Kennecott Copper wants to clean up Bingham Canyon copper mine on its own, while Environmental Protection Agency wants to make it a Superfund site.
Recycling attracts Utah tribe
In a move to create jobs and build a stronger economic base, the Skull Valley Goshute Tribe in Utah has joined forces with two environmental engineering firms to form a company called EnviroSolutions. “The largest markets in the 1990s and beyond are going to be in the environment,” says tribal attorney Danny Quintana. EnviroSolutions recently…
Saving the remnants
Of the 17 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming, 16 million acres have been developed and a “paltry 240,000 acres recommended for wilderness,” says Liz Howell, staffer in the Sierra Club’s Northern Plains office. Because these wild lands are being lost to dirt biking, oil and gas development and mining,…
Techno-weenie resources
Grass-roots environmental activists and community organizers who have to deal with nuclear issues are often accused of compensating for lack of scientific knowledge with emotion. Now the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research has put a physicist at the disposal of groups that work in the shadows of the nuclear complex. Its president,…
For rangeland reformers
The Western Legislative Conference is hosting a conference on “Rangeland Reform and Watershed Management in the West” June 24-25 in Denver. The event will profile collaborative efforts among federal and state government officials and ranchers and environmentalists to restore rangeland and watersheds in Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, Washington and Arizona. Speakers include Mike Penfold, an Interior…
International park draws fire
Supporters of an international park said, “Nature knows no borders,” but protesters at a recent Seattle conference didn’t agree. Two hundred park demonstrators marched and chanted, “What do we want? No park!” while United States and Canadian park representatives talked about joining recreation areas and parks in the 11 million-acre North Cascades ecosystem. Protesters fear…
Is “natural regulation’ leading to unnatural results?
Karl Hess Jr., in Rocky Times in Rocky Mountain National Park – An Unnatural History, raises ethical questions about the future of Rocky Mountain National Park, “a unique, irreplaceable wonder, a shimmering blue strip of hope on the prairie horizon.” Combining eloquence and detailed research, Hess calls for drastic changes to ensure that good stewardship…
A savage SLAPP suit
A “conspiracy” exists to destroy the Savage Rapids Dam in Oregon, say Oregon residents who are suing Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the Oregon governor, 15 state and federal agencies and 10 environmental groups. “If the preservationists win here, they’ll want to go after all the dams in the state,” said John DeZell, attorney and founder…
Going to pot
Farmers in Maricopa County, Ariz., may harvest an unexpected crop this summer. Thanks to an unknown culprit who dumped more than a ton of freshly harvested marijuana into an irrigation canal, millions of seeds could find their way onto cotton farms. Steve Werner of the county sheriff’s office said 1,500 pounds of pot were retrieved…
Environmental group reaches out
The Colorado Environmental Coalition, a Denver-based non-profit group, recently opened a new office on the Continental Divide’s Western Slope. Norm Mullen, the group’s public-lands coordinator and manager of the new Grand Junction office, will work on wilderness, oil and gas development, wild and scenic rivers, and serve as a link between environmental groups on both…
Learn the limits
The University of Colorado will host a three-day conference on “Regulatory Takings and Resources: What Are the Constitutional Limits?,” June 13-15. The get-together features Larry MacDonnell of the Natural Resources Law Center; Lois Schiffer from the Department of Justice; Mark Squillace, law professor at the University of Wyoming, and John Echeverria, attorney with the National…
A Neanderthal mentality in Silver City
Dear HCN, I would like to commend you for excellent coverage of the problems plaguing the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico (HCN, 5/2/94). For too long, battles have been raging between environmentalists and wise-use proponents there without anyone sitting up and taking notice. Three years ago, my wife and I bought property in…
Colorado Central
Those who can’t get enough of writer Ed Quillen in his Denver Post columns and occasional articles in High Country News (Ed most recently wrote about landfills in the March 7, 1994, HCN) can now subscribe to his Colorado Central, a monthly, very non-slick magazine. The paper’s beat is the central Rocky Mountain towns between…
About lycra and denim
Dear HCN, As a sometimes cross-country ski racer and mountain biker who occasionally dons lycra, I must say that I think T.M. Power misses the point when he examines the “caustic humor” that traditional Westerners seem to have for the newly arrived urban “services’ people (HCN, 5/2/94). Ranchers, loggers and miners produce real goods which…
ADC must go
In the summer of 1992, Ruth Shea, an Idaho Fish and Game Department employee, was riding in the Caribou National Forest when she looked down and saw steel-jawed traps buried in the trail. Then she came upon the trapped and decayed bodies of two coyotes and a badger. “These traps appeared to have been set…
Wind in the West
New wind turbines that produce electricity almost as cheaply as new coal- or natural gas-fired plants have spurred four wind power projects in the West. San Francisco-based Kenetech, the nation’s largest developer of wind energy, proposes three projects featuring turbines that adjust to wind speeds while still creating energy at a uniform rate. Two of…
Our West
Perhaps the best way to understand the West is to live it. That’s the guiding philosophy behind the “Our West: Loving the Land” conference hosted by Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs, June 19-25. Conference participants will live on a ranch and explore the Wind River Mountains with local environmentalists. There will also be…
Suit halts coyote killings
Suit halts coyote killings When the federal government refused to shoot coyotes from the air last year, ranchers in Idaho appealed to the state Department of Agriculture for help. The agency responded by issuing seven aerial permits to gunners, who killed 193 coyotes. This year was different: Idaho’s attorney general recently shut down the state’s…
Changing the law of the river
The Bureau of Rec-lamation has released a draft plan to change the way the Colorado River is managed within Nevada, Arizona and California (HCN, 2/21/94). “The lower Colorado River needs to meet the water needs of more people,” says commissioner Dan Beard. “In the past, we have managed the river primarily to serve agricultural and…
Sharing the land
The Jackson Hole Alliance for Responsible Planning and the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative will host a conference on preserving biological diversity surrounding Jackson Hole June 3-5. “Sharing the land: Preserving Jackson Whole,” at Snow King Resort, features field trips, lectures, roundtable discussions and workshops offered by writers and educators. Speakers include wildlife researchers Tim Clark…
Power plant disappears
Was it a hoax? Nine months after residents of Show Low, Ariz., fervently debated a proposal to build a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant in the nearby White Mountains, the proposal is dead. “It all just went away,” Show Low City Manager Patrick Sherman told the Arizona Republic. Last June, Phil Downing, then executive director of…
All eyes on cows
Every Bureau of Land Management district in the West will hold simultaneous public hearings June 8 on Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s Rangeland Reform “94 proposal. Most hearings will start with a workshop to explain the new grazing plan, then open for public testimony. The BLM wants to hear comments on two documents: proposed grazing regulations…
Mushrooming business is curbed
The Forest Service has developed new rules to get a handle on the Northwest’s booming mushroom industry. During the last three years agency officials in Oregon and Washington have seen violent conflicts break out among pickers, as well as damage to forest lands (HCN, 6/28/93). Mike Rassbach, special forest products coordinator for the region, says…
Endangered waters
The Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone is the most endangered river in North America, reports the environmental group American Rivers. The wild and scenic river, which runs through Montana and Wyoming, is threatened by a proposed gold mine two-and-a-half miles from Yellowstone National Park. The project includes a 90-foot dam designed to hold millions of…
Babbitt attacks mining’s gold heists
On the day he was not nominated to the Supreme Court, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stepped up his campaign for reform of public-land laws in the West. Brandishing an oversized symbolic check, Babbitt bashed the “outdated” 1872 Mining Law that forced him to hand over more than $10 billion in gold to a Canada-based company…
Rural area beats back water diversion plan
An eight-year controversy ended May 9 when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a company seeking to pump vast amounts of groundwater from beneath Colorado’s San Luis Valley. In 1986, American Water Development Inc., filed for the rights to siphon 65 billion gallons of groundwater a year from the sprawling San Luis Valley. Investors in…
Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem?
Introductory editor’s note: Wherever we look in the developed West, we see evidence of misuse: eroding streams, stripped forests, species such as the grizzly hanging on by their claws. Many believe it is not enough to simply stop the damage. We must also put the West back together. But many in the West are in…
The labyrinthine nature of mine waste regulations
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem? While Kennecott grapples with a real mess of contamination on the ground and in the water around Bingham Canyon, it also finds itself entangled in a long-running debate about regulating mine wastes. The mining industry has successfully…
Scientist says Yellowstone Park is being destroyed
The Yellowstone northern elk herd, allowed to persist at high densities by the national park’s “natural-regulation” policy, is destroying the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the northern-range ecosystem. Park publicity denies this and misleads the public by proclaiming that all is well in Yellowstone. There are only two possible interpretations of this behavior. One is…
Dear friends
Good news Congratulations to former HCN intern Zaz Hollander, who was hired recently by the Daily Astorian. Zaz will cover environmental issues on the Oregon coast. Congratulations as well to HCN’s Great Basin editor, Jon Christensen. His lead story in the Aug. 9, 1993, issue of HCN on the Diamond Springs Ranch in Nevada headlined,…
Why one advocacy group steers clear of consensus efforts
The Southern Utah Wilderness Association often receives invitations from government entities or other groups to participate on various types of advisory committees. It is usually our policy to decline these offers. The rationale behind this policy goes like this: 1. Advisory committees include interests which benefit from the status quo, and therefore have little or…
Dams spill water, salmon in Northwest
Faced with the lowest return of Snake River spring-summer chinook salmon in history, the National Marine Fisheries Service ordered water and salmon spilled over eight Columbia and Snake river dams May 10. The emergency measure, which was implemented immediately and will continue through June 20, drew praise from salmon advocates and criticism from industry groups…
Irrigation pumps kill salmon
More than half the screens protecting Columbia River salmon from being sucked into irrigation pumps in Washington and Oregon are missing or don’t work, according to a recent survey conducted by the two states. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently inspected 80 screens at irrigation and hydroelectric facilities, and discovered half were either…
Utah’s wildlife division is gutshot
The phone to Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources can sometimes ring three dozen times before it’s picked up. Some of the offices are now empty, and the biologists who worked in them are gone. “We’re all walking around here paranoid, wondering who’s next,” mutters a biologist well into his second decade on the job. “Everybody’s…