Timber is a resource — let’s use it
By Suzanne Penegor and Gienie Assink
Guest Viewpoint, Eugene Register Guard, February 14, 2008 [here]
In the 1930s, when the United States was mired in a Great Depression, Congress wisely and with great vision approved the O&C Lands Act to guide the management of federal lands that once belonged to the Oregon & California Railroad in Western Oregon. The act established a method for funding Oregon counties, allowing them to provide such vital services as public safety and road maintenance.
Now, because of the efforts of the environmental movement and its litigious attorneys, the O&C funding formula that was successful for decades has been severed. Alternative 2 of the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revision would restore this vital funding mechanism for 2.5 million acres of publicly owned lands in Oregon.
The BLM received approximately 29,000 responses for and against this plan for the restoration of our county tax base. Many folks who oppose the restoration of this tax base weighed in, as did Oregonians who recognize how profoundly businesses and Oregon counties are impacted by the inability to use this economic base for timber production.
Environmental groups and their allies argue that tourism can take the place of the millions of lost timber dollars and revenues from these O&C public lands. But tourism jobs and revenues often simply cannot replace the family-wage jobs and tax revenues that have historically come from timber production on these lands.
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Reader, NDOW expert spar over reasons for declining deer numbers
The two most controversial subjects in the world of hunting in Nevada have got to be deer management and predator control.
Thinking back over my 30-year career with Nevada Department of Wildlife, I can’t recall any subjects that caused more people to call, write or attend Wildlife Commission meetings — and even contact their elected officials on a state and national level.
Most recently, I wrote two columns about why there aren’t more deer-hunting tags available and what NDOW is doing to increase deer numbers in Nevada. I expect that every longtime Nevada deer hunter would be willing to give his or her opinion on what is causing deer numbers to remain relatively low, much lower than record population levels in 1988. But I decided to go to the expert, NDOW big game staff specialist Mike Cox, who thinks the major problem with low deer numbers in many areas of the state is due to the poor condition of their habitat.
This did not set too well with a reader from Fallon, who wrote a lengthy e-mail, saying Cox was “…creating ’smoke and mirrors’ for NDOW.” Based on knowledge he obtained running the “…operational Predatory Animal Control program throughout the state for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Program,” the e-mailer thinks predators are totally responsible for the condition of state deer herds.
“Today, the Nevada landscape is filled up with coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions with some prowling the alleys of towns and cities. Predators have a ‘free roll’ statewide,” he said… [more]
The Trouble With Biofuels
Maybe it was simply too good to be true. For proponents, biofuels — petroleum substitutes made from plant matter like corn or sugar cane — seemed to promise everything. Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells — two alternate technologies that have yet to pan out — biofuels could be used right now.
But according to a pair of studies published in the journal Science recently, biofuels may not fulfill that promise — and in fact, may be worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they’re meant to supplement. According to researchers at Princeton University and the Nature Conservancy, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, if the full environmental cost of producing them is factored in. As virgin land is converted for growing biofuels, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere; at the same time, biofuel crops themselves are much less effective at absorbing carbon than the natural forests or grasslands they may be replacing. “When land is converted from natural ecosystems it releases carbon,” says Joseph Fargione, a lead author of one of the papers and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “Any climate change policy that doesn’t take this fact into account doesn’t work.” … [more]
Bush forest budget called disastrous
Lawmaker Calls Bush Forest Budget ‘Unmitigated Disaster’ [here]
A Bush administration spending plan that would slash money for the Forest Service could lead to massive layoffs at the agency charged with managing 193 million acres of national forests, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday.
Spending for the Forest Service would be cut by nearly 8 percent next year, to $4.1 billion, in a budget plan submitted by President Bush.
The plan could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs — nearly 10 percent of the agency’s work force — as well as reductions in dozens of non-fire related programs, from road and trail maintenance to state assistance, land acquisition and recreation, lawmakers said.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., chairman of the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee, called the budget plan “an unmitigated disaster” that “would cause real harm to our 193-million acre national forest system.”
The only bright spot in the budget was a request to increase spending to fight wildfires by about $148 million to just under $1 billion, Dicks said.
The figure based on the 10-year average of firefighting costs and responds to a frequent complaint by lawmakers that firefighting costs typically exceed the amount budgeted. The Forest Service spent $1.4 billion fighting fires nationwide last year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The Interior Department spent an additional $450 million.
Editorial: Clinton’s road to ruin
Fight over forest access is 10 years old
By Sean Paige, Orange County Register [here]
January saw the 10th anniversary of President Clinton’s roadless areas rule, but there was little reason to celebrate, since nothing but controversy, acrimony and litigation have come from it. It may as well have been called the “rudderless rule,” given the paralysis and policy confusion it caused – all at a time when the wildfire threat and a forest health crisis call out for more access to public lands, not less.
Environmentalists and a few elite sportsman groups hailed the rule and have fought hard to make it stick; they’re on the vanguard of an effort to turn most public lands into exclusive playgrounds or wilderness areas, unpolluted by the presence of most people and the pursuit of profit. But the rule was ill-conceived and terribly timed.
Ill-conceived because it marked a major change in how a third of our national forests would be managed, yet Congress and the states weren’t consulted (true to Mr. Clinton’s tendency to advance his environmental agenda through executive action); terribly timed because the wildfire threat and looming energy crunch argue for greater access to public lands, not more restrictions.
Wildfire
Ashes and carcasses are the aftermath of failed government policies and environmental lawsuits
by Judy Boyle, Range Magazine, Winter 2008
At over 650,000 acres, the Murphy Complex Fire of last summer was the largest range fire in Idaho’s recorded history. Judy Boyle and Range Magazine tell the story of dead livestock, murderous backburns, idle firefighting crews, unkempt Federal lands, crippling enviro lawsuits, and the incineration of overgrown allotments ungrazed due to those lawsuits.
A thousand square miles of sage grouse habitat was destroyed in the Murphy Fire and 75 of the area’s 102 known sage-grouse leks, or breeding areas, incinerated. Newspapers reported flaming jackrabbits dashing across roads and spreading the fire.
For a heartrending account, please read Wildfire-Ashes and Carcasses [here].
Land buyer sues county over firing
A fired government land buyer has filed a whistle-blower suit against Brevard County, claiming he tried to stop a non-profit that negotiates prices with landowners from misappropriating public money.
David Drake was hired as the county’s land acquisition manager for its Environmentally Endangered Lands program in April 2006 but was let go in March 2007, less than a year later.
Drake’s attorney, Maurice Arcadier, said Drake had told the county about problems with The Nature Conservancy, including overbilling and submitting wrong invoices.
“He was terminated for doing his job too good,” Aracadier said. “Basically, the county was getting ripped off left and right. There’s a lot of things that could potentially be corrupt.”
Drake’s former boss, Mike Knight, who oversees the county’s EEL program, said Drake had problems working with The Nature Conservancy.
“He was terminated in his probationary period because he couldn’t develop a cooperative working relationship with The Nature Conservancy,” Knight said. “He wasn’t able to work with them. He was very adversarial with them. It developed into a very nonfunctional relationship.”
Jill Austin, a spokeswoman for The Nature Conservancy, said Drake’s lawsuit doesn’t have any merit.
“The Nature Conservancy reviewed the claims that he made and found them without merit,” Austin said.
The county’s EEL program was established in 1990 when voters approved issuing up to $55 million in bonds to buy land and paying slightly higher property taxes to cover the bonds. Those bonds still are being paid off. In 2004, voters approved a renewal of the program, enabling the county to spend up to $60 million more… [more]
The Sun Also Sets
Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore’s mythical “consensus.” Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.
Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.
To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.
And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.
Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere… [more]
Snow news good news for Colorado River area
Forecast calls for 120 percent of normal inflow
A snowy January on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains has water managers crossing their fingers for something they haven’t seen for a while: a truly wet year on the Colorado River.
The latest forecast calls for the river to receive 120 percent of its normal inflow from melting mountain snow. If that prediction comes to pass, 2008 would go down as the best year on the Colorado in more than a decade.
“Things are raging in Arizona as far as really great snowpack,” said federal water supply forecaster Tom Pagano. “Southern Colorado and Utah also look great.
“We’re pretty thrilled.”
As of Tuesday, snow levels were above average by as much as 56 percent in parts of central and western Colorado credited with supplying large amounts of water to the river system.
Elsewhere in the high country of Colorado, Utah and Arizona, the snowpack is almost double what it normally is this time of year with more winter storms in the forecast for this weekend… [more]
Abuses taint land deals
Conservation easements approved for pricey subdivisions, fairways, small parcels
An innovative state law designed to preserve Colorado’s scenic open spaces and working ranches has, in dozens of cases, been used to protect everything from multimillion- dollar home sites in gated communities to tiny pieces of land slated for oil and gas development.
The law allots generous state income tax credits to property owners who agree to protect their lands from development. But in some cases, a Rocky Mountain News investigation has found, the law has been used to generate tax credits on lands with questionable public value.
In addition, the investigation found, appraisals on some properties granted protection have been grossly inflated. The higher the appraisal, the greater the tax credit.
The tax credits, which have cost the state at least $274 million since the program’s inception, are potentially lucrative, because they can be sold by the property owner for cash… [more]
Eminent Domain Proposed To Grab Pfizer N.Y. Plant
Affordable-housing activists in Brooklyn, N.Y., are proposing eminent domain be used to seize a prime piece of New York real estate from Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer is the same company that inspired economic-development plans in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London after the pharmaceutical giant started building its Global Research & Development headquarters there nearly a decade ago.
“Ah, irony,” says Scott Bullock, senior attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice, the group that defended Fort Trumbull resident Susette Kelo as the lead plaintiff in Kelo v. City of New London — the property-rights case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The city won the case three years ago.
“It shows that once the power goes to government to take properties on behalf of private parties, the tables can easily be turned on you … if you’re out of favor with the powers that be,” Bullock said… [more]
UN Warns of Biofuels’ Environmental Risk
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — The world’s rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.
However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls — many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels…
Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.
She also said China and India could face worsening water shortages because biofuels require large amounts of water, while forests in Indonesia and Malaysia could face threats from the expansion of palm oil plantations… [more]
Utah Fires in ‘07 Still Leave Mark
By T.J. BURNHAM, Western Farmer Stockman
UTAH’S 500,000-acre fire loss of rangeland ranks high among the West’s most devastating agricultural disasters of 2007.
“These are lands rendered virtually unusable for productive grazing,” says Utah Commissioner of Agriculture Leonard Blackham. “The loss of the use of these valuable lands is forcing some ranchers out of business and will have negative impacts on local rural economies as well as wildlife populations.”
Losses due to the fires reached deeply into ranchers’ pockets, according to Utah Partners for Conservation and Development figures. Damages include:
Utah’s 2007 wildfires burned more than 7 million acres
Many ranchers were forced out of business
78 ranches stricken
28 ranches forced to sell off livestock
299 cattle killed
78 sheep lost
1,305 head of livestock remain unaccounted for
$2.3 million in damage to fencing, corrals, water systems and more
38,500 tons of additional feed needed for livestock
$3.8 million spent on needed feed
Four deaths were reported in the massive Milford Flat fire in central Utah…
Utah’s 2007 fire season was a recordsetter in terms of the number of fires fought: more than 66,500 separate fires burned more than 7 million acres. … [more]
Gore cites political will, claims scriptural mandate on environmental issues
ATLANTA (BP)-Protecting the earth from global warming is a mandatory part of following Jesus, former Vice President Al Gore said at a “Stewardship of the Earth” luncheon Jan. 31 during the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta.
“This is not a political issue,” Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. “It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue.”
Gore quoted Scripture several times in his speech and repeated his views that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere are causing a global climate crisis. Gore produced an Academy Award-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which also dealt with global climate change and is being shown at the New Baptist Covenant meeting.
In an introduction of Gore, Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, called the former Democratic presidential nominee a “Baptist prophet” and appeared to criticize the Southern Baptist Convention for its failure to commend Gore for his achievements. He also presented Gore with a “Baptist of the Year Award.”…
Gore, citing Luke 12:54-57 for scriptural support, argued that it is dishonest for anyone to claim that global warming is merely a theory rather than a scientific fact.
“The evidence is there,” he said. “The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right? … [more]
Idahna, OR buried in snow; mayor asks for emergency help
In Idahna, Ore., there is so much snow, residents’ roofs are starting to collapse. The mayor has requested that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski declare the area a state of emergency and send help.
Eighteen inches of snow fell in the last 24 hours on top to 6 feet of snow already there, Idahna Mayor Karen Clark said Sunday. “We have buildings with snow on them in danger of collapsing. Snow around doors in danger of bursting, some homes have already sustained damage,” Clark said.
The town does not have the resources to deal with so much snow, according to the mayor.
Oregon State Corrections sent inmates in to help, but they need heavy equipment to get the snow off of road ways and homes… [more]