Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. TUBAC, Ariz. – Gary Nabhan squats down in the field of crooked-neck squash, reaches inside a large orange blossom and exclaims, “I got one.” “Don’t worry; this guy can’t sting,” Nabhan says, holding a tiny bee between his fingers. That’s because it’s not a […]
Paul Larmer
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Leonard Felix
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Leonard Felix has been spraying chemicals on crops for 27 years. When he isn’t spraying Olathe’s famous sweet corn in western Colorado, he may be flying over a national forest dropping native seeds on a recent burn. Leonard Felix: “We work with beekeepers when […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Miles County
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Miles County lives near the town of Brush in northeastern Colorado. Last winter, he lost most of his bees and he suspects the cause was the insecticide Penncap-M. Miles County: “I think farmers started getting lazy in the 1950s and 1960s. There were so […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
When dead bees don’t make a case
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If most beekeepers are the proverbial shy and retiring types, Tom Theobald isn’t one of them. From his beeyards in Niwot, just northeast of Boulder, Colo., he has pushed state and federal officials hard to address bee kills he believes have been caused by […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
A little bug causes a big stink in Utah
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. CORAL PINK SAND DUNES STATE PARK, Utah – -This might be a little rough,” says Rob Quist with a grin, as he guns the engine of his four-wheel drive truck. Suddenly, we are lurching toward a 50-foot-tall sand dune, wheels spinning in the soft […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Piling a new economy on the old
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. For a century, mining and logging drove the economy of Coeur d’Alene. When those industries went bust in the early 1980s, a small group of city leaders began searching for a new engine. Among them was Duane Hagadone, a native son who owns most […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
A tribe that takes the high road
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. It was the discovery of silver and gold in the hills above Lake Coeur d’Alene that finally pushed the Coeur d’Alene Indians onto a reservation in the 1870s. Now it is the tribe – small, at just 1,450 members – that is pushing back […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Don’t expect problem solving in 1997-1998
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. How will the elections affect environmental issues in the Congress? One thing is certain, observers say: They won’t make resolving problems any easier. Wilderness: In Utah, the elections seem to bolster the chances of passing a small-acreage wilderness bill. With Democratic Rep. […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Colorado voters decide fate of 3 million acres
Anyone who has read Amendment 16 in Colorado knows that it will fundamentally change the way the state manages its 3 million acres of school trust lands. Instead of maximizing revenues from these lands through leases or outright sales, the state land board would only be required to produce “reasonable and consistent income over time.” […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Judge sends a message to cows
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that the state can decide how, and even whether, cows that pollute waterways can graze on federal lands. U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty said Sept. 27 that the Clean Water Act requires all applications for grazing permits on national forests to first undergo a state review to […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
… comes after two years of arrested development
You might call the 104th Congress a roller-coaster ride for environmental legislation: Conservative Republicans began by attempting to weaken or dismantle many of the nation’s strongest environmental laws, attaching many of their proposals as “riders” on the backs of appropriations bills. But the Congress concluded by rejecting virtually all of the more radical measures, and […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Colorado’s status quo holds firm
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. Other than the showdown between Strickland and Allard, most of Colorado’s congressional races are all but over, according to most analysts. The 1st Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Pat Schroeder will likely remain in the hands of a liberal Democrat and a woman […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Indian gamblers target green lawmakers
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. It’s not sagebrush rebels who have environmentalists and their candidates on the run in New Mexico this election – it’s Native American gambling interests. Angered by the state Legislature’s refusal to sign gaming compacts, some tribes have thrown considerable resources into campaigns to defeat key […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Feds go after Summitville boss
Taxpayers got mixed news in late August about the cleanup of southern Colorado’s notorious Summitville gold mine. The good news came from the Justice Department, which announced that it had convinced a Canadian bank to freeze $152 million in stocks owned by the mining executive who oversaw Summitville. That mine’s toxic wastes killed 17 miles […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
1996: Clinton takes a 1.7 million-acre stand in Utah
A Bold Stroke: Clinton takes a 1.7 million-acre stand in Utah
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
The mother of all land grabs
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah: “In all my 20 years in the U.S. Senate, I have never seen a clearer example of the arrogance of federal power. Indeed, this is the mother of all land grabs. And, the declaration by President Clinton is being made without […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Managing the monument: The devil is in the details
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. If it survives expected legal challenges, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument will in all likelihood stop the industrialization of the Kaiparowits Plateau. While the proclamation creating the monument did not take away Andalex’s right to mine its rich coal fields, federal land managers acknowledge that […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Utahns roar over lion hunt
A decision allowing hunters in Utah to kill 630 mountain lions this year has created an uproar. A hunt approved by the Utah Wildlife Board Aug. 26 allows for the killing of 150 more lions than the state allowed last year, or about one-third of Utah’s estimated lion population of 2,000. “This decision was not […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Yellowstone mine a goner
A year after President Clinton announced his opposition to a proposed gold mine just outside Yellowstone National Park, he delivered the goods. At an Aug. 12 press conference in the park, Clinton announced that Crown Butte Mine Inc. had agreed to give up its mine project in exchange for unspecified real estate valued at no […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Logging starts – and stops again – in Southwest
A federal judge may soon lift the injunction that has halted most logging on the 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico this year. Then again, maybe he won’t. Last month the Forest Service tried to take the matter into its own hands. Southwest Regional Forester Chip Cartwright issued an ebullient press release July […]