Reporter Notes

Opal terrorism

A man arrested in Idaho in a terrorism plot intended to help Al-Quaida wreck the American economy by destroying the Alaskan pipeline, a Standard Oil refinery in New Jersey and the Williams facility near Opal, according to press accounts.

According to a report by Knight Ridder Newspapers, Michael Curtis Reynolds, 47, who was living in a Pocatello, Idaho, motel, had plotted to detonate trucks filled with propane along the pipelines. Little informationis known about the case against Reynolds at this time.

Elk

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was slated to attempt to trap more elk at the Muddy Creek elk feedground near Boulder on Wednesday, Feb. 15. Results of that test-and-slaughter effort to control brucellosis were not available before the Examiner went to press.

Rangelands

A Wyoming Rangeland Management School 101 will be presented Wednesday, March 29, at the Big Piney Library. Presented by the Wyoming Section of the Society for Range Management and sponsored by a partnership of natural resource agencies, the school provides an opportunity for participants to learn or brush up on basic rangeland management and related subjects. For more information or to register for the school, contact the Sublette County Conservation District at 307-367-2257, ext. 100.

Forest plan

The Bridger-Teton National Forest is accepting public comment on its draft framework of desired conditions, which serves as the base for the revised forest plan. The draft framework is posted on the Internet at http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/btnf/news/forest_plan_revision/round_2.shtml. Public input should be received no later than March 10.

Manure

U.S. Representative Barbara Cubin has added her name to legislation that will protect agricultural producers from liability for emissions or discharges from manure produced during the course of their operations.

Cubin said the measure, H.R. 4341, is designed to ensurethat farms, ranches and other properties that apply manure will not become superfund sites. Some state and local authorities around the country have recently reinterpreted a federal law to argue that manure is toxic in an effort to shut down livestock and poultry operations.

“Congress never intended the superfund law to be twisted in this way,” Cubin said. “The lengths some people are going to use manure to shutdown family ranches and farms stinks to high heaven and Congress isn’t going to stand for it.”