Posted
Saturday - December 1, 2001
A
More Natural Yosemite
Senator
Graham Still Fighting For Everglades
Ranger
Standards Too Low Says Former Ranger
National
Park Service Officers Reassigned To Homeland
Logging
In South 13 Times Greater, And Growing
Science
Sacked At Interior Department
Interior
Secretary Norton Facing Contempt Backs Down
Anthrax
Testing At National Park Service
Another
Sewage Spill In Yellowstone National Park
Republicans
Still Want To Drill In National Wildlife Refuge
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Saturday
December 1 , 2001
A More Natural Yosemite
AN EDITORIAL FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
As a rule, Congress should keep its nose out of the inner
workings of federal agencies. An exception is at hand. The
National Park Service needs to get on with the job of making
Yosemite Valley natural again--more of a national park and
less of an amusement park.
After 20 years of false starts, the Park Service adopted in
2000 an excellent plan to begin restoring the
one-by-seven-mile valley to a more natural state, as it was
before it was overrun by cars and suburbanized with
unnecessary buildings. The soaring rock faces of El Capitan
and Half Dome aren't quite so noble when viewed through the
veil of auto exhaust with cotton candy in hand.
The Park Service has the money, approved by Congress after
the 1997 flood that devastated parts of the valley. But the
projects, including the relocation and reconstruction of
campgrounds, have lagged. In approving an annual Park
Service money bill this fall, the House Interior Committee
directed the Park Service to begin implementation of the
valley plan and restoration in the wake of the flood damage.
The committee asked for a report on construction plans
within 60 days. It's rare for Congress to meddle in the
affairs of an individual park, but in this case the prodding
was appropriate. More delay would only give critics of the
plan--including nearby businesses and some local government
officials--a chance to argue for retreat from the strong
commitment to a more natural Yosemite.
The valley plan calls for the removal of several bridges and
dams on the Merced, the transfer of nonessential park
buildings to points outside the valley and improvement of
the valley shuttle system. People walking to the base of
Yosemite Falls will no longer have to dodge traffic on
Northside Drive and hike through a parking lot full of
smoke-belching buses. Major campgrounds will be moved away
from the Merced, allowing the banks to recover. Several
stretches of road and hundreds of parking spaces will be
eliminated. Meadows will be restored. Shuttle buses will run
more frequently and be less polluting.
Naturalist John Muir, who did so much to popularize the
place, wrote, "No temple made with hands can compare
with Yosemite." With the planned work, the valley will
be even more natural than in Muir's day, when livestock
grazed the valley floor not far from a sawmill. Once again,
it will be a place of awesome beauty for recharging the
spirit, for repose, for wonder, for humility.
READ THE
WHOLE STORY:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-000095582dec01.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Deditorials
Monday
November 28 , 2000
Florida
Senator Graham Keeps Heat on Everglades National Park Plan
By
Rafael Lorente
Washington
Bureau
WASHINGTON ·
Sen. Bob Graham said on Tuesday he would continue his hold
on a Bush administration appointment until the Department of
Interior presents him with a detailed plan for Everglades
restoration.
Graham, D-Fla., met with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and
top aides for half an hour on Tuesday, almost three weeks
after placing a hold on Steve Williams, a Kansan chosen by
President Bush to be director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. Graham's hold is a parliamentary move that allows
individual senators to delay a full vote on appointments
indefinitely.
READ THE WHOLE STORY:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-adavis28nov28.story?coll=sfla%2Dnews%2Dsfla
Wednesday,
November 28, 2000
Former
park ranger: Standards too low for Park Service duty
CODY, Wyo. (AP) - Standards for national park rangers have
been diluted over the years, resulting in decisions based on
emotion rather than science, a former ranger charged.
"Now we have senior managers with no resource
background hiring people with no qualifications," said
Bob Cunningham, a 27-year Park Service veteran who retired
to Cody in 1994.
Cunningham said that when he entered the agency in 1967,
rangers were required to pass a federal intelligence exam,
own a college degree in a natural or cultural science and
interview with a superintendent.
Managers in Washington, D.C., made the final selections.
After being hired, rangers trained 12 weeks at an academy
near the Grand Canyon and underwent nine more months of
training on the job.
Since then, college requirements and training have been
reduced and the entrance test and interviews dropped.
Dilution of ranger standards is the greatest threat to
the parks, he said. The new rangers lack appropriate
academic background and familiarity with Park Service
traditions, he said.
"They're all nice people, but it's no way to run an
operation."
READ
THE WHOLE ARTICLE:
http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/WYO/27RangerStandards.html
Monday
November 26, 2001
National
Park Service Officers Reassigned to 'Homeland'
USA TODAY
Several
hundred federal law enforcement agents who normally protect
national parks, wildlife and public rangelands have been
temporarily assigned to homeland-security duties. They are
working as sky marshals aboard commercial aircraft,
protecting the Liberty Bell and other landmarks, and
guarding dams.
The
reassignments are causing some staffing problems at
land-management agencies such as the National Park Service,
whose ranks are thin to begin with, federal officials say.
More than 200 of the Park Service's approximately 1,500 law
enforcement agents are assigned to homeland-security
details. Other agencies contributing personnel are the
Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and
the Fish and Wildlife Service.
"A
lot of these agencies, especially the Park Service, were
short-staffed to begin with,'' Interior Department spokesman
Frank Quimby says. 'It obviously doesn't improve their
situation, but in a sense, this may help bring attention to
the needs of these agencies.'
To
help fill the gaps, the Park Service has been given
authority to rehire seasonal rangers who normally work only
during the busiest summer months.
Interior
employees serving as air marshals will be on reassignment
for periods up to 6 months, while those protecting dams and
other federal facilities are on rotations of a week or two.
'Everyone is looking at this as a temporary solution until
there is a permanent
force in place,' Park Service spokeswoman Elaine Sevy says.
Monday,
November 26, 2001
Logging
in South 13 Times Greater than Logging on All National
Forests Nationwide
From
The Dogwood Alliance
GA- Forest lands across the
Southern United States are being severely over-logged to
make paper, putting the environment and local economies at
risk according to a new report released today by the Dogwood
Alliance. The report was timed to be released just as the
results of a two-year multi-agency federal study assessing
southern forest sustainability are announced. While the
federal study points to "sprawl" as a contributing
factor to the forest loss, environmentalists assert that
many of the same timber companies, specifically
International Paper, responsible for cutting southern
forests for paper are also some of the largest developers in
the South. Based on official US Forest Service data, the
report documents accelerated paper production, unsustainable
logging rates, weak environmental standards and poor forest
management practices. Intact Southern forests, considered by
the World Wildlife Fund to be some of the most biologically diverse in the world, are necessary for clean air, clean
water, and wildlife habitat critical for hunting and
fishing.
The
South produces approximately 77% of the nation's pulp wood,
although it contains only 40% of the nation's forests,
according to the US Forest Service. Based on US Forest
Service data, 5 million acres are cut per year on both
public and priate land in the region, while 400,000 acres
are cut on all National Forests, nationwide. According to
the report, 85% percent of the paper market is controlled by
companies who claim to be practicing sustainable forestry
under the "Sustainable Forestry Initiative" - a
timber industry certification program. Yet, removals of
pines currently exceed growth throughout the South and
experts predict a similar fate for hardwoods within the
decade due to their expanded use in the manufacture of
paper. International Paper is the largest paper producer in
the region.
READ THE WHOLE STORY:
http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?id=5663
Sunday
November 25, 2001
The Sacking of Science at Interior
By
JAMIE RAPPAPORT CLARK
Jamie Rappaport Clark, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
director in the Clinton administration, is senior vice
president for conservation programs at the National Wildlife
Federation
WASHINGTON -- At her Senate
confirmation hearing, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton
swore that she would use "the best scientific
evidence" in making decisions as the steward of the
nation's wildlife and wild places. But a disturbing pattern
is undermining the secretary's credibility.
Among the most flagrant examples was how she handled a
request for information from Sen. Frank H. Murkowski
(R-Alaska). The senator had asked Norton several questions
about the proposed opening of the "1002 Area," or
coastal plain, of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
development. Appropriately, Norton turned to her
professional staff at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
which manages the Arctic refuge, to prepare written
responses, based on the best scientific evidence, to his
questions. Then she wrote the senator.
But Norton's letter did not faithfully report her staff's
findings. In referring to the 130,000-strong Porcupine
caribou herd that has become a symbol of the refuge,
Norton's letter said that "concentrated calving
occurred primarily outside the 1002 Area in 11 of the past
18 years." Flat wrong. As her staff told her, there
have been "calving concentrations within the 1002 Area
for 27 out of the last 30 years." Norton went on to
inform Murkowski, then chairman of the Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources, that "data do not support the
hypothesis that oil fields adversely affect caribou
productivity." Her answer ignored the evidence supplied
by her own staff. That evidence shows that reproductive
pauses--the years in which females do not produce
calves--are longer in areas around oil development in
Prudhoe Bay, just west of the Arctic refuge, than in
undisturbed areas.
READ THE WHOLE STORY:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000093972nov25.story
Saturday,
November 25, 2001
Facing
Contempt, Interior Secretary Norton Pledges to Reform Tribal
Fund
By
ROBERT L. JACKSON
LOS ANGELES TIMES STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON -- As she undertakes to
clean up the long-troubled Indian trust fund system,
Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton is promising the broadest
consultation possible with representatives of Native
Americans and other interested parties.
Native Americans have repeatedly complained of being kept in
the dark about the government's mismanagement of the
multibillion-dollar trust fund, which is supposed to benefit
about 300,000 tribal members. The fund was set up more than
100 years ago to hold and distribute fees from oil, grazing,
drilling and logging leases on tribal members' lands--and it
has been plagued by problems from its inception.
"We must tap into the broad knowledge and experience
available from these groups in order to fashion the best
organizational structure possible," Norton said in new
court papers filed in a five-year-old lawsuit brought by
Native Americans. Neither side in the case can say for sure
how much is in the trust fund, which is supposed to receive
about $500 million each year. The government has
acknowledged that its records are in such disarray that it
cannot track how much money is in the account. Native
Americans are claiming that they are owed $10 billion; the
government puts the figure in the hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Under pressure from U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth,
who has been hearing the case, Norton announced earlier this
month that she was creating an office to focus solely on
straightening out the trust fund's problems, headed by
former Interior Department official Ross Swimmer.
Keith Harper, a lawyer for the Native American Rights Fund,
expressed skepticism Friday at Norton's pledge of
consultation.
"It's very clear that up to now she hasn't consulted
with the tribes, and the reorganization is a done
deal," he said. "The people at Interior seem to be
talking out of two sides of their mouth. The secretary makes
political decisions, which are not necessarily in the best
interests of the tribes."
READ THE WHOLE STORY
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000093810nov24.story
Monday,
November 19, 2000
ANTHRAX
TESTING AT NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
by
National Park Service
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, D.C. (NPS) -- Environmental
testing of all Department of Interior mail facilities has
been completed. According to the Centers for Disease Control
approved lab which analyzed the samples taken from all
Washington metropolitan area DOI mailroom facilities three
weeks ago, all of the samples tested negative for the
presence of anthrax.
Please note, however, that the NPS
Washington Office is still not receiving any mail and has
not since October 19th. Currently only FedEx mail is getting
through. There is no estimated date yet for when regular
mail service will resume.
Saturday,
November 17, 2001
ANOTHER
SEWAGE SPILL IN HISTORIC YELLOWSTONE
NPS MORNING REPORT:
On Saturday, November 17th, a sewage
spill was discovered in the Lake Lodge area near Yellowstone
Lake. Park staff estimate that between 50,000 and 250,0000
gallons of sewage bypassed the Lake Lodge lift station and
entered an old septic tank and infiltration ditch. The
partially treated sewage that did not soak into the
infiltration ditch soaked through vegetation and entered a
natural lagoon next to Yellowstone Lake. The lagoon is
connected to the lake, but it appears likely that all of the
flow was contained in the lagoon and that no partially
treated sewage actually reached the lake. The sewage in the
overflow system was apparently caused by grease that
partially blocked the sewage in a manhole that goes into the
lift station. The portion that did not go into the lift
station went into the overflow pipe. The
sewage system in this area is under construction to correct
infiltration into the system, and the manhole serving the
lift station was recently replaced. During the replacement
of the manhole, the piping was incorrectly routed to the old
overflow system instead of three newer overflow tanks. The
overflow pipe has now been completely disconnected from the
system; the new overflow tanks, with an overflow alarm, have
been connected to the system. The incident has been reported
to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. [Public
Affairs, YELL, 11/26]
Thursday,
November 15, 2001
Republicans
To Push Oil Drilling In Stimulus Bill
By Tom Doggett, Reuters
WASHINGTON - Republicans
launched a new campaign Wednesday to open an Alaskan
wilderness to oil drilling by attaching an energy measure to
a crucial economic stimulus package before the Senate.
The
fate of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a pristine
wilderness in northern Alaska, has been a long-running fight
between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.
Republicans
say the the refuge could yield billions of barrels of crude
oil that would reduce U.S. dependence on imports. Democrats
contend the wilderness area should not be sacrificed because
huge amounts of oil could be saved with stricter fuel
efficiency standards.
Republicans
will try to amend the $66 billion stimulus measure by
attaching part of the broad energy bill passed by the House
in August. The House legislation would offer incentives to
boost U.S. oil, natural gas, and coal production as well as
opening the refuge to drilling.
Sen.
Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, said he formally filed on
Wednesday a stripped-down version of the House energy bill
as an amendment to the economic stimulus legislation.
The
Senate began debate this week on whether the economic
package should include extra unemployment benefits and
subsidized health insurance for laid-off workers or focus
mostly on business tax cuts to help the sluggish U.S.
economy.
"We
will debate energy on the stimulus package,'' Craig told
reporters on Capitol Hill. "Who determines the price of
gasoline in America today? Foreigners from outside our
country,'' he added.
WHITE
HOUSE SUPPORT
The
White House signaled its support for the Republican action.
Vice
President Dick Cheney urged the Senate to include the energy
bill in the economic stimulus package. "It (the
stimulus bill) ought to be coupled, as well, with a good
energy program,'' Cheney said in a speech at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
Cheney
said it would be "foolish in the extreme'' for the
United States not to boost its oil production. "We're
dependent upon a somewhat fragile, uncertain part of the
world for a big part of our oil imports,'' Cheney said.
READ THE WHOLE STORY:
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/11/11152001/reu_45591.asp
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