“Now, that is an old-growth tree!” shouts Jerry Franklin on a September day in the hills above Roseburg, Ore. A mammoth Douglas fir towers 10 stories above, dwarfing everything around it. Sunlight filters down through the thick canopy to a group of about 20 University of Washington students. “You can really see who the veterans […]
Nathan Rice
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Bigger fires and evolving threats force changes in the Northwest Forest Plan
The summer of 1994 was a nasty one for fires in Washington’s Chelan County, cradled in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle. Dozens of blazes, including a disastrous one in Icicle Canyon, tore through the drought-stricken forests in late July. Almost a million gallons of fire retardant were dropped on that county, and some of […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Lawmakers scramble to fix the funding problem in Oregon’s timber counties
State and federal lawmakers are scrambling for solutions to the funding crisis in the southwest Oregon timber counties that have been hard hit by cuts in federal aid. A few of the proposals: The O&C Trust, Conservation and Jobs ActThis controversial proposal would move 1.5 million acres of federal forestland into a timber trust to […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Northwest Forest Plan timeline
1990 Under court order, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the northern spotted owl as threatened. 1991 U.S. District Court Judge William Dwyer halts Forest Service timber sales in spotted owl habitat across the Northwest. 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) enacted under Clinton. Timber harvest resumes, but at much-reduced levels; safety net of “spotted owl […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Saving threatened Utah prairie dogs — on private property
When Curt Bagley learned he could get paid for the prairie dogs digging up his land, he had a change of heart toward the varmints he’d grown up shooting. On his family’s cattle ranch in Greenwich, Utah, they’d had to learn to live with the destructive rodents since 1973, when Utah prairie dogs were federally […]
Posted inMarch 19, 2012: Water Warrior
A scrappy community ski hill hangs on in Colorado
In the one-room warming hut at the base of the Lake City Ski Hill, Betty Lou Blodgett serves hot cocoa to kids in no need of a sugar high. She mans the hut alone, maintaining a loose sense of order while selling lift tickets and doling out rental gear. A big barrel woodstove blazes while […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
The logging town of Darrington, Wash., fights to save a fire lookout
On a blustery summer night, the Red Top Tavern in Darrington, Wash., is nearly empty. A neon Hamm’s beer sign illuminates a picture of a local logger reclining in the bucket of an excavator with the caption “Redneck Hot Tub.” Above it hangs a crosscut saw, just like in every bar in every other Northwest […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
A former Green Mountain fire lookout tells his story
“Lightbulb” Winders recounts his experiences as the last lookout on Green Mountain, in the Glacier Peak Wilderness near Darrington, Washington.
Posted inDecember 26, 2011: Perilous Passages
Boulder, Colo., votes for energy independence — from its utility
On election night this November in Boulder, Colo., under the stained-glass ceiling of the Hotel Boulderado, about 100 progressive-leaning voters crowded around a screen showing preliminary results. Early in the evening, the odds of the city breaking its ties with Minnesota-based corporate utility Xcel Energy to pursue locally produced, clean power seemed as dark as […]
Posted inGoat
Oregon natural gas export terminal gets first approval
For onlookers watching the ongoing development of a proposed natural gas terminal in Coos Bay, Ore., it seemed a puzzling business strategy. Why would energy companies want to spend billions of dollars building a natural gas terminal and pipeline to import foreign gas when the domestic market was about to blow up? This September, the […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Did the Park Service bow to pressure from Coca Cola on its bottle ban?
It was an ambitious plan: Ban the sale of individual plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon to cut waste in the nation’s second-most visited national park. But in December 2010, just two weeks before the prohibition was to take effect, National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis postponed it indefinitely, citing impacts to concessionaires and […]
Posted inGoat
Mining claim markers kill thousands of Nevada birds
From the unintended consequences department comes a sad tale of dying birds in Nevada mining country. Across the Silver State, hundreds of thousands of plastic pipes used to mark mining claims kill untold thousands of birds, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Birds fly into the pipes looking for a place to nest and, unable […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
The forgotten North Cascades grizzly bear
Scott Fitkin started his career chasing ghost bears. As a biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in the late ’80s, he stalked grizzly bear sightings in the Cascade Mountains. Over two decades, he verified a few tracks but never glimpsed a grizzly or even a photograph of one. Until this June. That’s […]
Posted inWotr
Breathing clean air comes in second in Congress
Even in these politically polarized times, one might think that breathing clean air could muster some bipartisan support in Congress. A quick look at the bills the House of Representatives has been passing lately should dispel that naïve notion. Three bills aimed at delaying new air pollution rules on coal-fired power plants, cement kilns and […]
Posted inGoat
Boulder’s energy future on the ballot
Glossy propaganda has been piling up in my mailbox for months in the lead up to Election Day in Boulder, Colo. Next to a frowney-faced electrical outlet, an ad warns of rate hikes and other terrors: “Municipalization means serious risks to rates and our community’s energy goals.” The slick, full-color fliers come from the Boulder Smart Energy Coalition, […]
Posted inGoat
U.S. House attacks Clean Air Act
Even in these politically polarized times, one might be forgiven for presuming that breathing clean air could muster bipartisan support in Congress. But a quick look at what the House of Representatives has been up to roundly dispels such a quixotic notion. Two bills aimed at delaying new air pollution rules on cement kilns and […]
Posted inGoat
Fish fight on the Elwha
On Sept. 15, an excavator tore the first chunks of concrete from the Glines Canyon dam on Washington state’s Elwha River. It was a historic moment, kicking off the largest dam removal in U.S. history. When the dams are gone, salmon will swim up the Elwha for the first time in nearly 100 years. Seventy miles […]
Posted inGoat
The costs of climate change
From California beachside communities to remote villages in subarctic Alaska, the impacts of climate change are becoming ever more tangible, as shown by two government studies released this week. “Sea-level rise is here and we need to start planning for it,” said Philip King, associate professor of economics at San Francisco State University, in the […]
Posted inGoat
Wilderness for ANWR?
After decades of wrangling over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a draft federal plan for the first time includes a “preliminary recommendation” to protect the disputed Arctic coastal plain as a designated wilderness area. Home to expansive caribou herds, musk ox, polar bears and grizzlies, the coastal plain holds an estimated 4 […]