The Bonneville Power Administration has long provided the Northwest — especially its aluminum industry — with some of the cheapest public power, but drought, endangered salmon and the deregulated electricity market may just change all that.

Tribe tussles over target range

MONTANA The Fort Belknap Indian Community in north-central Montana, home to the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, is split on a proposal that would allow the Montana Air National Guard to drop dummy bombs and fire dummy bullets on tribal trust land. The one-mile-square target area would be in the center of a 15-square-mile buffer…

by Laurel Jones

Indian rock art under the drill?

MONTANA Crow Indian historian Howard Boggess believes the rock art that graces the sandstone cliffs of Weatherman Draw marks the historic “Valley of the Shields” as a “place of peace” where chiefs and warriors retreated for vision quests. The art likely represents a multitude of ethnic groups who traveled through this historic migratory corridor in…

by Laurel Jones

Politics sink growth management

COLORADO After a failed ballot initiative, a dozen legislative bills and a special session that burnt the midnight oil, Colorado is no closer to managing its growth. Gov. Bill Owens, R, had promised citizens a solution by summer, but the Legislature couldn’t overcome a partisan impasse. Republicans opposed mandatory impact fees that would have forced…

by Rachel Jackson

Birds for a feather

Eagle feathers have been important cultural and spiritual symbols for members of the Pueblo of Zuni. “They symbolize strength, courage and vision,” explains Edward Wemytewa, cultural liaison for the tribe. Until recently, however, tribal members had to put their names on a 5,000-person waiting list to receive a carcass from the National Eagle Repository. With…

by Laurel Jones

‘Alternative to Madness’

Anti-nuclear activists have a new way to spread the word about the dangers of weapons testing and radioactive waste – documentary film. In 1998, with borrowed equipment, no budget and little experience, John Brooner of Susanville, Calif., and Sandi Rizzo of Reno, Nev., began filming Shundahai Network’s annual spring gathering at the Nevada Test Site.…

by Crystal Mustric

Banging the drum for change

Janet Robideau hates being told “no,” thanks to a Catholic boarding-school education where strict obedience was doctrine. Now, all those years of keeping silent and following rules have inspired her to do exactly the opposite: give voice to Montana’s urban Indians and change the rules that have restricted them for years. Robideau, a member of…

by Rachel Jackson

Soul food on the range

Researchers at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Sustainable Environments have some bad news about the average American diet: A typical meal’s ingredients travel 2,000 miles from farm to fork, amassing huge environmental and economic costs along the way. The costs are cultural, too, says NAU professor and noted author Gary Nabhan. While Westerners can instantly…

by Renee Guillory

Smokey’s secret is out

Dear HCN, With veiled amusement I read Louise Wagenknecht’s essay, “The year it rained money,” (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money). You did it now, Louise. The cat’s out of the bag. Heaven forbid the American public should understand what those of us in the fire-suppression game have known forever, but do not like…

by Mark De Gregorio

The Latest Bounce

President George Bush has nominated Fran Mainella to be the first woman chief of the National Park Service. Mainella, currently the director of the Division of Recreation and Parks for Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, has funded new cabins and other park infrastructure with thousands of dollars from the private sector. If confirmed, she will…

by Rebecca Clarren

Futile firefighting

Dear HCN, Louise Wagenknecht’s essay on the futility of firefighting (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money) confirmed my family’s observations during a nearby fire last year. We watched in horror as 250 firefighters set pointless backfires, bulldozed miles of roads, and sawed down huge, rare trees that would not have burned. We saw dozens…

by Lester Wood

University wolf study raises hackles

UTAH The Utah Farm Bureau Federation has a bone to pick with Robert Schmidt’s wildlife management class at Utah State University. The class recently studied the biological and economic effects of a hypothetical wolf population in Utah. But when the class took its findings public, the Bureau accused the students of being “pro-wolf” and said…

by Rachel Jackson

An energy boom hits Northwest towns

Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. SUMAS, Wash. – Driving past the empty storefronts and abundant “For Sale” signs downtown, it’s easy to understand why Sumas City Council members initially rolled out the welcome mat for a power company that wants to build a new gas-fired power plant. Sumas, a…

by Dave Wortman

Dear Friends

The board comes to Paonia Meetings of the board of the High Country Foundation are always interesting. But the June 3 meeting in Paonia was almost too interesting. It opened with longtime board member Andy Wiessner objecting to a column High Country News distributed through its Writers on the Range syndication service in early May.…

by Ed Marston

Heard around the West

Redi Kilowatt has seen the light – and it’s a green one. Once the hyper-kinetic spokesbolt for the electric utility industry, Redi recently preached to the Los Angeles Times. Though still flashing a happy-face grin, these days Redi is decidedly cranky. The power mascot says he was forced to come out of retirement at age…

by Betsy Marston

A bird from the past, a warning for the future

My first California condor sighting was at the Grand Canyon. Imagine those huge birds aloft over that incomparable chasm – living gliders on wings that span 9 feet and 40,000 years. Imagine their oversized shadows passing over talus slopes and mesas, clouding the once blood-red, but now blue-green waters of the Colorado. Eclipsing the sun…

by Terri Likens