An unusual new book put out by the U.S. Geological Survey, “Dams and Rivers: A Primer on the Downstream Effects of Dams,” is reviewed by Tom Knudson.
Rabies, Lyme Disease, Hanta Virus, oh my!
RABIES, LYME DISEASE, HANTA VIRUS, OH MY! Some of the furry creatures that scamper around camp aren’t as harmless as they seem. E. Lendell Cockrum, who has spent his life studying animals and the diseases they carry, has written a book telling why. The title spells it out: Rabies, Lyme Disease, Hanta Virus and Other…
Wanted: More Colorado Natives
WANTED: MORE COLORADO NATIVES Trout Unlimited wants to see more wild trout in Colorado’s rivers and lakes and fewer diseased fish. If a new Wildlife Commission policy becomes a reality, the nonprofit group may get its wish. Issued in November, the state policy emphasizes restoring streams and native trout like the Colorado cutthroat – a…
A Better West?
The Next West’s essayists tell us that natural-resource management agencies have failed to protect either public lands or local communities from the damage done by extractive industries; what’s more, Western communities still remain dependent on federal handouts. But the writers do more than carp. Editors Donald Snow and John Baden also supply alternatives – a…
Heart of Home: People, Wildlife, Place
For many years I was a vegetarian, an avid anti-hunter, who cursed the arrival of the orange-clad mob in the fall that violated everything that was pure and gentle. I was cheered on by many writers, including Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, who urged a gentle alliance with nature, not a violent blood sport.…
Oil leasing sparks debate
OIL LEASING SPARKS DEBATE The U.S. Forest Service’s proposal to open 370,000 acres south of Yellowstone National Park to oil and gas leasing is drawing opposition. The proposal centers on Wyoming, home to wildlife, including wolves and grizzly bears. Environmentalists say drilling threatens the area that serves as a wildlife corridor between the Gros Ventre…
Storm Over Mono: The Mono Lake Battle and the California Water Future
If you think preserving natural resources is all about scientific data and arcane legal maneuvers, read Storm Over Mono. In his richly documented account of the battle to save Mono Lake, John Hart focuses on the people who mounted the successful campaign against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Most were ordinary mortals:…
Cars to get the boot
CARS TO GET THE BOOT Cars are on their way to the endangered list in three of the country’s most popular parks. The National Park Service wants to replace private cars with light rail in Grand Canyon and expand bus systems in Yosemite and Zion national parks by 2000. “The problem isn’t too many people,…
Confessions of an Eco-Redneck
Certain books come along once in a generation that change the lens through which we view the natural order. Now there’s Steve Chapple’s Confessions of an Eco-Redneck – Or How I Learned to Gut-Shoot Trout & Save the Wilderness at the Same Time. Well, OK, maybe it’s not a paradigm changer. For one thing, Chapple’s…
1998 Arkansas River Basin Water Forum
The 1998 Arkansas River Basin Water Forum meets in La Junta, Colo., Feb. 4-5 to talk about endangered species, agriculture and groundwater quality, and other issues that affect the basin, which includes areas of eastern Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. Former Colorado Sen. Hank Brown and Rep. Robert Schaffer, R-Colo., are keynote speakers. Contact the…
North American Interdisciplinary Conference on Environment and Community
The Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities is calling for papers and creative submissions for the North American Interdisciplinary Conference on Environment and Community, set for Feb. 19-21 at the University of Nevada, Reno. Those whose work is selected will get the chance to join artists, scientists, ranchers and outdoor enthusiasts in workshops and panels.…
Zoologist says listing process is endangered
Ronald Nowak, a national-level Fish and Wildlife Service zoologist, has resigned from his position in protest, claiming the agency has “fought tooth and nail to avoid doing its job” of protecting the Canada lynx and other sensitive species. Nowak calls the lynx – a cousin of the bobcat – -one of the most blatant examples…
The International Association of Wildland Fire
The International Association of Wildland Fire holds its second conference March 29-April 1 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The conference, a follow-up to a get-together in 1995, will explore the worldwide effects of fire and fire-management strategies on endangered species and their habitats. “It’s an effort to get the firefighter talking to the fire manager talking…
Restoring the Wolf
Abstracts for papers are due by late February for a Defenders of Wildlife conference on Restoring the Wolf, set for Nov. 12-14 in Seattle, Wash. Panel discussions and workshops will focus on wolf ecology, the economics of recovery, grant writing and lobbying and on tap: ambassador wolves from Mission: Wolf, a Colorado-based wolf education and…
The Wayward West
Pilots of “personal watercraft” such as Wavejammers and WetJets may get reined in at Lake Powell. The National Park Service is considering making parts of the reservoir “Jet Ski free,” because of increasing complaints – many from houseboaters calling from cell phones. A federal rule is expected soon allowing all national park superintendents to restrict…
Mining industry gets more than enough chances
Dear HCN, Though your recent issues covering the mining industry in the West were informative and interesting, I must call you to task for letting rabble-rouser Dave Skinner share the platform with credible witnesses. (HCN, 1/19/98) Why is it that “issues’ publications like High Country News, in struggling so hard to be unbiased, repeatedly allow…
Red meat can be green
The “dolphin-friendly” label gave tuna an environmental face-lift in the 1980s; now, a “Wolf Country Beef” label may do the same for hamburger. The label is the brainchild of Jim Winder and Will Holder, ranchers who have teamed up with the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. They’re developing the seal-of-approval so that beef coming from ranchers…
This dam will go anyway
Dear HCN, As a geologist who thinks the flooding of Glen Canyon was tragic but who also happens to work for the Bureau of Reclamation, I can’t help but say something about the drain Lake Powell idea (HCN, 11/10/97). Over and over we hear from David Brower and others who claim that Glen Canyon is…
Quincy bill is big and bad
Dear HCN, I am one of the letter writers being accused by Mike Yost in his letter of being a “California activist … spreading misinformation about the Quincy Library Group.” (HCN, 12/22/97) But I’m not a California activist – I’m a local Plumas County activist and have been for the past 15 years. My opposition…
Ski resort plans ruffle feathers
The forested hump of Pelican Butte stands like an island in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Bounded by a wilderness area, a national park (Crater Lake), and a national wildlife refuge, the butte is known for its stands of old-growth Shasta red fir, nesting spotted owls and wintering bald eagles. A ski area proposal from Jeld Wen…
Don’t blame wolves
Dear HCN, “Wolves take a heavy toll in Montana,” declared the headline (HCN, 9/15/97). At least 30 sheep killed by wolves over a six-week period in the Tobacco Valley of northwest Montana, according to the story. No doubt the loss of 30 head of sheep – -one of the worst wolf attacks on livestock in…
Road ban proposal eroded by exceptions
The Forest Service has overseen the addition of more than 380,000 miles of roads to national forests – a network more than twice the size of the national highway system. Now, the Clinton administration wants to call an 18-month halt to the construction of new roads in roadless areas. Forest Service spokesman Alan Polk says…
River rats get ready
RIVER RATS GET READY More than 1,500 whitewater enthusiasts and conservationists are expected to show up for Friends of the River’s 18th Annual Rivers Festival, Feb. 20-22, at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, Calif. This year’s theme: Protecting Rivers for the Next Generation. Speakers include photographer Galen Rowell and the Glen Canyon Institute’s…
Iconoclast to the end: A New West son regards his father
It was my father who gave me the Clearwater River. It was an accidental gift delivered on a hot July day in Idaho. I can remember the van ride along the river on Highway 12; I was 14 and we were on our way to put in for a river trip down the Salmon River,…
A river comes apart
Nov. 30, 1995, was the day that the Clearwater Country in northern Idaho came apart. In today’s society, the words “come apart” are usually reserved for nations in apocalyptic collapse. Here it meant something much less hyperbolic, but no less real. Dirt slid into a creek – a lot of dirt. The Clearwater Country is…
Heard around the West
Spam, that quivery quasi-meat, needs a support group. In a list of 1997 bests and worsts in the food world recently, the Arizona Republic zeroed in on the Jell-O-like pink substance as top contender for “worst recipe.” The winning (or losing) recipe came from Spam’s national recipe contest, which “always provides a good candidate,” according…
Dear friends
Visit from a stalwart Once upon a time, substantial chunks of Utah, Wyoming and Colorado were to be the scene of massive industrial development. Oil shale, aka the “rock that burns,” was to be mined and crushed, with the resulting hydrocarbons liquefied and then refined, freeing the U.S. from servitude to the Middle East. It…
A tiny tribe wins big on clean water
ISLETA, N.M. – A recent Supreme Court decision reaffirms a 2,500-member tribe’s right to tell the city of Albuquerque what it can and cannot dump into the Rio Grande River. The Isleta Pueblo sits six miles downstream from where Albuquerque dumps 55 million gallons of wastewater each day. Sewage from the city’s 450,000 residents makes…
Some cattle ranchers sell out to hunting
GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Cattle rancher John Bodner didn’t have to worry about monitoring hunters last fall on his spread in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains in central Montana. He left that to an outfitter. “The outfitter is like a game warden,” said Bodner, who won’t say how large a ranch he runs.…
Looking at dams in a new way
We float rivers for fun. For adventure. For discovery. We do it for the magic around the bend. The smooth hiss of water and stone. A canyon wren concerto. The slap of a beaver’s tail. The solitary stare of a bighorn sheep. Last spring, I stumbled across something unusual on the Colorado River in the…
The scandal culture reaches Bruce Babbitt
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a rational world, one would not have to wonder whether a special prosecutor might be appointed to investigate the doings of Bruce Babbitt, endangering his tenure as secretary of the Interior. In this world? Well, we’d better take a look. In the great scheme of things, it matters little whether Babbitt…
The bison are coming
In the December 1987 issue of Planning, we wrote what we thought was an innocuous article on land use in the Great Plains. The piece explored the state of the short-grass, semi-arid region between the 98th meridian and the Rockies, a sixth of the Lower 48. The most rural parts of the Plains faced long-…
Use this book to get under the West’s skin
There is nothing historian Patricia Nelson Limerick dislikes more than the word frontier when used to describe the “advance of civilization” across the arid, lightly populated 19th century American West. She built her early career debunking the notion that the West was once an empty land settled by brave white men bearing democracy. Nevertheless, the…
We have no elders, we have no leaders
Being aggressively into kick-boxing and martial arts, of course I couldn’t resist responding to letter writer C.S. Heller’s taunt about my youth and his convenient implication that I am naive when I insist that the American bison be again allowed their inherent, native and ancient right to be a free-roaming, wild species (HCN, 10/27/97). Age…