It's All Trew: I've got some issues with the term 'issues' Recently as evening waned, I was sitting in my easy chair waiting for the sun to go down so I could legitimately go to bed. The phone rang and the young lady dispatcher at the Gray County Sheriff's Office stated, "Mr. Trew, we have a deputy just north of your house who is having some issues with a stray bull out on I-40. Could you possibly help him please?" I immediately jumped up, fastened my belt, slipped on my boots, grabbed my cap and pickup keys and started out the door. It was at this time the words, "having some issues" soaked into my feeble brain. This was definitely new ground for my experiences. Now, during my 75 plus years, 60 spent alongside Route 66 and I-40, I have experienced stampedes, runaways, wrecks, strays, bull fights, truck wrecks, immigrant pileups, drug busts, suicides, hopped-up truck drivers, two murders, thousands of foreign tourists, jail prisoner escapees, stolen property, stolen vehicles and truckloads of trash tossed but never in all those years have I encountered a stray bull with "issues."....

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Always hoping for a profit

By Julie Carter

While the world's markets rise and fall, I've done some pondering on those same patterns in my personal financial history.

Always a short-term goal setter and long-term optimist, there have been a number of projects-for-profit that I've taken on through the years.

Among them were raising Blue Heeler puppies, raising colts, cattle and kids - none of which ever became a viable profit center. Raising kids, while never actually thought of as a profit maker, should be something one can "bank" on in a kind of end-of-the-run security.

Blue Heeler puppies come 18 to a litter and quickly become giveaways in the parking lot of the next rodeo. The colts are first cute, then fun, and then they grow up to be horses that eat more and need to be broke to ride. The best ones either had a strong inclination to buck or would mysteriously come up lame.

The bucking pay-off was that I met some nice orthopedic physicians and chiropractors along the way and the equine lameness kept some veterinarians viably employed - both assuring a negative on my profit line.

The cattle business takes longer in which to go broke because the cycles offer the occasional profit (enticement). Using that to buy a few more head to help the next year's bottom line, the profit and loss perpetuates itself until getting out of the business is not an option. Unless, of course, you want the bottom line to look like the national debt of Argentina.

The kids are an ongoing project. While I didn't ever actually forget one at the Laundromat, their experiences taught them to stay pretty close. Maybe it was my early threats to leave them in a basket on a doorstep before they were old enough to positively identify me.

This last child gets plenty of advice (warnings) from his older siblings and manages to keep a cell phone handy for emergency help.

Raising ranch kids throws a few more "opportunities" into the mix. One cowboy I know, as a young button, grew up working on ranches. He loved the work but particularly loved the horses. All of them.

He loved riding the ones that would buck, loved the ones that were a challenge and the ones that were, supposedly, off-limits to him. One particular high-dollar stud horse, the pride and joy of the ranch owner, was such a horse. As soon as the rancher was out of sight, the lad and another young'un, would saddle the stud and ride away.

The stallion was not "kid" material and whatever it was that kept the pair from getting killed was dumb luck. Danger was near-at-hand from either the stallion or the owner had he caught them.

These same boys also loved to rope. They'd been warned about roping the cattle unless it was absolutely necessary. The boss told them if they needed to do something with their ropes, they could drag up firewood for the winter.

Like most cowboys, young or old, these two were broke. A new rope cost money and needed to be treated carefully, used expeditiously.

One year for Christmas, the rancher gave each boy a new rope. In the spring, he happened to notice one of them was considerably frayed and had a small break in it.

He questioned the young cowboy carrying the worn rope and asked if he'd been dragging firewood with his new rope.

Knowing he was in trouble for roping the cattle or for dragging firewood with a new rope, the lad elected for the truth.

"Why would I want to drag firewood when I have all these cattle of yours to rope?"

The end of that story involves reviewing a cowboy's determination to have some fun, even when the price is likely higher than he wanted to pay.

I haven't given up my long-range optimism for a return on my investment on the kids.

Once this last one is out of school and a ceremonious plate-breaking has taken place, he surely will choose a career path that will let him send money home.

Or, at the very least, help pay for the old folks home I know he's plotting with his sisters about.


Julie’s new book is on presale now. Cowboys You Gotta Love ‘em...buy at www.julie-carter.com

Betrayal Of Landowners

Government Betrays Landowners with Conservation Easements

By Fred Kelly Grant

At this very hour, Colorado landowners are fighting to prevent the United States federal government from taking their land. Ignored by the mass media, hundreds of farmers and ranchers in southeastern Colorado are facing loss of their property at the hands of the IRS. They are victims of “conservation easements” promoted by federal and state governments, land trust companies, and conservation groups.

As landowners dedicated to preserving the open, agricultural use of their land, lured into the “easements” by both the U.S. and Colorado governments, they have been betrayed by those they trusted.

A “conservation easement” is an easement in name only. It is an agreement by a landowner to give up the right to develop his or her land for residential, commercial or industrial use. He/she agrees to keep the land in agricultural use FOREVER, and in return is rewarded either with cash payment for the development value, or income tax relief to the amount of the appraised value of the development rights.

The federal government and the state of Colorado offered inducements for execution of the “easements” by which the landowners donated their land to various land trusts to be held for agricultural use IN PERPETUITY. They accepted the following offers of income tax relief, conditioned upon execution of the easements: federal income tax deductions, and tax credits from Colorado income tax, or the right to sell such tax credits to third parties or the State itself.

In reliance on commitments from the two governments, the landowners donated their land to various land trusts, mainly for two reasons: they wanted to preserve their land as agricultural land forever, and they faced cash flow problems which could be helped by the tax relief. So, they gave away the value of development rights in exchange for tax relief. In most cases, the development rights were far more valuable, money wise, than the assessed land value. But, the landowners placed their desire for continued agricultural use above the interest in a future much higher profit.

The landowners followed the rules. They engaged consultants to help them put together the donation package. They hired appraisers certified by the state of Colorado as honest, ethical, and competent. They had certified public accountants review the appraisals and their financial situations. They hired lawyers to make sure the law was followed in the transactions.

They asked that all this professional help assure them that the Land Trust company, which would own the easement, was trustworthy.

But, after two to three years, one of the donee Land Trusts invited the IRS to review the easement appraisals. That invitation didn’t worry the landowners because they had obtained professional assistance and had been assured they were following the rules.

But, suddenly the IRS announced disqualifications of “easements,” claiming that the appraisals of development rights were highly over stated. The State of Colorado called into question the licenses of several appraisers (all appraisers who have sought full reinstatement have been successful), and the mass media began to talk of a “scandal,” and “sham” appraisals, and cast the landowners as greedy people looking for windfalls. The media reached its libelous conclusions without reviewing the files and determining the facts. But, what’s new? As Will Rogers said, “If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”

In one case, for example, the appraisal of the development rights was challenged by an IRS employee who claimed that the appraiser did not use any comparable realty values in the vicinity. The statement is either an outright lie, or the grossest negligence in history. Within a quarter-mile of the appraised land is a subdivision of high scale homes, and within a half mile is a subdivision of even a higher scale homes situated on a finely groomed golf course.

The appraised land is within two miles of the city limits and a regional hospital. The landowner has water rights that accompany the appraised land, and the land has available water access, which would serve residential parcels very efficiently. Whether the IRS conclusion is a lie may rest on the fact that the federal employee judging the appraised value is not an appraiser, and has been exposed to land appraisal training for a solid two hours.

The IRS has demanded payment of back taxes, plus penalties and interest. In some cases, the demand is higher than the value of the landowners’ property, now that the “easements” have devalued the property. The third parties who bought state tax credits have demanded return of their money. The state of Colorado has turned its back on the landowners, which it lured into the conservation easements. The Governor’s office turns back requests for assistance with the spurious claim that the matter is a “federal” issue. The Secretary of Agriculture, who lives among the troubled landowners, ignores the problem.

The landowners cannot borrow money to satisfy the “return” demands. The banks will not lend money because of the conservation easements, which devalue the land.

The landowners cannot sell their land, or any portion of their land. Buyers are not willing to take on the restrictions and devaluation of the land resulting from the conservation easements. One of the ranchers had a sale in place for a portion of his property. The sale price would have allowed him to replace at least 75 percent of his imminent loss, but the buyer backed out because of the conservation easement.

As the federal and state governments pursue destruction of these landowners, they continue to promote conservation easements. Land Trust companies and conservation groups continue to promote conservation easements, and the Congress created tax incentives in the new Farm Bill that will lure other landowners into reliance on a government, which has proved unreliable.

Colorado at this moment faces a huge federal take-over of private land, which will remove thousands of acres from the tax rolls of the counties. And, the problem in southeastern Colorado is only the tip of the iceberg. There are over 1,800 of these conservation easements throughout Colorado. In the blink of an eye, Colorado can be victimized by massive federal take-overs.

The problem facing Coloradans and Colorado is the beginning of what can be, and will be, a national crisis resulting from transfer of private ownership of land to the United States Government. Counties will suffer from loss of tax revenue; the landscape will suffer from negligent management by federal agencies; the species in the ecosystems will suffer from negligent management; and the law will suffer from a blatant disregard for the constitutional limits on federal government ownership and requirements that property is not taken without just compensation.

All the horrible results from imposition of conservation easements, which private property organizations including Stewards of the Range and the American Land Foundation have emphasized, have come to fruition in southeastern Colorado. They lay ahead for unsuspecting landowners across the Nation.

What you can do to help:

As the governments and Land Trusts turn their backs on the landowners, all individuals in the nation can help. You can call, fax and email your Representatives and Senators who are seeking re-election. You can ask them what they are doing, or will do, to protect private landowners as they protected big business in the massive “bail out” of Wall Street. You can tell them that your vote depends on their willingness to help. You can demand of incumbents that there will be field hearings to determine the truth as to the inadequacy of the IRS reviews. You can demand that they hold field hearings to inquire into, and “fix”, the fraud that is evident on the part of the promoters of the conservation easements.

If you live in Colorado, you can call, fax and email the Secretary of Agriculture and the Governor, demanding that they “fix” the problem caused by fraud perpetrated on the landowners. And, you can write letters to the local and regional newspapers and television stations demanding that they determine the facts, rather than relying on press statements by leaders of the Land Trusts who are complicit in the threat to the landowners. The landowners are ready and willing to show the press the facts as they did to me.

Fred Kelly Grant serves as president of Stewards of the Range and has practiced law for over 50 years. He, along with Stewards of the Range and American Land Foundation are assisting landowners nationwide on property rights issues.

Around New Mexico

Richardson appoints Chavarria to water commission Governor Richardson has appointed Santa Clara Pueblo environmental director Joe Chavarria to the state Water Quality Control Commission. Chavarria will serve a four-year term. He has been the pueblo's environmental director for the last decade. Richardson calls him a true conservationist who is committed to protecting New Mexico's water resources. Chavarria says he will be able to contribute to safeguarding such a vital natural resource....
NM protests BLM's Otero Mesa finding The head of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department wants the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider its decision regarding oil and gas development on southern New Mexico's Otero Mesa. Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prukop said Friday she has formally asked the federal agency to withdraw its environmental assessment and decision record and finding of no significant impact for oil and gas exploration on Otero Mesa. Prukop claims the BLM is using old data and should prepare a new environmental impact statement to address changed circumstances in the region, such as groundwater contamination....
Scholar takes up battle against climate change Like Gandhi, Robb Hirsch believes people need to be the change they seek in the world. So when it comes to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that most scientists believe are at the heart of climate change, Hirsch is coaxing Santa Feans to walk their talk by taking a Power Pledge. He said 1,000 youth and adults already have joined up, promising to reduce their energy use, consume less and push their politicians to support renewable power. Hirsch wants to sign up 10,000 people. Hirsch, a Harvard graduate and Fulbright Scholar, founded the nonprofit Climate Change Leadership Institute in Santa Fe. Prior to starting the group, he worked for the U.S. State Department's Oceans, Environment and Science Bureau focusing on climate change and biodiversity treaties....
Aamodt papers generate questions The thick envelope in Tammy and Abel Blea's Tesuque mailbox from the State Engineer's Office meant one thing: Something big was finally happening with their water rights. Those thick envelopes are appearing in mailboxes all over the Pojoaque Valley this week as the 42-year-old water-rights case known as Aamodt struggles toward conclusion. Aamodt was filed in 1966 to settle the water rights of Santa Fe County residents in the valley and four pueblos — Tesuque, Pojoaque, Nambé and San Ildefonso. So what's in the big envelope and what does it mean for people who get them? People with domestic wells permitted after 1982 in the Pojoaque Valley are receiving the packets. The paperwork inside is supposed to help finalize their legal claims to their domestic wells and determine how much water they can pump each year. People who get one of the manila envelopes have 45 days from the time they get them to make a few decisions....
Court to reconsider water-rights cases The state Court of Appeals has sent two acequia cases involving Española businessman Richard Cook back to Santa Fe District Court, ruling the state law that allows ditch commissions to deny water-rights transfer requests is constitutional. How the ditch commissioners of La Acequia del Gavilan near Ojo Caliente and the San Jose de Hernández Community Ditch in Hernández applied the law might be unconstitutional, but that will be for Santa Fe District Court Judge Daniel A. Sanchez to decide. Cook, who has owned mining and lumber interests around Northern New Mexico, applied to transfer water from the Gavilan ditch to a pond on property he owned. The state engineer has said Cook needs to buy irrigation water rights and retire them to offset evaporation in the pond. In the Hernández ditch case, the Peña Blanca Partnership, for which Cook is listed as a general partner, filed a request to transfer irrigation water rights off the ditch and use them for a housing subdivision near Española....
Water rights saga A Socorro water rights expert has said a court decision requiring the Office of the State Engineer to evaluate each permit application for a domestic or livestock well is right for only certain parts of the state. The Office of the State Engineer would like to see the decision overturned to avoid the increased workload of evaluating 1,500 to 2,000 such applications a year. In March, Judge J.C. Robinson of the 6th Judicial District Court in Silver City ruled that the state law requiring the State Engineer to approve all permits for livestock and domestic wells was unconstitutional. The case was in the Mimbres basin, where water rights were adjudicated, or legally determined and declared by the courts, for irrigation but not for livestock and domestic uses, said President of the Rio Grande Water Association Suzanne Smith, a Socorro water rights consultant. The Office of the State Engineer appealed the ruling this summer, and thereby halted enforcement. The decision in the case filed by plaintiffs Horace Bounds Jr. and Jo Bounds says the law doesn't allow for consideration as to whether it will adversely affect waters users with older water rights and so contradicts previous rules. "In areas where water has been adjudicated or is subject to interstate or international boundaries, the Bounds decision is a valid decision to protect senior water users," Smith said. However, speaking at the Socorro County Farm and Livestock Bureau annual meeting Oct. 13, Smith said she believes that in areas that have unappropriated, or unassigned, groundwater, the State Engineer should be required to issue domestic and livestock permits....
Arizona developer brings horse racing money to Tularosa Basin Around 300 horses, 10 barns and a 3/4-mile track a complete racehorse training facility are tucked away on 600 acres a mile north of Tularosa. Horseman's Park is a six-year project headed by Mickey Samuell, 73, an Arizona and New Mexico real estate developer, and his son Robert, 45, a racehorse owner-trainer with eight horses running at Zia Park and a couple dozen more back in his barns. The development has already had an economic impact on the area, estimated by the Samuells at $360,000 a month. That's a lot of hay and grain, as well as pay for riders, grooms, veterinarians and farriers, people care for horses' feet. "Right now, as a total operation, we may be one of the largest employers in Tularosa with 50," Mickey Samuell said last week in interviews at Horseman's Park at his home and son Robert's barn. Cordova said the village is turning into an equine center with the establishment of Crystal Springs, another thoroughbred operation, a half-mile from Horseman's Park and a proposal under consideration for a third. What makes Samuell's operation different is individuals can put up their own barns, or lease part of a barn, with full use of the track and all other facilities available at the park to keep their horses in top condition. "Horse racing is the only growth industry in the state....

Los Payasos - Government At Work


Uses for $700 billion bailout money ever shifting First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets. Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again. But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them. Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $700 billion yet to go out, officials are just beginning to talk about helping a few strapped homeowners keep the foreclosure wolf from the door....

How the West Was Lost Two regions in this election contain a disproportionate number of battleground states: the Rust Belt (including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin) and the Interior West (Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada). On that score, each candidate would seem to have a home-region advantage, with Barack Obama representing Illinois in the heart of the Rust Belt region, and John McCain Arizona in the Interior West. Studies have proven the presence of a strong "friends and neighbors" effect in a candidate's home state: They tend to outperform their demographics among voters who know them the best. There is also some evidence that this advantage carries over to the regional level, particularly in the South and in New England, if the candidate has a grasp on the concerns and the ways of thinking most common to the voters in his region. Obama has lived up to his end of the bargain, winning in essentially every state that borders the Land of Lincoln. In Iowa, which John Kerry lost in 2004, but where Obama's victory in the state's January caucuses made his campaign viable, there have been 27 public polls released since the first of the year; Barack Obama has led 26 of them, and was tied with McCain in the other. In Wisconsin, a state that went to Kerry by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2004, Obama has led four of the last five polls by double digits. In Indiana, which hasn't voted Democratic since 1964, Obama has drawn the race to a dead heat. Missouri was on the verge of losing its bellwether status after John Kerry ceded it by seven points, but is now back in the toss-up column, with some recent polling trending toward Obama. But John McCain, by contrast, has made little progress in the West beyond his home state of Arizona. He now trails Obama in Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, all three of which went to George Bush in 2004. In spite of early declarations from his campaign that he would fight for Washington, Oregon, and perhaps even California, he never eroded Obama's advantage along the Pacific coast, and is no longer trying. Obama has even led in a few polls in Western states as far-flung as North Dakota, Montana, and--before Sarah Palin's entry into the race-a poll in Alaska. The region that had once appeared to harbor the most potential for McCain might now contain the states that tip the balance of the election toward Obama. Why is McCain performing so poorly in his own backyard? In part, he is fighting a Sisyphean battle against the demographic changes in the region....

Roadless area backers make mass appeal to Forest Service Environmental organizations delivered what they said were 170,000 letters urging the U.S. Forest Service to reject Colorado’s petition for rules governing management of forest lands in the state. Critics of the proposed rule say it contains loopholes that allow for energy development, logging and roadbuilding. The Colorado petition was drafted by a bipartisan task force that called for a no-surface occupancy provision for those areas, meaning only directional drilling would be allowed to reach natural gas or oil beneath the forests. Gov. Bill Ritter has resisted urging by environmental organizations to repudiate the state’s petition for its own version of the roadless rule. Opponents also have pointed to the proposed rule allowing what are termed “long-term temporary roads,” which are intended to be reclaimed once they outlive their value to the energy, mining or logging industries. Those roads, however, could be used for as many as 30 years, the Forest Service has said....The key, of course, is the roads. If your ultimate goal is wilderness, they must be roadless.

How Green Is the High Court? Is the U.S. Supreme Court hostile to environmental regulation? Does it shy away from the tougher environmental questions of today? Or are its decisions a "mixed bag," giving comfort and angst to environmentalists and industry depending on the issue? The justices this term have taken five environmental cases for decision thus far -- a significant number for a relatively small docket. With the exception of the already argued case involving Navy sonar and its impact on whales and other marine mammals, this environmental quintet is unlikely to arouse public passions. But all five cases raise bread-and-butter environmental issues, some with potentially huge implications for the ability of environmentalists and the government to enforce the nation's major environmental laws and for the wherewithal of business and industry to survive and prosper under those laws. Traditional antagonists in these high court cases, environmental and business groups do seem to agree on at least one thing: The five pending cases are likely to be especially revealing of the still-emerging Roberts Court in an area of increasing national and international concern. But their assessments of the Supreme Court in the environmental area are, like the cases this term, widely varying....

Lumber industry threatened by glut of unsold homes he glut of homes in foreclosure, vacant, or stuck on the market has the nation's lumber industry hanging on by a limb. Since housing starts hit their peak in mid-2005, demand for lumber used in floors, home frames, and cabinets has declined sharply, and experts say the number of unsold homes would need to significantly decrease before homebuilders commit to building new ones. With fewer new houses under construction, and foreclosure notices surging this summer, there's a lot at stake for the sawmills and loggers that feed the nation's dwindling appetite for floorboard, housing frames and cabinets. The industry, which employs more than 100,000 workers, has seen employment drop 13 percent the last three years, according to government data. Millions of private landowners that manage family owned timberlands also depend on the lumber industry....

Environmental Defense Fund Takes Legal Action to Address Landfill Methane Emissions Today, Environmental Defense Fund filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its failure to update emission standards for hundreds of landfills nationwide. Landfills are the nation’s second largest source of manmade methane pollution. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a contributor to the smog air pollution that is associated with respiratory illnesses affecting millions of Americans. In September, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program issued a landmark report declaring measures to reduce methane emissions a “clear win-win” solution. EPA has failed to update the emission standards for landfills for a dozen years, violating its duty under the nation’s clean air laws to modernize the emission standards at least every eight years....

Marines Corps' plans to acquire land raise residents' concerns Desert residents said Thursday that they fear Marines Corps plans to expand the 932-square-mile Twentynine Palms combat training center will take their homes, curtail their off-road recreation and destroy wildlife habitat. "I'm very concerned," said artist Thom Merrick, of Wonder Valley, a rural area that borders the eastern side of the existing military land. "It's like living next to a giant that knows no end to its hunger." Merrick said he and several other Wonder Valley residents can't tell from the maps provided by the military whether their homes are inside the proposed expansion area. The military contends additional land is needed to test weapons systems on the MV-22 Osprey vertical takeoff aircraft and the Joint Strike Fighter, the Marines' first stealth jet. But many of the residents who showed up Thursday were more worried about losing land than fighting wars. The 424,000 acres identified by the military cover almost 76,000 acres of private property and most of the Johnson Valley Off-Highway Vehicle Area, a 189,000-acre playground for motorcyclists and other off-roading enthusiasts....

Release of foxes marks end of wildly successful comeback These are wonderful times to be an island fox. A decade ago, the house-cat-sized animals were scampering toward extinction, with only a few dozen surviving at spots scattered around Channel Islands National Park. Now they're practically poster mammals for species revival, numerous enough that government scientists no longer have to breed them in the safety of chain-link pens. On Thursday, one, then another of the relentlessly cute critters dashed into the brush of this wind-swept island -- the last of the three where the breeding program operated. The transfer, solemnly performed by a park biologist and the second-in-command of the Interior Department, marked the end of a $5.4-million rescue effort that started in 1999....

Bear deaths high Researchers say human-caused grizzly-bear deaths have taken a toll in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem this year, despite estimates that the overall population continues to grow. Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team officials estimate that 39 grizzly bears have died in 2008. Seventeen of those deaths involved hunting incidents, six where the result of natural causes and four had unknown causes. The remainder of the deaths were some form of human-caused death, including management removals of problem bears. Male grizzly bears have already surpassed a 15 percent mortality threshold that, if observed for three consecutive years, would prompt a management review by state agencies. That review could result in grizzlies being placed back under Endangered Species Act protection. If another female grizzly is shot by a hunter, female mortalities would pass a 9 percent threshold that would trigger a similar review after two consecutive years. Those thresholds were last surpassed in 2000. When a person other than a wildlife manager reports a grizzly bear death, researchers count it as three toward the thresholds because roughly two-thirds of citizen-caused grizzly deaths go unreported, said study team leader and U.S. Geological Survey researcher Chuck Schwartz....

Fast readers wanted Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, Interior Department officials are attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. The Fish and Wildlife Service has called a team of 15 people to Washington this week to pore through letters and online comments about a proposal to exclude greenhouse gases and the advice of federal biologists from decisions about whether dams, power plants and other federal projects could harm species. That would be the biggest change in endangered species rules since 1986. In an e-mail last week to Fish and Wildlife managers across the country, Bryan Arroyo, the head of the agency's endangered species program, said the team would work eight hours a day starting Tuesday to the close of business on Friday to sort through the comments. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's office, according to the e-mail, will be responsible for analyzing and responding to them. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., whose own letter opposing the changes is among the thousands that will be processed, called the 32-hour deadline a "last-ditch attempt to undermine the long-standing integrity of the Endangered Species program."....

Fire-charred NM mountains fuel policy debate The three Manzano fires cost the Forest Service more than $9 million. Nationally, the agency has said spending on fires could reach $1.6 billion this year, about half its budget. While federal land management agencies have long recognized the need to allow fire to burn in some areas, the problem is transferring that philosophy to decision-making on the ground, said Stephen Pyne, a professor at Arizona State University who teaches courses on wildfire history and management. Shifting gears can't happen soon enough, according to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. He said wildfires have charred some 58 million acres — or 90,000 square miles — across the nation in the past seven years. "We are spending more, managing less, burning more and as a result, having to cut funds to other important resource programs such as recreation, fisheries and wildlife to battle these wildfires," Domenici said. In the Manzanos and elsewhere, decades of mismanagement have resulted in overgrown forests that make reintroducing fire a difficult task, said Arlene Perea, a fire information officer with the Mountainair Ranger District. The district has used prescribed fire and mechanical thinning, but Perea said wildfires can't be allowed to burn to clean out the forest because of the homes scattered throughout the area....

A Solution to Overgrazing What White and Winder realized 10 years ago was that cattle were not the West’s problem — proper management was. The organization showed both sides of the conflict that by implementing ecological ranching practices like rotational grazing and pumping water to troughs in order to protect streams, cows can actually benefit the land. Quivira took environmentalists on tours of ranches bordering national wildlife refuges and found that, because cattle can fulfill an ecological niche absent since the age of the bison, sometimes land that was grazed every year was healthier than land that hadn’t been touched by hooves in decades. Sid Goodloe, a rancher for more than 52 years, has been using sustainable methods of ranching since the ’60s. Though he was ecologically conscious, Goodloe resented the environmentalists — many of whom had never set foot on a ranch, let alone tried to manage one — who took a condescending view toward ranchers. “But when I saw that Courtney White was kind of a converted environmentalist, then I thought, ‘Well somebody is beginning to see the light and maybe [the dialogues the Quivira Coalition was promoting] is a way to tear down the wall between the environmental community and the ranchers,” he says. Now, as a Quivera Coalition board member, Goodloe works with both sides of the conflict to show how ranching and sustainability can coexist. The Coalition has grown in its ten years, and with its growth has come an expansion of its programs....

Green spaces, grasslands, are casualties of the ranching industry’s woes Warm days have made the task of gathering the cattle off summer ranges much more pleasant for the cattle ranchers of the Cariboo. The age-old rhythms of cattle ranching stay true to tradition in spite of the industry being in the most critical state it has ever been in, in its very long timeline of existence. The industry is in distress; if it were compared to a hospital patient, you would say that it is on life support and many are thinking that it’s time to pull the plug (if they haven’t already). There are other industries and businesses in trouble as well. Ranchers are not alone. Loggers, mill workers and industries that rely on the activity in the woods are also suffering terribly. But, and this is a big but, the loss of prosperity in that industry does not equal the loss of green space or grasslands. That is what the loss of ranch, after ranch, after ranch, after ranch is going to do to to the landscape of the Cariboo because, let’s face it — when the rancher pulls the plug, he sells out. That’s his only option. Who buys the ranch? Very likely, not anyone who wants to run a cattle operation....

Wallowa County tops NY Times' bestsellers People are coming to Wallowa County as if they were going to Lourdes - but they're not looking for physical healing, they're looking for spiritual healing. They're looking for an unnamed road that goes straight north. Somewhere up there, they hope to find a shack - where they may meet God. One Oregon man has already met God in the shack and written about it. That man is a former Christian minister and the son of Evangelical missionaries, William P. Young. His account of that meeting with God is recounted in his best selling book "The Shack." The story told in that book is a horrific one. It concerns the kidnap of a child whose family is vacationing at Wallowa Lake. The child is later murdered in a shack somewhere in the Hells Canyon Wilderness north of Imnaha. There follows the descent of the family into a different Hellish canyon - a canyon of grief they call "The Great Sadness." The book chronicles the journey of the father, Mack, as he finds a way to transcend this Great Sadness through an entirely new understanding of the nature of God....

Smithfield Foods completes beef sale to JBS Smithfield Foods Inc. said Thursday it has completed the sale of its beef business to Brazilian beef giant JBS SA. The deal worth $565 million in cash received clearance by regulators on Monday when they said they wouldn't challenge the merger, which pairs Smithfield Beef Group Inc., the nation's fifth-largest beef producer, with JBS, the nation's third-largest beef producer. The Department of Justice said it wouldn't challenge that deal, but it did file a lawsuit Monday to block JBS from buying the nation's fourth-largest beef processor, National Beef Packing Co. of Kansas City, Mo. Federal regulators and attorneys general from 13 states said that deal, worth $560 million in cash and stock, could push up costs for consumers and drive down prices paid to ranchers and feedlots. At that point, both JBS and Smithfield said they'd work to close their deal immediately....

Animal ID: 13 States Now Exceed 50 Percent Premises Registered The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced that 487,670 premises are registered nationwide as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Producers registered more than 50,000 premises so far in 2008 and 13 states now have at least 50 percent of their total estimated production premises registered through NAIS. The latest state to go over 50 percent premises registration is Iowa. The 13 states that have topped the 50 percent mark are Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Illinois is very close to the 50 percent mark, with 48.3 percent of its estimated 30,046 premises registered....