Environmentalists, farmers and state and federal agencies try to find some kind of consensus even as each reaches for a share of the overused Platte River as it flows from Colorado, through Wyoming and across Nebraska.
Damning report on dams
Spawning chinook salmon would be better off if they didn’t have to swim the gantlet of four dams on Idaho’s Snake River, says a panel of independent scientists. By testing that hypothesis with a computer model, the scientists found threatened spring and summer chinook salmon would have a greater than 80 percent chance of restoration…
Fees feed volunteers
Years of budget-cutting have taken their toll on the trails and roads of the national parks, and the Park Service is using a windfall from increased user fees to clean up its act. Two million dollars in park user fees have jump-started the Public Land Corps, a program administered by the nonprofit Student Conservation Association.…
National Land Trust Census
The last decade has been a good one for the West’s land trusts. A census conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Land Trust Alliance reveals the number of land trusts that serve the Rocky Mountain states has risen from 20 to 52, and the Southwest shows similar growth. Nationwide, these private nonprofits, whose primary purpose is…
Connecting Ecosystems – Connecting Peoples
The Environmental and Outdoor Education Council of Alberta, Canada, holds its annual conference April 22-24 at Waterton Lakes National Park, just north of Montana’s Glacier National Park. “Connecting Ecosystems – Connecting Peoples’ is the theme, and topics include the proposal to link the Yukon-Yellowstone wildlife corridors. Contact Keith Roscoe at 403/329-2446 or keith.roscoe@uleth.ca. This article…
College scholarships
The Sierra Club will award four-year college scholarships of $1,000 per year to 10 students from small communities in the Sierra Nevada region. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 5; for more information, write to Jackie McCort of the Sierra Club at 85 Second Street, Fourth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105-5500, call her…
ELF strikes again
The Earth Liberation Front is keeping busy. On Jan. 16, it claimed responsibility for an arson fire in southern Oregon – its seventh attack in just over two years. On Dec. 27, a fire destroyed the corporate headquarters of U.S. Forest Industries in Medford, Ore. Less than a month later, the Associated Press office in…
San Juan National Forest Artist in Residence
The San Juan National Forest Artist in Residence program offers artists the chance to stay at the historic Aspen Guard Station in exchange for producing a creative piece that represents their experience in the former ranger station. All types of artists are encouraged to apply by March 1 for the one- to two-week fall stay.…
The Wayward West
Three men accused of slaughtering more than 30 wild horses in the Nevada desert have been arrested (HCN, 1/18/99). Two of the suspects, Scott Brendle and Darien Brock, are stationed at Marine Corps bases in California. Grisly details about the other suspect’s life have surfaced in Nevada newspapers. Anthony Merlino of Reno is described as…
Stegner Center Symposium
Two of the country’s experts on water policy will speak at this year’s 4th Annual Stegner Center Symposium, “Where the Rivers Flow: Sharing Watersheds and Boundaries’ in Salt Lake City, Utah. On hand April 16-17 will be Dan Beard, former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, and Marc Reisner, author of Cadillac Desert: The American…
Society for Ecology Restoration
When members of the Society for Ecological Restoration meet next September in San Francisco, they will focus on moving stewardship of the land back to the community – away from government or large corporations. To submit abstracts for a talk or poster by March 15, contact Deborah Amshoff, program chair, 2489 Whitney Dr. #1, Mountain…
Outfitters do a lot for Grand Canyon
Dear HCN, Whether one supports wilderness for the Colorado River corridor in Grand Canyon or not, to inextricably link it with access for private boaters is wrong and very misleading (HCN, 12/21/98). Part of the reason that there is such a long wait for private boaters to get to the river is that the current…
Wolves worry outfitters
Gray wolves transplanted to Yellowstone National Park and Idaho wilderness areas three and a half years ago are multiplying fast – but so are the concerns of Idaho hunting guides, who say the wolves are killing too many elk. “If the wolf recovery program goes on unchecked, it will put us out of business,” said…
Don’t believe that grizzlies are doing just fine
Dear HCN, Many of us who follow the Yellowstone grizzly summer after summer know one thing for certain about the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee: It is an intensely political organization (HCN, 11/9/98). Like a political party, most of its deliberations are in secret and many of its pronouncements are in the form of propaganda. Propaganda…
To trap or not?
When the red fox expanded its range and moved into coastal California in the 1980s, wildlife managers relied on leghold traps to stop the clever predators from killing endangered marsh birds such as the California clapper rail and California least tern. Without the traps, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, the red fox could…
Stereotyping hunters is easy
Dear HCN, Thanks for providing an open and honest forum so that we can discuss the myriad issues, such as hunting, that affect the West. In recent issues I’ve read Stephen Gies’ whiny diatribe about the “macabre act of hunting” and Marc Gaede’s bizarre but hilarious evaluation of the human male. I fit their stereotype.…
Oregon Caves park to grow
Oregon Caves National Monument is known for its crystal pools and delicate mineral deposits, yet at 480 acres, it’s tiny. The final version of a new management plan, however, calls for expanding the monument by seven times – to 3,400 acres – a notion first discussed in the 1930s. “It’s difficult to manage a natural…
Where will the waste wind up?
In December, the burial of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was given a go-ahead by the release of a Department of Energy “viability assessment.” Project opponents, including the state of Nevada, say health and safety problems still aren’t addressed. “The assessment is a tool designed and dreamed up by the nuclear industry…
Conservation can pay
Skip Newman, who runs a family ranch about 50 miles west of Great Falls, Mont., recently fenced off the banks of Muddy Creek, drilled a well and set up water troughs away from the stream for his cows. “There is an erosion and water quality problem, and I just wanted to do my part,” Newman…
Ski the Butte?
Since the 1960s, some locals in Klamath Falls, Ore., have eyed Pelican Butte and dreamed of outfitting its snowy, timbered slopes with chairlifts and challenging ski runs. Past attempts fell flat when financiers ran out of money. Now, a Klamath Falls-based company with deep pockets is leading the effort to build a ski resort in…
Saving the Platte
On one of the most spoken-for rivers in the West, environmentalists, irrigators and state and federal governments thread their way through a tenuous agreement
From river to river
Note: This front-page editor’s note is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. From river to river around the West, details vary, but the bigger picture is the same: The federal government brandishes the stick of the Endangered Species Act because it’s almost the only tool the government has to restore river ecosystems. Yet in…
Dear friends
Congratulations Congratulations to Ed and Martha Quillen, who will mark the fifth anniversary of their monthly magazine, Colorado Central, on Feb. 13, at Daylight Donuts, at Third and F in downtown Salida. Everyone who has written for the magazine in the last year or so, the Quillens say, is invited. They also say that less…
Ranchers don’t want refugee prairie dogs
SPRINGFIELD, Colo. – Prairie dog relocator Susan Miller climbed the steps of the 70-year-old Baca County courthouse on New Year’s Eve day, thinking she was headed to a private meeting with three county commissioners. Instead, she stepped inside to face dozens of angry cattle ranchers. The ranchers had gotten wind of the meeting and were…
South Dakota tells a mine to stay put
DEADWOOD, S.D. – South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow, R, has a reputation for getting tough with Canadian companies. The popular four-term governor made news last fall when he stopped Canadian farm exports at his state’s borders, but environmentalists say his attempt to salvage a bad mining situation is wrongheaded and could only make things worse.…
Fun-hogs to replace cows in a Utah monument
As tourists flock to southern Utah’s new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, ranchers are breaking camp and moving out. In December, the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust announced it had brokered a deal between five ranching families and the Bureau of Land Management to retire or relocate grazing allotments on about 120,000 acres inside the monument. “There…
Heard around the West
Small towns are different – sometimes because they’re the friendly places they’re cracked up to be. In the mountain town of Nederland, Colo., the owner of the local music store told writer Karuna Eberl that, although he’d be closed for vacation, she could still pick up from the local propane dealer a compact disc she’d…
Plant pays hefty fine for polluting the air
POCATELLO, Idaho – At the foot of the bare-faced Portneuf Mountains, plumes of white smoke issue from a cluster of smokestacks at FMC Corp.” s phosphorous plant, often obscuring the view of motorists passing by on Interstate 84. And charcoal-colored slag flanks the factory’s sides. The 1,400-acre Pocatello plant, first opened in 1949, is North…