What was planned as an angry protest turned into a jubilant celebration on Nov. 18, after Arizona Public Service agreed to restore Fossil Creek, nearly dry for more than 80 years (HCN, 11/22/99). “It’s huge,” says Lisa Force of the Center for Biological Diversity, which had planned to picket APS headquarters before the decision was […]
Karen Mockler
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Pumice mine is a test case
The U.S. Forest Service is suing an Arizona mining company for taking pumice from the San Francisco Peaks. If Tufflite Inc. loses, it could owe the government up to $300,000 for illegally mining on the Coconino National Forest northeast of Flagstaff. The mining company insists it owes nothing because pumice is considered unique and therefore […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Water crusader wants allies
Perry R. Wilkes Jr. has been quietly working to change Albuquerque’s water policies for 25 years. An aeronautical engineer, Wilkes may lack formal training in water, but he reads, goes to meetings and in the last year, he’s gotten organized. He and his wife, Bette, founded the nonprofit Citizens for a Rational Water Policy. What […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Hard times in rural Idaho
Some portions of rural Idaho that suffered economically 15 years ago are doing well today. Formerly sleepy spots like the Teton Valley are faced with exploding populations, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., are growing together along a corridor of development. But not all of Idaho is booming. The state’s third Profile of Rural […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Rivers among us
Even in the arid West, water wars aren’t inevitable, according to a new study by Reason Public Policy Institute in Los Angeles. Collaborative local planning efforts are an effective method of balancing water needs while protecting the environment, according to the 35-page study Rivers Among Us: Local Watershed Preservation and Resource Management in the Western […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Tribe slowed down on road to showbiz
Many Indian tribes are land rich and cash poor. Not the Muckleshoots. The 1,500-member tribe lives on a tiny 3,500-acre reservation between Seattle and Mount Rainier, and last year, its casino and bingo hall brought in an estimated $48 million. For more than seven years, the tribe has been working on another moneymaker: the White […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Dirty air in the deep of winter
Snowmobiles produce nearly all the air pollution in Yellowstone National Park, even though other vehicles outnumber them 16 to 1, says a new report by the National Park Service’s Air Resources Division. Air Quality Concerns Related to Snowmobile Usage found that one winter’s worth of emissions by snowmobiles amounts to 78 percent of all carbon […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Risks multiply for land managers
Beatings, bombings, death threats and other acts of violence against Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management employees are on the rise. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), agency workers or buildings were attacked or threatened nearly 100 times in 1998 alone. One Forest […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
A tired stream gains new steam
STRAWBERRY, Ariz. – Below Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, Fossil Springs bubbles from the ground to water a dry land. From the springs, Fossil Creek used to flow almost 15 miles through scrubby mesquite and pinon trees before it emptied into the Verde River. But for almost a century, a dam built a quarter-mile from the springs […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Figuring out FERC
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “A tired stream gains new steam.” Relicensing of a hydroelectric project begins at least two years before the old license expires. After an application is filed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gives public notice, and any member […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
The sacred comes home
In the spring of 1991, the Hopi and Navajo Nations asked Sotheby’s auction house in New York City to remove three ceremonial masks from its annual “Fine American Indian Arts’ auction. Sotheby’s refused the requests, Hopi and Navajo dismay got national coverage, and Elizabeth Sackler, a native New Yorker with a Ph.D. in public history, […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Life near Rocky Flats
A new major study looks at the public-health effects of Rocky Flats, 16 miles from downtown Denver, where triggers for nuclear bombs were built for more than 35 years. Funded by the federal Department of Energy and administered by the Colorado Department of Public Health, Historical Public Exposure Studies says public risks were low. John […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
CAP could feed a new Arizona lake
Sonoran Desert dwellers between Tucson and Phoenix might one day be able to boat the Colorado River without leaving their backyards. Rural Pinal County says it wants to take a billion gallons of Colorado River water and pump it into a manmade lake. Thanks to the Central Arizona Project, the three-quarter mile, $7 million reservoir […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
See the secret desert
X-Files fans and conspiracy theorists dream of visiting Area 51, the test site for America’s advanced aircraft and weapons systems – and, some say, the place where UFOs are hidden. Now the curious can visit, sort of. In Los Angeles, an exhibit by the Center for Land Use Interpretation offers an inside look at the […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Developer told to scale back
Developer Jim Mehen hoped to build a golf course and gated community of 300 luxury homes on his 407 acres near Flagstaff, Ariz. He’d revised his plans repeatedly in the past two years to meet county concerns. But misgivings about development in the volcanic caldera and wetland remained, and opposition to the project gathered momentum. […]