Washington policy makers stand in the way of sensible energy policies
After Hurricane Katrina temporarily knocked out 30% of America's oil refinery capacity and caused gasoline prices to spike, it became dramatically obvious that the nation needed to build more refineries away from the vulnerable Gulf Coast. But when a bill to streamline the permitting process and provide incentives to build refineries on closed military bases was headed for the Senate floor, Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R., R.I.) joined with every Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee and blocked the bill. Mr. Chafee says he opposed the bill only because it lacked provisions to develop alternative fuels and raise fuel-economy standards, although he offered no amendments to that effect. But even if conservation takes center stage in the future, existing energy sources must be expanded now before the economy's health is jeopardized. A just published report by the New England Energy Alliance warns that "energy shortages could be acute soon--by 2010 at the latest" if policy makers in the region don't act aggressively. Unfortunately, Mr. Chafee and other senators appear more concerned about fending off the aggressive criticism of the green lobby...But on other energy issues it's Republicans standing in the way of progress. This month, House leaders had to bow to the demands of some two dozen GOP moderates and strip a budget bill of provisions to allow exploration for oil on Alaska's North Slope and permit states like Virginia that wanted to opt out of moratoriums on oil and natural gas exploration off their coasts to do so. Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, has been touting a "windfall profits" tax, even though the net profit margin of oil and gas companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 is 9%, barely above the S&P average of 8%. In reality, high energy prices are often the direct consequence of misguided government policy. After House leaders were forced to remove natural gas drilling provisions from the budget, Jack Gerard of the American Chemistry Council said he was "flabbergasted that some in Congress continue to live in a fantasy world, in which the government encourages use of clean-burning natural gas while cutting off supply, and then they wonder why prices go through the roof." Natural gas prices recently spiked at $14 per million BTUs, the highest in the world and the equivalent of $7 a gallon gasoline...Polls show that the public is now much more willing to consider an expanded role for nuclear power, an environmentally clean way of generating electricity that could also someday help to make hydrogen cars or other alternative means of powering cars economically viable. New plant designs have laid to rest many fears about the safety of nuclear power plants and Mr. Bush now appears to ready to announce a major initiative to promote nuclear energy and also help discourage developing countries from making plutonium that can also be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. In light of the Nimby opposition to storing spent nuclear fuel from utilities at the Yucca waste repository in Nevada, the Bush administration is likely to announce plans to have Washington step in--using a national security justification--and take the spent nuclear fuel off of the hands of utilities. It would then be stored at a federal facility in Nevada where a fuel recycling facility could be built. Fuel could also be recycled at the Savannah River national laboratory in South Carolina. Federal recycling facilities could handle fuel not just for U.S. utilities, but also for those nations who would be willing to give up plans to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle. That would help with the campaign against proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as improve the environment and spur economic growth in the developing world....
Monday, November 28, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
A tough look at a key environmental law The National Environmental Policy Act - known as the Magna Carta of US environmental laws - is under intense political scrutiny. For 35 years, NEPA has required that everything built or operated on federal land that "significantly affects the quality of the human environment" be scrutinized for its impact. Thousands of construction projects and other ventures - from highways, dams, and water projects to military bases and oil drilling - have been adjusted and in some cases scrapped because of the law. The requirements of this Nixon-era act have done much for environmental protection, its supporters say. NEPA also has acted as a "sunshine law," opening the political process involving such decisions to all Americans through "environmental impact statements" allowing for public comment. But the law has also been the basis for hundreds of lawsuits, in effect becoming a tool for activists to slow or kill many projects. NEPA also has greatly added to the cost of public works, energy development, and other beneficial projects, critics say. Most recently, it has been charged, environmental lawsuits under NEPA stymied US Army Corps of Engineers plans that might have lessened the impact of hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast. A congressional task has just ended a series of public hearings in five states and Washington, D.C. Lawmakers heard from a range of interests - the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, the Women's Mining Coalition, the Zuni Tribe, the Sierra Club, energy lobbyists, and local officials. A report and recommendations from the task force are expected shortly. It's unclear whether these will produce major changes to NEPA, as some environmental activists fear, or merely tweaks in the law....
Water deal aims to shield estuary In the first transaction of its kind in Texas, a San Marcos family will protect historic, senior water rights on the San Marcos River by assigning them to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The trust will then leave the 70-acre-feet of water per year in the river to protect the river environment and the gulf estuary that depends on fresh water from the Guadalupe River. "This is kind of a natural evolution for a land trust in Texas," said Todd Votteler, the trust's executive director. "The state has been struggling with how to protect in stream flows for the protection of bays and estuaries. "There have been a lot of suggestions that people purchase water rights and retire them. I truly think you will see other river authorities doing this." The Thornton family in San Marcos agreed to lease the right for the 70-acre-feet of water, some 23 million gallons a year, to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority for five years for $3,675 a year. The GBRA in turn agreed to assign that water right to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The family and the trust expect the lease to be extended at the end of five years....
Coyotes come out of wilderness and into Bay Area's backyards There was no mistaking the high-pitched yipping, and Cathy Donaghey wasn't about to stick around to investigate. The 37-year-old resident of Tamalpais Valley, an unincorporated section of Mill Valley, was jogging one recent foggy day on a ridge near her home when her dog, Buddy, ran into some coyotes. Donaghey picked up her pace when Buddy tore out of the brush, apparently in full flight. To her horror, she could hear the coyotes running behind her, yipping as they closed the gap. "I was so terrified," said Donaghey, who lives on Skyline Terrace. "I was running, and they were getting closer and closer the whole time. I don't know why they didn't catch us. Maybe it was a game to them." These days, her story isn't as unusual as it might seem. Coyote sightings and confrontations with humans have increased dramatically over the past few years in the Bay Area, according to wildlife experts, although they say coyotes are still rarely a threat to humans....
Can N.Y. residents, coyotes coexist? The high yippy howl of a group of Eastern coyotes is becoming a common sound in the suburbs surrounding Rochester. But that sound need not inspire fear, said wildlife rehabilitator Elise Able, during a recent presentation to local Sierra Club members. "They are in New York, and they are here to stay, so we need to learn to coexist with them," Able said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that New York has 20,000 to 30,000 coyotes, medium-sized members of the canine family that have appeared in the Northeast over the past 50 years. Coyotes have always lived in the Southwest. But once wolves began disappearing from the United States, about a century ago, coyotes began to drift north and east, filling the niche abandoned by their larger cousin. Today, most biologists believe that the Eastern coyote is a separate species, larger than its Western ancestors as a result of long-ago interbreeding with wolves during its migration....
trouble in paradise After a short hike off a township road, Dr. Scott Stephens crested a hill in the Missouri Coteau and scanned a landscape that makes waterfowl biologists pause in appreciation. Here was the breadbasket of U.S. duck production. It folds to the horizon in a series of broad wetlands and lakes, nestled among rolling hills and interspersed among large tracts of grasslands never touched by a plow. Each spring, the skies over the Coteau hill country are filled with skeins of ducks anxious for breeding, said Stephens, a biologist for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. With the grasslands acting as magnets for the ground-nesting birds, the Coteau hosts up to 125 duck pairs per square mile, some of the highest duck-nesting densities on the continent. But Stephens said this duck paradise is threatened by a newcomer to the hill country — genetically altered varieties of corn and soybeans that are supplanting the native grasslands....
Sharp-tailed grouse spark debate Environmentalists want the federal government to consider listing the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And, they're considering filing a lawsuit if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't respond to a petition filed over a year ago. "Protection for the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse is urgently needed to avoid a downward spiral," said Jon Marvel of Western Watersheds Project, one of the groups involved in the petition. "Inaction may cause this rare bird to join the many other species that have gone extinct due to delays in listing." Western Watersheds, along with seven other organizations, recently sent the Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day warning letter demanding a response to their petition....
County will try to repair contentious land-use rule Despite pleas to throw it in the trash, the county Board of Supervisors last week chose to repair a deeply troubled program designed to nudge growth from rural to urban areas. Describing it as "a tool that needs to be redesigned," Supervisor Jerry Lenthall argued that the board should reshape the complicated ordinance, which provides for the Transfer of Development Credits program. The supervisors' move followed a three-hour public hearing at which, by Supervisor Jim Patterson's count, 26 people criticized the Transfer of Development Credits program and only three supported it. Most asked for either a countywide moratorium or dropping the program altogether. The assault on TDCs has been going on for months. Last week was no exception. Words and phrases such as "travesty," "pillage," "quick buck," "dysfunctional," "disingenuous" and "recall" filled the supervisors' chambers. Under the program, a rural landowner can sell his right to develop on his property to a buyer who would transfer that right to another piece of land -- ideally, closer to an urban area where roads, water, sewer and other infrastructure exist....
Group lobbies for fewer roads in Breaks area More than 99 percent of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument would be within two miles of a road under the Bureau of Land Management's proposed alternative for managing the area. The figure comes from The Wilderness Society, which compared BLM's preferred proposal with the present and with its own plan, called the Citizens Alternative Transportation Plan. The comparison comes as the BLM is launching a series of 11 meetings around the state over the next two weeks to take public comments on its draft resource management plan. The first meeting is Monday in Lewistown. Chris Mehl, Wilderness Society spokesman in Bozeman, said there's nothing wrong with providing road access to the monument, but roads that divide wildlife habitat should be removed. Mehl pointed to a study by wildlife biologist L. Jack Lyon that found, in part, that elk habitat is 25 percent less effective if there is a density of one mile of road per square mile of land, jumping to 50 percent if the density is two miles of road per square mile of land. Under the BLM's proposal, 216 miles of the current 594 miles of roads identified within the monument would be closed and an additional 171 miles would be open only seasonally....
Wild Turkey Killings in Yosemite Ruffle Feathers Ranger Chris Cagle, a lanky six-year veteran of the national park police force, was just following orders when, armed with his Remington 870 pump shotgun, he ventured into the woods last spring after an illegal tom that had settled into the area with a few of his favorite hens. The resulting demise of the 25-pound male turkey highlighted an unusual policy that has turned the park's protectors into bird hunters. For the last two years, rangers here in California's most famous national park have had a shoot-to-kill order every time they spot the wild version of Thanksgiving's main course. "We are experiencing disturbing movement of this exotic species into Yosemite," the park's chief wildlife biologist, Steve Thompson, warned in an internal park memo that led to the current turkey eradication program. "Although we have periodically been aware of turkeys along the southwestern boundary of the park, the current invasion is unprecedented in numbers and range."....
Logging study indicates Forest Service is turning green trees into red ink Logging of national forests costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to one new estimate, as federal land managers try to marry a century old program that produced lumber to one that squeezes out relatively few products while waging a war on wildfires. Subsidization of logging continues to grow because congressional spending on the Forest Service program has held steady, and in some cases increased, while timber harvest levels have fallen dramatically over the past 15 years, a conservation group's new study says. The shift from large-scale clear cuts to commercial thinning of forests and fuels reduction projects has accelerated the government's losses to an estimated $6.6 billion since 1997, according to Rene Voss of the nonprofit John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute, author of the new study. "The bottom line is that on average over the last seven years, the Forest Service has lost what we estimate to be $835 million annually," he said....
Study: Tanks coexisting well with endangered species If you want to increase biodiversity and protect endangered species, bring in tanks and soldiers. Not to shoot hunters and poachers, but simply to maneuver and train. That’s the finding of a new environmental study done for U.S. Army Installation Management Agency—Europe (IMA-E) by researchers at the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Those researchers reached a surprising conclusion — certain threatened and endangered species fare far better in the huge Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels military training areas in Bavaria, where thousands of troops train, firing tanks and other heavy weapons, than in nearby German national parks and nature preserves....
Column: Logging helps keep salmon runs healthy Many Californians will take time out this fall to witness an annual event — the running of salmon in our state's rivers. The run will go on for weeks. But efforts to make those runs successful, and provide clean water for humans, go on year-round. At the front lines of clean water in California are our forests and the men and women who manage them. Since about 75 percent of California's drinking and irrigation water comes from Northern California forests, they play a big part in determining whether our water is clean or not. Two myths, unfortunately, have pervaded many people's views of water and forestry. One is that managing our forests harms California's waterways. The other is that the condition of inland watersheds is the primary factor affecting salmon. Neither is true....
Wildland research hub opens to assess forest, range threats A new forest and wildland health assessment center has opened for business. The Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center in Prineville is one of two pioneer research hubs charged with detecting, evaluating and predicting natural and manmade risks to forests and rangeland. Housed in the Ochoco National Forest headquarters, the Prineville assessment center will monitor the western half of the nation while its counterpart in Asheville, N.C., will track the eastern half. Both centers are funded by the U.S. Forest Service. Along with analyzing information, the centers will act as an early-warning system for land managers, alerting them to major hazards or potential natural catastrophes. What sets the assessment centers apart from other scientific agencies is that they will analyze multiple environmental threats — including climate changes, invasive species and insect infestation, said Jerry Beatty, the director of the Prineville center. For example, an insect infestation could kill trees, leading to a buildup of dead wood that could increase fire risks, said Terry Shaw, chief scientist for the center. Studying how these factors interact and predicting what could happen under different scenarios would help forest and range managers take more effective steps to head off problems....
Forest Service removes wilderness 'throne' A remote outhouse that came to symbolize a throne of sorts in a war of wills between the U.S. Forest Service and anti-federal activists over a dirt road and a threatened fish has been removed. The cement vault toilet at the end of South Canyon Road in Jarbidge was taken out earlier this month by a contractor also hired to remove a bridge damaged by flooding a decade ago, Forest Service officials said. The privy's removal -- at a cost of $21,500 -- has irked critics who scoff that excavation equipment was used to haul the load through the Jarbidge River and on a road supposedly off-limits to motorized traffic by federal mandate. Others wonder what all the stink is about. "It's just a matter of, 'Don't do as I do, do as I tell you,'" said O.Q. "Chris" Johnson, a founding member of the Shovel Brigade, an anti-federal group that arose from the conflict and got its name when sympathizers from around the West donated truckloads of shovels. "It's gross hypocrisy for them to go up there and make a big mess. They have to make a mess to put a road in there," he said....
Pa. native author of 1964 Wilderness Act; new biography released in October American wilderness has always had its poetic proponents — from Henry David Thoreau to John Muir to Rachel Carson. But it's a less well known writer whose words have had a more practical impact on America's wild places — Pennsylvania native Howard Zahniser, the author of the Wilderness Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Wilderness Act was the definitive piece of legislature that changed the way the federal government viewed and managed public wild lands. With this bill, pristine forests, deserts and mountains were declared, by an act of Congress, forever wild. Sadly, Zahniser died four months before his work came to fruition. It was his widow, Alice, who stood next to the president when he signed the bill into law. At the request of Public Opinion, Alice, and the Zahnisers' youngest son, Ed, agreed to talk about the man whose passion was wilderness....
The Civil War Hero Who Started the Conservation Movement A chance meeting in a Montana stage stop led General Phil Sheridan to become a central figure in the 19th Century’s conservation movement--which, in turn, that led to the environmental movement a century later. Sheridan, the feisty former cavalry commander, known as “Little Phil,” was one of the top three hero Union generals of the Civil War along with William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. He won the last major battle of the war, defeated cavalry genius Jeb Stuart and led the Union’s successful Shenandoah Valley campaign. His famous ride from Winchester, Virginia to rally his troops to victory at Cedar Creek in 1864 was turned into a popular poem, recited by school children for the next 50 years. He also was famous for his “scorched earth” policies during the Shenandoah campaign, his harsh reconstruction policies in Texas and the phrase “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” But after he met a mountain man on the road to Helena in May of 1870, who regaled him with tales of the wonders of Yellowstone, the hunter and former ornithologist turned into one of the park’s leading advocates. Sheridan sent Army escorts on the explorations that led Congress to protect it. Later, he fought the Northern Pacific Railroad’s effort to monopolize the park. He called for expanding its boundaries to include the entire habitat of the park’s big game, leading a movement for what was then called “Greater Yellowstone.”
California: Official Scapegoat of Montana? When things go wrong in Montana, chances are it’s some Californian’s fault—at least that’s what many of us in Montana assume. When property values get too expensive for average folks, it’s got to be because of all those people moving here from California. When places like Reserve Street bring in the big box stores and accompanying cookie-cutter subdivisions, it’s those Californians. Problem is, most of the transplants moving to Western Montana aren’t from California. According to a report published in 2003 by Montana Business Quarterly, most transplants come over from Washington with California coming in second. Here’s another kicker from the report. In 2001 there were 3,700 Californians moving to Montana and 2,900 Montanans moving to California. The report goes on to state that “…for those moving from one house to another [in Montana], we see that slightly more than half, or 195,434 persons, moved from one county in Montana to another.” For Missoula County, between 1995 and 2000, only around 16 percent of the people moving here were from out of state. In other words, folks from Montana are moving around Montana....
Man lives dream tanning buffalo hides When Larry Belitz was a boy growing up on an Iowa farm in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became enthralled with the romance of long-ago American Indian lore. His uncle, an agent who helped teach Indians to farm, sent him items such as beaded moccasins and belts. The boy imagined himself back in the Old West, making things provided only by nature. Belitz has been living that dream for more than 30 years, making buffalo hide tipis, buffalo robes and other items from buffalo using traditional methods practiced by 19th century Plains Indians. He uses no materials, tools or equipment that weren't available before 1880. He buys buffalo hides from ranchers who don't brand their animals and who slaughter and skin the animals in the field so there are no brands or bruise marks from buffalo attacking each other in trucks. He stretches out the hides on a rack made of 2-by 6-inch boards in his small red barn. Belitz uses an elkhorn scraper with a metal blade to scrape the fat, meat and membrane from the hides. Metal, he says, was available to Plains Indians before 1880....
Charles Goodnight Award No elaborate, eye-catching signs mark the entrances to the Beggs family ranches – only the Beggs name and brand, a three-line barbed wire fence and some cedar posts. No books have been written about the family’s ranching heritage, which began with George Beggs Sr. in 1876. And if you wanted to write a book, you probably wouldn’t get much help from George Beggs III, the family patriarch. The family’s history and its unwavering determination to sustain its precious legacy in a modern world that can be unfriendly to the ways of the old West have earned the Beggs family the 2005 Charles Goodnight Award, which is presented annually to individuals and institutions who have made outstanding contributions to the preservation of the Western heritage that is so revered in Fort Worth and throughout Texas. The award is named for the great Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), who cemented his place in Texas lore with his legendary exploits on the cattle trails and with his million-acre ranch in the Panhandle, where he introduced landmark innovations in cattle breeding and agribusiness. The Beggs family will accept the award Dec. 1 during the Goodnight Gala at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth. Proceeds from the gala, held in conjunction with the National Cutting Horse Association’s World Championship Futurity, will benefit the Texas Christian University Ranch Management Program, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Cattle Raisers Museum....
Monsters on the Rio Grande Most peoples of the world have myths and legends of monsters and other fanciful creatures that spring from humanity's fertile imagination. For a thousand years before Columbus, Europeans busily assembled a reservoir of lore about oneeyed beasts, dragons, giants, amazons and headless monsters that breathed through their stomachs. These weird ideas and legends were quickly transferred to America. On many of the earliest maps, engravers included images of sea monsters and land dragons in those spaces still unexplored. The Spaniards who settled New Mexico at the beginning of the colonial era brought with them their Old World notions of monsters and mythical beings. For example, when Juan de Oñate led an expedition from the upper Rio Grande westward to Arizona in 1604, he was accompanied by Father Francisco de Escobar. The priest was an expert in Indian languages. In speaking to natives along the Colorado River, he claimed they told him of curious beings who lived beyond the horizon, “monstrous and never seen in our time.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: The bird by any other name would taste like turkey The latest in the civilized world's need to right old wrongs is the country of Turkey's objection to the use of the name turkey to describe a rather intellectually challenged bird with a snood. "It casts us in an unflattering light, offends our ancestors and we are not getting any royalties!" they stated fictitiously. The objection is ironic considering they were embroiled in a similar argument with the foot stool industry when they started calling themselves The Ottoman Empire. The self-appointed, quasi Federal Politically Correct Commission, (FPCC) is forcing the U.S. Turkey Taxonomic Team (TTT) to rename their beloved beast. In response, the team submitted the general sounding Big White Bird, but were immediately attacked by Sesame Street for copyright infringement and by the Color Discrimination League (CDL)....
A tough look at a key environmental law The National Environmental Policy Act - known as the Magna Carta of US environmental laws - is under intense political scrutiny. For 35 years, NEPA has required that everything built or operated on federal land that "significantly affects the quality of the human environment" be scrutinized for its impact. Thousands of construction projects and other ventures - from highways, dams, and water projects to military bases and oil drilling - have been adjusted and in some cases scrapped because of the law. The requirements of this Nixon-era act have done much for environmental protection, its supporters say. NEPA also has acted as a "sunshine law," opening the political process involving such decisions to all Americans through "environmental impact statements" allowing for public comment. But the law has also been the basis for hundreds of lawsuits, in effect becoming a tool for activists to slow or kill many projects. NEPA also has greatly added to the cost of public works, energy development, and other beneficial projects, critics say. Most recently, it has been charged, environmental lawsuits under NEPA stymied US Army Corps of Engineers plans that might have lessened the impact of hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast. A congressional task has just ended a series of public hearings in five states and Washington, D.C. Lawmakers heard from a range of interests - the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, the Women's Mining Coalition, the Zuni Tribe, the Sierra Club, energy lobbyists, and local officials. A report and recommendations from the task force are expected shortly. It's unclear whether these will produce major changes to NEPA, as some environmental activists fear, or merely tweaks in the law....
Water deal aims to shield estuary In the first transaction of its kind in Texas, a San Marcos family will protect historic, senior water rights on the San Marcos River by assigning them to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The trust will then leave the 70-acre-feet of water per year in the river to protect the river environment and the gulf estuary that depends on fresh water from the Guadalupe River. "This is kind of a natural evolution for a land trust in Texas," said Todd Votteler, the trust's executive director. "The state has been struggling with how to protect in stream flows for the protection of bays and estuaries. "There have been a lot of suggestions that people purchase water rights and retire them. I truly think you will see other river authorities doing this." The Thornton family in San Marcos agreed to lease the right for the 70-acre-feet of water, some 23 million gallons a year, to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority for five years for $3,675 a year. The GBRA in turn agreed to assign that water right to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Trust. The family and the trust expect the lease to be extended at the end of five years....
Coyotes come out of wilderness and into Bay Area's backyards There was no mistaking the high-pitched yipping, and Cathy Donaghey wasn't about to stick around to investigate. The 37-year-old resident of Tamalpais Valley, an unincorporated section of Mill Valley, was jogging one recent foggy day on a ridge near her home when her dog, Buddy, ran into some coyotes. Donaghey picked up her pace when Buddy tore out of the brush, apparently in full flight. To her horror, she could hear the coyotes running behind her, yipping as they closed the gap. "I was so terrified," said Donaghey, who lives on Skyline Terrace. "I was running, and they were getting closer and closer the whole time. I don't know why they didn't catch us. Maybe it was a game to them." These days, her story isn't as unusual as it might seem. Coyote sightings and confrontations with humans have increased dramatically over the past few years in the Bay Area, according to wildlife experts, although they say coyotes are still rarely a threat to humans....
Can N.Y. residents, coyotes coexist? The high yippy howl of a group of Eastern coyotes is becoming a common sound in the suburbs surrounding Rochester. But that sound need not inspire fear, said wildlife rehabilitator Elise Able, during a recent presentation to local Sierra Club members. "They are in New York, and they are here to stay, so we need to learn to coexist with them," Able said. The state Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that New York has 20,000 to 30,000 coyotes, medium-sized members of the canine family that have appeared in the Northeast over the past 50 years. Coyotes have always lived in the Southwest. But once wolves began disappearing from the United States, about a century ago, coyotes began to drift north and east, filling the niche abandoned by their larger cousin. Today, most biologists believe that the Eastern coyote is a separate species, larger than its Western ancestors as a result of long-ago interbreeding with wolves during its migration....
trouble in paradise After a short hike off a township road, Dr. Scott Stephens crested a hill in the Missouri Coteau and scanned a landscape that makes waterfowl biologists pause in appreciation. Here was the breadbasket of U.S. duck production. It folds to the horizon in a series of broad wetlands and lakes, nestled among rolling hills and interspersed among large tracts of grasslands never touched by a plow. Each spring, the skies over the Coteau hill country are filled with skeins of ducks anxious for breeding, said Stephens, a biologist for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited. With the grasslands acting as magnets for the ground-nesting birds, the Coteau hosts up to 125 duck pairs per square mile, some of the highest duck-nesting densities on the continent. But Stephens said this duck paradise is threatened by a newcomer to the hill country — genetically altered varieties of corn and soybeans that are supplanting the native grasslands....
Sharp-tailed grouse spark debate Environmentalists want the federal government to consider listing the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And, they're considering filing a lawsuit if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't respond to a petition filed over a year ago. "Protection for the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse is urgently needed to avoid a downward spiral," said Jon Marvel of Western Watersheds Project, one of the groups involved in the petition. "Inaction may cause this rare bird to join the many other species that have gone extinct due to delays in listing." Western Watersheds, along with seven other organizations, recently sent the Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day warning letter demanding a response to their petition....
County will try to repair contentious land-use rule Despite pleas to throw it in the trash, the county Board of Supervisors last week chose to repair a deeply troubled program designed to nudge growth from rural to urban areas. Describing it as "a tool that needs to be redesigned," Supervisor Jerry Lenthall argued that the board should reshape the complicated ordinance, which provides for the Transfer of Development Credits program. The supervisors' move followed a three-hour public hearing at which, by Supervisor Jim Patterson's count, 26 people criticized the Transfer of Development Credits program and only three supported it. Most asked for either a countywide moratorium or dropping the program altogether. The assault on TDCs has been going on for months. Last week was no exception. Words and phrases such as "travesty," "pillage," "quick buck," "dysfunctional," "disingenuous" and "recall" filled the supervisors' chambers. Under the program, a rural landowner can sell his right to develop on his property to a buyer who would transfer that right to another piece of land -- ideally, closer to an urban area where roads, water, sewer and other infrastructure exist....
Group lobbies for fewer roads in Breaks area More than 99 percent of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument would be within two miles of a road under the Bureau of Land Management's proposed alternative for managing the area. The figure comes from The Wilderness Society, which compared BLM's preferred proposal with the present and with its own plan, called the Citizens Alternative Transportation Plan. The comparison comes as the BLM is launching a series of 11 meetings around the state over the next two weeks to take public comments on its draft resource management plan. The first meeting is Monday in Lewistown. Chris Mehl, Wilderness Society spokesman in Bozeman, said there's nothing wrong with providing road access to the monument, but roads that divide wildlife habitat should be removed. Mehl pointed to a study by wildlife biologist L. Jack Lyon that found, in part, that elk habitat is 25 percent less effective if there is a density of one mile of road per square mile of land, jumping to 50 percent if the density is two miles of road per square mile of land. Under the BLM's proposal, 216 miles of the current 594 miles of roads identified within the monument would be closed and an additional 171 miles would be open only seasonally....
Wild Turkey Killings in Yosemite Ruffle Feathers Ranger Chris Cagle, a lanky six-year veteran of the national park police force, was just following orders when, armed with his Remington 870 pump shotgun, he ventured into the woods last spring after an illegal tom that had settled into the area with a few of his favorite hens. The resulting demise of the 25-pound male turkey highlighted an unusual policy that has turned the park's protectors into bird hunters. For the last two years, rangers here in California's most famous national park have had a shoot-to-kill order every time they spot the wild version of Thanksgiving's main course. "We are experiencing disturbing movement of this exotic species into Yosemite," the park's chief wildlife biologist, Steve Thompson, warned in an internal park memo that led to the current turkey eradication program. "Although we have periodically been aware of turkeys along the southwestern boundary of the park, the current invasion is unprecedented in numbers and range."....
Logging study indicates Forest Service is turning green trees into red ink Logging of national forests costs U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to one new estimate, as federal land managers try to marry a century old program that produced lumber to one that squeezes out relatively few products while waging a war on wildfires. Subsidization of logging continues to grow because congressional spending on the Forest Service program has held steady, and in some cases increased, while timber harvest levels have fallen dramatically over the past 15 years, a conservation group's new study says. The shift from large-scale clear cuts to commercial thinning of forests and fuels reduction projects has accelerated the government's losses to an estimated $6.6 billion since 1997, according to Rene Voss of the nonprofit John Muir Project of the Earth Island Institute, author of the new study. "The bottom line is that on average over the last seven years, the Forest Service has lost what we estimate to be $835 million annually," he said....
Study: Tanks coexisting well with endangered species If you want to increase biodiversity and protect endangered species, bring in tanks and soldiers. Not to shoot hunters and poachers, but simply to maneuver and train. That’s the finding of a new environmental study done for U.S. Army Installation Management Agency—Europe (IMA-E) by researchers at the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Those researchers reached a surprising conclusion — certain threatened and endangered species fare far better in the huge Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels military training areas in Bavaria, where thousands of troops train, firing tanks and other heavy weapons, than in nearby German national parks and nature preserves....
Column: Logging helps keep salmon runs healthy Many Californians will take time out this fall to witness an annual event — the running of salmon in our state's rivers. The run will go on for weeks. But efforts to make those runs successful, and provide clean water for humans, go on year-round. At the front lines of clean water in California are our forests and the men and women who manage them. Since about 75 percent of California's drinking and irrigation water comes from Northern California forests, they play a big part in determining whether our water is clean or not. Two myths, unfortunately, have pervaded many people's views of water and forestry. One is that managing our forests harms California's waterways. The other is that the condition of inland watersheds is the primary factor affecting salmon. Neither is true....
Wildland research hub opens to assess forest, range threats A new forest and wildland health assessment center has opened for business. The Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center in Prineville is one of two pioneer research hubs charged with detecting, evaluating and predicting natural and manmade risks to forests and rangeland. Housed in the Ochoco National Forest headquarters, the Prineville assessment center will monitor the western half of the nation while its counterpart in Asheville, N.C., will track the eastern half. Both centers are funded by the U.S. Forest Service. Along with analyzing information, the centers will act as an early-warning system for land managers, alerting them to major hazards or potential natural catastrophes. What sets the assessment centers apart from other scientific agencies is that they will analyze multiple environmental threats — including climate changes, invasive species and insect infestation, said Jerry Beatty, the director of the Prineville center. For example, an insect infestation could kill trees, leading to a buildup of dead wood that could increase fire risks, said Terry Shaw, chief scientist for the center. Studying how these factors interact and predicting what could happen under different scenarios would help forest and range managers take more effective steps to head off problems....
Forest Service removes wilderness 'throne' A remote outhouse that came to symbolize a throne of sorts in a war of wills between the U.S. Forest Service and anti-federal activists over a dirt road and a threatened fish has been removed. The cement vault toilet at the end of South Canyon Road in Jarbidge was taken out earlier this month by a contractor also hired to remove a bridge damaged by flooding a decade ago, Forest Service officials said. The privy's removal -- at a cost of $21,500 -- has irked critics who scoff that excavation equipment was used to haul the load through the Jarbidge River and on a road supposedly off-limits to motorized traffic by federal mandate. Others wonder what all the stink is about. "It's just a matter of, 'Don't do as I do, do as I tell you,'" said O.Q. "Chris" Johnson, a founding member of the Shovel Brigade, an anti-federal group that arose from the conflict and got its name when sympathizers from around the West donated truckloads of shovels. "It's gross hypocrisy for them to go up there and make a big mess. They have to make a mess to put a road in there," he said....
Pa. native author of 1964 Wilderness Act; new biography released in October American wilderness has always had its poetic proponents — from Henry David Thoreau to John Muir to Rachel Carson. But it's a less well known writer whose words have had a more practical impact on America's wild places — Pennsylvania native Howard Zahniser, the author of the Wilderness Act. Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Wilderness Act was the definitive piece of legislature that changed the way the federal government viewed and managed public wild lands. With this bill, pristine forests, deserts and mountains were declared, by an act of Congress, forever wild. Sadly, Zahniser died four months before his work came to fruition. It was his widow, Alice, who stood next to the president when he signed the bill into law. At the request of Public Opinion, Alice, and the Zahnisers' youngest son, Ed, agreed to talk about the man whose passion was wilderness....
The Civil War Hero Who Started the Conservation Movement A chance meeting in a Montana stage stop led General Phil Sheridan to become a central figure in the 19th Century’s conservation movement--which, in turn, that led to the environmental movement a century later. Sheridan, the feisty former cavalry commander, known as “Little Phil,” was one of the top three hero Union generals of the Civil War along with William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant. He won the last major battle of the war, defeated cavalry genius Jeb Stuart and led the Union’s successful Shenandoah Valley campaign. His famous ride from Winchester, Virginia to rally his troops to victory at Cedar Creek in 1864 was turned into a popular poem, recited by school children for the next 50 years. He also was famous for his “scorched earth” policies during the Shenandoah campaign, his harsh reconstruction policies in Texas and the phrase “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” But after he met a mountain man on the road to Helena in May of 1870, who regaled him with tales of the wonders of Yellowstone, the hunter and former ornithologist turned into one of the park’s leading advocates. Sheridan sent Army escorts on the explorations that led Congress to protect it. Later, he fought the Northern Pacific Railroad’s effort to monopolize the park. He called for expanding its boundaries to include the entire habitat of the park’s big game, leading a movement for what was then called “Greater Yellowstone.”
California: Official Scapegoat of Montana? When things go wrong in Montana, chances are it’s some Californian’s fault—at least that’s what many of us in Montana assume. When property values get too expensive for average folks, it’s got to be because of all those people moving here from California. When places like Reserve Street bring in the big box stores and accompanying cookie-cutter subdivisions, it’s those Californians. Problem is, most of the transplants moving to Western Montana aren’t from California. According to a report published in 2003 by Montana Business Quarterly, most transplants come over from Washington with California coming in second. Here’s another kicker from the report. In 2001 there were 3,700 Californians moving to Montana and 2,900 Montanans moving to California. The report goes on to state that “…for those moving from one house to another [in Montana], we see that slightly more than half, or 195,434 persons, moved from one county in Montana to another.” For Missoula County, between 1995 and 2000, only around 16 percent of the people moving here were from out of state. In other words, folks from Montana are moving around Montana....
Man lives dream tanning buffalo hides When Larry Belitz was a boy growing up on an Iowa farm in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became enthralled with the romance of long-ago American Indian lore. His uncle, an agent who helped teach Indians to farm, sent him items such as beaded moccasins and belts. The boy imagined himself back in the Old West, making things provided only by nature. Belitz has been living that dream for more than 30 years, making buffalo hide tipis, buffalo robes and other items from buffalo using traditional methods practiced by 19th century Plains Indians. He uses no materials, tools or equipment that weren't available before 1880. He buys buffalo hides from ranchers who don't brand their animals and who slaughter and skin the animals in the field so there are no brands or bruise marks from buffalo attacking each other in trucks. He stretches out the hides on a rack made of 2-by 6-inch boards in his small red barn. Belitz uses an elkhorn scraper with a metal blade to scrape the fat, meat and membrane from the hides. Metal, he says, was available to Plains Indians before 1880....
Charles Goodnight Award No elaborate, eye-catching signs mark the entrances to the Beggs family ranches – only the Beggs name and brand, a three-line barbed wire fence and some cedar posts. No books have been written about the family’s ranching heritage, which began with George Beggs Sr. in 1876. And if you wanted to write a book, you probably wouldn’t get much help from George Beggs III, the family patriarch. The family’s history and its unwavering determination to sustain its precious legacy in a modern world that can be unfriendly to the ways of the old West have earned the Beggs family the 2005 Charles Goodnight Award, which is presented annually to individuals and institutions who have made outstanding contributions to the preservation of the Western heritage that is so revered in Fort Worth and throughout Texas. The award is named for the great Texas cattleman Charles Goodnight (1836-1929), who cemented his place in Texas lore with his legendary exploits on the cattle trails and with his million-acre ranch in the Panhandle, where he introduced landmark innovations in cattle breeding and agribusiness. The Beggs family will accept the award Dec. 1 during the Goodnight Gala at the Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth. Proceeds from the gala, held in conjunction with the National Cutting Horse Association’s World Championship Futurity, will benefit the Texas Christian University Ranch Management Program, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, and the Cattle Raisers Museum....
Monsters on the Rio Grande Most peoples of the world have myths and legends of monsters and other fanciful creatures that spring from humanity's fertile imagination. For a thousand years before Columbus, Europeans busily assembled a reservoir of lore about oneeyed beasts, dragons, giants, amazons and headless monsters that breathed through their stomachs. These weird ideas and legends were quickly transferred to America. On many of the earliest maps, engravers included images of sea monsters and land dragons in those spaces still unexplored. The Spaniards who settled New Mexico at the beginning of the colonial era brought with them their Old World notions of monsters and mythical beings. For example, when Juan de Oñate led an expedition from the upper Rio Grande westward to Arizona in 1604, he was accompanied by Father Francisco de Escobar. The priest was an expert in Indian languages. In speaking to natives along the Colorado River, he claimed they told him of curious beings who lived beyond the horizon, “monstrous and never seen in our time.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: The bird by any other name would taste like turkey The latest in the civilized world's need to right old wrongs is the country of Turkey's objection to the use of the name turkey to describe a rather intellectually challenged bird with a snood. "It casts us in an unflattering light, offends our ancestors and we are not getting any royalties!" they stated fictitiously. The objection is ironic considering they were embroiled in a similar argument with the foot stool industry when they started calling themselves The Ottoman Empire. The self-appointed, quasi Federal Politically Correct Commission, (FPCC) is forcing the U.S. Turkey Taxonomic Team (TTT) to rename their beloved beast. In response, the team submitted the general sounding Big White Bird, but were immediately attacked by Sesame Street for copyright infringement and by the Color Discrimination League (CDL)....
Sunday, November 27, 2005
FLE
Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage. The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public....
Administration heads off legal showdown over executive powers
The Justice Department's decision to indict Jose Padilla is the latest example of how the Bush administration short-circuits any legal review of the expansive powers it has claimed in the war on terror, legal experts said Tuesday. In the Padilla case, the administration wanted to prevent a showdown in the Supreme Court over whether the president legally can hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without criminal charges by declaring him an enemy combatant. The Justice Department faced a Monday deadline for filing an argument urging the Supreme Court not to review the Padilla case. Many legal experts expected the court to take the case and resolve the issue of presidential authority. One staunch defender of the administration said the dramatic shift suggested that the Justice Department may have lost confidence in its legal arguments in the enemy combatant case. "I think this is a sign of fear that they would lose," said David Rivkin, who has worked in the Justice Department for Republican administrations. "But there is no way the Supreme Court was going to order the release of someone like Padilla." The Bush administration has taken similar actions in cases that seemed likely to resolve issues of the president's authority. Last year, in a related case, the Supreme Court ruled that while the president has the authority to hold citizens as enemy combatants, it said that there needed to be more due process in the system and indicated that some restrictions on the president's authority were possible. It ordered a lower court to consider the case anew. But when lower courts were about to examine the case of Yaser Hamdi - who had grown up in Saudi Arabia but had been born in the United States and was being held in a Navy brig - the military released him and allowed him to return to Saudi Arabia rather than face a challenge in court....
In Terror Cases, Administration Sets Own Rules
When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced last week that Jose Padilla would be transferred to the federal justice system from military detention, he said almost nothing about the standards the administration used in deciding whether to charge terrorism suspects like Mr. Padilla with crimes or to hold them in military facilities as enemy combatants. "We take each individual, each case, case by case," Mr. Gonzales said. The upshot of that approach, underscored by the decision in Mr. Padilla's case, is that no one outside the administration knows just how the determination is made whether to handle a terror suspect as an enemy combatant or as a common criminal, to hold him indefinitely without charges in a military facility or to charge him in court. Indeed, citing the need to combat terrorism, the administration has argued, with varying degrees of success, that judges should have essentially no role in reviewing its decisions. The change in Mr. Padilla's status, just days before the government's legal papers were due in his appeal to the Supreme Court, suggested to many legal observers that the administration wanted to keep the court out of the case. "The position of the executive branch," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University who has consulted with lawyers for several detainees, "is that it can be judge, jury and executioner." The government says a secret and unilateral decision-making process is necessary because of the nature of the evidence it deals with. Officials described the approach as a practical one that weighs a mix of often-sensitive factors....
Privacy laws disarming gun dealer database
An Alabama man with a history of mental illness killed two police officers with a rifle he bought on Christmas Eve. In suburban New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church during Mass and fatally shot a priest and a parishioner. Neither of their names was in a database that licensed gun dealers must check before making sales -- even though federal law prohibits the mentally ill from buying guns. Most states have privacy laws barring such information from being shared with law enforcement. Legislation pending in Congress that has bipartisan support seeks to get more of the disqualifying records in the database. Similar measures, opposed by some advocates for the mentally ill and gun-rights groups, did not pass Congress in 2002 and 2004. The FBI, which maintains the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), has not taken a position on the bill, but the bureau is blunt about what adding names to its database would do. "The availability of this information will save lives," the FBI said in a recent report. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, New York Democrat, says millions of records are either missing or incomplete. "The computer is only as good as the information you put in it," she said....
Another's habit up your nose
At my local drugstore, shelves of cold and allergy medicine have been replaced by merchandise cards hanging from metal rods. If I want to buy one of these remedies, I have to take the corresponding card to the pharmacist's counter, wait in line, show my ID and add my name to a register. This procedure, required by an "emergency order" from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, is supposed to prevent me from using the pseudoephedrine in products such as Sudafed and Dayquil to cook up a batch of methamphetamine in my garage. If you're not lucky enough to live in a state with similar restrictions, fear not: Under the Combat Meth Act, which Congress is expected to pass soon, you too can be treated like a criminal the next time you have nasal congestion, thereby doing your part to help achieve a drug-free society. "This legislation is a dagger at the heart of meth manufacturing in America," says Missouri Republican Sen. Jim Talent, the bill's co-sponsor with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. "If you can't get pseudoephedrine, you can't make meth." According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, some 80 percent of the illicit meth consumed in the United States comes from large-scale Mexican traffickers, who buy their pseudoephedrine in bulk rather than a couple of boxes at a time from CVS. Restricting retail access to pseudoephedrine may shift production from small local labs and toward the big-time meth makers who already account for most of the supply, but it's unlikely to affect consumption noticeably....
Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity
The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage. The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public....
Administration heads off legal showdown over executive powers
The Justice Department's decision to indict Jose Padilla is the latest example of how the Bush administration short-circuits any legal review of the expansive powers it has claimed in the war on terror, legal experts said Tuesday. In the Padilla case, the administration wanted to prevent a showdown in the Supreme Court over whether the president legally can hold a U.S. citizen indefinitely without criminal charges by declaring him an enemy combatant. The Justice Department faced a Monday deadline for filing an argument urging the Supreme Court not to review the Padilla case. Many legal experts expected the court to take the case and resolve the issue of presidential authority. One staunch defender of the administration said the dramatic shift suggested that the Justice Department may have lost confidence in its legal arguments in the enemy combatant case. "I think this is a sign of fear that they would lose," said David Rivkin, who has worked in the Justice Department for Republican administrations. "But there is no way the Supreme Court was going to order the release of someone like Padilla." The Bush administration has taken similar actions in cases that seemed likely to resolve issues of the president's authority. Last year, in a related case, the Supreme Court ruled that while the president has the authority to hold citizens as enemy combatants, it said that there needed to be more due process in the system and indicated that some restrictions on the president's authority were possible. It ordered a lower court to consider the case anew. But when lower courts were about to examine the case of Yaser Hamdi - who had grown up in Saudi Arabia but had been born in the United States and was being held in a Navy brig - the military released him and allowed him to return to Saudi Arabia rather than face a challenge in court....
In Terror Cases, Administration Sets Own Rules
When Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced last week that Jose Padilla would be transferred to the federal justice system from military detention, he said almost nothing about the standards the administration used in deciding whether to charge terrorism suspects like Mr. Padilla with crimes or to hold them in military facilities as enemy combatants. "We take each individual, each case, case by case," Mr. Gonzales said. The upshot of that approach, underscored by the decision in Mr. Padilla's case, is that no one outside the administration knows just how the determination is made whether to handle a terror suspect as an enemy combatant or as a common criminal, to hold him indefinitely without charges in a military facility or to charge him in court. Indeed, citing the need to combat terrorism, the administration has argued, with varying degrees of success, that judges should have essentially no role in reviewing its decisions. The change in Mr. Padilla's status, just days before the government's legal papers were due in his appeal to the Supreme Court, suggested to many legal observers that the administration wanted to keep the court out of the case. "The position of the executive branch," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University who has consulted with lawyers for several detainees, "is that it can be judge, jury and executioner." The government says a secret and unilateral decision-making process is necessary because of the nature of the evidence it deals with. Officials described the approach as a practical one that weighs a mix of often-sensitive factors....
Privacy laws disarming gun dealer database
An Alabama man with a history of mental illness killed two police officers with a rifle he bought on Christmas Eve. In suburban New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church during Mass and fatally shot a priest and a parishioner. Neither of their names was in a database that licensed gun dealers must check before making sales -- even though federal law prohibits the mentally ill from buying guns. Most states have privacy laws barring such information from being shared with law enforcement. Legislation pending in Congress that has bipartisan support seeks to get more of the disqualifying records in the database. Similar measures, opposed by some advocates for the mentally ill and gun-rights groups, did not pass Congress in 2002 and 2004. The FBI, which maintains the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), has not taken a position on the bill, but the bureau is blunt about what adding names to its database would do. "The availability of this information will save lives," the FBI said in a recent report. Legislation sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, New York Democrat, says millions of records are either missing or incomplete. "The computer is only as good as the information you put in it," she said....
Another's habit up your nose
At my local drugstore, shelves of cold and allergy medicine have been replaced by merchandise cards hanging from metal rods. If I want to buy one of these remedies, I have to take the corresponding card to the pharmacist's counter, wait in line, show my ID and add my name to a register. This procedure, required by an "emergency order" from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, is supposed to prevent me from using the pseudoephedrine in products such as Sudafed and Dayquil to cook up a batch of methamphetamine in my garage. If you're not lucky enough to live in a state with similar restrictions, fear not: Under the Combat Meth Act, which Congress is expected to pass soon, you too can be treated like a criminal the next time you have nasal congestion, thereby doing your part to help achieve a drug-free society. "This legislation is a dagger at the heart of meth manufacturing in America," says Missouri Republican Sen. Jim Talent, the bill's co-sponsor with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat. "If you can't get pseudoephedrine, you can't make meth." According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, some 80 percent of the illicit meth consumed in the United States comes from large-scale Mexican traffickers, who buy their pseudoephedrine in bulk rather than a couple of boxes at a time from CVS. Restricting retail access to pseudoephedrine may shift production from small local labs and toward the big-time meth makers who already account for most of the supply, but it's unlikely to affect consumption noticeably....
Gift shopping for the rancher’s wife
By Julie Carter
The season started in the retail world right after the garden supplies were moved to the back room and school had not yet started. But that was just a warm up to what explodes cash register drawers the day after Thanksgiving---the Christmas shopping frenzy.
As is for most things, gift shopping at the ranch is a pretty laid back procedure. I’m not saying a lot of thought is not put into choosing the perfect gift, but “perfect” is subject to interpretation and you can almost always factor in functional and fundamental.
The gift that wins the tally of given most often from him to her is an axe. I know that will shock many of you that don’t live down dirt roads, but an axe is essential to the time of year the gift is given—Christmas and the middle of winter.
The axes have come single bit, double bit and often tied with a red bow the size of a pick up truck in an attempt to make it festively palatable. Some have come with a flashlight as an extra gift so wood or ice could be chopped in the dark. Often a note is attached saying, “I promise to keep this sharp for you.”
Another common feature for the ranch “him to her” gifts is the “who really wants or needs this?” Gloves that are too big for her and fit him perfectly are regular offerings under the Christmas tree as are new saddles when she rarely rides, horses she never will ride, and that absolutely stunning truck tool box that unfortunately won’t fit her SUV. A complete assortment of hand and powers tools also fit into this category.
Never to say the gifts aren’t truly appreciated one wife I know got a new cattle guard. It was to be placed where she had to open and close a gate 15 times a day coming and going. She would not have been happier if she had gotten big blue diamonds.
Always thinking of the little woman’s health and safety as well as her viability as the best if only help he has, he will gift her with things to keep her warm and useful. That list will include insulated coveralls, down filled everything including lingerie, and even a new rifle to carry on her 4-wheeler to shoot coyotes while she is checking heifers and new baby calves.
Buckets of all sorts rate right up at the top in frequency of gift types--feed buckets, milk buckets and buckets to bail drinking water from a well or cistern. One gal was so proud of her new international mop bucket with the “Caution” warning in both English and Spanish. It had wheels and every feature you could imagine except a back up alarm.
Other gifts have come with the possibility he is going to get shot if her sense of humor isn’t at its peak. An oversized personalized “fire flapper” was indeed given to a wife I know with the justification that “she’s a big girl so she may as well do some good when she is beating out a grass fire.”
Feed stores, hardware outlets, saddle and cowboy tack dealers as well as livestock sale barns across rural America are standing by to serve the rancher in this season of giving.
Julie can be reached for comment (when she isn’t out using her most treasured gift of a wood splitting maul).
Copyright Julie Carter 2005
By Julie Carter
The season started in the retail world right after the garden supplies were moved to the back room and school had not yet started. But that was just a warm up to what explodes cash register drawers the day after Thanksgiving---the Christmas shopping frenzy.
As is for most things, gift shopping at the ranch is a pretty laid back procedure. I’m not saying a lot of thought is not put into choosing the perfect gift, but “perfect” is subject to interpretation and you can almost always factor in functional and fundamental.
The gift that wins the tally of given most often from him to her is an axe. I know that will shock many of you that don’t live down dirt roads, but an axe is essential to the time of year the gift is given—Christmas and the middle of winter.
The axes have come single bit, double bit and often tied with a red bow the size of a pick up truck in an attempt to make it festively palatable. Some have come with a flashlight as an extra gift so wood or ice could be chopped in the dark. Often a note is attached saying, “I promise to keep this sharp for you.”
Another common feature for the ranch “him to her” gifts is the “who really wants or needs this?” Gloves that are too big for her and fit him perfectly are regular offerings under the Christmas tree as are new saddles when she rarely rides, horses she never will ride, and that absolutely stunning truck tool box that unfortunately won’t fit her SUV. A complete assortment of hand and powers tools also fit into this category.
Never to say the gifts aren’t truly appreciated one wife I know got a new cattle guard. It was to be placed where she had to open and close a gate 15 times a day coming and going. She would not have been happier if she had gotten big blue diamonds.
Always thinking of the little woman’s health and safety as well as her viability as the best if only help he has, he will gift her with things to keep her warm and useful. That list will include insulated coveralls, down filled everything including lingerie, and even a new rifle to carry on her 4-wheeler to shoot coyotes while she is checking heifers and new baby calves.
Buckets of all sorts rate right up at the top in frequency of gift types--feed buckets, milk buckets and buckets to bail drinking water from a well or cistern. One gal was so proud of her new international mop bucket with the “Caution” warning in both English and Spanish. It had wheels and every feature you could imagine except a back up alarm.
Other gifts have come with the possibility he is going to get shot if her sense of humor isn’t at its peak. An oversized personalized “fire flapper” was indeed given to a wife I know with the justification that “she’s a big girl so she may as well do some good when she is beating out a grass fire.”
Feed stores, hardware outlets, saddle and cowboy tack dealers as well as livestock sale barns across rural America are standing by to serve the rancher in this season of giving.
Julie can be reached for comment (when she isn’t out using her most treasured gift of a wood splitting maul).
Copyright Julie Carter 2005
Friday, November 25, 2005
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Upset about wolf plan, ranchers may shut lands to public Some ranchers are so fed up with the state's new plan for managing wolves expected to migrate in from Idaho that they want to close their lands for hunters and anglers. They don't like the fact that they can't shoot wolves they suspect of preying on livestock, and that there is no state fund to reimburse them for livestock killed by wolves. Some ranchers in Baker County have closed their land to hunters and anglers. The Oregon Cattlemen's Association has adopted a resolution to work toward that end statewide if the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopts the plan next month. The plan was adopted last February, but has to be amended since the Legislature did not authorize key elements. It originally would have allowed ranchers to shoot wolves attacking livestock. That provision was taken out to conform to a federal court ruling that any wolves moving into Oregon would be protected as a threatened species....
Judge's order halts Butte-area logging A federal judge has granted a request by environmental groups for an injunction to stop logging beetle-killed trees near Basin Creek Reservoir in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest pending an appeal. Monday's decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy comes about a month after Molloy denied a similar request by the groups. An appeal of that ruling is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Michael Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. In Monday's decision, Molloy said he granted the latest injunction because logging had already started in the project area south of Butte. If allowed to continue, "there is a chance that a substantial portion of the project will have already been completed by the time the Ninth Circuit considers the merits of the plaintiffs' claims," he wrote. Garrity said Tuesday he was somewhat surprised by the ruling, but also "very happy."....
Court hears arguments over changes in Northwest Forest Plan Environmental and government lawyers argued in federal court Tuesday about whether a recent change to the Northwest Forest Plan — one that eased logging restrictions — was properly arrived at and would provide adequate protections for trout and salmon. The change was made in March 2004, when the Bush administration dropped wording from the forest plan that required certain projects to be evaluated for how they would affect their watershed before they could be approved. Environmental groups say that in making the change, the administration overruled the arguments of its own scientists to please the timber industry. The result, Earthjustice lawyer Patti Goldman told U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler, is that “even in key watersheds, there are no standards that control logging or mining or roadbuilding or grazing or any other activities.’’....
Groups protest Wyoming Range oil, gas leases Conservation groups and a homeowners association filed protests this week with the Bureau of Land Management for two parcels in the Wyoming Range slated for a December oil and gas lease sale. The two parcels total 1,280 acres. Bridger-Teton National Forest officials decided to put the parcels up for lease sale earlier this year - they are one part of a total of 44,600 acres set for leasing. That is scaled back from 175,000 acres originally eyed for lease sale. Peter Aengst with the Wilderness Society in Bozeman said the protests stem from a need for updated analysis on the Bridger-Teton showing if the parcels are suitable for leasing. "Things have changed since 12 and a half years ago," when the original environmental studies were done on the acreage showing they were suitable for leasing, he said. Air quality changes and rapid development of the Upper Green River Valley should weigh into a decision on whether to lease these pristine lands, he said....
Chiricahua prescribed burn to cover 6,000 acres A fire set by the Forest Service to clear overgrown grass and woodlands in the Chiricahua Wilderness Area north of Douglas has prompted numerous calls of concern from as far away as Sierra Vista, according to an agency spokeswoman. The Johnson Peak prescribed burn was set in late October with a goal of clearing up to 6,000 acres, said Teresa Ann Ciapusci, a public information officer with the U.S. Forest Service. To date, the fire has covered about 1,600 acres and is well within the prescription area authorized for the burn....
Bush, Cabinet OK Land Deal Florida officials approved the largest environmental land purchase in state history Tuesday, agreeing to pay $350 million to buy the Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida, a vast, 74,000-acre tract that is home to the Florida panther and other endangered species. While endorsing the purchase, Gov. Jeb Bush and Cabinet members said they hope the state Legislature agrees to use cash to close the deal, saving the state millions of dollars in interest and keeping enough money in the state's Florida Forever program to buy other environmental land projects around the state. The Babcock purchase is considered environmentally critical because it simultaneously will protect endangered animals, will preserve the Telegraph Swamp and will provide a vital link in a natural land corridor stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Charlotte Harbor....
Tribe sues Interior secretary over Endangered Species Act Federal wildlife officials are protecting one endangered Everglades bird at the expense of another - and in violation of the Endangered Species Act and other federal law, alleges a new lawsuit. The Miccosukee Tribe is suing U.S. Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the case filed in U.S. District Court in Miami this week. At issue is a wildlife service biological opinion that causes water managers to temporarily close five gates that move floodwater from the central Everglades south into Everglades National Park. The practice, which began in 1997, is timed to help a group of Cape Sable seaside sparrows dwelling in the western half of the park breed....
BLM allows more winter gas activity Up to this point, getting permission to drill for oil and gas -- or even walk -- in crucial big game winter range has been an uphill battle. Now, some worry the national push for more energy development is chipping away at these protections. That push can be seen on the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field, where earlier this month the Bureau of Land Management authorized more activity in areas of winter closures. The decisions, enacted under the BLM's discretion to grant exemptions to leaseholders as the agency sees fit, were made without public comment or notification. Instead, notification of one of the exemptions was posted on the agency's Web site as a "Finding of No Significant Impact." Questar Corp. was authorized to conduct four well completions, having requested 16, and has been permitted one new drilling rig. Other companies have bumped up their production in big game ranges as well....
Olympia pays record price for North Las Vegas acreage The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday sold 3,002 acres of public land for a total of $799.3 million. Parcels offered for sale varied in size from 1.25 acres to 2,675 acres. Yet eight of the 69 parcels offered throughout the Las Vegas Valley didn't sell. Their combined estimated value was $637.5 million. But all eyes were centered on 2,675 acres in North Las Vegas. It was the largest piece of land being offered for sale, with a starting bid price of $522.4 million, or about $195,000 an acre. And after a heavy, heated exchange, Garry Goett's Olympia Group won with a $639 million bid, or $238,878 per acre. It represents a record sale price for North Las Vegas land, reflecting the valley's feverish real estate activity. The final sale price was 18.25 percent higher than anticipated....
Mission man logs the old fashioned way David Sturman goes back in time when he goes to work by using horsepower to move tree logs. The unique thing about Sturman is he is one of the few people left that still uses real live, breathing horsepower, much the way loggers did a century ago. Sturman has incorporated his fondness for the past into creating a better environment for the future. He uses a team of two Belgian horses to skid logs through thick timber to repair waterways and create a healthier environment for wildlife and fish populations. "The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) contracts me to move large wood debris with minimal impact to the environment," Sturman said. Most of his work has been done in wooded areas that require a great deal of maneuvering skill, something that large machinery doesn't possess a lot of....
D.C. to lend ear to problems facing national parks Everything from Northern California-grown marijuana to reptiles stolen from the Mojave Desert could soon wind up in the halls of Congress, at least in a figurative sense. The problems facing national parks in California - including Joshua Tree National Park - will be front and center during an upcoming congressional hearing in San Francisco. The field hearing is one in a series of more than a dozen around the nation by the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, a group that has jurisdiction over national parks. Scheduled for Monday and led by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., it will be a chance for committee members to hear about fiscal and law enforcement challenges in California-based national parks....
Battle for the lake heating up A federal proposal to reshape the trailer-lined shores of Lake Berryessa is facing fierce opposition from mobile home owners who have made the lake their home away from home for the past 50-plus years. More than 1,000 trailer owners are bucking against a federal proposal to replace about 1,300 privately owned trailers with campgrounds and other day-use recreation sites. Trailer supporters have drafted a counterproposal and grabbed the attention of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who sent a representative to a stormy town hall meeting about the lake's fate Saturday in the Winters High School gymnasium. Pombo is chairman of the House Resources Committee, which has authority over many key policy decisions on water and energy. Trailer owners turned out en masse at the meeting to challenge federal representatives and environmentalists pushing for the lake's redevelopment....
City makes first payment to Jicarillas Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado on Tuesday turned over to Jicarilla Apache Nation a check for $450,000 — the first of what could be $75 million paid by the city to the tribe over the next 50 years to lease water. The agreement between the city and the tribe was approved recently by the federal government — the first longterm lease for water between an American Indian tribe and a municipality, Jicarilla and federal officials say. Under the agreement , beginning in 2007, the city could begin taking up to 3,000 acre-feet a year of Jicarilla’s “futureuse” allocation of 6,500 acre-feet of San Juan/Chama Diversion water....
For high-dollar rights to water, Colorado's the place When Idaho bought water rights on the Snake River this year to protect trout, it paid farmers $325 per acre-foot - about 326,000 gallons. In Colorado, cities buying water for human use have paid farmers as much as $20,000 per acre-foot. "Location, location, location," said Karl Dreher, Idaho's water resources director. Colorado is a notoriously expensive place to shop for water. Nobody maintains a complete record of Western water sales and leases, and many such transactions are private....
Column: Further Down the Drain The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants to bet up to $1 billion of your tax dollars that its latest proposals to carry toxic waste waters away from the nation's largest federal irrigation project will not result in another ecological disaster like the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge more than 20 years ago. The Bureau is putting the final touches on an environmental impact statement (EIS) due Feb. 1, 2006 in which it will announce support for one of three possible drainage solutions: Delta Disposal, Central Coast disposal, or building drainage treatment facilities and evaporation ponds within the San Joaquin Valley with varying levels of land retirement. Opponents say the Bureau's science is flawed, threatens fisheries and birds, and that construction and operation costs are likely to become astronomical for keeping just a few hundred growers in business irrigating a desert. The final EIS comes in response to a ruling by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal five years ago requiring the Bureau to provide drainage for the 730,000-acre San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project, first approved by Congress in 1960....
Population growth imperils humanity Compelling new evidence effectively contradicting premature pronouncements that the world-population crisis is over can hardly be shrugged off as sky-is-falling clucking by hysterical Chicken Littles. A recently released $24 million four-year United Nations-sponsored Millennium Ecosystems Assessment spells out the havoc wreaked by pressures on the planet to feed and provide finite resources for its more than 6 billion inhabitants. Compiled by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries, the report is the product of their examination of 16,000 photographs from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as analyses of prodigious volumes of statistical data and other information from scientific journals and other relevant documents. The most unsettling finding is that over the past 50 years, as world population has doubled, human activity has depleted 60 percent of the world's grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes. The scientists in this study reached the consensus that in the absence of serious application of sound environmental policies over the next 50 years _ when population is projected to soar from the current 6.5 billion to over 9 billion _ increased demands for food, clean water and fuel could hasten the loss of forests, fish and freshwater reserves, and lead to more frequent disease outbreaks....just thought I'd end with this item from our friends at the scientifically objective and freedom loving United Nations....
Upset about wolf plan, ranchers may shut lands to public Some ranchers are so fed up with the state's new plan for managing wolves expected to migrate in from Idaho that they want to close their lands for hunters and anglers. They don't like the fact that they can't shoot wolves they suspect of preying on livestock, and that there is no state fund to reimburse them for livestock killed by wolves. Some ranchers in Baker County have closed their land to hunters and anglers. The Oregon Cattlemen's Association has adopted a resolution to work toward that end statewide if the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopts the plan next month. The plan was adopted last February, but has to be amended since the Legislature did not authorize key elements. It originally would have allowed ranchers to shoot wolves attacking livestock. That provision was taken out to conform to a federal court ruling that any wolves moving into Oregon would be protected as a threatened species....
Judge's order halts Butte-area logging A federal judge has granted a request by environmental groups for an injunction to stop logging beetle-killed trees near Basin Creek Reservoir in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest pending an appeal. Monday's decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy comes about a month after Molloy denied a similar request by the groups. An appeal of that ruling is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said Michael Garrity of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. In Monday's decision, Molloy said he granted the latest injunction because logging had already started in the project area south of Butte. If allowed to continue, "there is a chance that a substantial portion of the project will have already been completed by the time the Ninth Circuit considers the merits of the plaintiffs' claims," he wrote. Garrity said Tuesday he was somewhat surprised by the ruling, but also "very happy."....
Court hears arguments over changes in Northwest Forest Plan Environmental and government lawyers argued in federal court Tuesday about whether a recent change to the Northwest Forest Plan — one that eased logging restrictions — was properly arrived at and would provide adequate protections for trout and salmon. The change was made in March 2004, when the Bush administration dropped wording from the forest plan that required certain projects to be evaluated for how they would affect their watershed before they could be approved. Environmental groups say that in making the change, the administration overruled the arguments of its own scientists to please the timber industry. The result, Earthjustice lawyer Patti Goldman told U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler, is that “even in key watersheds, there are no standards that control logging or mining or roadbuilding or grazing or any other activities.’’....
Groups protest Wyoming Range oil, gas leases Conservation groups and a homeowners association filed protests this week with the Bureau of Land Management for two parcels in the Wyoming Range slated for a December oil and gas lease sale. The two parcels total 1,280 acres. Bridger-Teton National Forest officials decided to put the parcels up for lease sale earlier this year - they are one part of a total of 44,600 acres set for leasing. That is scaled back from 175,000 acres originally eyed for lease sale. Peter Aengst with the Wilderness Society in Bozeman said the protests stem from a need for updated analysis on the Bridger-Teton showing if the parcels are suitable for leasing. "Things have changed since 12 and a half years ago," when the original environmental studies were done on the acreage showing they were suitable for leasing, he said. Air quality changes and rapid development of the Upper Green River Valley should weigh into a decision on whether to lease these pristine lands, he said....
Chiricahua prescribed burn to cover 6,000 acres A fire set by the Forest Service to clear overgrown grass and woodlands in the Chiricahua Wilderness Area north of Douglas has prompted numerous calls of concern from as far away as Sierra Vista, according to an agency spokeswoman. The Johnson Peak prescribed burn was set in late October with a goal of clearing up to 6,000 acres, said Teresa Ann Ciapusci, a public information officer with the U.S. Forest Service. To date, the fire has covered about 1,600 acres and is well within the prescription area authorized for the burn....
Bush, Cabinet OK Land Deal Florida officials approved the largest environmental land purchase in state history Tuesday, agreeing to pay $350 million to buy the Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida, a vast, 74,000-acre tract that is home to the Florida panther and other endangered species. While endorsing the purchase, Gov. Jeb Bush and Cabinet members said they hope the state Legislature agrees to use cash to close the deal, saving the state millions of dollars in interest and keeping enough money in the state's Florida Forever program to buy other environmental land projects around the state. The Babcock purchase is considered environmentally critical because it simultaneously will protect endangered animals, will preserve the Telegraph Swamp and will provide a vital link in a natural land corridor stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Charlotte Harbor....
Tribe sues Interior secretary over Endangered Species Act Federal wildlife officials are protecting one endangered Everglades bird at the expense of another - and in violation of the Endangered Species Act and other federal law, alleges a new lawsuit. The Miccosukee Tribe is suing U.S. Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the case filed in U.S. District Court in Miami this week. At issue is a wildlife service biological opinion that causes water managers to temporarily close five gates that move floodwater from the central Everglades south into Everglades National Park. The practice, which began in 1997, is timed to help a group of Cape Sable seaside sparrows dwelling in the western half of the park breed....
BLM allows more winter gas activity Up to this point, getting permission to drill for oil and gas -- or even walk -- in crucial big game winter range has been an uphill battle. Now, some worry the national push for more energy development is chipping away at these protections. That push can be seen on the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field, where earlier this month the Bureau of Land Management authorized more activity in areas of winter closures. The decisions, enacted under the BLM's discretion to grant exemptions to leaseholders as the agency sees fit, were made without public comment or notification. Instead, notification of one of the exemptions was posted on the agency's Web site as a "Finding of No Significant Impact." Questar Corp. was authorized to conduct four well completions, having requested 16, and has been permitted one new drilling rig. Other companies have bumped up their production in big game ranges as well....
Olympia pays record price for North Las Vegas acreage The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday sold 3,002 acres of public land for a total of $799.3 million. Parcels offered for sale varied in size from 1.25 acres to 2,675 acres. Yet eight of the 69 parcels offered throughout the Las Vegas Valley didn't sell. Their combined estimated value was $637.5 million. But all eyes were centered on 2,675 acres in North Las Vegas. It was the largest piece of land being offered for sale, with a starting bid price of $522.4 million, or about $195,000 an acre. And after a heavy, heated exchange, Garry Goett's Olympia Group won with a $639 million bid, or $238,878 per acre. It represents a record sale price for North Las Vegas land, reflecting the valley's feverish real estate activity. The final sale price was 18.25 percent higher than anticipated....
Mission man logs the old fashioned way David Sturman goes back in time when he goes to work by using horsepower to move tree logs. The unique thing about Sturman is he is one of the few people left that still uses real live, breathing horsepower, much the way loggers did a century ago. Sturman has incorporated his fondness for the past into creating a better environment for the future. He uses a team of two Belgian horses to skid logs through thick timber to repair waterways and create a healthier environment for wildlife and fish populations. "The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) contracts me to move large wood debris with minimal impact to the environment," Sturman said. Most of his work has been done in wooded areas that require a great deal of maneuvering skill, something that large machinery doesn't possess a lot of....
D.C. to lend ear to problems facing national parks Everything from Northern California-grown marijuana to reptiles stolen from the Mojave Desert could soon wind up in the halls of Congress, at least in a figurative sense. The problems facing national parks in California - including Joshua Tree National Park - will be front and center during an upcoming congressional hearing in San Francisco. The field hearing is one in a series of more than a dozen around the nation by the Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, a group that has jurisdiction over national parks. Scheduled for Monday and led by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., it will be a chance for committee members to hear about fiscal and law enforcement challenges in California-based national parks....
Battle for the lake heating up A federal proposal to reshape the trailer-lined shores of Lake Berryessa is facing fierce opposition from mobile home owners who have made the lake their home away from home for the past 50-plus years. More than 1,000 trailer owners are bucking against a federal proposal to replace about 1,300 privately owned trailers with campgrounds and other day-use recreation sites. Trailer supporters have drafted a counterproposal and grabbed the attention of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who sent a representative to a stormy town hall meeting about the lake's fate Saturday in the Winters High School gymnasium. Pombo is chairman of the House Resources Committee, which has authority over many key policy decisions on water and energy. Trailer owners turned out en masse at the meeting to challenge federal representatives and environmentalists pushing for the lake's redevelopment....
City makes first payment to Jicarillas Santa Fe Mayor Larry Delgado on Tuesday turned over to Jicarilla Apache Nation a check for $450,000 — the first of what could be $75 million paid by the city to the tribe over the next 50 years to lease water. The agreement between the city and the tribe was approved recently by the federal government — the first longterm lease for water between an American Indian tribe and a municipality, Jicarilla and federal officials say. Under the agreement , beginning in 2007, the city could begin taking up to 3,000 acre-feet a year of Jicarilla’s “futureuse” allocation of 6,500 acre-feet of San Juan/Chama Diversion water....
For high-dollar rights to water, Colorado's the place When Idaho bought water rights on the Snake River this year to protect trout, it paid farmers $325 per acre-foot - about 326,000 gallons. In Colorado, cities buying water for human use have paid farmers as much as $20,000 per acre-foot. "Location, location, location," said Karl Dreher, Idaho's water resources director. Colorado is a notoriously expensive place to shop for water. Nobody maintains a complete record of Western water sales and leases, and many such transactions are private....
Column: Further Down the Drain The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants to bet up to $1 billion of your tax dollars that its latest proposals to carry toxic waste waters away from the nation's largest federal irrigation project will not result in another ecological disaster like the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge more than 20 years ago. The Bureau is putting the final touches on an environmental impact statement (EIS) due Feb. 1, 2006 in which it will announce support for one of three possible drainage solutions: Delta Disposal, Central Coast disposal, or building drainage treatment facilities and evaporation ponds within the San Joaquin Valley with varying levels of land retirement. Opponents say the Bureau's science is flawed, threatens fisheries and birds, and that construction and operation costs are likely to become astronomical for keeping just a few hundred growers in business irrigating a desert. The final EIS comes in response to a ruling by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal five years ago requiring the Bureau to provide drainage for the 730,000-acre San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project, first approved by Congress in 1960....
Population growth imperils humanity Compelling new evidence effectively contradicting premature pronouncements that the world-population crisis is over can hardly be shrugged off as sky-is-falling clucking by hysterical Chicken Littles. A recently released $24 million four-year United Nations-sponsored Millennium Ecosystems Assessment spells out the havoc wreaked by pressures on the planet to feed and provide finite resources for its more than 6 billion inhabitants. Compiled by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries, the report is the product of their examination of 16,000 photographs from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as analyses of prodigious volumes of statistical data and other information from scientific journals and other relevant documents. The most unsettling finding is that over the past 50 years, as world population has doubled, human activity has depleted 60 percent of the world's grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes. The scientists in this study reached the consensus that in the absence of serious application of sound environmental policies over the next 50 years _ when population is projected to soar from the current 6.5 billion to over 9 billion _ increased demands for food, clean water and fuel could hasten the loss of forests, fish and freshwater reserves, and lead to more frequent disease outbreaks....just thought I'd end with this item from our friends at the scientifically objective and freedom loving United Nations....
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
WOLF UPDATE---11/20
by Laura Schneberger
A rancher in the Collins park area of Catron County has been targeted for investigation for the death of Ring pack wolf AF 799 and was also questioned in the trapping incident regarding a Luna pack wolf.
The Luna wolf survived, was treated and released minus a toe. There is no trapper in the area at this time except the FWS who were trapping wolves for a study. They claim the trap was not theirs.
The Ring wolf was found at least a week after its death. According to Arizona Game and Fish employees with the program there was no apparent obvious cause of death but this employee openly stated that she suspected the local ranchers. There is a necropsy occurring on the dead wolf but the results have not been made available as of this time.
Interestingly enough, a dead eagle was also found near the carcass of the dead wolf.
After these events Federal investigators were called into the area where they unnecessarily blocked both entrances to the aforementioned ranch headquarters, apparently to keep the ranchers from "running" and proceeded to question the rancher involved. Upon leaving the Headquarters, an investigator asked the rancher how many elk permits he was currently receiving from the state. (Since elk permits have nothing to do with the investigation, this must be interpreted as a threat--FD)
Last week, ranchers in the area waited for their usual vague locations on the current wolf packs, which in fact finally came in 7 days late. The Saddle pack was indeed located on a cow ranch in livestock pastures. Because this area was the same area the Ring pack wolf was found in, it is suspected these locations were intentionally withheld by whoever was in the locator plane during that flight. As a result of withholding locations, a full grown cow in the Collins Park area has been killed. The nearest pack was the Saddle pack.
The examination of the dead cow and results will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, with no evidence of foul play at least as of yet, harassment of ranchers has become commonplace in the Mexican Wolf recovery area. If their skin was a different color it would be classified as profiling. At the very least this behavior is discriminatory and should be immediately ceased and swift reprimands should follow.
Agency personnel had this to say in an 11-15-05 Silver City daily press article
The agency added: "The area north of the Gila Wilderness is heavily grazed. Several wolf packs have run into trouble in that general area in the past, first scavenging on cattle carcasses and later depredating."
This statement is a fabrication as those of you who attended the Catron County killing field tour can attest. Not only is the area in good condition and not heavily grazed there are no carcasses strewn about for wolves to encounter at least not until one is made by the wolves. Allowing these sort of biased statements to be released to the press does nothing to further trust and cooperation with local residents.
I recommend that everyone on this list cooperate fully with FWS investigations into wolf deaths but keep a log of your experiences and your treatment. You are not required to give up your private property without a warrant or allow searches on your property, unless you are comfortable doing so. If you are verbally harassed by an Arizona Game and Fish employee or FWS employee please do your best to stay neutral and record the conversation to the best of your ability and send it to me.
Sincerely
Laura
Further Update---11/21
I found out last night that Don Gatlin was also interrogated for three hours over both the injured and dead wolf as well as the eagle. That makes 3 out of 4 Collins Park area ranchers that have been interrogated by FWS special agents. It makes no difference that 400 hunters have gone through the area in the week the dead animals were found. Ranchers are the suspects, in fact any rancher in the area is subject to questioning and from what I am hearing it is none too polite.
Laura
by Laura Schneberger
A rancher in the Collins park area of Catron County has been targeted for investigation for the death of Ring pack wolf AF 799 and was also questioned in the trapping incident regarding a Luna pack wolf.
The Luna wolf survived, was treated and released minus a toe. There is no trapper in the area at this time except the FWS who were trapping wolves for a study. They claim the trap was not theirs.
The Ring wolf was found at least a week after its death. According to Arizona Game and Fish employees with the program there was no apparent obvious cause of death but this employee openly stated that she suspected the local ranchers. There is a necropsy occurring on the dead wolf but the results have not been made available as of this time.
Interestingly enough, a dead eagle was also found near the carcass of the dead wolf.
After these events Federal investigators were called into the area where they unnecessarily blocked both entrances to the aforementioned ranch headquarters, apparently to keep the ranchers from "running" and proceeded to question the rancher involved. Upon leaving the Headquarters, an investigator asked the rancher how many elk permits he was currently receiving from the state. (Since elk permits have nothing to do with the investigation, this must be interpreted as a threat--FD)
Last week, ranchers in the area waited for their usual vague locations on the current wolf packs, which in fact finally came in 7 days late. The Saddle pack was indeed located on a cow ranch in livestock pastures. Because this area was the same area the Ring pack wolf was found in, it is suspected these locations were intentionally withheld by whoever was in the locator plane during that flight. As a result of withholding locations, a full grown cow in the Collins Park area has been killed. The nearest pack was the Saddle pack.
The examination of the dead cow and results will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, with no evidence of foul play at least as of yet, harassment of ranchers has become commonplace in the Mexican Wolf recovery area. If their skin was a different color it would be classified as profiling. At the very least this behavior is discriminatory and should be immediately ceased and swift reprimands should follow.
Agency personnel had this to say in an 11-15-05 Silver City daily press article
The agency added: "The area north of the Gila Wilderness is heavily grazed. Several wolf packs have run into trouble in that general area in the past, first scavenging on cattle carcasses and later depredating."
This statement is a fabrication as those of you who attended the Catron County killing field tour can attest. Not only is the area in good condition and not heavily grazed there are no carcasses strewn about for wolves to encounter at least not until one is made by the wolves. Allowing these sort of biased statements to be released to the press does nothing to further trust and cooperation with local residents.
I recommend that everyone on this list cooperate fully with FWS investigations into wolf deaths but keep a log of your experiences and your treatment. You are not required to give up your private property without a warrant or allow searches on your property, unless you are comfortable doing so. If you are verbally harassed by an Arizona Game and Fish employee or FWS employee please do your best to stay neutral and record the conversation to the best of your ability and send it to me.
Sincerely
Laura
Further Update---11/21
I found out last night that Don Gatlin was also interrogated for three hours over both the injured and dead wolf as well as the eagle. That makes 3 out of 4 Collins Park area ranchers that have been interrogated by FWS special agents. It makes no difference that 400 hunters have gone through the area in the week the dead animals were found. Ranchers are the suspects, in fact any rancher in the area is subject to questioning and from what I am hearing it is none too polite.
Laura
DANIEL MARTINEZ---USFS
For background on this issue go here, here, here and here.
November 22, 2005
Sheriff Steve Tucker
Greenlee County
Hwy 191 P.O> Box 998
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Dear Sheriff Tucker:
I am the victim of a blatant abuse of Constitutional, Federal and State Law. You were noticed of the unlawful and criminal activity on numerous occasions. You had knowledge of the activity yet failed to uphold your oath of office, as required by ARS 38-231. You failed to perform your duty as the highest law enforcement officer in the county ARS-38-443. You allowed my property (my cattle) to be driven from its range without my consent. This is a Class 5 Felony, ARS 3-1303. You violated ARS 13-201. Your omission to perform duty imposed by law has caused me irreparable damage. You were aware there was no Court Order or Warrant and yet you failed to act. ARS 13-204 (B) Ignorance or Mistake as to a matter of law does not relieve liability.
I noticed you that the United States Forest Service had NO Jurisdiction in Greenlee County. They do not have police powers within the state of Arizona. You failed to enforce ARS 13-2906 Obstructing a highway or other public thoroughfare. You failed to enforce ARS 13-3871 Authority of Peace officers. You failed to enforce ARS 13-3875 Cross certification of Federal peace officers. You had knowledge and yet failed to uphold your oath of office. You had the authority to have prevented this abuse of public trust by public officials yet refused to act.
In my conversation with you yesterday you told me you were waiting for me to come in personally to file a report. Sheriff Tucker, I would have done so if that was the proper procedure to do so, according to law. My last conversation with you on October 20, 2005 I expressed my concern that they were going to break into my cabin the next morning. You said you would make note of it but that you were not going to do anything about it because Frank Hayes said he had authority to commit burglary and theft of property as per Federal law. You also said that the County Attorney Derek Rapier had told you that according to a map in the basement it was on the Forest and for you not to interfere. Since when is a map title? That same day I sent you an email in regards to the breaking into my property. I also asked you to consult with a seasoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio and gave you his phone number.
If you are trying to tell me, the victim, why this happened is because I didn’t come in and file a report with you. I must tell you the Arizona Revised statutes are very clear in 22-301 Jurisdiction of Criminal Actions, makes it clear it is not the Sheriff; it is the Justice of the Peace that has the authority. ARS 22-313 Procedure: Makes it clear the rules of Criminal Procedure of the Superior Court shall apply. ARS 22-403 makes clear who shall be the presiding officer. It is the Justice of the Peace not the County Attorney. ARS 22-421 Commencement of Action: this is done by the Magistrate not the County Attorney or the Sheriff.
The Arizona Criminal Rules Rule 2.2 The Commencement of Felony Actions may be commenced by (a) indictment or (b) filing a complaint before a Magistrate. Rule 2.3 Content of Complaint is a written statement of the essential facts that is either signed by a prosecutor of made under oath before a Magistrate. The prosecutor still needs a sworn statement as to the essential facts from someone that has first hand knowledge of the facts. Rule 2.4 Duty of Magistrate upon filing of complaint. If by oath before a Magistrate if there is probable cause and if signed by prosecutor then Magistrate proceeds to Rule 3.1 . Magistrate shall issue a summons or warrant.
Sheriff Tucker, if these laws and rules of the court are not followed according to the Black Letter of the Law the defendant could be denied Due Process of Law and any Judgment against a defendant could be VOID and could be collaterally attacked and vacated.
My question to you sir, how many prisoners do you have in your jail that have been denied Due Process of Law?
Your job is to uphold the law and enforce the law. You had probable cause to act , you had knowledge of criminal activity and yet you failed to uphold your oath of office.
Respectfully,
Daniel Gabino Martinez/Victim non-attorney
cc:
Board of Supervisors
P.O. Box 908
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Derek D. Rapier
Greenlee County Attorney
P.O.Box 1717
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Liliana Ortega
Deputy Greenlee County Attorney
P.O. Box 1717
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Honorable Manuel Manuz
Justice of the Peace
For background on this issue go here, here, here and here.
November 22, 2005
Sheriff Steve Tucker
Greenlee County
Hwy 191 P.O> Box 998
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Dear Sheriff Tucker:
I am the victim of a blatant abuse of Constitutional, Federal and State Law. You were noticed of the unlawful and criminal activity on numerous occasions. You had knowledge of the activity yet failed to uphold your oath of office, as required by ARS 38-231. You failed to perform your duty as the highest law enforcement officer in the county ARS-38-443. You allowed my property (my cattle) to be driven from its range without my consent. This is a Class 5 Felony, ARS 3-1303. You violated ARS 13-201. Your omission to perform duty imposed by law has caused me irreparable damage. You were aware there was no Court Order or Warrant and yet you failed to act. ARS 13-204 (B) Ignorance or Mistake as to a matter of law does not relieve liability.
I noticed you that the United States Forest Service had NO Jurisdiction in Greenlee County. They do not have police powers within the state of Arizona. You failed to enforce ARS 13-2906 Obstructing a highway or other public thoroughfare. You failed to enforce ARS 13-3871 Authority of Peace officers. You failed to enforce ARS 13-3875 Cross certification of Federal peace officers. You had knowledge and yet failed to uphold your oath of office. You had the authority to have prevented this abuse of public trust by public officials yet refused to act.
In my conversation with you yesterday you told me you were waiting for me to come in personally to file a report. Sheriff Tucker, I would have done so if that was the proper procedure to do so, according to law. My last conversation with you on October 20, 2005 I expressed my concern that they were going to break into my cabin the next morning. You said you would make note of it but that you were not going to do anything about it because Frank Hayes said he had authority to commit burglary and theft of property as per Federal law. You also said that the County Attorney Derek Rapier had told you that according to a map in the basement it was on the Forest and for you not to interfere. Since when is a map title? That same day I sent you an email in regards to the breaking into my property. I also asked you to consult with a seasoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio and gave you his phone number.
If you are trying to tell me, the victim, why this happened is because I didn’t come in and file a report with you. I must tell you the Arizona Revised statutes are very clear in 22-301 Jurisdiction of Criminal Actions, makes it clear it is not the Sheriff; it is the Justice of the Peace that has the authority. ARS 22-313 Procedure: Makes it clear the rules of Criminal Procedure of the Superior Court shall apply. ARS 22-403 makes clear who shall be the presiding officer. It is the Justice of the Peace not the County Attorney. ARS 22-421 Commencement of Action: this is done by the Magistrate not the County Attorney or the Sheriff.
The Arizona Criminal Rules Rule 2.2 The Commencement of Felony Actions may be commenced by (a) indictment or (b) filing a complaint before a Magistrate. Rule 2.3 Content of Complaint is a written statement of the essential facts that is either signed by a prosecutor of made under oath before a Magistrate. The prosecutor still needs a sworn statement as to the essential facts from someone that has first hand knowledge of the facts. Rule 2.4 Duty of Magistrate upon filing of complaint. If by oath before a Magistrate if there is probable cause and if signed by prosecutor then Magistrate proceeds to Rule 3.1 . Magistrate shall issue a summons or warrant.
Sheriff Tucker, if these laws and rules of the court are not followed according to the Black Letter of the Law the defendant could be denied Due Process of Law and any Judgment against a defendant could be VOID and could be collaterally attacked and vacated.
My question to you sir, how many prisoners do you have in your jail that have been denied Due Process of Law?
Your job is to uphold the law and enforce the law. You had probable cause to act , you had knowledge of criminal activity and yet you failed to uphold your oath of office.
Respectfully,
Daniel Gabino Martinez/Victim non-attorney
cc:
Board of Supervisors
P.O. Box 908
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Derek D. Rapier
Greenlee County Attorney
P.O.Box 1717
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Liliana Ortega
Deputy Greenlee County Attorney
P.O. Box 1717
Clifton, Arizona 85533
Honorable Manuel Manuz
Justice of the Peace
NEWS ROUNDUP
Ancient Indian site caught in development battle A remote Utah canyon that long concealed a string of ancient Indian settlements holds another surprise: The rancher who sold it kept the mineral rights and says he may use them. Waldo Wilcox, who for nearly 50 years kept the ancient Fremont Indian sites remarkably well preserved, said he kept the mineral rights because Utah wouldn't pay what he thought his 4,200-acre ranch was worth. Wilcox wanted $4 million but got $2.5 million for the ranch in remote Range Creek Canyon. The 75-year-old rancher said that before he opens the canyon to any oil-and-gas development, he would offer the mineral rights to the state -- for a price. In the documentary "Secrets of the Lost Canyon," which airs locally Monday, Wilcox bitterly recalled negotiating with the state....
What's killing the elk in Yellowstone? Whodunit? The big, bad wolf? Old Man Winter? A scientific mystery starring wolves, adversarial weather and a declining elk herd is playing out at Yellowstone National Park. Oh, and people — hunters — are possible suspects, too. The elk population in North Yellowstone has dropped to about 8,000 from almost 17,000 in 1995. That was the year wolves were reintroduced into the 2.5-million-acre federal park in Wyoming, which overlaps the border of Montana and Idaho. The northern herd contains just a fraction of the 120,000 elk believed to dwell in the park region, and Yellowstone's Northern Range is just 204,000 acres. But this region is of particular interest to scientists because it has the largest wolf population, about 106 of the park's 171 wolves in 2004, making the elk there the most vulnerable herd....
New Process May Solve Old Coalbed Methane Problem Results should be in by Thanksgiving for the test run of a Montana-based engineering firm’s proposed solution for a major environmental problem from coalbed methane gas drilling. If the packaged water-treatment system successfully purifies brackish water that sometimes comes with the gas, the procedure could help advance the stalled CBM industry, which produces 9% of U.S. domestic natural gas. Drake Engineering Inc., Helena, is testing its new water-treatment technology at a Marathon Oil Corp. site in Wyoming, says Scott Scheffler, a spokesman for Houston-based Marathon. The system allows "resource extraction in an environmentally responsible manner," says co-owner Vivian Drake. Her husband, Ron, invented the new technology. The skid-mounted Drake treatment module measures about 8 x 12 ft. A pickup truck can deliver the 9,000-lb device on a tilt-bed trailer. The transport height, including trailer, is less than 11 ft. Erected, the unit is 14 ft tall and can process about 250 gallons per minute, or 8,500 barrels per day....
'Canary in the Mine' Bruce Peterson, on his hands and knees, claws through a thick pad of peat moss and into the brown muck beneath. "Put your hand in there and feel that," he says over his shoulder. The hole is an icebox chilled by a slab of frozen soil that starts about a foot below the surface and, in places, extends deeper than the length of a football field. The permafrost on Alaska's northern reaches froze thousands of years ago and has acted as a year-round thermostat for the tundra's plants, animals and water systems. But in recent decades, temperatures have warmed in the Arctic and the top layers of the permafrost have thawed. One long-time researcher predicts that half of interior Alaska's permafrost could be gone by the end of the century. In some places, the tundra is already crumbling into itself because of the thawing. In other places, suddenly unstable trees are tilting over in "drunken forests" and coastal villages on eroding land are being relocated....
Hidden hazards for migrant forest workers First in 1980 and again in 1993, Congress expressed shock at the abuse of Latino forest workers in America's woods and the hypocrisy of undocumented workers doing government work. Today, despite the influx of thousands of legal guest workers into reforestation, much of the work force remains undocumented. And the abject living conditions and wage exploitation that outraged Congress endure. And Congress has never examined the most pressing danger to Latino forest workers: the threat of being injured or killed on the job. A nine-month Sacramento Bee investigation has found that reforestation work, the thinning and planting that keeps both public and private forests healthy, is one of the most hazardous occupations in America _ and one of the most overlooked by state and federal regulators. On Forest Service and national park jobs visited by The Bee this year, peril was paramount. Slashing away at dense tangles of trees with chain saws, the pineros _ Spanish for pine workers _ scrambled through the woods in a chaos of cutting and noise....
Vail turns to logging operations to prevent forest fires, beetles The massive machine wrapped its metal arms around the trunk of the dead tree and in one swift move, cleanly ripped it from the ground. Turning into a clearing, it rotated the log and fed it through another part of the multifunctional machine, stripping it of limbs and leaves. The machine then turned again and neatly added the log to a growing pile. Tom Olden, owner of Pine Martin Logging, recently wielded this tract feller processor during a logging operation on Vail Mountain that cut about 600 trees around the top of Born Free Express Lift, also known as Chair 8. "We have a pristine ski area," said Jen Brown, spokeswoman for Vail Mountain, "and we did it to protect our assets along the gondola. It was related to the pine beetle and working on the fire protection along that area." As pine beetles turn Colorado forests into a rusty shade of red, Pine Martin Logging was hired to remove the trees from about 10 acres of U.S. Forest Service land over two weeks....
New home sought for frogs impeding development For at least six years, there's been one tiny thing standing in the way of rebuilding the Skyline Boulevard bridge and making improvements to the Crystal Springs dam directly underneath. It's a colony of red-legged frogs. But officials say they are closer than they have ever been to coming up with an eviction plan that also protects the creatures, listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The frogs have taken up residence in an area about the size of a large backyard swimming pool. It's not even a pond, just stagnant water that has pooled in between the slabs of concrete on top of the dam. The area is off limits to the public and sealed off by two locked gates....
BLM aims to step up weed fight Federal studies show there are four times as many noxious weeds on public lands in the West as there were a decade ago. And wildfire risks continue to grow each year. So every year, the Bureau of Land Management uses prescribed burns, chemical weed treatments and a variety of other methods to conserve and restore habitat on thousands of acres of public lands across the West, including Wyoming. The agency wants to enlarge those restoration and conservation efforts to include millions more acres in the near future....
Saving the Environment, One Quarterly Earnings Report at a Time A few years ago, scientists at Cargill Inc. learned how to make rigid, transparent plastics from corn sugars. There was just one problem: they cost a lot more than the oil-based plastics they would replace. But that was before the price of oil shot up and companies came under pressure from consumers and investors to find economically sound ways to adopt "green" packaging and other environmentally friendly products and processes. This year, Wal-Mart, Wild Oats Market and many other retailers, as well as food suppliers like Del Monte and Newman's Own Organics, all embraced corn-based packaging for fresh produce. Sales at NatureWorks, the Cargill subsidiary that makes the plastic, grew 200 percent in the first half of this year over the period last year. "The early adopters were more influenced by environmental concerns than costs," said Kathleen M. Bader, chairwoman of NatureWorks. "But now we're competitive with petrochemicals, too." Cargill is one of several companies profiting from the concerns - of shareholders, communities and consumers - about global warming, leaking landfills and other potential environmental hazards. Huge companies like General Electric and Chevron now have separate businesses to market what they are calling environment-friendly products....
Turkeys losing home on the (free) range Since its origin in 1946, Young's Farm has grown from a family lifestyle into a commercial and agricultural venture that has 60 full-time employees in addition to family workers. It's become one of the biggest tourist attractions for Dewey, a community with fewer than 7,000 residents. More than 150,000 people visit the farm during its pumpkin festival in October alone. Her smile is only skin deep. Behind it, Teskey says she's consumed by the thought of losing the family farm to residential development, which has been mandated by state law. If the Youngs don't cease using the land for agriculture by the end of 2006, the property will decrease in value by 4 percent each year because of the mandate, she said. The property is in an area deemed at risk for water availability, and agriculture uses three times that of residential development, according to some state studies....
It's All Trew: Water - then and now
What did people do for water before windmills? This question is significant and brings to mind other questions of like nature. Beware, as the following theories are strictly "Trew." We know beyond doubt there were millions of buffalo, deer, antelope, coyotes, mountain lions, wild turkeys, plus a long list of lesser creatures living on the Great Plains before the white man came. Each had to have water daily to survive. Add the Indians, their horses and livestock water requirements to this and it adds up to a lot of water needed each and every day. How many gallons? A mature buffalo weighing 900 to 1,000 pounds will drink about eight to 10 gallons of water per day. Calculate a like amount, relative to live weight of all the other prairie creatures and dwellers, and the amount of daily water required becomes astronomical. Remember now, this was before windmills, earthen dams and lakes, pipelines and electrical-powered water systems. Where did all the water come from and where was it located?....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Court needs basic wisdom, not legal eagles The latest bone thrown to the voracious mad dogs of the media, including this columnist, is the all-important, job-eternal Supreme Court nomination. The question that has the least influence on confirmation, yet receives the most polarized press coverage is: "Is the nominee qualified to be a Supreme Court judge?" Using my cowboy logic I'm going to dive beneath the poorly disguised whirlpools of pontificating spin and examine the issue that most begs addressing; i.e., why do we limit our choices to lawyers? I have discussed this with judges and lawyers, as well as cowboys and antelope....
Ancient Indian site caught in development battle A remote Utah canyon that long concealed a string of ancient Indian settlements holds another surprise: The rancher who sold it kept the mineral rights and says he may use them. Waldo Wilcox, who for nearly 50 years kept the ancient Fremont Indian sites remarkably well preserved, said he kept the mineral rights because Utah wouldn't pay what he thought his 4,200-acre ranch was worth. Wilcox wanted $4 million but got $2.5 million for the ranch in remote Range Creek Canyon. The 75-year-old rancher said that before he opens the canyon to any oil-and-gas development, he would offer the mineral rights to the state -- for a price. In the documentary "Secrets of the Lost Canyon," which airs locally Monday, Wilcox bitterly recalled negotiating with the state....
What's killing the elk in Yellowstone? Whodunit? The big, bad wolf? Old Man Winter? A scientific mystery starring wolves, adversarial weather and a declining elk herd is playing out at Yellowstone National Park. Oh, and people — hunters — are possible suspects, too. The elk population in North Yellowstone has dropped to about 8,000 from almost 17,000 in 1995. That was the year wolves were reintroduced into the 2.5-million-acre federal park in Wyoming, which overlaps the border of Montana and Idaho. The northern herd contains just a fraction of the 120,000 elk believed to dwell in the park region, and Yellowstone's Northern Range is just 204,000 acres. But this region is of particular interest to scientists because it has the largest wolf population, about 106 of the park's 171 wolves in 2004, making the elk there the most vulnerable herd....
New Process May Solve Old Coalbed Methane Problem Results should be in by Thanksgiving for the test run of a Montana-based engineering firm’s proposed solution for a major environmental problem from coalbed methane gas drilling. If the packaged water-treatment system successfully purifies brackish water that sometimes comes with the gas, the procedure could help advance the stalled CBM industry, which produces 9% of U.S. domestic natural gas. Drake Engineering Inc., Helena, is testing its new water-treatment technology at a Marathon Oil Corp. site in Wyoming, says Scott Scheffler, a spokesman for Houston-based Marathon. The system allows "resource extraction in an environmentally responsible manner," says co-owner Vivian Drake. Her husband, Ron, invented the new technology. The skid-mounted Drake treatment module measures about 8 x 12 ft. A pickup truck can deliver the 9,000-lb device on a tilt-bed trailer. The transport height, including trailer, is less than 11 ft. Erected, the unit is 14 ft tall and can process about 250 gallons per minute, or 8,500 barrels per day....
'Canary in the Mine' Bruce Peterson, on his hands and knees, claws through a thick pad of peat moss and into the brown muck beneath. "Put your hand in there and feel that," he says over his shoulder. The hole is an icebox chilled by a slab of frozen soil that starts about a foot below the surface and, in places, extends deeper than the length of a football field. The permafrost on Alaska's northern reaches froze thousands of years ago and has acted as a year-round thermostat for the tundra's plants, animals and water systems. But in recent decades, temperatures have warmed in the Arctic and the top layers of the permafrost have thawed. One long-time researcher predicts that half of interior Alaska's permafrost could be gone by the end of the century. In some places, the tundra is already crumbling into itself because of the thawing. In other places, suddenly unstable trees are tilting over in "drunken forests" and coastal villages on eroding land are being relocated....
Hidden hazards for migrant forest workers First in 1980 and again in 1993, Congress expressed shock at the abuse of Latino forest workers in America's woods and the hypocrisy of undocumented workers doing government work. Today, despite the influx of thousands of legal guest workers into reforestation, much of the work force remains undocumented. And the abject living conditions and wage exploitation that outraged Congress endure. And Congress has never examined the most pressing danger to Latino forest workers: the threat of being injured or killed on the job. A nine-month Sacramento Bee investigation has found that reforestation work, the thinning and planting that keeps both public and private forests healthy, is one of the most hazardous occupations in America _ and one of the most overlooked by state and federal regulators. On Forest Service and national park jobs visited by The Bee this year, peril was paramount. Slashing away at dense tangles of trees with chain saws, the pineros _ Spanish for pine workers _ scrambled through the woods in a chaos of cutting and noise....
Vail turns to logging operations to prevent forest fires, beetles The massive machine wrapped its metal arms around the trunk of the dead tree and in one swift move, cleanly ripped it from the ground. Turning into a clearing, it rotated the log and fed it through another part of the multifunctional machine, stripping it of limbs and leaves. The machine then turned again and neatly added the log to a growing pile. Tom Olden, owner of Pine Martin Logging, recently wielded this tract feller processor during a logging operation on Vail Mountain that cut about 600 trees around the top of Born Free Express Lift, also known as Chair 8. "We have a pristine ski area," said Jen Brown, spokeswoman for Vail Mountain, "and we did it to protect our assets along the gondola. It was related to the pine beetle and working on the fire protection along that area." As pine beetles turn Colorado forests into a rusty shade of red, Pine Martin Logging was hired to remove the trees from about 10 acres of U.S. Forest Service land over two weeks....
New home sought for frogs impeding development For at least six years, there's been one tiny thing standing in the way of rebuilding the Skyline Boulevard bridge and making improvements to the Crystal Springs dam directly underneath. It's a colony of red-legged frogs. But officials say they are closer than they have ever been to coming up with an eviction plan that also protects the creatures, listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The frogs have taken up residence in an area about the size of a large backyard swimming pool. It's not even a pond, just stagnant water that has pooled in between the slabs of concrete on top of the dam. The area is off limits to the public and sealed off by two locked gates....
BLM aims to step up weed fight Federal studies show there are four times as many noxious weeds on public lands in the West as there were a decade ago. And wildfire risks continue to grow each year. So every year, the Bureau of Land Management uses prescribed burns, chemical weed treatments and a variety of other methods to conserve and restore habitat on thousands of acres of public lands across the West, including Wyoming. The agency wants to enlarge those restoration and conservation efforts to include millions more acres in the near future....
Saving the Environment, One Quarterly Earnings Report at a Time A few years ago, scientists at Cargill Inc. learned how to make rigid, transparent plastics from corn sugars. There was just one problem: they cost a lot more than the oil-based plastics they would replace. But that was before the price of oil shot up and companies came under pressure from consumers and investors to find economically sound ways to adopt "green" packaging and other environmentally friendly products and processes. This year, Wal-Mart, Wild Oats Market and many other retailers, as well as food suppliers like Del Monte and Newman's Own Organics, all embraced corn-based packaging for fresh produce. Sales at NatureWorks, the Cargill subsidiary that makes the plastic, grew 200 percent in the first half of this year over the period last year. "The early adopters were more influenced by environmental concerns than costs," said Kathleen M. Bader, chairwoman of NatureWorks. "But now we're competitive with petrochemicals, too." Cargill is one of several companies profiting from the concerns - of shareholders, communities and consumers - about global warming, leaking landfills and other potential environmental hazards. Huge companies like General Electric and Chevron now have separate businesses to market what they are calling environment-friendly products....
Turkeys losing home on the (free) range Since its origin in 1946, Young's Farm has grown from a family lifestyle into a commercial and agricultural venture that has 60 full-time employees in addition to family workers. It's become one of the biggest tourist attractions for Dewey, a community with fewer than 7,000 residents. More than 150,000 people visit the farm during its pumpkin festival in October alone. Her smile is only skin deep. Behind it, Teskey says she's consumed by the thought of losing the family farm to residential development, which has been mandated by state law. If the Youngs don't cease using the land for agriculture by the end of 2006, the property will decrease in value by 4 percent each year because of the mandate, she said. The property is in an area deemed at risk for water availability, and agriculture uses three times that of residential development, according to some state studies....
It's All Trew: Water - then and now
What did people do for water before windmills? This question is significant and brings to mind other questions of like nature. Beware, as the following theories are strictly "Trew." We know beyond doubt there were millions of buffalo, deer, antelope, coyotes, mountain lions, wild turkeys, plus a long list of lesser creatures living on the Great Plains before the white man came. Each had to have water daily to survive. Add the Indians, their horses and livestock water requirements to this and it adds up to a lot of water needed each and every day. How many gallons? A mature buffalo weighing 900 to 1,000 pounds will drink about eight to 10 gallons of water per day. Calculate a like amount, relative to live weight of all the other prairie creatures and dwellers, and the amount of daily water required becomes astronomical. Remember now, this was before windmills, earthen dams and lakes, pipelines and electrical-powered water systems. Where did all the water come from and where was it located?....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Court needs basic wisdom, not legal eagles The latest bone thrown to the voracious mad dogs of the media, including this columnist, is the all-important, job-eternal Supreme Court nomination. The question that has the least influence on confirmation, yet receives the most polarized press coverage is: "Is the nominee qualified to be a Supreme Court judge?" Using my cowboy logic I'm going to dive beneath the poorly disguised whirlpools of pontificating spin and examine the issue that most begs addressing; i.e., why do we limit our choices to lawyers? I have discussed this with judges and lawyers, as well as cowboys and antelope....
Monday, November 21, 2005
NATIONAL FINALS STEER ROPING
Less Than 2 Bucks
Scott Snedecor caught fire at the 2005 National Finals Steer Roping and burned 18-time World Champion Steer Roper Guy Allen by a mere $1.67 for this year's gold buckle. It was the closest title race ever in any single event in the history of the PRCA. Snedecor (Uvalde, Texas), who entered his fifth consecutive NFSR $16,148 behind Allen, won a round, placed in six others and won the average with a total time of 123.4 seconds on 10-head en route to his first world title at the 47th annual NFSR. This year's event featured a $130,000 payoff and ran Nov. 18-20 at the Amarillo National Center in Amarillo, Texas. The $21,850 Snedecor banked in Amarillo added up with his regular-season earnings to $69,318.77 compared to Allen's $69,380.10. While Snedecor placed in the money in seven out of 10 rounds, Allen only placed in three rounds. In the first round, Allen finished third with a run of 11.8 seconds, with Snedecor one-tenth of a second off Allen's time with an 11.9 for fourth place. The final day of competition featured four rounds, and it would be a fight to the end with Snedecor and Allen. Snedecor came out firing, placing fourth in the seventh, eighth and ninth rounds with times of 10.8, 13.6 and 12.6 seconds, respectively. Riding into the final round, Snedecor knew he needed the average win. He also knew there was one more roper to go after him, and that was Allen, who had failed to place in the money on Sunday afternoon. Snedecor needed not only first in the average, but to finish one spot ahead of Allen if he placed in the round. Allen came up with a no time in the final round and although Snedecor didn't place in the money in the 10th round, his average win gave him the victory....
Uvalde cowboy claims gold - barely
A good horse: $20,000-25,000. A good horse trailer: $70,000. A good rope: $30. The final difference in the 2005 National Finals Steer Roping: $1.67. Uvalde's Scott Snedecor won the gold buckle on Sunday with a margin a little less than most people have in their ashtrays, coming from behind to win against 18-time world champion Guy Allen in the Amarillo National Center. "Coming in, I thought I had a shot, but trying to chase Guy Allen, I wouldn't call it a good shot," Snedecor said. "Somehow everything fell right for me. I didn't change anything I'd done all year long, and it worked." Snedecor entered the finals trailing Allen by $16,000 and needing an almost perfect weekend to catch Allen. That was precisely what Snedecor produced, winning the average and $11,400 as one of three cowboys to rope all 10 steers during the three days in front of a big crowd, which included a large and loud section of Snedecor supporters. Brazile won the Colby Goodwin Memorial tie-down match, defeating Cody Ohl in the finals on four attempts with a total time of 39.5 seconds to 41.3 for Ohl....
Less Than 2 Bucks
Scott Snedecor caught fire at the 2005 National Finals Steer Roping and burned 18-time World Champion Steer Roper Guy Allen by a mere $1.67 for this year's gold buckle. It was the closest title race ever in any single event in the history of the PRCA. Snedecor (Uvalde, Texas), who entered his fifth consecutive NFSR $16,148 behind Allen, won a round, placed in six others and won the average with a total time of 123.4 seconds on 10-head en route to his first world title at the 47th annual NFSR. This year's event featured a $130,000 payoff and ran Nov. 18-20 at the Amarillo National Center in Amarillo, Texas. The $21,850 Snedecor banked in Amarillo added up with his regular-season earnings to $69,318.77 compared to Allen's $69,380.10. While Snedecor placed in the money in seven out of 10 rounds, Allen only placed in three rounds. In the first round, Allen finished third with a run of 11.8 seconds, with Snedecor one-tenth of a second off Allen's time with an 11.9 for fourth place. The final day of competition featured four rounds, and it would be a fight to the end with Snedecor and Allen. Snedecor came out firing, placing fourth in the seventh, eighth and ninth rounds with times of 10.8, 13.6 and 12.6 seconds, respectively. Riding into the final round, Snedecor knew he needed the average win. He also knew there was one more roper to go after him, and that was Allen, who had failed to place in the money on Sunday afternoon. Snedecor needed not only first in the average, but to finish one spot ahead of Allen if he placed in the round. Allen came up with a no time in the final round and although Snedecor didn't place in the money in the 10th round, his average win gave him the victory....
Uvalde cowboy claims gold - barely
A good horse: $20,000-25,000. A good horse trailer: $70,000. A good rope: $30. The final difference in the 2005 National Finals Steer Roping: $1.67. Uvalde's Scott Snedecor won the gold buckle on Sunday with a margin a little less than most people have in their ashtrays, coming from behind to win against 18-time world champion Guy Allen in the Amarillo National Center. "Coming in, I thought I had a shot, but trying to chase Guy Allen, I wouldn't call it a good shot," Snedecor said. "Somehow everything fell right for me. I didn't change anything I'd done all year long, and it worked." Snedecor entered the finals trailing Allen by $16,000 and needing an almost perfect weekend to catch Allen. That was precisely what Snedecor produced, winning the average and $11,400 as one of three cowboys to rope all 10 steers during the three days in front of a big crowd, which included a large and loud section of Snedecor supporters. Brazile won the Colby Goodwin Memorial tie-down match, defeating Cody Ohl in the finals on four attempts with a total time of 39.5 seconds to 41.3 for Ohl....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Wolves killed in Wollaston Lake area Tests are being done on two wolves killed in the Wollaston Lake area – the same area where the body of an Ontario man was found last week following a suspected attack by animals. According to the Canadian Press, Saskatchewan conservation officers shot the animals and sent the carcasses to Saskatoon to determine if they were the animals that killed 22-year-old Kenton Joel Carnegie. Carnegie, a third-year geological engineering student at the University of Waterloo, had been working at Points North Landing as part of his fall term co-op program. Following an autopsy, RCMP said although they couldn't say for certain he had been killed by wolves, that was the working theory....
Road battle roused commissioner out of his retirement He hounds land managers. He nips at environmentalists. He howls about the federal threat to local rights. But the bulldog that is Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw wasn't unleashed until 1998, when the retired-cop-turned-forest-ranger-turned-rancher quietly raised his hand and volunteered to examine road issues for a conservative group. "I don't know why I did it," he recalls. "But it felt like it was something I should do." Seven years later, Habbeshaw finds himself leading the charge against the Interior Department and environmental groups in the simmering showdown over who controls public lands. "I'll call it a fight," concedes Habbeshaw, sitting in his Kanab office under one of two prints of cowboys tearing across the prairie. And it's a fight in which the 64-year-old commissioner has thrown his share of punches. "He's a little more confrontational than the average guy," explains Stephen Boyden, deputy director for Utah's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office. The current skirmish ratcheted up in 1996, when then-President Clinton created the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, drawing cheers from environmentalists and jeers from many locals....
Local officials provoke BLM over roads in monument The Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s lasted less than a decade as a potent political force. But the sentiment that sparked the backlash over the management of federally owned lands in the West has never really gone away. And nowhere does the movement's heart beat more loudly today than in southern Utah. Specifically, in Kane County. For more than two years, officials in the county, which is home to spectacular redrock vistas enshrined in countless Hollywood films, have been sticking a figurative finger in the eye of the Interior Department, daring it to do something about the federal road signs they have removed and the county road signs they have put up in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. All without authorization from the Bureau of Land Management, and in defiance of the BLM's existing transportation plan for the area. County officials frankly admit they are trying to provoke a response from the feds to force a lawsuit or a criminal trespassing charge that will land them in court and give them a chance to make their claim to the roads under an old mining law known as Revised Statute 2477, which granted rights-of-way across federal land....
Forest documentary takes quiet approach If the battles over Northwest logging have become wearisome, then Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Rethinking the Forests" provides an almost peaceful respite. The "Oregon Story" documentary explores the future of Oregon's forests but avoids the loudest voices in the conflict over that future. There are no timber industry big shots, no environmental activists or tree-sitters. The Bush administration and its maneuvers to promote logging are never mentioned. If the battles over Northwest logging have become wearisome, then Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Rethinking the Forests" provides an almost peaceful respite. The "Oregon Story" documentary explores the future of Oregon's forests but avoids the loudest voices in the conflict over that future. There are no timber industry big shots, no environmental activists or tree-sitters. The Bush administration and its maneuvers to promote logging are never mentioned. In their place are Oregonians who are quietly living, working and cutting trees in the forests without fighting. The program is unconventional and already has provoked criticism from environmental activists who say it prescribes logging as the forest cure-all. But it's also provocative. "Rethinking the Forests" makes the case the state's forests are in trouble, especially on the drier east side of the Cascades. Insects and disease are killing them, it says, and court fights are slowing the logging that would help avoid fires such as the ones that scorched Yellowstone National Park in 1988....
U.S. Backs Squeezing Oil From a Stone Tucked into a ravine and hidden behind ridges standing like stony sentinels is the site of Shell Oil Co.'s ultra-experimental, highly anticipated 30-year project to unlock oil from vast underground beds of rock. Here, on this sweeping plateau in western Colorado, the Bush administration has fixed its hopes for the next big energy boom: oil shale, which the U.S. Department of the Interior praises as an "energy resource with staggering potential." Members of Congress have described the region as the Saudi Arabia of oil shale. Legislation recently signed by President Bush instructs the Interior Department to lease 35% of the federal government's oil shale lands within the next year; provides tax breaks to the industry; reduces the ability of states and local communities to influence where projects are located; and compresses multiple, lengthy environmental assessments into a single analysis good for 10 years....
Column: California's calamity in waiting The scenario is as simple as what unfolded in New Orleans. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is below sea level. It is protected by a network of earthen levees dating to the frontier era, many built by Chinese laborers following completion of the trans-Sierra railroad. Through this delta flow the waters of Northern California, which are channeled southward to the semi-arid reaches of Central and Southern California via a network of aqueducts and pipelines representing a multibillion-dollar investment by state and federal government across 75 years of construction. Ringing the delta is a rich empire of agriculture and suburban development. Should a magnitude 6.5 earthquake strike the San Francisco Bay Area — almost a certainty by mid-century, though it could happen today — about 30 major failures can be expected in the earthen levees. About 3,000 homes and 85,000 acres of cropland would be submerged. Saltwater from San Francisco Bay would invade the system, forcing engineers to shut down the pumps that ship water to Central and Southern California while the levees were being repaired. This would cut off water to the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project....
A radical new vision There's not much to see at the United Water and Sanitation District. It consists of a 1-acre patch of grass and thistles in rural Elbert County. No one lives there. There are no buildings - not even a shed - in this special government district. No water or sanitation lines run through it. There is no reservoir or water tank. Nor are there plans for such things. The district has no customers in the county that authorized its creation. Elbert County records list the acre as a helicopter pad site. It's just a piece of ground to meet the legal requirement that special districts have defined boundaries. Yet it serves as the vehicle for an ambitious scheme to create a water network serving future developments throughout Colorado's booming Front Range. "United," Lembke said, "is an animal no one has seen before."....
Decision delayed on proposal to increase Wattenberg drilling The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission decided Friday to postpone a decision on a proposal to increase oil and gas drilling in the Wattenberg Field in northern Colorado. After a two-day hearing, commission members decided to wait until their Dec. 5 meeting in Denver to begin deliberations on the proposal by Kerr-McGee Corp., Encana Corp. and Noble Energy Marketing Inc. The companies have proposed adding three wells per each 160-acre quarter-section in the 2,500-square-mile field, the state's second-largest gas field. To reach the untapped reserves, the companies plan to use directional drilling from the field's existing well pads. The plan has been opposed by local ranchers, developers and landowners who believe the move is a land grab....
Editorial: Reject plan for new mountain village It seems absurd to perch a new city bigger than Alamosa near timberline on one of Colorado's snowiest mountain roads. But that's what the Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture proposes with its controversial Village at Wolf Creek. A key decision is expected soon from the U.S. Forest Service, which ought to reject the inappropriately large-scale project. The development would sit below Wolf Creek Pass (average annual snowfall: 400 inches) along U.S. 160, the highway that crosses the Continental Divide between Durango and the San Luis Valley. The project would be nearly surrounded by national forest and the Wolf Creek Ski Area, which opposes the plan and is tangled in lawsuits over the issue. The project may be built in phases, but government agencies should focus on cumulative effects....
Mining-claim plan worries Westerners Private companies and individuals would be able to buy large tracts of federal land, from sagebrush basins to high-peak hiking trails in Utah and around the West, under the terms of the spending bill that has passed the House of Representatives by a two-vote margin, 217-215. On the surface, the bill reads like the mundane nip and tuck of federal mining law its authors say it is. But lawyers who have parsed its language say the real beneficiaries could be real estate developers, whose business has become a more potent economic engine in the West than mining. Under the existing law, a mining claim is the vehicle that allows for the extraction of so-called hard-rock metals like gold or silver. Under the House bill passed Friday, for the first time in the history of the 133-year-old mining law individuals or companies can file and expand claims even if the land at the heart of a claim has already been stripped of its minerals or could never support a profitable mine. The measure would also lift an 11-year moratorium on the passing of claims into full ownership....
Column: Giving environmentalists a chance to put up or . . . not Something there is about selling off public lands in the West that throws environmental groups into a panic. They invariably prefer the devil they know, which is the perpetual mismanagement of millions of acres by federal agencies who always complain about underfunding. But instead of resisting private sales, they should be invited to get in on them. If political influence corresponds to wealth - and it clearly does - environmentalists individually and collectively could and would outbid the mining, timber and grazing interests for much of the acreage. Then they could manage it the way they want. There would be no more conflicting "multiple use" mandates to worry about. And they wouldn't have to spend millions on lobbying and related nonproductive activities....
New Mexico sees tug-of-war between industry, environmental groups Although New Mexico has been an oil and gas producing state for 80 years, it has recently become a bit of a battleground between environmental groups and the industry. There are several reasons, said Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, why New Mexico has found itself in the spotlight. One is the fact that the state holds the nation's second largest amount of state and federal lands and has a large amount natural resources located on federal lands. Secondly, the state's two senators, Pete Domenici, a Republican, and Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, are ranking senators on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and, thirdly, the state's governor, Bill Richardson, is politically active nationally. Two areas, Otero Mesa and Valle Vidal, have become the center of controversy because, Gallagher said, "they hold some of the few new untapped areas of land in the western United States where oil and gas could be developed."....
Fish carcasses rain on forest Helicopters are dropping thousands of salmon carcasses in the Mount Hood National Forest this week, part of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife-funded attempt to enhance the food chain for fish and wildlife in the upper Clackamas and Sandy river basins. The fish drop zones total about 10 stream miles. The Forest Service and partners began the drops five years ago to supplement the aquatic food chain, part of the strategy to rebuild depleted fish runs. However, the forested environment prevents all the drops from reaching their intended targets; some of the carcasses fall on land to be consumed by animals. The decaying fish replace some of the nutrients that came from wild salmon after they spawned and died in past generations. After a post-drop survey in 2004 found no significant gain in the simplest forms of aquatic life, the amount dropped for each stream mile was increased, said Burke Strobel, a Forest Service fish biologist based in Estacada....
Editorial: The road to common sense THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE'S new rule for off-road vehicles is a pleasant surprise, or at least a very good beginning. Up to now, using off-road vehicles in the national forests has been legal everywhere except where signs say it's prohibited. The new rule takes the opposite approach: It will be legal to use off-road vehicles only in areas where signs specifically allow it. The change is subtle but profound; the new rule puts the onus on off-roaders, where it belongs, and should make enforcement easier. Knowing which areas allow off-roading will be the driver's responsibility. The rule also ends so-called cross-country riding, in which long-distance trails are forged from one mapped area to another. But its success will depend on what foresters do next. Decisions on off-roading trails will be decided in local planning meetings over the next four years. One thing the Forest Service can do to make that planning a more honest effort is to decide now that illegal routes will remain illegal. Otherwise, off-roaders will be carving up the wilderness with new trails during the next couple of years in hopes of getting as many routes as possible sanctified....
Sacramento River salmon at highest population level in 24 years Wildlife managers expect more than 15,000 endangered winter-run chinook salmon to thrash their way up the Sacramento River this year, the largest number in 24 years thanks to extraordinary and expensive efforts to save the species. But there are a couple of caution flags: An unusually high percentage of the returning fish were born in a hatchery, while an improbably low proportion of dead male fish were found by biologists counting carcasses of the salmon, which die after breeding. An estimated 18 percent are hatchery fish this year, up from the usual 5 percent to 10 percent. Biologists limit the number of hatchery fish to avoid contaminating the wild gene pool, but an unusually large number were released three years ago as an experiment. "It looks like the hatchery fish may have survived a lot better this year. We're not really sure why," said Alice Low, a senior fishery biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. "It's definitely something we'll keep an eye on."....
Turner says one man can make difference For the past three years, Ted Turner has driven a Toyota Prius that gets up to 50 miles per gallon. He owns a million acres of ranch land in New Mexico; on one ranch, he's knocked down fences and replaced cows with bison. He firmly believes environmental responsibility and profitable business aren't mutually exclusive. Today, Turner will speak at an awards reception sponsored by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. He and the award winners are a signal that, "unquestionably, one person can still make a difference," he said. Turner founded Turner Enterprises in 1991 specifically to address environmental issues around the globe. He owns 14 ranches totaling 2 million acres, including three in New Mexico....
Northwest Power Council Analysis Suggests Electric Rates Could Rise Due To Salmon Lawsuit Increased water spills over Columbia and Snake river dams and changes in river flows to aid juvenile salmon and steelhead migration in 2006, sought by plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, would raise the cost of electricity in the Northwest this winter and also could increase the risk of power failures, according to an analysis by the staff of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. The net cost of the operations, if they are ordered by the federal court, could range from $125 million to $560 million in 2006, according to the analysis. The matter will be argued December 15 before U.S. District Judge James A. Redden in Portland, where plaintiffs led by the National Wildlife Federation successfully sued the federal government over its 2004 Biological Opinion on Snake and Columbia River hydropower operations to protect threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead....
Litigation impacts 800 projects on 1.2 million acres A California woodlands expert this week predicted an “explosive” wildfire season next season if human intervention to clear forest fuels is thwarted by court-mandated bureaucracy. “It is not a question of if, but when the wildfires will ignite,” John Hoffman testified Tuesday before a U.S. House hearing on litigation on U.S. Forest Service firefighting and forest health efforts. “Delays of any extent, extends the time period communities are vulnerable to wildfire,” said Hoffman, natural resources director of the Regional Council of Rural Counties, Sacramento. House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Bob Goodlatte chaired the hearing in Washington, D.C. In September, a California district court ruled in the Earth Island Institute v. Ruthenbeck case that projects proposed by the Forest Service under “Categorical Exclusions” were subject to the notice, comment and appeal provisions of the Appeals Reform Act of 1992. The Earth Island decision could impact roughly 800 projects on over 1.2 million acres of Forest Service land. The ruling applies to timber sales, prescribed burning, forest health, off-highway vehicles and mineral development projects.
Nevada congressman urged to oppose anti-wilderness bill Environmentalists are urging Rep. Jim Gibbons to oppose federal legislation that would potentially open up to development 412,000 acres of wilderness study areas in Nevada and California. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., introduced on Oct. 28 the bill that would remove protections from 11 U.S. Bureau of Land Management wilderness study areas straddling the Nevada-California border north of Reno. Gibbons' name originally appeared on the bill as its lone co-sponsor, but his aides said it was put there by mistake and that he hasn't decided whether to support it or not. John Wallin, director of the Nevada Wilderness Project, said he and other conservationists are not convinced it was a mistake and they remain concerned the Nevada Republican may end up supporting the measure....
'Grizzly Man' beautifully done but like watching an inevitable train wreck "Grizzly Man" is a strange story about some strange people. Of course, those who know Herzog know his films often are filled with strange people, either real or fictional. In this case, the people are real. The strangest of the lot is Timothy Treadwell, the grizzly man. For 13 years, he traveled to Alaska during the summer to do what he could to protect grizzly bears despite the fact they seemed to need no protection beyond what the National Park Service provided. Treadwell seemed to have no fear of these animals and, was able to get close to them and to talk to them. Treadwell captured a lot of his activities on video, and they are the visuals that make up most of the film. We see Treadwell talking in falsetto to bears as people tend to do with their dogs and their infants. He gives the bears names like Mr. Chocolate and Aunt Melissa and professes his love for them. The bears always seem indifferent to Treadwell and merely tolerate him. Sometimes Treadwell will begin to shout and curse, incoherently, at the National Park Service and whatever else he imagines stands in his way of protecting the bears. Every appearance of Treadwell on camera led me to the conclusion he was a man who was going around the bend and it was happening in an extremely dangerous place....
Bill to aid park resident stalls Legislation to help an elderly woman keep her part-time home in Rocky Mountain National Park was caught in the crossfire of an Iraq war debate in Congress on Friday. The House of Representatives was expected to easily approve legislation helping octogenarian Betty Dick, but first the House erupted in emotional finger-pointing over Iraq policy. Things got so emotional that at one point Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, began objecting to any unrelated action that he thought Republicans wanted. The National Park Service wanted to evict Betty Dick when her lease expired earlier this year. The bill would allow her to remain on her property for the rest of her life....
BEARS GO OFF RELIEF Bears in Yellowstone and other northern national parks are going into winter quarters. They are fat, lazy, good-natured, for they are at the end of another summer of high feeding, and they have thoroughly padded their ribs with the layers of fuel-food that will be needed to keep their low-banked fires of life smoldering while they sleep the long weeks away. "As fat as a bear" is a wholly accurate folk-simile, in the late autumn. But 5 months or so hence, when they will be coming out of their dens, the simile will have to change. Then, it will be "as hungry as a bear," and "as cross as a bear," too. The national park bruins will come out with bunkers empty, ribs lean, stomachs hollow, and fairly yelling for food. Bears are pleasant-enough fellows in the autumn, not quite so nice in the spring. The national park bears will not find their spring breakfasts as easy to get in the future as they and their ancestors for several generations have in the past. For Uncle Sam is taking them off relief, depriving them of their dole of assorted garbage that they have come to take for granted as part of their natural and inalienable rights....
Montana man lives with wolves On a cold November day, Carl Bock entered the double-gated 10-acre enclosure where his pack of 10 wolves lives. Instantly, half the pack is there to investigate the people Bock has brought into their territory. Wizzy, the alpha male who began the kill of another wolf in the pack to ascend to lead status -- the rest of the pack hangs back until a winner is obvious, then moves in to finish off the vanquished -- is first on the scene. "Be careful," Bock cautions. "You'll be 2.5 hours before Wizzy burns out on belly rubs." Indeed, Wizzy seems a lamb in wolf's clothing. The only danger from this wolf appears to be getting licked to death. He loves being petted, loves having his belly rubbed. And if you don't crouch down to eye level for him to lick your face, Wizzy will stand on his hind legs and put his front paws up on a tree to get to your level so he can kiss you. A few feet away, outside the enclosure in an area where the public can view the wolves at the Wolfkeep Wildlife Sanctuary, sits a bowling ball that's been chewed in half. Bock uses it as a visual aid to explain to visitors about the massive crushing power in a wolf's jaw....
Steeped in Greenhouse Gas, Pine Trees Deviate From the air, they look like a cross between unexplained Midwestern crop circles and the megaliths of Stonehenge. But these tall structures loom out of a forest. Arranged in a loop, the 100-foot-high by 100-foot-wide assemblages are releasing carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless miasma that wafts through the loblolly pines they encircle. The 50-foot-tall pines, natives of the Deep South, are subjects in an experiment by scientists at Duke University who are using this engineered micro-climate as a kind of time machine to find out how these trees are likely to react as carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere and temperatures climb....
Seeking Clean Fuel for a Nation, and a Rebirth for Small-Town Montana If the vast, empty plain of eastern Montana is the Saudi Arabia of coal, then Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a prairie populist with a bolo tie and an advanced degree in soil science, may be its Lawrence. Rarely a day goes by that he does not lash out against the "sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks" who control the world oil supply or the people he calls their political handmaidens, "the best Congress that Big Oil can buy." Governor Schweitzer, a Democrat, has a two-fisted idea for energy independence that he carries around with him. In one fist is a shank of Montana coal, black and hard. In the other fist is a vial of nearly odorless clear liquid - a synthetic fuel that came from the coal and could run cars, jets and trucks or heat homes without contributing to global warming or setting off a major fight with environmental groups, he said. "Smell that," Mr. Schweitzer said, thrusting his vial of fuel under the noses of interested observers here in the capital, where he works in jeans with a border collie underfoot. "You hardly smell anything. This is a clean fuel, converted from coal by a chemical process. We can produce enough of this in Montana to power every American car for decades."....
Farming's front and center at talks Amid signs of stalemate, U.S. negotiators are making a final push for a new global trade pact that could usher in the biggest changes in farm policy in decades. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman last month offered to slash selected agricultural subsidies by up to 60% in return for Europe, Japan and others opening their markets to U.S. farm exports. The European Union responded with a mild tariff-cutting proposal that dashed hopes for a key gathering next month of trade ministers from the 148-nation World Trade Organization. Now, with just three weeks remaining before the make-or-break Hong Kong summit, some trade experts fear another high-profile debacle like two of the WTO's last three ministerial meetings. At the heart of the current deadlock is a high-stakes dispute over farm trade....
Horse sense in Montana How unlikely is it that a Frenchman-turned-U.S.-citizen, the founder of a global power-generation company who makes his home in New York City's eclectic SoHo enclave, is transforming a small college town in southwestern Montana into the horse-whispering capital of the world? Curious ranchers in these parts don't call William Kriegel the "French cowboy" for nothing. Foremost on the receiving end of the rancher's generosity are students from the nearby University of Montana-Western, small in curriculum but, thanks in large part to Mr. Kriegel's grand vision, the only university in the United States to offer degrees (both associate's and bachelor's) in "natural horsemanship."....
Big Lake has gone to the dogs Persisting through three days of dog-eat-dog competition, Pat the border collie and her trainer Robin Penland beat out a "ruff" field of four-legged rivals this past weekend to claim top dog honors and the title of Texas Sheep Dog Association champions at the state tournament in Big Lake. "Everything in this sport emulates actual ranch work," Penland said. "In these trials we're just trying to show the dog that has the best command of the sheep." Rankings of the 98 sheep dogs at the Big Lake tournament were determined by each dog's performance in herding a small flock of sheep down a 300 yard field, through a series of gates and obstacles and into a small pen. Handlers instruct their dogs in this endeavor by voice and whistle commands from a stationary position at the end of the field opposite where the sheep are released at the beginning of each 12 minute run....
Western influence pervades cowboy fellowship They meet in a simple room atop the Livestock Pavilion at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, and their meetings are marked both by high spirits and the spirit of the Lord they come to worship. The Fellowship of Christian Cowboys meets at 7 p.m. Thursdays in the upstairs of the Livestock Pavilion at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Guests are welcome. Call Jim Bryce, the group’s president, at 259-2562 for information. The Fellowship of Christian Cowboys is in its second incarnation in La Plata County. One basically created for high school rodeo students faltered in the 1990s after a decade of activities. It officially came back in 2002. While the group has the word cowboy in the title, not all members are cattle ranchers, said Jim Bryce, the fellowship president. Some are former ranchers or have deep roots here because their ancestors came as pioneers. Because of that, Bryce said, the fellowship is more about the Western lifestyle....
HIDDEN HISTORY: Crook rancher finds stagecoach stop Pieces of northeast Colorados history are out there, buried six inches to a foot below the grass and weeds along the South Platte River near Tamarack Ranch State Wildlife Area. Crook rancher Bill Condon knew where to look. Decades of running cattle from horseback gave him a knowledge of the land he says you cant get any other way. Hed noticed the dished-out shape where the trail wound its way between the hills and the sometimes swampy river bottoms. Other parts of the landscape reminded him of corrals and mangers for livestock. Hollows and indentations in the ground, visible as shadows, and patches where different types of grasses and weeds grew unmasked the lands historic use. You get interested, Condon said. I think other people would want to know. These were the last sites on the map that I knew about. Condon worked with Jeff Broome, a philosophy instructor at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, with expertise on Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian wars. The historian and his students excavated the site under one rule: No heavy equipment. I told them they could dig as deep as they wanted with a shovel, Condon said. Using narrow shovels and metal detectors, they found bullets and casings, both fired and unfired; shoes for horses, mules and oxen; forks, knives, spoons and other tools; epaulets from the shoulders of a military uniform; tools and other items....
Wolves killed in Wollaston Lake area Tests are being done on two wolves killed in the Wollaston Lake area – the same area where the body of an Ontario man was found last week following a suspected attack by animals. According to the Canadian Press, Saskatchewan conservation officers shot the animals and sent the carcasses to Saskatoon to determine if they were the animals that killed 22-year-old Kenton Joel Carnegie. Carnegie, a third-year geological engineering student at the University of Waterloo, had been working at Points North Landing as part of his fall term co-op program. Following an autopsy, RCMP said although they couldn't say for certain he had been killed by wolves, that was the working theory....
Road battle roused commissioner out of his retirement He hounds land managers. He nips at environmentalists. He howls about the federal threat to local rights. But the bulldog that is Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw wasn't unleashed until 1998, when the retired-cop-turned-forest-ranger-turned-rancher quietly raised his hand and volunteered to examine road issues for a conservative group. "I don't know why I did it," he recalls. "But it felt like it was something I should do." Seven years later, Habbeshaw finds himself leading the charge against the Interior Department and environmental groups in the simmering showdown over who controls public lands. "I'll call it a fight," concedes Habbeshaw, sitting in his Kanab office under one of two prints of cowboys tearing across the prairie. And it's a fight in which the 64-year-old commissioner has thrown his share of punches. "He's a little more confrontational than the average guy," explains Stephen Boyden, deputy director for Utah's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office. The current skirmish ratcheted up in 1996, when then-President Clinton created the 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, drawing cheers from environmentalists and jeers from many locals....
Local officials provoke BLM over roads in monument The Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s lasted less than a decade as a potent political force. But the sentiment that sparked the backlash over the management of federally owned lands in the West has never really gone away. And nowhere does the movement's heart beat more loudly today than in southern Utah. Specifically, in Kane County. For more than two years, officials in the county, which is home to spectacular redrock vistas enshrined in countless Hollywood films, have been sticking a figurative finger in the eye of the Interior Department, daring it to do something about the federal road signs they have removed and the county road signs they have put up in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. All without authorization from the Bureau of Land Management, and in defiance of the BLM's existing transportation plan for the area. County officials frankly admit they are trying to provoke a response from the feds to force a lawsuit or a criminal trespassing charge that will land them in court and give them a chance to make their claim to the roads under an old mining law known as Revised Statute 2477, which granted rights-of-way across federal land....
Forest documentary takes quiet approach If the battles over Northwest logging have become wearisome, then Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Rethinking the Forests" provides an almost peaceful respite. The "Oregon Story" documentary explores the future of Oregon's forests but avoids the loudest voices in the conflict over that future. There are no timber industry big shots, no environmental activists or tree-sitters. The Bush administration and its maneuvers to promote logging are never mentioned. If the battles over Northwest logging have become wearisome, then Oregon Public Broadcasting's "Rethinking the Forests" provides an almost peaceful respite. The "Oregon Story" documentary explores the future of Oregon's forests but avoids the loudest voices in the conflict over that future. There are no timber industry big shots, no environmental activists or tree-sitters. The Bush administration and its maneuvers to promote logging are never mentioned. In their place are Oregonians who are quietly living, working and cutting trees in the forests without fighting. The program is unconventional and already has provoked criticism from environmental activists who say it prescribes logging as the forest cure-all. But it's also provocative. "Rethinking the Forests" makes the case the state's forests are in trouble, especially on the drier east side of the Cascades. Insects and disease are killing them, it says, and court fights are slowing the logging that would help avoid fires such as the ones that scorched Yellowstone National Park in 1988....
U.S. Backs Squeezing Oil From a Stone Tucked into a ravine and hidden behind ridges standing like stony sentinels is the site of Shell Oil Co.'s ultra-experimental, highly anticipated 30-year project to unlock oil from vast underground beds of rock. Here, on this sweeping plateau in western Colorado, the Bush administration has fixed its hopes for the next big energy boom: oil shale, which the U.S. Department of the Interior praises as an "energy resource with staggering potential." Members of Congress have described the region as the Saudi Arabia of oil shale. Legislation recently signed by President Bush instructs the Interior Department to lease 35% of the federal government's oil shale lands within the next year; provides tax breaks to the industry; reduces the ability of states and local communities to influence where projects are located; and compresses multiple, lengthy environmental assessments into a single analysis good for 10 years....
Column: California's calamity in waiting The scenario is as simple as what unfolded in New Orleans. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is below sea level. It is protected by a network of earthen levees dating to the frontier era, many built by Chinese laborers following completion of the trans-Sierra railroad. Through this delta flow the waters of Northern California, which are channeled southward to the semi-arid reaches of Central and Southern California via a network of aqueducts and pipelines representing a multibillion-dollar investment by state and federal government across 75 years of construction. Ringing the delta is a rich empire of agriculture and suburban development. Should a magnitude 6.5 earthquake strike the San Francisco Bay Area — almost a certainty by mid-century, though it could happen today — about 30 major failures can be expected in the earthen levees. About 3,000 homes and 85,000 acres of cropland would be submerged. Saltwater from San Francisco Bay would invade the system, forcing engineers to shut down the pumps that ship water to Central and Southern California while the levees were being repaired. This would cut off water to the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project....
A radical new vision There's not much to see at the United Water and Sanitation District. It consists of a 1-acre patch of grass and thistles in rural Elbert County. No one lives there. There are no buildings - not even a shed - in this special government district. No water or sanitation lines run through it. There is no reservoir or water tank. Nor are there plans for such things. The district has no customers in the county that authorized its creation. Elbert County records list the acre as a helicopter pad site. It's just a piece of ground to meet the legal requirement that special districts have defined boundaries. Yet it serves as the vehicle for an ambitious scheme to create a water network serving future developments throughout Colorado's booming Front Range. "United," Lembke said, "is an animal no one has seen before."....
Decision delayed on proposal to increase Wattenberg drilling The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission decided Friday to postpone a decision on a proposal to increase oil and gas drilling in the Wattenberg Field in northern Colorado. After a two-day hearing, commission members decided to wait until their Dec. 5 meeting in Denver to begin deliberations on the proposal by Kerr-McGee Corp., Encana Corp. and Noble Energy Marketing Inc. The companies have proposed adding three wells per each 160-acre quarter-section in the 2,500-square-mile field, the state's second-largest gas field. To reach the untapped reserves, the companies plan to use directional drilling from the field's existing well pads. The plan has been opposed by local ranchers, developers and landowners who believe the move is a land grab....
Editorial: Reject plan for new mountain village It seems absurd to perch a new city bigger than Alamosa near timberline on one of Colorado's snowiest mountain roads. But that's what the Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture proposes with its controversial Village at Wolf Creek. A key decision is expected soon from the U.S. Forest Service, which ought to reject the inappropriately large-scale project. The development would sit below Wolf Creek Pass (average annual snowfall: 400 inches) along U.S. 160, the highway that crosses the Continental Divide between Durango and the San Luis Valley. The project would be nearly surrounded by national forest and the Wolf Creek Ski Area, which opposes the plan and is tangled in lawsuits over the issue. The project may be built in phases, but government agencies should focus on cumulative effects....
Mining-claim plan worries Westerners Private companies and individuals would be able to buy large tracts of federal land, from sagebrush basins to high-peak hiking trails in Utah and around the West, under the terms of the spending bill that has passed the House of Representatives by a two-vote margin, 217-215. On the surface, the bill reads like the mundane nip and tuck of federal mining law its authors say it is. But lawyers who have parsed its language say the real beneficiaries could be real estate developers, whose business has become a more potent economic engine in the West than mining. Under the existing law, a mining claim is the vehicle that allows for the extraction of so-called hard-rock metals like gold or silver. Under the House bill passed Friday, for the first time in the history of the 133-year-old mining law individuals or companies can file and expand claims even if the land at the heart of a claim has already been stripped of its minerals or could never support a profitable mine. The measure would also lift an 11-year moratorium on the passing of claims into full ownership....
Column: Giving environmentalists a chance to put up or . . . not Something there is about selling off public lands in the West that throws environmental groups into a panic. They invariably prefer the devil they know, which is the perpetual mismanagement of millions of acres by federal agencies who always complain about underfunding. But instead of resisting private sales, they should be invited to get in on them. If political influence corresponds to wealth - and it clearly does - environmentalists individually and collectively could and would outbid the mining, timber and grazing interests for much of the acreage. Then they could manage it the way they want. There would be no more conflicting "multiple use" mandates to worry about. And they wouldn't have to spend millions on lobbying and related nonproductive activities....
New Mexico sees tug-of-war between industry, environmental groups Although New Mexico has been an oil and gas producing state for 80 years, it has recently become a bit of a battleground between environmental groups and the industry. There are several reasons, said Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, why New Mexico has found itself in the spotlight. One is the fact that the state holds the nation's second largest amount of state and federal lands and has a large amount natural resources located on federal lands. Secondly, the state's two senators, Pete Domenici, a Republican, and Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, are ranking senators on the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and, thirdly, the state's governor, Bill Richardson, is politically active nationally. Two areas, Otero Mesa and Valle Vidal, have become the center of controversy because, Gallagher said, "they hold some of the few new untapped areas of land in the western United States where oil and gas could be developed."....
Fish carcasses rain on forest Helicopters are dropping thousands of salmon carcasses in the Mount Hood National Forest this week, part of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife-funded attempt to enhance the food chain for fish and wildlife in the upper Clackamas and Sandy river basins. The fish drop zones total about 10 stream miles. The Forest Service and partners began the drops five years ago to supplement the aquatic food chain, part of the strategy to rebuild depleted fish runs. However, the forested environment prevents all the drops from reaching their intended targets; some of the carcasses fall on land to be consumed by animals. The decaying fish replace some of the nutrients that came from wild salmon after they spawned and died in past generations. After a post-drop survey in 2004 found no significant gain in the simplest forms of aquatic life, the amount dropped for each stream mile was increased, said Burke Strobel, a Forest Service fish biologist based in Estacada....
Editorial: The road to common sense THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE'S new rule for off-road vehicles is a pleasant surprise, or at least a very good beginning. Up to now, using off-road vehicles in the national forests has been legal everywhere except where signs say it's prohibited. The new rule takes the opposite approach: It will be legal to use off-road vehicles only in areas where signs specifically allow it. The change is subtle but profound; the new rule puts the onus on off-roaders, where it belongs, and should make enforcement easier. Knowing which areas allow off-roading will be the driver's responsibility. The rule also ends so-called cross-country riding, in which long-distance trails are forged from one mapped area to another. But its success will depend on what foresters do next. Decisions on off-roading trails will be decided in local planning meetings over the next four years. One thing the Forest Service can do to make that planning a more honest effort is to decide now that illegal routes will remain illegal. Otherwise, off-roaders will be carving up the wilderness with new trails during the next couple of years in hopes of getting as many routes as possible sanctified....
Sacramento River salmon at highest population level in 24 years Wildlife managers expect more than 15,000 endangered winter-run chinook salmon to thrash their way up the Sacramento River this year, the largest number in 24 years thanks to extraordinary and expensive efforts to save the species. But there are a couple of caution flags: An unusually high percentage of the returning fish were born in a hatchery, while an improbably low proportion of dead male fish were found by biologists counting carcasses of the salmon, which die after breeding. An estimated 18 percent are hatchery fish this year, up from the usual 5 percent to 10 percent. Biologists limit the number of hatchery fish to avoid contaminating the wild gene pool, but an unusually large number were released three years ago as an experiment. "It looks like the hatchery fish may have survived a lot better this year. We're not really sure why," said Alice Low, a senior fishery biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game. "It's definitely something we'll keep an eye on."....
Turner says one man can make difference For the past three years, Ted Turner has driven a Toyota Prius that gets up to 50 miles per gallon. He owns a million acres of ranch land in New Mexico; on one ranch, he's knocked down fences and replaced cows with bison. He firmly believes environmental responsibility and profitable business aren't mutually exclusive. Today, Turner will speak at an awards reception sponsored by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center. He and the award winners are a signal that, "unquestionably, one person can still make a difference," he said. Turner founded Turner Enterprises in 1991 specifically to address environmental issues around the globe. He owns 14 ranches totaling 2 million acres, including three in New Mexico....
Northwest Power Council Analysis Suggests Electric Rates Could Rise Due To Salmon Lawsuit Increased water spills over Columbia and Snake river dams and changes in river flows to aid juvenile salmon and steelhead migration in 2006, sought by plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, would raise the cost of electricity in the Northwest this winter and also could increase the risk of power failures, according to an analysis by the staff of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. The net cost of the operations, if they are ordered by the federal court, could range from $125 million to $560 million in 2006, according to the analysis. The matter will be argued December 15 before U.S. District Judge James A. Redden in Portland, where plaintiffs led by the National Wildlife Federation successfully sued the federal government over its 2004 Biological Opinion on Snake and Columbia River hydropower operations to protect threatened and endangered species of salmon and steelhead....
Litigation impacts 800 projects on 1.2 million acres A California woodlands expert this week predicted an “explosive” wildfire season next season if human intervention to clear forest fuels is thwarted by court-mandated bureaucracy. “It is not a question of if, but when the wildfires will ignite,” John Hoffman testified Tuesday before a U.S. House hearing on litigation on U.S. Forest Service firefighting and forest health efforts. “Delays of any extent, extends the time period communities are vulnerable to wildfire,” said Hoffman, natural resources director of the Regional Council of Rural Counties, Sacramento. House Committee on Agriculture Chairman Bob Goodlatte chaired the hearing in Washington, D.C. In September, a California district court ruled in the Earth Island Institute v. Ruthenbeck case that projects proposed by the Forest Service under “Categorical Exclusions” were subject to the notice, comment and appeal provisions of the Appeals Reform Act of 1992. The Earth Island decision could impact roughly 800 projects on over 1.2 million acres of Forest Service land. The ruling applies to timber sales, prescribed burning, forest health, off-highway vehicles and mineral development projects.
Nevada congressman urged to oppose anti-wilderness bill Environmentalists are urging Rep. Jim Gibbons to oppose federal legislation that would potentially open up to development 412,000 acres of wilderness study areas in Nevada and California. Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., introduced on Oct. 28 the bill that would remove protections from 11 U.S. Bureau of Land Management wilderness study areas straddling the Nevada-California border north of Reno. Gibbons' name originally appeared on the bill as its lone co-sponsor, but his aides said it was put there by mistake and that he hasn't decided whether to support it or not. John Wallin, director of the Nevada Wilderness Project, said he and other conservationists are not convinced it was a mistake and they remain concerned the Nevada Republican may end up supporting the measure....
'Grizzly Man' beautifully done but like watching an inevitable train wreck "Grizzly Man" is a strange story about some strange people. Of course, those who know Herzog know his films often are filled with strange people, either real or fictional. In this case, the people are real. The strangest of the lot is Timothy Treadwell, the grizzly man. For 13 years, he traveled to Alaska during the summer to do what he could to protect grizzly bears despite the fact they seemed to need no protection beyond what the National Park Service provided. Treadwell seemed to have no fear of these animals and, was able to get close to them and to talk to them. Treadwell captured a lot of his activities on video, and they are the visuals that make up most of the film. We see Treadwell talking in falsetto to bears as people tend to do with their dogs and their infants. He gives the bears names like Mr. Chocolate and Aunt Melissa and professes his love for them. The bears always seem indifferent to Treadwell and merely tolerate him. Sometimes Treadwell will begin to shout and curse, incoherently, at the National Park Service and whatever else he imagines stands in his way of protecting the bears. Every appearance of Treadwell on camera led me to the conclusion he was a man who was going around the bend and it was happening in an extremely dangerous place....
Bill to aid park resident stalls Legislation to help an elderly woman keep her part-time home in Rocky Mountain National Park was caught in the crossfire of an Iraq war debate in Congress on Friday. The House of Representatives was expected to easily approve legislation helping octogenarian Betty Dick, but first the House erupted in emotional finger-pointing over Iraq policy. Things got so emotional that at one point Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, began objecting to any unrelated action that he thought Republicans wanted. The National Park Service wanted to evict Betty Dick when her lease expired earlier this year. The bill would allow her to remain on her property for the rest of her life....
BEARS GO OFF RELIEF Bears in Yellowstone and other northern national parks are going into winter quarters. They are fat, lazy, good-natured, for they are at the end of another summer of high feeding, and they have thoroughly padded their ribs with the layers of fuel-food that will be needed to keep their low-banked fires of life smoldering while they sleep the long weeks away. "As fat as a bear" is a wholly accurate folk-simile, in the late autumn. But 5 months or so hence, when they will be coming out of their dens, the simile will have to change. Then, it will be "as hungry as a bear," and "as cross as a bear," too. The national park bruins will come out with bunkers empty, ribs lean, stomachs hollow, and fairly yelling for food. Bears are pleasant-enough fellows in the autumn, not quite so nice in the spring. The national park bears will not find their spring breakfasts as easy to get in the future as they and their ancestors for several generations have in the past. For Uncle Sam is taking them off relief, depriving them of their dole of assorted garbage that they have come to take for granted as part of their natural and inalienable rights....
Montana man lives with wolves On a cold November day, Carl Bock entered the double-gated 10-acre enclosure where his pack of 10 wolves lives. Instantly, half the pack is there to investigate the people Bock has brought into their territory. Wizzy, the alpha male who began the kill of another wolf in the pack to ascend to lead status -- the rest of the pack hangs back until a winner is obvious, then moves in to finish off the vanquished -- is first on the scene. "Be careful," Bock cautions. "You'll be 2.5 hours before Wizzy burns out on belly rubs." Indeed, Wizzy seems a lamb in wolf's clothing. The only danger from this wolf appears to be getting licked to death. He loves being petted, loves having his belly rubbed. And if you don't crouch down to eye level for him to lick your face, Wizzy will stand on his hind legs and put his front paws up on a tree to get to your level so he can kiss you. A few feet away, outside the enclosure in an area where the public can view the wolves at the Wolfkeep Wildlife Sanctuary, sits a bowling ball that's been chewed in half. Bock uses it as a visual aid to explain to visitors about the massive crushing power in a wolf's jaw....
Steeped in Greenhouse Gas, Pine Trees Deviate From the air, they look like a cross between unexplained Midwestern crop circles and the megaliths of Stonehenge. But these tall structures loom out of a forest. Arranged in a loop, the 100-foot-high by 100-foot-wide assemblages are releasing carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless miasma that wafts through the loblolly pines they encircle. The 50-foot-tall pines, natives of the Deep South, are subjects in an experiment by scientists at Duke University who are using this engineered micro-climate as a kind of time machine to find out how these trees are likely to react as carbon dioxide builds up in the atmosphere and temperatures climb....
Seeking Clean Fuel for a Nation, and a Rebirth for Small-Town Montana If the vast, empty plain of eastern Montana is the Saudi Arabia of coal, then Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a prairie populist with a bolo tie and an advanced degree in soil science, may be its Lawrence. Rarely a day goes by that he does not lash out against the "sheiks, dictators, rats and crooks" who control the world oil supply or the people he calls their political handmaidens, "the best Congress that Big Oil can buy." Governor Schweitzer, a Democrat, has a two-fisted idea for energy independence that he carries around with him. In one fist is a shank of Montana coal, black and hard. In the other fist is a vial of nearly odorless clear liquid - a synthetic fuel that came from the coal and could run cars, jets and trucks or heat homes without contributing to global warming or setting off a major fight with environmental groups, he said. "Smell that," Mr. Schweitzer said, thrusting his vial of fuel under the noses of interested observers here in the capital, where he works in jeans with a border collie underfoot. "You hardly smell anything. This is a clean fuel, converted from coal by a chemical process. We can produce enough of this in Montana to power every American car for decades."....
Farming's front and center at talks Amid signs of stalemate, U.S. negotiators are making a final push for a new global trade pact that could usher in the biggest changes in farm policy in decades. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman last month offered to slash selected agricultural subsidies by up to 60% in return for Europe, Japan and others opening their markets to U.S. farm exports. The European Union responded with a mild tariff-cutting proposal that dashed hopes for a key gathering next month of trade ministers from the 148-nation World Trade Organization. Now, with just three weeks remaining before the make-or-break Hong Kong summit, some trade experts fear another high-profile debacle like two of the WTO's last three ministerial meetings. At the heart of the current deadlock is a high-stakes dispute over farm trade....
Horse sense in Montana How unlikely is it that a Frenchman-turned-U.S.-citizen, the founder of a global power-generation company who makes his home in New York City's eclectic SoHo enclave, is transforming a small college town in southwestern Montana into the horse-whispering capital of the world? Curious ranchers in these parts don't call William Kriegel the "French cowboy" for nothing. Foremost on the receiving end of the rancher's generosity are students from the nearby University of Montana-Western, small in curriculum but, thanks in large part to Mr. Kriegel's grand vision, the only university in the United States to offer degrees (both associate's and bachelor's) in "natural horsemanship."....
Big Lake has gone to the dogs Persisting through three days of dog-eat-dog competition, Pat the border collie and her trainer Robin Penland beat out a "ruff" field of four-legged rivals this past weekend to claim top dog honors and the title of Texas Sheep Dog Association champions at the state tournament in Big Lake. "Everything in this sport emulates actual ranch work," Penland said. "In these trials we're just trying to show the dog that has the best command of the sheep." Rankings of the 98 sheep dogs at the Big Lake tournament were determined by each dog's performance in herding a small flock of sheep down a 300 yard field, through a series of gates and obstacles and into a small pen. Handlers instruct their dogs in this endeavor by voice and whistle commands from a stationary position at the end of the field opposite where the sheep are released at the beginning of each 12 minute run....
Western influence pervades cowboy fellowship They meet in a simple room atop the Livestock Pavilion at the La Plata County Fairgrounds, and their meetings are marked both by high spirits and the spirit of the Lord they come to worship. The Fellowship of Christian Cowboys meets at 7 p.m. Thursdays in the upstairs of the Livestock Pavilion at the La Plata County Fairgrounds. Guests are welcome. Call Jim Bryce, the group’s president, at 259-2562 for information. The Fellowship of Christian Cowboys is in its second incarnation in La Plata County. One basically created for high school rodeo students faltered in the 1990s after a decade of activities. It officially came back in 2002. While the group has the word cowboy in the title, not all members are cattle ranchers, said Jim Bryce, the fellowship president. Some are former ranchers or have deep roots here because their ancestors came as pioneers. Because of that, Bryce said, the fellowship is more about the Western lifestyle....
HIDDEN HISTORY: Crook rancher finds stagecoach stop Pieces of northeast Colorados history are out there, buried six inches to a foot below the grass and weeds along the South Platte River near Tamarack Ranch State Wildlife Area. Crook rancher Bill Condon knew where to look. Decades of running cattle from horseback gave him a knowledge of the land he says you cant get any other way. Hed noticed the dished-out shape where the trail wound its way between the hills and the sometimes swampy river bottoms. Other parts of the landscape reminded him of corrals and mangers for livestock. Hollows and indentations in the ground, visible as shadows, and patches where different types of grasses and weeds grew unmasked the lands historic use. You get interested, Condon said. I think other people would want to know. These were the last sites on the map that I knew about. Condon worked with Jeff Broome, a philosophy instructor at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, with expertise on Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indian wars. The historian and his students excavated the site under one rule: No heavy equipment. I told them they could dig as deep as they wanted with a shovel, Condon said. Using narrow shovels and metal detectors, they found bullets and casings, both fired and unfired; shoes for horses, mules and oxen; forks, knives, spoons and other tools; epaulets from the shoulders of a military uniform; tools and other items....
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