NEVADA With Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expected to make a recommendation to President Bush sometime this winter about the Yucca Mountain project, a General Accounting Office audit has raised serious questions about the energy department’s investigation into the proposed nuclear waste dump site. The report, which was leaked to the press on Nov. 30, notes […]
Matt Jenkins
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
The Latest Bounce
Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth announced that he will uphold the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan, which has been called one of the agency’s most heavily appealed decisions ever (HCN, 8/27/01: Restoring the Range of Light). Bosworth did, however, call for further review of sections that set fire policy and overlapped with the Quincy Library Group’s […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
The Latest Bounce
The battle over Canadian softwood lumber imports is heating up (HCN, 3/26/01: U.S. mills fall under Canadian ax). In August, the U.S. Commerce Department slapped a 19 percent countervailing duty on Canadian wood and followed it up with a 13 percent anti-dumping duty on Oct. 31; the agency is investigating subsidy and dumping allegations and […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Mining reform gets the shaft
When then-secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt shepherded a new set of hard-rock mining regulations into law on Jan. 20, mining critics and reformers hoped the new rules would usher in an era of more environmentally responsible mining. But President Bush’s inauguration brought a new cast of characters into the Interior Department. Faced with three […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
The Latest Bounce
Has the Department of Interior blown its last chance to straighten out the Indian trust fund fiasco (HCN, 1/31/00: Judge rules on Indian money mess)? Over the past several months, a court-appointed monitor has reported that the agency filed inaccurate and false reports about its progress in untangling the case. Now, the Native American Rights […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
The Latest Bounce
Earthjustice is appealing a federal district judge’s decision to revoke Oregon coastal coho salmon’s status as a threatened species. In September, the judge ruled that there is no difference between wild and hatchery-raised coho, and that the combined population no longer merits special protection (HCN, 10/8/01: Coho salmon lose federal protection). The Columbia-Snake River Irrigators […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Park boss gored by grazing feud
Four-decade controversy continues in Dinosaur National Monument
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Three fiery reads
In the sixth chapter of his newly released book The Seasons of Fire, David J. Strohmaier pens an articulate elegy for the firefighters who died in Colorado’s 1994 South Canyon Fire. When Strohmaier traveled to the fatality site, “it had been only six weeks since the fire, but already thousands of small, light-green Gambel oak […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Nevada tribe says kitty litter plan stinks
Fur is flying over an open-pit clay mine
Posted inMay 21, 2001: Quenching the big thirst
Mud-boggers get mud in their eye
WYOMING A U.S. magistrate dealt fines to 20 Sheridan, Wyo., four-wheelers for destroying national forest land last June. The incident happened during an annual “Spring Run” across the Bighorn National Forest, says Tongue District Ranger Craig Yancey. “Normally they do it on gravel roads, so it’s not a problem,” says Yancey, “but for some reason […]
Posted inMay 21, 2001: Quenching the big thirst
Sacred Objects and Sacred Places
“When Col. John M. Chivington and his drunken troops killed Cheyenne Indians in the infamous dawn massacre at Sand Creek, Colo.,” writes Andrew Gulliford in Sacred Objects and Sacred Places, “the troops also cut off their victims’ heads for shipment to Washington, D.C.” There, the severed heads were used in attempts to establish a racial […]
Posted inMay 21, 2001: Quenching the big thirst
Hard work in progress
When Dale Shewalter talks about hiking the Arizona Trail, he describes a “sense of elation with what it does for your life.” In the next breath, though, he admits, “I kinda wore out my knees through the years.” Shewalter, who’s long been a fan of long-distance backpacking, started looking for a north-south route across Arizona […]
Posted inMay 7, 2001: Back into the woods
Shoring up wetlands protection
Wetlands protection received a boost on April 16, when the Bush administration announced it will stand by the “Tulloch Rule,” a last-minute Clinton regulation that had been delayed 60 days for review (HCN, 2/12/01). Now, the use of mechanized earth-moving equipment for excavation in wetlands must receive a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, […]
Posted inMay 7, 2001: Back into the woods
Fruita draws the line against sprawl
Rural town takes a page from ritzy mountain enclaves
Posted inMay 7, 2001: Back into the woods
Making forests safe again won’t be a walk in the park
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Mark Shiery works quickly but methodically with a chainsaw in the ponderosa pine forest on the northwest edge of Flagstaff. He revs his saw to fell small trees and bucks them into two-foot sections. Then Shiery, the assistant fuels manager for […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Microwaveable wilderness
CALIFORNIA The infrastructure of the information age is still firmly rooted on the ground – and when that ground is designated wilderness, things can get a little complicated. In Death Valley National Park, a microwave repeater tower, used to relay telephone calls across the rugged terrain, is under scrutiny by environmental groups. The 35-foot high […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
Columbia Champion
In the early ’80s, when construction started on the massive Glen Jackson bridge across the Columbia River, opening up the Washington side of the river to Portland commuter sprawl, Nancy Russell took action. She founded the 3,200-member Friends of the Columbia Gorge, parlayed hard-won media backing for protection of the Gorge into support from local […]
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
U.S. mills fall under Canadian ax
Flood of Canadian timber hurts U.S. markets and the earth
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Back on the bus
ARIZONA Each year, close to 5 million tourists flock to Grand Canyon National Park. Rafting enthusiasts have to wait up to 18 years for a chance to boat the Canyon, and on the Rim, solitude – and even parking spaces – are hard to come by (HCN, 12/21/98: Grand Canyon Gridlock). In an effort to […]
Posted inMarch 12, 2001: Divided Waters
Wetlands get dumped on
A Supreme Court decision has stripped as much as one-fifth of the nation’s wetlands of federal protection. The January decision, which ended a legal battle between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a solid waste agency in Illinois, asserted that the Corps has no authority to regulate “isolated” waters unless they are used in […]