WALKING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING In mid-July, Blake Chambliss came through Paonia while out on a 800-mile walk around Colorado. The retired architect is trying to raise awareness of the state’s “affordable housing crisis.” Housing is considered affordable if it eats up less than a third of your monthly paycheck, he said. A quarter of Colorado […]
Laura Paskus
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Feds pass roadless headache to states
States may have a say in forest protection — but can they afford it?
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Follow-up
For the first time since 1993, the Bureau of Land Management has revised its fees for mining claims (HCN, 3/8/93: Mining reform may hit paydirt in 1993). Now, to mine or drill a claim on BLM land, users will have to pay a $30 one-time claim fee, plus $125 per year — unless they’re “small […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Dear Friends
A presidential visit Readers Nicki Leniton and Brett Nelson, schoolteachers who live in Carbondale, Colo., came by the High Country News office in mid-July driving a Ford Crown Victoria and towing a 12-foot-tall effigy of George W. Bush. The two are part of a nationwide effort by the nonprofit True Majority (founded by Ben Cohen […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
An icon of the Rio Grande has all but vanished in the wild
Consensus efforts and millions of dollars haven’t saved the silvery minnow
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Follow-up
“If you build it, we will burn it!” read a fax claiming responsibility for a fire at a West Jordan, Utah, lumberyard in mid-June. The fire, set by the Earth Liberation Front, which now tops the FBI’s list of domestic terrorists, caused $1.5 million in damage to Stock Building Supply (HCN, 9/15/03: Burning one for […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Scientific Principle: Klamath whistleblower throws in the towel
In 2002, federal biologist Mike Kelly “blew the whistle” on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the agency responsible for protecting threatened and endangered salmon (HCN, 6/23/03: Sound science goes sour). As one of the scientists charged with ensuring that enough water was left in the Klamath River for rare coho salmon, Kelly discovered that […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Follow-up
Chalk one up for endangered species. For the last five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ignored citizen petitions to list endangered species if a plant or animal is already on the agency’s “candidate list.” Currently, there are 280 candidates, none of them protected under the Endangered Species Act owing to a lack […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Food on every plate, art on every wall
If I were asked to state the great objective which Church and State are both demanding for the sake of every man and woman and child in this country, I would say that that great objective is “a more abundant life.” —Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933 What would New Mexico be without its wind-worn mesas, without […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Follow-up
Is clean water bad for business? Last year, the New Mexico Environment Department told Phelps Dodge Mining Company to clean up contaminated groundwater beneath its Tyrone Mine (HCN, 5/12/03: Phelps tries to Dodge bond). The state recently upheld its decision despite the company’s appeal, leading a company spokesman to tell the press: “We think it […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
In Search of Solidarity
Will hard times renew historic alliances between environmentalists and labor unions?
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Follow-up
The Duwamish Indians have had their land confiscated by the United States government and then by the city of Seattle (which is named after a Duwamish chief), and their status as a federally-recognized tribe rescinded by the Bush administration, but the tribe is determined to keep fighting (HCN, 6/10/02: Duwamish? Duwamish who?). The 560-member tribe […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Senate rejects Energy Bill – again
But the energy industry is amply funding its champions’ re-election
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Follow-up
With buddies like Steve Williams, endangered species don’t need predators, pesticides or encroaching pavement. In early March, Williams — head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — told Congress that money slated for designating critical habitat for endangered species could be better spent elsewhere within the agency (HCN, 6/23/03: Who needs critical habitat?). Nuclear […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Race track
Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo may have blown big bucks for nothing. The incumbent senator, who has already spent $1.5 million on his re-election campaign, will not be facing a Democratic challenger in November. According to the Idaho Statesman, would-be Democratic candidate Michael Kennedy’s campaign organizer missed the filing deadline by seconds, after the first challenger […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Follow-up
Republican hounds are already after the Democratic fox. When presidential hopeful John Kerry told an online environmental news service, “That black stuff is hurting us,” he went on to say that America’s dependence on oil is “hurting our health … cost(ing) us unbelievable security disadvantages … and contributing to global warming.” Within hours, Reps. Richard […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
California scores a goal for perchlorate cleanup
But will the public or the defense industry come out ahead?
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Follow-up
Interior Department employees, check your in-boxes for a new message: In February, the nonprofit Campaign to Protect America’s Lands sent e-mails to almost 60,000 of the department’s 70,000 employees, asking them to call a confidential hotline — 1-866-LANDTIP — and report proposed anti-environmental regulations (HCN, 1/19/04: Coming Soon to a Wilderness Near You). Next November, […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2004: The Last Open Range
Follow-up
Two federal judges are duking it out in Yellowstone’s snowmobile saga. Last December, Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down a National Park Service plan that would have allowed 1,100 snowmobiles daily into the park, and instead re-instated a ban on the machines (HCN, 1/19/04: Yellowstone snowmobilers suffer whiplash). But in early February, Judge Clarence Brimmer blocked […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Follow-up
President Bush is ready to “meet the environmental challenges of the future”: If approved by Congress, his $2.4 trillion proposed budget will cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 7.2 percent. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the National Marine Fisheries Service, will receive $300 million less than it did in 2004. The […]