OPINION/COMMENTARY
ENVIRONMENTAL TWO-STEP
Congress deals with pollution in a two-step process: It announces popular objectives like healthy air, and then it delegates to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the hard work of making the rules that actually limit pollution, says David Schoenbrod, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
The explanation for this two-step is that only an expert agency insulated from politics will do the right thing. Yet, the EPA has never been able to abolish politics from the process, and it never will. And in trying, the EPA makes the environment worse.
To see why, consider the fight over leaded gasoline:
* In 1970, the Clean Air Act was passed because voters demanded protection from air pollution.
* But the measure was no act of courage on Congress's part; the pollution control devices on new cars would be ruined by leaded gas anyway, and it did nothing to cut the 100 million old cars would still be using leaded gasoline after 1975.
* Meanwhile, members of Congress were quietly lobbying the EPA to make no rule to protect health from lead; the agency began to move, but so slowly that, in 1975, more lead was coming out of tailpipes than in 1970.
If Congress made the pollution rules rather than outsourcing responsibility to the EPA, more would get done, faster. And members of Congress don't have to be scientists to produce decent pollution rules. No EPA administrator was a scientist from the agency's inception in 1970 to 2004.
The choice ultimately is whether we want decisions to be made by open votes in Congress or behind closed doors at the EPA. Allowing Congress to claim credit for protecting health while shifting the blame to the EPA for the inevitable costs and remaining health risks, does not insulate the process from politics, it only adds to it.
Source: David Schoenbrod, "Saving Our Environment From Washington," Washington Post, September 21, 2006.
For text: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092000837.html
House Should Stand Firm on Offshore Energy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute urges leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives to resist political pressure to accept the Senate-passed OCS bill, S. 3711. Senate leaders instead should schedule a vote on the House-passed bill, H.R. 4761, or accept a compromise that includes key provisions of the House bill to expand offshore oil and gas production. “The House should not be providing cover for Senators to pretend that they are addressing America's energy needs,” said Director of Energy Policy Myron Ebell. “The Senate bill simply doesn't have any energy in it.” In recent days, House leaders have been subjected to increasing pressure to cave in and accept the inadequate Senate bill and thereby allow Senators to claim that they have accomplished something. “With gas prices still high and concern over importing oil from unstable regimes at an all time high, American consumers deserve legislation that will significantly increase domestic oil and gas production. Members of the House and Senate owe it to their constituents to pass the House bill or a compromise based on the House bill,” said Ebell. “And while they're at it, they should add ANWR, which has already passed both chambers this year.”
DOOMING WOODS AND WILDLIFE
Environmental groups are unwittingly destroying forests and killing wildlife with lawsuits. Ironically, they do so while claiming to save them, says Thomas Bonnicksen, a member of the advisory board of the Forest Foundation.
The latest example uses the California spotted owl and Pacific fisher in arguments supporting a lawsuit to stop restoration thinning in the Giant Sequoia National Monument:
* Already, many California public forests have grown dangerously overcrowded with 10 to 20 times more trees than is natural.
* The Giant Sequoia National Monument is near the top of the crowded forest list; it already burned once, and it is certain to burn again.
* In 2002, the McNally fire blackened 151,000 acres in and around the Sequoia National Monument, coming within a mile of the Packsaddle Grove of giant sequoias.
* Without active management, it is only a matter of time before another major wildfire hits, possibly destroying all 38 sequoia groves in the monument.
Rather than protecting forests and wildlife with lawsuits, activists condemn them to destruction:
* In New Mexico's Los Alamos Fire, 90 percent of the Mexican spotted owl's habitat was lost.
* Between 1999 and 2002, the U.S. Forest Service identified 11 California spotted owl-nesting sites as lost to wildfire.
* In 2002, the Biscuit Fire destroyed tens of thousands of acres of spotted owl habitat in Southern Oregon and Northern California, including 49 known nesting sites.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cite wildfire as the primary threat to spotted owls. The Pacific fisher is also at risk because of catastrophic wildfire. The forest thinning that activists have blocked is legal and necessary, and approved by the Clinton administration with environmentalist support, says Bonnicksen.
Source: Thomas Bonnicksen, "Dooming woods and wildlife," Washington Times, September 17, 2006.
For text (subscription required):
http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060916-112432-5107r.htm
UNCLE SAM'S TEAT
Over the next year, Congress will produce a new farm bill to replace the gargantuan five-year giveaway that makes up the current one. Conventional wisdom holds that it won't differ much, despite strong motivating factors for reform, says the Economist.
Under the current bill:
* The federal government spent over $20 billion on farm subsidies last year, more than it spent on foreign aid and almost twice what it spends on subsidizing college for poor children.
* Most of the direct cash is lavished on crops, particularly corn, soybeans, rice, cotton and wheat, causing more trade distortion and depressing world prices.
* Farmers who grow corn, soybeans, rice, cotton and wheat crops received 93 percent of the subsidies between 2002 and 2005.
* Six out ten American farmers get no federal money, but 10 percent of farmers get 72 percent of the available funds.
Despite the big payouts, many farmers are beginning to see the need for reform, albeit for differing reasons:
* Fear of litigation at the World Trade Organization is one reason for reform's momentum; Brazil has already won a case against American cotton subsidies and farmers are worried that other crop subsidies could be vulnerable to a WTO case.
* Ethanol production is a major factor; increases in input prices, especially corn, will cause subsidies to decline.
* Public awareness of the subsidies' scale, and their inequity, has been rising; the 60 percent of farmers who get no cash from Washington, particularly fruit and vegetable producers, are increasingly cross.
From a trade perspective, the new farm bill could be a modest improvement, says the Economist. The United States may well be heading for more green subsidies and fewer trade-distorting ones. But despite Washington's budget crunch, few expect Uncle Sam's generosity to farmers to abate much.
Source: Editorial, "Uncle Sam's Teat," the Economist, September 9, 2006.
For text: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7887994
FAT CHANCE FOR THE NEW PROHIBITIONISM?
What if restaurants throughout this country were too scared of a lawsuit to sell foods deemed fattening? It's not a far-fetched possibility, at least if a misguided gaggle of lawyers, legislators and researchers get their way. Chicago is the latest focal point in a movement to create a slimmer America. Alderman Edward Burke this June proposed a citywide ban on the use of cooking with oils containing artificial trans fatty acids in restaurants that do at least $20 million a year worth of business. Establishments not in compliance would face fines ranging from $200 to $1,000 per day. "We have to be very careful when we start telling everybody how to live their lives," cautioned Mayor Richard M. Daley. The mayor perhaps is making up for keeping a low profile in the face of recent bans enacted by the Board of Aldermen on smoking in restaurants and bars, and the selling of foie gras (a liver delicacy). Elsewhere, dozens of states either have introduced or passed legislation aimed at curbing obesity. Measures include restricting advertising to children; requiring schools to provide parents with information about student body mass index; requiring schools to provide diabetes screening; mandating insurance coverage for obesity prevention and treatment; and establishing nutrition education programs. A University of Baltimore-affiliated think tank, the Schaefer Center for Public Policy, has created an annual "Obesity Report Card" to keep the heat on states to do more. Granted, there never will be a shortage of people who, lacking in impulse control, prefer to gorge themselves without regard to health consequences. But to use that as a pretext to limit the range of pleasures available to all of us has an unpleasant ring of familiarity. Prohibition operated on this very premise: Let us combat the temptation to take an activity to excess by banning the activity outright. Don't bother telling our latter-day Prohibitionists about the necessity of self-control. Whether the object of their wrath is food or alcohol, such talk merely serves as a cover for the irresponsible pursuit of profit. For a good decade or more, Kelly Brownell, a paunchy Yale psychologist and top adviser to the deceptively effective Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, has called for punitive taxes on unhealthy food. "I recommend we develop a militant attitude about the toxic food environment, like we have about tobacco," he has written in CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter....
DDT'S NEW FRIEND
The World Health Organization announced Friday that it will begin actively promoting use of the pesticide DDT to combat malaria in developing nations. After tens of millions of preventable malarial deaths in these poor countries, it's nice to see WHO finally come to its senses, says the Wall Street Journal.
The agency's malaria chief, Arata Kochi, told reporters that "one of the best tools we have against malaria is indoor residual spraying. Of the dozen or so insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT." He also said, "We must take a position based on the science and the data."
* Malaria is the number one killer of pregnant women and children in Africa and among the top killers in Asia and South America.
* It's long been known that DDT is the cheapest and most effective way to contain the disease, which is spread by infected mosquitoes.
* But United Nations health agencies and others have for decades resisted employing DDT under pressure from anti-pesticide environmentalists.
For decades, the science and empirical data about DDT's effectiveness have been distorted or suppressed. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that DDT use in the amounts necessary to ward off malarial mosquitoes is harmful to humans, wildlife or the environment.
One insecticide won't end malaria, and DDT's proponents don't claim it will. But by keeping more people alive and healthy, DDT can help create the conditions for the only lasting solution, which is economic growth and development, says the Journal.
Source: Editorial, "DDT's New Friend," Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2006.
For text (subscription required):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115853443509765807.html
CALIFORNIA LOSES WITH GREENHOUSE LAW
Arnold Schwarzenegger's signing of the first statewide, multi-industry greenhouse gas emission limits will result in higher prices for the states' consumers, higher unemployment for its workers and little or no benefit for the environment, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
The law will require companies in selected industries to reduce their greenhouse emissions by whatever amounts, and by whatever methods, are deemed necessary by the California Air Resources Board in order to reduce emissions for the entire state by 25 percent by 2020 -- equaling California's 1990 emission levels.
While California is an economic powerhouse and these cuts are substantial, their effect on future climate will be nil, says Burnett:
* An analysis of a regional climate change action plan considered by 11 Northeastern states and the premiers of Canada's eastern provinces showed that even with an efficient cap-and-trade program similar to Schwarzenegger's proposal, both electricity and residential natural gas prices would rise by as much as 39 percent by 2020.
* The higher energy costs would result in consumption falling by an estimated average of $2,634 per household; gross state product would decline 1.1 percent; and an estimated 191,589 jobs would be lost by 2010.
* The study also found that as companies fled high fuel prices in the Northeastern states, employment in the rest of the United States would increase by more than 117,000 in 2010 and by an additional 59,000 in 2020.
Additionally, Californians face some of the highest energy bills in the nation -- which this law will only make worse. Proponents of the law argue that it will create new jobs through investments in, and the manufacturing of, new technologies. However, these gains will not be realized in California, says Burnett.
Source: H. Sterling Burnett, "California loses with greenhouse law," Sacramento Bee, September 16, 2006.
For text (subscription required):
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/24182.html
ESSAYS ON THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
So what is this business about the “religious” nature of this movement? I submit that this movement has achieved unprecedented power and caused dramatic losses of our rights and traditions in a short period because we perceive it as and treat it as an ideology and not as a religious (or quasi-religious) movement. For instance, when gun control groups began to threaten gun owners; gun owners formed a National Rifle Association and a Gun Owners of America and State gun associations. Most gun owners threw their money in the pot. Lawsuits or new laws were challenged in court and argued openly. Books and articles abound: Japan “proves” gun control works, Australia and England “prove” it doesn’t, Hitler confiscated registered guns to begin his oppression, the UN wants to control all guns, history shows that gun control only expands once it is begun, concealed weapons have helped to decrease crime, and so goes our national discussion. We may disagree about “facts” but “facts” they are and each of us is entitled to interpret them. Keeping or losing our guns depends on argument and commitment and determination. The gun control movement is a classic ideology based on personal beliefs. On the other hand, the “sacredness” of wilderness, the “iconic” nature of the American horse, the “abomination” of trapping or wearing fur, the urgency of “restoring” “native” species or eradicating “Invasive Species”, the “fact” that no one has the “right” to “own” and animal, the “fact” that we should not raise or eat meat, the “fact” that hunting and fishing (i.e. hunters and fishermen) should be eliminated, the belief that people are “in their (i.e. wildlife) habitat” or that people killed or injured by unmanaged and protected wildlife are at fault, and many other such assertions of the environmental and animal rights movement are seemingly irrefutable. Why? Because they emanate from religious beliefs about God and Man and the earth and all that is in it or on it and not from interpretable facts as in other ideologies. Saying that all the various facets of the environmental and animal rights movement have the same basic beliefs is far more accurate than it would be to say the same thing for all the gun control groups. The basis for all the “sacredness” and “iconic” nature of certain (a growing list but soon all) plants and animals and the rationale why humans must be controlled and their activities proscribed by environmental and animal rights power brokers is implied as coming from “science” or “reverence” for nature or “humane” concepts or “advanced” thinking or ancient pagan worship of natural phenomena. In any case, they are based on unquestionable beliefs as interpreted by “experts”. Like ancient pagan priests, they make assertions that may not be questioned and indeed are assumed to be unintelligible to most of the populace. It is the need for absolute adherence to these beliefs that justifies the erosion of private property, the growth of Federal power, the elimination of rights and traditions, and the control of the publics’ place and method of living, employment, and transportation....
Part two of this essay is here.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Rural Residents Battle Southern Nevada Water Grab Residents of rural Nevada know they face long odds in their effort to thwart a proposed water grab by southern Nevada. Las Vegas has money and political power, but the rural residents think they have the truth on their side, and, so far, they refuse to back down or be bought off. My ancestors were able to live a sustainable lifestyle on the land for quite some time. Las Vegas seems to want to sustain unsustainable growth," Rick Spilsbury, a Western Shoshone blogger, says. Rural residents know that it's only been in the last few years that Las Vegas paid any attention at all to water conservation, and that fountains, lawns, pools, and man-made lakes have multiplied with few restrictions. Now, Las Vegas wants White Pine's water, hundreds of thousands of acres, to allow for even more sprawl. "I don't like the idea of my place drying up for another condo or casino in Las Vegas," Bannon Humphries, a Spring Valley rancher, says. "I think every person up there is against it. I haven't spoken to one person who is even quiet about it," Spilsbury says....
Nevada water hearings continue Advocates of a plan to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from rural Nevada to booming Las Vegas spent hours Thursday trying to discredit reports of an expert fighting the plan - and got a warning from a state hearing panel to move on. Attorneys Paul Taggart and Michael Van Zandt, representing the Southern Nevada Water Authority, grilled hydrologist Tom Meyers at length during the second week of hearings on the SNWA request to draw more than 90,000 acre-feet of groundwater from Spring Valley. The questioning prompted Tracy Taylor, the state water engineer who must make a final decision on the pumping plan, to tell the lawyers to stop "pounding on uncertainties" in Meyers' projections on available water in the valley. Meyers maintains that SNWA's plan would take too much water out of Spring Valley and damage existing groundwater, spring and surface water rights that already total more than 70,000 acre-feet per year. SNWA contends that the perennial yield, or the amount of water that can be safely pumped on an annual basis, from the valley, located in White Pine County, is about 100,000 acre-feet, which is more than what it's seeking....
'Triangle' farmers challenge Legacy Project The Wood River Legacy Project, an ambitious effort to restore flows to 12 miles of the Big Wood River south of Glendale Bridge projected to boost the size of the fishery by 33 percent, has drawn support from a host of city and county governments and local canal companies. But during a public forum in Hailey Tuesday night, the project, which hinges on the revision of Idaho's entrenched water laws, was challenged by a group of farmers south of Bellevue who believe the undertaking will create more harm than good. Every summer since 1920, the Big Wood River, which is among Idaho's most treasured fisheries, has been diverted into canals near Glendale Bridge, leaving scores of trout to die in stagnant pools. Legacy Project Director Rich McIntyre thinks if water right's holders are given an option, many would choose to keep their water in-stream, and the dead stretch of river could be revived. But current Idaho water law is based on a "use it or lose it" policy, meaning water rights' holders must exercise their rights to the precious resource, or lose it all....
Water groups supports H2O provisions of Idaho wilderness bill An Idaho water-rights advocacy group is supporting elements of a bid to create a 550-thousand acre wilderness in the rugged Owyhee canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, saying it includes provisions that protect state water rights. The Idaho Water Users Association, whose members include cities, ranchers and fish farmers, says it's "satisfied that Idaho sovereignty over its waters is fully protected." It also endorsed provisions of the wilderness plan, which is sponsored by Senator Mike Crapo and goes before a Senate subcommitttee on September 27th, that keep water from the Owyhee and Bruneau river basins from being piped out of state. The group says that's an important safeguard for local water users....
A climate of change President Bush's endeavor to give landowners, corporations, local governments, nonprofits and others more say in the management of natural resources has environmentalists and their allies nervous. "We're concerned this will hurt the gains we've made in the last 30 years of environmental law," says Gary L. Graham, executive director of Audubon Colorado. Such concerns arose last week as Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist, came to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs as part of a 24-city national listening tour to solicit suggestions on the president's nebulously dubbed "cooperative conservation" effort. Gun rights activists, farmers and ranchers, four-wheeling groups and oil and natural gas representatives poured into a large campus conference room to praise the initiative. Many of them said government agencies too often stand in the way of their interests, citing a variety of reasons, including petty personality conflicts and officials' incompetence....
Conservancy opposes Army plan After getting an earful from donors, the Nature Conservancy is taking a stance against the Army’s proposed expansion of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. The organization, which has worked with the military to preserve ranchland around Fort Carson, says it will have nothing to do with a project that would put ranchers off their land through use of federal land-seizure laws. “We have a strict prohibition in participating in condemnation projects,” Brian McPeek, the organization’s deputy state director, said Thursday. The Army is eyeing outside organizations to help manage a stretch of the training area if Defense Department officials approve adding as much as 418,000 acres to the 235,000-acre site in southeast Colorado. The Army has proposed a “conservation area” covering the Purgatoire River valley adjacent to Piñon Canyon, managed by an outside organization. McPeek said the Army hasn’t discussed its plans with the Nature Conservancy. The group’s unwillingness to participate doesn’t change anything, the Army said. “It has no effect whatsoever,” said Karen Edge, an Army spokeswoman....
Leaders Convene in Helena for Climate Challenge Conference Montanans are feeling the impact of global warming. An eight-year drought in Eastern Montana has been a blow to farmers and ranchers and elsewhere, ski bums and trout fisherman are experiencing shorter recreational seasons. And no one in Montana can fail to notice the increase in forest fires this year. These are some of the concerns bringing together over forty organizations sponsoring the Climate Challenge Conference in Helena this weekend. "We are very gratified by the wide diversity and range of organizations who responded to our call for this conference," said Sterling Miller, Senior Wildlife Biologist for the National Wildlife Federation. Corporations, unions, government agencies, non-profits and individuals concerned with global warming will all be attending the conference. The main goal of the conference is to get the attention of political leaders who are ignoring the issue of global warming, Sterling said. He makes an emphatic exclusion of Governor Brian Schweitzer from the apathetic group. The hope is that the interest groups involvement will help get politicians to take notice....
Suspected wolf on Zumwalt may be vanguard Biologists have not yet been able to positively confirm the presence of a young black wolf on the Zumwalt Prairie of Wallowa County, despite a videotape taken in about mid-July by an archery hunter from Eugene, who was scouting the area. The U.S. Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife have since received a couple of other possible sightings in the area, one from a fence builder about three weeks who initially suspected that the animal might have been a dog, according to Craig Ely, Northeast Oregon Regional Director based in La Grande. Ely said that biologist spent 10 or 12 days in the evenings looking for the animal with no success, and sent a plane over the prairie in the search after that most recent report. "If it's a wolf, they move around a lot," Ely said, adding that while the animal could be a wolf hybrid, or even a dog gone wild, but it could also be a wolf. "My assessment is that, as an agency, we believe there are wolves in Oregon, we just haven't confirmed it yet…Sooner or later, Oregon will be recolonized with wolves from Idaho."....
Capitol Hill rally helped spotlight timber safety net's importance Last week's blitz on Capitol Hill to draw attention to the plight of counties facing elimination of the federal timber safety net proved valuable, Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson said. Speaking at Wednesday's meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, Robertson said the effort spotlighted the importance of the program for counties across the United States that have been hurt by cutbacks in logging on federal forests. More than 200 officials representing counties and schools throughout the nation -- including Robertson and fellow Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman -- descended upon Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to extend the safety net program. "It was an opportunity to re-energize the effort," Robertson said. The safety net, which was signed into law in 2000 by former President Bill Clinton, is set to expire at the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30....
Judge OKs Mount Ashland ski area expansion A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Mount Ashland ski area's proposed expansion, but environmental groups that sued to halt more development on the mountain say they may appeal his decision. U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner issued a summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Forest Service and the Mount Ashland Association, the nonprofit corporation that manages the ski area. He rejected the arguments of three environmental groups that challenged the Forest Service's decision to approve 16 new ski and snowboard trails, two new chairlifts and 200 additional parking spaces on the mountain. "We're elated," said Bill Little, president of the board of directors of the Mount Ashland Association. "We're considering our options," said Tom Dimitre, chairman of the Rogue Group Sierra Club, one of the groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service along with Ashland-based Headwaters and Portland-based Oregon Natural Resources Council....
Federal court: Road to jarbidge stays open A dispute over two miles of dirt road and a threatened fish in a national forest just south of the Idaho line may be over after nearly a decade. A decision signed on Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt lifted a stay freezing a 2001 agreement, in which the government had agreed not to contest Elko County’s claim to a right of way on the South Canyon Road. Hunt emphasized that the settlement agreement does not transfer any interest in land. Elko County’s claim will remain dormant and Elko County and the government will work together on the road, he said. “There is a huge gulf between granting someone an interest in land and refusing to argue about whether they have such an interest,’’ Hunt said. The 2001 agreement settled a federal lawsuit that charged Elko County had undertaken illegal repairs in 1998 on washed-out portions of South Canyon Road, which runs alongside a fork in the Jarbidge River. The river’s bull trout were declared threatened in 1999 under the Endangered Species Act....
Editorial - Roadless policy needs a path No one's quite sure about the precise impact of this week's "roadless" ruling by a federal judge, which would restore broad protections to about a third of national forest land in the lower 48 states. The ruling was favorably received by those who seek to control development on the West's pristine public lands. But we hope it doesn't undo the work of the state commission that developed a smart set of recommendations to provide appropriate safeguards for public lands while still satisfying a variety of environmental, recreational and commercial interests. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte of San Francisco threw out the Bush administration's roadless program, saying that Washington failed to conduct necessary environmental studies before giving states permission last year to draft their own management guidelines for roads on forest lands. The court ruling came a week after the Colorado Roadless Areas Review Task Force submitted recommendations to Gov. Bill Owens to preserve most of the 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in Colorado's national forests. We agree with Owens, who said, "The bipartisan, collaborative process we have undertaken in Colorado is the appropriate way to determine our state's position concerning roadless areas." But we think he's off base in saying that Laporte is "unilaterally dictating natural-resource policy for the entire country."....
Guv touts renewed roadless rule Gov. Bill Richardson is praising a decision by a federal judge in California to reinstate the "Roadless Rule," a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly a third of national forests. "This is a monumental victory for everyone who enjoys our wild forests," Richardson said Wednesday. "Our roadless forests areas are cherished by hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts. Roadless areas support significant and complex wildlife communities, they create valuable recreation opportunities, and roadless areas help support rural economies." But Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of Albuquerque calls the decision by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte a step backward for those seeking to empower states and local governments in roadless area management. "For over 40 years, our courts have thrown out national roadless rules like the Clinton-era rule, which was overturned by numerous courts," Domenici said. "Now that we finally have a state-based system, I'd hate to see it derailed." He added that the previous, one-size-fits-all national approach didn't meet the needs of many states, including New Mexico....
Five timber areas sold; four face protests Five U.S. Bureau of Land Management timber sales totalling 20.3 million board feet were sold Thursday in the agency's Medford District. However, all but one has been administratively protested by environmental groups to the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Arlington, Va. It takes about 90 days for an administrative protest to be resolved by the appeals board, according to BLM spokeswoman Patty Burel. Two others sales containing nearly 4 million board feet also offered Thursday were not sold. The district's targeted annual allowable harvest is 57.1 million board feet, although the actual amount fluctuates each year. Only 28.5 million board feet were offered this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, Burel said....
Monumental discoveries Paleontologists are giddy after the fossil frenzy at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument yielded yet more fruit: two heretofore unknown 75-million-year-old dinosaurs. "It's been a dream summer," beamed Alan Titus, Bureau of Land Management paleontologist for the 1.9 million-acre monument in southern Utah. A 6-foot-long skull of one of the plant-eating creatures - found intact along with about 30 percent of its skeleton - belongs to a beast similar to members of the ceratoid family, but boasts some distinct features. "We realized from its features and characteristics we've never seen it before," Titus said. Those characteristics make it impossible to categorize the creature in the two subfamilies for ceratoid dinosaurs - which, like the triceratops, are known for their facial horns and a shield that fans out from the back of the neck. What makes this dinosaur unique is the mammoth size of the horns over the eyes and the stubby horn over the nose in addition to the shield features, Titus said. The skull was found this summer by a volunteer....
Lease sale in Alaska may be reworked The Interior Department may reverse course and withdraw part of a planned sale of oil-drilling leases on Alaska's North Slope because of environmental concerns, a department official said. The Wednesday sale of leases on about 8 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve includes about 400,000 acres around Teshekpuk Lake, an area environmental groups consider a critical Arctic wildlife habitat. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge James Singleton in Anchorage ruled that an environmental impact statement prepared by the department for the entire area failed "to adequately address the cumulative effect" of the drilling. Last week the Bush administration rejected the judge's finding and said the sale would proceed as planned. "If we want to go ahead with the Sept. 27 sale, we're going to have to accommodate what the judge said," Johnnie Burton, director of the department's Minerals Management Service, said Thursday at a news conference in Washington. Asked whether the department might consider withdrawing the 400,000 acres around the lake from the sale, Burton said, "We might." "We haven't made the decision yet," she said....
Mogul Pledges Billions Against Warming British business mogul Richard Branson said Thursday he would invest about $3 billion to combat global warming over the next decade. Branson, the billionaire behind the multi-platform Virgin brand, said the money would come from 100 percent of the profits generated by his transportation and airline sectors. It will then be invested in efforts to find renewable, sustainable energy sources in an effort to wean the world off of oil and coal. Branson made the announcement on the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference of business, political and nonprofit leaders hosted by former President Clinton. "Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents," Branson said at a news conference with Clinton at his side. "We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment."....
Study: Oceans have cooled in recent years Despite the long term warming trend seen around the globe, the oceans have cooled in the last three years, scientists announced today. The temperature drop, a small fraction of the total warming seen in the last 48 years, suggests that global warming trends can sometimes take little dips. "This research suggests global warming isn't always steady, but happens with occasional 'speed bumps,'" said study co-author Josh Willis, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This cooling is probably natural climate variability. The oceans today are still warmer than they were during the 1980s, and most scientists expect the oceans will eventually continue to warm in response to human-induced climate change."....
Hunters must steer clear of rocket launch The New Mexico Economic Development Department is advising hunters to steer clear of public land in Game Management Unit 20 on Sept. 25. A private company will be launching a rocket from temporary facilities near the proposed Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. Hunting seasons for oryx and dove will be open during the time of the launch. New Mexico State Police, county sheriff's departments, the Department of Game and Fish and private security companies will be present at several roadblocks to discourage entry to the area surrounding the launch site. The proposed launch is scheduled for around 7:30 a.m., but delays may extend the time the roadblocks are in place and could last throughout the day. The launch area includes 27 square miles of state trust land and surrounding Bureau of Land Management property west of White Sands Missile Range. The launch is approximately 23 miles east of Caballo Lake....
Ire over plan's ag land proposal A proposal to offset the future loss of Monterey County farmland to development in the proposed county general plan provoked heated protests Wednesday before county planning commissioners. Another proposal to require water-quality tests on new agricultural wells in the draft general plan -- a 20-year growth blueprint for unincorporated areas -- also hit sore points with members of the public and some commissioners. Christopher Bunn Jr., a farm industry spokesman, said the proposal to require farmland developers to preserve twice as much farmland elsewhere in the county "is particularly designed to send a farmer's blood pressure up." He said the industry is "ballistic" about the proposal suggested by a county environmental consultant. County planners said the farmland-protection measure was suggested as a means of mitigating the inevitable loss of important farmland to development during the next 20 years. Commissioners suggested changes that would make the program an option, rather than a requirement, to move ahead with a farmland-conversion project. Still, critics said, the proposal would increase land and housing costs and prove very expensive to developers seeking to acquire farmland conservation easements from a shrinking pool of farmland owners willing to sell development rights....
Column - Activists using Arizona as battlefield Animal-rights militants from Washington, New York and California have brought their political agenda to Arizona, intent on criminalizing humane practices of livestock farmers. If successful, hog farmers and veal ranchers will face fines up to $20,000 and six months in jail. And one day consumers may be forced to buy pork from Mexico and other foreign producers. Proposition 204's out-of-state funders are targeting the way breeding pigs and veal calves are housed. Yet Arizona has no veal farms and ranks just 27th nationally in hog production. Targeting states with minor or non-existent livestock industries and large urban populations of unsuspecting voters shows the true colors of the activists who are using Arizona as a pawn in their national campaign. Their mission is to denigrate law-abiding farmers, whose methods are approved by veterinary professionals and experts, and stir fear in the hearts and minds of voters with malicious claims about the way farmers care for their animals. And the activists won't think twice about breaking the law if that's what it takes, as they did in pushing a similar initiative in Florida in 2002. There, some of the same activists flooded the state with $1 million in illegal campaign contributions. They were charged with 210 violations of election law and paid a $50,000 fine. That initiative granted pigs constitutional rights and forced the state's only two hog farms, both family-owned, out of business....
U.S. government asks court to dismiss case against Cdn cattle by ranchers An appeal by a U.S. ranchers' group attempting to stop some Canadian cattle from crossing the border could be dead before it even begins. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has filed a motion in the Court of Appeals asking it to agree with a lower court's ruling without hearing all the evidence. The motion says that judges at the Appeals Court have already rejected the attempt by the Montana-based lobby group Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) to keep America's borders firmly closed to Canadian cattle based on the country's cases of mad cow disease. "All of the issues . . . have already been considered and rejected by this Court," it reads. "The rule at issue is unchanged, as are the relevant facts and law."....
Cattlemen Support Senate Renewal of Mandatory Price Reporting Members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) are gratified with the U.S. Senate’s final passage of H.R. 3408, legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year and will now effectively reauthorize Mandatory Price Reporting (MPR) for four more years, through September 30, 2010. “This reporting process is important to U.S. cattle ranchers, and since the mandatory law expired last fall, we have been working diligently to urge its renewal,” explains NCBA President and Missouri cattle producer Mike John. “Making price reporting practices mandatory by law assures cattle producers are getting the marketing information they need about their beef products.” Mandatory Price Reporting requires meat packers to report to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) daily price and volume information on negotiated and non-negotiated purchases of cattle and boxed beef sales. In addition, companies are also required to report beef exports and imports. The Mandatory Price Reporting law expired September 30, 2005, after the Senate was initially unable to agree to the bill passed by the House....
New group relives the Wild West The late 1800s in Bay City, with its notorious waterfront saloons and bawdy houses, was akin to dozens of boom towns in the Wild West where cowboys and outlaws, miners and ranchers all mingled. The 16th annual River of Time Living History Encampment, however, brings in a bit of cowboy justice in the form of presentations by the Christian Cowboys, a band of 22 re-enactors who relive the Old West. Tom Brown, the Cowboys' moderator and one of the originators, said the group includes former teachers who want to keep history alive, especially the bits of Americana celebrated in the Wild West shows. Visitors can check the updated daily schedule to be handed out at the park to see when the Cowboys will perform. Brown, a retired teacher of history and social studies at Farwell High School, said the group brings in an entire Western town block of seven false-front buildings stretching about 80 feet. The Cowboys have 22 different skits they practice and can present at various events and festivals throughout the state and beyond, Brown said....
Museum Opens In Pie Town Just in time for the Pie Festival the DanCyn Windmill Museum opened to the public in Pie Town, New Mexico, on Friday, Sept. 8. The museum is an ongoing labor of love for Cyndi and Dan Lee, who conceived the idea after they visited a Windmill Museum in Oklahoma nine years ago. Right now the museum consists of the Old Bennett cabin, built in the early 30s, where the Lee family of five children lived in its two rooms on the Tres Lagunas Ranch. The museum has expansion plans for two outbuildings and, of course, more windmills. Dan and Cyndi Lee purchased the cabin from Miles Choate and it is dedicated to his memory. “We tore it down in 1999 and marked every log with its location and moved it log by log to Pie Town,” Cyndi said. “Two years ago we did the foundation.” According to invitation to the opening, “It’s been our dream to capture the rich heritage of the area in a period authentic log cabin filled with memories of local families, the homesteaders, the ranchers.” And filled it is with donations of furniture, clothing, dishes, bedding, tools, newspapers and magazines, photos, saddles, quirts and quilts – intriguing treasures from the past of the 30s to the early 50s. People viewing the cabin on its opening day could be heard exclaiming with delight, “My grandmother had one of those,” or “We used to have that when I was growing up.”....
'Pavarotti of the Plains' Don Walser dead at 72 There's never been a more special relationship between a musician and his fans in Austin than when rotund National Guardsman Don Walser started over in the music business in 1990 at the now-defunct Henry's Bar on Burnet Road. His improbable rise and signing to Sire Records, the label of Madonna and the Ramones, at age 64 was the feelgood story of the Austin music scene. Dubbed "the Pavarotti of the Plains" for his clear, powerful tenor, Walser was embraced by gray-haired two-steppers and tattooed punk rockers alike, which was the basis of a February 1996 segment on "ABC Primetime Live." Walser passed away about 1:45 p.m. Wednesday after a long illness. He was 72. Slowed by mounting health problems, which forced his retirement from the music business in September 2003, Walser's time in the spotlight was relatively short. He loved to sing and lived to please his fans, but the singer's physical deterioration — he was diagnosed with neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system, in 2001 — caused him to forget lyrics and back down from notes he hit with ease just a few years earlier. In an interview with the American-Statesman in late 2003, Walser could barely lift his hand and his speech was slow and difficult, but his eyes lit up when a favorite memory surfaced, including the standing ovation he received when he opened for Johnny Cash at the Erwin Center in 1996 and making his debut at the Grand Ol' Opry in 1999. The next year he was honored with the National Heritage Award in Washington, D.C....
Rural Residents Battle Southern Nevada Water Grab Residents of rural Nevada know they face long odds in their effort to thwart a proposed water grab by southern Nevada. Las Vegas has money and political power, but the rural residents think they have the truth on their side, and, so far, they refuse to back down or be bought off. My ancestors were able to live a sustainable lifestyle on the land for quite some time. Las Vegas seems to want to sustain unsustainable growth," Rick Spilsbury, a Western Shoshone blogger, says. Rural residents know that it's only been in the last few years that Las Vegas paid any attention at all to water conservation, and that fountains, lawns, pools, and man-made lakes have multiplied with few restrictions. Now, Las Vegas wants White Pine's water, hundreds of thousands of acres, to allow for even more sprawl. "I don't like the idea of my place drying up for another condo or casino in Las Vegas," Bannon Humphries, a Spring Valley rancher, says. "I think every person up there is against it. I haven't spoken to one person who is even quiet about it," Spilsbury says....
Nevada water hearings continue Advocates of a plan to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from rural Nevada to booming Las Vegas spent hours Thursday trying to discredit reports of an expert fighting the plan - and got a warning from a state hearing panel to move on. Attorneys Paul Taggart and Michael Van Zandt, representing the Southern Nevada Water Authority, grilled hydrologist Tom Meyers at length during the second week of hearings on the SNWA request to draw more than 90,000 acre-feet of groundwater from Spring Valley. The questioning prompted Tracy Taylor, the state water engineer who must make a final decision on the pumping plan, to tell the lawyers to stop "pounding on uncertainties" in Meyers' projections on available water in the valley. Meyers maintains that SNWA's plan would take too much water out of Spring Valley and damage existing groundwater, spring and surface water rights that already total more than 70,000 acre-feet per year. SNWA contends that the perennial yield, or the amount of water that can be safely pumped on an annual basis, from the valley, located in White Pine County, is about 100,000 acre-feet, which is more than what it's seeking....
'Triangle' farmers challenge Legacy Project The Wood River Legacy Project, an ambitious effort to restore flows to 12 miles of the Big Wood River south of Glendale Bridge projected to boost the size of the fishery by 33 percent, has drawn support from a host of city and county governments and local canal companies. But during a public forum in Hailey Tuesday night, the project, which hinges on the revision of Idaho's entrenched water laws, was challenged by a group of farmers south of Bellevue who believe the undertaking will create more harm than good. Every summer since 1920, the Big Wood River, which is among Idaho's most treasured fisheries, has been diverted into canals near Glendale Bridge, leaving scores of trout to die in stagnant pools. Legacy Project Director Rich McIntyre thinks if water right's holders are given an option, many would choose to keep their water in-stream, and the dead stretch of river could be revived. But current Idaho water law is based on a "use it or lose it" policy, meaning water rights' holders must exercise their rights to the precious resource, or lose it all....
Water groups supports H2O provisions of Idaho wilderness bill An Idaho water-rights advocacy group is supporting elements of a bid to create a 550-thousand acre wilderness in the rugged Owyhee canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, saying it includes provisions that protect state water rights. The Idaho Water Users Association, whose members include cities, ranchers and fish farmers, says it's "satisfied that Idaho sovereignty over its waters is fully protected." It also endorsed provisions of the wilderness plan, which is sponsored by Senator Mike Crapo and goes before a Senate subcommitttee on September 27th, that keep water from the Owyhee and Bruneau river basins from being piped out of state. The group says that's an important safeguard for local water users....
A climate of change President Bush's endeavor to give landowners, corporations, local governments, nonprofits and others more say in the management of natural resources has environmentalists and their allies nervous. "We're concerned this will hurt the gains we've made in the last 30 years of environmental law," says Gary L. Graham, executive director of Audubon Colorado. Such concerns arose last week as Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist, came to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs as part of a 24-city national listening tour to solicit suggestions on the president's nebulously dubbed "cooperative conservation" effort. Gun rights activists, farmers and ranchers, four-wheeling groups and oil and natural gas representatives poured into a large campus conference room to praise the initiative. Many of them said government agencies too often stand in the way of their interests, citing a variety of reasons, including petty personality conflicts and officials' incompetence....
Conservancy opposes Army plan After getting an earful from donors, the Nature Conservancy is taking a stance against the Army’s proposed expansion of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. The organization, which has worked with the military to preserve ranchland around Fort Carson, says it will have nothing to do with a project that would put ranchers off their land through use of federal land-seizure laws. “We have a strict prohibition in participating in condemnation projects,” Brian McPeek, the organization’s deputy state director, said Thursday. The Army is eyeing outside organizations to help manage a stretch of the training area if Defense Department officials approve adding as much as 418,000 acres to the 235,000-acre site in southeast Colorado. The Army has proposed a “conservation area” covering the Purgatoire River valley adjacent to Piñon Canyon, managed by an outside organization. McPeek said the Army hasn’t discussed its plans with the Nature Conservancy. The group’s unwillingness to participate doesn’t change anything, the Army said. “It has no effect whatsoever,” said Karen Edge, an Army spokeswoman....
Leaders Convene in Helena for Climate Challenge Conference Montanans are feeling the impact of global warming. An eight-year drought in Eastern Montana has been a blow to farmers and ranchers and elsewhere, ski bums and trout fisherman are experiencing shorter recreational seasons. And no one in Montana can fail to notice the increase in forest fires this year. These are some of the concerns bringing together over forty organizations sponsoring the Climate Challenge Conference in Helena this weekend. "We are very gratified by the wide diversity and range of organizations who responded to our call for this conference," said Sterling Miller, Senior Wildlife Biologist for the National Wildlife Federation. Corporations, unions, government agencies, non-profits and individuals concerned with global warming will all be attending the conference. The main goal of the conference is to get the attention of political leaders who are ignoring the issue of global warming, Sterling said. He makes an emphatic exclusion of Governor Brian Schweitzer from the apathetic group. The hope is that the interest groups involvement will help get politicians to take notice....
Suspected wolf on Zumwalt may be vanguard Biologists have not yet been able to positively confirm the presence of a young black wolf on the Zumwalt Prairie of Wallowa County, despite a videotape taken in about mid-July by an archery hunter from Eugene, who was scouting the area. The U.S. Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife have since received a couple of other possible sightings in the area, one from a fence builder about three weeks who initially suspected that the animal might have been a dog, according to Craig Ely, Northeast Oregon Regional Director based in La Grande. Ely said that biologist spent 10 or 12 days in the evenings looking for the animal with no success, and sent a plane over the prairie in the search after that most recent report. "If it's a wolf, they move around a lot," Ely said, adding that while the animal could be a wolf hybrid, or even a dog gone wild, but it could also be a wolf. "My assessment is that, as an agency, we believe there are wolves in Oregon, we just haven't confirmed it yet…Sooner or later, Oregon will be recolonized with wolves from Idaho."....
Capitol Hill rally helped spotlight timber safety net's importance Last week's blitz on Capitol Hill to draw attention to the plight of counties facing elimination of the federal timber safety net proved valuable, Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson said. Speaking at Wednesday's meeting of the county Board of Commissioners, Robertson said the effort spotlighted the importance of the program for counties across the United States that have been hurt by cutbacks in logging on federal forests. More than 200 officials representing counties and schools throughout the nation -- including Robertson and fellow Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman -- descended upon Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to extend the safety net program. "It was an opportunity to re-energize the effort," Robertson said. The safety net, which was signed into law in 2000 by former President Bill Clinton, is set to expire at the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30....
Judge OKs Mount Ashland ski area expansion A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Mount Ashland ski area's proposed expansion, but environmental groups that sued to halt more development on the mountain say they may appeal his decision. U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner issued a summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Forest Service and the Mount Ashland Association, the nonprofit corporation that manages the ski area. He rejected the arguments of three environmental groups that challenged the Forest Service's decision to approve 16 new ski and snowboard trails, two new chairlifts and 200 additional parking spaces on the mountain. "We're elated," said Bill Little, president of the board of directors of the Mount Ashland Association. "We're considering our options," said Tom Dimitre, chairman of the Rogue Group Sierra Club, one of the groups that sued the U.S. Forest Service along with Ashland-based Headwaters and Portland-based Oregon Natural Resources Council....
Federal court: Road to jarbidge stays open A dispute over two miles of dirt road and a threatened fish in a national forest just south of the Idaho line may be over after nearly a decade. A decision signed on Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt lifted a stay freezing a 2001 agreement, in which the government had agreed not to contest Elko County’s claim to a right of way on the South Canyon Road. Hunt emphasized that the settlement agreement does not transfer any interest in land. Elko County’s claim will remain dormant and Elko County and the government will work together on the road, he said. “There is a huge gulf between granting someone an interest in land and refusing to argue about whether they have such an interest,’’ Hunt said. The 2001 agreement settled a federal lawsuit that charged Elko County had undertaken illegal repairs in 1998 on washed-out portions of South Canyon Road, which runs alongside a fork in the Jarbidge River. The river’s bull trout were declared threatened in 1999 under the Endangered Species Act....
Editorial - Roadless policy needs a path No one's quite sure about the precise impact of this week's "roadless" ruling by a federal judge, which would restore broad protections to about a third of national forest land in the lower 48 states. The ruling was favorably received by those who seek to control development on the West's pristine public lands. But we hope it doesn't undo the work of the state commission that developed a smart set of recommendations to provide appropriate safeguards for public lands while still satisfying a variety of environmental, recreational and commercial interests. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte of San Francisco threw out the Bush administration's roadless program, saying that Washington failed to conduct necessary environmental studies before giving states permission last year to draft their own management guidelines for roads on forest lands. The court ruling came a week after the Colorado Roadless Areas Review Task Force submitted recommendations to Gov. Bill Owens to preserve most of the 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in Colorado's national forests. We agree with Owens, who said, "The bipartisan, collaborative process we have undertaken in Colorado is the appropriate way to determine our state's position concerning roadless areas." But we think he's off base in saying that Laporte is "unilaterally dictating natural-resource policy for the entire country."....
Guv touts renewed roadless rule Gov. Bill Richardson is praising a decision by a federal judge in California to reinstate the "Roadless Rule," a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly a third of national forests. "This is a monumental victory for everyone who enjoys our wild forests," Richardson said Wednesday. "Our roadless forests areas are cherished by hunters, anglers and outdoor enthusiasts. Roadless areas support significant and complex wildlife communities, they create valuable recreation opportunities, and roadless areas help support rural economies." But Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of Albuquerque calls the decision by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte a step backward for those seeking to empower states and local governments in roadless area management. "For over 40 years, our courts have thrown out national roadless rules like the Clinton-era rule, which was overturned by numerous courts," Domenici said. "Now that we finally have a state-based system, I'd hate to see it derailed." He added that the previous, one-size-fits-all national approach didn't meet the needs of many states, including New Mexico....
Five timber areas sold; four face protests Five U.S. Bureau of Land Management timber sales totalling 20.3 million board feet were sold Thursday in the agency's Medford District. However, all but one has been administratively protested by environmental groups to the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Arlington, Va. It takes about 90 days for an administrative protest to be resolved by the appeals board, according to BLM spokeswoman Patty Burel. Two others sales containing nearly 4 million board feet also offered Thursday were not sold. The district's targeted annual allowable harvest is 57.1 million board feet, although the actual amount fluctuates each year. Only 28.5 million board feet were offered this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, Burel said....
Monumental discoveries Paleontologists are giddy after the fossil frenzy at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument yielded yet more fruit: two heretofore unknown 75-million-year-old dinosaurs. "It's been a dream summer," beamed Alan Titus, Bureau of Land Management paleontologist for the 1.9 million-acre monument in southern Utah. A 6-foot-long skull of one of the plant-eating creatures - found intact along with about 30 percent of its skeleton - belongs to a beast similar to members of the ceratoid family, but boasts some distinct features. "We realized from its features and characteristics we've never seen it before," Titus said. Those characteristics make it impossible to categorize the creature in the two subfamilies for ceratoid dinosaurs - which, like the triceratops, are known for their facial horns and a shield that fans out from the back of the neck. What makes this dinosaur unique is the mammoth size of the horns over the eyes and the stubby horn over the nose in addition to the shield features, Titus said. The skull was found this summer by a volunteer....
Lease sale in Alaska may be reworked The Interior Department may reverse course and withdraw part of a planned sale of oil-drilling leases on Alaska's North Slope because of environmental concerns, a department official said. The Wednesday sale of leases on about 8 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve includes about 400,000 acres around Teshekpuk Lake, an area environmental groups consider a critical Arctic wildlife habitat. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge James Singleton in Anchorage ruled that an environmental impact statement prepared by the department for the entire area failed "to adequately address the cumulative effect" of the drilling. Last week the Bush administration rejected the judge's finding and said the sale would proceed as planned. "If we want to go ahead with the Sept. 27 sale, we're going to have to accommodate what the judge said," Johnnie Burton, director of the department's Minerals Management Service, said Thursday at a news conference in Washington. Asked whether the department might consider withdrawing the 400,000 acres around the lake from the sale, Burton said, "We might." "We haven't made the decision yet," she said....
Mogul Pledges Billions Against Warming British business mogul Richard Branson said Thursday he would invest about $3 billion to combat global warming over the next decade. Branson, the billionaire behind the multi-platform Virgin brand, said the money would come from 100 percent of the profits generated by his transportation and airline sectors. It will then be invested in efforts to find renewable, sustainable energy sources in an effort to wean the world off of oil and coal. Branson made the announcement on the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference of business, political and nonprofit leaders hosted by former President Clinton. "Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents," Branson said at a news conference with Clinton at his side. "We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment."....
Study: Oceans have cooled in recent years Despite the long term warming trend seen around the globe, the oceans have cooled in the last three years, scientists announced today. The temperature drop, a small fraction of the total warming seen in the last 48 years, suggests that global warming trends can sometimes take little dips. "This research suggests global warming isn't always steady, but happens with occasional 'speed bumps,'" said study co-author Josh Willis, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This cooling is probably natural climate variability. The oceans today are still warmer than they were during the 1980s, and most scientists expect the oceans will eventually continue to warm in response to human-induced climate change."....
Hunters must steer clear of rocket launch The New Mexico Economic Development Department is advising hunters to steer clear of public land in Game Management Unit 20 on Sept. 25. A private company will be launching a rocket from temporary facilities near the proposed Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. Hunting seasons for oryx and dove will be open during the time of the launch. New Mexico State Police, county sheriff's departments, the Department of Game and Fish and private security companies will be present at several roadblocks to discourage entry to the area surrounding the launch site. The proposed launch is scheduled for around 7:30 a.m., but delays may extend the time the roadblocks are in place and could last throughout the day. The launch area includes 27 square miles of state trust land and surrounding Bureau of Land Management property west of White Sands Missile Range. The launch is approximately 23 miles east of Caballo Lake....
Ire over plan's ag land proposal A proposal to offset the future loss of Monterey County farmland to development in the proposed county general plan provoked heated protests Wednesday before county planning commissioners. Another proposal to require water-quality tests on new agricultural wells in the draft general plan -- a 20-year growth blueprint for unincorporated areas -- also hit sore points with members of the public and some commissioners. Christopher Bunn Jr., a farm industry spokesman, said the proposal to require farmland developers to preserve twice as much farmland elsewhere in the county "is particularly designed to send a farmer's blood pressure up." He said the industry is "ballistic" about the proposal suggested by a county environmental consultant. County planners said the farmland-protection measure was suggested as a means of mitigating the inevitable loss of important farmland to development during the next 20 years. Commissioners suggested changes that would make the program an option, rather than a requirement, to move ahead with a farmland-conversion project. Still, critics said, the proposal would increase land and housing costs and prove very expensive to developers seeking to acquire farmland conservation easements from a shrinking pool of farmland owners willing to sell development rights....
Column - Activists using Arizona as battlefield Animal-rights militants from Washington, New York and California have brought their political agenda to Arizona, intent on criminalizing humane practices of livestock farmers. If successful, hog farmers and veal ranchers will face fines up to $20,000 and six months in jail. And one day consumers may be forced to buy pork from Mexico and other foreign producers. Proposition 204's out-of-state funders are targeting the way breeding pigs and veal calves are housed. Yet Arizona has no veal farms and ranks just 27th nationally in hog production. Targeting states with minor or non-existent livestock industries and large urban populations of unsuspecting voters shows the true colors of the activists who are using Arizona as a pawn in their national campaign. Their mission is to denigrate law-abiding farmers, whose methods are approved by veterinary professionals and experts, and stir fear in the hearts and minds of voters with malicious claims about the way farmers care for their animals. And the activists won't think twice about breaking the law if that's what it takes, as they did in pushing a similar initiative in Florida in 2002. There, some of the same activists flooded the state with $1 million in illegal campaign contributions. They were charged with 210 violations of election law and paid a $50,000 fine. That initiative granted pigs constitutional rights and forced the state's only two hog farms, both family-owned, out of business....
U.S. government asks court to dismiss case against Cdn cattle by ranchers An appeal by a U.S. ranchers' group attempting to stop some Canadian cattle from crossing the border could be dead before it even begins. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has filed a motion in the Court of Appeals asking it to agree with a lower court's ruling without hearing all the evidence. The motion says that judges at the Appeals Court have already rejected the attempt by the Montana-based lobby group Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) to keep America's borders firmly closed to Canadian cattle based on the country's cases of mad cow disease. "All of the issues . . . have already been considered and rejected by this Court," it reads. "The rule at issue is unchanged, as are the relevant facts and law."....
Cattlemen Support Senate Renewal of Mandatory Price Reporting Members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) are gratified with the U.S. Senate’s final passage of H.R. 3408, legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year and will now effectively reauthorize Mandatory Price Reporting (MPR) for four more years, through September 30, 2010. “This reporting process is important to U.S. cattle ranchers, and since the mandatory law expired last fall, we have been working diligently to urge its renewal,” explains NCBA President and Missouri cattle producer Mike John. “Making price reporting practices mandatory by law assures cattle producers are getting the marketing information they need about their beef products.” Mandatory Price Reporting requires meat packers to report to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) daily price and volume information on negotiated and non-negotiated purchases of cattle and boxed beef sales. In addition, companies are also required to report beef exports and imports. The Mandatory Price Reporting law expired September 30, 2005, after the Senate was initially unable to agree to the bill passed by the House....
New group relives the Wild West The late 1800s in Bay City, with its notorious waterfront saloons and bawdy houses, was akin to dozens of boom towns in the Wild West where cowboys and outlaws, miners and ranchers all mingled. The 16th annual River of Time Living History Encampment, however, brings in a bit of cowboy justice in the form of presentations by the Christian Cowboys, a band of 22 re-enactors who relive the Old West. Tom Brown, the Cowboys' moderator and one of the originators, said the group includes former teachers who want to keep history alive, especially the bits of Americana celebrated in the Wild West shows. Visitors can check the updated daily schedule to be handed out at the park to see when the Cowboys will perform. Brown, a retired teacher of history and social studies at Farwell High School, said the group brings in an entire Western town block of seven false-front buildings stretching about 80 feet. The Cowboys have 22 different skits they practice and can present at various events and festivals throughout the state and beyond, Brown said....
Museum Opens In Pie Town Just in time for the Pie Festival the DanCyn Windmill Museum opened to the public in Pie Town, New Mexico, on Friday, Sept. 8. The museum is an ongoing labor of love for Cyndi and Dan Lee, who conceived the idea after they visited a Windmill Museum in Oklahoma nine years ago. Right now the museum consists of the Old Bennett cabin, built in the early 30s, where the Lee family of five children lived in its two rooms on the Tres Lagunas Ranch. The museum has expansion plans for two outbuildings and, of course, more windmills. Dan and Cyndi Lee purchased the cabin from Miles Choate and it is dedicated to his memory. “We tore it down in 1999 and marked every log with its location and moved it log by log to Pie Town,” Cyndi said. “Two years ago we did the foundation.” According to invitation to the opening, “It’s been our dream to capture the rich heritage of the area in a period authentic log cabin filled with memories of local families, the homesteaders, the ranchers.” And filled it is with donations of furniture, clothing, dishes, bedding, tools, newspapers and magazines, photos, saddles, quirts and quilts – intriguing treasures from the past of the 30s to the early 50s. People viewing the cabin on its opening day could be heard exclaiming with delight, “My grandmother had one of those,” or “We used to have that when I was growing up.”....
'Pavarotti of the Plains' Don Walser dead at 72 There's never been a more special relationship between a musician and his fans in Austin than when rotund National Guardsman Don Walser started over in the music business in 1990 at the now-defunct Henry's Bar on Burnet Road. His improbable rise and signing to Sire Records, the label of Madonna and the Ramones, at age 64 was the feelgood story of the Austin music scene. Dubbed "the Pavarotti of the Plains" for his clear, powerful tenor, Walser was embraced by gray-haired two-steppers and tattooed punk rockers alike, which was the basis of a February 1996 segment on "ABC Primetime Live." Walser passed away about 1:45 p.m. Wednesday after a long illness. He was 72. Slowed by mounting health problems, which forced his retirement from the music business in September 2003, Walser's time in the spotlight was relatively short. He loved to sing and lived to please his fans, but the singer's physical deterioration — he was diagnosed with neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system, in 2001 — caused him to forget lyrics and back down from notes he hit with ease just a few years earlier. In an interview with the American-Statesman in late 2003, Walser could barely lift his hand and his speech was slow and difficult, but his eyes lit up when a favorite memory surfaced, including the standing ovation he received when he opened for Johnny Cash at the Erwin Center in 1996 and making his debut at the Grand Ol' Opry in 1999. The next year he was honored with the National Heritage Award in Washington, D.C....
Thursday, September 21, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Calif. sues 6 carmakers in global warming suit California filed a global warming lawsuit on Wednesday against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other automakers, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California was the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles' emissions. The lawsuit also names Chrysler Motors Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler, and the North American units of Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.. It also charges that vehicle emissions have contributed significantly to global warming and harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health of the most populous state in the United States....
Judge Voids Bush Policy on National Forest Roads In the latest round of legal Ping-Pong over the future of 49 million roadless acres of national forests, a federal judge in California on Wednesday reinstated Clinton-era protections against logging and mining on the land and invalidated the Bush administration’s substitute policy. The judge, Elizabeth D. LaPorte of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said the new policy had been imposed without the required environmental safeguards. The reversal, however, does not cover nine million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska because a separate set of legal opinions determines their use. Judge LaPorte ruled in a suit filed by a coalition of environmental groups and states that objected to the decision last year to scuttle what was widely known as the “roadless rule” of 2001. The administration replaced that rule with a policy of state-by-state management under which governors submit recommendations for the use of national forest lands within their borders. Judge LaPorte said that the original rule had laid out “the inherent problems in this kind of local decision making,” particularly “the failure to recognize the cumulative national significance of individual local decisions.” In repealing the 2001 rule, she said, the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department, had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires agencies to conduct detailed environmental analyses of alternative approaches. Judge LaPorte said the Forest Service had failed to consult federal agencies responsible for protecting endangered species. Among other points, her order enjoined the service “from taking any further action contrary to the roadless rule without undertaking environmental analysis.”....
Ruling could revive Wyo roadless suit Wyoming officials thought their legal challenge of a Clinton administration rule banning road construction on nearly 50 million acres of national forest land across the country was rendered moot by the Bush administration. But a California judge's ruling Wednesday to overturn the Bush administration plan -- which could have cleared the way for more commercial activity in national forests -- could mean a return to the courtroom for Wyoming officials. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the state would seek to revive a lawsuit that led a federal judge in Cheyenne to strike down the Clinton rule in 2003. That ruling had been rendered moot when the Bush administration issued its own rule. But U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte in California has now ruled that the Bush rule is illegal as well. "Obviously, this decision in a federal district court in California tends to resurrect an issue which had been deemed moot," Freudenthal said Wednesday....
Idaho to move ahead with roadless plan despite federal court ruling A federal court in California has overturned a Bush Administration rule governing America's 58 million acres of roadless areas. But Idaho, which will unveil its plan for the state's 9.3 million acres of roadless area Wednesday, says it'll move ahead anyway. The Bush administration in May 2005 passed a rule replacing former President Clinton's mandate to shield roadless areas. Bush allowed governors to petition to protect roadless areas, nullify land-use plans that stopped development and management, or have the Forest Service create new plans. Brad Hoaglun, a spokesman for Governor Jim Risch, says whether Bush's rule should be allowed will be resolved in the courts. Hoaglun says "What you have is two judges who have made opposing rulings."....
State Requests EPA Fine For Spill At Hanford Nuclear Site Washington state issued a notice of violation Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Energy for leaking a highly toxic and potentially cancer-causing agent into ground at the heavily contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation. The leak of sodium dichromate occurred as workers were digging up an old pipeline near a nuclear reactor, about a half-mile from the Columbia River. The concentrated material potentially endangered workers, as well as the already contaminated groundwater and the spawning salmon and other fish species in the river, said Jay Manning, director of the Washington Department of Ecology. The notice alerts the Energy Department that the state believes the agency and its contractors violated the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal cleanup pact signed by the state, Energy Department and federal Environmental Protection Agency, Manning said. The state also asked the EPA, which regulates cleanup at that part of the site, to issue a fine....
BLM restricts off-road travel on southern Utah badlands Moving to protect two species of cactus, the federal government slapped restrictions Wednesday on cross-country motorized travel on the sprawling badlands around Factory Butte, a towering monolith in southern Utah. The Bureau of Land Management closed 222 square miles of public land except for designated routes with a notice published in the Federal Register. Officials said all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes still have open areas to roam, including a four-square-mile natural basin along State Route 24 called Swing Arm City, plus 220 miles of dirt roads and trails. The action has been expected for months. Last spring, a government survey found the badlands held pockets of endangered Wright fishhook and threatened Winkler cactus. But off-roaders who worship Factory Butte's wide-open terrain, about 180 miles south of Salt Lake City, were angry....
Column - For once, preservation wins out, as a state purchase protects land and fish Not often is there good news about Arizona's carnivorous suburban sprawl. But here's a bit: Due to a sterling little deal between real estate agents, government agencies and one nonprofit group, a slice of crucial natural habitat is being spared. In July, the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced its $2.25 million purchase of nearly 900 acres of an old ranch nestled along the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. This adds to adjacent property also bought for preservation in 2004, all amid a subdivision sprouting across the 20,000-acre Salero Ranch. A spring-fed oasis called Coal Mine Canyon was specifically targeted, and the buy was brokered by The Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based group helping to preserve parks, gardens and wildlife habitat. The heart of this pact was an innovative, private-public mechanism that's gaining national prominence. But its soul is the Gila topminnow and other wildlife clinging to nature's quickly unraveling threads....
Group files suit to block Minnesota trapping The Animal Protection Institute says it's filed suit to force the State of Minnesota to abide by the Federal Endangered Species Act. Traps set for predators are also killing endangered animals. According to the Institute's Camilla Fox, the animal advocacy non-profit first sent the DNR a notice of a potential lawsuit last spring. "We filed a letter of intent to sue to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in April of this year," Fox says. "Our letter detailed our concerns regarding the illegal take of threatened and endangered species such as Canada lynx, bald eagles, grey wolves. And our letter asked them to make the necessary changes to protect these species." However, Fox says, the DNR never replied. Fox says her group has accumulated documentation that at least 24 bald eagles have been trapped in Minnesota over a 15-year period. At least half died. She says more recent documents show that rare Canada lynx have been caught....
Mercury accumulates in animals Mercury pollution from power plants and other industrial sources has accumulated in birds, mammals and reptiles across the country, according to a national environmental group. The report is the first major compilation of studies investigating mercury buildup in such wildlife as California clapper rails, Maine's bald eagles, Canadian loons and Florida panthers. In all, scientists working with the National Wildlife Federation found 65 studies showing troublesome mercury levels in 40 species. "From songbirds to alligators, turtles to bats, eagles to polar bears, mercury is accumulating in nearly every link of the food chain," said Catherine Bowes, an author of the report who manages the federation's mercury program in the northeastern states. High mercury levels in popular fish such as swordfish and canned albacore tuna prompted government health warnings in 2004 aimed at pregnant women and children. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can damage fetuses and cause mental retardation, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, blindness and deafness. The contamination also can kill or harm wildlife....
Feds investigate grizzly bear death Federal and state officials are investigating the death of a grizzly bear found southwest of Augusta on the Rocky Mountain Front. The 4-and-a-half-year-old, male bear was found on private land near Bean Lake, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks grizzly biologist Mike Madel of Choteau. Because grizzly bears are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating along with game wardens from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Madel said he could not comment on how the bear died, but said it was from other than natural causes, including illness, injury or attack by another animal. He said FWP staff found the dead bear on Sept. 11. The bear had been radio-collared several months ago and its collar was transmitting a mortality signal, he said....
Fort Huachuca dropped from species suit A federal judge has approved a settlement dropping Fort Huachuca from a lawsuit after the military post agreed to ask for a new review of the fort's impact on endangered species along the San Pedro River. The lawsuit, filed in June 2005 by the Center for Biological Diversity, named several federal agencies — including the Army, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration — alleging violations of a 2002 biological opinion issued by Fish and Wildlife. Under the stipulated agreement that U.S. District Judge Cindy Jorgenson authorized on Sept. 15, the Center for Biological Diversity agreed to drop the fort from its lawsuit because the fort decided in March to seek a new biological opinion from Fish and Wildlife. "We unilaterally decided, not related to the lawsuit, because of changes in numbers and missions, to reconsult, and we felt that this mooted the lawsuit," said Tanja Linton, a spokeswoman for the fort....
Federal plan would remove wolves from endangered, threatened lists More than a year after its initial plan was reversed in federal court, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is again proposing to remove Wisconsin's gray wolves from the federal Endangered Species List. But this time, the agency has singled out Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota instead of lumping other states into the delisting proposal, which was overturned by a federal judge in Oregon last January. Officials say the wolf population in the western Great Lakes region now numbers close to 4,000 animals, including more than 3,000 in Minnesota. Wolves have become well-established in Wisconsin and Michigan, with numbers totaling at least 425 and 405, respectively. In Wisconsin, the wolf population was estimated at between 425 and 455 in the winter of 2005. The 2006 wolf population count is due in April. Federal delisting from both the endangered and threatened list would return all management authority to the state wildlife agencies in the areas covered by the population segment. Under federal control, state biologists have had limited, inconsistent authority to trap and kill some depredating wolves....
Feds get an earful People packed into the Sublette County Library Tuesday to bend the federal government's ear about its cooperation -- or lack thereof -- with local communities and organizations. Comments during the three-hour meeting included criticism about the Endangered Species Act, criticism about expansive energy development, suggestions for reforming the National Environmental Policy Act, and criticism of heavy-handed federal rule. Dan Budd, a cattle rancher, told representatives of the Department of Interior and Environmental Protection Agency that the concept of cooperation was "a farce." "We cooperate, you dictate," he said. He said it seemed the only reason for the federal government to issue cattle grazing permits is to have someone to punish. Dr. Tom Johnston, Sublette County health officer, said the federal government should look more closely at the aggregate effects of policies. Specifically, he said the BLM continues to approve more and more projects that "are environmentally unsound and present human health risks." Johnston said increased energy development and air pollution, combined with permitting of development at Fremont Lake -- Pinedale's source of drinking water -- shows a "federal stubborn refusal" to listen to local will and health issues....
Beavers bounce back At dusk, a crowd of late summer tourists scrambled to the top of a roadside hill in Hayden Valley eager to catch a glimpse of two wolves in the area. While binoculars and expensive spotting scopes peered far across the valley, a lone brown beaver slipped into the nearby Yellowstone River and downstream, undetected by the hillside throng. The moment might have been a metaphor. The dramatic return of the wolf to Yellowstone grabbed worldwide attention, but the quiet resurgence of the beaver at the same time -- particularly on the Northern Range -- has barely been noticed. Over the past decade, the number of beaver colonies counted in Yellowstone has grown from 49 to about 85. In the northern reaches of the park, the number has jumped from zero in 1996 to nine last year....
South Dakota Stockgrowers Back Ferret Policy During their annual membership meeting held in Spearfish, S.D., September 15, 2006, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association (SDSGA) voted unanimously to support the Pennington County Commission’s opposition to the reintroduction of additional ferret populations in the state. SDSGA District 3 Director Marvin Jobgen, Scenic, S.D., says the Stockgrowers appreciate Pennington County for taking a tough stand against the expenditure of tax dollars on more ferret recovery areas before cleaning up the mess created by the overpopulation of prairie dogs on Forest Service and Park land. “Like Pennington County Commissioners, the Stockgrowers are disgusted with the destruction prairie dogs have caused on federal lands and private property in and around Conata Basin. It’s ludicrous for government agencies to allow prairie dogs to destroy the habitat for every species of wildlife that exists in the prairie dog towns, all in the name of ‘saving’ the black footed ferret,” Jobgen said....
Let It Burn Ever since the Big Blowup of 1910 ripped through the wilderness of western Montana and northern Idaho — incinerating 3 million acres of forest in 48 hours, killing 57 people and endangering the political future of then-President William Howard Taft — foresters and the media that quote them have talked about fires the way generals talk about war. Firefighters battle blazes on their frontlines and, as they contain them, mop up their smoldering remnants. But last week, when fire expert Richard Minnich was watching the nightly news, he began to suspect that the rhetoric was shifting: “I heard this weather guy, Josh Rubenstein, talking about the fire up in the Los Padres Forest [known as the Day Fire because it started on Labor Day]. He showed some insight that I rarely see in the media. He said, ‘It’s better that it got burned off in the weather we’ve got right now instead of waiting for the Santa Anas to come along over the weekend.’ He actually suggested that the forest might need to burn.” Minnich is a professor and fire-ecology specialist at UC Riverside who sometimes irritates the U.S. Forest Service with his theories about fuels and fire management, which he documents with photographs of those fuels and the aftermath of the fires to prove he’s right. He has long been critical of forest-fire suppression in the San Bernardino Mountains, where billions have been spent tamping down conflagrations that would have nurtured a healthy forest. Watching the news that night, however, Minnich thought maybe the Forest Service was treating the Day Fire the way he might if he were in charge. “My suspicion is that they’re fighting it hard on the I-5, but letting it [burn] all it can in the wild parts. They might actually be doing the right thing.”....
Mountain lion kitten shot in western North Dakota; hunter cited The first mountain lion has been killed in this year's experimental hunting season in North Dakota, but the hunter was cited because it was a kitten, state officials say. Mountain lion kittens, which can be identified by their spots, are off limits under new state rules, as are female lions accompanied by kittens. Killing them is a misdemeanor that could bring jail time and up to a $1,000 fine, officials say. Deputy state Game and Fish Department Commissioner Roger Rostvet said the female mountain lion, about 5 months old, was shot early Saturday night near Grassy Butte. He said it will count toward the quota of five lions for the experimental season. The hunter, from the Minot area, told authorities he did not know the animal was a kitten, Rostvet said. He did not identify the hunter. ``The individual turned the cat in as he was supposed to,'' Rostvet said. ``Last year, that cat would have been a legal cat.''....
Ten Years Later: Grand Staircase-Escalante Still Elicits Both Cheers and Jeers from Utahns This past Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The 1.9 million-acre wilderness was signed over to the protective custody of the federal Bureau of Land Management by President Clinton on Sept. 18, 1996. Since that date, the monument has been a major point of contention between environmentalists and local activists concerned with the potentially negative impact of the monument on the regional economies of Garfield and Kane counties. Although a lot has changed in ten years, there is still plenty of emotion on both sides of this debate. While a large part of the initial controversy stemmed from a perception that Clinton was playing politics with Utah’s land—the monument was created in the last months of Clinton’s reelection campaign against Bob Dole after unsuccessful attempts to get wilderness legislation through the GOP-led Congress—most of the animosity pertains to land use issues. The monument’s biggest casualty was the proposed Andalex coal mine on the Kaiparowits Plateau. Although President Clinton’s proclamation did not expressly prohibit development of existing mining leases, preserving the monument as a “unspoiled natural area” would necessarily mean limiting the implementation of roads, power lines, and other infrastructure required to operate the mine. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, then-congressman Bill Orton of Utah remarked that the decision to set aside the land for a National Monument was “shortsighted.”....
Oil-shale plan advances The federal government has taken a step toward approving the reopening of an oil-shale mine in Utah, one of four experimental works on Western lands that are intended to boost domestic oil production. In Colorado, three oil companies won environmental clearance in August for their plans to start producing shale oil by heating layers of rock using electric oven-like elements, steam injection or hot natural gas. Utah's is the only mining project where oil shale will be brought to the surface, crushed into gravel and fed into a furnace-like retort. The White River Mine was abandoned by three major oil companies in 1985 when falling crude prices made shale oil -- long an elusive bonanza in the West -- uneconomical. The White River Mine reaches a relatively thin layer of oil shale 1,000 feet underground. The richest layer is only 58 feet, compared with zones 1,000 feet thick in Colorado that are closer to the surface, where heating the ground is thought to be more practical. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management posted a report late Monday on an agency Web site that suggested the White River Mine could be reopened without any environmental problems....
Bids sought for livestock pens, barns, grazing land near prison A dozen corrals next to the Penitentiary of New Mexico on N.M. 14 once were used for a highly touted wild-horse program for prison inmates. In recent years, the livestock pens have been used to hold buffalo that are raised for meat. Now, the state Corrections Department is seeking bids in an effort to find out who wants to lease the corrals along with associated structures and 22 acres of grazing land. The wild-horse program started in the mid-1980s and ended in 1990, Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland said. There were similar programs at prisons in Los Lunas and Las Cruces, she said. The program was popular with inmates and administrators alike. One of its most vocal advocates was former state District Judge Bruce Kaufman, who frequently bemoaned the fact the program had ended. In an interview at the time of his retirement in 1994, Kaufman said no paroled New Mexico convict who participated in the program had returned to prison....
Nevada Wild Horses Face Massive Round-Up Wild horses have been plucked off Nevada ranges in the tens of thousands and now more face a massive round up. But this time the roundup will take horses from the most accessible, and most visited herd. Many flock to the Cold Creek area to see the herd, and residents love the wild horses, but soon that may all be gone. The picturesque community of Cold Creek has about five dozen homes, fewer than 100 full time residents, but twice as many regular visitors - hooved visitors that is. The area, north of Las Vegas, is a routine pit stop for several bands of wild horses. Residents are used to finding horses in their front yards in the late afternoons. The roundup proposed for January would remove three quarters of the horses that roam the area. A few years ago, BLM said the region could support 171 horses. Now it thinks the number should be around 50. The people who live out here don't buy the excuses....Massive???
Deputy Kills Cougar In Yard Near Santa Fe A young mountain lion was killed by a sheriff's deputy Tuesday night in a rural but populated neighborhood south of Santa Fe. Four Santa Fe County deputies went to the scene about 10 p.m. after receiving reports from residents of an area about two miles east of the Lone Butte General Store on New Mexico 14. Homeowner Steve Smail had walked out of his home, flashlight in hand, to see why the family dog was barking at a tree. Smail looked up and "was face to face with this huge cat," said Smail's daughter, Nicole Maes. Game and Fish Department spokesman Dan Williams said the cougar was about 5 feet long, had a 20-inch tail and was 18 to 20 months old....
Senator Allen's National Heritage Area Threatens to Disproportionately Harm Minorities Legislation introduced by Senator George Allen (R-VA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) to create a federal "National Heritage Area" that encompasses portions of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania is likely to disproportionately harm minority families in the region by making homeownership more inaccessible, say members of the Project 21 black leadership network. The "Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act of 2006" is S. 2645 in the Senate and H.R. 5195 in the House. "Rather than promote initiatives that harm property rights and make it harder for minorities to obtain a piece of the American Dream, Senator Allen should focus on protecting the property rights of all Americans," said Project 21 member and Virginia resident John Meredith. Meredith, who has experience working on environmental and land use issues, is also the son of James Meredith, the first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962. "The last thing that wealthy, preservation interest groups need is a leg up from the federal government-especially when that leg up comes on the back of minorities and the lower middle class," said Meredith....
Suits Say U.S. Impeded Audits for Oil Leases Four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating the government. The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency. The auditors contend that they were blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico. “The agency has lost its sense of mission, which is to protect American taxpayers,” said Bobby L. Maxwell, who was formerly in charge of Gulf of Mexico auditing. “These are assets that belong to the American public, and they are supposed to be used for things like education, public infrastructure and roadways.” The lawsuits have surfaced as Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning the Bush administration’s willingness to challenge the oil and gas industry....
White House Outlines Global Warming Fight The Bush administration yesterday laid out a long-term "strategic plan" for using technology to curb the impact of global warming, reiterating its position that basic scientific research and voluntary actions can curb greenhouse gases linked to climate change. Addressing complaints by environmentalists and some scientists that Bush has not done enough to cut the nation's emissions of such gases, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said the 244-page "Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan" promotes initiatives such as sequestering carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and promoting hydrogen-powered cars. Energy Department officials described the plan -- which has taken four years to produce -- before the House Science subcommittee on energy yesterday. It immediately came under fire from senior Hill Republicans as well as several outside scientists and policy experts....
Indian Tribe To Block Border Fence An Indian tribe, whose members regularly help smuggle illegal immigrants and drugs into the U.S., will not allow a fence to be erected along a vulnerable stretch of the Mexican border which happens to be on tribal land. The Tohono O’odham Indians own the second biggest reservation in the country, about 2.8 million acres in the Arizona desert, and it happens to include a 75-mile border with Mexico that is used daily to smuggle drugs and migrants. Tribal members have vowed to fight the double-layered fence, approved by the House and set to be approved by the Senate this week, along their portion of the Mexican border. Evidently the tribe of around 15,000 wants to keep the privilege of crossing the border regularly to visit relatives and friends and even perform native ceremonies in both countries. One tribal council member said “animals and our people need to cross freely.” Unfortunately, that also means that illegal immigrants and drug smugglers will also cross into the U.S. freely. A few years ago, a Congressional investigative report revealed that more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana, 144 grams of cocaine and 6,600 grams of methamphetamine were seized on the Tohono O’odham Nation....
Calif. sues 6 carmakers in global warming suit California filed a global warming lawsuit on Wednesday against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other automakers, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars. State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California was the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles' emissions. The lawsuit also names Chrysler Motors Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany's DaimlerChrysler, and the North American units of Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.. It also charges that vehicle emissions have contributed significantly to global warming and harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health of the most populous state in the United States....
Judge Voids Bush Policy on National Forest Roads In the latest round of legal Ping-Pong over the future of 49 million roadless acres of national forests, a federal judge in California on Wednesday reinstated Clinton-era protections against logging and mining on the land and invalidated the Bush administration’s substitute policy. The judge, Elizabeth D. LaPorte of Federal District Court in San Francisco, said the new policy had been imposed without the required environmental safeguards. The reversal, however, does not cover nine million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska because a separate set of legal opinions determines their use. Judge LaPorte ruled in a suit filed by a coalition of environmental groups and states that objected to the decision last year to scuttle what was widely known as the “roadless rule” of 2001. The administration replaced that rule with a policy of state-by-state management under which governors submit recommendations for the use of national forest lands within their borders. Judge LaPorte said that the original rule had laid out “the inherent problems in this kind of local decision making,” particularly “the failure to recognize the cumulative national significance of individual local decisions.” In repealing the 2001 rule, she said, the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department, had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires agencies to conduct detailed environmental analyses of alternative approaches. Judge LaPorte said the Forest Service had failed to consult federal agencies responsible for protecting endangered species. Among other points, her order enjoined the service “from taking any further action contrary to the roadless rule without undertaking environmental analysis.”....
Ruling could revive Wyo roadless suit Wyoming officials thought their legal challenge of a Clinton administration rule banning road construction on nearly 50 million acres of national forest land across the country was rendered moot by the Bush administration. But a California judge's ruling Wednesday to overturn the Bush administration plan -- which could have cleared the way for more commercial activity in national forests -- could mean a return to the courtroom for Wyoming officials. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the state would seek to revive a lawsuit that led a federal judge in Cheyenne to strike down the Clinton rule in 2003. That ruling had been rendered moot when the Bush administration issued its own rule. But U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte in California has now ruled that the Bush rule is illegal as well. "Obviously, this decision in a federal district court in California tends to resurrect an issue which had been deemed moot," Freudenthal said Wednesday....
Idaho to move ahead with roadless plan despite federal court ruling A federal court in California has overturned a Bush Administration rule governing America's 58 million acres of roadless areas. But Idaho, which will unveil its plan for the state's 9.3 million acres of roadless area Wednesday, says it'll move ahead anyway. The Bush administration in May 2005 passed a rule replacing former President Clinton's mandate to shield roadless areas. Bush allowed governors to petition to protect roadless areas, nullify land-use plans that stopped development and management, or have the Forest Service create new plans. Brad Hoaglun, a spokesman for Governor Jim Risch, says whether Bush's rule should be allowed will be resolved in the courts. Hoaglun says "What you have is two judges who have made opposing rulings."....
State Requests EPA Fine For Spill At Hanford Nuclear Site Washington state issued a notice of violation Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Energy for leaking a highly toxic and potentially cancer-causing agent into ground at the heavily contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation. The leak of sodium dichromate occurred as workers were digging up an old pipeline near a nuclear reactor, about a half-mile from the Columbia River. The concentrated material potentially endangered workers, as well as the already contaminated groundwater and the spawning salmon and other fish species in the river, said Jay Manning, director of the Washington Department of Ecology. The notice alerts the Energy Department that the state believes the agency and its contractors violated the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal cleanup pact signed by the state, Energy Department and federal Environmental Protection Agency, Manning said. The state also asked the EPA, which regulates cleanup at that part of the site, to issue a fine....
BLM restricts off-road travel on southern Utah badlands Moving to protect two species of cactus, the federal government slapped restrictions Wednesday on cross-country motorized travel on the sprawling badlands around Factory Butte, a towering monolith in southern Utah. The Bureau of Land Management closed 222 square miles of public land except for designated routes with a notice published in the Federal Register. Officials said all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes still have open areas to roam, including a four-square-mile natural basin along State Route 24 called Swing Arm City, plus 220 miles of dirt roads and trails. The action has been expected for months. Last spring, a government survey found the badlands held pockets of endangered Wright fishhook and threatened Winkler cactus. But off-roaders who worship Factory Butte's wide-open terrain, about 180 miles south of Salt Lake City, were angry....
Column - For once, preservation wins out, as a state purchase protects land and fish Not often is there good news about Arizona's carnivorous suburban sprawl. But here's a bit: Due to a sterling little deal between real estate agents, government agencies and one nonprofit group, a slice of crucial natural habitat is being spared. In July, the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced its $2.25 million purchase of nearly 900 acres of an old ranch nestled along the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. This adds to adjacent property also bought for preservation in 2004, all amid a subdivision sprouting across the 20,000-acre Salero Ranch. A spring-fed oasis called Coal Mine Canyon was specifically targeted, and the buy was brokered by The Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based group helping to preserve parks, gardens and wildlife habitat. The heart of this pact was an innovative, private-public mechanism that's gaining national prominence. But its soul is the Gila topminnow and other wildlife clinging to nature's quickly unraveling threads....
Group files suit to block Minnesota trapping The Animal Protection Institute says it's filed suit to force the State of Minnesota to abide by the Federal Endangered Species Act. Traps set for predators are also killing endangered animals. According to the Institute's Camilla Fox, the animal advocacy non-profit first sent the DNR a notice of a potential lawsuit last spring. "We filed a letter of intent to sue to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in April of this year," Fox says. "Our letter detailed our concerns regarding the illegal take of threatened and endangered species such as Canada lynx, bald eagles, grey wolves. And our letter asked them to make the necessary changes to protect these species." However, Fox says, the DNR never replied. Fox says her group has accumulated documentation that at least 24 bald eagles have been trapped in Minnesota over a 15-year period. At least half died. She says more recent documents show that rare Canada lynx have been caught....
Mercury accumulates in animals Mercury pollution from power plants and other industrial sources has accumulated in birds, mammals and reptiles across the country, according to a national environmental group. The report is the first major compilation of studies investigating mercury buildup in such wildlife as California clapper rails, Maine's bald eagles, Canadian loons and Florida panthers. In all, scientists working with the National Wildlife Federation found 65 studies showing troublesome mercury levels in 40 species. "From songbirds to alligators, turtles to bats, eagles to polar bears, mercury is accumulating in nearly every link of the food chain," said Catherine Bowes, an author of the report who manages the federation's mercury program in the northeastern states. High mercury levels in popular fish such as swordfish and canned albacore tuna prompted government health warnings in 2004 aimed at pregnant women and children. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can damage fetuses and cause mental retardation, learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, blindness and deafness. The contamination also can kill or harm wildlife....
Feds investigate grizzly bear death Federal and state officials are investigating the death of a grizzly bear found southwest of Augusta on the Rocky Mountain Front. The 4-and-a-half-year-old, male bear was found on private land near Bean Lake, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks grizzly biologist Mike Madel of Choteau. Because grizzly bears are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating along with game wardens from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Madel said he could not comment on how the bear died, but said it was from other than natural causes, including illness, injury or attack by another animal. He said FWP staff found the dead bear on Sept. 11. The bear had been radio-collared several months ago and its collar was transmitting a mortality signal, he said....
Fort Huachuca dropped from species suit A federal judge has approved a settlement dropping Fort Huachuca from a lawsuit after the military post agreed to ask for a new review of the fort's impact on endangered species along the San Pedro River. The lawsuit, filed in June 2005 by the Center for Biological Diversity, named several federal agencies — including the Army, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration — alleging violations of a 2002 biological opinion issued by Fish and Wildlife. Under the stipulated agreement that U.S. District Judge Cindy Jorgenson authorized on Sept. 15, the Center for Biological Diversity agreed to drop the fort from its lawsuit because the fort decided in March to seek a new biological opinion from Fish and Wildlife. "We unilaterally decided, not related to the lawsuit, because of changes in numbers and missions, to reconsult, and we felt that this mooted the lawsuit," said Tanja Linton, a spokeswoman for the fort....
Federal plan would remove wolves from endangered, threatened lists More than a year after its initial plan was reversed in federal court, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is again proposing to remove Wisconsin's gray wolves from the federal Endangered Species List. But this time, the agency has singled out Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota instead of lumping other states into the delisting proposal, which was overturned by a federal judge in Oregon last January. Officials say the wolf population in the western Great Lakes region now numbers close to 4,000 animals, including more than 3,000 in Minnesota. Wolves have become well-established in Wisconsin and Michigan, with numbers totaling at least 425 and 405, respectively. In Wisconsin, the wolf population was estimated at between 425 and 455 in the winter of 2005. The 2006 wolf population count is due in April. Federal delisting from both the endangered and threatened list would return all management authority to the state wildlife agencies in the areas covered by the population segment. Under federal control, state biologists have had limited, inconsistent authority to trap and kill some depredating wolves....
Feds get an earful People packed into the Sublette County Library Tuesday to bend the federal government's ear about its cooperation -- or lack thereof -- with local communities and organizations. Comments during the three-hour meeting included criticism about the Endangered Species Act, criticism about expansive energy development, suggestions for reforming the National Environmental Policy Act, and criticism of heavy-handed federal rule. Dan Budd, a cattle rancher, told representatives of the Department of Interior and Environmental Protection Agency that the concept of cooperation was "a farce." "We cooperate, you dictate," he said. He said it seemed the only reason for the federal government to issue cattle grazing permits is to have someone to punish. Dr. Tom Johnston, Sublette County health officer, said the federal government should look more closely at the aggregate effects of policies. Specifically, he said the BLM continues to approve more and more projects that "are environmentally unsound and present human health risks." Johnston said increased energy development and air pollution, combined with permitting of development at Fremont Lake -- Pinedale's source of drinking water -- shows a "federal stubborn refusal" to listen to local will and health issues....
Beavers bounce back At dusk, a crowd of late summer tourists scrambled to the top of a roadside hill in Hayden Valley eager to catch a glimpse of two wolves in the area. While binoculars and expensive spotting scopes peered far across the valley, a lone brown beaver slipped into the nearby Yellowstone River and downstream, undetected by the hillside throng. The moment might have been a metaphor. The dramatic return of the wolf to Yellowstone grabbed worldwide attention, but the quiet resurgence of the beaver at the same time -- particularly on the Northern Range -- has barely been noticed. Over the past decade, the number of beaver colonies counted in Yellowstone has grown from 49 to about 85. In the northern reaches of the park, the number has jumped from zero in 1996 to nine last year....
South Dakota Stockgrowers Back Ferret Policy During their annual membership meeting held in Spearfish, S.D., September 15, 2006, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association (SDSGA) voted unanimously to support the Pennington County Commission’s opposition to the reintroduction of additional ferret populations in the state. SDSGA District 3 Director Marvin Jobgen, Scenic, S.D., says the Stockgrowers appreciate Pennington County for taking a tough stand against the expenditure of tax dollars on more ferret recovery areas before cleaning up the mess created by the overpopulation of prairie dogs on Forest Service and Park land. “Like Pennington County Commissioners, the Stockgrowers are disgusted with the destruction prairie dogs have caused on federal lands and private property in and around Conata Basin. It’s ludicrous for government agencies to allow prairie dogs to destroy the habitat for every species of wildlife that exists in the prairie dog towns, all in the name of ‘saving’ the black footed ferret,” Jobgen said....
Let It Burn Ever since the Big Blowup of 1910 ripped through the wilderness of western Montana and northern Idaho — incinerating 3 million acres of forest in 48 hours, killing 57 people and endangering the political future of then-President William Howard Taft — foresters and the media that quote them have talked about fires the way generals talk about war. Firefighters battle blazes on their frontlines and, as they contain them, mop up their smoldering remnants. But last week, when fire expert Richard Minnich was watching the nightly news, he began to suspect that the rhetoric was shifting: “I heard this weather guy, Josh Rubenstein, talking about the fire up in the Los Padres Forest [known as the Day Fire because it started on Labor Day]. He showed some insight that I rarely see in the media. He said, ‘It’s better that it got burned off in the weather we’ve got right now instead of waiting for the Santa Anas to come along over the weekend.’ He actually suggested that the forest might need to burn.” Minnich is a professor and fire-ecology specialist at UC Riverside who sometimes irritates the U.S. Forest Service with his theories about fuels and fire management, which he documents with photographs of those fuels and the aftermath of the fires to prove he’s right. He has long been critical of forest-fire suppression in the San Bernardino Mountains, where billions have been spent tamping down conflagrations that would have nurtured a healthy forest. Watching the news that night, however, Minnich thought maybe the Forest Service was treating the Day Fire the way he might if he were in charge. “My suspicion is that they’re fighting it hard on the I-5, but letting it [burn] all it can in the wild parts. They might actually be doing the right thing.”....
Mountain lion kitten shot in western North Dakota; hunter cited The first mountain lion has been killed in this year's experimental hunting season in North Dakota, but the hunter was cited because it was a kitten, state officials say. Mountain lion kittens, which can be identified by their spots, are off limits under new state rules, as are female lions accompanied by kittens. Killing them is a misdemeanor that could bring jail time and up to a $1,000 fine, officials say. Deputy state Game and Fish Department Commissioner Roger Rostvet said the female mountain lion, about 5 months old, was shot early Saturday night near Grassy Butte. He said it will count toward the quota of five lions for the experimental season. The hunter, from the Minot area, told authorities he did not know the animal was a kitten, Rostvet said. He did not identify the hunter. ``The individual turned the cat in as he was supposed to,'' Rostvet said. ``Last year, that cat would have been a legal cat.''....
Ten Years Later: Grand Staircase-Escalante Still Elicits Both Cheers and Jeers from Utahns This past Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The 1.9 million-acre wilderness was signed over to the protective custody of the federal Bureau of Land Management by President Clinton on Sept. 18, 1996. Since that date, the monument has been a major point of contention between environmentalists and local activists concerned with the potentially negative impact of the monument on the regional economies of Garfield and Kane counties. Although a lot has changed in ten years, there is still plenty of emotion on both sides of this debate. While a large part of the initial controversy stemmed from a perception that Clinton was playing politics with Utah’s land—the monument was created in the last months of Clinton’s reelection campaign against Bob Dole after unsuccessful attempts to get wilderness legislation through the GOP-led Congress—most of the animosity pertains to land use issues. The monument’s biggest casualty was the proposed Andalex coal mine on the Kaiparowits Plateau. Although President Clinton’s proclamation did not expressly prohibit development of existing mining leases, preserving the monument as a “unspoiled natural area” would necessarily mean limiting the implementation of roads, power lines, and other infrastructure required to operate the mine. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, then-congressman Bill Orton of Utah remarked that the decision to set aside the land for a National Monument was “shortsighted.”....
Oil-shale plan advances The federal government has taken a step toward approving the reopening of an oil-shale mine in Utah, one of four experimental works on Western lands that are intended to boost domestic oil production. In Colorado, three oil companies won environmental clearance in August for their plans to start producing shale oil by heating layers of rock using electric oven-like elements, steam injection or hot natural gas. Utah's is the only mining project where oil shale will be brought to the surface, crushed into gravel and fed into a furnace-like retort. The White River Mine was abandoned by three major oil companies in 1985 when falling crude prices made shale oil -- long an elusive bonanza in the West -- uneconomical. The White River Mine reaches a relatively thin layer of oil shale 1,000 feet underground. The richest layer is only 58 feet, compared with zones 1,000 feet thick in Colorado that are closer to the surface, where heating the ground is thought to be more practical. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management posted a report late Monday on an agency Web site that suggested the White River Mine could be reopened without any environmental problems....
Bids sought for livestock pens, barns, grazing land near prison A dozen corrals next to the Penitentiary of New Mexico on N.M. 14 once were used for a highly touted wild-horse program for prison inmates. In recent years, the livestock pens have been used to hold buffalo that are raised for meat. Now, the state Corrections Department is seeking bids in an effort to find out who wants to lease the corrals along with associated structures and 22 acres of grazing land. The wild-horse program started in the mid-1980s and ended in 1990, Corrections spokeswoman Tia Bland said. There were similar programs at prisons in Los Lunas and Las Cruces, she said. The program was popular with inmates and administrators alike. One of its most vocal advocates was former state District Judge Bruce Kaufman, who frequently bemoaned the fact the program had ended. In an interview at the time of his retirement in 1994, Kaufman said no paroled New Mexico convict who participated in the program had returned to prison....
Nevada Wild Horses Face Massive Round-Up Wild horses have been plucked off Nevada ranges in the tens of thousands and now more face a massive round up. But this time the roundup will take horses from the most accessible, and most visited herd. Many flock to the Cold Creek area to see the herd, and residents love the wild horses, but soon that may all be gone. The picturesque community of Cold Creek has about five dozen homes, fewer than 100 full time residents, but twice as many regular visitors - hooved visitors that is. The area, north of Las Vegas, is a routine pit stop for several bands of wild horses. Residents are used to finding horses in their front yards in the late afternoons. The roundup proposed for January would remove three quarters of the horses that roam the area. A few years ago, BLM said the region could support 171 horses. Now it thinks the number should be around 50. The people who live out here don't buy the excuses....Massive???
Deputy Kills Cougar In Yard Near Santa Fe A young mountain lion was killed by a sheriff's deputy Tuesday night in a rural but populated neighborhood south of Santa Fe. Four Santa Fe County deputies went to the scene about 10 p.m. after receiving reports from residents of an area about two miles east of the Lone Butte General Store on New Mexico 14. Homeowner Steve Smail had walked out of his home, flashlight in hand, to see why the family dog was barking at a tree. Smail looked up and "was face to face with this huge cat," said Smail's daughter, Nicole Maes. Game and Fish Department spokesman Dan Williams said the cougar was about 5 feet long, had a 20-inch tail and was 18 to 20 months old....
Senator Allen's National Heritage Area Threatens to Disproportionately Harm Minorities Legislation introduced by Senator George Allen (R-VA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) to create a federal "National Heritage Area" that encompasses portions of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania is likely to disproportionately harm minority families in the region by making homeownership more inaccessible, say members of the Project 21 black leadership network. The "Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act of 2006" is S. 2645 in the Senate and H.R. 5195 in the House. "Rather than promote initiatives that harm property rights and make it harder for minorities to obtain a piece of the American Dream, Senator Allen should focus on protecting the property rights of all Americans," said Project 21 member and Virginia resident John Meredith. Meredith, who has experience working on environmental and land use issues, is also the son of James Meredith, the first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962. "The last thing that wealthy, preservation interest groups need is a leg up from the federal government-especially when that leg up comes on the back of minorities and the lower middle class," said Meredith....
Suits Say U.S. Impeded Audits for Oil Leases Four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they said were cheating the government. The accusations, many of them in four lawsuits that were unsealed last week by federal judges in Oklahoma, represent a rare rebellion by government investigators against their own agency. The auditors contend that they were blocked by their bosses from pursuing more than $30 million in fraudulent underpayments of royalties for oil produced in publicly owned waters in the Gulf of Mexico. “The agency has lost its sense of mission, which is to protect American taxpayers,” said Bobby L. Maxwell, who was formerly in charge of Gulf of Mexico auditing. “These are assets that belong to the American public, and they are supposed to be used for things like education, public infrastructure and roadways.” The lawsuits have surfaced as Democrats and Republicans alike are questioning the Bush administration’s willingness to challenge the oil and gas industry....
White House Outlines Global Warming Fight The Bush administration yesterday laid out a long-term "strategic plan" for using technology to curb the impact of global warming, reiterating its position that basic scientific research and voluntary actions can curb greenhouse gases linked to climate change. Addressing complaints by environmentalists and some scientists that Bush has not done enough to cut the nation's emissions of such gases, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said the 244-page "Climate Change Technology Program Strategic Plan" promotes initiatives such as sequestering carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere and promoting hydrogen-powered cars. Energy Department officials described the plan -- which has taken four years to produce -- before the House Science subcommittee on energy yesterday. It immediately came under fire from senior Hill Republicans as well as several outside scientists and policy experts....
Indian Tribe To Block Border Fence An Indian tribe, whose members regularly help smuggle illegal immigrants and drugs into the U.S., will not allow a fence to be erected along a vulnerable stretch of the Mexican border which happens to be on tribal land. The Tohono O’odham Indians own the second biggest reservation in the country, about 2.8 million acres in the Arizona desert, and it happens to include a 75-mile border with Mexico that is used daily to smuggle drugs and migrants. Tribal members have vowed to fight the double-layered fence, approved by the House and set to be approved by the Senate this week, along their portion of the Mexican border. Evidently the tribe of around 15,000 wants to keep the privilege of crossing the border regularly to visit relatives and friends and even perform native ceremonies in both countries. One tribal council member said “animals and our people need to cross freely.” Unfortunately, that also means that illegal immigrants and drug smugglers will also cross into the U.S. freely. A few years ago, a Congressional investigative report revealed that more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana, 144 grams of cocaine and 6,600 grams of methamphetamine were seized on the Tohono O’odham Nation....
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Bush Administration Removing Recreation From Forests
Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400, Battle Ground, WA 98604
(360) 687-3087 – Fax: (360) 687-2973
alra@governance.net
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003 landrightsnet@yahoo.com -- (202) 329-3574
Bush Administration Removing Recreation From Forests
Historic CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp To Be Burned By Forest Service – families to be ejected
Urgent Action Required
Forest Service Permittees Face Removal
Bush Administration Policy has the Forest Service getting rid of “exclusive use” throughout the National Forest System.
Family recreation is under attack. Permit cabin use is being subtly undermined.
*****See Action Items Below.
Sound familiar? The Forest Service wants to remove people from the forests. They say they want public use but really they want no use.
The Bush Administration is continuing the anti-people recreation policies of the Clinton Administration.
Here is one current example:
The Forest Service has arbitrarily decided that the old and historic buildings of the Smokey Creek CCC Camp site are no longer serviceable and is planning to burn the former CCC camp to the ground. This old and historic CCC camp is located in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Southwest Washington State, North of the Columbia River.
Smokey Creek CCC Camp is leased to the Mountain View Recreation Club that has used and maintained the camp for 47 years. A lot of time, care, sweat and labor has gone into making this camp a wonderful family experience.
Part of the Club’s permit with the Forest Service requires that that camp be made available to the public. So the public also gains from private initiative and investment.
The Forest Service has given a deadline of October 1st to the camp users to vacate the camp. Sometime after that date burning will eliminate the camp from any possible future use. It will just become largely unused forest with no direct citizen involvement.
How does the public benefit by burning down this camp?
Is this why Bush supporters voted for him?
This is part of a larger nationwide Forest Service policy to remove what they call “exclusive use” of not just Smokey Creek, but many other camps and recreation sites across the country. This anti-recreation policy threatens tens of thousands of cabin permittees, recreation permittees and permittees of other types of uses in Forest Service areas nationwide.
*****
A similar attempt by the Bureau of Reclamation to eliminate “exclusive use” from Lake Berryessa in California was greatly modified last year after readers of our e-mails raised a hue and cry across the country. Your letters, testimony and phone calls to the Bureau of Reclamation and your Congressman and Senators caused the Bush Administration to re-evaluate their position. It was not by any means a perfect solution but it helped keep the lake open. You can change the Forest Service position on Smokey Creek by making your calls.
The Mountain View Recreation Club has done a terrific job of taking care of the camp over 47 years according to letters from the Forest Service.
Fifty families participate in this club along with many of their friends and relatives. The emphasis is on camping and horseback trail riding. It is a wonderful place for kids. Many thousands of use days have occurred that would not have happened if the camp did not exist. Those use day’s will all disappear if the Forest Service gets its way and removes the camp.
By using the code word “exclusive use” the Forest Service tries to hide their real agenda of eliminating any use. It is the tragedy of the commons revisited. By eliminating people who place a value on taking care of the resource, the agency supposedly makes it available to all the general public. By not being specifically involved in a parcel of land, the public does not place the care or invest time in the land. The real result is that nobody uses the area and the public and the land are the losers.
With the people who care about Smokey Creek eliminated, the public is gradually eliminated.
By its permit, the camp already must be available to other groups. Thus the general public benefits from private stewardship and the forest benefits because real people take responsibility for managing and caring for the forest. This saves the taxpayer money in the long run and enhances family recreation. It is sweat equity and family involvement at its best.
You can help save Smokey Creek.
*****Action Items:
-----1. Call and fax Secretary of Agriculture, Michael O. Johanns. Call (202) 720-3631. Fax: (202) 720-2166. E-mail: mike.johanns@usda.gov
-----2. Call or fax Mark Rey, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. He is in charge of the Forest Service. His phone number is (202) 720-7173. The fax is: (202) 720-4732. mark.rey@usda.gov. The question for him is why the Bush Administration is supporting the removal of recreation uses from our Federal lands. This is not consistent with our understanding of Bush Administration policy. It is certainly not why people voted for President Bush.
The Agriculture Department must be deluged with calls.
-----3. Call, fax and e-mail Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA). Senator Cantwell is up for re-election. Ask her to show her support for family recreation and access to the forests by stopping the closure and burning of Smokey Creek. Call her at (202) 224-3441. Her fax is (202) 228-0514. Send her a message at http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html or go to http://cantwell.senate.gov/
-----4. Call, fax or e-mail both your Senators about this terrible Forest Service “exclusive use policy.” Any Senator may be called (202) 224-3121.
----5. Call, fax and e-mail Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA). Smokey Creek is in his district. He’s been working hard to save Smokey Creek and needs your letters of support. He has asked for a 60 day extension on the permit so there is more time to consider alternatives to burning down the camp. You can call (202) 225-2816. His fax number is (202) 225-3251. The staff person working hard on this issue is Martin Doern (martin.doern@mail.house.gov).
-----6. Call, fax and e-mail your own Congressman urging him to support Rep. Hastings and save Smokey Creek. Any Congressman may be called at (202) 225-3121. Tell them to ask the Forest Service to extend the Smokey Creek CCC Camp permit. Ask for their fax and e-mail when you call.
*****
Ask your Congressman to request that the Forest Service extend the Smokey Creek permit. Ask him or her not to let the FS burn down the historic Smokey Creek CCC Camp. Help stop the huge nationwide plan by the Forest Service to get rid of what they call “exclusive use” in all National Forests. This plan will affect your local forests also.
*****
Why should you bother to call or send a fax or e-mail about an issue that may be remote to you? Because the fight to continue special use permits and recreation access to our Federal lands is the fight of every one who cares about family recreation in the forests.
Everyone who shares these concerns of losing recreation access should fight back. Those who are saved will be there to fight for you when you are under attack. It is a team game. If you don’t play it that way, you are certain to lose your access over time. The Forest Service will divide and conquer you.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “If we don’t all hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately.”
Call every day this week and next. The Agriculture Department phones must ring off the hook. The Bush Administration must be held accountable for removing recreation from our forests and throwing families out.
You can make a difference by making your calls and getting others to do the same. Call your friends and neighbors.
This is your chance to really make a difference.
The Bush Administration appears to be afraid to stand up to Forest Service bureaucrats who have a bias to get rid of users of the forest. This is cultural cleansing. They lock them out.
Please forward this message as widely as you can.
Time is critical. We can win together if you make your calls. Thank you.
Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
PO Box 400, Battle Ground, WA 98604
(360) 687-3087 – Fax: (360) 687-2973
alra@governance.net
Web Address: http://www.landrights.org
Legislative Office: 507 Seward Square SE - Washington, DC 20003 landrightsnet@yahoo.com -- (202) 329-3574
Bush Administration Removing Recreation From Forests
Historic CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp To Be Burned By Forest Service – families to be ejected
Urgent Action Required
Forest Service Permittees Face Removal
Bush Administration Policy has the Forest Service getting rid of “exclusive use” throughout the National Forest System.
Family recreation is under attack. Permit cabin use is being subtly undermined.
*****See Action Items Below.
Sound familiar? The Forest Service wants to remove people from the forests. They say they want public use but really they want no use.
The Bush Administration is continuing the anti-people recreation policies of the Clinton Administration.
Here is one current example:
The Forest Service has arbitrarily decided that the old and historic buildings of the Smokey Creek CCC Camp site are no longer serviceable and is planning to burn the former CCC camp to the ground. This old and historic CCC camp is located in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Southwest Washington State, North of the Columbia River.
Smokey Creek CCC Camp is leased to the Mountain View Recreation Club that has used and maintained the camp for 47 years. A lot of time, care, sweat and labor has gone into making this camp a wonderful family experience.
Part of the Club’s permit with the Forest Service requires that that camp be made available to the public. So the public also gains from private initiative and investment.
The Forest Service has given a deadline of October 1st to the camp users to vacate the camp. Sometime after that date burning will eliminate the camp from any possible future use. It will just become largely unused forest with no direct citizen involvement.
How does the public benefit by burning down this camp?
Is this why Bush supporters voted for him?
This is part of a larger nationwide Forest Service policy to remove what they call “exclusive use” of not just Smokey Creek, but many other camps and recreation sites across the country. This anti-recreation policy threatens tens of thousands of cabin permittees, recreation permittees and permittees of other types of uses in Forest Service areas nationwide.
*****
A similar attempt by the Bureau of Reclamation to eliminate “exclusive use” from Lake Berryessa in California was greatly modified last year after readers of our e-mails raised a hue and cry across the country. Your letters, testimony and phone calls to the Bureau of Reclamation and your Congressman and Senators caused the Bush Administration to re-evaluate their position. It was not by any means a perfect solution but it helped keep the lake open. You can change the Forest Service position on Smokey Creek by making your calls.
The Mountain View Recreation Club has done a terrific job of taking care of the camp over 47 years according to letters from the Forest Service.
Fifty families participate in this club along with many of their friends and relatives. The emphasis is on camping and horseback trail riding. It is a wonderful place for kids. Many thousands of use days have occurred that would not have happened if the camp did not exist. Those use day’s will all disappear if the Forest Service gets its way and removes the camp.
By using the code word “exclusive use” the Forest Service tries to hide their real agenda of eliminating any use. It is the tragedy of the commons revisited. By eliminating people who place a value on taking care of the resource, the agency supposedly makes it available to all the general public. By not being specifically involved in a parcel of land, the public does not place the care or invest time in the land. The real result is that nobody uses the area and the public and the land are the losers.
With the people who care about Smokey Creek eliminated, the public is gradually eliminated.
By its permit, the camp already must be available to other groups. Thus the general public benefits from private stewardship and the forest benefits because real people take responsibility for managing and caring for the forest. This saves the taxpayer money in the long run and enhances family recreation. It is sweat equity and family involvement at its best.
You can help save Smokey Creek.
*****Action Items:
-----1. Call and fax Secretary of Agriculture, Michael O. Johanns. Call (202) 720-3631. Fax: (202) 720-2166. E-mail: mike.johanns@usda.gov
-----2. Call or fax Mark Rey, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. He is in charge of the Forest Service. His phone number is (202) 720-7173. The fax is: (202) 720-4732. mark.rey@usda.gov. The question for him is why the Bush Administration is supporting the removal of recreation uses from our Federal lands. This is not consistent with our understanding of Bush Administration policy. It is certainly not why people voted for President Bush.
The Agriculture Department must be deluged with calls.
-----3. Call, fax and e-mail Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA). Senator Cantwell is up for re-election. Ask her to show her support for family recreation and access to the forests by stopping the closure and burning of Smokey Creek. Call her at (202) 224-3441. Her fax is (202) 228-0514. Send her a message at http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html or go to http://cantwell.senate.gov/
-----4. Call, fax or e-mail both your Senators about this terrible Forest Service “exclusive use policy.” Any Senator may be called (202) 224-3121.
----5. Call, fax and e-mail Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA). Smokey Creek is in his district. He’s been working hard to save Smokey Creek and needs your letters of support. He has asked for a 60 day extension on the permit so there is more time to consider alternatives to burning down the camp. You can call (202) 225-2816. His fax number is (202) 225-3251. The staff person working hard on this issue is Martin Doern (martin.doern@mail.house.gov).
-----6. Call, fax and e-mail your own Congressman urging him to support Rep. Hastings and save Smokey Creek. Any Congressman may be called at (202) 225-3121. Tell them to ask the Forest Service to extend the Smokey Creek CCC Camp permit. Ask for their fax and e-mail when you call.
*****
Ask your Congressman to request that the Forest Service extend the Smokey Creek permit. Ask him or her not to let the FS burn down the historic Smokey Creek CCC Camp. Help stop the huge nationwide plan by the Forest Service to get rid of what they call “exclusive use” in all National Forests. This plan will affect your local forests also.
*****
Why should you bother to call or send a fax or e-mail about an issue that may be remote to you? Because the fight to continue special use permits and recreation access to our Federal lands is the fight of every one who cares about family recreation in the forests.
Everyone who shares these concerns of losing recreation access should fight back. Those who are saved will be there to fight for you when you are under attack. It is a team game. If you don’t play it that way, you are certain to lose your access over time. The Forest Service will divide and conquer you.
As Benjamin Franklin said, “If we don’t all hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately.”
Call every day this week and next. The Agriculture Department phones must ring off the hook. The Bush Administration must be held accountable for removing recreation from our forests and throwing families out.
You can make a difference by making your calls and getting others to do the same. Call your friends and neighbors.
This is your chance to really make a difference.
The Bush Administration appears to be afraid to stand up to Forest Service bureaucrats who have a bias to get rid of users of the forest. This is cultural cleansing. They lock them out.
Please forward this message as widely as you can.
Time is critical. We can win together if you make your calls. Thank you.
NEWS ROUNDUP
Ft. Carson expansion: land given to environmental group A Fort Carson proposal to preserve some of the land it might buy in southeast Colorado by giving it to an environmental group is fueling anger and conspiracy theories among ranchers already staunchly opposed to expanding the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. The Army has proposed a massive expansion of the training site, but some of that acreage near the Purgatoire River may be placed under the protection of an environmental group. Ranchers on the arid prairie the Army is looking to buy say the environmental deal is part of a federal plot to turn the scenic Purgatoire canyon from working ranch to an environmentalist experiment. “It’s our worst fear,” said Steve Wooten, a rancher whose spread includes part of the red rock canyon that dives from short-grass flatland to the narrow river. The preservation plan is intended to compensate for the environmental damage that would come with a large increase in training at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson, the Army said in its expansion proposal. The Army has asked the Department of Defense to approve the acquisition of up to 418,000 acres to be added to the training site based on a Fort Carson study that says the existing 235,000-acre acre site is too small for future needs. The proposal also includes the establishment of a “conservation area” around the river “to offset the environmental impacts of this project.” The area would be managed by an outside environmental group whose name was redacted from a copy of the proposal obtained by The Gazette under the federal Freedom of Information Act....
Courts Striking Property Rights Initiatives It was only a week or two ago that the machine of libertarian political initiatives was rolling swiftly around the West. We recently wrote about the “Kelo-plus” property rights initiatives funded by a New York real estate developer and longtime Libertarian Party activist, Howard Rich. Rich and his allies have pushed those and also parallel initiatives to limit government spending and institute term limits in states from Oregon to Arizona. But the hired help has fouled up the works. Courts in Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan and Missouri have disqualified part or entire initiatives that otherwise would have gone to voters. The decisions come in reaction to complaints about petition-circulators’ problematic, or illegal, signature-gathering tactics. Some are said to have tricked people who would sign one of Rich’s petition by into signing others (“we need to get multiple copies, ma’am”) or by misrepresenting the initiatives themselves. The Nevada Supreme Court struck the Tax and Spending Control (or, TASC) measure from the November ballot, for example, when activists there filed one version with the state and sent out another for residents’ signatures. And because Rich, his front organizations like Americans for Limited Government and U.S. Term Limits, and fellow libertarian activists, shared not just ideas and money, but also nomadic signature-gatherers, some of the same problems hopped from state to state...
Tough questioning for key witness in Nevada water hearings A key witness endorsed a bid to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from rural Nevada to booming Las Vegas - but agreed under questioning Tuesday that state law bars approval of pumping that would interfere with existing rights. Mike Turnipseed, a former conservation agency chief and state water engineer, also agreed under repeated questioning from a hearing officer that Nevada law doesn't make municipal use the highest and best use of groundwater. Susan Joseph-Taylor, the hearing officer for the state engineer's office, focused on the laws during the second week of hearings on the Southern Nevada Water Authority request to draw more than 90,000 acre-feet of groundwater from Spring Valley, in White Pine County. The Spring Valley plan is a main element of a $2 billion plan to send more than 180,000 acre-feet of water a year from rural valleys to southern Nevada. The SNWA hopes to expand that through reuse and other means to about 300,000 acre-feet a year. That's enough water to supply several hundred thousand households....
Review Underway On Bruneau Snail Status The future of a tiny Idaho snail could resurrect a showdown between environmentalists and ranchers. U.S. Fish and Wildlife managers are now conducting a five year review of the Bruneau Hot Springs Snail, listed as an endangered species in 1998. The snail only lives in Idaho's geothermal spring water and the Bruneau River. Environmentalists are worried that it's de-listing could lead to more challenges for other endangered species. In 1992 cattleman fought the endangered listing, saying it would limit how much water they could pump from an aquifer near the river.
Colorado State professor disputes global warming is human-caused Global warming is happening, but humans are not the cause, one of the nation’s top experts on hurricanes said Monday morning. Gray, who is a professor at Colorado State University, said human-induced global warming is a fear perpetuated by the media and scientists who are trying to get federal grants. “I think we’re coming out of the little ice age, and warming is due to changes to ocean circulation patterns due to salinity variations,” Gray said. “I’m sure that’s it.” Gray’s view has been challenged, however. Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said in an interview later Monday that climate scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that most of the warming is due to human activity. At the breakfast, Gray said Earth was warmer in some medieval periods than it is today. Current weather models are good at predicting weather as far as 10 days in advance, but predicting up to 100 years into the future is “a great act of faith, and I don’t believe any of it,” he said....
Dobson family in Covance battle A member of a prominent Chandler pioneer family has joined the battle between a global biotechnology firm and animal-rights activists, firing the latest shot in the form of a mass mailing sent to registered voters throughout the city. The story of Carol Dobson, 68, is told in the mailing, detailing her battle with breast cancer and her use of tamoxifen, the most commonly prescribed drug to treat breast cancer since its approval in the 1970s by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Covance Inc., which sent the mailing to about 70,000 homes in Chandler, is seeking zoning to build one of its largest facilities near Price and Germann roads. Officials for the company have said that about one-third of the operation would involve animal testing, which has drawn the ire of groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Dobson, whose cancer is in remission six years after her diagnosis, says in the mailing that "without the life-saving treatments Covance is developing, a miracle like mine may never have happened."....
Column: Drought relief likely to be hot issue in October Farm-state senators struck out in their first attempt to pass a new emergency assistance bill when Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., attempted to attach it to a port security bill. But, even if Republicans continue to bottle up the legislation, they are likely to hear plenty about it when they return to the campaign trail for the Nov. 7 elections. Nelson’s amendment failed to get a vote on Sept. 14 after Republicans said it wasn’t germane to the port security bill. Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Nelson and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., say they will keep trying to find a way to pass the measure before Congress recesses on Sept. 28. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi gave Republicans a taste of what might be in store for them when she issued called on Republican leaders to pass comprehensive agriculture disaster relief before Sept. 28. “Disaster assistance to compensate farmers and ranchers for the weather-related losses they sustain will strengthen the agriculture economy and our nation’s economy,” she said. “This isn’t a partisan issue, but we need Republicans to join with us to provide our farmers and ranchers with the help they so desperately need.”....
Immigration and Education Key Indicators of West’s Ag Economy It’s clear from the headlines that the West’s agriculture economy is being eaten away by development. What’s not so clear is what is happening with what’s left of that economy, and how the change is affecting the Old West. One of the biggest factors affecting today’s agricultural economy, besides finding land that isn’t being used to cultivate condos and office space, is finding people to do the work. In recent years, immigrants, both legal and illegal, have handled much of the region’s agricultural work. But with the U.S. Congress mired in stalled reform bills and states passing their own measure that differ from one to another, that labor pool isn’t as reliable as it once was. In Idaho, reports the Associated Press, potato farmers are stuck with plenty of spuds but no help to pick them. Immigrants are scared away at the border by talks of more troops and bigger fences. Meanwhile, when and if immigrants do make it into the United States, the rules to live are confusing and varying, depending on which state you end up in. Idaho farmers, the story says, are clamoring for some real reform that includes a guest-worker program, which would be beneficial to the farmers and the Mexicans. They say Idaho lawmakers in Congress aren’t delivering. Next door in Montana, reports the Montana Standard, a U.S. Department of Labor program is performing just the service the Idaho potato farmers seem to need. Montana farmers can apply to the federal program to find Mexican workers, who can legally come north and work for several months....
Sheep dog championships Sept 28 to Oct 1 Some of the best working sheep dogs in North America will be competing in Klamath Falls between Sept. 26th and October 1 for the title of National Sheep Dog Champion of North America of 2006. The sport is now finding its place in the United States, as more and more ranchers learn the value of a good dog in managing their livestock. Every year the United States Border Collie Handlers Association and The American Border Collie Association sponsor the National Sheepdog Finals. The annual event showcases the top 150 dogs in North America who have to qualified for the right to compete in the Championship Trial. Each dog will arrive in Klamath Falls as a champion from their own across the United States and Canada. A preliminary round of the open finals starts at noon on Sept. 26....
Real-life and commercial shepherd Choperena dies Dionisio Choperena, who rose from lowly shepherd to fame when he was cast in AT&T television commercials making cell phone calls among his remote flock, has died. He was 51. Choperena died Sept. 12 at his Petaluma home. Sonoma County officials didn't immediately release the cause of death. "He was such a strong person," Kathy, his second wife, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Up until the day he passed away, he was working and making plans with me. He even had a glass of port that day with his lunch." Choperena was cast in 2000 when an agent arrived in rural Marin County looking for a "rancher type" who looked comfortable with a flock of sheep and found Choperena drinking beer at a tavern. The ads featured Choperena using an AT&T cell phone to summon a New York taxi cab and others to his field or depicted him followed by a herd of sheep as he called family or traded stocks on the phone. He was so natural in the role that the camera crew called him "one-take Dio," his wife said. Choperena was born in 1954 and grew up poor in the Basque region of Spain. He left school at 13 to tend sheep for his father. At 17, he immigrated to the United States to work at a Wyoming sheep ranch....
Ft. Carson expansion: land given to environmental group A Fort Carson proposal to preserve some of the land it might buy in southeast Colorado by giving it to an environmental group is fueling anger and conspiracy theories among ranchers already staunchly opposed to expanding the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. The Army has proposed a massive expansion of the training site, but some of that acreage near the Purgatoire River may be placed under the protection of an environmental group. Ranchers on the arid prairie the Army is looking to buy say the environmental deal is part of a federal plot to turn the scenic Purgatoire canyon from working ranch to an environmentalist experiment. “It’s our worst fear,” said Steve Wooten, a rancher whose spread includes part of the red rock canyon that dives from short-grass flatland to the narrow river. The preservation plan is intended to compensate for the environmental damage that would come with a large increase in training at the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson, the Army said in its expansion proposal. The Army has asked the Department of Defense to approve the acquisition of up to 418,000 acres to be added to the training site based on a Fort Carson study that says the existing 235,000-acre acre site is too small for future needs. The proposal also includes the establishment of a “conservation area” around the river “to offset the environmental impacts of this project.” The area would be managed by an outside environmental group whose name was redacted from a copy of the proposal obtained by The Gazette under the federal Freedom of Information Act....
Courts Striking Property Rights Initiatives It was only a week or two ago that the machine of libertarian political initiatives was rolling swiftly around the West. We recently wrote about the “Kelo-plus” property rights initiatives funded by a New York real estate developer and longtime Libertarian Party activist, Howard Rich. Rich and his allies have pushed those and also parallel initiatives to limit government spending and institute term limits in states from Oregon to Arizona. But the hired help has fouled up the works. Courts in Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan and Missouri have disqualified part or entire initiatives that otherwise would have gone to voters. The decisions come in reaction to complaints about petition-circulators’ problematic, or illegal, signature-gathering tactics. Some are said to have tricked people who would sign one of Rich’s petition by into signing others (“we need to get multiple copies, ma’am”) or by misrepresenting the initiatives themselves. The Nevada Supreme Court struck the Tax and Spending Control (or, TASC) measure from the November ballot, for example, when activists there filed one version with the state and sent out another for residents’ signatures. And because Rich, his front organizations like Americans for Limited Government and U.S. Term Limits, and fellow libertarian activists, shared not just ideas and money, but also nomadic signature-gatherers, some of the same problems hopped from state to state...
Tough questioning for key witness in Nevada water hearings A key witness endorsed a bid to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from rural Nevada to booming Las Vegas - but agreed under questioning Tuesday that state law bars approval of pumping that would interfere with existing rights. Mike Turnipseed, a former conservation agency chief and state water engineer, also agreed under repeated questioning from a hearing officer that Nevada law doesn't make municipal use the highest and best use of groundwater. Susan Joseph-Taylor, the hearing officer for the state engineer's office, focused on the laws during the second week of hearings on the Southern Nevada Water Authority request to draw more than 90,000 acre-feet of groundwater from Spring Valley, in White Pine County. The Spring Valley plan is a main element of a $2 billion plan to send more than 180,000 acre-feet of water a year from rural valleys to southern Nevada. The SNWA hopes to expand that through reuse and other means to about 300,000 acre-feet a year. That's enough water to supply several hundred thousand households....
Review Underway On Bruneau Snail Status The future of a tiny Idaho snail could resurrect a showdown between environmentalists and ranchers. U.S. Fish and Wildlife managers are now conducting a five year review of the Bruneau Hot Springs Snail, listed as an endangered species in 1998. The snail only lives in Idaho's geothermal spring water and the Bruneau River. Environmentalists are worried that it's de-listing could lead to more challenges for other endangered species. In 1992 cattleman fought the endangered listing, saying it would limit how much water they could pump from an aquifer near the river.
Colorado State professor disputes global warming is human-caused Global warming is happening, but humans are not the cause, one of the nation’s top experts on hurricanes said Monday morning. Gray, who is a professor at Colorado State University, said human-induced global warming is a fear perpetuated by the media and scientists who are trying to get federal grants. “I think we’re coming out of the little ice age, and warming is due to changes to ocean circulation patterns due to salinity variations,” Gray said. “I’m sure that’s it.” Gray’s view has been challenged, however. Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said in an interview later Monday that climate scientists involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that most of the warming is due to human activity. At the breakfast, Gray said Earth was warmer in some medieval periods than it is today. Current weather models are good at predicting weather as far as 10 days in advance, but predicting up to 100 years into the future is “a great act of faith, and I don’t believe any of it,” he said....
Dobson family in Covance battle A member of a prominent Chandler pioneer family has joined the battle between a global biotechnology firm and animal-rights activists, firing the latest shot in the form of a mass mailing sent to registered voters throughout the city. The story of Carol Dobson, 68, is told in the mailing, detailing her battle with breast cancer and her use of tamoxifen, the most commonly prescribed drug to treat breast cancer since its approval in the 1970s by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Covance Inc., which sent the mailing to about 70,000 homes in Chandler, is seeking zoning to build one of its largest facilities near Price and Germann roads. Officials for the company have said that about one-third of the operation would involve animal testing, which has drawn the ire of groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Dobson, whose cancer is in remission six years after her diagnosis, says in the mailing that "without the life-saving treatments Covance is developing, a miracle like mine may never have happened."....
Column: Drought relief likely to be hot issue in October Farm-state senators struck out in their first attempt to pass a new emergency assistance bill when Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., attempted to attach it to a port security bill. But, even if Republicans continue to bottle up the legislation, they are likely to hear plenty about it when they return to the campaign trail for the Nov. 7 elections. Nelson’s amendment failed to get a vote on Sept. 14 after Republicans said it wasn’t germane to the port security bill. Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Nelson and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., say they will keep trying to find a way to pass the measure before Congress recesses on Sept. 28. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi gave Republicans a taste of what might be in store for them when she issued called on Republican leaders to pass comprehensive agriculture disaster relief before Sept. 28. “Disaster assistance to compensate farmers and ranchers for the weather-related losses they sustain will strengthen the agriculture economy and our nation’s economy,” she said. “This isn’t a partisan issue, but we need Republicans to join with us to provide our farmers and ranchers with the help they so desperately need.”....
Immigration and Education Key Indicators of West’s Ag Economy It’s clear from the headlines that the West’s agriculture economy is being eaten away by development. What’s not so clear is what is happening with what’s left of that economy, and how the change is affecting the Old West. One of the biggest factors affecting today’s agricultural economy, besides finding land that isn’t being used to cultivate condos and office space, is finding people to do the work. In recent years, immigrants, both legal and illegal, have handled much of the region’s agricultural work. But with the U.S. Congress mired in stalled reform bills and states passing their own measure that differ from one to another, that labor pool isn’t as reliable as it once was. In Idaho, reports the Associated Press, potato farmers are stuck with plenty of spuds but no help to pick them. Immigrants are scared away at the border by talks of more troops and bigger fences. Meanwhile, when and if immigrants do make it into the United States, the rules to live are confusing and varying, depending on which state you end up in. Idaho farmers, the story says, are clamoring for some real reform that includes a guest-worker program, which would be beneficial to the farmers and the Mexicans. They say Idaho lawmakers in Congress aren’t delivering. Next door in Montana, reports the Montana Standard, a U.S. Department of Labor program is performing just the service the Idaho potato farmers seem to need. Montana farmers can apply to the federal program to find Mexican workers, who can legally come north and work for several months....
Sheep dog championships Sept 28 to Oct 1 Some of the best working sheep dogs in North America will be competing in Klamath Falls between Sept. 26th and October 1 for the title of National Sheep Dog Champion of North America of 2006. The sport is now finding its place in the United States, as more and more ranchers learn the value of a good dog in managing their livestock. Every year the United States Border Collie Handlers Association and The American Border Collie Association sponsor the National Sheepdog Finals. The annual event showcases the top 150 dogs in North America who have to qualified for the right to compete in the Championship Trial. Each dog will arrive in Klamath Falls as a champion from their own across the United States and Canada. A preliminary round of the open finals starts at noon on Sept. 26....
Real-life and commercial shepherd Choperena dies Dionisio Choperena, who rose from lowly shepherd to fame when he was cast in AT&T television commercials making cell phone calls among his remote flock, has died. He was 51. Choperena died Sept. 12 at his Petaluma home. Sonoma County officials didn't immediately release the cause of death. "He was such a strong person," Kathy, his second wife, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Up until the day he passed away, he was working and making plans with me. He even had a glass of port that day with his lunch." Choperena was cast in 2000 when an agent arrived in rural Marin County looking for a "rancher type" who looked comfortable with a flock of sheep and found Choperena drinking beer at a tavern. The ads featured Choperena using an AT&T cell phone to summon a New York taxi cab and others to his field or depicted him followed by a herd of sheep as he called family or traded stocks on the phone. He was so natural in the role that the camera crew called him "one-take Dio," his wife said. Choperena was born in 1954 and grew up poor in the Basque region of Spain. He left school at 13 to tend sheep for his father. At 17, he immigrated to the United States to work at a Wyoming sheep ranch....
Inside the Failure Of $8 Billion Effort To Save Prized Fish (subscription required)
For more than a quarter of a century, a federal agency in the Pacific Northwest has been running the world's most expensive wildlife restoration program, designed to save 13 species of endangered salmon and steelhead. The Bonneville Power Administration, responding to concern about dwindling fish populations, has spent more than $8 billion helping salmon travel from the mountain streams of their birth to the Pacific Ocean and back again, where they lay eggs for the next generation. Impeding their journey are several hydroelectric dams. The agency has little to show for its efforts. In any given year, only 1% to 3.5% of the fish complete the 1,800-mile round-trip fish trek, which begins 20 miles northeast of Lewiston, Idaho, and continues down the Snake and Columbia rivers. Fish scientists say the success rate should be at least double that. With the help of elaborate handling and tracking equipment, Bonneville is beginning to figure out what has gone wrong. Previously overlooked dangers abound. Some of the perils, including federally protected birds and sea lions -- as well as Canadian fishermen -- are beyond the agency's control...To further help the fish, Bonneville this year will spend almost $700 million. That includes the cost of spilling water over dams to create a cooler, more rapid-flowing stream, which is supposed to help salmon reach the sea. The water otherwise would be used to produce $356 million of electricity. Other fish-friendly improvements include special chutes for young fish and electronic transponders to track their journey...Salmon remain as long as three years in the ocean, where they mature and take on weight. Some are caught by Japanese and Russian fishing trawlers. Ocean conditions are the single biggest factor that determines whether the fish return to spawn or die at sea, according to NOAA. Food-filled cold currents are good for the fish, warm currents bad. Salmon that make it through Canadian waters and start their trip homeward have to run a gauntlet of new perils. On the return journey, the dams are a less of a concern, since all are equipped with fish ladders. Instead a population of voracious male sea lions waits to ambush the salmon below the first dam. The sea lions tear off and eat the egg sacs of returning females. The fattening fish oil in the eggs makes them more attractive to female sea lions during summer mating season. Commercial fishermen used to shoot the sea lions but that is now banned by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. As their population increases, some sea lions have learned to climb the fish ladder of the first dam...Above the Bonneville Dam -- 140 miles into the salmon's return journey -- the human threat looms large. There, Indian tribes and other fishermen are permitted to fish for salmon under not only the Endangered Species Act but also under various treaties and state laws. Indians have had the right to fish for salmon for more than a century in return for turning over their land to the federal government...The result of this legal loophole: The tastiest of the salmon species, the spring Chinook, is served up at Seattle restaurants that pay as much as $26 a pound....
Update: Go here for a version of the article that doesn't require a subscription
For more than a quarter of a century, a federal agency in the Pacific Northwest has been running the world's most expensive wildlife restoration program, designed to save 13 species of endangered salmon and steelhead. The Bonneville Power Administration, responding to concern about dwindling fish populations, has spent more than $8 billion helping salmon travel from the mountain streams of their birth to the Pacific Ocean and back again, where they lay eggs for the next generation. Impeding their journey are several hydroelectric dams. The agency has little to show for its efforts. In any given year, only 1% to 3.5% of the fish complete the 1,800-mile round-trip fish trek, which begins 20 miles northeast of Lewiston, Idaho, and continues down the Snake and Columbia rivers. Fish scientists say the success rate should be at least double that. With the help of elaborate handling and tracking equipment, Bonneville is beginning to figure out what has gone wrong. Previously overlooked dangers abound. Some of the perils, including federally protected birds and sea lions -- as well as Canadian fishermen -- are beyond the agency's control...To further help the fish, Bonneville this year will spend almost $700 million. That includes the cost of spilling water over dams to create a cooler, more rapid-flowing stream, which is supposed to help salmon reach the sea. The water otherwise would be used to produce $356 million of electricity. Other fish-friendly improvements include special chutes for young fish and electronic transponders to track their journey...Salmon remain as long as three years in the ocean, where they mature and take on weight. Some are caught by Japanese and Russian fishing trawlers. Ocean conditions are the single biggest factor that determines whether the fish return to spawn or die at sea, according to NOAA. Food-filled cold currents are good for the fish, warm currents bad. Salmon that make it through Canadian waters and start their trip homeward have to run a gauntlet of new perils. On the return journey, the dams are a less of a concern, since all are equipped with fish ladders. Instead a population of voracious male sea lions waits to ambush the salmon below the first dam. The sea lions tear off and eat the egg sacs of returning females. The fattening fish oil in the eggs makes them more attractive to female sea lions during summer mating season. Commercial fishermen used to shoot the sea lions but that is now banned by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. As their population increases, some sea lions have learned to climb the fish ladder of the first dam...Above the Bonneville Dam -- 140 miles into the salmon's return journey -- the human threat looms large. There, Indian tribes and other fishermen are permitted to fish for salmon under not only the Endangered Species Act but also under various treaties and state laws. Indians have had the right to fish for salmon for more than a century in return for turning over their land to the federal government...The result of this legal loophole: The tastiest of the salmon species, the spring Chinook, is served up at Seattle restaurants that pay as much as $26 a pound....
Update: Go here for a version of the article that doesn't require a subscription
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