The Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river in the West, but Montana’s rapid growth is affecting it, as property owners afraid of floods lay huge amounts of riprap along its banks.
Off-road vehicle use
Off-road vehicle use and its threat to public lands is the topic of a national conference April 7-11 in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society and the Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads, the event will cover strategies on how to organize, campaign and lobby. Contact Melanie at American Lands, 202/547-9267, for…
Nature in Fragments: The Legacy of Urban Sprawl
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City sponsors a symposium on Nature in Fragments: The Legacy of Urban Sprawl, April 13-14. The focus is unplanned growth and its consequences for North American biodiversity. Call 212/769-5200 for tickets and request code SPRAWL2K. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with…
Resource Advisory Councils (RACs)
The Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management is seeking nominations for positions on its Resource Advisory Councils (RACs) throughout the state. Members serve for three years and will have a say in how Colorado public lands are managed. Nominations are due by April 20. For information and nomination forms, contact the BLM Colorado…
Western Small Acreage Expo
Farmers, livestock owners and fruit growers can benefit from the free Western Small Acreage Expo, April 29 in Grand Junction, Colo. Demonstrations and presentations on sheep shearing, composting, machine maintenance and other topics of interest to small landowners will be offered, and vendors will present their goods and services. To pre-register or for more information,…
The Wayward West
A federal judge threw out a lawsuit challenging a 1997 ban on oil and gas drilling on the Rocky Mountain Front, imposed by then Lewis and Clark Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora (HCN, 10/13/97: Forest Service acts to preserve ‘the Front’). The lawsuit claimed Flora was unduly influenced by public opinion and ignored her agency’s analysis…
Energy Ideas Clearinghouse
Those who want to keep abreast of developments in energy efficient agriculture can sign up for a biweekly e-mail newsletter by visiting the Energy Ideas Clearinghouse at www.energyideas.org. Contact Cristina Love at Washington State University’s Cooperative Extension Energy Program, 800/872-3568 or 360/956-2237. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline…
Commons or Commodity? The Dilemma of Federal Land Exchanges
Commons or Commodity? The Dilemma of Federal Land Exchanges explores the history, policy and laws surrounding land exchanges. The 104-page report includes case studies and suggests methods for reforming the system of land swaps. For a copy of the report, send $15 to Western Land Exchange Project, P.O. Box 95545, Seattle, WA 98145-2545. For more…
Missouri River Natural Resources
A conference on Missouri River Natural Resources is set for Bismarck, N.D., May 21-24, with presentations ranging from protecting fish and wildlife to paleontology and geology along the river. Native American flutist and storyteller Keith Bear joins the get-together. Call Greg Power for registration information at 701/328-6323 or visit http://infolink.cr.usgs.gov/events/conf.htm. This article appeared in the…
Agency torpedoes canyon planning
ARIZONA Grand Canyon National Park recently pulled the plug on consensus efforts among private boaters, environmentalists and commercial rafting companies (HCN, 12/21/98: Grand Canyon Gridlock). The outcome could have reduced the number of motorized boats on the river by giving more permits to private rafters and kayakers, and by implementing a wilderness management plan. The…
What a foggy-headed diatribe
Dear HCN, What a disappointment to see yet another foggy-headed front-page diatribe against recreation fees on federal lands (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). Instead of trying to shed new light on the issue and search for solutions, the story seemed to be a mirror image of a lead story last year that took a…
Greens call snowmaking a snow job
COLORADO The Forest Service has given Arapahoe Basin Ski Area the green light to imitate nature and make snow. In 1998, A-Basin, the only major resort in Colorado that doesn’t make artificial snow, submitted a plan to divert water from the North Fork of the Snake River. Snowmaking would allow the ski area to compete…
Fees fall flat
Dear HCN, The “fee-demo” program certainly is a demonstration. It clearly demonstrates who controls Congress. After decades of my (and your) tax dollars supporting below-cost timber sales, clear-cutting of our national forests, mining and overgrazing of our public lands for the profit of a few, now I am supposed to pay a fee to simply…
Mine proposal stumbles
CALIFORNIA The Bureau of Land Management might just say “no.” For years, critics have blasted a proposed open-pit gold mine on public land in southeastern California, arguing that the Glamis Imperial Corp. project would destroy both Native American sacred sites and habitat of the threatened desert tortoise (HCN, 8/2/99: Weighing artifacts against gold). After a…
That annoying, harassing Adventure Pass
Dear HCN, In Southern California, Forest Service fees are implemented as an “Adventure” Pass. Passes are sold in retail stores, as well as Forest Service stations. Day-passes are $5. Annual passes are $30. Parking in the national forest without a pass on the dash is ticketable. Independent of the dollar amount, it’s an extremely annoying…
Guides may get guidelines
NATION Close to 4,000 outfitters ply their trades in national forests, bringing in nearly $4 million annually to the Forest Service. With recreation booming on public lands, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has introduced a bill that standardizes outfitter operations in areas administered by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Craig’s Outfitters Policy Act…
Fees take a big bite
Dear HCN, Your article on federal recreation fees (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee) touched a nerve with me, so to speak. While beginning a hike into the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area near Granby, Colo., last summer, I paused to insert my fee stub into the collection box at the wilderness boundary. My groping fingers…
Whirling disease keeps spreading
NEW MEXICO A deadly fish disease that has been spreading across the West now has a foothold in New Mexico. Three state hatcheries recently tested positive for whirling disease, prompting New Mexico Game and Fish officials to begin testing streams, rivers and lakes. Whirling disease spores, now known to be present in 10 Western states,…
Some free advice
Dear HCN, So my law school classmate, Debra Donahue, has applied her formidable legal mind to try to de-cow most Western public lands (HCN, 2/28/00: A prof takes on the sacred cow). Note to Wyoming ranchers: When you calm down enough to want to address the merits of her arguments, come prepared. Deb is a…
Oh, give me a home…
Contrasting Western images: A lone cowboy on horseback rides through the recently paved streets of a new, cheerily painted subdivision, while a voice laments that the West is becoming a place an old-timer might not recognize anymore. That’s how the documentary, Subdivide and Conquer: A Modern Western, begins. It takes a sobering look at the…
The Cold War is over, but missiles remain
Dear HCN, I read your Roundup on Cold War tourism in South Dakota with apprehension (HCN, 2/14/00: From missile silo to theme park) because you could come away with the idea that the Cold War is over. When I reread the article at 2 a.m., I realized this could be someone’s idea of the perfect…
Tax-averse Wyoming hurts itself
As other Western economies boom, Wyoming is trying to rein in a large budget deficit without raising taxes. The Equality State Policy Center, a nonprofit public-policy advocacy group, doesn’t share Wyoming’s romance with “no new taxes,” and says taxes on the state’s minerals industry are an overlooked source of revenue. A report released by the…
We need fees
Dear HCN, I am deeply disappointed in the Sierra Club for its stand against the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program. Yes, it truly would be much more desirable for Congress and the president to fund adequately and promptly our national treasures – but that is not likely to happen soon, if ever. As I sit at…
Preserving the westward way
The National Park Service wants to preserve everything from vistas to wagon ruts, graves and campsites along 13,000 miles of historic Western trails. A plan completed last fall provides guidelines for protecting the Oregon, California, Mormon and Pony Express trails. But saving a trail system that crosses 12 states isn’t easy, says Jere Krakow, superintendent…
Applause for reining in recreation
Dear HCN, I think the preferred alternative for the White River National Forest Plan is a huge step forward, though I prefer Alternative I (HCN, 1/17/00: STOP – A national forest tries to rein in recreation). I have yet to have visited a national forest that didn’t have more than enough roads and trails. Yes,…
What’s in your organic burrito?
Ever wonder what makes an organically labeled food organic? Soon, you’ll know. The Department of Agriculture recently released its proposed national organic standards for comment on the federal register. The 146-page document includes a list of substances approved and prohibited in organic foods. The agency’s first attempt at setting organic regulations, which allowed genetically engineered…
An opportunity lost to politics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In President Clinton’s 1997 State of the Union Message, he introduced the Heritage Rivers Initiative as a means to address the management issues of 10 notable American waterways, and as a vehicle to provide federal assistance and funding to complement state and regional efforts…
HCN at 30: ‘On faith alone’
“The Shame of it!” cries the headline of the Nov. 24, 1972, issue of High Country News. The story is accompanied by a disturbing close-up photograph of a golden eagle, talons clenched in death. The eagle was one of hundreds poisoned or shot by Wyoming sheep ranchers in 1970 and 1971. Stories of the killings…
A river divided
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Upper Yellowstone River currently is in the political hot seat, but that section of the river represents less than one quarter of the river’s 670-mile length. Any approach to management has to address the complete watershed. Yellowstone Park contains much of the headwaters…
High Country
Gov. Stanley K. Hathaway was criticized last week for siding with the mineral industry in Wyoming. It was not an unusual situation. I was doing the criticizing and he was doing the reacting. The governor said of me, “He hasn’t had anything good to say about this administration for six years.” In which he was…
Sly Country News
Weird Friends An empire is born On the eve of its 30th birthday, Sly Country News leapt headlong into the world of media empires. In a special April 1 meeting, SCN’s board of directors voted to privatize the operation. The paper’s stock hit the market at $5 a share and immediately jumped to $500. “We’ve…
Homesteaders sue over ancestral land
Their mesa became home to the Manhattan Project
Parks rev up to ban snowmobiles
Yellowstone, Grand Teton could be snowmobile-free by 2002-03
Forest chief steers agency down a rocky road
Forest supervisor warns that Dombeck’s policy will spark civil disobedience
The last wild river
The Yellowstone River survived the era of dams, but can it survive riprap?
A family encounters a conservation quandary
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Andrew Dana considers himself, and the rest of the family partnership which manages a large landholding south of Livingston, to be “dedicated conservationists.” In 1982, his parents put much of their riverbank property into a conservation easement to protect it from future development and…
Property owners call the shots
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. HELENA, Mont. – Most agree that the greatest long-term threat to the integrity of the Yellowstone River is the unregulated development of private property along the banks. “Once a house is built in the floodplain, there is zero tolerance for bank erosion,” said Rob…
Heard around the West
Old West shoot-outs? Gun battles these days have lost a lot of their family fun. In fact, people firing bullets at each other can be downright terrifying. As moviegoers were leaving a Las Vegas theater last July, many reacted with horror to a volley of gunshots out on the street. What they didn’t know -…