Lion plan draws heat from scientists, enviros
Brett Wilkison
County and Forest Service bury the shovel
A long-running dispute over an infamous dirt road in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest may be winding down. The Forest Service and Elko County, Nev., are asking a federal judge to approve a settlement over the county’s claim to South Canyon Road in Jarbidge Canyon. Although the agency still refuses to recognize the county’s assertion of […]
Corporations ask feds to set emissions limits
Last month, executives from six of the country’s largest energy companies made a startling request to federal lawmakers: Set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. At an April 4 climate conference held by New Mexico Sens. Pete Domenici, R, and Jeff Bingaman, D, the leaders of Shell, General Electric and others said they would prefer […]
Guest farmworkers get a new deal
Foreign workers in the West’s fields and orchards have a new bodyguard: the United Farm Workers of America. Last month, the union signed a contract with Global Horizons, a California-based company that’s one of the country’s largest suppliers of foreign agricultural labor. At peak harvest, the company employs more than 4,000 workers in 28 states, […]
Enviros wary of ‘Nevada-style’ wilderness bill
Utah proposal includes public-lands sale, utility corridors
Dam removal considered for Klamath
As salmon suffer, truce settles on river
Fishermen blamed for salmon troubles
Salvation for the Northwest’s endangered salmon will come through further cuts in fishing, according to a senior White House official. James Connaughton, head of the Council on Environmental Quality, announced at Portland’s Salmon 2100 conference in January that salmon recovery will have to come through curbing fishing, along with upgrades to outdated hatcheries, which may […]
Public acres for sale
President Bush revives proposal to sell desert and forest land
Downwinders say fallout study numbers don’t add up
Almost all of the 140 million Americans alive during the nuclear bomb tests of the 1950s were exposed, in some degree, to radioactive fallout. Thirty million have died or are expected to die of cancer. Yet only a tiny fraction of those cases — no more than 16,000 — can be attributed to nuclear fallout, […]
BLM rolls back environmental review
The Bureau of Land Management is punching holes in the National Environmental Policy Act big enough to drive a 30-ton thumper truck through. In January, the BLM proposed adding 11 new categorical exclusions to the 73 already existing. The designation, used for projects routinely found to have no significant environmental impact, allows the agency to […]
Congressional group plans for oil’s decline
Within the next 20 years, worldwide oil production will likely peak and no longer meet demand (HCN, 12/12/05: Final Energy Frontier). Now, some members of Congress are saying we need to prepare for life after that point. “We are going to peak, and we should be planning for it, and we’re not,” says Rep. Tom […]
Judge orders litigating enviros to pony up
A federal judge is forcing environmentalists to back their challenge of a logging project with cold, hard cash. In November, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ordered a halt to logging on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, outside of Butte, after three environmental groups appealed the judge’s earlier decision to allow the 2,600-acre timber harvest. Then, on […]
Dear friends
Welcome, new interns! Sarah Gilman arrived in Paonia for a winter internship, still smiling after a summer of trail work on Colorado’s 14,421-foot Mount Massive. A native of Boulder, Colo., Sarah is no stranger to the Paonia area. She spent two summers working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, just over the hill in Gothic, […]
