Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. STANLEY, Idaho – Since it was set up 25 years ago, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area has been colored by a contentious relationship between the Forest Service and private landowners, whose inholdings – including homes, ranches and businesses – account for 25,000 of the […]
Emily Miller
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Salmon says no bears, no way
SALMON, Idaho – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to reintroduce grizzly bears to the Northern Rockies got a tense reception at a public hearing in Salmon, Idaho, Oct. 8. For more than four hours, speakers blasted the plan before an audience of 200, saying grizzlies have no place in Idaho. At issue is […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Rafters vs. fish
River outfitters and their supporters rallied in Stanley, Idaho, Sept. 23 to say that the Forest Service had gone too far. Led by owners of The River Company, some 50 central Idaho residents protested the agency’s shutting down of the Salmon River. The agency has been periodically closing off parts of the river to floaters […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Wolves take heavy toll in Montana
In the Tobacco Valley of northwest Montana, wolves killed at least 30 sheep in six weeks. One rancher lost 28 animals on a single night in June, prompting the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife to shell out its largest-ever wolf-kill reimbursement – $4,000. This was one of the worst wolf attacks on livestock in the West, […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Maps may save lives
Participants in an Oregon mapping project want to keep history from repeating itself. When five people were killed by landslides that hit their homes or cars in 1996, many observers blamed logging of steep slopes above the houses and highways. They said the Oregon Department of Forestry should have prevented the situation (HCN, 12/23/96). Defending […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Rid-a-Bird works too well
Rid-a-Bird, a two-man company in Wilton, Iowa, has been killing unwanted birds for over 40 years with the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval. But two dead raptors in Washington have called into question the company’s method of pest control. Rid-a-Bird’s product lures birds to a perch containing fenthion, a fatal nerve poison which paralyzes them. The […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Bigger might be better for Utah’s parks
Lockhart Basin isn’t part of southern Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, but activists and park managers are saying it should be. Just outside the park’s eastern boundaries, the basin will soon be home to a drilling rig from Legacy Energy Corp., which has a permit from the Bureau of Land Management to explore for oil. Opponents […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
An Indian casino would sit on ancient graves
On Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Reservation, some residents want to make money on the ruins of an ancestral village – literally. A year ago, the tribal council agreed to construct a new gambling casino near a freeway exit 10 miles south of Tucson. But there’s a hitch: The site, Punta de Agua, is thought to contain […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Bombs tested in Nevada
The Department of Energy is worried that its nuclear bombs won’t blow up. So on July 2, it performed the first in a series of underground detonations at its Nevada Test Site, a 1,350 square-mile area in Nye County, northwest of Las Vegas. The Department of Energy insists the tests are safe and necessary, but […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Bad blood over good sheep
-I’ve had it with the land-grant system. They don’t care about people. They care about money, power, profits and greed,” charges Lyle McNeal, founder of Utah State University’s Navajo Sheep Project, which brought traditional Churro sheep back from the brink of extinction (HCN, 5/1/95). Now, the Navajo Sheep Project is in the process of becoming […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
A timber town yells for help
Town officials in Forks, Wash., have been pressing state and federal governments to make good on promises to bail out timber towns. They say money promised under President Clinton’s 1993 Northwest Economic Adjustment Initiative, which helped timber-dependent towns with federal funds, hasn’t reached the communities that need it most. Now, Forks has convinced the state, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
A do-over in Telluride
Environmental activists may get a second shot at containing the ski industry in Telluride, Colo. Supervisor Robert Storch of the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests has reversed his approval of a ski area expansion onto public land. “In the interest of fairness,” Storch wrote the regional forester on June 30, “I have agreed […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
Co-existence criticized
If five environmental groups have their way in Wyoming, grizzly bears won’t have their territory invaded by oil and gas exploration teams on 2,000 acres of Shoshone National Forest. The groups fear that the exploration will lead to road building and drilling. The leases sought are in the Brent Creek and Lava Mountain/Sheridan Pass areas, […]
Posted inAugust 4, 1997: Vanishing habitat
Trouble for grizzly bear recovery plan
After a four-year, $250,000 effort, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released its draft plan for restoring grizzly bears in western Montana and central Idaho. Now, Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, want to cut the project off at the knees. Hailed by many as a groundbreaking compromise between the timber industry, […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Hanford workers point the finger
Since a May 14 minor explosion at the Hanford, Wash., Plutonium Reclamation Facility, four employees say they are experiencing symptoms associated with toxic chemical exposure. Ten employees were outside the facility in a trailer at the time of the explosion, which was caused by chemicals accidentally allowed to concentrate in one of the plant’s holding […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Get your ash off our mountain
People leave things in wilderness areas: toilet paper, orange rinds, even beer cans. But in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff, Ariz., it’s human remains that are littering the Coconino National Forest. Last month, Native Americans in Arizona were upset when newspapers reported that a deceased Navajo woman’s ashes had been scattered in the […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Lakes vanish – and then return
Over the past decade, a 10-mile stretch of lakes, creeks and a waterfall in southwestern Washington’s Lincoln County disappeared. This spring, they came back. Pacific Lake, Tule Lake and Delzer Falls, all part of the Lake Creek water system, are among the watering holes that dried up, much to the dismay of local residents. A […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Climbing ban fails
The Forest Service recently reversed its February ban on rock climbing at Cave Rock in South Lake Tahoe, despite Indian claims that the site is sacred. Agency policy now prohibits climbers from installing new hardware in the rock but allows them to scale the cliff. Washoe Indians say the continued presence of recreationists and some […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Bills target Antiquities Act
Still seething over President Clinton’s 1996 creation of the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument last fall, Utah lawmakers are trying to turn their anger into law. A bill co-sponsored by Utah Republican Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett would require the president to get approval from a state’s governor and from Congress before establishing […]
Posted inJune 23, 1997: On the trail of mining's corporate nomads
Tribes say count us out
Efforts to restore salmon populations in the Columbia and Snake rivers just lost valuable support. Four Native American tribes have withdrawn from a collaboration with the federal government and three Western states, charging that the process favors hydropower, not fish. The tribes, members of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, had been participants in a […]