The Siskiyou County board of supervisors agreed to send another strongly worded letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar regarding compensation to the county in the event he determines that dam removal should proceed on the Klamath River. The letter states that the board has authorized its negotiator “to participate in discussions regarding a Final Agreement for the study of the cost and benefits of the removal of PacifiCorp’s dams on the Klamath River.” It was prepared by county counsel Tom Guarino and signed by all five supervisors who state that the county has engaged in discussions about dam removal in good faith and “with the promise that the concerns of Siskiyou County would be addressed.” “We are concerned at this point that our concerns are not going to be addressed and in fact are being marginalized in a reckless, headlong pursuit of a predetermined outcome,” the letter states.
According to the letter, Secretary Salazar has made public statements that “this effort must not fail.” The letter asserts that “this effort” is in fact that PacifiCorp’s dams be removed. “Perhaps you can understand our concern that, when you go to make your determination of whether the costs and benefits of removal of these facilities warrants their removal, you may be predisposed toward an outcome and not entirely objective,” the letter continues. The letter flatly states that, “at this point in time, it is a fact that there are insufficient studies to warrant removal of these facilities.” In order to be legitimate, these studies “must be conducted in a transparent and open manner,” the letter states, “consistent with President Obama’s memorandum of March 9, 2009, regarding scientific integrity.” The supervisors point out in the letter that the studies should analyze the impacts of the proposed removal, as well as a consideration of all impacts of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), “which clearly is a part of the intended consequence of the removal of the facilities.” The board is concerned that the cumulative effects of federal policies are not being considered. “For example, the Northwest Forest Plan has had a severe negative effect on Siskiyou’s economy, for which no mitigations have been provided,” the letter states, “The cumulative impact of all such federal activity is interrelated to the decaying economic conditions in this County and therefore must be considered in any cost/benefit analysis.”...MountShastaNews
Monday, July 20, 2009
Farmers, ranchers oppose water bill
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said he came to San Angelo looking for ammunition to fight pending legislation that he says would damage private property rights. He should be leaving with a truckload of it. Cornyn met with several dozen farmers, ranchers, local leaders and heads of more than 10 state organizations Friday in a roundtable discussion about the pending Clean Water Restoration Act. The bill would broaden the power of the U.S. government in regulating surface water. The Clean Water Act is limited to “navigable” waters. The legislation would replace “navigable” with the words “all waters of the United States,” Cornyn said. That includes “prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes and natural ponds,” according to the bill. “This legislation could regulate everything from stock tanks to ditches,” he said. “We need to remind them when they get overambitious it’s time to back off. I want to get ammunition to take back to Washington to slow this down and take a look at this and have a debate.” More than 50 people attended the Friday roundtable, and everyone who spoke opposed the pending legislation...SanAngeloStandardTimes
Survey finds issue of unwanted horses growing
Problems related to unwanted horses are perceived to be growing, with more than 90% of respondents to a recent survey indicating that the number of abused, neglected and unwanted horses is increasing, according to the Unwanted Horse Coalition, which commissioned the survey. The coalition said 87% of respondents said the issue is now "a big problem," compared with 22% who believed that three years ago. The coalition said respondents consider the economic recession to be a major contributor to the unwanted horse problem. The closing of U.S. horse slaughter facilities, changes in breed demand, indiscriminate breeding and high costs of euthanasia and carcass disposal were also cited as important reasons, the coalition said. Regarding placement options for unwanted horses, the coalition said 63% of equine rescue/retirement facilities polled reported that they are at or near capacity and turn away 38% of horses brought to them. Capacity is clearly the issue, the coalition said, in that as many horses stay for life at the facilities as are adopted out...Feedstuffs
Groups push to slaughter horses for meat
Ranchers, Native Americans and others are pushing for the renewed slaughter of horses in the U.S. -- possibly starting in Oregon -- and processing them into meat. Groups are lobbying Congress to introduce a bill this summer to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume inspecting horse meat for human consumption. That would reopen the door to foreign exports. In addition, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs are considering building a slaughter and processing facility -- possibly for pet food -- on their reservation north of Madras, as recommended last spring by a coalition of Northwest tribes. Yet the efforts, in addition to riling animal-rights advocates, underscore a rural-urban divide and the desperate state of America's horse industry. Supporters say they need a way to deal with tens of thousands of unwanted horses. The glut was caused by factors such as uncontrolled breeding, closure of the last U.S. horse-processing plants two years ago and an economy that has left many owners unable to pay for feed and care. The situation has led to a steep decline in horse prices, overgrazing on Native American reservations, and incidents of horse abandonment and neglect, among other problems. "We think it is very fair and accurate to say there are probably 100,000 horses that would go to processing today" if a plant were available, said Wyoming state Rep. Sue Wallis, a rancher emerging as a national leader in pushing to reinstate horse slaughtering...Oregonian
North Coast dairy cows sold to slaughter as milk prices fall
Joseph “Joey” Mendoza walks slowly through an empty milking barn at his 150-year-old dairy down the road from the Point Reyes Lighthouse. Mendoza, 65, a third-generation dairyman, sold his 489 dairy cows three weeks ago as part of a national program that seeks to ease what many are calling the worst milk crisis in 70 years. More than 100,000 cows were sent to slaughter under a program developed by the National Milk Producers Federation. Milk prices remain depressed, and program officials recently announced another “herd retirement” that seeks to remove roughly 100,000 more animals from milk production by paying up to $1,500 per cow. For Mendoza, whose grandfather came to the Point Reyes area to milk cows at the turn of the last century, the decision to sell his Holsteins was especially painful. He called it necessary to pay off creditors and to stop the months of financial losses caused by high feed costs and low milk prices. As a result, a typical California dairy with 1,000 cows is losing about $100,000 a month, said Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of the Modesto-based Western United Dairymen. The economic troubles contributed to the suicides of two Central Valley dairy farmers this spring...SantaRosaPressDemocrat
Riders from Mexico arrive in Black Hills
About 50 people riding horseback from Mexico to Canada as part of the “Best of America by Horseback” television show arrived in South Dakota on Sunday. The Mexico to Canada trail ride arrived in Hot Springs Sunday and will be in the state, riding through the Black Hills on the Mickelson Trail and then to Belle Fourche, until it crosses into North Dakota in mid August. Custer has been designated as the “Best of America by Horseback” trailriding area of the year. While there, the entourage will camp at Plenty Star Ranch, located nine miles south of Custer on Highway 384 near the Mickelson Trail. Owners Isa and John Kirk, who ran a horse campground for 15 years before closing it this year, will host a pig roast campfire dinner for the riders. The Kirks raise registered Spanish mustangs that will be filmed by the show. Seay expects to turn the five-month trip into a series of at least 13 television shows that feature scenic horse-riding areas and communities that “are the heart and soul of America.”...RapidCityJournal
Where rodeo reigns, mutton bustin' is the first notch in a little cowboy's belt
SANTA FE, N.M. - It's 30 seconds before his big rodeo ride, and Julian Apodaca looks as if he wants to disappear under the wide brim of his white cowboy hat. He's staring down at his boots, rubbing at his teary eyes. Julian's father, a former junior bull-riding champion, has a hand on each of his 5-year-old son's shoulders. "It's OK, hijo," Vince Apodaca says as somebody plucks the hat off the boy's head and replaces it with a helmet. "Cowboy up, OK? I don't want no crying when you get on there." This is the world of a little-known but beloved rodeo event where kids a few years out of diapers ride sheep just as the big boys ride bulls. Suburban parents put their kids in Little League. In the country, where rodeo is king, parents sign up their kids for Mutton Bustin'. In a flash, a rodeo hand lifts Julian from his father's arms and swings him onto the back of an unhappy sheep, which is jerking around in a small pen. "I love you!" Julian's dad calls out as the gate comes up. The sheep shoots into the arena, and there's Julian, clinging tightly to its neck. Suddenly the animal cuts right and Julian slips left, tumbling into the dirt. As if that wasn't bad enough, the sheep kicks him with a hind hoof as it stumbles away. There are gasps all around. Then Julian stands up, wobbles a bit, and grins...ChicagoTribune
Chamber names Cox family for cowboy honor
The Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce is celebrating Western Bank’s National Day of the American Cowboy Saturday, July 25, by recognizing the pioneer W.W. Cox ranch family of the Organ Mountains. The chamber held its first American Cowboy event last year, honoring Frank DuBois, former New Mexico Department of Agriculture director, state secretary of agriculture and founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship at New Mexico State University. The narration on the Cox family has been compiled by agriculture committee member Steve Wilmeth, who interviewed members of the Cox family and researched historical documents. W.W. Cox arrived at San Augustine in the Organ Mountains in 1888 looking for rangeland for his sheep. W.W. Cox was originally from Dewitt, Texas, inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Disputes caused by cattle- rustling and lingering Civil War animosity developed into a feud. One of the victims was James W. Cox, W.W. Cox’s father, who was killed in an ambush. W.W. Cox vowed he would get even, but had to leave Texas “in a hurry,” according to the narrative. W.W. Cox eventually went into the beef business and increased his grazing holdings to 150,000 acres. He and his wife, the former Margaret Rhode, had 10 children, including Hal, Jim and A.B., who became ranchers. W.W. Cox died in 1923. The ranch operated as an estate until 1926, when the brothers and Eckert Stablein brought the ranch from the other heirs. They ran it until 1936, when Hal took the northern portion, Jim bought out Stablein and A.B. used his money to buy an Otero Mesa ranch, according to the narration. Sara Cox Hopkins, a granddaughter of W.W. Cox and daughter of A.B. Cox, said she believes people who are tied to the land are part of what has made this a great country...LasCrucesBulletin
Its all Trew: Preserving garden seed important
Most old-timers who survived the Great Depression and Dust Bowl will tell you, "Our garden produce and home-canned foods pulled us through." Cellars and pantries with shelves of home-canned fruits, meats and vegetables kept hunger at bay though few had money to spend. Take a trip today through the small towns and communities, and you will see countless gardens growing food for the families. Evidently garden seed is in great demand as we hear gardeners complaining of lack of supplies to choose from and the high prices. A small envelope containing a dozen or more seeds can cost many dollars. This is a long way from the old days when all gardeners selected seeds from prize varieties to dry and store until the next spring planting. My grandparents kept seed in coffee cans, small glass jars or used envelopes. A day or two before planting time, the seeds were soaked in water with Garrett's Snuff added hopefully to keep the worms and birds from eating the seed after being planted. The early settlers, lacking today's handy containers, raised gourds of various size, harvested, dried and cleaned them to make seed containers. Somehow the gourds kept the seed dry, insulated and prevented mold. By hanging them from the rafters of a cellar or barn, the rodents were kept at bay. Some plants, like dill, were hung by the stalks until needed. I imagine the elders of that time slept a lot better each winter knowing the next year's garden seed was safe and sound and ready for planting...AmarilloGlobeNews
Song Of The Day #087
Julie Carter's most recent Cowgirl Sass & Savvy has a humorous take on how some cowboys responded to a grassfire. That story reminded me of a classic by Rex Allen, so today's Ranch Radio will feature Rex singing The Fireman Cowboy.
You will find it on his 16 track CD Voice of the West.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
While you slept ...Julie Carter
There is absolutely not anything funny about a grass or forest fire but often in the midst of the firefight, humor arrives.
One night on the remote plains of the far side of the county, a lightning strike started a fire in a ranch pasture.
Not anything much out there except miles of ranchland and what remained of a teensy town that had retained only a few deserted buildings and a name.
It was also at least two hours by highway from any real fire-fighting agency.
The nearest rancher to this ghost-stop on the highway served as mayor and fire chief by title and reputation. High desert ranching requires a great sense of humor and the occasional ego boost that an elevated title can sometimes provide.
One of the items remaining in the long-deserted town of Ramon was an ancient fire truck. The battery required constant charging, which didn't happen, and the water tank leaked so it was never full. Other than that, it was in fine shape.
The night of this specific grass fire, the phone calls went out to a few ranchers.
Waking up the chief of the Ramon Fire Department took some doing, but he finally answered the phone.
Pulling on his britches and his hat, the usual rancher's lid that needed an oil change months ago, he hollered at his nearly adult son and out the door they went.
The process of charging the battery and finding a hose to fill the water truck began.
Meanwhile, over the hill back to the west, another cowboy who had always been a addicted to farm sales, knew he had a cattle sprayer parked somewhere "over yonder on the hill."
The most recent endorsement of this piece of equipment had been at a cattle-spraying event.
A cowboy commented that he could pee further than the sprayer could spray, leaving its validity as fire fighting equipment certainly at least questionable.
However, it did hold water, so after the tires were aired up, the cowboy hooked onto it with the pickup and off he went over the hill to fight the fire.
By this time, the fire had gotten so big, that in the dark, it alone summoned folks from near and far.
Back at the Ramon Fire Department, aka the chief's house, the fire truck was revved up and headed out to the fire. It was very dark and hard to see where exactly to drive as the truck made its way through the pasture toward the flames.
The chief was at the wheel of the truck, barreling through the night to the rescue like a caped crusader, while his eldest son was riding fireman-style on the truck fender hollering "EEEE, HAAWWW," at the top of his lungs.
About that time, the chief drove the truck off in a wash and it came to a sudden, solid halt, nose down. The son on the fender was tossed through the air, landing somewhere in the near vicinity. But he came up dusting himself off. No harm done.
Nothing broke, except the fire truck.
Nearly everyone in close proximity of the fire left what they were doing to go check out the fire truck wreck.
Meanwhile the cowboy with the sprayer, coming to save the day, blew out a tire. So when the chore of dragging the chief and his fire truck out of the wash was finished, the crew all went to see what the problem was with the cowboy.
In the meantime, the rancher with the fire on his property had put his road grader into operation and made a fire-line circle around the fire. The flames eventually died out on their own.
It was still the wee hours of the morning, everyone was wide-awake and nobody wanted to go back home. So they circled their rigs, drug out the food they'd brought (another standard thing for country folk) and had a version of a block party.
The rancher thanked everyone for their help, and exhausted, headed off to tend to his livestock and ranch chores.
All this while you slept.
Julie can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com
Which reminds me, Rex Allen's The Fireman Cowboy would make a great Song Of The Day. Tune in Monday.
Song Of The Day #086
Today's gospel selection is Home In The Rock by the bluegrass duo Charlie Moore & Bill Napier.The song is from their King LP Country Hymnal (King 917).
Judge: Airlines can't question FBI in 9/11 suits
A federal judge ruled Thursday that airlines and other companies in the industry that are being sued by families of terrorism victims can't question FBI agents about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The defendants wanted to depose the agents and sought access to other evidence related to the investigation of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in order to show at trial that the government's failure to catch the terrorists and prevent the attacks mitigates and excuses any alleged fault on the aviation companies' part. The government objected. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York said the defendants have also argued that the terrorists likely would have succeeded even if the defendants had exercised due care. "The issues to be tried relate to the acts and omissions of the aviation defendants, not the government," Hellerstein wrote in his ruling. "The government's failures to detect and abort the terrorists' plots would not affect the aviation defendants' potential liability."...AP
Real ID Act faces repeal after outcry from Napolitano, states
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is asking Congress to repeal a post-Sept. 11, 2001, law that was meant to enhance the security of driver's licenses but has elicited the wrath of governors nationwide who say it is too costly. The Real ID Act, which was passed in 2005 but doesn't begin to go into effect until the end of the year, was the brainchild of Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Menomonee Falls who then served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Appearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Napolitano warned that millions of travelers could face increased security screening at airports next year unless Congress acts soon because few states are on track to comply with the law. She wants lawmakers to pass a new measure known as Pass ID that would increase driver's license security but give states more leeway on how to implement the changes. Sensenbrenner, who authored the Real ID Act in an attempt to enhance the security of driver's licenses after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, called Napolitano's proposal a "watered-down" version of his original act...JournalSentinel
Judge Napolitano - Liberty and Safety
For a professor of law at one of the country's best law schools who was once the go-to guy in the Justice Department whenever the Bush White House needed legal cover for its truly lawless ventures outside the Constitution, John Yoo has revealed a breathtaking ignorance of American values, history, and jurisprudence. In his startling mea culpa, published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Professor Yoo confessed to advising President Bush that he possessed powers from some source other than the Constitution, that in the name of public safety he could cut down all laws written for the express purpose of restraining the President, and that Americans would expect no less than this so long as they were actually kept safe as a result of it. He advanced the argument that since the President's first job is to keep us safe, he could disregard the 1978 FISA law as "obsolete" since it was written in an era when modern day non-state terrorism was not contemplated. By this unprecedented and perverse logic, one wonders if the President was told if he could disregard as obsolete any law that was inconvenient to his purposes; even the Supreme Law of the Land itself, which the Constitution declares itself to be...LWR
Mexican troops fan out across state hit by drug war
Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers set up roadblocks on major highways on Saturday in President Felipe Calderon's home state, where drug gangs have stepped up attacks on Mexican security forces. Troops toting automatic weapons and wearing ski masks to shield their identity searched vehicles in the western marijuana-growing state of Michoacan for signs of drug smuggling after the government ordered 5,500 soldiers and police to deploy to the area by land, sea and air. The surge, one of the biggest in the three-year drug war, came after drug gangs targeted federal police in recent days in retaliation for the capture of a high-ranking member of the local La Familia (The Family) cartel. In a brazen move last week, the cartel dumped the tortured and blood-smeared bodies of 12 federal police in a heap by a remote highway -- the latest victims of tit-for-tat violence that has killed some 12,800 people since Calderon took office in 2006. A video allegedly showing the policemen being stripped, beaten and executed was briefly posted on YouTube, reported El Universal newspaper...Reuters
10 police arrested in Mexico over federal killings
Ten policemen were arrested in the western state of Michoacan in connection with the murder of 12 federal police whose bodies were found piled next to a road, prosecutors said. The men are being held for 40 days while the killings are investigated. The preventative detention will allow investigators "to strengthen evidence that the men arrested today undertook criminal acts in support of the Michoacan 'La Familia' (drug cartel) and determine their responsibility for the murder of federal agents," prosecutors said in a statement...AFP
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Algae bloom in Elephant Butte water suspected in dogs' deaths
Elephant Butte Lake water was sampled Friday by the New Mexico Environment Department to investigate an algae bloom that could be toxic to pets and humans, said Toby Velasquez, law enforcement and boating safety bureau chief with New Mexico State Parks. The scrutiny comes after two 3-year-old pit bulls, belonging to a Truth or Consequences woman on a camping trip, became ill and later died after swimming for about an hour along a cove, became ill and later died. Because it was only reported to the state later and after the pit bulls' bodies were disposed of, no one will ever know if their deaths were related to algae, Velasquez said. Humans also are at risk for skin irritations from toxic algae blooms, which form for short periods of time primarily in the summer and are more prevalent in isolated coves. "It's kind of like a virus. It hits some people and not others," Velasquez said...SilverCitySunNews
Treasury Dept. cuts ‘Humor in the Workplace’ job opening
U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) on Friday morning called on the Treasury Department to axe a job opening seeking an applicant who can “create cartoons on the spot” in order to introduce “humor in the workplace.” The job posting, offered on FedBizOpps.gov, called for the selected candidate to give “two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life.” Buy 9:58 a.m. eastern standard time, the Bureau of Public Debt “determined that it no longer has a need for this requirement.”...RawStory
For the original solicitation see my post here.
For the original solicitation see my post here.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Limits on Logging Are Reinstated
In a move to protect endangered species, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Thursday that his department had reversed a Bush administration decision to double the amount of logging allowed in and around old-growth forests in western Oregon. Veering between swipes at “indefensible” moves by the Bush administration and pledges to step up noncontroversial timber sales, Mr. Salazar said in a conference call with reporters that he was reinstating a compromise reached 15 years ago to limit logging with the goal of protecting watersheds, trout and salmon fisheries and endangered birds like the northern spotted owl. The Bush policy, challenged in the courts by environmentalists, would have allowed timber companies to cut up to 502 million board-feet of lumber annually from 2.6 million acres of forests in the region, or about double the amount allowed under the Northwest Forest Plan, which was adopted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton. In fighting the Bush plan, known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions — or to its detractors, “Whopper” — environmentalists argued that the department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the forests, had failed to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about the logging’s impact on endangered and threatened species. Environmentalists also took issue with a related decision that narrowed the extent of protected habitat for the spotted owl...NYTimes
Past Warming Shows Gaps In Climate Knowledge: Study
A dramatic warming of the planet 55 million years ago cannot be solely explained by a surge in carbon dioxide levels, a study shows, highlighting gaps in scientists' understanding of impacts from rapid climate change. During an event called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, global temperatures rose between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius within several thousand years. The world at that time was already warmer than now with no surface ice. "We now believe that the CO2 did not cause all the warming, that there were additional factors," said Richard Zeebe, an oceanographer with the University of Hawaii at Manoa...Reuters
Who's Afraid of... The big bad wolf?
By all rights, he should have been executed; it was his fourth killing within a year. But in June, federal officials gave a male wolf a rare reprieve. In Catron County’s Canyon del Buey—outside the town of Aragon—Alpha Male 1114, a Mexican gray wolf, had killed and eaten a calf. His mate, Alpha Female 903, was likely involved as well. Under the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction project’s current rules—which include a three-strikes-you’re-out rule for cattle-killing lobos—such a transgression is punishable by death. “That particular animal and that particular pack has represented a really tough set of decisions because we recognize our responsibility to help ranchers if wolves are affecting their landscape,” Bud Fazio, Mexican gray wolf recovery coordinator at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, says. “Yet we also recognize our responsibility to restore wolves to the landscape and give them every chance possible to make it out there.” In this particular case, Fazio says, managers allowed the wolf to remain in the wild where he could continue helping his mate raise their pups—“and therefore restore more wolves to the wild before any future decisions to remove him.”...SantaFeReporter
Westerners tell their stories about gas booms' effects
Filmmaker Zachary Fink said the thing that drew him to make a film about the Rocky Mountains natural gas boom was the “unholy alliance,” as one conservative New Mexican rancher put it, between traditionally conservative ranchers and typically more liberal environmentalists. As a cultural anthropologist, Fink said it was interesting to him to learn how the two oft-opposing sides worked together on energy issues. Through interviews with three different westerners affected by the boom, “Last Hat in Town” chronicles the transformation of wide-open Colorado ranch lands to areas covered with natural gas drilling activity. Fink's intention in directing the film is to give people on both sides of the issue “a voice, and a human face,” Fink said...GJFreePress
States awash in stimulus money to weatherize homes
Ready or not, states are getting a tenfold boost in federal money to weatherize drafty homes, an increase so huge it has raised fears of waste and fraud and set off a scramble to find workers and houses for them to repair. An obscure program that installs insulation in homes and makes them more energy-efficient is distributing $4.7 billion in stimulus funds - dwarfing the $447 million originally planned by Congress this year and the $227 million spent in 2008. That is enough to weatherize 1 million homes, instead of the 140,000 normally done each year...AP
Judge fines pest-control firm for not checking squirrel trap
A judge has fined the manager of a pest control company $1,000 for failing to check a squirrel trap. Tom Homka of Cherry Hill-based Orkin Pest Control was cited for animal cruelty in June. Orkin had set the traps at the Pottery Barn for Kids here. Monmouth County Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals police chief Victor Amato said the company left a trapped nursing female squirrel and her baby for several days without sustenance. Amato said the animals were trying to get out of the cages and were dying. The squirrels were taken to an animal hospital for treatment and lived. AP
The Squirrel Police are on the march, with a chief no less.
The Squirrel Police are on the march, with a chief no less.
Treasury Dept. Seeks Contractors For "power of humor in the workplace"
Humor In The Workplace
Solicitation Number: RFI-BPD-09-0028
Agency: Department of the Treasury
Office: Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD)
Location: Division of Procurement
This is a sources sought notice and not a request for quotations. The purpose of this announcement is to seek qualified contractors with the capability to provide presentations for The Department of Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD), Management Meeting with experience in meeting the objectives as described herein.
The Contractor shall conduct two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life. Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs. The presenter shall refrain from using any foul language during the presentation. This is a business environment and we need the presenter to address a business audience...FedBizOps.Gov
Are you laughing - or crying?
Solicitation Number: RFI-BPD-09-0028
Agency: Department of the Treasury
Office: Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD)
Location: Division of Procurement
This is a sources sought notice and not a request for quotations. The purpose of this announcement is to seek qualified contractors with the capability to provide presentations for The Department of Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD), Management Meeting with experience in meeting the objectives as described herein.
The Contractor shall conduct two, 3-hour, Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life. Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs. The presenter shall refrain from using any foul language during the presentation. This is a business environment and we need the presenter to address a business audience...FedBizOps.Gov
Are you laughing - or crying?
Crow Rancher Sues Feds Over Buffalo Herd
Bureau of Indian Affairs agents rounded up 175 bison belonging to a Crow rancher and impounded them until she paid more than $16,000 to get them back, the rancher claims in Federal Court. She says the government had awarded her tribal leases to another member of the tribe without telling her. Nelvette Siemion says she's owned and operated the White Buffalo Ranch with her husband, George Siemion, for more than 39 years. The Siemions say they leased more than 25 parcels of tribal land to raise American bison and other livestock. In mid-May 2008, the BIA allegedly notified ranchers that it planned to impound about 200 buffalo of "undetermined ownership/no brands" in the Fort Smith area...CourthouseNews
TSCRA Applauds Legislation To Phase Out Gov. Subsidies For Corn-Based Ethanol
The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) today applauded legislation that would phase out government subsidies for corn-based ethanol over five years and promote the commercial development of second-generation biofuels. The Affordable Food and Fuel for America Act, introduced by Representatives Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) would force corn-based ethanol to become commercially viable without the assistance of government dollars and compete with other commodities that use corn for input, but don't draw on government subsidies to remain viable. According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, in 2008, feed costs for livestock, poultry and dairy reached a record high of $45.2 billion - an increase of more than $7 billion over 2007 costs. Yet farm gate cattle and calf receipts have remained between $49 and $50.2 billion during the past five years...cattlenetwork
Chairman Wants No New Feds on the Farm
The House Agriculture Committee chairman threatened Thursday to slow the progress of a food safety bill until the concerns of farm groups are addressed. Minnesota Democrat Collin C. Peterson said he is worried that the bill would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate farm activities. “Having read this bill ... they are clearly, in my opinion, going to be on the farm,” he said at a hearing on the issue. Unless his concerns are met, Peterson said he may hold a markup on the bill and report it out unfavorably. If Peterson’s committee gives the bill what is known as an adverse report, that will have an impact on when — or whether — it is brought up for floor action. Peterson is responding to agriculture groups that say a broad food safety overhaul would impose burdensome regulations on certain food producers, especially smaller family-owned farm operations...CQPolitics
Third Calgary Stampede Chuckwagon Horse Dies
An outrider horse competing in the GMC Rangeland Derby chuckwagon race at the Calgary Stampede in Alberta, Canada, died Friday following a pulmonary embolism. The Thoroughbred was the second chuckwagon race horse to succumb to a cardiac issue, and the third to die at the event in six days. A chuckwagon team horse died from a cardiac episode following a race on July 1. On July 7, another team horse was euthanized on the track after it broke a leg during the race. "Handlers were leading the horse to the barn area when it collapsed," said Stampede spokesman Doug Fraser. Event veterinarians determined the horse had a pulmonary embolism, Fraser said. This condition typically occurs when a blood clot dislodges and settles in a horse's pulmonary artery, blocking the blood supply to its heart. TheHorse
Long flights, long drives bring rodeo contestants flocking to Farmington
A sizzling 98 degrees and a scorching sun welcomed the first batch of National High School Finals Rodeo contestants to the Land of Enchantment on Thursday afternoon. Contestant and animal check-in began at noon Thursday and continues until Sunday. Sandwiches, cookies, cold water and sweating volunteers greeted contestants at shaded checkpoints in the McGee Park parking lot. Traveling with horses had the majority of contestants and their families driving great distances overnight to avoid excessive heat exposure. The horses have a separate check-in process that requires health and identification records and proof of the Coggins test. If owners fail to bring appropriate papers, the horse will be held in quarantine. In addition, all incoming horse trailers are washed and sprayed before being parked on the premises. Precautions are being taken to ease worries about the recent outbreak of the Vesticular Stomatitis horse virus. The virus forced some contestants to leave their horses at home. Seventeen-year-old Ali Mullin traveled three days from Cartwright, Manitoba, Canada. If Mullin brought her horse, she said it would have remained in quarantine for three weeks before re-entering Canada. Instead, she is renting a local horse, which a lot of competitors are doing...FarmingtonDailyTimes
Song Of The Day #085
This morning Tex Williams will give us some legal and financial advice with his The Big Print Giveth.This song is available on Tex Williams & His Western Caravan: 1946-1951.
I recommend you take his advice.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Climate Change And Carbon Credits: Sorting Out The Confusion
...To mitigate greenhouse gases, Tweeten says one solution is to impose a $26 per ton tax at a coal mine or oil well that is designed to offset the $26 cost per ton of carbon dioxide that society has to pay. While no one wants the cost of energy to rise, Tweeten says a cap and trade policy is becoming a popular alternative which would allow heavy energy users to pay for a permit to emit more than their share of greenhouse gases. Following the issuance of permits by governments, a market would develop for the trading of them. But he says the purpose would be to raise the cost of carbon-based fuels to the point that alternative source of energy would be preferred. Tweeten says agriculture would have a difficult time slowing the momentum, because food production accounts for only 13% of manmade sources of greenhouse gases, and biofuels contribute only minor positive results in the limitation of greenhouse gases. He says a gallon of ethanol requires nearly a gallon of fossil fuel equivalent in the form of motor fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, transportation, and processing. However, he says agriculture would have a modest role by supplying only 300 million tons of carbon credits, which means one ton of carbon stored in the soil for perpetuity. He calculates a farmer could break even by spending up to $1.30 per acre annually to retain the carbon, but would lose money if he has to sacrifice more than one-half bushel of corn to hold or sequester the carbon. He says that means no-till production can be the most profitable enterprise, but then again, it requires more carbon-based chemicals to control weeds. Farmers would have the option of selling their carbon capture enterprise to industry, but the result would be minimal compared to the overall cost. Tweeten says authorities project a $50 billion cost to control the climate in the year 2035, but carbon credits sold by farmers for $26 per ton would net agriculture only $390 million. While that is only the US, Tweeten says the world’s nations acting individually would be too small to have any positive impact, and many times they have other priorities, such as poverty, disease, conflict, or food insecurity...AgNetwork
Reflective roof paint repels the heat
On bright days, the rooftop of the Anaheim Hilton is so blindingly white that it looks like a mirror positioned directly at the sun. That dazzling glare might just be the greenest thing to happen to the top of a building since solar panels. The white coating deflects nearly 85% of the heat that hits it, reducing the surface temperature by as much as 50 degrees. That means less energy is needed to cool the hotel's interior, cutting air-conditioning costs and carbon emissions. This is no ordinary coat of paint. Designed by an 82-year-old former military scientist from the Inland Empire, the tinted topcoat is filled with tiny hollow glass balls that deflect heat, layered over a waterproof undercoat made of recycled rubber. The Hilton spent more than $150,000 on the project, which was completed in March. That's $300,000 less than the cost of a conventional repair to the old, leaky roof, said Jerome Annaloro, director of property operations at the hotel. If the reflective material cuts utility costs this summer the way management anticipates it will, Annaloro said, he will recommend white roofs for the entire Hilton chain...LATimes
Even hard-liners want to experiment in Arizona
"We squashed the timber industry and the Forest Service, and dictated the terms of surrender" in the Southwest, says Kieran Suckling, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity. He's talking about a war that began in the 1980s, when the Tucson-based group charged that the U.S. population of Mexican spotted owls had shrunk to just a few thousand because of logging in the old-growth ponderosa pines. The group ultimately won a 1996 court injunction that temporarily shut down logging on all national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. Within a few years, applying more legal pressure on behalf of all affected species, it forced the Forest Service to reduce logging by 70 percent and limit the harvest to trees less than 16 inches in diameter. That explains the historic occasion last April 22: The Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust signed a deal with timber entrepreneur Pascal Berlioux. Berlioux's company, Arizona Forest Restoration Products, hopes to do restoration work on at least 600,000 acres over 20 years, cutting only trees that are smaller than 16 inches. In turn, the Center promises not to file lawsuits against his work, and to defend it in court if other groups sue...HighCountryNews
Disillusioned Environmentalists Turn on Obama as Compromiser
For environmental activists like Jessica Miller, 31, the passage of a major climate bill by the House last month should have been cause for euphoria. Instead she felt cheated. Ms. Miller, an activist with Greenpeace, had worked hard on her own time to elect Barack Obama because he directly and urgently addressed the issue nearest her heart: climate change. But over the last few months, as the ambitious climate legislation was watered down in the House without criticism from the president, Ms. Miller became disillusioned. She worried that the bill had been rendered meaningless — or had even undermined some goals Greenpeace had fought for. And she felt that the man she had thought of as her champion seemed oddly prone to compromise. “I voted for the president, I canvassed for him, but we just haven’t seen leadership from him,” said Ms. Miller, who rappelled down Mount Rushmore on Wednesday with colleagues to unfurl a banner protesting what they called President Obama’s acquiescence to the compromises. (They were arrested and charged with trespassing.) While most environmental groups formally supported the House bill, the road to passage proved unsettling for the movement. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Public Citizen opposed the bill; members of some other groups privately berated their leaders for going along with it. And some, like Ms. Miller, have shifted to open protest...NYTimes
Obama’s Anti-Science Czar
John Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; i.e the “science czar."
See Marc Scribner's post to learn of Holder's writings and views on population control, forced abortions and consumption of infertility drugs, sterilization, imposition of a "Planetary Regime" and a host of other issues.
Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi writes about Holdren and describes him as "a longtime prophet of environmental catastrophes. Never discouraged, but never right."
HT: Ivan Osorio
See Marc Scribner's post to learn of Holder's writings and views on population control, forced abortions and consumption of infertility drugs, sterilization, imposition of a "Planetary Regime" and a host of other issues.
Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi writes about Holdren and describes him as "a longtime prophet of environmental catastrophes. Never discouraged, but never right."
HT: Ivan Osorio
Big blobs of mystery goo floating off Alaska coast
Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow. Hunters from Wainwright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and "gooey" and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department. Brower and other borough officials, joined by the U.S. Coast Guard, flew out to Wainwright to investigate. The agencies found "globs" of the stuff floating miles offshore Friday and collected samples for testing. Later, Brower said, the North Slope team in a borough helicopter spotted a long strand of the stuff and followed it for about 15 miles, shooting video from the air. Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not. "It's certainly biological," Hasenauer said. "It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter...McClatchy
There's a video at the linked site.
There's a video at the linked site.
Ghost town of Steins, New Mexico
The town of Steins, New Mexico sprouted in 1888, and its post office discontinued in 1944. The town was built along the Southern Pacific Railroad. Railroad workers mined rock for the roadbeds in the area. With no natural resources, water was brought in by train. Steins (pronounced “steens”) had a population that peaked at about 1300 people. Its survival into the 1940’s was due to its importance as a railroad station on the Southern Pacific line. The boom years lasted until trains switched from steam to diesel. In about 1945, Steins became a ghost town and slowly dissolved back into the desert wasteland. Steins was first called Doubtful Canyon since it was under a constant threat of Indian attacks. Captain Enoch Stein, a US Army officer, participated in the Apache Wars. He was killed in the area and Steins Pass was named for him. Later, gold and other minerals were discovered and the town of Doubtful Canyon was born. The current site of Steins is actually a few miles east of the original boom town of Doubtful Canyon...Examiner
Song Of The Day #084
The selection on today's Ranch Radio is the 1944 recording of There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder by Tex Ritter. It's available on his 20 track Country Hits and Cowboy Classics and on the four disc box set Blood on the Saddle. Amazon says the latter collection "has been discontinued by the manufacturer", so you Ritter fans better get it while you can.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Church Rock, NM: The best-kept nuclear secret
Thirty years ago this week - on July 16 - the worst accidental release of radioactive waste happened at the Church Rock uranium mine and mill site. While the Three Mile Island accident (that same year) is well known, the enormous radioactive spill in New Mexico has been kept quiet. It is the U.S. nuclear accident that almost no one knows about. On July 16, 1979, just 14 weeks after the Three Mile Island reactor accident, and 34 years to the day after the Trinity atomic test, the small community of Church Rock, New Mexico became the scene of another nuclear tragedy. Ninety million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes, burst through a broken dam wall at the Church Rock uranium mill facility, creating a flood of deadly effluents that permanently contaminated the Puerco River. No one knows exactly how much radioactivity was released into the air during the Three Mile Island accident. The site monitors were shut down after their measurements of radioactive releases went off the scale. But the American public knows even less about the Church Rock spill and, five weeks after it occurred, the mine and mill operator, United Nuclear Corporation, was back in business at Church Rock as if nothing had happened...Daily Kos
UNM Professors Help Write the Book on New Mexico History
“Telling New Mexico – A New History” is a chorus of voices, edited by UNM Regents Professor of Anthropology Marta Weigle, with New Mexico History Museum Director Frances Levine and Senior Curator and UNM alumni Louise Stiver. The book is designed as a general history of the state, prepared in anticipation of the state’s centennial in 2012, but unlike most history books, this one consists of dozens of essays, many of them from UNM faculty. Whether it is Professor of Anthropology Sylvia Rodriguez writing about how acequias, the ditches New Mexicans use to irrigate the fields, work or former UNM Press Director Roland Dickey writing about how to survive the howling windstorms in eastern New Mexico, the writers give a panorama of perspectives about the state. In his essay “The Memorable Visitation of Bishop Pedro Tamarón, 1760” Department of History Professor Emeritus John Kessell writes about the visit of the Bishop of Durango to the pueblos of northern New Mexico. In another essay he examines tall tales about the Pecos Pueblo and its reputed connection to Montezuma and worship of a giant snake. Want to know about the first revolution ever to take place in North America? Read the essay by former Anthropology Professor Alfonso Ortiz as he explores the aggravation and frustration that led Native Americans in the pueblos to violently overthrow the Spanish colonists in 1680, chasing them all the way to El Paso nearly 100 years before the American Revolution...UNM Today
New Mexico company to develop hydrogen power plant
A New Mexico-based energy technology company says it plans to develop what it calls the world's first utility-scale, zero-emissions hydrogen power plant. Jetstream Wind Inc. officials said Wednesday that the plant would use electricity from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would be burned in a turbine to generate enough electricity to power about 6,000 homes. The plant also would be able to capture and store oxygen and hydrogen in liquid and gaseous forms for secondary markets. The company broke ground on the $219 million project earlier this month in Truth or Consequences in southern New Mexico. AP
Court says New Mexico museum has no standing in Fisk case
Fisk University doesn’t have to give up 101 art works donated by painter Georgia O’Keeffe to a New Mexico museum in her name, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled in a decision filed Tuesday. The ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that barred Fisk from selling paintings to an Arkansas museum. The case now goes back to Davidson County Chancery Court. The school has been trying to sell part or all of the 101-piece Alfred Stieglitz Collection for more than three years in order to rebuild financially after raiding its endowment and nearly shutting its doors. O’Keeffe donated the collection to the school in 1949...Tennessean
Sheriff's deputies investigate well vandalism
The San Juan County Sheriff's Office is investigating several cases of vandalism at wells near Flora Vista owned by Conoco-Phillips. Undersheriff Mark McCloskey said the vandalism happened last weekend and was reported to authorities on Monday. The vandals smashed electrical panels and gauges, damaged wiring, drained fuel tanks and did other damage. Officials with Houston-based Conoco-Phillips estimate the cost of damage, repair, loss of production and environmental cleanup at each well site at about $8,000 to $10,000. Detectives collected evidence at each site and are working on identifying those who were responsible. McCloskey said felony charges for criminal damage to property are pending. AP
Ecosystems respond well to restoration
A new analysis in the June issue of the journal PLoS ONE finds that, if societies commit to cleanup and restoration, ecosystems can recover faster than previously thought. Surveying 240 studies, scientists at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies found that the speed of recovery depended upon the type of ecosystem and the growth rate of the organisms within it. Forests recovered within 42 years, but ocean floors in less than a decade. Polluted ecosystems – those plagued by oil spills, mining, trawling, or invasive species – could recover in just five years. Only 15 percent were deemed beyond recovery. The findings seem to contradict the popular notion that ecosystems take centuries or even millenniums to recover – boosting the rationale for proactive conservation...CSMonitor
Environmentalists and timber companies push big experiments in national forests
Environmentalists' lawsuits and the U.S. Forest Service have choked off timber sales in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, which sprawls across 3.3 million acres surrounding the town. They had their reasons; previous logging had shredded some of the forest, for instance. But it's hurt Anderson's operation. Back in the 1980s, more than 90 percent of the timber he processed came from federal land; now, less than 5 percent does. His costs have increased "tremendously" because he has to pull logs from distant state, private and tribal forests, while bidding against other mills equally desperate for timber. Dozens of Montana mills have closed under the strain. "The economy is cyclical -- ups and downs. Always has been. Timber supply is what's taking 'em out now," Anderson says. "A lot of people depend on this company for their livelihood, so we'll keep on doing this as long as we can." All of that is somewhat predictable news to anyone who tracks forest issues. What's surprising is the logo on a cap that Anderson keeps on a shelf beside his desk: MONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION. It symbolizes Anderson's dramatic shift into collaboration. He's trying to lead Montana's timber industry into a ground-breaking deal with the statewide wilderness group and two national environmental groups. They call it the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, but it's not as warm and fuzzy as it sounds. They've hammered out some bold goals, determined to make both the Forest Service and more hard-line environmentalists agree to them. They want increased logging, contentious restoration projects and controversial wilderness designat that would break a 26-year-long gridlock in Montana's wilderness politics. Basically, while Anderson and his partners wouldn't state it so frankly, they want to run a national forest...HighCountryNews
Interior secretary: Mining reform a top priority
The Obama administration will make overhauling the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering such legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." Reform bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, but past attempts at reform have foundered in the face of opposition from industry and many Western lawmakers. However, a new crop of conservation-minded lawmakers from the West and a new administration sympathetic to reforming the law have generated renewed interest in an overhaul...AP
Oregon Gov.signs bill to pay for removal of dams
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski has signed a bill financing most of the cost of removing four dams on the Klamath River to help salmon. Meanwhile, representatives from California, Oregon, PacifiCorp, the Obama administration and others continued to meet Tuesday in Klamath Falls, Ore., to make a September deadline for a binding agreement on the effort to restore 300 miles of salmon spawning habitat. The law calls for building a trust fund of $180 million over the next 10 years through a surcharge on PacifiCorp costumers in Oregon, which amounts to about $1.50 a month for a residential customer. California pays $20 million. If a federal feasibility study shows the dams can be safely torn down, work begins around 2020. AP
Crops, ponds, wildlife habitat destroyed in quest for food safety
In the verdant farmland surrounding Monterey Bay, a national marine sanctuary and one of the world's biological jewels, scorched-earth strategies are being imposed on hundreds of thousands of acres in the quest for an antiseptic field of greens. And the scheme is about to go national. Invisible to a public that sees only the headlines of the latest food-safety scare - spinach, peppers and now cookie dough - ponds are being poisoned and bulldozed. Vegetation harboring pollinators and filtering storm runoff is being cleared. Fences and poison baits line wildlife corridors. Birds, frogs, mice and deer - and anything that shelters them - are caught in a raging battle in the Salinas Valley against E. coli O157:H7, a lethal, food-borne bacteria. In pending legislation and in proposed federal regulations, the push for food safety butts up against the movement toward biologically diverse farming methods, while evidence suggests that industrial agriculture may be the bigger culprit...SFChronicle
Horse found with brand cut out of hide in Nevada
A domestic horse found loose in Nevada with the brand cut out of its hide is drawing outrage from equine advocates concerned about the growing number of horses abandoned in the wild. Humane Society officials believe the brand was removed so the 2.5-year-old mare couldn't be traced to its owner, representing one of the worst cases of abuse involving an abandoned domestic horse in the country. The animal was found last week near Round Mountain, a remote mining community about 235 miles southeast of Reno. Its brand -- which functions like a car's license plate -- was removed in a 6-by-8-inch patch from its left hip. The horse is expected to recover and was scheduled to be transported Saturday to a sanctuary in Lompoc, Calif., operated by the horse advocacy group Return to Freedom. Nevada agriculture officials have picked up more than 100 domestic horses from the range this year, including 90 in the past three months, Foster said. That's up from a previous high of 63 last year and 12 the year before. Wyoming Brand Commissioner Lee Romsa said his state has handled more than 100 such cases this year, up from 50 last year and an average of six to eight cases before that. Foster said some owners think their horses will be fine in the wild, but that's not the case. Domestic horses are rejected by wild herds and usually die after being unable to find water and forage. In Idaho, Hayhurst said he's dealt with about 70 abandoned horse cases over the past year, compared with the usual handful. He said another factor is the ban on horse slaughterhouses in the U.S. "Unfortunately, slaughterhouses are a necessary evil," Hayhurst said. "Without being able to ship a horse to a slaughterhouse, people turn them loose."...AP
When hell broke loose in Texas
Barbed wire came to Texas in the late 1870s. Though barbed wire was much cheaper than heart-of-pine planks, some cattlemen would have nothing to do with it. Gradually, though, it caught on and fences that were “horse-high, bull-proof and hog-tight” spread across the land. Barbed wire intensified conflicts between ranchers and farmers, cattlemen and sheepmen, free-range men and enclosed-pasture men, small stockmen and big ranchers. They began to cut each others’ fences. Prowlers in gunnysack hoods roamed at night snipping wire. Ranchhands rode the fence lines on guard for fence-cutters. The result was the Fence-Cutting War. Walter Prescott Webb called it a social upheaval. Like the machine-breaking uprising in England half a century before, it was partly a revolt against change. There were real injustices: Some fences closed what had been public right-of-ways, as with S.G. Miller’s fence that closed the Corpus Christi to Gussettville road, and some shut off access to communal watering holes, before the coming of windmills and artesian wells. The conflict became bloody. A headline in a Chicago paper said, “Hell breaks loose in Texas.” Texas Rangers were sent to quell the violence. Ranger Ira Aten, ordered to track down wire-cutters, said he upped his life insurance and oiled his six-shooter. Rangers hated the duty. They had to infiltrate gangs of known cutters, to get inside information, and then stake out lonely stretches of fences at night, concealed in the shadows, waiting for armed cutters to show up and start snipping...Caller-Times
Song Of The Day #083
This morning Little Jimmy Dickens will give us a lesson in the improper use of rural vernacular.Give a listen to his 1950 recording of Walk, Chicken, Walk ('Cause You're Too Fat To Fly).
This jewel of etiquette is available on his four disc box set Country Boy.
Sierra Club & The Grijalva Letter On Border Mitigation
From: Michael Degnan, Sierra Club [mailto:Michael.Degnan@sierraclub.org]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:15 PM
To:
Subject: Please Sign Borderlands Mitigation Letter to Secretary Napolitano
Dear Congressman _____,
I’m writing to urge you to join Rep. Grijalva in asking Secretary Napolitano to include monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in her evaluation of border security initiatives.
The text of the sign-on letter to Sec. Napolitano is attached.
This request to the Department of Homeland Security would not interfere with any current or future plans to build walls along our southwest border. Rather, the simple point that the letter raises is that we should be aware of the impacts that border security infrastructure and activities have caused and, where possible, we should repair the damage done.
Border walls have separated families, caused damaging floods and erosion, and fractured habitat and migration corridors vital to wildlife that has been pushed to the brink of extinction. The Department of Homeland Security has recognized the need to mitigate these types of negative impacts, but in order to adequately address the problem, first it must fully cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring and mitigation program.
For more information or to sign-on to the letter, please contact Gloria Montano in Rep. Grijalva’s office at Gloria.Montano@mail.house.gov or 225-2435.
Thanks for your time and consideration,
Michael Degnan
Washington DC Representative
Sierra Club
July 2009
Secretary Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528
Dear Secretary Napolitano:
We write to you today with concern regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts related to border security infrastructure and operations. As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the mportance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. We ask that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities.
As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the US/Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted. Considerable annual maintenance operations will be required for border fencing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates annual maintenance costs will amount to15% of initial construction costs, which are averaging $3 Million per mile. In addition, with DHS adding significantly more Border Patrol personnel, it is becoming increasingly important that impacts related to off-road vehicles, low-level flights and other interdiction activities be quantified and mitigated for, and that DHS provide training for its personnel in techniques to minimize damage to sensitive resources during enforcement activities.
We understand that in 2008 DHS allocated up to $50 Million to the Department of the Interior (DOI) for border fence mitigation. It is our understanding this money will be utilized primarily for off-site mitigation targeted to benefit threatened and endangered species that have been negatively impacted by new border security infrastructure projects. We believe this first round of mitigation for threatened and endangered species, along with the memorandum of agreement signed between DHS and DOI, demonstrate a positive commitment to mitigating negative impacts. However, there are numerous impacts across the border caused by both security infrastructure and operations that will require significantly more resources to properly monitor and mitigate.
For example, the National Park Service issued a report in August, 2008 confirming that border fencing astride the Lukeville Port of Entry has exacerbated seasonal flooding and has caused accelerated scouring and erosion on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – threatening to permanently alter the hydrology of the area if modifications are not made to rectify the inadequate design. A similar problem was identified at the DeConcini Port of Entry, where tunnel barrier and fence-exacerbated flooding caused extensive property and infrastructure damage in Nogales, Mexico. There are also serious concerns related to border infrastructure construction-induced siltation and resulting degradation of sensitive habitats of the Tijuana River Estuary and the San Pedro River located in southern California and Arizona, respectively. In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failing to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.
To date, there has been a lack of scientifically-based monitoring to quantify the
environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations. Information from monitoring will provide objective data on impacts, so that efforts to avoid impacts and mitigate for unavoidable impacts can be targeted appropriately. It is our understanding that such a pilot program has been proposed and is to be led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We understand the initiation of this program is pending a memorandum of agreement between DHS and DOI. We are concerned that this monitoring program, currently in a conceptual stage, is not being implemented fast enough; ongoing acute and cumulative impacts continue to go unmonitored. We urge you to ensure that DHS is an active partner in establishing this program and in utilizing the information derived from it to inform a robust, multi-year border mitigation fund.
We appreciate your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
CC: The Honorable Ken Salazar
Secretary of the Department of the Interior
The Honorable Nancy Sutley
Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:15 PM
To:
Subject: Please Sign Borderlands Mitigation Letter to Secretary Napolitano
Dear Congressman _____,
I’m writing to urge you to join Rep. Grijalva in asking Secretary Napolitano to include monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in her evaluation of border security initiatives.
The text of the sign-on letter to Sec. Napolitano is attached.
This request to the Department of Homeland Security would not interfere with any current or future plans to build walls along our southwest border. Rather, the simple point that the letter raises is that we should be aware of the impacts that border security infrastructure and activities have caused and, where possible, we should repair the damage done.
Border walls have separated families, caused damaging floods and erosion, and fractured habitat and migration corridors vital to wildlife that has been pushed to the brink of extinction. The Department of Homeland Security has recognized the need to mitigate these types of negative impacts, but in order to adequately address the problem, first it must fully cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring and mitigation program.
For more information or to sign-on to the letter, please contact Gloria Montano in Rep. Grijalva’s office at Gloria.Montano@mail.house.gov or 225-2435.
Thanks for your time and consideration,
Michael Degnan
Washington DC Representative
Sierra Club
July 2009
Secretary Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528
Dear Secretary Napolitano:
We write to you today with concern regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts related to border security infrastructure and operations. As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the mportance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. We ask that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities.
As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the US/Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted. Considerable annual maintenance operations will be required for border fencing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates annual maintenance costs will amount to15% of initial construction costs, which are averaging $3 Million per mile. In addition, with DHS adding significantly more Border Patrol personnel, it is becoming increasingly important that impacts related to off-road vehicles, low-level flights and other interdiction activities be quantified and mitigated for, and that DHS provide training for its personnel in techniques to minimize damage to sensitive resources during enforcement activities.
We understand that in 2008 DHS allocated up to $50 Million to the Department of the Interior (DOI) for border fence mitigation. It is our understanding this money will be utilized primarily for off-site mitigation targeted to benefit threatened and endangered species that have been negatively impacted by new border security infrastructure projects. We believe this first round of mitigation for threatened and endangered species, along with the memorandum of agreement signed between DHS and DOI, demonstrate a positive commitment to mitigating negative impacts. However, there are numerous impacts across the border caused by both security infrastructure and operations that will require significantly more resources to properly monitor and mitigate.
For example, the National Park Service issued a report in August, 2008 confirming that border fencing astride the Lukeville Port of Entry has exacerbated seasonal flooding and has caused accelerated scouring and erosion on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – threatening to permanently alter the hydrology of the area if modifications are not made to rectify the inadequate design. A similar problem was identified at the DeConcini Port of Entry, where tunnel barrier and fence-exacerbated flooding caused extensive property and infrastructure damage in Nogales, Mexico. There are also serious concerns related to border infrastructure construction-induced siltation and resulting degradation of sensitive habitats of the Tijuana River Estuary and the San Pedro River located in southern California and Arizona, respectively. In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failing to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.
To date, there has been a lack of scientifically-based monitoring to quantify the
environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations. Information from monitoring will provide objective data on impacts, so that efforts to avoid impacts and mitigate for unavoidable impacts can be targeted appropriately. It is our understanding that such a pilot program has been proposed and is to be led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We understand the initiation of this program is pending a memorandum of agreement between DHS and DOI. We are concerned that this monitoring program, currently in a conceptual stage, is not being implemented fast enough; ongoing acute and cumulative impacts continue to go unmonitored. We urge you to ensure that DHS is an active partner in establishing this program and in utilizing the information derived from it to inform a robust, multi-year border mitigation fund.
We appreciate your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
CC: The Honorable Ken Salazar
Secretary of the Department of the Interior
The Honorable Nancy Sutley
Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Western States To Lose Control Over Transmission Siting?
Newly added provisions to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, next slated to be voted on by the U.S. Senate, give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission final say over the siting of electric transmission lines in Western states—but not in any other part of the country, attendees of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region conference in Boise learned today. There is a “real threat” of the federal government taking over, said Paul Kjellander, administrator of Idaho’s office of energy resources, noting that seven transmission lines are currently slated to crisscross Idaho. One of the biggest issues is Gateway West, the siting of which is being fought by Parma and Kuna, which found out at recent public meetings that towers up to 180 feet tall along a corridor up to 250 wide were slated to cross the cities’ impact areas...NewWest
EPA to develop rule to ensure hardrock miners will pay for environmental cleanup
The Environmental Protection Agency, complying with a court order, will develop a rule to guarantee companies that mine everything from copper to uranium will pay for needed environmental cleanup, not taxpayers. The announcement on Monday comes in the wake of a federal judge's order in February requiring the EPA to close loopholes that allow some companies to get out of paying for such costly cleanups when they file bankruptcy. The agency said it will develop similar financial responsibility requirements for other types of operations but started with hardrock mining because of the size of the operations, the amount of waste and the number of mining sites on its Superfund's national priorities list. The EPA did not release specifics on how it will establish financial assurance requirements but said it will propose the rule by spring 2011. The National Mining Association trade group said the industry already is regulated by other state and federal laws establishing financial responsibility for cleanup. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignored critical facts and used inappropriate data in singling out U.S. hardrock mining for financial assurance requirements under Superfund," association CEO Hal Quinn said in a statement...AP
New ag subcommittee rosters
The new roster of chairmen and members announced by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and ranking member Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., for its subcommittees today contains some old faces and some new. One of the more familiar ones is that of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who becomes chairman of the Subcommittee on Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit after serving a term as chairman of the Subcommittee on Production, Income Protection and Price Support. Two of the newest are Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Mike Johanns, R-Neb., chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and Foreign Marketing, Inspection and Plant and Animal Health. Gillibrand was appointed to former Sen. Hillary Clinton’s New York seat, and former Agriculture Secretary Johanns successfully ran to replace retiring Chuck Hagel in 2008. The subcommittees and their new chairman, ranking members and members:
• Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit: Sen. Blanche Lincoln; Republican designee, ranking member; and Sen. Patrick Leahy D-Vt., Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Bob Casey, D-Pa., John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.
Jurisdiction: Legislation and oversight involving rural economic revitalization and quality of life; rural job and business growth; rural electrification, telecommunications and utilities; conservation, protection and stewardship of natural resources; state, local and private forests and general forestry; agricultural and rural credit....DeltaFarmPress
• Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry and Credit: Sen. Blanche Lincoln; Republican designee, ranking member; and Sen. Patrick Leahy D-Vt., Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Bob Casey, D-Pa., John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.
Jurisdiction: Legislation and oversight involving rural economic revitalization and quality of life; rural job and business growth; rural electrification, telecommunications and utilities; conservation, protection and stewardship of natural resources; state, local and private forests and general forestry; agricultural and rural credit....DeltaFarmPress
Obama Administration Seeks to Restrict Antibiotics in Livestock
The Obama administration announced Monday that it would seek to ban many routine uses of antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans. In written testimony to the House Rules Committee, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, said feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs and cattle — done to encourage rapid growth — should cease. And Dr. Sharfstein said farmers should no longer be able to use antibiotics in animals without the supervision of a veterinarian. Both practices lead to the development of bacteria that are immune to many treatments, he said. The hearing was held to discuss a measure proposed by Representative Louise M. Slaughter, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the Rules Committee. It would ban seven classes of antibiotics important to human health from being used in animals, and would restrict other antibiotics to therapeutic and some preventive uses. The legislation is supported by the American Medical Association, among other groups, but opposed by farm organizations like the National Pork Producers Council. The farm lobby’s opposition makes its passage unlikely, but advocates are hoping to include the measure in the legislation to revamp the health care system...NYTimes
Note To Readers
You will start noticing a change in my format.
The Westerner was started so that when you fired up your computer in the morning, that day's news and issues were there for you.
Over time a format was developed: National news, regional news, industry news, historical items, and most recently, capped off with The Song Of The Day. This was also done keeping in mind those who receive The Westerner by email.
Now, due to some health issues, The Westerner will start to look a little more like a traditional blog. In other words, when I find something I'll post it right then.
I've also tried to keep my comments to a minimum, and when offered, short and succinct. Now I have no choice. The ms has moved into my left hand and arm to the extent that I'm losing my ability to type with the left hand. I also may have to give up typing the source in each post and instead put the link in the title, which I can do just using the mouse.
Bottom line: The Westerner will still be here, it will just look a little different. You also may want to check in more than once a day.
The Westerner was started so that when you fired up your computer in the morning, that day's news and issues were there for you.
Over time a format was developed: National news, regional news, industry news, historical items, and most recently, capped off with The Song Of The Day. This was also done keeping in mind those who receive The Westerner by email.
Now, due to some health issues, The Westerner will start to look a little more like a traditional blog. In other words, when I find something I'll post it right then.
I've also tried to keep my comments to a minimum, and when offered, short and succinct. Now I have no choice. The ms has moved into my left hand and arm to the extent that I'm losing my ability to type with the left hand. I also may have to give up typing the source in each post and instead put the link in the title, which I can do just using the mouse.
Bottom line: The Westerner will still be here, it will just look a little different. You also may want to check in more than once a day.
Range War In the West
There is a range war out West. And unless you live in Idaho or Nevada or any other Western state you probably have no idea what is happening or why should you care. But wherever you live in America you should care because sooner or later it will affect you. This range war isn't about water rights or ranchers against homesteaders or big ranchers versus small ranchers like the Johnson County War in Wyoming in 1892. It is between ranchers who have worked the land raising cattle and sheep for over a century and environmental outlaws whose stated goal is driving them off the very land they need to survive and prosper. And this time the weapon of choice is not a Colt .45 or a Winchester rifle, but something much more deadly and destructive -- the lawsuit. So what's the issue? There are more than a quarter of a billion acres of public lands in the West. For over century a system has been in place to allow cattle and sheep ranchers access to portions of this land so that their animals can graze during certain times of year. Chances are that steak you throw on the BBQ spent some of its life on the range before being sold and sent to feedlots across the country to be fattened up to make sure that steak has some nice marbling. Over the years there have been bitter disputes between ranchers and environmentalists over whether this practice should continue. For the ranchers this was not a philosophical discussion about the best use of the land or saving an endangered species. It was about their very survival and the survival of the cattle and sheep industries that contribute so much to the economies of many Western states...FoxNews
Authorities seek leads in Grant County livestock killing
New Mexico Cattle-Growers and the Grant County Cattle-Growers are working with the New Mexico Livestock Board in conjunction with Crime Stoppers in offering a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons involved in the killing of a bull calf and burro on an area ranch. This incident occurred on Separ Road, south of White Signal, on or about July 1. Crimes involving the killing of livestock are taken very seriously by ranchers, as the raising of livestock is their livelihood. Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers at (575) 538-5254. All callers may remain anonymous. SilverCitySunNews
Cattle tick quarantine in Starr, Hidalgo Counties
Andrew Prukop, a Cattle Rancher in McCook, Texas, has had his cattle operation set up for over 20 years with out a problem. Now the Texas Animal Health Commission has moved a growing Fever Tick Quarantine blanket over his ranch. "The quarantine zone is getting bigger,” said Prukop. “I just now moved in to the quarantine blanket area, well the blanket area moved in to me." This new quarantine is designed to help stop the spread of the cattle fever tick. The tick was declared eradicated in the U.S. since 1943, except for some border towns where it’s believed they get them from Mexico. To protect against ticks, Prukop, just like other ranchers in the area have to get their cattle inspected and dipped in Rio Grande City which is 45 miles away from his ranch. “It makes a big difference in how I can market cattle, move and transport them,” said Prukop. “To take them off of this place, usually all cattle have to go through a dipping station. And, my closest dipping station is in Rio Grande City. “ Prukop is in an unusual predicament. He owns property on both sides of the quarantine line. To move his cattle 6 miles from one property to the other, he has to go 90 miles out of his way to go through the dipping and inspection process...ValleyCentral
Baxter Black: Ingenuity a cinch for cowboy
Cowboys can be quite creative when hard times cut into the daily operating expenses. Take Roy's cousin BB. One of BB's heifers had come off his badlands and crossed onto Roy's pasture. On that fateful day, BB had driven his pickup and gooseneck trailer to Roy's place to pick him up. Roy wasn't quite ready. His cinch had worn down to two flimsy cords. "Did you happen to bring an extra cinch?" he asked. "No," said BB, "but I can make one out of a gunny sack." He dumped the tire chains out of a greasy tow sack. Roy thought he had been around, but this ingenious thinking was a new wrinkle to him. Roy watched his cousin slip-knot one end through the offside cinch ring, then fold the other end over the tongue and through the ring on the left side ring and stitch it. "This baling wire makes good thread," he explained. Half an hour later they were pushing the heifer back toward BB's piece of the Pine Ridge Rez. "Keep her to the bad land side," instructed Roy. "Don't let her get over on the prairie dog side or we'll lose her!" Of course, the heifer took off in the direction of the prairie dog town. "Rope her!" yelled Roy. BB missed but Roy was right behind and caught her. He was tied hard and fast...AmarilloGlobeNews
It's all Trew: Old magazine shows of changing times
Recently I added an October 1918 Popular Mechanics magazine to my old magazine collection. At this age I am no longer legally bound to give any reasons why I collect this stuff. I think it is because it shows our continually changing times. For example, in 1918, a year's subscription of 12 issues cost only $2. That's 4½ regular postage stamps today. Each issue included 165 pages chock-full of information, advice, illustrations and meaningful ads with no side effects promised. Hundreds of ads, designed to catch the eyes of returning World War I veterans, tout the advantages of learning a trade or acquiring more education in many fields. The locations of the schools and prices of this timely knowledge were plainly exhibited promising $250 per month and up to $10,000 per year income. Many articles pertained to the new-fangled gadget called the automobile. One page showed and told of a device to help you align your tires so they would not wear. My first thought was that it's hard to imagine a tire wearing down at 25 mph on a dirt road. Another ad showed a foot warmer you heated on your wood stove before entering the unheated car. Pure wood alcohol was used as radiator fluid. Simple improvements are drawn in detail, like how to make a glue pot out of tin cans and a candle, how to build a jack handle with more leverage and how to keep belts from slipping when driving a machine...AmarilloGlobeNews
Song Of The Day #082
I'm ready for some early Buck Owens.I missed yesterday so today we'll have a double dose of Buck.
The two selections are the 1956 recording of Down On The Corner, plus There Goes My Love.
Both are available on the 21 track Young Buck: The Complete Pre-Capitol Recordings
Is Your Utility Pocket Knife a Homeland Security Threat? Senate Takes Action
A little-reported action by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) threatens to criminalize the purchase of utility knives now in common use across the United States.A little-reported action by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) threatens to criminalize the purchase of utility knives now in common use across the United States. The pocket knives CBP is attempting to reclassify as switchblades under the Switchblade Knife Act of 1958 include a spring to assist opening. They are not the stiletto switchblades of West Side Story that flick open with the press of a button. These pocket knives have thumb studs near the base of the blade that must be pushed open 30 degrees before a spring completes the opening action. The blades, however, are clearly designed for utility. Such knives are used by farmers, ranchers, tradesmen, sportsmen, hobbyists, and many others whose work make the ability to open a knife with one hand while the other hand is occupied a significant convenience, if not an outright necessity. In addition to the response by House lawmakers, a July 8 amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and 12 colleagues to the Switchblade Knife Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent and was approved as part of the DHS Appropriations bill the Senate passed on July 9. The amendment clarifies the definition of switchblade knives, effectively nullifying CBP’s attempted revocation of the Bush administration letters. The DHS appropriations bill now goes to conference committee. If the Switchblade Knife Act amendment survives there, the episode will be over...HumanEvents
For more info, see my June 15th post here.
For more info, see my June 15th post here.
Monday, July 13, 2009
NM landowners battle state over hungry elk
The elk in New Mexico are big and beautiful - a hunter's dream, a landowner's nightmare. Property owners across the state long have complained about wildlife overrunning their private land and destroying crops. But the problem is boiling over in the Cuba area, where ranchers say they're being ignored and wildlife managers aren't doing enough to curb the damage or compensate them. Starting tomorrow, the state Game and Fish Department is holding a series of public meetings. The department will consider proposals that would change the area's hunting unit boundaries and how hunting tags are allocated to landowners who allow elk on their property. Currently, the formula doesn't take into account agricultural damage. Another proposal calls for giving more tags to private landowners as a form of compensation for elk damage. AP
Environment Department issues San Miguel fire advisory
The New Mexico Environment Department issued a health advisory for areas of north and central New Mexico affected by smoke from the San Miguel fire in the Bandelier Wilderness and Santa Fe National Forest. The department will place an air monitor downwind of the fire Tuesday to ensure the smoke poses no harm to residents. That’s in response to concerns raised by the public about the fire’s proximity to Los Alamos National Laboratory. NMED officials said they do not expect to find anything out of the ordinary in the smoke. The fire is in a remote area of the Bandelier Wilderness at Bandelier National Monument and the Dome Wilderness in the Santa Fe National Forest...NMBusinessWeekly
When Dad Rides the Rodeo Circuit, Many Families Saddle Up
Cowboys have a reputation as hard-living tough guys, men who have foresworn wives and children for a life riding bulls and wrestling steers. And although many rodeo competitors work hard to live up to the image, a number of them take their families on the road. Some travel with children only in the summer, when school is out and the rodeo season is at its peak. Others, like Ray and his wife, Robbin, spend much of the year on the circuit. As a result, the Ray girls are home schooled by their mother. Although there are no statistics on how many rodeo competitors travel with their families, children are a part of rodeo life, said Karl Stressman, the commissioner of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the sport’s governing body. “I think we’re probably the largest professional sport that does travel with families,” Stressman said. “Our sport is a young man’s sport, so there’s a lot of young families that do travel with them.” Children often occupy the dusty lots behind any major rodeo. Boys toss ropes at hay-bale dummies and tip back their cowboy hats when they talk to strangers. Girls borrow their fathers’ horses between events. Cowboys ride to the rodeo arena with babies tucked into the saddle in front of them...NYTimes
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