NEWS ROUNDUP

Wyoming methane drilling lags behind last year Difficulties in getting water discharge permits have slowed drilling for coal-bed methane in Wyoming 20 percent below last year's average of 50 rigs, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission says. However, regulatory officials say they expect the pace of coal-bed methane drilling to pick up because seasonal restrictions were lifted June 15. "We're in the heart of the field season now, because we can do all the field work without delays for snow and muddy conditions," said Chris Hanson, field manager at the Buffalo field office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Although coal-bed methane drilling is down this year, the BLM Buffalo field office has issued more permits this year than last. So far this year, the office has issued 1,546 permits, compared with 1,392 issued at this time last year....
Wild horse adoptions see decreased turnout Dozens of wild horses will have to try again to find new homes. The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management hosted an adoption auction this past weekend at Flickerwood Arena in Jackson, about 100 miles south of St. Louis. But of 70 horses and 11 burros available, only 16 animals were adopted. At a similar event two years ago, nearly all of the horses and burros were adopted. Organizer Randy Anderson was disappointed with the low turnout but said there are many factors in reduced demand for horses. "Normally in Missouri, we do pretty well," Anderson said. "But nationwide, the horse industry is going through some challenges. There’s a lot of animals out there, less people to adopt them, a lot of competition from other organizations, the price of fuel and economic considerations." Arena owner Mark Boardham wondered if the government did enough to promote the auction....
Prairie dogs to move as highway project looms The state wildlife agency plans to move about 150 white-tailed prairie dogs in Montana’s sensitive population, to save them from a highway construction project near Wyoming. A decision this week from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks authorizes relocating three of Montana’s 10 active colonies of white-tailed prairie dogs, all of which are in Carbon County. The agency plans to trap the squirrel-like rodents this summer and move them to federal land, so they will be spared harm from the widening of Montana 72 southwest of Billings. White-tailed prairie dogs are classified as a ‘‘species of concern’’ in Montana. The 10 colonies inhabit about 250 acres in the state, down roughly two-thirds from their acreage in the 1970s, when there were 15 colonies. Fish, Wildlife and Parks attributes the decline to disease and the conversion of habitat for agriculture or other uses. White-tailed prairie dogs contribute to prey and habitat for eagles, hawks, black-footed ferrets and other wildlife. The prairie dogs to be moved are a significant part of Montana’s population, said Allison Puchniak, a native species biologist for the wildlife agency. Puchniak said Thursday that she did not have a figure for the state’s total population....
Grassland could again see ferrets Using a special rule under the Endangered Species Act, federal officials hope to bring the endangered black-footed ferret back to Thunder Basin National Grassland without hampering public and private land use. Commonly considered the most endangered mammal in North America, the black-footed ferret once lived on the grassland, where it hunted prairie dogs as a main food source and used the prairie dog’s tunnels for shelter from predators. Historically, ferrets occupied grasslands from Montana to Mexico. The animal was thought to be extinct until a small group of ferrets was found on a ranch near Meeteetse in 1981. Today, the only population of ferrets in the wild in Wyoming is found in the Shirley Basin south of Casper, established through a series of transplants from a federal captive breeding program. Reintroduction programs have met with spotty success at best, as the ferrets' survival depends on maintaining high numbers of prairie dogs, which are easily killed by plague. Thunder Basin is one of the few remaining grasslands with prairie dog populations adequate to support ferret reintroduction, officials say. U.S. Forest Service officials who manage the Thunder Basin grassland have planned for a ferret reintroduction for years, incorporating that into a major management plan....
Number of gray whales increases along Calif. coast While many whale species remain endangered, the gray whale calf count along the California coast rose sharply this spring, marine scientists reported Monday. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the increase probably reflects the whales' greater access to their Arctic Ocean feeding grounds. That's likely due to warmer temperatures that have reduced sea ice. "For gray whales, reduced ice provides greater access to prey, just the opposite of what we see with polar bears, where reduced ice means reduced access to prey," said Wayne Perryman, a biologist at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif. The center has been counting gray whale calves since 1991 from a point of land that pokes out into the Pacific at Piedras Blancas Light Station, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Gray whales swim close to the shore there when migrating between Baja California and the Bering Sea. The count reached an estimated 1,018 gray whale calves this year. That's up from 945 last year and 300 to 500 in the 1999-2001 migrations....
Developer sentenced for destroying eagle nest A Fort Myers development supervisor who admitted to destroying an eagle nest was sentenced today to a year of probation, a $2,000 fine and 50 hours of community service with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida's Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. William Martin Murphy, 62, pleaded guilty in March to plowing down a tree where a pair of nesting eagles had decided to take up residence. The tree, growing on a lot between Colonial Boulevard and Winkler Avenue, just north of Heritage Palms in Fort Myers, stood in the way of an imminent development. When he pleaded out in court Murphy, an employee of the Levitt & Sons development firm, admitted to destroying the tree because he thought it would cause permitting problems. Today, attorneys for Murphy argued for a lenient sentence because Murphy had no criminal record....
Baby pelicans starving along California coast Miles from the shoreline, 10 baby brown pelicans lounge by a pool in a roomy cage, large buckets of fish there for the taking. Just days ago, these birds could not feed themselves at all. Scores of starving baby pelicans — emaciated, cold and too weak to fly — are washing up on California beaches in disturbing numbers this spring. The underfed California brown pelicans have stirred concerns over the endangered species, which in recent years has shown strong signs of recovery. Biologists say the recovery could actually be the source of the problem: There are more pelicans competing for food. The International Bird Rescue Research Center in Cordelia, in the grassy hills about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, has taken in almost two dozen pelicans this month, most of them near Santa Cruz and Monterey, all of them 2 to 4 months old....
Grass variety hazardous to wildlife, domestic animals The grass variety once considered a solution for ranchers looking to build Missouri's cattle industry is now being described much differently - as a nuisance. Tall fescue - the hardy, dense and easily grown grass that is common in parks, lawns and in many grazing fields in Missouri and Kansas - is earning a reputation as an environmental terror and livestock health hazard. Its strands prevent game birds from moving through it, and its tendency to crowd out native grasses and wildflowers depletes food and shelter. Some varieties also create a fungus that can be hazardous to grazing animals, including cattle and horses. "In the eastern United States, fescue is the Number 1 threat to wildlife," said Steve Clubine, grasslands biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation. "Inch by inch, foot by foot, we keep losing habitat." The number of prairie chickens, an endangered species in Missouri, has rapidly declined, and quail and songbirds such as the meadowlark are dying out. Grassland bird populations in eastern Kansas have also dropped. "I don't think there's any doubt, in eastern Kansas where fescue has been dominant, our quail population went in the tank," said Jim Pittman of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks....
A call to revitalize once-lush estuary There were once so many mallards, they seemed like thick, dark clouds against the sky. So loud, they reminded Germán Muñoz of an entire stadium, wild with applause, when their webbed feet struck the water's surface. But the migratory ducks stopped coming years ago when the wetlands dried up and salt cedar shrubs took over. Muñoz longs for their return, and at 59, the hunting guide is working to bring them back, cutting away the salt cedar, watching water levels and planting fragrant mesquite trees that once graced this land. Here and elsewhere on the Colorado River Delta, once-lush landscapes now survive largely on runoff, leaks and surpluses. Today, even those flows are threatened as users upstream vie for every drop. As it crosses nine states in two countries, the 1,450-mile river is a lifeline that provides drinking water to 25 million people and irrigation for 3.5 million acres of agricultural land; but few remember the stands of cottonwoods and willow, the cattail marshes filled with wildlife that still persist at the river's ravaged and resilient mouth....
Volunteers guard threatened bird's eggs After months of watching and waiting, on June 18 a group of California State Parks staff and volunteers celebrated an eagerly anticipated addition to their brood of protected wildlife: three tiny, speckled snowy plover eggs. Within an hour of their discovery on Francis Beach, volunteers erected a netted enclosure to protect the plover family from predators. Finding Western snowy plover eggs is so rare, and the chance of their survival so small, that human intervention at this stage has been crucial since the bird was listed as an endangered species in 1993. It's ironic that the small, puffy birds have chosen to lay their eggs on one of the busiest beaches in town. Their predators are everywhere — careless humans, hungry hawks and great horned owls, foxes, skunks, and raccoons. But year after year, the skittish birds continue to hatch their eggs on a strip of beach no more than 50 yards from the ocean. Even their nests, no more than shallow bowls of sand dug by the male plover, seem to invite an attack. Consequently, more than 60 State Parks volunteers have signed up to maintain daylong vigils over the plovers who nest along coastal beaches and waterways. Since 1993, they have spent 300 days a year monitoring known habitat areas, such as the one cordoned off on Francis Beach, for signs of snowy plovers and their nests....
The Spotted Owl Canard and Environmentalists A funny thing happened here in our Northwestern forest; a giant canard has been shot out of the sky. One of the most fought over endangered species in the history of the West, the Spotted Owl, contrary to popular belief appears to be the victim of an invasive species from the eastern forest; the culprit, the Barred Owl. The Spotted Owl is losing territory because the larger, tougher, Barred Owl, desires it also. Barred Owls are a more adaptable species, being more flexible, they spread out effectively, and occupy diverse habitats. Sometimes they interbreed with Spotted Owls creating Spotted-Barred Owl hybrids. Is the Barred Owl invasion natural? Kent Livezey, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said: “The Barred Owl's migration was likely caused by people but not necessarily from fragmentation of forests from logging or development, rather, an increase in tree cover in the center of North America helped along by fire suppression and tree planting prompted the owl's move west. But, they made it here under their own steam.” Native Americans also stopped burning the Great Plains in the 1880’s: an increase of tree density is the result. This accelerated the tree bridge from the eastern forests into the Spotted Owl territory of the Northwest. This paradoxical development begs the question: what is to be done about the Barred Owl invasion?....
Red tape may strangle cottontail rabbits As champion for all things small, furry, and few, David Wade isn't shy about going to bat for bunnies. Which is why he filed a lawsuit last week to have the New England cottontail declared an endangered species. Rabbits, which typically proliferate like, well, themselves, aren't too often on this end of the stick. But the New England cottontail is being decimated as fast-growing suburbs cut into its scrubby habitat and other more aggressive, invasive rabbit species combine to crowd them out. Scientists have known that the New England cottontail - the only cottontail native to the region - was in sad shape since the early 1990s. Several groups, including Mr. Wade, petitioned for the rabbit's protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in August 2000. But after nearly six years of waiting for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to make a decision, the cottontail just can't wait any longer, several experts say....
Cannibalism cited among polar bears Polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea may be turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food, a new study by American and Canadian scientists has found. The study reviewed several examples of polar bears preying on each other from January to April 2004 north of Alaska and in northwestern Canada, including the first-ever reported killing of a female in a den shortly after it gave birth. Polar bears feed primarily on ringed seals and use sea ice for feeding, mating and giving birth. Polar bears kill each other for population regulation, dominance and reproductive advantage, the study said. Killing for food is less common, said the study's principal author, Steven Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center....
Editorial: Look at big picture to save salmon When they suggested pulling the plug on a lifeline for Idaho's sockeye salmon, scientists swam straight into a political turbine. But the scientists didn't get it entirely wrong. They pointed out — correctly — that myriad factors keep the sockeye teetering on the edge of extinction. The sooner the Northwest faces the big picture, the better the chances of survival for all of the region's imperiled wild salmon. Including, but most profoundly, Idaho's sockeye, now hanging on in a genetic emergency room. The sockeye salmon — the ocean-running red fish that gave the Stanley Basin's Redfish Lake its name — have been on the federal government's endangered species list since 1991. Fourteen summers later, only six adult sockeye returned to the Sawtooths, completing a mind-boggling 900-mile, 6,500-foot climb from the Pacific. The sockeye are hanging on not in their pristine spawning waters, but under man-made conditions at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game Eagle Fish Hatchery in Eagle....
Boom in Ethanol Reshapes Economy of Heartland Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown. Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza. The modern-day gold rush is driven by a number of factors: generous government subsidies, surging demand for ethanol as a gasoline supplement, a potent blend of farm-state politics and the prospect of generating more than a 100 percent profit in less than two years. The rush is taking place despite concerns that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people and livestock, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland. Even in the small town of Hereford, in the middle of the Texas Panhandle's cattle country and hundreds of miles from the agricultural heartland, two companies are rushing to build plants to turn corn into fuel....
Coal Calls Dan Fessler spent five years looking for a site to launch his vision of a new industry that could produce clean fuel from coal — and, last year, he chose Wyoming. “The mines are there; they’re massive and they’re well-financed,’’ he says. “The rail infrastructure is there. For me to do (this project) in Montana would require me to develop a coal reserve and a transportation infrastructure, which is very expensive. “I’m having enough trouble finding financial backing (just) for the coal-to-liquids plant. That’s why you find people like me being at the mouth of the Powder River Basin (in Wyoming) rather than going up and talking to your governor.’’ Fessler and his company, Clear Energy Solutions, illustrate a simple fact: While Gov. Brian Schweitzer has been relentlessly promoting development of coal-to-liquids plants and “clean coal’’ projects in Montana, potential projects are on the drawing board in Wyoming. DKRW Energy of Houston is working on a coal-to-liquids project near Medicine Bow, Wyo., and MidAmerican Energy, the holding company controlled by billionaire investor Warren Buffet, recently bought coal properties south of Sheridan, Wyo., with an eye toward developing a cleaner-burning, coal-fired power plant or possibly coal-to-liquids projects....
Conservation group appeals pipeline decision The proposed natural gas pipeline from Coos Bay to Malin, approximately 225 miles long and running through Douglas County, is facing a legal challenge. Roseburg-based conservation group Umpqua Watersheds is appealing “casual use” activities for the proposed route of the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline on Bureau of Land Management lands, saying the activities disregard the National Environmental Policy Act. A right-of-way application granted by BLM to the three companies proposing to jointly develop the pipeline includes casual use. The right-of-way allows the companies to proceed with the route’s development and conduct civil, environmental, cultural resources and geotechnical surveys on the ground. Umpqua Watersheds says the establishment of a route on about 40 miles of BLM lands is “illegal and unnecessary” because it doesn’t allow the public to weigh in on a scoping process....
Unlikely Duo Tackles Drilling(Subscription) The House is set to vote this week on a bill to overturn a 25-year ban on oil and gas exploration along much of the nation's coastlines -- the result, in large part, of efforts by a political odd couple. Republican Rep. John Peterson, a former grocer, is a conservative from Pennsylvania, and Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a former college professor, is a liberal from Hawaii. Together, they have forged an industry-labor coalition around the argument that natural-gas prices are driving companies out of the U.S. and costing workers their jobs. "Either we fix this problem, or we become a second-rate nation," says Mr. Peterson, noting that natural-gas prices have doubled for industrial users and small businesses in the past five years. Drilling is prohibited in most U.S. waters within 200 miles of the coastline. (The exception is the western part of the Gulf of Mexico.) The bill pushed by Messrs. Peterson and Abercrombie would allow drilling beyond 50 miles from the shore and give states financial incentives to allow drilling even closer. Over the past three years, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service has made a series of estimates about the amount of natural gas that might be available there, ranging from 85 trillion to 333 trillion cubic feet. The U.S. uses about 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year. Officials caution that the estimates are based on surveys from the '70s and may be outdated. Both supporters and opponents say the House vote, scheduled for Thursday, will be close. The legislation, which is opposed by environmentalists, has picked up support in recent weeks, reflecting lawmakers' need to be seen addressing energy prices in an election year. The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where Florida's senators have threatened a filibuster....
U.S. Grants 1st License for Major Nuclear Plant in 30 Years The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its first license for a major commercial nuclear facility in 30 years, allowing an international consortium to build what will be the nation's first private fuel source for commercial nuclear power plants. Construction of the $1.5 billion National Enrichment Facility, under review for the past 2 1/2 years, could begin in August, and the plant could be ready to sell enriched uranium by early 2009, said James Ferland, president of the consortium of nuclear companies, Louisiana Energy Services. The plant, licensed on Friday, will be built near the small southeastern New Mexico community of Eunice, where support for the project is strong. Critics say it will pollute the environment, guzzle scarce water and leave the town with tons of radioactive waste and nowhere to put it. Although the state was largely excluded for the licensing process, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), a former energy secretary, said he expects that New Mexicans and their environment will be protected by an agreement state officials had reached with Louisiana Energy Services....
U.S. firefighters in Mexico as American West burns Despite raging wildfires across the American Southwest in recent weeks, the state of California sent more than four dozen firefighters 300 miles south of the U.S. border to battle blazes in Mexico. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) last week dispatched two engine strike teams with a total of ten engines and 54 personnel after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office approved a request by Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther. "Worse, what protection is offered to U.S. firefighters if they get hurt ... ? What protection do they have from disease while in Mexico? Who is paying for CDF to fight fire in Mexico? Certainly Mexico isn't. That's right folks – again, it's the good ol' USA taxpayer footing the bill for Mexicans in their own country. This is more loco than the human mind can comprehend. ... It's pathetic." This weekend, 23 large blazes were burning more than 275,000 acres in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming....
Landowners Learn Property Is Really National Forest Land A surveying mistake made almost 30 years ago could prove pricey for some landowners in the Crystal Lakes subdivision west of Red Feather Lakes in Larimer County. Property owners recently learned that some of their land is actually within the boundaries of the publicly owned Roosevelt National Forest. Now they might have to buy the land from the U.S. Forest Service at current market prices. A 2003 Bureau of Land Management survey found that a private survey in 1975 failed to accurately locate markers on the ground for section corners, placing the forest boundary in the wrong place. About 20 properties are affected, with forest land of up to 1.63 acres. Canyon Lakes District Ranger Ellen Hodges said the Forest Service wants to work with landowners to settle the issue. But Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave said residents shouldn't have to pay for the land a second time and she's looking into legislative solutions to the problem....
Wilderness bill's fate hinges on access If Rep. Mike Thompson's 300,000-acre wilderness bill protecting some of the most scenic lands along California's North Coast passes this year, what made the difference may well have been negotiations that won the endorsement of a Del Norte County supervisor in February. With the clock ticking down on the congressional session, last-minute pressure is building on House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, to move the bill out of his committee and to the House floor for passage. First introduced in 2002, the legislation would declare as wilderness federal lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service from Napa County to the Oregon border. The most spectacular addition would be 42,585 acres in the King Range National Conservation Area, including a 26-mile stretch of beach that is the longest undeveloped coastline remaining in the continental United States....
Udall's Valle Vidal bill now prime for full House vote The Valle Vidal Protection Act of 2005 cleared another major hurdle today, passing the House Committee on Resources, and is now ready for a vote by the full House, bill sponsor U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., announced Wednesday. Udall, who has long served on the House Resources Committee, said "Protecting the Valle Vidal means preserving for New Mexico and the nation a land rich in history and culture and abundant in wildlife. America's earliest inhabitants -- Pueblo cultures, Spanish settlers and extensive populations of wildlife -- have made their homes there and I believe we have a responsibility to protect it for future generations." H.R. 3817 was introduced by Udall on September 15, 2005, and seeks to protect the 102,000-acre Valle Vidal area of the Carson National Forest from energy and mineral extraction and development. The Valle Vidal tract was donated to the Forest Service in 1982 by Pennzoil Co., which never allowed drilling in the area....Donated? Yes, for a huge tax write-off.
RMNP wilderness measure stalls in Congress Proponents of a bill to designate Rocky Mountain National Park a wilderness area say they need the support of U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. Both Republican politicians, however, have yet to sign on to the Senate and House wilderness bills, one introduced by Sen. Ken Salazar and the other by Rep. Mark Udall, both Democrats. The identical bills would ratify a Nixon-era proposal to designate Rocky Mountain National Park a wilderness area. A Musgrave spokesman said the congresswoman still needs one last assurance. “Before she supports that bill, she would like more information and a study of the economic impacts of a wilderness area on Estes Park,” spokesman Guy Short said. He said Musgrave is open to the idea of the designation for the park, but she wants all the economic facts first....
In Defense of Logging and Loggers On the third full weekend of June Encampment Wyoming hosts the annual Rocky Mountain Champion Lumberjack Completion where loggers come from all over the country to compete for the coveted title. Chips fly during this competition using chain saws, axes and hand saws, the men and women competitors cut down trees competing in events that include: Tree Felling, two-man handsaw tree felling, two-man handsaw, two-woman handsaw, power saw log bucking, one-man handsaw, man & woman handsaw team, choker setting, axe chopping, pole throw, axe throw, power saw log bucking, power saw log bucking, and the mad loggers chainsaw throw. It is refreshing to hear that this proud profession is still celebrated despite its vilification by America’s tree huggers who have turned a blind eye to their need for timber products in their crusade to reserve our forests for the Bark Beetle and fire. Scientists and forest managers continue to tell us proactive forest management is a solution for overcrowded, unhealthy and fire-prone forests. Thinning and logging reduce fuels and can make wildfires far less devastating while making mountain communities far safer. But some refuse to listen....
‘Over the River’ artists request EIS The artists proposing the “Over the River” project to drape part of the Arkansas River with fabric panels have requested a more in-depth investigation into the potential impacts the venture could have. The Bureau of Land Management’s Royal Gorge Field Office has already begun work on an Environmental Impact Statement at the request of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The survey is expected to take at least another year. Already working on an Environmental Assessment for the project, the BLM is simply transitioning that information into the more extensive EIS. “This is being done at the request of the artists themselves,” said Roy Masinton, local BLM manager. “They realize we may have to go into an EIS ultimately anyway, and getting into this earlier rather than later would probably save them both money and time.”....
Court won't revisit petroglyph theft A U.S. appeals court panel has refused the Justice Department's request to rehear the government's case that seeks to reinstate convictions for two men who admitted they removed ancient American Indian rock art in Nevada. Federal prosecutors said they were informed by mail earlier this week that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had denied the request for rehearing the case involving the theft of the centuries-old petroglyphs from national forest land in August 2003. The three-judge panel provided no explanation for its decision, which was entered with the court's clerk on June 15 but not previously publicized. The Forest Service believes the petroglyphs -- including etchings of an archer and a big horn sheep -- are at least 1,000 years old....
EPA Testing Waste From Old Smelting Plant in Oxnard Except for the waves crashing nearby, the slag heap at Ormond Beach in Ventura County could double as a moonscape. Ragged berms and cracked plains spread over 28 acres top a 45-foot-high mass of compacted gray ash. Nothing grows there — not even a weed. For decades, community activists have said that the waste pile and the now-shuttered foundry in Oxnard that created it are a scar on the coast and a threat to an adjacent lagoon brimming with bird and sea life. Their goal of seeing the pile removed, and the entire area restored as a wetland, gained unexpected momentum last week with the arrival of a team of inspectors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Using sensitive monitoring equipment, geologists are testing nearby residential tracts, soil, sand, groundwater, the air and even fish from the lagoon for evidence of radiation and other pollutants....
Norton defends former aide Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton defended her one-time top deputy, J. Steven Griles, after a Senate committee reported it had unanswered questions about his contacts with embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee on Thursday released a report that said it found no evidence of any wrongdoing by Norton in its probe into Abramoff's lobbying on behalf of Indian tribes, including his attempts to influence Interior Department decisions. The report did cite lingering questions about Abramoff's claims to have cultivated a close working relationship with former Deputy Secretary Griles through the help of a woman named Italia Federici, who had known Norton since the mid-1990s in Colorado. And Norton dismissed what she called one "preposterous claim" reportedly made by Abramoff: that he had "interviewed Griles for his position at Interior and, in fact, helped him get his job there." "I worked with Steve during the Reagan administration," Norton wrote. "I had admired and respected him for over 15 years, and I did not need any outside influence to know I wanted Steve to be my deputy. Abramoff played no role, and this claim just shows how much he exaggerated his bragging."....
Pesticide exposure linked to Parkinson`s People exposed to pesticides are at a higher risk of developing Parkinson`s disease, according to the longest and largest study yet to support such a connection. Study participants who reported regular exposure to pesticides had a 70 percent higher incidence of the disease than those who were not exposed to the chemicals. 'This is the first fairly clear evidence that some chemical exposure significantly increases risk for Parkinson`s,' said lead author Dr. Alberto Ascherio, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. 'With the combined evidence of all the studies in humans ... it`s extremely unlikely there is another explanation,' he said. The study will appear in the July issue of the Annals of Neurology. People who reported exposure to pesticides were 14 times more likely to list their occupation as farmer, rancher or fisherman, the authors wrote. Even so, after analysis both farmers and non-farmers demonstrated the same increase -- 70 percent -- in Parkinson`s incidence. Ascherio suspects the non-farmers represent people using pesticides around their home and garden....
Charity trail rides fun way to give As the twin dun-colored mules with the bold lightning stripes down their legs heaved the wagon into motion, the greener horses snorted and stomped, quickly raising dust and their rider's heartbeats. Excitement spiced with a taste of danger evaporated after a few miles as the 85 horses and two wagons spread out and settled down to the trail pace through the Bull Mountains. The second annual Chase Hawks Memorial ride at the Dahl family's Runamuk Ranch attracted more than 100 people from Montana and North Dakota and as far away as Florida. Fifth-generation rancher Toby Dahl started the ride with a short speech: "I'm Toby. I know the way," he said as he rode off, spurs twirling....
Cowboys debate new rules for Calgary Stampede Fewer cowboys will be competing at this year's Calgary Stampede, prompting some grumbles at an Alberta rodeo over the weekend. The Stampede is less than two weeks away and for the first time, rodeo organizers have set up new qualifying rules. Each of the six events at this year's rodeo will have a top prize of $100,000, up from $50,000. But there will be fewer cowboys competing for that money. Only 120 cowboys and cowgirls will rope, wrestle or ride, compared to more than 330 last year. At a rodeo in High River this weekend, some cowboys worried the change would mean fewer Canadians competing in Calgary this year. Lance Mulvahill missed the cut for saddle bronco at the Stampede. He said having fewer Canadians in Canada's biggest rodeo is bad for the sport and bad for the industry that supports it....
It's All Trew: My, how record keeping has changed Today's computers, calculators, spreadsheets, instant messaging and professional accountants make good record keeping a breeze. It wasn’t like that in the old days. Larry Touchon sent information on early records kept in what his family called a "tobacco book." It was about the size of a shirt pocket, contained about 30 pages with blue lines and had a heavier cover sporting tobacco advertising, hence its name. All cotton farmers and field hands had such a book and kept meticulous records of how many pounds of cotton each person picked, how many hours worked or rows whopped. Some kept financial records of bills paid and checks written. Amazingly, the figures in the books were considered correct to the point they stood up in a court of law. The integrity of this method of record keeping was accepted as the gospel in that circle of people. My father, J.T. Trew, had a similar book with the same tobacco advertising on the cover, but he called it his "tally book." Each pasture or field was named along with the number of livestock the area contained. He also kept breeding and birth dates, and one page held the totals of livestock lost to death during the last year. Records of livestock sales were recorded in detail on the pages....

NEWS

BLM strives to monitor Otero Mesa balancing act More than a hundred wells had been dug in Otero Mesa in the hundred years before Heyco Energy Group"s turn in 1996, but none produced gas or oil until the Roswell-based company dug 1-Y and 25-1. These two test wells detected natural gas reserves large enough to prompt four more applications for drilling permits and a request for a pipeline. The federal land agency approved the permits and the pipeline, but suspended drilling until it could revise its 1986 management plan for the ecologically sensitive mesa. A draft of the revision was released for public comment in October 2000, and a final record of decision and management plan appeared in January 2005. The new plan featured an unprecedented 5 percent use stipulation, which requires leaseholders to treat all their leases as one, and only disturb 5 percent of that total lease area at a time. The plan also stipulates that oil and gas developers must restore the disturbed areas to "a composition and density that closely approximates the surrounding vegetation as prescribed by the BLM, and is free of noxious weeds," before moving on to the next 5 percent of their leased parcel....
Ski group wants to remove roadless designation on 8,000 acres The trade association for 26 Colorado ski areas is seeking to remove 8,000 acres from the U.S. Forest Service's inventoried roadless areas. Colorado Ski Country USA supports preserving most of the 4.43 million roadless acres in the state, but it wants to remove the roadless designation from land within ski-area permit boundaries. The roadless designation does not prohibit skiing, but the use of roadless lands can pose public relations headaches, Arapahoe Basin general manager Alan Henceroth said. Aspen Skiing Co. is facing opposition from some environmentalists and backcountry skiers over a plan to add skiing terrain within its ski-area permit boundary. One of the opposition's arguments is it would harm roadless lands....
Forest Service workers report growing dangers on the job For the nation's forest rangers, the serenity of the woods increasingly is giving way to confrontations with unruly visitors. Attacks, threats and lesser altercations invo|ving Forest Service workers reached an all-time high last year, according to government documents obtained by a public employees advocacy group. Incidents ranged from gunshots to stalking and verbal abuse. The agency tally shows 477 such reports in 2005, compared with 88 logged a year earlier. The total in 2003 was 104; in 1995, it was 34. Among the more serious incidents, a Forest Service worker was run down by a man in a snowmobile in California's Lake Tahoe Basin Management area. The man pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. Also, Forest Service workers were shot at while trying to confiscate a marijuana plantation in California's Angeles National Forest. Two loaded shotguns and more than 78 kilograms of processed marijuana were seized. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them to the Associated Press....
Ranchers keep leery eye on Army Life clings tenuously here to the limestone soil, dry as baby powder and so fragile that wagon tracks still trace the Santa Fe Trail more than 100 years after pioneers rolled southwest. Ranchers and soldiers are uneasy neighbors, but they agree on one thing: it takes a lot of land to do just about anything in this arid region. Cattle need 60 acres apiece to survive on the short-grass prairie, and ranches often stretch across tens of thousands of acres. The Army’s own spread, the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, about 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson, covers 375 square miles and is facing a major increase in training demands. Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon says Fort Carson will soon be responsible for training 25,000 active-duty troops and every Reserve and National Guard soldier west of the Mississippi River — more than 230,000 of them. Mixon knows Piñon Canyon won’t take the pounding of up to 50,000 soldiers rampaging their way through mock war. Without more land, experts say, boots and 72-ton tanks will grind the area into a moonscape. Stopping by the canyon to visit troops in training, Mixon says he needs as much as 725 square miles more to get the job done....
Rainbow Family faces fines but not eviction Thousands of campers flocking to a gathering of the Rainbow Family won't face eviction from a meadow north of town but could face fines and jail time after the U.S. Forest Service denied them a permit, officials said Friday. The counterculture group originally didn't apply for the permit, required of any gathering of more than 74 people, even though the event is expected to draw 20,000 people. When some members did apply this week, officials denied it, citing fire danger, limited road access and other planned events nearby. Rangers will warn campers as they arrive, give them a chance to leave and cite them if they don't, Forest Service spokeswoman Denise Ottaviano said. They could be fined up to $5,000 and sentenced to up to six months in jail if convicted. Ottaviano said the Rainbow Family campers are putting themselves in potential danger because of high fire danger and poor access to the meadow in the Routt National Forest....
Free spirits evoke fear Never has a rainbow struck so much fear. Near Steamboat Springs this week, area law enforcement officers tried to calm residents concerned about the annual gathering of the Rainbow Family of Living Light. The counterculture event 30 miles north of Steamboat Springs is expected to draw 20,000 people. Officers from the U.S. Forest Service, Steamboat Springs police and fire departments, Routt County Department of Environmental Health, North Routt Fire Protection District and Routt County Sheriff's Office held a community meeting Friday to answer questions and explain to the general public how to best handle the July 1 to 7 gathering, which is being held at Big Red Park north of Columbine. Police Capt. Joel Rae told residents that everyone should be more aware of locking cars and homes and safeguarding personal possessions and belongings....
Voters to decide in November whether to accept Santa Clara County initiative The fate of a land-use initiative that seeks to save half of the undeveloped lands and hillsides in Santa Clara County has been placed in the hands of voters come Nov. 7. But the battle already being waged by opposing sides of the issue is sure to give San Benito residents an unpleasant sense of deja vu. Like San Benito's unsuccessful slow-growth Measure G of 2004, the Santa Clara County Land Conservation Initiative would increase new parcel sizes on hillsides, large scale agricultural operations and ranchlands, ultimately decreasing the amount of new homes being built in these areas from some 40 homes to 20 a year. Of the county's 836,000 acres of privately owned rural properties, the initiative would affect 400,000 acres - mostly the sprawling hills and ranches to the south of San Jose, throughout the Mount Hamilton area and outside Morgan Hill and Gilroy city limits, up to the San Benito County line. And as resulted in San Benito's slow growth battle, both sides anticipate a buildup to a war of words between now and Election Day. The issue is expected to pit ranch and rural property owners and developers on one side against environmentalists and county residents advocating slow growth. The former will call it a "land-grab," the latter will dub it a last chance to rein in sprawl....
New Land Coalition to Protect Working Ranchlands Even with several land trusts, operating in Ridgway, Telluride and Montrose, dedicated to preserving agricultural land and open space, Ouray County has fallen behind in terms of land conservation. According to a 2004 assessment by the Colorado Conservation Trust, the Northern San Juan region – and Ouray County, especially – is facing rapidly increasing development of working ranchlands to subdivisions. It also found inadequate public funding in San Miguel County – and a complete lack of any public funding in Ouray County for the purchase of conservation easements or development rights to preserve open space in the region. Residential development in Ouray County and along the San Juan Skyway through San Miguel County is leading to the fragmentation of wildlife habitat, degradation of view corridors and negative impacts on water resources. Increasing land values threaten the existence of a stable rural economy in general, not to mention ranch families ability to preserve their land, from generation to generation. In March of last year, leaders of the Black Canyon Land Trust formed a coalition with the Colorado Conservation Trust, the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Land Restoration. Called the Northern San Juan Initiative, it focuses on protecting private land through an aggressive education program for willing private landowners, offering step-by-step assistance in creating conservation easements (and understanding their economic benefit)....
U.S. study cautious about west desert aquifer pumping A new report issued by the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that numerous areas in and around Great Basin National Park could be affected by a groundwater pumping project that has been proposed by Las Vegas water officials. Opponents of the project who live in eastern Nevada and western Utah say the study confirms their worst suspicions about the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plan to tap groundwater in the Snake and Spring valleys near the park and send it to Las Vegas via a 200-mile pipeline. A Utah water official, though, says it is too early to draw conclusions. The USGS study, released last week, identified five locations in Great Basin and another five outside the park that are "likely susceptible" to groundwater withdrawals, though it did not attempt to quantify how big a withdrawal would be necessary to trigger problems. The Southern Nevada Water Authority has proposed taking 25,000 acre-feet per year out of the giant aquifer that straddles the Utah-Nevada state line - which officials say would leave plenty for the region's ecosystem and scattered cattle ranchers who reside and earn their living there....
Neighbors: Farmer's devices block rain Farmer John Smith's spinach is dense, green and unblemished, just as it should be. His iceberg lettuce is still tiny, but healthy, with leaves sprouting whole and unmarred. They'll hopefully stay that way, Smith says, thanks to the eight hail cannons stationed across his 3,800-acre Southern Colorado Farms, aimed at the sky and poised to fire off sound waves that supposedly stop the nasty ice pellets that can ravage his crop. Smith believes in his cannons. So do many of his neighbors in the San Luis Valley. That's the problem. Although Smith maintains that his cannons, $40,000 apiece, can stave off the damage from summer storms, others are convinced they're doing more than that -- stopping the rain as well, drying up an already parched land and killing their livelihood. "We need all the water we can get, and they're stopping it from raining," said Don Evans, one of the ranchers upset with Smith. He's become their scapegoat, said Smith, a former district attorney in Alamosa. "Nobody likes the drought," he said. "It has to be someone's fault." If some ranchers blame Smith, they're also reserving some of their wrath for the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which recently renewed Smith's weather modification permit for the next year. The board concluded that the cannons' effectiveness was questionable, but that there was no evidence they were causing harm....
New CAFO Rule Complies with Court Ruling The American Farm Bureau Federation today commended the Environmental Protection Agency for its proposed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations rule, released yesterday, saying it would make it easier for farmers and ranchers to operate without onerous federal regulation. AFBF said that the proposed rule appeared to comply with a 2005 court ruling that only those livestock operations that actually discharge or propose to discharge pollution are required to apply for discharge permits. “AFBF will continue to analyze the fine points of the proposed rule, and will submit extensive comments to EPA,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “But, at first glance, it looks like the agency did what it needed to do in order to bring federal CAFO regulations into line with the court’s interpretation of the Clean Water Act. We applaud EPA for following the Second Circuit’s ruling....
National Wool Judging Winners Honored Val Verde County's senior wool judges were named top judging team in the nation during the 46th annual National 4-H Wool Judging Contest in Sonora. The contest was held in conjunction with the 69th annual Sonora Wool and Mohair Show and the sixth annual FFA Wool Judging Contest this month. The team's score of 1,784 was only 10 points higher than the second place Sutton County team's. The Val Verde County team members are Laura Allen, Houston Dobbins and Alex Scharton. Laura's father, John Allen, Texas Cooperative Extension agent for Val Verde County, and Bill Zuberbueler, Val Verde County rancher, coached the winning team. Laura's score of 639 points earned her top individual honors....
Bucking the myth about mules For mule shower Bobbi Richmond, it's all about the challenge - the challenge of training mules and proving they're not stubborn and lazy. They're just as capable as horses. The Willamina rancher should know. She returned in late May from the Green Western Pleasure event in Mule Days in Bishop, Calif., as the world champion of mule showing and riding. Going against 45 of the best mule showers in the country, as well as Brazil, Canada and Mexico, Richmond and her 5-year-old mule, Roulette, came out on top. Richmond said, "It was an honor, being able to show with them. I worked hard to get there. For Richmond, the challenge not only lies in training mules, but also breaking the mule stereotype of being lazy and stubborn. "Mules can do anything a horse can do and sometimes even better," she said laughing. "They're the best of both worlds, I tell you what." Richmond described her mules as sure-footed, like donkeys, and athletic and good-minded like horses....
Western goods command premiums Charlie Sands of Jackson was visiting Thursday to do a little furniture shopping, but he knew he was in trouble when he saw an end table sell for nearly $11,000. In town for the Cody Old West Auction, Sands wanted to pick up an original Thomas Molesworth end table. But he dropped out of the bidding at around $6,000. "I really didn't want to go over $5,000, so I'm not sad I lost," Sands said. "I heard there were some heavy hitters here, so obviously some fat cat spent $10,000 on it the way you or I would spend $1." On a day when an oil painting fetched around $50,000 and a saddle sold for close to $90,000, everyone had his own idea of what a "heavy hitter" was. But it's safe to say folks spent plenty of money on chaps, spurs, art, furniture, guns and other Western artifacts during the popular auction, now in its 17th year and started by Brian Lebel, formerly of Cody. Bob Nelson, owner of Manitou Galleries in Cheyenne and Santa Fe, N.M., was keeping an eye on the auction Thursday, and will show pieces today at the Riley Arena as part of a companion show to the auction. Prices for Western collectibles have been climbing for years, said Nelson, and are booming lately thanks to what he said was an infusion of Texas oil money into an already hot market....
Bumpy ride on the Broken Trail Alan Geoffrion, a big man with the kind of bushy mustache favored in the Old West, knows horses as well as anyone in the stable-and-saddle country of Northern Virginia. As the co-owner of Campbell House Stables he has been transporting horses to buyers across the United States for years. But he always yearned to be a writer. Before he settled into the cab of his truck, his routine had been to pack several books on tape. When he wearied of other writers' words, the English- major dropout allowed his mind to range over lines and bits of dialogue for the novels he intended to write, one of these days. Now Geoffrion's long-haul literary musings have come to happy fruition. At 59, Geoffrion has just seen the publication of his first book, Broken Trail, its release paired with a film version, a two-part mini-series that stars veteran actor Robert Duvall. It certainly helped that Duvall was his friend and fellow horseman - and wanted the project to happen. The Oscar winner not only produced Broken Trail and co-starred, but he also served as Geoffrion's writing coach and guided him through the treacherous terrain of Hollywood....
Gunplay followed path of lawlessness to the grave After leaving the Utah State Penitentiary, Clarence L. "Gunplay" Maxwell found work in Carbon County. During a mining strike, the Utah Fuel Co. hired him to help protect its property and act as a bodyguard for its lawyer, Max Braffett. Working basically as a strikebreaker, Maxwell played a prominent role in keeping miners under control in Pleasant Valley. Many coal miners detested Maxwell because he backed the mining company. Another stroke of bad luck plagued Maxwell after his release from prison. His wife left him, and she took their daughter with her. Maxwell drifted to Goldfield, Nev., after the coal strike in Carbon County ended. In Goldfield, Gunplay became a deputy sheriff, using the alias of Thomas Bliss. During a 1907 murder trial, Gunplay served as a prosecution witness favorable to a mining company. His false testimony helped convict two men named Preston and Smith of killing a man whose business was being boycotted by the mining union. A defense witness named Edward Johnson had met Maxwell in Utah soon after Gunplay's release from prison. Johnson tried to discredit Deputy Bliss' testimony by revealing that he was really Gunplay Maxwell, a former member of the Wild Bunch. Despite Johnson's damaging testimony, Maxwell remained a deputy in Goldfield for a short period of time after the trial ended. Gunplay held a grudge against Johnson for the rest of his life. The two would meet again....
Cowgirls lasso rodeo spotlight Ribbon roping might sound like a knitting technique taught at an arts and crafts fair. But there’s absolutely nothing dainty about it. Ribbon roping was one of the main events at Saturday’s Women’s Ranch Rodeo Assn.’s Qualifying Rodeo at Stinson Creek Cattle Co. near Stull. At the rodeo, 11 four-woman teams competed to earn a spot at the National Finals October 22 at Kemper Arena. Events included calf branding, sorting, trailer loading and doctoring. Ranch rodeos are different from other rodeos because the events are based on things ranchers would actually do on the job, like rounding up cattle. Because ranchers wouldn’t usually ride around on bucking bulls, bullriding isn’t a ranch rodeo event. Ten years ago, all-female ranch rodeos were scarce. But today they’re more popular than ever, said Terri Lewis, a rodeo competitor on the Division Ranch team from Strong City....
Local cowboys keep doggies rolling along Local residents Ray Herrera and Alan Richards got the opportunity to be time travelers two weeks ago as they helped drive a herd of 382 longhorn steers and assorted other bovine 72 miles to the Reno Rodeo grounds. The drive, an annual event, helps raise money for the rodeo by charging interested people a fee to participate in the five-day drive that starts in Doyle and crosses the Nevada desert on its way to the Oddie Boulevard Livestock Events Center for the nine-day rodeo. "This was something I always dreamed about doing," Herrera said. "I grew up in ranching, but I never went on a long cattle drive." Herrera and Richards won the chance to sample a bit of the Old West by registering winning bids at the rodeo's fundraiser Rhythm and Rawhide last spring. For Herrera, the experience allowed him to pay homage to his rancher father who passed away last year. "I took his hot roll (bedding) on the drive," Herrera said. "It still smelled like him. It was like having him with me."....

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Old Ranchers

by Larry Gabriel

Some people think the "Old West" is a bygone era. They are wrong. All the best of it lives in the hearts of people like Wayne Hage and his wife Helen Chenoweth-Hage.

Never heard of them? Wayne is the Nevada rancher who fought the federal government over water rights on his ranch for more than twenty years. Helen is a former Idaho Congresswoman who married Wayne in 1999.

The whole thing started back in 1978 when Wayne found and bought the ranch of his dreams. As it turned out, some federal officials were dreaming of the same place and wanted it for a park or wilderness area.

Wayne owned the place only about two months before federal officers tried to "buy" it for about half of what he paid. Maybe there are people dumb or scared enough to take such an offer, but not in the West. The fight was on.

Most of what Wayne bought was vested water rights and related improvements on leased federal lands surrounding his private tract of 7,000 acres. All the government wanted to pay for was his deeded acres.

They figured they could get the rest away from him without paying for it. The federal officers proceeded to make life difficult for him and even filed competing water rights claims. They were wrong about water rights.

Water rights are traditionally established by state law and governed by state law. They could take away his lease by simply not renewing it, but the water rights and related improvements were property, under state law.

However, in the process of proving that (over the course of ten years of legal battles), Wayne was forced to sell his herd.

In one sense, you could say the government officials won. They outlived Wayne and they put him out of business, but they didn't win. If you do an internet search on Wayne's name, you will find it on 199,000 pages. Many of the leaders of the states' rights and property rights organizations of America knew him personally.

A person from the East once asked, "Why is it that only the Western States fundamentally grasp the concept of states' rights?" The reason we understand is simple. Everyday we look at a mountain, a valley, a field or stream and know who gives us our rights. We also know that Congress has only the rights we choose to give them and no others.

States' rights and property rights are everything. They are the foundation of our nation and we still understand and respect that foundation. We also know that anyone has only the rights for which they are willing to fight. The rest is just paper.

As Wayne said, "Either you have a right to own property, or you are property."

Wayne is not gone. Old ranchers never really die. They just go to seed. New life will spring from the seeds he planted.

Mr. Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture


Varmints need water too; the fuzzy, feathered, or two-legged variety

By Julie Carter

It's dry, it's a drought and yes, it seems to be getting worse. Now we are setting "drought" records. Not the kind of record to make anyone very proud.

The hot winds blow every afternoon and take away any clouds that might want to ponder in the sky. It moves them across the state so possibly it rains somewhere.

The humidity levels are ranging in the single digits to low teens that's the "dry heat" we hear folks talk about.

Wells and springs that have served ranchers for generations are coughing, choking, and sputtering with a death rattle warning of catastrophic consequences. You can feed livestock when you are out of grass but out of water means out of business.

If you ever once thought the ranchers were not tending to the wildlife during the day to day business of caring for livestock, a drought drives that point home hard. Usually the only water available in the majority of the local ranch country is water pumped to the surface by a rancher. All forms of wildlife have moved to the water holes.

The fenced highways have become a death trap for the antelope who find the only green food to eat to be in the right-of-ways.

Pastures along an 80-mile route that I drive every week have noticeably no grass, few if any cattle and an unusual number of highway casualty antelope carcasses providing buzzard feed. It is a "blight" staring every driver in the face.

In three consecutive days I've had close encounters in my yard with varmints I would just as soon not meet in the dark. A snake, family of raccoons and a skunk not that any one of those is unusual but so many in a row so close together isn't the norm.

The antelope have brazenly become part of a mowing operation on the perimeter of the yard. They are hungry enough that they barely look up as I step out the door and leave only if I head out the gate.

I drove to White Oaks today to do an interview for a story. For those of you that are not from around here, White Oaks is tiny old-west town that should have died after the mining boom of the 1880's and didn't. Going to White Oaks is a 125-year step back in time where you might tie your horse to a hitchin' rail but don't plan on filling up with gasoline or buying a burger anywhere and the folks that live there hope to keep it that way.

It was the middle of the day, middle of the week. But the White Oaks watering hole, also known as the No Scum Allowed Saloon, had a full-parking lineup in front and the bar stools, and possibly the patrons, were loaded.

Two-legged varmints and other folks of genteel persuasion—known as tourists—found shade and liquid refreshment while they waited for the ghosts of famous Lincoln County lawmen, gunfighters and cattlemen to drop by.

There are a lot of good folks looking upward these days. They look up with hope for a cloud and they look up to pray. Those same folks wear long tired faces of worry while they stay awake nights trying to figure out how to outlast the drought.

They know two things for certain. Today, although it didn't rain, is one day closer to the day it will. And when it does, it will be needed.

© Julie Carter 2006


The cowboy’s lesson in fine wine

By Julie Carter

A pretty girl will stop a cowboy in his tracks every time. He will then do and say things he would have taken bets against if you had asked him prior to the pretty girl. This story is one of those times.

Ron was a good cowboy working for a good rancher with plenty of New Mexico country to tend. He was also aware this man had a daughter in an Ivy League college somewhere in the direction of “back East.”

Winter had passed, heifers were about done calving, brandings were on the horizon and summer would soon be here. Life was good.

Then this cowboy’s world turned upside down when Pretty Girl came home for Spring Break.

The celebratory barbeque at the ranch gave Ron a little time to visit with Pretty Girl and he knew right-off she was way out of his social league as she chatted about opera, Broadway openings and formal dinner parties. The closest he could hope for was to hold his own at wine tasting. How hard could it be?

Like most cowboys, Ron liked to help the Colorado folks out with their brewery success and occasionally tried to help out the Kentucky folks with their sour mash business. He knew he was going to have to get some schooling on the finer points of wine tasting.

Cowboys are experts at many things, capable of hard work with cattle, horses, fences, and equipment as well as making the hard business decisions required for a modern ranching operation. What they don’t know, they aren’t afraid to ask from someone who has a few more years and little more experience.

After conferring with a few of the hands in the bunkhouse that night, it was the general consensus an expert was required. Their collective thoughts pointed in the direction of the windmill man who was known to be able to fix anything and tell you a little but about just about everything.

In a phone call to this recommended universal expert, Ron was briefed on vintage, bouquet, body, sediment and all the various attributes of fine wine. The windmill man spoke with such knowledge and authority, the cowboy was duly impressed. He gave a brief pause of curious thought as to where this windmill man might have gotten his knowledge, but was in no position to question it.

It was clear his plan would be to invite Pretty Girl to share a little wine with him next time she was home.

Back to work he went, taking more notice than ever of the possibilities of the ranch. In his daydreams he envisioned Pretty Girl bringing him his supper after a hard day’s work on the ranch he had married. By the time she actually came home again, he was in love.

It was summer and the cowboy invited her on a picnic to a pretty spot on the ranch with wine to be the main feature. They set a date and time and the cowboy whistled his way through his work for several days.

As will happen at a ranch, things didn’t go as planned. He was down to choosing between a trip to town to get the wine or helping a late calving heifer through her ordeal. In a bind, he called the windmill man who agreed to bring him some wine in plenty of time for the big date.

Shined up, washed behind the ears and everything, Ron picked the girl up at the boss’s house and headed down the road to the spot on the creek he liked best. They talked and laughed and the afternoon progressed about as smoothly as he could have hoped.

He might have actually realized his dream of capturing Pretty Girl and the ranch -- if only the windmill man had thought to buy wine in bottle instead of a box.

© Julie Carter 2006


Independence Day

by Larry Gabriel

We celebrate it every year with parades, rodeos, picnics and fireworks, just as John Adams predicted in a letter to his wife on July 3, 1776. But, do we really know what we celebrate?

The dictionary says "independence" is a condition of being "independent". The word "independent" has several meanings.

Independent means "self governing", or being "free from the influence, guidance or control" of others. I suspect many of us think of independence as freedom from control. It is part of the rugged individualism concept. It is tied in with self reliance.

All those ideas about independence may be worthy, but that is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they finally finished debating a resolution placed before them by Richard H. Lee of Virginia on June 7, 1776.

This is what it said…Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Actually, most had made up their minds by June 11th, when the Continental Congress appointed a committee of five to draft a declaration of independence. The declaration was presented to them on June 28th. On July 2nd, they secretly approved and signed it.

On July 4th they published it to the people. They declared the sovereignty of their states and rang the liberty bell that day. They were not celebrating individual independence, because as Benjamin Franklin noted, "We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately…"

What we celebrate is not independence itself. We celebrate the fact that 56 American forefathers had the courage to put their names on a declaration and announce it to the world, even when doing so was likely to cost them their fortunes, families and lives. We celebrate their courage.

This is what Adams predicted…The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.

How do we honor Adam's request that their act be celebrated, commemorated and solemnized? How does one honor such a gift that evolved into the freedoms and bounty we enjoy?

We can be thankful to all the Americans who gave their lives for our liberty from that day to this. We also can emulate them by never allowing fear to take away that gift.

NEWS

From campfire to gas tank, mesquite energy may be harnessed for ethanol The dense mesquite-covered mid-section of Texas could provide fuel for about 400 small ethanol plants, according to one Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher. Jim Ansley, Experiment Station rangeland researcher at Vernon, is determining the feasibility of developing a bio-energy industry in rural West Central Texas. The industry would be based on the harvest and use of rangeland woody plants, such as mesquite and red berry juniper, as an energy source. “We’ve had so much more interest in this since gas prices went up last summer,” Ansley said. “That’s going to be a real driving variable. If gas prices continue to go up, I think we could very well see a first generation refinery built in Texas to handle mesquite within five years.” The vision is to build as many as 400 refineries around the state based on mesquite wood. If other woods are considered, the number could go as high as 1,000, he said....
Many Endangered Species Making Remarkable Comebacks As their numbers plummet, jaguars, polar bears and leatherback sea turtles might have hope of survival in light of the success stories of some of their fellow creatures. Human activity threatens 99 percent of all species, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Plants and animals are going extinct at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than what would occur naturally, some researchers say. One recent study concluded that a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050. However, human conservation efforts are working to boost specific populations. The IUCN keeps watch over the world's biodiversity with its publication of its Red List every two years, meant to keep the public and policy makers aware of threatened plant and animal species. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act works to protect plants and animals from becoming extinct. On top of federal laws, individual states offer added protection and conservation mandates....
State recommends against listing prairie chicken After a six-year investigation of lesser prairie chicken populations and habitats, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced June 9 in a press release that they will recommend against listing the species as threatened or endangered in the state. According to the results of the study posted on the NMDGF Web site, the number of chickens counted in leks, or breeding grounds, in New Mexico increased about 83 percent from 2001 through 2005. Dawn Davis, of the NMDGF and who participated in the study, said the increases are most likely due to the last two springs’ above average precipitation and more participation from private landowners in habitat improvement projects. She said the chicken populations are also naturally cyclic, and they tend to fluctuate about every 10 years....
Water fight The government may own the land, but does it own the water used by livestock? Despite years of discussion, the question remains unanswered in several disputes between ranchers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials over water on public lands in Idaho. “It just makes sense for a landlord to seek the proper permits to ensure use on their property,” Bud Cribley, acting Idaho director of the BLM, recently told members of the Idaho Water Users Association at a convention in Sun Valley. Livestock producers don’t disagree that the BLM manages the land. They take issue, however, with the federal agency’s claims to water used by their cattle and sheep, said Craig Pridgen, who is an attorney with a Davis, Calif., firm and represents ranchers. “In fact, the most precious resource for a rancher on public lands is his water right,” Pridgen said....
Senators back own controversial trust-lands bill State senators voted Wednesday to put their own plan for managing trust lands on the November ballot — a measure that foes say is designed solely to confuse voters and defeat a more comprehensive proposal. The proposal requires the Legislature to set up procedures for setting aside up to 400,000 rural acres for conservation. And it would clarify that about 40,000 acres of urban land already earmarked for conservation could be sold to communities. But John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the measure's real purpose is to undermine a more comprehensive initiative backed by his organization, which could set aside 690,000 acres in urban and rural areas that already have been identified as off-limits to development. Wright said backers already have far more than the 183,917 signatures necessary to put the measure on the November ballot. He said they will be filed with the state next week. Sen. Jake Flake, R-Snowflake, a proponent of the legislative alternative, denied the aim is to cloud the issue. He said the lawmakers' plan, backed by ranchers and home builders, is better....
Fowl runoff spurs fierce poultry fight For Bill Berry, there's nothing sweet about the waters of Honey Creek. A 65-year-old cattle rancher, Berry said manure from chicken farms and a chicken processing plant upstream have fouled the stream that runs past his ranch. The water is so wretched, Berry said, that he no longer drinks from his well and has fenced off the stream so his cattle and grandchildren can't go near it. "When I was a kid growing up we'd throw dimes out in the stream and dive down and get them," Berry said. "You can't do that today. ... When the dogs won't drink out of the creek, you know there's something wrong." Berry is part of a bitter and expensive fight over poultry waste that has festered for a decade in this hilly region of eastern Oklahoma and has now migrated to Washington, where the livestock industry has considerable clout. Berry and others argue that the region's large poultry industry, which is primarily in northwest Arkansas, has generated so much chicken waste that it has seeped into waterways that flow into Oklahoma. But the poultry industry is fighting back. The industry is lobbying Congress - with the help of a firm headed by former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La. - to exempt manure from being labeled a "hazardous substance" under the federal Superfund law. And it has created a group, Farmers for Clean Air and Water, to make its side of the story known....
Ranchers face Army expansion plan Steve Wooten drives his Ford pickup over red dirt roads that wind through his ranch near the Purgatoire River, careful to stay on the same old tracks because tire marks can last for decades in this dry corner of southeast Colorado. Near a towering rock outcropping, Wooten and his wife, Joy, point to ancient American Indian drawings of antelope and deer. Go up a handmade ladder to a deep pool of snowmelt and rainwater and you can see the name of explorer Kit Carson scratched into the rock. The couple is the fourth generation of the family to raise cattle on this 27,000-acre ranch. Steve Wooten's great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant, once boasted he had more land in New Mexico and Colorado than there was in Ireland. Maybe it wasn't enough: The Wootens and many of their neighbors fear the Army is about to change their lives forever with a sprawling expansion of the Piñon Canyon training site used by troops at Fort Carson. The post wants to expand Piñon Canyon by up to 418,000 acres, or 653 square miles, an area about two-thirds the size of Delaware....
Audubon Society restoring Palm City ranch to wetland Workers with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service have spent more than a month and almost $500,000 restoring the former cattle ranch to the wetland it was before ranchers drained it. The property, part of 300 acres donated to Audubon in the 1980s, is one of a handful of sites protected and restored with funds from the Wetlands Reserve Program, which is geared toward restoring agricultural land, project manager Stephen Cox said. On Wednesday, bulldozers pushed dirt into ditches while piles of dead Brazilian pepper trees and other unwanted plants burned in the summer heat. Fields of dirt — where impenetrable thickets of exotic plants once stood — waited for rainfall. The cattle that grazed on the grassy fields were removed in Dec. 2004 in preparation of the restoration, Braun said....
Shear artisans For the past 80 years, four generations of Allisons have overseen the spring shearing at their 35,000-acre ranch among the rocky arroyos of Terrell County, 140 miles southwest of San Angelo, Texas. On his 61st birthday this year, Robert Allison made a dark prediction: "I don't believe we'll be shearing sheep here in 20 years." While he spoke in the shade of his great metal barn, six stocky Mexicans from south of Del Rio _ each with green cards identifying them as resident aliens _ zipped the heavy woolen fleeces from Allison's 500 Rambouillet ewes. Every four minutes, the shearers neatly delivered fine, heavy coats for shipment to a wool warehouse. Top hands can shear 100 sheep a day. The gray-haired Allison recalled younger days when 3,000 Angora goats would occupy shearers for three days or more. Historically, this region, known as Edward's Plateau, has furnished 90 percent of the nation's mohair and 20 percent of the nation's wool. "Today, we have no goats," he said, sadly. Allison's ranch might serve as a microcosm of the Texas sheep industry, which has led the nation for a century in wool and lamb production. A series of reversals, however, has plunged Texas' numbers from a peak of 10.8 million in 1943 to a mere 1 million today....
Tourism is double-edged sword for Montana, Wyoming agriculture Wyoming and Montana have much in common as far as agriculture goes. Wyoming producers raise sugar beets, wheat, alfalfa hay and barley, just as Montana producers. They also raise beans, sheep and cattle. The issues are much the same as well: water availability, land conservation, farm bill programs, animal identification, brucellosis, alternative fuels and tourism. Wyoming producers, like many Montana producers, worry about tourists returning to their state to purchase all the undeveloped land as recreational resorts and raising the land prices to the point where agriculturists cannot afford to them. Much to my dismay, I heard on the radio a ranch south of Cody is being purchased by an elite organization to serve as a recreational retreat for those with enough money to belong in the organization, paying somewhere in the millions for annual dues. While the sale probably means a lot to the owners of the ranch, I see another agriculture opportunity going down the drain; an opportunity some young rancher could have taken. Unfortunately, stories such as this are becoming more common than before....
Accused rustler turns self in; cows returned The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department has arrested the man they believe stole about 290 head of cattle from pastures in eight counties, including 17 cows and 30 calves from Nolan Ryan’s China Grove Ranch in Rosharon. Jerome Heath Novak, 27, of Angleton was arrested Thursday morning and charged with one count of livestock theft. He was released from the Brazoria County jail after posting bail later that day. His bond was $5,000. Investigators said the Angleton-area rancher confessed to taking the cattle, valued at more than $250,000. A team, led by Investigator Jack Langdon of the sheriff’s department, received a break in the case last week when a calf with “unusual scars,” one of 10 calves reported stolen from Navasota, landed at a sale in Groesbeck and was recognized by an order-buyer, according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose special rangers helped during the nine-month investigation....
Pair convicted of altering brands A Fall River County jury on Friday convicted two Batesland men of altering brands on livestock. Walter Schultz Jr., 42, and Ronald Jensen, 67, were each convicted of three counts of misuse or alteration of a brand. Each count is a Class 5 felony punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to Fall River County State's Attorney Lance Russell. The jury acquitted the two men of three other counts of misuse or alteration of brands. The jury met for 3-1/2 hours after a four-day trial presided over by 7th Circuit Judge Thomas Trimble. Jensen and Schultz were arrested in November 2004 after authorities searched Jensen's ranch between Wounded Knee and Batesland and found cattle with a neighboring rancher's brand. All of the calves had Schultz's and Jensen's brands, Russell said....
Smoking 'em out: Law officials try to stop modern-day cattle rustlers The truck raced like a phantom down the lonesome dirt road, poking its headlights into the pre-dawn darkness and spewing blinding clouds of dust. The deputy, who was watching nearby, smelled trouble. Todd Culp saw the mysterious truck barrel through a stop sign at 80 mph and wondered where it was rushing to at 5 a.m. The off-duty deputy gunned the engine of his unmarked green pickup in pursuit. Culp soon noticed the truck matched the description of one involved in a recent theft -- and it was hauling an animal trailer. Fifteen miles later, the driver stopped on the ramp of the Cimarron Turnpike. He jumped out. The deputy was right behind him. "Stop! Sheriff's Department. Get on the ground!" Culp barked, drawing his .45-caliber pistol. But the man ran to open the back doors of the trailer, disappeared on the side and began whooping and hollering. Out stumbled a half-dozen cows and one calf. It was, authorities say, an awkward -- and belated -- attempt to get rid of the evidence of a crime: cattle rustling. The era of dusty stagecoaches and wagon trains is long gone, but cattle thieves -- the bad guys in a thousand Westerns -- never quite rode off into the sunset. Rustlers are now a growing menace in some parts of rural America, striking in the dead of night and sometimes selling their haul before the rancher or farmer discovers the animals are gone....
Duvall comes full circle with 'Broken Trail' WE DON'T WANT to step on Superman's cape, but if the Man of Steel ever messed with Robert Duvall, our money would be on Duvall. With a twinkle in his eye and a snap in his banter, he'd charm the tights off the superhero. While most of us hope when we're 75 we can still get in the car and go to the grocery store, Duvall's out riding the range and getting the better of the bad guys. No one sits on a horse like Duvall. And no one embodies a Western hero like Duvall. "Maybe I'd have been a rancher," says Duvall, "if I hadn't been an actor." Good news for us all that he decided on the latter. Duvall's at the top of his game in AMC's first foray into original movies. The four-hour miniseries has Duvall portraying aging cowboy Print Ritter, who is out to set a few family wrongs right. As much a part of the story as the actors is the magnificent Canadian scenery shot outside Calgary — the same location for films including "Brokeback Mountain" and "Legends of the Fall." And the director is noted filmmaker Walter Hill, who did the pilot episode of "Deadwood." The production team boasts Emmy and Oscar winners, and the end product shows the polish, although it starts off a bit shaky....
Stetson still the hat of the American West Few icons are as American as the cowboy hat: grandiose, utilitarian and a trademark of the West. The king is still Stetson, the original cowboy hat, created almost 150 years ago. Philadelphia's John B. Stetson headed west in the 1860s for health reasons. He fashioned himself a big hat to protect him from rain, sun and wind which he dubbed the "Boss of the Plains." Praised for its utility, a Stetson could pull water from a stream, fan a campfire or even provide storage. Its earliest influence was likely the high-crown, wide-brim hat worn by Mongolian horsemen centuries ago. Spaniards wore similar head wear when they came to the New World with another indispensable cowboy accoutrement: the horse. Those hats eventually evolved into the Mexican sombrero. Though the Old West and open range are gone, Stetsons live on. Lots of manufacturers make cowboy hats, and the Stetson brand is even licensed around the world. But the only place that makes the authentic, handmade "Boss of the Plains" is a factory outside Dallas. Owned by RHE Hatco Inc. the factory originally made Resistol cowboy hats, a Texas contemporary to the Stetson. Some reports claim the plant is the largest hat factory in the world, but Stetson spokesman Matthew Ranch is quick to point out there's no quantifiable proof to that. The factory turns out around a million straw and felt hats a year including Stetsons, Resistols and Charlie One Horses....

MAD COW DISEASE

Study Suggests More Deaths From Mad Cow Disease

The long lives that some former cannibals enjoy before succumbing to a brain-wasting disease suggest that many more humans will eventually die of mad cow disease, scientists said Thursday. But several experts in such illnesses, called prion diseases — which are blamed for killing New Guinea cannibals and British eaters of infected beef — disagreed with that frightening implication of the study, which is to be published Friday in The Lancet, a British medical journal. These experts praised the rigorous work the authors of the report did to confirm that kuru, a disease that once decimated highland tribes in New Guinea, can incubate for 50 years in a few genetically protected people. But the experts said they thought that the findings did not prove that there would be future waves of deaths among people who ate beef from prion-infected cows in the 1980's. "That's a provocative conclusion, but I'm not sure it's totally plausible," said Dr. David Westaway, a prion expert at the University of Toronto. Thus far, only about 160 people, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which humans get from cows that had bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. The authors chronicled the deaths and genetic makeup of 11 aging members of the Fore tribe who died from 1996 to 2004 of kuru, which can lie dormant for years but then start a quick, irreversible descent into dementia and death. Kuru killed thousands of Fore beginning in the 1920's and only began to fade after the Australian authorities in the 1950's outlawed the Fore practice of honoring their dead by butchering them with bamboo knives at mortuary feasts, eating them and — by some accounts — smearing themselves with brain tissue, which would drive infection into cuts and scratches....

Second "Mad Cow" Human Case Detected in Netherlands

A second case of the human variant of mad cow disease has been detected in the Netherlands, the National Institute for Public Health said on Thursday. The patient is thought to have contracted the brain wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD) disease by eating meat from the same infected batch of beef as the Utrecht woman who died last year. The 26-year-old woman from Utrecht was the first person diagnosed with the human form of the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in the Netherlands. Experts believe the Utrecht woman contracted the disease 20 years ago by eating infected beef. The disease vCJD is characterized by the sponge-like degeneration of the victim's brain, but it is also difficult to diagnose. It can take years for a diagnosis to be made. Doctors are powerless to reverse the illness and can only help ease the patient's pain. A person with vCJD usually dies within 18 months....

Punish Japan if won't buy US beef: Senate panel

The United States should impose economic sanctions on Japan if it fails to put aside its fears of mad cow disease and open its borders to U.S. beef by the end of the summer, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday. Committee members added the nonbinding language to a fiscal 2007 agricultural funding bill that might be debated in the Senate at the same time Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits the White House. "I hope he takes heed of this," said Montana Republican Conrad Burns, sponsor of the "sense of the Senate" language. Burns said a U.S.-Japan agreement on Wednesday on steps to restart trade was just "another stalling tactic" to stretch out Japan's ban on U.S. beef, imposed as a precaution against mad cow disease. Japan, the longtime No. 1 importer of U.S. beef, has barred trade for 28 of the past 29 months. U.S. cattle groups are losing faith in negotiations with Japan. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association said this week's agreement had few concrete steps and no date for opening trade. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns "does not support sanctions," said a spokeswoman, but "he fully understands the frustration among members of Congress."....

Feed shipped to Kentucky recalled over possible mad cow violation

Livestock feed ingredients shipped to Kentucky and eight other states may have been contaminated with cattle remains in violation of a 1997 ban to protect against mad cow disease, a manufacturer said Tuesday. H.J. Baker & Bro. Inc. said it was recalling three livestock feed ingredients, including two used to supplement feed given to dairy cows. A sample tested by the Food and Drug Administration was positive for cattle meat and bone meal, said Mark Hohnbaum, president of the Westport, Conn.-based company’s feed products group. Mad cow disease is only known to spread when cows eat feed containing brain and other nerve tissue from infected cattle. Protein from cattle was commonly added to cattle feed to speed growth until the ban largely outlawed the practice. Cattle tissue may have contaminated two feed ingredients given to dairy cows — Pro-Lak and Pro-Amino II — made by H.J. Baker between August 2005 and June. The third of the recalled ingredients, Pro-Pak with Porcine Meat and Bone, was mislabeled. It is used in poultry feed. The company announced the recall in the wake of ongoing FDA inspections of its Albertville, Ala. plant, Hohnbaum said. The inspections have found manufacturing and clerical issues, he added. Besides Kentucky, the company shipped the ingredients to feed manufacturers and dairy farms in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee. The company is notifying its customers of the voluntary recall. It does not know how much of the feed ingredients it sold, Hohnbaum said....

EMINENT DOMAIN

Lost Liberty Hotel Gets Second Wind An undisclosed New Hampshire town is considering applying the Supreme Court's "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision on those justices who voted for it on the one year anniversary of the ruling. The Lost Liberty Airport is the latest project by Logan Darrow Clements to fight eminent domain abuse. It arrives on the June 23 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that set loose a wave of home and land seizures across America. A Selectman for the town that is considering the proposal said, "The Supreme Court's Kelo decision was abhorrent. We are slowly losing our individual rights through bad legislation and a misguided judiciary. Perhaps the only way we can stop this trend is to have the people who create and sustain these laws live under them. That's why I as a Selectman in a New Hampshire town will do my best to get my town to support and carry out the plan for the Lost Liberty Airport." According to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in "Kelo vs. City of New London" a government may use eminent domain to seize homes and land to promote economic development or increase tax revenue. Meanwhile, New Hampshire statute XXXIX chapter 423 allows a town to seize land for an airport outside its border. Since this statute does not require the land to be adjacent territory any town in New Hampshire could seize land inside any other town. Thus any town in New Hampshire could seize David Souter's land in Weare, N.H. or Stephen Breyer's land in Plainfield, N.H. for the creation of an airport. Both Souter and Breyer voted in favor of the Kelo ruling. The airports will be operated by a victim of eminent domain abuse. Thor Solberg owns a private airport in Readington, N.J., which could soon be taken by eminent domain using the logic of the Kelo ruling. On May 16, 2006 the voters of Readington approved a bond authorizing the acquisition of Thor's land. Solberg's Airport, which was built by his father, hosts one of the largest hot air balloon festivals on the East Coast. Said Solberg before the vote, "If the government takes my airport by eminent domain I am ready, willing and able to run the Lost Liberty Airports in New Hampshire....
Kelo: One Year Later Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's Kelo vs. New London decision, which gave cities a green light to seize private homes and businesses for the sole purpose of generating higher tax revenues through redevelopment. On the surface, this would appear to be a significant defeat to those who advocate for stronger protection of private property rights. Yet, the Kelo decision was actually one of the best things that ever happened to the national property rights movement, as it clearly imprinted the precarious nature of private property rights in the public consciousness and has inspired significant reforms nationwide. So where does the national property rights movement stand a year after Kelo? The movement was clearly galvanized by the Kelo decision. Over the last year, 47 states have begun reviewing their eminent domain laws, and 23 governors have already signed laws that restrict the use of eminent domain to varying degrees. Eminent domain legislation awaits the governor's signature in a handful of other states. In addition, voters in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, will head to the polls to decide the fate of state constitutional amendments that reform condemnation laws. Dozens of cities and counties nationwide have also either passed or are considering ordinances to prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes. Further, the momentum generated by the Kelo backlash has spread to other efforts to protect private property rights. While eminent domain deals with the physical taking of private property, there has also been increased activity to restrict regulatory takings – de facto takings via restrictions on the ability of property owners to use their land in ways legal at the time they bought their property, dramatically reducing their property's value and imposing an economic hardship on them....
The Pain of Eminent Domain It's been almost a year since the Supreme Court decided in Kelo v. New London that bureaucrats may seize homes and businesses through eminent domain and transfer the land to private developers in the name of economic progress. Although the Constitution says government may condemn land only for "public use," the court held that this term means the same thing as "public purpose" or "public benefit." Thus whenever a city council thinks it would "benefit the public" to snatch a house or small business and give it to Costco or Home Depot or any other company, it may do so, and courts will not intervene. Americans reacted with outrage to the decision and urged state officials to pass laws protecting them from eminent domain. But so far this backlash has achieved mixed results. Of the 16 states that have acted since Kelo was decided, only six -- South Dakota, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Florida -- have imposed meaningful restraints on government power. Other states have either done nothing or have enacted laws so riddled with loopholes that they allow government to seize whatever property they consider "blighted." Take Alabama, for example. When Gov. Bob Riley signed SB 68A into law, he proclaimed his state the leader of a "property rights revolt." Yet even though the law prohibits government from taking property merely for economic development, that restriction does not apply to property that is declared blighted. Blight is defined as "buildings ... which, by reason of dilapidation, obsolescence, overcrowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities, excessive land coverage, deleterious land use or obsolete layout, or any combination of these or other factors, are detrimental to the safety, health, morals or welfare of the community." Under such vague standards, virtually any neighborhood can be declared a blight, and any home or business located there can be seized and given to developers. Compare this with Florida's new law, signed this month by Gov. Jeb Bush. It declares outright that "the prevention or elimination of a slum area or blighted area ... and the preservation or enhancement of the tax base are not public uses." If government wants to clean up bad neighborhoods, it has to do so in other ways -- by lowering taxes, for instance, or by making it easier to start new businesses, or by buying the land it wants fair and square....
Eminent domain surges after ruling The Supreme Court's decision last year to allow cities and states to seize property for private development "opened the floodgates" to eminent domain actions nationwide, a report says. In the year since the Kelo decision, nearly 6,000 properties nationwide have been threatened or taken under that precedent, more than half the number that had been seized over a previous five-year period, said a report released yesterday by the Institute for Justice. "There has been a huge rise in the number of threats to use eminent domain since Kelo. Cities are wielding eminent domain as a club," said Dana Berliner, a senior counsel with the Institute for Justice and the author of the 100-page report. People threatened with eminent domain are vulnerable, she said, because they feel compelled to sell or have their home or business seized for a fire-sale price. At the same time, Ms. Berliner said, residents have become more active in trying to thwart land grabs and promoting changes to state law to bar the use of eminent domain. Since the high court's 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn., a year ago Friday, 5,783 properties nationwide have been either seized or threatened with seizure under eminent domain. That number compares with 10,281 examples over the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, said the institute, a public-interest law firm that argued the Kelo case before the Supreme Court. During that period, threats were made to seize 6,560 properties, and 3,721 condemnation filings or authorizations were recorded. In the past year, 5,429 property seizures have been threatened for economic redevelopment projects, plus 354 condemnation filings or authorizations, the institute said....The Institute for Justice has released five reports which you can download from their website: Opening the Floodgates: Eminent Domain Abuse in the Post-Kelo World, Redevelopment Wrecks: 20 Failed Projects Involving Eminent Domain Abuse , Myths and Realities of Eminent Domain Abuse, Legislative Action Since Kelo and Eminent Domain Abuse Survival Guide. You can go here to read Reason Foundation's model statutory language....
Hollywood loses eminent domain fight The city can't take a family's downtown property and give it to a private developer, a judge ruled Thursday, ending a two-year legal battle and potentially jeopardizing a $100 million condominium complex. Broward Circuit Court Judge Ronald J. Rothschild's ruling in favor of the Mach family, which has owned a building on Harrison Street for decades, came as a blow to Mayor Mara Giulianti, who pushed the eminent domain battle over strong protest from residents. It also means that developer Charles "Chip'' Abele will have to alter plans for a 19-story condo and retail complex. "This just shows that a lot of people unified can stand up to a bully, to a government that they don't think is doing the right thing,'' said David Mach, whose late father bought the building after immigrating from Hungary and died during the negotiation process with the city. Mach said he and his mother have no intention of selling to Abele or anybody else. "I just got off the phone with my mother and she was crying,'' Mach said. "She was too emotional to be here, but she is very happy.'' Judge Rothschild issued a very narrow ruling, finding that the city and Abele didn't really need the building to complete the project. Without an absolute necessity, property can't be taken under Florida law....
Property rights measure fails in Legislature A ballot proposal to impose new restrictions on the use of eminent domain to compel property sales to clear slum areas failed Wednesday at the Arizona Legislature. As the Legislature moved to wrap up its 164-day session, the Senate approved the measure but the House failed to act on it. The measure was similar to a bill vetoed earlier this month by Gov. Janet Napolitano. The ballot proposal would have barred municipalities from using eminent domain to boost tax revenue if the planned new use doesn't have an additional public purpose. The measure would have set a new legal standard that local governments have to clear before designating areas as blighted. It also would required cities to provide comparable replacement homes if a property owner's primary residence is taken by the government in a slum clearance or redevelopment....

GAO

Wildland Fire Suppression: Better Guidance Needed to Clarify Sharing of Costs between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, by Robert A. Robinson, managing director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. GAO-06-896T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-896T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06896thigh.pdf

Invasive Forest Pests: Recent Infestations and Continued Vulnerabilities at Ports of Entry Place U.S. Forests at Risk, by Daniel Bertoni, acting director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, House Committee on Resources. GAO-06-871T, June 21.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-871T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06871thigh.pdf

Global Warming Affecting Your Life? E-Mail Us

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