will be met by critical acclaim, Oscar nominations (probably not for best actor, though), and a possible Nobel Prize. Science magazine recently stuffed as many articles as it could find on the world's melting ice sheets, even though the bulk of the published temperature evidence shows no warming over Greenland or most of Antarctica in recent decades. One wonders, what in the world is going on here? It seems an undercurrent of anti-technology, anti-progress, anti-humanity sentiment is beginning to grip our culture....
Senators Domenici and Bingaman Work Together for Higher Energy Prices
Today’s Senate conference on mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits is the latest attempt by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) to force the United States into a future of fewer choices and higher energy prices. The witness list, stacked with alarmist environmental activist groups and opportunistic corporations, demonstrates that Domenici and Bingaman have decided to shut out critical voices and proceed with an expensive energy rationing scheme regardless of its damaging effects on the economy. “Senators Domenici and Bingaman should be issuing white papers and convening experts to identify political barriers to the development of affordable energy for all Americans,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr. “Instead, they are pushing a Kyoto-lite agenda that would force consumers to pay more for gasoline, home heating oil, electricity, and natural gas. For shame!” An emissions trading program of the kind envisioned by Domenici and Bingaman would attempt to enact incrementally the restrictions of the Kyoto Protocol global warming treaty, which was previously rejected in the Senate by a vote of 95-0. This “Kyoto-by-Inches” strategy would amount to an undeclared tax on energy, raising the costs of energy and energy-intensive products for consumers in order to secure profits for a handful of well-positioned corporations. “Chairman Domenici and Senator Bingaman have decided to ask special interests what would be best for those special interests. It looks a lot like a gang of pirates gathering ’round to divvy up the booty....
America's Oil Weapon
President Bush has bemoaned what he calls the United States' addiction to oil. He has demonized America's oil use in speeches, and talked about the need to move beyond the petroleum-based economy. The president is certainly correct to point out harmful side effects to our use of oil and the need for us to address them. But in using the expressly negative language of addiction, the President not only cast a dark cloud over the fuel that presently underpins a huge portion of our economy, he badly confused a set of issues that demand clear thinking and fair analysis. It would be useful, then, to keep in mind the positive benefits our petroleum use has afforded. To start, oil was largely responsible for the right side winning the three epic wars of the 20th century. Call it the Oil Weapon, wielded by the United States and its allies with an expertise that should make OPEC blush. In the run-up to the First World War, Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made the daring decision to switch the British navy's ships from coal to oil, the better to outrun German predators. When fighting broke out, the major oil powers like Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell saw to it that the Allied powers' military forces were always supplied. Meanwhile the Allies were able to deny the Kaiser's forces access to the oilfields in Romania and Baku at critical junctures in the war, ensuring victory. As the British statesman Lord Curzon noted, "The Allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil." The story was similar in World War II....
Native Stewardship?
Lacking farms to grow food, California’s native Indians hunted its wild bird species nearly to extinction. When the first white pioneers settled California in the early 1800s, they found the San Francisco Bay area teeming with geese, ducks, shore birds, deer and elk. One early settler said “The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay…in flocks of millions.” This wildlife abundance seemed to endorse the legend that native Indians lived in supportive harmony with the wild birds and animals, harvesting only what their small communities needed to subsist. That legend has spread guilt among modern Americans whose food comes from crop fields that were once wildlife habitat. A painstaking California archeologist has now blown the Indian conservation legend into tiny fragments. Over seven years, he analyzed 5,700 bird bones from a huge Indian shell/waste mound on the shores of San Francisco Bay. The bones laid out a 1900-year history of the Indians’ bird hunting. They’d hunted dozens of wild bird species to local extinction, starting with the biggest geese and working their way clear down to tiny sandpipers. Archeologist Jack Broughton, a native Californian, says he found the bones of 64 different bird species, mostly waterbirds, but also quail and even eagles. The Bay Indians raided the island breeding colonies of cormorants, and caught the sea ducks floating far from shore. The early European settlers found birds in abundance, says Broughton, only because Spanish explorers had inadvertently brought such epidemic diseases as smallpox and measles, starting about 1500 AD. The shell mound shows that the Indian population crashed by 90 percent, and the Bay area bird populations then recovered....
Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet's Tahoe SUV
As Americans become increasingly interested in fuel economy and global warming, they are beginning to make choices about the vehicles they drive based on fuel economy and to a lesser degree emissions. But many of those choices aren't actually the best in terms of vehicle lifetime energy usage and the cost to society over the full lifetime of a car or truck. CNW Marketing Research Inc. spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage. This includes such minutia as plant to dealer fuel costs, employee driving distances, electricity usage per pound of material used in each vehicle and literally hundreds of other variables. To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a "dollars per lifetime mile" figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven. The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48 cents. While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the "Dust to Dust" lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version. One of the reasons hybrids cost more than non-hybrids is the manufacture, replacement and disposal of such items as batteries, electric motors (in addition to the conventional engine), lighter weight materials and complexity of the power package. And while many consumers and environmentalists have targeted sport utility vehicles because of their lower fuel economy and/or perceived inefficiency as a means of transportation, the energy cost per mile shows at least some of that disdain is misplaced....
PETA 'Vegetarian' Celebrity Update
Singer P!nk (yes, that's an exclamation point -- she's just that hip) recently signed her name to a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign condemning KFC for not conforming to standards invented by PETA. Her petition comes hot on the heels of lengthy profiles of the singer published recently in two UK newspapers. Displaying just how deep the singer's animal-rights philosophy goes, one article mentions the PETA spokes-rocker's leather boots, and the other her taste for fish. Speaking of the difference between PETA's official rhetoric and what people actually do: Shortly after we reported on Thursday that the rappers known as Little Brother are not actually vegetarians (as PETA has claimed), PETA removed its hip-hop hijacking of their image from the "PETA World" animal-rights website. PETA has given no reason for the quick turnaround, but it's only a partial return to reality: The group is still distributing anti-meat leaflets featuring a photo of Big Brother MC "Phonte." We note also that PETA's online list of "Sexiest Vegetarian 2005" finalists still includes Reese "Everything's Better With Bacon" Witherspoon. And PETA has yet to stop (ab)using the names of other famous figures in its materials....
Friday, April 07, 2006
For Immediate Release
April 7, 2006
Contact: Brian Kennedy (202) 226-9019
GAO Report Shows Agencies Fail to Plan Adequately for Species Recovery
Lack of planning has led to the ESA’s failure to recover species
WASHINGTON – Summarized as "recovery time and costs largely unknown,” a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday confirms that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is not working effectively and is in need of reform after more than three decades of implementation without improvements.
The report echoes the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Not Performing assessment of the ESA.
Following a bipartisan request from several members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, the GAO conducted a review of endangered species recovery plans to determine if they contained several key elements, including the amount of time and money it would take to recover species addressed in each plan. The GAO also reviewed the plans to see if they contained criteria which, when met, would indicate the species status had improved enough that the species no longer needed to be listed as endangered or threatened.
From a statistically significant sample of 107 recovery plans, the GAO found that only 34 plans included an estimated date by which the species would be recovered. GAO found that even fewer plans, 20, included an estimated cost for recovery. Worse yet, the GAO found that 102 of the 107 plans reviewed failed to address all of the factors that are considered when the agencies determine whether or not a species is endangered.”
"In more than three decades, the ESA has recovered less than one percent of the thirteen-hundred species on its list,” House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) said. “And the prospects for improving this statistic under current law are just as low. GAO's results reveal one of the reasons for this – when you fail to plan appropriately, you plan to fail. This is precisely what has happened under the ESA, and it is tantamount to doing a jig-saw puzzle in the dark or trying to treat a patient without making a thorough diagnosis first.”
"If what GAO found was bad, what GAO missed was even worse," Pombo continued. “Although the GAO recommended the obvious - that actions be taken to address the failure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to include this critical information in recovery plans - it did not analyze the few plans in its sample that did provide such critical information for their accuracy. My committee did, and they are not.”
To test accuracy (or lack thereof), the Oversight and Investigations staff of the Resources Committee reviewed those few plans that did have estimated costs and recovery projections and compared them with expenditure and recovery program reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is required to provide Congress.
Among the Committee's findings:
* The plan for the decurrent false aster, a plant, anticipated that the species could be recovered by 1997 for a budget of $58,000. Since the plan was written Federal and state agencies have spent more than $600,000 dollars on the species - more than 10 times the estimated cost in the plan. Well after the GAO study was initiated, the USFWS announced it will finally review the plant's status.
* 13 plans included estimated recovery dates that have already passed, but (with one exception) none of the species had been removed from the list or even reduced in status from endangered to threatened. The Maguire daisy was changed from endangered to the lesser threatened status after it was discovered to be more abundant. In some of these cases the expenditures on the species have been significantly below the plan's estimated cost but in others well over. As in the case of the decurrent false aster, the plan for the least tern anticipated recovery costs of $2,000,000 and that the bird could be delisted 2005. Federal and State agencies have spent over $23,000,000 million on the bird and in its most recent Congressional report the USFWS estimated that the species' status is "unknown" and that it has only achieved somewhere between 0 and 25 percent of its recovery objectives.
To view all Committee findings, click here.
The bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), passed by the House this fall, includes several provisions that would remedy the shortcoming revealed by the GAO's analysis. One such provision establishes official Recovery Teams and requires recovery plans to be produced by a certain deadline, with specific criteria. Yet another strengthens the reporting requirements and public accessibility to the information about the endangered species program.
"Bringing the mechanics, incentives and scientific standards of the ESA into the 21st century will give it a chance to work effectively,” Pombo said. “If the U.S. Senate had any doubts about the need to do this, the GAO’s findings should clear them up. Accepting or defending the status-quo for this Act may be politically expedient for some and financially-beneficial to others, but it is unquestionably wrong for endangered species."
###
April 7, 2006
Contact: Brian Kennedy (202) 226-9019
GAO Report Shows Agencies Fail to Plan Adequately for Species Recovery
Lack of planning has led to the ESA’s failure to recover species
WASHINGTON – Summarized as "recovery time and costs largely unknown,” a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday confirms that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is not working effectively and is in need of reform after more than three decades of implementation without improvements.
The report echoes the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s Not Performing assessment of the ESA.
Following a bipartisan request from several members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, the GAO conducted a review of endangered species recovery plans to determine if they contained several key elements, including the amount of time and money it would take to recover species addressed in each plan. The GAO also reviewed the plans to see if they contained criteria which, when met, would indicate the species status had improved enough that the species no longer needed to be listed as endangered or threatened.
From a statistically significant sample of 107 recovery plans, the GAO found that only 34 plans included an estimated date by which the species would be recovered. GAO found that even fewer plans, 20, included an estimated cost for recovery. Worse yet, the GAO found that 102 of the 107 plans reviewed failed to address all of the factors that are considered when the agencies determine whether or not a species is endangered.”
"In more than three decades, the ESA has recovered less than one percent of the thirteen-hundred species on its list,” House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) said. “And the prospects for improving this statistic under current law are just as low. GAO's results reveal one of the reasons for this – when you fail to plan appropriately, you plan to fail. This is precisely what has happened under the ESA, and it is tantamount to doing a jig-saw puzzle in the dark or trying to treat a patient without making a thorough diagnosis first.”
"If what GAO found was bad, what GAO missed was even worse," Pombo continued. “Although the GAO recommended the obvious - that actions be taken to address the failure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service to include this critical information in recovery plans - it did not analyze the few plans in its sample that did provide such critical information for their accuracy. My committee did, and they are not.”
To test accuracy (or lack thereof), the Oversight and Investigations staff of the Resources Committee reviewed those few plans that did have estimated costs and recovery projections and compared them with expenditure and recovery program reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is required to provide Congress.
Among the Committee's findings:
* The plan for the decurrent false aster, a plant, anticipated that the species could be recovered by 1997 for a budget of $58,000. Since the plan was written Federal and state agencies have spent more than $600,000 dollars on the species - more than 10 times the estimated cost in the plan. Well after the GAO study was initiated, the USFWS announced it will finally review the plant's status.
* 13 plans included estimated recovery dates that have already passed, but (with one exception) none of the species had been removed from the list or even reduced in status from endangered to threatened. The Maguire daisy was changed from endangered to the lesser threatened status after it was discovered to be more abundant. In some of these cases the expenditures on the species have been significantly below the plan's estimated cost but in others well over. As in the case of the decurrent false aster, the plan for the least tern anticipated recovery costs of $2,000,000 and that the bird could be delisted 2005. Federal and State agencies have spent over $23,000,000 million on the bird and in its most recent Congressional report the USFWS estimated that the species' status is "unknown" and that it has only achieved somewhere between 0 and 25 percent of its recovery objectives.
To view all Committee findings, click here.
The bipartisan Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), passed by the House this fall, includes several provisions that would remedy the shortcoming revealed by the GAO's analysis. One such provision establishes official Recovery Teams and requires recovery plans to be produced by a certain deadline, with specific criteria. Yet another strengthens the reporting requirements and public accessibility to the information about the endangered species program.
"Bringing the mechanics, incentives and scientific standards of the ESA into the 21st century will give it a chance to work effectively,” Pombo said. “If the U.S. Senate had any doubts about the need to do this, the GAO’s findings should clear them up. Accepting or defending the status-quo for this Act may be politically expedient for some and financially-beneficial to others, but it is unquestionably wrong for endangered species."
###
NEWS ROUNDUP
Court upholds dismissal of charges against wolf biologist A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of trespassing and littering charges against a federal wolf biologist and a private contractor who were found with tranquilized wolves on private property near Cody. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a ruling released Thursday that the prosecution of Mike Jimenez, Wyoming's wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wes Livingston, a private contractor from Cody, was more an "attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program," than a "bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law." Rancher Randy Kruger pursued the charges after he found Jimenez and Livingston on his private land near Meeteetse Feb. 14, 2004. The men had four tranquilized wolves they were collaring because of depredation problems in the area. The incident raised speculation by some that they were trying to secretly transplant wolves into the area. The FWS said Jimenez and Livingston inadvertently wound up on the private land while working to place radio tracking collars on the wolves. FWS regional director Ralph Morganweck apologized for the incident....
Wyoming asks EPA to discard Montana rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to reject Montana water quality rules that he says would severely limit natural gas production in Wyoming. However, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said his state intends to stick by its rules and said he's not pleased Wyoming took the dispute to federal regulators. Freudenthal announced Wednesday that his letter to Stephen L. Johnson, EPA administrator in Washington, D.C., asks the agency to appoint a mediator to resolve the dispute between the states. He wants discussion about the Montana rules and recognition that they "have serious impacts in Wyoming." But Schweitzer maintains that Wyoming's booming coalbed methane development is already having serious impacts in Montana....
Wildlife Officers “Seize” Elk From Local Ranch Wildlife enforcement officers served a search warrant March 28 on Joey Perdue, owner of Beaverhorn Elk Ranch in the Bethel community. The search warrant, signed by Superior Court judge James Baker, allowed wildlife management officials to “seize” five elk, the last remnants of Perdue’s herd, after a citation accused her of failing to comply with state regulations. By “seize,” though, the warrant was really empowering officials to kill the elk and dispose of their carcasses in a pit at the Wilkes Wildlife Depot. Perdue says wildlife officials never told her the violations would end in the death of her elk, which included a 23-year-old bull and three pregnant cows. What’s worse, she said, is the animals, which officials say were killed as part of the state’s effort to keep a mysterious brain ailment known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from infecting wild herds, were rendered inedible when two veterinarians tranquilized them before euthanizing them with a bolt gun shot to the brain. “This waste amounted to approximately 5,000 pounds of the most healthy meat in the world,” an infuriated Perdue wrote in a March 31 letter to the Democrat. Perdue had been involved in a running dispute with state Wildlife Management officials who say they’d been after the 71-year-old rancher since 2004 to bring her operation into compliance with state law....
Calaveras rancher jumps to support Endangered Species Act It took a frog to make Calaveras County rancher Danny Pearson hop on an airplane. Pearson runs cattle on his family's ranch near Burson, off a dirt road east of San Andreas. In his 42 years, he has never found occasion to fly. He's never registered with any political party, and he's certainly never lobbied Congress. Until now. This week, incited by his regard for the California red-legged frog and his concern over the future of the Endangered Species Act, Pearson has become the quintessential citizen lobbyist. He's learning legislative mechanics, navigating Capitol Hill and beginning to appreciate the art of the sound bite. "I've got to get the message out there," Pearson said Monday. "Not all ranchers can be bought." Pearson's is one sun-beaten face of the Endangered Species Act debate, which has stymied Congress for years. His opposite number, a man he has never met, is also a one-time rancher. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, is pushing a dramatic rewrite of the 33-year-old environmental law....
County says bill would hurt landowners Local opposition is gaining steam against a bill in the Colorado Senate that critics say would fail to protect the rights of surface landowners involved in disputes with gas drillers. The La Plata County commissioners wrote in a letter on Monday to the bill's Senate sponsor, Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, that it was a "serious step backward" that "undermines local government authority in a wholly unacceptable way." Commissioners had earlier supported the bill, but they said it underwent "serious and deleterious changes." The bill requires gas companies to try to get a surface-use agreement with the landowner. However, if the landowner won't sign, the company could still drill by making an offer to reimburse the landowner and by posting a $15,000 bond with the state. Much of the current language was written by BP Amoco, the major driller in Southwest Colorado. The bill limits payment for damages to land that is disturbed by wells or pipelines, not the lost value of the entire parcel of land. The bill, HB 1185, passed by an overwhelming 60-3 vote in the House. It could receive a vote in the full Senate as early as today. Isgar has signed on as Senate sponsor. A Bayfield ranching family said Tuesday that the bill was a step backward and must be defeated. "This is just a bad bill," said Jim Fitzgerald, who owns 400 acres southeast of Bayfield. "It's unfair, and it takes rights away from landowners." Fitzgerald said he has one gas well on his land, two on adjacent land and "more coming," courtesy of BP Amoco. Gwen Lachelt, executive director of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project in Durango, said the bill was hijacked by the oil and gas industry....
Court asked to review mileage rules An environmental group on Thursday asked for a court review of tighter gas mileage rules for pickups and sport utility vehicles that many conservationists said do not go far enough in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government set the new standards last week in response to rising concern about the supply and cost of energy from abroad. The rules, covering 2008 through 2011, would save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles sold during that period, officials said. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity filed a one-page petition Thursday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision. Deborah Sivas, director of Stanford University's Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the center, said the government did not adequately consider whether tighter standards would have been a greater boon for the environment. She also said the new rules would not adequately protect endangered species....
"Laurel and Hardy effect” spells good news for captive breeding Animals bred in captivity for reintroduction to the wild are able to retain their defences against predators for several generations, ecologists have found. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, tadpoles of the Mallorcan midwife toad (Alytes muletensis) retain their ability to change their body shape – a defence they have evolved in the face of predators – even after being bred in captivity for three to eight generations. The results have important implications for conserving endangered species through captive breeding programmes. Tadpoles of many amphibians have developed ways of defending themselves against predators. Mallorcan midwife toad tadpoles grow longer tails and shallower fins to help them escape from danger when predators are present. These defences have evolved in response to two predators that were introduced to Mallorca about 2,000 years ago: the viperine snake (Natrix maura) and the green frog (Rana perezi). The authors of the paper, Dr Richard Griffiths and colleagues from the University of Kent and the University of Sussex, have dubbed this change in shape the “Laurel and Hardy effect”. The researchers compared the responses of tadpoles in a predator-free, reintroduced population with those in the population from which their ancestors were collected several years earlier. When the tadpoles were exposed to chemical cues from predators, the researchers found that the reintroduced population retained their anti-predator responses, even though they had been bred in captivity for three to eight generations in the absence of predator selection pressures....
Lawsuit challenges use of hatchery fish in counts Conservation groups Thursday challenged a new government policy that includes hatchery fish in counts used to determine the status of dwindling salmon and steelhead runs. In a federal court lawsuit the plaintiffs also challenged the downlisting of upper Columbia steelhead -- from endangered to threatened -- that has resulted from that policy. "The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect wildlife's ability to sustain itself in the wild. And that means the focus is on wild steelhead in rivers, not steelhead that are produced in hatcheries," said Patti Goldman of Earthjustice. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiff groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service and its regional director, Bob Lohn....
Conservation Celebrities Recognized as Disney Fund Reaches Milestone $10 Million Investment in Wildlife Five renowned conservation celebrities joined with Disney Thursday night to celebrate a $10 million milestone for the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (DWCF) -- a program that has benefited nearly 500 wildlife projects around the world. Actor/comedian John Cleese; elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton; primatologist Jane Goodall; actress Isabella Rossellini; and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai accepted awards of $100,000 each for their conservation causes in a ceremony at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. "These very special people, who have devoted their lives and lent their voices to conservation, are the key to engaging the public in caring for animals," said Jerry Montgomery, senior vice president of Walt Disney World Public Affairs. "The adventures and excitement at Disney's Animal Kingdom help us share conservation stories with our guests, and we are thrilled that many of them join our global conservation efforts through the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. Together, we are making a difference for wildlife and wild places -- we are helping to create the next generation of Disney's conservation legacy." The conservation focus is a large part of the park's mission as a facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Since 1998, the DWCF has been supported by donations from guests visiting Walt Disney World Resort and enhanced by company contributions. The $500,000 awarded at the celebration will be divided among several charitable organizations working in the U.S. and abroad....
Mountain lion bill introduced A bill making it a crime for a mountain lion to attack a human has been introduced into the state Legislature. Assembly Bill 2273, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, is intended to make victims of mountain lion attacks eligible for compensation for their injuries through the state crime victims' fund, according to Somke Mastrup, deputy director of the state Department of Fish and Game. For them to be eligible, they must be crime victims. Mastrup reported on a number of bills pending in Sacramento at Thursday's meeting of the state Department of Fish and Game in Monterey, legislation that the commission should keep an eye on, he said....
Wildfires Scorch 27,000 Acres in Texas The parched Texas Panhandle apparently survived another wildfire scare, but forecasters predicted dangerous conditions in other parts of the state Friday. Wildfires fueled by steady 40 mph winds scorched 27,000 acres Thursday and destroyed at least nine homes while forcing the evacuation of two small towns about 65 miles east of Amarillo. The roughly 600 residents of Lefors and Bowers City were allowed to return home in the evening and lighter winds helped firefighters contain most of the more than two dozen blazes, officials said. No injuries were reported....
Last frontier From 1987 to 2002, Colorado lost an average of 460 acres per day of agricultural land, according to a report released this week by Environment Colorado. The report, titled "Losing Ground: Colorado's Vanishing Agricultural Landscape," predicts 3.1 million more acres will be lost to development by 2022. "Colorado is losing the equivalent of five family farms every week," said Pam Kiely, the report's author. "Loss of farmlands impacts the environment, the economy and the very landscapes that define us as a state." The report, which is based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, predicts Moffat County will lose more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land to development by 2022. Struggling rural economies and increased development of large-lot residential property is largely to blame for the decline in agricultural lands, according to the report....
A little lambsie jivey: fraud at the stock show The two top winners of the National Western Stock Show's junior market lamb show and 16 other lambs were illegally injected with an unknown substance, stock show President Pat Grant said Wednesday. Grant said officials were alerted to the tampering Jan. 19, the night of the contest. The lambs were recovered at the packing plant, and the Denver district attorney was notified. The injections caused swelling and inflammation, which made the lambs appear more muscular, he said. None of the altered animals was consumed, he said. "It could be something criminal," said Lynn Kimbrough, of the Denver district attorney's office. "We're in the middle of the investigation."....
Court upholds dismissal of charges against wolf biologist A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of trespassing and littering charges against a federal wolf biologist and a private contractor who were found with tranquilized wolves on private property near Cody. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded in a ruling released Thursday that the prosecution of Mike Jimenez, Wyoming's wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Wes Livingston, a private contractor from Cody, was more an "attempt to hinder a locally unpopular federal program," than a "bona fide effort to punish a violation of Wyoming trespass law." Rancher Randy Kruger pursued the charges after he found Jimenez and Livingston on his private land near Meeteetse Feb. 14, 2004. The men had four tranquilized wolves they were collaring because of depredation problems in the area. The incident raised speculation by some that they were trying to secretly transplant wolves into the area. The FWS said Jimenez and Livingston inadvertently wound up on the private land while working to place radio tracking collars on the wolves. FWS regional director Ralph Morganweck apologized for the incident....
Wyoming asks EPA to discard Montana rules Gov. Dave Freudenthal has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to reject Montana water quality rules that he says would severely limit natural gas production in Wyoming. However, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said his state intends to stick by its rules and said he's not pleased Wyoming took the dispute to federal regulators. Freudenthal announced Wednesday that his letter to Stephen L. Johnson, EPA administrator in Washington, D.C., asks the agency to appoint a mediator to resolve the dispute between the states. He wants discussion about the Montana rules and recognition that they "have serious impacts in Wyoming." But Schweitzer maintains that Wyoming's booming coalbed methane development is already having serious impacts in Montana....
Wildlife Officers “Seize” Elk From Local Ranch Wildlife enforcement officers served a search warrant March 28 on Joey Perdue, owner of Beaverhorn Elk Ranch in the Bethel community. The search warrant, signed by Superior Court judge James Baker, allowed wildlife management officials to “seize” five elk, the last remnants of Perdue’s herd, after a citation accused her of failing to comply with state regulations. By “seize,” though, the warrant was really empowering officials to kill the elk and dispose of their carcasses in a pit at the Wilkes Wildlife Depot. Perdue says wildlife officials never told her the violations would end in the death of her elk, which included a 23-year-old bull and three pregnant cows. What’s worse, she said, is the animals, which officials say were killed as part of the state’s effort to keep a mysterious brain ailment known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from infecting wild herds, were rendered inedible when two veterinarians tranquilized them before euthanizing them with a bolt gun shot to the brain. “This waste amounted to approximately 5,000 pounds of the most healthy meat in the world,” an infuriated Perdue wrote in a March 31 letter to the Democrat. Perdue had been involved in a running dispute with state Wildlife Management officials who say they’d been after the 71-year-old rancher since 2004 to bring her operation into compliance with state law....
Calaveras rancher jumps to support Endangered Species Act It took a frog to make Calaveras County rancher Danny Pearson hop on an airplane. Pearson runs cattle on his family's ranch near Burson, off a dirt road east of San Andreas. In his 42 years, he has never found occasion to fly. He's never registered with any political party, and he's certainly never lobbied Congress. Until now. This week, incited by his regard for the California red-legged frog and his concern over the future of the Endangered Species Act, Pearson has become the quintessential citizen lobbyist. He's learning legislative mechanics, navigating Capitol Hill and beginning to appreciate the art of the sound bite. "I've got to get the message out there," Pearson said Monday. "Not all ranchers can be bought." Pearson's is one sun-beaten face of the Endangered Species Act debate, which has stymied Congress for years. His opposite number, a man he has never met, is also a one-time rancher. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, is pushing a dramatic rewrite of the 33-year-old environmental law....
County says bill would hurt landowners Local opposition is gaining steam against a bill in the Colorado Senate that critics say would fail to protect the rights of surface landowners involved in disputes with gas drillers. The La Plata County commissioners wrote in a letter on Monday to the bill's Senate sponsor, Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, that it was a "serious step backward" that "undermines local government authority in a wholly unacceptable way." Commissioners had earlier supported the bill, but they said it underwent "serious and deleterious changes." The bill requires gas companies to try to get a surface-use agreement with the landowner. However, if the landowner won't sign, the company could still drill by making an offer to reimburse the landowner and by posting a $15,000 bond with the state. Much of the current language was written by BP Amoco, the major driller in Southwest Colorado. The bill limits payment for damages to land that is disturbed by wells or pipelines, not the lost value of the entire parcel of land. The bill, HB 1185, passed by an overwhelming 60-3 vote in the House. It could receive a vote in the full Senate as early as today. Isgar has signed on as Senate sponsor. A Bayfield ranching family said Tuesday that the bill was a step backward and must be defeated. "This is just a bad bill," said Jim Fitzgerald, who owns 400 acres southeast of Bayfield. "It's unfair, and it takes rights away from landowners." Fitzgerald said he has one gas well on his land, two on adjacent land and "more coming," courtesy of BP Amoco. Gwen Lachelt, executive director of the Oil & Gas Accountability Project in Durango, said the bill was hijacked by the oil and gas industry....
Court asked to review mileage rules An environmental group on Thursday asked for a court review of tighter gas mileage rules for pickups and sport utility vehicles that many conservationists said do not go far enough in limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The federal government set the new standards last week in response to rising concern about the supply and cost of energy from abroad. The rules, covering 2008 through 2011, would save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles sold during that period, officials said. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity filed a one-page petition Thursday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision. Deborah Sivas, director of Stanford University's Environmental Law Clinic, which is representing the center, said the government did not adequately consider whether tighter standards would have been a greater boon for the environment. She also said the new rules would not adequately protect endangered species....
"Laurel and Hardy effect” spells good news for captive breeding Animals bred in captivity for reintroduction to the wild are able to retain their defences against predators for several generations, ecologists have found. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, tadpoles of the Mallorcan midwife toad (Alytes muletensis) retain their ability to change their body shape – a defence they have evolved in the face of predators – even after being bred in captivity for three to eight generations. The results have important implications for conserving endangered species through captive breeding programmes. Tadpoles of many amphibians have developed ways of defending themselves against predators. Mallorcan midwife toad tadpoles grow longer tails and shallower fins to help them escape from danger when predators are present. These defences have evolved in response to two predators that were introduced to Mallorca about 2,000 years ago: the viperine snake (Natrix maura) and the green frog (Rana perezi). The authors of the paper, Dr Richard Griffiths and colleagues from the University of Kent and the University of Sussex, have dubbed this change in shape the “Laurel and Hardy effect”. The researchers compared the responses of tadpoles in a predator-free, reintroduced population with those in the population from which their ancestors were collected several years earlier. When the tadpoles were exposed to chemical cues from predators, the researchers found that the reintroduced population retained their anti-predator responses, even though they had been bred in captivity for three to eight generations in the absence of predator selection pressures....
Lawsuit challenges use of hatchery fish in counts Conservation groups Thursday challenged a new government policy that includes hatchery fish in counts used to determine the status of dwindling salmon and steelhead runs. In a federal court lawsuit the plaintiffs also challenged the downlisting of upper Columbia steelhead -- from endangered to threatened -- that has resulted from that policy. "The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect wildlife's ability to sustain itself in the wild. And that means the focus is on wild steelhead in rivers, not steelhead that are produced in hatcheries," said Patti Goldman of Earthjustice. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of six plaintiff groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service and its regional director, Bob Lohn....
Conservation Celebrities Recognized as Disney Fund Reaches Milestone $10 Million Investment in Wildlife Five renowned conservation celebrities joined with Disney Thursday night to celebrate a $10 million milestone for the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund (DWCF) -- a program that has benefited nearly 500 wildlife projects around the world. Actor/comedian John Cleese; elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton; primatologist Jane Goodall; actress Isabella Rossellini; and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai accepted awards of $100,000 each for their conservation causes in a ceremony at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. "These very special people, who have devoted their lives and lent their voices to conservation, are the key to engaging the public in caring for animals," said Jerry Montgomery, senior vice president of Walt Disney World Public Affairs. "The adventures and excitement at Disney's Animal Kingdom help us share conservation stories with our guests, and we are thrilled that many of them join our global conservation efforts through the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. Together, we are making a difference for wildlife and wild places -- we are helping to create the next generation of Disney's conservation legacy." The conservation focus is a large part of the park's mission as a facility accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). Since 1998, the DWCF has been supported by donations from guests visiting Walt Disney World Resort and enhanced by company contributions. The $500,000 awarded at the celebration will be divided among several charitable organizations working in the U.S. and abroad....
Mountain lion bill introduced A bill making it a crime for a mountain lion to attack a human has been introduced into the state Legislature. Assembly Bill 2273, introduced by Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, is intended to make victims of mountain lion attacks eligible for compensation for their injuries through the state crime victims' fund, according to Somke Mastrup, deputy director of the state Department of Fish and Game. For them to be eligible, they must be crime victims. Mastrup reported on a number of bills pending in Sacramento at Thursday's meeting of the state Department of Fish and Game in Monterey, legislation that the commission should keep an eye on, he said....
Wildfires Scorch 27,000 Acres in Texas The parched Texas Panhandle apparently survived another wildfire scare, but forecasters predicted dangerous conditions in other parts of the state Friday. Wildfires fueled by steady 40 mph winds scorched 27,000 acres Thursday and destroyed at least nine homes while forcing the evacuation of two small towns about 65 miles east of Amarillo. The roughly 600 residents of Lefors and Bowers City were allowed to return home in the evening and lighter winds helped firefighters contain most of the more than two dozen blazes, officials said. No injuries were reported....
Last frontier From 1987 to 2002, Colorado lost an average of 460 acres per day of agricultural land, according to a report released this week by Environment Colorado. The report, titled "Losing Ground: Colorado's Vanishing Agricultural Landscape," predicts 3.1 million more acres will be lost to development by 2022. "Colorado is losing the equivalent of five family farms every week," said Pam Kiely, the report's author. "Loss of farmlands impacts the environment, the economy and the very landscapes that define us as a state." The report, which is based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, predicts Moffat County will lose more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land to development by 2022. Struggling rural economies and increased development of large-lot residential property is largely to blame for the decline in agricultural lands, according to the report....
A little lambsie jivey: fraud at the stock show The two top winners of the National Western Stock Show's junior market lamb show and 16 other lambs were illegally injected with an unknown substance, stock show President Pat Grant said Wednesday. Grant said officials were alerted to the tampering Jan. 19, the night of the contest. The lambs were recovered at the packing plant, and the Denver district attorney was notified. The injections caused swelling and inflammation, which made the lambs appear more muscular, he said. None of the altered animals was consumed, he said. "It could be something criminal," said Lynn Kimbrough, of the Denver district attorney's office. "We're in the middle of the investigation."....
NAIS
Transcript of Tele-News Conference with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns And Dr. John Clifford, USDA's Chief Veterinarian Regarding the National Animal Identification System Washington, D.C. - April 6, 2006
MODERATOR: Good afternoon from Washington. I'm Larry Quinn speaking to you from the Broadcast Center at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Welcome to today's news conference with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to discuss the National Animal Identification System plan. With the Secretary today is Dr. John Clifford, USDA's chief veterinarian with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. During our question period if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone touchpad. Now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns. SEC. JOHANNS: Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining me today. We are going to do an update on the development of the National Animal Identification System. I am very pleased to make public today what we would refer to as our implementation plan and several other documents that will take us into the next phase of development. A National Animal ID system will dramatically improve our ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks. During the contagious disease outbreak, time is actually the enemy. The more time it takes to track an animal, the more animals are exposed, the more premises become involved, and the more money it costs to contain the disease. An animal ID system will help animal health officials identify the birthplace of a diseased animal and shorten the time required to trace the animal's history to identify other potentially exposed animals. A long-term goal is to be able to identify all animals and premises that have had direct contact with the disease of concern within 48 hours of discovery. As many are aware, this system will also help the U.S. livestock industry to remain competitive. Traceability is being used as a marketing tool by several countries. For example, Australia is aggressively marketing animal traceability to gain a competitive advantage over us. We know how important the export market is to livestock producers, and we want to retain our competitiveness in the international arena....
NAIS Implementation Plan
Integration Plan for Private and State Databases
Implementation of the Animal Identification Number (AIN)
USDA Outlines Plan, Benchmarks for National Animal ID Implementation
A new proposal from USDA outlines timelines and benchmarks for the establishment of the National Animal Identification System, along with a plan for the initial integration of private and state animal tracking databases with NAIS. Over the next two and a half years USDA wants 100% of premises registered and new animals identified and 60% of animals less than a year old to have complete movement data. The full plan, available at the NAIS Web site, gives an overview of what is currently in place and final components of the program expected to be operational in early 2007. By early 2007, USDA expects to have the technology in place, called the Animal Trace Processing System or commonly known as the metadata system, that will allow state and federal animal health officials to query the NAIS and private databases during a disease investigation. The animal tracking databases will record and store animal movement tracking information for livestock that state and federal animal health officials will query for animals of interest in a disease investigation. Currently only 235,000 premises are registered, or about 10% of the estimated national total. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns says some may question that the system isn't working with 90% not participating. However, he explains that 10% are on-board with what essentially was a "national animal ID thinking paper." The plan outlines the following benchmarks for progress:
* January 2007: 25% of premises registered
* January 2008: 70% of premises registered; 40% of animals identified
* January 2009: 100% of premises registered; 100% of "new" animals identified;60% of animal <1 year of age have complete movement data...
Animal ID System to Be in Place by 2009
Authorities trying to limit disease outbreaks will be able to trace livestock movements from birth to slaughter by 2009, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday. The goal is to pinpoint a single animal's movements among the nation's 9 billion cows, pigs and chickens within 48 hours after a disease is discovered. Many livestock producers have been wary of a tracking system, which the government promised to create after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago in Washington state. The department has shifted gears on other parts of the animal identification system. Johanns said last May it would be government-run. Now, Johanns is letting industry groups create their own tracking systems, so long as state and federal authorities are able to tap into the systems when needed. The goal is for all ranches, feed lots, sale barns, packing plants and other facilities to be registered, and all recently born animals assigned numbers by 2009, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford. Clifford said about 10 percent of the nation's 2 million premises have registered so far. Still in question is whether or when it will become mandatory for U.S. producers to register and report the movements of cattle, hogs and poultry. Johanns has said the system probably will have to be mandatory....
Animal ID System, Cattle Feed Rules Long Overdue, but Stalled by Industry Influence, Says CSPI
Despite the discovery of three cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, long overdue measures to ensure the safety of the food supply and to keep foreign markets open to American beef have been stalled, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In a report coauthored with OMB Watch and Consumer Federation of America, CSPI says special-interest lobbying at federal agencies and at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) helped keep reforms, such as a nationwide animal identification system and a strong regulation governing cattle feed, from being finalized. The report identifies 10 closed-door meetings that staff at OMB, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, have held with the meat and feed industry, and points out that the senior levels of the Bush Administration’s Department of Agriculture are filled with former industry insiders. The groups are calling on Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to jump start the stalled animal identification system and the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a rule preventing animal feed from being contaminated with mammalian blood, so-called “chicken litter,” and other animal-containing products that could pass on the prions that cause BSE. “We don’t need another mad cow to tell us how weak the United States’ cattle tracking system is,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “While Canada can quickly track all cattle that may have eaten infected feed, USDA has refused to mandate a similar system in the U.S.”....
Wyoming: Age and Source Verification Program Kicks Off
With markets for American beef proving restless in the Pacific Rim and around the world, the Wyoming Business Council is rolling out a voluntary program designed to help producers satisfy export requirements for Wyoming meat. John Henn of the Wyoming Business Council begins his Wyoming Verified Program for source and age verification of Wyoming livestock this month. As an approved partner in AgInfoLink's USDA PVP program, Henn will audit ranch records to verify age of animals and their place of birth. The program is in place due to restrictions placed on American beef after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a Canadian animal on a Washington State ranch in 2003. Even though U.S. food safety measures ensure any material that could potentially carry the BSE agent does not enter the food chain, Japan closed its borders to American beef, depriving producers in the states a market that had brought $1.4 billion annually to the U.S. beef industry. The impact of this program will benefit the producer financially, Henn said. The loss of the Japan market meant a loss that equated to about $150 a head on the finished animal. "We hope we can get that back over a period of time when that market re-opens," Henn added. Animals that are source and age verified have been getting a premium from buyers and packers here at home. Since BSE has not been found in any animals under the age of 30 months, several countries around the world are not accepting beef unless its age is certified by a third party and proves to be less than 21 months of age for Japan and 30 months for other countries....
Transcript of Tele-News Conference with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns And Dr. John Clifford, USDA's Chief Veterinarian Regarding the National Animal Identification System Washington, D.C. - April 6, 2006
MODERATOR: Good afternoon from Washington. I'm Larry Quinn speaking to you from the Broadcast Center at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Welcome to today's news conference with Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns to discuss the National Animal Identification System plan. With the Secretary today is Dr. John Clifford, USDA's chief veterinarian with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. During our question period if you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone touchpad. Now it's my pleasure to introduce to you Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns. SEC. JOHANNS: Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining me today. We are going to do an update on the development of the National Animal Identification System. I am very pleased to make public today what we would refer to as our implementation plan and several other documents that will take us into the next phase of development. A National Animal ID system will dramatically improve our ability to respond to animal disease outbreaks. During the contagious disease outbreak, time is actually the enemy. The more time it takes to track an animal, the more animals are exposed, the more premises become involved, and the more money it costs to contain the disease. An animal ID system will help animal health officials identify the birthplace of a diseased animal and shorten the time required to trace the animal's history to identify other potentially exposed animals. A long-term goal is to be able to identify all animals and premises that have had direct contact with the disease of concern within 48 hours of discovery. As many are aware, this system will also help the U.S. livestock industry to remain competitive. Traceability is being used as a marketing tool by several countries. For example, Australia is aggressively marketing animal traceability to gain a competitive advantage over us. We know how important the export market is to livestock producers, and we want to retain our competitiveness in the international arena....
NAIS Implementation Plan
Integration Plan for Private and State Databases
Implementation of the Animal Identification Number (AIN)
USDA Outlines Plan, Benchmarks for National Animal ID Implementation
A new proposal from USDA outlines timelines and benchmarks for the establishment of the National Animal Identification System, along with a plan for the initial integration of private and state animal tracking databases with NAIS. Over the next two and a half years USDA wants 100% of premises registered and new animals identified and 60% of animals less than a year old to have complete movement data. The full plan, available at the NAIS Web site, gives an overview of what is currently in place and final components of the program expected to be operational in early 2007. By early 2007, USDA expects to have the technology in place, called the Animal Trace Processing System or commonly known as the metadata system, that will allow state and federal animal health officials to query the NAIS and private databases during a disease investigation. The animal tracking databases will record and store animal movement tracking information for livestock that state and federal animal health officials will query for animals of interest in a disease investigation. Currently only 235,000 premises are registered, or about 10% of the estimated national total. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns says some may question that the system isn't working with 90% not participating. However, he explains that 10% are on-board with what essentially was a "national animal ID thinking paper." The plan outlines the following benchmarks for progress:
* January 2007: 25% of premises registered
* January 2008: 70% of premises registered; 40% of animals identified
* January 2009: 100% of premises registered; 100% of "new" animals identified;60% of animal <1 year of age have complete movement data...
Animal ID System to Be in Place by 2009
Authorities trying to limit disease outbreaks will be able to trace livestock movements from birth to slaughter by 2009, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday. The goal is to pinpoint a single animal's movements among the nation's 9 billion cows, pigs and chickens within 48 hours after a disease is discovered. Many livestock producers have been wary of a tracking system, which the government promised to create after the nation's first case of mad cow disease two years ago in Washington state. The department has shifted gears on other parts of the animal identification system. Johanns said last May it would be government-run. Now, Johanns is letting industry groups create their own tracking systems, so long as state and federal authorities are able to tap into the systems when needed. The goal is for all ranches, feed lots, sale barns, packing plants and other facilities to be registered, and all recently born animals assigned numbers by 2009, said the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford. Clifford said about 10 percent of the nation's 2 million premises have registered so far. Still in question is whether or when it will become mandatory for U.S. producers to register and report the movements of cattle, hogs and poultry. Johanns has said the system probably will have to be mandatory....
Animal ID System, Cattle Feed Rules Long Overdue, but Stalled by Industry Influence, Says CSPI
Despite the discovery of three cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, long overdue measures to ensure the safety of the food supply and to keep foreign markets open to American beef have been stalled, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). In a report coauthored with OMB Watch and Consumer Federation of America, CSPI says special-interest lobbying at federal agencies and at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) helped keep reforms, such as a nationwide animal identification system and a strong regulation governing cattle feed, from being finalized. The report identifies 10 closed-door meetings that staff at OMB, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, have held with the meat and feed industry, and points out that the senior levels of the Bush Administration’s Department of Agriculture are filled with former industry insiders. The groups are calling on Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns to jump start the stalled animal identification system and the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a rule preventing animal feed from being contaminated with mammalian blood, so-called “chicken litter,” and other animal-containing products that could pass on the prions that cause BSE. “We don’t need another mad cow to tell us how weak the United States’ cattle tracking system is,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “While Canada can quickly track all cattle that may have eaten infected feed, USDA has refused to mandate a similar system in the U.S.”....
Wyoming: Age and Source Verification Program Kicks Off
With markets for American beef proving restless in the Pacific Rim and around the world, the Wyoming Business Council is rolling out a voluntary program designed to help producers satisfy export requirements for Wyoming meat. John Henn of the Wyoming Business Council begins his Wyoming Verified Program for source and age verification of Wyoming livestock this month. As an approved partner in AgInfoLink's USDA PVP program, Henn will audit ranch records to verify age of animals and their place of birth. The program is in place due to restrictions placed on American beef after Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was found in a Canadian animal on a Washington State ranch in 2003. Even though U.S. food safety measures ensure any material that could potentially carry the BSE agent does not enter the food chain, Japan closed its borders to American beef, depriving producers in the states a market that had brought $1.4 billion annually to the U.S. beef industry. The impact of this program will benefit the producer financially, Henn said. The loss of the Japan market meant a loss that equated to about $150 a head on the finished animal. "We hope we can get that back over a period of time when that market re-opens," Henn added. Animals that are source and age verified have been getting a premium from buyers and packers here at home. Since BSE has not been found in any animals under the age of 30 months, several countries around the world are not accepting beef unless its age is certified by a third party and proves to be less than 21 months of age for Japan and 30 months for other countries....
Thursday, April 06, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Drought affects grazing A lifelong Sacramento Mountains rancher has asked Otero County commissioners for help to keep cattle on federal grazing allotments within the county. "We need some help right now in the drought," said Jimmy Goss, of Weed. According to Goss, because of the lack of snow over the winter, elk never migrated to the lower elevations. Instead, he said, they ate the grass which ranchers expected to have this spring and summer for their cattle. "These elk, they stayed right there," Goss said. As a result, when the Lincoln National Forest begins monitoring grass availability, Goss said there will be nothing left for ranchers. Commission Chair Doug Moore said the first step is to schedule a meeting between the Otero County Grazing Advisory Board and the Lincoln. "Just give me a date and we'll try to get all the board members there, and the permittees (who graze on the federal lands)," grazing board chairman Bobby Jones said....
Sale of McCullough leases concerns environmentalists The sale Tuesday of oil and gas leases for six parcels on 50,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management property around the McCullough Peaks has left some local environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts concerned about development in the area. The leased parcels include around 11,000 acres of land within the McCullough Peaks wild horse herd management area, said Andrew Tkach, a BLM spokesman in Worland. BLM officials say the leases include adequate restrictions to protect habitat and wildlife, but others contend that any development in the virtually untouched area is likely to spoil the scenic beauty that makes it a popular recreation spot. "It would be a shame to see all that land developed," said Sean Sheehan of Cody, a board member of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. "It's one of the most beautiful, wide-open spaces in the state."....
Killing wolves works -- briefly Killing wolves that attack cattle or sheep may take care of the immediate problem but doesn't stop conflicts later, according to a new University of Calgary study. Researchers looked at wolf attacks in Alberta and in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming for more than 15 years to determine the effectiveness of removing wolves that prey on livestock. Marco Musiani, the study's lead author and an assistant professor at the University of Calgary, said that once a "problem" wolf is killed, others simply to move in and take its place, Musiani said. "This study shows that wolves are being killed as a corrective, punitive measure -- not a preventative one," Musiani said in a statement. "People hope that killing individual wolves will rid the population of offenders, but this isn't happening." The study is published in the current issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin. Musiani is scheduled to discuss his findings today at the North American Wolf Conference at Chico Hot Springs, an annual gathering of scientists, policymakers and wolf enthusiasts....
Vistas plan hinges on reform of state land It has been four days since the Morrison Institute for Public Policy unveiled its novel proposal for developing Superstition Vistas, a 275-square-mile piece of raw desert on the fringes of the southeast Valley. It will be many months before the State Land Department, which owns the trust land in Pinal County, will know if it can implement any of the report's suggestions, which include building streets, highways and sewer systems before home construction begins and creating environmentally friendly communities. That is because the agency has little ability to weigh in on how state land is used or developed. Its sole mission is to sell the land to the highest bidder, in most cases regardless of whom that is or what that person plans to do with the land. But a reform measure that voters likely will consider in November would change that. It is one of two that is expected to be on the ballot....
Fishermen rally; salmon ruling due on Thursday The political heat rose a notch Tuesday, when hundreds of sport fishermen rallied at a federal fisheries management meeting to protest proposals to curtail or eliminate Chinook fishing along most of the Oregon and Northern California coasts. Members of the largest saltwater angling association in Northern California, the Coastside Fishing Club, carried picket signs and crowded into meeting rooms and hallways at the Doubletree Hotel as rain poured outside. Two police cars also patrolled the parking lot or were parked outside. Inside, the Pacific Fishery Management Council was making its first attempt of the week to design a season around an option that mandates no season at all. That option, a closure, was the preferred option of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that must ultimately approve the council's decision.... Tribal Leader: Methane Wastewater Threatens the Cheyenne's Land Coal bed methane projects in southeast Montana and Wyoming are on are the verge of devastating the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, tribal leader Gail Small said in a lecture at the University of Montana, Tuesday. To prevent the loss of their homeland the Cheyenne need more allies in all Montana communities and more respect from regional government she said. "For a lot of these tribes I think were very close to losing what we can’t regain," Small said. The danger to Cheyenne reservation in the Tongue River Valley comes from the high-salinity wastewater that is pumped from methane wells at astounding rates and either dumped into rivers or held in ponds. The salt content of the water makes it useless for irrigation and destructive to soil. Small said the methane wells have also disrupted migrating elk herds and some tribal members believe the wastewater is killing beavers on the reservation. She said the majority of tribal members still rely on wild plants and game for subsistence and the wastewater is threatening their way of life. “You can just see the white alkali coming down the tributaries and the ponds they’re putting the water in aren’t even lined, the alkali goes straight into the ground,” Small said....
Conservation Report: The Killing Fields Alan Lackey has been an elk and mule deer guide in the high country of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains for over 21 years. When he is not pulling a pack string into the mountains, he’s a ranch manager in Roy, New Mexico. Before that, he owned the Chevrolet dealership in Raton, where he also served as the president of the Chamber of Commerce. By his own description, he is a deeply conservative person. Like huge numbers of sportsmen across the American West, however, Lackey is quick to tell you that there is nothing conservative about the pace or scale of energy development on public lands in the region. “This is a giveaway of public resources at the cost of every other value we hold,” he says. “Oil and gas production has been elevated to the primary use of our public lands, even when the local people say no to it. The whole plan is like burning down your house to stay warm for one night.” Lackey is referring to the potential energy development of the Valle Vidal (Spanish for “The Valley of Life”) in the Carson National Forest of northern New Mexico. It is a 100,000-acre expanse of wild country that starts with open grasslands at around 8,000 feet, runs to parklands threaded by snowmelt-fed trout streams and huge stands of aspens, and reaches into the high timber country and beyond to snowfields and high peaks. It is home—both winter range and calving ground—to New Mexico’s largest elk herd, said to be about 2,500 animals. The valley is targeted for as many as 500 coal-bed methane wells....
All Fired Up Over Water An aerial dogfight is shaping up over Southern California as rival millionaires duel to see who will be first to get his jumbo jet water tanker aloft to fight wildfires. One has his hopes pegged on a converted 747 cargo aircraft. The other is banking on a retrofitted DC-10 passenger plane. At stake are potentially lucrative government contracts to help fight brush and forest fires. The rush to get the planes in the air comes as authorities continue grounding the World War II propeller planes that for half a century have dropped water and retardant on burning hillsides and forests. So far, Sanford Burnstein of Tulsa, Okla., has a slim lead over Delford Smith of McMinnville, Ore. Burnstein, owner of charter aviation company Omni Air International, has sunk $15 million into converting a DC-10 into a tanker. Last week in Victorville, his plane received Federal Aviation Administration certification for water-dropping operations and is awaiting approval for firefighting use by the Interagency Airtanker Board, a federal group based in Boise, Idaho. But Smith is close on his tail. His company, Evergreen International Aviation, has yet to receive FAA approval for the Boeing 747 he has spent $40 million modifying. But he has strong government connections: Evergreen has been known as "the CIA airline" because of its work with the federal intelligence agency....
Senators criticize Forest Service budget as wildfire season nears Western senators on Wednesday took turns criticizing the Forest Service's plans for fighting wildfires, calling the budget a “shell game” and questioning whether the agency is prepared for what in some areas could be the worst fire season in years. Drought in the Southwest and bark beetle infestations in the Rocky Mountains have officials especially worried about this wildfire season. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson already has declared a state of emergency because of the fire threat. Rey defended his budget, saying the agency has increased funding for firefighting and has a reserve fund available for emergencies. But senators wanted to know whether the Forest Service is devoting enough of its budget to fire prevention, controlling bark beetles and training firefighters. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said New Mexico has more than 235,000 acres of fire-prevention projects “on the shelf,” waiting for the Forest Service to act. But in recent years, the agency has been able to finish just 83,000 acres per year in the state, leaving almost three years of projects waiting for money, support staff and equipment. Bingaman also criticized a plan to shift $500,000 for such projects in New Mexico and Arizona to southern California. Rey later agreed to rescind the plan, according to a statement from Bingaman's office....
Area closed while goats graze nuisance plants The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are turning a thorny situation on the Sandy River Delta into a grocery for goats. A section of the delta, near the confluence of the Sandy and Columbia rivers, was closed this week to allow domestic goats to enjoy a buffet of blackberry bushes and other unwanted vegetation. The delta is a popular recreation spot at Exit 18 off Interstate 84, and activities will not be hampered seriously by this governmental gastronomical project. The closure for the next six to eight weeks will be on only 50 of the 1,400 acres of U.S. Forest Service land. Part of the area is wetlands, and closures are permanently posted on parts of those lowlands. Up to 600 goats, along with their herders and dogs, have begun their mission to remove Himalayan blackberries, a non-native, invasive species. The eaten area will be replanted with native vegetation....
BLM, Land Office sign access pact The state Land Office and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management agreed Wednesday on steps to provide access to 15,000 acres of public land around Cooke's Peak, north of Deming. The agreement, signed by Land commissioner Patrick Lyons and BLM District Manager Ed Roberson of Las Cruces, would allow the BLM a right-of-way easement for a road across state trust land to provide access to Cooke's Peak. A road into the area crosses private land, and the landowner put a gate across it in 1982, the Land Office said. Na'ama Tubman, a spokeswoman for the BLM in Las Cruces, said the BLM is looking at alternatives and will do environmental analyses before choosing one. The BLM wants to talk to the private landowner, but could possibly build a new road or reroute the current road, she said. There is no timetable for the decision or any road work, she said....
Maryland to Join Eastern States in Regulating Carbon Dioxide The Maryland General Assembly gave final approval Friday to the Maryland Heathy Air Act, which requires the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a group of eastern states committed to regulating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants. CO2 is the most prevalent greenhouse gas linked to global warming. After a two-year campaign led by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and a coalition of other environmental, faith, and health groups, the so-called "4-pollutant, or 4-P" bill passd by veto-proof majorities in both Maryland houses. Aides to Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., a Republican, say the governor does not intend to veto the bill. "Maryland leaders took a historic step today in acknowledging the crisis of global warming and deciding to do something about it," said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "While leaders in Washington say carbon reductions are impossible, the capital itself now borders a region stretching from Maryland to Maine where reductions are in fact happening."....
EPA joins beef producers in criticizing air study The Environmental Protection Agency has joined a beef producers' group in criticizing a 10-year study by California health officials that found more people died in the Coachella Valley on dusty days than clear ones. The federal government cited the research last year among evidence for possible new limits on dust, soot, and other pollution. But the EPA now proposes giving agriculture, mining, and natural sources of "coarse particulate pollution" an exemption from the rules. The National Cattleman's Beef Association took credit on its Web site for protecting farmers and ranchers from having to enact expensive dust controls, stating, "Thanks to NCBA efforts, EPA has agreed to exclude dust from agriculture sources." Environmentalists said the agency had been overly influenced by the beef producers. "There is the appearance the cattlemen got a special deal politically, and breathers can suffer as a result," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch....
Jump On the Buffalo Bandwagon But the interest in bison meat for human consumption has brought the animal back from numbers dwindling around 1,000 in the early 1900s to more than 300,000 on modern farms and ranches today. Indeed, this is not your great-great-great grandfather's buffalo. So why the sudden interest in the meat? It's actually not that sudden. Demand for high-end cuts of bison originally boomed in the '90s, which sent everyone scrambling to build herds and competing to buy animals, Dave Carter, Executive Director of the National Bison Association (NBA) said. But the consumers' appetite for the meat didn't last. After about a four-year slump, demand went up again in 2003, except this time people were interested in using the less expensive cuts for things like burgers and meatloaf, not just the high-end steaks. According to the NBA, bison meat has less fat than turkey, beef and chicken. It's loaded with Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), which studies say may actually help reduce body fat while preserving muscle tissue. The NBA also says that eating a 5 oz. serving of buffalo 4-5 times a week can help the health conscious reduce cholesterol levels....
U.S. ranchers' group loses bid to block border to Cdn cattle, beef An American ranchers' group has lost its bid for a permanent injunction to ban Canadian cattle and beef from coming into their country. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association said in a news release that U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull rejected the request by R-CALF in a court in Billings, Mont. The trade protectionist group wanted Cebull to scrap the U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that reopened the border to live cattle under 30 months old and boxed cuts of Canadian beef. The case had been pending before Cebull since last July. Cebull is the judge who issued a temporary injunction in March 2005 that delayed the reopening of the U.S. border to live cattle for four months over concerns there weren't enough safeguards to protect consumers from mad cow disease. The appeals court overturned Cebull's injunction last July and shortly after trade in live cattle resumed. Hugh Lynch-Staunton, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said it was good news for cattle producers....
Decision on animal ID system postponed The hotly debated issue of statewide mandatory premises registration, as part of a larger push for a National Animal Identification System, has been postponed for consideration by the Texas Animal Health Commission until winter or spring of 2007. However, commission spokeswoman Carla Everett said the commission will continue to offer education on the matter, including a forum at 7 p.m. today at the Brazoria County Fairgrounds, to further explain the proposed animal identification system. State health officials say the program is crucial for expediting the process of tracking the spread of livestock diseases, but some livestock owners argue the system violates their personal privacy and would be too costly. Commission Executive Director Dr. Bob Hillman said in a statement Tuesday that phase one of the identification system — the proposed premises registration regulations — have been placed on “hold.”....
Battle over gestation stalls heating up in Arizona Animal activists in Arizona have three more months to collect enough signatures to get the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act on the ballot there this November. State and national producer groups are voicing their opposition to the Act, which would outlaw gestation stalls for pork and veal producers. According to the initiative and recall applications page on the Web site of Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, the group Arizonans for Humane Farms applied for the ballot initiative on September 6, 2005. They are required to collect 122,612 signatures by July 6 for this fall's elections. Arizonans for Humane Farms is made up of the Arizona Humane Society, Animal Defense League of Arizona, the Humane Society of the United States, and Farm Sanctuary. The Act would require that "pigs during pregnancy and calves raised for veal must be given sufficient space to turn around, lie down, and fully extend their limbs when tethered, or confined in crates, cages, or other enclosures," There are exceptions, such as for veterinary purposes and during the pig's prebirthing period. It would allow six years to adopt "more humane practices," taking full effect in 2012, and would not require mandatory expenditure of state revenues. On the other side of the issue, the Campaign for Arizona Farmers and Ranchers -- a coalition of producer groups including the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, Arizona Farm Bureau Federation, United Dairymen of Arizona and Arizona Pork Council -- is opposing the initiative. This group represents more than 3,000 farm families....
Down and dirty They're the crew of the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs," and they find out firsthand what it's like to have some of the grittiest careers in the nation. Next, they're coming to Craig. Makers of the show are making plans to document the castration process of local sheep ranchers Albert and Melody Villard this summer. "They're interested in having (host) Mike (Rowe) participate in part of the roundup operations as well as the branding and castrations," Melody Villard said. They plan for Rowe to assist with the usual spring lamb operations -- tail-docking, earmarking, branding and castrating. The Villards don't see their sheep operations as exceptionally dirty but admit it's different from what many Americans are used to....
Drought affects grazing A lifelong Sacramento Mountains rancher has asked Otero County commissioners for help to keep cattle on federal grazing allotments within the county. "We need some help right now in the drought," said Jimmy Goss, of Weed. According to Goss, because of the lack of snow over the winter, elk never migrated to the lower elevations. Instead, he said, they ate the grass which ranchers expected to have this spring and summer for their cattle. "These elk, they stayed right there," Goss said. As a result, when the Lincoln National Forest begins monitoring grass availability, Goss said there will be nothing left for ranchers. Commission Chair Doug Moore said the first step is to schedule a meeting between the Otero County Grazing Advisory Board and the Lincoln. "Just give me a date and we'll try to get all the board members there, and the permittees (who graze on the federal lands)," grazing board chairman Bobby Jones said....
Sale of McCullough leases concerns environmentalists The sale Tuesday of oil and gas leases for six parcels on 50,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management property around the McCullough Peaks has left some local environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts concerned about development in the area. The leased parcels include around 11,000 acres of land within the McCullough Peaks wild horse herd management area, said Andrew Tkach, a BLM spokesman in Worland. BLM officials say the leases include adequate restrictions to protect habitat and wildlife, but others contend that any development in the virtually untouched area is likely to spoil the scenic beauty that makes it a popular recreation spot. "It would be a shame to see all that land developed," said Sean Sheehan of Cody, a board member of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. "It's one of the most beautiful, wide-open spaces in the state."....
Killing wolves works -- briefly Killing wolves that attack cattle or sheep may take care of the immediate problem but doesn't stop conflicts later, according to a new University of Calgary study. Researchers looked at wolf attacks in Alberta and in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming for more than 15 years to determine the effectiveness of removing wolves that prey on livestock. Marco Musiani, the study's lead author and an assistant professor at the University of Calgary, said that once a "problem" wolf is killed, others simply to move in and take its place, Musiani said. "This study shows that wolves are being killed as a corrective, punitive measure -- not a preventative one," Musiani said in a statement. "People hope that killing individual wolves will rid the population of offenders, but this isn't happening." The study is published in the current issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin. Musiani is scheduled to discuss his findings today at the North American Wolf Conference at Chico Hot Springs, an annual gathering of scientists, policymakers and wolf enthusiasts....
Vistas plan hinges on reform of state land It has been four days since the Morrison Institute for Public Policy unveiled its novel proposal for developing Superstition Vistas, a 275-square-mile piece of raw desert on the fringes of the southeast Valley. It will be many months before the State Land Department, which owns the trust land in Pinal County, will know if it can implement any of the report's suggestions, which include building streets, highways and sewer systems before home construction begins and creating environmentally friendly communities. That is because the agency has little ability to weigh in on how state land is used or developed. Its sole mission is to sell the land to the highest bidder, in most cases regardless of whom that is or what that person plans to do with the land. But a reform measure that voters likely will consider in November would change that. It is one of two that is expected to be on the ballot....
Fishermen rally; salmon ruling due on Thursday The political heat rose a notch Tuesday, when hundreds of sport fishermen rallied at a federal fisheries management meeting to protest proposals to curtail or eliminate Chinook fishing along most of the Oregon and Northern California coasts. Members of the largest saltwater angling association in Northern California, the Coastside Fishing Club, carried picket signs and crowded into meeting rooms and hallways at the Doubletree Hotel as rain poured outside. Two police cars also patrolled the parking lot or were parked outside. Inside, the Pacific Fishery Management Council was making its first attempt of the week to design a season around an option that mandates no season at all. That option, a closure, was the preferred option of the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency that must ultimately approve the council's decision.... Tribal Leader: Methane Wastewater Threatens the Cheyenne's Land Coal bed methane projects in southeast Montana and Wyoming are on are the verge of devastating the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, tribal leader Gail Small said in a lecture at the University of Montana, Tuesday. To prevent the loss of their homeland the Cheyenne need more allies in all Montana communities and more respect from regional government she said. "For a lot of these tribes I think were very close to losing what we can’t regain," Small said. The danger to Cheyenne reservation in the Tongue River Valley comes from the high-salinity wastewater that is pumped from methane wells at astounding rates and either dumped into rivers or held in ponds. The salt content of the water makes it useless for irrigation and destructive to soil. Small said the methane wells have also disrupted migrating elk herds and some tribal members believe the wastewater is killing beavers on the reservation. She said the majority of tribal members still rely on wild plants and game for subsistence and the wastewater is threatening their way of life. “You can just see the white alkali coming down the tributaries and the ponds they’re putting the water in aren’t even lined, the alkali goes straight into the ground,” Small said....
Conservation Report: The Killing Fields Alan Lackey has been an elk and mule deer guide in the high country of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains for over 21 years. When he is not pulling a pack string into the mountains, he’s a ranch manager in Roy, New Mexico. Before that, he owned the Chevrolet dealership in Raton, where he also served as the president of the Chamber of Commerce. By his own description, he is a deeply conservative person. Like huge numbers of sportsmen across the American West, however, Lackey is quick to tell you that there is nothing conservative about the pace or scale of energy development on public lands in the region. “This is a giveaway of public resources at the cost of every other value we hold,” he says. “Oil and gas production has been elevated to the primary use of our public lands, even when the local people say no to it. The whole plan is like burning down your house to stay warm for one night.” Lackey is referring to the potential energy development of the Valle Vidal (Spanish for “The Valley of Life”) in the Carson National Forest of northern New Mexico. It is a 100,000-acre expanse of wild country that starts with open grasslands at around 8,000 feet, runs to parklands threaded by snowmelt-fed trout streams and huge stands of aspens, and reaches into the high timber country and beyond to snowfields and high peaks. It is home—both winter range and calving ground—to New Mexico’s largest elk herd, said to be about 2,500 animals. The valley is targeted for as many as 500 coal-bed methane wells....
All Fired Up Over Water An aerial dogfight is shaping up over Southern California as rival millionaires duel to see who will be first to get his jumbo jet water tanker aloft to fight wildfires. One has his hopes pegged on a converted 747 cargo aircraft. The other is banking on a retrofitted DC-10 passenger plane. At stake are potentially lucrative government contracts to help fight brush and forest fires. The rush to get the planes in the air comes as authorities continue grounding the World War II propeller planes that for half a century have dropped water and retardant on burning hillsides and forests. So far, Sanford Burnstein of Tulsa, Okla., has a slim lead over Delford Smith of McMinnville, Ore. Burnstein, owner of charter aviation company Omni Air International, has sunk $15 million into converting a DC-10 into a tanker. Last week in Victorville, his plane received Federal Aviation Administration certification for water-dropping operations and is awaiting approval for firefighting use by the Interagency Airtanker Board, a federal group based in Boise, Idaho. But Smith is close on his tail. His company, Evergreen International Aviation, has yet to receive FAA approval for the Boeing 747 he has spent $40 million modifying. But he has strong government connections: Evergreen has been known as "the CIA airline" because of its work with the federal intelligence agency....
Senators criticize Forest Service budget as wildfire season nears Western senators on Wednesday took turns criticizing the Forest Service's plans for fighting wildfires, calling the budget a “shell game” and questioning whether the agency is prepared for what in some areas could be the worst fire season in years. Drought in the Southwest and bark beetle infestations in the Rocky Mountains have officials especially worried about this wildfire season. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson already has declared a state of emergency because of the fire threat. Rey defended his budget, saying the agency has increased funding for firefighting and has a reserve fund available for emergencies. But senators wanted to know whether the Forest Service is devoting enough of its budget to fire prevention, controlling bark beetles and training firefighters. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said New Mexico has more than 235,000 acres of fire-prevention projects “on the shelf,” waiting for the Forest Service to act. But in recent years, the agency has been able to finish just 83,000 acres per year in the state, leaving almost three years of projects waiting for money, support staff and equipment. Bingaman also criticized a plan to shift $500,000 for such projects in New Mexico and Arizona to southern California. Rey later agreed to rescind the plan, according to a statement from Bingaman's office....
Area closed while goats graze nuisance plants The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are turning a thorny situation on the Sandy River Delta into a grocery for goats. A section of the delta, near the confluence of the Sandy and Columbia rivers, was closed this week to allow domestic goats to enjoy a buffet of blackberry bushes and other unwanted vegetation. The delta is a popular recreation spot at Exit 18 off Interstate 84, and activities will not be hampered seriously by this governmental gastronomical project. The closure for the next six to eight weeks will be on only 50 of the 1,400 acres of U.S. Forest Service land. Part of the area is wetlands, and closures are permanently posted on parts of those lowlands. Up to 600 goats, along with their herders and dogs, have begun their mission to remove Himalayan blackberries, a non-native, invasive species. The eaten area will be replanted with native vegetation....
BLM, Land Office sign access pact The state Land Office and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management agreed Wednesday on steps to provide access to 15,000 acres of public land around Cooke's Peak, north of Deming. The agreement, signed by Land commissioner Patrick Lyons and BLM District Manager Ed Roberson of Las Cruces, would allow the BLM a right-of-way easement for a road across state trust land to provide access to Cooke's Peak. A road into the area crosses private land, and the landowner put a gate across it in 1982, the Land Office said. Na'ama Tubman, a spokeswoman for the BLM in Las Cruces, said the BLM is looking at alternatives and will do environmental analyses before choosing one. The BLM wants to talk to the private landowner, but could possibly build a new road or reroute the current road, she said. There is no timetable for the decision or any road work, she said....
Maryland to Join Eastern States in Regulating Carbon Dioxide The Maryland General Assembly gave final approval Friday to the Maryland Heathy Air Act, which requires the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a group of eastern states committed to regulating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants. CO2 is the most prevalent greenhouse gas linked to global warming. After a two-year campaign led by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and a coalition of other environmental, faith, and health groups, the so-called "4-pollutant, or 4-P" bill passd by veto-proof majorities in both Maryland houses. Aides to Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., a Republican, say the governor does not intend to veto the bill. "Maryland leaders took a historic step today in acknowledging the crisis of global warming and deciding to do something about it," said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. "While leaders in Washington say carbon reductions are impossible, the capital itself now borders a region stretching from Maryland to Maine where reductions are in fact happening."....
EPA joins beef producers in criticizing air study The Environmental Protection Agency has joined a beef producers' group in criticizing a 10-year study by California health officials that found more people died in the Coachella Valley on dusty days than clear ones. The federal government cited the research last year among evidence for possible new limits on dust, soot, and other pollution. But the EPA now proposes giving agriculture, mining, and natural sources of "coarse particulate pollution" an exemption from the rules. The National Cattleman's Beef Association took credit on its Web site for protecting farmers and ranchers from having to enact expensive dust controls, stating, "Thanks to NCBA efforts, EPA has agreed to exclude dust from agriculture sources." Environmentalists said the agency had been overly influenced by the beef producers. "There is the appearance the cattlemen got a special deal politically, and breathers can suffer as a result," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch....
Jump On the Buffalo Bandwagon But the interest in bison meat for human consumption has brought the animal back from numbers dwindling around 1,000 in the early 1900s to more than 300,000 on modern farms and ranches today. Indeed, this is not your great-great-great grandfather's buffalo. So why the sudden interest in the meat? It's actually not that sudden. Demand for high-end cuts of bison originally boomed in the '90s, which sent everyone scrambling to build herds and competing to buy animals, Dave Carter, Executive Director of the National Bison Association (NBA) said. But the consumers' appetite for the meat didn't last. After about a four-year slump, demand went up again in 2003, except this time people were interested in using the less expensive cuts for things like burgers and meatloaf, not just the high-end steaks. According to the NBA, bison meat has less fat than turkey, beef and chicken. It's loaded with Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), which studies say may actually help reduce body fat while preserving muscle tissue. The NBA also says that eating a 5 oz. serving of buffalo 4-5 times a week can help the health conscious reduce cholesterol levels....
U.S. ranchers' group loses bid to block border to Cdn cattle, beef An American ranchers' group has lost its bid for a permanent injunction to ban Canadian cattle and beef from coming into their country. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association said in a news release that U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull rejected the request by R-CALF in a court in Billings, Mont. The trade protectionist group wanted Cebull to scrap the U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that reopened the border to live cattle under 30 months old and boxed cuts of Canadian beef. The case had been pending before Cebull since last July. Cebull is the judge who issued a temporary injunction in March 2005 that delayed the reopening of the U.S. border to live cattle for four months over concerns there weren't enough safeguards to protect consumers from mad cow disease. The appeals court overturned Cebull's injunction last July and shortly after trade in live cattle resumed. Hugh Lynch-Staunton, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said it was good news for cattle producers....
Decision on animal ID system postponed The hotly debated issue of statewide mandatory premises registration, as part of a larger push for a National Animal Identification System, has been postponed for consideration by the Texas Animal Health Commission until winter or spring of 2007. However, commission spokeswoman Carla Everett said the commission will continue to offer education on the matter, including a forum at 7 p.m. today at the Brazoria County Fairgrounds, to further explain the proposed animal identification system. State health officials say the program is crucial for expediting the process of tracking the spread of livestock diseases, but some livestock owners argue the system violates their personal privacy and would be too costly. Commission Executive Director Dr. Bob Hillman said in a statement Tuesday that phase one of the identification system — the proposed premises registration regulations — have been placed on “hold.”....
Battle over gestation stalls heating up in Arizona Animal activists in Arizona have three more months to collect enough signatures to get the Humane Treatment of Farm Animals Act on the ballot there this November. State and national producer groups are voicing their opposition to the Act, which would outlaw gestation stalls for pork and veal producers. According to the initiative and recall applications page on the Web site of Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer, the group Arizonans for Humane Farms applied for the ballot initiative on September 6, 2005. They are required to collect 122,612 signatures by July 6 for this fall's elections. Arizonans for Humane Farms is made up of the Arizona Humane Society, Animal Defense League of Arizona, the Humane Society of the United States, and Farm Sanctuary. The Act would require that "pigs during pregnancy and calves raised for veal must be given sufficient space to turn around, lie down, and fully extend their limbs when tethered, or confined in crates, cages, or other enclosures," There are exceptions, such as for veterinary purposes and during the pig's prebirthing period. It would allow six years to adopt "more humane practices," taking full effect in 2012, and would not require mandatory expenditure of state revenues. On the other side of the issue, the Campaign for Arizona Farmers and Ranchers -- a coalition of producer groups including the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, Arizona Farm Bureau Federation, United Dairymen of Arizona and Arizona Pork Council -- is opposing the initiative. This group represents more than 3,000 farm families....
Down and dirty They're the crew of the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs," and they find out firsthand what it's like to have some of the grittiest careers in the nation. Next, they're coming to Craig. Makers of the show are making plans to document the castration process of local sheep ranchers Albert and Melody Villard this summer. "They're interested in having (host) Mike (Rowe) participate in part of the roundup operations as well as the branding and castrations," Melody Villard said. They plan for Rowe to assist with the usual spring lamb operations -- tail-docking, earmarking, branding and castrating. The Villards don't see their sheep operations as exceptionally dirty but admit it's different from what many Americans are used to....
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Column: The mouse that roared Rob Roy Ramey's distinguished career at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science began its death spiral not long after he released research questioning whether a Front Range mouse is a unique subspecies and therefore worthy of federal protection. Coincidence? Ramey, the former chairman of the museum's zoology department, doesn't think so, and he has documents to back him up. Ramey's conclusions, first announced in December 2003 and refined until their publication last year in Animal Conservation, a journal of the Zoological Society of London, startled and upset many of those involved in endangered species protection and environmental activism. Among those most irate, evidently, was an official in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, whose complaints became so vocal by September 2004, according to Ramey, that museum executives met with him to smooth his feathers. But he remained unappeased - or so it seems based upon a letter the museum's chief curator and another top official sent to him on Oct. 26, 2004....
As the chinook go, so go the orcas The killer whales that chase salmon in this region's inland waters feed almost exclusively on chinook, to the extent that the orca population ebbs and flows right along with that of the West Coast's largest and longest-lived salmon, researchers said Tuesday. The whales settle for chum salmon for six to eight weeks in the fall, when most of the chinook are gone, John Ford of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans said at the 2006 Symposium on Southern Resident Killer Whales, a joint effort of his agency and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. Between 1996 and 2001, Ford said, sharp drops in the region's chinook runs correlated with declines in the northern and southern resident orca populations, as the inland killer whales of Canada and the United States are called. Orca mortality was 300 percent higher than expected, Ford said, and difficult to link to other known stressors. "It was a bit of a surprise to us," he said....
U.S. to Auction Drilling Leases in Utah Bidding by oil-and-gas players could intensify at a government auction next month when drilling leases will be offered on 440,000 acres of public land in Utah. The auction set for May 16 will rank as the largest government lease sale ever in Utah. The stepped-up leasing reflects a soaring market demand for oil and gas, new technology that makes it easier to find and drill deeper for petroleum, and a rich oil find in central Utah that's driving speculative bidding. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance accused the Bush administration of rushing to open more public lands for drilling to buoy domestic energy supplies. The Utah Petroleum Association counters that drilling can be done in a responsible manner. The previous largest BLM auction in Utah was a quarterly lease sale in September 2004, when 357,000 acres were put out to bid....
Company proposes pipeline for liquids from natural gas A company is proposing a 750-mile pipeline that would carry liquid forms of natural gas - such as propane, butane and natural gasoline - from Wyoming to Kansas. The liquids are separated from gas produced in the Green River Basin. As gas production in the basin increases, pipeline companies worry that pipelines for liquids derived from natural gas may be reaching full capacity. The Williams Co. is seeking permission from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to build the Overland Pass Pipeline at a cost of $460 million to $500 million. "This is another project that supports the economic growth that's happening in Wyoming," Williams spokesman Kelly Swan said. The pipeline would begin at Williams' existing plant in Opal, cross southern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado, and end at a Williams processing plant and storage facilities at Conway, Kan., according to the company....
Coos County wants to buy back forest land — at Civil War prices Prompted by a retired forester, Coos County commissioners are trying to see whether they could buy 59,000 acres of federal forest at Civil War prices — $2.50 an acre. Their goal is to cut timber to replace the money the federal government has been giving to counties in the wake of cutbacks in logging on federal lands, aid that some people think could be in jeopardy. But a federal official says such a purchase would require an act of Congress and isn’t likely. Don Gurney of Myrtle Point says the federal government gave land grants to investors in the 1860s to build wagon roads in Oregon to move soldiers, mail and goods. The investors sold it to settlers at $2.50 an acre. One road was the Coos Bay Wagon road, 65 miles long. Completed in the early 1870s, it connected Roseburg and Coos Bay through some of the most rugged country in Southern Oregon. Complaints about the condition of the road and charges of crooked deals spurred lawsuits, and in 1918 Congress bought the land back....
Vandalism chips away pioneer heritage Vandals are burning down homestead cabins and destroying historic windmills in the sagebrush plains of northern Lake County. The federal government this month joined private livestock groups to offer up to $4,000 for information that could help an investigation into the crimes. Last year, vandals hit five historic sites, including a 100-year-old wooden windmill near Fort Rock that they pulled over with their truck, said Lynn Miracle, district ranger for the Lakeview district of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The Beeler Well and other damaged sites date to homestead days of the early 20th century, when dryland wheat farmers settled the Christmas Valley and Fort Rock regions. The well's windmill had a rare wooden flywheel and was one of the last standing in Central Oregon....
Environmental groups angry over possible use of roadless areas Several Colorado environmental groups are crying foul that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) could allow mineral development in roadless areas in the state's national forests before the Roadless Area Task Force makes a recommendation later this year about how those areas should be managed. The task force is holding meetings around the state to gather public opinion about roadless area management so the state can recommend to the USDA a management strategy for the state's unroaded wild areas on Forest Service land. The task force will meet in Glenwood Springs on June 21. Environmentalists are saying the Forest Service is acting against a statement USDA Undersecretary Mark Rey's wrote in a New York Times editorial last year saying that the USDA is "providing interim protection to roadless areas, pending the development of state-specific rules provided for in our 2005 rulemaking."....
Column: The new landgrab: A return to the king's domain The push to privatize the commons is as old as our Constitution. Commoners fleeing the King's Domain across the Atlantic rejoiced in a vast public domain here, where they could freely hunt and fish, while profiteers sought control of valuable assets. Laws gradually attempted a balance between commonwealth and commerce. Today, however, the scales tip toward privatization, as evidenced in President Bush's controversial 2007 budget proposal to fund the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS) reauthorization by selling off the public domain. The Bush proposal offsets $800 million in lost timber sales, receipts that would flow to county coffers for schools and roads, by selling 304,000 national forest acres, 2,900 parcels within 31 states, and some half a million acres of unspecified public lands managed by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM)....
Taking it to the people Executives of two natural gas producers and three natural gas consumers said March 28 that the American public needs to hear that the government’s policy of locking up access to natural gas resources is one of the reasons for high natural gas prices. Jim Hackett, Anadarko Petroleum’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, told a press briefing in Washington, D.C., that the group has been going to Congress and the administration with these issues for five years. “We’re now taking this to the American people,” he said. The United States has “vast untapped” natural gas resources, Hackett said, with estimates by government agencies putting the supply at 177 years of gas for home heating. But industry can’t get access to many areas because of government restrictions, he said....
Koch gift lifts Tallgrass preserve A $1 million donation from the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation will help secure future preservation of the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve at Strong City and boost other projects, state and conservation officials said Tuesday. "This is a major step. We've reached $7 million in an $11 million campaign," said Kenneth Baum, chairman of the Kansas Prairie Legacy Campaign. "We're well on the road and this is, I think, the push that will make us get there," he said. Liz Koch, foundation president and wife of Koch Industries chief executive Charles Koch, was on hand to formally present the check at the Kansas State Historical Society Museum. Fred Koch founded the businesses that eventually became Koch Industries. The 11,000-acre tallgrass prairie preserve, on the site of the former Z Bar Ranch, is the only privately owned unit of the National Park Service. Two years ago, the nonprofit Kansas Park Trust was established to raise money to buy the preserve from the National Park Trust, which owned it for 10 years but faced financial difficulties....
Lost in American West? You may be billed for rescue Last October, avid mountaineer Tim Dopp and his teenage son set out for what they expected would be a day's climb of the highest peak in central Idaho's rugged Sawtooth Range. It was the beginning of a two-day ordeal in which the Boise man and his son would be stranded on a narrow ledge near the summit of the 10,751-foot (3,277-metre) peak wondering if they would survive sub-freezing temperatures. Summoned by a call from Dopp on his cell phone, five government agencies, 60 people and a high-altitude helicopter ended up being needed to lift the Dopps to safety. While Dopp expected to be haunted by his errors in judgment that imperiled his son's life, he was taken by surprise last month when Custer County Sheriff Tim Eikens, the official overseeing the operation, sent him a bill for nearly $15,000....
A Sound Resolution There are few places left in the world where you can pitch a tent under the stars and drift off to the haunting sound of howling wolves. It’s a healing, restorative experience to be so grounded in nature. But the scene changes dramatically when a car alarm goes off in the distance, or an airplane rumbles overhead. In that jarring moment, our connection to wilderness sputters and wanes, and we lose a little piece of the pristine experience. As the world grows noisier, park soundscapes become polluted, just as water becomes polluted with mercury, or air with carbon emissions. Several years ago, the Park Service recognized that natural sound was a resource in need of protection. So in 2001, the Natural Sounds Program was born. Its mission: to help parks protect soundscapes by monitoring sounds, both appropriate and intrusive—establishing ambient baselines, and assessing potential impacts. But a natural soundscape doesn’t necessarily mean complete silence all the time....
Wildlife officials investigate two eagle shootings The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the shooting deaths of two bald eagles in southwestern Dickey County in late March or early April. Agents were notified on Saturday by a landowner near Forbes that he had found a dead bald eagle in a harvested field near a county road. A second dead eagle was found about 200 yards away. The investigation revealed that both had been shot, probably within the past 10 days. A necropsy is being done on both eagles, said Ken Torkelson, a USFWS spokesman in Bismarck. "Hopefully it will tell us something more than we know now," he said. Bald eagles are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. The willful and blatant killing of any eagle is considered a violation of those acts, and the maximum penalty for killing an eagle is a $100,000 fine and one year in jail....
Idaho seeks authority to kill wolves Idaho wildlife officials on Tuesday formally asked the federal government for authority to kill most of the gray wolves in a pack roaming along the Montana border. Idaho believes the pack is decimating an elk herd. The state submitted a proposal to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that seeks permission to kill as many as 43 of the estimated 58 wolves in a pack roaming the Lolo Pass and Clearwater River Basin area of northcentral Idaho. After eliminating that many wolves in the first year of the plan, state game managers would continue to kill more wolves over the next four years to keep the Lolo pack no larger than 14 to 23 wolves. Jim Unsworth, the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s wildlife bureau chief, said killing the wolves is critical to rescuing the dwindling wild elk herd in the popular Lolo hunting zone. “The current predation rate on adult cow elk by wolves is not allowing the herd to bounce back to previous population levels,” he said. “We believe the habitat conditions would allow for higher elk populations if the wolf population was not at its current level.” Federal officials said they would immediately begin a scientific review of the state’s proposal to determine if the first lethal control of an animal classified under the Endangered Species Act was warranted....
Court rejects Wyo wolf appeal A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of Wyoming's lawsuit against the federal government over how wolves should be managed in the state after their removal from Endangered Species Act protection. Wyoming filed suit after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected its plan for managing wolves in 2004. The agency is requiring Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to submit acceptable plans for managing the animals before it will remove them from the endangered species list. The Montana and Idaho plans were accepted. Wyoming's was rejected in part because it would classify wolves as a potential nuisance that could be shot on sight outside the Yellowstone area....
Scientists dig out a beaky dino in S. Utah Talk about a big, bad bird. It stood 7 feet high and weighed 100 pounds with a toothless beak, powerful arms and menacing claws. It roamed what is now southern Utah about 75 million years ago, devouring plants and munching meat. Today, the feathered raptor is known as Hagryphus giganteus - or "giant four-footed, birdlike god of the Western desert" - and marks the latest dinosaur discovery from the fossil-rich Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Scientists from the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History unveiled the new dinosaur species Monday at the Bureau of Land Management's visitor center in Escalante....
Plan to kill deer protested Nibbling placidly at the edge of a verdant meadow, the dappled brown and ghostly white deer with outsized, moose-like antlers are so popular they rival the spectacular bluffs and coastal valleys as a tourist draw. But the National Park Service says the estimated 1,100 fallow deer, native to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, and their exotic brethren the spotted axis deer, originally from India and Sri Lanka, are unwelcome pests that must be eradicated to protect Point Reyes' herd of native blacktail deer and tule elk. The voracious deer are consuming so much forage, officials say, that they threaten eventually to starve the native animals. A park service draft plan calls for hiring sharpshooters to kill male and female deer and using an experimental contraceptive drug on some females. Officials say they expect to eliminate all the fallow and axis deer by 2020....
Devastated, right down to the barbed wire Politicians may talk about mending fences after disasters, but on a recent day when 40-mph wind gusts scooped up fire-loosened soil and spit it into swirling brownouts, Burl Scroggs was the man in the middle of the grunt work. "I've never seen this many fences needing to be built in all my years in the business," he said watching one of his crews plunge posthole diggers into scorched earth a few miles south of Dumas. Blackened fence posts stretched into the distance, tilting out of the ground like rotten teeth. The fires that ripped across the Texas Panhandle last month devoured nearly a million acres of grassland and several hundred structures. Eleven people died, and uncountable lesser tragedies still require immediate attention. That includes the loss of literally thousands of miles of barbed-wire fence. "You can get on a hill and look all the way to Oklahoma, 40 miles away, and there isn't a fence standing," says Delbert Trew, who owns a 5,000-acre ranch west of McLean . "It's the saddest thing you ever saw."....
Column: The mouse that roared Rob Roy Ramey's distinguished career at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science began its death spiral not long after he released research questioning whether a Front Range mouse is a unique subspecies and therefore worthy of federal protection. Coincidence? Ramey, the former chairman of the museum's zoology department, doesn't think so, and he has documents to back him up. Ramey's conclusions, first announced in December 2003 and refined until their publication last year in Animal Conservation, a journal of the Zoological Society of London, startled and upset many of those involved in endangered species protection and environmental activism. Among those most irate, evidently, was an official in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, whose complaints became so vocal by September 2004, according to Ramey, that museum executives met with him to smooth his feathers. But he remained unappeased - or so it seems based upon a letter the museum's chief curator and another top official sent to him on Oct. 26, 2004....
As the chinook go, so go the orcas The killer whales that chase salmon in this region's inland waters feed almost exclusively on chinook, to the extent that the orca population ebbs and flows right along with that of the West Coast's largest and longest-lived salmon, researchers said Tuesday. The whales settle for chum salmon for six to eight weeks in the fall, when most of the chinook are gone, John Ford of Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans said at the 2006 Symposium on Southern Resident Killer Whales, a joint effort of his agency and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. Between 1996 and 2001, Ford said, sharp drops in the region's chinook runs correlated with declines in the northern and southern resident orca populations, as the inland killer whales of Canada and the United States are called. Orca mortality was 300 percent higher than expected, Ford said, and difficult to link to other known stressors. "It was a bit of a surprise to us," he said....
U.S. to Auction Drilling Leases in Utah Bidding by oil-and-gas players could intensify at a government auction next month when drilling leases will be offered on 440,000 acres of public land in Utah. The auction set for May 16 will rank as the largest government lease sale ever in Utah. The stepped-up leasing reflects a soaring market demand for oil and gas, new technology that makes it easier to find and drill deeper for petroleum, and a rich oil find in central Utah that's driving speculative bidding. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance accused the Bush administration of rushing to open more public lands for drilling to buoy domestic energy supplies. The Utah Petroleum Association counters that drilling can be done in a responsible manner. The previous largest BLM auction in Utah was a quarterly lease sale in September 2004, when 357,000 acres were put out to bid....
Company proposes pipeline for liquids from natural gas A company is proposing a 750-mile pipeline that would carry liquid forms of natural gas - such as propane, butane and natural gasoline - from Wyoming to Kansas. The liquids are separated from gas produced in the Green River Basin. As gas production in the basin increases, pipeline companies worry that pipelines for liquids derived from natural gas may be reaching full capacity. The Williams Co. is seeking permission from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to build the Overland Pass Pipeline at a cost of $460 million to $500 million. "This is another project that supports the economic growth that's happening in Wyoming," Williams spokesman Kelly Swan said. The pipeline would begin at Williams' existing plant in Opal, cross southern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado, and end at a Williams processing plant and storage facilities at Conway, Kan., according to the company....
Coos County wants to buy back forest land — at Civil War prices Prompted by a retired forester, Coos County commissioners are trying to see whether they could buy 59,000 acres of federal forest at Civil War prices — $2.50 an acre. Their goal is to cut timber to replace the money the federal government has been giving to counties in the wake of cutbacks in logging on federal lands, aid that some people think could be in jeopardy. But a federal official says such a purchase would require an act of Congress and isn’t likely. Don Gurney of Myrtle Point says the federal government gave land grants to investors in the 1860s to build wagon roads in Oregon to move soldiers, mail and goods. The investors sold it to settlers at $2.50 an acre. One road was the Coos Bay Wagon road, 65 miles long. Completed in the early 1870s, it connected Roseburg and Coos Bay through some of the most rugged country in Southern Oregon. Complaints about the condition of the road and charges of crooked deals spurred lawsuits, and in 1918 Congress bought the land back....
Vandalism chips away pioneer heritage Vandals are burning down homestead cabins and destroying historic windmills in the sagebrush plains of northern Lake County. The federal government this month joined private livestock groups to offer up to $4,000 for information that could help an investigation into the crimes. Last year, vandals hit five historic sites, including a 100-year-old wooden windmill near Fort Rock that they pulled over with their truck, said Lynn Miracle, district ranger for the Lakeview district of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The Beeler Well and other damaged sites date to homestead days of the early 20th century, when dryland wheat farmers settled the Christmas Valley and Fort Rock regions. The well's windmill had a rare wooden flywheel and was one of the last standing in Central Oregon....
Environmental groups angry over possible use of roadless areas Several Colorado environmental groups are crying foul that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) could allow mineral development in roadless areas in the state's national forests before the Roadless Area Task Force makes a recommendation later this year about how those areas should be managed. The task force is holding meetings around the state to gather public opinion about roadless area management so the state can recommend to the USDA a management strategy for the state's unroaded wild areas on Forest Service land. The task force will meet in Glenwood Springs on June 21. Environmentalists are saying the Forest Service is acting against a statement USDA Undersecretary Mark Rey's wrote in a New York Times editorial last year saying that the USDA is "providing interim protection to roadless areas, pending the development of state-specific rules provided for in our 2005 rulemaking."....
Column: The new landgrab: A return to the king's domain The push to privatize the commons is as old as our Constitution. Commoners fleeing the King's Domain across the Atlantic rejoiced in a vast public domain here, where they could freely hunt and fish, while profiteers sought control of valuable assets. Laws gradually attempted a balance between commonwealth and commerce. Today, however, the scales tip toward privatization, as evidenced in President Bush's controversial 2007 budget proposal to fund the Secure Rural Schools Act (SRS) reauthorization by selling off the public domain. The Bush proposal offsets $800 million in lost timber sales, receipts that would flow to county coffers for schools and roads, by selling 304,000 national forest acres, 2,900 parcels within 31 states, and some half a million acres of unspecified public lands managed by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM)....
Taking it to the people Executives of two natural gas producers and three natural gas consumers said March 28 that the American public needs to hear that the government’s policy of locking up access to natural gas resources is one of the reasons for high natural gas prices. Jim Hackett, Anadarko Petroleum’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, told a press briefing in Washington, D.C., that the group has been going to Congress and the administration with these issues for five years. “We’re now taking this to the American people,” he said. The United States has “vast untapped” natural gas resources, Hackett said, with estimates by government agencies putting the supply at 177 years of gas for home heating. But industry can’t get access to many areas because of government restrictions, he said....
Koch gift lifts Tallgrass preserve A $1 million donation from the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation will help secure future preservation of the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve at Strong City and boost other projects, state and conservation officials said Tuesday. "This is a major step. We've reached $7 million in an $11 million campaign," said Kenneth Baum, chairman of the Kansas Prairie Legacy Campaign. "We're well on the road and this is, I think, the push that will make us get there," he said. Liz Koch, foundation president and wife of Koch Industries chief executive Charles Koch, was on hand to formally present the check at the Kansas State Historical Society Museum. Fred Koch founded the businesses that eventually became Koch Industries. The 11,000-acre tallgrass prairie preserve, on the site of the former Z Bar Ranch, is the only privately owned unit of the National Park Service. Two years ago, the nonprofit Kansas Park Trust was established to raise money to buy the preserve from the National Park Trust, which owned it for 10 years but faced financial difficulties....
Lost in American West? You may be billed for rescue Last October, avid mountaineer Tim Dopp and his teenage son set out for what they expected would be a day's climb of the highest peak in central Idaho's rugged Sawtooth Range. It was the beginning of a two-day ordeal in which the Boise man and his son would be stranded on a narrow ledge near the summit of the 10,751-foot (3,277-metre) peak wondering if they would survive sub-freezing temperatures. Summoned by a call from Dopp on his cell phone, five government agencies, 60 people and a high-altitude helicopter ended up being needed to lift the Dopps to safety. While Dopp expected to be haunted by his errors in judgment that imperiled his son's life, he was taken by surprise last month when Custer County Sheriff Tim Eikens, the official overseeing the operation, sent him a bill for nearly $15,000....
A Sound Resolution There are few places left in the world where you can pitch a tent under the stars and drift off to the haunting sound of howling wolves. It’s a healing, restorative experience to be so grounded in nature. But the scene changes dramatically when a car alarm goes off in the distance, or an airplane rumbles overhead. In that jarring moment, our connection to wilderness sputters and wanes, and we lose a little piece of the pristine experience. As the world grows noisier, park soundscapes become polluted, just as water becomes polluted with mercury, or air with carbon emissions. Several years ago, the Park Service recognized that natural sound was a resource in need of protection. So in 2001, the Natural Sounds Program was born. Its mission: to help parks protect soundscapes by monitoring sounds, both appropriate and intrusive—establishing ambient baselines, and assessing potential impacts. But a natural soundscape doesn’t necessarily mean complete silence all the time....
Wildlife officials investigate two eagle shootings The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the shooting deaths of two bald eagles in southwestern Dickey County in late March or early April. Agents were notified on Saturday by a landowner near Forbes that he had found a dead bald eagle in a harvested field near a county road. A second dead eagle was found about 200 yards away. The investigation revealed that both had been shot, probably within the past 10 days. A necropsy is being done on both eagles, said Ken Torkelson, a USFWS spokesman in Bismarck. "Hopefully it will tell us something more than we know now," he said. Bald eagles are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. The willful and blatant killing of any eagle is considered a violation of those acts, and the maximum penalty for killing an eagle is a $100,000 fine and one year in jail....
Idaho seeks authority to kill wolves Idaho wildlife officials on Tuesday formally asked the federal government for authority to kill most of the gray wolves in a pack roaming along the Montana border. Idaho believes the pack is decimating an elk herd. The state submitted a proposal to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that seeks permission to kill as many as 43 of the estimated 58 wolves in a pack roaming the Lolo Pass and Clearwater River Basin area of northcentral Idaho. After eliminating that many wolves in the first year of the plan, state game managers would continue to kill more wolves over the next four years to keep the Lolo pack no larger than 14 to 23 wolves. Jim Unsworth, the Idaho Fish and Game Department’s wildlife bureau chief, said killing the wolves is critical to rescuing the dwindling wild elk herd in the popular Lolo hunting zone. “The current predation rate on adult cow elk by wolves is not allowing the herd to bounce back to previous population levels,” he said. “We believe the habitat conditions would allow for higher elk populations if the wolf population was not at its current level.” Federal officials said they would immediately begin a scientific review of the state’s proposal to determine if the first lethal control of an animal classified under the Endangered Species Act was warranted....
Court rejects Wyo wolf appeal A federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of Wyoming's lawsuit against the federal government over how wolves should be managed in the state after their removal from Endangered Species Act protection. Wyoming filed suit after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected its plan for managing wolves in 2004. The agency is requiring Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to submit acceptable plans for managing the animals before it will remove them from the endangered species list. The Montana and Idaho plans were accepted. Wyoming's was rejected in part because it would classify wolves as a potential nuisance that could be shot on sight outside the Yellowstone area....
Scientists dig out a beaky dino in S. Utah Talk about a big, bad bird. It stood 7 feet high and weighed 100 pounds with a toothless beak, powerful arms and menacing claws. It roamed what is now southern Utah about 75 million years ago, devouring plants and munching meat. Today, the feathered raptor is known as Hagryphus giganteus - or "giant four-footed, birdlike god of the Western desert" - and marks the latest dinosaur discovery from the fossil-rich Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Scientists from the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History unveiled the new dinosaur species Monday at the Bureau of Land Management's visitor center in Escalante....
Plan to kill deer protested Nibbling placidly at the edge of a verdant meadow, the dappled brown and ghostly white deer with outsized, moose-like antlers are so popular they rival the spectacular bluffs and coastal valleys as a tourist draw. But the National Park Service says the estimated 1,100 fallow deer, native to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, and their exotic brethren the spotted axis deer, originally from India and Sri Lanka, are unwelcome pests that must be eradicated to protect Point Reyes' herd of native blacktail deer and tule elk. The voracious deer are consuming so much forage, officials say, that they threaten eventually to starve the native animals. A park service draft plan calls for hiring sharpshooters to kill male and female deer and using an experimental contraceptive drug on some females. Officials say they expect to eliminate all the fallow and axis deer by 2020....
Devastated, right down to the barbed wire Politicians may talk about mending fences after disasters, but on a recent day when 40-mph wind gusts scooped up fire-loosened soil and spit it into swirling brownouts, Burl Scroggs was the man in the middle of the grunt work. "I've never seen this many fences needing to be built in all my years in the business," he said watching one of his crews plunge posthole diggers into scorched earth a few miles south of Dumas. Blackened fence posts stretched into the distance, tilting out of the ground like rotten teeth. The fires that ripped across the Texas Panhandle last month devoured nearly a million acres of grassland and several hundred structures. Eleven people died, and uncountable lesser tragedies still require immediate attention. That includes the loss of literally thousands of miles of barbed-wire fence. "You can get on a hill and look all the way to Oklahoma, 40 miles away, and there isn't a fence standing," says Delbert Trew, who owns a 5,000-acre ranch west of McLean . "It's the saddest thing you ever saw."....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)