Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A losing battle.” Firespeak catastrophe #1 “Wildland-urban interface.” This catchall phrase describing the forest fringe includes cabins and watersheds in the woods around Salmon, Idaho — a remote town of only 3,200 people that can hardly be described as urban. It also includes Lowman, […]
Ray Ring
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
History is full of big fires
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A losing battle.” “Investigating the … arid lands, I passed through South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho by train. Among the valleys, with mountains on every side, during all that trip a mountain was never seen. This was because the fires […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Who should pay when houses burn?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A losing battle.” CONNER, Montana Greg Tilford and his wife, Mary, pursued a dream when they quit their jobs as cops in California and moved here. They built a two-bedroom cabin on a forested ridgetop above Dickson Creek, installed solar panels and a garden, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Locals fight new railroad
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Grasslands take a step toward nature.” The new national grasslands plans ignore one potential impact entirely: The nation’s largest railroad construction project in more than a century. The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad got a green light […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2003: A breath of fresh air
A mine falls, and a tribe may get the shaft
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A breath of fresh air.” It was a glorious sight to many in the environmental movement: President Bill Clinton traveled to Yellowstone National Park in August 1996, donned a ranger hat, and announced a deal that would stave off a gold mine in the […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2003: A breath of fresh air
A breath of fresh air
Surrounded by a massive industrial buildup, the Northern Cheyenne tribe defends its homeland
Posted inDecember 23, 2002: In search of the Glory Days
Open space initiative offers hope
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. LEADVILLE, Colo. – Cross-country skier Mike LeVine strides by the rusted ore car and other mining relics that decorate the Mineral Belt Trail. LeVine moved to Leadville from Chicago five years ago, looking to retire in a mountain town that isn’t a glitzy resort. […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Feds bail on snowmobile ban
WYOMING/MONTANA After nearly two years of pressure from the Bush administration, on Nov. 12 the National Park Service finally abandoned its plan to ban snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Instead, beginning in the winter of 2003-04, the number of snowmobiles will be capped, and the winter after that, all snowmobiles must have […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Election Bounce
Most green initiatives and proposals across the West failed at the ballot box Nov. 5. Oregon voters rejected a measure that would have required the labeling of genetically engineered foods; Montanans won’t be buying back any private hydroelectric dams (HCN, 10/14/02: Montanans may take back their dams); and in Utah, both the Radioactive Waste Restrictions […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Conservation vote groups optimistic
Environmentalists redouble efforts on the local level
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Gated communities go in with a bang
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The impacts of rural gated communities go beyond any social insult to the people who live outside. These developments can have very real consequences for the land as well. One place it’s apparent is Montana’s Yellowstone Club, a vacation-home development so exclusive that its […]
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Judges rule gas leases are illegal
The Bush administration’s rush to develop hundreds of thousands of coalbed methane wells in five Western states hit a roadblock Oct. 15. Two judges on the Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled that the federal Bureau of Land Management has illegally leased methane rights without evaluating impacts. The BLM’s method of granting leases […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
The politics of growth
Note: this is one of several feature stories in this issue about the 2002 election. You think you have a lot to decide this November? Slip into the ballot booth with Arizona’s voters. Then you can vote for a ballot initiative that would require the state police to hand out marijuana for free. You can […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
The Latest Bounce
Proving that open space isn’t only for white suburbanites, Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., has pushed her San Gabriel River Watersheds Study Act through the House (HCN, 8/5/02: L.A.’s rivers get some respect). Solis’ bill, which would study the creation of an urban National Park in her North Los Angeles district, could make it to the […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Around the West, the hot races to watch
Note: this is one of several feature stories in this issue about the 2002 election. ARIZONA Hispanics could stage a Democratic comeback Hispanics, who now make up one-fourth of Arizona’s population, may take half of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for the Democrats. Raœl Grijalva is virtually guaranteed the seat […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
The Latest Bounce
Federal forest boss Dale Bosworth’s complaints about citizen appeals of forest projects hit a crescendo in mid-September, yet appeals continue to pop up across the West. In Colorado, 11 groups appealed the White River Forest Plan, released in June (HCN, 7/8/02: White river). This time, Bosworth can’t lay all the blame on environmentalists: Appellants range […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
This land holds a story the church won’t tell
MARTIN’S COVE, Wyo. – As politicians in Congress, interest groups and Mormon bishops battle in the far distance to decide the fate of this place, a sad wind ruffles the tall grass and sagebrush here. It’s sad for those who know the story. In this sandy cove nestled amid the rocky hills overlooking the Sweetwater […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Backlash
Local governments tackle an in-your-face rush on coalbed methane
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
The author responds
The author responds Thank you, Chuck Hunt and Tom Theobald, for help on clarifying some facts. Bees cannot hear, but killer bees react to vibrations such as lawnmowers, sudden movements and exhalations of breath, so I would not recommend that anyone accompany Mr. Hunt if he shouts in the face of killer bees. The word […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Montana’s governor is a poor choice to lead the West
The Western Governors Association, one of the region’s leading political organizations, has earned a reputation for trying to take a moderate approach to divisive issues. Governors of 18 Western states and three Pacific islands have met regularly for years to devise regional policies on wildfire, energy development and other issues, such as environmental protection. They’re […]