IDAHO

Massive juniper tree-cutting project aims to aid sage grouse

MURPHY – The largest-ever project in the U.S. to remove thousands of juniper trees to help imperiled sage grouse has started in Idaho.

Junipers provide perches for raptors that attack and kill sage grouse. Junipers also force out sagebrush and other plants that produce bugs that sage grouse eat. Sage grouse also feed on the sagebrush during the winter.

Overall, sage grouse numbers have dwindled from an estimated 16 million before European settlement of the West to no more than 500,000 today in 11 western states.

The project that began last spring in Idaho aims to remove junipers on 965 square miles of state and federal land.

Sage grouse are chicken-sized, ground-dwelling birds considered an indicator species for the health of vast sagebrush landscapes in the West that support some 350 species of wildlife. Experts generally attribute their decline to road construction, development and oil and gas leasing.

The project that is estimated to take 10 to 15 years could become a template for other western states as junipers have expanded because of fire-suppression efforts. Juniper-removal projects have been carried out before, but not on this scale.

Junipers are being cut where sagebrush still covers most of the ground. Thicker stands of junipers that have pushed out sagebrush are being left as those areas would take decades to become suitable sage grouse habitat. But those thicker stands could be targeted for a future project.

Rancher and Owyhee County Commissioner Jerry Hoagland said ranchers want the junipers removed to improve cattle grazing.

KANSAS

Movie theater recognized for its longevity

OTTAWA – The oldest continuously operating movie theater in the world might figure to be in New York or Hollywood.

How about Kansas?

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Ottawa, some 50 miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri, is home to the Plaza 1907 Cinema, showing films since May 22, 1907, when black-and-white, silent movies ruled the day.

What sets the theater in the town of 12,300 people apart is that over the past 112 years, it has never shut down and has remained at the same location.

Owner Scott Zaremba said that in the early days, films were made of a highly flammable material, so fires were common.

“One of the reasons we’re the oldest continuously operating theater in the world is we didn’t burn down,” said Zaremba, 53, who became co-owner of the Plaza in 2014 and took over as sole proprietor in July 2018.

The Plaza applied for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2017, and last year, it achieved the distinction of being the “World’s Oldest Operating Purpose-Built Cinema” after it was determined it was two days older than another movie house in Denmark.

UTAH

Audit shows millions to go to proposed water pipeline costs

SALT LAKE CITY – Washington County is expected to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build and operate a proposed water pipeline, according to a Utah legislative audit.

The audit found it will require a large fee, rate and tax increases for a southern Utah county to pay for a proposed pipeline that would pull water from Lake Powell and cost at least $1.4 billion over the next 50 years.

The 140-mile line would supply the St. George metro area by diverting water from the Colorado River across southern Utah each year to the Sand Hallow Reservoir in Washington County.

A population increase is central to the audit’s conclusion that the district could repay the state and cover its bills, the audit’s supervisor said.

Washington County’s population is projected to rise from 173,000 to 509,000 by 2065, while the per-capita use is projected to drop between 15% and 25% due to increased rates, according to the audit.

“There is no way they could increase (wholesale water) rates 357% and see a drop in use of only 25%,” said Zach Frankel, Utah Rivers Council executive director. “If water use drops through the floor, then so do the revenues used to repay Utah taxpayers.”

The Utah Rivers Council concluded in an independent study that the project could cost up to $3.2 billion, not including financing costs.

NEW MEXICO

State ruling abolishes privilege on spousal testimony

The New Mexico Supreme Court has barred the state’s court system from continued use of a longstanding legal privilege that disallows testimony by a defendant’s spouse, saying it is based in misogyny and “has outlived its useful life.”

The Santa Fe-based state high court ruled Aug. 30 in an appeal of a man who the ruling said had made incriminating statements to both a wife he later divorced and his second wife regarding the 2002 shotgun killing of a Clovis man.

Both women testified during David Gutierrez’s 2017 trial in the killing of Jose Valverde, who was found dead in a boxcar he used as his home.

Gutierrez, whose defense objected to the women’s testimony, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The ruling said use of the spousal communication privilege during his 2017 trial prompted the court to “question its continued viability in New Mexico.”

The ruling acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that married people have a constitutional right to privacy in their intimate relationships.

However, the opinion authorized by Chief Justice Nakamura and joined by two other justices said the privilege is rooted in misogyny, and it cited threats that Gutierrez made against his ex-wife if she talked about the killing.

The court said its ruling abolishes use of the privilege prospectively, affecting “all cases filed on or after the date this opinion is filed.”

State’s high court blocks changes to election law

SANTA FE – The New Mexico Supreme Court has determined parts of a new election law that would have altered the terms of certain elected officials are unconstitutional.

The court ruling Aug. 26 blocks some of the election changes enacted by state lawmakers earlier this year from taking effect.

Lawmakers had aimed for the changes to shift the election timing of some judges and county officials, so not all the elections would fall in the same year.

Groups of judges, district attorneys and county officials had challenged parts of the laws in three separate lawsuits.

A court spokesman said that the state Supreme Court has directed officials not to go forward with the changes.

The new law would have staggered terms of district and metropolitan court judges, temporarily allowing some to serve six-year terms instead of the constitutionally mandated four-year terms.