SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
The American cowboy ropes in a day of honor
By Julie Carter
The United States Senate has proclaimed July 23 to be the National Day of the American Cowboy.
The resolution was introduced by Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas and embraced by the agriculture industry.
Recognizing that pioneering men and women helped establish the American West and that the cowboy spirit continues to infuse this country with its solid character, sound family values and good common sense, the day of honor was approved.
The cowboy is declared to be the embodiment of honesty, integrity, courage, compassion, respect with a strong worth ethic and patriotism.
The resolution recognizes the cowboy as one who loves, lives off of and depends on the land and its creatures for his livelihood. It acknowledges the cowboys’ excellent stewardship, protection, and enhancement of the environment.
Although cowboys and the west are synonymous with each other, ranchers aren’t just found in the west. The agriculture census lists 800,000 ranchers doing business in all fifty states of this country.
Cowboys are definitely not a feature of western bygone days. The senators acknowledged that the rancher cowboy continues to “play a significant role in America’s culture and economy.”
The rodeo cowboy is part of the sixth most-watched sport in America and membership in rodeo and other organizations surrounding the livelihood of cowboy transcend race, gender and spans every generation.
The resolution calls the cowboy an American icon and declares him to be part of America’s ongoing commitment to an esteemed and enduring code of conduct.
It fills my heart with pride to not only be part of such a heritage but to also see it honored in such a way.
But in true form of the cowboy, they will humbly just shrug off the attention and go on about their day. If you ask one what it feels like to be an American icon they will honestly look at you and say, “What’s that?”
They work on holidays, Sundays, their birthday, their wife’s birthday, anniversaries and throughout all four seasons of the year irregardless of weather conditions. A clock is for setting meeting times but governs little of what happens on the ranch.
July 23 will find the majority of the American cowboys stacking hay, checking cattle and their waters, fixing pipeline leaks, pulling a well, branding a few late calves, building fence, mechanic-ing on a pump jack or the feed pickup, waiting on a rain and pondering the cattle market for a timely sale of their calf crop.
If there is a celebration it might be that they are forced to go to the family reunion they would rather avoid. A selection of them will be entered in a summer rodeo somewhere and a few others will simply be horseback in places where he can almost imagine it is still l890.
I don’t know if the suits on Wall Street will acknowledge the honor given the American Cowboy or if the masses in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington D.C. will even know about it. It doesn’t matter.
The day is an honor given. It won’t change the cowboy in any way. He is not the dying breed he's said to be by those that drive up and down the road looking for him.
He is as much an enduring part of Americana as baseball, apple pie and Microsoft.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
Does the king have clothes?
by Larry Gabriel
About all one need say is, "the Endangered Species Act" (ESA) and the arguments begin about this "king" of natural resource management. Congress is doing that right now.
Just like ordinary people, most Congressmen already have their minds made up. The difference is many are afraid to say so. I admit my bias up front. ESA makes no sense to me.
First, I know of nothing in the Constitution that says the federal government should regulate state-owned property. All the wildlife here is owned by the State of South Dakota. Giving control to Congress makes no sense to me.
Second, managing a chunk of the environment for the exclusive benefit on one particular critter is exactly what preservationists have been arguing against for a hundred years. The difference is the "one particular critter" is now a rodent instead of a cow. They can't have it both ways.
Third, ESA does not work and everyone knows it. The "isolated wilderness" and "save a single species" ideas were tested for fifty years. They don't work. That is why the conservation movement invented "ecosystem management" twenty years ago and why the United State Forest Service officially adopted it into law ten years ago. We now manage natural resources for the big picture, not for the preservation of just one little thing.
Even members of the "green movement" acknowledged the old system's failure, but they argued for keeping ESA until the new system was in place. Time is up.
Fourth, extinction is a perfectly normal cycle of selection that operated long before man decided he knew better how to run things.
Fifth, the assumption that each one of the millions of critters potentially protected by ESA has some mystical and extraordinary value may create a noble feeling, but it is not rational.
Sixth, Congress says a protected species or subspecies is "unique". The people who collect the money are the people who decide it is unique. For example, the Northern Swift Fox was a protected "unique" subspecies until another group of researchers decided it does not exist.
Last but not least, Congress is generally the worst imaginable manager of natural resources.
If you want millions of acres of scorched black earth, let Congress manage your forests. If you want barren grasslands, give them to Congress.
If you want just about anything (including your money) lost or destroyed without meaningful accountability, normally Congress can help you out.
If you are a real conservationist like me, you may agree that local governments and local owners are better managers of natural resources than Congress ever will be.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.
Received via email:
Here's a quote from someone who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a Metro station in DC: "There were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one. An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, "Ma'am, don't you care about the children of Iraq?" The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my first husband died in France during World War II, my second husband died in Korea, one of my sons died in Vietnam, a Grandson died in Desert Storm, all so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth our country. If you touch me again. I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it."
--------------
During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director which is the criteria that defines a patient to be institutionalized. "Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, we offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient and ask the patient to empty the bathtub."
Okay, here's your test:
(Those with an abnormal tendency will scroll to the bottom to get the answer before taking the test.)
1. Would you use the spoon?
2. Would you use the teacup?
3. Would you use the bucket?
"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would choose the bucket as it is larger than the spoon."
keep scrolling
"No," answered the Director. "A normal person would pull the plug."
So how did "you" do?
I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner
===
Sunday, July 17, 2005
OPINION/COMMENTARY
G8 Statement Affirms Bush on Global Warming
The Bush Administration’s position on global warming received a strong endorsement in the concluding communiqué to the G8 Summit of industrialized nations this week. The joint statement affirmed concern over the possibility of future climate change and echoed many past statements of U.S. policy that any governmental response to global warming be gradual, be based on technological transformation, and proceed only “as the science justifies.” "The G8 communiqué on climate change is a victory by President Bush on behalf of all the people of the world, especially the poor in developing countries,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming & International Environmental Policy. “The Kyoto Protocol’s dead-end approach of mandatory reductions in energy consumption was hardly mentioned. Instead, the leaders at the G8 summit have recognized that global warming must be put in the context of other, more serious challenges.” While some observers had hoped that Summit host Tony Blair would leverage his relationship with the President to pull the U.S. closer to the European position, the final agreement makes it clear that the opposite is the case. Particularly now that the majority of the nations pledged to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol are realizing that they will fail to reach their reduction targets, the consensus among industrialized nations has shifted definitively against the agenda of energy poverty....
A Change in Climate
One of the key issues discussed at last week's G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, was global warming. Although the conclusions were largely overshadowed by the London terrorist attacks, they demonstrate a huge shift in the way world leaders are addressing climate change. Before the meeting began, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put US President George Bush under pressure. The US is the biggest emitter in the developed world, said Blair, so it should be responsible and join the European Union in its efforts to decrease and eventually eliminate greenhouse gases emissions. Indeed, the US was and still is the only member of the G8 that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. From the very beginning Bush had made it clear that he had no intention to ratify, because the economic impact of the climate treaty is too high if compared with the dubious environmental benefits that compliance with its targets would bring about. So the expectation was that the meeting would produce a joint "agreement to disagree" on climate policies. In other words, the G8 was expected to result in no significant political change. Instead the group issued a joint statement on climate: the leaders of the eight most industrialized countries agreed (although they didn't put it this way) that seven of them were wrong and just one was right. The one was President Bush. The extent to which the American position on Kyoto has been endorsed by the others doesn't lie just in the fact that the Kyoto Protocol is not even mentioned in the document -- as the White House negotiators had asked long before the meeting. The point is that Kyoto supporters -- especially European leaders -- rejected the very logic behind Kyoto....
Survey shows climatologists are split on global warming
A recent survey of climatologists from more than 20 nations has revealed that scientists are evenly split on whether humans are responsible for changes in global climate; these findings refute a 2004 study that claimed that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is real and primarily caused by humans.
In December 2004, Naomi Oreskes published an article in the Washington Post that summarized her examination of 928 scientific papers on global warming. She claims that:
* A review of scientific literature showed that scientists were in unanimous agreement that global warming is occurring and is being caused primarily by humans.
* Since human activities are part of the reason the Earth's climate is heating up, we need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it, she adds.
Since then, two separate studies published in the London Telegraph dispute Oreskes' findings, claiming instead that climatologists are evenly split on the issue:
* Benny Peiser conducted his own analysis on the same set of documents as Oreskes and concluded that only one-third backed the consensus view; only one percent did so explicitly.
* Dennis Bray surveyed hundreds of climatologists and asked them the question: To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes?
* He received 530 responses from 27 different countries and reported that more climatologists "strongly disagreed" than "strongly agreed" that climate change is mostly attributable to humans.
The results of these surveys suggest that the consensus is not all that strong and indicate that Oreskes’ conclusion is not as obvious as once stated.
Source: James M. Taylor, "Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming," Heartland Institute, June 1, 2005; Naomi Oreskes, "Undeniable Global Warming," Washington Post, December 26, 2004; and Robert Matthews, "Leading scientific journals are censoring debate on global warming," London Telegraph, May 1, 2005.
For text:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17181
For Oreskes text (subscription required):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html
For London Telegraph text (subscription required):
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/01/wglob01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/01/ixworld.html
No Blood for Oil
So after London, what next? Al Qaeda may seek to target our energy supply. Last February a message was posted to the al Qaeda-affiliated al Qalah (the Fortress) website entitled "Map of Future al Qaeda Operations." It stated among other things that the terrorists would make it a priority to attack oil facilities in the Middle East. According to the posting, attacking the U.S. energy base in the Gulf would have three effects: Damaging the American economy; embarrassing the United States and emboldening other countries seeking to secure their own energy supplies; and forcing the U.S. to deploy further troops to the region to stabilize the situation. "The U.S. will reach a stage of madness after the targeting of its oil interests," the terrorists reason, "which will facilitate the creation of a new front and the drowning of the U.S. in a new quagmire that will be worse than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan." The terrorists understand that they can influence oil markets through directed violence, and thus exploit a U.S. critical vulnerability. Furthermore, the more money the United States sends to the region purchasing energy, the more is available to underwrite the terrorists and their beliefs by their state sponsors and other supporters in the region. This is an enduring pattern; since the oil shocks of the 1970s, the United States has sent uncounted billions of dollars into a region that has converted them into weapons of mass destruction programs, globally networked terrorist groups, and a hostile, internationally promoted anti-Western ideology....
Fish and Wildlife Service Agrees to Perform Status Reviews for 27 Species in Response to PLF Lawsuit
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that it will review the status of 31 listed species in California and Nevada in response to a lawsuit brought by Pacific Legal Foundation earlier this year. PLF charged the federal government with failing to conduct the mandatory status reviews that are required by the Endangered Species Act for 193 California species. Twenty-seven of the 31 species the agency will review were included in PLF’s suit. “We’re pleased the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to comply with the law and perform the required status reviews,” said Pacific Legal Foundation Principal Attorney Rob Rivett. “The agency’s decision is a step in the right direction towards making sure the endangered species list is current and Californians are not being unnecessarily burdened by regulations to protect species that may no longer need special protection.” “We will still be going forward with the lawsuit, however, to ensure that the seriously overdue status reviews of the remaining 166 species also are performed,” Rivett said. Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the government must perform status reviews of listed species every five years to determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified....
Who's Ignoring Science?
For years, Democrats and their environmentalist allies have been accusing the Bush administration of "ignoring the science" they claim shows humanity is warming the planet. It's a debatable accusation that we'll return to in a moment. What's not debatable is the utter hypocrisy of the Democrats, who ever since the Clinton administration have successfully forced pesticide regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore the science when establishing pesticide regulations. They nearly derailed the appointment of the new EPA Administrator this spring over this issue and now they're advising the Bush administration to defy a 2003 Federal Appeals Court order requiring that the EPA consider human toxicity data if available. Without reliable exposure and human toxicity data, EPA regulators must rely on worst case assumptions and are required to apply additional 10-fold "uncertainty factors" to their risk calculations. All too often this means elimination of specific uses of pesticides, hurting farmers and consumers by making it harder and more expensive to protect our food supply and homes from pests....
The Robber Baron
How much should drivers be forced to pony up at the pump to pay off trial lawyers? A penny a gallon? Two cents? How about $66 million? Most motorists would vote for nothing, and by a pretty wide margin. But unfortunately, motorists aren't organized politically to influence election campaigns. Toxic tort law firms are, and do. And if Fred Baron, ringleader of the infamous Baron & Budd law firm, can keep Republicans and truly consumer-minded Democrats in Congress at bay on the Energy Bill now before Congress, motorists can expect to be stuck paying him and his fellow attorneys a penny or two every time they gas up for decades to come. Now, Baron "all but" hopes his Senate muscle will keep open his pipeline to what he believes is another financial windfall -- municipal lawsuits over MTBE water contamination. The House has passed an Energy Bill that would exempt MTBE makers from liability in suits claiming their product is defective. The Senate has no such provision. Baron wants to keep it out and prevent any compromise such as one now proposed to create a trust fund to deal with contamination from the bill. Why? Not public health, nor municipalities' interests. It's money for him and his firm; they are involved in more than half the 90 outstanding MTBE suits. In opposing the provision to limit defective product claims against oil companies, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., intoned: "It is bad public policy to put special interests above public health concerns. Companies need to be held accountable when their product or their misconduct causes the public harm." Will Boxer, who received $909,033 from lawyers and law firms for her 2000 election run, including $5,500 from Baron & Budd, now apply that standard to Baron & Budd and support a compromise creating a trust fund to clean up the water that would serve everyone but the lawyers? Will other senators?....
Arctic Pollution Linked to Bird Droppings
A major source of chemical contamination in the Arctic turns out to be bird droppings. Wind currents and human activities long have been blamed for fouling the pristine Arctic. But a study by a group of Canadian researchers found that the chemical pollution in areas frequented by seabirds can be many times higher than in nearby regions. Researchers led by Jules Blais of the University of Ottawa studied several ponds below the cliffs at Cape Vera on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. Scientists report in Friday's issue of the journal Science that the ponds, which receive falling guano from a colony of northern fulmars that nest on the cliffs, have highly elevated amounts of chemicals. "If long-range transport was the only thing bringing these chemicals north, we would expect to see a very even distribution," Blais said in a telephone interview. But the chemicals are concentrated in some places, he said, "and we have found a reason ... they can follow biological connections." Blais calls it the boomerang effect....
===
G8 Statement Affirms Bush on Global Warming
The Bush Administration’s position on global warming received a strong endorsement in the concluding communiqué to the G8 Summit of industrialized nations this week. The joint statement affirmed concern over the possibility of future climate change and echoed many past statements of U.S. policy that any governmental response to global warming be gradual, be based on technological transformation, and proceed only “as the science justifies.” "The G8 communiqué on climate change is a victory by President Bush on behalf of all the people of the world, especially the poor in developing countries,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Global Warming & International Environmental Policy. “The Kyoto Protocol’s dead-end approach of mandatory reductions in energy consumption was hardly mentioned. Instead, the leaders at the G8 summit have recognized that global warming must be put in the context of other, more serious challenges.” While some observers had hoped that Summit host Tony Blair would leverage his relationship with the President to pull the U.S. closer to the European position, the final agreement makes it clear that the opposite is the case. Particularly now that the majority of the nations pledged to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol are realizing that they will fail to reach their reduction targets, the consensus among industrialized nations has shifted definitively against the agenda of energy poverty....
A Change in Climate
One of the key issues discussed at last week's G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, was global warming. Although the conclusions were largely overshadowed by the London terrorist attacks, they demonstrate a huge shift in the way world leaders are addressing climate change. Before the meeting began, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put US President George Bush under pressure. The US is the biggest emitter in the developed world, said Blair, so it should be responsible and join the European Union in its efforts to decrease and eventually eliminate greenhouse gases emissions. Indeed, the US was and still is the only member of the G8 that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. From the very beginning Bush had made it clear that he had no intention to ratify, because the economic impact of the climate treaty is too high if compared with the dubious environmental benefits that compliance with its targets would bring about. So the expectation was that the meeting would produce a joint "agreement to disagree" on climate policies. In other words, the G8 was expected to result in no significant political change. Instead the group issued a joint statement on climate: the leaders of the eight most industrialized countries agreed (although they didn't put it this way) that seven of them were wrong and just one was right. The one was President Bush. The extent to which the American position on Kyoto has been endorsed by the others doesn't lie just in the fact that the Kyoto Protocol is not even mentioned in the document -- as the White House negotiators had asked long before the meeting. The point is that Kyoto supporters -- especially European leaders -- rejected the very logic behind Kyoto....
Survey shows climatologists are split on global warming
A recent survey of climatologists from more than 20 nations has revealed that scientists are evenly split on whether humans are responsible for changes in global climate; these findings refute a 2004 study that claimed that there is a scientific consensus that global warming is real and primarily caused by humans.
In December 2004, Naomi Oreskes published an article in the Washington Post that summarized her examination of 928 scientific papers on global warming. She claims that:
* A review of scientific literature showed that scientists were in unanimous agreement that global warming is occurring and is being caused primarily by humans.
* Since human activities are part of the reason the Earth's climate is heating up, we need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it, she adds.
Since then, two separate studies published in the London Telegraph dispute Oreskes' findings, claiming instead that climatologists are evenly split on the issue:
* Benny Peiser conducted his own analysis on the same set of documents as Oreskes and concluded that only one-third backed the consensus view; only one percent did so explicitly.
* Dennis Bray surveyed hundreds of climatologists and asked them the question: To what extent do you agree or disagree that climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes?
* He received 530 responses from 27 different countries and reported that more climatologists "strongly disagreed" than "strongly agreed" that climate change is mostly attributable to humans.
The results of these surveys suggest that the consensus is not all that strong and indicate that Oreskes’ conclusion is not as obvious as once stated.
Source: James M. Taylor, "Survey Shows Climatologists Are Split on Global Warming," Heartland Institute, June 1, 2005; Naomi Oreskes, "Undeniable Global Warming," Washington Post, December 26, 2004; and Robert Matthews, "Leading scientific journals are censoring debate on global warming," London Telegraph, May 1, 2005.
For text:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17181
For Oreskes text (subscription required):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26065-2004Dec25.html
For London Telegraph text (subscription required):
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/01/wglob01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/05/01/ixworld.html
No Blood for Oil
So after London, what next? Al Qaeda may seek to target our energy supply. Last February a message was posted to the al Qaeda-affiliated al Qalah (the Fortress) website entitled "Map of Future al Qaeda Operations." It stated among other things that the terrorists would make it a priority to attack oil facilities in the Middle East. According to the posting, attacking the U.S. energy base in the Gulf would have three effects: Damaging the American economy; embarrassing the United States and emboldening other countries seeking to secure their own energy supplies; and forcing the U.S. to deploy further troops to the region to stabilize the situation. "The U.S. will reach a stage of madness after the targeting of its oil interests," the terrorists reason, "which will facilitate the creation of a new front and the drowning of the U.S. in a new quagmire that will be worse than the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan." The terrorists understand that they can influence oil markets through directed violence, and thus exploit a U.S. critical vulnerability. Furthermore, the more money the United States sends to the region purchasing energy, the more is available to underwrite the terrorists and their beliefs by their state sponsors and other supporters in the region. This is an enduring pattern; since the oil shocks of the 1970s, the United States has sent uncounted billions of dollars into a region that has converted them into weapons of mass destruction programs, globally networked terrorist groups, and a hostile, internationally promoted anti-Western ideology....
Fish and Wildlife Service Agrees to Perform Status Reviews for 27 Species in Response to PLF Lawsuit
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that it will review the status of 31 listed species in California and Nevada in response to a lawsuit brought by Pacific Legal Foundation earlier this year. PLF charged the federal government with failing to conduct the mandatory status reviews that are required by the Endangered Species Act for 193 California species. Twenty-seven of the 31 species the agency will review were included in PLF’s suit. “We’re pleased the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to comply with the law and perform the required status reviews,” said Pacific Legal Foundation Principal Attorney Rob Rivett. “The agency’s decision is a step in the right direction towards making sure the endangered species list is current and Californians are not being unnecessarily burdened by regulations to protect species that may no longer need special protection.” “We will still be going forward with the lawsuit, however, to ensure that the seriously overdue status reviews of the remaining 166 species also are performed,” Rivett said. Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the government must perform status reviews of listed species every five years to determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified....
Who's Ignoring Science?
For years, Democrats and their environmentalist allies have been accusing the Bush administration of "ignoring the science" they claim shows humanity is warming the planet. It's a debatable accusation that we'll return to in a moment. What's not debatable is the utter hypocrisy of the Democrats, who ever since the Clinton administration have successfully forced pesticide regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency to ignore the science when establishing pesticide regulations. They nearly derailed the appointment of the new EPA Administrator this spring over this issue and now they're advising the Bush administration to defy a 2003 Federal Appeals Court order requiring that the EPA consider human toxicity data if available. Without reliable exposure and human toxicity data, EPA regulators must rely on worst case assumptions and are required to apply additional 10-fold "uncertainty factors" to their risk calculations. All too often this means elimination of specific uses of pesticides, hurting farmers and consumers by making it harder and more expensive to protect our food supply and homes from pests....
The Robber Baron
How much should drivers be forced to pony up at the pump to pay off trial lawyers? A penny a gallon? Two cents? How about $66 million? Most motorists would vote for nothing, and by a pretty wide margin. But unfortunately, motorists aren't organized politically to influence election campaigns. Toxic tort law firms are, and do. And if Fred Baron, ringleader of the infamous Baron & Budd law firm, can keep Republicans and truly consumer-minded Democrats in Congress at bay on the Energy Bill now before Congress, motorists can expect to be stuck paying him and his fellow attorneys a penny or two every time they gas up for decades to come. Now, Baron "all but" hopes his Senate muscle will keep open his pipeline to what he believes is another financial windfall -- municipal lawsuits over MTBE water contamination. The House has passed an Energy Bill that would exempt MTBE makers from liability in suits claiming their product is defective. The Senate has no such provision. Baron wants to keep it out and prevent any compromise such as one now proposed to create a trust fund to deal with contamination from the bill. Why? Not public health, nor municipalities' interests. It's money for him and his firm; they are involved in more than half the 90 outstanding MTBE suits. In opposing the provision to limit defective product claims against oil companies, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., intoned: "It is bad public policy to put special interests above public health concerns. Companies need to be held accountable when their product or their misconduct causes the public harm." Will Boxer, who received $909,033 from lawyers and law firms for her 2000 election run, including $5,500 from Baron & Budd, now apply that standard to Baron & Budd and support a compromise creating a trust fund to clean up the water that would serve everyone but the lawyers? Will other senators?....
Arctic Pollution Linked to Bird Droppings
A major source of chemical contamination in the Arctic turns out to be bird droppings. Wind currents and human activities long have been blamed for fouling the pristine Arctic. But a study by a group of Canadian researchers found that the chemical pollution in areas frequented by seabirds can be many times higher than in nearby regions. Researchers led by Jules Blais of the University of Ottawa studied several ponds below the cliffs at Cape Vera on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. Scientists report in Friday's issue of the journal Science that the ponds, which receive falling guano from a colony of northern fulmars that nest on the cliffs, have highly elevated amounts of chemicals. "If long-range transport was the only thing bringing these chemicals north, we would expect to see a very even distribution," Blais said in a telephone interview. But the chemicals are concentrated in some places, he said, "and we have found a reason ... they can follow biological connections." Blais calls it the boomerang effect....
===
Friday, July 15, 2005
U.N. Panel Presents 4 Internet Options
A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate. The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops. In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information Society" summit. One option would largely keep the current system intact, with a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, continuing to handle basic policies over Internet addresses. At the other end, ICANN would be revamped and new international agencies formed under the auspices of the United Nations. The 40 members of the panel hailed from around the world and included representatives from business, academia and government. Some countries were satisfied with the current arrangement, while others, particularly developing ones, wanted to wrest control from ICANN and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations. Leaders ducked the issue and directed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to convene the working group to come up with a proposal for the second and final phase of the summit, in Tunisia in November....
===
A U.N. panel created to recommend how the Internet should be run in the future has failed to reach consensus but did agree that no single country should dominate. The United States stated two weeks ago that it intended to maintain control over the computers that serve as the Internet's principal traffic cops. In a report released Thursday, the U.N. panel outlined four possible options for the future of Internet governance for world leaders to consider at a November "Information Society" summit. One option would largely keep the current system intact, with a U.S.-based non-profit organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, continuing to handle basic policies over Internet addresses. At the other end, ICANN would be revamped and new international agencies formed under the auspices of the United Nations. The 40 members of the panel hailed from around the world and included representatives from business, academia and government. Some countries were satisfied with the current arrangement, while others, particularly developing ones, wanted to wrest control from ICANN and place it with an intergovernmental group, possibly under the United Nations. Leaders ducked the issue and directed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to convene the working group to come up with a proposal for the second and final phase of the summit, in Tunisia in November....
===
Secretary Norton Praises President’s Intention to Nominate H. Dale Hall as Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton today praised President Bush’s intention to nominate H. Dale Hall to serve as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The announcement is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, once the official nomination is made by the President. A 27-year career employee, Hall has served in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the Southwest Regional Director of the Service since 2001. “Dale brings to the job a wealth of experience and a record of being part of the answer to complex problems,” said Norton....
===
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton today praised President Bush’s intention to nominate H. Dale Hall to serve as Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The announcement is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, once the official nomination is made by the President. A 27-year career employee, Hall has served in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the Southwest Regional Director of the Service since 2001. “Dale brings to the job a wealth of experience and a record of being part of the answer to complex problems,” said Norton....
===
NEWS ROUNDUP
EnCana's 'field of dreams' has Colorado locals crying the blues Northwestern Colorado is largely undeveloped and sparsely populated, home to agriculture and ranchers. Many of its people moved there looking for a pristine place to call home and most had no idea that the ground below them held natural gas, a fair assumption given that energy companies didn't see or pursue the potential until recently. That's changed radically. EnCana is pushing hard this year, drilling more than 300 wells, with hundreds more to come. It is an example of what EnCana calls an "unconventional" gas field, where numerous wells are necessary to tap gas that is spread out in small pockets over a large area. One analyst described the region as a "field of dreams." It is EnCana's single most important drilling location and positive community relations will be a key to success. The anger among some residents was stirred principally after a serious misstep by EnCana Corp. in 2004, and it has not abated even though the company is getting credit for recent improvements in its practices. Last summer, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission penalized EnCana $371,200 (U.S.), the largest such fine in the regulator's history, because natural gas containing benzene, a carcinogen, seeped from a poorly completed EnCana well into Divide Creek, about 250 kilometres west of Denver....
Forest throws out grazing plan The supervisor of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest has overturned part of a grazing plan to avoid damaging streams and streamside habitat. The decision, which resulted from an appeal by the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, means forest officials must now revise a grazing plan that affects more than 62,000 acres of public lands in southeastern Wyoming and northern Colorado. Authorized last spring, the plan, known as the Upper North Platte Analysis, would have permitted cattle grazing in streams and streamside habitats that are already suffering from drought, erosion and overgrazing, said a Biodiversity Conservation Alliance representative....
Snowbowl won't perform work until suits settled The Arizona Snowbowl has agreed not to begin work on snowmaking and other improvements at the ski area until lawsuits against it by Indian tribes and conservation groups have been settled. That accord was struck Wednesday during a federal court hearing in Prescott seeking a preliminary injunction against the construction before U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt also scheduled a tentative court date for mid-October and consolidated the four suits into one filed by northern Arizona tribes and environmentalists against the U.S. Department of the Interior....
Troy Mine cave-in raises doubts at Rock Creek mine Generally speaking, a hole in the ground is not a problem at an underground mine, which is, after all, a hole in the ground. But an unexpected cave-in at the Troy Mine this spring has raised doubts about the future of a controversial mine proposal nearby. In approving the Rock Creek mine - which would tunnel beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness - Forest Service officials pointed to the Troy Mine as a good example of what might be expected. Responding to cave-in or subsidence concerns, officials noted the existing Troy Mine provided "an excellent analogy for the proposed Rock Creek mining method and risks of subsidence." The geology is much the same at the two sites, they said, as is the mining method proposed....
No end in sight for Biscuit Fire salvage Three years after lightning sparked the biggest wildfire in the nation in 2002, salvage logging is limping along, with no end in sight. The Forest Service said Wednesday it has sold 67 million board feet burned by the Biscuit Fire -- enough to build 15,000 homes -- of which 25 million board feet has been harvested. That compares to 370 million board feet called for in the final logging plans issued a year ago. There is no word on when the bulk of the sales, located in roadless areas that environmentalists still hope to protect from logging, will be offered, if ever. "It's been meaningful volume to the guys who got it, but given the controversy and the hype, it's been a yawner," said Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group....
House panel studies motorized recreation on public lands Off-road vehicle enthusiasts complained to a congressional committee Wednesday that they are increasingly being blocked from enjoying national forests, parks and rangelands. Last year, 51 million of 211 million national forest visitors participated in off-road vehicle recreation, a tenfold increase over 1972, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The service says unregulated recreation, including off-road vehicle use, is a key threat to the national forests. Off-road vehicle users disturb wildlife, hunters, hikers and skiers with their noise and fumes....
Toronto Artist Traded Endangered Species, Canada, U.S. Allege The Internet is being used increasingly to support illegal trade in wildlife specimens and products, according to Canadian and U.S. wildlife officers. The warning came Wednesday as a Toronto man was charged in Canada for selling parts of endangered species on the Internet. Officials of both countries cooperated in the investigation and arrest of Mark J. Gleberzon, age 36, for allegedly selling products containing elephant ivory and parrot feather ornaments to U.S. wildlife officers in New York. After a 15 month investigation, Gleberzon was arrested May 12 by United States Fish and Wildlife Service special agents at LaGuardia International Airport in New York City while attempting to board a return flight to Canada....
World Wildlife Fund Launches Wildfinder, World's Most Powerful Tool to Find Where Wildlife Live The world's only searchable database for all four groups of land vertebrates launches today on World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Web site, http://www.worldwildlife.org. Wildfinder is the only online, map-driven tool to cover the entire globe. "For the first time the geographic ranges of 26,000 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians can be found at a single site," said Eric Dinerstein, WWF's vice-president for science. "This kind of information is critical for studies in ecology, biogeography, conservation biology and natural history. Before Wildfinder, finding these data might require a time-consuming search of several different references. Now, they are available with just a few mouse clicks." WildFinder allows the user to search for wildlife two ways – by location or by species....
Animal rights group sues over Steller sea lion research An animal rights group filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the federal government of using illegal research techniques on threatened and endangered Steller sea lions. The Humane Society of the United States says the National Marine Fisheries Service has approved permits for research activities that include hot branding and tissue sampling of thousands of Steller sea lions each year. Humane Society officials said the research practices violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act....
Bears will be bears U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy dismissed a lawsuit last Thursday dealing with the grizzly bear mauling death of Great Falls hunter Timothy Hilston. The case stems from an Oct. 30, 2001 incident in which Hilston went hunting in the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management Area about 45 miles east of Missoula. Hilston was successful in downing an elk and was in the process of field dressing the animal when he was attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. Believing that the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Wildlife and Parks were “negligent in operation and control, maintenance and management of the grizzly bears” in the wildlife management area, Hilston’s widow sued those agencies for the death of her husband. Lawyers for the state and feds say if Hilston’s widow was successful in her suit, it could have set a precedent that would have opened the floodgates for similar lawsuits and undermined grizzly bear protection....
B.W. Cox Wants to Leave a Land Legacy If you want to learn about plants, soil conditions, water tables, aquifer recharges, what grows where and why, spend at least a day driving around a vast ranch with its owner. Hopefully he’s the type of rancher who knows a thing or two about how to keep the soil rich and the cows fat, how to make sure the eagles, the elk and the bears all get along with him and his cows. B.W. Cox is one of those ranchers. He’s probably a better land steward than his Forest Service neighbors. He’s made his living here all of his long years. It isn’t an easy living, as evidenced by B.W.’s slight limp-and-tilt, his creaky bones. But to be surrounded by his land, his family and his cows is all he really wants. No condos in Florida or even a small house in Socorro. “Those people who do that,” he says, referring to his ranching cohorts who sell off their land and retire, “they’re dead in seven, eight months.” B.W.’s Montosa Ranch is in Magdalena, New Mexico, which sits about 15 miles west of Socorro, north of the Magdalena and San Mateo Mountains, above the plains of St. Augustine....
Planes plant seeds to grow a crop of raindrops Todd Flanagan knows the desperation felt by area farmers and ranchers as sweltering summer days fail to yield any significant rainfall. Flanagan is a meteorologist for a rainmaking project here, and, lately, he's had to answer to a lot of concerned residents wondering where the rain is. There has been no measurable rainfall at San Antonio International Airport for 43 days, according to the National Weather Service. It's the 11th longest period of no rain since 1946, when the agency began tracking such records. But Flanagan isn't discouraged. The South Texas Weather Modification Association sent two planes Thursday into the skies northwest of San Antonio to seed clouds and hopefully produce rain....
Governor rehires brand inspectors Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Thursday upbraided state livestock officials for their "insensitive and callous" dismissal of four brand inspectors due to a budget crunch, then shifted funds to rehire them. State Veterinarian and Wyoming Livestock Board Executive Officer Dwayne Oldham said the layoffs were the last choice to balance the Brand Inspection Program budget and that a sincere effort was made to personally contact the affected employees. The board told the inspectors in late June they would be laid off to help make up a shortfall expected to reach $1.25 million by next summer. On June 27, Freudenthal announced he would not authorize higher fees on ranchers to cover the deficit, saying other options remained. The deficit resulted from fewer cattle being inspected and sold because of drought, and higher travel costs and benefits for brand inspectors....
Hudson rancher held liable for horse that caused accident A $300,000 lawsuit settlement set a standard for livestock owners. Joan and Frank Hunter of Westminster sued Bruce Eastwood, a Hudson-area rancher, because one of his horses escaped through an open gate and ran in front of their car. The Hunters were driving west on Interstate 76 about 11:30 p.m. April 8, 2001, when they hit the horse that shattered the windshield and struck the Hunters. John Case, the Hunters' lawyer, said the settlement amount was the maximum available through Eastwood's insurance policy. "They are not going to be rich because of it," Case said. "They're getting compensated for part of what they lost." Case said state courts used to rule in favor of livestock owners, but times have changed....
===
EnCana's 'field of dreams' has Colorado locals crying the blues Northwestern Colorado is largely undeveloped and sparsely populated, home to agriculture and ranchers. Many of its people moved there looking for a pristine place to call home and most had no idea that the ground below them held natural gas, a fair assumption given that energy companies didn't see or pursue the potential until recently. That's changed radically. EnCana is pushing hard this year, drilling more than 300 wells, with hundreds more to come. It is an example of what EnCana calls an "unconventional" gas field, where numerous wells are necessary to tap gas that is spread out in small pockets over a large area. One analyst described the region as a "field of dreams." It is EnCana's single most important drilling location and positive community relations will be a key to success. The anger among some residents was stirred principally after a serious misstep by EnCana Corp. in 2004, and it has not abated even though the company is getting credit for recent improvements in its practices. Last summer, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission penalized EnCana $371,200 (U.S.), the largest such fine in the regulator's history, because natural gas containing benzene, a carcinogen, seeped from a poorly completed EnCana well into Divide Creek, about 250 kilometres west of Denver....
Forest throws out grazing plan The supervisor of the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest has overturned part of a grazing plan to avoid damaging streams and streamside habitat. The decision, which resulted from an appeal by the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, means forest officials must now revise a grazing plan that affects more than 62,000 acres of public lands in southeastern Wyoming and northern Colorado. Authorized last spring, the plan, known as the Upper North Platte Analysis, would have permitted cattle grazing in streams and streamside habitats that are already suffering from drought, erosion and overgrazing, said a Biodiversity Conservation Alliance representative....
Snowbowl won't perform work until suits settled The Arizona Snowbowl has agreed not to begin work on snowmaking and other improvements at the ski area until lawsuits against it by Indian tribes and conservation groups have been settled. That accord was struck Wednesday during a federal court hearing in Prescott seeking a preliminary injunction against the construction before U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt also scheduled a tentative court date for mid-October and consolidated the four suits into one filed by northern Arizona tribes and environmentalists against the U.S. Department of the Interior....
Troy Mine cave-in raises doubts at Rock Creek mine Generally speaking, a hole in the ground is not a problem at an underground mine, which is, after all, a hole in the ground. But an unexpected cave-in at the Troy Mine this spring has raised doubts about the future of a controversial mine proposal nearby. In approving the Rock Creek mine - which would tunnel beneath the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness - Forest Service officials pointed to the Troy Mine as a good example of what might be expected. Responding to cave-in or subsidence concerns, officials noted the existing Troy Mine provided "an excellent analogy for the proposed Rock Creek mining method and risks of subsidence." The geology is much the same at the two sites, they said, as is the mining method proposed....
No end in sight for Biscuit Fire salvage Three years after lightning sparked the biggest wildfire in the nation in 2002, salvage logging is limping along, with no end in sight. The Forest Service said Wednesday it has sold 67 million board feet burned by the Biscuit Fire -- enough to build 15,000 homes -- of which 25 million board feet has been harvested. That compares to 370 million board feet called for in the final logging plans issued a year ago. There is no word on when the bulk of the sales, located in roadless areas that environmentalists still hope to protect from logging, will be offered, if ever. "It's been meaningful volume to the guys who got it, but given the controversy and the hype, it's been a yawner," said Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group....
House panel studies motorized recreation on public lands Off-road vehicle enthusiasts complained to a congressional committee Wednesday that they are increasingly being blocked from enjoying national forests, parks and rangelands. Last year, 51 million of 211 million national forest visitors participated in off-road vehicle recreation, a tenfold increase over 1972, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The service says unregulated recreation, including off-road vehicle use, is a key threat to the national forests. Off-road vehicle users disturb wildlife, hunters, hikers and skiers with their noise and fumes....
Toronto Artist Traded Endangered Species, Canada, U.S. Allege The Internet is being used increasingly to support illegal trade in wildlife specimens and products, according to Canadian and U.S. wildlife officers. The warning came Wednesday as a Toronto man was charged in Canada for selling parts of endangered species on the Internet. Officials of both countries cooperated in the investigation and arrest of Mark J. Gleberzon, age 36, for allegedly selling products containing elephant ivory and parrot feather ornaments to U.S. wildlife officers in New York. After a 15 month investigation, Gleberzon was arrested May 12 by United States Fish and Wildlife Service special agents at LaGuardia International Airport in New York City while attempting to board a return flight to Canada....
World Wildlife Fund Launches Wildfinder, World's Most Powerful Tool to Find Where Wildlife Live The world's only searchable database for all four groups of land vertebrates launches today on World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Web site, http://www.worldwildlife.org. Wildfinder is the only online, map-driven tool to cover the entire globe. "For the first time the geographic ranges of 26,000 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians can be found at a single site," said Eric Dinerstein, WWF's vice-president for science. "This kind of information is critical for studies in ecology, biogeography, conservation biology and natural history. Before Wildfinder, finding these data might require a time-consuming search of several different references. Now, they are available with just a few mouse clicks." WildFinder allows the user to search for wildlife two ways – by location or by species....
Animal rights group sues over Steller sea lion research An animal rights group filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the federal government of using illegal research techniques on threatened and endangered Steller sea lions. The Humane Society of the United States says the National Marine Fisheries Service has approved permits for research activities that include hot branding and tissue sampling of thousands of Steller sea lions each year. Humane Society officials said the research practices violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act....
Bears will be bears U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy dismissed a lawsuit last Thursday dealing with the grizzly bear mauling death of Great Falls hunter Timothy Hilston. The case stems from an Oct. 30, 2001 incident in which Hilston went hunting in the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management Area about 45 miles east of Missoula. Hilston was successful in downing an elk and was in the process of field dressing the animal when he was attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. Believing that the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Wildlife and Parks were “negligent in operation and control, maintenance and management of the grizzly bears” in the wildlife management area, Hilston’s widow sued those agencies for the death of her husband. Lawyers for the state and feds say if Hilston’s widow was successful in her suit, it could have set a precedent that would have opened the floodgates for similar lawsuits and undermined grizzly bear protection....
B.W. Cox Wants to Leave a Land Legacy If you want to learn about plants, soil conditions, water tables, aquifer recharges, what grows where and why, spend at least a day driving around a vast ranch with its owner. Hopefully he’s the type of rancher who knows a thing or two about how to keep the soil rich and the cows fat, how to make sure the eagles, the elk and the bears all get along with him and his cows. B.W. Cox is one of those ranchers. He’s probably a better land steward than his Forest Service neighbors. He’s made his living here all of his long years. It isn’t an easy living, as evidenced by B.W.’s slight limp-and-tilt, his creaky bones. But to be surrounded by his land, his family and his cows is all he really wants. No condos in Florida or even a small house in Socorro. “Those people who do that,” he says, referring to his ranching cohorts who sell off their land and retire, “they’re dead in seven, eight months.” B.W.’s Montosa Ranch is in Magdalena, New Mexico, which sits about 15 miles west of Socorro, north of the Magdalena and San Mateo Mountains, above the plains of St. Augustine....
Planes plant seeds to grow a crop of raindrops Todd Flanagan knows the desperation felt by area farmers and ranchers as sweltering summer days fail to yield any significant rainfall. Flanagan is a meteorologist for a rainmaking project here, and, lately, he's had to answer to a lot of concerned residents wondering where the rain is. There has been no measurable rainfall at San Antonio International Airport for 43 days, according to the National Weather Service. It's the 11th longest period of no rain since 1946, when the agency began tracking such records. But Flanagan isn't discouraged. The South Texas Weather Modification Association sent two planes Thursday into the skies northwest of San Antonio to seed clouds and hopefully produce rain....
Governor rehires brand inspectors Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Thursday upbraided state livestock officials for their "insensitive and callous" dismissal of four brand inspectors due to a budget crunch, then shifted funds to rehire them. State Veterinarian and Wyoming Livestock Board Executive Officer Dwayne Oldham said the layoffs were the last choice to balance the Brand Inspection Program budget and that a sincere effort was made to personally contact the affected employees. The board told the inspectors in late June they would be laid off to help make up a shortfall expected to reach $1.25 million by next summer. On June 27, Freudenthal announced he would not authorize higher fees on ranchers to cover the deficit, saying other options remained. The deficit resulted from fewer cattle being inspected and sold because of drought, and higher travel costs and benefits for brand inspectors....
Hudson rancher held liable for horse that caused accident A $300,000 lawsuit settlement set a standard for livestock owners. Joan and Frank Hunter of Westminster sued Bruce Eastwood, a Hudson-area rancher, because one of his horses escaped through an open gate and ran in front of their car. The Hunters were driving west on Interstate 76 about 11:30 p.m. April 8, 2001, when they hit the horse that shattered the windshield and struck the Hunters. John Case, the Hunters' lawyer, said the settlement amount was the maximum available through Eastwood's insurance policy. "They are not going to be rich because of it," Case said. "They're getting compensated for part of what they lost." Case said state courts used to rule in favor of livestock owners, but times have changed....
===
Thursday, July 14, 2005
MAD COW DISEASE
Appeals Court Overturns Canada Beef Ban
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Canadian cattle can again be imported to the United States, dismissing a lower court decision that resuming the imports could spread mad cow disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will reopen the border within days to Canadian cattle, which were banned in May 2003 after a cow in Alberta was found to have mad cow disease. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the government was already working with Canadian food inspectors to certify cattle for shipment. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a Montana judge who blocked the USDA from reopening the border in March, saying it "subjects the entire U.S. beef industry to potentially catastrophic damages" and "presents a genuine risk of death for U.S. consumers." American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said the industry will be able to resume cattle shipments quickly. "A lot of the preliminary work is already done. I think you'll see the industry move quickly," he said. Boyle said the ruling is also "a win for American consumers who were paying $1.85 a pound for ground beef before the border closed and are paying about $2.55 today." Speaking in Ottawa before the appellate court was released, Boyle blamed the ban for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in the U.S. meat packing industry....
===
Appeals Court Overturns Canada Beef Ban
A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Canadian cattle can again be imported to the United States, dismissing a lower court decision that resuming the imports could spread mad cow disease. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will reopen the border within days to Canadian cattle, which were banned in May 2003 after a cow in Alberta was found to have mad cow disease. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said the government was already working with Canadian food inspectors to certify cattle for shipment. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a Montana judge who blocked the USDA from reopening the border in March, saying it "subjects the entire U.S. beef industry to potentially catastrophic damages" and "presents a genuine risk of death for U.S. consumers." American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said the industry will be able to resume cattle shipments quickly. "A lot of the preliminary work is already done. I think you'll see the industry move quickly," he said. Boyle said the ruling is also "a win for American consumers who were paying $1.85 a pound for ground beef before the border closed and are paying about $2.55 today." Speaking in Ottawa before the appellate court was released, Boyle blamed the ban for the loss of more than 8,000 jobs in the U.S. meat packing industry....
===
GAO REPORT
Wildland Fire Management: Timely Identification of Long-Term Options and Funding Needs Is Critical, by Robert A. Robinson, managing director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, House Committee on Appropriations. GAO-05-923T, July 14.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-923T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05923thigh.pdf
===
Wildland Fire Management: Timely Identification of Long-Term Options and Funding Needs Is Critical, by Robert A. Robinson, managing director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, House Committee on Appropriations. GAO-05-923T, July 14.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-923T
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05923thigh.pdf
===
NEWS ROUNDUP
Mountain lion shot and killed in Fall River County A Fall River County landowner shot and killed a mountain lion Tuesday about two miles south of Edgemont, according to the state Game, Fish and Parks Department. The rancher, Jamie Lawrence, apparently found the mountain lion under a stock trailer a short distance from his home, said Mike Kintigh of the Game, Fish and Parks Department. "The lion was about 52 feet from the house underneath his trailer," Kintigh said....
Judge rejects effort to halt killing of pigs federal judge rejected a request by animal rights activists to halt the killing of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island, which the park's managers say is necessary to protect an endangered fox population. Animal rights activists filed suit last week seeking a halt to the killings, which they say are unnecessary and inhumane. But the judge rejected their request Monday for a temporary restraining order while the lawsuit is pending. Corey Evans, an attorney for plaintiffs who include two Santa Barbara residents and the group In Defense of Animals, said the plaintiffs will seek a preliminary injunction that requires a more thorough hearing than the request for a restraining order. He said the killings violate both state and federal environmental laws....
Ecologists optimistic about giant cactus' chances after wildfire scorching A giant saguaro cactus scorched by a wildfire that started near Cave Creek might survive after all, experts say. Initially, U.S. Forest Service officials were pessimistic that the "Grand One," thought to be the world's second largest saguaro cactus, would survive the fire last month. Flames jumped from a nearby tree onto the saguaro and spread over much of it, but most of the cactus appears to have escaped fatal damage, said Patti Fenner, U.S. Forest Service plant expert. The cactus, estimated at more than 200 years old, stands about 46 feet high, is nearly 8 feet in circumference at its base and has at least 13 arms....
Enviros, timber industry, predict forest-by-forest battles ahead Environmental groups and the timber industry are gearing up for forest-by-forest court fights over potential development in untouched areas of the nation's national forests under a Bush administration rule. The preparation comes after a ruling this week by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing an attempt by environmental groups to restore a Clinton administration ban on road-building and other development on 58.5 million acres of national forest land. "What's happening with the environmental movement now is they have had limited success at the national and regional level, and they've taken their battle to a project-by-project status," he said. "I would imagine an appeal of each decision. That's been their tack and I don't see any reason that would be changed."....
Editorial: Feds should acquire Flats mineral rights Cleanup at Rocky Flats, the Colorado Superfund site with the most hazardous wastes, could be basically done by Halloween, although a few environmental projects will continue. Topping the list are private mineral rights that, if developed, could wreck plans to make Rocky Flats a wildlife refuge. Outside the core, the government left about 6,000 acres as a security and safety zone. Today that relatively untouched buffer zone harbors some of the last natural short-grass prairie on the Front Range - prime habitat for several endangered species. In a few years, after environmental reports are finished, the U.S. Department of Interior is slated to manage the old buffer zone as a wildlife refuge. But the feds never acquired rights to gravel, oil and other minerals under the site. Interior officials fret that it will make no sense to operate a wildlife refuge if the property could be mined....
Builders Urge Congress To Update Endangered Species Act The nation’s home builders called on Congress today to update and modernize the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in order to protect the environment and allow local communities to grow and thrive. “Clearly, we must find new ways to balance the needs of our growing communities, with the need to protect and conserve species and their habitats,” Paul Campos, general counsel and vice president of government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Northern California, told the Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water. Testifying on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Campos called on the Senate panel to expand landowner incentives under the ESA, and provide certainty to landowners that Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) and other voluntary species management programs will be excluded from critical habitat designations....
House Bill Would Downsize Endangered Species Act The House Resources Committee is poised to consider some of the most sweeping changes ever to the Endangered Species Act with legislation aimed at making it more difficult to list plants and animals and protect their habitat. Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), who has made revamping the act one of his top priorities this year, could possibly move on legislation as early as next week. A staff discussion draft of the bill, leaked to various interest groups, suggests the committee may add more requirements for listing a species, extend deadlines for critical habitat, beef up the requirements for recovery plans, require payments for property owners whose land is affected by the law, offer exemptions for invasive species and cut the entire program in 10 years....
Fungus threatens to put boreal toad on endangered list Once common in the southern Rocky Mountains, the toad has only two viable populations left in Colorado - one in Chaffee County and another in Gunnison County. By September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to place the alpine-dwelling amphibian on the federal endangered-species list, triggering mandatory protection that may include restricted access to the toad's habitat. The toads of Chaffee and Gunnison counties are unique because they are free of the deadly fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis - the prime suspect for the deaths of several Western amphibians, including boreal toads and leopard frogs....
At least 8,000 pelican chicks believed dead in N. Dakota The Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the deaths of thousands of young white pelicans at a wildlife refuge in central North Dakota, a year after thousands of adult birds abruptly left the same location. At least 8,000 chicks may have died over the last two months, said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge....
Judge rules U.S. government not liable for migrant deaths A federal judge in Tucson refused Wednesday to hold the U.S. government responsible for the 2001 dehydration deaths of 11 undocumented immigrants just because two of its agencies refused to allow a humanitarian group to leave water drums on a national wildlife refuge bordering Mexico. U.S. District Judge John M. Roll ruled that he had no jurisdiction in the wrongful death lawsuit because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the administrators of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge acted within their discretion when they denied an application by the group Humane Borders to install "water stations" for border-crossing migrants. Furthermore, Roll wrote, the government "owed no duty to affirmatively assist trespassers illegally crossing Cabeza Prieta in avoiding the obvious dangers of a hostile desert."....
BLM, agencies critique Roan Plateau plan draft Lack of information and outmoded data are the prime failings of the draft Resource Management Plan for the Roan Plateau, according to some elected officials and government agencies advising the Bureau of Land Management on the plan. Six cooperating agencies — the cities of Rifle and Glenwood Springs, the town of Parachute, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties and state agencies including the Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — huddled Wednesday in Rifle to help BLM craft the preferred management plan for the plateau. Although BLM will make the final call on just how much and how quickly natural gas will be developed on the resource-rich plateau north of Rifle, the agency also hopes the agencies and governments will reach consensus by the end of the summer on what the plan would look like....
Gotcha - gator at last is captured After 18 years of surviving in the reeds, putrid mud and stagnant water that make up his oasis in the desert of northwestern Arizona, Clem the alligator has been captured and is about to enter a reptilian paradise. "We found him under some reeds in grungy water [Tuesday] night about 9:30," said Russ Johnson on Wednesday as Clem hunkered down on a wet piece of carpet in a horse trailer that will deliver him to his new home. The Bureau of Land Management earlier this year contracted with Johnson to remove the alligator and provide a comfortable home for him....
Plan would restrict use of thumpers There'll be no "thumper trucks" in the sandstone cathedrals of Adobe Town. However, the 32-ton seismic trucks may be allowed to pound the ground on the fringes and through much of 130 square miles in the southern Red Desert, including Kinney Rim and Powder Rim. The Wyoming Bureau of Land Management this week issued its environmental assessment of the Cherokee West 3D seismic survey proposed by Kerr McGee Corp. and Veritas DGC Land Inc. The companies are looking for pockets of natural gas. No decision has been made on the proposal, and the BLM Rawlins Field Office is accepting public comment on the plan until Aug. 12. "Receiver cables for the project will be placed on the surface in the Adobe Town Wilderness Study Area (WSA), but there will be no source points in the WSA itself," BLM officials stated in a press release. That means there will be no vehicle traffic, no shot holes and no vibroseis buggies in the study area. Rather, helicopters will be allowed in the air space above the area. Helicopters will not be allowed to land, but may deploy and retrieve recording equipment from the air. Seismic workers must hike into Adobe Town to set recording equipment....
Residents worry rivers will be hurt by Las Vegas pipeline plan Residents of northeast Clark County farming communities say they fear their lives will change if they lose water from two rivers that thirsty Las Vegas wants to tap. More than 50 people expressed worries here Tuesday about Southern Nevada Water Authority asserting water rights and building a 70-mile pipeline to tap the Muddy and Virgin rivers. "The Southern Nevada Water Authority bought the water. It belongs to them," said Ann Schreiber, a longtime resident of the rural Moapa Valley. "I don't want them taking it where it will hurt people on either river." Many who spoke said the Las Vegas-based water authority should draw water instead from Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam reservoir into which the two rivers flow. The water authority has water rights to the two rivers, but needs federal Bureau of Land Management approval to build the pipeline across federal land....
U.S. court reserves decision on mad cow appeal A U.S. federal appeals court has reserved its decision after being asked to overturn a temporary injunction keeping the border closed to live Canadian cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had been ready to reopen the border on March 7, but the ranchers' lobby group R-CALF convinced a Montana judge to block that decision, arguing that Canada doesn't adequately test for mad cow disease. In two weeks, Cebull will hear R-CALF's application to extend the trade ban indefinitely. "That case is going to proceed on July 27th, and there will probably be an appeal of July 27th, either way it goes," John Masswohl, director of international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said....
Judges skeptical of Canadian cattle ban The Bush administration urged a federal appeals court here Wednesday to reopen the border to Canadian cattle imports, which were banned from the United States in May 2003 after a cow in Alberta was found to have mad cow disease. The three judges appeared skeptical of Cebull's ruling, suggesting he went too far. Russell Frye, the ranchers' attorney, told the judges that the USDA "didn't determine what was an acceptable number of infected cattle to come in." The three judges suggested, however, that Cebull should have given deference to the USDA's decision. Judge A. Wallace Tashima said the law "does invest the secretary of agriculture with a certain amount of discretion" and suggested the lower court's order was just "disagreeing with the secretary." Judge Connie Callahan agreed with Tashima, saying the USDA is "entitled to some deference. It's their whole job to keep up with the science to make those decisions."....
Nolan Ryan Serves Up Great Taste Sports stars and celebrities often lend their names to products through paid endorsements. Baseball legend Nolan Ryan took it one step further when he decided to carve out a niche in the beef business. The Hall of Fame pitcher knows his way around a ranch as well as he does a baseball diamond and wanted to provide meat that was a cut above the rest, sort of like his fastball. "Baseball and ranching are two of my passions," Ryan says. "I decided the only way I could guarantee beef that was tender and good every time, was to start my own brand." Nutrition and great taste are important to consumers and important to Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan's Tender Aged Beef delivers on both fronts with nutritious and lean beef cuts that are tender and flavorful....
Tiger tales swish through Atascosa For six months, something has been prowling the countryside along FM 3006 in northern Atascosa County, snatching up dogs, roosters and calves. One night in early May, rancher Brian Beam was baling hay on his tractor when he says he came face-to-face with what could be the culprit: a full-grown tiger, he said, lurking along the creek running through his 27-acre property. "It was huge," Beam said. "I threw (the tractor) into reverse and I was gone. It just took off down the creek." The cat was waist-high with orange fur and black stripes, Beam said. He rallied two neighbors, grabbed some guns and flashlights and took off in pursuit of the creature, which Beam now blames for the March disappearance of two of his calves. "We never could catch up to him, but we found a bunch of hair and tracks," he said....
Antlers of all sizes work into unique pieces for Lee Co. taxidermist Tucked back in a corner of Lee County ranching land, right outside of Lexington, Robert Feller is creating furniture out of antlers, along with his regular taxidermist work. Well, "regular" taxidermy if you consider his work includes the mounting of a 145-pound Alligator Gar! His hobby-turned-real-job branched out when a female rancher in the area approached Feller about using antlers to create furniture. Although he had never thought about this type of work, he figured he'd give it a try. First, Feller took the pile of antlers, divided them by left and right antlers, then decided he needed to sit and think about how to work with the antlers. Needing a structure for sitting, he decided to create his first "antler chair."....
Cheyenne rancher weaves wire into art It's amazing what you can do with a few miles of barbed wire - besides build a fence, that is. Don Berry sculpted statutes of bison and bears out of material found on his property, mostly barbed wire. The folk art figures that are sentinels at the Berrys' ranch 20 miles north of Cheyenne on the Torrington highway include a bison, two bears and a bear cub. The sculptures represent about 700 hours of work and patience. He used carriage bolts for eyes for the bears and old telephone line insulators found on the ranch for the bison's eyes. The axle from a manure spreader was fashioned into the bison's horns. The bison, 6 feet tall and 9 feet long, is full size and live weight, checking in at 1,100 pounds. The bronze-looking sculpture took 2½ to three miles of wire, woven in different patterns....
Staying in touch with cowboy culture Vendors and performers far outnumbered visitors for the Academy of Western Artists convention and trade show this week. But organizers were still as happy as ticks on a sow's ear. That's the central mission of the Academy of Western Artists, which is based in Gene Autry, Okla. The nonprofit organization works to preserve cowboy and Western heritage by supporting, promoting and recognizing its arts and skills. Members include Western and Western swing musicians, cowboy poets, visual artists, chuck wagon operators, gear makers, radio managers and disc jockeys....
Myth or real, West Texas desert lights draw a crowd They start converging about dusk on a desolate spot in the West Texas desert with a ridge view and an expanse of some 20 miles of treeless rangeland. A few bring lawn chairs. Some find a spot on concrete picnic tables. Others lean against a brick wall. With darkness toward to the east and the remnants of a spectacular sunset to the west, the first cries erupt. "Look! Look!" Fingers point. Binoculars get fine tuned. A few cameras click. All the attention focuses on specks of brilliance. Legend? Myth? Natural phenomenon? UFOs? Nevada has Area 51. New Mexico has Roswell. Texas has the Marfa Lights. Whatever's out there sparkling or dancing across Mitchell Flat and toward the Chinati Mountains has both befuddled people and attracted them to this remote area east of Marfa for well over a century....
===
Mountain lion shot and killed in Fall River County A Fall River County landowner shot and killed a mountain lion Tuesday about two miles south of Edgemont, according to the state Game, Fish and Parks Department. The rancher, Jamie Lawrence, apparently found the mountain lion under a stock trailer a short distance from his home, said Mike Kintigh of the Game, Fish and Parks Department. "The lion was about 52 feet from the house underneath his trailer," Kintigh said....
Judge rejects effort to halt killing of pigs federal judge rejected a request by animal rights activists to halt the killing of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island, which the park's managers say is necessary to protect an endangered fox population. Animal rights activists filed suit last week seeking a halt to the killings, which they say are unnecessary and inhumane. But the judge rejected their request Monday for a temporary restraining order while the lawsuit is pending. Corey Evans, an attorney for plaintiffs who include two Santa Barbara residents and the group In Defense of Animals, said the plaintiffs will seek a preliminary injunction that requires a more thorough hearing than the request for a restraining order. He said the killings violate both state and federal environmental laws....
Ecologists optimistic about giant cactus' chances after wildfire scorching A giant saguaro cactus scorched by a wildfire that started near Cave Creek might survive after all, experts say. Initially, U.S. Forest Service officials were pessimistic that the "Grand One," thought to be the world's second largest saguaro cactus, would survive the fire last month. Flames jumped from a nearby tree onto the saguaro and spread over much of it, but most of the cactus appears to have escaped fatal damage, said Patti Fenner, U.S. Forest Service plant expert. The cactus, estimated at more than 200 years old, stands about 46 feet high, is nearly 8 feet in circumference at its base and has at least 13 arms....
Enviros, timber industry, predict forest-by-forest battles ahead Environmental groups and the timber industry are gearing up for forest-by-forest court fights over potential development in untouched areas of the nation's national forests under a Bush administration rule. The preparation comes after a ruling this week by the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing an attempt by environmental groups to restore a Clinton administration ban on road-building and other development on 58.5 million acres of national forest land. "What's happening with the environmental movement now is they have had limited success at the national and regional level, and they've taken their battle to a project-by-project status," he said. "I would imagine an appeal of each decision. That's been their tack and I don't see any reason that would be changed."....
Editorial: Feds should acquire Flats mineral rights Cleanup at Rocky Flats, the Colorado Superfund site with the most hazardous wastes, could be basically done by Halloween, although a few environmental projects will continue. Topping the list are private mineral rights that, if developed, could wreck plans to make Rocky Flats a wildlife refuge. Outside the core, the government left about 6,000 acres as a security and safety zone. Today that relatively untouched buffer zone harbors some of the last natural short-grass prairie on the Front Range - prime habitat for several endangered species. In a few years, after environmental reports are finished, the U.S. Department of Interior is slated to manage the old buffer zone as a wildlife refuge. But the feds never acquired rights to gravel, oil and other minerals under the site. Interior officials fret that it will make no sense to operate a wildlife refuge if the property could be mined....
Builders Urge Congress To Update Endangered Species Act The nation’s home builders called on Congress today to update and modernize the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in order to protect the environment and allow local communities to grow and thrive. “Clearly, we must find new ways to balance the needs of our growing communities, with the need to protect and conserve species and their habitats,” Paul Campos, general counsel and vice president of government affairs for the Home Builders Association of Northern California, told the Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water. Testifying on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Campos called on the Senate panel to expand landowner incentives under the ESA, and provide certainty to landowners that Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) and other voluntary species management programs will be excluded from critical habitat designations....
House Bill Would Downsize Endangered Species Act The House Resources Committee is poised to consider some of the most sweeping changes ever to the Endangered Species Act with legislation aimed at making it more difficult to list plants and animals and protect their habitat. Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), who has made revamping the act one of his top priorities this year, could possibly move on legislation as early as next week. A staff discussion draft of the bill, leaked to various interest groups, suggests the committee may add more requirements for listing a species, extend deadlines for critical habitat, beef up the requirements for recovery plans, require payments for property owners whose land is affected by the law, offer exemptions for invasive species and cut the entire program in 10 years....
Fungus threatens to put boreal toad on endangered list Once common in the southern Rocky Mountains, the toad has only two viable populations left in Colorado - one in Chaffee County and another in Gunnison County. By September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to place the alpine-dwelling amphibian on the federal endangered-species list, triggering mandatory protection that may include restricted access to the toad's habitat. The toads of Chaffee and Gunnison counties are unique because they are free of the deadly fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis - the prime suspect for the deaths of several Western amphibians, including boreal toads and leopard frogs....
At least 8,000 pelican chicks believed dead in N. Dakota The Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the deaths of thousands of young white pelicans at a wildlife refuge in central North Dakota, a year after thousands of adult birds abruptly left the same location. At least 8,000 chicks may have died over the last two months, said Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge....
Judge rules U.S. government not liable for migrant deaths A federal judge in Tucson refused Wednesday to hold the U.S. government responsible for the 2001 dehydration deaths of 11 undocumented immigrants just because two of its agencies refused to allow a humanitarian group to leave water drums on a national wildlife refuge bordering Mexico. U.S. District Judge John M. Roll ruled that he had no jurisdiction in the wrongful death lawsuit because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the administrators of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge acted within their discretion when they denied an application by the group Humane Borders to install "water stations" for border-crossing migrants. Furthermore, Roll wrote, the government "owed no duty to affirmatively assist trespassers illegally crossing Cabeza Prieta in avoiding the obvious dangers of a hostile desert."....
BLM, agencies critique Roan Plateau plan draft Lack of information and outmoded data are the prime failings of the draft Resource Management Plan for the Roan Plateau, according to some elected officials and government agencies advising the Bureau of Land Management on the plan. Six cooperating agencies — the cities of Rifle and Glenwood Springs, the town of Parachute, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties and state agencies including the Division of Wildlife and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — huddled Wednesday in Rifle to help BLM craft the preferred management plan for the plateau. Although BLM will make the final call on just how much and how quickly natural gas will be developed on the resource-rich plateau north of Rifle, the agency also hopes the agencies and governments will reach consensus by the end of the summer on what the plan would look like....
Gotcha - gator at last is captured After 18 years of surviving in the reeds, putrid mud and stagnant water that make up his oasis in the desert of northwestern Arizona, Clem the alligator has been captured and is about to enter a reptilian paradise. "We found him under some reeds in grungy water [Tuesday] night about 9:30," said Russ Johnson on Wednesday as Clem hunkered down on a wet piece of carpet in a horse trailer that will deliver him to his new home. The Bureau of Land Management earlier this year contracted with Johnson to remove the alligator and provide a comfortable home for him....
Plan would restrict use of thumpers There'll be no "thumper trucks" in the sandstone cathedrals of Adobe Town. However, the 32-ton seismic trucks may be allowed to pound the ground on the fringes and through much of 130 square miles in the southern Red Desert, including Kinney Rim and Powder Rim. The Wyoming Bureau of Land Management this week issued its environmental assessment of the Cherokee West 3D seismic survey proposed by Kerr McGee Corp. and Veritas DGC Land Inc. The companies are looking for pockets of natural gas. No decision has been made on the proposal, and the BLM Rawlins Field Office is accepting public comment on the plan until Aug. 12. "Receiver cables for the project will be placed on the surface in the Adobe Town Wilderness Study Area (WSA), but there will be no source points in the WSA itself," BLM officials stated in a press release. That means there will be no vehicle traffic, no shot holes and no vibroseis buggies in the study area. Rather, helicopters will be allowed in the air space above the area. Helicopters will not be allowed to land, but may deploy and retrieve recording equipment from the air. Seismic workers must hike into Adobe Town to set recording equipment....
Residents worry rivers will be hurt by Las Vegas pipeline plan Residents of northeast Clark County farming communities say they fear their lives will change if they lose water from two rivers that thirsty Las Vegas wants to tap. More than 50 people expressed worries here Tuesday about Southern Nevada Water Authority asserting water rights and building a 70-mile pipeline to tap the Muddy and Virgin rivers. "The Southern Nevada Water Authority bought the water. It belongs to them," said Ann Schreiber, a longtime resident of the rural Moapa Valley. "I don't want them taking it where it will hurt people on either river." Many who spoke said the Las Vegas-based water authority should draw water instead from Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam reservoir into which the two rivers flow. The water authority has water rights to the two rivers, but needs federal Bureau of Land Management approval to build the pipeline across federal land....
U.S. court reserves decision on mad cow appeal A U.S. federal appeals court has reserved its decision after being asked to overturn a temporary injunction keeping the border closed to live Canadian cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had been ready to reopen the border on March 7, but the ranchers' lobby group R-CALF convinced a Montana judge to block that decision, arguing that Canada doesn't adequately test for mad cow disease. In two weeks, Cebull will hear R-CALF's application to extend the trade ban indefinitely. "That case is going to proceed on July 27th, and there will probably be an appeal of July 27th, either way it goes," John Masswohl, director of international relations for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said....
Judges skeptical of Canadian cattle ban The Bush administration urged a federal appeals court here Wednesday to reopen the border to Canadian cattle imports, which were banned from the United States in May 2003 after a cow in Alberta was found to have mad cow disease. The three judges appeared skeptical of Cebull's ruling, suggesting he went too far. Russell Frye, the ranchers' attorney, told the judges that the USDA "didn't determine what was an acceptable number of infected cattle to come in." The three judges suggested, however, that Cebull should have given deference to the USDA's decision. Judge A. Wallace Tashima said the law "does invest the secretary of agriculture with a certain amount of discretion" and suggested the lower court's order was just "disagreeing with the secretary." Judge Connie Callahan agreed with Tashima, saying the USDA is "entitled to some deference. It's their whole job to keep up with the science to make those decisions."....
Nolan Ryan Serves Up Great Taste Sports stars and celebrities often lend their names to products through paid endorsements. Baseball legend Nolan Ryan took it one step further when he decided to carve out a niche in the beef business. The Hall of Fame pitcher knows his way around a ranch as well as he does a baseball diamond and wanted to provide meat that was a cut above the rest, sort of like his fastball. "Baseball and ranching are two of my passions," Ryan says. "I decided the only way I could guarantee beef that was tender and good every time, was to start my own brand." Nutrition and great taste are important to consumers and important to Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan's Tender Aged Beef delivers on both fronts with nutritious and lean beef cuts that are tender and flavorful....
Tiger tales swish through Atascosa For six months, something has been prowling the countryside along FM 3006 in northern Atascosa County, snatching up dogs, roosters and calves. One night in early May, rancher Brian Beam was baling hay on his tractor when he says he came face-to-face with what could be the culprit: a full-grown tiger, he said, lurking along the creek running through his 27-acre property. "It was huge," Beam said. "I threw (the tractor) into reverse and I was gone. It just took off down the creek." The cat was waist-high with orange fur and black stripes, Beam said. He rallied two neighbors, grabbed some guns and flashlights and took off in pursuit of the creature, which Beam now blames for the March disappearance of two of his calves. "We never could catch up to him, but we found a bunch of hair and tracks," he said....
Antlers of all sizes work into unique pieces for Lee Co. taxidermist Tucked back in a corner of Lee County ranching land, right outside of Lexington, Robert Feller is creating furniture out of antlers, along with his regular taxidermist work. Well, "regular" taxidermy if you consider his work includes the mounting of a 145-pound Alligator Gar! His hobby-turned-real-job branched out when a female rancher in the area approached Feller about using antlers to create furniture. Although he had never thought about this type of work, he figured he'd give it a try. First, Feller took the pile of antlers, divided them by left and right antlers, then decided he needed to sit and think about how to work with the antlers. Needing a structure for sitting, he decided to create his first "antler chair."....
Cheyenne rancher weaves wire into art It's amazing what you can do with a few miles of barbed wire - besides build a fence, that is. Don Berry sculpted statutes of bison and bears out of material found on his property, mostly barbed wire. The folk art figures that are sentinels at the Berrys' ranch 20 miles north of Cheyenne on the Torrington highway include a bison, two bears and a bear cub. The sculptures represent about 700 hours of work and patience. He used carriage bolts for eyes for the bears and old telephone line insulators found on the ranch for the bison's eyes. The axle from a manure spreader was fashioned into the bison's horns. The bison, 6 feet tall and 9 feet long, is full size and live weight, checking in at 1,100 pounds. The bronze-looking sculpture took 2½ to three miles of wire, woven in different patterns....
Staying in touch with cowboy culture Vendors and performers far outnumbered visitors for the Academy of Western Artists convention and trade show this week. But organizers were still as happy as ticks on a sow's ear. That's the central mission of the Academy of Western Artists, which is based in Gene Autry, Okla. The nonprofit organization works to preserve cowboy and Western heritage by supporting, promoting and recognizing its arts and skills. Members include Western and Western swing musicians, cowboy poets, visual artists, chuck wagon operators, gear makers, radio managers and disc jockeys....
Myth or real, West Texas desert lights draw a crowd They start converging about dusk on a desolate spot in the West Texas desert with a ridge view and an expanse of some 20 miles of treeless rangeland. A few bring lawn chairs. Some find a spot on concrete picnic tables. Others lean against a brick wall. With darkness toward to the east and the remnants of a spectacular sunset to the west, the first cries erupt. "Look! Look!" Fingers point. Binoculars get fine tuned. A few cameras click. All the attention focuses on specks of brilliance. Legend? Myth? Natural phenomenon? UFOs? Nevada has Area 51. New Mexico has Roswell. Texas has the Marfa Lights. Whatever's out there sparkling or dancing across Mitchell Flat and toward the Chinati Mountains has both befuddled people and attracted them to this remote area east of Marfa for well over a century....
===
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
GAO REPORT
Chemical Regulation: Options Exist to Improve EPA's Ability to Assess Health Risks and Manage Its Chemical Review Program. GAO-05-458, June 13.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-458
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05458high.pdf
===
Chemical Regulation: Options Exist to Improve EPA's Ability to Assess Health Risks and Manage Its Chemical Review Program. GAO-05-458, June 13.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-458
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05458high.pdf
===
NEWS ROUNDUP
Court rejects appeal over roadless areas A federal appeals court dismissed an attempt by environmental groups to restore a Clinton-era ban on logging in roadless areas of national forests, saying their appeal became irrelevant when the Bush administration adopted a replacement rule. The Clinton administration's rule put 58.5 million acres of roadless forest off-limits to logging and other development. Under the new rule, those lands, most of which are in the West, are open to road building for potential logging, mining and other commercial uses. A federal judge in Wyoming struck down the Clinton administration's ban in 2003, ruling in a lawsuit filed by the state of Wyoming that the executive branch had overstepped its authority in effectively creating wilderness areas on U.S. Forest Service land. The Wyoming Outdoor Council and seven other environmental groups appealed. But on May 5, the day after the 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals heard oral arguments, the Forest Service issued a new rule to replace the one that had been overturned. "Adoption of the new rule has rendered the appeal moot," a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling Monday....
Freudenthal still wary on roadless rule Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) has not yet decided how to handle petitions for roadless preservation in the state, and continues to have questions about exactly how much weight a governor's request carries. "His questions center on how much influence the state's petitions would have, how they would be judge and prioritized and who would pay for the environmental analyses of the petitions' contents," his press secretary Lara Azar said Tuesday. "Under the new rule, final authority doesn't rest with the states. These things would still go back through the forest-planning process. Before committing state resources to developing these petitions, Gov. Freudenthal wants to know how much weight they will carry."....
Caterpillars invade New Mexico forests Some of northern New Mexico's aspen stands have been stripped of their leaves by masses of wriggling caterpillars in search of food and a place to build a home, but forest officials are confident the trees will recover in time to show off their brilliant colors. Western tent caterpillars began to hatch in May and have since been eating their way through the aspens in the Carson National Forest, especially the Canjilon area at the southern end of the San Juan Mountains. There have also been reports of the critters in the Santa Fe National Forest. Trees in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont have been left bare this summer because of the caterpillars. Terry Rodgers, a forest health official with the U.S. Forest Service in Albuquerque, said officials have had numerous calls from northern New Mexico about the pests. "Apparently the caterpillars were just extreme in their numbers and causing extreme defoliation," he said. "They have already stripped the trees."....
Agency: Petition to protect chub warrants consideration The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will further consider petitions to protect the headwater chub and the Lower Colorado River basin population of the roundtail chub under the Endangered Species Act. The agency is seeking scientific, commercial and historical information before it determines whether to propose adding the chubs to the list of threatened or endangered species. The chubs occur throughout much of New Mexico Gila River headwaters and much of Arizona. Tuesday's finding acknowledges that the Center for Biological Diversity's petition to protect the chubs provides a reasonable case. "However, our finding expresses no view as to the ultimate issue of whether the species should be listed," said H. Dale Hall, the Service's Southwest Regional director....
Appeals court: Army Corps acted correctly on pygmy owl An appellate court says the Army Corps of Engineers correctly declined an endangered species consultation over the impact of two planned developments on a small Arizona owl. The Ninth U-S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that the corps had not acted arbitrarily or capriciously in finding that the developments would have no impact on the pygmy owl. Environmentalists argue the pygmy owl is a distinct population group....
Birds' second mass exodus An estimated 16,000 or more American white pelicans again have pulled out of Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, but this mass departure follows a die-off of pelican chicks. Researchers are unsure of the cause of the chicks' deaths, but the die-off of young birds could total 8,000 or more. "We're ruling out disturbance and leaning heavily toward disease," Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Tuesday. The USFWS oversees the refuge and its pelican population. An on-site look Friday revealed about 300 to 500 live chicks remaining after a nesting period that had the potential to produce as many as 9,000 over the course of the summer. However, biologists say they believe the estimate of live chicks remaining is likely low because tall vegetation is hampering visibility....
Alaska Native gets 7 years in walrus crime An Alaska Native was sentenced to a harsh seven years in federal prison for killing six walruses, removing the heads to sell the ivory and sinking the carcasses. Herman A. Oyagak was on probation for felony assault when he participated in what prosecutors declared a wasteful killing of walruses in 2003. That, plus his criminal history, led to the harsh sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke said Tuesday. Under federal law, Alaska Natives are allowed to hunt walruses for subsistence but they must use a substantial portion of the animal. In this case, the walruses were being killed for the ivory and bodies were abandoned, Goeke said....
Silvery minnow numbers soar with high runoff The tiny endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow, the focus of years of battles over water to sustain it, has had a good year, thanks to high runoff in the river. Biologists rescuing the fish from isolated pools along the middle Rio Grande have found 290,000 minnow since June 20 _ a huge jump from the 16,000 rescued and moved to the river's main channel last year, Larry Bell, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here, said Tuesday. The high runoff from mountain snows allowed the Rio Grande to leave its banks in some areas of the bosque along the river, a condition known as overbanking. Officials credit that overbanking, and its subsequent creation of good habitat for minnow spawning, for this summer's large numbers....
The North Coast is ground zero in the barred owl's invasion of spotted owl country There is nothing that says old-growth louder than the northern spotted owl. There are no forests more closely identified with old growth than those in Redwood National and State Parks. It stands to reason that you should be able to see or hear a spotted owl, then, in those parks. It's more likely that this year, you would be sorely disappointed. The hoot that you may hear now is from an invader, a barred owl. It's like a spotted owl on steroids. The eastern bird's rapid colonization of the West Coast's best old-growth territory has been recognized -- but not so openly discussed -- for years. The barred owl's southward surge and expansion does not bode well for the spotted owl. Experts think the larger owl may eventually push the threatened spotted owl to the brink of extinction, or make Northern California its last refuge....
Allard's land negotiations surprise park resident Betty Dick was surprised to find U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard making real estate deals on her behalf Tuesday. Allard, R-Colo., announced in a news release that he had negotiated an agreement with the director of the National Park Service that would allow Dick to remain on her property in Rocky Mountain National Park. Allard proposes allowing Dick to lease the home and 23 acres near Grand Lake at fair market value. Neither Dick nor her lawyer, John Head, had heard anything about the deal. "Senator Allard has never written to me, never spoken to me and never asked my opinion on any of this," Dick said when reached by phone Tuesday evening. She was facing eviction from her summer home within the park earlier this month because a deal negotiated by her husband 25 years ago expires Saturday. The park service has said Dick can stay in her home until Congress resolves her situation....
Pilgrim family's case heard before Court of Appeals Arguments were made today before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that could define the authority of the National Park Service to regulate access to private inholdings in parks. And the family at the center of the dispute is no stranger to controversy. The Pilgrims, also known as the Hale family, continue their legal battle, seeking the permission to drive a bulldozer across Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to their property, located 14 miles from McCarthy. Today the battle came to the federal courthouse, where a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments. “The Park Service must provide adequate and feasible access. Now any regulation that violates or that prevents the Hales adequate and feasible access is, per se, unreasonable regulation,” said Russ Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation....
At the foot of the falls, the roar of the crowd Without a doubt, the hordes are here. On summer afternoons, Yosemite Valley can be a riot of bumpers and brake lights - Los Angeles gridlock set against a landscape beyond imagination. Yet the place where the Oris stand is a symbol of how Yosemite - as well as the National Park System - is struggling to maintain a sense of solitude amid throngs of automobile-bound visitors. To some, the new path and viewing area at the base of Lower Yosemite Falls is an attempt to make one of the park's most famous landmarks more accessible to a new generation of park visitors, who come not to camp or explore, but to snap a photo and move on. To others, though, it risks turning the great outdoors into a drive-through that rates convenience above conservation....
Editorial: BLM's coziness with oil, gas companies a bad deal for public Giving consultants who are paid by the oil and gas industry some say-so over when it's environmentally safe to drill in the Uinta Basin casts doubt over the Bureau of Land Management's dedication to protecting the area's land and wildlife. How can the BLM objectively assess the potential effects of granting a drilling permit on the basis of information provided by consultants who are paid by the companies that desperately want the permits to be approved? Clearly, it cannot. With oil prices at near-record highs and demand for gas on the rise, companies are clamoring for permits to drill in the energy-rich basin. The BLM received 1,100 applications last year and expects to see 1,200 this year, many more than the office's budget-challenged staff can handle. So, to expedite the processing of permits, which includes assessing their possible effects on the environment, a group of oil and gas companies, through their trade group, Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, generously - like a fox with an ulterior motive - hired consultants to work on the applications, at no charge to the BLM's Vernal office....
Bush administration asking court to block dam spills The Bush administration wants a federal appeals court to stop water from being purposely spilled over five Northwest hydroelectric dams despite a lower court's unprecedented order that it was necessary to help young salmon migrating to the Pacific. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was forced to allow substantial flows to bypass energy generating turbines following a June 20 order by U.S. District Judge James Redden of Portland. Redden ruled that the salmon were imperiled when swimming through those dams' turbines as they headed to the sea hundreds of miles away. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was set to hear the administration's demands to overturn Redden on Wednesday in Seattle. At the request of salmon advocates, fishermen and Indian tribes, Redden ruled that "As currently operated, I find that the dams strongly contributed to the endangerment of the listed species and irreparable injury will result if changes are not made." His order began being carried out June 20, and is to last through Aug. 31....
Environmental lobbyist accused of using ‘undue' pressure Several legislators have filed a complaint against the environmental movement's top lobbyist in Oregon, saying he has attempted to "intimidate'' and "coerce'' them into supporting a pesticide reporting program that's been stalled for years. The complaint accuses Matt Blevins of the Oregon Environmental Council of trying to use undue influence by waging a "media campaign'' of radio and newspaper advertisements against certain lawmakers who fail to support the pesticide use reporting law. State Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Portland, sent a letter to the Capitol Club, the organization that represents lobbyists in Salem, asking that Blevins be "removed and banned'' from the organization for his actions. Schaufler said Blevins visited him and several other lawmakers in their offices threatening to run ads against them....
Federal government revamping plan for Mississippi River Federal officials are coming up with a new plan for protecting the upper Mississippi River after the original proposal prompted a backlash over restrictions on hunting, camping and other uses. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which held 17 hearings and eight workshops up and down the river since announcing the original conservation plan in May, will now issue an "alternative" plan in October. The plan would then be finalized after 45 days of public comments. Federal officials say it's too soon to say how the new plan will differ from the original one, but they say it will take into account public comments which included objections to restrictions on hunting, boating and public access....
Sierra Club helps Ford go green with second hybrid When the Sierra Club approached Ford Motor Co. last year and offered to help promote the company's first hybrid electric vehicle, the company spurned the olive branch. The Sierra Club has long been a nemesis of Detroit automakers and a critic of Ford's chairman and chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr. But when Ford later heard of the decision, he was said to be angry that an opportunity had been missed to buff the company's image in the way that Toyota had done so deftly with its hybrids. Ford is not letting the chance slip a second time....
Rider of the horse Marvin Brookman likes to point out there are three stock contractors still around from the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959. "Bob Barnes, Harry Vold and me,'' said Brookman. He paused to draw his lunch-time companions closer. "And Harry is older than rodeo,'' Brookman finished with a grin. Brookman is 91 years old and a stroke suffered three years ago doesn't let him get around like he used to. But age and medical frailties have not dimmed his knowledge of bucking stock. Or his quiet sense of humor. The Brookman Rodeo Company of Wolf Point has had bucking stock selected for every NFR, with the one exception, since the event began in 1959 in Dallas, Texas. A truck driving accident in 1962 interrupted the 46-year-old streak....
===
Court rejects appeal over roadless areas A federal appeals court dismissed an attempt by environmental groups to restore a Clinton-era ban on logging in roadless areas of national forests, saying their appeal became irrelevant when the Bush administration adopted a replacement rule. The Clinton administration's rule put 58.5 million acres of roadless forest off-limits to logging and other development. Under the new rule, those lands, most of which are in the West, are open to road building for potential logging, mining and other commercial uses. A federal judge in Wyoming struck down the Clinton administration's ban in 2003, ruling in a lawsuit filed by the state of Wyoming that the executive branch had overstepped its authority in effectively creating wilderness areas on U.S. Forest Service land. The Wyoming Outdoor Council and seven other environmental groups appealed. But on May 5, the day after the 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals heard oral arguments, the Forest Service issued a new rule to replace the one that had been overturned. "Adoption of the new rule has rendered the appeal moot," a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling Monday....
Freudenthal still wary on roadless rule Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) has not yet decided how to handle petitions for roadless preservation in the state, and continues to have questions about exactly how much weight a governor's request carries. "His questions center on how much influence the state's petitions would have, how they would be judge and prioritized and who would pay for the environmental analyses of the petitions' contents," his press secretary Lara Azar said Tuesday. "Under the new rule, final authority doesn't rest with the states. These things would still go back through the forest-planning process. Before committing state resources to developing these petitions, Gov. Freudenthal wants to know how much weight they will carry."....
Caterpillars invade New Mexico forests Some of northern New Mexico's aspen stands have been stripped of their leaves by masses of wriggling caterpillars in search of food and a place to build a home, but forest officials are confident the trees will recover in time to show off their brilliant colors. Western tent caterpillars began to hatch in May and have since been eating their way through the aspens in the Carson National Forest, especially the Canjilon area at the southern end of the San Juan Mountains. There have also been reports of the critters in the Santa Fe National Forest. Trees in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont have been left bare this summer because of the caterpillars. Terry Rodgers, a forest health official with the U.S. Forest Service in Albuquerque, said officials have had numerous calls from northern New Mexico about the pests. "Apparently the caterpillars were just extreme in their numbers and causing extreme defoliation," he said. "They have already stripped the trees."....
Agency: Petition to protect chub warrants consideration The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will further consider petitions to protect the headwater chub and the Lower Colorado River basin population of the roundtail chub under the Endangered Species Act. The agency is seeking scientific, commercial and historical information before it determines whether to propose adding the chubs to the list of threatened or endangered species. The chubs occur throughout much of New Mexico Gila River headwaters and much of Arizona. Tuesday's finding acknowledges that the Center for Biological Diversity's petition to protect the chubs provides a reasonable case. "However, our finding expresses no view as to the ultimate issue of whether the species should be listed," said H. Dale Hall, the Service's Southwest Regional director....
Appeals court: Army Corps acted correctly on pygmy owl An appellate court says the Army Corps of Engineers correctly declined an endangered species consultation over the impact of two planned developments on a small Arizona owl. The Ninth U-S Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that the corps had not acted arbitrarily or capriciously in finding that the developments would have no impact on the pygmy owl. Environmentalists argue the pygmy owl is a distinct population group....
Birds' second mass exodus An estimated 16,000 or more American white pelicans again have pulled out of Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, but this mass departure follows a die-off of pelican chicks. Researchers are unsure of the cause of the chicks' deaths, but the die-off of young birds could total 8,000 or more. "We're ruling out disturbance and leaning heavily toward disease," Ken Torkelson, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Tuesday. The USFWS oversees the refuge and its pelican population. An on-site look Friday revealed about 300 to 500 live chicks remaining after a nesting period that had the potential to produce as many as 9,000 over the course of the summer. However, biologists say they believe the estimate of live chicks remaining is likely low because tall vegetation is hampering visibility....
Alaska Native gets 7 years in walrus crime An Alaska Native was sentenced to a harsh seven years in federal prison for killing six walruses, removing the heads to sell the ivory and sinking the carcasses. Herman A. Oyagak was on probation for felony assault when he participated in what prosecutors declared a wasteful killing of walruses in 2003. That, plus his criminal history, led to the harsh sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke said Tuesday. Under federal law, Alaska Natives are allowed to hunt walruses for subsistence but they must use a substantial portion of the animal. In this case, the walruses were being killed for the ivory and bodies were abandoned, Goeke said....
Silvery minnow numbers soar with high runoff The tiny endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow, the focus of years of battles over water to sustain it, has had a good year, thanks to high runoff in the river. Biologists rescuing the fish from isolated pools along the middle Rio Grande have found 290,000 minnow since June 20 _ a huge jump from the 16,000 rescued and moved to the river's main channel last year, Larry Bell, a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service here, said Tuesday. The high runoff from mountain snows allowed the Rio Grande to leave its banks in some areas of the bosque along the river, a condition known as overbanking. Officials credit that overbanking, and its subsequent creation of good habitat for minnow spawning, for this summer's large numbers....
The North Coast is ground zero in the barred owl's invasion of spotted owl country There is nothing that says old-growth louder than the northern spotted owl. There are no forests more closely identified with old growth than those in Redwood National and State Parks. It stands to reason that you should be able to see or hear a spotted owl, then, in those parks. It's more likely that this year, you would be sorely disappointed. The hoot that you may hear now is from an invader, a barred owl. It's like a spotted owl on steroids. The eastern bird's rapid colonization of the West Coast's best old-growth territory has been recognized -- but not so openly discussed -- for years. The barred owl's southward surge and expansion does not bode well for the spotted owl. Experts think the larger owl may eventually push the threatened spotted owl to the brink of extinction, or make Northern California its last refuge....
Allard's land negotiations surprise park resident Betty Dick was surprised to find U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard making real estate deals on her behalf Tuesday. Allard, R-Colo., announced in a news release that he had negotiated an agreement with the director of the National Park Service that would allow Dick to remain on her property in Rocky Mountain National Park. Allard proposes allowing Dick to lease the home and 23 acres near Grand Lake at fair market value. Neither Dick nor her lawyer, John Head, had heard anything about the deal. "Senator Allard has never written to me, never spoken to me and never asked my opinion on any of this," Dick said when reached by phone Tuesday evening. She was facing eviction from her summer home within the park earlier this month because a deal negotiated by her husband 25 years ago expires Saturday. The park service has said Dick can stay in her home until Congress resolves her situation....
Pilgrim family's case heard before Court of Appeals Arguments were made today before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that could define the authority of the National Park Service to regulate access to private inholdings in parks. And the family at the center of the dispute is no stranger to controversy. The Pilgrims, also known as the Hale family, continue their legal battle, seeking the permission to drive a bulldozer across Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to their property, located 14 miles from McCarthy. Today the battle came to the federal courthouse, where a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments. “The Park Service must provide adequate and feasible access. Now any regulation that violates or that prevents the Hales adequate and feasible access is, per se, unreasonable regulation,” said Russ Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation....
At the foot of the falls, the roar of the crowd Without a doubt, the hordes are here. On summer afternoons, Yosemite Valley can be a riot of bumpers and brake lights - Los Angeles gridlock set against a landscape beyond imagination. Yet the place where the Oris stand is a symbol of how Yosemite - as well as the National Park System - is struggling to maintain a sense of solitude amid throngs of automobile-bound visitors. To some, the new path and viewing area at the base of Lower Yosemite Falls is an attempt to make one of the park's most famous landmarks more accessible to a new generation of park visitors, who come not to camp or explore, but to snap a photo and move on. To others, though, it risks turning the great outdoors into a drive-through that rates convenience above conservation....
Editorial: BLM's coziness with oil, gas companies a bad deal for public Giving consultants who are paid by the oil and gas industry some say-so over when it's environmentally safe to drill in the Uinta Basin casts doubt over the Bureau of Land Management's dedication to protecting the area's land and wildlife. How can the BLM objectively assess the potential effects of granting a drilling permit on the basis of information provided by consultants who are paid by the companies that desperately want the permits to be approved? Clearly, it cannot. With oil prices at near-record highs and demand for gas on the rise, companies are clamoring for permits to drill in the energy-rich basin. The BLM received 1,100 applications last year and expects to see 1,200 this year, many more than the office's budget-challenged staff can handle. So, to expedite the processing of permits, which includes assessing their possible effects on the environment, a group of oil and gas companies, through their trade group, Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, generously - like a fox with an ulterior motive - hired consultants to work on the applications, at no charge to the BLM's Vernal office....
Bush administration asking court to block dam spills The Bush administration wants a federal appeals court to stop water from being purposely spilled over five Northwest hydroelectric dams despite a lower court's unprecedented order that it was necessary to help young salmon migrating to the Pacific. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was forced to allow substantial flows to bypass energy generating turbines following a June 20 order by U.S. District Judge James Redden of Portland. Redden ruled that the salmon were imperiled when swimming through those dams' turbines as they headed to the sea hundreds of miles away. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was set to hear the administration's demands to overturn Redden on Wednesday in Seattle. At the request of salmon advocates, fishermen and Indian tribes, Redden ruled that "As currently operated, I find that the dams strongly contributed to the endangerment of the listed species and irreparable injury will result if changes are not made." His order began being carried out June 20, and is to last through Aug. 31....
Environmental lobbyist accused of using ‘undue' pressure Several legislators have filed a complaint against the environmental movement's top lobbyist in Oregon, saying he has attempted to "intimidate'' and "coerce'' them into supporting a pesticide reporting program that's been stalled for years. The complaint accuses Matt Blevins of the Oregon Environmental Council of trying to use undue influence by waging a "media campaign'' of radio and newspaper advertisements against certain lawmakers who fail to support the pesticide use reporting law. State Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Portland, sent a letter to the Capitol Club, the organization that represents lobbyists in Salem, asking that Blevins be "removed and banned'' from the organization for his actions. Schaufler said Blevins visited him and several other lawmakers in their offices threatening to run ads against them....
Federal government revamping plan for Mississippi River Federal officials are coming up with a new plan for protecting the upper Mississippi River after the original proposal prompted a backlash over restrictions on hunting, camping and other uses. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which held 17 hearings and eight workshops up and down the river since announcing the original conservation plan in May, will now issue an "alternative" plan in October. The plan would then be finalized after 45 days of public comments. Federal officials say it's too soon to say how the new plan will differ from the original one, but they say it will take into account public comments which included objections to restrictions on hunting, boating and public access....
Sierra Club helps Ford go green with second hybrid When the Sierra Club approached Ford Motor Co. last year and offered to help promote the company's first hybrid electric vehicle, the company spurned the olive branch. The Sierra Club has long been a nemesis of Detroit automakers and a critic of Ford's chairman and chief executive, William Clay Ford Jr. But when Ford later heard of the decision, he was said to be angry that an opportunity had been missed to buff the company's image in the way that Toyota had done so deftly with its hybrids. Ford is not letting the chance slip a second time....
Rider of the horse Marvin Brookman likes to point out there are three stock contractors still around from the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959. "Bob Barnes, Harry Vold and me,'' said Brookman. He paused to draw his lunch-time companions closer. "And Harry is older than rodeo,'' Brookman finished with a grin. Brookman is 91 years old and a stroke suffered three years ago doesn't let him get around like he used to. But age and medical frailties have not dimmed his knowledge of bucking stock. Or his quiet sense of humor. The Brookman Rodeo Company of Wolf Point has had bucking stock selected for every NFR, with the one exception, since the event began in 1959 in Dallas, Texas. A truck driving accident in 1962 interrupted the 46-year-old streak....
===
Nevada Live Stock Association
9732 State Route 445
Sparks, NV 89435
775.424.0570
Press Release
For Immediate Release July 11, 2005
ESMERALD CO. GRAND JURY SIDES WITH RANCHERS
(Sparks, NV) An Esmeralda County, Nevada, Special Grand Jury, empanelled to investigate actions by Nevada’s head brand inspector, Jim Connelley, during the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) 2002 seizure of Goldfield rancher, Ben Colvin’s cattle, issued its final report June 16, 2005. The Grand Jury Report was highly critical of the Nevada Department of Agriculture (DOA) and Attorney General’s policies in their handling of the matter and recommended immediate changes needed to bring the DOA and the AG into compliance with the 5th and 14th Amendments’ (U.S. Constitution) procedural due process requirements and with Nevada Brand Law.
“This is exactly the result we were looking for,” commented Ben Colvin. “All I ever wanted was justice and protection for my property, which I was never given. Even murderers and rapists are entitled to due process. When a man's livelihood is stolen from him, he should at least be afforded notice and a hearing before an impartial judge to decide if the confiscation of his sole means of support is lawful. The AG’s office gave Connelley advice that was akin to permitting the BLM to rob a bank, and unfortunately Mr. Connelley followed that advice. They stole my cattle and destroyed my livelihood. I appreciate the support of the citizens of Esmeralda County in this effort, and the excellent work of the Grand Jury for making these recommendations to the State,” said Colvin.
The Nevada Live Stock Association (NLSA) originated the idea of using the Special Grand Jury to investigate the brand inspector’s actions and participated in gathering the necessary signatures.
NLSA Chairman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage commented on the Grand Jury Report, “We are very, very pleased with the recommendations of the Grand Jury. This is the third time the Nevada Department of Agriculture and Attorney General’s Office have been directed to enforce procedural due process and the brand laws of Nevada. Many of Nevada’s ranchers have suffered the devastating impact of having their cattle rustled by the federal government. Now, after this decision, there is no doubt that the sheriffs’ must do their job and protect property from unlawful government actions and not place the individual rancher’s livelihood at risk. Procedural due process must be afforded.”
The Grand Jury Report stated, “The grand jury believes that the primary mission of the Nevada Department of Agriculture is and should be the protection of Nevada’s livestock industry from unauthorized possession or movement of cattle, whether by theft or other means. This should be accomplished by vigorous enforcement of the brand inspection laws. In addition, the Division needs to strongly protect the ‘lock and key’ theory behind livestock brands.”
The DOA had allowed the BLM to sign as the owner of record on Mr. Colvin’s cattle brand inspection certificates. The Grand Jury Report did not agree, ruling that, “The grand jury believes that allowing an employee of a federal agency to sign a brand inspection clearance certificate on the line reserved for the ‘Signature of the Owner or Authorized Agent’ is improper and that, to better serve the livestock industry and the general public, such a practice should be discontinued.”
“The point was to protect our livestock from being unlawfully forced from our Nevada ranges. Our association is pro-cattle and pro-ranchers. We are in the livestock business and we mean business. It turned out great,” commented Mineral County rancher and NLSA Vice Chairman, David Holmgren.
The DOA and AG’s office were previously admonished in 2004 in Judge Janet Berry’s ruling from the Second Judicial District Court of Washoe County when she took judicial notice of the fact that the procedures for issuing brand inspection clearance certificates in the instances of livestock seizures did not afford procedural due process of law. The NLSA was the only group who appeared in court to oppose the DOA’s Petition for Judicial Confirmation of its brand inspection practices. Judge Berry dismissed the DOA’s Petition as unconstitutional under Nevada law.
During the recent Legislative session, Assemblyman John Carpenter, (R-Elko) introduced A.B. 407 to legislatively address livestock impoundments. The NLSA testified before the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and was instrumental in helping to amend the original bill draft to spell out Constitutional procedural due process to the DOA and AG in the instances of livestock seizures. It passed both houses earlier this year and was signed into law by the Governor.
A grand jury may indict, make a report with recommendations, or do nothing. The original petition against Connelley was for issuing brand inspection clearance certificates to the BLM for their livestock raids wherein they removed, sold, and kept the proceeds of cattle owned by Mr. Colvin. The Special Grand Jury declined to directly indict Connelley because his actions “…were based on advice to (him) from the Nevada Attorney General’s Office…and were performed without any criminal intent.” This leaves open the question of the Attorney General’s liability for endorsing BLM’s cattle seizures without enforcing due process of law.
As allowed by law, the Grand Jury has made six recommendations to the state for immediate action:
1. That the Nevada Department of Agriculture require an appropriate judicial order be entered prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to a party who is not the legal owner of the livestock in question.
2. That the Nevada Department of Agriculture terminate the April 6, 1999 Cooperative Agreement with the Bureau of Land Management.
3. That, in the event the Nevada Department of Agriculture enters into another similar Cooperative Agreement with any federal agency, such agreement should contain a requirement that an appropriate judicial order be entered prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to that agency.
4. That due process, as applied to the involuntary impound and/or sale of livestock in Nevada, should mean both notice and an opportunity to be heard in a judicial proceeding. In the case of federal impounds and/or sales of livestock, such a judicial proceeding should be outside of the federal agency and held before an independent state administrative law judge or state or federal district court.
5. That, at least 2 weeks prior to an impound and/or sale of livestock, written notice of the exact date(s) and location(s) of the proposed impound and/or sale should be personally served on the Nevada Department of Agriculture, on the legal owner of the affected livestock and on anyone holding a UCC Financing Statement and/or claiming a lien on the affected livestock.
6. That the Nevada Attorney General issue a formal published Attorney General’s Opinion describing the exact steps that the Nevada Department of Agriculture requires to be followed prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to a federal agency and circulate said Opinion generally throughout the livestock industry.”
# # #
Contacts: Ben Colvin 775.485.6366
Helen Chenoweth Hage 208.861.7875
David Holmgren 406.321.1215
Ramona Morrison 775.722.2517
Mike Van Zandt, Ben Colvin’s Attorney, 415.905.0200
===
9732 State Route 445
Sparks, NV 89435
775.424.0570
Press Release
For Immediate Release July 11, 2005
ESMERALD CO. GRAND JURY SIDES WITH RANCHERS
(Sparks, NV) An Esmeralda County, Nevada, Special Grand Jury, empanelled to investigate actions by Nevada’s head brand inspector, Jim Connelley, during the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) 2002 seizure of Goldfield rancher, Ben Colvin’s cattle, issued its final report June 16, 2005. The Grand Jury Report was highly critical of the Nevada Department of Agriculture (DOA) and Attorney General’s policies in their handling of the matter and recommended immediate changes needed to bring the DOA and the AG into compliance with the 5th and 14th Amendments’ (U.S. Constitution) procedural due process requirements and with Nevada Brand Law.
“This is exactly the result we were looking for,” commented Ben Colvin. “All I ever wanted was justice and protection for my property, which I was never given. Even murderers and rapists are entitled to due process. When a man's livelihood is stolen from him, he should at least be afforded notice and a hearing before an impartial judge to decide if the confiscation of his sole means of support is lawful. The AG’s office gave Connelley advice that was akin to permitting the BLM to rob a bank, and unfortunately Mr. Connelley followed that advice. They stole my cattle and destroyed my livelihood. I appreciate the support of the citizens of Esmeralda County in this effort, and the excellent work of the Grand Jury for making these recommendations to the State,” said Colvin.
The Nevada Live Stock Association (NLSA) originated the idea of using the Special Grand Jury to investigate the brand inspector’s actions and participated in gathering the necessary signatures.
NLSA Chairman, Helen Chenoweth-Hage commented on the Grand Jury Report, “We are very, very pleased with the recommendations of the Grand Jury. This is the third time the Nevada Department of Agriculture and Attorney General’s Office have been directed to enforce procedural due process and the brand laws of Nevada. Many of Nevada’s ranchers have suffered the devastating impact of having their cattle rustled by the federal government. Now, after this decision, there is no doubt that the sheriffs’ must do their job and protect property from unlawful government actions and not place the individual rancher’s livelihood at risk. Procedural due process must be afforded.”
The Grand Jury Report stated, “The grand jury believes that the primary mission of the Nevada Department of Agriculture is and should be the protection of Nevada’s livestock industry from unauthorized possession or movement of cattle, whether by theft or other means. This should be accomplished by vigorous enforcement of the brand inspection laws. In addition, the Division needs to strongly protect the ‘lock and key’ theory behind livestock brands.”
The DOA had allowed the BLM to sign as the owner of record on Mr. Colvin’s cattle brand inspection certificates. The Grand Jury Report did not agree, ruling that, “The grand jury believes that allowing an employee of a federal agency to sign a brand inspection clearance certificate on the line reserved for the ‘Signature of the Owner or Authorized Agent’ is improper and that, to better serve the livestock industry and the general public, such a practice should be discontinued.”
“The point was to protect our livestock from being unlawfully forced from our Nevada ranges. Our association is pro-cattle and pro-ranchers. We are in the livestock business and we mean business. It turned out great,” commented Mineral County rancher and NLSA Vice Chairman, David Holmgren.
The DOA and AG’s office were previously admonished in 2004 in Judge Janet Berry’s ruling from the Second Judicial District Court of Washoe County when she took judicial notice of the fact that the procedures for issuing brand inspection clearance certificates in the instances of livestock seizures did not afford procedural due process of law. The NLSA was the only group who appeared in court to oppose the DOA’s Petition for Judicial Confirmation of its brand inspection practices. Judge Berry dismissed the DOA’s Petition as unconstitutional under Nevada law.
During the recent Legislative session, Assemblyman John Carpenter, (R-Elko) introduced A.B. 407 to legislatively address livestock impoundments. The NLSA testified before the Assembly Natural Resources Committee and was instrumental in helping to amend the original bill draft to spell out Constitutional procedural due process to the DOA and AG in the instances of livestock seizures. It passed both houses earlier this year and was signed into law by the Governor.
A grand jury may indict, make a report with recommendations, or do nothing. The original petition against Connelley was for issuing brand inspection clearance certificates to the BLM for their livestock raids wherein they removed, sold, and kept the proceeds of cattle owned by Mr. Colvin. The Special Grand Jury declined to directly indict Connelley because his actions “…were based on advice to (him) from the Nevada Attorney General’s Office…and were performed without any criminal intent.” This leaves open the question of the Attorney General’s liability for endorsing BLM’s cattle seizures without enforcing due process of law.
As allowed by law, the Grand Jury has made six recommendations to the state for immediate action:
1. That the Nevada Department of Agriculture require an appropriate judicial order be entered prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to a party who is not the legal owner of the livestock in question.
2. That the Nevada Department of Agriculture terminate the April 6, 1999 Cooperative Agreement with the Bureau of Land Management.
3. That, in the event the Nevada Department of Agriculture enters into another similar Cooperative Agreement with any federal agency, such agreement should contain a requirement that an appropriate judicial order be entered prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to that agency.
4. That due process, as applied to the involuntary impound and/or sale of livestock in Nevada, should mean both notice and an opportunity to be heard in a judicial proceeding. In the case of federal impounds and/or sales of livestock, such a judicial proceeding should be outside of the federal agency and held before an independent state administrative law judge or state or federal district court.
5. That, at least 2 weeks prior to an impound and/or sale of livestock, written notice of the exact date(s) and location(s) of the proposed impound and/or sale should be personally served on the Nevada Department of Agriculture, on the legal owner of the affected livestock and on anyone holding a UCC Financing Statement and/or claiming a lien on the affected livestock.
6. That the Nevada Attorney General issue a formal published Attorney General’s Opinion describing the exact steps that the Nevada Department of Agriculture requires to be followed prior to the issuance of a brand inspection clearance certificate to a federal agency and circulate said Opinion generally throughout the livestock industry.”
# # #
Contacts: Ben Colvin 775.485.6366
Helen Chenoweth Hage 208.861.7875
David Holmgren 406.321.1215
Ramona Morrison 775.722.2517
Mike Van Zandt, Ben Colvin’s Attorney, 415.905.0200
===
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Northern Plains offers compromise in methane case A conservation group is asking a federal magistrate to allow Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. to continue producing coal-bed methane from 85 disputed wells in southern Montana as long as certain protections for land and water are in place. The proposal by Northern Plains Resource Council comes a month after U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Anderson decided production on the federal wells in the Tongue River-Badger Hills project near Decker must stop because the analysis by the Bureau of Land Management relied on an environmental study he invalidated. Anderson has since put the order on hold, pending further arguments by those involved. Northern Plains, in a court filing, said its position has been not to halt production from existing wells to avoid disrupting royalty and tax revenues. It also says that a major part of the environmental effects it sought to prevent can't be undone because operations are underway. The group seeks, among other things, a prohibition on new ponds to hold methane waste water as well as the construction of land application or disposal sites for the water. "I think this is a compromise we can all live with," Mark Fix, a rancher and Northern Plains member, said in a statement....
Forest Service sues landowner for encroaching on scenic river corridor An Idaho man is fighting the U.S. Forest Service in court, contending that additions he made to his private property within the Clearwater River Wild and Scenic corridor do not violate 25-year-old development restrictions. The U.S. Forest Service has sued Therral "Terry" Jackson in U.S. District Court in Boise, asking Judge Edward J. Lodge to order him to stop cutting timber, cancel further construction plans and remove a new concrete retaining wall, footbridge and other improvements on portions of his 3-acre lot. The land is on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River near Syringa, 90 miles east of Lewiston in northcentral Idaho. If Jackson doesn't remove the additions and return the landscape to its previous condition, the Forest Service says it will tear out the developments and bill Jackson for the cost....
Grizzly bear boundaries under debate Darlene Vaughan says she's glad grizzly bear populations in Yellowstone National Park area have recovered to healthy levels - but the idea of allowing them to wander through her backyard is something else entirely. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a proposed bear management plan that would set boundaries on where the grizzly bear will be allowed to roam in the state. For Vaughan, the proposed boundary comes too close to her home on a ranch outside Lander in west-central Wyoming. "The grizzly bear definitely attacks people, and we just have too many people who live in this part of the state," she said Monday. Setting habitat boundaries for the large carnivore is another part of a more than 20-year effort to help grizzly bear populations recover in the West. Grizzly bears in the region are protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. But the Yellowstone-area population has reached a level where federal wildlife officials plan to propose delisting the bear soon. Residents like Vaughan, who already live among wolves, elk and other wildlife, say the grizzly brings a man-eating dimension that doesn't exist in the debate over other wildlife....
Judge rules sequoia monument fire plan violated federal law A judge ruled Monday that a fire-control plan for Giant Sequoia National Monument violated federal law because the blueprint, which includes logging the preserve that is home to two-thirds of the world's largest trees, did not undergo an environmental review. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act and that its plans to manage the 327,769-acre central California preserve could have significant environmental consequences. Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued in March to halt the plan that would have allowed commercial logging in the monument designed to preserve the ancient monster conifers....
Forest Service rethinks park design to attract minorities The U.S. Forest Service is studying ways minorities use public lands in hopes of making improvements to better serve the growing Hispanic population of Arizona and the rest of the Southwest. The research will be used to find out why so few minorities use public lands and to make changes in the way national forests are maintained. For example, Hispanics account for one in four Arizonans but at each of the state's six national forests, Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Coronado, Kaibab, Prescott and Tonto, 88 percent or more of the visitors are white, according to a Forest Service visitor survey....
Carter S. Roberts Becomes President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund World Wildlife Fund announced today that Carter S. Roberts has become president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF). He succeeds Kathryn S. Fuller, who stepped down after 16 years as WWF's president and CEO on June 31. Roberts has been WWF's chief conservation officer since February 2004. Prior to joining WWF, Roberts spent 15 years at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) much of the time focused on the overall strategy and advancing the organization's conservation programs in Latin America and in the United States. In addition to his deep experience in conservation, Roberts brings a strong background in business to his position. Earlier in his career, he led marketing and management teams at Gillette, Procter and Gamble and at Dun and Bradstreet where he advised companies including RJR/Nabisco and Coca Cola. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and graduated with honors from Princeton University....
Wildfires spark new threat: Rain The "Cave Creek Complex" fire did more than scorch hundreds of thousands of acres of desert land. The lightning-sparked inferno also clogged creek beds with debris, blackened vegetation and damaged soil that used to soak up rainwater. That means the impending monsoon rains inevitably will bring flooding to areas like the Seven Springs Campground, parts of Cave Creek, New River, Black Canyon City and Camp Creek, where 11 homes burned. Emergency stabilization efforts are under way to clear and upgrade culverts, mulch the land and reseed as many as 150 acres with a mixture of grass and shrubs before the monsoon storms hit....
Bad news rangers Karen Frauson was one of the first park rangers to respond to word of a plane crash on a lonely sagebrush flat in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park last month. A short time later, she also had the grim task of informing the pilot's family that he had died. But breaking the news of accidents, like this one that killed Wal-Mart heir John Walton, and helping families cope with the sudden reality of the loss is part of what Frauson does as one of the National Park Service's specially trained family liaison officers. Their skills have been in high demand in recent weeks as a series of fatal accidents and extended searches in national parks have attracted distraught families, some from hundreds of miles away, seeking information -- or the chance for a final goodbye....
Experts seek traces of Santa Fe Trail From a distance, Steven DeVore seemed to be mowing the grass Monday in Minor Park. Back and forth, back and forth on a grassy hilltop he pushed a three-wheeled gizmo topped with a … computer screen? Actually, DeVore was trying to solve a mystery with origins going back nearly two centuries: Exactly where in south Kansas City did the Santa Fe Trail run? Although much of the route is well documented, there are a couple stretches where neither the landscape nor the historical record has clarified just where the westbound pioneers beat their path to a hoped-for better life....
The West's defender of wild places On a late spring day, with streambeds roaring and the sun breaking through the thin mountain air, Stewart Udall has just crossed a calf-deep creek, rushing with late-season snowmelt from the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. His corduroy pants are drenched at the cuffs, his sneakers muddied and soaked. Udall is on the Rio en Medio Trail, a popular and well-watered seven-mile hike a good half hour out of Santa Fe. Udall, who turned 85 in January, has slowed down in recent years. Age, the death of his wife and a degenerative eye condition have contributed, but once on the trail, he gamely sloshes ahead, grasping drooping branches and, if needed, an outstretched hand. As secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations — and one of the architects of the Wilderness Act — he is perhaps the politician most responsible for the public lands you hike, the rivers you kayak, the mountains you climb and the wilderness you contemplate. And it is this legacy that he is most fearful will be lost. Along with Robert McNamara, Udall is the last surviving member of the original New Frontier cabinet. In his ninth decade, he continues to put forth an environmental agenda, laments the dismantling of national lands and bemoans the malicious attitudes that he sees corrupting Washington....
National parks saw 12% drop in visitation between 1999-2004 Tourism experts say boomers’ preference for cushier vacations is contributing to a decline in campers and visitors at parks nationwide. At Acadia, annual visitation fell 15 percent between 1999 and 2004. Only 72,000 people camped out there last year, a drop of 22 percent in the past decade. Nationwide, camping at national parks fell 12 percent between 1999 and 2004. The aging population is just part of the reason, said Jim Gramann, a professor at Texas A&M University and the visiting chief social scientist for the National Park Service. Other factors include hectic lifestyles, competing recreational options, an uncertain economy, a fall in international travel to the United States, shorter vacations, and even an increase in ethnic populations unfamiliar with the park system....
Confederate descendants fear new skirmish brewing The statue has not budged. Gen. Robert E. Lee still sits astride Traveller, field glasses in one hand, the horse's reins in the other, no hint of the broken wrist that bedeviled him as he rode up and down the Confederate lines during the Battle of Antietam. No one has suggested plans to move his 24-foot likeness. But to the great-grandsons of Confederate soldiers, mere word that the federal government has purchased the grounds where Lee stands has tripped hair-trigger fears of Uncle Sam's treachery. Believing the National Park Service has become "politically correct" and decidedly pro-Union in its stewardship of Civil War battlefields, the Sons of Confederate Veterans has sounded the alarm, warning that the government might move the colossus from its spot west of Antietam Creek, where it was commissioned by a local millionaire a few years ago....
Historic status loss possible at 'Town Too Tough to Die' Some of the Old West's toughest lawmen walked the streets of Tombstone, but now the town may lose its status as a National Historic Landmark because of its failure to enforce the law. State and federal officials for years have warned Tombstone's leaders of the possible loss if they didn't enforce town ordinances that require all buildings in the historic district to resemble the styles typical of the 1880s, when Tombstone won eternal fame as the site of the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Then the National Park Service last year placed Tombstone on a "watch list" of 89 landmarks nationwide that face the possibility of losing the historic designation. Now, community leaders and others are trying to find a solution to the problem, Mayor Andre DeJournett said....
Spotted Horse still bucks To one traveling phone repairman, this is the remote bar/café where he almost had to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a putrid old man who'd set his bar stool on his own oxygen hose and ended up passed out on the floor. To Roy Holdeman and Robbie Montgomery, this is where they took their wedding vows and hung a rose on the antique bicycle on the ceiling. In the 1920s, Jim Spellman was among the first students at the school house across the lot. The Spellmans, Werners and several other families gathered at the dance hall across the road each summer, and in 1944 a tornado ripped it apart. Eleven gallons of gas totaled $2.84 here in 1947, and a hamburger lunch for two was $2.50 in 1952. This is Spotted Horse, located about 37 miles northwest of Gillette on Highway 14-16. You can still get a burger here, but the school is closed and the post office is no longer operated at the bar and café....
It's All Trew: Rollaway bed was favorite for sleeping, hiding My early day heroes slept in thin blankets, on the hard ground with their heads resting on their saddles. Later, my J. Frank Dobie heroes slept in canvas-covered bedrolls which had to be rolled each morning, tied with a rope and tossed on the chuck wagon. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the cowboys slept in bunks with rope bottoms and covered with ticks filled with hay, grass, corn shucks or cotton. Such stuffing seemed to invite insects so bed legs were stood in small cans of coal oil to keep the ants and other critters away. When settlers were finally able to build conventional homes many contained Murphy beds that folded up into the wall to provide more usable daytime floor space. Some beds stood high off the floors above drafts and at times contained drawers beneath in which small children slept. Until after World War II, everyone I knew used iron bedsteads....
===
Northern Plains offers compromise in methane case A conservation group is asking a federal magistrate to allow Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. to continue producing coal-bed methane from 85 disputed wells in southern Montana as long as certain protections for land and water are in place. The proposal by Northern Plains Resource Council comes a month after U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Anderson decided production on the federal wells in the Tongue River-Badger Hills project near Decker must stop because the analysis by the Bureau of Land Management relied on an environmental study he invalidated. Anderson has since put the order on hold, pending further arguments by those involved. Northern Plains, in a court filing, said its position has been not to halt production from existing wells to avoid disrupting royalty and tax revenues. It also says that a major part of the environmental effects it sought to prevent can't be undone because operations are underway. The group seeks, among other things, a prohibition on new ponds to hold methane waste water as well as the construction of land application or disposal sites for the water. "I think this is a compromise we can all live with," Mark Fix, a rancher and Northern Plains member, said in a statement....
Forest Service sues landowner for encroaching on scenic river corridor An Idaho man is fighting the U.S. Forest Service in court, contending that additions he made to his private property within the Clearwater River Wild and Scenic corridor do not violate 25-year-old development restrictions. The U.S. Forest Service has sued Therral "Terry" Jackson in U.S. District Court in Boise, asking Judge Edward J. Lodge to order him to stop cutting timber, cancel further construction plans and remove a new concrete retaining wall, footbridge and other improvements on portions of his 3-acre lot. The land is on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater River near Syringa, 90 miles east of Lewiston in northcentral Idaho. If Jackson doesn't remove the additions and return the landscape to its previous condition, the Forest Service says it will tear out the developments and bill Jackson for the cost....
Grizzly bear boundaries under debate Darlene Vaughan says she's glad grizzly bear populations in Yellowstone National Park area have recovered to healthy levels - but the idea of allowing them to wander through her backyard is something else entirely. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a proposed bear management plan that would set boundaries on where the grizzly bear will be allowed to roam in the state. For Vaughan, the proposed boundary comes too close to her home on a ranch outside Lander in west-central Wyoming. "The grizzly bear definitely attacks people, and we just have too many people who live in this part of the state," she said Monday. Setting habitat boundaries for the large carnivore is another part of a more than 20-year effort to help grizzly bear populations recover in the West. Grizzly bears in the region are protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. But the Yellowstone-area population has reached a level where federal wildlife officials plan to propose delisting the bear soon. Residents like Vaughan, who already live among wolves, elk and other wildlife, say the grizzly brings a man-eating dimension that doesn't exist in the debate over other wildlife....
Judge rules sequoia monument fire plan violated federal law A judge ruled Monday that a fire-control plan for Giant Sequoia National Monument violated federal law because the blueprint, which includes logging the preserve that is home to two-thirds of the world's largest trees, did not undergo an environmental review. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act and that its plans to manage the 327,769-acre central California preserve could have significant environmental consequences. Attorney General Bill Lockyer sued in March to halt the plan that would have allowed commercial logging in the monument designed to preserve the ancient monster conifers....
Forest Service rethinks park design to attract minorities The U.S. Forest Service is studying ways minorities use public lands in hopes of making improvements to better serve the growing Hispanic population of Arizona and the rest of the Southwest. The research will be used to find out why so few minorities use public lands and to make changes in the way national forests are maintained. For example, Hispanics account for one in four Arizonans but at each of the state's six national forests, Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Coronado, Kaibab, Prescott and Tonto, 88 percent or more of the visitors are white, according to a Forest Service visitor survey....
Carter S. Roberts Becomes President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund World Wildlife Fund announced today that Carter S. Roberts has become president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF). He succeeds Kathryn S. Fuller, who stepped down after 16 years as WWF's president and CEO on June 31. Roberts has been WWF's chief conservation officer since February 2004. Prior to joining WWF, Roberts spent 15 years at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) much of the time focused on the overall strategy and advancing the organization's conservation programs in Latin America and in the United States. In addition to his deep experience in conservation, Roberts brings a strong background in business to his position. Earlier in his career, he led marketing and management teams at Gillette, Procter and Gamble and at Dun and Bradstreet where he advised companies including RJR/Nabisco and Coca Cola. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and graduated with honors from Princeton University....
Wildfires spark new threat: Rain The "Cave Creek Complex" fire did more than scorch hundreds of thousands of acres of desert land. The lightning-sparked inferno also clogged creek beds with debris, blackened vegetation and damaged soil that used to soak up rainwater. That means the impending monsoon rains inevitably will bring flooding to areas like the Seven Springs Campground, parts of Cave Creek, New River, Black Canyon City and Camp Creek, where 11 homes burned. Emergency stabilization efforts are under way to clear and upgrade culverts, mulch the land and reseed as many as 150 acres with a mixture of grass and shrubs before the monsoon storms hit....
Bad news rangers Karen Frauson was one of the first park rangers to respond to word of a plane crash on a lonely sagebrush flat in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park last month. A short time later, she also had the grim task of informing the pilot's family that he had died. But breaking the news of accidents, like this one that killed Wal-Mart heir John Walton, and helping families cope with the sudden reality of the loss is part of what Frauson does as one of the National Park Service's specially trained family liaison officers. Their skills have been in high demand in recent weeks as a series of fatal accidents and extended searches in national parks have attracted distraught families, some from hundreds of miles away, seeking information -- or the chance for a final goodbye....
Experts seek traces of Santa Fe Trail From a distance, Steven DeVore seemed to be mowing the grass Monday in Minor Park. Back and forth, back and forth on a grassy hilltop he pushed a three-wheeled gizmo topped with a … computer screen? Actually, DeVore was trying to solve a mystery with origins going back nearly two centuries: Exactly where in south Kansas City did the Santa Fe Trail run? Although much of the route is well documented, there are a couple stretches where neither the landscape nor the historical record has clarified just where the westbound pioneers beat their path to a hoped-for better life....
The West's defender of wild places On a late spring day, with streambeds roaring and the sun breaking through the thin mountain air, Stewart Udall has just crossed a calf-deep creek, rushing with late-season snowmelt from the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. His corduroy pants are drenched at the cuffs, his sneakers muddied and soaked. Udall is on the Rio en Medio Trail, a popular and well-watered seven-mile hike a good half hour out of Santa Fe. Udall, who turned 85 in January, has slowed down in recent years. Age, the death of his wife and a degenerative eye condition have contributed, but once on the trail, he gamely sloshes ahead, grasping drooping branches and, if needed, an outstretched hand. As secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations — and one of the architects of the Wilderness Act — he is perhaps the politician most responsible for the public lands you hike, the rivers you kayak, the mountains you climb and the wilderness you contemplate. And it is this legacy that he is most fearful will be lost. Along with Robert McNamara, Udall is the last surviving member of the original New Frontier cabinet. In his ninth decade, he continues to put forth an environmental agenda, laments the dismantling of national lands and bemoans the malicious attitudes that he sees corrupting Washington....
National parks saw 12% drop in visitation between 1999-2004 Tourism experts say boomers’ preference for cushier vacations is contributing to a decline in campers and visitors at parks nationwide. At Acadia, annual visitation fell 15 percent between 1999 and 2004. Only 72,000 people camped out there last year, a drop of 22 percent in the past decade. Nationwide, camping at national parks fell 12 percent between 1999 and 2004. The aging population is just part of the reason, said Jim Gramann, a professor at Texas A&M University and the visiting chief social scientist for the National Park Service. Other factors include hectic lifestyles, competing recreational options, an uncertain economy, a fall in international travel to the United States, shorter vacations, and even an increase in ethnic populations unfamiliar with the park system....
Confederate descendants fear new skirmish brewing The statue has not budged. Gen. Robert E. Lee still sits astride Traveller, field glasses in one hand, the horse's reins in the other, no hint of the broken wrist that bedeviled him as he rode up and down the Confederate lines during the Battle of Antietam. No one has suggested plans to move his 24-foot likeness. But to the great-grandsons of Confederate soldiers, mere word that the federal government has purchased the grounds where Lee stands has tripped hair-trigger fears of Uncle Sam's treachery. Believing the National Park Service has become "politically correct" and decidedly pro-Union in its stewardship of Civil War battlefields, the Sons of Confederate Veterans has sounded the alarm, warning that the government might move the colossus from its spot west of Antietam Creek, where it was commissioned by a local millionaire a few years ago....
Historic status loss possible at 'Town Too Tough to Die' Some of the Old West's toughest lawmen walked the streets of Tombstone, but now the town may lose its status as a National Historic Landmark because of its failure to enforce the law. State and federal officials for years have warned Tombstone's leaders of the possible loss if they didn't enforce town ordinances that require all buildings in the historic district to resemble the styles typical of the 1880s, when Tombstone won eternal fame as the site of the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Then the National Park Service last year placed Tombstone on a "watch list" of 89 landmarks nationwide that face the possibility of losing the historic designation. Now, community leaders and others are trying to find a solution to the problem, Mayor Andre DeJournett said....
Spotted Horse still bucks To one traveling phone repairman, this is the remote bar/café where he almost had to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a putrid old man who'd set his bar stool on his own oxygen hose and ended up passed out on the floor. To Roy Holdeman and Robbie Montgomery, this is where they took their wedding vows and hung a rose on the antique bicycle on the ceiling. In the 1920s, Jim Spellman was among the first students at the school house across the lot. The Spellmans, Werners and several other families gathered at the dance hall across the road each summer, and in 1944 a tornado ripped it apart. Eleven gallons of gas totaled $2.84 here in 1947, and a hamburger lunch for two was $2.50 in 1952. This is Spotted Horse, located about 37 miles northwest of Gillette on Highway 14-16. You can still get a burger here, but the school is closed and the post office is no longer operated at the bar and café....
It's All Trew: Rollaway bed was favorite for sleeping, hiding My early day heroes slept in thin blankets, on the hard ground with their heads resting on their saddles. Later, my J. Frank Dobie heroes slept in canvas-covered bedrolls which had to be rolled each morning, tied with a rope and tossed on the chuck wagon. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the cowboys slept in bunks with rope bottoms and covered with ticks filled with hay, grass, corn shucks or cotton. Such stuffing seemed to invite insects so bed legs were stood in small cans of coal oil to keep the ants and other critters away. When settlers were finally able to build conventional homes many contained Murphy beds that folded up into the wall to provide more usable daytime floor space. Some beds stood high off the floors above drafts and at times contained drawers beneath in which small children slept. Until after World War II, everyone I knew used iron bedsteads....
===
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)