For over 30 years, the Northern Cheyenne have stood firm
against energy development and its environmental impacts, but now,
faced with crushing poverty, some are starting to think about
developing the reservation’s coal and methane resources.
Also in this issue: At
midnight on New Year’s Eve, Interior Secretary Gale Norton
astonished California by it cutting off from the “surplus” Colorado
River water it has long been using, after the state failed to come
up with promised water transfers.
A mine falls, and a tribe may get the shaft
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A breath of fresh air.” It was a glorious sight to many in the environmental movement: President Bill Clinton traveled to Yellowstone National Park in August 1996, donned a ranger hat, and announced a deal that would stave off a gold mine in the…
THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE
Two recently released books, Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West and Ranching West of the 100th Meridian, offer very different visions of ranching’s place in the West. In a special feature, High Country News’ Ed Marston and Forest Guardians executive director John Horning, review the books and reopen the debate on the…
Stock Farm does help nonprofits
Dear HCN, This past September, I was contacted by one of your reporters who was doing a story on the Stock Farm, a gated community in Hamilton, Mont. (HCN, 11/11/02: Behind the gate). The reporter contacted me because I am the director of a local nonprofit organization and she wanted to know if, in my…
Corporate colonizers in the ‘last, best place’
Dear HCN, As a longtime resident of the Bitterroot Valley I found the article concerning the Stock Farm development particularly poignant (HCN, 11/11/02: Behind the gate). Copper baron Marcus Daly used his Bitterroot estate, now the Stock Farm, as a retreat from the poisoned air, land and water of Butte and the Clark Fork Valley,…
HCN misses the mark on gated communities
Dear HCN, Florence Williams’ article (HCN, 11/11/02: Behind the gate) on gated ranch communities was probably the least thoughtful article published by HCN in quite a few years. The clear theme of the article was that it is somehow unfair for wealthy outsiders to own land in the West. Contrary to Ms. Williams’ perception, there…
Land-use planning makes Oregon great
Dear HCN, As a longtime subscriber and supporter of HCN, I was very disturbed by your recent article on Oregon’s land-use planning system (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). The writer took way too much of the opposition to land-use planning at face value. Just about everybody has heard about some land-use bureaucratic nightmare,…
The Latest Bounce
On New Year’s Eve, U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo ruled in favor of the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Forest Guardians and concluded that the Forest Service violated federal environmental laws when it neglected to study the long-term effects of grazing on the 25,000-acre Copper Creek allotment in the Gila National Forest. Though the cattle can stay…
Refuge back in the crosshairs
Republican victories in the midterm elections could mean it’s open season on Alaska’s energy reserves. President Bush targeted the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for oil and gas development in his 2001 national energy plan. But legislation authorizing exploration and development in ANWR failed to pass the divided…
84-year-old bird law no match for the military
The United States has once again declared itself to be above international law — this time, a law aimed at protecting birds. Last April, a federal judge ordered all branches of the military to comply with the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a law that protects 850 species of birds through agreements with Mexico, Canada,…
Virus attacks in the Grand Canyon
The outbreak of Norwalk virus on cruise ships grabbed national headlines last fall, but few have heard of the virus’s untimely arrival on rubber rafts in the depths of the Grand Canyon. Last summer, Norwalk infected at least 130 Grand Canyon recreationists, who spent their river trips vomiting and running for the groover (that’s river-speak…
Wild Sky Wilderness could be downsized
The Wild Sky Wilderness may become a little less wild if the timber industry has its way. Had Congress approved the Wild Sky Wilderness Act during the fall legislative session, it would have designated 106,000 acres of wilderness in the valleys of the Cascades north of Seattle (HCN, 6/24/02: A wide-angled wilderness). Although U.S. Sen.…
Wilderness proposal or political ploy?
Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., surprised Congress and environmentalists in November when he introduced legislation to designate 49,800 acres of land in northwestern Colorado as the Red Table Mountain Wilderness. The bill included provisions for motorized recreation trails, helicopter training by the Colorado National Guard, and guaranteed water rights for the nearby town of Gypsum. Richard…
A winter drive into oblivion
Sometimes it can’t be helped, that long drive across the West, rolling the odometer like a slot machine that promises to pay off with just one more spin. The gas gauge hovers around half and it looks like you’ll get there without stopping again in the middle of who knows where. Home is all you…
A breath of fresh air
Surrounded by a massive industrial buildup, the Northern Cheyenne tribe defends its homeland
Dear Friends
A blizzard of mail The staff of High Country News returned from our holiday excursions to find the mountains above town buried in snow, and our desks — and e-mail boxes — piled high with mail from many of you. The holiday cards and fruit baskets and jerky and chocolates were wonderful — but it…
Tribes gain power through federal environmental laws
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A breath of fresh air.” For many decades after they were forced onto reservations in the late 1800s, Native American tribes had virtually no control over their land and environment. But today, 15 of the more than 500 tribes in the United States run…
California’s water binge skids to a halt
Interior Department cuts off state from ‘surplus’ Colorado River water
Heard Around the West
How do you distinguish between those “good” animals — native species — and the bad actors that stomp on the locals and conquer their turf? Animal rightists don’t like to make those distinctions, arguing that all animals deserve our respect. Just off the coast of California, there’s been a dispute about what to do on…
Tug-of-war continues over ancient bones
Kennewick Man case undermines federal authority to decide who gets to dig
High tea in the wilderness and a toast to thelight
Solstice means “sun standing still.” Today is the darkest day, but tonight the moon will be full. Temperatures hover below freezing, and a skiff of snow hints at winter, although the colors are end-of-fall browns: brown bunchgrass, brown pine, elderly ponderosas. In western Montana, we are living the driest December on record, drier than the…
One law, two bodies, two different decisions
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Tug-of-war continues over ancient bones.” Four years after the controversy over “Kennewick Man” first surfaced, the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada decided the fate of another ancient skeleton. In 1940, archaeologists found “Spirit Cave Man,” near…