GAO
Environmental Protection: EPA-State Enforcement Partnership Has Improved, but EPA's Oversight Needs Further Enhancement. GAO-07-883, July 31.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-883
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d07883high.pdf
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Opportunities Remain to Improve Oversight and Management of Oil and Gas Activities on National Wildlife Refuges. GAO-07-829R, June 29. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-829R
National Marine Fisheries Service: Improved Economic Analysis and Evaluation Strategies Needed for Proposed Changes to Atlantic Large Whale Protection Plan. GAO-07-881, July 20. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-881
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d07881high.pdf
Thursday, August 09, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Bad-bear surge stirs unease Wildlife officers have killed seven "problem" bears in the past nine days in western Colorado, raising fears for what may come during the animals' late-summer feeding frenzy. "I'm up to my eyeballs in bears," said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "In any given summer, you're going to have isolated pockets of bear activity," Hampton said. "This year, it seems like the pockets aren't so isolated." Facing a diminished supply of natural food and pushed by encroachment from development, the black bears have learned to associate human habitation with food, breaking into homes and campsites, digging through garbage and raiding bird feeders. The toll includes a 425-pound bear that was trapped and destroyed after smashing through doors of houses in Aspen. "That was a spectacular bear," Hampton said. "He had to have been around for a long time. But he was literally knocking over doors. People weren't safe in their homes. There was no choice in this one." At least three other bears have been destroyed in the southwestern part of the state in the past month, said division spokesman Joe Lewandowski....
Utah Coal Area, a Region Apart, Knows Well the Perils of Mining Coal is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when people think about Utah, and there is good reason for that. Through a fluke of geology and deep time, much of Utah’s coal was concentrated in one spot, here in the red rock country of the state’s high east-central plateau, where bituminous coal is king. And the same forces then pushed it down fiercely into the earth. Some of the deepest coal mines in the nation are here, including one just down the road where miners are pushing toward 3,000 feet beneath the surface. The coal, in turn, shaped the region’s ethnicity, culture and politics. Greeks and Italians arrived to work as miners in the early 20th century and stayed on to build a distinctive rural enclave among the Mormon farmers. Later, the political jousting of mine owners and workers forged a tradition of voting for Democrats in an overwhelmingly Republican part of the nation. It is at moments like this, people here say, that the culture of the Utah mine country comes out in full flower. By any measure, they say, the six men who were trapped early Monday when part of the Crandall Canyon Mine here in Huntington spectacularly collapsed were more than just local working men who got unlucky....
Land access fight heats up A landowner disputes the state's assertion that it can appoint energy companies to act as "agents of the state" in order to cross his private surface to access state land in the absence of an easement. Rancher Kenny Clabaugh has not denied the state access to a state parcel within his ranching operation, but he has denied access to coal-bed methane companies that do not have an easement agreement with him. It's the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Clabaugh and the state. State regulatory agencies permitted a number of coal-bed methane water discharges upstream from Clabaugh without considering the cumulative impact of the volumes of water in the drainage. The water has flooded large portions of low-lying grazing pastures on Clabaugh's ranch, severely degrading the ranch's agricultural use. Clabaugh has asked to state to either reduce the flow of coal-bed methane water coming down the drainage, or pipe it across his property. The state wants to order construction of a ditch through the pasture instead....
Carbon cowboys Managed correctly, though, farming and ranching is usually a carbon-neutral industry. Some agricultural operations can even provide a "carbon sink," which means managing soil and plants so that they take in more carbon dioxide than they emit. Storing, or "sequestering," CO2 is a new market, and one that could prove profitable for agriculture. Some farmers and ranchers in Wyoming figure they might earn a few extra thousand dollars a year by selling their carbon offsets to coal-fired utilities and others who emit greenhouse gases. Browder, for one, is using more off-creek watering and busily dividing large pastures into smaller ones so he can intensify his existing rotational grazing program -- all practices proven to store more carbon than is emitted. Within the next year, he could be enrolled with a group of farmers and ranchers who sell carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. "Everything we do to sequester (carbon) is good for wildlife, good for watersheds -- all down the line," Browder said....
Idaho senator opposes river protection bill A bill introduced by the late Sen. Craig Thomas to protect portions of the Snake River headwaters under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is drawing opposition from Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Craig, who sits on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said he is concerned the designation of 42 miles of the Snake River between Jackson Lake Dam and Palisades Reservoir would harm water rights held by Idaho farmers. "That water is used to irrigate farmland in southeast Idaho," Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said Thursday. "His concern is that with the designation it wouldn't be managed for irrigators." Irrigators in Idaho hold the rights to about 96 percent of the water in Jackson Lake. Protected status does not affect private-property rights and uses or water rights, supporters of the bill stressed. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, who was appointed to temporarily replace Thomas, also does not believe the bill affects any existing water rights on the river, his press secretary Cameron Hardy said....
Sheep rancher seeks peace with wolves It's about as thickly populated by wolves as anywhere in the region, but environmentally conscious sheep producer Lava Lake Land & Livestock is developing a track record of minimal conflicts in and around the rugged Boulder Mountains of Central Idaho. The methods are varied, but the gist remains. The huge Hailey-based sheep producer has not lost sheep to wolves since 2005 when 25 sheep and a guard dog were killed in two consecutive nights. The sheep were killed northwest of Ketchum on the North Fork of the Big Lost River in the eastern Boulder Mountains. Lava Lake President Mike Stevens said the developing track record is, in part, due to preventative measures the company is taking to minimize the number of dead sheep and, therefore, dead wolves. "It's an issue of how can we coexist," he said....
Salazar: I can't stop Army expansion in Pinon Canyon Torn between a loyalty to the ranching community in which he was raised and national security needs, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said Tuesday that he could not say no to the Army’s plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Salazar met with commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Bent and Otero counties to hear their concerns and carry those concerns to Washington when the Senate reconvenes in September. As many as 300 people, who rallied outside the courthouse, listened in from an adjacent park via loud speaker. "It would be easy," the senator said, "to simply say ‘no, hell no, no more expansion.’ ” But, he said, there are problems with that approach. Salazar told the crowd that as much as he has sworn to protect agriculture in rural Colorado, he must also protect America and its military veterans. "You have to know that I believe that we in Colorado are the crown jewel of national security," he said. "We have the capacity through our facilities to protect the country. They have to have the money they need to make the improvements they need to make."....Salazar may say he is torn between agriculture and national security, but what he is really doing is siding with the more populous Colorado Springs and their chamber of commerce against the less populous rural areas and the ranchers. He's made a political decision that has nothing to do with national security.
Feds ask for input on gray wolves program Federal wildlife officials hope the public will suggest ways to revamp and improve the troubled program to recover and reintroduce Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border. The program has been under fire from both environmentalists and ranchers. Conservationists, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, are angered because of the number of wolves that federal agents have killed or removed after preying on cattle. Many ranchers within the recovery area, particularly in New Mexico's Catron County, have fiercely opposed the recovery effort since its inception in 1998, calling the program a nightmare that won't go away. "There are a lot of things that we could change about it to make it better and we'd like to hear from people about what they think should be changed to make it better," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown....
Cash infusion accelerates NW logging Northwest national forests are hurriedly boosting federal logging to the highest levels in years with a new infusion of cash, even as they close campgrounds and other recreation sites because money for them is drying up. The push for logging came so fast that some forests could not accelerate cutting as rapidly as top officials wanted, according to documents obtained by The Oregonian through the Freedom of Information Act. The extra cash for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees and other work to make way for cutting flowed from a legal deal between the Bush administration and timber industry. It's pumping life into federal land logging after years of decline. But dollars for other work in public forests remain scarce. As a result, U.S. Forest Service is likely to renege on its promise to fix existing, poorly maintained roads in Washington that violate clean water laws, for instance. Roads torn apart by storms last winter remain closed, cutting off access to trailheads and campgrounds. The new logging money is drawn from forests in other parts of the country and will underwrite new roads that will carry trucks loaded with freshly cut trees....
Fired Forest Service worker sues for job A former U.S. Forest Service official has sued the federal government, saying it wrongfully fired him after he came forward with allegations of pesticide misuse in forests across the Southwest. Doug Parker, who worked as the pesticide coordinator and assistant director of forestry health for the agency's Southwestern region, wants a jury to hear his story—and his job back. "I have a fierce resolve to see this through, to correct what they did to me," said Parker, who worked for the agency for nearly four decades before being fired in September 2005. According to the lawsuit, Parker became the subject of hostile treatment by his supervisors after complaining about what he called a "systemic problem" when it came to proper pesticide use across several forests in New Mexico and Arizona. Parker had accused some managers of not preparing environmental risk assessments and failing to get approval from agency officials who had the authority to make decisions about pesticides. While forest officials have remained mum on Parker's case, they have maintained that all projects involving pesticides and herbicides undergo a process to ensure that the public is involved and that requirements spelled out by federal law are met....
DiCaprio takes on forest industry With all the sky-is-falling fervour that one might expect from a feature documentary titled "The 11th Hour," the experts who contributed to Leonardo DiCaprio's new take on environmental destruction hit the publicity tour Wednesday to take on the earth's ecological evil-doers. Among them was Tzeporah Berman, a homegrown environmental gadfly whose cell phone was madly ringing as she scrambled across Los Angeles to do a series of interviews in the runup to Wednesday's premiere there of the movie, which is narrated and produced by Mr. DiCaprio. The Vancouver-based co-founder of activist group Forest Ethics was getting an early start on slagging Canada's forestry industry whose logging activities, she said -- both in the film and in an interview -- produce more greenhouse gas emissions every year than does every car on the road in California. But there is a problem with her argument: its underlying facts are wrong -- or at least, misleading -- according to the Canadian federal government's own reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the globe's global warming intelligence centre. In fact, in 11 of the past 16 years, Canada's managed forests have sucked up more greenhouse gases than they have emitted....
Couple sue Forest Service on harassment claims A couple who live in a cabin in the Cleveland National Forest has sued the U.S. Forest Service in federal court on claims that they were harassed by agency employees. David and Martine Mednansky said at least six Forest Service employees and a sheriff's deputy showed up unannounced at their home June 9, 2004, for an annual inspection of the 1.3 acres they lease in the forest. The couple says the employees cut a lock to a chain across their driveway and were hostile to the couple. The suit, filed this week in federal court, seeks unspecified damages for alleged violation of civil rights and emotional distress. Forest Service district ranger Thomas Gillett said in a September 2004 letter to David Mednansky that the inspector was told to bring law enforcement because the inspector had felt threatened during a previous visit. Gillett wrote that, in hindsight, sending three officers and a sheriff's deputy was "excessive."....
Fed Panel Tweaks Colorado Roadless Plan A federal advisory panel has recommended, with a few tweaks, approval of Colorado's petition to keep development off the bulk of some 4 million acres of roadless national forest land in the state. The recommendation now goes to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who will make the final decision. U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said Monday that Johanns likely will announce a decision in about a week. If Johanns accepts the petition, the state and Forest Service will write rules implementing the plan, expected to take about 18 months. In an Aug. 2 letter to Johanns, the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee called the Colorado petition, written by a 13-member task force, "a model public process."....
Where's the Beef, Indeed: A Steak Shortage Hits N.Y. he country's effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York's purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse. The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said. "It's getting worse," the owner of Ben Benson's Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. "The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive." Brooklyn's Peter Luger Steakhouse now serves a rib eye. On some nights at Ben Benson's in Midtown, diners can order buffalo steak. The Old Homestead of the meatpacking district serves one of the city's best Kobe burgers. The new menu items at some city steakhouses are a result of an increase in the price of top-notch beef and a decrease in its availability....
Bone Cave tells tales The people who lived in Utah Valley thousands of years ago depended on the Utah Lake for fresh food and water but counted on the mountain sheep from American Fork Canyon for meat. Bone Cave in particular illustrates how important the sheep were to the ancient Indians, said Charmaine Thompson, a Forest Service archaeologist with the Uinta National Forest. Thompson talked about the ancient people and the history of the canyon as it related to their lifestyle at a recent Monday evening lecture at the Timpanogos Cave National Monument Visitor Center. Thompson said the cave, located a quarter-mile from the famed Timpanogos Cave, was found to be full of mountain sheep bones piled up to 6 feet deep. There were also plenty of arrow and spear points and some grindstones found in the cave. Thompson said that showed the tribes probably killed their prey in the canyon and dragged it to the cave to butcher and skin it, saving themselves having to drag the whole carcass down to the lake for winter storage....
Study blames Europe for bison mass killings North Americans have always taken the heat for killing off millions of American bison during the early 1800s. A new study, however, pins the blame on Europeans. Europe's advanced tanning expertise drove the large, iconic mammal to near extinction in the United States, according to a a review of international trade records, diaries and other historical documents conducted by University of Calgary environmental economist M. Scott Taylor. "The story of the buffalo slaughter is surprisingly not, at bottom, an American one," Taylor said. Taylor says the guilty party sat on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The swift bison extermination was a result of an expertise in tanning heavy hides into leather developed in Europe, he wrote in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research earlier this year. The innovation, not practiced in the United States at the time, sustained European's high demand for bison hides. "These market forces overwhelmed the ability of a young and still expanding nation, just out of a bloody civil war, to carefully steward its natural resources," Taylor said....
Bad-bear surge stirs unease Wildlife officers have killed seven "problem" bears in the past nine days in western Colorado, raising fears for what may come during the animals' late-summer feeding frenzy. "I'm up to my eyeballs in bears," said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "In any given summer, you're going to have isolated pockets of bear activity," Hampton said. "This year, it seems like the pockets aren't so isolated." Facing a diminished supply of natural food and pushed by encroachment from development, the black bears have learned to associate human habitation with food, breaking into homes and campsites, digging through garbage and raiding bird feeders. The toll includes a 425-pound bear that was trapped and destroyed after smashing through doors of houses in Aspen. "That was a spectacular bear," Hampton said. "He had to have been around for a long time. But he was literally knocking over doors. People weren't safe in their homes. There was no choice in this one." At least three other bears have been destroyed in the southwestern part of the state in the past month, said division spokesman Joe Lewandowski....
Utah Coal Area, a Region Apart, Knows Well the Perils of Mining Coal is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when people think about Utah, and there is good reason for that. Through a fluke of geology and deep time, much of Utah’s coal was concentrated in one spot, here in the red rock country of the state’s high east-central plateau, where bituminous coal is king. And the same forces then pushed it down fiercely into the earth. Some of the deepest coal mines in the nation are here, including one just down the road where miners are pushing toward 3,000 feet beneath the surface. The coal, in turn, shaped the region’s ethnicity, culture and politics. Greeks and Italians arrived to work as miners in the early 20th century and stayed on to build a distinctive rural enclave among the Mormon farmers. Later, the political jousting of mine owners and workers forged a tradition of voting for Democrats in an overwhelmingly Republican part of the nation. It is at moments like this, people here say, that the culture of the Utah mine country comes out in full flower. By any measure, they say, the six men who were trapped early Monday when part of the Crandall Canyon Mine here in Huntington spectacularly collapsed were more than just local working men who got unlucky....
Land access fight heats up A landowner disputes the state's assertion that it can appoint energy companies to act as "agents of the state" in order to cross his private surface to access state land in the absence of an easement. Rancher Kenny Clabaugh has not denied the state access to a state parcel within his ranching operation, but he has denied access to coal-bed methane companies that do not have an easement agreement with him. It's the latest development in an ongoing dispute between Clabaugh and the state. State regulatory agencies permitted a number of coal-bed methane water discharges upstream from Clabaugh without considering the cumulative impact of the volumes of water in the drainage. The water has flooded large portions of low-lying grazing pastures on Clabaugh's ranch, severely degrading the ranch's agricultural use. Clabaugh has asked to state to either reduce the flow of coal-bed methane water coming down the drainage, or pipe it across his property. The state wants to order construction of a ditch through the pasture instead....
Carbon cowboys Managed correctly, though, farming and ranching is usually a carbon-neutral industry. Some agricultural operations can even provide a "carbon sink," which means managing soil and plants so that they take in more carbon dioxide than they emit. Storing, or "sequestering," CO2 is a new market, and one that could prove profitable for agriculture. Some farmers and ranchers in Wyoming figure they might earn a few extra thousand dollars a year by selling their carbon offsets to coal-fired utilities and others who emit greenhouse gases. Browder, for one, is using more off-creek watering and busily dividing large pastures into smaller ones so he can intensify his existing rotational grazing program -- all practices proven to store more carbon than is emitted. Within the next year, he could be enrolled with a group of farmers and ranchers who sell carbon credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. "Everything we do to sequester (carbon) is good for wildlife, good for watersheds -- all down the line," Browder said....
Idaho senator opposes river protection bill A bill introduced by the late Sen. Craig Thomas to protect portions of the Snake River headwaters under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is drawing opposition from Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Craig, who sits on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said he is concerned the designation of 42 miles of the Snake River between Jackson Lake Dam and Palisades Reservoir would harm water rights held by Idaho farmers. "That water is used to irrigate farmland in southeast Idaho," Craig spokesman Dan Whiting said Thursday. "His concern is that with the designation it wouldn't be managed for irrigators." Irrigators in Idaho hold the rights to about 96 percent of the water in Jackson Lake. Protected status does not affect private-property rights and uses or water rights, supporters of the bill stressed. U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, who was appointed to temporarily replace Thomas, also does not believe the bill affects any existing water rights on the river, his press secretary Cameron Hardy said....
Sheep rancher seeks peace with wolves It's about as thickly populated by wolves as anywhere in the region, but environmentally conscious sheep producer Lava Lake Land & Livestock is developing a track record of minimal conflicts in and around the rugged Boulder Mountains of Central Idaho. The methods are varied, but the gist remains. The huge Hailey-based sheep producer has not lost sheep to wolves since 2005 when 25 sheep and a guard dog were killed in two consecutive nights. The sheep were killed northwest of Ketchum on the North Fork of the Big Lost River in the eastern Boulder Mountains. Lava Lake President Mike Stevens said the developing track record is, in part, due to preventative measures the company is taking to minimize the number of dead sheep and, therefore, dead wolves. "It's an issue of how can we coexist," he said....
Salazar: I can't stop Army expansion in Pinon Canyon Torn between a loyalty to the ranching community in which he was raised and national security needs, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said Tuesday that he could not say no to the Army’s plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. Salazar met with commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Bent and Otero counties to hear their concerns and carry those concerns to Washington when the Senate reconvenes in September. As many as 300 people, who rallied outside the courthouse, listened in from an adjacent park via loud speaker. "It would be easy," the senator said, "to simply say ‘no, hell no, no more expansion.’ ” But, he said, there are problems with that approach. Salazar told the crowd that as much as he has sworn to protect agriculture in rural Colorado, he must also protect America and its military veterans. "You have to know that I believe that we in Colorado are the crown jewel of national security," he said. "We have the capacity through our facilities to protect the country. They have to have the money they need to make the improvements they need to make."....Salazar may say he is torn between agriculture and national security, but what he is really doing is siding with the more populous Colorado Springs and their chamber of commerce against the less populous rural areas and the ranchers. He's made a political decision that has nothing to do with national security.
Feds ask for input on gray wolves program Federal wildlife officials hope the public will suggest ways to revamp and improve the troubled program to recover and reintroduce Mexican gray wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico border. The program has been under fire from both environmentalists and ranchers. Conservationists, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, are angered because of the number of wolves that federal agents have killed or removed after preying on cattle. Many ranchers within the recovery area, particularly in New Mexico's Catron County, have fiercely opposed the recovery effort since its inception in 1998, calling the program a nightmare that won't go away. "There are a lot of things that we could change about it to make it better and we'd like to hear from people about what they think should be changed to make it better," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown....
Cash infusion accelerates NW logging Northwest national forests are hurriedly boosting federal logging to the highest levels in years with a new infusion of cash, even as they close campgrounds and other recreation sites because money for them is drying up. The push for logging came so fast that some forests could not accelerate cutting as rapidly as top officials wanted, according to documents obtained by The Oregonian through the Freedom of Information Act. The extra cash for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees and other work to make way for cutting flowed from a legal deal between the Bush administration and timber industry. It's pumping life into federal land logging after years of decline. But dollars for other work in public forests remain scarce. As a result, U.S. Forest Service is likely to renege on its promise to fix existing, poorly maintained roads in Washington that violate clean water laws, for instance. Roads torn apart by storms last winter remain closed, cutting off access to trailheads and campgrounds. The new logging money is drawn from forests in other parts of the country and will underwrite new roads that will carry trucks loaded with freshly cut trees....
Fired Forest Service worker sues for job A former U.S. Forest Service official has sued the federal government, saying it wrongfully fired him after he came forward with allegations of pesticide misuse in forests across the Southwest. Doug Parker, who worked as the pesticide coordinator and assistant director of forestry health for the agency's Southwestern region, wants a jury to hear his story—and his job back. "I have a fierce resolve to see this through, to correct what they did to me," said Parker, who worked for the agency for nearly four decades before being fired in September 2005. According to the lawsuit, Parker became the subject of hostile treatment by his supervisors after complaining about what he called a "systemic problem" when it came to proper pesticide use across several forests in New Mexico and Arizona. Parker had accused some managers of not preparing environmental risk assessments and failing to get approval from agency officials who had the authority to make decisions about pesticides. While forest officials have remained mum on Parker's case, they have maintained that all projects involving pesticides and herbicides undergo a process to ensure that the public is involved and that requirements spelled out by federal law are met....
DiCaprio takes on forest industry With all the sky-is-falling fervour that one might expect from a feature documentary titled "The 11th Hour," the experts who contributed to Leonardo DiCaprio's new take on environmental destruction hit the publicity tour Wednesday to take on the earth's ecological evil-doers. Among them was Tzeporah Berman, a homegrown environmental gadfly whose cell phone was madly ringing as she scrambled across Los Angeles to do a series of interviews in the runup to Wednesday's premiere there of the movie, which is narrated and produced by Mr. DiCaprio. The Vancouver-based co-founder of activist group Forest Ethics was getting an early start on slagging Canada's forestry industry whose logging activities, she said -- both in the film and in an interview -- produce more greenhouse gas emissions every year than does every car on the road in California. But there is a problem with her argument: its underlying facts are wrong -- or at least, misleading -- according to the Canadian federal government's own reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the globe's global warming intelligence centre. In fact, in 11 of the past 16 years, Canada's managed forests have sucked up more greenhouse gases than they have emitted....
Couple sue Forest Service on harassment claims A couple who live in a cabin in the Cleveland National Forest has sued the U.S. Forest Service in federal court on claims that they were harassed by agency employees. David and Martine Mednansky said at least six Forest Service employees and a sheriff's deputy showed up unannounced at their home June 9, 2004, for an annual inspection of the 1.3 acres they lease in the forest. The couple says the employees cut a lock to a chain across their driveway and were hostile to the couple. The suit, filed this week in federal court, seeks unspecified damages for alleged violation of civil rights and emotional distress. Forest Service district ranger Thomas Gillett said in a September 2004 letter to David Mednansky that the inspector was told to bring law enforcement because the inspector had felt threatened during a previous visit. Gillett wrote that, in hindsight, sending three officers and a sheriff's deputy was "excessive."....
Fed Panel Tweaks Colorado Roadless Plan A federal advisory panel has recommended, with a few tweaks, approval of Colorado's petition to keep development off the bulk of some 4 million acres of roadless national forest land in the state. The recommendation now goes to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who will make the final decision. U.S. Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said Monday that Johanns likely will announce a decision in about a week. If Johanns accepts the petition, the state and Forest Service will write rules implementing the plan, expected to take about 18 months. In an Aug. 2 letter to Johanns, the Roadless Area Conservation National Advisory Committee called the Colorado petition, written by a 13-member task force, "a model public process."....
Where's the Beef, Indeed: A Steak Shortage Hits N.Y. he country's effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York's purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse. The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said. "It's getting worse," the owner of Ben Benson's Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. "The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive." Brooklyn's Peter Luger Steakhouse now serves a rib eye. On some nights at Ben Benson's in Midtown, diners can order buffalo steak. The Old Homestead of the meatpacking district serves one of the city's best Kobe burgers. The new menu items at some city steakhouses are a result of an increase in the price of top-notch beef and a decrease in its availability....
Bone Cave tells tales The people who lived in Utah Valley thousands of years ago depended on the Utah Lake for fresh food and water but counted on the mountain sheep from American Fork Canyon for meat. Bone Cave in particular illustrates how important the sheep were to the ancient Indians, said Charmaine Thompson, a Forest Service archaeologist with the Uinta National Forest. Thompson talked about the ancient people and the history of the canyon as it related to their lifestyle at a recent Monday evening lecture at the Timpanogos Cave National Monument Visitor Center. Thompson said the cave, located a quarter-mile from the famed Timpanogos Cave, was found to be full of mountain sheep bones piled up to 6 feet deep. There were also plenty of arrow and spear points and some grindstones found in the cave. Thompson said that showed the tribes probably killed their prey in the canyon and dragged it to the cave to butcher and skin it, saving themselves having to drag the whole carcass down to the lake for winter storage....
Study blames Europe for bison mass killings North Americans have always taken the heat for killing off millions of American bison during the early 1800s. A new study, however, pins the blame on Europeans. Europe's advanced tanning expertise drove the large, iconic mammal to near extinction in the United States, according to a a review of international trade records, diaries and other historical documents conducted by University of Calgary environmental economist M. Scott Taylor. "The story of the buffalo slaughter is surprisingly not, at bottom, an American one," Taylor said. Taylor says the guilty party sat on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The swift bison extermination was a result of an expertise in tanning heavy hides into leather developed in Europe, he wrote in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research earlier this year. The innovation, not practiced in the United States at the time, sustained European's high demand for bison hides. "These market forces overwhelmed the ability of a young and still expanding nation, just out of a bloody civil war, to carefully steward its natural resources," Taylor said....
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
FLE
U.S. border cop charged with murdering Mexican A U.S. Border Patrol agent must stand trial for murder in the shooting of a Mexican man trying to enter the United States, an Arizona judge ruled Monday in a case that drew criticism from Mexico. Agent Nicholas Corbett was charged in April with four counts of homicide in the January 12 shooting of Francisco Dominguez Rivera shortly after he crossed the border illegally on a stretch of desert between Douglas and Naco. Cochise County Justice of the Peace David Morales ruled the evidence supported lesser charges of second-degree murder, but threw out charges of first-degree murder, which supposes premeditation. The ruling followed a preliminary hearing that heard evidence from three illegal immigrants present at the shooting, a pathologist, county sheriff's detectives and two Border Patrol supervisors. No date was set for Corbett's arraignment. Following the killing, Mexico's Foreign Ministry complained of "disproportionate violence" and instructed the Mexican Embassy in Washington to investigate the circumstances. Last year, border police captured 1.1 million undocumented immigrants crossing over the border from Mexico and recorded a soaring number of attacks on agents. Lawyers for Corbett argue he shot Dominguez Rivera in self-defense after he was threatened with a rock....
Smuggler's Partner Pleads Guilty in Border Agents Case The owner of a "stash" house who allegedly worked with a Mexican drug smuggler shot by Border Patrol agents has struck a deal with federal prosecutors. Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana. Cybercast News Service reported last month that Ortiz-Hernandez owned the stash house where Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila of Mexico made drug shipments in October 2005. Ortiz-Hernandez' plea agreement comes after members of Congress criticized a federal prosecutor for granting a "humanitarian" pass for Aldrete-Davila to enter and exit the United States unescorted. Aldrete Davila, already given immunity for one drug charge, reportedly smuggled more marijuana into the country to be stored at the home of Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez. Terms of Ortiz-Hernandez' plea agreement are sealed. The sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 2....
Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program The Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday. The law, which permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures. The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general. In a conference call with reporters yesterday, officials familiar with the program said they had not worked out all the details of internal oversight, noting that the law was only a day old. But the officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition that they not be identified, said surveillance activities would require a sworn certificate and affidavit, which would be reviewed for accuracy by inspectors general from the Justice Department or intelligence agencies....
FISA Expansion Sparks Civil Liberties Concerns Both chambers of Congress over the weekend voted to expand the government's ability to listen in on foreign conversations as part of the war on terror. But some civil liberties advocates question whether the bill goes too far in broadening the government's warrant-less surveillance power. Despite the congressional support, civil liberties advocates have raised concerns that the measure goes too far in permitting the executive branch to listen in on conversations without adequate judicial oversight. "The administration approach would allow the NSA [National Security Agency] warrant-less access to virtually all international communications of Americans with anyone outside the U.S., so long as the government declared that the surveillance was directed at anyone reasonably believed to be overseas," stated the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS). The CNSS states that the new law "would allow massive surveillance of Americans with no meaningful judicial oversight or individualized probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment." The organization warns that the expanded surveillance powers go beyond the surveillance used in Bush's "terrorist surveillance program." In that program, which also sidestepped FISA court approval, the administration listened in on foreign conversations with suspected terrorists. "For all these millions of American communications, there would be no requirement that the American even be suspected of any contact with or connection to al Qaeda or any other terrorists," CNSS stated. "[T]he purpose of the surveillance that would be authorized under the bill is to gather 'foreign intelligence' generally, not just intelligence about terrorism," it added. Technology and civil liberties scholar Timothy Lee, with the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote: "The only real bright spot is that the legislation sunsets after six months. That will give Congress the opportunity to do what it should have done this weekend: require that no surveillance of domestic communications occur without prior judicial approval of each surveillance target."....
Airlines Sue FBI, CIA Over Sept. 11 Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday, asking a federal court to let them interview investigators who can tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or whether it had acted reasonably. The separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asked a judge to order the government to let the aviation companies gather the information as part of their defense against lawsuits brought by victims or families of victims of the 2001 attacks. In the CIA lawsuit, companies including American Airlines Inc., United Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Continental Airlines Inc. and The Boeing Co. asked to interview the deputy chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit in 2001 and an FBI special agent assigned to the unit at that time. In the FBI lawsuit, the companies asked to interview a 'limited number of former and current FBI employees' who had participated in investigations of al-Qaida and al-Qaida operatives before and after Sept. 11, 2001....
Judge Orders Release of Reports on ’04 Surveillance A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004. In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention. But at the behest of the city and with the concurrence of civil liberties lawyers representing plaintiffs swept up in mass arrests during the convention, the judge agreed to the deletion of sensitive information in the documents to protect the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants and to safeguard police investigative methods and the privacy of individuals caught up in investigations. The city had largely based its bid for nondisclosure on the need to protect those identities and methods, and argued that the public might misinterpret the documents or the news media sensationalize them. But the civil liberties lawyers insisted that the documents — even without the sensitive materials — were needed to show in court that the police had overstepped legal boundaries in arresting, detaining and fingerprinting hundreds of people instead of handing out summonses for minor offenses....
U.S. border cop charged with murdering Mexican A U.S. Border Patrol agent must stand trial for murder in the shooting of a Mexican man trying to enter the United States, an Arizona judge ruled Monday in a case that drew criticism from Mexico. Agent Nicholas Corbett was charged in April with four counts of homicide in the January 12 shooting of Francisco Dominguez Rivera shortly after he crossed the border illegally on a stretch of desert between Douglas and Naco. Cochise County Justice of the Peace David Morales ruled the evidence supported lesser charges of second-degree murder, but threw out charges of first-degree murder, which supposes premeditation. The ruling followed a preliminary hearing that heard evidence from three illegal immigrants present at the shooting, a pathologist, county sheriff's detectives and two Border Patrol supervisors. No date was set for Corbett's arraignment. Following the killing, Mexico's Foreign Ministry complained of "disproportionate violence" and instructed the Mexican Embassy in Washington to investigate the circumstances. Last year, border police captured 1.1 million undocumented immigrants crossing over the border from Mexico and recorded a soaring number of attacks on agents. Lawyers for Corbett argue he shot Dominguez Rivera in self-defense after he was threatened with a rock....
Smuggler's Partner Pleads Guilty in Border Agents Case The owner of a "stash" house who allegedly worked with a Mexican drug smuggler shot by Border Patrol agents has struck a deal with federal prosecutors. Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana. Cybercast News Service reported last month that Ortiz-Hernandez owned the stash house where Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila of Mexico made drug shipments in October 2005. Ortiz-Hernandez' plea agreement comes after members of Congress criticized a federal prosecutor for granting a "humanitarian" pass for Aldrete-Davila to enter and exit the United States unescorted. Aldrete Davila, already given immunity for one drug charge, reportedly smuggled more marijuana into the country to be stored at the home of Cipriano Ortiz-Hernandez. Terms of Ortiz-Hernandez' plea agreement are sealed. The sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 2....
Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program The Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday. The law, which permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures. The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general. In a conference call with reporters yesterday, officials familiar with the program said they had not worked out all the details of internal oversight, noting that the law was only a day old. But the officials, who spoke to reporters on the condition that they not be identified, said surveillance activities would require a sworn certificate and affidavit, which would be reviewed for accuracy by inspectors general from the Justice Department or intelligence agencies....
FISA Expansion Sparks Civil Liberties Concerns Both chambers of Congress over the weekend voted to expand the government's ability to listen in on foreign conversations as part of the war on terror. But some civil liberties advocates question whether the bill goes too far in broadening the government's warrant-less surveillance power. Despite the congressional support, civil liberties advocates have raised concerns that the measure goes too far in permitting the executive branch to listen in on conversations without adequate judicial oversight. "The administration approach would allow the NSA [National Security Agency] warrant-less access to virtually all international communications of Americans with anyone outside the U.S., so long as the government declared that the surveillance was directed at anyone reasonably believed to be overseas," stated the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS). The CNSS states that the new law "would allow massive surveillance of Americans with no meaningful judicial oversight or individualized probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment." The organization warns that the expanded surveillance powers go beyond the surveillance used in Bush's "terrorist surveillance program." In that program, which also sidestepped FISA court approval, the administration listened in on foreign conversations with suspected terrorists. "For all these millions of American communications, there would be no requirement that the American even be suspected of any contact with or connection to al Qaeda or any other terrorists," CNSS stated. "[T]he purpose of the surveillance that would be authorized under the bill is to gather 'foreign intelligence' generally, not just intelligence about terrorism," it added. Technology and civil liberties scholar Timothy Lee, with the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote: "The only real bright spot is that the legislation sunsets after six months. That will give Congress the opportunity to do what it should have done this weekend: require that no surveillance of domestic communications occur without prior judicial approval of each surveillance target."....
Airlines Sue FBI, CIA Over Sept. 11 Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday, asking a federal court to let them interview investigators who can tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or whether it had acted reasonably. The separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asked a judge to order the government to let the aviation companies gather the information as part of their defense against lawsuits brought by victims or families of victims of the 2001 attacks. In the CIA lawsuit, companies including American Airlines Inc., United Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Continental Airlines Inc. and The Boeing Co. asked to interview the deputy chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit in 2001 and an FBI special agent assigned to the unit at that time. In the FBI lawsuit, the companies asked to interview a 'limited number of former and current FBI employees' who had participated in investigations of al-Qaida and al-Qaida operatives before and after Sept. 11, 2001....
Judge Orders Release of Reports on ’04 Surveillance A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004. In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention. But at the behest of the city and with the concurrence of civil liberties lawyers representing plaintiffs swept up in mass arrests during the convention, the judge agreed to the deletion of sensitive information in the documents to protect the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants and to safeguard police investigative methods and the privacy of individuals caught up in investigations. The city had largely based its bid for nondisclosure on the need to protect those identities and methods, and argued that the public might misinterpret the documents or the news media sensationalize them. But the civil liberties lawyers insisted that the documents — even without the sensitive materials — were needed to show in court that the police had overstepped legal boundaries in arresting, detaining and fingerprinting hundreds of people instead of handing out summonses for minor offenses....
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Judge Limits Navy Sonar, Citing a Threat to Wildlife A federal judge on Monday ordered the Navy to stop using medium-range sonar in training exercises off Southern California, saying that the Navy’s own assessments predicted that dozens of marine mammals, particularly deep-diving whales, could be harmed by the intense sound waves. Beaked whales, in particular, have shown great sensitivity to such sonar. Even without the tests, their numbers in the waters off the West Coast are dwindling. The judge, Florence-Marie Cooper of Federal District Court in Los Angeles, granted a preliminary injunction sought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, noting in a draft order that “mass strandings of whales following naval exercises have been documented” from the Bahamas and the Canary Islands to Greece and Taiwan. The strandings occurred after use of military sonar. The judge also criticized the Navy for curbing its efforts to mitigate the impact of the sonar exercises, adding, “What few mitigation measures remain continue to be ineffective.” The Navy has argued that without training on this widely used system, sailors’ ability to detect enemy vessels is severely hampered. Active sonar, at various frequencies, has been developed over the past two decades as diesel engines on military craft became quieter and harder to detect with passive sonar....
New Gang of Flagellants Wants Us To Suffer for Our Energy 'Greed' Imagine you’re the head of a big energy outfit – GEM, The Greedy Energy Monopoly. Your financial guys bring you their analysis of a proposal to build big new centralized solar panel arrays and strings of windmills along every mountain ridge, in place of new coal-fired generating plants: "We were kind of surprised, boss, but as we pencil it out, we can actually generate enough power to meet all our customers’ anticipated needs for the next 30 years if we go with this solar and wind package, and at a savings of 25 percent," your accountants inform you. "The customers have been whining about $200 electric bills; this would allow us to reduce those bills by 25 percent. Or, in you prefer, we could reduce their bills by 20 percent, and pocket the other 5 percent." You’d have to be nuts not to go with that plan. So why do our energy companies continue to plan and build coal-fired plants? Because the above scenario is bogus. It’s a lie. Replacing the bulk of our power generation with solar and wind and other "green" technologies may well come to pass in another century (and we’ve got enough coal to last three centuries while we get it right, so what’s the rush?) But if they could do the job for less, right now, there’d be private entrepreneurs racing to get rich by building such facilities behind every mesquite tree. And there aren’t. Why?....
Western governors blame cheatgrass for 2007 wildfire woes Four Western governors declared war Monday on cheatgrass, a nonnative weedy grass they blame for filling the West's open spaces with flammable fuels feeding this summer's massive wildfires. Still, their efforts could be complicated by a shortage of seeds of other grasses needed to restore the charred landscape before cheatgrass takes hold. In fact, some of the federal Bureau of Land Management territory where such seeds are collected has been burned. And environmentalists are leery about the plans for replanting, fearing they'll concentrate on grasses that provide forage for livestock rather than native vegetation that helps wildlife such as sage grouse. By Sept. 1, the governors want a pilot project that will include planting grasses, in hopes of preventing cheatgrass from gaining a greater foothold. Their program will also include new cross-border pacts aimed at helping states share resources and gear when fires erupt, the governors said....
Caswell confirmed as BLM director James Caswell has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new director of the Bureau of Land Management. President Bush nominated Caswell to replace Kathleen Clarke, who resigned in February. The Bureau of Land Management manages about one-eighth of the land in the United States. Caswell currently works as the head of Idaho's Office of Species Conservation. Idaho Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo lauded Caswell's confirmation. They say his experience qualifies him for the job and that he's known for being fair and practical. Caswell has spent 33 years in various positions with the BLM, Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Forest Service....
Panel mulls over wild land election Debate about wilderness for Doña Ana County continued Monday during a panel discussion in Las Cruces arranged by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. State Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, director of the local New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, was one of two panelists advocating a wilderness designation. He said he believes support for a wilderness designation is broad among community members, and that wasn't reflected on the panel make-up. Other attendees included a Randy McMillan, a Realtor; Erik Ness, with the Doña Ana County Farm and Livestock Bureau; Judd Singer, owner of Via Custom Homes; Frank DuBois, a former state agriculture secretary and Fred Huff, an off-road vehicle enthusiast. A proposed wilderness designation has concerned area ranchers, who have said it would curtail access to the land. Wilderness backers have argued land will succumb to development if it isn't protected soon. Wilderness is a federal designation that prohibits most mechanized travel. Attendees packed the Las Cruces Public Schools school board meeting room, where the forum was held. Steinborn asked wilderness supporters to applaud at the beginning of the meeting to show their presence and received a loud response. Opponents to wilderness also applauded loudly after presentations by several panelists....
Facility turning wood into ethanol The newly built plant on the outskirts of Upton, Wyo., looks a little like a cross between a sawmill and an oil refinery. And, in a way, it is. The plant recently began grinding up wood chips, sawdust and logging refuse, called slash, into ethanol fuel for automobiles. Western Biomass Energy, operated by KL Process Design Group of Rapid City, operates the new wood-waste ethanol plant. It can produce about 1.5 million gallons of ethanol per year. That's small by today's ethanol standards. Some of the new Midwestern corn-based ethanol plants are being built to produce 110 million gallons a year. But KL officials say the new plant shows their process for unlocking the sugars from cellulose, or plant fibers, can be viable. And, as the development of biomass technology progresses, more types of plant-life - wood, sugar beets and switchgrass - could be converted to liquid fuel....
Editorial - Guilt relief in global warming A new trend is to become a zero-sum contributor of greenhouse gases ("carbon neutral"). Some people avoid the lifestyle change, however, and instead purchase "offsets." But do such buy-offs really make a difference? Yes and no. The idea behind carbon offsets is simple: Make a contribution to any project that reduces greenhouse gases, such as a tree-planting scheme or a business that captures methane from landfills, and thus compensate for one's personal additions to global warming. Spend enough money and your conscience seems clear as regards being responsible for climate change. The World Bank estimates that the global market in voluntary offsets, by both businesses and individuals, grew to about $100 million in 2006, and will rise again this year. Last month, for instance, the US Forest Service announced a Carbon Capture Fund that will sell offsets to individuals. Since trees absorb CO2, the fund will underwrite tree-planting in Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota. Buyers will first use a "carbon calculator" to measure how much their activities at home, on transportation, at leisure, or on the job produce greenhouse gases, and then pay a certain amount to have seedlings planted in treeless areas. A small family, for instance, might pay under $200 per year, depending on its lifestyle. Another attempt to sell offsets is General Electric's "Earth Rewards" credit card. Up to 1 percent of each purchase with the card is used to fund programs that claim to reduce greenhouse gases....
High-country deal opens trails The most popular path to three of the state's 14,000-foot peaks near Telluride will reopen to hikers under a deal between a conservation group and a Texas developer. The Trust for Public Land has reached a tentative agreement with Rusty Nichols, owner of 220 acres of mining claims, to buy his property, which would provide access to the Silver Pick Trail that leads to Mount Wilson, El Diente Peak and Wilson Peak. There has been only limited access for the past three years. "We really have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here," said Jason Corzine, senior project manager for the nonprofit conservation group. "This is very much one of the symbols of Colorado," Corzine said, "and we can get it back into the public domain." The price was not disclosed, but the Telluride Foundation - which contributed $150,000 - pegged it at $3 million....
A Wyoming forest yearns to burn Gorgeous red sunsets and haze in the air scare the heck out of people in my part of Wyoming. We live next to the Shoshone National Forest. It is a jewel, and so remarkable that it was the first national forest created by Congress. The mountains in this 2.4 million-acre reserve in west-central Wyoming are the tallest in the state. The views in the area are breathtaking, and I am lucky enough to live within five miles of its border. But like most people who live close to the Shoshone, I fear that it will burn up. Who would be affected? Folks in towns including Lander, Dubois, the Wind River Indian Reservation, Cody and Meeteetse, to name just a few. We all know the major reasons: Fire-fighting efforts have successfully prevented blazes in the forest over the past 60 years, creating huge amounts of deadfall. The northern Rocky Mountains are also in the midst of drought - the worst in 500 years. Add to that increased visitation by campers, hikers and horseback enthusiasts, plus the subdivisions that have cropped up close to the forest and within the forest as well....
Judge: No drilling on South Shale yet The Bureau of Land Management will have to reconsider allowing natural gas drilling on South Shale Ridge north of Grand Junction after a federal judge in Denver ruled Monday that the agency’s decision to do so was arbitrary and capricious. Judge Marcia S. Krieger ruled that the BLM must stop all leasing and prevent any lease from taking effect on South Shale Ridge because the agency considered neither the full effect of drilling on threatened plants nor an option allowing energy companies to drill from outside the area without harming the surface of the wildland. Krieger said the BLM’s environmental assessment of drilling the ridge violated the National Environmental Policy Act. South Shale Ridge, a 32,000 acre wildland west of DeBeque harboring several plants, including the hookless cactus, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, was once considered for wilderness status, but was opened to oil and gas leasing two decades ago....
More Dead Wild Horses on Tonopah Test Range Federal officials are investigating the deaths of at least 55 wild horses and an antelope found near a watering hole on a ballistics and bombing range in central Nevada. A Bureau of Land Management official in Las Vegas says tissue from the animals and water samples are being tested, and results could take up to a week. The BLM and Air Force released a statement Tuesday saying the pond was believed to be the problem. It's on a dry lake bed on the Tonopah Test Range -- at least 210 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The area's home to about 250 wild horses. Workers are fencing off the pond Wednesday and setting up storage tanks to offer fresh water to wild horses and burros....
Fresh cull in foot-and-mouth zone A fresh case of foot-and-mouth disease is suspected in Surrey, the chief veterinary officer has confirmed. Cattle, within the 3km protection zone set up around the farm where the first outbreak occurred, are being culled as a precaution. Chief veterinary officer Debby Reynolds said they had detected "suspect" signs and the cows were being culled to "minimise any chance of spread". Test results, due on Tuesday, will establish if it is another outbreak. The BBC understands the new foot-and-mouth cull will affect between 50 and 100 cattle. Dr Reynolds said the second potential outbreak site was a "small number of kilometres" from Wolford farm, near Guildford, the first infected premises....
UK foot-and-mouth vaccines ordered Britain was on Monday night drawing up contingency plans to vaccinate thousands of farm animals against foot-and-mouth disease in a move that if implemented could see meat exports suspended for up to six months. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Monday night confirmed a second case of suspected foot-and-mouth disease within 3km of the protection zone set up around the original outbreak near Guildford, south-west of London. Investigators probing the source of the first outbreak are expected to report their findings today. The European Union on Monday banned British meat, dairy and livestock exports, and the UK cannot export to other countries until it regains disease-free status. The Meat and Livestock Federation has estimated that the UK – which last year exported more than £500m ($1bn, €740m) of red meat and livestock, mostly to Europe – loses £10m for every week it cannot export....
Rancher, linguist working to preserve native language An effort to save the Mandan language may rest on the shoulders of a 75-year-old horse rancher. Experts believe Edwin Benson is the only person living who speaks fluent Mandan, the language of the American Indian tribe that became the host of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during the explorers' winter encampment in North Dakota more than 200 years ago. For past three summers, in six-hour shifts, Benson and California linguist Sara Trechter have camped out in a small office so he can speak into a microphone while Trechter takes notes. The two recently finished transcribing seven Mandan folk stories. Benson's grandfather insisted on keeping alive Mandan traditions and language. Ben Benson forbid speaking English in his home, a log cabin near the mouth of the Little Missouri River....
It's All Trew: Recreating the past with tree revival The original chapter of our ranch home began in early 1918 with a two room, board-and-bat frame dwelling sitting all alone on a hillside by an Eclipse windmill. Frank Crisp had big plans to marry, buy land from his father and start a family. Plans went astray when the intended bride got cold feet and backed out. Frank was so disgusted he joined the army in WWI. The second chapter came when his brother Enloe took over with plans of similar nature. He added two more rooms and moved in. His plans also went astray when his father sold the land to Charley McMurtry, an up and coming new rancher in the area. The third chapter saw McMurtry adding porches front and back, a cellar and topping it all off with a new pointed hip roof painted charcoal gray. A couple of good cattle years added barns, corrals and a bunkhouse with the place christened Red Camp because of the red paint applied to all. Even the windmill and cypress water tank were painted. This era lasted about thirty years until sold in 1949 to J.T. and Oma Trew....
Judge Limits Navy Sonar, Citing a Threat to Wildlife A federal judge on Monday ordered the Navy to stop using medium-range sonar in training exercises off Southern California, saying that the Navy’s own assessments predicted that dozens of marine mammals, particularly deep-diving whales, could be harmed by the intense sound waves. Beaked whales, in particular, have shown great sensitivity to such sonar. Even without the tests, their numbers in the waters off the West Coast are dwindling. The judge, Florence-Marie Cooper of Federal District Court in Los Angeles, granted a preliminary injunction sought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, noting in a draft order that “mass strandings of whales following naval exercises have been documented” from the Bahamas and the Canary Islands to Greece and Taiwan. The strandings occurred after use of military sonar. The judge also criticized the Navy for curbing its efforts to mitigate the impact of the sonar exercises, adding, “What few mitigation measures remain continue to be ineffective.” The Navy has argued that without training on this widely used system, sailors’ ability to detect enemy vessels is severely hampered. Active sonar, at various frequencies, has been developed over the past two decades as diesel engines on military craft became quieter and harder to detect with passive sonar....
New Gang of Flagellants Wants Us To Suffer for Our Energy 'Greed' Imagine you’re the head of a big energy outfit – GEM, The Greedy Energy Monopoly. Your financial guys bring you their analysis of a proposal to build big new centralized solar panel arrays and strings of windmills along every mountain ridge, in place of new coal-fired generating plants: "We were kind of surprised, boss, but as we pencil it out, we can actually generate enough power to meet all our customers’ anticipated needs for the next 30 years if we go with this solar and wind package, and at a savings of 25 percent," your accountants inform you. "The customers have been whining about $200 electric bills; this would allow us to reduce those bills by 25 percent. Or, in you prefer, we could reduce their bills by 20 percent, and pocket the other 5 percent." You’d have to be nuts not to go with that plan. So why do our energy companies continue to plan and build coal-fired plants? Because the above scenario is bogus. It’s a lie. Replacing the bulk of our power generation with solar and wind and other "green" technologies may well come to pass in another century (and we’ve got enough coal to last three centuries while we get it right, so what’s the rush?) But if they could do the job for less, right now, there’d be private entrepreneurs racing to get rich by building such facilities behind every mesquite tree. And there aren’t. Why?....
Western governors blame cheatgrass for 2007 wildfire woes Four Western governors declared war Monday on cheatgrass, a nonnative weedy grass they blame for filling the West's open spaces with flammable fuels feeding this summer's massive wildfires. Still, their efforts could be complicated by a shortage of seeds of other grasses needed to restore the charred landscape before cheatgrass takes hold. In fact, some of the federal Bureau of Land Management territory where such seeds are collected has been burned. And environmentalists are leery about the plans for replanting, fearing they'll concentrate on grasses that provide forage for livestock rather than native vegetation that helps wildlife such as sage grouse. By Sept. 1, the governors want a pilot project that will include planting grasses, in hopes of preventing cheatgrass from gaining a greater foothold. Their program will also include new cross-border pacts aimed at helping states share resources and gear when fires erupt, the governors said....
Caswell confirmed as BLM director James Caswell has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new director of the Bureau of Land Management. President Bush nominated Caswell to replace Kathleen Clarke, who resigned in February. The Bureau of Land Management manages about one-eighth of the land in the United States. Caswell currently works as the head of Idaho's Office of Species Conservation. Idaho Senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo lauded Caswell's confirmation. They say his experience qualifies him for the job and that he's known for being fair and practical. Caswell has spent 33 years in various positions with the BLM, Bonneville Power Administration and the U.S. Forest Service....
Panel mulls over wild land election Debate about wilderness for Doña Ana County continued Monday during a panel discussion in Las Cruces arranged by U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. State Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, director of the local New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, was one of two panelists advocating a wilderness designation. He said he believes support for a wilderness designation is broad among community members, and that wasn't reflected on the panel make-up. Other attendees included a Randy McMillan, a Realtor; Erik Ness, with the Doña Ana County Farm and Livestock Bureau; Judd Singer, owner of Via Custom Homes; Frank DuBois, a former state agriculture secretary and Fred Huff, an off-road vehicle enthusiast. A proposed wilderness designation has concerned area ranchers, who have said it would curtail access to the land. Wilderness backers have argued land will succumb to development if it isn't protected soon. Wilderness is a federal designation that prohibits most mechanized travel. Attendees packed the Las Cruces Public Schools school board meeting room, where the forum was held. Steinborn asked wilderness supporters to applaud at the beginning of the meeting to show their presence and received a loud response. Opponents to wilderness also applauded loudly after presentations by several panelists....
Facility turning wood into ethanol The newly built plant on the outskirts of Upton, Wyo., looks a little like a cross between a sawmill and an oil refinery. And, in a way, it is. The plant recently began grinding up wood chips, sawdust and logging refuse, called slash, into ethanol fuel for automobiles. Western Biomass Energy, operated by KL Process Design Group of Rapid City, operates the new wood-waste ethanol plant. It can produce about 1.5 million gallons of ethanol per year. That's small by today's ethanol standards. Some of the new Midwestern corn-based ethanol plants are being built to produce 110 million gallons a year. But KL officials say the new plant shows their process for unlocking the sugars from cellulose, or plant fibers, can be viable. And, as the development of biomass technology progresses, more types of plant-life - wood, sugar beets and switchgrass - could be converted to liquid fuel....
Editorial - Guilt relief in global warming A new trend is to become a zero-sum contributor of greenhouse gases ("carbon neutral"). Some people avoid the lifestyle change, however, and instead purchase "offsets." But do such buy-offs really make a difference? Yes and no. The idea behind carbon offsets is simple: Make a contribution to any project that reduces greenhouse gases, such as a tree-planting scheme or a business that captures methane from landfills, and thus compensate for one's personal additions to global warming. Spend enough money and your conscience seems clear as regards being responsible for climate change. The World Bank estimates that the global market in voluntary offsets, by both businesses and individuals, grew to about $100 million in 2006, and will rise again this year. Last month, for instance, the US Forest Service announced a Carbon Capture Fund that will sell offsets to individuals. Since trees absorb CO2, the fund will underwrite tree-planting in Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota. Buyers will first use a "carbon calculator" to measure how much their activities at home, on transportation, at leisure, or on the job produce greenhouse gases, and then pay a certain amount to have seedlings planted in treeless areas. A small family, for instance, might pay under $200 per year, depending on its lifestyle. Another attempt to sell offsets is General Electric's "Earth Rewards" credit card. Up to 1 percent of each purchase with the card is used to fund programs that claim to reduce greenhouse gases....
High-country deal opens trails The most popular path to three of the state's 14,000-foot peaks near Telluride will reopen to hikers under a deal between a conservation group and a Texas developer. The Trust for Public Land has reached a tentative agreement with Rusty Nichols, owner of 220 acres of mining claims, to buy his property, which would provide access to the Silver Pick Trail that leads to Mount Wilson, El Diente Peak and Wilson Peak. There has been only limited access for the past three years. "We really have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here," said Jason Corzine, senior project manager for the nonprofit conservation group. "This is very much one of the symbols of Colorado," Corzine said, "and we can get it back into the public domain." The price was not disclosed, but the Telluride Foundation - which contributed $150,000 - pegged it at $3 million....
A Wyoming forest yearns to burn Gorgeous red sunsets and haze in the air scare the heck out of people in my part of Wyoming. We live next to the Shoshone National Forest. It is a jewel, and so remarkable that it was the first national forest created by Congress. The mountains in this 2.4 million-acre reserve in west-central Wyoming are the tallest in the state. The views in the area are breathtaking, and I am lucky enough to live within five miles of its border. But like most people who live close to the Shoshone, I fear that it will burn up. Who would be affected? Folks in towns including Lander, Dubois, the Wind River Indian Reservation, Cody and Meeteetse, to name just a few. We all know the major reasons: Fire-fighting efforts have successfully prevented blazes in the forest over the past 60 years, creating huge amounts of deadfall. The northern Rocky Mountains are also in the midst of drought - the worst in 500 years. Add to that increased visitation by campers, hikers and horseback enthusiasts, plus the subdivisions that have cropped up close to the forest and within the forest as well....
Judge: No drilling on South Shale yet The Bureau of Land Management will have to reconsider allowing natural gas drilling on South Shale Ridge north of Grand Junction after a federal judge in Denver ruled Monday that the agency’s decision to do so was arbitrary and capricious. Judge Marcia S. Krieger ruled that the BLM must stop all leasing and prevent any lease from taking effect on South Shale Ridge because the agency considered neither the full effect of drilling on threatened plants nor an option allowing energy companies to drill from outside the area without harming the surface of the wildland. Krieger said the BLM’s environmental assessment of drilling the ridge violated the National Environmental Policy Act. South Shale Ridge, a 32,000 acre wildland west of DeBeque harboring several plants, including the hookless cactus, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, was once considered for wilderness status, but was opened to oil and gas leasing two decades ago....
More Dead Wild Horses on Tonopah Test Range Federal officials are investigating the deaths of at least 55 wild horses and an antelope found near a watering hole on a ballistics and bombing range in central Nevada. A Bureau of Land Management official in Las Vegas says tissue from the animals and water samples are being tested, and results could take up to a week. The BLM and Air Force released a statement Tuesday saying the pond was believed to be the problem. It's on a dry lake bed on the Tonopah Test Range -- at least 210 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The area's home to about 250 wild horses. Workers are fencing off the pond Wednesday and setting up storage tanks to offer fresh water to wild horses and burros....
Fresh cull in foot-and-mouth zone A fresh case of foot-and-mouth disease is suspected in Surrey, the chief veterinary officer has confirmed. Cattle, within the 3km protection zone set up around the farm where the first outbreak occurred, are being culled as a precaution. Chief veterinary officer Debby Reynolds said they had detected "suspect" signs and the cows were being culled to "minimise any chance of spread". Test results, due on Tuesday, will establish if it is another outbreak. The BBC understands the new foot-and-mouth cull will affect between 50 and 100 cattle. Dr Reynolds said the second potential outbreak site was a "small number of kilometres" from Wolford farm, near Guildford, the first infected premises....
UK foot-and-mouth vaccines ordered Britain was on Monday night drawing up contingency plans to vaccinate thousands of farm animals against foot-and-mouth disease in a move that if implemented could see meat exports suspended for up to six months. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Monday night confirmed a second case of suspected foot-and-mouth disease within 3km of the protection zone set up around the original outbreak near Guildford, south-west of London. Investigators probing the source of the first outbreak are expected to report their findings today. The European Union on Monday banned British meat, dairy and livestock exports, and the UK cannot export to other countries until it regains disease-free status. The Meat and Livestock Federation has estimated that the UK – which last year exported more than £500m ($1bn, €740m) of red meat and livestock, mostly to Europe – loses £10m for every week it cannot export....
Rancher, linguist working to preserve native language An effort to save the Mandan language may rest on the shoulders of a 75-year-old horse rancher. Experts believe Edwin Benson is the only person living who speaks fluent Mandan, the language of the American Indian tribe that became the host of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during the explorers' winter encampment in North Dakota more than 200 years ago. For past three summers, in six-hour shifts, Benson and California linguist Sara Trechter have camped out in a small office so he can speak into a microphone while Trechter takes notes. The two recently finished transcribing seven Mandan folk stories. Benson's grandfather insisted on keeping alive Mandan traditions and language. Ben Benson forbid speaking English in his home, a log cabin near the mouth of the Little Missouri River....
It's All Trew: Recreating the past with tree revival The original chapter of our ranch home began in early 1918 with a two room, board-and-bat frame dwelling sitting all alone on a hillside by an Eclipse windmill. Frank Crisp had big plans to marry, buy land from his father and start a family. Plans went astray when the intended bride got cold feet and backed out. Frank was so disgusted he joined the army in WWI. The second chapter came when his brother Enloe took over with plans of similar nature. He added two more rooms and moved in. His plans also went astray when his father sold the land to Charley McMurtry, an up and coming new rancher in the area. The third chapter saw McMurtry adding porches front and back, a cellar and topping it all off with a new pointed hip roof painted charcoal gray. A couple of good cattle years added barns, corrals and a bunkhouse with the place christened Red Camp because of the red paint applied to all. Even the windmill and cypress water tank were painted. This era lasted about thirty years until sold in 1949 to J.T. and Oma Trew....
Monday, August 06, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Kempthorne defends firefighting efforts Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is defending wildland firefighters against accusations from Idaho's governor and its two U.S. senators that the giant Murphy Complex of fires in southern Idaho and northern Nevada could have been handled better. "My heart goes out to the citizens who have been hard hit, but it's not for lack of effort on the part of our firefighters," Kempthorne told the Idaho Statesman. He said a combination of events led to the ferocity of the fire, which has burned more than 1,000 square miles but on Thursday was nearly contained. Kempthorne said the hottest July since 1870, spring rains in 2005 and 2006 that led to large areas of dead grass, a smaller snowpack, some 1,600 lightning strikes on the day the fire started on July 16, and strong winds contributed to the blaze. "It was explosive," said Kempthorne, Idaho's governor before becoming interior secretary last year. Earlier this week, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a rancher, and the state's senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers in blaming federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse the fire near the town of Murphy Hot Springs. They also said that when the July 16 lightning storm rolled through Idaho and Nevada's remote border country, locals with bulldozers stood ready to help build fire lines but were told by Bureau of Land Management officials to stay put. The three Republicans blame a 2005 federal court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project for reducing cattle grazing and allowing fuel buildup, conditions they contend fed the flames that burned an area the size of Rhode Island and cost $9 million to fight....
Western Governors Hold Fire Summit in Idaho Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons says he's meeting Monday in Boise with the governors of Idaho and Utah to talk about joint firefighting and fire prevention efforts. Gibbons said Friday that he'll meet with Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal will participate by telephone. Gibbons, noting Friday that Nevada already has lost over 900,000 acres this fire season, said the role of the federal government in firefighting also will be discussed. Earlier in the week, Otter and U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho took up the cause of ranchers on the Idaho-Nevada border who blame federal grazing restrictions for allowing grass to grow tall on public land, a development they say exacerbated the huge Murphy Complex wildfires. Gibbons last week joined with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in announcing a 23-member commission that will examine whether bureaucratic delays and government mistakes contributed to a devastating South Lake Tahoe wildfire in June....
Florida senator chides administration for Everglades decision The Bush administration’s hand in removing the Everglades from a United Nations list of endangered sites was denounced Friday by a Florida senator. Democrat Bill Nelson characterized it as improper meddling by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Todd Willens at a U.N. meeting in June in New Zealand. The decision could slow progress on Everglades restoration by detracting from the sense of urgency. Congress approved the 40-year project in 2000, saying it would split the costs 50-50 with Florida. But the state has paid most of $7 billion tab so far on a project expected to cost up to $20 billion. Nelson said he will call a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs to investigate the matter once Congress returns from its August vacation. “The U.N. should have been presented with the position of our agency experts,” Nelson wrote Thursday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “This action is unacceptable and, I believe, warrants Willens’ removal.”....
Ranchers hope for Salazar's support on Pinon Canyon Like Daniel in the Old Testament, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar is going into the lion's den next week. The first-term Democrat is scheduled to meet with county commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Otero and Baca counties next Tuesday in Trinidad in his quest to find a "win-win" solution between the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site and the strong opposition from area ranchers. Ranchers opposed to the expansion also expect to meet with him during the day. "This is going to be an opportunity for Sen. Salazar to listen to the local officials and see if there is any way to find a win-win solution," a Salazar spokesman said Friday. Call Salazar an optimist because, thus far, those same county commissioners as well as a coalition of landowners around the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon training site northeast of Trinidad have taken a "not for sale" position on the Army's planned expansion....
Mountain lion suspected in livestock death A mountain lion is being blamed for the killing of more than a dozen calves on a ranch near Patagonia. Brad Gatlin, who runs the Gatlin Ranch, located on Blue Haven Road, said that he has lost nine calves this year. The rancher also said that last year he was missing five calves. While Gatlin said he suspected that a mountain lion might be the culprit, he was unable to prove anything because of the difficulty of finding recognizable carcasses in such rough terrain. "A mountain lion was always a possibility, but we didn't know for sure until we found a fresh kill right near the house," said Gatlin, who described finding a half-buried calf near the entrance to his drive on June 13. Gatlin said he filed a report with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD). "Our depredation law says that if he knows that something is killing his cows he can go after it and kill it," said AGFD Wildlife Manager Mark Frieberg. "He just has to notify us, and we'll come and collect the animal."....
Tumacacori wilderness sought The debate over a proposed Tumacacori Highlands wilderness area swings into high gear now that U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva has introduced a bill to protect 83,400 acres of national forest from Tubac south to the Mexican border. Although they face opponents who cite border-enforcement concerns, Grijalva and environmentalists have lined up a broad coalition of supporters in four years of planning. Backers include four hunting groups, two religious groups, four neighborhood associations and dozens of businesses from Tubac to Nogales. They're joined by 80 University of Arizona scientists who say the Tumacacori Highlands need protection from increasing urbanization in the Upper Santa Cruz River Valley and the Tucson area to the north. n particular, the area must be protected to keep a growing number of off-road vehicles from scarring a lush and fragile landscape, wilderness supporters say. The area plays host to an immense variety of state and federally protected species — 74 in all — and some of the Southwest's most rugged and biologically diverse wildlands....
Group seeks protection for jaguar The endangered jaguar has languished far too long without protection, and the federal government should do something about it, a nonprofit group said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tucson. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force the agency that oversees endangered species in the U.S. to declare habitat for the cats and to draw up a recovery plan to bring the species, of which about 100 exist in the wild, back to strength, the lawsuit said. The Fish and Wildlife Service declined comment. Because no habitat has been designated and no protection plan exists, the species is vulnerable, said Michael Robinson of the Center. "It's getting no protection on the ground," Robinson said. The jaguar was recognized as endangered as early as 1972, but it was not included when the Endangered Species Act passed the following year. The species was put on the U.S. list in 1997, the lawsuit said....
Top Las Vegas water official blasts Utah request for study A top Southern Nevada water official is blasting a push by Utah lawmakers for a federal study of her agency's plan to draw groundwater from eastern Nevada, calling it a move aimed at fostering development in southern Utah. Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy on Wednesday also accused Utah officials of tampering with Nevada's ''sovereign right'' to develop groundwater resources within its boundaries. ''This isn't about protecting farmers or the environment,'' Mulroy said. ''The truth is they [Utah officials] need water to develop the I-15 corridor.'' On Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered Mulroy's attack, defending Utah's water rights, saying he was "fairly unsympathetic" to Nevada's position. Mulroy would not consent Friday to a request from The Salt Lake Tribune for a 20-minute interview. Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said Mulroy could not spare the time. Mulroy's angry response, first published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, came on the heels of The Tribune's report that Utah's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee had sent a letter to Utah's congressional delegation seeking support for a $6 million study of an aquifer beneath the Snake Valley in eastern Nevada and western Utah....
It's starve or sell for cattle ranches The next disaster for Utah ranchers whose lands have been ravaged by drought and massive wildfires: having to sell off their cattle because they cannot afford feed. Hay has doubled in price over the past year, and while state and federal officials have promised help from a variety of programs, there's little immediate aid. "There's no quick fix for this," said Jim Ekker, president of the Utah Cattlemen's Association. "The only place ranchers can go right now is to their bankers." Although the fire season is only half over, the number of cattle already taken off summer ranges has topped 44 percent of the state's livestock inventory - compared with 17 percent at the same time last year, according to a National Agricultural Statistics Service report released this week. The five-year average for livestock taken off ranges by July 29 is 12 percent....
Environmentalists seek to limit logging in beetle-infested areas The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that's no reason to chop them down. "There's a lot of heartache about what's going on. What can we do? Precious little. We can't cut our way ahead of the beetle," said Tom Fry, national fire program coordinator for the Wilderness Society. That doesn't mollify Starlyn First of Silverthorne, an area resident who said the dead trees are not only an eyesore, they're a fire hazard. First remembers the Storm King fire that roared up a mountain in 1994 in Glenwood Springs, another resort town, killing 14 firefighters and threatening homes that were built too close to flammable timber. "They need to be cut down. What if lightning hits?" she asked as she walked along a scenic trail around Lake Dillon through large stands of brown trees, bumping into reporters and camera crews taken on a tour by a coalition of environmentalists who are concerned that "alarmist" reports of fire dangers will scare the state and federal government into overreacting and allow logging to clear the forests of dead trees....
First ever basin-wide forest fuel plan meets federal mandate A first-ever, 10-year forest thinning plan for the entire Tahoe Basin is moving toward approval, outlining a near tripling of efforts to reduce the threat of a catastrophic wildfire near Tahoe's shores. The plan will be used to net federal funding for the prescribed burns, tree removal and brush clearing in 208,000 acres of forest around the lake. On Wednesday night North Tahoe locals got their last glimpse of the draft plan, which will ultimately be sent to Congress and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior for approval. The Forest Service held its last public meeting on the plan in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday night. The Forest Service collaborated with 17 Lake Tahoe agencies to look at fuel reduction in the entire basin as a whole, fulfilling the a federal mandate delivered through the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006. "This plan, basically, was created because Congress told you to," said Chris French, an Environmental Coordinator for the plan. "There's a lot of communities that don't have that national recognition, (but) this place is a (national) treasure." Experts say the plan will direct funding to dangerously overgrown forests that threaten homes and lives in Tahoe. According to Steve Holl, one of the plan's consultants, 60 percent of Tahoe's forests would likely support crown fires and 70 percent of Tahoe homes have inadequate defensible space....
Report: many houses in Lake Tahoe Fire ignited by other houses A federal report has concluded that many of the 254 homes lost in the Lake Tahoe fire were ignited by other homes and not flaming trees. Released Friday, the analysis of the 3,072-acre Angora blaze found no single factor responsible for the fire's spread into residential neighborhoods. Instead, the review suggested that a number of elements, including unusually dry wind gusts, houses that had been built with flammable materials and long-ago commercial logging projects that had left dead treetops and limbs on the ground. Still, the U.S. Forest Service report examined the effect of thinning projects conducted within and adjacent to the burn area to reduce fire risk and concluded that they had worked. Efforts to reduce fuels were "very effective in most cases," said Kathy Murphy, regional fuels operations manager for the Forest Service and one of the report's authors. "They're not designed to stop a fire. They're designed to lower the intensity of a fire."....
Judge reduces arson sentence More than any legal argument, the human element motivated a federal judge on Friday to cut five months off of the prison term of Kendall Tankersley, one of 10 defendants convicted in Eugene for conspiring to use arson to promote their environmental views. Tankersley, 30, was sentenced in late May to three years and 10 months in prison for conspiracy, arson and attempted arson for a fire that destroyed the U.S. Forest Industries office in Medford in late 1998. She asked for reconsideration, claiming the judge improperly increased her sentence and treated her more harshly than others with similar involvement. However, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken rejected the legal arguments. Instead, in reducing the sentence, Aiken cited Tankersley's extraordinary effort to turn away from criminal activism after she left the conspiracy after a relatively short involvement. The decision nearly wraps up the largest ever investigation of arson and sabotage by environmental extremists, an investigation dubbed Operation Backfire by the local, state and federal agencies who conducted it over a nine-year period....
House Approves Drilling Ban On Roan Energy companies would be barred from tapping natural gas on federal land atop the scenic Roan Plateau under the energy bill passed by the House Saturday. The provision was inserted by Colorado Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar, and was one of two victories for state Democrats on the bill. Udall and Rep. Diana DeGette also helped lead a successful fight to add a renewable energy requirement. It would require utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or other renewable energy sources by 2020. The bill also includes a measure by Udall extending the amount of time the Bureau of Land Management has to prepare regulations for oil shale leases. It gives the state 120 days to review them before they are adopted....
Feds back down on Roan plan The federal government has agreed to a further delay on the proposed leasing of oil and gas properties on the Roan Plateau near Rifle following a political showdown with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Salazar's office said late Friday the senator was notified that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had agreed to a 120-day extension to implementation of its approved drilling plan for the Road in order to give the administration of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter time to review and comment on the plan. Salazar, under U.S. Senate rules, had put a "hold" on the nomination of BLM director nominee James Caswell. The BLM has said the Roan plan is the most restrictive operations permit ever issued by the agency. The previously approved drilling plan for the Roan Plateau carries unprecedented restrictions on the size of area that can be disturbed by operations and strict reclamation requirements. Some in the oil industry have said the restrictions may not be worth it....
Kempthorne: federal managers must adapt to climate change Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says federal managers of land, water and wildlife must adapt to climate change. He says the warming climate is making wildlife habitat restoration more difficult. He says fires burning around the West, droughts and growing water shortages around the nation are putting new demands on agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. To deal with those concerns he says he has organized a task force to look into ways that the 73,000 employees in the Interior Department can help deal with climate change.
Nevada's Most Infamous Brothel, Mustang Ranch, Back In Business It made Nevada the only state where prostitution is legal. In its checkered history, it was burned down, rebuilt, shut down by the IRS and sold on eBay for the price of a modest home. In its 40 years, the self-proclaimed World Famous Mustang Ranch has seen the murder of a heavyweight boxing contender and an owner who skipped the country to dodge the feds. It has heard countless stories that never will be told and knows names that never will be uttered. Like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, the gaudy pink stucco buildings housing the cribs of its prostitutes are in a new location, under new management and looking better than ever....
Wily coyotes invade Florida A band of sneaky, savage, bloodthirsty hunters has migrated from the western United States to the woods, farms and prairies of Florida. They've been observed prowling residential yards in the Panhandle, killing cattle in Central Florida and staring ominously at passersby in Everglades National Park. The marauders are coyotes, and so far, there's no stopping them. "There is little that can be done about it," said Eddie White, veteran naturalist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "You can't eradicate them. Out West, they've been trying to eradicate them for 100 years now. They've used poisons, shot `em from helicopters and trapped them, and I don't think they made a dent in them." No one knows how many of the wild canines have made it to Florida. Some came on their own; others were brought in by hunt clubs as prey for dogs, escaped and began multiplying. Averaging a litter of six pups a year, they also have been bred with domestic dogs....
End It, Don't Mend It Congress is fundamentally a gathering of horse-traders, and the body always seems to find a way to put pork into its already-lavish spending bills. When recent reports revealed that the supplemental spending bills for Iraq contained funding for peanut storage and spinach growers, Congress finally caved — apparently that was a bridge too far. But that won't be the last we hear from farm commodity groups this year. The current farm bill, a multi-year spending program for commodity and rural programs, is due for renewal in September, and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is causing a stir by becoming the first ag head in recent memory to submit a draft proposal of his own. But a confluence of events this year — a Doha round of free trade agreements in need of a kick-start, budget pressures and renewed commitment to fiscal responsibility from the Democrats in Congress, and growing public awareness of the failures of farm programs — all point to the need for reform. The question is: with what do we replace the current expensive and outdated programs? How about nothing? A commitment to phase out farm subsidies, "rural development" programs, and ad-hoc disaster payments is the best action Congress could take in September. They should couple this with repealing the permanent legislation that would allow agriculture programs to be reinstated in future. If Congress had to start from scratch every time the farm lobby wanted more taxpayer-funded largesse, they would have a harder time passing it....
E. coli found in San Juan River Rancher Lawrence Stock never quite meant to join the San Juan Watershed Group. An unlikely member, he may one day find his cattle accused by the group of polluting the San Juan River and nearby arroyos with the bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli. The bacteria, in higher concentrations, can cause severe poisoning. The San Juan Watershed Group recently wrote a report alleging livestock manure is the main source of E. coli on the Stevens Arroyo, a mostly dry creek stretched from the Colorado state line south to the river. The bacteria, commonly found in the intestines of mammals, suggests more harmful bacteria could be present in the water. The environment department tested around 30 sites where water flowed into the San Juan River — virtually every inflow on that stretch, said Tomko — and measured above and below them to see how much bacteria they contributed. From Blanco south, the E. coli levels rose and never dropped....
U.K. lab suspected in foot-and-mouth outbreak British officials said late Saturday that they suspect the strain of food-and-mouth disease recently discovered in cattle in southern England may have escaped from a nearby government laboratory studying the disease. According to the Associated Press, U.K. agriculture officials told reporters that the strain, which had not been seen for some time in living animals, is identical to one being studied at the government's Institute for Animal Health laboratory. The strain was discovered in cattle on a farm outside of Wanborough, London, about four miles from the facility. Wanborough is approximately 30 miles southwest of London. U.K. officials said that because no livestock had been moved from the farm since July 10, they believe the outbreak can be contained.
British authorities said on Saturday that they were banning the export of livestock and livestock products until the source of the outbreak was found. The ban is immediate and far-reaching, covering live animals, carcasses, meat and milk. As a result of the outbreak, the U.S. and Japan moved immediately to ban British pork products. Japan and the U.S. have not allowed beef imports from Britain since a mad-cow disease outbreak in the 1990s....
Dairies dump milk on radiation threat Two dairy farms have dumped milk after the discovery of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope in 25 nearby drinking water wells. Officials from Sorensen's Dairy and Oasis Dairy said they will stop selling milk until it is tested for the isotope, polonium-210, by the Food and Drug Administration. Officials said there's no known health risk at this time. A study released Friday by the U.S. Geological Survey found the radioactive isotope in 24 private wells and one public well around Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno. Polonium-210 is known to cause cancer in humans. All dairies around Fallon sell their milk to the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, which in turn markets the milk to a dairy in Reno and plants in northern California....
Leachman ranch dispute heads to appeal A federal judge's decision ordering the sale of two ranches owned by Leachman Cattle Co. LLC to pay back nearly $2 million in loans to the federal government is headed for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Dec. 27, 2006, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull ruled against Leachman Cattle Co. and its owners, Jim Leachman of Billings and his former wife, Corinne Leachman. The judge ordered the federal Farm Service Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to first foreclose on the Hair Pin Ranch east of Lockwood and then on the Leachman Cattle Co. LLC's Home Place Ranch to recover emergency loans made 28 years ago. Jim Leachman spent three decades developing beef cattle genetics at his Montana ranches into a worldwide asset. For years, ranchers from around the world flew to Billings for the Leachman spring bull sale, and they still do. The cattleman still raises horses under the Hair Pin brand and still conducts spring bull sales and fall horse sales. However, heavy debt and lawsuits have dragged the Leachman Cattle Co. and its founder into ongoing troubles....
Author investigates Roswell Tom Carey has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to uncovering what exactly happened on July 4, 1947, outside Roswell, N.M. Now, along with coauthor Don Schmitt, the Huntingdon Valley resident has published Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-year Cover-Up, documenting his findings concerning the alleged extraterrestrial event. A brief synopsis: During a lightning storm, something crashed outside of Corona, N.M., about 75 miles northwest of Roswell. The next day, a sheep rancher found the strange debris and traveled to Roswell to alert authorities and the media. Also found at the site: several "alien" bodies, described by one eyewitness as "not from this earth." A press release issued by the U.S. Army Air Forces - as the Air Force was then known - proclaimed that the 509th Bomb Group at the Roswell Army Air Field, the first officials at the scene, had "captured" a flying saucer. That release was refuted within hours, however, by the Eighth Air Force Headquarters, which stated that the saucer was actually just a downed weather balloon. The bodies were later explained as full-sized mannequins used in high-altitude parachute drops....
Collection amassed by late, enigmatic artist could be worth $22.5M Artist and ethnographer Paul Dyck spent much of his 88 years piecing together the largest, most significant and most complete private collection of Plains Indian artifacts in the world. Early last month, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody acquired the collection, most of it rare material from the pre-reservation Buffalo Culture. Only a few people have had access to the collection of nearly 2,000 items, which Dyck kept at his ranch home in Rimrock, Ariz. It has never been available to the general public. "It's going to stun people," said former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, the chairman of the museum's board of directors. "It certainly stunned us." Even board members with expertise in American Indian culture were awed by the remarkable collection, which includes children's toys, ghost dance dresses, a peace medal Lewis and Clark may have given to a Mandan chief and huge buffalo-hide tepees, he said....
Artifacts reveal vivid stories of Plains Indian life On a late September morning in 1877, Robert Coburn, owner of the Circle C Ranch on Flatwillow Creek south of the Missouri River, awoke to find the Nez Perce camped on a bench a half-mile from his log home. They had fled 1,000 miles from their home in the Pacific Northwest, dogged the entire way by the U.S. Army. They were tired and hungry and only a few days away from their final, fatal confrontation with Gen. Nelson Miles at the foot of Montana's Bear Paw Mountains. Coburn rode out to meet Joseph, who spread a buffalo robe on the ground and pulled a pipe and tobacco from a beaded pouch. They settled down for a smoke and a talk. The Nez Perce meant no harm, Joseph said, speaking through an interpreter. They had fought with the Army and were on their way to sanctuary in Canada. His people needed meat, and Joseph wanted cattle. Not daring to refuse, the rancher gave permission to cut animals from his herd. Joseph told the rancher that he had no money to pay. He took off a heavy elk tooth necklace and gave it to Coburn. He also left the rancher with the pipe they had smoked and the war bonnet he was wearing....
Sweetwater horse trainer will ride in Great Santa Fe Trail endurance race Thompson Training Center, owned and operated by John and Susan Thompson, in Sweetwater is preparing for the biggest endurance horse race, The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race. The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race starts Sept. 3 in Santa Fe, NM and will end 800 miles later on Sept. 15 in Independence, Mo. It is broken down into 10 rides of 50-55 miles a day over 510 miles. Only 100 teams will be allowed to enter with about 500 horses dashing over the landscape. Already, 76 riders from 22 states have signed up, paying entry fees ranging from $3,500 to $4,500. Susan has ridden, trained and competed on horses almost her entire life. Her riding accomplishments include prominence in barrel racing and endurance riding. She has endurance raced since 1996 and has completed 44 of 50 races and accumulated almost 2000 competitive miles. thompson is entered in the most prestigious team type, one rider on one or more horses for the entire race and is the only entry from the state of Tennessee. She will be taking two straight Egyptian bred Arabian horses, Thee Pilgram, an 8-year-old gray gelding and Thee MaCade a 7-year-old bay gelding, both sired by Thee Desperado, alternating them each day....
Albuquerque author compiles Gene Autry filmography As a kid growing up in America's heartland in the 1940s and '50s, Boyd Magers seldom missed a Saturday afternoon with his silver-screen cowboy heroes. At the Beldorf theater in Independence, Kan., and, later, the Center theater in Ponca City, Okla., Magers would hunker down Saturdays with the likes of Lash LaRue, Rocky Lane, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Jimmy Wakely, Whip Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Eddie Dean and Gene Autry. Autry, the box office champ of them all in the years before World War II, became known as America's Favorite Cowboy. But he wasn't Magers' favorite. "I liked Wakely, although lots of people didn't," said Magers, 67, now an Albuquerque resident, an authority on Western films and author of the new book "Gene Autry Westerns." Even though he liked other cowboy stars better, Magers enjoyed Autry's movies and says Autry's impact on the American cowboy movie is second only to Western movie icon John Wayne. Wayne and Autry were born 100 years ago this year....
Kempthorne defends firefighting efforts Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is defending wildland firefighters against accusations from Idaho's governor and its two U.S. senators that the giant Murphy Complex of fires in southern Idaho and northern Nevada could have been handled better. "My heart goes out to the citizens who have been hard hit, but it's not for lack of effort on the part of our firefighters," Kempthorne told the Idaho Statesman. He said a combination of events led to the ferocity of the fire, which has burned more than 1,000 square miles but on Thursday was nearly contained. Kempthorne said the hottest July since 1870, spring rains in 2005 and 2006 that led to large areas of dead grass, a smaller snowpack, some 1,600 lightning strikes on the day the fire started on July 16, and strong winds contributed to the blaze. "It was explosive," said Kempthorne, Idaho's governor before becoming interior secretary last year. Earlier this week, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a rancher, and the state's senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers in blaming federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse the fire near the town of Murphy Hot Springs. They also said that when the July 16 lightning storm rolled through Idaho and Nevada's remote border country, locals with bulldozers stood ready to help build fire lines but were told by Bureau of Land Management officials to stay put. The three Republicans blame a 2005 federal court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project for reducing cattle grazing and allowing fuel buildup, conditions they contend fed the flames that burned an area the size of Rhode Island and cost $9 million to fight....
Western Governors Hold Fire Summit in Idaho Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons says he's meeting Monday in Boise with the governors of Idaho and Utah to talk about joint firefighting and fire prevention efforts. Gibbons said Friday that he'll meet with Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal will participate by telephone. Gibbons, noting Friday that Nevada already has lost over 900,000 acres this fire season, said the role of the federal government in firefighting also will be discussed. Earlier in the week, Otter and U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho took up the cause of ranchers on the Idaho-Nevada border who blame federal grazing restrictions for allowing grass to grow tall on public land, a development they say exacerbated the huge Murphy Complex wildfires. Gibbons last week joined with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in announcing a 23-member commission that will examine whether bureaucratic delays and government mistakes contributed to a devastating South Lake Tahoe wildfire in June....
Florida senator chides administration for Everglades decision The Bush administration’s hand in removing the Everglades from a United Nations list of endangered sites was denounced Friday by a Florida senator. Democrat Bill Nelson characterized it as improper meddling by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Todd Willens at a U.N. meeting in June in New Zealand. The decision could slow progress on Everglades restoration by detracting from the sense of urgency. Congress approved the 40-year project in 2000, saying it would split the costs 50-50 with Florida. But the state has paid most of $7 billion tab so far on a project expected to cost up to $20 billion. Nelson said he will call a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs to investigate the matter once Congress returns from its August vacation. “The U.N. should have been presented with the position of our agency experts,” Nelson wrote Thursday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “This action is unacceptable and, I believe, warrants Willens’ removal.”....
Ranchers hope for Salazar's support on Pinon Canyon Like Daniel in the Old Testament, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar is going into the lion's den next week. The first-term Democrat is scheduled to meet with county commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Otero and Baca counties next Tuesday in Trinidad in his quest to find a "win-win" solution between the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site and the strong opposition from area ranchers. Ranchers opposed to the expansion also expect to meet with him during the day. "This is going to be an opportunity for Sen. Salazar to listen to the local officials and see if there is any way to find a win-win solution," a Salazar spokesman said Friday. Call Salazar an optimist because, thus far, those same county commissioners as well as a coalition of landowners around the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon training site northeast of Trinidad have taken a "not for sale" position on the Army's planned expansion....
Mountain lion suspected in livestock death A mountain lion is being blamed for the killing of more than a dozen calves on a ranch near Patagonia. Brad Gatlin, who runs the Gatlin Ranch, located on Blue Haven Road, said that he has lost nine calves this year. The rancher also said that last year he was missing five calves. While Gatlin said he suspected that a mountain lion might be the culprit, he was unable to prove anything because of the difficulty of finding recognizable carcasses in such rough terrain. "A mountain lion was always a possibility, but we didn't know for sure until we found a fresh kill right near the house," said Gatlin, who described finding a half-buried calf near the entrance to his drive on June 13. Gatlin said he filed a report with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD). "Our depredation law says that if he knows that something is killing his cows he can go after it and kill it," said AGFD Wildlife Manager Mark Frieberg. "He just has to notify us, and we'll come and collect the animal."....
Tumacacori wilderness sought The debate over a proposed Tumacacori Highlands wilderness area swings into high gear now that U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva has introduced a bill to protect 83,400 acres of national forest from Tubac south to the Mexican border. Although they face opponents who cite border-enforcement concerns, Grijalva and environmentalists have lined up a broad coalition of supporters in four years of planning. Backers include four hunting groups, two religious groups, four neighborhood associations and dozens of businesses from Tubac to Nogales. They're joined by 80 University of Arizona scientists who say the Tumacacori Highlands need protection from increasing urbanization in the Upper Santa Cruz River Valley and the Tucson area to the north. n particular, the area must be protected to keep a growing number of off-road vehicles from scarring a lush and fragile landscape, wilderness supporters say. The area plays host to an immense variety of state and federally protected species — 74 in all — and some of the Southwest's most rugged and biologically diverse wildlands....
Group seeks protection for jaguar The endangered jaguar has languished far too long without protection, and the federal government should do something about it, a nonprofit group said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tucson. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force the agency that oversees endangered species in the U.S. to declare habitat for the cats and to draw up a recovery plan to bring the species, of which about 100 exist in the wild, back to strength, the lawsuit said. The Fish and Wildlife Service declined comment. Because no habitat has been designated and no protection plan exists, the species is vulnerable, said Michael Robinson of the Center. "It's getting no protection on the ground," Robinson said. The jaguar was recognized as endangered as early as 1972, but it was not included when the Endangered Species Act passed the following year. The species was put on the U.S. list in 1997, the lawsuit said....
Top Las Vegas water official blasts Utah request for study A top Southern Nevada water official is blasting a push by Utah lawmakers for a federal study of her agency's plan to draw groundwater from eastern Nevada, calling it a move aimed at fostering development in southern Utah. Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy on Wednesday also accused Utah officials of tampering with Nevada's ''sovereign right'' to develop groundwater resources within its boundaries. ''This isn't about protecting farmers or the environment,'' Mulroy said. ''The truth is they [Utah officials] need water to develop the I-15 corridor.'' On Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered Mulroy's attack, defending Utah's water rights, saying he was "fairly unsympathetic" to Nevada's position. Mulroy would not consent Friday to a request from The Salt Lake Tribune for a 20-minute interview. Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said Mulroy could not spare the time. Mulroy's angry response, first published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, came on the heels of The Tribune's report that Utah's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee had sent a letter to Utah's congressional delegation seeking support for a $6 million study of an aquifer beneath the Snake Valley in eastern Nevada and western Utah....
It's starve or sell for cattle ranches The next disaster for Utah ranchers whose lands have been ravaged by drought and massive wildfires: having to sell off their cattle because they cannot afford feed. Hay has doubled in price over the past year, and while state and federal officials have promised help from a variety of programs, there's little immediate aid. "There's no quick fix for this," said Jim Ekker, president of the Utah Cattlemen's Association. "The only place ranchers can go right now is to their bankers." Although the fire season is only half over, the number of cattle already taken off summer ranges has topped 44 percent of the state's livestock inventory - compared with 17 percent at the same time last year, according to a National Agricultural Statistics Service report released this week. The five-year average for livestock taken off ranges by July 29 is 12 percent....
Environmentalists seek to limit logging in beetle-infested areas The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that's no reason to chop them down. "There's a lot of heartache about what's going on. What can we do? Precious little. We can't cut our way ahead of the beetle," said Tom Fry, national fire program coordinator for the Wilderness Society. That doesn't mollify Starlyn First of Silverthorne, an area resident who said the dead trees are not only an eyesore, they're a fire hazard. First remembers the Storm King fire that roared up a mountain in 1994 in Glenwood Springs, another resort town, killing 14 firefighters and threatening homes that were built too close to flammable timber. "They need to be cut down. What if lightning hits?" she asked as she walked along a scenic trail around Lake Dillon through large stands of brown trees, bumping into reporters and camera crews taken on a tour by a coalition of environmentalists who are concerned that "alarmist" reports of fire dangers will scare the state and federal government into overreacting and allow logging to clear the forests of dead trees....
First ever basin-wide forest fuel plan meets federal mandate A first-ever, 10-year forest thinning plan for the entire Tahoe Basin is moving toward approval, outlining a near tripling of efforts to reduce the threat of a catastrophic wildfire near Tahoe's shores. The plan will be used to net federal funding for the prescribed burns, tree removal and brush clearing in 208,000 acres of forest around the lake. On Wednesday night North Tahoe locals got their last glimpse of the draft plan, which will ultimately be sent to Congress and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior for approval. The Forest Service held its last public meeting on the plan in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday night. The Forest Service collaborated with 17 Lake Tahoe agencies to look at fuel reduction in the entire basin as a whole, fulfilling the a federal mandate delivered through the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006. "This plan, basically, was created because Congress told you to," said Chris French, an Environmental Coordinator for the plan. "There's a lot of communities that don't have that national recognition, (but) this place is a (national) treasure." Experts say the plan will direct funding to dangerously overgrown forests that threaten homes and lives in Tahoe. According to Steve Holl, one of the plan's consultants, 60 percent of Tahoe's forests would likely support crown fires and 70 percent of Tahoe homes have inadequate defensible space....
Report: many houses in Lake Tahoe Fire ignited by other houses A federal report has concluded that many of the 254 homes lost in the Lake Tahoe fire were ignited by other homes and not flaming trees. Released Friday, the analysis of the 3,072-acre Angora blaze found no single factor responsible for the fire's spread into residential neighborhoods. Instead, the review suggested that a number of elements, including unusually dry wind gusts, houses that had been built with flammable materials and long-ago commercial logging projects that had left dead treetops and limbs on the ground. Still, the U.S. Forest Service report examined the effect of thinning projects conducted within and adjacent to the burn area to reduce fire risk and concluded that they had worked. Efforts to reduce fuels were "very effective in most cases," said Kathy Murphy, regional fuels operations manager for the Forest Service and one of the report's authors. "They're not designed to stop a fire. They're designed to lower the intensity of a fire."....
Judge reduces arson sentence More than any legal argument, the human element motivated a federal judge on Friday to cut five months off of the prison term of Kendall Tankersley, one of 10 defendants convicted in Eugene for conspiring to use arson to promote their environmental views. Tankersley, 30, was sentenced in late May to three years and 10 months in prison for conspiracy, arson and attempted arson for a fire that destroyed the U.S. Forest Industries office in Medford in late 1998. She asked for reconsideration, claiming the judge improperly increased her sentence and treated her more harshly than others with similar involvement. However, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken rejected the legal arguments. Instead, in reducing the sentence, Aiken cited Tankersley's extraordinary effort to turn away from criminal activism after she left the conspiracy after a relatively short involvement. The decision nearly wraps up the largest ever investigation of arson and sabotage by environmental extremists, an investigation dubbed Operation Backfire by the local, state and federal agencies who conducted it over a nine-year period....
House Approves Drilling Ban On Roan Energy companies would be barred from tapping natural gas on federal land atop the scenic Roan Plateau under the energy bill passed by the House Saturday. The provision was inserted by Colorado Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar, and was one of two victories for state Democrats on the bill. Udall and Rep. Diana DeGette also helped lead a successful fight to add a renewable energy requirement. It would require utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or other renewable energy sources by 2020. The bill also includes a measure by Udall extending the amount of time the Bureau of Land Management has to prepare regulations for oil shale leases. It gives the state 120 days to review them before they are adopted....
Feds back down on Roan plan The federal government has agreed to a further delay on the proposed leasing of oil and gas properties on the Roan Plateau near Rifle following a political showdown with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Salazar's office said late Friday the senator was notified that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had agreed to a 120-day extension to implementation of its approved drilling plan for the Road in order to give the administration of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter time to review and comment on the plan. Salazar, under U.S. Senate rules, had put a "hold" on the nomination of BLM director nominee James Caswell. The BLM has said the Roan plan is the most restrictive operations permit ever issued by the agency. The previously approved drilling plan for the Roan Plateau carries unprecedented restrictions on the size of area that can be disturbed by operations and strict reclamation requirements. Some in the oil industry have said the restrictions may not be worth it....
Kempthorne: federal managers must adapt to climate change Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says federal managers of land, water and wildlife must adapt to climate change. He says the warming climate is making wildlife habitat restoration more difficult. He says fires burning around the West, droughts and growing water shortages around the nation are putting new demands on agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. To deal with those concerns he says he has organized a task force to look into ways that the 73,000 employees in the Interior Department can help deal with climate change.
Nevada's Most Infamous Brothel, Mustang Ranch, Back In Business It made Nevada the only state where prostitution is legal. In its checkered history, it was burned down, rebuilt, shut down by the IRS and sold on eBay for the price of a modest home. In its 40 years, the self-proclaimed World Famous Mustang Ranch has seen the murder of a heavyweight boxing contender and an owner who skipped the country to dodge the feds. It has heard countless stories that never will be told and knows names that never will be uttered. Like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, the gaudy pink stucco buildings housing the cribs of its prostitutes are in a new location, under new management and looking better than ever....
Wily coyotes invade Florida A band of sneaky, savage, bloodthirsty hunters has migrated from the western United States to the woods, farms and prairies of Florida. They've been observed prowling residential yards in the Panhandle, killing cattle in Central Florida and staring ominously at passersby in Everglades National Park. The marauders are coyotes, and so far, there's no stopping them. "There is little that can be done about it," said Eddie White, veteran naturalist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "You can't eradicate them. Out West, they've been trying to eradicate them for 100 years now. They've used poisons, shot `em from helicopters and trapped them, and I don't think they made a dent in them." No one knows how many of the wild canines have made it to Florida. Some came on their own; others were brought in by hunt clubs as prey for dogs, escaped and began multiplying. Averaging a litter of six pups a year, they also have been bred with domestic dogs....
End It, Don't Mend It Congress is fundamentally a gathering of horse-traders, and the body always seems to find a way to put pork into its already-lavish spending bills. When recent reports revealed that the supplemental spending bills for Iraq contained funding for peanut storage and spinach growers, Congress finally caved — apparently that was a bridge too far. But that won't be the last we hear from farm commodity groups this year. The current farm bill, a multi-year spending program for commodity and rural programs, is due for renewal in September, and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is causing a stir by becoming the first ag head in recent memory to submit a draft proposal of his own. But a confluence of events this year — a Doha round of free trade agreements in need of a kick-start, budget pressures and renewed commitment to fiscal responsibility from the Democrats in Congress, and growing public awareness of the failures of farm programs — all point to the need for reform. The question is: with what do we replace the current expensive and outdated programs? How about nothing? A commitment to phase out farm subsidies, "rural development" programs, and ad-hoc disaster payments is the best action Congress could take in September. They should couple this with repealing the permanent legislation that would allow agriculture programs to be reinstated in future. If Congress had to start from scratch every time the farm lobby wanted more taxpayer-funded largesse, they would have a harder time passing it....
E. coli found in San Juan River Rancher Lawrence Stock never quite meant to join the San Juan Watershed Group. An unlikely member, he may one day find his cattle accused by the group of polluting the San Juan River and nearby arroyos with the bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli. The bacteria, in higher concentrations, can cause severe poisoning. The San Juan Watershed Group recently wrote a report alleging livestock manure is the main source of E. coli on the Stevens Arroyo, a mostly dry creek stretched from the Colorado state line south to the river. The bacteria, commonly found in the intestines of mammals, suggests more harmful bacteria could be present in the water. The environment department tested around 30 sites where water flowed into the San Juan River — virtually every inflow on that stretch, said Tomko — and measured above and below them to see how much bacteria they contributed. From Blanco south, the E. coli levels rose and never dropped....
U.K. lab suspected in foot-and-mouth outbreak British officials said late Saturday that they suspect the strain of food-and-mouth disease recently discovered in cattle in southern England may have escaped from a nearby government laboratory studying the disease. According to the Associated Press, U.K. agriculture officials told reporters that the strain, which had not been seen for some time in living animals, is identical to one being studied at the government's Institute for Animal Health laboratory. The strain was discovered in cattle on a farm outside of Wanborough, London, about four miles from the facility. Wanborough is approximately 30 miles southwest of London. U.K. officials said that because no livestock had been moved from the farm since July 10, they believe the outbreak can be contained.
British authorities said on Saturday that they were banning the export of livestock and livestock products until the source of the outbreak was found. The ban is immediate and far-reaching, covering live animals, carcasses, meat and milk. As a result of the outbreak, the U.S. and Japan moved immediately to ban British pork products. Japan and the U.S. have not allowed beef imports from Britain since a mad-cow disease outbreak in the 1990s....
Dairies dump milk on radiation threat Two dairy farms have dumped milk after the discovery of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope in 25 nearby drinking water wells. Officials from Sorensen's Dairy and Oasis Dairy said they will stop selling milk until it is tested for the isotope, polonium-210, by the Food and Drug Administration. Officials said there's no known health risk at this time. A study released Friday by the U.S. Geological Survey found the radioactive isotope in 24 private wells and one public well around Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno. Polonium-210 is known to cause cancer in humans. All dairies around Fallon sell their milk to the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, which in turn markets the milk to a dairy in Reno and plants in northern California....
Leachman ranch dispute heads to appeal A federal judge's decision ordering the sale of two ranches owned by Leachman Cattle Co. LLC to pay back nearly $2 million in loans to the federal government is headed for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Dec. 27, 2006, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull ruled against Leachman Cattle Co. and its owners, Jim Leachman of Billings and his former wife, Corinne Leachman. The judge ordered the federal Farm Service Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to first foreclose on the Hair Pin Ranch east of Lockwood and then on the Leachman Cattle Co. LLC's Home Place Ranch to recover emergency loans made 28 years ago. Jim Leachman spent three decades developing beef cattle genetics at his Montana ranches into a worldwide asset. For years, ranchers from around the world flew to Billings for the Leachman spring bull sale, and they still do. The cattleman still raises horses under the Hair Pin brand and still conducts spring bull sales and fall horse sales. However, heavy debt and lawsuits have dragged the Leachman Cattle Co. and its founder into ongoing troubles....
Author investigates Roswell Tom Carey has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to uncovering what exactly happened on July 4, 1947, outside Roswell, N.M. Now, along with coauthor Don Schmitt, the Huntingdon Valley resident has published Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-year Cover-Up, documenting his findings concerning the alleged extraterrestrial event. A brief synopsis: During a lightning storm, something crashed outside of Corona, N.M., about 75 miles northwest of Roswell. The next day, a sheep rancher found the strange debris and traveled to Roswell to alert authorities and the media. Also found at the site: several "alien" bodies, described by one eyewitness as "not from this earth." A press release issued by the U.S. Army Air Forces - as the Air Force was then known - proclaimed that the 509th Bomb Group at the Roswell Army Air Field, the first officials at the scene, had "captured" a flying saucer. That release was refuted within hours, however, by the Eighth Air Force Headquarters, which stated that the saucer was actually just a downed weather balloon. The bodies were later explained as full-sized mannequins used in high-altitude parachute drops....
Collection amassed by late, enigmatic artist could be worth $22.5M Artist and ethnographer Paul Dyck spent much of his 88 years piecing together the largest, most significant and most complete private collection of Plains Indian artifacts in the world. Early last month, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody acquired the collection, most of it rare material from the pre-reservation Buffalo Culture. Only a few people have had access to the collection of nearly 2,000 items, which Dyck kept at his ranch home in Rimrock, Ariz. It has never been available to the general public. "It's going to stun people," said former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, the chairman of the museum's board of directors. "It certainly stunned us." Even board members with expertise in American Indian culture were awed by the remarkable collection, which includes children's toys, ghost dance dresses, a peace medal Lewis and Clark may have given to a Mandan chief and huge buffalo-hide tepees, he said....
Artifacts reveal vivid stories of Plains Indian life On a late September morning in 1877, Robert Coburn, owner of the Circle C Ranch on Flatwillow Creek south of the Missouri River, awoke to find the Nez Perce camped on a bench a half-mile from his log home. They had fled 1,000 miles from their home in the Pacific Northwest, dogged the entire way by the U.S. Army. They were tired and hungry and only a few days away from their final, fatal confrontation with Gen. Nelson Miles at the foot of Montana's Bear Paw Mountains. Coburn rode out to meet Joseph, who spread a buffalo robe on the ground and pulled a pipe and tobacco from a beaded pouch. They settled down for a smoke and a talk. The Nez Perce meant no harm, Joseph said, speaking through an interpreter. They had fought with the Army and were on their way to sanctuary in Canada. His people needed meat, and Joseph wanted cattle. Not daring to refuse, the rancher gave permission to cut animals from his herd. Joseph told the rancher that he had no money to pay. He took off a heavy elk tooth necklace and gave it to Coburn. He also left the rancher with the pipe they had smoked and the war bonnet he was wearing....
Sweetwater horse trainer will ride in Great Santa Fe Trail endurance race Thompson Training Center, owned and operated by John and Susan Thompson, in Sweetwater is preparing for the biggest endurance horse race, The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race. The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race starts Sept. 3 in Santa Fe, NM and will end 800 miles later on Sept. 15 in Independence, Mo. It is broken down into 10 rides of 50-55 miles a day over 510 miles. Only 100 teams will be allowed to enter with about 500 horses dashing over the landscape. Already, 76 riders from 22 states have signed up, paying entry fees ranging from $3,500 to $4,500. Susan has ridden, trained and competed on horses almost her entire life. Her riding accomplishments include prominence in barrel racing and endurance riding. She has endurance raced since 1996 and has completed 44 of 50 races and accumulated almost 2000 competitive miles. thompson is entered in the most prestigious team type, one rider on one or more horses for the entire race and is the only entry from the state of Tennessee. She will be taking two straight Egyptian bred Arabian horses, Thee Pilgram, an 8-year-old gray gelding and Thee MaCade a 7-year-old bay gelding, both sired by Thee Desperado, alternating them each day....
Albuquerque author compiles Gene Autry filmography As a kid growing up in America's heartland in the 1940s and '50s, Boyd Magers seldom missed a Saturday afternoon with his silver-screen cowboy heroes. At the Beldorf theater in Independence, Kan., and, later, the Center theater in Ponca City, Okla., Magers would hunker down Saturdays with the likes of Lash LaRue, Rocky Lane, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Jimmy Wakely, Whip Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Eddie Dean and Gene Autry. Autry, the box office champ of them all in the years before World War II, became known as America's Favorite Cowboy. But he wasn't Magers' favorite. "I liked Wakely, although lots of people didn't," said Magers, 67, now an Albuquerque resident, an authority on Western films and author of the new book "Gene Autry Westerns." Even though he liked other cowboy stars better, Magers enjoyed Autry's movies and says Autry's impact on the American cowboy movie is second only to Western movie icon John Wayne. Wayne and Autry were born 100 years ago this year....
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Donnie and the bunkhouse
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter
Some years ago, Dan signed on to work at the Tierra Verde Ranch. While Dan was moving his gear into the bunkhouse, Stan, another young hand, showed up and said they needed to go rescue a friend in trouble.
That would be Donnie, who was married and lived off the ranch.
Donnie was going to make a good old man because he'd been practicing it since he was a kid. Work and worry weren't going to be his cause of death at any age.
He was the kind of guy the boss gave the easy jobs to because, in his ineptness, Donnie wasn't about to complete a complicated project.
Dan had gas in his truck, so he and Stan jumped in it and off they went. They pulled up to Donnie's house and met his wife in less than desirable circumstances. She flew out of the house with an armful of shirts, threw them into the truck over the top of Dan and told him, "Don't bring that S.O.B. back here."
"Yes Ma'am," he told her.
She disappeared shortly, but when next he saw her, she was throwing a load of Wranglers over Stan on the passenger side and giving him similar instructions.
They were getting anxious about Donnie when he appeared running full tilt around the house in hot pursuit of a goat. The goat had a pretty good lead, but Donnie was hot on his trail. The third time around the house, Donnie made a flying tackle, broadsided the goat and got up yelling, "I'm the champeen goat dogger of all time."
He then spied his wife standing with her hands on her hips. At the same time, he saw the rescue truck so he cut across the flowerbed and dove into the pickup. Dan quickly put it in gear and they retreated.
Donnie stayed a fair spell in the bunkhouse with Dan and Stan. When he figured his wife had gotten lonesome enough and probably tired of cooking for one, he went back home and used some cowboy charm to reclaim his roost.
Dan was young and single and loved a good time. When payday rolled around, he would routinely travel to Stephenville to "give the girls a chance" at one of the local honk tonks.
One Friday evening, cold and misty, the boss told the boys to take it easy and go on home as they'd been working pretty hard. Donnie asked Dan where he was going. When Dan allowed that he thought the town girls could use some dance lessons, Donnie announced that he was going along.
Borrowing a clean pair of Wranglers and puttin on his new sparkling white high-top Nike tennis shoes, he was good to go. The lads were welcomed at the local spirit emporium, as good-looking cowboys always are. They spent the night dancing and having fun but at closing time Dan told Donnie to load up and he'd take him home.
Down the road a ways, Donnie got very quiet and suddenly asked Dan to pull over. He bailed out of the truck and began rubbing green grass on his shoes until he had them covered in grass stains. Dan just had to ask, "Why?"
"I'm going to tell my wife the pure truth," Donnie replied. "I'm going to tell her we have been out dancing and chasing women all night. She won't believe me. I can hear her calling me a liar and telling me I ain't been dancing, I been playing golf."
Dan thought about this awhile. Being a tactful person, he told Donnie that was a pretty good story but there was one flaw. There wasn't a golf course within a hundred miles and neither one of them had ever been real close to a golf club.
The bunkhouse got crowded again the next day.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy
By Julie Carter
Some years ago, Dan signed on to work at the Tierra Verde Ranch. While Dan was moving his gear into the bunkhouse, Stan, another young hand, showed up and said they needed to go rescue a friend in trouble.
That would be Donnie, who was married and lived off the ranch.
Donnie was going to make a good old man because he'd been practicing it since he was a kid. Work and worry weren't going to be his cause of death at any age.
He was the kind of guy the boss gave the easy jobs to because, in his ineptness, Donnie wasn't about to complete a complicated project.
Dan had gas in his truck, so he and Stan jumped in it and off they went. They pulled up to Donnie's house and met his wife in less than desirable circumstances. She flew out of the house with an armful of shirts, threw them into the truck over the top of Dan and told him, "Don't bring that S.O.B. back here."
"Yes Ma'am," he told her.
She disappeared shortly, but when next he saw her, she was throwing a load of Wranglers over Stan on the passenger side and giving him similar instructions.
They were getting anxious about Donnie when he appeared running full tilt around the house in hot pursuit of a goat. The goat had a pretty good lead, but Donnie was hot on his trail. The third time around the house, Donnie made a flying tackle, broadsided the goat and got up yelling, "I'm the champeen goat dogger of all time."
He then spied his wife standing with her hands on her hips. At the same time, he saw the rescue truck so he cut across the flowerbed and dove into the pickup. Dan quickly put it in gear and they retreated.
Donnie stayed a fair spell in the bunkhouse with Dan and Stan. When he figured his wife had gotten lonesome enough and probably tired of cooking for one, he went back home and used some cowboy charm to reclaim his roost.
Dan was young and single and loved a good time. When payday rolled around, he would routinely travel to Stephenville to "give the girls a chance" at one of the local honk tonks.
One Friday evening, cold and misty, the boss told the boys to take it easy and go on home as they'd been working pretty hard. Donnie asked Dan where he was going. When Dan allowed that he thought the town girls could use some dance lessons, Donnie announced that he was going along.
Borrowing a clean pair of Wranglers and puttin on his new sparkling white high-top Nike tennis shoes, he was good to go. The lads were welcomed at the local spirit emporium, as good-looking cowboys always are. They spent the night dancing and having fun but at closing time Dan told Donnie to load up and he'd take him home.
Down the road a ways, Donnie got very quiet and suddenly asked Dan to pull over. He bailed out of the truck and began rubbing green grass on his shoes until he had them covered in grass stains. Dan just had to ask, "Why?"
"I'm going to tell my wife the pure truth," Donnie replied. "I'm going to tell her we have been out dancing and chasing women all night. She won't believe me. I can hear her calling me a liar and telling me I ain't been dancing, I been playing golf."
Dan thought about this awhile. Being a tactful person, he told Donnie that was a pretty good story but there was one flaw. There wasn't a golf course within a hundred miles and neither one of them had ever been real close to a golf club.
The bunkhouse got crowded again the next day.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com
FLE
Federal Court Rules FBI Raid on Rep. William Jefferson's Office Unconstitutional The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case. Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business. "The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."....Go here(pdf) to read the opinion.
Behind the Surveillance Debate A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter. The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity. The first public reference to the order came obliquely this week from House Minority Leader John Boehner—one of a number of senior Republicans who have been leading the White House-backed campaign to persuade Congress to rush through an expanded eavesdropping measure before it leaves for August recess at the end of this week....
House OKs wider wiretap powers The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation." The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress. The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said....
FBI drug standard lowered for hiring Aspiring FBI agents who once dabbled in marijuana use won't be barred from getting a job with the elite crime-fighting agency, which has loosened its drug policy amid a campaign to hire hundreds of agents. The bureau's pot-smoking standard, in place for at least 13 years, was revised after internal debate about whether the policy was eliminating prospects because of drug experimentation, said Jeff Berkin, deputy director of the FBI's Security Division. The policy disqualified candidates if they had used marijuana more than 15 times. There was no public announcement of the change. It took effect in January. The decision comes as the FBI continues its hiring campaign and as law enforcement agencies across the USA grapple with high rates of disqualification based in part on applicants' past drug use....
DNA 'near matches' spur privacy fight Denver's district attorney wants the DNA profile and identity of a California felon who is a close but not perfect match to the man who committed an unsolved Denver rape, in the hope that the two are related. The prosecutor, Mitchell Morrissey, wants to use the California man's personal information to track the unknown rapist. Their genetic similarities, he says, suggests the California felon and the suspect are close relatives. But California Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown is refusing to release the information, citing a need to protect the privacy of the California felon and the integrity of California's database of criminal DNA. Reporting a DNA near-match, said Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy, would be "outside the boundaries" of court opinions that authorize DNA database searching and could prompt a lawsuit. The standoff between the two agencies appears to be the first but likely not the last such clash over a new DNA technique called "familial searching," says Angelo Della Manna, chief DNA analyst for the state of Alabama and an adviser to the FBI on DNA policy. "At some point, you ask yourself as a scientist not only 'what can the science do?' but 'what are we comfortable with it doing?' " Della Manna said. "We're reaching that point now." Since 1990, the FBI has maintained a computer network designed to solve rapes, murders and other crimes by matching the DNA profiles of convicts and some arrestees with genetic material found at crime scenes. Each state maintains its own database. They are linked by a computer system maintained by the FBI. Beginning last July, the FBI has permitted but not required states to share information not only in perfect matches but in cases such as the Denver rape in which DNA similarities suggest that the suspect is a relative....
Federal Court Rules FBI Raid on Rep. William Jefferson's Office Unconstitutional The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case. Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business. "The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."....Go here(pdf) to read the opinion.
Behind the Surveillance Debate A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter. The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity. The first public reference to the order came obliquely this week from House Minority Leader John Boehner—one of a number of senior Republicans who have been leading the White House-backed campaign to persuade Congress to rush through an expanded eavesdropping measure before it leaves for August recess at the end of this week....
House OKs wider wiretap powers The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation." The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress. The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said....
FBI drug standard lowered for hiring Aspiring FBI agents who once dabbled in marijuana use won't be barred from getting a job with the elite crime-fighting agency, which has loosened its drug policy amid a campaign to hire hundreds of agents. The bureau's pot-smoking standard, in place for at least 13 years, was revised after internal debate about whether the policy was eliminating prospects because of drug experimentation, said Jeff Berkin, deputy director of the FBI's Security Division. The policy disqualified candidates if they had used marijuana more than 15 times. There was no public announcement of the change. It took effect in January. The decision comes as the FBI continues its hiring campaign and as law enforcement agencies across the USA grapple with high rates of disqualification based in part on applicants' past drug use....
DNA 'near matches' spur privacy fight Denver's district attorney wants the DNA profile and identity of a California felon who is a close but not perfect match to the man who committed an unsolved Denver rape, in the hope that the two are related. The prosecutor, Mitchell Morrissey, wants to use the California man's personal information to track the unknown rapist. Their genetic similarities, he says, suggests the California felon and the suspect are close relatives. But California Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown is refusing to release the information, citing a need to protect the privacy of the California felon and the integrity of California's database of criminal DNA. Reporting a DNA near-match, said Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy, would be "outside the boundaries" of court opinions that authorize DNA database searching and could prompt a lawsuit. The standoff between the two agencies appears to be the first but likely not the last such clash over a new DNA technique called "familial searching," says Angelo Della Manna, chief DNA analyst for the state of Alabama and an adviser to the FBI on DNA policy. "At some point, you ask yourself as a scientist not only 'what can the science do?' but 'what are we comfortable with it doing?' " Della Manna said. "We're reaching that point now." Since 1990, the FBI has maintained a computer network designed to solve rapes, murders and other crimes by matching the DNA profiles of convicts and some arrestees with genetic material found at crime scenes. Each state maintains its own database. They are linked by a computer system maintained by the FBI. Beginning last July, the FBI has permitted but not required states to share information not only in perfect matches but in cases such as the Denver rape in which DNA similarities suggest that the suspect is a relative....
Friday, August 03, 2007
ANIMAL ID
GAO Finds Problems in Animal ID Implementation
The Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday identifying weaknesses in USDA's plan to implement a national animal identification system.
The report identified the following problems that could undermine USDA's ability to use the system to trace an outbreak to its source, as reported in a release from Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ahead of the official GAO release on its Web site:
* Tracing animals from their original origin will be problematic given that USDA is not requiring critical information, such as the type of animal species, date of birth, or approximate age of animals to be recorded in the animal ID system.
* USDA has not prioritized the implementation of the animal ID system according to economic value of the species or those most at risk for specific animal diseases.
* USDA has not developed a plan to integrate the animal ID system with preexisting animal disease eradication programs for hogs, cattle, sheep or goats, thus duplicating effort and cost to producers.
* USDA has awarded 169 animal ID cooperative agreements totaling $35 million but has failed to adequately monitor the agreements or determine if the intended outcomes, for which the funds were used, were achieved. USDA has also not consistently shared the results of the agreements with state departments of agriculture, industry groups, or other stakeholders to allow them to learn from experience under the cooperative agreements.
* The timeframe for effective animal disease traceback from where animals have been raised is not clearly defined for specific species.
* USDA has no benchmarks to determine if there is sufficient participation to achieve an effective animal ID system.
NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS FEDERATION PARTNERS WITH USDA TO REGISTER PREMISES UNDER THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM
The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced a partnership with the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) that will facilitate the registration of dairy farm, dairy calf and heifer grower premises as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). "This agreement is another important step forward as we advance the National Animal Identification System," said Bruce Knight, under secretary for USDA's marketing and regulatory programs. "It builds on agreements previously announced with the National Pork Board, the National FFA Organization and the U.S. Animal Identification Organization to promote animal health by providing producers with the information they need to take the important step of registering their premises and protecting their animals." The NMPF is spearheading the effort of IDairy, a consortium of dairy cattle associations formed in 2005 to promote NAIS in the dairy industry. Since IDairy was established, more than 30,000 dairy producers have registered their premises under the NAIS, but as many as 35,000 commercial dairy farms and dairy calf and heifer grower operations are yet to be registered. IDairy's goal is to have 100 percent of the operations registered in order to enable animal health officials to quickly respond to an animal health emergency....
Commissioners oppose premises ID for 4-H kids
The county commissioners don’t like the mandate requiring Colorado’s 4-H and FFA youth to obtain premises identification in order to show their animals at county and state fairs. During their regular meeting on Tuesday, July 31, Suzie Coleman, Rhoda Reid and Jack Canterbury of the local fair board asked the commissioners to consider signing a resolution opposing mandatory premises ID for 4-H and FFA youth. In short, premises ID registration lists the name and address of the ranch where the animal is being raised, and the ranch owner. Beginning in October, cooperative extension officials with Colorado State University will require all Colorado 4-H and FFA youth to have a premises identification. Premises identification is the first step toward a national animal identification system being considered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for livestock, in order to trace and track the livestock to protect against disease. So far, premises identification registration is voluntary for state ranchers, however, CSU officials have decided to make it compulsory for 4-H and FFA participants. “If it’s voluntary for ranchers, it should be voluntary for our youth,” said Canterbury....
USDA Initiates Cost-Benefit Analysis Of NAIS
The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) said today the decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to initiate a cost-benefit analysis of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is welcome news for cattle producers. Jon Wooster, USCA President, San Lucas, California, said the announcement followed high level meetings between USDA officials and U.S. Cattlemen’s representatives during the third week of June. "U.S. Cattlemen’s directors met with USDA officials and we specifically requested that the agency expedite this important analysis of the NAIS system," said Wooster. "The first policy adopted by the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association on NAIS calls on USDA to conduct a thorough study of the costs and benefits associated with an animal identification system. This policy was delivered to USDA officials during the Washington Fly-In. We applaud the agency’s action to comply with our request. This is a victory for livestock producers." USDA has selected Kansas State University to lead the multi-institutional cost-benefit analysis with the assistance of co-contributors Colorado State University and Michigan State University. Montana State University will provide an assessment of the economic benefits and costs of NAIS, including its three components: premises registration, animal identification and animal tracing....
GAO Finds Problems in Animal ID Implementation
The Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday identifying weaknesses in USDA's plan to implement a national animal identification system.
The report identified the following problems that could undermine USDA's ability to use the system to trace an outbreak to its source, as reported in a release from Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ahead of the official GAO release on its Web site:
* Tracing animals from their original origin will be problematic given that USDA is not requiring critical information, such as the type of animal species, date of birth, or approximate age of animals to be recorded in the animal ID system.
* USDA has not prioritized the implementation of the animal ID system according to economic value of the species or those most at risk for specific animal diseases.
* USDA has not developed a plan to integrate the animal ID system with preexisting animal disease eradication programs for hogs, cattle, sheep or goats, thus duplicating effort and cost to producers.
* USDA has awarded 169 animal ID cooperative agreements totaling $35 million but has failed to adequately monitor the agreements or determine if the intended outcomes, for which the funds were used, were achieved. USDA has also not consistently shared the results of the agreements with state departments of agriculture, industry groups, or other stakeholders to allow them to learn from experience under the cooperative agreements.
* The timeframe for effective animal disease traceback from where animals have been raised is not clearly defined for specific species.
* USDA has no benchmarks to determine if there is sufficient participation to achieve an effective animal ID system.
NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS FEDERATION PARTNERS WITH USDA TO REGISTER PREMISES UNDER THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM
The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced a partnership with the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) that will facilitate the registration of dairy farm, dairy calf and heifer grower premises as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). "This agreement is another important step forward as we advance the National Animal Identification System," said Bruce Knight, under secretary for USDA's marketing and regulatory programs. "It builds on agreements previously announced with the National Pork Board, the National FFA Organization and the U.S. Animal Identification Organization to promote animal health by providing producers with the information they need to take the important step of registering their premises and protecting their animals." The NMPF is spearheading the effort of IDairy, a consortium of dairy cattle associations formed in 2005 to promote NAIS in the dairy industry. Since IDairy was established, more than 30,000 dairy producers have registered their premises under the NAIS, but as many as 35,000 commercial dairy farms and dairy calf and heifer grower operations are yet to be registered. IDairy's goal is to have 100 percent of the operations registered in order to enable animal health officials to quickly respond to an animal health emergency....
Commissioners oppose premises ID for 4-H kids
The county commissioners don’t like the mandate requiring Colorado’s 4-H and FFA youth to obtain premises identification in order to show their animals at county and state fairs. During their regular meeting on Tuesday, July 31, Suzie Coleman, Rhoda Reid and Jack Canterbury of the local fair board asked the commissioners to consider signing a resolution opposing mandatory premises ID for 4-H and FFA youth. In short, premises ID registration lists the name and address of the ranch where the animal is being raised, and the ranch owner. Beginning in October, cooperative extension officials with Colorado State University will require all Colorado 4-H and FFA youth to have a premises identification. Premises identification is the first step toward a national animal identification system being considered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for livestock, in order to trace and track the livestock to protect against disease. So far, premises identification registration is voluntary for state ranchers, however, CSU officials have decided to make it compulsory for 4-H and FFA participants. “If it’s voluntary for ranchers, it should be voluntary for our youth,” said Canterbury....
USDA Initiates Cost-Benefit Analysis Of NAIS
The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) said today the decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to initiate a cost-benefit analysis of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is welcome news for cattle producers. Jon Wooster, USCA President, San Lucas, California, said the announcement followed high level meetings between USDA officials and U.S. Cattlemen’s representatives during the third week of June. "U.S. Cattlemen’s directors met with USDA officials and we specifically requested that the agency expedite this important analysis of the NAIS system," said Wooster. "The first policy adopted by the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association on NAIS calls on USDA to conduct a thorough study of the costs and benefits associated with an animal identification system. This policy was delivered to USDA officials during the Washington Fly-In. We applaud the agency’s action to comply with our request. This is a victory for livestock producers." USDA has selected Kansas State University to lead the multi-institutional cost-benefit analysis with the assistance of co-contributors Colorado State University and Michigan State University. Montana State University will provide an assessment of the economic benefits and costs of NAIS, including its three components: premises registration, animal identification and animal tracing....
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