‘Clean’ coal anything but

Superb new public-interest tee vee spot here. Check it out and then remember what has already happened to large landscapes of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc., and the carbon dioxide emitted by the coal-burners that are responsible, in part, for climate change.

USFS lands east of Big Muddy open to mining development

Washington, DC — Beset by lawsuits from both industry and environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service is now pursuing regulations to govern drilling and mining on its lands. The agency’s quandary is especially acute east of the Mississippi where large percentages of its wilderness and experimental forests – areas normally not subject to development – sit atop privately-held mineral estates, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

For the past twenty-five years, the Forest Service has not applied any environmental restrictions on private extraction efforts, even in wilderness areas, following a 1983 decision by an Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, its parent agency. As a result, the Forest Service has not imposed the slightest protection for its most ecologically sensitive lands or wildlife from damaging extraction operations.

Dueling lawsuits by both industry and environmentalists concerning thousands of oil and gas wells on the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania prompted the Forest Service on December 29, 2008 to formally solicit public comment on how to craft “regulations to provide clarity and direction on the management of National Forest System surface resources when the mineral estate is privately held”. On January 16, 2009, the Eastern Region (Region 9) announced that it would “review all applications for access to reserved and outstanding oil and gas” in each national forest within that 21-state region.

“This hot potato will be gathering steam on the desk of whomever the Obama administration appoints as the next Chief of the Forest Service,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that the other major federal land management agency, the Interior Department, already has regulations governing this topic. “The Forest Service has had its head in the sand for the last generation and unless it updates its approach, a federal court will step in to do the job.”
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In its investigation into oil and gas drilling through karst hibernation habitat for the highly endangered Indian bat on an experimental forest (managed for sylvicultural research) in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, PEER obtained documents indicating that –

• A deputy Interior Solicitor opined that the position of the Monongahela National Forest that the Endangered Species Act did not apply to the drilling operation was “incorrect” and the Forest Service could impose “reasonable conditions and mitigation measures”; and

• The Forest Service controls only a small fraction of the mineral rights beneath wilderness areas and experimental forests in the eastern U.S. For the vast majority of these lands, the 13-state Sothern Region (Region 8) conceded that it had no records identifying who controlled the subsurface estate in response to a PEER Freedom of Information Act request.

“These are the last places on which the Forest Service should turn its back,” Ruch added, observing that beyond its natural resource responsibilities, the agency is risking decades of research in its network of experimental forests. “The question is not whether private rights will be honored but in what manner, subject to law.”

Museum honor for Cheney doesn’t fly

Thanks to Ted Williams for posting this Detroit newspaper link to his Fly Rod & Reel magazine blog. Some of the readers’ comments are extremely funny and nonsensical.

Quote of the week

“It wasn’t worth it. All we got out of the deal was a bad smell and now an empty building.” -  Dennis Young, a resident of Burley,  Idaho, about the news that Pacific Ethanol Inc. would shutter its plant in the Idaho burb after receiving $1.45 million in federal and state money to build the plant. This according to a report from the Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News.

Another Cheney photo surfaces

Could that be Dick Cheney fly fishing reflected in this naked woman’s sunglasses? Have a look for y0ourself. And thanks to writer Ted Williams for posting this delicacy on his Fly Rod & Reel magazine blog.

Salazar vows to clean up mess at Interior

And what a mess the Bush crowd left behind. This article is from the Albuquerque, N.M., Journal.

Cheney accepts museum’s invite

And Trout Underground writes excellently about the invitation. Heck, why not just invite (as well) Dick’s former boss to the shindig? That way the museum could honor two of the country’s greatest anti-conservationists of recent memory?

Coloradan picked to oversee National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service

Found this at Ralph Maughan’s Wildllife News blog. Seems like a good choice for the assistant secretary’s post – a heckuva lot better than what Bush’s choice was.

Protected areas shed light on how to tread lightly

That’s the headline over this item from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And that’s also the basic message carried by the lapel button we came home from Mt. Rainer National Park some time ago. These messages are, indeed, more important than ever in this time of climate change.

Pa. may publicize drillers’ secrets

It’s only been a few weeks since there was a natural gas drilling incident in Susquehanna County, not far from the New ork state border in northeastern Pa. Now, from The Associated Press in Harrisburg, comes news of legislation that would shine the light of public knowledge on the operations of dirillers punching holes in the sprawling Marcellus Shale rock formation, which underlies most of Pa. and big chunks of New York State, Maryland and West Virginia.