Wyoming’s brand of insider politics is keeping the state in thrall to extractive industries and out of step with the rest of the West.
Colorado Water Workshop
The 23rd annual Colorado Water Workshop will be held July 29-31 at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., with Floyd Dominy, former commissioner and dam-builder of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the keynote speaker. This year’s theme: World Water Lessons for a Changing West. Registration is $225 before July 20. For more information, call 970/641-6215…
The Wayward West
Each year Wildlife Services “controls’ about 100,000 lions, coyotes and bears, mostly by killing them. On June 23, the federal agency lost support when the House of Representatives voted 229-193 to cut $10 million from its $20 million budget. A day later, however, after the livestock industry mounted an intense lobbying effort, the $10 million…
Wild Mushrooms/Telluride
Bring your mushroom hat to Wild Mushrooms/Telluride Aug. 27-30 in Telluride, Colo., where, in addition to a mushroom costume parade, a conference features field excursions, a mushroom cook and taste party, and talks by Andrew Weil, author of Spontaneous Healing. Contact Fungophile, Inc., P.O. Box 480503, Denver, CO 80248-0503 (303/296-9359). Or check out the Website:…
The San Pedro River
The San Pedro River in Arizona’s southeastern corner is famous for the diversity of its birdlife, but groundwater pumping by surrounding communities and the Fort Huachuca military base in Sierra Vista, Ariz., is draining the desert refuge. Now, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a Montreal-based group established by NAFTA, has released a report entitled “Sustaining…
Colorado curmudgeon defends the rural West
Review by Ken Wright Ed Quillen isn’t exactly a voice crying in the wilderness; he’s more like that guy with a beer and a Camel Straight in his hand, yelling from the sagging porch of the house down the street – the one with all the weeds and the 1975 Jeep Cherokee on blocks in…
Nuclear waste hits another roadblock
Just one week before the U.S. Department of Energy planned to ship radioactive trash to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., state environmental regulators gave the agency another red light. In May, the federal Environmental Protection Agency approved shipping to the site waste that would include garbage, clothing, laboratory equipment and other…
Defining a scientific movement
Review by Michelle Nijhuis Janine Benyus’ Biomimicry is a book about science. One of its many unexpected pleasures, however, is that it is also about scientists. Benyus’ fondness and respect for researchers is evident in every chapter, even as she gently pokes fun at their peculiar obsessions. Here, for example, is her description of biochemist…
Victory for the tortoise
Though notoriously slow to the finish line, the desert tortoise came out ahead this April in the first endangered-species act case to be prosecuted in Idaho in 15 years. Russell G. Jones of Star, Idaho, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a protected species under federal law and was fined $1,000 and ordered to serve…
Waterton Glacier International Writers’ Workshop
At the third annual Waterton-Glacier International Writer’s Workshop in Glacier Park, Mont., Sept. 24-26, nature, environmental and travel writers come together with editors and publishers from both the United States and Canada. Writing and publishing workshops will be offered, with story opportunities emerging from field trips throughout the Glacier area. To register, contact Joan Baucus,…
Should a highway run through it?
Utah residents are not sure they can live with Gov. Michael Leavitt’s legacy. In 1995, Leavitt proposed a 120-mile “Legacy Highway,” running along the booming Wasatch Front (HCN, 3/16/98). The four-lane highway would help shuttle commuters through the Salt Lake valley, and run right along the shore of the Great Salt Lake. The proposal sparked…
Whitewater boating groups
Whitewater boating groups are invited to eddy out in July and apply for a $500 to $2,500 grant to promote river access or conservation projects. Nonprofit groups within the Rocky Mountain region may apply by July 15. Contact the Colorado Whitewater Association Grant Committee, c/o Jay P.K. Kenney, 1675 Larimer St., Suite 725, Denver, CO…
When Will the Joy Ride End?
Remember the oil crisis? It’s only just begun, according to the petroleum primer When Will the Joy Ride End? published by an Aspen, Colo., nonprofit, the Community Office for Resource Efficiency. With catchy phrases, hard facts and many graphs, authors Randy Udall and Steve Andrews stress that when global oil production peaks, it may already…
Of “stump pimps’ and “wolf pimps’
Dear HCN, Criticize Alex Cockburn if you must, and he certainly gives one plenty of opportunity (HCN, 5/11/98). No one ever accused him of keeping his opinions to himself. And, no one would ever accuse him of infallibility – remember, he thinks Lee Oswald was a lone Socialist hero! But, claiming that environmental groups use…
All tamarisk isn’t the same
Dear HCN, “Tackling Tamarisk” (HCN, 5/25/98) lifts the lid on a nasty can of worms, namely the invasion of Western wildlands by alien plants – those dreaded weeds. Paul Larmer credits tamarisks with spreading into “virtually every river system in the West.” Could be, depending on the definition of “river system.” More to the point…
Ordering chicken for a whole town
The city of Artesia, N.M., could get more than it asked for when NUCHIK Inc. builds one of the biggest chicken processing plants in the West in the year 2000. The plant will slaughter 1.25 million chickens a week and create 900 new jobs in the town of 12,000. NUCHIK supporters hope the chicken plant…
Give that photo a rest
Dear HCN, Just when I begin to believe that you guys are presenting a fair picture of what’s happening on the environmental front in the West, you dash my hopes once again. In the recent issue, in the Hotline section (HCN, 6/8/98), you have the famous John Horning overgrazing picture that’s been used to death…
The illustrated adventures of bison
What weighs 4 pounds, boasts stunning watercolor illustrations of wildlife, and purports to regulate brucellosis in free-ranging bison? The new 400-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Interagency Bison Management Plan for the State of Montana and Yellowstone National Park, of course. The statement, a collaboration by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service,…
Another view of poisoning a lake
Dear HCN, I was somewhat surprised at High Country News’ article, “How California Poisoned a Small Town,” since it only provided one side of the issue – and a locally biased one at that (HCN, 5/25/98). While I believe that the removal of the predatory pike from Lake Davis was fully justified, both biologically and…
In the footsteps of Muir
Would John Muir recognize the Yosemite of today? What would he think of his beloved “hospitable, Godful wilderness,” where he roamed freely, built campfires anywhere he pleased and traveled with his unleashed dog, Carlo? To explore questions like that, writer Geraldine Vale and geographer Thomas Vale retraced the route that Muir described over a century…
Bye, bye, Idaho
Dear HCN, I read with amusement the “ranting and raving” of W.M. Martin from Arizona (HCN, 5/25/98) about the Californians moving to his state, complaining about everything, but not moving. Now it’s my turn to rant. I sneaked into Idaho from Pennsylvania a few years back and have complained about Idaho in the same way…
Justice for the cutthroat
When it listed bulltrout as a threatened species recently (HCN, 6/22/98), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also announced that westslope cutthroat trout deserved study for possible protection. The move was pushed by six conservation groups – American Wildlands, Madison Gallatin Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Idaho Watersheds Project, Montana Environmental Information Center, Clearwater Biodiversity Project…
No, it’s habitat fragmentation, stupid
Dear HCN, Ranching historian Tom Sheridan’s statement that the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity’s Endangered Species Act lawsuits are bad for rural landscapes because they make life tougher for ranchers is a bit off (HCN, 6/8/98). In his letter, Tom paraphrases James Carville, saying, “It’s land fragmentation, stupid.” In fact, it’s habitat fragmentation we should…
Takings clarified
-If I tell my daughter that she cannot play with her ball in the house, she has lost something of value – the right to play with the ball in the house. I have regulated what she can do with the ball, but I haven’t “taken” it. She is still free to play with it…
Can the Forest Service change?
Dear HCN, It seems nearly every issue of High Country News has some article dealing with the decline and fall of the U.S. Forest Service. This strikes near and dear to my heart since I spent over 27 years with the agency. The agency is not the same one I started working for in 1970.…
Still on the hit list
When the Wilderness Society released a list of the 10 most endangered wild places in the U.S. last year, it hoped media attention would slow down the development threatening these unique areas. But this year’s list has been expanded to 15 sites, and only one area dropped off the list because of increased protection. The…
Backlash
Dear HCN, I often wonder how anyone can be anti-environmentalist, and there are sure a lot of folks who feel that way, especially here in Idaho. To me, being anti-environmentalist is being anti-life, anti-happiness, anti-future. But when I see statements like those attributed to mystery writer Nevada Barr (HCN, 5/25/98), in which she suggests it…
Begging bears are back in Idaho
REXBURG, Idaho – A cinnamon-colored bear ambles over to the green GMC camper truck, sniffs the tires and stands up on his hind legs. The 400-pound predator paws at the hood and laps at the bug-spattered windshield, behind which sits a giddy young family of four packed on the truck’s bench seat. They’re not in…
Heard around the West
Hungry bears breaking into cars and cabins at Yosemite National Park in California are racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Bears have learned it’s easy to get into the driver’s seat if they “place their claws on top of car doors and peel them off,” reports AP. Relocating the black bears hasn’t…
Mexican subculture grows beneath Colorado’s mountains
Just west of Aspen, Colo., hungry souls line the counter at Taqueria El Nopal. The polka beat of Ranchero music and smell of grease fill the small concrete interior. A heavily mustached cook dishes up beef, chicken, tongue, cheek and intestine tacos. A typical Monday. If it were not for the snow-topped mountains outside -…
Judges get FREE lessons on property rights
The Montana resorts around Yellowstone National Park are a long way from Washington, D.C., Cleveland, or even Denver, and that, as much as a thirst for knowledge, may be what has attracted about 180 federal judges since 1992 to seminars on property rights and environmental issues. These aren’t just any federal judges. These are the…
A timber town rallies for roads
CASCADE, Idaho – The open-air protest was hastily organized, but Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth found time to travel to this timber town of 900. “You’re the best environmentalists in the world,” she told 500 cheering people who had gathered to close the road through town with logging trucks and send a message to the…
A mountain town locks out gated communities
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Jim Mehen’s first gated golf community dropped into Flagstaff 10 years ago the way a fine putt drops into a cup on a lush green. But when the northern Arizona developer proposed another golf enclave last fall, it didn’t even make the fairway. Faced with strong public opposition, Mehen withdrew his plans…
A writer rouses Flagstaff with guerrilla journalism
Twilight settles around the cabin a few miles outside of Flagstaff, Ariz., where Mary Sojourner lives with her seven cats, her wood stove and the tools of her trade – a new Mac Performa computer, a laser color printer, a telephone and fax machine. Sojourner – her chosen name – makes her living from writing.…
Glacier’s road is going to the dogs
WEST GLACIER, Mont. – The first director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, saw the Going-to-the-Sun road as a way to hold Glacier National Park together. Mather proposed building the road in the early 1920s to lure a “great flow of tourist gold” to remote northern Montana, and to convince miners and loggers…
Riding the Wyoming ‘brand’
Editor’s note: A year ago, High Country News carried a lead article by Wyoming journalist Paul Krza (pronounced Cur-zay) titled, “While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills … and languishes.” The theme of his story was that an alliance between the state’s ranchers and minerals-energy industry had turned Wyoming into a low-tax, low-wage, anti-environmental…
Democrats struggle to regain a foothold
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. I remembered it as always the biggest rally before the general election, over at the Slovenski Dom, the Slovene lodge’s meeting home in my hometown of Rock Springs. Democrats from Sweetwater County, the party’s big, reliable stronghold in Wyoming, showed up to drink beer,…
Dear Friends
Skipping an issue … There will be no July 20, 1998, issue of High Country News. Twice a year, HCN skips an issue so that staff can skip town, or at least avoid the office. The next issue will be dated Aug. 3, 1998. A day in the life … It is the week before…