Using legal and financial savvy and the latest computer technology, Indian tribes across the West are taking control of tribal lands that have been in the hands of the federal government and, often, non-Indian farmers for the last century.
Yes, there’s an alien invasion
Thank you for your recent coverage of the impacts and politics of invasive species (HCN, 6/22/98). The spread and establishment of exotics in the West is truly one of the least recognized natural-resource challenges of our time and one which promises to overwhelm the stability and health of our ecosystems if left unchecked. To help…
Just a hatchet job
Dear HCN, Your article on federal judges and FREE puzzled me. It contained no fresh reporting, so I wonder why you bothered to run it. You could have referred your readers to the original hatchet job in the Washington Post. Or you could have taken a look at what actually goes on at these conferences.…
Keep Wyoming just the way it is
Dear HCN, After watching Elbert County, Colo., endure the nation’s second-fastest growth rate for the past few years, I envy “Wyoming’s unique mix of apathy and arrogance,” as described by Paul Krza (HCN, 7/6/98). The correspondent reveals a disregard for the native values of Wyoming citizens, assuming that they’re dull and backwards because they seek…
You bashed Wyoming
Dear HCN, We are disgusted with your article, “Riding the Wyoming Brand” (HCN, 7/6/98). This is liberal Democratic Party propaganda designed to slam the good conservative values we have in Wyoming. I would have thought High Country News would never lower itself to this kind of slander, but I was wrong. Gov. Jim Geringer and…
Judge nixes salmon plan
Oregon’s Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber had high hopes that his plan for saving coastal coho salmon from extinction could stave off listing the fish as endangered, and set an example of stewardship for other Western states. The “Oregon Plan” featured collaboration among private landowners, who own 65 percent of the salmon’s habitat, the local timber…
Bombers battled from the ground
When the U.S. Air Force told residents of northern New Mexico that it was considering their blue skies for a new bombing range for B-52s and B-1s, it galvanized local defenses. “In northern New Mexico, with our high level of poverty, the only assets are beauty and tranquility,” says Cliff Bain, who has organized a…
Ghostly fish swim in Idaho
Once there were thousands of sockeye salmon leaving the Pacific Ocean to spawn in Idaho’s Redfish Lake. Only one sockeye salmon made it to the lake in 1994, 1995 and 1996; and not even one bright-red fish returned to spawn in 1997. The decline of these once abundant native fish is something we ought to…
The Wayward West
Vast tracts of inholdings in the Mojave National Preserve in California are for sale – and its National Park Service caretakers can only watch the new neighbors move in (HCN, 4/14/97). Newcomers could mean 100 houses and a golf course. Just across the state line in Nevada, a county wants to build a major airport.…
Spills and secrets
Knowing what chemicals ride the rails is crucial in preparing for accidental spills, says a citizens’ coalition for environmental health in Alberton, a small northwestern Montana town. The group formed after a Montana Rail Link train derailed, exposing the town of Alberton to chlorine and leaving some residents with lingering health problems (HCN, 4/28/97). Long…
We can take it
As the country struggled through the Great Depression, nearly 3 million young men came together in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with the motto, “We can take it.” Between 1933 and 1942, the CCC built 125,000 miles of roads, strung 89,000 miles of telephone lines and revegetated almost a million acres of rangeland. This year,…
Not boring, not befuddling
Somewhere there is a school that teaches those who work for government agencies and environmental groups to write press releases. The school’s core curriculum consists of courses in Boasting in Print and Bad Writing; it also offers seminars in Boring and Befuddling the Reader, Grazing the Truth, and Tunnel Vision. Even in peacetime, those who…
Restoration Days
-Mono Lake is rising, the Committee is 20 years old, and we’re celebrating,” says the Mono Lake Committee about the party they’re throwing for their 20th anniversary – Restoration Days. Join the Mono Lake Committee, supporters and friends over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-7, in activities ranging from bird watching, guided canoe trips, volcano exploring…
Utes fight for right to prosecute
The Ute Indian Tribe has discovered the power of money. Some 10 months after the tribe’s business committee launched a boycott of Roosevelt, Utah, businesses there continue to feel its sting. The boycott centers on a decades-old dispute over who should prosecute tribal members charged with misdemeanors in the town of Roosevelt, pop. 5,000 –…
Incentives for Conserving Open Lands in Greater Yellowstone
Incentives for Conserving Open Lands in Greater Yellowstone, a 51-page report by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Fund, gives landowners ideas about protecting the natural value of their land. Incentives include tax benefits for conservation easements and subsidies for setting aside conservation reserves. For a $5 copy, contact…
Fast flux on a fast track
Washington state officials have been firing warning shots at the federal Department of Energy, threatening fines for the sluggish pace of cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (HCN, 5/11/98). “We have had a change of philosophy. We are going to hold their feet to the fire,” says Democratic Gov. Gary Locke. Yet Locke is ready…
The Colorado River: How Secure Is Our Water?
The former top water warrior for the State of Colorado will talk to the Mesa County Water Association on the subject: “The Colorado River: How Secure Is Our Water?” Speaker Jim Lochhead was executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources until recently. His talk will be Tuesday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m. at 750…
Tucson acts to stall sprawl
-At least it’s not Phoenix,” mutter some Tucson residents when asked about the city’s runaway growth. But as Tucson continues to sprawl into the surrounding Sonoran desert, many think it’s beginning to look a lot like its larger neighbor. Dismay over that relentless push helps to explain why, in late May, Pima County unanimously approved…
The Wilderness Act Handbook
Though wilderness and legislation may seem like apples and oranges, the Wilderness Society makes their relationship plain as day in its updated edition of The Wilderness Act Handbook. The report fully quotes original mandates, gives historical context and interprets wilderness legislation for the uninformed reader. For a $5 copy, contact the Wilderness Society, 900 17th…
Western Slope wins water wrestle
Water users on Colorado’s Western Slope are celebrating a court decision that keeps the “river” in the Gunnison River Basin. A district water-court judge ruled that there was not enough excess water in the Gunnison River watershed for the Union Park project, a proposal that would have diverted 60,000 acre-feet of water per year to…
Blasting through a cathedral
When Congress established Petroglyph National Monument in 1990, on the edge of Albuquerque, N.M., its rationale was straightforward: “to protect the cultural and natural resources of the area from urbanization and vandalism.” Just a few years later another threat to the monument emerged. To accommodate the desire of developers, the New Mexico delegation backed a…
Blind Descent
I don’t even like it when the elevator door closes, but I like the feisty and fictional Anna Pigeon so much that I gritted my teeth and followed her down into Lechuguilla Cave. Nevada Barr’s newest mystery, Blind Descent, takes park ranger Anna Pigeon a thousand feet under southern New Mexico, into the deepest and,…
Sorry, no alien invasion here
Dear HCN, I was surprised to see science fiction in High Country News (-It rhymes with scourge,” HCN, 6/22/98). First it was the Yellow Peril, then it was the Russians and Men from Mars, and now we have invasions by hordes of alien plants unwittingly let loose by gardeners. It’s true that Euphorbia myrsinites (donkeytail…
Editor’s note
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story. In the 1960s, revolutions in Indian country were political, and the media swarmed in to cover sit-ins, demonstrations and fiery speeches. When the sit-ins and occasional violence ended, the media left and people on the reservations found little had changed. Today, Indian country is in…
Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Note: A front-page editor’s note and a sidebar titled “A banker battles to hold the government accountable” accompany this feature story. FORT HALL, Idaho – The councilman’s voice drones through the microphone, echoing off walls lined with nickel slots and joker poker games. The Shoshone and Bannock people file into the bingo hall slowly, some…
A banker battles to hold the government accountable
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. BROWNING, Mont. – Until recently, Browning, a dusty settlement on the Blackfeet Indian reservation in northern Montana, was known more for its bar fights than its financial enterprise. But thanks to the small town’s banker, Elouise Cobell, Browning is becoming known for something else.…
Dear Friends
Call for water If you called the Paonia office in mid-July to order five copies of HCN’s collection of water articles, Water in the West, please call again. We have the soft-bound collection of articles and the back issues you also asked for all packed. But we don’t have your name and address. We apologize…
Utah finds 3 million more wild acres
Equipped with an old Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and a stack of large-scale topographical maps, Kevin Walker spent two years combing southern Utah. He was looking for wild, unprotected tracts of Bureau of Land Management land that might have been left out of a coalition’s wilderness proposal. His team – Walker helped lead the citizens’ inventory…
Extinct volcano is up for grabs
From space, northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera, also known as the Baca Ranch, looks vaguely like the cast of a bear paw print. Small lava-formed mountains rise like inverted claw marks in front of massive Redondo Peak, all nestled within the rim of the world’s largest extinct volcano. From the ground, what most impresses visitors…
Congress drags its feet on Baca Ranch deal
If there is one property that ought to be bought and preserved as public land for all Americans, say Forest Service officials, it’s the 95,000-acre Baca Ranch – most of the Valles Caldera – a place almost completely surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest. So this summer, Forest Service staffer Denise McCaig has been…
No fences make bad neighbors in Montana
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Warren McMillan steers his Chevy Blazer past a wooden sign that advertises residential lots for sale, many of them 20 acres in size with stunning views of the eastern face of the Bridger Mountains. He is wearing a straw cowboy hat, black cowboy boots, cowboy-cut Levis and a cowboy shirt. He passes…
At Tahoe, it’s agreed: old growth gets to stay
The residents of the Lake Tahoe Basin want their old-growth trees, dead or alive. A regulation that took effect last month all but prohibits the harvest of trees over 30 inches in diameter, whether they are on public or private land. Because it applies to both green and standing dead trees, the Tahoe ordinance expands…
Heard around the West
You’re in a car when a thunderstorm boils out of the West and rain pelts down. What do you do? Nothing, of course, since the National Lightning Safety Institute says cars are one of the safest places to be during lightning strikes – relatively speaking. Two teenagers in a ’92 Subaru near Jackson, Wyo., found…