Democrat Harry Reid brings a reputation for integrity, a record of environmentalism, and the toughness he kept from his hardscrabble Western upbringing into a challenging race for a third term as a U.S. Senator from Nevada.
Doing dirty work for free
Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado is looking for people to do their dirty work – shoveling, that is, and hoeing, digging, planting and hammering. Since 1984, Outdoor Colorado has been enlisting individuals, families, children and adults to plant gardens and mend trails on Colorado’s public lands. The group hosts 10 to 12 projects throughout the year,…
High desert pronghorn
In the northern reaches of the Great Basin, a herd of more than 6,000 pronghorn antelope roams across a high desert range. Two islands of this vast desert are protected by federal refuges, but thousands of acres that straddle the Oregon-Nevada border separate them. A coalition of environmental groups led by the Oregon Natural Desert…
Zero Circles
ZERO CIRCLES Daniel Dancer’s “Zero Circles Project” sets out to end logging in the West’s public forests by illustrating the history of logging on these lands, as well as illuminating the wonders of the native forests that remain. He has trekked across forests of the West, forming circles of fire, people or wood – then…
Elk: Pursuing the hunt and preserving the species
For author, hunter, woodsman and “hard-core, out-and-amongst-’em … serious wildlife watcher” David Petersen, elk are more than just a hobby, topic or even a passion; they are a religion. If books had to have subtitles that reflected their deeper messages, Petersen’s newest book, Elkheart: A Personal Tribute to Wapiti and Their World, might be A…
Prisoners for hire
A new magazine called ColorLines, with editorial offices in Oakland, Calif., takes a harsh look at what it calls the “prison-industrial complex.” It finds an unsavory relationship between corporations that improve their bottom line thanks to cheap prison labor, and our society’s desire to lock up people we’ve given up trying to socialize or educate.…
Is park station a boondoggle?
When user fees went into effect two years ago in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming’s Teton County residents thought the money would go toward improving existing facilities. Then the Park Service proposed to spend that money to build a $1.4 million welcome center along a remote dirt road in the park’s southwest corner. Local opposition,…
Irrigators speak a volume
After a federal water commission published Water in the West: The Challenge for the Next Century (HCN, 6/22/98), a 250-member industry group known as the Family Farm Alliance went to work on a report of its own. Irrigated agriculture has gotten the blame for the West’s water woes, members say, and they want to clear…
Critics slam bison plan
-I’ve got two words for this plan: it stinks,” said Page McNeill, chair of the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club, at a recent public meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Criticism of the draft management plan for the Yellowstone National Park bison herd (HCN, 7/6/98) came fast and furious at the Aug. 10 meeting, where…
Let’s talk about salmon
Wana Chinook Tymoo means “salmon stories’ in Sahaptin, a language shared by the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama tribes. It is also the name of a free magazine published quarterly since 1991 by the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The group brings together members of the four tribes to help fight for the…
Speaking of eating: There is no meat I would rather eat
Speaking of eating: There is no meat I would rather eat, and none I eat more of, than wild meat got with my own bloody hands as an ethical predatory omnivore. To the contrary, I go sick at the thought of swallowing “alternative livestock” flesh butchered from the bones of captive-raised wild animals. Magazines running…
The Wayward West
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt have agreed to settle a squabble over state-owned school trust lands isolated by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument; now it awaits approval in Washington, D.C. (HCN, 5/25/98). The deal means Utah will trade 377,000 acres of state lands for $50 million and 139,000 acres of federal…
Wildlands Grassroots Rendezvous
Conservation biologist Michael Soulé and activist Dave Foreman are featured speakers when the Wildlands Project holds its Wildlands Grassroots Rendezvous: Science and the Conservation of Nature, Oct. 8-11, in Estes Park, Colo. Contact The Wildlands Project, 1955 W. Grant Road, Suite 148, Tucson, AZ 85745 (520/884-0875) or e-mail: wildland@earthlink.net. This article appeared in the print…
Large-Scale Hog Farming in Colorado
Corporate hog farms have targeted Colorado, and an Oct. 20 conference, “Large-Scale Hog Farming in Colorado: Sooey or Sue Me?” will discuss regulatory options. Contact the Natural Resources Law Center of the University of Colorado School of Law at 303/492-1272 or Campus Box 401, Boulder, CO 80309-0401. This article appeared in the print edition of…
Hunt sparks whale of a controversy
This fall, members of the Makah tribe of northwestern Washington state plan to do something they haven’t done for decades: kill a whale. The ceremonial whale hunt, set to begin in October, will mark the restoration of rights promised in an 1865 treaty between the Makahs and the United States. The International Whaling Commission allows…
Colorado Trails Symposium
All kinds of trail managers – volunteers and professionals who maintain trails for everyone from hikers to ATV riders – will come together at the Colorado Trails Symposium, Oct. 8-11 in Grand Junction, Colo. For information contact: 1998 Colorado Trails Symposium, c/o Colorado State Parks, 1313 Sherman St., Rm. 618, Denver, CO 80203 (303/866-3203 ext.…
On The Trail
In Utah, Republican Rep. Merrill Cook was fishing for green votes when he told his urban Wasatch Front district that he wants to see more Beehive State wilderness protected – without saying exactly how much (HCN, 8/3/98). But his support for wilderness didn’t endear him to environmental groups. In early September, the Sierra Club and…
Climbing bolts in wilderness: An attack on the counterattacks
Dear HCN, Climbing certainly touched a sensitive nerve with some readers (HCN, 9/14/98). The reactions (I should say counterattacks) brought forth complaints ranging far from fixed anchors to mountain bikes and hang gliders and even to garbage and toilet paper. Most of the writers lectured climbers for not sharing their, presumably, better wilderness ethic. One…
Tour the underground
It’s probably not the first place you might think of for a family vacation, but coal mines and electricity-generating plants in North Dakota have packaged a tour of their facilities as the “Energy Trail.” Hitting the trail offers more than authentic coal soot. If you time it right, Thursday at the Freedom Mine in Mercer…
Glacier takes a stand
A draft plan for managing Glacier National Park in Montana for the next 20 years would avoid problems plaguing other national parks by proposing bold moves: banning personal watercraft use and barring commercial air tours. The proposal would also protect historic lodges, gradually improve Going-to-the-Sun Road, increase services for visitors during the winter season, and…
Mining: There’s a reform-blocking rider
It’s not easy fighting mines. Under the 1872 General Mining Law, mining is the “highest and best use” of federal public lands, and every anti-mine effort is an uphill battle. But buried in the Bureau of Land Management code of regulations is a glimmer of good news for activists: a directive to the secretary of…
A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Note: two sidebar articles, one with Nevada statistics and one titled “Beyond sagebrush politics: A prospering megalopolis steers Nevada,” accompany this feature story. RENO, Nev. – In the halls of Congress, Sen. Harry Reid is proud to be known as a “Senator for the New West.” For more than a decade, the two-term, senior Democratic…
Beyond sagebrush politics: A prospering megalopolis steers Nevada
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Nevada doesn’t get a lot of respect. It has been called “The tag-end of Creation,” “America’s Great Mistake” and “the Rotten Borough.” John Muir said it was “irredeemable now and forever.” The Almanac of American Politics, considered by many to be the bible of…
Nevada on the move
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Rank in growth among states since 1960: First Number of new residents per month: 4,000-6,000 Percentage of state-owned land by the federal government: 87 Percentage of U.S. gold mined there: 60 Percentage of Nevada workers employed in the service industry: 44 Percentage of Nevada…
Dear friends
Here comes camouflage Some of the men you see walking down the streets of this town of 1,400 look a mite peculiar these days. Their faces are deliberately dirty and they’re wearing camouflage. It’s the first clue that summer is close to over and fall is moving in fast. The earliest hunters to appear are…
Voters to decide mining’s future
MISSOULA, Mont. – Two years ago, a broad coalition of environmentalists, ranchers and politicians put an initiative on Montana’s ballot to force mining companies to clean up their wastewater before dumping it into rivers. The initiative failed after the mining industry spent $2 million convincing voters that tighter water standards would affect anyone who washed…
In place of a bigger park, Tucson gets houses
TUCSON, Ariz. – Five years ago, federal officials saw a perfect spot in the Tucson Mountains foothills for a park expansion. Covered by lush stands of palo verdes, saguaros and ocotillos, the site included several washes that provided shelter for wildlife. It also contained one of the few perennial water sources in the mountains, attracting…
Congress avoids buying public land
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Thirty-five years ago, in that golden age when a president could engage in White House trysts without worrying about it, one of those presidents endorsed the idea of a self-financing fund to raise money so the government could buy land. It was a popular idea, so popular that it soon became law,…
Cell phones: Sometimes you need a crutch
Dear HCN, Because I am currently involved in a heated wilderness debate myself, Christina Nealson’s essay about cellular phones in wilderness areas caught my eye (HCN, 8/17/98). In the Grand Canyon where I work, as elsewhere, the debate over what constitutes a wilderness experience and the appropriate role of the federal government in prescribing exacting…
Heard around the West
Maybe the issue isn’t who first threw the shoes. A huge old tree close to U.S. 50 in Nevada – dubbed “the loneliest road in America” – has become festooned with shoes and even pairs of skis and rollerblades. Stories vary as to how the shoes first went airborne, but one oft-told tale goes like…
God to Helen: ‘Do I know you?’
The fall of 1998 will undoubtedly go down in history as a record year for confessions of infidelity – followed by professions of contrition – from politicians. The latest comes from Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth, the ultra-conservative Republican, who recently admitted to a six-year affair with a married, former business partner. The Idaho Statesman decided…