The Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show in Tucson highlights the growing controversy over who has the right to valuable fossils found on public lands.
A lie this big
It’s hard to believe, but the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was caught fishing without a license. Last June a game warden stopped for a routine license check at a stream near Rawlins, Wyo., and found director John Talbott didn’t have a $9 license with him. Talbott told the warden his license…
Tooele loses support
A plan to incinerate chemical weapons at the Tooele Army Depot in western Utah just lost a longtime champion: the Tooele County Commission. Although the county’s economy depends heavily on the military, commissioners revoked earlier approval of the project, saying adequate safety measures weren’t yet in place. Some 50 residents and county officials expressed similar…
Sportsmen sue to remove prison
Two western Colorado sportsmen have notified the state of Colorado that they will bring a lawsuit against it for illegally building a prison in a state wildife area. Tom Huerkamp and Bob Morris say state prison officials built a 300-bed facility in the Escalante Wildlife Area, outside Delta, Colo., even though the land was purchased…
Flooding: Whose fault?
It’s been a tough winter in the Pacific Northwest. After enduring widespread flooding and landslides in November (HCN, 1/22/96), the region was slammed even harder in early February by a combination of heavy rains and melting snow. The recent landslides were the worst in three decades, say experts; repair costs could exceed $40 million. While…
DIA’s skies aren’t friendly
It’s not easy to talk with John Henderson at his Elbert County home. Though he lives 30 miles from the Denver International Airport, he counts 150 jets passing over his home on most days. “It’s like standing next to a vacuum cleaner,” Henderson says, when a 747 thunders just 3,000 feet over his house after…
Nuclear waste deal challenged
Idaho’s Republican Governor Phil Batt abused his executive power when he signed a nuclear waste deal with the federal government last October, according to Democratic state Sen. Clint Stennett of Ketchum. In January, Stennett introduced legislation to nullify the deal that will allow over 1,000 shipments of nuclear waste into the state over the next…
Fergus fires back
Dear HCN, The letter from Scott McIntyre Feb. 19 in response to my essay “Hunting: Get Used to It” (HCN, 1/22/96) displays all the prejudice that makes a rational dialogue between hunters and antihunters so difficult. Although McIntyre claims that he is “not for … or against” hunting, his implication that he’s too mature to…
One less voice
One less voice The Utah Wilderness Association will go into hibernation March 29 after 17 years of fighting for wilderness preservation. Staff departures and money woes led to the decision by the group’s board of directors. One of UWA’s founders, Dick Carter, says his resignation, plus those of George Nickas and Gary Macfarlane over the…
Wrong cactus and not funny
Dear HCN, I was really depressed by the art work done by Greg Siple and cleared by your editors which accompanied the cover article on Santa Fe (HCN, 2/5/96). Even this dumb non-Westerner knows saguaros don’t grow naturally in New Mexico. Maybe it was done for a laugh? OK, ha, ha. I am awfully tired…
Forests on the edge
Dear HCN, In the William deBuys essay about controversy surrounding northern New Mexico’s forests, he says “We need to create more small forest edges in order to promote species diversity” (HCN, 2/5/96). I am no expert on this matter, but it caught my eye because of research that’s been done in Eastern forests. It shows…
Don’t blame the birds
Dear HCN, William deBuys makes some good points concerning various groups coming to loggerheads in New Mexico, but it should be pointed out that when the Forest Service shut down all tree-cutting in the Southwest it was never appropriate biologically (HCN, 2/5/96). The angry firewood cutters needed piûon-juniper, but this is not an area frequented…
Did the Forest Service burn New Mexico enviros?
Did the Forest Service burn New Mexico enviros? On the day President Clinton signed what’s become known as the “logging without laws’ rider last July, a nearly 10,000 foot-high peak in southwest New Mexico burst into flames. Now federal plans for salvage logging of this area – Eagle Peak near Reserve, N.M. – have led…
Then the barber left
Dear HCN, I am writing to express my appreciation for your excellent article, “Lack of Enchantment,” Feb. 5. I lived in Santa Fe for about five years between 1987 and 1992 and spent a year and a half as Santa Fe county attorney. I saw the decline of the middle class and the forced emigration…
Leaving room for cows and horses
Welcome to our small town, stranger, but don’t try to change our rural way of life. Now, sign on the dotted line. Thanks to a “right to farm provision,” adopted as part of a Utah town’s development code last March, officials can now make new property owners sign such agreements. “It’s a stipulation that this…
Permits not part of Rainbow values
Every July some 15,000 people converge on Forest Service land in a wave of buses, outdoor kitchens and non-stop music for a month-long gathering. Now, members of the Rainbow Family say a new permit requirement by the Forest Service threatens their annual get-together. “We are faced with overzealous bureaucrats who don’t know how to let…
The Diamond Bar saga goes on – and on
For five years, 15 livestock watering tanks planned for the Diamond Bar grazing allotment in New Mexico symbolized a fight over cows in America’s oldest wilderness (HCN, 5/2/94). Now it appears that the stock tanks may never be built. In a precedent-setting decision in February, Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas’ office ruled that congressional…
Who owns these bones?
Tucson, Ariz. – The television’s flickering light reveals salmon-colored femurs on card tables, mastodon skulls on a flowered bedcover, dinosaur eggs atop the TV. Japheth Boyce is on the phone, dealing. “Yes … $2,000 … I just can’t go any lower … Well, what can you trade me? … Room 169, Ramada Inn, tomorrow 7…
Dinosaur bones have really increased in price
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who owns these bones? “Dinosaur bones have really increased in price. It wouldn’t matter to me if they were not worth anything. I’d sure love to go find more of them.” – Lin Ottinger Lin Ottinger has watched Moab turn into a tourist mecca and…
Fossils are being destroyed by people who are loving them to death
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who owns these bones? “Fossils are being destroyed by people who are loving them to death, people who are making a profit.” – Bruce Louthan Bruce Louthan is the district archaeologist for the Moab BLM. He relies on public education to stop fossil looting. “Amateur…
Nevada county to Army: Take this smog and shove it
An explosion rips the afternoon calm and from a barren hillside flames shoot 50 feet into the air. A shimmering cloud lofts to 10,000 feet and drifts east over the western edge of the Great Basin. Minutes later the blast repeats – 13 times. This is an everyday event at the Sierra Army Depot in…
I was a sheep rancher in western Wyoming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who owns these bones? “I was a sheep rancher in western Wyoming. One day a gun trader came riding by and I traded a bunch of fossils for a rifle.” – Rick Hebdon Rick Hebdon owns Warfield Fossil Quarries in Thayne, Wyo., and sends tourists…
People respond to owning a piece of the earth’s crust
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Who owns these bones? Buying a personal dinosaur has never been easier. In the past few years, fossils have entered two new commercial arenas – the internet and the art auction. Web surfers can order fossils from several home pages including “Artifacts-R-Us: Your One-Stop Shop…
Heard around the West
Greg Leichner of Placitas, N.M., spent 20 years trying to take himself seriously as an artist – a pursuit that bought him so much mental anguish he finally cracked and traded it in for two new aspirations: Starting a newsletter called Citizens For A Poodle-Free Montana and running for president of the United States. He…
True portentousness on a Wyoming highway
A few months back I was heading along U.S. 30 east of Kemmerer. It was one of those amazing Wyoming spring evenings, a panorama of sky, sage and sun which encompassed me totally, so totally that it took me a few moments to realize I had pulled off the highway and was standing in a…
Dear Friends
Corrections and emendations We apologize for garbling names in our coverage of the Adam’s Rib ski resort battle in Colorado (HCN, 2/19/96). Bud Gates, not Bud Grant, is the Eagle County commissioner; Kathy Heicher, with a K, is on the Eagle County planning commission, and Kathleen Forinash, not Forinesh, is the county’s director of health…
Idaho just says no to hydro dam
Twin Falls, Idaho – In the end, it wasn’t even close. On Feb. 13 the state’s five highest elected officials unanimously rejected a proposed dam on the Snake River at Auger Falls. The vote came despite developer Steve Harmsen’s state water quality permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. What led the Idaho Land Board,…
Idaho could move toward the center
Two years ago, Idaho’s congressional delegation took a hard turn to the right. Two Republican senators, Dirk Kempthorne and Larry Craig, already led the state, but the addition to the House of newcomer Helen Chenoweth (who claims that salmon aren’t endangered because they’re still available at the supermarket) moved the delegation to a new extreme.…
Tribes beat back oil giants
PABLO, Mont. – In a last-ditch effort to renew an easement for a petroleum pipeline through the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Yellowstone Pipe Line Co. ran an extraordinary full-page ad last summer in the Char Koosta News, the newspaper of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes. “We’ve done serious damage to the land,” the company…