NEWS ROUNDUP

Beauty versus power: Conservationists renew push to drain dammed valley in Yosemite After the great 1906 earthquake, searching for reliable power and drinking water, San Francisco looked at the soaring granite of Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley and saw walls for a reservoir. Conservationists like John Muir were appalled that anyone might flood what he called "a grand landscape garden, one of Nature's rarest and most precious mountain temples." But after one of the country's first major environmental battles - a struggle that transformed Muir's Sierra Club into a political force - the O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1923. Today, even as the Hetch Hetchy system delivers some of America's highest quality drinking water to 2.4 million San Francisco Bay Area residents, environmentalists continue to argue for restoring the valley - a debate that was intensified in July when a state review found that the job would be "technically feasible" for an estimated $3 billion to $10 billion. Conservationists see an opportunity to restore what Muir called a "wonderfully exact counterpart" to Yosemite Valley, the park's more famous attraction, known for towering monuments like El Capitan, as well as its clogged campgrounds and roadways. They say it's possible to dismantle the 312-foot (94-meter) concrete dam, replace the lost water storage downstream on the Tuolumne River and find other sources of clean electricity....
Column - Environmental Bounty-Hunting Private prosecution of crimes has a long and sordid history, and that history isn't over. Bounty hunters no longer hound innocent people to death as some did in England in the mid-18th century, but environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have modified the tactic. They use "citizen suits" to reap rich rewards for themselves with little positive impact on the environment. Most federal environmental statutes allow citizens to sue individuals or companies for violating the laws. Indeed, from 1993 to 2002, more than 75% of all environmental federal court decisions started as citizen suits, reports James May. Writing the Widener Law Review, he concludes that citizen suits are "the engine that propels the field of environmental law." But most of these suits are brought by environmental organizations, not individuals, and most of the filings don't end in a court decision; they end in settlements. From 1995-2002, there were 4,438 notices of intent to sue under four environmental statutes--6.6 times more than actual federal court decisions in citizen suits. Presumably most of the others were settled. Why the settlements? My research indicates a clear and compelling reason: settlements bring in money environmental groups can use to pursue other goals....
Feds begin destroying wolves attacking livestock near Sula Federal trappers shot and killed eight wolves last week as part of an effort to eliminate a pack of wolves that repeatedly chased and killed livestock near Sula, state wildlife officials said. An adult wolf, two yearlings and five pups from the Sleeping Child pack that roamed the East Fork of the Bitterroot River were killed Friday by agents from Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, said Carolyn Sime, wolf program coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Throughout the summer, FWP and ranchers in the area have hazed the wolves, had people around livestock and even killed three that were causing problems, but the wolves continued to cause trouble. "It's one of those unfortunate situations where our best efforts to get it turned around has been unsuccessful," she said. "We have seen an escalating behavior of getting into livestock." Two weeks ago, a rancher spotted the pack chasing five horses in a pasture. A calf was found dead last Tuesday. FWP biologists picked up the signal from a collared female that was on the carcass and found numerous wolf tracks at the scene. Pups had been spotted chasing horses, indicating they were learning that livestock is prey from the adults, Sime said....
Setting the record straight With the U.S. House passage of the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA), Idaho is one step closer to realizing the benefits of the most important piece of public lands legislation proposed in the last 25 years. Having authored this legislation, I feel compelled to respond to comments made by the Sierra Club, singer Carole King and Congressman C.L. "Butch" Otter to clear up any misunderstandings about CIEDRA. CIEDRA is a carefully balanced compromise that seeks to protect the needs of the people who live and recreate in the Boulder-White Clouds while offering wilderness protection to some of Idaho's most beautiful mountains. It's unique in that it's inclusive and recognizes the needs of motorized users, the community surrounding it, the ranchers who live in the area, even creating new opportunities such as a first of its kind "primitive access wheelchair trail" into the wilderness....
Column - Let the Antelope Roam Of all the species living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of northwest Wyoming, the pronghorn is the only one native to the American West — elk, bison and even grizzly bears moved in from Asia centuries ago — but it is by no means the least exotic. The deerlike creatures (often called American antelope, though they are not related to Old World antelope) are the fastest distance runners in the Western Hemisphere, capable of traveling 50 miles an hour. Twice a year for 6,000 years, one population of pronghorn has used that speed to travel more than 90 miles from their summer range in Grand Teton National Park to the Upper Green River basin, where they spend the winter. In recent decades, the migration has been threatened by human development. Encroaching roads, reservoirs and ranches have closed many of the pronghorn’s routes. And the one that could conceivably remain open is being squeezed in places. Though it is a mile wide most of the way, the corridor narrows to only 650 yards at one spot and 120 yards at another. Steps need to be taken to keep this last path from shrinking any more....
Ruined Rivers: To save a river, save the land The pickup truck bounced up the road, really not much more than a ledge carved into the mountainside, just wide enough to let another vehicle squeeze by without plunging down into the canyon below. Wink Crigler knew the road well enough to avoid most of the potholes. When she hit one, we could hear the cows shifting in the trailer. We were climbing up a hogsback ridge that separated the two forks of the Little Colorado River. Benny Creek flowed on the west, the mainstem Little Colorado on the east. “The ranchers are disappearing so fast, it’s scary,” Crigler said. In the backseat, Sam Udall, Crigler’s workmate for the day and fellow Round Valley Rancher, grunted agreement. “When a ranch dies, the land gets subdivided and the habitat gets fragmented.” She points to the houses carved into the hillside, houses that rely on wells for their water, that affect runoff into the creeks and river. “If ranches don’t survive, the water gets used up faster,” Crigler said. That’s the equation here: Take away ranches, the houses will fill the void....
Mines, farms put Gila River on life support The Gila River deserves better than this. Once one of the West's mightiest waterways, the Gila a century ago flowed nearly 650 miles from the high country of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona to the Colorado River near Yuma. It drained most of Arizona, collecting water from the state's southern two-thirds. Until 1853, it marked the United States' boundary with Mexico. Today, it sputters into dust long before it reaches the Colorado, most of its natural flow halted at Coolidge Dam. None of its major tributaries makes it to the mainstream. Drought, pollution and growing demand tug at a string of broken reaches that hardly resemble a whole river. The Gila has been worked nearly to death. Farmers and ranchers settled along its length and continue to dip into the river to irrigate crops and support cattle. Mining companies found rich veins of ore in the mountains that feed the river and its tributaries and staked a claim to some of the flow. Both farmers and miners left behind contaminants that poisoned stretches of the river....
Ducks unlimited offers help with water Most people might not think of this, but livestock are good for ducks. At least Ducks Unlimited, a nonprofit conservation organization, thinks so. The duck-loving organization has recently started a program to help ranchers improve their permanent water supplies by granting them up to $3,500. Preserving watering holes for livestock is not directly what the organization is interested in doing. Ducks Unlimited wants to make sure farmers keep livestock on their land. If ranchers give up on livestock and replace native grasses with crops, that would reduce the amount of habitat ducks have, according to Paul Bultsma, a Ducks Unlimited biologist. "We're trying to keep livestock in the picture," Bultsma said....
Loggers remove protester, carry on A protester was arrested Tuesday after suspending himself from a log 40 feet over the Illinois River and briefly blocking logging in a national forest roadless area. Logging had started Monday on the Mike’s Gulch timber sale, made up of trees burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. It was the first logging on a timber sale in a roadless area since the Bush administration eased the logging rules. On Tuesday, protesters placed a log across a bridge over the Illinois River to block the timber cutters’ return. To make it harder for authorities to remove the log, a protester, Laurel Sutherlin, was suspended over the river from one end of the log sticking out from the bridge. Sutherlin was on a platform dangling about six feet beneath the log. Amid shouts of “don’t murder him” and “he’s not a tree” from about 20 protesters on shore, an arborist shinnied out on the log, rigged a pulley and rope to the platform, and then cut the webbing suspending the platform from the log. Forest Service personnel slowly lowered Sutherlin to the river. He waded to shore, where he was handcuffed....
Protesters accused of illegal logging A 40-foot log used by protesters to block access to the Mike's Gulch timber salvage sale in a roadless area of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest Tuesday morning was cut from a nearby botanical area, according to forest officials. One irate activist called it a "petty" point, and said the U.S. Forest Service and John West, president of the firm that purchased the roadless sale, had cut countless trees illegally. "You don't need to be a detective to see where it came from," said Tom Lavagnino, forest information officer at the site. "You can see the fresh sawdust, and where they dragged it 500 to 800 feet to the bridge. "But the issue is finding the person who cut it," he added. "There is no doubt they used it for blockage."
Salazar: Roadless protection promise broken The Bush administration's plan to lease undeveloped national forest land in Colorado this week for natural-gas development breaks promises to protect roadless areas and give states a say in their management, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said. Salazar Tuesday asked the administration not to lease 20,000 roadless acres spread over three national forests in Colorado. But federal land managers made no move to remove the land from their monthly lease auction to be held Thursday. The lease sales have already been protested by a coalition of landowners, outfitters and conservation groups. Salazar, D-Colo., noted that Bush administration officials said last year that they would temporarily protect roadless areas while states developed recommendations on whether or not to continue blocking roads and development....
Keystone 'stoking' area riders Downhill mountain bikers who crave fast, steep descents marked with ladders, bridges and jumps will have two more reasons to ride at Keystone by the end of the month. Last week, the Forest Service approved Keystone's application to build seven new downhill trails on the frontside of Dercum Mountain, two of which are slated for completion by the end of August. "These will all be expert only downhill trails, that's what we've been hearing people want," Keystone communications manager Amy Kemp said. "I'm pretty stoked," said Boulder resident David Holick, who was waiting on his bike for friends near the River Run Gondola Tuesday....
Bush administration agrees to support payments to timber counties The Bush administration has agreed to hold off selling some national forest lands and will support one more year of payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging, lawmakers said Monday. Western lawmakers have been seeking up to $401 million to maintain payments next year to 700 rural counties in 41 states, primarily in the West, which lost revenues from the sale of federal timber when logging was cut back to protect the northern spotted owl, salmon and other fish and wildlife. The administration had proposed selling 300,000 acres of national forest lands around the country to raise $800 million toward continuing the payments over five years, but it had run into tough bipartisan opposition. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, agreed in a letter to support a one-year extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which has pumped $2 billion into counties the past six years and is set to expire at the end of September....
Forest Service seeks input on prairie dog population boom The number of acres in the Pawnee National Grassland home to black-tailed prairie dogs grew almost tenfold between 2000 and 2005. Now U.S. Forest Service officials are asking the public to comment on five options to control the population of the black-tailed prairie dog in the area. “It’s like anything,” said Mary Ann Chambers, spokeswoman for Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland. “Too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.” The Pawnee National Grassland, located in northeast Weld County about 35 miles northeast of Greeley, is about 193,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land mixed with private farms, ranches, Colorado state lands and other federally owned land. Historically, the grasslands have had between 200 and 750 acres of prairie dog colonies, Chambers said. Between 2000 and 2005, that number increased from between 350 and 750 acres to about 3,500....
Butterfly status to be studied Federal officials agreed Tuesday to conduct a yearlong review of whether a rare Nevada butterfly at one of the largest sand dunes in the West should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. More than two years after conservationists petitioned for a listing, and after a lawsuit was filed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled there is enough scientific data to justify a formal review of the Sand Mountain blue butterfly. The decision comes over the objections of off-road enthusiasts, but was hailed by environmentalists who want to protect the 4,750-acre Sand Mountain Recreation Area, about 80 miles east of Reno along U.S. 50, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. "I don't think this was expected because it has been very, very difficult to get any kind of pro-conservation decision out of the Bush administration," said Daniel Patterson, a desert ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity based in Arizona....
Editorial - Fencing off more public land As the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies have progressively barred off-road travel from more and more of the vast landscapes of Colorado and California, all-terrain vehicle owners from those states have shrugged and retreated -- increasingly packing up their stuff for the week or the weekend and repairing to Utah's desolate Factory Butte area, 180 miles south of Salt Lake City. Of course, the extremists who would fence off all the wild lands have long complained that these vehicles are noisy despoilers, cutting trails that encourage erosion -- as though erosion isn't what gave these lands their distinctive character in the first place. Ah, but while environmental degradation by "natural" wild horses (what?) and other creatures must be accepted, the works of man are a blight upon the earth, the nature cultists explained. When that didn't work, the extremists played their trump card: They went plant-hunting. Sure enough, the little Wright fishhook cactus, listed as "endangered" in 1979, and the equally diminutive Winkler cactus, actually a succulent listed as "threatened" in 1998, turned up in the Factory Butte area. Game, set and match....
Commission OKs fish toxin in streams A state commission has approved using toxins in more than 150 miles of streams and rivers in Northern New Mexico to kill non-native fish in hopes of helping the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. The Water Quality Control Commission on Tuesday passed a controversial petition from the state Department of Game and Fish to use toxins in the Rio Costilla watershed to kill such fish as rainbow trout and brown trout. "I think it's interesting we're a water-quality commission, and we're voting on whether to introduce toxins into state waters," said Howard Hutchinson, the only commissioner on the 12-member panel to oppose the petition. Under the proposal, more than 150 miles of stream from Comanche Creek in the Valle Vidal down Rio Costilla to Latir Creek would be poisoned in sections using antiymicin or Rotenone. Two dozen lakes and Costilla Reservoir will also be poisoned....
Feds asking for public's thoughts on 'cooperative conservation' Leaders of the Bush administration's "cooperative conservation" effort will hold their first public meeting in Spokane on Wednesday to gather ideas on how disparate groups can work together to protect the environment. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne will attend the meeting, dubbed a "listening session" that is intended to foster cooperation on thorny environmental issues. The Bush administration, which held a conference on the topic last year, defines cooperative conservation as the efforts of landowners, communities, conservation groups, industry, and government to work together to preserve the environment. The Spokane meeting is the first of several across the country that have been scheduled by the secretaries of Interior, Commerce and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality....
Nevada Loses Decision on Atomic Waste Nevada was set back in its effort to avoid housing a radioactive waste dump as a federal appeals court rejected arguments against transportation plans. Nevada had said that the Energy Department overstepped its authority and violated environmental rules in deciding to rely mostly on trains to carry 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from around the country to Yucca Mountain. “We conclude that some of Nevada’s claims are unripe for review, and the remaining claims are without merit,” said a decision written by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Global Warming: Focus on Utah's Climate J.L. Crawford stopped regarding climate change as a debate a long time ago. To the 92-year-old, who grew up in Oak Creek Canyon here, the proof is in the missing ice. As a boy, he would help his great-uncle harvest ice in the winter. They dammed a creek, flooded a nearby pond and sawed out slabs from the icy surface. They laid the blocks in layers of sawdust and stored them in a roofless shed, Crawford recalls. "That way he could save the ice pretty well all summer" - long enough to serve summer tourists "plain old vanilla" ice cream. Crawford doubts now that the winters are cold enough to keep up the tradition. He blames a planet that's heating up. Global climate change. "It scares the heck out of me," says Crawford....
Penn submits resignation as undersecretary of agriculture Dr. J.B. Penn, undersecretary of agriculture for farm and foreign agricultural services and one of the few members of USDA’s top hierarchy with ties to the Mid-South, has submitted his resignation, effective at the end of August. A native of Lynn, Ark., and a graduate of Arkansas State University, Penn had overseen the activities of the Farm Service agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Risk Management Agency since being sworn in as undersecretary in May 2001. His resignation letter said only that he planned to return to the private sector. Penn was serving as senior vice president and manager of the Washington, D.C., office of Sparks Companies, Inc., when he was tapped by then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to become undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services, the third highest-ranking post at USDA....
Kansas corn crop shriveling amid triple-digit temperatures Ottawa County farmer Steve Baccus plans to cut most of his dryland corn for silage - trying to salvage what he can as triple-digit temperatures and drought decimate corn fields across the state. Baccus, who also serves as Kansas Farm Bureau president, said his fields are among the last dryland fields in the county still standing. Most of his neighbors already have chopped theirs for silage. His own no-till practices let his fields hang on to moisture a little longer than most - until finally succumbing as well to the scorching temperatures. Corn under irrigation systems in the county also has shown signs of "tipping," meaning the corn plant is drawing moisture out of its kernels to survive. Smaller kernels hurt yields. "Even irrigation systems are not able to keep up in this situation, with these kinds of winds," Baccus said....
USDA extends comment period on BSE study R-CALF USA was pleased to learn today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has granted the organization's request for an extended time period for public comments on the most recent Harvard Risk Assessment on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Docket Number FSIS-2006-0011. "We appreciate the FSIS' quick action in extending the comment period on this comprehensive study," R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard said. "The cattle industry needs to review the Harvard Risk Assessment very carefully because it is the principle resource used by USDA to decide what level of risk the United States is willing to assume when trading with countries that have a BSE problem." R-CALF USA submitted a formal request to USDA last week to extend the comment period....
USDA Announces New Insurance Tools for Pasture, Forage Lands Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced the availability of two new risk management tools for pasture, rangeland and forage, beginning with the 2007 crop year. "These new insurances tools will help farmers and ranchers, especially with operations located in drought impacted areas, to improve their risk management capabilities," said Johanns. "Designed to operate in a variety of range and pasture environments, these products utilize innovative technology to determine when a producer has suffered a loss." The new insurance products, the Rainfall index insurance program and theVegetation index insurance program, are offered by the Risk Management Agency (RMA) and are available through approved insurance providers. These programs will provide livestock producers the ability to purchase insurance protection for losses of forage produced for grazing or harvested for hay....
Elliott takes a break from playing cowboys to voice a cow Listening to Sam Elliott's easy baritone makes you want to eat a steak. It must be the lingering effect of hearing his mouth-watering pitch in all those beef ads. So it's kind of ironic that in his first animated feature, "Barnyard," the actor is the voice of Ben, a patriarchal cow. "One wouldn't think of me doing this," said Elliott, best known for his rugged cowboy roles. "It's something I've always been intrigued by, and the opportunity came my way, and I jumped at it." The film centers on Otis, voiced by Kevin James, a real party cow who, like many young adult creatures, isn't as responsible as his father, Ben, would like. There's also a wise old mule with the voice of Danny Glover....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Farmers sign up to dry up After farming this area all his life, Wade Prescott recently decided to dry up half of his land in return for money from the government. The choice wasn’t an easy one for this Hazelton-area farmer. Then again, Prescott says, most farmers who rely on groundwater to irrigate crops are running out of options. That’s why Prescott elected to put 300 acres in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program — a joint state-federal plan to pay farmers to let their lands go dry — for the next 15 years. With a $258 million price tag, the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer CREP will take 100,000 acres out of production and reduce pumping on the aquifer by 200,000 acre-feet annually. That’s enough water to cover the same amount of land in water one-foot deep. Announced in May, the program still needs volunteers....
Group continues bid to protect surface rights Although the New Mexico Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have provided landowners with surface rights on public lands protection or damage compensation from oil and gas companies, backers of the bill say they are not giving up. It will be back on the table in the 2007 Legislative session. A public meeting sponsored by the Fee and Public Land Association will be held at 7 p.m. today in the auditorium at New Mexico State University Carlsbad Campus to explain to land owners the proposed Surface Protection Act. According to the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, which strongly supports the proposed act for New Mexico, 11 states have surface owner protection legislation, which typically requires that oil and gas companies provide notice to landowners before entering a property to drill a well, and that companies negotiate damage settlements with surface owners. Lisa Ogden, a rancher and New Mexico Cattle Growers president elect, who actively lobbied for the bill during this year's legislative session, said that a few oil and gas companies offer some compensation to surface owners, but generally the landowner is at the mercy of the company in terms of monetary compensation....
Burned Biscuit trees get logged With no protesters in sight, logging started Monday on the first timber sale in a national forest roadless area since the Bush administration eased logging restrictions. The logging went ahead after a federal judge in San Francisco last week declined to delay the work pending her ruling on lawsuits by conservation groups and four states challenging the Bush administration's new "roadless rule." That rule eased a Clinton administration rule that had put 58.5 million acres of national forests off-limits to most logging, mining and development. Loggers reported that they felled about 150 dead Douglas firs between 22 and 50 inches in diameter in their first day of work on the Mike's Gulch timber sale on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Work was expected to go on for about two months. Forest spokeswoman Patty Burel said there were no protesters in the area when logging started early Monday. The area had burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, and it remained open to the public. Helicopters were not yet hauling out the logs....
Town taking down No Trespassing signs Imagine Colorado Springs if Pikes Peak were closed to the public. That’s sort of what the little Park County mountain town of Alma has been dealing with. Access to three Colorado 14ers — Mount Democrat, Mount Lincoln and Mount Bross — was closed last summer by private landowners concerned about their liability. The No Trespassing signs are coming down, replaced by trail signs and road markers. The town took the unusual step of leasing 3,900 acres of mountain land and accepting liability in a unanimous vote of the Alma Board of Trustees on Aug. 1. “I felt like it was a good thing for business in Alma, Fairplay and Park County,” Alma Mayor Mark Dowaliby said. “It was an opportunity to get government to help people. The reason we are in government is to help peo- ple. ”The new plan is a bargain for the mountain burg near Breckenridge with about 250 people, harsh winters and views galore. “The town is paying a dollar a month to lease the three peaks,” Dowaliby said....
Interfering in lion hunt gets activist prison term A Tucson animal activist was sentenced to eight months in federal prison Monday for interfering with U.S. Forest Service agents who were trying to capture mountain lions in Sabino Canyon two years ago. Rodney Coronado will also have to spend three years on probation upon his release, pay $100 in restitution and stay away from activists involved in such groups as the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front and Earth First. U.S. District Judge David Bury told Coronado he wanted to send a message that if you use "force and violence in civil disobedience you are going to be punished for it; it's anarchy." Coronado, 39, Matthew Crozier, 33, and Esquire magazine writer-at-large John Richardson were arrested in the spring of 2004 after authorities accused them of interfering with the mountain lion hunt. Federal officials closed Sabino Canyon that spring because they were alarmed at a growing number of encounters between mountain lions and humans....
Death of a forest It seems there’s just not much good news for trees these days. Between the mountain pine beetles decimating lodgepole pines across the West to a mysterious illness affecting aspen trees, foresters are already looking ahead to what the landscape will look like in the future. “This mature pine forest is a goner,” said Cal Wettstein, district ranger for the Holy Cross and Eagle ranger districts. “We’re focusing on the next forest.” Asked what the future holds for the Vail Valley’s forest, Wettstein said simply “large fires.” Over the next two decades, the beetle-killed trees will shed their needles and their branches, then fall down and contribute to a tremendous load of fuel on the forest floor, Wettstein said. At that point, he said, it’s a waiting game as to when the combination of fuel, weather and a spark culminates in a large-scale fire....
Endangered Bighorn Protected from Sheep Grazing To protect endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep from deadly disease this summer, the U.S. Forest Service has wisely halted risky domestic sheep grazing in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in the eastern Sierra Nevada. “After much evidence was presented, the Forest Service honored concerns raised by scientists and conservationists and made a decent decision for this year,” said Daniel R. Patterson, Ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The agreement must be closely watched to ensure it is followed daily on the ground to monitor bighorn movements – a key component of the Forest Service’s decision.” Because domestic sheep can spread disease to the endangered bighorn, the Forest Service will not permit domestic sheep grazing near occupied bighorn habitat on the Dunderberg Allotment in Mono County this year. The Forest Service is also limiting grazing in bighorn habitat on two nearby allotments, Tamarack and Cameron Canyon. Some risk to bighorn remains on the Tamarack and Cameron Canyon allotments north of Dunderberg Peak, but if bighorn move further north this year, domestic sheep grazing may be halted there as well....
Judge approves Kensington Mines disposal method A U.S. District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging federal approval of a mining company's plans to deposit rock waste in a southeast Alaska lake. The permit allows for rock waste to be dumped into nearby Lower Slake Lake. "It was music to our ears," said Scott Lamb, a spokesman for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp., the Idaho-based parent company of Coeur Alaska. "In light of the court's decision, we would encourage those who have opposed the project to abandon their efforts." Environmental groups had filed the lawsuit, saying the Kensington Mine project's lake discharge permit from by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violates the Clean Water Act. They now have 30 days to appeal....
Industry reps say they face too many development obstacles The Rockies, from Montana to Mexico, are the single greatest source of untapped domestic energy in the lower 48 states, and the oil and gas industry needs to do more so lawsuits and other obstacles don’t tie up vital resources on Western public lands, speakers at an energy conference said Monday. Although environmentalists and people facing drilling on or near their land believe the pace of energy development is skyrocketing, industry representatives said they face too many obstacles. ‘‘Through lawsuits and other actions, it’s more and more difficult to get leases on public land,’’ Duane Zavadil of the Bill Barrett Corp. said during a summit sponsored in part by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Association, a trade group. The Rockies hold 224 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or 41 percent of the reserves in the lower 48, Zavadil said. About 70 percent of the region’s minerals are on federal land, he added. ‘‘In most other countries that would be considered a good thing. We’d have some self determination in our source of natural gas,’’ Zavadil said. ‘‘But the federal land management is in fact imposing requirements that limit access to 137 (trillion cubic feet) of that 224 tcf.’’....
BLM finds no impact in proposed oil shale project A proposed research project to test an extraction method for oil shale in the Piceance Basin will have no appreciable environmental impact, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The conclusion is based on findings of an environmental assessment (EA) published last week. The EA analyzes the potential impact of EGL Resources Inc.'s test of an in-place oil shale retorting technology it hopes to conduct on a 160-acre lease of BLM property near Meeker. EGL's report is the first of five proposed projects in Colorado. Two additional EAs, for Chevron Shale Oil Co. and Shell Frontier, which seeks to lease three separate tracts, are due out in the next several weeks, according a prepared statement from BLM....
Water wells draining rivers at their source Among the major rivers that begin or end in Arizona, only the Verde flows on its own from start to finish. But like all the state's rivers, it is running out of water and running out of time. The water that fills the Verde is in danger of being sucked away by wells, and no one is moving to turn off the pumps. In the first of six stories examining the health of Arizona's rivers, The Republic looks at the 150-mile Verde River. The cities want to use water in the underground aquifers that feed the Verde to quench the thirst of their growing cities. Thousands of other unmonitored wells already are drawing water from the same sources. State laws are virtually powerless to protect the Verde and other Arizona rivers from the pumping. The situation is dire for Arizona's dying rivers. But desert rivers are resilient and, given water, recover with remarkable speed....
Upstream damage dooms Little Colorado River system Water hadn't flowed through this stretch of the Little Colorado River in weeks, months maybe. The dry winter produced little runoff, and almost none made it this far downstream, barely 40 miles from the river's end. But the empty riverbed wasn't the troubling part of the view from the old suspension bridge. What stuck out sorely were the deep green stands of tamarisk that lined the banks and pushed into the channel, creating an artificial path almost as rigid as concrete. "The Little Colorado River is at the epicenter of the tamarisk invasion," said Sharon Masek-Lopez, a biologist who advises the Hopi Tribe on water issues. "With all the tamarisk in there, the river can't function as it normally would. It needs to spread out and meander, but it can't." Invasion is not too strong of a word to describe what is happening to the Little Colorado and other Arizona rivers, whose riparian areas are choking on invasive plants that take advantage of weakened ecosystems....
Indian activist anxious to close book on huge lawsuit After 10 years of leading the largest American Indian lawsuit against the U.S. in history, Elouise Cobell has been through her share of emotions. Last week, however, the lead litigant in the Indian Trust Fund lawsuit was flat shocked when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pulled back legislation that could have ended the lawsuit. "They were that close," Cobell said, sitting in her Browning office. "What kind of pressure happened that they pulled back and lost the greatest chance they had? "Who knows what goes on behind closed doors," she said. Had the McCain bill moved forward as it was written, it would have settled the class action lawsuit that seeks a historical accounting and trust-fund reform for money accounts belonging to 500,000 landowners. The bill called for an $8 billion settlement - down from accounting as high as $237 billion - to be paid as restitution for money lost, accounting errors and unpaid interest on federally managed land accounts....
Column - The Wilderness Paradox Wilderness is tearing at the soul of mountain biking. The Wilderness Act forces us to choose between protecting open space and riding our bikes. In the name of environmental protection, it forces us to lump mountain biking with the evils of mining, oil drilling and logging. Wilderness forces us to see justice in allowing 1500 pound horses to chew through Wilderness trails while our waffle prints are regarded as a scourge of the Wilderness world. Wilderness is not only renewing our age-old hostilities with the hiking groups, but is pitting biker against biker in a high stakes inter-nacine argument about the future of our passion. In the meantime, the Wilderness juggernaut rolls on across the country. There's still debate about whether the 1964 Congress really intended bicycles to be prohibited in Wilderness when they banned "other modes of mechanized transport" from Wilderness areas....
Column - "Smart Growth" Policies Hurt It is not uncommon to find workers in the Washington, DC area who suffer a two-hour commute each way to their jobs. Some travel from as far as West Virginia or Pennsylvania.1 In many cases, the cause is not preference but finance. Simply put: There is lack of affordable housing in the region.2 It is a problem nationally, not just in our nation's capital. Steep increases in property values are often attributed to a robust real estate market or an area's appeal for living, working and attracting business.3 However, another more flagrant and largely overlooked cause is so-called "smart growth" planning. There is mounting evidence that smart growth policies have already prevented thousands of American households from their claim of the American Dream of owning their own home....
Column - Land Rights: Why Do They Matter? Today, all across America, people are focusing on a major constitutional issue: their right to control the use of their land and property. Landowners in the East are concerned about restrictions on their land rights when their property is designated as historic. Farmers are up in arms about the Corps of Engineers wetlands program that forces them to abandon the use of farmland because it may become wet during part of the year. Ranchers and forest owners in the West are threatened by enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. In some ways, the movement is a rebellion. Yet in the strict meaning of the word, the movement is more a revolution - a complete rotation that carries us back to a first Constitutional principle, the principle of protection against excessive government. Some of the groups that contest the state's authority describe the problem in simple terms. The land on which they live is theirs, quite often owned by family members for three generations or more. In their view, no one has a superior right to tell them what they can do or not do on their land. (Of course, if the owners are truly harming others, then they can be sued under common law.) Others see the problem in more complex terms. They hold contracts, deeds and easements that give them the legal right to graze cattle, cut trees, or build houses. They see a growing maze of federal, state and local regulations that interfere with the terms of the contracts and deeds they hold. These regulations are supposed to serve a public interest, but the burden falls on the shoulders of individuals who hold specified rights to land. In their view, their Fifth Amendment rights are denied. They believe what the Constitution says: "Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."....
Ranchers making inroads protecting cash cows A smart cattle rustler can make $20,000 in one hit. The payoff is quick and the turnaround appealing. But ranchers and investigators say it's becoming harder than ever to get away with stealing cattle – once a hanging offense – thanks to an electronic database that gives authorities more time to devote to investigations. Cattle brought to the Emory Livestock Auction in East Texas are identified upon arrival with bright yellow tags that are glued to their flanks. Even though much evidence still starts on paper, a relatively new computer system that transfers brand inspection forms onto CDs has shaved about three weeks off investigations, said Larry Gray, law enforcement director for the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, an industry group. "The cattle business is still pretty much done on a handshake," he said. But the paper trail is becoming more important as rustling becomes a white-collar crime, with more organized cases of bank fraud and embezzlement arising each year, he said. Last year, the Cattle Raisers Association recovered about 5,200 cattle worth nearly $3.5 million in Texas and Oklahoma – nearly double the number recovered the previous year....
Stubborn Cowboys Elmer Kelton was voted "Great Western Writer of All Time" by the Western Writers of America, a daunting title to work under, though he bears it modestly. There is, after all, that modifying adjective: Western. Kelton, who turned 80 in April, has his academic champions, but he acknowledges that "the Western field is a literary ghetto. Critics don't read a Western unless the book is contemptuous of its subject matter. If you write out of love for your subject matter they'll dismiss you." Elmer Kelton loves his subject matter. He was born to it, after all. And if the Western is a ghetto, it is a remarkably rich ghetto populated by the likes of Edward Abbey (The Brave Cowboy), Jack Schaefer (Shane), Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), and other novelists whose mortal sin, it seems, is setting their tales in open spaces rather than in the confines of the faculty lounge or city tenement. Elmer Kelton has an utter mastery of his subject; a distinctive, even arresting, point of view; and a narrative talent honed by writing for the Western pulps. His best work, The Time It Never Rained (1973), can be read as character study, regional literature, and philosophical novel: find me a navel-gazing New Yorker writer who has squeezed out a single book as rich, layered, and unsettling. Following a lunch of--what else?--thick steaks, I spoke with Elmer Kelton in his study in the home he and his wife built half a century ago in the ranching town of San Angelo, Texas. His library overspills with books on Texas, cattle, and the West; his musical tastes run to Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Willie Nelson, and Bill Monroe. He reels off the original lineup of the "Sons of the Pioneers."....
Trew: Hands, not cowboys, did the ranch work Hand appears to be a shortened version of “hired hand” meaning an individual’s hands were paid to perform a certain job or jobs. Employers were not concerned with the person’s looks, color, character, reputation or financial worth. They merely wanted a pair of hands to haul feed, dig tanks, brand cattle, build fence or whatever else was required. During this period, the ranch hired many young boys, some who had run away from large poor families trying to exist in hard times. These boys were listed as “roustabouts” and given menial jobs until they either quit or proved their worth. Among the many “hand descriptions” listed in the notations of the manager were hay hands, plow hands, ranch hands, trail hands and fence hands. Each was a part of a crew performing that kind of work. The next steps up the ladder were bosses, foremen, branding reps and the office staff or management. Most beginning hands drew pay of $25 to $30 per month plus board, providing food and bed. Proven hands drew from $30 to $40 per month with bosses, reps and cooks earning $50 per month. My favorite “hand story” tells of a new ranch owner announcing he was raising all his hand’s wages by $10 per month in hopes of retaining experienced employees. All the hands thanked him for the unexpected raise except one cowboy. When questioned about his lack of appreciation he said, “It nearly kills me to drink up $30 worth of whiskey each month now. Another $10 may just finish me off.”....

NEWS ROUNDUP


Oregon ranchers, water trust strike deal for fish A deal between local ranchers and the Oregon Water Trust will mean more water for Spring chinook and summer steelhead in the Middle Fork John Day River. Pat and Hedy Voigt are third-generation ranchers on the Middle Fork John Day River. They own the Austin Ranch, for which this project was named. The river winds through the property and provides habitat for waterfowl and is a critical spawning ground for spring chinook. The Voigts use water from the Middle Fork and surrounding streams to irrigate 640 acres for cattle. The Voigts and the trust made a deal that shortens the Voigt's irrigation season and keeps water in the Middle Fork for fish. The trust paid the Voights an undisclosed sum to stop irrigating on July 20 each year in perpetuity....
Legislative Victory for Land Conservation New land conservation tax benefits for family farmers and ranchers are included in just-passed pension reform legislation, now awaiting the President's signature. The new law will combine an adjusted tax incentive for land conservation with common sense reforms to ensure the public benefit of conservation donations. "This law will help landowners and land trusts protect important lands across America," said Land Trust Alliance President Rand Wentworth. "We want to thank Senators Charles Grassley, Max Baucus and Rick Santorum, who all worked hard to get this through, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, and the many other leaders who helped make this happen." The new law extends the carry-forward period for tax deductions for voluntary conservation agreements from 5 to 15 years and raises the cap on those deductions from 30 percent of a donor's adjusted gross income to 50 percent -- and to 100 percent for qualifying farmers and ranchers. This allows ranchers, farmers and other modest-income landowners to get a much larger benefit for donating very valuable development rights to their land....
Enviros await Thursday's lease auction Atop an unnamed ridge on the western fringe of the White River National Forest, the twin peaks of Mount Sopris rose to the east, knobby Haystack Mountain to the west. Two national forests, two river valleys and three counties come together here. It's a critical juncture, environmentalists say -- a crossroads for wildlife that joins isolated valleys on this treeless crest. The aspen grove below may be the largest in the country, they say; the spruce and fir make up the White River National Forest's largest old-growth stand. It's a place where energy companies are considering drilling, and where environmentalists hope to block them....
Column: Nighttime limits on anglers may be grizzly mistake Here we go again. To make the Russian River safe for people, federal officials have decided to give it to the grizzly bears. Well, only at night, they say, as if the bears all had clocks. I understand the thinking. If we give the bears the evening hours alone to feed, they'll eat all those salmon carcasses and then go sleep the day away, safely removed from thousands of anglers. Unless, of course, one of the bears who now considers the river home gets a Cheetos craving and decides to go looking for backpacks with tasty treats inside, as happened last week. Or someone's 8-year-old has to make a potty trip into the bushes and steps on the bear. No good can come of this. The last time one of these nighttime closures was imposed was the summer of 2003 after a bear passing through the area grabbed then-25-year-old Daniel Bigley by the face and nearly killed him....
Motor vehicle fans drawing line in the sand around Little Belts Motor vehicle enthusiasts across Montana are revving up efforts to retain the roads and trails on public lands that they've used for years. Those who ride motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles and other machines worry that new National Forest travel plans could shut them out of large chunks of the state's forests. They're drawing a line in the sand. And, for now, that line is in the Little Belt Mountains, putting the Lewis and Clark National Forest in the hot seat. "There is no question we are being closed out. If we don't stand up and say 'whoa,' they will shut us out of everything," said Bruce Butler, state representative for the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council....
Burning for information For Jack de Golia, the idea of issuing updates on wildfires by fax seems almost quaint. These days, the Forest Service spokesman prefers using the Web to post maps, fact sheets and anything else he thinks will help explain - as quickly and as often as possible - what a wildfire is doing and how firefighters are responding. "There's been an evolution of information, and you have to keep up," said de Golia, who, from assignments in Montana and Wyoming this summer, has posted frequently to a new, experimental government fire information Web site, www.inciweb.org. "There's a need for people to have ready access to information on fires," he added. "I think it's important, when people are very frightened or concerned, that they have as much information on an event as they need to make decisions. "Once they hear there's a Web site, our phones stop ringing." The demands of today's information-now culture are changing how news about wildfires spreads....
Bend-area fire managers ponder let-it-burn strategy Lightning sparked the Black Crater Fire that spread across more than 9,000 acres this summer, forcing evacuations and threatening houses west of Sisters. But if lightning ignites a fire next summer on a specific parcel of land in Central Oregon, fire managers might let it burn. The U.S. Forest Service’s Deschutes National Forest and the Prineville District of the Bureau of Land Management are developing a wildland fire-use plan that would allow blazes to burn in specific areas east of Bend, saying it could help the ecosystem. Agency staff are now working with landowners to identify which areas within a 400,000-acre parcel of land, on the east side of the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District and west of Glass Buttes, that need to be protected. They are also mapping out areas where the fires could be used to naturally thin trees and bring more diversity to a landscape, as burns have done historically. “We know that all of our ecosystems, forest ecosystems from the shrubs clear up to the top of the Cascades, they’re fire-dependent ecosystems,’’ said Leslie Weldon, Deschutes forest supervisor....
Village would cut off wildlife, critics say Flying over the pass that connects Southwest Colorado to points east, the mountains seem to go on forever, their green expanse interrupted only by U.S. Highway 160 and Forest Service roads. This meadow, site of the proposed Village at Wolf Creek, and Alberta Park Reservoir are seen Friday during a flight over the area with the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project. "Let’s talk about traffic, wetlands and fens - how to make the development the least bad." But the pass, at 10,800 feet, is under stress, according to an environmental group. It is the wildlife link between the Weminuche and the South San Juan wilderness areas. "The (proposed) Village at Wolf Creek sits right in the middle of the wildlife corridor," Monique DiGiorgio, of the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, said Friday during an aerial inspection for the news media. "We're trying to restore fragmented areas to help wildlife." Wolf Creek Pass, one of 12 areas statewide surveyed by DiGiorgio's group, is the most important corridor for Canada lynx, which are being reintroduced into the national forest near Creede by the Colorado Division of Wildlife. At least one-third of the radio collar-bearing lynx cross Highway 160, she said. But the Village at Wolf Creek, sitting just east of the Continental Divide on 288 acres, threatens to bring year-round habitation by humans and enormous increases in traffic that would effectively destroy habitat for the lynx and other wildlife, Village critics say. The Village could contain as many as 2,000 individual living units, a hotel and commercial zones....
Endangered cacti threatening off-road terrain For off-roaders, few places are as good as the badlands around Factory Butte, where the terrain seems perfectly suited for a knobby rubber tire. "If ever there was a place God created for off-road recreation, Factory Butte is it," said Michael Swenson, executive director of the Utah Shared Access Alliance. This Wild West of off-road travel may not last long, however. The Bureau of Land Management is moving to impose regulations as early as September, the start of riding season, on some of the baddest of the West's badlands, about 180 miles south of Salt Lake City. The decision chips away at Utah's standing as one of the last Western states where BLM lands are still largely open to cross-country travel. "Times have changed," Cornell Christensen, a bureau field manager, who has been watching all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes crawl over the nearly 200,000-acre Factory Butte district like an army of ants. "We've had open areas for so long, people can just go and go." It wasn't noise, traffic, ruts or erosion that forced BLM, after years of pressure from conservation groups, to take a hard look at drawing boundaries here on off-road travel. Instead, it's two little-known, delicate species of cacti classified years ago as threatened or endangered and only recently discovered around Factory Butte....
BLM making big bucks on leases Not too long ago, the Bureau of Land Management was lucky to get $10 an acre at its Utah lease auctions. Today, against a backdrop of skyrocketing energy prices and the push to drill for more oil and natural gas, those same lands are capturing 10 times more money on average, with some bids commanding as much as $3,000 an acre. In May, the federal agency's Salt Lake City office raised $54.1 million in its quarterly land-lease auction, a more than 300 percent increase from $13.5 million raised during the same quarter in 2005 and nearly 450 percent more than $10 million raised in second quarter 2004. But the rush to develop new energy in Utah is bringing controversy as proposed leases encroach on some of Utah's most scenic landscapes....
Palisade May Accept Offer To Sue BLM Over Drilling Officials in the agricultural community of Palisade, Colorado, said they may go to court to block government oil and gas leases in the city's watershed. Mayor Doug Edwards said several lawyers have offered free representation if the city decides to battle the Bureau of Land Management's ruling. The BLM is approving drilling in the watersheds of Palisades and neighboring Grand Junction on Colorado's Western Slope. The government is suspending the leases to Genesis Gas and Oil for a year, urging the cities and the Kansas City, Missouri, company to work out a compromise. Mayor Edwards said he will meet with residents, Grand Junction officials and state and local leaders before accepting legal representation. A city statement said protecting the area's drinking water is the number one priority....
Will court's ruling slow oil, gas lease? The Bureau of Land Management is uncertain whether a court ruling this week will affect an oil- and gas-lease sale that the agency has scheduled for Aug. 15. In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball said that the BLM in Utah violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not considering new information about the wilderness values and characteristics of 16 lease tracts offered in a February 2005 sale. The tracts were not in wilderness areas, and the state and the Department of Interior had agreed in April 2003 that there would be no further BLM wilderness designations in Utah. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society. Those groups celebrated Kimball's ruling. "This decision is reverberating loudly throughout the West because in Colorado and other states, the BLM also has controversially sold off land that the agency itself had acknowledged was wilderness quality," said Suzanne Jones, director of The Wilderness Society's Four Corners Office in Denver. But Adrienne Babbitt, public-affairs officer for the BLM's state headquarters in Salt Lake City, said Thursday that the agency was considering what recourse it has after the ruling. "We've been reviewing the decision with our solicitors and determining what steps we will take," she said. "We cannot say at this time if this is going to affect the August sale or not."....
Editorial - Sound judgment: BLM must follow law on selling drilling leases The Bureau of Land Management ignored its own research and new information about wilderness-quality lands when it sold 16 leases for oil and gas development on some of Utah's most spectacular public lands. In short, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled emphatically this week, the BLM acted illegally. He rightly remanded the leases and reversed the BLM's decision, ordering the agency to fully comply with federal environmental laws that protect places valued for their archaeology, naturalness and opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation. The judge's decision will immediately stop energy companies from bulldozing roads and erecting noisy and unsightly rigs where such things would destroy the natural beauty of the 16 parcels addressed in the lawsuit. But the decision should have more far-reaching consequences. The unequivocal and uncompromising tone of the 32-page ruling should put the brakes on the BLM's headlong rush to allow drilling on Americans' public lands with little regard for the threat, not only to the pristine nature of the land but also to invaluable watersheds and the industries of tourism, hunting, fishing and non-motorized recreation....
Ensign, Reid introduce White Pine lands bill Nevada senators have formed a new bill that reshapes the federal government's land holdings in White Pine County, declaring a half million acres of protected wilderness while freeing other land for development and multiple uses. The bill, introduced late Tuesday by Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., is patterned after successful land management bills that Congress approved in recent years for Clark County and Lincoln County. The broad measure would declare 13 new wilderness areas in White Pine County, while expanding two other protected areas set aside in 1989. It would shield certain lands adjacent to Great Basin National Park from most uses, add property to two state parks, convey 1,500 acres for expansion of the Ely airport, and enlarge the county's industrial park. At the same time, the measure would make up to 45,000 acres of land in White Pine County available for controlled development through auction by the Bureau of Land Management, while removing 68,000 acres from wilderness study and made available for multiple uses. Profits from the land auctions would be divided, with 5 percent going to the Nevada education fund, 10 percent for White Pine law enforcement, fire protection and transportation planning, and 85 percent for further wilderness protection in the county....
Senate opposes military hunting plan on Southern California island The Senate is opposing a House Republican's plan to allow military veterans to hunt nonnative game on an island that is part of a Southern California national park. Senators passed a resolution against the plan by voice vote late Thursday before leaving for their August recess. Private trophy hunts now run on 53,000-acre Santa Rosa Island, part of Channel Islands National Park, are supposed to end in 2011. A federal court settlement over the government's purchase of the island 40 miles off Santa Barbara requires the herds of deer and elk to be removed by that year. Legislation by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., would overturn the settlement and keep the game on the island indefinitely. The National Park Service opposes the plan, saying the hunts restrict public access and interfere with native species....
A chuckwagon adventure offers an Old West dinner, on the range Yellowstone Style Wildlife and geysers get all the attention at the world's first national park, but there is also a human element with a long history at this tri-state wonderland. American Indians known as Sheepeaters eked out a living in what would become Yellowstone more than two centuries ago, and mountain men wandered the park in wonder, much like today's tourists, not long after. But for many current Yellowstone visitors, particularly those who do not live on the left-hand side of the nation, the park epitomizes the lore of the historic West. It is little surprise, then, that one of the most popular, if not the most popular, paying activities at Yellowstone National Park involves cowboys, horses, campfires and beans. Welcome to the Old West dinner cookout held from early June to Labor Day at Roosevelt Lodge in the north-central part of the park and offered by Yellowstone concessionaire Xanterra Parks & Resorts....
Park Service worker may have exploited 11-year-old Prosecutors said yesterday they are probing whether a former National Park Service supervisor already accused of raping and pimping out a teen-age girl from Port Richmond also sexually exploited an 11-year-old girl. "I'm confident that something was in the making," Assistant District Attorney Wanda DeOliveira alleged at Angel Nazario's bail hearing in state Supreme Court, St. George. Nazario, 60, is accused of raping the teen, then 13, in his apartment in Fort Wadsworth more than 90 times over the course of nearly two years. The incidents began in September 2004 and ended in June 2006, prosecutors said. He also allegedly arranged for at least 10 different men to have oral sex with her on separate occasions at the Victory Motor Inn, a Willowbrook motel, and the Swan Motel in Linden, N.J....
Woodpecker mapping gets chain saws buzzing The sharp chirps of the endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and the whine of chain saws sound discordantly in this coastal community of old pine forests. Since word got around this spring that owners could face problems selling land or building houses where the birds lived, people have been rushing to clear undeveloped lots of pine trees and yanking the woodpecker welcome mat. More than anywhere else in North Carolina, Boiling Spring Lakes is a place where the coastal development boom and the federal Endangered Species Act have collided. "People are just afraid a bird might fly in and make a nest and their property is worth nothing," said Joan Kinney, mayor of Boiling Spring Lakes in Brunswick County. "It is causing a tremendous amount of clear-cutting."....
Enviros in green lawsuits In recent years, the environmental activist community in the U.S. has developed and perfected a very productive tactic of suing the federal government and settling their claims for substantial attorneys' fees and litigation costs. Nowhere has this been more successful than the recent settlement of the Washington Toxics Coalition vs. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This complaint filed in January 2001 in Washington state charged that EPA had not complied with provisions of the Endangered Species Act by failing to carry out consultations with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the National Marine Fisheries Services. Such consultations are triggered whenever a federal government entity like the EPA undertakes a "final action." In this case, the court found EPA had not fully consulted when registering certain pesticides and decided in favor of the plaintiffs. Then, matters get interesting. After other legal issues were dispensed with, the WTC played their trump card... they filed for an award of the costs of litigation and attorneys' fees, in the amount of -- get this -- $728,142.16. As an intervenor in this case, I can attest that our legal fees for this action aren't anywhere close to this amount. Amazingly, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to settle with WTC in the amount of $625,602.40, roughly 86 percent of the amount claimed, well above the average award percentage. The full amount of $625,600 and change was sent by electronic transfer to Earthjustice, an environmental activist group based in Seattle. Obviously, these monies used to settle the claim came from the U.S. Treasury, provided from tax dollars from you and me. Of course, we had no voice in the award decision....
Major Alaskan Oil Field Shutting Down In a sudden blow to the nation's oil supply, half the production on Alaska's North Slope was being shut down Sunday after BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. discovered severe corrosion in a Prudhoe Bay oil transit line. BP officials said they didn't know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line. "I don't even know how long it's going to take to shut it down," said Tom Williams, BP's senior tax and royalty counsel. Once the field is shut down, in a process expected to take days, BP said oil production will be reduced by 400,000 barrels a day. That's close to 8 percent of U.S. oil production as of May 2006 or about 2.6 percent of U.S. supply including imports, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The shutdown comes at an already worrisome time for the oil industry, with supply concerns stemming both from the hurricane season and instability in the Middle East....
‘Dead Zone’ Reappears Off the Oregon Coast For the fifth year in a row, unusual wind patterns off the coast of Oregon have produced a large “dead zone,” an area so low in oxygen that fish and crabs suffocate. This dead zone is unlike those in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, which result from fertilizer, sewage or runoff from hog or poultry operations carried by rivers. The Oregon zone appears when the wind generates strong currents carrying nutrient-rich but oxygen-poor water from the deep sea to the surface near shore, a process called upwelling. The nutrients encourage the growth of plankton, which eventually dies and falls to the ocean floor. Bacteria there consume the plankton, using up oxygen. Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, said the phenomenon did not appear to be linked to recurring El Niño or La Niña currents or to long-term cycles of ocean movements. That made Dr. Lubchenco wonder if climate change might be a factor, she said, adding, “There is no other cause, as far as we can determine.” The dead zone, which appears in late spring and lasts a matter of weeks, has quadrupled in size since it first appeared in 2002 and this year covers about 1,235 square miles, an area about as large as Rhode Island, Dr. Lubchenco said....
Angler speared by a giant fish When he saw a companion on his boat hook a giant fish during a sea angling contest, Ian Card was delighted. Next second, the scene of triumph turned to horror - as the 14ft blue marlin leapt out of the water across the vessel and speared Mr Card through the chest with its spiked bill. The impact of the 800lb fish knocked him overboard into the Atlantic off Bermuda. Then, with a thrash of its tail and with the 32-year-old still impaled and bleeding profusely, it dragged him underwater. Terribly injured, he somehow stayed conscious as he struggled to pull himself free of the marlin's 3ft razor-sharp spike before he drowned. Finally, he wrenched himself away and was rescued by his companions on the boat - who included his 58-year-old father Alan....
Selling their livelihood Herman Schumacher, owner and operator of Herried Livestock Market, can't escape the heartbreak as cattlemen unload trailer after trailer of cattle to be sold at auction. "I tell people to put on their grimmest face and watch these people having to sell all their cattle. They're selling their livelihood," said Schumacher, "We knew there was a problem with the drought back in May when people started selling off a lot of their cow-calf pairs." This summer he has seen cattle sales rise 90 percent. Closer to home, Dennis Hanson of the Ft. Pierre Livestock Auction stated that he normally has a couple hundred cows at his weekly auctions, but this summer he has seen up to 4,000 cows come through the auction weekly. Because of the severity of this drought, and because it comes just four years after the drought of 2002, Gov. Mike Rounds recently requested that the head of the U.S. Treasury consider granting a two-year extension to the time period for purchasing replacement livestock. Currently a four-year deferment is allowed for claiming revenue from cattle sold in 2002. And with that deferment, revenue claimed from cattle sold in 2002 would need to be claimed this year....
Get along, buckeye dogies The Dickinson Cattle Co. ranch just off I-70 in Belmont County bears a striking resemblance to certain parts of Texas. The ranch — with rolling hills, scrubby meadows and, not least, hundreds of longhorn cattle — is almost a double for the Texas hill country just west of Austin. Don’t brag about it in the Lone Star State (unless you’re itchin’ for a fight), but some of the world’s most impressive Texas longhorn cattle are actually from the Buckeye State. Dickinson Cattle is one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-quality registered Texas longhorns. "We tell people we’re the major exporter of Texas longhorns — to Texas," said Darol Dickinson, who, with his wife and adult children, owns and runs the operation....
From Maley to Willcox It is said that when cattlemen first arrived in the Sulphur Springs Valley — “Sufferin’ Springs” to local wags — in the 1870s, the lush grasses were hip high. It was considered by many to be the finest cattle country in the West. But by the turn of the century, drought conditions and overgrazing rendered the valley a bleak desert. Nevertheless, the cattlemen stayed on, and by the mid 1930s, upwards of 50,000 heads of cattle were shipped annually from Willcox. On July 30, 1880, the Arizona Daily Star reported that the “next terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad will be called Sulphur Valley, 39.9 miles from Benson, and will be open to business some time next month.” Three weeks later, a follow-up report announced that “a new city is started 40 miles east of Benson which is to be called Maley. In a few days they will have a post office.” In fact, for a brief time the town was called Maley, in recognition of an early rancher. But when the first locomotive roared across the newly laid track, Gen. Orlando B. Willcox, commander of the Department of Arizona, was onboard. He so charmed the handful of early Maley residents that the town’s name was immediately changed to Willcox....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Llamas lead to unexpected lessons Tom never intended to become a llama raiser. Otherwise he'd have built higher fences. They were a gift - like someone leaving a box of kittens on your porch while yer out. First thing the two llamas did was to determine the boundaries of Tom's small Wisconsin farm. Turns out the west boundary was down the road, around the corner and up the valley on the other side of the neighbor's place! Tom was a cowboy at heart and had bought a used rope at the feed store. It came with lessons from a 6-year-old girl who kept shouting "Jerk yer slack!" every time he roped a post. For reasons known only to himself, Tom decided to rope his llamas and lead them into the pen. He convinced his daughter to haze the young stud llama down the fence as he raced alongside afoot swinging his loop. The third try was magic!....

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Uh huh, sure he did. I believe you.

By Julie Carter

I offer a caveat for the following story by saying "as it was told to me" simply because, while the source is quite reliable, the story itself is so wild your first instinct will be "that's a lie."

This is one of those "you gotta hear this one" stories.

Greg and Nancy headed out, stock trailer in tow, to get a neighbor's pink-eyed yearling (that's a young calf with a bacterial eye affliction that can eventually cause blindness) out of their pasture.

They didn't have a real plan of any kind but they also didn't take a horse. The calf was so blind they figured they could sneak up on him and "coax" him into the trailer.

The neighbor the critter belonged to didn't know how to rope and Greg was still nursing his $27,000 and counting shoulder surgery. So Nancy was the designated roper.

Her plan was a simple one. Just rope the calf and let the rope go. No problem.

She eased up on him and surprisingly, even to her, caught him with the first loop. He was blind enough he didn't go very far; at least until the young overly-enthusiastic neighbor ran to pick up the rope and spooked the calf.

The blind calf, now wearing Nancy's rope and towing the neighbor, ran off with the rest of the cows to the other end of the pasture. Reaching warp speed rather quickly, the neighbor finally had to turn loose of the rope.

The calf, still on the run, made a big circle through the cows. Running and stumbling, he was more afraid of the rope than anything else. It was a monster he couldn't see but knew it was following him.

The calf appeared to be headed home to his proper pasture but then he circled and headed back toward the cowboy crew standing at the trailer watching all this unfold.

Nancy made what at the time seemed like a smart-alecky comment, "Let's just open the trailer gate and maybe he'll load up on his own. He looks like he's heading right for it."

Still in joking mode, she moved to the end of the trailer and unlatched the trailer gate. The calf was still coming and at a pretty fast clip. She threw the gate back just in time for the calf to jump into the trailer.

They were all laughing very hard at that point. Nancy began claiming "Top Hand" honors when they realized someone probably ought to close the trailer gate.

That done, they were still in shock at the sight they had witnessed and were glad there were three of them to attest to it. Of course, then the discussion of where the credit was due began. Greg was sure he should have all the honors because he positioned the trailer just right on the road.

The neighbor claimed accolades for running the calf fast enough and far enough for him to circle back to the trailer and get in it with considerable momentum.

This exciting adventure took about half an hour and nobody had to unsaddle horses when they got home. It seems like if a day was going that well, they should have gone on to town and bought up some lottery tickets.

Telling that story to some poor west Texas winter wheat pasture puncher who is wearing an entire dry goods store on his back could elicit a violent reaction.

It's been my experience that any complaining done about the difficulty of loading sick cattle in a trailer brought, not ever, the highly unlikely moment of a critter loading by himself.

It did get me a new trailer ball welded to the top rail of the trailer to dally a rope around for leverage.

Not everybody can be a "top hand." I'm glad I at least know a few.

© Julie Carter 2006


Farewell to Summer

I am especially looking forward to this year's State Fair and Labor Day celebration, because that is how we say farewell to summer in South Dakota.

I am tired of drought, wildfires and triple digit temperatures. Those are important (critical in some cases) events we must deal with. However, we don't have to live them every single day. It's time for a break.

If the ag economy is a little pinched this year, the State Fair (Aug. 31st – Sept. 4th) is the perfect place to take that break with the family, meet some old and new friends and check out the best agricultural products the state produces.

Fairs are many different things to many different people. For some, it is the last family camping trip of the season. For some, it is an annual binge on carnival rides. For some, it is serious 4-H or FFA or open class competition. For others, it is a chance to show "agriculture and farming" to their children raised in a city. For some, it is the almost non-stop stream of entertainment, crowds and foods.

Some people come each year just for their favorite event or specialty food. I don't know if I would drive a hundred miles for a "smoothie", but I would for some those hot-off-the-grill BBQ meats sold at the fair each year.

In addition to all the usual attractions and events, we are going to kick the fair off with nationally televised bull riding championships on Aug. 30th, followed by three nights of professional entertainment and ending with Labor Day auto races Monday evening.

Whatever the attraction might be for you, we hope it will provide you with a break from the troubles and toils of this drought dominated summer.

They say Labor Day became a national holiday in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed it into law to appease the labor forces and workers he had offended. If that's true, it didn't work. They voted him out.

The official web page for the United States Department of Labor says nobody knows for sure who first proposed the idea of a national holiday for workers, but it was first "celebrated" by strikers on parade in New York City on the first Tuesday in September. Before Congress acted in 1894, 23 states made Labor Day a legal holiday for workers.

In any case, most seem to agree that Labor Day has become a celebration of the unofficial end to summer. What better way to celebrate Labor Day than to provide a break for the farmers and ranchers who work 15 hours (or more) a day during the summer to provide America with the food and fiber we need?

We will survive this drought, the wildfires and anything else that needs surviving, and during the next "little ice age" that inevitably follows spells of global warming, future fairgoers will meet and debate whether Labor Day is just too cold for a good State Fair.

Won't that be fun?

OPINION/COMMENTARY

Senate Takes Baby Steps To Strengthen U.S. Energy Security

Stopping far short of a previously passed House bill, the U.S. Senate voted 71-25 this week to direct the Interior Department to begin selling leases for oil and gas development in 8.3 million acres of the east-central Gulf of Mexico - about 100 miles from the nearest land and 125 to 310 miles from Florida beaches. According to an energy policy expert with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), prospects are dim for a more extensive effort at allowing increased domestic energy production. "The Senate's effort is better than nothing, but not by much," said NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. "This is best described as a stumbling baby step towards decreasing U.S. reliance on foreign oil and gas." According to reports, any bill that goes beyond the 8.3 million acres would run into a filibuster in the Senate, requiring an unlikely 60 votes to overcome. Senate Democrats say they will block any attempt by the House to widen the bill's scope to include some 350 million acres on the Outer Continental Shelf previously passed by the House that are not addressed in the Senate bill. Lease Sale 181 off Florida collectively holds about 1.26 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. However, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf contains more than 85 billion barrels of oil, quadruple current U.S. reserves and more than 419 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Of these reserves, between 21 and 41 billion barrels of oil and between 94 and 164 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie under the East and West Coasts, and in portions of the Gulf of Mexico where production is currently banned. According to Burnett, these moratoria were put in place due to environmental concerns. Yet technology has improved greatly since the earliest platforms were built....

Supreme Court wetland ruling a heads-up to lawmakers

Last month the United States Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision on a pair of cases involving the authority of the federal government to regulate wetlands. Some see the decision as an assault on the Clean Water Act but others regard it as a necessary check on expanding federal reach. In the June 19 split decision on Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, four justices voted in favor of a broad interpretation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regulatory jurisdiction over wetland areas. Five justices explained a need to rein in the extent to which the Corps could assert its regulatory authority, but provided little additional guidance to the Corps as to what should constitute a regulated wetland. Wetlands themselves provide numerous valuable “ecosystem services.” They can act like sponges to mitigate and store flood flows, filter sediments and pollutants which might otherwise impair downstream waters, and provide habitat for a number of species. But not all wetlands are of equal value. Some wetland areas, hydrologically far removed from larger bodies of water, have a minimal effect on downstream waters. Others are small enough that their impact on larger bodies of water downstream is negligible. One might argue that the Corps should be able to regulate all of these waters but allow development on wetlands determined to be minimally influential. As Justice Scalia noted in his majority opinion, “the average applicant for an individual permit spends 788 days and $271,596 in completing the process.” The excessive expense and lost time in the evaluation, and sometimes litigation over every patch of mucky ground, is far from a trivial concern. The minority opinion, from Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer, contended that the governments’ regulatory authority extended to “all identifiable tributaries that ultimately drain into large bodies of water.” This would have far overreached reasonable regulation....

California AG Puts Climate Skeptics on Trial

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is apparently trying to position California as a leader in the movement to silence scientific debate. The State of California has filed a request in federal court to force auto makers to disclose all documents and communications between the companies and the so-called “climate skeptics.” California accuses the climate skeptics of playing a “major role in spreading disinformation about global warming.” The underlying litigation is a lawsuit by General Motors, DaimlerChrysler Corp., and the Association of Automobile Manufacturers against the state of California challenging the state’s greenhouse gas emissions limits for new cars, light-duty trucks and sports utility vehicles (Central Valley Chrysler-Jeep Inc. v. Catherine Witherspoon, No. 04-6663). California has been joined in the lawsuit by environmental activist groups including, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense...First, California and the global warming lobby doesn’t like what the skeptics have to say and, by virtue of this sort of intimidation, is apparently out not only to silence the skeptics but to make sure that no one dare support the skeptics lest supporters be implicated as aiding and abetting thought-crimes against California-approved, politically-correct global warming science. Next, I wonder whether Attorney General Lockyer disclosed to the judge that Gelbspan is a rather dubious character – for example, he misrepresented himself as a Pulitizer Prize winner on the jacket of his book, entitled “The Heat Is On.” Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer, nor was he ever even nominated. Finally, AG Lockyer has a track record of trying to silence scientific debate. In 2001, for example, the pro-gun control Lockyer gagged California state experts who opposed Lockyer’s dubious plans for pre-sale ballistics fingerprinting. The so-called “climate skeptics” are all that stand between junk science-based global warming alarmism and higher energy prices, reduced economic growth and increased Green political power....

Eminent Domain and Other Corporate Welfare

Driving south on I-65 through Alabaster, Alabama, last week, I noticed a sprawling new shopping center on my left. Wal-Mart stood out prominently, but I also saw Belk and Old Navy stores. Ross and Pier One were there too. J.C. Penney and Target will open next year. This was of interest to me because people's homes once stood where those stores now stand. Most of the homeowners had no choice but to leave because the Alabaster city council used its power of eminent domain to seize their properties and transfer them to a shopping-center developer. (Two homeowners managed to beat the city.) In America, as elsewhere, government is the ultimate de facto owner of the land. The apparent owners use it at the government's pleasure, and sometimes -- alarmingly often these days -- the government decides it would rather have someone else use a particular parcel. The direction of transfers is predominantly from the working class to Big Business. Is it any wonder that people can't always see the connection between capitalism and freedom? As everyone knows, local governments and their development authorities may legally compel people to sell their property to make way for projects that are expected to produce greater tax revenues. This is said to serve the social good, though I thought that being able to live peacefully in our homes is one big advantage to living in a society. Funny how means can become ends, which then justify other means. My melancholy at seeing the Alabaster center was lifted somewhat by the news that the Ohio Supreme Court refused to let the city of Norwood, near Cincinnati, and its business-accomplices get away with the same kind of land grab in that state. Three homeowners in a working/middle-class neighborhood resisted the intimidating alliance of a municipal government and a well-connected land developer. After losing in lower courts the plaintiffs finally prevailed when the state Supreme Court ruled that Ohio cities may not take land strictly for economic development. The developer, Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate, will now have to find a consensual method of building his $125 million shopping center and office complex. But the plaintiffs are not unscathed by the ordeal. The homes they once lived in are all that are left of their former high-density neighborhood, the others having been demolished after their owners sold under duress. In fact, the plaintiffs don't own the houses anymore because the city went ahead with the transfer to the developer while the court case was pending. If the former owners and the developer can't agree on what happens next, a judge can give the properties back to the plaintiffs. No one is sure how this will actually play out....

Agenda 21 and the United Nations

Agenda 21 is a 300-page, 40-chapter, "soft-law" policy document adopted by the delegates to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The document is not legally binding; it is a set of policy recommendations designed to reorganize global society around the principles of environmental protection, social equity, and what is called "sustainable" economic development. At the heart of the concept of sustainable development, is the assumption that government must manage society to ensure that human activity conforms to these principles. The idea that government is inherently empowered to manage the affairs of society is diametrically opposed to the idea that the just power of government is derived from the consent of the governed. As these conflicting principles collide in the arena of public policy, the people who are governed are losing the ability to limit the power of government. Consequently, government power over people is expanding. Nowhere is this transformation more dramatic than in the policies governing private property rights and the use of land and its resources. Historically, the right to own and use private property in America has been considered to be a sacred right. This right is being usurped by government, which now dictates to private property owners how their land may - and may not - be used. This paradigm shift from sacred private property rights to government-managed land use, is a perfect example of how sustainable development is transforming America into a government-managed society....

Evangelical Group Offers Conservative Global Warming Perspective

An evangelical group is presenting an alternative view on global warming. Just months after another evangelical group called for Christians to help combat what it sees as the crisis of human-caused climate change and its effects, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance is casting doubt on the theory of catastrophic global warming. Recently, 86 evangelical clergy, college presidents, mission and ministry heads, and other leaders signed a document called "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action," which called on the U.S. government to pass federal legislation requiring significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming. This group argued that such changes are necessary to protect the poor from the much touted harmful effects of an "unprecedented" environmental warming trend. In response to that document, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance issued one of its own, titled "A Call to Truth, Prudence, and the Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming." In that report, the Alliance presents evidence arguing against the extent and significance -- and possibly even the existence -- of the purported "scientific consensus" on catastrophic, human-induced global warming. More than 100 scholars and religious leaders have endorsed the Alliance's report. Among these is Professor Calvin Beisner of Knox Theological Seminary, who contends that human efforts to stop global warming are largely futile and would likely do more harm that good. "Mandatory carbon emissions reductions would have almost no significant effect on global warming," Beisner says. But requiring the international community to make such changes "would be very damaging to the global economy," he asserts, "especially to the poorest of the world's poor."....

NUCLEAR POWER BACK IN FAVOR

Fossil fuel prices -- and particularly the price of natural gas, which fuels most recently-constructed power plants -- have soared in recent years, reigniting interest in nuclear power with economists, legislators, and the general public, says James Taylor, managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

In response, General Electric and Hitachi have recently announced a joint venture to build two nuclear power plants in Texas, which would be the first commissioned in the United States since 1978. The plants, scheduled to be built in Matagorda County, about 70 miles southwest of Houston, will bring economic benefits to the region:

* Construction of the plants will cost $2.6 billion each, but they will thereafter produce power for a fraction of the cost of traditional power plants.
* Officials expect the new plants will create 6,000 new construction jobs and 1,000 permanent operator jobs.

Nuclear power has also been gaining acceptance for reasons other than economic:

* New technology has made nuclear power safer than ever.
* Nuclear plants produce energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

"Quite simply, nuclear power offers the only large-scale, feasible alternative to fossil fuels," says H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Wind and solar power are intermittent, and solar power in particular is prohibitively expensive. It is not surprising that to the extent people buy into global warming theory, nuclear power is becoming the power source of choice."

Source: James M. Taylor "Texas Will Host First New U.S. Nuclear Plants Since 1970s," Environment and Climate News, Heartland Institute, August 1, 2006

For text:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19473