The University of Arizona’s determination to build a world-class observatory on Mount Graham creates a storm of controversy involving an endangered red squirrel and an Indian tribe’s desire to protect the mountain as a sacred place.
Back at the Diamond Bar…
-USFS Tags Diamond Bar as Green Showplace,” headlined the pro-ranching Hatch, N.M., Courier, after the Forest Service evaluated the 227-square-mile Diamond Bar grazing allotment near Silver City (HCN, 5/1/95). The agency cut ranchers Kit and Sherry Laney’s permitted cattle numbers from 1,188 to 300, but the ranchers will be able to up that to 600-800…
Logan Canyon: Round 1,000
LOGAN CANYON: ROUND 1,000 A controversy that began in 1959 over widening and straightening the road through scenic Logan Canyon in Utah continued in May when the Forest Service decided against a citizens’ group. The group, the Logan Canyon Coalition, had submitted an 187-page critique of the state highway department’s plan to enlarge the road…
She fights for ferrets
A veterinary technician fired for protesting an ill-fated plan for releasing black-footed ferrets into Badlands National Park in South Dakota now wants to start her own care facility for geriatric or neglected ferrets. Carolyn Kinsey was hired to manage a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “conditioning” facility in Pueblo, Colo., for ferrets soon to be…
Grazing thickens forests
GRAZING THICKENS FORESTS A June 12 report from the Oregon Natural Resources Council blames livestock in addition to the usual culprits – fire suppression and poor logging practices – for the declining health of Western forests. The group’s ecologists, Joy Belsky and Dana Blumenthal, reviewed four case studies from Washington, Utah, Idaho and the Southwest,…
The Subdivision Massacre: Part II
THE SUBDIVISION MASSACRE: PART II Hot on the heels of his blockbuster video, Subdividing the West: Implications of Population Growth, Colorado State University wildlife professor Richard Knight has released a sequel: Saving the West: Protecting Open Space, starring a county commissioner, a Nature Conservancy staffer, the originator of one of the nation’s most successful open…
Polluter Pork
POLLUTER PORK Renewable energy is on the congressional chopping block again. An 80-page report by the Sustainable Energy Budget Coalition blasts congressional budget cuts in the Department of Energy’s renewable energy programs. The coalition’s study, Congressional Energy Budget Proposals: Penny-Wise, Pound Fuelish is a state-by-state analysis of budget cut effects. Congress was far kinder to…
Militias busting rural budgets
Officials in Darby, Mont., a town of 625 in Ravalli County, estimate that dealing with militia leader Cal Greenup and his family cost $7,000 in enforcement and legal expenses. That scuffle, along with $13,000 in legal fees spent on another anti-government resident who sued the town over a drunk driving arrest, took nearly all of…
Toughen the ESA, scientists say
TOUGHEN THE ESA, SCIENTISTS SAY In the midst of efforts to water down the Endangered Species Act, two scientific panels announced support for the beleaguered law. Convened by the National Academy of Sciences, the first panel called for swifter action by the government to denote and protect “survival habitat.” Panel chairman Michael Clegg, a geneticist…
Turkeys for timber
An unearthed federal report reveals that Kaibab Forest Products Co. deliberately stole more than 1,200 trees from the Kaibab National Forest north of the Grand Canyon. According to the 1992 report, made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by Robin Silver of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, a cozy relationship existed between…
Short takes
To help people understand the complicated issue of water rights in New Mexico, Recursos de Santa Fe is organizing an Aug. 9 conference in Silver City, N.M., The Prehistoric Basis for Water Use in New Mexico: Options for the Future. Registration is $25. For more information contact M. Susan Barger at Recursos de Santa Fe,…
Utah wilderness goes coast-to-coast
Run over by a political juggernaut in their state, Utah’s environmental groups are trying to dust themselves off and sound a nationwide alarm. The state’s congressional delegation has united in pushing a bill that most environmentalists see as disastrous. It would make 1.8 million acres of Bureau of Land Management wilderness official, but release at…
Outsiders must now stand up for Utah wilderness
OUTSIDERS MUST NOW STAND UP FOR UTAH WILDERNESS Dear HCN, The recent defense of the Utah counties’ recommendations for Utah BLM wilderness by former Grand County Commissioner Paul Menard (HCN, 5/29/95) deserves a response. The Utah congressional delegation told Utah’s county commissioners they could decide how much Bureau of Land Management wilderness should be protected.…
Falling arches
Tourist Jim Lin and his wife, Dafang, stopped to snap a picture of the 306-foot-long Landscape Arch at Utah’s Arches National Park June 5, when they were startled by a loud cracking noise. “It was a very big sound, like a dynamite explosion,” Lin said. What they heard was a 44-foot slab tearing away from…
Tom Huerkamp: required reading
TOM HUERKAMP: REQUIRED READING Dear HCN, Paul Larmer’s skillful account of Tom Huerkamp’s magnificent struggle to hold prison expansion at bay in Delta County (HCN, 6/26/95) ought to be required reading for every county administrator in this country. If ever there was a classic example of how dumb untended markets can be, it has been…
Just a moment!
JUST A MOMENT! Dear HCN, Thanks to Ed Marston for critiquing both Gregg Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth (HCN, 5/29/95) and the gaffes of environmentalists. A friend from Philadelphia tells me that the leaf pictured on the book’s cover is a Norway maple – a weedy tree species currently wreaking havoc in Eastern woodlands.…
An idiot’s diatribe can still be useful
AN IDIOT’S DIATRIBE CAN STILL BE USEFUL Dear HCN, Ed Marston was on the money with his review of Gregg Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth (HCN, 5/29/95). Curiously, Easterbrook appears to have done for liberalism what former Interior Secretary James Watt did for conservatives – sabotaging the cause of environmentalism in the name of…
Timber theft agents weren’t angels
TIMBER THEFT AGENTS WEREN’T ANGELS Dear HCN, HCN appears to be quite concerned about the Forest Service’s Timber Theft Task Force, especially since it has been disbanded (HCN, 4/3/95). As you well know, there are corrupt people in all walks of life and disciplines, and the task force is no exception. Judging from my experience…
This grazing bill is a disaster
THIS GRAZING BILL IS A DISASTER On May 25, New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici introduced the Livestock Grazing Act (HCN, 6/12/95). The bill would overturn Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s Rangeland Reform proposal. The following is a letter to Sen. Domenici from longtime Arizona activist Steve Johnson. Dear Sen. Domenici: I am completely sincere in my…
Idaho woods again inspire “acts of conscience’
Summer’s here and it’s protesting time in the woods: Cove/Mallard Coalition’s third summer of logging resistance has begun in central Idaho. Protests and civil disobedience will once again be the tools of the campaign as loggers start building the third of nine access roads into the mostly roadless area. Holding a banner that read “The…
BLM stumped by squatter
Ken Medenbach, a former militia member who “seized” 10 acres of federal land in spring, is still causing headaches in central Oregon. BLM managers planned to escort Medenbach back onto federal land to retrieve his possessions and then close the case. But Medenbach, who was barred from the land by court injunction, showed up with…
The straight arrow
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The university has no choice except to tilt the rewards system toward faculty and departments that can generate the most money. And that’s bad.” Frank Gregg, head of the BLM under President Jimmy Carter, was a U of…
The university aimed for the stars and hit Mount Graham
The sins of land-grant universities are usually those of inertia. The land-grants are old-fashioned. They’re politically cautious. They’re financially dependent upon the powers-that-be in their states. Young faculty with new ideas often hold their tongues rather than speak their minds. There’s a culture of countrified politeness among land-grant faculties that can be stultifying. Watching for…
Sound-bite slogans distort a complicated reality
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. In the acrimonious conflict over Mount Graham, middle ground is harder to find than red squirrels. Some opponents like to say the telescopes will drive the squirrel extinct. According to the best scientific knowledge, that’s not exactly true.…
Mount Graham time line
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. About 9000 BC As continental glaciers retreat, conifer forests of the Pinalenos – where 10,720-foot Mount Graham is the highest peak – become isolated from those of the Mogollon Rim and other mountain islands in what is now…
Dear friends
Snowplows in June Summer in this 6,000-foot mountain valley unofficially arrived July 5; up until then snow fell and dusted the West Elk Mountains overnight, and something called rain dripped every other day. The air felt more like October. Finally, 90-degree heat moved in – this was more like it! – though we could still…
Rural monster homes may not fly
ASPEN, Colo. – To 72-year-old Betty LaMont, her 40-acre piece of land in remote Pitkin County, Colo., is her bank account. The land LaMont’s family homesteaded in the late 1880s lies at 8,000 feet in a grove of aspen, three miles from Thomasville, population 25, and 50 miles from the county seat, Aspen. LaMont says…
Making a mountain into a starbase
The long, bitter battle over Mount Graham
Wolf revival spreads to Southwest
A bronze likeness of the Mexican wolf stands in front of the University of New Mexico’s gymnasium in Albuquerque – the lobo is the mascot for the school’s sports teams. About the only other place to see the endangered predator today is in the zoo. But now, after a decade of environmentalist-rancher-government wrangling over Mexican…
The administrator
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The reality of this project is that it was never a threat to the red squirrel.” Michael Cusanovich, vice president for research and graduate studies at the U of A, oversees a $220 million annual research budget. He’s…
Four-ton bandage applied to trampled peak
Some hikers bag Colorado Fourteeners – the peaks that top 14,000 feet elevation – as others do trout. But what happens when trails are trampled to death? There was so much wear and tear on the North Mount Elbert Trail, which bears nearly 10,000 hikers each summer, that it had to be closed and the…
The Apache activist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The university, I’d say, is like a tin man. No heart. They don’t have no feeling.” Ola Cassadore Davis grew up on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, about 30 miles from Mount Graham. Her father was a medicine…
Endangered law backed in court, ripped in Congress
The Endangered Species Act continues to thrive in courtrooms. But lawmakers on Capitol Hill have targeted it for extinction. In a highly anticipated ruling June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments by the timber industry that the 1973 law mostly exempted private lands. By a 6-3 count, the justices overturned a lower court ruling…
The diplomat ecologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “I came off the mountain saying probably the best way to save this place is to build an observatory …” Conrad Istock is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the U of A’s College of Arts…
Memo incontinence strikes again
Leaked memos seem to be a recurring problem for Republican Sen. Slade Gorton. The Washington lawmaker received unwanted publicity in February when environmentalists obtained a memo revealing that industry groups had written his Endangered Species Act reform bill (HCN, 5/1/95). Now comes a second memo, dated June 1 and directed to the managers of three…
The biogladiator
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “Biologists who don’t speak out on biological issues become the passive accepters of the loss of biodiversity …” Peter Warshall, an adjunct scientist at the University of Arizona, directed research for an environmental impact statement on Mount Graham…
Heard around the West
The National Park Service’s Park-‘N’-Drive Competition is getting intense: One tourist pulled a knife on another last fall in a fight over a Grand Canyon parking space. Already this season amid the canyon’s gridlock, a woman who boldly stood in a parking space – trying to save it for her husband and their car –…
The petitioning ecologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “My objection to the project is based on … the lack of vision about what’s important to preserve in the Southwest.” Mark Fishbein is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology;…
A progressive bureaucrat signs off
Daniel P. Beard, who resigns as commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation effective Sept. 1, snorted when asked the question he’d already heard dozens of times: “Why are you really resigning?” But the long-time reader of High Country News loosened up, and then talked for a half-hour, when publisher Ed Marston noted: “You’ve been one…
Ranchers forced into numbers game
Imagine the Western range as a half-billion acre game board. It’s not hard; section lines, pasture lines, power lines, irrigation lines, and roads straight as lines subdivide it into as many playing squares as there are players. But it is not chess or checkers. It’s a deadly serious game, where the stakes are the health…
The astronomer
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “Observatories are usually exceedingly benign places. They become animal refuges …” Peter Strittmatter, a British astronomer with a Ph.D. from Cambridge, became director of the U of A’s Steward Observatory in 1975, an appointment he recognized as “a…