OPINION/COMMENTARY

Air Pollution Cut in Half, EPA Announces

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has achieved a major milestone in its 34-year battle against air pollution. As Administrator Michael Leavitt announced on September 22, "emissions have been cut by more than half (51 percent) since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970." Unfortunately, recent polls show the public is unaware that things have improved at all. According to EPA's Clean Air Status Report: Three Decades of Progress, overall emissions of the six principal pollutants regulated under the law are now at less than half their 1970 levels. This includes declines of 53 percent for carbon monoxide, 24 percent for nitrogen oxides, 81 percent for particulate matter (22 percent for ultra-small particles), 49 percent for sulfur dioxide, 54 percent for volatile organic compounds, and 99 percent for lead....

OPINION/COMMENTARY

EU Trade Bait

It is now European mantra that the US does not support multilateral institutions, like the Kyoto Protocol. In possibly his last act as European Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy has shown that the EU is now prepared to "entice" countries to follow its environmental policies. He called it "Soft Power". It is trade bait for poor countries and that is bad news for them. People are right to wonder who and what is next. At a press conference in Brussels on 20 October, Lamy announced that the EU would give preferential access to its markets if poor countries passed an EU test. They had to accede to a set of international conventions on environment, labor and human rights nominated by the EU. He highlighted the Kyoto Protocol. For nearly 10 years the EU tried, without success, to get the WTO to approve compliance with environmental standards as a pre-condition for access to markets. Research by the US National Foreign Trade Council shows it has gone ahead anyway and unilaterally imposed its own restrictions....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Brokaws question safety of nearby hunting Lawyers for "NBC Nightly News" anchorman Tom Brokaw want a judge to require the Montana Board of Outfitters to review a decision that allows a Wyoming outfitter to guide big-game hunting trips on land next to Brokaw's Montana ranch. "The complaint we have is safety, plain and simple," Clifford Edwards, a Billings attorney representing Brokaw, told District Judge Nels Swandal at a hearing Oct. 29. "Tom and (wife) Meredith are not anti-hunting - they are concerned for their safety." On Sept. 1, the Board of Outfitters granted Wyoming outfitter David Nelson's request to take as many as 10 hunters onto more than 2,500 acres of private land bordering the Brokaws' West Boulder Ranch during archery season, court records said....
Udall says environmental cause not lost Rep. Mark Udall said environmentalists will "have their hands full" over the next four years because of the re-election of President Bush, but he remains optimistic that many of their causes aren't lost. Udall, a Boulder-area Democrat whose 2nd District includes Summit and Eagle counties, said he suspects that Bush will continue to do in a second term what he did in the first - attempt to "undercut" numerous environmental laws....
Bush Victory Helps Clear Regulatory Landscape Big business used to hedge its bets on politicians, giving about the same amounts to each party. But no more. Many industries subject to environmental and health regulations bet big on a second term for President Bush and won. Forestry, mining and agriculture were among the industry sectors that gave the highest shares of campaign cash to Bush. Employees and political action committees of forest-product companies, for example, gave $4 to Bush for every $1 to Sen. John Kerry. For many leaders in these industries, betting on Bush was obvious: In its first four years, Bush's administration built a consistent record of simplifying, scrapping or scaling back enforcement of regulations that added to the cost of doing business....
Powerful current sweeps biologist away A massive search was launched Thursday morning for a 42-year-old U.S. Forest Service biologist who was swept away in a current while working on a lake near Ketchikan, officials said. According to officials, Sainz and two colleagues had been staying in a Forest Service cabin in the Bakewell Arm area, about 40 miles east of Ketchikan. On Thursday, the three federal workers rowed a small skiff with no motor across Bakewell Lake to retrieve some gear on the other side, said trooper Gary Webb. The skiff got caught in a strong current where the lake drains into a creek and the occupants decided to swim for shore because they knew the creek led to a 50-foot waterfall, Webb said. Two of the workers made it to land. They did not see what happened to Sainz, Webb said....
Mountain could receive protection from mining The Black Hills National Forest wants public input on a proposal to withdraw Inyan Kara Mountain in Crook County from hard-rock mining. Inyan Kara Mountain spans about 1,278 acres, 440 acres of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mountain is sacred to American Indians and it is also a site of significant historical and prehistoric cultural resources, according to the Forest Service. But the Wyoming Mining Association said it objects to any withdrawal of public lands for mining....
U.S. Fish and Wildlife rules could leave some hunters, farmers facing federal prosecution for 'baiting' Many farmers -- and hunters -- received a double dose of bad news last week when the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would be enforcing its provisions on baiting -- or using damaged crop lands to gain an advantage. According to US Fish and Wildlife regulations sportsmen would be in violation of federal baiting laws if they use frost damaged or other crops that did not reach maturity and have been manipulated. US Fish and Wildlife Service officials claim hunters are gaining an unfair advantage by using the 'baited' fields to harvest birds. Uncontrolled baiting, they feel, could have an adverse effect on the migratory bird populations in the flyway....
More remains found in Kanab Archaeologists collecting and documenting bones of ancient American Indians discovered by a sod farmer in Kanab have found two more sets of remains. The latest find increases the total to nine sets of remains. The Bureau of Land Management office over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been removing the bones as agents for the state, which has jurisdiction because the site is on private land. The bones, believed to be those of prehistoric Anasazi Indians, will be delivered to Salt Lake City later this month for further study before being turned over for reburial to a tribe claiming the remains....
Column: Building on decision for protecting the Front Montanans received welcome news in early October when the federal government temporarily halted proposals to drill a portion of public lands along the Rocky Mountain Front. As a business owner in Choteau, I appreciate the importance of protecting the Front to our local economy and good long-term jobs. Now the question is how to make the decision to halt drilling permanent while providing lasting benefits to those of us who live along the Front as well as all Montanans. In the near term, two steps can be taken: a swap or buy-out of existing leases combined with targeted economic development assistance for communities along the Front to help Montana families preserve their heritage and traditional way of life....
Editorial: Kyoto Ratification FOLLOWING RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin's long-awaited signature yesterday, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change will finally go into effect. Mr. Putin has not decided to ratify the treaty because his compatriots suddenly saw the light and decided to become environmentalists, although some will try to portray it that way. In fact, the Russians bargained hard, winning European endorsement for World Trade Organization membership in exchange for their signature. Moreover, Russia will gain financially from the treaty, because it is based on a requirement that signatories reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. Russia's industrial output has collapsed since then, along with greenhouse gas emissions. No regulation, taxes or pollution controls are necessary. In this sense, Russia is not alone. Britain, which has pushed hard for ratification of the treaty, also stands to gain, thanks to the country's move away from coal. China and India, which ratified it, are not, as "developing countries," required to meet any emissions targets at all....
Measure 34 results have Oregon activists feeling blue, not green Now that the dust has settled over this year's election results, some Oregon environmentalists say they are left wondering whether the state is really as green as its national reputation. Voters soundly defeated a measure to place a quarter-million acres of state forest off-limits to logging, and approved one that could prompt dramatic changes in the state's vaunted land-use laws....
Hearst deal maintenance will cost $1.3M a year Adding 12 miles of Hearst Ranch coastline to the state parks system will cost as much as $1.3 million a year and require the hiring of seven new parks employees. Those figures were released Friday as state officials put the finishing touches on a $95 million deal to preserve the scenic ranch at San Simeon. The state Public Works Board met in Sacramento to vote on the deal but postponed its decision until Wednesday in order to review several changes to seven of the conservation documents. The changes are minor and the delay is not expected to kill the deal, said Stephen Hearst, who has been negotiating the historic deal for the Hearst Corp., which owns the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets....

LATE POST

Sorry the posting was late and incomplete, but Blogger had some servers down which kept me from publishing this am.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Ore. land rules thrown into doubt Oregon has been a national leader for more than 30 years in fighting urban sprawl and protecting forests and farmland from turning into houses as the population grows. And for all those years, there have been property owners who chafed at the idea that they couldn't use their land as they saw fit. That has all changed with passage Tuesday of Measure 37, which allows landowners to make claims against governments when land-use regulations reduce the value of their property. The measure also gives governments the option of waiving regulations instead of paying compensation, which would create a patchwork of development regulation around the state based on when a piece of property was acquired....
Open Space backers puzzled over ballot failure Initiative One sponsors spent over $1 million, gathered endorsements from the likes of former U.S. senator Jake Garn and ex-Brigham Young football coach LaVell Edwards and were projected to win big in several polls. Falling flat on their face wasn't part of the plan - but that is exactly what happened on election night. Despite all of the money, all the big-name backing and predictions of a double-digit victory, the open space ballot measure instead stumbled to a 10-point defeat (55-45), stunning supporters. The ballot measure, which called for a $150 million bond to purchase and preserve watersheds, wildlife habitat and ranch and farm land, was pummeled in rural Utah counties, often by more than a 2-to-1 margin. It didn't fare much better in urban Davis, Weber and Utah counties. But the real blow came in Salt Lake County, where the initiative wound up losing by nearly 1,000 votes. Only Summit and Grand counties endorsed it....
Disabled vet sues agencies over land-grab Jesse Hardy, the disabled vet who has battled government to stay on his Everglades-area land, has charged 13 officials in six state and federal agencies with multiple violations of law in a 43-page complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court. Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District are named in the complaint. The complaint alleges "ongoing violations of federal law and the United States Constitution" during the eight years the agencies have been developing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP, and "requests relief in the forms of declaratory judgment and injunctive relief." The complaint arises because the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has filed a petition to condemn 160 acres owned by Jesse Hardy. The DEP contends the land is necessary to complete the CERP. Hardy contends the state has failed to demonstrate how or why the land is needed, as is required by law....
Forest official resigns in wake of 2003 deaths The U.S. Forest Service firefighter in charge of battling a deadly blaze last year in the Salmon-Challis National Forest has resigned. Alan Hackett, incident commander for the fire near Cramer Creek that killed two wildland firefighters July 22, 2003, could not be reached for comment. In an interview Wednesday, Hackett's attorney, Aaron Thompson of Pocatello, confirmed that "an agreement has been reached" and that Hackett is no longer employed at the Salmon-Challis Forest. " I'm not at liberty to discuss details of the agreement at this point, but terms have been reached," Thompson said. Forest Service officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment....
Rancher sentenced to minimum in assault on federal officer Catron County rancher Kit Laney has been sentenced to the minimum of five months in federal custody after pleading guilty to assaulting or resisting a federal officer and obstruction of a court order. Kit Laney, 43, entered the pleas in September before state District Judge John Conway, who sentenced him last week. He will be given credit for time in jail awaiting trial, which means he will serve four months. Laney was arrested March 14 during a roundup of cattle belonging to him and his ex-wife, Sherry Farr, on the Gila National Forest. Authorities said Laney threatened to trample federal officers with his horse and tried to release impounded livestock....
Lawsuits target Pacific Lumber logging, 100-year plan An environmental group sued Pacific Lumber Co. in state court Thursday over several proposed timber cuts and its 100-year management plan, days after filing a federal suit also challenging the company's logging practices. The Environmental Protection Information Center said the timber harvests it wants to block include ancient redwood trees adjacent to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, along with clear-cutting of younger trees in the Van Duzen River watershed that the group contends has already been over logged. The Van Duzen flows into the Eel River, both of which are designated Wild and Scenic Rivers once known for their salmon runs....
Group blamed for Sand Dunes blaze will pay $695,000 A homeowners association faulted for a wildfire that raged through the Great Sand Dunes National Monument four years ago has agreed to pay the federal government $695,000. The National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service initially sought nearly $1 million from the Zapata Homeowners Association in a negligence lawsuit brought a year after the April 2000 fire. Investigators traced the blaze, which swept through 3,100 acres of private, state and federal land, to a burn pit operated by the Zapata subdivision, just south of the sand dunes and home to about 20 year- round residents....
Killing of grizzlies exceeds levels set by U.S. officials Grizzly bears continue to spill out of a core recovery area around Yellowstone National Park, pushing up the number of conflicts with people and, this year, causing more grizzlies to be killed than maximum levels set by federal managers. Although wildlife managers are concerned about the grizzly mortality, they also said it's a sign that the Yellowstone grizzly population is growing and expanding. "I think it's a symptom that the bucket's full," said John Emmerich of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department....
Discovery of rare plants could postpone land auction near Vegas The discovery of two rare plant species threatens to postpone a southern Nevada land auction in February and block plans to build thousands of homes in a swath of desert just north of Las Vegas, officials said. The Las Vegas City Council learned Wednesday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to conserve up to 12.5 square miles where a federal botanist reported finding Las Vegas buckwheat and Las Vegas bearpoppy during an August survey. Las Vegas bearpoppy is protected under state law as critically endangered. Las Vegas buckwheat is being proposed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act....
Canyon Resources looks at cyanide-free gold mining The day after Montana voters rejected Canyon Resources Corp.'s effort to repeal Montana's ban on cyanide leach mining, the company's president announced that the company is looking at cyanide-free methods of opening a large gold mine near Lincoln. Dick De Voto, president of Canyon, told investors in a conference call Wednesday that while he was disappointed with the decisive loss of Initiative 147, the company needed to move on. There are other ways to extract gold and silver from ore, he said, and Canyon was going to look at them....
Forest Service Displays Historic Photos Twenty-five historic photos dating from 1906 to 1951 are currently displayed at the reception area of the Gila National Forest's Supervisor's Office. In commemoration of "The Centennial: 100 years of the Forest Service (1905-2005)," Gila employees Annette Gomez and Andrea Martinez selected 25 of the 100 Gila photos to create a collage of black and white images. "The photos are really interesting and enjoyable to see considering how long ago they were taken," said Gomez. "They not only give us an appreciation of the rich history of the Gila but the people and local communities that used the forest. Some things have changed but others, like building a fire line, use of horses and mules for riding and packing in wilderness and hunting have not."....
Is Dugway's expansion an alien concept? Alien hunters and nerve agent contamination may be prompting Dugway Proving Ground to seek to expand its size. Officials at the Army base are closed-mouthed about why they want to acquire a huge swath of adjacent land, mostly under control of the Bureau of Land Management. They have not even spelled out how much they want. But they confirmed that the gigantic military reservation filed documents seeking approval for expansion studies. The amount of land under discussion ranges from 55 square miles to 145 square miles — and if the nearby Dugway Mountains are included, that increases by 25 square miles. One motive for acquiring land may be to keep Dugway's expected anti-terrorism training secret at a time when the base is coming under telephoto scrutiny by alien hunters....
Poll: Most favor tying new construction to water Most Arizonans want rural development blocked unless there is a proven water supply, according to a new statewide poll. And few of those holding that position -- including those in the rural areas -- are swayed by the possibility that such a ban might slow growth. The survey, conducted last month, shows that 61 percent of those asked want legislation to prevent construction in areas where it has not yet been proven there is an adequate water supply to support that development. Only 32 percent were opposed, with the balance unsure....
New Mexico Mounted Police: Frontier lawmen By the turn of the century, in 1901, it had been more than a half-century since Americans had occupied Santa Fe and yet statehood for New Mexico seemed to remain out of reach. The perception in the eastern U.S. seemed to be that the territory was a lawless place, rife with crime and criminals. To some extent, that perception was accurate. To the east and south, the Texas Rangers had evolved into a functional statewide law enforcement agency and many outlaws of the day moved elsewhere. In Arizona, the Ranger force was created in 1901, and soon criminals there looked for greener pastures. Colorado, a state since 1876, was not friendly to the lawless element. Right in the middle was New Mexico, a large, sparsely populated region with a thin patchwork of law enforcement officials, a place where cattle rustling in particular was rampant....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Wolf poison raises alarms about its terrorism potential An odorless, colorless and tasteless poison used to kill coyotes and wolves in Western states is under review by the Department of Homeland Security for its potential as a terrorist weapon. The department's action is in response to a request by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of Congress' Select Committee on Homeland Security. He urged Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in an October letter to act immediately to halt manufacture and use of the poison, known as Compound 1080. The poison, sodium fluoroacetate, has no antidote and is described by the Environmental Protection Agency as "super toxic." One teaspoon could kill as many as 100 adults, DeFazio told Ridge....
West's Wildfires Linked to Global Warming The raging Western wildfires of recent years have often been blamed on management practices that promoted dense, overpacked forests. But a new study indicates global warming may be the main culprit. Challenging the conventional wisdom that today's severe wildfires are unnatural and unprecedented, researchers have found that parts of the West experienced destructive blazes during a warm, drought-plagued period in the Middle Ages. The linkage suggests that as the climate warms, damaging wildfires will continue to strike the West. "If we are just at the beginning of dramatic warming … we can simply expect larger, more severe fires," said Grant A. Meyer, a co-author of the study, published in today's journal Nature....
Voters refuse to relax mining restriction Reaffirming a decision they made six years ago, Montana voters Tuesday refused to relax an environmental restriction on mining as they decided one of the hottest measures on the state ballot. Voters upheld a ban on use of cyanide technology in new gold and silver mining, a ban the industry said symbolized hostility toward mining at a time when Montana needs its well-paying jobs. Supporters of the ban, passed by voters in 1998, said it's a shield against catastrophic water pollution from cyanide. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, voters rejected Initiative 147 by 58 percent to 42 percent....
Montana voters approve methane ordinance Voters in Rosebud County in southeast Montana have overwhelmingly approved a measure that would give the Rosebud Conservation District a say in regulating wastewater produced in tapping coalbed methane. Conservationists hailed its passage in Tuesday's election as important to helping protect agriculture in the region. The county election administrator said 2,104 voters favored the land-use ordinance and 521 opposed it, with all precincts reporting....
U.S. Wants No Warming Proposal The Bush administration has been working for months to keep an upcoming eight-nation report from endorsing broad policies aimed at curbing global warming, according to domestic and foreign participants, despite the group's conclusion that Arctic latitudes are facing historic increases in temperature, glacial melting and abrupt weather changes. State Department representatives have argued that the group, which has spent four years examining Arctic climate fluctuations, lacks the evidence to prepare detailed policy proposals. But several participants in the negotiations, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of derailing the Nov. 24 report, said officials from the eight nations and six indigenous tribes involved in the effort had ample science on which to draft policy....
Bison co-op files for Chapter 11 The financially-troubled North American Bison Cooperative of New Rockford, N.D., and its marketing subsidiary, the North American Provisioner of Denver filed for Chapter 11 reorganization under bankruptcy laws Monday. The co-op lists $8.5 million in assets and $24.5 million in liabilities, including $19.8 million in unsecured claims. The co-op, started in 1994, today has about 330 rancher members and employs about 26 people, down from a high of 70....
Column: Of mad cows and junk science MAD-COW DISEASE is way down on my worry list, and for two reasons. One is the number of Americans made sick by eating meat from a mad cow: zero. Two is the number of American cows ever found to have the disease: one, and it came from Canada. But then I pick up the November issue of Vanity Fair and there's this fiery article about U.S. beef safety. Mad-cow disease, Eric Schlosser writes, "confronts the United States with perhaps its most serious and complex food-safety threat."....
The Jewish rancher in Big Bend who loved trail drives There was a Jewish rancher, however, who left his mark on the Big Bend. His name was Mayer Halff, and, while he was a merchant, he was also a cowboy, a trail driver, a ranch owner and a devout member of Congregation Beth El in San Antonio. At one time his San Antonio firm, M. Halff and Brother, owned more than a million acres of Texas land, including the Circle Dot ranch near Marathon, the Quien Sabe south of Midland, the JM along the Pecos River and the Crouch in Frio County. His heirs still operate the Crouch as a hunting ranch....
What's your dog's name? It is an impressive thing to watch a real cow dog work, to see how the dog "eyes" the stock and plans his move and gets those cattle where he wants them. It is not just in moving cattle that a dog helps out. Many were the times that old Bear would keep an upset cow at bay or led off while we tended to the newborn calf. I have a lot of memories of Bear as one of the best hands on the place and as a friend. It's enjoyable to talk about your best dog, just as we like to remember our favorite car, and quietly wish we had it back....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Shooting ban under scrutiny The state Game, Fish & Parks Commission will again consider a rule lifting the state ban on shooting prairie dogs on federal land in Conata Basin, just south of Badlands National Park. However, even if the proposed rule is approved, the federal ban on shooting prairie dogs on the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in Conata Basin will remain in place, according to George Vandel, GF&P assistant wildlife director. The Nebraska National Forest, which administers the Buffalo Gap National Grassland in South Dakota, had indicated last summer that it intended to lift its prairie dog shooting ban. However, in a federal court settlement with environmental groups on Oct. 6, the U.S. Forest Service agreed to delay lifting its shooting ban until it completes an environmental impact statement....
Badlands poisoning may begin Preparations to poison prairie dogs in Conata Basin south of Badlands National Park could begin late this week, if the weather cooperates, according to a South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department official overseeing the poisoning effort. Private contractors hired by the state are nearly finished poisoning prairie dogs on private land and have made a good start poisoning on federal land in Custer and Fall River counties, according to Art Smith, GF&P wildlife damage management program administrator....
Column: Forest Conservation Act: More Duplicative Funding Any piece of legislation that unites in sponsorship key leading political figures of one party with a substantial amount of perceived partisan members of the other party should be viewed as fodder for scrutiny. And so it should be with the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, a 1998 measure trading financial assistance for conservation efforts that just received quiet reauthorization through 2007. Introduced in the House as H.R. 4654 and the Senate as S. 2787, the measure passed into Public Law 108-323 on Oct. 6, on the heels of support from more than 30 Republicans and Democrats, six of the latter of whom belong to the nearly socialist Congressional Progressive Caucus....
Group files against Forest Service A Utah environmental group has filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service, claiming the agency continues to ignore provisions of the National Forest Management Act as they relate to monitoring wildlife population trends. The Utah Environmental Congress last week filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against the Dixie, Manti-La Sal, Wasatch-Cache and Uinta National Forests. The suit alleges that each has failed to gather population trend data through their Management Indicator Species process, which measures the impacts of timber and road construction projects on wildlife and fish habitat....
Grizzlies' Rebound Endangers Bears as Towns Boom The 2-year-old bear may not realize it, but it only has one more chance. Twice already it has been caught: the first time rummaging through garbage in a back yard, the second a week later after an anxious resident reported the 400-pound male junior grizzly devouring apples close to a house on the outskirts of town. In the harsh world of bear management around here these days, if it gets caught again, it's finished....
Catch a pikeminnow, get paid This summer, it really paid to go fishing. Thomas Papst of West Linn, as an example, made $34,526. At about $8 a fish by the middle of summer. He was the top angler, turning in a total of 4,664 northern pikeminnow during the reward program that ran through the summer. In all, anglers checked in more than a quarter-million pikeminnow at one of 12 check stations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington. It's an annual effort to crop off adult pikeminnow, which are voracious predators on juvenile salmon and steelhead....
Agreement proposed in snake habitat Environmentalists are angry about - and residents are skeptical of - a tentative agreement that could allow work to resume at the Sanctuary, the Evesham development where construction was halted two years ago to protect endangered snakes. The proposed agreement between the Pinelands Commission and developer Iva Samost, announced Friday, would pave the way for completion of Georgia O'Keefe Way. About a half-mile of the road, which is supposed to curl inside the development like a horseshoe, connecting the northern and southern halves, is unfinished. The unpaved portion is lined by fences and bisected by culverts designed to allow timber rattlesnakes to cross safely beneath the road....
Altamont Pass wind farms targeted in bird deaths An environmental group filed a lawsuit Monday against wind farm operators in the Altamont Pass, alleging that two decades of continuing bird kills amounts to an unfair business practice. The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, names most of the wind farm operators in the Altamont. The group wants the companies to set aside wildlife habitat as compensation for the deaths of thousands of birds in the blades of electricity-generating windmills. The lawsuit was filed in state court on the eve of today's election, because passage of Proposition 64 would limit private enforcement of California's unfair business competition laws....
Fears over mad-cow goat BRITISH scientists were yesterday playing down fears of a new "mad cow" epidemic after news that the fatal brain disease had jumped species for the first time and been diagnosed in a goat in France. Alarmed government officials have already agreed on a mass cull should the disease take hold in sheep or goats in Britain. Fear was also spreading among food safety chiefs and farmers throughout Europe. Scientists have long known there was a theoretical possibility of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as mad cow disease, affecting goats and sheep, but there has never been proof. The goat came to the attention of veterinary experts two years ago and laboratory tests were conducted. Brain cells from the goat were injected into mice by French scientists, and the mice went on to contract BSE....
Oregon tribes OK 42 words to replace offensive 'squaw' The word "squaw" has long been considered an offensive term for women by Native Americans. Yet that is the name of Squaw Creek, which traverses the ancestral land of the Warm Springs tribes. Now, after years of internal debate, the Warm Springs Tribal Council has approved a list of 42 words that could be used to rename the creek and other nearby squaw place names. The council of Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs, comprising the Wasco, Paiute and Warm Springs tribes, passed a resolution last week accepting the translation of 15 of the 42 words into the three distinct languages of their people....
New Gallery Spurs Interest in the Cowboy Lifestyle The Cowboy Legacy Gallery will open this November at the Carefree Galleria in Carefree, Arizona. The gallery is an association of three well-known Western collectibles experts: Keith Seidel of Seidel's Saddlery, William Welch of Cowboy and The Lady, and Brian Lebel of Old West Antiques of Cody. Due to the recent influx of younger collectors, there are simply less and less authentic Western collectibles in the marketplace. Values are also being driven up by auction selling prices which the novice collector can not afford. The Cowboy Legacy Gallery, located in the Carefree Galleria, offers not only hard-to-get items, but a place to sit and visit, read and study in the library of books on the West and cowboy collectables....
Rodeo Insider The Professional Bull Riders' decision to make its World Finals carry more weight was the right choice. In recent years, a competitor could enter the championships with a big lead and have the world title pretty well sewn up. One revealing case was in 2000 when Chris Shivers won the title despite being thrown off four bulls at the five-round event. But the PBR made a controversial change for the 2004 World Finals that paid off by making its world title race more compelling. The PBR added three rounds and dramatically increased the amount of points a cowboy could earn for turning in the highest aggregate score after eight rounds....
Look out ... Hay wants his buckle back Rod Hay wants to have the championship buckle back on his mantel piece. After equalling a Canadian record by winning his seventh national saddle bronc crown in 2002, the Wildwood cowboy missed the majority of last year's CFR when he elected to go to the Pace Picante Pro Rodeo Classic in Dallas. Due to a scheduling conflict, Hay was forced to choose again this year between the lucrative Wrangler Tour Showdown and the CFR. This time, he's going to Rexall Place....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Scientists help maintain Devil’s Hole pupfish population For three decades, they’ve swum in the 92-degree spring water that biologists channeled from a crevice in the rocks above Lake Mohave to a concrete tank near Hoover Dam. Without much fanfare from the scientists behind this long-term project, the obscure, rectangular tank, smaller than a backyard swimming pool, has been holding a few handfuls of one of the rarest fish on Earth, the endangered Devil’s Hole pupfish....
Drought Unearths a Buried Treasure In the early 1960's, the nation's environmental movement cut its baby teeth on a fierce battle to stop construction of dams along the Colorado River. Two proposed dams were never built, but Glen Canyon dam, located in an unprotected area, was completed in 1963. Over the next 17 years, water backed up for 186 miles, forming Lake Powell and inundating Glen Canyon and hundreds of miles of side canyons. What Mr. Abbey and the Sierra Club couldn't or didn't do nature has now accomplished. A severe Western drought - some say the worst in 500 years - is shrinking Lake Powell at the rate of up to a foot every four days. Since 1999, the vast reservoir has lost more than 60 percent of its water. Glen Canyon is returning. It is open and viewable in much of its former glory. At the confluence of Coyote Creek and Escalante River, where boaters once motored by to see famous rock formations, backpackers now pick their way up a shallow river channel. Fifteen-foot high cottonwoods grow amid thickets of willow, gamble oak and tamarisk. Where fish thrived, mountain lions prowl. The change may be permanent....
Column: Wise Use in the White House, Pt. 3 With the Department of Interior also promoting recreational user fees, corporate sponsorship of park activities, and partnerships for bioprospecting in the parks, one can start to imagine Smokey Bear recast as ComCast Bear, Arches National Park as Golden Arches National Park, and hip ads promoting Yellowstone-washed jeans. Certainly the Wise Use vision of park management given over to private firms "with expertise in people moving such as Walt Disney" seems consistent with Gale Norton's vision. Despite her early portrayal by environmentalists as "James Watt in a skirt," Norton has shown far more political acumen than the man who once bragged of a commission on which he had a black, a woman, "two Jews and a cripple." "She makes Watt look like the one wearing a skirt," Jeff Ruch suggests with a grin. Though not the most gender-sensitive way of putting it, I get his point. Rather than openly attack environmental laws and wilderness protections, Norton has used the regulatory process to ease up on industry, and the administrative process to crack down on agency professionals who disagree with her....
Hellbenders fight extinction after nearly 150 million years The cold, oxygenated water of the White River's North Fork holds some of the last remaining members of an amphibian family that has roamed this planet for 150 million years. The hellbender salamander has survived dinosaurs, tectonic shifts and multiple ice ages - only to nearly disappear in the time it took for bell-bottom jeans to come back in style. "Back in the `70s, on a day like today, we'd have gotten 100 hellbenders," Solis said on this October day, "and today we got four." Solis, a graduate student at the University of Missouri at Rolla, is part of a biological SWAT team aimed at finding out what is hurting the hellbender. Armed with water sampling equipment, electronic tags, laboratory tests and plans for a captive breeding program, a coalition including state and federal agencies, universities and the St. Louis Zoo hopes to arrest the animal's slide into oblivion....
Endangered Species List Growing, Says Green Group The world's list of endangered species is growing at an alarming and unprecedented rate as governments pay less and less attention to green issues, a major global environmental body said on Tuesday. The World Conservation Union, which also goes under the acronym IUCN, said it would release a "red list" of more than 12,000 threatened species at the World Conservation Congress in Thailand, which starts on November 17....
Bears top killers of elk calves in study For the second year in a row, grizzly bears and black bears were responsible for a majority of elk calf deaths in a study group last spring and summer in Yellowstone National Park. Of the 44 calves that were monitored daily this year, 31 died. Of those, grizzly and black bears killed 18, coyotes killed four, wolves killed three and a golden eagle killed one. One was killed either by wolves or bears, two were killed by unknown predators and two died for reasons other than predators. In 2003 during the study's first year, bears killed 19 elk calves, wolves killed five, coyotes killed three, a mountain lion killed one and a wolverine killed one. Two were killed by wolves or bears....
Brothers' idea still rolling Xanterra researched the history of the Bombardier snowcoach and the history of the Bombardier company. Both go back to the winter of 1922 in the town of Valcourt in the Black River Valley of eastern Québec. Joseph-Armand Bombardier, a mechanically gifted 15-year-old, had taken apart the family car so often that his father bought an old Ford he thought beyond repair and gave it to him to keep him occupied. Bombardier and his younger brother Leopold began a secret project that occupied all of their spare time until New Year's Eve, when they unveiled a vehicle consisting of a frame with four skis, the Ford engine and a rear-mounted propeller. The boys took off across the snow, Leopold operating the engine while Joseph-Armand steered the front skis, on a 1-kilometer run. Afterwards, the boys' father made them dismantle the vehicle for fear they would hurt themselves, but it was the beginning of a long and fruitful career in over-snow transportation for Joseph-Armand Bombardier....
Elk numbers too high in Theodore Roosevelt park Elk are flourishing at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in numbers too great for their habitat and park officials say hundreds of the animals may have to be shot to bring the population down in coming years. Park service officials have started studying a strategy for managing the park's elk. The process could take several years and will include public meetings around the state. There are more than 600 elk in the park, but wildlife managers have said the land can only handle about 360. The National Park Service has transferred the animals to other states in the past to keep the population down, but fears about chronic wasting disease have halted the practice....
US to Release Draft Colo. Natural Gas Drilling Plan The U.S. government expects to release a draft management plan next week that will detail its plan for natural gas drilling in an environmentally sensitive area in western Colorado known as the Roan Plateau. The Bush administration has marked the Rocky Mountains as an area where it wants to see more oil and gas development to lessen domestic reliance on imported energy, but environmental groups have been fighting the plans in a number of Western states. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management anticipates its draft management plan for the area to be released the week of Nov 8., Duane Spencer, Bureau of Land Management branch chief of fluid minerals, said on Friday. The public will then have an opportunity to comment on the report....
Americans Set to Vote on $4 Billion in New Open Space Funding; LandVote.org will Document Land Conservation Ballot Measures In Tuesday's elections, voters in over 140 communities in 24 states will decide ballot measures to create nearly $25 billion in new public funding, including $4.3 billion specifically to protect land for parks and open space, according to the Trust for Public Land (TPL). TPL will monitor and release results as soon as they are available on Wednesday, November 3. Since 1998, 824 conservation ballot measures have passed in 44 states, raising $22 billion in funding for land conservation -- a rate of passage of approximately 77 percent. In the last presidential election year of 2000, 174 ballot measures passed (an 83 percent passage rate), creating $7.5 billion in funding for land conservation....
New Energy Map Addresses Energy Development Issues in the West Global Energy Decisions (Global Energy) has released a new wall map portraying the energy development issues in the West by clearly defining the production, transmission, consumption and land-use patterns in this critical region. The 2004 Energy Resources, Infrastructure and Federal Lands of the West wall map is unique in that it brings together data showing: oil & gas wells, pipelines, power plants transmission lines and public lands....
Saving fewer fish The crew of federal employees waded Thursday along the A Canal, now empty after the end of another irrigation season in the Klamath Reclamation Project. Equipped with electric wands and dip nets, they were looking for endangered suckers stranded in the canal. The "sucker salvage" has become an annual rite of autumn for the Bureau, which is required to avoid killing the fish that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act....
Do lead bullets continue to be a hazard after they land? There were 20 million metric tons of lead bullets fired in the United States in the 20th century. Is that lead having an environmental impact? Not at or near the U.S. Forest Service firing range near Blacksburg, Va., according to research by Virginia Tech geological scientists. Donald Rimstidt, a professor in the Department of Geosciences, College of Science at Virginia Tech will report the conclusions of a five-year study at the 116th national meeting of the Geological Sciences of America in Denver Nov. 7-10. There are 9,000 nonmilitary shooting ranges and a lot of military ones in the United States. Some 60,000 metric tons of lead are expended by shooting. (a metric ton or "long ton" is 2,200 lbs.). "So there is lead shot and bullets everywhere," Rimstidt said....
Magazine Calls for National Day of the Cowboy In a move to help rally what it considers some long-overdue recognition, a national magazine is calling on Americans to create a National Day of the Cowboy, to honor that enduring symbol of American courage, chivalry, and can-do spirit. Through the end of this year and into 2005, the magazine is soliciting reader feedback on this matter and sharing their thoughts through its pages. A page of such comments appears in the November/December American Cowboy Magazine, which is due to reach newsstands Nov. 2. More than a quarter-million Americans read the magazine every issue. Meanwhile, the public is invited to explore the issue on a webpage devoted exclusively to this topic. To access it, go to http://cowboyday.cowboy.com....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Vote or forever hold your peace Sept. 11 radicals attack United States. President Gore treats attack as a crime, not a war. Sends special forces and CIA to find Osama bin Laden, a light version of Homeland Security is established. Neither Afghanistan or Iraq are invaded. Saddam Hussein still rules Iraq. The Taliban still rules Afghanistan. Osama is still in the loose, Libya, North Korea and Iran pose a nuclear threat. The world is a dangerous place. 2004 election pits President Gore against John McCain. So, if you are a U.S. citizen who cares but has been turned off by the acrimony that pervades the 2004 presidential campaign, or you think Washington, D.C., is just politics as usual, take a deep breath and vote. Regardless, we're all part of the mess and all part of the solution. And if you don't care, don't vote. Just don't expect me to listen to your gripes....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Environmentalists seek more habitat protection for grizzlies The grizzly bear population will not recover unless more habitat is preserved outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, an environmentalist said. True recovery would involve preserving wildlife-movement corridors so that grizzlies in Wyoming could connect with Canadian bears, she said, adding that Yellowstone's grizzly population is not genetically diverse enough to sustain itself. Willcox praised the U.S. Forest Service for proposing uniform habitat standards for grizzly bears across six national forests surrounding the park. The Forest Service is proposing to amend management plans for the forest to include habitat standards, a nuisance bear standard and monitoring requirements for grizzlies....
Grizzly deaths concern managers This week is a big one for grizzly bears. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team meets in Billings, Mont., Thursday and Friday to talk about this year's bear deaths and future issues for the animals. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission meets in Torrington at the same time to talk about where to allow grizzlies in the state. Both meetings come on the heels of a year when the number of female grizzlies killed has spiked, leaving some questioning current management practices to prevent bear deaths....
Editorial: The wilderness battle AS THE most densely populated region in the United States, the East needs the solitude and recreation provided by National Forest wilderness areas, which are kept free of chainsaws and all-terrain vehicles. But, unlike the West, the East has few large forests unbroken by roads, which disqualify them from wilderness designation. To make sure that at least some woods in the East would get this high level of protection, Congress in 1975 set less pristine standards for the East's wooded areas, such as the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire and Maine and the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. But for this law to achieve its purpose, US Forest Service officials have to embrace its spirit. Unfortunately, there is a bias among many Forest Service officials in favor of logging and road-building and against wilderness protection. President Clinton tried to ensure a bigger base of wilderness-eligible land with his Roadless Rule, which banned roads for logging and other uses on 58 million acres. Senator John Kerry supports the rule, but President Bush has sought to undo it....
Snow delays removal of memorial in Uintas The group of Salt Lake City policemen who placed a memorial plaque on Kings Peak will have to wait until summer to remove it. Heavy snow has made the 12-mile route to the summit impassible. Members of the Salt Lake City Police Department placed a 14-pound plaque on the mountain on Sept. 11 to honor James Cawley, a police detective and Marine reservist who died in Iraq. But the police were later told by the U.S. Forest Service that the plaque violated wilderness laws. Kings Peak is part of the High Uintas Wilderness Area....
Elk numbers too high in N.D. park Elk are flourishing at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in numbers too great for their habitat and park officials say hundreds of the animals may have to be shot to bring the population down in coming years. Park service officials have started studying a strategy for managing the park's elk. The process could take several years and will include public meetings around the state. "This is not something we take lightly," said Valerie Naylor, the park's superintendent. There are more than 600 elk in the park, but wildlife managers have said the land can only handle about 360....
Do politics decide environmental court cases? Lawyers for the Utah Environmental Congress were surprised when they read that President Bush had a say in U.S. District Judge Dee Benson's ruling against their attempt to stop a coal-mining operation in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Benson ruled in July that not allowing the mining company to remove 1.9 million tons of coal from the East Fork Box Canyon tract would mean the loss of electricity to 1.5 million citizens for a year. "This is especially adverse to the public's interest in light of the president's energy policy that elevated the public interest in energy resources," Benson wrote in support of the federal Bureau of Land Management....
Ruby Hill gold mine planned for Eureka Barrick Gold Corp. is moving forward with the reopening of the Ruby Hill gold mine at Eureka and intends to begin work next month on a new power plant in Western Nevada. The decision to proceed with the East Archimedes Project at Ruby Hill comes as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management continues preparation of a supplemental environmental impact statement for the project....
What some thought would never happen: CUP on last lap After four decades, the Central Utah Project has reached the beginning of the end. The long quest to move water from the Uinta Mountains to the growing population of the Wasatch Front has entered the final phase with last month's release of an environmental impact statement for a new series of water pipelines that will deliver an additional 60,000 acre-feet of water annually to Salt Lake and Utah counties from Strawberry Reservoir. The project, called the "Utah Lake Drainage Basin Water Delivery System" has been approved by the major local water agencies. Barring unforeseen complications - the study is now being reviewed by the Environmental Protection Agency - federal and state water officials expect to receive a final record of decision and congressional approval by the end of the year....
Wyo groups want cattle cleared The case began in July when brucellosis was detected in fluid samples taken from two cows from the Edwards herd. The animals were part of an auction in Pierre, S.D. Agriculture officials in Wyoming became suspicious of the test results even before ruling out brucellosis in any of the 2,500-plus cattle that might have had contact with the two cows here. Many of those animals were tested a second time -- including the Edwards herd -- and still no signs of brucellosis have been found. More puzzling is the fact that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has long considered the free-ranging elk in northeast Wyoming to be brucellosis free....
Rare white rattler finds home It's one in a million. Chris and Denise Alverson, co-owners of New Earth, a private reptile collection, have secured a prized white rattlesnake. The Rapid City couple said their snake is a rarity in the wild - a one in a million find. "It isn't an albino," Chris Alverson said. "It's grayish, off-white color with blue eyes." Alverson, 26, said the snake has no patterned markings on its back like other rattlesnakes. "This is the very first one I've seen caught in the wild," he said....
New Research Casting Early Texas Rangers In A Much Darker Light Back east, for social cachet there is nothing like an ancestor on the Mayflower. In Texas, it is a Texas Ranger in the family tree. Here at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, a shrine to the frontier lawmen who set Lone Star hearts aflutter, some of the most avid visitors come in search of connections to the men who won the West and, it was said, would charge hell with a bucket of water and quell riots single-handedly. But Southern Methodist University in Dallas says new historical accounts are casting the long-revered outlaw and Indian fighters in a decidedly darker light....
Pictures of the past: Old photos share tribe history Though the haunting black-and-white pictures of them dressed in full traditional regalia seem, to most, a reminder of a bygone era to Northern Arapaho tribal members, the images of the people, with surnames like Goes In Lodge, Shavehead, Monroe and Bell, are not nearly so far removed. Many today on the Wind River Indian Reservation sign checks and paperwork with those very names. Thanks to an international effort, 30 long-lost images of the tribe's people now are just as geographically close to the Northern Arapaho Tribe as they are culturally, and through the photos a colorful tale of friendship, travel and show business has been retold....
Cruising El Camino Real El Camino Real, the King's Highway, the Old San Antonio Road. On its various routes, it stretched from the Rio Grande to the state's far eastern boundaries. It followed the paths of buffalo and American Indians, of missionaries and soldiers, entrepreneurs and travelers and dreamers of all types. Formally known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, its twists and turns revealed not only a changing land, but the faces and spirits of its soul. The first highway to cross at least part of Texas, the trail is a network of routes totaling almost 2,600 miles from just below Eagle Pass through San Antonio to Natchitoches, La., a corridor of about 550 miles....

OPINION/COMMENTARY

History Repeats Itself

Kyoto cannot come into effect until the number of ratifiers includes those who account for 55 percent of the carbon dioxide generated by those countries listed in an Annex to the Protocol. This seems sensible, until we understand how limited that group is. It does not include developing countries like China, India and other high growth economies in East Asia which today account for over 40 percent of the carbon dioxide generated by human activity. Since they are the world's fastest growing producers of carbon dioxide, that share is steadily increasing. So this Protocol is triggered when countries who at best account for 30 percent of the world's human-generated CO2 accede. Russia has triggered this threshold. It is obvious that if only a minority of producers of CO2 cut back, overall, global emissions will continue to increase.

OPINION/COMMENTARY

Missing in Action

In a US election campaign that has seen the presidential candidates attack each other with great ferocity over issues as diverse as national security, retirement pensions and their attitudes to gay marriage, one issue has been prominent only by its absence. The environment was mentioned only in passing in the Presidential debates and has been raised on the campaign trail rarely. What explains the absence of an issue that was so prominent during the last election cycle? First is that, for Americans, the environment is way down their list of priorities. The attacks of 11 September 2001, the subsequent American involvement in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the associated economic downturn have all pushed the environment away from the forefront of America’s collective mind.This was confirmed by a Missing In Action poll organized by the Gallup organization for Earth Day, America’s national day of environmental awareness, which celebrated its 34th anniversary this year. It found that Americans placed the environment 11th out of 12 major issues in terms of importance to them....

OPINION/COMMENTARY

Teresa's Favorite Green Groups Using Contributions for Anti-Bush Attacks

Teresa Heinz Kerry’s sizable financial contributions to liberal environmental groups are turning into negative campaign attacks by these very groups in battleground states just days before the election. From her position as a board member on several charitable trusts, she is responsible for having directly or indirectly distributed more than $10 million dollars to League of Conservation Voters (LCV), National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) and several other liberal environmental groups. The LCV is running $3 million of attack ads in Florida and the NWF just published an attack “report” on some battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania critical of President Bush’s record on mercury....

OPINION/COMMENTARY

Group 'a front' for PETA

It's not surprising that the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is against messages that tout the healthfulness of milk ("Dairy study touts calcium as the 'next big thin' in dieting," Oct. 10). PCRM is an animal rights group, not a "doctors" organization. More than 95 percent of its members never went to medical school. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has already steered over $1.3 million to this deceptive front group. PCRM's president is also president of The PETA Foundation. Both groups oppose eating meat and drinking milk because they believe a cow's life is worth the same as a human being's....

OPINION COMMENTARY

The Sons of Kyoto: Renewable Energy and Amendment 37

As Colorado households and businesses struggle to pay ever-increasing energy costs, Colorado voters get another chance to self-inflict another increase. Although not quite dead yet, the Kyoto Protocol is in intensive care and on life-support. President George W. Bush announced in 2001, the United States was not going to be a party to the protocol. Bush felt the Kyoto Protocol amounted to nothing more than an “energy tax” on the U.S. and other industrialized countries. The intent of the Kyoto Protocol was to slow the effects of “global warming” by encouraging the development of renewable energy and discouraging the use of hydro–carbon fuels. Many scientists and other environmental experts argue that the effect of these measures would be miniscule and that technological advances could have a greater impact. With the United States out of the Kyoto Accord, environmentalists and other proponents decided they could accomplish the same goals by implementing pieces of the plan on a state-by-state basis. This piecemeal approach soon became known as “sons of Kyoto.” So far sixteen states have, either through legislation or initiative, adopted similar plans....

NEWS ROUNDUP

The Finish Line in Sight for Landmark Hage v. U.S. - Closing Arguments Heard in Takings Case for Nevada Rancher It’s been nearly fourteen years since Nevada rancher, Wayne Hage and his late wife, Jean, filed their takings case against the United States. On Thursday, October 21, 2004, ranchers from at least five states crowded into the small courtroom and spilled out into the hallway to hear the closing arguments in this landmark case being heard by Judge Loren Smith of the U.S. Federal Claims Court. Wayne Hage is no stranger to the courts. From the time Hage purchased Pine Creek Ranch in 1978 until he filed the takings case in 1991, Hage spent countless hours fighting the BLM and the Forest Service over his water and grazing rights. The mission of the government agencies was clearly to reclaim the use of the federal lands that Hage had permits on, by whatever means necessary, including fencing off Hage’s springs and the eventual confiscation of his cattle....
Lawyers for Brokaw say hunting on adjacent land is unsafe Lawyers for ''NBC Nightly News'' anchorman Tom Brokaw want a judge to require the Montana Board of Outfitters to review a decision that allows a Wyoming outfitter to guide big-game hunting trips on land next to Brokaw's Montana ranch. ''The complaint we have is safety, plain and simple,'' Clifford Edwards, a Billings attorney representing Brokaw, told District Judge Nels Swandal at a hearing Friday. ''Tom and (wife) Meredith are not anti-hunting - they are concerned for their safety.'' On Sept. 1, the Board of Outfitters granted Wyoming outfitter David Nelson's request to take up to 10 hunters onto more than 2,500 acres of private land bordering the Brokaws' West Boulder Ranch during archery season, court records said....
Column: Wise Use in the White House, Pt. 2 When George W. Bush stood in front of a giant sequoia in California in May 2001 and spoke of "A New Environmentalism for the Twenty-first Century" that would "protect the claims of nature while also protecting the legal rights of property owners," Norton was by his side nodding approvingly.13 In August 2003 she was again by his side as he toured the West burnishing his environmental image with talk of "protecting healthy forests" and "caring for National Parks." A Wise Use veteran, Norton helped Bush through his environmental tutorial as a presidential candidate, providing the intellectual arguments that deregulation, devolution, and free markets are the best way to achieve environmental goals....
Protection of desert is delicate balance From towering, white sand dunes to enormous boulders prized by world-class climbers, more than 7.7 million acres of the desert were protected in perpetuity 10 years ago this Sunday. Historic and hard-fought, the California Desert Protection Act expanded Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks and boosted their status from national monuments, placing them in the company of Yosemite and Yellowstone and among the nation's most prized collection of public lands....
Burns asks bison plan delay Sen. Conrad Burns demanded this week that the U.S. Department of Interior and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes "step back" and delay action for now on a controversial funding agreement to share federal responsibilities at the National Bison Range in Moiese and other wildlife facilities on the Flathead Reservation. "On behalf of my constituents, I am requesting that you slow this process down and move forward with slow and thoughtful deliberation," Burns said in a letter Thursday to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior Paul Hoffman in Washington. Hoffman has been leading the effort to get approval of the Annual Funding Agreement authorizing sharing of power and budget on the Bison Range....
Group charges feds with shady tinkering of Bison Range costs An environmental advocacy group charged Thursday that a high-ranking U.S. Department of Interior political appointee "cooked the books" to radically revise downward the anticipated extra cost of sharing management of the National Bison Range Complex with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "was forced to publicly repudiate its own cost estimates and issue new figures estimating the first-year cost at $23,460 - an amount more than 90 percent below the $300,000 to $500,000 first-year costs that USFWS had been publicly stating," said a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an nonprofit advocacy group made up of local, state and federal resource professionals....
Parks official opposes moving river channel A proposal to move a Hoback River channel to improve highway safety is "extreme and unacceptable," a national rivers program manager said. The Wyoming Department of Transportation is considering moving a segment of river channel as one of three alternatives to deal with a creeping landslide just east of Hoback Junction. By rerouting the river, WyDOT believes it can shore up the bottom of the landslide and stabilize the foundation for U.S. Highway 189-191....
Environmentalists Blast U.S-Utah Land Deal Known initially as the Sagebrush Rebellion, the anti-wilderness movement is a potent mix of rural, populist protest and corporate money from industries that benefit most from unrestricted access to federal land. Nowhere has the opposition been more formidable than in Utah, where less wilderness has been created than in any other Western state except Hawaii. The Clinton administration inflamed the anti-wilderness sentiment in 1996 by protecting 1.7 million acres as part of a new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The same year, Bruce Babbitt, Interior secretary under Clinton, renewed surveys of Utah lands with wilderness potential after numerous complaints that earlier surveys were faulty....
McGrath to sue Martz over Tongue River dispute Attorney General Mike McGrath plans to sue Gov. Judy Martz in a constitutional showdown over the governor's decision to get the state involved in a legal fight over ownership of an Eastern Montana river. McGrath, a Democrat, said Friday that he would file a lawsuit against the Republican governor next week, alleging that she has violated the Montana Constitution by having her attorney intervene in the federal court case on behalf of the state. The complaint, which will be filed Wednesday with the Montana Supreme Court, also will claim that she overstepped her legal bounds in ordering him to help represent the state in the lawsuit, he said....

KIT LANEY/DIAMOND BAR CATTLE COMPANY

Email From Caren Cowan

Kit Laney, long embattled with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) over the Diamond Bar Allotment in the Gila National Forest, received a five (5) month sentence today from Federal Judge John Conway after entering into a plea agreement with the federal government regarding charges stemming from Laney's attempting to release livestock rounded up by the USFS.

Clearly disturbed by having to issue such a sentence, Judge Conway stressed that it was his desire that Laney serve the time in a prison "boot camp" or half way house as opposed to a county jail. But, the judge pointed out that he could not direct the place of service. Indications in the courtroom were that the Bureau of Prisons was amenable to boot camp service.

Additionally, Laney will have one (1) year of unsupervised probation and was assessed a minimal fine. He will be required to report for his service in mid January 2005.

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the morning was as a tremendously shaken Sherry Laney left the courtroom. She was confronted by a man who shoved a sealed envelope at her. He said that it was a motion for costs and fees for Isaiah Baker. Sherry was too stunned to even respond or accept the envelope, which bore the return address of the National Wildlife Federation. After a person comforting Sherry took the envelope, the man turned to leave, saying that she would be receiving the motion in the mail as well.

Isaiah Baker is one of the contractors who rounded up the Laney cattle from the Diamond Bar. The Laneys pressed cattle theft charges against Baker in Catron County. Those charges were dismissed by the court in Catron County.

What on earth has the National Wildlife Federation got to do with a USFS contractor --- little alone representing one in a legal capacity?

NEWS ROUNDUP

Hunter shoots guide Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? One Florida hunter, that's who. Now his fear, and his lead-flinging reaction to it, has left him facing criminal charges for blowing a big hole in his guide's arm with a .300-caliber Magnum rifle in Paradise Valley Tuesday. David Williams, 38, told police that he thought the two men and horses approaching in the dark were wolves coming to get him....
Ranchers take on Canyon Resources One of the hottest fights in the debate over repealing Montana's 1998 ban on open pit cyanide leach mining comes to a head today in a Lewistown courtroom. Lawyers for Canyon Resources Corp., the Colorado-based mining company that has spent almost $3 million promoting Initiative 147, square off against attorneys for Alan and Stephanie Shammel, Lewistown-area ranchers who sued the company in 2001 for polluting their water and also depriving them of it. The Shammels have appeared in television and direct-mail ads opposing I-147, saying Canyon's only other open pit cyanide leach mine in Montana polluted their water....
Politics, Gas Fuel Battle Over New Mexico Forest A Texas energy company may get rights to drill in a pristine swathe of a New Mexico national forest after a White House task force intervened on its behalf, a move that has become a hot issue in the battleground state before next week's presidential election. Oil giant Pennzoil donated the 40,000-acre parcel in northern New Mexico known as Valle Vidal for conservation in 1982, and it has been a protected wildlife and recreation area as part of the Carson National Forest. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Houston-based oil company El Paso Corp., a large donor to Republican campaigns and candidates, asked the White House's energy task force in 2003 to intervene on its behalf with the Forest Service....
Activists protest plans to change forest Roadless Rule Environmentalists gathered Thursday at a Salt Lake City outdoor recreation store to protest the Bush administration's rollback of the Roadless Rule, designed to protect 60 million acres of national forest land from encroachment. They brought along more than 1 million public comments, piled high in duffel bags on the store's floor, to underscore their main point: They've got a lot of company....
Feds pay visit, launch invasive species attack The U.S. Forest Service chose the town of Prineville Thursday to unveil a national effort to prevent and control the growing threat of invasive species and non-native plants spreading quickly across the country. The step is part of the president's Healthy Forests Initiative to restore forest and rangeland health and protect communities from wildland fire and supports his executive order promoting cooperative conservation. "Millions of acres of public and private lands are at risk from non-native species," said Mary Rey, Department of Agriculture undersecretary for natural resources and environment. "Each year, the United States loses 1.7 million acres to the spread of these invasives, in addition to spending billions of dollars on control measures."....
Column: Wise Use in the White House, Pt. 1 Still, President Bush and many of his top advisors come out of the ranks of the oil, energy, timber, and mining industries that Teddy Roosevelt condemned as "the great special interests." Others, like Secretary of Interior Gale Norton and Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, are veterans of the Wise Use movement these industries helped create and nourish in the 1990s and whose radical agenda has now become White House policy. "I wish we could take credit for that but we can't," admits Wise Use founder Ron Arnold. "Dick Cheney sits on my Board of Directors but we're not pen pals. Sometimes you just put something out there long enough and it gets picked up, despite what you do."....
Column: The Green Backlash, 10 Years On Despite polls showing that 76 percent of Americans considered themselves green, the New York Times environmental reporter was promoting the Wise Use/Property Rights backlash as "the third wave" of environmentalism. "I think that the [Wise Use] movement is maybe one of the most important and interesting movements to arise in environmentalism in a long time," he claimed, "because they are prying into the environmental issues that we've all grappled with for two decades. Is there really global warming? Is there really an ozone problem? Does toxic waste cleanup really represent the best use of public financing?" He went on to portray the anti-enviro backlash as a bottom-up citizen movement. "The Property Rights groups I know have no corporate funding at all. They're mom-and-pop community environmental groups," he claimed, and, because he was from the New York Times, other reporters believed him....
Under the Radar The environment has been a virtual non-issue in this year's election campaign, with even the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- such a hot topic in the 2000 race -- off the radar for now. So, with the public focused on terrorism, war, taxes and healthcare, a small group of government officials and oil executives has seized the moment to close in on a deal to open one of Alaska's biggest wildlife refuges to oil drilling. Government scientists, environmentalists, and Native Americans in the area say the arrangement -- which has the support of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and which won preliminary approval last week from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service -- will be a precedent-setting erosion of historic environmental protections of Alaska wildlands, and could open the way to widespread oil exploration in the nation's wildest places, starting with the 9 million-acre Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge....
U.S. sat on ecology report, critics say A committee of experts urged the government in March to do much more to preserve biological diversity and ecological integrity in the national parks, but the report has "languished," a panel member says. That member, Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who is explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society, said she and her colleagues had expected that the National Park Service would distribute the report and take action on its findings. Instead, she said, "it has just languished."...
Feds approve hydro project at Glacier Bay The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted Wednesday to let the diesel-dependent community of Gustavus build a hydroelectric project in designated wilderness in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Residents in the northern Southeast Alaska town pay some of the highest utility bills in Alaska - recently as high as 51 cents per kilowatt hour - in part because of the Gustavus Electric Co.'s dependence on expensive diesel fuel. The project cannot begin until Glacier Bay National Park trades to Alaska about 1,000 acres of designated wilderness along Falls Creek, the proposed site of the project....
Appeals court: BLM must look at cumulative impact The U.S. Bureau of Land Management was ordered Thursday to reassess the environmental effects of four timber sales in Southern Oregon based on their cumulative impact, instead of their individual impact, possibly affecting the way the agency reviews sales across the West. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan in Eugene after the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildland Center went to court to force the BLM to reconsider its environmental assessment of the four proposed sales in the Little Butte Creek watershed near Mount McLoughlin, in the Cascade Range just east of Medford. Brenna Bell, a Portland attorney for the center, said the ruling may have broad policy implications for the BLM and the Bush administration's Healthy Forest Initiative....
BLM lease for Martin's Cove absent clause allowing sale The Martin's Cove lease does not give the Mormon church a right of first refusal to buy the federal property if it ever came up for sale. In an earlier draft of the lease, the Bureau of Land Management afforded the church "a right of first refusal to purchase, lease or otherwise manage Martin's Cove" if the property were sold or title was transferred to another party. In the lease signed Tuesday, the word "purchase" is excluded. Don Ogaard, BLM's manager for the Martin's Cove site, said that change was made to reflect the original language of the congressional act mandating the lease of the church last year....
BLM rejects lone bid for coal-rich land The Bureau of Land Management rejected the lone bid for 2,813 acres of coal-rich land in the Powder River Basin. The $220 million bid on Wednesday by Ark Land WR Inc., a subsidiary of Arch Coal Inc., did not meet the estimated fair market value of the land, the BLM said. The tract contains an estimated 327 million tons of mineable coal....
Subgroups monitor gas development When the Bureau of Land Management approved the Pinedale Anticline oil and gas development project in 2000, the decision contained the caveat that the agency form a special group to monitor development and evaluate future drilling proposals. Now it's up to about 90 Wyoming residents to formulate those monitoring plans and make recommendations on possible changes to the level and pace of energy development in the gas-rich Anticline, BLM officials say. The volunteers are a part of the recently established Pinedale Anticline Working Group, according to BLM Pinedale Field Office Planning and Environmental Coordinator Carol Kruse. The nine-member working group was appointed earlier this year by Interior Secretary Gale Norton....
Nevada takes over ownership of Carson Lake State and federal officials signed an agreement Thursday to transfer ownership of Carson Lake near Fallon from federal to state control. Gov. Kenny Guinn, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett W. Raley signed the pact during a ceremony in Carson City. The title transfer was authorized under the Truckee River Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990....
Recasting Wilderness as Open for Business The sculpted buttes of Wild Horse Mesa, the vast escarpment of the Book Cliffs and the soaring ramparts of Upper Desolation Canyon near here have become a prime battleground in the Bush administration's campaign to curb wilderness protection throughout the country. In 1999, the federal government acknowledged the unique character of the area, where 150 million years of the earth's geologic history unfolds and the forces of nature continue to shape the rugged landscape. The Bureau of Land Management put more than 440,000 acres off-limits to industrial development. The protection was short-lived. Within four years, the area was opened to oil and gas exploration....
NASA Expert Criticizes Bush on Global Warming Policy A top NASA climate expert who twice briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on global warming plans to criticize the administration's approach to the issue in a lecture at the University of Iowa tonight and say that a senior administration official told him last year not to discuss dangerous consequences of rising temperatures. The expert, Dr. James E. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, expects to say that the Bush administration has ignored growing evidence that sea levels could rise significantly unless prompt action is taken to reduce heat-trapping emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes....
Column: Michael Leavitt: EPA’s Messenger As several SEJ members remarked, it’s surprising that Leavitt, the former governor of Utah, is not more visible as the Bush administration’s point man on the environment. He comes across as both likable and moderate—qualities in short supply in Bush’s Washington. He’s very folksy, tells reasonably funny jokes and self-effacing stories, and admits candidly that mere days before an election he’s not planning to generate any controversial headlines....
Historic Sopori Ranch sold for $22M One of Southern Arizona's largest and oldest cattle ranches changed hands this week in a $22 million purchase that could lead to its development in a year. The new owners of the Sopori Ranch say they are not sure how they will develop the nearly 12,600 acres they bought Monday from an Illinois-based family that had held the ranch for more than a decade. The cash purchase also includes the ownership of state and federal grazing leases, giving the landowners the ability to run cattle on an additional 45,800 publicly owned acres in the surrounding hills....
94-Year-Old Rancher Spends Night In Jail His family helped settle the town of New Braunfels, but now a 94-year-old rancher is in danger of losing his 200 acre ranch if he doesn't clean up his act. Jerome Schumann spent the night in jail for burning tires Wednesday. He says he was just trying to help clean up his ranch, which is littered with junked cars and scrap metal. Comal County authorities agree it's time for Schumann to clean up his act....
History in the making Mud mixed with straw, poured into wooden molds and left in the sun to bake. Perhaps not the first materials that would spring to mind as the building blocks of the oldest house in Long Beach, but it is thick walls of just such adobe bricks that form the core of Rancho Los Alamitos. Around 1800, laborers in the employ of a retired Spanish soldier named Juan Manuel Perez Nieto built a rough, four-room shelter for the wealthy cattle rancher's vaqueros , or cowboys, and their horses on a hill overlooking vast meadows streaked with orange poppies and blue lupine. Over the next 150 years, generations of American settlers slowly built an 18-room wood-frame ranch house based on East Coast architectural principles around those original walls, a gradual transformation that reflects the historical events that changed California from a remote Spanish territory into the 31st state....
Five cowgirls inducted into hall Meeting Bob Phillips was almost as big a thrill for Sherri Mell as being inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. "My Gosh, Bob Phillips!" gushed a breathless Mell, an expert calf roper and riding instructor. She said she never misses his TV program, Texas Country Reporter. Phillips was the master of ceremonies Thursday as Fort Worth's National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame added five legendary cowgirls to its ranks. Inductees this year included Mell, the late actress Gail Davis, jockey Wantha Davis, late trick rider Connie Griffith and Mary Jo Milner, a cutting horse rider and breeder....

League of Private Property Voters Names John Kerry and John Edwards Enemies of Property Rights

The League of Private Property Voters (LPPV) today released an analysis of the votes of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and John Edwards (D-SC) from the Private Property Congressional Vote Index from 1999 through 2003.
Every Senator and Representative who scores at least 80% receives a “Champion” of Private Property Rightis certificate. Every Member who gets 20% or less is rated an “Enemy” of Private Property Rights. Full size examples of actual “Champion” and “Enemy” certificates are printed in each Vote Index.
Senator Kerry achieved a score of “zero”on private property and resource issues all five years. Senator Edwards score was 14% for 2001, 20% for 2002 and “zero” for 2003 the only years he was in the Senate.
Senator Kerry was given the prestigious positioning in the scorecard by having his “Enemy of Property Rights”certificate printed full size inside.
Senator Kerry voted multiple times to stop death tax repeal and against ranchers with grazing permits. He supported stopping Klamath River irrigation, for political speech restrictions, against oil and gas exploration in national monuments, for international court powers, against forest fire protection funding, against the Healthy Forest Act, for a farmland land grab, for a tax break for land trusts, and co-sponsored the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), the largest land grab bill in history.
A greater search of Senator Kerryis record shows that in the late 90is he opposed working toward energy independence by opposing drilling in ANWR on the coastal plain of Alaska, opposed the Private Property Rights Implementation Act, opposed RS 2477 Rights-of-way, and opposed sales of excess Federal land.
Senator Edwards opposed repealing the death tax several times, supported environmental pork projects, and a tax break for land trusts.
He supported political speech restrictions, opposed oil and gas exploration in national monuments, supported giving an international court powers over US Soldiers and others, and against fire protection funding.
For comparison purposes, President George Bush supported drilling at ANWR on coastal plain of Alaska, supported the Healthy Forest Initiative, supported repealing the death tax, supported exploration for oil and gas in national monuments, was against giving US Sovereignty to international courts, and supported forest fire protection funding.
The League of Private Property Voters is a national non-partisan coalition of over 600 co-sponsoring organizations including the American Land Rights Association, Alliance for America, People for the USA, Blue Ribbon Coalition, American Policy Center, numerous Farm Bureaus, mining, grazing, forestry and agriculture groups as well as most national, regional and local private property, multiple-use and taxpayer organizations.
The 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index is available in both printed form and on our highly regarded landrights.org website.
Go to http://www.landrights.org for the complete 2003 Private Property Congressional Vote Index including all the individual scores for every Senator and Representative....

KIT LANEY/DIAMOND BAR CATTLE COMPANY

It has been reported to me that Judge John Conway sentenced Kit Laney to 5 months in jail and 5 months house arrest. I was also told Judge Conway said this was one of the hardest sentencing decisions he has made, and that he would try to see that the 5 months were not served in a regular prison.

Most disturbingly, it was also reported to me that an attorney representing an environmental group served papers on Sherry Laney stating they were taking her to court for court costs and legal fees in a related matter. These papers were handed to her while she was still sitting and right after Judge Conway sentenced Kit. More to come on this as the facts become available.....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Zoning power gets on the ballot The war in Iraq and homeland security are dominating the presidential campaign. But measures on ballots Tuesday across the USA show that Americans want to get a handle on issues in their own backyards: sprawl, big-box stores, traffic and the environment. In a number of communities from Florida to California, citizens groups and developers are using ballot referendums to try to wrest control of land-use decisions from local officials. A trend that began in California is picking up steam elsewhere, says Phyllis Myers, president of State Resource Strategies in Washington, D.C., a consulting firm that has tracked state and local ballot measures for more than 10 years. California has pioneered the use of ballot measures to restrict taxes, protect land and manage growth....
Ski village moves forward The Mineral County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved zoning plans for a highly controversial mountaintop village near the Wolf Creek Ski Area in southwestern Colorado. After listening to comments from roughly two dozen speakers at an all-day hearing, the panel voted 3-0 to approve a proposal by Texas billionaire B.J. "Red" McCombs to build what could be the state's largest resort village of its kind....
NPS Retirees: National Park Service Is Hiding Report Calling for More Scientific Approach to Park Management The 353-member Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees (CCNPSR) today publicly called on National Park Service (NPS) Director Fran Mainella to stop stonewalling the release of a major report that urges a more scientific approach to management of America's national parks. The report now being kept under wraps outlines steps for "reducing known shortcomings in past levels of NPS support for using science as a management tool" in order to "ensure the future of the nation's natural heritage that is reflected in the National Park System." According to CCNPSR, the report is being held hostage to the Bush Administration's campaign of ignoring science in order to clear the way for controversial steps -- such as opening up Yellowstone National Park to snowmobiles -- that violate the NPS mission of protecting the resources of the national park system....
LDS Church to pay to lease Martin's Cove The LDS Church will pay $16,000 a year to lease public land surrounding the Martin's Cove Historical Site in Wyoming under a 25-year agreement signed Tuesday with the Bureau of Land Management. Although critics of the lease say they still may file suit, the deal may close a six-year effort by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to acquire the property Mormon faithful consider sacred ground. Although no archaeological evidence has been found, Martin's Cove is believed to be the area where an 1856 blizzard took the lives of an estimated 200 European converts to Mormonism who were traveling to territorial Utah by pulling handcarts across the high plains....
Tribe wins key contract status A company created by the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation has landed a contract that makes it a preferred source for up to $100 million in federal projects. Under the Department of Labor's multi-year award, NWB Technology, a subsidiary of tribally-owned NWB Economic Development Corp., will offer information technology services, surveying and mapping, energy consulting, security and surveillance to various federal agencies. In all, the $100 million worth of contracts could generate hundreds of positions, among them internships and on-the-job training slots for the 450 members of the Northwestern Band....
Ancient lands restored to Acoma In the 1870s, federal land surveyors failed to include a portion of Acoma's tribal lands within the reservation's boundaries. The land was then deemed "public land" and patented to the old Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1908. Although surface rights were restored to the pueblo in 1936, it has taken the efforts of five Acoma administrations to realize the restoration of subsurface mineral rights on the lands....
Enviros, BLM spar over Roan Environmental groups attacked plans to drill on the Roan Plateau from a different angle Wednesday by contending that the Bureau of Land Management has grossly exaggerated the amount of natural gas available. A coalition led by the Wilderness Society claimed its analysis of government data shows 400 billion cubic feet of gas could be recovered using technology available today from under the Roan Plateau Planning Area. Earlier studies by the BLM contended that 15.4 trillion cubic feet is beneath the 127,000-acre area....
Dugway seeks to obtain more land Dugway Proving Ground, one of America's largest military bases, has been thinking about growing even larger. It's unclear whether the project is the revival of a 1988 Dugway effort to obtain a swath of public land 23 miles wide by 3 miles long, where chemical and conventional weapons contamination occurred. But what is certain is that two other projects besides the expansion show the military wants stronger action to protect the public from leftover ordinance. Officials of Dugway — the bigger-than-Rhode Island base sprawling across much of Utah's western desert — aren't saying how much they would like it to expand or even why....
Part-Time Paradise It’s the same story from Vail to Telluride, from Park City, Utah, to Sun Valley, Idaho. Growing chunks of the West’s mountains towns seem to go into deep hibernation for long stretches of the year. Similar clusters are cropping up in places from Bozeman, Mont., to Moab, Utah, and Sedona, Ariz. They are filled with second (and sometimes third or fourth) residences that are only used a few weeks or months out of the year by wealthy owners who really live in Hollywood, Dallas, Chicago or New York. Led by the baby-boom generation, affluent "equity exiles" have plunked down millions for their condos, townhomes and starter castles in paradise. Demographers, elected officials and planners now recognize a new phenomenon: "hollowed-out" communities, to use the phrase coined by Myles Rademan, Park City’s director of public affairs and communication....
Melting glaciers reveal treasures of past Sculptor Bill Ikler was hiking along the edge of a snowfield near the Continental Divide when a friend picked up a cracked, waterlogged, gray-brown chunk of what looked like driftwood. Ikler, who had once studied a bison skull while doing research for one of his sculptures, recognized the 8-inch-long object immediately: It was the bone core from a bison horn. "And then I looked down, and right near my hand was the other core, the other bison horn," he said, recalling the late-summer 2002 hike west of Nederland. "These had just melted out of the snowfield. They were literally pulled from the muck." Samples were sent to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for radiocarbon dating, and the results were surprising. The bison-horn cores were 2,090 years old, said University of Colorado archaeologist Craig Lee....
Bush Uses Market Incentives; Kerry Focuses on Rules Few issues divide President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry more starkly than the environment, where the two men have different approaches on matters ranging from curbing air pollution to promoting energy development on public lands. While Bush has focused on containing regulatory costs and has targeted selected issues, Kerry has advocated stricter federal rules on a wide array of fronts. "It's hard to imagine another case where we've seen a more vivid contrast between the candidates than we see between George Bush and John Kerry on the environment," said Greg Wetstone, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Action Fund, an advocacy and lobbying group....
Proposal Restricts Appeals on Dams The Bush administration has proposed giving dam owners the exclusive right to appeal Interior Department rulings about how dams should be licensed and operated on American rivers, through a little-noticed regulatory tweak that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the hydropower industry. The proposal would prevent states, Indian tribes and environmental groups from making their own appeals, while granting dam owners the opportunity to take their complaints -- and suggested solutions -- directly to senior political appointees in the Interior Department....
Column: Big river, big picture Although the notion of watershed thinking permeates the education of young scientists and natural resource managers, we have forgotten "to think like a watershed" in considering the environmental future of the Colorado River. Watershed thinking envisions all of the opportunities and constraints that exist in a drainage basin. Watershed decisions balance those opportunities and constraints. The need for watershed thinking has become apparent to me in the midst of pursuing a research program concerning management of dams and the restoration of regulated rivers throughout the Intermountain West. My colleagues and I conduct studies downstream from several dams and diversions in the Colorado River basin....
Water deal with Nez Perce Tribe dead in Senate An Idaho effort to resolve one of the West's largest water rights disputes is dead in the U.S. Senate for this year. Senators Larry Craig and Michael Crapo say an anonymous U-S senator has invoked a procedure single-handedly blocking a vote on their water agreement bill. The two say they don't know which of their colleagues is blocking it, and there's no way to find out....