NEWS ROUNDUP
1,000 New Fires Blaze Across West International wildfire crews could be called to help fight blazes in the bone-dry West as U.S. officials on Wednesday boosted the nation's wildfire alert to its highest level. "It's driven by a couple of things: The number of large fires we have, and also the fires are occurring in several states and in several geographic areas," Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center here, told The Associated Press. "The resources we have are being stretched thin." The wildfire preparedness level was raised to five as dry lightning blasted and sparked dozens of new blazes in Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Utah, where firefighters have been stretched thin by nearly 70 fires bigger than 100 acres burning in 12 states. National Guard units also could be mobilized under new level. Since Monday, there have been more than 1,000 new fires reported across the West, Eardley said....
Ranchers, wilderness advocates lock horns Events Thursday showed at least two distinctive camps have formed in a debate over land use for Dona Ana County: those who want a federally designated wilderness area and those who don't. Ranchers, an off-highway vehicle club and a sportsmen's group highlighted their concerns during a news conference early Thursday afternoon at the New Mexico Farm Bureau Center. Among their fears are that the federal designation will cut off access to the land and hurt ranchers' ability to make a living. Ranchers part of a group called People For Preserving Our Western Heritage were quick to say they're not opposed to protecting federal lands in the county that are being considered for wilderness. Rather, they said, Congress should protect the lands by taking away their potential to be developed. "The ranchers are for protection of these lands, but they believe they have a better way to do it by withdrawing these lands from disposal," said Frank DuBois, a former secretary for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. "If you designate wilderness, you're going to limit these ranchers' ability to maintain improvements," he said, referring to structures such as windmills. Ranchers hold grazing leases on much of the federal land being considered for wilderness a designation that prohibits most mechanized travel. DuBois said the designation could also lead to more restrictions on grazing and accessing land....
Let's hope state resource managers learn from this summer's wildfires Ranchers can often be taciturn while possessing the ability to put complicated ecological principles into simple plain talk. Such was the case last week with Pete Yardley, a Beaver rancher who lost cattle and feed to the blaze that scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in Millard and Beaver counties. He made two cogent points. First, he wondered why there were no controlled burns in this area over the past 10 years to improve habitat for domestic livestock and many wildlife species. Such controlled burns may not have prevented the wildfire in this extraordinarily dry summer, but damages may have been more limited. Second, Yardley said that in two years, the fire could make this land much more valuable than it is now. The logic, put out by another worker in the area, is that fewer trees mean more grass, which is good for domestic livestock and wildlife. But that point remains in question. The Milford Flat fire was so large that it is going to be all but impossible for state and federal ecologists and land managers to reseed the land with native plant species, which would provide good food for livestock and wildlife while helping keep out the invasive cheat grass that will fuel future fires....
Officials: Pinon Expansion Will Cut Cattle Herds Officials say that if the Army's Pinon Canyon expansion plan was in place, they would not have been able to run as many cattle as they did during a drought-impacted time last year. The Colorado State University Extension office says ranchers in Las Animas County ran 51,000 cattle, about two-thirds the average size of their herd. If the Army had taken the land it wants, they would have only been able to run 41,000 cattle. County's extension agent Dean Oatman said that would have meant a loss of $6 million in cattle sales. And he said he's being conservative in estimating that the loss would have only been 10,000 head. He said ranchers normally would have run a third more cattle, but drought conditions forced them to reduce their herds.
Environmental Defense Warns About Conservation Spending In a statement published on Tuesday, Environmental Defense said that the latest plan being put before the House of Representatives' Agricultural Committee does not do enough to meet the needs of most farmers or the environment. In the proposal, USDA spending on conservation measures would only increase by $3 billion over the next five years. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and the Bush Administration have given estimates on conservation spending needs that greatly surpass that amount. Environmental Defense says that its analysis shows numerous farmers and ranchers whose representatives are sitting in Congress would benefit significantly more if Congress drastically reduced farm subsidies and rewarded environmental stewardship instead of merely voting "the status quo". The call for reductions in U.S. government farm subsidies does not begin or end with this matter. Foreign nations including Canada have repeatedly said that the United States is in violation of its World Trade Organization cap on farm subsidizing and that American farmers are so heavily subsidized that their exports distort the world market and make competition almost impossible....
Can state order ditches? Landowner advocates say they're alarmed at a proposal tinkering with the state's use of eminent domain powers. State Engineer Patrick Tyrrell wants to accommodate the surface discharge of groundwater in the oil and gas industry by ordering ditching and other reconstruction where ephemeral stream channels disappear into wide pastures. The idea builds on case law in which private companies have pointed to the state's water easement authority to force coal-bed methane water onto private property. Ditching, Tyrrell said, comes from the state's right to order drainage works. In the same way, the state can order in capacity of a natural channel. In its written comments to the task force, the Powder River Basin Resource Council said the state engineer's proposal does nothing to protect landowners. "Our overall concern with the proposals of the state engineer to convert ephemeral drainages into perennial CBM ditches is that it allows lands to be destroyed without just compensation to landowners," said the group's chairman, Bob LeResche. Moreover, the measure doesn't seem to be in keeping with the intent of Wyoming's eminent domain laws, he said....
State looks to curtail home building in fire-prone areas Bone-dry conditions and large amounts of brush threaten increasing numbers of homes near wild land, officials told a legislative committee Wednesday. A lawmaker, meanwhile, left open the possibility that the Legislature would step in if cities and counties did not do more to restrict development in fire-prone places. Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-San Barbara, compared local government's allowing homes in high-fire risk areas to allowing homes in flood plains -- something the Legislature has tried to curtail. In Riverside County 4,500 miles of homes line fire-prone chaparral and forests, an increase of 1,000 miles from 15 years ago, said Thomas Scott, associate director of UC Riverside's Center for Conservation Biology. Earlier this month, Riverside County officials recommended sweeping land-use changes to restrict home construction in fire-prone places....
Study Pinpoints How Humans and Urban Sprawl Influence California Fire Regimes A new study quantifies how distribution of housing developments and the kinds of fire fuels at the wildland-urban interface can help predict fires in California, a state that experiences monumental fire hazards. The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Oregon State University, Forest Service Northern Research Station, and the U.S. Geological Survey confirms some assumptions but also contains some surprises. Published in the July issue of Ecological Applications, the study underscores the importance of using human as well as biological and physical factors to assess fire risk. The scientists weren't surprised when their research documented that increasing human settlement is exacerbating fire hazard in California. However, what was initially more startling to the authors is that their research also revealed that fire ignitions progressively declined after human population and development reached a threshold density. The authors suggest this finding is likely the result of diminished and fragmented open space containing insufficient fuels (for example, shrubs and other vegetation) to sustain fire in highly populated areas. In addition, the researchers noted that above a certain population threshold, fire suppression resources, such as fire engine crews, are likely to be more concentrated at the wildland-urban interface....
Leases on 300K acres protested Conservation groups have filed another round of protests against Bureau of Land Management oil and gas sales, targeting leases to be auctioned later this month on almost 300,000 acres in central and southern Montana. The BLM has faced mounting pressure in recent months from state wildlife officials, researchers and private groups that say the agency is opening public land to drilling without adequate safeguards for wildlife. The latest protests challenge 127 leases south of the Fort Peck Reservoir in Garfield and McCone counties and six in Clark County near the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone River. They were filed by the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Hellgate Hunters and Anglers and Trout Unlimited. The groups say the leases in Garfield and McCone counties lack suitable protection for sage grouse, elk, pronghorn and mule deer. The Clark County protests, filed by Trout Unlimited, were over potential effects of oil and gas development on Yellowstone cutthroat trout....
Spotted owl saga not over For the past year, Dominick DellaSala has been part of a 12-member team charged with creating a recovery plan for the northern spotted owl. Now a draft of the recovery plan has been released to the public, and he has become one of that plan’s most outspoken critics. It seems that the spotted owl, which was so controversial in the 1990s, is still a magnet for conflict. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public input on the new draft recovery plan for the spotted owl. “It’s probably the most significant hearing that we’ve had on the spotted owl in over a decade,” says Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland. But before the public can voice an opinion, it needs to understand the draft plan and its implications, which is no mean feat....
Harvesting the Secret Gardens Last week, an unprecedented collaboration among federal, state, and local agencies began a well-publicized blitz campaign in northern California’s Shasta County to root out illegal marijuana gardens hidden in national parks and forests – a phenomenon that occurs statewide and is partly the result of stepped-up eradication efforts and tighter border security. At a news conference in Redding, officials involved in what is known as Operation Alesia trumpeted the successes of the three-tiered campaign, which involves at least 400 people from Shasta County law enforcement, the National Guard, and 15 other agencies. Officials say most pot gardens are run by organized Mexican drug cartels who are armed and pose a threat to the public, citing instances in which passersby were threatened and shotgun-rigged booby traps were discovered. Law enforcement groups say 80 percent of the environmentally intrusive marijuana gardens are located on public lands, often near recreational hunting and fishing areas, where growers can run water into remote areas through irrigation piping. Only 20 percent of gardens on public lands are found and eradicated, Odle says....
Flesh-eating bacteria put man's life at risk A Nacogdoches man who was infected by flesh-eating bacteria while swimming off Galveston County's Crystal Beach still faces the threat of losing a leg — and possibly his life — despite three surgeries. Steve Gilpatrick is fighting necrotizing fasciitis, a tissue-destroying disease caused by a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus. The retired oil company marketing consultant also is suffering from multiple organ failure because the disease has caused a blood infection, his physician said Tuesday. Gilpatrick, 58, was listed in critical but stable condition. The bacterium thrives in warm salt water and is most prevalent during summer months. Gilpatrick's wife, Linda, said she and her husband routinely vacation in Galveston each summer....
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Gray wolf shot, killed in eastern Oregon An endangered gray wolf was found shot and killed in late May in a forested area north of La Grande, apparently the fifth known wolf to arrive in Oregon since the species was returned to nearby Idaho more than a decade ago. The adult female animal was badly decomposed and was only recently positively identified as a wolf by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensics laboratory in Ashland, officials said. The wolf was not wearing a radio collar, but DNA analysis confirmed it was related to other wild wolves in Idaho. It did not appear to have been the same wolf videotaped in Wallowa County last summer. That animal was black and the dead animal was a more typical gray-brown, said Russ Morgan of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Counting that videotaped wolf, the wolf found dead would be the fifth known wolf to make it to Oregon. The first was captured near John Day in 1999 and returned to Idaho, another was hit by a car on Interstate 84 and another was found illegally shot between Ukiah and Pendleton....
Wolves Of Yellowstone Spur Love And Hate On any given morning in Yellowstone National Park, you can find packs of tourists watching for packs of wolves, CBS News correspondent Tracy Smith reports. What do they feel when looking at these wolves? "My spirit just feels such a resonance with what I'm seeing," said wolf watcher Nancy Waring. Wolf watchers bring more than high-powered scopes: They bring money to area businesses — about $35 million each year. Seventy years ago, aggressive hunting and trapping had all but wiped out the wolves in Yellowstone. But the federal government decided that as predators, wolves were a key link in the park's food chain. So starting in 1995, they brought the wolves back to Yellowstone. They released 41 in the park, housed in pens. Officials were hoping the wolves would have pups and eventually they would end up with about 100. Now, a decade later, the pens are overgrown and there are 300 wolves in the Yellowstone area ... more than 1,300 in the three surrounding states....
New rule would make it easier to kill wolves Shielded by law from hunters, gray wolf populations boomed in the Northern Rockies over the last decade at the expense of some big game herds that represent a sure meal for the resurgent carnivores. But the balance of power in the region's forests could soon tilt against those 1,300 wolves. Federal officials are seeking to give Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wider latitude to kill wolves that prey on big game species or threaten domestic animals. As public hearings on the proposal began Wednesday, state officials and some ranchers welcomed a plan they said could help put wolves in check more than a decade after they were reintroduced to the region. "This is something we need," said Allen Jaggi, a Wyoming state representative from Lyman. "We're in a hell of a mess. We're losing elk. We're losing domestic livestock." Another pending U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposal would go much farther, allowing public hunting of wolves by stripping them of protection under the Endangered Species Act. With that idea facing a near-certain legal challenge _ which could hang it up in court possibly for years _ federal officials said the big game protection proposal gives states at least an interim measure to deal with problem wolves....
Wolves kill seven sheep in Oregon Gulch Rather than try to remove the gray wolves that killed seven domestic sheep northwest of Ketchum last week, an official with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has elected to pursue non-lethal methods to keep the wolves away. The decision to pursue non-lethal methods was made after the owner of the sheep requested the wolves not be killed, Fish and Game Large Carnivore Manager Steve Nadeau said Tuesday. "The livestock producer wanted to work with us to explore all options to keep his stock and the wolves alive," Nadeau said. Nadeau said he has agreed to that plan. The sheep-killing incident occurred on two separate days—July 10 and 12—in a remote portion of the upper Oregon Gulch area. The sheep band was being grazed on a Sawtooth National Forest grazing allotment that covers the area....
Home on the Range: “Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works” The editors of Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works, recently published by Johnson Books and the Rocky Mountain Land Library, explain the purpose of this collection in the preface: “The premise of our book is that conservation is compatible with ranching and farming,” and “that conservationists and agriculturalists are compatible creatures: they actually belong together.” That is, even though some questions of conservation, such as the reintroduction of wolves, tend to pit ranchers and environmentalists against each other, larger questions such as respect for animals and a love for undeveloped land unite them. The editors of Home Land are calling for a productive truce between ranchers and environmentalists. As Jordan writes in the introduction, “Environmetalists have been at least as rigid as ranchers in the thirty-year war that has locked vast regions of the West in litigation and rancor while millions of acres of open land have fallen to development.” If environmentalists and ranchers instead united, Home Land suggests, perhaps some of this development could be halted....
Wilderness proposal worries ranchers A pair of news conferences set for today seem to indicate a debate about wilderness in Dona Ana County is far from over. A group of ranchers concerned about possible impacts of a wilderness designation on grazing allotments announced last week it planned a press event today to highlight its views. Tuesday, a group backing a wilderness designation for thousands of acres in the county announced a press conference of its own. Members of the ranching group People For Preserving Our Western Heritage said backers of the wilderness proposal didn't involve ranchers in creating their proposal. "Our organization felt like the process of engaging support for the effort failed to include us," said Steve Wilmeth, a Dona Ana County rancher. A wilderness designation would place new restrictions on the use of that land. Wilmeth said the group will propose alternatives that would still achieve the goal of preserving land....
Water as collateral? B.J. "Red" McCombs has turned investments in radio, sports, oil and cars into gold. The San Antonio businessman now is applying his Midas touch to water rights, trade-school education and loans for those late on their property taxes. Propel Financial Services LLC will act as a private lender to make up to $100 million in loans to individuals and businesses with nonconventional collateral. "I've been looking at this for some time," McCombs said of the venture, which will include loans with Edwards Aquifer private water rights as a collateral. "Very few people are knowledgeable about water rights right now." In recent years, water rights have become a hot commodity in the San Antonio area, but traditional lenders have yet to recognize them as assets for collateral, said Jack Nelson, CEO of the newly formed Propel. The option is particularly attractive for South Texas farmers and ranchers who have the potential to pay off their equipment or even their land with a loan secured by water rights....
Beetle bill lands in D.C. The entire Colorado legislative delegation introduced a federal bark beetle bill on Tuesday that would commit up to $22 million to help the Forest Service and local communities combat the threat of wildfire and protect water supplies in the state. Colorado's seven members of the House of Representatives introduced the legislation, called the Colorado Forest Management Improvement Act of 2007, on the House floor, while the state's two senators presented the bill in the Senate. The bill would make grants available to at-risk communities in Colorado for the creation of a community wildfire protection plan and would create central collection points for dead trees removed from forests. It would also allow for the creation of Healthy Forest Partnership Zones for high-fire risk areas in order to facilitate an effort between local communities and private industry to reduce hazardous fuels and fire risks to communities. The legislation would make the Forest Service's good neighbor policy permanent. That policy focuses on treatment and thinning projects on Forest Service land adjacent to private property....
Bipartisan Group Works to End Costly Tongass Forest Logging Subsidy While the nation continues to be burdened with huge federal budget deficits, the U.S. Forest Service is still promoting millions of dollars in taxpayer handouts to logging companies for forest road-building projects. The timber program in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska has been hemorrhaging money--and jobs--for years. Since 1996, timber-related employment in the Tongass has dropped from 1,560 to fewer than 200 workers. Yet the subsidies keep flowing in ever greater amounts. The per-job subsidy has risen to more than $200,000, with the total cost since 1982 amounting to about $1 billion, according to Forest Service data and other government sources. "What kind of business model are these people operating under?" asked Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The taxpayer spigot needs to be shut off. Relying on government handouts for success is not something most economists or smart business owners endorse." A bipartisan group in Congress, allied with budget watchdogs, fiscal conservatives, sportsmen, and environmental groups, has teamed up to put an end to the practice....
Crews fight fires in bear country Firefighters have an added layer of danger when battling blazes in northwest Wyoming: bears. But firefighters practice the same precautions when working in bear country that campers are asked to do -- namely, storing food, making noise and carrying pepper spray. On the Salt Lick fire outside Pinedale, now estimated at 2,500 acres and about 40 percent contained, fire crews are using bear boxes to store food and other bear attractants. They are sleeping away from the bear boxes and carrying pepper spray. Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, said everything the U.S. Forest Service asks the public to do in bear country, firefighters do....
Two states, divided by salmon Oregon and Washington not only sit on opposite sides of the Columbia River, but they're also taking opposite sides in a landmark case on how much should be done for the river's troubled salmon runs. The interstate feud over fish has far-reaching consequences because it will help decide the future of the river's massive hydroelectric dams. While the dams supply inexpensive energy, they also kill many young salmon migrating past. Though fish drive the dispute, the economic stakes are high: Washington enjoys more discounted hydropower because of its higher number of public utilities and stands to reap federal money for restoring salmon habitat. Oregon, on the other hand, does not gain the same benefits from the dams and is pushing to do more for salmon. Washington, siding with the Bonneville Power Administration, which distributes the hydropower, and many electric utilities that buy the power, likes the federal government's proposal to help salmon hurt by the dams. It does a better job focusing aid on the salmon runs that need it, Washington argues. But Oregon, siding with conservation and fishing groups and some Native American tribes, sees the federal approach as pretty close to awful. It offers no new help for fish and may illegally ignore the federal mandate to help endangered species, Oregon says in court filings....
Eagle feather laws still in place Although the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list last month, the laws regulating the possession of the bird’s feathers are still in place. Both the bald and the golden eagle are still protected by the federal act that bears their names: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act – also known as the “Eagle Act” – as well as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Eagle Act was passed in 1940, and prohibits the “take; possession; sale; purchase; barter; offer to sell, purchase, or barter; transport, export or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit.” Eagle feathers, however, have had spiritual significance to Indian tribes long before the federal government began passing acts. So in the 1970s, the National Eagle Repository was established to provide feathers of bald and golden eagles to tribal members for ceremonial purposes....
Elusive Yosemite flower ID'd as new species Discovered 84 years ago in Yosemite National Park, the Yosemite bog-orchid is finally an official new species. The tiny orchid — aka Platanthera yosemitensis — was first found by orchid enthusiast George Henry Grinnell in 1923. But it then returned to its hidden state for 70 years until a new generation of botanists rediscovered it in 1993. Fourteen years later, the tiny orchid that botanists then had trouble identifying now has a name, and details about it have been published in the California Botanical Society journal. "I actually smelled it before I found it," said Alison Colwell, a U.S. Geological Survey botanist. "It smelled like sweaty animals — really musky." The petite orchid has yellow pea-size flowers and a potent bouquet which some compare to strong cheese and human feet. The orchid may use its unique scent to attract flies and mosquitoes for pollination purposes, scientists said....
Freudenthal defends feed grounds Feed grounds are a vital part of the state's efforts to manage elk and combat brucellosis for the foreseeable future, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said. "While the federal government acknowledges that, they don't move," Freudenthal told the 2007 Western Regional Meeting of Agricultural College Deans on Monday. "They say, 'That (brucellosis) is a hell of a problem and we hope you are going to work on it.' " Freudenthal said feed grounds are one of the only resources available to the state as long as there is a reservoir of brucellosis in the national parks. Brucellosis is a disease that can cause cows, bison and elk to abort fetuses. "If you get rid of feed grounds, you are only going to push elk onto private property and spread the disease," Freudenthal said. Conservation groups say crowded conditions on feed grounds help transmit brucellosis and that the grounds should be phased out....
S. Dakota looks at new rules for DM&E The state Transportation Commission is proposing new rules that would control the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's application to use eminent domain to acquire land for its planned expansion. The commission has been asked to grant the Sioux Falls-based DM&E the right of eminent domain to extend its east-west line into Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Eminent domain is the right to condemn and acquire land. A state law provides that railroads can use the procedure if they can show a project is a use consistent with public necessity. The Transportation Commission had planned to hold a hearing on DM&E's eminent-domain application on July 10, but Circuit Judge James Anderson of Pierre stopped the hearing after landowners argued that the commission has failed to pass rules dealing with such applications. The commission on Tuesday announced that it would meet by telephone at 12:15 p.m. MDT today to consider setting a date for a hearing on rules governing applications for a railroad's use of eminent domain....
Waterfowl populations rise by 14 percent in past year With five waterfowl species at or near record numbers, there are plenty of reasons for optimism among waterfowl enthusiasts. Preliminary results from the annual Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey jointly conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service say overall waterfowl population has jumped 14 percent from last year to more than 41 million birds in the survey area. That number is 24 percent above the 1955-2006 average. “There’s a lot of good news in the survey this year for the total duck population and waterfowl breeding habitat,” said H. Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We have five species that are at record or near record highs, including canvasbacks, and there are good breeding conditions on the prairies. “However, we remain concerned that pintails and scaup are well below long-term averages.” The survey covers 1.3 million square miles across the north-central United States, south-central and northern Canada and Alaska and estimates the number of ducks in the continent’s most important nesting grounds. Biologists reported most breeding-habitat conditions were the same or slightly better than reported in 2006....
Yellowstone cutthroat not joining endangered list The Yellowstone cutthroat trout does not merit the protections of the federal Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday. While fish numbers have declined substantially, the Service “found numerous robust populations throughout the historic range of the subspecies, most notably in headwater areas,” said Mitch King, regional director of the Service. King also noted the “numerous ongoing conservation efforts” on behalf of the fish by state, federal, tribal, local and nongovernmental organizations. Environmentalists who had pushed for the listing said Tuesday they were disappointed but not surprised....
Humane Society: Gore's message loses bite ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills. Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species. Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks. It has been estimated that more than 50 per cent of toothfish traded is illegally caught, and includes juveniles vital to the ongoing toothfish population....
North Dakota Stockmen’s Association Will Not Re-Up R-CALF Dues The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association (NDSA) will not be renewing its expiring affiliate dues with R-CALF USA. Disappointed with the lack of communication and respect from the national organization, the NDSA Board of Directors made the decision at its quarterly meeting at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, N.D., last Wednesday. “The decision boiled down to accountability,” explained NDSA President Mark Huseth, who ranches near McLeod, N.D. “A trade organization must be accountable to its members, but, time after time, R-CALF refused to answer our questions or acknowledge our concerns. Our directors decided they could not renew the affiliation with R-CALF if they wanted to be accountable to the NDSA’s own members.” Here’s an example: The NDSA issued a letter to R-CALF leaders in March requesting a verifiable audit and seeking information about officer oustings and staff and leadership turnovers within the national organization after an anonymous, purportedly tell-all website was launched. The NDSA also wanted to know why it was not informed of a regional R-CALF meeting that was held in Bismarck, N.D., last fall. The NDSA board was disappointed when, after a long delay, the R-CALF president said he had been instructed by his board not to answer the NDSA’s questions in writing. Instead, he offered to send a DVD of an R-CALF regional meeting in place of a letter. The NDSA still has not received it....
Gray wolf shot, killed in eastern Oregon An endangered gray wolf was found shot and killed in late May in a forested area north of La Grande, apparently the fifth known wolf to arrive in Oregon since the species was returned to nearby Idaho more than a decade ago. The adult female animal was badly decomposed and was only recently positively identified as a wolf by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensics laboratory in Ashland, officials said. The wolf was not wearing a radio collar, but DNA analysis confirmed it was related to other wild wolves in Idaho. It did not appear to have been the same wolf videotaped in Wallowa County last summer. That animal was black and the dead animal was a more typical gray-brown, said Russ Morgan of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Counting that videotaped wolf, the wolf found dead would be the fifth known wolf to make it to Oregon. The first was captured near John Day in 1999 and returned to Idaho, another was hit by a car on Interstate 84 and another was found illegally shot between Ukiah and Pendleton....
Wolves Of Yellowstone Spur Love And Hate On any given morning in Yellowstone National Park, you can find packs of tourists watching for packs of wolves, CBS News correspondent Tracy Smith reports. What do they feel when looking at these wolves? "My spirit just feels such a resonance with what I'm seeing," said wolf watcher Nancy Waring. Wolf watchers bring more than high-powered scopes: They bring money to area businesses — about $35 million each year. Seventy years ago, aggressive hunting and trapping had all but wiped out the wolves in Yellowstone. But the federal government decided that as predators, wolves were a key link in the park's food chain. So starting in 1995, they brought the wolves back to Yellowstone. They released 41 in the park, housed in pens. Officials were hoping the wolves would have pups and eventually they would end up with about 100. Now, a decade later, the pens are overgrown and there are 300 wolves in the Yellowstone area ... more than 1,300 in the three surrounding states....
New rule would make it easier to kill wolves Shielded by law from hunters, gray wolf populations boomed in the Northern Rockies over the last decade at the expense of some big game herds that represent a sure meal for the resurgent carnivores. But the balance of power in the region's forests could soon tilt against those 1,300 wolves. Federal officials are seeking to give Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wider latitude to kill wolves that prey on big game species or threaten domestic animals. As public hearings on the proposal began Wednesday, state officials and some ranchers welcomed a plan they said could help put wolves in check more than a decade after they were reintroduced to the region. "This is something we need," said Allen Jaggi, a Wyoming state representative from Lyman. "We're in a hell of a mess. We're losing elk. We're losing domestic livestock." Another pending U.S. Fish and Wildlife proposal would go much farther, allowing public hunting of wolves by stripping them of protection under the Endangered Species Act. With that idea facing a near-certain legal challenge _ which could hang it up in court possibly for years _ federal officials said the big game protection proposal gives states at least an interim measure to deal with problem wolves....
Wolves kill seven sheep in Oregon Gulch Rather than try to remove the gray wolves that killed seven domestic sheep northwest of Ketchum last week, an official with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has elected to pursue non-lethal methods to keep the wolves away. The decision to pursue non-lethal methods was made after the owner of the sheep requested the wolves not be killed, Fish and Game Large Carnivore Manager Steve Nadeau said Tuesday. "The livestock producer wanted to work with us to explore all options to keep his stock and the wolves alive," Nadeau said. Nadeau said he has agreed to that plan. The sheep-killing incident occurred on two separate days—July 10 and 12—in a remote portion of the upper Oregon Gulch area. The sheep band was being grazed on a Sawtooth National Forest grazing allotment that covers the area....
Home on the Range: “Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works” The editors of Home Land: Ranching and a West That Works, recently published by Johnson Books and the Rocky Mountain Land Library, explain the purpose of this collection in the preface: “The premise of our book is that conservation is compatible with ranching and farming,” and “that conservationists and agriculturalists are compatible creatures: they actually belong together.” That is, even though some questions of conservation, such as the reintroduction of wolves, tend to pit ranchers and environmentalists against each other, larger questions such as respect for animals and a love for undeveloped land unite them. The editors of Home Land are calling for a productive truce between ranchers and environmentalists. As Jordan writes in the introduction, “Environmetalists have been at least as rigid as ranchers in the thirty-year war that has locked vast regions of the West in litigation and rancor while millions of acres of open land have fallen to development.” If environmentalists and ranchers instead united, Home Land suggests, perhaps some of this development could be halted....
Wilderness proposal worries ranchers A pair of news conferences set for today seem to indicate a debate about wilderness in Dona Ana County is far from over. A group of ranchers concerned about possible impacts of a wilderness designation on grazing allotments announced last week it planned a press event today to highlight its views. Tuesday, a group backing a wilderness designation for thousands of acres in the county announced a press conference of its own. Members of the ranching group People For Preserving Our Western Heritage said backers of the wilderness proposal didn't involve ranchers in creating their proposal. "Our organization felt like the process of engaging support for the effort failed to include us," said Steve Wilmeth, a Dona Ana County rancher. A wilderness designation would place new restrictions on the use of that land. Wilmeth said the group will propose alternatives that would still achieve the goal of preserving land....
Water as collateral? B.J. "Red" McCombs has turned investments in radio, sports, oil and cars into gold. The San Antonio businessman now is applying his Midas touch to water rights, trade-school education and loans for those late on their property taxes. Propel Financial Services LLC will act as a private lender to make up to $100 million in loans to individuals and businesses with nonconventional collateral. "I've been looking at this for some time," McCombs said of the venture, which will include loans with Edwards Aquifer private water rights as a collateral. "Very few people are knowledgeable about water rights right now." In recent years, water rights have become a hot commodity in the San Antonio area, but traditional lenders have yet to recognize them as assets for collateral, said Jack Nelson, CEO of the newly formed Propel. The option is particularly attractive for South Texas farmers and ranchers who have the potential to pay off their equipment or even their land with a loan secured by water rights....
Beetle bill lands in D.C. The entire Colorado legislative delegation introduced a federal bark beetle bill on Tuesday that would commit up to $22 million to help the Forest Service and local communities combat the threat of wildfire and protect water supplies in the state. Colorado's seven members of the House of Representatives introduced the legislation, called the Colorado Forest Management Improvement Act of 2007, on the House floor, while the state's two senators presented the bill in the Senate. The bill would make grants available to at-risk communities in Colorado for the creation of a community wildfire protection plan and would create central collection points for dead trees removed from forests. It would also allow for the creation of Healthy Forest Partnership Zones for high-fire risk areas in order to facilitate an effort between local communities and private industry to reduce hazardous fuels and fire risks to communities. The legislation would make the Forest Service's good neighbor policy permanent. That policy focuses on treatment and thinning projects on Forest Service land adjacent to private property....
Bipartisan Group Works to End Costly Tongass Forest Logging Subsidy While the nation continues to be burdened with huge federal budget deficits, the U.S. Forest Service is still promoting millions of dollars in taxpayer handouts to logging companies for forest road-building projects. The timber program in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska has been hemorrhaging money--and jobs--for years. Since 1996, timber-related employment in the Tongass has dropped from 1,560 to fewer than 200 workers. Yet the subsidies keep flowing in ever greater amounts. The per-job subsidy has risen to more than $200,000, with the total cost since 1982 amounting to about $1 billion, according to Forest Service data and other government sources. "What kind of business model are these people operating under?" asked Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "The taxpayer spigot needs to be shut off. Relying on government handouts for success is not something most economists or smart business owners endorse." A bipartisan group in Congress, allied with budget watchdogs, fiscal conservatives, sportsmen, and environmental groups, has teamed up to put an end to the practice....
Crews fight fires in bear country Firefighters have an added layer of danger when battling blazes in northwest Wyoming: bears. But firefighters practice the same precautions when working in bear country that campers are asked to do -- namely, storing food, making noise and carrying pepper spray. On the Salt Lick fire outside Pinedale, now estimated at 2,500 acres and about 40 percent contained, fire crews are using bear boxes to store food and other bear attractants. They are sleeping away from the bear boxes and carrying pepper spray. Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, said everything the U.S. Forest Service asks the public to do in bear country, firefighters do....
Two states, divided by salmon Oregon and Washington not only sit on opposite sides of the Columbia River, but they're also taking opposite sides in a landmark case on how much should be done for the river's troubled salmon runs. The interstate feud over fish has far-reaching consequences because it will help decide the future of the river's massive hydroelectric dams. While the dams supply inexpensive energy, they also kill many young salmon migrating past. Though fish drive the dispute, the economic stakes are high: Washington enjoys more discounted hydropower because of its higher number of public utilities and stands to reap federal money for restoring salmon habitat. Oregon, on the other hand, does not gain the same benefits from the dams and is pushing to do more for salmon. Washington, siding with the Bonneville Power Administration, which distributes the hydropower, and many electric utilities that buy the power, likes the federal government's proposal to help salmon hurt by the dams. It does a better job focusing aid on the salmon runs that need it, Washington argues. But Oregon, siding with conservation and fishing groups and some Native American tribes, sees the federal approach as pretty close to awful. It offers no new help for fish and may illegally ignore the federal mandate to help endangered species, Oregon says in court filings....
Eagle feather laws still in place Although the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list last month, the laws regulating the possession of the bird’s feathers are still in place. Both the bald and the golden eagle are still protected by the federal act that bears their names: the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act – also known as the “Eagle Act” – as well as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Eagle Act was passed in 1940, and prohibits the “take; possession; sale; purchase; barter; offer to sell, purchase, or barter; transport, export or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit.” Eagle feathers, however, have had spiritual significance to Indian tribes long before the federal government began passing acts. So in the 1970s, the National Eagle Repository was established to provide feathers of bald and golden eagles to tribal members for ceremonial purposes....
Elusive Yosemite flower ID'd as new species Discovered 84 years ago in Yosemite National Park, the Yosemite bog-orchid is finally an official new species. The tiny orchid — aka Platanthera yosemitensis — was first found by orchid enthusiast George Henry Grinnell in 1923. But it then returned to its hidden state for 70 years until a new generation of botanists rediscovered it in 1993. Fourteen years later, the tiny orchid that botanists then had trouble identifying now has a name, and details about it have been published in the California Botanical Society journal. "I actually smelled it before I found it," said Alison Colwell, a U.S. Geological Survey botanist. "It smelled like sweaty animals — really musky." The petite orchid has yellow pea-size flowers and a potent bouquet which some compare to strong cheese and human feet. The orchid may use its unique scent to attract flies and mosquitoes for pollination purposes, scientists said....
Freudenthal defends feed grounds Feed grounds are a vital part of the state's efforts to manage elk and combat brucellosis for the foreseeable future, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said. "While the federal government acknowledges that, they don't move," Freudenthal told the 2007 Western Regional Meeting of Agricultural College Deans on Monday. "They say, 'That (brucellosis) is a hell of a problem and we hope you are going to work on it.' " Freudenthal said feed grounds are one of the only resources available to the state as long as there is a reservoir of brucellosis in the national parks. Brucellosis is a disease that can cause cows, bison and elk to abort fetuses. "If you get rid of feed grounds, you are only going to push elk onto private property and spread the disease," Freudenthal said. Conservation groups say crowded conditions on feed grounds help transmit brucellosis and that the grounds should be phased out....
S. Dakota looks at new rules for DM&E The state Transportation Commission is proposing new rules that would control the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's application to use eminent domain to acquire land for its planned expansion. The commission has been asked to grant the Sioux Falls-based DM&E the right of eminent domain to extend its east-west line into Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Eminent domain is the right to condemn and acquire land. A state law provides that railroads can use the procedure if they can show a project is a use consistent with public necessity. The Transportation Commission had planned to hold a hearing on DM&E's eminent-domain application on July 10, but Circuit Judge James Anderson of Pierre stopped the hearing after landowners argued that the commission has failed to pass rules dealing with such applications. The commission on Tuesday announced that it would meet by telephone at 12:15 p.m. MDT today to consider setting a date for a hearing on rules governing applications for a railroad's use of eminent domain....
Waterfowl populations rise by 14 percent in past year With five waterfowl species at or near record numbers, there are plenty of reasons for optimism among waterfowl enthusiasts. Preliminary results from the annual Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey jointly conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service say overall waterfowl population has jumped 14 percent from last year to more than 41 million birds in the survey area. That number is 24 percent above the 1955-2006 average. “There’s a lot of good news in the survey this year for the total duck population and waterfowl breeding habitat,” said H. Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We have five species that are at record or near record highs, including canvasbacks, and there are good breeding conditions on the prairies. “However, we remain concerned that pintails and scaup are well below long-term averages.” The survey covers 1.3 million square miles across the north-central United States, south-central and northern Canada and Alaska and estimates the number of ducks in the continent’s most important nesting grounds. Biologists reported most breeding-habitat conditions were the same or slightly better than reported in 2006....
Yellowstone cutthroat not joining endangered list The Yellowstone cutthroat trout does not merit the protections of the federal Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday. While fish numbers have declined substantially, the Service “found numerous robust populations throughout the historic range of the subspecies, most notably in headwater areas,” said Mitch King, regional director of the Service. King also noted the “numerous ongoing conservation efforts” on behalf of the fish by state, federal, tribal, local and nongovernmental organizations. Environmentalists who had pushed for the listing said Tuesday they were disappointed but not surprised....
Humane Society: Gore's message loses bite ONLY one week after Live Earth, Al Gore's green credentials slipped while hosting his daughter's wedding in Beverly Hills. Gore and his guests at the weekend ceremony dined on Chilean sea bass - arguably one of the world's most threatened fish species. Also known as Patagonian toothfish, the species is under pressure from illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing activities in the Southern Ocean, jeopardising the sustainability of remaining stocks. It has been estimated that more than 50 per cent of toothfish traded is illegally caught, and includes juveniles vital to the ongoing toothfish population....
North Dakota Stockmen’s Association Will Not Re-Up R-CALF Dues The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association (NDSA) will not be renewing its expiring affiliate dues with R-CALF USA. Disappointed with the lack of communication and respect from the national organization, the NDSA Board of Directors made the decision at its quarterly meeting at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora, N.D., last Wednesday. “The decision boiled down to accountability,” explained NDSA President Mark Huseth, who ranches near McLeod, N.D. “A trade organization must be accountable to its members, but, time after time, R-CALF refused to answer our questions or acknowledge our concerns. Our directors decided they could not renew the affiliation with R-CALF if they wanted to be accountable to the NDSA’s own members.” Here’s an example: The NDSA issued a letter to R-CALF leaders in March requesting a verifiable audit and seeking information about officer oustings and staff and leadership turnovers within the national organization after an anonymous, purportedly tell-all website was launched. The NDSA also wanted to know why it was not informed of a regional R-CALF meeting that was held in Bismarck, N.D., last fall. The NDSA board was disappointed when, after a long delay, the R-CALF president said he had been instructed by his board not to answer the NDSA’s questions in writing. Instead, he offered to send a DVD of an R-CALF regional meeting in place of a letter. The NDSA still has not received it....
FLE
FBI: Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other Middle Eastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico. An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year. Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI's report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis. The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report. The people to be smuggled would "gather at a house on the Mexican side of the border" and then cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., the report says. "Unidentified individuals would then transport them to train stations in El Paso, Texas or Belen, New Mexico," according to the FBI document....
Feinstein to Bush: Free Ramos, Compean After presiding over a Senate hearing today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has decided to ask President Bush to commute the sentences of former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, an aide for the California Democrat told WND. Feinstein will have a letter delivered to the White House tomorrow, said spokesman Scott Gerber. Following the Senate judiciary committee's examination of the controversial prosecution, according to Gerber, the senator said "it became very clear the sentences did not match the crime." Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. Feinstein concluded the hearing today with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men under section 924(c) of the U.S. code, which requires a 10-year sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence....
FBI: Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other Middle Eastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico. An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year. Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI's report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis. The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report. The people to be smuggled would "gather at a house on the Mexican side of the border" and then cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., the report says. "Unidentified individuals would then transport them to train stations in El Paso, Texas or Belen, New Mexico," according to the FBI document....
Feinstein to Bush: Free Ramos, Compean After presiding over a Senate hearing today, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has decided to ask President Bush to commute the sentences of former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, an aide for the California Democrat told WND. Feinstein will have a letter delivered to the White House tomorrow, said spokesman Scott Gerber. Following the Senate judiciary committee's examination of the controversial prosecution, according to Gerber, the senator said "it became very clear the sentences did not match the crime." Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. Feinstein concluded the hearing today with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men under section 924(c) of the U.S. code, which requires a 10-year sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence....
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
FLE
Report Says al-Qaida Seeks to Attack U.S. The terrorist network Al-Qaida will likely leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, according to a new National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the American homeland. The declassified key findings, to be released publicly on Tuesday, were obtained in advance by The Associated Press. The report lays out a range of dangers—from al-Qaida to Lebanese Hezbollah to non-Muslim radical groups—that pose a "persistent and evolving threat" to the country over the next three years. As expected, however, the findings focus most of their attention on the gravest terror problem: Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The report makes clear that al-Qaida in Iraq, which has not yet posed a direct threat to U.S. soil, could become a problem here. "Of note," the analysts said, "we assess that al-Qaida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the homeland." The analysts also found that al-Qaida's association with its Iraqi affiliate helps the group to energize the broader Sunni Muslim extremist community, raise resources and recruit and indoctrinate operatives—"including for homeland attacks." National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative written judgments of the 16 spy agencies across the breadth of the U.S. government....
Sutton grilled in Ramos-Compean hearing Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein concluded a Senate hearing today on the high-profile prosecution of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men with a violation that requires a mandatory 10-year sentence. Chairing the Senate judiciary committee hearing, Feinstein questioned the decision to charge the agents under 18 United States Code section 924(c)(1)(a), which requires the harsh sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana in February 2005. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. Feinstein, during questioning of Sutton, argued the statute did not apply to Ramos and Compean in their pursuit of a drug smuggler at the Mexican border, because there was no underlying crime....
Will security firms detect police spyware? A recent federal court decision raises the question of whether antivirus companies may intentionally overlook spyware that is secretly placed on computers by police. In the case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger--call it fedware--to record the typing of a suspected Ecstasy manufacturer who used encryption to thwart the police. A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet. Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives. Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's OS X include built-in encryption. This isn't exactly a new question. After the last high-profile case in which federal agents turned to a key logger, some security companies allegedly volunteered to ignore fedware. The Associated Press reported in 2001 that "McAfee Corp. contacted the FBI... to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software." McAfee subsequently said the report was inaccurate. Later that year, the FBI confirmed that it was creating spy software called "Magic Lantern" that would allow agents to inject keystroke loggers remotely through a virus without having physical access to the computer. (In both the recent Ecstasy case and the earlier key logging case involving an alleged mobster, federal agents obtained court orders authorizing them to break into buildings to install key loggers.) Government agencies and backdoors in technology products have a long and frequently clandestine relationship....
DEA targets landlords of pot outlets Raising the stakes in the federal government's war against medical marijuana, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has warned more than 150 Los Angeles landlords that they risk arrest and the loss of their properties if they continue renting to cannabis dispensaries. The two-page letter sent last week by Timothy J. Landrum, DEA special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office, has whipped up worries among landlords and dispensary operators in a region that has seen a proliferation of the businesses in the last two years. "I'm devastated," said Lisa Sawoya, who left her lucrative job selling high-tech hospital equipment to open a dispensary 18 months ago in Hollywood. "My landlord believes in cannabis as medicine. But they're taking the letter very seriously. So I'll be closing my doors at the end of this month." Sarah Pullen, a DEA spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said the purpose of the letters was to "educate" property owners at risk because they were housing marijuana dispensaries. "By renting their property to individuals violating fed drug laws, they are in and of themselves violating federal law," Pullen said. "These are definitely meant to serve as a notice. What might happen as to the continuing investigations, we'll just have to see." The DEA move has focused entirely on Los Angeles. Activists suspect that the logistics and timing — more than a decade after state voters legalized medical marijuana with the passage of Proposition 215 — is intended to thin the ranks of Los Angeles dispensaries on the eve of new city regulations. A proposed city ordinance would cap and regulate the number of outlets, which now number more than 400....
Report Says al-Qaida Seeks to Attack U.S. The terrorist network Al-Qaida will likely leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, according to a new National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the American homeland. The declassified key findings, to be released publicly on Tuesday, were obtained in advance by The Associated Press. The report lays out a range of dangers—from al-Qaida to Lebanese Hezbollah to non-Muslim radical groups—that pose a "persistent and evolving threat" to the country over the next three years. As expected, however, the findings focus most of their attention on the gravest terror problem: Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The report makes clear that al-Qaida in Iraq, which has not yet posed a direct threat to U.S. soil, could become a problem here. "Of note," the analysts said, "we assess that al-Qaida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the homeland." The analysts also found that al-Qaida's association with its Iraqi affiliate helps the group to energize the broader Sunni Muslim extremist community, raise resources and recruit and indoctrinate operatives—"including for homeland attacks." National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative written judgments of the 16 spy agencies across the breadth of the U.S. government....
Sutton grilled in Ramos-Compean hearing Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein concluded a Senate hearing today on the high-profile prosecution of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean with a vow to look further into why prosecutors charged the men with a violation that requires a mandatory 10-year sentence. Chairing the Senate judiciary committee hearing, Feinstein questioned the decision to charge the agents under 18 United States Code section 924(c)(1)(a), which requires the harsh sentence for using or carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime of violence. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana in February 2005. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. Feinstein, during questioning of Sutton, argued the statute did not apply to Ramos and Compean in their pursuit of a drug smuggler at the Mexican border, because there was no underlying crime....
Will security firms detect police spyware? A recent federal court decision raises the question of whether antivirus companies may intentionally overlook spyware that is secretly placed on computers by police. In the case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger--call it fedware--to record the typing of a suspected Ecstasy manufacturer who used encryption to thwart the police. A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet. Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives. Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's OS X include built-in encryption. This isn't exactly a new question. After the last high-profile case in which federal agents turned to a key logger, some security companies allegedly volunteered to ignore fedware. The Associated Press reported in 2001 that "McAfee Corp. contacted the FBI... to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software." McAfee subsequently said the report was inaccurate. Later that year, the FBI confirmed that it was creating spy software called "Magic Lantern" that would allow agents to inject keystroke loggers remotely through a virus without having physical access to the computer. (In both the recent Ecstasy case and the earlier key logging case involving an alleged mobster, federal agents obtained court orders authorizing them to break into buildings to install key loggers.) Government agencies and backdoors in technology products have a long and frequently clandestine relationship....
DEA targets landlords of pot outlets Raising the stakes in the federal government's war against medical marijuana, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has warned more than 150 Los Angeles landlords that they risk arrest and the loss of their properties if they continue renting to cannabis dispensaries. The two-page letter sent last week by Timothy J. Landrum, DEA special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office, has whipped up worries among landlords and dispensary operators in a region that has seen a proliferation of the businesses in the last two years. "I'm devastated," said Lisa Sawoya, who left her lucrative job selling high-tech hospital equipment to open a dispensary 18 months ago in Hollywood. "My landlord believes in cannabis as medicine. But they're taking the letter very seriously. So I'll be closing my doors at the end of this month." Sarah Pullen, a DEA spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said the purpose of the letters was to "educate" property owners at risk because they were housing marijuana dispensaries. "By renting their property to individuals violating fed drug laws, they are in and of themselves violating federal law," Pullen said. "These are definitely meant to serve as a notice. What might happen as to the continuing investigations, we'll just have to see." The DEA move has focused entirely on Los Angeles. Activists suspect that the logistics and timing — more than a decade after state voters legalized medical marijuana with the passage of Proposition 215 — is intended to thin the ranks of Los Angeles dispensaries on the eve of new city regulations. A proposed city ordinance would cap and regulate the number of outlets, which now number more than 400....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Cartels grow pot on 'national treasures' Marijuana cultivation on public land in the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar business, run by Mexican drug cartels and guarded by heavily armed members of U.S.-based street gangs and Mexican nationals, says the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "Our national treasures are now ground zero for international and domestic drug cultivation and trafficking," said drug czar John P. Walters. Mr. Walters made his comments last week during Operation Alesia, a multiagency marijuana-eradication initiative in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, the largest national forest in California. Coordinated by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office with the support of the California National Guard, the weeklong operation involved 17 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies. He said California's public lands are exceptionally vulnerable, adding that nine out of the top 10 marijuana-producing sites are found in that state and that 57 percent of all marijuana produced on public land in the U.S. is grown in California....
Report: 'Dead Zone' Growing in Gulf Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles - its largest in at least 22 years. The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen from the Mississippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico. It discounts the effect storms might have. The "dead zone" in the northern Gulf, at the end of the Mississippi River system, is one of the largest areas of oxygen-depleted coastal waters in the world. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, can be caused by pollution from farm fertilizer, soil erosion and discharge from sewage treatment plants, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The pollution is carried downstream by the Mississippi and comes from throughout the U.S....
Weld County residents oppose uranium plans The soaring price of uranium and plans for scores of new nuclear power plants are driving a controversial plan for a Front Range uranium mine.
Powertech Uranium Corp. is proposing a 5,760-acre development in western Weld County that eventually could produce 8 million pounds of the nuclear fuel. At the current price of $129 a pound, the operation could generate $1 billion in revenue. Yet the $20 million proposal has generated strong opposition from northern Colorado landowners who fear environmental damage and health problems from the mine. The company is proposing a mining process known as "in-situ" in which a solvent solution is injected underground to dissolve uranium and pump it to the surface. The process is safer and less invasive than traditional open-pit or underground mining, said Richard Blubaugh, vice president of environmental health and safety resources for Powertech. Nunn cattle rancher Daryl Burkhart is not convinced by Powertech's claims. "I'm worried about cancer and about them messing with my water and destroying my aquifer," he said. "It's a health risk getting that uranium out, and once you've done it, you've got a poison that you can never get rid of."....
Oil drilling fears erupt in Galisteo, Cerrillos More than 6,000 acres of state mineral rights plus at least 54,000 acres of private mineral rights in southern Santa Fe County, between Cerrillos and Galisteo, have been leased for petroleum exploration, causing worries of an oil boom that might pollute the environment. Concerned residents are meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at Eldorado Community Center to hear from Tweeti Blancett, an Aztec rancher who will talk about how oil and gas exploration has harmed her ranch. Johnny Micou, who lives between Cerrillos and Galisteo, said he and his wife learned about the exploration by Tecton Energy of Houston in April after seeing several petroleum-drilling trucks near their home. Micou said they formed Drilling Santa Fe and created a Web site at drillingsantafe.com ``to at least bring to light that Santa Fe County has thousands of acres leased for drilling, exploration and then maybe development. ``Some of those areas are highly sensitive areas, such as water aquifers or archaeological sites,'' he said. ``It's something that this county has really not been up against before.''....
The changes to come Global warming discussions usually focus on the dramatic, catastrophic changes that are taking place in faraway places. Glaciers at the top of the world receding at alarming rates, or computer simulators showing heavily populated seacoasts battered by hurricanes and engulfed by rising seas. But what about right here on the rangelands of Wyoming? Will noxious weeds, unpalatable to livestock and wildlife, take over the state's grasslands? Or will native grasses flourish? Will droughts become more frequent? At this point no one knows for sure. This summer on the hot, windswept prairie a few miles outside of Cheyenne, scientists and students from the University of Wyoming are down on their knees searching in the grass for answers. The scientists' outdoor laboratory is on a plot of United States Department of Agriculture property called PHACE, short for the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment experiment. Here scientists are manipulating circular plots of prairie grass to simulate the atmospheric conditions expected to exist at the end of the century. Fxpected decades from now are warmer temperatures and elevated levels of carbon dioxide, up from today's CO2 levels in the air of 380 parts per billion to 600 parts per billion. Heaters surround some of the circular plots of grass, while others are gassed with extra doses of CO2. Some plots receive both treatments. Control groups receive neither. Some are watered, some are not. By monitoring the rangeland's response to these manipulations, scientists may be able to help Wyoming's ranchers, land managers, wildlife agencies and everyday people prepare for the future....
Pueblo chamber backs Army studies of Pinon Canyon The Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce has weighed in on the debate over the Army's planned expansion of its Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, sending a letter to Colorado's senators that urges them to permit the initial Army studies to go forward. Rod Slyhoff, the chamber president, said the board's June 20 letter urges Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., to remove an amendment to the 2008 military construction appropriations bill that would prohibit the Army from spending any money on the expansion next year. Slyhoff said the chamber is not taking a position yet on the 414,000-acre expansion, but wants the Army to go forward with its environmental and economic impact studies, which are the first steps in its land acquisition process. Reps. John Salazar, D-Colo., and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., put that amendment on the House version of the military construction bill in June on an overwhelming vote of 383 to 34....Another fine example of urban businessmen. Use eminent domain to take private property, destroy the living of rural residents and relinquish the culture and customs they and their families bring to the area. All so they can rake in a little more cash at their stores, restaurants and bars. Do they really think they can build a more vibrant economy by growing the presence of the federal government in their community? May they rue the day they violated solid principle and turned on their neighbors. And let's not forget the sorry role of the military in turning one group of individuals against another.
Tahoe officials: Rehab efforts inadequate Emergency restoration plans by the U.S. Forest Service for areas burned by the disastrous Angora Fire fail to adequately protect homes, a high school and Lake Tahoe's sensitive environment, South Lake Tahoe officials said Monday. City officials are concerned that rainfall could cause debris flows, threatening city property where it abuts national forest land burned by the fire. Last week, the Forest Service issued a report detailing nearly $2.2 million in emergency erosion control improvements believed necessary to offset immediate erosion problems in the burn area. They don't go far enough, said South Lake Tahoe City Manager David Jinkens. "It's not going to handle the runoff," Jinkens said. "We don't think the current plan will handle the runoff that's expected." In a letter to Terri Marceron, supervisor of the Forest Service's Lake Tahoe unit, city Public Works Director John Greenhut identified four specific areas of concern....
Judge: Science on coho ignored It seemed like a rare good-news story for Northwest salmon: a Democratic governor rallies industry to help a troubled species, a supportive Republican White House hands the reins to the state, and happily, salmon numbers bounce back. The only problem: A federal judge concluded Friday that the story of Oregon coast coho was based on smoke and mirrors. The only evidence things are looking up for the salmon was a faulty analysis by Oregon officials that federal scientists said "does not meet the red face test," the judge said. Although federal biologists warned that Oregon's analysis had serious flaws, the Bush administration used that analysis to drop Endangered Species Act protections for the coho, leaving the state in charge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart concluded. Stewart found that the Bush administration's decision was illegal because it ignored the best available science about what's really happening to coho -- which is not as rosy as Oregon suggested....
Stanley activist wants wolves out of Idaho Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Not Ron Gillett, though he wants the creature removed from Idaho. An outdoor outfitter from Stanley and anti-wolf activist, Gillett is leading a campaign to rid the state of Canadian gray wolves. He's traveling to each of Idaho's 44 counties, urging commissioners to pass resolutions that endorse wolf removal. Gillett said wolves ravage Idaho's elk population, drive hunters from the state and cost businesses money when the hunters disappear. He met Monday with commissioners in Jerome and Twin Falls counties - the seventh and eighth stops on his campaign - and gave a passionate presentation about what he calls "the most cruel predator in North America." Commissioners in Jerome County seemed interested in Gillett's proposal, agreeing to table the issue until they could gather more information. Twin Falls commissioners indicated wolves were a non-issue....
Biggest water idea in decades? Aaron Million’s idea to pump water from Utah and Wyoming to the Front Range was the first major new water idea in several decades in Colorado. The reception has been polite, if in some cases skeptical. The water committee for Club 20, the Western Slope advocacy group, gave Million a friendly reception this winter. In May, The Denver Post lent an editorial pat-on-the-back. Without mentioning Million’s project, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregg Hobbes agreed with the concept of additional storage as an answer to global warming-induced drought. But Million’s plan has also been met by what Ed Quillen, publisher of a Salida-based magazine called Colorado Central, calls hostility. He believes that major water organizations see Million invading what they consider to be their turf. Nearly all water projects of the last century were conceived by public or quasi-public agencies. Million’s is essentially a private venture....
Congress Will Hold Hearing on Cheney’s Role in Klamath Fish Kill Representative Nick Rahall (D-West Virginia), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, will convene an oversight hearing on the role that Vice President Dick Cheney played in Klamath River Basin decisions leading to the Klamath fish kill of 2002. The hearing is set for July 31 in Washington D.C. As reported in the Washington Post article, “Leaving No Tracks,” by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman on June 27, Cheney's intervention in the development of a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River resulted in a September 2002 die-off of an estimated 68,000 to 80,000 adult salmon in the lower Klamath - the largest fish kill in U.S. history. The cutoff of water was made in spite of evidence from state, federal, tribal and independent scientists that a fish kill was imminent in September because of low, warm water conditions that prevailed in the river when the salmon began their annual migration upriver. In the spring of 2002, hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon and steelhead perished because of the low flows and high water temperatures as the fish moved downriver....
Chunk of state water may be cut The state's water supply could be cut dramatically under a plan submitted last week to address California's increasingly chaotic Delta-based water system. The proposal filed in federal court sent shudders through water agencies from the Bay Area to Southern California, where surprised planners late in the week were still trying to figure out how dire its effects might be. The state Department of Water Resources said the plan could reduce water deliveries out of the Delta by more than one-third in a year of average rain and snow. "These impacts are dramatic," said the department's deputy director, Jerry Johns. "This is absolutely phenomenal." At the forefront of that crisis is the Delta smelt, a tiny imperiled fish whose numbers have collapsed repeatedly to lower and lower levels. In a declaration filed last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top endangered species regulator in California linked the collapse of Delta smelt with the increase in water pumping out of the Delta that began in 2000. Steve Thompson acknowledged other factors could also be contributing to the ecological crisis and added that evidence linking increased water deliveries and the collapse of fish populations remains circumstantial....
He can dig it: dog knows scat The brownish-gray "sample" was about the size of a quarter and didn't smell like much to a human. But Rio, a 95-pound German shepherd with a discerning nose, sniffed out the bit of dried kit fox poop in a landscape littered with Frisbee-sized cow pies. "Good boy!" said handler Deborah Smith, rewarding Rio with a slap on the back and a few seconds of play. Then the pair resumed their scientific prowl for poop. Rio is a scent detection dog, trained to find a variety of animal scat (that's poop to you and me) and even plants. He and Smith, a wildlife biologist and dog trainer/handler, represent a leading edge of research in the San Joaquin Valley as scientists collect more information about the endangered kit fox. "[In] the use of scent dogs for work with endangered species ... she is one of the pioneers," said Patrick Kelly, a zoology professor and coordinator of the Endangered Species Recovery Program based at California State University, Stanislaus....
Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Site Becomes a Wildlife Refuge Sixteen miles northwest of Denver, the site where once the trigger mechanisms for nearly every nuclear weapon in the United States were made, has become the country's newest wildlife refuge. The U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, transferred nearly 4,000 acres of its former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday. The transfer creates the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Over the warnings of some citizens groups, public access will be allowed to large portions of the site. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management James Rispoli said, "We are proud to transfer this space to the U.S. Department of Interior and we will continue with plans to complete environmental cleanup work at five more sites across the country by 2009."....
Farm Subsidies for Millionaires Washington spends more on corporate welfare than on homeland security — and farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program. This year, as lawmakers rewrite the farm programs and push up their spending, they will invoke Norman Rockwell imagery to portray farm subsidies as a vital lifeboat for small, struggling family farmers. Don’t believe a word of it. Farms have come a long way since subsidies were introduced as a temporary solution to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. Today, the average farm household earns $81,420 and has a net worth of $838,875 — both well above the national average. Farm incomes are setting records, and farms have one of the lowest failure rates of any industry. To be sure, some family farmers continue to struggle. But if farm subsidies were really about alleviating farmer poverty, then lawmakers could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of 185 percent of the federal level ($38,203 for a family of four) for under $5 billion annually — one-fifth the current cost of farm subsidies. Instead, small farmers are largely excluded from farm subsidies. Farm subsidy payments are based on acreage, so by definition, the largest agribusinesses get the largest subsidies. Consequently, commercial farmers — who report an average income of $200,000 and net worth of nearly $2 million — now collect the majority of farm subsidies. Most farm subsidy dollars go to millionaires....
R-CALF sues former president, directors Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, R-CALF, has filed suit against several former members and board members. A lawsuit was filed in Montana District Court against former president of the organization, Chuck Kiker, and former regional directors Jonathan Wooster and Dennis McDonald. The lawsuit also names five unnamed defendants John Doe 1 to 5. The lawsuit claims breach of fiduciary duty, violation of the Montana Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Conversion and Injunctive Relief. R-CALF claims that what was intended as a confidential report commissioned by the group was disseminated by the defendants, resulting in damage to the R-CALF organization. The suit also hopes to keep the defendants from using R-CALF membership lists. Chuck Kiker was removed as president of R-CALF earlier this year, and regional directors Wooster and McDonald were among the board members who resigned in protest....
Tombstone Or Bust! A group of five people are traveling from Texarkana, Ark., to Tombstone, Ariz., at 4 miles per hour. How long does it take them? Nine months. That's because the group is traveling in horse-drawn covered wagons. Mike Smith, 58, has been planning this trip for three years and on July 4 the caravan left Texarkana. The rancher spent half of that time building the two wagons the group is riding in. Smith's grandson, Clint Culpepper, 18, leads the caravan riding a horse. Smith departed July 4 because he has to get though the last set of mountains in New Mexico before the ice hits....
Idaho's range wars made Diamond Field Jack famous When two Cassia County sheepherders were found shot to death in their 1896 winter camp, Gov. William J. McConnell issued a statement to the newspapers: "It is a most terrible thing that men who are suffering the hardships incident to taking care of sheep in the winter months out upon the range, isolated by themselves from the support and comfort of their fellow men, should be shot down like wild beasts. The civilization of this age is shocked at the possibility of such men going unpunished." A cowboy named Jackson Lee Davis, who had become known by the nickname Diamond Field Jack, was the first suspect. He had come by the name because of an earlier involvement in an Owyhee County scam over worthless quartz crystals their promoters claimed were diamonds. Davis worked for the Sparks-Harrel Cattle Co. with the job of intimidating sheep owners to keep them from crossing an imaginary "dead line" that divided Cassia County. Cattle interests claimed the western half of the county and wanted sheep to stay on the eastern half. The role was a natural for Jack, a small man who liked to talk and act big, but he overplayed his part this time. He had told anyone who would listen that he had been hired to kill sheepherders. Davis had been involved in a scrape in November 1895, in which a sheepherder named Tolman was injured....
It's All Trew: Stables were cultural hub I found that the "stables" of today had replaced "livery stables" located in cities during the height of the horsepower era before the advent of the gas-powered automobile. Livery stable is derived from "delivery stable" for at one time almost all goods purchased in stores in the city were delivered by the store to the customer's home. This required large outlays of barns, horses, wagons and buggies for delivery purposes, thus the name livery stable. The term "livery" used by itself, seems to have been coined in the smaller towns of the Midwest. Here, stores were smaller and often contracted or hired private firms for customer deliveries. These private firms often rented mounts, teams and equipment to the public along with farrier and grooming services. Along with liveries, livery stables and stables there were also freight companies for heavier hauling of products. Some blacksmith shops were versatile, offering farrier service, wagon repair, saddle and harness repairs and gun-smithing. Any of these businesses might also offer livestock sales in conjunction with the other services. All of these evolved from the old time "wagon yard." Both in Europe and early America, travelers sought nightly comfort and protection at remote taverns and inns who offered fenced or walled courtyards and stables for stock. Many of these "traveler way-stations" later became stagecoach stops and grew into villages or towns....
Cartels grow pot on 'national treasures' Marijuana cultivation on public land in the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar business, run by Mexican drug cartels and guarded by heavily armed members of U.S.-based street gangs and Mexican nationals, says the head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "Our national treasures are now ground zero for international and domestic drug cultivation and trafficking," said drug czar John P. Walters. Mr. Walters made his comments last week during Operation Alesia, a multiagency marijuana-eradication initiative in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, the largest national forest in California. Coordinated by the Shasta County Sheriff's Office with the support of the California National Guard, the weeklong operation involved 17 federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies. He said California's public lands are exceptionally vulnerable, adding that nine out of the top 10 marijuana-producing sites are found in that state and that 57 percent of all marijuana produced on public land in the U.S. is grown in California....
Report: 'Dead Zone' Growing in Gulf Researchers predict that the recurring oxygen-depleted "dead zone" off the Louisiana coast will grow this summer to 8,543 square miles - its largest in at least 22 years. The forecast, released Monday by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is based on a federal estimate of nitrogen from the Mississippi River watershed to the Gulf of Mexico. It discounts the effect storms might have. The "dead zone" in the northern Gulf, at the end of the Mississippi River system, is one of the largest areas of oxygen-depleted coastal waters in the world. Low oxygen, or hypoxia, can be caused by pollution from farm fertilizer, soil erosion and discharge from sewage treatment plants, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The pollution is carried downstream by the Mississippi and comes from throughout the U.S....
Weld County residents oppose uranium plans The soaring price of uranium and plans for scores of new nuclear power plants are driving a controversial plan for a Front Range uranium mine.
Powertech Uranium Corp. is proposing a 5,760-acre development in western Weld County that eventually could produce 8 million pounds of the nuclear fuel. At the current price of $129 a pound, the operation could generate $1 billion in revenue. Yet the $20 million proposal has generated strong opposition from northern Colorado landowners who fear environmental damage and health problems from the mine. The company is proposing a mining process known as "in-situ" in which a solvent solution is injected underground to dissolve uranium and pump it to the surface. The process is safer and less invasive than traditional open-pit or underground mining, said Richard Blubaugh, vice president of environmental health and safety resources for Powertech. Nunn cattle rancher Daryl Burkhart is not convinced by Powertech's claims. "I'm worried about cancer and about them messing with my water and destroying my aquifer," he said. "It's a health risk getting that uranium out, and once you've done it, you've got a poison that you can never get rid of."....
Oil drilling fears erupt in Galisteo, Cerrillos More than 6,000 acres of state mineral rights plus at least 54,000 acres of private mineral rights in southern Santa Fe County, between Cerrillos and Galisteo, have been leased for petroleum exploration, causing worries of an oil boom that might pollute the environment. Concerned residents are meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at Eldorado Community Center to hear from Tweeti Blancett, an Aztec rancher who will talk about how oil and gas exploration has harmed her ranch. Johnny Micou, who lives between Cerrillos and Galisteo, said he and his wife learned about the exploration by Tecton Energy of Houston in April after seeing several petroleum-drilling trucks near their home. Micou said they formed Drilling Santa Fe and created a Web site at drillingsantafe.com ``to at least bring to light that Santa Fe County has thousands of acres leased for drilling, exploration and then maybe development. ``Some of those areas are highly sensitive areas, such as water aquifers or archaeological sites,'' he said. ``It's something that this county has really not been up against before.''....
The changes to come Global warming discussions usually focus on the dramatic, catastrophic changes that are taking place in faraway places. Glaciers at the top of the world receding at alarming rates, or computer simulators showing heavily populated seacoasts battered by hurricanes and engulfed by rising seas. But what about right here on the rangelands of Wyoming? Will noxious weeds, unpalatable to livestock and wildlife, take over the state's grasslands? Or will native grasses flourish? Will droughts become more frequent? At this point no one knows for sure. This summer on the hot, windswept prairie a few miles outside of Cheyenne, scientists and students from the University of Wyoming are down on their knees searching in the grass for answers. The scientists' outdoor laboratory is on a plot of United States Department of Agriculture property called PHACE, short for the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment experiment. Here scientists are manipulating circular plots of prairie grass to simulate the atmospheric conditions expected to exist at the end of the century. Fxpected decades from now are warmer temperatures and elevated levels of carbon dioxide, up from today's CO2 levels in the air of 380 parts per billion to 600 parts per billion. Heaters surround some of the circular plots of grass, while others are gassed with extra doses of CO2. Some plots receive both treatments. Control groups receive neither. Some are watered, some are not. By monitoring the rangeland's response to these manipulations, scientists may be able to help Wyoming's ranchers, land managers, wildlife agencies and everyday people prepare for the future....
Pueblo chamber backs Army studies of Pinon Canyon The Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce has weighed in on the debate over the Army's planned expansion of its Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, sending a letter to Colorado's senators that urges them to permit the initial Army studies to go forward. Rod Slyhoff, the chamber president, said the board's June 20 letter urges Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., to remove an amendment to the 2008 military construction appropriations bill that would prohibit the Army from spending any money on the expansion next year. Slyhoff said the chamber is not taking a position yet on the 414,000-acre expansion, but wants the Army to go forward with its environmental and economic impact studies, which are the first steps in its land acquisition process. Reps. John Salazar, D-Colo., and Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., put that amendment on the House version of the military construction bill in June on an overwhelming vote of 383 to 34....Another fine example of urban businessmen. Use eminent domain to take private property, destroy the living of rural residents and relinquish the culture and customs they and their families bring to the area. All so they can rake in a little more cash at their stores, restaurants and bars. Do they really think they can build a more vibrant economy by growing the presence of the federal government in their community? May they rue the day they violated solid principle and turned on their neighbors. And let's not forget the sorry role of the military in turning one group of individuals against another.
Tahoe officials: Rehab efforts inadequate Emergency restoration plans by the U.S. Forest Service for areas burned by the disastrous Angora Fire fail to adequately protect homes, a high school and Lake Tahoe's sensitive environment, South Lake Tahoe officials said Monday. City officials are concerned that rainfall could cause debris flows, threatening city property where it abuts national forest land burned by the fire. Last week, the Forest Service issued a report detailing nearly $2.2 million in emergency erosion control improvements believed necessary to offset immediate erosion problems in the burn area. They don't go far enough, said South Lake Tahoe City Manager David Jinkens. "It's not going to handle the runoff," Jinkens said. "We don't think the current plan will handle the runoff that's expected." In a letter to Terri Marceron, supervisor of the Forest Service's Lake Tahoe unit, city Public Works Director John Greenhut identified four specific areas of concern....
Judge: Science on coho ignored It seemed like a rare good-news story for Northwest salmon: a Democratic governor rallies industry to help a troubled species, a supportive Republican White House hands the reins to the state, and happily, salmon numbers bounce back. The only problem: A federal judge concluded Friday that the story of Oregon coast coho was based on smoke and mirrors. The only evidence things are looking up for the salmon was a faulty analysis by Oregon officials that federal scientists said "does not meet the red face test," the judge said. Although federal biologists warned that Oregon's analysis had serious flaws, the Bush administration used that analysis to drop Endangered Species Act protections for the coho, leaving the state in charge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart concluded. Stewart found that the Bush administration's decision was illegal because it ignored the best available science about what's really happening to coho -- which is not as rosy as Oregon suggested....
Stanley activist wants wolves out of Idaho Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Not Ron Gillett, though he wants the creature removed from Idaho. An outdoor outfitter from Stanley and anti-wolf activist, Gillett is leading a campaign to rid the state of Canadian gray wolves. He's traveling to each of Idaho's 44 counties, urging commissioners to pass resolutions that endorse wolf removal. Gillett said wolves ravage Idaho's elk population, drive hunters from the state and cost businesses money when the hunters disappear. He met Monday with commissioners in Jerome and Twin Falls counties - the seventh and eighth stops on his campaign - and gave a passionate presentation about what he calls "the most cruel predator in North America." Commissioners in Jerome County seemed interested in Gillett's proposal, agreeing to table the issue until they could gather more information. Twin Falls commissioners indicated wolves were a non-issue....
Biggest water idea in decades? Aaron Million’s idea to pump water from Utah and Wyoming to the Front Range was the first major new water idea in several decades in Colorado. The reception has been polite, if in some cases skeptical. The water committee for Club 20, the Western Slope advocacy group, gave Million a friendly reception this winter. In May, The Denver Post lent an editorial pat-on-the-back. Without mentioning Million’s project, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregg Hobbes agreed with the concept of additional storage as an answer to global warming-induced drought. But Million’s plan has also been met by what Ed Quillen, publisher of a Salida-based magazine called Colorado Central, calls hostility. He believes that major water organizations see Million invading what they consider to be their turf. Nearly all water projects of the last century were conceived by public or quasi-public agencies. Million’s is essentially a private venture....
Congress Will Hold Hearing on Cheney’s Role in Klamath Fish Kill Representative Nick Rahall (D-West Virginia), Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, will convene an oversight hearing on the role that Vice President Dick Cheney played in Klamath River Basin decisions leading to the Klamath fish kill of 2002. The hearing is set for July 31 in Washington D.C. As reported in the Washington Post article, “Leaving No Tracks,” by Jo Becker and Barton Gellman on June 27, Cheney's intervention in the development of a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River resulted in a September 2002 die-off of an estimated 68,000 to 80,000 adult salmon in the lower Klamath - the largest fish kill in U.S. history. The cutoff of water was made in spite of evidence from state, federal, tribal and independent scientists that a fish kill was imminent in September because of low, warm water conditions that prevailed in the river when the salmon began their annual migration upriver. In the spring of 2002, hundreds of thousands of juvenile salmon and steelhead perished because of the low flows and high water temperatures as the fish moved downriver....
Chunk of state water may be cut The state's water supply could be cut dramatically under a plan submitted last week to address California's increasingly chaotic Delta-based water system. The proposal filed in federal court sent shudders through water agencies from the Bay Area to Southern California, where surprised planners late in the week were still trying to figure out how dire its effects might be. The state Department of Water Resources said the plan could reduce water deliveries out of the Delta by more than one-third in a year of average rain and snow. "These impacts are dramatic," said the department's deputy director, Jerry Johns. "This is absolutely phenomenal." At the forefront of that crisis is the Delta smelt, a tiny imperiled fish whose numbers have collapsed repeatedly to lower and lower levels. In a declaration filed last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top endangered species regulator in California linked the collapse of Delta smelt with the increase in water pumping out of the Delta that began in 2000. Steve Thompson acknowledged other factors could also be contributing to the ecological crisis and added that evidence linking increased water deliveries and the collapse of fish populations remains circumstantial....
He can dig it: dog knows scat The brownish-gray "sample" was about the size of a quarter and didn't smell like much to a human. But Rio, a 95-pound German shepherd with a discerning nose, sniffed out the bit of dried kit fox poop in a landscape littered with Frisbee-sized cow pies. "Good boy!" said handler Deborah Smith, rewarding Rio with a slap on the back and a few seconds of play. Then the pair resumed their scientific prowl for poop. Rio is a scent detection dog, trained to find a variety of animal scat (that's poop to you and me) and even plants. He and Smith, a wildlife biologist and dog trainer/handler, represent a leading edge of research in the San Joaquin Valley as scientists collect more information about the endangered kit fox. "[In] the use of scent dogs for work with endangered species ... she is one of the pioneers," said Patrick Kelly, a zoology professor and coordinator of the Endangered Species Recovery Program based at California State University, Stanislaus....
Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Site Becomes a Wildlife Refuge Sixteen miles northwest of Denver, the site where once the trigger mechanisms for nearly every nuclear weapon in the United States were made, has become the country's newest wildlife refuge. The U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, transferred nearly 4,000 acres of its former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Thursday. The transfer creates the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Over the warnings of some citizens groups, public access will be allowed to large portions of the site. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management James Rispoli said, "We are proud to transfer this space to the U.S. Department of Interior and we will continue with plans to complete environmental cleanup work at five more sites across the country by 2009."....
Farm Subsidies for Millionaires Washington spends more on corporate welfare than on homeland security — and farm subsidies are America's largest corporate welfare program. This year, as lawmakers rewrite the farm programs and push up their spending, they will invoke Norman Rockwell imagery to portray farm subsidies as a vital lifeboat for small, struggling family farmers. Don’t believe a word of it. Farms have come a long way since subsidies were introduced as a temporary solution to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. Today, the average farm household earns $81,420 and has a net worth of $838,875 — both well above the national average. Farm incomes are setting records, and farms have one of the lowest failure rates of any industry. To be sure, some family farmers continue to struggle. But if farm subsidies were really about alleviating farmer poverty, then lawmakers could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of 185 percent of the federal level ($38,203 for a family of four) for under $5 billion annually — one-fifth the current cost of farm subsidies. Instead, small farmers are largely excluded from farm subsidies. Farm subsidy payments are based on acreage, so by definition, the largest agribusinesses get the largest subsidies. Consequently, commercial farmers — who report an average income of $200,000 and net worth of nearly $2 million — now collect the majority of farm subsidies. Most farm subsidy dollars go to millionaires....
R-CALF sues former president, directors Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, R-CALF, has filed suit against several former members and board members. A lawsuit was filed in Montana District Court against former president of the organization, Chuck Kiker, and former regional directors Jonathan Wooster and Dennis McDonald. The lawsuit also names five unnamed defendants John Doe 1 to 5. The lawsuit claims breach of fiduciary duty, violation of the Montana Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Conversion and Injunctive Relief. R-CALF claims that what was intended as a confidential report commissioned by the group was disseminated by the defendants, resulting in damage to the R-CALF organization. The suit also hopes to keep the defendants from using R-CALF membership lists. Chuck Kiker was removed as president of R-CALF earlier this year, and regional directors Wooster and McDonald were among the board members who resigned in protest....
Tombstone Or Bust! A group of five people are traveling from Texarkana, Ark., to Tombstone, Ariz., at 4 miles per hour. How long does it take them? Nine months. That's because the group is traveling in horse-drawn covered wagons. Mike Smith, 58, has been planning this trip for three years and on July 4 the caravan left Texarkana. The rancher spent half of that time building the two wagons the group is riding in. Smith's grandson, Clint Culpepper, 18, leads the caravan riding a horse. Smith departed July 4 because he has to get though the last set of mountains in New Mexico before the ice hits....
Idaho's range wars made Diamond Field Jack famous When two Cassia County sheepherders were found shot to death in their 1896 winter camp, Gov. William J. McConnell issued a statement to the newspapers: "It is a most terrible thing that men who are suffering the hardships incident to taking care of sheep in the winter months out upon the range, isolated by themselves from the support and comfort of their fellow men, should be shot down like wild beasts. The civilization of this age is shocked at the possibility of such men going unpunished." A cowboy named Jackson Lee Davis, who had become known by the nickname Diamond Field Jack, was the first suspect. He had come by the name because of an earlier involvement in an Owyhee County scam over worthless quartz crystals their promoters claimed were diamonds. Davis worked for the Sparks-Harrel Cattle Co. with the job of intimidating sheep owners to keep them from crossing an imaginary "dead line" that divided Cassia County. Cattle interests claimed the western half of the county and wanted sheep to stay on the eastern half. The role was a natural for Jack, a small man who liked to talk and act big, but he overplayed his part this time. He had told anyone who would listen that he had been hired to kill sheepherders. Davis had been involved in a scrape in November 1895, in which a sheepherder named Tolman was injured....
It's All Trew: Stables were cultural hub I found that the "stables" of today had replaced "livery stables" located in cities during the height of the horsepower era before the advent of the gas-powered automobile. Livery stable is derived from "delivery stable" for at one time almost all goods purchased in stores in the city were delivered by the store to the customer's home. This required large outlays of barns, horses, wagons and buggies for delivery purposes, thus the name livery stable. The term "livery" used by itself, seems to have been coined in the smaller towns of the Midwest. Here, stores were smaller and often contracted or hired private firms for customer deliveries. These private firms often rented mounts, teams and equipment to the public along with farrier and grooming services. Along with liveries, livery stables and stables there were also freight companies for heavier hauling of products. Some blacksmith shops were versatile, offering farrier service, wagon repair, saddle and harness repairs and gun-smithing. Any of these businesses might also offer livestock sales in conjunction with the other services. All of these evolved from the old time "wagon yard." Both in Europe and early America, travelers sought nightly comfort and protection at remote taverns and inns who offered fenced or walled courtyards and stables for stock. Many of these "traveler way-stations" later became stagecoach stops and grew into villages or towns....
FLE
8-Year-Old Boy Held From Plane for Appearing on No-Fly List An 8-year-old boy expecting to catch a plane home is denied entry for appearing on a terrorist no-fly list, reported MyFoxKansasCity.com. Bryan Moore was set to catch his first plane trip when he arrived at an airport in Cortez, Colorado to fly home after visiting his sister, said the report. "They almost got me scheduled in and then the lady just bowed her head and said, 'We can't get you on this plane, you're a terrorist,'" Moore said. The soon-to-be third grader was red flagged as a threat to national security because his name popped up on the national watch list. According to the Transportation Security Administration, no children are on the terrorist watch list. The TSA said if a child's name matches up, it's up the airline to make the necessary changes and let them board the plane. "It's not really fair that I couldn't get home because another man in the world was a terrorist," Moore said....
Documents Cite Further Offending by Smuggler in Border Agents Case Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez hung his head and confessed that he was storing marijuana in his Clint, Texas, home when federal authorities turned up there. He admitted to Drug Enforcement Administration agents that he was being paid to hide the drugs by dealers who delivered marijuana on ten occasions in the four months before the agents showed up at his door on Oct. 23, 2005. According to DEA documents labeled "sensitive," obtained by Cybercast News Service, Ortiz-Hernandez identified one of the drug dealers as Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican who at the time was under a federal immunity deal for a previous drug offense. Aldrete-Davila was the man at the center of a notorious case in which two U.S. Border Patrol agents were imprisoned earlier this year, unleashing a controversy that continues and will be the subject of Senate hearings this week. As a Senate panel prepares to investigate the prosecution of Ramos and Compean at a hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers have said that one of the questions they intend to put to U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton -- the prosecutor who offered the immunity deal -- will deal with a second alleged offense by Aldrete-Davila. "Why was this drug smuggler allowed to get immunity from prosecution without pleading guilty to any crime, then allowed get essentially a visa where he's allowed to travel back and forth into the U.S.?" Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked during a telephone press conference late last week....
D.C. Wants High Court To Hear Gun Case The District will ask the Supreme Court to uphold its strict 30-year handgun ban, setting up what legal experts said could be a test of the Second Amendment with broad ramifications. The high court has not ruled on the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms since 1939. But at a morning news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Attorney General Linda Singer said they expect the court to hear a case they called crucial to public safety. In a 2 to 1 decision in March, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the city's prohibition against residents keeping handguns in their homes is unconstitutional. In May, the full appeals court declined a petition from the city to reconsider the panel's decision. Some gun control advocates have cautioned that a defeat in the Supreme Court could lead to tough gun laws being overturned in major cities, including New York, Chicago and Detroit. Fenty said the District had no choice but to fight because more guns in homes could lead to increases in violent crime and deadly accidents. Gun rights advocates welcomed the chance to take the fight to the high court. A central question the D.C. case poses is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's rights to keep and bear arms....
8-Year-Old Boy Held From Plane for Appearing on No-Fly List An 8-year-old boy expecting to catch a plane home is denied entry for appearing on a terrorist no-fly list, reported MyFoxKansasCity.com. Bryan Moore was set to catch his first plane trip when he arrived at an airport in Cortez, Colorado to fly home after visiting his sister, said the report. "They almost got me scheduled in and then the lady just bowed her head and said, 'We can't get you on this plane, you're a terrorist,'" Moore said. The soon-to-be third grader was red flagged as a threat to national security because his name popped up on the national watch list. According to the Transportation Security Administration, no children are on the terrorist watch list. The TSA said if a child's name matches up, it's up the airline to make the necessary changes and let them board the plane. "It's not really fair that I couldn't get home because another man in the world was a terrorist," Moore said....
Documents Cite Further Offending by Smuggler in Border Agents Case Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez hung his head and confessed that he was storing marijuana in his Clint, Texas, home when federal authorities turned up there. He admitted to Drug Enforcement Administration agents that he was being paid to hide the drugs by dealers who delivered marijuana on ten occasions in the four months before the agents showed up at his door on Oct. 23, 2005. According to DEA documents labeled "sensitive," obtained by Cybercast News Service, Ortiz-Hernandez identified one of the drug dealers as Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican who at the time was under a federal immunity deal for a previous drug offense. Aldrete-Davila was the man at the center of a notorious case in which two U.S. Border Patrol agents were imprisoned earlier this year, unleashing a controversy that continues and will be the subject of Senate hearings this week. As a Senate panel prepares to investigate the prosecution of Ramos and Compean at a hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers have said that one of the questions they intend to put to U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton -- the prosecutor who offered the immunity deal -- will deal with a second alleged offense by Aldrete-Davila. "Why was this drug smuggler allowed to get immunity from prosecution without pleading guilty to any crime, then allowed get essentially a visa where he's allowed to travel back and forth into the U.S.?" Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked during a telephone press conference late last week....
D.C. Wants High Court To Hear Gun Case The District will ask the Supreme Court to uphold its strict 30-year handgun ban, setting up what legal experts said could be a test of the Second Amendment with broad ramifications. The high court has not ruled on the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms since 1939. But at a morning news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Attorney General Linda Singer said they expect the court to hear a case they called crucial to public safety. In a 2 to 1 decision in March, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the city's prohibition against residents keeping handguns in their homes is unconstitutional. In May, the full appeals court declined a petition from the city to reconsider the panel's decision. Some gun control advocates have cautioned that a defeat in the Supreme Court could lead to tough gun laws being overturned in major cities, including New York, Chicago and Detroit. Fenty said the District had no choice but to fight because more guns in homes could lead to increases in violent crime and deadly accidents. Gun rights advocates welcomed the chance to take the fight to the high court. A central question the D.C. case poses is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's rights to keep and bear arms....
Monday, July 16, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
State Dispatchers Dismissed Early 911 Reports of Tahoe Fire Two dispatchers with the California Highway Patrol initially dismissed 911 calls reporting a fire on the south rim of Lake Tahoe, causing a seven- to nine-minute delay in the response to it, recordings released Friday show. Dispatchers told callers that the smoke they were seeing was from a controlled burn in the area. The smoke was actually from a wildfire that ultimately destroyed 254 homes and burned 3,100 acres of mountain wilderness. “I’m on the golf course, it’s Lake Tahoe Country Club, and we can see smoke coming off the mountain to the west of us,” a man reported, according to a transcript of the first call received at 2:02 p.m. June 24 by the patrol’s communications center in Truckee. The dispatcher responded: “Yeah. Yeah, they’re doing a — a control burn there.” The unidentified male caller said: “Thank you. Sorry to bother you.” Capt. Gary Ross, commander of the Truckee office, said the dispatchers’ dismissals of the reports caused a delayed response to the fire. Also, Highway Patrol policy instructs dispatchers to keep callers on the line and transfer them to a local fire department in such situations. In these cases, the dispatchers let the callers hang up. Both dispatchers have been reassigned while the Highway Patrol investigates, Captain Ross said....
Scholar: USFS conclusion wrong concerning Angora fire path After a first-hand look, one forest-restoration specialist has drawn significantly different conclusions than the U.S. Forest Service about how and why the Angora fire burned so intensely. Tom Bonnicksen, emeritus professor of forest science at Texas A&M University and visiting scholar with the Forest Foundation, a logging-industry group, toured the burned area last week. "The Angora fire was a crown fire that killed all the trees that were 40-60 inches in diameter. Anybody can see that; all you have to do is look at it," said Bonnicksen during a phone interview on Tuesday. "This was a situation where homeowners didn't stand a chance. They were victims of the surrounding forest." he said. Bonnicksen said fire racing through the top of an overly dense forest was the major cause of property damage, while Rex Norman, USFS spokesman, has repeatedly reiterated the initial findings of agency investigators....
Some blame BLM policies for huge blaze The spread of the Milford Flat Fire across a wide swath of central Utah desert is sparking concern among some Utah lawmakers that the Bureau of Land Management hasn’t managed the cheatgrass and pinyon-covered rangeland within the burn area well enough to prevent wildfires. The Milford Flat Fire, ignited July 6 by lightning, is Utah’s largest-ever wildfire, incinerating more than 363,000 acres of rangeland upon which many area ranchers depended for their livelihoods. But Utah state Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, said despite drought conditions, ranchers may have been dealt an unnecessary blow. “I just feel like (we have) failed environmental policy in the whole country,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of fuel build-up, a lot of pinyon-juniper. We’re not managing the land enough.” Stowell, who toured the burn area Wednesday, criticized the BLM for not allowing enough cattle to graze rangeland in the region and permitting pinyon-juniper forests killed by bark beetles to remain standing. As a testament to the fire resistance of intensely managed land, some of the rangeland in the Milford Flat Fire’s path that was pastured didn’t burn, Stowell said. “Years ago, we didn’t have a lot of forest fires or range fires because we had proper grazing,” Millard County Commissioner John C. Cooper said. Now, he said, the BLM is often too eager to limit grazing, especially during a drought. “The abundance of fuel has become crazy,” he said. “When we have these fires, it’s replaced by cheatgrass. We need to reseed this burned area.”....
On fire lines, cost a concern His first day leading the attack on the Milford Flat fire, Rowdy Muir declared his crews would stop it - the largest wildfire in Utah's modern history - with half the money he'd been promised to do the job. Spending less to do more might sound like an audacious claim, since costs seem to be flaring up as fast as new wildfires and the acreage they leave in ashes. But the incident commander's pledge is a sign that wildfire managers no longer look only at the fire lines, but the bottom line as well. For decades, wildfire costs were addressed with a blank check. Congress, state forest agencies and local fire departments would spend first and pay later, usually the next budget year. "In the last few years, we have become more cost conscious," said Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the BLM and the Interagency Fire Center in Boise. At the Milford Flat fire, as with all wildfires these days, auditors are on the scene with spreadsheets and calculators. Even the tube of lip balm or sunscreen a medic hands out gets logged and tallied for the final bill. The air tankers dousing homes with fire retardant, the food service contractors for the 500 firefighters, the satellite mapping experts, the portable toilet providers - expenses add up fast....
Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics Here's the good news about climate change: Energy and climate experts say the world already possesses the technological know-how for trimming greenhouse gas emissions enough to slow the perilous rise in the Earth's temperatures. Here's the bad news: Because of the enormous cost of addressing global warming, the energy legislation considered by Congress so far will make barely a dent in the problem, while farther-reaching climate proposals stand a remote chance of passage. Despite growing public concern over global warming, the House has failed to agree on new standards for automobile fuel efficiency, and the Senate has done little to boost the efficiency of commercial office buildings and appliances. In September, Congress is expected to start wrestling with more ambitious legislation aimed at slowing climate change; but because of the complexity of the likely proposals, few expect any bill to become law. Even if passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, the final measure may not be tough enough to slow global warming....
Group works to preserve open space between Springs & Pueblo Following examples elsewhere in the state, ranchers and conservationists are working to save 200,000 acres of open space between Colorado Springs and Pueblo from urban sprawl. Rancher Jay Frost is an unlikely member of the group, which calls itself the Peak to Prairie Conservation Initiative. The second-generation rancher just sold development rights to 915 acres along Fountain Creek to the group. He always knew he would have to sell some land but he is surprised to feel good about it. "Our family always loved this place, but agriculture can be a tough racket," Frost, 46, told the Gazette recently while taking a break from mowing hay with his sons. "It would be easy to sell the place. We get offers all the time. This way, we get some of the value while keeping the ranch on the land." Landowners get tax breaks, allowing them to stay in business, while development is blocked where conservation easements are in place. Such a buffer already exists in an area between Monument and Castle Rock to the north. The Nature Conservancy, the national leader in creating conservation easements, is behind the latest initiative, along with Colorado Open Lands. They want to start by blocking development on at least 60,000 acres in the next 10 years....
Pneumonia kills Oregon bighorns State biologists are trying desperately to deal with a domestic sheep disease that is killing bighorns in one of Oregon's signature Rocky Mountain bighorn herds. The Hells Canyon herd, numbering 900 animals in Oregon, Washington and Idaho (most of them in Oregon), is the largest of the state's Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep herds, also found throughout the Wallowa Mountains. High desert sheep are California bighorns, a subspecies of the Rocky Mountain. Craig Ely, northeast regional supervisor for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday in Lincoln City that Hells Canyon sheep are dying of a bacterial pneumonia strain common in domestic sheep. It affects domestic lambs only mildly but is deadly for wild bighorns. Some Hells Canyon bands have been wiped out by the pneumonia, some haven't yet been affected, and still others had survivors when it swept through. Domestic sheep ranchers are under a court order to remove their animals from 6,000 acres of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.
Sierra Blancans again debate possible sludge dump That smell - a peculiarly pungent combination of sewage chemicals and human waste - might soon be wafting back into Sierra Blanca. It's the scent of money for some in this tiny, economically frustrated border town. It's the stench of environmental injustice to those fighting to keep their desert home from again becoming a dumping ground. "If someone else doesn't want it, why in the hell would we want it in our backyard?" asked Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, a lifelong Sierra Blanca resident. A decade and a half ago, New York-based Merco Joint Ventures started hauling treated New York City sewage to scrubland just outside Sierra Blanca, spraying tons of it daily on thousands of acres. The spraying stopped in 2001, and the company went bankrupt. Now, the state of Texas has bought the land and leased it to a group that wants to resume spreading sewage....
Butterflies aren't free The Taylor's checkerspot butterfly is no bigger than a man's thumb, sports splashy orange and black wings, cavorts in sunny meadows ringed by oak and pine, tastes with its feet, nectars on wild strawberries, has a short (but splendid) lifespan of five to eight days, and is in imminent danger of forever disappearing from the face of the earth. Fifty years ago, Euphydryas editha taylori fluttered in more than 70 meadows throughout the Puget Sound region, Willamette Valley and south Vancouver Island. Since then, 97 percent of the butterflies' upland prairie habitat has been wiped out — victim of agriculture, urban development, logging, invasive plants, pesticides, a Wal-Mart parking lot and drought. They've vanished from British Columbia and all but 14 spots in Washington and Oregon. Of those sites, most have fewer than 50 butterflies. But one rare patch of prairie, tucked behind a hummock off an old wagon trail outside Corvallis, is home to about a thousand Taylor's checkerspots, a quarter of the population on the planet....
Roan drilling plan sparks controversy In the Roan, driling means disrupting a pristine piece of Colorado's natural heritage in order to access the state's abundant natural resources. Lawmakers are still battling over how to balance those interests. The controversy heated up in early June when federal officials decided to allow drilling for natural resources in the Roan. Democratic lawmakers were upset, members of the public were angry and Gov. Bill Ritter wrote a scathing letter to Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne, saying the decision undermined the state's relationship with the federal government. U.S. Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar tried to block Bureau of Land Management funding for the plan, but that measure failed in Congress. In Colorado, others want to embrace the plan. Two GOP lawmakers said they want to make the most of it by funneling Roan drilling revenue into state higher education coffers, which are desperately in need of more money. Then, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar parried with a plan to block President Bush's new choice to lead the BLM, the federal department that approved the Roan drilling proposal....
Conflicting science? Some coal-bed methane industry officials are upset because it appears federal land managers have chosen to accept peer-reviewed studies of sage grouse over the work of their own environmental consultants. Earlier this month, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management accepted the results of more than five years of studies performed by University of Montana researchers, headed by professor David Naugle. The work was vetted through the peer review process and will be published in the industry's top journals: the Journal of Wildlife Management, and the Journal of Avian Diseases. Among Naugle's findings: Sage grouse leks within development areas are predicted to disappear, on average, within four years of coal-bed methane development. From 2000 to 2005, sage grouse populations within coal-bed methane fields declined 86 percent, whereas populations outside active areas declined by 35 percent, according to the studies. Gene George, of Gene George & Associates, said several oil and gas companies have paid for studies for more than a year to analyze the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's grouse count database and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's database of drilling information. "We hired someone to confirm his answers, and we can't confirm them," George said. "We didn't generate that data. It is based on the Game and Fish's own database, not industry's database." Renee Taylor, of Taylor Environmental Consulting in Casper, said she hadn't yet read Naugle's final work. However, her own work during the past year disputes his findings. Presented with her findings, federal land managers have given her only a "stone-faced" reply, she said....
DM&E: Ranchers using courts to stall Railroad officials and supporters say opponents are using the courts to delay development, but landowners in western South Dakota say they're simply protecting their land in unfair negotiation. Complaints filed by landowners halted eminent domain hearings earlier this week in the Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's efforts to gain right-of-way for tracks into Wyoming. Landowners claimed the state violated its own due process laws. The railroad responded by asking the South Dakota Supreme Court for an expedited review to move the issue along quickly. "It's just a delay tactic," DM&E chief executive officer Kevin Schieffer said of the landowners' actions. Jim and Bev Varelman, who raise quarter horses and hay east of Hermosa, are among those suing the DM&E. She said their dealings with the railroad have not been good. "They have been trying to say they negotiate in good faith," she said. "Many years go by without correspondence. The offers we get have no monetary value. Five days before the circuit court hearing, we finally got an offer that was not a good offer at all." Bev Varelman said the proposed rail route would separate 438 acres of their ranch from a water source. It would make the land unusable for raising livestock, and the DM&E has been unwilling to take her suggestion and move the track a quarter-mile south to avoid the problem, she said....
Texas ranchers scoff at border fence He's been living here off and on for more than half a century, so rancher Bill Moody figured he had experienced about all the excitement and madness the Texas-Mexico border could offer. When there's not a drug bust going down or a lost immigrant begging for food, Moody sometimes finds himself in the company of Hollywood directors, such as the one who filmed "Lonesome Dove" here years ago and was back recently working on a prequel called "Comanche Moon." But the federal plan for a massive security fence along the border strikes Moody, 84, as too far-fetched for a screenplay and downright nutty for his gigantic Rancho Rio Grande, which runs through three counties between Del Rio and Eagle Pass. "If the wall would help, I wouldn't mind. But it won't help. It'll be a big expense, a big problem, ugly as hell and unfriendly to Mexico," said Moody, heir to one of the largest and oldest fortunes in Texas. "It's not going to happen." Moody and other landowners along the Rio Grande generally have little in common with open-border proponents and environmental activists, who also oppose the 698-mile fencing project Congress approved late last year. Taken together, though, their voices have cranked up the heat against a border fence....
In Role Reversal, China Blocks Some U.S. Meat China announced Saturday that it was blocking imports of some U.S. processed meat that showed signs of contamination, turning the tables on critics who in recent months have questioned the safety of Chinese exports and making good on a warning that it would apply greater scrutiny to food shipments entering its borders. The suspension affected some of the largest U.S. food companies, including Cargill Meat Solutions and Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor. In recent weeks, Beijing has rejected a number of other U.S. products at its ports of entry, including health supplements, sugar-free drink mix and dried fruits such as raisins and apricots. The increasingly aggressive moves are raising concern that what started as a seemingly isolated investigation in March over contaminated pet food from China has trigged a broader trade skirmish. The Chinese government said it had stopped problem shipments from seven U.S. companies. Among them, Tyson's frozen poultry products were contaminated with salmonella and Cargill's frozen pork ribs were laced with a feed additive designed to keep animals lean, the government said. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also said that frozen chicken feet from Sanderson Farms contained an anti-parasite treatment residue and that frozen pig ears from Van Luin Foods USA also tested positive for the leanness-enhancing additive, called ractopamine....
Food-Labeling Effort Gains New Momentum Shoppers are in the dark about where much of their food comes from despite a five-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin. That soon may change. Reports of tainted seafood from China have raised consumer awareness about the safety of imported food and many of the law's most powerful opponents have left Congress. "The political dynamic is such that there's just no getting around it," said Colin Woodall, director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The livestock group has opposed a mandatory labeling program. The law's leading opponents are grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef, along with other businesses involved in getting products to supermarket shelves. They say the tracking and the paperwork needed to comply with the law is too burdensome and would cause them to raise prices. The labeling requirement, popular with small, independent ranchers who sell their own products, applies to certain cuts of beef, lamb, pork, as well as to peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Processed foods are exempt. So are restaurants and other food service establishments....
Ranchers start last roundup of tainted cows Ordinarily, a roundup on the Morgan ranch would happen in the fall. Jim and Sandy Morgan, along with Sandy's parents, Connie and Bruce Malcolm, and perhaps a few neighbors, would head into the hills behind the red butte south of Bridger and bring in the cows and their calves. They would trail behind the cows and check out the bulky calves, admiring the traits for which their Black Angus herd is known. But this week, the roundup came early, at the end of a two-month ordeal that began with the discovery that seven of the Morgans' cows had brucellosis, a contagious disease that causes cows to abort their calves. In Montana, the disease had been eradicated in livestock, earning the state brucellosis-free status, but it is still present in wild bison and elk. To maintain the brucellosis-free status, the Morgans' entire herd of about 600 cows and calves will have to be destroyed. About 2,400 other cows that livestock officials believe may have had contact with the Morgan herd have been tested and found free of the disease. Friday, the Morgans and Malcolms and a few of their neighbors gathered the last of the cattle from the pasture to be shipped to slaughter beginning Monday....
Restoring history at Point Reyes Historic buildings that have served ranchers for decades on the far west tip of Marin, helping carve the region's indelible identity, are being rehabilitated. The land on Point Reyes has been used for agriculture for almost two centuries, and the barns and buildings housing animals, equipment, tools and wood have been part of the landscape. The buildings have taken a beating over the years, from thick fog to harsh winds. Now the Point Reyes National Seashore is spending $300,000 to upgrade several of the wooden buildings - which are still in use - over the next two years. And some of the buildings have a few years on them. The seashore's historic preservation crew will be rehabilitating a tool shed, built in 1865; main barn, 1880; machine shop, 1925; garage, 1945, as well as a woodshed constructed in 1945....
Schemer worked Yellowstone National Park for 2 decades despite numerous complaints Tourist John F. Philips arrived here in the summer of 1902 with the hope of catching some prized trout in Yellowstone Lake. Instead, he left bitter and befuddled after a brush with one of Yellowstone's most notorious businessmen, E.C. Waters. "This man, 'Captain' Waters as he calls himself, is a very impertinent and obtrusive person, of whom complaints and criticisms were in the mouths of nearly all persons who came in contact with him," Philips wrote from his home in Kansas City, Mo., about a week later. "The general verdict was that he is a public nuisance." Philips' letter is one in a stack of complaints in Yellowstone's archives about Waters during his scandal-ridden 20 years in the park. Waters was eventually run out of the park, but not before he left behind an emblem of his ambition: the wreck of an eponymous steamship still visible today on the eastern shore of Stevenson Island. Historian Richard Bartlett said Waters - who ran a Billings hotel in 1885 and was elected a Montana territorial legislator the next year - was "probably the most difficult concessionaire who ever operated in Yellowstone Park."....
Butch, Sundance live on in debate over their deaths If the Pinkerton detective bunch had left them alone, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have lived out their days as law-abiding ranchers in Argentina. At least that's what Cassidy's great-great nephew Bill Betenson believes about the outlaw pair. On Thursday, Betenson spoke about their lives in Argentina for people at the Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association's Cheyenne Shootout. What is known is that the two men and Etta Place traveled to Argentina in 1901, Betenson said. Place was the companion of Harry Longabaugh, popularly known as the Sundance Kid. Shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires, they walked into a bank. "We know they tried a new concept," Betenson said. "They actually deposited money in the bank." They left $12,000 in gold notes. They traveled to Cholila in west-central Argentina. The current mayor of the town told him Cassidy owned the first titled land in the valley, Betenson said. The men bought 1,500 acres of lush ranch land nestled at the base of the craggy Andes Mountains. Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker, wrote that he had 300 head of cattle, 1,450 sheep and 28 good saddle horses. Betenson showed the group slides of old photos taken in front of the cabin at the Argentina ranch. Looking out from the photos are the two men and Place....
State Dispatchers Dismissed Early 911 Reports of Tahoe Fire Two dispatchers with the California Highway Patrol initially dismissed 911 calls reporting a fire on the south rim of Lake Tahoe, causing a seven- to nine-minute delay in the response to it, recordings released Friday show. Dispatchers told callers that the smoke they were seeing was from a controlled burn in the area. The smoke was actually from a wildfire that ultimately destroyed 254 homes and burned 3,100 acres of mountain wilderness. “I’m on the golf course, it’s Lake Tahoe Country Club, and we can see smoke coming off the mountain to the west of us,” a man reported, according to a transcript of the first call received at 2:02 p.m. June 24 by the patrol’s communications center in Truckee. The dispatcher responded: “Yeah. Yeah, they’re doing a — a control burn there.” The unidentified male caller said: “Thank you. Sorry to bother you.” Capt. Gary Ross, commander of the Truckee office, said the dispatchers’ dismissals of the reports caused a delayed response to the fire. Also, Highway Patrol policy instructs dispatchers to keep callers on the line and transfer them to a local fire department in such situations. In these cases, the dispatchers let the callers hang up. Both dispatchers have been reassigned while the Highway Patrol investigates, Captain Ross said....
Scholar: USFS conclusion wrong concerning Angora fire path After a first-hand look, one forest-restoration specialist has drawn significantly different conclusions than the U.S. Forest Service about how and why the Angora fire burned so intensely. Tom Bonnicksen, emeritus professor of forest science at Texas A&M University and visiting scholar with the Forest Foundation, a logging-industry group, toured the burned area last week. "The Angora fire was a crown fire that killed all the trees that were 40-60 inches in diameter. Anybody can see that; all you have to do is look at it," said Bonnicksen during a phone interview on Tuesday. "This was a situation where homeowners didn't stand a chance. They were victims of the surrounding forest." he said. Bonnicksen said fire racing through the top of an overly dense forest was the major cause of property damage, while Rex Norman, USFS spokesman, has repeatedly reiterated the initial findings of agency investigators....
Some blame BLM policies for huge blaze The spread of the Milford Flat Fire across a wide swath of central Utah desert is sparking concern among some Utah lawmakers that the Bureau of Land Management hasn’t managed the cheatgrass and pinyon-covered rangeland within the burn area well enough to prevent wildfires. The Milford Flat Fire, ignited July 6 by lightning, is Utah’s largest-ever wildfire, incinerating more than 363,000 acres of rangeland upon which many area ranchers depended for their livelihoods. But Utah state Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, said despite drought conditions, ranchers may have been dealt an unnecessary blow. “I just feel like (we have) failed environmental policy in the whole country,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of fuel build-up, a lot of pinyon-juniper. We’re not managing the land enough.” Stowell, who toured the burn area Wednesday, criticized the BLM for not allowing enough cattle to graze rangeland in the region and permitting pinyon-juniper forests killed by bark beetles to remain standing. As a testament to the fire resistance of intensely managed land, some of the rangeland in the Milford Flat Fire’s path that was pastured didn’t burn, Stowell said. “Years ago, we didn’t have a lot of forest fires or range fires because we had proper grazing,” Millard County Commissioner John C. Cooper said. Now, he said, the BLM is often too eager to limit grazing, especially during a drought. “The abundance of fuel has become crazy,” he said. “When we have these fires, it’s replaced by cheatgrass. We need to reseed this burned area.”....
On fire lines, cost a concern His first day leading the attack on the Milford Flat fire, Rowdy Muir declared his crews would stop it - the largest wildfire in Utah's modern history - with half the money he'd been promised to do the job. Spending less to do more might sound like an audacious claim, since costs seem to be flaring up as fast as new wildfires and the acreage they leave in ashes. But the incident commander's pledge is a sign that wildfire managers no longer look only at the fire lines, but the bottom line as well. For decades, wildfire costs were addressed with a blank check. Congress, state forest agencies and local fire departments would spend first and pay later, usually the next budget year. "In the last few years, we have become more cost conscious," said Randy Eardley, a spokesman for the BLM and the Interagency Fire Center in Boise. At the Milford Flat fire, as with all wildfires these days, auditors are on the scene with spreadsheets and calculators. Even the tube of lip balm or sunscreen a medic hands out gets logged and tallied for the final bill. The air tankers dousing homes with fire retardant, the food service contractors for the 500 firefighters, the satellite mapping experts, the portable toilet providers - expenses add up fast....
Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics Here's the good news about climate change: Energy and climate experts say the world already possesses the technological know-how for trimming greenhouse gas emissions enough to slow the perilous rise in the Earth's temperatures. Here's the bad news: Because of the enormous cost of addressing global warming, the energy legislation considered by Congress so far will make barely a dent in the problem, while farther-reaching climate proposals stand a remote chance of passage. Despite growing public concern over global warming, the House has failed to agree on new standards for automobile fuel efficiency, and the Senate has done little to boost the efficiency of commercial office buildings and appliances. In September, Congress is expected to start wrestling with more ambitious legislation aimed at slowing climate change; but because of the complexity of the likely proposals, few expect any bill to become law. Even if passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, the final measure may not be tough enough to slow global warming....
Group works to preserve open space between Springs & Pueblo Following examples elsewhere in the state, ranchers and conservationists are working to save 200,000 acres of open space between Colorado Springs and Pueblo from urban sprawl. Rancher Jay Frost is an unlikely member of the group, which calls itself the Peak to Prairie Conservation Initiative. The second-generation rancher just sold development rights to 915 acres along Fountain Creek to the group. He always knew he would have to sell some land but he is surprised to feel good about it. "Our family always loved this place, but agriculture can be a tough racket," Frost, 46, told the Gazette recently while taking a break from mowing hay with his sons. "It would be easy to sell the place. We get offers all the time. This way, we get some of the value while keeping the ranch on the land." Landowners get tax breaks, allowing them to stay in business, while development is blocked where conservation easements are in place. Such a buffer already exists in an area between Monument and Castle Rock to the north. The Nature Conservancy, the national leader in creating conservation easements, is behind the latest initiative, along with Colorado Open Lands. They want to start by blocking development on at least 60,000 acres in the next 10 years....
Pneumonia kills Oregon bighorns State biologists are trying desperately to deal with a domestic sheep disease that is killing bighorns in one of Oregon's signature Rocky Mountain bighorn herds. The Hells Canyon herd, numbering 900 animals in Oregon, Washington and Idaho (most of them in Oregon), is the largest of the state's Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep herds, also found throughout the Wallowa Mountains. High desert sheep are California bighorns, a subspecies of the Rocky Mountain. Craig Ely, northeast regional supervisor for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday in Lincoln City that Hells Canyon sheep are dying of a bacterial pneumonia strain common in domestic sheep. It affects domestic lambs only mildly but is deadly for wild bighorns. Some Hells Canyon bands have been wiped out by the pneumonia, some haven't yet been affected, and still others had survivors when it swept through. Domestic sheep ranchers are under a court order to remove their animals from 6,000 acres of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.
Sierra Blancans again debate possible sludge dump That smell - a peculiarly pungent combination of sewage chemicals and human waste - might soon be wafting back into Sierra Blanca. It's the scent of money for some in this tiny, economically frustrated border town. It's the stench of environmental injustice to those fighting to keep their desert home from again becoming a dumping ground. "If someone else doesn't want it, why in the hell would we want it in our backyard?" asked Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, a lifelong Sierra Blanca resident. A decade and a half ago, New York-based Merco Joint Ventures started hauling treated New York City sewage to scrubland just outside Sierra Blanca, spraying tons of it daily on thousands of acres. The spraying stopped in 2001, and the company went bankrupt. Now, the state of Texas has bought the land and leased it to a group that wants to resume spreading sewage....
Butterflies aren't free The Taylor's checkerspot butterfly is no bigger than a man's thumb, sports splashy orange and black wings, cavorts in sunny meadows ringed by oak and pine, tastes with its feet, nectars on wild strawberries, has a short (but splendid) lifespan of five to eight days, and is in imminent danger of forever disappearing from the face of the earth. Fifty years ago, Euphydryas editha taylori fluttered in more than 70 meadows throughout the Puget Sound region, Willamette Valley and south Vancouver Island. Since then, 97 percent of the butterflies' upland prairie habitat has been wiped out — victim of agriculture, urban development, logging, invasive plants, pesticides, a Wal-Mart parking lot and drought. They've vanished from British Columbia and all but 14 spots in Washington and Oregon. Of those sites, most have fewer than 50 butterflies. But one rare patch of prairie, tucked behind a hummock off an old wagon trail outside Corvallis, is home to about a thousand Taylor's checkerspots, a quarter of the population on the planet....
Roan drilling plan sparks controversy In the Roan, driling means disrupting a pristine piece of Colorado's natural heritage in order to access the state's abundant natural resources. Lawmakers are still battling over how to balance those interests. The controversy heated up in early June when federal officials decided to allow drilling for natural resources in the Roan. Democratic lawmakers were upset, members of the public were angry and Gov. Bill Ritter wrote a scathing letter to Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne, saying the decision undermined the state's relationship with the federal government. U.S. Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar tried to block Bureau of Land Management funding for the plan, but that measure failed in Congress. In Colorado, others want to embrace the plan. Two GOP lawmakers said they want to make the most of it by funneling Roan drilling revenue into state higher education coffers, which are desperately in need of more money. Then, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar parried with a plan to block President Bush's new choice to lead the BLM, the federal department that approved the Roan drilling proposal....
Conflicting science? Some coal-bed methane industry officials are upset because it appears federal land managers have chosen to accept peer-reviewed studies of sage grouse over the work of their own environmental consultants. Earlier this month, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management accepted the results of more than five years of studies performed by University of Montana researchers, headed by professor David Naugle. The work was vetted through the peer review process and will be published in the industry's top journals: the Journal of Wildlife Management, and the Journal of Avian Diseases. Among Naugle's findings: Sage grouse leks within development areas are predicted to disappear, on average, within four years of coal-bed methane development. From 2000 to 2005, sage grouse populations within coal-bed methane fields declined 86 percent, whereas populations outside active areas declined by 35 percent, according to the studies. Gene George, of Gene George & Associates, said several oil and gas companies have paid for studies for more than a year to analyze the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's grouse count database and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's database of drilling information. "We hired someone to confirm his answers, and we can't confirm them," George said. "We didn't generate that data. It is based on the Game and Fish's own database, not industry's database." Renee Taylor, of Taylor Environmental Consulting in Casper, said she hadn't yet read Naugle's final work. However, her own work during the past year disputes his findings. Presented with her findings, federal land managers have given her only a "stone-faced" reply, she said....
DM&E: Ranchers using courts to stall Railroad officials and supporters say opponents are using the courts to delay development, but landowners in western South Dakota say they're simply protecting their land in unfair negotiation. Complaints filed by landowners halted eminent domain hearings earlier this week in the Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's efforts to gain right-of-way for tracks into Wyoming. Landowners claimed the state violated its own due process laws. The railroad responded by asking the South Dakota Supreme Court for an expedited review to move the issue along quickly. "It's just a delay tactic," DM&E chief executive officer Kevin Schieffer said of the landowners' actions. Jim and Bev Varelman, who raise quarter horses and hay east of Hermosa, are among those suing the DM&E. She said their dealings with the railroad have not been good. "They have been trying to say they negotiate in good faith," she said. "Many years go by without correspondence. The offers we get have no monetary value. Five days before the circuit court hearing, we finally got an offer that was not a good offer at all." Bev Varelman said the proposed rail route would separate 438 acres of their ranch from a water source. It would make the land unusable for raising livestock, and the DM&E has been unwilling to take her suggestion and move the track a quarter-mile south to avoid the problem, she said....
Texas ranchers scoff at border fence He's been living here off and on for more than half a century, so rancher Bill Moody figured he had experienced about all the excitement and madness the Texas-Mexico border could offer. When there's not a drug bust going down or a lost immigrant begging for food, Moody sometimes finds himself in the company of Hollywood directors, such as the one who filmed "Lonesome Dove" here years ago and was back recently working on a prequel called "Comanche Moon." But the federal plan for a massive security fence along the border strikes Moody, 84, as too far-fetched for a screenplay and downright nutty for his gigantic Rancho Rio Grande, which runs through three counties between Del Rio and Eagle Pass. "If the wall would help, I wouldn't mind. But it won't help. It'll be a big expense, a big problem, ugly as hell and unfriendly to Mexico," said Moody, heir to one of the largest and oldest fortunes in Texas. "It's not going to happen." Moody and other landowners along the Rio Grande generally have little in common with open-border proponents and environmental activists, who also oppose the 698-mile fencing project Congress approved late last year. Taken together, though, their voices have cranked up the heat against a border fence....
In Role Reversal, China Blocks Some U.S. Meat China announced Saturday that it was blocking imports of some U.S. processed meat that showed signs of contamination, turning the tables on critics who in recent months have questioned the safety of Chinese exports and making good on a warning that it would apply greater scrutiny to food shipments entering its borders. The suspension affected some of the largest U.S. food companies, including Cargill Meat Solutions and Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor. In recent weeks, Beijing has rejected a number of other U.S. products at its ports of entry, including health supplements, sugar-free drink mix and dried fruits such as raisins and apricots. The increasingly aggressive moves are raising concern that what started as a seemingly isolated investigation in March over contaminated pet food from China has trigged a broader trade skirmish. The Chinese government said it had stopped problem shipments from seven U.S. companies. Among them, Tyson's frozen poultry products were contaminated with salmonella and Cargill's frozen pork ribs were laced with a feed additive designed to keep animals lean, the government said. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine also said that frozen chicken feet from Sanderson Farms contained an anti-parasite treatment residue and that frozen pig ears from Van Luin Foods USA also tested positive for the leanness-enhancing additive, called ractopamine....
Food-Labeling Effort Gains New Momentum Shoppers are in the dark about where much of their food comes from despite a five-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin. That soon may change. Reports of tainted seafood from China have raised consumer awareness about the safety of imported food and many of the law's most powerful opponents have left Congress. "The political dynamic is such that there's just no getting around it," said Colin Woodall, director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The livestock group has opposed a mandatory labeling program. The law's leading opponents are grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef, along with other businesses involved in getting products to supermarket shelves. They say the tracking and the paperwork needed to comply with the law is too burdensome and would cause them to raise prices. The labeling requirement, popular with small, independent ranchers who sell their own products, applies to certain cuts of beef, lamb, pork, as well as to peanuts, fruits and vegetables. Processed foods are exempt. So are restaurants and other food service establishments....
Ranchers start last roundup of tainted cows Ordinarily, a roundup on the Morgan ranch would happen in the fall. Jim and Sandy Morgan, along with Sandy's parents, Connie and Bruce Malcolm, and perhaps a few neighbors, would head into the hills behind the red butte south of Bridger and bring in the cows and their calves. They would trail behind the cows and check out the bulky calves, admiring the traits for which their Black Angus herd is known. But this week, the roundup came early, at the end of a two-month ordeal that began with the discovery that seven of the Morgans' cows had brucellosis, a contagious disease that causes cows to abort their calves. In Montana, the disease had been eradicated in livestock, earning the state brucellosis-free status, but it is still present in wild bison and elk. To maintain the brucellosis-free status, the Morgans' entire herd of about 600 cows and calves will have to be destroyed. About 2,400 other cows that livestock officials believe may have had contact with the Morgan herd have been tested and found free of the disease. Friday, the Morgans and Malcolms and a few of their neighbors gathered the last of the cattle from the pasture to be shipped to slaughter beginning Monday....
Restoring history at Point Reyes Historic buildings that have served ranchers for decades on the far west tip of Marin, helping carve the region's indelible identity, are being rehabilitated. The land on Point Reyes has been used for agriculture for almost two centuries, and the barns and buildings housing animals, equipment, tools and wood have been part of the landscape. The buildings have taken a beating over the years, from thick fog to harsh winds. Now the Point Reyes National Seashore is spending $300,000 to upgrade several of the wooden buildings - which are still in use - over the next two years. And some of the buildings have a few years on them. The seashore's historic preservation crew will be rehabilitating a tool shed, built in 1865; main barn, 1880; machine shop, 1925; garage, 1945, as well as a woodshed constructed in 1945....
Schemer worked Yellowstone National Park for 2 decades despite numerous complaints Tourist John F. Philips arrived here in the summer of 1902 with the hope of catching some prized trout in Yellowstone Lake. Instead, he left bitter and befuddled after a brush with one of Yellowstone's most notorious businessmen, E.C. Waters. "This man, 'Captain' Waters as he calls himself, is a very impertinent and obtrusive person, of whom complaints and criticisms were in the mouths of nearly all persons who came in contact with him," Philips wrote from his home in Kansas City, Mo., about a week later. "The general verdict was that he is a public nuisance." Philips' letter is one in a stack of complaints in Yellowstone's archives about Waters during his scandal-ridden 20 years in the park. Waters was eventually run out of the park, but not before he left behind an emblem of his ambition: the wreck of an eponymous steamship still visible today on the eastern shore of Stevenson Island. Historian Richard Bartlett said Waters - who ran a Billings hotel in 1885 and was elected a Montana territorial legislator the next year - was "probably the most difficult concessionaire who ever operated in Yellowstone Park."....
Butch, Sundance live on in debate over their deaths If the Pinkerton detective bunch had left them alone, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have lived out their days as law-abiding ranchers in Argentina. At least that's what Cassidy's great-great nephew Bill Betenson believes about the outlaw pair. On Thursday, Betenson spoke about their lives in Argentina for people at the Western Outlaw-Lawmen History Association's Cheyenne Shootout. What is known is that the two men and Etta Place traveled to Argentina in 1901, Betenson said. Place was the companion of Harry Longabaugh, popularly known as the Sundance Kid. Shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires, they walked into a bank. "We know they tried a new concept," Betenson said. "They actually deposited money in the bank." They left $12,000 in gold notes. They traveled to Cholila in west-central Argentina. The current mayor of the town told him Cassidy owned the first titled land in the valley, Betenson said. The men bought 1,500 acres of lush ranch land nestled at the base of the craggy Andes Mountains. Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker, wrote that he had 300 head of cattle, 1,450 sheep and 28 good saddle horses. Betenson showed the group slides of old photos taken in front of the cabin at the Argentina ranch. Looking out from the photos are the two men and Place....
GAO
Forest Service: Vegetation Management Projects Approved during Calendar Years 2003 through 2005 Using Categorical Exclusions, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, House Committee on Natural Resources. GAO-07-1016T, June 28.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1016T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d071016thigh.pdf
Forest Service: Vegetation Management Projects Approved during Calendar Years 2003 through 2005 Using Categorical Exclusions, by Robin M. Nazzaro, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, House Committee on Natural Resources. GAO-07-1016T, June 28.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1016T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d071016thigh.pdf
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Giving credit where credit is due
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter
There are a couple of cowboys in heaven that not many days go by I don't think about them. I miss them both very much.
I've thought a lot about both of them recently, because after a long journey in life and a dream to put many of the stories in print, my book of cowboy stories rolled off the press.
Those cowboys are very much part of this project because they are very much part of who I am, starting at the top of the list, a cowgirl.
Those cowboys were my dad, and after he died, my step-dad. They were both fine men remembered with honor for their knowledge and abilities in ranching in an era that is no more.
And I was blessed to have them both in my life.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that their legacies depend on me to carry them on and, even more so, to pass them on.
In a lifetime, I have collected a PhD-equivalent of little things about cowboying, cows, horses and right-living.
I'd be hard pressed to itemize them all because they aren't all tangible things. They are things that just are.
Some of the lessons loom large in my daily life and I think even a partial list might hit home for many.
· Slow is fast. Work cattle slow and your day will get over faster and with a more successful conclusion. Quiet patience is good with cattle, horses, kids and women.
· A very few well-placed words speak louder and clearer than a long speech.
· Polite ways will open many doors and keep even more from slamming shut.
· Good horses, good grass and a good cow dog will make a cowboy about as content as he can be. Throw in a wife who can cook and a pickup that will run and it's pure bliss.
· Find something in everything to laugh about. Nothing soothes the soul like laughter and nothing eases a tense situation like a smile. When the gate didn't get shut and the cattle got out, smile because that colt you are riding will get some needed miles under a saddle. Laugh because you may just as well.
· Know that Mother Nature has the upper hand. Respect her, don't fight her because it's a fixed fight.
· Wet saddle blankets make good horses and respectful kids. Hard work is a solid foundation for the cowboy and the horse he rode in on.
· Enjoy the little things. Take time to pat the dog, soothe the colt, watch the sunrise and the sunset. Just because they are there everyday doesn't mean they always will be.
· Make good memories, not bad enemies.
· Honesty is a smooth-riding horse.
I can't tell you why I know some of the things I know, like how to read a cow and her intentions or a horse and what the look in his eye tells me.
Some things I know were never spoken to me, but were lived in front of me. They weren't verbal lessons but were a sum total of who these men were and where they came from.
Integrity was paramount. It encapsulated these basic men who simply lived life the best way they knew how.
They were cowboys, but they were also just good people. And in recalling anything about either of them, first comes to mind they could both laugh and enjoy life at any level.
That is the best of the legacy that they left to me.
I'm not only holding tightly to it, but I'm doing my best to share it with anyone that crosses my path.
See Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com. Her new book is off the press and shipping has begun.
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter
There are a couple of cowboys in heaven that not many days go by I don't think about them. I miss them both very much.
I've thought a lot about both of them recently, because after a long journey in life and a dream to put many of the stories in print, my book of cowboy stories rolled off the press.
Those cowboys are very much part of this project because they are very much part of who I am, starting at the top of the list, a cowgirl.
Those cowboys were my dad, and after he died, my step-dad. They were both fine men remembered with honor for their knowledge and abilities in ranching in an era that is no more.
And I was blessed to have them both in my life.
Somewhere along the way, I realized that their legacies depend on me to carry them on and, even more so, to pass them on.
In a lifetime, I have collected a PhD-equivalent of little things about cowboying, cows, horses and right-living.
I'd be hard pressed to itemize them all because they aren't all tangible things. They are things that just are.
Some of the lessons loom large in my daily life and I think even a partial list might hit home for many.
· Slow is fast. Work cattle slow and your day will get over faster and with a more successful conclusion. Quiet patience is good with cattle, horses, kids and women.
· A very few well-placed words speak louder and clearer than a long speech.
· Polite ways will open many doors and keep even more from slamming shut.
· Good horses, good grass and a good cow dog will make a cowboy about as content as he can be. Throw in a wife who can cook and a pickup that will run and it's pure bliss.
· Find something in everything to laugh about. Nothing soothes the soul like laughter and nothing eases a tense situation like a smile. When the gate didn't get shut and the cattle got out, smile because that colt you are riding will get some needed miles under a saddle. Laugh because you may just as well.
· Know that Mother Nature has the upper hand. Respect her, don't fight her because it's a fixed fight.
· Wet saddle blankets make good horses and respectful kids. Hard work is a solid foundation for the cowboy and the horse he rode in on.
· Enjoy the little things. Take time to pat the dog, soothe the colt, watch the sunrise and the sunset. Just because they are there everyday doesn't mean they always will be.
· Make good memories, not bad enemies.
· Honesty is a smooth-riding horse.
I can't tell you why I know some of the things I know, like how to read a cow and her intentions or a horse and what the look in his eye tells me.
Some things I know were never spoken to me, but were lived in front of me. They weren't verbal lessons but were a sum total of who these men were and where they came from.
Integrity was paramount. It encapsulated these basic men who simply lived life the best way they knew how.
They were cowboys, but they were also just good people. And in recalling anything about either of them, first comes to mind they could both laugh and enjoy life at any level.
That is the best of the legacy that they left to me.
I'm not only holding tightly to it, but I'm doing my best to share it with anyone that crosses my path.
See Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com. Her new book is off the press and shipping has begun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)