The Rio Grande silvery minnow is not a glamorous fish, but it does have a claim to fame: It’s the last minnow species to survive in New Mexico’s beleaguered stretch of the Rio Grande, where every native fish is extinct or threatened with extinction. But in April, an irrigation district diverted so much water from […]
Michelle Mcclellan
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Getting outside all around the West
The following sidebar articles accompany this article, in a special issue about outdoor recreation: – New life springs from tainted soil at a Denver school – The best guide knows how to let go – An unsung army of students maintains our national parks – Acting for the environment – The big dogs: Outward Bound […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
An unsung army of students maintains our national parks
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, in a special issue about outdoor education: Spreading the gospel After wildfires raged through Yellowstone National Park in 1988, Park Service employees were overwhelmed: Trails and bridges had to be rebuilt, campsites restored and trees planted. The magnitude of the job was depressing. […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A sampling of the West’s collaborative efforts
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories: Everyone helps a California forest – except the Forest Service Collaboration groups in the West now number in the hundreds, and range from informal grassroots organizations to government-mandated advisory councils. A cross-section follows: * The Willapa Alliance is a private, nonprofit organization started […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Locals sickened by bison slaughter
In tiny West Yellowstone, Mont., more than 350 bison have been gunned down after wandering out of Yellowstone National Park. The Montana Department of Livestock kills the bison because of fears they will transmit brucellosis, a disease that causes cattle to abort. But for residents such as Donna Lane, who watched state officials shoot 18 […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Navajos win round in coal mine war
After years of fighting Peabody Western Coal Co., Navajos in northeast Arizona have won a court victory against a strip mine on their reservation. Citing the desecration of burial sites, poisoned livestock and filthy air and water, an Interior Department judge in Phoenix reversed a decision by the federal Office of Surface Mining to renew […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Phoenix will try to save desert wash
Arizona has told the city of Phoenix that if it wants to save a state-owned desert wash teeming with wildlife, it must buy the land for $25 million. A citizens’ group hopes to persuade state officials that the historic, biological and recreational value of Cave Creek Wash makes it worth the money. But state staffers […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Farmers feel burned by clean air regs
Eastern Washington, with its rolling hills and mid-size cities, seems like a place where farmers and urbanites should easily coexist. But not in late summer, when farmers burn bluegrass fields to clear stubble and stimulate seed production. The conflict is most intense in Spokane, where clean air activists have long claimed that the clouds of […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Malpractice as usual
Taxpayers are paying the price because Forest Service officials in California handed out timber contracts without adequate environmental reviews, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Business As Usual: A Case Study of Environmental and Fiscal Malpractice on the Eldorado National Forest describes how top managers weren’t penalized […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Wild Wyoming under siege
Sporting and conservation organizations will gather in Rock Springs, Wyo., April 26-28, to discuss the increasing conflict between oil and gas development and Wyoming’s clean air and wildlife. Many residents are alarmed by industry predictions that natural gas production will boom in the next 20 years, says the nonprofit Wyoming Outdoor Council, organizers of Red […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
They did it themselves
They did it themselves Some 200 federal employees and outside experts have developed a sweeping management plan for public lands in the six states of the Columbia River Basin. And it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime. It was done under the auspices of the nonprofit AFSEEE, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. […]