Recreationists of every kind have long used Colorado’s White River National Forest as a playground, and the Forest Service’s proposed new plan, which would limit some activities in an attempt to help the forest, is being met with a lot of anger.
More drains for pothole country?
In South Dakota, soil conservation officials and environmental groups are facing off over how to define a wetland. Under the 1985 “Swampbusters’ Farm Bill, farmers who drain wetlands can’t qualify for federal farm subsidies. But states do the certifying of farmers for Swampbusters compliance, and last May, the South Dakota office of the Natural Resource…
Nuns get a windfall
The wind didn’t exactly blow dollar bills through the door of the Sacred Heart Monastery in Richardton, N.D. But two years after the monastery’s Catholic sisters installed two windmills 100 feet high, their electric bill was cut almost in half for a savings of $18,000 in two years. “We’ve been here for over 30 years,…
Does Web site turn ranchers into targets?
Publicly funded predator control in the West is raising more than coyote hackles. The newest scuffle was sparked by an Internet Web page, not by poisons and traps. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Albuquerque-based animal rights group, New West Research, obtained files from Wildlife Services, the federal agency formerly known as Animal Damage…
Fund remembers student of science
Matt Clow, 30, was fascinated by whirling disease. As a Montana State University graduate student, he wanted to find out why young Arctic grayling and cutthroat trout fall prey to the disease that is spreading throughout the West’s waters. In June 1998, Matt Clow drowned after his boat capsized on a lake near Dillon, Mont.…
Western Forest Activists Conference
Activists, scientists and politicians will gather at Headwater’s ninth annual Western Forest Activists Conference in Ashland, Ore., Feb. 3-6. The focus of this year’s conference: restoring and preserving forests as a major campaign issue for the 2000 elections. Call Chant Thomas at 541/899-1712, or e-mail chant@headwaters.org. This article appeared in the print edition of the…
Why fee me?
Dear HCN, I applaud Annie Conner and the Clearwater National Forest in their efforts to erase roads and recreate some semblance of an ecologically viable system in north-central Idaho (HCN, 11/8/99). Although I, too, have used many a Forest Service road, I will gladly curtail my off-road driving time for the good of the system,…
Sierra Nevada Aquatic and Riparian Science Workshop
The Forest Service hosts a Sierra Nevada Aquatic & Riparian Science Workshop at Fresno State University, Feb. 11-12. The agency wants the public to help develop a final environmental impact statement for Sierra Nevada forests. Contact the Sierra Nevada Framework Project at 801 I St., Room 419, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916/492-7554), or visit www.r5.fs.fed.us. This…
No new vision needed
Dear HCN, I was interested in the views of William Cronon, and his defender, William R. Dickinson, that we need a new vision of wilderness that takes into account the effects humans had on the North American environment in the pre-Columbian period (HCN, 12/6/99). These views are also similar to those of Prof. Charles Kay…
Winter Fishtrap: Living and Writing on the Edge
Personal tales of adventure and experiences in exotic places can translate into fascinating stories. Three presenters and 50 participants will come together for Winter Fishtrap: Living and Writing on the Edge, Feb. 25-27, a weekend of discussion, readings and recreation in Wallowa Lake, Ore. Write Fishtrap Inc., P.O. Box 38, Enterprise, OR 97828, or call…
Dam corrections
Dear HCN, We immediately found two errors on the front page of your article “Unleashing the Snake” (HCN, 12/20/99). Lower Granite Dam is not in Idaho – it is in Washington (see your map on page 11). And coho salmon are not also called king – they are called silver (the king is also called…
Silverton Avalanche School
Learn everything you need to know about avalanches, snow safety and rescue at the Silverton Avalanche School in Silverton, Colo. Two levels of training are available, both with field sessions, over three weekends in January and February. Call the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office at 970/387-5531 (only between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through…
The bulldozer wins
Dear HCN, “Bulldozers Roll in Tucson” described the tragedy one can expect when wildlife gets in the way of children – and their parents. I learned this lesson at a middle school built in a piûon-juniper forest near Cedar City, Utah. The spring after the school opened, roaming students spotted a nearby great horned owl…
Family Farm Alliance
Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., will talk to the Family Farm Alliance, a group interested in preserving irrigated agriculture, at its annual conference in Las Vegas, Nev., Feb. 28 and 29. The forum also includes speakers from the Bureau of Reclamation, National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Resources Defense Council. Contact Jody Brennan at 714/516-1311…
Locals do it better
Dear HCN, Your article on Washington County’s Habitat Conservation Plan in southern Utah (HCN, 8/30/99) failed to make it clear that the plan is already successfully protecting tortoises inside the 61,000-acre Red Cliffs Desert Reserve and that the county is working further to reduce impacts to tortoises. With the help of federal, state and local…
Why not brake for kittens?
Dear HCN, As one who lives on a dirt road, drives a lot of them, and was a volunteer emergency medical tech for 12 years, I can testify that driving 75 on the road driven by Peggy Godfrey, however straight, even in daytime, endangers the driver, wildlife, cattle, and anyone or anything else in the…
The Wayward West
Boise Cascade Corp. in Monmouth, Ore., got a nasty surprise on Christmas Day, when arson destroyed the timber company’s regional headquarters. The Earth Liberation Front, which took credit for a $12 million fire at Vail Resort in Colorado last year (HCN, 11/9/98), has claimed responsibility. “Boise Cascade has been very naughty after ravaging the forests…
A dredging dilemma
Dredging the Columbia River would allow bigger ships to sail between the Columbia River Estuary and into Portland, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its $196 million plan would deepen a 103-mile stretch of river by three feet by dredging every day for two years. According to the Corps’ final environmental impact statement, dredging…
A spick-and-span plan
Every year, untreated sewage flows out of storm drains in Portland, Ore., and into the Willamette River. “Most of the time, when you flush the toilet, it goes straight into the river because basically, when it rains in Portland, the sewers overflow,” says Don Francis of the nonprofit group, Riverkeepers. He estimates that 3 billion…
The swift fox comes home
Visitors to the rolling grasslands of Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation may wonder what animal is making a chirping sound. It sounds like a bird, but it’s the mating call of the swift fox. The long-legged, long-eared and bushy-tailed animals were once common on the range, eating grasshoppers and Richardson’s ground squirrels. Lewis and Clark first…
‘Managing for biodiversity is a mistake’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Lou Dawson, a guidebook writer in Carbondale, Colo., was the first person to ski down Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners.” He also hunts, jeeps, snowmobiles and once started an avalanche while downhill skiing out of bounds at Aspen Highlands, suffering an injury that still nags him:…
The White River National Forest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The White River National Forest is the very prototype of a New West forest. The Forest Service estimates that 34,000 people make their living from the forest, though that far underestimates its value. The forest is a huge backyard for those who live along…
Take your pick of forest plans
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. While the original White River forest-plan alternatives numbered nine, lettered A through I, now there are six. The survivors are: Alternative B: The status quo, which emphasizes production of goods, recreation and grazing. Few restrictions on travel, no new recommendations for wilderness; timber harvest…
Dear Friends
Y2K Why bother? Try as we might, staff at High Country News encountered no major glitches as 1,000 years petered out. On the first day of the new millennium, a staffer leaving Philadelphia spotted airline monitors all flashing the date 1900, and closer to home in Paonia, we can report that six houseguests were victimized…
Turning the road builders around
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Roads are at the heart of the dispute on the White River National Forest. Gold miners around Breckenridge and silver miners around Aspen built the first roads, while livestock grazers improved Ute Indian trails for stock drives. Later yet came roads for power lines,…
Heard around the West
In southeastern Washington, vandals wiped out an entire forest overnight. They did the deed by chopping down the only tree in an arid landscape of cheatgrass and sagebrush near the town of Connell, pop. 2,000. Townspeople have put up a $1,000 reward for the arrest of the saw-wielding bandit, reports Associated Press. The lone tree,…
Chainsaws fall silent in Cove-Mallard
NEZ PERCE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Just a few years ago, Cove-Mallard, a roadless area, was a rallying cry for anti-logging activists. As bulldozers pushed into the rolling mountains above the Salmon River in north-central Idaho, protesters locked themselves to gates, buried each other under piles of slash and erected and perched in a series…
Experiment takes the cut out of logging
COLUMBIA FALLS, Mont. – Surrounded by mountain forests that stretch 80 miles north to the Canadian border and 120 miles east to the Great Plains, this town grew from the seeds of logging. And in contrast to neighboring communities like Whitefish, which now depend on tourism generated by Glacier National Park, Columbia Falls remains a…
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A national forest tries to rein in recreation
In their own words
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s really a pivotal moment. The battle lines have been drawn. We’re pointing our fingers, but we’re pointing them pretty much at ourselves. We’re saying that we have to start exercising restraint in when and where we choose to recreate. A lot of people…
‘They’re not good stewards of the land’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Gonzales lives in Minturn, Colo., and grew up hunting elk, deer and grouse with his father, who mined zinc and lead at the now-defunct Eagle Mine, near Vail. He prowled the backcountry roads in a four-wheel drive until two decades ago, when a…