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Harvesting forests' energy: Forest Guild report provides case studies
on 45 biomass projects across the United States
Nov. 6, 2008
- Colorado, USFS announces plans to tackle beetle-killed forests
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and state lawmakers are working on legislation that would allocate $5.5 million for a variety of forest programs, including fuels-reduction projects near communities, and a U.S. Forest Service official said that agency intends to spend tens of millions of dollars in the state to treat forests decimated by pine-bark beetle infestations.
Denver Post; Nov. 13
Fact
& Fiction and the Bookstore
at the University of Montana offer a review of Fred Pearce's "Confessions of an Eco-sinner: Tracking down the sources of my stuff
Nov. 7, 2008
Nov. 14-15: Northern Plains Resource Council annual meeting, Billings, Mont.
Nov. 20.: New Mexico Forestry and Climate Change Workshop, Albuquerque, N.M. Read a preview.
Across the West's drilled lands, reclamation efforts vary
New Mexico's San Juan and Permian basins, Wyoming's Powder River Basin and the Piceance in Colorado are the West's most productive fossil fuel basins, and they share another distinction: their fragile lands are the most difficult to reclaim and efforts to do so vary from state to state and from agency to agency.
High Country News; 11/10/2008
Montana luxury homes on the market at discount rates
Prices for lakefront mansions and mountaintop lodges in Montana have dropped 20 to 30 percent to prices last seen in early 2000.
Missoulian; 11/10/2008
Opponents of Nevada nuclear-waste repository see opening
Critics of the federal government's effort to create a national nuclear waste repository in Nevada's Yucca Mountain are hoping President-elect Barack Obama makes good on a campaign promise to scuttle the project.
Las Vegas Review-Journal; 11/10/2008
Denver cancels e-waste recycling contract with Englewood firm
Denver officials said they ended their contract with Englewood-based Executive Recyling before a "60 Minutes" investigation found that a shipping container full of discarded electronic waste made its way from the Colorado company's facility to Hong Kong, in violation of an international treaty.
Denver Rocky Mountain News; 11/12/2008
Critics say $6.6M too much for Colorado city to pay for open space
Open space officials in Boulder want to spend $6.6 million to keep the 179-acre Shanahan Ranch on the south side of the Colorado city an operating ranch, but critics said the price is simply too high.
Boulder Daily Camera; 11/12/2008
Solix Biofuels to build algae-fuel plant on reservation in Colorado
Solix Biofuels, a spinoff company formed in 2006 from Colorado State University research, announced plans to open an algae fuel plant on Southern Ute land in southwestern Colorado to produce oil feedstock that can be refined into diesel fuel.
Durango Herald; 11/12/2008
GAO: Obama should make Indian Trust Fund reform a priority
The Government Accountability Office has made two recommendations for the Interior Department's reform of its Indian Trust Fund: Provide Congress with a timetable for such reform and develop a plan that details staff and financial needs once needed changes are in place.
Missoulian; 11/12/2008
Joint commission approves Colorado tribe's air-quality rules
The Southern Ute Indian Tribe/State of Colorado Environmental Commission approved the Southern Ute's air-quality code at a meeting on Tuesday.
Durango Herald; 11/13/2008
Park Service questions BLM's change in process in Utah plans
The Bureau of Land Management shared its original lease proposals for tracts of Utah with the National Park Service earlier this fall, but the maps the BLM released on Election Day contained additional tracts close to Arches National Park and Dinosaur National Monument and within eyeshot of Canyonlands National Park, and Park Service officials said the agency wasn't given its usual opportunity to comment on the BLM's plans.
New York Times; 11/08/2008
- Moab mayor says BLM's Utah lease sale endangers water supply
The Bureau of Land Management's Dec. 19 auction of energy leases in Utah contains a 600-acre parcel in Grand County just beyond Moab's city limits, and atop the 10,000-acre aquifer from which the city and county draws their drinking water, posing what Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison said is an unacceptable risk to the aquifer and Sakrison wants the parcel pulled off the auction.
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/14/2008
USFS releases proposed travel plan for Colorado's White River Forest
The U.S. Forest Service released its supplemental draft environmental impact statement for the White River National Forest in Colorado on Thursday, with its preferred option limiting motorized travel on 150 miles of roads, adding 280 miles of trails created by motorized users and ending unlicensed motorized use on 500 miles of trails.
Farmington Daily Times (AP); 11/14/2008
USFS analysis of Colorado roadless plan lays out areas of risk
According to the U.S. Forest Service's draft environmental impact statement on the proposed management plan for Colorado's 4.1 million acres of federal roadless lands, the plan puts wildlife at higher risk in 118 of the 345 roadless areas in the state, and natural fisheries in 44 areas could also be put at higher risk.
Denver Post; 11/10/2008
B.C. tests forests, soils to learn extent of arsenic contamination
Beginning in the mid-1980s and ending in 2004, monosodium methanearsenate, a pine-beetle insecticide that contains arsenic, was used on wide swaths of forests in British Columbia, and now the Canadian province has begun testing treated and untreated trees, as well as soils in the areas, to determine current arsenic levels.
Vancouver Sun; 11/13/2008
Nevada lawmaker seeks wilderness designation for Gold Butte
Nevada U.S. Rep. Jon Porter shopped legislation around the rural communities near Gold Butte that would have created a 360,000-acre conservation area including 220,000 acres of strictly protected wilderness in southeastern Nevada, but dropped the measure when the Bunkerville town advisory council opposed it, and now U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley is supporting similar legislation.
Las Vegas Sun; 11/13/2008
Alberta bans weed-and-feed lawn products
Alberta Environment Department officials said the chemical 2, 4-D used in popular granular weed-and-feed lawn products is contaminating the province's waterways and imposed a ban on the products effective Jan. 1, 2010.
Edmonton Journal; 11/14/2008
Oilshale development in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado can wait
The Bush administration's push to get rules in place by the end of the year for development of oilshale deposits in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado is unnecessary, potentially dangerous and puts water resources in those states at risk, and with so much to lose, a measured approach is not only recommended but mandatory.
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/12/2008
GAO study on wild horses is right on the money
A study by the Government Accountability Office that found the Bureau of Land Management can no longer afford to keep tens of thousands of wild horses and burros locked up in holding facilities is correct, and Congress should immediately mandate the BLM to sell or euthanize those animals, which is surely more compassionate than forcing them to spend years in crowded captivity.
Grand Junction Sentinel; 11/12/2008
NRA wastes its members' money on fear mongering
The National Rifle Association has shifted from focusing on hunting and habitat to political pandering to the Far Right, and squandering a great deal of its members' money on misguided campaigns against the federal government. A guest column by Pat Williams, senior fellow at the University of Montana's O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West of which Headwaters News is a program.
Pat Williams, Center for the Rocky Mountain West; 11/12/2008
Congress should pass Wyoming public-lands bills yet this year
Wyoming Sens. John Barrasso and Mike Enzi should do what they can to get the Wyoming Legacy Act and the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act through the lame-duck session of Congress that begins Monday.
Casper Star-Tribune; 11/13/2008
National property rights groups wrangle over Idaho wilderness bill
The American Land Rights Association sent out an alert on Monday calling Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo's Owyhee Canyonlands bill a "land grab," a position another group, Stewards of the Range, called "not right or truthful."
Idaho Statesman; 11/12/2008
Montana senator pushes for health-care reform early next year
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus laid out key provisions of his plan to reform the nation's health-care system on Wednesday, and the Montana Democrat said he would push to get the legislation passed early in 2009.
Missoulian; 11/13/2008
Montana, Wyoming among 9 states not facing budget shortfalls
States and cities across the nation are feeling the current economic pinch, with most facing budget shortfalls, although Wyoming, Montana and Alaska are not among the 41 states with cash deficits.
Christian Science Monitor; 11/14/2008
Colorado House Democrats name Gunnison lawmker speaker pro tem
Colorado Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, was named speaker pro tem of the House Democrats in an effort to appeal to rural voters in the state.
Denver Post; 11/12/2008
Montana GOP senators pick Story to lead state Senate
Republican Sen. Bob Story of Park City will lead the Montana Senate, and GOP lawmakers picked Buffalo Sen. Jim Peterson as Senate majority leader on Wednesday.
Missoulian; 11/13/2008
Montana House lawmakers pick party leaders
The Montana House is evenly split between Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and on Wednesday, House Democrats selected Havre Rep. Bob Bergren to be speaker, and House Republicans selected the current Speaker, Bozeman Rep. Scott Sales, to be their leader.
Missoulian; 11/13/2008
Utah lawmakers opt for new leadership in Senate, House
Utah Senate Republicans selected new leaders on Friday, as did the Democrats, putting new blood in the top spots for both parties.
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/08/2008
Utah House Democrats name SLC lawmaker as minority leader
Salt Lake City Rep. David Litvack was elected minority leader by Utah House Democrats at a meeting Thursday night.
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/14/2008
Questar to shift natural-gas capital spending away from West
The energy industry scored a victory in Colorado this past election, with the defeat of an initiative that would have removed a property tax credit for the industry, but Questar officials said the company will still shift its capital expenditures away from the Rocky Mountain West because the area is still producing natural gas beyond the region's capacity to carry it to market, reducing the price of the gas.
Casper Star-Tribune; 11/10/2008
Economy stalls Australian company's plans for Colorado diamond mine
Australia-based DiamonEx told Larimer County officials that it would postpone its plans to ask the Colorado county for a drilling permit to explore for diamonds on the Sloan Ranch, due to "current market conditions."
Denver Post; 11/12/2008
Eclipse Aviation can't make payroll for 1,400 N.M. workers
Eclipse Aviation told its workers at its Albuquerque facility on Thursday that the jet maker could not make its payroll, but that its cashflow problems were temporary, a position echoed by the New Mexico State Investment Council, which has a $19-million equity stake in the company.
Santa Fe New Mexican (AP); 11/14/2008
Micron, HP plan holiday furloughs for Idaho workers
Micron is asking its workers worldwide, including those in Idaho, to take 12 days off in December and January, and Hewlett-Packard announced it was closing down its offices across the nation, including its Boise plant, from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3 to save money.
Idaho Statesman; 11/14/2008
Semitool lays off workers at Montana plants
Semitool Inc. is the third-largest employer in Montana's Flathead County, and on Monday, the manufacturer of wafer processing equipment for the semiconductor industry announced it was laying off about 100 workers at its plants in Libby and Kalispell.
Kalispell Daily Inter Lake; 11/11/2008
N.M. company creates 'growstones' out of recycled glass
Santa Fe-based Earthstone has been churning out products from cycled glass for years, and now the New Mexico company is working on "growstones" that absorb water around plants and hold it until it is needed by the plants.
Santa Fe New Mexican; 11/09/2008
Political, policy changes alter Northwest salmon debate
The election of Idaho Republican Sen.-elect Jim Risch and Oregon Democrat Sen.-elect Jeff Merkley, both of whom have said they support a collaborative management plan for the Columbia and Snake rivers, and the Bush administration's announced support of the removal of four dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California, will significantly change the salmon debate in the Northwest. An analysis.
Idaho Statesman; 11/14/2008
- Agreement reached on removing 4 dams on Klamath River
U.S. Department of Interior officials, PacifiCorp executives and the governors of Oregon and California are expected to sign a nonbinding agreement today that will provide a roadmap for turning over four dams on the Klamath River to a nonfederal entity and begin removal of those dams by 2020.
Portland Oregonian; 11/13/2008
Report: Nation's energy grid needs update to handle solar, wind energy
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the entity authorized by the federal government to ensure the nation's power grid provides smooth, uninterrupted electrical service, will release a report today that says unless needed updates are made to the nation's electrical grid, mandates passed by states requiring a certain percentage of power be produced by renewable resources could cause interruptions in service.
New York Times; 11/10/2008
USGS: Alaska's N. Slope holds 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
A study to be released today by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Alaska's North Slope holds one of the nation's largest deposits of gas hydrates that contains enough recoverable natural gas to heat 100 million average homes for a decade.
Washington Post; 11/12/2008
Advisers press EPA to reconsider perchlorate decision
Scientific advisers to the federal Environmental Protection Agency are urging the agency reconsider its October decision not to regulate perchlorate, a chemical in rocket fuel that is present in the water in 35 states.
Washington Post; 11/14/2008
EPA appeals board orders new review of Utah coal-fired power plant
Utah air-quality officials said Thursday's decision by the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board appeared to direct the EPA to find a better reason for not regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants or set a nationwide policy on regulating such emissions, and Utah officials said if the EPA decides to regulate such emissions, three projects in Utah could be affected.
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/14/2008
EPA board's decision could affect Montana coal-fired plant
Montana groups said a decision issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board that ordered the EPA to consider whether the Clean Air Act requires the agency to limit carbon-dioxide emissions has implications for the Highwood Generating Station under development in Great Falls, but the attorney for Southern Montana Generation & Transmission Cooperative, the company that is developing the plant, disputed that contention.
Great Falls Tribune; 11/14/2008
Montana issues PM2.5 air permit for proposed coal-fired power plant
The modified air-quality permit issued by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for the proposed Highwood Generating Station near Great Falls may be the first such permit in the nation that addresses particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller.
Great Falls Tribune; 11/11/2008
Montana board OKs NorthWestern Energy purchase of coal-fired plant
The Montana Public Service Commission approved NorthWestern Energy's purchase of the coal-fired Colstrip 4 power plant in eastern Montana on Thursday, basing the approval of the plan on the premise that it will provide a stable cost of power.
Billings Gazette (AP); 11/14/2008
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