Ag Undersecretary Rey Apologizes for Environmental Analyses Delays

U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, facing the prospect of jail time over the Forest Service's use of a fire retardant that kills fish, told U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula Tuesday, "I'm sorry."

"We're beyond the point of making excuses," Rey said, "and there's no way to put a positive face on the fact that we dropped the ball."

But Rey and the Forest Service were trying to prove -- and will continue to do so Wednesday when the hearing continues -- that the agency is not in contempt of the law and has, in good faith, complied with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

UM’s Public Land Law Conference Begins Today

The 31st annual Public Land Law Conference, Rocky Mountain Energy Leadership: Strategies for a New Energy Future, begins today at the University of Montana in Missoula. This evening Patricia Limerick will deliver the keynote address, titled "The Power of the Rockies: Living with Energy in the Old West, the New West, and the Next West." Limerick is the faculty director and chair of the board of the Center of the American West and co-author of "What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy" and "What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy Efficiency and Conservation." Her talk begins at 7:00 p.m. at the University Center Theater.

The conference runs through midday Wednesday. Click here for the full schedule and registration information and here for the conference brochure (opens PDF). And check back with NewWest.Net/Missoula for coverage of Limerick's talk.

Revett’s Rock Creek Mine

The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness areas as places “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” If you take that definition for what it is, as I do, you will likely conclude that mining is prohibited in designated wilderness areas. Imagine my bewilderment, then, at the proposal for Rock Creek Mine, which calls for digging and blasting under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness of northwest Montana. A mine in a federally designated wilderness area? But silly me—the mine isn’t in the wilderness, it’s under it. And thanks to the 1872 mining law, that’s permitted. Here I thought the ground I was hiking on, all of it, all the way down to the earth’s core, was protected.

www.SaveOurCabinets.org

The Books in Mr. Carpenter’s Library

In traditional ghost tales it’s the unhappy ghosts who hang around, those who in life had some misfortune or injustice that needs righting who linger to scare the living. I’ve often thought that didn’t make sense; seems to me it would be the happy ones who remained, reluctant to give up forever the places they had loved in life.

I thought about that last night while perusing the library of the late Farrington “Ferry� Carpenter, in his ranch house in the Yampa Valley, just east of Hayden.

Floating the Ruby in the Name of Access

I'll be doing a second float this weekend (click here to read about the first) and this one, on Sunday, is in a different river basin, and the crowd will be much smaller than at Saturday's Milltown-to-Downtown event, and the issues at hand have not, unfortunately, been so fruitfully resolved. With luck, Sunday's float on the Ruby River (not far from Butte, but on the other side of the Continental Divide) will be a celebration of one of the things that makes Montana great - the law guaranteeing all citizens access to the state's rivers and streams.

Floating the Ruby for a Cause

For nearly a decade now landowners and sportsmen have been fighting over access to the Ruby River in Southwestern Montana - a dispute that came to the fore recently following an ill-advised letter from media mogul (and Ruby Valley ranch owner) James C. Kennedy to the University of Montana Foundation. Now Tony Schoonen, a long-time stream access advocate, and Jackie Corr, a Butte writer and political activist, are organizing "Montana Public Stream Access Float Day" on the Ruby for July 17. Floaters will put in at one of two disputed access points on the Ruby and float to Jesson Park in Twin Bridges. It promises to be an interesting day; for more information contact Corr at , or Schoonen at 406-782-1560.

Utah Gets Nevada’s Drift

A Salt Lake City environmentalist is claiming Utahns are once again being used as guinea pigs to test the effects of airborne pollution.

Patty Henetz at < The Salt Lake Tribune reports today that federal researchers have found some of the highest levels of mercury in the nation in the Great Salt Lake.

Aussia Scientists