Western Indian reservations and former logging towns are among economically depressed communities seeking to cash in on the new market for gourmet and medicinal plants, but some worry that the boom of “wild crafting” plants may not be entirely benign.
Does soccer tread on open space?
When a Washington state soccer association bought a 112-acre farm for its new soccer field recently, it started a bitter match over open space. The land, in the Sammamish Valley east of Seattle, is protected under King County’s 20-year-old farmland preservation program, and critics say a soccer field doesn’t measure up. “This soccer group thinks…
We did our job
Dear HCN, In Ted Williams’ original commentary on Nevada land exchanges, as it appeared in Fly Rod and Reel magazine, Williams wrote that the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics had an “obligation” to report on the Office of Inspector General investigation (HCN, 12/21/98). We agree. That’s why we did. It may also interest your…
Cows conquer condos
A 32,000-acre ranch will remain free of subdivisions – no small feat for property that straddles the border between Moab, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colo., an area being developed at a rate that’s twice the national average. The landowner, who has asked to remain anonymous, has been working since 1979 with a land trust in…
Pogo was right
Dear HCN, I found it ironic that three of the four folks opposing sprawl that Tony Davis chose to highlight in his sidebars in the Desert Sprawl article are, in fact, “sprawlers’ themselves. Whether they moved to the Catalina Foothills in 1946, watched the east side of Tucson expand from their home in the Tucson…
Don’t give up
Dear HCN, As an eighth-grade science teacher, I empathize with “Asta Bowen’s discouragement (HCN, 1/18/99). At times, just one negative interaction with a student or parent can cast a pall over your whole day and cause you to wonder about your choice of occupation. Ours is a profession where the results often do not surface…
The Wayward West
All those cries of “5.7 Wild!” may have paid off for the Utah Wilderness Coalition. The Bureau of Land Management took a look at the public lands proposed for wilderness status by Utah environmental groups – and, in early February, announced that all 5.7 million acres have wilderness characteristics. “We’re pretty tickled,” says Mike Matz,…
Enlibra is just window dressing
Dear HCN, James Souby’s letter in the Dec. 21 edition concerning the Western Governors’ Association “Enlibra” program is contradictory. On the one hand, Souby lauds the Oregon Salmon Plan as a “good example” of “environmental management strategies that incorporate balance and stewardship” while on the other he asserts “skepticism” that Enlibra-style “solutions’ would work “where…
Wolves colonize Jackson Hole
A lone wolf howl was heard in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for the first time in over 50 years this November. Since then, 11 wolves have been sighted in the area, some of them only five miles from the town of Jackson. Migrating south from Yellowstone, the animals make up three groups that seem to be…
More on mail pollution
Dear HCN, The following is a note I sent to Al and Betty Schneider upon reading of their efforts to get control of junk mail in my first issue of a new subscription to High Country News (a newspaper I’ve wanted to get for years but have just now gotten as a gift subscription). Al…
No love for Lycra in Moab
For the third time since October, someone has fired shots into the empty fee booth at the entrance to Moab’s Sand Flats Recreation Area, which includes the popular Slickrock bike trail. The Bureau of Land Management and Sand Flats are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the culprits. Investigators have no leads, but…
Burial at Pine Ridge
The remains of 42 Oglala Indians, stored for years in numbered, steel drawers at the Smithsonian Institution, have now been laid to rest in South Dakota. The burial marks the end of a long journey that began more than 100 years ago. Some of the bones were pilfered from graves and others were stolen from…
Ghost town hangs on
SOUTHERN CROSS, Mont. – The handful of locals in this Montana ghost town are haunted by the specter of eviction. Protected by a 1998 court injunction, homeowners earned borrowed time to stay put. But they still face a court challenge from the development company that owns the land beneath their homes. About 20 people own…
Activists block bison capture pen
Suspended 35 feet in the air from tripods made of tree trunks, two members of the group Buffalo Nations keep vigil. They are here to prevent the Montana Department of Livestock from building a bison pen outside West Yellowstone, Mont., near Horse Butte, about 15 miles from Yellowstone National Park. The department wants to capture…
Tucson draws a line on sprawl
TUCSON, Ariz. – A crowd of several hundred people burst into applause at a public meeting here, as the Pima County Board of Supervisors killed a developer’s plan to turn a cattle ranch into 6,100 homes, two golf courses, a hotel, shopping areas and an airstrip. The Jan. 12 vote, the first denial of a…
Riding the rails in Colorado
Rails may be the most cost- and energy-efficient way to move commodities across our landscape, but they’re also a shrinking asset; America’s major railroads abandon about 3,200 miles of track every year. How should state and local governments, and community activists, respond when a railroad files to abandon a line? Colorado, where rail mileage has…
How we ended up with rural mansions
Dear HCN, I read with interest your Tucson sprawl article, but saw no solution (HCN, 1/18/99). Here in rural King County, thanks to Seattle politicians, we have all the downzoning that accompanied this state’s 1990 Growth Management Act (GMA). That act was the result of newcomers’ I’m-here-pull-up-the-gangplank mentality. The GMA called for a pristine countryside…
The last mine closes in Leadville
For the past 139 years, men and machines have mined along the gulches at the source of Colorado’s Arkansas River, producing metals worth more than $2 billion at current prices. That era ended Jan. 29, when the Asarco Black Cloud Mine, which sits above timberline about 10 miles east of Leadville, Colo., hoisted its last…
Heard around the West
As 1998 came to a close, the oldest male grizzly ever captured in North America was killed by Montana officials. The 28-year-old, 460-pound bear had raided more than a dozen cabins over a two-week period, reports the Hungry Horse News, and had become a potential threat to people. All of the bear’s teeth were broken…
Renegade house with a view – for now
The three-story cedar house with its tall windows and panoramic views stands boldly on an open bluff near the rim of the Columbia River Gorge, where its prominence defies a federal law that says it should not be there. Since the house went up last year, it has become a test of the 13-year-old National…
Yankee stay home
We seldom hear about things that don’t happen. I’m not talking about cancelled flights or broken dates. Or even about asteroids that didn’t collide with the earth. The nonoccurrences that interest me are the products of restraint. This interests me most with regard to the American Southwest. The moment I saw it, 40 years ago,…
Wyoming regulators gamble on Amoco cleanup
CASPER, Wyo. – Clad from head to toe in sterile white clothing, environmental engineers have become a familiar sight in this central Wyoming city of 51,000. They come to clean up the defunct Amoco Corp. oil refinery, one of the state’s oldest, and one of its most notorious, hazardous-waste sites. During its boom years in…
Uncommon Bounty
Note: four sidebar articles accompany this feature story: a guide to identifying edible and medicinal plants, a profile of a mushroom harvester, and mushroom harvester Bill Knight and Hoopa Valley Tribal member Sherlette Colegrove sharing their views in their own words. With a few lengths of steel and the blue flame of a welding torch,…
Plant identification
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Beargrass is sometimes called “Indian basket grass,” but it isn’t a grass at all. Buyers in the Northwest pay 45 cents for a half-pound bunch of the tough, grassy leaves of this lily, which are sometimes dyed bright colors and added to floral displays.…
Snowmobilers booted from Montana forest
SUPERIOR, Mont. – About 300 snowmobilers from across the Northwest congregated here Jan. 2 for a bittersweet rally. For many, it was likely the last ride to their favorite destination – the 89,500-acre proposed Great Burn Wilderness Area that straddles the border of Montana and Idaho. Two days later, the Lolo National Forest closed 400,000…
Freedom of the woods
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bill Knight is a 42-year-old mushroom harvester and buyer from Shelton, Wash. He got his start 10 years ago, and is a member of the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters, a group providing a unified voice for the Northwest forest harvesters. “Someone takes…
It’s our tradition
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Sherlette Colegrove is a 42-year-old member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California. She, too, is a member of the harvesters’ alliance. Since 1993, Colegrove has been harvesting plants and mushrooms introduced to her by her grandmother. “When someone was sick, she’d say…
An entrepreneurial spirit
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Each fall, Yan Saeteurn hitches a camper trailer to his V-6 Toyota pickup at his home in Redding, Calif., and heads four hours north to what is the locus of the matsutake mushroom harvest. There, near Crescent Lake, Ore., he builds a small wooden…
A research resource to drown in
Water in the West: Challenge for the Next Century has received a lot of press, including a lengthy description in this paper (HCN, 6/22/98). Much less attention has been paid to the 22 background studies that go with the central report. Not only is the price right (free), but it is almost guaranteed that, whatever…
The Pacific Yew: Chasing a cancer cure with a chainsaw
Above 4,000 feet it rained every day of the summer of 1993. On the Fourth of July, a long night of rain and wind gave way at dawn to a fine sleet that lay on the ground like snow, and didn’t melt for nearly three days. We were somewhere east of Pierce, Idaho, on the…
Dear friends
A very good year The board of directors of the High Country Foundation met in St. George, Utah, on Jan. 23 to review 1998’s circulation and financial results and to consider the 1999 budget proposed by the staff. The past year was better than expected. HCN’s circulation grew by 4 percent, ending the year at…