Washington state voters are sure to elect a woman to the U.S. Senate Nov. 3. The question is, which woman – Democratic incumbent Patty Murray or Republican Linda Smith. Only nine seats in the U.S. Senate are now held by women. Smith jumped into the Senate race after serving two terms in the U.S. House […]
Dustin Solberg
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Trading away the West
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
The Wayward West
Poet Gary Snyder won’t be talking to prospective foresters at Oregon State University’s School of Forestry. Because his talk was scheduled to occur just before election day – when Oregonians will vote on a clear-cutting ban – forestry dean George Brown canceled Snyder’s visit (HCN, 9/14/98). “I did not want to put Gary … in […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
An activist dies in the forest
Logging spokesmen say the death of an Earth First! activist should serve to get protesters out of the woods; Earth First! says: Not a chance. David Chain, 24, of Austin, Texas, was killed when he was struck in the head by a falling tree Sept. 17. He’d been trying to stop logging on land owned […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A familiar name returns to Western politics
Some say the West has its own version of the Kennedy clan – the Udalls. A generation of Westerners has heard of Morris Udall, the former Arizona congressman, and Stewart, his brother, former secretary of the Interior. These days it’s their sons who are in the news. Morris’ son Mark, now a Colorado state legislator, […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
The Wayward West
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt have agreed to settle a squabble over state-owned school trust lands isolated by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument; now it awaits approval in Washington, D.C. (HCN, 5/25/98). The deal means Utah will trade 377,000 acres of state lands for $50 million and 139,000 acres of federal […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
On The Trail
In Utah, Republican Rep. Merrill Cook was fishing for green votes when he told his urban Wasatch Front district that he wants to see more Beehive State wilderness protected – without saying exactly how much (HCN, 8/3/98). But his support for wilderness didn’t endear him to environmental groups. In early September, the Sierra Club and […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
High desert pronghorn
In the northern reaches of the Great Basin, a herd of more than 6,000 pronghorn antelope roams across a high desert range. Two islands of this vast desert are protected by federal refuges, but thousands of acres that straddle the Oregon-Nevada border separate them. A coalition of environmental groups led by the Oregon Natural Desert […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Zero Circles
ZERO CIRCLES Daniel Dancer’s “Zero Circles Project” sets out to end logging in the West’s public forests by illustrating the history of logging on these lands, as well as illuminating the wonders of the native forests that remain. He has trekked across forests of the West, forming circles of fire, people or wood – then […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
Irrigators speak a volume
After a federal water commission published Water in the West: The Challenge for the Next Century (HCN, 6/22/98), a 250-member industry group known as the Family Farm Alliance went to work on a report of its own. Irrigated agriculture has gotten the blame for the West’s water woes, members say, and they want to clear […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
On The Trail: Election 1998
Around the corner from the Cheyenne Club in downtown Cheyenne, Wyo., Democrats are throwing together a campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Jim Geringer. Their man is 48-year-old John Vinich, a 24-year veteran of the state legislature from the town of Hudson who filed for governor just five minutes before the deadline. In the Republican […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 1998: We are shaped by the sound of wind, the slant of sunlight
Back from the brink
A prehistoric fish that once thrived throughout the Missouri and Mississippi rivers is teetering on the brink of extinction. Only 250 wild pallid sturgeons remain in the upper Missouri River of Montana and North Dakota, and they are growing old. Each of these fish is between 40 and 50 years old. “Most of those are […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Tribes struggle for a free press
-On the banner of our paper it says, “The newspaper of the Navajo people.” We’re here first and foremost for them. Not for the government; not for the politicians; not for one single person or viewpoint.” * Tom Arviso Jr., editor of the Navajo Times, in From the Front Lines; Free Press Struggles in Native […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Writing on native ground in New Mexico
ZUNI PUEBLO, N.M. – From far out in the high desert of western New Mexico, green-leaved Chinese elms create a sharp burst of color, an island in the sagebrush and juniper and high red mesas that make up the Zuni landscape. This is home to 6,400 Zunis, one of 19 Indian pueblos that spread across […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
The Wayward West
Western Republicans are tightening the noose on an inland Northwest ecosystem study. Riders on the appropriations bill in the House and Senate would give the 4-year-old Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project 4 months to live (HCN, 6/23/97). “We made an endangered species list for bureaucratic boondoggles and (the project) just got listed,” Idaho Rep. […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
The Wayward West
Vast tracts of inholdings in the Mojave National Preserve in California are for sale – and its National Park Service caretakers can only watch the new neighbors move in (HCN, 4/14/97). Newcomers could mean 100 houses and a golf course. Just across the state line in Nevada, a county wants to build a major airport. […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Utah finds 3 million more wild acres
Equipped with an old Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and a stack of large-scale topographical maps, Kevin Walker spent two years combing southern Utah. He was looking for wild, unprotected tracts of Bureau of Land Management land that might have been left out of a coalition’s wilderness proposal. His team – Walker helped lead the citizens’ inventory […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Takings clarified
-If I tell my daughter that she cannot play with her ball in the house, she has lost something of value – the right to play with the ball in the house. I have regulated what she can do with the ball, but I haven’t “taken” it. She is still free to play with it […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Judges get FREE lessons on property rights
The Montana resorts around Yellowstone National Park are a long way from Washington, D.C., Cleveland, or even Denver, and that, as much as a thirst for knowledge, may be what has attracted about 180 federal judges since 1992 to seminars on property rights and environmental issues. These aren’t just any federal judges. These are the […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Judge disciplines L-P
Judge disciplines L-P At a criminal trial last month in Denver, a federal judge fined the Louisiana-Pacific Corp. a record $37 million for breaking environmental laws at its Olathe, Colo., waferboard plant and for selling a product whose quality didn’t meet the company’s claims. The fine is the latest chapter in the plant’s stormy history. […]