The disappearance of the Rocky Mountain locust — which
once swarmed the Plains like a biblical plague, only to die out
entirely within decades — holds serious lessons for humanity.
Also in this issue: The
Bush administration rolls back a Clinton-era moratorium on RS 2477,
a controversial old statute that some Western counties have used to
claim designated roads in wilderness areas, parks and
monuments.
Mining, skiing leave labor in the dust
Dear HCN, Although I was pleased to see an HCN column touching upon immigration issues (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north), Michelle Nijhuis painted a very one-sided picture of U.S. immigration policy. She submits that allowing illegal immigrants to use the matricula card as a form of legal identification…
Amnesty for illegal immigrants
Dear HCN, I remember Leadville during the moly days and it was not a pleasant place — if one had longer hair, drove a Volkswagen and committed the sin of being an ecologist. I remember AMAX coming to my town, Crested Butte, offering to remove a mountain there, and having to fight them for five…
Republicans should take an honest look at Bush
Dear HCN, I am a third-generation Western Republican troubled by recent letters accusing HCN writers of “divisive rhetoric” and a “socialist or even communistic view” (HCN, 12/23/02). I had hoped that the incoming Bush administration would have the courage and leadership to promote economic growth and ecological sustainability. Instead, the administration launched an aggressive campaign…
Real environmentalists don’t support immigration
Dear HCN, Michelle Nijhuis sounds generous when she writes: “I can’t say I deserve the many benefits of living here more than the people in line do” (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north). But as she helps the Mexican government encourage illegal immigration into the United States, by providing…
Nevada’s desert beauty
On the 400-square-mile playa at the heart of northeastern Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the terrain is so flat that you’re sometimes better off looking at the GPS unit on your dashboard than at the road in front of you. Though you might run into locals enjoying the obscure sport of “land sailing,” or into temporarily…
Removing Dams – Rebuilding Rivers
In the early 1980s, a group of activists from a small New England town fought the restoration of the nation’s oldest hydroelectric dam, the Sewalls Falls Dam on the Merrimack River. That battle ended when an April 1984 freshet washed away one-third of the century-old structure. But the fight kicked off a new social and…
The Latest Bounce
Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve may soon see a fleet of new oil rigs (HCN, 1/20/03: Refuge back in the crosshairs). The Bureau of Land Management has just released its draft environmental impact statement for drilling in the reserve. Depending on which alternative the agency chooses, anywhere from 4.1 million to 8.8 million acres will be…
Light and love in Wyoming
Before I can review Mark Spragg’s new novel, The Fruit of Stone, I need to perform an exorcism — of a New York Times book review by a guy named Jonathan Miles, whose credentials include Books Columnist for Men’s Journal (one of those magazines that show men how to spend an hour in a fitness…
Dummy up and deal
(Card) dealers are reminded many times … that they are on the bottom of the food chain, where they have to feel fortunate to gather up the crumbs that fall off the table. On the other hand, where else can a person without a high school diploma earn forty to a hundred thousand a year…
A green light for methane development
A green light for methane development The latest plans for drilling up to 65,000 new coalbed methane wells in the Powder River Basin could leave the landscape pockmarked by 4,000 ponds that would eventually dry up into salt-encrusted pits. That’s the word from local environmentalists and ranchers who are facing off with a half-dozen energy…
Land-use story gave Oregon a bad rap
Dear HCN, I was greatly disappointed with Rebecca Clarren’s recent article on Oregon’s land-use legacy (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Her basic premise — using a handful of anecdotes and personal beliefs from interviewees to argue there is sweeping discontent with Oregon’s land-use system — is shoddy. Poll after poll shows that support…
Oregon should put more land-use decisions in local hands
Dear HCN, As a planning director for Linn County, Ore., for 13 years (1981-94) I felt a responsibility to respond to Rebecca Clarren’s article, “Planning’s poster child grows up” (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). There are a few inaccuracies; however, I found the article to be well-balanced. On the whole, the planning program…
Tourism is a vast improvement over mining
Dear HCN, “In search of the Glory Days” (HCN, 12/23/02: In search of the Glory Days) follows what has become a tradition at HCN — nostalgia for the West that has passed or is passing. In this case, it is the glory days of mining that are mourned and the present days of outdoor recreation…
The son of immigrants has a change of heart
It is an urban legend, but I believe it. A traveling salesman wrote to a hotel, complaining that he’d been bitten by bedbugs. He got a lengthy letter of apology back, saying that bedbugs had never been seen on the premises or even within blocks of the hotel. Inside the envelope, he also found a…
The death of the Super Hopper
How early settlers unwittingly drove their nemesis extinct, and what it means for us today
“But you don’t sound like a republican…”
Martha Marks, president of Republicans for Environmental Protection, has gotten used to funny looks and puzzled questions. Yes, she’s a green elephant — but she objects to being put in the same category as “jumbo shrimp” and “deafening silence.” She is not an oxymoron. What she is, she says, is “the environmental conscience of the…
Dear Friends
Survey results are in Living in a small town, it’s easy to make generalizations about your community. It’s a little harder to make sense of a community that’s spread across the million-square-mile West — and all the way to Washington, D.C. — as are the readers of High Country News. Sure, we send out a…
Road warriors back on the offensive
Christmas Eve announcement reignites controversy over roads in wilderness areas, parks and monuments
Hispanic community takes on polluters
Hodgepodge zoning puts chrome-plating plants next to homes
Heard Around the West
“Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he recycled the newspapers,” deadpans the San Jose Mercury News. But Tom Bates, candidate for mayor of Berkeley, Calif., was so angry when the Daily Californian endorsed his opponent that he threw 1,000 copies of the free newspaper into the trash. Almost as embarrassing as being caught…
Project mixes suburbs with nature preserve
Albuquerque’s Mesa del Sol will be the Southwest’s largest ‘green development’
Living on the sharp edge of diversity
Blake told us about the killings when we returned from vacation. As we pulled away from Denver International Airport’s glowing tent terminal, he said, “There was a shooting in Rifle. Four people got killed at the City Market. It looks like the guy was going after Mexicans.” I glanced at Anjula, my wife. She stared…
New lands boss takes the reins
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Project mixes suburbs with nature preserve.” SANTA FE, New Mexico — Last month, Pat Lyons was fighting two-foot snowdrifts and looking for a hired man to replace him on his 15,000-acre ranch near Cuervo, on New Mexico’s…