Mojave Tortoise Doesn't Need Hunting Limits

By Travis Sanford
Courthouse News Service

WASHINGTON (CN) - The National Park Service does not have to protect desert tortoises with special hunting rules in the Mojave National Preserve, a federal judge ruled.

Finding that the agency took the requisite "hard look" at the how a lack of special hunting regulations would impact the species, U.S. District Judge Hellen Huvelle said its decision was not arbitrary or capricious and dismissed the suit filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

The Mojave population of desert tortoises has been protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act since 1995. Hunting or intentional interference with the species is prohibited in its designated critical habitat and on federal lands.

PEER said that the restrictions were necessary to protect the tortoises from the impact of hunting other species in the preserve, which allegedly increased the chances that tortoises would be crushed by cars, startled by gun fire or accidentally shot. The group further argued that the small-game hunting reduced the aesthetic experience of observing tortoises in their natural habitat.

When the Park Service developed its original management plant to protect tortoises in the 1.6 million acre preserve, it included a moratorium during the tortoises' most active period between March and September on any hunting besides big game.

Though the federal law that created the Mojave Preserve requires buy in from the California Department of Fish and Game, the department declined to adopt the moratorium and the Park Service implemented the management plan without it.

PEER petitioned the service in June of 2002 to reinstate the originally proposed hunting restrictions. The Park Service finally denied the petition in October 2010, leading PEER filed suit for an unreasonable eight-year delay.

The service recognized that it had changed its position on the hunting regulations but argued that no evidence had emerged to show that the tortoises had been harmed by small-game hunting in the preserve in the years since the threatened listing.

It also said that the original recommendations were based on inferences made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the potential impact of hunting rather than on any scientific studies specific to the tortoises in the preserve.

Appealing the denial of its petition, PEERS moved for summary judgment to implement the restrictions. It claimed that the service's decision constituted an arbitrary and capricious decision in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and the National Environmental Protection Act.

Huvelle dismissed both claims, however, saying that the PEER suit rested on the assumption that the Park Service's previous inclusion of hunting restrictions in the original management plan showed that it believed the environmental impact of hunting was indeed significant.

"However, the portions cited do not demonstrate that NPS [the National Park Service] in fact found significant environmental impacts, as plaintiff contends, but rather reflect defendants' policy judgment in response to inconclusive data," Huvelle wrote, referring to PEER's citation of the original management plan.

"The problem is that, in 1994, there was little evidence that small game hunting was in fact a significant threat to tortoise mortality and, today, despite efforts to improve monitoring and survey techniques, there is still a paucity of data showing that small game hunting impacts desert tortoises," she added.

Park Service made a "reasoned" response to PEER's petition, consulting extensive records consulted on the maiming or injury of every tortoise in the preserve, the court found.

"Ultimately, the record shows that defendants have satisfied their burden; they have taken a 'hard look' at the impact of not enacting the special hunting regulations and have made a determination, which is supported by the record, that this decision will not have a significant environmental impact," Huvelle wrote.

Cross shows up mysteriously, but briefly, on Mojave rock

By Henry Brean
Las Vegas Review-Journal


Mojave National Preserve - A white cross rose again this week over Sunrise Rock in California's Mojave National Preserve, briefly resurrecting a constitutional controversy over religious symbols on federal land.

It's unclear who put up the new cross, made of plastic pipe, or when, but the National Park Service removed it Tuesday from the rock 75 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Linda Slater, spokeswoman for the preserve, said park personnel had no choice but to take it down.

"We're under a court order prohibiting us from displaying a cross at Sunrise Rock," she said.

The legal fight dates back a decade now. The original cross goes back considerably further than that -- clear back to 1934, when a group of World War I veterans mounted a welded steel symbol atop Sunrise Rock as a memorial to fallen soldiers.

For decades, it served as a site for Easter Sunday services and the occasional veterans event. A handful of volunteers maintained -- and occasionally replaced -- the cross, which was damaged from time to time by vandals and the desert wind.

The Mojave Memorial Cross, as it came to be known, was still there in 1994 when the federal government declared the 1.6 million acres surrounding it a national preserve.

And the cross was still there in 1997 when a retired park service employee lodged a complaint about it because he considered it a government endorsement of Christianity.

A pair of lawsuits ensued, and the cross was cast into darkness, spending several years covered by boards like a roadside sign with no writing on it.

One of the lawsuits made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where in a 5-4 decision last year the justices ruled the symbol could stay while a lower court reconsidered the case.

Two weeks later, the original cross was stolen by still-unidentified vandals.

It was replaced days later by a replica cross, but the service quickly removed that one because the Supreme Court ruling applied only to the original disputed cross.

Wyn Hornbuckle, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said the PVC pipe cross that showed up this week on Sunrise Rock was taken down for the same reason.

"The National Park Service removed the newly erected cross yesterday to comply with the court's existing injunction," he said in a statement.

Not everyone is satisfied with that answer.

Southern California resident William McDonald visits Mojave National Preserve several times a year and writes a blog about the desert under the name Morongo Bill.

He noticed the return of the cross on Monday and was watching from a distance as it was removed on Tuesday.

As far as he is concerned, this isn't about the separation of church and state; it's about the desecration of a war memorial that has been around for more than three quarters of a century.

"I'm a veteran, and I believe we don't know where we're going if we don't know where we've been," he said. "I feel so strongly about this (that) I think they should do an Occupy Sunrise Rock-type thing."

Hornbuckle said settlement talks are under way that could finally bring the legal fight over the cross to an end.

On Tuesday, the same day the latest replica cross was removed, a federal judge granted the parties involved in both lawsuits until Feb. 15 to hammer out a deal.

The most likely option is for the federal government to transfer ownership of Sunrise Rock to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in exchange for private land elsewhere in or around the preserve. Once the rock is in private hands, there would be nothing to prevent the placement of a memorial cross there.

As it now stands, erecting a cross or other religious symbol on Sunrise Rock is "technically illegal," Slater said.

Asked what would happen to the latest cross removed by the service, she said: "We'll put it in the evidence locker with the other one. What else would we do with it?"

Park Service Protests Big Solar Expansion in Nevada Desert

National Parks Will Suffer from Water Withdrawals, Pollution and Habitat Loss

PRESS RELEASE
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

Washington, DC - The National Park Service is sounding an alarm about plans for scores of big solar power plants in Southern Nevada, according to an inter-agency memo posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). NPS predicts harm to national parks in the region due to water scarcity, habitat disturbance, air pollution, sound pollution and light pollution lightening night skies.

The February 9, 2009 memo from NPS Pacific Regional Director Jon Jarvis to the Acting Nevada U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Amy Leuders details concerns about 63 utility-scale solar projects slated for BLM lands in southern Nevada. Jarvis cites potential negative impacts for Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Mojave National Preserve, and the Devils Hole section of Death Valley National Park.

Above all, Jarvis stressed the lack of water to operate the solar facilities:

"The NPS asserts that it is not in the public interest for BLM to approve plans of development for water-cooled solar energy projects in the arid basins of southern Nevada, some of which are already over-appropriated, where there may be no reasonable expectation of acquiring new water rights in some basins, and where transference of existing points of diversion may be heavily constrained for some basins."

"Except for the sun, there is little that will be 'green' about mega-solar plants in the desert," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that a key dilemma is that the places of greatest solar potential are also the most arid. "There is not enough water in the desert to run utility-scale water-cooled solar plants."

Concerns about the negative impacts of big solar facilities and the transmission corridors they require to deliver power to market has led U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) to propose the creation of a new national monument covering more than a half-million Mojave Desert acres to exclude BLM solar leases.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has promised to assemble a comprehensive energy plan that will presumably minimize these inter-agency conflicts. In February, Secretary Salazar suspended BLM oil and gas lease sales in Utah following protests from NPS about negative effects on nearby national parks.

"A comprehensive energy plan is needed but cannot depend solely on public lands," added Ruch. "America's deserts should not become national sacrifice zones for energy farms."

PEER is urging alternative approaches such as rooftop solar installations. Southern California has vast areas of open roofs that do not require huge new transmission corridors. In addition, there are large private lands, such as degraded cotton and alfalfa farms, that have little current ecological value. On public lands, BLM should limit "Big Solar" power-plants to desert areas that have already been despoiled, such as toxic waste sites and abandoned mines. Co-locating solar plants with already compromised lands not only minimizes loss of wild habitat but also reduces the maintenance burden on BLM of keeping these damaged lands in exclusion.

Constitutional Clash Over Defunct Land Exchange

Major Religious Establishment Case Rooted in Moot Mojave Cross Deal

Press Release
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

WASHINGTON - In a potentially far-reaching Establishment Clause case, the U.S. Supreme Court will examine a congressionally-mandated one-acre land exchange to an entity that no longer exists in order to maintain a large cross in the middle of a national park. The case, Buono v Salazar, illustrates that abusive federal land exchange practices may yield even worse constitutional law, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Western Lands Project.

The nearly eight-year case involves attempts by the Bush administration to prevent court-ordered removal of an-eight foot cross from the Mojave National Preserve. In 2003, after losing an appeal of a court-ordered removal of the cross, the Bush administration supported a rider by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), tacked onto the Defense appropriations bill, to trade the one federal acre with the Mojave Cross into private hands. The private party named by the rider is the Barstow chapter of the "Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post #385E". But that VFW Post's charter was revoked in May 2007 and declared "defunct" by the organization.

Nonetheless, the Bush Justice Department persisted in bringing the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, which accepted the case for its fall docket. The Justice Department is seeking to reverse U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court rulings that the land exchange was "a sham" and a transparent "attempt by the government to evade the permanent injunction enjoining the display of the Latin cross" on federal land.

"This land exchange is both bad policy and bad law," stated Chris Krupp, staff attorney for the Western Lands Project, which monitors federal land trades and other public land practices. "We would hope the Obama administration takes a step back to see whether the public interest is served by pursuing this case."

The Mojave Cross is but one of a series of instances in which the Bush administration supported displays of Christian symbols (such as bronze plaques of Bible verses) or materials (for example, a creationist book claiming that the Grand Canyon was the product of Noah's Flood 6,000 years ago) inside national parks.

"Not another penny of taxpayer money should be spent pursuing former Attorney General John Ashcroft's fundamentalist agenda," said PEER Executive Jeff Ruch, whose organization calls these Bush-backed religious efforts "Faith-Based Parks". "The underlying land exchange is a nullity and should not be the basis for this Supreme Court tipping the scales on separation of church and state."

Since a federal district court first ordered the removal of the Mojave Cross back in 2002, the cross has been covered by a shroud. In the ensuing years, the removal has been upheld in an unbroken string of decisions and appeals.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country.

Park official says science on canyon was ignored

Washington Post

Washington -- Interior Department officials ignored key scientific findings when they limited water flows in the Grand Canyon to optimize generation of electric power there, risking damage to the ecology of the spectacular landmark, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.

A Jan. 15 memo written by Grand Canyon National Park Supt. Steve Martin suggests that the department produced a flawed environmental assessment to defend its actions against environmentalists.

The Grand Canyon Trust, an advocacy group, has sued Interior for reducing the flow of water from Glen Canyon Dam at night, when consumer demand for electricity is low, on the grounds that the policy hurts imperiled fish species and erodes the canyon's beaches.

"The government's brief as presented continues to misinterpret key scientific findings related to the humpback chub, status of downstream resources in Grand Canyon, and the need for the secretary to acknowledge [National Park Service] authorities and responsibilities to protect resources under [National Park Service] administration," Martin wrote in a memo that the Post obtained from the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Mike Snyder, the park service's intermountain regional director, said Tuesday that he concurred with the superintendent's analysis and had tried to petition Interior's top officials to reexamine the Colorado water experiment.

The issue highlights what Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will face as he evaluates Bush administration rules.

Last Stand for the Mojave Cross?

Supreme Court Only Option to Stay Removal of Giant Cross after 9th Circuit Ruling

Press Release
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

WASHINGTON, DC - May 23 - The seven-year battle to force the National Park Service to remove a giant cross from the middle of the Mojave National Preserve is nearing an end, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected yet a fourth attempt by the Bush administration’s Justice Department to keep displaying the cross against claims that doing so violates First Amendment prohibitions against government endorsement of religion. The cross must now come down unless the Justice Department appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latest in an unbroken string of adverse rulings came on May 14, 2008 when the Ninth Circuit turned back a Justice Department petition to reconsider (rehear en banc) its September 2007 decision striking down a congressionally mandated land exchange to save the cross as a “a sham” and a transparent “attempt by the government to evade the permanent injunction enjoining the display of the Latin cross” on federal land. In its latest ruling, the appeal court reached an “undeniable conclusion that the government’s purpose in this case is to evade the injunction to keep the cross in place…”

This decision found improper an act of Congress that mandated an exchange that would convey one acre of federal land inside the Preserve containing the “the Mojave Cross National Memorial” into private hands. This exchange provision was added by Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) to the 2003 Defense Appropriations Act. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the purpose of the land exchange was to preserve the cross, the presence of which on national park land violates the First Amendment:

“…carving out a tiny parcel of property in the midst of this vast Preserve – like a donut hole with the cross atop of it – will do nothing to minimize the impermissible government endorsement.”

In 1998, the current eight-foot metal cross was bolted onto rocks on a rise in the Preserve. In 1999, prompted by a demand from the ACLU of Southern California, former NPS Superintendent Mary Martin met with the private person responsible for the cross and asked if he would remove it. He refused and defiantly vowed to put the cross back if removed. Taking “no” for an answer, Ms. Martin acquiesced. At the same time Ms. Martin denied a request from another party to install a Buddhist stupa (domed shrine) at the cross site, threatening the individual with citation or arrest if he attempted to place a stupa on park land. For the District and Circuit Courts, there was no question of unconstitutional conduct, in part, because the NPS restricted the site to symbols of only one religion.

“The Bush administration and its congressional allies have tried every contortion to safeguard this undeniably Christian symbol and, in so doing, tarnish our constitution,” stated PEER Board member Frank Buono, the former deputy superintendent of Mojave National Preserve who brought the suit, noting that the legal arguments marshaled by the government could have undermined Park Service authority over private lands inside parks. “It is time for the Justice Department to stop this inane crusade.”

The Mojave Cross is one of several instances in which the Bush administration has pushed Christian displays and creationist interpretations in national park facilities – an effort PEER calls “Faith-Based Parks.”

Some desert areas left out of protection plan

Jay Calderon, The Desert Sun
Snow covers the San Jacinto mountains overlooking the valley's windmills. The mountains are in the area that would be protected.

Diana Marrero
Desert Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Nearly 7 million acres of California desert would not receive federal protection under a proposal to protect 26 million acres of national monuments, historic trails and wilderness areas that dot the West.

The unprotected land constitutes about two-thirds of the 10.6 million-acre California Desert Conservation area, which runs from the Mexican border to Mono Lake up north.

Although the entire swath is now considered part of the National Landscape Conservation System, a large chunk would no longer receive that designation under the bill.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, has been a strong proponent of the bill, which would officially recognize as conservation lands millions of acres across the West, including the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains.

The mountains, considered national monuments, would still receive protection under the bill, but a large part of the California desert near the mountains would not because the lands don't have a "national" label.

The congressional designation for the system - it only has administrative approval now - would ensure a more constant source of funding for those lands, much like the national parks, conservation experts say.

"It's a matter of, 'Is the glass half empty or is it half full?'" said Bono Mack, a co-sponsor of the bill. "At this point in time, I want a bill that will move and that will pass and get signed by the president."

The move to take a large part of the California conservation area out of the system could be the result of opposition from utility companies, off-road vehicle drivers and mining interests, said Daniel Patterson, an ecologist and director of the southwest office of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which advocates for federal employees.

"We're not sure why Congresswoman Bono is trying to pursue an anti-conservation position on a very important issue in her district," said Patterson, who argues the bill means the California conservation area will be denied any additional funding that goes to lands in the national system.

Bono Mack says she doesn't see the bill as "excluding land."

"We have taken boundaries and said these are our highest priorities," she said. "There is nothing deliberately excluding land in the future."

Feinstein pushing for larger area as part of the bill

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is speaking with Senate leaders about adding a large part of the California conservation area to the bill, spokesman Scott Gerber said.

"Sen. Feinstein is trying to make it crystal clear and leave no ambiguity the land in question should be included in the National Landscape Conservation System," he said. "We want to make sure these lands have the same protection as other conservation areas."

Among the areas not included in the bill is the Big Morongo Preserve.

The desert conservation area was created by Congress in 1976.

It became part of the national conservation system through administrative action by former President Bill Clinton during his last term in office. But they have not received the attention or funding they deserve, say advocates who are now pushing for Congress to set the designation.

Kevin Mack, a conservation system director for the Wilderness Society, says that although the group would love to see more lands included in the national system, they are satisfied the bill protects "the crown jewels" of the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The lack of designation won't change the way the agency manages the land in the California conservation area, spokesman Tom Gorey said.

"The legislation isn't going to change that," he said.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the bill sponsor and chairman of a natural resources subcommittee with jurisdiction over the issue, said he has deferred to the California delegation on whether more of the California conservation areas should be included in the bill.

But he says he's happy with the overall measure.

"I'm very happy with it," he said. "It's a landmark piece of legislation."

Technicality may cut California desert areas from federally protected status

The proposed National Landscape Conservation Act would unify management and funding of designated areas. But it requires 'national' in the area name, excluding some of the state's sensitive areas.

By Janet Wilson, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

Congress is considering permanent protection for 26 million acres of beautiful and historic landscapes in the American West, but has quietly excluded millions of acres of California desert.

In a system that would rival the national parks and forests, the National Landscape Conservation Act would unify the management and funding for areas such as the original Pony Express National Historic Trail, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, a million acres of Alaskan caribou calving grounds, 38 wild rivers, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a tiny ghost town near the Mexican border.

But more than half of the 10.6 million-acre California Desert Conservation Area, which stretches from the Mexican border to Mono Lake, has been dropped on technical grounds. Because the word "national" isn't in its title, the conservation area doesn't qualify, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management attorneys.

Environmental watchdogs and some land bureau employees say the California area, created by Congress in 1976, is the cornerstone of the fledgling national system. They say the semantics hide political motives: Utility companies have proposed hundreds of miles of electrical transmission corridors through California's deserts, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts oppose further regulation of the area.

"I don't think this is a technicality at all . . . That's a huge hit to desert conservation in California and the Southwest," said Daniel Patterson, director of the southwest office of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which represents whistle-blowers in government agencies.

The bill does include the King Range National Conservation Area, the Headwaters Forest Reserve, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, and just under half -- 3.7 million acres -- of the desert conservation area. Not included are more than 6 million acres of desert. Some of the land has been used for mining and off-roading, but much of it remains pristine, wide-open space.

Patterson said that if the bureau's entire California desert system isn't part of the national system, its conservation designation "would be a protection in name only . . . The California BLM will lose funding, they will lose staff, they'll lose what conservation focus they might have."

Afton Canyon
He said the excluded desert lands, including visually stunning and ecologically important areas such as Afton Canyon and Big Morongo Preserve, would be more at risk from proposed transmission-line corridors, among other projects. In addition, he said, "it could be expanded to off-roading, it could be expanded to mining, it could be expanded to land sales for Southern California urban housing sprawl. It's just a loss."

Others were relieved that major portions of the desert would not come under tighter rules.

"I'm worried about the people who own private land (inside the conservation area), the off-highway users, the ranchers, the miners, the loggers . . . the recreation access to people who just like to go collect rocks," said Chuck Cushman, head of the American Land Rights Assn. "When you put an overlay of national park-like regulations over these lands, you just cut off Americans from those lands."

Although staff members for U.S. Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) say she is reluctant to amend the House bill to include the California land, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she will push to fix the 7-milllion-acre "glitch" in the Senate version.

In many cases, bureau land is open to multiple uses, including mining, grazing and off-road driving. There are no guided tours and few rangers. Officials said that management approach would remain on the national landscape lands.

"There is hunting. There will be no hotels. You can camp pretty much anywhere you want," said Elena Daly, head of the bureau's program that could win permanent protection from Congress.

She said the program also stresses collaboration with local communities, including "sustainable ranching."

Daniel Pfiefer of Costa Mesa is torn by the proposed legislation. Pfiefer, who had just finished a three-day off-road trip along the ancient Mojave trail this week, said he appreciates the difference between national park and land bureau conservation lands. "We came through some national parks areas. You cannot get off any road at all. You can't even have a ground fire in national parks . . . But the BLM areas are very friendly. They don't want you driving out all over the place, it's a 'tread softly' kind of thing. I'm very happy with the way it is right now."

Although he hates the way rogue off-roaders "trash" pristine areas by cutting illegal paths and dumping garbage, the bill proposed by Congress, he said, makes him nervous.

"As a person that absolutely hates rules and regulations myself, I have such a difficult time with it, because I do so much love the outdoors, and I do so much love going out and Jeeping across the trails.

Mojave River crossing in Afton Canyon
"Being an off-roading enthusiast, it scares me to think that if the federal government starts putting their fingers into it, and start sectioning off any portions of the desert, then closing it off is not far behind."

The National Landscape Conservation System was created in 2000 by outgoing Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to pull together and protect hundreds of conservation areas, monuments, wilderness study areas and other "orphans" of the federal bureau. All of the bureau's California desert lands were included. Unlike the proposed law, Babbit's executive order can be rescinded by the current or future Interior secretary.

"A constant threat is that it could be dissolved and dismantled at any point in time, with the many properties truly becoming 'orphans,' " Ian Wilson, spokesman for the nonprofit Sonoran Institute, a Tucson-based environmental policy group, said about California's desert area.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne supports the bill as written. A broad coalition of more than 70 outdoor sports, environmental, historical preservation and religious groups is pushing for passage of the legislation, which would also establish a line item in the federal budget for annual funding. Currently the program receives $50 million a year.

"I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system for the United States," said Daly on a recent tour of several program sites, including the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area grasslands that stretch for 48,000 acres outside of Tucson.

It is hard to see the difference on the ground between some of the included and excluded areas. The Las Cienegas area is named for the Hundred Waters creek that flows across the Sonoran desert floor between mountain ranges in the Sky Island region, its willow and cottonwood-lined banks providing shade and forage for 230 bird species. "Oklahoma" and "Red River" were filmed on the sweeping grasslands decades ago, and ranchers and land bureau managers have laboriously ripped out invasive mesquite that is overtaking the grasses.

Five hundred miles to the west, the Mojave River bubbles up out of the parched desert in Afton Canyon, nourishing more than 180 bird species. Hundreds of films, including "Letters From Iwo Jima," and "Kill Bill" were filmed in the desert area.

Daly says it's not her job to tell Congress whether some or all of California's deserts should be included. But she said it's not too late for the omitted lands to be added, if that's what Congress wants.

"The bill is in draft form," she said. "It's not a done deal."

Senate to Vote on Allowing Park Visitors to Carry Loaded Guns

Environment News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, February 12, 2008 (ENS) - The U.S. Senate is likely to consider the "National Forests, Parks, Public Land, and Reclamation Projects Authorization Act," this week. When that happens, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican is expected to offer an amendment to allow state law, rather than federal law, to govern the carrying and transportation of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges.

This measure was authored and is supported by the National Rifle Association, which said in a February 1 letter to its members, "We have been working on your behalf for nearly five years to facilitate this policy change and are committed to ensuring that it finally happens this year."

On February 1, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police wrote a joint letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject the Coburn amendment.

"Senator Coburn's amendment could dramatically degrade the experience of park visitors and put their safety at risk if units of the National Park System were compelled to follow state gun laws," warned the rangers and retirees.

"For example, since Wyoming has limited gun restrictions, visitors could see persons with semi-automatic weapons attending campground programs, hiking down park trails or picnicking along park shorelines at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks," they wrote.

An analysis of the Coburn amendment and NRA campaign released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, finds that they are founded upon basic misconceptions.

Coburn's amendment forbids the Interior Secretary from enforcing "any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System…"

On December 14, 2007, a group of 47 senators wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging repeal of these regulations because they are "confusing, burdensome and unnecessary."

The letter was signed by 39 Republican senators along with eight Democrats.

The NRA claims credit for both the senators' letter and the Coburn amendment.

A central assertion of the Coburn measure is that the current regulation offends the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting the possession of a firearm in parks.

But in fact the current regulation states that weapons may be possessed as long as they are not loaded and ready for use.

The regulation, (36 CFR 2.4), says that "…unloaded weapons may be possessed within a temporary lodging or mechanical mode of conveyance when such implements are rendered temporarily inoperable or are packed, cased or stored in a manner that will prevent their ready use."

These rules, re-written in 1983 under the Reagan administration, were intended to relax earlier stricter prohibitions. As the National Park Service then explained, "[T]he Service has determined that it is not feasible to prohibit the possession of weapons in all situations, and a total prohibition would be unenforceable."

"The Second Amendment right ‘to keep and bear Arms' does not specify that the weapons must always be loaded and holstered," said PEER Board Member Frank Buono, the former deputy superintendent of Mojave National Preserve. He notes that the fundamental reason for this regulation is to prevent opportunistic poaching, as most park units forbid hunting.

The other rationale for removing firearm regulations is "consistency in firearms policy" on federal lands, according to the senators' letter to Kempthorne.

Senator Coburn's legislation would have federal firearm policy conform to state laws, but because firearms laws vary from state to state, there would then be at least 50 sets of rules for federal lands. In some instances, where a park straddles a state line, there would be two different firearms policies in different sections of the same park.

"This uniformity argument is absurd," Buono added, pointing out that the White House is also part of the national park system. "We don't allow guns on airplanes, in penitentiaries or in the halls of Congress, either."

The rangers and retirees say allowing the possession of loaded and accessible guns in parks would be dangerous to law enforcement officers. "Many rangers can recite stories about incidents where the risk to other visitors - as well as to the ranger - would have been exacerbated if a gun had been readily accessible. This amendment would compromise the safe atmosphere that is valued by Americans and expected by international tourists traveling to the United States," they wrote.

"There is simply no legitimate or substantive reason for a thoughtful sportsman or gun owner to carry a loaded gun in a national park unless that park permits hunting. The requirement that guns in parks are unloaded and put away is a reasonable and limited restriction to facilitate legitimate purposes," wrote the rangers and retirees, "the protection of precious park resources and safety of visitors."

Justice Department Undercuts Park System for Mojave Cross

Administration Argues Park Service Lacks Authority on Private Land within System



Press Release from
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)




In its latest effort to stop court-ordered removal of an-eight foot cross from the middle of the Mojave National Preserve, the U.S. Justice Department is arguing that the National Park Service has no "authority to manage private land" within the park system, according to court filings released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). If upheld, Justice's position would strip the Park Service of the power to manage an estimated five million acres - about the size of New Jersey - of non-federal lands embedded within the 84 million-acre National Park System.

The legal fight over removal of the Mojave Cross has spanned the tenure of Bush administration. To many, it is the quintessential example of the Bush Justice Department going to extremes to defend display of Christian symbols on federal lands. The case has had many twists and turns, but the courts consistently ruled that the Cross violated First Amendment guarantees against government establishment of religion.

In 2003, the Bush administration supported a scheme to exchange the one federal acre with the Mojave Cross into private hands, within the boundaries of the Mojave National Preserve, California. In September 2007, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court upheld a district court ruling that the land exchange was "a sham" and a transparent "attempt by the government to evade the permanent injunction enjoining the display of the Latin cross" on federal land.

In response, the Justice Department petitioned the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing on November 20, 2007, arguing, among other things, that the National Park Service lacks authority over lands within national parks that are not federally owned. The petition contends that the Organic Act of 1916 limits Park Service oversight to federal lands and does "not purport to give the Park Service" authority over private lands.

The 84 million-acre national park system contains at least 5 million acres of lands that are not federally owned, including private in-holdings, state and native corporation lands. If the Park Service were to lose management control of these lands it would significantly fragment the national park system.

"Ironically, the Justice Department is representing the Park Service by taking a legal stance that undermines its client's mission," stated PEER Board member Frank Buono, the former deputy superintendent of Mojave National Preserve who brought the suit to remove the Mojave Cross. "In its zeal to protect the Cross, and the constitutional questions that taint it, the Bush administration would cast aside decades of laws and precedents giving the Interior Secretary and National Park Service a degree of control over non-federal lands that lie within the boundaries of the national park system." Buono is represented in the case by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

The Mojave Cross is one of several instances in which the Bush administration has pushed Christian displays and creationist interpretations in national park facilities. This effort, which PEER has called "Faith-Based Parks," appears limited to supporting fundamentalist Christians. For example, a request from another party to install a Buddhist stupa at the site of the Mojave Cross was rejected.

Off-roaders back in driver's seat?

Reshaped commission a win for riders, say conservationists

Michael Gardner
San Diego Union-Tribune
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

SACRAMENTO – Off-road riders have scored a major victory in their quest to reshape a state commission they have said has grown hostile to their sport.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that will strip the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Commission of its authority over most funding and also hand the governor a majority of the appointments to the board.

The law could lead to the commission's return to favoring off-roaders, some environmentalists say. Over the past few years, the panel's majority, appointed by Democratic leaders in the Legislature, had tended to line up behind environmentalists.

The commission favored spending money on environmental projects over maintaining off-road areas – a bitter point of contention because a large portion of the money was raised through fees on off-road vehicles.

Some environmentalists supported the legislation, albeit reluctantly, as a compromise.

“It's definitely a tough issue for conservationists,” said Brent Schoradt, of the California Wilderness Coalition, which wound up endorsing the bill. “Off-road vehicles are causing increased damage to California's wilderness, waterways and wildlife. However, this is starting to move us in the right direction.”

In return, riders accepted a sharp increase in registration fees, fines on those caught in off-limits territory and some concessions on environmental priorities.

It's a balanced bill,” said off-road lobbyist Pete Conaty.

Schwarzenegger and lawmakers were under pressure to strike a deal, with the statutory authority and funding for the program due to expire at the end of the year. Seven off-road parks were in danger of shutting down.

“It was a come-together or no-program situation,” said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, an environmentally leaning Sacramento Democrat who introduced the compromise, SB 742. The law takes effect Jan. 1.

Steinberg disagreed with critics who say the measure rolls over for the off-road community. Higher fees and clear funding guidelines will provide resources for law enforcement, maintenance and environmental restoration, he said.

Ed Stovin, president of the San Diego Off-Road Coalition, said: “We're not cheering wildly and having a parade. But we're happy with the bill.”

Stovin said just $365,000 went to maintain off-road areas out of $18 million in available grants this year. Under the new rules, half of that grant money must be set aside for operations and maintenance of off-road parks and trails, he said.

The commission will have little say, if any, over grants; nor will it control spending on capital improvement projects. Those decisions will be made by a separate division within the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Off-roading is a fast-growing sport, both at state parks specifically set aside for the activity, as well as on hundreds of miles of other public land. About 4 million riders annually use state-run off-road parks, and countless more journey to national forests and other getaways.

The sport's growth has spurred controversy, however. Riders are often branded as uncaring, cutting across pristine forests and through streams. Older vehicles are noisy and pollute, critics say.

Disputes have exploded at the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission, a seven-member panel that oversees off-roading in California. Most of the discontent involved funding, with off-roaders angry that their priorities were being shortchanged.

“Ugly personal and political battles don't make sense,” said Terry McHale, who represented the off-road community during marathon talks that produced the legislation.

McHale said the pendulum of off-road spending will swing back to the middle. Without clear spending guidelines, funding would remain up to the whims and ideology of the commission majority at the time, either pro-rider or pro-environment.

“The old days of either side picking each other's pocket are gone,” McHale said.

Under the law, about 25 percent of the funds each year will be dedicated to environmental programs. Some of that money will now become available to improve dirt roads to provide access for nonmotorized uses, such as hiking trails or fishing spots. Most of the remaining funds will go toward law enforcement.

That did little to mollify some critics.

“It's definitely a victory for the off-highway vehicle lobby,” said Terry Weiner, conservation coordinator for the Desert Protective Council. “It's not a good trade-off. In fact, it's a step backward.”

A key concession secured by environmentalists establishes that federal agencies, with a few exemptions, cannot obtain state grants for off-road programs in areas that were once designated roadless but have since been opened to vehicles.

Riders also will increase the amount of money available by doubling their “green sticker” registration fees to $50 every other year instead of $25. The program also receives some funding from the gas tax. Fines for illegal riding are set at $50 for the first offense, plus court-imposed costs to repair any damage.

Despite the changes, the commission could still sway with the political wind depending on who is governor, at least on policy decisions if not funding.

The seven-member panel will be expanded to nine and Schwarzenegger, a Republican with some environmental credentials, might be able to appoint a five-member majority once some terms expire. Currently, a governor only appoints three.

“This is a power grab,” said Karen Schambach of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

She criticized the measure as a giveaway to off-roaders angry that preservation is getting its due.

“This was the first commission in the program's history that really cared about balancing environmental protection with user opportunity,” Schambach said.

Off-road groups want in on debate

Victorville Daily Press
HILLARY BORRUD Staff Writer

Off-roading groups are concerned that they could be left out of the discussion on how to prevent motorized vehicle damage to public lands.

In late June, a group of 13 former rangers and public land managers calling themselves the Rangers for Responsible Recreation identified reckless off-roading as the No. 1 problem facing public lands across the U.S.

The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is supporting the ranger group, continued its national campaign on Tuesday when it released figures on criminal activity on lands under the protection of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or the BLM between 2004 and 2007.

Across California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, BLM records showed about 6,600 off-road violations for hit-and-run and other driving offenses, and about twice as many incidents of driving under the influence for off-roaders as compared to automobiles, according to a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility or PEER.

In interviews Tuesday, representatives of the national Off-Road Business Association and BlueRibbon Coalition said they support law enforcement cracking down on irresponsible riders who give the sport a bad name, but they also feel scapegoated.

Off-roaders are increasing while the amount of land available to them is shrinking as more wildlands are protected, off-roading rights advocates said. This results in increased trespassing and resource damage, they said.

A 2005 survey by the U.S. Forest Service found that participants in off-road activities increased by 42 percent nationwide between 2000 and 2004.

Meanwhile, public land where off-roaders can ride has been cut in half through closures, such as under the 1994 California Desert Protection Act, said Don Amador, the western representative of the BlueRibbon Coalition. Amador said that he would like to see more routes opened to riders.

“The Rangers really should reconsider pointing fingers at the OHV community when it was their agencies that often placed recreation management at the bottom of the priority list,” Amador wrote in an e-mail.

Meg Grossglass, a spokeswoman for the Off-Road Business Association Inc., said that off-roading groups want to partner with the Rangers for Responsible Recreation to increase enforcement of off-roading rules and educate riders through maps and other methods. Development in areas such as the High Desert has also cut down on areas where longtime residents used to be able to ride through open parcels of land, she said.

“The name of the game is you have to be reasonable,” she said. “Each side has to be a little unhappy.”

Desert water 'guzzlers' may return to preserve

Environmentalists may attempt to block plan

By HOWARD DECKER Staff Writer
Desert Dispatch

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE -- The on-again, off-again plan to convert wells in the preserve to wildlife watering devices, called "guzzlers," is on again.

The move is a surprise to Chad Offutt of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). With the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), PEER sued the National Park Service (NPS), which oversees the preserve, in March of last year to stop the expansion of the guzzlers in the preserve. The groups contend the artificial watering harms native wildlife and violates Park Service policy.

The lawsuit alleges that guzzlers are "known to adversely affect desert tortoise by attracting predators such as ravens, and by acting as death traps for tortoises that approach the guzzlers to drink."

In September of 2004, the preserve had announced the guzzlers would be installed, according to Danette Woo, environmental compliance specialist at the preserve.

According to Offutt, the National Park Service reversed itself and rescinded the approval of the preserve guzzlers in April, 2005.

On June, 27, 2005, the National Park Service held a public scoping meeting in Barstow saying the preserve "has begun the development of the park's Environmental Assessment (EA) to convert wells into guzzlers," according to a preserve press release. The draft Environmental Assessment was due to be completed on Sept. 1, 2005.

Then, the guzzlers program was back on again. On April 27, 2006, the preserve sent out a press release stating the preserve "approves science-based alternative on managing water for wildlife." According to PEER, their lawsuit could be revived.

Under this plan, the wells will be converted into guzzlers to carry out research on the need for additional water sources for wildlife over a broad area in the preserve, and to determine if additional guzzlers are needed, said Woo.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, said that after the two groups filed suit against the guzzlers in the preserve, the preserve management withdrew the proposal to install guzzlers and the lawsuit was dismissed.

"I don't think they (the pre- serve) has done anything to prepare a proper environmental document or to cancel the guzzler program," he said, "and I think they are vulnerable to the same lawsuit again."

Ruch said that his group believes the preserve did not complete a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and needs to do so. Many topics have not been addressed that should be, he said, including the possibility that the guzzlers will increase the population of predators that kill desert tortoises, a threatened species that is found in the preserve.

An EA is a concise public document that a federal agency prepares under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to provide sufficient evidence and analysis to determine whether the proposed agency action would require preparation of an EIS or a finding of no significant impact.

An Environmental Impact Statement is a document required of federal agencies by the National Environmental Policy Act for major projects or legislative proposals significantly affecting the environment. A tool for decision-making, it describes the positive and negative effects of the undertaking and cites alternative actions, according to Entrix, an environmental consultant firm.

"We fully expected a full EIS," Ruch said, adding that by declaring a "no significant impact" decision, it seems to mean the preserve will not do any more study of the problem before installing the guzzlers.

The lack of a full EIS "doesn't appear to make sense in light of all the questions" people have about the wisdom of installing guzzlers, he said.

The California Department of Fish and Game (CF&G) originally proposed to convert the 12 wells to wildlife waterers and the NPS undertook an environmental assessment of the matter in November of last year.

Out of several proposed ways to manage the water, the NPS selected a science-based alternative and decided this plan would have no significant impact on the environment in the preserve, Woo said.

There are over 130 springs and seeps across the preserve and the NPS recently initiated a long-term monitoring project to deter mine how rainfall patterns affect the availability of water for wildlife, by surveying them during the driest part of the year, Woo said.

Over 75 percent of the sources had water during the last survey and there are six existing large-game guzzlers in the preserve, principally used by desert bighorn sheep and 119 small game guzzlers principally used by quail, chukar and other small wildlife, Woo said. There are also several dozen currently operating water units used in cattle ranching, she said.

According to the environmental assessment, installing guzzlers has a potential to lower the groundwater table.

The document states there is a potential dependence on the new guzzlers by wildlife populations and a potential for increases in wildlife population, plus potential negative impacts from increase foraging and trampling as wildlife populations and guzzler use increases.

There is potential for increased hunting activities and wildlife viewing activities, according to the document, which also states there may be more visitor encounters with wildlife.

According to the Guns Magazine June 2005 edition, a hunting club, Safari Club International (SCI), and the CF&G received permission from the persevere and the U. S. Department of the Interior to "convert four ranching well developments into wildlife guzzlers for mule deer" on preserve land.

The magazine identified wells as Eagle, Watson, Caruthers and Lecyr and said that the group has been working on restoring guzzlers in the preserve for "several years."

Woo said Friday that SCI is not directly involved in any of the planning the installation of guzzlers but is working with CF&G to provide some funding and volunteers for the program.

SCI states on its web site it is "serious about protecting hunting freedoms" and "in many ways, SCI is first in legislation, litigation and international advocacy for hunting."

Their web site has an appeal to "all interested parties" to provide NPS "with information about the need for these wells and that reactivation will not pose a detrimental impact to the resources of the preserve."

It goes on to say "SCI has informed the court that it will take whatever action necessary to prevent delays in providing water sources that could hard the preserve's wildlife."

"It's a harsh life out there for wildlife," said Bill Perreck who has worked to install guzzlers in the past but is not now affiliated with any group. He said there has been a long-term drought in the High Desert until the last couple of years and he believes many types of desert creatures were in danger from the lack of water.

The idea of desert guzzlers pretty much started in 1964, he said, for Bighorn Sheep.

"It's a good thing they did, to keep the sheep from completely disappearing," Perreck said.

Mountain Lion Eradication Without Prior Study Rapped

Park Service at Lake Mead Accedes to "Shoot First" Intervention of Arizona

By: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Press Release

The National Park Service will allow Arizona game officials to kill as many as ten mountain lions at Lake Mead National Recreation Area this spring without any study of the need for, or the effects of, the action. In a letter released today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is asking the Park Service to block the mountain lion hunt until basic biological evaluations have been completed.

Citing losses of bighorn sheep, the Arizona Game and Fish Department has arranged for a predator hunter to kill ten mountain lions on the federal lands within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. While the National Park Service initially "asked" to delay the killing until the state produced some data about lion and bighorn populations in the national recreation area, the federal agency has now dropped its objections to the state removing the cats from federal land.

"This shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later stance is an abdication of the Park Service's responsibility to protect all wildlife within our national parks," stated PEER Board member Frank Buono, the former assistant superintendent at Mojave National Preserve. "Responsible wildlife management requires that both the consequences and the alternatives are assessed before coming in with guns blazing."

Among the questions that have not been addressed at Lake Mead are:

• How many mountain lions there are on the Arizona side of Lake Mead and whether killing ten cats would wipe out the entire population in the area;
• Arizona sells permits to hunt bighorn sheep but has not studied whether it makes more sense to sell fewer permits rather than kill mountain lions; and
• The bighorn herd at Lake Mead numbers approximately 1,000 and serves as a stocking reserve, supplying some 300 sheep over the past decade for other areas. Game officials claim mountain lions have killed seven sheep but it is not known if that is an excessive level of predation or what level of predation is prudent for this 1,000 sheep population.

Another issue is the deference of the National Park Service to a state claim of jurisdiction of wildlife on federal lands. Lake Mead is a unit of the national park system, governed by rules and laws requiring it to conserve wildlife and forbidding it from managing animals to increase the populations of hunt-able species, even in those parks where Congress has authorized hunting.

"The National Park Service cannot allow a state to manage the recreation area and its wildlife in a way that is at odds with the standards that govern the national park system," Buono added. "First, the Park Service supinely allows Arizona to set the take limits for bighorn sheep without consequence to the hunted species, and now the Park Service wants to be an onlooker while the state comes forward to kill lions as the remedy to the problem it may have created by promoting over-hunting."

Last year, the Park Service proposed a highly controversial rewrite of its Management Policies that would, among other things, subject park wildlife to state hunting regulations. This rewrite, however, is in limbo as a wholesale leadership shift is occurring within the Park Service's parent agency, the Department of Interior.

Plan to kill mountain lions at Lake Mead draws protests

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Environmentalists are protesting plans to kill 10 or more mountain lions on the Arizona side of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, to prevent them from preying on desert bighorn sheep.

The plan calls for catching and killing individual mountain lions until a recent spate of sheep kills is reduced, said Jim deVos, research branch chief for the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

"Not every lion is killing sheep," said deVos, who said a start date had not been set for the program. "We're trying to focus on known kills and trying to remove that lion that is killing sheep."

Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz., called the culling plan a mistake.

"Lions are scarce," Patterson said. "We don't need to be killing mountain lions to protect the bighorn. We don't need single-species management, we need ecosystem management."

DeVos said the number of sheep in the region has dropped in recent years, partly because drought has reduced the population of mule deer - a more common mountain lion prey.

At least seven bighorn have been killed by mountain lions this year in the Hoover Dam area on the Arizona side of the Colorado River and Lake Mead, where deVos said about 1,000 bighorn sheep remain.

The area sheep population serves as a source for the reintroduction of bighorn sheep throughout the Southwest, including Colorado, Utah and Texas, deVos said.

Frank Buono, a 33-year veteran of the National Park Service and a national board member of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said culling mountain lions should be a last resort after public discussion and an environmental assessment.

Buono, a former assistant superintendent at the park service's Mojave National Preserve in California, criticized the park service for letting Arizona develop the plan.

Roxanne Dey, park service spokeswoman at Lake Mead, said her agency cedes most authority over hunting and wildlife management in the area to Arizona and Nevada. Both states allow limited hunting of bighorn sheep.

The desert bighorn sheep is Nevada's state animal. More than 5,400 live in mountain ranges across the southern, central and western parts of the state.

"When Congress created the park, that was part of the legislation, that the park could not interfere with hunting," Dey said.

Buono and Patterson suggested that bighorn hunting was propelling the plan to kill mountain lions. DeVos disagreed.

"In the entire state of Arizona, we sell less than a hundred sheep permits," deVos said. "This is not a lucrative business. It's not about money. We lose money on the sheep management program."

DeVos noted a sheep and mountain lion management plan was created last year. He rejected arguments that the state and federal agencies should have a potentially lengthy series of public hearings on the culling plan.

"If we wait, what do we risk? Time is of the essence," he said. "We feel the loss of 50 (percent) to 60 percent of this sheep population is a critical issue."

A Hidden Agenda For the NPS

... to prevent Hoffman from overruling NPS biologists who said artificial watering systems should not be installed in the Mojave National Preserve in California ...

The Ledger - Lakeland, FL

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees is a watchdog group of 410 former Park Service workers. The average member worked for the NPS for 30 years. Suffice it to say they have an abiding interest in seeing these national treasures protected.

Indeed, when the nation's park system was created in 1916, Congress declared the "fundamental purpose" was to "conserve the scenery and the national and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

As longtime employees, coalition members were committed to that goal. As retirees, they are still devoted to it.

They are extremely disturbed about a proposed rewrite of NPS rules that has managed to grow to nearly 200 pages with no public input and little attention. The group uncovered it recently, and has sounded the alarm.

It is, said Bill Wade, former superintendent of the Shenandoah National Park and the coalition's executive council chairman, an "astonishing attempt to hijack the management of the 388 areas of our nation's park system and convert them into vastly diminished areas where almost anything goes."

Jerry Rogers, former associate director for cultural resources of the NPS, said the rewrite "stands nearly 100 years of national-park stewardship on its head."

Judging from the language in the draft document (available at www.npsretirees.org), their assessment of impending commercialization and exploitation are not without foundation.

Instead of having preservation as its "fundamental function," the NPS mission would become avoiding "impairment," which the document defines as permanent and irreversible damage. That basic shift opens the parks to all manner of development.

This sentence in the current rules now governs new activities for parks: "In cases of doubt as to the impacts of activities on park natural resources, the Service will decide in favor of protecting the natural resources." It is completely eliminated in the proposed rules. While current rules referred to parks as "classrooms of our heritage," the coalition notes the new ones see them as recreation opportunities.

The proposed rules also would require the NPS to obtain approval from state agencies in areas where the NPS now has the sole responsibility of acting on behalf of all U.S. citizens. The revised rules instruct the NPS to "cooperate" with towns and cities rather than to merely seek "collaboration."

Officials of the coalition for the park retirees said the proposed regulations are mainly the product of Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at the Interior Department who oversees the Park Service. He was Wyoming state director for Vice President Dick Cheney from 1985 to 1989 when Cheney was in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hoffman then served as director of the Cody, Wyo., Chamber of Commerce until early 2002, when he was appointed to the deputy assistant's post.

This spring, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit to prevent Hoffman from overruling NPS biologists who said artificial watering systems should not be installed in the Mojave National Preserve in California.

The Park Service is apparently trying to distance itself from Hoffman's proposals now that they've become public. David Barna, NPS spokesman, told the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune that Hoffman was "playing devil's advocate" with the proposed rules and "had some initial suggestions and prompted us." Those suggestions are now being revised, he said.

Craig Obey, vice president for governmental affairs with the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan parks-protection organization, said it's difficult to believe Hoffman's ideas formed in a vacuum: "I would find it surprising that someone would put something like this together as a think piece. Documents like this are put together with a purpose."

Obey's association, along with the Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council, and The Wilderness Society released a joint statement criticizing the proposal.

It ended: "As watchdog organizations, we share the concerns expressed by park professionals that these policy revisions depart radically from the fundamental stewardship ethic that has preserved our national parks from their beginning. We urge the Department of Interior to immediately abandon this rewrite, heeding the advice of National Park Service professionals who have effectively managed our heritage for decades."

Immediately, if not sooner.

Hunters fight for desert 'guzzlers'

By Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

BARSTOW - A simmering battle over desert water tanks once used by range cattle is pitting hunting and wildlife groups against environmentalists.

Hunters of big and small game in the Mojave National Preserve claim it is vital to retain artificial watering sites in a 600,000-acre area in Lanfair Valley, near Needles, but two environmental groups say the water holes actually will harm wildlife.

Scores of hunters, wildlife advocates and conservationists gathered here Monday to include their views in an environmental assessment being prepared by the National Park Service.

"The assessment will outline our proposal to convert 12 former ranch wells into guzzlers over a three-year period," said Larry Whalon, the preserve's chief of resources.

Comments will be accepted on the plan until Oct. 31 at the preserve's headquarters at 2701 Barstow Road, in Barstow.

Hunters want to turn the wells into artificial water sites called "wildlife drinkers" or "guzzlers" to provide water for the preserve's mule deer, bighorn sheep and game birds. But environmentalists claim the park's exising 133 guzzlers are sufficient.

A decision by the Park Service to convert the former wells into artificial watering sites prompted a lawsuit by two environmental groups in March.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility went to court to block the plan, claiming it would harm wildlife and violated Park Service policy.

The two groups contend the additional drinkers or guzzlers would dry up natural springs and wetlands, attract predatory ravens, and sustain non-native burros.

The Park Service reversed course, and blocked conversion of the ranch wells until environmental issues are reviewed.

"Congress allows carefully-managed hunting in the preserve, but this proposal to uncap the ranch wells is a game farm concept ... (and) an attempt to manipulate the web of life," said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity.

"Bighorn sheep have lived in the east Mojave a lot longer than artificial water sites. They have survived because of natural springs and riparian areas, and we would like to focus on the restoration of springs and streams."

Ken Schwartz, spokesman for the 50,000-member Safari Club International, said artificial water sources provide water for a wide variety of animals and birds, not just game creatures.

"This issue is about conservation, and protecting wildlife," he said. "It's not just an issue of game animals. Some of these water sources are known to provide water for as many as 90 desert animals. Of those, only 10 or 12 were allowed to be hunted."

Lifelong hunter Cliff McDonald of Needles said the water sites are vital for all wildlife in the 1.6-million-acre national preserve. "There are about 113 guzzlers for small animals in the east Mojave but none for large animals," he said.

"In a 20-square-mile area in Lanfair Valley, there is no year-round water (for big game)."

Wells in the east Mojave were capped off four to five years ago when land was transferred from private ranchers to the national preserve.

"All of the casings still exist at the 12 ranch wells, and we want to recap them," said Needles City Councilman Pat Murch. "This will provide a guaranteed water source for wildlife. It's not a hunters' issue, it's a wildlife issue."

Andrew Pauli state wildlife biologist from Apple Valley, said various volunteer groups ranging from Quail Unlimited to the Society for Conservation of Bighorn Sheep assist the California Fish and Game Department in well maintenance.

But well closings are compounding the problem to sustain desert wildlife. "About 125 water sources, many fed by pipes from a major well, have been shut off the past five years," Pauli said.

Park service water proposal draws interest

By KELLY DONOVAN/Staff Writer
Desert Dispatch [Barstow, CA]

BARSTOW -- An estimated 75 people from all over the region gathered in Barstow Monday evening to give their input on the controversial topic of artificial watering sources in the Mojave National Preserve.

The National Park Service's meeting at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites was part of the public scoping process for a proposal to bring former ranchers' well systems back online.

Hunters and environmentalists generally disagree on the artificial water issue.

The 12 wells would furnish water that would be accessible to a variety of animals, most likely via wildlife drinkers, Larry Whalon, chief of resources for the Mojave National Preserve, said.

Hunting groups have been pushing for the preserve to restore the water that the ranchers' wells had provided until the ranchers moved in recent years and removed their well equipment.

However, attendees said the push to restore the well systems isn't just about providing water for game to benefit hunters.

"It's for the preservation of the wildlife that's out there," said Walt Zielinski, a 71-year-old Apple Valley resident who attended the meeting.

Ken Schwartz, Safari Club International's state governmental affairs and communications manager, said his group and the other supporters of the water proposal want to help more than just game animals.

Animals that can't even be hunted will benefit from restored water sources, he said.

The Park Service initially was going to convert some former well systems into guzzlers, but the agency faced opposition from environmental groups and backed off on the plan this spring.

Environmental groups fault artificial water sources for attracting ravens, a predator of the desert tortoise, and they blame guzzlers for the deaths of tortoises due to the reptiles getting trapped in them.

Last year, the Park Service cleaned more than 30 guzzlers in the preserve and discovered in them the remains or shells of 13 tortoises.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a lawsuit in March asking that the guzzler proposal be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.

In early April, the Park Service rescinded its prior approval of the guzzler plan and agreed to move ahead with environmental review of the artificial water source issue.

Unlike guzzlers -- watering holes that animals must walk into -- wildlife drinkers are raised off the ground and wouldn't pose a threat to desert tortoises, Whalon said.

Still, Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, didn't attend the meeting but said in a phone interview Monday that his group doesn't want the preserve run like a game farm.

"We support hunting on the preserve, but it needs to be managed consistently with the values of a national preserve," he said. "This isn't an issue of water versus no water. It's about using these agricultural wells that are supposed to stay off."

Patterson said his group would like to see a preserve-wide environmental impact statement addressing water, with an emphasis on the restoration of natural springs.

He also said there's an abundance of water in the preserve now, and he'd like to see the Park Service catch up on its maintenance backlog of existing guzzlers before moving ahead with any additional artificial watering sources.

One hunter who attended the meeting, 61-year-old Ray Osgood of San Diego County, said he's strongly in favor of getting the wells back online, and prefers wildlife drinkers over guzzlers.

Many birds can access drinkers better than they can guzzlers, he said.

Hunters' and sportsmen's groups represented at the meeting included Safari Club International, Quail Unlimited, Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep and the California Deer Association.

Safari Club International supports the restoration of the 12 wells, Schwartz said.

"Those animals have relied on (the wells) for over 100 years," Schwartz said. "They've come to know that's where they can go to get a drink. When that's taken away, it's a shock to their system."

The Park Service is preparing an environmental assessment document for the proposal, and a draft of the document will be available by Sept. 1.

Kippy Poulson, a 61-year-old Needles resident who supports the restoration of the well systems, couldn't attend Monday's meeting but said in a phone interview that she's hoping the Park Service will install wildlife drinkers.

The drinkers Poulson would like to see draw from an underground storage system, and they would benefit wildlife like bighorn sheep, deer, foxes and quail.

OUR OPINION: Pulling the plug on wildlife

Victor Valley Daily Press

So the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmentalist group that has taken the appelation "tree huggers" to new heights, is again on the march in its attempt to control the desert. This time, the group has resorted to its favorite tactic — a lawsuit — to stop the conversion of wells left on abandoned ranches into "guzzlers" as watering holes for wildlife. Another environmentalist organization, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, has joined in the suit.

Daniel Patterson, speaking for the Center, told the Daily Press this week he was not opposed to hunting in the Mojave National Preserve — where the wells are — but that hunting "would be better" if a natural ecosystem were maintained.

"Better," of course, is entirely subjective. We're reasonably certain the Center would agree that the presence of a more accessible and dependable water supply would result in more wild animals, which, for hunters, means "better" hunting.

Absence of water would mean fewer animals, wouldn't it? So the Center seems to be making an argument that, if applied to housing, would insist that fewer houses make it easier to buy one. That's upside down.

But of course the hunting argument is a pretext. What's really of concern to the Center, and to PEER, is our old friend the desert tortoise. The guzzlers, they say, attract ravens, which prey on desert tortoise hatchlings.

But even that is wide of the real reason for all of this, which is that hunters are humans who like to go into the wild to pursue their avocation, and the Center for Biological Diversity and PEER, as do all environmental activists, think humans should be barred from places like the Mojave National Preserve.

PARK SERVICE RESCINDS APPROVAL OF MOJAVE “GUZZLERS”

Facing a Lawsuit, Agency Withdraws Its Okay for Artificial Watering in Desert Park

Press Release:
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) & Center For Biological Diversity

Washington, DC — The National Park Service has abruptly reversed course and blocked installation of artificial water systems in California’s Mojave National Preserve, according to a letter from the park superintendent released today by Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Biological Diversity. Last month the two groups filed a federal lawsuit to stop the artificial watering plan on the grounds that it harmed native wildlife and violated Park Service policy.

Yesterday, on April 5, 2005, Mary Martin, Superintendent of the Mojave National Preserve, sent a letter to the California Department of Fish and Game, which stated:

“[T]he National Park Service is withdrawing the approval, set forth in our letter of January 21, 2005, for the California Department of Fish and Game to convert four ranching well developments in Mojave National Preserve into wildlife watering devices…Upon further review, the National Park Service has determined that additional NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance is desirable before a decision is made…”

Ironically, the position taken by Martin this week reflects the same stance that she had communicated in a June 17, 2002 memo to Paul Hoffman, a former Dick Cheney aide serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Hoffman, however, disregarded Martin’s concerns and ordered her to set up artificial water sources (called “guzzlers”) in order to enhance “coyote and varmint hunting,” according to an email he sent to a sportsmen’s group.

“This is a classic example of a Bush Administration appointee inappropriately intervening to countermand wildlife professionals for political reasons,” stated PEER Board member Frank Buono, the former assistant superintendent at Mojave NP, noting that Hoffman, a former Dick Cheney aide, has no biological training. “Paul Hoffman should be fired for incompetence.”

The Mojave National Preserve covers 1.6 million acres of desert and is home to more than 2,500 native species of which approximately 100 are considered imperiled. The two groups pointed to the opinions of more than 50 wildlife experts that the guzzlers would threaten desert wildlife, particularly the desert tortoise, the flagship species of the Mojave Preserve.

“Superintendent Martin did the right thing to follow the law and involve the public,” said Daniel R. Patterson, Desert Ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “More guzzlers would harm native desert wildlife, and violate an agreement Interior made to keep these wells capped. There are already many natural waters and guzzlers on the Mojave National Preserve, which should be managed as a natural area, not a game farm.”

“Mojave National Preserve must obey the long-established policies of the National Park Service which mandate that artificial water sources for wildlife may be provided only in extreme conditions; conditions hardly evident at Mojave,” Buono concluded.