Pythons could squeeze lower third of USA As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday. The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds. They are highly adaptable to new environments. Two federal agencies — the USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — are investigating the range of nine invasive snakes in Florida, concerned about the danger they now pose to endangered species. The agencies are collecting data to aid in the control of these populations. They examined Burmese pythons first and, based on where they live in Asia, estimated where they might live here. One map shows where the pythons could live today, an area that expands when scientists use global warming models for 2100....So there you have it folks. Either fight global warming or be crushed to death by a giant snake. Only at the very end of the article do you find, "The Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans."
GM exec stands by calling global warming a "crock" General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has defended remarks he made dismissing global warming as a "total crock of s---," saying his views had no bearing on GM's commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles. Lutz, GM's outspoken product development chief, has been under fire from Internet bloggers since last month when he was quoted as making the remark to reporters in Texas. In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said those "spewing virtual vitriol" at him for minimizing the threat of climate change were "missing the big picture." "What they should be doing in earnest is forming opinions, not about me but about GM and what this company is doing that is ... hugely beneficial to the causes they so enthusiastically claim to support," he said in a posting titled, "Talk About a Crock."....
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way. “That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently. Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines. Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy. “I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself....
Wolf debate not over yet Gray wolves, whose howls nearly disappeared from the Northern Rockies almost a century ago, have rebounded so strongly they can be removed from the endangered species list, federal officials said Thursday. The decision marks a milestone in the saga of wolves, which were given federal protection in 1973 after hunting, trapping and poisoning nearly exterminated them in the Lower 48 states by the 1930s. Federal and state officials hailed the delisting, calling it an unprecedented success in America's effort to find a place on the modern landscape for its most imperiled species. They said wolves have filled most of the suitable habitat that has plentiful wilderness and prey and limited livestock and humans in the Northern Rockies. "This is a significant day in the history of conservation." said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett. But conservation groups vowed to sue the federal government to stop the delisting, which will turn over wolf management to the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The states' plans include hunting seasons for wolves, which will be regulated like elk, black bears, mountain lions and other game species....
Celebrate Wolf Recovery, Delisting, And Stop Slinging Arrows In 1987, when Yellowstone wolf reintroduction was a hope, not a reality, I was one of a small group of wildlife conservationists seeking to work cooperatively with the federal land managers and the state wildlife agencies to create a popular consensus for wolf reintroduction. At the outset, we recognized that while recovery of an endangered species was both legally required and ecologically desirable, there was an overall need to build a popular support for wolves among the humans who would have to live with them as neighbors. We recognized that it was not sufficient merely to speak of “the national interest” or cite the faceless millions who might gain satisfaction from merely knowing that the wolf exists in someone else’s back yard. Our experience told us that successful wolf recovery required the citizens of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to be convinced that sharing the land with wolves worked in their best interest and need not result in socioeconomic loss. Twenty years later, the Yellowstone wolf reintroduction has succeeded beyond anything we could have imaged in 1987. The wolves have proven themselves to be adaptable, resilient and generally good neighbors. Many dedicated people have toiled on their behalf. So with the news that the gray wolf is proposed to be delisted, why aren’t the wolf supporters celebrating? Instead of champagne we have threatened law suits. Instead of “congratulations” and “thanks yous” to ranchers, forest rangers, and environmentalists – all who played a role in the wolf’s success– we get doomsday forecasts and changing agendas....
Canines vs. cattle When wolves moved into the area, rancher Dave Vaughan got out of the cow-calf business, he said. In his barn last week, on a bright and windless winter morning, Vaughan used a tin can to scoop grain for the horses, as he described the events that precipitated his decision to call it quits. "As soon as we lost those calves, I said, 'I'm not going to do this anymore,"' he said. Wolves were confirmed on Vaughan's ranch in January 2003 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but he's pretty sure they arrived in 2002. That's when he saw his calf survival rate take a sudden dip, he said. On average, about 96 percent of Vaughan's new calves survived every year, and in recent seasons he'd had two years with 98 percent and two with 100 percent survival. By the start of this decade Vaughan had managed the ranch for almost 20 years, and he'd kept meticulous records and statistics. Suddenly, in 2002, his calf survival rate dipped to 90 percent. And in 2003, after wolves were confirmed in the area, only 85 percent of his new calves lived -- an unprecedented number for his operation, he said. In the winter before the 2003 calving season, gray wolves were running the cows, consistently moving them around and keeping them nervous, Vaughan said. The added stress took a 10 percent bite out of his profits. "We started calving on the 17th of February, and the first calf that was born was dead. Out of my 70 mother cows, I ended up with seven dead calves," he said. "They were stillborn from the stress of the wolves being there." All told, in 2003 Vaughan lost 13 calves, "which is totally unheard of," he said. "The only thing you can get compensated for is confirmed kills. Not stress. But the stress causes them to abort calves. And out on our pasture, which is six miles long and two mile wide, sometimes you don't find any evidence of the ones they do kill; the wolves eat everything sometimes, even the tag."....
Idaho wolf hunters could kill up to 300 Idaho hunters would be allowed to kill somewhere between 100 and 300 gray wolves this fall under a plan proposed by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game after Thursday's federal decision to remove the animals from the endangered species list. The plan next goes to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission for approval. The commission is scheduled to meet March 6 to vote on the Idaho Wolf Population Management Plan 2008-2012. Idaho had an estimated 732 wolves at the end of 2007, said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the department. He predicted the population will increase about 15 percent to 20 percent by this fall. He said the department's goal for the next five years is to keep the Idaho population between the 518 counted in 2005 and 732. "We're going to manage for a viable, healthy population," Nadeau said. "We've managed big game for a long time, and we're good at it." Still, he said the department planned to take a conservative approach the first several years while it learns how to manage wolves....
'It's really been a bad deal' Wolves are starting to ruin what used to be an elk-hunting paradise, according to the president of the Dubois Outfitters Association. Fritz Meyer wishes more people would take note. While many citizens and government officials celebrate the recovery of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, Meyer said he believes the mid-1990s federal reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park was a terrible mistake from the start. Not only has it hurt his business, he said, but it has taken a serious toll on elk herds in the Upper Wind River Valley. "The one thing that's really been sad to a lot of us is since the reintroduction of wolves, we've seen a steady decline in our elk and moose numbers," Meyer said. "Today somebody will come up and tell you when they see a moose. In the past we used to see them everywhere." Meyer has owned an outfitting business in Dubois for about 20 years and has been a guide for more than 30, he said. In previous years, a significant part of Meyer's business was guiding elk hunters on "antlerless" hunts. "Now the wolves are thinning the herds, and there are not many left for hunters," he said. "That hurts the whole community here, because the hunters spend money in the motels, gas stations, restaurants. And this is just one small area -- it's hurting the whole state the same way."....
'A real efficient killer' One morning Joe Thomas sat atop a hill with binoculars, scanning his pasture land, when he spotted two wolves coming down from the timberline. They approached his 1,000 head of cows from two different directions, picked out a small group and started herding them around. "The older ones were teaching the younger ones how to hunt," Thomas said. "They were working in a half circle, like a good set of stock dogs would. I got to witness the whole thing." Over the years, wolves have killed about 20 calves on Thomas's ranch near the Greybull River, 20 miles west of Meeteetse. Last year the canines killed six. "They are a really efficient killer," he said. It was a dumb thing to reintroduce wolves into the Northern Rockies, Thomas said, but now that they're here, he's learned to adapt, and he said he's accepted that Wyoming will need to manage them for the long run. Thomas's ranch lies within Wyoming's trophy game management zone, as defined by the state's management plan, which means it will be illegal, in most cases, to kill a wolf there without a permit. But after delisting, a provision in the plan allows stockgrowers to shoot wolves if they are attacking or "harassing" livestock. Thomas, however, isn't overly excited about the prospect of the new provision. "It's not as easy as they make it sound, because it's your word against somebody else's," Thomas said. "Instead, I think it will be better to just take pictures, cover the evidence with a tarp and work with the game warden."....
Embattled ag undersecretary makes no apologies for timber policies He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees -- and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach. After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail. Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist who has directed U.S. forest policy since 2001, also wants to set up state rules making it easier to build roads in remote national forests and to restore overgrown, unhealthy forests by clearing them of small trees and debris that can stoke wildfires. And he wants to streamline cumbersome regulations that can paralyze actions on public lands. A Montana judge, accusing Rey of deliberately skirting the law so the Forest Service can keep fighting wildfires with a flame retardant that kills fish, has threatened to put him behind bars. For Rey, who faces a court date Tuesday, the prospect of jail time is daunting. But it's just one more obstacle as he attempts to rid federal policies of pesky paperwork and endless litigation that slows forest managers from cutting down trees....And so far as I know, he hasn't changed one single grazing regulation left over from the Clinton Administration. If you know why grazing has been left out of the regulatory changes of the Forest Service, please share it with me. For the last eight years it would be interesting to know: Did the total number of animal units grazed increase or decrease? Did the number of range improvements authorized increase or decrease? Did the number of vacant allotments increase or decrease? What significant changes in Forest Service grazing policy did our national livestock organizations propose and how many were implemented?
Boom a boost - but is it best? This desolate one-time cattle town is poised to become the Western Slope's next oil-and-gas boomtown. With Chevron beefing up operations to the north and EnCana to the east, town officials are bracing for a development rush seen by the likes of Parachute and Battlement Mesa. Prospects for rapid growth are setting up a classic boomtown debate. Some welcome the anticipated economic boost; others fear the town will lose its historic character. Already, the surge in activity has pulverized the bridge over the Colorado River at the town's entrance, forcing Mesa County and the state to spend $1.6 million on an upgrade. A Kum & Go gas station and quick-service restaurant, the town's first commercial chain, is set to break ground in August and open in December at the De Beque exit off Interstate 70, about 30 miles east of Grand Junction. A 100-room motel is being discussed for adjacent land. Schlumberger, the world's largest oil-field- services company, confirmed last week that it is acquiring about 375 acres across the interstate for an operations center. In January, a Montana rancher bought the nearby Nichols Ranch for $2.8 million with plans to turn it into a 526-acre mixed-used development with 1,200 single-family and multi-unit homes. The action is swirling around a dusty town that sits in the heart of oil-and-gas country but tallies a 2006 Census Bureau population of just 481....
Montana FWP ignores ranchers, landowner concerns The Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA) is asking Montana’s ranchers, landowners, outfitters, and sportsmen to denounce the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) Commission’s recently adopted archery elk permit proposal. Despite overwhelming comment in opposition and historical amounts of comment from ranchers, landowners, outfitters, local businesses, local governments, and many archery sportsmen, Montana’s FWP Commission voted to severely reduce elk archery permits. What was presumed to be a proposal for just the Missouri River Breaks ended up spanning twenty-three vast Montana hunting districts. The goal of this change is a veiled attempt to eliminate the certainty of outfitter licenses and to eliminate the leasing of private land for hunting. Elk populations in Montana are greater than ever and one of the tools to increase elk harvests has just been arbitrarily discarded by the commission. It appears as though the commission’s intent is to manipulate access to private land, not manage wildlife, said Montana Stockgrowers....
Growth cap under fire in name of land preservation Citing concerns that development could get out of hand, Douglas County's commissioners expressed concerns about a measure that could exempt ranchers from the county's growth cap, provided they cluster their developments. "We provided a density bonus for ranchers. To exempt them from the building permit allocation system skirts the intent of the growth ordinance. I have a problem with that," said Commissioner David Brady. "The unintended consequences have not been thought out fully and could have wide-ranging effects." In an effort to preserve open space and encourage ranching in Carson Valley, commissioners approved a ranch heritage ordinance in January, giving ranchers the right to increase their allotment for clustered development on agricultural parcels, the number of homes they can develop, by 150 percent. In exchange, the balance of the property, or 70 percent, is to be held in a conservation easement and the water rights are tied to the land. The ranch heritage parcel provision was approved in January and in February, a proposal was introduced that would exempt ranchers from Douglas County's building allotment, an additional perk....
Tales of old roads and past settlers in landlocked trial Gates, the owner of Nevada County Free Range Beef, was the latest witness to testify in an ongoing civil case between Garfinkel and defendants Nevada County Land Trust and Bill and Anna Trabucco. Gates leases land from the Trabuccos to run his cattle. Garfinkel is the owner of what he calls a landlocked piece of land that sits adjacent to land owned by the Trabuccos. He wishes to access his property by crossing the Trabuccos' land using roads he said have existed since the Gold Rush. The defendants argue no such roads exist and to allow access would invalidate a conservation easement. Earlier in the week, an historian called on by Garfinkel's lawyer presented old assessor records from the 1800s showing taxed property owned by people who lived in structures around Garfinkel's property, said his wife, Susie Garfinkel. She contends if people lived on the property, they must have had a road to get there. "It's undeniable. There were people here," Susie Garfinkel said. On Wednesday, Ian Garfinkel testified that several years ago Gates pointed to his property and told him an old stage coach road traversed it....
Colorado considers recruiting farm workers from Mexico Each year, when many people are finishing up their Christmas lists, Colorado rancher Angela Ryden starts wading through red tape so she can get two legal guest workers from Mexico to help her during calving season in March. That’s the plan. Last year, even with the help of an employment agency, the two workers from Michoacan arrived a month late because of a paperwork problem. By then, half of Ryden’s calves had been born and three had died at her New Castle ranch on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. “It’s something every year and it seems like they change the rules all the time,” Ryden said of the federal H2-A visa program for farm workers. Frustrated with the federal bureaucracy and Congress’ failure to pass immigration reform, two Colorado lawmakers have proposed taking over a large part of the application process and opening offices in Mexico to find people who can arrive in time to pick the state’s crops and run cattle. Arizona is considering setting up its own temporary worker program to help all kinds of businesses suffering labor shortages....
Where were the USDA inspectors? The biggest meat recall in the history of the world topped the domestic news last week: 143-million pounds of beef, processed over the last two years, now scattered throughout the nation's schools and fast-food joints - all recalled. The USDA had little choice. An animal rights group released videotape of "downer" cows being pushed around by a fork lift, and being dragged across filthy floors, before joining healthy cows on the hamburger highway. The big question raised by everyone is, where were the USDA inspectors? Food safety is the most important responsibility of the USDA. The problem at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California, occurred two years ago. Had the secret video never appeared, the meat would have never been recalled. Why can the public not depend upon the USDA to keep the food safe during the processing operation? The USDA has misplaced priorities. For the last several years, the top priority at the USDA has not been food safety, but the creation of a National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Nearly $150-million has been spent on promoting NAIS. This money would have been better spent on more inspectors to oversee the meat processing plants. NAIS money is often spent to bribe non-government organizations into a Public/Private Partnership to promote the NAIS. The Future Farmers of America were paid $633,000 to encourage FFA kids to get their parents to register their property into the program. In fact, if an analysis of the not-for-profit organizations that are promoting NAIS were published, it would be a pretty complete list of where the USDA's $150-million NAIS money went....
Mexico to reopen borders to imports of Canadian calves next month Mexico will reopen its border to imports of Canadian calves, ending a ban imposed after a 2003 outbreak of mad cow disease in Canada, the government said Saturday. Starting in March, Mexican ranchers will be allowed to import female cattle under 2½ years old for beef and dairy breeding, the Agriculture Department said. The animals will have to come from herds with no history of the disease.
'Animal rights activists gone wild' - no laughing matter We live in an era where one day it's perfectly legal and essential to water board a prisoner in order to obtain crucial intelligence information for the war on terror, and the next it's considered torture and illegal. Trying to come to an agreement on what constitutes inhumane treatment can be very difficult not only in regards to people but for animals as well. The recent debate sparked by a proposed county ordinance to ban Mexican-style rodeos, charreadas, further illustrates how we as a society are becoming more and more isolated and detached from our natural environment. The methods a rancher uses to move a 2,000 pound bull might seem cruel to those who have never worked with large livestock. In fact, any attempts by a rancher to justify those methods can be futile and fall on deaf ears of animal rights advocates. That's because for many animal rights advocates, any form of animal use, whether for food, clothing, or entertainment, is considered cruel or inhumane, and in some extreme cases even pet ownership falls into that category. By pushing this agenda - that animals do not exist for human use -- while concealed behind the cloak of animal cruelty, some of these advocate groups play a role in further isolating the interactions between people and animals....
Animal Producers From Mars, Animal Lovers From Venus? A woman from Australia married a dolphin recently. Sound impossible? It is just one of countless stories of the new roles animals play in people’s lives. “Animal welfare has absolutely nothing to do with animals,” says Wes Jamison, a professor of agricultural and natural resource politics. Jamison has been studying the animal rights and welfare movement for nearly two decades. He spoke here at the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Young Farmer and Rancher Leadership Conference last weekend, proposing the notion that “animal producers are from Mars and animal lovers are from Venus” (a takeoff on the popular book called “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”). The challenge lies in that agriculture is a small minority in this country. Only about 3 million out of the country’s 304 million people are in animal agriculture. Problems arise when the world of the consumer and animal agriculture collide. “You have a society and culture that does not understand what you do,” he said....

The roping blame game
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

Clearly, it’s nearly spring. One indicator is the ropers’ magazines and papers are teeming with new events offering incentives prizes of big cash, saddles, trailers and fancy pickups.

It is enough to send a roping addict to a padded room when the weather refuses to cooperate with his itch, and definite need, to practice.

This adds immeasurable value to any warm, clear days that might show up after a long winter of miserable roping weather.

One such long wet, cold spell was just ending and Jesse and Dan were planning on making up for lost roping time.

Dan and his prize roping horse Slats rode into the arena.

“Man, Jesse, the arena looks good.”

Dan had not really looked the arena over, but he knew that Jesse always liked a compliment for the hour or so he’d spent running the harrow over the sand.

Even though that wasn’t the case this day, Jesse took the compliment anyway and they proceeded to warm up their horses.

Because they were turned out to pasture during the cold weather, the steers were spunky and fresh.

Ready for the first run, Jesse backed into the heading box, pulled his hat down tighter even though his ears were already at a 90-degree angle, pushed his shades up, scratched his backside, tucked his rope and nodded for the steer.

Dan, on the heeling side, made similar preparations and, thinking to encourage his horse a little, told him “OK Slats, don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

The first steer broke from the box as if he was on a too-tight bungee cord.

Jesse reached and roped him.

Slats had not calculated the “catastrophe response” necessary for this steer and was just a tick late. No problem, they had him captured anyway, faced and full of themselves with the success.

“Ain’t nothin’ to this roping - we just needed a little rest,” commented one of the loopers.

The chute help, keeping quiet counsel, thought to herself, “Something comes to mind about fools rushing in.”

Imminently, it would be apparent that the steers had all been “reprogrammed” during their weather-induced respite.

The next steer had developed a broken “rudder.” He broke from the chute, took a hard left directly in front of the heading horse and escaped to the corner of the arena.

The one after that decided to come to a complete stop just as the head loop was launched.

The trend continued as a couple more steers showed that they, too, had developed head tricks that made life complicated for the ropers.
Jesse and Dan took a break to plot strategy, knowing their current plan was not working well. Their calculated decision was to let the cattle out of the chute a little further, trick them into thinking nobody was in hot pursuit and then snare them with a big seine-style loop.

With that design in mind, when the next steer was out, Jesse’s head loop settled around the horns as soft as Mexico rain and he pulled the slack perfectly. They went left, made the corner and Dan scooped up the back feet with ease.

Cowboy style and grace will prevail every time. It will, also, exit just as quickly as it arrived.

Likely, bad weather roping days are not yet over, but ropers the world over are counting on spring bringing major-league success to each of them.

Meanwhile back at the roping pens, no doubt about it, the steers are plotting how to foil that grand idea. Ask any roper that had a bad run and, usually, his first blame will fall on the cattle.

“We’d have been a six if that steer wouldn’t have ducked his head!”

Visit Julie’s web site for updated blog or to order her book, Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

FLE

'Any person' has right to gun, state says Montana officials are saying that the United States already has resolved any questions about the 2nd Amendment's application, defining that "any person" has the right to bears arms. That's the issue at hand in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case originating in the District of Columbia, where authorities have banned handguns under the claim that such a limit is "reasonable" and therefore enforceable even given the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment. But officials in Montana, including dozens of state lawmakers as well as Secretary of State Brad Johnson, have joined together in a statement that the U.S. already has determined the application, and 2nd Amendment rights apply to "any person." In a joint resolution from the Montana leaders, including Congressman Denny Rehberg, they caution that should the Supreme Court decide to change the U.S. interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and allow those rights to apply only collectively, it would violate the contract under which Montana entered the union as a state. "The Montana Resolution cautions that a collective rights decision would violate the Montana contract for statehood because when that contract was entered the collective rights interpretation had not yet been invented and the individual rights view was an accepted part of the contract," an announcement from the leaders said. "A collective rights decision in [the pending court case] Heller would not only violate Montana's contract for statehood, but also Montana's customs, culture and heritage. We hope the Supreme Court will recognize and credit the contract argument, an argument unmentioned in any of the briefs submitted in the Heller case," said Gary Marbut, the president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. The Montana contract is archived as Article I of the Montana Constitution. At the time the then-territory's "Compact with the United States" was agreed to by Congress, the Montana Constitution included the "right of 'any person' to bear arms," the group said....Go here to see the resolution and here to view the supporting argument.
Hearing Is Delayed on Contract for Ashcroft A Congressional hearing into lucrative no-bid contracts awarded by federal prosecutors has been postponed because the Justice Department has not indicated whether a leading witness, the United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher J. Christie, will testify, Representative Frank Pallone Jr. said on Wednesday. The hearing, which had been scheduled for next Tuesday, was intended to review the process by which United States attorneys have selected law firms to monitor deferred prosecution agreements with corporations. While such arrangements have been used by United States attorneys across the country, Mr. Christie granted such a contract to his former boss, John Ashcroft. Awarding that 18-month contract, worth from $28 million to $52 million, to the former United States attorney general to monitor a medical prosthetics company has elicited criticism from Congressional Democrats, who have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate....
Ex-border agent will fight fence 'tooth and nail' Charles "Dob" Cunningham patrolled the rugged shoreline of the Rio Grande here for more than 30 years as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Now retired, he operates an 800-acre cattle ranch along two miles of the river that has been in his family for more than a half century. Illegal aliens and drug smugglers moving across his property have cut down his fences, created well-worn paths over his sprawling pastures, stolen ranch equipment and slaughtered and rustled his cattle. A pile of inner tubes used by those crossing the river sits near the corner of one his storage buildings, each shot "through and though" by the 74-year-old retired agent "so they won't be used again." One might assume that he would embrace a $1.2 billion government plan to build 370 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border, including 65 miles stretching from the neighboring towns of Eagle Pass to the south and Del Rio on the north that would put a 15-foot high metal barrier along the river on his property. One might, but one would be wrong. "We don't need a fence here," Mr. Cunningham said, showing a wide smile under his dusty cowboy hat. "It might make some folks in Washington happy, but it would do little more here than to cut off our access to the river, to water — not just for our cattle but for the abundance of migrating wildlife that can be found all along this river. "I'm against this fence and I will fight it tooth and nail," he said. "And while a country has a right to secure its borders and fences do work in some places where there is nothing but sand and a straight line of sight, they won't work here. The politicians in Washington ought to know that." Instead of building a fence along the river in this remote and rugged area of south Texas, Mr. Cunningham thinks the government ought to be putting more "boots on the ground," demanding aggressive patrols and making better use of technology, including sensors and security cameras....
Arizona 'Virtual Fence' Gets Final OK A 28-mile "virtual fence" that will use radars and surveillance cameras to try to catch people entering the country illegally has gotten final government approval. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced approval of the fence on Friday. The fence, built by the Boeing Co., uses technology the government plans to extend to other areas of the Arizona border, as well as to sections of Texas. The projects could get under way as early as this summer, said department spokeswoman Laura Keehner. The virtual fence is part of a national plan to secure the southwest border with physical barriers and high-tech detection capabilities intended to stop illegal immigrants on foot and drug smugglers in vehicles. As of Thursday, 302 miles of fencing had been constructed. Chertoff said the virtual fence already is working. The virtual fence system includes 98-foot unmanned surveillance towers that are equipped with an array of sophisticated technology including radar, sensors and cameras capable of distinguishing people from cattle at a distance of about 10 miles. The cameras are powerful enough to tell group sizes and whether people are carrying backpacks that may contain weapons or drugs....
Higher Civil Fines Against Employers for Immigration Violations Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today announced higher civil fines against employers who violate federal immigration laws. The announcement was made in a joint briefing today with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff about newly enacted border security reforms put in place by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Under the new rule, which was approved by Attorney General Mukasey and Secretary Chertoff, civil fines will increase by as much as $5,000. The new rule will take effect on March 27, 2008, and will be published in the Federal Register early next week. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, employers who violate employment eligibility requirements are subject to civil monetary penalties. Employers may be fined under the Act for knowingly employing unauthorized aliens or for other violations, including failure to comply with the requirements relating to employment eligibility verification forms, wrongful discrimination against job applicants or employees on the basis of nationality or citizenship, and immigration-related document fraud. For each of these violations, the employer has the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge in the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Under the new rule and applicable law, civil penalties for violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act are adjusted for inflation. Because these penalties were last adjusted in 1999, the average adjustment is approximately 25 percent....
More Iraqis with false passports found in Mexico Another two Iraqis with false Bulgarian passports were detected and detained at the airport in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Now, Mexican officials are reportedly investigating "a network that could be made up of Mexicans operating in Greece who are selling false Bulgarian passports for ten thousand dollars to European and Middle Eastern citizens." Last year 28 illegals from Iraq were detected at the airport in Monterrey (El Porvenir said there were 23, seventeen of them in a single event) The latest two, "Wisam Gorgies", 34 yr. old male, and "Rana Nazar Peyoz", 26 yr. old female, flew from Madrid and said they obtained the false passports in Greece; their aim was to reach the United States.
The two are to be taken to Saltillo, Coahuila, for further determination of their status.
Courts unable to keep up with border arrests The government has started cracking down on illegal border crossers in the Tucson Sector. But limited resources in Arizona's federal-court system are blocking the goal of prosecuting everyone who enters the country illegally. The Border Patrol has referred 757 cases to authorities since the government began prosecuting illegal crossers in the Tucson area on Jan. 14. Up to 42 are prosecuted daily, and there are plans to prosecute up to 100 cases a day in the busiest human-smuggling area on the border. But federal courts in Tucson can hold only 60 immigration defendants a day, and even if they could handle the 100-a-day workload, that amounts to prosecuting only 10 percent of those arrested by the Border Patrol. Still, officials expect the threat of prosecution and prison time to deter illegal crossers. The Operation Streamline policy, which has proved effective in the Yuma Sector and two parts of Texas, involves filing charges against nearly everyone caught crossing the border illegally....
Eminent Domain? Only If You're Rich There seems to be a few planned holes in Homeland Security's proposed border wall. Not holes for people like Eloisa Tamez, for whom the proposed 18-foot wall would go directly through her backyard and destroy her property. No, those are holes planned in the wall for multi-million dollar resorts and homes: While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort. Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. "All that land over there is owned by the Hunts," he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. "The wall doesn't go there." In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush's presidential library....
Chertoff denies border-community snub Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday rebutted accusations by city and county officials on the Texas-Mexico border that the department had failed to consult with them about the construction of a border fence, but he said he is not willing to debate the issue "endlessly." "Now in building this fence, you know, we seek the cooperation of landowners, state and local leaders and members of the border communities," Mr. Chertoff said. "We do interact. We are willing to listen to concerns. We're willing to have suggestions. "On the other hand, as I've made clear, we're not willing to have endless debate. We're not willing to kick the can down the road indefinitely," he continued. "We have made a commitment to the American people to get the job done, and we are going to live up to that commitment."....
Real ID: Security From What, May I Ask? Another measure being implemented in the name of protection and security is the Read ID Act (RIDA). Last week, former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) wrote a piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the threats to our liberty inherent in this act. Let me briefly summarize. * The Tenth Amendment forbids Uncle Sam to regulate state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards. * The RIDA would undermine the First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances by requiring a RIDA-compliant card to enter any federal building, including the office of your congressman or senator. * The RIDA would undermine the Second Amendment by requiring a RIDA-compliant card in order to purchase a firearm. * The RIDA could undermine the Ninth Amendment by requiring RIDA-compliant card to board an airplane or even to travel between states. (Ze papers, please.)* Citizens could be required to show a RIDA-compliant card in order to vote in federal elections. * A veteran could be denied access to a VA hospital because he or she did not possess the required RIDA-compliant card. * Under RIDA, you would have no recourse to correct erroneous information or fight identity theft....
GOA Blasts Michael Sullivan As "Unfit for Office" Gun Owners of America's Executive Director, Larry Pratt, today blasted BATFE nominee Michael Sullivan as "unfit for office" -- characterizing him as being "as anti-gun as Ted Kennedy." In a series of answers to interrogatories submitted by Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter, Sullivan revealed that: * He would not rescind BATFE's policy of revoking federal licenses for simple paperwork violations not involving "criminal intent;" * He would not back down on BATFE's illegal and abusive policies of harassing gun show attendees; * He supports anti-gun legislation by New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, but opposes pro-gun legislation dealing with interstate transfers sponsored by conservative Republicans; * He defends revoking a license of a dealer with a 99.96% accuracy rate -- a rate which is far better than BATFE's. In fact, in dozens of responses to questions posed by Vitter, Sullivan refused to even feign a conciliatory tone....
Error let's FBI spy on entire email network The FBI on Friday revealed that human error led to surveillance of an entire email network back in 2006, rather than the single email address approved by the secretive court which approves domestic wiretaps and other forms of e-surveillance. Although the alleged mistake came to light in an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Freedom of Information Act (FIA) lawsuit, the internet service provider involved remains unpublished, due to the classified nature of the work involved. Back doors were built into the nation's telecommunications infrastructure back in the mid-nineties which allow for almost immediate real-time surveillance of phone conversations - cellular or otherwise - emails, and other forms of electronic communications that pass through the networks of the telecommunications industry. The ISP involved allegedly misinterpreted a warrant for one email address to be a warrant for - ahem - the entire network. This kind of mass negligence is really only the flip-side of a surveillance system that allows for almost immediate mass surveillance by the government and its cronies in the telecommunications industry. This latest controversy comes as President Bush continues to demand that Congress provide retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies involved with illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and is sure to fan the flames of that ongoing debate....
The invasion of America When President Nixon was in his pre-Watergate heyday, he ordered the FBI and the CIA to electronically monitor the private behavior of his domestic political adversaries. Shortly after Nixon resigned, investigators discovered hundreds of reports of break-ins and secret electronic surveillance. None of it was authorized by warrants, and thus all of it was illegal. But it had been conducted pursuant to the president's orders. Nixon's defense was, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." He made that infamous statement in a TV interview years after he left office, but the attitude espoused was obviously one he embraced while in the White House. He, like his present-day successor, rejected the truism that the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from conducting electronic surveillance of anyone without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of a crime, restrains the president. In response to the abuses during the Nixon administration, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, in 1978. The law provides that no electronic surveillance may occur by anyone in the government at any time under any circumstances for any reason other than in accordance with law, and no such surveillance may occur within the U.S. of an American other than in accordance with the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment was written in response to the Colonial experience whereby British soldiers wrote their own search warrants, thus literally authorizing themselves to enter the private property of colonists. The amendment has been uniformly interpreted by the courts to require a warrant by a judge; and judges can only issue search warrants after government agents, under oath, have convinced the judges that it is more likely than not that the things to be seized are evidence of crimes. This standard of proof is called probable cause of crime. It is one of only two instances in which the founders wrote a rule of criminal procedure into the Constitution itself, surely so that no Congress, president or court could tamper with it....

Meatpacker to close after major U.S. recall The meatpacking company that issued the largest U.S. meat recall ever last week could shut down, according a Saturday report in the Wall Street Journal. U.S. Department of Agriculture recalled 143 pounds of meat processed by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing on Feb. 17, after it came to light that the company had on "rare occasions" slaughtered cows that couldn't stand on their own. Federal rules prohibit slaughtering downer cows, because they are believed to be more prone to illnesses like mad cow disease. The meatpacker suspended its operations voluntarily in early February, after the U.S.D.A. launched an investigation into how it treated animals after a video showed employees attempting to force sick cows stand up using electrical-shock devices, among other methods. The U.S.D.A. said would permit the slaughterhouse to reopen under certain conditions But Hallmark/Westland, a major supplier for the National School Lunch Program, must repay the cost of destroying the meat purchased by the program. The company's general manager Anthony Magidow told the Journal, "If the USDA wants payment back, we're dead meat. We're done." He told the newspaper had already laid off 250 workers, and that prior to this episode the company earned about $100 million annually.

Friends of the Earth misinforms on crop biotech again Last week, the ideological environmentalist group Friends of the Earth (FOE) launched another attack in its misinformation campaign against biotech crops. FOE's latest salvo is its report "Who Benefits from GM Crops?," issued explicitly to counter the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications' (ISAAA) annual global assessment of biotech crops. FOE claims biotech crops yield less than conventional crops, harm the environment, are technologically stagnant, have done nothing to help poor farmers, and are monopolized by a few giant corporations. The ISAAA 2007 report on the global status paints a far different picture. The ISAAA notes that farmers around the world continue their rapid adoption of biotech crop varieties. In 2007 the global planting of biotech crops rose to an all time high of 282 million acres, a 12 percent increase over 2006. In addition, the number of farmers choosing to grow biotech crops rose from 10.3 million in 2006 to over 12 million in 2007. The ISAAA report notes that 11 million of the biotech growers are resource poor farmers in developing countries, the majority of whom cultivate insect-resistant cotton. Biotech crops are now planted in 23 countries, and 29 others have approved the import of biotech food and feed....

UCLA Seeks Restraining Order Against 'Terrorist' Animal Rights Activists The University of California went to court Thursday to try to keep animal rights activists away from UCLA employees who say they have been threatened because of their research. Three times since June 2006, Molotov cocktail-type devices have been left near the homes of faculty members who oversee or participate in research that involves animals, according to a statement from the University of California, Los Angeles. Researchers' homes have also been vandalized and they have received threatening phone calls and e-mails, according to the university. On at least one occasion a faculty member received a package rigged with razor blades, the statement said. "Enough is enough," UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said. "We're not willing to wait until somebody is injured before taking legal action to protect our faculty and administrators from terrorist tactics, violence and harassment."....

Spanish rancher plans to clone prize bull A rancher in Spain plans to have his most prized bull cloned by a US firm in what will be a first in the history of Spanish bullfighting, El Pais reported Friday. Victoriano del Rio will have 16-year-old Alcalde, the father of some of the biggest and fiercest bulls killed in Spanish bullrings in recent years, cloned by Viagen in the next few weeks, the daily said. "Alcalde is unique, he's priceless and we wouldn't sell him for all the gold in the world," Victoriano's son Ricardo del Rio told the newspaper at the family's ranch at Guadalix de la Sierra, outside Madrid. A clone of Alcalde is expected in March 2009. Texas-based Viagen says it has successfully cloned at least 300 other animals, many of them prize bulls used in rodeos in the United States. "We're preserving and multiplying animals that have shown themselves to be genetically superior and that justifies the investment," Viagen's director for Latin America and Spain, Jose Cordoba, told the newspaper....

Arizona Congressman Is Indicted Representative Rick Renzi, a Republican who represents a vast region of Arizona, has been indicted on charges of using his office to enrich himself through a complex land swap scam, federal prosecutors announced on Friday in Phoenix. The prosecutors said a grand jury on Thursday returned a 35-count indictment accusing Mr. Renzi, 49, and two former associates of extortion, wire fraud, money-laundering and various conspiracies that could bring many years in prison and fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars upon conviction. The indictment asserts that Mr. Renzi was in financial trouble in 2005 “and needed a substantial infusion of funds to keep his insurance business solvent and to maintain his personal lifestyle.” The Congressman, who announced last August that he would not seek a fourth term, and his wife, Roberta, have 12 children. Prosecutors say Mr. Renzi misused his position on the House Natural Resources Committee to shepherd legislation enabling investors to swap tracts of property for land owned by the federal government — but only if they would include land owned by James W. Sandlin, a real estate investor from Sherman, Tex., in the deal. “No Sandlin property, no bill,” the Congressman allegedly said in 2005, meaning he would block the bill if Mr. Sandlin were not included in the profitable deal. The deal netted Mr. Sandlin some $4.5 million, prosecutors say....

Companies Show Concern About Bee Health Farmer Scott Hunter's almond trees are exploding into a froth of pink and white blossoms that will eventually bear more than 1 ton of nuts intended for trail mix, cereals, pastries and ice cream -- but only if each bloom is visited by a honey bee. That's why concern about recent threats to the health of honey bees, whose fertile touch is behind one-third of what we eat, is spreading beyond farms and into boardrooms of companies like Haagen-Dazs and Burt's Bees. Berries, fruits and nuts that lend flavor to about 28 of Haagen-Dazs' ice cream varieties depend on the insects for pollination. The company, owned by Vevey, Switzerland-based Nestle SA, uses 1 million pounds of almonds alone in its products. But in the last year, beekeepers lost 30 percent of the approximately 2.5 million managed colonies to diseases, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture. A recent surge in diseases and pests, from parasitic mites to Colony Collapse Disorder, which leads bees to abandon their hives, has led to the losses. Scientists are still struggling to understand what's behind these problems....

More bad warming data A meteorologist performing a comprehensive study of temperature-monitoring stations that provide data about global warming says the official facility at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is riddled with problems that render it useless to scientists. But the data collected there is being used nonetheless. Anthony Watts concludes in his investigation that the station at O'Hare is affected by an urban heat effect that would make temperature readings inaccurate as an indicator of what is actually occurring regionally. "The community around O'Hare was much smaller during World War II, when the airport was built, than it is now," says Watts. "The area had a significantly less-urban population and lacked the acres of concrete and asphalt that exist there today." The problems at O'Hare are similar to those found by Watts around the country in his study of temperature stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What he has found elsewhere are temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces – all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions. To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots....
Wolves to Be Removed From Species List Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday. An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the U.S. outside of Alaska in the early 20th century. "Gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are thriving and no longer require the protection of the Endangered Species Act," said Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "The wolf's recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains is a conservation success story." The restoration effort, however, has been unpopular with ranchers and many others in the three states since it began in the mid-1990s, and today some state leaders want the population thinned significantly. The states are planning to allow hunters to target the animals as soon as this fall. That angers environmental groups, which plan to sue over the delisting and say it's too soon to remove federal protection....
Northeastern Nevada Hit by 6.0 Quake Windows shattered and building facades and signs fell, but no one was seriously injured when a powerful earthquake shook this rural northeastern town on Thursday. The quake, which had an estimated magnitude of 6.0, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., struck at 6:16 a.m., near Wells in a sparsely populated area near the Nevada-Utah line. Elko County commissioners declared a state of emergency. "Almost all of the businesses are shut down. We have no services and no fuel," Commissioner Mike Nannini said. Almost all the 700 residential structures in town had some damage, said Tom Turk, a state spokesman at the scene. The temblor was felt across much of the West, from northern Idaho and Utah to Southern California, and as many as 30 aftershocks were reported. The most serious damage was reported in Wells' largely unoccupied historic district, where an estimated 20 to 25 buildings have been "heavily damaged," Elko County Sheriff's Sgt. Kevin McKinney said. Brick facades tumbled off several buildings, signs fell and windows broke, and some vehicles arked on the street were damaged by falling debris, KELK Radio in Elko reported. The town of about 1,300 was closed to all but residents, the Nevada Highway Patrol said. Officials posted signs along nearby highways telling motorists to fill up on gasoline elsewhere....
Waterfowl area grazing benefits birds, cattle Dan Jenniges’ cattle are eating better and helping to create better nesting areas for migratory birds, thanks to the managed grazing agreement he has with the Morris Wetlands Management District, operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Waterfowl Production Areas are managed to attract and produce migratory waterfowl, migratory nongame birds and resident wildlife. “In the remnant (native) prairie, the exotic (grass) species move in and thistle comes with them,” Brite says. “We’re trying to maintain the integrity of the prairie for ease of maintenance and a diverse (mix) of waterfowl and songbirds. When brome and bluegrass take over, you get more of a monoculture. They mat over more quickly, and that’s not as attractive to the birds.” The most common tools used to manage these grasses include grazing, haying and prescribed burning, which are followed by a period of rest. Working with local ranchers, cattle are allowed to graze on certain Waterfowl Production Areas using a permit system. This grazing closely mimics the effects native bison once provided to stimulate plant growth....
Gibbons takes another whack at pipeline plan Gov. Jim Gibbons is again saying he opposes Southern Nevada’s plan to get water from rural Nevada. On Tuesday, Gibbons told the Fallon Rotary Club that the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has proposed a multibillion-dollar pipeline to eastern Nevada to supply Las Vegas with a backup source of drinking water, should instead build a desalination plant in California and trade that plant’s water for some of California’s allocation of the Colorado River, according to the Lahontan Valley News. During his nearly 45-minute speech Tuesday, which focused mostly on the state budget crisis, Gibbons pitched the desalination proposal as “a better plan than what Clark County has,” according to reporter Christy Lattin. On Wednesday Melissa Subbotin, a spokeswoman for the governor, confirmed that Gibbons “wants to bring water to Southern Nevada without taking it straight from Northern Nevada.” Conservationists noted this is not the first time the governor has questioned pursuing the 250-mile pipeline, which environmentalists and ranchers say would destroy the ecology and rural way of life of eastern Nevada....
Hunters, anglers join global-warming outcry Anglers say trout and salmon are moving upstream looking for colder water. Duck hunters say the prairie potholes where ducklings hatch are drying up. And game hunters say moose populations are migrating north. Many of these outdoor enthusiasts blame it on global warming. Now, they are lobbying Congress to protect their favorite pastimes. Nearly 700 hunting, fishing and sporting groups, including several from Arizona, recently sent letters urging lawmakers to support a bill to curb the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. By taking on global warming, outdoor enthusiasts join a diverse group of activists, from evangelical Christians to farmers, clamoring for legislative action on climate change. The debate could heat up this summer because lawmakers are expected to consider legislation that would cut carbon-dioxide emissions by two-thirds nationwide by 2050....
New era of oil-and-gas drilling near Santa Fe has residents on edge On a sunny winter afternoon, with a light wind rustling the brittle leaves and swaying the high, golden grasses, the Galisteo Basin is a scene of tranquility. Only the metal pole sticking up out of Steve Sugarman's front yard gives any hint of the gathering storm. It's a marker for an oil-and-gas test well that came up dry nearly three decades ago. Sugarman's partner, James Ziegler, gave it no thought when he bought the Running Water Ranch ranch eight years ago. After all, this hilly swath of high desert about 20 miles south of artsy, touristy Santa Fe has never been oil-and-gas country: That distinction belongs to the pumpjack-dotted landscape of the faraway southeastern and northwestern corners of New Mexico. Over the past couple of years, however, a Texas company has quietly leased the mineral rights to some 65,000 acres in the Galisteo Basin. Tecton Energy of Houston believes there may be as much as 50 to 100 million barrels of highly prized light, sweet crude oil tucked in the nooks and crannies of the rocks that underlie the basin....
Forest Service falls down on competitive-sourcing job The Forest Service did a poor job of competing government jobs between federal employees and the private sector and of reporting savings, according to a new report. The Government Accountability Office said today that the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service lacked a strategic plan and guidance for its public/private competition for communications work, the Geospatial Service and Technology Center, and fleet management. USDA officials told Congress the agency saved more than $38 million between 2004 and 2006. However they couldn’t tell GAO how they arrived at that figure or give supporting data to prove it’s correct, GAO said. The Forest Service didn’t have complete and reliable cost data from those two years to show whether it complied with statutory spending limits on competitive sourcing and accurately reported savings to Congress, GAO found....
Environmental analysis due on E. Idaho sheep station A federal judge has approved a settlement agreement involving two environmental groups and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, requiring the agency to conduct an environmental analysis of the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in eastern Idaho that also manages lands in southwestern Montana. U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill approved the agreement Tuesday between the agency and the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project. The agreement requires the agency to complete the analysis by Nov. 28. The two groups sued the agency last summer, citing concerns about the possible negative effects of domestic sheep on bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, lynx, wolves, grizzly bears, sage grouse, pygmy rabbits, bald eagles and other animals. They said domestic sheep could be spreading deadly diseases to bighorns, that predator control measures that may include steel leghold traps, snares, aerial gunning and poisons could be killing native wildlife, and that domestic sheep could be overgrazing wildlife winter range. The environmental groups also said sheep station lands include travel corridors for wildlife, which they said could be killed because of the predator control measures....
Water threatens old mining town The Environmental Protection Agency said it could be a month or two before drilling begins on a well to pump water from a crumbling tunnel where local officials fear more than a billion gallons of trapped water could cause a potentially catastrophic flood. EPA officials are scrambling to find a contractor and more than $4.5 million to pay for the plan east of Leadville, said Stan Christensen, remedial project manager who is heading up the EPA's effort. Lake County officials declared a state of emergency for fear that melt from record snowfall could add to growing pressure in the tunnel and cause a blowout and flood the town. The partially collapsed Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel drains contaminated water from abandoned mines that date back to the 1800s. The Bureau of Reclamation, the EPA, state agencies and Lake County officials had been working on a plan to drain the tunnel since at least 2003....
EPA questions roadless plan Exceptions in Colorado's plan to manage some 4 million acres of roadless areas in national forests are worrisome because of the potential environmental impacts, a federal agency says. The regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency wrote in recent comments to the U.S. Forest Service that it's concerned about "the considerable breadth of exceptions" to logging in roadless areas to prevent wildfires and stem the spread of bark beetles. The exceptions to roads and activity in those areas have also drawn criticism from environmental, hunting and angling groups that want to see the 4.1 million acres in national forests across the state remain off-limits to development. The draft environmental review "should include clear guidelines and commitments for how impacts from exemptions will be avoided, minimized and mitigated" on roadless areas, according to EPA officials. "What the EPA is saying here echoes almost precisely what the sportsmen community has been saying from the start," said David Petersen of Durango, a staffer with Trout Unlimited and a member of the statewide task force that developed the plan....
Speaker outlines climate change impact on forests Climate change likely will mean more drought, fewer trees and more invasive species for Western forests such as the Black Hills National Forest. That was the conclusion of Linda Joyce, a Forest Service researcher who was a member of a Nobel Prize winning intergovernmental panel on climate change. Joyce spoke Wednesday to more than 80 people at The Journey Museum about the implications of ongoing climate change, including rising temperatures, on Western forests. Joyce, who is based at the Rocky Mountain Research Station headquarters in Fort Collins, Colo., said ongoing climate-change studies haven't focused exclusively on the Black Hills, but a lot of data has been gathered about forests in the Rocky Mountains. The conclusions of those studies can also apply to the Black Hills, Joyce said in a short interview after her presentation. The study indicates that as average temperatures rise, vegetation decreases; vegetation tends to creep up onto higher elevations; new species come in, possibly including invasive species; and water patterns change....
Access for developers near Wolf Creek appears likely A U.S. Forest Service official said Wednesday that his agency ultimately will have to grant developers road access to private land near Wolf Creek Ski Area, even though the agency has agreed to conduct a fresh review of the project's environmental impact. "This process is not about if we will provide access, but rather what that access will look like and where on National Forest System lands it will be built," said Dan Dallas, Rio Grande National Forest supervisor. Dallas also said that the Forest Service would rule only on the access issue and not on matters such as the development's size. Developers have said it could house as many as 10,000 residents on property next to Wolf Creek Ski Area. The agency has settled a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, who alleged that the developers tried to influence the outcome of the previous environmental analysis and road-access rulings....
BLM sells seized livestock in Nevada The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has auctioned 58 head of cattle and 21 horses that were seized near Winnemucca for unlawful grazing. The federal agency said the cattle, formerly owned by Inger Casey, were sold for $17,287 on Feb. 1 to three separate bidders from Oregon and California. They were among 117 cows impounded by the BLM on Jan. 21 for trespassing on public lands. BLM said the remaining cattle, except for two, were reclaimed by their owners. In a separate impound, the BLM on Jan. 24 seized 95 horses for trespassing near Fort McDermitt along the Nevada-Oregon line. The state brand inspector determined 30 were estrays with no known owner. Those animals were turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture, the BLM said. According to the agency, another 30 were owned by Leonard and Larry Crutcher. Owners of two others relinquished title to their animals. Of those, 21 horses were sold at auction Feb. 15 for a total of $1,495, the BLM said. The BLM said the remaining 11 unsold horses likely will be put up for bid at a future auction....
Wrecked ship carried lumber, ran aground in 1944 There is finally an answer to a shipwreck recently exposed by dune erosion on Oregon's south coast. The Bureau of Land Management says it is a wooden steam schooner that ran aground in 1944. The 223-foot George L. Olson had been revealed by shifting sands from time to time -- most recently after big waves started stripping away the dune near North Bend. Nearly 70 feet of the ship is now exposed. The George L. Olson was identified with help from a federal maritime heritage coordinator in Santa Barbara, California. The Oregonian newspaper reports that the ship was built at the W.F. Stone shipyards in Oakland, California. It had a 1,000-horsepower steam engine, could carry 1.4 million board feet of lumber and was launched in 1917....See Mystery solved for more info.
USDA unsure if Calif. cattle case isolated to plant Days after the largest meat recall in U.S. history, the head of the Agriculture Department said officials are reviewing why a California plant processed unfit cattle, and that it was too early to determine whether it was an incident specific to the facility. The USDA announced on Sunday that the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co was recalling 143 million lbs (65 million kilos) of meat, mostly beef, after plant workers were caught on videotape forcing unfit cattle into the slaughterhouse. "We are reviewing our procedures, how we work with the plant, how our inspectors work, our staffing needs," Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told reporters at the USDA's annual Outlook Forum. "And until we find out, we can't assess other plants, and we can't say ... this is an isolated incident or an ongoing practice."....
Beef Recall Latest in a Bad Year The record recall, announced on Sunday and prompted by an explicit video taken by an undercover Humane Society employee, has generated outrage from members of Congress and other American consumers. The video shows downed cattle being forced from the ground with forklifts and electric shocks and prodded toward the slaughterhouse. In some shots, a cow is unable to support itself and falls over again, only to be subjected to a second round of battery. But the primary concern has been for public health. Had the meatpacking plant followed government notification rules, the USDA says, some of the meat never would have seen the light of day, much less the inside of a gastrointestinal tract. "Downed" cows are often weak and diseased, and plant owners are required to notify USDA inspectors if a cow goes down on its way to the slaughterhouse. The USDA, which has closed the plant pending further investigation, has said that on multiple occasions no such notification took place. Yet an estimated 37 million pounds of beef, as part of the National School Lunch Program, was sent to schools in at least 36 states, and the rest was purchased by wholesale food companies. The recall at the California plant, which is owned by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., is not the first such case, though it is the largest. In fact, the United States just completed what is arguably the worst year for beef safety in its history. In 2007, there were 21 beef recalls nationwide for possible E. coli contamination, the most in five years; the amount of beef recalled—33.4 million pounds—was a new record. In many of the cases in 2007, the reason for the recall was remarkably similar to the current one: The workers at the plant allegedly didn't communicate information to the government, and the government took action only after the meat was already in the grocery store or consumed. One notable example: the recall of 21.7 million pounds of meat in September by Topps Meat, now out of business, for possible E. coli problems. Prior to the recall, Topps reportedly reduced the frequency of its safety inspections but failed to notify USDA officials....
USDA: More than a third of recalled beef went to schools Federal authorities say more than a third of the 143 million pounds of beef recalled last week went to school lunch programs. And, they say at least 20 million pounds of that has been eaten. Officials say they still don't know all the places the meat wound up. The USDA shut down the California-based company that produced the meat after the Humane Society released undercover video from its plant. The video showed workers kicking and shoving sick and crippled cows and forcing them to stand with electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. The USDA says the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company produces 20 percent of all the meat in the federal school lunch programs....
USDA Urged to Disclose Where Recalled Meat Was Sold In a letter to the Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, seven consumer groups yesterday urged the USDA to issue an emergency rule to allow the agency to identify all of the outlets that purchased recalled ground beef from the Hallmark/Westland company. The groups also urged the agency to finish a long delayed rule change that would require the agency to list retailers that sold recalled meat and poultry products in official recall announcements. Consumer groups have for years been urging the agency to release the identify of “retail consignees”, pointing out that consumers need more than just a code found in the fine print on a meat package –– they need to know what stores carry the product to increase the odds that they heed the recall notice and don’t eat possibly dangerous products. A USDA rule to make this change has been in the works for two years and, according to the agency, is now stuck in the departmental review process....
25 area schools have recalled beef on hand Twenty-five schools in The Daily Republic coverage area have reported that they still are in possession of ground beef that is part of a nationwide recall. State Department of Education spokeswoman Mary Stadick Smith said that overall, 121 out of 220 schools in the state report having received, and still have on hand, some of the beef from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. plant in Chino, Calif. She estimates that there are 650 cases, 40 pounds each, statewide. The amount of meat still at each school varies. “South Dakota has received USDA-donated beef from Westland Meat Company for two years,” Stadick Smith said. “It is likely that almost every school food authority has received USDA donated beef from Westland Meat Company over that time.” The 143 million pounds of recalled meat from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Co. plant must be destroyed following strict USDA procedures. The USDA ordered the recall after receiving evidence that the slaughterhouse did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection. There have been no reports of illnesses in South Dakota school systems related to the recalled beef, Stadick Smith said....
Burger-free and bummed-out Where's the beef? The old catchphrase from a 1980s Wendy's ad campaign has found a 21st-century reprise. Chicken, pizza and yet more chicken have replaced beef on lunch plates in school cafeterias across California in the wake of a national recall of meat from a Southern California distributor accused of animal abuse. "I'm not the biggest fan of chicken," said Anthony Castro, 13, an eighth-grader at Burnett Academy in North San Jose as he chowed down Wednesday on a chicken quesadilla. "But there are not that many options." For two weeks now - even before Sunday's recall of beef from the Westland Meat Co. - public schools have not served any ground beef. Westland, a major supplier to the National School Lunch Program, is under investigation for allegedly abusing sick cattle before slaughter. Health officials say use of meat from sick animals increases the risk of exposure to mad cow disease and E. coli. After hearing the news reports of the animal abuse, state schools chief Jack O'Connell on Jan. 31 ordered public schools to stop serving all ground beef until further notice. Because of the federal recall, schools must now destroy the meat....
Cowboys for Hire Some ranch owners in Hidalgo County say they're being over billed for livestock that gets loose, the county has cowboys for hire, but ranch owners say there needs to be some sort of regulation for the fees they charge. When livestock gets loose in Hidalgo County authorities call in cowboys for hire, cowboys who round up the animals and returning them to their owners for a fee. Tony Arroyo, a rancher who has had animals have gotten loose from his property, tells us the fees need to be regulated. He believes ranchers are being more than they should at times. Teo Martinez, one of the county's cowboys for hire, tells NEWSCHANNEL 5 aren't much better for him either, there's been instances when customers can't afford to pay him, so he's forced to keep the animals and sell to make sure his fees are covered. A Texas Ranger who is assigned to cattle rustling and other livestock crimes is looking into a solution....
'Judas Horse' by April Smith IN two previous thrillers, FBI Special Agent Ana Grey stalked criminals through the same neighborhoods around Santa Monica where she'd been raised by her grandfather. Among the highlights of those books -- "North of Montana" and "Good Morning, Killer" -- were the spot-on observations about daily Los Angeles life, the keen glimpses of parallel cultures that coexist on the same streets without much connection. The third novel in the series by April Smith, "Judas Horse," also begins in Los Angeles, but its narrative propels Ana out of her native territory into a dizzying new world. This time the bureau is sending her on an undercover assignment to infiltrate a terrorist cell in the Pacific Northwest. After a rigorous stint in undercover school at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., Ana assumes a new identity: that of a scruffy, down-and-out animal rights sympathizer named Darcy DeGuzman. As Darcy, armed only with a phony driver's license and a specially designed Oreo-sized cellphone for contact with former partner Mike Donnato, who will serve as her "handler," she heads to Portland to begin her mission. Agent Crawford had been working undercover to infiltrate a radical group called FAN, for "Free Animals Now." It's a covert collection of ecoterrorists, linked to increasingly violent anarchist activity throughout the Northwest and probably serving as a front for a larger, looser amalgamation of assorted extremists. FAN operates through intimidation, with a particular fondness for firebombing institutions that insult its live-free-or-die ideology. The FBI's latest intelligence suggests that FAN's current target is a mid-level bureaucrat at the Bureau of Land Management named Herbert Laumann, whom FAN accuses of mismanaging herds of wild mustangs protected by federal law....
Riders Recreate Life On The Cracker Trail What sounded like the rapid snapping of cap pistols filled the air on Wednesday, while students at Cracker Trail Elementary School responded by cheering wildly. Nearby, more than 140 horses took their fill of water, while some seemed spooked by the clamor of more than 200 appreciative children, amid the loud snapping. The elementary school is a regular stop on the 120-mile-long Cracker Trail Ride. Some had never seen a horse or heard the "crack" of the whips made by cowboys and cowgirls. The event brought history home to kindergarten through fifth-graders and gave them insight into the school's name. Eighteen-year old Kaylelyn Pella, of Lorida, participated in her second Cracker Trail Ride and enjoyed "cracking" a whip during an outdoor demonstration for students. Some of more than 140 cowpokes explained about long range trail riders who drove cattle, and then demonstrated with their whips why the cowboys were called "Florida Crackers."....
Mass. vegan competes in ‘Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door’ contest Lettuce be clear: Matthew Pidge may be sexy, but don’t call him “beefcake.” It’s not that he’s scrawny, but as he is a vegan, the remark isn’t exactly fitting. Pidge, 23, a Brookline resident, doesn’t consume or wear any animal products or by-products as part of his lifestyle, which is how he got to be a finalist in PETA’s “Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door” nationwide contest. Although Pidge was knocked out in the first round, which ended on Feb. 19, the future vegan restaurateur said he’ll “keep up the advocacy work” and hopes to volunteer on an organic farm. His flat abs, blue-green eyes and smooth olive skin made him a solid contender in the contest, but the Lexington native said those things have nothing to do with why he believes he is one of the sexiest herbivores in America. “[It’s] that I’m a vegan, that it’s just my compassion for animals,” said Pidge, a Longwood Avenue resident. “Being a compassionate person is really sexy.” The Web contest run by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is divided into separate competitions for men and women....Posted for Jimmy Bason, who has announced he will enter the contest.

Biofuels Are Bad for Feeding People and Combating Climate Change Converting corn to ethanol in Iowa not only leads to clearing more of the Amazonian rainforest, researchers report in a pair of new studies in Science, but also would do little to slow global warming—and often make it worse. "Prior analyses made an accounting error," says one study's lead author, Tim Searchinger, an agricultural expert at Princeton University. "There is a huge imbalance between the carbon lost by plowing up a hectare [2.47 acres] of forest or grassland from the benefit you get from biofuels." Growing plants store carbon in their roots, shoots and leaves. As a result, the world's plants and the soil in which they grow contain nearly three times as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. "I know when I look at a tree that half the dry weight of it is carbon," says ecologist David Tilman of the University of Minnesota, coauthor of the other study which examined the "carbon debt" embedded in any biofuel. "That's going to end up as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when you cut it down." Tilman and his colleagues examined the overall CO2 released when land use changes occur. Converting the grasslands of the U.S. to grow corn results in excess greenhouse gas emissions of 134 metric tons of CO2 per hectare—a debt that would take 93 years to repay by replacing gasoline with corn-based ethanol. And converting jungles to palm plantations or tropical rainforest to soy fields would take centuries to pay back their carbon debts. "Any biofuel that causes land clearing is likely to increase global warming," says ecologist Joseph Fargione of The Nature Conservancy, lead author of the second study. "It takes decades to centuries to repay the carbon debt that is created from clearing land." Diverting food crops into fuel production leads to ever more land clearing as well. Ethanol demand in the U.S., for example, has caused some farmers to plant more corn and less soy. This has driven up soy prices causing farmers in Brazil to clear more Amazon rainforest land to plant valuable soy, Searchinger's study notes. Because a soy field contains far less carbon than a rainforest, the greenhouse gas benefit of the original ethanol is wiped out. "Corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20 percent savings [in greenhouse gas emissions], nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years," the researchers write. "We can't get to a result with corn ethanol where we can generate greenhouse gas benefits," Searchinger adds....
Who's Really To Blame For $100 Oil A refinery burns in Texas while politicians fiddle in Washington. As oil goes over $100 a barrel, we don't have to worry about Hugo Chavez restricting supply. We have the Democrats in Congress to do that. Suppose you had a ton of money sitting in your bank account but you decided to max out your credit cards anyway. That's the energy policy of the United States as fashioned by the Democrat-controlled Senate. At these prices, we have a trillion dollars worth of oil sitting under a section of frozen tundra the size of Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C. We could go get it. Instead we prefer to shovel billions of our dollars to thugs like Chavez while the same politicians who lock up our domestic energy praise him when he offers "cheap" home heating oil to states in the Northeast. Chavez has said he's changed his mind about cutting off supplies to the U.S., but it's because he'd have a hard time selling Venezuela's heavy crude — which requires special refining — anywhere else. He's not doing us any favors. Unfortunately, neither is the U.S. Senate. Oil futures closed above $100 for the first time Tuesday after Monday's explosion at Alon USA's refinery in Big Spring, Texas. It could be shuttered for two months. Yet NIMBYs won't let new refineries be built, and the greenies won't let the domestic oil be refined....

Utility proposes first US coal-fired plant to capture CO2 US energy company Tenaska announced Tuesday a proposal for a new 600-megawatt, coal-fired power plant in Texas that would be the first to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions underground. The privately held company proposed a site near Sweetwater, Texas, where its plan would capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that would otherwise enter the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be sold for use in oil production in the Permian Basin, resulting in geologic storage. Tenaska filed a request for a state permit for the plant, whose cost was estimated at three billion dollars, but said a final decision to proceed would be made in 2009 depending on incentives, costs and prices for electricity and CO2. If built, the plant would be the first commercial coal-fired plant, other than small research projects, to capture and provide for storage of CO2, according to Tenaska....
Challenging Indian Land Trusts Across Indian country, two things are never in short supply: rich natural resources and endemic poverty. That paradox is driving a longstanding battle between indigenous people and the government trust that holds money generated from their lands. The class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Kempthorne, targets a federal trust fund that handles revenues from activities like oil drilling and logging on land owned by individual Indians and tribes. The trust’s financial operations—covering more than 56 million acres and dating back for more than a century—have left a spectacularly messy paper trail. Many beneficiaries say they are in the dark about how much has been paid out and what is still owed, and charge that the system has drained wealth from Indian communities. “We know that the government collected our money, but it hasn’t been paid to us as individual Indian beneficiaries,” says Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Nation member who initiated the suit in 1996 on behalf of several hundred thousand account holders. The battle is finally drawing to a close. On Jan. 30, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the trust’s finances are beyond salvaging. Calling for a settlement, he denounced the Interior Department’s “unrepaired, and irreparable, breach of its fiduciary duty over the last century.”....
Climate Change Forecasters on the Hot Seat More than 20 years ago, climate scientists began to sound the alarm over the possibility that global temperatures were rising due to human activities, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels. In 1988, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to study and better understand this potential threat. The IPCC’s mission was to provide a “comprehensive, objective, scientific, technical and socio-economic assessment of human-caused climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.” IPCC reports have predicted that average world temperatures will increase dramatically, leading to the spread of tropical diseases, severe drought, the rapid melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels. Congress is considering proposals to slow rising temperatures by joining international agreements or by implementing policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions. However, several assessments have shown that the techniques and methods used to derive and verify the IPCC’s climate predictions are fundamentally flawed. They indicate that the IPCC’s central claims — that the present warming trend is unusual, caused by human activities and will result in serious harm — are not supported by scientific forecasts. Rather, these claims are opinions that are no more likely to be right than wrong....
Study finds human medicines altering marine biology Sewage-treatment plants in Southern California are failing to remove hormones and hormone-altering chemicals from water that gets flushed into coastal ocean waters, according to the results of a study released Saturday. The preliminary findings were part of the most ambitious study to date on the effect of emerging chemical contaminants in coastal oceans. It confirms the findings of smaller pilot studies from 2005 that discovered male fish in the ocean were developing female characteristics, and broadened the scope of the earlier studies by looking at an array of man-made contaminants in widespread tests of seawater, seafloor sediment and hundreds of fish caught off Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. The results, outlined by a Southern California toxicologist at a conference in Boston, reveal that a veritable drugstore of pharmaceuticals and beauty products, flame retardants and plastic additives are ending up in the ocean and appear to be working their way up the marine food chain....
Oil Closes Over $100 for 1st Time The price of crude oil closed over $100 for the first time yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, rattling stock markets and marking a milestone in the relentless rise in petroleum prices over the past five years. The high oil price, which rivals the inflation-adjusted peak set during the early days of the Iran-Iraq war nearly three decades ago, has drained cash from the pockets of consumers just when the slowing economy could use a spending boost. And it reinforced fears that oil prices, which have long fluctuated with political and economic cycles, may never again drop to past levels. The price hit a new high of $100.10 a barrel before settling at $100.01 a barrel, up $4.51, when the market closed at 2:30 p.m. The price in late electronic trading dropped only slightly, to $99.99 a barrel....
Western wolf delisting looms The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to make what is certain to be a historic and equally controversial move regarding the management of wolves in the Northern Rockies sometime next week. As early as Thursday, Feb. 28, the FWS will publish a delisting notice for the Western gray wolf in the U.S. Federal Register, Northern Rockies representative of Defenders of Wildlife Suzanne Stone said Sunday. Under the delisting notice, which won't take effect until 30 days after it's published, gray wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming would lose their protected status under the federal Endangered Species Act. The delisting proposal will also extend to the eastern thirds of Washington and Oregon as well as a small portion of north-central Utah. Defenders of Wildlife and other groups plan to sue to stop the delisting. Depending on the success of those appeals, management oversight for gray wolves may be in the hands of state wildlife agencies as soon as this spring, which in turn could mean the beginning of an Idaho wolf hunt as early as this fall....
Feds, state reach agreement to conserve tiny Arizona snail State and federal wildlife officials have drafted an agreement to conserve a tiny snail that lives primarily in springs within a small area along Oak Creek. The Page springsnail - a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection - is vulnerable because its available habitats are small and isolated, the introduction of nonnative species such as crayfish, and spring flow changes resulting from groundwater pumping. Officials don't know exactly how many of these snails still exist, but in a free-flowing spring, they have found as many as 3,000 per square meter. The draft agreement identifies ways to ensure that the Game and Fish Department's management of its Page Springs and Bubbling Springs fish hatcheries will minimize the loss of resident Page springsnails and the impacts on their habitat....So, if the snail does eventually get listed, will it shut down the two state-run fish hatcheries? Just wondering.
Rally protests abuse of eminent domain About 90 people, several of whom have been on the blunt end of condemnation proceedings, rallied under snowy skies in Civic Center on Sunday to hold a tailgate party against what they see as government abuse of eminent domain. They spoke about cases in Commerce City, Boulder, Lakewood and Denver, but the thread that ran through their talk was concern over the way in which cities and agencies such as RTD acquire property by condemning it. The rally - which featured a pig roast - was sponsored by the Colorado Property Rights Coalition. Several people spoke in favor of House Bill 1178, a proposal that would prohibit RTD from condemning homes and businesses for commercial development....
Rainbow People forced to move from Ocala National Forest Dirty Momma just wants to protect the land. That's why the 31-year-old Florida woman, known outside Rainbow gatherings as April Hendry, didn't resist the U.S. Forest Service's effort to force her and hundreds of other free spirits from Duck Pond, though many did. "We love the Earth," Hendry said, surrounded by other barefoot and bedraggled campers in tie-dye. Forest officials estimate the annual gathering will draw 600 Rainbow Family members this year but could swell to 1,500 if the weekend weather is good. The federal agency, in charge of managing and protecting the 383,000-acre forest, has increased its law-enforcement presence to 11 officers, more than twice as many as usual....
Foresters to redo impact statement of Wolf Creek plan Developers of the proposed 10,000-person Village at Wolf Creek, project opponents and the U.S. Forest Service agreed Tuesday that foresters will redo their environmental impact statement. Environmental groups sued the agency in April 2006 over its authorization of two access roads across public lands to billionaire Red McCombs' acreage adjoining the small ski area atop Wolf Creek Pass in southwestern Colorado. U.S. District Judge John Kane issued a preliminary injunction Oct. 4, 2007, to halt the development until he ruled on the adequacy of the EIS. Rather than wait, the parties agreed Tuesday to a new EIS. Ryan Bidwell of Colorado Wild called it "a tremendous victory for the environment."
Forest Service wants information on Ojo Peak Fire U.S. Forest Service investigators have formally ruled that last November’s Ojo Peak Fire in the Manzano Mountains was human-caused. The Albuquerque zone dispatch office is asking for help from anyone who might have seen people or vehicles at the Pine Shadow Trail area or the south end of the Crest Trail the weekend of Nov. 17-18. The 6,969-acre blaze destroyed three homes and some outbuildings and forced the evacuations of some ranches and 75 to 100 homes in the villages of Manzano and Punta del Agua. The Forest Service says it eventually could have threatened a popular attraction at the head of Tajique Canyon, the largest stand of Rocky Mountain large tooth maples in New Mexico.
EPA slams new plan for Sublette gas field The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency excoriated a plan for more wells on the Pinedale Anticline last week, citing deficiencies in the analysis of the effects of development on air quality and ground water. In a letter Feb. 14, EPA regional administrator Robert E. Roberts gave a revised draft EIS a rating of “3,” which means the study has a label of “environmentally unsatisfactory-inadequate information.” He said the rating “indicates EPA’s belief that the [draft environmental impact statement] is not adequate for purposes of our ... review, and thus, should be formally revised and made available for public comment in a supplemental or revised Draft EIS.” “The impacts are of sufficient magnitude that the proposed action should not proceed as proposed,” Roberts said. Further, the rating makes the project a candidate for referral to the Council for Environmental Quality, which is a White House watchdog on compliance with environmental laws. The EPA letter comes in respsonse to the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal for two options to develop 4,399 new wells on 12,278 acres of the Pinedale Anticline, late last year....
Group plans to sue feds over elk-killing plan A wolf-advocacy group said it will sue Rocky Mountain National Park over its decision to hire sharpshooters to kill up to 200 elk a year at the park as a way to handle overpopulation. A WildEarth Guardians officer said Monday that federal officials didn't take a fair look at introducing wolves to the park as an alternate way to keep the elk population down. Elk -- there are an estimated 2,000 in the park -- are destroying aspen and willows in large stretches on the eastern part of the Continental Divide, threatening to decimate large areas of the riverbank ecosystem. The Park Service says shooting elk will be part of a plan that also includes fences, restoring trees and redistributing the elk. But Rob Edward, director for carnivore recovery for the Santa Fe, N.M.-based WildEarth Guardians, said 30 or 40 wolves could accomplish the same goals in a more natural way....
Mysterious Creatures Found in Antarctica Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths. Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before. Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand. "Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. "We have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates." The specimens were being sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA studies....
Judge asked to stop older Canadian cattle imports Lawyers representing cattle, consumer and health interests urged a federal judge Tuesday to stop imports of older Canadian cattle because of the potential threat of mad cow disease. An attorney for the government countered that U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol should not grant the preliminary injunction, saying rules and changes in the industry adequately protect American animals, people and markets. The lawsuit, filed last fall in federal court in South Dakota, seeks to suspend a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that went into effect Nov. 19 allowing Canadian cattle more than 30 months old into the U.S. market. The change exposes consumers to a fatal disease linked to eating meat contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, increases the risk that U.S. cattle would be infected with the disease, and could harm the U.S. cattle market, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF; United Stockgrowers of America, based in Billings, Mont.; South Dakota Stockgrowers Association; four South Dakota cattle ranchers; the Center for Food Safety; the Consumer Federation of America; the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation; and Food & Water Watch....
Warehouses Nibble on Edge of Giant California Ranch Anyone who has traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco along Interstate 5 has driven along the western flank of Tejon Ranch, a vast expanse of luminous oak-studded hills that divides the southern and central portions of the state. Occupying about 270,000 acres, or 426 square miles, Tejon Ranch, named for the Spanish word for badger, is the largest contiguous parcel of privately owned land in California. More than a century and a half after it was consolidated from four ranches created through Mexican land grants, Tejon is still a working farm and ranch, where cattle graze and wine grapes, almonds, pistachios and walnuts are grown. In recent years, however, as executives of the publicly held Tejon Ranch Company have sought to diversify the ranch’s economic activity, three giant warehouses have sprouted near the freeway. The largest, with 1.7 million square feet, serves all of Ikea’s furniture stores from San Diego to Vancouver....
Acclaimed cowboy film comes to town The cowboys are coming to town. "Cracker, the Last Cowboys of Florida," a film created by acclaimed filmmaker Victor Milt, will have three public showings Saturday at the Arbor Reception and Banquet Hall at 111 West Oak St., Arcadia. "Cracker" is an enlarged sequel to Milt's film "The Cowboys of Florida," which is a 36-minute film that won three national awards and was a finalist at the Palm Beach Film Festival. It was chosen as one of the 10 best films at the festival. But Milt said he did not feel "The Cowboys of Florida" told the whole story about Florida cowboys and their struggle to avoid extinction as development closes in. He had researched Florida cowboys and Florida cow culture for four years and had accumulated more film footage than he could use in that first short film about Florida cowboys. Milt said he was approached by a group of ranchers in the area who asked him to expand the film and tell the whole story of the cowboys in Southwest Florida. He added that they offered to help with the financing. So "Cracker" was born. "It is still a film about Florida cowboys and what is happening to them," said Mack Martin, an Arcadia Realtor and one of Milt's longtime promoters. "But it's more of a message film. It has a message for the entire world about the plight of Florida cowboys and how they are in danger of being swept away by development and loss of rural land. Cowboy work habits and their lifestyles date back to the time the Spaniards landed in Florida. Victor Milt has captured those forces and those pressures that are impacting the Florida cowboys. That is what 'Cracker' is all about."....