Utility proposes first US coal-fired plant to capture CO2 US energy company Tenaska announced Tuesday a proposal for a new 600-megawatt, coal-fired power plant in Texas that would be the first to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions underground. The privately held company proposed a site near Sweetwater, Texas, where its plan would capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be sold for use in oil production in the Permian Basin, resulting in geologic storage. Tenaska filed a request for a state permit for the plant, whose cost was estimated at three billion dollars, but said a final decision to proceed would be made in 2009 depending on incentives, costs and prices for electricity and CO2. If built, the plant would be the first commercial coal-fired plant, other than small research projects, to capture and provide for storage of CO2, according to Tenaska....
Challenging Indian Land Trusts Across Indian country, two things are never in short supply: rich natural resources and endemic poverty. That paradox is driving a longstanding battle between indigenous people and the government trust that holds money generated from their lands. The class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Kempthorne, targets a federal trust fund that handles revenues from activities like oil drilling and logging on land owned by individual Indians and tribes. The trust’s financial operations—covering more than 56 million acres and dating back for more than a century—have left a spectacularly messy paper trail. Many beneficiaries say they are in the dark about how much has been paid out and what is still owed, and charge that the system has drained wealth from Indian communities. “We know that the government collected our money, but it hasn’t been paid to us as individual Indian beneficiaries,” says Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Nation member who initiated the suit in 1996 on behalf of several hundred thousand account holders. The battle is finally drawing to a close. On Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the trust’s finances are beyond salvaging. Calling for a settlement, he denounced the Interior Department’s “unrepaired, and irreparable, breach of its fiduciary duty over the last century.”....
Climate Change Forecasters on the Hot Seat More than 20 years ago, climate scientists began to sound the alarm over the possibility that global temperatures were rising due to human activities, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to study and better understand this potential threat. The IPCC’s mission was to provide a “comprehensive, objective, scientific, technical and socio-economic assessment of human-caused climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.” IPCC reports have predicted that average world temperatures will increase dramatically, leading to the spread of tropical diseases, severe drought, the rapid melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels. Congress is considering proposals to slow rising temperatures by joining international agreements or by implementing policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, several assessments have shown that the techniques and methods used to derive and verify the IPCC’s climate predictions are fundamentally flawed. They indicate that the IPCC’s central claims — that the present warming trend is unusual, caused by human activities and will result in serious harm — are not supported by scientific forecasts. Rather, these claims are opinions that are no more likely to be right than wrong....
Study finds human medicines altering marine biology Sewage-treatment plants in Southern California are failing to remove hormones and hormone-altering chemicals from water that gets flushed into coastal ocean waters, according to the results of a study released Saturday. The preliminary findings were part of the most ambitious study to date on the effect of emerging chemical contaminants in coastal oceans. It confirms the findings of smaller pilot studies from 2005 that discovered male fish in the ocean were developing female characteristics, and broadened the scope of the earlier studies by looking at an array of man-made contaminants in widespread tests of seawater, seafloor sediment and hundreds of fish caught off Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. The results, outlined by a Southern California toxicologist at a conference in Boston, reveal that a veritable drugstore of pharmaceuticals and beauty products, flame retardants and plastic additives are ending up in the ocean and appear to be working their way up the marine food chain....
Oil Closes Over $100 for 1st Time The price of crude oil closed over $100 for the first time yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, rattling stock markets and marking a milestone in the relentless rise in petroleum prices over the past five years. The high oil price, which rivals the inflation-adjusted peak set during the early days of the Iran-Iraq war nearly three decades ago, has drained cash from the pockets of consumers just when the slowing economy could use a spending boost. And it reinforced fears that oil prices, which have long fluctuated with political and economic cycles, may never again drop to past levels. The price hit a new high of $100.10 a barrel before settling at $100.01 a barrel, up $4.51, when the market closed at 2:30 p.m. The price in late electronic trading dropped only slightly, to $99.99 a barrel....
Western wolf delisting looms The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to make what is certain to be a historic and equally controversial move regarding the management of wolves in the Northern Rockies sometime next week. As early as Thursday, Feb. 28, the FWS will publish a delisting notice for the Western gray wolf in the U.S. Federal Register, Northern Rockies representative of Defenders of Wildlife Suzanne Stone said Sunday. Under the delisting notice, which won't take effect until 30 days after it's published, gray wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming would lose their protected status under the federal Endangered Species Act. The delisting proposal will also extend to the eastern thirds of Washington and Oregon as well as a small portion of north-central Utah. Defenders of Wildlife and other groups plan to sue to stop the delisting. Depending on the success of those appeals, management oversight for gray wolves may be in the hands of state wildlife agencies as soon as this spring, which in turn could mean the beginning of an Idaho wolf hunt as early as this fall....
Feds, state reach agreement to conserve tiny Arizona snail State and federal wildlife officials have drafted an agreement to conserve a tiny snail that lives primarily in springs within a small area along Oak Creek. The Page springsnail - a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection - is vulnerable because its available habitats are small and isolated, the introduction of nonnative species such as crayfish, and spring flow changes resulting from groundwater pumping. Officials don't know exactly how many of these snails still exist, but in a free-flowing spring, they have found as many as 3,000 per square meter. The draft agreement identifies ways to ensure that the Game and Fish Department's management of its Page Springs and Bubbling Springs fish hatcheries will minimize the loss of resident Page springsnails and the impacts on their habitat....So, if the snail does eventually get listed, will it shut down the two state-run fish hatcheries? Just wondering.
Rally protests abuse of eminent domain About 90 people, several of whom have been on the blunt end of condemnation proceedings, rallied under snowy skies in Civic Center on Sunday to hold a tailgate party against what they see as government abuse of eminent domain. They spoke about cases in Commerce City, Boulder, Lakewood and Denver, but the thread that ran through their talk was concern over the way in which cities and agencies such as RTD acquire property by condemning it. The rally - which featured a pig roast - was sponsored by the Colorado Property Rights Coalition. Several people spoke in favor of House Bill 1178, a proposal that would prohibit RTD from condemning homes and businesses for commercial development....
Rainbow People forced to move from Ocala National Forest Dirty Momma just wants to protect the land. That's why the 31-year-old Florida woman, known outside Rainbow gatherings as April Hendry, didn't resist the U.S. Forest Service's effort to force her and hundreds of other free spirits from Duck Pond, though many did. "We love the Earth," Hendry said, surrounded by other barefoot and bedraggled campers in tie-dye. Forest officials estimate the annual gathering will draw 600 Rainbow Family members this year but could swell to 1,500 if the weekend weather is good. The federal agency, in charge of managing and protecting the 383,000-acre forest, has increased its law-enforcement presence to 11 officers, more than twice as many as usual....
Foresters to redo impact statement of Wolf Creek plan Developers of the proposed 10,000-person Village at Wolf Creek, project opponents and the U.S. Forest Service agreed Tuesday that foresters will redo their environmental impact statement. Environmental groups sued the agency in April 2006 over its authorization of two access roads across public lands to billionaire Red McCombs' acreage adjoining the small ski area atop Wolf Creek Pass in southwestern Colorado. U.S. District Judge John Kane issued a preliminary injunction Oct. 4, 2007, to halt the development until he ruled on the adequacy of the EIS. Rather than wait, the parties agreed Tuesday to a new EIS. Ryan Bidwell of Colorado Wild called it "a tremendous victory for the environment."
Forest Service wants information on Ojo Peak Fire U.S. Forest Service investigators have formally ruled that last November’s Ojo Peak Fire in the Manzano Mountains was human-caused. The Albuquerque zone dispatch office is asking for help from anyone who might have seen people or vehicles at the Pine Shadow Trail area or the south end of the Crest Trail the weekend of Nov. 17-18. The 6,969-acre blaze destroyed three homes and some outbuildings and forced the evacuations of some ranches and 75 to 100 homes in the villages of Manzano and Punta del Agua. The Forest Service says it eventually could have threatened a popular attraction at the head of Tajique Canyon, the largest stand of Rocky Mountain large tooth maples in New Mexico.
EPA slams new plan for Sublette gas field The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency excoriated a plan for more wells on the Pinedale Anticline last week, citing deficiencies in the analysis of the effects of development on air quality and ground water. In a letter Feb. 14, EPA regional administrator Robert E. Roberts gave a revised draft EIS a rating of “3,” which means the study has a label of “environmentally unsatisfactory-inadequate information.” He said the rating “indicates EPA’s belief that the [draft environmental impact statement] is not adequate for purposes of our ... review, and thus, should be formally revised and made available for public comment in a supplemental or revised Draft EIS.” “The impacts are of sufficient magnitude that the proposed action should not proceed as proposed,” Roberts said. Further, the rating makes the project a candidate for referral to the Council for Environmental Quality, which is a White House watchdog on compliance with environmental laws. The EPA letter comes in respsonse to the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal for two options to develop 4,399 new wells on 12,278 acres of the Pinedale Anticline, late last year....
Group plans to sue feds over elk-killing plan A wolf-advocacy group said it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation. A WildEarth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down. Elk -- there are an estimated 2,000 in the park -- are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk. But Rob Edward, director for carnivore recovery for the Santa Fe, N.M.-based WildEarth Guardians, said 30 or 40 wolves could accomplish the same goals in a more natural way....
Mysterious Creatures Found in Antarctica Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths. Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before. Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand. "Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. "We have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates." The specimens were being sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA studies....
Judge asked to stop older Canadian cattle imports Lawyers representing cattle, consumer and health interests urged a federal judge Tuesday to stop imports of older Canadian cattle because of the potential threat of mad cow disease. An attorney for the government countered that U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol should not grant the preliminary injunction, saying rules and changes in the industry adequately protect American animals, people and markets. The lawsuit, filed last fall in federal court in South Dakota, seeks to suspend a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that went into effect Nov. 19 allowing Canadian cattle more than 30 months old into the U.S. market. The change exposes consumers to a fatal disease linked to eating meat contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, increases the risk that U.S. cattle would be infected with the disease, and could harm the U.S. cattle market, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF; United Stockgrowers of America, based in Billings, Mont.; South Dakota Stockgrowers Association; four South Dakota cattle ranchers; the Center for Food Safety; the Consumer Federation of America; the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation; and Food & Water Watch....
Warehouses Nibble on Edge of Giant California Ranch Anyone who has traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco along Interstate 5 has driven along the western flank of Tejon Ranch, a vast expanse of luminous oak-studded hills that divides the southern and central portions of the state. Occupying about 270,000 acres, or 426 square miles, Tejon Ranch, named for the Spanish word for badger, is the largest contiguous parcel of privately owned land in California. More than a century and a half after it was consolidated from four ranches created through Mexican land grants, Tejon is still a working farm and ranch, where cattle graze and wine grapes, almonds, pistachios and walnuts are grown. In recent years, however, as executives of the publicly held Tejon Ranch Company have sought to diversify the ranch’s economic activity, three giant warehouses have sprouted near the freeway. The largest, with 1.7 million square feet, serves all of Ikea’s furniture stores from San Diego to Vancouver....
Acclaimed cowboy film comes to town The cowboys are coming to town. "Cracker, the Last Cowboys of Florida," a film created by acclaimed filmmaker Victor Milt, will have three public showings Saturday at the Arbor Reception and Banquet Hall at 111 West Oak St., Arcadia. "Cracker" is an enlarged sequel to Milt's film "The Cowboys of Florida," which is a 36-minute film that won three national awards and was a finalist at the Palm Beach Film Festival. It was chosen as one of the 10 best films at the festival. But Milt said he did not feel "The Cowboys of Florida" told the whole story about Florida cowboys and their struggle to avoid extinction as development closes in. He had researched Florida cowboys and Florida cow culture for four years and had accumulated more film footage than he could use in that first short film about Florida cowboys. Milt said he was approached by a group of ranchers in the area who asked him to expand the film and tell the whole story of the cowboys in Southwest Florida. He added that they offered to help with the financing. So "Cracker" was born. "It is still a film about Florida cowboys and what is happening to them," said Mack Martin, an Arcadia Realtor and one of Milt's longtime promoters. "But it's more of a message film. It has a message for the entire world about the plight of Florida cowboys and how they are in danger of being swept away by development and loss of rural land. Cowboy work habits and their lifestyles date back to the time the Spaniards landed in Florida. Victor Milt has captured those forces and those pressures that are impacting the Florida cowboys. That is what 'Cracker' is all about."....
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
FLE
Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to civil rights and privacy advocates who oppose the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The justices, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union to let it pursue a lawsuit against the program that began shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The action underscored the difficulty of mounting a challenge to the eavesdropping, which remains classified and was confirmed by President Bush only after a newspaper article revealed its existence. "It's very disturbing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. "In our view, it shouldn't be left to executive branch officials alone to determine the limits." The Terrorist Surveillance Program no longer exists, although the administration has maintained it was legal. The ACLU sued on behalf of itself, other lawyers, reporters and scholars, arguing that the program was illegal and that they had been forced to alter how they communicate with foreigners who were likely to have been targets of the wiretapping. A federal judge in Detroit largely agreed, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored and thus could not prove they had been harmed by the program....
Invisible dots left by printers 'breach privacy' Most consumers are unaware that many popular colour laser printers, including those made by Brother, Cannon, Xerox and HP, embed almost invisible tracking dots onto documents, uniquely identifying the machine that printed them. Franco Frattini, European Commissioner for Justice and Security, has launched an investigation after receiving official complaints from Euro-MPs. "To the extent that individuals may be identified through material printed or copied using certain equipment, such processing may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life," he said. "It also might violate the right to protection of personal data." Satu Hari, a Finnish Euro-MP, has taken up the issue of "forensic tracking mechanisms" after consumers "unsuccessfully asked manufacturers to disable this function". She has highlighted research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) finding that technology originally designed to prevent currency counterfeiting might end up as catch-all tool for general surveillance....
A Sure-Fire Argument on the Second Amendment With the Supreme Court’s decision to examine the constitutionality of D.C.’s gun ban, the nation once again turns to an intense examination of the wording of the Second Amendment. One way to understand an amendment whose words have confused generations is to study its somewhat confusing text. But another way is to examine at whose request the amendment was written. For example, if 200 years from now constitutional scholars are trying to determine whether the Smith Tax Act of 2008 increased or decreased the taxes Social Security recipients paid on their retirement income, knowing that the act came into being as the result of pressure from AARP would pretty much end that debate. This, then, is a vital question when seeking to understand the Second Amendment. For if you know the context in which the Amendment was written, if you know for whom it was written, if you know who was clamoring for it and what were their concerns, then that can help settle any argument of individual rights versus collective rights....
Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to civil rights and privacy advocates who oppose the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The justices, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union to let it pursue a lawsuit against the program that began shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The action underscored the difficulty of mounting a challenge to the eavesdropping, which remains classified and was confirmed by President Bush only after a newspaper article revealed its existence. "It's very disturbing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the court," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's national security project. "In our view, it shouldn't be left to executive branch officials alone to determine the limits." The Terrorist Surveillance Program no longer exists, although the administration has maintained it was legal. The ACLU sued on behalf of itself, other lawyers, reporters and scholars, arguing that the program was illegal and that they had been forced to alter how they communicate with foreigners who were likely to have been targets of the wiretapping. A federal judge in Detroit largely agreed, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored and thus could not prove they had been harmed by the program....
Invisible dots left by printers 'breach privacy' Most consumers are unaware that many popular colour laser printers, including those made by Brother, Cannon, Xerox and HP, embed almost invisible tracking dots onto documents, uniquely identifying the machine that printed them. Franco Frattini, European Commissioner for Justice and Security, has launched an investigation after receiving official complaints from Euro-MPs. "To the extent that individuals may be identified through material printed or copied using certain equipment, such processing may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life," he said. "It also might violate the right to protection of personal data." Satu Hari, a Finnish Euro-MP, has taken up the issue of "forensic tracking mechanisms" after consumers "unsuccessfully asked manufacturers to disable this function". She has highlighted research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) finding that technology originally designed to prevent currency counterfeiting might end up as catch-all tool for general surveillance....
A Sure-Fire Argument on the Second Amendment With the Supreme Court’s decision to examine the constitutionality of D.C.’s gun ban, the nation once again turns to an intense examination of the wording of the Second Amendment. One way to understand an amendment whose words have confused generations is to study its somewhat confusing text. But another way is to examine at whose request the amendment was written. For example, if 200 years from now constitutional scholars are trying to determine whether the Smith Tax Act of 2008 increased or decreased the taxes Social Security recipients paid on their retirement income, knowing that the act came into being as the result of pressure from AARP would pretty much end that debate. This, then, is a vital question when seeking to understand the Second Amendment. For if you know the context in which the Amendment was written, if you know for whom it was written, if you know who was clamoring for it and what were their concerns, then that can help settle any argument of individual rights versus collective rights....
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Ranchers want Army records on expenses for planning Ranchers fighting the Army's effort to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site have filed a federal open records claim with Fort Carson to get an accounting of what money and time is being spent on expansion planning. The ranchers argue the Army's action is illegal under the terms of the 2008 federal budget law. Mack Louden, a rancher and board member of the group, Not 1 More Acre, argued the records will show the Army is continuing to use contractors, particularly the Booz Allen Hamilton public relations firm, to do expansion planning. That planning includes the recent meetings with Southern Colorado community members to discuss the planned 414,000-acre expansion of the Pinon Canyon training area. Louden and other opponents point to the 2008 federal budget law signed by President Bush in January because it contains a one-year moratorium on the Army spending any money on the Pinon Canyon expansion. That ban was authored and sponsored by Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and John Salazar, who claim that expanding Pinon Canyon would ruin the ranching economy of Las Animas County and the region....
Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico Oil and natural gas companies have their eye on eastern Mora County, but first they'll have to deal with residents who, unlike many New Mexicans, own the mineral rights on their land. Some Mora County residents began receiving letters a few months regarding their mineral rights. At a recent meeting at the Ocate Community Center, landman Knute Lee Jr. made a pitch to residents to lease their oil and gas mineral rights through his Albuquerque company, KHL Inc. "Many were interested in how the royalty and rental system works. The rest were quiet but not very welcoming," said Ojo Feliz resident Rose Josefa. "I didn't get the sense that people were jumping up and down over his offer." Eastern Mora County is the latest area in New Mexico where landmen such as Lee, who negotiate mineral leases for oil and gas companies, are looking. Like residents in the Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe who are concerned over drilling plans by Tecton Energy, some Ojo Feliz and Ocate residents are gearing up to fight plans for oil and gas pumping in their area. But unlike the Galisteo Basin, many landowners in Mora County also own their mineral rights. New Mexico is under a split estate system, which considers mineral rights and the property rights above them to be distinct. Those rights can be sold or leased separately....
All the better to hunt elk, my dear A wolf-advocacy group said Monday it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation. The decision to use the sharpshooters was made in December but signed Friday by Mike Snyder, intermountain director for the National Park Service. A WildEarth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down. Elk - there are an estimated 2,000 in the park - are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk....
Cross-border studies reveal secrets of pronghorn antelope migration Pronghorn antelope can run as fast as 60 mph for short distances. But it's the great distances they travel — not their remarkable sprints — that might prove to be more insightful in the long run. Using collars that communicate with space satellites, private and government researchers in Montana and Canada are tracking the pronghorns' journeys between the United States, Alberta and Saskatchewan. They've been stunned by round-trip migrations of more than 500 miles. The specific goal of the first-of-its-kind study is to learn more about historical migration routes and threats to them, such as fences and oil and gas development. But researchers say the country-trotting ungulates could end up telling a much bigger story about fragmentation of sagebrush habitat, which is a threat to a lot of wildlife. "It's a canary on the prairie," said Cormack Gates, who serves on the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary...Not "keystone" or "canary in a coal mine," but "canary on the prairie." That's two in two days.
Ariz. leaders look anew at land reform Voters may get another chance this year to make preservation of large swaths of the state's unspoiled desert and mountains more affordable for taxpayers. Gov. Janet Napolitano has gathered key players to hammer out legislation that would change the way Arizona conserves - or develops - its open desert. Cities and environmental groups have plans to conserve land in Pima County, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tucson, Flagstaff and smaller communities. A defeated 2006 ballot measure would have made 700,000 acres available for cities and other agencies to acquire either free or off the auction block for potentially less than open bidding would bring. Trust land was granted to Arizona at statehood, with the federal government reasoning that sales would fund schools and other public agencies. Trust-land auctions continue to help fund classrooms. The State Land Department decides when it can get a good price for land and then puts it up for auction. But that builds in a conflict - one not foreseen in the 19th century - with conservationists and cities saying it is also a priority to preserve open land for future generations. Although the governor and legislators are still haggling over details of a new proposal to present to voters this year, the new measure would allow cities and conservationists to buy some of the acres without facing developers at auction....
Congress wants your water The new version would delete the word “navigable” and replace it with the word “all.” Therefore, no longer would federal jurisdiction apply only to lakes and rivers, but it would be extended to all bodies of water — permanent or intermittent — everywhere in the United States, be they in your backyard or on your farm. The federal definition will be extended to include, among other things, streams, wetlands, sloughs, wet meadows, and ponds. This land grab would allow the federal government through the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to regulate how you manage any body of water on your own private property, even though said water will never come in contact with the properties of others. They will be allowed to control what you do and how you do it and will be empowered to force you to mitigate anything they might perceive as detrimental. This will have an undeniably negative impact on millions of property owners. Those who will have to answer to someone for land and water they own will be people who manage their ponds for fishing and leisure, miners who need water to pump their mines and wells, ranchers who need watering holes for their cattle, and farmers who need to irrigate their fields....
Air tankers used in West vulnerable, feds report U.S. Forest Service air tankers used in California and other Western states are potentially vulnerable to accidents, investigators warn in a new report. Despite making strides to improve air safety, the Forest Service could still use more money, better long-range planning and stricter aircraft inspections, among other improvements, federal investigators said. "The Forest Service has suffered numerous, potentially preventable aviation accidents over the years, and continues to be at risk for more," the investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted this week. In June 2002, for instance, three crewmen died when their 45-year-old air tanker broke apart over the mountains north of Yosemite National Park. National Transportation Safety Board investigators subsequently cited "inadequate maintenance" that overlooked cracks in a wing of the Lockheed C-130. More recently, two Forest Service contractors died in August 2006 when their heavy-duty Sikorsky helicopter crashed into the Klamath River. Part of the 40-year-old helicopter's tail rotor fell off shortly before the crash, investigators found. Almost exactly a year later, another firefighting pilot died when his Bell helicopter clipped a tree and crashed in the Klamath National Forest. All told, 28 crashes of Forest Service helicopters and airplanes occurred between 2002 and 2006. Sixteen crashes of the Forest Service's firefighting aircraft occurred between 1997 and 2001....
Nevada water 'grab' hearings wrap up State hearings into a plan to pump billions of gallons of rural Nevada water to Las Vegas ended Friday with proponents saying they're entitled to the water and opponents warning that the pumping could have a catastrophic impact. State Engineer Tracy Taylor will review the testimony and voluminous paperwork submitted during two weeks of hearings and issue a ruling at a later date on the Southern Nevada Water Authority pumping plan. A final decision isn't likely for several months. Paul Taggart, attorney for SNWA which wants to draw more than 11.3 billion gallons of groundwater a year from Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave valleys, argued that the water authority met all requirements for the pumping and critics' disaster scenarios are unfounded. Simeon Herskovits, attorney for the Great Basin Water (NASDAQ:BWTR) Network which opposes the plan, countered that SNWA tried to hide evidence that the pumping may harm existing water users and the environment in rural Nevada because there's not enough water in the valleys for long-term exportation. Herskovits was backed by Greg Walch, representing Cave Valley Ranch LLC which wants to develop land in that valley. Walch said that despite its remoteness, the valley has potential -- but not without water....
National Biomass And Carbon Dataset Now Available For US Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center working to produce the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000) are releasing data from nine project mapping zones. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover information, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the USDA Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will provide an invaluable baseline for quantifying the carbon stock in U.S. forests and will improve current methods of assessing the carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere. According to Dr. Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center and project leader, "The availability of a high resolution dataset containing estimates of forest biomass and associated carbon stock is an important step forward in enabling researchers to better understand the North American carbon balance." As part of the NBCD2000 initiative, begun in 2005 and funded by NASA's Earth Science Program with additional support from the USGS/LANDFIRE, mapping is being conducted within 67 ecologically diverse regions, termed "mapping zones", which span the conterminous United States. Wayne Walker, a research associate at the Center who is also working on the project adds, "The data sets that are now available should be of interest to natural resource managers across the U.S. For the first time, high resolution estimates of vegetation canopy height and biomass are being produced consistently for the entire conterminous U.S."....
Resort growth plan stirs fight A proposal to carve ski trails from out-of-bounds glades known as a "locals' stash" is sparking a battle over ski-area expansion and competing ideals of skiing. Breckenridge resort officials have asked the U.S. Forest Service to open 450 acres of terrain on Peak 6, north of the resort's existing boundary, to help disperse skiers at the busiest ski area in the country. A league of hard-core backcountry skiers and environmentalists have, however, taken a stand against the plan — arguing that expansion is unwarranted and would erode an untrammeled natural area. "Having something that's untouched is pretty important," said Ellen Hollinshead, a local leader of the Backcountry Skiers' Alliance....
Conservation Groups Petition Fish and Wildlife Service for Emergency Actions to Save Imperiled Bats From Deadly New Disease Citing a threat to bats from a new disease that is widespread, severe, and imminent, conservation organizations today petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for immediate action to prevent further harm to endangered bats. State wildlife agencies have reported that tens of thousands of bats are dying from an unknown malady informally known as “white-nose syndrome.” It was first discovered last year in four bat hibernating caves in New York. This year, the fungus has been observed on bats at virtually every significant bat hibernation site in New York, along with one cave in Vermont. Biologists throughout the Northeast have been scrambling to determine the extent and source of the die-off. Conservation organizations are asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to pull permits for federal projects that will harm imperiled bats and to close bat hibernation sites to the public. “Logging, burning, road building — all these actions harm endangered bats,” said Mollie Matteson, public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity....
State game director convicted of illegally killing deer The director of the state Department of Game and Fish has been convicted of shooting a deer without permission on land in southeastern New Mexico. Lincoln County Magistrate Martha Proctor sentenced Bruce Thompson to 182 days in jail Monday but suspended the time and placed him on probation. The conditions of Thompson's unsupervised probation require that he not violate any local, state or federal laws for 182 days. Thompson also was ordered to pay a $500 fine. He had pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge. Thompson still faces a related misdemeanor count of unlawfully hunting or possessing a protected species. He has pleaded not guilty to that charge. A jury trial is scheduled for April 21 in Carrizozo. The charges had stemmed from a Nov. 17 hunt on the Diamond T Ranch west of Roswell in which Thompson shot a deer. It is illegal to hunt on private property in New Mexico without permission from the landowner....
Ruling draws ire of farmers A new interpretation of an old federal law will result in regulating farmers when they transport harvested grain from the field to the grain elevator. The Kansas Corporation Commission interpretation of the federal law has determined that a farmer hauling grain from the harvest field to the grain elevator is the first leg of interstate commerce and can be regulated like professional truckers, said Brad Harrelson, state policy director for Kansas Farm Bureau. It is a federal law that has been on the books since the 1930s and it is the recent interpretation that could put farmers under federal regulation, said Kansas Rep. Mitch Holmes. As the interpretation stands, drivers would have to have an annual medical physical. Farmers would have pay a fee for a United States Department of Transportation uniform registry fee for a decal they would have to display on the side of all their vehicles, said state Sen. Ruth Teichman....
Arrest made in cow abuse case Police have arrested a slaughterhouse worker whose alleged abuse of sick and injured cows has contributed to the largest recall of beef in U.S. history. Daniel Ugarte Navarro of Pomona was arrested at his home Saturday afternoon on a $75,000 warrant. He was released from jail about 6:30 a.m. Sunday after posting bail. Navarro, 48, worked as a pen manager at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., one of the largest suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. In what they called an unprecedented case, prosecutors charged Navarro on Friday with felony animal abuse and misdemeanor counts of illegally moving crippled cows. He could face more than eight years in prison, if convicted as charged. A second employee, Luis Sanchez, was also charged, but has not yet been arrested. A warrant has been issued for his arrest....
USDA will step up inspections at slaughterhouses The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would step up oversight at 900 slaughterhouses in the USA to check for inhumane handling violations like those that led to the biggest meat recall ever on Sunday. "I don't have reason to believe this is widespread. But the extra checks will give us a better handle on it," said Kenneth Petersen, USDA assistant administrator. Westland/Hallmark Meat of Chino, Calif., recalled 143 million pounds of beef manufactured over two years after a USDA investigation sparked by abuses uncovered by the Humane Society of the United States. The USDA found that Westland did not always alert federal inspectors when cows that passed an initial USDA inspection became unable to walk before they were slaughtered. Such "downer" cattle are supposed to be excluded from the U.S. food supply because they're at higher risk of carrying mad cow disease, which affects the brain, and E. coli and salmonella bacteria. USDA inspectors check cattle headed to slaughter to see if they can walk. If cattle pass and then go down, they must be checked again. They can be slaughtered if they've suffered an injury, such as a broken leg, and don't pose a food-safety risk. Of 11,000 cattle slaughtered monthly at the plant, the USDA banned 30 to 40 downers, an average number, Petersen says....
Humane deaths for horses 'too costly' Despite his wide eyes and shimmering chestnut coat, horse 8778 had no takers. With a heavy limp in his gait, the crippled sorrel was hardly worth his weight to those at the weekly Willcox Livestock Auction. The gelding likely would be on his way to Mexico for slaughter — a journey that has become common for horses decrepit and old. Since the closure of the three U.S. horse slaughter plants in Illinois and Texas in 2006, for violating state laws, there has been a spike in horses going across the U.S. border to Mexico for slaughter. These cross-border journeys are often grueling, stretching for hundreds of miles with the horses crammed into double-decker trailers. For those horses arriving in Mexico each week, the deaths are potentially far more gruesome than they would have been in the United States. Some horses have been slaughtered in Mexico by repeatedly being stabbed. More than 45,000 horses went to Mexico for slaughter last year, up from about 11,000 the year before, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. But many ranchers use the gruesome deaths to argue for the need to reopen the U.S. slaughterhouses. The closures, they say, have only added to the ranks of unwanted and undervalued horses at a time when gas and hay prices have skyrocketed. "People have no place to go with them," said Wayne Earven, a former state livestock inspector who was recently selling a horse at auction in Willcox. "To be real honest with you, we haven't seen the worst of it yet."....
No room at the pen A dying dog is 40 pounds of family sadness. A dying horse is a physics problem, and 1,000 pounds of emotional debate over what we should do with the iconic Western companion at the end of its useful life. "The bottom line is there are more horses than there are people with properties who can adequately care for them," said Keith Roehr, a veterinarian with the state of Colorado. Overbreeding has saturated the horse market, driving down values, while feed-grain prices have tripled. At the same time, changing ethical standards have shut off a generations-old relief valve for ranchers — slaughtering horses for meat to be consumed in foreign countries. The glut puts more horses in peril every month. More are being abandoned on public lands. Neglected horses crowd rescue shelters. The pool of farms willing to put Old Paint out to pasture is shrinking....
Montana faces shortage of sheep shearers as shearing season nears There is somewhat of a crisis in the sheep industry in Montana. The price ranchers are getting for wool is up, but finding someone to get the wool from the sheep is difficult. According to Jim Moore, Montana State University (MSU) Sheep Institute Exten-sion Agent, the state does not have enough sheep to justify shearing as a full time career. “In some cases people just aren't getting their sheep sheared,” he said. “Crews just can't get to them.” The only way to get all of the sheep sheared is if shearers come from other countries because there just are not enough domestic shearers to take care of all the sheep, he added. There are several reasons for a shearer shortage in the state. There are only about 260,000 sheep, which means there are not enough to do that as a full time profession. Also, shearing is extremely hard work....
History for the taking The collection is free, but there will be a $100,000 price tag with accepting a voluminous donation of historical material detailing the modern origins of Temecula. The great-grandson of Walter Vail, the man who formed the vast ranch where Temecula now stands, in September offered volumes of maps, deeds and documents ---- dating back to the late 1800s ---- to the city. Members of the Temecula Valley Museum determined that the collection being offered by Sandy Wilkinson's family members is one of the most extensive archives of material pertaining to local history ever amassed. Whitney Vail Wilkinson, the son of the late Sandy Wilkinson and the great-grandson of Walter Vail, is the executor of the family estate. Sandy Wilkinson, who died in 2006, was a longtime employee of Vail Ranch and lived his entire life in Temecula. He was in charge of the water rights and issues involved in the building of the Vail Dam ---- then the largest privately built dam in the United States. The dam created Vail Lake, once the key water source for the Temecula Valley and surrounding areas. The original dam and lake are still in operation today, roughly 10 miles east of Temecula along Highway 79 South....
Windmill machinist keeps western icon alive It's hard to imagine the American frontier without a windmill poking out of the horizon, its silver vanes slicing the crosswinds. Though electricity-generating giants have sometimes sprouted in their place, the traditional windmills that once pumped groundwater for thirsty livestock have largely become decorative fixtures. Along with the windmills have gone the windmill men. Derrill Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Windmill & Supply Inc. in Fort Sumner, says he is among the last of his kind. "It's a dying art," Mitchell says as he takes a moment from machining new parts to wipe his brow. The metallic shavings of discarded gears catch the afternoon sun as they cascade to the floor of his workshop. Mitchell says he is the only windmill man in New Mexico who still machines parts, one of a dwindling number across the country. Windmills haven't changed much over the years, he says: "A part from a 1935 Aermotor still fits a 1962, or a 1989 or a 2008." Mitchell and his crew have been called on to install or repair windmills across the Southwest, through America's breadbasket and beyond....
Oscar Town: Marfa, Texas? A thousand feet above a wind-swept, drought-browned valley, a man steps out of a late-70s Ford Granada on a deserted two-lane. He is confronted by a second man, who raises a pneumatic bolt gun to his forehead and deals a fatal blow. Chip Love -- or "Man in Ford," as Oscar-nominated "No Country For Old Men" would come to credit him -- collapses to his knees on the blacktop, where Texas Ranch Road 2810 cuts through the crest of a hill covered in volcanic rock and tall, thick-trunked yuccas. He gets up. He's shot again. And again. And again. Eight times altogether he rises and falls. Getting it right pretty much takes all day. "It's not as easy as it looks," Love, 50, a local rancher and bank manager, laughs about his role as an early victim of psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. On another day, just a few miles to the west of Love's "death," a crew of oilfield workers bounds down the stairs of a dusty depot, emptying a train pulled by an early 20th century steam locomotive. But this is a scene that will play out in "There Will Be Blood," another film up for multiple Academy Awards. This is no mere coincidence....
Oscar-nominated films 'Blood,' 'Country' bring Hollywood to heart of Texas Joel and Ethan Coen had just pulled into this one-stoplight town to scout shooting No Country for Old Men when a drifter approached their limousine. Unshaven and unsteady, he hobbled toward the car with a sign under his arm. When he reached the directors, he raised the board above his head. "Repent, Hollywood scum," it read. This is not a place easily impressed by money or fame. Still, the high-desert town of 2,100 cowboys, ranch hands and rogue artists has become the unlikely epicenter of Sunday's Academy Awards. No Country and There Will Be Blood were shot here, and the Westerns, which led all movies with eight nominations apiece, including best picture, are expected to dominate the Oscars. Not that many Marfans have seen either film. The closest theater is in Alpine, 26 miles east. The tiny Rangra Theater, however, does have two screens. One is showing No Country, the other Blood. Neither sells out much. "I thought they were OK," retired rancher Bill Owens, 61, says over an enormous dill pickle, a favorite theater concession. "I hope they win (Oscars) because it'll be good for Marfa. A little artsy-fartsy, though. They weren't no Giant, I'll tell you that." He's referring to the 1956 James Dean oil epic that put Marfa on the map and, until this year, was one of the few films shot in these parts. It remains a favorite of locals who still prefer heroes who get the girl,occasionally sing and keep their cussing to a minimum....
Clovis woman sentenced to hang in 1928 “According to records that I have,” he said, “no person sentenced from Curry County has been put to death since the state of New Mexico began executing its condemned felons at the State Prison in 1933. However, prior to then, those sentenced to die were hanged locally by the sheriffs in the counties. Do you have any record of any legal hangings that might have occurred in Clovis or in Curry County prior to 1933? Enclosed is 13 cents postage for your reply.” I wrote and said I didn’t know of any hangings, but told him there where some people in and around Clovis who should have been hung. But in October 1978 I learned about a woman from southwest of Artesia, Nannie Catherine Halsey, who was accused of killing her rancher husband, Fred Halsey. Three people were involved in the killing and all three were found quilty and sentenced to hang on Aug. 1, 1924. They appealed it to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1925 and Nannie Halsey was granted a new trial. The second trial was held in Clovis, beginning Sept. 24, 1928. O.O. Askren was her attorney....
It's All Trew: Chilly among cattle In about 1942, if I remember correctly, at the age of 9, it was mid-winter and cold as heck in Ochiltree County. There was snow on the ground, all the playa lakes were frozen over and school had adjourned for the Christmas holidays. It was also a time before horse trailers, good pickup heaters and paved roads in our part of the area. My father had a lot of cattle on wheat pasture and occasionally a group had to be moved to another field. It seemed to me he always picked the coldest day to drive the herds into the coldest north winds each time we worked. Since the county roads were dirt and usually fenced, we pushed the cattle out into the roads and "the men" rode ahead to close gates and guide while my job was to follow and make sure no livestock dropped out. Time after time I thought I would freeze to death before the drive ended. It was a mystery to me how the men seemed impervious to the same cold that I was suffering from. Then one day I caught them taking a nip from a flat-shaped bottle carried in their chaps pockets. I did not think this was fair and decided to do something about it....
Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico Oil and natural gas companies have their eye on eastern Mora County, but first they'll have to deal with residents who, unlike many New Mexicans, own the mineral rights on their land. Some Mora County residents began receiving letters a few months regarding their mineral rights. At a recent meeting at the Ocate Community Center, landman Knute Lee Jr. made a pitch to residents to lease their oil and gas mineral rights through his Albuquerque company, KHL Inc. "Many were interested in how the royalty and rental system works. The rest were quiet but not very welcoming," said Ojo Feliz resident Rose Josefa. "I didn't get the sense that people were jumping up and down over his offer." Eastern Mora County is the latest area in New Mexico where landmen such as Lee, who negotiate mineral leases for oil and gas companies, are looking. Like residents in the Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe who are concerned over drilling plans by Tecton Energy, some Ojo Feliz and Ocate residents are gearing up to fight plans for oil and gas pumping in their area. But unlike the Galisteo Basin, many landowners in Mora County also own their mineral rights. New Mexico is under a split estate system, which considers mineral rights and the property rights above them to be distinct. Those rights can be sold or leased separately....
All the better to hunt elk, my dear A wolf-advocacy group said Monday it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation. The decision to use the sharpshooters was made in December but signed Friday by Mike Snyder, intermountain director for the National Park Service. A WildEarth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down. Elk - there are an estimated 2,000 in the park - are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk....
Cross-border studies reveal secrets of pronghorn antelope migration Pronghorn antelope can run as fast as 60 mph for short distances. But it's the great distances they travel — not their remarkable sprints — that might prove to be more insightful in the long run. Using collars that communicate with space satellites, private and government researchers in Montana and Canada are tracking the pronghorns' journeys between the United States, Alberta and Saskatchewan. They've been stunned by round-trip migrations of more than 500 miles. The specific goal of the first-of-its-kind study is to learn more about historical migration routes and threats to them, such as fences and oil and gas development. But researchers say the country-trotting ungulates could end up telling a much bigger story about fragmentation of sagebrush habitat, which is a threat to a lot of wildlife. "It's a canary on the prairie," said Cormack Gates, who serves on the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary...Not "keystone" or "canary in a coal mine," but "canary on the prairie." That's two in two days.
Ariz. leaders look anew at land reform Voters may get another chance this year to make preservation of large swaths of the state's unspoiled desert and mountains more affordable for taxpayers. Gov. Janet Napolitano has gathered key players to hammer out legislation that would change the way Arizona conserves - or develops - its open desert. Cities and environmental groups have plans to conserve land in Pima County, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tucson, Flagstaff and smaller communities. A defeated 2006 ballot measure would have made 700,000 acres available for cities and other agencies to acquire either free or off the auction block for potentially less than open bidding would bring. Trust land was granted to Arizona at statehood, with the federal government reasoning that sales would fund schools and other public agencies. Trust-land auctions continue to help fund classrooms. The State Land Department decides when it can get a good price for land and then puts it up for auction. But that builds in a conflict - one not foreseen in the 19th century - with conservationists and cities saying it is also a priority to preserve open land for future generations. Although the governor and legislators are still haggling over details of a new proposal to present to voters this year, the new measure would allow cities and conservationists to buy some of the acres without facing developers at auction....
Congress wants your water The new version would delete the word “navigable” and replace it with the word “all.” Therefore, no longer would federal jurisdiction apply only to lakes and rivers, but it would be extended to all bodies of water — permanent or intermittent — everywhere in the United States, be they in your backyard or on your farm. The federal definition will be extended to include, among other things, streams, wetlands, sloughs, wet meadows, and ponds. This land grab would allow the federal government through the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to regulate how you manage any body of water on your own private property, even though said water will never come in contact with the properties of others. They will be allowed to control what you do and how you do it and will be empowered to force you to mitigate anything they might perceive as detrimental. This will have an undeniably negative impact on millions of property owners. Those who will have to answer to someone for land and water they own will be people who manage their ponds for fishing and leisure, miners who need water to pump their mines and wells, ranchers who need watering holes for their cattle, and farmers who need to irrigate their fields....
Air tankers used in West vulnerable, feds report U.S. Forest Service air tankers used in California and other Western states are potentially vulnerable to accidents, investigators warn in a new report. Despite making strides to improve air safety, the Forest Service could still use more money, better long-range planning and stricter aircraft inspections, among other improvements, federal investigators said. "The Forest Service has suffered numerous, potentially preventable aviation accidents over the years, and continues to be at risk for more," the investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted this week. In June 2002, for instance, three crewmen died when their 45-year-old air tanker broke apart over the mountains north of Yosemite National Park. National Transportation Safety Board investigators subsequently cited "inadequate maintenance" that overlooked cracks in a wing of the Lockheed C-130. More recently, two Forest Service contractors died in August 2006 when their heavy-duty Sikorsky helicopter crashed into the Klamath River. Part of the 40-year-old helicopter's tail rotor fell off shortly before the crash, investigators found. Almost exactly a year later, another firefighting pilot died when his Bell helicopter clipped a tree and crashed in the Klamath National Forest. All told, 28 crashes of Forest Service helicopters and airplanes occurred between 2002 and 2006. Sixteen crashes of the Forest Service's firefighting aircraft occurred between 1997 and 2001....
Nevada water 'grab' hearings wrap up State hearings into a plan to pump billions of gallons of rural Nevada water to Las Vegas ended Friday with proponents saying they're entitled to the water and opponents warning that the pumping could have a catastrophic impact. State Engineer Tracy Taylor will review the testimony and voluminous paperwork submitted during two weeks of hearings and issue a ruling at a later date on the Southern Nevada Water Authority pumping plan. A final decision isn't likely for several months. Paul Taggart, attorney for SNWA which wants to draw more than 11.3 billion gallons of groundwater a year from Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave valleys, argued that the water authority met all requirements for the pumping and critics' disaster scenarios are unfounded. Simeon Herskovits, attorney for the Great Basin Water (NASDAQ:BWTR) Network which opposes the plan, countered that SNWA tried to hide evidence that the pumping may harm existing water users and the environment in rural Nevada because there's not enough water in the valleys for long-term exportation. Herskovits was backed by Greg Walch, representing Cave Valley Ranch LLC which wants to develop land in that valley. Walch said that despite its remoteness, the valley has potential -- but not without water....
National Biomass And Carbon Dataset Now Available For US Scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center working to produce the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000) are releasing data from nine project mapping zones. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover information, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the USDA Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will provide an invaluable baseline for quantifying the carbon stock in U.S. forests and will improve current methods of assessing the carbon flux between forests and the atmosphere. According to Dr. Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center and project leader, "The availability of a high resolution dataset containing estimates of forest biomass and associated carbon stock is an important step forward in enabling researchers to better understand the North American carbon balance." As part of the NBCD2000 initiative, begun in 2005 and funded by NASA's Earth Science Program with additional support from the USGS/LANDFIRE, mapping is being conducted within 67 ecologically diverse regions, termed "mapping zones", which span the conterminous United States. Wayne Walker, a research associate at the Center who is also working on the project adds, "The data sets that are now available should be of interest to natural resource managers across the U.S. For the first time, high resolution estimates of vegetation canopy height and biomass are being produced consistently for the entire conterminous U.S."....
Resort growth plan stirs fight A proposal to carve ski trails from out-of-bounds glades known as a "locals' stash" is sparking a battle over ski-area expansion and competing ideals of skiing. Breckenridge resort officials have asked the U.S. Forest Service to open 450 acres of terrain on Peak 6, north of the resort's existing boundary, to help disperse skiers at the busiest ski area in the country. A league of hard-core backcountry skiers and environmentalists have, however, taken a stand against the plan — arguing that expansion is unwarranted and would erode an untrammeled natural area. "Having something that's untouched is pretty important," said Ellen Hollinshead, a local leader of the Backcountry Skiers' Alliance....
Conservation Groups Petition Fish and Wildlife Service for Emergency Actions to Save Imperiled Bats From Deadly New Disease Citing a threat to bats from a new disease that is widespread, severe, and imminent, conservation organizations today petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for immediate action to prevent further harm to endangered bats. State wildlife agencies have reported that tens of thousands of bats are dying from an unknown malady informally known as “white-nose syndrome.” It was first discovered last year in four bat hibernating caves in New York. This year, the fungus has been observed on bats at virtually every significant bat hibernation site in New York, along with one cave in Vermont. Biologists throughout the Northeast have been scrambling to determine the extent and source of the die-off. Conservation organizations are asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to pull permits for federal projects that will harm imperiled bats and to close bat hibernation sites to the public. “Logging, burning, road building — all these actions harm endangered bats,” said Mollie Matteson, public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity....
State game director convicted of illegally killing deer The director of the state Department of Game and Fish has been convicted of shooting a deer without permission on land in southeastern New Mexico. Lincoln County Magistrate Martha Proctor sentenced Bruce Thompson to 182 days in jail Monday but suspended the time and placed him on probation. The conditions of Thompson's unsupervised probation require that he not violate any local, state or federal laws for 182 days. Thompson also was ordered to pay a $500 fine. He had pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge. Thompson still faces a related misdemeanor count of unlawfully hunting or possessing a protected species. He has pleaded not guilty to that charge. A jury trial is scheduled for April 21 in Carrizozo. The charges had stemmed from a Nov. 17 hunt on the Diamond T Ranch west of Roswell in which Thompson shot a deer. It is illegal to hunt on private property in New Mexico without permission from the landowner....
Ruling draws ire of farmers A new interpretation of an old federal law will result in regulating farmers when they transport harvested grain from the field to the grain elevator. The Kansas Corporation Commission interpretation of the federal law has determined that a farmer hauling grain from the harvest field to the grain elevator is the first leg of interstate commerce and can be regulated like professional truckers, said Brad Harrelson, state policy director for Kansas Farm Bureau. It is a federal law that has been on the books since the 1930s and it is the recent interpretation that could put farmers under federal regulation, said Kansas Rep. Mitch Holmes. As the interpretation stands, drivers would have to have an annual medical physical. Farmers would have pay a fee for a United States Department of Transportation uniform registry fee for a decal they would have to display on the side of all their vehicles, said state Sen. Ruth Teichman....
Arrest made in cow abuse case Police have arrested a slaughterhouse worker whose alleged abuse of sick and injured cows has contributed to the largest recall of beef in U.S. history. Daniel Ugarte Navarro of Pomona was arrested at his home Saturday afternoon on a $75,000 warrant. He was released from jail about 6:30 a.m. Sunday after posting bail. Navarro, 48, worked as a pen manager at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., one of the largest suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program. In what they called an unprecedented case, prosecutors charged Navarro on Friday with felony animal abuse and misdemeanor counts of illegally moving crippled cows. He could face more than eight years in prison, if convicted as charged. A second employee, Luis Sanchez, was also charged, but has not yet been arrested. A warrant has been issued for his arrest....
USDA will step up inspections at slaughterhouses The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that it would step up oversight at 900 slaughterhouses in the USA to check for inhumane handling violations like those that led to the biggest meat recall ever on Sunday. "I don't have reason to believe this is widespread. But the extra checks will give us a better handle on it," said Kenneth Petersen, USDA assistant administrator. Westland/Hallmark Meat of Chino, Calif., recalled 143 million pounds of beef manufactured over two years after a USDA investigation sparked by abuses uncovered by the Humane Society of the United States. The USDA found that Westland did not always alert federal inspectors when cows that passed an initial USDA inspection became unable to walk before they were slaughtered. Such "downer" cattle are supposed to be excluded from the U.S. food supply because they're at higher risk of carrying mad cow disease, which affects the brain, and E. coli and salmonella bacteria. USDA inspectors check cattle headed to slaughter to see if they can walk. If cattle pass and then go down, they must be checked again. They can be slaughtered if they've suffered an injury, such as a broken leg, and don't pose a food-safety risk. Of 11,000 cattle slaughtered monthly at the plant, the USDA banned 30 to 40 downers, an average number, Petersen says....
Humane deaths for horses 'too costly' Despite his wide eyes and shimmering chestnut coat, horse 8778 had no takers. With a heavy limp in his gait, the crippled sorrel was hardly worth his weight to those at the weekly Willcox Livestock Auction. The gelding likely would be on his way to Mexico for slaughter — a journey that has become common for horses decrepit and old. Since the closure of the three U.S. horse slaughter plants in Illinois and Texas in 2006, for violating state laws, there has been a spike in horses going across the U.S. border to Mexico for slaughter. These cross-border journeys are often grueling, stretching for hundreds of miles with the horses crammed into double-decker trailers. For those horses arriving in Mexico each week, the deaths are potentially far more gruesome than they would have been in the United States. Some horses have been slaughtered in Mexico by repeatedly being stabbed. More than 45,000 horses went to Mexico for slaughter last year, up from about 11,000 the year before, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. But many ranchers use the gruesome deaths to argue for the need to reopen the U.S. slaughterhouses. The closures, they say, have only added to the ranks of unwanted and undervalued horses at a time when gas and hay prices have skyrocketed. "People have no place to go with them," said Wayne Earven, a former state livestock inspector who was recently selling a horse at auction in Willcox. "To be real honest with you, we haven't seen the worst of it yet."....
No room at the pen A dying dog is 40 pounds of family sadness. A dying horse is a physics problem, and 1,000 pounds of emotional debate over what we should do with the iconic Western companion at the end of its useful life. "The bottom line is there are more horses than there are people with properties who can adequately care for them," said Keith Roehr, a veterinarian with the state of Colorado. Overbreeding has saturated the horse market, driving down values, while feed-grain prices have tripled. At the same time, changing ethical standards have shut off a generations-old relief valve for ranchers — slaughtering horses for meat to be consumed in foreign countries. The glut puts more horses in peril every month. More are being abandoned on public lands. Neglected horses crowd rescue shelters. The pool of farms willing to put Old Paint out to pasture is shrinking....
Montana faces shortage of sheep shearers as shearing season nears There is somewhat of a crisis in the sheep industry in Montana. The price ranchers are getting for wool is up, but finding someone to get the wool from the sheep is difficult. According to Jim Moore, Montana State University (MSU) Sheep Institute Exten-sion Agent, the state does not have enough sheep to justify shearing as a full time career. “In some cases people just aren't getting their sheep sheared,” he said. “Crews just can't get to them.” The only way to get all of the sheep sheared is if shearers come from other countries because there just are not enough domestic shearers to take care of all the sheep, he added. There are several reasons for a shearer shortage in the state. There are only about 260,000 sheep, which means there are not enough to do that as a full time profession. Also, shearing is extremely hard work....
History for the taking The collection is free, but there will be a $100,000 price tag with accepting a voluminous donation of historical material detailing the modern origins of Temecula. The great-grandson of Walter Vail, the man who formed the vast ranch where Temecula now stands, in September offered volumes of maps, deeds and documents ---- dating back to the late 1800s ---- to the city. Members of the Temecula Valley Museum determined that the collection being offered by Sandy Wilkinson's family members is one of the most extensive archives of material pertaining to local history ever amassed. Whitney Vail Wilkinson, the son of the late Sandy Wilkinson and the great-grandson of Walter Vail, is the executor of the family estate. Sandy Wilkinson, who died in 2006, was a longtime employee of Vail Ranch and lived his entire life in Temecula. He was in charge of the water rights and issues involved in the building of the Vail Dam ---- then the largest privately built dam in the United States. The dam created Vail Lake, once the key water source for the Temecula Valley and surrounding areas. The original dam and lake are still in operation today, roughly 10 miles east of Temecula along Highway 79 South....
Windmill machinist keeps western icon alive It's hard to imagine the American frontier without a windmill poking out of the horizon, its silver vanes slicing the crosswinds. Though electricity-generating giants have sometimes sprouted in their place, the traditional windmills that once pumped groundwater for thirsty livestock have largely become decorative fixtures. Along with the windmills have gone the windmill men. Derrill Mitchell, owner of Mitchell's Windmill & Supply Inc. in Fort Sumner, says he is among the last of his kind. "It's a dying art," Mitchell says as he takes a moment from machining new parts to wipe his brow. The metallic shavings of discarded gears catch the afternoon sun as they cascade to the floor of his workshop. Mitchell says he is the only windmill man in New Mexico who still machines parts, one of a dwindling number across the country. Windmills haven't changed much over the years, he says: "A part from a 1935 Aermotor still fits a 1962, or a 1989 or a 2008." Mitchell and his crew have been called on to install or repair windmills across the Southwest, through America's breadbasket and beyond....
Oscar Town: Marfa, Texas? A thousand feet above a wind-swept, drought-browned valley, a man steps out of a late-70s Ford Granada on a deserted two-lane. He is confronted by a second man, who raises a pneumatic bolt gun to his forehead and deals a fatal blow. Chip Love -- or "Man in Ford," as Oscar-nominated "No Country For Old Men" would come to credit him -- collapses to his knees on the blacktop, where Texas Ranch Road 2810 cuts through the crest of a hill covered in volcanic rock and tall, thick-trunked yuccas. He gets up. He's shot again. And again. And again. Eight times altogether he rises and falls. Getting it right pretty much takes all day. "It's not as easy as it looks," Love, 50, a local rancher and bank manager, laughs about his role as an early victim of psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. On another day, just a few miles to the west of Love's "death," a crew of oilfield workers bounds down the stairs of a dusty depot, emptying a train pulled by an early 20th century steam locomotive. But this is a scene that will play out in "There Will Be Blood," another film up for multiple Academy Awards. This is no mere coincidence....
Oscar-nominated films 'Blood,' 'Country' bring Hollywood to heart of Texas Joel and Ethan Coen had just pulled into this one-stoplight town to scout shooting No Country for Old Men when a drifter approached their limousine. Unshaven and unsteady, he hobbled toward the car with a sign under his arm. When he reached the directors, he raised the board above his head. "Repent, Hollywood scum," it read. This is not a place easily impressed by money or fame. Still, the high-desert town of 2,100 cowboys, ranch hands and rogue artists has become the unlikely epicenter of Sunday's Academy Awards. No Country and There Will Be Blood were shot here, and the Westerns, which led all movies with eight nominations apiece, including best picture, are expected to dominate the Oscars. Not that many Marfans have seen either film. The closest theater is in Alpine, 26 miles east. The tiny Rangra Theater, however, does have two screens. One is showing No Country, the other Blood. Neither sells out much. "I thought they were OK," retired rancher Bill Owens, 61, says over an enormous dill pickle, a favorite theater concession. "I hope they win (Oscars) because it'll be good for Marfa. A little artsy-fartsy, though. They weren't no Giant, I'll tell you that." He's referring to the 1956 James Dean oil epic that put Marfa on the map and, until this year, was one of the few films shot in these parts. It remains a favorite of locals who still prefer heroes who get the girl,occasionally sing and keep their cussing to a minimum....
Clovis woman sentenced to hang in 1928 “According to records that I have,” he said, “no person sentenced from Curry County has been put to death since the state of New Mexico began executing its condemned felons at the State Prison in 1933. However, prior to then, those sentenced to die were hanged locally by the sheriffs in the counties. Do you have any record of any legal hangings that might have occurred in Clovis or in Curry County prior to 1933? Enclosed is 13 cents postage for your reply.” I wrote and said I didn’t know of any hangings, but told him there where some people in and around Clovis who should have been hung. But in October 1978 I learned about a woman from southwest of Artesia, Nannie Catherine Halsey, who was accused of killing her rancher husband, Fred Halsey. Three people were involved in the killing and all three were found quilty and sentenced to hang on Aug. 1, 1924. They appealed it to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1925 and Nannie Halsey was granted a new trial. The second trial was held in Clovis, beginning Sept. 24, 1928. O.O. Askren was her attorney....
It's All Trew: Chilly among cattle In about 1942, if I remember correctly, at the age of 9, it was mid-winter and cold as heck in Ochiltree County. There was snow on the ground, all the playa lakes were frozen over and school had adjourned for the Christmas holidays. It was also a time before horse trailers, good pickup heaters and paved roads in our part of the area. My father had a lot of cattle on wheat pasture and occasionally a group had to be moved to another field. It seemed to me he always picked the coldest day to drive the herds into the coldest north winds each time we worked. Since the county roads were dirt and usually fenced, we pushed the cattle out into the roads and "the men" rode ahead to close gates and guide while my job was to follow and make sure no livestock dropped out. Time after time I thought I would freeze to death before the drive ended. It was a mystery to me how the men seemed impervious to the same cold that I was suffering from. Then one day I caught them taking a nip from a flat-shaped bottle carried in their chaps pockets. I did not think this was fair and decided to do something about it....
Monday, February 18, 2008
Ballot proposals target oil, gas industry A bevy of environmental groups banded together Thursday to file four separate proposed ballot initiatives that would increase taxes on the oil and gas industry in one way or another. All of the measures would funnel the extra money — estimated by the groups in the range of $200 million to $300 million annually — into clean energy development, wildlife habitat preservation and mitigation efforts to communities hardest hit by booming growth in the industry. Joe Neuhof, West Slope field director for the Colorado Environmental Coalition, said the filing of multiple proposals was intended to give a menu of options for how to raise severance taxes and where to send that money. The initiatives present a variety of complex ways to effectively raise taxes — from eliminating a property-tax credit or an exemption for small wells to simply raising the tax rate. They also specify different proportions for where the extra money should go. Environmental groups have long argued that Colorado's rates for severance tax — money paid when companies remove, or "sever," natural resources from the ground — lag behind those of neighboring states. Gov. Bill Ritter and Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, both have said this year they are working on a proposal to raise the severance tax....
Colorado Town Fears Avalanche of Water More than 1 billion gallons of contaminated water - enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - is trapped in a tunnel in the mountains above the historic town of Leadville and threatening to blow. Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter's above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave. The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals. County officials have been nervously monitoring the rising water pressure inside the mine shafts for about two years. An explosion could inundate Leadville and contaminate the Arkansas River....
Witness surfaces in Boulder land grab A witness has surfaced in the Boulder, Colo., case in which a former judge and his wife used a little-known state law concerning "adverse possession" to gain ownership of a significant portion of their neighbor's valuable building lot in a pricy subdivision. It seems one of the neighbors now reports seeing a woman who looked like Edie Stevens, the judge's wife, "tromping, stomping and kicking the ground, causing vegetation and dirt to rise from the ground in the area where the dirt path … later appeared." That statement comes from neighbor Josephine Touchton, whose affidavit, along with other photographic and sworn evidence, was submitted to the court in Boulder by Don and Susie Kirlin. They had been ordered by a Boulder judge to give nearly one-third of their building lot in the Boulder residential development to a neighbor, former judge Richard McLean, and his wife. McLean and Stevens alleged they used the land belonging to the Kirlins' "adversely" for more than 18 years, during that course of time building a path to cross the land....
Biofuels Meltdown Last week two studies published in Science announced what anyone might have suspected all along. "Biofuels," rather than reducing carbon emissions, are adding to them -- possibly by a factor of nearly 100! The two studies may finally puncture the myth that anything is to be gained from burning crops for fuel. From the very beginning, there was never any indication that turning corn into ethanol was improving our energy independence. As that effort faltered, the myth arose that at least it was reducing carbon emissions. Now it has been shown to do neither. How did we ever get into this? The historical record makes it fairly clear. It was a combination of ill-thought-out ideas from "alternate energy" enthusiasts (most of them trying to find a way around nuclear power), plus politicians who think they can override the laws of nature by passing legislation. Meanwhile, thanks to a 51-cents-per-gallon tax break, 25 percent of the American corn crop is being turned into ethanol. Farmland prices are soaring and food prices are escalating all over the world. The whole fiasco can probably be traced to a single paragraph in Amory Lovins Soft Energy Paths, the 1976 book that inspired President Carter's embrace of "alternate energy" and convinced California Governor Jerry Brown that his state didn't need to build any more power plants....
Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change Reading, writing and . . . global warming? A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught. The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change. "You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change," Simitian said. "This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon." The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian's bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal. Some say the science on global warming isn't clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms....
Huge beef recall issued The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in its history Sunday, calling for the destruction of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef produced by a Chino slaughterhouse that has been accused of inhumane practices. However, the USDA said the vast majority of the meat involved in the recall -- including 37 million pounds that went mostly to schools -- probably has been eaten already. Officials emphasized that danger to consumers was minimal. The recall applies to beef slaughtered at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. since Feb. 1, 2006. The company has produced no meat since Feb. 4 of this year, when operations were suspended....Hell, let's go into the sewers and outhouses and retrieve this stuff...and send it to the USDA.
Colorado Town Fears Avalanche of Water More than 1 billion gallons of contaminated water - enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - is trapped in a tunnel in the mountains above the historic town of Leadville and threatening to blow. Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter's above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave. The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals. County officials have been nervously monitoring the rising water pressure inside the mine shafts for about two years. An explosion could inundate Leadville and contaminate the Arkansas River....
Witness surfaces in Boulder land grab A witness has surfaced in the Boulder, Colo., case in which a former judge and his wife used a little-known state law concerning "adverse possession" to gain ownership of a significant portion of their neighbor's valuable building lot in a pricy subdivision. It seems one of the neighbors now reports seeing a woman who looked like Edie Stevens, the judge's wife, "tromping, stomping and kicking the ground, causing vegetation and dirt to rise from the ground in the area where the dirt path … later appeared." That statement comes from neighbor Josephine Touchton, whose affidavit, along with other photographic and sworn evidence, was submitted to the court in Boulder by Don and Susie Kirlin. They had been ordered by a Boulder judge to give nearly one-third of their building lot in the Boulder residential development to a neighbor, former judge Richard McLean, and his wife. McLean and Stevens alleged they used the land belonging to the Kirlins' "adversely" for more than 18 years, during that course of time building a path to cross the land....
Biofuels Meltdown Last week two studies published in Science announced what anyone might have suspected all along. "Biofuels," rather than reducing carbon emissions, are adding to them -- possibly by a factor of nearly 100! The two studies may finally puncture the myth that anything is to be gained from burning crops for fuel. From the very beginning, there was never any indication that turning corn into ethanol was improving our energy independence. As that effort faltered, the myth arose that at least it was reducing carbon emissions. Now it has been shown to do neither. How did we ever get into this? The historical record makes it fairly clear. It was a combination of ill-thought-out ideas from "alternate energy" enthusiasts (most of them trying to find a way around nuclear power), plus politicians who think they can override the laws of nature by passing legislation. Meanwhile, thanks to a 51-cents-per-gallon tax break, 25 percent of the American corn crop is being turned into ethanol. Farmland prices are soaring and food prices are escalating all over the world. The whole fiasco can probably be traced to a single paragraph in Amory Lovins Soft Energy Paths, the 1976 book that inspired President Carter's embrace of "alternate energy" and convinced California Governor Jerry Brown that his state didn't need to build any more power plants....
Bill would require California's science curriculum to cover climate change Reading, writing and . . . global warming? A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught. The measure, by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would mandate that future science textbooks approved for California public schools include climate change. "You can't have a science curriculum that is relevant and current if it doesn't deal with the science behind climate change," Simitian said. "This is a phenomenon of global importance and our kids ought to understand the science behind that phenomenon." The state Senate approved the bill, SB 908, Jan. 30 by a 26-13 vote. It heads now to the state Assembly. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has taken numerous actions to reduce global warming, but he has yet to weigh in on Simitian's bill. Other Republicans in the Capitol, however, are not happy about the proposal. Some say the science on global warming isn't clear, while others worry the bill would inject environmental propaganda into classrooms....
Huge beef recall issued The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in its history Sunday, calling for the destruction of 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef produced by a Chino slaughterhouse that has been accused of inhumane practices. However, the USDA said the vast majority of the meat involved in the recall -- including 37 million pounds that went mostly to schools -- probably has been eaten already. Officials emphasized that danger to consumers was minimal. The recall applies to beef slaughtered at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. since Feb. 1, 2006. The company has produced no meat since Feb. 4 of this year, when operations were suspended....Hell, let's go into the sewers and outhouses and retrieve this stuff...and send it to the USDA.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
From : Jon Marvel
Subject : [wwpmessenger] Harv Forsgren Called
Date : Tue, Jan 08, 2008 05:01 PM
Friends:
Today Harv Forsgren the new Region 4 Forester called me back and we discussed many things.
Among them was setting up a meeting in person with Harv, and he agreed to do that. I will let everyone know when that is happening and where.
I also asked him to involve himself on bighorn sheep issues in the Region (we went over the whole issue) and to help establish Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout as a MIS on the Sawtooth National Forest where there is no MIS aquatic species on the Forest’s south end (Harv is a fisheries biologist).
I also asked him to issue a memo throughout the region that would permit WWP and other interested groups to place grazing utilization cages on Forests throughout the region in cooperation with the agency. He was amenable to that request but we will discuss it further at our meeting.
All in all it was a good start for us.
Jon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From : Jon Marvel
Subject : [wwpmessenger] Please Excuse My Mistake
Date : Tue, Jan 08, 2008 05:15 PM
To All Recipients of WWP’s Online Messenger:
Through two touches touch of a key a few minutes ago, I mistakenly sent two emails to WWP’s Online Messenger that were intended for a smaller group of WWP staff and board members. They were entitled: “Harv Forsgren Called” and “Don Pickett Is Peeved”.
Please delete and do not not forward those two emails, and please excuse my mistake. I will attempt to hit the right key next time.
Thanks for your understanding !
Jon Marvel
ED WWP
*******************************************
Subject : [wwpmessenger] Harv Forsgren Called
Date : Tue, Jan 08, 2008 05:01 PM
Friends:
Today Harv Forsgren the new Region 4 Forester called me back and we discussed many things.
Among them was setting up a meeting in person with Harv, and he agreed to do that. I will let everyone know when that is happening and where.
I also asked him to involve himself on bighorn sheep issues in the Region (we went over the whole issue) and to help establish Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout as a MIS on the Sawtooth National Forest where there is no MIS aquatic species on the Forest’s south end (Harv is a fisheries biologist).
I also asked him to issue a memo throughout the region that would permit WWP and other interested groups to place grazing utilization cages on Forests throughout the region in cooperation with the agency. He was amenable to that request but we will discuss it further at our meeting.
All in all it was a good start for us.
Jon
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From : Jon Marvel
Subject : [wwpmessenger] Please Excuse My Mistake
Date : Tue, Jan 08, 2008 05:15 PM
To All Recipients of WWP’s Online Messenger:
Through two touches touch of a key a few minutes ago, I mistakenly sent two emails to WWP’s Online Messenger that were intended for a smaller group of WWP staff and board members. They were entitled: “Harv Forsgren Called” and “Don Pickett Is Peeved”.
Please delete and do not not forward those two emails, and please excuse my mistake. I will attempt to hit the right key next time.
Thanks for your understanding !
Jon Marvel
ED WWP
*******************************************
WWP Online Messenger # 131
WWP and HCPC Win Protection of Bighorn Sheep and Closure Of The Last Domestic Sheep Grazing Allotment On The Nez Perce National Forest
Western Watersheds Project and our co-plaintiff, the Hells Canyon Preservation Council have won another important victory protecting Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep from a fatal disease transmitted by domestic sheep.
This federal court win stops grazing by domestic sheep on the last domestic sheep grazing allotment on the Nez perce National Forest located in central Idaho just east of Riggins, Idaho.
Here is today’s (11/15) story from the Lewiston, Idaho Morning Tribune:
Ruling: Domestic Sheep Must Go
Judge agrees domestic sheep pose threat to bighorn cousins, bars ranchers from turning them out on Allison-Berg grazing allotment
By Eric Barker
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A federal judge ruled ranchers can't turn out domestic sheep this fall and winter on a Nez Perce National Forest grazing allotment where bighorn sheep are known to roam.
The ruling hints at what could be the end to domestic sheep grazing on public land in the Snake and Salmon river corridors where ranchers, wildlife managers and environmentalists have clashed for years over the danger domestic sheep pose to their wild cousins.
Judge Lynn B. Winmill at Boise ruled Tuesday ranchers cannot use the Allison-Berg grazing allotment along the Salmon River during the winter of 2007 and 2008. The judge agreed with arguments by environmentalists, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Forest Service that evidence shows bighorn sheep are prone to die-offs when they interact with domestic sheep.
"A cautious approach is particularly appropriate here because the bighorns sighted near the Allison-Berg allotment are a native species. The loss of this herd would create an irreparable injury to the genetic diversity of bighorns," Winmill said in his decision.
Ranchers argued there is no scientific proof domestic sheep are responsible for spreading a pneumonia-like disease to wild sheep, and the area in question is quite large and occupied by only a few bighorns. They also noted no die-offs have occurred in the area.
Winmill said even though science cannot say for sure domestic sheep are responsible for infecting bighorns with the disease, overwhelming evidence shows wild sheep become ill and often die when the two species mix. Because of that evidence, it has long been the policy of many land and wildlife management agencies to keep domestic sheep out of areas used by bighorns. Agencies like the Forest Service have retired or arranged for the buyout of many grazing allotments in places like Hells Canyon where domestic and wild sheep can come in contact with each other.
One holdout of that policy has been the Allison-Berg allotment and other nearby federal grazing allotments on the Payette National Forest. The Hailey-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project, which opposes public land grazing, filed a lawsuit earlier this year to stop the planned turnout of sheep on Allison-Berg and the five other allotments on the Payette Forest.
Before the case was resolved, the Forest Service opted to cancel grazing on the Payette allotments. But it initially approved fall and winter grazing on Allison-Berg, saying there is little evidence bighorn sheep use the area.
Western Watersheds moved forward with the lawsuit and the Nez Perce Tribe, which joined the suit as a friend of the court, submitted evidence showing bighorns do use Allison-Berg. That prompted the Forest Service to revisit the decision and eventually cancel the planned grazing.
But the ranchers who use the allotment had previously joined the suit and asked Winmill to overturn the agency's decisions. Winmill refused.
Mick Carlson of Riggins and his family have used the allotment, which is near the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area on the north side of the Salmon River east of Riggins, for eight decades. He will now have to seek alternative pasture for his sheep and said in court papers not being able to use the allotment would cost him $75,600.
"I have no place to go after the middle of December," he told the Tribune on Wednesday. "I'm going to have to feed hay or truck them out of here and put them on pasture somewhere 150 or 200 miles away."
Although Winmill's decision only applies to the fall and winter grazing season, the tone of his decision should be a strong signal to the Forest Service that all grazing in the area should end, said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds.
"As the judge points out, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence, that is agreed to by the scientists, is that when you bring domestic sheep in contact with the bighorns, the bighorns die," he said. "We will try and encourage the Forest Service to keep these allotments closed because the risk is too high."
Carlson said he is worried that might be the direction the agency is heading but he plans to fight to keep spring and summer grazing open on the allotment.
"They have the upper hand," he said. "I think the basic thing is they don't want any grazing. They didn't give a damn whether it's sheep or not. They just want you out of there."
Marvel also said his group would use the ruling to try to convince other public land managers to cancel grazing allotments in areas where bighorns and domestic sheep can mix.
---
Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 743-9600, ext. 273.
Western Watersheds Project Is A Regional Conservation Organization Working To Protect And Restore Western Watersheds And Wildlife
WWP and HCPC Win Protection of Bighorn Sheep and Closure Of The Last Domestic Sheep Grazing Allotment On The Nez Perce National Forest
Western Watersheds Project and our co-plaintiff, the Hells Canyon Preservation Council have won another important victory protecting Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep from a fatal disease transmitted by domestic sheep.
This federal court win stops grazing by domestic sheep on the last domestic sheep grazing allotment on the Nez perce National Forest located in central Idaho just east of Riggins, Idaho.
Here is today’s (11/15) story from the Lewiston, Idaho Morning Tribune:
Ruling: Domestic Sheep Must Go
Judge agrees domestic sheep pose threat to bighorn cousins, bars ranchers from turning them out on Allison-Berg grazing allotment
By Eric Barker
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A federal judge ruled ranchers can't turn out domestic sheep this fall and winter on a Nez Perce National Forest grazing allotment where bighorn sheep are known to roam.
The ruling hints at what could be the end to domestic sheep grazing on public land in the Snake and Salmon river corridors where ranchers, wildlife managers and environmentalists have clashed for years over the danger domestic sheep pose to their wild cousins.
Judge Lynn B. Winmill at Boise ruled Tuesday ranchers cannot use the Allison-Berg grazing allotment along the Salmon River during the winter of 2007 and 2008. The judge agreed with arguments by environmentalists, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Forest Service that evidence shows bighorn sheep are prone to die-offs when they interact with domestic sheep.
"A cautious approach is particularly appropriate here because the bighorns sighted near the Allison-Berg allotment are a native species. The loss of this herd would create an irreparable injury to the genetic diversity of bighorns," Winmill said in his decision.
Ranchers argued there is no scientific proof domestic sheep are responsible for spreading a pneumonia-like disease to wild sheep, and the area in question is quite large and occupied by only a few bighorns. They also noted no die-offs have occurred in the area.
Winmill said even though science cannot say for sure domestic sheep are responsible for infecting bighorns with the disease, overwhelming evidence shows wild sheep become ill and often die when the two species mix. Because of that evidence, it has long been the policy of many land and wildlife management agencies to keep domestic sheep out of areas used by bighorns. Agencies like the Forest Service have retired or arranged for the buyout of many grazing allotments in places like Hells Canyon where domestic and wild sheep can come in contact with each other.
One holdout of that policy has been the Allison-Berg allotment and other nearby federal grazing allotments on the Payette National Forest. The Hailey-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project, which opposes public land grazing, filed a lawsuit earlier this year to stop the planned turnout of sheep on Allison-Berg and the five other allotments on the Payette Forest.
Before the case was resolved, the Forest Service opted to cancel grazing on the Payette allotments. But it initially approved fall and winter grazing on Allison-Berg, saying there is little evidence bighorn sheep use the area.
Western Watersheds moved forward with the lawsuit and the Nez Perce Tribe, which joined the suit as a friend of the court, submitted evidence showing bighorns do use Allison-Berg. That prompted the Forest Service to revisit the decision and eventually cancel the planned grazing.
But the ranchers who use the allotment had previously joined the suit and asked Winmill to overturn the agency's decisions. Winmill refused.
Mick Carlson of Riggins and his family have used the allotment, which is near the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area on the north side of the Salmon River east of Riggins, for eight decades. He will now have to seek alternative pasture for his sheep and said in court papers not being able to use the allotment would cost him $75,600.
"I have no place to go after the middle of December," he told the Tribune on Wednesday. "I'm going to have to feed hay or truck them out of here and put them on pasture somewhere 150 or 200 miles away."
Although Winmill's decision only applies to the fall and winter grazing season, the tone of his decision should be a strong signal to the Forest Service that all grazing in the area should end, said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds.
"As the judge points out, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence, that is agreed to by the scientists, is that when you bring domestic sheep in contact with the bighorns, the bighorns die," he said. "We will try and encourage the Forest Service to keep these allotments closed because the risk is too high."
Carlson said he is worried that might be the direction the agency is heading but he plans to fight to keep spring and summer grazing open on the allotment.
"They have the upper hand," he said. "I think the basic thing is they don't want any grazing. They didn't give a damn whether it's sheep or not. They just want you out of there."
Marvel also said his group would use the ruling to try to convince other public land managers to cancel grazing allotments in areas where bighorns and domestic sheep can mix.
---
Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 743-9600, ext. 273.
Western Watersheds Project Is A Regional Conservation Organization Working To Protect And Restore Western Watersheds And Wildlife
Where did I put those keys?
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
By Julie Carter
I laid down my pickup keys this week and they are still right there. Wherever that is.
That scenario seems to run in stages with me, I’ll go days where I can’t find anything that I’m sure I put somewhere. I also walk off and leave quite a few things that I need when I get where I’m going.
Living between two working offices, at home and at the newspaper office, is a recipe for a mental challenge at best. Add that to a job that is drawn to chaos, long, odd hours, piles and piles of paper and an assortment of technical pieces of equipment to keep up with, and my list-making personality goes into overdrive.
If I could just find that list, or remember which list it is that, I’m working on.
The search for whatever it is I can’t find often reveals more than the item I’m looking for.
I tore the pickup apart and found everything except the keys: an old (very old) French fry, an earring I thought was long gone, 14 pens, a grocery list, a sock, three gloves (none that match), a short piece of rope, a broken umbrella, two rain ponchos, two MREs (military Ready to Eat meals), a dead flashlight, a roll of duct tape, pliers and enough sunflower seeds to feed a family of squirrels for the winter, but no keys.
While I’m sure the contents of the pickup search and my manner of chaotic stress-induced forgetfulness could be psychoanalyzed, ad nauseum, I prefer to write it off as living in a fast spinning world that doesn’t allow for immaculate cleaning or organized anything.
As I vaguely recall, I am truly happier when things are a little tidier and in their place where I can find them. It has been quite some time since that experience.
Every ranch pickup I know has a personality built around the contents one would find in doing an inventory.
Gloves, sometimes one of each, right and left, are stuffed under the seat or on the dashboard. Other treasures would be a pair of broken sunglasses, a piece of inner tube, a flattened roll of toilet paper too dirty to use, an empty binocular case and a piece of paper with a phone number on it, but no name.
There is always mail and usually an old envelope from someone you had already chewed out because you “never got it.” It’s not unusual for the papers to be important things like the state land lease or the overdraft notice from the bank.
Usually you can find a gun or two and lots of ammunition lying around, but rarely the right ammo for those same guns. There are windmill leathers, preg testing gloves, enough loose change to put a kid through college and a bottle of 10-40 oil.
If a personality profile can be built around the contents of a ranch pickup, or mine, then it probably has a name I can’t spell. I prefer to think that, basically, we are prepared for almost anything.
Stop and smell the roses you say? That was exactly what I was doing when I laid down my keys.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
By Julie Carter
I laid down my pickup keys this week and they are still right there. Wherever that is.
That scenario seems to run in stages with me, I’ll go days where I can’t find anything that I’m sure I put somewhere. I also walk off and leave quite a few things that I need when I get where I’m going.
Living between two working offices, at home and at the newspaper office, is a recipe for a mental challenge at best. Add that to a job that is drawn to chaos, long, odd hours, piles and piles of paper and an assortment of technical pieces of equipment to keep up with, and my list-making personality goes into overdrive.
If I could just find that list, or remember which list it is that, I’m working on.
The search for whatever it is I can’t find often reveals more than the item I’m looking for.
I tore the pickup apart and found everything except the keys: an old (very old) French fry, an earring I thought was long gone, 14 pens, a grocery list, a sock, three gloves (none that match), a short piece of rope, a broken umbrella, two rain ponchos, two MREs (military Ready to Eat meals), a dead flashlight, a roll of duct tape, pliers and enough sunflower seeds to feed a family of squirrels for the winter, but no keys.
While I’m sure the contents of the pickup search and my manner of chaotic stress-induced forgetfulness could be psychoanalyzed, ad nauseum, I prefer to write it off as living in a fast spinning world that doesn’t allow for immaculate cleaning or organized anything.
As I vaguely recall, I am truly happier when things are a little tidier and in their place where I can find them. It has been quite some time since that experience.
Every ranch pickup I know has a personality built around the contents one would find in doing an inventory.
Gloves, sometimes one of each, right and left, are stuffed under the seat or on the dashboard. Other treasures would be a pair of broken sunglasses, a piece of inner tube, a flattened roll of toilet paper too dirty to use, an empty binocular case and a piece of paper with a phone number on it, but no name.
There is always mail and usually an old envelope from someone you had already chewed out because you “never got it.” It’s not unusual for the papers to be important things like the state land lease or the overdraft notice from the bank.
Usually you can find a gun or two and lots of ammunition lying around, but rarely the right ammo for those same guns. There are windmill leathers, preg testing gloves, enough loose change to put a kid through college and a bottle of 10-40 oil.
If a personality profile can be built around the contents of a ranch pickup, or mine, then it probably has a name I can’t spell. I prefer to think that, basically, we are prepared for almost anything.
Stop and smell the roses you say? That was exactly what I was doing when I laid down my keys.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
FLE
DHS Warns Of Pregnant Prosthetic Belly Bombings The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning against a new type of terrorism carried out by women who appear to be pregnant. It may be the newest wave in suicide attacks: a prosthetic pregnant belly serving as a compartment for explosives. The belly opens up from the front and the explosives are placed inside. "It's not the first time we've had women involved before in one way or another," says security expert Robert Strang. Strang tells CBS 2 he isn't surprised at the new lows terrorists will stoop to -- lows that include those with Down syndrome even carrying out suicide attacks in Baghdad. "They're recruiting anybody they can get to do those things that's not going to inform law enforcement, that's not going to be a threat to these organizations that can get the job done," says Strang. With terrorist training camps up and running in Pakistan, there are now fears Americans might one day be involved. Authorities are increasingly worried that Al Qaeda is actively recruiting people who look like Americans and sound like Americans to carry out the next attack on America....
Migrant-smuggling ring dealt serious blow Authorities say they have crippled a human-smuggling ring that shuttled 24 to 60 illegal immigrants daily to the Phoenix area from the border town Naco in southeastern Arizona. Two Cuban nationals are suspected of running the organization, which law-enforcement officials described as one of the largest and most sophisticated operations in Arizona. They said the ring moved four to six loads of immigrants per day, averaging six to 10 people per load, and grossed as much as $130,000 a week. The two, Jose Luis Suarez-Lemus, 41, and Roel Ayala Fernandez, 35, both Valley residents, are believed to have taken over the syndicate about a year ago, but authorities say the operation has been in existence for at least a decade and may have smuggled tens of thousands of immigrants into the country. Both are in custody. In all, 48 people have been identified in a criminal indictment relating to the seven-month investigation into the organization. Authorities executed search warrants in Phoenix, Peoria and Bisbee. Ten people have been arrested, and others are still at large. A total of 75 suspects have been identified. "Operation River Walkers" began as a money-laundering case of the state Financial Crimes Task Force, which has spent several years investigating smuggling organizations by tracking Western Union money shipments sent to Arizona drophouses for the payment of coyote fees. Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano said detectives got an intimate look into the syndicate's inner workings, from the $1,000 paid to the border organizer arranging the loads to the $50 for the drophouse cook. Smugglers often charged up to $2,500 per person....
Border locals complain DHS uncompromising Border residents complained to a House panel Thursday that the Homeland Security Department has been unwilling to listen to them as it builds a security fence along the U.S-Mexico border. The complaints stem from the federal government's effort to build 700 miles of fence along the southern border, required by a 2006 law signed by President Bush. The Homeland Security Department wants to finish about 370 miles by the end of the year. But local officials said the department has ignored them and their concerns in its rush to meet that goal. For example, some landowners want the department to leave in place barbed wire fencing that costs $8,000 to $10,000 a mile. The fencing is being ripped out as vehicle barriers are erected along the border, said Nan Stockholm Walden, an Arizona farmer and rancher. "There's been a breakdown in trust," she said. "There seems to be no willingness to compromise or listen at all and that's where people become suspicious and tell DHS they won't let them on their land." The Homeland Security Department has filed dozens of condemnation lawsuits against landowners in Texas, Arizona and California to get access to their property. Recently, Homeland Security agreed to a local plan to improve levees on the Rio Grande near Hidalgo County in response to opposition to plans that would put homes behind the fence. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster asked the panel to "use your muscle to bring them to the table and work with us." "We were told that the (Customs and Border Protection) had held 18 town hall meetings that, on investigation, turned out to be meals in restaurants and phone calls," said Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition of elected officials and business owners....
Dangerous Delay in Background-Checking Legal Immigrants It seems that immigration, legal and illegal, is too numerically overwhelming for the federal government to handle properly. This is an egregious problem, one highlighted earlier this month when President George W. Bush's Administration announced that it will grant permanent residency status to tens of thousands of legal immigrants without first completing their required background checks against the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigative files because the backlog of legal immigration cases is too large and growing rapidly. The change in status will affect an unknown number of applicants whose cases otherwise are complete but whose FBI checks have been pending for more than six months. The backlog has left many legal immigrants in limbo. I applaud these immigrants for following the rules and applying to live here legally. They are not the problem; the federal government is. Part of the problem is that the system of background checks is inefficient. The FBI stores more than 86 million investigative files which electronically complete the background checks for about 90% of legal immigrants within three months. The remaining 10% can take years to finish through paper-based searches for any mention of an applicant's name in records stored in 265 locations across the country. Congress has approved more money to speed the FBI name checks. Unfortunately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency handling the background checks for permanent residency status, plans to use the increased funding to hire more FBI contractors. What USCIS should do is mount an intensive campaign with the FBI to make all FBI files electronic, so that it will no longer require so much time and manpower to dig through paper files across the country. But such a common-sense idea rarely occurs to bureaucrats....
Real ID Act a real intrusion on rights, privacy If, as proposed in the law, a person must have a Real ID Act-compliant card in order to access a federal building, access any regulated or interstate mode of transportation, or obtain any federal benefit, then we have surrendered to the federal government (that is, federal bureaucrats) the power to deny citizens all manner of activities guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Consider: A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment. A person seeking to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment could henceforth be denied that ability if they do not possess a precious Real ID card, because the federal bureaucracy known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probably will decree that such a form of identification is necessary to meet federal requirements for purchasing a firearm. Very possibly the Real ID card will be required in order to vote in any election for federal office. A veteran may be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she lacks the requisite Real ID card, perhaps because they did not have the money required to purchase it or because they could not locate the background forms the Department of Homeland Security required to obtain one. A business traveler, unable to afford to travel by private jet, is denied the ability to make a living because their job requires air travel and they do not have a Real ID card — even though they demonstrably pose no danger whatsoever to their fellow travelers....
Baby held in locked room at airport dies A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy's family said. The Honolulu medical examiner's office yesterday identified the infant as Michael Futi of Tafuna, American Samoa's largest village, which is located on the east coast of Tutuila Island. Autopsy findings have been deferred. According to police, the child died at 5:50 a.m. It is unknown why immigration officials detained the mother, the nurse and the child....
Database Will Target Illegal Gun Traffic Several East Coast cities are launching a new tactic against urban gun violence by creating a database to pool information on gun-related crimes and firearms trafficking. The program announced Wednesday will combine data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with material collected by local agencies, including ballistics tests and information gathered in police interrogations. The database, expected to be in operation later this year, will make it more difficult for illegal gun dealers to do business throughout the Interstate 95 corridor, said a group that included 11 mayors and various law enforcement officials from cities including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and Richmond, Va. "Violent crime, particularly gun crime, is not just a local problem," Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said. "It's a national problem." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who co-founded the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition along with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said he thinks the federal government hasn't done enough to curb the use of illegal guns....
Error Gave F.B.I. Unauthorized Access to E-Mail A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode. F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said. Bureau officials noticed a “surge” in the e-mail activity they were monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually authorized. The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect....
FBI warns of revenge attacks by Hezbollah The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin today to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world. "While retaliation in the U.S. homeland is unlikely, Hezbollah has demonstrated a capability to respond outside the Middle East to similar events in the past," according to the "intelligence bulletin" that was sent to about 18,000 state and local law enforcement officials late this afternoon. FBI officials also said they were ramping up their own domestic intelligence-gathering efforts to identify and neutralize any potential Hezbollah threats in the United States in the aftermath of Tuesday's car-bomb assassination of Imad Mugniyah in Syria. On Wednesday, the FBI quietly sent a confidential internal bulletin to its 101 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country warning of the possible domestic consequences of Mugniyah's killing....
TSA: Taking, Splurging, and Appropriating When the infant agency first started hiring employees, top brass set up their recruiting offices in lavish hotels with golf courses, pools, and spas, such as the Wyndham Peaks Resort in Telluride, Colorado. Then, at a cost of 435 million taxbucks, they created 150 "temporary assessment centers" across the country to vet their new hires. The final cost to the poor dumb slob sucker taxpayer was $39,727 per hireling. Following its second year of existence, the TSA threw itself a massive "we love ourselves" half-million-dollar awards ceremony/banquet at the Grand Hyatt in D.C. Senior executives awarded themselves bonuses averaging $16,000 apiece and passed out $81,000 worth of plaques to pet employees. One received a "lifetime achievement award" for two whole years of service. Meanwhile, many of those $39,727 hirelings who graduated from one of those 435 million dollars' worth of "temporary assessment centers" have gone on to join their senior executives in their criminal careers. Jewelry valued at $8,500 disappeared from one woman's checked luggage. A man's $1,300 flat-screen video monitor was boosted from its carrying case. Another passenger caught a checkpoint screener sneaking bucks from his billfold. Custom-made jewelry checked by rapper Lil' Kim disappeared. Digital cameras, portable DVD players, iPods, and silver-plated cufflinks go missing. According to ABC News, 400 of the first 2,000 screeners hired at New York's three major airports already had criminal records. So that's what taxpayers got for their $39,727 hirelings. By November 2004, the TSA had already paid out $1.5 million in damages to 15,000 passengers who filed theft claims against screeners....
DHS Warns Of Pregnant Prosthetic Belly Bombings The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning against a new type of terrorism carried out by women who appear to be pregnant. It may be the newest wave in suicide attacks: a prosthetic pregnant belly serving as a compartment for explosives. The belly opens up from the front and the explosives are placed inside. "It's not the first time we've had women involved before in one way or another," says security expert Robert Strang. Strang tells CBS 2 he isn't surprised at the new lows terrorists will stoop to -- lows that include those with Down syndrome even carrying out suicide attacks in Baghdad. "They're recruiting anybody they can get to do those things that's not going to inform law enforcement, that's not going to be a threat to these organizations that can get the job done," says Strang. With terrorist training camps up and running in Pakistan, there are now fears Americans might one day be involved. Authorities are increasingly worried that Al Qaeda is actively recruiting people who look like Americans and sound like Americans to carry out the next attack on America....
Migrant-smuggling ring dealt serious blow Authorities say they have crippled a human-smuggling ring that shuttled 24 to 60 illegal immigrants daily to the Phoenix area from the border town Naco in southeastern Arizona. Two Cuban nationals are suspected of running the organization, which law-enforcement officials described as one of the largest and most sophisticated operations in Arizona. They said the ring moved four to six loads of immigrants per day, averaging six to 10 people per load, and grossed as much as $130,000 a week. The two, Jose Luis Suarez-Lemus, 41, and Roel Ayala Fernandez, 35, both Valley residents, are believed to have taken over the syndicate about a year ago, but authorities say the operation has been in existence for at least a decade and may have smuggled tens of thousands of immigrants into the country. Both are in custody. In all, 48 people have been identified in a criminal indictment relating to the seven-month investigation into the organization. Authorities executed search warrants in Phoenix, Peoria and Bisbee. Ten people have been arrested, and others are still at large. A total of 75 suspects have been identified. "Operation River Walkers" began as a money-laundering case of the state Financial Crimes Task Force, which has spent several years investigating smuggling organizations by tracking Western Union money shipments sent to Arizona drophouses for the payment of coyote fees. Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano said detectives got an intimate look into the syndicate's inner workings, from the $1,000 paid to the border organizer arranging the loads to the $50 for the drophouse cook. Smugglers often charged up to $2,500 per person....
Border locals complain DHS uncompromising Border residents complained to a House panel Thursday that the Homeland Security Department has been unwilling to listen to them as it builds a security fence along the U.S-Mexico border. The complaints stem from the federal government's effort to build 700 miles of fence along the southern border, required by a 2006 law signed by President Bush. The Homeland Security Department wants to finish about 370 miles by the end of the year. But local officials said the department has ignored them and their concerns in its rush to meet that goal. For example, some landowners want the department to leave in place barbed wire fencing that costs $8,000 to $10,000 a mile. The fencing is being ripped out as vehicle barriers are erected along the border, said Nan Stockholm Walden, an Arizona farmer and rancher. "There's been a breakdown in trust," she said. "There seems to be no willingness to compromise or listen at all and that's where people become suspicious and tell DHS they won't let them on their land." The Homeland Security Department has filed dozens of condemnation lawsuits against landowners in Texas, Arizona and California to get access to their property. Recently, Homeland Security agreed to a local plan to improve levees on the Rio Grande near Hidalgo County in response to opposition to plans that would put homes behind the fence. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster asked the panel to "use your muscle to bring them to the table and work with us." "We were told that the (Customs and Border Protection) had held 18 town hall meetings that, on investigation, turned out to be meals in restaurants and phone calls," said Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition of elected officials and business owners....
Dangerous Delay in Background-Checking Legal Immigrants It seems that immigration, legal and illegal, is too numerically overwhelming for the federal government to handle properly. This is an egregious problem, one highlighted earlier this month when President George W. Bush's Administration announced that it will grant permanent residency status to tens of thousands of legal immigrants without first completing their required background checks against the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigative files because the backlog of legal immigration cases is too large and growing rapidly. The change in status will affect an unknown number of applicants whose cases otherwise are complete but whose FBI checks have been pending for more than six months. The backlog has left many legal immigrants in limbo. I applaud these immigrants for following the rules and applying to live here legally. They are not the problem; the federal government is. Part of the problem is that the system of background checks is inefficient. The FBI stores more than 86 million investigative files which electronically complete the background checks for about 90% of legal immigrants within three months. The remaining 10% can take years to finish through paper-based searches for any mention of an applicant's name in records stored in 265 locations across the country. Congress has approved more money to speed the FBI name checks. Unfortunately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency handling the background checks for permanent residency status, plans to use the increased funding to hire more FBI contractors. What USCIS should do is mount an intensive campaign with the FBI to make all FBI files electronic, so that it will no longer require so much time and manpower to dig through paper files across the country. But such a common-sense idea rarely occurs to bureaucrats....
Real ID Act a real intrusion on rights, privacy If, as proposed in the law, a person must have a Real ID Act-compliant card in order to access a federal building, access any regulated or interstate mode of transportation, or obtain any federal benefit, then we have surrendered to the federal government (that is, federal bureaucrats) the power to deny citizens all manner of activities guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Consider: A person not possessing a Real ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment. A person seeking to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment could henceforth be denied that ability if they do not possess a precious Real ID card, because the federal bureaucracy known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives probably will decree that such a form of identification is necessary to meet federal requirements for purchasing a firearm. Very possibly the Real ID card will be required in order to vote in any election for federal office. A veteran may be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she lacks the requisite Real ID card, perhaps because they did not have the money required to purchase it or because they could not locate the background forms the Department of Homeland Security required to obtain one. A business traveler, unable to afford to travel by private jet, is denied the ability to make a living because their job requires air travel and they do not have a Real ID card — even though they demonstrably pose no danger whatsoever to their fellow travelers....
Baby held in locked room at airport dies A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy's family said. The Honolulu medical examiner's office yesterday identified the infant as Michael Futi of Tafuna, American Samoa's largest village, which is located on the east coast of Tutuila Island. Autopsy findings have been deferred. According to police, the child died at 5:50 a.m. It is unknown why immigration officials detained the mother, the nurse and the child....
Database Will Target Illegal Gun Traffic Several East Coast cities are launching a new tactic against urban gun violence by creating a database to pool information on gun-related crimes and firearms trafficking. The program announced Wednesday will combine data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with material collected by local agencies, including ballistics tests and information gathered in police interrogations. The database, expected to be in operation later this year, will make it more difficult for illegal gun dealers to do business throughout the Interstate 95 corridor, said a group that included 11 mayors and various law enforcement officials from cities including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Newark, N.J., and Richmond, Va. "Violent crime, particularly gun crime, is not just a local problem," Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said. "It's a national problem." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who co-founded the Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition along with Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said he thinks the federal government hasn't done enough to curb the use of illegal guns....
Error Gave F.B.I. Unauthorized Access to E-Mail A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode. F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said. Bureau officials noticed a “surge” in the e-mail activity they were monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually authorized. The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect....
FBI warns of revenge attacks by Hezbollah The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent a bulletin today to state and local law enforcement authorities advising them to watch for potential retaliatory strikes by Hezbollah, one day after the Lebanese militia group vowed to avenge the death of a top commander by attacking Israeli and Jewish targets around the world. "While retaliation in the U.S. homeland is unlikely, Hezbollah has demonstrated a capability to respond outside the Middle East to similar events in the past," according to the "intelligence bulletin" that was sent to about 18,000 state and local law enforcement officials late this afternoon. FBI officials also said they were ramping up their own domestic intelligence-gathering efforts to identify and neutralize any potential Hezbollah threats in the United States in the aftermath of Tuesday's car-bomb assassination of Imad Mugniyah in Syria. On Wednesday, the FBI quietly sent a confidential internal bulletin to its 101 Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country warning of the possible domestic consequences of Mugniyah's killing....
TSA: Taking, Splurging, and Appropriating When the infant agency first started hiring employees, top brass set up their recruiting offices in lavish hotels with golf courses, pools, and spas, such as the Wyndham Peaks Resort in Telluride, Colorado. Then, at a cost of 435 million taxbucks, they created 150 "temporary assessment centers" across the country to vet their new hires. The final cost to the poor dumb slob sucker taxpayer was $39,727 per hireling. Following its second year of existence, the TSA threw itself a massive "we love ourselves" half-million-dollar awards ceremony/banquet at the Grand Hyatt in D.C. Senior executives awarded themselves bonuses averaging $16,000 apiece and passed out $81,000 worth of plaques to pet employees. One received a "lifetime achievement award" for two whole years of service. Meanwhile, many of those $39,727 hirelings who graduated from one of those 435 million dollars' worth of "temporary assessment centers" have gone on to join their senior executives in their criminal careers. Jewelry valued at $8,500 disappeared from one woman's checked luggage. A man's $1,300 flat-screen video monitor was boosted from its carrying case. Another passenger caught a checkpoint screener sneaking bucks from his billfold. Custom-made jewelry checked by rapper Lil' Kim disappeared. Digital cameras, portable DVD players, iPods, and silver-plated cufflinks go missing. According to ABC News, 400 of the first 2,000 screeners hired at New York's three major airports already had criminal records. So that's what taxpayers got for their $39,727 hirelings. By November 2004, the TSA had already paid out $1.5 million in damages to 15,000 passengers who filed theft claims against screeners....
Friday, February 15, 2008
Bingaman Presses for Day of Recognition for Ranchers U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman is once again cosponsoring a resolution to recognize the “American Cowboy.” The Senate resolution acknowledges the role of ranchers in the development of the West. The resolution states that ranchers embody our nation’s strong work ethic, are good stewards of the environment, and play a major role in our nation’s economy. This year American Cowboy day is July 26, 2008. Approximately 800,000 ranchers are in business across the country. New Mexico ranchers generated $964 million in sales in 2005, the most recent year for which numbers are available. In terms of agriculture production, only the dairies are a larger industry in New Mexico than ranching. “Ranching in New Mexico is not just a tradition; it’s a way of life. This bill would recognize the hard working men and women of our state who continue to keep ranching alive,” Bingaman said. The resolution encourages communities across the country to observe July 26, 2008 as the National Day of the American Cowboy, and mark the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
Senators support forest restoration New Mexico's two senators joined forced to introduce legislation aimed at large-scale national forest restoration projects with an eye toward reducing wildfires, restoring ecosystems and creating jobs. U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, submitted the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2008 Tuesday. Bingaman, a Democrat, and Domenici, a Republican, said the legislation would authorize $40 million annually for landscape-scale forest restoration projects that cover 50,000 acres or more. Competitive grants would be awarded to restoration projects that are developed in collaboration with local communities. Eligible projects must be in need of ecosystem restoration, utilize the best-available science, encourage the use of restoration byproducts such as woody biomass and be located primarily on National Forest System land. Conceptually, the senators said the bill is similar to the Community Forest Restoration Act, legislation Bingaman wrote and Domenici supported. As a result of the measure, which was enacted in 2007, millions of dollars was invested in small-scale forest restoration projects in New Mexico. But this legislation, developed by the New Mexico lawmakers with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), would allow the state to compete for bigger grants and treat significantly larger pieces of land. The Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2008 was referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. A hearing on the bill will be scheduled for spring....
War Of The Roses Islamofascists demonize Valentine's Day in Arab countries, but here in the West, the holiday draws its puritanical zealots from the environmental left. They've made Valentine's Day a boogeyman. Alone among cash crops, it seems, roses pollute the environment, exploit workers and cause global warming. Quite a lot of blame for one of nature's finer creations, but not if the idea is to turn consumers against the flower trade, much of which is based in Colombia and is sustained with Valentine's Day sales. It's become an annual event. This year, it's "Blood Roses: Valentine's Day in Bogota," as the Huffington Post screeched, smearing Colombia's flower trade as a twin industry to the illegal blood diamond trade in West Africa. Other media reports were almost as bad and as irresponsible. In reality, lawfully produced flowers provide a livelihood to 99,000 poor Colombians, many of whom were driven from their homes by war and the global drug trade — which trashes the environment, too. When Americans buy roses at the market, they help sustain these war refugees by providing jobs to let them lead dignified lives. Targeting Colombia's rose trade is nothing more than attacking poor people out of environmental self-righteousness....
CAO would ‘welcome’ investigation into carbon offsets The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the House said Tuesday he would “welcome” an examination into the carbon offset marketplace, which has been a tool for the “Green the Capitol” initiative he oversees. CAO Daniel Beard was reacting to a letter sent by two top House Republicans to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week, seeking a closer look at the program. As part of the one-year-old “Green the Capitol” project, which aims at reducing the level of pollution created by members of Congress, the House purchased $89,000 in carbon offsets from the Chicago Climate Exchange, an offset brokerage company. The company then paid farms in the Midwest to take steps to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the leading causes of global warming and is released both naturally, such as through the breaking-apart of soil, and by man-made design, such as through coal-burning power plants. Carbon offsets were created to counterbalance the release of carbon into the air through practices such as planting trees, which feed off of carbon and produce oxygen, or employing companies to use non-carbon-producing fuels as energy. Last week Republican Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) asked the GAO to look into “questionable purchases of carbon offsets” after recent media criticism of the venture revealed that while several farmers who had received money from the House purchase were actively sequestering carbon, they might not actually be using the money to further their carbon reduction efforts....
Will Global Warming Save Lives? A report commissioned by Britain's Health Department says that one blistering hot summer between now and 2017 could kill more than 6,000 Britons. The panel of scientific experts that compiled the study believes the chance of that is 25%. Naturally, the global-warming-will-kill-us-all crowd latched onto that speculation, as did headline writers. "U.K. May Suffer Heat Wave That Kills 3,000," topped a Bloomberg story, while Reuters opted for "Climate Change May Kill Thousands In U.K. By 2017." The panel also said global warming will bring warmer winters, which will cut down on cold-related deaths in Britain. So should we fear human-created climate change or embrace it? Surprisingly, the BBC stood out as one media agent that took enough care to balance its coverage. Under the Web site headline "Global Warming 'May Cut Deaths,' " it reported 20,000 deaths are linked to the cold each year in the U.K. and that those deaths fell 3% a year from 1971 through 2003, a period in which summers warmed but heat-related deaths did not change. In the U.S., a warmer climate could save tens of thousands. Thomas Gale Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has studied and written extensively about global warming, believes as many as 40,000 American lives would be spared each year....
Sheep versus sheep It's another example of the New and Old West coming into conflict. This time it's bighorn sheep versus domestic sheep or, more specifically, wildlife advocates versus the sheep herding industry. During a telephone conference call yesterday, Feb. 14, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission adopted an interim strategy for separating bighorn sheep from domestic sheep. The policy establishes buffer zones between occupied bighorn sheep range and sheep allotments on federal land statewide. Where the two overlap, however, bighorn sheep will be moved or killed. The Nez Perce Tribe, as well as sportsmen's groups, environmentalists and ranchers, have been watching closely as the state of Idaho and U.S. Forest Service attempt to sort out the problem. Fish and Game's new strategy came in response to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's call for a policy to manage the interaction between the herds by Feb. 15. The governor established a working group led by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Idaho Department of Agriculture in response to judicial orders requiring sheep ranchers to pull their sheep off Hells Canyon allotments....
Green Jobbed As the Los Angeles Times noted this week, alternative energy "is becoming one of the darlings of Democratic-controlled Capitol Hill." Democrats even want to include tax breaks for it in the economic stimulus package. A cap-and-trade system to cut CO2 emissions has also found favor. The thinking is that we can radically alter our economy and at the same create millions of well-paying "green-collar jobs." Even some business groups embrace the idea. "The one thing that the Chamber of Commerce and the Sierra Club agree on," notes energy lobbyist Scott Segal, "is that the answer to climate change is transformative technologies." Maybe so. But claims that spending on green technologies will create "millions" of new jobs, as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have repeatedly claimed, are false. Such assertions rest on fallacious economic logic that sounds good on the stump but in reality results in a lower standard of living and fewer jobs for all Americans....
Group to pay ranchers for losses caused by wolves A new state program will reimburse livestock producers for wolf predation losses. The new plan will replace the current one, which has been funded by Defenders of Wildlife for the past 20 years. The plan is called for under the state's wolf management plan, and George Edwards with the Montana Dept. of Livestock, says it's not tied to wolf population control. "Whether the wolves are listed. Still listed or de-listed will not affect this program because this program is primarily in place to help livestock producers who have suffered a wolf loss." The Defenders of Wildlife will provide a $100,000 grant to get the new program started, but Edwards says it will take federal funds and private dollars to maintain. The Department of Livestock is accepting donations, and all contributions are tax deductible.
The 2008 House Energy Tax Bill: Repeating Past Mistakes Taxing successful energy sources and subsidizing unsuccessful ones: That is the essence of Washington's energy policy mistakes during the 1970s and early 1980s. These mistakes are about to be repeated in the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, recently introduced in the House. This bill would effectively raise taxes on the oil and natural gas sector and spend much of the revenue on alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and biofuels. As it did decades ago, this approach would likely backfire and raise prices for consumers while reducing energy security. Congress should craft a new energy policy that relies on the market to meet the nation's energy needs. The bill proposes a number of changes in the tax code, the effect of which would be to raise taxes paid by companies working to expand domestic oil and natural gas supplies....
Save the prairie dogs! - PETA To combat these perceived injustices, a group - the prairie Dog Coalition - is working hard to secure a more stable footing for our burrowing friends, and pushing two ideas. The first, a legislative one, is recognition of a renamed “Prairie Dog Day” in our cities and counties. And they’ve been making headway. This year, the City of Denver joined Boulder in issuing a proclamation celebrating Prairie Dog Day, and giving our rodent residents the recognition they deserve. The second idea is to give another look to our yard-destroying, grazing-land inhabiting, “plague-carrying” neighbors. Says Dr. Lauren McCain, Co-Chair of the Coalition - which comprises some 30 member organizations - “we’re looking to raise awareness on groundhog day, and get people the information they need to know about prairie dogs. Because of population, destruction of habitat, disease and predation, and policies allowing them to be poisoned and exterminated, more than 90% of the historical prairie dog population has been destroyed.” As a “keystone” species, the health of the North American plains in many ways depends upon the continued survival of these social critters....I'm beginning to wonder just how damn many of these "keystone" and "canary in a coal mine" species there are.
The Transportation Commission's Proposed 200 Percent Gas Tax Increase In mid-January, the congressionally created National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission released its final report, which, among other proposals, recommends raising the federal fuel tax by 25 cents to 40 cents per gallon over the next five years and thereafter indexing it to the rate of inflation.[1] With the federal fuel tax at 18.3 cents per gallon of gasoline and 22.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel, the commission is proposing that one of the nation's most regressive taxes be increased by a staggering 136 percent to 218 percent. These tax revenues would then be spent on a variety of new road, transit, administrative, and environmental initiatives, including a 700 percent increase in Amtrak subsidies. While these recommendations are supported by several government-dependent transportation trade associations—including major tax users such as the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the American Public Transportation Association—the Administration, taxpayers, fiscal conservatives, and many Members of Congress have openly criticized the report. To date, critics and skeptics have focused largely on the proposed tax increase, which would be little more than a massive transfer of income and wealth from motorists to a much bigger version of today's ill-conceived federal transportation program and the select few who benefit from it....
Alexander gets Restore New Mexico award Dennis Alexander, State Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in New Mexico, was presented the Restore New Mexico Award today in recognition of the agency's participation and financial support of landscape-scale restoration efforts across the state. Jesse Juen, Associate State Director for the BLM in New Mexico, presented the award at the annual meeting of the National Association of Conservation Districts in Reno, Nev. on behalf of all New Mexico partners involved in the program. The NRCS has provided over $4 million in Environmental Quality Incentives Program grants to over 100 landowners with federal grazing allotments to restore degraded rangelands in New Mexico. The BLM, landowners and other partners have been able to match or exceed these funds, greatly enlarging the size and scope of the restoration projects....
Keep polar bears off endangered species list The Department of the Interior, in response to litigation from environmental groups, is considering whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. For the first time in the history of the ESA, the threat of global warming would be the reason for listing a well-known species. Given the ESA’s sweeping powers, such a move would raise energy prices by putting an end to promising new oil and natural gas production in Alaska. Even more troubling, listing the polar bear could be used as a back door to implement global warming policy nationwide by restricting energy production and use throughout the U.S. This would obviously harm the economy and — considering the ESA’s poor track record — could also harm the polar bears as well. The President should tell the DOI not to take this highly problematic step. While being highly successful in violating private property rights and hampering economic activities—especially for farmers, ranchers, and loggers in the rural West and elsewhere — the statute has done little to protect species....
Lawmakers seek probe of meat safety of School Lunch Program Lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the safety of meat in the National School Lunch Program, citing concerns raised by alleged abuses at a slaughterhouse in Chino, Calif. Democratic Reps. George Miller of California, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Carolyn McCarthy of New York, along with Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, are asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., a supplier to school lunch programs, in the wake of release of a Humane Society video showing disabled cows being mistreated. Meanwhile, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said it will hold a press conference Friday to announce whether charges will be filed against Westland/Hallmark. A phone message left late Thursday for Westland President Steven Mendell was not immediately returned. USDA officials have put a hold until Feb. 19 on meat products from the facility, which are used by major hamburger chains and school districts around the nation. Investigations have found no evidence that meat from disabled animals has entered the food supply....
Rodeos could be modified A Mexican-style rodeo tradition could be history after the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved drafting an ordinance that could go as far as banning so-called "coleadas" or steer tailing, which some local charros or cowboys admit they proudly practice. By a 3-2 vote, supervisors Tuesday approved the proposal that would also reiterate state law prohibiting cruelty to animals. Supervisors also agreed to prohibit tripping or felling an equine animal, or intentionally tripping, dragging, or felling any bovine animal by the tail. The proposal would also require veterinarians to be in attendance throughout the duration of any event using animals and provide local remedies for violations. According to San Juan Bautista resident Martin Marquez, president of the Asociacion de Charros El Herradero de San Martin, steer tailing exercises are happening in the county and are indeed part of so-called "charreadas" or Mexican style rodeo. However, he said, local charros no longer practice horse tripping and instead perform a modified exercise putting the rope through the horse's front legs without making it fall. "It's sad that despite all the pains we've taken to follow the rules, they will be targeting steer tailing which is traditional and part of the charreria," Marquez said. "Coleadas are not cruel and inhumane. How do they know it's painful to the bulls, which fall on soft sand."....
Lake Monster? Los Angeles may have the largest populus, but within its history lurks several anomalies which defy the hustle and bustle of city life. Elizabeth Lake, located close to Palmdale in "north county" was once inhabited by one of these anomalies. It is said that the old lake, one of ten named Elizabeth in California, was created by the Devil who bestowed upon the waters one of his demonic pets, that being a diabolical beast. Sightings of such a creature date back to the 1830s when a Spaniard named Don Pedro Carillo claimed that such a leviathan had burnt down his ranch which sat on the shore. Was a dragon to blame? Don Chico Lopez who also built a ranch near the lake was next to observe the monster some fifty years later during the early 1880s saying that it was winged, and had flippers. Workers reported seeing ominous shadows over the lake cast by the demon and the disappearance of livestock was recorded. In 1886 a Don Felipe Rivera claimed that a creature over forty-feet long, with six legs and two leathery wings had eaten one of his steers, although others claim that the beast was a giant snake. Basque immigrant Miguel Leonis purchased the ranch next and a great deal of land throughout southern California. Legend states that after losing several of his animals, Leonis stalked the beast and attacked it one night, causing injury to its eye after bullets seemed to bounce off its tough skin. The wounded creature skulked back into the lake and soon after allegedly fled, but rumour was rife that many settlers, ranchers and the likes avoided the area for years....
CAO would ‘welcome’ investigation into carbon offsets The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for the House said Tuesday he would “welcome” an examination into the carbon offset marketplace, which has been a tool for the “Green the Capitol” initiative he oversees. CAO Daniel Beard was reacting to a letter sent by two top House Republicans to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week, seeking a closer look at the program. As part of the one-year-old “Green the Capitol” project, which aims at reducing the level of pollution created by members of Congress, the House purchased $89,000 in carbon offsets from the Chicago Climate Exchange, an offset brokerage company. The company then paid farms in the Midwest to take steps to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the leading causes of global warming and is released both naturally, such as through the breaking-apart of soil, and by man-made design, such as through coal-burning power plants. Carbon offsets were created to counterbalance the release of carbon into the air through practices such as planting trees, which feed off of carbon and produce oxygen, or employing companies to use non-carbon-producing fuels as energy. Last week Republican Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.) asked the GAO to look into “questionable purchases of carbon offsets” after recent media criticism of the venture revealed that while several farmers who had received money from the House purchase were actively sequestering carbon, they might not actually be using the money to further their carbon reduction efforts....
Will Global Warming Save Lives? A report commissioned by Britain's Health Department says that one blistering hot summer between now and 2017 could kill more than 6,000 Britons. The panel of scientific experts that compiled the study believes the chance of that is 25%. Naturally, the global-warming-will-kill-us-all crowd latched onto that speculation, as did headline writers. "U.K. May Suffer Heat Wave That Kills 3,000," topped a Bloomberg story, while Reuters opted for "Climate Change May Kill Thousands In U.K. By 2017." The panel also said global warming will bring warmer winters, which will cut down on cold-related deaths in Britain. So should we fear human-created climate change or embrace it? Surprisingly, the BBC stood out as one media agent that took enough care to balance its coverage. Under the Web site headline "Global Warming 'May Cut Deaths,' " it reported 20,000 deaths are linked to the cold each year in the U.K. and that those deaths fell 3% a year from 1971 through 2003, a period in which summers warmed but heat-related deaths did not change. In the U.S., a warmer climate could save tens of thousands. Thomas Gale Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who has studied and written extensively about global warming, believes as many as 40,000 American lives would be spared each year....
Sheep versus sheep It's another example of the New and Old West coming into conflict. This time it's bighorn sheep versus domestic sheep or, more specifically, wildlife advocates versus the sheep herding industry. During a telephone conference call yesterday, Feb. 14, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission adopted an interim strategy for separating bighorn sheep from domestic sheep. The policy establishes buffer zones between occupied bighorn sheep range and sheep allotments on federal land statewide. Where the two overlap, however, bighorn sheep will be moved or killed. The Nez Perce Tribe, as well as sportsmen's groups, environmentalists and ranchers, have been watching closely as the state of Idaho and U.S. Forest Service attempt to sort out the problem. Fish and Game's new strategy came in response to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's call for a policy to manage the interaction between the herds by Feb. 15. The governor established a working group led by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Idaho Department of Agriculture in response to judicial orders requiring sheep ranchers to pull their sheep off Hells Canyon allotments....
Green Jobbed As the Los Angeles Times noted this week, alternative energy "is becoming one of the darlings of Democratic-controlled Capitol Hill." Democrats even want to include tax breaks for it in the economic stimulus package. A cap-and-trade system to cut CO2 emissions has also found favor. The thinking is that we can radically alter our economy and at the same create millions of well-paying "green-collar jobs." Even some business groups embrace the idea. "The one thing that the Chamber of Commerce and the Sierra Club agree on," notes energy lobbyist Scott Segal, "is that the answer to climate change is transformative technologies." Maybe so. But claims that spending on green technologies will create "millions" of new jobs, as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have repeatedly claimed, are false. Such assertions rest on fallacious economic logic that sounds good on the stump but in reality results in a lower standard of living and fewer jobs for all Americans....
Group to pay ranchers for losses caused by wolves A new state program will reimburse livestock producers for wolf predation losses. The new plan will replace the current one, which has been funded by Defenders of Wildlife for the past 20 years. The plan is called for under the state's wolf management plan, and George Edwards with the Montana Dept. of Livestock, says it's not tied to wolf population control. "Whether the wolves are listed. Still listed or de-listed will not affect this program because this program is primarily in place to help livestock producers who have suffered a wolf loss." The Defenders of Wildlife will provide a $100,000 grant to get the new program started, but Edwards says it will take federal funds and private dollars to maintain. The Department of Livestock is accepting donations, and all contributions are tax deductible.
The 2008 House Energy Tax Bill: Repeating Past Mistakes Taxing successful energy sources and subsidizing unsuccessful ones: That is the essence of Washington's energy policy mistakes during the 1970s and early 1980s. These mistakes are about to be repeated in the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008, recently introduced in the House. This bill would effectively raise taxes on the oil and natural gas sector and spend much of the revenue on alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and biofuels. As it did decades ago, this approach would likely backfire and raise prices for consumers while reducing energy security. Congress should craft a new energy policy that relies on the market to meet the nation's energy needs. The bill proposes a number of changes in the tax code, the effect of which would be to raise taxes paid by companies working to expand domestic oil and natural gas supplies....
Save the prairie dogs! - PETA To combat these perceived injustices, a group - the prairie Dog Coalition - is working hard to secure a more stable footing for our burrowing friends, and pushing two ideas. The first, a legislative one, is recognition of a renamed “Prairie Dog Day” in our cities and counties. And they’ve been making headway. This year, the City of Denver joined Boulder in issuing a proclamation celebrating Prairie Dog Day, and giving our rodent residents the recognition they deserve. The second idea is to give another look to our yard-destroying, grazing-land inhabiting, “plague-carrying” neighbors. Says Dr. Lauren McCain, Co-Chair of the Coalition - which comprises some 30 member organizations - “we’re looking to raise awareness on groundhog day, and get people the information they need to know about prairie dogs. Because of population, destruction of habitat, disease and predation, and policies allowing them to be poisoned and exterminated, more than 90% of the historical prairie dog population has been destroyed.” As a “keystone” species, the health of the North American plains in many ways depends upon the continued survival of these social critters....I'm beginning to wonder just how damn many of these "keystone" and "canary in a coal mine" species there are.
The Transportation Commission's Proposed 200 Percent Gas Tax Increase In mid-January, the congressionally created National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Commission released its final report, which, among other proposals, recommends raising the federal fuel tax by 25 cents to 40 cents per gallon over the next five years and thereafter indexing it to the rate of inflation.[1] With the federal fuel tax at 18.3 cents per gallon of gasoline and 22.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel, the commission is proposing that one of the nation's most regressive taxes be increased by a staggering 136 percent to 218 percent. These tax revenues would then be spent on a variety of new road, transit, administrative, and environmental initiatives, including a 700 percent increase in Amtrak subsidies. While these recommendations are supported by several government-dependent transportation trade associations—including major tax users such as the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the American Public Transportation Association—the Administration, taxpayers, fiscal conservatives, and many Members of Congress have openly criticized the report. To date, critics and skeptics have focused largely on the proposed tax increase, which would be little more than a massive transfer of income and wealth from motorists to a much bigger version of today's ill-conceived federal transportation program and the select few who benefit from it....
Alexander gets Restore New Mexico award Dennis Alexander, State Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in New Mexico, was presented the Restore New Mexico Award today in recognition of the agency's participation and financial support of landscape-scale restoration efforts across the state. Jesse Juen, Associate State Director for the BLM in New Mexico, presented the award at the annual meeting of the National Association of Conservation Districts in Reno, Nev. on behalf of all New Mexico partners involved in the program. The NRCS has provided over $4 million in Environmental Quality Incentives Program grants to over 100 landowners with federal grazing allotments to restore degraded rangelands in New Mexico. The BLM, landowners and other partners have been able to match or exceed these funds, greatly enlarging the size and scope of the restoration projects....
Keep polar bears off endangered species list The Department of the Interior, in response to litigation from environmental groups, is considering whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. For the first time in the history of the ESA, the threat of global warming would be the reason for listing a well-known species. Given the ESA’s sweeping powers, such a move would raise energy prices by putting an end to promising new oil and natural gas production in Alaska. Even more troubling, listing the polar bear could be used as a back door to implement global warming policy nationwide by restricting energy production and use throughout the U.S. This would obviously harm the economy and — considering the ESA’s poor track record — could also harm the polar bears as well. The President should tell the DOI not to take this highly problematic step. While being highly successful in violating private property rights and hampering economic activities—especially for farmers, ranchers, and loggers in the rural West and elsewhere — the statute has done little to protect species....
Lawmakers seek probe of meat safety of School Lunch Program Lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the safety of meat in the National School Lunch Program, citing concerns raised by alleged abuses at a slaughterhouse in Chino, Calif. Democratic Reps. George Miller of California, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Carolyn McCarthy of New York, along with Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, are asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., a supplier to school lunch programs, in the wake of release of a Humane Society video showing disabled cows being mistreated. Meanwhile, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said it will hold a press conference Friday to announce whether charges will be filed against Westland/Hallmark. A phone message left late Thursday for Westland President Steven Mendell was not immediately returned. USDA officials have put a hold until Feb. 19 on meat products from the facility, which are used by major hamburger chains and school districts around the nation. Investigations have found no evidence that meat from disabled animals has entered the food supply....
Rodeos could be modified A Mexican-style rodeo tradition could be history after the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved drafting an ordinance that could go as far as banning so-called "coleadas" or steer tailing, which some local charros or cowboys admit they proudly practice. By a 3-2 vote, supervisors Tuesday approved the proposal that would also reiterate state law prohibiting cruelty to animals. Supervisors also agreed to prohibit tripping or felling an equine animal, or intentionally tripping, dragging, or felling any bovine animal by the tail. The proposal would also require veterinarians to be in attendance throughout the duration of any event using animals and provide local remedies for violations. According to San Juan Bautista resident Martin Marquez, president of the Asociacion de Charros El Herradero de San Martin, steer tailing exercises are happening in the county and are indeed part of so-called "charreadas" or Mexican style rodeo. However, he said, local charros no longer practice horse tripping and instead perform a modified exercise putting the rope through the horse's front legs without making it fall. "It's sad that despite all the pains we've taken to follow the rules, they will be targeting steer tailing which is traditional and part of the charreria," Marquez said. "Coleadas are not cruel and inhumane. How do they know it's painful to the bulls, which fall on soft sand."....
Lake Monster? Los Angeles may have the largest populus, but within its history lurks several anomalies which defy the hustle and bustle of city life. Elizabeth Lake, located close to Palmdale in "north county" was once inhabited by one of these anomalies. It is said that the old lake, one of ten named Elizabeth in California, was created by the Devil who bestowed upon the waters one of his demonic pets, that being a diabolical beast. Sightings of such a creature date back to the 1830s when a Spaniard named Don Pedro Carillo claimed that such a leviathan had burnt down his ranch which sat on the shore. Was a dragon to blame? Don Chico Lopez who also built a ranch near the lake was next to observe the monster some fifty years later during the early 1880s saying that it was winged, and had flippers. Workers reported seeing ominous shadows over the lake cast by the demon and the disappearance of livestock was recorded. In 1886 a Don Felipe Rivera claimed that a creature over forty-feet long, with six legs and two leathery wings had eaten one of his steers, although others claim that the beast was a giant snake. Basque immigrant Miguel Leonis purchased the ranch next and a great deal of land throughout southern California. Legend states that after losing several of his animals, Leonis stalked the beast and attacked it one night, causing injury to its eye after bullets seemed to bounce off its tough skin. The wounded creature skulked back into the lake and soon after allegedly fled, but rumour was rife that many settlers, ranchers and the likes avoided the area for years....
McCain, Clinton Act On Global Warming Senator John McCain took time off from his presidential campaign today to announce the passage of the McCain-Clinton bill to end global warming. "My friends," said McCain, "it was high time that someone reached across the aisle and brought people together on this important issue. I am proud to announce the beginning of the end to global warming. My friend, Hillary Clinton, and I have tackled this tough issue in the true spirit of bi-partisanship." The revolutionary new bill includes measures to fine cattle ranchers up to $25,000.00 per incident for excessive cow flatulence, mandatory purchase of florescent light bulbs by everyone in the US by January 2009, and the end of daylight savings time. A addendum by Senator Ted Kennedy to make it illegal for the sun to shine in certain parts of Florida between 12 PM and 2 PM was dropped from the bill to ensure its passage because of fervent opposition by Christian evangelicals who objected on theological grounds. The bill calls for the creation of The Bureau of Weather Control with an initial cost of 20.3 billion dollars with facilities to be located in Arizona and New York. "This bill will be revenue neutral," promised McCain. "Initial costs will be recouped by the imposition of fines on dairy farmers and ranchers and people who do not comply with the florescent light bulb provision of the new law. The abolition of daylight savings time will serve to stop global warming by having one less hour of daylight and sunshine for a large part of every year. The economy will flourish because this bill creates 20,000 new government jobs for people to inspect cow anuses and light bulb sockets." (satire)
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