In early June, a coalition of environmental groups completed a three-year, $2.5 million fund-raising effort to protect a historic ranch tucked deep in northern Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. The privately owned ranch provides habitat for elk, mule deer, moose and sandhill cranes, and several historic trails traverse the ranch’s 7,300 acres. But the property is only […]
Tim Westby
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
A party for the people
Late on the afternoon of July 14, about three dozen people gathered at a Salt Lake City park to celebrate the 30th anniversary of an unusual family reunion. Dubbed the Bastille Family Reunion, this party got its start after the People’s Park incident in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969, when cities around the country banned large […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Another compromise plan falls flat
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell.” In Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s State of the State address in January, the two-term Republican announced what he called an “unprecedented opportunity.” The opportunity was a huge land swap of state and […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Tug-of-war continues over trust lands
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Wildcat subdivisions fuel fight over sprawl.” In the summer of 1998, Arizona Republican Gov. Jane Hull pulled together 15 conservationists, business leaders and state legislators and formed the Growing Smarter Commission. Their task would be to ward […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nonstop service to the Mojave Desert?
A 6,500-acre swath of federally owned desert, 10 miles from California’s Mojave National Preserve, could become the site of a new Las Vegas airport. But environmentalists and the National Park Service say airport overflights will ruin the preserve visitor’s experience. “One of the really special things about Mojave is the opportunity for solace and quiet,” […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Babbitt looks for support on his home turf
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Shivwits Plateau wasn’t on environmentalists’ radar screen a year ago. Better known as the Arizona Strip, the Shivwits lies in the extreme northwestern corner of Arizona. Cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, it […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
The Cowboy State’s next boom
GILLETTE, Wyo. – Will Wyoming’s arid Powder River Basin be home to cranberry bogs and alligator farms? Most people aren’t taking such suggestions too seriously yet. But thanks to a boom in coal-bed methane development, the basin will soon have more water than anyone knows what to do with. “The fact is, we’re going to […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Grand Canyon development sparks debate
The Forest Service says a new 272-acre development near the south entrance of the Grand Canyon can control growth near the park. Critics, including some environmentalists, are not convinced. “They’re creating mass development … ext to one of our crown jewels,” says Sharon Galbreath of the Sierra Club’s southwest office. Canyon Forest Village, which got […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Judge halts nine timber sales
After five years of an uneasy truce, both sides in the Pacific Northwest timber wars are slugging it out again (HCN, 11/23/98). On Aug. 2, federal Judge William Dwyer sided with 13 environmental groups and blocked nine major timber sales while threatening to stop dozens more. Dwyer ruled that the Forest Service and Bureau of […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Making the land pay
Farmers and ranchers can supplement their incomes by putting tourists to work as “hands’ and allowing camping and hiking. That’s a way to make land pay and stave off selling out to developers, according to a new report about protecting wildlife habitat around Yellowstone National Park. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Environmental Defense Fund and […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Politicians talk tough
In mid-July, a billboard suddenly appeared on the boundary of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, advertising three 40-acre lots at the lip of the 2,000-foot-deep canyon (see page 16). The price? $190,000 each. It’s the latest attempt by real estate developer Tom Chapman to cash in on private land inside protected federal […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
The Wayward West
A 25,000-acre swath of the last wilderness on Washington state land is now safe from chainsaws (HCN, 6/22/98). Shortly before organizers of the Loomis Forest Fund stepped before the Washington Board of Natural Resources to ask for an extension July 6, in came an anonymous $1.5 million check. The 11th-hour check gave fund raisers the […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Mining on the run
Since Montana voters passed an initiative last November blocking certain kinds of mining, the industry has taken its hits. In the wake of a ban on new and expanded open-pit cyanide heap-leach mining, both the Montana Mining Association and the company behind the controversial McDonald gold mine have laid off employees. The mining association is […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Will an experimental plan be snuffed out?
As a relentless summer sun bakes the ponderosa pine forests surrounding Flagstaff, Ariz., an experimental logging project meant to restore forest health and reduce the risk of wildfire around the city has hit a snag. On June 18, an administrative appeal filed with the Forest Service by a coalition of seven environmental groups halted a […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
The Wayward West
The beleaguered black-tailed prairie dog is getting some federal help (HCN, 11/11/96). On May 28, the Forest Service ordered all staffers to stop poisoning the ground squirrels except in “extremely rare situations.” The ban will remain in effect until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decides whether to list the animals as threatened. Wildlife Services, […]
Posted inJune 21, 1999: The disappearing farm
An Olympic eyesore?
The Utah Sports Authority is etching out a 120-meter ski jump on a mountainside near Park City for the 2002 Winter Olympics, but the project isn’t inspiring Olympic fever. Instead, it’s raising the ire of local critics, who lament the ugliness of the scarred slope. “There was no environmental input whatsoever, and consequently we’re going […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Settlement reached in Tahoe takings case
In 1989, Bernadine Suitum had planned to build a retirement home on a plot of land near Lake Tahoe (HCN, 7/7/97). But instead of breaking ground, Suitum found herself deep in a ferocious legal battle with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the bistate office charged with overseeing development around the lake. Now, a decade later, […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Star parties
Exploding stars, colliding galaxies and random nebulae are the new attractions at Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. There’s even the possibility of seeing the Mir Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope or the occasional spy satellite. “So we can look up at what’s looking down on us,” says Patrick Wiggins, the demonstration specialist at the […]