In Washington, conservationists, farmers, and federal and state agencies are passionately debating whether four dams on the lower Snake River should be breached in an attempt to restore endangered salmon and steelhead runs.
Clean-air program may suffocate
Washington state voters recently passed a ballot initiative that slashes taxes but leaves the state’s clean-air program gasping for breath. The initiative cuts license plate fees from an annual percentage based on car value to a cheap $30 and dictates that any increase in taxes for state government and schools must be voted on by…
Gracias
-I was like everybody else,” says photographer Celia Roberts. “I’d go to the grocery store and get some broccoli and not think, “Might that last hand that touched it be the one that picked it?” “””Lest we also forget, Roberts is here to remind us. “Gracias,” her bilingual, year 2000 calendar, illuminates the lives of…
Snow surfers with a mission
A Bozeman, Mont.-based snowboarder group wants to show everyone that clean snow – and water – are way cool. The “Mountain Surf” chapter of the Surfrider Foundation recently launched the Snowrider Project to promote water quality at ski areas. “With the increased popularity of winter sports, it’s really important that the (snowboarders) do no harm,”…
Treasure Valley’s housing not so golden
Despite a strong economy and low interest rates, the nearly 20,000 Latinos in southwest Idaho have a hard time finding affordable housing. According to Wayne Hoffman, a reporter at the Idaho Press-Tribune, Latinos in Treasure Valley are 2.5 times more likely to be denied conventional home mortgages and home improvement loans than whites. Hoffman’s report,…
Barely there
After decades of searching, federal biologists haven’t found a single grizzly bear in Montana and Idaho’s Bitterroot/Selway ecosystem. But the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies and seven other local environmental organizations say there may be a remnant population – one that people have overlooked. The groups recently launched a “Great Grizzly Search.” It involves…
Free, four-hour tour of his ranch
New Mexico rancher Jim Winder will lead a free, four-hour tour of his ranch Jan. 15, talking about cattle rotation, biodiversity, economics “and other cool stuff.” The tour is a project of the Quivira Coalition, which believes that “healthy ecosystems and healthy rural economies are not mutually exclusive.” The coalition’s mission is to find common…
Our Environment and Our Health
The fourth annual “Mission Possible” conference, Our Environment & Our Health, in El Paso, Texas, features Russell Chianelli, the chemist who headed the Exxon Valdez cleanup. Representatives from Mexico and the Southwest will also gather at the Jan. 22 event to share success stories about improving public health and the environment; Spanish translation is available.…
Westerners take sides on road ban
Around the West this winter, citizens flocked to Forest Service “listening sessions,” part of an initial scoping process to collect comments on President Clinton’s October directive to protect roadless forests (HCN, 11/8/99). Conservationists dominated regional meetings held in 10 cities, including Portland, Missoula, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. Many supported the Oregon-based Heritage Forest Campaign:…
A Hunter’s Voice
Hunters aren’t all the same, says former hunting guide George Wuerthner. He’s founded a new organization, A Hunter’s Voice, to speak for hunters who want more predators and fewer roads in American wildlands. Wuerthner says he is reacting to powerful anti-wilderness and sportsmen’s lobbies claiming to represent all hunters. For more information, write George Wuerthner,…
The Wayward West
Four more national monuments could be coming our way (HCN, 11/22/99). On Dec. 13, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt asked President Clinton to create two monuments in Arizona, including the Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon, and two others in California, totaling more than 1 million acres. Nevada’s Paiute Tribe made history this month. In…
New resort in the San Juans?
Back in the 1980s, Pagosa Springs, Colo., resident Betty Feazel helped lead a successful campaign to stop a proposed ski area in the rugged, undeveloped San Juan River’s East Fork Valley. But now, says the award-winning activist, who has lived in the area for 77 years, the fight may be starting all over again. Back…
Desert development raises dust
‘Tis the season to be coughing: November and December are the worst months for Phoenix’s air quality, says David Feuerherd of the American Lung Association of Arizona. “Picture somebody … shoveling dirt down your bronchial tubes.” Officials in the Valley of the Sun say the area’s familiar brown cloud is caused by “fugitive dust,” brought…
Buy land now, says Udall
The state of Colorado is tightening its belt on land purchases, and Democratic Rep. Mark Udall wants someone to account for it. The state’s Department of Natural Resources has been discussing a moratorium on buying properties for wildlife habitat, says Greg Walcher, the department’s executive director. Budget concerns drove the decision. “We decided we would…
A 700th generation fisherman
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Donald Sampson, 38, an Umatilla Indian, is a fish biologist and executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fisheries Commisssion, based in Portland, Ore. The commission represents the four tribes with treaty rights to Columbia River fish – the Warm Springs, Umatilla, Nez Perce…
‘Dams made the modern Northwest’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Keith Petersen is a historian and the author of River of Life, Channel of Death: Fish and Dams on the Lower Snake. He is currently Idaho’s statewide coordinator for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. “I grew up in western Washington. My dad worked on…
‘People are important’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Frank Carroll works for the Potlatch Corporation in Lewiston, Idaho, which uses the Snake River waterway to barge some of its paper and wood products to Portland and beyond. Before working for Potlatch, he worked on Idaho’s Boise National Forest. “I don’t like simple…
Salmon crisis is a kaleidoscope of complexity
My mother was fascinated by the Columbia River and the fate of the salmon. This was partly because I work with these issues, but also because they have the kaleidoscopic complexity and human idiocy that all really hard problems have. She thought those were the only problems worth our time. From her home in Salt…
Dear Friends
On to the millennium As is our wont, we will skip an issue this winter, both to give readers a chance to plow through that accumulating stack and to give us time to regroup for the next 1,000 years, give or take a few centuries. The next issue will be dated Jan. 17, 2000. Good…
GASP! Some greens are grinning
Most environmentalists would agree they have a hard time throwing a party. They are not a group prone to wild optimism and loud hoorays; development pressures in the West usually make the future look too bleak. Yet some say there’s much to celebrate as 1999 comes to a close. At the top of most lists…
WTO limps home from Seattle
SEATTLE, Wash. – After the tear gas cleared from Seattle’s streets, environmentalists and labor unions emerged as the only clear winners from last week’s tumultuous World Trade Organization ministerial meeting. Trade officials hoped that the meeting, the first major WTO event held in the U.S., would be a smooth North American debut for the international…
Heard around the West
After the “battle in Seattle” over world trade simmered down, marketing opportunities began to boil: The streets seemed paved with gold, or at least souvenirs. Budding entrepreneurs scoured downtown and came up with rubber bullets, broken police billies and the occasional tear-gas canister; then they put the booty up for auction on the Internet. One…
Counties grab for control of national forests
Last month, the House of Representatives struck a blow for local control of the national forests. For decades, counties have received 25 percent of the revenue from Forest Service timber harvested within their borders to fund county schools and roads. But in this decade, as federal logging has declined by 70 percent, so have timber…
All you can eat at Pueblito del Paiz
Ted Medina slams down a pan of, oh God, what is it? A pig’s head. Snout, eyes and yellowish toasted ears bubbling like Picasso’s own dinner. “You name it, it’s all good!” says Ted, stocky, aproned and grinning from under a cap emblazoned Denver Fire Department. “Here, you nibble on this bit here. It’s good!”…
An upscale development divides a town
DONNELLY, Idaho – Dave Dewey used to lead a peaceful life in this bucolic town. The 28-year-old Valley County resident lived a typical Joe Citizen existence, working as a concrete contractor, raising a family, and serving on the county planning and zoning commission. Then came WestRock. Touted as a world-class resort plan, the sleek “WestRock…
Unleashing the Snake
As salmon runs dwindle, the Pacific Northwest ponders a once-unthinkable option: dismantle the dams
‘The science pushed me’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Baker lives in the rolling wheat country outside Pullman, Wash. For the past seven years, he has been the Sierra Club’s point man on Columbia River salmon. “I was one of those conservationists who had to be dragged kicking and to be dragged…
Hanford leaves a surprising Cold War legacy
Wahluke means “walking uphill a long way” in the Wanapum Indian language. That’s an apt metaphor for the more than three-decade battle for the Wahluke Slope – a significant part of the last untouched sagebrush desert in the Columbia Basin. For 30 years, farmers and conservationists have fought over what would happen to this land…
Tribes cast for tradition, catch controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ARLINGTON, Ore. – Elaine Hoptowit has barely thrown the last salmon from her boat into a cooler in her pickup truck when customers show up. Wearing yellow rubber overalls, the Pocatello, Idaho, grandmother lifts from the truck a 17-pound chinook salmon she has pulled…
Bulldozers roll in Tucson
TUCSON, Ariz. – As a bulldozer rolled across a patch of desert, Esther Underwood smiled. It was a brisk, windy December day at the edge of one of Tucson’s rapidly growing suburbs as the dozer scooped up desert scrub and knocked over prickly pear and cholla cacti. “Isn’t that pretty?” Underwood said of the bulldozer.…