Utah’s wilderness hearings stir controversy and draw vigorous support for more wilderness designation as the battle over wilderness in Utah lurches toward a vote in Congress.
For media mavens
The first-ever Media and Democracy Congress invites journalists to San Francisco for four days to hear 52 speakers, including Backlash author Susan Faludi, National Public Radio’s Ray Suarez and Victor Navasky of the Nation magazine. Up for discussion: “Publishing activism: How to transform readers and consumers into citizen activists,” “Commercialism: The quest for truth in…
Round two for a grazing bill
Three months after a coalition of environmentalists, hunters and anglers shot down his grazing bill, Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico has resurrected it (HCN, 8/21/95). The new version is 60 pages leaner and ensures public-lands access for fishing, hunting, and other recreational uses. Ranchers like the new bill and its emphasis on cooperation…
Do-it-yourself preservation
With just a handful of federal agents patrolling millions of square miles of the West, it’s not surprising that looting and vandalism of Indian artifacts are rampant. But with budget cuts portending even less money for enforcement, where will help on the ground come from? One answer is from volunteers, people who give their time…
Allard takes aim
Last April, the League of Conservation Voters awarded Colorado Rep. Wayne Allard a score of zero for his environmental votes during his first 100 days in office. Now, Allard’s rating might dip into the negative numbers. A provision of Allard’s in the 1995 Farm Bill would prohibit the Forest Service from changing management plans to…
DOE’s little list
Environmental journalists interested in knowing how they measure up have a new yardstick: a rating by the Department of Energy. In a report made public in early November, the DOE ranked reporters by how they treated the agency – a 100 score being most favorable. “As far as I’m concerned, if you have too good…
They’re stepping down
Two powerful Western Republicans announced they would not seek re-election in 1996. Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said in early December that he would step down because “Thirty years of voluntary separation from the state I love is enough.” Soon after, Alan Simpson of Wyoming said that he, too,…
Agency chooses death
Killing is the method most frequently used by the federal government to control livestock predators such as coyotes, lions and bears, according to a recent report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Although guidelines for Animal Damage Control staff require them to consider non-lethal methods of control first, federal investigators found…
Bird Brains
-If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows.” * Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, c. 1880s Like coyotes, some members of the crow family have long been considered vermin. Scruffy crows steal crops; ravens rip into garbage; magpies and jays steal eggs and nestlings from “innocent”…
Short takes
Coeur d’Alene Resort will serve as the backdrop for “Dynamics of Northern Idaho Forests: A Symposium on Plants, Animals and People,” Feb. 2-3. Sponsors include the Sierra Club, the Intermountain Forest Industries Association and the Bureau of Land Management. Write North Idaho Forest Symposium, P.O. Box 564, Potlatch, ID 83855 (208/875-1528). Chip away at today’s…
Idaho is a cheap date
Dear HCN, The deal that Idaho’s Gov. Batt worked out with the DOE is a bad deal for Idaho and a bad deal for the rest of the West (HCN, 11/13/95). The pressure that Gov. Batt claimed to be feeling was coming mainly from Idaho’s congressional delegation and, I suspect, from his political funders. Without…
Dan Dagget’s solution is simple – too simple
Dear HCN, Dan Dagget’s essay (-It’s unAmerican, or at best unWestern, but cooperation works,” HCN, 10/16/95)is a clean and tidy one-size-fits-all solution to the environmental crisis. Certainly cooperation has its place in the scheme of things. Yet many environmental problems are international in scope and interconnected in nature. Suggesting that cooperation is the only or…
Judge says counties aren’t supreme
In a blow to the county supremacy movement in Nevada, a federal court charged an Elk County resident with trespassing and ordered him to remove his cattle from a national forest. The court said Cliff Gardner illegally moved livestock onto the Humboldt National Forest in May 1994 despite repeated Forest Service requests that he apply…
Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands
(Note: this article accompanies another feature story in this issue, Utah hearings misfire.) When Utah’s congressional delegation announced almost a year ago that it would introduce a bill designating BLM wilderness, environmentalists in the state were shocked. They knew they faced a potentially disastrous alignment of political planets: Republican majorities in both houses of Congress,…
Move to repeal logging rider gathers speed
Since it became law four months ago, the salvage logging rider has proved a mixed blessing for the timber industry, an embarrassment to the administration and a rallying point for environmentalists. Often called the worst environmental legislation to emerge from the 104th Congress, the salvage law could soon become a litmus test for President Clinton…
To comment on the Utah Wilderness bills
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands. To comment on the Utah Wilderness bills, write or phone your congressional representative, senators and President Clinton. Mail to Senate offices can be addressed to: U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. You can reach your representative…
Hobbled federal wolf program attracts friends and money
With a little help from their friends, another batch of Canadian wolves will be released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho this winter, despite congressional budget action designed to halt the project in its tracks. Environmental groups have pledged $40,000 so far, enough money to find and identify about 30 appropriate wolves in British…
How to influence Congress on just dollars a day
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands. Ray Wheeler, who has a history of determination that includes hiking nearly all the way across Utah, climbed on a jet in Salt Lake City last July 12, bound for the nation’s halls of power.…
Changing times force agency to swim upstream
Three lobbyists in suits strode down the marbled halls of the Senate office building one day last fall. Their mission: to convince the Northwest’s congressional delegation to fight a bill requested by the Bonneville Power Administration. The bill would exempt three runs of imperiled Snake River salmon from federal protection. The men turned into a…
A few modest principles to help us manage Utah’s public lands
It wasn’t every day that I got to speak at a chamber of commerce meeting, so I tried to be careful. But I must have shown a bit too much green or too many urban mannerisms, and one member of the audience came rushing over almost before I’d stopped talking. In seconds we were going…
BPA: Making amends for a destructive past
Note: this article appears in the print edition as a sidebar to another news article, “Changing times force agency to swim upstream.” The Bonneville Power Administration was born out of the Depression. Talk of taming the wild Columbia River and its tributaries began in the 1920s, but Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt didn’t authorize the…
A monumental clash of values over Utah
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Congress weighs the fate of Utah’s wild lands. Utah’s proposed BLM wilderness areas feature heart-stopping scenery: big rivers booming in sheer-walled canyons thousands of feet deep; labyrinthine canyon systems etched into colorful sedimentary rock formations; forested plateaus ringed by 1,000-foot high cliff walls;…
Environmentalists say agency uses them as scapegoats
For hundreds of years, rural Hispanics have gathered firewood from the forests of northern New Mexico. After all, it was once their land, given to them in Spanish land grants as far back as the late 17th century. Even after the Forest Service took control of the land grants in the early 1900s, local families…
Heard Around the West
Small towns once complained that children were their biggest export. “You can’t keep them home once they’ve seen bright lights,” residents would lament as their towns shrank. People in small towns still complain – it’s their nature. But today they complain because not only their kids, but everyone else’s kids, are moving to their dimly…
Utah hearings misfire
Unidentified speaker: What I would like to do is have a political (poll) … and just let everybody express what they can’t express because of time limits; so until that red light goes off, (inaudible) make noise and … The crowd, chanting: 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, 5.7, – Official transcript, Salt Lake City Wilderness Hearing,…
A 4 million acre difference
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Utah hearings misfire. 1. The Book Cliffs: BLM and adjoining state and Indian reservation lands comprise a natural area of over 1 million acres spanning the Tavaputs Plateau and mile-deep Desolation and Gray canyons. It is one of the largest blocks of unprotected…
Dear Friends
Utah in the news Staff is still exhausted thinking about the trials of Utah Republican Rep. Enid Waldholtz. Her tears flowed copiously for almost five hours two weeks ago while she told the nation she was financially deceived by her husband. Retiring Democrat Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado minced no words in giving Waldholtz advice:…
The delegation’s bill gets shellacked
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Utah hearings misfire. In a Christmas gift to Utah environmentalists, Rep. James V. Hansen, R-Utah, unceremoniously yanked the Utah delegation’s wilderness bill off the House floor Dec. 14. Hansen said he pulled the bill because there wasn’t enough time to properly debate it.…