As Oregon cities hit their urban growth boundaries, some
say it’s time to look at the 30-year old rules that govern
development.
Also in this
issue: Congress may have turned to the right, but enviros
claim victory at the state level.
A briny time capsule
In 1970, when artist Robert Smithson constructed his 1,500-ft-long spiral-shaped sculpture in the Great Salt Lake, he planned for the natural rise and fall of the water to deposit salt crystals on its black stone base. But “The Spiral Jetty,” which used more than 6,650 tons of basalt, disappeared entirely in 1972, submerged in the…
Reports drill Bush energy plan
As the Bush administration pushes its national energy plan, The Wilderness Society has published a report that says the plan’s initiatives are inadequate. The publication, Energy and Western Wildlands, says drilling for oil in U.S. Forest Service-regulated roadless areas will satisfy our national petroleum needs for less than a month, while natural gas reserves on…
Putting green Portland on the map
Though Portland has earned a reputation as a green city, with its well-publicized parks, organic markets and light-rail lines, even savvy locals find it challenging to connect the city’s disparate venues. The search just got easier with the Portland Green Map, a map with 800 resources and points of interest for Portlanders who lean green.…
A slap of Western reality
“Piety, kitsch, self-importance, sentimentalism – these deadly literary sins seem to thrive on good clean country air,” writes William Finnegan in his foreword to William Gruber’s book, On All Sides Nowhere. Finnegan hails Gruber for avoiding these sins in his memoir of life in northern Idaho. In 1972, Gruber and his wife moved from Philadelphia…
A Western water parable
By way of introduction, writer Robert Glennon recounts the tale of Ubar, “the fabled city of ancient Arabia known as ‘the Atlantis of the Sands.’ ” Sometime between 300 and 500 A.D., Ubar’s inhabitants drank dry the aquifer over which their city was built, and the town promptly collapsed into the emptied cavern below. That…
Election Bounce
Most green initiatives and proposals across the West failed at the ballot box Nov. 5. Oregon voters rejected a measure that would have required the labeling of genetically engineered foods; Montanans won’t be buying back any private hydroelectric dams (HCN, 10/14/02: Montanans may take back their dams); and in Utah, both the Radioactive Waste Restrictions…
Feds bail on snowmobile ban
WYOMING/MONTANA After nearly two years of pressure from the Bush administration, on Nov. 12 the National Park Service finally abandoned its plan to ban snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Instead, beginning in the winter of 2003-04, the number of snowmobiles will be capped, and the winter after that, all snowmobiles must have…
Religious labels are irrelevant
Dear HCN, l was startled to see one of our Idaho senatorial candidates characterized in HCN as a “Jewish Wall Street refugee” (HCN, 10/14/02: The politics of growth). “Wall Street” is relevant; “Jewish” is not. Mr. Blinken is not running as a Zionist, and how he prays has not been an issue here. In fact,…
Silver state gets a little wilder
NEVADA For wilderness boosters who’ve spent years trying to convince the rest of the country – and more than a few of their fellow Nevadans – that the desert around Las Vegas is not a wasteland, Nov. 5 brought some good news. President Bush signed the Clark County Public Lands and Natural Resources Act into…
Nonhumans aren’t a nuisance
Dear HCN, I want to thank HCN for its cover story (HCN, 10/28/02: Shawdow creatures) about nonhumans in Seattle and elsewhere. I work near the University of Washington, and I feel grateful every day that some nonhumans consent to be there at all, much less to thrive on our wastes, in our hedgerows and backyards.…
Report slams BLM’s land-exchange process
For years, watchdog groups have said the Bureau of Land Management underestimates the value of the land it trades away to states and private landowners, effectively giving away chunks of the public domain worth billions of dollars (HCN, 2/18/02: Groundswell for a monument?). A new report, released in mid-October, adds credence to those claims and…
Population growth is the problem
Dear HCN, Kudos to Ray Ring for his story, “The Politics of Growth,” in your Oct. 14 issue. But the article omitted the most crucial part of the “politics of growth.” His article and so many others you publish that describe all the symptoms of continued population growth, should end with the following sentence: “We…
Clinton-era monuments weather court challenge
A federal court has ruled that former President Clinton did, in fact, have the authority to create national monuments in four Western states. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, an off-road vehicle users group, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation had opposed the designation of six monuments in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. National monument designation limits…
What were Arizona voters thinking?
Dear HCN, Until I read your October article on Arizona politics, I felt secure in the assumption that Florida had long since outdistanced Texas in having the stupidest, most corruptible voting population in the nation. I now find that I can hold onto that belief only by assuming that the entire electorate of Arizona is…
Did the BLM Spike New Mexico’s ditches?
NEW MEXICO When federal land managers spread herbicide on rangelands 15 miles from Malaga, N.M., in mid-July, they had no idea what a mess they were making. A week later, a flash flood washed Spike 20P pellets into the Black River, contaminating a diversion ditch. “Supposedly, in moderate rain, the pellets would dissolve into the…
New ski resort goes big
IDAHO Construction has begun 90 miles north of Boise on the first new ski resort in North America in two decades (HCN, 12/20/99: An upscale development divides a town). Developer WestRock Resort envisions a year-round operation with a 3,600-acre ski hill, 2,000 luxury housing and hotel units, and an 18-hole golf course near tiny Donnelly,…
Ed Marston to the West: Grow up!
A profile of the outgoing publisher of High Country News
New Urbanism creates living communities
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Urban planner Jacob Brostoff lounges in a grassy common area and beams with admiration as he looks out over Orenco Station, a new development in a suburb of Portland. “This place is nothing like traditional suburbia,” he says. “I hated growing up in the…
Across the Columbia, a game of catch-up
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Pam Vanderheiden listens to a lot of radio – she certainly has the time. Every day, she joins the throngs of people who commute from Vancouver, Wash., across the Columbia River into Portland, Ore. Every day, the traffic is bad. “Getting home is a…
Planning’s poster child grows up
Oregon’s 30-year-old land-use rules may need a face-lift
The changing of the guard
Paul Larmer takes the helm of High Country News For the past five months, the High Country Foundation board has been searching for the right person to lead this institution into the future. The board received about 40 applications, from the supremely qualified to the supremely unqualified. They were screened and winnowed and weighed, and…
Conservation vote groups optimistic
Environmentalists redouble efforts on the local level
Wherever you go, sprawl isn’t far behind
Some of my wilderness-loving friends are abandoning California. Sick of the traffic, the smog, the subdivisions creeping up and destroying beloved landscapes, they’re bailing out in search of smaller communities in the true West. But urban sprawl is everywhere east of here. Like most other man-made problems, sprawl is not something you can run away…
Heard Around the West
Animal rights activists just don’t get it: Not all animals are wimps. A 4-year-old dachshund called Brutus loves jumping out of planes, according to his skydiving owner, Ron Sirull, who puts the pooch in a pouch to strap him to his chest. The daring duo took part in an air show at Vandenberg Air Force…
Farewell, whoopers, Western skies aren’t big enough for you
BOSQUE DEL APACHE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.M. – It’s dusk, and a distant rainstorm has left a double rainbow in the late-October sky. I sit near the banks of the Rio Grande, waiting for the sandhill cranes to arrive from the nearby fields where they feed all day. Right now, about 1,000 of them have…
Colorado community battles a toxic shipment
Locals confront the state’s first import of radioactive waste