Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Riding the middle path.” How tough do Idaho’s environmental negotiations get? Two months ago, when salmon advocates threatened to take control of the plumbing for southern Idaho’s gigantic farm-irrigation system, Norm Semanko held them off by taking a couple of wilderness deals hostage. Semanko […]
Rocky Barker
Posted inWotr
Idaho’s Sen. Larry Craig should butt out of the whole dam business
The company that powers the computer I write on is getting the kind of attention corporations loathe. Idaho Power Co. and its three Hells Canyon dams on the Snake River have been thrust into the center of a controversy over a provision of the energy bill that would give power companies more control over the […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Once more unto the breach: Dams could fall in the Northwest
Many in the Northwest thought they’d killed the idea of breaching four dams on the Snake River in Washington when they convinced the Clinton administration to pass on it, and then George W. Bush became president. They celebrated too soon. On May 7, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland threw out the salmon-protection plan […]
Posted inWotr
Once more into the breach: Dams could fall in the Northwest
Many in the Northwest thought they’d killed the idea of breaching four dams on the Snake River in Washington when they convinced the Clinton administration to pass on it, and then elected George Bush president. They celebrated too soon. On May 7, U.S. District Judge James Redden in Portland threw out the salmon protection plan […]
Posted inWotr
If wolves can return to the West, why not New York?
Eight years after a wolf walked out of a pen and howled in Yellowstone National Park, it is clear the predators are here to stay. The restoration of wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone in 1995 has been wildly successful, even though many Westerners remain bitter about an intrusive federal government. Now, a decision announced earlier […]
Posted inWotr
The Bush administration is doing something right on fire policy
There isn’t much I can praise about the Bush administration’s approach to Western resource issues. But its instincts on firefighting policy are just about right. If it can fill in its knee-jerk act of cutting the budget with a sound, long-term policy, it could lead the West out of a quagmire that has been deepening […]
Posted inWotr
Compromise can take more courage than taking a stand
Sometimes it takes more courage to compromise than to take a stand. That has become true for many of the ranchers, environmentalists and local officials fighting over the last wild places left in the West. The people whose lives are most tied to the scenic landscapes of the region have been asked to take sides […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Idaho seeks a reputation – and a reality – free of hate
Nothing irritates us more in Idaho than our reputation as a haven for neo-Nazis. Our tolerance of hate-mongers in the past brought us this sorry legacy. These days, we can make a case that Idaho has become a place that stands up for human rights. That case was strengthened this summer, when Boise residents dedicated […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
‘I respect wolves. I still don’t like them killing our sheep.’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Margaret Soulen Hinson helps run her family’s ranch near Weiser, Idaho, northwest of Boise. Wolves have killed 105 of the ranch’s sheep since 1995, but Soulen Hinson says: “In comparison to other predator problems, the wolves have been pretty minimal. We lose way more […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Predator politics gets ugly in Idaho
Fish and Game Director Rod Sando quits
Posted inJune 18, 2001: Transforming powers
Transforming powers
Drought, salmon and the deregulated electricity market could end the Northwest’s love affair with public power
Posted inAugust 28, 2000: The mine that turned the Red River blue
The latest salmon plan heads toward a train wreck
Federal officials released on July 27 their long-awaited plan for saving 12 stocks of endangered salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers. As expected, they stopped short of recommending to Congress what the majority of scientists say may be necessary to prevent Snake River salmon from going extinct – breaching four federal dams in eastern […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Tribes cast for tradition, catch controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ARLINGTON, Ore. – Elaine Hoptowit has barely thrown the last salmon from her boat into a cooler in her pickup truck when customers show up. Wearing yellow rubber overalls, the Pocatello, Idaho, grandmother lifts from the truck a 17-pound chinook salmon she has pulled […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wilderness water wins round in court
In what Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, calls a “devastating blow to Idaho’s water sovereignty,” almost 3,000 claims to water rights upstream of Idaho wilderness areas were placed in doubt by an Oct. 1 ruling of the Idaho Supreme Court. The court ruled 3-2 that when the federal government established wilderness areas in Idaho, it also […]
Posted inMarch 29, 1999: Wheeling and dealing
Air Force lands a deal
Environmentalists fighting the expansion of a U.S. Air Force training range in southern Idaho lost a round. At issue was a 961-acre tract of grazing land that the U.S. Air Force says it needs for its 12,000-acre Juniper Butte training area (HCN, 4/13/98). Favoring the military, Idaho’s Land Board turned down a $5,000 bid from […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Hikes discover a road
The Snowbank Roadless Area near Cascade, Idaho, is no longer roadless. The Boise National Forest blames a mapping error for its approval of a road and a 315-acre logging operation in an area previously proposed for wilderness protection, but it’s too late now, the agency says. “We did not become aware of the mistake until […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Panel says fish gotta swim
After a two-year study, a group of scientists says half of the Snake River’s endangered salmon and steelhead should be allowed to migrate to the ocean naturally instead of being transported in barges and trucks. The report, issued by an independent science panel created by Congress, questions whether shipping salmon around dams can save fish […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Grassroots grit beat ‘the mine from Hell’
The campaign to stop the New World Gold Mine on Yellowstone National Park’s northern boundary could rank with the great environmental victories of the 20th century. It’s not so much what happened as how it happened. Mine opponents started with a textbook grassroots plan to stop the $600 million gold mine. They ended with a […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
A tough law meets tough foes
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. In his classic 1940s essay, “Round River,” Aldo Leopold made the case for conserving biological diversity: “saving all the parts’ of the natural world. “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering,” Leopold wrote. That […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
1995: Cecil Andrus knew how to take a stand
Cecil Andrus tells the story about how, as a young logger in Orofino, Idaho, he would skid logs down streambeds because it was the easiest way to move them. Skidding, for those who don’t know the rough-and-ready truths about logging, rips up the land and streams. “Those of us in logging in those good old […]