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1 . . . 'I Decision on Jumping Mouse in Process: On Oct. 12, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that he knows the status of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is of high interest, but added that there's no "hard and fast" date for a decision on whether the tiny rodent should remain federally protected. The mouse, found in northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, was declared a threatened species in 1998. The state of Wyoming and a coalition of Colorado landowners, farmers and businesses petitioned the federal government in 2003 to take the mouse off the endangered species list. Last year, the Interior Department proposed eliminating the mouse's protections based on a study that found the mouse was indistinguishable from other, more common jumping mice. Tamarisk Update: After nearly 4 years ofwaitng the "Salt Cedar and Russian Olive Control Demonstration Act" is now law. HR-2770 was passed and signed by the President on October 11. A copy of HR-2770 and Senator Allard's press release are attached at the end of this report. Briefly, the Act authorizes the $80 million for the Secretary of Interior to assess the level of infestation, water savings potentials, and to fund a variety of large scale, cost-shared demonstration projects and related research on control and revegetation over a five year period. Tim Carlson, who deserves a lot of credit for getting the federal legislation enacted reports that: "The potential for Colorado is probably two large-scale demonstrations one each on the Colorado and Arkansas rivers as well as research activities at the state's universities and federal facilities. I worked with the Western Governor's Association yesterday and they seem willing to request to Congress that the bill be fully appropriated. More will probably come out on this in the next couple of weeks." $7 million is expected to be spent to assess the extent ofthe infestation by tamarisk/salt cedar and Russian olive trees in the western United States, to evaluate and demonstrate solutions for long-term management, and the reestablishment of native vegetation. Nearly 12,000 acres ofland have been invaded by tamarisk. According to the National Park Service website, up to 500,000 small, windblown seeds can be produced per plant. The National Park Service further reports that a single, large tamarisk can transpire up to 300 gallons of water per day. The Act is referenced as Public Law 109-320 and can also be viewed at the Library of Congress site http://thomas.Ioc.gov . The Tamarisk Coalition has completed about half of the map and inventory work under the final $50,000 purchase order issued this summer. We have received some initial graphical products and local watershed groups have begun using them to plan and monitor small scale control products. The focus will now shift to developing digital files for use in GIS systems and more convenient distribution and sharing of the inventory data. On October 3-4 staff attended a scientific conference addressing invasive phreatophytes hosted by CSU in Ft. Collins. Topics included channel capacity and morphology issues, mapping protocols and water consumption estimating methods. A basic conclusion from our attendance at the conference is that there is no clear concensus resulting from the academic research on many of these topics, and a more focused research approach, likely to result from the increased federal role under the new tamarisk bill will be beneficial. Abstracts and presentations from the conference will soon to be available via the web at (www.tamariskcoaIition.or2) and Center for Invasive Plant Management (www.weedcenter.org), and Colorado State University (www.tamarisk.colostate.edu).This conference will be hosted every two years at a different university community. 7