On April 25, Carlos Menendez posed in front of an audience of the press and the Sierra Club leadership and joined the club. The former executive director of EDGE, a now-defunct advocacy group for immigrants, had refused to become a member for years. But Sierra Club president Adam Werbach had just announced that members rejected […]
Heather Abel
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams
What is New Mexico’s hardrock mining reclamation law? Why was BHP Copper Co. allowed to dump untreated tailings in Papua, New Guinea’s Ok Tedi River, destroying local agriculture and the communities dependent on it? How harmful is chromium to a stream? You can find the answers in Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams, the Mineral Policy Center’s […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Superfund strives for accountability
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In 1980, two years after toxins oozed out of a landfill and seeped into a suburban housing development called Love Canal in Niagara Falls in upstate New York, Congress passed the Superfund Law. Officially known as CERCLA, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
A company that moved mountains runs into a wall
Note: This reporter’s notebook article accompanies this issue’s feature story. HAYS, Mont. – When Bill Halver laughs, he throws his head back and bares the few teeth he has left. He is telling how he, a small-time rancher from a remote eastern Montana town, helped paralyze Pegasus Gold Corp., the state’s most powerful mining company. […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
The rise and fall of a gold mining company
Note: This timeline is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. 1855 The Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes move to what will later be known as the Fort Belknap Reservation, named for a U.S. Secretary of War. Late 19th century Pike Landusky and Pete Zortman strike gold in a corner of the reservation. 1895 Threatened […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Miners and Montana were too cozy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. During Kevin Keenan’s 24 years as a water-quality enforcer for the state of Montana, he often criticized the agencies for favoring the mining companies. In 1995, he retired because, “I knew my career was over. I was left out of enforcement issues for a […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Montana on the edge: A fight over gold forces the Treasure State to confront its future
Note: several sidebar articles, including a timeline of the Zortman-Landusky mine and accounts by several stakeholders telling their views in their own words, are available in the “Sidebar” section of this online issue. LINCOLN, Mont. – When you ask Lee Pattison whether she thinks a mammoth gold mine will be built a few miles from […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Mine wastes haunt a mythic river
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. On paper, the Blackfoot River, which begins at the Continental Divide and flows 132 miles to the west, doesn’t seem poetic. Roads and clear-cuts line its shores. Mining waste runs through its water. In 1975, a tailings dam broke, spilling sludge into the headwaters […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Gold mines exist in a shaky financial world
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Phelps Dodge sold its share in the McDonald Mine this fall, no one was much surprised. The company had tried to get rid of its 72.5 percent share in 1994, when, after having spent over $42 million, it asked its partner, Denver-based Canyon […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Montana’s army of writers tested the power of the pens
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Writer David James Duncan left Portland for Missoula and promptly became obsessed. It wasn’t supposed to work that way. The author of The River Why and The Brothers K had come to Montana to write his next novel and do some fishing, alongside other […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
A gold mine is a city until the ore runs out
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If the McDonald gold mine is built as currently planned, it will resemble a city of eight square miles. It will be thirsty. Each day it will use an average 2.5 million gallons of water, equivalent to 420,000 toilets flushing. It will also be […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Where one sister sees gain, another sees ruin and loss
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If a single family could illustrate Montana’s love-hate relationship with mining, it would be the Garlands, who run Garland’s General Store, along Lincoln’s main strip. Cecil and Barbara Garland established the store in the 1950s, but their daughter Teresa, 44, is in charge now. […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Don’t worry, says the McDonald Mine’s geologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. KD Feeback, geologist at the McDonald Mine, is not concerned about the hullabaloo over the environmental impact statement, the clean-water initiative or any opposition to the mine. KD Feeback: “If you look at the history of mine permitting, our EIS process is normal for […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Don’t trust the mining industry, says a retired rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Retired rancher Land Lindbergh doesn’t encourage casual visitors. His ranch is in a secluded canyon along the Blackfoot River, protected by four miles of unmarked dirt road and several locked gates. But once you find him, he is so warm that writer David James […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
The Wayward West
Three Wisconsin Chippewa tribes wanted to start a casino. Nearby tribes didn’t want the competition. They had given money to the Democratic Party. After the regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs endorsed the casino, higher-ups in Washington rejected it. Conflict of interest? Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says no. His old friend and former […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
The Wayward West
Patrick Shipsey wanted to take a stand against the folly of Oregon’s “open range” law. It allows ranchers to let their cattle roam and forces property owners to build fences if they want to keep them out (HCN, 11/25/96). Shipsey killed 11 of his neighbor’s cows after they wandered onto his property once too often. […]
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
The Wayward West
The Sierra Club finally has decided to take a stand on the touchy issue of immigration. The club currently has a neutral policy, but in March, members will be asked to vote on endorsing a drastic reduction in immigration. Pushing for this switch are “restrictionists’ who say that all environmental issues hinge on population size, […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
The Wayward West
Margaret Reeb first made headlines by saying “no.” She is making them again by saying “yes.” Last May, the deal between the Clinton administration and the Crown Butte Mining Company – the administration would pay $65 million if the mining company agreed not to mine – was thrown into question. It turned out that Reeb […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The Wayward West
After five years of ambivalence, the Animal Damage Control unit has changed its name. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, whose main job is to kill or remove animals such as coyotes that prey on livestock, is returning to its 1948 handle, Wildlife Services. According to a spokesman, the name change reflects a shift in […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
The Wayward West
They wanted to understand the real West, so they came to watch explosives blow up at an open pit copper mine and to fly over logged forests. Their conclusion: Environmentalists grossly exaggerate the land’s plight; the West is in pretty good shape. The group included about 20 House Republicans, including the three highest-ranking, Speaker Newt […]