Kenai cats could join dogs on the list of animals that city code requires to be restrained either by a leash, fence, or building.

 The cat leash law was introduced to the Kenai City Council by Kenai Mayor Pat Porter and council member Tim Navarre, who in the ordinance text cited an increase in residents’ complaints to the Kenai Animal Shelter about roaming cats and a growing cat population in the shelter that “has begun to tax the available resources of the Animal Shelter.”

 The council unanimously voted to postpone the ordinance Wednesday, with members Mike Boyle and Bob Molloy absent. It will now have a hearing and vote on October 5.

 The “restraint” which the ordinance would require of cats at all times is defined in Kenai code as “physical confinement, as by leash, chain, fence, or building.” The maximum penalty allowed in code for an animal violation is a fine of up to $500 per violation.

 A memo from Kenai city attorney Scott Bloom, attached to the ordinance, states the Kenai Animal Shelter “has received an increased number of complaints regarding cats roaming at large, defecating on private property, invading plant beds, and otherwise disturbing property owners’ peaceful enjoyment of their property.”

 Kenai Animal Control Office Jessica Hendrickson wrote in an email that she’d observed an increase in cat complaints, though numbers showing the increase don’t exist.

 “We have noticed an increase in the amount of calls with complaints about cats in the past several months,” Hendrickson wrote in an email. “Because we do not have a current Kenai Municipality Code regarding cat confinement, we do not keep detailed records regarding confinement complaints.”

 Two letters to council members from Bridgit Gillis and Sheila Holtzen, both residents of Kenai’s Woodland subdivision, were included in Wednesday’s meeting materials and emphasized such complaints.

 “I have been a cat owner myself and have nothing against having cats as pets,” Gillis wrote. “I do, however, have a problem with cat owners allowing their cats to roam freely within city limits, where we all live closely together. Not only is this practice disrespectful, but it does not have the best interest and safety of the cat in mind.”

 Holtzen wrote that with ill family members in her home, “having cats use my yard for a kitty litter box is a huge health issue, as well as being really nasty, and we shouldn’t have to tolerate this.”

 “Some days the stench coming from underneath my back deck is sickening!” Holtzen wrote. “Twice I have accidentally stuck my fingers in cat poop while trying to weed my flower garden, and I had to start live trapping them after that.”

 The Kenai Animal Shelter has six live traps it loans to residents for 14 days, Hendrickson wrote in her email.

 “Recently, the traps have been completely checked out and we have had a waitlist for people to pick them up when they have been returned,” Hendrickson wrote.

 Kenai resident and former council member Ryan Marquis testified to the cat leash law via an email, in which he wrote that “the flaw in this ordinance is that it assumes compliance.”

 “It is my opinion that those that start restraining their cats will be significantly fewer in number than those that ignore the ordinance (whether knowingly or not),” Marquis wrote. “Also, I believe that a large number of the cats that are likely prompting this ordinance are feral; they don’t have owners that can be responsible for them being unrestrained. If I’m correct, this means that Animal Shelter resources will be taxed even further.”

 Kenai resident Heather Morning also said the cat leash law would create more burden for the animal shelter rather than relieving it.

 “Every cat that is currently used to being outdoors would now have to be contained and every time that cat manages to get out of its containment, animal control would be tasked with having to get involved in that situation because it’s now an ordinance,” Morning said.

 Marquis wrote that the leash law could have an unexpected fiscal impact.

 “Are you prepared to increase Animal Control’s budget to support this new program?” Marquis wrote. “And remember, it’s not just additional food that the Shelter would need to acquire, it’s the personnel hours involved with chasing after complaint cats, other expenses associated with housing, time spent dealing with owners and the additional costs associated with increased euthanizations and vaccinations.”

 As of Thursday afternoon, Hendrickson wrote that she didn’t have available information on the costs associated with keeping cats at the shelter.

 At Wednesday’s meeting, Kenai City Manager Rick Koch said “it is not the case” that the shelter’s resources are being taxed. Koch said the shelter’s budget — $421,265 in Fiscal Year 2017 — “is sufficient for its operations, specifically for food.”

 In a memo given Wednesday, Koch recommended delaying the vote on the cat ordinance, writing to council members that he “would like to research historical information and provide that information to Council so that you have the best information available on which to base your decisions.” During the meeting, Koch elaborated on the information he sought.

 “I want to spend a little bit more time looking at the data as far as the number of complaints and calls, and provide that information in a report to council,” Koch said. “I’d like to be more specific and give you information on how we handle complaints for cats now, how many requests we get for live-traps … and I wanted to bring all those numbers for you guys to be able to have that and consider this action.”

 Porter requested that Koch also include in his report a list of other Alaskan cities that currently have cat leash laws.

 Hendrickson wrote in an email that the shelter can reasonably house 16 cats, or slightly more if there are cats that come from the same household and are used to living together. Hendrickson, who started working at the shelter in August 2015, wrote that the maximum number of cats hadn’t been reached during her time there.

 In August 2016 the Kenai Animal Shelter took in 48 cats, according to its latest monthly report. Of these, 34 were voluntarily given up by owners and 13 were brought in as strays, having been either impounded by animal control officers or brought in by residents who had trapped them. Hendrickson wrote that cats usually spend 5-10 days at the shelter before being adopted.

 “When an animal comes in as a stray we hold it for 3-5 days before we are able to adopt it out to allow for an owner to come in and claim it,” Hendrickson wrote. “However, we do have occasions when animals stay at the shelter for upwards of a month or so before they are adopted out.”

 Fourteen of the cats that entered the shelter in August were adopted. Three were claimed by owners, and two were euthanized. Twenty-nine were transferred to one of the four animal rescue centers that the Kenai shelter partners with.

 According to the shelter’s reports — submitted to the city council in meeting packets at the last meeting of each month — cat intake in 2016 and 2015 has ranged between the 62 cats taken during September 2015 and the 14 taken in February 2016. In each month, a majority of new cats have been those brought voluntarily by owners, and the majority of cats leave the shelter to be sent to rescue centers.

 Reach Ben Boettger at ben.boettger@peninsulaclarion.com. ||||| KENAI, Alaska (AP) — Cats will need leashes just like dogs if a proposal before the Kenai council wins approval.

 Kenai Mayor Pat Porter and council member Tim Navarre have proposed a cat leash law after complaints from residents about roaming felines.

 The Peninsula Clarion reports (http://bit.ly/2diht2m) that current city code does not include cats on its list of animals that need to be restrained.

 The proposed ordinance also cites complaints about the impact of a growing cat population on the Kenai Animal Shelter's resources.

 Kenai City Manager Rick Koch says shelter resources are sufficient. He said he will research data and see whether other Alaska communities have similar laws.

 Some residents are concerned about compliance and whether the law will tax animal control resources.

 A hearing and vote is set for Oct. 5.

 ___

 Information from: (Kenai, Alaska) Peninsula Clarion, http://www.peninsulaclarion.com |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Cats will need leashes just like dogs if a proposal before the Kenai council in Alaska wins approval, the AP reports. Kenai Mayor Pat Porter and council member Tim Navarre have proposed a cat leash law after complaints from residents about roaming felines. According to the Peninsula Clarion, current city code does not include cats on its list of animals that need to be restrained. The proposed ordinance also cites complaints about the impact of a growing cat population on the Kenai Animal Shelter's resources. Kenai City Manager Rick Koch says shelter resources are sufficient. Some residents are concerned about compliance and whether the law will tax animal control resources. A hearing and vote is set for Oct. 5.


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– Three Republican state senators in Idaho skipped the chamber's daily invocation yesterday because they objected to the guest chaplain's religion. The three didn't take their seats until after Hindu cleric Rajan Zed had finished his prayer, which focused on selflessness, the AP reports. "Hindu is a false faith with false gods," said Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll. "I think it's great that Hindu people can practice their religion, but since we're the Senate, we're setting an example of what we, Idaho, believe." Another of the three, Sen. Steve Vick, had tried to have the prayer stopped, warning that a non-Christian prayer could "send a message we're not happy with the way America is," reports the Spokesman-Review. "They have a caste system. They worship cows," Vick complained, saying he had plenty of support from constituents who wanted the prayer stopped. Several other lawmakers missed the prayer, but they said it was because they were running late. After the prayer, Zed—who has delivered Hindu prayers for the US House, US Senate, and other state legislatures—said Hinduism is very inclusive and he didn't mind that some lawmakers had boycotted the prayer. "Most of them welcomed me," he told the Spokesman-Review. "They came out and shook my hand—some of them hugged me. It was good. There are multiple viewpoints. ... That is what makes the country great, you know? Different viewpoints."

Rajan Zed delivers a Hindu prayer in the Idaho Senate on Tuesday morning, as the opening invocation (Betsy Russell)

 Seven senators remained outside the Senate chamber this morning as guest chaplain Rajan Zed delivered today’s opening invocation, a Hindu prayer, then took their seats immediately after it was done. The seven: Sens. Vick, Nonini, Nuxoll, Den Hartog; and Rice, Patrick and Siddoway (who all three later said they weren't boycotting the prayer and were just running late). Vick had previously announced his plans to walk out, saying he objected to the Hindu prayer being delivered. Nonini said, "I was just late getting up there - I didn't want to walk in in the middle of it." But, he said, "I was disappointed that we didn't also have a Christian prayer."

 Clad in a flowing orange robe, Zed said afterward, “We don’t mind. Hinduism is more embracing,” he said. “We are very inclusive in Hinduism. … I think that is fine.” He said, “Most of them welcomed me. They came out and shook my hand – some of them hugged me. It was good. There are multiple viewpoints. … That is what makes the country great, you know? Different viewpoints.”

 In his prayer, Zed told the Senate, first in Sanskrit and then in English, “Strive constantly to serve the welfare of the world; by devotion to selfless one attains the supreme goal of life. Do your work with the welfare of other always in mind.” He said afterward, “It’s all from Hindu scriptures, very ancient. I didn’t write it.” ||||| Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, delivers a prayer from Sanskrit scriptures before the Idaho Senate on Tuesday, March 3, 2015 in Boise. The Idaho Senate convened Tuesday with a... (Associated Press)

 BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Three lawmakers refused to attend the Idaho Senate's daily invocation after objecting to the offering of a Hindu prayer.

 Rajan Zed, guest chaplain, gave a lengthy prayer in both English and Sanskrit on Tuesday that focused on selflessness and peace. Senators from both sides of the aisle shook his hand and thanked him for coming.

 "Fulfill all your duties, action is better than inaction," Zed said. "Even to maintain your body, you are obligated to act. Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any throughout of personal profit."

 However three lawmakers, all Republican, only came back onto the floor once the prayer was over: Sens. Steve Vick of Dalton Garden, Sheryl Nuxoll of Cottonwood and Lori Den Hartog of Meridian.

 Prayer is a common event in Idaho's Republican-controlled Statehouse. The Idaho Senate and House convene each day with a prayer by the chamber's chaplains from Christian denominations followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. And most lawmakers cite their religion in the heir bios for the state's legislative directory.

 Nuxoll says she declined to attend because she believes the United States is a Christian nation.

 "Hindu is a false faith with false gods," she said. "I think it's great that Hindu people can practice their religion but since we're the Senate, we're setting an example of what we, Idaho, believe."

 Nuxoll added that she wished the Senate had conducted a Christian prayer along with the Hindu invocation.

 Vick had announced his objections the day before, saying that he would ask his colleagues to join him.

 Den Hartog said it would've been disingenuous to her Christian faith to attend.

 "It was a personal decision, I didn't want to announce it prior to the event," Den Hartog said.

 While nine lawmakers were absent in total for the prayer, five were caught up in meetings —not protesting the event — and one was excused.

 Zed said he reached out to Senate Pro Tem Brent Hill to offer the invocation. Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, has delivered traditional Hindu prayers to both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate and in nearly a dozen state legislatures.

 Guest chaplains often visit the Statehouse, Hill said, often when the sitting chaplain is taking time off. Last year, the Idaho Senate received an invocation from a Jewish rabbi, he said. |||||


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India has rejected NSA leaker Edward Snowden's request for political asylum, the External Affairs Ministry said Tuesday.

 The Indian embassy in Moscow had received a request for asylum from Snowden, ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told reporters.

 He said India carefully examined the request and decided to turn it down.

 The government has "concluded that we see no reason to accede to that request," he said.

 Earlier Tuesday, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said India "has a very careful and restrictive policy on asylums."

 "We have given asylums in the past but we are not an open house for asylums since we have a careful and objective policy," he said in Brunei, where he is attending a regional security forum.

 India has not ratified a 1951 international convention on refugees and has no regular procedure for granting asylum to people fleeing persecution.

 The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks has said that Snowden has applied to more than 20 countries for asylum, including India and China.

 Snowden has been on the run since he exposed highly secret National Security Agency surveillance programs. He is believed to be staying in the transit area of Moscow's airport since arriving there from Hong Kong on June 23. ||||| Image caption Edward Snowden is believed to be staying at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport

 Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has sent asylum requests to 21 countries, according to a statement published by Wikileaks.

 They include China, France, Ireland and Venezuela. But eight European countries said the requests were invalid.

 And Russia said Mr Snowden later withdrew the application to Moscow as the Kremlin had set conditions.

 He accuses US President Barack Obama of putting pressure on the countries to which he has applied.

 The former intelligence systems analyst, who is holed up at Moscow airport, is wanted by the US on charges of leaking secrets.

 Analysis Vladimir Putin's warning to Mr Snowden that he should stop "harming our American partners" is indicative of a significant shifting of gear. Russia now has ownership of the Snowden affair. What happens to Mr Snowden will depend upon Russia's calculations and what serves Russia's interests. The authorities in Moscow could have moved Mr Snowden on quickly, joining the diplomatic game of pass-the-parcel that began in Hong Kong. But the longer the errant US intelligence analyst stays in limbo at the Moscow airport, so the more Russia has become a central actor in this drama. Russia must balance a range of factors in seeking to determine Mr Snowden's fate - the risk of a serious rift with Washington and Russia's own standing as an international actor that upholds the legal order must be set against the strong vein of sympathy for Mr Snowden amongst Russian public opinion.

 US Secretary of State John Kerry raised Mr Snowden's case in talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Brunei.

 But Mr Kerry said the two did not discuss the matter substantively.

 "I did raise the issue of Mr Snowden but that is not his portfolio, nor is it mine, but it is being handled within the justice department," he said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

 'Not an agent'

 The Wikileaks press release said that most of the asylum requests - including to Russia itself - were handed to the Russian consulate at Sheremetyevo airport late on Sunday for delivery to the relevant embassies in Moscow.

 The requests were submitted by Sarah Harrison, a British member of the Wikileaks legal team acting as Mr Snowden's representative, the statement added.

 But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later said Mr Snowden withdrew the application to Russia because Moscow had said he should give up "anti-American activity".

 "After learning of Russia's position yesterday, voiced by President Putin ... he abandoned his intention [of staying] and his request to be able to stay in Russia," he said.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin had said that while Moscow "never hands over anybody anywhere", Mr Snowden could only stay on condition that he stopped damaging Russia's "American partners" with his leaks.

 Mr Snowden has reportedly been in the transit area of Sheremetyevo since arriving there from Hong Kong on 23 June.

 Mr Peskov confirmed he was still there and had not crossed into Russian territory, adding that the former analyst had never been a Russian agent and had never worked with its intelligence services.

 Norway, Poland, Germany, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland said asylum requests could only be made on their soil.

 Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is on a visit to Moscow, said Caracas had not yet received an asylum application from Mr Snowden but that he had "done something very important for humanity" and "deserved the world's protection".

 "The world's conscience should react, the world youth should react, the decent people who want a peaceful world should react, everyone should react and find solidarity with this young man who has denounced and altered the world that they [the US] pretend to control."

 Mr Snowden had previously submitted an application to Ecuador, whose embassy in London is sheltering Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and to Iceland.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Vladimir Putin: "He should cease his work aimed at damaging our American partners"

 Ecuador's President Rafael Correa told the Agence France-Presse news agency on Monday that his country would process Mr Snowden's asylum request if he managed to enter an Ecuadorean embassy.

 However, if he can complete his asylum request on Russian territory , then "the situation can be processed and resolved there," President Correa added.

 Details have also emerged of a letter from Mr Snowden to President Correa, thanking Ecuador for guaranteeing "my rights would be protected upon departing Hong Kong - I could never have risked travel without that".

 'Stateless person'

 Speaking in Tanzania on Monday, President Barack Obama said Moscow and Washington had held "high level discussions" about Mr Snowden, who he said had travelled to Moscow without valid documents.

 Mr Snowden describes himself as "a stateless person", accusing the US government of stopping him from exercising the "basic right...to seek asylum".

 "The president ordered his vice president to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions," he is quoted by Wikileaks as saying.

 "This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me."

 The leaking of thousands of classified intelligence documents has led to revelations that the US is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data. ||||| NSA leaker Edward Snowden's attempts to seek refuge outside the United States hit hurdles Tuesday, after Russian media reported he canceled his asylum bid in Russia and several European countries said such applications wouldn't be considered if they were made from abroad.

 FILE - This June 23, 2013 file photo shows a TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, at a shopping... (Associated Press)

 This screenshot made of the Wikileaks website shows a letter identified as being from NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Monday, July 1, 2013. The letter could not be independently authenticated as being from... (Associated Press)

 Russian news agencies Tuesday quoted President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Snowden withdrew his request when he learnt about the terms Moscow has set out. Putin said on Monday that Russia is ready to shelter Snowden as long as he stops leaking U.S. secrets.

 At the same time, Putin said he had no plans to turn over Snowden to the United States.

 Meanwhile several of the other countries where the WikiLeaks says Snowden has applied for asylum have said he cannot apply from abroad. Officials in Germany, Norway, Austria, Poland, Finland and Switzerland all said he must make his request on their soil.

 WikiLeaks said requests have also been made to Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Iceland, India, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Spain and Venezuela.

 The asylum requests reported by WikiLeaks and the Snowden statement could not be independently authenticated.

 WikiLeaks also posted a statement attributed to Snowden on its website late Monday, in which he slams President Barack Obama for "using citizenship as a weapon."

 "Although I am convicted of nothing, (the United States) has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person," Snowden says in the statement. "Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

 "Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me."

 Snowden, who has been on the run since releasing sensitive NSA documents, is believed to have been in Moscow airport's transit zone since his arrival from Hong Kong on June 23.

 WikiLeaks legal adviser Sarah Harrison delivered the requests for asylum to an official at the Russian consulate at the Moscow airport on Sunday, according to the group that has adopted Snowden and his cause.

 The U.S. has annulled Snowden's passport, and Ecuador, where he had initially hoped to get asylum, has been giving mixed signals about offering him shelter.

 The expanded requests for asylum come as the Obama administration contends with European allies angry about the release of documents that alleged U.S. eavesdropping on European Union diplomats.

 Obama said Monday that the U.S. would provide allies with information about new reports that the NSA had bugged EU offices in Washington, New York and Brussels. But he also suggested such activity by governments would hardly be unusual. ||||| Ecuador is not considering Edward Snowden's asylum request and never intended to facilitate his flight from Hong Kong, president Rafael Correa said, as the whistleblower made a personal plea to Quito for his case to be heard.

 Snowden was Russia's responsibility and would have to reach Ecuadorean territory before the country would consider any asylum request, the president said in an interview with the Guardian on Monday.

 "Are we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It's not logical. The country that has to give him a safe conduct document is Russia."

 The president, speaking at the presidential palace in Quito, said his government did not intentionally help Snowden travel from Hong Kong to Moscow with a temporary travel pass. The Ecuadorean consul in London acted without authority from Quito, he said.

 Asked if he thought the former NSA contractor would ever make it to

 Quito, he replied: "Mr Snowden's situation is very complicated, but in

 this moment he is in Russian territory and these are decisions for the

 Russian authorities."

 On whether Correa would like to meet him, the president said: "Not

 particularly. It's a complicated situation. Strictly speaking, Mr

 Snowden spied for some time."

 The comments contrasted with expressions of gratitude the 30-year-old fugitive issued hours later, before Correa's views had been published.

 "I must express my deep respect for your principles and sincere thanks for your government's action in considering my request for political asylum," Snowden said, according to a letter written in Spanish and obtained by the Press Association news agency, based in London.

 "There are few world leaders who would risk standing for the human rights of an individual against the most powerful government on earth, and the bravery of Ecuador and its people is an example to the world."

 Snowden compared the silence of governments afraid of US retaliation with Ecuador's help in his flight to Moscow on 22 June. A temporary Ecuadorean travel document substituted for his cancelled US passport.

 "The decisive action of your consul in London, Fidel Narvaez, guaranteed my rights would be protected upon departing Hong Kong – I could never have risked travel without that. Now, as a result, and through the continued support of your government, I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest."

 The letter will boost Ecuador's reputation with Snowden's supporters but sat awkwardly with the president's attempt to distance Quito from the saga. Correa said Quito respected the right of asylum and appreciated Snowden exposing the extent of US spying, but would not consider an asylum request unless he made it to an Ecuadorean embassy or the country itself – a remote possibility while he remains reportedly marooned in Sheremetyevo airport's transit lounge. "He must be on Ecuadorean territory," the president said.

 Earlier on Monday, Moscow confirmed that Snowden had applied for asylum in Russia. The Los Angeles Times said he had made similar applications to a total of 15 countries. In another statement, issued through by the campaigning website Wikileaks, Snowden attacked President Obama for putting pressure behind the scenes on countries to which he had petitioned for asylum.

 In his Guardian interview, Correa said his government had not, and would not, give Snowden an authorised travel document to extract himself from Moscow airport. "The right of asylum request is one thing but helping someone travel from one country to another — Ecuador has never done this. "

 He said the temporary travel document issued by his London consul on 22 June – and publicly disowned five days later – was issued without official authorisation. "There is a mistake … Look, this crisis hit us in a very vulnerable moment. Our foreign minister was on a 15-day tour. He was in Vietnam. Our deputy foreign minister was in the Czech Republic. Our US ambassador was in Italy."

 Narvaez and the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has sheltered at Ecuador's London embassy for the past year to escape extradition, took matters into their own hands because they feared Snowden risked capture, Correa said.

 "The consul, in his desperation, probably he couldn't reach the foreign minister … and he issued a safe conduct document without validity, without authorisation, without us even knowing."

 Correa said the consul was a "cultured" man who cited the example of Ecuadorean diplomats in Czechoslovakia giving Jews visas in defiance of their foreign ministry during the second world war.

 "Look, he [Assange] is in the embassy, he's a friend of the consul, and he calls him at four in the morning to say they are going to capture Snowden. The [consul] is desperate – 'how are we going to save the life of this man?' – and does it.

 "So I told him: OK, if you think you did the right thing, I respect your decision, but you could not give, without authorisation, that safe conduct pass. It was completely invalid, and he will have to accept the consequences."

 Narvaez would be "sanctioned", the president said, without elaborating.

 Some Ecuadorean diplomats have complained that Assange appeared to usurp Quito but the president said there was no rupture. "Mr Assange continues to enjoy our total respect and is under the protection of the Ecuadorean state."

 Correa, a standard bearer for the left in Latin America, has joined European and other Latin Americans leaders in denouncing US espionage.

 However, he softened his tone over the weekend and praised the US vice-president, Joe Biden, for a gracious phone call, saying he would consider Washington's request to refuse any asylum claim from Snowden while retaining Ecuador's sovereignty.

 • The headline on this article was changed on 3 July 2013 to give a more accurate reflection of the substance of the interview with President Correa. After a review of the original Spanish transcript on 4 July 2013, a quote in which president Correa described the "mistake" surrounding the issuing of Snowden's travel document in Hong Kong was translated more precisely and a reference to Snowden as a complicated person was changed to refer to his circumstances. ||||| Tor

 Tor is an encrypted anonymising network that makes it harder to intercept internet communications, or see where communications are coming from or going to.

 In order to use the WikiLeaks public submission system as detailed above you can download the Tor Browser Bundle, which is a Firefox-like browser available for Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux and pre-configured to connect using the anonymising system Tor.

 Tails

 If you are at high risk and you have the capacity to do so, you can also access the submission system through a secure operating system called Tails. Tails is an operating system launched from a USB stick or a DVD that aim to leaves no traces when the computer is shut down after use and automatically routes your internet traffic through Tor. Tails will require you to have either a USB stick or a DVD at least 4GB big and a laptop or desktop computer. |||||

– Can Edward Snowden afford to be choosy? Authorities in Russia say the NSA leaker has reportedly canceled a request for asylum after balking at the conditions imposed by Vladimir Putin, including no longer leaking information damaging to the US, the AP reports. Snowden has applied for asylum in no fewer than 21 countries, according to WikiLeaks, but the rejections are starting to pile up: Germany, Norway, Austria, Poland, Finland, and Switzerland all say he needs to be on their soil to request asylum. And India this morning "concluded that we see no reason to accede to that request." Norway has confirmed that its Moscow embassy has received a fax that is "probably from him," while Poland's foreign minister says he has received an asylum request from Snowden that he will not recommend granting, the BBC reports. Requests have also been made to Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Spain, and Venezuela, WikiLeaks says. Ecuador's president now says helping Snowden leave Hong Kong was "a mistake," the Guardian reports, but Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro—who is currently visiting Moscow—says his country has yet to receive an asylum request from Snowden, but the leaker has "done something very important for humanity" and "deserved the world's protection."


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Seoul, South Korea (CNN) North Korea is believed to be moving an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a South Korean lawmaker said after being briefed by the country's intelligence service.

 The lawmaker told CNN Tuesday it was unclear when the movement was detected, what the direction of the projectile was and how it was being transported. He attended the briefing by South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) in Seoul on Monday.

 All eyes have been on North Korea following the country's sixth test of a nuclear weapon Sunday. Seismological data indicated the weapon was the most powerful ever detonated by the rogue nation, nuclear experts said.

 North Korean state media claimed it detonated a hydrogen bomb, also known as a thermonuclear weapon, which could be fitted atop a long-range missile capable of striking the United States.

 Weapons experts say it's almost impossible to verify if the warhead and missile could be successfully paired unless North Korea were to actually fire a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

 The country has test-fired a number of missiles this summer, including two long-range ones in July and an intermediate-range one in August that overflew the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

 Lawmaker Kim Byung-kee told reporters Monday after the same briefing that the NIS said North Korea may test-fire an ICBM towards the North Pacific at a lower angle than the two tests in July, which were lofted, meaning they flew higher but not as far.

 Live-fire drills

 The South Korean Navy announced Tuesday it conducted live-fire drills off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula to check its "immediate operational readiness" after the country's Air Force and Army conducted their own joint drills.

 South Korea's Navy conducted a live-fire drill in the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea's Sunday nuclear test.

 "Wherever it is, whether on or under water, if North Korea provokes, we will immediately destroy and bury them at sea," the Navy said in a statement.

 While South Korean forces have flexed their muscles, diplomats in New York gathered at the United Nations and condemned the nuclear test.

 Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday the United States would circulate a resolution in response after urging her colleagues to adopt the strongest sanctions measures possible to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program.

 "Enough is enough," Haley said. "North Korea has basically slapped everyone in the face in the international community that has asked them to stop."

 Another lawmaker who attended the Monday briefing, Lee Cheol-woo, told reporters the NIS informed them that Pyongyang had dug extra tunnels at the nuclear test site and could explode another one "anytime."

 Rift?

 South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, spoke by phone Monday and agreed to lift current restrictions on the payload weight of South Korea's ballistic missiles, according to a South Korean presidential spokesman.

 But signs of a rift between the two leaders have become apparent despite the decades-long alliance between Seoul and Washington.

 Their phone call came a day after the nuclear test and followed a tweet from Trump in which he criticized South Korea for "appeasement" when it comes to dealing with its northern neighbor.

 Moon has long been a proponent of more dialogue and diplomacy with North Korea, whereas Trump has said recently that "talking is not the answer."

 "This is not the time for these two countries to be showing these cracks. North Korea is going to exploit that," said Jean Lee, a North Korea expert and global fellow at the Wilson Center.

 Trump spoke twice with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend, once before the nuclear test and once after.

 Diplomacy

 Moon and Abe are both traveling to the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok for an economic summit taking place Wednesday and Thursday.

 They will be joined by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is currently in China for a summit of the BRICS nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. He reiterated calls for North Korea to stop nuclear tests but said dialogue needs to be the answer.

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 "Russia condemns these exercises from North Korea. We think these exercises are provoking in nature but we should not forget and North Koreans should not forget what happened in Iraq," he said.

 "Sanctions of any kind are usefulness and ineffective ... they will eat grass but they will not turn away from the path that will provide for their security," Putin said, referring to accusations that Pyongyang spends too much on weapons programs while its citizens starve. ||||| An ICBM test by North Korea on Sept. 9? 9:04 PM ET Sun, 3 Sept 2017 | 02:51

 North Korea could launch yet another missile as soon as Saturday when the country celebrates its founding day, hot on the heels of its biggest-to-date nuclear test.

 "I think another ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] test ... could come on Sept. 9. The North Koreans love to put on a big show for their big national holiday," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the U.S.-based Center for the National Interest.

 In fact, one of the pariah state's previous nuclear trials fell on Sept. 9, 2016.

 For North Korea, the timing of weapons tests is of strategic importance.

 "They're going to want to get the most attention they can," Kazianis told CNBC in August. That means Pyongyang is unlikely to provoke at a time when it expects another major event to be dominating the headlines, he suggested. |||||

– Following North Korea's most powerful weapons test yet on Sunday, a South Korean lawmaker tells CNN his country's intelligence service believes the North has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on the move. Things get pretty vague beyond that: He didn't know the method of transport or when the movement was noticed. But Reuters does pick up some alleged details on those fronts, via an unnamed source quoted by South Korea’s Asia Business Daily. Its source says the ICBM started moving Monday, is only being moved at night, and is headed toward the nation's west coast. Reuters notes there's some likelihood that another test could come on or around Saturday: Sept. 9 is the country's founding day holiday. CNBC notes North Korea conducted a nuke test on Sept. 9, 2016. Two more details that allegedly came from the South's National Intelligence Service briefing: word that additional tunnels have been dug out at the North's nuclear test site that would facilitate future detonations, and suspicions that the next ICBM test firing might be directed toward the North Pacific but aimed at a lower angle, which would in theory allow it to fly further than previous tests, which had more of an upward trajectory. Meanwhile, the White House tells Reuters it has given "in-principle approval" to a request by South Korean President Moon Jae-in to abolish a limit regarding warhead weights, a move that would strengthen the power with which it could attack the North, if necessary. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday gave his take on the situation: North Korea "will eat grass but will not give up the (nuclear) program if they don't feel safe."


The PST

 The PST contains lithic blocks entrained from the local substrates by the pyroclastic currents and deposited within the ignimbrite19. We have identified 20 key outcrops at extension-corrected distances of ~30–150 km to the east and west of the Silver Creek caldera (Fig. 1, Supplementary Table 1 and Figs 1, 2, 3). Closer outcrops are lacking due to post-eruptive faulting and burial in subsiding basins on either side of the caldera. Locally derived lithic block types correspond to rock types in the local substrates. To the west of the caldera these include various volcanic, granitoid and metamorphic rocks that were present essentially in and on alluvial fans and also on local highlands at the time of eruption19, 22. East of the caldera, the lithics are mainly basaltic and granitic, corresponding to ignimbrite emplacement onto Precambrian granite locally covered by Cenozoic basaltic lavas and scoria and with broad fluvial channels containing those clast types12, 15.

 Figure 1: Map of the Peach Spring Tuff and locally derived lithic clasts. (a) The map shows locations with stratigraphic, paleomagnetic and geochronologic data used to correlate the Peach Spring Tuff (PST). Labelled are critical locations from this paper (Supplementary Table 1), Silver Creek caldera and structural-tectonic domains14, 18, 35. Cities—B, Barstow; K, Kingman; N, Needles; V, Valentine. Structural domains—ECSZ, Eastern California Shear Zone; BR, Basin and Range; CREC, Colorado River Extensional Corridor; CPTZ, Colorado Plateau Transition Zone; CP, Colorado Plateau. Mountains—AlM, Alvord Mountain; AqM, Aquarius Mountains; BM, Bullion Mountains; CM, Cottonwood Mountains; DR, Dagett Ridge; HM, Hualapai Mountains; NM, Newberry Mountains; OWM, Old Woman Mountains; PM, Peacock Mountains; SM, Ship Mountains. (b) Photograph at PST0695 in Kane Wash, Newberry Mountains, California (tape is 50 cm). The PST lies on a sandstone substrate. (c) Photograph at 85-PST-50 near town of Valentine, Arizona (tape is 1 m). The PST ignimbrite lies on ash layers that record initial phases of the PST eruption and covers fluvial sediments. Full size image (208 KB) Figures index

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 Figure 2: Characteristics of substrate-derived blocks in the Peach Spring Tuff. (a) Mean size of the largest blocks (the arrow indicates a large block at PST0695). (b) Corresponding velocity of the parent pyroclastic flows calculated from equation (1) as function of the corrected distance from the Silver Creek caldera. Error bars represent the range of velocities calculated. Full size image (57 KB) Previous

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 Figure 3: Geologic map of the Kane Wash area in the Newberry Mountains in California. It shows the westward-draining Kane Spring palleovalley (updated from unpublished map by Brett Cox, USGS). Locations of large substrate-derived lithic clasts at base of Peach Spring Tuff at PST0695 and PST1318, and a substrate conglomerate at PST2102 are indicated. Map unit Tkbc is the most likely source area of the clasts. Dashed line patterns represent streams. Full size image (230 KB) Previous

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 Substrate-derived blocks larger than 10 cm are found at almost all of the studied outcrops, with mean size up to 70–90 cm for blocks at sites ~140–150 km (corrected) west of the vent with one outlier of 139 cm at ~140 km (corrected) (Fig. 2). Entrainment of the typical 10 cm blocks from a subhorizontal substrate into a dilute, turbulent current would require flow speeds >100 m s−1 at heights of a few hundred metres (see Fig. 5a of ref. 13) that are maintained over many tens of kilometres of flow distance. This conclusion holds even if the maximum speed considered is at about one fifth the current height as assumed for more realistic velocity profiles typical of natural currents. The largest blocks, in particular, could not have been entrained by dilute pyroclastic currents because the required speed would have been >200–650 m s−1 (at one fifth the current height), which is unrealistic at this distance from the source13 (Supplementary Fig. 4 and Supplementary Discussion; compare, for example, maximum current speeds of ~170 m s−1 at 4–6 km from vent for the lateral blast eruption at Mount St Helens, 1980 (ref. 23)).

 Figure 4: Size of the blocks in the Peach Spring Tuff and their source area at three locations in Kane Wash in California. (a) Photograph at location PST2102 of the large boulder conglomerate (Tkbc in Fig. 3). Blocks L01-22 were measured (for scale L22, top left, is 62 × 110 × 110 cm). Note the base of the Peach Spring Tuff (PST) on the top left is covered by <2 m of talus. Boulders up to 1.5 m diameter on the ground surface (possibly not in place, noted NIP?) are either from the pre-PST or post-PST conglomerate, and indicate the large size of clasts in these conglomerates. (b,c) Size of the five largest blocks in the Peach Spring Tuff at PST0695 and PST1308 (see Fig. 3), and at top of the pre-PST conglomerate at PST2102. (b) D is the equivalent diameter of the blocks. (c) C is the short length of the blocks. Full size image (130 KB) Previous

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 Figure 5: Schematic of the experimental device used in this study. The flow of fine (80 μm) particles, generated from a reservoir (dashed rectangle) by release of a fluidized granular column with high interstitial air pore pressure, entrains 1.6 mm diameter steel beads (dark grey dots) that form initially a granular substrate at distance between x 1 and x 2 (see Supplementary Table 2). The rigid substrate (light grey) before and beyond the granular substrate is either smooth or made rough by gluing a layer of glass beads of diameter of 0.7 or 1.5 mm. Distance of entrainment of substrate beads is not to scale. Horizontal arrows indicate relative velocities at given height above the substrate; the large arrows below the top of the substrate represent the front velocity of the flow (black) and of the advancing aggrading basal deposit (red). Full size image (48 KB) Previous

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 The transport distance of the blocks by the pyroclastic currents is estimated to be up to several hundreds of metres, based on detailed field mapping from earlier studies16, 19 and our recent field work (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Discussion). In the Kane Wash area, California, the northern flanks of the Kane Spring paleovalley reveal a conglomerate with subrounded basaltic-andesite boulders that are up to 1–1.2 m in diameter (identified in Fig. 3 by unit Tkbc) exposed just below the PST (Fig. 4a). This boulder conglomerate is the most likely source of the lithic clasts found in the PST about 650–800 m downstream to the west-southwest at locations PST0695 and PST1308 where the nature and shape of the blocks are similar to those in the conglomerate (Supplementary Figs 1 and 2). Field evidence suggests that the locally derived lithic clasts were incorporated into and redistributed within independently moving, relatively small pyroclastic flows or within a single, main pyroclastic flow to form lithic-rich horizons19. Our new field work at location PST0695, in particular, shows that the lowest 2 m of the PST contains a concentration of numerous large, subrounded basaltic-andesite lithic clasts of mean size up to >60–70 cm and whose bottoms are about 50 cm above the base of the PST (Fig. 1b, Supplementary Fig. 1 and Supplementary Table 1).

 To address the entrainment mechanism of the substrate-derived lithic clasts found in the PST, and considering that the parent pyroclastic density currents could not be fully dilute turbulent mixtures (as stated above) and rather had a dense basal granular dispersion, we conducted a series of laboratory experiments on dense gas-particle flows propagating on a granular substrate.

 Experiments

 We performed experiments on dense granular flows of fine (<80 μm) particles with high pore gas pressure propagating on a loose granular substrate of coarse (~1.6 mm) beads inserted into a rigid substrate, as analogues to the concentrated basal parts of pyroclastic currents over local erodible substrates (Fig. 5 and Methods, see Supplementary Movies 1–6). Such flows have a fluid-like behaviour and propagate as (almost) inviscid mixtures until either pore pressure diffuses out or material supply is exhausted10. When propagating on a granular substrate, the sliding head of the flow generates both shear and a short-lived upward pore pressure gradient at the flow-substrate interface12. Shear promotes extraction of the substrate particles, which are first dragged slowly over a distance of a few bead diameters just above the top of the substrate before being uplifted at a given distance behind the flow front (or leading edge) because of the pressure gradient. Laboratory experiments11, 12 demonstrate that the pressure gradient initially increases with time after passage of the flow front, and the onset of uplift occurs at a critical upward pressure gradient whose associated uplift force counterbalances the weight of individual beads (see Fig. 4 of ref. 12). This shows that the pressure gradient, which is proportional to the square of the flow front velocity, is the main cause of the onset of uplift of the substrate beads dragged at the top of the substrate. Experiments involving beads with different densities but the same size (that is, different weight) reveal different critical pressure gradients and further confirm that the model of ref. 12 we adopt hereafter is robust with respect to the clear relationship between the onset of particle uplift and the square of the front velocity. Other mechanisms, including those similar to that in single-phase fluid flows (for example, Basset and Magnus forces)24, as well as kinetic sieving known for dry granular flows25 might occur but appear to be minor influences in the experiments in promoting onset of uplift. Reference12 points out that though particle uplift by granular flows shares similarities with that of single-phase fluid flows, the shear stress and vertical forces over the substrate particles are of different natures. Nevertheless, kinematic sieving and squeeze expulsion caused by particle interactions can contribute to controlling the rise height of the beads once the pore pressure gradient has caused onset of uplift. As discussed by ref. 13, however, large beads whose density is larger than the bulk density of the fluidized mixture of fines with high pore fluid pressure should ultimately sink because of buoyancy effects, which actually occurred in our experiments as described below.

 Our experiments involved a substrate of steel beads of diameter ~1.6 mm (Supplementary Table 2). They were carried out at flow front velocities >0.97 m s−1 that caused a pressure difference >82 Pa required for uplift of the steel beads12. They show how during flow propagation, substrate particles are entrained within a basal zone whose upper surface migrates first rapidly upwards to a height of ~5–8 mm, as beads are uplifted, and then slowly downwards, as beads settle (Fig. 6, Supplementary Fig. 5). High-speed videos reveal that the particle velocity increases upward, similar to the local internal flow velocity, and that at any given time some beads have ascending (uplift) trajectories while others have descending (settling) trajectories. The transport distance of uplifted beads cannot be determined accurately since it exceeds the field of observation and entrained particles are hidden intermittently by the matrix of fines, but it can be relatively large (up to ~1–1.5 m) once the flow propagates onto a rigid substrate downstream. Another important observation is that entrained particles are overtaken from below by the advancing front of the aggrading deposit that forms at flow base (Fig. 6d). This front begins a few centimetres behind the flow front and advances at a similar speed. Therefore, substrate-derived beads are deposited downstream near the base of deposits that form either on granular or rigid substrates. The final resting height of a given entrained particle is determined by a competition between the particle’s uplift and descent history, and the upward-advancing aggradation surface at a given location.

 Figure 6: Laboratory experiment of air-particle flow on a granular substrate. (a) Snapshots from high-speed videos at sequential times after passage of the flow front at middle of images (vertical black line) in experiment C3 (repeated six times, Supplementary Table 2). The horizontal black line shows the top of the substrate of steel beads. Blue and red dashed lines indicate the upper surface of the zone of the entrained substrate beads and of the basal deposit, respectively, and arrows show relative motion. (b) Detailed views of (top) the flow at 0.048 s and (bottom) the final deposit (note white flow fines penetrating into the substrate interstices). Arrows indicate the direction and velocity of the entrained beads (circled), and white contours delimit air bubbles. Note that beads have either ascending (uplift) or descending (settling) trajectories. (c) Height of the upper surface of the zone of the entrained beads and of the basal deposit above the substrate (h) and velocity of the uppermost beads (U) as a function of time. The particle velocity increases upward, similar to the local internal flow velocity. (d) Schematic successive views showing (left) beads (black) entrained from the substrate (grey) by the sliding flow head, and (right) the advancing aggrading basal deposit (red) that freezes beads entrained downstream and that finally settle back towards the substrate. Horizontal arrows represent the internal flow and beads’ velocity as well as the flow front (U f ) and deposit advancing front (U d ) velocities ~2.5 m s−1, higher than the maximum entrained beads velocity (~1.6 m s−1 in c). Full size image (144 KB) Previous

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 Pyroclastic flow speeds and eruption rates

 According to experimental findings and theory12, 13, a flow of front velocity U f entrains blocks whose short (subvertical) length is up to a critical value C. Using C based on our field observations (Supplementary Table 1), we can calculate the front velocity from

 where ξ is a shape factor (equal to 2/3 for an ellipsoid and 1 for a parallelepiped13), ρ p is the block density, ρ f ~1 kg m−3 is the gas density, g is the gravitational acceleration, γ≈0.06 is an empirical factor12 and ρ=875–1,400 kg m−3 is the bulk flow density12, 13 (see Methods). From equation (1) (with ξ=1), the largest blocks at the PST key outcrops give flow speeds of ~5–20 m s−1 across large flow distances with different substrates (Fig. 2b). The relative uniformity of the speed estimates suggests that the 5–20 m s−1 range is realistic. Furthermore, the fact that many of the largest blocks in the ignimbrite are just smaller than the largest blocks remaining on the substrate in their source areas shows that the PST parent flows sampled blocks up to a critical size and that our estimates are not simply minimum speeds related to the lack of sufficiently large blocks in the original substrates (Fig. 4 and Supplementary Discussion). For instance, in the Kane Wash area (Fig. 3), the five largest substrate-derived blocks at sites PST0695 and PST1308 in the PST are just smaller (with the exception of the outlier 80 × 120 × 150 cm at PST0695) than the blocks located at top of the pre-PST conglomerate unit (PST2102) from which the boulders are inferred to have been entrained (Fig. 4), which suggests that our calculated flow velocity up to ~15–20 m s−1 at these sites is realistic.

 Flow speeds of 5–20 m s−1 and the run-out distance of ~170 km correspond to a minimum flow duration of ~2.5–10 h, which does not account for the time needed to aggrade the final deposit or to stack flow units if the PST emplacement involved pulses (we note, however, that field evidence at many PST sites suggest one single flow unit15, 19). These durations are reasonable if internal gas pore pressure, which greatly reduces internal friction in the currents, is long-lived and if a sufficient pressure head provided by the drop height from sustained fountaining at the vent(s), enhanced by gentle slopes away from the source area, is maintained along the current’s path10, 20. The pore pressure diffusion timescale is estimated from ||||| Supervolcanoes capable of unleashing hundreds of times the amount of magma that was expelled during the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980 are found in populated areas around the world, including the western United States.

 A new study is providing insight into what may happen when one of these colossal entities explodes.

 The research focuses on the Silver Creek caldera, which sits at the intersection of California, Nevada and Arizona. When this supervolcano erupted 18.8 million years ago, it flooded parts of all three states with river-like currents of hot ash and gas called pyroclastic flows. These tides of volcanic material traveled for huge distances -- more than 100 miles.

 The new study suggests that pyroclastic flows from the ancient eruption took the form of slow, dense currents -- and not fast-moving jets as some experts previously thought.

 The research combines recent laboratory experiments with field data from the 1980s -- some of it captured in colorful Kodachrome slides -- to show that the rivers of ash and gas emanating from the Silver Creek caldera likely traveled at modest speeds of about 10 to 45 miles per hour.

 "Intuitively, most of us would think that for the pyroclastic flow to go such an extreme distance, it would have to start off with a very high speed," says study co-author Olivier Roche. "But this isn't consistent with what we found."

 The research was conducted by Roche at Blaise Pascal University in France, David C. Buesch at the United States Geological Survey and Greg A. Valentine at the University at Buffalo. It will be published on Monday, March 7 in Nature Communications.

 Research on pyroclastic flows is important because it can help inform disaster preparedness efforts, says Valentine, a UB professor of geology and director of the Center for GeoHazards Studies in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

 "We want to understand these pyroclastic flows so we can do a good job of forecasting the behavior of these flows when a volcano erupts," he says. "The character and speed of the flows will affect how much time you might have to get out of the way, although the only truly safe thing to do is to evacuate before a flow starts."

 New and vintage data come together to tell the story of a supervolcano

 The new study favors one of two competing theories about how pyroclastic flows are able to cover long distances. One school of thought says the flows should resemble turbulent, hot, fast-moving sandstorms, made up mostly of gas, with few particles. The other theory states that the flows should be dense and fluid-like, with pressurized gas between ash particles. The new research supports this latter model, which requires sustained emissions from volcanoes, for many pyroclastic flows.

 The findings were based on two sets of data: results from recent experiments that Roche ran to simulate the behavior of pyroclastic flows, and information that Buesch and Valentine gathered at the Silver Creek Caldera eruption site in the 1980s when they were PhD students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, supplemented by some more recent fieldwork.

 "I always tell students that they should take good notes while they're working in the field, because you never know when it could be useful," says Valentine, who has a fat binder full of Kodachrome slides showing images he snapped around the Silver Creek caldera.

 The data that he and Buesch collected included photographs and notes documenting the size, type and location of rocks that were lifted off the ground and moved short distances by pyroclastic flows during the ancient eruption.

 Many of the rocks the pair observed were relatively large -- too large to have been shifted by sandstorm-like pyroclastic flows, which do not pick up heavy objects easily. Denser flows, which can move sizable rocks more readily, likely accounted for the rock patterns Buesch and Valentine observed.

 To figure out how fast these dense flows may have been moving when the Silver Creek caldera erupted 18.8 million years ago, the team relied on a model developed by Roche through experiments.

 In his tests, Roche studied what happened when a gas and particle mixture resembling a dense pyroclastic flow traveled across a substrate of beads. He found that faster flows were able to lift and move heavier beads, and that there was a relationship between the velocity of a flow and the weight of the bead it was capable of lifting.

 Based on Roche's model, the scientists determined that the ancient pyroclastic flows from the supervolcano would have had to travel at speeds of about 5 to 20 meters per second (10 to 45 miles per hour) to pick up rocks as heavy as the ones that Buesch and Valentine saw. It's unlikely that the flows were going much faster than that because larger rocks on the landscape remained undisturbed, Valentine says.

 The findings could have widespread applicability when it comes to supereruptions, says Valentine, who notes that patterns of rock deposits around some other supervolcanoes heavily resemble those around the Silver Creek caldera. ||||| When a supervolcano like Yellowstone erupts, residents may have a few hours to escape once the disaster has started, a new study suggests.

 Can you outrun a supervolcano? New evidence from an ancient eruption suggests the answer is a surprising yes.

 "I wouldn't recommend anyone try to outrun a volcano, but there's a few of us that could," said Greg Valentine, a volcanologist at the University at Buffalo in New York.

 By analyzing rocks trapped in volcanic ash, Valentine and his colleagues discovered the lethal ash flow spread at street speeds — about 10 to 45 mph (16 to 72 km/h). It might be hard to sustain this pace on foot, but it's certainly possible by car. [Big Blasts: History's 10 Most Destructive Volcanoes]

 The findings were published today (March 7) in the journal Nature Communications.

 "It's really interesting how you can have such a violent eruption producing such slow-moving flows," said Valentine, co-author of the new study. "They still devastate a huge area, but they're slow and concentrated and dense," he told Live Science. His collaborators include Olivier Roche, of Blaise Pascal University in France and David Buesch, of the U.S. Geological Survey.

 Of course, the safest way to deal with any rumbling volcano is to get as far away as possible. Lots of distance can prevent the most common cause of death associated with volcanoes: being trapped and suffocated by a torrent of ash, rocks and superhot gas that explode out at speeds of up to 300 mph (about 480 km/h). These "pyroclastic flows" are the real volcanic killer, not lava. A pyroclastic flow wiped out the Roman town of Pompeii, and in 1902, Mount Pelée on Martinique unleashed a pyroclastic flow that killed some 29,000 people. [Preserved Pompeii: Photos Reveal City of Ash]

 You should still evacuate

 Volcanologists try to account for such hazards when planning for future disasters. But it's hard to know what will happen when a supervolcano the size of Yellowstone blows its top. The last supereruption on Earth was 74,000 years ago, in Toba, Indonesia. Looking at the rocky remains of past supereruptions can reveal how and why supervolcanoes erupt.

 These rocks were picked up and moved across the Arizona landscape by pyroclastic flows from the Silver Creek caldera, a supervolcano, eruption 18.8 million years ago. Credit: Greg A. Valentine

 When a supervolcano blew in Arizona 18.8 million years ago, the ash spread more than 100 miles (160 km). This single layer, called the Peach Springs Tuff, is more than 450 feet (140 meters) thick in the area close to the volcano and 10 feet (3 m) thick at its edge, 100 miles away. (A tuff is a volcanic rock made of solidified ash.)

 The researchers measured rocks at the bottom of the tuff in Arizona that were carried in the flow. They matched unique rock types back to their source, and found that many of the rocks, whether fist-size or boulders, were carried no farther than a football field.

 Accounting for the size and position of these rocks helped the researchers build a model of how fast and thick the ash flow was as it traveled. It turns out that only a dense, slow-moving pyroclastic flow could suck up the rocks from the surface and trundle them along. A fast, relatively thin flow would have to reach impossible speeds — up to 1,454 mph (2,340 km/h) — to carry the rocks, the researchers found.

 "I think it's plausible but speculative," said Calvin Miller, a volcanologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, who was not involved in the study. "It will be interesting to see how the [scientific] community responds to it. Even if they're right for the Peach Springs Tuff, this is just part of a continuum of eruption styles," Miller told Live Science.

 The origins of the Peach Springs Tuff can be spotted in southwestern Arizona's Black Mountains, near the town of Oatman. The eruption left behind a very large crater called a caldera, though it has been mostly obliterated by erosion and faulting.

 The caldera, called Silver Creek, spewed magma for several days, releasing a volume of about 1,000 times the Mississippi River's daily flow at New Orleans, Valentine said. "If you think about 1,000 Mississippi Rivers coming out of the ground, you can see how [the ash] would have spread out across a huge area," he said.

 However, one expert on the Peach Springs Tuff doesn't buy the scenario. Charles Ferguson, a research geologist with the Arizona Geological Survey, said there are outcrops that suggest the ash moved quickly and energetically, like a typical pyroclastic flow.

 "I think their hypothesis is more problematic than explanatory," Ferguson told Live Science.

 Southwestern supervolcanoes

 Kodachrome slides, held by geologist Greg Valentine of the University of Buffalo, show images of geologic formations associated with the supereruption of the Silver Creek caldera. Credit: Douglas Levere

 The Peach Springs Tuff covers parts of Arizona, Nevada and California, from Barstow, California, to Peach Springs, Arizona. Geologists use the creamy white and pink rock as a unique marker in the region.

 The western United States suffered at least 100 of these huge eruptions starting about 40 million years ago (a consequence of shifting tectonic plates). It's not clear whether every one of these supervolcanic blasts sent out slowly moving ash flows, but Valentine said he sees similar evidence in other areas.

 The powerful Peach Springs eruption ejected 72 cubic miles (300 cubic km) of pulverized rock into the air. For comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington blasted out 0.24 cubic miles (1 cubic km) of material. And the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed 2.4 cubic miles (10 cubic km) of material.

 Any supereruption will likely come with a fair amount of warning, similar to the bulge that foreshadowed the Mount St. Helens eruption. The new findings suggest that people living near a supervolcano might have a few hours to evacuate once the disaster starts, the researchers said.

 Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| Imagine being near a volcano when it unleashes a gigantic eruption. I’m not talking something fairly piddling like the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens or even the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo in the Philippines. I’m talking one of these eruptions that the tabloids and conspiracy websites say will destroy civilization, like Yellowstone or Toba. The common response is that everyone within hundreds of kilometers of the volcano would be killed almost instantly thanks to the fast moving pyroclastic flows that can rush outward from the caldera volcano for more than 150 kilometers (~100 miles). That idea is based on what we can see from these flows at smaller eruptions, where they race down the sides of the volcano at speeds over 500 kilometers per hour (300 mph). Cities like Pompeii and St. Pierre were wiped out mere moments after an eruption thanks to these avalanches of hot volcanic debris and ash.

 However, we’ve never been able to examine first-hand the results of a really giant eruption that puts Vesuvius and Pelée to shame. So, we need to look at the deposits left by such gargantuan events to figure out how they might be similar or different than their smaller brethren. Do the pyroclastic flows race out at the same speeds and are these flows the same mix of hot gasses and ash? The answer to those questions can help us better prepare for such an eruption and interpret the deposits left by these monsters in the past.

 A new study in Nature Communications by Olivier Roche (Université Blaise Pascal), D.C. Buesch (USGS) and Greg Valentine (University at Buffalo) has taken a stab at quantifying the speed of one of these massive eruptions and the results surprised me: Maybe we wouldn’t be so doomed?

 Roche and others looked at the Peach Springs Tuff, a massive volcanic deposit that erupted from the Silver Creek Caldera in Arizona about 18.8 million years ago. Now, the Peach Springs Tuff dwarfs most eruptions in the past few thousand years, with at least 1,300 cubic kilometers (or enough to cover all of Manhattan with almost 22 kilometers—~13.6 miles!—of volcanic debris). Deposits of the Peach Springs Tuff can be found over 170 kilometers (~105 miles) from the caldera and in those places, the deposits are still 10 meters (~30 feet) thick! This was an enormous eruption in an area where we don’t tend to imagine super-eruptions occurring.

 The Peach Springs Tuff was big enough that the pyroclastic flows moved large pieces of rock (see above) that were lying on the ground before the eruption happened—kind of like how a stream picks up rocks and trees during a flood. By looking at the size and weight of these chunks of rocks, you can estimate the speed that the flow had to be moving if you make some assumptions about the flow itself.

 If it is mostly made of hot gases and tiny ash particles, then it can’t move big rocks without moving really fast. If it has a lot of heavier grains of volcanic debris, then it can move big rocks at slower speeds because it has more strength. Additionally, the longer you apply that force, the greater your ability to move the rock. You can picture it this way: Try moving a bowling ball with just a fan for a minute, then try with a firefighter’s hose for 10 minutes. The added density of the water from the hose means you can move that bowling ball easier at slower velocity of flow, especially if you have more time.

 So, Roche and others looked at the sizes of blocks picked up by and incorporated into the Peach Springs Tuff (see above). Now, they didn’t move the full distance—that is, the 70 centimeter boulder found 150 kilometers from the caldera didn’t move 150 kilometers. It might have only been moved 100 meters, but it was moved by the flow of volcanic material during the eruption.

 Now, even at distances as far as 140 kilometers (~88 miles), the Peach Springs Tuff was happily moving rocks that are 70 to 90 centimeters across (a few feet). That is an impressive feat! So, were they being moved by something thin and fast briefly or something thicker and slower for a longer duration?

 By modeling the force needed, Roche and others found that the blocks that far away couldn’t have been moved by something thin and fast because it would have required speeds over 720 to 2,340 kilometers per hour (447-1454 mph), which is wildly unrealistic based on any known volcanic process. Even some of the fastest known pyroclastic flows observed, such as the blast at Mount St. Helens, was moving around ~600 kilometers per hour (370 mph).

 So, then what if the flow was dense instead? Roche and others ran experiments looking at miniature pyroclastic flows made of beads and sand to see how such flows could move larger particles. What they found is that such denser flows could move these large blocks at speeds closer to 18 to 72 kilometers per hour (11 to 44 mph). That is much slower than what we see at smaller eruptions, but for those smaller flows, we see what is happening within a few kilometers of the volcano. If the flow moves out 150+ kilometers, then maybe it can slow down but still have enough oomph to move block.

 What that would require is a constant push from the eruption itself. If the Silver Creek Caldera erupted for 2.5 to 10 hours at a sustained rate of 38 to 150 million cubic meters per second, then these flows could move blocks even moving at only a few tens of kilometers per hour. Now, that eruption rate is huge, tens to hundreds of times more than Pinatubo, Tambora or Novarupta, some of the biggest eruptions of the last few centuries.

 This means that the eruption of the Peach Springs Tuff was at least as large if not larger than the super-eruptions like Toba or Taupo. Yet, if you were 150 kilometers from the eruption, you might have upwards of 10 hours to get out of harm’s way (well, at least out of the way of the massive pyroclastic flows—the resulting ash fall and climate cooling is a little trickier to handle).

 What does this all mean? Well, it means that cities near(ish) to large volcanoes like Yellowstone or the Campei Flegrei might have a fighting chance** to survive in the face of such a catastrophic eruption. Rapid and organized evacuation of cities might allow for people to leave in time, much like people can evacuate before a hurricane. However, that should be seen as a last resort. It is really careful volcano monitoring that can save lives most effectively, letting people know when they need to leave before they have to worry about a pyroclastic flow barreling towards them … but it is nice to know that it might not be bearing down on you as fast as we thought.

 **Addendum (4:00 PM EST March 7): I wanted to clarify a few things after an email exchange with Dr. Valentine (from this study). First, it is clear that this study does not imply that evacuations can be effective in places like Naples near the Campei Flegrei after an eruption has started. Naples is far too close to have the finding of this study play any role. Remember, volcano monitoring and evacuation before the eruption is the best solution. Additionally, this study focussed on a single eruption from the Silver Creek caldera, so applying it to all very large eruptions is untested at this point. |||||

Write a summary.

– Think supervolcanoes that devastate entire regions are terrifying? Well sure, but you might be able to outrun them—according to a study that says one prehistoric supervolcano churned out lava at only 10 to 45 miles per hour, Live Science reports. "It's really interesting how you can have such a violent eruption producing such slow-moving flows," says study co-author Greg Valentine. "They still devastate a huge area, but they're slow and concentrated and dense." Published in Nature Communications, the study analyzed an Arizona supervolcano known as Silver Creek Caldera that erupted 18.8 million years ago. It churned out lethal tides of gas and ash known as pyroclastic flows for over 100 miles, inundating parts of Nevada and California, ScienceDaily reports. By analyzing the vast volcanic deposit left by Silver Creek Caldera, researchers found that large rocks had been moved considerable distances. Their conclusion: Only a constant, heavy flow would have moved rocks that were already miles from the eruption. Not everyone buys it, and the researchers warn against taking their study as an excuse for last-minute evacuations. What's more, smaller eruptions (like the one that wiped out Pompeii) are known to spew pyroclastic flows at hundreds of miles per hour, Wired reports. But it seems anyone 90 miles away from Silver Creek Caldera would have had about 10 hours to escape. "I wouldn't recommend anyone try to outrun a volcano, but there's a few of us that could," says Valentine. (Parts of Washington and Oregon were covered in mysterious ash last year.)


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– Less than two weeks ago, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said replacing Flint's lead-coated pipes in the city's water distribution system wasn't on his "short-term agenda" and that coating the pipes with phosphates might serve as a stopgap. But it looks like Flint is moving on with or without him: On Tuesday, Mayor Karen Weaver announced a $55 million public works project that will replace all of the city's water pipes, and the process will begin within a month, the Detroit Free Press reports. "All lead pipes need to be replaced," Weaver said at a press conference, per WDIV. "We deserve new pipes because we did not deserve what happened." The mayor and other officials are hoping the project can be completed within a year with a few dozen crews and under "optimal conditions," per Weaver. Around 15,000 lines will be replaced, and "high-risk" households (those with children and pregnant women) will be first on the list. Funding for the project will come from the Michigan Legislature and the US Congress, Weaver said. And other money may show up as well: As the FBI continues to investigate the crisis, high-ranking public officials have asked for funds all the way up to the federal level. US Rep. Candice Miller, for instance, wants the EPA to hand over a $1 billion emergency grant. "We're going to restore safe drinking water one house at a time, one child at a time, until the lead pipes are gone," Weaver said, per WDIV. (A Flint family is suing the city after their 2-year-old tested positive for lead poisoning.)

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 A day after NBC News reported that none of the corroded lead pipes at the core of the Flint water crisis have been removed, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder admitted he has no immediate plans to replace them.

 NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk repeatedly pressed the embattled governor Wednesday on how he expects to win the trust of Flint's residents while the pipes that poisoned the water supply are still being used.

 "There absolutely is a trust issue," Snyder conceded.

 But he said that removing the pipes — which experts have told NBC News is the only permanent solution to the lead problem — isn't on his "short-term" agenda.

 "It's a lot of work to take out pipes, to redo all of the infrastructure, that's a whole planning process," Snyder said at a press conference.

 Instead, he said, the state is focusing on using phosphates in the water to coat the corroded pipes and keep the lead from leaching out.

 Gosk asked him, "If you don't replace those pipes, a lot of people tell us they're simply not going to drink the water no matter how many assurance they're getting. How do you address that right now?"

 The governor said the state would be using "third-party expertise" to assess whether the phosphates were working and address public fears.

 There are up to 25,000 service lines containing lead that run between water mains and homes in Flint. Starting in April 2014, water from the Flint River corroded the pipes, leaching toxins into the tap water.

 Related: What Emergency? Lead Pipes Not Being Removed in Flint

 The city is no longer using the river water, but the damaged pipes are still a threat and the entire city is relying on bottled and filtered water for drinking, cooking and even bathing in some cases.

 Flint Mayor Karen Weaver told MSNBC on Wednesday morning that pipe replacement is "the first thing" the government needs to address.

 "That’s what the citizens of Flint deserve," she said. "Nobody’s going to trust the water if we don’t do that."

 But Snyder said the state's not ready for that.

 "A lot of work is being done to even understand where the lead service lines even are," he said. ||||| FLINT, Mich. - Flint Mayor Karen Weaver says plans are in the works to replace all of the city's lead pipes.

 “All lead pipes need to be replaced," Weaver told reporters Tuesday at a press conference. "We deserve new pipes because we did not deserve what happened."

 Weaver said the project will cost an estimated $55 million, and will replace 15,000 lines. Priority will be given to high risk households.

 “We’re going to restore safe drinking water one house at a time, one child at a time, until the lead pipes are gone" Weaver said.

 Weaver said the funding will be a collaboration of funding between the Michigan legislature and US Congress.

 “I’m asking Gov. Snyder and the state to partner with us. We’ll let the investigations determine who is to blame for Flint’s water crisis, but I’m focused on solving it,” Weaver said. “It’s going to take time to get this done, but we’re going to move quickly.”

 State officials disconnected Flint from Detroit's water supply in 2014 and began using the Flint River to save money. Regulators failed to ensure the new water was treated properly and lead from pipes leached into the water supply, contributing to a spike in child lead exposure.

 WATCH: Flint mayor on lead pipe replacement plan

 Copyright 2016 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved. ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE The once quiet city of Flint, Michigan is facing a drinking water crisis that is drawing concern from around the nation. Here's what you need to know about how the public health crisis has evolved. VPC

 Buy Photo Flint Mayor Karen Weaver (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo

 Flint Mayor Karen Weaver on Tuesday outlined an estimated $55-million public works project expected to begin within a month to remove Flint's lead-contaminated pipes from the water distribution system.

 First priority will be given to high-risk households with pregnant women and children, Weaver said at a news conference at City Hall.

 "In order for Flint residents to once again have confidence and trust in the water coming from their faucets, all lead pipes in the city of Flint need to be replaced," she said. "The success of the Fast Start plan will require coordination between the city, state and federal officials as well as funding from the Michigan Legislature, Congress or both. I'm asking Gov. Snyder and the state to partner on this effort.

 "We’ll let the investigations determine who's to blame for Flint's water crisis, but I'm focused on solving it. It's going to take time to get this done, but we’re going to move quickly to get this done."

 Last week, Weaver called for the immediate removal of the city's lead-contaminated pipes and announced a plan that included help from Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, who has offered technical assistance from the Lansing Board of Water and Light. Lansing has removed about 13,500 lead pipes in the city.

 The Fast Start plan will require extensive coordination between city, state and federal officials, Weaver said. She was joined Tuesday by retired National Guard Brig. Gen. Michael McDaniel, who said he thinks the project can be done within a year by 32 crews.

 McDaniel — who is assisting in coordinating activities between the city, the Lansing Board of Water and Light, state and federal agencies, and other stakeholders -- said the project could begin within the next month. But McDaniel reiterated the plan is still in its early phases and much of it is based on "assumptions."

 "We are trying to balance urgency with precision," McDaniel said. "We have made a number of assumptions in our plan, is what I'm saying, because we had to make those. We do not have all the data we would like to have, but we do know enough based on the assumptions we had to make to go forward."

 The preliminary project scope developed by the BWL shows that up to 15,000 lead pipes could be removed in one year "under optimal conditions," Weaver said.

 McDaniel noted that while it took the BWL 10 years to remove 13,500 pipes, he thinks they can move quicker in Flint because they've perfected the process. McDaniel and Weaver said Flint crews would also be involved in the project.

 "We are in the process of reaching out to the state for their assistance of the data and of the planning itself with funding, as Mayor Weaver also said," McDaniel said. "We are developing a detailed time line. I cannot tell you we will put a shovel in the ground tomorrow, but I will tell you that we will do it very soon. ... When we say replace those lines, we mean the entire line from the main to the meter."

 The project would be done in two phases, with the first targeting high-risk households of children under the age of 6, children with elevated blood-lead levels, pregnant women, senior citizens, residential day care facilities, people with compromised immune systems and households where water tests indicate high levels of lead at the tap.

 The project will not immediately address schools, businesses and other locations in Flint, according to a document released by the city detailing the plan. The city said most large facilities are served by "high-capacity cast iron water services," and not the typical lines found in residential water services.

 "Eliminating lead components from the entire water distribution system and from inside homes and buildings is a longer-term project that will require additional planning and additional resources," the document states. "For institutional entities like schools and businesses, bottled water can continue to provide for their short-term needs."

 Buy Photo (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)

 McDaniel and Weaver declined to say where exactly in the city the project would begin.

 Phase two of the program would ramp up to a "full-scale operation" that would bring in 32 crews and a "robust administration and logistics support team to meet the one-year goal," Weaver said.

 McDaniel said the costs in the projected $55-million effort could fluctuate because of the architecture and condition of the water distribution system. The estimated cost per line is $3,670, according to a city document. Of the $55 million, about $1.5 million will go toward administration and logistics, according to the city, which said personnel costs are estimated at $900,000 and operations costs are projected to be $600,000. According to the city, the bulk of the cost — $36 million — will go toward the labor and about $9.7 million will go toward the materials.

 According to the city, the Fast Start program will remove and replace the lines at no cost to the homeowner. However, homeowners will be required to sign an agreement that authorizes Flint to remove and replace the portions of the lines on their private property and allow access to the meter inside the home.

 Lead lines will be replaced with new copper lines and a water filter will be installed at the kitchen tap for three months as a precaution, city officials said.

 Flint's drinking water became contaminated with lead in April 2014 after the city, while under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager, switched its source to the Flint River as a temporary cost-cutting move and the state Department of Environmental Quality failed to require the addition of needed corrosion-control chemicals. As a result, corrosive water caused lead to leach from pipes, joints and fixtures, causing many citizens to receive water with unsafe lead levels. The state has told residents not to drink the water without filtering and says it is treating all Flint children as having been exposed to unsafe levels of lead.

 The FBI is now investigating the contamination of Flint’s drinking water amid a growing public outcry. U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, proposed an emergency $1-billion grant to be authorized through the Environmental Protection Agency, and two Democratic U.S. senators and U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, proposed up to $400 million in dollar-for-dollar matching funds from the state to do much the same thing.

 The U.S. Attorney's Office announced Jan. 5 that it was assisting the EPA in the investigation and Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman, said federal prosecutors are “working with a multi-agency investigation team on the Flint water contamination matter, including the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, EPA's Office of Inspector General, and EPA's Criminal Investigation Division."

 Several lawsuits have been filed in connection with the crisis.

 On Monday, the family of a 2-year-old girl whose blood test results showed the toddler suffers from lead poisoning, announced an individual suit against Gov. Rick Snyder, former Flint emergency manager Darnell Earley, former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling and several other state and Flint officials.

 When asked at the news conference whether she thinks Snyder will support the plan, Weaver said the city can no longer afford to wait.

 "We’re putting forward our plan and we cannot wait for that," Weaver said. "We don’t trust that and we deserve new pipes. That’s the only way this community is going to be confident and people will stay here and people will come. I cannot imagine that he would not support this plan. If he doesn’t, shame on him."

 Contact Katrease Stafford: 313-223-4759 or kstafford@freepress.com

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The US Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday proposed that the Oregon chub, a small minnow native to Oregon's Willamette Valley, be removed from the endangered species list created by the 1973 US Endangered Species Act. If the chub is removed, it will be the first fish to be delisted because of its population recovery since the list was created.

 The Oregon chub was placed on the endangered species in 1993 after the loss of floodplain habitats and predation by non-native fish. At the time, fewer than eight populations of Oregon chub existed, with fewer than 1,000 fish. A recovery plan to boost chub numbers was finalized in 1998, and thanks to the success of methods such as habitat restoration, education, and careful monitoring, the species was reclassified as "threatened" in 2010. Oregon chub numbers now exceed 150,000, in 80 different habitats around the Willamette area.

 Oregon chub numbers now exceed 150,000, across 80 different sites

 If the Oregon chub is removed from the US endangered species list, it will join 26 animals, including the Steller sea lion and Gray wolf, that have had their populations re-grow following their classification as endangered. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is currently considering whether to remove the North Pacific humpback whale from the list of more than 2,000 plants and animal species currently considered endangered in the US and abroad. ||||| GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A tiny minnow that lives only in Oregon backwaters is set to become the first fish ever taken off U.S. Endangered Species Act protection because it is no longer threatened with extinction.

 This Jan. 16, 2014 photo provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shows an Oregon chub at the William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge near Corvallis, Ore. The tiny fish found only in... (Associated Press)

 FILE - An Oregon State Fish biologist pulls a hand full of Oregon Chub from the waters of a pond near Dexter, Oregon as part of a research project in this April 2008 file photo. The tiny fish found only... (Associated Press)

 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that it was proposing that the Oregon chub was recovered, 21 years after it went on the endangered species list. The proposal will go through a 60-day public comment period before becoming final. The agency will monitor the fish for nine years to make sure populations continue to grow.

 "We're not saying it won't need management," Paul Henson, Oregon director of Fish and Wildlife, said in an interview. "But they can leave the hospital and get out to be an outpatient."

 Robyn Thorson, northwest regional director of Fish and Wildlife, made the announcement at a 92-acre property along the McKenzie River outside Springfield. The property is owned by the McKenzie River Trust that combines a working farm with habitat protection and restoration.

 The fish had practically disappeared from Oregon's Willamette Valley as the swampy backwaters and beaver ponds it depends on were drained to control flooding and create farms and cities over the past century and a half. Those that survived the habitat loss became easy prey for bass introduced from the East.

 Unlike Pacific salmon, the Oregon chub was relatively easy to save because it inhabits small places and does not get in the way of huge economic forces, such as logging, hydroelectric power and farming, said Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Brian Bangs, who since 2005 has supervised recovery efforts.

 Joe Moll, executive director of the McKenzie River Trust, said the chub's obscurity made it easier to find solutions because there were none of the high stakes and big egos involved in charismatic species like wolves, grizzly bears and salmon.

 "We are better able to look at something that you can put in the hand of a little kid, and just reflects joy with the natural world," he said. "The recovery of the Oregon chub is a sign the river is still alive. It still has the processes that things like chub and chinook salmon juveniles evolved with."

 The Oregon chub is a small minnow, typically about 3 inches long, with an olive-green back, silvery sides and large scales.

 They were not described scientifically until the early 1900s, when a researcher found some outside Portland in the Clackamas River drainage, Bangs said. It was the 1970s before anyone really started paying attention.

 Before European settlement, the Willamette Valley was a complex system of braided river channels, oxbows and beaver ponds, where perhaps as many as 1 million Oregon chub lived, Bangs said. By 1992, there were only 1,000 fish known in eight locations. Today, there are 180,000 fish at 80 locations. The fish was upgraded to threatened in 2010.

 The recovery plan focused on establishing partnerships with landowners to restore key habitats, breeding and transplanting fish to those places, and getting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to alter dam releases to more closely resemble natural river flows. Private landowners who agreed to have chubs introduced on their property and to follow some guidelines were given safe harbor agreements guaranteeing the presence of the endangered fish would not interfere with their use of the land.

 "We managed to figure out a way to provide for the habitat of the chub in some subset of its range in the Willamette Valley in a way that was economically compatible with landowners, agriculture and other commodity-type development," said Henson of Fish and Wildlife. "Twenty years might seem like a long time (to get it off the endangered list). On the other hand, if you think of the 150 years of habitat modification that went on before, it is pretty darn quick."

 Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber issued statements crediting partnerships between agencies and private landowners for the chub's recovery.

 Along with chub, a variety of protected species moved into those restored habitats, including salmon, Western pond turtles and red-legged frogs, Bangs said. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– It's only about 3 inches long, but the Oregon chub is about to achieve a first among fish: It's coming off the endangered species list, reports Popular Science. The Fish and Wildlife Service announced the move yesterday, though it won't become official until after a 60-day period for public comment. That's largely a formality, however. The minnow went on the list about 20 years ago, when only about 1,000 existed in eight locations in Oregon. Today, the population is at 180,000 in 80 locations throughout the state. "We're not saying it won't need management," says a Fish and Wildlife official. "But they can leave the hospital and get out to be an outpatient." The fact that the chub is so small contributed to the success story, reports the AP. Wildlife officials could find small places throughout the Willamette Valley to re-introduce it, unlike the larger-scale methods needed to protect, say, salmon. When the fish comes off the list, it will join 26 others animals that have done so, including the gray wolf, notes the Verge.