The Forest Service is going to let Chevron USA drill an exploratory well two miles north of the boundary of the High Uintas Wilderness in northern Utah. Wasatch-Cache Forest Supervisor Susan Giannettino’s decision allows Chevron to construct a bridge, 2.8 miles of new road and improve 2.1 miles of an existing road, as well as […]
Staff
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Agency reins in Wyoming rancher
After catching a Wyoming rancher illegally subleasing federal grazing permits, Forest Service officials cancelled half his grazing privileges and suspended the remainder for three years. The rancher, George Salisbury, who is also a longtime county commissioner and state legislator, insists he is innocent. “I owned the cattle, I just didn’t have the paperwork to justify […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Public foots DOE bill
The Department of Energy spent millions of dollars over a 32-month period defending its contractors from the public. A DOE internal document says that the agency paid $47 million to private attorneys from Oct. 1, 1990, through May 31, 1993, to defend its private contractors from class action lawsuits. The suits charged firms such as […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Bandelier overrun by hooves
If left unchecked, growing numbers of elk and wild cattle could leave New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument eroded and overgrazed, park officials say. Nearly 30 cows and over 2,000 elk now trample the park’s fragile hillsides and brittle archaeological ruins and, according to an environmental assessment released Jan. 13, the cattle herd could double in […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Painting for quieter skies
Artist Wilson Crawford recently painted Thumper Meets the Airport Expansion to protest a proposal to lengthen the runway in Taos, N.M. The painting shows giant airplane wheels squishing a rabbit against a backdrop of purple mountains and blue sky. Along with more than 100 artists, Crawford donated his work to a two-week exhibit, Quiet Skies, […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Back at the ranch
Amid all the hoopla about grazing reform, the Bureau of Land Management raised its monthly grazing fees by 12 cents, up to $1.98 per cow-calf pair. Each year the agency adjusts the price from a 1966 base price to reflect lease rates on private land, cattle prices and livestock production costs. Last year the agency […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Jackson’s last letter answered
Activist Leroy Jackson’s last letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hit home. Shortly before his death, Jackson wrote the agency to protest any exemption of Navajo timberlands from the Endangered Species Act (HCN, 11/29/93). The Bureau of Indian Affairs had asked for an exemption based on tribal sovereignty and claimed that the Mexican […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Wise use at Grand Canyon
A Grand Canyon chapter of the People For the West! was formed Jan. 14. Its goals include unrestricted access to public lands, gaining state and county control of federal lands, and preventing federal land managers from interfering with “free enterprise” pursuits such as mining, grazing and logging. The chapter also wants to end federal restrictions […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Yucca Mountain’s fault
Geologists working for the U.S. Geological Survey and the state of Nevada have discovered a new earthquake fault cutting directly through Yucca Mountain, the site slated for the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste repository. Geologists believe the new sheer zone, combined with the already known Ghost Dance Fault, could reduce the underground space available for […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Campbell sides with Telluride
Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D, Colo.) says he will introduce legislation to condemn a developer’s dream house built in Colorado’s West Elk Wilderness – if the Forest Service rejects a proposed land exchange with the developer. A Campbell spokeswoman said the senator wants to give the Forest Service another tool to deal with Tom Chapman, […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Why don’t we think of this?
Why didn’t we think of this? Writing in the Washington state weekly, The Reflector, Marvin Case asks, “Why not create a spotted owl preserve somewhere, plant owl eggs in, say, 5,000 acres in northern Idaho, then let the loggers have the old growth?” This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Taking back Santa Fe
Hoping to rein in the runaway development that has transformed Santa Fe, N.M., into a mecca for tourists and the affluent, a new group is registering voters for the city elections March 1. Take Back Santa Fe has trained dozens of volunteers who are going door-to-door to register people to vote. Organizer Gloria Mendoza says […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Slip sliding away
Preventing land from washing into streams, rivers and lakes may not be the sexiest topic around, but for 25 years the International Erosion Control Association has held an annual conference in an attempt to make it so. This year’s conference, scheduled for Feb. 15-18 in Reno, Nev., tackles “Sustaining Environmental Quality: The erosion control challenge,” […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Agriculture in the round
For the past three years, up to 400 people have gathered in Denver for Colorado Gov. Roy Romer’s Agricultural Outlook Forum. This year, on Feb. 18, Romer wants the gathering to focus on the ecology and economics of sustainable farming. Experts such as Marty Strange, who founded Nebraska’s Center for Rural Affairs, and Ralph Grossi, […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Join the eagles
Eagle watchers will convene in Klamath Falls, Ore., Feb. 18-20 during the largest gathering of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. They will also attend the 15th annual Klamath Basin Bald Eagle Conference, sponsored by the Klamath Basin Audubon Society and other non-profit groups and federal agencies, to look at the successes of bald […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Wanted: Wild poets
Poets who find their inspiration in nature may want to enter the ninth annual wilderness poetry competition sponsored by the Utah Wilderness Association. The group welcomes poems on the theme of wilderness, its preservation and spiritual nature. The winning poet receives $100, and the winning poem and five honorable mentions will be printed in the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Canyonlands backcountry plan
In an attempt to preserve the wildness and solitude of eastern Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, the National Park Service wants to restrict camping, backpacking and mountain biking in heavily used and ecologically important areas of the park. In a 66-page environmental assessment, the agency lays out five alternatives for managing backcountry use of the 337,000-acre […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Cow stomp and more
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance will hold a conference for anti-grazing activists in Salt Lake City on Feb. 19. “Take Back the West” is designed for people discouraged by the Interior Department’s efforts at grazing reform. It includes talks about Babbitt’s soon-to-be-released grazing regulations and the wise-use movement. Grazing activist George Wuerthner and writer-naturalist Terry […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Baca at the barricades
A movement is under way within the Clinton administration to remove Jim Baca as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Baca has had a difficult year, butting heads with ranchers and miners over federal land reforms and with Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus over a proposed bombing range (HCN, 1/24/94). On Jan. 27, top officials […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Work for (a) change
Would you like to build trails and fences on a nature preserve this summer? How about researching and writing on conservation issues in Idaho? The Northern Rockies Action Group recently published the third annual Making a Change: A Student Guide to Social Change Internships in the Northern Rockies, which describes internships with environmental and social […]