The Park Service at Zion plans to spray 10,615 acres of park land with herbicide to combat non-native species.
"other land agencies are excited to watch the project."
The Billings Gazette reports that even as wolf populations in the West continue to increase substantially, the instances of livestock predation remains flat… They are not increasing. The larger number of wolves is not resulting in more livestock fatalities due to wolves eating them.
Given the deflating effect this may (should) have on the hyper-alarmist, fatalistic albeit self-serving inclinations of the vociferous few, I have taken the liberty of constructing a new threat for those who cried "wolf". Here, rally:
Whatever dark beast of the night left this unfortunate asset to die is surely a monster worthy of folklore. Who will pay for this market destabilization which threatens the very livelihood.. no.. no.. the very lifestyle of the West? What negligence, what… what…
Hypocrisy
The politicos are considering two Idaho "wilderness" bills in a Senate Subcommitte today. The bills include the Boulder-White Clouds as well as the Owyhee Initiative.
The Owyhee Initiative has been touted as an example of "collaboration" and "cooperation" between conservationist and grazing interests. Unfortunately for the public land this ‘collaborative’ effort is illustrative of the imbalance and damage that results from ’coop[t]eration’ when excessively malleable conservationists’ desire to be involved in closed door ceremonial endgames supercede a resolute consideration for the land. This unfortunate complacency allows politicians like Mike Crapo to pronounce, "The best way to make decisions about our environment and land is through cooperation and collaberation, and we have done that with the Owyhee Initiative Proposal." Hah!
Wilderness?
The OI supporters claim the trade to be a fair deal because of the new "wilderness" designation. What do you think of when you hear the word "wilderness?". It ain’t what this is:
In fact, these incursions on "wilderness" designation perpetuate a dangerous precedent diluting the very ideal of wilderness that the proponents use to justify this grazing give-away. So, as Simplot’s lapdog in Washington ponders the fate of the integrity of what it is to be ‘wilder[l]ess’, cross your fingers that the OI gets stalled. Or better yet read up and write the Senator soon!
Ralph Maughan posted some sad news on his blog today. More wolves will be killed to satisfy the livestock interest. As Ralph so aptly put it, How much money does it cost to gun down a couple wolves that killed 5 sheep?"
Smoothin’ the Road to Development — with Wilderness
Consideration of the Owyhee Initiative, White Pine, CIEDRA and other Privatization, Development and pseudo-Wilderness Bills with significant involvement of PEW, Campaign for America’s Wilderness (a PEW pass-through and Front group) and TWS must be done in an even broader perspective: The relation of these Bills, and their key role in the facilitating fast-track development in the Interior West, and the effects this development will have on ground and surface waters that span artificial County or state lines, and then - the effects on air sheds/air quality across the region.
If you get out your Highway Atlas, look at a map of Nevada. The County lines should be on it. Along the border with Arizona and then Utah, the progression of Nevada Counties, south-to-north is Clark, Lincoln, White Pine, and then Elko. The northern part of Elko County stretches across half of the northern boundary of the state, and Elko County Nevada includes the headwaters, and provides a MAJOR source of water, for the Owyhee and Bruneau river systems. AND for the downstream designated Wild and Scenic Owyhee River in Oregon. For example, the river floating time period on the Bruneau-Jarbidge is dependent on snowmelt runoff from the Nevada Jarbidge Mountains.
Think of the Progression of Land and Development Bills that have been passed recently, or are under consideration.
Clark County. Done. But now things related to development and other problems created by the Clark County Bill are tacked on to the White Pine Bill (including rolling up lawns in LV!).
Lincoln County. Done. Resulted in the horrifying water pipelines rights-of-way to export water to Las Vegas - making Lincoln and White Pine Counties and large parts of eastern Utah underlain by the carbonate aquifer Water Colonies of Las Vegas, and disposing of large acreages of public land for new water-using development, too.
Now the White Pine Bill - and its mandated quick disposal of more large acreages of public land - and this time - a key reason for the disposals is industrial development - including coal-fire power plants, mountain-top wind facilities and energy infrastructure. Planning for one mega-coal plant near Ely is well underway, as is planning for one new utility corridor - with other coal plants and other energy development and other corridors in the works. White Pine County, besides sending some water south to Las Vegas, will be an Energy Colony of Las Vegas. Googling turns up a grab-bag of proposed energy schemes for this part of the world.
Elko County is also in the sights of the County Land Bill and wilderness folks for its own Bill. There have been discussions at various Elko local meetings. AND - since Elko includes the important headwaters of the major streams affected by the OI … suddenly we are at the Idaho border and Owyhee County! Elko County does not have a lot more Wilderness (Jarbidge already designated) potential. It does have 4 or 5 BLM WSAs but the acreage is nothing like the very large expanses of lands passed over in the Lincoln and White Pine Bills, and Elko BLM has done a lot to road and develop livestock infrastructure across much of the County. What Elko County DOES have is a whole lot of water - compared to the rest of Nevada; greedy energy-consuming and water-sucking and power-consuming gold mines (takes a lot of energy to roast the gold-containing rocks that are high in mercury); and huge areas of checker-boarded land (old railroad privatization - now owned by companies tied to water export or mining) north and south of the I-80 corridor). A NY Times article in late December 2005 described the evil impacts of NV gold mining (including mercury pollution of air and water in downwind UT and ID) and has already broached the possibility of exporting the water from the cyanide heap leach gold mine ponds south to Las Vegas!
Now, if one flips to the Idaho map in the road atlas, one sees that the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Custer County (CIEDRA land) is not far at all - in a diagonal - from Owyhee County. The Owyhee Initiative Board of Directors will have oversight over ALL BLM lands in the County. Owyhee County has never seen a development scheme that it doesn’t like - for example, they are key voices in promoting the easing of restrictions for the toxic waste and low-level radiation private dump that exists near Grand View in the County. The OI includes potential privatization of 75,000 acres of BLM land, will set in motion other State lands actions (unlike NV, ID has State land). CIEDRA releases important WSAs and has no reserved water rights, imposes a new layer that sort of strips part of the SNRA protections, and gives public lands to Custer County.
Major landscapes in the heart of the Interior West are at stake with these Bills. We can not be naive enough to think that each of these Bills is its own little separate case and that the effects of any of the Bills - much beyond setting Bad New Precedents - will not have major implications for the rest of the West. Who suffered some of the highest levels of fallout from NV nuclear testing in the 60s? Custer County, ID. Coal-fired power plant and other developments in the White Pine Energy Colony of Las Vegas will pollute the air sheds of the Great Basin and central Idaho.
Also (see below) a Draft Paper (I haven’t had time to get back to it) of musings on implications of the White Pine Bill.
Highly compromised Wilderness designations, of far less acreage than the wilderness-worthy land that actually exists in each of these areas, are being used to bring this all about.
Katie
MUSINGS on the WHITE PINE BILL Draft, draft, draft …
Setting Up An Energy and Water Colony of Las Vegas
The current White Pine County, NV Wilderness Bill (White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006) would privatize over 45,000 acres of BLM land for development - and never addresses where the water will come from for industrial, or other development.
The Bill uses the sale of BLM land to fund studies of rights-of-way and infrastructure development that land disposals cause across other public lands in unknown locations and patterns.
It puts in place mechanisms to turn White Pine County into an Energy Colony of Las Vegas, following in the footsteps of its Nevada Predecessor, the Lincoln County Wild. Bill of 2004. The Lincoln County Bill legislated pipeline corridors to de-water the carbonate aquifer that underlies both Lincoln and White Pine Counties, as well as eastern Utah. The net result: these lands became Water-producing Colonies of Las Vegas. While the locals slave away at the Ely coal-fired power plants, Las Vegas sprawl basks in air-conditioned splendor.
Large-scale energy, utility corridor and industrial development plans are already underway, and will be enabled and propelled forward by the White Pine Bill.
For example: http://www.nv.blm.gov/ely/nepa/040_06_038_cherry_creek_geothermal_DRFONSI_061306.pdf#search=%22SWIP%20coal%20impacts%20Ely%22 . Page 15 of this EA – Reasonably Foreseeable Future Actions "a total of 8700 acres would be developed for coal and wind energy production" … "similar success with coal and wind generation facilities may lead to expanded production".
There are a lot more proposals in the wings. Besides the SWIP power-line, there are other large-scale power-line and energy development projects in the works, such as Northern Lights. See:
http://www.transcanada.com/pdf/company/projects/NorthernLights_LR.pdf#search=%22northern%20lights%20alberta%20borah%22
http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2006/standingcommittees/henvmin.pdf#search=%22SWIP%20%22northern%20lights%22%20minutes%20environment%22 , pages 1-5.
Pollution from large-scale energy development in White Pine County not only will locally pollute air that is among some of the cleanest in the Nation at present – including Great Basin National Park, it will pollute a regional air-shed in Utah, Idaho and beyond. Positioning a large energy industry area on the eastern edge of Nevada north of Las Vegas frees the glittering city from having to deal with the pollution from energy needed to support its excesses.
All this industrial development in rural Nevada will require large volumes of water use –in a region where the water situation is already at a crisis point. Why is Las Vegas letting the NV politicians that do its’ bidding get away with this? Why is it not kicking and screaming over the water to be used in industry in the White Pine? Perhaps because the quid pro quo is that LV gets cheap energy – and its not going to squawk about that.
Plans underway cynically link coal and wind development. See:
http://www.lspower.com/news/?release=20051115
Siting huge wind mountain-top dynamiting wind farms on top of rugged ridges and mountains in the Great Basin may have devastating consequences on the regions’ sage grouse, golden eagle and other wildlife- plus spawn a tangle of power-line, roading and other infrastructure development (vs. more appropriate siting such as on depleted windy ag. lands in southern Idaho’s SRP).
The White Pine Bill empowers the ENLC – a bit more subtly than the Owyhee Initiative does the BOD. The ENLC is deeply involved in plans for biomassing and extensive alteration of public wild lands.
Note: The Ely BLM’s Bush Admin. Draft RMP maps show many potential wind energy sites. The Ely DRMP maps show large areas being made available for disposal – the WP wild Bill allows BLM land privatization beyond these areas. The Ely DRMP would impose the ENLC large-scale manipulation and deforestation schemes across Lincoln and White Pine Counties and in a way cedes control to this group – and the WP Bill would set this in stone.
Eastern Nevada Landscape Collaborative Group and Deforestation of the Great Basin
What exactly is ENLC? It is a local “collaborative” group headed by the ex-Executive director of the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association. The ENLC has long wanted to deforest pinyon juniper across Lincoln and White Pine Counties - partly to enrich local contractors, to enrich the funding pass-through ENLC group itself, partly because of the cattle forage they hope will be generated. Also, there is the myth that killing trees will mean more water.
ENLC was deeply involved in the bogus Ely-Mount Wilson Urban Interface project that we sued BLM over several years ago (circa 2002)- which was a wildly over-blown $10-$12 million dollar "Urban Interface" project, largely in the middle of nowhere, that would have "treated" through grinding up and chipping - pinyon-juniper across 50 square miles of BLM land at taxpayer expense. WWP FOIAs for BLM’s budget requests for the projects, biomass was specifically mentioned. We sued, BLM brought in a team of national fire experts, and the experts said that only 13% of the land area needed to have some trees removed to protect the summer homes from fire. We agreed that this made sense, and settled the lawsuit. The Ely-MW project was really planned to be a prototype for large-scale deforestation and biomassing in the Great Basin.
Also: BLM’s Draft Weed EIS - lists Nevada as the area where the largest number of "treatments" would occur (the other three top states are ID, UT, and OR) - and the Weed EIS covers herbiciding far more than weeds …
The Ely Draft RMP describes landscape-level restoration treatments. The White Pine wild. Bill in Title VII describes "landscape-scale restoration treatments". The pieces are being put in place for a massive assault on pinyon-juniper and juniper.
"Findings" of the Title are that there is an increasing threat of wildfire, and that to address this all, "the secretaries shall carry out the Eastern Nevada landscape restoration Project" … ‘the secretaries may make grants to the ENLC and the GBI … to assist in reducing hazardous fuels …".
In many ways, the ENLC is analogous to the OI Board of Directors - a group of special interests that is being empowered by the legislation - and also provided with direct funding mechanisms to attack public lands with … So - this all, like the OI BOD, is about local control, pork, and cronyism.
And the setting of the "Wilderness" areas designated by this Bill - will, in the wide open see-forever Great Basin, be in the midst of an industrial zone polluting the air and with infrastructure corridors and roading slashing through the landscape.
The ENLC has long wanted to deforest pinyon-juniper for may reasons: to enrich local contractors and the funding pass-through ENLC group itself; to try to grow more livestock forage on public lands; and because they believe that killing trees will mean more surface water will magically spring forth.
ENLC was deeply involved in the overblown Ely-Mount Wilson Urban Interface project that we sued BLM over several years ago (circa 2002) where, in conjunction with BLM, "Urban Interface" project, largely in the middle of nowhere, would have “treated" through grinding up and chipping the trees into piles of wood chips - pinyon-juniper across 50 square miles of BLM land at taxpayer expense.
When we FOIA’ed BLM’s budget requests for the projects, biomass was specifically mentioned. We sued, BLM brought in a team of national fire experts, and the experts said that only 13% of the land area proposed for tree removal needed to have some trees removed to protect the summer homes from fire. We agreed that this was more reasonable, and settled the lawsuit. The Ely-MW project was really planned to be a prototype for large-scale deforestation and biomassing.
Also in the works is BLM’s Draft Weed EIS - lists Nevada as the area where the largest number of "treatments" would occur (the other three top states are ID, UT, and OR) - and the Weed EIS covers not only herbiciding (for example, pinyon-juniper with the chemical Tebuthiuron). The Weed DEIS is accompanied by a Volume on Treatments other than herbiciding – including many methods of mechanical deforestation.
The Ely Draft RMP describes landscape-level restoration treatments. The WP Bill in Title VII describes "landscape-scale restoration treatments".
The pieces are being put in place for a massive assault on pinyon-juniper and juniper.
"Findings" of the White Pine Bill Title are that there is an increasing threat of wildfire, and that to address this all, "the secretaries shall carry out the Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Project" … ‘the secretaries may make grants to the ENLC and the GBI … to assist in reducing hazardous fuels …".
In many ways, the ENLC is analogous to the OI Board of Directors, and the old Idaho Public Lands Task Force proposals that did not materialize (at that time). A group of special interests that is being empowered by the legislation - and also provided with direct funding mechanisms to attack public lands with … SO - this all, like the OI BOD, is about local contol, pork, and cronyism.
The wildfire and ENLC-enabling provisions of the White Pine Bill must be seen as energy/industrialization provisions, too.
Wilderness Islands in An Industrialized Landscape
And the setting of the 545,000 acres of BLM and Forest "Wilderness" areas designated by this Bill must be understood. In the wide open see-forever Great Basin will in the midst of an industrial zone polluting the air and slashing infrastructure through the landscape.
“Unique” Water Case – Yeah, Unique All Right - the Aquifer Will Be Sucked Dry By the Vegas Pipelines
The water provisions of the White Pine Bill claims that “because of the unique nature of the land designated as wilderness by this title, it is possible to provide for proper management and protection of the wilderness … in ways different from those used in other laws”. The Bill then describes how direct water developments inside the wilderness would not be allowed.
The Bill blithely ignores the fact that massive ground water pumping from an aquifer that underlies the Wilderness areas to be designated is going to occur.
Why the bill even bothers with the water language charade is beyond me, as it does NOT protect the wilderness areas from the aquifer depletion of the Las Vegas pipelines.
It claims to: "protect the wilderness values of the land designated as wilderness … by means other than a federally reserved water right".
Public Lands being Disposed of to Bail Out Irresponsible County
The County right now is in receivership, with the state administering its dealings. Is the sale of public land in this Bill being done in part to bail out a County that has not been able to handle its own finances in the past? i. e putting the County on Welfare by selling the public’s land?
You bet it is. See: http://www.digitalcandidate.com/upload/nreeetf_f_833_06.doc
“Mr. Rubald said that the economic impacts looked at specifically are the wind project and the LS power study. He stated that these numbers needed to be taken into consideration when looking at the fact that White Pine County is currently under the State Department of Taxation’s assistance because they are in “severe financial distress.” This is a statutory term used to describe counties that are going through severely tough financial times. He said that some of these concerns can be addressed by promoting economic development activities, not the least of which is the power plants and the wind generation facility”.
In this context, how can a County with such a poor track record be trusted to make responsible decisions regarding development, infrastructure and other things that would be set in motion by this Bill???
Katie
