Land Clearing Kubota SVL 90-2, Bradco Ground Shark
Light Clearing in Central Texas with a Kubota SVL 90-2 and a Bradco Ground Shark forestry cutter.

By: Texas Bota

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Land Clearing Kubota SVL 90-2, Bradco Ground Shark - Video

Updated: Sunday, April 13 2014, 08:55 PM MDT

By: Stacey Welsh

EL PASO, Texas -- About 400 acres of land where Asarco used to stand are up for grabs a year after demolition. The Texas Custodial Trust owns the land and is looking for a buyer.

As KFOX14 previously reported, crews are clearing out any contamination from the land that could have traces of arsenic and lead. There are also plans to collect the waste in a giant waste cell and close it off from the public.

"[The University of Texas at El Paso] does have an environmental engineering department and they could use those components as kind of a living laboratory for the students," site trustee Roberto Puga said.

Puga said UTEP could be an ideal buyer for the land, and the university confirmed it is interested in buying the land closest to campus.

Students told KFOX14 studying the former Asarco site could help UTEP become one of the best research universities in the country.

"They would gain more accessibility to maybe research or grants," UTEP senior Taylor Harmon said.

Harmon studies biochemistry and said new labs could motivate more students to study science.

"The more recruitment of students to these labs is going to guarantee more innovation in the future as far as research science and innovation along the border," Harmon said.

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Possible buyers show interest in former Asarco site

Minecraft: REoL TOUGH City Server: Baseball Stadium, Part 1: Land Clearing (Sort-Of)
REMEMBER: Comments ARE MONITORED. Think, THEN post. OK? 🙂 In this new series, you get to watch a baseball stadium being built, starting with land clearing. ...

By: georgef551

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Minecraft: REoL TOUGH City Server: Baseball Stadium, Part 1: Land Clearing (Sort-Of) - Video

Published: Saturday, April 12, 2014 at 10:33 p.m. Last Modified: Saturday, April 12, 2014 at 10:33 p.m.

FORT MEADE | About 35 Fort Meade residents and business owners spent Saturday morning hammering out a plan to ignite the community's economic redevelopment.

In the end, the greatest challenge that emerged from the exercise had nothing to do with land clearing or bricks and mortar it was communication.

The group agreed there's a perception among some residents that Fort Meade shouldn't grow, and even more don't appear to be interested in pushing the community forward.

"We need to inspire people to get involved," said Clayton Frazier, who owns the Badcock & More home furnishings store in Fort Meade. "We need to improve communication throughout our community."

That challenge will be among the first orders of business for the community's fledgling economic development council that is expected to emerge from Saturday's meeting, which was organized by the city and sponsored by Florida Public Utilities.

The group recognized the proposed park along the Peace River as an opportunity that could fuel growth in the city of about 5,800 residents. Members also identified access to natural gas and rail lines, coupled with the availability of large tracts of land, as a potential magnet to attract new industry.

Among the threats facing the city are apathy within the community, competition from neighboring communities and the city's tight budget, which limits its ability to maintain facilities and infrastructure.

Many of those attending the economic summit said these issues aren't particularly new to Fort Meade, but Saturday's exercise at Streamsong resort near Fort Meade helped to identify ways to address them.

"We were able to narrow down the problems," said Fort Meade resident Cliff Maker. "The next step is to get the community to buy into a program to move ahead. It's going to be difficult to do, but I think it can be done."

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Fort Meade Economy Is Focus of Summit

by Rintos Mail, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on April 12, 2014, Saturday

KUCHING: Native Customary Rights (NCR) landowners in Saratok are encouraged to participate in the Malaysian Palm Oil Boards (MPOB) oil palm mini-estate planting scheme.

Social Development Minister Tan Sri William Mawan said the scheme is the best opportunity for smallholders to develop their NCR land.

He called oil palm the best cash crop, saying its development is very reliable.

Although its capital outlay is quite substantial, the government, through the MPOB is doing its level best to help the people who want to develop their own land. The initiatives by the government I believe will enable the landowners to benefit from their customary asset, he said yesterday during a courtesy call by applicants from Saratok for the scheme.

The Saratok member of parliament, who endorsed his visitors application forms, said there is no acquisition of land under this scheme so the land and mini-estates would belong fully to the landowners.

He stressed that landowners need not worry about their land as there would be no land grab by the government as often alleged by some quarters.

MPOB, he explained, would only assist the landowners with aid in terms of land clearing, seedlings, fertilisers and pesticides.

The scheme is financed by MPOB, while the mini-estates belong to the landowners, said Mawan.

Saratok parliamentary constituency special affairs assistant officer Wilfred Empati said MPOB would assist each landowner with RM9,000 in kind per hectare, while each applicant must have at least 5ha to be eligible and the applications must be made in groups.

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NCR landowners asked to join oil palm scheme

EDITOR: Wild nature and human nature are closely interwoven; eco-centrism and human-centrism are therefore one in the same. To take care of our species we must assure mutual protection for all others in order for the system to run efficiently; providing all stakeholders safe passage for generations to come.

These are the simple tenets of a conservation biologist that any first year student of the discipline can grasp. Some of you who just read that opening salvo probably hope Im not talking about the removal of a couple of trees - all 250 of them - so that our kids can play after school sports more comfortably at Bernards High School. Sorry to report thats exactly what Im referring to.

As a professional in the field of environmental science I gained an intimacy with the Bernards High Lower Field woodland last spring. I devoted an entire day of my life to its confines. Here is what I learned.

The site is a mixed deciduous forest type at the terminus of a much longer finger of greenway connected lands associated directly with the Great Swamps exceptional resource value ecosystem. I restricted myself to the footprint that is to be the extended field and the forested buffers that surround it.

Through direct observation and interpretation of natural signs I catalogued 23 bird species, seven species of mammals, two amphibians, one reptile, and 32 species of flora - trees not included. I also performed a survey of nocturnal invertebrate species on a warm May evening that same week.

This study resulted in an impressive tally: 73 species of moths and other insects all in one night! The latter treatment is a much better barometer of the overall ecologic health of this forest patch than are the diurnal species mentioned. Combined, however, the numbers should give even the most skeptical amongst us reason for pause.

I beg you all to focus on the fact that these were species found in one single day in May what about the rest of the year? What about the potential of the site to support species like maternity roosting endangered bats and migratory birds?

Not the dumb bats and birds again - we hear the eco-whackism retort all the time as conservation biologists: Save the panda bear as long as its not in an area slated for human-induced, conceived necessity.

Will the clearing of 250 trees thrust any of them into extinction? Of course not; what I concern myself with, and you should as well, is the fact that we nip and tuck at our environmental capital each and every day in this state.

This latest example of small scale land clearing is just one of hundreds that has happened this week alone in New Jersey. So whats the big deal about a little deforestation in the back of Kings?

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LETTER: Bville tree clearing: Death by a thousand cuts

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Residents of North Charleston's Deer Park seem to live in a state of constant vigilance; not against crime, but against repeated efforts to convert residential properties near University Boulevard into businesses.

In the latest dispute, which North Charleston City Council will discuss April 17, developers want to rezone a residential lot on Shadow Lane for a medical office building. They argue, and some city officials agree, that nobody would build a home there because the property is surrounded by businesses and institutions.

For neighborhood residents who are trying to keep businesses from intruding, it's a zoning Catch-22. While residents don't want the edge of their neighborhood becoming more commercial, they face an argument that some properties should be rezoned for businesses because nobody wants to live there because they are next to businesses.

"I drove over there today, and there is no way anyone would build a house on that lot," Councilwoman Rhonda Jerome said at a public hearing Thursday.

Residents fear a domino effect, and have been pressing city officials to maintain a "demarcation line" meant to keep businesses out of the neighborhood. Prior requests to rezone the same property on Shadow Lane have been denied or withdrawn.

"You know our stance," neighborhood association president Beth Evans told council members at the hearing. "We don't want to ruin the integrity of our (comprehensive) plan by crossing the demarcation line."

Any zoning issue can involve lots of legal language and technical jargon, but in the end it comes down to what a property owner can do with their land, and how that could impact the neighbors.

In the Shadow Lane case, the residential lot is surrounded on three sides by church-owned property. Churches are allowed on residential property - the churches didn't need rezoning - but their presence has created the argument that the neighboring land is no longer suitable for a home site. Trident Medical Center owns the other land adjacent to the residential lot.

Developer Robert Pratt, of Parkway Associates, said he was unaware of the demarcation line, but said the office building would be "unobtrusive" if allowed.

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Land-use disputes keep coming in North Charleston's Deer Park neighborhood

Bulldozers and workers with chainsaws have been moving dirt and clearing land around the old gas station site at Gilberts Corner in recent months. The activity is the result of a complicated 12-year process (so far) thats led to the consolidation of a 400-acre swath of land, parts of which will be used as a public park, open spaces for agricultural use and what could be one of the areas premier farmers markets.

Over the past dozen years, Middleburgs Scott Kasprowicz, the Piedmont Environmental Council and others under the banner of Green Project LLC and Roundabout Partners LLC have quietly been purchasing property that now extends from Gilberts Corner, at the intersection of Rt. 15 and Rt. 50, going east all the way to the historic Mt. Zion Church.

The land has since been given either to the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority or the Piedmont Environmental Council, to preserve it in its current pristine state, while also keeping it out of the hands of developers or other commercial interests.

What makes this area so uniqueis that [travelers] breathe a sigh of relief when they see that scenic and historic landscape around Gilberts Corner open up before them, Mike Kane, PECs Land Conservation Officer for Loudoun County, said. Our goal is to conserve that landscape and preserve that experience.

Bottom line: no fast food arches or big-box retail store will ever blight one of the areas most well-traveled crossroads, and the surrounding land will be preserved for future generations.

Its really good news for the community, Kasprowicz, a former telecommunications executive who moved to Middleburg in 2000, said. Ever since, hes been an active participant in local preservation and conservation organizations, serving as past vice chairman for the PEC board. And the Gilberts Corner project clearly has been his great passion, pride and joy.

Ive had a lifelong belief in land conservation and the preservation of local agriculture, he said. There should be a balance between development and retaining open land for farming. This effort is helping to achieve that balance. Its private citizens, creating public parkland and preserving farmland in a multi-year collaborative effort.

It began in 2002 when Kasprowicz, a native of upstate New York and a Forestry and Environmental Science graduate of Syracuse University, took a call from Brad Bradshaw on behalf of the historic Mt. Zion Church off Rt. 50. Bradshaw said hed heard about a plan to develop nearby land and wondered if anything could be done to preserve the land. Kasprowicz, with the support of the PEC, spearheaded the effort to help Mt. Zion Church acquire the land, which is now known as the Gilberts Corner Regional Park.

It will include walking and nature trails, open space, farmland and picnic areas. To keep the property in its natural state, there will be no soccer or baseball fields or tennis courts. The PEC believes the now-protected land will restore agricultural vitality, enhance wildlife habitat and protect streams and water resources.

Also, the boarded-up building right at Gilberts Corner that housed a gas station from 1927 through the mid-70s, owned originally by the corners namesake, William A. Gilbert, has been stabilized. Kasprowicz said that the station would be renovated as funding permits, perhaps for a regional visitors center. It also will be the focal point for what Kasprowicz envisions as a thriving farmers market that will allow local farmers to sell their products directly to the public.

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Farm Fresh & Much More At Gilberts Corner

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Theological Seminary (STS) is in urgent need of funds to repair and restore areas in and around the campus that are affected by landslides due to developments and land clearing nearby.

STS principal Rev Datuk Dr Thu En Yu said developments and land clearing in nearby areas had caused severe landslides to the slopes in and outside the campus.

Hence, Thu said there was an urgent need for funds to maintain and restore the areas affected by the landslides which, if left unchecked, could cause accessibility problems from the campus to the chapel.

Thu said this in a courtesy call on Minister of Special Tasks Datuk Teo Chee Kang on Monday.

Also present were STS advisor Datuk Yap Pak Leong, Lim Chin Teck, Rev Dr Wilfred John, Rev Datuk Dr Thomas Tsen and Datuk Lee Khun Choi @ Peter Lee.

During the event, Thu expressed his gratitude to the state government for its annual financial allocation to STS, and hoped that the government would continue to provide financial support to the seminary.

In addition, Thu said the STS Education Centre (EC) was completed in 2010 and there was still a shortfall of RM1 million in the balance of construction costs of the building.

The building is now widely used by STS as well as the public for local and international functions, seminars, concerts, conferences and other purposes.

Apart from theology, Thu said STS also offered courses such as social work and counseling.

Thu said there were currently over 900 students studying on and off campus. STS also provides scholarships and helps to raise funds for students who require financial aid.

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Seminary in dire need of funds following landslides

APOPKA, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) -

Voters in Apopka have elected a new mayor.

Joe Kilsheimer, 56, has defeated 93-year-old incumbent John Land. Kilsheimer captured 54 percent of the vote to Land's 46 percent.

Tuesday's runoff election was called since neither Land nor Kilsheimer got a majority of the nearly 5,000 votes cast during last March's mayoral election in what was a four-candidate race. Kilsheimer and Land were the two top vote-getters.

Land had run unopposed in the last dozen years.

Also in Apopka, Sam Ruth has defeated Linda Ann Laurendeau, 51 percent to 49 percent in the race for Apopka City Council.

Apopka has a population of 44,000 residents.

Lynum, Hill will face each other in runoff for Orlando Council seat

In the city of Orlando, there was no clear winner in the race for the District 5 City Council seat. Juan Lynum was widely considered the favorite, but he will have to go to a runoff election after not getting more than 50 percent of the vote.

The race has been closely watched, because Juan Lynum is the son of longtime City Commissioner Daisy Lynum. She qualified to run for reelection early and it discouraged many challengers. In the last hour of the last day of qualifying, Juan Lynum entered the race. The following Monday, Daisy Lynum withdrew from the race, seemingly clearing the path for her son. Juan Lynum says he never just assumed he would win.

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Kilsheimer defeats Land in Apopka mayoral race; Lynum, Hill in runoff