Eccentric desert rats and clean-cut park rangers sometimes meet in a culture clash over how to manage one of the hottest, driest and strangest places in North America – Death Valley National Park.
Does a wilderness bill include a driveway?
Colorado Republican Sen. Wayne Allard hopes that a new wilderness bill will sail through Congress this year. But wilderness advocates have a big bone of contention: a road into the area that Allard wants to keep open. The Spanish Peaks Wilderness bill would designate 18,000 acres of wilderness in San Isabel National Forest, located on…
Think forests, think water
Dear HCN, While Andy Wiessner did many environmentally heroic deeds in the past when he was counsel for the House Interior Committee, such as making sure that the California Wilderness Bill included many key lands in the Trinity Alps Wilderness, he seems to have let the big money his consulting work brings in color his…
The Wayward West
The Bureau of Land Management is cracking down on stray cattle along the San Pedro River in southern Arizona. On May 8, the agency announced that cows that wander into the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area will be rounded up, and their owners handed trespassing fines, reports AP (HCN, 4/12/99). The Arizona Cattlemen’s Association’s…
Land swap reporter comments
Dear HCN, Readers of Andy Wiessner’s letter about land exchanges (HCN, 5/10/99) might have been better able to evaluate his criticisms of Janine Blaeloch and the Western Land Exchange Project had he acknowledged that he was a consultant to Plum Creek Timber Co. on the Interstate 90 exchange. Yes, the I-90 exchange will result in…
Doom can’t be soon enough
Dear HCN, Is trapping doomed? (HCN, 4/12/99). Of course it is. When decent people like Liz Kehr and Kevin Feist are forced to haggle over how many days animals should remain in traps before they are bludgeoned to death or whether trappers should post signs to warn the public of their dangerous and cowardly practices,…
Settlement reached in Tahoe takings case
In 1989, Bernadine Suitum had planned to build a retirement home on a plot of land near Lake Tahoe (HCN, 7/7/97). But instead of breaking ground, Suitum found herself deep in a ferocious legal battle with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the bistate office charged with overseeing development around the lake. Now, a decade later,…
For the record – from Dave Foreman
Dear HCN, It is my policy not to comment on news coverage of me, but in this case I have to correct the record. A letter you mailed out to potential readers with the lead article on The Wildlands Project seriously distorts history (HCN, 4/26/88). I did not ever agree to not “speak out about…
Road ban stops a timber project
The Forest Service ban on road construction in roadless areas was proposed more than a year ago (HCN, 2/2/98) and went into effect at the beginning of March. Now, it’s finally having an impact on the ground. Last month, Dixie National Forest officials canceled a controversial timber sale because it conflicted with the 18-month nationwide…
Not just sheepherders
A Travel Guide to Basque America – Families, Feasts and Festivals, by journalist Nancy Zubiri, is a passionate and well-researched guide to the Great Basin country of the West. Zubiri traces Basque culture from its origins in the Pyrenees to strongholds today in southern Idaho, northern Nevada and California’s Central Valley and Sierra Nevada. Along…
Star parties
Exploding stars, colliding galaxies and random nebulae are the new attractions at Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. There’s even the possibility of seeing the Mir Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope or the occasional spy satellite. “So we can look up at what’s looking down on us,” says Patrick Wiggins, the demonstration specialist at the…
‘Duck cops’ ruffle feathers
According to a confidential survey compiled by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), many law enforcement agents at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say their program is corrupt, understaffed and underfunded. “Protection of our resources is not as important as pleasing special groups,” said one special agent in the survey. “Our biologists and refuge…
All about salmon
Our society’s struggle to save salmon in the Northwest is documented in daily headlines, but to read about the complexities of saving salmon, you might look to A Snapshot of Salmon in Oregon. This 24-page tabloid from the Oregon State University Extension Service begins with the past, the ancestors of today’s salmon that date back…
Recreation doesn’t cut it
Many rural people hope that new industries such as tourism will offset the losses when timber and mining industries pull out of an area. Research conducted by the University of Idaho’s College of Agriculture found that for at least that one small county, recreation is not bringing in enough money to keep suffering economies afloat.…
Strategies in Western water law
Strategies in Western water law, from courts and coercion to collaboration, is the theme of the University of Colorado’s 20th annual summer conference, sponsored by the Natural Resources Law Center. Speakers include Patricia Beneke, assistant secretary of the Interior for Water and Science, and Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt. For more information about the June 9-11…
San Juan Citizens Alliance
The San Juan Citizens Alliance is calling on nonprofit and grassroots organizations around the Four Corners region to participate in a festival of community involvement. The celebration will be held at Gateway Park in Durango, Colo., June 19. Contact Carolyn Lamb at 970/382-9609 with questions. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine…
Sustainable Development Speakers Series
The Environmental Protection Agency has been hosting a free Sustainable Development Speakers Series in Denver, Colo. Coming up: “Sustainable Community Design,” July 15; “Zero-Waste Manufacturing,” Sept. 16; and “Opportunities for the Next Millennium,” Nov. 11. To sign up, contact the EPA at 999 18th St., Suite 500, Denver, CO 80202-2466 (303/312-6241). This article appeared in…
Yellow Bay Writers’ Workshop
The 12th Annual Yellow Bay Writers’ Workshop will take place Aug. 8-14 on the shores of northwest Montana’s Flathead Lake. The event is sponsored by the University of Montana’s Center for Continuing Education and features writers Pam Houston, Jane Miller, Fred Haefele and Denis Johnson. Contact Lea Upshaw at 406/243-2094 or e-mail her at hhi@selway.umt.edu.…
Heard around the West
New subdivisions in the West are apt to ballyhoo amenities such as swimming pools or golf courses. That’s not the case in Front Sight, a dusty village in the making in southern Nevada. There, former Californian Ignatius Piazza offers not one but 13 firing ranges and calls his planned community on 550 acres “the Pebble…
Greens not welcome in Escalante
ESCALANTE, Utah – Heavy machinery rolled into town the week of April 12. Construction was imminent on the $7.5 million New Wide Hollow Reservoir that would provide water for a couple dozen ranchers in this rural southern Utah town. Then, on April 15, under pressure from environmentalists who say the reservoir would harm the Escalante…
The feds poke a hole in the 1872 Mining Law
At 5,600 feet, Buckhorn Mountain rises above the Okanogan Highlands, its fir and larch forests extending past Washington state and into Canada. It is not truly wild since a few roads cross it and mining claims were worked long ago, but it has not been clear-cut or pocked by the kinds of mines that leave…
Walking the path between light and dark
Good guys. Bad guys. It used to be pretty clear which side was which. When I was a kid back in the straight-arrow ’50s, I knew that the Lone Ranger wore the white hat. He was on the side of justice, law and order. In the topsy-turvy ’60s, as I learned how the West was…
New twist in an old law has everyone screaming
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A good horror movie’s secret of success is not how scary the special effects or even how gory the final scene. No, it’s that totally unexpected twist just before the end, the one in which the monster turns his wrath on someone considered safe. John Leshy is a horror-flick fan. It’s one…
The last weird place
Can rangers and desert rats coexist in Death Valley?
‘The more protection we have, the better’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Anderson is an environmental specialist at Death Valley National Park: “There wasn’t complete agreement with the Desert Protection Act within the park. Just because it was the law doesn’t mean it was wholeheartedly supported by the staff, not at all. Myself not included…
‘Humans aren’t that bad’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Macey is a resident of Keeler, California: “The park and the Sierra Club have a really dim view of human nature. They equate more humans with more doom, more impact. They say, “Let’s not let anybody do anything.” There are a lot of…
Bureau of livestock, mining … and parks?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Al Gore joined President Clinton in 1996 in announcing the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, the vice president called it a “great monument to stewardship.” Yet by presidential decree the steward in this case was not the National Park…
‘I’m really embarrassed’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Kathy Goss is a resident of Darwin, California: “I’m a disillusioned environmentalist. I’m disillusioned with the way environmentalists took things into their own hands and pushed something like (the Desert Protection Act) through. Congress signed off on something it had never seen; the boundaries…
‘They’re just too rigid’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reuben Scolnik is a longtime Death Valley National Park volunteer: “In order to accomplish their mission, (the Park Service) is slowly making it less interesting for the average person to visit the park. As I look at it, I don’t think it’s as interesting…
‘By and large, they’re heroes’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Martin is the superintendent of Death Valley National Park: “In my mind, (rangers) are heroes. Once in a while they have to tell someone to do something they don’t want to hear, but, by and large, they’re heroes. They respond to people in…
So much land, so little money
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When the Mojave National Preserve was created by the Desert Protection Act in 1994, its enemies in Congress hit it where it hurts (HCN, 4/14/97). In 1996, California Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis led a successful effort to reduce the preserve’s annual budget to a…
‘It didn’t need to be saved’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Janice Allen is a member of the Death Valley Advisory Commission. Since the 1860s, her family has grazed cattle on lands that are now within Death Valley National Park: “To me, it’s tremendously sad that lots of local people won’t even go (to the…
‘We were created to serve all’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Scot McElveen is the chief ranger at Death Valley National Park: “It’s somewhat unrealistic to say we’re going to move land from more human-oriented uses to (management emphasizing) a stricter group of laws, but we’re not going to give you any staff to make…
Dear Friends
30 for $30 In 1992, High Country News raised the price of a personal subscription from $24 a year to $28. Since then, we have held the price line. Now we find ourselves in the position of the rancher who was losing $50 on every calf he sold. He decided to lick his problem by…