NEWS ROUNDUP
Losses drag on long after fire dies Wildfires in Utah's rural counties are blackening rangeland grasses and killing cattle in what could become an agricultural disaster. Rodney Johnson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that reports are still coming in, but "it's a no-brainer" that damage could be extensive for ranchers and farmers in central Utah, where the biggest wildfire in state history has charred more than 300,000 acres. Farmers and ranchers in Beaver and Millard counties in central Utah and those living in Duchesne and Uintah counties to the northeast are worried there'll be little or no rangeland where their cattle can graze, forcing them to sell off their herds or come up with cash to buy feed from hundreds of miles away. David Roberts, president of the local Utah Farm Bureau in Beaver County, said as many as 150 head of cattle may have been killed. Two days ago, firefighters allowed ranchers to go into hot spots to open gates for trapped livestock, he said, but later kept them from the rapidly shifting flames. Rancher Floyd Yardley doesn't know how many cattle he may have lost on Beaver County's Mineral Range, but he has been told that 32 burnt carcasses were found in one location. "Every one you lose is just like throwing a $1,000 bill out the window," Yardley said. "Maybe it'll do some families under."....
Perry announces bioenergy plan Texas' strategy for developing alternative fuel sources will focus on using nonfood products for energy production so that the effort is not in conflict with the state's multibillion-dollar cattle industry, Gov. Rick Perry said Monday. Biofuels, such as ethanol, are made from corn and other agricultural products. But the state's ranchers use these same food items to feed their cattle. "Feed lots, which we are the No. 1 feed cattle producing state in the nation, are not happy campers when they see corn going to fuel production. So finding the balance is what this is really all about," Perry said during a news conference detailing the state's bioenergy strategy. "We don't want to be put in the place of having to decide whether we are going to feed cattle or fuel vehicles." Perry said Texas will focus on creating biofuels through cellulosic feedstock such as switchgrass, a hardy prairie grass, and wood chips and corn stems....
Judge hears grouse debate Environmentalists urged a federal judge Monday to reverse a 2005 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruling that kept the sage grouse off the endangered species list, arguing the agency's decision ignored science and was tainted by political meddling. For decades, populations of the chicken-sized bird that once thrived across more than 150 million acres of Western sagebrush in 13 states and Canada have been in decline. The case could have broad implications for all kinds of activities on public lands across the West. Conservationists and biologists say threats to the bird's habitat from urban growth, oil and gas drilling, ecosystem degradation caused by wildfire, road building and West Nile virus have reduced its present population to a fraction of its historic numbers, estimated by some at more than 1 million in the early 1800s. Despite those declines, Fish and Wildlife ruled against granting the highly prized game bird endangered species status, a decision that pleased energy companies and ranchers who feared federal protections would crimp oil and gas projects in states including Wyoming and Montana and restrict grazing from Washington to Colorado....
Bear activity leads to closure Two black bears with a taste for human food have led the Forest Service to close the Mussigbrod campground and trail head in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest about 15 miles northwest of here. The area will be closed for at least a week until it's clear the bears have left the area, forest officials said Sunday. Officials say one large bear and another believed to be a 2-year-old cub have raided several campsites. In one recent incident, a bear tore open a screen door on a trailer, entered and took a container of cookies while the trailer's campers slept nearby. Also recently, the bears were found in the bed of a pickup truck, eating food from a cooler. When campers tried to chase the bears away, the larger one stood its ground for a time.
Feds seeking looser rules on wolf kills The federal government is proposing new rules to make it easier to kill wolves that are affecting elk populations and have been seen attacking dogs, horses and other stock animals. "It's time to start treating them like resident game animals, like mountain lions and black bears," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The rules were published in the Federal Register on Friday and are open for public comment until early August. There are about 1,300 wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Earlier this year, federal officials proposed taking them off the endangered species list. One of the rules published Friday allows the public to comment again on the delisting proposal, which now includes a management plan from Wyoming that would allow wolves in much of the state to be treated as predators and killed without regulation. The other rules loosen the language that governs when wolves can be killed....
Groups decry federal wolf plan The Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club and other groups say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is bowing to political pressure in proposing to make it easier for states in the northern Rocky Mountains to kill wolves to protect other wildlife and domesticated animals. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesmen and state officials, however, say the existing rule governing when states can kill wolves sets an impossibly high standard. They say politics has nothing to do with the proposed change. The Fish and Wildlife Service last week published notice in the Federal Register saying it intends to allow Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to kill wolves if they can show the animals are a major cause of elk and deer herds failing to meet state or tribal management goals....
Wolf changes insufficient, Wyo official says Proposed federal rule changes don't go far enough in giving the state the ability to kill wolves preying on other wildlife, Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank said Monday. In particular, Crank noted that the proposed rule would require that proposals from state game managers wanting to kill wolves would have to be peer-reviewed by outside scientists. He said it would be more efficient to allow states to start killing wolves when the number of calves in an elk herd in areas populated by wolves fall below critical levels. "When you have a huge overpopulation of a very efficient predator like that, it's going to have an effect on your other wildlife populations," Crank said. Terry Cleveland, director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said last week that elk populations in three areas of the state are experiencing significant impacts due to wolf predation. The proposed rules would remain in effect only until the federal government turns over wolf management to the states by ending wolf protection under the Endangered Species Act. Federal officials say that could happen as soon as next year and are holding public hearings on their proposal to end federal oversight. However, conservation groups have threatened to sue over the proposal to end federal wolf protection in the states. If they do, having the new rule in effect could allow the states to kill wolves while litigation over ending federal protection drags on, as many predict it will....
Feds try new fire strategies With an intense fire season under way, the U.S. Forest Service has been employing some new tools and strategies to fight wildfires in the West, said Marc Rounsaville, the agency's deputy director for fire and aviation management. In a wide-ranging interview Monday, Rounsaville said indications show the fire season is running two to three weeks ahead of schedule in some parts of the West. Across the country both the number of fires and acres burned are rapidly outpacing the 10-year averages of those measures, he said. "We had over 1,000 fires the last four days, burned several hundred thousand acres, a number of structures damaged or lost and several incidents including the one civilian fatality up in South Dakota," he said. Lately Forest Service officials have talked about implementing a policy of "appropriate management response," or AMR, to give them more flexibility in firefighting decisions....
BLM aims to fix boundary problem A long-standing boundary line error between the Bureau of Land Management and a Sublette County sheep grower looks to be close to resolution. At issue was whether much of the John and Joy Erramouspe ranch buildings were built on federal or private property. As it turned out, improved surveys said half of the old farmhouse and other larger structures were built on BLM land. “This is BLM’s attempt to resolve a long-standing boundary issue,” said Steven Hall, public affairs director for the Wyoming BLM in Cheyenne. As detailed in the Federal Register Monday, the BLM wants to sell 40 acres to the Erramouspes at $160 an acre or $6,400 total, “for the appraised fair market value - to resolve an unintentional unauthorized use of public lands.” Hall said the original farmhouse was constructed by previous owners in the late 1800s, under the Homestead Act and before federal lands were clearly defined. According to the Federal Register notice, the unauthorized occupancy involves an access road, two residences, and various ranch-related structures including a garage, grain silos and fence on the public land....
Mountain biking going downhill A decade ago last weekend, Gary DeFrange started his job as general manager of the Winter Park ski area with the cooing melodies of the short-lived Lillith Fair. Ten years later, he was eyeing an army of gladiators on downhill mountain bikes, front-flipping and tail-whipping over 35-foot step-downs and double jumps. "We've come so far," DeFrange said as the first Crankworx downhill mountain biking contest in the Lower 48 got underway at his Grand County hill. "It amazes me to think of all those (ski) mountains that took downhill off their trails. I really think this is the future of mountain bike racing." While some ski resorts were banning the speeding aerialists from their trails, Crankworx put British Columbia's Whistler ski area on the North American map for the downhill tribe, a growing niche in the knobby-tired world that blends motocross and BMX in a high-speed, higher-flying, crowd-pleasing twist on traditional singletrack riding. Intrawest Corp., which owns Whistler and operates Winter Park, brought its Crankworx team to Colorado last month to begin sculpting a course for the best in the growing realm of gravity-fueled mountain biking. Knowing that downhill has fueled a summertime frenzy at Whistler, Winter Park is working with the Forest Service to design 20 downhill trails in the next five years with features for trickster free- riding and mach-speed racing to augment its already vibrant singletrack scene....
BLM Gets OK for New North Slope Drilling The Bureau of Land Management could go ahead with plans to allow drilling in a sensitive area near Teshekpuk Lake on the North Slope, an agency spokeswoman said. The BLM added to its environmental impact assessment of drilling in the area and that information is now being reviewed, said spokeswoman Sharon Wilson. The results of the review should be completed soon, she said. The review is the latest development in the fight between federal land managers in favor of oil and gas drilling and environmental and Native groups wanting to keep the area closed because of its importance to migratory birds and caribou. The land in question covers roughly 400,000 acres and lies to the north and east of Teshekpuk Lake. It sits within the 4.6-million acre northeast planning area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska....
Passing of an era? Its adobe walls have withstood the desert climate and visits from weary travelers and prospectors for more than 80 years. But Rancho Dos Palmas may not survive the Bureau of Land Management's plans to demolish it if supporting organizations cannot prove the building is structurally sound - or come up with the money to make it so. The Friends of Dos Palmas, with the support of Desert Alliance for Community Empowerment and Coachella Valley Community Trails Alliance, are working to preserve what they call "a link to the desert's rich past." "It would be absolutely terrible to lose one of the last remaining adobes in the area," said Jennie Kelly, chair of the North Shore Community Council and a Friend of Dos Palmas. Connected to the Dos Palmas Oasis in North Shore, the ranch house once served as a stopover for stagecoaches and, in subsequent decades, Hollywood stars. It now stands unoccupied on lands designated by the Bureau of Land Management as a wildlife refuge....
Critics say species list is endangered The bald eagle may be soaring back from near-extinction, but hundreds of other imperiled species are foundering, as the federal agency charged with protecting them has sunk into legal, bureaucratic and political turmoil. In the last six years, the Bush administration has added fewer species to the endangered list than any other since the law was enacted in 1973. The slowdown has resulted in a waiting list of 279 candidates that are near extinction, according to government scientists, from California's Yosemite toad to Puerto Rico's elfin-woods warbler. Beyond the reluctance to list new species, a bottleneck is weakening efforts to save those already listed. Some 200 of the 1,326 officially endangered species are close to expiring, according to environmental groups, in part because funds have been cut for their recovery. "It's wonderful the bald eagle is recovering — one of the most charismatic and best funded species ever," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who now works for Defenders of Wildlife, an advocacy group. "But what's happening with the other species? This administration has starved the endangered species' budget. It has dismantled and demoralized its staff." Bryan Arroyo, acting assistant director of endangered species for the Fish and Wildlife Service, acknowledges a 30% vacancy rate in the program's staff, and the fact that the agency's top position has been left unfilled for more than a year....
Pupfish make big ripple to survive It's 110 degrees, hardly a heat wave for Death Valley. And in a small, bathtub-warm pool below a steep, rocky incline, small fish appear to be at play, darting and chasing each other through patches of algae. These are Devils Hole pupfish and, aside from the strangeness of finding fish in the middle of North America's harshest desert, they're about as remarkable to the naked eye as a fat tadpole. But this particular fish species is revered for helping galvanize public opinion and government efforts to save endangered species. The fish was the focus of a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that became a cornerstone of Western water policy. Today, the Devils Hole pupfish population has dwindled to 38, confirmed by government divers in their spring count, and the fish has become the object of intense study by federal agencies and private groups to stave off extinction. It also figures in broader research to map a vast aquifer under Nevada and parts of Idaho and Utah and to determine how that groundwater is to be allocated in a fast-growing region that includes Las Vegas....
Democrats’ climate clash heads to floor The intensifying battle between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a powerful committee chairman may lead to a global-warming showdown on the House floor later this month. The outcome of an anticipated vote on energy legislation before the August recess could determine whether Pelosi will control the debate over a more comprehensive and controversial climate change bill this fall. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Pelosi have been publicly at odds on climate change since the beginning of the Congress. And there have been clear indications recently that the tension between the two high-profile lawmakers is escalating. As Dingell lobbed fresh insults in an interview late last week at the global warming panel that Pelosi created, Democratic leaders were discussing how to structure the time and format of the energy bill debate, according to Democratic aides and lobbyists familiar with the discussions....
Move to cut methane emissions by changing cows' diet Burping cows and sheep are being targeted by UK scientists to help bring down Britain's soaring levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Experts at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research in Aberystwyth say the diet of farmed animals can be changed to make them produce less methane, a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide. Farmed ruminant animals are thought to be responsible for up to a quarter of "man-made" methane emissions worldwide though, contrary to common belief, most gas emerges from their front, not rear, ends. Mike Abberton, a scientist at the institute, said farmers could help tackle climate change by growing grass varieties bred to have high sugar levels, white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, a leafy legume, for their animals to eat. The altered diet changes the way that bacteria in the stomachs of the animals break down plant material into waste gas, he said....
Six-toed Hemingway cats can stay, city says City officials have sided with Ernest Hemingway's former home and its celebrated six-toed felines in its cat fight with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Patches, a descendant of Ernest Hemingway's six-toed cats, is on the prowl in Key West, Florida. The Key West City Commission exempted the home from a city law prohibiting more than four domestic animals per household. About 50 cats live there. The house has been locked in a dispute with the USDA, which claims the museum is an "exhibitor" of cats and needs a special license, a claim the home disputes. The new ordinance reads in part, "The cats reside on the property just as the cats did in the time of Hemingway himself. They are not on exhibition in the manner of circus animals. ... The City Commission finds that family of polydactyl Hemingway cats are indeed animals of historic, social and tourism significance." It also states that the cats are "an integral part of the history and ambiance of the Hemingway House." A USDA spokesman did not return messages left late Sunday. The cats are descendants of a six-toed cat given as a gift to the writer in 1935. All carry the gene for six toes, though not all display the trait.
Jury still pondering fight over fortune Jurors wrapped up their fourth day of deliberations Monday in the trial over the estate of King Ranch heir B.K. Johnson without reaching a verdict. They've got a lot to do after three months of testimony and more than 800 exhibits. Known as B, Johnson died of cancer at 71 in 2001. His children and grandchildren are suing his widow, Laura McAllister Johnson, over his last will. B left his estimated $60 million estate in trust to Johnson; he left his daughters and his son's widow his collection of vintage firearms, valued at about $75,000. The children sued in 2003, contending Johnson and B's advisers took advantage of a rich, emotionally needy, alcohol-enfeebled man 20 years Johnson's senior. Plaintiffs are daughters Sarah Johnson Pitt and Cecilia Johnson McMurrey, daughter-in-law Cecilia Johnson Hager, and the eight children among them. Beneath the years of distrust and resentment between the parties is the question of whether the rancher was competent when he made out his last will. Both sides presented plenty of arguments that he was or was not, sometimes using the same documents as evidence....
Five Questions: Lifelong rancher receives Roundup award The Shelton family has been ranching in the Panhandle for more than a century, and Jack Shelton has done his share to keep the family business running. Cowboy Roundup USA recently named Shelton rancher of the year. According to the nomination letter from cattleman Monty Johnson, Shelton has made the Bravo Ranch, once part of the historic XIT Ranch, "one of the largest and best operated ranches in the Panhandle." On Shelton's office wall is a flyer from the late 1800s that touted the Bravo as a place Midwesterners should consider moving to. "The Best of the Best of the Great Panhandle Country of Texas," is its headline. The ranch is about 45 miles southwest of Dalhart, close to New Mexico on the Oldham-Hartley county line - "a long way from anywhere," Shelton said. Q: What kind of operation is it? A: It's kind of a mix, depending on somebody's idea of the market. Usually, we have a mix of feeders, stockers and cows, and we have interests in feedlots near Dumas. Malcom, my oldest son, is the manager now....
It's All Trew: Carbon helped Panhandle live No, it was not really a mountain range, just smoke from the carbon black plants down at Borger. At that time, the oil business was a total mystery as there was not a single oil or gas well in sight. Carbon black looks like soot from a lamp chimney. It's produced by controlled combustion of both natural gas and some grades of crude oil. The product is used mostly in auto tire manufacture, but it is also contained in pigments, inks and some paints. The first Texas Panhandle carbon black plant was built in 1926 in Hutchinson County near Borger. Another came to Pampa in 1928. By 1937, there were 33 plants in the Panhandle, producing 82 percent of the nation's output....
It’s The Pitts: Ranch Dressing According to trendsetters I’m back in fashion. Or at least my jeans are. I have been fashionable now twice in my life. The first time was during the hippy era when everyone looked like they’d just survived a nuclear blast in their tattered clothing. And it appears that I’m “IN” once again as leading fashionistas have declared that jeans are now sensible and stylish for work, play and dressy occasions. Whatever those are. Because I am a blue jeans expert and a man of exquisite taste I’ve agreed to answer your clothes questions so that you too can be cool and fashionable like me. Dear Clotheshorse, What do you think of the low-riding, baggy jeans that are so popular with today’s teens? Not much. Today’s youth lower their cars and their jeans to dangerous levels. The exposed-underwear-look is not one I’d recommend for obese males or anyone who blushes easily. The knee length jeans that teenagers are wearing are reminiscent of the “pedal pushers” worn by women that were last popular in 1944. Dear Clotheshorse, Italian designer jeans are popular but I have an unusual body type. Instead of an hourglass I’m shaped more like a pair. The Italian jeans I looked at were tight fitting and were selling for an absurd figure. Should I splurge on a pair? Please don’t. Skintight Italian jeans shouldn’t be worn by anyone with an absurd figure. Just spill some spaghetti on your Wranglers and tell everyone they’re Italian....
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
FLE
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005. Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated. The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March....
Congressmen praise Border Patrol 'Operation Streamline' initiative The thus-far highly effective measure for detaining, prosecuting and deporting or incarcerating captured illegal immigrants was born here in the Del Rio Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, and Chief Patrol Agent Randy Hill is unabashedly proud of its effectiveness. Streamline is aimed at “other than Mexican (OTM)” immigrants who cross into the United States illegally, expecting – hoping, really – to be apprehended and turned loose after perfunctory paperwork processing. Until Operation Streamline came along, government officials asserted that deportation to Central- and South American origins – and even to other continents – was too expensive, while Mexican immigrants were simply returned to the border they had crossed and sent packing across bridges and highways back into their homeland. Border Patrol agents detested their new roles in this period, as well as the OTM immigrants’ nose-thumbing understanding of it as a “catch-and-release” avenue to an unearned slice of the American pie. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Randy Hill focuses attention on inter-agency cooperation to reduce smuggling of drugs and other contraband, now that a tide of illegal immigration by “other than Mexicans” has been slowed by the deployment of “Operation Streamline,” now being lauded as a model for other borderland sectors. But, on December 6, 2005, that “golden door,” immortalized by Emma Lazarus in homage to the Statue of Liberty, closed just a bit as Operation Streamline got underway, and in Fiscal Year 2005-2006, OTM immigration dropped 38 percent....
Fewer illegals arrested at border The number of illegal aliens caught trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States is down 24 percent compared with the previous year, indicating that increased border security efforts are beginning to pay off, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). "We are continuing to develop and add the resources we need to gain effective control of the border. And we are beginning to see a difference," said CBP spokesman Michael Friel. "Cross-border activity has declined with the addition of agents and added technology. Combined with the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, that deterrence effect has taken place." From Oct. 1 through June 30, U.S. Border Patrol agents made 682,468 apprehensions of illegal aliens along the nation's southern border compared with 894,496 during the same period last year....
U.S. Unable to Deport Most Illegal Immigrants Who Commit Crimes Ezeiquiel Lopez already had a rap sheet that stretched all the way to Texas when, police said, he shot Kenosha County, Wisconsin, Deputy Sheriff Frank Fabiano in the head, killing him. Lopez, 45, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was free at the time of the May shooting, after having been jailed for two prior violent crimes. By law, he should have been deported, but federal immigration authorities didn't know he had been in custody, and state and local police didn't tell them. The case isn't an exception. Fewer than half the foreigners convicted of crimes in the U.S. -- most of whom are in the country illegally -- are deported after serving their sentences, according to the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. Cases like Lopez's point up holes in the nation's overwhelmed immigration system, said Representative David Price, a North Carolina Democrat who heads a panel overseeing Homeland Security Department funding. The Homeland Security inspector general's report estimates there are currently 302,500 deportable immigrants in American jails and prisons. Identifying candidates for deportation isn't easy, though: They're scattered among 5,033 prisons and jails, some run by the federal government, some by states and some, as in Kenosha County, by localities....
Job Vacancies At DHS Said To Hurt U.S. Preparedness The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today. As of May 1, Homeland Security had 138 vacancies among its top 575 positions, with the greatest voids reported in its policy, legal and intelligence sections, as well as in immigration agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. The vacant slots include presidential, senior executive and other high-level appointments, according to the report by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee. A DHS spokesman challenged the report's tally, saying that it is skewed by a sudden expansion this spring in the number of top management jobs. Before then, only 12 percent of positions were unfilled in a department that has always been thinly staffed at headquarters, spokesman Russ Knocke said. The findings have stoked fresh concern among some in Congress about the four-year-old department's progress in overcoming management problems, dating to its troubled 2003 creation from 22 components....
Gonzales Was Told of FBI Violations As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005. Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. The acts recounted in the FBI reports included unauthorized surveillance, an illegal property search and a case in which an Internet firm improperly turned over a compact disc with data that the FBI was not entitled to collect, the documents show. Gonzales was copied on each report that said administrative rules or laws protecting civil liberties and privacy had been violated. The reports also alerted Gonzales in 2005 to problems with the FBI's use of an anti-terrorism tool known as a national security letter (NSL), well before the Justice Department's inspector general brought widespread abuse of the letters in 2004 and 2005 to light in a stinging report this past March....
Congressmen praise Border Patrol 'Operation Streamline' initiative The thus-far highly effective measure for detaining, prosecuting and deporting or incarcerating captured illegal immigrants was born here in the Del Rio Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, and Chief Patrol Agent Randy Hill is unabashedly proud of its effectiveness. Streamline is aimed at “other than Mexican (OTM)” immigrants who cross into the United States illegally, expecting – hoping, really – to be apprehended and turned loose after perfunctory paperwork processing. Until Operation Streamline came along, government officials asserted that deportation to Central- and South American origins – and even to other continents – was too expensive, while Mexican immigrants were simply returned to the border they had crossed and sent packing across bridges and highways back into their homeland. Border Patrol agents detested their new roles in this period, as well as the OTM immigrants’ nose-thumbing understanding of it as a “catch-and-release” avenue to an unearned slice of the American pie. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Randy Hill focuses attention on inter-agency cooperation to reduce smuggling of drugs and other contraband, now that a tide of illegal immigration by “other than Mexicans” has been slowed by the deployment of “Operation Streamline,” now being lauded as a model for other borderland sectors. But, on December 6, 2005, that “golden door,” immortalized by Emma Lazarus in homage to the Statue of Liberty, closed just a bit as Operation Streamline got underway, and in Fiscal Year 2005-2006, OTM immigration dropped 38 percent....
Fewer illegals arrested at border The number of illegal aliens caught trying to cross the Mexican border into the United States is down 24 percent compared with the previous year, indicating that increased border security efforts are beginning to pay off, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). "We are continuing to develop and add the resources we need to gain effective control of the border. And we are beginning to see a difference," said CBP spokesman Michael Friel. "Cross-border activity has declined with the addition of agents and added technology. Combined with the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, that deterrence effect has taken place." From Oct. 1 through June 30, U.S. Border Patrol agents made 682,468 apprehensions of illegal aliens along the nation's southern border compared with 894,496 during the same period last year....
U.S. Unable to Deport Most Illegal Immigrants Who Commit Crimes Ezeiquiel Lopez already had a rap sheet that stretched all the way to Texas when, police said, he shot Kenosha County, Wisconsin, Deputy Sheriff Frank Fabiano in the head, killing him. Lopez, 45, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was free at the time of the May shooting, after having been jailed for two prior violent crimes. By law, he should have been deported, but federal immigration authorities didn't know he had been in custody, and state and local police didn't tell them. The case isn't an exception. Fewer than half the foreigners convicted of crimes in the U.S. -- most of whom are in the country illegally -- are deported after serving their sentences, according to the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. Cases like Lopez's point up holes in the nation's overwhelmed immigration system, said Representative David Price, a North Carolina Democrat who heads a panel overseeing Homeland Security Department funding. The Homeland Security inspector general's report estimates there are currently 302,500 deportable immigrants in American jails and prisons. Identifying candidates for deportation isn't easy, though: They're scattered among 5,033 prisons and jails, some run by the federal government, some by states and some, as in Kenosha County, by localities....
Job Vacancies At DHS Said To Hurt U.S. Preparedness The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today. As of May 1, Homeland Security had 138 vacancies among its top 575 positions, with the greatest voids reported in its policy, legal and intelligence sections, as well as in immigration agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. The vacant slots include presidential, senior executive and other high-level appointments, according to the report by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee. A DHS spokesman challenged the report's tally, saying that it is skewed by a sudden expansion this spring in the number of top management jobs. Before then, only 12 percent of positions were unfilled in a department that has always been thinly staffed at headquarters, spokesman Russ Knocke said. The findings have stoked fresh concern among some in Congress about the four-year-old department's progress in overcoming management problems, dating to its troubled 2003 creation from 22 components....
Monday, July 09, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Triple-digit heat wave broils West An oppressive heat wave eased a bit in some parts of the West, but forecasters predicted little relief in the days ahead for a region where many cities have baked in 100-plus temperatures. The National Weather Service issued a red flag wildfire warning yesterday in eastern Utah and western Colorado, where temperatures were again expected to approach or top three digits. Extreme heat troubled much of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Washington state again Friday. In Montana, where cattle outnumber residents by more than 2 to 1, livestock and people sought shade, and drought-weary farmers watched for damage to grain. "We are trying to get our hay up before it disintegrates," said cattle rancher Sharon McDonald near Melville. "It just gets crispy and just falls apart."....
Heat wave killing park fish A heat wave has warmed the Firehole River to as much as 82 degrees, killing hundreds of rainbow and brown trout. Park officials noticed the kill Friday. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said temperatures above 73 degrees can be stressful or even fatal for trout. He said the trout died within the previous three days. Meanwhile, park officials enacted voluntary fishing closures at several areas because of the stress that warm water places on fish. "We have a strong, involved, responsive user group here," said Nash. "We know that people come here because of the world-class fishing opportunities. We know how important it is to them and we know they'll join us in protecting this resource." He said the current advisory is earlier and more widespread than in years past. "I am not aware that we've involved this many rivers and creeks before," he said....
Law widens landowners' immunity from hunting accident lawsuits Pennsylvania property owners who allow hunting on their land are now shielded from lawsuits over accidents involving victims off the property, under a bill that Gov. Ed Rendell has signed into law. Landowners who allow the free use of their property for recreational activities - such as hunting, fishing, swimming and hiking - have been protected from liability for accidents for more than four decades. The bill Rendell signed Saturday, prompted by a bizarre hunting accident in Lehigh County in 2004, extends that protection for hunting even when the victim is in a distant location. "Farmers now can be more confident that their livelihood won't be at risk when they open their land to hunters," who help control wildlife that causes crop damage, said Carl T. Shaffer, president of the 42,000-member Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. The revision to the Recreational Use of Land and Water Act, which was approved unanimously by both houses of the Legislature, was developed after a Lehigh County orchardist was successfully sued for the shooting of a pregnant woman by a man who was deer hunting on the farmland....
Railroad defends timing of condemnation lawsuits The head of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad on Friday defended the timing of lawsuits that the railroad filed last week seeking to condemn land in northeastern Wyoming and South Dakota for a new rail line. Tad Daly, a Gillette lawyer who represents some Wyoming landowners, said it's clear that the railroad timed the lawsuits to avoid Wyoming's new eminent-domain law, which took effect July 1. The law allows landowners to use comparable values to determine the fair market value of their land. Kevin Schieffer, president of the DM&E in Sioux Falls, S.D., denied Daly's allegations. He said the company has been meeting with landowners and moving forward on the project for years. "The notion that we're doing this sort of under the wire, I take some exception to," Schieffer said. "Just from the very simple standpoint that we've been in this process for years." DM&E intends to build 278 miles of new rail line to haul coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin....
Pack trips an endangered Sierra Nevada tradition? The smell of steaks sizzling on a campfire grill wafted through towering tamarack and Jeffrey pines as the sun set over the saw-toothed crest of Duck Pass in the Eastern Sierra about eight miles south of Mammoth Lakes. We sat on folding chairs around the crackling fire, sipping beer, while our cook prepared a dinner of surprising delicacy. Surprising, because in the heart of the John Muir Wilderness, 10,000 feet above sea level, this soft-spoken, bespectacled man had conjured a tasty, three-course meal, capped off with a freshly baked pineapple upside-down cake and kettle-brewed coffee filtered through a tube sock. In a nearby meadow, the horses and mules that carried us and our camping gear to the shores of Purple Lake grazed peacefully. It's the only way to get here — unless you hike. Equestrians and pedestrians have shared trails in the Sierra for more than 100 years, but the relationship has become strained of late as the two sides quarrel over the impact of horses and mules on the wilderness. It has become so strained that I had to wonder if I was witnessing the last days of mule packs in these mountains, but for now I didn't want to think about that. I popped open a can and listened to him recount the history of packs in the Sierra Nevada. It began, he said, in the 1800s, when ranchers drove sheep and cattle into the mountains. In those days, the mule packs transported people and supplies between Mammoth City and a place called Fresno Flats. Back then, the packs were a way of life — as automobiles are today — and the Pacific Crest and John Muir trails were the main thoroughfares. Anyone who settled in the Sierra relied on mule packs for tools, medicine and clothes — their very survival. Summers thinks he is keeping alive a part of history by bringing campers to the Sierra to experience the wilderness the way Muir saw it. But that vision was dealt a blow in 2000 when a group of Northern California hikers and environmentalists sued the U.S. Forest Service, claiming the agency had approved special-use permits for pack companies in the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses without considering the damage. The charge was that horses and mules eroded the trails, overgrazed the meadows and left manure piles on the paths. A federal court agreed and imposed restrictions in 2001 on the number of guests, horses and mules and the time they spend in the backcountry. Summers shook his head. Because of the restrictions, he said, pack outfits have had to increase their rates. He thinks some outfits may go out of business....
Pilot project collapses old coal mines A pilot project seeks to erase the risk that old, abandoned coal mines will collapse and has the potential to open several prime tracts for housing here. Several city lots have been undeveloped because they're above mines. But a booming energy economy is pushing up demand for housing - and for putting the empty tracts to use. The $2.4 million pilot project overseen by the state Abandoned Mines Division involves hoisting 25-ton weights with cranes and dropping the weights to collapse the old mines. State officials say the technique promises to be faster and more economical than the traditional approach of filling the mines with a type of grout. "This is new to the subsidence mitigation world in Wyoming," state Abandoned Mine Lands Administrator Evan Green said. He said the state Department of Transportation has used the technique to compact unstable areas for road building....
State grazing project draws threat of lawsuit A trial grazing project near the Blue Mountains of Eastern Washington has some conservationists accusing Gov. Chris Gregoire of putting political priorities before environmental protection. It's also opening the state up for a lawsuit. Gregoire arranged an agreement between the state and the Washington Cattlemen's Association shortly after her disputed 2004 election in hopes of improving her relationship with Eastern Washington conservatives. The environmentalists say that deal and the program that followed are destroying fragile wildlife lands and harming endangered salmon and steelhead spawning beds. The agreement allowed two ranchers free grazing rights for several hundred head of cattle on state lands that had been purchased and set aside for publicly accessible wildlife habitat. Gregoire administration officials said the project, which is overseen by Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists, has the potential to help ranchers and improve the quality of wildlife lands....
Grassroots in the grassland As a child, Susie Downs remembers her mother’s overriding worry that the family ranch wouldn’t be around for her children and grandchildren. It wasn’t that ranching was so tough. Instead, her family faced what Downs calls a “doom and gloom scenario” every time a land- or animal-based decision was handed down by federal managers. The family wondered what was next, how it would hurt them. Most ranchers in Thunder Basin lease federal land to supplement their privately held grazing areas. That’s what makes the lifestyle work in such a tenuous piece of the world. But, any decision from above would have on-the-ground impacts. Never was that so clear than around 1999, when a U.S. Forest Service management plan for several grasslands called for large areas dedicated to supporting huge numbers of prairie dogs -- which, in turn, would set the stage for a reintroduction of the endangered black-footed ferret. At the same time, some environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to offer Endangered Species Act protection to the prairie dog. Ranchers were befuddled. Protect the prairie dog? The animals were in full invasion mode, digging holes for shelter from predators, holes that young calves and lambs could fall into and break limbs. As colonies grew, dogs would eat away the vegetation. The loss of plant life led to erosion, and ranchers watched whole swaths of land essentially blow away in the Wyoming winds. Worried, again, about how big decisions would affect their lifestyles and livelihood, some basin ranchers decided it was time to make sure their voices were heard to protect themselves. “The threat of the prairie dog listing was the main thing,” Downs said. “That really threatened all of our private lands.” “That was the red flag,” Joann Neumiller added. Both are board members of the Thunder Basin Prairie Ecosystem Association, formed in 1999 as a coalition of landowners who realized they were more powerful together than individually....
S. Dakota wildfire kills one, injures 2 A wildfire burning in southwest South Dakota has killed one person, injured two firefighters and forced the evacuation of at least 50 homes, according to state officials. Smoke and ash from the Alabaugh Canyon Fire is falling 5 miles to the northeast on Hot Springs, so people with respiratory problems are being urged to stay indoors or use caution when going out. The person killed was identified only as a civilian, such as a homeowner or visitor. Hot Springs is a popular Black Hills tourist destination....
Big Government, Big Fire The Angora Fire, which burned nearly 200 homes in South Lake Tahoe, can teach important lessons about wildland fire. If the Forest Service has its way, however, they will be the wrong lessons. The official Forest Service response to the fire followed a predictable pattern. Forest officials claim that a century of mismanagement (by their own agency) allowed fuels to build up to unnatural levels, making the forests ripe for catastrophic fire. "There is an ungodly amount of fuel" in the Tahoe area, says a Forest Service ecologist. The excess fuels story has done wonders for the Forest Service budget. Ever since a fire burned several hundred homes in Los Alamos in 2000, Congress has dumped money on wildfires. The Forest Service's total fire budget has more than tripled, and the biggest percentage increase has been for hazardous fuel treatments. Now, after spending $11 billion on fire and hazardous fuel treatments since 2000, we have another fire destroying hundreds of homes. It is increasingly clear that the Forest Service strategy of treating fuels and aggressively suppressing almost all wildfires is the wrong approach. First, there are too many acres to treat. The Forest Service estimates that 70 million federal acres need immediate treatment and 140 million more will need it soon. Despite its huge budget increases, the Forest Service currently treats less than 3 million acres a year. Second, treating fuels won't stop fires. The Angora Fire started in a treated area and about half the acres burned were recently treated. When it is hot and dry enough, forests will burn no matter how much fuels have been treated. Third, the best way to protect homes is to treat the private land directly around the homes, not remote public lands. Forest Service fire researcher Jack Cohen has found that homes catch fire if they have flammable roofs or they are exposed to the radiant heat of trees and shrubs burning near the home....
Brucellosis talks drag on The future of Montana’s cattle industry, some say, is in the hands of the federal government and a Bridger ranching couple. Ranchers and livestock groups from the state and around the country are anxiously watching negotiations between Jim and Sandy Morgan and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service over the couple’s quarantined cattle herd. Seven cows from their ranch tested positive for brucellosis in May, and Montana could lose its coveted brucellosis-free status if the Morgans’ herd isn’t slaughtered within 60 days of that discovery — or by July 17. Concerns are mounting that a deal won’t be reached in time. What’s holding up the Bridger cattle herd deal is a price for the animals. The Morgans did not agree with the government’s initial herd appraisal, and commissioned their own estimation, which they received this week. The couple faxed an offer to APHIS on Thursday but had not heard back from the agency, said Sandy Morgan and her father, Bruce Malcolm, a rancher and state lawmaker from Emigrant....
U.S. agriculture groups tell Congress to approve FTA with S. Korea U.S. food and agriculture groups were getting actively involved in supporting a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, telling their Congress that not approving the deal would be "devastating" to American farmers and ranchers. In a joint letter dated July 2, the 34 groups expressed the need to the legislature for the bilateral trade pact, commonly referred to as KORUS FTA. The deal gives the United States a chance to eliminate restrictions in one of the most highly protected agricultural markets in the world, the letter said. "We cannot afford to fumble it away," it said. "This is a significant achievement -- one which will provide large dividends to America's farmers, ranchers and agribusiness for decades to come." South Korea and the U.S. signed the FTA on June 30, starting what many predict will be a long process to have it ratified by their respective legislatures. Proponents are believed to outnumber opponents in South Korea, but large-scale protests still continue. In the U.S., Democratic leaders who control the Congress issued a statement just a day before the FTA signing that said they cannot accept the deal as negotiated....
Cattle losses extensive for ranchers After losing this year's wheat and pecan harvest to an early freeze over Easter weekend, cattle owner and grain farmer Jeff Jackson, Chetopa, said he was counting on cattle, corn and soybean sales to get him through the year. Flood damage has taken away those income sources and left Jackson wondering where to go from here. "We'll make it. It's just gonna be one of those years we'll remember for a lifetime," Jackson said. "It's going to be a strain on the whole community." Jackson said he had about 120 cattle swept away by flood water, some turning up later downstream. Some of his cattle floated as far as Miami, Okla. Jackson took a boat out Wednesday to locate stranded cattle that had made it to high ground so he can retrieve them as the water recedes. He said he is troubled by his inability to help cattle he has raised since calves and knows by number. "It's quite the sight to see," said Jackson. "It's an emotional strain when you see a cow out there swimming and drowning and there's nothing you can do to save her." The calves have fared the worst. Jackson said only a fraction survived....
Cache County Cow Births Rare Triplet Calves A cow and the farmer who owns her are both a lot busier this week. The heifer gave birth to rare triplets on Tuesday. The cow's owner, Lyle Bradfield of Mount Sterling, says the cow's responding well to the calves but he has supplement their diets with bottle feeding. Cows generally have one calf at a time. A local veterinarian says the likelihood of triplets is about one in 100,000. Sometimes cows can reject some of the calves in a multiple birth, but Bradfield says his cow has taken to them all. The two black calves and one gray one are smaller than average calves and will require extra attention for a while.
'Hot' times in Magdalena In 1856, soldiers established a saw mill in the Magdalena Mountains and harvested the much-needed lumber for building nearby Fort Craig. The sawmill and camp was located in a heavily timbered canyon southwest of Magdalena, now known as Mill Canyon. Some of these soldiers were the first to explore and prospect in the Magdalena Mountains. After the Civil War, prospecting for valuable ores became a more serious endeavor. Col. John Hutchason is credited for the first viable strike in the region, having discovered lead along the western face of the Magdalenas in 1866. By the 1870s, three distinct mining camps had been formed — North Camp, Middle Camp and South Camp — and they discovered everything from zinc to silver. Mines with names like the Juanita, Kelly and Waldo were already burrowing deep into the Magdalena Mountains. At this same time, another small settlement was formed on the trail leading to the Plains of San Agustin near Pueblo Springs. By 1884, the ores in the region was justification for the railroad to consider building a spur line from Socorro to the camps. This required the citizens in the region to name the towns. Records in the Socorro County Courthouse show the mining camp was named Kelly and the town at the springs named Magdalena in 1884....
Hunting with ‘Sonny’ captures feel of West Even in this age of the hand-held GPS, beam-projecting rifle scopes, Gore-Tex clothing, stainless-steel rifle barrels and synthetic stocks, there are characters roaming the Great American West whose presence keeps alive the folklore of days when the legends were made that often supersede the facts. In many ways, it can truly be said that these reminders of this bygone era have been “born out of time.” If there are such things as a pre-life and reincarnation, it is not difficult to imagine that their souls may have once inhabited the body of a prospector in the Black Hills, a drover along the banks of the Red River or a perceived lawman walking the streets of Tombstone. Today, many of these characters can be found filling the roles of guides and packers for Western hunting guides and outfitters. Knowing they are the real deal is as easy as differentiating between the musical genius of Jimmy Dale Gilmore over that of a want-a-be “cowboy” singer on “American Idol.” In every way, these are men of “true grit,” who seemingly — like the finest table wine — improve with age, but certainly don’t mellow. And while having them as a guide doesn’t guarantee filling a tag, it certainly will make for a more memorable experience and an unforgettable hunt. Ivan “Sonny” Mills is one of these men....
Project changed photographer’s perspective of ranches, cowboys Jim Keen was knocked on his derriere by a 450-pound steer, lost his glasses in prairie grass, reluctantly worked on horseback and watched Morgan horses haul hay as soft snowflakes filled the air. A ranch is really no place for a city boy, but this Colorado Springs photographer is on a mission. For the past five years, Keen has toted his cameras to 30 of the finest ranches of the American West, hoping to use his art to help save them from extinction. His coffee-table book “Great Ranches of the West” is being released this week, just in time to coincide with the local rodeo season. Besides learning the difference between a cow and a steer, Keen fell in love with the honesty, wisdom and work ethic of working cowboys. His affection is present in the 600 pictures he created, and the stories he tells about the historical, familyowned ranches flung over 17 states — including two in Colorado: the Bledsoe Ranch near Hugo, and the Nottingham-Albertson Ranch, about an hour north of Vail. “My book is an art book,” Keen said, “but I want people to understand more about ranchers and what great people they are. There’s a real dangerous trend in our country of these ranches going out of business.”....
Triple-digit heat wave broils West An oppressive heat wave eased a bit in some parts of the West, but forecasters predicted little relief in the days ahead for a region where many cities have baked in 100-plus temperatures. The National Weather Service issued a red flag wildfire warning yesterday in eastern Utah and western Colorado, where temperatures were again expected to approach or top three digits. Extreme heat troubled much of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Oregon and Washington state again Friday. In Montana, where cattle outnumber residents by more than 2 to 1, livestock and people sought shade, and drought-weary farmers watched for damage to grain. "We are trying to get our hay up before it disintegrates," said cattle rancher Sharon McDonald near Melville. "It just gets crispy and just falls apart."....
Heat wave killing park fish A heat wave has warmed the Firehole River to as much as 82 degrees, killing hundreds of rainbow and brown trout. Park officials noticed the kill Friday. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said temperatures above 73 degrees can be stressful or even fatal for trout. He said the trout died within the previous three days. Meanwhile, park officials enacted voluntary fishing closures at several areas because of the stress that warm water places on fish. "We have a strong, involved, responsive user group here," said Nash. "We know that people come here because of the world-class fishing opportunities. We know how important it is to them and we know they'll join us in protecting this resource." He said the current advisory is earlier and more widespread than in years past. "I am not aware that we've involved this many rivers and creeks before," he said....
Law widens landowners' immunity from hunting accident lawsuits Pennsylvania property owners who allow hunting on their land are now shielded from lawsuits over accidents involving victims off the property, under a bill that Gov. Ed Rendell has signed into law. Landowners who allow the free use of their property for recreational activities - such as hunting, fishing, swimming and hiking - have been protected from liability for accidents for more than four decades. The bill Rendell signed Saturday, prompted by a bizarre hunting accident in Lehigh County in 2004, extends that protection for hunting even when the victim is in a distant location. "Farmers now can be more confident that their livelihood won't be at risk when they open their land to hunters," who help control wildlife that causes crop damage, said Carl T. Shaffer, president of the 42,000-member Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. The revision to the Recreational Use of Land and Water Act, which was approved unanimously by both houses of the Legislature, was developed after a Lehigh County orchardist was successfully sued for the shooting of a pregnant woman by a man who was deer hunting on the farmland....
Railroad defends timing of condemnation lawsuits The head of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad on Friday defended the timing of lawsuits that the railroad filed last week seeking to condemn land in northeastern Wyoming and South Dakota for a new rail line. Tad Daly, a Gillette lawyer who represents some Wyoming landowners, said it's clear that the railroad timed the lawsuits to avoid Wyoming's new eminent-domain law, which took effect July 1. The law allows landowners to use comparable values to determine the fair market value of their land. Kevin Schieffer, president of the DM&E in Sioux Falls, S.D., denied Daly's allegations. He said the company has been meeting with landowners and moving forward on the project for years. "The notion that we're doing this sort of under the wire, I take some exception to," Schieffer said. "Just from the very simple standpoint that we've been in this process for years." DM&E intends to build 278 miles of new rail line to haul coal from Wyoming's Powder River Basin....
Pack trips an endangered Sierra Nevada tradition? The smell of steaks sizzling on a campfire grill wafted through towering tamarack and Jeffrey pines as the sun set over the saw-toothed crest of Duck Pass in the Eastern Sierra about eight miles south of Mammoth Lakes. We sat on folding chairs around the crackling fire, sipping beer, while our cook prepared a dinner of surprising delicacy. Surprising, because in the heart of the John Muir Wilderness, 10,000 feet above sea level, this soft-spoken, bespectacled man had conjured a tasty, three-course meal, capped off with a freshly baked pineapple upside-down cake and kettle-brewed coffee filtered through a tube sock. In a nearby meadow, the horses and mules that carried us and our camping gear to the shores of Purple Lake grazed peacefully. It's the only way to get here — unless you hike. Equestrians and pedestrians have shared trails in the Sierra for more than 100 years, but the relationship has become strained of late as the two sides quarrel over the impact of horses and mules on the wilderness. It has become so strained that I had to wonder if I was witnessing the last days of mule packs in these mountains, but for now I didn't want to think about that. I popped open a can and listened to him recount the history of packs in the Sierra Nevada. It began, he said, in the 1800s, when ranchers drove sheep and cattle into the mountains. In those days, the mule packs transported people and supplies between Mammoth City and a place called Fresno Flats. Back then, the packs were a way of life — as automobiles are today — and the Pacific Crest and John Muir trails were the main thoroughfares. Anyone who settled in the Sierra relied on mule packs for tools, medicine and clothes — their very survival. Summers thinks he is keeping alive a part of history by bringing campers to the Sierra to experience the wilderness the way Muir saw it. But that vision was dealt a blow in 2000 when a group of Northern California hikers and environmentalists sued the U.S. Forest Service, claiming the agency had approved special-use permits for pack companies in the John Muir and Ansel Adams wildernesses without considering the damage. The charge was that horses and mules eroded the trails, overgrazed the meadows and left manure piles on the paths. A federal court agreed and imposed restrictions in 2001 on the number of guests, horses and mules and the time they spend in the backcountry. Summers shook his head. Because of the restrictions, he said, pack outfits have had to increase their rates. He thinks some outfits may go out of business....
Pilot project collapses old coal mines A pilot project seeks to erase the risk that old, abandoned coal mines will collapse and has the potential to open several prime tracts for housing here. Several city lots have been undeveloped because they're above mines. But a booming energy economy is pushing up demand for housing - and for putting the empty tracts to use. The $2.4 million pilot project overseen by the state Abandoned Mines Division involves hoisting 25-ton weights with cranes and dropping the weights to collapse the old mines. State officials say the technique promises to be faster and more economical than the traditional approach of filling the mines with a type of grout. "This is new to the subsidence mitigation world in Wyoming," state Abandoned Mine Lands Administrator Evan Green said. He said the state Department of Transportation has used the technique to compact unstable areas for road building....
State grazing project draws threat of lawsuit A trial grazing project near the Blue Mountains of Eastern Washington has some conservationists accusing Gov. Chris Gregoire of putting political priorities before environmental protection. It's also opening the state up for a lawsuit. Gregoire arranged an agreement between the state and the Washington Cattlemen's Association shortly after her disputed 2004 election in hopes of improving her relationship with Eastern Washington conservatives. The environmentalists say that deal and the program that followed are destroying fragile wildlife lands and harming endangered salmon and steelhead spawning beds. The agreement allowed two ranchers free grazing rights for several hundred head of cattle on state lands that had been purchased and set aside for publicly accessible wildlife habitat. Gregoire administration officials said the project, which is overseen by Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists, has the potential to help ranchers and improve the quality of wildlife lands....
Grassroots in the grassland As a child, Susie Downs remembers her mother’s overriding worry that the family ranch wouldn’t be around for her children and grandchildren. It wasn’t that ranching was so tough. Instead, her family faced what Downs calls a “doom and gloom scenario” every time a land- or animal-based decision was handed down by federal managers. The family wondered what was next, how it would hurt them. Most ranchers in Thunder Basin lease federal land to supplement their privately held grazing areas. That’s what makes the lifestyle work in such a tenuous piece of the world. But, any decision from above would have on-the-ground impacts. Never was that so clear than around 1999, when a U.S. Forest Service management plan for several grasslands called for large areas dedicated to supporting huge numbers of prairie dogs -- which, in turn, would set the stage for a reintroduction of the endangered black-footed ferret. At the same time, some environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to offer Endangered Species Act protection to the prairie dog. Ranchers were befuddled. Protect the prairie dog? The animals were in full invasion mode, digging holes for shelter from predators, holes that young calves and lambs could fall into and break limbs. As colonies grew, dogs would eat away the vegetation. The loss of plant life led to erosion, and ranchers watched whole swaths of land essentially blow away in the Wyoming winds. Worried, again, about how big decisions would affect their lifestyles and livelihood, some basin ranchers decided it was time to make sure their voices were heard to protect themselves. “The threat of the prairie dog listing was the main thing,” Downs said. “That really threatened all of our private lands.” “That was the red flag,” Joann Neumiller added. Both are board members of the Thunder Basin Prairie Ecosystem Association, formed in 1999 as a coalition of landowners who realized they were more powerful together than individually....
S. Dakota wildfire kills one, injures 2 A wildfire burning in southwest South Dakota has killed one person, injured two firefighters and forced the evacuation of at least 50 homes, according to state officials. Smoke and ash from the Alabaugh Canyon Fire is falling 5 miles to the northeast on Hot Springs, so people with respiratory problems are being urged to stay indoors or use caution when going out. The person killed was identified only as a civilian, such as a homeowner or visitor. Hot Springs is a popular Black Hills tourist destination....
Big Government, Big Fire The Angora Fire, which burned nearly 200 homes in South Lake Tahoe, can teach important lessons about wildland fire. If the Forest Service has its way, however, they will be the wrong lessons. The official Forest Service response to the fire followed a predictable pattern. Forest officials claim that a century of mismanagement (by their own agency) allowed fuels to build up to unnatural levels, making the forests ripe for catastrophic fire. "There is an ungodly amount of fuel" in the Tahoe area, says a Forest Service ecologist. The excess fuels story has done wonders for the Forest Service budget. Ever since a fire burned several hundred homes in Los Alamos in 2000, Congress has dumped money on wildfires. The Forest Service's total fire budget has more than tripled, and the biggest percentage increase has been for hazardous fuel treatments. Now, after spending $11 billion on fire and hazardous fuel treatments since 2000, we have another fire destroying hundreds of homes. It is increasingly clear that the Forest Service strategy of treating fuels and aggressively suppressing almost all wildfires is the wrong approach. First, there are too many acres to treat. The Forest Service estimates that 70 million federal acres need immediate treatment and 140 million more will need it soon. Despite its huge budget increases, the Forest Service currently treats less than 3 million acres a year. Second, treating fuels won't stop fires. The Angora Fire started in a treated area and about half the acres burned were recently treated. When it is hot and dry enough, forests will burn no matter how much fuels have been treated. Third, the best way to protect homes is to treat the private land directly around the homes, not remote public lands. Forest Service fire researcher Jack Cohen has found that homes catch fire if they have flammable roofs or they are exposed to the radiant heat of trees and shrubs burning near the home....
Brucellosis talks drag on The future of Montana’s cattle industry, some say, is in the hands of the federal government and a Bridger ranching couple. Ranchers and livestock groups from the state and around the country are anxiously watching negotiations between Jim and Sandy Morgan and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service over the couple’s quarantined cattle herd. Seven cows from their ranch tested positive for brucellosis in May, and Montana could lose its coveted brucellosis-free status if the Morgans’ herd isn’t slaughtered within 60 days of that discovery — or by July 17. Concerns are mounting that a deal won’t be reached in time. What’s holding up the Bridger cattle herd deal is a price for the animals. The Morgans did not agree with the government’s initial herd appraisal, and commissioned their own estimation, which they received this week. The couple faxed an offer to APHIS on Thursday but had not heard back from the agency, said Sandy Morgan and her father, Bruce Malcolm, a rancher and state lawmaker from Emigrant....
U.S. agriculture groups tell Congress to approve FTA with S. Korea U.S. food and agriculture groups were getting actively involved in supporting a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, telling their Congress that not approving the deal would be "devastating" to American farmers and ranchers. In a joint letter dated July 2, the 34 groups expressed the need to the legislature for the bilateral trade pact, commonly referred to as KORUS FTA. The deal gives the United States a chance to eliminate restrictions in one of the most highly protected agricultural markets in the world, the letter said. "We cannot afford to fumble it away," it said. "This is a significant achievement -- one which will provide large dividends to America's farmers, ranchers and agribusiness for decades to come." South Korea and the U.S. signed the FTA on June 30, starting what many predict will be a long process to have it ratified by their respective legislatures. Proponents are believed to outnumber opponents in South Korea, but large-scale protests still continue. In the U.S., Democratic leaders who control the Congress issued a statement just a day before the FTA signing that said they cannot accept the deal as negotiated....
Cattle losses extensive for ranchers After losing this year's wheat and pecan harvest to an early freeze over Easter weekend, cattle owner and grain farmer Jeff Jackson, Chetopa, said he was counting on cattle, corn and soybean sales to get him through the year. Flood damage has taken away those income sources and left Jackson wondering where to go from here. "We'll make it. It's just gonna be one of those years we'll remember for a lifetime," Jackson said. "It's going to be a strain on the whole community." Jackson said he had about 120 cattle swept away by flood water, some turning up later downstream. Some of his cattle floated as far as Miami, Okla. Jackson took a boat out Wednesday to locate stranded cattle that had made it to high ground so he can retrieve them as the water recedes. He said he is troubled by his inability to help cattle he has raised since calves and knows by number. "It's quite the sight to see," said Jackson. "It's an emotional strain when you see a cow out there swimming and drowning and there's nothing you can do to save her." The calves have fared the worst. Jackson said only a fraction survived....
Cache County Cow Births Rare Triplet Calves A cow and the farmer who owns her are both a lot busier this week. The heifer gave birth to rare triplets on Tuesday. The cow's owner, Lyle Bradfield of Mount Sterling, says the cow's responding well to the calves but he has supplement their diets with bottle feeding. Cows generally have one calf at a time. A local veterinarian says the likelihood of triplets is about one in 100,000. Sometimes cows can reject some of the calves in a multiple birth, but Bradfield says his cow has taken to them all. The two black calves and one gray one are smaller than average calves and will require extra attention for a while.
'Hot' times in Magdalena In 1856, soldiers established a saw mill in the Magdalena Mountains and harvested the much-needed lumber for building nearby Fort Craig. The sawmill and camp was located in a heavily timbered canyon southwest of Magdalena, now known as Mill Canyon. Some of these soldiers were the first to explore and prospect in the Magdalena Mountains. After the Civil War, prospecting for valuable ores became a more serious endeavor. Col. John Hutchason is credited for the first viable strike in the region, having discovered lead along the western face of the Magdalenas in 1866. By the 1870s, three distinct mining camps had been formed — North Camp, Middle Camp and South Camp — and they discovered everything from zinc to silver. Mines with names like the Juanita, Kelly and Waldo were already burrowing deep into the Magdalena Mountains. At this same time, another small settlement was formed on the trail leading to the Plains of San Agustin near Pueblo Springs. By 1884, the ores in the region was justification for the railroad to consider building a spur line from Socorro to the camps. This required the citizens in the region to name the towns. Records in the Socorro County Courthouse show the mining camp was named Kelly and the town at the springs named Magdalena in 1884....
Hunting with ‘Sonny’ captures feel of West Even in this age of the hand-held GPS, beam-projecting rifle scopes, Gore-Tex clothing, stainless-steel rifle barrels and synthetic stocks, there are characters roaming the Great American West whose presence keeps alive the folklore of days when the legends were made that often supersede the facts. In many ways, it can truly be said that these reminders of this bygone era have been “born out of time.” If there are such things as a pre-life and reincarnation, it is not difficult to imagine that their souls may have once inhabited the body of a prospector in the Black Hills, a drover along the banks of the Red River or a perceived lawman walking the streets of Tombstone. Today, many of these characters can be found filling the roles of guides and packers for Western hunting guides and outfitters. Knowing they are the real deal is as easy as differentiating between the musical genius of Jimmy Dale Gilmore over that of a want-a-be “cowboy” singer on “American Idol.” In every way, these are men of “true grit,” who seemingly — like the finest table wine — improve with age, but certainly don’t mellow. And while having them as a guide doesn’t guarantee filling a tag, it certainly will make for a more memorable experience and an unforgettable hunt. Ivan “Sonny” Mills is one of these men....
Project changed photographer’s perspective of ranches, cowboys Jim Keen was knocked on his derriere by a 450-pound steer, lost his glasses in prairie grass, reluctantly worked on horseback and watched Morgan horses haul hay as soft snowflakes filled the air. A ranch is really no place for a city boy, but this Colorado Springs photographer is on a mission. For the past five years, Keen has toted his cameras to 30 of the finest ranches of the American West, hoping to use his art to help save them from extinction. His coffee-table book “Great Ranches of the West” is being released this week, just in time to coincide with the local rodeo season. Besides learning the difference between a cow and a steer, Keen fell in love with the honesty, wisdom and work ethic of working cowboys. His affection is present in the 600 pictures he created, and the stories he tells about the historical, familyowned ranches flung over 17 states — including two in Colorado: the Bledsoe Ranch near Hugo, and the Nottingham-Albertson Ranch, about an hour north of Vail. “My book is an art book,” Keen said, “but I want people to understand more about ranchers and what great people they are. There’s a real dangerous trend in our country of these ranches going out of business.”....
Sunday, July 08, 2007
LIVE EARTH
Earth underwhelmed by environment pop extravaganza They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate change gigs around the globe begins, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it. U.S. and British media were generally underwhelmed on Sunday by Live Earth, the mega-concert organised by former U.S. vice president and green campaigner Al Gore, which, though built on the model of Live Aid and Live 8, created a less positive buzz. In Germany, however, newspapers were more upbeat about Saturday's gigs designed to pressure leaders to sign a new treaty by 2009 that would cut global warming pollution by 90 percent in rich nations and more than half worldwide by 2050. Organisers say that in addition to the tens of thousands of fans at the gigs, the television, radio and internet audience could be as large as two billion. Commentators noted the difficulty in marrying pop music with serious themes like the environment....
Live Earth's embrace circles the globe Live Earth, the confederacy of musicians who performed Saturday on all seven continents to highlight the issues of global climate change, featured superstars such as Madonna and the Police entertaining crowds in packed stadiums, but also parka-wearing scientists at an Antarctic research station whose audience included wandering penguins. Live Earth used the now-familiar template of concerts-for-causes shaped largely by Live Aid, the 1985 famine relief shows. But the 24 hours of music circling the globe Saturday used the Internet and high-definition camera technologies to create a uniquely 21st century event. Leading up to Saturday, though, Live Earth was also criticized by some for being too vague in its cause or for being a promotional tool for its cofounder, environmental activist Al Gore, the former vice president. The politician was given a rock star's welcome at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, where he was introduced by Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In London, the Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am premiered a new pro-Earth song that he said he recorded after an inspirational encounter with Gore at the Grammy Awards in February. One of the lines: "We got a new terror threat: the weather."....
A Giddy Gore Discusses 'Live Earth' Al Gore tried to rein in his adrenaline as the train churned between the two North American venues of his Live Earth concerts Saturday. Gore, the former vice president and environmental activist, rattled off the latest details of companion concerts on six other continents before catching himself. "I'm just so filled with enthusiasm and energy, I'm not letting you ask questions," Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press. Gore turned back criticism that the concert series lacked immediate goals beyond generally raising awareness about climate change. The concerts are just the first step in a three-year public relations campaign, he said. "I've been trying to deliver this message for 30 years, and I know that it doesn't take in just one delivery," he said. "You've got to keep going." The concerts will be followed by a global advertising campaign, with a particular focus on the United States. "The planet doesn't have a PR agent," he said. "But now it will, because the Alliance for Climate Protection is going to use the modern techniques of messaging to get the scientific evidence in front of people all over the world." Gore said he plans to return to giving his slideshows and training others to give the presentation about global warming after the concert series is complete....
Madonna criticised over links to polluters She provided the finale to yesterday's Live Earth concerts, even writing a special song to mark the worldwide musical event. But instead of being lionised, Madonna found herself accused of hypocrisy last night after allegations that she has financial links to some of the world's biggest polluters. The Ray of Light Foundation, a charitable fund established by the star to support her favourite causes and named after one of her biggest selling hits, has $4.2 million (£2.1 million) of shares in a string of companies including Alcoa, the American aluminium giant, the Ford Motor Company and Weyerhaeuser, an international forest products company. All have been criticised by environmentalists. Alcoa was ranked number nine on a list of all-time toxic companies drawn up by the University of Massachusetts' political research institute in 2002. Other companies linked to the foundation, including Northrop Grumman, the global defence and technology giant, and Kimberly-Clark, the huge health group, appear on the same list....
How Al Gore Screwed Sen. James Inhofe Over LiveEarth In March, when Gore was organizing the worldwide Live Earth concerts being held today, he envisioned one of the many simultaneous concerts being in Washington, right in front of the Capitol building. James Inhofe, the senator from Oklahoma who denies that global warming even exists, said he'd block it because there'd never been an overt political event allowed at the Capitol before, and he wasn't going to allow it now. Gore took the concert denial in stride and quietly made arrangements with the Smithsonian, specifically their National Museum of the American Indian, to sponsor a Washington concert under their auspices, to take place on the Mall, just two blocks from the Capitol. The surprise announcement only came this week, just 24 hours before today's Live Earth concerts. Inhofe has no control over what takes place on the Mall, of course, but he could have - and no doubt would have - made a stink if he knew that the Smithsonian, a federal institution, was partnering with Gore to get around the roadblock he'd threatened. Oh, and just who are the headliners performing at this last minute added concert in D.C.? Why, none other than the superstar Couple of Country Music, Oklahoma native and favorite son Garth Brooks and his wife Tricia Yearwood. Heh Heh Heh....
Backers hope Live Earth concerts spur policy change Madonna might be singing about global warming, but Hillary Rodham Clinton pledges she'll actually do something about it if elected president in 2008. Both will be sharing a global platform Saturday during Live Earth, a 24-hour concert extravaganza spanning all seven continents, to bring attention to the earth's changing climate. "As people gather around the globe for Live Earth, they draw attention to the clear choice that we face," Clinton says in a statement on her campaign Web site. "It is past time for us to act." Clinton will be joined by the seven other Democratic presidential candidates for a virtual town hall during the concert to discuss how they would address climate change if elected....
150 Acts, Two Billion Viewers - and an Awful Lot of Greenhouse Gas All this is hardly without its moral complexities. The Red Hot Chili Peppers will be flying in by private jet from Paris, the band's management confirmed, then leaving by private jet tonight for a gig in Denmark. The Beastie Boys must be in Montreux by tomorrow. Genesis are playing in Manchester tonight, as part of their Turn It On Again reunion tour. And an estimate calculated for the Guardian suggests that spectators traveling to the London and New Jersey concerts alone will generate approximately 5,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases between them - the equivalent of 7,270 people crossing the Atlantic by plane. You can, it seems, be part of the solution and part of the problem, at the same time. Even those watching online will find Live Earth's website is sponsored by the Chevrolet company, which manufactures SUVs. The rock group Arctic Monkeys said this week they had declined to take part in Live Earth, because it would be "a bit hypocritical". "Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for [stage] lighting," said drummer Matt Helders. He added: "There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"....
Gore Op-Ed WE — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us. Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings. Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends. In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground — mainly in the form of coal and oil — and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth’s atmosphere. As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several “tipping points” that could — within 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization....
Live Earth branded a foul-mouthed flop Live Earth has been branded a foul-mouthed flop. Organisers of the global music concert - punctuated by swearing from presenters and performers - had predicted massive viewing figures. But BBC's live afternoon television coverage attracted an average British audience of just 900,000. In the evening, when coverage switched from BBC2 to BBC1, the figure rose to just 2.7million. And the peak audience, which came when Madonna sang at Wembley, was a dismal 4.5million. Three times as many viewers saw the Princess Diana tribute on the same channel six days before. Two years ago, Live 8 drew a peak television audience of 9.6million while Live Aid notched 10million in 1985....
Earth underwhelmed by environment pop extravaganza They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate change gigs around the globe begins, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it. U.S. and British media were generally underwhelmed on Sunday by Live Earth, the mega-concert organised by former U.S. vice president and green campaigner Al Gore, which, though built on the model of Live Aid and Live 8, created a less positive buzz. In Germany, however, newspapers were more upbeat about Saturday's gigs designed to pressure leaders to sign a new treaty by 2009 that would cut global warming pollution by 90 percent in rich nations and more than half worldwide by 2050. Organisers say that in addition to the tens of thousands of fans at the gigs, the television, radio and internet audience could be as large as two billion. Commentators noted the difficulty in marrying pop music with serious themes like the environment....
Live Earth's embrace circles the globe Live Earth, the confederacy of musicians who performed Saturday on all seven continents to highlight the issues of global climate change, featured superstars such as Madonna and the Police entertaining crowds in packed stadiums, but also parka-wearing scientists at an Antarctic research station whose audience included wandering penguins. Live Earth used the now-familiar template of concerts-for-causes shaped largely by Live Aid, the 1985 famine relief shows. But the 24 hours of music circling the globe Saturday used the Internet and high-definition camera technologies to create a uniquely 21st century event. Leading up to Saturday, though, Live Earth was also criticized by some for being too vague in its cause or for being a promotional tool for its cofounder, environmental activist Al Gore, the former vice president. The politician was given a rock star's welcome at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, where he was introduced by Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio. In London, the Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am premiered a new pro-Earth song that he said he recorded after an inspirational encounter with Gore at the Grammy Awards in February. One of the lines: "We got a new terror threat: the weather."....
A Giddy Gore Discusses 'Live Earth' Al Gore tried to rein in his adrenaline as the train churned between the two North American venues of his Live Earth concerts Saturday. Gore, the former vice president and environmental activist, rattled off the latest details of companion concerts on six other continents before catching himself. "I'm just so filled with enthusiasm and energy, I'm not letting you ask questions," Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press. Gore turned back criticism that the concert series lacked immediate goals beyond generally raising awareness about climate change. The concerts are just the first step in a three-year public relations campaign, he said. "I've been trying to deliver this message for 30 years, and I know that it doesn't take in just one delivery," he said. "You've got to keep going." The concerts will be followed by a global advertising campaign, with a particular focus on the United States. "The planet doesn't have a PR agent," he said. "But now it will, because the Alliance for Climate Protection is going to use the modern techniques of messaging to get the scientific evidence in front of people all over the world." Gore said he plans to return to giving his slideshows and training others to give the presentation about global warming after the concert series is complete....
Madonna criticised over links to polluters She provided the finale to yesterday's Live Earth concerts, even writing a special song to mark the worldwide musical event. But instead of being lionised, Madonna found herself accused of hypocrisy last night after allegations that she has financial links to some of the world's biggest polluters. The Ray of Light Foundation, a charitable fund established by the star to support her favourite causes and named after one of her biggest selling hits, has $4.2 million (£2.1 million) of shares in a string of companies including Alcoa, the American aluminium giant, the Ford Motor Company and Weyerhaeuser, an international forest products company. All have been criticised by environmentalists. Alcoa was ranked number nine on a list of all-time toxic companies drawn up by the University of Massachusetts' political research institute in 2002. Other companies linked to the foundation, including Northrop Grumman, the global defence and technology giant, and Kimberly-Clark, the huge health group, appear on the same list....
How Al Gore Screwed Sen. James Inhofe Over LiveEarth In March, when Gore was organizing the worldwide Live Earth concerts being held today, he envisioned one of the many simultaneous concerts being in Washington, right in front of the Capitol building. James Inhofe, the senator from Oklahoma who denies that global warming even exists, said he'd block it because there'd never been an overt political event allowed at the Capitol before, and he wasn't going to allow it now. Gore took the concert denial in stride and quietly made arrangements with the Smithsonian, specifically their National Museum of the American Indian, to sponsor a Washington concert under their auspices, to take place on the Mall, just two blocks from the Capitol. The surprise announcement only came this week, just 24 hours before today's Live Earth concerts. Inhofe has no control over what takes place on the Mall, of course, but he could have - and no doubt would have - made a stink if he knew that the Smithsonian, a federal institution, was partnering with Gore to get around the roadblock he'd threatened. Oh, and just who are the headliners performing at this last minute added concert in D.C.? Why, none other than the superstar Couple of Country Music, Oklahoma native and favorite son Garth Brooks and his wife Tricia Yearwood. Heh Heh Heh....
Backers hope Live Earth concerts spur policy change Madonna might be singing about global warming, but Hillary Rodham Clinton pledges she'll actually do something about it if elected president in 2008. Both will be sharing a global platform Saturday during Live Earth, a 24-hour concert extravaganza spanning all seven continents, to bring attention to the earth's changing climate. "As people gather around the globe for Live Earth, they draw attention to the clear choice that we face," Clinton says in a statement on her campaign Web site. "It is past time for us to act." Clinton will be joined by the seven other Democratic presidential candidates for a virtual town hall during the concert to discuss how they would address climate change if elected....
150 Acts, Two Billion Viewers - and an Awful Lot of Greenhouse Gas All this is hardly without its moral complexities. The Red Hot Chili Peppers will be flying in by private jet from Paris, the band's management confirmed, then leaving by private jet tonight for a gig in Denmark. The Beastie Boys must be in Montreux by tomorrow. Genesis are playing in Manchester tonight, as part of their Turn It On Again reunion tour. And an estimate calculated for the Guardian suggests that spectators traveling to the London and New Jersey concerts alone will generate approximately 5,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases between them - the equivalent of 7,270 people crossing the Atlantic by plane. You can, it seems, be part of the solution and part of the problem, at the same time. Even those watching online will find Live Earth's website is sponsored by the Chevrolet company, which manufactures SUVs. The rock group Arctic Monkeys said this week they had declined to take part in Live Earth, because it would be "a bit hypocritical". "Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for [stage] lighting," said drummer Matt Helders. He added: "There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"....
Gore Op-Ed WE — the human species — have arrived at a moment of decision. It is unprecedented and even laughable for us to imagine that we could actually make a conscious choice as a species, but that is nevertheless the challenge that is before us. Our home — Earth — is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings. Without realizing the consequences of our actions, we have begun to put so much carbon dioxide into the thin shell of air surrounding our world that we have literally changed the heat balance between Earth and the Sun. If we don’t stop doing this pretty quickly, the average temperature will increase to levels humans have never known and put an end to the favorable climate balance on which our civilization depends. In the last 150 years, in an accelerating frenzy, we have been removing increasing quantities of carbon from the ground — mainly in the form of coal and oil — and burning it in ways that dump 70 million tons of CO2 every 24 hours into the Earth’s atmosphere. As a direct result, many scientists are now warning that we are moving closer to several “tipping points” that could — within 10 years — make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage to the planet’s habitability for human civilization....
Live Earth branded a foul-mouthed flop Live Earth has been branded a foul-mouthed flop. Organisers of the global music concert - punctuated by swearing from presenters and performers - had predicted massive viewing figures. But BBC's live afternoon television coverage attracted an average British audience of just 900,000. In the evening, when coverage switched from BBC2 to BBC1, the figure rose to just 2.7million. And the peak audience, which came when Madonna sang at Wembley, was a dismal 4.5million. Three times as many viewers saw the Princess Diana tribute on the same channel six days before. Two years ago, Live 8 drew a peak television audience of 9.6million while Live Aid notched 10million in 1985....
Summer holidays - rodeo vs. regular people
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter--
For two decades, when summer arrived with its major holidays on both ends and the Fourth of July in the middle, never once did I plan for a picnic, a vacation or a backyard barbeque.
Summer meant rodeo season. It meant spending hours on the phone getting entered in the rodeos, thousands of miles of driving and dragging in Sunday night to be back to work on Monday.
In the middle of that, my rodeo friends and I often discussed our ponderings of what regular people did on the Fourth of July.
While we were mucking around in the mud after a summer downpour at the rodeo grounds, washing off the barrel horse's leg gear with the nearest water hose and hoping it would dry before it was time to compete again, regular people were, no doubt, sitting on a backyard deck eating grilled hunks of meat and laughing over memories of trips to Cancun.
That same water hose washed down children, dogs, horses and muddy cowboy boots.
It usually was attached to a hydrant accessible only by mucking through a standing lake of water in the corral shared by the rodeo bucking bulls.
They watched you slip, slide and likely fall, in your attempt to hurry, just in case they were in a bad mood.
While we were driving all night from one night rodeo to get to another that started in the afternoon on the other side of the state, regular people were slumbering soundly in their beds in a five-star hotel anticipating the next day's round of golf at a seaside resort.
While we spent the weekend trying to pass for civilized beings despite being rumpled, tired and nourished only by two-day old cold burritos from the cooler, regular people planned massive food get-togethers with friends and relatives somewhere near a swimming pool.
Get-togethers for the rodeo crowd were at the gas stations on the road to the next rodeo and perhaps some short conversation at the hamburger stand at the rodeo grounds.
Ranching offers about the same version of the holidays. It is not uncommon to have a cattle-working scheduled on a holiday because you know everyone will be available. The neighboring ranchers don't vacation on holidays either.
My life after rodeo resembled rodeo life so much I didn't ever get a chance to see how "normal" people live. I moved right from arena dirt to corral dirt and 5 a.m. starts - not to drive to a rodeo but to drive to the pasture.
Earlier this spring a friend of mine was so excited. She was invited to a "Wildflower Party."
Completely charmed by the idea she said the invitation claimed a "celebration of Texas' bountiful and beautiful wildflower display and would include cocktails, dinner and dancing to a live band."
What was most intriguing about the invitation was that for the first time in very long time in her life, it did not include instructions to bring a shod horse and be there by 5 a.m. for breakfast.
She said she could only conclude that the hosts either had no faith in her cowboying abilities or had already shipped their cattle.
While I am sure there is a certain amount of romanticizing of reality when I think everyone spends their holidays sitting on a beach, sailing boats or napping in the shade of a well-manicured yard, I probably won't ever really know.
I still look for some arena dirt, hot sun and miserable weather for my holidays. But now I use the events as part of my work through the use of my pen and camera.
It really makes more sense than me paying entry fees to spend 18 seconds in the spotlight.
For a look into rural America at its best, see a rodeo this summer. And remember, while they may not always look like it, rodeo cowboys are regular people, too.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter--
For two decades, when summer arrived with its major holidays on both ends and the Fourth of July in the middle, never once did I plan for a picnic, a vacation or a backyard barbeque.
Summer meant rodeo season. It meant spending hours on the phone getting entered in the rodeos, thousands of miles of driving and dragging in Sunday night to be back to work on Monday.
In the middle of that, my rodeo friends and I often discussed our ponderings of what regular people did on the Fourth of July.
While we were mucking around in the mud after a summer downpour at the rodeo grounds, washing off the barrel horse's leg gear with the nearest water hose and hoping it would dry before it was time to compete again, regular people were, no doubt, sitting on a backyard deck eating grilled hunks of meat and laughing over memories of trips to Cancun.
That same water hose washed down children, dogs, horses and muddy cowboy boots.
It usually was attached to a hydrant accessible only by mucking through a standing lake of water in the corral shared by the rodeo bucking bulls.
They watched you slip, slide and likely fall, in your attempt to hurry, just in case they were in a bad mood.
While we were driving all night from one night rodeo to get to another that started in the afternoon on the other side of the state, regular people were slumbering soundly in their beds in a five-star hotel anticipating the next day's round of golf at a seaside resort.
While we spent the weekend trying to pass for civilized beings despite being rumpled, tired and nourished only by two-day old cold burritos from the cooler, regular people planned massive food get-togethers with friends and relatives somewhere near a swimming pool.
Get-togethers for the rodeo crowd were at the gas stations on the road to the next rodeo and perhaps some short conversation at the hamburger stand at the rodeo grounds.
Ranching offers about the same version of the holidays. It is not uncommon to have a cattle-working scheduled on a holiday because you know everyone will be available. The neighboring ranchers don't vacation on holidays either.
My life after rodeo resembled rodeo life so much I didn't ever get a chance to see how "normal" people live. I moved right from arena dirt to corral dirt and 5 a.m. starts - not to drive to a rodeo but to drive to the pasture.
Earlier this spring a friend of mine was so excited. She was invited to a "Wildflower Party."
Completely charmed by the idea she said the invitation claimed a "celebration of Texas' bountiful and beautiful wildflower display and would include cocktails, dinner and dancing to a live band."
What was most intriguing about the invitation was that for the first time in very long time in her life, it did not include instructions to bring a shod horse and be there by 5 a.m. for breakfast.
She said she could only conclude that the hosts either had no faith in her cowboying abilities or had already shipped their cattle.
While I am sure there is a certain amount of romanticizing of reality when I think everyone spends their holidays sitting on a beach, sailing boats or napping in the shade of a well-manicured yard, I probably won't ever really know.
I still look for some arena dirt, hot sun and miserable weather for my holidays. But now I use the events as part of my work through the use of my pen and camera.
It really makes more sense than me paying entry fees to spend 18 seconds in the spotlight.
For a look into rural America at its best, see a rodeo this summer. And remember, while they may not always look like it, rodeo cowboys are regular people, too.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
FLE
Employers feel heat on immigration Arizona leads the nation in population growth. More illegal immigrants cross its border than any other in the United States. Now, in an apparent backlash to those trends, the state is leading the charge to halt illegal immigration by cracking down on employers. Its new law effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty. A business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license. The new law "takes the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers," says Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who signed the measure into law late Monday. She said she decided to sign the bill because "Congress has failed miserably." This get-tough attitude with businesses is growing across the US. As of April, 40 other states had introduced 199 bills related to employment of undocumented workers – the top subject of immigration-related legislation in the states, according to a report for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Although Arizona's new law is apparently the harshest so far, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, and West Virginia are still in the process of enacting legislation to force employers to verify their workers' legal status, cautions Dirk Hegen, an expert on immigration policy at NCSL. Now that federal immigration reform has stalled in Congress, more states are likely to act, he adds....
Residency Rules May Tighten in Pr. William Prince William County is moving to enact what legal specialists say are some of the toughest measures in the nation targeting illegal immigrants, including a provision that would direct police to check the residency status of anyone detained for breaking the law -- whether shoplifting, speeding or riding a bicycle without a helmet. The measures would also compel county schools and agencies -- including libraries, medical clinics, swimming pools and summer camps -- to verify the immigration status of anyone who wants to use services in Virginia's second-largest county. Courts have upheld the right of undocumented immigrants to a public education, raising the possibility of a legal challenge. Although similar efforts to create inhospitable conditions for illegal immigrants have been attempted recently in Hazleton, Pa., Farmers Branch, Tex., and Valley Park, Mo., the Prince William resolution appears to be unique, specialists say. And with federal immigration reform stalled in Congress, officials across the country are increasingly likely to experiment with restrictions that test legal boundaries and push for a greater role for local police in immigration enforcement....
After Libby, Bush pushed to pardon border agents U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who launched his bid for the Republican nomination for president after he announced no one else was addressing the issue of border security adequately, is calling on President Bush to pardon two former U.S. Border Patrol agents jailed for pursuing and shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler. Tancredo noted the presidential commutation this week of the 30-month prison term given to former vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of making false statements about the release of the name of an undercover CIA operative. "I believe the president should take it a step further and fully pardon Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean," Tancredo said. "The 11 and 12 year sentences they received were grossly unfair and a result of an overzealous prosecutor." He noted that both of the agents are "at risk of violent attacks" while in prison, where they've essentially been relegated to isolation because of their former status as law enforcement officers. "In fact, Mr. Ramos has already been brutally assaulted by violent criminals inside his cell," Tancredo said. "This not only takes a toll on them, but their families as well."....
OSHA Visits Wonderland Published to cricket-chirping silence in the Federal Register on April 13, 2007 was a rule proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to govern the manufacture, transport, and distribution of explosives. The Alice-in-Wonderland aspect is that the rule includes small arms ammunition and reloading components like smokeless propellant and small arms primers in its definition of “explosives.” If the rule were implemented as written, it would effectively eliminate the manufacture, transport, wholesaling and retailing of ammunition in the United States. You read that correctly. For years anti-private-gun-ownership zealots have wished that another head of the federal regulatory hydra, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, would “ban guns” as articles too dangerous for mere civilian mortals to handle or own. Apparently they are getting their wish, instead, from OSHA under the notion that firearm ammunition cartridges are so unstable and explosive that anyone storing or selling them would have to insure (by search if necessary) that no one carrying matches, a lighter, or any other source of flame or sparks approached within 50 feet in all directions. This is but one of several requirements that would make it impossible to make or sell ammunition. Anyone who shoots firearms or, especially, reloads firearm ammunition knows that ammunition and its components are not remotely similar to explosives. Ammunition cartridges are practically impossible to set off without basically crushing them with a hammer or cooking them at a relatively high temperature. Even then, cartridges that are so "cooked" don’t fire the bullet or "explode;' the brass cartridge case simply ruptures. The proposed rule would have us believe that shoppers at Wal-mart routinely set off chain-reaction explosions at the gun counter through negligent use of their Zippos, and that UPS trucks carrying ammunition are blowing up on every highway overpass, killing their drivers....
FBI: Suicide Bombs a Big Concern Suicide bombers have not hit the United States since the 9/11 terrorist hijacking attacks, but they remain a constant concern because of their prevalence around the globe and determination to die for their causes, according to the FBI's chief of counterterrorism. He does not believe America is overflowing with homegrown terrorists, but Joseph Billy said "a significant number" of attacks have been thwarted since airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania farm field on Sept. 11, 2001. While declining to divulge the nature of the averted plots, Billy credited intelligence that led to either fortified security around potential targets or identification of suspected terrorists. Authorities recently stopped homegrown plots targeting the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey and a jet fuel pipeline at New York's Kennedy International Airport....
U.S. appeals court orders dismissal of domestic spying suit A U.S. appeals court ordered the dismissal Friday of a lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The ruling marks a legal victory for Bush, who last month suffered a pair of court defeats related to his anti-terror efforts. Those rulings barred the administration from locking up civilians indefinitely as enemy combatants, and another blocking the prosecution of two Guantanamo detainees. The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati vacated a 2006 order by a federal judge in Detroit, who found that the post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity violated constitutional rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers. U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, one of the two Republican appointees who ruled against the plaintiffs, said they failed to show they were subject to the surveillance....
Katrina fraud swamps system Federal agents investigating widespread fraud after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005 are sifting through more than 11,000 potential cases, a backlog that could take years to resolve. Authorities have fielded so many reports of people cheating aid programs, swindling contracts and scamming charities after the hurricanes that Homeland Security inspectors, who typically police disaster aid scams, have been "swamped," says David Dugas, the U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita triggered more than $7 billion in disaster aid to Gulf Coast households, plus billions more in government contracts and rebuilding projects. Allegations of fraud have accompanied that assistance, and prosecutors have vowed zero tolerance for people who tried to cheat the government. About 700 people have been charged....
Unholy Alliance At the recent National Sheriff’s Association convention in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, the triad of military technology, corporate manufacturing and law enforcement symbolized in RoboCop’s Ed-209 was more than just fiction. Besides six days of seminars on everything from in-custody deaths to character building, the annual gathering of sheriffs also acts as a marketplace for law-enforcement gadgetry. Everything was on offer in the exhibition hall: tracking devices, facial-recognition technology, communication networks, paddy wagons, riot gear, surveillance equipment and guns—lots of guns. But most conspicuous were the numerous permutations of America’s military machine—all at the disposal of the 6,000-plus sheriffs on hand. For example, Chris Kincaid, a senior consultant with the Department of Defense’s Technology Transfer Program, was present to aid law enforcement agencies with what he calls “technological transfer.” The federal program was set up in 2002 to aid the transfer of technology and equipment from the military to law enforcement. While much of the transferred equipment—such as medical supplies—is mundane, some of the items passed on to police by the DOD are much more militaristic. For example, 26 armored personnel carriers on loan in South America were returned to the U.S. military and sold to police departments across the country for use by their SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, Kincaid says. This program, Kincaid says, continues what began in 1994 with the National Defense Authorization Act. The act made huge amounts of mothballed, Cold War military supplies available to local law enforcement, ostensibly for the war on drugs....
Our Militarized Police Departments Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today. I’m here to talk about police militarization, a troubling trend that’s been on the rise in America’s police departments over the last 25 years. Militarization is a broad term that refers to using military-style weapons, tactics, training, uniforms, and even heavy equipment by civilian police departments. It’s a troubling trend because the military has a very different and distinct role than our domestic peace officers. The military’s job is to annihilate a foreign enemy. The police are supposed to protect us while upholding our constitutional rights. It’s dangerous to conflate the two. But that’s exactly what we’re doing. Since the late 1980s, Mr. Chairman, thanks to acts passed by the U.S. Congress, millions of pieces of surplus military equipment have been given to local police departments across the country. We’re not talking just about computers and office equipment. Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, and all manner of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield is now being used on American streets, against American citizens. Academic criminologists credit these transfers with the dramatic rise in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century....
Employers feel heat on immigration Arizona leads the nation in population growth. More illegal immigrants cross its border than any other in the United States. Now, in an apparent backlash to those trends, the state is leading the charge to halt illegal immigration by cracking down on employers. Its new law effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty. A business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license. The new law "takes the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers," says Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who signed the measure into law late Monday. She said she decided to sign the bill because "Congress has failed miserably." This get-tough attitude with businesses is growing across the US. As of April, 40 other states had introduced 199 bills related to employment of undocumented workers – the top subject of immigration-related legislation in the states, according to a report for the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Although Arizona's new law is apparently the harshest so far, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, and West Virginia are still in the process of enacting legislation to force employers to verify their workers' legal status, cautions Dirk Hegen, an expert on immigration policy at NCSL. Now that federal immigration reform has stalled in Congress, more states are likely to act, he adds....
Residency Rules May Tighten in Pr. William Prince William County is moving to enact what legal specialists say are some of the toughest measures in the nation targeting illegal immigrants, including a provision that would direct police to check the residency status of anyone detained for breaking the law -- whether shoplifting, speeding or riding a bicycle without a helmet. The measures would also compel county schools and agencies -- including libraries, medical clinics, swimming pools and summer camps -- to verify the immigration status of anyone who wants to use services in Virginia's second-largest county. Courts have upheld the right of undocumented immigrants to a public education, raising the possibility of a legal challenge. Although similar efforts to create inhospitable conditions for illegal immigrants have been attempted recently in Hazleton, Pa., Farmers Branch, Tex., and Valley Park, Mo., the Prince William resolution appears to be unique, specialists say. And with federal immigration reform stalled in Congress, officials across the country are increasingly likely to experiment with restrictions that test legal boundaries and push for a greater role for local police in immigration enforcement....
After Libby, Bush pushed to pardon border agents U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who launched his bid for the Republican nomination for president after he announced no one else was addressing the issue of border security adequately, is calling on President Bush to pardon two former U.S. Border Patrol agents jailed for pursuing and shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler. Tancredo noted the presidential commutation this week of the 30-month prison term given to former vice presidential aide "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of making false statements about the release of the name of an undercover CIA operative. "I believe the president should take it a step further and fully pardon Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean," Tancredo said. "The 11 and 12 year sentences they received were grossly unfair and a result of an overzealous prosecutor." He noted that both of the agents are "at risk of violent attacks" while in prison, where they've essentially been relegated to isolation because of their former status as law enforcement officers. "In fact, Mr. Ramos has already been brutally assaulted by violent criminals inside his cell," Tancredo said. "This not only takes a toll on them, but their families as well."....
OSHA Visits Wonderland Published to cricket-chirping silence in the Federal Register on April 13, 2007 was a rule proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to govern the manufacture, transport, and distribution of explosives. The Alice-in-Wonderland aspect is that the rule includes small arms ammunition and reloading components like smokeless propellant and small arms primers in its definition of “explosives.” If the rule were implemented as written, it would effectively eliminate the manufacture, transport, wholesaling and retailing of ammunition in the United States. You read that correctly. For years anti-private-gun-ownership zealots have wished that another head of the federal regulatory hydra, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, would “ban guns” as articles too dangerous for mere civilian mortals to handle or own. Apparently they are getting their wish, instead, from OSHA under the notion that firearm ammunition cartridges are so unstable and explosive that anyone storing or selling them would have to insure (by search if necessary) that no one carrying matches, a lighter, or any other source of flame or sparks approached within 50 feet in all directions. This is but one of several requirements that would make it impossible to make or sell ammunition. Anyone who shoots firearms or, especially, reloads firearm ammunition knows that ammunition and its components are not remotely similar to explosives. Ammunition cartridges are practically impossible to set off without basically crushing them with a hammer or cooking them at a relatively high temperature. Even then, cartridges that are so "cooked" don’t fire the bullet or "explode;' the brass cartridge case simply ruptures. The proposed rule would have us believe that shoppers at Wal-mart routinely set off chain-reaction explosions at the gun counter through negligent use of their Zippos, and that UPS trucks carrying ammunition are blowing up on every highway overpass, killing their drivers....
FBI: Suicide Bombs a Big Concern Suicide bombers have not hit the United States since the 9/11 terrorist hijacking attacks, but they remain a constant concern because of their prevalence around the globe and determination to die for their causes, according to the FBI's chief of counterterrorism. He does not believe America is overflowing with homegrown terrorists, but Joseph Billy said "a significant number" of attacks have been thwarted since airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania farm field on Sept. 11, 2001. While declining to divulge the nature of the averted plots, Billy credited intelligence that led to either fortified security around potential targets or identification of suspected terrorists. Authorities recently stopped homegrown plots targeting the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey and a jet fuel pipeline at New York's Kennedy International Airport....
U.S. appeals court orders dismissal of domestic spying suit A U.S. appeals court ordered the dismissal Friday of a lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The ruling marks a legal victory for Bush, who last month suffered a pair of court defeats related to his anti-terror efforts. Those rulings barred the administration from locking up civilians indefinitely as enemy combatants, and another blocking the prosecution of two Guantanamo detainees. The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Cincinnati vacated a 2006 order by a federal judge in Detroit, who found that the post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity violated constitutional rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers. U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, one of the two Republican appointees who ruled against the plaintiffs, said they failed to show they were subject to the surveillance....
Katrina fraud swamps system Federal agents investigating widespread fraud after the Gulf Coast hurricanes in 2005 are sifting through more than 11,000 potential cases, a backlog that could take years to resolve. Authorities have fielded so many reports of people cheating aid programs, swindling contracts and scamming charities after the hurricanes that Homeland Security inspectors, who typically police disaster aid scams, have been "swamped," says David Dugas, the U.S. attorney in Baton Rouge. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita triggered more than $7 billion in disaster aid to Gulf Coast households, plus billions more in government contracts and rebuilding projects. Allegations of fraud have accompanied that assistance, and prosecutors have vowed zero tolerance for people who tried to cheat the government. About 700 people have been charged....
Unholy Alliance At the recent National Sheriff’s Association convention in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, the triad of military technology, corporate manufacturing and law enforcement symbolized in RoboCop’s Ed-209 was more than just fiction. Besides six days of seminars on everything from in-custody deaths to character building, the annual gathering of sheriffs also acts as a marketplace for law-enforcement gadgetry. Everything was on offer in the exhibition hall: tracking devices, facial-recognition technology, communication networks, paddy wagons, riot gear, surveillance equipment and guns—lots of guns. But most conspicuous were the numerous permutations of America’s military machine—all at the disposal of the 6,000-plus sheriffs on hand. For example, Chris Kincaid, a senior consultant with the Department of Defense’s Technology Transfer Program, was present to aid law enforcement agencies with what he calls “technological transfer.” The federal program was set up in 2002 to aid the transfer of technology and equipment from the military to law enforcement. While much of the transferred equipment—such as medical supplies—is mundane, some of the items passed on to police by the DOD are much more militaristic. For example, 26 armored personnel carriers on loan in South America were returned to the U.S. military and sold to police departments across the country for use by their SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams, Kincaid says. This program, Kincaid says, continues what began in 1994 with the National Defense Authorization Act. The act made huge amounts of mothballed, Cold War military supplies available to local law enforcement, ostensibly for the war on drugs....
Our Militarized Police Departments Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today. I’m here to talk about police militarization, a troubling trend that’s been on the rise in America’s police departments over the last 25 years. Militarization is a broad term that refers to using military-style weapons, tactics, training, uniforms, and even heavy equipment by civilian police departments. It’s a troubling trend because the military has a very different and distinct role than our domestic peace officers. The military’s job is to annihilate a foreign enemy. The police are supposed to protect us while upholding our constitutional rights. It’s dangerous to conflate the two. But that’s exactly what we’re doing. Since the late 1980s, Mr. Chairman, thanks to acts passed by the U.S. Congress, millions of pieces of surplus military equipment have been given to local police departments across the country. We’re not talking just about computers and office equipment. Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, and all manner of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield is now being used on American streets, against American citizens. Academic criminologists credit these transfers with the dramatic rise in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century....
Friday, July 06, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer In 1981 researchers removed a long tube of ice from the center of a glacier in southern Greenland at a site known as Dye 3. More than a mile (two kilometers) long, the deep end of the core sample had been crushed by the pressure of the ice above it and sullied by contact with rock and soil. By destroying the pattern of annual layers, this contamination seemingly made it impossible to assess the region's ancient climate. But DNA extracted from the previously ignored dirty bottom has revealed that Greenland was not only green, it boasted boreal forests like those found in Canada and Scandinavia today. Biologist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and an international team of colleagues discovered DNA from alder, spruce, pine and yew trees at the glacier's base as well as insects ranging from butterflies to spiders. This is the "first evidence for a forested southern Greenland," Willerslev says. And based on the tree species found, Greenland must have been warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in summer and never colder than one degree F (–17 degrees C) in winter, much warmer than present conditions....
Feds shoot female Mexican gray wolf for killing cattle The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday shot a female Mexican wolf in Catron County, N.M. less than a week after cattle killings that subjected the wolf to a three strikes rule. The program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves into the Southwest in an area straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border requires the permanent removal of any wolf linked to three livestock killings a year - either by trapping and keeping it in captivity or by shooting it. The wolf, designated AF924 for alpha female 924, had killed two head of livestock before being relocated to Catron County on April 25. The day after her release, county officials demanded she be removed before she killed another cow. Fish and Wildlife said at the time it had no reason to remove her under the program's three-strikes rule. The agency issued a lethal order for the wolf Tuesday night after the weekend killings of a cow and calf. Catron County Manager Bill Aymar said Thursday he's not a fan of the wolf program - "I couldn't be with seeing all that happens down here" - but it was a shame Fish and Wildlife killed the wolf. "If they had actually acted upon our first request and removed that wolf, that wolf might still be alive," he said....
Black-footed ferrets return to Wind Cave park Wind Cave National Park officials are celebrating the release this week of seven endangered black-footed ferrets into the 28,000-acre federal preserve. "It's been thirty years since the last sighting of a black-footed ferret in Wind Cave National Park," acting park superintendent Rick Mossman said in a prepared statement. "We hope this is the start of a self-sustaining population that will restore a missing link to our mixed-grass ecosystem." But ranchers who live near Wind Cave fear that the return of the ferrets could bring a tangle of federal restrictions if the ferrets migrate to adjoining private land. Leonard Wood, who ranches west of the park, said Thursday that he was surprised to learn that ferrets had already been released in Wind Cave. "We thought we had them shut down on that until they did some more work on their impact study," Wood said. "But I guess they're going to do what they're going to do." Like other ranchers, Wood worries that black-footed ferrets will leave park land and end up on private ranches or even subdivisions nearby, bringing with them headaches for private-property owners....
After Lobbying, Wetlands Rules Are Narrowed After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams. The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway. But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups said were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected....
Gas Drillers need permit for water In a ruling with potentially statewide impacts, a 6th Judicial District water judge ruled Monday that coal-bed methane gas producers are no better than other water users: They need a water-well permit the same as farmers and ranchers. The ruling Monday by Judge Gregory Lyman upheld the allegations of Jim and Terry Fitzgerald of La Plata County and Bill and Beth Vance of Archluleta County. If the ruling is upheld, it would affect coal-bed methane drillers statewide, the plaintiffs' attorney, Sarah A. Klahn, said. "The state engineer is responsible for wells statewide, not just in the San Juan Basin," Klahn said. The Fitzgeralds, who raise cattle and tomatoes, and the Vances, who raise hay, sued the State Engineer's Office in 2005. They alleged that the chemical-laced water that is injected under pressure to separate gas from a coal formation and then is extracted along with subterranean water depletes the supply of irrigation water and could result in dry wells or contaminated ground water. In response, the state engineer said the agency has no jurisdiction in the matter, alleging that water extracted from the ground to free methane gas from a coal seam is "produced" water and is not governed by the Division of Water Resources....
National forests short staffed for fires Weeks into a wildfire season that has already burned parts of Catalina Island, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, swaths of California's flammable national forests are some days protected by nothing more than luck. On any given day, about 40 of 271 U.S. Forest Service engines remain in firehouses rather than on patrol, idled by a shortage of supervisors. Meanwhile, the combined effects of sustained drought, last winter's freeze and a searing heat wave has dramatically raised fire danger levels this season. An exodus of highly trained mid- and upper-level firefighters from the career ranks of the federal agency is at least partly to blame for the fact that 13 percent of the service's 3,600 full-time positions in California are vacant. Nationally, fire planners from all five federal agencies that handle firefighting are dealing with the departure of a generation of top managers hired during a firefighting expansion in the late 1970s. That has left behind too few career firefighters qualified to run engines, oversee forests or command large fire operations....
No permit for us: Peace group sues Forest Service A longtime member of the Rainbow Family has sued the U.S. Forest Service, saying the counterculture group shouldn't have to obtain a permit for its annual gatherings. The U.S. District Court lawsuit filed by Tony Nenninger, 49, a third-year law student at the University of Missouri at Columbia, challenges a Forest Service requirement that a group of 75 or more that gathers on Forest Service land must obtain a special-use permit. The Rainbow Family is holding its annual peace gathering in the Ozark National Forest in Newton County this year. Officials expect up to 10,000 people to attend the event. The Rainbow Family has long refused to sign the permits, saying they are not an organized group, the lawsuit said. Nenninger is ''a practitioner of a sincerely held religious belief that autonomous intuition of what good samaritan deeds do enhances miraculous karmic archangel protection for practitioners of peaceful voluntary cooperation within this life, and for perpetual evolution of religious freedom from institutional and governmental control beyond our individual lifetimes,'' the lawsuit said....
Wide four-wheelers pose problem A new type of four-wheeled vehicle, known as an off-highway or utility vehicle, is showing up on Montana's national forests, but the Forest Service says it's illegal on national forest trails. The machine looks like a golf cart with a pickup bed and carries two or more passengers who sit side by side, instead of front and back. That tends to make the vehicles wider than 50 inches, which is what the Forest Service objects to. "If they're wider than 50 inches and designed with side-by-side seating, then they're not legal on trails in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest," said Bruce Ramsey, supervisor of the 3.3 million-acre national forest....
Officials want data on pollution threat A project to divert Rio Grande surface water for use in the Santa Fe area is designed to handle possible contaminants that drain into the river from Los Alamos National Laboratory, planners said Thursday. But the city-county project’s manager said the lab should still be responsible for keeping nuclear pollution out of the river. Elected officials overseeing the major water-supply expansion project on Thursday called for a detailed report on the issue. The Buckman Direct Diversion will include a river structure and a treatment plant. The goal is to exploit water rights acquired through a federal project that imports flows from the Colorado River basin into the Rio Grande....
Bike Access to Continental Divide Trail Threatened The 3,100-mile Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDNST) runs the spine of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico, and is predominately open to bikes in non-Wilderness areas. However, bike access to the country's longest shared-use trail is now in jeopardy. The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) reports that the Forest Service just released a draft rule that would encourage land managers to kick bikes off existing routes, and not include bicycling on future segments. The Forest Service suggests prohibiting mountain biking where our use is currently allowed on the CDNST. The proposed policy also singles out bicycling as an undesirable use that should be subject to additional scrutiny and restrictions. These include a burden of proof that bicycling "would not substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of the CDNST," which the Forest Service deems to be hiking and horse travel. IMBA believes that the Forest Service directive should not discriminate against bicycling on the CDNST. This is our chance to ask the Forest Service to include bicycling as a central focus and purpose for the trail....
So, how dirty is the Snake River? An ambitious round of water sampling this summer in the Snake River Basin will help lay the groundwork for a comprehensive watershed plan. One key goal is treating polluted drainage from the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine, near Peru Creek, where toxic zinc, cadmium and other dissolved metals are leaching into the water. Combined with pollution from other sources and naturally occurring minerals in the drainage, concentrations of metals in the Snake are so high that fish can’t survive. The sampling this summer includes EPA tests, as well as more work by state health and water quality officials, while the U.S. Forest Service will take a close look at the status of aquatic insects, the macro invertebrates that form the base of the food chain. Among the agencies doing tests is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which has been sampling the Snake and its tributaries for three years as part of a larger assessment of the environmental effects of historical mining in Central Colorado....
Colo.: Don't drill in basin State officials want to keep oil and gas development out of the uninhabited 77,000-acre Vermillion Basin near Dinosaur National Monument. In a letter sent this week to the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Department of Natural Resources Director Harris Sherman asks that oil and gas leases not be granted there over the 20-year life of the federal agency's management plan. Sherman's request is part of the state's response to the BLM's revision of the management plan for the Little Snake area that covers much of the northwest corner of Colorado, from the monument to Steamboat Springs. The Vermillion Basin contains about 2 percent of the area's "high potential" oil and gas reserves, according to Sherman's letter sent Monday....
For map junkies — BLM GeoCommunicator Ever wondered where active gas and oil leases are located in your area, or where wind energy could be developed? The Bureau of Land Management has a nifty interactive map viewer, the GeoCommunicator, that shows information on land use and minerals leasing: Some of the authorizations that are available include oil and gas leases/agreements/densities, lease sale parcels, oil shale leases, coal authorizations, geothermal, wind energy, and solar energy. A new Land Status Map Viewer has also been added, which provides land and mineral ownership and use information. This viewer contains information such as U.S. Forest Service boundaries and regulated uses, Federal land title, subsurface mineral estate for Wyoming and New Mexico, and surface management Agency boundaries....
Methane development has big impact on grouse The impact of coal-bed methane development on sage grouse populations in the Powder River Basin is dramatic, according to a recently released study, connoting a gloomy future for the bird if the status quo is maintained. A peer-reviewed study by University of Montana professor Dr. David Naugle and other researchers says that only 38 percent of sage grouse leks, or breeding sites, remained active after coal-bed methane development moved into an area, compared to 84 percent in undeveloped areas. And any leks that do survive within developed areas have 46 percent fewer breeding males than those outside coal-bed methane development. The status quo, as it is practiced in the basin, is 80- to 160-acre spacing for wells. The study says that density is three to six times greater than the level the birds can tolerate. Leks typically remain active when well spacing is greater than 500 acres. The study also noted that seasonal restrictions that ended in the middle of last month, prohibiting surface disturbing activities within two miles of leks and breeding grounds, do not address habitat loss....
Editorial - Examine Cheney's role The House Natural Resources Committee should thoroughly investigate Vice President Dick Cheney's role in the 2002 die-off of more than 75,000 salmon in the Klamath Basin. And it should do so with the same pit-bull tenacity that Cheney has demonstrated time and again in undercutting environmental regulations to further his political and ideological agenda. The committee announced this week that it will conduct hearings on Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management decisions that many believe led to the massive fish kill four years ago. Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California, including Congressman Peter DeFazio, requested the hearings after The Washington Post reported details of Cheney's extensive intervention. In a four-part series, the Post reported that Cheney personally contacted Sue Ellen Wooldridge - the 19th ranking official in the Interior Department and then Secretary Gale Norton's top adviser on the Klamath - about his concerns over the Bureau of Land Management's decision to cut irrigation deliveries to farmers. The BLM cut the water flow to farmers to enforce a finding by federal biologists that the diversions posed an unacceptable risk to endangered salmon and suckerfish....
BLM releases EIS on fuels reduction on western public lands As part of ongoing efforts to combat the spread of invasive and noxious weeds and reduce fire-prone fuels on public lands, the Bureau of Land Management today released its Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) comprehensively analyzing the environmental effects of various methods for treating and managing vegetation. The Final PEIS is available for public review and comment through July 30. The PEIS presents detailed, national-level analysis of the risks of herbicide use to humans and sensitive species, as well as to other resources and activities. A programmatic environmental report (PER) evaluates additional treatment methods to reduce the risk of wildland fire by reducing highly flammable vegetation such as pinyon, juniper, and dead or downed woody materials. The two reports will guide field-level planning and projects using mechanical, manual and biological techniques to meet fuel-reduction goals under the National Fire Plan. Both documents are national in scope and contain supporting analysis and data....
Archaeologists follow trail to 1806 Lewis-Clark camp Archaeologists have uncovered a Nez Perce Indian village believed to be the site where three members of the Lewis and Clark expedition spent time on an ill-fated fishing trip. Historians have speculated for years about the route that Sgt. John Ordway and Pvts. Robert Frazer and Peter Weise took when they were sent to fetch salmon for the expedition in the spring of 1806. The rest of the expedition was camped along the Clearwater River waiting for mountain snows to melt when the three men descended into the lower Salmon River gorge and Hells Canyon. Based on Ordway's journal, historians have suspected the men left Long Camp near Kamiah and climbed a steep ridge to the Camas Prairie before reaching the Nez Perce village on the Salmon River. The men arrived ahead of the spring salmon run, so they headed for another site on the Snake River, guided by Chief Twisted Hair. The men stayed there a few days, trading for salmon at the new site before making the three-day journey back to the main camp....
Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer In 1981 researchers removed a long tube of ice from the center of a glacier in southern Greenland at a site known as Dye 3. More than a mile (two kilometers) long, the deep end of the core sample had been crushed by the pressure of the ice above it and sullied by contact with rock and soil. By destroying the pattern of annual layers, this contamination seemingly made it impossible to assess the region's ancient climate. But DNA extracted from the previously ignored dirty bottom has revealed that Greenland was not only green, it boasted boreal forests like those found in Canada and Scandinavia today. Biologist Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen and an international team of colleagues discovered DNA from alder, spruce, pine and yew trees at the glacier's base as well as insects ranging from butterflies to spiders. This is the "first evidence for a forested southern Greenland," Willerslev says. And based on the tree species found, Greenland must have been warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in summer and never colder than one degree F (–17 degrees C) in winter, much warmer than present conditions....
Feds shoot female Mexican gray wolf for killing cattle The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday shot a female Mexican wolf in Catron County, N.M. less than a week after cattle killings that subjected the wolf to a three strikes rule. The program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves into the Southwest in an area straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border requires the permanent removal of any wolf linked to three livestock killings a year - either by trapping and keeping it in captivity or by shooting it. The wolf, designated AF924 for alpha female 924, had killed two head of livestock before being relocated to Catron County on April 25. The day after her release, county officials demanded she be removed before she killed another cow. Fish and Wildlife said at the time it had no reason to remove her under the program's three-strikes rule. The agency issued a lethal order for the wolf Tuesday night after the weekend killings of a cow and calf. Catron County Manager Bill Aymar said Thursday he's not a fan of the wolf program - "I couldn't be with seeing all that happens down here" - but it was a shame Fish and Wildlife killed the wolf. "If they had actually acted upon our first request and removed that wolf, that wolf might still be alive," he said....
Black-footed ferrets return to Wind Cave park Wind Cave National Park officials are celebrating the release this week of seven endangered black-footed ferrets into the 28,000-acre federal preserve. "It's been thirty years since the last sighting of a black-footed ferret in Wind Cave National Park," acting park superintendent Rick Mossman said in a prepared statement. "We hope this is the start of a self-sustaining population that will restore a missing link to our mixed-grass ecosystem." But ranchers who live near Wind Cave fear that the return of the ferrets could bring a tangle of federal restrictions if the ferrets migrate to adjoining private land. Leonard Wood, who ranches west of the park, said Thursday that he was surprised to learn that ferrets had already been released in Wind Cave. "We thought we had them shut down on that until they did some more work on their impact study," Wood said. "But I guess they're going to do what they're going to do." Like other ranchers, Wood worries that black-footed ferrets will leave park land and end up on private ranches or even subdivisions nearby, bringing with them headaches for private-property owners....
After Lobbying, Wetlands Rules Are Narrowed After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams. The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway. But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups said were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected....
Gas Drillers need permit for water In a ruling with potentially statewide impacts, a 6th Judicial District water judge ruled Monday that coal-bed methane gas producers are no better than other water users: They need a water-well permit the same as farmers and ranchers. The ruling Monday by Judge Gregory Lyman upheld the allegations of Jim and Terry Fitzgerald of La Plata County and Bill and Beth Vance of Archluleta County. If the ruling is upheld, it would affect coal-bed methane drillers statewide, the plaintiffs' attorney, Sarah A. Klahn, said. "The state engineer is responsible for wells statewide, not just in the San Juan Basin," Klahn said. The Fitzgeralds, who raise cattle and tomatoes, and the Vances, who raise hay, sued the State Engineer's Office in 2005. They alleged that the chemical-laced water that is injected under pressure to separate gas from a coal formation and then is extracted along with subterranean water depletes the supply of irrigation water and could result in dry wells or contaminated ground water. In response, the state engineer said the agency has no jurisdiction in the matter, alleging that water extracted from the ground to free methane gas from a coal seam is "produced" water and is not governed by the Division of Water Resources....
National forests short staffed for fires Weeks into a wildfire season that has already burned parts of Catalina Island, Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe, swaths of California's flammable national forests are some days protected by nothing more than luck. On any given day, about 40 of 271 U.S. Forest Service engines remain in firehouses rather than on patrol, idled by a shortage of supervisors. Meanwhile, the combined effects of sustained drought, last winter's freeze and a searing heat wave has dramatically raised fire danger levels this season. An exodus of highly trained mid- and upper-level firefighters from the career ranks of the federal agency is at least partly to blame for the fact that 13 percent of the service's 3,600 full-time positions in California are vacant. Nationally, fire planners from all five federal agencies that handle firefighting are dealing with the departure of a generation of top managers hired during a firefighting expansion in the late 1970s. That has left behind too few career firefighters qualified to run engines, oversee forests or command large fire operations....
No permit for us: Peace group sues Forest Service A longtime member of the Rainbow Family has sued the U.S. Forest Service, saying the counterculture group shouldn't have to obtain a permit for its annual gatherings. The U.S. District Court lawsuit filed by Tony Nenninger, 49, a third-year law student at the University of Missouri at Columbia, challenges a Forest Service requirement that a group of 75 or more that gathers on Forest Service land must obtain a special-use permit. The Rainbow Family is holding its annual peace gathering in the Ozark National Forest in Newton County this year. Officials expect up to 10,000 people to attend the event. The Rainbow Family has long refused to sign the permits, saying they are not an organized group, the lawsuit said. Nenninger is ''a practitioner of a sincerely held religious belief that autonomous intuition of what good samaritan deeds do enhances miraculous karmic archangel protection for practitioners of peaceful voluntary cooperation within this life, and for perpetual evolution of religious freedom from institutional and governmental control beyond our individual lifetimes,'' the lawsuit said....
Wide four-wheelers pose problem A new type of four-wheeled vehicle, known as an off-highway or utility vehicle, is showing up on Montana's national forests, but the Forest Service says it's illegal on national forest trails. The machine looks like a golf cart with a pickup bed and carries two or more passengers who sit side by side, instead of front and back. That tends to make the vehicles wider than 50 inches, which is what the Forest Service objects to. "If they're wider than 50 inches and designed with side-by-side seating, then they're not legal on trails in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest," said Bruce Ramsey, supervisor of the 3.3 million-acre national forest....
Officials want data on pollution threat A project to divert Rio Grande surface water for use in the Santa Fe area is designed to handle possible contaminants that drain into the river from Los Alamos National Laboratory, planners said Thursday. But the city-county project’s manager said the lab should still be responsible for keeping nuclear pollution out of the river. Elected officials overseeing the major water-supply expansion project on Thursday called for a detailed report on the issue. The Buckman Direct Diversion will include a river structure and a treatment plant. The goal is to exploit water rights acquired through a federal project that imports flows from the Colorado River basin into the Rio Grande....
Bike Access to Continental Divide Trail Threatened The 3,100-mile Continental Divide National Scenic Trail (CDNST) runs the spine of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico, and is predominately open to bikes in non-Wilderness areas. However, bike access to the country's longest shared-use trail is now in jeopardy. The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) reports that the Forest Service just released a draft rule that would encourage land managers to kick bikes off existing routes, and not include bicycling on future segments. The Forest Service suggests prohibiting mountain biking where our use is currently allowed on the CDNST. The proposed policy also singles out bicycling as an undesirable use that should be subject to additional scrutiny and restrictions. These include a burden of proof that bicycling "would not substantially interfere with the nature and purposes of the CDNST," which the Forest Service deems to be hiking and horse travel. IMBA believes that the Forest Service directive should not discriminate against bicycling on the CDNST. This is our chance to ask the Forest Service to include bicycling as a central focus and purpose for the trail....
So, how dirty is the Snake River? An ambitious round of water sampling this summer in the Snake River Basin will help lay the groundwork for a comprehensive watershed plan. One key goal is treating polluted drainage from the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine, near Peru Creek, where toxic zinc, cadmium and other dissolved metals are leaching into the water. Combined with pollution from other sources and naturally occurring minerals in the drainage, concentrations of metals in the Snake are so high that fish can’t survive. The sampling this summer includes EPA tests, as well as more work by state health and water quality officials, while the U.S. Forest Service will take a close look at the status of aquatic insects, the macro invertebrates that form the base of the food chain. Among the agencies doing tests is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which has been sampling the Snake and its tributaries for three years as part of a larger assessment of the environmental effects of historical mining in Central Colorado....
Colo.: Don't drill in basin State officials want to keep oil and gas development out of the uninhabited 77,000-acre Vermillion Basin near Dinosaur National Monument. In a letter sent this week to the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado Department of Natural Resources Director Harris Sherman asks that oil and gas leases not be granted there over the 20-year life of the federal agency's management plan. Sherman's request is part of the state's response to the BLM's revision of the management plan for the Little Snake area that covers much of the northwest corner of Colorado, from the monument to Steamboat Springs. The Vermillion Basin contains about 2 percent of the area's "high potential" oil and gas reserves, according to Sherman's letter sent Monday....
For map junkies — BLM GeoCommunicator Ever wondered where active gas and oil leases are located in your area, or where wind energy could be developed? The Bureau of Land Management has a nifty interactive map viewer, the GeoCommunicator, that shows information on land use and minerals leasing: Some of the authorizations that are available include oil and gas leases/agreements/densities, lease sale parcels, oil shale leases, coal authorizations, geothermal, wind energy, and solar energy. A new Land Status Map Viewer has also been added, which provides land and mineral ownership and use information. This viewer contains information such as U.S. Forest Service boundaries and regulated uses, Federal land title, subsurface mineral estate for Wyoming and New Mexico, and surface management Agency boundaries....
Methane development has big impact on grouse The impact of coal-bed methane development on sage grouse populations in the Powder River Basin is dramatic, according to a recently released study, connoting a gloomy future for the bird if the status quo is maintained. A peer-reviewed study by University of Montana professor Dr. David Naugle and other researchers says that only 38 percent of sage grouse leks, or breeding sites, remained active after coal-bed methane development moved into an area, compared to 84 percent in undeveloped areas. And any leks that do survive within developed areas have 46 percent fewer breeding males than those outside coal-bed methane development. The status quo, as it is practiced in the basin, is 80- to 160-acre spacing for wells. The study says that density is three to six times greater than the level the birds can tolerate. Leks typically remain active when well spacing is greater than 500 acres. The study also noted that seasonal restrictions that ended in the middle of last month, prohibiting surface disturbing activities within two miles of leks and breeding grounds, do not address habitat loss....
Editorial - Examine Cheney's role The House Natural Resources Committee should thoroughly investigate Vice President Dick Cheney's role in the 2002 die-off of more than 75,000 salmon in the Klamath Basin. And it should do so with the same pit-bull tenacity that Cheney has demonstrated time and again in undercutting environmental regulations to further his political and ideological agenda. The committee announced this week that it will conduct hearings on Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management decisions that many believe led to the massive fish kill four years ago. Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California, including Congressman Peter DeFazio, requested the hearings after The Washington Post reported details of Cheney's extensive intervention. In a four-part series, the Post reported that Cheney personally contacted Sue Ellen Wooldridge - the 19th ranking official in the Interior Department and then Secretary Gale Norton's top adviser on the Klamath - about his concerns over the Bureau of Land Management's decision to cut irrigation deliveries to farmers. The BLM cut the water flow to farmers to enforce a finding by federal biologists that the diversions posed an unacceptable risk to endangered salmon and suckerfish....
BLM releases EIS on fuels reduction on western public lands As part of ongoing efforts to combat the spread of invasive and noxious weeds and reduce fire-prone fuels on public lands, the Bureau of Land Management today released its Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) comprehensively analyzing the environmental effects of various methods for treating and managing vegetation. The Final PEIS is available for public review and comment through July 30. The PEIS presents detailed, national-level analysis of the risks of herbicide use to humans and sensitive species, as well as to other resources and activities. A programmatic environmental report (PER) evaluates additional treatment methods to reduce the risk of wildland fire by reducing highly flammable vegetation such as pinyon, juniper, and dead or downed woody materials. The two reports will guide field-level planning and projects using mechanical, manual and biological techniques to meet fuel-reduction goals under the National Fire Plan. Both documents are national in scope and contain supporting analysis and data....
Archaeologists follow trail to 1806 Lewis-Clark camp Archaeologists have uncovered a Nez Perce Indian village believed to be the site where three members of the Lewis and Clark expedition spent time on an ill-fated fishing trip. Historians have speculated for years about the route that Sgt. John Ordway and Pvts. Robert Frazer and Peter Weise took when they were sent to fetch salmon for the expedition in the spring of 1806. The rest of the expedition was camped along the Clearwater River waiting for mountain snows to melt when the three men descended into the lower Salmon River gorge and Hells Canyon. Based on Ordway's journal, historians have suspected the men left Long Camp near Kamiah and climbed a steep ridge to the Camas Prairie before reaching the Nez Perce village on the Salmon River. The men arrived ahead of the spring salmon run, so they headed for another site on the Snake River, guided by Chief Twisted Hair. The men stayed there a few days, trading for salmon at the new site before making the three-day journey back to the main camp....
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