Home siding by Louisiana-Pacific Inc. sold as a cheap alternative to cedar turned out to be more expensive than expected. When it swelled, buckled, soaked up water, rotted and even grew a mushroomlike fungus in wet weather, customers began frantically calling the company about their Inner Seal siding (HCN, 8/21/95). Now, Louisiana-Pacific says it will […]
Katie Fesus
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Coyote Angels
Bart Koehler, director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and a co-founder of Earth First!, always took time out from fighting for environmental issues to sing about them. Now he and his Coyote Angels band have released a CD featuring songs about the wild life of the West. Some, dedicated to green greats such as […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
The High Uintas need help
Salt Lake City environmentalist Dick Carter is at it again, this time founding a new nonprofit, the High Uintas Preservation Council. After the Utah Wilderness Association – the group that tried to forge a compromise in the state’s wilderness debate – closed shop last spring, Carter took a few months off to hike. But the […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
New Mexico environmentalists lease state lands
For the first time in the history of the West, environmentalists have won a lease for state-owned land. Forest Guardians and the Southwest Environmental Center submitted a joint bid for the 550-acre tract on the Rio Puerco River in northwestern New Mexico; much to their surprise, they got it. “Now we have to shift from […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Power is no longer everything
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed a historic record of decision Oct. 9 that aims to protect the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The new rule calls for regulating flow rates from Glen Canyon Dam to minimize erosion and unnatural water-level fluctuations, and it makes Glen Canyon the first hydroelectric dam mandated to generate power […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
What’s not on the label
The “secret” ingredients in a few widely used pesticides won’t be secret anymore, thanks to a small nonprofit group in Eugene, Ore. The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides won a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Oct. 16 against both the Environmental Protection Agency and the pesticide industry, which had claimed that “inert” ingredients are […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Urgent news from the front
The battle over whether to industrialize Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front has heated up, thanks to a proposal from the Forest Service to allow new oil and gas leases in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The preferred alternative in a draft environmental impact statement would make 52 percent of the 1.8 million-acre forest available for […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Frequent fliers fleece Grand Canyon
One-third of the air-tour operators in Grand Canyon National Park are breaking the law by not paying a required $25 per flight. According to data compiled by the Sierra Club, some companies such as Las Vegas Airlines and Air Nevada allegedly fail to report their business to the Park Service, and two operators openly refuse […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
What happens above ground…
For thousands of years, water has percolated beneath southwestern Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains to form weird marble caverns with limestone chandeliers. Now, National Park Service officials say a neighbor’s mining, logging and grazing may be altering the delicate chemical composition of the caves’ water sources. The “neighbor” is the Siskiyou National Forest, which completely surrounds the […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Congratulations
When the Western Colorado Congress gave its “Not-So-Smart Growth” awards Sept. 21, it was no surprise when the “winners’ failed to show up. The grassroots coalition held the event to showcase the worst examples of development on the Western Slope – a follow-up of sorts to Gov. Roy Romer’s 1995 “Smart Growth” awards. Had its […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
A conservative legislature may move to the middle
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. When the Montana Legislature last met in 1995 (they meet every other year), the Republican majority weakened many environmental laws, including water quality regulations that protected the state’s clear streams and rivers. “They (the Republican legislature) angered every demographic group for one reason or another,” […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Moderates may gain in most conservative state
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. The Idaho Legislature – considered the most conservative assembly in the West – probably won’t change too dramatically this election. Democrats are hoping to double their seats, but even if they do, they’ll still hold barely a third of the Senate and less than half […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Public-lands issues loom large in November
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. A hot election issue this year in Wyoming is the fate of the state’s 3.6 million-acre school trust lands, which generate money for the public school system. The Legislature approved the sale of some 35,000 acres in 1995, despite well-attended protests. Primary results show little […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Who snatched the salmon?
The fish had beaten the odds. After swimming 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean, past eight dams and up to over 6,000 feet, the almost three-foot-long endangered chinook salmon finally reached the Sawtooth Hatchery in Stanley, Idaho. It was one of only 132 adult salmon to make the journey this year to spawn in the […]