SAN FRANCISCO -- Working from a map, it seems easy enough to access Yosemite Slough from the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. But most streets in this heavily industrialized section of San Francisco meet with a dead end of concrete and chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. And while a greenbelt of trees and bay grasses beckon just beyond these urban borders, a visitor needs an active imagination to envision how acres of illegally dumped garbage, construction debris and other refuse can be cleaned up and transformed into a welcoming state park and shoreline recreation area.
That is long-term goal of the California State Parks Foundation and its partners for the $25 million restoration effort -- to provide new access to the bay, new economic and recreational opportunities for residents and, possibly, a new vision for this hard-pressed community.
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| Yosemite Slough is a tidal inlet that is part of the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. Currently, the area's main feature is the Monster Park football stadium, but a $25 million restoration program will turn the slough into a wetlands park and welcoming stopover for migrating birds. Photo by Arthur O'Donnell. |
Yosemite Slough marks the outlet of one of San Francisco's four historic creeks, the once free-flowing Yosemite Creek that has largely been channeled underground, blocked off and turned into a conduit for sewer overflows during heavy rains. A 2003 study by the University of San Francisco showed the runoff streams and the slough to be to heavily contaminated with PCBs and other toxins, representing a serious health threat for Bayview residents who still depend on fishing in the bay.
Though a part of the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, the slough and vicinity has been neglected for so long that most city residents do not even consider it pubic space -- at best, a place for overflow parking during football games and a desolate, possibly dangerous place to be most other times.
"We're taking 34 acres of water and land that's currently a junk heap of construction debris," said Elizabeth Goldstein, president of the foundation. "We'll clean it and remediate the entire area. In some places dirty soil will be removed, the land will be leveled and lowered" to provide shore access, she said.
The State Parks Department will oversee the project with funding assistance from the foundation and other sources, including the California Coastal Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Board, and the CALFED consortium of state and federal water agencies.
The foundation already has raised about half of the funding needed for its overall five-year program, with a recent $1.5 million grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation that will enable the start of the first phase of the project in January 2008. This first phase would last 18 months and include restoring and enhancing 11 acres of tidal wetlands, creating a sandy beach for bird nesting, and installing a visitors center, public trails and interpretive signs at the slough.
The cleanup will also help reduce the amount of polluted runoff that flows into the bay at the slough.
When done, the Yosemite Slough restoration project could become the cornerstone of a series of adjacent bay restoration projects that will redefine the city's eastern shores. Other projects include the cleanup and development of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, immediately north of Yosemite Slough (Land Letter, Nov. 9, 2006), and the possible construction of a new football stadium either at the southern end of the slough park, or on the shipyard property -- as has been proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in his bid to keep the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers from moving to Santa Clara.
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| A glimpse of Yosemite Slough's potential as a wetlands park can be seen once the viewer gets past chain link fences and dumping grounds. Photo by Arthur O'Donnell. |
It could also provide another leg of the S.F. Bay Trail Project, which is forging a 400-mile network of walkways, bike routes, and shore access points along the entire perimeter of the bay. The project complements restoration at the Hunters Point shipyard being designed by Arc Ecology.
ARC Ecology's executive director Saul Bloom foresees in this depressed southeastern corner of the city an uninterrupted park system that rivals San Francisco's northern waterfront, including the Marina Green and Aquatic Park, where beaches, piers, forested areas, green space, lawns and playing fields are interspersed with art, tourism, retail, restaurants, small businesses, former warehouses converted into office space and nearby housing.
It could be years, perhaps even decades, before such a vision can become reality, particularly because of the heavy contamination of soils on what are known as Parcel E properties inside the shipyard and the continuing controversy about residential development currently being pursued on Parcel A by Lennar Corp. under a contract with the city. Most recently the Bayview community has been protesting the alleged health effects of asbestos-laced dust created by the construction. The neighborhood residents already suffer from elevated rates of asthma, cancers and other health woes, and many do not trust city government or the company to do anything about their problems.
While recognizing the difficulties that lie just next door, Goldstein is able to draw boundaries between the shipyard and the Yosemite Slough restoration. "We're lucky that the two properties abut each other," she said. "But we're also lucky our remediation issues are not as costly."
When complete, according to the Coastal Conservancy, the full restoration would increase the tidally-influenced area from nine acres currently to about 20 acres, with another 14 acres of shoreline park. It would create two bird-nesting islands -- one of which designed specifically to attract protected species and migrating flocks. In all, there will be nearly a mile of new trails with several vista points along the bay.
Another aspect of the restoration project, according to foundation program manager Cecille Caterson, is enlisting the community. One project is working with the local group Literacy for Environmental Justice to create Bay Youth for the Environment, an after-school program that pays local youth an hourly stipend above the minimum wage to help raise as many as 10,000 native plants and shrubs each year that will replanted in the restored park. The nursery, located across the street from public housing, operates under a sign describing "Plants Gone Wild."
Besides learning horticultural techniques, participants in the program also help inform the community about the restoration by giving presentations to local organizations and volunteering at the Candlestick Point recreation area.
Click here to view a map of the Yosemite Slough restoration project area.
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This story first appeared in Greenwire.
The Bush administration is attempting to revive its highly touted national planning rule that governs how management plans are developed for 193 million acres of national forest.
The Forest Service rolled out today a proposed planning rule that will be essentially the same as the 2005 rule blocked by a federal judge in San Francisco earlier this year. But this time, the agency will conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) with five alternatives, the Forest Service said today. The new proposal will strengthen the role of science in forest management and allow more public input in the planning process, the agency said.
Meanwhile, the agency is proposing major revisions to its guidelines for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act. In a proposed rule in today's Federal Register, the Forest Service proposes to move its NEPA procedures from the agency handbook to federal regulations, and incorporate various NEPA recommendations from the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Today's announcement on the forest planning rule responds to the March ruling by U.S. Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who sided with environmentalists and the state of California and enjoined the Bush administration's 2005 planning rule, saying the Forest Service violated the Administrative Procedure Act, NEPA and Endangered Species Act when it drafted, revised and published the rule (E&ENews PM, March 30).
The planning rule determines how the 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands develop their individual forest plans, documents that govern activities from timber harvests to recreation and protecting endangered plants and animals.
The Forest Service and timber industry say the 2005 rule properly focuses attention at the project level, but critics say plans developed under the 2005 rule would make it more difficult to challenge individual projects, because the new plans have no enforceable standards such as specific limits on logging or watershed protections. Forest Service officials have said they will appeal aspects of Hamilton's ruling they cannot remedy via a new rulemaking.
The Forest Service is also proposing changes to its NEPA procedures, incorporating guidance from CEQ and selected court decisions. Changes are designed to improve the EIS process to make it the studies more relevant to actual decisions and not on potential lawsuits, according to the proposed rule.
"A 'One size fits all' approach to NEPA documentation has not been effective," the proposed rule states. "There continues to be focus on preparing NEPA documents such as an EIS or environmental assessment (EA) for litigation rather than to facilitate an informed decision process."
Aside from moving NEPA procedures from the agency handbook to a federal regulation, the Forest Service proposes deleting a list of actions that require an EIS, incorporates a controversial CEQ guidance on cumulative effects and allows for the use of "adaptive management" practices.
For environmental impact statements, the proposed rule changes a list of classes of actions that require an EIS to actions that "normally" require an EIS. Currently, the studies are required for proposals to carry out or approve aerial application of chemical pesticides, proposals that would substantially alter the undeveloped character of an inventoried roadless area, and proposals for major federal actions with major environmental impacts.
In addition, the agency would only have to study the proposed action when it conducts environmental assessments, per a recent CEQ memorandum. A stand-alone, no-action alternative is no longer required.
The rule also incorporates a June 2005 CEQ memo on cumulative effects of agency actions. The guidance, however, has been at odds with rulings from courts in the 9th Circuit in particular, where environmental groups have successfully challenged the agency's failure to consider the cumulative effects of timber sales and other proposals.
In the memo, CEQ interprets NEPA as requiring an analysis of cumulative effects and a "concise description of the identifiable present effects of past actions to the extent that they are relevant and useful in analyzing whether the reasonably foreseeable effects of the agency proposal for action and its alternatives may have a continuing, additive and significant relationship to those effects."
But CEQ does not see NEPA as requiring a listing of past actions or a study of the individual effects of each project. NEPA analyses are meant to be "forward-looking" and focusing on the potential impacts of agency proposals, not a study of individual past actions.
Public comments on the NEPA rule will be accepted through Oct. 15.
Click here to review the Federal Register notice of the NEPA rule.
Click here to read the CEQ memo.
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After a tough few months for the long-beleaguered Mexican wolf program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced it will retool the rule governing the management of the Southwest population.
On Aug. 7, FWS officials published notice in the Federal Register that it plans to look at several alternatives for changing the rule that established the reintroduction and recovery program almost 10 years ago.
The notice concludes that the current rules "are not conducive to achieving the reintroduction project objective of re-establishing a viable, self-sustaining population of at least 100 Mexican [gray] wolves."
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| Mexican wolf, F511, at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Photo courtesy of Fish and Wildlife Service. |
FWS had hoped to reach that objective by the end of 2006, but the population numbers about 60 wolves in Arizona and New Mexico.
"We have learned many lessons through the adaptive management process since establishing the program and recognize it is time for adjustments to be considered," said Benjamin Tuggle, FWS's Southwest regional director, in a statement.
The rule change will involve drafting an environmental impact statement as well as a socioeconomic assessment. FWS will hold 12 meetings throughout Arizona and New Mexico in November and December to gather public comment on what issues the agency should address in the rule revision.
The agency listed the Mexican wolf as endangered in 1976 and reintroduced the animals into Arizona and New Mexico in 1998. Under the Endangered Species Act's section 10(j), Mexican wolves are managed as a "nonessential, experimental" population, allowing animals that repeatedly prey on livestock to be relocated or killed.
Tuggle said the population's special status allows for "more flexibility to work with communities" on Mexican wolf management.
But the Mexican wolf program has been the subject of controversy from its inception, with ranchers adamantly opposed to what they see as an unnecessary threat to their livelihood, and environmental groups urging for stronger protections that they say are needed to fully recover the animal.
The notice indicates that FWS will consider changes that address a range of issues. Those include allowing wolves to roam outside the designated recovery area, reintroducing wolves directly into New Mexico, instead of just Arizona, and the expansion of what the agency calls "limited provisions" for people to "harass" wolves that are attacking livestock or pets on private or public land.
The last eight months have seen a flurry of action from both sides of the debate. Last December, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against FWS over the agency's alleged failure to implement measures the group says are essential to the recovery of the Mexican gray wolf population in the Southwest (Land Letter, Dec. 21, 2006).
In May, New Mexico's Catron County passed an ordinance giving it more say over management of the wolves, prompting frustration from FWS, which says federal law trumps local law, and a lawsuit from Forest Guardians and Sinapu.
The controversy came to a head last month, when the FWS-ordered killing of a female wolf that had recently had pups prompted a public outcry (Land Letter, July 12). Critics included New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who asked the agency to reconsider its "three strikes" policy for removing wolves and urged better communication with state wildlife officials. An advisory committee to the Mexican wolf program is considering changes to the policy at its meeting this month and is expected to announce its conclusions before September.
According to FWS, there were 16 wolf removals in the recovery area due to conflicts with livestock in 2006 -- the most of any year so far in the nine-year-old program. Five "problem" wolves were euthanized last year; the rest were either relocated or kept in captivity (Land Letter, May 10). So far this year, three wolves have been killed due to livestock predation.
David Parsons, FWS's Mexican wolf recovery coordinator from 1991 to 1999, said the agency has been too aggressive in implementing its "three strikes" policy. "They're currently killing too many wolves to make progress toward recovery," he said. "They have just lost sight of that mandate."
Parsons praised FWS for revisiting the rule but expressed concern that it could be weakened instead of strengthened. "There's really no indication yet if those changes will be for better or worse," he said.
Bill Aymar, county manager for Catron County in New Mexico, said he would also like to see changes to the program, but for very different reasons. While FWS policy addresses livestock predation, it fails to address wolf-human interactions, he said. He urged the agency to include public safety measures in the revised rule.
Aymar also questioned the agency's decision to hold some of the public scoping hearings on the rule revision in cities outside the reintroduction area, such as Phoenix and Albuquerque. People there are more likely to support the program because they do not have to live with wolves, he said.
"It's very easy to support something that doesn't have an impact on you," he said. "You can romanticize the wolf very easily until it's out in the backyard eating your dog."
Click here to read the Federal Register notice.
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Officials in Wyoming are worried that the federal government might not release more than $500 million in abandoned mine land funding owed to the state.
Congress passed a law last year that extended the abandoned mine lands (AML) program 15 years, aiming to ensure that reclamation funds go to the states with the most dangerous abandoned mine sites. The law resolved a long-standing dispute in reauthorizing the program between historic coal-mining states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania with older mining sites and states with high current production, like Wyoming, that pay the largest share into the abandoned mines fund.
AML collects a tax from coal companies to pay for the cleanup of abandoned sites and for a benefits fund for retired mine workers. However, distribution of the funds was left up to the annual congressional appropriations process and was not spent by Congress at the rate it was coming in, so much of the money that was collected was never sent back to the states. The Office of Surface Mining had $2.1 billion in the AML fund awaiting disbursement at the end of 2006.
The law adopted last year gives the Office of Surface Mining seven years to distribute the money that had historically been collected into the fund. The law also takes the AML funds "off-budget" in the future, so the agency no longer has to go through the annual appropriations cycle to distribute the funds. Instead, the money that is collected into the fund this year will be delivered next year.
The law reduced the amounts that coal companies pay into the fund and reorganized its overall distribution so that historic production states get more of the money, but Wyoming is also paid in part out of its contributions. Under the formula, Wyoming would get $1.6 billion over the next 15 years, Pennsylvania would receive $1.3 billion and West Virginia just under $1 billion.
But now some Wyoming lawmakers are concerned that the state won't get all the money it is due.
The Office of Surface Mining is currently drafting rules and regulations defining how funds disbursed to the state are to be used and accounted for, which are expected to be released next month. The current version of the draft rules and regulations impose some restrictions on the use of funds. Wyoming officials maintain that Congress intended the funds to be returned to the states without strings attached, however.
The controversy over OSM's rules led Wyoming's newest congressional representative, Sen. John Barrasso (R), to oppose the nomination of Brent Wahlquist as the agency's director in committee.
"He wanted to make sure that OSM recognizes the intent of Congress is that Wyoming is paid its money," said Barrasso spokesman Cameron Hardy. The spokesman said after questioning Wahlquist on the issue, Barrasso was not satisfied that OSM's rules would reflect the intent of Congress.
In particular, Barrasso is concerned that OSM may distribute the money through grants, which Hardy said is "not acceptable."
Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) warned that OSM should not attempt to "play political games" with the AML money due the state. "Congress was extremely clear in the bill we passed last year as to how this funding would be distributed, and I will not rest until Wyoming receives the AML money it is rightfully due," Cubin said in a statement. "The days of Wyoming being shortchanged by the AML program are over."
Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association, said Wyoming should get the money owed to it by the federal government. "It should come back with no strings attached," he said.
"The state of Wyoming believes that is money owed to the state and does not support having to petition for money that under the law is owed to the state," added Cara Eastwood, a spokeswoman for Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D).
State officials have not disclosed how they intend to spend the money, but Freudenthal last month suggested the funds should be used for researching technologies used in "clean coal" and carbon capture-and-sequestration projects.
Wyoming was to receive funding of $518 million to reimburse the state for money that had been collected for AML but not returned to the state, according to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. The money was to be doled out in seven equal installments beginning in the fiscal 2008. The law states that these funds are to be used "for purposes established by the state Legislature with priority given to addressing the impacts of mineral development."
In addition to the $518 million of prior balance funds, the law requires that the federal government pay Wyoming an annual amount equivalent to 50 percent of reclamation fees collected from future coal production. These funds would come from the U.S. Treasury and not AML fee collections.
Despite the controversy over the rules, OSM spokesman Ben Owens cautioned that it is too early to say how the money will be distributed. "We really don't know yet," Owens said. "The law reauthorizing AML was a fairly complex piece of legislation, and we're not in a position to say how it's going to be implemented."
Owens noted, however, that AML has always been distributed in grant form in the past. The question is whether the agency should do that with the Treasury money that is supposed to be returned to the states. "That's one of the issues we're working through," he said.
Gable is an independent energy and environmental writer in Woodland Park, Colo.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission got an earful last week at a public scoping meeting here intended to gather comments on the agency's effort to craft a broad environmental analysis of the effects of a new uranium processing boom in the interior West. While some participants expressed concern about groundwater contamination and depletion, others voiced their support for jump-starting an industry they believe will bring much-needed jobs to rural areas, reflecting the larger debate over a revival of the nuclear industry.
With a spate of new nuclear power plants on the horizon in the United States and abroad, skyrocketing prices for uranium has sparked renewed interest in uranium mining and milling. In response to an expected rise in applications for milling facilities, which NRC regulates, the agency is putting together a "generic environmental impact statement," or GEIS, to examine the effects of a spate of new uranium mills in the region. The industry has expressed interest in building at least 14 new facilities in the Intermountain West, with several expected in western New Mexico, a uranium hot spot.
Most of the facilities would use in-situ leaching, or ISL, which allows companies to extract uranium from low-grade ore by injecting a leaching agent, such as oxygen with sodium bicarbonate mixed with groundwater, into the ore body to dissolve the uranium. The leach solution is then pumped to the surface and taken to a processing plant, where the uranium is separated out and concentrated into "yellowcake," the feedstock for uranium fuel.
At the Aug. 9 scoping meeting, which drew about 150 people, uranium companies said they are committed to working with the government to protect the environment. "We plan to recover uranium safely, because the country needs it," said George Byers of Neutron Energy, which has offices in Phoenix and Denver.
Mike Bowen, executive director of the New Mexico Mining Association, said his organization supports the GEIS and urged NRC to include conventional milling in the document. "It's the association's hope that this process will result in licenses being provided with updated information on environmental impacts that can be used to improve future applications," he said.
Operators of ISL facilities are required to restore the groundwater extracted in leaching operations, NRC officials noted.
Ernest Vacenti Jr., a county commissioner in McKinley County, which overlies much of the state's prime uranium resources, said a new boom would bring much-needed jobs, but that his constituents are also concerned about a potential loss of groundwater and contamination of the groundwater that is left.
"Will it be a source of jobs we desperately need, or a source of pollution? Both of these things are important to us," he said.
In the July 24 Federal Register notice announcing NRC's plans to draft a generic environmental impact statement, the agency said the document will focus on the construction, operation and decommissioning of ISL mills but will include an alternative looking at conventional milling as well. The review will not examine the effects of an increase in uranium mining, because mining is regulated by other agencies.
At the meeting -- the second of two public scoping meetings on the GEIS -- several people expressed deep concern about the potential environmental and health effects of a resurrected uranium industry. Contamination could ruin scarce water supplies, they warned. Others urged the commission to consider the environmental justice implications of a resurrected uranium industry, since many of New Mexico's richest ore bodies are on or near tribal lands. Many accused NRC of using the GEIS to streamline approvals for ISL milling operations.
A representative of the Navajo Nation EPA reminded the commission of the reservation's legacy of waste and health problems resulting from the uranium boom of the 1950s through the 1980s. There is still a great deal of waste to clean up from the old milling operations, she said, and the tribe is not interested in allowing the industry to create more. "When you talk about permittees going through a specialized short cut, you need to consider what you're allowing them to do," she said.
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley signed a bill banning uranium mining and milling on the reservation in 2005, but companies have expressed interest in building facilities on private inholdings held by "allottees."
Paul Robinson of the Southwest Research and Information Center, an environmental group, accused NRC of putting the cart before the horse in drafting the GEIS before any applications for ISL milling facilities are in. Like several other speakers, he also expressed concerns about groundwater contamination. "Every area with uranium has important groundwater resources," he said.
An official from U.S. EPA's Air and Radiation Protection Division also discussed the groundwater issue, telling NRC officials that both ISL and conventional uranium mills have the potential to contaminate groundwater. The GEIS "has the potential to ensure protection," he told the commission, adding that EPA will be submitting written comments on the document.
Douglas Meiklejohn, executive director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, said in a statement issued before the hearing that undertaking a broad environmental analysis of the overall effects of an increase in uranium milling operations would be insufficient.
"If adopted, the GEIS will remove the current environmental inquiries required for each specific proposed mining site, restrict public comment on future uranium mining licenses and undermine environmental justice in our state," he said.
The NRC proposal has also attracted the wrath of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D), who petitioned the NRC Aug. 1 to abandon the GEIS and instead conduct thorough environmental reviews of each proposal.
"Our citizens have a right to full involvement in decisions that could have far reaching impacts on their homes and water resources," Richardson said in a statement. "Given the concerns of many citizens in New Mexico about the public health, environmental, and cultural impacts of new uranium mining actions, a process to eliminate public review of individual NRC permit actions in New Mexico would be disrespectful to our many sovereign Native American tribes and pueblos and the general public."
Greg Suber, NRC's environmental project manager for license renewal, told the crowd that a site-specific review will be conducted for each mill. "Each application that comes in will undergo two environmental reviews," he said - one under the GEIS and one under the site-specific analysis. Suber did not say whether the individual reviews would be in the form of an environmental assessment or a more in-depth environmental impact statement.
The GEIS will provide for a more efficient environmental review at the project stage, NRC officials said during their presentation at the beginning of the meeting.
Public comments at the Albuquerque meeting echoed those given at the first public scoping meeting, held a week earlier in Casper, Wyo. As reported in the Casper Star-Tribune, residents expressed concern that uranium milling would place new water demands on the Powder River Basin, which has seen an increase in natural gas development in recent years.
Rick Chancellor, administrator of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Land Quality Division, told the commissioners that Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) wants the state to be given participating agency status during the GEIS process, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
The NRC is accepting scoping comments on the proposal until Sept. 4.
Click here to read a copy of the Federal Register notice announcing NRC's plans to conduct a GEIS.
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If the forests along the Oregon coast look a little peaked lately, blame fungus: Swiss needle cast, a native pathogen affecting Douglas firs, is on the upswing again.
Foresters have been tracking the disease for the last decade and a half, and after falling to 176,594 infected acres in 2004, Swiss needle cast now afflicts 338,543 acres in coastal forests -- a nearly twofold increase. The pathogen covers about 40 percent of Tillamook State Forest, which researchers call the "blast zone."
It has become a headache for timber companies as potential yield on the infected stands of Douglas fir have declined between 20 percent to 50 percent. The area generates about 1 billion board feet of the wood annually, and profit loss due to the disease amounts to between $100 million and $200 million per year, according to Dave Shaw of Oregon State University.
"The reason we're so concerned is that we'd thought we'd made significant progress," Shaw said. "The disease in this geologic zone is really here to stay, and we have to find a way to deal with it."
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| An infected pocket of Douglas firs surrounded by western hemlock. Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Forestry. |
Shaw is also the head of the Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative, an organization founded in 1997 to research the disease and make recommendations for how it should be addressed. This year, timber companies contributed about half the cooperative's $200,000 budget with the state Legislature kicking in the rest.
Thanks in part to their work, Swiss needle cast is now one of the best-studied and most well-understood of arboreal diseases. The pathogen, which thrives in warm, wet areas, blocks the pores on Douglas fir needles and prevents the tree from getting enough carbon dioxide. Affected trees can shed up to half their needles, giving the crowns a yellowish cast.
In part, the problem is man-made. Douglas fir is the most lucrative of the region's conifer species -- it brings in about $600 per thousand board feet, compared with western hemlock's $400 per thousand board feet -- and grows especially well in the 20-mile-wide swath stretching from Coos Bay, Ore., to southern Washington state. Since the 1970s, timber companies have planted millions of acres with Douglas fir seedlings, allowing the disease to spread.
To address this, foresters are intermingling the infected stands with species that cannot contract the disease. In Tillamook, according to district forester Ross Holloway, the strategy has shifted from simply thinning the worst-affected stands to taking out trees in some of the moderately infected areas and carrying out "moderate regeneration harvests," a form of clearcut, where the disease is most concentrated.
"We're not going to get ahead until we reduce the level of the host trees out there where this epidemic has occurred," Holloway said.
Fungicides, which Christmas tree growers used to control the disease when it first appeared, would not be economical for whole timber plantations. Instead, researchers are developing strains of Douglas fir that are more resistant to the disease. Jim Carr of Menasha Forest Products Corp. said that his harvests have been significantly affected -- although Menasha's holdings are along the southern part of the Oregon coast, far from the disease's epicenter -- and that genetically resistant specimens have done well in infected areas.
"There are certain trees that can be as heavily infected as others, but don't exhibit the same symptoms," Carr said.
But probably the biggest factor affecting the growth of Swiss needle cast is weather. The disease expands after warm, wet winters, and contracts under cold and dry conditions. Jeff Stone, a mycologist at Oregon State University, is working on an epidemiological model to determine where, given geographic and climate variation, it makes economic sense to grow Douglas fir. He says the model shows similar results in New Zealand, where the disease has become a "severe problem" after being introduced through seedlings from the Pacific Northwest. Swiss needle cast has also shown up in recent years in Chile, Turkey and Eastern Europe.
Beyond seasonal variation, the disease's spread may also have to do with longer-term warming trends.
"Climate change predictions for the Pacific Northwest suggest that it's going to get worse, and the affected areas are going to spread," Stone said.
Click here to view a bar graph that shows infected acres of Douglas firs per year.
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Even in Maine, the most sparsely populated state east of the Mississippi, encroaching development threatens the lush forests surrounding the Lower Penobscot watershed.
Located near the hum of cars on Interstate 95 and 15 miles from the bustling city of Bangor, the Lower Penobscot Forest faces one of the largest projected housing density increases of any watershed in the United States, according to a 2005 Forest Service study. The region's future may depend, in part, on whether a coalition of environmental and government organizations working to preserve the forest receive federal funding in the fiscal 2008 budget.
Together the Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, the Maine Conservation Department, the Forest Society of Maine and the state's senators and representatives are hoping to safeguard a 42,000-acre swath of forest by purchasing land and easements in the Lower Penobscot area.
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| A view from Partridge Pond in the Lower Penobscot Forest. The forest faces one of the largest projected housing density increases of any watershed in the United States, according to a 2005 Forest Service study. Photo courtesy of the Forest Society of Maine. |
But in order to make the purchases, they will need federal funds. The Bush administration's fiscal 2008 budget requests $3.3 million for the project through the Forest Service's Forest Legacy Program. Thus far, the House and Senate have both approved the recommendation, although the budget has yet to be finalized. In 2007, the Forest Service allocated $2.2 million for the preservation of the Lower Penobscot Forest.
"If we're successful in getting [those funds], we can pull the full project off," said Tom Rump, speaking for the Nature Conservancy, Maine Conservation Department and the Forest Society of Maine. The Conservation Department's Bureau of Parks and Lands is the state sponsor of the Lower Penobscot project.
The money would be used to buy a 5,000-acre Amherst Mountains site through the Forest Society, Rump said, and to purchase the 25,000-acre "Great Pond easement," named after the township in which it is partially located.
The Nature Conservancy recently acquired an easement on 12,700 acres of private land connecting the Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge with state-owned land in Bradley. With that easement, the total area of preserved land would be more than 42,000 contiguous acres if the Amherst and Great Pond deals go through.
The Land for Maine's Future Program, which is funded primarily by taxpayer bonds, also has contributed more than $1 million in funds to preserve the forests around the Lower Penobscot watershed. It is the primary state granting agency for conservation work in Maine.
The state's plan to expand the highway system has made the need to preserve the Lower Penobscot even more urgent, according to Janice Melmed, development officer for the Forest Society.
"They're building some major highways that are going to make it an easy connection into Bangor for commuting," she said, predicting that the move will encourage even more development. If the state and its partners do not receive funding in this year's budget, next year they could be battling to save an increasingly parcelled landscape.
So far, Rump said, Lower Penobscot's chances in the 2008 budget are "looking good," primarily because the Forest Service gave the area top priority in its Forest Legacy Program. "But you never know before the end," he added.
Click here to read the Forest Service study.
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Wildlife managers report progress in keeping two distinctive Rocky Mountain trout from a drop in numbers that would set off federally endangered species protections, while competition from invading non-native trout and environmental group petitions keep the pressure on.
In a July 18 assessment, federal and state fisheries biologists from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming concluded that Yellowstone cutthroat trout are holding on in more than 7,500 miles of high, cold-water streams draining from Yellowstone National Park through the surrounding Yellowstone and Snake River watersheds. Separately, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department on July 27 announced that 18 government agencies and private groups have signed a detailed memorandum of understanding to restore the Yellowstone cutthroat as well as the westslope cutthroat trout populations in Missouri River tributaries as well as most Montana streams west of the Continental Divide.
Distinguished by red slash marks on their throats, cutthroats have vanished from more than half their historic stream habitat in the Rocky Mountains. The losses have largely been caused by competition from rainbow, brown and lake trout that state game and fish agencies stocked for sport fishing a century ago. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has turned down environmental group petitions to give Endangered Species Act protections for both the Yellowstone and westslope cutthroat subspecies. But Rocky Mountain state fish and wildlife managers are working closely with the service and other federal agencies to protect remaining strongholds and stop non-native trout from preying on and interbreeding with surviving cutthroat populations.
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| Distinguished by red slash marks on their throats, cutthroats have vanished from more than half their historic stream habitat in the Rocky Mountains. Photo courtey of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. |
"Cutthroats are good indicators of cold, clear and connected water, and they're very important to the angling community in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem," Chris Smith, the Montana department's chief of staff, said Aug. 14. State wildlife agencies in the region are giving cutthroat restoration high priority in conservation plans that Congress required all states to implement by 2005 to reverse the decline of critical wildlife.
State fish and game departments rely on license sales to fund their budgets, and historically they have focused on enhancing game species. Under a 2001 law, Congress appropriated $474 million in fiscal 2001-07 as seed money for state wildlife agencies to identify all kinds of dwindling species in greatest need of conservation and implement comprehensive plans for conserving their habitat.
Montana has been getting roughly $1 million a year and has focused initially on restoring biotic communities that support 60 priority species including cutthroats as well as grizzly bears, bison, lynx, burrowing owls, trumpeter swans, sage grouse, 15 other fish, five reptiles, three amphibians and the western pearlshell mussel. The Montana Legislature this year provided $500,000 per year in matching funds, and the department also relies on license revenues as well as habitat funding from the Nature Conservancy, Doris Duke Foundation and local conservation organizations.
"It's a pre-emptive approach to conservation rather than reactive," said Travis Horton, Montana's native species coordinator. "Before species get to that point, we want to keep them from declining to a listing level."
Glenn Phillips, Montana's fishery habitat chief, estimates that the state department spends $1.5 million per year to monitor and restore cutthroats, and agency officials suggest that federal and state agencies, conservation groups and private landowners cumulatively spend as much as $2 million annually to improve habitat for the two cutthroat subspecies. In their recent agreement for conserving cutthroats, five U.S. agencies, three state agencies, a Native American tribe, and nine environmental and agricultural groups organizations will develop regional watershed plans, implement 50 restoration projects a year, and protect 4,800 miles of streams where cutthroat populations have not been hybridized through breeding with non-native trout.
The agreement's mileposts "are by far the most aggressive commitment to cutthroat trout conservation in Montana to date," said Brad Shepherd, the agency's cutthroat coordinator.
Trout are game fish popular with recreational fishers, and wildlife agencies have incentives to restore native species that fishermen enjoy pursuing before they are listed for federal protection. Similarly, several Western wildlife agencies are concerned that energy development and subdivisions are threatening popular game birds like sage grouse and big game like elk and pronghorn.
Cutthroat trout are native to cold streams and lakes, and habitat loss and competition from introduced trout have confined both Yellowstone and westslope populations to high elevations in streams, rivers, and lakes around Yellowstone National Park. In the 1970s, Montana stopped stocking non-native trout in rivers and streams where cutthroats were still present, but Idaho and Wyoming still stock rainbow trout prized by recreational fishers.
Since 1994, the Yellowstone cutthroat population has been dramatically reduced inside the park itself by lake trout that were illegally released into Yellowstone Lake. Trying to salvage native fish, the National Park Service aggressively nets lake trout that prey on the native cutthroats. Around the park, federal and state biologists have poisoned rainbow and brown trout in some streams so they can reintroduce cutthroats. Where native trout survive, they also install barriers to keep introduced species from invading cutthroat strongholds.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is studying how irrigation canals affect trout and working with ranchers on "resting riparian areas from livestock grazing to provide more stability to Yellowstone cutthroat streams," said Steve Yekel, the agency's Cody regional fisheries supervisor.
"There's a lot of things being done for the Yellowstone cutthroat right now," said Scott Bossie, the river program coordinator for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, one of the conservation groups that signed Montana's cutthroat agreement. In the survey completed in 2006, biologists working with the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Interagency Coordination Group found 383 Yellowstone cutthroat populations still occupy 43 percent of historic stream habitat as well as 205 high elevation lakes. Two-thirds of remaining habitat was found on national forests and national parks. "Conservation populations" showing little genetic change still occupied 35 of 39 watersheds with historic Yellowstone cutthroat populations.
In 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups to list the Yellowstone cutthroat as endangered. Noah Greenwald, a center biologist, faulted the interagency assessment for counting some cutthroats that are partially hybrid fish. "There are very few populations that are really secure," Greenwald said. "The threats are severe, and they're not going away. In the next 10 to 20 years, we're going to continue to see some populations wink out."
Greenwald added that newly drafted state species conservation plans "are important, but in terms of really accomplishing things they generally don't go the distance. States generally avoid the hard choices. That's why we have the Endangered Species Act."
Bossie is more optimistic about state cutthroat programs, although he added that "there's a good case for listing westslope cutthroat east of the Continental Divide," where populations are doing poorly. Bossie said climate change could isolate cold-water trout in the highest headwaters streams, with warmer water temperatures in connecting rivers cutting remnant populations off from each other.
Wayne Fredenberg, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service native trout coordinator in Kalispell, Mont., said state agencies have important incentives to keep cutthroats from declining, especially the Yellowstone subspecies that is closely identified with the nation's oldest national park. In 2005, four federal agencies and 12 state fish and wildlife departments launched a Western Native Trout Initiative to coordinate conservation of cutthroats, bull trout and other species. Fredenberg said federal and state biologists plan to coordinate their efforts to restore cutthroats in watersheds that cross state boundaries "This species has a high profile with the public," Fredenberg said. "People like to fish for them."
Arrandale is a freelance reporter based in Livingston, Mont.
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This story first appeared in E&ENews PM.
The Bureau of Land Management installed new categorical exclusions Tuesday for oil, gas and geothermal exploration, salvage logging and grazing permits on public lands.
In a Federal Register notice, BLM announced changes to Interior Department rules allowing the expanded use of categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act, meaning the agency won't have to conduct a full environmental analysis or impact statement if a project is deemed not to have a significant environmental impact.
Industry groups and the Bush administration like categorical exclusions because they technically fulfill NEPA statutory requirements for environmental analysis but can dramatically cut the approval time for projects or permit requests.
The changes would allow BLM to more quickly approve salvage logging proposals up to 250 acres, renew grazing permits if grazing is not believed to be harming the ranchland, and accelerate geophysical exploration when no new roadbuilding is involved. Geophysical plans of operations are not covered by the categorical exclusions, according to a BLM spokesman.
Categorical exclusions under NEPA were historically used for small projects such as expanding a campground or administrative building, but the Bush administration has expanded the practice to oil and gas drilling permits, salvage logging projects and forest plans. Environmentalists and lawmakers such as House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) have been fighting the expanded use of the practice, most recently as part of the House energy bill approved earlier this month.
The changes that took effect Tuesday were first proposed in January 2006 and final approval comes shortly after the Senate confirmed Jim Caswell to be the new BLM director.
"This is the Bush administration -- through its new BLM director -- silencing public input and turning the stewardship of the government into a rubber stamp for industry," said Bobby McEnaney of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It leaves the American people totally out of the conversation."
For forests, BLM's new rule essentially copies the Forest Service's categorical exclusion policy for damaged trees that was part of President Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative.
The categorical exclusions are designed to apply to small clearing projects of insect- or disease-ridden trees, dead or dying trees, and live trees if their removal is for the overall benefit of the forest. The exclusions allow for the salvage removal of up to 250 acres of commercially valuable trees harmed by fire, wind, ice, insects or disease. The trees must have been "severely damaged" and either dead or dying to qualify for the NEPA exemption (Greenwire, Jan. 26, 2006).
Click here to view Tuesday's Federal Register notice.
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This story first appeared in Greenwire.
The Fish and Wildlife Service ignored the most recent and best available science in drafting a recovery plan for the northern spotted owl at the behest of a senior Interior Department official, according to an agency-ordered peer review.
FWS selectively cited scientific reports and data in order to justify its proposal to reduce protection for old-growth forests and emphasize the threat of the barred owl to the spotted owl, the Society for Conservation Biology and American Orinthologists' Union found.
Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett told the House Natural Resources Committee in May that she ordered the recovery team to develop the option that eliminates mapped conservation reserves. Instead, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management would be given guidelines for designating owl conservation areas.
FWS "picked among pieces of science in order to justify essentially a reduction in habitat, when the owl itself and its habitat have been declining," said John Fitzgerald, policy director of the Society for Conservation Biology.
"The extent of the protection of the habitat and the habitat needs to be increased," Fitzgerald said. "This proposed recovery plan put excess emphasis on actions to reduce the number of barred owls that may not work and may not protect the spotted owl."
The draft recovery plan was prepared in response to a court settlement with the American Forest Resource Council. The northern spotted owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, fueling the debate over logging old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, but no recovery plan was ever finalized.
Meanwhile, FWS has proposed removing 1.5 million acres of forest in Washington, Oregon and California for the owl.
In its draft plan, FWS focused on the barred owl, a species native to eastern North America that is outcompeting the northern spotted owls for food and habitat. If the barred owl populations are controlled, the theory goes, the spotted owl will benefit.
"Controlling the barred owl is essential to recovering the northern spotted owl," FWS Pacific Region Director Ren Lohoefener said when unveiling the plan in April. "Because the range and number of barred owls are expanding rapidly, our effectiveness in addressing this threat depends on immediate action."
FWS believes the two options are "equally capable of achieving recovery," Lohoefener added.
"We don't know whether those measures will work against the barred owl and help the spotted owl," Fitzgerald said. "If you want to experiment with those measures, that's fine, but you have to work from a place of strength."
The draft plan establishes five goals for spotted owl recovery -- including a stabilized population. FWS said it omitted a target for the population because it would be too expensive to count the owls. A second option identifies "habitat blocks" comprising 7.7 million acres where officials would concentrate research and habitat management (E&ENews PM, April 26).
Interior has been faced with a series of scandals related to ESA listings this summer. Already, FWS has said it will revisit decisions made or affected by former political appointee Julie MacDonald, including those involving the the white-tailed prairie dog and Preble's jumping mouse (E&ENews PM, July 20).
And earlier this year, it was revealed FWS allowed an executive from Weyehaeuser Co. to edit an agency letter to the company about the potential effects of its logging operations on spotted owls (Greenwire, June 25).
The deadline for public comment on the spotted owl recovery plan is Aug. 24.
Click here to view the draft recovery plan.
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This story first appeared in Greenwire.
The Bureau of Land Management has proposed a dramatic increase in timber harvests on 2.5 million acres of land in western Oregon, including logging of old-growth stands protected under the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan.
As part of a settlement agreement with the timber industry, BLM officials unveiled their plan to devote over half of the Oregon and California Railroad grant lands, or O&C lands, in western Oregon to logging with a goal of selling 727 million board feet (mmbf) of timber annually. Currently, about 203 mmbf are sold from the BLM lands.
The proposal could foretell the end of the Northwest Forest Plan, a landmark agreement forged between the Clinton administration, timber companies and environmentalists to oversee 24 million acres of public land. The plan was designed to provide a steady supply of timber while protecting old-growth stands and habitat for threatened and endangered species, but the Forest Service and BLM have never reached the logging targets and provisions on species monitoring and reserves remained the subject of lawsuits.
"Even though we've implemented the Northwest Forest Plan, we still have not been able to meet our timber target," Dick Prather, director of the Western Oregon Planning Project told reporters. "Our planning handbook tells us when that happens you need to revise your plans to get them back into sync."
The O&C lands are capable of producing 1.2 billion board feet per year if managed strictly for timber production, said BLM Oregon/Washington State Director Ed Shepard, who called the plan "the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of BLM lands in western Oregon."
Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild, speculated the Bush administration is attempting to leave its mark on the forest plans before January 2009. "This has more to do with symbolism than with any belief it's actually going to stick," Pedery said
"Whether folks like the outcome of the Northwest Forest Plan or not, the thing that it did ... was it finally injected science into management policy," Pedery added. "We didn't design our timber sales totally on a timber cruiser driving around and seeing what can make money for someone. The Bush administration is saying we're not interested in basing these decisions on science."
BLM developed its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) based on a 2003 settlement agreement with the American Forest Resource Council. The timber group argued the Northwest Forest Plan's creation of forest reserves on the O&C lands illegally took those lands out of production. About 2.2 million acres of BLM land in Oregon were inherited from the Oregon & California Railroad in 1937 and managed for "permanent forest production," per federal law.
"It was a political plan, clearly," said AFRC Vice President Chris West of the Northwest Forest Plan, noting the 1994 plan was put together in one year.
"All it did was amend the Forest Service and BLM plans," West said. "What's going on here is the BLM is going through its normal cycle of planning." The draft EIS benefits from new research conducted the last 13 years since the plan was adopted, West added.
In addition to BLM's proposed revisions, the administration has been revising several aspects of the 1994 plan. Most recently, BLM and the Forest Service eliminated the "survey-and-manage" requirements directing the agencies to monitor public lands for 300 species at-risk species associated with old-growth forests. The administration has also attempted to revise rules designed to protect streams and rivers -- and the salmon and steelhead that inhabit them -- by limiting logging, roadbuilding and other activities in watersheds and steep hillsides.
Meanwhile, the Fish and Wildlife Service is writing a new draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl and critical habitat designations for the spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
BLM and the timber industry also stressed the potential benefits to Oregon counties dependent on their share of federal timber receipts to balance their budgets.
Under the preferred alternative, BLM would pay $108 million annually to 18 Oregon counties, compared to $42 million under the "no action" alternative. The plan would also create 3,400 new jobs while all other alternatives would result in job losses, according to BLM.
Counties have traditionally received a cut of the timber sales from federal lands, but as logging declined in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the payments declined as well. Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act in 2000, creating a massive grant program for timber counties in the West. But the law expired last year, and lawmakers and the Bush administration have been unable to craft a long-term extension.
"It will ensure a reliable supply of timber for industry, which means revenue for western Oregon county governments to fund necessary services such as road maintenance and law enforcement," said Michael Draper, chairman of the Forest Products Industry National Labor Management Committee.
Half of the proceeds from timber sales on O&C lands go to the counties, compared with 25 percent of timber receipts from national forests.
If implemented, BLM's plan to sell $2 billion worth of timber over the next decade will help prevent further decline of the timber industry in Oregon, as mills could bring in new logs from local forests instead of from far away locales such as Alaska or British Columbia. BLM hopes to ramp up timber sales to 727 mmbf within four years, but that is dependent on agency offices receiving enough money to plan all the timber sales.
"We may see some new investment, but we're running at a portion of capacity," West said. "The manufacturing facilities we have today are limping along because of supply issue."
A public comment period on the draft EIS began last Friday. BLM hopes to issue a final EIS next spring and a final decision next August.
Click here to view the draft EIS.
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This story first appeared in Greenwire.
U.S. farmers are expected to produce the largest corn crop in history this year, despite hot, dry conditions that have led to lower yields in many regions, the Agriculture Department last week.
USDA's National Agriculture Statistics Service forecast corn production at 13.1 billion bushels this year, the highest corn production on record and even more than the department previously estimated. It is more than 10 percent higher than the previous record of 11.8 billion bushels in 2004.
The whopping production is the result of farmers planting more acres of corn than they have in over 60 years and achieving a higher yield for each acre planted. Farmers can produce more corn per acre because of improved corn seed and fertilizer, as well as favorable growing conditions this year in the Great Plains.
USDA estimates higher yields for farmers in the Great Plains and much of the Midwest. Hot, dry conditions in parts of the Midwest, the Southeast and the Tennessee Valley are expected to lower yields in those areas.
The department bases the yield forecasts on farm surveys and field counts.
Previous USDA surveys found that farmers planted 19 percent more corn this year than last, for a total of 92.9 million acres, the greatest corn acreage since 1944. Most of the corn came from genetically engineered seeds, according to the survey.
Last Friday's forecast has farmers harvesting 85.4 million acres of corn -- 14.8 million acres more than last year. Corn yields across the country are expected to average 152.8 bushels per acre, which is almost four more bushels on each acre than last year, but not quite at the peak yield of 2004.
Agriculture experts attribute the surge to a rising demand for corn from the ethanol industry, strong export sales and high crop prices. Driven by the booming ethanol demand, corn prices have nearly doubled earlier this year to record highs above $4 per bushel in February. Since then, prices have slipped almost a dollar, due in part to the prospect of massive yields.
The surge in corn comes at a cost to other crops. Farmers are converting land that once grew less profitable crops into corn.
Soybean production is expected to be 18 percent lower this year than last year, according to USDA. Cotton production is also down 20 percent.
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A legal battle that pits water supplies for 25 million Californians against an imperiled fish will continue next week in an evidentiary hearing set for Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Fresno.
At issue are water withdrawals in Northern California that environmentalists say are harming smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The water is pumped to households and farms in the central and southern parts of the state.
Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups, says delta smelt populations grew in the late 1990s when water withdrawals declined. But steadily increasing water exports may be pushing the 3-inch fish to the verge of extinction, the group said. Smelt populations have plummeted to record lows this year.
Judge Oliver Wanger, who in late May determined that the federal biological opinion governing delta operations was flawed and must be rewritten, will hold the hearing (Land Letter, June 7).
California briefly shut down withdrawals in May after an Alameda County judge ruled the pumps were illegally killing delta smelt. Pumping resumed June 17. -- Lucy Kafanov
The Bureau of Land Management is giving the public more time to comment on its oil and gas management plan for some of the Roan Plateau's most environmentally sensitive areas.
BLM was originally accepting comments via the mail until Aug. 10. But after complaints from some environmental groups, the agency has decided to accept written and electronic comments for an additional 14 days.
The comment period will be extended 14 days after notice is published in the Federal Register, expected no later than Aug. 20.
BLM issued a final decision in June for managing 70 percent of the 73,602 acres of federal land on the Roan Plateau that authorized up to 1,570 new oil and gas wells.
But that decision did not include about 21,000 acres in four "areas of critical environmental concern." The agency has proposed "no-surface occupancy" stipulations in these areas as a way to minimize the environmental impacts (Land Letter, Aug. 9). -- Eryn Gable
Researchers at Kansas State University began a study this week that will examine the effects of wind energy development on the greater prairie chicken. The project, funded by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, is a collaborative effort among the university, the Nature Conservancy, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and wind energy developers, including BP Alternative Energy, FPL Energy and Horizon Wind Energy.
The study will take place on three sites proposed for wind development in Kansas and will include control plots on sites that will remain undisturbed. KSU researchers have fitted 91 female birds with radio transmitters to track movement patterns and reproductive success throughout the four-year study.
The greater prairie chicken is considered sensitive to habitat disturbance due to its large home range and because population reductions and loss of genetic diversity can affect reproduction. The study will help determine how the development of wind farms may affect the birds and what strategies companies might be able to employ to reduce and mitigate those impacts, according to a statement from Kansas State University. -- April Reese
A federal geothermal lease sale in California and Nevada on Tuesday brought in nearly $20 million in bids, the Bureau of Land Management said.
The sale was the second under the competitive leasing process mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The first was the June sale in Idaho and Utah. Prior sales occurred under a sealed bidding process, BLM said.
The agency sold leases Tuesday for 49 parcels -- 43 in Nevada and six in California. BLM said the bidding for over 2,700 acres in northern California's Gesyers field brought in more than $8 million, including the highest per-acre bid in history -- $14,000 an acre for a 470 acre parcel.
The Geysers region already generates more power than any other geothermal field in the world, according to a trade group called the Geysers Geothermal Association.
BLM said geothermal energy now provides 0.3 percent of the total U.S. electricity. But agency officials say the competitive sales -- and a revamped parcel nominating process that will begin with the next sale -- show the sector is poised for growth. -- Ben Geman
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