NEWS ROUNDUP
Surprise Development in Nevada Water Fight A big breakthough for Southern Nevada's plan to pipe water in from rural Nevada. The federal government announced it is dropping all opposition to the plan. The Monday announcement from the federal government came as hearings began in Carson City on the pipeline plan. The state water engineer is holding the hearings to decide whether to allow Southern Nevada to tap groundwater basins hundreds of miles to the north. At the beginning of the hearings, the Department of the Interior announced four federal agencies were dropping protests. They include Fish and Wildlife, the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs. In exchange, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has agreed to a comprehensive monitoring program. Opponents of the plan gathered outside of the hearings to protest what they are calling a "water theft" or a "water grab." Ranchers from rural White Pine County saying they fear for their way of life....
Outdoors group snubs southern Utah bill The Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2006 got a thumbs down from the Outdoor Industry Association this week. "Our public policy committee voted unanimously last week that we can't support the bill in its current form," said Amy Roberts, the association's director of government affairs. "Our main concern is the sell off of public lands and what we see as an unbalanced approach to wilderness." Washington County Commissioner Alan Gardner is in Washington, D.C., this week to testify before Congress about the bill, which is generating discussion around the nation. "If this bill becomes law, wilderness will lose absolutely no land," Gardner said. "There is nothing on the table for sale on the west side of the county. If it doesn't become law, we will lose the National Conservation Area, the off-road vehicle trail and protection for plants and so forth." The proposed legislation is slated to come before the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health on Thursday. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, are sponsors of the bill....
Column - Bush’s “New Environmentalism:” What can we expect? Cooperative Conservation became an Executive Order August 26, 2004. Oh, you didn’t hear? The fanfare then was a whisper, but now it’s time to notice. Leaders of federal agencies responsible for the environment are coming to the public, holding “Listening Sessions” around the country. They’re inviting us to answer specific questions. Leaders will take responses back to Washington in the spirit of “cooperative conservation.” They say. Sounding sublime in this era of too many conflicts, some objectives may be genuine. But given the Bush Administration’s record for health, safety and environmental abuses, given that sites chosen for meetings aren’t exactly what you’d call cross-sections of the nation’s political leanings, given the national debt and an additional 13 percent 2007 budget cut to environmental protections, a cautionary, informed approach to this endeavor would seem prudent. Cooperative Conservation has been coined President Bush’s “New Environmentalism,” the honed down version of former Secretary of Interior Gale Norton’s public relations mantra, her Four C’s Credo: communication, consultation, and cooperation in service of conservation. In short, for conservation, have a conversation. An excellent goal, but define “conservation.”....
Scientists watching volcanic bulge on South Sister For a decade or so, a volcanic bulge has been pushing up over 150 square miles near the South Sister at a rate of perhaps an inch per year. Hikers and horse-riders cross it on the Pacific Crest Trail and may see sturdy metallic tripod topped by a white disk. Wires lead to a solar panel. A sign says "Volcano Monitoring Equipment: Do Not Disturb." Here, magma has pushed up the ground, which has been rising an inch or so per year since about 1997, a rise invisible to the naked eye. It began to slow last year, but scientists still watch the area, which has some of the more active magma in the Cascades. The bulge near the 10,358-foot mountain is the only rising ground along the Cascade Range, said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash. "What we think is there is a place where magma is slowly rising from deeper in the Earth," he said. "It's accumulating there, and it's inflating or causing the rocks around it to be pushed aside." It could go on for some time or be an early sign of a possible eruption....
Piñon, pine or spruce - beetles by many names deadly for trees While the causes of the aspen die-off remain unclear, the culprit behind the ongoing decimation of Colorado's conifer forests is no mystery: It's the beetles. Over the past decade, various beetles have killed more than 10 million conifers in Colorado forests, said Bob Cain, a U.S. Forest Service entomologist. The combination of aging, unnaturally dense forests and several years of severe drought allowed the mountain pine beetle epidemic to reach record levels in lodgepole and ponderosa pine forests. At the same time, bugs have feasted on other pines, spruce and fir trees across the state. According to federal and state foresters: • Mountain pine beetles attacked 1.3 million trees on 500,000 acres last year in the state, primarily in lodgepole pine forests of north-central Colorado. Ponderosa pine forests also experienced outbreaks. • Piñon ips beetles killed more than 9 million Colorado piñon pines, mainly in the southwestern and southern forests, in an epidemic that peaked two years ago....
Plan could mean 2,800 gas wells in Sweetwater County A proposal to extend the life of natural gas fields in southwest Wyoming could include the drilling of 2,800 new wells in Sweetwater County. Questar Exploration and Production Co., Wexpro Co. and other natural gas operators are proposing to drill new wells in Wyoming's Canyon Creek, Trail and Kinney fields over the next three decades. The active fields are located about 55 miles south of Point of Rocks in the southwest portion of Wyoming's Red Desert. The Bureau of Land Management is beginning work on an environmental impact statement, BLM spokeswoman Susan Davis said. The companies are seeking federal permission to develop natural gas resources further within the Vermillion Basin area of Sweetwater County, which includes the existing Canyon Creek and smaller Trail and Kinney natural gas fields. If the project is approved, the wells would be drilled over about a 30-year period, with as many as 200 wells possibly being drilled each year, according to company plans....
EPA Begins Cleanup of Idaho Mine Sites Steel bars block the arched opening to the Constitution Mine in Idaho's Silver Valley, a reminder that people for decades would hold beer parties in the cavernous elevator room. The former lead and zinc mine has been inactive since 1968, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this summer began the task of cleaning up the remote site to make it safe for recreational use. It's part of a massive decades-long cleanup of the Silver Valley, the second-largest Superfund site in the nation after Butte and Anaconda, Mont. "There were over 100 producing mines and 50 mill sites in this basin," said Bill Adams, manager of the Superfund project for the EPA. "A lot has been done and there is more to do." Indeed, cleanup of the entire Bunker Hill Superfund site is expected to take more than three decades and cost more than $350 million because the environmental degradation here was so immense....
Oregon community opts off the grid A twisty road leading out of Lake Billy Chinook and into a ponderosa-pine forest eventually takes you straight by the front gate of a very different kind of place. Behind the manned gate of the Three Rivers Recreation Area lie 4,000 acres of property and 450 homes, but not a single phone or power line. Residents in this subdivision of full- and part-time homeowners are entirely off the electrical and telephone grid, proud of it and wanting it to stay that way. They rely on solar power to provide houses with electricity. "You have no idea how bright the stars are," said Mary Johnson, 69, who bought property at Three Rivers with her husband in 1975 and moved there permanently in 1999. "No sirens, no trains. I would not live anywhere else." An hour from Bend, this hodgepodge of upscale houses, mobile homes, outhouses and shacks has been defying norms since the development began in the late 1960s. Until the advent of cellphones, the main mode of communication was CB radios. Some residents still have signs advertising their call names, nailed to trees at the ends of their driveways....
Idaho dam to be demolished after 89 years An aging, out-of-service dam on the Bear River in southeastern Idaho is expected to be demolished by today, a move environmentalists say will improve the habitat for dwindling numbers of Bonneville cutthroat trout. Pacificorp, the Utah-based utility that owns the 89-year-old Cove Dam near the town of Grace, says its destruction will also benefit utility customers. The 7.5 megawatt dam had not generated power for several years after a flow line broke and the cost of repairs was considered too high to justify in relation to the revenue from the electricity the dam produced. ''As the region has grown, a plant like this is a relatively small part of our resources,'' Pacificorp spokesman Dave Eskelsen told the Idaho State Journal. ''Hydroelectricity is still very valuable. It is always a hard choice to decommission a hydroelectric plant.'' Friday, two-thirds of the concrete dam built in 1917 had been removed as part of the $3.2 million project that will include site rehabilitation work that is expected to be completed in the spring....
BLM promises outfitters and others will get more attention Businesses with interests on the public lands, such as big-game outfitters, will get more attention as the Bureau of Land Management considers drilling applications. Officials once didn’t worry much about such potential conflicts, but as drilling has increased in western Colorado, “it’s a big deal now,” Catherine Robertson of the bureau’s Grand Junction field office told a Club 20 audience Saturday. Field offices are looking at ways to overlap private and public lands used by outfitters that also are prime areas for energy development, Robertson said. The bureau also tries to bring surface owners into the process when considering drill permits on their property, but it can’t force owners to participate, Robertson said. Some critics who take the bureau to task for visiting well sites annually instead of more often don’t know that the agency allocates its resources as needed, she said....
New Book Pokes Fun at Endangered Species Do environmentalists have a sense of humor? We're about to find out, because this book is aimed right where their funny bone ought to be. The Hunter's Guide to Endangered Species by "The Old Biologist" is a humorous and satirical take on endangered species and environmental protection. It covers the gamut, poking fun at the science behind the endangered species issue, then explaining how and where (zoos and wildlife refuges, of course) to hunt these hapless creatures. It also looks at particular species, and describes the very human character flaws that got them into trouble in the first place. To top it off, the book has recipes for cooking them (the California Condor Soup is a real crowd pleaser). Smart and witty, The Hunter's Guide to Endangered Species is designed to poke fun at a topic which is usually about as much fun as a heart attack, with everybody involved taking themselves way too seriously. This is the environmental/endangered species issue as seen through the eyes of a crotchety, politically incorrect old-time biologist, from the era when naturalists studied rare animals by shooting them....
Report Praises Effectiveness of Endangered Species Act Recovery Plans Although recovery of endangered species depends on a variety of factors, species with recovery plans fare better than those without, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The report detailed that recovery plans are a critical part of the government's implementation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and suggests that efforts to reform the law should keep the provision at the center of the statute. The ESA requires the federal government's two wildlife agencies - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service - to list species determined to be threatened or endangered, to designate critical habitat and to develop recovery plans for the conservation and survival of listed species. The agencies are required to develop recovery plans unless officials determine a plan will not promote conservation of the species....
Restoration of Bay salt ponds might threaten snowy plover A plan to turn hundreds of acres of sun-baked salt ponds back into marshland will attract the California clapper rail and the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, two endangered species that used to thrive in the South Bay in the late 19th century before the first salt ponds were constructed. On the other hand, desalinating the ponds and adding new vegetation could spell trouble for the western snowy plover, a skittish, threatened bird that has begun laying its eggs on the dry, salty beaches. Several other birds also depend on the supply of brine shrimp the salt ponds produce, including avocets, western sandpipers and cormorants. Some biologists worry that the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, a plan to open 15,000 acres of former Cargill salt ponds to Bay tides, could have unintended negative consequences for those birds while benefiting other species. Officials with the Coastal Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service face a difficult decision in choosing how much tidal action to let into the salt ponds, which stretch across the Bay to Redwood City and San Jose, acquired from Cargill in 2003....
USDA miscalculates cattle numbers in figuring drought aid A top official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency apologized Monday to Kansas cattlemen for a miscalculation that will mean $3.8 million fewer dollars for a livestock drought assistance program than the state had been promised. John Johnson, deputy administrator for farm programs at the Farm Service Agency, said the error was discovered Friday when officials realized they had used Agricultural Statistics Service data that included the numbers of feedlot cattle for Kansas, Wyoming and Arizona. The Agriculture Department recalculated the allocations after it discovered it had erroneously credited Kansas for livestock in feed yards. The program is designed to help cattlemen who are struggling to pay for feed or find places for cattle to graze during a drought. "We apologize for the error - unfortunately it means a major reduction in Kansas and a minor adjustment in Wyoming and Arizona," Johnson said. Under revised figures the department received late Friday, Kansas' share of the $50 million program will be $948,511. That is significantly lower than the $4.78 million previously promised the state....
National Commission to Study Health, Environmental Impact of Industrial Farm Animal Production The challenges all livestock, dairy and poultry producers face with the reemergence of avian influenza and other zoonotic diseases will be one of the topics of a two-year study by the National Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (NCIFAP), members of the commission announced here today. The independent NCIFAP was formed by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. The NCIFAP will conduct a two-year study of the public health, environmental, animal health and well-being and rural sociological impacts of concentrated animal feeding operations. The commission, chaired by former Kansas Governor and Archivist of the United States John Carlin, brings together accomplished individuals from a variety of backgrounds, including academia, public health, agricultural production, the food industry, veterinary medicine and the general public. At the end of the two-year study, the commission will release a report to the nation, outlining its findings and making recommendations to policy makers.....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Stuck calf makes for muddy mission It was a case of naked dedication. Dick had been to the state meeting. His committee had run late and it was after midnight when he got back to the ranch. They were practicing fall calving in his part of the Umpqua Valley of western Oregon. Rains had been making things mucky. As he mounted the steps, he stopped in his tracks. There in a pile, under the harsh porch light were his wife's clothes. Right down to the daintys. He looked around. He wasn't sure why he looked around, he just did. Earlier that evening at twilight, Mo - short for Maureen - his wife, had made the heifer check. She found none in the process of calving and was about to go to the house when she heard a plaintive bawl down by the pond. Working her way thorough the fresh cow pies and mud, shuck, she called it, she saw a 2-day-old black bally calf. He was standing elbow deep in the dark water. Mo looked down at her tennis shoes, looked up at the drizzling rain, gritted her teeth and stepped into the shallow end....
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Of course, the benefits of having a benevolent, elite ruling class aren't limited to individual states. Our entire nation has prospered as a result. Just look at what our brave leaders in Washington have done in the way of national security. Why, if the feds hadn't taken over airline security and subjected elderly travelers to full-body searches, who knows how many planes might have been blown out of the sky with bombs constructed from hearing aid batteries and denture cream? From Lee Shelton's Government Is Only Looking Out for Our Best Interests
WOLF ATTACK
All,
Kenton's dad sent me a note on Friday letting me know this was in the works. It is such a relief to them. Let's all Pray they get some closure and some truth from this inquest. At this time, the family cannot get a final report because the wolf ("biologists") or should I say activists, will not finish their investigation and send their final report.
Everyone else is done, the coroner at the scene, Physicians who examined the young man, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, everyone but the wildlife biologists studying wolves. Not only that but in other areas these same biologists are telling people it isn't a proven case of wolf attack knowing full well it is. This kind of bias and untruthful fact finding is harming this family dreadfully, especially after all they have been through.
I have been pretty closed to the vest about this because Kenton's mom and dad have trusted me to be respectful of their family and I plan on doing that. However, it is important to get the truth out and the very fact that the Canadian officials had to request an inquest to finalize the official report is very telling. Please lift the family up in prayer and ask that they finally see some closure and fairness in the report. Especially in light of the latest attacks. Prevention comes with factual education.
thanks
Laura
Inquest called in wolf attack death
Oshawa man died Nov. 8 in Saskatchewan
Sep 9, 2006
A coroner's inquest will be called into the death of an Oshawa man who was killed last fall in a wolf attack. Twenty-two-year-old Kenton Carnegie died Nov. 8 at Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan. Mr. Carnegie, a student in his third year at the Geological Engineering Co-Op Program at the University of Waterloo, was working in a mining camp at Points North Landing in Saskatchewan’s far north, near the Northwest Territories border. The rugged area is inhabited largely by trappers, hunters and miners, and is accessible only by air for most of the year. A police spokesman at the time said Mr. Carnegie had gone out for a walk and when he failed to return others in the camp went to look for him. The university student's body was discovered not far from a work camp. He had been mauled to death. According to the CBC, the attacked is believed to be the first North American case of a human being killed by healthy wolves in their natural environment. A CBC news investigation revealed that wolves were being attracted to an illegal garbage dump in the area. No date has been set for the inquest.
All,
Kenton's dad sent me a note on Friday letting me know this was in the works. It is such a relief to them. Let's all Pray they get some closure and some truth from this inquest. At this time, the family cannot get a final report because the wolf ("biologists") or should I say activists, will not finish their investigation and send their final report.
Everyone else is done, the coroner at the scene, Physicians who examined the young man, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, everyone but the wildlife biologists studying wolves. Not only that but in other areas these same biologists are telling people it isn't a proven case of wolf attack knowing full well it is. This kind of bias and untruthful fact finding is harming this family dreadfully, especially after all they have been through.
I have been pretty closed to the vest about this because Kenton's mom and dad have trusted me to be respectful of their family and I plan on doing that. However, it is important to get the truth out and the very fact that the Canadian officials had to request an inquest to finalize the official report is very telling. Please lift the family up in prayer and ask that they finally see some closure and fairness in the report. Especially in light of the latest attacks. Prevention comes with factual education.
thanks
Laura
Inquest called in wolf attack death
Oshawa man died Nov. 8 in Saskatchewan
Sep 9, 2006
A coroner's inquest will be called into the death of an Oshawa man who was killed last fall in a wolf attack. Twenty-two-year-old Kenton Carnegie died Nov. 8 at Points North Landing in northern Saskatchewan. Mr. Carnegie, a student in his third year at the Geological Engineering Co-Op Program at the University of Waterloo, was working in a mining camp at Points North Landing in Saskatchewan’s far north, near the Northwest Territories border. The rugged area is inhabited largely by trappers, hunters and miners, and is accessible only by air for most of the year. A police spokesman at the time said Mr. Carnegie had gone out for a walk and when he failed to return others in the camp went to look for him. The university student's body was discovered not far from a work camp. He had been mauled to death. According to the CBC, the attacked is believed to be the first North American case of a human being killed by healthy wolves in their natural environment. A CBC news investigation revealed that wolves were being attracted to an illegal garbage dump in the area. No date has been set for the inquest.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Sportsmen vs. Game Farmers: Blame Abounds After Elk Escape Sportsmen across Idaho are furious at elk game farms, after nearly 200 elk escape a farm in eastern Idaho. "Our immediate thoughts from the sportsman's standpoint is that it's simply a train wreck that was simply going to happen. It was a matter of when it was going to happen," Bob Minter, Vice President of the Idaho Sportsmen's Caucus Advisory Council. And they want elk game farms strongly regulated or even banned. "We are concerned to protect our wild stock in this state," Minter said. "And many states have banned game farms. And the sportsmen of the state are probably going to be working towards that." But this Emmett elk rancher says the Chief Joseph Ranch in eastern Idaho was just a bad apple ... and all elk ranches shouldn't be treated the same way. "You're always going to have one in the bunch who might not, I don't think you can, have an accurate reflection on the whole industry by one individual's actions," Kristy Hein, co-owner of the Black Canyon Elk Ranch, told CBS 2 News. "So I think a lot of us are very responsible, we've got a very strong support in Idaho, and we follow the rules and regulations."....
IN THE WEST, A WATER FIGHT OVER QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY It is a strange fight, Montana ranchers say. Raising cattle here in the parched American outback of eastern Montana and Wyoming has always been a battle to find enough water. Now there is more than enough water, but the wrong kind, they say, and they are fighting to keep it out of the river. Mark Fix is a family rancher whose cattle operation depends on water from the Tongue River. Mr. Fix diverts about 2,000 gallons per minute of clear water in the summer to transform a dry river bottom into several emerald green fields of alfalfa, an oasis on dry rangeland. Three crops of hay each year enable him to cut it, bale it and feed it to his cattle during the long winter. “Water means a guaranteed hay crop,” Mr. Fix said. But the search for a type of natural gas called coal bed methane has come to this part of the world in a big way. The gas is found in subterranean coal, and companies are pumping water out of the coal and stripping the gas mixed with it. Once the gas is out, the huge volumes of water become waste in a region that gets less than 12 inches of rain a year. In some cases, the water has benefited ranchers, who use it to water their livestock. But there is far more than cows can drink, and it needs to be dumped. The companies have been pumping the wastewater into drainages that flow into the Tongue River, as well as two other small rivers that flow north into Montana, the Powder and Little Powder Rivers. Ranchers say the water contains high levels of sodium and if it is spread on a field, it can destroy the ability to grow anything. It makes the soil impervious,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who is a soil scientist. “It changes it from a living, breathing thing into concrete.”....
Forest Guardians: Environmental group bids on grazing leases Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians is bidding for two more grazing leases totaling 2,000 acres of New Mexico state trust lands. The environmental organization — which opposes livestock grazing on public lands — currently holds the leases to three former grazing allotments totaling more than 3,000 acres. The first one the group acquired in the mid-1990s was along the Rio Embudo. In the current competitive bid, Forest Guardians offered to pay at least twice what the ranchers are currently paying. Revenues from the leases benefit the public schools and colleges in the state. The site of one of the competing bids includes 640 acres and more than a mile of the Rio Puerco northwest of Albuquerque, which contains potential habitat for the endangered Southwest willow flycatcher. The current lease paid by the rancher is $500 a year, according to Forest Guardians. The second site is a 1,440-acre parcel located northwest of Alamogordo with more than a mile of the Lost River, which provides an essential water source for the state endangered White Sands Pupfish. The current lease is $900 a year....
Water deal on Nevada agenda The battle over the Southern Nevada Water Authority's controversial groundwater pumping project has been playing out for months in the forum of public opinion. Now the proposal - which calls for tapping aquifers under the arid valleys of eastern Nevada and western Utah and shipping nearly 200,000 acre-feet of water annually to Las Vegas via a pipeline network - goes before the person who counts most: Nevada state engineer Tracy Taylor. Three weeks of hearings commence in Carson City on Monday to assess whether the authority's $2 billion project should be approved. For both sides, the stakes could not be higher. The water authority's general manager, Pat Mulroy, says the very future of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is on the line. With its Colorado River allotment of water about maxed out, Mulroy has argued that her agency has no choice but to seek alternatives for one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan areas....
Explosive technique approved to kill prairie dogs Montrose Regional Airport has a new tool for exterminating prairie dogs. The Colorado Division of Wildlife Commission approved the Rodenator at Thursday’s meeting. The device combines propane and oxygen, which is pumped into the burrow and detonated. Jeff Precup, Montrose Regional Airport operations manager, said after the meeting that prairie dogs are a major problem at the airport. Because the facility is located within the city limits, it is limited in the methods it can use to reduce the rodent’s numbers. Precup said the new method will help the airport increase safety because it can limit the number of prairie dogs on the runways. Ron Dent, a representative of the Colorado Airport Operators, said airports around the state could benefit from the tool. He runs the La Plata County Airport and said prairie dogs are a problem....
Editorial - Untangling barbed wire in Cascade-Siskiyou M ount Hood is casting such a big political shadow these days that hardly anyone noticed when Oregon's two U.S. senators introduced legislation to create thousands of acres of new wilderness in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument near the Oregon-California border. The proposal deserves broader attention because it is the result of an unusual and hard-won compromise between Southern Oregon cattle ranchers and environmental groups. The legislation, introduced Wednesday by Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, includes language that should lead to a buyout of 17 ranchers whose cattle graze on 100,000 acres in and around the Cascade-Siskiyou monument. If Congress approves the creative legislation, it could end years of disputes over grazing, avoid a costly lawsuit and forever remove cows from one of the state's most biologically diverse and important natural areas. It's taken years to get this agreement that's now broadly supported by virtually everyone with a stake in the Cascade-Siskiyou area. The agreement is backed by the Oregon Cattleman's Association, environmental groups and virtually all of the political leadership in Southern Oregon. The concern now is that not much time is left in the congressional session to get the Cascade-Siskiyou legislation through this year. What's really needed is the active support of Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, R.-Ore., whose district includes the Cascade-Siskiyou monument. Walden has the clout in the House to make or break this legislation, and we urge him to join all the groups pushing the compromise forward....
Column - Lawsuits Sometimes Necessary While Working on Forest Solutions Recently I had the privilege of testifying before the U.S. Senate during an oversight hearing on the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). Without question, the hearing was dominated by a two-hour grilling Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth received from eleven senators of both political parties. Turns out that despite much cheerleading and self-congratulating about the successes of HFRA, three years since the law was passed little has actually been accomplished. This is especially true here in the Northern Rockies where only 103 acres of fuel reduction has been accomplished under the act, including zero acres in Montana. Apparently the Missoulian attributes much of this inaction to the fact that our organization filed a lawsuit on one single HFRA project: the Bitterroot National Forest's Middle East Fork project, which proposes to mix some bona-fide fuel reduction work with cutting down large trees in previously unlogged forests miles away from homes within critical elk and bighorn sheep habitat. Unfortunately, the July 30 Missoulian editorial ignored many facts surrounding this project, including the Forest Service's own analysis, which found this project will increase fire severity for up to three years because the agency has made it a top priority to cut down the largest trees first, while leaving slash and small trees behind....
The Legacy of Oregon’s Measure 37, Part I Camille Hukari’s family has been farming in Oregon’s Hood River Valley for decades, and she says she has no intention of giving up now. But she is willing to make a deal. Truth be told, Hukari would love to trade the vagaries of the pear business for some financial security. She and her family farm about 70 acres, and she believes she could sell off one six-acre parcel for home construction — a transaction that could bring as much income as 40 or 50 years of pear farming on the same piece of ground. "That's a no-brainer to me," Hukari says, adding, "I plan on farming until I retire — but I don't plan on farming 'til I'm broke." Thanks to the passage of Measure 37, the controversial property rights initiative that gave longtime land-owners a way around Oregon’s strict growth-management regime, Hukari will likely get her chance to make that sale....
Oregon’s Hood River Valley: Life After Measure 37 Oregon's uniquely thorough planning goals emenate from the state, but on-the-ground planning rules are promulgated locally. And that's also where Oregon's Measure 37 plays out in the most contentiuous way. Measure 37 is implemented differently in each of the state's 36 counties. Hood River County receives high marks for efficiency, meeting the law's 180-day action deadline for claims and seeking answers to questions that arise, says Steven Andersen, a Columbia Gorge-area property consultant. Nearly all the Measure 37 claimants in the county have hired Andersen to shepherd their claims through the detail-intensive process. On the other hand, says Andersen, the county has followed the state Attorney General's position by holding narrow, pro-planning positions on some unresolved legal questions that limit some claimants' desired land uses. Like, for example, transferability of Measure 37 development rights to new buyers. It is, Anderson says, "a very hard line against restoration of property rights."....
The Legacy of Oregon’s Measure 37, Part III For 30 years, Oregon had the nation's most restrictive land-use laws, and when voters in 2000 passed a property-rights initiative only to see it nullified by the courts, public officials should have seen it as a wake-up call that the rules were alienating citizens. But they didn't, and thus it wasn't surprising that the follow-up, Measure 37, passed in 2004 with 61 percent of the vote. It isn't hard to see what drove Measure 37: Too many planners telling people they couldn't build on their property; too many rural retirement dream-homes nixed (and too many grand development schemes); a gradual erosion of equity as Oregonians saw neighbors achieve things they themselves had had to forgo. And many held a growing suspicion that the state's planning program was about protecting open space, at their expense. It galled landowners to think that their options might be severely curtailed for others' viewing pleasure - with nobody admitting it. That's what happened here. But if Oregon's the restrictive state, how can others around the West be so concerned about the far less-demanding land laws they live with? As it turns out, they are at least concerned enough in six states - Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Washington - to have signed petitions to put similar initiatives on their fall ballots....
Recreation planning under fire A Colorado-based group says a relatively new U.S. Forest Service policy threatens to close thousands of recreation sites nationwide as the agency works to impose a for-profit model on national forest management. The Western No-Fee Coalition report said the policy initiative - called Recreation Site Facility Master Planning - requires the agency to rank all recreation sites and close those that don't measure up. And while Forest Service officials said it's unlikely many recreation sites in this part of the country will be closed, there could be changes in the way some areas are managed. It all boils down to money. Over the last few years, congressional appropriations for recreation programs have been relatively flat, said Terry Knupp, the Northern Region's developed recreation program manager in Missoula. At the same time, there's been a significant increase in the amount of use at campgrounds, rental cabins and other recreational sites, Knupp said....
Plan to save aspen The U.S. Forest Service plans to clear-cut several thousand acres of southwestern Colorado aspen in a last-ditch effort to save dying stands of the slender, creamy- barked tree that's synonymous with the state's high country. Clear-cutting large swaths of forest may seem like an unlikely cure. But the idea - which has not been tried before in Colorado - is to remove all the adult aspen trees in an ailing stand to allow thousands of new seedlings to sprout and grow without having to compete against mature aspen for sunlight. "It's a drastic treatment, very similar to an amputation," said research forester Wayne Shepperd of the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins....
West on track for worst wildfire season in decades There's no sign of a letup to the 2006 wildfire season — almost certain to claim more acres than any season in a half-century — and firefighters are stretched so thin that help has been flown in from New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Nearly 8.7 million acres already have burned, and an unusual string of late-season major fires still are charring land in Nevada, Idaho, Washington and Montana, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise reports. The center coordinates federal, state and local firefighting efforts. "We're on track to set a record in terms of the last 30 to 50 years," said Rick Ochoa, the center's fire weather program manager. "Our biggest season was last year (8.7 million acres) and I think we're going to surpass that in the next few days." The center imported 92 firefighters last month from Australia and New Zealand, and 100 more from Canada to fight fires in Washington state. Also, about 500 active-duty soldiers were deployed in Washington. Supervisors tell of making frantic deals for manpower and equipment such as helicopters and bulldozers....
Wildfires also consume resources The fires are stretching resources to the breaking point and caused the Senate last week to approve a $275 million cash infusion for this year for the strapped firefighting network. The 2006 $1.4 billion firefighting fund was "just about down to zero," said Scott Miller, counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Even Montana's projected $547 million surplus has suffered. Legislative fiscal analyst Terry Johnson said the cost of wildfires was whittling it down to $525 million. "Through the national resource-allocation process, are we getting enough to face these fires? I think the answer is no," said Bob Harrington, Montana's state forester. In Nevada, federal Bureau of Land Management spokesman Chris Hanefeld called it a "challenge" to juggle limited resources among a series of lightning-sparked fires around Elko. A national command team and three elite "hotshot" crews have been flown in to fight fires there. Mike Barsotti, an Oregon Forestry Department spokesman, said supervisors had only half the personnel they needed three days into a fire burning near Sweet Home, north of Eugene....
Judge rejects suit challenging Big Snowy winter travel plan A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a winter travel plan for the Big Snowy Mountains that was negotiated more than two years ago. U.S. District Court Judge Don Molloy of Missoula ruled recently in favor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana Wilderness Association and Montana Snowmobile Association, which negotiated the agreement for winter recreation in the mountain range 15 miles south of Lewistown. The Central Montana Wildlands Association filed a lawsuit to block the winter travel plan in late 2004. Molloy had earlier denied a request by Central Montana Wildlands Association seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the agreement from taking effect. In is latest decision, Molloy applauded those group's efforts to reach a compromise....
Column - Predator control proposal violates the Wilderness Act You are backpacking in your favorite wilderness, enjoying magnificent scenery and solitude, when suddenly the silence is shattered by the rapid-fire thudding of a helicopter rotor. Presently the noisy thing appears above the treetops, then lands in a meadow 100 yards from your camp. Government trappers emerge with guns. Angrily, but with trepidation, you approach and demand to know what's going on. You think this kind of thing is illegal in a wilderness. You are informed that there is a need to dispatch a couple of wolves, a bear and a cougar. Within the U.S. Department of Agriculture resides a little-known agency formerly named Animal Damage Control and now calling itself Wildlife Services. The Animal Damage Control Act of 1931 mandated the Secretary of Agriculture to "promulgate the best methods of eradication [and] suppression [of] mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs, gophers . . . for the protection of stock and other domestic animals . . . and to conduct campaigns for the destruction or control of such animals." Currently, Wildlife Services can conduct predator killing in Forest Service wilderness only under strictly specified, narrow conditions and with case-by-case forester approval. The use of motorized equipment is not allowed. But all this may be about to change....
The anatomy of an energy lease Grand Junction and neighboring Palisade in western Colorado - smack in the middle of the West's energy country - are riding the economic high of the natural gas and oil boom. But now that boom threatens their water supply: The federal Bureau of Land Management has leased a big chunk of the towns' watersheds to an oil and gas company. Community leaders aren't pleased. In their failed attempts to prevent the leasing, they even tried to buy some of the leases themselves. It's a familiar story: The BLM offers a lease on sensitive land, and one or more groups protest. The agency considers the protest, but usually denies it, so another parcel joins the over 225 million Western acres offered for oil and gas development since 1982. The Grand Junction/Palisade watershed story lays out the little-understood process of oil and gas leasing. It also underscores how such leasing represents a long-term and nearly irreversible commitment of the West's natural resources....
Gold or Just a Fever? The bleak sands of the Mojave conceal a bounty of treasure. Native tribes pocketed agate and turquoise long before Nevada's silver rush in the 1860s, which sent fortune-hungry miners scrambling into the Providence, Mescal and Clark mountain ranges. Tent cities sprouted in the sand. Some matured to communities of shelters cobbled from rocks and juniper poles — with most towns building the requisite general store and saloon and sometimes a brothel. Ivanpah, among the largest on the California-Nevada border, boomed to several hundred residents, but it and most smaller outposts went bust when the silver, copper or tin markets crashed. The mining rush slowed to a trickle by the 1930s. Into this desolate landscape wandered Dorr, a prospector with blue eyes, a shoulder-holstered gun and "immaculate table manners," said his nephew Ray Dorr, 78, a retired contractor in Cañon City, Colo., who is writing a book about Kokoweef. Earl Dorr, born in the 1880s to wealthy Colorado cattle ranchers, traveled the Southwest in search of a mine that would make him rich. He would visit Ray's father in Pasadena, striding to the door in a Stetson hat with a sack of penny candy for the kids, whom he entranced with tall tales. Along the way, Dorr either "discovered the richest gold deposit in the United States ... or he was the most imaginative liar in the state of California," his nephew wrote in a 1967 article for Argosy magazine....
Livingston biz breathes life into old sheepherder wagons Jem Blueher has a niche in the ‘‘mobile-home’’ business. ‘‘The original RV, right here,’’ he said, gesturing to one of his restored sheepherders’ wagons. The units were a way to roll the comforts of home into the backcountry as workers traveled with the grazing animals. ‘‘It’s basically an Americanized gypsy wagon,’’ Blueher said. Through his business, Blueher’s Anvil Wagon Works, Blueher, 37, refurbishes old wagons and builds new replicas. Each one, new or old, typically has a bed, benches, a wood stove and a table. At about 11 or 12 feet long and 5½ to 6½ feet wide, the wagons aren’t exactly roomy. But they are a cozy, efficient living space that provides the basics of home. ‘‘The small space, you get used to it,’’ Blueher said. He can say that from experience, having lived in one of his wagons for two years. Herders and ranchers tending animals first used the wagons in the late 1800s. They went out of fashion in the mid-20th century, he said, although some still are in use today....
If you're set on hanging a man, better leave the moonshine home Several ranchers were fed up with cattle rustlers and, determined to make their point, they set off for Apopka to hang the man they suspected was at the root of their problems. On their way, they bought a new rope and two jugs of moonshine, one for the trip up and one for the way back. Halfway through the first bottle, the men stopped at an oak tree. Seems they had never actually hanged a man before and, after a few more slugs, decided they should practice. That required a volunteer, so they all took swigs and volunteered the storyteller. Someone tied the hangman's noose and tossed the end over the biggest branch and tied it off around the trunk. Someone else backed a horse up under the rope and up jumped the volunteer into the saddle. Just as one of the cattlemen lowered the rope around our storyteller's chin and gave it a good pull, one of the drunken cattlemen stumbled and spooked the horse....
Sportsmen vs. Game Farmers: Blame Abounds After Elk Escape Sportsmen across Idaho are furious at elk game farms, after nearly 200 elk escape a farm in eastern Idaho. "Our immediate thoughts from the sportsman's standpoint is that it's simply a train wreck that was simply going to happen. It was a matter of when it was going to happen," Bob Minter, Vice President of the Idaho Sportsmen's Caucus Advisory Council. And they want elk game farms strongly regulated or even banned. "We are concerned to protect our wild stock in this state," Minter said. "And many states have banned game farms. And the sportsmen of the state are probably going to be working towards that." But this Emmett elk rancher says the Chief Joseph Ranch in eastern Idaho was just a bad apple ... and all elk ranches shouldn't be treated the same way. "You're always going to have one in the bunch who might not, I don't think you can, have an accurate reflection on the whole industry by one individual's actions," Kristy Hein, co-owner of the Black Canyon Elk Ranch, told CBS 2 News. "So I think a lot of us are very responsible, we've got a very strong support in Idaho, and we follow the rules and regulations."....
IN THE WEST, A WATER FIGHT OVER QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY It is a strange fight, Montana ranchers say. Raising cattle here in the parched American outback of eastern Montana and Wyoming has always been a battle to find enough water. Now there is more than enough water, but the wrong kind, they say, and they are fighting to keep it out of the river. Mark Fix is a family rancher whose cattle operation depends on water from the Tongue River. Mr. Fix diverts about 2,000 gallons per minute of clear water in the summer to transform a dry river bottom into several emerald green fields of alfalfa, an oasis on dry rangeland. Three crops of hay each year enable him to cut it, bale it and feed it to his cattle during the long winter. “Water means a guaranteed hay crop,” Mr. Fix said. But the search for a type of natural gas called coal bed methane has come to this part of the world in a big way. The gas is found in subterranean coal, and companies are pumping water out of the coal and stripping the gas mixed with it. Once the gas is out, the huge volumes of water become waste in a region that gets less than 12 inches of rain a year. In some cases, the water has benefited ranchers, who use it to water their livestock. But there is far more than cows can drink, and it needs to be dumped. The companies have been pumping the wastewater into drainages that flow into the Tongue River, as well as two other small rivers that flow north into Montana, the Powder and Little Powder Rivers. Ranchers say the water contains high levels of sodium and if it is spread on a field, it can destroy the ability to grow anything. It makes the soil impervious,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who is a soil scientist. “It changes it from a living, breathing thing into concrete.”....
Forest Guardians: Environmental group bids on grazing leases Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians is bidding for two more grazing leases totaling 2,000 acres of New Mexico state trust lands. The environmental organization — which opposes livestock grazing on public lands — currently holds the leases to three former grazing allotments totaling more than 3,000 acres. The first one the group acquired in the mid-1990s was along the Rio Embudo. In the current competitive bid, Forest Guardians offered to pay at least twice what the ranchers are currently paying. Revenues from the leases benefit the public schools and colleges in the state. The site of one of the competing bids includes 640 acres and more than a mile of the Rio Puerco northwest of Albuquerque, which contains potential habitat for the endangered Southwest willow flycatcher. The current lease paid by the rancher is $500 a year, according to Forest Guardians. The second site is a 1,440-acre parcel located northwest of Alamogordo with more than a mile of the Lost River, which provides an essential water source for the state endangered White Sands Pupfish. The current lease is $900 a year....
Water deal on Nevada agenda The battle over the Southern Nevada Water Authority's controversial groundwater pumping project has been playing out for months in the forum of public opinion. Now the proposal - which calls for tapping aquifers under the arid valleys of eastern Nevada and western Utah and shipping nearly 200,000 acre-feet of water annually to Las Vegas via a pipeline network - goes before the person who counts most: Nevada state engineer Tracy Taylor. Three weeks of hearings commence in Carson City on Monday to assess whether the authority's $2 billion project should be approved. For both sides, the stakes could not be higher. The water authority's general manager, Pat Mulroy, says the very future of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County is on the line. With its Colorado River allotment of water about maxed out, Mulroy has argued that her agency has no choice but to seek alternatives for one of the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan areas....
Explosive technique approved to kill prairie dogs Montrose Regional Airport has a new tool for exterminating prairie dogs. The Colorado Division of Wildlife Commission approved the Rodenator at Thursday’s meeting. The device combines propane and oxygen, which is pumped into the burrow and detonated. Jeff Precup, Montrose Regional Airport operations manager, said after the meeting that prairie dogs are a major problem at the airport. Because the facility is located within the city limits, it is limited in the methods it can use to reduce the rodent’s numbers. Precup said the new method will help the airport increase safety because it can limit the number of prairie dogs on the runways. Ron Dent, a representative of the Colorado Airport Operators, said airports around the state could benefit from the tool. He runs the La Plata County Airport and said prairie dogs are a problem....
Editorial - Untangling barbed wire in Cascade-Siskiyou M ount Hood is casting such a big political shadow these days that hardly anyone noticed when Oregon's two U.S. senators introduced legislation to create thousands of acres of new wilderness in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument near the Oregon-California border. The proposal deserves broader attention because it is the result of an unusual and hard-won compromise between Southern Oregon cattle ranchers and environmental groups. The legislation, introduced Wednesday by Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, includes language that should lead to a buyout of 17 ranchers whose cattle graze on 100,000 acres in and around the Cascade-Siskiyou monument. If Congress approves the creative legislation, it could end years of disputes over grazing, avoid a costly lawsuit and forever remove cows from one of the state's most biologically diverse and important natural areas. It's taken years to get this agreement that's now broadly supported by virtually everyone with a stake in the Cascade-Siskiyou area. The agreement is backed by the Oregon Cattleman's Association, environmental groups and virtually all of the political leadership in Southern Oregon. The concern now is that not much time is left in the congressional session to get the Cascade-Siskiyou legislation through this year. What's really needed is the active support of Oregon Rep. Greg Walden, R.-Ore., whose district includes the Cascade-Siskiyou monument. Walden has the clout in the House to make or break this legislation, and we urge him to join all the groups pushing the compromise forward....
Column - Lawsuits Sometimes Necessary While Working on Forest Solutions Recently I had the privilege of testifying before the U.S. Senate during an oversight hearing on the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). Without question, the hearing was dominated by a two-hour grilling Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth received from eleven senators of both political parties. Turns out that despite much cheerleading and self-congratulating about the successes of HFRA, three years since the law was passed little has actually been accomplished. This is especially true here in the Northern Rockies where only 103 acres of fuel reduction has been accomplished under the act, including zero acres in Montana. Apparently the Missoulian attributes much of this inaction to the fact that our organization filed a lawsuit on one single HFRA project: the Bitterroot National Forest's Middle East Fork project, which proposes to mix some bona-fide fuel reduction work with cutting down large trees in previously unlogged forests miles away from homes within critical elk and bighorn sheep habitat. Unfortunately, the July 30 Missoulian editorial ignored many facts surrounding this project, including the Forest Service's own analysis, which found this project will increase fire severity for up to three years because the agency has made it a top priority to cut down the largest trees first, while leaving slash and small trees behind....
The Legacy of Oregon’s Measure 37, Part I Camille Hukari’s family has been farming in Oregon’s Hood River Valley for decades, and she says she has no intention of giving up now. But she is willing to make a deal. Truth be told, Hukari would love to trade the vagaries of the pear business for some financial security. She and her family farm about 70 acres, and she believes she could sell off one six-acre parcel for home construction — a transaction that could bring as much income as 40 or 50 years of pear farming on the same piece of ground. "That's a no-brainer to me," Hukari says, adding, "I plan on farming until I retire — but I don't plan on farming 'til I'm broke." Thanks to the passage of Measure 37, the controversial property rights initiative that gave longtime land-owners a way around Oregon’s strict growth-management regime, Hukari will likely get her chance to make that sale....
Oregon’s Hood River Valley: Life After Measure 37 Oregon's uniquely thorough planning goals emenate from the state, but on-the-ground planning rules are promulgated locally. And that's also where Oregon's Measure 37 plays out in the most contentiuous way. Measure 37 is implemented differently in each of the state's 36 counties. Hood River County receives high marks for efficiency, meeting the law's 180-day action deadline for claims and seeking answers to questions that arise, says Steven Andersen, a Columbia Gorge-area property consultant. Nearly all the Measure 37 claimants in the county have hired Andersen to shepherd their claims through the detail-intensive process. On the other hand, says Andersen, the county has followed the state Attorney General's position by holding narrow, pro-planning positions on some unresolved legal questions that limit some claimants' desired land uses. Like, for example, transferability of Measure 37 development rights to new buyers. It is, Anderson says, "a very hard line against restoration of property rights."....
The Legacy of Oregon’s Measure 37, Part III For 30 years, Oregon had the nation's most restrictive land-use laws, and when voters in 2000 passed a property-rights initiative only to see it nullified by the courts, public officials should have seen it as a wake-up call that the rules were alienating citizens. But they didn't, and thus it wasn't surprising that the follow-up, Measure 37, passed in 2004 with 61 percent of the vote. It isn't hard to see what drove Measure 37: Too many planners telling people they couldn't build on their property; too many rural retirement dream-homes nixed (and too many grand development schemes); a gradual erosion of equity as Oregonians saw neighbors achieve things they themselves had had to forgo. And many held a growing suspicion that the state's planning program was about protecting open space, at their expense. It galled landowners to think that their options might be severely curtailed for others' viewing pleasure - with nobody admitting it. That's what happened here. But if Oregon's the restrictive state, how can others around the West be so concerned about the far less-demanding land laws they live with? As it turns out, they are at least concerned enough in six states - Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Washington - to have signed petitions to put similar initiatives on their fall ballots....
Recreation planning under fire A Colorado-based group says a relatively new U.S. Forest Service policy threatens to close thousands of recreation sites nationwide as the agency works to impose a for-profit model on national forest management. The Western No-Fee Coalition report said the policy initiative - called Recreation Site Facility Master Planning - requires the agency to rank all recreation sites and close those that don't measure up. And while Forest Service officials said it's unlikely many recreation sites in this part of the country will be closed, there could be changes in the way some areas are managed. It all boils down to money. Over the last few years, congressional appropriations for recreation programs have been relatively flat, said Terry Knupp, the Northern Region's developed recreation program manager in Missoula. At the same time, there's been a significant increase in the amount of use at campgrounds, rental cabins and other recreational sites, Knupp said....
Plan to save aspen The U.S. Forest Service plans to clear-cut several thousand acres of southwestern Colorado aspen in a last-ditch effort to save dying stands of the slender, creamy- barked tree that's synonymous with the state's high country. Clear-cutting large swaths of forest may seem like an unlikely cure. But the idea - which has not been tried before in Colorado - is to remove all the adult aspen trees in an ailing stand to allow thousands of new seedlings to sprout and grow without having to compete against mature aspen for sunlight. "It's a drastic treatment, very similar to an amputation," said research forester Wayne Shepperd of the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins....
West on track for worst wildfire season in decades There's no sign of a letup to the 2006 wildfire season — almost certain to claim more acres than any season in a half-century — and firefighters are stretched so thin that help has been flown in from New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Nearly 8.7 million acres already have burned, and an unusual string of late-season major fires still are charring land in Nevada, Idaho, Washington and Montana, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise reports. The center coordinates federal, state and local firefighting efforts. "We're on track to set a record in terms of the last 30 to 50 years," said Rick Ochoa, the center's fire weather program manager. "Our biggest season was last year (8.7 million acres) and I think we're going to surpass that in the next few days." The center imported 92 firefighters last month from Australia and New Zealand, and 100 more from Canada to fight fires in Washington state. Also, about 500 active-duty soldiers were deployed in Washington. Supervisors tell of making frantic deals for manpower and equipment such as helicopters and bulldozers....
Wildfires also consume resources The fires are stretching resources to the breaking point and caused the Senate last week to approve a $275 million cash infusion for this year for the strapped firefighting network. The 2006 $1.4 billion firefighting fund was "just about down to zero," said Scott Miller, counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Even Montana's projected $547 million surplus has suffered. Legislative fiscal analyst Terry Johnson said the cost of wildfires was whittling it down to $525 million. "Through the national resource-allocation process, are we getting enough to face these fires? I think the answer is no," said Bob Harrington, Montana's state forester. In Nevada, federal Bureau of Land Management spokesman Chris Hanefeld called it a "challenge" to juggle limited resources among a series of lightning-sparked fires around Elko. A national command team and three elite "hotshot" crews have been flown in to fight fires there. Mike Barsotti, an Oregon Forestry Department spokesman, said supervisors had only half the personnel they needed three days into a fire burning near Sweet Home, north of Eugene....
Judge rejects suit challenging Big Snowy winter travel plan A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging a winter travel plan for the Big Snowy Mountains that was negotiated more than two years ago. U.S. District Court Judge Don Molloy of Missoula ruled recently in favor of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana Wilderness Association and Montana Snowmobile Association, which negotiated the agreement for winter recreation in the mountain range 15 miles south of Lewistown. The Central Montana Wildlands Association filed a lawsuit to block the winter travel plan in late 2004. Molloy had earlier denied a request by Central Montana Wildlands Association seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the agreement from taking effect. In is latest decision, Molloy applauded those group's efforts to reach a compromise....
Column - Predator control proposal violates the Wilderness Act You are backpacking in your favorite wilderness, enjoying magnificent scenery and solitude, when suddenly the silence is shattered by the rapid-fire thudding of a helicopter rotor. Presently the noisy thing appears above the treetops, then lands in a meadow 100 yards from your camp. Government trappers emerge with guns. Angrily, but with trepidation, you approach and demand to know what's going on. You think this kind of thing is illegal in a wilderness. You are informed that there is a need to dispatch a couple of wolves, a bear and a cougar. Within the U.S. Department of Agriculture resides a little-known agency formerly named Animal Damage Control and now calling itself Wildlife Services. The Animal Damage Control Act of 1931 mandated the Secretary of Agriculture to "promulgate the best methods of eradication [and] suppression [of] mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs, gophers . . . for the protection of stock and other domestic animals . . . and to conduct campaigns for the destruction or control of such animals." Currently, Wildlife Services can conduct predator killing in Forest Service wilderness only under strictly specified, narrow conditions and with case-by-case forester approval. The use of motorized equipment is not allowed. But all this may be about to change....
The anatomy of an energy lease Grand Junction and neighboring Palisade in western Colorado - smack in the middle of the West's energy country - are riding the economic high of the natural gas and oil boom. But now that boom threatens their water supply: The federal Bureau of Land Management has leased a big chunk of the towns' watersheds to an oil and gas company. Community leaders aren't pleased. In their failed attempts to prevent the leasing, they even tried to buy some of the leases themselves. It's a familiar story: The BLM offers a lease on sensitive land, and one or more groups protest. The agency considers the protest, but usually denies it, so another parcel joins the over 225 million Western acres offered for oil and gas development since 1982. The Grand Junction/Palisade watershed story lays out the little-understood process of oil and gas leasing. It also underscores how such leasing represents a long-term and nearly irreversible commitment of the West's natural resources....
Gold or Just a Fever? The bleak sands of the Mojave conceal a bounty of treasure. Native tribes pocketed agate and turquoise long before Nevada's silver rush in the 1860s, which sent fortune-hungry miners scrambling into the Providence, Mescal and Clark mountain ranges. Tent cities sprouted in the sand. Some matured to communities of shelters cobbled from rocks and juniper poles — with most towns building the requisite general store and saloon and sometimes a brothel. Ivanpah, among the largest on the California-Nevada border, boomed to several hundred residents, but it and most smaller outposts went bust when the silver, copper or tin markets crashed. The mining rush slowed to a trickle by the 1930s. Into this desolate landscape wandered Dorr, a prospector with blue eyes, a shoulder-holstered gun and "immaculate table manners," said his nephew Ray Dorr, 78, a retired contractor in Cañon City, Colo., who is writing a book about Kokoweef. Earl Dorr, born in the 1880s to wealthy Colorado cattle ranchers, traveled the Southwest in search of a mine that would make him rich. He would visit Ray's father in Pasadena, striding to the door in a Stetson hat with a sack of penny candy for the kids, whom he entranced with tall tales. Along the way, Dorr either "discovered the richest gold deposit in the United States ... or he was the most imaginative liar in the state of California," his nephew wrote in a 1967 article for Argosy magazine....
Livingston biz breathes life into old sheepherder wagons Jem Blueher has a niche in the ‘‘mobile-home’’ business. ‘‘The original RV, right here,’’ he said, gesturing to one of his restored sheepherders’ wagons. The units were a way to roll the comforts of home into the backcountry as workers traveled with the grazing animals. ‘‘It’s basically an Americanized gypsy wagon,’’ Blueher said. Through his business, Blueher’s Anvil Wagon Works, Blueher, 37, refurbishes old wagons and builds new replicas. Each one, new or old, typically has a bed, benches, a wood stove and a table. At about 11 or 12 feet long and 5½ to 6½ feet wide, the wagons aren’t exactly roomy. But they are a cozy, efficient living space that provides the basics of home. ‘‘The small space, you get used to it,’’ Blueher said. He can say that from experience, having lived in one of his wagons for two years. Herders and ranchers tending animals first used the wagons in the late 1800s. They went out of fashion in the mid-20th century, he said, although some still are in use today....
If you're set on hanging a man, better leave the moonshine home Several ranchers were fed up with cattle rustlers and, determined to make their point, they set off for Apopka to hang the man they suspected was at the root of their problems. On their way, they bought a new rope and two jugs of moonshine, one for the trip up and one for the way back. Halfway through the first bottle, the men stopped at an oak tree. Seems they had never actually hanged a man before and, after a few more slugs, decided they should practice. That required a volunteer, so they all took swigs and volunteered the storyteller. Someone tied the hangman's noose and tossed the end over the biggest branch and tied it off around the trunk. Someone else backed a horse up under the rope and up jumped the volunteer into the saddle. Just as one of the cattlemen lowered the rope around our storyteller's chin and gave it a good pull, one of the drunken cattlemen stumbled and spooked the horse....
Sunday, September 10, 2006
CBS NEWS & EPA WHISTLEBLOWER
Insider: EPA Lied About WTC Air
A scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency is charging that the agency lied when it claimed the air at ground zero was safe to breathe in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. In an exclusive interview, Cate Jenkins. Ph.D., tells The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith that wasn't so, and EPA officials knew it, but covered up the truth. Many workers who sifted through the wreckage have since come down with serious respiratory illnesses. On Sept. 13, 2001, then-EPA head Christine Todd Whitman told reporters at ground zero, "We have not seen any reason — any readings that have indicated any health hazard." Asked by Smith if EPA officials lied, Dr. Jenkins responded, "Yes, they did." Though Dr. Jenkins didn't personally conduct the research at ground zero, it's her opinion that the EPA knew the dust there had asbestos and PH levels that were dangerously high. "This dust was highly caustic," Dr. Jenkins told Smith, "in some cases, as caustic and alkaline as Drano." Dr. Jenkins added that the agency said "nothing whatsoever" about the alkalinity of the dust. She wrote memos accusing the EPA of lying...In an interview to air on 60 Minutes Sunday night, Whitman, the former EPA head, tells Katie Couric that, when EPA officials said the air was safe, they were talking about the air around lower Manhattan, not the air directly at ground zero. Whitman added that the agency warned ground zero workers to wear protection. She said her agency didn't have the authority to order them to wear masks, but New York City officials did....
Looks like CBS News has once again, failed to check the credibility of their source, and Stephen Spruiell over at Media Blog has caught them at it. Dr. Jenkins sued EPA for failure to grant a salary increase, because of her whistleblowing acting activities, according to her. Dr. Jenkins lost the complaint, and here are some quotes from the decision of the administrative law judge who handled her case:
Getting right to the point, Cate Jenkins is the most disingenuous, evasive, and self- serving witness I have ever observed. She is an intense woman who believes that any means are acceptable if, in her view, the ends are desirable, including lying (even under oath), searching through co-workers' personal effects, and leaking confidential information. She further believes that any person, rule, or law which stands in her way can be ignored. She has acted and continues to act as if she believes she is the only person at EPA who is concerned with the public interest and everyone else is selling out to the industries regulated by EPA...Complainant's utter lack of credibility could only truly be appreciated through personally observing her six days of testimony. I do not often rely solely on demeanor in determining a witness's credibility, but the complainant's demeanor was so disquieting that it is dispositive here by itself. Complainant often appeared to be in her own world, divorced from reality. She frequently answered questions with long discourses that quickly became unfocused. During her period on the witness stand complainant lied with impunity and did not appear the least embarrassed when she was caught in these lies (e.g., TR 968-82, 1014-17).
You can read all of Spruiell's post here.
Looks like Dan Rather's departure hasn't taught CBS News a damn thing.
Insider: EPA Lied About WTC Air
A scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency is charging that the agency lied when it claimed the air at ground zero was safe to breathe in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. In an exclusive interview, Cate Jenkins. Ph.D., tells The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith that wasn't so, and EPA officials knew it, but covered up the truth. Many workers who sifted through the wreckage have since come down with serious respiratory illnesses. On Sept. 13, 2001, then-EPA head Christine Todd Whitman told reporters at ground zero, "We have not seen any reason — any readings that have indicated any health hazard." Asked by Smith if EPA officials lied, Dr. Jenkins responded, "Yes, they did." Though Dr. Jenkins didn't personally conduct the research at ground zero, it's her opinion that the EPA knew the dust there had asbestos and PH levels that were dangerously high. "This dust was highly caustic," Dr. Jenkins told Smith, "in some cases, as caustic and alkaline as Drano." Dr. Jenkins added that the agency said "nothing whatsoever" about the alkalinity of the dust. She wrote memos accusing the EPA of lying...In an interview to air on 60 Minutes Sunday night, Whitman, the former EPA head, tells Katie Couric that, when EPA officials said the air was safe, they were talking about the air around lower Manhattan, not the air directly at ground zero. Whitman added that the agency warned ground zero workers to wear protection. She said her agency didn't have the authority to order them to wear masks, but New York City officials did....
Looks like CBS News has once again, failed to check the credibility of their source, and Stephen Spruiell over at Media Blog has caught them at it. Dr. Jenkins sued EPA for failure to grant a salary increase, because of her whistleblowing acting activities, according to her. Dr. Jenkins lost the complaint, and here are some quotes from the decision of the administrative law judge who handled her case:
Getting right to the point, Cate Jenkins is the most disingenuous, evasive, and self- serving witness I have ever observed. She is an intense woman who believes that any means are acceptable if, in her view, the ends are desirable, including lying (even under oath), searching through co-workers' personal effects, and leaking confidential information. She further believes that any person, rule, or law which stands in her way can be ignored. She has acted and continues to act as if she believes she is the only person at EPA who is concerned with the public interest and everyone else is selling out to the industries regulated by EPA...Complainant's utter lack of credibility could only truly be appreciated through personally observing her six days of testimony. I do not often rely solely on demeanor in determining a witness's credibility, but the complainant's demeanor was so disquieting that it is dispositive here by itself. Complainant often appeared to be in her own world, divorced from reality. She frequently answered questions with long discourses that quickly became unfocused. During her period on the witness stand complainant lied with impunity and did not appear the least embarrassed when she was caught in these lies (e.g., TR 968-82, 1014-17).
You can read all of Spruiell's post here.
Looks like Dan Rather's departure hasn't taught CBS News a damn thing.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
COWS IN THE NEWS
By Julie Carter
We apparently have very normal and perhaps boring cows here in this part of the world. You know, ones that just say "moo" and not "yo quiero Taco Bell?"
Within five days of each other, two reports of "animal peculiarity" about cows hit international news.
Cows with accents
A group of British herdsmen reported that their cows have regional accents - mooing with different drawls consistent with the regional accents of their owners. While phonetics experts say the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds, I began trying to recall any regional sounds to the mooing of the cattle I've heard.
I feel certain there was not a southern drawl in the bunch of all the thousands of yearlings I've heard bellering as they unloaded off trucks from Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. They had come to the high country for a summer of fattening. They might have looked a little funny but seemed to speak our language.
British experts attribute the accents to peer groups, saying the cows' accents could result from spending time with farmers with differing accents. Here in the west cattle learn to speak windmill and feed truck, both offering survival necessities. But the true equalizer that crosses all language barriers with cattle is a nylon catch-rope in the hands of an able cowboy.
No cow hugging
The Swiss have laid down the law to hikers and outdoorsman - Keep your distance. Avoid eye contact. And even if it looks cute, never hug a Swiss cow.
Responding to numerous "reports of unpleasant meetings between hikers and cattle" along the Alpine trails, the Swiss Hiking Federation laid down a few ground rules.
"Leave the animals in peace and do not touch them. Never caress a calf. Do not wave sticks."
Is it not distressing that we have digressed to a people that need to be told not to hug a cow?
Even more entertaining than this little news clip was the blog of "cow" stories that followed it.
One purveyor of tall tales said he lived in Texas (of course) with specially bred cows that if you punched them in the nose just right, they would stop charging. He called himself an authentic Texas cowpuncher.
A lady from rural area in Virginia said she spent a day in the pasture behind her home playing with the cows and related to them on a metaphysical level not known to us average carnivores. She said she never ate beef again.
Tying all this together was the advice from a rancher who runs his cattle on open range. He concurred that bovines can be unpredictable and strange.
His advice was for minimal contact but if a person insisted on being friendly with the cows, he suggested that in his area of Northern California the cattle prefer to be spoken to in Spanish. He surmised that Swiss cows probably didn't like American English language and would respond better to German or French.
I'm not a big advocate of learning a foreign language just so I can communicate in my own country. I think the cattle just need to learn to speak the drawl of the West that goes something like "get your sorry hide through the gate and don't run off and leave that calf!"
© Julie Carter 2006
COWS IN THE NEWS
By Julie Carter
We apparently have very normal and perhaps boring cows here in this part of the world. You know, ones that just say "moo" and not "yo quiero Taco Bell?"
Within five days of each other, two reports of "animal peculiarity" about cows hit international news.
Cows with accents
A group of British herdsmen reported that their cows have regional accents - mooing with different drawls consistent with the regional accents of their owners. While phonetics experts say the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds, I began trying to recall any regional sounds to the mooing of the cattle I've heard.
I feel certain there was not a southern drawl in the bunch of all the thousands of yearlings I've heard bellering as they unloaded off trucks from Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. They had come to the high country for a summer of fattening. They might have looked a little funny but seemed to speak our language.
British experts attribute the accents to peer groups, saying the cows' accents could result from spending time with farmers with differing accents. Here in the west cattle learn to speak windmill and feed truck, both offering survival necessities. But the true equalizer that crosses all language barriers with cattle is a nylon catch-rope in the hands of an able cowboy.
No cow hugging
The Swiss have laid down the law to hikers and outdoorsman - Keep your distance. Avoid eye contact. And even if it looks cute, never hug a Swiss cow.
Responding to numerous "reports of unpleasant meetings between hikers and cattle" along the Alpine trails, the Swiss Hiking Federation laid down a few ground rules.
"Leave the animals in peace and do not touch them. Never caress a calf. Do not wave sticks."
Is it not distressing that we have digressed to a people that need to be told not to hug a cow?
Even more entertaining than this little news clip was the blog of "cow" stories that followed it.
One purveyor of tall tales said he lived in Texas (of course) with specially bred cows that if you punched them in the nose just right, they would stop charging. He called himself an authentic Texas cowpuncher.
A lady from rural area in Virginia said she spent a day in the pasture behind her home playing with the cows and related to them on a metaphysical level not known to us average carnivores. She said she never ate beef again.
Tying all this together was the advice from a rancher who runs his cattle on open range. He concurred that bovines can be unpredictable and strange.
His advice was for minimal contact but if a person insisted on being friendly with the cows, he suggested that in his area of Northern California the cattle prefer to be spoken to in Spanish. He surmised that Swiss cows probably didn't like American English language and would respond better to German or French.
I'm not a big advocate of learning a foreign language just so I can communicate in my own country. I think the cattle just need to learn to speak the drawl of the West that goes something like "get your sorry hide through the gate and don't run off and leave that calf!"
© Julie Carter 2006
OPINION/COMMENTARY
This Land Is Whose Land?
This past winter, when last we left Logan Darrow Clements in the snows of New Hampshire, he was engaged in a modest, civic-minded enterprise. He was trying to steal the house of Supreme Court justice David Souter. Normally not moved to vigilantism, the L.A.-based former Internet entrepreneur had been inspired by the Supreme Court's June 2005 decision in the case known as Kelo v. New London. By a 5-4 vote, the high court had essentially allowed cities to invoke the power of eminent domain to seize private property not for roads or schools, as is common practice, but for less noble purposes, such as indulging Biff McFranchiser's discovery that your land is the ideal location from which to sell hamburgers. The cities, which would force you to sell at whatever "fair market" price they demanded on threat of condemnation, would get to keep the toy at the bottom of your Unhappy Meal, in the form of higher tax revenue. Biff, to the cities' thinking, would generate more income for their coffers than you would by, say, having Pictionary parties or sitting on your couch watching TV. In place of Souter's lifelong homestead, Clements intended to erect the Lost Liberty Hotel, where defiant B&B'ers could celebrate the sanctity of private property while dining on Revenge Soup, served cold at the Just Deserts Café. Instead of Gideon Bibles, the rooms would offer Atlas Shrugged, since the objectivist Clements is a follower of Ayn Rand. Though Clements's move was an impulsive act ("a late-night idea I threw up on the Internet"), he wasn't slashing Souter's tires or boiling his cats. Rather, he was doing something truly radical: attempting to make a judge live by his own ruling. As a publicity stunt, it was superior, a candy-coated middle finger with a chewy moral center. It gained Clements buckets of ink, including the cover of this magazine. That's considerably more attention than his brand of leave-us-alone libertarianism garnered when he finished 131st out of 135 candidates in the California gubernatorial recall election in 2003. But despite his talent for generating headlines, Clements couldn't get across the finish line in Souter's hometown of Weare. The candidates for selectman he'd helped recruit went down in a March election, and a ballot initiative he'd co-masterminded was gutted by underhanded parliamentary maneuvering. The Live-Free-Or-Die types in Weare, it turned out, stymied Clements not because they agreed with the Supreme Court's ruling, but because they didn't, believing it wrong to seize private property even if it belonged to one of the justices who'd given others license to steal. Clements, however, is not easily discouraged....
PROPERTY RIGHTS ATTACK CONTINUES
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Kelo v. New London decision, ruled that the private property of one American could be taken and given to another American as long as it served a public purpose. The public purpose in that case was greater tax revenues for the fiscally strapped city of New London. The city figured that if it used its powers of eminent domain to force private homeowners out and then transferred their property to developers to build commercial property, there would be greater tax revenues. Many Americans were angered by this violation of both the letter and spirit of the Fifth Amendment, which in part reads, ". . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Public purpose is not the same as public use. Public use means property can be taken, with just compensation, to build a road, a highway, a fort or some other public project. My response to the Kelo decision was, "See, I told you so." For decades, Americans have been willing to allow politicians to trample over private property rights, so why should we be surprised when politicians become more emboldened? Here's a brief history. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fined one landowner $300,000 for "destroying" wetlands because he cleared a backed-up drainage ditch on his property. The Fish & Wildlife Service told one landowner he couldn't use 1,000 acres of his property so the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker could have a place to dwell. Another owner was prevented from clearing dry brush near his home to make a firebreak because it would disturb the Stephens kangaroo rat. Building a deck on his house brought one owner a $30,000 fine for casting a shadow on wetlands....
NUCLEAR POWER TO THE RESCUE
A revolutionary nuclear energy technology is being designed and built in South Africa, but with suppliers and partners in many other nations, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
The 165-megawatt Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are small and inexpensive enough to provide electrical power for emerging economies, individual cities or large industrial complexes. However, multiple units can be connected and operated from one control room, to meet the needs of large or growing communities.
Process heat from PBMR reactors can also be used directly to desalinate sea water, produce hydrogen from water, turn coal, oil shale and tar sands into liquid petroleum, and power refineries, chemical plants and tertiary recovery operations at mature oil fields.
* The fuel comes in the form of baseball-sized graphite balls, each containing sugar-grain-sized particles of uranium encapsulated in high-temperature graphite and ceramic; this makes them easier and safer to handle than conventional fuel rods, says Pretoria-based nuclear physicist Dr. Kelvin Kemm.
* It also reduces waste disposal problems and the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation; conventional fuel rod assemblies are removed long before complete burn-up, to avoid damage to their housings; but PBMR fuel balls are burnt to depletion.
* Because they are cooled by helium, the modules can be sited anywhere, not just near bodies of water, and reactors cannot suffer meltdowns.
* Since PBMRs can be built where needed, long, expensive power lines are unnecessary; moreover, the simple design permits rapid construction (in about 24 months), and the plants don't emit carbon dioxide.
PBMR technology could soon generate millions of jobs in research, design and construction industries -- and millions in industries that will prosper from having plentiful low-cost heat and electricity. It will help save habitats that are now being chopped into firewood -- and improve health and living standards for countless families, says Driessen.
Source: Paul Driessen, "Nuclear power to the rescue," Washington Times, September 5, 2006.
For text (subscription required):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060904-102546-8725r.htm
GROWTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Policies that prevent developing countries from acquiring efficient energy resources and infrastructure limit poor nations' ability to improve the environment. Research has shown that this holds true across time and cultures.
For example:
* In one survey, levels of sulfur dioxide in 42 countries and smoke (soot) in 19 countries declined as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) rose to between $6,700 and $8,450 (2003 dollars) -- other surveys have found similar results for a broader array of air pollutants.
* A survey of 10 countries found that 11 of 14 water pollutants declined as income rose; for example, nitrates declined after per capita income reached $3,400 and total fecal coliform bacteria declined at $5,000 (2003 dollars).
* A study of deforestation in 64 developing countries found the rate at which land was cleared declined as incomes reached $7,900 to $9,100 (2001 dollars).
* A survey of 68 countries found that water withdrawals from rivers and streams for agriculture fell as incomes reached $14,300.
In the United States, environmental quality has significantly improved as a direct consequence of enormous and sustained investments that only a rich nation can afford. As a result of this wealth and investment, U.S. air quality has improved remarkably. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that from 1970 to 2004:
* Carbon monoxide decreased 55.8 percent, while nitrogen oxides fell 30.1 percent.
* Sulfur dioxide -- the primary component of acid rain -- decreased 51.3 percent, volatile organic compounds decreased 55.5 percent and lead decreased a dramatic 98.6 percent.
* During the same period, GDP increased 158 percent, miles traveled by cars and trucks rose 143 percent and energy consumption grew 45 percent.
Source: Pete Geddes, "Constructive Thinking about Climate Change, Part II," National Center for Policy Analysis No. 570, September 8, 2006.
For text:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba570/
Biotech Forests
Last March, activists at the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP-8) for the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Curitiba, Brazil called for a global moratorium on genetically modified trees (GM trees). The activists claimed that genetically enhanced trees could harm the environment and the livelihoods of indigenous and local communities. In response, the COP-8 passed a resolution recommending the CBD signatories "take a precautionary approach when addressing the issue of genetically modified trees." The precautionary approach "recognizes that the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing decisions where there is a risk of serious or irreversible harm." In general, it is chiefly decisions that would permit the deployment of new technologies that the precautionary approach postpones. We shall see that this line of attack cuts both ways when considering the effects of genetically enhanced trees. In response to the COP-8 resolution, the United Nations Environment Programme is considering a global moratorium on the planting of genetically modified trees. UNEP is accepting comments on the proposed moratorium until September 1. Are GM trees a danger to the natural environment? Opponents claim that the potential effects of GM trees include the contamination of native forests, the destruction of biodiversity and wildlife, loss of fresh water, the collapse native forest ecosystems, and cultural destruction of forest based traditional communities and severe human health impacts. What biotech opponents mean by "contamination" is that GM trees could interbreed with conventional trees passing along their modified traits. That could happen, but is that a real threat to native forests? For example, one of the traits that biotechnologists have modified is boosting soft cellulose and reducing tough lignin fiber in wood. Such trees are easier to turn into paper and produce much less waste. However, trees with this bioengineered trait would have great difficulty surviving in the wild, so it is very unlikely to spread to native trees. Oregon State University forestry professor Steven Strauss dismisses activist concerns over GM trees somehow wiping out wild forests as "sheer nonsense." As for destroying biodiversity and wildlife, GM trees are much more likely to help than to harm. How? By boosting the productivity of tree plantations. Opponents dismiss tree plantations as "green deserts" devoid of the natural biodiversity of wild forests. Actually, tree plantations do harbor a lot of wild species, but even if they didn't they would still offer significant environmental benefits. Right now about one-third of the world's industrial wood comes from tree plantations and if it could all come from tree plantations that would dramatically relieve pressure to harvest natural forests. An Israeli biotech company claims to have been able to engineer eucalyptus trees that grow four times faster than conventional trees. The modified trees are being field tested by a major Brazilian forestry company. If it works, this means that more trees can be grown on less land....
Protecting the Environment Through the Ownership Society — Part One Subsidizing Disaster: Flood Insurance
When people own property and are fully responsible for losses due to their poor land use or development decisions, they are less likely to build or rebuild in areas regularly prone to flooding or erosion. This link — between a person's ownership of property and responsibility for their land-use decisions — disciplines people who use their property badly. Unfortunately, a host of government programs break this link by subsidizing unwise housing and commercial development decisions. All too often the result is lost lives, destroyed property and livelihoods, and environmental destruction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) flood control program, federal flood insurance and Corps beach replenishment projects subsidize construction in flood-prone areas, encourage high-risk development and harm environmentally sensitive areas. The federal government began assuming responsibility for flood control with the 1917 Flood Control Act, which called for a comprehensive flood control program for the lower Mississippi and Sacramento Rivers . Federal flood control efforts under the Corps have expanded ever since. In 1929, the private insurance industry abandoned coverage of flood losses. 69 And in 1934, federal disaster relief was made available to victims of all natural disasters, including floods — this relief has at various times included low-interest or no-interest loans and outright grants or gifts of money, housing, food, etc. The Flood Control Act of 1936 created the first truly national flood control program. It called for the construction of about 250 projects using funds for work relief. Funding for initial construction was set at $310 million and $10 million was appropriated to complete examinations and surveys. 70 The Act also addressed the growing desire to reduce flood damage by instructing the USDA to develop plans to reduce runoff from agriculture and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop engineering plans for downstream projects. By 1942, with the release of Gilbert F. White's Human Adjustment to Floods: A Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the United States , 71 it was already becoming apparent that flood control efforts were exacerbating rather than reducing the human and economic toll from floods....
This Land Is Whose Land?
This past winter, when last we left Logan Darrow Clements in the snows of New Hampshire, he was engaged in a modest, civic-minded enterprise. He was trying to steal the house of Supreme Court justice David Souter. Normally not moved to vigilantism, the L.A.-based former Internet entrepreneur had been inspired by the Supreme Court's June 2005 decision in the case known as Kelo v. New London. By a 5-4 vote, the high court had essentially allowed cities to invoke the power of eminent domain to seize private property not for roads or schools, as is common practice, but for less noble purposes, such as indulging Biff McFranchiser's discovery that your land is the ideal location from which to sell hamburgers. The cities, which would force you to sell at whatever "fair market" price they demanded on threat of condemnation, would get to keep the toy at the bottom of your Unhappy Meal, in the form of higher tax revenue. Biff, to the cities' thinking, would generate more income for their coffers than you would by, say, having Pictionary parties or sitting on your couch watching TV. In place of Souter's lifelong homestead, Clements intended to erect the Lost Liberty Hotel, where defiant B&B'ers could celebrate the sanctity of private property while dining on Revenge Soup, served cold at the Just Deserts Café. Instead of Gideon Bibles, the rooms would offer Atlas Shrugged, since the objectivist Clements is a follower of Ayn Rand. Though Clements's move was an impulsive act ("a late-night idea I threw up on the Internet"), he wasn't slashing Souter's tires or boiling his cats. Rather, he was doing something truly radical: attempting to make a judge live by his own ruling. As a publicity stunt, it was superior, a candy-coated middle finger with a chewy moral center. It gained Clements buckets of ink, including the cover of this magazine. That's considerably more attention than his brand of leave-us-alone libertarianism garnered when he finished 131st out of 135 candidates in the California gubernatorial recall election in 2003. But despite his talent for generating headlines, Clements couldn't get across the finish line in Souter's hometown of Weare. The candidates for selectman he'd helped recruit went down in a March election, and a ballot initiative he'd co-masterminded was gutted by underhanded parliamentary maneuvering. The Live-Free-Or-Die types in Weare, it turned out, stymied Clements not because they agreed with the Supreme Court's ruling, but because they didn't, believing it wrong to seize private property even if it belonged to one of the justices who'd given others license to steal. Clements, however, is not easily discouraged....
PROPERTY RIGHTS ATTACK CONTINUES
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its Kelo v. New London decision, ruled that the private property of one American could be taken and given to another American as long as it served a public purpose. The public purpose in that case was greater tax revenues for the fiscally strapped city of New London. The city figured that if it used its powers of eminent domain to force private homeowners out and then transferred their property to developers to build commercial property, there would be greater tax revenues. Many Americans were angered by this violation of both the letter and spirit of the Fifth Amendment, which in part reads, ". . . nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Public purpose is not the same as public use. Public use means property can be taken, with just compensation, to build a road, a highway, a fort or some other public project. My response to the Kelo decision was, "See, I told you so." For decades, Americans have been willing to allow politicians to trample over private property rights, so why should we be surprised when politicians become more emboldened? Here's a brief history. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fined one landowner $300,000 for "destroying" wetlands because he cleared a backed-up drainage ditch on his property. The Fish & Wildlife Service told one landowner he couldn't use 1,000 acres of his property so the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker could have a place to dwell. Another owner was prevented from clearing dry brush near his home to make a firebreak because it would disturb the Stephens kangaroo rat. Building a deck on his house brought one owner a $30,000 fine for casting a shadow on wetlands....
NUCLEAR POWER TO THE RESCUE
A revolutionary nuclear energy technology is being designed and built in South Africa, but with suppliers and partners in many other nations, says Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
The 165-megawatt Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are small and inexpensive enough to provide electrical power for emerging economies, individual cities or large industrial complexes. However, multiple units can be connected and operated from one control room, to meet the needs of large or growing communities.
Process heat from PBMR reactors can also be used directly to desalinate sea water, produce hydrogen from water, turn coal, oil shale and tar sands into liquid petroleum, and power refineries, chemical plants and tertiary recovery operations at mature oil fields.
* The fuel comes in the form of baseball-sized graphite balls, each containing sugar-grain-sized particles of uranium encapsulated in high-temperature graphite and ceramic; this makes them easier and safer to handle than conventional fuel rods, says Pretoria-based nuclear physicist Dr. Kelvin Kemm.
* It also reduces waste disposal problems and the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation; conventional fuel rod assemblies are removed long before complete burn-up, to avoid damage to their housings; but PBMR fuel balls are burnt to depletion.
* Because they are cooled by helium, the modules can be sited anywhere, not just near bodies of water, and reactors cannot suffer meltdowns.
* Since PBMRs can be built where needed, long, expensive power lines are unnecessary; moreover, the simple design permits rapid construction (in about 24 months), and the plants don't emit carbon dioxide.
PBMR technology could soon generate millions of jobs in research, design and construction industries -- and millions in industries that will prosper from having plentiful low-cost heat and electricity. It will help save habitats that are now being chopped into firewood -- and improve health and living standards for countless families, says Driessen.
Source: Paul Driessen, "Nuclear power to the rescue," Washington Times, September 5, 2006.
For text (subscription required):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060904-102546-8725r.htm
GROWTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Policies that prevent developing countries from acquiring efficient energy resources and infrastructure limit poor nations' ability to improve the environment. Research has shown that this holds true across time and cultures.
For example:
* In one survey, levels of sulfur dioxide in 42 countries and smoke (soot) in 19 countries declined as per capita gross domestic product (GDP) rose to between $6,700 and $8,450 (2003 dollars) -- other surveys have found similar results for a broader array of air pollutants.
* A survey of 10 countries found that 11 of 14 water pollutants declined as income rose; for example, nitrates declined after per capita income reached $3,400 and total fecal coliform bacteria declined at $5,000 (2003 dollars).
* A study of deforestation in 64 developing countries found the rate at which land was cleared declined as incomes reached $7,900 to $9,100 (2001 dollars).
* A survey of 68 countries found that water withdrawals from rivers and streams for agriculture fell as incomes reached $14,300.
In the United States, environmental quality has significantly improved as a direct consequence of enormous and sustained investments that only a rich nation can afford. As a result of this wealth and investment, U.S. air quality has improved remarkably. The Environmental Protection Agency reports that from 1970 to 2004:
* Carbon monoxide decreased 55.8 percent, while nitrogen oxides fell 30.1 percent.
* Sulfur dioxide -- the primary component of acid rain -- decreased 51.3 percent, volatile organic compounds decreased 55.5 percent and lead decreased a dramatic 98.6 percent.
* During the same period, GDP increased 158 percent, miles traveled by cars and trucks rose 143 percent and energy consumption grew 45 percent.
Source: Pete Geddes, "Constructive Thinking about Climate Change, Part II," National Center for Policy Analysis No. 570, September 8, 2006.
For text:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba570/
Biotech Forests
Last March, activists at the 8th Conference of the Parties (COP-8) for the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Curitiba, Brazil called for a global moratorium on genetically modified trees (GM trees). The activists claimed that genetically enhanced trees could harm the environment and the livelihoods of indigenous and local communities. In response, the COP-8 passed a resolution recommending the CBD signatories "take a precautionary approach when addressing the issue of genetically modified trees." The precautionary approach "recognizes that the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing decisions where there is a risk of serious or irreversible harm." In general, it is chiefly decisions that would permit the deployment of new technologies that the precautionary approach postpones. We shall see that this line of attack cuts both ways when considering the effects of genetically enhanced trees. In response to the COP-8 resolution, the United Nations Environment Programme is considering a global moratorium on the planting of genetically modified trees. UNEP is accepting comments on the proposed moratorium until September 1. Are GM trees a danger to the natural environment? Opponents claim that the potential effects of GM trees include the contamination of native forests, the destruction of biodiversity and wildlife, loss of fresh water, the collapse native forest ecosystems, and cultural destruction of forest based traditional communities and severe human health impacts. What biotech opponents mean by "contamination" is that GM trees could interbreed with conventional trees passing along their modified traits. That could happen, but is that a real threat to native forests? For example, one of the traits that biotechnologists have modified is boosting soft cellulose and reducing tough lignin fiber in wood. Such trees are easier to turn into paper and produce much less waste. However, trees with this bioengineered trait would have great difficulty surviving in the wild, so it is very unlikely to spread to native trees. Oregon State University forestry professor Steven Strauss dismisses activist concerns over GM trees somehow wiping out wild forests as "sheer nonsense." As for destroying biodiversity and wildlife, GM trees are much more likely to help than to harm. How? By boosting the productivity of tree plantations. Opponents dismiss tree plantations as "green deserts" devoid of the natural biodiversity of wild forests. Actually, tree plantations do harbor a lot of wild species, but even if they didn't they would still offer significant environmental benefits. Right now about one-third of the world's industrial wood comes from tree plantations and if it could all come from tree plantations that would dramatically relieve pressure to harvest natural forests. An Israeli biotech company claims to have been able to engineer eucalyptus trees that grow four times faster than conventional trees. The modified trees are being field tested by a major Brazilian forestry company. If it works, this means that more trees can be grown on less land....
Protecting the Environment Through the Ownership Society — Part One Subsidizing Disaster: Flood Insurance
When people own property and are fully responsible for losses due to their poor land use or development decisions, they are less likely to build or rebuild in areas regularly prone to flooding or erosion. This link — between a person's ownership of property and responsibility for their land-use decisions — disciplines people who use their property badly. Unfortunately, a host of government programs break this link by subsidizing unwise housing and commercial development decisions. All too often the result is lost lives, destroyed property and livelihoods, and environmental destruction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) flood control program, federal flood insurance and Corps beach replenishment projects subsidize construction in flood-prone areas, encourage high-risk development and harm environmentally sensitive areas. The federal government began assuming responsibility for flood control with the 1917 Flood Control Act, which called for a comprehensive flood control program for the lower Mississippi and Sacramento Rivers . Federal flood control efforts under the Corps have expanded ever since. In 1929, the private insurance industry abandoned coverage of flood losses. 69 And in 1934, federal disaster relief was made available to victims of all natural disasters, including floods — this relief has at various times included low-interest or no-interest loans and outright grants or gifts of money, housing, food, etc. The Flood Control Act of 1936 created the first truly national flood control program. It called for the construction of about 250 projects using funds for work relief. Funding for initial construction was set at $310 million and $10 million was appropriated to complete examinations and surveys. 70 The Act also addressed the growing desire to reduce flood damage by instructing the USDA to develop plans to reduce runoff from agriculture and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop engineering plans for downstream projects. By 1942, with the release of Gilbert F. White's Human Adjustment to Floods: A Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the United States , 71 it was already becoming apparent that flood control efforts were exacerbating rather than reducing the human and economic toll from floods....
Friday, September 08, 2006
Group says giant worm must be protected
It's 3 feet long, pinkish in color, smells like a lily and must be saved from extinction, conservationists said Thursday in asking the federal government to protect the Giant Palouse Earthworm under the Endangered Species Act. Long thought extinct, the worm was rediscovered in the past year to occupy tiny swatches of the heavily farmed Palouse region along the Washington-Idaho border. "This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of," worm supporter Steve Paulson declared. "What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3 foot-long, lily smelling, soft pink worm that spits?" The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet seen the petition regarding Driloleirus americanus, agency spokesman Tom Buckley said in Spokane. The earthworm is native to the deep soils of the Palouse, which were built up by millions of years of volcanic ash and are some of the richest farmland on Earth. Little is known about the giant worms: how many there are, where they live, how they behave, or why they are so scarce. The worm was first found in 1897, and the species has always been elusive. It can burrow down to 15 feet deep. There have been only three reported sightings since 1987. The most recent was on May 27, 2005, when a graduate student from the University of Idaho, Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon, unearthed one specimen. The Giant Palouse Earthworm is described as the largest and longest-lived earthworm on this continent. It reportedly gives off a peculiar flowery smell when handled, and can spit at attackers, Paulson said....
It's 3 feet long, pinkish in color, smells like a lily and must be saved from extinction, conservationists said Thursday in asking the federal government to protect the Giant Palouse Earthworm under the Endangered Species Act. Long thought extinct, the worm was rediscovered in the past year to occupy tiny swatches of the heavily farmed Palouse region along the Washington-Idaho border. "This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of," worm supporter Steve Paulson declared. "What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3 foot-long, lily smelling, soft pink worm that spits?" The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has not yet seen the petition regarding Driloleirus americanus, agency spokesman Tom Buckley said in Spokane. The earthworm is native to the deep soils of the Palouse, which were built up by millions of years of volcanic ash and are some of the richest farmland on Earth. Little is known about the giant worms: how many there are, where they live, how they behave, or why they are so scarce. The worm was first found in 1897, and the species has always been elusive. It can burrow down to 15 feet deep. There have been only three reported sightings since 1987. The most recent was on May 27, 2005, when a graduate student from the University of Idaho, Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon, unearthed one specimen. The Giant Palouse Earthworm is described as the largest and longest-lived earthworm on this continent. It reportedly gives off a peculiar flowery smell when handled, and can spit at attackers, Paulson said....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Blaze Devastates Wilderness Area Prized for Beauty The Boulder Valley, which bumps up against the wilderness north of Yellowstone National Park, is a quiet corner with an unusual mix of residents. They include celebrities, the merely wealthy, ranchers and others drawn to a place of quiet beauty. But nature has gone from serene to tempestuous of late. A fire that was detected on Aug. 22, started by lightning at Derby Mountain, has burned more than 185,000 acres. In the last two days, the blaze has turned this valley where “The Horse Whisperer” was filmed, into a raging caldron with flames sweeping through huge stands of trees and thick banks of smoke turning daytime into twilight and the sun into a glowing red ball. Montana is in an extended drought, fire officials say, and it is as dry as when fires swept through Yellowstone in 1988. The state is also battling a shortage of fire crews and equipment because so many fires are burning across the West. “We’re going as quick as we can, but people are fatigued,” said Wally Bennett, the firefighting director....
Rancher laments backfire that likely killed cattle After five or six days and nights of building defenses, plowing roads and fighting the Derby Mountain fire, rancher Joan Langford thought Wednesday that things were looking pretty good. But at about 1 p.m., firefighters started a backfire on a neighboring property that burned across to her land on Upper Deer Creek, trapping a good chunk of the family cattle herd, she said in a tearful call to The Billings Gazette. The exhausted and frustrated landowner said she was given no warning that the backfire would be set. About an hour later, she said, a firefighter stopped to warn the Langfords that they were going to start another backfire that will probably burn the rest of their 1,500 acres of grazing land 13 miles southeast of Big Timber. "He apologized and said he forgot the cattle were down there," she said, choking with emotion. "It's our livelihood, and they're kind of our pets. We had some real nice cows." She estimated that 180 head were in the path of the backfire. "If they had warned us, we could have saved at least some of them instead of them being burned alive," she said....
Upper Colorado River flows dwindling High water levels in Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs helped sustain the booming local summer recreation industry this summer, but there is a downside for Grand County, just to the north, where Colorado River flows have dropped down to levels not seen since at least the drought summer of 2002. Between Granby and Kremmling, some gauges are measuring flows as low as 20 cubic feet per second, leading Trout Unlimited (TU) to raise an alarm. The cold water fisheries conservation group is concerned that the low flows could harm trout populations in the prolific fishery, and claims that the state is not trying to meet its obligation to maintain minimum stream flows. "I didn't realize this was so dire," said Mely Whiting, attorney for TU's Western Water Project. "We're getting calls from ranchers who are also TU members. They're saying that if they take their entire allotment, the river will be completely dried up," Whiting said. The only thing sustaining fish populations at this point is voluntary cooperation from some of the large ranch owners in the area, Whiting explained....
Rare Condors Being Poisoned by Bullets, Study Confirms Hunters in California may be unintentionally killing two birds with one bullet. Lead from shotgun pellets and other ammunition is poisoning many of the rare vultures as they scavenge abandoned carcasses and gut piles, a new study confirms. The poisonings are threatening efforts to reestablish wild populations of the scavenger, which nearly died out 20 years ago because of dwindling food supplies and poison traps left by ranchers. The new research compares the types of lead found in condors' blood with the lead from ammunition and from dead wild animals not killed by hunters. The results, which were published online last week by the journal Environmental Science and Technology, show a match between the lead in acutely poisoned birds and the lead in hunters' bullets....
Nobody's Horses: The Dramatic Rescue of the Wild Herd of White Sands, by Don Hoglund Nonfiction. By Don Hoglund. Free Press, 251 pages, $25. Grade: A- Book in a nutshell: Former Colorado resident, vet and avowed horse lover Hoglund has written an impassioned ode to the wild horse, which our overcultivated society has forgotten still roam patches of the old frontier. Here, the author narrates how he was hired by the federal government to remove an 1,800-strong herd of horses living in some of the most inhospitable real estate America has to offer, the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Somehow the horses - descended from the rides of ranchers and Wild West outlaws - managed to scratch out an existence, their migration patterns built around paltry watering holes and rough foliage. A die-out of several dozen horses around a dried-up watering hole got Hoglund involved with the project....
Southern Colorado county leaders discuss expansion of Pinon Canyon Successful resistance to the proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site isn't likely, county commissioners from the Southern Colorado region were told last week in Walsenburg. "My perspective is that it will be developed," Las Animas County Commissioner Chairman Robert Valdez told the gathering. "I don’t think we stand a chance against the Department of Defense. The expansion will come." Valdez expressed concerns that, if counties resist, federal payment in lieu of taxes funds will disappear. PILT funds already have gotten smaller in recent years. Commissioner Jim Montoya disagreed. "How can you put a price on someone’s livelihood?" he asked. "I don’t think anything positive can come from this. There is nothing beneficial in this for Las Animas County." Valdez said he hopes DOD will use local contractors and suppliers for the project, bringing back, at least in small part, some of the revenue that will be lost. That’s an argument Montoya isn’t buying. "They didn’t bring us anything last time," he said. Montoya said he fears DOD will contract with companies in Colorado Springs as they have in the past. The far-reaching economic effects of the possible expansion, Montoya said, has already affected the way his constituents live. "Nobody is fixing up their homes or replacing cattle. Everybody is living their lives on hold right now," he said....
Former Midland City manager develops strategy for enhanced water collection Last month, McGregor presented a plan to his board that would introduce a new technology to the LEUWD that could dramatically impact water levels in a county that leads the state in oil, cotton and peanut production and frankly can use all the water it can get. In our conversation, McGregor mentioned the new technology almost as an afterthought. It is called a gravel-packed recharge trench and you can't find one like it anywhere in this part of the state. The trenches, 12-15 feet wide by 40-50 feet long give or take -- about the size of a modest front yard -- accelerate the speed at which rainfall makes its way from the surface to the acquifer below, which, in Gaines County's case is the Ogallala. It can take up to 20 years for rainwater to seep through the topsoil and through as much as 40 feet of rock and clay down to the top of an aquifer's water table. A development such as the recharge trench would, with Mother Nature's help, literally shave years and years off the process, refilling dwindling aquifers in relative lightning speed. "The quicker we get the water down the less we lose to evaporation," McGregor said. In the triple-digit heat of West Texas summers, water on the ground can evaporate at a rate of 5-6 inches a day....
Grazing lawsuit tossed A judge has rejected a lawsuit by three environmental groups that claimed a U.S. Forest Service plan allowing grazing in Antelope Basin south of Ennis was harmful to sage grouse. The Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Wildwest Institute used research by Jack Connelly, a biologist and expert on sage grouse, to support their claims. In making his decision, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy used Connelly’s research against the groups. The fact that Connelly endorsed the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest’s plan to manage the area showed it offered the birds sufficient protection, Molloy said. ‘‘They describe Connelly’s work as the ’best science currently available,’’’ he said in court documents. ‘‘Native Ecosystems relies extensively on Connelly’s work. And Connelly explicitly endorsed the Forest Service’s choice of alternative B.’’ The case was filed against Abigail Kimbell, regional forester out of Missoula, in June 2004. The environmental groups challenged a decision by Madison District Ranger Mark Petroni on an alternative he chose to allow continued grazing on 10 allotments spread over 48,000 acres in the Antelope Basin, located on the south end of the Gravelly mountains near the Idaho border....
Redmond smokejumper honored as hero Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth will present a heroism award next week to Ron Rucker, a Redmond Air Center smokejumper squad leader who risked his life to save another smokejumper and a pilot caught in a plane's wreckage last year. Rucker was serving as an air tactical group supervisor on a twin-engine plane used to direct firefighting resources on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest when it crashed on takeoff on July 21, 2005, at North Las Vegas Airport. Rucker dragged Marge Kuehn-Tabor, a Grangeville Air Center smokejumper squad leader, out of the wreckage minutes after impact. Kuehn-Tabor was training under Rucker at the time, and suffered compressed vertebrae and cracks on both sides of her pelvis....
Protecting lynx blocks backcountry With Keystone’s snowcat skiing operation set to expand into the upper reaches of Jones Gulch, the resort and the Forest Service want to restrict skier traffic into the drainage from other parts of the resort. As a result, Keystone has revamped its trail map for the front side of Dercum Mountain. The dense forest just east of the River Run Gondola and trails like Spring Dipper and Santa Fe is now identified as a “wildlife study area,” and marked as closed. “Keystone has agreed to work with us and look at what wildlife use is in that area,” said Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton. A series of letters and reports from state and federal wildlife agencies make it clear the area is an important route for lynx....
Interior dumps N-waste plan In a move that may mean the death of a plan to store thousands of tons of nuclear waste about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City, the U.S. Interior Department on Thursday rejected the lease to build the facility. "We just wanted to put a spike right through the heart of this project and this does it," Sen. Orrin Hatch said Thursday after being notified of the department's action. In a pair of decisions, spanning 47 pages, two agencies in the department rejected a lease Private Fuel Storage signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear rods on 100 acres of reservation land. PFS is a group of companies that operate nuclear reactors where waste has been piling up for a half-century. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found it could not approve a rail line to the reservation because it would have to cross a newly created wilderness area. A plan to transfer the waste onto tractor-trailers and truck the waste to the reservation was also rejected because it would significantly increase traffic along the two-lane road and because workers transferring the casks would be exposed to radiation....
Judge halts petroleum lease sales Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressed confidence in an upcoming oil lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska when he visited the North Slope last week. "We're set to go forward," Kempthorne said after taking a helicopter ride over a section of the vast reserve. But that sale will likely have to wait. A judge on Thursday temporarily halted lease sales of more than 1 million acres in the NPR-A that environmentalists say are essential feeding and breeding grounds for caribou and migratory birds. Nearly 13 million acres of the reserve in northern Alaska are available for lease sale or have been sold to oil companies, most notably ConocoPhillips. The company hopes to augment waning crude stocks in the Prudhoe Bay fields east of the NPR-A. Environmentalists filed the lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, the state of Alaska and oil companies in hopes of cordoning off about 600,000 acres of the 23-million acre reserve from more exploratory drilling. The government had planned to open bids on Sept. 27 for about 1.7 million acres, which encompass the area targeted by environmentalists....
Roan Plateau opened to natural gas drilling Federal land managers opened the door to drilling in one of Colorado's richest natural gas reserves Thursday, unveiling a compromise proposal that endeavors to reap the mineral riches under the Western Slope's Roan Plateau while protecting its wildlife and environment. The long-awaited proposal caps years of contentious debate among industry, green groups and numerous public agencies on how to go about extracting natural gas from underneath 115 square miles of federal land within the ecologically diverse plateau region north of Interstate 70, bookended by the small towns of Rifle and Parachute. The proposed "resource management plan," released by Bureau of Land Management and Colorado officials, comes with an array of conditions designed to limit the effect of drilling on wildlife and streams - even taking into consideration the views for drivers along I-70. A BLM spokesman described the proposal as "one of the most restrictive BLM has written to date." Even so, environmentalists and some politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., expressed disappointment and anger that the plan will open up the top of the 9,000-foot plateau region to drilling....
Drillers decry Roan rules A long-awaited federal decision that would open the Roan Plateau to natural gas drilling includes compromises that make the land "much less economically attractive," an industry group said Thursday. The Bureau of Land Management's plan to open up the Western Slope site includes measures that would prolong the effective drilling period for decades, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. And that timing would reduce the financial incentives for investing in the gas-rich area near Rifle. "It would make sense to shorten the time frame for drilling, not drag it out," said Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Schnacke said the industry generally supports environmental protections in the compromise plan. But he said restrictions on how drilling should be conducted reduce "the return on investment in lease bonuses, due to the time value of money." While drilling activity has soared in Garfield County, interest in the scenic Roan Plateau remains especially keen because of estimates the area could produce enough natural gas to heat many of the state's homes for decades....
Center's goal is to find homes for horses and burros City slickers have only to drive 45 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City to find themselves transported back in time. Back to the Old West. Back to when a man's handshake and his word were his bond. Back to when a man's horse was his partner. Welcome to the Salt Lake Wild Horse and Burro Center. Located up Butterfield Canyon, in Salt Lake County's far southwest corner, the Bureau of Land Management adoption facility is one of the largest of its kind in Utah. Its goal is to find suitable and loving homes for the majestic wild horses and hearty burros plucked off the open ranges in Utah's deserts and high country. Perched atop the west bench overlooking the valley, the sprawling 70-acre ranch houses as many as a combined 600 horses and burros at any given time....
State secretary: BLM ignored state recommendations of drilling on Otero Mesa A state department secretary is criticizing the Bureau of Land Management’s plan for opening oil and gas drilling on parts of the Otero Mesa. Joanna Prukop, the secretary of the state’s Energy, Mineral and Natural Resources Department, said Wednesday in a teleconference that the BLM’s plan is vague and does not adequately address the impact of drilling on natural resources and wildlife on the mesa. The state’s plan requests that 640,000 acres of the mesa’s 2 million acres be set aside as a natural conservation area. The BLM says its plan protects about 35,000 acres of Aplomado falcon habitat, more than 88,000 acres of wildlife and special status species habitat and has additional tight restrictions on development....
Report says BLM lax on wilderness protection The state secretary of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources and a group of environmentalists say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's own records prove the agency can't protect Otero Mesa grasslands and its wildlife under a controversial plan to allow oil and gas drilling there. Environmental groups Wednesday issued a report, "Hollow Promises from the Land of Enchantment," saying a comprehensive review of BLM's process for leasing oil and gas permits shows a consistent failure to protect wildlife and mitigate damage from drilling operations. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, The Wilderness Society in Colorado and the Southwest Environmental Center published the report. "BLM can't be trusted to protect special places like Otero Mesa," said Nicole Rosmarino, the conservation director for Forest Guardians. Go here (pdf) to view the report.
Is White House influencing Utah BLM? A New York congressman wants to know if the White House has been influencing the Utah staff of the Bureau of Land Management concerning oil and gas development. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., commented Wednesday on an investigation launched by the Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General. In early August, Hinchey called for the probe, following publication of an e-mail by Washington lobbyist Robert K. Weidner. Weidner represents rural counties, mostly in Utah, in dealings with the federal government. His e-mail said that working with the new state BLM director, Henri Bisson, to "fix" the agency's resource management plans was an opportunity that may never come again. The memo urged counties to "strike while the iron is hot" in finalizing the plans and noted what he said was Bisson's "desire to favorably resolve controversial public land issues." On Aug. 9 Hinchey wrote to the Inspector General's Office asking for an investigation. He expressed concern about "recent actions that appear to have compromised the integrity of the BLM's resource-management planning process" and eroded protection of federal land, including Bisson's attendance at a July 18 oil and gas summit hosted by Uintah County. Since then, Bisson has been replaced by Selma Sierra. BLM's deputy director Jim Hughes said the controversy had nothing to do with the timing of that personnel change announced on Aug. 20....
New York Times blasts Bennett, Matheson land-use bill Environmentalists who have been battling the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act acquired a national ally on Monday: The New York Times. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. It would sell up to 24,300 acres of federal land and designate more than 200,000 acres as wilderness, as well as set aside 165 miles of the Virgin River under wild and scenic river status. In an editorial Monday titled "True Wilderness, and False," the Times roasted the proposal, branding it "a raid on national resources aimed at helping private developers." The opinion piece began by describing newly designated wilderness areas, including the Cedar Mountain Wilderness in Utah. Although the newspaper did not mention the fact, the main impetus behind the Cedar Mountain designation was not to protect nature but to block a railroad spur that Private Fuel Storage wanted for its proposed nuclear storage facility in Skull Valley. "This is not to say that all wilderness bills are free of low motives and commercial intent," the Times wrote, and "one particularly distasteful example" is the bill introduced by Bennett and Matheson. "It would sell off 40 square miles of federal land to private developers in Washington County, the fifth-fastest- growing county in the country and already something of a monument to suburban sprawl and strip development," the newspaper said. About half the area to be designated wilderness is already protected, the newspaper added. Some of the proceeds from the sale would go not to local conservation projects but off-road vehicle trails....
Dirty Water in Colorado In Colorado, water never ceases to stop causing problems, usually over allocation or quality. The big issue regarding allocation lately is between agricultural users and thirsty cities. A couple new stories show the water-quality issue taking on some new characteristics. In Denver, reports the Denver Post, a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado confirms that wastewater released in the river by sewage treatment plants in Boulder and Denver are to blame for deformities in the sexual organs of sucker fish and is causing gender complications. Other studies have found similar problems in England and in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The study brings into question the dangers of what people dump into sewers, and how much the cleaning supplies and medicines we use and consume affect other species, and, possibly, other people. Citizens in Grand Junction, reports the Grand Junction Sentinel, have decided they don’t want to know. The city council yesterday passed a comprehensive watershed ordinance aimed at protecting the city's upstream drinking water from the potential effects of energy development, much to the cheering of residents....
The Magnificent 7 Entertained Record Crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo A world-class competition that demonstrates the traditions of the working cowboy, the Magnificent 7 entertained record crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, California in June. The nation’s top stock horse and rider teams showed their skills, athletic prowess and versatility in four events: herd work, reined work, steer stopping and cow work down the fence. Overall winner with a payout of $12, 432 was Bob Avila on Light N Fine, owned by Rhodes River Ranch. Avila also took second place on Brother White. Avila was the first Magnificent 7 competitor to ever sweep the first and second places at this event. Avila is the only horseman to win both the National Reining Horse Association and the National Reined Cow Horse Association open futurities. He was also awarded AQHA’s Professional Horseman of the Year, in addition to the title of NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman in 2000. Based on the historical 1972 event called the Word’s Championship All-Around Stock Horse Contest, the Magnificent 7 is a revival of the first one-man, one-horse competition created by Pro Rodeo Hall of Famers, Cotton Rosser and Benny Binion. The idea became reality over drinks at Benny Binion’s notorious Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, when the two men started talking about putting together a competition showcasing the horses that many a rancher talked about --- the horse that ranchers loved to ride --- the horse that could rope, cut, rein, and run a cow down the fence....
Competitive sheepdog trials to be held in Meeker this weekend The Meeker Classic Sheepdog Championship Trials is more than just dogs herding sheep. The trials combine dog-handling demos, a nationwide art contest, regional food, live music and more for five days of western Colorado entertainment. The Meeker Classic has its fun side, but it can also be serious business for sheepdogs and their owners who come from all over the nation to compete. The event — which takes place annually in September on the first Wednesday through Sunday after Labor Day — offers a purse totaling $20,000. To support the purse, as well as offset costs of the event’s operations, companies and individuals from throughout the Western Slope each sponsor one of the 120 dogs in the preliminary rounds at $100 per dog. Activities at the trials include a daily crafts fair, food booths, weekend pancake breakfasts and a Sunday noon lamb barbecue. Entertainment features dog exhibitions and bagpipe music....
Cattle drives, cowboy way just part of rancher's life Rob Beard seems at home driving his pickup on a dirt path, looking out for his more than 800 head of cattle. Beard - a 64-year-old with piercing blue eyes, a dirty white straw hat, plaid shirt, jeans and mud on his work boots - is a professor of the land who can easily explain the nuances of a cow's digestive system. He's happiest when he is on his horse, Mike, galloping across his 117,000-acre Double U Ranch in Hudspeth County. "One thing about being out here is there is a rhythm to the country," he said. "When you are out here, it is natural. I love the wind, I love the rain, I love the clouds. I love everything about nature." Ranchers and the cowboy lifestyle will be the main focus of Saturday's ninth annual cattle drive starting at Bowen Ranch. The cattle drive kicks off the 77th annual Southwestern International PRCA Rodeo which will be Sept. 20-24 at Cohen Stadium....
Cracker Cowhunters to hit the trail again The Florida Agricultural Museum will present the "Great Florida Cattle Drive of Ought 6" Dec. 5-9. Registration is now under way for the event, which will begin just south of Kissimmee and end at the new Silver Spurs Arena in Kenansville. In 1995 -- to celebrate 150 years of Florida statehood -- a group of 600 cattlemen, historians, horse lovers and hearty adventurers drove 1,000 head of native Cracker cattle across the state. The group also included wagon drivers, walkers, artists, and local, state and national media. Over the last four centuries, cattle production has been one of Florida's most influential industries. In the 1995 Cattle Drive, participants used the sesquicentennial celebration to educate this state's citizens and people around the globe to the fact that the first American cowboys were Floridians -- the cattle business in the United States began right here in Florida. To salute the importance of Florida's "cow culture," organizers will once again be driving cattle, riding the trail, sleeping on the ground and living the life of our ancestors for a few days. The Seminole Tribe of Florida has provided about 400 head of cattle, and every participant who wishes to will be able to spend some time as a "cowhunter" helping to drive the cattle. Camps will be primitive and dress should be late-1800s....
It’s The Pitts: For Better Or For Worse Well, a day arrived I thought I’d never live to see: the day I married my sister. No, no! Before you start thinking even less of me than you already do, I must hasten to add that I married my sister in a wedding ceremony. I can see I’m only digging myself in deeper so let me explain before you write me off as an incest-prone pervert. My sister called two weeks before her marriage and was upset because her preacher had been deported! She wanted to know if I could perform the ceremony. Now, I have presided over numerous religious events in my life such as gopher funerals and a bingo game but I have never married anyone, other than my wife, and I assure you that she is not my sister. I told my sis that if she could get me ordained that I would marry her. In a ceremony, that is. (Normally I insist on several counseling sessions with couples before I marry them but in my sister’s case I waived the rule.) Shortly thereafter I found myself online with the Rose Ministries of Las Vegas, Nevada. (Where else?) I had the choice between ordination packages ranging from $89 to a basic package costing $29. Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I purchased the more inexpensive version. (Actually I made my sister pay for it!) The problem with the cheaper package was that it didn’t come with any instructions as to how to actually perform a wedding ceremony....
Blaze Devastates Wilderness Area Prized for Beauty The Boulder Valley, which bumps up against the wilderness north of Yellowstone National Park, is a quiet corner with an unusual mix of residents. They include celebrities, the merely wealthy, ranchers and others drawn to a place of quiet beauty. But nature has gone from serene to tempestuous of late. A fire that was detected on Aug. 22, started by lightning at Derby Mountain, has burned more than 185,000 acres. In the last two days, the blaze has turned this valley where “The Horse Whisperer” was filmed, into a raging caldron with flames sweeping through huge stands of trees and thick banks of smoke turning daytime into twilight and the sun into a glowing red ball. Montana is in an extended drought, fire officials say, and it is as dry as when fires swept through Yellowstone in 1988. The state is also battling a shortage of fire crews and equipment because so many fires are burning across the West. “We’re going as quick as we can, but people are fatigued,” said Wally Bennett, the firefighting director....
Rancher laments backfire that likely killed cattle After five or six days and nights of building defenses, plowing roads and fighting the Derby Mountain fire, rancher Joan Langford thought Wednesday that things were looking pretty good. But at about 1 p.m., firefighters started a backfire on a neighboring property that burned across to her land on Upper Deer Creek, trapping a good chunk of the family cattle herd, she said in a tearful call to The Billings Gazette. The exhausted and frustrated landowner said she was given no warning that the backfire would be set. About an hour later, she said, a firefighter stopped to warn the Langfords that they were going to start another backfire that will probably burn the rest of their 1,500 acres of grazing land 13 miles southeast of Big Timber. "He apologized and said he forgot the cattle were down there," she said, choking with emotion. "It's our livelihood, and they're kind of our pets. We had some real nice cows." She estimated that 180 head were in the path of the backfire. "If they had warned us, we could have saved at least some of them instead of them being burned alive," she said....
Upper Colorado River flows dwindling High water levels in Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs helped sustain the booming local summer recreation industry this summer, but there is a downside for Grand County, just to the north, where Colorado River flows have dropped down to levels not seen since at least the drought summer of 2002. Between Granby and Kremmling, some gauges are measuring flows as low as 20 cubic feet per second, leading Trout Unlimited (TU) to raise an alarm. The cold water fisheries conservation group is concerned that the low flows could harm trout populations in the prolific fishery, and claims that the state is not trying to meet its obligation to maintain minimum stream flows. "I didn't realize this was so dire," said Mely Whiting, attorney for TU's Western Water Project. "We're getting calls from ranchers who are also TU members. They're saying that if they take their entire allotment, the river will be completely dried up," Whiting said. The only thing sustaining fish populations at this point is voluntary cooperation from some of the large ranch owners in the area, Whiting explained....
Rare Condors Being Poisoned by Bullets, Study Confirms Hunters in California may be unintentionally killing two birds with one bullet. Lead from shotgun pellets and other ammunition is poisoning many of the rare vultures as they scavenge abandoned carcasses and gut piles, a new study confirms. The poisonings are threatening efforts to reestablish wild populations of the scavenger, which nearly died out 20 years ago because of dwindling food supplies and poison traps left by ranchers. The new research compares the types of lead found in condors' blood with the lead from ammunition and from dead wild animals not killed by hunters. The results, which were published online last week by the journal Environmental Science and Technology, show a match between the lead in acutely poisoned birds and the lead in hunters' bullets....
Nobody's Horses: The Dramatic Rescue of the Wild Herd of White Sands, by Don Hoglund Nonfiction. By Don Hoglund. Free Press, 251 pages, $25. Grade: A- Book in a nutshell: Former Colorado resident, vet and avowed horse lover Hoglund has written an impassioned ode to the wild horse, which our overcultivated society has forgotten still roam patches of the old frontier. Here, the author narrates how he was hired by the federal government to remove an 1,800-strong herd of horses living in some of the most inhospitable real estate America has to offer, the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Somehow the horses - descended from the rides of ranchers and Wild West outlaws - managed to scratch out an existence, their migration patterns built around paltry watering holes and rough foliage. A die-out of several dozen horses around a dried-up watering hole got Hoglund involved with the project....
Southern Colorado county leaders discuss expansion of Pinon Canyon Successful resistance to the proposed expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site isn't likely, county commissioners from the Southern Colorado region were told last week in Walsenburg. "My perspective is that it will be developed," Las Animas County Commissioner Chairman Robert Valdez told the gathering. "I don’t think we stand a chance against the Department of Defense. The expansion will come." Valdez expressed concerns that, if counties resist, federal payment in lieu of taxes funds will disappear. PILT funds already have gotten smaller in recent years. Commissioner Jim Montoya disagreed. "How can you put a price on someone’s livelihood?" he asked. "I don’t think anything positive can come from this. There is nothing beneficial in this for Las Animas County." Valdez said he hopes DOD will use local contractors and suppliers for the project, bringing back, at least in small part, some of the revenue that will be lost. That’s an argument Montoya isn’t buying. "They didn’t bring us anything last time," he said. Montoya said he fears DOD will contract with companies in Colorado Springs as they have in the past. The far-reaching economic effects of the possible expansion, Montoya said, has already affected the way his constituents live. "Nobody is fixing up their homes or replacing cattle. Everybody is living their lives on hold right now," he said....
Former Midland City manager develops strategy for enhanced water collection Last month, McGregor presented a plan to his board that would introduce a new technology to the LEUWD that could dramatically impact water levels in a county that leads the state in oil, cotton and peanut production and frankly can use all the water it can get. In our conversation, McGregor mentioned the new technology almost as an afterthought. It is called a gravel-packed recharge trench and you can't find one like it anywhere in this part of the state. The trenches, 12-15 feet wide by 40-50 feet long give or take -- about the size of a modest front yard -- accelerate the speed at which rainfall makes its way from the surface to the acquifer below, which, in Gaines County's case is the Ogallala. It can take up to 20 years for rainwater to seep through the topsoil and through as much as 40 feet of rock and clay down to the top of an aquifer's water table. A development such as the recharge trench would, with Mother Nature's help, literally shave years and years off the process, refilling dwindling aquifers in relative lightning speed. "The quicker we get the water down the less we lose to evaporation," McGregor said. In the triple-digit heat of West Texas summers, water on the ground can evaporate at a rate of 5-6 inches a day....
Grazing lawsuit tossed A judge has rejected a lawsuit by three environmental groups that claimed a U.S. Forest Service plan allowing grazing in Antelope Basin south of Ennis was harmful to sage grouse. The Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Wildwest Institute used research by Jack Connelly, a biologist and expert on sage grouse, to support their claims. In making his decision, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy used Connelly’s research against the groups. The fact that Connelly endorsed the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest’s plan to manage the area showed it offered the birds sufficient protection, Molloy said. ‘‘They describe Connelly’s work as the ’best science currently available,’’’ he said in court documents. ‘‘Native Ecosystems relies extensively on Connelly’s work. And Connelly explicitly endorsed the Forest Service’s choice of alternative B.’’ The case was filed against Abigail Kimbell, regional forester out of Missoula, in June 2004. The environmental groups challenged a decision by Madison District Ranger Mark Petroni on an alternative he chose to allow continued grazing on 10 allotments spread over 48,000 acres in the Antelope Basin, located on the south end of the Gravelly mountains near the Idaho border....
Redmond smokejumper honored as hero Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth will present a heroism award next week to Ron Rucker, a Redmond Air Center smokejumper squad leader who risked his life to save another smokejumper and a pilot caught in a plane's wreckage last year. Rucker was serving as an air tactical group supervisor on a twin-engine plane used to direct firefighting resources on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest when it crashed on takeoff on July 21, 2005, at North Las Vegas Airport. Rucker dragged Marge Kuehn-Tabor, a Grangeville Air Center smokejumper squad leader, out of the wreckage minutes after impact. Kuehn-Tabor was training under Rucker at the time, and suffered compressed vertebrae and cracks on both sides of her pelvis....
Protecting lynx blocks backcountry With Keystone’s snowcat skiing operation set to expand into the upper reaches of Jones Gulch, the resort and the Forest Service want to restrict skier traffic into the drainage from other parts of the resort. As a result, Keystone has revamped its trail map for the front side of Dercum Mountain. The dense forest just east of the River Run Gondola and trails like Spring Dipper and Santa Fe is now identified as a “wildlife study area,” and marked as closed. “Keystone has agreed to work with us and look at what wildlife use is in that area,” said Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton. A series of letters and reports from state and federal wildlife agencies make it clear the area is an important route for lynx....
Interior dumps N-waste plan In a move that may mean the death of a plan to store thousands of tons of nuclear waste about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City, the U.S. Interior Department on Thursday rejected the lease to build the facility. "We just wanted to put a spike right through the heart of this project and this does it," Sen. Orrin Hatch said Thursday after being notified of the department's action. In a pair of decisions, spanning 47 pages, two agencies in the department rejected a lease Private Fuel Storage signed with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear rods on 100 acres of reservation land. PFS is a group of companies that operate nuclear reactors where waste has been piling up for a half-century. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) found it could not approve a rail line to the reservation because it would have to cross a newly created wilderness area. A plan to transfer the waste onto tractor-trailers and truck the waste to the reservation was also rejected because it would significantly increase traffic along the two-lane road and because workers transferring the casks would be exposed to radiation....
Judge halts petroleum lease sales Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressed confidence in an upcoming oil lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska when he visited the North Slope last week. "We're set to go forward," Kempthorne said after taking a helicopter ride over a section of the vast reserve. But that sale will likely have to wait. A judge on Thursday temporarily halted lease sales of more than 1 million acres in the NPR-A that environmentalists say are essential feeding and breeding grounds for caribou and migratory birds. Nearly 13 million acres of the reserve in northern Alaska are available for lease sale or have been sold to oil companies, most notably ConocoPhillips. The company hopes to augment waning crude stocks in the Prudhoe Bay fields east of the NPR-A. Environmentalists filed the lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, the state of Alaska and oil companies in hopes of cordoning off about 600,000 acres of the 23-million acre reserve from more exploratory drilling. The government had planned to open bids on Sept. 27 for about 1.7 million acres, which encompass the area targeted by environmentalists....
Roan Plateau opened to natural gas drilling Federal land managers opened the door to drilling in one of Colorado's richest natural gas reserves Thursday, unveiling a compromise proposal that endeavors to reap the mineral riches under the Western Slope's Roan Plateau while protecting its wildlife and environment. The long-awaited proposal caps years of contentious debate among industry, green groups and numerous public agencies on how to go about extracting natural gas from underneath 115 square miles of federal land within the ecologically diverse plateau region north of Interstate 70, bookended by the small towns of Rifle and Parachute. The proposed "resource management plan," released by Bureau of Land Management and Colorado officials, comes with an array of conditions designed to limit the effect of drilling on wildlife and streams - even taking into consideration the views for drivers along I-70. A BLM spokesman described the proposal as "one of the most restrictive BLM has written to date." Even so, environmentalists and some politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., expressed disappointment and anger that the plan will open up the top of the 9,000-foot plateau region to drilling....
Drillers decry Roan rules A long-awaited federal decision that would open the Roan Plateau to natural gas drilling includes compromises that make the land "much less economically attractive," an industry group said Thursday. The Bureau of Land Management's plan to open up the Western Slope site includes measures that would prolong the effective drilling period for decades, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. And that timing would reduce the financial incentives for investing in the gas-rich area near Rifle. "It would make sense to shorten the time frame for drilling, not drag it out," said Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Schnacke said the industry generally supports environmental protections in the compromise plan. But he said restrictions on how drilling should be conducted reduce "the return on investment in lease bonuses, due to the time value of money." While drilling activity has soared in Garfield County, interest in the scenic Roan Plateau remains especially keen because of estimates the area could produce enough natural gas to heat many of the state's homes for decades....
Center's goal is to find homes for horses and burros City slickers have only to drive 45 minutes from downtown Salt Lake City to find themselves transported back in time. Back to the Old West. Back to when a man's handshake and his word were his bond. Back to when a man's horse was his partner. Welcome to the Salt Lake Wild Horse and Burro Center. Located up Butterfield Canyon, in Salt Lake County's far southwest corner, the Bureau of Land Management adoption facility is one of the largest of its kind in Utah. Its goal is to find suitable and loving homes for the majestic wild horses and hearty burros plucked off the open ranges in Utah's deserts and high country. Perched atop the west bench overlooking the valley, the sprawling 70-acre ranch houses as many as a combined 600 horses and burros at any given time....
State secretary: BLM ignored state recommendations of drilling on Otero Mesa A state department secretary is criticizing the Bureau of Land Management’s plan for opening oil and gas drilling on parts of the Otero Mesa. Joanna Prukop, the secretary of the state’s Energy, Mineral and Natural Resources Department, said Wednesday in a teleconference that the BLM’s plan is vague and does not adequately address the impact of drilling on natural resources and wildlife on the mesa. The state’s plan requests that 640,000 acres of the mesa’s 2 million acres be set aside as a natural conservation area. The BLM says its plan protects about 35,000 acres of Aplomado falcon habitat, more than 88,000 acres of wildlife and special status species habitat and has additional tight restrictions on development....
Report says BLM lax on wilderness protection The state secretary of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources and a group of environmentalists say the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's own records prove the agency can't protect Otero Mesa grasslands and its wildlife under a controversial plan to allow oil and gas drilling there. Environmental groups Wednesday issued a report, "Hollow Promises from the Land of Enchantment," saying a comprehensive review of BLM's process for leasing oil and gas permits shows a consistent failure to protect wildlife and mitigate damage from drilling operations. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians, The Wilderness Society in Colorado and the Southwest Environmental Center published the report. "BLM can't be trusted to protect special places like Otero Mesa," said Nicole Rosmarino, the conservation director for Forest Guardians. Go here (pdf) to view the report.
Is White House influencing Utah BLM? A New York congressman wants to know if the White House has been influencing the Utah staff of the Bureau of Land Management concerning oil and gas development. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., commented Wednesday on an investigation launched by the Department of Interior's Office of Inspector General. In early August, Hinchey called for the probe, following publication of an e-mail by Washington lobbyist Robert K. Weidner. Weidner represents rural counties, mostly in Utah, in dealings with the federal government. His e-mail said that working with the new state BLM director, Henri Bisson, to "fix" the agency's resource management plans was an opportunity that may never come again. The memo urged counties to "strike while the iron is hot" in finalizing the plans and noted what he said was Bisson's "desire to favorably resolve controversial public land issues." On Aug. 9 Hinchey wrote to the Inspector General's Office asking for an investigation. He expressed concern about "recent actions that appear to have compromised the integrity of the BLM's resource-management planning process" and eroded protection of federal land, including Bisson's attendance at a July 18 oil and gas summit hosted by Uintah County. Since then, Bisson has been replaced by Selma Sierra. BLM's deputy director Jim Hughes said the controversy had nothing to do with the timing of that personnel change announced on Aug. 20....
New York Times blasts Bennett, Matheson land-use bill Environmentalists who have been battling the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act acquired a national ally on Monday: The New York Times. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. It would sell up to 24,300 acres of federal land and designate more than 200,000 acres as wilderness, as well as set aside 165 miles of the Virgin River under wild and scenic river status. In an editorial Monday titled "True Wilderness, and False," the Times roasted the proposal, branding it "a raid on national resources aimed at helping private developers." The opinion piece began by describing newly designated wilderness areas, including the Cedar Mountain Wilderness in Utah. Although the newspaper did not mention the fact, the main impetus behind the Cedar Mountain designation was not to protect nature but to block a railroad spur that Private Fuel Storage wanted for its proposed nuclear storage facility in Skull Valley. "This is not to say that all wilderness bills are free of low motives and commercial intent," the Times wrote, and "one particularly distasteful example" is the bill introduced by Bennett and Matheson. "It would sell off 40 square miles of federal land to private developers in Washington County, the fifth-fastest- growing county in the country and already something of a monument to suburban sprawl and strip development," the newspaper said. About half the area to be designated wilderness is already protected, the newspaper added. Some of the proceeds from the sale would go not to local conservation projects but off-road vehicle trails....
Dirty Water in Colorado In Colorado, water never ceases to stop causing problems, usually over allocation or quality. The big issue regarding allocation lately is between agricultural users and thirsty cities. A couple new stories show the water-quality issue taking on some new characteristics. In Denver, reports the Denver Post, a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado confirms that wastewater released in the river by sewage treatment plants in Boulder and Denver are to blame for deformities in the sexual organs of sucker fish and is causing gender complications. Other studies have found similar problems in England and in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The study brings into question the dangers of what people dump into sewers, and how much the cleaning supplies and medicines we use and consume affect other species, and, possibly, other people. Citizens in Grand Junction, reports the Grand Junction Sentinel, have decided they don’t want to know. The city council yesterday passed a comprehensive watershed ordinance aimed at protecting the city's upstream drinking water from the potential effects of energy development, much to the cheering of residents....
The Magnificent 7 Entertained Record Crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo A world-class competition that demonstrates the traditions of the working cowboy, the Magnificent 7 entertained record crowds at the 2006 Western States Horse Expo in Sacramento, California in June. The nation’s top stock horse and rider teams showed their skills, athletic prowess and versatility in four events: herd work, reined work, steer stopping and cow work down the fence. Overall winner with a payout of $12, 432 was Bob Avila on Light N Fine, owned by Rhodes River Ranch. Avila also took second place on Brother White. Avila was the first Magnificent 7 competitor to ever sweep the first and second places at this event. Avila is the only horseman to win both the National Reining Horse Association and the National Reined Cow Horse Association open futurities. He was also awarded AQHA’s Professional Horseman of the Year, in addition to the title of NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman in 2000. Based on the historical 1972 event called the Word’s Championship All-Around Stock Horse Contest, the Magnificent 7 is a revival of the first one-man, one-horse competition created by Pro Rodeo Hall of Famers, Cotton Rosser and Benny Binion. The idea became reality over drinks at Benny Binion’s notorious Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, when the two men started talking about putting together a competition showcasing the horses that many a rancher talked about --- the horse that ranchers loved to ride --- the horse that could rope, cut, rein, and run a cow down the fence....
Competitive sheepdog trials to be held in Meeker this weekend The Meeker Classic Sheepdog Championship Trials is more than just dogs herding sheep. The trials combine dog-handling demos, a nationwide art contest, regional food, live music and more for five days of western Colorado entertainment. The Meeker Classic has its fun side, but it can also be serious business for sheepdogs and their owners who come from all over the nation to compete. The event — which takes place annually in September on the first Wednesday through Sunday after Labor Day — offers a purse totaling $20,000. To support the purse, as well as offset costs of the event’s operations, companies and individuals from throughout the Western Slope each sponsor one of the 120 dogs in the preliminary rounds at $100 per dog. Activities at the trials include a daily crafts fair, food booths, weekend pancake breakfasts and a Sunday noon lamb barbecue. Entertainment features dog exhibitions and bagpipe music....
Cattle drives, cowboy way just part of rancher's life Rob Beard seems at home driving his pickup on a dirt path, looking out for his more than 800 head of cattle. Beard - a 64-year-old with piercing blue eyes, a dirty white straw hat, plaid shirt, jeans and mud on his work boots - is a professor of the land who can easily explain the nuances of a cow's digestive system. He's happiest when he is on his horse, Mike, galloping across his 117,000-acre Double U Ranch in Hudspeth County. "One thing about being out here is there is a rhythm to the country," he said. "When you are out here, it is natural. I love the wind, I love the rain, I love the clouds. I love everything about nature." Ranchers and the cowboy lifestyle will be the main focus of Saturday's ninth annual cattle drive starting at Bowen Ranch. The cattle drive kicks off the 77th annual Southwestern International PRCA Rodeo which will be Sept. 20-24 at Cohen Stadium....
Cracker Cowhunters to hit the trail again The Florida Agricultural Museum will present the "Great Florida Cattle Drive of Ought 6" Dec. 5-9. Registration is now under way for the event, which will begin just south of Kissimmee and end at the new Silver Spurs Arena in Kenansville. In 1995 -- to celebrate 150 years of Florida statehood -- a group of 600 cattlemen, historians, horse lovers and hearty adventurers drove 1,000 head of native Cracker cattle across the state. The group also included wagon drivers, walkers, artists, and local, state and national media. Over the last four centuries, cattle production has been one of Florida's most influential industries. In the 1995 Cattle Drive, participants used the sesquicentennial celebration to educate this state's citizens and people around the globe to the fact that the first American cowboys were Floridians -- the cattle business in the United States began right here in Florida. To salute the importance of Florida's "cow culture," organizers will once again be driving cattle, riding the trail, sleeping on the ground and living the life of our ancestors for a few days. The Seminole Tribe of Florida has provided about 400 head of cattle, and every participant who wishes to will be able to spend some time as a "cowhunter" helping to drive the cattle. Camps will be primitive and dress should be late-1800s....
It’s The Pitts: For Better Or For Worse Well, a day arrived I thought I’d never live to see: the day I married my sister. No, no! Before you start thinking even less of me than you already do, I must hasten to add that I married my sister in a wedding ceremony. I can see I’m only digging myself in deeper so let me explain before you write me off as an incest-prone pervert. My sister called two weeks before her marriage and was upset because her preacher had been deported! She wanted to know if I could perform the ceremony. Now, I have presided over numerous religious events in my life such as gopher funerals and a bingo game but I have never married anyone, other than my wife, and I assure you that she is not my sister. I told my sis that if she could get me ordained that I would marry her. In a ceremony, that is. (Normally I insist on several counseling sessions with couples before I marry them but in my sister’s case I waived the rule.) Shortly thereafter I found myself online with the Rose Ministries of Las Vegas, Nevada. (Where else?) I had the choice between ordination packages ranging from $89 to a basic package costing $29. Those who know me will not be surprised to learn that I purchased the more inexpensive version. (Actually I made my sister pay for it!) The problem with the cheaper package was that it didn’t come with any instructions as to how to actually perform a wedding ceremony....
Thursday, September 07, 2006
House Votes to Prohibit the Slaughtering of Horses for Food
The House voted to ban slaughtering horses for meat, a decision that would halt the export of the animals to dinner plates abroad. The chamber voted 263-146 to approve legislation barring anyone from sending horses to American or foreign slaughterhouses that process the animals for human consumption in Europe and Asia. The legislation's supporters said it would shut down a grim trade unworthy of an animal many Americans consider a companion and icon of the American West. ``Horses are part of our identity and heritage,'' said Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat. ``Yet the merchants of slaughter will have us believe that is fine and dandy to slaughter our horses for the sole purpose, the sole purpose, of sending their flesh overseas to support some warped demand among foreign diners for horse meat.'' The proposal's critics, which include the Department of Agriculture, said the slaughterhouses provide an affordable, humane and regulated way of disposing of unwanted horses. The vote sends the measure to the Senate, where lawmakers haven't said whether they will take up the legislation....
The House voted to ban slaughtering horses for meat, a decision that would halt the export of the animals to dinner plates abroad. The chamber voted 263-146 to approve legislation barring anyone from sending horses to American or foreign slaughterhouses that process the animals for human consumption in Europe and Asia. The legislation's supporters said it would shut down a grim trade unworthy of an animal many Americans consider a companion and icon of the American West. ``Horses are part of our identity and heritage,'' said Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat. ``Yet the merchants of slaughter will have us believe that is fine and dandy to slaughter our horses for the sole purpose, the sole purpose, of sending their flesh overseas to support some warped demand among foreign diners for horse meat.'' The proposal's critics, which include the Department of Agriculture, said the slaughterhouses provide an affordable, humane and regulated way of disposing of unwanted horses. The vote sends the measure to the Senate, where lawmakers haven't said whether they will take up the legislation....
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