Though the economic future of the area is uncertain, activists welcome a possible Superfund listing for the huge Molycorp molybdenum mine in Questa, N.M., as a way to save the town and the Red River from yet more mine-waste pollution.
Who’ll clean up a mining mess?
Idaho wrangles with the feds over a Superfund site COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – For years, a handful of locals in Northern Idaho have grumbled that federal cleanup efforts were botched and that Bunker Hill, the largest Superfund site in the country, was still unsafe after 20 years. Now, the cleanup is supposed to wind down…
Ranchers forgo their federal lease
IDAHO Cows and salmon don’t mix; at least that’s the message rancher Rollin Baker says he has received repeatedly from the National Marine Fisheries Service. So Baker and his partner, A.D. Watkins, recently relinquished their federal grazing privileges near Bear Valley Creek in Idaho’s Boise National Forest. The ranchers say strict rules aimed at protecting…
Cement glues citizens together
A southern Colorado city could lose its newly clean reputation PUEBLO, Colo. – Cecil Ross remembers when his city was known as “Pew Town.” The wheat farmer says pollution from the state’s largest steel mill once filled the city’s air with foul-smelling odors and chemicals. Today, standing on his ranch three miles from Pueblo, Ross…
Republicans attack sovereignty
WASHINGTON Native Americans throughout the West say they’re disgusted with Republicans in Washington state: Delegates at the state GOP convention this summer passed a resolution to abolish tribal governments. John Fleming won his party’s support when he complained that as a non-Indian living on the Swinomish reservation in northwestern Washington, he can’t vote in tribal…
An outrageous review
Dear HCN, I read Hal Herring’s review of the documentary, Killing Coyote, in the July 31 issue of High Country News with great interest. So much so, in fact, that I bought a copy of the video. Mr. Herring describes a visit by Doug Hawes-Davis to the Logan Field Station of the National Wildlife Research…
Doug Hawes-Davis replies
In his criticism of our new feature film, Killing Coyote, Russ Mason is only defending his life’s work, which is understandable. Mason states that “film shot by NBC was used by Hawes-Davis to portray “….tightly bound coyotes being injected with the latest birth control potion,” after being “… dragged from its pen.” ” The first…
Not in the family
Dear HCN, Sure have been enjoying my HCNs lately, but as roving critic laureate, I must insist that Lou “White Dork” Bendrick be informed that WEASELS ARE NOT RODENTS (HCN, 8/14/00: Native American Wannabes: Beware the Weasel Spirit). They are not only not in the same FAMILY, they are not even in the same order.…
Learning from the old-timers
Dear HCN, I appreciated the interview with Steve Hinchman in the July 31 issue. It’s encouraging to know that there are other people who understand the problems that “recreation-based environmentalism” is causing in the rural West. Although I considered myself an environmentalist back when the movement was still the grassroots underdog, I’m terrified now at…
‘A gentle giant’
Dear HCN, Thanks for the tribute to our late friend Lynn Dickey (HCN, 6/19/00: Dear Friends). She was a gentle giant, for sure. It always amazed me that she was in the world of rough and tumble politics but not of that world. She was always a calming influence. I remember the United Mine Workers…
Wilderness needs strong advocates
Dear HCN, I would like to respond on behalf of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness to the Steve Hinchman interview Ed Marston did for the July 31 edition. I know Steve and respect and admire the work he has done on the West Slope. Recently, as executive director of the Colorado Environmental Coalition, I…
The Latest Bounce
Lyle McNeal, the professor who helped restore churro sheep to the Navajo Reservation, won his suit for $44,000 in back pay from Utah State University. The suit highlighted the role of a land-grant college, with McNeal arguing that he helped the tribe build community (HCN, 1/31/00: Searching for pasture). University officials unsuccessfully defended their position…
Heard around the West
Every tourist with a camera makes the same joke at scenic turnouts where the drop is precipitous: “Back up just another step – no, just kidding!” It’s part of tourist myth – that someone actually asked a spouse to back up near a canyon, and then it was “Goodbyeeeeee.” Here’s a variation, and it’s all…
Protect yourself from wildfires
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Home is where the heat is.” The Montana Division of Disaster and Emergency Services has a few suggestions for making your home more fire safe: Copyright © 2000 HCN and Mark Matthews This article appeared in the print…
Fires burn through boundaries at Mesa Verde
The flames have illuminated – and possibly strengthened – the park’s intimate connections with its neighbors
The mine that turned the Red River blue
Activists turn the tables on the biggest, slipperiest mine in the Rio Grande watershed
The life and times of a mining town
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. 1921 Molybdenum Corp. of America (later abbreviated to Molycorp) begins underground mining in the Red River Canyon east of Questa, milling 50 tons of ore per day. Miners and their families live on site in a self-contained company town. 1964-5 As high-grade veins of…
Floyd Dominy: An encounter with the West’s undaunted dam-builder
The name Floyd Dominy still rings loud in the West. As the head of the Bureau of Reclamation from 1959 to1971, he built Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River and many more of the West’s dams, persuading Congress that the region needed to control the flow of rivers to generate electricity, control flooding and…
Squishy-soft processes – hard results
In Nye, Mont., and in Paonia, Colo., two difficult disputes were recently resolved by people sitting together at a table. In Montana, the fight was about hardrock mining and 1,000 jobs. In Colorado, it was about coal mining and several hundred jobs. Each dispute involved tens of millions of dollars in investment capital, public land…
‘If you want the jobs, you’re going to have to deal with it’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Alice Martinez, shown above left at the Questa Senior Center, says she lived a good life because of the mine, where her husband worked for many years. Alice Martinez: “We had a group of Concerned Citizens here in Questa. And they were forever -…
‘A mine divides a community’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Life-long resident Berlinda Trujillo has been involved in labor and environmental struggles stemming from the Molycorp mine for over 30 years. Berlinda Trujillo: “Of course, a mine divides a community. You can’t even talk environmental issues, because if somebody else is not for it,…
‘The mine is everything’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “Laura Griego” is fervently loyal to thecompany that has employed her husband for 30 years. At her request, we are not using her real name. Laura Griego: “The mine is everything, really, because it’s given us everything. If Molycorp wasn’t here, we wouldn’t have…
Down the Rio Grande, one piece at a time
Ernie Atencio’s cover story about Questa, N.M., and the story on page 3 about the silvery minnow are the latest installments in our series on the Rio Grande. We kicked off the series, funded by the McCune Foundation, last fall with a special issue titled, “Imagine a River” (HCN, 10/11/99: Imagine a river). Most series…
Dear Friends
The bears are in town Summer in Paonia has been an absolute bear. Cool mornings fairly burst into flame once the sun rolls over the top of Jumbo Mountain. Daytime temperatures hover in the 90s. The heat has sent many of us hiking for the high country. But even the mountains are dry, and that…
Home is where the heat is
Federal firefighters save houses while the West’s woods burn
The latest salmon plan heads toward a train wreck
Federal officials released on July 27 their long-awaited plan for saving 12 stocks of endangered salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers. As expected, they stopped short of recommending to Congress what the majority of scientists say may be necessary to prevent Snake River salmon from going extinct – breaching four federal dams in eastern…
‘Molycorp hasn’t been a good neighbor to us’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Joe Cisneros will tell you proudly that he was the model for the feisty protagonist in John Nichols’ novel The Milagro Beanfield War – and Nichols concurs. Cisneros has been Molycorp’s most belligerent and outspoken critic since a botched 1968 attempt by the company…
Shaky truce on the Rio Grande
Amid a political dust storm, an agreement keeps endangered fish alive