Department of Interior

  • Interior to Publish Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Delisting Rule

    Brian Ertz

    Salazar announces wolves delisted in Rockies and hunting can begin – Idaho Statesman Wolves will be delisted in the Northern Rockies except Wyoming on Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. The rule would reinstate the 2009 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, eastern Washington, eastern…

  • Ivanpah solar project would disturb thousands of desert tortoises

    Brian Ertz

    The Ivanpah solar thermal project consists of 5.4 square miles of high quality habitat for the Endangered Species Act protected desert tortoise, a fact that developers (and some investors) underestimated resulting in the temporary suspension of activities on phases 2 and 3 of the project site due to construction activities exceeding the incidental take limit…

  • BLM told by public not to develop western oil shale

    Ralph Maughan

    It’s a dirty and marginal source of fossil fuel energy- Oil sands of Alberta are bad enough, but they look good compared to Western oil shale. Its development will produce little, if any, net energy,  while leaving much waste and giant pits. It takes a lot of water too, and the deposits are in the…

  • Interior Releases Report Highlighting Impacts of Climate Change to Western Water

    Brian Ertz

    Escalation of Western Water Wars Loom The finite availability of western water is part of the reason Ralph Maughan previously posed the question : Will the resource sucking “sin city” be reclaimed by the desert ?  Perhaps eventually, but in the meantime – despite setbacks, the Southern Nevada Water Authority keeps stretching its tentacles in…

  • Budget deal stops BLM Wild Lands inventory

    Brian Ertz

    So much for Harry Reid’s promise that the budget bill wouldn’t be used to carry anti-environment riders Around Christmas, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the administration would be pursuing a BLM Wild Lands initiative, vague direction to BLM to inventory lands which exhibit wilderness characteristics for future Congressional Wilderness designation consideration. It was a…

  • National Parks to close, but BLM and National Forests open — Barker

    Ralph Maughan

    Rocky Barker has a blog today about the upcoming status of public lands in the government shutdown. National forests and BLM lands will remain open but national parks close. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman Update. Looks like some deal was worked out late Friday night. Government remains open

  • If gov’t shuts down, what happens to visitors in the national parks?

    Ralph Maughan

    Shutdown is likely. National Parks will be closed. Other public lands? It looks more and more like a government shutdown of uncertain duration. Dept of Interior just made it clear that national parks and monuments will be closed down and “secured.”  I have to wonder what will happen come Saturday to all those currently inside…

  • Cows, What a many Splendored Thing

    Ken Cole

    Last week I went out with a co-worker to check out what was going on in the Jarbidge Field Office where Western Watersheds Project has won a court victory that ends corporate ranching on 450,000 acres of public land. When we arrived we found cattle on several of the allotments even though the injunction is…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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