NEWS ROUNDUP
Growing Coalition Opposes Drilling Now, Valle Vidal has become a battleground in the drive to expand energy exploration on public land, attracting the attention of a growing coalition of hunters, anglers, environmentalists, ranchers, homeowners and politicians across the ideological spectrum. Here and elsewhere in the Western United States, this coalition is starting to resist the push for energy exploration in some of the nation's most prized wilderness areas. Although it remains unclear how successful they will be, these new activists -- including many who treasure Valle Vidal as a place to fish for cutthroat trout, hunt for elk and ride horses across its wide expanses -- have brought a new dynamic to the public debate over energy development in the West. "There's clearly a headlong rush into opening up these areas, but there's a recognition there's precious areas, beautiful landscapes that people appreciate and love," said Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.). "In those cases, the equation swings over to protection." Udall sponsored legislation to make Valle Vidal off-limits to oil and gas drilling and to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness in California, Idaho and Oregon. The House unanimously approved Udall's bill on Monday, and the issue is now before the Senate. In two other states, prominent GOP senators -- Conrad Burns (Mont.) and Craig Thomas (Wyo.) -- have also pushed in the past month to restrict energy exploration on public land....
As states ponder protection, roadless forests unravel The Clear Fork roadless area in western Colorado holds one of the largest expanses of aspen trees in the world. In 2001, the 24,000-acre tract in the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison National Forest was protected, part of 58.5 million acres preserved nationwide by President Clinton’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Shortly after taking office, President Bush abandoned his predecessor’s rule by failing to defend it against lawsuits. Then, last May, the administration unveiled its own version of the rule, and allowed individual governors a say in how roadless areas in their states are managed. While states consider whether to recommend protections — they have until Nov. 13 to submit petitions — the Forest Service promised not to move forward with any development in roadless areas. But even as Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, R, gathers public input, the Clear Fork may be headed for the auction block. Next month, at the behest of industry, federal officials plan to offer part of the area for natural gas exploration. At least 14 other roadless-area projects, ranging from energy development to logging and mining, are also in the works around the West....
BLM affirms Jack Morrow Hills plan A controversial plan to allow oil and gas development in the Jack Morrow Hills area of the Red Desert has been approved by the Bureau of Land Management, to the outcry of conservationists. The plan foresees development of 255 more wells in the 622,000-acre area, although it does not set a cap on the number of wells. Despite about 1,000 protest letters received by the BLM during the planning process, the BLM issued a final decision last week that basically mirrors its original plan. Joy Owen, statewide coordinator for Friends of the Red Desert, said she was surprised the agency signed off on a plan even after it received so many protests. The BLM also released an amendment to the Green River resource management plan along with the Jack Morrow Hills decision last week. The amendment explains in broad brush strokes how the BLM will manage for things including sage grouse and recreation, and is intended to address some of the protests....
Land issues help Dems hook rod and gun crowd As more oil and gas wells spring up throughout the Rocky Mountain West, moderate Democrats are telling hunters and ang lers worried about open space that they feel their pain. Hoping to capitalize on the frustration of outdoorsmen and women watching the mechanization of their playgrounds, Democrats are talking about responsible land policy that balances industrial and recreational needs. The approach has created some strange bedfellows. Sportsmen, traditionally leery of Democrats because of their pro gun-control stance, are coming to the table to talk about how to protect the land. And environmentalists, who in the past have demanded that all public land remain pristine, are softening enough to talk about responsible industrial land use. Democrats see this new group of disaffected hunters and mellowed greenies as one of the keys to electoral victory in the Rocky Mountain West....
Montana reviewing Wyoming water discharge permits Despite the verbal sparring between Wyoming and Montana over the release of water from coal-bed methane wells into rivers and streams, Montana regulators haven't objected to any water discharge permits issued by Wyoming. "Montana is reviewing every draft (water discharge) permit we put out," said John Wagner of the Water Quality Division in Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality. "So far, they have not had a problem with any permit we've put out." Richard Opper, director of Montana's Department of Environmental Quality, said Monday that his agency has offered comments on permit applications, though he couldn't characterize the nature of the comments and didn't immediately know how many applications the agency had weighed in on. As a matter of courtesy, he said, the agencies in both states have given each other copies of such applications. As for Montana's water quality standards, "We certainly don't feel Wyoming can violate that, and generally Wyoming hasn't violated that to date." Most of the debate centers around water quality in such rivers as the Powder and Tongue, which flow into Montana from northern Wyoming, where coal-bed methane development has taken off....
West Enders urged to ready for gas development With 50,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montrose County pending in an Aug. 10 auction, West End residents received a primer Sunday on what to expect should development come their way. Since almost all of that acreage sits in the West End, the Uncompahgre Valley Association, a Montrose-based community group, hosted a panel of local and federal officials to field queries and explain the planning process for oil and gas development. Former La Plata County Commissioner Josh Joswick urged landowners to learn about their rights. The upcoming auction includes 9,979 acres of split-estate parcels, in which the land above the mineral is privately owned. Should an energy company try to develop on private property, the landowner can have a say in the location well pads, roads, compressor station and what will happen to the property’s water supply. “Everything except your name and the legal description of your property is negotiable,” said Joswick, who served 12 years as a commissioner. For much of the 1990s, La Plata County worked to find regulations that would protect landowners who saw a deterioration in their water quality and methane gas creeping up through their foundations. The county finally discovered a way to implement protections in their land-use regulations after a number of court battles, but Joswick urged residents to investigate their options sooner rather than later....
Oregon’s Property Rights Law Kicks In, Easing Rigid Rules Voter approval of Measure 37 was a shot heard around the property rights world. Several states, including neighboring Idaho and Washington, now have similar measures on their ballots this fall. The Oregon law could remake the face of the state, where some of the most restrictive land-use rules in the nation are designed to keep forest and farm areas intact and cities compact. After a bumpy ride through the courts, backers of the measure were handed a clear victory this year. Government officials say the measure has essentially knocked out “the Oregon way,” the distinct set of rules that have long angered many property owners but delighted the urban-planning community. It has made for chaos at the county level, many officials say, by taking away local government’s ability to plan for development in an orderly fashion. Since the measure was approved, Oregon property owners had filed 2,755 claims covering 150,455 acres, according to the university’s Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies, which is tracking the measure’s impact. If all the claims were paid, state officials say, it could amount to more than $3 billion in compensation. But not a single claim has been paid, the institute reported. Instead of paying property owners, local government agencies have routinely chosen to waive the regulations, clearing the way for numerous developments in rural areas. But supporters of the measure, which was approved by 61 percent of voters, say that the worst fears of opponents have not been realized, and that the law simply gives Oregon property owners the right to basic compensation when regulations harm the value of their land....
Column - Taking Liberties Libertarians and property-rights activists believe that a huge array of common government regulations on real estate, such as zoning or subdivision limits, "take" away property value. Therefore, they say, the government should compensate the owner, or back off. The extreme view of "regulatory takings" is really at the core of this campaign — not eminent domain. The campaign to pass regulatory-takings laws began in the 1980s, when libertarians seized on the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which says: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." They’ve tried to use Congress, state legislatures and ballot initiatives to pass laws that would treat most regulations as takings. Their first big win came in November 2004, when they persuaded Oregon’s voters to pass Measure 37. That initiative blew holes in the strictest land-use system in the country, allowing longtime landowners to escape many state, county and city regulations (HCN, 11/22/04: In Oregon, a lesson learned the hard way). The impacts of Measure 37 have been delayed by court battles, and the libertarians are determined to turn the delays to their advantage. Before the fallout in Oregon can be fully understood, they are rushing to pass similar ballot initiatives in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Arizona, Nevada and California. While each initiative has its own sales pitch, they all deliberately tuck the notion inside the unrelated eminent domain controversy....
Study bolsters protecting Western jumping mouse A tiny mouse vying for survival in the Rocky Mountains may have gained an upper hand over Western developers. Scientists hired to review contradictory evidence for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is a unique subspecies, limited to parts of Colorado and Wyoming. The study by the Portland, Ore.-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute, obtained Sunday by The Associated Press, would help justify keeping the 3-inch mouse protected under the Endangered Species Act. The mouse, which uses its 6-inch tail and strong hind legs to jump a foot and a half in the air, inhabits grasslands that include prime real estate along Colorado's fast-growing Front Range. Fish and Wildlife is expected to decide by early August whether the mouse should stay on the endangered species list. The decision affects nearly 31,000 acres designated as critical habitat to help the mouse recover. Its population has dwindled to an average of 44 mice per mile of stream because of urban sprawl....
Biologist backs delisting Preble's mouse Denver-area biologist Rob Roy Ramey said Monday that the latest attack on his Preble's meadow jumping mouse research - this time from an expert panel appointed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - doesn't change the bottom line: The Colorado-dwelling mouse is nearly identical to other meadow jumping mice and doesn't deserve the special protections it enjoys as a "threatened" subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. "If you're willing to keep this listed as a subspecies, then how far are you willing to go?" said Ramey, a former Denver Museum of Nature & Science curator who now works as an Interior Department consultant. "We basically have lowered the bar to the point where we can list almost anything" on the federal list of threatened and endangered wildlife, he said....
Carson forests wants ranchers to remove cows Carson National Forest wants some ranchers to remove their cattle from forest land by the end of the month, and the ranchers are fighting the decision. Due to the drought, Jarita Mesa cannot support the nearly 500 head of cattle grazing on the mesa this summer along with wild horses and wildlife, forest officials say. Ranchers who hold 18 permits for the allotment have asked Rio Arriba County officials to intervene. The County Commission last week adopted a resolution supporting the critical role of agriculture on the county's economy and culture. The Forest Service's actions threaten to "negatively and irreversibly impact the lives, the economy, the culture and reshape the natural and human environments of Rio Arriba County," the resolution states. Commissioner Felipe Martinez of El Rito said the commission might draft another resolution requesting that Sheriff Joe Mascarenas "take action to protect private property rights of these folks." Mascarenas said he would do what he could for the ranchers as long as it's "within the law." Ranchers and their supporters blame more than the drought for the shortage of forage. They say the Forest Service hasn't done an adequate job of managing Jarita Mesa's elk and wild horse populations. According to the Forest Service, as many as 150 of the horses roam the 54,000-acre Jarita Mesa Wild Horse Territory northeast of El Rito....
Big California Wildfire Likely from Illegal Immigrant Campfire A 7,000-acre wildfire that forced the evacuation of more than a hundred homes near the California-Mexico border may have been caused by an abandoned campfire set by illegal immigrants, authorities said Monday. The fire had burned nearly 11 square miles of brush and chaparral in the Cleveland National Forest in southern San Diego County. It appeared to have spread early Saturday from an abandoned campfire set in a side drainage of a canyon, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement. Evidence at the scene suggested “the campfire was left by undocumented immigrants,” it said. Forest Service spokeswoman Anabele Cornejo said investigators found food containers and bottles off a park trail. “Based on collected evidence, we’re making an educated guess that it was probably started by immigrants,” Cornejo said. She did not immediately know whether anyone was detained in connection with the fire....
Forest Service to Revise Trail Classification System The U.S. Forest Service is currently soliciting public comments as it revises its National Trail Classification System (TCS). This process will result in new guidelines for trail classification, design and implementation on all 133,000 miles of National Forest System trails. IMBA is currently evaluating the 75-page document and will send official comments to the Forest Service in the near future. Interested mountain bikers should check the IMBA website in mid-August, 2006, to view IMBA's comments and for assistance preparing individual comments. The official deadline for public comments is Sept. 1. The draft TCS is largely positive for mountain biking and should be a major improvement over the document it replaces. In particular, the draft includes revised trail design parameters and language to manage mountain biking much like hiking and horse use, and separate from motorized recreation. Mountain biking is also categorized, along with hiking, as an activity generally acceptable on all trail classes. Read the Forest Service's Federal Register notice for more information on the TCS revision and instructions for public comment.
Editorial - Prison will provide time to ponder: What were they thinking? What were they thinking? Members of the so-called Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front are probably wondering that themselves. Six of them pleaded guilty last week in federal court in Eugene to a string of arsons or attempted arsons across the West from 1996 to 2001. Their targets included the U.S. Forest Service Detroit Ranger Station in October 1996 and the offices of Boise Cascade Co. in Monmouth on Christmas Day 1999. These wannabe radicals surely never planned to exit in a welter of plea-bargains. Maybe they finally figured it out: They may have done an estimated $100 million worth of damage, but they didn’t change the world. They probably didn’t change anyone’s mind. What did they expect: That people would read of an arson at an auto-sales lot and say, “I’ve seen the light. I’m going to ditch my SUV?”....
Forest Service Overrides EPA Drinking Water Contamination Objections The U.S. Forest Service is breaking environmental protection rules and endangering public health in approving a major expansion of a lakeside resort, according to a formal appeal filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The resort sits on Fremont Lake which provides unfiltered drinking water for the city of Pinedale, in western Wyoming. The Bridger Teton National Forest has green-lighted this large-scale expansion of an old lake resort by deciding that the project has no significant environmental impact meriting further study or public input. This finding comes despite a warning by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the project “will increase the likelihood of contamination, and generally degrade the microbiological and chemical quality of water in Fremont Lake.” Pushed by a former district ranger, the resort project involves construction of a pavilion and 25-unit lodge, a marina with 39 boat slips, 10 duplex cabins, a restaurant expansion, access roads and parking lots. Year-round occupancy of the resort complex will rise to more than 200 people. The only proposed water treatment is an expanded septic system....
Appeals Court Dismisses Grand Staircase Challenge A decade after President Clinton shocked and angered Utah politicians by creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a federal appeals court on Monday said opponents had no standing to challenge the decision. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Utah judge’s decision to throw out the lawsuit filed by Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation. The foundation’s 1997 suit had been consolidated with a suit filed nine months earlier by the Utah Association of Counties, which didn’t join the appeal, and the state Schools and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which dropped out before the appeal was filed. “Because we conclude that (Mountain States Legal Foundation) lacked standing to bring this suit, we dismiss the appeal,” appellate judges David M. Ebel, Paul J. Kelly and Stephanie Seymour wrote in a decision released late Monday. The judges said the legal foundation couldn’t produce a person who could show he was harmed by Clinton’s designation of the 1.9 million-acre monument, which opponents called an abuse of the president’s discretion under the 1906 Antiquities Act....
'Clark was here'? Signatures located all over area A graffiti-scarred patch of sandstone on the Rimrocks bears an inscription similar to Capt. William Clark's famous signature at Pompeys Pillar National Monument. Is it an artifact from the Lewis and Clark expedition? A Billings woman believes so. Doubters say it's a hoax concocted by somebody with a sense of humor and a passing knowledge of Montana history. Whatever the truth, the city of Billings, which owns the property where the inscription is located, has made an effort to protect it from weather and vandalism while attempts are made to determine its authenticity. As at Pompeys Pillar, the inscription is carved in a looping cursive script with Clark's first name abbreviated "Wm." The date attached to the Billings inscription is July 24, 1806. The date would mean that Clark landed near the site of Billings, hiked nearly two miles to the top of the Rims, carved his signature, hiked back and traveled to Pompeys Pillar the next day....
Grouse protections ‘good for industry’ Conservation groups say new guidelines will help keep sage grouse protected and off the endangered species list, benefitting not only the animals, but also industry. Several groups such as the Sagebrush Sea Campaign have thrown their support into a sage grouse conservation “blueprint” that aims to increase the animals’ population 33 percent by 2015, and distribution 20 percent by 2030. Written by Clait Braun, a biologist with Grouse Inc., the plan makes specific recommendations about a number of issues affecting sage grouse habitat including management of development, fire, grazing, and invasive species. Conservation groups plan to send the document to the Bureau of Land Management and state agencies in the coming weeks. “Gas development, primarily... is extremely negative,” biologist Erik Molvar with the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance said in a teleconference Thursday. “We need to start thinking about setting aside some fairly large reserves that won’t be disturbed.”....
Wyoming loses try at delisting gray wolf The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has denied a petition from the state of Wyoming that had asked to remove the gray wolf population in the northern Rocky Mountains from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. The state promises a legal challenge. Wyoming officials had proposed a policy of allowing wolves to live unmolested in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The state also proposes to allow trophy hunting for the animals in a large area immediately outside the parks while classifying them as predators that could be shot on sight elsewhere. In rejecting the state's petition, the Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday that it couldn't remove federal protections for wolves in Wyoming until the state sets firm limits on how many could be killed. The federal agency also said the state needs to commit to maintaining a set minimum population of the animals. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Monday that the federal agency's decision will make it easier for Wyoming to go to court and get a judge to decide whether the state's plan is scientifically adequate....
Wildlife refuge owner given house arrest, fine Amarillo Wildlife Refuge owner Charlie Azzopardi must spend 180 days in home confinement as part of his punishment for selling and transporting an endangered leopard species, according to federal court documents. U.S. Magistrate Judge Clinton Averitte on Friday also assessed Azzopardi a $2,000 fine and ordered that Azzopardi be placed on probation for three years, documents show. Azzopardi was indicted Jan. 18 on the selling charge and three counts of aiding and abetting the making of a false record stemming from an attempt to sell two clouded leopards for $5,000 each to a buyer at a Clinton, Okla., gas station in July 2005. The buyer was an undercover U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent....
Groups halt prairie dog relocation A project to relocate prairie dogs from Cedar Ridge Golf Course and from land owned by the Paiute Tribe of Utah has been halted because of environmental group's objection to the plans. Nicole Rosmarino, director of the Forest Guardians endangered species program, contends the project is unnecessary and will lead the animals' extinction. "What's on the table is unacceptable," Rosmarino said. "There's no getting around it -- the picture on this animal is very bleak. The species is on the verge of extinction. It's in real trouble biologically." The prairie dogs have run rampant at the golf course, where 6,000 golfers play every month. Keith Day, state Division of Wildlife Resources wildlife biologist, estimates that there are more than 360 prairie dogs there alone. And the animals are breeding quickly on the Paiute Tribe's land, limiting use, tribal chairwoman Lora Tom said. "It is disappointing," Tom said. "I wish that those groups or individuals who feel that prairie dogs are endangered would look at some of the areas affected by prairie dogs." Plans were to trap the prairie dogs this summer, said Cedar City Mayor Gerald Sherratt. Trapping season ends in August. Now, the tribe and the golf course will have to wait at least another year before permits could be issued because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must first resolve the environmental group's complaints, said Elise Boeke, a Fish and Wildlife Service ecologist....
Beavers keep homeowner concerns high Northern Nevada beavers are busy patching and rebuilding their dams and lodges damaged by high runoff on the Truckee River and other regional waterways, officials said. Beavers aren't usually a major problem in the area, but high-water years cause more beaver activity as they meticulously fix their trademark habitats when the water recedes, as it has now, officials said. "They have to go back to work," U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist Jack Spencer Jr. said, adding that most of the time, the animals go unnoticed until they eat someone's landscaping. "Aspen and cottonwoods are beaver favorites, and I've heard a number of reports of homes that have lost fruit trees," Spencer said. Homeowners and park managers can wrap trees in chicken wire to keep beavers away, and it is legal to trap them with a permit in season....
Private, Public Land Conservation Growing, Needs Better Coordination America is experiencing a huge growth in the conservation of land by private trusts, and new research has found that even more conservation benefits could be gained by coordination among different groups or government land-protection programs with similar goals. From 1998 to 2003, about 1,500 private trusts more than doubled the amount of land in the United States that such groups have been able to protect for conservation purposes, such as species protection, flood control or recreation. Two new studies by researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Illinois outline the value of good coordination of such activities between private groups, and between these groups and state and federal governments. It’s also essential that government agencies better understand the effect they have on private activities in order to optimize the environmental and conservation goals that both sides hope to achieve, scientists say. In some cases, in fact, protection of lands by government agencies has actually served to repel private conservation on nearby lands – a situation that can defeat a frequent goal of creating larger, contiguous blocks of land for endangered species protection and other goals....
GOP's McCloskey endorsing Dem against Pombo Maverick former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey took on his party's establishment - and lost - with a primary challenge to Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. Now McCloskey, 78, plans to urge Northern California voters who supported him in the state's June primary to vote for Pombo's Democratic opponent, wind engineer Jerry McNerney, in November. McCloskey won 32 percent of the Republican primary vote June 6 to 62 percent for Pombo. McNerney is "an honorable man that has not and will not seek to enrich himself and his family through his office," McCloskey said in an interview. His support for Democrats doesn't stop with McNerney. McCloskey, who served in Congress from 1967 to 1982 and was an original author of the Endangered Species Act, said he'd like to see his party lose control of the House of Representatives....
U.S. trade court backs Canada in lumber ruling Canada's forest industry is hailing its victory in the United States Court of International Trade, a ruling that may have ramifications for a controversial deal to end the long-running dispute over softwood lumber. The U.S. trade court yesterday backed a Canadian claim that the U.S. illegally continued to impose punitive tariffs on domestic lumber after a North American Free Trade Agreement ruled there was no basis for the duties. On the basis of the decision, the group representing British Columbia lumber interests says that the Canadian lumber industry should get back $1.2-billion (U.S.), or roughly 26 per cent of the $4.6-billion in duties it has paid out since May, 2002. The U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, the lobby group representing lumber interests south of the border, immediately indicated yesterday that it will appeal the ruling....
Anthrax Risk High For South Dakota Livestock The drought has forced hundreds of KELOLAND ranchers to sell their herds. Now, hundreds more are taking extra steps to keep their livestock alive. The drought has made the spread of the anthrax spores easier. Animals are grazing closer to the ground and eating more dirt with the grass. And that's where the spores are usually found. Now, many ranchers are worried South Dakota is on the verge on an anthrax outbreak. Anthrax spores can lay dormant in dirt for decades, and now dry conditions are putting more KELOLAND livestock at risk for the illness. “We're on pins and needles waiting for it to break, and watching it very closely,” said Veterinarian Steve Tornberg. Recent hot temperatures combined with dry weather have created the perfect conditions for anthrax spores to flare up in areas where stock dams are drying up....
Anthrax Reported in Texas It's the same song, yet another verse for naturally-occurring anthrax cases in livestock and wildlife in Val Verde and Kinney Counties in Southwest Texas. A little rain, a lot of hot weather and the invisible, spore-forming bacteria Bacillus anthracis has resurfaced, putting unvaccinated livestock and grazing wildlife at risk in the area. "Anthrax has been confirmed in a pen of deer in Val Verde County, and in a Charolais bull in Kinney County. We know that that anthrax often goes under-reported, as we hear of anecdotal reports of livestock or deer losses without laboratory confirmation. Many ranchers forego the veterinary inspection and laboratory tests, and, instead, just begin vaccinating," reported Bob Hillman, DVM, Texas' state veterinarian and head of the Texas Animal Health Commission. "Anthrax cases are not unusual, but a laboratory confirmation should alert ranchers and livestock owners that it is time to vaccinate their animals in Val Verde, Kinney and surrounding counties." "Vacationers and hunters get concerned about anthrax, but there is no need to worry, if proper precautions are taken," said Hillman....
Farm groups, Congressmen declare support for U.S. WTO position The U.S. farm community appears to be lining up in support of U.S. trade officials’ decision to just say no to further concessions to the European Union and the so-called advanced developing countries in the Doha Development Round. Most of the country’s major farm and commodity organizations issued statements praising U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab’s and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns’ efforts after the Doha Round negotiations were suspended indefinitely in Geneva, Switzerland. Farm-state House members and senators also joined in supporting the Bush administration’s trade team, expressing the general sentiment that “no agreement was better than a bad agreement,” as Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, put it....
Calving at Maggie Creek Early morning sunshine brought the cold Maggie Creek calving barn to life. The buckaroos started their busy day in the pen behind the barn, stumbling over half-frozen turds, playing that same ol' game all ranch horses like to play when they see a cowboy show up with a halter in his hand. Snow, sprinkled across the surrounding hills like icing sugar, had no intention of leaving Nevada's high desert just yet. The night shift man was heading for the warm comfort of his bedroll. His hourly inspections, although cold, dark and lonely, would yield some amazing opportunities to stargaze, especially on those clear nights with no moon. Maggie Creek Ranch, with its headquarters in the Humboldt River valley just West of Elko, Nevada, has been in the Searle family for over 30 years. Its namesake watershed, Maggie Creek, actually originates in the Independence Mountains to the North, running into the Humboldt near the boisterous mining town of Carlin. Local buckaroos consider the ranch to be "a nice, tidy outfit" because it features a well-bred Angus-based commercial cowherd that runs on mostly deeded ground, somewhat of a rarity in the rugged, mountain state largely comprised of BLM (federal Bureau of Land Management) holdings. The ranch doesn't run a big cavvy these days, and many of the full and part time help take advantage of this opportunity to ride their own horses to work, which can be a pretty good deal when it comes time to release a good, broke ranch horse into a strong seller's market....
Missing Cracker horse may have been stolen Investigators are searching for the whereabouts of Sally Mae, a 5-year-old workhorse — and a descendant of Florida history — who went missing in Loxahatchee July 9. Sally Mae's owner, Casey Barnes, said he was riding the Cracker horse near 206th Terrace and 59th Lane North when he dismounted to discipline one of his dogs. Something spooked the horse, he said, and she galloped away. Sally Mae is also a descendant of Spanish horses first brought to Florida in 1521 by Ponce de Leon, said Palm Beach County Judge Nelson Bailey, a local historian and member of the Florida Cracker Horse Association. Bailey said Cracker horses were the first horses to step foot in the United States. He said they are also a domestic endangered species — with roughly 900 registered in North America....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Horse ride a real Kodak moment for new bride I've always had a soft spot in my heart for city girls who marry into an agricultural way of life. They are expected to learn, understand and participate in a culture that is as alien to them as the life of a New York cabbie, a San Francisco homeless person, or Donald Trump's butler is to us! But, to their credit, most of them try. Diana married into Barney's Ohio horse family. On her first visit to the grandparents, they arrived as Grandpa was trying out a new horse - a 3-year-old Palomino colt named Cody. "Would you like to ride him?" offered Grandpa. Diana was dressed for their airline flight scheduled later in the day. "I don't know if I ..." she started to say. "Oh, come on," said Grandpa, "I can tell he likes you." Diana thought to herself, 'Grandpa's 87 years old. They wouldn't let me get on an animal that could hurt me.' She kicked off her high-heeled sandals and put her bare left foot in the stirrup. Barney, her new husband, held Cody by the headstall. Their eyes met....
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
MEXICAN WOLF REINTRODUCTION PROJECT
Southwest Region (Arizona - New Mexico - Oklahoma - Texas) http://southwest.fws.gov
TELE-NEWS CONFERENCE -- FOR ACCREDITED MEDIA ONLY!
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a telephone news conference to announce its decision following a 5-year review of the Mexican Wolf Blue Range Reintroduction Project.
WHEN: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 10 a.m. MST.
WHO: Spokespersons – Dr. Benjamin Tuggle, Acting Regional Director, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, Southwest Region; John Morgart, Mexican Wolf Recovery
Coordinator
Moderator – David Eisenhauer, Acting Assistant Regional Director for External Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Southwest Region
HOW: Call toll free 888-455-0043. Use passcode 31943 and identify leader as David
Eisenhauer. If you encounter problems, please call 505-248-6911 for assistance.
CONTACTS: David Eisenhauer, 917-502-9057 (cell); or Cindy Laws, 505-248-6912
Southwest Region (Arizona - New Mexico - Oklahoma - Texas) http://southwest.fws.gov
TELE-NEWS CONFERENCE -- FOR ACCREDITED MEDIA ONLY!
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a telephone news conference to announce its decision following a 5-year review of the Mexican Wolf Blue Range Reintroduction Project.
WHEN: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 10 a.m. MST.
WHO: Spokespersons – Dr. Benjamin Tuggle, Acting Regional Director, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, Southwest Region; John Morgart, Mexican Wolf Recovery
Coordinator
Moderator – David Eisenhauer, Acting Assistant Regional Director for External Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Southwest Region
HOW: Call toll free 888-455-0043. Use passcode 31943 and identify leader as David
Eisenhauer. If you encounter problems, please call 505-248-6911 for assistance.
CONTACTS: David Eisenhauer, 917-502-9057 (cell); or Cindy Laws, 505-248-6912
NEWS ROUNDUP
Fire forces ranch to move cattle A Meeteetse rancher is suffering through smoke and endured a midweek scramble to move horses and employees, but otherwise is surviving a forest fire just fine. Jack Turnell of the Pitchfork Ranch this week had to bring riders and horses out of Washakie wilderness area where the Little Venus fire erupted to 13,000 acres earlier this week. It is now estimated to be 27,000 acres -- more than 40 square miles. For a month or so, the fire was allowed to burn unhindered due to its remote and rugged location. That changed when the fire suddenly flared up Tuesday, leaving the wilderness area and threatening structures. Crews are now battling the blaze. Turnell said he had to move his cattle to a more concentrated area, which is less desirable. The new area is out of the timber. His employees trailed the cattle down earlier this week when the fire erupted, but most of the cows started down on their own. "They're not dumb," he said. He also said the thick smoke makes it hard for people to breathe, and it may affect the cattle, too....
Rancher mulls future after fire In rapid staccato, rancher John Patterson describes his situation: "My summer pasture is gone. My winter pasture is gone." "This is a good fire. Nobody died." "Wendy Kucera saved my hay and my house." "I have not shot a cow." "The story is that I have about 950 cows and calves that are unharmed. I have 37 confirmed dead." "They are either dead or unhurt." Patterson's ranch sits about 40 miles east of Billings. He estimates that 90 percent of his 70-section ranch in eastern Yellowstone and northern Big Horn counties was charred by the Pine Ridge complex of fires last week. Patterson's ranch sits in the middle of the complex of fires that blackened more than 122,000 acres over the past week and half in Yellowstone and Big Horn counties south of the Yellowstone River. The fires on the Patterson Ranch - three of them - began just before midnight July 11. The next afternoon, a fierce windstorm swept through the area, sending the fire racing across the grazing lands, through the coulees and draws, creating fire twisters, which Ruth Ann Patterson has on videotape. On Saturday and Sunday, the flames threatened the home built in 2001-02....
Cowboy rides a Caterpillar Scrapers swirl in maneuvers calculated to prepare the way for one more natural gas well among the many thousands planned for the big basins of Wyoming. Rancher Rob Hendry visits with an Encana Oil and Gas (USA) engineer, chit-chatting about this and that, watching the mechanical crawlers rearrange the powdery earth of the Frenchie Draw Field. There is no conflict here, no frustrated words about split estates or access through pasturelands. The cowboy and the engineer are on the same page. Hendry is making money off the energy boom. He figured early on that mineral royalties -- of which he holds few beneath the surface of his ranch -- were not a path to acquiring wealth. But hard work was. "That's just almost as good as mineral rights," he says. Hendry carved out a niche by providing construction services to oil and gas companies operating on the deeded and Bureau of Land Management surface that comprises his Clear Creek Cattle Company in the Fremont-Natrona County border country. It's been about three years since Hendry asked Encana to give him a shot at a reclamation project. They did. So he fired up equipment on hand at the ranch and went to work. He did a few reclamation jobs, then other tasks. Today Hendry takes on all sorts of projects, from cutting roads and leveling well pads, to reseeding projects and landscaping....
Lawsuit targets water standards A regional landowners group has filed a motion to join a case that is pitting three coal-bed methane companies and the State of Wyoming against Montana and its water quality standards for the Powder and Tongue rivers. The Powder River Basin Resource Council on Thursday said that lifting more stringent water quality standards set by Montana that reduce the salinity and runoff in the rivers would adversely impact Wyoming ranchers. Removing “constraints that Montana rules place on Wyoming permits to discharge coal-bed methane water ... would cause further damage to PRBRC members' crops, forage and soils,” the council wrote in its filing with the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. The motion comes in a case in which Devon Energy Co., Marathon Oil Co. and Pennaco Energy Inc., along with the State of Wyoming have challenged federal approval of the Montana rules, calling the action an unconstitutional control on interstate business....
The battle to drill A growing property rights controversy between the oil and gas industry and property owners in Northeastern Colorado may be decided by voters in November. As oil and gas industries rally for more effective drilling rights in Colorado, developers and other landowners are rallying for the right to be compensated when mineral extractors drill on their land. As the demand for oil and gas soars, so does the incentive for mining companies to extract as much as possible from each site. Oil and gas companies want more rights to assure they are drilling to capacity, leaving as little resources behind as possible. Landowners, who don't always own mineral rights beneath their land, want better compensation from those same companies. Colorado Land Owners for Fairness, organized by Glenwood Springs real estate agent John Gorman, last week started collecting the 68,000 signatures needed to place a proposed initiative on the November ballot. The ballot initiative would ask voters, "Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution requiring a mineral extractor to pay the fair value of damages brought about in the development per extraction of a mineral, including oil and gas?"....
New group forms to combat Wyoming Range drilling A new group has formed in western Wyoming that aims to protect the Wyoming Range from energy leasing and development, according to organizers. "Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range" hosted a kick-off barbequet at a ranch in Daniel Wednesday evening to launch the new organization. Comprised of local landowners, outfitters, business owners and ranchers, the group will work to prohibit new energy development in the Wyoming Range, according to the organization's mission statement. "The Wyoming Range is fundamental to why many choose to live here and the tourism revenue the range generates is a mainstay of our local economy," the statement said. "With so much development already happening next door to the Wyoming Range on Bureau of Land Management, state and private lands, it just doesn't make sense to let it expand onto the national forest."....
Enviro group warns against gas leases in Montrose County A meeting about gas leases on private property and public land at the Naturita Community Center on Sunday afternoon brought dire warnings from environmental groups and reassurances from representatives of the federal government. Sponsored by the Uncompahgre Valley Association, a community group of Western Colorado Congress, much of the meeting was devoted to warnings about what could happen from a former LaPlata County commissioner. The meeting was prompted by a planned auction of 50,000 acres of Montrose County land on Aug. 10 by the federal government on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management, said Peter Crowell, vice president of the association, who moderated the meeting. Crowell said his organization will file a protest with the federal government Tuesday to delay the auction so the land up for lease can be more carefully studied. “In some cases they are roadless areas and watershed areas,” he said. “We will ask the BLM to postpone or withdraw leasing of certain parcels.”....
Western Ranchers Join Lawsuit To Defend Grazing Regulations The Public Lands Council (PLC), an organization of public lands ranchers throughout the West, has joined in a lawsuit to help defend the final grazing regulations issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The PLC represents the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the American Sheep Industry and the Association of National Grasslands. “The new regulations stabilize the climate for operating ranches on BLM lands by encouraging good stewardship of those lands,” says PLC Executive Director Jeff Eisenberg. “In developing these final rules, the BLM has restored the balance between resource conservation and range management. These are policies PLC and its members are willing to protect with their hard earned dollars.” Upon publication on July 12, the Western Watersheds Project immediately filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Idaho to block the regulations. A second suit was also filed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Idaho Conservation League, and the Idaho Wildlife Federation. PLC has retained Bill Thomas of the law firm Best Best & Kreiger to represent the ranchers’ views in this matter. Each side has the opportunity to make arguments at a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for July 28 in Boise, Idaho....
Interior Dept. deputy kills a bison, then resigns after money questions The American bison, once hunted almost to extinction, is now so revered in the United States that its image graces the seal of the Interior Department, where it stands proudly in the shadow of mountains. Still, a senior political appointee at Interior apparently thought that the real thing might look better stuffed and mounted -- so he shot one. David Smith, a hunter who until last Friday was deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, shot and killed a bison grazing at a friend's ranch in Texas in December 2004. He had the hoofs made into bookends and kept the skull, wrapped in taxidermy packaging, in the garage of his home. Smith broke no laws by shooting the semi-domesticated animal in the head with a rifle from 50 yards away. But in a new report, Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney found that Smith violated rules banning federal officials from accepting gifts from people who are regulated by, or might do business with, their agency....
Proposal leaves riders in a rut Mark Powell says Jeep drivers have been trying to show that they care about the environment by picking up litter along Springhill Road. So he and other members of Capital City Jeepers say they're concerned that the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to close land along Springhill Road to off-road vehicles because of damage they are causing. "Those of us who like to ride legally have very few areas left where we can ride," Powell said. "We try to promote responsible use of the resource." The Forest Service is proposing to temporarily close 11,625 acres to vehicles including Jeeps, trucks, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Licensed vehicles can continue to drive through those areas on official forest roads. The proposed closed areas would be in addition to 6,814 acres that were closed temporarily in 2004 and haven't been reopened....
Fat Tire Festival Every year, thousands of fat-tire enthusiasts descend on this timber town to ride the surrounding trails. Oakridge sits more than 1,000 feet above sea level, and the mountains ringing it rise thousands of feet higher. It's a jumping-off point for scenic pedals and gnarly trail rides, as well as a growing number of races and festivals. This weekend, mountain bikers from all over America will make the trek to Oakridge to ride and relax at the Fat Tire Festival. The community is actively working to replace its once-booming timber industry with "adventure tourism."....
Grizzlies on rivers put managers on edge From her office across from the confluence of the Kenai and Russian rivers, Dianne Owens watches a daily dance of grizzly bears and people and wonders what's next. Already this year, a sow grizzly has been wounded in a spray of gunfire near the Sportsman's Landing campground; one of her cubs was injured when hit by a car on the Sterling Highway. The sow subsequently disappeared and is now presumed dead. The fate of the yearling cub hit by the car remains unknown. Meanwhile, two other yearling cubs appear to have taken up residence adjacent to the campground since their mother died. With the yearlings hanging around, the manager of the Russian River ferry said human-bear encounters have become an all-too-regular occurrence. "Every day, two or three times a day," she said. "We're sitting on a time bomb here."....
Feds ax Colorado public lands jobs Public lands managers are bracing for three years of federal budget cuts and job losses to help pay for homeland security and the war in Iraq. With the belt-tightening, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management expect to trim more than 60 jobs in Southwest Colorado, according to a memo sent to some 220 Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employees working in areas from Pagosa Springs to the Utah state line. Officials said it's unclear how the public will be affected by the reducti0ns, but at least half the job cuts will be positions that are currently unfilled. "Since 2001, Congress and the administration have intensified scrutiny of domestic spending because of national and international pressures," reads the June memo from San Juan Public Lands Center officials. "The Forest Service and BLM expect to see shrinking and performance-based budgets for the foreseeable future."....
'Wild and Scenic River' U.S. Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi plan to introduce legislation next week to include Fossil Creek in the nation's Wild and Scenic River System. The unique waters form in the Fossil Creek Wilderness Area along the Yavapai County border near Strawberry. The creek runs 14 miles through the national forest to the Verde River southeast of Camp Verde. A stretch of the Verde River currently has the only Wild and Scenic River designation in Arizona. "Fossil Creek is one of the most valuable natural treasures in Arizona, and I'm prepared to take the necessary steps to ensure it's preserved for generations to come," Renzi said Friday when he confirmed plans to introduce legislation next week....
Pipeline plan draws no opposition Based on the amount of public comment at a hearing for a proposed natural gas pipeline from Merna to Jackson, it appears everyone is in favor of the project. Either that, or no one knew about the hearing. Not one member of the public showed up Thursday night to ask questions or give testimony about a proposed pipeline that will cross the Hoback River nine times, will snake along a highway and through some rugged terrain. In fact, all 10 people at the hearing, in front of members of the Wyoming Public Service Commission, were representatives of Lower Valley Energy, the company proposing the 49.7-mile pipeline. But the PSC staff asked some tough questions that members of the public might be wondering. David Piroutek, the commission's engineering supervisor, asked about the river crossings. Chad Jensen, vice president of Lower Valley, said Bridger-Teton National Forest officials have advised the company to "get in and get out," and the pipeline can be trenched and laid in the river bed in four hours....
On Public Land, Sunday in the Park With Prayer This is what church looked like to Deana Wingert on a recent Sunday: the wind ruffled the lake behind the pulpit, evergreens towered above the pews, a yellow butterfly danced over a sunny patch of grass, and the scent of lighter fluid wafted through, followed by the smell of meat grilling. Most members in the congregation did not know one another. They had come, like the Wingerts, to Cowans Gap, about 100 miles southwest of Harrisburg, to camp, swim and picnic. But it was Sunday, and for the 100 or so Christians with baseball caps and bug spray who wanted to worship, the park offered itself as their church. “This is the day that the Lord has made,” the congregation sang to the cloudless sky, as the chaplain, Bruce Carriker, strummed the guitar and began the service. “We shall rejoice and be glad in it.” From Memorial Day to Labor Day, 42 state, national and private parks in Pennsylvania hold nondenominational Christian worship services. It is the only state with such a program, said the Rev. Paul L. Herring of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. The chaplains come from local towns and faraway states, as do the worshipers, mostly Protestants. Last year, 18,000 people attended services in Pennsylvania parks....
Cuba drills for oil off Florida Cuba is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida with help from China, Canada and Spain even as Congress struggles to end years of deadlock over drilling for what could be a treasure trove of offshore oil and gas. Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration, and Florida's waters hold some of the most promising prospects for major energy finds. Their efforts have been frustrated by opposition from Florida, California and environmental-minded legislators from both parties. Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba. Cuba is exploring in its half of the 90-mile-wide Straits of Florida within the internationally recognized boundary as well as in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico. The impoverished communist nation is eager to receive any economic boost that would come from a major oil find....
Bush Pollution Curbs Are Rated Equal to Clinton's The Bush administration's new program to cut harmful pollutants from utilities through a cap-and-trade system will do nearly as much to clean the nation's air as the Clinton administration's effort to make aging power plants install pollution controls when they modernize or expand, a report by an independent scientific panel has concluded. The report from the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, represents the latest effort to assess how best to reduce air pollution estimated to cause as many as 24,000 premature deaths each year. The panel concluded that an earlier Bush plan would have allowed pollution to increase over a dozen years, but it found that the administration's more recent Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) -- which targets emissions from power plants in 22 states and the District of Columbia -- would help clean the air over the next two decades. The CAIR approach aims to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2025 at the latest, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, through a system that would allow utilities to sell and buy pollution credits as long as industry emissions as a whole stayed below a pre-set cap. The Clinton administration had focused on cutting emissions under the 1970 Clean Air Act through a program called New Source Review (NSR), now discarded, which required aging plants to install new, cleaner technology every time they upgraded facilities....
Kansan popularized Smokey Bear Kansan Rudolph Wendelin may not have created Smokey Bear, but he did his best to make him a national icon. For nearly four decades, Wendelin illustrated Smokey for the U.S. Forest Service in TV ads, billboards, posters, newspapers and magazine with the warning: "Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires." After the war, he helped launch the Smokey Bear project. The character was based on a live bear cub that survived a 1950 New Mexico forest fire. At least 10 other artists turned out earlier versions of the bear, but Wendelin is credited with giving Smokey his friendliness and popularity. Wendelin's bear wore jeans and a green ranger's hat and carried a shovel. According to the Web site Smokeybear.com, Smokey's correct, full name is Smokey Bear. A song in 1952 called "Smokey the Bear" added a "the" to his name. That same year, Smokey was so popular he was given his own ZIP code -- 20252 -- because of the volume of mail he was receiving....
Where global warming's welcome Stefan Magnusson lives at the foot of a giant, melting glacier. Some think he's living on the brink of a cataclysm. He believes he's on the cusp of creation. The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 300 feet, revealing land that hasn't seen the light of day for hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of Niviarsiaq flowers. The melting glacier near Mr. Magnusson's home is pouring more water into the river, which he hopes soon to harness for hydroelectricity. "We are seeing genesis by the edge of the glacier," he says. Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 years -- more than double the global average, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. By the end of the century, the institute projects, temperatures could rise another 14 degrees....
WTO talks slip deeper into crisis, no breakthrough Last ditch talks to keep hopes alive of a global free deal faced a deepening crisis on Monday after trading powers failed to achieve a breakthrough at a marathon first session, diplomats said. The so-called G6 -- Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the European Union and the United States -- must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods or risk seeing nearly five years of WTO negotiations crumble in failure. But 14 hours of negotiations on Sunday, chaired by World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy, who has the task of brokering a deal, failed to advance in the key area of farm subsidies, known as domestic support, where the United States is under pressure to make further concessions. Washington has been insisting that the EU and other WTO members that it calls "protectionist" go further in agreeing to lowering farm tariff barriers before it moves further on subsidies....
Cattle broker won't face charges A Utah livestock broker who arranged the illegal import of 920 head of cattle into Sublette County earlier this year probably won’t be prosecuted because current state regulations do not provide for such prosecution, local ranchers were told this week. State Veterinarian Dwayne Oldham told about 30 area cattle producers that as state livestock regulations currently stand, there is not sufficient language to prosecute someone acting as a broker in illegally importing cattle into Wyoming. Under current regulations, only the livestock haulers can be charged, not the person who conspired to have the illegal import occur. Although the hole in the regulations was revealed to state officials in 2003, and the Wyoming Livestock Board drafted changes to the regulations, the regulations were never finalized. In late May, state livestock officials learned that 16 loads of central Utah cattle with paperwork calling for a Woodruff, Utah, destination had been delivered to two Sublette County ranches instead. Having the Woodruff destination on the Utah brand inspection allowed the animals to get through the Evanston port of entry without health inspections required for delivery into Wyoming. Because the 15-month-old cattle were not certified as having been vaccinated for brucellosis and had not been spayed, Wyoming animal health officials would not have allowed the animals to be imported under state rules....
Cowboys enjoy their day in the sun Every cowboy gets his day. On a blistering Saturday afternoon at California Rodeo Salinas, state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, presented officials with a resolution passed by the California Legislature declaring July 22 as National Day of the Cowboy. "It recognizes our pioneering men and women that make up our cowboys in the nation," he said. During a break in the competition, Denham presented a framed copy of the resolution to California Rodeo president Jim Slaten in front of a crowd of about 7,000 people. Slaten was joined by Marianne Johnson Schaeffler, the rodeo's hostess 50 years ago, and Rodeo Hall of Fame inductee Doc Etienne. "Falling on our day, it's special for us. It's an honor," said Slaten. "All the cowboys really appreciate it because cowboys don't get a lot of recognition as athletes," he said. Denham said the day symbolizes not only the rodeo, but ranchers and "an ongoing commitment to a way of life in our rural communities."....
Boots 'n' Britches prepares small riders for the rodeo circuit Maureen Weishaupt just wanted to give Fallon youngsters a chance to compete in rodeo events at a fun level in an event that came to be called Boots 'n' Britches Play Day. Twenty-two years later, she's still giving them the chance. "I grew up being in the Junior Rodeo and had such good memories," said Weishaupt, whose family moved to Fallon in 1960. "So, Candy Moffitt and I worked on getting it started." At the time, Weishaupt was the leader of a 4-H horse group. Now Boots 'n' Britches includes anyone who wants to participate. "The event is practice for the events the young cowboys and cowgirls do at Junior Rodeo, and to help prepare them for high school rodeo competition," said Weishaupt. On the average, some 60 to 70 riders compete in breakaway roping, pole bending, goat tying, goat tail un-decorating, and barrel racing....
My grandfather knew Billy the Kid Having been born on my grandparents ranch in Ancho, Lincoln County, was more by accident than on purpose. My mother was visiting her parents in New Mexico from our home in West Virginia, and overextended her stay, which resulted in my being a native New Mexican. Our family eventually settled in Albuquerque around 1935. My father named me after my step-grandfather, whom I always considered to be my grandfather, because my real grandfather, Rosalio Lopez, died during the 1918 flu epidemic long before I was born. My mother not only lost her father to the flu, but also her only brother that same year. We visited Ancho often and I remember spending a few summers at the ranch. My step-grandfather, Nick Maes, often spoke of Billy the Kid — or el Chivato (little kid), as he was affectionately referred to by the native Hispanics. He always said he was muy valiente y muy vaquero. As I was still pretty much a kid myself, these tales didn't mean much to me at the time. It wasn't until many years later, and after old Nick Maes died in 1939, that my late cousin, Manuel Lopez, who was about eight or nine years older than me, told me about some events I either did not know or did not recall....
Trew: Long-gone community leaves mark on the prairie Rockledge, 5 miles west of Alanreed, just off to the south of Interstate 40, was such a place. Located on Rockwall County School Land, named for the deep canyons nearby, the land is part of the Trew Ranch today. Hartley Davis, the resident section foreman, recalled an incident he witnessed while replacing ties at Rockledge. One morning the train stopped to allow a real estate agent from Amarillo off. A buggy approached from the east with two people aboard. The men talked, argued and the man from Amarillo pulled a gun and shot one of the other men. He turned and ran toward the section crew working nearby when the second man shot and killed him. The crew stopped the next train and sent the bodies on to Alanreed to the funeral parlor. Rockledge figured prominently in the news in 1939 when two men robbed the bank in Alanreed of $3,000. They escaped west on Route 66 until their car quit near Rockledge. They fled into the deep canyons nearby where the law surrounded the area and arrested the pair....
Fire forces ranch to move cattle A Meeteetse rancher is suffering through smoke and endured a midweek scramble to move horses and employees, but otherwise is surviving a forest fire just fine. Jack Turnell of the Pitchfork Ranch this week had to bring riders and horses out of Washakie wilderness area where the Little Venus fire erupted to 13,000 acres earlier this week. It is now estimated to be 27,000 acres -- more than 40 square miles. For a month or so, the fire was allowed to burn unhindered due to its remote and rugged location. That changed when the fire suddenly flared up Tuesday, leaving the wilderness area and threatening structures. Crews are now battling the blaze. Turnell said he had to move his cattle to a more concentrated area, which is less desirable. The new area is out of the timber. His employees trailed the cattle down earlier this week when the fire erupted, but most of the cows started down on their own. "They're not dumb," he said. He also said the thick smoke makes it hard for people to breathe, and it may affect the cattle, too....
Rancher mulls future after fire In rapid staccato, rancher John Patterson describes his situation: "My summer pasture is gone. My winter pasture is gone." "This is a good fire. Nobody died." "Wendy Kucera saved my hay and my house." "I have not shot a cow." "The story is that I have about 950 cows and calves that are unharmed. I have 37 confirmed dead." "They are either dead or unhurt." Patterson's ranch sits about 40 miles east of Billings. He estimates that 90 percent of his 70-section ranch in eastern Yellowstone and northern Big Horn counties was charred by the Pine Ridge complex of fires last week. Patterson's ranch sits in the middle of the complex of fires that blackened more than 122,000 acres over the past week and half in Yellowstone and Big Horn counties south of the Yellowstone River. The fires on the Patterson Ranch - three of them - began just before midnight July 11. The next afternoon, a fierce windstorm swept through the area, sending the fire racing across the grazing lands, through the coulees and draws, creating fire twisters, which Ruth Ann Patterson has on videotape. On Saturday and Sunday, the flames threatened the home built in 2001-02....
Cowboy rides a Caterpillar Scrapers swirl in maneuvers calculated to prepare the way for one more natural gas well among the many thousands planned for the big basins of Wyoming. Rancher Rob Hendry visits with an Encana Oil and Gas (USA) engineer, chit-chatting about this and that, watching the mechanical crawlers rearrange the powdery earth of the Frenchie Draw Field. There is no conflict here, no frustrated words about split estates or access through pasturelands. The cowboy and the engineer are on the same page. Hendry is making money off the energy boom. He figured early on that mineral royalties -- of which he holds few beneath the surface of his ranch -- were not a path to acquiring wealth. But hard work was. "That's just almost as good as mineral rights," he says. Hendry carved out a niche by providing construction services to oil and gas companies operating on the deeded and Bureau of Land Management surface that comprises his Clear Creek Cattle Company in the Fremont-Natrona County border country. It's been about three years since Hendry asked Encana to give him a shot at a reclamation project. They did. So he fired up equipment on hand at the ranch and went to work. He did a few reclamation jobs, then other tasks. Today Hendry takes on all sorts of projects, from cutting roads and leveling well pads, to reseeding projects and landscaping....
Lawsuit targets water standards A regional landowners group has filed a motion to join a case that is pitting three coal-bed methane companies and the State of Wyoming against Montana and its water quality standards for the Powder and Tongue rivers. The Powder River Basin Resource Council on Thursday said that lifting more stringent water quality standards set by Montana that reduce the salinity and runoff in the rivers would adversely impact Wyoming ranchers. Removing “constraints that Montana rules place on Wyoming permits to discharge coal-bed methane water ... would cause further damage to PRBRC members' crops, forage and soils,” the council wrote in its filing with the U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. The motion comes in a case in which Devon Energy Co., Marathon Oil Co. and Pennaco Energy Inc., along with the State of Wyoming have challenged federal approval of the Montana rules, calling the action an unconstitutional control on interstate business....
The battle to drill A growing property rights controversy between the oil and gas industry and property owners in Northeastern Colorado may be decided by voters in November. As oil and gas industries rally for more effective drilling rights in Colorado, developers and other landowners are rallying for the right to be compensated when mineral extractors drill on their land. As the demand for oil and gas soars, so does the incentive for mining companies to extract as much as possible from each site. Oil and gas companies want more rights to assure they are drilling to capacity, leaving as little resources behind as possible. Landowners, who don't always own mineral rights beneath their land, want better compensation from those same companies. Colorado Land Owners for Fairness, organized by Glenwood Springs real estate agent John Gorman, last week started collecting the 68,000 signatures needed to place a proposed initiative on the November ballot. The ballot initiative would ask voters, "Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution requiring a mineral extractor to pay the fair value of damages brought about in the development per extraction of a mineral, including oil and gas?"....
New group forms to combat Wyoming Range drilling A new group has formed in western Wyoming that aims to protect the Wyoming Range from energy leasing and development, according to organizers. "Citizens Protecting the Wyoming Range" hosted a kick-off barbequet at a ranch in Daniel Wednesday evening to launch the new organization. Comprised of local landowners, outfitters, business owners and ranchers, the group will work to prohibit new energy development in the Wyoming Range, according to the organization's mission statement. "The Wyoming Range is fundamental to why many choose to live here and the tourism revenue the range generates is a mainstay of our local economy," the statement said. "With so much development already happening next door to the Wyoming Range on Bureau of Land Management, state and private lands, it just doesn't make sense to let it expand onto the national forest."....
Enviro group warns against gas leases in Montrose County A meeting about gas leases on private property and public land at the Naturita Community Center on Sunday afternoon brought dire warnings from environmental groups and reassurances from representatives of the federal government. Sponsored by the Uncompahgre Valley Association, a community group of Western Colorado Congress, much of the meeting was devoted to warnings about what could happen from a former LaPlata County commissioner. The meeting was prompted by a planned auction of 50,000 acres of Montrose County land on Aug. 10 by the federal government on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management, said Peter Crowell, vice president of the association, who moderated the meeting. Crowell said his organization will file a protest with the federal government Tuesday to delay the auction so the land up for lease can be more carefully studied. “In some cases they are roadless areas and watershed areas,” he said. “We will ask the BLM to postpone or withdraw leasing of certain parcels.”....
Western Ranchers Join Lawsuit To Defend Grazing Regulations The Public Lands Council (PLC), an organization of public lands ranchers throughout the West, has joined in a lawsuit to help defend the final grazing regulations issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The PLC represents the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the American Sheep Industry and the Association of National Grasslands. “The new regulations stabilize the climate for operating ranches on BLM lands by encouraging good stewardship of those lands,” says PLC Executive Director Jeff Eisenberg. “In developing these final rules, the BLM has restored the balance between resource conservation and range management. These are policies PLC and its members are willing to protect with their hard earned dollars.” Upon publication on July 12, the Western Watersheds Project immediately filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Idaho to block the regulations. A second suit was also filed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Idaho Conservation League, and the Idaho Wildlife Federation. PLC has retained Bill Thomas of the law firm Best Best & Kreiger to represent the ranchers’ views in this matter. Each side has the opportunity to make arguments at a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for July 28 in Boise, Idaho....
Interior Dept. deputy kills a bison, then resigns after money questions The American bison, once hunted almost to extinction, is now so revered in the United States that its image graces the seal of the Interior Department, where it stands proudly in the shadow of mountains. Still, a senior political appointee at Interior apparently thought that the real thing might look better stuffed and mounted -- so he shot one. David Smith, a hunter who until last Friday was deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, shot and killed a bison grazing at a friend's ranch in Texas in December 2004. He had the hoofs made into bookends and kept the skull, wrapped in taxidermy packaging, in the garage of his home. Smith broke no laws by shooting the semi-domesticated animal in the head with a rifle from 50 yards away. But in a new report, Interior Inspector General Earl Devaney found that Smith violated rules banning federal officials from accepting gifts from people who are regulated by, or might do business with, their agency....
Proposal leaves riders in a rut Mark Powell says Jeep drivers have been trying to show that they care about the environment by picking up litter along Springhill Road. So he and other members of Capital City Jeepers say they're concerned that the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to close land along Springhill Road to off-road vehicles because of damage they are causing. "Those of us who like to ride legally have very few areas left where we can ride," Powell said. "We try to promote responsible use of the resource." The Forest Service is proposing to temporarily close 11,625 acres to vehicles including Jeeps, trucks, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Licensed vehicles can continue to drive through those areas on official forest roads. The proposed closed areas would be in addition to 6,814 acres that were closed temporarily in 2004 and haven't been reopened....
Fat Tire Festival Every year, thousands of fat-tire enthusiasts descend on this timber town to ride the surrounding trails. Oakridge sits more than 1,000 feet above sea level, and the mountains ringing it rise thousands of feet higher. It's a jumping-off point for scenic pedals and gnarly trail rides, as well as a growing number of races and festivals. This weekend, mountain bikers from all over America will make the trek to Oakridge to ride and relax at the Fat Tire Festival. The community is actively working to replace its once-booming timber industry with "adventure tourism."....
Grizzlies on rivers put managers on edge From her office across from the confluence of the Kenai and Russian rivers, Dianne Owens watches a daily dance of grizzly bears and people and wonders what's next. Already this year, a sow grizzly has been wounded in a spray of gunfire near the Sportsman's Landing campground; one of her cubs was injured when hit by a car on the Sterling Highway. The sow subsequently disappeared and is now presumed dead. The fate of the yearling cub hit by the car remains unknown. Meanwhile, two other yearling cubs appear to have taken up residence adjacent to the campground since their mother died. With the yearlings hanging around, the manager of the Russian River ferry said human-bear encounters have become an all-too-regular occurrence. "Every day, two or three times a day," she said. "We're sitting on a time bomb here."....
Feds ax Colorado public lands jobs Public lands managers are bracing for three years of federal budget cuts and job losses to help pay for homeland security and the war in Iraq. With the belt-tightening, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management expect to trim more than 60 jobs in Southwest Colorado, according to a memo sent to some 220 Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service employees working in areas from Pagosa Springs to the Utah state line. Officials said it's unclear how the public will be affected by the reducti0ns, but at least half the job cuts will be positions that are currently unfilled. "Since 2001, Congress and the administration have intensified scrutiny of domestic spending because of national and international pressures," reads the June memo from San Juan Public Lands Center officials. "The Forest Service and BLM expect to see shrinking and performance-based budgets for the foreseeable future."....
'Wild and Scenic River' U.S. Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi plan to introduce legislation next week to include Fossil Creek in the nation's Wild and Scenic River System. The unique waters form in the Fossil Creek Wilderness Area along the Yavapai County border near Strawberry. The creek runs 14 miles through the national forest to the Verde River southeast of Camp Verde. A stretch of the Verde River currently has the only Wild and Scenic River designation in Arizona. "Fossil Creek is one of the most valuable natural treasures in Arizona, and I'm prepared to take the necessary steps to ensure it's preserved for generations to come," Renzi said Friday when he confirmed plans to introduce legislation next week....
Pipeline plan draws no opposition Based on the amount of public comment at a hearing for a proposed natural gas pipeline from Merna to Jackson, it appears everyone is in favor of the project. Either that, or no one knew about the hearing. Not one member of the public showed up Thursday night to ask questions or give testimony about a proposed pipeline that will cross the Hoback River nine times, will snake along a highway and through some rugged terrain. In fact, all 10 people at the hearing, in front of members of the Wyoming Public Service Commission, were representatives of Lower Valley Energy, the company proposing the 49.7-mile pipeline. But the PSC staff asked some tough questions that members of the public might be wondering. David Piroutek, the commission's engineering supervisor, asked about the river crossings. Chad Jensen, vice president of Lower Valley, said Bridger-Teton National Forest officials have advised the company to "get in and get out," and the pipeline can be trenched and laid in the river bed in four hours....
On Public Land, Sunday in the Park With Prayer This is what church looked like to Deana Wingert on a recent Sunday: the wind ruffled the lake behind the pulpit, evergreens towered above the pews, a yellow butterfly danced over a sunny patch of grass, and the scent of lighter fluid wafted through, followed by the smell of meat grilling. Most members in the congregation did not know one another. They had come, like the Wingerts, to Cowans Gap, about 100 miles southwest of Harrisburg, to camp, swim and picnic. But it was Sunday, and for the 100 or so Christians with baseball caps and bug spray who wanted to worship, the park offered itself as their church. “This is the day that the Lord has made,” the congregation sang to the cloudless sky, as the chaplain, Bruce Carriker, strummed the guitar and began the service. “We shall rejoice and be glad in it.” From Memorial Day to Labor Day, 42 state, national and private parks in Pennsylvania hold nondenominational Christian worship services. It is the only state with such a program, said the Rev. Paul L. Herring of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. The chaplains come from local towns and faraway states, as do the worshipers, mostly Protestants. Last year, 18,000 people attended services in Pennsylvania parks....
Cuba drills for oil off Florida Cuba is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida with help from China, Canada and Spain even as Congress struggles to end years of deadlock over drilling for what could be a treasure trove of offshore oil and gas. Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration, and Florida's waters hold some of the most promising prospects for major energy finds. Their efforts have been frustrated by opposition from Florida, California and environmental-minded legislators from both parties. Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba. Cuba is exploring in its half of the 90-mile-wide Straits of Florida within the internationally recognized boundary as well as in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico. The impoverished communist nation is eager to receive any economic boost that would come from a major oil find....
Bush Pollution Curbs Are Rated Equal to Clinton's The Bush administration's new program to cut harmful pollutants from utilities through a cap-and-trade system will do nearly as much to clean the nation's air as the Clinton administration's effort to make aging power plants install pollution controls when they modernize or expand, a report by an independent scientific panel has concluded. The report from the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, represents the latest effort to assess how best to reduce air pollution estimated to cause as many as 24,000 premature deaths each year. The panel concluded that an earlier Bush plan would have allowed pollution to increase over a dozen years, but it found that the administration's more recent Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) -- which targets emissions from power plants in 22 states and the District of Columbia -- would help clean the air over the next two decades. The CAIR approach aims to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2025 at the latest, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, through a system that would allow utilities to sell and buy pollution credits as long as industry emissions as a whole stayed below a pre-set cap. The Clinton administration had focused on cutting emissions under the 1970 Clean Air Act through a program called New Source Review (NSR), now discarded, which required aging plants to install new, cleaner technology every time they upgraded facilities....
Kansan popularized Smokey Bear Kansan Rudolph Wendelin may not have created Smokey Bear, but he did his best to make him a national icon. For nearly four decades, Wendelin illustrated Smokey for the U.S. Forest Service in TV ads, billboards, posters, newspapers and magazine with the warning: "Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires." After the war, he helped launch the Smokey Bear project. The character was based on a live bear cub that survived a 1950 New Mexico forest fire. At least 10 other artists turned out earlier versions of the bear, but Wendelin is credited with giving Smokey his friendliness and popularity. Wendelin's bear wore jeans and a green ranger's hat and carried a shovel. According to the Web site Smokeybear.com, Smokey's correct, full name is Smokey Bear. A song in 1952 called "Smokey the Bear" added a "the" to his name. That same year, Smokey was so popular he was given his own ZIP code -- 20252 -- because of the volume of mail he was receiving....
Where global warming's welcome Stefan Magnusson lives at the foot of a giant, melting glacier. Some think he's living on the brink of a cataclysm. He believes he's on the cusp of creation. The 49-year-old reindeer rancher says a warming trend in Greenland over the past decade has caused the glacier on his farm to retreat 300 feet, revealing land that hasn't seen the light of day for hundreds of years, if not more. Where ice once gripped the earth, he says, his reindeer now graze on wild thyme amid the purple blooms of Niviarsiaq flowers. The melting glacier near Mr. Magnusson's home is pouring more water into the river, which he hopes soon to harness for hydroelectricity. "We are seeing genesis by the edge of the glacier," he says. Average temperatures in Greenland have risen by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 30 years -- more than double the global average, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. By the end of the century, the institute projects, temperatures could rise another 14 degrees....
WTO talks slip deeper into crisis, no breakthrough Last ditch talks to keep hopes alive of a global free deal faced a deepening crisis on Monday after trading powers failed to achieve a breakthrough at a marathon first session, diplomats said. The so-called G6 -- Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, the European Union and the United States -- must reach agreement on how to boost trade in farm and industrial goods or risk seeing nearly five years of WTO negotiations crumble in failure. But 14 hours of negotiations on Sunday, chaired by World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy, who has the task of brokering a deal, failed to advance in the key area of farm subsidies, known as domestic support, where the United States is under pressure to make further concessions. Washington has been insisting that the EU and other WTO members that it calls "protectionist" go further in agreeing to lowering farm tariff barriers before it moves further on subsidies....
Cattle broker won't face charges A Utah livestock broker who arranged the illegal import of 920 head of cattle into Sublette County earlier this year probably won’t be prosecuted because current state regulations do not provide for such prosecution, local ranchers were told this week. State Veterinarian Dwayne Oldham told about 30 area cattle producers that as state livestock regulations currently stand, there is not sufficient language to prosecute someone acting as a broker in illegally importing cattle into Wyoming. Under current regulations, only the livestock haulers can be charged, not the person who conspired to have the illegal import occur. Although the hole in the regulations was revealed to state officials in 2003, and the Wyoming Livestock Board drafted changes to the regulations, the regulations were never finalized. In late May, state livestock officials learned that 16 loads of central Utah cattle with paperwork calling for a Woodruff, Utah, destination had been delivered to two Sublette County ranches instead. Having the Woodruff destination on the Utah brand inspection allowed the animals to get through the Evanston port of entry without health inspections required for delivery into Wyoming. Because the 15-month-old cattle were not certified as having been vaccinated for brucellosis and had not been spayed, Wyoming animal health officials would not have allowed the animals to be imported under state rules....
Cowboys enjoy their day in the sun Every cowboy gets his day. On a blistering Saturday afternoon at California Rodeo Salinas, state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, presented officials with a resolution passed by the California Legislature declaring July 22 as National Day of the Cowboy. "It recognizes our pioneering men and women that make up our cowboys in the nation," he said. During a break in the competition, Denham presented a framed copy of the resolution to California Rodeo president Jim Slaten in front of a crowd of about 7,000 people. Slaten was joined by Marianne Johnson Schaeffler, the rodeo's hostess 50 years ago, and Rodeo Hall of Fame inductee Doc Etienne. "Falling on our day, it's special for us. It's an honor," said Slaten. "All the cowboys really appreciate it because cowboys don't get a lot of recognition as athletes," he said. Denham said the day symbolizes not only the rodeo, but ranchers and "an ongoing commitment to a way of life in our rural communities."....
Boots 'n' Britches prepares small riders for the rodeo circuit Maureen Weishaupt just wanted to give Fallon youngsters a chance to compete in rodeo events at a fun level in an event that came to be called Boots 'n' Britches Play Day. Twenty-two years later, she's still giving them the chance. "I grew up being in the Junior Rodeo and had such good memories," said Weishaupt, whose family moved to Fallon in 1960. "So, Candy Moffitt and I worked on getting it started." At the time, Weishaupt was the leader of a 4-H horse group. Now Boots 'n' Britches includes anyone who wants to participate. "The event is practice for the events the young cowboys and cowgirls do at Junior Rodeo, and to help prepare them for high school rodeo competition," said Weishaupt. On the average, some 60 to 70 riders compete in breakaway roping, pole bending, goat tying, goat tail un-decorating, and barrel racing....
My grandfather knew Billy the Kid Having been born on my grandparents ranch in Ancho, Lincoln County, was more by accident than on purpose. My mother was visiting her parents in New Mexico from our home in West Virginia, and overextended her stay, which resulted in my being a native New Mexican. Our family eventually settled in Albuquerque around 1935. My father named me after my step-grandfather, whom I always considered to be my grandfather, because my real grandfather, Rosalio Lopez, died during the 1918 flu epidemic long before I was born. My mother not only lost her father to the flu, but also her only brother that same year. We visited Ancho often and I remember spending a few summers at the ranch. My step-grandfather, Nick Maes, often spoke of Billy the Kid — or el Chivato (little kid), as he was affectionately referred to by the native Hispanics. He always said he was muy valiente y muy vaquero. As I was still pretty much a kid myself, these tales didn't mean much to me at the time. It wasn't until many years later, and after old Nick Maes died in 1939, that my late cousin, Manuel Lopez, who was about eight or nine years older than me, told me about some events I either did not know or did not recall....
Trew: Long-gone community leaves mark on the prairie Rockledge, 5 miles west of Alanreed, just off to the south of Interstate 40, was such a place. Located on Rockwall County School Land, named for the deep canyons nearby, the land is part of the Trew Ranch today. Hartley Davis, the resident section foreman, recalled an incident he witnessed while replacing ties at Rockledge. One morning the train stopped to allow a real estate agent from Amarillo off. A buggy approached from the east with two people aboard. The men talked, argued and the man from Amarillo pulled a gun and shot one of the other men. He turned and ran toward the section crew working nearby when the second man shot and killed him. The crew stopped the next train and sent the bodies on to Alanreed to the funeral parlor. Rockledge figured prominently in the news in 1939 when two men robbed the bank in Alanreed of $3,000. They escaped west on Route 66 until their car quit near Rockledge. They fled into the deep canyons nearby where the law surrounded the area and arrested the pair....
Sunday, July 23, 2006
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
There is life after rodeo
By Julie Carter
Man wasn't created to spend his life locked in time and standing in one place forever. Time moves on and so does life and nothing drives that point home harder for the cowboy than the sport of rodeo.
In a flashback of the lifeline he is a 20-year-old standing at the bucking chutes waiting for his bronc to be run into place. In a blink of an eye he is standing in the same place waiting for his 20-year-old son's bronc to do the same.
With a knowing eye you can look around any rodeo on any given day and spot the cowboys that "used to ride'em." The sport calls them back to rodeo after rodeo, year after to year, to be part of something that once fed an inner calling at some point in their lives.
If they can't still be a contestant, there remains a need to soak up the sights, sounds and smells created by those that are. From the broncs kicking in the chute during the national anthem opening to the last slamming gate signifying the end of the bull riding, it is all encapsulated into a familiar memory that plays like a recording through their entire life.
Many who once were heavily involved in the sport find others way to stay tied to it. It is hard to find a stock contractor, announcer, rodeo judge, producer, rodeo secretary, stock hauler, tack salesman etc. that was not at one time a contestant themselves.
When they no longer can compete in the sport, rodeo used-to-be's will sacrifice the adrenaline rush that comes with those precious few seconds in the arena to find new ways to let the sport touch them. Or they can become team ropers.
If they have kids they become the next generation on the road. Youth rodeos are continually raising and training a new segment of rodeo America.
If the kids are grown and gone or sometimes if they are not, "retired" competitors will find a job of one sort or another attached to the sport. For me it is behind a camera and with a keyboard. I photograph and write about it at every opportunity. It's not the same but it is what I can do for the sport and for me.
As one former rodeo bull fighter recently told me, it's a hard trip down from the rush of the "in the arena" to standing behind a microphone announcing. I understood what he was saying but quipped to him that at least rodeo was finally paying me instead of me paying it.
Philosophical wisdom makes every attempt to sooth the beast within that was once the driving force behind the dedicated rodeo competitor. So today you get a little philosophy.
Life is like the coffee in our cups. It represents jobs, money, position, family and the other things we strive to collect to ourselves in a lifetime.
The cup, whether it is tin, ceramic, or of fine porcelain, simply contains the coffee but does not define the quality of it.
We have a favorite cup but usually we want a better cup. We frequently change the color, shape, size and personalize them. We have clever sayings and pictures printed on them.
We try to make a statement about ourselves by the cup from which we drink our coffee.
Being the humans that we are, we find places in our life where we concentrate only on the cup and fail to enjoy the coffee.
God help us all to not forget to enjoy the coffee each and every day of our lives.
There is life after rodeo
By Julie Carter
Man wasn't created to spend his life locked in time and standing in one place forever. Time moves on and so does life and nothing drives that point home harder for the cowboy than the sport of rodeo.
In a flashback of the lifeline he is a 20-year-old standing at the bucking chutes waiting for his bronc to be run into place. In a blink of an eye he is standing in the same place waiting for his 20-year-old son's bronc to do the same.
With a knowing eye you can look around any rodeo on any given day and spot the cowboys that "used to ride'em." The sport calls them back to rodeo after rodeo, year after to year, to be part of something that once fed an inner calling at some point in their lives.
If they can't still be a contestant, there remains a need to soak up the sights, sounds and smells created by those that are. From the broncs kicking in the chute during the national anthem opening to the last slamming gate signifying the end of the bull riding, it is all encapsulated into a familiar memory that plays like a recording through their entire life.
Many who once were heavily involved in the sport find others way to stay tied to it. It is hard to find a stock contractor, announcer, rodeo judge, producer, rodeo secretary, stock hauler, tack salesman etc. that was not at one time a contestant themselves.
When they no longer can compete in the sport, rodeo used-to-be's will sacrifice the adrenaline rush that comes with those precious few seconds in the arena to find new ways to let the sport touch them. Or they can become team ropers.
If they have kids they become the next generation on the road. Youth rodeos are continually raising and training a new segment of rodeo America.
If the kids are grown and gone or sometimes if they are not, "retired" competitors will find a job of one sort or another attached to the sport. For me it is behind a camera and with a keyboard. I photograph and write about it at every opportunity. It's not the same but it is what I can do for the sport and for me.
As one former rodeo bull fighter recently told me, it's a hard trip down from the rush of the "in the arena" to standing behind a microphone announcing. I understood what he was saying but quipped to him that at least rodeo was finally paying me instead of me paying it.
Philosophical wisdom makes every attempt to sooth the beast within that was once the driving force behind the dedicated rodeo competitor. So today you get a little philosophy.
Life is like the coffee in our cups. It represents jobs, money, position, family and the other things we strive to collect to ourselves in a lifetime.
The cup, whether it is tin, ceramic, or of fine porcelain, simply contains the coffee but does not define the quality of it.
We have a favorite cup but usually we want a better cup. We frequently change the color, shape, size and personalize them. We have clever sayings and pictures printed on them.
We try to make a statement about ourselves by the cup from which we drink our coffee.
Being the humans that we are, we find places in our life where we concentrate only on the cup and fail to enjoy the coffee.
God help us all to not forget to enjoy the coffee each and every day of our lives.
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Environmentalist Lawsuit Against Sound Forest Management Is Challenged
Pacific Legal Foundation took action today to derail efforts by radical environmentalists to block sound forest management in California’s Tuolumne County and surrounding areas. PLF intervened to challenge an environmentalist lawsuit that could facilitate more devastating fires in Eldorado National Forest. At issue is a timber salvage operation that was devised by federal officials in the wake of the massive Freds and Power Fires that took place in October, 2004. PLF is challenging the environmentalists’ right to proceed with their lawsuit against the salvage plan without posting a substantial surety bond. "Federal judicial rules mandate that plaintiffs post a bond in this kind of litigation -- and the environmentalists haven’t shown any reason why they should be exempted from that requirement," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Damien Schiff. The case is Earth Island Institute v. United States Forest Service. Plaintiffs contend that the salvage plan violates federal environmental law. A Ninth Circuit panel this past March determined that a preliminary injunction should issue against the program. So, if the government does not appeal that ruling to the United States Supreme Court, the case goes back to the federal District Court in Sacramento. "This case shows how a timber-recovery program can be killed simply by environmentalist delaying tactics and ‘temporary’ injunctions from compliant courts," said Schiff....
Ethanol: Bumper Crop for Agribusiness, Bitter Harvest for Taxpayers
In 1973, Richard Nixon announced that the United States would be energy independent by 1980. Over the next three decades, a number of programs and initiatives would be launched in pursuit of that goal and then quietly eliminated when they failed to succeed. One program, ethanol, has been able to weather the changing political climate by cultivating political and popular support. Unfortunately for taxpayers, ethanol is another in a series of highly-subsidized but ineffective energy programs that are costly for consumers and are a bad "investment" of tax dollars. Rather than let ethanol put down even deeper roots, Congress should end the massive chain of subsidies that supports the fuel program and allow market forces, rather than politicians, to determine which energy technologies will survive and grow. Ethanol imposes significant direct and indirect costs on consumers. It is more expensive to produce than gasoline, and its alcohol component prevents the fuel from being shipped as other gasoline products are, leading to higher transportation costs. Government mandates forcing drivers to purchase ethanol will lead to higher fuel bills since ethanol has a lower fuel economy than does gasoline. Also, as the price of corn rises, consumers can expect higher grocery bills as food inflation ripples through commodities markets. Agricultural subsides lead to overproduction, which is then used as a justification for using ethanol. Since ethanol has not been economically viable, it has relied upon subsidies from the federal government as well as a number of states. The federal subsidy is currently costing taxpayers $2 billion a year. The federal government protects domestic producers from international competition by levying a significant tariff on imported ethanol. In a further attempt to prop-up the industry, Congress inserted a renewable fuels standard into the 2005 energy bill. This requirement has the effect of mandating the use of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. States are also imposing their own usage requirements. The need for massive subsidies has not kept politicians in Washington from promoting other crops as ethanol feedstocks. The most popular potential sources are sugar and biomass, or cellulosic ethanol. Sugar-based ethanol would require a subsidy of between $1 and $2 per gallon, significantly higher than the 51-cents-per-gallon that corn-based ethanol currently receives. Taxpayers have already invested $1 billion in cellulosic ethanol research since the 1980s but additional study is expected to cost $2 billion over the next few years....
Why Are We Drinkin' this 'Hooch?
Will the rush to bio-fuels kill people in the developing world? The short answer is yes and probably in the very near future. The main problem with bio-fuels, is that producing them causes the world’s cars to compete for the same resources as the world’s hungry stomachs. If you claim to care about world hunger, “social justice,” or simply understand the economic problems of the bio-fuels industry, then you must reject bio-fuels. We are not the only ones concerned bio-fuel development will end up killing poor people. For example, in the industry’s online clearinghouse site renewableenergyaccess.com some surprising facts come out. In agricultural terms, the world appetite for automotive fuel is insatiable. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people. With so many distilleries being built, livestock and poultry producers fear there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk, and eggs. And since the United States supplies 70 percent of world corn exports, corn-importing countries are worried about their supply. Since almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for automobiles, including wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, and sugarcane, the line between the food and energy economies is disappearing. Historically, food processors and livestock producers that converted these farm commodities into products for supermarket shelves were the only buyers. Now there is another group, those buying for the ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries that supply service stations....
CITIES REWARD 'LIFESTYLE' THAT CONSERVES WATER
More cities are creating or expanding programs that give residents and businesses rebates or utility-bill credits for installing grass-free lawns or toilets, washing machines and showers that use less water. Rebate programs have grown substantially" because of expanding drought conditions and population increases, says Greg Kail of the American Water Works Association, a trade group. Examples:
* This month, Albuquerque increased its water-bill credit for converting grass lawns to low-water-use "Xeriscapes" from 40 cents to 60 cents for each square foot. Xeriscape is landscaping that uses native plants that require little water.
* Albuquerque also offers credits to residents who reuse rainwater or install water-saving toilets, washers, dishwashers, showerheads and sprinkler timers; since the city first offered credits in 1995, about 100 billion gallons of water have been saved -- enough to supply the city for three years.
* Santa Cruz, Calif., this spring began sending water conservation staffers to homes at residents' request to assess usage and recommend water-saving changes; the city pays $75 to residents who buy low-flow toilets and $100 to those who buy water-efficient washing machines.
* In Charlottesville, Va., residents can get $100 rebates for replacing toilets with more efficient models. Bill Dyer, director of the city's utility billing office, says it also has given away thousands of kits that include faucet aerators, dye tablets that detect toilet leaks, garden hose nozzles and repair kits and outdoor watering gauges.
Observers say cities are trying other ways to conserve water, including watering restrictions and encouraging the reuse of water in manufacturing and to irrigate golf courses. For example, El Paso plans to build the world's largest inland desalination plant, which would turn previously unusable brackish groundwater into 27.5 million gallons of fresh water daily.
Source: Judy Keen, "Cities reward 'lifestyle' that conserves water; Low-flow toilets, no-grass lawns now earn rebates," USA Today, July 20, 2006.
For text:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060720/a_water.art.htm
Call Off the Dioxin Dogs
Way back in 1985 the EPA decided it wanted dioxin to be cancer-causing and made it so, labeling it a "probable human carcinogen." Fifteen years later it upped the ante, concluding -- to a round chorus of applause from the media and environmentalist groups -- that the cancer risks for the most exposed people were 10-fold higher than it previously thought. Three years after, it strengthened dioxin's label to "carcinogenic to humans." And last Tuesday ... one big fat fly from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) plopped into the ointment. Indeed, the recommendations of the NAS's National Research Council (NRC) review of the EPA's latest draft report on dioxin could -- or at least should -- turn the entire cancer-rating system of the EPA (and other agencies) on its head. That's because while it's long been accepted that for acute toxicity that "the dose makes the poison" the EPA uses as a rule for all potential carcinogens that if exposure to a rat of something at a level of, say, a quart a day for 30 years is cancer-causing then exposure of a hundredth of a gram a day for one week must also be carcinogenic to humans. No matter that FDA doesn't advise against women taking a daily iron pill because if they took 100 daily they would die. It was this EPA assumption that the National Research Council directly challenged, concluding the "EPA's decision to rely solely on a default linear model lacked adequate scientific support." It said compelling new animal data from the National Toxicology Program -- released after EPA completed its reassessment -- when combined with substantial evidence that dioxin does not damage DNA, is now adequate to justify the use of nonlinear methods for estimating cancer risk at relatively low levels of exposure. In other words, the EPA can't just choose a formula because it's convenient and serves its political ends. It can't ignore the results of myriad animal and human studies and the determination of how a certain chemical affects human cells in favor of simple mathematics....
Running out of oil?
"Proven" oil reserves, oil that's economically and technologically recoverable, are estimated to be more than 1.1 trillion barrels. That's enough oil, at current usage rates, to fuel the world's economy for 38 years, according to Leonardo Maugeri, vice president for the Italian energy company ENI. Mr. Maugeri provides a wealth of information about energy in "Two Cheers for Expensive Oil," published by Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006) and reprinted on the same date in Current. There are an additional 2 trillion barrels of "recoverable" reserves. Mr. Maugeri says these oil reserves will probably meet the "proven" standard in a few years as technological improvement and increased sub-soil knowledge come online. Estimates of recoverable oil don't include the huge deposits of "unconventional" oil such as Canadian tar sands and U.S. shale oil, plus there are vast areas of our planet yet to be fully explored. For decades, alarmists have claimed we're running out of oil. In 1919, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that world oil production would peak in nine years. During the 1970s, the Club of Rome report, "The Limits to Growth," said that, assuming no rise in consumption, all known oil reserves would be entirely consumed in just 31 years. A substantial increase in oil production alone cannot ease today's high prices because of weak refining capacity. Not a single refinery has been built in the United States for 30 years. Improvements to existing refineries failed to keep up with growing demand and tougher environmental regulations. We're the world's only industrialized country with a net deficit in refining capacity that comes to 20 percent of domestic demand. That makes us highly vulnerable to disasters like last year's hurricanes. Exacerbating weak refining capacity are regulations whereby gasoline produced for one state may not be sold in another. There are 18 mandated different types of gasoline sold in the United States. The long-term outlook for oil is good. There's an increase in oil-drilling technology and exploration. Oil as a source of energy has been in decline. In 1980, oil was 45 percent of energy consumption; today, it's 34 percent, yielding ground to natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. Recently, the House of Representatives passed "The Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2006," which now awaits a Senate vote. Offshore oil exploration has been banned since 1982, despite Department of the Interior estimates that suggest the presence of 19 billion barrels of oil and 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The House of Representatives also passed the "Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act of 2006." Should these measures become law, our energy capacity will be enhanced significantly....
Fire, or ice?
The New York Times's headline read, "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise." Well, what's so new about that? The Times has been having an historic fit about global warming for years, hasn't it? Yes, but that particular headline ran in the good gray Times on March 27, 1933 -- 73 years ago. What's more, the Times changed its mind dramatically on the subject 42 years later, in 1975, when it startled its readers on May 21 with "Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable." Nor has the Times been the only major periodical to blow hot and cold (if you will forgive me) on the subject of the global climate. On Jan. 2, 1939 Time magazine announced that "Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right ... weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer." Yet Time scooped The New York Times by nearly a year when, reversing itself, it warned readers on June 24, 1974 that, "Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." Today, of course, Time has changed its mind again and joined the global-warming hysteria. On April 3 this year, it announced that "By Any Measure, Earth is At ... The Tipping Point. The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame." The last major attack of hysteria, in the mid-1970s, focused on the peril of global cooling, and was especially severe. Fortune magazine declared in February 1974 that "As for the present cooling trend a number of leading climatologists have concluded that it is very bad news indeed. It is the root cause of a lot of that unpleasant weather around the world and they warn that it carries the potential for human disasters of unprecedented magnitude." Fortune's analysis was so impressive that it actually won a "Science Writing Award" from the American Institute of Physics. But the prize for sheer terrorizing surely belonged to Lowell Ponte, whose 1976 book "The Cooling" (a predecessor of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," though from the opposite point of view) asserted that "The cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations." If countermeasures weren't taken, he warned, it would lead to "world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000."....
Environmentalist Lawsuit Against Sound Forest Management Is Challenged
Pacific Legal Foundation took action today to derail efforts by radical environmentalists to block sound forest management in California’s Tuolumne County and surrounding areas. PLF intervened to challenge an environmentalist lawsuit that could facilitate more devastating fires in Eldorado National Forest. At issue is a timber salvage operation that was devised by federal officials in the wake of the massive Freds and Power Fires that took place in October, 2004. PLF is challenging the environmentalists’ right to proceed with their lawsuit against the salvage plan without posting a substantial surety bond. "Federal judicial rules mandate that plaintiffs post a bond in this kind of litigation -- and the environmentalists haven’t shown any reason why they should be exempted from that requirement," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Damien Schiff. The case is Earth Island Institute v. United States Forest Service. Plaintiffs contend that the salvage plan violates federal environmental law. A Ninth Circuit panel this past March determined that a preliminary injunction should issue against the program. So, if the government does not appeal that ruling to the United States Supreme Court, the case goes back to the federal District Court in Sacramento. "This case shows how a timber-recovery program can be killed simply by environmentalist delaying tactics and ‘temporary’ injunctions from compliant courts," said Schiff....
Ethanol: Bumper Crop for Agribusiness, Bitter Harvest for Taxpayers
In 1973, Richard Nixon announced that the United States would be energy independent by 1980. Over the next three decades, a number of programs and initiatives would be launched in pursuit of that goal and then quietly eliminated when they failed to succeed. One program, ethanol, has been able to weather the changing political climate by cultivating political and popular support. Unfortunately for taxpayers, ethanol is another in a series of highly-subsidized but ineffective energy programs that are costly for consumers and are a bad "investment" of tax dollars. Rather than let ethanol put down even deeper roots, Congress should end the massive chain of subsidies that supports the fuel program and allow market forces, rather than politicians, to determine which energy technologies will survive and grow. Ethanol imposes significant direct and indirect costs on consumers. It is more expensive to produce than gasoline, and its alcohol component prevents the fuel from being shipped as other gasoline products are, leading to higher transportation costs. Government mandates forcing drivers to purchase ethanol will lead to higher fuel bills since ethanol has a lower fuel economy than does gasoline. Also, as the price of corn rises, consumers can expect higher grocery bills as food inflation ripples through commodities markets. Agricultural subsides lead to overproduction, which is then used as a justification for using ethanol. Since ethanol has not been economically viable, it has relied upon subsidies from the federal government as well as a number of states. The federal subsidy is currently costing taxpayers $2 billion a year. The federal government protects domestic producers from international competition by levying a significant tariff on imported ethanol. In a further attempt to prop-up the industry, Congress inserted a renewable fuels standard into the 2005 energy bill. This requirement has the effect of mandating the use of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. States are also imposing their own usage requirements. The need for massive subsidies has not kept politicians in Washington from promoting other crops as ethanol feedstocks. The most popular potential sources are sugar and biomass, or cellulosic ethanol. Sugar-based ethanol would require a subsidy of between $1 and $2 per gallon, significantly higher than the 51-cents-per-gallon that corn-based ethanol currently receives. Taxpayers have already invested $1 billion in cellulosic ethanol research since the 1980s but additional study is expected to cost $2 billion over the next few years....
Why Are We Drinkin' this 'Hooch?
Will the rush to bio-fuels kill people in the developing world? The short answer is yes and probably in the very near future. The main problem with bio-fuels, is that producing them causes the world’s cars to compete for the same resources as the world’s hungry stomachs. If you claim to care about world hunger, “social justice,” or simply understand the economic problems of the bio-fuels industry, then you must reject bio-fuels. We are not the only ones concerned bio-fuel development will end up killing poor people. For example, in the industry’s online clearinghouse site renewableenergyaccess.com some surprising facts come out. In agricultural terms, the world appetite for automotive fuel is insatiable. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people. With so many distilleries being built, livestock and poultry producers fear there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk, and eggs. And since the United States supplies 70 percent of world corn exports, corn-importing countries are worried about their supply. Since almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for automobiles, including wheat, corn, rice, soybeans, and sugarcane, the line between the food and energy economies is disappearing. Historically, food processors and livestock producers that converted these farm commodities into products for supermarket shelves were the only buyers. Now there is another group, those buying for the ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries that supply service stations....
CITIES REWARD 'LIFESTYLE' THAT CONSERVES WATER
More cities are creating or expanding programs that give residents and businesses rebates or utility-bill credits for installing grass-free lawns or toilets, washing machines and showers that use less water. Rebate programs have grown substantially" because of expanding drought conditions and population increases, says Greg Kail of the American Water Works Association, a trade group. Examples:
* This month, Albuquerque increased its water-bill credit for converting grass lawns to low-water-use "Xeriscapes" from 40 cents to 60 cents for each square foot. Xeriscape is landscaping that uses native plants that require little water.
* Albuquerque also offers credits to residents who reuse rainwater or install water-saving toilets, washers, dishwashers, showerheads and sprinkler timers; since the city first offered credits in 1995, about 100 billion gallons of water have been saved -- enough to supply the city for three years.
* Santa Cruz, Calif., this spring began sending water conservation staffers to homes at residents' request to assess usage and recommend water-saving changes; the city pays $75 to residents who buy low-flow toilets and $100 to those who buy water-efficient washing machines.
* In Charlottesville, Va., residents can get $100 rebates for replacing toilets with more efficient models. Bill Dyer, director of the city's utility billing office, says it also has given away thousands of kits that include faucet aerators, dye tablets that detect toilet leaks, garden hose nozzles and repair kits and outdoor watering gauges.
Observers say cities are trying other ways to conserve water, including watering restrictions and encouraging the reuse of water in manufacturing and to irrigate golf courses. For example, El Paso plans to build the world's largest inland desalination plant, which would turn previously unusable brackish groundwater into 27.5 million gallons of fresh water daily.
Source: Judy Keen, "Cities reward 'lifestyle' that conserves water; Low-flow toilets, no-grass lawns now earn rebates," USA Today, July 20, 2006.
For text:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060720/a_water.art.htm
Call Off the Dioxin Dogs
Way back in 1985 the EPA decided it wanted dioxin to be cancer-causing and made it so, labeling it a "probable human carcinogen." Fifteen years later it upped the ante, concluding -- to a round chorus of applause from the media and environmentalist groups -- that the cancer risks for the most exposed people were 10-fold higher than it previously thought. Three years after, it strengthened dioxin's label to "carcinogenic to humans." And last Tuesday ... one big fat fly from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) plopped into the ointment. Indeed, the recommendations of the NAS's National Research Council (NRC) review of the EPA's latest draft report on dioxin could -- or at least should -- turn the entire cancer-rating system of the EPA (and other agencies) on its head. That's because while it's long been accepted that for acute toxicity that "the dose makes the poison" the EPA uses as a rule for all potential carcinogens that if exposure to a rat of something at a level of, say, a quart a day for 30 years is cancer-causing then exposure of a hundredth of a gram a day for one week must also be carcinogenic to humans. No matter that FDA doesn't advise against women taking a daily iron pill because if they took 100 daily they would die. It was this EPA assumption that the National Research Council directly challenged, concluding the "EPA's decision to rely solely on a default linear model lacked adequate scientific support." It said compelling new animal data from the National Toxicology Program -- released after EPA completed its reassessment -- when combined with substantial evidence that dioxin does not damage DNA, is now adequate to justify the use of nonlinear methods for estimating cancer risk at relatively low levels of exposure. In other words, the EPA can't just choose a formula because it's convenient and serves its political ends. It can't ignore the results of myriad animal and human studies and the determination of how a certain chemical affects human cells in favor of simple mathematics....
Running out of oil?
"Proven" oil reserves, oil that's economically and technologically recoverable, are estimated to be more than 1.1 trillion barrels. That's enough oil, at current usage rates, to fuel the world's economy for 38 years, according to Leonardo Maugeri, vice president for the Italian energy company ENI. Mr. Maugeri provides a wealth of information about energy in "Two Cheers for Expensive Oil," published by Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006) and reprinted on the same date in Current. There are an additional 2 trillion barrels of "recoverable" reserves. Mr. Maugeri says these oil reserves will probably meet the "proven" standard in a few years as technological improvement and increased sub-soil knowledge come online. Estimates of recoverable oil don't include the huge deposits of "unconventional" oil such as Canadian tar sands and U.S. shale oil, plus there are vast areas of our planet yet to be fully explored. For decades, alarmists have claimed we're running out of oil. In 1919, the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that world oil production would peak in nine years. During the 1970s, the Club of Rome report, "The Limits to Growth," said that, assuming no rise in consumption, all known oil reserves would be entirely consumed in just 31 years. A substantial increase in oil production alone cannot ease today's high prices because of weak refining capacity. Not a single refinery has been built in the United States for 30 years. Improvements to existing refineries failed to keep up with growing demand and tougher environmental regulations. We're the world's only industrialized country with a net deficit in refining capacity that comes to 20 percent of domestic demand. That makes us highly vulnerable to disasters like last year's hurricanes. Exacerbating weak refining capacity are regulations whereby gasoline produced for one state may not be sold in another. There are 18 mandated different types of gasoline sold in the United States. The long-term outlook for oil is good. There's an increase in oil-drilling technology and exploration. Oil as a source of energy has been in decline. In 1980, oil was 45 percent of energy consumption; today, it's 34 percent, yielding ground to natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. Recently, the House of Representatives passed "The Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2006," which now awaits a Senate vote. Offshore oil exploration has been banned since 1982, despite Department of the Interior estimates that suggest the presence of 19 billion barrels of oil and 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The House of Representatives also passed the "Refinery Permit Process Schedule Act of 2006." Should these measures become law, our energy capacity will be enhanced significantly....
Fire, or ice?
The New York Times's headline read, "America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise." Well, what's so new about that? The Times has been having an historic fit about global warming for years, hasn't it? Yes, but that particular headline ran in the good gray Times on March 27, 1933 -- 73 years ago. What's more, the Times changed its mind dramatically on the subject 42 years later, in 1975, when it startled its readers on May 21 with "Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable." Nor has the Times been the only major periodical to blow hot and cold (if you will forgive me) on the subject of the global climate. On Jan. 2, 1939 Time magazine announced that "Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right ... weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer." Yet Time scooped The New York Times by nearly a year when, reversing itself, it warned readers on June 24, 1974 that, "Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." Today, of course, Time has changed its mind again and joined the global-warming hysteria. On April 3 this year, it announced that "By Any Measure, Earth is At ... The Tipping Point. The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame." The last major attack of hysteria, in the mid-1970s, focused on the peril of global cooling, and was especially severe. Fortune magazine declared in February 1974 that "As for the present cooling trend a number of leading climatologists have concluded that it is very bad news indeed. It is the root cause of a lot of that unpleasant weather around the world and they warn that it carries the potential for human disasters of unprecedented magnitude." Fortune's analysis was so impressive that it actually won a "Science Writing Award" from the American Institute of Physics. But the prize for sheer terrorizing surely belonged to Lowell Ponte, whose 1976 book "The Cooling" (a predecessor of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," though from the opposite point of view) asserted that "The cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations." If countermeasures weren't taken, he warned, it would lead to "world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and this could all come by the year 2000."....
NEWS
Some items I missed during the week.
Property initiative on ballot An initiative that would make it harder to condemn private property in Montana qualified Thursday for the November general election ballot. But that didn't immediately derail two legal actions surrounding the ballot issue. A court hearing is set for 10:30 this morning in Helena before District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock. Attorneys will debate why the Cascade County Elections Office will not meet today's deadline for turning in ballot-issue signatures supporting Constitutional Initiative 154 to the Montana secretary of state. Cascade County on Wednesday petitioned the state District Court to extend the deadline for the county elections office to certify signatures and turn them in. Also Wednesday, initiative backers sued in state court, asking a judge to compel the Cascade County Elections Office to meet today's deadline. The county got behind in certifying signatures on petitions because of the rare recount of a primary legislative race that ended in a tie.
Lawsuit seeks to kill ballot question A coalition of Southern Nevada governments and business alliances filed a lawsuit Thursday, seeking to kill a ballot question that would rein in eminent domain land-seizure powers. The suit's backers ask a Clark County District Court judge to strip from the Nov. 7 ballot the question known as the People's Initiative to Stop the Taking of Our Land, or PISTOL, which they call overly broad and potentially crippling to prudent land-planning and government coffers. "The lawsuit is an effort to present ... what we believe to be the invalidity of the initiative in several regards," said Bruce Woodbury, a Clark County commissioner who is among the plaintiffs. "Of course, our concerns go well beyond that, and they have to do with what we think would be a very destructive effect that this proposal could have on our quality of life for everybody in the state." Don Chairez, a petition backer, former district judge and current Republican candidate for attorney general, dismissed Woodbury's claims as those of power brokers trying to retain power on the backs of property owners. "He (Woodbury) is trying to stifle and muzzle the voices of the people. I don't think people will go for it. I don't think the courts will go for it," Chairez said. "I'm not worried....
Backers undeterred by Hetch Hetchy estimate Environmentalists vowed Tuesday to press ahead with their campaign to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural state, buoyed by a state report that says draining the reservoir is technically feasible and undeterred by significant political opposition and a price tag that could hit $10 billion. They concede there are many questions yet to be answered -- not the least of which are how to knock down a 410-foot dam and how to finance the restoration of a valley submerged beneath 117 billion gallons of water since 1923. Restoration advocates argue the report released Wednesday by the State Department of Water Resources proves restoring Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley can be done without impacting the quality or quantity of water drawn from the Tuolumne River. "The state found no fatal flaws in the restoration concept that would preclude additional study," the report states, adding that "it does appear technically feasible to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley." Environmentalists seized on that finding to push for further study of an idea they've championed for at least 20 years....
Woodpecker Halts Ark. Irrigation Project A federal judge halted a $320 million irrigation project Thursday for fear it could disturb the habitat of a woodpecker that may or may not be extinct. The dispute involves the ivory-billed woodpecker. The last confirmed sighting of the bird in North America was in 1944, and scientists had thought the species was extinct until 2004, when a kayaker claimed to have spotted one in the area. But scientists have been unable to confirm the sighting. Still, U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson said that for purposes of the lawsuit brought by environmental groups, he had to assume the woodpecker exists in the area. And he ruled that federal agencies may have violated the Endangered Species Act by not studying the risks fully. "When an endangered species is allegedly jeopardized, the balance of hardships and public interest tips in favor of the protected species. Here there is evidence" that the ivory-billed woodpecker may be jeopardized, he said. The National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation had sued the Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that the project to build a pumping station that would draw water from the White River would kill trees that house the birds and that noise from the station would cause the woodpeckers stress. The judge said the Corps and the Interior Department must conduct further studies before proceeding....
Navajo Nation: EPA to set tough standards for power plant The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed some of the most stringent emission requirements in the country for a planned power plant on the Navajo Nation, setting a new level of performance for coal-fired plants in the United States. Houston-based Sithe Global Power and the tribe's Diné Power Authority plan to build a 1,500 megawatt power plant that could power up to 1.5 million homes in cities across the Southwest. The Desert Rock Energy Project would bring in about $50 million a year in taxes and royalty payments for the tribe, making it the largest economic development project to be undertaken by the Navajos. The EPA released a draft clean-air permit for Desert Rock this week, saying its requirements would limit emissions from the plant to levels that protect public health and the environment....
Golf course, Paiutes will have to wait for prairie dog removal The Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute Tribe of Utah's prairie dog problems will continue for at least another year. The golf course and tribe applied for permits allowing them to remove the prairie dogs from their property by relocating some and killing the rest. Elise Boeke, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ecologist, said she received comments from Forest Guardians, a New Mexico-based environmental group, protesting the project. "We'll have to work through these," she said. This means no relocation will take place until next year because USFWS can't issue any permits until this issue is resolved, and the trapping season ends in August....
Scientists want global body to conserve biodiversity Scientists warned on Wednesday that the world is on the brink of a major biodiversity crisis and called for the creation of an international body to advise governments on how to protect the planet's ecosystems. "All the scientific evidence points to the fact that whatever measure of vulnerability you take, whether it is local populations, species or ecosystem, we know that the rate at which we are altering them now is faster than it has been in the past," Georgina Mace said in an interview. Mace, director of science at the Institute of Zoology in London, is one of 19 scientists from 13 countries who signed a declaration published in the journal Nature explaining why an intergovernmental body is needed. They said that although all aspects of biodiversity are in decline and many species are likely to become extinct this century, the crisis is not given the weight and importance it merits in public and private decision making. The new panel would address policy-related issues and get the best consensus on what the scientific opinion really is....
The Writing on the Wal-Mart Picture Al Gore standing in a modest auditorium deep in America's heartland before an exultant crowd of Wal-Mart employees, comparing their campaign to lighten the company's environmental footprint to the Allies' righteous struggle in World War II. This after Rev. Jim Ball, head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, likened the giant retailer's greening efforts to the work of Jesus Christ. This strange scene unfolded last week in Bentonville, Ark., and Muckraker was there to witness it. The occasion was an environmental strategy meeting of some 800 Wal-Mart execs, managers, suppliers, and partners, where the heads of the corporation's various divisions -- from seafood and textiles to transportation and packaging -- outlined their respective green agendas. Mid-afternoon brought a screening of An Inconvenient Truth; more than a few audience members could be seen dabbing teary eyes as the documentary drew to a close. Then the entire crowd erupted into a standing ovation when the lights came back on and Gore trotted up to the stage, Tipper in tow....
BP to Shut Down 12 North Slope Wells Britain's BP PLC is closing 12 oil wells on Alaska's North Slope as a precaution after whistleblowers alleged more than 50 were leaking. The wells were in the process of being shut down Tuesday, BP spokesman Darren Beaudo said. The action came after workers told the Financial Times of London about the leaks, according to the newspaper, which first reported the shutdowns on its Web site. Most of the shuttered wells were in Prudhoe Bay, Beaudo told The Associated Press. The shutdowns come a month after BP confirmed it had received a subpoena from a U.S. grand jury investigating a massive oil leak in Alaska last year....
House approves treaty to protect polar bears The House gave its approval Monday to a U.S.-Russia treaty to help protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival. The House bill puts into effect a 2000 treaty that sets quotas on polar bear hunting by native populations in the two countries and establishes a bilateral commission to analyze how best to sustain the polar bear habitat. It passed by voice vote. The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union estimates the polar bear population in the Arctic at 20,000 to 25,000, and projects a 30 percent decline in that number over the next 45 years. Climatic warming that melts the bears’ sea ice habitat is regarded as the main threat, but pollution and overhunting are other major concerns....
Some items I missed during the week.
Property initiative on ballot An initiative that would make it harder to condemn private property in Montana qualified Thursday for the November general election ballot. But that didn't immediately derail two legal actions surrounding the ballot issue. A court hearing is set for 10:30 this morning in Helena before District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock. Attorneys will debate why the Cascade County Elections Office will not meet today's deadline for turning in ballot-issue signatures supporting Constitutional Initiative 154 to the Montana secretary of state. Cascade County on Wednesday petitioned the state District Court to extend the deadline for the county elections office to certify signatures and turn them in. Also Wednesday, initiative backers sued in state court, asking a judge to compel the Cascade County Elections Office to meet today's deadline. The county got behind in certifying signatures on petitions because of the rare recount of a primary legislative race that ended in a tie.
Lawsuit seeks to kill ballot question A coalition of Southern Nevada governments and business alliances filed a lawsuit Thursday, seeking to kill a ballot question that would rein in eminent domain land-seizure powers. The suit's backers ask a Clark County District Court judge to strip from the Nov. 7 ballot the question known as the People's Initiative to Stop the Taking of Our Land, or PISTOL, which they call overly broad and potentially crippling to prudent land-planning and government coffers. "The lawsuit is an effort to present ... what we believe to be the invalidity of the initiative in several regards," said Bruce Woodbury, a Clark County commissioner who is among the plaintiffs. "Of course, our concerns go well beyond that, and they have to do with what we think would be a very destructive effect that this proposal could have on our quality of life for everybody in the state." Don Chairez, a petition backer, former district judge and current Republican candidate for attorney general, dismissed Woodbury's claims as those of power brokers trying to retain power on the backs of property owners. "He (Woodbury) is trying to stifle and muzzle the voices of the people. I don't think people will go for it. I don't think the courts will go for it," Chairez said. "I'm not worried....
Backers undeterred by Hetch Hetchy estimate Environmentalists vowed Tuesday to press ahead with their campaign to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural state, buoyed by a state report that says draining the reservoir is technically feasible and undeterred by significant political opposition and a price tag that could hit $10 billion. They concede there are many questions yet to be answered -- not the least of which are how to knock down a 410-foot dam and how to finance the restoration of a valley submerged beneath 117 billion gallons of water since 1923. Restoration advocates argue the report released Wednesday by the State Department of Water Resources proves restoring Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Valley can be done without impacting the quality or quantity of water drawn from the Tuolumne River. "The state found no fatal flaws in the restoration concept that would preclude additional study," the report states, adding that "it does appear technically feasible to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley." Environmentalists seized on that finding to push for further study of an idea they've championed for at least 20 years....
Woodpecker Halts Ark. Irrigation Project A federal judge halted a $320 million irrigation project Thursday for fear it could disturb the habitat of a woodpecker that may or may not be extinct. The dispute involves the ivory-billed woodpecker. The last confirmed sighting of the bird in North America was in 1944, and scientists had thought the species was extinct until 2004, when a kayaker claimed to have spotted one in the area. But scientists have been unable to confirm the sighting. Still, U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson said that for purposes of the lawsuit brought by environmental groups, he had to assume the woodpecker exists in the area. And he ruled that federal agencies may have violated the Endangered Species Act by not studying the risks fully. "When an endangered species is allegedly jeopardized, the balance of hardships and public interest tips in favor of the protected species. Here there is evidence" that the ivory-billed woodpecker may be jeopardized, he said. The National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation had sued the Army Corps of Engineers, arguing that the project to build a pumping station that would draw water from the White River would kill trees that house the birds and that noise from the station would cause the woodpeckers stress. The judge said the Corps and the Interior Department must conduct further studies before proceeding....
Navajo Nation: EPA to set tough standards for power plant The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed some of the most stringent emission requirements in the country for a planned power plant on the Navajo Nation, setting a new level of performance for coal-fired plants in the United States. Houston-based Sithe Global Power and the tribe's Diné Power Authority plan to build a 1,500 megawatt power plant that could power up to 1.5 million homes in cities across the Southwest. The Desert Rock Energy Project would bring in about $50 million a year in taxes and royalty payments for the tribe, making it the largest economic development project to be undertaken by the Navajos. The EPA released a draft clean-air permit for Desert Rock this week, saying its requirements would limit emissions from the plant to levels that protect public health and the environment....
Golf course, Paiutes will have to wait for prairie dog removal The Cedar Ridge Golf Course and Paiute Tribe of Utah's prairie dog problems will continue for at least another year. The golf course and tribe applied for permits allowing them to remove the prairie dogs from their property by relocating some and killing the rest. Elise Boeke, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ecologist, said she received comments from Forest Guardians, a New Mexico-based environmental group, protesting the project. "We'll have to work through these," she said. This means no relocation will take place until next year because USFWS can't issue any permits until this issue is resolved, and the trapping season ends in August....
Scientists want global body to conserve biodiversity Scientists warned on Wednesday that the world is on the brink of a major biodiversity crisis and called for the creation of an international body to advise governments on how to protect the planet's ecosystems. "All the scientific evidence points to the fact that whatever measure of vulnerability you take, whether it is local populations, species or ecosystem, we know that the rate at which we are altering them now is faster than it has been in the past," Georgina Mace said in an interview. Mace, director of science at the Institute of Zoology in London, is one of 19 scientists from 13 countries who signed a declaration published in the journal Nature explaining why an intergovernmental body is needed. They said that although all aspects of biodiversity are in decline and many species are likely to become extinct this century, the crisis is not given the weight and importance it merits in public and private decision making. The new panel would address policy-related issues and get the best consensus on what the scientific opinion really is....
The Writing on the Wal-Mart Picture Al Gore standing in a modest auditorium deep in America's heartland before an exultant crowd of Wal-Mart employees, comparing their campaign to lighten the company's environmental footprint to the Allies' righteous struggle in World War II. This after Rev. Jim Ball, head of the Evangelical Environmental Network, likened the giant retailer's greening efforts to the work of Jesus Christ. This strange scene unfolded last week in Bentonville, Ark., and Muckraker was there to witness it. The occasion was an environmental strategy meeting of some 800 Wal-Mart execs, managers, suppliers, and partners, where the heads of the corporation's various divisions -- from seafood and textiles to transportation and packaging -- outlined their respective green agendas. Mid-afternoon brought a screening of An Inconvenient Truth; more than a few audience members could be seen dabbing teary eyes as the documentary drew to a close. Then the entire crowd erupted into a standing ovation when the lights came back on and Gore trotted up to the stage, Tipper in tow....
BP to Shut Down 12 North Slope Wells Britain's BP PLC is closing 12 oil wells on Alaska's North Slope as a precaution after whistleblowers alleged more than 50 were leaking. The wells were in the process of being shut down Tuesday, BP spokesman Darren Beaudo said. The action came after workers told the Financial Times of London about the leaks, according to the newspaper, which first reported the shutdowns on its Web site. Most of the shuttered wells were in Prudhoe Bay, Beaudo told The Associated Press. The shutdowns come a month after BP confirmed it had received a subpoena from a U.S. grand jury investigating a massive oil leak in Alaska last year....
House approves treaty to protect polar bears The House gave its approval Monday to a U.S.-Russia treaty to help protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival. The House bill puts into effect a 2000 treaty that sets quotas on polar bear hunting by native populations in the two countries and establishes a bilateral commission to analyze how best to sustain the polar bear habitat. It passed by voice vote. The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union estimates the polar bear population in the Arctic at 20,000 to 25,000, and projects a 30 percent decline in that number over the next 45 years. Climatic warming that melts the bears’ sea ice habitat is regarded as the main threat, but pollution and overhunting are other major concerns....
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