Free Republic

A highly decorated U.S. Forest Service police dog suffered nine stab wounds during a marijuana raid in Northern California. But he survived after he was airlifted to a veterinary clinic, the agency said Friday. What's more, it's the second time the dog, an 11-year-old Belgian Malinois named Ice, recovered after being seriously injured on the job. Ice was wounded Aug. 27 in the Klamath National Forest south of the Oregon border when he was released to catch a suspect who had fled down a steep hill to escape the raid that unearthed more than 5,500 marijuana plants. He kept hold...

Dan Love .. led Operation Cerberus ... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wants to rein in the law enforcement authority of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service and is crafting legislation he says will either restrict or abolish their authority. Lee said Monday he aims to hem in powers he says were never envisioned under the Federal Land Management Policy Act of 1976. "Our federal land management agencies have drifted far from their intended purposes.. The BLM has expanded its operations far from public lands." ... The senator added federal land agencies exercise police powers on private land...

The United States Forest Service severely damaged a forest road and trail in Northwestern Idaho earlier this month, raising serious questions about the agency’s ability to care for federally-managed lands. During the first weekend in June, several members of Northwestern Gold Prospectors Association (NWGPA) planned to attend a gathering to prospect private claims in the Bedrock Gulch and Eagle Creek areas. When the prospectors arrived, Forest Road 152 was blocked with cement barricades and hundreds of felled trees. ... Photographs from that day show large logs laid crosswise and laterally on the trail, covered with hundreds of large pine branches...

Peruvian natural resource managers have questions about how to protect their country’s forests, and they came to Summit County for answers. A U.S. Forest Service division called International Programs, which promotes sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation in foreign countries, brought top-level Peruvian officials for an educational tour that started Monday in Washington D.C. and ends Friday in Denver. ... In 2009, a U.S-Peru free trade agreement stipulated that Peru must curtail illegal logging, which undercuts the U.S. timber sector, and sustainably manage natural resources, said Erin Carey, who worked with the Forest Service International Programs for the last five...

A recent fire in Tombstone's historical district has brought back the battle between the city and the feds over the town's water supply. Tombstone gets its water from a highly protected wilderness area in the Huachuca Mountains. The pipeline that transports water 30 miles across Cochise County has had problems since the Monument Fire in 2011. According to the City they still haven't been able to get the proper equipment into the area to permanently fix the issues. The structures in Tombstone's historic district are like a tinderbox. In the past few years alone the site of what is currently...

When Kit Laney answered a knock on his door Saturday, law enforcement officers from the U.S. Forest Service handed him a piece of paper announcing his Diamond Bar Ranch in southwest New Mexico would be shut down Wednesday and his 300 head of cattle grazing there would be removed – one way or the other. Other Forest Service officials were busy nailing similar notices on fence posts along the highway and informing neighbors that after Feb. 11, they should not attempt to enter the Diamond Bar property. Laney was not surprised. He knew someday there would be an on-the-ground confrontation...

It happens every summer, and this year is no different; thousands of wildfires ravage millions of acres in the arid Western states, destroying homes and huge swaths of forest and wildlife habitat — and taking lives. With the fire season far from over, federal firefighting efforts already topped $1 billion by August 21, and the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies are running out of money.  Forty-nine “uncontained large fires” are raging across the Western states and an additional 222 new “moderate” fires are in various stages of either growing or being brought under control, according to the U.S. Department...

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) are asking for help from the public in gathering information about the theft of approximately 559 pounds of high explosives from a USFS explosives bunker located near Red Lodge. A press release from the ATF says that in April 2013, someone used forced entry to get into an explosives storage facility owned and operated by the U. S. Forest Service. The storage facility is located approximately two miles south of the City of Red Lodge.

A national group representing off-highway recreationists is suing the U.S. Forest Service to try to overturn a new travel management plan on national forest lands in the Sierra west of Reno they say is overly restrictive. The Pacific Legal Foundation said in a lawsuit filed recently the agency plan adopted in 2010 illegally closed more than 800 miles of roads and trails the public has used for years in the Tahoe National Forest. ... Similar disputes are under way in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, primarily in northeast Nevada's Elko County, and in the Eldorado National Forest in California mostly west...

The showdown between the federal government and the historic town of Tombstone is headed to court.  Using the 10th Amendment as a defense for the residents of Tombstone, the Goldwater Institute will be pushing back against the United States Forest Service (USFS), which is preventing the repair of crucial water lines to the town. More from Goldwater: The City of Tombstone is squaring off against the U.S. Forest Service over water rights in a fight to rescue “The Town Too Tough to Die.” Citing the Wilderness Act, the Forest Service is refusing to allow the city to repair its waterlines...

Two wilderness groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow an irrigation company to use a helicopter to fly in materials needed to repair a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Clearwater filed suit in U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s court in Missoula last week. The groups say the agency’s decision to allow the irrigation company up to two helicopter flights to the Fred Burr Dam site violates the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws. The irrigation company wants to replace a deteriorating catwalk and log boom on the nearly century-old...

Dear VICTORY! Thanks to you, we defeated Exxon’s plan to turn a pristine stretch of the Rocky Mountains into an industrial tar sands corridor. This is a win for the environment worth celebrating. Last week, we succeeded in bringing down a Goliath ... none other than Exxon Mobil. Thanks to your activism, we forced the oil giant to back down in its quest to turn a remote and wild stretch of the Rocky Mountains into an industrial transportation corridor. Exxon has formally withdrawn its application with the state of Montana to ship thousands of mega-sized tractor trailers, filled with tar...

TOMBSTONE — Temporary repairs were made at Gardner Spring on the Tombstone water line, City Clerk George Barnes reported. The Shovel Brigade organized earlier this month has hopes the repair will hold up during the upcoming summer storms, Barnes said. Work involved on Friday and Saturday, June 8-9, redirected and lifted the waterline out of the flow path. There was also construction of a diversion to protect the line as much as possible. Barnes said 60 people did the physical work, which involved moving large rocks and debris, along with pick and shovel work. The crew never made it to...

A Spotted Owl may do what Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo, the Clanton gang, the Gunfight at the OK Corral and two major fires couldn’t do: destroy Tombstone, known throughout the century as “The town too tough to die!” According to several CNN reports, Tombstone may soon run out of water because of a broken 26-mile water pipeline, which runs through a National Forest....

The Eldorado National Forest will close 42 popular off-highway-vehicle routes that cross meadows due to a February court order, Forest Supervisor Kathy Hardy announced this week. The routes could be closed through this year's recreation season while the U.S. Forest Service conducts an environmental analysis ordered by the court. U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton said the Forest Service had failed to comply with the National Forest Management Act when it designated routes as open for motor vehicle use,

This Map Shows Where All The Trees Are In The US Dina Spector Jan. 12, 2012, 2:48 PM NASA's Earth Observatory just released a map illustrating where all the trees are in America. The map was created over six years by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey. The dark swaths of green represent parts of the country with the greatest concentration of biomass. You can see dense tree cover in the Pacific Northwest as well New England, which has been reforested after intensive...

Nearly half of the federal government’s firefighting air tankers are siting idle at a California airport, grounded by the Obama administration in a contract dispute just weeks before wildfires swept through Texas killing a mother and her child, and destroying 100,000 acres. The massive blazes forced Texas Gov. and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry to abruptly call off a campaign appearance in South Carolina earlier this week to respond to the crisis, and may force him to cancel his first debate appearance Wednesday night. The U.S. Forest Service terminated the contract with Aero Union five weeks ago to operate seven...

BASTROP — Firefighting-trained volunteers from around the state converged on Bastrop and Smithville Tuesday to lend a hand to the beleaguered local firefighters battling the Bastrop County Complex Fire — only to be sent away as federal officials arrived at the scene and took command, apparently because local officials never made a formal request for volunteers. “We were at the station getting set up into strike teams, and this guy came up and said that the U.S. Forest Service had ‘assumed control of the situation, and that ‘If you don’t have a vehicle that squirts water, go home,’” said Gordon...

During the despotic eras of Norman and Plantagenet England, the Crown declared one third of the land area of Southern England to be the royal forest, the exclusive preserve of the monarch, his forestry officials and his favored aristocrats. The people of Britain were forbidden access to and enjoyment of these forests under harsh penalties. This exclusionary system became so despised by the people that in 1215, five clauses of the Magna Carta were devoted to redress of grievances that are hauntingly similar to those that are now flooding my office. The Royal Forests House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January...

Government would clear Manistee National Forest land to help butterfly survive WZZM 13 ONLINE OTTO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM) -- The U.S. Forest Service is seeking public input on a proposal to clear a portion of the Manistee National Forest to give a butterfly a greater chance of survival. The plan would also call for closing motorized access to portions of the forest. Leaders in Otto Township in Oceana County were to hold a community meeting Thursday night to discuss the proposal with neighbors. "Otto Township alone is made up of over 50% Manistee National Forest and state land," says township...