RBM Lumber in Columbia Falls, Mont., is a small, family-owned mill that is a pioneer in a brand new kind of timber economy, one that would restore rather than deplete forests and create low-volume, high-value wood products in a sustainable way.
Will bears get a break?
MONTANA With all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile use skyrocketing in the backcountry, environmentalists fear the machines could spell disaster for grizzly bears. Several groups recently sued the Forest Service to force the agency to study the way ATV and snowmobile use affects endangered grizzlies in Montana’s Gallatin National Forest. “It’s time for them to step up…
Look at that big plant!
Some fertilizer sold in Washington state since 1996 contained uranium and other wastes from the production of nuclear reactor fuel; in fact, before the state’s Department of Agriculture issued a stop-sale order on Feb. 17, over 390,000 gallons of the material had been distributed. State health officials found out about the product after a Seattle…
A growing movement in green
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. It’s hard for the untrained eye to tell, but not all of the wood at Karen and Tom Randall’s mill on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington is created equal. Some logs have come from forests that aren’t clear-cut, where water quality, wildlife and wetlands…
Politics and the bottom line
Dear HCN, Senator Laird Noh’s article “The Old West is small potatoes in the new economy” (HCN, 4/10/00: The Old West is small potatoes in the new economy) provided a clear view of the shifting power structure out West. Sen. Noh’s story is a lesson in political power, and the moral of the story is…
Logging doesn’t cut it
A sea of evergreens, uninterrupted by roads or clear-cut; an eroding mountainside, barren of everything but stumps and broken branches. Ancient Forests: The Power of Place, a 30-minute educational video, uses this contrast to paint a compelling picture of logging’s siege on Northwest forests. The video from Green Fire Productions, a nonprofit filmmaking organization, takes…
Where were the voices of women?
Dear HCN, I applaud your final installment of the series titled “The political dynamics of the Interior West” (HCN, 4/10/00). I thoroughly enjoyed all eight of the essays by guest columnists and their views on the future of the West. Creating the opportunity for dialogue on the future of our lands is critical, and I…
A bear of a plan
Grizzly bears could be reintroduced to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area in a little more than a year, if a final environmental impact statement proceeds as planned. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s preferred alternative of the grizzly plan calls for a citizen’s management committee to oversee reintroduction of a non-essential experimental grizzly bear population. The Interior…
Spreading the news
Dear HCN, I’ve just devoured your excellent “Beyond the Revolution” issue. If you send me five or 10 more copies, I promise I’ll get it into the hands of the right people. Joel GarreauBroad Run, Virginia The writer is the author of The Nine Nations of North America. This article appeared in the print edition…
Telluride’s MountainFilm
If the past is guide, the 22nd MountainFilm in Telluride this May will be more than the sum of its parts. The individual elements will be impressive – a day-long opening symposium on the Andes and miles of celluloid about nature, other cultures, and jocks playing on rocks, glaciers and rivers. But the power of…
Extractive industries are not dead yet
Dear HCN, Ed Marston writes that the war between extractive interests and the environmental movement is drawing to a close and the enviro movement won (HCN, 4/10/00: Beyond the Revolution). Like the person who reads about his death in the paper, reports of the demise of extractive interests are greatly exaggerated. We will always have…
We can do it ourselves
It was 1970, and people were dropping out in droves. Wood stoves were replacing electric heat, milk cartons were transforming wax into candles. Someone noted that more pottery was created during the ’70s than during the history of mankind – perhaps an exaggeration. One of the gurus for back-to-the-landers 30 years ago was a woman…
The fragmented West
Dear HCN, I read, carefully, each of the separate articles in the HCN special issue of April 10, and I’ve come to my own conclusion: We’re in a trap with no exit. Balkanization will be the model. Duke HaydukBluff, Utah This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The fragmented…
Indian Country Today’s Pow Wow 2000
Celebrate the traditions of America’s native people with Indian Country Today’s Pow Wow 2000 guide, a comprehensive schedule of Native American pow wows across the nation. The guide includes the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow in Albuquerque, N.M., and National Indian Days in White Swan, Wash. Each listing includes contact number for more information. To…
It’s a rotten revolution
Dear HCN, Judging from publisher Ed Marston’s April 10 article, “Beyond the Revolution,” High Country News has abandoned all pretext of balanced treatment of environmental news. For Mr. Marston to assume that the four Snake River dams will be breached, and for him to completely ignore the vitally important issue of Western private land intermixed…
30-minute documentary, “Voice of the Centenarian: Hazel Wolf’
Lifelong social and environmental activist Hazel Wolf will be honored in a 30-minute documentary, “Voice of the Centenarian: Hazel Wolf,” narrated by Carole King. The producer is seeking footage of Wolf, who died in January. If you have material of her in action – making speeches, protesting, meeting with politicians – contact Gayle Podrabsky, 206/285-7806…
BLM needs a new identity
Dear HCN, Your “Beyond the Revolution” articles about the future of the new West could have included mention of the long-discussed proposal to place the BLM-managed lands into a National Public Lands System, similar to the national forest, national parks, and national wildlife refuge systems that protect our forests, parks and refuges. The BLM lands…
Lovers of land and culture
Lovers of land and culture, writers, and scientists will explore the relationships between religious traditions, sacred stories and scientific facts at the 17th Sitka Symposium, June 15-21 in Sitka, Alaska. Writers can submit manuscripts for critique by May 19. Contact the Island Institute at 907/747-3794 for more information, or write to Box 2420, Sitka, AK…
The Clark Fork unplugged
MONTANA On Montana’s Clark Fork River, pressure is mounting to demolish a dam. The Milltown dam sits seven miles upstream from Missoula, where the Blackfoot River and the Clark Fork meet. For years, it has acted as a plug, holding back 6.5 million cubic yards of sediment contaminated with arsenic and heavy metals washed away…
Beauty and Solitude
There are approximately 80 places in the United States where artists of all kinds can go to compose, paint, write, sculpt and photograph. These artists’ communities, which are mostly on the coasts, accommodate about 4,000 visitors a year. If all goes well, there will soon be a new one just outside Zion National Park in…
Heard around the West
A knitting society in Sequim, Wash., is making little wool sweaters to outfit little penguins who were drenched by a tanker’s oil spill in Australia. The one-foot-tall fairy penguins need the sweaters both for warmth and for protection. When the penguins preen their bodies the oil poisons them. “They look so cute,” said a member…
Montana’s anti-Indian movement multiplies
A report by the Montana Human Rights Network says groups dedicated to undermining Indian sovereignty and culture are on the rise. Formed in 1990, in response to white supremacist and other hate groups in Montana, the Human Rights Network calls the anti-Indian movement “racist to the core.” Ken Toole, who wrote the 47-page report, Drumming…
The Wayward West
President Bill Clinton designated another national monument (HCN, 4/10/00: Beyond the Revolution). Now 355,000 acres are preserved in California’s Sequoia National Forest, and that means existing logging rights will be phased out over the next three and a half years. While environmentalists celebrated the latest link in Clinton’s land-legacy chain, locals were upset. “We who…
Bart: Still a trooper
Bart, the 1,500-pound star of The Bear and most recently The Edge (co-starring Anthony Hopkins), missed out on the Academy Awards a couple of weeks ago. But the 23-year-old actor and coastal Kodiak grizzly will be appearing this month on the small screen as spokesbear for Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center’s new research facility.…
Take a load off
Forget llamas, goats or horses, says the Bureau of Land Management. Burros are better for packing equipment into the backcountry. That’s the message the federal agency is trying to get across to baby boomers, says Tom Taylor of Mesa, Ariz., a volunteer who takes his burro, Hualapai, to community events to talk up the adopt-a-burro…
Conference on Tailings and Mine Waste
One-page abstracts are being sought for next January’s Conference on Tailings and Mine Waste in Fort Collins, Colo. Offer your ideas on milling, geotechnics, tailings management or related topics by June 2. For information or to present an abstract, contact Linda Hinshaw, Department of Civil Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1372, 970/491-6081, fax…
Corps catches criticism
NATION A national storm is swirling around the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and some say it could rattle two of the agency’s most controversial projects in the Northwest: dredging the Columbia River and continuing operation of the Snake River dams. In February, The Washington Post reported that the agency rigged a $50 million economic…
Connecting Our Land and Cultures
The National Park Service and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, are sponsoring a conference to help land managers on the Colorado Plateau develop effective resource education programs. Connecting Our Land and Cultures will be held July 9-14 in Las Vegas, Nev. Register through June 9 by calling Carol Kruse at 520/526-1157 ext.…
Crater doesn’t come cheap
ARIZONA Conservationists are close to protecting a volcanic crater and wetland near Flagstaff, Ariz. All they have to do is raise $3 million. In March, the Flagstaff-based Grand Canyon Trust signed a land-swap deal with developers, in which the trust bought the 247-acre caldera known as Dry Lake. Developer Jim Mehen, who had first proposed…
Forest Service Volunteer Program
The Forest Service Volunteer Program for the Rocky Mountain region is looking for backcountry rangers, campground hosts and workers for research projects and trail maintenance, among others. For a copy of the agency’s Volunteer Directory, write Volunteer Coordinator, USDA Forest Service, 324 25th St., Ogden, UT 84401, call 801/625-5175, fax 801/625-5170, e-mail blyons@fs.fed.us, or visit…
Green and steel – together at last
When junk bonder Charles Hurwitz bought up Kaiser Aluminum and Pacific Lumber, then accelerated cutting of ancient California redwoods and locked out his employees, he didn’t know he was creating a new political movement. Yet outrage at Hurwitz’s tactics forged an unconventional alliance between labor and environmentalism. Just six months ago, locked-out United Steelworkers members…
‘We still have the opportunity to practice wild forestry’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bob Love is a hunter, naturalist, writer and logger in Columbia Falls, Montana. His company is Confluence Timber Company. Bob Love: “Our public forests in the past were corporatized, and now you could say we’re trying to communitize our forests. We need to invest…
‘The emphasis is on what’s best for the land’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Tom Kovalicky, a 30-year veteran of the Forest Service, was the Nez Perce National Forest Supervisor from 1982-1991. He still lives in Grangeville, Idaho, where he is the volunteer chairman of Stewards of the Nez Perce, a collaborative community group working with the Nez…
‘It shouldn’t be all or nothing’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Evelyn Thompson is co-owner of RBM Lumberin Columbia Falls, Montana. In 1997, she was recognized as Montana’s Businesswoman of the Year by the Small Business Administration. Evelyn Thompson: “One of our biggest principles is to eliminate waste. We developed a lot of our products…
‘Specialists in diversity’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Is RBM Lumber a one-of-a-kind operation, or could there be many such firms at work in the Northern Rockies? Judge for yourself. RBM originally stood for three Thompsons, Roy, Ben and Malcolm. Malcolm, Ben and Roy’s father, is a philosopher-ascetic who has returned to…
Restoring our future
Note: This essay appears in the print edition of this issue as a sidebar to a feature story. Moments of affirmation are rare in Washington, D.C. So I was pleased to run into a friend, living now in Los Angeles, whom I last saw in college, and to hear her excitement about the Forest Service’s…
Dear Friends
Spring visitors Glen Miller, a retired geologist from Grand Junction, came by to say hello and to talk about how guilty he felt because he’d let his subscription lapse. We’re always interested in why people drop their subscriptions, but he couldn’t tell us. “It just happened,” was as close as he could come. We could…
Wanted: experienced firefighters
The Forest Service discovers it’s hard to find good help
Western weather waffles
The Northwest looks at a soggy summer, while the Southwest may just burn
Why I ride the bus
Only one other passenger waits to catch the 6:47 a.m. commuter bus from Pullman to Moscow, Idaho. She is pleasant looking, well dressed, with Walkman headphones snaking up out of her sweater. Because I ride this bus regularly, I’ve learned some details of this woman’s life. Whitney Houston is her favorite singer. The woman has…
The burning season begins again
Is a California army depot poisoning its neighbors?
Baca Ranch buy-out has strings attached
Bill could put millions of acres of public land on the auction block
After the fall
As big timber companies leave the Northern Rockies, a family mill turns to restoring forests
Change is coming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. John McCarthy is conservation director of the Idaho Conservation League. He lives in Boise. John McCarthy: “The big message in the forest today is, “change is coming – hard and fast.” We know the days of towns built around big, wasteful sawmills that required…
‘We don’t need a revolution’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Teresa Catlin of Priest River, Idaho, is involved in a community forestry project called Forest Community Connection. She is an ecologist for the Colville National Forest in eastern Washington. She also operates a forest consulting company in Idaho called Total Land Management. Teresa Catlin:…
Former uranium town wants its waste back
Town folk say radioactive waste will boost business
A new day
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story, “After the fall.” The “giant sucking sound” that presidential candidate H. Ross Perot described in his 1992 campaign can be heard today in the Northern Rockies, where the major timber companies are about done liquidating their private land and are busily moving cash, jobs and…