In Tucson, Ariz., where a dozen acres are cleared for development each day, environmentalists and concerned locals try to find ways to rein in runaway growth, and to save the desert and its remaining endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy owls.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to lure volunteers to work in a number of positions ranging from trail crew workers to campground hosts. Volunteers choose the region and the Corps matches them with a project. Call the Volunteer Clearinghouse at 1-800-VOL-TEER, write to P.O. Box 1070, Nashville, TN 37202-1070, or check out www.orn.usace.army.mil/volunteer.…
Western Forest Activists Conference
Environmentalists favoring wilderness protection for ancient forests will convene at Headwaters’ 8th annual Western Forest Activists Conference in Ashland, Ore., Feb. 5-7. Speakers include Agnes Pilgrim, a Rogue Band Takilma elder, who works to preserve the role of native women in traditional land management. Call the Headwaters office at 541/482-4459 or e-mail headwtrs@mind.net Send pre-registration…
Bibliography of Native American Literature
A bibliography of Native American literature is now available on the Web at www.anpa.ualr.edu. The site, developed by the Native American Writers Archival Project, includes over 10,000 annotated citations of Native American fiction, poetry, journalism and technical writing published before 1945. For more information, contact James Parins at anpa@ualr.edu or write to the Native American…
Gila National Forest
Though jobs in fire management, trail maintenance, guiding and research won’t be available on the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico until summer, the application deadline is Jan. 29. For details, call Joan E. Hellen, 505/539-2481, at the Glenwood Ranger Station. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline…
The Future of Our Public Lands II: A Work in Progress
The Andrus Center for Public Policy, led by its namesake, former governor of Idaho Cecil Andrus, who also served as secretary of the Interior, is sponsoring its second symposium on federal land policy, The Future of Our Public Lands II: A Work in Progress, in Boise on March 24, 1999. The heads of the Fish…
One of the agency’s best
Dear HCN, I was disturbed and dismayed by your recent article about retired forest supervisor Jim Nelson (HCN, 12/21/98). I have never met Mr. Nelson and know him only by his reputation. I believe him to be a man of courage and vision, with a land ethic fully the equal of that possessed by two…
The great bison chase continues
Fifteen bison thundered along a barbed-wire fence in West Yellowstone while officials from the Montana Department of Livestock chased them from snowmobiles in December. After running the herd for a half an hour through a privately owned field, officials cornered eight. Then they shot blanks from rifles into the air, set off firecrackers and yelled…
Another hatchet job
Dear HCN, Your title “Fallen Forester” in the December 21 issue is unfortunate. It leads one to conclude that Jim Nelson is in some way tainted goods. To the contrary, he is a model of the passion, intellect and gumption the Forest Service needs to cultivate to accomplish its difficult mission. More fitting titles would…
The Wayward West
Two of the managers of Colorado’s Summitville gold mine finally got their day in court, but the company higher-ups won’t ever step inside the courtroom to explain their role in the nation’s costliest mine disaster – the clean-up has cost $150 million so far. Six years after Galactic Resources declared bankruptcy, a federal court slapped…
Forester should have fallen
Dear HCN, The opinion expressed by Ted Williams on a “Fallen Forester” (HCN, 12/21/98) is not shared by those who are familiar with federal land exchanges in Nevada. What Mr. Williams didn’t say was, while Jim Nelson was “hustling around the countryside cutting land deals, adding 100,000 acres to the forest,” the taxpayers were losing…
Radical is a relative concept
Dear HCN, About 15 years ago, I heard poet and anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan speak in Portland. Berrigan was a leader in the Plowshares movement, whose participants entered factories and government installations to physically damage nuclear weapons. After his speech, which was both passionate and supremely logical, Berrigan took questions from the audience. One…
Starry, starry night
Many New Mexicans worry that their ability to see the stars is vanishing. Because light pollution is increasing, the New Mexico Historic Preservation Alliance has declared the night sky one of the 11 most endangered places in the state. “The night sky has always been looked at as simply a natural resource,” says National Park…
Don’t blame Freud
Dear HCN, I am unaware of any science that can demonstrate hunters are “subconsciously killing other male humans because of competition for females.” In my reading of the literature, killing and bringing in high-level protein packages in the shape of fish and game gets you more access to females, not less. More access means greater…
Keystone snowmakers get thirsty
Ski resorts are working overtime to beef up the sparse early season snowfall in the Central Rockies, and the Colorado Water Conservation Board thinks snowmakers at the Keystone Ski Area might be working a little too hard. In early December, the Summit County resort pulled more than its share of water out of the nearby…
Who’s really the Neanderthal?
Dear HCN, I resent Stephen Gies’ repeated references to manhood and the male ego, since I happen to be female and an avid hunter (HCN, 10/26/98). While condemning hunters as barbaric Neanderthals, Gies implies that hunting his way (with a self-fashioned stone knife or spear and wearing animal hides) would be OK. Who’s the Neanderthal…
Crust course coming
Although they resemble bits of black rubber, clumps of lumpy soil crust found throughout the arid West prevent erosion. This slow-growing community of microscopic plants, however, is feeling the effects of cattle grazing, off-road vehicles and outdoor recreation. Next month, the Bureau of Land Management will sponsor an intensive training course on the biology and…
Environmentalists are ‘doing nothing’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Bill Arnold is a real estate broker and former county planning and zoning commissioner. “The environmental community doesn’t want the desert destroyed, but what the hell do they do to promote infill? They’re doing nothing. In May, we had a textbook case of…
ATV revolt
ATV revolt A proposal to close 400 miles of forest roads and 200 miles of trails to motorized vehicles on the Targhee National Forest has raised a storm of protest. The road closures are intended to decrease road densities in a grizzly bear recovery area – a move recommended by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife…
Keeping hikers and habitat happy
-Most hikers think of their hobby as low-impact, a way to enjoy nature without harming it, but a new publication from Colorado State Parks suggests they’re only partly right. Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind: A Handbook for Trail Planners shows how trails can interfere with wild areas. The guide suggests routing trails along ecological…
‘The party is over’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Doug McVie and his wife, Christina, live on five acres in the heart of the ironwood forest on Tucson’s northwest side. They are active in the environmental group, Desert Watch. “Once you see the surveying tags, the party is over. I called up…
‘People have a voice’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Gayle Hartmann is a longtime environmental activist in Tucson’s growth wars and a former Pima County Planning and Zoning commissioner. “The first time I spoke before the County Planning and Zoning Commission, it was 1971. I was living in the Tucson Mountains (west…
The roll call of sprawl
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ People per square mile in metropolitan Tucson in 1953: 5,000 … in 1998: 2,400 Acres of Sonoran Desert land cleared for new homes, offices and commercial buildings each day: 12 Average annual temperature in Tucson in 1900: 67 degrees … in the mid-1990s:…
Selling sizzle and steak
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ David Taylor is a veteran planner for the city of Tucson. “I got asked at a meeting once, “When did the town peak?” I said, “If you are a rich, old, white lady living in the Catalina Foothills, it peaked in 1940. If…
‘Let’s get it resolved’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Ron Asta, an environmentalist and Pima County supervisor from 1973 to 1976, is now a zoning consultant to small landowners. “After I lost my seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1976, I was offered a job by KUAT-TV (the local public TV…
Dear Friends
Tony the workhorse This paper depends on its readers and financial supporters, but above all it depends on people who hold down demanding full-time jobs and yet still find time to do little things, like writing huge chunks of High Country News. Over the years, reporter Tony Davis has been first among this group of…
Bitter farewell: A Montana valley succumbs to growth fever
We are losing the Bitterroot. The first place settled in Montana may be the first to go. The words stick in the throat. They have the growl of negativity, the un-American taste of failure. What can we do with such an impossible fact? On days when fresh snow sashes the high granite ridges, we ignore…
A statesman steps off the stage
When House Interior Committee Chairman Morris K. Udall of Arizona flew north in 1977 to hold hearings on a bill to protect more than 100 million acres in Alaska, locals in the town of Pelican hanged him in effigy. Ten years later, when Udall returned to Alaska to make a speech, an audience of chamber…
Agencies seek quieter public meetings
This winter, hundreds of people filed into school gymnasiums, town halls and hotel conference rooms, working up the gumption to stand in front of a crowd and speak out on the future of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. To their surprise, the stomach butterflies were for nothing. They didn’t find the rows…
Another dog done gone
BOULDER, Colo. – Maybe it was the buzz about the arsonist fires on the Vail ski hill; for whatever reason, the scene at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colo., seemed dramatic. More than 250 people gathered for the premiere of Varmints, the latest of Doug Hawes-Davis’ films sponsored by the Missoula, Mont., based Ecology Center.…
Heard around the West
If hunters can hone their target skills on computer games, why can’t anti-hunters? Now they can, thanks to a $20 parody game called “Deer Avenger,” created by a staff writer for TV’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” It stars a buck with a bad attitude and an arsenal to boot, who fights back with a…
Desert sprawl
Note: This feature story is accompanied by seven sidebars listed at the end. TUCSON, Arizona Last spring, tens of thousands of people strolled the Street of Dreams subdivision to gaze at a $749,000 mansion. Behind the house, man-made waterfalls flowed past prickly pear and saguaro cacti. Inside, a television set popped up from a nightstand…
Squandering our kids’ inheritance
“This is our kids’ inheritance.” I saw the bumper sticker the first time on the back of a beat-up old Airstream in a Searchlight, Nev., casino parking lot, and I thought of one of my dad’s favorite sayings: “Enjoy your money and your kids while you’re alive.” He didn’t, and died with that regret. I’m…
Children teach tough lessons
School is a terrible place to have to spend your days. As any disgruntled student can tell you, the walls are sterile, the teachers suspicious, the curriculum irrelevant, the freedoms nonexistent. And, out of all the places on earth I could be, I have chosen to spend my workdays here. I made this decision, perhaps…
‘It was God’s country’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Dee Dee Arnaud is once again a resident of the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson. “My family moved here from the Chicago area in 1946. My sister had respiratory allergies, and the dry air in Tucson took care of it. We lived in…