Forest marks 100 years
Managers must balance interests of people, land
By Mike Lee, San Diego Union Tribune, June 29, 2008
When managers of the Cleveland National Forest tried to limit access at four sites last year to protect nesting raptors, rock climbers protested, saying they would be locked out of areas popular for their sport.
The strong opposition – some of it rallied from climbers across the country – surprised the U.S. Forest Service. Officials retreated and have yet to adopt a plan for balancing the interests of birds and climbers.
It’s the kind of conflict that has become increasingly common and intense as once-remote federal lands are besieged by growing numbers of users.
Besides climbers and wildlife advocates, the Forest Service must juggle demands from telecommunications companies, hunters and campers, utilities, off-road-vehicle enthusiasts, hikers, horse riders, neighbors and others. The forest offers attractions in every season, including winter snows that draw carloads of visitors to its mountains.
“We are getting pressure from all sides,” said Cleveland National Forest Supervisor Will Metz. “It’s so divisive and it’s so emotional.”
The forest marks its centennial Tuesday. Opinions vary about how those who manage its 438,000 acres of open space in San Diego, Riverside and Orange counties are performing.
Some users said officials are willing to work with them. Others said the managers lack commitment to helping endangered species rebound. Still others said the agency’s staff is ambivalent about making sure people can enjoy the public’s land.
Another compounding factor is population growth. About 10 million people live within an hour’s drive of the three districts that make up the Cleveland National Forest. … [more]
Calif. firefighters battle more than 1,400 blazes
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The good news in northern California is that more than a thousand wildfires aren’t growing. The bad news: There’s no relief in sight.
No new major fires had broken out Sunday as fire crews inched closer to getting some of the largest of 1,420 blazes surrounded, according to the state Office of Emergency Services. Some 364,600 acres—or almost 570 square miles—have burned.
A “red flag warning”—meaning the most extreme fire danger—was still in effect for Northern California until 8 a.m. EDT Monday. And the coming days and months are expected to bring little relief.
Lower-than-average rainfall and record levels of parched vegetation likely mean a long, fiery summer throughout northern California, according to the Forest Service’s state fire outlook released last week.
The fires burning now were mostly sparked by lightning storms that were unusually intense for so early in the season. But summer storms would probably be even fiercer, according to the Forest Service.
“Our most widespread and/or critical lightning events often occur in late July or August, and we have no reason to deviate from that,” the agency’s report said.
The blazes have destroyed more than 50 buildings, said Gregory Renick, state emergency services spokesman. More than 19,500 firefighters are battling the blazes and 926 helicopters have been used.
A wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest has forced the closure of a scenic stretch of a coastal highway and driven away visitors at the peak of the tourist season.
Air quality districts from Bakersfield to Redding issued health advisories through the weekend, urging residents to stay indoors to limit exposure to the smoky air.
A fire in the Piute Mountain area has burned more than 1,000 acres, causing some small communities to be evacuated, most vacation homes, The Bakersfield Californian reported Monday.
On Saturday, President Bush issued an emergency declaration for California and ordered federal agencies to assist in firefighting efforts. … [more]
Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights
By DAVID STOUT, NY Times, June 27, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far in making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.
But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun “for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home” is not unlimited. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” Justice Scalia wrote.
The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, “The court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
The decision upheld a federal appeals court ruling that the District of Columbia’s gun law, one of the strictest in the country, went beyond constitutional limits. Not only did the 1976 law make it practically impossible for an individual to legally possess a handgun in the District, but it spelled out rules for the storage of rifles and shotguns. The court said on Thursday that the law’s requirement that lawful weapons be rendered essentially inoperable, by trigger locks or disassembly, was unconstitutional because it rendered the weapons useless for self-defense.
Joining Justice Scalia were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
A dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” Joining him were Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
The high court’s ruling was the first since 1939 to deal with the scope of the Second Amendment, and the first ever to directly address the meaning of the amendment’s ambiguous, comma-laden text: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” … [more]
Senator Domenici assails forest plans
Cibola Beacon, June 23, 2008 [here]
Restrictions on forest management have led to the loss of more national forest lands and personal property to wildfires. U.S. Senator Pete Domenici made the comments last week at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the preparedness of federal land management agencies-primarily the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management-for the 2008 fire season.
In a statement to the Senate, Domenici asserted that almost 155 million acres of forest have burned since he entered the Senate in 1973, with 58 million of those acres burning in the past seven years. Nationally, more than 1.7 million acres have burned this year since Jan. 1, including about 20,000 acres in New Mexico. The Dripping Springs Fire in the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces continue to burn as of Monday.
“I note that the trend of acres burned versus the number of acres managed by the Forest Service through timber sales and pre-commercial thinning is troubling. As the number of acres that have been treated has decreased, the number of burned acres has increases,” Domenici said.
“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. In addition, we’re increasing the carbon dioxide and other pollutants that get pumped into the atmosphere by these fires,” he said.
Domenici said Congress and the administration, both now and in the future, should work to rebalance forest management policies to make them safer.
“We seem to be willing to allow our forests to be destroyed by fires like the Trigo Fire in the Manzano Mountains, and all too frequently these fires escape the national forests and destroy our citizens’ homes and businesses,” Domenici said.
“We can’t seem to find it in our hearts and wallets to allow land management agencies to harvest, thin or treat even half a million acres a year,” he said. “By not allowing our land management agencies to use the most cost-efficient means of management, we are destroying the very forests we treasure. We are wasting tons of money fighting fires and we are laying waste to our forests. And yes, people are making money off the fire game too.”
“I believe Congress should get beyond the timber wars and focus on ways to reduce wildfire severity, increase the utilization of products our forests can produce, and reduce the amount of money we are forced to spend to fight these fires,” Domenici said.
With Rainbow Gathering conflict, Scouts pull plug
By Ben Cannon, Jackson Hole Planet, June 25, 2008 [here]
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Maybe it’s not as bad as the ill-conceived overlap of the Hells Angels’ disastrous presence during the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in 1969, but Boy Scouts of America organizers aren’t taking any chances.
BSA officials said concerns over a scheduling conflict with the Rainbow Gathering, an annual meeting of free spirits and people living on the fringes of mainstream society, has forced them to cancel a major habitat restoration project. The BSA had intended to conduct the project on public lands in Sublette County, just weeks after the freewheeling event is expected to peak in the same vicinity. More than 1,000 Scouts were expected for the week-long project, part of the largest service mission undertaken by the Scouts in decades. The project was scheduled for July 26 to Aug. 2.
The Rainbow Gathering, with no formal leadership or members, is happening this year in the Big Sandy region of the Bridger-Teton National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management lands. National Forest Service officials said late Monday as many as 1,100 people, known as the Rainbow Family, already had arrived for the gathering, which is expected to see its largest numbers around July 4 with tens of thousands of participants.
more »
Forest Service to beef up firefighting ranks
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer, June 21, 2008
The fast-spreading fire that broke out Friday in Santa Cruz County has put state and federal fire officials on edge as scorching temperatures throughout California threaten to make an already-bad fire season worse.
Firefighters had barely dusted off the soot from last week’s onslaught of fires when this latest blaze raced through bone-dry grassland near Watsonville, quickly burning 500 acres and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents.
It is the latest in a series of large, destructive fires to break out in Northern California this year, prompting fears that the amount of firefighting equipment and personnel available in the state might be inadequate.
The U.S. Forest Service announced plans Friday to hire additional firefighters to deal with the dangerously incendiary conditions in California.
“We are going to hire every qualified applicant,” said Janice Gauthier, the U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman covering the 18 national forests in California.
Gauthier said the number of seasonal firefighters hired will depend on how many applicants qualify, but she said all of them would be hired next week, ahead of schedule. This last round of hires usually occurs in July, she said.
“The need has become more acute this year because we’ve experienced some early fires and it is in the forefront of people’s minds,” she said. … [more]
California fights 400 fires, bakes in heat wave
By Dan Whitcomb, Jun 22, 2008, 11:00 AM
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Firefighters worked to contain some 400 wildfires burning across Northern California on Sunday as the state baked under a fourth day of an early summer heat wave that has strained the power grid and left residents wilted.
One structure was destroyed and 150 homes were evacuated near Fairfield, 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, in the path of the worst of the fires, which blackened more than 3,500 acres in wine-producing Napa County.
“The weather is, of course, very hot and dry here, and this fire quickly rolled up into some extremely steep terrain and became inaccessible. We’re having trouble establishing control lines,” said Battalion Chief David Shew of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
He said the blaze was about 10 percent contained as of Sunday morning and that crews were hoping for a break as triple-digit temperatures began to ease and cooler off-shore breezes returned.
Most of the hundreds of fires scattered across Northern California were started by dry lightning strikes during thunder storms that moved across the state on Friday.
“Those evil clouds are wreaking havoc across the state,” Mike Jarvis, deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said of the dry lightning. “There’s no moisture in them and when they hit it’s not like they put themselves out.”
In a 24-hour period beginning on Friday, some 5,000 to 6,000 dry lightning strikes were recorded across the region, leaving crews scrambling to keep up with spot fires. … [more]
Who “sent” Obama?
by Steve Diamond (lawyer, law professor, and political scientist on the faculty of Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California) [here]
In Chicago politics a key question has always been, who “sent” you? The classic phrase is “We don’t want nobody that nobody sent” - from an anecdote of Abner Mikva’s, the former White House Counsel (Pres. Clinton) and now retired federal judge. (And someone I campaigned for while in high school when he ran, unsuccessfully, for Congress in the early 70s.) As a young student, Mikva wanted to help out the his local Democratic Party machine on the south side of Chicago. In 1948, he walked into the local committeeman’s office to volunteer for Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas and was immediately asked: “Who sent you?” Mikva replied, “nobody sent me.” And the retort came back from the cigar chomping pol: “Well, we don’t want nobody that nobody sent.”
So it is reasonable to ask, who “sent” Barack Obama? In other words, how can his meteoric rise to political prominence be explained? And, of course, in an answer to that question might lie a better understanding of his essential world view. When I started looking at this question a few weeks ago I quickly grew more concerned about the kinds of people that seem to have been very important in Obama’s ascendancy in Chicago area politics. It is the connection of some of these people to authoritarian politics that has me particularly concerned. And a key concern of this blog has been the rise of authoritarian tendencies in the global labor movement.
The people linked to Senator Obama grew to political maturity in the extreme wings of the late 60s student and antiwar movements. They adopted some of the worst forms of sectarian and authoritarian politics. They helped undermine the emergence of a healthy relationship between students and others in American society who were becoming interested in alternative views of social, political and economic organization. In fact, at the time, some far more constructive activists had a hard time comprehending groups like the Weather Underground. Their tactics were so damaging that some on the left thought that government or right wing elements helped create them. There is some evidence, in fact, that that was true (for example, the Cointelpro effort of the federal government.)
Today, however, many of these individuals continue to hold political views that hardened in that period. Many of them have joined up with other wings of the late 60s and 70s movements, in particular the pro-China maoists elements of that era and are now playing a role in the labor movement and elsewhere. And yet this question of Obama’s links to people from this milieu has not been thoroughly explored by any of the many thousands of journalists, bloggers and political operatives looking so closely at Obama. … [more]
Sink or swim: Lake Las Vegas must sell land to stay afloat
By Buck Wargo, In Business Las Vegas, 11/16/2007
The developer of Lake Las Vegas in Henderson is in default on a $560 million loan and has until the end of the year to find buyers for its remaining undeveloped land or the development could face foreclosure, a Lake Las Vegas official said.
A group headed by investment banker Credit Suisse has, for now, waived any default obligations, after Lake Las Vegas, the lake resort community developed by Transcontinental Corp., did not meet its debt obligation on a sales volume quota by Sept. 30, said David Cox, the chief financial officer of Lake Las Vegas.
The group of lenders has loaned Lake Las Vegas additional money to cover its operational expenses and is considering loaning even more funds to cover any shortfalls, Cox said.
Transcontinental’s cash crunch is direct fallout from the ongoing housing slump.
The latest financial woes center on buyers of the third phase of Lake Las Vegas dropping their plans to acquire land as expected, Cox said. Lake Las Vegas, although it took sizable deposits, was counting on $100 million in option payments from builders that fell through, he said.
“We had some option payments that came due, and they were not met,” Cox said. “Those guys are doing their best to find funding sources, but they are in turmoil right now. Sales have dried up (in the industry).” … [more]
Poll shows Support for Wolves, ALSO that wolf management and are ranching are OK
posted at Wolf Crossing [here]
Commissioned by organizations such as the Re-Wildling Institute, Arizona Zoological Society, New Mexico Audubon Council, and the Southwest Environmental Center and conducted by Research & Polling, Inc., one of the Southwest’s largest full-service market research and public opinion research companies, a recent poll seeking support for Mexican wolves among Arizona and New Mexico voters had some interesting results.
Most telling is the fact that the vast majority of those polled in both states had little to no knowlege of the Mexican wolf recovery program. Therefore it isn’t surprising that most support wolf recovery, 69% in NM and 77% in Arizona.
What is surprising is the strong support for both wolf control and livestock grazing not fully reported in the mainstream media but prevalent throughout the poll results.
More than two-thirds (68%) of those polled in NM had little to no knowledge of the Mexican wolf recovery program [here]. In Arizona 51% to 52% had little to no knowledge of the Mexican wolf program [here].
Not reported in the major media outlets was the fact that those polled supported ranching on federally administered land and felt livestock grazing was good for the environment.
On livestock grazing
49% of New Mexico participants believed livestock grazing is good for the environment, while 26% had no opinion.
51% Arizona participants believed livestock grazing is good for the environment, while 28% had no opinion.
Spending taxpayer dollars on wolves and ranching.
79% New Mexico participants want taxpayer dollars to go towards helping ranchers who have experienced wolf conflicts to reduce them. 11% specified that they wanted taxpayer dollars to go to removing and even killing wolves that cause conflict with livestock.
71% Arizona participants want taxpayer dollars to go towards helping ranchers who have experienced wolf conflicts to reduce them. 11% specified that they wanted taxpayer dollars to go towards removing and even killing wolves that caused with livestock.
On wolf control
In New Mexico, 33% of participants want to see wolves that kill 3 or more livestock killed or removed. 25% were neutral on the matter (this means they didn’t oppose wolves being killed or removed this was not reported in the mainstream media). Only 36% oppose killing and removing wolves that kill livestock.
In Arizona, 28% of participants want to see wolves that kill 3 or more livestock killed or removed. 24% were neutral on the matter (this means they didn’t oppose wolves being killed or removed this was not reported in the mainstream media). Only 44% oppose killing and removing wolves that kill livestock.
This poll was interpreted to show mass support for wolf recovery and could certainly be interpreted that way if one ignores all other results, yet it also shows widespread support for ranchers and ranching in AZ and NM.
It clearly shows that the majority of people identify with ranchers on loss of personal property and their ability to sustain their livelihoods through livestock grazing and if necessary, through wolf control. The poll could very well be interpreted to show that wolf control to support ranchers is more important to the participants than removal of grazing to support wolves.
What this poll also says is that even with the anti-ranching agenda set forth by those commissioning the polls, the whole range of poll results indicated that the participants generally had positive attitudes about ranching and livestock grazing.
The vast majority of those polled admitted little to no knowledge of the issue, therefore the uneducated public opinion on Mexican wolves and wolf reintroduction is positive. Despite mass media campaigns by wolf advocates who have been educating the public on wolf management that may or may not be scientifically based for years, the public still supports livestock grazing on federally administered lands, and possibly even over wolf recovery even though they also support the idea of wolves on the same landscape. What would happen with a little pro-active education on the real wolf story from a ranching perspective?
The Hairy Reed - Satire
By Julie Kay Smithson. Property Rights Research [here]
The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has received a petition to list the hairy reed as an artificial species under the Artificial Species Act of 2008 (ASA).
The petition was submitted by a representative of the Lake Las Vegas Deepwater Marina Authority and stated, in part, that the hairy reed is often “in over its head” when dealing with environmental issues. Baking in the Clark County summer sun is a possible habitat behavior that may be contraindicated by the species’ single recognizable specimen and its tendency to inhabit a seemingly contradictory habitat: The District of Columbia.
The hairy reed may be recognized by its propensity to sway in the wind, but also has certain characteristics reminiscent of predatory plants like the Venus flytrap, opening for fresh meat and then slamming shut. Such activity usually goes on behind closed doors, so is, at best, only suspect behavior.
Sightings of this species include press conferences, photo-ops, and political events, the latter being the most probable place to successfully spot the hairy reed, especially during election years.
Whether NDOW will seriously consider listing the hairy reed as an artificial species remains a mystery. The ASA mandates that a bovine excreta study (BES) be done to determine whether the hairy reed should be listed. Several universities have, however, applied for grant funding to monitor and track the hairy reed.
Ranchers: Fire proves canyon no place for Army
By PETER ROPER, THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN, June 14, 2008
Ranchers opposed to the Army’s planned expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site say the wildfire that has blackened 42,000 acres of the training ground, plus private and state lands, is just a preview of the fire danger that would come from giving the Army more land and heavier weapons to use in the area northeast of Trinidad.
“If this fire had broken out on private land, we’d have gotten on it sooner and knocked it down,” said Lon Robertson, a Kim-area rancher and president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition. “Landowners down here know they have to work together to fight fire and they keep a closer eye on their land than the Army does.”
Robertson said the Army’s plan to add another 414,000 acres to the training ground - plus have live artillery fire and other heavy weapons - will only increase the fire danger to surrounding landowners.
“They use heavier weapons in training up at Fort Carson and look how often they have to suppress wildfires up there,” he said. “We don’t need that added danger down here.”
In April, a wildfire that broke out during training maneuvers downrange at Fort Carson burned more than 14 square miles. A contract pilot, Gert Marias, of Fort Benton, Mont., was killed when his single-engine firefighting aircraft crashed in the blaze. A Fort Carson spokesman challenged the ranchers’ claim the Army is unprepared to fight fires at Pinon Canyon.
“We have firefighting personnel at Pinon Canyon and they began fighting the fire when lightning started it on Sunday,” said Doraine McNutt, senior public affairs officer. “They were able to put out a second fire that also was caused by lightning.”
A second group opposing the Army’s expansion plan issued a statement Friday saying the current wildfire is proof of the wildfire dangers of live-fire training at Pinon Canyon. … [more]
Washington: Ecoterrorist Sentenced to Six Years
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 20, 2008 [here]
A California woman convicted in an ecoterrorism attack at the University of Washington has been sentenced to six years in prison and to pay $6 million in restitution. A Seattle television station, KIRO, reported that the woman, Briana Waters of Berkeley, had asked for mercy because she has a 3-year-old daughter. Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year sentence. Ms. Waters, 32, was sentenced in Federal District Court in Tacoma after being convicted of arson on March 6. She was a student at Evergreen State College in 2001 when she acted as a lookout as others set fire to the Center for Urban Horticulture. The Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized radical environmental group that has been linked to acts of ecoterrorism in the Northwest, claimed responsibility because it believed, mistakenly, that a researcher was genetically modifying poplar trees. The blaze, which destroyed the plant research center, was one of at least 17 fires set from 1996 to 2001 by the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. In all, more than a dozen people were arrested; four suspects remain at large.
Rural Oregon economy focus of special congress
Illinois Valley News, June 18, 2008 [here]
Rural leaders from across Oregon met Friday, June 13 in Cascade Locks in Columbia River Gorge to plan a different kind of two-day rural conference.
Citizens representing the Oregon coast, S.W. Oregon, north-central Oregon, N.E. Oregon and S.E. Oregon met together for the first time after months of communicating by phone and e-mail. They committed to presenting a thoroughly thought-out and developed Oregon Rural Congress in Cascade Locks on Aug. 21 and 22.
The goal of the Congress is to develop a new way of doing business and functioning in rural Oregon.
“Many of us in rural Oregon have realized that rural communities and interests from across the state must unite and work together,” said Union County Commissioner Colleen MacLeod. “The 2008 Session and Special Session told us that not to do so is no longer an option.”
This first Congress will address five fundamental areas of importance from the perspective of each of eight loosely designated regions of the state. Onno Husing, administrator of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association said, “We have to get beyond the one-size-fits-all mentality and respect our differences, or we will never solve the increasing problems rural Oregon has. We have to face facts and find ways to change old systems that no longer work.”
Steve Grasty, a Harney County judge, said, “Rural Oregon must be organized if we are to improve the social, economic and environmental challenges in our communities. These challenges have come forward from years of well intentioned but misguided decisions.”
The planning group discussed the structure of the two-day Congress and the creation of a report. “Unlike the ill-fated report of the Office of Rural Policy the planning group will see that the work of the Congress receives wide distribution,” it was stated.
A final planning meeting will be held in S.W. Oregon on July 24. The location will be announced.
Timber industry: The last bastion of a healthy forest?
Photo and story by Alicia Knadler, Indian Valley Editor, Plumas County News, June 16, 2008 [here]
Photo: People who know the Wheeler and Moonlight fire areas can easily see that the catastrophic fires were either stopped or extremely reduced in their severity where the forest had been thinned according to treatments prescribed by the Quincy Library Group more than a decade ago.
It’s the timber industry that is the last bastion of a healthy forest, not the environmentalists or the Forest Service – this is what one hears from the residents and other people whose boots are on the ground out there amidst the devastation on the Plumas National Forest.
One such person is timber operator Randy Pew.
He has been sorely tested the past several years by the constant barrage of lawsuits that keep stopping work on the forest.
The most recent decision, made by San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, effectively shuts down the thinning needed to prevent more catastrophic fires, like the Wheeler and Moonlight wildfires of 2007.
The forests have become clogged with fuel for wildfires since the spotted owl icon brought logging almost to a screeching halt more than a decade ago.
And now, by the time loggers can get into a burned area to clean it up, it’s almost too late to get the job done safely, and it’s too late to harvest any real value out of the timber.
On the Storrie Fire, for example, timber operators finally got the go-ahead from the Forest Service in the third summer after the fire.
But workers had to quit toward the end of the summer, because the dead trees were falling apart by then and too dangerous to work under.
Will the same thing happen in the area of the Moonlight and Wheeler wildfire areas?
It seems so. … [more]