PLOW has been involved in several activities since the last news- letter. The Mt. Hope Trout Pond issue has had some movement—some good, some not so good. The National Natural Landmark designation in the Baraboo Hills of Sauk County has been an ongoing project for members in that area, President Art and Vera Kolusa and Director Ruth and Harvey Bender attended the Alliance For America FLY-IN in Washington, DC, in June and Gene and Shirley Luebker will attend the AFA director’s meeting in Albany, NY, in September.

On July 2, we received a letter from Sen. Schultz and Rep. Brandemuehl stating that the DNR had agreed to establish a new pond to replace the Mt. Hope Pond. The compromise seemed very fair. The DNR would develop a new pond that it would stock. The Woodman Boat Landing was the proposed site. The County already maintains this area and the DNR requested that local sports groups also help with maintenance. The DNR also agreed to discontinue its work at the present pond until the details regarding the new site were finalized.

Mr. Schultz and Mr. Brandemuehl felt that this was a worthy solution and so did we. In fact, PLOW felt that this was a win-win situation for everyone involved.

We called the DNR and asked for a meeting to start the process moving. Just about this same time we received a letter from Rep. Brandemuehl stating that the whole project was on hold because the Bureau of Endangered Species had found an endangered minnow at the boat landing site. Mr. Brandemuehl stated in his letter "I am personally angered by this development and have appealed to Secretary Meyer for his intervention in helping to resolve this matter."

We were also angered and disgusted by this development. Many of you may have seen the letter to the editor that appeared in several local newspapers where we questioned this development. Within the last ten years the spring at the boat landing dried up during a drought. Dead fish were lying on the banks of the spring as the water supply diminished to virtually nothing. The question then becomes where did this minnow come from? Did it come from the Wisconsin River? Did it come from the Trout Pond? Did the Bureau of Endangered Species check the Trout Pond before it was drained to see if there were any endangered minnows, frogs, turtles or whatevers there prior to the draining?

The DNR must answer these and similar questions before we can believe that this was anything besides a fortuitous coincidence.

We will keep you informed through the newsletter and the local papers as this situation continues to play itself out.

During the widespread expansion of railroads through out the U.S., railroad companies were granted easements for railroads with the promise that if and when the lines were abandoned the property would revert to the original owner or descendants or subsequent owners of the land involved.

As thousands of miles of railroad lines have been abandoned, the railroad companies have arbitrarily or have been coaxed into turning these rights of way over to recreationalists or to tele- communications companies for the laying of fiber-optic cables.

A Kansas suit against this taking has resulted in a Wichita, KA judge ruling that the case could be heard in federal court in Kansas. Eight other states including Iowa and Wisconsin are also seeking restoration of these lands to the private landowners. The judge ruled that the other eight states could take their petitions back to their individual states or all nine states could file a class action suit in the Federal Court of Claims in Washington, DC.

(Trumpet Call, July/Aug. l999)

PLOW members in northern Wisconsin have been fighting this battle for several years. We know that the Military Ridge Trail from Verona to Dodgeville is along an abandoned rail line. Several other proposed hiking/biking trails have been proposed in the state as well as the snowmobile trail in the Hurley area.

These easements were given in good faith to the railroad companies as the railroads opened up more and more areas of the state and country. The advent of the automobile and subsequently the trucking industry has made most of these lines unnecessary and unprofitable. When the rail companies formally abandoned these thousands of miles of track, the land should have reverted back to the present owners. However, the greens saw an opportunity to grab land for their agenda and pressured various local and state officials to "take" this land for their purposes without compensation to the landowners.

AT&T has found out that this is not going to pay. In Indiana AT&T paid $25,000 a mile to the railroad companies to lay fiber optic cables in abandoned rail rights of way. On May 12, l999, AT&T settled a class action suit brought by Indiana property owners for the equivalent of $200 million. While this suit at present affects only Indiana property owners it is expected that suits filed is other states will accomplish the same results for property owners across the nation. Landowners will receive $45,000 per mile from AT&T in the settlement.

"This settlement is a blow to rails-to-trails groups which have been active in selling fiber optic companies on the whole idea of laying cables in abandoned rights of way where trails groups have tried to advance the federal Rails–to-

Trails act, 16 U.S.C. 1247 (d). Court suits will be filed against any government agency or private group that have involved themselves in selling any rails-to-trails-type rights of way," says Dale E. Anderson, Ex. Director of National Association of Reversionary Property Owners (NARPO) in the July/Aug. l999 Trumpet Call.

If you have abandoned rail- road lines on your property, contact

the law firm of Zelle, Hofman, Voelbel, and Gette in Minneapolis, phone number 612-339-2020. The attorneys who are involved with the Wisconsin class action suit are John Massopust and Rick Hagstrom. The class action is primarily concerned with fiber optic lines placed on abandoned railroad property but this may be the time to question other railroad line abandonment issues.

PLOW members Claire Rischmueller and Ruth Bender spearheaded a move to inform landowners in the townships of

That their land was included in a National Park Service designation as a National Natural Landmark area. The landowners were "notified" via a small notice in one local newspaper that they had 90 days to opt out of the designation. If they did not opt out, their property would become part of the Baraboo Hills National Natural Landmark area. Ironically this area lies between the former Badger Ordinance property and the Aldo Leopold Preserve. The NSP and other groups mainly The Nature Conservancy tried to tell landowners that the designation meant nothing and that no restrictions would be placed on their rights to use their property. PLOW’s question then was, if that is the case why have the designation in the first place? The NSP and TNC had no answer other than it would be an "honor" to have your property so designated!

PLOW had an open meeting on the NNL designation at the Sauk County Courthouse in Baraboo on July. So many concerned landowners turned out that a wall had to be removed between two rooms to accommodate everyone.

Our unofficial estimate of the crowd was 200 people. Ironically the NSP also called a meeting on the same night at the same place on the same subject. Their attendance was estimated at perhaps 20 people with many of those persons who went to hear what they had to say before coming to our meeting.

PLOW asked that any landowner opting out of the NNL send a copy of the opt out to us. We received nearly 100 copies and we are sure that many people did not send a copy to us. If 50 percent of the landowners in a NNL designation opt out, the designation is cancelled. At this time PLOW does not know if we reached that number. If we did. wonderful; if we did not, we tried.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, July 3, l999, the NSP is taking steps to halt noise in national parks and wilderness areas. Wes Henry a natural resource specialist at the agency’s ranger division is writing a new "soundscape preservation" policy. Some of the sounds that are under attack are snowmobiles, jet skis, motor boats, cars, airliners, and other human noises—I wonder if that will include talking.

It probably will, as Secretary Babbitt is attempting to placate environmentalists as the 2000 presidential election approaches

by banning to most public use five (5) million acres of federal land in six states. In many cases, all recreational uses would be banned except walking and meditating. (Trumpet Call, July/Aug l999)

Henry says that human noises (again we wonder, does that include talking) make it harder for frogs to hear potential mates peeping, or mask the airy whistle of hawk feathers alerting a vole that it’s about to become lunch.

With this logic in mind your flight from Madison to Seattle might have to take a detour down through Texas, across Mexico, out over the Pacific and then some how land in Seattle without causing sound pollution over any environmentally sensitive portion of the U.S. Or is this one hidden step in the stated aims of the Kyoto treaty to reduce energy use and "global warming" by limiting the use of energy consumption in developed countries. Can’t fly those airplanes without fuel, can’t fly over sensitive areas, can’t drive in national parks, can’t take out your jet skis or motor craft, can’t talk in national parks or wilderness areas. You can walk (remember no squeaky shoes) and meditate.

Babbitt, Gore, and company are achieving their goals of making national parks and wilderness areas out-of-bounds for everyone but those people who are physically able to walk in, around, and out of these national treasurers---for the rest of us –too bad!

If you read a daily paper regularly, you have probably seen recent articles on light pollution of the atmosphere. It seems the night skies in urban areas have so much light pollution that people cannot see the stars. NSP policy mandates

that parks protect "scenic vistas, natural quiet, and clear night skies."

Cities and urban areas have also become involved in the idea of night light pollution. As a result, a proposed airport in Nevada is under attack for both the noise and light that will "destroy the public’s ability to hear the natural sounds of the California desert…and night visibility over Mojave would be degraded."

The increased lighting in cities and urban areas certainly does make it more difficult to see the beauties of the night sky but the increase has been brought about by the need for areas to as well lighted as possible. Cities and urban areas have responded to the increase in personal crime of all kinds by providing well-lighted streets and parking lots. A new reflector on lights that prevents the light from going up into the sky and instead concentrates it downward is one solution that has been tested.

One simple answer to this problem in cities is very simple—get rid of lighted outdoor advertising. If you have ever driven through Madison or any other larger city at night, you know that the glare of various signs along with the streetlights, stop lights, and car lights actually make it difficult to see. I’m sure that businesses in these cities of all sizes would not like this solution but if people want safety and want to see the night sky this would be a place to start. My worst case scenario governmentally proposed solution would be that all rural, i.e. farmyard lights will be eliminated and the cities will go on as usual.

In 1998 Interior Secretary Babbitt launched a verbal war on "weeds." He described them as "invaders" on American soil, which he alleged, are threatening the purity of America’s home-grown plant life.

In Feb. 1999, Pres. Clinton followed Babbitt’s lead and issued Executive Order 13112 which authorized all-out elimination, wherever and whenever possible of non-native flora in America. This would include the Japanese cherry trees around the Jefferson tidal basin in Washington, DC; White poplars, Spearmint, and Peppermint plants, etc.

Vice President Gore claimed "invasive" plants were taking over 6,400 acres of U.S. soil per day. If this figure is correct, an area the size of Connecticut will have been "conquered" by alien "weeds" between now and election day 2000.

Fred Grau, Jr., of State College, PA notes that some of these non-native plants that are so bothersome to Babbitt, Clinton, and Gore include tall fescue that is in the lawns of millions of homeowners, sweet clover that provides bees with the makings of honey, crownvetch which is used nationwide to control roadside erosion, and birdsfoot trefoil, a valuable pasture plant for beef, lamb, and dairy cows. (It is also recommended by ASC for seeding down CRP land)

(Trumpet Call, July/Aug. l999)

If Babbitt and Gore are really looking for an invasive "weed" to control, a "weed" that truly is destroying pastures and other open land they have only to look at the multi-flora rose. This "weed" was introduced in large areas of the Upper Midwest during the depres-sion as a way to control wind erosion of light soil.

When most land was farmed and cattle were in most pastureable land, multi-flora rose spread only marginally; however, that is not the case today.

As more farms are sold to larger producers and pastures are not used, as more lands are put into CRP, as more and more products are considered hazardous and taken off the market, the multi flora rose spreads and spreads and spreads. Pastures that were nearly like lawns when cattle were eating them down are now nearly impenetrable jungles grown over with this governmentally approved "alien" plant.

Requests on getting rid of this "alien" plant to the Soil Conservation Service, the Dept. of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Prot, and local agronomists have brought a variety of answers from "yes, the government did introduce it, but no, we will not help you get rid of it; to if you spray with this product or that product that should do the trick; to there is only one thing that will kill this plant and it has been outlawed since Viet Nam." So what are we to do. We are starting to see the invasion of this plant into urban areas where it will probably be controlled because the landowner will only be dealing with one or two plants which the owner can spray regularly getting every leaf and eventually killing the plant. But that doesn’t solve the problem of rural landowners, particularly farmers who may have the plant along fencerows, in pastures, and spreading into CRP ground.

If Babbitt and Gore want a cause that will get the attention of many farmers, an eradication program for multi flora rose is a top vote getter.