A writer takes a 1,600-mile Greyhound bus ride from Salt Lake City into Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, and listens to the stories of the Westerners he meets.
Also in this issue: The Bureau of Land Management is tightening its standards on what it considers worthwhile, “substantive” public comments from citizen activists.
Highway plans aim to keep habitat — and wildlife — in one place
In the Cascade Range, the question isn’t why animals cross the road, but how they can do so without becoming salamander road-cakes or elk a la SUV. The answer, say Washington state transportation officials and biologists, lies under and over a humming mountain highway. In June, the state’s Department of Transportation released plans for widening…
Imperfect easement system still works
Here in Wisconsin, I don’t see anything like the conservation easement abuses that Ray Ring describes as occurring in Montana (HCN, 5/30/05: Write-off on the Range). I wonder if Ray has captured anything approaching the typical land trust or conservation easement experience. Montana has been a true leader in the private-sector voluntary protection of working…
‘Write-off’ was right on
Wow, Ray Ring just hit one out of the park (HCN, 5/30/05: Write-off on the Range). Great reporting, well written, and just another reason why HCN is my favorite publication of all. David W. Mayer Louisville, Colorado This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline ‘Write-off’ was right on.
Setting the record straight on easement values
I was disappointed that you perpetuated a common falsehood about valuing conservation easements (HCN, 5/30/05: Write-off on the Range). The article defines an easement’s value as “… the difference between what a parcel of land would be worth if it were developed and what it is worth when the development rights are voluntarily limited.” Wrong.…
Don’t point finger at land trusts
Thanks a lot, HCN, for trying to kill another effort at environmental conservation in the West (HCN, 5/30/05: Write-off on the Range). As if it’s not hard enough to get landowners to think about conserving resources, then the government tries to put “cash-poor” landowners out of the running by getting rid of their incentives to…
Tax credits are a shell game
Regarding Colorado’s tax credits for conservation easements (HCN, 5/30/05: Colorado tax credits make easements work for working people): That is sure a shell game if I ever saw one. The Colorado Congress certainly found a way to help the rich get richer at the expense of all other taxpayers. Why doesn’t the state just buy…
Follow-up
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden announced he plans to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release water from its dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to help endangered salmon and steelhead (HCN, 6/13/05: “For salmon, a crucial moment of decision”). Although NOAA Fisheries, the agency charged with protecting the fish,…
Easement story sells readers short
As a colorful portrait of a controversial, charismatic guy who likes horsepower, caffeine and litigation, two thumbs up to Ray Ring’s “Write-off on the Range” (HCN, 5/30/05: Write-off on the Range). As a piece of investigative journalism providing a useful, balanced look at conservation easements, the piece falls far short of HCN’s usually high standards.…
Wyoming’s unsung wilderness heroes
Wyoming’s wilderness culture has its heroes, but unlike the cowboys who get so much play in the state, they are largely unknown. In Ahead of Their Time, a new book covering four decades of the Wyoming wilderness movement, editors Broughton Coburn and Leila Bruno try to remedy that by asking writers to choose a wilderness…
A tasty history of the Southwest
If you think fusion food was something California chefs cooked up in the 1980s, you’re off by a couple of centuries. Gardens of New Spain opens in 1492, the year Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand kicked the Moors out of Spain. The Moors fled, but they had already left an indelible mark on Iberian cuisine:…
Developer blocks trail to a famous ‘fourteener’
Ambitious hikers eager to scale all of Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners” almost had one less peak to cross off their list. Texas developer Rusty Nichols owns a 300-acre patchwork of mining claims on Wilson Peak, a 14,017-foot-tall mountain in southwestern Colorado whose image adorns calendars, posters and Coors beer cans worldwide. Last July, citing liability concerns,…
Peering into the life of the prairie
In Prairie: A Natural History, Candace Savage celebrates the beauty and diversity of the great grasslands of North America, a land she describes as “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.” The lavishly illustrated book features colorful photographs by James R. Page and charming pen-and-ink drawings by Joan A. Williams. 300 pages, hardcover,…
Frozen in time: Endangered species science
If scientists have learned anything new about the genetics of rare species in the past three decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may not want to hear about it. In January, H. Dale Hall, the Service’s Region 2 director, released a new policy for developing recovery plans for rare species: Scientists are to use…
The more the West changes, the more it stays the same
Bernard DeVoto, a man with few sacred cows, wrote a monthly column on the West for Harper’s magazine from 1946 until 1955. From “The Easy Chair,” he expounded on everything from how cattlemen destroyed Western watersheds to why the West is “systematically looted and has always been bankrupt.” Now, history professor Edward K. Muller has…
Hungry sea lions put salmon-savers in a bind
The California sea lions that snarfed up 3,000 chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River have finally headed south to mate. But their big appetites this spring have some fishermen calling for the quick removal and even killing of the protected mammals. “Our fishermen are very concerned. It’s their livelihood and they are…
Sometimes it’s hard to tell who the turkeys are
So you think wildlife biology is a science? Sure it is, if estimating wild turkey populations by counting the birds that run across the road in front of your truck is “science.” In Stalking the Big Bird, an often-amusing tale of his 27 years with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, biologist Harley Shaw reveals…
Factory wants to squeeze cheese underground
A massive cheese factory, mired in controversy over water-quality violations, has innovative plans for its wastewater: It wants to pump the milky liquid deep underground. In December, the Sacramento Bee exposed wastewater disposal violations at Hilmar Cheese Company near Modesto, which produces over 1 million pounds of cheese every day. A subsequent state investigation into…
This mayor sees a different shade of green
NAME Greg Nickels VOCATION Mayor of Seattle, D, elected in 2001 AGE 49 NOTED FOR Starting a mayoral “green team” to combat global warming HE SAYS “If we expect (people in) the community to change their habits, we need to lead by example.” Early this year, while the Pacific Northwest endured one of the…
Fury
When Fury finally dies, he picks a back pasture on my parents’ Colorado ranch to rest his old horse body. The neighbor across the fence calls to tell my mother this, that he can see a dead horse from his kitchen window. This neighbor is not well liked. He is new. His house is new.…
The Healing River
I live on a remote tributary of the Gila River in a still-wild corner of Catron County, New Mexico. Well, not “on” the river, really; no one really lives on a river, unless they’re on a houseboat on the constipated Colorado, or a converted shrimper on Orbison’s bayou. More specifically, I live far enough from…
The Great Divide
It is 7:30 in the morning on July 24, 2004 — the day of Utah’s biggest holiday. Salt Lake City’s usually reserved downtown is bustling. Parade floats are parked haphazardly along side streets. Spectators spill out of the city’s light-rail system, lugging lawn chairs and water jugs as they scope out prime sidewalk real estate…
Crossings
It’s that time of year again, when we set aside our traditional cover story and serve up a spread of summer reading. If there’s a theme that runs through the essays in this issue, it’s that of “crossings.” Tim Westby takes a marathon trip around the West by Greyhound bus, crossing deep economic and cultural…
Dear friends
SUMMER BREAK This will be the last issue of HCN that you’ll receive for a month. The staff is taking an issue off to spend time with family and friends and enjoy the sunny Paonia summer. Look for the next issue to hit your mailbox around July 25th. CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS We’d like to make…
Writing a comment letter? Better make it good
Agencies say mass e-mails and form letters don’t mean much
Private landowners become lords of the public estate
In Arizona, a strange dispute illustrates a growing problem
Suburbia blasts through a national monument
With a road headed its way, a new development takes root on Albuquerque’s West side
Heard Around the West
UTAH How did that quote by Benjamin Franklin begin: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost ….” Didn’t it end with the loss of a kingdom? Well, a similar phenomenon may be occurring in the mining industry, which is going great guns, except for one problem: There aren’t enough 12-foot-tall tires around for…