Environmentalists join with political consultants to try to find a way to woo fickle Western voters.
One issue unites us
Dear HCN, I’m a bit puzzled by your article on “Earth First! The Next Generation” (HCN, 9/2/96). It’s not the first of its kind I’ve read this year but I continue to wonder what all the fuss is about. Could it be the unexpected appearance of consistency among a group of people generally portrayed as…
A poet writes of pride and shame
Dear HCN, I wish to thank my detractors, who have flailed away at me and my poem, Advice for visitors to Rock Springs (HCN, 9/16/96). One accused me of being full of shit. Darn it, it’s probably true, and may be the main reason I write at all. I’m glad HCN liked the poem enough…
Kudos for llamas
Dear HCN, Hal Walter is all wet. I’ve packed with llamas an average of 300 miles, 65 miles per week at elevations averaging 12,000 feet, each summer since 1985. The average weight carried per llama during the week has been 90 pounds. When my llamas want to crap or pee at a creek crossing I…
Motorheads, stay out!
Dear HCN, I am a professional engineer and general techno-fan who aspires eventually to get a pilot’s license for recreational flying. I am also a hiker and boater who can’t understand why Americans feel they must have access via gasoline-powered aircraft to some of the few remaining remote places in this country. I believe all…
Desperate wolves
Four wolves in Montana’s Sawtooth pack that were shot in September for killing livestock may have been starving and frantic to feed their 14 pups. All the wolves had badly maimed paws, says Bob Ream, a biologist at the University of Montana. “The federal trapper who shot the wolves told me that three of four…
Bring back the natives
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., recently announced the grant winners of its “Bring Back the Natives’ campaign. The 26 projects chosen in 13 states include local partnerships to preserve riparian areas and bring back native fish throughout the West. In Washington’s Olympic National Forest, for example, grant money…
Elk target tourists
It’s time to watch your step in Yellowstone National Park. Aggressive herds of rutting elk have taken over park headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs, as they do every year at this time, and two women tourists narrowly escaped injury at the hands – make that horns – of sexually aroused bulls. The first incident occurred…
Helping hands
-They treat you just like gold,” says Stan Banta, who at 79 works for Idaho’s Targhee National Forest as part of the Older American Program. Started 25 years ago by the Department of Labor, the program offers retirees some income while their labor props up cash-poor parks parks, says coordinator Marsha Phillips. To be eligible,…
Boise braces for floods
Sandbags may have replaced mountain bikes as the “in” thing for Boise residents this fall. Forty thousand sandbags were recently snapped up by homeowners and businesses after the city’s public works department offered them to the public to ward off possible floods and mud slides this winter. City officials say an August fire that denuded…
Who you gonna call?
Are you distressed about a nearby mine polluting streams, groundwater or soils? The Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C., might be able to help. It recently published the Green Mining Guide: Mining Experts You Can Call, which lists 101 consultants, government employees and mining specialists from across the country. The experts range from hydrologists and…
Utah ranch to remain whole
The historic Dugout Ranch bordering Canyonlands National Park in southeast Utah will be purchased by The Nature Conservancy to prevent its possible development into recreational properties. The Conservancy has a one-year option on the ranch and will need to raise $4.62 million in the next year to complete the transaction. The ranch, northwest of Monticello,…
Congratulations
When the Western Colorado Congress gave its “Not-So-Smart Growth” awards Sept. 21, it was no surprise when the “winners’ failed to show up. The grassroots coalition held the event to showcase the worst examples of development on the Western Slope – a follow-up of sorts to Gov. Roy Romer’s 1995 “Smart Growth” awards. Had its…
Managing American’s Public Lands
The 18th annual public lands law conference in Missoula, Mont., Oct. 24-25, Managing America’s Public Lands: Proposals for the Future, features Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas and Forest Service critic Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Institute. Contact the Public Land and Resources Law Review at 406/243-6568. This article appeared in the print edition of…
Yellowstone land swap stinks
Dear HCN, High-powered environmentalists, stealthily working behind the scenes, have persuaded President Clinton to support a $65 million land exchange that will rescue Yellowstone National Park from the proposed New World Mine (HCN, 9/2/96). I wish I could be pleased by this news, but I am not. Like many Americans, I consider the mining proposal…
Brown air could lead to greener state politics
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. Even though Republican Gov. Fife Symington is facing a trial next March for bank fraud, Arizona Republicans say they don’t anticipate a backlash in the upcoming elections. Of the six U.S. House seats now held by Republicans, only the 6th District seat is competitive. Republicans…
Moderates may gain in most conservative state
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. The Idaho Legislature – considered the most conservative assembly in the West – probably won’t change too dramatically this election. Democrats are hoping to double their seats, but even if they do, they’ll still hold barely a third of the Senate and less than half…
A green state could return to its roots
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. With the possibility of winning another U.S. Senate seat and four out of five House seats, no other state in the West holds greater promise for Democrats than Oregon. Democrats won an early victory in the state last January, when Ron Wyden defeated Republican Gordon…
Indian gamblers target green lawmakers
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. It’s not sagebrush rebels who have environmentalists and their candidates on the run in New Mexico this election – it’s Native American gambling interests. Angered by the state Legislature’s refusal to sign gaming compacts, some tribes have thrown considerable resources into campaigns to defeat key…
Colorado’s status quo holds firm
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. Other than the showdown between Strickland and Allard, most of Colorado’s congressional races are all but over, according to most analysts. The 1st Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Pat Schroeder will likely remain in the hands of a liberal Democrat and a woman…
Public-lands issues loom large in November
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. A hot election issue this year in Wyoming is the fate of the state’s 3.6 million-acre school trust lands, which generate money for the public school system. The Legislature approved the sale of some 35,000 acres in 1995, despite well-attended protests. Primary results show little…
Greens prune their message to win the West’s voters
The glow from his laptop computer turns the young man’s face pale green. On the screen is a labyrinthine database: street names, women’s ages, voting records. The bearded activist says that this technology could change the outcome of many of the West’s elections. “First we took the member lists for the environmental groups in the…
Colorado: Environment wielded like a hammer in tight Senate race
To hear the candidates tell it, the U.S. Senate race in Colorado is between two guys named “Strickland-the-Lobbyist” and “Allard-Gingrich.” “Allard-Gingrich” votes with the Republican congressional leadership 92 percent of the time, generally to dehydrate rivers, clear-cut forests and sell public lands to private developers. “Strickland-the-Lobbyist” talks pretty green, but has been paid quite well…
The body politic may edge to the left
WASHINGTON, D.C. – If only they had as much imagination as gamblers, politicians here could be singing the lament of Harry the Horse and Nicely Nicely in “Guys and Dolls”: “Where’s the action? Where’s the game? Gotta have the game or we’ll die from shame.” There’s supposed to be a game going on here. The…
Rustling up votes in Indian Country
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. In late summer, Russell LaFountaine and four friends drove his 30-foot motorhome emblazoned with “Native Vote 96” over 10,000 miles of the West’s highways. Pulling into reservations, casinos and even the Democratic and Republican conventions, they spread their message: If Native Americans want change, they…
Utah: A liberal wilderness lover may prevail
Until Enid Greene Waldholtz’s nationally televised five-hour cry-a-thon about her no-good husband Joe, Utah’s 2nd Congressional District race didn’t look to be the battleground it’s become. But when Republican Waldholtz dropped out of her re-election race because of the soap opera-like disintegration of her marriage, it opened the door for one of Utah’s most colorful…
Wise-users try to whip up a recipe for their own salvation
Casper, Wyo. – Utah House Speaker Melvin Brown tells the audience that he doesn’t want to end the evening on a negative note. But he does want to make you “mad enough to come back tomorrow recommitted.” To get their blood pumping, Brown conjures up an enemy – Thomas Michael Power – a University of…
Dear friends
Thank you, Driggs Three times a year HCN holds board meetings and potlucks with subscribers around the region. Until recently, we tended to gather in places like Sun Valley or Boulder. Those are good places, but we realized we were neglecting less well-known towns. So last winter we met in Colorado Springs, famous as home…
A “down time” for Utah environmentalists
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. With the possible exception of Democrat Ross Anderson, Utah won’t field many surprises this November. The state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Bill Orton, is expected to hold on to his seat in the 3rd Congressional District, even though Democrats fare poorly in Utah. Polls show Orton’s…
Custom and culture’s worst enemy speaks
The West is certainly changing, but cultural beliefs rather than economic facts tend to dominate our dialogue. Because those beliefs are tied to a vision of a good society rooted in stereotypes of a simpler, less-corrupted-by-evil America, I see them as a type of economic fundamentalism. Consider these characteristics: Worshipping at the rearview mirror. Economic…
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to adjudicate
It’s fall in the Pacific Northwest, and the winter rains have already begun. For the next seven months or so, storms will pummel the state of Washington, filling every rivulet and river in the state and chasing people to stores in search of umbrellas and galoshes. But while most people worry about coping with gray…
A conservative legislature may move to the middle
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. When the Montana Legislature last met in 1995 (they meet every other year), the Republican majority weakened many environmental laws, including water quality regulations that protected the state’s clear streams and rivers. “They (the Republican legislature) angered every demographic group for one reason or another,”…
Heard around the West
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may be in terminal decline, but its spirit lives on over at the Federal Highway Administration. The FHA recently rebuilt Highway 9, from Murray, Idaho, to Thompson Falls, Mont., and the new road is so high and so water-resistant that during wet periods it backs water into Murray, population 63,…
Montana: A scrappy Republican tries to cut down a green Democrat
Rick Hill was so far behind in the polls last winter that his two Republican primary opponents said Hill wasn’t even a contender for Montana’s one seat in the House of Representatives. So Hill tried something. He went negative. He attacked his Republican opponents, who both complained he was being nasty and unfair when he…
California: A 28-year-old talks the talk to green voters
Compared to the passionate fight to save redwoods from logging in the privately owned Headwaters grove, the campaign for California’s 1st Congressional District is a skirmish. But it has attracted national environmental groups aiming to strengthen protections for wildlife, water and woods. Their target is Republican Frank Riggs. The district ranges from the well-heeled wineries…
Montana: For veteran Baucus, it seems to be in the bag
In polling, a lot depends on how you ask the questions. And on how you read the answers. Max Baucus, a Democrat running for his fourth term in the U.S. Senate, points to polls that have consistently put him 10 or more points above Republican challenger Dennis Rehberg, Montana’s current lieutenant governor. But Rehberg sees…
Skunked Democrats hope to turn the tide
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. What happens in Washington state will reveal a lot about the difference two years can make. Democratic leaders hope to shake up the state Legislature the same way they want to win back the House of Representatives. The current state House has the worst known…
Navajos win another battle in war for equality
MONTEZUMA CREEK, Utah – In this hardscrabble corner of southeast Utah, where box-like government houses line the roads and Navajo hogans dot the dry dirt of the surrounding countryside, there’s little evidence of the changes creeping into San Juan County. That’s because the changes started out of sight, in courtrooms and county offices. Now the…
Washington: Greens storm the suburbs
Northwest environmental activists have branched out from their natural urban habitat and invaded the bright shiny suburbs of the Pacific Northwest, looking to wake up the green vote that slept through the 1994 election. Washington state has become a national battleground since 1994, when it threw out five Democratic House members – including Speaker Tom…
San Juan County, Utah
Note: this is a sidebar to another news article titled “Navajos win another battle in war for equality.” * 5.2 million acres; 1.2 million of that is reservation land * 6,800 Navajo residents, 76 percent of them living on the reservation * 54 percent of the county population is Navajo * 60 percent of the…
Arizona: Harvesting a bumper crop of bombast
Recent Arizona history has provided us with plenty of grimly entertaining political characters: Used-car salesman Evan Mecham’s first act on being elected governor in 1987 was refusing to sign into law Martin Luther King Day. Less than two years later, he was impeached by the state Senate. Current Gov. Fife Symington isn’t in danger of…
Montana Native: Who Cares?
In bold, black letters the bumperstickers declare: Montana Native. I spot them as I drive and, like the chiggers of my native Virginia, they make me itch. For the naive observer, the message must seem benign, a mere statement of birthplace pride. But for an increasingly wary transplant like me, it conveys something more sinister…
Nevada: Who hates nuclear waste most?
Nevada’s two congressional districts seem a lot like Mutt and Jeff: Covering two-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s land mass but containing half its population, the 1st Congressional District encompasses Las Vegas. The other 99.8 percent of the state is the 2nd Congressional District. In a tight race for the Las Vegas seat are…
What happens when “True Grit” meets “Easy Rider’
Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture by Lois Palken Rudnick, 1996, University of New Mexico Press, 416 pages, $35. Lois Palken Rudnick’s Utopian Vistas is almost enough to send me back to my native New York. But it’s probably too late. After more than two decades here, I’m unlikely to…