Coyote Gulch

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Drilling the Wild

Field and Stream: "Rod and gun in hand, and backing the Second Amendment right to own firearms, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have won the hearts of America's sportsmen. Yet the two men have failed to protect outdoor sports on the nation's public lands. With deep ties to the oil and gas industry, Bush and Cheney have unleashed a national energy plan that has begun to destroy hunting and fishing on millions of federal acres throughout the West, setting back effective wildlife management for decades to come.

"In his second week in office, President Bush convened a National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Vice President Cheney. Meeting with representatives of the energy industry behind closed doors, it eventually released a National Energy Policy, the goal of which was to 'expedite permits and coordinate federal, state, and local actions necessary for energy-related project approvals on a national basis.'

"Put into practice through a series of executive orders, the policy has prioritized drilling over other uses on federal lands, while relegating long-standing conservation mandates from the 1960s and '70s to the back burner. For example, in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management has approved over 75 percent of the energy industry's applications for exemptions to work in critical winter range, heretofore closed to protect wildlife - sage grouse, mule deer, and pronghorns, in particular (the Federal Land Policy Management Act of 1976 gave agencies the means to close critical habitat). The BLM has also continued to issue drilling leases while in the process of writing new resource management plans that still await public comment. In addition, the Bush administration is working hard to eliminate Wilderness Study areas - set aside for their scenic value as well as their importance to wildlife. Most disturbingly, Congress is now debating a national energy bill that would codify the policy, making it the law of the land rather than an executive order. Subsequent administrations - be they Republican or Democratic - would be unable to institute a more balanced management plan for our western lands without resorting to new congressional legislation...

"Despite our dismay at seeing western landscapes transformed in this way, none of us - hunter, angler, wildlife watcher - can discount the need for energy. We use it in our vehicles; we use it to heat our homes and cook our meals. Clearly, something must be done to secure supplies. But only 3 percent of the world's oil and natural gas lies under domestic soils, while we used 25 percent of the global total in 2002. In other words, our energy security can never result from more drilling in our public wildernesses. Of course, the worldwide quest for fuel damages the environment wherever it is unleashed. As Doug Grann, the president and CEO of Wildlife Forever, the conservation arm of the North American Hunting and Fishing Club, points out, we cannot sacrifice the wildlife and wild country of this planet while doing nothing to develop alternative fuels and improving the fuel efficiency of our cars, factories, and homes."

Thanks to Political Wire for the link.

Category: 2008 Presidential Election

9:19:09 AM

Immigration
Political Wire: "'While the fight over illegal immigration roils Washington, the issue is spilling out into local, state and federal races across the country,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'But the response isn't monolithic. Even as a number of House Republicans are expected to face a backlash from Hispanic and other voters for their tough approach, some candidates are adopting hard-line positions in a bid to portray incumbents as weak on illegal immigration. For now, the issue is percolating largely in Republican primaries but is expected to affect campaigns across the board as the November midterm elections approach. In past campaigns, immigration has been an issue in border states like Arizona and places with a high percentage of Hispanics. But political observers say recent mass demonstrations by immigrants, an influx of foreign-born workers into the heartland and the political divide in Washington have caused voters to focus more on it than in the past.'"

Los Angeles Times: "Most Americans say the United States should confront the challenge of illegal immigration by both toughening border enforcement and creating a new guest-worker program rather than stiffening enforcement alone, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. By a solid 2-1 margin, those surveyed said they would prefer such a comprehensive approach, which a bipartisan group of senators has proposed, to an enforcement-only strategy, which the House of Representatives approved in December. Support for a comprehensive approach was about the same among Democrats, independents and Republicans, the poll found." Thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link.

New West: "Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm is a rarity in the immigration debate. He's a staunch Democrat who is also a staunch opponent of immigration. Not just illegal immigration. Pretty much any immigration. Lamm's message: cut out the illegal immigration, clamp down on the legal immigration or the nation's population will soar out of control. Lamm has been talking this tough talk for years. He even campaigned unsuccessfully for the top seat at the Sierra Club two years ago on a similar anti-immigration-population-crunch platform. On Tuesday, he took the message to Grand Junction[base ']s Mesa State College, as the immigration debate reaches a fever pitch across the country. Lamm is used to the fever pitch, though, and Grand Junction is used to immigrants. They have a long history here, first coming to work the orchards and fields and more recently to fill service jobs."

Category: 2008 Presidential Election

9:02:41 AM

Denver Water restriction for 2006

Denver Water approved their watering restriction yesterday, according to the Rocky Mountain News. Customers cannot water between 10:00AM and 6:00PM but after the rules are pretty open. The 3 day watering rule, of course, is not enforceable.

From the article, "Denver, like other communities, is benefiting from a year in which deep mountain snows have been plentiful and the spring snowmelt is likely to fill its system. Snowpack accounts for roughly 85 percent of Colorado's annual drinking water supplies. Denver's water storage system is about 82 percent full, even before runoff hits its peak later this spring. Lake Dillon, the agency's largest storage pond, is so full already that Denver is considering letting some of its waters spill into the Blue River to help manage any potential flood flows that may come later."

Here's the coverage from the Denver Post. They write, "Any three days of watering, of customers' choosing, each week; No watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m; No broken or leaking sprinklers left unrepaired for 10 days; No water should puddle or flow into ditches or drains, or that spills onto streets, sidewalks, driveways or other impervious surfaces; No watering during rain or high wind."

Category: Colorado Water

8:19:02 AM

COSMIC Project to launch

Here's a story form Space.com about the new satellite constellation to be used to help with climate research and weather prediction. From the article, "A novel constellation of satellites will be lofted into Earth orbit this week, the first to provide atmospheric data daily in real time over thousands of points on Earth for both research and operational weather forecasting. How they will accomplish the task is innovative too: by measuring the bending of radio signals from the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) as the signals punch through Earth's atmosphere. The technique can be used to track hurricanes, climate change, as well as monitor space weather conditions. This unique probing of Earth's atmosphere is the product of an agreement between the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. The $100 million satellite network is tagged the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate - or COSMIC for short - in the United States and FORMOSAT-3 in Taiwan...

"Once in Earth orbit the COSMIC microsatellites will track radio signals from the GPS satellites as they cut through Earth's atmosphere. GPS signals undergo changes in frequency and amplitude when they encounter water vapor or other physical components of the atmosphere. Those changes can be measured using a process called radio occultation. That is, molecules in the air bend GPS radio signals as they pass through (are occulted by) the atmosphere. By measuring the amount of the bending, research scientists can determine underlying atmospheric conditions, such as air density, temperature, and moisture, and electron density. COSMIC satellites will take approximately 2,500 measurements every 24 hours in a nearly uniform distribution around the globe. Because the satellites' radio signals pierce thick cloud cover and precipitation, weather conditions will not interfere with data gathering...

"The altered signals are to be turned into valuable views of humidity and temperature throughout the lower atmosphere. Information about the electrical structure of the upper atmosphere, Earth's gravitational field, and other data will also be extracted. Researchers and forecasters around the world will have access to the data via the Internet. Temperature and water vapor profiles derived from the GPS data should prove helpful to meteorologists that observe, research, and forecast hurricanes, typhoons, and other storm patterns over the oceans, as well as improve many areas of weather prediction. The stability, consistency, and accuracy of the measurements should be a boon to scientists quantifying long-term climate change trends, according to COSMIC experts at UCAR. Additionally, COSMIC measurements of electron density in the ionosphere are expected to enhance analysis and forecasting of space weather, including geomagnetic storms that can disrupt sensitive satellite and communications systems and even impact power grids on the ground. The COSMIC system is a gap-filler of sorts. It will yield data over vast stretches of the oceans where there are no weather balloon observations. And the data's high vertical resolution will complement the high horizontal resolution measurements of several now-on-duty weather satellites."

Category: Cosmic Water

8:01:04 AM

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