Michael Dombeck spent his first hour as the new chief of the U.S. Forest Service greeting agency employees in Washington, D.C., as they headed to work. For some who had never glimpsed former Chief Jack Ward Thomas, it was a comforting gesture. But it also became clear that old guard members of the agency should […]
Rick Keister
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Multicultural grazing boards off to a good start
DENVER, Colo. – Call them the cowboy and the lady. He is T. Wright Dickinson, tall, rail-thin, a third-generation rancher living on 35,000 high-desert acres in northwestern Colorado. She is Kathy Carlson, dressed in an ankle-length dress, glasses framing a tanned face, a veteran of Washington, D.C., politics for the National Wildlife Federation who moved […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Rebels without a case
Rebels without a case Nineteen months after Nye County, Nev., County Commissioner Dick Carver challenged federal authority by bulldozing a road into the Toiyabe National Forest, the government has pushed back. On March 14, a U.S. District Court in Las Vegas struck down a controversial Nye County ordinance claiming ownership and management authority over Forest […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
States and tribes
States and tribes Now that many tribes are aggressively asserting their sovereignty on issues ranging from water rights to Indian gambling, cooperation between tribal and state governments has become crucial. That’s the conclusion of States and Tribes: Building New Traditions, a recent publication of the National Conference of State Legislators. The report outlines some major […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Heard around the West
The national forests are lands of many uses, but not all uses are created equal. Every once in a while, one use trumps another. On the Helena National Forest recently, 22 Herefords drank too deeply from an arsenic-laced tailings pond at an abandoned mine near Helena, Mont. Fearful lest the dead cows poison bears and […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Babbitt begins range reform
Despite requests for yet another delay by Western senators plus a lawsuit from the livestock industry, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt traveled to Grand Junction, Colo., Aug. 22 to launch the first phase of his grazing reform. Accompanied by Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, Babbitt announced members of three Resource Advisory Councils in Colorado, where ranchers, environmentalists […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
U.S. House to the environment: Die!
Attacking the environment through the yearly appropriations process is not new. But this year’s Congress may take it to new heights. No less an authority than House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., has acknowledged the scope of policy changes hooked on to appropriations bills: he called them “without precedent going back to 1933.” The attacks range […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Salvage logging reborn
Despite a previous veto, President Clinton has signed a compromise bill that calls for accelerated logging on national forests. The president justified the action to angry environmentalists by claiming that his administration now has Republican backing to implement salvage logging that is “consistent with the spirit and intent of our forest plans and all existing […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Dan Beard resigns
With the surprise resignation June 12 of Dan Beard as director of the Bureau of Reclamation, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has lost one of his most effective lieutenants (HCN, 3/20/95). Although Western water has long been a contentious issue, his reign has been quiet, especially when compared with grazing and logging. In announcing his departure, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Salvage logging wounded but not dead
In his first veto, President Clinton derailed a plan to double salvage logging over the next two years and exempt livestock grazing on national forests from environmental laws. The Rescissions Bill combined $16.4 billion in cuts, mostly from existing social programs, as well as $7.3 billion from aid to Oklahoma City and areas in California […]