Conservationists discover state lands and bid against ranchers to lease them.
Twisted science in Yellowstone
Dear HCN, I would like to applaud High Country News for publishing and Frederic H. Wagner for writing the May 30, 1994, article about “natural regulation” policy in Yellowstone National Park. I have worked in and around the park off and on from 1969 to 1985 and continue to visit it periodically. As a soil…
Elk and playing god
Dear HCN, Fred Wagner’s essay on elk in Yellowstone begs for a response. While I won’t suggest that the Park Service doesn’t occasionally attempt to control what is said or done with regard to park policy, I don’t think they are “destroying” Yellowstone as Wagner or his graduate student, Charles Kay, allege. Wagner’s ideas are…
Baca is still fighting
Although he lost his bid for the gubernatorial nomination in New Mexico, Democrat Jim Baca is still fighting for environmental causes. At a meeting of the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association in Reno, Baca said it is residents of the urban areas who are thinking ahead and bringing a stronger momentum for change. He also said…
Doubts about Kennecott in Utah
Dear HCN, Thanks for highlighting the long-term, extremely costly damage that hardrock mining has caused to America’s West in “Can Mining Come Clean?” (HCN, 5/30/94). David Mullon, the Mineral Policy Center’s Southwest Circuit Rider at that time, worked together with the Salt Lake County Water Conservancy District to oppose Utah’s sweetheart settlement with Kennecott of…
Sewage reservoir dogs
A threatened species of prairie dogs in Utah is on the verge of burrowing through sewage lagoons at Bryce Canyon National Park. Staffer Richard Bryant says in a worst-case scenario the lagoons could collapse, closing bathroom facilities and forcing the park to shut down. An estimated 27 prairie dogs, one-sixth of the estimated Bryce Canyon…
You trashed a fine public servant
Dear HCN, I am amazed to read that you still are hanging on to the totally erroneous concept that you printed several years ago about the land exchanges Dean Bibles did in Arizona (HCN, 5/16/94). One would think that after many savings and loans went bankrupt due to their “paper” values and transactions involving the…
Two fine public servants
Dear HCN, It is a sorry thing to read the denigration of men such as Dean Bibles and Ed Hastey, whose long-time public service has been dedicated to protecting public lands under the complicated and confusing rules governing their actions (HCN, 5/16/94). Dean Bibles should be enshrined in the Green Hall of Fame for his…
No one happy in Hells
The first Forest Service proposal in 12 years to restrict jetboats in Hells Canyon may sink. Both conservationists and jetboat advocates have blasted the preferred alternative, which restricts jetboats three days of the week, from July 4 through Labor Day, on 17 miles of the Snake River, which straddles the Oregon-Idaho border. Ric Bailey, floatboat…
Top-down control doesn’t work
Dear HCN, Being an urban dweller, I do not know much personally about grazing, but I do know something about consensus process due to my involvement with co-housing and the Green Party, both of which use consensus process. When it works, its power is inspiring; when it doesn’t, it leads to gridlock. It requires all…
Grizzly road delays
Fierce opposition from area residents has delayed a plan to improve grizzly bear habitat in Idaho’s Targhee National Forest. The Forest Service recently agreed to an out-of-court settlement with environmental groups to close hundreds of roads in an area adjacent to Yellowstone National Park (HCN, 4/4/94). But during an environmental assessment of the new plan,…
Where wolves roamed
Where Wolves Roamed Under the government’s current wolf reintroduction program, wolf populations in the lower 48 states will reach only 5 percent of their historic numbers at best, says Matt Dietz. A graduate student at the University of Montana, Dietz worked with the Bozeman, Mont.-based Predator Project on a 46-page study of wolf reintroduction alternatives.…
Fish benefit from trade
An eastern Oregon rancher recently swapped his water rights in a local stream for a year’s worth of hay. Rancher Rocky Webb will receive $6,600 worth of hay from the Oregon Water Trust in exchange for not irrigating 50 acres of pasture. The result: Steelhead trout will swim in more water, reports The Oregonian, and…
Strangelove Park
Strangelove park Tourists on South Dakota’s Interstate 90 may soon visit more than just Mount Rushmore, Prairie Dog Town and the world’s largest drugstore, Wall Drug. Some of the nation’s 1,000 Minuteman missile silos are ripe for historic preservation, says the National Park Service, which is looking at two launch sites adjacent to Badlands National…
Navajo archaeologist honored
After 62 years with the National Park Service, Chancey Naboyia, the first known Navajo archaeologist, has retired. Naboyia, 84, was recently honored by colleagues with a lifetime achievement award, reports the Navajo-Hopi Observer. Naboyia worked as an archaeologist at national monuments such as Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., Mesa Verde, Colo., Aztec, N.M., and Chaco Canyon,…
House of Garbage
HOUSE OF GARBAGE Call it the house that Goodwill built. A recently completed home in Missoula, Mont., carries the concept of second-hand construction materials to new levels. Built by the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, the 2,400-square-foot house showcases dozens of innovative products. Recycled newspaper went into its wall panels, shelving and insulation; light bulbs…
House of straw
House of Straw Straw-bale housing construction, known for its flimsy role in the children’s tale The Three Little Pigs, is making a comeback. After a brief period of popularity in the early 1900s, straw bale buildings lost favor in the 1940s. But tastes change, lumber is increasingly expensive and structures built of straw are springing…
Do we really need environmental fundamentalism?
Dear HCN, One gets the impression that Andy Kerr would like us all to join him in his fundamentalism (HCN, 6/13/94). He tells us the world is divided into discrete units for us to hold in contempt: New Yuppie Scum, Elite Welfare Ranchers, and Old Land Abusers. He tells us they are bad, we are…
Big bad bear
Big bad bear An environmental-art group in Portland, Ore., is putting on a special birthday “roast” for Smokey Bear. On July 15, the creative group called Orlo began presenting Smoke Screen: Smokey Bear at 50, a multimedia exhibit featuring artwork and presentations by three dozen artists. The exhibit seeks to debunk 50 years of Forest…
Let’s get rational
Dear HCN, The issue of grazing on federal lands apparently is no longer a civil debate but, according to Andy Kerr (HCN, 6/13/94), a call to arms, the newest cause of ideological tribalism. The “greens’ versus the “grazers.” Eco-terrorists engaging in actual battle with People For The West. “Us’ against “them,” whoever they are. Polarizing…
Prairie potholes
Prairie potholes When the glaciers retreated from North America, huge chunks of ice left behind made permanent divots in the Northern Plains. These glacial potholes – now prairie wetlands – provide vital habitat for migrating geese. Strategies to protect the rapidly decreasing prairie potholes from increased development and agriculture will be the topic of a…
Neo-Nazis surfaced in Idaho, too
Dear HCN, Todd Wilkinson’s article on neo-Nazis and skinheads (HCN, 6/27/94) resonates in Idaho. This past April, activists from the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) surfaced in Idaho Falls, twice distributing racist leaflets in residential areas of the city. What is interesting about these events is the response of the city, population 45,000, which has tiny…
A calm book on diet, health and the environment
A CALM BOOK ON DIET, HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT In the Impacts of Livestock Production, Peter R. Cheeke writes about the animal rights movement, antibiotics in livestock, competition between people and domestic animals for grains, and the environmental aspects of livestock production. He does it in a calm way, without demonizing those who criticize the…
A white male speaks
Dear HCN, I must respond to the article “Home, home on the range where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam” (HCN, 6/27/94). I am a member of the most discriminated against group in this country – the white male. I am 77 years old and served in combat in Europe during WWII. I did not volunteer to…
Yes, too many elk
Dear HCN, In reference to what should be done about elk overpopulation in Yellowstone Park (HCN, 5/30/94), a study is the time-honored delaying tactic to postpone a decision that is certain to be politically unpopular. The summer of 1991, I took my grandchildren on a visit to the park. As a retired BLM range con,…
Scientist’s critique was just plain wrong
Dear HCN, We are pleased that High Country News had the good taste to introduce Fred Wagner’s editorial “Scientist says Yellowstone Park is being destroyed” (HCN, 5/30/94) as “opinion,” because there certainly isn’t a lot besides opinion in it. His comments about the Yellowstone grazing issue are specious, riddled with errors, and overloaded with conspiratorial…
Jim Thrash: A solid man
Jim Thrash, 44, who died July 6 in the Glenwood Springs, Colo., fire, was a McCall, Idaho, conservationist. That is how I came to know him. Jim was an outfitter in the heart of Idaho – Salmon River country. For several years he chaired the wilderness committee of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. He…
Fires illuminate the West’s ‘ecological darkness’
As smoke continues to rise from fires in the West, investigators search the ashes of Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colo., to determine why 14 firefighters died. Like the deadly Mann Gulch Fire of 1949, chronicled in Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, the crew was caught in a “blowup,” a nightmare situation where…
Wyoming boom could gas wildlife herds
ROCK SPRINGS , Wyo. – A boom in natural gas drilling in southwestern Wyoming is happening so fast that government scientists don’t have enough time to study, let alone mitigate, impacts to wildlife, say state wildlife officials, sportsmen and environmentalists. More than 3,000 gas wells are currently operating in the five counties of southwestern Wyoming,…
Mega coal mine proposed again in Utah
A single dirt road winds through the white sand and expansive piûon-juniper forests of Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau. Encircled by Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the desert mesa hides both a seldom-visited wilderness and the state’s last large deposit of high-grade coal. Where dusty adventurers now dodge potholes, in…
‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands
Well aware of the irony, conservationists in the West are gearing up for a land grab they can call their own. They’re reaching for what have been the most obscure public – or at least semipublic – lands of all. The definition itself is up for grabs. There are about 40 million such acres, or…
How love of gold moves mountains
Through the centuries of our mythology, gold has gathered such a mystical sheen that we forget it is just another commodity. This is a critical oversight, especially for those people fighting gold mines in the West. We oppose gold mines and proposals for mines through the usual government channels, meager as these might be with…
Utah kids benefit from state land reform
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, ‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands. Inevitably, any disagreement over state-owned lands raises the spectre of schoolchildren in need. In Utah, where spending per pupil ranks lowest in the nation, that dismal statistic has spurred reform. State lands have never generated fat revenues for…
How I tried to patch together a disintegrating world
Royce Green (not his real name) and his wife were eating dinner by the kitchen window during a storm when the wind blew their new roof into the air, opening the tin trailer like a can opener. Royce’s wife thought the whole place was going to go, just like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of…
Dear friends
Fires on the hillside The town of Paonia, where High Country News has its office, decided not to set off fireworks July 4th – nature was already providing a spectacular display. Lightning without rain had turned tinder-dry juniper hillsides above the town into fast-moving blazes, some spouting flames up to 80 feet tall. Although firefighters…
Fishing clashes with windsurfing
A basalt outcrop on Washington’s Columbia River has become the focus of an intense land-rights battle between a developer and a group of Native Americans. The outcrop, called Lyle Point, sits at the upper end of the Columbia River Gorge, which has become a magnet for windsurfers. When developer Henry Spencer came to the gorge…