“They’re not vermin,
they’re not predators to be shot on sight, and they’re
not spiritual beings.”
—Carolyn Sime, wolf coordinator for Montana’s
Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, on Montana’s plan to
manage its approximately 300 wolves once the gray wolf is removed
from the endangered species list.
With
President Bush hoping to up the Pentagon budget by almost $25
billion without raising taxes, something’s gotta give
somewhere. It looks as if the nation’s forests will be one of
the big losers.
As he bid adieu in January to the agency
he’s headed for the past six years, retiring Forest Service
Chief Dale Bosworth delivered some grim news: The Forest
Service must cut its costs by 25 percent over the next three
years. In a memo on “Forest Service
Realignment,” Bosworth says that the agency will
“leverage attrition” to cut costs, and “voluntary
transfers, directed reassignments, and the use of other human
resource tools will be necessary.”
In Montana, the
Helena National Forest has already responded to Bosworth’s
memo by “realigning” the jobs of some 85 employees;
about half will have to reapply for their old jobs, and a handful
will lose their jobs altogether.
Downsizing isn’t
just for employees. Campgrounds and other recreational
facilities could also get the ax as part of the
agency’s Recreational Site Facility Master Planning process.
Facilities that aren’t financially sustainable or fail to
meet other criteria could be closed. Critics have bashed the
process, in part because of a lack of opportunity for public
involvement. So Bosworth, as one of his final acts in office,
announced in January that the process will be changed to consider
citizen input.
The feds also stand to save
hundreds of millions of dollars by not renewing a program that
compensates state and local governments for lost timber
money. Before the Rural Schools and Community Self
Determination Act expired last year, the Bush administration
proposed keeping it alive by selling off public land. That notion
was shot down (though revived in the administration’s latest
budget proposal). Now, the program’s future is in doubt, and
state, county and school budgets will feel the pain — Oregon,
for example, receives $149 million per year from the program.
Western congressmen are scrambling for funding, but have so far had
no luck. County governments in timber states are preparing for the
worst, warning that without the funding, some 15,000 public
employees could lose their jobs.
Local governments will
take another hit if the Agriculture Department’s Inspector
General Phyllis Fong gets her way. In 2006, the Forest Service
spent nearly $2 billion — or 40 percent of its total budget
— fighting wildfires. A big chunk of that was spent
protecting homes built in or at the edge of the woods.
Since local governments regulate development, they should
be the ones paying for increased fire fighting costs in the
“wildland-urban interface,” Fong says.
Fong’s suggestion hasn’t led to any concrete proposals,
and the Forest Service is asking for a 23 percent increase in its
firefighting budget for 2008.
The feds can cover
some costs by charging folks to use public lands. In
January, a ruling by District Court Judge John Roll confirmed the
government’s authority to charge fees for parking and hiking
on public land. Roll’s rule overturned a September decision
by federal Magistrate Charles Pyle, which let Chris Wallace, of
Tucson, Ariz., off the hook for refusing to pay to hike at nearby
Mount Lemmon recreation area. Wallace could still appeal
Roll’s ruling.
Just about everyone’s taking a
hit from these budget cuts, it seems. Except ranchers, that is.
Grazing fees on public land will drop by 13 percent this
year.
Also in news of the West
…
A wilder, freer Klamath may
turn out to be more than just some hippie pipe dream, thanks to a
recent Bush administration order. In late January, the
feds told PacifiCorp, the owner of four hydroelectric dams on the
river, to add salmon bypass routes to the dams. But the estimated
$300 million price tag could make it cheaper for PacifiCorp to just
knock the dams down and replace the power with other sources. If
that happened, biologists say, it could restore the Klamath’s
salmon run, once the third largest in the West. Poor water quality,
disease and low river flows have reduced salmon numbers to less
than 5 percent of their historical abundance.
ET come West
85: Alien bodies allegedly discovered
in the United States between 1947 and 1989, ALIENSTHETRUTH.COM
68: Percent of those bodies found in the West (New Mexico, Arizona,
Nevada and Montana), ALIENSTHETRUTH.COM
30: Percent of the bodies discovered in
New Mexico, ALIENSTHETRUTH.COM
44: Reported alien abductions
nationwide, IWASABDUCTED.COM
3: UFO festivals in the West
International UFO, MUSEUM AND RESEARCH CENTER
1,300: Unidentified aerial phenomena
sightings by pilots and crews from 1916 to 2000, UFOEVIDENCE.ORG
12,579: UFO
sightings in the West from the 1940s to 2006, NATL. UFO
REPORTING CENTER
40: Percent
of those sightings in California, NATL. UFO REPORTING
CENTER
122: UFO sightings in
Wyoming, NATL. UFO REPORTING CENTER
2,413: UFO sightings in Washington, NATL. UFO REPORTING CENTER
206-722-3000: UFO Report Hotline. Call
only if the sighting has been within a week; otherwise, submit your
report online or by mail. NATL. UFO REPORTING CENTER
—Research by Michelle
Blank
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Two weeks in the West.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
