The last issue of the “Imagine a River” series on the Rio Grande examines how the river has become the “Rio Wimpy,” running out of water twice before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.
The Latest Bounce
All sides are hailing the negotiated settlement of a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service’s salvage logging plan for Montana’s burned Bitterroot National Forest (HCN, 1/21/02: Judge puts kibosh on logging plan). On Feb. 7, environmental groups, the logging industry and Bush administration officials announced a revised plan that removes 27,000 acres of sensitive roadless lands…
A great read, but does it compute?
Dear HCN, First off, I’d like to lavish HCN with praises for putting together such a jolly good read, for sure – then, secondly, for also being well-congealed with quotable info regarding the state of our Western environs … perhaps. Explanation: In his letter of Dec. 3, 2001, regarding Randy Udall’s opinion, “We are the…
If you want to save it, buy it
Dear HCN, I realize I’m a little late writing to you about your coalbed methane article (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s powder keg), but I wanted to provide a viewpoint that probably isn’t shared by many of your readers. What I understand from the article is that some landowners are upset at the development of coalbed methane…
‘Finding the words’ a spear to the heart
Dear HCN, Michelle Nijhuis’ “Finding the Words” (HCN, 1/21/02: Finding the words) leaves me struggling to “find words” to convey my grief, once again, for the injustice done to our native peoples. A well-sharpened spear to my heart; I have not wept with that sort of compassion and anger in a very long time, the…
Scouts (dis)honor
ARIZONA After Henry Jackson bought the X9 ranch just a few miles southeast of land-hungry Tucson in 1955, he subdivided and lightly developed much of it. But during the ’70s and ’80s, Jackson also deeded 420 acres to the Boy Scouts of America. At the base of the Rincon Mountains, the land is bordered by…
Pasayten not ugly: HCN slant is
Dear HCN, It constantly amazes me how nasty a slant HCN can put on its articles. If you have to do that to sell your magazines, you should be ashamed of yourselves. The only thing truly ugly about the Pasayten Wilderness (HCN, 12/17/01: A crowded Washington wilderness gets ugly) is Martha Hall and the other…
Buyout for bears
IDAHO Everybody knows that sheep and grizzlies just don’t get along. The predator-prey antagonism has been especially acute in Idaho’s Targhee National Forest, where five grizzlies were relocated and 34 domestic sheep killed from 1996 to 1998. One sheep herder suffered a grizzly mauling. But bear-sheep conflicts on the Targhee promise to diminish in the…
Band-aid environmentalism
Dear HCN, Once a talented surgical team ready to save the world, the environmental movement has devolved into a school nurse dispensing sterile advice and used band-aids. Warning that “time is short,” editor Paul Larmer’s plea for the West as “an island besieged” (HCN, 1/21/02: The American West is an island besieged) presents a brief…
Moose-slinging ends
UTAH Utah’s emergency program to relocate moose by air has been grounded. A heavy early snowfall brought a larger than usual number of moose down close to Interstate 80 in search of food, and drivers struck and killed seven of the animals in December alone. These accidents, combined with an anticipated increase in traffic during…
Dunes shifts toward park status
COLORADO Rural communities often cringe at the prospect of the federal government owning more land. But residents in Colorado’s San Luis Valley are breathing a sigh of relief now that their valley is one step closer to becoming home to a new national park. In January, The Nature Conservancy signed an agreement to buy a…
Entrepreneur shovels trouble
UTAH Archaeologists don’t dig Anasazi Digs. The family-owned business on private land near Monticello, Utah, invites customers to excavate – and keep – artifacts from an Anasazi pueblo for $2,500 a day. “It’s like owning a Van Gogh painting and cutting it into lots of pieces,” says Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones. “The owner could…
Groundswell for a monument?
UTAH After President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to establish Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, Gov. Mike Leavitt railed against the move as an abuse of executive power. But during his State of the State address this Jan. 28, Leavitt asked President Bush for something that made environmentalists’ jaws hit the floor: a 620,000-acre…
Cheney picks former aide to oversee parks, BLM,wildlife
When Paul Hoffman went hunting in Wyoming’s Absaroka Mountains last fall, he shot a six-point bull elk. Then he cut it into steaks and burgers for his family to eat. Now he plans to take the stuffed head and antlers to Washington, D.C., to decorate his new office. “I think that’s one reason they picked…
Predator politics gets ugly in Idaho
Fish and Game Director Rod Sando quits
Greens join ‘Let’s derail a judge’ game
Federal judges around the West have often been the backstop protecting everything environmental, from stream quality to spotted owls. So it’s surprising when green groups say some judges are systematically undercutting their work. But some “highly ideological and activist judges are threatening the very core of environmental law,” warns a campaign by a dozen groups,…
Condor program laden with lead
Carcass-feeding condors dying from bullets
Battle brews over a wilderness mother lode
Activists say Montana’s Rock Creek Mine would harm grizzly, bull trout and clean water
Heard around the West
Once in a while, Utah makes us wonder. Guns, for instance, enjoy a privileged status that extends everywhere on Beehive State property except prisons, hospitals and courtrooms. That means you can wear a .40-caliber Glock pistol while teaching or taking notes in a college classroom, and nobody has the right to ask you to leave…
Will bulldozers roll into Arizona’s Eden?
Rancher’s wilderness inholding caught in a decade-long feud
The Eucalyptus: Sacred or profane?
Only God can make a tree, but any ecological illiterate can plant it in the wrong place. Ansel Adams understood this. On running tree-planting Boy Scouts out of California’s Marin Headlands, the photographer declared: “I cannot think of a more tasteless undertaking than to plant trees in a naturally treeless area, and to impose an…
A river on the line
A trip through the U.S.-Mexico borderlands reveals a tough road ahead for the Rio Grande
What is poisoning border babies?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. BROWNSVILLE, Texas – In April 1991, health care workers in this border town were brought up short. In a matter of hours, three babies were born at the Community Health Clinic with anencephaly, a rare birth defect marked by the failure of the fetus…
Here lies the Rio Grande
A telling end to the tangled story of a once-great river
Running for cover on the Rio Grande
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY, Texas – Spanish explorers who came here in the 16th century found a jungle of cedar elm and sugar hackberry hung with moss. They called the river Rio de las Palmas, the River of Palms, because of the sabal palm…
Dear Friends
An educational journey Our cover story, written by associate publisher Greg Hanscom, is the last in a three-year series on the Rio Grande. It’s been quite an education. While HCN has a long history with the geography and politics of the Colorado River, the Rio Grande has always been something of a mystery to us.…
How does snow melt? A test for all Westerners
“You can’t be a sissy and live in this country,” the old rancher told me, his German accent evident despite his being native to this mountain valley. “Or at least you didn’t use to,” he added, looking me in the eye. It was the 1970s, and I was new to the Interior West. The rancher…
Attention, wolves: I’m what’s for dinner
Like many Western states before it, Colorado is considering a plan to bring the wolf back to its former turf in the Centennial State. Among the general public, support for the plan is significant: A study by a Washington, D.C., polling firm found that 68 percent of Coloradans asked were in favor of putting wolves…