Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news story, “Military in a dogfight for crowded skies.” Brother Erik’s days at the Spiritual Life Institute in Crestone, Colo., rely on peace and quiet for contemplative meditation. “We base our life on silence and solitude,” he says. He […]
Bill Taylor
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Salvage logging rider barrels into a shy seabird’s world
Even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 3.9 million acres of land along the Oregon and Washington coast as “critical habitat” for the marbled murrelet in late April, nothing changed for the Citizens Murrelet Survey Project. The members of the Corvallis, Ore.-based group continue their routine of getting up at 4:30 a.m. and […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
New life springs from tainted soil at a Denver school
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, in a special issue about outdoor education: Spreading the gospel DENVER, Colo. – Garden Place Academy stands in an aging Hispanic neighborhood, teeming with fast-food outlets and liquor stores. But inside, you wouldn’t know that an inch of top soil was removed from […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Arizona state land opens for conservation
Arizona environmentalists now have a chance to lease state lands for conservation purposes. As signed by Gov. Fife Symington, the Arizona Preserve Initiative allows conservation groups to lease state lands, estimated at 30,000 acres, within a three-mile radius of all major cities. An earlier bill from Symington proposed to open up over 700,000 acres of […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Joyriding kills
Joyriding kills Recklessness and speed apparently killed nine snowmobilers last winter in areas surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. In all of the past four years, only 10 people died. The recent deaths occurred when riders collided with other snowmobiles or with trees. “Anyone who is able to simply sit on a snowmobile and […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Salvage rider will destroy sacred sites
When Rip Lone Wolf felt it was time for his 14-year-old son’s vision quest, he did what Oregon’s Nez Perce have done for generations: He headed for the sacred land at Enola Hill. The 350-year-old Douglas fir trees that loom over this part of the Mount Hood National Forest, 45 miles east of Portland, shelter […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Contradictions on the Columbia
One environmentalist called it “a case of schizophrenia’: Oregon officials recently extended Boeing Aviation’s permit to divert water from the Columbia River even though the state has spent more than $1 billion augmenting the river’s flow to restore salmon. Environmentalists hadn’t paid much attention to Boeing’s permits in the past because the aerospace firm never […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Ellensburg wins back its beauty
-Hideous,” “grotesque” and “like massive spikes in a sci-fi movie,” were some of the kinder phrases residents of Ellensburg, Wash., employed to describe an addition to their community. The addition consisted of 12 power poles, 110 feet high, erected by Central Washington University through the center of town. The looming power poles spurred the formation […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
‘Boom’ potential at Rocky Flats
-Boom” potential at Rocky Flats When the FBI raided and closed the Rocky Flats nuclear facility just outside Denver, Colo., in 1989, agents found illegal emissions of radioactive materials. But more problems were on the way. Sam Cole of Physicians For Social Responsibility says that since then, plant managers have been “spinning their wheels,” and […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Dam destruction moves closer
The Elwha River in Washington was once home to the largest salmon in the continental United States. But when the Bureau of Reclamation built two dams in 1914 and 1927, 100-pound chinook were unable to make the downstream passage and disappeared. Now that the Clinton administration has allotted $111 million of its proposed 1997 budget […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Navajo role model
The group responsible for monitoring environmental issues on the Navajo Reservation, Diné CARE, has chosen Christine Benally as its new director. Benally earned a doctorate in environmental health from Colorado State University and has been involved with Diné CARE, an acronym for Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, since 1991. The group’s first project was to […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Take a seat
By the beginning of the 1996 school year, the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Public Affairs will choose a professor to hold the Timothy E. Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy. The chair honors the former Colorado senator who is currently undersecretary of state for global affairs, appointed by President Bill Clinton. […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Gold medal watchdog
To ensure that “environmentally and socially responsible choices’ are exercised in the planning of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Ivan Weber has founded the Olympic Watch League (OWL). Weber is a member of the environmental advisory board to the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, but he warns that environmental issues are not […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
‘Two weeks of hell’ saves a stand of old-growth trees
Six years ago, Francis Eatherington fought to keep loggers out of a roadless area in western Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest. A seasonal employee for the Forest Service, she felt passionately about the area’s 1,000-year-old trees and the spotted owls and runs of salmon and steelhead they harbored. With the help of a lawsuit, she and […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Clearing the air on the Colorado Plateau
CLEARING THE AIR ON THE COLORADO PLATEAU It’s decision time for the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission, the group charged with restoring clean air to the five-state Colorado Plateau. Congress established the commission, which includes five Western governors and industry and environmental representatives, in 1991, allowing it five years to develop a plan to reduce […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Tribe fights salvage logging
Tribe fights salvage logging An Indian tribe has jumped into the legal fray surrounding the salvage-logging rider signed by President Clinton last summer. The Klamath Tribes of southern Oregon filed a lawsuit March 13 against the Forest Service, charging that the federal government has shirked its responsibility to preserve traditional hunting and fishing grounds. When […]